tech illiterate

Asus Taichi: Laptop/Tablet Hybrid with Dual Screen.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 10:37:00 +0000

Asus today at Computex 2012 revealed Taichi, a Windows 8 based Laptop with dual screen. Taichi is a device that will bridge the gap between laptops and tablets. With its double sided IPS display, you can use it like a ordinary notebook with the qwerty keypad and track pad and once you close the lid it will transform into a touch enabled tablet. There are two displays place back-to-back, and both can work simultaneously, each providing different content. This means two users can work on different applications at the same time.

The laptop will come with Intel's third gen Ivy Bridge processors. It will have 4 GB of ram and fast SSD hard drives. Taichi will have dual band Wi-Fi. It has many connectivity options such as USB3.0, miniVGA and MicroDVI.

Two models of different screen sizes have been released. One with 11.7 inch display and the other with 13.3 inch display. Both the displays will be able to output a resolution of 1920x1280 pixels.

The price and availability hasn't yet been disclosed.

Leave a comment on what you think of Taichi.

Acer launches Windows 8 based Aspire S7 ultrabooks.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 05:56:00 +0000

Acer has revealed a new range of touch enabled Ultrabook. The Acer Aspire S7 series will come with Windows 8 on it. So you will have to for it for at least October, as that is the time when Microsoft will release the final version of the next gen operating system.

Intel had promised a line-up touch enabled ultra-books this year and this seems to be the first one of them. With ultrabooks Intel will try and fight for the PC market share that has been lost to the likes of iPad and other Android tablets. It will also be a test of the new Windows operating
system, which has gained some bad rep during its beta preview.

Acer has revealed two models in the series. One with 13.3 inch display and the other one with 11.6 inch display. One of the eye catching feature is that the display can be folded 180 degree backwards. The launch date and pricing is yet to be disclosed by Acer. But it was said the Ultrabooks will be initially targeted towards the developed market and Acer won't be competing in the low price markets.

With more ultrabooks coming this week at Computex 2012 it will surely be a year of Ultrabooks.

Sony launches 'made-to-resist' Water resistant phones.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 04:48:00 +0000

Sony expanded its Xperia range of smartphones with two new additions, Xperia go and Xperia acro S. The unique feature of the phones is that they are water resistant ( watch the video below and comeback.) Not just that, it is also dust proof and something of shock proof. The phone is made to withstand daily life hurdles. The phone is slated to go on sale in the third quarter of 2012. Sony hasn't yet disclosed the price range for the phones.

Xperia go will have a 3.5" Reality display with Sony's Mobile Bravia engine. Xperia go will have a 1GHz dual core processor which will make it fast enough for the android operating system. On the other hand Xperia acro S will have 4.3" Reality Display with the Mobile Bravia engine. Acro S will have a faster 1.5GHz Dual core processor. Both the
phones will be upgradeable to Android 4 IceCream Sandwich.

Xperia acro S has a 12.1 Mega Pixel rear camera. It will record HD videos in 1080p. It also has a front facing camera that will allow HD video calling. Xperia go on the other hand will have a 5MP rear camera. Xperia go will be able to record 720p HD videos. Both the phones will have external display functionality with HDMI output. Xperia go will come in Black, White and Yellow colors. While Xperia acro S will come in Black, White and Pink.

Samsung Galaxy S III to be launched in India today.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 May 2012 04:59:00 +0000

After a great launch event in London Galaxy S 3 launched in Europe on Tuesday. It will be launched today in India in the expected price range of Rs. 33,000 to Rs. 35,000. Samsung over took Apple as the world leader in smartphone sales in April this year. And Samsung is hoping to take it one step further with S3. Samsung Galaxy S3 already has 9 million pre-orders which makes it the top android phone. It even beat iPhone 4s which only had 4million pre-orders.

Galaxy S3 is packed with features. It features Samsung's quad core processor with 1GB RAM. It has an 8MP rear camera with zero lag shutter speed. The camera has features like face recognition and auto
tagging of friends.The camera can record HD video at 1080p. It also has a 1.9MP front camera. The front facing camera helps support a unique feature of Galaxy S3 'Smart Stay' which keeps the backlight on as long as the user is looking at the screen.

