Samsung Galaxy S II was the biggest launch of any Android phone the last year. It was equipped with specifications no other could boast and an user interface like no other. For me, it was THE super-phone of that year (even Galaxy Nexus doesn’t change my opinion) for which I curiously waited for 3 months after being unveiled in MWC (Mobile World Congress) in February and rushed to buy it on the very first day of its launch in India.

Now, after one year, the industry has started to talk about Galaxy S III and rumors have started to flow. But most of the are a yet-another-usual-specification-rumor talking about increase in its screen size, processor speed etc. None of them talk about what I really want from the next successor of Galaxy series:

1. Notification LED

This. Please Samsung, I want a notification LED on my next phone so that I don’t have to unlock my phone every time to check for missed events. I do use noLED app out of XXXX but it’s no match for a LED.

2. Bigger Battery

For normal users, it’s quite easy to squeeze out of atleast a day or two of usage from Galaxy S2’s battery. But for a heavy user like me who’s always playing with his phone, more than half a day is practically impossible, with the screen sucking almost half the battery power.

I’ve already started envying Motorola RAZR MAXX for it’s massive 3300 mAh horsepower of battery which, according to AnandTech, lasts upto twice longer than Galaxy S II’s 1650 mAh battery. I don’t care if Galaxy S III is a millimeter or two thicker or shorter, I just want a bigger battery Sammy.

3. Better Earphones and Better Audio Quality

From my experience, I’ve found iDevices’ audio quality and earphones from other manufacturers to be better from Galaxy S2’s audio quality and earphones quality respectively. From such a high-end phone, I expect something better.

Samsung packs the same earphones in its $200 Galaxy fit and $600 Galaxy S II. That’s not fair, I want a better one with Galaxy S III.

4. No Larger Screen Please

In my opinion, my 4.3″ inch screen is the perfect display a superphone should have (with physical buttons). Although being a tall person, I still find it the maximum display size which my fingers can browse without begging my second hand to help. After all, using two hands for a phone is not productive.

I hope all those rumors about a bigger screen aren’t true, I don’t wish to have any bigger phone.

5. Make it Future-Proof for Android 5.0+

Denying Ice Cream Sandwich update to Galaxy S did break many hearts who had shelved good cash on their phone. Although Galaxy S II will be upgraded to Android 4.0 very soon but I believe it will face the same fate as its older brother when next build of Android arrives.

Samsung, we don’t want the same to happen with Galaxy S III. Phones don’t come cheap and your next phone would carry a price tag of atleast $600+. I don’t want it to die before tasting Android 5.0 or further builds.

6. NFC on All Models

I want to see Bluetooth die on the hands of NFC, I want it in Galaxy S III. The possibilities of NFC have been on the rise since recently. Android beam and Google wallet are two good examples I wish to try out but the lack of NFC on international versions of Galaxy S II seldom lets me do it, I can only see them in videos.

[Image credit]

Read the article on the Blog: 6 Things that I Would Like to See in Samsung Galaxy S III
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The libre and open source project which started way back in 1996, has come a really long way. VLC is perhaps the only multimedia player to show its presence in all the major platforms viz. Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, and even unheard of platforms like BeOS, BSD(all variants), HP’s QNX, IBM OS/2 and syllable. VLC was last updated to 1.1.11 on Windows and 1.1.13 on Linux platforms.

What’s New?

1. New Interface

The first reaction when you check out the new VLC player is the slimmed down playback toolbar, which looks much cleaner. Surprisingly, VLC this time even has much better seeking than the predecessors, which always had been an issue with VLC.

2. Coverflow

Amongst the other visible changes is the addition of coverflow in the playlist and media library.

Now you can dock the VLC full screen controller to the bottom, which was missed peculiarly in VLC.

GPU acceleration is now much better and marked stable , which was labelled as experimental in the prior versions.

3. For Mac

But what will make the Windows and Linux versions look ugly as hell is the shiny new interface sported by the Mac version of VLC. It even comes up in two different colours, grey and black to match OSX Lion style. Now that’s what we call unfair.

