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Table of contents

Android: A game changing OS

Re-discovering Android through 3G 04

Why Android is the culture for the future 06

How Google Maps and Android phones can help Indian Railways 08

the secret behind the naming of androids Ice Cream Sandwich 10

Android overtakes Opera to become no 1 mobile browser 12

The best Androids money can buy

HTC One X Samsung S III, Who is Android king? 14

Sony Xperia launches three new phones in India 16

Galaxy S III has Siri clone, 50 GB free Dropbox storage 17

Motorola Atrix to be available for Rs 22,990 in India 19

Reliance launches CDMA tablet for Rs 12,999 20

Android-based media tablets: Do these have a future? 21

Awesome Android AppsWhy every Android user should get the new Facebook app 24

Feedly: The personalised magazine app for Android users 26

Fight aliens MIB III style on your Android device 28

Instagram now available on Android smartphones 29

Android in IndiaRCom, Google tie up to market Android devices with 3G connection 31

Samsung launches updated Galaxy Tab, interactive TV in India 32

iPhone 4S a flop; Samsung, HTC cash in on let down 33
http://www.firstpost.com/


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Android: A game changing OS


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Re-discovering Android

through 3GSwitching from a regular data connection to 3G

on your Android is like switching from a regular

phone to a smartphone.

Switching to a smart phone from a not-so-smart phone is always an epiphanicmoment. And if you are a regular Google

user (who isnt these days?) watching how anAndroid phone so seamlessly integrates withyour Gmail, YouTube and other Google experi-ences is in a word, epic.

Spend a few days playing with your phone andit will only be a matter of time till you start

wondering how you got through life without

navigating Google Play (the app store formerlyknown as marketplace), or whipping out yourphone to read everything from emails to arti-cles.

The one thing that can kill the entire experiencethough, is a slow net connection. Believe me

there is nothing more frustrating than click-ing on a link and then waiting. And waiting.

And waiting for it to open. And then woe betideyou if you are reading an article that opens on


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another page.

Most data connections unfortunately dont giveyou the kind of connectivity speeds you need tofully enjoy your Android experience. You mayhave unlimited data but you end up wasting a

whole lot of time just waiting for things to load.And downloading apps from Google Play be-comes more frustrating than anything else.

Remember the time when you would surf on a56k Modem and wait for pages to load so that

you could get on with life? Well, without 3G,mobiles are pretty much like modems. To makeoptimum use of all that your Android smart-phone offers you need a good net connection.

And when you switch from a regular data con-

nection to 3G the difference is almost as starkas when you rst switch to a smartphone from aregular phone.

With 3G, your Android just opens up to you.You can play games, use facebook, twitter, in-stragram and do it all in real time. With a goodsmartphone, you can probably even do withouta laptop. Laptops are for work, smartphones, onthe other hand, are the key to life in the digitalage.

Theyre handy, theyre powerful and they can doeverything from helping you navigate a strangecity to helping you gure out where all yourfriends are and what they are doing.

And you fully begin to realise the potential ofyour Android phone and just what a endishlyclever little device you have on your hands. Itslike an epiphany all over again.


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Why Android is the culture

for the futureWhile iOS might stand tall in American markets,

markets like India than need customization or an

indigenous approach will always look towards Android.

When it is about smartphones it is al-

ways about three things: device cost,applications and ease of use (read

operating system).

Reading the reams of copy around the recently

concluded WWDC 2012 (the Apple develop-ers conference), one cant help but admit thatiOS has an advantage among developers. Mostof them still prefer to code for Apple becausethe revenue per user on the platform is greater.

Fragmentation remains another challenge with70% of developers still using an older version ofthe Android operating system, Gingerbread.

In the ease-of-use department, there are die-hard fans for both. An Apple fan boy will tell

you that Android feels amateur and an Androidfan boy will argue that the web integration ofthe Android experience is peerless.

But when you move to devices shipped across


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geographies the story of economics, marketshare and therefore a culture for the futureshows a shape, that looks very much more like aDroid than an Apple.

Fundamentally, to succeed in todays world ofcomplex technology a platform has to be openand free. Letting market makers decide howthey want to develop, price and introduce aproduct will determine the success or failure ofnew technology. Google has, by letting androidremain open, created a multitude of options forgrowth markets. When touch is the revolution,users will want some form of it in their technol-ogy lives. They will move up the value chain, butslowly. Android gives you that ladder. Acrossphones and tablets.

For instance lets take the Indian market. TheIndian smartphone market is expected to growto about 18 million units in 2012. It is howevera complex heterogenous market where users are

still evolving.

