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The two stores were launched in China just six months ago, after obtaining regulatory approval from the government. But now, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, demanded these services would be shut down immediately, The New York Times reports.
Apple has confirmed the decision. “We hope to make books and movies available again to our customers in China as soon as possible,” a spokesperson said.
As the Times explains, the move isn’t necessarily surprising for China, which seeks not only to promote local businesses over foreign, especially U.S.-based ones but also to control the kind of content its citizens can access. So far, this policy did not affect Apple’s growth in the country or its operations. But it looks like Apple won’t be an exception any longer, as regulators may intensify scrutiny into Apple’s business.
“They are interested in protecting the content that the Chinese people see, policing its national security and favoring indigenous giants such as Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent,” New-York based advisory firm Rhodium Group’s founding partner Daniel H. Rosen told the Times. “[China] is strongly disinclined to accept the dominance of foreign players on the Internet, not least those from the United States.”
According to local media, President Xi Jinping of China conducted a meeting on Tuesday on the country’s Internet policies. Leaders from Alibaba and Huawei were present.
“China must improve management of cyberspace and work to ensure high-quality content with positive voices creating a healthy, positive culture that is a force for good,” he said, according to news service Xinhua.
Chinese customers spent $59 billion on Apple products last year, the Times reports, with the iPhone being a hit product in the country. This explains why China is so important for the company. Reduced access to Apple’s online services, including movies and books, might pose a problem, especially if China decides to ban other iTunes products in the region.
Source : http://bgr.com
Libellés :
Crossy Road on Android has got a fun little update that a lot of you should appreciate. The game now supports local multiplayer.
Now, up to four people can join in the same game over a local Wi-Fi network and play against each other. The one who goes the farthest wins. The gameplay is similar to that on the Apple TV version, where you can push other players into traffic or water, and even block them from moving, which makes this a bit more fun than just moving forward.
The multiplayer is only available on Android for now. Unfortunately, it does not work over Bluetooth, so you have to be connected to a common Wi-Fi network. Other than that, this is a fun new addition and a great way to inject some life into a familiar game.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
First details regarding of the upcoming 3rd generation Moto E have surfaced thanks to import documents on Zauba. Codenamed "Affinity", the phone is listed to have a 5" display and a price of just $78.
While it's clear that this price isn't the device's retail one, it's an indication that the "Affinity" is a low-budget device. The current Moto E (2nd gen) sports a 4.5" display, so the upcoming model will presumably grow in size.
Presumably, the Moto E (3rd gen) will be larger in order to accommodate a fingerprint scanner. As a Lenovo exec said earlier in January, all 2016 Moto devices will have fingerprint scanners. Hopefully, the latest Moto E won't be an exception.
Recent information suggests that Motorola prepares to announce the Moto G5 and G4 Plus on June 9. We wouldn't be surprised if the Moto E (3rd gen) too gets a place under the spotlights then.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
Xiaomi has announced that it will launch its own mobile payments service. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer - which is the biggest player in its home market - will partner with the country's national bank card association China UnionPay for the service.
According to the company's CEO Lei Jun, Xiaomi Pay - or whatever it will be called - will be a Near Field Communication (NFC)-based mobile payments solution, just like Apple Pay.
Currently, the Chinese mobile payments market is dominated by local players such as Alibaba and Tencent. Another well known Chinese smartphone vendor Huawei, as well as international companies like Apple and Samsung have also already launched their payments services in the world's biggest smartphone market.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
Microsoft has released its Q3 fiscal 2016 earnings report, revealing that it sold only 2.3 million Lumia phones in the quarter.
The figure is down 73% compared to the same quarter last year, when the Redmond, Washington-based company sold a total of 8.6 million Lumias. Compared to last quarter, when the company sold 4.5 million Lumia units, the number is down around 50%.
Microsoft also revealed that the sales of non-Lumia units stood at 15.7 million units, down from the 24.7 million figure it reported the same time last year. Talking of phone revenue, it was down $662 million, which is a drop of 47% year-on-year.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
Huawei's sub-brand Honor has announced that its 5X smartphone will start getting the Android Marshmallow update soon, although no specific date was revealed. The announcement came in the form of a tweet from the brand's US Twitter handle.
