Coming to the release, Firefox 21 puts more focus on improvements more related to performance and privacy. Developer related features also get some love in this iteration.

Major New Features

Improvements to Do Not Track

Firefox now provides three provisions regarding to tracking. Apart from being able to specify that you do not want to be tracked, you can now specify the opposite as well, with the default being set to the former. There is a curious new option of not telling the tracking preferences as well.

Firefox Health Report

Firefox 21 includes a preliminary implementation of Firefox Health Report which gives you aggregated summary of  your browser stats. Some stats include : add-ons installed, startup time and number of crashes. You can share your Firefox performance data by enabling Data Sharing (turned on by default). Mozilla notes that the IP addresses will not be logged by turning on data sharing.

Startup Improvements Tips

If your Firefox takes too long to start, Firefox will promptly display a dialog box leading you to tips on how to take care of the issue. Basically, Firefox just compares the browser startup time to the average recorded time and will prompt you if the difference is too big.

Expanded Social API

Firefox 17 saw the introduction of Social API with some neat Facebook Integration. Firefox 21 sees some improvements in this regards with the addition of support for four (not so popular) Social networking platforms. You can find more about it in this post by Mozilla.

Other Improvements

There have been some noticeable improvements in graphics issues, fixes for various security issues and implementation of remote profiling.

Benchmarks

Coming to the performance aspect, we have benchmarked Firefox 21 with Firefox 20, Google Chrome 26 and Internet Explorer 10. All the tests were done on Windows 8 Pro 64bit running on a HP G42-478Tx with the latest drivers.

Traditional Benchmarks

Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper benchmarks reflects overall browser capabilities. This time around, Firefox saw some significant gains compared to Firefox 20. Chrome is still however vastly ahead in this suite.

Kraken

Both Chrome 26 and Firefox 21 have seen some major gains in Mozilla’s comprehensive benchmark. Firefox 21 and Chrome 26 pretty much tie for the top spot, while Internet Explorer 10 is left biting the dust.

Google Octane

Firefox 21 has improved by huge margins in one of the crucial browser benchmarks, gaining as much as 814 points compared to Firefox 20. Interestingly, the once giant gap between Firefox and Chrome is closing in with each Firefox release.

Sunspider

Perhaps one of the oldest and trustworthy benchmarks (and the only one where Internet Explorer 10 dominates), Firefox 21 saw almost no change. Chrome 26 is slightly ahead than Firefox.

Memory Benchmarks: Firefox 21 vs Chrome 26 vs IE 10

Coming to real world metrics, we measured the memory consumed by each of the current browsers in two scenarios, single tab and multiple tabs. In the former case, Facebook was opened in each of the browser and the memory usage was noted after 5 minutes.

For measuring multi tab memory usage, the following sites were opened : TechSplurge, ArsTechnica, Facebook, GMail, Google+, Twitter, Google News, Phoronix, TheVerge, OMGUbuntu.

Single Tab: Firefox 21 vs Chrome 26 vs IE 10

Firefox was at the fair middle ground in memory consumption with a single tab open. Chrome was a behemoth, with as much as 4 processes running for a single tab, despite all extensions being removed. Internet Explorer 10 was the lightest of them all with a memory consumption of just around 100 MB.

Multiple Tabs: Firefox 21 vs Chrome 26 vs IE 10

This is where Firefox clearly shines : Handling multiple tabs. Be it with Panoramic view (Ctrl + Shift + E) or be it effecient memory management, nothing comes close to Firefox in this regard. Chrome due to excessive sand boxing and process spawning clearly was at disadvantage but it should be noted that over the period of time Google Engineers have somewhat taken care of the excessive memory consumption. Internet Explorer 10 comes at an impressive second right next to Firefox with decent memory consumption.

Conclusion

Firefox 21 brings a slew of performance improvements across the board, coupled with some handy troubleshooting tools. Firefox 22 already looks promising and looks promising enough to carry this trend forward. Interesting times ahead.

Read the article on the Blog: [Benchmarks] Firefox 21 vs Chrome 26: Impressive Gains for Mozilla Across the Board
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

Android Studio, the shiny new Integrated Development Environment for Android released this Google I/O has been receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews from developers. The new studio is based on JetBrain’s IntelliJ based developer tools and brings in extra functionalities on top of it for Android SDK such as Gradle-based build support, real time simulator for reflecting changes in code and much more.

While the new Studio is excellent in terms of capabilities, the procedure of migrating workspace from Eclipse to Studio has been giving some issues to several developers, particularly related to the Android SDK.

One such problem that I personally encountered while trying to migrate to Android Studio was its inability to find Android SDK, which was weird since I already had SDK installed on my machine and it was running fine in conjunction with Eclipse.

Problem:

Rendering Problems
No Android SDK Found. Please configure an Android SDK.

Solution for Android Studio No SDK Found. Please Configure an Android SDK Problem

Step 1. Update your copy of Android SDK

Navigate to the directory where Android SDK is installed and open SDK Manager.exe.

Next, check whether the SDK is updated to the latest version i.e., revision 22 or not and update it if required.

Here’s a direct HTTP link if you prefer downloading the update from a separate program such as a download manager:

Android SDK Tools r22 update (95 MB)

Note: (For manual update only) For applying this update, move its contents to the SDK directory, replacing all the files and folders if asked.

