The recently announced Sony Xperia Z5 Compact and its brethren are yet to start shipping, but pre-orders are already live. And even though the Compact is practically alone in its own special small-sized flagship niche, Sony is giving you another incentive to hurry up and order one today. Sadly, the offer is limited to a few European countries up north.

So if you live in Finland, Norway, Sweden or Denmark and pre-order an Xperia Z5 Compact now, you’ll also receive a pair of MDR-10RC headphones free of charge, a €110 value. The headset is a foldable over-the-ear design with 40mm drivers and has an impressive 5Hz-40kHz frequency response.

The offer is valid starting today and expires on October 4. The smartphone will be available in stores from September 29, so you could theoretically wait until then to go for a brief hands-on, then order your own and claim the headphones. Apparently, the Xperia Z5 and Z5 Premium are left out of the promo.

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Last week we saw the “Samsung Lucky LTE” pass through Geekbench, now “Samsung Project Lucky” has entered the arena. Surprisingly, these are not the same device – Project Lucky has 3GB of RAM and a higher CPU clock speed.

It’s the same Exynos 8890 chipset as in the Lucky LTE device, except that one has 4GB of RAM. Note that these are probably very early test versions of both the chipset and the software so the CPU clockspeeds might equalize later on.

The RAM amount is most likely fixed though, which feeds into the rumors of a two-tier Galaxy S7 launch – one with a 5.7″ screen (the premium option) and one with a 5.2″ screen. There was also some evidence of a Snapdragon 820 version of the Galaxy S7. Perhaps Samsung is still evaluating its options or it could be going back to a two chipset strategy as before.

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British carrier EE is launching the Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s on September 25. They will be available on contract with an EE Extra Plan to new and existing customers.

A 16GB iPhone 6s will cost £50 upfront and 24 months at £50 for 4GB of data. Existing EE users can get the same terms, but they get to skip the upfront cost.

The 16GB iPhone 6s Plus is £70 upfront and £55 a month for 10GB of data. For existing subscribers the upfront cost drops to £50.

If you’re on the EE Early Upgrade program you will get a discount on your outstanding plan. If you’re not but your old plan runs out in 45 days, you can easily upgrade too, perhaps pawning off your old device to a family member and adding a new 4G EE SIM for £8 a month with a 12-month contract. Or you can trade in your old device for credit towards a new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus.

“On EE, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus customers can connect to the UK’s biggest and fastest mobile network, which offers world-leading 4G+ (LTE-A) network speeds as well as Wi-Fi Calling,” said Pippa Dunn, Chief Marketing Officer, EE. “iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus offer an exceptional smartphone experience that our customers will love and which will work to their maximum on our unique 4G network.”

Vodafone, O2, Three and Tesco will also carry the iPhone 6s…

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Google has hired automotive veteran John Krafcik, making him the first CEO of the company’s self-driving car project. Currently the president of TrueCar – a third-party car pricing information service, Krafcik will be assuming his new position later this month.

“This is a great opportunity to help Google develop the enormous potential of self-driving cars,” said Krafcik, who has also been the CEO of Hyundai North America. “This technology can save thousands of lives, give millions of people greater mobility, and free us from a lot of the things we find frustrating about driving today. I can’t wait to get started.”

Chris Urmson, who has been leading the project since its inception in 2009, will continue his work as the technical head. Also, as of now, the project remains within the Google X lab. “Self-driving car project is not becoming an Alphabet company at this stage, though it’s certainly a good candidate to become one at some point in the future,” Google said.

If you aren’t already aware, Alphabet is a newly-announced public holding company that will include all of Google’s current products. Each company under Alphabet will have its own CEO, Google said at the time of announcement.

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Xiaomi is making headlines yet again thanks to its seamlessly endless winning streak. With its aggressive pricing strategy and diversified portfolio the Chinese OEM has made a habit of shattering sales records (like with the Redmi 2 and 2A, which already have more than 13 million units sold) and shining bright on both domestic and international markets.

The latest such achievement comes courtesy of the Redmi Note 2. It was announced just over a month ago and managed to sell a whopping 800,000 units in just 12 hours during its first flash sale on the domestic market. That was definitely a record right there, but it turns out that interest has only been growing since and industry sources now claim that the handset has exceeded 1.5 million sales as of September 5.

That is undoubtedly an all-time best for Xiaomi and it is hard to believe that the company is managing to keep up with such a demand. At this rate, the Redmi Note 2 could easily cross the 10 million mark by the end of 2015, which definitively proves that the phone is a remarkably good deal. Actually, a price tag of just $125 for the 16GB and $156 for the 32GB model is still baffling, considering the rest of the specs sheet.

We are talking about a handset that features a MediaTek Helio X10 SoC with eight Cortex-A53 CPU cores, and a 5.5-inch 1080p display. It comes with 2GB RAM and packs in a 3,020mAh battery.