Like iPhone's Siri Samsung has also added voice input features to Galaxy S3. With 'S Voice' the user will be able to all sorts of tasks from controlling volume to 'waking up' the phone by saying 'Hello Galaxy'. Another interesting feature is the 'Popup Play' which lets users watch HD videos while doing other tasks like messaging.

Galaxy S3 has lots of connectivity options with 4G (unavailable in some countries), HSPA+, WiFi, GPS, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0. With Galaxy S3 Samsung has brought wireless charging in spotlight once again. Galaxy S3 will be able to charge wireless through a pad.

Galaxy S3 boasts of the super AMOLED display. The screen measures 4.8 inch which is bigger than iPhone and Galaxy S2. Even at that size Galaxy S3 weighs just 133gms.

As a special offer everyone who register through Galaxy S3 will get 50GB of DropBox cloud storage free.

Milagrow launches TabTop 7.4 Android tablet in India

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Yet another android tablet has been launched in India. Milagrow launched India's slimmest tablet PC TabTop 7.4, which is just 6.5 mm thick. The tablet features Android 4 IceCream Sandwich operating system. It is a ready to use tablet with 55 pre-installed apps. TabTop features bi-lingual keyboard so users can type in Hindi as well as English.

TabTop 7.4 pretty much becomes the first tablet to have 4G connectivity (through external modem). It also supports 3G, 2G and WiFi connectivity.
Through its USB port users can attach an external hard disk of upto 500GB capacity.

On the hardware front TabTop has a 1.4 GHz processor. It also has a 1.3 MP front facing camera which has some features like face recognition, 6x digital zoom and time lapse for slow motion video recording. It sports a 4000mAH battery. It will come in to variants depending on the internal storage of 4GB and 16Gb. They are priced accordingly at 10,990 for 4GB version and 13,900 for 16GB version.

TabTop will also support external display via its HDMI port. It will be able to output video at 2160 pixels. The tablet has went on sale and is already available through various retailers across India. It is also available online via select stores.

Apple to launch Payment service soon. Apple Payment will also be avialable to third party websites.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:40:00 +0000

The rounds of Apple to launch a payment service are making the rounds of internet for a while. But today I have got proof that it will be launched soon. I received a survey this morning asking my opinion if I were to sign up for Apple Payment if launched.Well I can't tell you the answer to that question, but what is important here is that Apple is doing market research and it is soon going to launch its service.During the service the name mentioned for the service was just Apple Payment. Various questions were asked regarding other payment services, such as Paypal, AlertPay and also about online stores which included Amazon, eBay, xBox Live etc.

So what is Apple Payment?

First of its not just mobile payment service. It will be much like PayPal where you can link your account and make payments. Apple Payment will support third party vendors/merchants. So if you own a store you can opt-in for Apple Payment as a gateway for customers to pay. It is not just online payment. Your regular stores will also have options to pay through Apple Payment. The store keeper will just have to scan a bar code from your smartphone for you to make a payment.

Features of Apple Payment Service.

There are a lot of features that will come with Apples version of PayPal. One of the important one is of course mobile payment. You will not only be able to transfer money to a store keeper but also to a friend. Smartphone sales have gone high and everyone knows the importance of smartphone user as a customer.

Not all of this feature may make it to the final round, but if they do it will be make Apple Payment a great service. Features like Spending reports and integration with Financial apps(like mint.com) are new compared to regular payment services.

Apple looking out for competition? Microsoft to launch similar service too?

The last part of survey brought some interesting questions. The one that grabbed my attention was this one:-

The survey asked opinions about Google Wallet, PayPal and others too, which is understandable as this services are already available to the users. But asking about Microsoft payment makes me think about Microsoft too launching a service like that.

Would you signup for Apple Payment or Microsoft Payment? Tell us in the comments.

The 'new' Bing with Facebook and twitter makes Google look Old.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:45:00 +0000

Microsoft revamps Bing search engine.

Microsoft have done a major update to its search engine Bing. The 'new' Bing will have three columns, a wide left column, a small middle one and a gray column to the right. Now the grey sidebar is the interesting one. If you have been using Google while signed in a Google account you must have noticed Google shows results that your friends have '+1'nd. Now Microsoft have gone a step further and integrated Facebook, twitter and blogs in their search results. They
have also included G+ in their search results. The gray bar has shows what your friends like and it will also show you their tweets about your search query.

