Xiaomi is quietly working on the Mi Band successor dubbed Mi Band 1s. According to a listing sourced from the Taiwanese National Communications Commission the wearable will feature a heart rate monitor.

The Mi Band 1s carries the same design as its predecessor with three LED lights atop an aluminum cap. Read more »

Samsung added another member to its Level family of audio products. The Level U is a wireless in-ear headset with ergonomic around-the-neck design and beefy 12mm audio drivers.

The Korean giant has integrated two microphones into the Level U – one handles voice, while the other one blocks ambient noise. Read more »

Last month, LG ran an interesting promotion for its G4 smartphone in the US. The company offered people who purchased the handset a free microSD card, a second battery, and a charging cradle. This month, LG is up to something very similar.

Only this time around the microSD card in the giveaway has been replaced with a leather back cover. You still also get a second battery with a charging cradle. Read more »

We’ve seen similar videos from its phone division, but now Samsung chose to demonstrate just how seriously in takes build quality for its notebooks. The clip shows extensive torture testing done at a massive industrial scale. The horrors these computers are put through are enough to make any tech geek weep, but it is all for the greater good! Still, we wouldn’t blame you if you look away.

Samsung really seems to be extensive in its stress tests. The video shows quite a few, highly-sophisticated and entirely automated test rigs toying away over unfortunate Samsung Series or Samsung ATIV Book ultrabooks. Read more »

Sony announced today its own crowdfunding platform called First Flight. It looks a lot like Kickstarter, but isn’t just another replica. In fact First Flight has entirely different concept – it’s Sony’s hope to repair some of its struggling businesses.

Sony PlayStation 4 might be doing great, but we can’t say the same for the Xperia lineup which has become somewhat of a run-of-the-mill job. With First Flight Sony will be able to achieve to major things free of charge – learn the interest towards certain product ahead of re;ease and cut its losses in case of poor market reception for a given product. Read more »

CyanogenMod has been working on a new browser, called Gello. The browser is based on Google’s open source web browser project and looks somewhat similar to Chrome, but is different enough.

Not much was revealed in the Google+ post announcing the browser but a short video gives a glimpse at the interface and some of the features of the upcoming browser, including edge swipe to go forward and backward, night and immersive modes, enhanced download manager, offline reading mode, and individual site settings to access features such as camera, microphone, and also ad blocking functionality. Read more »

YouTube is working hard retain its dominance in the online multimedia realm. And while a lot of that has to do with engaging audiences and encouraging creativity and content-creators, maintaining a technical edge is equally important. Innovations on the PC front are now way past high-definition content, with resolutions of 4K and beyond already available, as well as frame rates up to 60fps.

Dealing with mobile devices, however, presents a whole new set of challenges for YouTube, along with new possibilities to explore, like offline playback for example. Still, it is only a matter of time before our increasingly-powerful mobile tech gets access to proper high-definition content as well. Today, YouTube has made another step in this direction. The company’s Android and iOS apps now have 60fps content at 720p and 1080p resolutions. Read more »

Just a few months after it was announced, the peer-to-peer payments feature of Facebook’s Messenger app is now available to everyone in the United States.

The news was announced by David Marcus, who leads the company’s messaging business. “Add your Debit Card and pay anyone on Messenger in a few taps. Money goes straight from your checking account to the recipient’s checking account. Easy and safe,” he said. Read more »

Apple finally rolled out iOS 8.4.yesterday on compatible iOS devices, which, among other minor things, brought with it Apple Music in a brand new music player.

However, if you are on the desktop, you’d have noticed that you couldn’t access Apple Music through iTunes, and that if you clicked the Beats 1 link it would tell you to install iTunes 12.2, which wasn’t out yet. Well, that’s not the case anymore. Read more »

Just a couple of months after launching them in the US, Samsung has slashed the prices of its Galaxy Tab A series tablets – the Tab A 9.7 and the Tab A 8.0.

Both tablets have received a $30 price cut, which means that the 8-inch model is now available for $200, while the 9.7-inch variant will set you back $270. They are available in white, smoky blue, and smoky titanium colour options. Read more »

Microsoft launched a brand new promo video for its Lumia smartphone family. The clip focuses on the brand’s business credentials.

Unsurprisingly, the video showcases the seamless integration of Microsoft’s productivity solutions into the Windows Phone platform. Read more »

Along with the new Honor 7, Huawei announced a new wearable called Band Zero and a Bluetooth headset called Honor Whistle. The Band Zero will launch in China in August.

The Honor Band Zero by Huawei has been designed with aesthetic appeal in mind. Read more »

David Beckham is the star of Sprint’s latest video ad, which focuses on the carrier’s unlimited plan. The video takes an interesting approach, ridiculing the other three US major carriers’ tariffs.

Sprint All-In Wireless promo shows David Beckham getting confused in AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon stores and finally he founds his unlimited plan without small print and hidden taxes in Sprint’s store. Read more »

The vultures are circling – AMD has been struggling to compete with Intel on the CPU front and with Nvidia on the GPU front and profitability has been elusive. Naturally, acquisition rumors have cropped up, first Samsung and now Microsoft.

Microsoft is a full-time hardware maker and it really needs chips – for its Xbox One console, for the Surface tablets, perhaps even for its Lumia phones. Read more »

Google has released an update to its Maps application, bringing real-time traffic information to 12 new Indian cities, including Kolkata, Coimbatore, Lucknow, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram, Indore, Ludhiana, Visakhapatnam, Nagpur, Kochi, Madurai, and Bhopal. Earlier, live traffic updates were only available for Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Pune.

To use the feature, which is available on both mobile and desktop, you need to first turn on the Traffic layer option on your Google Maps app. Once done, you’ll be able to see routes mapped out in different colours, with green meaning no traffic delays, orange indicating a medium amount of traffic, and red meaning heavy traffic. Read more »