More New Features in Bullet Style™

While you may be sorely disappointed by the changes on the surface of VLC 2.0, you will be more than happy when you sit up and take notice of the major work that has happened under the hood of the favourite media player. As this release is a major version bump rather than a point release, naturally implying it encompasses several hundred bug fixes and changes. We highlight the major changes for end users

• MultiCore Support: VLC now has multi-core video decoding support for major formats, which will show up as real performance benefits for most PC users.
• Improved GPU Acceleration: It has been improved vastly, and it has been changed to stable from experimental in VLC 2.0
• Blu-ray Playback Support! Though, it currently (and may be even in the future) can not play copy protected Blu-ray Discs due to legal issues.
• Even more file formats: VLC 2.0 has support for more formats than before, with rewritten video output modules for Windows 7, iOS and Android
• Multiple files are now supported inside RAR files, a really cool feature now even better.
• MKV playback, which has been a gripe in VLC for quite a long time has received much needed attention of developers in twoflower.
• Improved Web Plugins: VLC’s web plugins are rewritten for more stability in all the browsers
• Audio core has been simplified for faster processing and also contains new resamplers for high quality audio.

Interesting facts

Apparently, there was a native 64 bit version planned for Windows, which got shelved by the time of release for some reasons. The native 64 bit version might be released for version 2.1 Rincewind. If you still want 64 bit version, you can try the nightly builds of VLC 2.1 here.

VLC for Android is currently in development state but you can try the unofficial pre-alpha build of VLC. While interestingly the iOS version of VLC was removed from the app store following the complaints of a VideoLan developer. However you are free to download the binary manually and install.

Read the article on the Blog: VLC 2.0 Aka ‘Twoflower’ Released, Brings Bluray Playback Support, New Interface and Much More
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

So, I decided to share some amazing games that were recently released which you might have got lost in the noise. I intend to make more lists like this regularly but will focus only on games. Here are they:

1. One Epic Game

There’s a new developer team around in the market and they’ve come with an awesome game, One Epic Game aka OEG. The story is full of challenging levels, humorous dialogues, upgrades and much more.

“The world needs saving… again. But this time, it needs protection from an alien invasion right in the middle of a zombie outbreak, in a fantasy land somewhere in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with World War II also involved somehow!”

2. Lep’s World

What do you get to play when an Irish man gets stuck into the world of Mario? You get Lep’s World! Well, this game is almost similar to that game and is very enjoyable.

“Lep the Leprechaun has lost his gold! Help him to jump and run through the beautiful worlds of Lep’s World to find his gold. Be careful! There are many angry monsters. They want to stop Lep in each world. If you collect a cloverleaf Lep’s health grows. But you are not secure with more health. An angry bee could hit him. An easy and smooth control makes it very funny and to jump or run.”

3. The Sims™ FreePlay

From the creators of The Sims™ 3 series of best-selling mobile games, comes a COMPLETE Sims experience that you can play for FREE on Android.

• Care for pets, grow gardens, even bake a cake
• Design dream homes or get fully-furnished houses for your Sims
• Give your Sims careers and earn Simoleons to improve their situations
• Create upto 16 customized Sims from head to toe
• Complete goals for Lifestyle Points, then spend them on hip items
• Live with your Sims in real-time (when it’s day or night for you, it’s the same for your Sims)!

4. Magic Portals

This game is similar to the movie, Jumper where you’ve to teleport almost everything in the game from one place to another, including yourself. It is addictive and challenging too. Though, the first level might get little boring.

The game includes several features and art style based on classical 16-bit games, mixing pixel art elements with cutting edge real-time lighting effects.

5. Baseball Superstars® 2011

Baseball Superstars is a full featured baseball game which includes 6 different modes to satisfy everyone’s needs. My League Mode contains unique RPG elements in a sports title, Season Mode requires great management skills, Exhibition Mode provides sheer entertainment, Homerun Race offers quick challenge, Mission Mode demands finest skills and Match Play Mode allows you to boast your talents to the rest of the world!

