Xiaomi is set to bring sapphire displays to its smartphones. Photo: Xiaomi

Xiaomi has caught a lot of flack for copying what Apple has done previously, which is why it’s apparently gone back to the drawing board and come back with a new plan: do the things Apple thought about, but didn’t do.

With that in mind, a new report today claims that Xiaomi is set to adopt sapphire displays for its upcoming 5.7-inch Xiaomi 5, to be showcased at the upcoming 2015 Consumer Electronics Show.

The company has reportedly approached the China-based Lens Technology and Biel Crystal Manufactory about expanding their sapphire processing capacities for the job.

Going, going, gone! Photo: Xiaomi

Anyone that has ever taken a look at Xiaomi’s suspiciously Apple-like designs won’t be surprised to hear them dismissed as ripoff artists. But a new court ruling suggests they might be patent infringers too.

Delhi High Court in India has banned Xiaomi from selling, assembling, importing and advertising its smartphones in the country, on the basis that the bestselling handsets infringe on certain patents held by another company.

Interestingly, that company isn’t Apple — but rather Ericsson, which claims that Xiaomi violated 8 of its patents, including those related to 3G, EDGE and other technologies.

The FCC is the one thing standing in the way of receiving your Christmas shopping by drone, says Jeff Bezos. Photo: Amazon

It’s been a while since we’ve heard a peep from Jeff Bezos, regarding his plans to deliver Amazon packages by drone — and now we know why: he’s busy battling the Federal Aviation Administration regarding the use of unmanned aircraft.

Amazon sought permission from the FAA back in July to test drones near to Seattle, but the FAA has apparently been slow to grant its approval.

Bezos reportedly has a plan, though, and it means that U.K. Amazon users may be able to try out the bold new delivery system ahead of their American cousins, since Amazon is threatening to its drone research overseas if it doesn’t get permission to test-fly in the U.S. soon.

The fact that Android suffers a fragmentation problem is well known, but with Android 5.0 Lollipop finally rolling out around the world, how much of a stabilizing impact is it having on the Android ecosytem?

None whatsoever, according to Google’s latest stats — which indicate that fewer than 0.1 percent of Google Play users are currently upgraded to Android’s latest mobile OS.

Android 4.4 KitKat, by comparison, takes the biggest slice of the pie, with 30.2 percent of users. Following this are the users on some version of Jelly Bean, those using Ice Cream Sandwich (8.5 percent), those on Gingerbread (9.8 percent), and those on Froyo (0.6 percent).

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is to phone flagships what R.M.S Titanic was to actual ships. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

It’s pretty clear that Samsung’s mobile business is faltering at the moment, and members of its executive team are paying the price. Not only has Samsung recently posted dismal quarter profits, but it also wildly overestimated the appeal of the Galaxy S5, with the result that unsold units are now piling up in warehouses.

According to a new report coming out of Korea, to get things back on the right track Samsung has just sacked three top executives in its mobile business as part of large-scale reshuffling/downsizing effort.

The three heads on the chopping block include Lee Don-joo, head of the mobile business unit’s strategic marketing office, Kim Jae-kwon, chief of the global operations office, and Lee Chul-hwan, who was previously in charge of the mobile R&D office.