Most handset makers in the country will offera range of products across price points. Marketleader Samsung for instance has 18 products on

Android across different price points and holds46% of the smartphone market. Indian lan-guage features and apps are also gaining a lot oftraction.

It is therefore likely that in the future the grow-ing markets are the ones that will determinedeveloper involvement. While iOS might standtall in American markets, markets than needcustomization or an indigenous approach willalways look towards Android. And in thatsearch lies the new culture of smartphone usethrough android.


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How Google Maps and Androidphones can help Indian Railways

This automatically updated train running information

will not only be a boon for passengers but also for the

Indian Railways as they would be able to track the

position of all trains with a good deal of precision.

Prithwis Mukerjee

Ihave been a laggard with smartphones butlast month I nally bought an Androidphone and, within days, I got a tidy return

on my small investment two extra hours onthe upper berth of an overnight train! How ?

If you are travelling alone at night, in an ACcompartment you have no way of knowing

where you are at any point in time and the needto climb down every now and then to check thestation that you are passing through is painful.

Instead, what I did was to lie on the bunk andswitch on Google Maps on my GPS-enabled

Android phone and watched the blue arrow thatshowed me (and the train) as it snaked across

the countryside. Only after passing the laststation before my destination, did I nally getdown from the bunk feeling rather smug aboutthis new technology.

This simple technology can be used to track themovement of all trains across the entire coun-try. How ?

Every Android phone is associated with a spe-cic Gmail ID and using this Gmail ID one

can check-in into places dened in GoogleLatitude. Usually these places are hotels, res-taurants and other businesses dened by theirrespective owners and once someone checks-


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in into a place, this information is available tofriends on the Google network.

We rst create a special Gmail ID to represent aspecic train say [email protected] for theHowrah Delhi Rajdhani and use this ID toregister an Android phone. Next, we dene eachof the 219 stations on the Howrah-Delhi routeas a place in Google Latitude. For this specicgmail ID, [email protected], we dene these219 stations as places where check-in is auto-matic. Finally, we give this phone to the guardof the the Howrah Delhi Rajdhani or tether itsecurely in the guards cabin.

Now as the train travels across the country, theAndroid phone will automatically check intoevery station that the train is passing through

and anybody who denes this specic Gmail IDas a friend will know the last station where thistrain has checked-in and when.

The immediate benet is that once the stationsare dened as places and a place once denedcan be used for all trains passing through andthe Gmail ID for each train is set up, then thetrain running information becomes automati-cally available in the public domain with no

further effort.

This automatically updated train running infor-mation will not only be a boon for passengers

but also for the Indian Railways themselves, asthey would be able to track the position of alltrains with a good deal of precision from any-

where in the country. Moreover, if this facility isextended to goods trains, then corporate ship-pers will be able to track their consignments if

they know which train their goods are bookedon.

However, there are few loose end that need tobe tied up. First, one can only track a friend andto be friend, as in any social media, ones friendrequest must be accepted by the target. Thismeans that for each train id, e.g. [email protected], someone must accept friend re-quests from anyone who wants to know wherethe train is but this can be automated as well.

Second, Google Maps already identies railwaystations but does not allows people to check-in into them. If this is allowed then the taskof dening all train stations again as business

places can be done away with.

Finally, and perhaps the most important, is howto handle the return trip. The down train wouldhave a different train number but since theGmail ID with which an Android device is regis-tered cannot be changed easily we need to havetwo Android phones per rake and only one, cor-responding to the train number that is actuallyrunning, must be active while the other should

be switched off. So a pair of rakes that supportan UP and DOWN train service would need four

Android phones, two of which, located in differ-ent rakes, will have the same GMail ID.

The SIMRAN project of the Indian Railwayshas a similar goal but it needs its own dedicatedhardware and software. Reportedly, the pilot

project needs an investment of Rs 100 croreplus annual maintenance costs. In contrast, atRs 7,500 per phone and four phones per pairof trains, this approach can use the free GoogleMaps service to track the top 100 trains in thecountry for an investment of Rs 30 lakhs or at0.3 percent of the cost!

Google Russia has collaborated with the Rus-sian Railways to create an unique application

that allows anyone to take a virtual ride fromMoscow to Vladivostok on the Trans SiberianRailway. I am sure that if the Indian Railways

were to embark on this project, Google Indiawould be glad to help in this regard.