6. Train Crisis HD

Train Crisis is a puzzle and addictive strategy game where you have to prove your reflexes. Would you like to travel through the history of the railroad? This amazing game lets you play in two different railroad eras, Industrial and Far west era where your goal is to overcome all the obstacles that appear on each level and guide each colored train toward its corresponding destination.

7. Pinball Arcade

This is an amazing Pinball game. It combines the classic arcade game with stories of Tales of the Arabian Nights, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Theatre of Magic, and Black Hole and much more.

You can play exact recreations of the all-time greatest pinball tables from Williams®, Bally®, Stern Pinball®, and Gottlieb® together in one game. Every flipper, bumper, sound effect, and display pixel has been painstakingly emulated in astonishing detail.

An optional Facebook login allows players to connect to cross-platform leaderboards.

8. ZENONIA® 4

“When an ancient evil threatens to erupt onto the world, heroes of the ages must assemble once again to change the course of destiny. Join Regret, Chael, Ecne, Lu and more to embark on the greatest ZENONIA adventure yet!”

Maker of some all-time classic RPG games, Gamevil is back with the fourth version of its popular game series, Zenonia. The game’s graphics are of high quality and the story is really worth bragging about. The game can also be played online with a new 2-on-2 arena battle including a 1-on-1 rumble as well.

9. Ceramic Destroyer

Ceramic Destroyer is an easy but very addictive blasting game! Your target is to use the bombs to explode various ceramics. But the key point is you need to destroy the whole ceramic as possible as you can, never left even one tiny piece.

There are several types of bombs and more than 100 different levels to be played.

10. Drive Kill

Simple game, lots of fun! There’s only one thing you’ve to do, kill hordes of zombies while you drive till your fuel lasts. There are tons of bonus and upgrades to keep you busy all day and night like Machine gun, Rocket boost, new engine, power transmission and more. Do you want to kill zombies while driving?

There’s only one problem with the game – touch controls are choppy. It will sometime not recognize taps but still, the game is worth wasting few hours.

11. Real Soccer 2012

“Real Soccer is back for the new season, bringing soccer on mobile to a new era! Experience the ultimate soccer game on smartphones with custom kits for designing your own custom team jerseys, shorts and more using a detailed editor, several gameplay modes like Exhibition, League and various International Cup modes, or Training mode etc.”

The best part of this game is that you can re-create a matchup of any game that you’ve recently seen on the TV. Gameloft calls it their ‘Hypergame technology’.

12. My Railway

My Railway captures the fun of playing with model trains. Lay rails to connect cities, hire your friends as engineers, control factories and workshops, send your locomotives from city to city and load them up with cargo! Become a modern-day Vanderbilt!

13. Ninja Chicken

Well, this is about a funky chicken who thought he was a ninja! The game is very simple but worth few hours of play.

“A terrible, most unfortunate accident has happened leaving our poor chicken with chicken dementia. This funky chicken now truly believes that he is a ninja and not just any ninja – the best ninja of them all! with the greatest powers ever bestowed on ninja before.”

Read the article on the Blog: 13 Addictive Android Games that were Released in the First Half of February
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Google Books is maybe the worlds largest online books database with over 15+ million digitally scanned books. If you’ve ever wondered how to download Google Books, you’ll seldom find some really nifty utility to accomplish the task.

Bookworm, is a web service which lets users download Google Books as PDF files is totally free. Currently Bookworm is in beta, but the site is making impressive progress in a really short span of time so we decided to check it out.

How does it work?

In Google Books, some books are viewable in “Limited Preview”. Of course you can not download these books. There is a catch in this though. In each region, the viewable pages in the limited previews are different. Bookworm cashes on this fact and tries to aggregate all the pages from all regions, later building them into one single PDF file. Sounds neat right?

How to Download Google Books as PDF?

The interface of the site is fairly clean and well organized. You can start downloading the books simply by dropping the URL of  the book you need.

The site categorizes the books currently being downloaded , and those which are done. Though one thing which we noticed was, there was considerable time taken to download the books. Although the homepage itself claims that this currently is an issue and they are improving the scenario.

