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Xiaomi’s Yeelight Speaker Uses Alexa and Looks Like an Amazon Echo Dot Smart speakers with voice assistants are becoming increasingly popular. Amazon leads the market with its Alexa -powered  Echo lineup of speakers, and Google’s close behind with the Google Assistant -powered Google Home , Google  Home Mini,  and Google  Home Max . Xiaomi, on the other hand, doesn’t sell a smart speaker internationally, but that won’t be the case for much longer. In July, Xiaomi took the wraps off the Mi AI smart speaker . Now, its subsidiary Yeelight has launched a spiritual successor, the Yeelight Voice Assistant, that it looks a little like the Amazon Echo Dot — complete with volume buttons on the top and a blue LED ring. Xiaomi’s calling the Yeelight Voice Assistant a “Dual AI” speaker: The Chinese model features Xiaomi’s AI voice assistant, and the global model has Alexa. The speaker packs six microphones, a single 2-watt loudspeaker, and responds to voice commands given within a five-meter ra

Huawei PSmart Reportedly Packs Kirin 659 and Dual Cameras Huawei’s Enjoy 7S went on sale in China last week, but it might be bound for international shores. Evan Blass, who has a reliable track record when it comes to smartphone rumors, said on Twitter that the handset will launch internationally under the name Huawei PSmart . It’ll join the other devices in Huawei’s growing P series, which tend to be accompanied by low-end variants. The Huawei PSmart, though, will reportedly launch on its own, and in three colors: Black, rose gold, and blue. This will be offered outside of China as the Huawei PSmart. pic.twitter.com/sR2yadWdBV — Evan Blass (@evleaks) December 28, 2017 The phone, which strongly resembles the Honor 7X and the Huawei Mate 10 Lite , is a good mid-range package. For 249 euro (about $299) — the MSRP leaked by online German retailer Otto — you get some pretty nice specs, including a HiSilicon Kirin 659 octa-core system-on-chip, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, a MicroSD card slot, a

Samsung and LG Confirm That They Haven’t Slowed Down Phones Recently,  Apple admitted to slowing down older iPhones’ processor speeds as the batteries aged , ostensibly to prevent unexpected shutdowns. The fallout wasn’t pretty, and Apple’s throttling practices raised concerns that Android manufacturers were guilty of doing the same thing. On Thursday,  HTC and Motorola said that they haven’t slowed down old phones on account of aging batteries . And on Friday, Samsung and LG confirmed to  Phone Arena via e-mailed statements they haven’t throttled devices, either: “ Never have, never will! We care what our customers think. ” LG “ Product quality has been and will always be Samsung Mobile’s top priority. We ensure extended battery life of Samsung mobile devices through multi-layer safety measures, which include software algorithms that govern the battery charging current and charging duration. We do not reduce CPU performance through software updates over the lifecycles of the phone. ”

LastPass Authenticator Update Fixes a Serious Security Vulnerability LastPass is one of the most popular password managers on Android, and for good reason: It’s incredibly secure. But the same couldn’t be said of LastPass Authenticator, its companion application, which made headlines when a security researcher discovered a serious vulnerability in its code. Luckily, it was patched this week. LastPass Authenticator offers 2FA on LastPass accounts and other supported apps . It’s one of the few multi-factor authentication apps that gives users the option of using a fingerprint and/or PIN instead of a passcode, but the system had a serious flaw: Almost any app could access the app’s TOTP (multi-factor) codes. It wasn’t too challenging, either. As detailed in a Medium post by a programmer in early December, an attacker could use a third-party app to open LastPass Authenticator’s settings activity and the settings menu, which exposed the 2FA codes. In a blog post, LastPass announced an upd

ASUS ZenFone 4 is getting Android Oreo via OTA In early December, we reported that ASUS  was planning to bring Android Oreo  to its newest mid-range smartphone, the ZenFone 4, before the end of the month. On Friday, the company made good on its promise and announced that it’s issued a software update to the ZenFone 4 (ZE554KL). The Android Oreo update (which the carries build number 15.0405.1711.76) is based on ZenUI 4.0, the latest version of ASUS’s custom skin. After updating, ZenFone 4 users can look forward to all the standard Android Oreo features and optimizations, including picture-in-picture mode (PiP), Notification Dots, a built-in password manager, improved Doze mode, faster boot times, and more. Along with all the Oreo goodies, the update also packs a new version of the default application launcher. There’s a swipe-up gesture that pulls up installed applications, new customizable application icons, and a streamlined Settings menu. For the uninitiated, the ZenFone 4 is a mi