Many years ago, before the era of the ubiquitouscellphone, I had come across an FMCG compa-ny that tried to track the position of its trucks bygiving food coupons to the drivers that could be

redeemed at selected dhabas across the country.The idea was that as a driver checks-in into adhaba and uses the free coupon to pay for food,the dhaba owner would not only get the moneyfrom the company but in return would reportthe position of the consignment as evidentfrom a code number on the coupon that was be-ing redeemed back to the company.

That elegant idea was perhaps ahead of its time.But today, with Android phones and Google

Maps, this idea can be easily implemented notonly in the Railways but for any other trans-porter as well.


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the secret behind the naming ofandroids Ice Cream Sandwich

Whilst tech journalists curse Googles new Android

codename, everyone else wonders what ice cream

sandwich means and nd themselves unaccountably

craving dessert.

Suw Charman-Anderson

W

ith the new version of the Android OSslated for release in October or No-

vember, Android fans and tech writ-ers everywhere are wondering what on earthGoogle were thinking when they decided on itscodename: Ice Cream Sandwich.

Clearly Eric Schmidt isnt keen on the name. Atthe Salesforce Dreamforce 2011 conference, hementioned it with wrinkled brow, pulled faceand a noticeable tone of disdain. So why go withsuch a bizarre name?

We know that Google has a sweet tooth. Previ-ous codenames included Eclair, FroYo (a brandof frozen yoghurt, rather than an obscure Hob-

bit), Gingerbread and Honeycomb.

For those of us not familiar with an ice cream

sandwich, it turns out to be a dessert made of,unsurprisingly, ice cream sandwiched betweentwo wafers, biscuits/cookies or cakes. And itseems that Googlers have a long-standing rela-tionship with them: business product managerHunter Walk wrote a tribute to the Its-It icecream sandwich on sale in the Google canteenin 2006.

Whatever the reason if, indeed, there evenis a reason for Ice Cream Sandwich, Googlearent the only ones with a penchant for pick-ing playful, bizarre or downright ill-fated code-names.


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Adobe Photoshops developers picked a stringof entertaining codenames: Photoshop 2.0 wasFast Eddy, followed by Merlin, Brimstone andTiger Mountain. Photoshop 4.0 was known asBig Electric Cat and, for those in the know, asecret splash screen could be summoned whichfeatured Becky (short for Big Electric Cat), themoggie in question.The White Rabbit, Adobe Photoshop splashscreen

All Photoshops secret splash screens, from ver-sion 4.0 onwards, feature Becky also knownas Udo hidden somewhere in their illustra-tions. In Strange Cargo, (Photoshop 5), userscould access the splash screen by holding downCtrl/Alt (or Command/Option on a Mac), goingto the Help menu and choosing About Pho-

toshop. If you typed burp, Becky would appearfrom inside the oating cargo crate. Type hernickname, Udo, and she would miaow. Eventhe latest version, 12.1, pays tribute to the BigElectric Cat, showing The White Rabbit paintingher portrait.

The open source community is also quite keenon quirky codenames. The Ubuntu operatingsystem community, for example, has come up

with a series of idiosyncratic, alliterative ani-mal names for each new version. They startedwith Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, BreezyBadger and Dapper Drake, before moving to aroughly alphabetical series.

Whilst they managed to get creative with JauntyJackalope and Karmic Koala, the letter O clearlya lot of thought to come up with Oneiric Ocelot.Oneiric means of or relating to dreams ordreaming. Itll be interesting to see if they have

the nerve to stick with the alphabetical orderingthrough P and Q to X, Y and Z.

Apple, as one might imagine, has a long andcolourful codename history. According to the

Apple Museum:

In the early days of Apple, the codenames wereall female names, mostly the names of thedaughters of the engineers who were workingon the product.

Later, different types of apples were used, butwhen the teams ran out of apple types, theyhad to nd new names. Hence after a couple ofyears the codenames were items from popularculture or products the engineers liked (such asbeer).

A couple of them backred, however. The PowerMac 6100 was codenamed Piltdown Man, the8100 was Cold Fusion, and the 7100, squishedin between them, was Carl Sagan.

Piltdown Man was a famous hoax from 1912 inwhich bone fragments were presented as the re-mains of an unknown early human. The lie wasexposed in 1953 when the bones were revealedto have belonged to an orang-utan and a mod-ern human. Cold Fusion was a supposed room-temperature nuclear fusion process that wasreported by Martin Fleischmann and StanleyPons in 1989, receiving a lot of very excited

media coverage. Their experiment was later dis-credited as they stood accused of incompetenceand delusion.

