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Chinese state TV slams Samsung over Note 7 recall ‘discrimination’

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Just as we were beginning to think that the worst was behind Samsung regarding the Galaxy Note 7 battery fiasco, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has lambasted Samsung for discriminating against Chinese consumers when it comes to the terms of the recall. A commentary posted to the broadcaster’s website on Thursday calls out Samsung’s handling of the recall as “full of arrogance” and suggests that Samsung has discriminated against Chinese consumers by insisting that phones in the country do not need replacing. China has not been included in the global Note 7 recall, so customers are not entitled to replacements or refunds. Samsung is already struggling to maintain its market position in the country, having recently fallen out of the top five smartphone manufacturers, and this very public blast is certainly not going to help the company’s reputation in the country. “Samsung’s discriminatory policy has caused discontent from Chinese consumers,” – CCTV CCTV appears to have missed Sa

Coolpad Note 5 with Snapdragon 617 and 4GB RAM launched in India

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In a press conference in New Delhi, Coolpad launched the Coolpad Note 5 smartphone exclusively for the Indian market. Coolpad entered the Indian market exactly a year ago with the launch of Coolpad Note 3. The successor to the company’s Note series, Coolpad Note 5 sports a 5.5-inch Full HD display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. For a budget smartphone, the Coolpad Note 5 packs a punch on the specifications sheet and will compete with the likes of Redmi Note 3 in the Indian market. Coolpad Note 5 Specifications Operating System: Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 with CoolUI Display: 5.5 inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS LCD Processor: 1.5Ghz Oct Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 | Adreno 405 GPU RAM: 4GB Internal Storage: 32GB; expandable up to 128GB with microSD card Rear Camera: 13MP with dual LED flash | f/2.2 Front Camera: 8MP with LED flash | f/2.2 Battery: 4010 mAh Dimensions: 152 x 75.7 x 8.85mm Weight: 173.4g Co

Unity introduces its Vulkan renderer for Android

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The Vulkan API is promising exciting new things for mobile gaming and 3D application development , and today the company behind the popular Unity engine has announced that its Vulkan Renderer Preview is now live for developers to test out. The benefits brought about with the introduction of Vulkan are a major speed boost, improved multithreading, and new graphical features. Vulkan boasts notable speed improvements over OpenGL ES 3.x, as the new API has been designed to take advantage of multiple CPU coress along with other optimizations. Unity says that it has seen benchmark performance improvements up to 35 percent with its new renderer, compared with the old OpenGL ES 3.1 renderer, even through they’re both running on a single thread. The cross platform Vulkan API was officially supported on smartphones with the release on Android 7.0 Nougat. Unity’s Vulkan Renderer Preview is still in the experimental phase at the moment, but the option is now there for developers to enable, if

Panasonic unveils bendable, twistable battery for smart products

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Panasonic has announced its latest flexible battery innovation, which it will be showing off at CEATEC in Japan next week. When combined with flexible displays, printed electronics, and increasingly small processing packages, this could be the technological breakthrough that bendable smartphone enthusiasts have been waiting for. According to Panasonic, the battery can be bent and twisted up to a radius of 25mm, with a maximum angle of 25 degrees,  over 1000 times, while still retaining 99 percent of its charge. Importantly given recent other battery related problems in the news, twisting the cell is completely safe as well. To obtain these properties, Panasonic has custom designed a laminated outer layer to prevent leakage and over-heating, and newly developed internal structure, but the real secrets are hidden away in the company’s patents. Unfortunately, as always seems to be the case with these flexible technologies, there’s still more work to be done before this is ready for

Report: Xiaomi Redmi 3S Plus to go on sale in Indian retail stores from Saturday

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  Xiaomi looks determined to expand its offline presence in India. The Chinese phone maker is said to be preparing to kick off the sale of Redmi 3S Plus in Indian retail shops beginning on Saturday, according to sources cited by Gadgets 360 . The planned distribution of Xiaomi Redmi 3S Plus by retailers in India will mark the company’s first foray into an offline, retail-only business model. The goal is to let the country’s retailers avoid the risk of online competition and, therefore, gain a level of flexibility on the handset’s pricing. Xiaomi launches the ultra-affordable Redmi 3S in India Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime on sale in India today 90,000 units of the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime sold out in just 8 minutes in India That means the Redmi 3S Plus is primarily intended to serve Xiaomi’s purpose of gaining more offline traction in India rather than offering products with diversified specifications. In fact, Redmi 3S Plus doesn’t deviate much from its sibling Redmi 3S Prime in terms

Gionee launches its first VR-ready smartphone, the S6 Pro, in India

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Looking to strengthen its S Series portfolio, Gionee has announced the launch of the Gionee S6 Pro in India, entering the Virtual Reality space with its first ever phone for VR enthusiasts. The S6 Pro was first unveiled in China in June this year. The S6 Pro boasts of a metallic unibody design with a 3D camber line back and sports a 5.5-inch Full HD display. It comes pre-loaded with Gionee’s VR app for an immersive VR viewing experience and sports a Split Screen feature allowing users to continue watching a video while they receive notifications from messaging apps. Gionee also offers several games in the G-Store for virtual reality experience and entertainment. There’s also inbuilt apps like Video Editor with themed and professional edits, Desktop Editor, Image+ to record your life, Video beautification, Time lapse, Text Recognition, et al. The S6 family has focussed on selfies with its ‘selfie flash’ for the front camera, and the S6 Pro too packs in an 8MP, f2.2 front camera with

Samsung unveils Galaxy A8 (2016) in South Korea, pre-orders start tomorrow

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SK Telecom We saw the leaked renders , and we saw the leaked manual . Well, the wait is now officially over as Samsung and South Korea’s SK Telecom have finally unveiled the Galaxy A8 (2016). As you see above, the 2016 edition of the Galaxy A8 is undeniably a Samsung device: from the rounded corners to the home button, the design hasn’t changed much since last year’s Galaxy A8. Though we can’t see the back of the device, SK Telecom describes it a “full-metal” device, so we might be looking at a similar design as last year’s Galaxy A8. See also: Samsung Galaxy A8 review 29 In any case, there are some significant changes inside the device. The screen size and resolution remain unchanged, but this year’s Galaxy A8 has Samsung’s Always On Display feature. Since the device is running on Grace UX found on the Galaxy Note7 , we are guessing that the A8 (2016) will have the upgraded AOD instead of the one found on the Galaxy S7 siblings. With a slight bump in the battery capa