HIGHLIGHTS
- Redmi 5A flash sale will start at 12pm IST
- The Redmi 5A is priced at Rs. 5,999 for 2GB RAM variant
- 3GB RAM variant of the handset costs Rs. 6,999
HIGHLIGHTS
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Hello . This week, one of the highlights was the launch of a third variant of the Xiaomi Redmi 5. Packing 4GB of RAM, it's a step up from the existing 2GB and 3GB options, and its price in China is CNY 1,099 (roughly Rs. 11,000), a premium of CNY 200 (roughly Rs. 2,000). There's no official news about the Redmi 5 coming to India just yet, though the launch might well be around the corner. To recall, the Xiaomi Redmi 5, which was launched in December, has a 5.7-inch HD+ 18:9 aspect ratio display, and it's powered by an octa-core Snapdragon SoC. There are three RAM variants as mentioned above, and while the 2GB variant comes with 16GB of storage, the others have 32GB storage. There's a 12-megapixel rear-camera and a 5-megapixel front camera, along with a 3300mAh battery. Meanwhile in India, the Xiaomi Redmi 5A also got a new variant, but this just an additional colour - rose gold. The entry level phone is presently available at just Rs. 4,999 for the variant with 2GB RAM/ 16GB storage, and has a 5-inch HD display, along with a 3000mAh battery. variant, but this just an additional colour - rose gold. The entry level phone is presently available at just Rs. 4,999 for the variant with 2GB RAM/ 16GB storage, and has a 5-inch HD display, along with a 3000mAh battery. Do you spend too much time on your smartphone during mealtime, playtime and routine activities or conversations with your kids? If so, it may lead to behavioural issues in your children, warned researchers. A new study suggests that even low or seemingly normal amounts of technology-related interruption were associated with greater child behaviour problems, such as over-sensitivity, hot temper, hyperactivity and whining. “Our findings contribute to growing evidence showing an association between greater digital technology use and potential relationship dysfunction between parents and their children,” said lead author Brandon T McDaniel, Assistant Professor at Illinois State University in the US. When parents use mobile technology, their responsiveness to their kids changes and the device use causes less-than-ideal interactions with their children. “It’s really difficult to toggle attention between all of the important and attention-grabbing information contained in these devices, with social and emotional information from our children, and process them both effectively at the same time,” added Jenny Radesky, child behaviour expert and paediatrician at C S Mott Children’s Hospital. For the study, published in the journal Child Development, the team analysed surveys completed separately by both mothers and fathers from 170 two-parent households. Nearly half (48 per cent) of parents reported technology interruptions three or more times on a typical day while 17 per cent said it occurred once and 24 per cent said it happened twice a day. Only 11 per cent said no interruptions occurred. Reserving certain times of the day or locations as being technology-free — such as mealtime or playtime right after work — may help ease family tensions caused by the modern blurring of outside worlds with home life, the researchers said. “Setting boundaries on digital use can help parents keep smartphones and other mobile technology from interrupting quality time with their kids,” McDaniel noted. Korean electronics giant Samsung today announced the launch of what it calls as the world's slimmest tablet, the Galaxy Tab S2 here, priced at Rs 39,400. The 4G enabled tablet is just 5.6mm slim and weighs 392 gm, company officials said. "The devices will be available in three colors -- gold, black and white -- and are priced at Rs 39,400 and sales will start from today," Samsung India Electronics Director Product Marketing Manu Sharma told reporters here. He said, "This product is made in India... it is manufactured out of our Noida plant." The tablet has a 32GB internal storage, expandable up to 128 GB. Galaxy Tab S2 is equipped and pre-loaded with Microsoft Office solutions for ultimate productivity on the go like creating and editing documents, company officials said, adding that it also has a new feature known as "Side Sync" that helps consumers replicate and control a smartphone or a laptop via the tablet itself. Tab S2 also offers multitasking by allowing users to view and run two apps simultaneously. OnePlus One was a fine piece of hardware. When launched a year and a half ago, it packed in all the high-end specifications and features at half the price of flagship devices. The success gave way to OnePlus 2, which sounded even more promising with the latest processor on Qualcomm 810 chipset, 4GB of RAM, Type C