Running Android 5.1 Lollipop, the Honor 5X launched in the United States back in January this year, carrying a $200 price tag. It has been available in gold, silver, and grey color options from HiHonor, Amazon and Newegg.
The device landed in Europe just a few days after its US launch. There, it was priced at £189.99, €229.99, or CHF 229.90, depending on the region/country.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
In an effort to further improve its service, Facebook has yet again updated it News Feed ranking algorithm. The social networking company says that the algorithm will now also take into account the amount of time users spend reading/watching stuff they click from their News Feeds.
"We are adding another factor to News Feed ranking so that we will now predict how long you spend looking at an article in the Facebook mobile browser or an Instant Article after you have clicked through from News Feed," Facebook said in a press release.
"We will not be counting loading time towards this — we will be taking into account time spent reading and watching once the content has fully loaded. We will also be looking at the time spent within a threshold so as not to accidentally treat longer articles preferentially."
The update has started rolling out, with the company saying that the process will take a few weeks to complete.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
Xiaomi has announced that its Redmi Note 3 smartphone will be available for purchase in India without any registrations next week - the open sale will kick start on April 27 at 2PM.
The announcement came in the form of tweet from the Chinese company's India unit. The tweet contains a link to mi.com/in, suggesting that the open sale will only be hosted on Xiaomi's India website.
As for the device, it was launched in India last month, and has only been made available through flash sales until now. It's powered by Snapdragon 650 SoC, sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display, and comes in 2GB/16GB and 3GB/32GB memory configurations, with the former costing INR 9,999 ($150) and the latter setting you back INR 11,999 ($180).
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
Samsung has started pushing out a minor update to its latest flagship smartphones - the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge - in India. Weighing in at 1.06MB, the update includes some bug-fixes as well as stability and performance-related improvements.
This update to the latest Galaxy phones follows the one that the South Korean company started pushing out earlier last week, bringing touch and stability-related improvements as well as shape correction for skewed photos and latest Android security patch.
Given that this new bug-fixing update has just started rolling out, it may take sometime before it hits your handset. Meanwhile, if you're feeling impatient, you can head to the Settings menu on your device to check for it manually.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
Sprint has started rolling out Marshmallow update to Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy S5 Sport units on its network. The update brings Android version 6.0 to both devices.
The Note Edge update also includes latest Android security patches as well as some other bug fixes. The updates are being rolled out in phases, with the Note Edge process completing on May 2 and the S5 Sport process wrapping up on May 11.
In case you haven't received the update notification yet, you can also manually check for the update by heading to the Settings menu on your handset.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/
If you enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it came out in theaters last December, chances are good that you picked up either the Blu-ray or the Digital HD version of the film when it came out earlier this month.
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Unfortunately, despite all of the deleted scenes and bonus features on the home release, there’s no commentary to speak of, which is why Will Sasso of Mad TV fame decided to provide a track of his own on Instagram this week.
Oh, and he did the track as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Sasso, who might be best known at the moment for his Ten Minute Podcast, has always been an outstanding impersonator. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of his best known characters, making regular appearances on his Vine and Instagram account, as well as a guest on his podcast.
Why exactly we needed a Schwarzenegger commentary track for The Force Awakens I’ll never know, but now that we have it, I never want it to go away. You can watch the short video below, but there’s some NSFW language, so you might want to put on a pair of headphones before you start watching:
Hopefully we’ll get more commentary after Rogue One launches later this year.
Source : http://bgr.com
While there’s no denying that Tesla’s vehicles are forward-thinking and beloved by multitudes of owners, there’s also no denying that early production models of Tesla vehicles tend to have more than their fair share of kinks and usability issues. We saw it previously with the Model S and now we’re starting to see an increasing number of reports detailing problems with early production models of the Model X.
Following up on a Consumer Reports piece which lambasted the Model X for having one too many usability issues, Fortune highlights an early Model X owner whose experience with Tesla’s crossover SUV has been nothing short of an exercise in frustration.
