Amazon Kindle Fire HDX Tablets: Features And Release Dates

September 28, 2013 By Arshdeep Singh Leave a Comment

Amazon announced its new Kindle Fire HDX tablet line up running on Amazon’s customised Fire 3.0 OS UI based on Android Jelly Bean. Company showcased two tablets which come in 7 and 8.9 inch screen sizes. These tablets support a first ever online video Tech support from Amazon at any time and they have named this feature as “MAYDAY”.

Amazon announces new Kindle Fire HDX Tablets

Both the tablets are powered by 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM. Both the tablets are offered in 16/32/64GB storage variants. Amazon claims that both the tablets can run for 11 hours with mixed usage.

Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch

Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch as a screen resolution of 1920 X 1200 pixels (323 PPI) which is equal to that of Google Nexus 7. This model is about 303gm in weight and has 8mm of thickness. This tablet has HD camera at front of unknown pixels. 16GB Wi-Fi only model comes with a price tag of $229.

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 inch

As compared to 7-inch tablet 8.9 inch model comes with a higher screen resolution of 2560 X 1600 pixels which makes up pixel density of 339PPI. This model has weight of 374gm and thickness of 8mm. 8-inch model comes with both front and rear facing HD cameras where rear camera is of 8 Mega Pixels. This model is priced at $379 for 16GB Wi-Fi only model.

Availability

As far as the availability of the tablets is concerned, 16GB Wi-Fi only model of 8.9-inch tablet will ship from November 7^Th and 16GB 4G LTE model will go on sale from November 14^th. 16GB Wi-Fi only variant of 7-inch tablet will go on sale by October 2^nd. You can pre-order both the tablets from today.

Indian Netizen Starts A Campaign To Name Next Android As Ladoo

September 13, 2013 By Abhishek Prakash Leave a Comment

If the effort of Indian netizens bears fruit, the next Android version could be named Ladoo (popular Indian sweet). As you know Google has partenered with Nestle to code-name the upcoming Android version as Android Kitkat.

An online campaign has been started by has attarcted the attention of Indian users. The Android Ladoo campaing website gives this argument to support its campaign:

We are Indians. We have big hearts. We understand that there might be commercial pressures to do so. Or maybe our voices were just not loud enough to make KajuKatli Android a reality. We still love Android and we are committed to seeing a version of Android that is dedicated to an Indian sweet. With enough advance notice this time, we request you to name the next version of Android, LADOO.

We love Ladoo, and we’re sure you will too! So, to make this deal sweeter, we are sending your team a box of ladoos very soon

After all, if Google can name Andorid as Jelly Bean, Cup Cake, IceCream Sandwich then why not Laddoo. With so many Indians working in Google, and India being a huge market, Google could actually gain more loyality in India. After all, was once the most favorite Social Network in India while it failed worldwide.

If you want to support this campaign, you can show your support on their webiste using your Google profile. I wish success to Andorid Ladoo campaign (for the simple reaosn that Laddoo is my favorite sweet :)) and would love to see it coming to reality

New Crowdfunding Campaign To Build A Statue of Steve Jobs

August 19, 2013 By Abhishek Prakash Leave a Comment

Fans are crazy. Apple fanboys are crazy. We all must have experienced the nuisance of Apple fanboys at sometime or other. Their devotion towards Apple product will drive you crazy. They will fight (mostly verbally, I hope :P) with you if you say anything against Apple be it Apple Samsung patent war or USB port issue in Apple products. There are also those kind of Apple fanboys who have never used a single Apple product in all their life but they will still support Apple for reasons known to them only.

While Ashton Kutcher starrer Steve Jobs biopic has just been released, a new crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo has surfaced with the goal to make a statue of Steve Jobs. And it is no ordinary statue but rather a Steve Jobs statue bigger than Statue of liberty, no kidding. The aim of the project is to raise $50,000 for this project.

A contributor can put up anything from $1 to $1995 for various perks such as name on the website, Steve Jobs picture, T-Shirt to invitation to the even and name on the plaque of statute. Despite of a perk as low as $1, the campaign does not seem to be a success. By the time this article was written not even $500 were pitched in. But since the campaign is to run 57 more days and considering the huge number of Apple (and thus Steve Jobs) lover, this target could be achieved. I mean we know that how happily Mac users shell out money for trivial things.

What you think of this campaign? Will Apple fanboys be able to build a statue of Steve Jobs bigger than Statue of Liberty?

Google Brings Free WiFi At Starbucks

August 2, 2013 By Abhishek Prakash Leave a Comment

Free WiFi at restaurants and fast food outlets is not a new concept. McDonald and KFC are frequently visited by teenagers and free WiFi does play a role in the choice of food hangout. What is new here is that Google, that started providing super fast internet speed from this year with , has teamed up with Starbucks to provide free WiFi at over 7000 Starbucks outlets in United States of America. The agreement is for 18 months.