The Gray Bar

The gray bar will not just show the feeds from your friends but also from relevant people to the query. So don't be surprised if Mark Zuckerburg's Facebook likes show up for the query of Facebook.From the gray bar you can also ask question to your friends without opening a new window. You can re-tweet your friends tweets directly from the gray bar.

The middle bar also called 'snapshot pane' has some cool features too. If you search for restaurants the snapshot pane will show you the prices of the dishes or the menu. The main work that the snapshot pane does is bring the data from the website directly to Bing, so now you can just read through the relevant data on bing itself. Though the feature isn't working right now it will get updated soon.

Linked In will also be integrated later on to show results in the gray bar.

After 3 years this redesign will be a major change in Bing. Google is still the major player when it comes to search engine queries accounting for about two thirds of all queries in US. With this change may be Bing will see some increase in usage.

Facebook to launch 'App Center'. Says not rival to Google Play or App Store.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 May 2012 04:32:00 +0000

Facebook today announced the launch of a centralized app store for its users. According to the blog post Facebook's app center will not be a rival to Google Play or the Apple App Store instead it will be a centralized hub for users to find apps. Facebook will help users find relevant apps according to their 'Facebook behavior'. Once user decides to install a app they will be redirected to Google play or Apple App Store depending on their device. Facebook invited users to submit their apps to the App center.

Every app will have a app detail page which will help user get details of the app. It is necessary to create the app detail page without which the app won't be listed. Facebook invited the developers to create the app detail page adding that priority will be given to pages submitted before May 18th. Facebook will review each page before listing the app.
Of course different guidelines have been setup for submitting apps to the app center. App developers will be able to submit their apps through the Developers App on Facebook.

Facebook will also introduce Paid app on Facebook.com with the App Center. Facebook developers can earn money through in-game sales, but now developers will be allowed to sell their games with a one time flat fee for using a app. This will help different types of apps to come on Facebook.

The App center will be available through web, Facebook app on iOS and Android and through mobile web.

With App Center Facebook will take one more step to grow its Eco-system and the 900 million users will now have one more reason to visit Facebook.

Samsung unviels Galaxy S III, the iPhone killer?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Samsung today launched its flagship phone the Galaxy S III at an event in London. The first noticeable thing about it was the size of the screen. At 4.8" it is bigger than the iPhone. Galaxy S 3 will run on quad core processor to power the Android OS. The iPhone still runs on a dual core processor. Though all the extra computing power won't go in vain, as Samsung revealed loads of cool feature for the S III.

One of the features that got more attention than the others was S Voice. S voice is Samsung's version of the iPhone Siri. With S voice you can now command your Galaxy with your voice. If your phone is sleep just say "Hi galaxy" to wake it up. It now seems that touch input is a bit old and the future of smartphones and computer input will be your own voice. Now if you want to sleep a bit late than usual
you don't have to sit up and press snooze you can just tell the galaxy that you want to sleep a bit more. With S voice you can control music volume, shoot pictures and even make phone calls.

Galaxy S 3 will have HD SuperAMOLED display to make video watching on the 4.8 inch display a real pleasure. With a resolution of 1280x720 pixel images will be sharper and reading a ebook will be easier. The AMOLED screen is composed of Pentile matrix, that means every pixel on the screen will either be combination of Red-Green or Blue-Green instead of the regular RGB.

The specs of Galaxy S 3 are not bad either. It will run on a Quad-Core 1.4GHz Exynos 4 processor. It will also have a dedicated GPU. Galaxy S 3 will a 8 Mega Pixel rear camera with Flash and a 1.9 MP camera at the front. Galaxy S III will have 1 GB of RAM to support multitasking and will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB options of storage. You can even expand it further upto 64GB.

Galaxy has loads of connectivity options as well. It will come with NFC which Samsung has named S Beam. With S Beam you can touch the back of the pone with other device to send and receive files. Samsung Galaxy S III will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. Samsung will first ship the phone with 3G and later with 4G LTE for specific countries.

