Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Google introduces Indoor Maps for malls in India

Google announced on Wednesday that indoor maps for a number of public spaces such as malls and along with locations like the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi and the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad. The museums were already being covered by Google's Art View project, as reported previously.

Google's indoor maps are already available in other parts of the world, in countries including the US, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.

Google has recently been resurrecting their map offerings in India, after their Street View plans ran into roadblocks in June 2011, after security concerns were raised in Karnataka, just three weeks after they started.

Some of the major locations include Ambience Mall in Gurgaon and Select City Walk in Delhi. In a press release, Google stated that they have worked with 75 partners, across 22 cities to launch indoor maps in India and they will be adding more locations.

The maps cover the major metros and also big cities like Bhopal, Coimbatore, Dehradun, and Ludhiana. According to Google, detailed floor plans will automatically appear when you're using the Google Maps app on iOS and Android, and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. Simply zoom out and the indoor Google Maps will fade away.

In some locations, users will have the option of using the indoor My Location feature to help you navigate your way inside. This means that when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the map will automatically update to display which floor you're on.  At these locations, you can also access indoor walking directions to help you get to where you need to go more quickly.

While Google has just started indoor maps, Nokia got a head start with their HERE maps. Nokia launched the service in June 2013, covering 150 malls, in 17 cities, as previously reported.

For a full list of locations, click here - the service is being rolled out in the following 22 locations for now: Bangalore, Bhopal, Chennai, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Goa, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Moradabad, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, Raipur and Vadodara.

Beats Music review

There's no shortage of music subscription services that offer unlimited streaming for a monthly fee. The conceit of the latest offering, Beats Music, is that its playlists and other recommendations are curated by warm-blooded humans, not robots.
As CEO Ian Rogers proclaims, "Algorithms can do 'sounds like.' They can't do 'feels like.'"
Beats Music comes from Beats Electronics, the headphone-maker backed by hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre and former music executive Jimmy Iovine.
For $10 a month, you get unlimited streaming and song downloading for offline listening. Downloaded songs expire once you cancel the subscription. AT&T customers are also eligible for a $15-a-month family plan for as many as five family members. You can sign up for a 90-day free trial, but there's no free, ad-supported version like some of its rivals.
Beats Music has its roots in the MOG streaming service, which Beats Electronics bought in 2012. Beats Music has a more playful interface than MOG, which was mostly utilitarian. Beats also introduces a few ways to discover both new and old material.
Apps Android, iOS, and Windows Phone are available now. Computer users can listen through their Web browser. And like other streaming services, you can choose specific songs, albums or artists on your own. Beats Music has a catalog of more than 20 million songs, which is comparable to its rivals.
I began by going through a get-to-know-you sequence for new users, picking a few genres and artists I like. Somewhat flustered by the scarcity of choices, I picked "Sting," "Katy Perry" and "Harry Connick Jr." and the genre "Pop." I'm glad I was discerning about these choices (redoing them several times), because eventually I was presented with something I liked.
beats_music_screenshot_ap.jpgThe Beats Music app tries to take the information you enter in order to present you with a variety of albums and playlists that are "Just For You."
Another section for recommendations, dubbed "The Sentence," prompts you to fill in blanks to establish what you'd like to hear, but you end up with silly sentences like "I'm in the shower & feel like ordering in with my family to Indie." It's reminiscent of Allrecipes' "Dinner Spinner" except I'm not sure what ingredients I'm adding in. I mostly skipped this game because I found the resulting choices to be far too random.
Another "Highlights" section made more sense, like a playlist of the "2014 Grammy Winners."
One recommendation I liked from the "Just For You" section was a playlist called "Young Lovers Heartbreak Mix." If you have a rainy day - or in drought-plagued Los Angeles, at least a few hours with nothing better to do - it's worth a listen.
The 25-song, 96-minute playlist starts off slowly with the piano ballad "Say Something" by A Great Big World. It builds gradually, ramping up with the rise-from-the-ashes fourth song "Skyscraper" by Demi Lovato. It hits a crescendo between songs 13 and 14, when "Don't Speak," Gwen Stefani's 1996 hit with her band, No Doubt, crashes into Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" from last year. Somewhat appropriately, the playlist ends with Taylor Swift's power recovery song "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
beats_music_screenshot_playstore.JPGThe app says the playlist was created by "Beats Pop," but the curator was actually Arjan Timmermans, the popular blogger behind ArjanWrites.com. Hired as the head of pop and dance programming at Beats Music last year, Timmermans is one of nine real people who put some 5,000 playlists together for Beats Music. (Neither Dre nor Iovine are among them).
The playlist was designed for "a teenager who got their heart broken for the first time," Timmermans said in an interview. The songs - a mix of hits by current teen idols and breakup classics like "Don't Speak" - are meant to work together emotionally, he said, telling the listener, "It's OK to be sad, but I can move through this."
The playlist has a beginning, middle and an end and runs about as long as a movie. And I found that some songs' lyrics work together back-to-back, like the way Stefani's line "don't tell me cause it hurts" runs into Cyrus' "don't you ever say I just walked away, I will always want you."
That's a link I don't see a machine making these days. For people, it's probably a subconscious connection buried deep down there somewhere.
I am no teenager anymore, am happily married and am not the playlist's presumptive audience. But as a sampling of what Beats Music has to offer, it shows me this app has a soul.

