Author: Shivaank Rana

Upcoming Nexus 5 Poses In Latest Leak

The Nexus 5 release date should be sometime next month as pictures of the device hit the internet this week.

The photos were taken by a MacRumors user who happened to encounter the device while out and about. He released a brief report detailing his experience with the Nexus 5.

“Got to handle the Nexus 5,” he said. “It is smaller than the G2. Didn’t actually measure it, but holding it in the hand it is smaller. It does feel good holding it. The black back cover feels like my Nexus 7. The screen was ok, didn’t wow me like the Note 3. The bezel is very small.”

This is another solid and somewhat clear view of the back plate, albeit partially obstructed by another device at the bottom (likely to cover up any identifying information), that shows off the vertical “Nexus” logo and large camera pod in the top left corner. The back seems to be of a similar material as what we’ve seen before, but giving the lighting we can’t be sure.

The device that appears in the new pictures closely resembles the handset seen in the Android 4.4, KitKat software unveiling photos. This enhances the possibility of the Nexus 5 sporting this same design seen in both pictures when it launches later this year.

Documents at the FCC confirmed a few specs: display of 4.96-inches, 2,300mAh battery, 2GB of RAM, 16-32GB of internal storage, LTE connectivity, 13MP rear camera and a 2MP front-facing camera.

[Via]

October 1, 2013
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom Full Review

Design And Build Quality

No surprises here. From the front, the device is a carbon copy of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. It has the same 4.3 inch screen towards the front, with the default Samsung layout of buttons underneath it. It has a brushed aluminum finish bezel running along the sides. Volume and power are on the right side, speaker grille up top, a tripod port and MicroSD card slot towards the left.

From that back the S4 Zoom looks like the front of a standard compact digital camera. A circular silver lens case is surrounded by a chunky white plastic case. There’s a flash at the tip to the left as you look, and even further left is a handle with ‘Samsung’ written on it in silver.

The Galaxy S4 Zoom measures 15.4mm thick, and we struggled to squeeze it into our jeans pocket or hold it comfortably, with the chunky lens making it difficult to fit the handset naturally in the palm of the hand.

At 208g it’s also much heavier than many of its rivals, as Nokia’s 41MP Lumia 1020 weighs just 158g.

Hardware

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display with resolution of 960 x 540, 1GB of RAM.

It runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean skinned with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. The camera set-up includes a 16-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), optical 10x Zoom, Xenon flash, HDR, panorama, and 24mm wide-angle lens. It offers full HD video capture, and there’s also a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera.

Thee’s 8GB of storage, which you can expand via Micro SD. That’s good because photos and video take up a lot of space and in our review sample there was only 5GB free space when we started.

Display

The Galaxy S4 Zoom features a 4.3in 540×960 Super AMOLED touchscreen, the same display found on the Galaxy S4 Mini. That gives it a pixel density of 256ppi. It’s bright and clear, and great for viewing pictures on.

Being an AMOLED display though, its colour reproduction is fairly inaccurate and over-exaggerated. As a result, photos can end up looking far less exciting on your computer screen than the S4 Zoom’s.

Outdoor visibility though was better than we expected, but the viewing angles hampered that a bit.

Camera

As expected, the Galaxy S4 Zoom’s 16MP rear-facing camera is the handset’s standout feature, arriving complete with a 10x optical zoom and additional software features that Samsung hopes brings the phone in line with dedicated camera devices.

With its last attempt, the Galaxy Camera, Samsung never quite got the imaging tech right – the pictures just weren’t sharp enough. With the S4 Zoom, most of these issues appear to be fixed.

Bright sunlight and high contrast images have a decent amount of dynamic range, while darker environments are helped with some good optical image stabilisation. Video is also of a good enough quality for it to outdo what most smartphones offer right now.

The 10x zoom is also a slightly bizarre thing to have. On a smartphone, you almost don’t expect it to be there, but it actually becomes a very handy thing. It allows you to pull out more detail than you could get from a normal smartphone, by zooming in further.

There are several different shot modes available, including Auto, Smart and Expert. We found ourselves reverting to Smart mode most of the time, as it easily let us select a mode such as HDR or nighttime rather than having to fiddle with the complicated settings found in Expert mode, which lets you tweak settings such as shutter speed and aperture.

Zoom Ring : The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom has a Zoom ring around the camera lens, similar to the one found on the Sony Rx100 cameras. It functions as the name suggests, zooming in and out of images, both while shooting and in the image gallery. It also helps you to select the imaging mode to jump straight into, without opening the camera app itself.

We found the amount of effort required to turn the zoom ring often produced unavoidable shaking in video footage.