The Redmi Note 2 also features a 13MP rear unit and a 5MP front shooter. There is also dual SIM support, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and IR blaster, and the device runs the new MIUI 7 out of the box. It also has a slick and clean exterior with nice and vibrant color choices such as Cyan, Yellow and Ping, alongside the traditional Black and White.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2

Bear in mind that like many other Xiaomi products, availability for the Redmi Note 2 is still limited to the local market (although it is listen on OppoMart for a few extra bucks), which means that the impressive results are achieved in one market alone. Naturally, there is huge potential for even greater sales on international markets, but that would require a great deal of work, a major manufacturing expansion and would inevitable ramp up the price. Still, Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra has hinted that entering the US market in on the cards, albeit not in the next year or so and the company is already expanding quite efficiently into the vast Indian market.

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The Samsung Galaxy J5 is one of Samsung’s two new budget offerings, the other being the J7. The two phones undercut the previous launched E-series devices with more aggressive pricing while offering nearly identical specifications…

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Sony Pictures Entertainment present’s Naomie Harris as Moneypenny in the “Made for Bond” promotional campaign that features the Sony RX100 IV camera and Bond’s own Sony Xperia Z5 smartphone. Excuse me while keyboard chokes on some ™ signs.

Anyway, the 60-second clip promotes both Sony’s new film and its new gadgets ahead of the launch of the new Bond film, Spectre. The promo was directed by Danny Kleinman – the man behind the titles in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and others leading up to Skyfall (skipping QoS). The video was shot on a Sony F65 professional 4K cinema camera, naturally.

“The campaign film truly captures the excitement of the chase, being on a mission and taking the viewer on the journey, all set against an iconic London backdrop,” says Kleinman. “London provides the perfect setting for the campaign film. Ultimately, at the centre of Bond is Britishness, so it was really important that the ad was shot here. It is not your traditional commercial; it’s an action-packed mini movie in itself.”

The promo campaign hits TV in the UK on October 1 and will run until November 8. Spectre comes out October 26 in the UK (November 6 in the US), the Xperia Z5 comes out earlier that month and finally the Sony RX100 IV is already…

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Motorola has launched the new Moto X Play in India, one of the two new Moto X models that were recently announced. The phone is priced at INR 18,499 ($278) for the 16GB model and INR 19,999 ($301) for the 32GB model. The phone will be available exclusively through Flipkart starting midnight, along with several launch day offers, including 100% cashback for random 100 Flipkart Ping users, Flipkart e-gift vouchers worth INR 1,000, movie vouchers worth INR 500 from BookMyShow, and multiple MakeMyTrip offers. These offers will be available till September 20, 2015.

The Moto X Play is the lesser of the new Moto X duo. It has a 5.5-inch 1080p LCD, octa-core Snapdragon 615, 2GB RAM, 16/32GB storage with microSD support, 21 megapixel rear camera with f2.0 aperture, phase detect autofocus, two tone dual LED flash, and 1080p video recording, 5 megapixel front facing camera, LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, water repellant coating, 3630Ah battery, and Android 5.1.1…

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India is all set to unveil a new and improved version of its home grown operating system BOSS (short for Bharat Operating System Solutions) this week, according to a report out of the country.

Developed by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) with inputs from Gujarat Technical University, DRDO, and some individuals, the OS has just passed a rigorous testing procedure which saw various government agencies, including Indian Army, testing it for vulnerabilities.

The Linux-based OS is said to be as user friendly as Microsoft Windows, which currently powers most government computers. It is expected to be handed over to department of electronics and information technology (DEITY), which will iron out any wrinkles that it might discover and then prepare it for government use.

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The Huawei Mate S, which was made official earlier this month with Force Touch and fingerprint sensors, comes with a feature that lets you easily find the device should you misplace it.

Never lose your Mate S thanks to this slightly creepy “I’m heeeerrrreeee” A video posted by Richard Devine (@ricker666) on Sep 13, 2015 at 7:35am PDT

All you have to do is to choose a keyword while setting up the voice commands. For example, if your keyword is “Mate S,” you just have to say “Hello Mate S” followed by “Where are you?” The phone will then respond by vibrating, pulsing the flash, playing stock music, and repeatedly saying “I’m here” in between (see video above).

Specs-wise, the Mate S is powered by an in-house Kirin 935 chipset with a dual quad-core processor, ticking at up to 2.2GHz, and sports a 5.5-inch AMOLED display with FullHD resolution. It comes with 3GB RAM and 32/64GB internal memory options, and packs in a 2,700mAh battery.

In terms of camera, the handset features a 13MP rear unit and an 8MP front shooter. It runs Android 5.1.1 with the company’s EMUI3.1 on top.

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