China

Not all smartphones are created equal or even priced equal. Not all smartphones even launch in all major markets. While some OEMs withhold some models in some markets for good reasons, some decisions may make you scratch your head a bit. None of those, however, may have anything on this latest tidbit about the Nokia 8. What is, so far, HMD’s and Nokia’s first actual flagship-level smartphone might not actually launch in the US, one of the world’s most important smartphone markets. Making it even weirder, however, is the possibility it might not even launch in China either.

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The images you're about to look at show an iPhone 8 casing with a leather exterior. The details on the back and within are exceedingly convincing - embossing and tiny bits of text that usually only show up in legit, Apple-made pieces of hardware. While we'd expect this sort of level of detail on a case for an iPhone made by an accessory maker, these details can't legally exist on a 3rd-party case at all.

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China and its strict censorship laws have banned western internet media and social platforms like Twitter, Google, and especially Facebook, but the latter has recently managed to work its way through the country's "Great Firewall." How? It seems the social media giant created an app called Colorful Balloons, which functions just like its own photo-sharing app Moments, and released it to Chinese users through a local company.

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Today the robot-creators at MegaBots revealed their fully-built and painted battle robot: EAGLE PRIME! This Giant Robot Duel (the first of its kind) was scheduled earlier this year between the United States and China (AND JAPAN!), and MegaBots will represent with the most patriotic mecha-robot ever built. Today you get to see it, the first MK3-class MegaBot ever created.

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Huawei's first smartphone released with a US-based mobile carrier is tipped to be coming in the year 2018. This device has not been named, nor priced or specifically dated. What we do know is that the brand has been waiting to gain foothold in the country for quite some time. It's not been an easy road since being accused of being used by China to spy on the United States and its citizens.

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Apple has made moves to comply with the Chinese government, as this weekend it's been revealed that the company has pulled nearly all available VPN (virtual private network) apps from the country's App Store. This marks another example of China's attempts to filter and crackdown on internet use within its borders, as VPN apps and services allowed users to get around the country's strict censorship restrictions, often referred to as the "Great Firewall."

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They say good things never last and bad things last for ages. That seems to be the case with AdUps, a Chinese “technology firm” that was blatantly installing spyware on countless of Android smartphones worldwide. Despite being involved in a scandal that even got the US Homeland Security’s attention, AdUps’ operation continues and its spyware still infects entry-level and budget smartphones, even Blu Product’s own, which was at the heart of that scandal.

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This morning a set of images leaked with iPhone 8's name on them - figuratively, of course, but still - this leads to the next big mystery. The next phone from Apple will very likely be part of a set of three, the other two set in the standard line of phones as iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus. But the leak today suggests that the iPhone 8 - or whatever Apple ends up calling it - will be coiled for the strike as the most unique iPhone yet.

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Foxconn has announced plans to build a massive facility in the United States, one that will include housing units, service businesses, stores and more. The facility will be constructed in Wisconsin, with the overall plan representing a massive $10 billion investment for the company. Wisconsin lawmakers are now tasked with presenting a subsidy package, one that may be about 50 times greater than the biggest it has ever offered.

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Artificial intelligence is a hot industry with governments and private companies alike scrambling to stay ahead. Earlier today, China announced a plan to make itself one of the global leaders in AI technologies, something that would see the nation's core artificial intelligence industries exceeding the $22 billion valuation mark by the year 2020 and, assuming everything goes as planned, exceeding $59 billion by the year 2025.

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This afternoon a set of photos of the iPhone 8 - or what appears to be the iPhone 8 - leaked in China. These images show a relatively official-looking piece of hardware - albeit a less-than-ideal version of what we expected. In this version of the iPhone 8, we see the Touch ID hole - the fingerprint reader - set on the back of the phone. Just the place we'd crossed our fingers it'd never end up.

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A Huawei-made KFC-branded smartphone is coming to China, and the entire smartphone industry should be ashamed. This should, by all means, be the end of consumers assuming that smartphones are something for which they should pay a premium. A smartphone is no longer a precious sort of item that has inherent value beyond its assembled components - and it's KFC's fault.

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