You can start building the books from the downloaded pages once the entire download is finished, or even partially (if you are one of those impatient types). This feature is really outstanding which is missing in many utilities. If you’re wondering how to download google books as PDF files, bookworm lets you do that too!

Sounds good, I want to try

Before you rush out to give Bookworm a try, mind that it is still rough around the edges.   But considering it has already hit Beta stage in just a month and the rapid phase of development, we are a bit lenient here. There are couple of issues we would like to highlight

• As mentioned earlier some books do take really long time to download, we hope the developers fix this issue soon.
• Even if the book is available in limited preview, the complete book sometimes could not be downloaded and the site gave the message above.

Currently the service is currently in invite only form. Luckily we have lots of invite codes which you can use while signing up for Bookworm:

So next time someone asks your advice on how to download google books as pdf, recommend him Bookworm!

Read the article on the Blog: Download Google Books Online for Free with Bookworm [Invite Code Inside]
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Guess, Apple has its own reasons for not providing this feature. It is believed that, with Bluetooth 4.0 there will be an uniform platform where in iDevices will be able to share with any devices.

But it will be too much of wait, wouldn’t it? So Eric Day, a developer has come up with an app called AirBlue Sharing which lets you send / receive photos and files from your iPhone 4S / 4 easily to any other device via Bluetooth / WiFi.

Not just bluetooth, AirBlue Sharing tweak also allows sharing data using WiFi connectivity. If you don’t have a wifi near you, it will setup a P2P wifi automatically. This WiFi P2P works even without a WiFi hotspot. It selects the best medium available with faster speed to transfer data. Cool, isn’t it?

List of compatible devices:-

- iOS devices running iOS 4.2 to iOS 5.x (iOS 5.0 / iOS 5.0.1)
- Non iOS devices such as Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Blackberry, Android smartphones and other OBEX Bluetooth enabled phones.
- Windows PC ((XP/Vista/7), Mac OS X, Linux Machine.

The app is natively integrated with system apps like Photos, Contacts, iPods, Videos, Notes, iBooks.

As I said, this app is available for download on Cydia for 4.99$. It’s worth every penny! If you still haven’t jailbroken your iPhone 4S, this tutorial should help you.

For me, this is one of the major reasons to jailbreak my iPhone 4S.

I will leave you with two demo videos, Happy Sharing!

Receive from Android

Sending from iOS to Android

Read the article on the Blog: [iOS Cydia App] Airblue Sharing lets you send / receive files between iPhone and any Device!
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

1. Microsoft is playing a dangerous gamble with the PC market

Perfect GUI is a fictitious toy, which everyone keeps playing around with, and seldom succeeds in achieving. The current Windows 7 desktop, arguably is one of the best GUI (Graphical User Interfaces) ever designed for PC, in terms of customisability, stability and flexibility.

Here I am not arguing that Windows 7 GUI was the best thing happened to humanity, but the fact that, the Win 95 GUI in itself, was actually created after a lot of research. The successive windows versions merely kept improving upon the same and Windows 7 is the pinnacle of those efforts. But Forcing long time PC users to adapt to a completely new interface with the next Windows version is illogical, to say the least.

2. Metro: Y U NO LIKE PC?

Let me not blaze the guns on Metro interface saying it looks childish, not customisable and more. In fact, we at TechSplurge are quite a fan of the Metro interface on the Window Phone 7 and keep on raving about it. Extending that clean design on tablets, is a good idea too which makes it really livid on touchscreens. What about non touchscreens? Of course Metro in Windows 8 supports keyboard and mouse, but the overall user experience on PC in the developer preview is kinda awful for me. And here is why:

• Metro apps are actually, infotainment apps, which are built for consuming content, not creating them. So if you are a coder/designer/writer, you will be passionately hating Metro.
• The classic start menu is simply gone, there is no neat way to get the classic start menu back in Windows 8 apart from few tricks which are out of bound for the common users.
• Metro mimics the (un)popular GNOME Shell, Ubuntu Unity app management style, where you launch an app by searching it. Sure efficient and time saving for power users, but not for normal home users like my mom who launches Word by going Start>All Programs>Microsoft Office>Word.
• In metro there is no good multitasking for PC. Either apps run in full screen, or  minimised. Which is definitely not a brilliant way for running apps on a PC.