charging port, a fingerprint scanner, better camera and a bigger battery. It sports the best specifications at half the price of the flagship smartphones but not all is well and it has got some issues of its own.The OnePlus 2 boasts a 5.5-inch full HD display with great viewing angles. The sunlight legibility has been improved and everything appears to be sharp and crisp on this display. It continues to have a sandstone finish rear, which is removable, giving access to two nano-SIM slots. The volume keys have been moved to the right panel, just above the power key. Speaker grills are placed at the bottom along with the charging port. OnePlus has also added a notification toggle that switches between all notifications, priority interruptions or no interruptions. This comes handy to put the phone on silent mode while stepping into a meeting. The side panels are made magnesium alloy. There is also an addition of a fingerprint scanner on the home button below the display, which works seamlessly. OnePlus 2 weights 175 grams.Without increasing the megapixel count, OnePlus has improved the camera optics on board. The 13 MP camera is paired with optical image stabilizer, laser auto focus and dual LED flash. It captured images quickly and the results were sharp and offered natural colours. Low-light imaging was also decent. But there isn't any gallery app on the Oxygen OS. You have to access images from the camera app only. Also, the interface over here isn't user friendly. OnePlus 2 has got a 5 MP front facing camera and can capture 4k videos.The Oxygen OS on OnePlus 2 isn't impressive and lacks basics such as support for Exchange email. Honestly, the company could have gone ahead with stock Android over the Oxygen OS, which would have covered these gaps. While OnePlus 2 manages most of the basic tasks with ease, but the side panels and the top front of the phone tends to heat up after few minutes of watching YouTube videos, navigation or playing games (not as much as the Sony Xperia Z3+), which should be fixed in the upcoming OTA update. The sound output is decent and it has an audio tuner by MaxxAudio for enhancing sound while listening to music, watching movies or playing games. The call clarity is loud and I didn't experience any call drop or network issue on OnePlus 2. OnePlus 2 comes with 64 GB internal memory (of which 54 GB is user accessible) and it does not support expandable memory. The 3300 mAh battery onboard doesn't last long. Surprisingly, it drained from 8 per cent to 1 per cent in less than 15 minutes while browsing the web. It takes more than two hours to charge and doesn't even last a full day. This smartphone will go on sale on Tuesday but will be available though invite only on Amazon.in. Bag it or Junk it: Has its share of low points, which can be fixed with the software updates. Rating: 3.5/5 Price: Rs 24,999 Plus: Display, camera Minus: OS, battery, heats up
Finally Apple has come up with a solution that'll stop your iPhone from latching onto weak signals of Wi-Fi .
For example if you're connected to the Wi-Fi in your house, then you go outside in the garden , and while doing that, you check your email but can't seem to get any messages to load. It's because you're still connected to your home's Wi-Fi - and the signal is too weak. It's just spinning. After all, you're all the way outside and far from your router. Typically, you'd have to shut off Wi-Fi under settings in order to totally disconnect from your close-but-not-close-enough router and then switch over to cellular data. With on cellular data, your emails and everything will load as normal, but it's tedious to have to go into settings and do all that. Why can't Apple let your iPhone automatically do this for you? Well, with iOS 9, Apple plans to do just that. A new feature called Wi-Fi Assist has appeared in the latest developer beta of iOS 9. It will allow your iPhone to fall back to cellular data when Wi-Fi is poor. It looks like a simple toggle you can enable just once, and then it'll automatically do the switch for you - for good. No more disabling Wi-Fi altogether.
For those who are data-conscious or on uncapped data tariffs, Apple has introduced a warning prompt which sees the Wi-Fi symbol grey out before switching to cellular data, while also including an option to turn off Wi-Fi assist altogether.
The feature surfaced in the latest release of the iOS 9 beta which is currently only available to developers. Wi-Fi Assist joins the growing list of new software features that includes a special photo album for selfies and screenshots, the Apple News app and the option for high quality streaming in Apple Music.
iOS 9 is set for release alongside the next iteration of the iPhone which is rumoured to hit stores this September. iPhones from the 4S range onwards will be eligible for the latest update.