The phone is slated to go on sale on May 29 in Europe and will launch in Summer in the US.

Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolian is now available for downloads.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:09:00 +0000

The now long awaited Ubuntu 12.04 LTS has finally arrived and is now available for download. Don't let the term LTS confuse much, it just means Long Term Support. Open source software are released more frequently then commercial ones and because of this if you have an old version of open source software you are less likely to get support for it. Hence Ubuntu releases the LTS versions which help them provide support for the OS for a long term, in this case 5 years. So if you install Ubuntu 12.04 ( which I strongly recommend), then you can get support for any trouble for at least the next five years.

You can download Ubuntu 12.04 from the downloads page and install it from a USB or a CD. But if you already have Ubuntu 11.10 installed then you can directly upgrade to Ubuntu12.04 from the Update manager. For more information on the update manager go here. If you don't get the anticipated download speed its because of tremendous response. You can definitely try a mirror.

Ubuntu has Unity as its default UI which introduces the Heads Up Display(HUD). Its basically a search feature from where you can search practically for any thing on your hard disk or on the internet. Ubuntu 12.04 will have the updated version of LibreOffice as its default office suite. The version that is pre-installed is 3.5.2. The default media player has changed from Banshee to RhythmBox. But if you are a Banshee fan you can easily get it from the Ubuntu software center which kind of acts like an app store.

Firefox is still the default web browser and as am a big fan of Firefox I like it. You can download Chrome if you want to from the Ubuntu software center. Thunderbird is still the default mailing client and it will sure disappoint Evolution users.

Ubuntu 12.04 looks good hasn't had any glitches since installed and I recommend that you install it too.

Firefox 12: No UAC and 85 improvements to developer tools.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:20:00 +0000

Mozilla released Firefox12 and this time it was with one less prompt. There was no UAC prompt today when my Firefox automatically got updated to version 12. Though not totally invisible the update didn't require any human interaction. A completely silent updater will be the feature of Firefox 13. The reason why user will not see the UAC prompt during update to Firefox 12 is that Firefox uses a service to install itself. The service called 'MozillaMaintenance' has privileges to change system files and thus doesn't ask the user for permission.

Firefox 12 has many good surprises for developers.Firefox blog said in its post that the new Firefox has 85 improvements to the developer tools. One of the new features is the display of line numbers in the 'View Page Source' window. Scratchpad will now have a Jump to line function. Devlopers wont need to reload the page to see messages in the web console.

The download window of Firefox 12 has new feature. If you now paste a URL in the download window it will automatically download the file.

Firefox 12 has many security updates and big number of bug fixes. For a list of the changes visit the release notes page of Firefox.

You can download Firefox from its home page.

Lava Xolo X900 Intel smartphone to be on sale from April 23.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 05:26:00 +0000

Intel's smartphone ambitions will finally be seen in physical this coming Monday. Intel had announced Lava Xolo X900 at MWC12 in Barcelona. The phone will now be launched at a price of Rs. 22,000 on 23rd April. Xolo X900 will have Intels Medfield processor. The device will only be available in India for now. Xolo X900 will run on Android 2.3 GingerBread.

Intel along with Orange had showcased a similar phone at MWC12 called Santaclara. Santaclara had a 4 inch display, 8 MP camera and Android 2.3. Lava Xolo X900 also has similar specs. It sports a 4 inch, high resolution LCD screen. Xolo will support 1080p HD video playback It will have an 8 Mega-Pixel camera with flash. The camera will support HD video recording. Lava said that they will update the ROM to Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich once the phone is launched.

The phone will support HSPA+ 3G network. The phone promises a long battery life. Though 5 Hrs of 3G browsing don't seem much it will have 8 Hrs of Talk time and 45 Hrs of audio playback.

Intel Medfield is a single core processor with the clock speed of 1.6Ghz. Even though it is a single core processor, Medfield will have a good performance. During Santaclara's showcase at MWC a HD video was output on a large screen and there weren't any glitches during the playback. Later on they showed a demo of playing a game on the phone and the video streaming on big screen. The performance of the game was quite good.

