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Ubuntu Developers Post Screenshots Of Core Apps, Reveal Clean UI

Further differentiating itself from the GNOME desktop stack it was previously based upon, developers are working on their own calendar, weather, and clock applications that are written against the Ubuntu SDK. They’ve even developed their own Sudoku and other games.

Published today by Canonical’s Michael Hall was a note on his blog about forthcoming Ubuntu SDK Apps, including screenshots of some of the early applications.

There wasn’t much you could actually do with Ubuntu Touch when Canonical released the Developer Preview firmware images in February. The OS would boot, it supported basic internet access over Wi-Fi, and you could place calls with the smartphone version, but most of the preinstalled “apps” were actually just placeholders for software that had yet to be written.

But according to Hall, work is already underway to build a set of apps to handle most of the everyday functions users expect from their phones and fondleslabs.

Hall writes, “Shortly after making Ubuntu Touch and the SDK preview announcements, we kicked off an effort to develop the coreapplications for Ubuntu devices in the open with full community involvement. We identified a number of desired applications, recruited interested community contributors, and dedicated design and project management resources from Canonical staff.”

In addition, a number of independent app developers have been working on apps outside the Core group, including feed readers, a WhatsApp client, and such games as chess, Sudoku, and a bubble-popping game.

Longtime Linux users will doubtless observe that versions of all of these apps already exist for the open source OS, and many of them are far more mature and feature-rich than Canonical’s counterparts.

What sets the Ubuntu apps in Hall’s showcase apart, however, is that they were all built using the new Ubuntu SDK, an alpha version of which was released simultaneously with the Touch Developer Preview ROM images.

[The Register]

March 13, 2013
Edit : 5 Symptoms Of A Smartphone Addict! Are You One?

Nomophobia is a term first coined by British researchers during 2008 to denote people who experienced anxiety when they had no access to mobile technology—such as their mobile phones.

This unfortunate-sounding condition (you must enunciate well when you say it) is an abbreviation for no-mobile-phone-phobia.

Smartphone addiction is a very sly and cunning condition. Unlike other addictions, you won’t even come to know that you’re suffering from it.

People who are said to suffer with this addiction report being unable to turn their phones off—ever. They worry over running out of battery power. They constantly check for new emails and text messages and calls. And they don’t even want to go to the restroom without their phones.

Mentioned below are 5 symptoms of a smartphone addict, according to DigitalTrends.

1. You’ve spent more on accessories than on your phone.

It started out with something harmless like a car charger, but then you stepped up to the car FM transmitter, armband, a different case for each day of the week, spare batteries, screen protectors, a stereo Bluetooth adapter, wireless speakerphone, and even a dock powered by tube amps. You realize that it’s just a phone, not a kid, right? And that none of it will work when you inevitably buy a new device?

2. You have 30 different apps installed. And use them all.

We’ve all gone through app-installing binges where we’ve installed some questionable stuff on our cell phones. Two weeks later, we either figure out it’s garbage and delete it, or leave it to stagnate. But those of you still checking on your digital iPhorest trees, using Shazam to find that song that’s playing on the radio, or just lying on the bed in your pajamas playing poker on your phone are the real nuts.

3. A full battery charge barely lasts the day.

After brushing your teeth and washing your face, your last ritual before bed is plugging in that smartphone. Because if you don’t, there’s no way that sucker’s lasting another full day after the workout you gave it today. We’ll admit that the battery life on some modern smartphones is pretty dismal, but if you’re downing a full charge day after day, you might need to lay off the juice.

4. When you meet people with the same phone, you can only talk about the phone.

“You have an iPhone too? Oh awesome, have you tried the Moves app yet? Yea, this case is pretty cool, but I’m getting this metallic one soon that’s even slimmer.”

If this sounds at all like a conversation you might have upon meeting someone with the same smartphone, you should reconsider your smartphone addiction and your social life.