3. Dearth of Applications

Speaking in naive terms, there are two variants of apps on Windows 8:

• Traditional Desktop apps
• Metro Apps

The latter, even if magically gained users overnight, is still according to many developers a pain to develop on PC because most of the Metro Development Framework is in its infancy. No wonder why Microsoft is overnight pushing so many incentives to develop Metro apps.

Now coming to the former, there are no known changes under the hood when compared to Windows 7 classic apps framework, so logically, most long time developers might not consider to have their apps ported to Metro.

4. Enterprises will Simply Not be Interested in Windows 8

What does Windows 8 contain apart from Metro interface? Windows Store, a new ribbon interface for explorer, a revamped task manager and a handful more expected internal updates. Sadly, the corporate big-wigs are not even remotely interested in these at the expense of wasted man-hours or relearning the interface and training employees for Metro. If Windows 8 Metro interface would be as famous as iPad, we could barely see pilot projects based on this but not a complete upgrade like Windows XP to Windows 7 or even Windows Vista to Windows 7.

5. Windows 7 is Just Perfect Right Now.

While this argument might sound rather silly at first, Windows 7 “just works” wonderfully, whether it is switchable graphics, or gaming. Apart from the new interface, there is practically nothing the common windows user would gain from the upgrade (except if Microsoft has added more features in Windows 8 on top of the dev. preview).

Remember that unlike Mac OS X which is mere $30 upgrade, Windows is very expensive from any point (the basic version of Win 7 costs about 4x the price of OS X ) Also it is unanimously the successor of Windows XP, which is why corporate houses are upgrading or planning to Windows 7 because Windows XP support will end soon. While all these factors are not at all Windows 8 team’s fault, this will simply work to the disadvantage of Microsoft.

Concluding

Although I would love to see Windows 8 as an another successful product from Microsoft, things might go exactly opposite for the reasons I’ve stated. If it happens, it would be a death bell for the entire PC market which is already witnessing flat growth rates and even loss making in some cases.

Though, the ball is in Microsoft’s court and small things like a neat way to get back the Windows 7 Start Menu, more focus on desktop at the least for PC edition of Windows 8, optimising the disk usage, taking note of user feedback on Metro, etc., would just go a long  way to ensure that this release of Windows does not bomb like its now legendary Vista release. Stay tuned for more action.

Read the article on the Blog: Why Windows 8 Could Fail and Become Another Vista
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Recently, the popular social networking application Path, was reported to take your contacts’ information and upload it to their own servers. Though they issued an apology for it, it clearly high-lightens the concern, as to what the apps are capable of doing.

Wouldn’t it be great to have an App which would block the Apps from accessing the private info and you inturn could be a master to chose which app could access what info? Well, we have some good news for you. But for this you need to jailbreak your iDevice.

This tweak called ContactPrivacy helps you manage which applications have access to your personal contacts’ information. You will get a little popup after installing ContactPrivacy that lets you choose whether or not you want that to happen.

Looks familiar to you? This feature is very similar to the window that pops up asking for location services access or asks permission for push notifications.

ContactPrivacy is available for free on Cydia. there are no options to configure.

The major downside and the only reason I had to uninstall the App was because you can’t set a rule or create a permanent setting for one particular app.

For example in the case of WhatsApp. You just can’t use WhatsApp with this tweak installed. It will keep on asking you for the permission endlessly and WhatsApp will close off!

Read the article on the Blog: [iOS Cydia App] ContactPrivacy helps keep your Contact Info Private
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The application interface is beautiful and reminds about every bit of the app’s desktop counterpart. The first page you’re greeted with is of-course the sign in page. Chrome for android syncs everything, from bookmarks to opened tabs etc.

The most interesting feature of the app is Tab Sync. This! Imagine you’re browsing the internet on your computer (using Chrome, of-course) when you’ve suddenly have to leave your desktop. You then take out your phone and pick up your session exactly where you left off, with the same tabs opened. Awesome, right?