HTC Desire 816 HTC Desire 816

HTC Desire 816

HTC Desire 816 detailed specifications

General  
Release date February 2014
Form factor Touchscreen
Dimensions (mm) 156.60 x 78.70 x 7.99
Weight (g) 165.00
Battery capacity (mAh) 2600
Removable battery No
SAR value NA
Display  
Screen size (inches) 5.50
Touchscreen Yes
Touchscreen type Capacitive
Resolution 720x1280 pixels
Pixels per inch (PPI) 267
Colours 16M
Hardware  
Processor 1.6GHz  quad-core
Processor make Snapdragon 400
RAM 1.5GB
Internal storage 8GB
Expandable storage Yes
Expandable storage type microSD
Expandable storage up to (GB) 128
Camera  
Rear camera 13-megapixel
Flash Yes
Front camera 5-megapixel
Software  
Operating System Android 
Java support Yes
Browser supports Flash No
Connectivity  
Wi-Fi Yes
Wi-Fi standards supported 802.11 b/ g/ n
GPS Yes
Bluetooth Yes, v 4.00
NFC No
Infrared No
DLNA No
Wi-Fi Direct No
MHL Out No
HDMI No
Headphones 3.5mm
FM No
USB Micro-USB
Charging via Micro-USB Yes
Proprietary charging connector No
Proprietary data connector No
Number of SIMs 1
SIM Type Nano-SIM
GSM/ CDMA GSM
2G frequencies supported GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
3G Yes
3G frequencies supported 850, 900, 2100
Sensors  
Compass/ Magnetometer Yes
Proximity sensor Yes
Accelerometer Yes
Ambient light sensor No
Gyroscope No
Barometer No
Temperature sensor No