5. You use it in the bathroom.

This is just wrong. But not for hygienic reasons as you all suspect. If you’re using your smartphone on the can, you’ve just robbed yourself of your last refuge from interruption. You’ve tainted mankind’s last fortress of solitude by dragging the entire equivalent of a computer into the equation. Can’t you live five minutes without e-mail? Really?

If you exhibit the above symptoms, then you, my friend, are a smartphone addict.

Let us know below if you are!

March 13, 2013
Welcome to the New iGyaan 2013

[title title=”Editorial: iGyaan and You” icon=”icon-edit”]

Few years back when I started iGyaan, it was supposed to be a simple and efficient way for me to give advice to my friends and family who wanted the right information and tips on technology. Today, iGyaan is ranked as India’s leading technology destination and I have only you to thank. With the first few inspirational emails and positive comments, I was constantly fighting the battle to do better and better with something which was a mere hobby for me at that time.

[pullquote_left] As long as you remember us [/pullquote_left]I remember an anonymous reader stating on the blogspot blog, iGyaan should be a website it will do well. Low and behold months later iGyaan.in was formed. There are many reasons I chose this name, and many have tried to justify it, “India-Gyaan”, “IT- Gyaan”, “I (me) – Gyaan”, It honestly does not matter to me, As long as you remember us.

I have strived to hold standards on iGyaan, ensuring that I can deliver the best of quality and the right amounts of it. In the years, however, there have been many things which have been not accepted by you, what can I say, we learnt and we moved on.

The best thing about iGyaan is the team that holds it together, from Devs, to designers, to writers, editors, video editors among others who helped us reach this milestone.

[pullquote_right]Makes us do what we do better[/pullquote_right]The new iGyaan, has been created with careful tinkering and to deliver a fast and efficient reading experience for all those on the other side. The new design also makes it easy for us to deliver the information to you people, so it turns out to be a win-win. We hope you appreciate all the hard work and no-sleep nights that go into delivering a better end-user experience, and continue to give us all the love and appreciation for it. It is truly what makes us do what we do better.

March 13, 2013
Leaked : Samsung Galaxy S4 Hands-On Video (Real or Fake?!)

A video posted on YouTube shows hands-on with Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.

Although the footage is rather amateur, shot in portrait mode obviously from a smartphone device, the Samsung Galaxy S4 handset shown is very similar to the official Samsung photo teaser shown today, and much akin to a larger version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 handset.

The video shows the battery being put in, rear cover clicked into place and then the flagship handset is booted up. The upcoming TouchWiz UI is then on display, alongside a quick camera demo, and a run-through through the home screen, dialler and settings menu. This latter shot quickly confirms that the upcoming flagship handset should wield NFC technology and could run the latest Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean.

This particular version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 seems to be a dual SIM version, with tewo SIM card slots under the plastic rear plate. It also shows the China Unicom logo during boot up, suggesting this version is for the Chinese market.

Listed as the GT-i9502, the Samsung leak could very well be the new SGS4. It runs on Android 4.2.1, and an AnTuTu benchmark of 26118.

The specs match out to the previous rumours: Full 1080p HD AMOLED display, runs Android OS 4.2.1 (might come with 4.2.2 out of the box), 1.8GHz processor (“Universal5410? might suggest it’s the rumoured Exynos Octa 5410 CPU), 2GB of RAM, 13MP camera and a 2MP front-facing camera, a PowerVR SGX 544MP graphics processor. The overall design looks similar to the Galaxy S III, but if real, the GS IV will sport aluminium around the sides.

Another hotly anticipated feature of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is Samsung’s patented ‘eye tracking’ system, which will allow users to automatically scroll through webpages by simply casting their eyes across the display.

Amusingly, there’s a promo video for Apple’s iPad Mini playing in the background of the video, likely a reference to the contentious relationship between Apple and Samsung, which both work together on component supplies and are bitter opponents in the courtroom.

[Sam Mobile]

March 12, 2013
Leaked Samsung Galaxy S4 Screenshots Confirm 1080p Display, Quad-Core Processor

Leaked photos of what looks to be the Samsung’s upcoming flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, shows off a new TouchWIZ colour scheme, grey and blue, along with some interesting hardware specs.

