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Monday, October 30, 2017

Amazon Alexa App Now Available in India for the Upcoming Release of Echo

Amazon released Alexa and Echo for India on October 4, and now the Amazon Alexa app is available in India on the Google Play Store. The timing of the release of the app in India is crucial as the Amazon Echo lineup of smart speakers will ship to consumers later this week, and the app is necessary for the service. Amazon has beaten Google here in terms of timing, as the Google Home lineup still isn't available in India. The Amazon Echo and Echo Plus cost INR 9999 ($154) and INR 14999 ($230) respectively in the country, and the Echo Dot is available for INR 4499 ($70).

The Alexa app can be used to add new skills, change settings, create new routines, and much more. The app can also be used for going through to-do lists when users are out shopping.

Ahead of the Echo launch, Amazon has partnered with local companies and brands to create India-specific skills. This includes the likes of NDTV, Ola, Saavn, Sportskeeda, Syska, and Times of India among others. Amazon has said there are already 10,000 skills available for India.

In terms of music, users will be able to choose from Amazon Music, Saavn, and TuneIn. NDTV stated that they could not get the Amazon Music to work, with their requests either being pushed to Saavn or Alexa saying that it couldn't find the requested song in their library. They also faced an error with TuneIn.

If users already own an Echo device and wish to access local skills such as the ability to ask for local weather and traffic, setting up the app from from scratch is the best way, according to NDTV. Users can then choose from English (India) out of the four language options during setup. Users will also need to switch their residence address to India to ensure that the app works properly.

The Alexa app also has an option to setup the Amazon Tap, which isn't available in India yet. For now, this should benefit users who have imported it, although it is unknown whether Tap will be launched in India.

Download Amazon Alexa from Google Play Store
Source: NDTV Gadgets 360

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Google Announces the YouTube TV Application for Android TV Devices

After many months of rumors and reports, Google officially announced YouTube TV back in April of this year. Since then, the company has worked on expanding the number of markets the service is available in and they've also added some additional content to the service. Today, the team at Google has revealed they will be releasing a dedicated Android TV application for those who are subscribed to their YouTube TV service.

YouTube has been the largest video-based website on the internet for years. Acquired by Google all the way back in 2006, we've seen the platform grow and transition into the mainstream media platform that it is today. Many video content creators are able to make a living on just the ad revenue brought in by their YouTube videos. Google had plans to continue expanding the brand though and they leveraged the infrastructure to launch YouTube TV earlier this year.

For $35 per month you can watch live TV from over 40 different networks and it comes with cloud storage with no DVR limits. However, it was only available on the smartphone or a web browser. For a service as important as YouTube TV, it was strange to see Google ignore their TV platform at launch. Thankfully it won't be that way for long as the company has just announced a dedicated Android TV application for YouTube TV.

Not only will the application be made available on dedicated Android TV boxes (like the Nexus Player and NVIDIA Shield TV), but it will also be made available on smart TVs including those from LG, Samsung, and Sony. Other devices to receive this dedicated application include Apple TV and the Xbox One family of devices (Xbox One, Xbox One S, and soon Xbox One X). We aren't told exactly when the application will be made available though, but Google says it should be available on Android TV "in the next few days."

Here's what's new on this TV app:

Control your live TV experience with your TV's remote control or game controller.
For a more cinematic look, [they] made the background dark on your TVs.
A new Live guide made for your big screen so you can get a sneak-peek at what's airing soon.
Never miss the action with our background playback experience built for your big screen.
Easily pick up where you left off on another device when you get home.

Source: YouTube Blog

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Canalys: Smartphone Shipments Decline in China, Huawei Remains the Top Smartphone Manufacturer

A few days after publishing its report of the Indian smartphone market in Q3 2017, Canalys has published a report of the Chinese smartphone market in that same quarter. The Chinese smartphone market is the largest smartphone market in the world, with India having now overtaken the US to become the second largest market. However, according to the firm, smartphone shipments declined in China this quarter by 5% to 119 million units.

Huawei remains the top smartphone manufacturer in China, but the gap between the first, second and third-placed manufacturers is narrow, as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo took 19%, 18% and 17% market share respectively.

Compared to Q3 2016, Huawei grew shipments by 23% to to ship 22 million units. Oppo's smartphone shipments, on the other hand, declined to 21 million units. Vivo's growth rate was the best of the top five with 26% growth, making it the most impressive performer in the top 3 after shipping over 20 million units. Xiaomi and Apple placed fourth and fifth, respectively.

Top five smartphone manufacturers in China

According to Canalys, Apple's story of declining smartphone shipments in China is over for now, as shipments grew 40% from 8 million in Q3 2016 to 11 million in Q3 2017. This is Apple's best performance in China in the last eight quarters, where the growth of the company has slowed considerably since the launch of the iPhone 6S in September 2015. The report stated that the mix of the iPhone 8 series at launch is also higher than the corresponding mix of the iPhone 7 series at launch last year. However, Canalys warned that "despite launching three new devices this year, Apple's success in China could be short-lived."

Apple's recovery in China in Q3 2017

According to Canalys Research Analyst Mo Jia, Apple's growth this quarter is temporary. He stated that the high sell-in caters to the pent-up demand of iPhone upgraders in the absence of the iPhone X. Also, price cuts on previous generation iPhones after announcing the iPhone 8 have also helped. He predicted that it is unlikely for Apple to sustain this growth in Q4 2017.

The iPhone X has been regarded as an expensive device globally, but excitement for the launch of the iPhone X is building in China. Mr. Jia stated that even though the device would launch this week, the pricing structure and supply issues will restrain growth. He added that the iPhone X would enjoy a healthy grey market status, but Apple's popularity is unlikely to be helped by it in the short term.