ZTE’s Blade V9 Marketing Materials Leak, Show 18:9 Display ZTE first made waves  in the smartphone market the Axon 7 , an affordable premium phone that went head-to-head with the venerable OnePlus 3 . Now, the China-based smartphone maker is gearing up to release a new budget phone, the Blade V9, and its Spanish-language website spilled the beans a little early. The Blade V9 is a budget phone like its predecessors, but with a few features you might associate with high-end devices. It has a 5.7-inch Full HD display with a 18:9 aspect ratio, 2GB/3GB/4GB RAM (depending on the model),  16GB/32GB/64GB of internal storage, and a premium all-glass front and back. ZTE’s upcoming smartphone also has a LED-equipped dual camera setup consisting of a 16MP, f/1.8 autofocus sensor and a 5MP fixed-focus sensor. The Blade V9’s front-facing camera is 13MP, and there’s a fingerprint sensor on the back, plus a hybrid dual SIM slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 3200mAh battery. But the Blade V9 won’t be

Amazon Blocks YouTube on the Amazon Fire TV Before Google’s Deadline In recent months, Google and Amazon have had what can only be described as a petty fight. Amazon prevented Google’s Chromecast from playing Amazon Prime Video and delisted Chromecast devices from its store. Google, for its part, blocked Amazon’s Echo Show speaker from accessing YouTube, and announced it would no longer support the YouTube application on Fire TV devices after January 1st, 2018 . If all that wasn’t bad enough, Amazon this week disabled the Fire TV app before Google’s deadline. Fire TV users who try to open the YouTube application are encouraged via a pop-up message to install web browsers like Amazon’s Silk or Firefox. It’s unclear if Google will attempt to block YouTube on Fire TV-optimized web browsers, but there’s precedent — Amazon’s workaround on the Echo Show, which used a browser to pull up YouTube videos, was disabled by the search giant earlier this month. Things might not be as bad as they se

Alphabet’s Tacotron 2 Text-to-Speech Engine Sounds Nearly Indistinguishable From a Human Alphabet’s subsidiary, DeepMind, developed WaveNet , a neural network that powers the Google Assistant ‘s speech synthesis, in October. It’s capable of better and more realistic audio samples than the search giant’s previous text-to-speech system, and what’s more, it generates raw audio — not spliced-together sounds from voice actors. Now, researchers at Alphabet have developed a new version, Tacotron 2, that uses multiple neural networks to produce speech almost indistinguishable from a human. Here’s a sample. The first was generated using Tacotron 2, and the second is a voice actor: https://www.xda-developers.com/files/2017/12/washington_gen.wav https://www.xda-developers.com/files/2017/12/washington_gt.wav Tacotron 2 consists of two deep neural networks. As the research paper published this month describes it, the first translates text into a spectrogram, a visual representation of a spectrum o

Multiple Verizon Google Pixel 2 Owners are Reporting their Bootloaders can be Unlocked The Google Pixel 2/2 XL is my personal favorite smartphone of 2017, despite the fact that the custom development scene is rather sparse. The stock Pixel experience is enough to make many die-hard Android modders decide to forego running a custom ROM or kernel. However, there’s still a sizable group of users on our forums who prefer to unlock their bootloader, install Magisk , and flash various modifications. Those users who still go that route tend to avoid buying their phone from carriers because carrier phones tend to be locked down. This is true of the Google Pixel 2 sold on Verizon Wireless, where the bootloader cannot be unlocked, however multiple users on our forums are reporting tonight that they have successfully unlocked the bootloader of the Verizon Google Pixel 2 . An XDA member by the name of D3RP_  posted a thread on our Pixel 2 forum  seeing if it would be possible to unlock the boot

Best Apps of 2017 As the year of 2017 comes to an end, Miles looks back at all of his favorite apps of the year. This video covers some of the best new apps, as well as apps that saw significant growth and support during 2017. Apps mentioned in this video: Today Weather Lawnchair Launcher Substratum Custom Navigation Bar notin XDA Feed tags : android auto, android wear, android device manager, android 1, android phone, android messages, android studio, android tablet, android emulator, android tv, android p, android 17, android tv box, android browser, android keyboard, android apps, android best games, android oreo, android lost, android latest version, android versions, android central, android police, android, android one, android screen recorder.