The screenshots, released by GSM Israel, apparently shows the Quick System Info PRO app running on the Galaxy S4 – which revealing specifications such as a 5-inch 1080 x 1920 display with a 480ppi pixel density.

Unlike our previous estimation, it looks like even the North American version of the GS4 will sport Samsung’s own quad-core Exynos 5410 chipset at 1.8Ghz, replete with eight cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. The 5-inch 1080p display is also all but confirmed.

The images also give us a first proper glimpse at Samsung’s new TouchWiz Nature UX 2.0, slathered on top of Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1.

While the home screen appears virtually unchanged from what we’ve already seen on the Galaxy S3, the settings menu has been revamped with a tabbed interface and a lighter background.

We also see a checkbox and toggle for the much-hyped ‘Smart pause’ and ‘Smart scroll’ features that the Galaxy S4 is mooted to bring. The former is described as enabling you to pause videos “when it detects your head moving away from the screen”, while the latter will “start to scroll automatically if the device detects that you are looking at the screen”.

Looking forward to the unveiling of the phone!

March 8, 2013
Apple Marketing Head Phil Schiller Tweets Link To Android’s Security Flaws

Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller has been known to take to Twitter and email to voice his opinions on rival services and platforms in the past. Today, the Apple executive appears to be taking a jab at Android by tweeting out a link to a recent study from security firm F-Secure that compares security threats on mobile platforms.

Be safe out there: f-secure.com/static/doc/lab…

— Philip Schiller (@pschiller) March 7, 2013

Schiller is noted for his taunts at competition, but he hardly uses the microblogging website, so when he does it seems to have an impact. The last activity on his Twitter account before this dig at Android was on 25 December, wishing everyone a happy Christmas.

The F-Secure report indicates that around 96 new families and variants of Android threats were discovered in the fourth quarter of 2012, which was double the number recorded in the previous quarter and that on the threat side, Android’s share rose to 79% in 2012 compared to 66.7% in 2011, while iOS’ share was just 0.7%. While the report is certainly not the de facto pronouncement of mobile OS security, and is based on a specific methodology, a senior Apple executive citing it to pan competition does raise eyebrows.

The reality of the situation is that if you stick to Google Play, you’d be safe in most of the cases. And if you run 4.2 Jelly Bean, you’d be protected even against malicious apps in third-party stores.

Still, Google’s anti-malware bouncer platform and constant quick clean-ups of Google Play cannot protect you from yourself. Rogueware and spyware apps do exist on third-party app stores, and earlier Android versions might be vulnerable. But then again, that’s the price you pay for your freedom of choice, something that other platforms cannot boast about.

March 8, 2013
Skype iOS App Updated With “All New Calling Experience”

Skype has just received an update that adds a better designed calling experience along with some other enhancements and fixes. If you frequently use Skype for messaging, the update also brings with it quicker ways to clear out messaging histories.

Skype for iPad v4.6 is compatible with the iPad, iPad 2, iPad mini and the latest iPad with Retina Display. The app has been updated to include a new calling experience. Users can mark all their recent chats as “read” in a matter of a few taps. One-to-one chats appear in the correct order in the app now.

The updated iPhone app too includes the above mentioned features. Skype for iPhone v4.6 is compatible with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 5, plus 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch. iOS 5.0 or later is required on all devices.

Skype describes its new interface as a “beautiful new calling experience.” And it’s true, the new look is cleaner and more modern than before. Though functionality-wise, it’s not that different.

[toggle_box title=”Change Log” width=”Width of toggle box”]

What’s New In This Version:

? Beautiful new calling experience

? Mark all your recent chats as read with just a few taps.

? General fixes and improvements

?One-to-one chats now appear in the correct order.

[/toggle_box]

You can download Skype from the App Store for free.