Restart Android Studio to check whether updating the SDK solves the problem for you or not.

Step 2. Verify the Android SDK location

If the above step didn’t work its magic for you, verify if there’s any android-sdk folder located in the following address:

X :\ Users \ <Username> \ AppData \ Local \ Android

Replace X with the drive letter where Windows is installed and <Username> with your Windows username. Also, AppData is a hidden folder and so, you’ll have to first enable the option to show hidden folders in the Windows explorer.

Chances are that Android Studio might be using this directory of Android SDK instead of where you had actually installed the SDK from its setup. If this turns out true for you, move all the files from the original SDK location to this address.

This step, combined with the first one solved this issue for me. Feel free to drop a comment if you have any questions.

If switching your workspace to the IntelliJ based Android Studio is proving too cumbersome for you, you can continue to use Eclipse for your development needs.

Read the article on the Blog: SOLUTION: Android Studio No SDK Found. Please Configure an Android SDK Problem
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

It was a classic case of a good product going on to be even better, as Google Maps both for Smartphones and Desktop received a bumper update at the Google I/O 2013 held at Moscone Center in San Francisco. So what has changed? Let’s look at all the new features.

What’s new in Google Maps for Android and iOS?

The UI of both Google Maps on Android and iOS will be identical as that would bring much needed uniformity across the application and Google has promised it would be much easier to navigate through both the applications. Google has added an interesting new feature where you can easily search for a restaurant and you will get the locations right on the map. Tapping on, there is interesting information like the hours of the restaurant or the review of the place.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

The maps for mobile will come integrated with Zagat, so you will no more have to open an app like Zomato to exclusively look at the review of the restaurant you are looking to visit. You could also look up useful information like the address and make a phone call too to the restaurant. There is also an option of sharing the place with your friends via various sharing options. You can also swipe across different suggestions at the bottom of maps to move to the next one.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

Another interesting additional feature is that when you tap on the restaurant, the application would automatically search online if there are any discount coupons that you could use. This is indeed a very handy add on, so that you do not have to separately search for promo codes or discount coupons online. In case there is an accident or a traffic jam on a route then the application would automatically re-route you so that you do not waste your time getting stuck in.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

Google has also added full Tablet support for the Maps application and you could simply ‘Explore’ the place which would automatically give you the places you must visit. However, maps for both Android and iOS would be updated over the summer and no real time frame was announced when we can try the application out. However, some of these features really affirm the belief that Google is still the standout player when it comes to digital mapping solutions and they just got a whole lot better on mobile.

What is new in Google Maps on Desktop?

The big announcements and updates, safe to say, were left for Google Maps on desktop. It has been a while since Google really gave a face lift to the Maps for desktop. “The future of Google Maps” will roll out on desktop before eventually making its way inevitably to mobile.

Image Credits: Technobuffalo

Google Maps for Desktop has been re-engineered from the ground for web and now fully integrates Google Earth and supports 3D viewing. You can completely zoom out and view the position of Earth in space. Not just this, everything including the position of the clouds and cloud cover is all real time which bought a massive applause from the seated audience. You can also simply take a picture of a venue or find it on the web and walk into the interior of the place giving a more real world feel.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

This is not all, the maps would integrate with your G+ profile meaning you will be able to read reviews that your friends might have written. All the results are marked right on the maps and descriptions are available right there. You do not need any sort of cross linking as all the information is available directly in the maps. The maps have a beautiful colorful scheme and UI by looks of it is very neat.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

The people who did get a hands on time with the application were impressed with the overall snappiness of the application but during faster transitions there were reported visible minute lags. You can still perform the basic searches and have street view like earlier but things just look a lot more polished now.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

The Web version of Google Maps has the same Card like UI as Google Now does and it may take a while getting used to it. You can also customize your favorite features with landmarks and they will appear as proper locations thanks to 3D support. Your web history as well as reviews will help Google recommend you more places that you might want to visit and they currently track over 100 million places.

Image Credits: Techcrunch

Another important thing to note is that the dreaded sidebar is now gone. As a result, your search results are overlaying on the maps which gives the maps a little bit more screen estate. Although, just like Google Maps for Android and iOS there is no clear date as to when the updates will roll out but you can receive an invite to try out a preview of the new maps by requesting a preview by visiting the following URL.

Overall, Google Maps are a lot more cleaner and easier to use than ever before. Not just that, the search time has come down dramatically too and 3D support means everything is so much more realistic and real time. We just hope that the updates roll out soon, cause we simply cannot wait to get our hands dirty.

Read the article on the Blog: Google Announces Big Upgrades for Google Maps on Android, iOS and Desktop At I/O 2013
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

Installation

Google is slowly rolling out Hangouts for Android in play store. If you are impatient, here is our neat little guide on how to install Google Hangouts on your favourite device. If you would prefer using a PC, you can check out the Chrome extension.

The Interface : A Kick in the Rear for Every IM Client

It can be safely said that Hangouts is one of the slickest interfaces ever for a chat client. Hangouts literally makes WhatsApp seem to be from the Stone Age. Eye popping animations, tight Holo Light theming throughout the application and zippy transitions that are a treat to watch. And yes, all this on a not so new ICS device.