Sagan was so upset that his name had beenused alongside these two debunked discoveriesthat he formally protested, said Lukas Foljanty,founder of The Apple Museum.

Apple hoped that codenames would reduce the

damage that leaks about new products coulddo. Consumers were well known for putting offbuying decisions if they thought that an upgradewas in the pipeline. But when the iMac wasdeveloped in 1997, Apple moved towards usingcode numbers for new products. The MacBook

Air, for example, was simply known as M82.Apple have, however, kept names for their OS Xsoftware upgrades, possibly to make marketingeasier.

In the grand scheme of product codenames, itseems that Ice Cream Sandwich isnt all that

weird. Although, whichever way you look at it,its still a bit of a mouthful.


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Androids mobile phone browser Robot,has overtaken Opera to become the

worlds number one mobile web brows-er. TheNextWeb, which reported the statistics

based on data from statcounter, said the datawhich plots the use of mobile Internet browsersover the last twelve months, shows signicantgrowth from Android, which had only just over-taken BlackBerry to fourth place one year ago.

Apples iPhone and iTouch users have been

categorized as separate metrics, which would

otherwise have seen Apple climb to the numberone spot. And TNW says, considering the nu-merical advantage that Android has over Apple there are now more than 300 million Androiddevices worldwide, thats up 250 percent thefact that the iPhone ranks so closely showsthat its users are proportionally more likely to

browse the Web than Android owners.

BlackBerrys share of Web browsing continue toplummet, while Nokia has also seen its browser

account for less Web browsing over the period.

Android overtakes Opera tobecome no 1 mobile browser

Androids mobile phone browser Robot, has

overtaken Opera to become the worlds number

one mobile web browser.


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The best Androids

money can buy


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Who is Android king?

Samsung S III

HTC One X

Is the HTC One X still the most superior Android

phone despite the Samsung S III? We do a

preliminary comparison

Up until the launch of the Samsung S IIIlast week, most experts agreed that theHTC One X was the undisputed king

of the Android Operating System. In fact somedie hard HTC fans said it was even superior to

Apples agship iPhone 4S.

So how does the Samsung S III match up? Thefolks over at Tech2in, decided to pit the twophones against each other spec for spec, andthis is what they came up with:

Design:

Samsung Galaxy S IIIThe Galaxy S III is a good looking phone on thefront and the sides, but the design is not revo-lutionary, as we had hoped it would be. Its anevolution of the S II, more than anything else.

One thing we really appreciate is that despiteits super slim design, Samsung has still kept the

battery removable and have shaved off as muchof the bezel as possible, making it manageable.


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The HD Super AMOLED screen is great, butwe wished they would have gone with the Plusvariant, instead. Connectivity wise, Samsunghas you covered with thrown in everything ex-cept the kitchen sink.

HTC One XWe love the way the One X is put together. Thepolycarbonate shell feels strong and premiumand it gives it a very nice feel, which is impor-tant to any handset. The screen may not be Su-per AMOLED, but the HD LCD 2 produces verygood colours and since its a tiny bit smaller, thepixel count is more dense as well.

Features:

Samsung Galaxy S III

The rumoured 12MP camera didnt make it tothe nal product. Instead we get the same 8MPshooter, but with a BSI sensor to help with lowlight photography. The faster processor hasalso allowed them to add burst mode, whichcaptures a series of snaps in quick succession,allowing the consumer to then select the bestone out of the lot.

We also have a Siri-like voice assistant that

helps you automate mundane tasks. Samsunghave shifted their focus on making the S IIImore intuitive and adaptable to your style ofpersonal usage style. Whether theyve succeededor not, can only be determined once we have ago at it, so well reserve our judgement on thattill then.

Overall, the S III might not be the holy-graileveryone was waiting for, but its certainly a

worthy successor of the S II. As for the design,thats purely subjective, but I, for one, only havean issue with the rear of the phone, which looks

way too bland and the arrangement of the LEDash and speaker grill just seem off. Ohh and,did we mention they are still using plastic forthe entire body?

HTC One X

One of the party pieces of the One X camera isits new burst mode and the short time it takes toactivate and capture a picture. The Tegra 3 SoCmay not be the fastest in terms of CPU power,

but when it comes to processing graphics, itsclearly in a league of its own.

The main issue when we reviewed (thats hope-fully xed with the latest update) the phone wasthe battery life, which, given the larger fabri-cation process of the SoC, isnt too good. Justlike the S III, its also packed to the gills withfeatures, so theres only one way to tell, which is

better, by heading over to the charts.

