Love it or hate it, the OnePlus invite system is here to stay. The Chinese company will apply it for the launch of the OnePlus 2 as it did for the OnePlus One last year. So in order to buy a OnePlus 2 you'll need an invite.

Certain things have changed, though, with OnePlus promising it will make it a lot easier for people to get invites for its second smartphone, compared to its first.

And a big part of this is OnePlus' own invite signup page. Over there anyone can go and request an invite for the OnePlus 2 – no more need to hunt down invites on social media and forums.

It looks like this has been an incredibly successful thing to do for OnePlus, as more than 760,000 people have already used the page to signup for an invite.

Now this obviously doesn't guarantee that all of those people will actually buy a OnePlus 2 when they receive their invite, but even if only a small percentage of them do OnePlus will still have a big seller on its hands.

Keep in mind that the company has sold 1.5 million OnePlus Ones in a year, so moving a few hundred thousand units of the OnePlus 2 at launch (or as fast as it can produce them) would certainly be a step up.

To learn more about the OnePlus 2, make sure you go through our hands-on first…

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It's been a (long) while since Google launched its media streaming HDMI dongle, the Chromecast. That said, sales seem to be going well even now. And in order to move more units than ever, Google has a deal for you if you're interested in the Chromecast.

While it generally isn't expensive at all, having a recommended price of $35, this deal lets you have one for even less. You just have to buy two.

That's right, if you buy two Chromecasts from Google's online hardware store, you'll only need to pay $55 for both of them. This basically makes each one $27.5.

On the other hand, though, at the moment Amazon is running a promotion whereby it instantly applies a $10 gift card when you order a Chromecast. This, paired with Amazon's $29.99 price for the dongle means you can essentially get one Chromecast for just $19.99.

If you go through with ordering a Chromecast, you'll also receive a free movie rental from Google Play if you set up your device before the end of the…

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The Google Translate app for both iOS and Android is receiving a big update over the next few days.

First off, Google has added 20 more languages to the app's instant video translation feature. This lets you point your mobile device's camera to the text you need to translate, and instantly transforms the contents into your language.

Following this update, the feature now works with 27 languages. The initial ones were English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and the new version adds Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian. Note that Hindi and Thai can only be translated to or from English.

Aside from this live video translation, Google Translate can also use a picture you've snapped of some text you want translated. This feature works with 37 languages.

Another improved thing in the app is its voice conversation mode. This enables real-time translation of (spoken) conversations across 32 languages. This should now be faster and "more natural" even on slow networks, Google says.

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Today Sprint has unveiled two new smartphones for Boost Mobile, one of its prepaid brands. Both are made by Alcatel, and they're both going to be quite affordable.

First off we have the Alcatel OneTouch Conquest (pictured below). This comes with IP67 certification, being able to withstand being submerged into up to 1m of water for up to 30 minutes. Additionally, it's dust tight, completely protected against dust ingress.

It has a 5-inch 720p IPS touchscreen with Dragontrail glass, a 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP selfie cam, a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable storage, 4G LTE support, a 2,500 mAh battery, and it runs Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The Conquest is available now from Boost Mobile for $129.99 plus tax, though sans any long-term contract requirement.

Moving on, the Alcatel OneTouch Elevate (pictured above) will become available at Boost in August for $99.99 plus tax. It has a 4.5-inch FWVGA touchscreen, a 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP front-facing unit, a 1.1 GHz quad-core processor, 4G LTE support, and a 2,000 mAh battery. It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, rather surprisingly for such a low-end device.

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Earlier this month we saw a new mobile app by Yahoo go live in the iTunes App Store in a few markets – namely Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Ireland. And now the company is ready to launch Livetext in five additional countries.

This is notable because the US and the UK are among those, as are Canada, Germany, and France. So for many people this will be the first time they can use the app. That said, intentionally limiting a new app's geographical reach like this is a bit baffling.

Livetext pairs one-to-one text messages with a video live stream, as showcased in the screenshots above and the video presentation below. You chat with your friends as you would in other messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, or Facebook Messenger. But what's unique here is that the text is overlaid onto a live video stream from the person you're talking to.

Even more unique is that there's no sound associated with the video, nor is there an option for you to turn sound on. So you can't video chat with people using this app – the video part is just kind of there as a background for the text messages.

