Xiaomi Redmi Y1 went on sale for the first time in India along with its sibling Redmi Y1 Lite. The two smartphones were on sale through Amazon India and Mi.com as part of the initial sale. Manu Kumar Jain, head of Xiaomi India, says 150,000 units of the two smartphones were sold within three minutes on the two e-commerce websites. The next sale will take place on November 15, and the phones will also be sold offline.
Redmi Y1 has two variants: 3 GB RAM + 32 GB storage for Rs. 8,999 and 4 GB RAM + 64 GB storage at Rs. 10,999. Redmi Y1 Lite costs Rs. 6,999 and has a 5.5-inch HD panel, octa-core Snapdragon 425 SoC, 13-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front camera, and 3080mAh battery. It features a 5.5-inch HD display, an octa-core Snapdragon 435 chipset, a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 16-megapixel front camera with selfie flash, and a 3080mAh battery.
Flipkart Hosting Sales on Cell Phones and Other Electronics Begin Today Flipkart began sales on cell phones, laptops, audio products, and other electronics that will run through November 11. Called The Grand Gadget Days, the Flipkart sale will also feature substantial discounts on electronics, free EMIs, and additional discounts on online payments. There will also be exchange offers and buy-back guarantees on selected products as part of the sale. Top deals include values on Honor 6X, Samsung Galaxy On Nxt, Casio Smart Outdoor smartwatch, Bose SoundLink wireless headphones, etc.
Incidentally, today was also the last of the Samsung Mobiles Fest at Flipkart, where the e-commerce brand offers significant discounts on the Galaxy S7, Galaxy On5, Galaxy On7, and Galaxy C9 Pro.
While the iPhone X rollout has just begun, there are already talks about its successors. Rumor has it that Apple will launch 2 iPhone X models in 2018. According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will release two iPhone X models next year with upgraded OLED screens and stainless steel frames; adding more steel in the handsets may lead to design changes on the handset. On the other hand, the TrueDepth rear camera will be retained for the next-generation iPhone X models, even with different hardware upgrades built in.
In other Apple news, the company announced that the iPhone X would go on sale in South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, and 11 other markets on November 23, with Israel getting the device a day early. This will be the second wave of iPhone X release, following the initial rollout on November 3.
Asus ZenFone 3 Max gets a price cut in IndiaThe smartphone Asus ZenFone 3 Max (ZC520TL) received an Rs. 1,000 price cut in India, bringing the price of the device down to Rs. 9,999. This price reduction applies to all major e-commerce websites, such as Flipkart and Amazon, as well as offline stores. The Android Nougat-based ZenFone 3 Max smartphone has a 5.2-inch HD display, 1.25GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737T chipset, 3GB RAM, 13-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front camera, 32GB storage, up to 32GB microSD card support, and 4100mAh battery.
PayPal launches operations in India and joins local e-commerce sites. With the digital payments ecosystem in India on the rise, PayPal has launched its operations in India. Now internet users can use PayPal accounts to pay for goods on e-commerce sites. The company also has ties to government and public sector banks on initiatives such as tourist visas and a digital financial literacy program. Before that, people in India could only use PayPal for international transactions.
Samsung Pay gains 1 million users in a month and a half. Samsung Pay, the mobile payment service of the South Korean titan, has accumulated 1 million users in the past month and a half. Before that, the company had claimed 1.5 million users for the service, which is available on 26 devices. These include Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy J7 Max, and Galaxy J7 Pro. India is now the third largest market for Samsung Pay, after South Korea and Russia.
Twitter raises the character limit to 280 for almost all users. The character limit for tweets has been increased to 280 characters for nearly all users, about a month and a half after Twitter announced it would roll out the feature. The new limit is double the 140-character limit on tweets imposed on users since the social media brand took off. This new 280-character limit will be extended to all languages except Japanese, Korean, and Chinese; the three are exempt because space constraints weren’t an issue for them, Twitter says. Company co-founder Biz Stone said longer tweets resulted in increased engagement in the tests.
iOS 11 Adoption Rate Slower Than Predecessors, Apple Pay Cash Beta Now Available iOS 11 adoption rate has been slow compared to previous updates to Apple’s mobile operating system. The latest version of iOS is currently installed on 52 percent of compatible devices, more than 45 days after it was released. On the other hand, iOS 9 was on 50 percent of devices in just four days, while iOS 10 was on 54 percent in less than a month after launch. Since the iOS 11 rollout, the previous version of the software is now only available on 38 percent of compatible devices, up from 60 percent in October.
But all is not going bad for iOS 11, as the new iOS 11.2 developer preview has introduced Apple Pay Cash as a beta feature in the US; it was also released for watchOS 4.2. Apple Pay Cash is a service that allows users to transfer payments to each other directly via iMessage. Users must have iPhone SE, iPhone 6 and later, iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini three, and all Apple Watch versions for the feature to work.
Facebook wants nude photos of users to fight revenge porn. Facebook is testing a new way to combat revenge porn on both Instagram and Facebook – by asking users to share nude photos. Once an image is uploaded to a user’s Messenger account, the world’s largest social media company creates its digital fingerprint or link using AI and other photo-matching technologies. In this way, it is not the image itself that is stored but its digital fingerprint, and when someone tries to upload a photo with the same hash, it is not uploaded. The program is currently being tested in Australia and three other countries.
New Uber CEO urges cultural renewal Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has encouraged employees to “do the right thing” as part of an effort to change the controversial startup. He said in a note to employees that the company is moving towards an era of responsible growth, saying, “We will put integrity at the heart of our decisions.” He said the Uber practice of “toe-stepping” was intended to give employees a say regardless of their position in the company but was “too often used as an excuse to be an asshole”. The company’s cutthroat, burnout culture under founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick was credited with fueling sexism, discrimination, harassment, and questionable business tactics. Khosrowshahi, on the other hand, has called for celebrations from different backgrounds.