Lets just clear up some of the doubts youre

probably having about the scores. Like we men-tioned before, Super AMOLED may give youricher colours when it comes to accuracy, butthe LCD 2 technology is better than the PenTilematrix used in the S III, as the sub-pixels aremore densely packed.

The bottom line

Samsungs latest agship comes across as a

clear winner and we havent even included theunique features present in the S III, like Smartstay, S Voice, Smart alert and many more. Wecannot say for certain without testing the S III,if its better than the One X or not, but all theevidence points that way.

By the time the phone launches, i.e at the endof the month, the One X could get a price cutmaking it a very viable option. I guess it all boils

down to how you feel from the moment yourst hold the phone. After all, a mobile phone isa very personal device. We would recommend

you get a feel of both devices before making thebuying decision, since they are both very goodhandsets on paper; the rest is your personaltaste.


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Sony Xperia launchesthree new phones in India

Sony has unveiled three devices in itsiconic Xperia series in India.

Priced between Rs.17,399 and Rs.25,449, theXperia U, Xperia P and Xperia Solar werelaunched in Bangalore today. Our new devicesare a sign of the brands commitment to Indianusers, especially youth, young professionals and

upward mobile who would like to stay con-nected and access a range of services in voice,data and digital forms, Sony Mobile marketinghead Prasun Kumar told reporters at a productpreview here.

The Xperia smartphones have been designedaround user experiences of listen, watch, playand create and share to improve their personal,professional and social life. The Sola smart

phone boasts of oating touch for accessingweb services by holding any nger on the screento open the links, Sony mobile managing direc-tor P. Balaji said in a statement.

The companys smartphones, which operate onthe Android OS, are shipped to India from itsmanufacturing units in Japan, China and Mex-ico. The devices have been bundled with TataDoCoMo teleservices.

Partnering with Sony Mobile will enable us toprovide customers with a compelling proposi-

tion that of accessing free data services (up to3GB) on Tata DOCOMO platform, making fora new and invigorating mobility experience onXperia Sola, Sunil Tandon, head of non-voiceservices, Tata Teleservices to Telecom Lead.

Tata DOCOMO has introduced a gaming servicecalled Lets Play on Android that lets usersplay premium Android Games on Xperia Solaon a very attractive monthly subscription of Rs.

99 only.

This exclusive package of games GAMETANI-UM consists of 30 premium games worth morethan Rs.2000/-.


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Galaxy S III has Siri clone,

50 GB free Dropbox storage

Samsung launched its Galaxy S III last night in

London. Here is everything you wanted to

know about the phone.

Samsung launched its Galaxy S III lastnight in London and the phone is causinga huge buzz all over the Internet. Thanks

to the hype before its launch and the excitementafter there are a few things we all know aboutthe phone. We all know for instance, that it hasa 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display screen

with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels andcomes with an 8 megapixel rear camera with

ash and a 1.9 megapixel front camera.

We are also fairly certain that the device issuper light as it weighs 133g and is only 8.6 mmthick. And nally we know that it runs Android

4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, and is powered bySamsungs quad-core microprocessor and has1GB RAM.

But now we have some more details of someother cool and lesser known features of thephone that seem to have wowed tech pundits.

It seems that Samsung has done some serious

work on its rear end cameras. The camera is 8megapixel which matches up to both the iPhone4S and HTC One X. As CNET points, Samsunghas taken some inspiration from HTC One X

which lets users choose their best shot from a


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bunch of shots. However it seems that Samsunghas outdone HTC as CNET points out:

The implementation is different, though; theSamsung smartphone will automatically sug-gest the best image for you based on a few

factors including smile detection and facialrecognition.

Samsung has also launched the device with Sirilike voice command program called S Voice.Now Siri is iPhone 4Ss popular voice commandapp that has gained quite a lot of popularity.

Will S Voice manage the same level of interest?

In terms of appearance, it would seem that newphone looks bulky but is way lighter and thisseems to have impressed several tech gurus.

The Verges Vlad Savov writes, The main takea-way when you rst pick up the Galaxy S IIIis that its surprisingly lightthe sensation ofholding it is one of weightlessness. It almost

feels hollow. Were not huge fans of this, we ap-preciate a bit more of a reassuring heft.

The one thing that seems to have got some criti-cism is the plastic rear body of the phone. Tech

websites had been buzzing with rumours of aceramic or metallic nished rear but Samsunghas continued with plastic and it hasnt gottenthem rave reviews.