In the ARM full market Xolo seems a pin in a hay stack but it is a atleast a start. Intel has some partnerships made already, like the above mentioned Orange Santaclara. Intel also has tie ups with Motorola, ZTE and Lenovo. Lenovo even showcased their Intel phone at CES 2012.

Chrome for android updated. 31 languages, Downloads to device and desktop version of sites.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 06:01:00 +0000

Chrome for Android got updated with some new much awaited features. Chrome for android beta was launched for Android Ice cream Sandwich in February. It is now available to all the countries in which Google Play is available. Chrome is now available in 31 languages. One of the major update is that now you can request the desktop version of a website. Many sites these days have mobile version and a desktop version. The mobile version of a site has less features and is not ideal for tablets. Hence you can request the desktop version of the site for better results.

Chrome also now allows you to download files to your device rather than your storage card. Now you can handle which app will open a given link. So now you can decide whether Meridian or Winamp will play your mp3s. Chrome has also increased support for proxy browsing. It can now use the system proxy settings from Android OS settings.

Chrome will be available in 31 different languages. It has now support for CTL (complex text layout) and RTL (right to left layout) for better rendering of pages in foreign languages. Chrome for android now will support country specific search engines for better search results.

There are a few changes for developers to. Now developers can track users using a User-Agent for Chrome for Android. Developers will be able to track down whether chrome was running on a tablet or a phone. The user agent will also supply the information about the device.Click here to know more.

You can download Chrome for Android Beta from Google Play by clicking this link.

Max Payne 3 Bullet Time trailer released.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:16:00 +0000

Developer of popular game franchise Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games have released the much awaited trailer of Max Payne 3's Bullet Time. Max Payne 3 is the third dose of violence and style in the Max Payne series. The game has also been turned into to a movie starring Mark Whalberg in the lead.

Rockstar Games released the first look poster for Max Payne 3 about 2 years ago and since then fans(which includes me) are waiting for the game eagerly. Max Payne is a story about a detective based in New York.

Max Payne 3 will be based in Brazillian city of Sao Paulo where Max Payne takes up a job. The Job is to protect the family of Rodrigo Branco a wealthy real estate Mogul.

Max Payne will be launched for the PC on May 29th in America and on 1st June in the Europe. Similarly the XBox version and Playstation versions will be launched on May 15th in North America and May 18th in the Europe.

Bing search API now a paid service.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:03:00 +0000

The Bing developer team have announced that the Bing search API for developers will be now offered as a paid service through the Windows Azure Market Place. Bing search API is a service through which developers could use the Bing search engine in their applications. Bing search API was offered free until now and will be charged approximately $40 per month for upto 20,000 queries according to the post on Bing teams blog.

This transition will take several weeks and during the transition the service will remain free. Though Bing team have urged the developers to try the new API service from windows Azure market place for free during transition period. After complete transition the service will no longer be available for free public use.

Many negative tweets followed after the announcement. People have asked the Bing team to keep the service free for small scale applications which have very few queries per day. The Bing team has responded saying "We are absolutely thinking about ways to enable smaller scale applications to keep experimenting with the API. Please stay tuned for more details over the next several weeks."

Google also offers such a service for a much cheaper rate than Bing's. Developers are already stating that they would switch to the Google search API.

Airtel 4G-LTE launched in Kolkatta.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 04:37:00 +0000

Airtel launched India's first 4G network in Kolkatta yesterday as announced earlier. Airtel will use the TD-LTE network for this purpose. Airtel had already bagged four circles in the auction which was held in June 2010. Other than Kolkatta airtel also has the circles of Punjab, Karnataka and Maharashtra and Goa. Airtel also announced that it will soon launch services in other circles starting with Banglore.

What are the plans for 4G prepaid and postpaid?

The plans are compitetive and look good as compared to 3G plans. Airtel has launched services with both prepaid and postpaid options. There are three different plans and all of them have FUP (Fair usage policy) limitations. FUP was not surprising considering the amount of data that can be transferred at 100MB/s, what was surprising was after the qouta usage the speed will be as low as 128KB/s.

The three plans are for 6GB, 9GB and 18GB per month usage. They are available for the price of Rs. 999, 1399 and 1999 respectively. The plans are named breakfree, breakfree max and breakfree ultra signifying a break free connectivity.

