Xiaomi wants to be the brand that sells everything

Xiaomi is setting itself up as more than just a phone brand.

2017 has been an incredibly rewarding year for Xiaomi: the brand now leads the online space in India and is the second-largest vendor overall, and is making advances into other Asian markets like Indonesia.

The uptick in fortunes is attributable to a strong phone portfolio: Xiaomi has three great value-for-money phones in the Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4, and the Redmi 4A, and the brand recently teamed up with Google to kick off the Android One reboot with the Mi A1. Then there’s the Mi 6, which is aimed at the mid-range segment, and the bezel-less Mi Mix 2, which will make its debut later this year outside of China.

While the phone business is the main source of revenue for Xiaomi, the brand is looking to other avenues — particularly the lifestyle segment — as a future growth driver. That includes investing heavily in its Mi Ecosystem label, which sees Xiaomi partnering with a slew of hardware manufacturers to produce everything from rice cookers to humidifiers, walkie-talkies, smart light bulbs, home automation devices, and even electric scooters.

Making the ecosystem play

There are plenty of alternatives when it comes to smart home products in Western markets, but there’s not a whole lot of choice when it comes to Asian countries. Xiaomi is positioning itself to take full advantage of that with its lifestyle label. The Chinese manufacturer doesn’t want to associate itself as just a phone manufacturer. It instead wants to be a lifestyle brand that sells everything from screwdriver kits to electric scooters.

That’s the main driving force behind the Mi Ecosystem, through which Xiaomi is partnering with a host of Chinese startups to offer a wide variety of products. Everyone attending the Mi Mix 2 event in Beijing last month walked away with a screwdriver set from Waji and a thermometer from Mijia, called iHealth.

There are hundreds of products under the lifestyle label, and the key selling point — like its phones — is value for money. For instance, the Mi Robot Vacuum has the same motor as a Roomba 960, but at $300 Xiaomi’s offering costs less than half that of the Roomba. The same holds true for the Yeelight bulbs and lightstrip, which sell for roughly a third of their Hue counterparts.

And the list goes on and on: Xiaomi’s smart scale retails for just under half that of the Fitbit Aria, and offers a similar functionality. The Yi 4K action camera has the same imaging prowess as a GoPro, but costs just $199.

Xiaomi is using its phones to build out its brand experience, and that’s a smart move.

Right now, the main drawback with Xiaomi’s ecosystem products is that most of them are limited to China. You can get your hands on the products through resellers, but more often than not, the firmware itself will be in Chinese. That was the case for the Mi Robot, but with the vacuum cleaner heading to more markets, Xiaomi rolled out a much-needed English language pack a few months ago. But for products like the smart home kit and the walkie-talkie, there is no English firmware available. That is set to change over the course of the coming year as Xiaomi brings its ecosystem products to other markets.

A huge part of the lifestyle play revolves around Xiaomi’s offline stores, called Mi Home. The brand currently has over 130 stores in China, and is looking to open over 1,000 stores in the country in the next three years. Xiaomi is also bringing its stores to overseas markets, and is planning to build 100 stores in India over the next three years.

Phones are front and centre at Mi Home stores, but you see a range of lifestyle products — everything from Yeelight bulbs to the smart robot vacuum, the smart scale, and even luggage (Xiaomi’s suitcases don’t have any built-in tech like GPS, but they’re great value for money).

In essence, Xiaomi is positioning its phones as a point of entry, and is hoping its customers will eventually pick up its lifestyle accessories. The Chinese manufacturer managed to create a cachet around its brand in a relatively short amount of time — you only have to look at the MIUI forums to see the kind of loyalty it commands — and it is leveraging that to promote its Mi Ecosystem products.

WhatsApp’s new universal emoji set looks very familiar

A few months ago, WhatsApp announced that a billion users send messages on it daily — which is apparently the right time to introduce its own line of emojis. If you’re an iOS user, you might find them familiar, as the messenger’s set looks very similar to Apple’s tiny cartoon images.

The new set of emojis is available in WhatsApp’s beta version on Android that was released today, according to a post on Emojipedia. As Google’s Gboard gets Bitmoji and Apple’s iPhone X turns user facial expressions into their own custom emojis, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp seems to be playing it slow releasing its own. Maybe the messenger app is just weaning its massive userbase away from the iOS versions, one subtly-changed set at a time?