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Meet Byron Deeter, a venture capitalist with an apparent affinity for EVs. As one of the first owners to get behind the wheel of Tesla’s Model X, Deeter was more than willing to put up with a few minor frustrations here and there. And with good reason, most early adopters are reasonable enough to realize that sometimes the price one pays for getting in on the ground floor are a few kinks that still haven’t been ironed out.
Unfortunately, Deeter soon discovered that the kinks that came with his Model X were a bit more serious than he could have ever anticipated.
Deeter’s first problem was that the driver’s door wouldn’t open from the outside, prompting him to first open the passenger door and then reach across. Then the driver’s side door wouldn’t close.
“I could manually close it, but the car couldn’t sense that the door was shut, so the electric control wouldn’t latch,” says Deeter. “Yesterday, I literally drove to a meeting holding the door closed.”
Deeter later power-cycled the system, which cured the problem until he got back in the Model X this morning. He resigned himself to another day of driving with one hand on the driver’s side door, but as he backed out of his driveway, the emergency brake kept automatically engaging. He’d drive a few feet, be forced to stop, put the car in park and then reverse … before the entire thing began again. And, to make things even worse, the driver’s side window would no longer close all the way.
As Deeter explains it, the problems with his Model X quickly transitioned from minor frustrations to legitimate safety problems.
“It’s definitely a reminder that quality control with human mobility and safety is critical,” Deeter said to TechCrunch. “In this case, Tesla did push out some software and maybe some hardware that wasn’t quite ready for prime time.”
In a statement on the matter provided to TechCrunch, Tesla said they remain committed to fixing problems as quickly as they can.
“We are committed to making the world’s most reliable cars,” Tesla said. “While we have seen some issues with early Model X builds, the issues are not widespread, and we are working closely with each owner to respond quickly and proactively to address any problems. We will continue to do so until each customer is fully satisfied. This commitment is one of the reasons why 98% of our customers say they will buy another Tesla as their next car.”
Indeed, that’s perhaps the most interesting tidbit to take away from this saga: no matter what problems appear to plague Tesla vehicles, Tesla owners, by and large, never seem to regret their purchase.
Source : http://bgr.com
Lots of us have ridden on planes before, but how many of us could really explain how airplanes lift themselves off the ground and stay in the air? Well don’t worry, because a neat animation explains everything you need to know about what makes a plane take off and maintain altitude for hours at a time before landing.
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If you’re familiar with the intricacies of flying, you’ve probably heard the terms drag, thrust, lift, weight, pitch, yaw, and many others. But do you understand how they work?
A YouTube clip posted by the Rocket Science channel that’s just over six minutes long explains these concepts, and they show how they affect every stage of a flight, from take-off to turning and stabilizing the aircraft once it’s in the air to landing. It’s all pretty simply laid out, and it doesn’t sound like rocket science – pun intended.
Check out the full clip below.
Source : http://bgr.com
Early on, it was believed that the FBI paid upwards of $15,000 for a software hack that enabled them to access data housed on the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists. However, recent remarks from FBI Director James Comey reveal that the FBI likely paid a whole lot more.
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While speaking at a security conference in London on Thursday, Comey was flat-out asked how much the FBI paid for the specialized hack it acquired from a mysterious and still unnamed company. While not divulging a specific figure, Comey provided enough information to suggest that the FBI paid well over $1 million for the hack in question.
News of Comey’s remarks were first reported by NBC News earlier today.
Asked Thursday at a security conference in London how much the FBI paid for the tool that cracked Syed Farook’s phone and ended a California court battle with Apple, Comey said, “A lot, more than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months, for sure.”
The FBI director is paid about $180,000 a year. So multiplying that by 7.3 years yields a figure of about $1.3 million. FBI officials were not immediately available to confirm the figure.
Notably, we’ve yet to learn how the FBI ultimately accessed the iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. Nonetheless, the FBI, in subsequent weeks, has been more than willing to provide their assistance to other law enforcement agencies seeking to access locked iPhones.
