Xiaomi’s held another weekly flash sale in India today. This one was for the Redmi Note 4G, and in fact this was the first time that you were able to buy the LTE-capable iteration of the company’s phablet in the subcontinent. So, understandably, the interest was high.

In fact, 200,000 people registered for the sale. Of those, however, only 40,000 people managed to get a Redmi Note 4G, as that’s the amount of units that were made available. The entire batch sold out in six seconds, which sounds incredible until you realize it’s definitely not the first time something like this has happened with Xiaomi products over there. Read more »

Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta is on and Xbox One fans are surely emptying millions of clips right now. The early beta access (available via Halo: The Master Chief Collection) kicked off yesterday and will continue through January 18.

In the wake of the ongoing beta Microsoft has detailed all Halo 5 retail editions and launched the pre-order campaign. Read more »

Samsung slipped in two new computers in 2014 even though New Year’s Eve is less than 48 hours away. One is an updated Series 9 ultrabook, the other a Series 7 all-in-one PC.

Interestingly, both lack the ATIV branding that Samsung used for its Windows/Windows Phone devices. Read more »

Windows Mobile is dead, long live Windows Ph… Mobile? This could all be a misunderstanding, of course, but the LinkedIn profile of a Program Manager at Microsoft lists him as currently working on Windows Mobile 10.

What makes it seem less like a slip of the tongue is that just two sentences earlier the same person claims to have worked on the Windows Phone 8.1 update infrastructure. Read more »

In February this year SanDisk unveiled the first-ever 128GB microSD card. It launched exclusively on Amazon and Best Buy for a pricy $200. Still, cramming that much storage into something smaller than a stamp was pretty impressive.

Amazon currently has the latest version of that card plus all smaller capacities on a promotion with heavy discounts reaching 60%. Read more »

Apple is in talks with several major British banks to launch Apple Pay in the first half of 2015 in the UK, according to a Telegraph report, which also notes that negotiations with at least one of the biggest banks are proving difficult, as the bank is said to be having issues with specific terms of the mobile payments service, including what data the Cupertino-based company will be able to access.

“It is understood the bank is uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers,” the report says, adding that on one hand banks fear that the Apple’s service and the data it delivers to the company could serve as a “beachhead for an invasion of the banking industry,” while on the other hand, they do not want to miss out on the service either. Read more »

The Yotaphone 2 is definitely a peculiar take on smartphone design with its dual-display setup, powered by a more than adequate set of hardware. The Russian innovation has definitely been gathering gazes and exciting tech fans all around.

The handset is available at a promotional price of RUB 36,990 (about $640), instead of the usual RUB 39,990 (about $718). The special offer will be valid between December 30 1014 and January 7 2015, after which the normal price tag will apply. Read more »

Just a few days after announcing that it will begin charging for voice calls made over its 2G or 3G network, India’s leading cellphone carrier Airtel has temporarily rolled back the change in the wake of an upcoming consultation paper from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) relating to services offered by Over The Top (OTT) players.

“In view of the news reports that a consultation paper will be issued shortly by TRAI on issues relating to services offered by OTT players including VoIP, we have decided not to implement our proposed launch of VoIP packs,” Airtel said, adding that the company is hopeful that stakeholders’ interest as well as the sector’s viability will be taken into consideration during the consultation. Read more »

One of the things that has always annoyed me about the App Store was the inability to easily refund an app after you purchased it. While Google offered a one-click solution to this problem, Apple instead wanted you to either mail the developer or send a support complaint to Apple, explaining why you want to refund the app.

All that has now changed, as the company has introduced a new 14-day, no-questions-asked refund window, not just for the App Store but also downloads made on the iTunes as well as the iBooks store. Unfortunately, this is only available in Europe right now. Read more »

Samsung took the wraps off a pair of decidedly futuristic-looking wireless speakers. Samsung WAM7500 and WAM6500 will be showcased during CES 2015 in Las Vegas next week.

The WAM7500 is a stand-type model. Its WAM6500 relative on the other hand is easily movable. Read more »

As part of its Creatography movement, HTC teamed up with the British garage inventor/YouTube sensation Colin Furze to showcase the video capture chops of the One (M8). The end result from the team up is 1080p footage at an altitude of 106,500ft (32,461m), with some firework along the way.

In order to make the trick happen, twelve balloons were launched, each carrying between 2 and 4 HTC One (M8) units. Read more »

When Windows 10 launches, it will do so with two Web browsers on board – IE11 (for backward compatibility), as well as a brand new one codenamed Spartan. This will be lightweight, will look a lot like Chrome or Firefox, and will support extensions.

However, Spartan will still use Microsoft’s Chakra JavaScript engine and its Trident rendering engine, according to a couple of unnamed sources. Read more »

Microsoft has released a new ad for its Surface Pro 3 tablet today. And it seems to us that the company has cranked up the praise in this one – it’s obvious how proud it is of this device.

Add in some complimenting quotes from a few well known publications, and you pretty much have the whole recipe for this commercial – which, by the way, is called “Accolades”. Read more »

Game of Thrones is known for many things (the short lives of its characters mostly) but for a third year running it earns another distinction from other TV shows – it is the most pirated show of the year. Estimated downloads top the number of HBO viewers who tuned into the series.

Earlier this year the season finale of the show set its own record – 1.5 million BitTorrent downloads in 12 hours, reaching 7.5 million in the days to follow. Read more »

Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has revealed that its latest release The Interview has become the studio’s top grossing online film of all time. Made from a budget of $44 million, the movie managed to pulled in more than $15 million in online sales through the first four days of the holidays alone.

“Through Saturday, December 27, including all of its online distribution platforms, The Interview has been rented or purchased online more than 2 million times,” SPE said in a statement. This compares with the estimated $2.8 million the movie made over the same time period in theaters, although that was a limited release. Read more »