LG G6 Android Oreo Update is being Beta Tested in China The LG G6 was announced back in MWC 2017 as LG’s first 18:9 flagship smartphone . Despite using 2016’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 system-on-chip instead of the newer Snapdragon 835 , the G6 still had a premium list of specifications which included 4GBs of RAM coupled with 32/64GB of storage, 5.7-inch WQHD+ (2880×1440) 18:9 Quantum IPS display, dual 13MP standard angle + 13MP wide-angle cameras, and a 3300mAh battery. It was powered by Android 7.0 Nougat, but sadly, LG never gave an update to the Android 7.1 maintenance release for Nougat. Ten months after its announcement, the LG G6 is no longer the company’s current flagship phone as that crown belongs to the LG V30 . The V30 received a stable Android Oreo update in South Korea two days ago, after receiving a beta as part of a “LG OS Preview” program . LG hasn’t currently announced any such program for the G6, but on Thursday, a user uploaded screenshots of the beta Android Or

Nokia 2 Will Get Android 8.1 Oreo, HMD Global Confirms The new Nokia-branded Android smartphones from HMD Global have been warmly received, and the smartphone maker’s committed to supporting them. On Thursday, HMD Global confirmed that the affordable  Nokia 2 will receive an update to Android 8.1 Oreo. The announcement’s courtesy of Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer at HMD Global, who responded to a question on Twitter  about the Nokia 2’s software roadmap. Mr. Sarvikas says the phone will benefit from performance improvements specific to Android Go , a lightweight version of Android optimized for devices with 1GB of RAM. Hi! It will receive Android Oreo . 1GB RAM devices will be supported on 8.1 release where many of the Android Go memory management improvements will be integrated. Nokia 2 performance will only get better over time! — Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) December 28, 2017 The Nokia 2 was launched in late October 2017 , and hit U.S. retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, and

OxygenOS Open Beta 29/20 for the OnePlus 3/3T Adds a “Notes” App On Wednesday, the team at OnePlus started rolling out a new version of OxygenOS for the OnePlus 5T . And today, they announced a new open beta update, OxygenOS 29 and 20, for the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T respectively. It’s pretty substantial. There’s a new application, Notes, that lets you jot down ideas quickly and easily, and capture those ideas in a shareable picture format. OxygenOS’s copying and editing Quick Clipboard functionality has been enhanced, and the file manager application has a new “large files” category and deletes files a bit faster than before. Those aren’t the update’s only headliners. OxygenOS beta 29 and 20 adds a weather widget, a new memo widget in the OnePlus Shelf panel, an OTG toggle in the Quick Settings panel, and a notification that appears when any third-party application deletes contacts. Finally, it ships with general bug fixes, improvements, and Android’s December security patche

Report: Shipments of 18:9 Displays to Reach 230 Million Units in 2017 Smartphone displays have most commonly featured the 16:9 aspect ratio after the advent of HD (1280×720) displays in 2011. The 16:9 aspect ratio remained the standard until Xiaomi launched the Mi Mix in 2016, a near bezel-less smartphone with a 6.4-inch 17:9 aspect ratio display. Then, in 2017, the 18:9 aspect ratio became more and more popular as multiple smartphone vendors launched devices with 18:9 aspect ratio displays, with resolutions ranging from HD+ to WQHD+. At the beginning of the year, it seemed as if 18:9 displays would be restricted to flagship smartphones. Manufacturers such as Samsung and LG were the first to adopt the taller “full-screen” aspect ratio in conjunction with smaller display bezels. However, as the year progressed, we saw the release of multiple mid-range and affordable flagship smartphones with 18:9 displays, such as the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 , the Essential Phone , the OnePlus 5T , and more. 1

Motorola and HTC Confirm They Don’t Throttle Older Devices Late last week, Apple admitted to throttling  the processor speeds of older iPhones as their batteries age. The behavior is intended to protect the phones’ electronic components, Apple claims, and to prevent them from shutting down unexpectedly. But Android manufacturers haven’t followed suit, and this week, Motorola and HTC became the first to confirm that they don’t slow down older devices. Those statements were provided to  The Verge, which reached out to a number of Android OEMs to see if they’d adopted Apple’s device-slowing practices. In addition to Motorola and HTC, the publication requested comment from manufacturers including Google, Samsung, LG, and Sony, but as of publication time, only Sony and Samsung have responded. A Sony spokesperson said the holidays would delay the company’s response, and a Samsung spokesperson said the company’s mobile team was “looking into it”. There’s been an uproar in the iOS community