Speaking Functionality Wise : Where it matters the most

Hangouts takes signficant departure from the traditional IM clients in a lot of aspects. To begin with, you can either directly start chatting with your existing Google Talk / G+ friends (who surely will serve as the base) or directly send an invite to any friend on your phone contact list.

Coming to the core aspect, the conversations , we feel this will be one of the strongest points of Hangouts. Think of it : Same conversations, synced neatly all across to your devices  to the letter, without a second delay. We tested the bold claim and it worked just flawlessly across devices.

Hangouts displays a thumbnail of people online in the conversation. On tapping the thumbnails you can see the point up to which the conversation has been read.

One of the trivial yet important aspects of an IM client is Emoji. We have been witnessing plenty of apps downright aping every Whatsapp’s emoticon . Hike and Messenger, I am pointing at you ( though the latter does have stickers). However, Hangouts manages to have its own bunch of emoticons, which quite frankly gives a distinct look to the app and is a refreshing break from Whatsapp emoji.

Video Calling : A No Nonsense, Google approach

Now while a good plain Text based IM client  service would be easily sufficient to topple the carts of a whole bunch of IM providers, Google looks seemingly prepared to go on a step further and has added video calling that actually works very well. There is no dedicated audio call, like in it’s predecessor, however you can achieve the same effect by merely turning off the video.

Speaking of video call itself, the quality of the video turns out to be a much better than on Skype or Viber. Google has effectively put a lot of thought in designing the application and it clearly shows. For example, (as seen in the left image) when you tap on the screen when on call, you can toggle cameras, mute audio/video and switch speakers. If you tap on one of the participants on the hangout you can selectively ignore them, or just block the audio, or just simply zoom in to them.

Message Delivery and Performance

The app as mentioned earlier is quite unbelievably snappy. Sliding in the main activity is very smooth and so is every other animation even on a Android 4.0.4 device. However, when switching from video chat to text there seems to be slight stuttering which is very forgivable given the fact that this is just the first release of the app.

Message delivery is near instantaneous and was head and shoulders above Whatsapp, which is notorious in this regards at times. Also, the notification when someone is typing is very welcome too. But do note that getting adjusted to people online being displayed at the bottom takes a bit of time.

Quirks : Oh there are plenty

While Hangouts is a spectacular release for a Google I/O announcement product, it is far from perfect and has quite a lot of issues. First of, there is surprisingly no way to share anything other than images and text : no video, audio or contacts atleast, at the moment. Secondly there is no way to send a audio/video message, which is a mundane feature in pretty much every application. Last but not the least, there no way to check if someone is online or not outside a conversation. So if you want to ping your crush when she is just online, Hangout may just make it difficult to see her online presence.

Concluding

Google Hangouts is a giant first step in the holy direction of a unified Messaging platform and easily sets the bar even higher for some of the finest app interfaces. However, functionality wise, still there is a lot missing, which could be easily expected in upcoming iterations. Happy Hangouts!

Read the article on the Blog: Google Hangouts for Android Review : A Pleasant Google IO Gift
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

(Image credits: VentureBeat)

With Android devices catching up with gaming consoles, boasting high-definition screens, quad-core CPUs and better than ever GPU performances, games are a big part of the entire Android Ecosystem. We have some of the biggest Game Developers such as EA, Gameloft, Rockstar, etc. on board, bringing us our favorite games such as FIFA, GTA, etc on our favorite Android devices. So, it came as no surprise when Games was one of the central focus of attention at the Google I/O opening Keynote.

The rumors were loud and clear and once again proved to be right, we now have a revamped and a better than ever Gaming Experience now on Android thanks to the new Gaming Services. You can now challenge your friends for a game in real time, or continue your favorite game on the tablet after playing it on your smartphone initially and still have your scores and achievements intact and a lot more.

Let’s revisit all the new enhancements in the field of Gaming on Android.

Leader-boards and Achievements

Competing with our friends in various games will now finally suck a lot less. Play Game Services will bring unified leader boards and achievements center to various games. Interestingly, it be cross-compatible as well, so users will be able to compete with their friends or global players, irrespective of the devices they own (iOS, Android or the Web).

Play Game Services will be using Google+ integration, which also means that Facebook logins will no longer be required for finding your friends in games, which sucked a lot considering how badly Facebook has designed it. Google+ integration is a lot smoother and simpler process.

Real Time Match-Making

Perhaps the best part about Play Game Services is its real time matchmaking capability that will let users connect with each other for a multi player game without going through any cumbersome processes. For developers as well, this will make their lives much easier now as the implementation part will be taken care by the new SDK.

Cloud Saving

As a person who loves to fiddle around with custom firmwares on my Nexus 4, losing my progress in various games was a problem I had to frequently deal with. Sure Titanium Backup was always there to the rescue, but it was a bit cumbersome process.

Cloud Saving, the third major feature of Play Game Services solves this problem. It will provide developers with a simple and streamlined storage API to store save games and settings on the cloud.

The list of games that have added support for Play Game Services so far include:

• World of Goo
• Super Stickman Golf
• Modern Combat
• Osmos
• Beach Buggy Blitz
• Kingdom Rush
• ETERNITY WARRIORS 2
• Townsmen

According to DroidGamers, Gameloft will be bringing this functionality to Dungeon Hunter 4 and Asphalt 7: Heat in the coming days as well.

