New Moto G4 Plus render leaks, shows off the complete device

Last week, Evan Blass - who goes by the Twitter handle @evleaks - shared an image alleged to be of the Motorola Moto G4 Plus. The image, however, revealed only the bottom portion of the device's front-panel.

Now, the leakster has shared another image of the handset, and this time it shows off the complete front as well as back of the device.

The image reveals a square-shaped fingerprint sensor on the front, and a camera setup (including an apparent laser autofocus module) with vertical strip design on the back. Sadly, nothing else - including specs, pricing, and availability - is currently known about the device.

This comes just a few days after similar looking images alleged to be of the fourth-generation Moto G leaked online.

Dual-camera sporting Honor V8 to be unveiled next month

Huawei's sub-brand Honor will launch a new smartphone next month. The Chinese company released an official teaser image confirming that a device named V8 will be unveiled on May 10.

While nothing else was explicitly revealed by the company, the teaser image does indicate that the handset will sport a dual camera setup. As for the other specs, rumors say the Honor V8 will be powered by the home-grown Kirin 950 chipset, while RAM will be 4GB.

The camera department is said to be handled by two 12MP units similar to the way it is in the case of the Huawei P9, but sans Leica lens. The device is also rumored to come with a fingerprint sensor with payment authentication capabilities.

New 'Pink Gold' color variant of Galaxy S7 and S7 edge launched

Samsung has launched a new Pink Gold color variant of its newest flagships - the Galaxy S7and S7 edge. The new color has been released today in Samsung's home country of South Korea, with the company saying that it will soon be available in select other markets as well.

"Pink Gold was chosen as it, like the other colors available for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, is a natural color that provides a sense of comfort," Samsung said in a blog post. "These hues glitter and shimmer as if illuminated from inside their glass surfaces."

In case you aren't in the know, both the flagship smartphones are already available in Black Onyx, Gold Platinum, White Pearl, and Silver Titanium color options.

Moto G (4th gen) now leaks in hands-on video

Yesterday we saw some leaked images depicting Motorola's upcoming 4th generation Moto G, and today the device has leaked yet again. This time around however we're treated to a brief hands-on video of the handset.

The video does a good job of showing us all of the new Moto G's angles, but one thing is missing in this representation of the phone - the fingerprint scanner that we saw on the front in yesterday's shots.

Otherwise though, the design is identical, so we assume that the prototype in the video is simply an earlier iteration of the device, and the fingerprint reader was only added in a more recent incarnation.

The new Moto G will have a slight camera bump, and its power and volume buttons will all be on the right side. The earpiece seems to double as a speaker, and the back of the phone will probably be removable.

Other details aren't available at the moment, so we'll have to wait for some more leaks to pop up in order to find out anything about the new Moto G's internals, or when it will be released and how much it will cost.

Sony Xperia X Premium reportedly coming with HDR display

This February Sony bid farewell to its Z line of smartphones as it introduced the new Xperia X,Xperia X Performance, and Xperia XA. And now it seems like a new member will be added to the X family at some point in the near future.

We're talking about the Xperia X Premium, which according to a new rumor is going to be the successor to the Z5 Premium from last year. That particular device was the first smartphone to sport a display capable of showing 4K content, and if this report is accurate then the X Premium's main differentiator will be the screen too.

Namely, it's said to come with an HDR display, something that would be a first for the mobile world (but is becoming more and more widespread in TVs). This will allegedly mean it will be capable of displaying 1.07 billion colors, compared to the 16.8 million color depth of every other high-end device out there.

The Xperia X Premium is also apparently going to feature 120Hz refresh rate, 2,000:1 contrast ratio, and it will have the brightest display panel ever put into a phone. It will offer 1,000 nits of "white brightness" and could actually go up to a whopping 1,300 nits, which is more than twice as much as the 539 nits the Samsung Galaxy S7 can achieve.

The upcoming handset should be powered by the Snapdragon 820 chip from Qualcomm, aided by 3GB of RAM. It will have a USB Type-C connector. It is however unclear when it will launch.

Marshmallow for Samsung Galaxy S5 to be more widely available as update starts hitting model SM-G900F

Nearly a month after Samsung started rolling out the Marshmallow update to the Galaxy S5, the most widely available model (SM-G900F) of the South Korean company's 2014 flagship has begun receiving the update.

Currently, the update - which brings Marshmallow version 6.0.1 - is hitting units in SriLanka, with European and other SM-G900Fs likely to get it soon.

Given that the roll-out has just begun, it may take some time for the update to hit your Galaxy S5. However, if you're feeling impatient, you can manually check for it by heading to theSettings menu on your device.

IHS: Xiaomi shipped 14.8 million phones in Q1 2016

According to IHS Technology's analyst Kevin Wang, Xiaomi has managed to sell 14.8 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2016. This number includes sales outside China as well.

For the same period last year, the company managed to ship roughly the same number of phones - 14.98 million. While it's certainly not the growth the company hoped for, it's not too shabby either. In 2015, Xiaomi sold 70 million units and didn't meet its own expectations of 80 million units.

