Hasta La Gadget!

Here’s a bit of good news to soak in over the weekend. After the unveiling of the Xiaomi Phone 2 (aka Mi2) in front of some 3,000 people yesterday, a reliable source informed us that the Chinese startup is already looking to bring its highly affordable phones to Europe next year. Alas, we couldn’t get a more specific time frame, but assuming Xiaomi wants to deliver its first quad core device to the Europeans as well, it’d likely be within the first half of next year, well before the next August 16th announcement (the company’s managed to stick to the same date so far).

Of course, it all depends on whether Xiaomi can scale its business model for the unknown territories, and it’ll certainly need some solid partners to do so — much like its collaboration with local retail channels China Unicom, China Telecom and Vancl. Luckily, the MIUI developer will be doing a warm up first in Taiwan. As reported by Business Next last month, chairman Lei Jun made a high profile visit to several Taiwanese carriers in the hopes of breaking into their market by the end of this year. If successful, Lei should be able to meet his ambitious sales target of 6 million Xiaomi Phones accumulated — still some way away from the 3.52 million units sold so far. Judging by the madness at the event this week (see gallery below), it should be no problem.

Filed under: Cellphones

Xiaomi Phones may enter Europe next year, because China ain’t big enough originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The advent of movie support in iTunes for the Cloud was a boon to Apple TV owners as well as any iTunes user with a tendency to hop between devices — within the US, that is. Apple today swung the doors open and let Australia, Canada, the UK as well as 32 other countries and regions around the world get access to their movies whenever they’re signed in through iTunes or an iOS device. Not every studio is on the same page, as many American viewers will know all too well: it’s more likely that you’ll get re-download rights for a major studio title such as Lockout than an indie production, for example. Even with that limit in mind, there’s no doubt more than a few movie mavens glad to avoid shuffling and re-syncing that copy of Scott Pilgrim to watch it through to the end.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

iTunes in the Cloud movies find their way to Australia, Canada, the UK and 32 more countries originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we’re still itching to handle its bigger (and more stylish) XL iteration, that hasn’t stopped Nintendo rolling out the acid colors for two Asia-bound handhelds. The 3DS in Cerulean (the bright blue one) and Shimmer (the hot pink version) will hit stores in Hong Kong and Taiwan, accompanying the launch of the 3DS XL in September. No word from Nintendo so far on whether it’ll follow the Aubergine-hued model to the US .

Nintendo debuts new 3DS variants in spicy summer colors originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 10:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many Apple fans on the opposite side of the Pacific from Cupertino haven’t had much of a choice to shop from iTunes, even though they’ve had the App Store for some time. There’s now a much better sense of balance: Apple just flicked the switch on the iTunes Store for music and movies in a dozen countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region. The company singles out our own Richard Lai’s Hong Kong as well as Singapore and Taiwan, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam are also getting the media catalogs, which include local content along with the international hits. It’s a full catch-up as well, with iTunes in the Cloud re-downloads and iTunes Match subscriptions available in every new country. If you’re a huge Andy Lau fan but wanted his albums from the most iPhone-friendly store possible, the wait is over.

Apple opens iTunes Store in Hong Kong, Taiwan and 10 other Asia-Pacific territories originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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