Also check out: Download Hangouts APK for Android

Read the article on the Blog: Play Game Services — Google’s Solution to a Game Center for Android has Finally Arrived
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

The Google’s biggest event of the year, Google I/O 2013 has just ended with a plethora of new releases for various platforms, including Play Game Services, shiny new Maps, redesigned Google+ interface and much more. The major agenda of this year overall seemed to be pushing the web standards forward and introducing improvements to various Google products.

The most interesting new release for smartphones was undoubtedly Hangouts — Google’s new instant messaging service that combines Google+ Messenger and Google Talk.

Download Hangouts APK for Android

The app, although a bit short in functionalities at the moment, is super slick and will be automatically rolled out to all Android devices during the next few days. If you’re too impatient to wait for trying it out, here’s out you got to do. Download Hangouts APK for Android from the following link, hosted on Dropbox:

Please keep in mind that Hangouts will replace Google Talk automatically in some time as the roll out continues. To force install it, you will have to uninstall Google Talk from your phone. Devices which come pre-installed with Talk will need to be rooted before Talk can be removed from the /system/app folder.

Read the article on the Blog: Download Hangouts APK for Android
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

It is the time to load your Android smartphone, to make it truly yours, a device that would be with you through your thick and thin. Time to install those applications which will complete your world, if not complete, at least make your world a lot more organized and a lot more fun. So which apps do you start off with?

Like the famous Nokia commercial goes, you have our back. Here is our list of ten applications that you must download after you have just picked up a brand new Android smartphone.

Lookout Security and Antivirus

The first and foremost thing you want to do with your Android smartphone is to secure it. In my time of using Android right from the days of Android 1.6 on my HTC Tattoo right till date, I have used plenty of security apps, but safe to say, I always fall back on Lookout Security and Antivirus.

It scans your applications to make sure there are no Malware, Spyware or Viruses which could pose a threat to vast amount of data your Android smartphone would store. It also backs up the contacts of your device remotely so that in case you lose your phone, you still have your contacts intact. You can also upgrade the free application to keep a backup of Images as well your Call History. The app takes a backup everyday so that all your latest add ons are secure.

But this is not all, in case your device is stolen, or lost you can use the ‘Missing Device’ feature in the application to help you try and trace your device via Lookout’s Website. You can enable the ‘Lock Cam’ feature as well which will take the picture of anyone who enters the device pin code incorrectly thrice. The premium edition of the application allows you to remotely lock your device as well as wipe all the data from it. The application is full of features, and definitely one of the very best ways to secure your Android Smartphone.

You can create your account and log in using it on multiple devices thus securing all of them under one roof. All these features come with a UI that is extremely easy to navigate and the learning curve is close to being non existent. There is no need for rooting your device or any complications and that is why it is the number one application that you must download when you pick your Android Smartphone.

A New Launcher

Generally speaking, not too many people are big fans of customization that most of the OEM’s put their Android smartphone through. Yes, I am referring to an almost cartoonishly colorful ‘Touchwiz’ or a Memory Intensive ‘Sense UI’ or any other fancy skin that your Android smartphone might have come out of the box with.

Once you are done securing your device it’s time to change the way it looks, and give it a UI that truly reflects your personality. Given that Android is highly customizable, playing around with UI is easy. You need to install a new launcher from the Play Store. Since there are plenty of Launchers available, you are literally spoilt for choices. Some of the Launchers recommended are Nova Launcher, Buzz Launcher, Holo Launcher and Go Launcher.

They all come with their set of unique features and most of them have a free version available. However, personally I am a fan of Nova launcher as it offers the right amount of customization and is easy on memory. You can play around and change the icons of applications by downloading third party themes as well as other features such as docks, transition effects or margin length.

Pocket (Read It Later)

We live in an era when 4.3 inch screen size on a mobile device is considered just about an ideal size. This makes modern Android devices perfect for reading articles online. Must admit most of the browsing I do on the move is on my mammoth HTC One X and therefore a service like Pocket is very important. It basically allows you to aggregate those articles that you might feel the need to go through again at one place.

Since Pocket is available on iOS and Chrome too, it provides a wonderful cross platform integration so that you have all your articles at the back of your hand. The Android app of Pocket therefore is one of the most important apps out there. You can change the theme of the app to suit your needs as most of us do not appreciate the default white background when we inevitably open the application at night to go through all the articles we have bookmarked. You can choose between a slightly grey theme or a completely black one for those on AMOLED devices to save precious battery juice.

You can also directly store your articles in Pocket from anywhere on your Android Device by picking Pocket from the list of applications in the Share option. The app also has a fair bit of customization that you can do such as when should it download the application or change the way articles appear. You can also decide to disable or enable background sync which is a handy option.

Google Chrome

Although most of the high end Android smartphones come preloaded with Google Chrome, I am adding it here just in case it did not with your device. Let me be first to admit some of the other browsers such as Dolphin or even Opera at times work better on most Android devices than Chrome. But if you use Chrome on desktop and have plenty of bookmarks saved and want to resume your session how you left on your desktop then Chrome for Android is a must download application.