Source: Emojipedia

PlayStation boss Andrew House will leave Sony at the end of 2017

In 2011 Andrew House took over a troubled PlayStation brand from Kaz Hirai and has since restored its place as a leader in the gaming industry. Now, Sony has announced he’s stepping down from his post as president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. SIE came to be in early 2016, spinning off everything PlayStation and Sony Network as a subsidiary of Sony based in California. According to a press release, he will be replaced by current deputy president John (Tsuyoshi) Kodera effective immediately but will remain in a new position as chairman through the end of the year to smooth the transition.

These days the PlayStation 4 family is on top of the sales charts, sports a game library stocked with desirable exclusives and is reaching into new technology like VR. But when House originally took the reins, he had a tough job ahead of him coming off of a disappointing run with the PS3 that included “$599 US dollars” and a hacking incident that took down PlayStation Network for more than a month.

Developing…

Source: Sony

Ajit Pai has been confirmed for another term at the FCC

Ajit Pai has been confirmed for another term in the FCC and will continue serving as chairman.

Current FCC Chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai has been confirmed by the US Senate to serve another term in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ArsTechnica reports.

In his eight months as FCC Chairman, Pai has most notably tried to reverse the February 2015 reclassification of internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. The would mean the end of net neutrality, which states that service providers cannot degrade internet connections based on their origin. Prior to this classification, there were numerous of examples of ISP’s throttling services like Netflix in order to bolster their own offerings.

Pai has also taken aim at programs designed to help low-income users afford Internet, has allowed ISPs to easily hide fees and data caps from consumers, and has made the bizarre claim that mobile Internet is fast and stable enough for home use, even as Verizon and other carriers throttle heavy mobile data users. Pai also wants to ensure more Americans have access to broadband by lowering the broadband standard speed from 25Mbps to 10Mbps.

Android distribution numbers show Nougat climb, Oreo make an appearance

The latest distribution numbers for Android are out, and Oreo makes its first appearance.

The monthly Android Distribution list is always fun to look at. It’s an important list for developers who need to know which software version they should target and which features it makes sense to include in their application. It’s also fun for us nerds to just appreciate how big and diverse Android really is.

The latest numbers are out, and Android 8.0 Oreo has made its first appearance. It only holds 0.2% of the active Android install base, but if we extrapolate that out over the 2 billion active Android devices, that could be as many as 40 million devices on Oreo. That’s a lot of Pixels, Nexus phones and Sony Xperia XZ1’s.

Marshmallow still holds the most users with 32% of the Android market, with Lollipop trailing it with 27.7%. Nougat gained 2 percentage points in market share since last month, and now holds 17.8%. Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are still around with 0.6% each.

If past years are any indication, we still have about six months before Oreo starts picking up steam. This usually happens when the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series get updated and altogether new devices begin launching with Oreo as the de facto OS.

Which version of Android are you using? Let us know down below!

Android Oreo

• Android Oreo review!
• Everything new in Android Oreo
• How to get Android Oreo on your Pixel or Nexus
• Oreo will make you love notifications again
• Will my phone get Android Oreo?
• Join the Discussion

What’s on TV: ‘WNBA Finals,’ ‘Suburra’ and ‘Episodes’

Just as the NBA preseason gets rolling, the WNBA finals will conclude with a game five winner-take-all match between the LA Sparks and Minnesota Lynx on Wednesday night. MLB playoffs are also just getting started, but in between games you may want to keep an eye out for the new Italian crime thriller series on Netflix, Suburra. Episodes is back on Showtime this week to wrap up the series run, while Kick-Ass and Bram Stoker’s Dracula make appearances on Ultra HD Blu-ray. Finally, for gamers, Forza Motorsport 7 is rolling out for everyone, while Stardew Valley appears on Switch. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).

Blu-ray & Games & Streaming

• Girls Trip (VOD)
• Kick-Ass (4K)
• Vampyr (1932)
• Children of the Corn
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (4K – 25th Anniversary Edition)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (4K)
• Bridge over the River Kwai (4K)
• Night of the Living Dead (50th Anniversary Edition)
• A Ghost Story
• Cult of Chucky
• Superman: The Movie
• House of Cards (S5)
• Warm Bodies (4K)
• iZombie (S3)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Batman: The Enemy Within (retail) (PS4)
• Forza Motorsport 7(Xbox One, PC)
• Velocity 2K: Critical Mass Edition (PS4)
• Let Them Come (Xbox One)
• Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (Switch)
• Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (PS4)
• Expand (PS4)
• Detention (PS4)
• N++ (Xbox One)
• Stardew Valley (Switch)
• Axiom Verge (Switch)
• WRC 7 (PS4)
• Raiden V (PS4, PC)
• Jydge (PS4, Xbox One)
• The Culling 1.0 (Xbox One)
• Oxenfree (Switch)
• Tumblestone (Swtich)
• Volgarr the Viking (Wii U, Switch)