If you're a part of the iOS public beta, you can update now and start using Wi-Fi Assist right away. You can find it in Settings under the "cellular" section. If you're not interested in joining the public beta, you'll have to wait till September probably.
The Google-Motorola Nexus 6 (32 GB) is now available for as low as Rs 15,000 on e-commerce site Flipkart.
As part of its freedom sale, the online shopping portal is offering an exchange offer on the smartphone, if purchased through the Flipkart App.
The 32 GB Midnight Blue variant of the Android Lollipop-based smartphone is currently listed at Rs 34,999 on the Filpkart website. However, if you purchase it through the app, the Nexus 6 is available for Rs 29,999 without the exchange offer.
With the exchange offer, you can purchase the smartphone for as low as Rs 14,999.
The Nexus 6 sports a 6-inch quad HD display and under its hood is a 2.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset combined with 3GB RAM. It sports 13 megapixel rear camera and is powered by a 3220 mAh battery.
The smartphone recently received a price slash from an earlier price tag of Rs 43,999.
The two-day Flipkart Freedom Sale ends today. Hi Smartphone users !
We all know that booking a train ticket on IRCTC is one Herculean challange. It's one of India's leading e-commerce destinations, and it's quite a quaint thing, once you really dig into all the pages and get to know the names of the servers. Despite the fact feels like you're stepping into an Internet time machine dialled back to 2000, the service works, and there's no avoiding it when you need to book a train ticket. The first thing you need to know, are the rules, and they are vast and numerous. Do you know the rules of a Tatkal ticket, all the classes available, the difference between a sleeper and a seater, the best trains to take, and what your chances are of booking a ticket? Good. Here's a quick refresher course that will greatly enhance your odds of having a 'Shubh Yatra' when using IRCTC to book a train ticket or any of other related services that it offers. 1) Plan your journey ahead of time 2) Still on the waiting list? Tap on the percentage symbol in the list of trains listed for a route, and Trainman computes the odds, the ones expressed in green have a high likelihood of getting confirmed, while the ones marked red are likely to stay wait-listed. Trainman also presents a lot of interesting trivia on the fastest trains available in a particular route, and should ideally be your go-to destination before you start booking. 3) Know your station codes, schedules, and routes 4) Book Tatkal tickets quickly using this autofill tool 5) Book tickets on Cash on Delivery via BookMyTrain 6) Waitlisted? Convert your train ticket into a a flight ticket 7) Use Railyatri to find out if your train is on time 8) Didn't pack food? Have it delivered to you 9) Keep a map handy
If you find the above post helpful do share it. Samsung has launched its slimmest smartphone, the Galaxy A8, in India. Priced at Rs 32,500, the Samsung Galaxy A8 is just 5.9mm thick but is not the slimmest in the market. Handsets like Gionee Elife S7, Oppo R5 and Vivo X5Max are 5.5mm, 4.85mm and 4.75mm thick respectively. The Samsung smartphone will be available in Black, White, and Gold colour variants from Monday.