The Galaxy S III also boasts of a cool featurecalled the S beam which allows users to trans-port les upto 1GB to another S III withoutusing Wi- or data Internet. This seems to be anexpansion on Androids Beam, an app which al-

lows data to be transferred for those users whohave Ice-Cream Sandwich on their phone by

just touching.

And if all this was not enough incentive to buythe phone, the latest reports are that Samsunghas announced that that every consumer that

buys and registers a Galaxy S III smartphonewill get free 50GB cloud storage from Dropbox.

This is double of what Dropbox is giving HTCOne series owners, however just like HTC, thefree storage will only be valid for two years.

And in another piece of exciting news for fans ofthe device, it turns out that the popular iPhoneapp Flipboard will be available on Android as

well.

AllThingsD reports that Previewed on SamsungS III today, Flipboard is coming to Androidphones soon, the company said on Twitter,pointing users to a page where they could pro-

vide their email to get further updates.

Flipboard is an article, and news aggregationapp that is quite popular on Apples iPhone andiPad devices. But hopefully Flipboard will wont

be restricted to Android devices which only runon Ice-Cream Sandwich.

The phone will be available on 29 May in theUK, and is scheduled for a summer release inthe US. The release date for India has not beenannounced. Fingers crossed that Indian con-sumers wont be short changed with this phonelike in the case of the Nexus!


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Motorola Atrix to be available

for Rs 22,990 in India

The Motorola Atrix 2 aka the Motorola 4G

Atrix 2 is available for purchase throughonline retail sites, Saholic and Letsbuy

for a price of Rs. 22,990. With the handset mak-ing a quiet appearance in the Indian market, itis expected to take on other smartphones thatfeature similar prices, such as the Galaxy R as

well as the LG Optimus 2X.

For those of you who have no idea what thishandset is about, here is a look at its highlighted

specications:

Android 2.3 Gingerbread4.3-inch qHD display with a resolution of540960

1GHz dual-core processor

8GB Internal Memory expandable up to 32GBusing a MicroSD card1GB RAM8MP camera with auto focus, LED ash and1080p video recording capabilities at 24fps

VGA front facing cameraWi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v 2.1+EDR, USB2.03.5mm audio jackaGPS, eCompass, Light and Proximity Sensor,

Accelerometer1735mAh batteryDimensions are 66 x 125.9 x 10.49mm

Weighs 147g

The Atrix is expected to take on other smartphones

that feature similar prices, such as the Galaxy R as

well as the LG Optimus 2X.


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Reliance launches CDMA

tablet for Rs 12,999

Reliance Communication has launchedIndias rst CDMA tablet, priced atRs.12,999.

The 7-inch capacitive touch screen Tab withAndroid 2.3 OS (operating system) from Reli-ance Communications comes with a 512 MBRAM and micro SD external storage. Weighing397 grams, it has a 2 MP rear camera as well asa front camera.

The company, which launched 3G Tab last year,is offering a free 4 GB SD card with the CDMA

version. The device supports up to 32 GB stor-age.

The tab was launched in Chennai, Bangalore,Hyderabad and Pune on Monday.

Times of India quoted Reliance as saying thatthe tablet would be supported by the companysCDMA network across 22 circles in over 1000towns in the country.

The Hindu said that music director AnirudhRavichander of Kolaveri Di fame launched the

Tab in Chennai.


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Android-based media tablets:

Do these have a future?Worldwide media tablet shipments in the second

quarter were driven by continued robust demand for

Apples iPad 2, which saw shipments reach 9.3 million

units, representing a 68.3% share of the worldwide

market (up from 65.7% the previous quarter).

Tablet computing is growing at a fastclip. Worldwide media tablet shipmentsrose by an incredible 88.9 percent on

a sequential basis and 303.8 percent year onyear in the second quarter of calendar 2011 (Q22011) to 13.6 million units, according to datafrom the International Data Corporation (IDC)

Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader

Tracker.

The worldwide media tablet shipments in thesecond quarter were driven by robust demand

for Apples iPad 2, which saw shipments reachthe 9.3 million unit mark, which makes up68.3% of the worldwide market, up from 65.7%the previous quarter. Research in Motion en-tered the media tablet market in Q2 2011 withits PlayBook product, grabbing a 4.9% shareof the market. Apples strength and RIMsentrance meant bad news for Android-based

media tablets, which saw its collective share slipto 26.8%, down from 34% the previous quarter.

Based on this strong performance in the second


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Awesome Android Apps


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Why every Android user shouldget the new Facebook app

Sheer speed, quick photo uploading and a beautiful

design make Facebooks new Android app a must

download on the Android market.