Monday

• Washington/Chiefs, ESPN, 8:15 PM
• Lucifer (season premiere), Fox, 8 PM
• The Big Bang Theory, CBS, 8 PM
• The Voice, NBC, 8 PM
• 9jkl (series premiere), CBS, 8:30 PM
• Dancing with the Stars, ABC, 8 PM
• WWE Raw, USA, 8 PM
• The Gifted (series premiere), Fox, 9 PM
• Penn & Teller (season finale), CW, 9 PM
• Kevin Can Wait, CBS, 9 PM
• Me, Myself & I, CBS, 9:30 PM
• Scorpion, CBS, 10 PM
• The Brave, NBC, 10 PM
• The Good Doctor, ABC, 10 PM
• Siesta Key (season finale), MTV, 10 PM
• Midnight, Texas, NBC, 10 PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11 PM
• The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, Comedy Central, 11:30 PM

Tuesday

• Difficult People, Hulu, 3 AM
• Rodney Carrington: Here Comes the Truth, Netflix, 3 AM
• Finding Your Roots (season premiere), PBS, 8 PM
• The Voice, NBC, 8 PM
• Lethal Weapon, Fox, 8 PM
• NCIS, CBS, 8 PM
• WWE Smackdown, USA, 8 PM
• The Middle (season premiere), ABC, 8 PM
• Fresh Off the Boat (season premiere), ABC, 8:30 PM
• Black-ish (season premiere), ABC, 9 PM
• The Machinima’s Chasing the Cup: Injustice 2, CW, 9 PM
• Bull, CBS, 9 PM
• The Mick, Fox, 9 PM
• This is Us, NBC, 9 PM
• Inside the NFL, Showtime, 9 PM
• Fantomworks, Velocity, 9 PM
• Face Off: Game Face (season finale), Syfy, 9 PM
• The Mayor (series premiere), ABC, 9:30 PM
• Brooklyn Nine-nine, Fox, 9:30 PM
• Cyberwar (season premiere), Viceland, 10 PM
• Kevin (Probably) Saves the World (series premiere), ABC, 10 PM
• Law & Order: True Crime, NBC, 10 PM
• NCIS: NO, CBS, 10 PM
• American Horror Story, FX, 10 PM
• The Challenge, MTV, 10 PM
• Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10 PM
• The Therapist, Viceland, 10:30 PM
• 90s House, MTV, 11 PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11 PM

Wednesday

• WNBA Finals Game 5: Lynx/Sparks, ESPN, 8 PM
• The Blacklist, NBC, 8 PM
• Empire, Fox, 8 PM
• The Goldbergs, ABC, 8 PM
• Survivor, CBS, 8 PM
• Lucha Underground, El Rey, 8 PM
• iHeartRadio Music Festival, CW, 8 PM
• Speechless, ABC, 8:30 PM
• Modern Family, ABC, 9 PM
• Law & Order: SVU, NBC, 9 PM
• Seal Team, CBS, 9 PM
• Star, Fox, 9 PM
• American Housewife, ABC, 9:30 PM
• Criminal Minds, CBS, 10 PM
• Chicago PD, NBC, 10 PM
• Designated Survivor, ABC, 10 PM
• Liar, Sundance, 10 PM
• Are You the One, MTV, 10 PM
• Channel Zero, Syfy, 10 PM
• You’re the Worst, FXX, 10 PM
• Garage Squad, Velocity, 10 PM
• South Park, Comedy Central, 10 PM
• Broad City, Comedy Central, 10:30 PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11 PM
• Rosehaven, Sundance, 11 & 11:30 PM

Thursday

• Bonus Family (S1), Netflix, 3 AM
• Grey’s Anatomy, ABC, 8 PM
• Superstore, NBC, 8 PM
• Gotham, Fox, 8 PM
• Penn & Teller: Fool Us, CW, 8 PM
• Bears/Packers, NFL Network, 8:30 PM
• The Good Place, NBC, 8:30 PM
• Scandal (season premiere), ABC, 9 PM
• Van Helsing (season premiere), Syfy, 9 PM
• The Orville, Fox, 9 PM
• Will & Grace, NBC, 9 PM
• F*ck That’s Delicious, Viceland, 9:30 PM
• Great News, NBC, 9:30 PM
• Chicago Fire, NBC, 10 PM
• Better Things, FX, 10 PM
• The Mist, Spike TV, 10 PM
• Bong Appetit, Viceland, 10:30 PM
• Naked SNCTM (season finale), Showtime, 11 PM
• The Timeline, NFL Network, 11 PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11 PM

