Xiaomi Mi3 to be Available in Gold Color; Red Xiaomi TV On Its Way, Too

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Color is back baby, or at least it is when talking about smartphones and such. In the last two years or so, smartphones have gotten colorful again, with the likes of Motorola offering you a sort of paint mixer to choose your exact color, and folks like HTC offering some great-looking colors of their devices. Not to be left out on the whole color thing is Xiaomi, the fast-growing smartphone giant from China. Everyone likes a little color in their lives and it looks like Xiaomi is going to offer yet another gold smartphone, with a version of its popular Mi3 smartphone, as well as giving their TV offering a coat of paint in a subdued red color.

We bet you didn’t even know that Xiaomi sold a TV, right? Well, they do and it’s one hell of a set. Powered by the likes of LG and Samsung, the MiTV features a Snapdragon 600 CPU, 2GB of RAM and already comes in a variety of colors (like the fetching pink above). Unfortunately for a lot of us though, importing a TV is a lot more difficult than a smartphone. Nevertheless though, the MiTV is a great product and a popular one in China no doubt. While there are rumors a second-generation of the TV is on its way, we’re not so sure about that, and the image shared by Xiaomi themselves shows off a similar design, but in a different color.

Shown off in the photo below is also a gold version of the company’s Mi3 smartphone, a device that was launched last year to much fanfare in mainland China. If you’re unfamiliar with the Mi3 – we won’t judge – it’s their flagship device running MIUI and it’s a pretty well-speced machine. Featuring a 5-inch 1080p panel from LG or Sharp and variants with either an Nvidia Tegra 4 or Snapdragion 800 with 2GB of RAM. According to a sneaky new share from Xiaomi, the Mi3 is going to be available in a new gold color, which would make offerings from Apple, HTC and Samsung whom all offer a glitzy version of their latest smartphones.

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Sense 6 Apps from the HTC One (M8) Have Been Extracted; Inching Their Way to Other Devices

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On the day that HTC launched their latest and greatest smartphone, the new HTC One, they also launched a slew of apps into the Play Store. These apps were key parts of the Sense 6 experience, such as BlinkFeed, SenseTV and more. Of course, we all know that HTC have done this in order to keep their core features updated quickly, and outside of the control of the carriers, but the speculation of these apps heading to other devices still came, and in fact BlinkFeed has already been quietly confirmed to hit other smartphones soon.

The Android community however has long had a passion for porting apps from premium devices like the HTC One to other devices, and this is something we see with a lot of apps. Features from Sony’s Xperia devices end up on other Android phones and one enterprising folk has even gotten the Moto X camera running on the Nexus 5. So, what of these Sense 6 apps from the Play Store? Well, they’ve now been extracted from an M8 and available for download over at XDA-Developers. The bad news however, is that they don’t yet work on anything other than an actual HTC One M8, which is a little disappointing, but to be expected.

That doesn’t mean that these apps won’t be ported to other devices in working condition in the future however, but it does make it a little unlikely. After all, these were apps designed for a very specific device in mind and as we’ve found out so many times over the last few years, just because it’s in the Play Store, doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Hopefully though, there’ll be some movement on these apps soon, I for one can’t wait to enjoy BlinkFeed on my Nexus 5 and there are other parts of Sense 6 that users will find appealing, too.

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Creighton Professor: Adding a Kill Switch to All Smartphones Will Save the US $2.6 Billion Annually

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According to a new study, United States consumers alone could stand to save approximately $2.6 billion a year if a mandatory Kill Switch were to be added to all smartphones. In case you’re unfamiliar, a Kill Switch is a feature that allows victims of mobile device theft to remotely shut down and lock their device, rendering it useless to the individual(s) who stole it.

If you have ever had your smartphone stolen, you know exactly how much of a hassle it can be, and that’s not even considering the financial aspect of having to cough up the cost of a replacement phone. Even with insurance, most customers are faced with an average premium of $150 to replace a high-end device, and without insurance we’re talking about a five or six hundred dollar setback to replace your phone at original cost. And if you’ve ever owned a high-end device, you know it’s nearly impossible to go back to a “dumbphone”, so you’re almost guaranteed to find yourself looking for something of value equal to or better than your last phone.