Battery

With mixed use, we found that the phone’s 2330mAh battery provided more than enough juice to get us through the day — unsurprising since similarly-specced smartphones get by with much smaller batteries. The Galaxy S4 Zoom likely will need to be charged every night following a day of average usage.

Conclusion

“Jack of all trades, master of none.” That line perfectly sums the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom. It has a camera which is miles above any other smartphone camera, except probably the Nokia Lumia 1020. Then again it isn’t good enough to replace your standard point and shoot any time soon.

The smartphone side of the device again is decent enough to get most things done, but it isn’t as powerful as other devices in this price segment. It is too bulky to become someone’s daily driver.

For those who want a compact camera and a mobile, with space saved in their pockets for something else, it’s ideal. Then again, we don’t think there are many people out there who do want that.

Videos

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October 1, 2013
Here’s Why The 0% Interest EMI Schemes Were Scrapped

Over the past 6 months, various companies including Apple, Samsung and Micromax went on an aggressive marketing drive that was based around the “0% EMI” tagline. Consumers, young and old alike, were attracted by the possibility of buying the device of their choice, by paying small amounts of money over a prolonged period of time. That too without any overhead costs. Who wouldn’t?

So when the RBI on Wednesday banned zero per cent interest rate EMI schemes for purchase of consumer goods, it came as a shock for many people.

What would possibly have been wrong? The companies were sacrificing their interest money just so we could get our dream products easily no? No.

The very concept of zero per cent interest “is non-existent,” the RBI said. So how were the companies offering such schemes?

The answer here lies in that “negligible” processing fee that the companies/showrooms charged when you opted for the EMI schemes. In the zero per cent EMI schemes offered on credit card outstandings, the interest element is often camouflaged and passed on to customer in the form of processing fee.

Explaining the zero per cent EMI schemes on credit cards, Gaurav Mashruwala, a certified financial planner, said, “When a person buys a TV set for Rs 60,000 and makes full payment in cash, the dealer gives him a discount say of Rs 5,000. However, when the same TV is bought in instalments with a credit card, he is not entitled to any discount which is the earning for the bank.”

As BankBazaar explains, these zero percent schemes have hidden costs inbuilt in them. Perhaps the biggest loss for you would be forfeiting the cash discount on a product that you could have otherwise got if you had bought it on full cash. This apart you will also be paying a transaction or processing fee under the zero percent scheme and consequently more money through advance EMIs.

For example, you decide to buy an LCD colour television that costs around Rs. 48,000. You decide to buy it using the zero percent finance scheme. Under this arrangement you will pay the entire cost in six EMIs of Rs. 8,000 for six months. This works out to be Rs. 48,000 spread over 6 months. Now here’s how you end up paying more! To begin with you pay a processing fee of Rs. 1,000. And since you are buying the LCD on a zero percent finance scheme you are not entitled to the cash discount of Rs. 2,000!

So here’s how it looks in the above example. The LCD costs Rs. 48,000! Add up the Rs. 1,000 processing fee that you pay initially and Rs. 2,000 that was lost out on cash discount. A total of Rs. 3, 000! This means you get a net finance of Rs. 45,000 only! Now you pay an EMI of Rs. 8,000 for 6 months which totals up to Rs. 48,000. So at the end of six months you pay Rs. 3,000 more for what you got.

So ultimately, it all came down to false advertising and clever marketing. The consumer was led to believe that he/she was getting a fantastic deal whereas the company was earning way more than they would in case of a down payment. These schemes helped companies attain double digit growth as far sales were concerned.

No wonder they are aggrieved by the RBI’s decision. Well done, we say.

September 30, 2013
Google Improves Search Accuracy Via Hummingbird Update

Marking Google’s 15th birthday, the Hummingbird update was release which is the biggest change to the inner workings of the world’s most popular search engine since Google’s “Caffeine” update in 2010, which sped up Google’s indexing of sites and delivery of search results.

The Hummingbird update focuses more on Google’s Knowledge Graph – an encyclopaedia of about 570m concepts and relationships that allows Google to anticipate facts and figures you might want to know about your search term.

When you search Google it no longer just searches for individual keywords; it can now respond to questions and statements in the same way a human might, by looking at the whole query – even if it doesn’t have an exact answer.

Apart from ‘Hummingbird’, several other updates have been announced, with most aiming at providing the data more concisely to allow people not to navigate to another website to find out more – which can prove difficult on small smart phone screens.

“Remember what it was like to search in 1998? You’d sit down and boot up your bulky computer, dial up on your squawky modem, type in some keywords, and get 10 blue links to websites that had those words,” Senior vice president Amit Singhal wrote in a separate blog post.

