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A new ZTE – Taboola partnership could put a newsfeed app on smartphones that is filled with clickbait articles. Taboola is one of the more prominent companies that uses clickbait content marketing to drive traffic. Little is known about the ZTE – Taboola partnership for now, but it’s likely a move to increase profit margins on budget smartphones. Taboola announced today that it has partnered with smartphone maker ZTE to put a Taboola news feed on upcoming ZTE devices.
On Wednesday at the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco, CA, Samsung announced an all-new take on its Samsung Experience software. The new, revamped software design is called One UI, and it’s focused on three major things: simplification, ease of use, and making everything more visually appealing.
Samsung says One UI is “a new approach to content and controls.” The redesign is meant to highlight things that matter, and hide things that don’t.
Songza, founded in 2007, is one of the smaller players in the highly competitive music streaming industry, with about 5.5 million active users, a part of whom are paying $0.99 per week for the premium ad-free service. The tiny user base – compared to giants like Pandora and Spotify – explains the relatively small price that Google is reported to have paid for the startup, $15 million. However, TechCrunch reports that Songza was in discussions with other suitors besides Google, which may have inflated its price to some extent.
Alongside its new Cortex-A77 CPU core, Arm has unveiled a next-generation GPU destined for next-generation smartphone SoCs. The Mali-G77, not to be confused with the new Mali-D77 display processor, marks the departure of Arm’s Bifrost architecture and the move over to Valhall.
We’ll get into the fine details of the new architecture in a moment. First, we’ll leap right into what users should expect in terms of performance gains.
Mali-G77 performance overview Arm boasts up to a 40 percent graphics performance boost with next-gen Mali-G77 devices compared with today’s Mali-G76 models.
This week, AT&T made a number of different statements about how ready their network was for future data use by customers. In one speech, the CEO of AT&T, Ralph de la Vega, proudly proclaimed that AT&T had a large lead in the connected car market. By some estimates, AT&T will own over 50 percent of the growing market during 2015.
AT&T is so confident of their network that Chris Penrose, senior vice president of AT&T’s Emerging Devices business, discussed AT&T’s effort to “future-proof against the coming influx of connected vehicles.
Update (01/30): The Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Ultra and Xperia L2 have been up for pre-order for a couple of weeks already, but we've now got some further details on their general release. The XA2 and XA2 Ultra will be available at Amazon and Best Buy online from February 16, with in-store availability for Best Buy and other retailers beginning March 4. The Xperia L2 will be on sale at Amazon and Best Buy from February 9 (though it was previously expected to be released February 16 like the others) and in stores March 4.
Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority
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Samsung has announced availability details for the Galaxy Watch 4 series and Galaxy Buds 2 in India. The Galaxy watches bring new health-tracking tech to the table, while the Buds 2 offer some Buds Pro perks at a lower price. Both devices go on general sale from September 10, but prospective buyers can pre-book their devices from August 30. Samsung unveiled its new foldables, smartwatches, and earbuds earlier this month.
The Bose SoundLink 3 is one of the best Bluetooth speakers out there. It’s surprisingly bassy for its size, pumps out a tons of volume, and has up to 14 hours of playback time. Want one? Now is your chance.
The Jaybird BlueBuds X are one of the best, if not the best wireless sport earbuds in their price range. The sound is excellent, they’re super comfortable, and have a lifetime warranty against sweat-related damage.
Xiaomi’s low-end Redmi phones are usually among the best devices in the sub-$150 tier, with recent Redmi phones offering big batteries and several other neat features.
Now, frequent leaker Sudhanshu has revealed apparent Redmi 9 series details on Twitter, and they say we’ll see four phones in the family. These four phones are said to be the Redmi 9A, Redmi 9C, Redmi 9C with NFC, and the Redmi 9.
Starting with the Redmi 9A, Sudhanshu reports that the phone will be equipped with an unannounced MediaTek Helio G25 processor and Mali-G31 GPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, and a single 13MP rear camera.