Shruti Dhapola

Facebook has done a damned good job

with something for once their latestAndroid app, released on 15 December is

amazing, especially when compared to the bug-gy thing they had released earlier. This probablyexplains its runaway popularity. Popular techsite TechCrunch, reporting the phenomenon

said, The Android app was launched in Sep-tember 2009 more than a year after its iPhonesister and has been playing catch-up ever since.Both are developed internally by Facebook. This

week the two were briey tied, but the Android

app is now pulling away with 58.3 million DailyActive Users (DAU).

I updated Facebook on my Samsung galaxy SIT-9003 , after two weeks of ignoring Face-

books pleas.

There were several reasons I had been resistingthe Facebook update. The most important onebeing that the rst app kept crashing. It loadedslowly, looked bad in terms of design, andfrankly speaking, didnt look anything like the


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site. Also for some reason, the opening page hadan unappealing photo bar at the bottom whichhighlighted the latest photos shared by myfriends. Plus when the user logged in, the rstthing that opened was never the news stream

but an odd homepage Facebook had createdfor the app. For me the main problem with itsdesign was that it was not minimalist. Instead,Facebook had used ugly square icons for drop-downs like friends, lists, etc. Nor did it help thatit kept showing me ancient notications. ThereI was getting excited that somebody had likedmy status, when it was in fact last weeks news.Nothing puts a user off more than receiving oldnotications.

In fact when I had rst bought the phone, I de-leted the rst Facebook app I had downloaded

because it kept crashing ever so often. I wasnteven keen on trying to update status messagesfrom my phone nor was did I feel like upload-ing pictures, primarily because it was a pain tokeep the app running for long. The next down-load didnt make for a great experience either,even though the number of times it crashed

was lesser. But the slow loading speed, meant Irarely used it.

After the update however, I have started usingFacebook on my phone a lot more. This despitethe fact that I dont have 3G on my phone andit has a bare minimum memory of around 4gb.The app loads really quickly, much faster, infact, than the website does on my computer!

The timeline is also already active on the newAndroid app, a feature that was made availablefor the iPhone app much later (on 18 Decem-

ber). In terms of design it is truly beautiful.All the lists appear on the right-hand againsta black drop down menu, sort of like the newGoogle bar. (I can overlook the Google rip-off

because its so pretty. )

What also helps is that the app looks exactlylike the website. It means that a new user wonthave to worry too much about learning how tonavigate the app, a problem that I felt was veryevident in its previous iteration.

But speed is the main reason I love this app. Ivealready mentioned that I have very little RAMand memory to spare. When compared to theaverage newsreaders apps on my phone whichcrash very often, the new Facebook app has notcrashed and caused me to press the task man-ager button as yet. Its surprisingly fast with no-tications too; I say surprising because most ofthe time my phone has no Internet connection.

Also, I have found that I can upload images inless than ten seconds, despite complaints to thecontrary in the Android market user reviews.

Facebook chat, which I think is still the buggi-est chat ever released, is also surprisingly not so

buggy on the app. Messaging is actually fasteron the app; unlike the site where chat oftencrashes. In addition to the site app, I download-ed Facebook Messenger, which is way betterthan the chat on the website. Chatting on theactual website is a pain if you dont have a fastenough connection; as you will nd that friends

will often disappear in the middle of a conver-sation, and youll only receive their messages acouple of hours later.

I cant comment on how popular Facebook Mes-senger will be in India, primarily because it willhave to compete with Google Talk, WhatsApp,and BBM which are the major instant messag-ing apps used in the country right now. For now

what has proved to be a big hit for me is the of-

cial app for the site.

Overall Facebook has a done great job with theirAndroid app and I wouldnt be surprised if theFacebook app grows faster than any other appon the Android market.


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Feedly: The personalised magazine

app for Android users

Feedly is one Android app highly recommended for

those who need their daily dose of news, videos and

other random stuff online.

Shruti Dhapola

Mumbai: An app is a more personalisedmode of browsing the net on yoursmartphone. Weve gone from typing

www.com on our desktops to opening a newsapp with just a touch of our nger. Every majornews website or newspaper, now has its ownapp; websites are pass; the app is more impor-tant.

Personally even I though Ive downloaded manynews apps on my phone, I dont nd myself

browsing through all of them. The one app

that I do end up using often however is Feedly,which sychronises a users personal RSS Feeds.Despite many who believe that RSS will soondie out because of the app boom, Id still recom-mend Feedly and heres why.