Kevin Lo, General Manager, Google Access announced on official Google blog:

When your local Starbucks WiFi network goes Google, you’ll be able to surf the web at speeds up to 10x faster than before. If you’re in a Google Fiber city, we’re hoping to get you a connection that’s up to 100x faster.

The WiFi service will start rolling from the month of August itself. All you have to do is to connect to “Google Starbucks” SSID. As Google Fiber has been appreciated for its oustanding services, we can expect similar from Google Starbucks WiFi. So when you sip to your latte next time while surfing web on a blazing fast network, don’t forget to thanks Google

Rovio Coming Up With An Angry Birds Racing Game

June 15, 2013 By Abhishek Prakash Leave a Comment

If you are an Angry Birds fan, its a good news for you. After Bad Piggies, Rovio (the makers of Angry Birds) is coming up with another Angry Birds game probably named as Angry Birds Go!

Unlike the typical Angry Bird game, it seems to be a racing game as evident from the name itself. Rovio announced on their blog:

Those birds and piggies are getting ready for their most thrilling and action-packed game yet! All your favorite characters are returning for a brand new title that will bring you closer to Piggy Island than ever before. It’s Angry Birds, but not as you know it!

Rovio also launched this website of Angry Birds Go where you can see a few seconds teaser of the game. No more information is available at present but no prizes for guessing that the game will be available on iOS, Android initially. As with other Angry Birds game, it should be followed by a desktop version as well.

Stay tuned for more information on Angry Birds Go. Do let us know what you think of the Angry Birds Go.

Android Miracle: A Smartphone That Runs A Satellite

June 13, 2013 By Guest Author Leave a Comment

Android community has recently surprised everyone with the news of their connection with one of NASA’s recent projects, where ‘Nexus One’ Smartphone built by HTC, running on Google’s Android OS is used for low cost satellite manufacturing. The ‘PhoneSat’ project is primarily aimed at evolving the satellite architecture focusing more into NASA’s capability to develop low-cost, easy, and quickly built satellite technology.

Well, hard to believe whether a modern day Smartphone can offer such capabilities required for satellite systems; however, Android apps development has made it possible. So, here are the features of your regular Smartphones that has made this project possible;

Unbelievably Fast Processors
Operating Systems that can do versatile jobs
Cameras with ultra high resolution
GPS Receivers
Multiple Miniature Sensors
Radios

Today’s Smartphones have capabilities beyond our expectations. At consumer level, we only use or are aware of very few of them; however, the capabilities can do miracle for technocrats, such as NASA has experimented with. Giving this interesting rocket science a pause, let us see what these Android phones can do more for general consumers.

High Capacity Processor:

Most of the out of the box phones running on Android platform come with powerful processors. This gives the phone the capacity of a computer. These phones are capable of doing almost everything that a computer can do. Robust hardware integration is key to the myriad popularity of these devices.

Dedicated Memory for Seamless Operation:

Due to dedicated in-built memory, Android phones posses super fastness. This is why you download and install so much of apps and are still able to work and play in a multi tasking environment. Minimum 1 or 2 GB RAM is common for today’s Android Smartphones.

An All-in-One Communicator:

Text messaging and Emailing have been talk of the past. Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Gtalk, and any other communication platform; Android makes it possible on your Smartphones.

GPS Navigation:

Android phones offer excellent GPS navigation capabilities to guide you on the route of your journey. Finding a landmark, any building or street, and direction to your destination was never so easy and accurate.

Cross Device Compatibility:

Android is a universal mobile device operating system. This OS is compatible with Smartphones, tablets or palmtops, desktops, and even high end cameras, Smart TVs, wrist watches, headphones, VoIP Phones etc. The cross-device compatibility nature of Android has turned it into the widely accepted mobile OS.

After the introduction of Android, the world of communication and mobile technology has undergone a sea-change. Android is the choicest OS for almost all major and emerging mobile device manufacturers. With the experimentation of its capability beyond the use of general communication technology by NASA, Android now opens up new vistas for innovators and product manufacturers. This is particularly encouraging news for consumers; as they will be offered more and more new and useful features with their Android mobile device.

Within very small time of its launch, Google’s Android has become the platform for all innovative products and hardware. With quick, robust, and regular updates, Android will keep its miracle on and on in the coming times.

Recap: Things You Should Know From Google I/O 2013

May 17, 2013 By Arshdeep Singh 3 Comments

So yesterday was Day One of Google I/O 2013 and most of you might have watched the entire keynote or even attended it. It was held at Moscone Centre in San Francisco. Android reached 900 million activations in 2013 which was 400 million in 2012. Google Play Store hits 48 billion app installs also revenue generated for developers is increasing at an incredible rate.