Friday

• ID-0 (S1), Netflix, 3 AM
• Skylanders Academy (S2), Netflix, 3 AM
• Suburra (S1), Netflix, 3 AM
• Word Party (season premiere), Netflix, 3 AM
• The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, Netflix, 3 AM
• Macgyver, CBS, 8 PM
• Once Upon a Time (season premiere), ABC, 8 PM
• Tackle My Ride, NFL Network, 8 PM
• Marvel’s Inhumans, ABC, 9 PM
• Active Shooter, Showtime, 9 PM
• Z Nation, Syfy, 9 PM
• The Exorcist, Fox, 9 PM
• A Football Life: Wes Welker, NFL Network, 9 PM
• Tough Guys, Showtime, 9 PM
• Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus, Cinemax, 10 PM
• Superstition (series premiere), Syfy, 10 PM
• Room 104, HBO, 11:30 PM
• Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents: Anthony Devito/Julio Torres, Comedy Central, 12 AM

Saturday

• Spielberg, HBO, 8 PM
• Halt and Catch Fire, AMC, 9 PM
• Saturday Night Live: Gal Gadot/Sam Smith, NBC, 11:30 PM

Sunday

• The Toy Box, ABC, 7 PM
• Outlander, Starz, 8 PM
• Shark Tank, ABC, 8 PM
• The Simpsons, Fox, 8 PM
• Sunday Night Baseball, ESPN, 8 PM
• Chiefs/Texans, NBC 8:20 PM
• Star Trek: Discovery, CBS All Access, 8:30 PM
• Ghosted, Fox, 8:30 PM
• Wisdom of the Crowd, CBS, 8 PM
• Family Guy, Fox, 9 PM
• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, CNN, 9 PM
• Poldark, PBS, 9 PM
• Ray Donovan, Showtime, 9 PM
• The Last Ship (season finale), TNT, 9 PM
• The Deuce, HBO, 9 PM
• Fear the Walking Dead, AMC, 9 PM
• The Last Man on Earth, Fox, 9:30 PM
• NCIS: LA, CBS, 9 PM
• Episodes (series finale), Showtime, 10 PM
• Madam Secretary (season premiere), CBS, 10 PM
• Curb Your Enthusiasm, HBO, 10 PM
• Ten Days in the Valley, ABC, 10 PM
• This is Life with Lisa Ling, CNN, 10 PM
• Get Shorty (season finale), Epix, 10 PM
• Unsung Hollywood, TV One, 10 PM
• Survivor’s Remorse, Starz, 10 PM
• Dice (season finale), Showtime, 10:30 PM
• Vice Principals, HBO, 10:30 PM
• Talking Dead: Fear Edition, AMC, 11 PM
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11:05 PM

[All times listed are in ET]

Equifax will warn 2.5 million additional hacking victims by mail

The hack that compromised Equifax was bad enough, but its response only seemed to make things worse. Even the website that verified the potential threat to your data left many people wondering. Equifax wants to remove any doubt, though. In the wake of a just-completed forensic investigation by security partner (and sometimes foe) Mandiant, Equifax has announced that it’s mailing written notices to everyone who was confirmed as affected since it disclosed the hack on September 7th. That’s no mean feat when 2.5 million more Americans have been added to the tally (which now stands at 145.5 million affected) as a result of the investigation. The website should reflect the additional hack victims no later than October 8th, so you might not have to wait for a letter to find out whether or not you’re part of this newer batch.

There is some consolation if you live outside of the US. Investigators have determined that there weren’t any compromised databases beyond American shores, and there are ‘only’ 8,000 potentially affected Canadians instead of the initial 100,000 figure.

The mailings may help address some of the mass confusion surrounding the Equifax breach, but they definitely won’t offer much comfort to victims furious both at their compromised personal info and Equifax’s poor handling of the situation. As former CEO Richard Smith will reiterate in Congressional testimony on October 3rd, Equifax knew about the vulnerability that led to the hack in March, and didn’t patch it for months. The firm could have mitigated or avoided a lot of the damage, and its executives’ behavior in the wake of the hack (including questionable stock trades and ‘golden parachute’ departures) haven’t helped matters. All told, it’s going to be a long while before there’s any kind of proper resolution — the letters help, but only a little.

