Hugo Barra may have left Xiaomi early this year for Facebook’s Oculus, that doesn’t mean he isn’t on good terms with his former employers. After months since his last Weibo post, today He posted images of his own unit of the Mi MIX 2 sent to him by Lei Jun.

The images posted sadly do not reveal the phone itself but confirm some specification details. The retail box of the Mi MIX 2 is the same usual recycled cardboard material as that of the Mi MIX. The only difference is that it is now in landscape form and not portrait.

There is the word MIX written on the box in gold. A second image shows the top of the box off and inside is another layer of cardboard with an engraved note written and signed by Xiaomi’s co-founder, Lei Jun. These images correspond to an earlier leak of the retail box we saw last week.

Hugo Barra also shares an image of the rear of the box where some of the specs are listed. The unit sent to him has 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. See that Chinese text at the top beside the phone’s name? It translates to ceramic edition. Turns out Xiaomi is still going for the same material as the first gen and not metal as previously reported.

Another detail we can make out is the date of production which is August 2017. While this may not mean much to some people, it gives us a hint that mass production began early. So there should be enough units when it goes on sale.

READ MORE: Live Images of Mi Note 3 Retail Box Leaks, Confirms Snapdragon 660 Processor

The Mi MIX 2 is expected to launch with a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 93%. It will be powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor, have a 128GB version and a 4500mAh battery.

(Source, via)

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We woke on Monday to news of Hugo Barra’s resignation as Xiaomi’s Vice-President of International. Mr. Barra had cited his desire to be closer to home as the reason for leaving and returning to Silicon Valley. When he made the announcement, nobody knew what new project he’d be embarking on or which company he’d be joining. However, a few hours ago he took to his twitter page (@hbarra) to announce that he’d be joining Facebook as the new Vice-President of Virtual Reality.

The announcement was also made on Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg who said Hugo Barra’s position as lead of VR will also cover the Oculus team. There is no mention of when exactly he’ll be resuming the position as he is still in China. But a follow up comment made by Hugo Barra himself says “in a couple of months”.

Mark Zuckerberg has shown great enthusiasm for virtual reality as he believes that is the next big thing. Hugo Barra also seems to share the same enthusiasm. During his tenure at Xiaomi, the company launched two VR glasses: the Xiaomi Mi VR Play which is more like a refined Google Cardboard; and the more sophisticated Mi VR Headset.

READ MORE: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 will Provide better VR Experience with Great Battery Life

Oculus is currently in court after being sued by Zenimax, a parent company for a number of gaming studios. Zenimax is accusing Oculus’ CTO, John Carmack of leaking intellectual property to Oculus while he was at Zenimax.

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Xiaomi’s Vice President of International, Hugo Barra has announced his exit from the company. When Mr Barra left Google a little less than four years ago to join the Chinese smartphone manufacturer, his move generated a lot of positive buzz for Xiaomi which was then referred to as the Apple of China.

Three and a half years down the line and he believes he has had enough. The announcement which was made on his Facebook page also explains the reason for his exit.

The Brazilian’s tenure at the company has seen it expand from a Chinese company into a global brand with footprints in more than 20 countries including India where it announced it made $1 Billion in revenue in 2016. Another of the company’s major achievement last year was its partnership with Google on the Android TV powered Mi Box 3.

READ MORE: Xiaomi Mi MIX Revealed to Have Won Multiple Awards

Xiaomi’s co-founder Bin Lin who also worked for Google has announced that senior VP, Xiang Wang will lead the international arm of the company. Even at that, Xiaomi still needs to find a new English-speaking spokesperson that is familiar to the international tech community at large.

Hugo Barra says he will be taking a break before starting a new adventure in Silicon Valley.

(Source: 1 & 2)

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Xiaomi is heading to CES and we all are excited about it. Xiaomi’s Vice-President, Hugo Barra knows we are pretty excited about it and he has posted an image teasing us of their new product launching at the event.

The image has the word WBHLITCEK written against a black background and also has a countdown to the product launch. if you look at the word closely, you’ll see that the alphabets are either white or black. Spelling out the white alphabets gives you WHITE and the rest gives you BLACK. Do you have any idea what the words hint at?

Some of the comments on Weibo where the image was first posted say the word(s) probably hints at the two colors of the Xiaomi Mi MIX. The Mi MIX is already available in black and we have seen photographs of a white version.

READ MORE: Xiaomi Mi 6 Said To Look Like a Sized-Down Version of the Mi Note 2

We however think it hints at the colors of a different product entirely and not the Xiaomi Mi MIX. The poster says there are four more days before the product launch, but chances are that more teasers will be released before then.

Apart from this mysterious product, Xiaomi will be announcing a new drone, the Yi Erida, and a Yi  4K+ action camera.

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Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is looking to open a second flagship store, which is beautifully named Mi Home, in Hong Kong even when Hong Kong’s retail sector is experiencing some sort of slowdown.