You can also manage the bandwidth the app would use in the settings menu. It is also possible to switch from Google to the likes of Bing and Yahoo if you want as your default search engine within Chrome. The app gives you the option of saving passwords and Auto Filling of forms, and pretty much all the features of a modern day browser are present on Chrome for Android.

A word of advice though, if you intend to use Google Chrome on your Android device then instead of downloading the latest version i.e Chrome v26, you could look at downloading the v18 apk by searching on Google as performances seem to have strangely degraded in the more recent versions.

Snapseed

Long gone are the days when nobody took Camera units on mobile phones seriously. Today, Cameras are one of the USP of smartphones and although one could argue that Nokia is still quite a way ahead of the curve when it comes to putting camera on smartphones, some of the Android OEMs such as HTC and Samsung are not too far behind. And as a result, you want an app on board that can help you edit images quickly without too much of a hassle, Snapseed does just that.

If you are not big into image editing and just want a set of basic tools such as Crop, Frames, adjusting Contrast, Brightness etc to quickly edit an image on your Android device then Snapseed is a wonderful app available for free. It may not be as feature filled as some of the other apps like the Photoshop Touch, but Snapseed gets the job done very admirably. The automatic image editing mode works well for those who do not like spending too much time tweaking images. Some of the creative enhancements include Black and White, Drama, Tilt Shift, Center Focus etc.

You can directly upload the images you have just edited within Snapseed to Google Plus which is terrific for sharing images you have just transformed, with your friends. The only potential drawback of the application is the fact that it is available for devices which are running Android 4.0 or above meaning if you are stuck on an Android device running a lower version, the app would show as unsupported.

A Twitter Client

Social networking is pretty massive on smartphones today. I barely remember the last time I visited the likes of Twitter or even Facebook on my desktop. It is always my phone that keeps me up to paces with what’s happening on my Twitter Timeline. Just like Browsers and Launchers, you are spoilt for choices when it comes to a good Twitter Client.

The default Twitter Client for Android is a very decent application especially if you are a light user and do not like to spend money on buying applications. A recent update saw the default Twitter app receive a Holo-esque interface and a settings dedicated button on home screen among various other new tweaks which has made the app a lot more usable. However, if you want to go for the absolute best application for twitter then the app you should be looking at is Falcon Pro.

The UI on Falcon Pro is unique and in our experience there were little to no jumps in the timeline as it loaded pretty much every tweet from the time we last accessed the TL on the application. There is an option of choosing dark and light theme based on your preference and the app is fairly light on the memory too. Inline viewing of videos and images is another very handy feature which puts Falcon Pro firmly in the pole position of our recommended twitter clients. You can also check out the likes of Carbon, Tweetings, Plume and Tweetcaster as potential Twitter Clients for your Android phone.

Instagram

Unless you have just landed after a long flight from planet Mars, there is no way you have not heard about Instagram. It is one of those ‘in’ things today. People refuse to eat food or buy shoes without ‘Insta-ing’ them. It definitely makes our list of ten must have applications on Android device because it makes sharing your images on Social Network a breeze.

You can edit images easily using built in filters in the the application and share it across your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr or Foursquare. Recent update added the ability to tag your friends in pictures, very similar to how it is on Facebook. You can also interact, comment or like images of the people you follow. As Instagram continues to climb up the popularity charts, you have to admire the developing team behind it given that it is one of the easiest applications to use.

It is fun and free, no wonder the teens are absolutely addicted to using Instagram. You simply have to have it on board your brand new Android device.

Google Keep

Google Keep is a relatively new add on to the apps developed by Google themselves. It allows you to quickly take down notes, prepare a check list of tasks you need to do or simply save voice notes. If you do not know about Google Keep, go ahead and read our full review here.

Keep just like most of the other Google apps provides a powerful sync with your Google Account, so you can read the notes you have prepared on your Android phone on web. The UI of the application is simple and neat and the app is extremely easy to use. The ability to switch colors gives a very ‘Post It’ like feeling to your notes so you can easily color code your notes for future references.

The sheer simplicity of the application and lack of many alternate note taking apps on Android means Google Keep is the standout application for the simple note taking purpose. You could try out the likes of Evernote or Catch Notes if you are looking at a little more feature filled application.

Feedly

If you do not know yet, Google has decided to kill Google Reader with effect from July 1, 2013. As a result, all power users of Google Reader are looking at alternates. Feedly has since been considered as one of the most viable options out there for reading your subscribed feeds.

Feedly announced that it would be cloning the API of Google Reader to provide a seamless transition from Reader. The UI is easy on the eye and all your feeds are displayed in a nice picturesque format. Not just your Reader account, you can also sync the likes of Twitter or Facebook feeds in Feedly. Services such as Pocket and Instapaper are integrated too so that you can save the articles and read them later.

Feedly is available on Chrome too so it provides a great way to sync your feeds from your desktop to smartphone directly. The swipe feature to mark the article as read is well done and feels very natural to use. Although there are other apps such as Feedme which work well, Feedly is without a doubt a standout substitute to Google Reader. You can catch hold of our top five suggestions for alternate RSS to reader to Reader here.