March 8, 2013
Nokia Joins Apple In Bid For Samsung Ban

In a surprising twist, Windows Phone device manufacturer Nokia has filed a brief with US courts in support of Apple’s ongoing legal battle against Samsung.

Acting as an amicus curiae (friend of the court, a party who offers information to a case they are not directly involved with), Nokia has filed a brief on behalf of Apple to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week.

In the brief, Nokia asked the court to permit permanent injunctions on the sale of Samsung phones that were found to infringe Apple’s patents.

As part of its ongoing legal battle with Samsung, Apple has repeatedly requested the courts to impose an injunction on the sale of Samsung products that have infringed on the iPhone maker’s patents.

As noted by Reuters, the brief itself is currently sealed, but an accompanying motion supplies an overview of Nokia’s argument. The company questions Judge Koh’s December ruling requiring a patent holder to first establish a “causal nexus” between a patented feature and customer demand before securing a permanent injunction against offending products. If such a precedent were set, Nokia asserts, the ability of patent holders to obtain sales bans would be crippled.

[quote]The “causal nexus” requirement as applied by the district court here, making the evidentiary standard for obtaining a permanent injunction so burdensome and strict that it may rarely, if ever, be met, will essentially lead to a compulsory-licensing system wherein patent holders are forced to license patented technology to competing firms, which could in turn harm incentives to innovate.[/quote]

In her ruling late last year, Judge Lucy Koh said that sales bans on Samsung products will not be given, and they can only be removed from sale if the feature deemed to infringe on a patent is one that is solely responsible for consumer demand for the product.

[Apple Insider]

March 7, 2013
Report : Intel in Talks to Build Chips for Apple

Intel is reportedly in talks with Apple to take over Samsung’s role to manufacture iPad and iPhone processors. Even if Apple is not using Intel’s x86 CPU’s in its mobile products, it would be an attractive deal for Intel to fill the capacity in its own fabs and take away business from its most significant chip manufacturing rival in the market.

Intel’s next CEO is likely to shepherd the top chipmaker into a growing contract-manufacturing business, a strategic shift that could lead to a deal with Apple Inc and give it a fighting chance to make inroads in the mobile arena.

According to Reuters, a source “close to one of the companies” claims that executives from both Apple and Intel have met over the past year to discuss the idea of Intel making chips on a contract manufacturing basis. That would mean that Intel used its foundries to create chips designed to Apple’s own specifications.

This is not the first time rumors of an Apple-Intel partnership have cropped up. A report from May 2011 suggested that Intel showed interest in building Apple’s A4 and A5 SoCs, though no action was taken and the idea was apparently shelved as the so-called Ultrabook initiative gained momentum.

As for Apple, a move to Intel is easier to imagine, as the Mac lineup already runs on x86 processors. It has also been rumored that the company wants to distance itself from current A-series SoC manufacturer Samsung, with which it is ensnarled in a worldwide patent struggle. The Korean electronics giant is also Apple’s biggest competition in the mobile marketplace, with a variety of Android-based devices going jockeying for position against iOS products like the iPhone and iPad.

[Apple Insider, Reuters]

March 7, 2013
Confirmed : Asus Transformer AiO, Which Runs Android 4.1 And Windows 8, Will Launch In Q2 For $1,299

The Asus Transformer AiO is an all-in-one that is really more-than-one.

Asus lays claim to the world’s first device that runs Windows 8 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, depending on your need at that point in time. The Asus Transformer AiO (All in One) would make for an interesting addition into any home or office, and it does its name justice too, as the Asus Transformer AiO can switch from Windows 8 to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with a simple button click.

The design of the transfer AIO PC is such that when being used in the desktop mode, it runs on Windows 8 while if you decide to use it as a tablet, it will give you all the goodness of Android 4.1 Jelly bean.

The Asus Transformer AIO hybrid PC comes with a 18.4-inch IPS display that has a resolution of 1920 x 1280 pixels and also supports a 10-point multi-touch.

