Smartphone manufacturers have always experimented with new ways of achieving exciting form-factors and design statements in their devices, but one thing has mostly remained the same – the flat panes screen. We have grown so accustomed to the standard flat surface that the constant strive has been to make it bigger and more lifelike.

This seems to be finally changing with an ever-increasing push towards curved display technology. Naturally smartphones are among the first adopters and LG is at the forefront of innovation when it comes to curved technology. After the LG G Flex 2 was unveiled at CES 2015 in became abundantly clear that the Korean manufacturer intends to further develop bendable display technology and is investing in its future. Read more »

Meizu is moving into the home automation game with the new Lifekit system that comprises of multiple devices including a smart bulb, a scale, an air purifier, an smart A/C and a complex four-piece gadget that controls the air quality in your home.

These products are developed in partnership with Haier and Alibaba, with mostly identical hardware but will be integrated into Meizu’s Lifekit platform. Read more »

It seems that selfie contests are becoming as popular as the selfie itself – first Xiaomi, now Oppo too. Oppo’s Selfie Showdown asks you to post your favorite, creative or unusual selfie.

The winners will grab a brand new Oppo N3. The company’s photography flagship has a mechanized rotating camera so selfies get the first-class treatment and are taken with the 13MP camera and dual-LED flash. Read more »

Huawei CEO Richard Yu recently shared his thoughts on Xiaomi’s latest flagship handset – the Mi Note Pro. It appears that he was less than pleased with the phablet’s battery life after being able to experience it firsthand.

The Xiaomi Mi Note Pro is equipped with a 6-inch QHD display and has a 3,000mAh battery. This is precisely where Richard’s grudge with the device lies. According to a recent post he made on Weibo, the CEO considers that the resolution is overkill for a screen of this size and the human eye has difficulties distinguishing between Full HD and QHD at this scale. He continue to criticize Xiaomi’s hardware of choice by stating that the power-hungry, high-resolution display only diminishes battery life. Read more »

The independent film festival, held annually in Utah, has been picked by Samsung to unveil three new short films, created specifically for its Gear VR. Combating the limited amount of content for the virtual reality platform, Samsung is attempting to showcase its capabilities to filmmakers.

The 7min long “The World Première of Herders” presents an insight into the life of Mongolian nomadic tribes. Read more »

Today the ribbon was cut and the West Lake Apple Store in Hangzhou, China opened its doors for customers. The event attracted a huge crowd of fans eager to check out one of the company’s largest retail stores in Asia.

Image source: bruce_shia on Instagram

Tim Cook also promoted the store on Twitter saying “Starting Something New in Hangzhou, China!” The latest store is part of a total of five outlets in China. The rest will open before the Chinese New Year on February 19. Read more »

The ever-growing number of subscriptions and site registrations that the Internet has brought upon us in recent years has meant that a pile of usernames and passwords need to be remembered. Apparently, many users take the easy route and pick simple passwords, which has meant that the top 25 most common ones, that have been exposed, are chosen by as much as 2.2% of users.

Topping the list of most widespread passwords of 2014 is longtime favorite “123456″, followed closely by the most natural of all, “password”. Read more »

Meizu, one of the top ten smartphone manufacturers in China has announced today that it is joining forces with Haier, which most probably hints at an upcoming array of connected home appliances. Haier Group has a long tradition of developing, manufacturing and selling a wide array of consumer electronics, ranging from air conditioners, microwave ovens, washing machines, refrigerators, all the way to mobile phones, computers and televisions.

The partnership seems perfectly in tune with Meizu’s recent announcement that their upcoming launch event on January 28 will revolve around a “Connected” life. Furthermore the push towards connected appliances and smart homes has been steadily gaining momentum with massive group ventures, such as project Thread leading the way. It was only a matter of time before the rest of tech world adopts the new aspiration and Meizu appears to be next in line to usher forth a new way of life, along with the likes of Google and Samsung. Read more »

In an effort to expand its presence in India, Twitter has made it first acquisition in the country, gobbling up a Bengaluru-based startup ZipDial, which offers services like missed calls for user verification and alerts to its customers. Although the financial details of the deal were not revealed, a TechCrunch report pegs the monetary value at around $30-$40 million.

Founded in 2010, ZipDial assigns companies special phone numbers that they associate with their brands and use in their print or TV commercials. Users just have to make a missed call, one that disconnects before the other party answers, to these phone numbers following which they begin receiving inbound content and further engagement on their phone in real-time through voice, SMS or an app notification. Read more »

Google is making buying tickets for live events a bit less convoluted by striking a deal with live event companies Ticketfly, Ticketmaster and AXS. Now, tickets for live shows will be offered to you via Google’s Search and Maps services on both mobile and desktop.

Upon searching for a specific venue, you will see upcoming events and whether or not tickets are currently available. Artist schedules will also appear when you search for a specific band or performer. Read more »

A few days ago, there were reports that four Silicon Valley companies, including Apple and Google, have agreed to a new settlement aimed at resolving an antitrust class action lawsuit alleging they conspired to avoid poaching each anothers’ employees. Although there was no word on the settlement amount at that time, it is now being reported that the companies, which also include Adobe and Intel, have agreed to pay a total of $415 million to settle the dispute.

The proposed settlement, which is $90.5 million more than a previous deal that was rejected by a US judge, was revealed in a motion filed by the firms yesterday in US District Court in San Jose, California. Read more »

Firefox Hello is one of Mozilla’s most exciting innovations. It is an implementation of the WebRTC API that allows easy browser-to-browser voice, video and p2p file sharing all without any additional plugins.

While the standard itself is not new and Firefox Hello has been floating around as an addon for the open-source browser, version 35 bundles it straight into the core of the application and makes it easily accessible. Read more »

Xiaomi is barely a few years old, but is already the top smartphone manufacturer in China and among the top makers worldwide. It’s eyeing global dominance though its presence outside its home country is still fairly small. Facebook is by far the biggest social network around the world – except in China where it’s blocked by government censors.

The two companies sound like a good match for each other – Xiaomi wants out, Facebook wants into China. Read more »

Spotify is undoubtedly one of the biggest revolutions to come to the audio industry ever since Napster was stirring up heat online. With the New Year the music master has a lot to be proud of as it recently announced that it now has 15 million paid subscribers and the whopping 60 million plus active users.

Last November these very same numbers were circling around 10 million paid and 40 million total users, so this represents a huge leap forward and foretells a bright future for the streaming service, provided that legal issues don’t get too severe. Read more »

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that took place in Las Vegas broke all records to become the largest show in history, according to a VentureBeat report. The event witnessed a total of over 170,000 attendees (of which over 45,000 were from outside the US) compared to around 160,000 a year ago.

“This CES vastly exceeded our expectations. The show inspired and likely gave almost every attendee a sense that innovation will provide solutions to a range of global issues from the environment and agriculture to transportation, health and safety,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Read more »