Whatsapp

Completing our roundup of ten apps that you must install on your brand new Android device is Whatsapp, the popular cross platform IM client. Whatsapp is possibly the most used app on any smartphone. Not just text messages, whatsapp allows you to quickly send across images, voice messages as well as videos to your friends.

The app is available for free to download on Android play store but charges a very affordable $.99 per year, after one year into the service. Since Whatsapp is available on other mobile platforms such as iOS, Symbian, WP and Blackberry OS, it is the most convenient way to chat with your friends for free. It is very rare that whatsapp servers give in and periodic backups ensure that all your messages are well backed up and delivered pretty much instantly.

Whatsapp has replaced text messaging as the way modern day communication takes place and it is no surprise that the app has remained amongst the top three positions of the popular free apps on Android for months on end.

So those were the ten apps that we believe are absolutely must have for your new Android phone. You may argue that we have missed out on applications such as MX Player, Facebook, Eye in the Sky, Flashlight etc, but most of them can wait or have an equivalent substitute preloaded in most modern day Android smartphones.

Do you agree with our choices? Or are there any other applications you feel are more important? Let us know you views in the comments section below.

Read the article on the Blog: Ten Apps you Must Download when you Buy A New Android Smartphone
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.

Those days are luckily over. We have at our hands, a divine extension for Google Chrome  that not only plays every single video in YouTube in HTML5 format but also lets you download the video in a single click.

HTML5 Video for YouTube

The extension swaps YouTube’s default Flash/HTML5 player with its own replacement, which is frankly speaking, slightly lacking compared to YouTube’s native player. But there are a couple of key positives here : The ability to select between MP4 and WebM HTML5 formats (when available) and the option to download the video in a click.

Download: HTML5 Video for Google Chrome

Customisation

The extension also offers a decent degree of customization  You can choose the preferred codec as well as the resolution apart from being able to customize the player to your needs.

Performance

Chrome has very good hardware accelerated video decode support built into it and it clearly excels at it compared to Firefox at this stage. With this extension enabled, long bouts of 1080p video playback did not make my CPU utilization go anywhere above 5 10% which would be otherwise impossible if it were Flash.  And as expected, every time videos were played in HTML5. No more Flash!

Quirks

The only quirk of the extension apart from the player being tad minimalistic is occasional loading of YouTube’s own flash/HTML5 videos in the background along with the  extensions’ HTML5 video. However this can be simply fixed by a quick refresh.

Firefox Fan? We have got you covered

As we covered earlier, Mozilla had pushed support for H264 codec support for HTML5 videos in Firefox 20, though it had to be enabled manually in about:config. Currently though, the feature is only supported on  Windows 7 and above. Mac, Linux and Windows XP,Vista will be coming up in future releases.

Conclusion

These extensions should help keep your CPU consumption at bay when playing YouTube videos without you having to worry about the notorious flash player anymore. Happy Surfing!

Read the article on the Blog: [Chrome] Get Rid of Flash Completely with HTML5 Video for YouTube Extension
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The Verdict Is In: Nobody Likes Google Glass

Wait, what?

These are the exact words for a product that is still under development from a person who has never tried them. And this person writes for BusinessInsider, a website that describes itself as a “fast-growing business site with deep financial, media, tech, and other industry verticals”. Right.

And there are slew of mixed reviews out there from various sorts of people. Some are loving Glass, hooked to them while some have stopped using them, finding its appearance ridiculous and creepy.

Which is okay. People have different opinions. But verdicts about a product that is currently only open for developers and not at all intended for daily use and is still no less than half a year away from a public release is what can be defined as ridiculous.

And Why So?

BusinessInsider concludes that:

i) The battery life is terrible — Around 3.5 – 5 hours
ii) It’s disorienting, and gives you a headache.
iii) You can’t tweak any settings in Glass.
iv) The voice controls for Glass are buggy.
v) Responding to messages is tough.

Lovely, isn’t it? Complaining about a software that is still under development? And that too by someone who hasn’t personally tried Glass yet.

His dissatisfaction about the battery life is also invalid, considering the fact that Glass hasn’t been optimized for battery yet. A recent software update, delivered yesterday, has reportedly brought an improvement in the battery life. According to a Glass explorer, the improvement is pretty significant — 200%. This proves that the battery life of Glass will get a lot better when it is ready for a public release.

Original discussion can be found here.

BusinessInsider also finds the lack of built-in cellular data connection as a drawback:

You still need a smartphone to use Glass outdoors. Google Glass doesn’t have a built-in cellular data connection

So… they’re asking for a cellular radio in Glass. Which will emit electromagnet radiations, sitting right next to our head?

BGR writes:

It is impossible to say with certainty that Google Glass will be a huge success that rivals rush to copy. It’s also far too early to predict a flop. If I was a betting man, however, I would bet that reality ends up being closer to the latter scenario than the former.

but without any reasons backing their opinion.

There are more such articles around the internet. Like this and this.

The Good

Thankfully, not everyone is inveighing Glass with silly reasons.

Jolie O’Dell of VentureBeat raises some valid arguments:

But the cumulative effects won’t amount to a societal change in how we consume information or deal with life away from our desktop screens. It’ll just be the same kind of impact smartphones have had — all the good and bad — but slightly accelerated and accentuated.

