Xiaomi to launch its own mobile payments service in China

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.

Facebook will now also take account of time users spend reading stuff clicked from News Feed

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.

Amazon Kindle Fire 7 gets three new colors, 16GB version for $69.99

Amazon is upgrading its most basic Kindle Fire tablet today, if ever so slightly. The 7-inch device now gets three additional color versions you can pick from when buying one. Aside from the existing black model, it's now also being offered in blue, magenta, and tangerine hues.

What's more, a new iteration with 16GB of built-in storage has been revealed. The 8GB model will stay on sale for $49.99, while the new SKU with double the storage is priced at $69.99.

Everything else about the tablet has remained the same. This is still one of the cheapest slates out there, but do keep in mind that it runs Fire OS, Amazon's forked version of Android.

The Kindle Fire has a 7-inch 1,024x600 touchscreen, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, a 2 MP rear camera, a VGA front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, and a microSD card slot.

Acer outs Predator 17X gaming laptop, Predator G1 gaming desktop

Gamers haven't been forgotten at Acer's event today. Specially for them, the Taiwanese company unveiled two new computers.

First off, the Predator 17X laptop, one that can be used with both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive VR headsets. It comes with a 17.3-inch screen that can go up to 4K resolution. If you go nuts with the configuration options, you can also choose an Intel Core i7-6820HK processor, 64GB of DDR4 RAM, and three SSDs in RAID 0. You get customizable RGB lighting for the keyboard, and the device has the full Nvidia GTX 980 graphics card, and not the 980M as you'd expect to see in a laptop.

It has a triple fan cooling system, and it obviously supports overclocking. The Predator 17X weighs a whopping 4.5kg and it has 3-hour battery life. It will launch in China first in May, and will reach Europe and North America in June. Pricing will start at $2,799.

Next up, the Predator G1 desktop is billed as "portable", though you probably won't be taking it on road trips with you. It can be configured with up to a 6th gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 64GB of RAM, Nvidia Titan X graphics, and a 512GB SSD + a 4TB HDD.

The G1 is ready for your VR experience of choice, naturally so given the specs. It will be priced from $2,299. It will be out in Europe in June, and in North America and China in July.

Acer says its new Chromebook 14 for Work is the fastest eve

New Windows-powered 2-in-1s and laptops aren't everything that Acer has announced at its event today. Also present was the new Acer Chromebook 14 for Work, a device which the Taiwanese company claims is the fastest Chromebook on the market.

That's seriously doubtful given the specs of Google's newest Chromebook Pixel, but Acer seems to believe in what it says. The odd thing is that the company hasn't actually revealed the detailed spec list for the new Chromebook, so we can't really assess these claims.

All Acer's willing to disclose about the Chromebook 14 for Work is that it features 12-hour battery life, an Intel Core i processor, and that it has a spill-resistant keyboard and overall rugged design which complies with military specs and lets you drop the laptop from 45cm without worry. It can also withstand up to 60kg of weight being placed on top of it.

The Chromebook 14 for Work is the first laptop to use Corning's new Vibrant Gorilla Glass, which can be customized with various images. This is also Acer's first model to be compliant with Google's Chrome for Work program. The laptop is probably only going to be sold through enterprise channels. Pricing and availability information hasn't been announced yet.

Acer Aspire S 13 wants to take on the MacBook Air and Dell's XPS 13

At its grand event today, Acer has announced the Aspire S 13, a new laptop that wants to compete with the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air, but also Dell's XPS 13. And it wants to do all that while being significantly cheaper than its competitors.

The Aspire S 13 will have a 13.3-inch Full HD IPS display, which can optionally be touch-enabled. You can configure it with up to 8GB of RAM as well as up to a 512GB SSD, and an optional battery will make it allegedly last a whopping 13 hours on a charge (the default power pack only nets you 9 hours of usage). Powering the thing are Intel's 6th generation Core processors (you can choose between i3, i5, and i7), and it will have a USB Type-C port, two 'normal' USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, and an SD card slot.

It will be offered in Obsidian Black or Pearl White, when it goes on sale in May starting at $699. The Aspire S 13 weighs just 1.4kg and it's 14.4mm thin.

Acer unveils Switch Alpha 12 detachable PC with liquid cooling

Acer is holding a pretty big event today, and one of the things it's announced is the Switch Alpha 12, a "detachable PC" as the Taiwanese company calls it. It's a 2-in-1 device that can be used either as a tablet or as a laptop, and it runs Windows 10 as you'd expect.