“The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket.”

These changes mainly affect the ‘Knowledge Graph’, a box that appears on top or alongside other search results. In particular, its new version will be able to compare the attributes of two different things. ‘Google Now’, a virtual assistant that provides for the user the information about his interests and location, will start flagging new developments – for example, in the life of a celebrity – that interest the user.

September 28, 2013
Report : Beats Audio To Buy Out Remaining HTC Stake For $265 Million

Reports are coming in that HTC is indeed about to sell its stake back to Beats. In 2010, HTC owned 50 percent of Beats, before selling half last year for $150 million. The remaining 25 percent has increased in price considerably since then, as the new deal will close at $265 million.

It seems that Beats has already taken on a new partner in the form of Carlyle Group, which is said to be investing $500 million into Beat’s expansion efforts.

“We are confident that Beats will continue to drive innovation and growth in the premium audio accessory market, particularly as the proliferation of smart phones and tablets stimulate increased consumption of digital media,” Sandra Horbach, a managing director at Carlyle, said in a statement.

Now that the partnership is ending, Beats is free to continue down the path of pushing its Beats audio technology into other products including in-car dashes, HP computers and – of course- its premium headphone line. For HTC, it means a pretty hefty cash infusion that can help the company can (hopefully) use to further facilitate growth and recovery after years of struggle.

Founded in 2006 by rapper Dr. Dre and Iovine, chairman of music label Interscope, Beats has come to dominate the market for pricey headphones. According to the NPD Group, Beats has grabbed more than 60 percent of the U.S. market for headphones costing more than $100. Its signature headsets retail for between $200 and $400.

September 28, 2013
Sony Xperia Z1 Honami Unboxing and Hands on Review

As promised, we are back with the unboxing and hands-on review video of the Sony Xperia Z1 Honami.

The Sony Xperia Z1 boatst modern specs worthy of a flagship smartphone, including a 5-inch full HD 1080p display (441ppi) sporting Sony’s TRILUMINOS screen tech and X-Reality for mobile that debuted on the Xperia Z Ultra 6.4-inch phablet. There is a 2.2Ghz Snapdragon 800 SoC inside, along with 2GB of RAM. 16GB of storage (expandable via MicroSD) and a 3000mAh battery.

The device sports a 20.7 MP Exmor RS sensor with a size of 1/2.3″, along with a G Lens from its higher-end cameras. Its F2.0 aperture and 27 mm wide-angle lens can be the biggest competitor for the Nokia’s flagship device Lumia 1020.

The camera on Sony Xperia Z1 will include set of Xperia Camera Applications like Social Live, Info-Eye, Time Shift Burst and Ar Effect. You can expect are hands on this device really soon.

Stay tuned for the full review of the Sony Xperia Z1.

September 27, 2013
Rumoured Specs Of iPad 5 And iPad Mini 2 (In Gold) Leak

The iPad Mini 2 is rumored to come in the same colors as the new iPhone 5S, we have already seen a photo of the Space Gray version, and now it looks like we have some photos of the gold version of the iPad Mini 2.

Sonny Dickson, the Australian blogger who revealed most of the details about Apple’s iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c before it was launched, has just revealed a ton of details and shared leaked photos of the next generation iPad mini.

Dickson also mentioned that, according to his sources, the iPad mini 2 would include Apple’s new A7 64-bit chip, the M7 motion coprocessor we’re seeing in the iPhone 5s, along with 1GB of RAM. As for the 9.7-inch iPad 5, Dickson’s sources revealed that it will pack 2GB of RAM under the hood, presumably sporting the same specs as little brother. He also claims that iPad mini 2 will come in Space Gray, Gold and Silver. The iPad mini 2 will also include Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which was introduced with the launch of iPhone 5s.

If Apple wants Touch ID to be taken seriously and gain mass appeal, it makes sense to have it on as many devices as possible. With that in mind, we’d say it was likely that the iPad 5 will get the same fingerprint scanner, although we can’t say for definite.

Rumour has it that Apple is hosting a media event on Oct 15, which likely will serve as the iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2 release date and Apple fans are crossing their fingers for the prayer to become real.

[Via]

September 27, 2013
Microsoft Streams Halo 4 To Demonstrate Cloud Gaming

Microsoft’s Halo franchise is set in space, but the cloud is where today’s most interesting advancements seem to be happening for the Mast Chief-helmed video game series.

Microsoft has long been suspected to have been working on its own brand of cloud streaming technology for Xbox software, and the latest reports suggest they’re making progress on that front.