In my moral universe, Google Glass for consumers can only serve to distract us, not truly help us any more, better, or faster than the other tools we already use.

Thus, Google Glass. If you’re using it recreationally, not professionally to complete a task, don’t kid yourself — it’s not enhancing your life. It’s robbing you of the joy of actually experiencing your life.

This valid argument is perhaps the most important problem that Google needs to find a solution for — How is it going to make technology less distracting for us as compared to smartphones.

Various other reviewers are loving Glass. Tim Stevens of Engadget finds the future Glass incredibly bright, but has privacy concerns. Taylor Hatmaker of Entrepreneur looks forward to the “beginning of something cool”. Folks over at Phandroid say that they didn’t “really garner awkward stares and were easily able to blend in”.

But then, proving that Glass is indeed the future of mobile computing was not my intention at all. My point is rather a simple one — a message to all the Glass explorers and bloggers out there:

Reviewing a work-in-progress product is pointless. Please save your precious words until its public release.

Read the article on the Blog: Dear Google Glass Reviewers and Naysayers
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Although not in a position to put forth a full review, we would like to share our experience so far of using the most anticipated device of the year. Is the device a true successor to the vastly popular and successful Samsung Galaxy S III or will the HTC One with all it’s Aluminum glorious chassis trump the plastic clad powerhouse that the Samsung Galaxy S IV is to take the glory? Let’s dig in.

Is the Samsung Galaxy S IV Worth all the Money You Saved up for it?

Every time a Rs. 40,000+ gadget is launched in the market, you are bound to save up to pick it unless you are of the sorts who never checks the balance figures on his Bank Account statement. The Samsung Galaxy S IV falls into a similar category of devices. Is it a device worth saving for?

Let’s put it this way, when I saved up my student’s income for a couple of months to buy an iPhone 5, I wanted to hold, touch and feel the device all day. I did not have that sort of feeling with the Galaxy S IV. It does not have the premium feel that you get from a device when you have spent a lot of money on. Yes, we are rambling over the plastic usage and a design that is not radically different from the Galaxy S III.

Don’t get me wrong. It is still a great smart phone, one that is extremely powerful and does just about everything that you throw at it with exceptional quality but first look at it and you will perhaps be hard pressed to save a lot of money to pick it. The phone has just about every great feature you could ask for, a great screen, a fantastic OS and a very sleek overall experience, but despite all these things going for it, it is not the smartest thing to spend your money. In fact, the manufacturing cost of the iPhone 5 is lower than that of the Galaxy S IV, yet the Apple flagship serves up quality several grades above than what Samsung does.

Top view of the Samsung Galaxy S IV compared with the HTC One X

The HTC One X stacked upon Samsung Galaxy S IV to compare thickness

As Steve Litchfield pointed out in his Phone Show episode 199 here that picking a second hand mint conditioned Galaxy S III for about one third the price of the Galaxy S IV represents a lot more value for money than an out of box brand new S IV. The primary reason behind this is that although the S IV triumphs the S III on a specs front, all these improvements are not for everybody. You can actually read our rant about the Samsung Galaxy S IV here and the lack of groundbreaking changes over the S III. The S IV has a lot of features that perhaps an average user would never use or need. Simple example of this is, in the time I had the device, never did I feel the need of Air view or even Smart Scroll or Smart Pause. This maybe different for every individual, but I would definitely not be saving money to pick a Galaxy S IV especially when a certain HTC One is doing rounds.

She asked if I bought Home a Plastic Toy?

One of the best way I judge the hardware of any device is by showing it to people who literally know nothing about technology. This way, they can give an unbiased view of just the looks and feel of the device without knowing the awesome features that might be packed in. My heart sank a little when my mother, a little off tangent when it comes to technology, asked if the white shiny Galaxy S IV was a plastic phone or a dummy when she picked it during a routine cleaning of my work desk.

The metal like strip around the device is indeed plastic

The Galaxy S IV, though a really slim device with well rounded corners, just failed to turn the heads around the way you expect from a premium gadget. Even in a crowded mall the device failed to generate the sort of curiosity or crowd that normally a newly released high end product would. The back is textured unlike the plain plastic ones on the S III and provided a decent grip. If design matters to you, which definitely does to me, you will not be very impressed once you lay hands on the Galaxy S IV.

When I picked the device for the first time, I mistook the band around the device to be metallic but as it turned out, it in fact is plastic and did scratch a little when accidentally the phone slipped down. We ended up with a lamination just to make sure device stays brand new for a resale. The back panel although removable, to access the battery just does not give the solid indestructible feeling that you get holding devices like the Lumia 920 or the iPhone 5 which do not have removable panels. But again, this is down to personal preference as having access to the battery means you can easily carry a spare and never run out of juice.

The 1080 P Screen is Fantastic

You can hold build quality against Samsung, but one thing they have pioneered over the past couple of years is the screen of their devices. The Galaxy S IV is only the third device available in India after the HTC Butterfly and Xperia Z to sport a true HD 1080 P display. Bear in mind that the HTC One is not out yet.

The 5 inch Super AMOLED display is terrific for watching videos and browsing the web. Although not ideal for one hand usage, there is no denying the general vibrancy of the color production on screen.