Xiaomi started 2016 on a strong note with the Mi 5 and the Redmi 3 Pro. The 6.4" Xiaomi Maxis also expected to be an interesting addition to the company's product lineup.

4K PlayStation 4 codenamed 'NEO', is very much real

There have been rumors of a 4K capable PlayStation 4 for a while now. According to sources at Giant Bomb, the console is very much real, and is codenamed NEO.

The main differences between the current PS4 and the NEO is the higher CPU and GPU clock speed and higher memory bandwidth. The other specifications are seemingly the same. The 8-core Jaguar CPU will be clocked ay 2.1GHz instead of 1.6GHz, the the AMD GPU gets double the compute units ay 36 at 911MHz, and the 8GB GDDR5 gets bandwidth boost from 176GB/s to 218GB/s.

Sony requires the game developers to make every game for both, the current PS4 and the NEO. The NEO will not get any special games, nor any special content of any kind, creating complete content and feature parity among both generations. Games releasing starting October this year will require to be developed for both consoles.

The games are not required to be in 4K but will feature improved visuals and improved framerates, the latter being something Sony is bullish about.

Sony will be selling the NEO alongside the current PS4, which should see a price drop and be sort of a base model. $399 seems to be the alleged price tag but we will have to wait for further clarity on that, along with release date. We expect to hear a lot more about this at E3 later this year.

Second-gen Google Chromecast and Chromecast Audio launched in India for $50

Google has launched the second-gen Chromecast as well as the new Chromecast Audio dongles in India. The devices - which were unveiled back in September last year - are currently listed on the company's India website carrying a price tag of INR 3,399 each, which translates into around $50 at current exchange rates.

Clicking the 'Buy' button on the official site gives you an option to purchase the dongles from third party online-only retailers including Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Paytm, as well physical retailers such as Reliance and Croma.

The Mountain View, California-based company is throwing in some freebies as well - those purchasing either of the device will also get free 6 month subscriptions of Saavn Pro and Hooq services. Head over to the Source link below for more information.

Samsung Pay coming to Singapore this quarter

Samsung has announced that its mobile payments service - Samsung Pay - will be launched in Singapore in the second quarter of this year (which has already begun), making the city-state the first market in Southeast Asia where the service will be available.

"We are extremely excited that Singapore is the first market in Southeast Asia to roll out Samsung Pay," said Injong Rhee, EVP and Head of R&D, Software and Services of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. "Singapore’s connectivity and openness are ideal conditions for our new mobile service to thrive, together with the interest and readiness of consumers here in adopting this new method of payment.”

Already available in the US, South Korea, and China, Samsung Pay will be launched in Singapore in partnership with major payment networks including MasterCard and Visa, and major banks including DBS/POSB, OCBC Bank, and Standard Chartered. As for the supported devices, the list currently includes the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy S7, and S7 edge.

13-inch MacBook Air gets 8GB RAM as standard

Apple upgraded it's new MacBook yesterday with faster Skylake processors, bigger battery, and a new rose gold color, but there's also something for those looking to buy the more versatile MacBook Air.

The 13-inch model now comes with 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 memory as standard.

Back when the machine was updated in mid-2015, the 13-inch model always came with 4GB RAM as standard on all models, with 8GB being an option that you had to choose while purchasing from the Apple Store. Not only is 4GB too less now to be a worthwhile option, it could also not be upgraded in countries that don't have the Apple online store and of course it's not user upgradeable.

With this update, the 13-inch MacBook Air is finally in the year 2016. Unfortunately, the 11-inch model is still stuck with 4GB as standard.

Google releases Annual Security Report, harmful app installs have drastically dropped

Google has been cracking down on potentially harmful apps being installed from the Play Store, so much so that currently, as of Google’s latest security report, only 0.15% of Android devices have been able to successfully install PHAs or potentially harmful apps.

Google first started the initiative in which several OEMs became participants in. Stagefright was the first real security problem that faced Android since the beginning of the Android Platform. The vulnerability took advantage of a bug present in the method used to preview multi-media messages received through an SMS app.

Google’s report also says that the number of PHAs that made it onto the Play Store have decreased over 40% when compared to 2014. Individual categories of PHAs have been outline as well. Data Collection PHAs have gone down to 0.08% of installs, spyware is at 0.02% of installs, and Hostile Downloaders have decreased to only 0.01% of total app installations.

Reminder that these installations are ONLY from the Play Store. So if you’ve got some third-party app installer, or you’re installing APKs from all over the place, you could be at risk for malware and harmful app activity.

Google’s Verify Apps service also protects users from installing PHAs outside of the Google Play Store. Google has significantly improved the security in Android devices since this time last year. Google’s implementations have been helping to check over 6 billion installed applications every day, they scan 400 million devices every day, and they’ve protected hundreds of millions of Android users surfing the web with Chrome with Safe Browsing.