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Xiaomi Redmi Y1 Launch, Flipkart Sale on Mobiles, 2 iPhone X 2018, and More: Your 360 Daily

Xiaomi Redmi Y1 Launch, Flipkart Sale on Mobiles, 2 iPhone X 2018, and More: Your 360 Daily

By Gadgets 360 Staff | Updated: 8 November 2017 23:32 IST

Highlights

150,000 Redmi Y1, Redmi Y1 Lite units sold in first sale
Flipkart starts another sale on mobile phones, laptops, and other gadgets
Asus ZenFone 3 Max gets a Rs. 1,000 price cut in India

Xiaomi Redmi Y1 went on sale in India for the first time, along with its sibling Redmi Y1 Lite. The two smartphones were available to purchase via Amazon India and Mi.com as part of the first sale. Xiaomi India head Manu Kumar Jain says 150,000 units of the two smartphones were sold within three minutes on the two e-commerce websites. The next sale will be held on November 15, and the phones will be sold offline as well.

Redmi Y1 comes in two variants: 3GB RAM + 32GB storage at Rs. 8,999, and 4GB RAM + 64GB storage at Rs. 10,999. It features a 5.5-inch HD screen, octa-core Snapdragon 435 chipset, 13-megapixel rear camera, 16-megapixel front camera with selfie flash, and 3080mAh battery. Redmi Y1 Lite is priced at Rs. 6,999, and has a 5.5-inch HD panel, octa-core Snapdragon 425 SoC, 13-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front camera, and 3080mAh battery.

Flipkart hosting sale on mobiles and other electronics begins
Flipkart today started a sale on mobile phones, laptops, audio products and other electronics, which will continue till November 11. Named The Grand Gadget Days, the Flipkart sale will include flat discounts across electronics, as well as no-cost EMIs, additional discounts on online payments. There will also be exchange offers and buyback guarantees on select products as part of the sale. Among the top deals are the discounts on Honor 6X, Samsung Galaxy On Nxt, Casio Smart Outdoor smartwatch, Bose SoundLink wireless headphones, etc.

Incidentally, today was also the last of the Samsung Mobiles Fest on Flipkart, where the e-commerce brand is providing steep discounts on phones such as Galaxy S7, Galaxy On5, Galaxy On7 and Galaxy C9 Pro, among others.

Apple rumoured to launch 2 iPhone X models in 2018
While the iPhone X rollout has just begun, there are already talks of its successors. According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will release two iPhone X models with upgraded OLED displays and stainless steel frames next year; the addition of more steel in the handsets may result in design changes on the handset. On the other hand, the TrueDepth camera on the back will apparently be retained to the next-generation iPhone X models, even as other hardware upgrades are incorporated.

In other Apple news, the company announced that the iPhone X will go on sale in South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, 11 other markets on November 23, while Israel gets the handset a day earlier. This will represent the second wave of iPhone X release, after the initial rollout on November 3.

Asus ZenFone 3 Max gets a price cut in India
The Asus ZenFone 3 Max (ZC520TL) smartphone received a Rs. 1,000 price cut in India, bringing the handset’s price down to Rs. 9,999. This price cut is effective across all major e-commerce websites, such as Flipkart and Amazon, as well as on offline retail stores. The Android Nougat-based ZenFone 3 Max smartphone sports a 5.2-inch HD screen, 1.25GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737T chipset, 3GB of RAM, 13-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front camera, 32GB storage, up to 32GB microSD card support, and 4100mAh battery.

PayPal starts India operations, ties up with local e-commerce sites
With the digital payments ecosystem in India on the growth path, PayPal has launched its operations in India. Now Internet users will be able to use PayPal accounts to pay for goods on e-commerce sites. The company has also tied up with the government and public sector banks over initiatives such as eTourist Visa, and digital financial literacy programme. Before this, people in India could use PayPal only for international transactions.

Samsung Pay gets 1 million users in one and a half months
Samsung Pay, the South Korean titan’s mobile payments service, has amassed 1 million users over the past month and a half. Before this, the company had claimed a user base of 1.5 million for the service, which is available on 26 devices. These include Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy J7 Max, and Galaxy J7 Pro. India now is the third biggest market for Samsung Pay, after South Korea and Russia.

Twitter raises character limit to 280 for almost all users
The character limit for tweets has increased to 280 characters for nearly all users roughly a month and a half after Twitter said it will begin rolling out the feature. The new limit is double the 140-character cap on tweets imposed on users since the social media brand started operations. This new 280-character limit will be extended to all languages except Japanese, Korean, and Chinese; the three have been exempt as space constraints have not been an issue with them, Twitter says. The company’s co-founder Biz Stone said longer tweets resulted in more engagement in its tests.

iOS 11 adoption rate slower than predecessors, Apple Pay Cash beta now available
iOS 11 adoption has been slow compared to previous updates to Apple’s mobile OS. The latest version of iOS is presently installed on 52 percent of compatible devices, over 45 days after it was released. On the other hand, iOS 9 was on 50 percent devices in just four days, while iOS 10 was on 54 percent devices in less than a month of its launch. Since the rollout of iOS 11, the previous version of the software is now only on 38 percent of compatible devices, down from 60 percent in October.

But all’s not going bad for iOS 11, as the new iOS 11.2 developer preview has introduced Apple Pay Cash as a beta feature in the US; it has also been released for watchOS 4.2. Apple Pay Cash is a service that lets users transfer payments to each other directly via iMessage. Users will need to have iPhone SE, iPhone 6 and above, iPad Pro, iPad (fifth generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3 and above, and all Apple Watch versions for the feature to work.

Facebook wants users’ nude photos to combat revenge porn
Facebook is piloting a new way to combat revenge porn on both Instagram and Facebook – by asking users to share their nude images. Once an image is uploaded on a user’s Messenger account, the world’s biggest social media company will create its digital fingerprint or link using AI and other photo-matching technologies. This way, it will not save the image itself but its digital fingerprint, and when someone tries to upload an image with the same hash, it will not be uploaded. The programme is currently being tested in Australia and three other countries.

New Uber CEO pushes for cultural revamp
Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has urged the employees “to do the right thing” as part of a push to bring about a change in the controversry-riddled startup. He said in a note to employees that the company is moving to an era of responsible growth, and said “We will put integrity at the core of our decisions.” He said that the Uber practice “toe-stepping” was meant to let employees have their say on matters irrespective of their position in the company, but was “too often used as an excuse for being an asshole.” The company’s cutthroat, burnout culture under founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick was credited for fueling sexism, discrimination, harassment, and questionable business tactics. Khosrowshahi, on the other hand, has called for celebrating diverse backgrounds.

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Further reading: Xiaomi Redmi Y1, Xiaomi Redmi Y1 Lite, Flipkart, iPhone X, Asus ZenFone 3 Max, PayPal, Samsung Pay, Twitter, iOS 11, Facebook, Revenge Porn, Uber