Features

• Bookmarks are always synced in to your Google account.
• Page scrolling is even more smoother than the stock browser.
• Tabs can be switched in card view with some nice animations. Swiping a tab horizontally closes it.
• The omnibar (aka address bar) can give autocomplete suggestions.
• Page rendering seems to have improved. The changes might only be noticeable to the web designers out there.

Shortcomings

• Why cannot I switch to desktop version when viewing web pages?
• I feel quick-controls of the stock browser should also be present in Chrome. I’m seriously addicted to it.

Few other stuffs, such as the options menu, are simply a polished upgrade to features found in the stock browser. Talking about force-closes, the app often crashes whenever I try to enter something in a text field. Though, I think it’s because I’m on CM9 on Galaxy S II.

Direct Link for Google Chrome for Android (APK)

The app is only available to few countries and chances are that you don’t live there. No problem, I’ve uploaded the APK file to Dropbox, ready to be downloaded, get it here. Looks like we can expect the stock browser to be replaced by a fully functioning Chrome very soon.

Read the article on the Blog: Google Chrome Beta for Android 4.0 Released with a Beautiful UI, Seamless Sync and More
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Like any operating system, Android needs to be put through its share of cache cleaning, removing old programs and overall system cleaning to keep it functioning smoothly. Although, there are various apps that provide you with one or the other function, Android Assistant stands apart by offering not just 1 or 2, but 18 useful functions within one app.

The main window of the app displays a system monitor in which the CPU, RAM, battery and storage statistic are displayed in easy to understand pie charts. Underneath it are two buttons – Quick Boost and remove ads. Quick boost kills background processes to free up RAM giving your phone an instant boost in performance, hence the name.

The process tab shows the various apps running on your Android device along with how much CPU and RAM are they consuming. You can select the apps that you do not want running and close them using the Kill selected button at the bottom. There is also an option to sort the apps by name or in order of how much CPU/RAM they are consuming.

The third tab – Tools gives you access to the remaining 13 features. You have an advanced volume control, Ring profiles, Cache Cleaner, System clean, File manager, Batch app installer, App backup, System info, Apps 2 SD, Startup Manager and much more.

In the app’s settings you can choose the app to auto start when the phone is restarted. You can also set an auto boost function to run after a selected time that will kill any unused program running in the background to prevent your phone from slowing down. You can also set the phone to startup or shutdown the phone without any audio notification via the silent startup setting.

The app also provides widgets and shortcuts that can be added on the homescreen of your device for quick boost and cleaning function of the phone.

Features

1. Monitor status
2. Process Manager
3. Cache Cleaner
4. System Clean
5. Save Battery Settings
6. File Manager
7. Startup Manager
8. Batch Uninstall
9. Battery use
10. Volume Control
11. Ringer
12. Startup Time
13. Startup Silent
14. System Info
15. Widgets for Quick Booster/ Shortcuts
16. App 2 SD (Android 2.2 +)
17. Batch Installation
18. App backup and restore

Read the article on the Blog: Android Assistant gives you 18 features to manage your device efficiently
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Some people might like to limit the connectivity to certain applications, the reasons being several like one our readers, ChrisPy. But Android doesn’t have any feature to do it apart from a new feature to monitor data usage in Ice Cream Sandwich. This can only be done through third-party apps on the market.

avast! Mobile Security and Internet Firewall are two of my favorite applications to do this job. They act like a firewall which restricts the connectivity to particular apps, just like in your PC. These two apps are super easy to use but there’s one catch – your phone needs to be rooted.

While avast! is a full featured anti-malware suite for Android including Firewall, SMS and Call Filter etc., Internet Firewall is just a tiny app to get the job done, nothing else. One way in which avast! excels over all other similar applications is its ability to block data connectivity while roaming too. Grab these two apps on the market.

avast! Mobile Security	Internet Firewall

Read the article on the Blog: [Tip] How to Restrict Internet Connectivity to Certain Applications in Android
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