Chinese company LeTV has announced that total sales of its smartphones crossed the 4 million mark this year. The announcement came in the form of an official post on Weibo.

It’s worth mentioning that LeTV has effectively achieved the aforementioned 4 million milestone in less than a year given that the company first entered the smartphone market back in April 2015. And going by the numbers that have been revealed until now, it looks like the firm is rapidly climbing the popularity charts in its home country of China.

For those who aren’t already aware, LeTV became the fastest growing Chinese smartphone manufacturers after it sold 1 million units its first three months, and it broke its own record by selling that many handsets in November alone.

Now, the company is expanding its footprint, ready to enter India with Le Max, which has 6.33-inch display and 4GB RAM. The world’s first SD820-powered phone is also from LeTV – dubbed Le Max Pro, the device was unveiled yesterday at CES.

Source (Chinese) |…

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Nikon announced three new cameras today, one professional grade DSLR, one prosumer DSLR, and one ruggedized 4K action camera.

The Nikon D5 is a FX-format full-frame DSLR. It has a 20.8 megapixel CMOS sensor with a new 153-point AF system with 99 cross-type sensors, 100 to 102,400 ISO range, expandable to ISO 3,280,000, 12fps burst rate with full AE and AF and 14fps with fixed focus and mirror locked up, EXPEED 5 image processor, 4K UHD video, 3.2-inch 2359k dot touchscreen LCD, and option of either dual CF or dual XQD cards. The Nikon D5 is priced at $6,499.95 and will be available in March.

The Nikon D500 is a DX-format DSLR. It has an all-new 20.9 megapixel CMOS sensor an ISO range of 100 to 51,200, expandable to 1,640,000 equivalent, EXPEED 5 image processor, 10fps burst mode with full AF and AE, 153 point AF system, 180K RGB metering system, 4K UHD video, and 3.2-inch 2,359k dot touchscreen LCD. It is priced at $1,999.95 body-only and $3,069.95 with the AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-80mm f/2.8-4E ED VR lens.

Finally there is the compact Nikon KeyMission 360, Nikon’s first action camera. The camera features an image sensor and a lens on either side, which allows it to capture true 360-degree video in 4K. It is also waterproof up to 30m, as well as dust and shock proof.

The vibration reduction feature helps reduce the camera shake in videos. No price has been announced so far but the camera will be available in Spring 2016 along with a variety of dedicated accessories.

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Many are yet to make the jump to Wi-Fi ac and while they weren’t looking TP-Link unveiled the world’s first 802.11ad router. It beams out a whopping 4,600Mbps of network connectivity over the 57GHz-66GHz range (read that again – not five GHz like ac routers, fifty to sixty GHz).

The TP-Link Talon AD7200 can combine multiple bands to push the max throughput to 7,200Mbps if you add up the 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 60GHz bands. That’s as fast as an 8-band 802.11ac transmission and 11 times faster than an 802.11n connection.

Considering the Talon has eight antennas in total (each with its own amplifier) I doubt any pocketable device will manage to capture all those simultaneously.

Anyway, you get four gigabit Ethernet ports and two USB 3.0 ports for those devices that still require a copper wire. Keep in mind that 60GHz signals can’t pass through walls so you get the ad super speed only in the same room as the router.

TP-Link hasn’t announce a price for the Talon AD7200, but it’s coming out in early…

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It seems the long wait for a Windows 10 OTA is almost over for a lot of Lumia users. In a recent post T-Mobile Germany announced that the update is imminent for a number of Windows devices. But, before you get too excited and start furiously checking the update menu, the carrier also adds that the packages can take up to two weeks to appear on Microsoft servers, so a bit more patience is still required.

The first wave of Windows 10 updates for legacy Lumia devices was originally scheduled for December 2015, but later postponed for “early next year”, bringing about a lot of fan disappointment. On the plus side, however, the list of first-wave devices is actually longer than expected, featuring the Lumia 535, 635, 640, 640 XL, 830 and 930. Below is a full list of the expected packages with their build numbers. It appears that the Lumia 950 will be getting an update to its Windows 10 ROM as well.

Microsoft Lumia 950 01078.00027.15506.02027 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29
Nokia Lumia 930 02540.00019.15234.50007 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29
Nokia Lumia 635 02040.00021.15235.50002 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29
Microsoft Lumia 535 02074.00000.15234.28001 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29
Nokia Lumia 830 02177.00000.15184.36004 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29
Microsoft Lumia 640 XL LTE 02177.00000.15184.36001 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29
Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE 02177.00000.15184.36002 Windows 10 mobile build 10.0.10586.29

This initial batch of eligible models is slightly different than the range that was originally hinted and included the Lumia 630, 635, 640, 735, and 830. It does, however, match up with a subset of the official eligibility list, released on the Microsoft website. That being said, we can probably expect builds for the Lumia 430, 435, 540 and 735 soon as well.

Source (in German) |…

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Samsung revealed the Chromebook 3 at CES 2016, boasting 11 hours of battery life on a single charge. The latest chromebook by the company is made out of reinforced metal, which Samsung says makes it durable against drops and spills.