There are many other big announcements let’s check them in detail:

New APIs:

This time Google announced three new API’s these tools help developers to make great applications and even existing ones better. Basically API helps to determine location of the operator of device in various ways whether by using GPS, network or Wi-Fi so to make this even better they added new APIs named as: Fuse Location Provider, Geofencing and Activity Recognition feature. Fuse Location Provider helps to acquire location more swiftly and uses 1% less battery per hour. Second one is GeoFencing it allows developers define a virtual fencing around a particular area and find location of user easily. Third one is Activity Recognition Feature it helps to track physical activities, it senses whether one is walking, cycling, driving and will do it without even using GPS which saves a lot of battery juice.

New Android Studio for developers:

This year’s I/O is largely focused for developers taking this into care Google launched new Android Studio, an integrated development environment based on IntelliJ platform. It has great interface in which a developer can see how his/her application will look like after development and on even different screen sizes. Android comes with live code updates and even font changer tool too.

Google Play Games Service:

We all heard lot of rumors about Google releasing Play Games which is no more a rumor but it is officially live. This Game service is available on cross platform too means you can enjoy gaming with your friends those are on iOS and web. This service offers cloud save feature means syncing game saves, statistics, leader boards, achievements, matchmaking and even multiplayer across various devices. Multiplayer feature is managed by Google Plus means other person should have a G Plus profile.

Google Play Music All Access:

Basically Google Play Music All Access means ”radio without Rules” and it focuses on music discovery when user clicks on single track Google will recommend playlist and radio station based on your selection. This service is currently available in US but will soon come to UK and more. This service comes at price though i.e. $9.99/ month but if users in the States signup by the end of June they will receive for $7.99 only.

Stock Samsung Galaxy S4 is real:

Google launched Samsung Galaxy S4 with stock Android providing all updates thus giving it a Nexus like feel plus Google will sell the 16GB version of the device in Play Store which comes 4G LTE, unlocked bootloader and will be available for $649 from June 26^th in US only.

Google Plus New Layout:

Google Plus got a major overhaul new layout, new design, auto Hash tags, auto- awesome photos, new stream and new hangouts. It’s been two years that Google launched Google Plus since then it didn’t get any major update. Google Plus now has support for three columns with lot animations. This layout fits itself according to the size of display and chooses the best viewing mode. Hangouts got a separate application available on iOS, Android and Web from now only. One can see when new member joins and even see when one is typing and this hangout now saves history. Hangout now replaces you GTalk on your device.

This is not the end of the story:

There are many more things and new services which are launched at this Keynote and yet more to come in coming days. Some of the other new updates are: one tap Checkout Button means if you want to buy something in store then you need to simply tap the purchase button your payment and address will be automatically added from wallet information. Google Play for Education here applications will be made for students, teachers and related to education. Google Now got new cards and reminders some new services are announced which you will get to know when you will use it major added features are knowledge graphs and more. Google Maps will get Zagat Integration this includes 5 star rating for restaurants, hotels, cafes, bars and more.

So these were some major announcements at Google I/O yesterday. So did you guys liked it or not do tell in comments below.

Note: All Images hold their respective rights.

Motorola X Phone visits FCC, Looks Like Early leaks

May 13, 2013 By Arshdeep Singh Leave a Comment

Here is a quite surprising and head cracker move for all other companies that have been fighting to make their device faster than one another, Motorola’s X Phone model number XT1058 made a visit to the FCC recently as reported by TechCrunch.. Motorola was earlier bought by Google for Billions and since then they have not even released a single device yet.

There are the sketches of the device and they closely resemble the earlier leaked X Phone which was leaked by @EvLeaks earlier this month. Phone is found to be of AT&T carrier and had LTE bands of the carrier.

If we closely look at both the devices in above pictures we will notice similarity in both Motorola Logo one and sketchy one such as position of camera, flash. Even the speaker grill is at same place also the position of Logo of device. Also the placement of headphone jack and even Lock/Unlock button is same.

All we have to do is wait for Google’s annual I/O developer conference which is rumored to show off the refreshed Nexus 7, a new chat system rumored as Babel, new Google Maps, New refreshed Nexus 4 probably 32GB as a new smartphone will probably is not for this year. Android 5.0 notebooks, a Google smartwatch and a Google TV is also expected this year.

Anonymous Now Plans To attack US Banks, Institutions

May 7, 2013 By Abhishek Prakash Leave a Comment

Hacking group Anonymous has threatened of another hacking attack and this time the target is USA. Anonymous announced OperationUSA (#OpUSA) and targets mainly US banks and institutions. The attack, according to Anonymous, would be a response to social and political injustices. The group said:

“America you have committed multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and recently you have committed war crimes in your own country. …Now it is our time for our Lulz (fun),”

Anonymous rhetorically bragged: “We will now wipe you off the cyber map“. Considering how miserably it failed in wiping off Israel from cyberspace in OpIsrael attack, it seems unlikely that they are capable of “destruction”.

But why take risk? The typical Anonymous attack consists of distributed-denial-of-service attack along with DNS attacks, redirects, database leaks etc. Possible targets in USA should be working closely with network security teams to thwart the incoming attacks.

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