Now as for what the FBI unearthed once they gained unfettered access to Farook’s phone, reports indicate that nothing relevant was found. As the story goes, the FBI had an 18-minute gap in their timeline of Farook and his wife’s activities and they needed access to the iPhone to ensure that no third-party individuals were contacted.
All the same, Comey said that the high price the FBI paid for the iPhone hack “was in my view worth it.”
Source : http://bgr.com
The unprecedented demand for Tesla’s Model 3 is the automotive world’s biggest story this year. In short, Tesla has now received 400,000 reservations for a car that most people won’t be able to drive for at least another two years. This has spooked other car companies that no longer see Tesla as a joke and that are now scrambling to get their own all-electric vehicles onto the market.
All of this has led many to compare the Model 3 to Apple’s first iPhone — that is, it’s something that fundamentally changes people’s expectations for what they want from a product. Despite this, there are still a lot of questions about whether Tesla can really deliver.
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Even though Tesla’s Model S has proven to be a hit with both its owners and with professional critics, Tesla owners do have gripes about the cars’ fit and finish, as well as some of Tesla’s design choices. More troubling, however, is that early impressions of Tesla’s Model X haven’t been nearly as positive and Tesla recently had to recall its shipped Model X SUVs because of a design flaw in the form of a faulty locking hinge on the last row of seats.
Given that Tesla is having these kinds of issues on cars that it’s producing on a small scale, it’s fair to ask whether Tesla will be able to ensure quality when it starts trying to fulfill the 400,000 reservations that have been made for the Model 3.
Bloomberg has posted a chart that shows just how often Tesla has delayed its shipments and it’s not a pretty picture:
Again: Tesla has experienced big problems with delays despite the fact that it hasn’t been making a lot of cars. How is it going to handle such a rapid expansion?
The question here isn’t whether Tesla has disrupted the car market and has forced manufacturers to embrace all-electric vehicles, because it clearly has. The question is if Tesla can fulfill its immense promise and stay ahead of what is going to be truly formidable competition.
Source : http://bgr.com
If you use an Android device and you aren’t happy with the phone’s default notification system, you can either wait for Android N to further improve it or install Nevolution right now. Currently in beta, Nevolution wants to improve notifications beyond what’s currently available from your average Android app by taking advantage of everything Google has to offer.
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The app lets you change the order notifications appear on the screen, and even bundle the notifications together so they take up less space. Furthermore, Nevolution lets you turn off heads-up alerts if you want.
The app also wants to make everything look good in the processes, and there are various notification modes to make the most of your available screen real estate. You can choose to view more text from each notification and as Gizmodo noted, there’s an awesome Elastic List mode that adapts to the available display space.
The modes can be activated and deactivated at will, depending of your preferences. Users can even customize notifications for chat apps like WhatsApp and WeChat — for example, WhatsApp might get one notification per conversion while WeChat notifications let you peek at every new message as new notifications arrive.
Nevolution definitely improves your notifications experience on Android, but let’s not forget that Google is also making several big changes to the notifications system in Android N that cover both functionality and the user interface. As a result, Nevolution might be just a stopgap solution until Android N rolls out. Ars Technica has a great rundown of the new notifications features coming to Android N.
As for Nevolution, a video showing the app in action follows below and the beta is available right now from the Play Store for free. Mind you, some bugs are to be expected and the app only works with Android 4.3 or later.
Source : http://bgr.com
T-Mobile loves to brand itself the “Un-carrier” but a new lawsuit alleges that it’s doing something very carrier-esque by charging customers sneaky early termination fees despite the fact that they never signed onto any service agreements. Per Top Class Actions, the suit is alleging that while “T-Mobile attracts customers by touting ‘no contract’ cell phone service plans without any hidden fees,” the company actually “has a practice of unlawfully seeking the entire amount under the device contract as immediately due” whenever a customer leaves T-Mobile early.
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This has actually always been the case with T-Mobile ever since it announced that it would ditch two-year service agreements. If you buy a device through T-Mobile, you have the choice to either pay for it outright or to pay for it in monthly installments over the span of a couple of years. So while T-Mobile isn’t going to charge you any fees if you leave their service if you’ve already paid off the cost of the device, you will have to pay off the cost of the device in its entirety if you leave before you’ve paid it off.