Samsung's Android 4.4 update reportedly puts an end to benchmark rigging

Last July, Samsung was caught in a bit of controversy when its flagship smartphone of the time, the Galaxy S4, was seen optimising its behaviour to score higher in commonly-used benchmarking apps.
According to the findings, the Samsung Galaxy S4 would expose higher-speed cores to certain applications like GLBenchmark 2.5.1, AnTuTu, Linpack, and Quadrant apps, while the power available to other apps would be capped at a lower speed, in an attempt to increase the battery life of the phone. This meant that the CPU power available to your typical apps was lesser than what you would expect based on the benchmarks score. Samsung allegedly did this 'optimisation' for GPU speeds as well.
However, it seems this practise has been put to an end with Samsung's Android 4.4 update for the Galaxy S4. According to a report by Ars Technica:
Moving to Android 4.4, that strange CPU activity stops happening. Every single benchmark we ran prompted variable-but-normal fluctuations in CPU speed based on actual activity. Speeds would ramp up for a couple of seconds while the app launched, but once it became idle, the speeds settled back down to where they would normally be.
Compare this to the behaviour in Android 4.3 "where all four cores go right to the maximum speed of 1.9GHz when a benchmark app is opened."
So has Samsung just hidden the new set of optimisations deeper in the code, or given up on the practice? Seems like it's the latter.
John Poole of Primate Labs, the developers of popular benchmarking app Geekbench told Ars, "I'm inclined to think that the change between 4.2.2 and 4.4.2 is due to Samsung tweaking the overall power and performance settings rather than a new harder-to-detect boost."
Similar optimisations were also noted in the Galaxy Note 3, so it would be interesting to see if a software update makes an impact on the phablet's performance in benchmarks as well.
To be fair to Samsung, it's not the only manufacturer that has been caught optimising its hardware for benchmarks. Anandtech noted last year that almost all manufacturers indulge in the practice. However, it seems that like almost everything else that it does, Samsung is (or at least was) better than others in this department as well.

Samsung Galaxy S5

Samsung Galaxy S5

Samsung Galaxy S5

Samsung Galaxy S5 detailed specifications

General  
Release date February 2014
Form factor Touchscreen
Dimensions (mm) 142.00 x 72.50 x 8.10
Weight (g) 145.00
Battery capacity (mAh) 2800
Removable battery Yes
SAR value NA
Display  
Screen size (inches) 5.10
Touchscreen Yes
Touchscreen type Capacitive
Resolution 1080x1920 pixels
Colours 16M
Hardware  
Processor 2.5GHz  quad-core
Processor make Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
RAM 2GB
Internal storage 16GB
Expandable storage Yes
Expandable storage type microSD
Expandable storage up to (GB) 64
Camera  
Rear camera 16-megapixel
Flash Yes
Front camera 2.1-megapixel
Software  
Operating System Android 4.4.2
Java support Yes
Browser supports Flash No
Connectivity  
Wi-Fi Yes
Wi-Fi standards supported 802.11 a/ b/ g/ n/ ac
GPS Yes
Bluetooth Yes, v 4.00
NFC Yes
Infrared Yes
DLNA No
Wi-Fi Direct No
MHL Out No
HDMI No
Headphones 3.5mm
FM No
USB Micro-USB
Charging via Micro-USB Yes
Proprietary charging connector No
Proprietary data connector No
Number of SIMs 1
SIM Type Nano-SIM
GSM/ CDMA GSM
2G frequencies supported GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
3G Yes
3G frequencies supported 900, 2100
Sensors  
Compass/ Magnetometer Yes
Proximity sensor Yes
Accelerometer Yes
Ambient light sensor Yes
Gyroscope Yes
Barometer Yes
Temperature sensor Yes