The Switch Alpha 12 has a 12-inch 2,160x1,440 touchscreen, and it's powered by 6th generation Intel Core processors (a choice of i3, i5, or i7). You can configure it with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, as well as Intel's RealSense 3D camera.

The device is fanless despite using proper i-series chips from Intel, and that's because it features a newly designed liquid cooling system to keep its innards at the required temperature.

It has a built-in kickstand (as can be seen in the promotional images), and the keyboard will be bundled with it, so no need to pay extra for that. Optionally you'll be able to pick up the Acer Active Pen stylus with 256 levels of pressure supported. The whole Switch Alpha 12 (including keyboard) weighs only 1.25kg.

The Acer Switch Alpha 12 will start at $599, and should become available in June.

Watch Xiaomi Mi 5 crack and pop under pressure

JerryRigEverything has come up with somewhat a standardized durability test for smartphones and he does it quite often. He first tests the scratch endurance of the shell, then the flame resistance of the screen, and finally - the bend test.

Xiaomi Mi 5 uses two Gorilla Glass 4 pieces on its front and rear side and their scratch resistance is on par with the rest if the flagship crop. Its camera is protected by a sapphire piece, which is resistant to scratches, too.

The aluminum is rather easy to scratch - that's for sure. But as it turns out the Mi 5 lacks a secondary metal chassis to hold the insides and uses a cheap aluminum for the one and only frame. The consequences? Watch the video below.

As it turns out the Xiaomi Mi 5 is one of the easiest-to-bent smartphones out there due to the single and lower-grade aluminum frame that's supposed to hold everything in place.

We are not great fans of bend tests, because every phone is bound to break when plenty of force is applied, but this test sheds some light on why the Mi 5 is cheaper and lighter than other competitors.

Samsung Gear 360 goes on pre-order in South Korea and Europe, costs €350

Samsung Gear 360 camera was introduced back at the MWC in Barcelona as part of the Galaxy S7 lineup of accessories. The exact pricing and availability was left out of the announcement, but it seems the sales of the round fella will be kicking off very soon.

The Gear 360 camera is now available on pre-order in South Korea, Samsung's homeland. It costs KRW 399,300 (€320) and will be released on April 29. Those who pre-order the VR camera will also receive a 5,100 mAh battery pack for free.

Samsung Gear 360 is already available on pre-order in the Netherlands, too. A retailer there has listed the camera for €419 and it is supposed to ship on May 22.

The official page of Samsung Netherlands details the Gear 360 camera and confirms its retail price to be €350, which means Samsung is essentially lowering the price ahead of the official European launch. Even better, Samsung is already letting you book the Gear 360 in its Experience Store in Amsterdam at that price.

Samsung Z3 is 20% off in India, going for $105

The best Tizen phone and, uh, also the third one ever (not counting watches), the Samsung Z3, is currently 20% off in India on the Big Three etailers - Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart.

The phone goes for a hair under INR 7,000 ($105), having launched at INR 8,500 ($130) in October last year.

Snapdeal has the Black, Silver and Gold versions, so does Flipkart (but the silver one is a smidgen pricier). Amazon is running low on Gold units, which are the only ones under INR 7,000, Silver and Black cost a couple of hundred INR more.

Samsung Galaxy A (2016) promo videos are out - A for You

Samsung has just posted a set of videos on YouTube promoting this year's Galaxy A-series under the tagline "A for you" (A4U, millennials?). From the A3 (2016) to the A9 (2016) they all share the same glass/metal build, and that's the first thing the PR team has highlighted.

Almost the entire range has the same camera too - they all rock the 13MP f/1.9 unit with OIS, save for the A3, which has been denied stabilization. That won't stop you from photographing kittens, though.

And they all have the fingerprint sensor in their home buttons, allowing them to support Samsung Pay - until recently reserved for the flagships only

First Xiaomi Max render leaks

Last week, we told you about the existence of a Xiaomi phablet dubbed Max. Shortly thereafter, another leak surfaced online allegedly showing off the front panel of the device. And now, the first render of the handset has been leaked.

The image shows a device with thin bezels, a hardware home button (which wasn't there in the front panel leak, and might house a fingerprint sensor), and volume and power buttons on the right side. Design-wise the phone looks quite similar to the Chinese company's Mi 5 flagship.

As for the specs, nothing much is known at the moment, except the rumored massive 6.4-inch screen size, QHD display, SD820 SoC, and a May launch.