The study, conducted by Creighton University professor William Duckworth, Ph.D., suggests that by adding a Kill Switch to all smartphones, the incentive for criminals to steal smartphones would exponentially decrease. After all, what good would a completely useless device be to them? Duckworth figures that Americans spend roughly $580 million a year to replace stolen phones, and another $4.8 billion goes to the carriers for premium insurance. He also believes that Americans would switch to less expensive plans without theft coverage, like SquareTrade if a Kill Switch mandate went into effect. He estimates that the addition of a Kill Switch would eliminate the $580 million in replacement fees and lower insurance rates, which would result in $2 billion a year in savings for American consumers.

It’s worth noting that in Duckworth’s study, 99% of his survey respondents were in favor of a Kill Switch mandate. It’s also worth noting that the main reason this hasn’t already been put into effect is because the carriers don’t want it to happen. Think about it. If they’re making over $5 billion a year in insurance and replacement fees, why would they want to instate such a feature that would cut into their profits? It’s certainly not going to help their bottom line, so they’re all for tucking this situation under the carpet and hoping everyone forgets it. My guess: that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Readers, what do you make of all of this? Do you think a Kill Switch mandate would be a good thing, or are you comfortable with the current insurance and replacement scenario?

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Introducing Samsung Fingers, Tomorrows Wearable Device Today

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Ahh how we love April fools. A good joke on the first of April is always a good way to start the month, so long as you don’t take it too far. This means tasteful jokes with a playful side that everyone can enjoy, and probably some that at least one person will find annoying but lets face it, the jokes will be hilarious to every one else. Google is pretty good at making April Fools fun for everyone on the web, as we’ve seen from past years and all the stuff that has already been thrown out today a day early, like the Pokemon challenge which seemed to start off the landslide of April Fools pranks to follow. Google isn’t the only one getting in on the fun anymore though as it would seem that Samsung has joined in on the April Fools day shenanigans with this special new device they’re calling Samsung fingers.

The joke is that they will be releasing a new wearable device that will really take your wearables and smart gadget experiences to the next level, with a glove that you can wear that has an embedded flexible display in the palm. As the description states, the glove’s display is a 3-inch UHD Super Emo LCD screen, the best kind of display for all your emo album art. If the display wasn’t enough to draw your attention, they have hidden a 16MP camera inside the glove somewhere, which is funny if you think about the quality of the camera that they have built into the new Gear wearables devices that are to launch soon.

Among the ridiculously named display, there is a list of other outlandish specs like 4GB of RAM, because who doesn’t want to play the most graphically advanced, memory intensive games for mobile on a glove? Our favorite is probably the S-Laser, which is a hidden beam projector allowing you to, we guess project the contents of what’s on the display onto a wall or other flat surface. Although S-Laser would have been cooler if it was actually a laser, or real in the first place. The glove also comes with more storage space than most phones from a year ago, at 32GB or 64GB options. Samsung Fingers also has just about every sensor one could need inside a wearable device, like the newly introduced heart rate monitor from the Galaxy S5, a thermometer, barmoeter, compass, palm-rec, RGB ambient light, gesture(IR), and of course your accelerometer, gyros, and proximity sensors.

The best features that steal the show are arguably the ones that give this little prank away, like flatulent auditory reproduction, S-Charge which has you hold your hand up in the air while wearing the glove outside to use solar charging power, and of course the Palm-rec, which gives users relevant information on whatever they hold in their hands while wearing Samsung Fingers like status of the object, as depicted in the image below. The idea of Samsung Fingers is actually quite ridiculous, but it’s good to see Sammy playing along with the all the pranks. you can check out Samsung’s post on the new tech here, and lets us in know in the comments what your favorite feature was.

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Microsoft Is Bringing Official Outlook Web App To Android Soon

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Is Microsoft on an android kick? Is there some underlying devious reason why they suddenly started plopping their apps onto android? Most likely not, but we know there are lots of users out there that are happy about the situation. Last week Microsoft brought the entire office suite(Word, Excel, Powerpoint) to Android smartphones without the need to have a subscriber based Microsoft Office 365 account, and this week they’re gracing us with an announcement that an official Microsoft Outlook app for Android is in the works. Those of you who use Microsoft outlook as your daily driver or have Outlook exchange for work or business, can finally say hello to what would seem like easy Android integration through an official Microsoft application as opposed to third party alternative email clients.

