Nokia 6 Registrations, RCom's Rs. 299 Plan to Beat Jio, WhatsApp UPI Integration & Photo Filters, and More: Your 360 Daily

The Nokia 6 is attracting a lot of interest in India. The smartphone has attracted over 1 million registrations on Amazon India, with the smartphone being available for purchase from August 23. Registrations for the sale began on July 14, so the smartphone has attracted these many registrations in just under a month. Of course, registrations for sale does not always translate into a purchase. Anyone could just put in their email address and register for the sale without even meaning to buy the Nokia 6. However, it's the only metric we have to gauge interest in the smartphone for now, so let's just assume that lots of people want to buy the smartphone.

Nokia 6 features a 5.5-inch full-HD 2.5D screen with Corning Gorilla Glass protection and a fingerprint sensor. The handset packs 32GB inbuilt storage, and supports microSD cards up to 128GB capacity, and houses a 3000mAh battery. It is powered by Snapdragon 430 SoC coupled with 3GB of RAM. The Nokia 6 runs on Android 7.0 Nougat. It has a 16-megapixel rear sensor, while the front camera's resolution is 8-megapixel and both come with an f/2.0 aperture.

For those who want to buy the phone, Amazon India launch offers for Nokia 6 include Rs. 1,000 cashback for Amazon Prime users when they purchase the device using Amazon Pay balance. Vodafone users will get 10GB data per month at Rs. 249 per month for 5 months on their Nokia 6. All buyers will also get 80 percent off on Kindle eBooks (up to Rs. 300), and Rs. 2,500 off on Makemytrip.com (Rs. 1,800 on hotels & Rs.700 off on domestic flights).

Here's everything else that made news in the world of technology today.

RCom introduces Rs. 299 rental plan with unlimited calls, data
Not to be left behind Reliance Jio and its Rs. 399 Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan Offer, Reliance Communications has announced its all-new Rs. 299 rental plan for its subscribers. The company claims  that this is its lowest tariff ever. The plan will offer unlimited calls, texts, and data. However, the exact details of the new rental plan are not available as of now. RCom subscribers can head to Eshop.com to avail the new offer.

WhatsApp to get UPI payments, photo filters?
WhatsApp was planning to introduce payments feature by year-end and it appears that its 200 million users in India won't have to wait long. The WhatsApp UPI integration has been spotted in the beta version (2.17.285) of the Android app. Popular messaging services including WeChat and Hike Messenger already support payment services but WhatsApp jumping into the fray is a much bigger deal since the app is massively popular in India. 

Another notable feature of WhatsApp includes photo filters that iPhone users have been playing with around since June. However, Android users are yet to receive this feature, and now it has been spotted in a beta briefly, hinting at its imminent arrival.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 gets Android 7.0 Nougat
Xiaomi has started rolling out Android 7.0 Nougat update to Redmi Note 4 users, including those in India. The update arrives via OTA, and if you haven't received it yet, don't worry, the roll out is in phases. Interestingly, the Android 7.0 Nougat update is not based on MIUI 9. Gadgets 360 can confirm that users in India are receiving the Android 7.0 Nougat update based on MIUI version 8.5. In other Xiaomi news, the Mi 5X 64GB, which was launched in China a few weeks ago, now has a much cheaper 32GB variant.

Flipkart announces SoftBank funding, has over $4 billion in cash
Flipkart announced an investment from the SoftBank Vision Fund, as a part of Flipkart's previously announced round of financing. In its statement, Flipkart pointed out that this is the biggest ever private investment in an Indian technology company, and will make the SoftBank Vision Fund one of the largest shareholders in Flipkart. With this, Flipkart will now have over $4 billion (approximately Rs. 25,585 crores) in cash on its balance sheet, the company stated. This includes the rest of the funds raised in the latest round, which includes investment from Microsoft, eBay, and Tencent.

iPhone 8 design leaked yet again
New photos of the iPhone 8, iPhone 7s, and iPhone 7s Plus have emerged, giving us a better idea about their designs. The HomePod code leak has been a gold mine for tipsters and has revealed a lot of information about the iPhone 8. The iPhone 8 will allegedly automatically silence notifications if the user is staring at the screen, thanks to the facial unlocking sensor. The code also points towards a camera capable of recording 240 frames per second on video at 1080p resolution - a significant increase in quality if true. We also talked about all the iPhone leaks and what the iPhone 8 means for India on Orbital, our weekly podcast, which you should listen to for a deep dive on Apple's India plans.

Samsung Note 8 may feature pressure-sensitive display
There has been no shortage of leaks and reports around the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 8. The latest in the series of rumours claims that the smartphone may feature its own version of 3D Touch, a technology that's present in most iPhones today. Another report says that the new Galaxy Note 8 may go up for pre-orders starting September 1. The Samsung Galaxy S8 doesn't have a physical home button and instead features on-screen navigation keys. The pressure sensitive display could allow the company to add some cool new features to the Note 8.

FaceApp adds and then removes ‘Indian' filter
FaceApp has been in the news before because of its interesting features like adding a smile to a person's face, see what they'd look like if they were older or younger, and even allowing them to change the gender of the person in the photo. Well, recently the company added a new feature that allowed you to change the ethnicity of the person in the picture, and the results were pretty startling actually. The app allowed you to choose between four options: Indian, Black, Asian, and Caucasian. As expected the creators faced a backlash, which they were not expecting. Rest assured, the developers have removed the new feature from the app.