This was disclosed by the popular Vice-President Xiaomi Global, Hugo Barra at a product launch last week. Mr. Barra hinted that there was a “big chance” a second location would be added to its present store in Hong Kong.

Xiaomi opened its first Mi Home store in  Mong Kok, Hong Kong around this time last year, which also happened to be the first Mi Home store outside mainland China.

Mr. Barra, who joined Xiaomi from Google, also restated the plan while speaking to the South China Morning Post.

“Obviously we have to choose the locations very carefully. Retail is all about location and details,” he told the Post, adding that a date would be announced later.

“Suffice to say this (Mong Kok) location is such a huge hit that we think that the model is worth repeating.”

Barra, a former Google senior exec, disclosed that Hong Kong was an all-important market for Xiaomi where it recently launched two smartphones and an air purifier. VP Barra further stressed the importance of the Hong Kong market to the tech company by hinting that the launch of the Mi Air Purifier 2 was the first time the company was launching an Internet of Things (IoT) product outside Mainland China. Barra also launched the latest 6.4-inch Mi Max phablet in Hong Kong during his visit last week.

The brand has in recent years positioned itself as more than a mobile phone manufacturer, producing wearables, headphones, cameras and even electric scooters. It has its own operating system called MIUI, on which its mobile devices run. The move to solidify its presence in Hong Kong may be unconnected to the company’s drive to ramp up dwindling sales through focusing on offline sales channels.

(Source)

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Indonesian market is quiet interesting for Xiaomi, the Vice President of Xiaomi Global, Hugo Barra has arrive to Indonesia Cellular Show recently and he has planning to intriduce Xiaomi product to indonesian market on August this year.

“Indonesia is one of the largest mobile markets in Asia, that’s why Xiaomi is also want to be here,” said Hugo Barra. For the first move, Xiaomi is ready to ships the Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone on August 2014.

For your reminder, the Xiaomi Mi3 is packs with 5 inch screen size and powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 2,3Ghz processor, and support with Adreno 330 GPU. But Hugo not explain about the selling price yet.

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What is the relationship between ready to go international to buy an internet domain? The Chinese company is now going to rise, Xiaomi, previously reported wants to expand their marketing to ten countries. Therefore they try to make the good effort to be accepted internationally.

The Xiaomi Executive for Global, Hugo Barra, has buy the mi.com Internet domain, not xiaomi.com as  before.

Although it looks simple, this step is quite expensive. Xiaomi to pay $3.6 million USD for the domain. The reason is simple, people who do not speak Mandarin are usually difficult to read “xiao”, sometimes like to read as “sao”, whereas the correct pronunciation is “si-aw”. Mi, on the other hand is much easier, especially Xiaomi products using the name as Redmi, MIUI and Mi Wi-Fi.

Purchase domain has become the most expensive purchase this year, exceeding the number whiskey.com $3.1 USD. Domain VacationRentals.com most expensive of all time is the behavior of $35 million USD, followed by Insure.com and Sex.com.

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Xiaomi is one of the Chinese smartphone manufactuarer that already hit to global market, after they reelase the Xiaomi RedMi smartphone at Singapore and now the other country will also ready to adopt this phone.

According to Hugo Barra as the Vice President of Xiaomi Global, during in his interview at China 2.0 forum at Peking University in Beijing. He explain that the Xiaomi smartphone is ready to hit most Asian market such as, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India but Xiaomi will also hit Brazil, Mexico, and potentially other Latin American countries.

In general, Barra said that the markets in Southeast Asia into a potential market for Xiaomi. Barra also said that it would simultaneously bring mobile products to Asian market.

This expansion became a very important part for Xiaomi. Especially this year, Xiaomi plans to sell as many as 60 million Android smartphones. The target was increased to 100 million units next year.

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Xiaomi is now ready to entering overseas market rather than in China, after this company hire Hugo Bara (ex-Google employyee) is now Xiaomi ready to open new office in Singapore.

This statement is said by Xiaomi exec’s after they visit to Taiwan recently, the top Xiaomi executive are President of XiaoMi Li Bin, Vice President, Li Wanqiang and Vice President of XiaoMi Global, Hugo Barra.

Hugo Bara said : “Our strategy is always to do what our fans want and meet what they expect us to do. So when we enter a new country, we want them to have options. So like here in Taiwan, you can buy a phone either directly from us, pay full price, and choose any carrier you’d like to use. Or you can buy it with a subsidy. This is a good choice. Our philosophy for the rest of the world, including Southeast Asia, is exactly the same. In some countries, carriers act like they do in Taiwan. They’re in the business of selling phones and offering subsidies. In other countries they’re not. So our strategy will vary a little bit from country to country.”

