Xiaomi says MIUI 6 coming to Redmi 1S, Mi 3 and Redmi Note 4 in a week

Xiaomi held a press event in Mumbai today for the India launch of their flagship, Mi 4, and had a collection of announcements to make on the side. Of chief importance, was the announcement that MIUI 6, which ships with the phone, will also be rolling out to some of their older models in the market. The new UI will be available as an OTA (over-the-air) update for the Redmi 1S, Redmi Note 4 and Note 4G and the Mi 3. 

The new UI still prioritises Xiaomi's focus on customisation and privacy, while also giving the system an in-depth aesthetic overhaul. More colour, animation and convenience is the name of the game. We'll break some of those changes down for you right now:

The icons have been redesigned for a crisper look, with more colour popping in wherever possible. Most of this might be too subtle for untrained eyes to notice, but consistent MIUI users will definitely pick up on the difference.

New animations all around, little shakes and nudges and swirls that just make this beauty look so much smoother and, in some cases, quirkier. Take the apps for instance. Now, every time you drag an app to the trash can to delete it, instead of just disappearing, it'll instead explode into a cluster of coloured pixels. Uninstall Flipkart's app and you'll get a shower of blue and yellow pixels. Get rid of WhatsApp and enjoy your own little green and white explosion. The pixel cloud when deleting multiple apps at a time is reminiscent of the fireworks show every time you won a game of spider solitaire.

• Xiaomi is also attempting to localise their cloud services and manufacturing process for the Indian market. No word yet on if and when that might finally come to fruition, but perhaps we'll see another addition to the "Make in India" supporter group soon. 
• The MiTV will also make its way to India by the end of 2015, but not the ones currently in production. If things go as planned, we might see the next generation of the smart TV makes its entrance into the subcontinent. 

That's all for the MIUI 6, and the other announcements out of Xiaomi, for now, but stay tuned for our look at the all new Mi 4. 

Micromax Yureka 10000 unit smartphones in 3 seconds

Micromax's fully-owned subsidiary Yu Televentures has Thursday sold 10,000 Yureka smartphones on Amazon in just 3 seconds, for its third online sale after launching the Rs 8,999 device last month.

In the month of February, YU is looking at ramping up the availability of the device and will put almost double the amount of devices for sale, the company said in a statement.

The device will go on sale every Thursday at 2pm, registrations for which will begin a week ..

Micromax, Aircel team up to grow data market

Mobile handset maker Micromax and telecom operator Aircel, who are both struggling for greater market share in their respective fields , hitched their wagons to each other on Wednesday in a strategic partnership that is aimed at driving data growth and the sale of mobile phones.

“What we are essentially doing is leveragin

g on each other’s strengths. Micromax phones will come bundled with an Aircel SIM, and we will start carrying their phones across our retail stores,” said Sankara Narayanan K, Strategic Business Unit Head, Aircel, while addressing a press conference here on Wednesday.

“This alliance includes the whole range of Micromax and Aircel products,” he added.

The partnership, however, goes deeper. Micromax smartphones that are sold will now be accompanied by an Aircel SIM card that will offer local calls at one paisa for two seconds, STD calls at one paisa/second and 2GB of free data every month.

This offer, along with other similar offers for feature phones and dongles, is valid for three months.

These heavily discounted data and voice rates will only be available as an option to buyers of new Micromax phones however.

Micromax, which sells 2.3 million smartphones every month, is expecting a big boost in growth due to this alliance, according to Ajay Sharma, Smartphone Division Head, Micromax.

“This is the first time we’ve done something like this. We chose Aircel because it is very focussed on data. We may also look at undertaking regional marketing strategies together,” Mr. Sharma said.

For Aircel, on the other hand, this alliance amounts to a huge number of new Aircel SIMs hitting the market every month.

“The trick here is the dual SIM nature of the phones. We’re hoping for a hit rate, which is the percentage of customers that take up the Micromax-Aircel bundle, of 70 – 80 per cent in markets where we are strong. The plan is for customers to get used to the quality and strength of our data services,” Mr. Narayanan said.

iPhones 5s and 5c sell 9m in record weekend

Apple shrugged off its critics, and analysts who said the high-end smartphone market was saturated, by announcing it has sold nine million iPhones in just three days.

The company's share price jumped more than 5% to $492 in response, adding $4bn to its value in minutes - though it remains well below its all-year high of $543 from January.

The figures are nearly double the record figure of five million in 2012, when it introduced the iPhone 5.

Though the company did not release a sales breakdown between the new iPhone 5s - which incorporates a fingerprint reader - and the cheaper, and coloured, 5c, data from Mixpanel, a mobile analytics company, suggests the breakdown was 2:1 in favour of the pricier devices. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the new "gold" iPhone 5s - deemed ugly by some - was the most popular model.

Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive who under Steve Jobs drove the operational side of the business - and built up its supply systems so that it could cope with colossal spikes in demand like the weekend's - expressed his delight.

"The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we've sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly," Cook said in a statement. "We appreciate everyone's patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone."

The sales figures put the struggles of rival phone makers Nokia and BlackBerry into sharp focus. The value of iPhones sold was calculated at more than the enterprise value - the price minus cash - of Nokia's handset business, sold to Microsoft for €5.4bn earlier in September. And BlackBerry, which is preparing to formally announce a $1bn loss on Friday, managed to ship only 3.7m phones in the past three months.

The sales come despite a German hacker group claiming to have fooled the fingerprint reader on the iPhone 5s with a scanned version of a fingerprint captured from glass, and reports of security vulnerabilities on some features.

Apple also said that its new iOS 7 software has been installed on 200m devices since its launch last Wednesday - which it called "the fastest software upgrade in history".

new nexus 7 with update android 4.3

NEW DELHI: Google and Asus on Wednesday launched the new version of the Nexus 7 tablet. While the screen of the device remains 7 inches, it now sports FullHD resolution (1920 x 1200 pixels).

The tablet is also almost 2 mm thinner and weighs around 50 grams less than the old Nexus 7. It will be available in Wi-Fi and LTE versions. In India, though, 3G version is likely instead of LTE model.

The basic model of the tablet will cost $ 229 in the US. So far, there is no word on the availability of the tablet in India. An industry insider told TOI that it is not expected here anytime soon.

Other than the bump in the screen resolution and a slimmer design, the tablet has also received better internal hardware. It is powered by a quad-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon Pro chip and Adreno 320 graphics chip. Hugo Barra, vice-president of Android product management, claimed the processor is around 80% faster compared to the chip that powered old Nexus 7. The graphics performance in the new tablet is up by 400% compared to its predecessor.

The basic model the latest Nexus 7 will have 16GB internal storage and 2GB RAM. The model with 32GB internal storage will also be available. Unlike the old Nexus 7, the new one has a primary camera that can click 5 mega pixel images. The front camera, which can be used for video chats, sports a 1.2MP tag.

Google also announced Android 4.3 - still called Jelly Bean - at the Nexus 7 launch event held in San Francisco. The new Nexus 7 is powered by Android 4.3. The new version of Android is also available for Nexus 4, old Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Galaxy Nexus.

Android 4.3 is similar to Android 4.2 in terms of user interface. But there are a few new features. Of these, the most important are new set of settings for multi-user accounts and ability to restrict content for different users on a device, similar to what Windows allows.

Sundar Pichai, the head of Android and Chrome divisions at Google, said that Nexus 7 has been a huge success after it launched last year. It constitutes 10% of all Android tablets sold in the last year.

"So far over 70 million Android tablets have been activated across the world," said Pichai.

At the same event, Google also announced Chromecast, a tiny dongle that can connect to any TV that has an HDMI port and allows a user to stream videos from an iOS or Android devices onto the big screen.

The new Nexus 7 is totally worth the higher price

New York: When it comes to technology, we’ve been trained to expect more for less. Devices get more powerful each year, as prices stay the same or drop. With the new Nexus 7 tablet, Google hopes we’re willing to pay more for more. The new tablet comes with a $30 price increase over last year’s model. At $229 for the base model, it is still a bargain – and 30 percent cheaper than Apple’s $329 iPad Mini. The display is sharper and the sound is richer than the old model.

There’s now a rear camera for taking snapshots. The new Nexus 7 is the first device to ship with Android 4.3, which lets you create profiles to limit what your curious and nosy kids can do on your tablet when you’re not around.

Amazon.com’s $199 Kindle Fire HD is cheaper, but it doesn’t give you full access to the growing library of Android apps for playing games, checking the weather, tracking flights, reading the news, getting coupons from your favourite stores and more. The Nexus 7 does.

It’s a fine complement to your smartphone if it’s running Google’s Android, the dominant operating system on phones these days — even as Apple commands the market for tablet computers with its full-size iPad and iPad Mini. Unless you tell it not to, apps you use on the phone will automatically appear on the Nexus 7, so you can switch from device to device seamlessly. When you are signed in, bookmarks will also transfer over Google’s Chrome Web browser, as will favourite places on Google Maps.

If you were already eyeing last year’s Nexus 7 model, then go ahead and pay $30 more for the latest.

Although screen dimensions are identical, the new Nexus 7 has a higher pixel density, at 323 pixels per inch compared with 216 on the old model. Trees and other objects in the movie Life of Pi look sharper, as do the movie title and credits on the screen.

Sound is much better with speakers on the left and the right side of the tablet, held horizontally. Although they are technically back facing, the speakers are placed along a curved edge in such a way that sound seems to project outward and not away from you. On the old Nexus 7, I can’t even tell where the speakers are.