Google Nexus 6 to be made by LG as 'lite' variant of G3 flagship: Report

If recent reports are to be believed, the Nexus 6 smartphone might be a marked departure from Google's usual Nexus line-up, as the Mountain View giant is said to be preparing the next smartphone on the lines of LG's yet-to-be-announced G3.
The latest information about the upcoming Nexus smartphone comes courtesy Gizmodo, who cites an insider that claims that Google's rumoured Nexus 6 smartphone is being manufactured by LG, which has been the OEM partner for Nexus smartphones for two consecutive years (Nexus 4 and Nexus 5) now.
Further, the insider notes that this year's Nexus smartphone will be a 'lightweight' version of LG's next flagship smartphone, believed to be dubbed G3. However, the insider does not reveal any details about the alleged Nexus 6.
According to the report, LG might debut the rumoured G3 in June. It's worth pointing out that, Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President at Google in charge of Android, Chrome and Google Apps recently indicated that Nexus fans would only see the alleged Nexus 6 in the second half of this year. Pichai was quoted saying, "I can assure you it will not be released in the first half of the year."
The Google Nexus 5, made by LG, is Google's most recent Nexus device, and was released in November 2013 with Android 4.4 KitKat OS.
Notably, the alleged LG G3 flagship has been making rounds on the Internet and has been rumoured to sport a 1440x2560 pixels QHD (Quad HD) display, however, there is no word on screen size yet.
Further, the alleged LG G3 is said to pack an octa-core chipset, believed to be codenamed LG Odin, which is being developed by the company itself. In addition, the rumoured LG G3 is expected to pack a 16-megapixel rear camera.
An earlier report suggested that Google has been working on a smartwatch of its own, expected to be revealed within the first half of this year. Popular phone tipster @evleaks had claimed that Google's rumoured smartwatch has been manufactured by LG and it would debut at Google's I/O event in June.

All New HTC One teased in new humorous ad focusing on metallic unibody

HTC has yet again teased the upcoming 'All New HTC One' in an advertisement boasting of its metal body.
The one-and-half-minute-long video, titled 'HTC Technical Translations #2: Metal Unibody', includes two characters, one an engineer and the other some sort of layman (possibly marketing). The first half of the video concentrates on the engineer describing material and techniques used to create the existing HTC One.
In the latter half of the teaser video, we see the engineer holding the 'All New HTC One' smartphone (which has been blurred), describing the metals used in the making of the handset. The scientist's voice, while listing the number of metals, is bleeped out with some twisted guitar leads and riffs generally used in a 'metal' genre song. However, he mentions that one would have to wait until 25 March 2014 "like everyone else," to get the glimpse of the next-gen handset.

The second teaser video is a follow-up to the first advertisement, 'HTC Technical Translations #1: BoomSound', which detailed the BoomSound feature in the company's next flagship smartphone in a humourous way.
Some previous leaks (most recent leak) suggest that the phone might feature a 5-inch full-HD display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM8974 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM, and Sense 6.0 UI on top of Android 4.4 KitKat. A 2.1-megapixel front camera is also speculated.
It is all but certain that the Taiwanese firm's much-anticipated successor to the HTC One, the device also referred to previously as HTC M8, HTC One 2, HTC One+, HTC Two, and HTC One 2014, will be released at the 25 March 2014 event.

Sony Xperia E1 and Xperia E1 Dual with Android 4.3 launched in India

Sony Xperia E1 and Xperia E1 Dual have been launched for the Indian market priced at Rs. 9,490 and Rs. 10, 490 respectively.
The company has announced that the Sony Xperia E1 Dual will be available starting March 10, while the Sony Xperia E1 will hit the stores by 25 March 2014.
The Sony Xperia E1 is the single SIM variant, while the Xperia E1 Dual is the dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) variant, and both models otherwise come with identical specifications.
The Sony Xperia E1 (and Xperia E1 Dual) features a 4-inch WVGA display with a resolution of 480x800 pixels and a 233ppi pixel density. The smartphone is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 (MSM8210) processor, alongside 512MB of RAM. The Xperia E1 comes with 4GB of inbuilt storage, with expandable storage support up to 32GB via microSD card.
The Xperia E1 sports a 3-megapixel rear camera capable of 720p recording, and has no front-facing camera. The smartphone packs a 1700mAh battery that's rated to deliver up to 9 hours of talk time, and 551 hours of standby time. Notably, it features 3G connectivity support. The smartphone weighs in at 120 grams, and has dimensions 118x62.4x12 mm. Sony notes that the Xperia E1 will be available in Black, Purple and White.
The Japanese giant is touting the Xperia E1 as mid-range device and claims that the device can produce up to 100Db music through loudspeakers. Sony also is offering a promotional 30 day free pass for company's Entertainment Network music streaming service.
The Xperia E1 was announced in January this year, alongside the Xperia T2 Ultra phablet. Notably, Sony is yet to reveal any pricing and availability details of the Xperia T2 Ultra. The Xperia T2 Ultra was made available online in India in February via an online retailer, for Rs. 32,000.
Sony at MWC 2014 launched a new mid-range smartphone, the Xperia M2, alongside the company's flagship Xperia Z2 smartphone and the Xperia Z2 Tablet.