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Xiaomi is one of the Chinese smartphone manufacturer that has many loyal fans, if American citizen has Apple and Chinese citizen has Xiaomi, according to some analyst, Xiaomi is the Apple company in Chinese version. And now thet has sucessfully release their new flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi3 Android phone, they sold 330,000 Xiaomi phone in single day, raking in over $80 million USD.

It’s reported they has sold off some 110,000 unit of Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone, and 110,000 of Xiaomi Hongmi (Red Rice) smartphone, and also 110,000 of Xiaomi Mi2S and 50,000 Xiaomi TV Boxes, In a day. Xioami is expected to get some 500 million yuan or about $82 million USD in a day.

This fact is quite awesome, and it’s mean that the Xiaomi is sold thousand of unit in just a couple of minutes, this record is beat the Apple since Apple has sold iPhone prodcut recently. This is great effort from Xiaomi since this Chinese manufacturer is hired Hugo Barra (ex-Google employee) to help the company to go International.

While for now we have a GIF animation picture that show Hugo Barra while he helped the Xiaomi in the manufacturing floor.

Image Credit: Hugo Barra

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Hugo Barra decision to move from Google to XiaoMi is make surprised many people. But for Barra, the decision is one of the important steps in the future. In fact, he also mentioned that Xiaomi as a company in the future to be aligned with Google and Amazon.

In addition, Xiaomi also have quality human resources. Moreover, there are high-ranking Google China is now also turning to employee Xiaomi, Bin Lin. In the interview with AllThingsD, Barra also expressed his admiration with Xiaomi products. In fact, he also said that Google’s top brass, Matias Duarte also have the same admiration for Xiaomi.

Xiaomi potential, he said, not only in the field of hardware. The Chinese company also has a good quality software. And he also plans to improve Xiaomi revenue from software sector.

It is now Barra’s job to help make that happen, armed with a pile of Xiaomi phones he whips out to demo at a moment’s notice.

His departure was a big moment for both the tech giant and Barra, who has been there since 2008, as well as for Xiaomi. Barra is its first major non-Chinese hire, as it seeks to expand beyond its root in a bid to become a globally recognized player.

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On September 9th, 2013 we have heard the news from Xiaomi, they ready to release the Xiaomi own operating system for their smartphone, those OS is called as Mi OS and ready to embed on next generation Xiaomi smartphone, maybe Xiaomi Mi 4 smartphone.

According to company internal staff, Xiaomi Research and Development has been develop the new operating system starting on April this year.

“MiOS is an embedded linux kernel as the main operating system is a browser-based virtual operating system, the users can using this MiOS through the browser on the operation of the application. this OS will release expects in the next generation Xiaomi mobile phones – and now they have trial those OS on Xiaomi 4 prototype”.

While for now, there is no official information from Xiaomi regarding this rumor.

In fact, according to the planning of Xiaomi, software and hardware, the Internet service is a core products, Xiaomi MIUI is based on the depth of the modified third-party Android mobile operating system, now updated to V5. As of June this year, MIUI users has exceeded to 20 million; to August this year, MIUI system has exceeded 20 million yuan monthly revenue.

As we all know, the former Google Android vice president, Hugo Barra announced to join the Xiaomi, is responsible for international business development as well as with Google Android’s strategic cooperation.

And Hugo is identical wity Android OS products and has extensive experience in the field of ecological construction and excellent Transcend, he joined with Xiaomi mobile division and hope those will be a strong boost ecological construction for Xiaomi, is expected to take with Google on the Android ecosystem to achieve closer cooperation partnership and get more support.

Some commentators believe that these relatively mobile TV hardware, MIUI is the core of the strategy to get through the three screens, but MIUI based on Google Android system, Xiaomi has biggest insecurity worries. MIUI evolved into a separate OS is inevitable, but there is no ability to get rid of Xiaomi Android ecosystem, Xiaomi OS will be used on the part of the terminal, will not completely replace Android, but will become the second operating system (rather than backup system), may also increase the bargaining chips with Google.

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Xiaomi is the one of Chinese manufacturer is now becoming popular since they released the new flaghsip Smartphone, not only in products, Xiaomi i also hired the Vice President of product management for Android, Hugo Barra to join th Xiaomi company.

Hugo Barra has been join with Google since 2008, as a Vice President of products management, he has spend his time for 3 years with Android team in Google. “After approximately 5.5 years at Google and almost 3 years as part of the Android team – a collection of the most amazing people I have ever met during my working – I decided to start a new piece of work,” wrote Barra via his Google+ account.

“Within a few weeks of this, I will soon be joined by a team of Xiaomi in China to help them expand their business and products globally – as Vice President, Global Xiaomi,” said Barra.

Xiaomi is a Chinese smart phone vendors are currently on the rise in his native country. Although only established in 2010, one of its leading products Xiaomi Mi 2S record sales in the world’s fastest mobile phone, which sold 200,000 units in just 45 seconds.

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