What is the speed of 4G-LTE?

4G will offer blistering speeds both download and upload. It will have 100MB/s download speed which is currently used in most LAN connections. At such speeds you will be able to play high definition videos without having to wait for them to load. Of course the network availability and speed limits of particular of a particular web site will still affect the overall experience. 4G will have upload speed of 40MB/s. Which will allow you to upload high resolution pictures in seconds.

Facbook buys Instagram for $1 Billion.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:01:00 +0000

In what is termed as over-valued purchase Facebook has bought photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 Billion in cash and stock. Instagram with its user base of 30 million users was just last week valued at $500 million. This is one of the biggest acquisitions after Google bought YouTube for a similar amount.

Is it really over valued deal for Facebook?

There are two ways of looking at it. First we have to note that Facebook will pay Instagram in cash and in 'stocks'. We all know Facebook IPO is in May and Facebook in itself is valued at $100 Billion. So the price decided for the stock for Instagram may lead to a lose or gain depending on the stock price during the public offering.

The second way of looking is that even without any revenue Instagram has the most important thing in web industry, the audience. With 30 million users and growing Facebook has approximately paid $33 per user. Facebook will recover this money through the best monetizing way, advertisements. Also we all know that Facebook has not quite captured the audience in the mobile web segment. For instance just a week after the launch of Instagram for android it has reached the no.3 spot in the top ranked free apps in Google Play. Facebook is ranked at no. 8. Buying Instagram will help Facebook to somehow capitalize in the mobile segment.

Changes to the user of Instagram?

For now there is nothing to be worried. But don't get surprised if you see an ad popping up right after you snap a picture of your friend. One more way of monetizing from Instagram would be of selling of filters. So when a new filter would be made available you may have to buy it.

HP luanches 27 inch All-in-one workstation Z1 at Rs.99,990

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 04:44:00 +0000

With the tag line of "Power without the Tower" HP has launched worlds first all-in-one workstation Z1. The market leader in workstations Hawlett Packard launched the Z1 along with Z820, Z620 and Z420 range of Z series workstations.

HP Z1 will have quad core Intel Xeon processor with nVidia Quadro graphics. A feature to notice about the Z1 is that it will 'snap to open' which means users can upgrade various components to increase performance. Z1 will have a Blu-ray writer and memory card support for various formats.

The price tag of Z1 is Rs. 99,990 plus taxes. HP Z1 is basically targeted at 3D graphics and multimedia artists, professional CAD designers and the entertainment industry.

The other Z series workstations are Z820, Z620 and Z420 are priced from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 90,000.

Airtel to launch 4G LTE with ZTE hardware in Kolkatta.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:10:00 +0000

Bharti Airtel has announced that it has partnered with ZTE corporation (for hardware) to launch 4G services in India.. Airtel the leading telecom company in India had acquired the Broadband Wireless Access license during auction in June 2010. The company had won the license for four circles which include Kolkatta, Maharashtra Punjab and Karnataka.

Airtel will use equipment from ZTE corporation a leading global telecom equipment manufacturer and supplier. ZTE will provide full range base station and macro stations. ZTE has already setup test networks with more than 100 operators all over the world.

Airtel will use the TD-LTE network rather than the FDD-LTE network used in the US. Airtel also announced that it looking forward to launch services as soon as May this year. This will make it the first company to launch 4G network in India.

Instagram now available for android users.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:59:00 +0000

The immensely popular photo editing-cum-sharing app Instagram is now available for Android users. The app originally available to only iOS users has now been released for phones and tablets running Android 2.2 and above.

Instagram became immensely popular when Apple named it the App of the Year 2011. Instagram is a simple app that lets you edit your pictures and then share them. Instagram lets you add various fileters, 18 filters for android users, to your photos to make them look beautiful.

You have to signup for instagram account with your email-id. Once signed up you can take picctures from within instagram app and polish them with effects. You can then share them on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and FourSquare. Instagram in itself also has a social network. It allows you to publish pictures to your profile feed and like twitter allows you to follow other people. The community is now 30 million users strong.

All of the above is free. You can download the Instagram app from Google Play ( Android Market).