The Android 5.1.1 Lollipop-based Samsung Galaxy A8 runs TouchWiz UI on top and features two Nano-SIM slots, of which one also acts as a microSD card slot. This means that users would either get a dual-SIM support without a microSD card storage expansion or a single-SIM support with microSD card expansion. The smartphone boasts metal side bezels, near bezel-less screen and appears similar to the flagship Galaxy S6 from the front. However, besides its slim profile, the company has managed to squeeze in a fingerprint sensor, which also doubles as the home button. As for the specifications, the Samsung Galaxy A8 houses a larger display, better camera, and a bigger battery over its predecessor, the Galaxy A7. The device equips a 5.7-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) resolution Super Amoled display and runs on the octa-core Samsung Exynos 5430 SoC (four cores clocked at 1.3GHz, and four at 1.8GHz) instead of the 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor used in the China variant. It is coupled with 2GB of RAM. The smartphone has been launched in India with 32GB internal storage, which is expandable via microSD card (up to 128GB). The Galaxy A8's camera setup features a 16-megapixel autofocus rear camera with optical image stabilisation, f/1.9 aperture, a wide-angle lens (120 degrees) and LED flash. Like seen in Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, the Galaxy A8's camera can also be activated quickly by pressing the home button twice. A front-facing 5-megapixel camera is also included. The connectivity options Bluetooth 4.1, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS, Glonass, and LTE with Band 40 (2300MHz) and Band 3 (1800MHz) support, which means it will work with 4G networks in India. The latest offering by Samsung is backed by a 3050mAh battery, which as per the company gives a standby time (4G TDD LTE + 2G GSM) of up to 304 hours. The Galaxy A8 measures 158x76.8x5.9mm and weighs 10 grams more than its predecessor - 151 grams. The phone supports both Band 3 and Band 40, which means it's compatible with 4G networks being deployed in India right now. After several months of hype and expectation, Windows 10 has finally launched, bringing another new operating system era to computers everywhere. Under the tagline “it’s the Windows you know, only better” Microsoft is promising a range of exciting features, from the return of the Start menu to the arrival of Cortana, a cross-platform digital assistant that promises to be sort of like Paperclip guy but actually useful. Forget all that, though, because the real question is: what will Windows 10 mean for games and gamers? Here are the key features and how they’ll affect PC and Xbox One owners. Xbox Live on PCWindows 10 will place an Xbox Live app on your PC, giving you access to your Xbox friends list, achievements, messages and activity feed, so you’ll be able to keep an eye on your console chums when you’re not actually on your console. Microsoft’s aim is to provide a unified store for developers and publishers, which may one day mean they will be able to upload a single game to Xbox Live which will run on both PC and consoles. The company is adamant that it isn’t trying to compete with Steam – indeed, in its news piece on the OS, Microsoft’s Wire blog hinted that Steam, GoG, and Battle.net titles will all be visible and accessible in the Xbox app. However, what it definitelyis trying to do is make it super convenient for game makers to operate within the Windows 10 ecosystem. The idea of being able to upload one app that can be accessible on console, PC, tablet and smartphone will be an enticing one. Elsewhere, PC owners will be able to stream games from their Xbox One to their other PCs and Windows tablets via a local wireless network – handy if you want to play Halo 4 but someone else is hogging the TV. The app also provides Microsoft’s Game DVR package which allows players to seamlessly record and share gaming footage. We’re hoping the company takes this chance to streamline this process however, as Xbox One owners currently need to import Game DVR videos into another app, Upload Studio, to record voice-overs before depositing the footage on OneDrive. We do know that you’ll be able to share your saved clips across PC and Xbox One, and you can use it with PC games that you’re playing through Steam and other game services. Anyway, Windows 10 is also compatible with both the standard Xbox One controller and the new Elite pad. There will also be a wireless adaptor available so you don’t have to plug in a micro USB cable. Windows 10 on Xbox OneMicrosoft’s current console is set to get a big update in the autumn, which will include an improved dashboard design (phew) and better multiplayer matchmaking. Apparently, it will be easier for you to find out useful information about your games (such as achievements and fan-made video clips), as well as discovering new titles that may be of interest based on what you’ve already played. The system also makes it easier to access stuff like friends list, party invites and messages from within a game. Microsoft is also building the community elements of the dashboard, improving the friends activity feed and adding a “What’s Trending on Xbox Live” section so you know what everyone else in the world is playing together. This is all pretty promising, as the current dashboard is, let’s say, rather obtuse. Cross-platform multiplayerThanks to Windows 10 integration, it will be possible for developers to make games with cross-platform multiplayer, so Xbox One players will be able to take on PC players. This has been available in a few titles in the past, but without major