The Chromebook 3 is equipped with an Intel Celeron N3050, 16GB of storage, 2GB of 4GB of RAM as well as 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0. The screen is a 11.6″ panel with a 1366 x 768 resolution.

There’s a microSD card slot for memory expansion, as well as HDMI, one USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports each. The whole laptop weighs just 1.14 kg (2.53 lbs).

Samsung will officially announce pricing and availability in the coming…

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Cyanogen has started rolling out the 12.1.1 update for the OnePlus One, which includes the Microsoft Cortana app built-in.

Now, as with Google Now, users will be able to say “Hey Cortana” and make use of the voice search features for their web searches as well as set alarms, set quiet mode, and change settings such as data or airplane mode, thanks to the deep integration of the feature into the OS.

The Cortana feature is currently only available to those in the US. The app can be uninstalled if not required after updating.

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Samsung has announced that its mobile payments service Samsung Pay, which is currently only available in the US and South Korea, will soon be expanded to several other countries, including Australia, Singapore, and Brazil. The announcement was made at the company’s CES conference.

While three other countries – the UK, Spain, and China – were also mentioned, expansion to these markets has already been announced by the South Korean company. In China, the service will be launched in cooperation with the country’s bank card organization China UnionPay, Samsung recently revealed.

While China, Spain, and the UK could see Samsung Pay launching in Q1 this year, there’s no information on exactly when it will be available in Australia, Singapore, and…

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Xiaomi has officially confirmed that its upcoming Mi 5 flagship smartphone will be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 820 SoC. The confirmation came in the form of a Weibo post from the company’s co-founder and Senior VP Liwan Jiang.

In addition to confirming SD820 chipset, Jiang also revealed that the Mi 5 has entered mass production and the company is making sure that there’s enough stock when the handset is released, which he said will happen after the Chinese Spring Festival next month.

His post was quoted by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, who revealed that he has been using the smartphone for some time. Jun had recently also said that the device is “worth waiting for.”

The Mi 5 has been the subject of several rumors and leaks until now. Its rumored specs include 5.2-inch display with 1080p or QHD resolution, 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB memory options, 16MP/13MP camera combo, 3,600 mAh battery, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It is also said to feature the world’s smallest and fastest fingerprint sensor on the home button.

Source (Chinese) |…

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We have been hearing rumors of Twitter considering moving beyond the 140 character limit that has been around pretty much since the inception of the service. Yesterday, CEO Jack Dorsey added further fuel to the fire without confirming anything.

Dorsey’s tweet was a screenshot of a large wall of text, where he acknowledges the value of the current word limit while also admitting that certain users have to resort to posting screenshots of large blocks of text, much like Dorsey himself, to convey their point, which couldn’t be done with the existing word limit without resorting to multiple tweets. He hinted at building additional functionality into Twitter if there is a need for it, and that if they decide to go down that road they will alert the developers well in advance.

According to the sources at the WSJ, Twitter is considering moving to a 10,000 character limit but in a way that fits in with the current format of Twitter. Tweets will still basically be 140 characters but any additional characters will be hidden and will require expanding to be made visible.

The problem is, as has usually been, that Twitter’s management is out of touch with the sentiments of the actual users of the service. While people have been asking for ways to reduce online harassment, a proper mobile site that isn’t incredibly out of date, or even something as basic as the ability to edit your tweet at least for a short while after tweeting, Twitter has instead been adding features that either no one asked for or users actively dislike.

The Twitter character limit has been initially introduced to be able to fit the 140 character tweet in an SMS along with other content such as user names, as back then Twitter would optionally SMS tweets to you if you got any replies or messages. Since then it has stuck around and become the biggest differentiating factor of the service. It has encouraged creativity on the part of the users, which has resulted in an amazing collection of tweets over the years. For the few times you feel like you need a few more characters, there have been third party services that did that, but few actually used them. You could also string tweets together by replying to the previous tweet, which has worked quite well for most people.

Shifting the character limit from 140 to something more reasonable like 200-250 would have been a welcome change, but if the 10,000 character figure is true, you’d soon be seeing lengthy blog posts on Twitter. It dilutes the essence of the platform and makes it no different from Facebook or anything else. Unfortunately, the management at Twitter is either too blind or too obsessed with taking over Facebook to care about what the actual user want.

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The Asus Zenfone Zoom smartphone, which was announced at last year’s CES, could be launched in India this month. The company dropped the hint in the following press note:

“After setting new benchmarks in digital imaging with its feature-laden ZenFone range, ASUS is gearing up to reinvent smartphone photography. Scheduled to hit the Indian market later this month, the new addition to ASUS’ expanding smartphone range, the imaging-masterpiece will truly enable the users to ‘See The World Up Close’!”

The device, which is said to be the “thinnest phone with 3x optical zoom,” is currently only available in Asus’ home country of Taiwan, where it went on sale just last month. A couple of ago, it was announced that the smartphone will land in the Unites States early next month.

The handset was supposed to be launched in India in Q3 2015, but that obviously didn’t happen. As for the price, the company didn’t reveal the tag the Zenfone Zoom will carry in India – over in the US it will set you back…

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