When being used in the desktop mode, the device gets powered by Intel Core processors (ranging from i3 to i7) while in the tablet mode, it is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. How? Well, just via the press of a button! When the screen is docked in to it’s holder it runs on Windows 8 being powered by Intel Core processors and discrete Nvidia graphics whereas by just pressing a button located on the side, it can start running on Android powered by Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.

To ensure easy portability of the device, Asus has added an integrated handle on the device so that it can be carried easily when being used as a tablet. As far as storage is concerned, you’ll get 1TB of storage space while running windows 8 while just 16GB of storage space on Android.

It has now been confirmed that the Asus Transformer AIO PC would go on sale in Q2 (about April) 2013 for a price of $1,299 for the Core i3 variant, while the Core i5 and i7 variants would follow soon but their pricing hasn’t been revealed yet.

March 7, 2013
HTC Sales Hit Three-Year Low In February

HTC has reported sales of £254 million for last month, its lowest since January 2010. On a month-over-month basis, sales had fallen 27 percent.

Although HTC did not report unit sales or net income in its monthly market updates, its last quarterly report released in January reveal a 91 per cent drop in profit to $34 million, it’s lowest since 2004.

According to Gartner, HTC barely kept its place in the top-ten rankings for mobile handset makers in Q4 2012. The firm scraped into the number 10 spot with a global share of just 1.8 per cent, which was down from 2.4 per cent a year ago.

The Android-based HTC One, launched in February, has met with some favorable reviews for the most part — including winning the best-device award at last week’s Mobile World Congress. But the big question is whether that will be enough to help the company claw back some of the market share that it has lost to companies like Samsung and Huawei on the Android front, as well as Apple in the larger picture for smartphones.

Last year’s great white hope, the One series, failed to spark sales and the company was heavily criticised for poor marketing. CEO Peter Chou has made changes at a senior level in the company, with him appointing a new chief marketing officer last year, Benjamin Ho. Last night, it was announced UK and Ireland executive director Phil Roberson had left the company.

[Tech Crunch]

March 6, 2013
Google Maps For iOS Updated To Version 1.1

Google has released its first update to Google Maps for iOS, bringing some features over from Android and the web.

Version 1.1, available on the App Store on Tuesday, now allows users to search for addresses based on their Google Contacts if they choose to log into their Google accounts. Additionally, the app now allows users to search for general categories like “restaurants,” “bars,” “gas stations,” and so on. Non-US users will also rejoice at the ability to choose between kilometers and miles for the app’s distance estimates.

Users can now sync up previously-searched locations based on contact information, so if you have an address saved under Mom, searching by name will point you to the place on the map.

Google asks customers to note that some of these features “may not be available in all countries.”

Google Maps is a free download from the App Store.

[toggle_box title=”Change Log” width=”Width of toggle box”]

Full change log for Google Maps version 1.1:

– Search your Google Contacts; sign in to have your saved addresses show up when you search for friends and family by name.
– Quickly search for local places by selecting popular categories such as restaurants, bars, cafes, gas stations, etc.
– Choose between Kilometers or Miles for your preferred distance units.
– Note that some features may not be available in all countries.

[/toggle_box]

March 6, 2013
Jelly Bean Now On 16.5% Android Devices, ICS Drops Slightly From Last Month

Google today updated its developer dashboard, which showed that Jelly Bean (version 4.1 and 4.2 combined) increasing its market share of the Android platform usage on devices by 2.9 percent month-over-month from 13.6 percent last month to 16.5 percent this month. Gingerbread, the hands-down leading version of the OS running on active devices, dropped in market share by 1.4 percent to 44.2 percent of devices.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich, the second newest Android version behind Jelly Bean, saw its market share fall slightly from 29.0 percent to 28.6 percent.

Froyo and Eclair, Android 2.2 and 2.1 respectively, also dropped slightly, but Donut remained static at 0.2%. Honeycomb also seems to be steady at 1.2%.

Slowly, manufacturers are updating compatible phones to Jelly Bean – most of these updates are only Android 4.1.x upgradess for now – but also announcing new machines that will run Android 4.1.x out of the box.