system-level support it’s been a minor feature. That could all change. Microsoft has named a range of titles including Fable: Legends and free-to-play battle arena game Gigantic that will support this feature. Players will also be able to save their game progress between different machines, so you could play a game all day on your PC, then pick up where you left off on the Xbox One. Direct X 12This is the new version of Microsoft’s long-running game development application programming interface (API) and software development kit (SDK) collection, which helps programmers get the most out of PC hardware. The company says Direct X 12 will significantly boost graphics performance on your current hardware, and works with major graphics engines like Unity3D and Unreal Engine 4.4. The benefits are quite technical but they include an update to the Direct3D element of Direct X that will give coders closer access to graphics hardware, which should in turn mean a more optimised performance. The new API will also includes a new GPI Multiadaptor feature. This allows programmers to improve performance by sharing tasks between the integrated graphics chipset in your PC’s CPU and any discrete graphics accelerator card you install whether its from Intel, AMD or NVIDIA. In other words, all your graphics hardware will be able to work together in your system. Microsoft has claimed that over 100 major developers are already integrating Direct X support, including Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. However, the number of games that implement the features will heavily depend on how many players upgrade to Windows 10 (earlier versions of the OS are unlikely to get much in the way of Direct X implementation). As for Xbox One, when its Windows 10 implementation arrives, Direct X 12, will open up support for Async shaders which speed up graphics rendering by spreading tasks across multiple threads – PlayStation 4 already supports this technique. It also looks as though Direct X 12 will provide developers with more efficient ways to use the system’s eSRAM system memory, though the benefits of that are not currently unclear. Android support (and maybe Apple iOS, too) One unsung but potentially interesting elements of Windows 10 is its support for Android. According to games programmer Byron Atkins Jones, currently working on first-person adventure Caretaker, the OS will allow you to run Android apps on your PC. “They demonstrated this live on stage during the recent Build conference,” he says. “I’m really surprised I’m not seeing this mentioned more because that’s massive – it opens up a whole different world of games to Windows 10. “Microsoft also has iOS covered - although it’s not as easy as running an APK [Android application file]. They have replicated the iOS APIs in Visual studio which means you can open an iOS app project in Visual Studio and it will convert it to a C++ project and compile straight to Windows. They showed this happening live on the stage during the Build keynote. They hinted during another presentation that this is how King were able to bring their games to Windows 10 so quickly.” Virtual realityIn June, Oculus announced that its Rift VR headset would launch with native support for Windows 10 (as well as an Xbox One controller, and the ability to stream Xbox One games to a Rift headset) – however, according to one VR developer, the OS won’t work with Rift DK2 until a new Oculus Runtime is released, which should be soon. Later in the same month, Microsoft and Valve hinted at a partnership to ensure Windows 10 compatibility with SteamVR, Valve’s virtual reality platform. What does all that mean? Basically, Microsoft wants Windows 10 to be the operating system of choice for all PC-based virtual reality headsets and technologies. “What we’re doing with Valve and what we’re doing with Oculus is about making Windows 10 the best VR platform both for developers and for consumers,” Microsoft corporate VP Kudo Tsunoda. “People will be able to get the device they want and have it powered by Windows 10. Through our partnership with Valve, we can start getting to a more standard set of APIs so developers don’t have to constantly reinvent everything they’re trying to do in a the VR space: we can say ‘hey this is an API that solves this particular VR problem [on any headset] . “The more you can take this kind of work off the developers, the more they can focus on the experiences themselves. That’s going to be best for VR and best for consumers.” HololensMicrosoft’s standalone augmented-reality headset will run Windows 10 as standard. Users will have access to a range of holographic apps when the headset tech launches sometime later this year or early next year (the company is being really vague about this). We’ve seen several demos, including Minecraft, and despite a limited viewable area, it’s impressive stuff. Here’s a video demo: MinecraftMojang has announced a new version of its block-building mega-game catchily entitled Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta. It’ll be free to current owners of the PC version of the game and $10 to everyone else. The fresh iteration allows eight-player co-op building over Xbox Live, and will let you build alongside Pocket Edition players via a later update. It’s a smart move from Microsoft, which bought Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5bn in 2014: if you want people to download a new version of your OS, release it with a new version of a game that has over 100m registered users. |
AuthorWell I have a hack of getting into details of things which matter to the world.. Archives
February 2018
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