The color reproduction we felt was more life like on the HTC Butterfly as compared to the S IV but if you like deep bright colors then you will definitely fall in love with the display of the device. The outdoor visibility in our limited time outside was pretty good, and amazingly, the screen is not very reflective meaning a good clear view even in direct lights.

Too Many Features? Here To Remember?

There is loading, and then there is overloading. Like I touched upon earlier, the Galaxy S IV is loaded with way too many features. Most of these features although do have their utility are not something you will miss if they did not exist. That is why, there is a difference between loading the device with essentials and simply adding things for the sake of making a statement which seems like what Samsung have done. I would much rather have a Gig of more space on the internal memory of the device than have features like smart scroll that are a luxury.

These features too at the moment do not seem very polished. They do work, but there is an odd blips here and there. To be very honest, some of the add on to the Camera such as dual shot seemed pointless even to a relatively power user like me. Their application in day to day life is very limited and very honestly while taking shots in a hurry so that the moment does not slip away, I very nearly always forgot that some of these features even exist. Same goes for the likes of smart pause for instance. The best example of this was when I was watching one of the daily tech videos I do on Youtube, and since things were pretty boring, the football match had more of my attention. The S IV though kept on pausing the video every time I looked away or at least 80% of the time when the feature worked which I did not want. As a result I ended up turning the feature off.

The internal memory takes a big beating due to large amount of bloatware

Smart Scroll, on the other hand, works only on the default Web Browser and since I like all my things in one place and restoring my sessions on the device I am using, I use Chrome which did not support the feature. Again, pretty much a waste. The bottom line here is, although there are a lot of good features on board, not many of them are very practical or things you would absolutely sure shot use everyday.

Voice control is one of the many features present that you may not use everyday

S-Health on the other hand is an application with tremendous potential. It tracks down your workouts in a way similar to Nike’s Fuel Band and you can quickly check the temperature and humidity levels which was interesting. The IR control for TV’s was shoddy to say the least, but I would not make comments on it because perhaps the support for Indian DTH services may not be fully optimized yet. Another thing, which has a lot of potential though.

The On Board Performance is Fly

The Samsung Galaxy S IV available to us in India boasts the Exynos 5 Octa Core processor which is the assembly of two quad core chips though only one of them is functional at a time. Although the A15 Cortex Quad Core Processor is the one responsible for heavy tasks while the A7 1.2 GHz Quad Core chip does the regular things to conserve the battery and keep the performance smooth, I felt the device did start heating up pretty quickly with a couple of memory intensive tasks.

The 2 GB RAM on board is more than sufficient and multi tasking was a piece of cake. Surprisingly, there were no lags in Touchwiz UI either while performing simple tasks like scrolling across the home screens, something that S IV’s predecessor, the S III was not very capable at.

The battery in our limited period of usage was pretty decent, without ever dropping our jaws and still felt that the Note II did a better job in this department. However, maybe a couple of updates from Samsung could easily address this issue. Since barely 11 GB of space is available on a 16 GB variant, I inevitably ended up adding a 16 GB card to load all the media files to the device. However, the reading was instant and no lags of any sort was experienced in my time of playing those Audio and HD Video files from the external storage.

The device comes right out of the box with the latest Android jellybean version 4.2.2 so that makes the things all that more smoother and you get the latest goodness such as dash on the lockscreen and other features which are unique to Android 4.2. This was one of the best things without a doubt about the S IV.

The Camera takes a Mean Shot but you need to Tweak things a bit

The rear Camera on the Samsung Galaxy S IV is 13 Mega Pixel and does a fine job of taking pictures. The UI is similar to the Galaxy Camera if you have used and the simple scrolling interface made taking shots pretty simple. During the day light conditions, the phone matched the performance of our iPhone 5, but night shots were nothing to brag about. The pictures seem a little noisy and disturbances kept creeping in. Although I have not really been able to put the device on test with a Lumia 920 or even an HTC One for the performances in low light, we will keep our judgement reserved for the final review.

Overall though, in our limited experience of using the Camera on the Samsung Galaxy S IV, it did what it is meant to and that is take decent shots for Social Media sharing, that is about all you can ask for a camera on your smart phone unless you own a Nokia 808 Pureview.

To Sum up my Experiences so far

By no means this is our final review of the Galaxy S IV since we feel we require more time with the device to know it inside out well. But, our initial impressions are good. The device is snappy, quick and works well and has a lot of useful add-ons to the Samsung Galaxy S III such as S-health. However, on the flip side, the plastic build quality and flimsy back panel, which does not give a very premium feel, coupled with some unnecessary features, which nobody would use after owning the device for about three months, means Samsung could for the very first time feel a real sweet chin music from the competitors.

Dual shot is one of the many gimmicky add-ons

Although not available in the Indian markets yet, the HTC One is most certain to attract a lot of attention and the next iPhone will definitely be a popular choice just because it would be an iPhone. Maybe, the Galaxy S IV will not have the sort of easy walk to the top it had with the Galaxy S III. Only time will tell us how this story pans. We will be coming up with our final review as well as hands on video and camera samples soon, so stay tuned for that.

In the mean time, if you have any queries or suggestions, feel free to use the section below.

Read the article on the Blog: First Impressions: Samsung Galaxy S IV
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A blog on Android, iPhone, Windows and the Web.