Some key things to point out about the upcoming application are that this won’t effect exchange for other email clients. So if you already use a specific email client that has outlook exchange enabled and you aren’t keen on switching, there’s no reason to. Microsoft has mentioned that all platforms that are currently supported will continue to be supported. The app once made available to the public, is also said to look strikingly close to Microsoft’s already existing Outlook web app, and will have similar functionality. We’re hoping that it has a nice UI, as nothing turns us off to apps such as this more than a horrible user interface that just isn’t pleasing to look at. Although there was no mention specifically of when to expect this app to touch down on the Play Store, we’d imagine it isn’t too far off, since the iOS version is already readily available.

We should expect fairly complete integration with our Outlook accounts like calendar entries, contacts, notes, etc. but so far Microsoft hasn’t spread the word on any sort of features that we should look out for. Many of us are probably familiar with using Outlook as plenty of businesses still use outlook and other Microsoft solutions to power their business, and we’ve all probably had a personal outlook account at some point in our lives. Microsoft brought this to our attention via a blog post today, and there’s even a handy little image below so we can get an idea of what the app will look like.

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Google Continues April Fools Day Fun With Virgin/Nest Partnership Video

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Google’s earlier reported Pokemon challenge within Google Maps is just the beginning of the April 1st tom foolery to come. Apparently Tony Fadell didn’t want to be left out and wanted to join in on the fun, and joining Fadell in this short but sweet parody video is Founder and CEO of Virgin, Richard Branson, who’s Virgin Atlantic airline is currently testing Google Glass on flights to better the experience for passengers. In the parody video the two company CEO’s announce a partnership to bring individual climate controlled temperatures to every passenger who flies with Virgin Air, with Nests smart thermostats. If you own a Nest smart thermostat then you already know the wonders that it can bring to the climate control inside your home, so hearing about this at first was awesome, then you learn that it was just a stunt to have a little fun for April Fools.

Throughout the short video the two partners talk about how they’re surprised that no one has thought of this sooner as it seems like a no brainer, and on a quick realistic note, we’re wondering the same thing? All jokes aside for just a moment, individual climate control for each passenger sounds like a really great idea. Now back to the jokes. The video actually looks and sounds very professional, most of the way… then you begin to hear the names of the different preset climate temperatures like Cancun Afternoon and Chicago Polar Vortex. The guy that describes how the presets work also has a sort of comical tone with the way that he talks, so you can immediately gather that the whole video is just part of the round of spoofs from Google were bound to see this year.

More fun will undoubtedly pop up tomorrow and we’ll be sure to inform you of all of it if we can, but the April Fools jokes are off to a great start and we can’t wait to see what Google’s plans are for tomorrow. While we know that the whole Virgin/Nest partnership is just a joke, what are some great preset climate names you could think of that would have been a perfect fit for this video spoof? We’d love to know!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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LG Ranks As Fastest Growing Android OEM In The U.S. With The G2 Leading The Way

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Samsung may be the current largest android manufacturer in the U.S., but no one is growing faster than LG. Yes, LG is Korea’s other major electronics company that people tend to forget about, and although the company still lags behind Samsung and Apple for smartphone share here inside the United States, they now hold a total of 8% marketshare when it comes to android devices in the country. Android as a whole has gained a total of 3.8 % of smartphone marketshare over the past year. This growth from LG has put them into the third place ranking of smartphone manufacturers in the US, and with recent devices it’s easy to see why.

According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech who did the study that includes this data, LG is gaining marketshare within the US based off of its lineup of high-end devices that it offers to customers, compared to the large amount of low-end handsets we have seen from them in the past. LG’s biggest contributor so far is the LG G2. When compared against the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy Note 3, the LG G2 ranked higher for customer recommendation scores with a score of 9.2 out of 10, with the iPhone 5S coming in second of the three at 9.1, and the Note 3 bringing up the rear with a score of 9 even. This is good news for LG, who has been steadily producing higher quality handsets, and has produced the last two Nexus devices with rumors of being the OEM selected for the Nexus 6, and their follow up to the G2, the LG G3 is coming later this year.

Like every OEM, LG has their downfalls, like their slow to update time frame for newer versions of the Android software, but when it comes to the overall experience of the handsets consumers seem to be extremely happy with the choices they have made. If this trend continues for LG, they just might have a shot at dethroning Samsung as the reigning king of Android smartphones, although that would take some time and continued effort to bring customers first class experiences as something like that wouldn’t happen over night.

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