Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 series to launch on July 20, rumor says

Samsung has been rumored to work on a Galaxy Tab S2 line of devices for many months now. The two members of this series will be an 8-incher and a 9.7-incher, and they'll both sport the 4:3 aspect ratio made popular by Apple's iPads (and since adopted by Google for the Nexus 9).

Today a rumor from the Netherlands claims to shed more light on these two upcoming devices.

Alongside the leaked renders you can see above and below, we find out that Samsung is apparently going to unveil the tablets on July 20, which is this coming Monday.

Like their predecessors, the new Galaxy Tab S tablets will come with Super AMOLED touchscreens. There will be Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi + 4G versions. In all cases, the screen resolution used will be 2,048X1,536.

The source of all these details says the Galaxy Tab S2 devices will be extremely thin, though we don't get a confirmation of the previously leaked 5.5mm profile.

The tablets will be powered by an Exynos 7 chipset, possibly the 7420 also seen in the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, aided by 3GB of RAM.

Source (in…

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Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge get certified for official use in the UK

Samsung is happy to announce that its Galaxy S6 and S6 edge smartphones have had their encryption certified by the UK's Communications and Electronics Security Group. This is a government body that certifies devices for use by high-ranking people in the UK.

Samsung's latest flagships have both been approved for use at the "official" level, which means they are recommended devices for government and public sector organisations, including the police, local councils, hospitals, as well as government departments.

Samsung boasts that it is the first mobile handset maker to receive such a certification from this UK-based authority. The CESG has conducted rigorous testing on the two devices, ensuring they meet a stringent set of security…

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Exclusive: Google will soon let you have custom Gmail address for $2 per month

It seems Google is ready to launch a new custom Gmail address feature for standard Gmail users. While it has been possible for Gmail for work users to have a you@yourcompany.com address, if you are a standard Gmail users you would pretty much be stuck with the standard you@gmail.com address forever.

With this new feature, however, you would be able to switch to a you@youraddress.com email address for your standard Gmail account by paying a small fee of $2 per month. For that all you get is the address with nothing extra but if that's all you wanted this might be a small price to pay for that over the more expensive Gmail for work plans.

The option you see above in the screenshot appeared randomly next to the email on Gmail website. Clicking the 'Get started' button on the $2 plan opened another popup which asked for details such as if you have an existing domain or not (unfortunately, we don't have a screenshot of that). The popup also informed that the service is not yet available and will be coming in future. Unfortunately, the option has since disappeared from the Gmail website.

We are not sure as of yet when the service will start rolling out to everyone. It seems for now Google is still gauging user interest by selectively showing it to…

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SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick provides wireless access to data from your phone

SanDisk has launched a newer version of the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. The device connects to your computer like a regular flash drive so you can transfer data to it. It then becomes a wireless drive that you can connect to from a smartphone or a tablet and access the saved data within.

The SanDisk Connect lets you connect up to three devices at a time to it and can maintain a stream for up to 4.5 hours on a single charge. All you need to do is install the SanDisk Connect app on your phone or tablet to access the files saved on the drive.

The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick is available in 16/32/64/128GB capacities, with prices ranging from $29.99 to $99.99 and is available at Amazon, BestBuy, and SanDisk…

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Hugo Barra: Xiaomi is still at least a year away from entering the US phone market

Xiaomi has been doing quite well recently. The manufacturer's attention to design and detail as well as proper marketing and strive for brand recognition have really paid off and all led up to over 35 million of reported handset sales in H1 2015.

This is quite an achievement to say the least, but despite all its popularity, Xiaomi still remains pretty confined to its local market, especially as far as phones are concerned. The Chinese manufacturer has an impressive portfolio of competitively priced tech, ranging from smart TV's all the way to headphones and power banks. After a few recent market expansions, in Europe and the US, the latter two can currently be picked up from most anywhere in the world without much hustle, straight from Xiaomi. But selling handsets in a very different story and despite the extending market reach, Xiaomi is still far from offering phones in the US and most-other international markets, for that matter.

Hugo Barra, Xiaomi VP, has confirmed this time and time again, but has also admitted that the company does have eventual plans for a US expansion. In a recent interview, Barra was pressured for more info on the matter and he made it clear that selling smartphones in the USA is:

no less than a year, plus, away… Potentially much more than a year away.

We definitely understand that entering a new market, let alone the US market is an infinitely complicated process full of legal issues, certification requirements and production, shipping and support hustles. Still, Hugo Barra doesn't sound at all discouraged, so given the time and right conditions, we can only expect that Xiaomi will deliver on its promise and move up to well developed markets such as the US one.

Source |…

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Amazon beats Black Friday with the first Prime Day sale

Amazon celebrated its 20th birthday on July 15 with a sale larger than Black Friday called Prime Day. Available only to Prime users, the sale proved to be a big success for the company.

Worldwide order growth increased by 266% over the same day last year and 18% more than last year's Black Friday.

In the US, Amazon shipped 47,000 TV sets, 41,000 Bose headphones and 14,000 iRobot Roomba 595 Pet Vacuum cleaners. Amazon's own Fire TV Stick flew of the shelves at the rate of 'tens of thousands" in just one hour. Fire tablets were popular too and more were sold than on Black Friday last year, but the exact number isn't disclosed.

Despite proving to be a success, the first ever Amazon Prime Day was met with discontent by some customers. Their expectation was that the mega sale would include more tech related deals.

For Amazon however, Prime Day did exactly what it was meant to – push users to try out the Prime service. On July 15 more new members tried Prime worldwide than any single day in the company's history.

I am sure Amazon will try this again next year.

Going into this, we weren't sure whether Prime Day would be a one-time thing or if it would become an annual event. After yesterday's results, we'll definitely be doing this again.

Finally, here's an interesting list of the top selling items in different countries:

US: Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy
UK: Lenovo FLEX 10 10.1-inch Multimode Touchscreen Notebook
Spain: SSD Drive
Japan: Green Smoothie mix
Italy: Logitech Keyboard
Germany: Croc Sandals
France: Monopoly Boardgame
Canada: Huggies Diapers
Austria: Croc…

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Galaxy J7 found running the new Exynos 7580 chipset in India

Yesterday, Samsung announced two new budget smartphones in the Indian market, the Galaxy J5 and the Galaxy J7. While both are mid-range devices, there is something worth noting about the J7.

The Indian model of the Galaxy J7 comes with the brand new Exynos 7580 chipset instead of the Snapdragon 615 seen on the Chinese variant of the phone. Like the 615, the 7580 is an octa-core chipset with eight unspecified CPU cores clocked at 1.5GHz and Mali-T720 MP2 GPU. Previously leaked benchmarks on Geekbench website reveal the Exynos chip beating the 615 in CPU benchmarks, although that particular variant was clocked slightly higher at 1.6GHz.

We will be putting the new chipset through its paces in our full review and see how it compares against its Snapdragon rival.

Thanks Devashish for the…

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HTC launches Desire 820G+ dual-SIM smartphone in India

Less than a couple of months after it was launched in Taiwan, the HTC Desire 820G+ Dual SIM smartphone has been launched in India. It carries a price tag of INR 19,990 ($315).

Specs-wise, the device is powered by a MediaTek MKT6592 SoC with octa-core 1.7GHz processor, and sports a 5.5 inch 720p display. It comes with 1GB RAM and 16GB expandable internal memory, and packs in a 2,600mAh battery.

In terms of camera, the Desire 820G+ dual-SIM smartphone features a 13MP rear unit and an 8MP front shooter. It runs Android 4.4…

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