Via: Reuters

Source: Equifax

Facebook: 10 million people saw Russian political ads

Approximately 10 million people saw the ads a Russia-based organization bought on Facebook to sow political discord in the US. That’s one of the things the social network has revealed in a post talking about the 3,000 Russia-linked advertisements it handed over to Congress. Most of them, Facebook disclosed, focused on “divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum,” including issues about race, LGBT matter, immigration and gun rights.

According to The Washington Post, one of the ads showed a black woman firing a rifle without a bullet. Another ad used pictures of Hillary Clinton behind bars, which supported her critics’ “Lock Her Up” campaign after it was revealed that she used a private email server. The ads also encouraged people to follow Pages about the topics, which aligns with what Facebook reported discovering in early September.

If you’ll recall, the company found around $100,000 in ad spend connected to Pages spreading fake political news leading to the US Presidential elections. It traced all 470 Pages and accounts that bought the ads back to Russia. Facebook said people saw 44 percent of the ads before the election and 56 percent after the election was done. Audiences never saw around 25 percent of the ads, though, because they didn’t target anyone’s interest. Half of those ads cost less than $3, though one percent of the total number cost over $1,000.

In addition to the advertisements’ statistics, Facebook has provided replies to some tough questions a lot of probably want to ask. It admitted having a hard time catching advertisements that broke its rules due to the massive number it deals with per week. The social network also explained that it won’t stop foreigners from speaking out on issues in the US and users from posting opinions it doesn’t agree with, because it believes in free speech.

However, it promises to implement new features that can help it catch and filter out ads that break its rules. Going forward, the company promises to tighten restrictions on advertiser content and increase its requirements for authenticity. US election-related advertisers will now have to authenticate their businesses. Facebook promises to provide industry and political watchdog groups access to the ad transparency tool it’s building, as well.

The social network will now also require ads that target certain types of interests to go through additional human review and approval. Any ad that aims to spread messages of hate or violence, such as those anti-Semitic ads ProPublica found on the website, will be rejected or removed. “Facebook’s Community Standards strictly prohibit attacking people based on their protected characteristics, and our advertising terms are even more restrictive, prohibiting advertisers from discriminating against people based on religion and other attributes,” Elliot Schrage, Facebook Policy and Communications VP, wrote in the post.

Schrage said Facebook’s investigation is far from finished. The company knows there might be ads leading to fake news Pages that it still hasn’t found, so it hasn’t stopped looking for “abuse and bad actors” on the platform.

Source: Facebook, The Washington Post

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will serve a second term despite protests

If you were hoping that the Senate would have second thoughts about FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s tenure given widespread objections to his policies, you’re about to be disappointed. Senators voted to confirm Pai for a second term, giving him another 5 years in office (technically 4, since it’s retroactive to July 2016). In short, he’ll likely remain Chairman throughout President Trump’s term.

The confirmation wasn’t surprising, as many expected the vote to be split largely along partisan lines. The 41 “no” votes (all from Democrats) are a record high for a Chairman confirmation hearing, however.

And it’s safe to say that Pai’s policy is unlikely to change under this second term. Pai has been laser-focused on deregulating large parts of the telecom industry, including net neutrality, giant broadcaster mergers and even the cost of a prison phone call. While the Chairman is big on expanding rural broadband and has talked about increasing transparency at the FCC, it’s safe to say that there won’t be many (if any) new consumer protection rules under his tenure.

Via: Reuters

Source: FCC (PDF)

What are you hoping to see unveiled at Google’s October 4 event?

The leaves are changing, the pumpkin spice latte is available at Starbucks, and Google is rolling out the next iterations of its flagship products just in time for the holiday season. It’s definitely fall season. On Wednesday, October 4, we will see Google unveil a number of new products at what is expected to be a Pixel-centric event.

According to rumors and leaks, there are a few products we should definitely expect to see: The Google Pixel 2, its larger sibling the Pixel XL 2, a refreshed maybe re-titled Chromebook Pixel, and maybe even a new version of the Google Daydream. What we can expect from these products will remain to be seen, but as usual, the rumor mill has kicked into overdrive. What are you most looking forward to at the big event?

What are you most looking forward to at @Google's 10/4 event? #GoogleOct4

— Digital Trends (@DigitalTrends) October 2, 2017