The head of Xiaomi Lei Jun (Lei Jun) today told the details of the cooperation with Leica. Previously, it was believed that the German company was looking for a partner among smartphone manufacturers to replace Huawei, and to some extent it turned out that way: the head of the company said that it was Leica who came to Xiaomi, and not Xiaomi turned to Leica for help in improving cameras.

Lei Jun says that because the company’s phones are very popular in Germany, this is a good advertisement for Lecia in the home market. True, how good the Xiaomi 12S Ultra camera, created in collaboration with Leica, turned out, we will not know soon, since this time the company is not going to send the smartphone to DxOMark specialists to announce the results of the camera test on the day of the announcement (July 4) or shortly after.

This decision is somewhat unusual in light of the fact that Xiaomi previously collaborated with DxOMark, and the company’s smartphones really performed well in tests, and this concerned both the Mi 11 Ultra (it is still in third place in the combined rating) and the Mi 10 Ultra (11 place). But with other flagships, everything is much worse: the current Xiaomi 12 Pro takes only 20th place in the ranking, Xiaomi 12 has 37th place, and Xiaomi 11T, released last year, is in 63rd place. In general, since the middle of last year, something has gone wrong with Xiaomi’s cameras, which experts noted. Whether the company’s devices will return (with the help of Leica, of course) to the top of the DxOMark rating is now the biggest question. And perhaps Xiaomi just wants to keep the intrigue to the last. The main thing is that this intrigue does not become a disappointment for users.

Ayaneo has entered Indiegogo with its Air handheld game console.

The company calls the novelty the first ultra-thin set-top box with Windows and an OLED screen. The dimensions here are 224 x 89.5 x 26.7 mm with a mass of 395 g. For comparison, the dimensions of the Steam Deck are 298 x 117 x 49 mm with a mass of 669 g, but the Nintendo Switch OLED has dimensions of 175 x 104 x 50.7 mm with a mass of 315 g.

True, there is also a version of Air Pro, the thickness of which is increased to 29.6 mm, and the weight is 450 g.

The novelty is available in many different configurations. The base version, which can be ordered for $500 through a crowdfunding campaign, is equipped with a Ryzen 5 5560U APU, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. There are versions with the same APU, but 16 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB SSD. There is also a modification based on the Ryzen 7 5825U with 32 GB of RAM and an SSD from 512 GB to 2 TB. The top console can be purchased for $1,000.

In any case, the performance of any version will be significantly lower than that of the Steam Deck, as well as consoles based on the Ryzen 6000U.

It is also important that retail prices will differ very little from the prices of the fundraising campaign.

The rest of the parameters include a 5.5-inch OLED screen with Full HD resolution, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, a battery with a capacity of 28 or 38 Wh (second for Air Pro versions), a fingerprint scanner (except for the most basic version).

The Indiegogo campaign has already raised around $255,000, nearly four times the amount the manufacturer is asking for.

VTB has uncovered a new method of telephone fraud, as a result of which a user can unwittingly provide access to his online bank to outsiders. Fraudsters call under the guise of employees of the support service of a mobile operator and inform the subscriber about the hacking of his personal account or phone. In order to prevent the user’s personal data from being exposed to the public as a result of the “hacking”, he is asked to dial a special USSD command on the phone, consisting of a combination of numbers, symbols and a phone number. As a result, the subscriber himself changes the settings so that calls and SMS are forwarded from his device to the number of scammers.

The scammers may then call again to report that the problem has been fixed, but in fact they receive codes from messages and can steal money from the user’s account by gaining access to their online banking. VTB experts recommend installing caller IDs on your smartphones that will allow you to distinguish a real call from a fraudulent one, or not to answer calls from unknown numbers. It is also important to be vigilant and, at the slightest doubt, end a conversation that seems suspicious. According to VTB, in May, the number of customer requests for calls from intruders increased by 70% compared to April this year, exceeding 640,000.