New Microsoft Patent Shows Dual-Screen Device with 360-Degree Rotation Support In recent years, Microsoft’s efforts in mobile haven’t been a resounding success. The company banked most of its hope on Windows Phone, and purchased Nokia’s Devices and Services division in 2014 to compete with Android and iOS. However, Windows Phone and its successor, Windows 10 Mobile, failed to gain traction, and Microsoft discontinued the Lumia smartphone lineup in 2016 as a result. Since then, rumors persist that Microsoft hasn’t completely closed the chapter on its mobile efforts, despite ending support for Windows Mobile and Windows Phone. Specifically, the company’s reportedly working on a new ARM-powered Surface device, code-named “ Andromeda “, that’s highly portable. Recently, Microsoft posted a job posting  that hinted at its plans. And this week,  Windows Latest  discovered a Microsoft patent that shows a mobile device with a foldable display.   Source: Windows Latest The patent, titled “Hinge

OxygenOS 4.7.6 Update for the OnePlus 5T Focuses on Camera and System Optimizations It’s been three weeks since the last major OxygenOS OTA update , and this week, OnePlus announced version 4.7.6 for the OnePlus 5T . Most of the phone’s firmware upgrades have so far focused on camera and system optimizations, and OxygenOS 4.7.6 is no different. The previous OxygenOS update for the OnePlus 5T touched on the kernel, firmware files, and a few camera and hardware encoding/decoding libraries, but OxygenOS 4.7.6 is mostly about the camera. It improves the stability of handset’s camera software, according to OnePlus, and delivers “clarity” improvements for low-light shots captured with the selfie sensor. In addition, it improves the performance of third-party camera apps. But the OnePlus 5T’s camera isn’t the only thing that’s changed in the new OxygenOS. OnePlus added “assistive lighting” for the device’s new face unlock feature, and enhanced both the expanded screenshot feature and the WiF

Report: AT&T to Begin Selling the Huawei Mate 10 in February The Mate is Huawei’s high-end flagship, and it’s the smartphone series on which the company focuses most of its attention. The China-based smartphone maker  launched multiple devices in the Mate 10 lineup earlier this year, and there’s been talk of  Huawei bringing the Mate 10 to U.S. carriers . Now, a new report claims that it’ll begin selling the Mate 10 in AT&T stores in 2018. Earlier this year, Huawei claimed that the Mate 10 would be able to beat out anything that Apple had to offer. But there was a problem: The company couldn’t get its devices on domestic carriers’ shelves. This month, though, Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s Technologies Consumer Business Group, confirmed that the Mate 10 would come to U.S. carriers in 2018. And just this week,  The Information reports that the Mate 10 will come to AT&T as early as February. That’s mostly a good thing. The Mate 10 series, which comprises the Mate 10, Mate 10

OxygenOS Open Beta, Based on Android Oreo, Headed to the OnePlus 5T OnePlus, which recently released the OnePlus 5T , has received a lot of flak for missing self-imposed deadlines on major updates to OxygenOS , its custom Android skin. While it managed to keep its promise to push out an Android 7.0 Nougat update for the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T before the end of 2016, it’s broken others, including a promised  Nougat update for the OnePlus 2 . OnePlus has, however, managed to make amends with its most recent update cycle. Not only has it released a timely Android 8.0 Oreo update for the OnePlus 5 , but it’s also brought  the same Oreo update, dubbed OxygenOS 5.0, to last year’s flagships — the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T. And the OnePlus 5T is next in line — Twitter account for OnePlus Germany announced this week that the Open Beta program for Android Oreo is headed to the OP5T. Weihnachten ist zwar vorbei, aber wir haben trotzdem ein Geschenk für euch! 😉 Wie wär's mit

Report: HTC Plans to Limit the Number of New Smartphones in 2018 Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably know that HTC’s smartphone business hasn’t been doing all that well lately. Quarter after quarter, the company’s put out earnings reports  that show it’s losing millions of dollars  as a result of poor sales and high overhead. HTC tried to alleviate the issues by selling off some of its handset division to Google, and a new report in DigitTimes  states it’s planning to limit the number of new smartphones it ships this year. The report, citing “industry sources”, claims that HTC will focus on researching, developing, and marketing a limited number of devices in 2018. The cutback’s intended to help reduce the amount of overhead, but also to free up resources for its mid-range and high-end device lineups. According to DigiTimes , the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) will ship at least two smartphones in the coming months: An enhanced edition of the HTC U11 + and a s