Declining shipments have become a major concern for many vendors in China, according to the market analysis firm. Canalys Research Analyst Hattie He predicted that the competition among the top vendors in China would remain tight with no clear winner in Q4. She also said that Q4 will be a highly competitive quarter because of the 11.11 online shopping festival.

Canalys also expects Xiaomi break the dominance of Huawei, Oppo and Vivo in Q4, on the account of its aggressive offline expansion in the country. This will result in even tighter competition for the top spot of the Chinese smartphone market.

Source: Canalys

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Master the Entire Microsoft Office Suite with These Immersive Courses

Anyone who's worked in an office in the past decade is likely familiar with the Microsoft Office suite of applications. These are arguably the most popular and widely-used office programs in the world, and having at least a basic knowledge of programs like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint is a prerequisite for practically any modern job.

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Huawei Encourages an Open ICT Ecosystem at this Year’s Huawei Eco-Connect Europe Event

Huawei recently held an event in Berlin for their Huawei Eco-Connect Europe conference and this year's theme was "Go Digital – Go Cloud." This is the company's flagship event for the European region with the goal of emphasizing the need to create and shape an open and innovative information and communications technology (ICT) ecosystem which can empower the digital transformation of European businesses. The President of Huawei Western European Region, Vincent Pang, spoke during the event to share the company's thoughts.

The company says that the "digital transformation" isn't something that is to be considered a "future trend." Telling the audience that "it's happening now" while also believing that the process cannot be completed by one single company, or organization, alone." This is the reason why they are working to build an open digital ecosystem as it will take the effort of many companies around the world for the transformation to go smoothly.

Huawei hopes that they are able to facilitate this open and innovative information and communications technology ecosystem by encouraging cross-industry innovation, creating a welcoming digital culture, and by bringing clear value to many European communities and enterprises. Again, the company feels that collaboration is key here and that is why they've worked to build over 2,000 partnerships including Intel, Altair, Commvault, KUKA, Orange Business Services, SAP and others.

Along with this digital transformation they also feel the cloud will also be important so during this event in Berlin, they announced plans to build a global cloud network that is based on its own public services. But again, they are also collaborating here so there will also be a number of cloud networks that are built together with partners. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has been running their workloads on the public cloud that was jointly developed by Huawei and T-system, and the company hopes to expand upon this with help from the industry as the market grows.

Source: Huawei

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Partial Render of the OnePlus 5T Leaks, Shows Thinner Bezels

Many of us are still getting used to the idea of OnePlus releasing more than one flagship smartphone each year. This raised a lot of resentment last year as it was simply unexpected, but now that we're hearing rumors about it happening again, which makes it seem as if this could be a yearly thing. Many of other smartphone OEMs release two flagship smartphones each year and today we get a nice, clear look at the top half of what has become known as the OnePlus 5T.

Many are assuming that it will follow the same naming scheme as last year, which would further establish the "T" revisions as a yearly release. Exactly one week ago we reported on an alleged render of the OnePlus 5T and in that image we saw almost non-existent side bezels with very slim top and bottom bezels. This matches the trend we've been seeing in the smartphone industry this year so again, it makes sense that OnePlus would release such a device.

Top-half of OnePlus 5T (2.5t? Ha). http://pic.twitter.com/pmfhdQSgWQ

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) October 30, 2017

Today, we're getting another look at the device and while we're only seeing the top half of the OnePlus 5T, it's a much clearer and detailed view of the device. Again, we're seeing very thin side bezels and a much slimmer top bezel than we're used to seeing from OnePlus smartphones. Since we know there won't be a Snapdragon 836 SoC from Qualcomm for them to upgrade, we should look at other improvements OnePlus made last year to see what we can expect this year.

Besides the improved SoC, we also saw an upgrade to the front-facing camera. So it would make sense to see OnePlus upgrade the cameras in the OnePlus 5T when compared to the OnePlus 5. Rumor has it that we'll be seeing a dual camera setup on the back of the device like the OnePlus 5, but this time it will be with dual 20MP sensors.

Source: @evleaks

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MIUI 9 Global Stable ROM is Rolling Out to the Mi 6 and Mi Mix 2

Xiaomi first announced MIUI 9 back in July of this year and since then we've seen the company testing the beta version of the update with multiple batches of devices. The company has given us a list of which devices will be receiving the Global Beta and we can assume that each of them will eventually be receiving the Global Stable version as well. Today, we have learned that people with the Mi Mix 2 and the Mi 6 are both currently receiving the Global Stable build of MIUI 9.

We're seeing MIUI V9.0.1.0.NCAMEI as the firmware version that is currently being rolled out to the Mi Mix 2, and MIUI V9.0.1.0.NDDMIEI as the version that is being sent to the Mi Max 2. These are a couple of Xiaomi's latest smartphone releases, so it makes sense for them to be receiving a stable build of MIUI 9. This is how most smartphone OEMs handle these things as well since they want to reward those who most recently spent money on their devices.

As we mentioned during the launch event of MIUI 9, this update brings a lot of features to the table that fans of Xiaomi have been waiting for. Many felt that MIUI 8 was very fast and brought a lot of good features (besides the notification system), and the company continues that progress with this latest update. Those receiving the new update will see new icons, new animations when closing and launching applications and a number of system optimizations all across the platform.

MIUI 9 users will now have access to the multi-window mode and they'll have the ability to search for applications in the Dual applications mode. The improvements of the new update include better protection from unintentional tapping for Dial pad, improved timers for Silent/DND mode, and a redesigned home page. There have also been some changes made to the cleaner and virus scan features of the platform.

Source: GSM Arena Source: Xiaomi

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