Taiwanese Compal Electronics Acquires 2.15% Stake In Leshi Zhixin For $101M

Taiwan-based Compal Electronics has bought a 2.15% stake in Leshi Zhixin, the smart TV unit of Chinese smartphone maker LeEco, for RMB700 million (US$101 million), valuing the company at RMB32.5 billion (US$4.7 billion) pre-money. Compal Electronics is already a parts supplier to LeEco.
After completion of the deal, Zhixin's registered capital will reach RMB327 million (US$47 million), with LeEco remaining the controlling shareholder, holding 38.5% of the company.
Last month, Chinese electronics firm Truly Electronics, another supplier of LeEco, acquired a 2.3% stake in Zhixin for RMB720 million (US$104 million). Its shares will be diluted to 2.2%. Chinese insurer Huaxia Life also invested RMB400 million (US$58 million) in Zhixin in January, acquiring a 1.13% interest. Its shareholding will be diluted to 1.0%.
Last November, Compal announced that it was changing its shipping policy on parts to LeEco as the Chinese company owed RMB1.79 billion (US$260 million) in unpaid receivables, including RMB919 million (US$133 million) up to 180 days overdue. LeEco reportedly made the necessary payments later that month.
To cover a shortage of cash, LeEco has completed a number of fundraising rounds in the past few months. LeSEE, LeEco's electric car affiliate, received US$1.08 billion from a number of investors last September, including Lenovo. Two months later, LeEco raised a US$600 million round from a dozen prominent entrepreneurs who were classmates with LeEco founder Jia Yueting at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business.
In January this year, the company received RMB15.04 billion (US$2.18 billion) from property developer Sunac China Holdings, and earlier this month, it sold a 50% stake in a Shanghai property to Sunac.
Zhixin had RMB4.8 billion (US$700 million) in assets and RMB202 million (US$29 million) in liabilities as of December 31, 2015. It recorded sales of RMB8.6 billion (US$1.25 billion) and RMB731 million (US$106 million) in net loss in 2015.

Read More

DataWind MoreGMax 3G6 is a 6-inch Phablet that Offers 12 Months of Free Internet at Rs. 5,999

DataWind has launched a new tablet in India- the DataWind MoreGMax 3G6. The highlight of this tablet is not its specifications as it comes bundled with free internet offer for 12 months. The MoreGMax 3G6 is priced at Rs. 5,999 and to deliver free data services, the Canada-based company has partnered with RCom. The company just said as free data for one year, there are no details regarding the monthly or daily FUP.

Specifications wise, the MoreGMax 3G6 lacks the essential VoLTE feature, which has become a common affair in smartphones releasing these days. This apparently means that you can’t use a Reliance Jio SIM card in the tablet and that’s a huge letdown. The MoreGMax 3G6 flaunts a 6-inch display, but there is no mentioning of the resolution, though. The tablet is powered by a quad-core chipset with a clock speed of 1.4GHz, clubbed with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage. Users can further expand the storage up to 32GB via the microSD card slot.

Speaking at tha launch, Suneet Singh Tuli, President and CEO of DataWind Inc. said: “Today we’ve added a phablet to our lineup with a huge screen that meets the need of people wanting a rich internet experience on their handset. We at DataWind want to cater to the forgotten billion, those that have been left out of the growth and prosperity that India is witnessing. By empowering them with connectivity to billions of pages of the website, we give them the opportunity to take advantage of both educational content and also commerce.”

The MoreGMax 3G6 comes with an 8MP sensor at the rear side of the phone with support for LED flash. Frontal, there’s a 2MP sensor for capturing selfies and video calls. The tablet doesn’t even have support for 4G and includes standard connectivity options such as 3G HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and micro USB port. Also, do make a note that the free data can only be accessible via the preloaded browser application.
The tablet boots Android OS, and there’s no mentioning about the Android version and battery capacity. So, a tablet with entry-level specifications offering one year free data? Huh! Sounds interesting. But, at the same price, we have the Xiaomi Redmi 4A with better specifications, albeit the data offer.

Read More

Opera Mini for Android Download manger gets automatic music and video scanning, Facebook notification bar and more

Opera has updated its Opera Mini for Android that brings several new features. When users visit social media, MP3, or movie download sites, Opera Mini will automatically scan it for the direct download links under the Extreme Mode. The downloadable content will appear like a delicious buffet menu ready for their selection. This auto scan feature is now available on Facebook, Pagalworld, Tubidy, DJPunjab and a few others. The list will continue growing, says Opera.

It also gets  built-in newsfeed feature, powered by artificial intelligence. It is now available for testing in selected countries, including India. This works by learning about people’s reading habit. The more news you read, the more relevant stories you get.
It also brings compression of saved pages, support for video boost when using Extreme mode, improvements to the download manager UI and several other bug fixes to make it smooth.

Other new Opera Mini features include:

• Compression of saved pages – Worried about not enough space for offline browsing? Well, now you don’t have to as you can keep more pages for offline uses. Opera Mini’s unique compression technology is now extended to saved page feature so that the size of a page you save will become as little as 10% of their original size. It provides you the essential content by excluding the unwanted frills.
• Support for video boost when using Extreme mode – Video boost is a compression technology that reduces up to 50% of data consumption when watching the video. You get all the videos that you normally would, but you eat up less data and load video faster. If you’re on the crowded Wi-Fi network, you can turn on extreme mode to speed up slow connections at the coffeehouse and load video faster.
• Full-menu Facebook Android notification bar- Now Opera Mini is able to provide the Facebook users with super fast access to notifications without the need to open another app. Once Facebook notification bar is activated, simply pull from the top of your Android phone to show a full menu with Facebook notifications.

