The Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii is something that many looked forward to due to the many rumours of the upcoming SoC that was in the works by Qualcomm. True enough, Qualcomm did unveil their latest addition to their flagship chips but it was not named Snapdragon 8150 as many initially thought but instead is named Snapdragon 855.

Xiaomi and IKEA officially announced their strategic partnership recently at the annual MIDC conference. This means that IKEA's full range of smart lighting products will be connected to Xiaomi's IoT (Internet of Things) platform starting from December 2018 in China. No news when these will be available in Malaysia or for how much.

Did you know that the Xiaomi Photography Challenge is the second time that the company is doing this? The first one was held just last year with more than 13,000 participants from around the world, with the eventual winner awarded US$30,000 (RM125,370) as the grand prize. In this second round, the social global contest is open to everyone who has a Xiaomi smartphone will stand a chance to win prizes that total up to US$50,000 (RM208,950)!

After Samsung and Huawei announced their development of the flexible smartphones, OPPO and Xiaomi has also recently announced their entrance into the flexible smartphone development as well based on a report by digitimes.com. It was reported that Xiaomi plans to use LG Panels for their upcoming bendable smartphone while there is no further information in regards to OPPO’s development.

Update - Now that we have an official TechNave app, you can now search the nearest physical gadget shops around you. You can choose to opt for COD (cash on delivery) and all the shops on our app are verified sellers. You can download the TechNave app on both iOS and Google Play Store, click here to read more.

From time to time, our readers tend to ask us where is the best place to buy a smartphone (and also asking where our "shop" is, lol). Normally, we would tell you that the official concept stores or websites are the way to go, but there are still some people out there just waiting to con your money. So TechNavers, we have decided to write this article just for you. Here's "How To Safely Buy An Original Smartphone Online" along with some tips and tricks too. 

NewsBytes #18 - New partnerships including Maxis, Samsung, iflix, Adobe, KK Mart and Boost, Kaspersky moving, Klook and more

News of Xiaomi developing its own system-on-a-chips first broke in mid-2015 when the vice president of the processor manufacturer, Leadcore announced a partnership with Xiaomi. It looks like the partnership is finally starting to show results, as Xiaomi has officially announced that they’ll be unveiling its first in-house SoC, dubbed, “Pinecore” on 28th February.

According to the latest report from research firm IDC, OPPO is now the top smartphone brand in China. The company took a 16.8% share of the market, shipping a total of 78.4 million units in 2016! It is closely followed by Huawei, as well as Vivo, making up the Top 3 with a 48% total market share.

We have announced that Hugo Barra has left Xiaomi recently, and will be heading back to Silicon Valley for his next stage in his career. Well, we now know where he is heading to. Mark Zuckerberg just announced on his Facebook page that Hugo will be joining the Facebook team, specifically the Oculus team.

The international face of Xiaomi, Hugo Barra, recently shared his decision of leaving the company in a Facebook post on his page. He has been instrumental in the international expansion of the brand around the world, and he will now leave the company after spending three and a half years with them.