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Led by Amazon, the smart speakers category in India grew 43 percent in the second quarter this year, an International Data Corporation (IDC) report said today. Amazon with itsEcho range of smart speakers, led the category with 59 percent market share, closely followed by Google for the second position, showed IDC’s “Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker”. “Although the initial usage of smart speakers are currently limited to few use cases as the smart homes market is at a very nascent stage in India, we are seeing signs of it growing beyond entertainment,” Navkendar Singh, Associate Research Director, IDC India, said in a statement....

The latest one, believe it or not, is so bad, that it’s used largely by absolutely scummy companies and apps simply looking to harvest daya. Facebook has been using its vast pool of mobile numbers submitted by users fortwo-factor authenticationand allowing advertisers to target these numbers by adding them to their Facebook audience database. So now not only does Facebook know what you like, whom you interact with, the brands you love and the ones you hate, your political affiliations, your location and photos for facial recognition, but also has the phone number to deliver all those targeted ads straight to your phone through various apps that may also have access to your number....

The sales volume sweet spot is moving from sub-$150 (nearly Rs 10,000) segment towards mid-tier as many features and capabilities common among flagship models, progressively diffuse through to these lower price bands, noted Counterpoint’s white paper on “India Mid-Tier Smartphone Segment and opportunity for SoC players”. “Features such as full-screen displays, dual-cameras, biometric security and support for Artificial Intelligence (AI) are beginning to make in-roads to the mid-range. They will become widespread over the next few years,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research....

Afterpre-ordersbegan for the brand newiPhone XS and iPhone XS Maxin India on September 21, the new iPhones have started shipping out to customers today, and for those of you who pre-booked them to get in-store, you’ll be getting it today as well, so you can call and confirm your appointment. If you’ve not yet pre-ordered the new iPhone XS, there’s still time as most e-commerce portals and carrier websites are still taking pre-orders as of this writing....

Xiaomi’s latest fitness tracker – theMi Band 3– is going on sale in India today on Amazon.in and Mi.com.Priced at Rs 1,999, this is the first sale of the Mi Band 3 and it remains to be seen how long it will last. In any case, you can followthis linkto get in the queue to buy the tracker. The Mi Band 3 comes with alarger 0.78-inch capacitive OLED touchscreenwith a 128×80 pixel resolution....

There is good news for those who want to get the new Apple iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max(starts at Rs. 99,900)as Paytm Mall is offering an exchange bonus of Rs 7,000 to prospective buyers in addition to the exchange value of their old phones. The e-commerce arm of Paytm today announced the availability of the newly-launched iPhone models on its website and mobile app. The new iPhone XS and XS Max began shipping in India today, along with other second-tier markets, andthere are tons of launch offers already....

Motorola has a new offering in the market that is designed to free you from the anxiety of a quickly draining battery. As its name suggests, theMotorola One Powerhas a large capacity for power inside its 5,000mAh battery, which the company claims can easily last two days. Without a doubt, I was prompted to confront these claims and a slight bit of skepticism crept in looking at the large battery, but boy has this proved my hasty judgment wrong....

Realme has today launched the Realme 2 Pro (starting atRs. 13,990), a beefed up version of theRealme 2which introduces a ton of upgrades such as a better camera set-up, a much faster processor, more RAM and storage, a higher resolution display and an overall more appealing design. But before we go into a detailed review and compare it with other smartphones in the same price bracket, let’s have look at important details such as its key specs, pricing, and availability in India....

Xiaomi has made its first foray into home security devices in India with the Mi Home Security Camera 360 at the#SmarterLiving event. Priced at Rs 2,699, the Mi Home Security Camera is packed with features that most users would want in a home security device, but also has that signature Xiaomi low pricing, which makes it all the more attractive for urban users who have been on the fence for such products....

After the new iPhone XS and XS Max went on sale, people started noticing that even with a big, beautiful display that’s been called thebest display on a smartphoneever, the new iPhones couldn’t play HDR videos on YouTube. As it turns out,YouTube didn’t have the HDR feature ready on sale-day, but the company has, in the few days since, updated its app to enable HDR playbackon Apple’s latest devices. So users can now enjoy all the High Dynamic Range content that they want to on YouTube....

iPhones have always been expensive, however, Apple’s brand new iPhone XS Max is a very expensive smartphone starting at Rs 1,09,900 in India. That might make you wonder, how much does it cost Apple to build that iPhone, and we now have a partial answer to that question, thanks to the good folks over atTechInsights. They have performed a teardown of the new iPhone XS Max, and compiled a list of the cost per component to get an idea about the material cost for making the iPhone XS Max....

Following the lead of parent Flipkart, Myntra has launched a customer loyalty program called ‘Myntra Insider’ to drive engagement on its fashion and accessories platform. Flipkart recently launched its ‘Flipkart Plus‘ which rewards users for their purchases, but Myntra wants to stand out bybuilding a first-of-its-kind engagement driven platform. In fact, there’s a very low threshold to start earning points, and you can earn them by spending as little as ₹10....

Remember whenFortnite launched on the Nintendo Switchand a bunch ofPS4 playerswere left shell-shocked to find that their PS4 accounts could not be used on the Nintendo Switch? That was horrible, and Sony doubled down on this policy with random claims about how the experience is best on the PS4 anyway yada yada yada. The point is, Sony has now finally decided that it should at leasttryto give cross-play capabilities to Fortnite players on the PS4....