The Verge writes that sources familiar with Microsoft’s internal machinations describe a demonstration by company officials that showed Xbox 360 blockbuster Halo 4 running smoothly via network streaming on both a PC (presumably running Windows 8) and a Windows Phone device, specifically the 4″ Nokia Lumia 520.

We understand that Microsoft is building the service as a way to stream games to its Windows devices. Microsoft’s demonstration included a Windows Phone with a Xbox controller attached through an accessory, and a low-end hybrid PC. Microsoft has not yet branded the cloud games service, and officials stressed it was simply prototype at this stage.

It seems unlikely Microsoft will have their cloud game streaming service ready in time for the launch of PlayStation Cloud, which Sony has announced for release in early 2014.

This could be the company’s answer to making the vast library of Xbox 360 backward compatible with the forthcoming Xbox One console. It could be utilized for “more complicated things like rendering full games like a Gaikai and delivering it to the box.”

September 27, 2013
Microsoft To Merge Windows Phone And Windows 8 App Store

Microsoft is planning to merge both Windows Phone appstore and Windows appstore in to a single appstore according to reports.

It isn’t entirely clear whether this will result in complete cross-platform compatibility for both Windows 8 and WP8 apps — like Apple’s iPhone and iPad App Store — or if it’s more a case of designing an app store that both platforms will then use independently of each other.

Terry Myerson, the VP of Operating Systems at Microsoft, said that this unification will allow both apps stores to work as one, but did not go into detail on how users would be able to use different apps on different sized hardware.

One set of developer APIs will also encourage developers to build apps for the platform. Currently the developer interest in Windows Phone is less compared to iOS or Android, this should change as the combined appstore becomes quite bigger and will attract more eyeballs.

But all apps wont work on all platforms, like Windows Phone apps wont work on Windows RT tablets, and some of the desktop apps wont work on Windows RT tablets. Windows RT runs on ARM architecture and desktops use Intel chips in most cases.

We expect this unified app store to be released sometime in Spring 2014 alongside a slew of new updates to the Windows ecosystem.

[Via]

September 27, 2013
BBM For Desktop Showcased By BlackBerry

If you’re a heavy BBM user, it seems that during the BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013, BlackBerry showed off BBM running on a Windows computer, essentially mirroring the app on a desktop platform, similar to how BBM would be mirrored on the Playbook tablet.

The app allowed for quick conversations, attached files, send photos and works over Wi-Fi.

BlackBerry is reportedly working on a having BBM for Desktop available to Mac users, but there’s still no indication of when or if this will officially be rolled out.

There was no mention of a release date for this feature, but what do you guys think of it? Is this something you’d like to see happen in the near future?

[Via]

September 26, 2013
LG G2 Expected To Hit 10 Million In Sales By The Company

LG plans to rollout the G2 to over 130 wireless carriers and have already launched it in South Korea, United States and the UK. An overseas report from the China Times has LG banking on the device hitting a home run. Apparently Jin Bingheng, head of LG Taiwan, has gone on record and publicly announced that they plan on selling 10 million LG G2 flagships devices around the world. Unfortunately there’s no timing listed in the report of when LG plans to sell the 10 million units, hopefully by the end of the year.

The LG G2 intends to approach smartphone design slightly differently, by being ensuring that all of the buttons are located on the rear of the device, which would mean this is the first smartphone in the market to lack any side buttons at all. The idea for a Rear Key concept arrived after LG noticed that users found it more difficult to access the side keys properly the larger a handset is.

A spacious, 5.2-inch IPS LCD display with an amazingly thin bezel graces the front of the LG G2. Its resolution of 1080 by 1920 pixels ensures that everything on it will look nice and sharp, especially knowing that a standard RGB sub-pixel arrangement has been implemented. The screen panel will be countering the sun’s rays with 450 nits of maximum brightness output.

This is the first device announced to carry a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor (with 2GB of RAM), which will have four Krait 400 cores clocked at 2.26Ghz and the company’s new Adreno 330 GPU clocked at 500Mhz. This SoC is a huge upgrade over the Snapdragon 600, and should allow for next-generation 3D gaming (when it arrives).

[Via]

September 26, 2013
Rumoured Microsoft Surface Mini Specs Leak, Might Release Next Year

Microsoft hasn’t yet confirmed plans for a Surface Mini tablet, but sources close to the matter revealed earlier this year that a new device aimed to compete with the iPad mini and Nexus 7 is likely to arrive by December.