LG Google Nexus 5 detailed specifications


LG Google Nexus 5

Rs. 28999
  • Design
  • Display
  • Software
  • Performance
  • Battery life
  • Camera
  • Value for money
  • Good
  • Brilliant display
  • Great performance
  • Guaranteed Timely Android updates
  • Bad
  • Mediocre camera
  • Battery backup could have been better
  • No external storage support

    LG Google Nexus 5 detailed specifications

    General  
    Release date October 2013
    Form factor Touchscreen
    Dimensions (mm) 137.84 x 69.17 x 8.59
    Weight (g) 130.00
    Battery capacity (mAh) 2300
    Removable battery No
    Colours Black, White
    SAR value NA
    Display  
    Screen size (inches) 4.95
    Touchscreen Yes
    Touchscreen type Capacitive
    Resolution 1080x1920 pixels
    Pixels per inch (PPI) 445
    Colours 16M
    Hardware  
    Processor 2.26GHz  quad-core
    Processor make Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
    RAM 2GB
    Internal storage 16GB
    Camera  
    Rear camera 8-megapixel
    Flash Yes
    Front camera 1.3-megapixel
    Software  
    Operating System Android 4.4
    Java support Yes
    Browser HTML
    Browser supports Flash Yes
    Connectivity  
    Wi-Fi Yes
    Wi-Fi standards supported 802.11 a/ b/ g/ n/ ac
    GPS Yes
    Bluetooth Yes, v 4.00
    NFC Yes
    Infrared No
    DLNA Yes
    Wi-Fi Direct Yes
    MHL Out No
    HDMI No
    Headphones 3.5mm
    FM No
    USB Micro-USB
    Charging via Micro-USB Yes
    Proprietary charging connector No
    Proprietary data connector No
    Number of SIMs 1
    SIM Type Micro-SIM
    GSM/ CDMA GSM
    2G frequencies supported GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
    3G Yes
    3G frequencies supported NA
    Sensors  
    Compass/ Magnetometer Yes
    Proximity sensor Yes
    Accelerometer Yes
    Ambient light sensor Yes
    Gyroscope Yes
    Barometer Yes
    Temperature sensor No

     

iOS 7.1 'should ship any day now': John Gruber

iOS 7.1, the much-awaited first major update to iOS 7, could ship any day now, according to noted Apple pundit John Gruber.
Apple is hosting the first-ever iTunes music festival in the US along the sidelines of the South by Southwest (SXSW), a popular conference that is held every year in Texas. Apple announced that the music festival will be streamed live via Apple's iTunes store as well as through a dedicated iTunes festival app.
The festival app, which hasn't been released yet, will require iOS 7.1 to run, says Gruber. With SXSW set to start on Friday, the app, and hence the update, should arrive soon. Gruber wrote on his website Daring Fireball:
Apple's first iTunes Festival in the U.S. starts a week from today at SXSW in Austin. Apple is going to stream the performances to iOS devices using an app, but I've heard from a little birdie that the app requires iOS 7.1 (which explains why the app isn't out yet). That means iOS 7.1 should ship any day now.
iOS 7.1 is expected to bring in support for CarPlay (LINK TO STORY), the newly unveiled feature that allows users to plug their phones into compatible vehicles in order to control entertainment, navigation, and call-handling features via voice commands and steering-mounted controls.
The update is also expected to bring updated icons, a new animation for "Slide to Unlock", improvements to various native apps including Calendar and Siri, and various other visual and functional enhancements.
Apple recently released the iOS 7.0.6 update to fix a critical bug in the SSL implementation of iOS 7.