Aakash 2 delayed till may.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:34:00 +0000

Earlier Kapil Sibal had announced that the upgraded version of Aakash tablet will be available in April but today he said they will be available in May. The union minister for Human Resource development said that Aakash 2 is currently being tested by student and will soon go into production phase.

Aakash 2 will notably fix issues of battery. It will have a longer battery life compared to Aakash. The device will sport a capacitive touch screen and will also have a faster processor, though not as fast as the higher end tablets.

Aakash 2 will have android 2.3 Ginger Bread. You can book the device at the official Aakash website.

BlackBerry cuts prices of smartphones in India.Torch now at 21990

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 06:03:00 +0000

RIM slashed prices of 4 of its Blackberry smartphone in India. The price cuts come in the wake of RIM's recent financial data release. This move signifies that blackberry phones haven't achieved the target they had set.

Four device will be affected by the price cuts. The major cut is to the entry level smartphone Curve 8520 which will now be priced at Rs. 8999. Blackberry Torch 9860 model will be priced at Rs. 21990 after a price cut of about 27%.

It is notable that BlackBerry has lost considerable market share of smartphone market in the India to android devices. In market like India which is highly sensitive to price the share of smartphone sale is only 6% of total handset sales, but is steadily growing.

Price cuts like this one will sure help in some increase in sales. But the bigger question is whether Blackberry will innovate new devices that will fight against the ones created by Apple, Nokia or Samsung.

Wishtel launches cheap android tabs Ira and Ira Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 05:46:00 +0000

Ira

After Datawind and BSNL its time for Mumbai based Wishtel to launch tablets. Wishtel has launched two new 7" tablets called Ira and Ira Thing. Ira is the cheaper one of the two priced at Rs. 4000, while Ira Thing has been priced at Rs. 5500. Though there isn't a great difference between specifications Ira Thing has 4GB of internal storage and a capacitive touch screen against the 2GB internal storage and resistive touchscreen of Ira.

One interesting thing about this tablets is their support for Indian languages. The tablet will support 23 indian languages, a big number indeed. Not only will the UI be available in regional languages, user will also be able to type in regional languages.

Ira Thing

Both the devices will be powered by VIA processor of 800MHz clock speed. there is 256 MB of RAM and 2GB internal storage for the Ira while 256 MB of RAM and 4Gb internal storage for Ira Thing. Both gadgets have Wi-Fi support with 5 Hours of play time(according to official website). Connectivity will also be supported by external 3G modems.

The device will have app to read eBooks in regional languages.

You can order the device through this link.

Zynga buys DrawSomething creator OMGPOP.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:47:00 +0000

Popular social gaming company Zynga has reportedly bought OMGPOP for a speculated price of $200 million.Though the company has denied to reveal the financial info of the deal it has confirmed the buy out. Zynga recently launched their own gaming portal.

Zynga bought OMGPOP which was established in 2006 and is a year older than Zynga. The company has 40 empolyees. It has released 35 games for smartphones. But it became succesful when six weeks ago they launched Draw Smoething.

The game got popular immidiately. Draw Something has seince been downloaded more than 35 Million times. It is the top app in 84 countries according to Apple's App store. Just the downloads are not the only proof of its popularity. Over a billiion drawings have been created since the luanch of the game which shows that people are using it repeatedly.

Zynga had raised $1 billion in its public offering. Zynga had earlier bought Newtoy Inc for $53.3 million.

Nokia offers premium apps for free to select models.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:20:00 +0000

Nokia India has announced free premium app downloads for select model owners. The models 500, 603 and 701 along with C5-05 and C5-03 will get free games worth Rs. 3850. Buyers will have to send a text message to 55555 to activate the downloads.

Free games are from big companies like EA. The games include titles like FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA tour, Medal of Honor and Need for Speed.

Along with games the company is also offering premium utility apps. Apps like 'message hider' and 'contact hider' and 'Call recorder' will be given for free. Apps for SMS like SMS scheduler and SMS Spam Manager are also on the offering.

Nokia's App store has grown considerably but to keep up with android it has been taking such steps. Nokia Store also known as OVI store has more than 100,000 apps to download. The store has 13 million registered users which makes it one of the biggest markets in India.