'Aadhaar for Drones', Reshuffles at SnapDeal, And More News This Week

This week has seen a lot of interesting news, particularly from the world's of science and gaming. We've also seen some cool trailers this week, and the coming months are looking cool. This is our regular roundup of all the news you can use. And don't forget to check out the latest episode of our Orbital Podcast - this week, our resident gamers debate whether or not this is a good time to buy a PlayStation 3.

One of the most anticipated launches this week was the Nextbit Robin, which will cost Rs. 19,999, and will be available on Flipkart. Other launches this week include the Lava IvoryS 4G Voice calling tablet, which is a 7-inch tablet, and the 5.5-inch Lava A79 smartphone. The ZTE Axon 7 with 4GB RAM also launched this week. The 5.5-inch phone was launched in China, while a new VR headset was also unveiled. In India, the Lyf Flame 4 with 4G VoLTE was launched as well, at Rs. 3,999, after the Lyf Flame 3, which also has VoLTE support. There's also the Lava A59 launched at Rs. 4,199, and the Panasonic Eluga A2 with 3GB RAM.

Samsung launched the Galaxy C7 with a 5.7-inch display and 4GB of RAM and the Galaxy C5, with a 16-megapixel camera. In India, Samsung launched the Galaxy Tab Iris, as a Make in India product. It also launched the Batman-inspired Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Injustice Edition, which features Batman themes and screensavers, and comes in black with gold detailing.

Earlier this week, HTC had a big event, and launched the HTC 10, One X9, Desire 628, and Desire 825 in India. And smartwatch pioneer Pebble launched the Pebble 2, Time 2, and Core wearables.

Also, you might remember the RoBoHon, a walking, talking, and dancing robot from Japan. Well, it's gone on sale there, with a base price of JPY 198,000, or approximately Rs. 1.21 lakh. It's being made by Sharp, and the company says that it's planning on making 5,000 units per month.

India meanwhile joins the growing list of countries that are looking at regulating the use of unmanned aircraft - the draft rules suggest drones will require a unique identifier number soon. Also, although it was earlier speculated that Apple might get a government waiver allowing it to set up Apple Stores in India without local sourcing, new reports suggest that this is not going to happen.

There have also been some big reshuffles in the e-commerce space, particularly for Snapdeal. The company's Chief Product Officer, Anand Chandrasekaran, quit and will be launching his own company, while Snapdeal-owned FreeCharge appointed COO Govind Rajan as CEO, with FreeCharge co-founder Kunal Shah now the Chairman of the company.

Twitter is finally getting beyond the 140 character limit, and doing so in a way that makes sense and won't alienate existing users. Truecaller for Android meanwhile has an update that sounds really helpful - Truecaller can now identify unknown numbers in messaging apps, so you will know who is sending you a text or a WhatsApp message even if you haven't saved their contact details.

Gamers should be interested to know that PS4 sales hit 40 million worldwide, as compared to the 19 million units of the Xbox One Microsoft reportedly sold by the end of the last year. However, a bit of bad news for people using Sony's console - one of the big exclusives of this year, No Man's Sky might just have gotten a big delay. Hopefully, the highly anticipated game won't be delayed overly, and will be able to live up to the hype surrounding the game. There are also reports that Microsoft is going to reveal the Xbox Mini at E3 2016 and will also reveal the Xbox 1.5 at E3 this year. And a report suggests that the Nintendo NX is a home console, not a handheld - the next handheld will be codenamed the MH

In science news, some downers - for one thing, the expandable space habitat failed to inflate in Nasa's first test. A new study also suggests that not many 'habitable' planets can support life. But we got some very exciting news out of Mars this week, as radar images revealed that the planet is coming out of an Ice Age. Bet that's got SpaceX founder Elon Musk reaching for nukes. The company also made it's fourth successful rocket landing. And if that wasnt exciting enough for you? Nasa had founded a planet 1,200 light years away that could harbor life!