Nokia X Dual SIM detailed specifications

General  
Release date February 2014
Dimensions (mm) 115.50 x 63.00 x 10.40
Weight (g) 128.70
Battery capacity (mAh) 1500
Removable battery Yes
SAR value NA
Display  
Screen size (inches) 4.00
Touchscreen Yes
Touchscreen type Capacitive
Resolution 480x800 pixels
Pixels per inch (PPI) 233
Hardware  
Processor 1GHz  dual-core
Processor make Qualcomm Snapdragon
RAM 512MB
Internal storage 4GB
Expandable storage Yes
Expandable storage type microSD
Expandable storage up to (GB) 32
Camera  
Rear camera 3-megapixel
Flash No
Front camera No
Software  
Operating System Nokia X platform 1.0
Java support Yes
Browser supports Flash No
Connectivity  
Wi-Fi Yes
Wi-Fi standards supported 802.11 b/ g/ n
GPS Yes
Bluetooth Yes
NFC No
Infrared No
DLNA No
Wi-Fi Direct No
MHL Out No
HDMI No
Headphones 3.5mm
FM Yes
USB Micro-USB
Charging via Micro-USB Yes
Proprietary charging connector No
Proprietary data connector No
Number of SIMs 2
SIM 1  
SIM Type Micro-SIM
GSM/ CDMA GSM
2G frequencies supported GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
3G Yes
3G frequencies supported 2100
SIM 2  
SIM Type Micro-SIM
GSM/ CDMA GSM
2G frequencies supported GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
3G Yes
3G frequencies supported 2100
Sensors  
Compass/ Magnetometer No
Proximity sensor Yes
Accelerometer Yes
Ambient light sensor Yes
Gyroscope No
Barometer No
Temperature sensor No

Nokia X Android smartphone listed online at Rs. 8,500 with March 15 availability

Nokia's first Android smartphone, the Nokia X, is now listed at an online retailer in India, with a price of Rs. 8,500. The retailer claims the Nokia X smartphone will be available from 15 March 2014.
The Finnish manufacturer had soon after its MWC 2014 event, listed the Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL dual-SIM variants on its India site, without pricing or availability details. At the MWC 2014 launch, the company had said the Nokia X would go on sale 'immediately' in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The Nokia X has been listed on the Mobile Store and was first spotted by Maktech blog. The Nokia X is available in its Black, Green, Cyan, Yellow, Red, and White colour variants. Of course since this is a third-party store, one cannot be certain if this will be the official launch price, whenever the phone is unveiled in India.The Nokia X is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), and is powered by Microsoft and Nokia services. The highlight of the Nokia X is the highly customised version of Android, with the Metro-inspired UI and access to Nokia's own app store. While there's no access to Google's Play Store, users can side-load Android apps from any third-party source. Nokia has used the AOSP version corresponding to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as the baseline for its operating system.
nokia_x_listed_mobile_store.jpgThe Nokia X offers dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) support with dual standby. The first Android phone from Nokia features a 4-inch IPS LCD display with a 480x800 pixel resolution, translating to a pixel density of 233ppi.
The Nokia X is powered by 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, alongside 512MB of RAM. It sports a 3-megapixel rear camera. The Nokia X handset comes with 4GB of in-built storage, and can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card.
The Nokia X supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, AGPS, EDGE, GPRS and 3G connectivity options. It is backed by a 1500mAh battery, which can deliver up to 13 hours of talktime and up to 672 hours of standby time on 2G network.

Nokia X Dual SIM

Display

4.00-inch

Processor

1GHz

Front Camera

No

Resolution

480x800 pixels

RAM

512MB

OS

Nokia X platform 1.0

Storage

4GB

Rear Camera

3-megapixel

Battery capacity

1500mAh