The new Nexus 7 also feels more comfortable in my hands. It’s 17 percent thinner and 5 percent narrower when held like a portrait. The old model was a tad too wide to grip comfortably in the palm of my hands. The new device is also 15 percent lighter, at 10.2 ounces (290 grams). And the rubbery back feels smoother on the new tablet.

The new Nexus ships with a camera app, something last year’s model didn’t really need because it had only a front-facing camera, for videoconferencing. With the new rear, 5-megapixel camera, you can take photos and video of what’s in front of you. Expect to be ridiculed, though, if I see you doing that. Still, it’s not as bad as blocking someone’s view with a full-size tablet.

As for the restricted profiles that come with Android 4.3, it’s a good idea, though it still has kinks. When you set up a profile for your kid, you pick which apps to enable. Don’t want your kid to be surfing the Web unrestricted? Then keep the Chrome browser disabled. Don’t want him or her on Facebook? Keep that app disabled, too. The app store is also disabled, so Junior can’t go on a download spree. If you do allow access to a particular app, though, then it’s full access. There’s no filtering to block porn and other questionable material, for instance.

I found that some apps won’t work with restricted profiles at all, including those for Gmail and other email accounts. If you want your kids to have access to email, then you have to give them full access or enable the browser to check email over the Web. You can’t turn on just the email app.
And although the new tablet is the first to ship with Android 4.3, it’s available to download on other devices, including last year’s Nexus 7.

Apple says developer site was hacked on Thursday, affecting 275,000 logins

Apple says its Developer portal has been hacked and that some information about its 275,000 registered third-party developers who use it may have been stolen.
The portal at developer.apple.com had been offline since Thursday without explanation, raising speculation among developers first that it had suffered a disastrous database crash, and then that it had been hacked.
A Turkish security research, Ibrahim Balic, claims that he was behind the "hack" but insisted that his intention was to demonstrate that Apple's system was leaking user information. He posted a video on Youtube which appears to show that the site was vulnerable to an attack, but adding "I have reported all the bugs I found to the company and waited for approval." A screenshot in the video showed a bug filed on 19 July - the same day the site was taken down - saying "Data leaks user information. I think you should fix it as soon as possible."
The video appears to show developer names and IDs. The Guardian is trying to establish whether they are those of registered developers.
Apple said in an email to developers late on Sunday night that "an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers… [and] we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers' names, mailing addresses and/or email addresses may have been accessed."
It didn't give any indication of who carried out the attack, or what their purpose might have been. Apple said it is "completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database [of developer information]."
Some people reported that they had received password resets against their Apple ID - used by developers to access the portal - suggesting that the hacker or hackers had managed to copy some key details and were trying to exploit them.
If they managed to successfully break into a developer's ID, they might be able to upload malicious apps to the App Store. Apple said however that the hack did not lead to access to developer code.
The breach is the first known against any of Apple's web services. It has hundreds of millions of users of its iTunes and App Store e-commerce systems. Those systems do not appear to have been affected: Apple says that they are completely separate and remained safe.
Apple's Developer portal lets developers download new versions of the Mac OS X and iOS 7 betas, set up new devices so they can run the beta software and access forums to discuss problems. A related service for developers using the same user emails and passwords, iTunes Connect, lets developers upload new versions of apps to the App Store. While developers could log into that service, they could not find or update apps and could not communicate with Apple.
But if the hack provided access to developer IDs which could then be exploited through phishing attacks, there would be a danger that apps could be compromised. Apps are uploaded to the App Store in a completed form - so hackers could not download "pieces" of an existing app - and undergo a review before being made publicly available.
High-profile companies are increasingly the target of increasingly skilful hackers. in April 2011, Sony abruptly shut down its PlayStation Network sed by 77 million users and kept it offline for seven days so that it could carry out forensic security testing, after being hit by hackers - who have never been identified.
It has also become a risk of business for larger companies and small ones alike. On Saturday, the Ubuntu forums were hacked, and all of the passwords for the thousands of users stolen - although they were encrypted. On Sunday, the hacking collective Anonymous said that it hacked the Nauruan government's website.
On Sunday, the Apple Store, used to sell its physical products, was briefly unavailable - reinforcing suspicions that the company was carrying out a wide-ranging security check. The company has

not commented on the reasons for the story going down.
Marco Arment, a high-profile app developer, noted on his blog before Apple confirmed the hack that " I don't know anything about [Apple's] infrastructure, but for a web service to be down this long with so little communication, most 'maintenance' or migration theories become very unlikely."
He suggested that the problem could either be "severe data loss" in which restoring from backups has failed - but added that the downtime "is pretty long even for backup-restoring troubles" - or else "a security breach, followed by cleanup and increases defenses".
Of the downtime, he said "the longer it goes, especially with no statements to the contrary, the more this [hacking hypothesis] becomes the most likely explanation."