Xiaomi Launches Mi Service Order Status in India, Allowing Users to Track Repairs After-sales service is an important consideration when buying a new smartphone. It differentiates well-known brands from no-name brands, and it lays the foundation for brand trust and loyalty. While the state of manufacturer service centers varies by countries, it’s fair to say that some vendors provide better after-sales service than others. In India, we’ve seen our fair share of bad actors — some of which force customers to wait for up to a full month to get their devices repaired. It’s given a competitive advantage to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) who make an effort to offer superior after-sales service. Take Xiaomi, for example, which launched a new feature in India on Wednesday: Mi Service Order status. It allows users to track their devices’ repair status on Mi.com, the company’s e-commerce portal, and it shows a five-stage tracking indicator. Here are the various statuses: Under inspectio

Andromeda Lets You Theme Oreo Without Root, and It’s on Sale One of the reasons people root their Android phones is to get system-wide theming support. In the past, it was built into CyanogenMod’s popular Theme Engine (CMTE) , but CMTE was retired in LineageOS , and the baton of system-wide theming support has been passed to Substratum . Substratum required custom ROM support initially, but that changed with the release of Android Oreo . Android Oreo brought native support for themes based on the Overlay Manager Service (OMS). The developers of Substratum released Andromeda , a paid add-on package for Substratum that allows system-wide theming even on rootless Android devices . Andromeda requires the Substratum application and a one-click desktop too, which allows Substratum to get elevated privileges. For rootless users, Andromeda opens a world of possibilities: You can apply a system-wide dark theme, change your phone’s navigation bar icons, and a lot more. Check out our tutorials

Google Home Max Exhibits Audio Latency With Music Played Through the Aux-in Port The Google Home Max , Google’s premium smart home speaker, went on sale earlier this month in the US. And while it’s received rave reviews from critics, it appears to have an audio-related issue that make it a little less than perfect. According to a report from Variety , the Google Home Max exhibits latency when music’s played through its Aux-in port, or 3.5mm jack. For the uninitiated, the Google Home Max, unlike other Google Home Speakers , features an Aux-in port that pipes audio from external sources such as turntables and tape decks through the Home Max’s speakers via a stereo cable. The issue is that any audio played over said Aux port is delayed by a few milliseconds, resulting in notable latency. Now, the bug won’t affect folks who stream music to the speaker wirelessly via WiFi or Bluetooth. But for professional users like DJs, even a few milliseconds of audio latency could pose a problem — the

January 2018 Security Patch Reportedly Rolling out to Mi A1 Oreo Beta Testers Xiaomi’s been in the smartphone business for six years, and almost all of its smartphones run MIUI , the company’s custom Android skin. MIUI adds features you won’t find in stock Android, but be that as it may, many phone enthusiasts have been waiting a while for the Xiaomi to release a smartphone with stock Android. The company finally delivered with the Mi A1 in September, its first Android One smartphone , and recently announced a security patch for the Mi A1. The Mi A1, for the uninitiated, has capable hardware, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 system-on-chip, 4GB of RAM paired with 64GB of storage, a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display, a dual camera with two 12MP rear sensors, and a 3080mAh battery. It’s powered by close-to-stock Android 7.1 Nougat, with only a few custom additions such as the MIUI camera app. The Mi A1 launched with Android Nougat , but Xiaomi promised that an update to Android Oreo wo

Install any Official or Unreleased OTA on Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, or Galaxy Note 8 When it comes to over-the-air updates, Samsung tends to roll them out to its devices gradually instead of all at once — and that applies to different variants of the company’s phones and tablets. Take the  Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 , for example — there’s a U.S. and China model that packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, and an international model with an Exynos 8895 processor. In the U.S., Samsung sells unlocked models of the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ , and the Galaxy Note 8, but U.S. carriers also sell their own variants and approve every software update. All this adds to the confusion, and until recently, it was almost impossible for Samsung device owners users to manually install new and unreleased firmware. Thankfully, Redditor  thesbros  created a website that matches Snapdragon Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, and Galaxy Note 8 models with the corresponding Samsung firmware. Users can type i