Most Nexus devices have been updated to the latest Jelly Bean version, Android 4.2.2, but it will probably be a while until more devices will be updated to the latest Android version in a timely fashion.

Overall it looks like things are progressing fairly nicely for the newer versions of the OS, though we’d love to see Gingerbread drop more quickly.

All the data from Google’s developer dashboard was collected from android devices that had accessed Google Play within a 14-period, which ended on March 4.

March 6, 2013
HTC One To Be Android Flagship For 2013, Ultrapixel Camera May Come To Mid-Range Smartphones

According to HTC representatives, the One will be the company’s only flagship release this year, in contrast to previous years when the company brought out multiple high-end devices. The idea is simple: focus on marketing a single product to millions of potential customers across hundreds of carriers. The less HTC dilutes the top of the Android pyramid, the more room it has for its own flagship.

HTC’s Ultrapixel technology, the high-quality image capturing system powering the camera on its HTC One flagship smartphone, is likely to roll out to the company’s other handsets – including its more affordable mid-range offering.

A direct answer to the Nokia 808 PureView, a phone with a 41-megapixel camera which uses supersampling to improve the quality of the final five or eight megapixel captured image, the HTC One’s Ultrapixel technology offers similar claims: using multiple image sensors, rather than a single high-resolution sensor as with PureView, the camera captures each pixel in the final image multiple times in order to create a higher-definition picture despite an apparently low final resolution.

Asked whether the UltraPixel camera will land in more affordable HTC devices, HTC UK head Phil Robertson said: “It could … the core is around the sensor and the image chip that we are using.”

Don’t expect the full scale of improvements that the HTC One brings, though, as the Snapdragon 600 chip is a key part of the performance of the camera. More affordable devices clearly won’t feature such a powerful chip.

“However, the Qualcomm Chipset [used in the HTC One] does enable a lot of this to happen. The ability to take HD video and high-res images at the same time is powered by the quad-core on the device, as well,”Robertson noted.

Ultrapixel and BlinkFeed, two marquee features of the One, will eventually trickle down to cheaper devices. HTC has found success in entry-level smartphones like the Desire C, and will benefit from using consistent branding on all its future devices. Whether we’ll see these rumoured entry- and mid-range devices in 2013 is anyone’s guess, but we predict HTC will get itchy before the beginning of Q4 and out a couple of cheaper handsets.

HTC is also promising to bring Sense 5 to an array of 2012 devices, including the One X and One S.

[Omio]

March 6, 2013
Rumour : Apple iPhone 5S Coming In August With Faster Processor and Improved Camera

We all know that a new iPhone will be hitting stores’ shelves this year, but what exactly will this device bring to the table?

As soon as a new iPhone is announced the next wave of rumours begin. Surfacing today is a report from iMore noting that Apple is planning to announce the follow-up to the iPhone 5 with the iPhone 5S (if that’s what it would be called!) sometime this summer, possibly in August of this year.

As for the design, no plans for this new iPhone 5S to come with a laser keyboard or holographic display, but will keep the same overall general style as the iPhone 5 and come with a better camera and faster processor – possibly “A7.” According to previous rumours the iPhone 5S will also come with a fingerprint sensor under the home button for added security, plus additional details revealed camera will have an improved LED “SmartFlash” sensor.

More specific rumours point to a 13-megapixel camera, and a storage capacity as high as 128GB.

Without compromising with overall design and thickness of casing, Apple is trying to raise the bar of upcoming iPhone 5 only to stay above than the competition.

Despite of high-sales of iPhone 5 and iPad Mini, the year 2012 remained below expectations for Apple and for investors. However, with a line of products reportedly scheduled in 2013 at regular intervals – Apple iPad Mini 2 in April, Apple iPhone 5S in August and Apple iWatch by end of the year – last three-quarters could make Apple swipe off the market beating expectation with significant margins.

[iMore]

March 5, 2013