Hasta La Gadget!

China’s Xiaomi has become the latest smartphone maker to tease a folding smartphone, dropping the below video clip of its president and co-founder, Bin Lin, fondling the device on social media today.

The twist is the tablet does not have a single center parting but rather two folds that divide it into three panels, with Xiaomi claiming in a tweet: “It is the world’s first ever double folding phone.”

The video shows Bin contemplating a tablet-sized touchscreen device before quickly turning it on its side, taking it into landscape orientation, where he performs the party trick — folding two panels of screen, one at each side, back behind the tablet to form a slightly chunky looking phablet.

The video is edited so it cuts from front view to back at the moment of the fold so the actual folding action is not seen from the front. But from the back the two folded wings go dark after being folded.

When the video cuts back to the front there’s a slight spinning of the screen, as the software appears to grapple momentarily with the new form factor, before it stablizes in portrait orientation.

The phablet form of the device resembles the bezel-less “infinity display” design of a handset like the 2018 Samsung Galaxy S8 — albeit more squat looking than the tall 18.5:9 aspect ratio of the S8.

Xiaomi’s tweet teaser does not include any details about how near (or indeed far off) a market launch of the device might be. We’ve reached out to the company with questions about the prototype and any launch plans.

Update: A spokesman pointed us to a post on Bin’s Weibo account where he asks his followers for feedback on the prototype, and suggests Xiaomi is still weighing up whether to bring the folding phone to market, writing: “If you like it, we will consider making a mass production machine in the future.”

He also asks for name suggestions, saying Xiaomi is toying with two: Xiaomi Dual Flex or Xiaomi MIX Flex.

“This symmetrical double-folded form perfectly combines the experience of the tablet and mobile phone, which is both practical and beautiful,” he writes [translated via Google Translate], saying building the prototype entailed “conquering a series of technical problems such as flexible folding screen technology, four-wheel drive folding shaft technology, flexible cover technology, and MIUI adaptation.”

“We made the first folding screen mobile phone, which should be the world’s first double folding mobile phone,” he adds, again taking a tentative tone vis-à-vis a potential launch time frame.

In recent months a handful of folding smartphone prototypes have been demoed by mobile makers, including a booklet-style folding slab from Samsung — trailed as incoming for years but finally teased officially last fall — which also appears to transforms into a rather chunky handset.

An invite to a February 20 Samsung launch event for the forthcoming Galaxy S10, sent out to press two weeks ago, also included a conspicuous centerfold in its graphic teaser. Ergo, a commercial launch from Samsung looks imminent.

While, at CES, a little known Chinese OEM called Royole beat others to the punch by showing off a folder in the flesh. In tablet form the Android-powered FlexPai, as the device was christened, is 7.8-inches. But once folded in half the gizmo is left with an unsightly gap between the screen pieces, bulking up the resulting smartphone.  

Xiaomi’s triptych looks to offer a more pleasing design for handling the inevitable air gap created by a folding screen by concealing the ends in the middle of the dual folded panels. Side tucks certainly look more visually pleasing.

That said, two folds could mean a higher risk of screen problems — if the folding mechanism isn’t robust enough to handle lots of bending back and forth.

It’s also far from clear whether consumers will generally take to folding phones, or snub them as fiddly and gimmicky.

In recent years smartphone design has converged around a phablet-sized touchscreen and little else. So adding any fresh mechanical complication is a bit of a risk given how smooth and hermetically sealed smartphones have otherwise become.

But a clutch of Android OEMs are going to try their luck, regardless. And with a saturated smartphone market, stalled growth and competition fiercer than ever, you can see why they’re pushing the boat out — or, well, bending the screen back — to try to stand out.

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Companies like Apple tend to shut down the companies and services that they acquire and fold it into their own products and services. They did this with Workflow, Beats Music, and Texture, just to name a few. Facebook on the other hand seems to be more than happy to let their acquisitions continue operating as it is.

However it seems there is a chance that could change because in a report from the New York Times, it appears that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to unify its services. No, it does not mean that Facebook’s services will all be merged into one, but rather the infrastructure will be unified so that they share underlying principles across the various apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.

One of the things that Zuckerberg is hoping to see is the inclusion of end-to-end encryption across the board. It is unclear what the goal is by unifying the infrastructure, but it has been speculated that it could potentially be to help make these services tied to Facebook even further so that it’s harder for users to quit its platform.

A good example would be WhatsApp, which for the most part has allowed users to use the app/service without necessarily being linked to Facebook. Facebook reportedly plans to complete this by the end of the year or early 2020.

Facebook Wants To Unify Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Apple has registered new iPad models in the Eurasian Economic Commission reference database. The Moscow-based commission keeps a product database pretty much like the FCC in the U.S. And it sounds like Apple is about to launch a new iPad mini 5 and an updated entry-level iPad.

That database has shown information on new Apple products in the past — MySmartPrice first discovered today’s new filings. There are two different filings that both mention new tablets that run iOS 12.

The first filing mentions five different models, while the second one mentions two different models. Usually, each configuration gets a different model number depending on storage and LTE capabilities.

It lines up with previous rumors that mentioned a new iPad mini and a new cheap iPad for early 2019. Ming-Chi Kuo expects an updated iPad mini with a 7.9-inch display. The device hasn’t been updated for years and many believed that Apple would stop updating it. But if you still like that form factor, Apple may have something new for you.

When it comes to the normal-size iPad, Apple last updated the 9.7-inch iPad in March 2018. While all eyes are on the iPad Pro, many people are still looking for the cheapest iPad they can get. And the $329 9.7-inch iPad is a good deal. Apple usually updates that model every year.

Today’s filings don’t say what those devices will look like, unfortunately. It’s unclear if Apple is going to reduce the bezels of those devices, add a Face ID sensor or switch to USB-C.