Download Opera Mini for Android

Read More

Google is said to be working on a new social app for sharing and editing photos

Google is working on a social app that will allow users to edit and share photos in small groups, according to a latest report from TechCrunch. Earlier this week, Apple launched Clips video creation and sharing app for iPhone and iPad. The report says Google’s new app will come with some of the same features as Clips.


With Google’s new app, users can reportedly collaborate and create groups to share and edit photos. The app is said to come with Google’s artificial intelligence capabilities that will help users to tag and organize photos. It would also be able to identify objects in a photograph and then group them. The report did not share any other details of the new app but it will be interesting to see what Google has to offer. Last year, Google launched Allo and Duo apps which have been updated regularly with new features and improvements.

It is not known when Google is planning to release the new photo editing app.

Read More

Aadhaar mandatory for mobile connections, re-verification process to be completed within a year

After making Aadhaar compulsory for filing income tax returns and applying for PAN, the government has announced that Aadhaar mandatory for mobile phone connections, following an order of the Supreme Court last month. The Department of Telecom has announced that all telecom operators will have re-verify all existing mobile subscribers (prepaid and postpaid) through Aadhaar based E-KYC process within a year.

It said that this is an effective process to ensure identity verification, as well as the addresses of all mobile phone subscribers. DoT said that operators should intimate their existing subscribers through advertisement as well as SMS about the re-verification and should upload the complete details of this activity on their website.
For re-verification through Aadhaar based E-KYC process, operators will
send a ‘Verification Code’ to the mobile number of the subscriber. Before initiating the E-KYC process, the operators will verify the ‘Verification Code’ from the subscriber to confirm that the SIM card of mobile connection is physically available with the subscriber.
After completion of E-KYC process, before updating or overwriting the old subscriber detail in database with data received through E-KYC process, operators should seek confirmation from subscriber about the re-verification of his/her mobile number after 24 Hours through SMS. If the subscriber does not respond within 3 daylight hours to SMS, the operator will treat re-verification as positive and overwrite the subscriber
database by E-KYC process data.
“For issuing additional mobile connection to a re-verified subscriber, operators need to follow separate E-KYC process. However, verification of a subscriber is not required in prepaid to postpaid conversion or vice-versa,” said DoT.

Read More

Deepika Padukone is the new brand ambassador for Oppo

Let’s admit it, we all love clicking pictures. Whether we’re travelling to a far-flung picturesque destination, enjoying a scrumptious meal at brunch, or attending a cool party—we’re always tempted to capture moments in a frame for Snapchat or Instagram. Then there’s the obsession with taking selfies. But how much justice does your phone camera do to these photographs?

Case in point: Oppo has just launched a new phone, the Selfie Expert F3 Plus that has revolutionary dual selfie front cameras. That means, shutterbugs not only have one but two front cameras to snap their pictures—a 16-megapixel camera for selfies and a 120-degree wide-angle lens that is perfect for all the group shots. The rear camera is co-developed with Sony, and is technologically more advanced than the previous version of the Selfie Expert.

Bollywood’s leading lady, Deepika Padukone, was recently signed on as the brand ambassador for Oppo and swears by this covetable new phone. “It’s amazing to see the way Oppo has identified with Indian youth and this new trend of clicking selfies. To be honest, wherever I go, I find people taking selfies,” says the leggy actress.

Read More

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 now up for pre-orders on Mi.com

Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4 has been one of its most popular smartphones, and it will now be up for pre-order on the company’s Mi.com website. After all, the company claims to have sold one million of these smartphones in just over three months since it first went on sale. But supply has been issue for Xiaomi, and the company has itself admitted that it can’t keep up with the demand.

So what does this pre-order business mean? Xiaomi Redmi Note 4’s pre-orders will be open every Friday at 12pm on Mi.com website. For those who pre-order the phone, they will have to make an online payment on the site. Xiaomi says the phone will be shipped within five days of the pre-booking. However, you can’t choose Cash on Delivery as an option for this mode.

Xiaomi is also limiting the number of devices to one per pre-order, but the company is also giving users the option to cancel a pre-booked phone. However, all of these cancellations will need to take place before the phone is shipped by the company. If you cancel an order from Xiaomi, then it will take around 7-10 days for the refund to be processed on average.

The idea with pre-ordering these smartphones is to skip the lines in flash sales, where products do tend to run out. Xiaomi’s India Managing Director Manu Jain had told IndianExpress.com that it is very hard for them to predict demand before a sale. He had pointed out how Redmi Note 4’s sale had over 250,000 units of the phone, and it was all sold out within minutes.

In case of the newly launched Redmi 4A, Xiaomi says the phone was sold out on Amazon India and Mi.com within 4 minutes. Xiaomi says it had over 250,000 units of the Redmi 4A phone on sale.
The Redmi Note 4 is the successor to Xiaomi’s highly successful Redmi Note 3 smartphone. Redmi Note 4 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor, 13MP rear camera with PDAF, a 5MP front camera, 4100 mAh battery.

The phone comes in three variants and three different price points in India: 2GB RAM+32GB storage at Rs 9,999; 3GB RAM+32GB storage at Rs 10,999, while the most expensive variant at Rs 12,999 sports 4GB RAM along with 64 GB storage.

Read More