This is clearly a formula no one's ever tried before, but it does have shortcomings. Aside from the lack of sound, you don't get group messaging, at least not at this stage.

Livetext will be available in the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store tomorrow in the aforementioned countries. It's unclear if Yahoo will release it to any other territories in the future.

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The curved-screen phablet version of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge is apparently going to be unveiled on August 13 alongside the Galaxy Note 5. Recently we've heard that the Galaxy S6 edge+ will come with 4GB of RAM, as well as Samsung's own Exynos 7420 chipset – the same one found in the smaller Galaxy S6 and S6 edge.

And now it's time to find out some more about the camera inside the S6 edge+. This will be a 16 MP unit with a 1/2.6" sensor. This means the S6 edge+ will share yet another spec with its smaller siblings, since the cameras in the S6 and S6 edge feature the exact same hardware.

This information has been revealed because the camera module for the S6 edge+ has been imported into India a few days ago. And this means that Indian export tracker Zauba has caught it and created a record for it, as you can see from the screenshot above.

The Galaxy S6 edge+ is really shaping up to be nothing more but an oversized S6 edge, though the extra RAM will probably make it stand out – as will its size, obviously. It should have either a 5.5" or a 5.7" QHD Super AMOLED curved touchscreen.

Source (in…

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One of the novel features that the recently announced OnePlus 2 brings to the table is its USB Type-C port. This has already been embraced by certain laptops, such as Apple's new MacBook or Google's new Chromebook Pixel, and it's sure to spread to more smartphones in the future.

The problem with any such new interface is that it requires new cables. When you buy a OnePlus 2 you'll obviously get the necessary data / charging cable in the box, but if for some reason you want just the cable, you'll be able to order that too.

OnePlus has revealed that it will start selling the USB Type-C cable for around $5. This will happen three weeks or so after the OnePlus 2 launches on August 11. So towards the end of August you'll be able to go to the Chinese company's web store and order one of its red cables – with a USB Type-C connector at one end, and the well known USB Type-A plug at the other end. This is what people call 'normal size' USB so it will plug into anything with a USB port. The neat thing about OnePlus' cable is that it will be reversible at both ends.

Apparently the $5 price for the cable is either at or below cost for OnePlus, but the company still wants to get as many Type-C cables out there as possible. And it certainly won't hurt its image given that its logo is front and center on the cable. For comparison, OnePlus currently asks for $9.99 for the microUSB cable made for the…

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A lot of rumors have been floating , regarding the potential future Windows phone flagship, and it couldn't come soon enough. But things don't get any clearer as time progresses, instead new and different info keeps surfacing.

This latest leak pictures a polycarbonate device, which looks a lot like a Lumia 735 with its fat buttons, but with a camera hump bolted on, much like the one on the Lumia 1020. This interesting blend of designs is said to be packing a 5.2-inch FullHD display and top-end Snapdragon 810 chipset.

The display is the same as what the Lumia 940 was said to feature, but the SoC doesn't mach the previous rumor, not to mention that the Lumia 930 had a metal frame and it would be illogical for Microsoft to take a step back with the new model.

Unannounced polycarbonate Lumia prototype

Another discrepancy in the design is the Nokia logo, front and back. It could be an old body, developed back in the day, as it also carries a lot of the Nokia N9's vibe, but with newer hardware fitted inside for testing purposes. It does feature larger bezels, than the latest design language would suggest, if the leaked front panel for a Lumia 1030 can be any indication.

In any case, an upcoming Microsoft flagship needs to arrive sooner than later, if for no other reason but to promote the cross platform prowess of the latest Windows 10, launched today on…

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Meizu has announced a smaller variant of its m2 note, the Meizu m2.

The m2 has a 5-inch, 1280×720 resolution IPS LCD with AGC Dragontrail glass, MediaTek MT6735 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory, microSD card slot, 13 megapixel rear camera, 5 megapixel front camera, dual SIM with LTE, 2500mAh battery, Flyme 4.5 running on top of Android 5.1. The phone looks identical to the m2 note except for the smaller size.

The Meizu m2 costs 699 Yuan in China ($112) and comes in a variety of…

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