Leaked Xiaomi Macbook Air-Like Laptop Refuted as Fake by Firm

Xiaomi was recently reported to be working on a laptop and finally enter the segment with an affordable price tag. An image allegedly showing the Mi laptop sporting similar design aesthetics to Apple's Macbook Air range, featuring a similar colour scheme, bezel size, keyboard style, and other details, also surfaced on the Internet.

However, it turns out that the leaked Xiaomi laptop image was fake and The Verge cites a Xiaomi spokesperson who also "denied that the laptop was theirs."

The image was also flagged on Twitter to be false by multiple users and Engadget Chinese's editor pointed that the image was a doctored version (with the Mi logo overlaid) of a device made by Shenzhen Kakatech and is also listed on its site.There's no doubt that the Chinese brand, also referred to as "China's Apple", had an impressive year when it came to device sales across segments and markets, including the Indian market.

To recap, Xiaomi this year was claimed to be the third-largest mobile phone vendor in terms of smartphones sold replacing Huawei in the third quarter this year, according to a market research firm. It was shortly after ousted from this spot when Lenovo completed its acquisition of Motorola. The company had also announced that its first fitness tracker, the Mi Band, enjoyed great success as the company shipped over 1 million units since the tracker went on sale on August 18.

Recently, Xiaomi India Head Manu Kumar Jain announced that the Chinese smartphone brand had crossed a major milestone in India this month - it had managed to sell 1 million smartphones in the country since its entry in July.

Xbox One to Get a $50 Price Hike on January 3

With the Xbox One gaining some ground thanks to a reduced price of $349 (roughly Rs. 22,100), one would assume that Microsoft would keep it's latest black box at this price permanently.

This however does not seem to be the case. From January 3, the Xbox One will cost you $50 (roughly Rs. 3,170) more the Redmond-based company has said. How would this affect Indian consumers? Well, we've seen a glut of low prices on the Xbox One in India. Microsoft India has been selling the console at a reduced rate, slashing, at the time of writing this, Rs. 5,000 from the Rs. 39,990 MRP for the Xbox One with FIFA 15 bundle, and includes a second controller for free, bringing the effective savings to Rs. 8,999. But the real area of interest is how low it is on the grey market.

A quick check with a few sellers in Mumbai and Delhi resulted in the knowledge that special edition variants of the Xbox One such as the white console with Sunset Overdrive, or the Titanfall bundle, are available within the range of Rs. 25,000 to 28,000.

They're a shade lower than the prevailing official rates thanks to ready availability from regions such as the Middle East, US, and Hong Kong, all of which have better rates than India. Nonetheless, with US prices increasing, it would be safe to expect grey rates to go up as well, if only slightly.

DoT Reportedly Orders Blocking of 32 Websites Including GitHub, Archive.org, SourceForge

Many users on Twitter are claiming that several websites, including many software development resources such as GitHub and SourceForge, along with research resources like the Internet Archive have all been blocked on order of the Department of Telecom.

A letter circulating online shows a list of 32 URLs that ISPs have reportedly been ordered to block, with most of these URLs being entire websites, instead of specific webpages that's usually been the case with such blocks in the past. We tried to verify the users' claims, but on both our office broadband network, and also on Airtel and Vodafone 3G networks, all the sites were opening properly at the time of writing. Interestingly, many of the sites failed the load at the first try, but simply hitting refresh once solved the problem.

This does not mean that blocking is not happening - it is possible that the order has been sent recently, and will take some time to be fully implemented. Here is the email which purportedly shows the list of the 32 blocked URLs, as posted by Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director of the Center for Inernet and Society:

Microsoft Courting App Developers, Eyeing Android App Support: Report

The Windows Phone app ecosystem falls well behind Android and iOS, and Microsoft is obviously looking at ways to boost it. The company has reportedly ordered its Developer Experience (DX) team, a.k.a Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE), to lure more Windows and Windows Phone app developers. The firm is also reportedly planning to give Windows 10 native Android app support.

Microsoft in November revealed it had over 525,000 apps in the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store combined. To put that in perspective, both Google Play and App Store have over 1.3 million apps.

Microsoft has previously taken several strides towards improving the Windows Phone and Windows app offerings and experience. The firm had recently started accepting 'Universal Apps' for its app stores, letting developers create an app once and scale it accordingly as per the platform and device, instead of creating separate versions for separate devices. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, a long-time Microsoft watcher, claims this is still 'Plan A' in Microsoft's strategy to boost the Windows and Windows Phone app ecosystem.

By linking two apps across the two stores, developers were able to offer the 'get once and download for all compatible Windows devices' experience, apart from being able to link in-app purchases, and both Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 apps. Linked apps also give developers the ability to roam application data across form factors, and a single notification channel. Microsoft has also outlined consolidated price tiers and consistent certification policies between the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store.

2014 Trending Topics Highlighted by Google in Wednesday's Animated Doodle

2014 trending topics have been featured in Wednesday's animated doodle. What better way to usher in 2015 than to relive the best moments of 2014? This seems to be Google's thinking. The animated doodle recollects some of the things that made big news in the past year including the ESA's Rosetta Mission, which involved the probe Philae landing on a comet and Flappy Bird - a game that went viral in 2014.

The 2014 trending topics doodle starts with a colourful crayon-like image of Google's logo. Suddenly some of the alphabets split to allow Flappy Bird to pass through. The bird then turns into a football - a nod to Fifa World Cup 2014 - and the letter 'L' kicks the ball on to the head of 'E'.

The Google logo then turns into 2014 and the football is now on top of the number '4'. The number '1' turns into a rocket that lifts off. It's notable that the number '0' is a comet, on which a probe lands. This is a reference to the probe Philae landing on the comet. The number '2' then gets an icy shower (remember the ALS ice bucket challenge?) and the doodle goes back to the start. It's a nice way to sum up the best of 2014's trending topics.

Clicking on the doodle reveals 2014 trending topics in your region. In our case, the trending topics in India were shown to be Elections 2014, FIFA 2014, iPhone 6, GATE 2015 and Narendra Modi. Clearly, education, politics, sports and gadgets sum up the hottest topics in India at the moment. This Google doodle is available across the world.