“When T-Mobile attempts to recover the entire accelerated amount, it knows it has no right to seek this amount,” the class action suit alleges. “Thus, T-Mobile has a practice of illegally accelerating contracts and attempting to collect illegal charges from consumers that are not owed.”
Whether this suit is successful may come down to how well T-Mobile has covered its bases in its device purchase agreements. If T-Mobile explicitly tells device buyers that they’ll have to pay off the entirety of the device immediately if they leave T-Mobile before paying off their installments, it will be tough to see how this is all that deceptive.
Then again, this lawsuit is alleging T-Mobile has specifically violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, so a case could also hinge on whether T-Mobile’s marketing has deceived consumers into thinking its ditched all contracts when in reality it’s just ditched all service contracts.
BGR reached out to T-Mobile and the “Un-carrier” declined to comment.
Source : http://bgr.com
In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 26th birthday, NASA astronomers have highlighted an image of a massive star blowing a bubble into space. The Bubble Nebula, as it is known, sits 7,100 light-years from Earth.
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“As Hubble makes its 26th revolution around our home star, the sun, we celebrate the event with a spectacular image of a dynamic and exciting interaction of a young star with its environment. The view of the Bubble Nebula, crafted from WFC-3 images, reminds us that Hubble gives us a front row seat to the awe inspiring universe we live in,” said John Grunsfeld, Hubble astronaut.
NASA says that the star forming the Bubble Nebula is 45 larger than our own sun. Gas on the star gets hot enough that it can fly into space at over 4 million miles per hour, sweeping up cold gas in front of it and forming a bubble.
Although the nebula was originally discovered by William Herschel in 1787, the Hubble Telescope was able to photograph it “with unprecedented clarity” in February of this year. The blue you see in the image above (and the video below) corresponds to oxygen, the green to hydrogen and red to nitrogen.
You can see a video representation of the aforementioned stellar bubble in the video below:
Source : http://bgr.com
It’s time to stop watching everyone else have all the fun with quadcopter drones and get one of your own. And what’s the only thing better than one drone? That’s right, an entire army of drones just waiting to do your bidding. Different quadcopter models have different features, so real drone fans will always have multiple models. And thanks to all the killer Amazon deals on quadcopters, you can build your drone army without breaking the bank.
Below you’ll find five drone models that are trending right now on Amazon, and they start at just $29.95 with free Prime shipping. The models below are all great but if you want to check out even more drone options, here’s Amazon’s page of its best-selling quadcopter drones.
Estes Proto X Nano R/C Quadcopter, Red: $29.95 with free Prime shipping
Estes Proto X Nano R/C Quadcopter, Black: $29.95 with free Prime shipping
Dromida Ominus UAV Quadcopter RTF, Green: $59.98 with free shipping (select price from “other sellers”)
Dromida Ominus UAV Quadcopter RTF, Red/White: $53.99 with free Prime shipping
Traxxas 6608 LaTrax Alias Quad-Rotor Ready-To-Fly Helicopter: $99.95 with free Prime shipping
Follow @BGRDeals on Twitter to keep up with the latest and greatest deals we find around the web
Source : http://bgr.com
Yesterday Huawei started teasing the launch of its next Honor-branded device. The Honor V8 will become official at an event on May 10, and it will emulate the dual-camera setup of the recently unveiled P9. This will consist of two 12 MP units. The Honor V8 has also been rumored to come with the Kirin 950 chipset, 4GB of RAM, and a fingerprint sensor. Today rumors out of China paint a clearer picture.
The handset will apparently have a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, an 8 MP selfie camera, a 3,000 mAh battery, and a USB Type-C port. Its price in China should be around CNY 2,000, which at the current exchange rates means $308 or €273.
Finally, from the same Chinese sources comes news that an Honor 8i will be unveiled at the same event. This will be the successor to the Honor 7i from last year, and it will allegedly keep the unique flip camera design of its predecessor, while still being aimed at women.
Source : www.gsmarena.com/