Analysts working at IHS iSuppli have told CNet that a Windows RT powered tablet with a 7.5-inch display is being worked on by Microsoft. This ‘Surface Mini’ tablet will use a 4:3 aspect ratio 1,400 x 1,050 pixel display and it is also possible it will be equipped with mobile broadband connectivity. Earlier analyst insights provided to CNet suggested that the device will hit mass production early in 2014.

Another report from ZDNet reporter Mary Jo Foley reads :

One of my sources who has been solid on Microsoft’s roadmap in the past says the Surface Mini is coming, but not in calendar 2013. Supposedly, this source claims, Microsoft is going to launch the Surface Mini in early 2014. The reason? The Surface Mini is going to come preloaded with a Windows 8.1 update, that is codenamed “Spring 2014 GDR.”

Of course, if the Surface Mini is coming, things certainly won’t be easy for Microsoft competing on the market against products such as the Google Nexus 7 and Apple’s iPad Mini. And there are also other players: HP with their Slate 8 Pro which runs Android and Slate 7 HD, and Toshiba with their Encore 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet.

So are you interested in playing with a smaller tablet from Microsoft? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

September 26, 2013
Hacking Case Sentence Of Pirate Bay Founder Reduced

The court however upheld Pirate Bay founder Svartholm Warg’s conviction for hacking into IT firm Logica, meaning he will still spend a year behind bars.

The Svea Court of Appeal convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg of having illegally accessed the website of Logica, an international IT firm contracted to Swedish government agencies. Some of the information, including personal data, was made public. The scope of the hacking from 2010 to 2012 was sizeable, the court said.

Svartholm Warg appealed that ruling, but left the country. He was arrested in Cambodia in 2012 and deported back to Sweden after an international arrest warrant was issued against him. He has served out his sentence for his first conviction while under detention over his hacking charges.

Warg, a 28-year-old Swede, was extradited to Sweden last year from Cambodia to begin a separate one-year jail sentence, incurred when he was convicted in 2009 of Internet piracy along with other co-founders of Pirate Bay.

“The important thing is to get the higher court to review the evidence in-depth, something that the lower court definitively didn’t do,” Kristina Svartholm, the Pirate Bay co-founder’s mother told website TorrentFreak prior to Wednesday’s ruling.

Svartholm Warg and his fellow Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, as well as financier Carl Lundström, were all convicted in 2009 of facilitating copyright infringement and ordered to pay 46 million kronor ($6.9 million) in damages to the music and movie industry.

[Via]

September 26, 2013
YouTube Launches Royalty Free Music Library

Youtube announced the launch of its Audio Library on Wednesday, which offers video makers 150 royalty-free tracks to accompany their footage.

Tracks can be added to your videos from the video manager page under the Creation Tools tab. The music library can be sorted by genre, mood, instrument or duration.

As The Independent notes, the new library is undoubtedly doing amateur filmmakers the world over a massive favour – helping them cut costs by not having to pay for music licences and also meaning less video takedowns over copyright disputes.

“We searched far and wide for musicians to create tracks for us and ended up finding co-conspirators in multiple places: an acquaintance down in L.A., music houses across the country and a well-known music producer in Brooklyn,” YouTube wrote on its official blog. “And it turns out the latter produced albums for Phish and Sean Lennon.”

“Any Youtube creator now has access to more than 150 royalty-free instrumental tracks you can use for free, forever, for any creative purpose (not just YouTube videos). You’ll find a link to the library in your video manager and you can browse the tracks by mood, genre, instrument and duration. The tracks can be downloaded as 320 Kbps MP3 files.

Youtube is calling for more musicians to get involved in the project, so those who fancy donating instrumental tracks to the service should get in touch with it.

September 25, 2013
Sony Released New Walkman Devices With Android 4.1

Sony has today unveiled a new range of Sony Walkman devices. It has launched these in the form of the new Sony Walkman ZX1, F Series, S Series and E Series.

The NW-ZX1 is a premium Android MP3 player while the NW-F880 comes in three colours. Both devices run on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, sport 4-inch 480 x 854 Triluminous screens and feature Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC.

The NW-F880 continues Sony’s F series and offers 24 bit/192 kHz lossless audio for FLAC or WAV files. It also has sports hardware buttons for easy access to playback controls. There will be three models: the 16GB NW-F885, 32GB NW-F886 and the 64GB NW-F887.

If you are looking for more battery life and a smaller screen then the Sony S Series might be for you offering 32GB of storage, 77 hours of music playback and a 320 × 240 LCD display.

Sony says the NW-ZX1 Walkman will be launched in Japan starting December. The company didn’t mention if it intends to commercialize its new devices in other markets.

September 25, 2013