Easy Synchronisation: Its easy to mergewith Google Reader RSS feeds if the user is

logged into their Google account via theirphone. For those whove not used Google reader

before and therefore have no feeds to synchro-nise, theres no need to panic. Once Feedly


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opens, the user only needs to touch the littleRSS icon on the left hand side (also the Feedlyicon) and a drop down menu will appear. Themenu gives the user several options. The usercan just type the name of their preferred newssource into the search bar and Feedly will dothe rest. For instance if one types Reuters, thenumbers of feeds that come from Reuters aredisplayed. Theres also a tiny people icon tothe right which displays the number of people

whove subscribed to that particular feed. Justtouching the feed link will display the latestnews from that site. Tapping the little plus onthe top right hand corner will add it to your RSSfeed.

Feedly also gives bloggers the option of sync-ing their Tumblr RSS feeds into the app. It also

comes with certain preloaded sections undercategories like Technology, Photography, Gam-ing etc. These can however be switched off bygoing to advanced settings.

Feedlys biggest advantage, in my view, is itsability to aggregate different kinds of content.From blogs like Tumblr to web comics to vid-eos, to regular news, it works well with content

which may not always be text based.

No need to open another web browser:For those whove downloaded Google readerapp on their Android device, the pain of usingthat app is truly experienced when trying toclick on a complete news story. Google Readerredirects the user to the link via the Internet

browser. Which leaves you wondering whytheres a Reader app which forces you to use a

broswer on your mobile phone.

Thankfully Feedly does no such thing. Theuser clicks on the story, and the complete storyopens within the app. Feedly does ask theuser to go to the website to view the story, butdoesnt open the website in a different applica-tion. With this app, the user doesnt need tokeep shifting to other applications.

Save and read later: Smartphone users arelikely to have so many news apps that one might

think that there are too many apps, too muchnews available and not enough time to read allof it. Similarly, RSS feeds can be hard to man-age, especially when a user subscribes to many

feeds.

With Feedly, its quite easy to manage thatconstant swarm of new feeds. When one opensa link, theres a pencil shaped icon on the topright-hand pane. The user can click that and thearticle is saved for later reads. All saved articlescan be then viewed via the dropdown menu box

which is accessed by tapping the Feedly icon onthe left-hand side.

Design and aesthetics: The app market isshallow; an apps design can make a big differ-ence to user experience. Feedlys design is quiteeasy on the eye with a minimalist user interface.The dropdown menu also has a nice design,

with an all black background with white text.Each of the feeds also has a tiny personalised

icon next to it.

When the app loads, the rst news story onthe feed covers the whole page, with an image,headline and excerpt, but it doesnt look unusu-ally large on your phone screen. The user, thenhas to slide right for more stories from the feedeach of which appear in similar fashion.

Most importantly the font is quite readable in

normal view. The font size can be increased byclicking on the zoom options that appear withthe post. Currently the design has two themeoptions; white and black. Personally I prefer the

white background theme, since the text in theblack theme appears in grey and is not that easyto read.

Sharing options: Sharing posts that we like toread is an important part of the whole app expe-

rience and with Feedly there are several ways todo it. On the top right-handside of each articleis a simple dropdown menu button which willgive a user all the options to share. The user canalso email an article to a bunch of friends at thesame time, by going to the advance settings andadjusting CC and BCC settings.

Overall Feedly is quite a useful app since youcan tweak it so much to your personal needsand maintain access to content for which apps

are not always available. For those dont want tospend too much time browsing through differ-ent apps Feedly is highly recommended.


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Fight aliens MIB III styleon your Android device

If you have an Android device, you can get a taste of

what it would be like to run your own MIB agency

thanks to the new free for download MIB III game.

Always thought that Will Smith andTommy Lee Jones had the coolest movie

jobs ever? Despite the obvious hazardsof helping tentacled aliens give birth, and otherlife threatening side effects of policing and regu-lating earths resident alien population, beingan agent has obvious perks. The clothes andshades certainly dont hurt. And then there areall those gadgets. So. Damn. Cool.

And now if you have an Android device, you canget a taste of what it would be like to run yourown MIB agency, thanks to a free game released

by Gameloft. According to Cory Gunther of An-droid Community, Honestly the controls arentthe best and the feel and play reminds me a lot

of The Sims, but the graphics are cool and hey,its free.

The game is a freemium title so its free to play,

but users can make in-app purchases for weap-ons and the further advance into the world ofthe Men in Black.

In the game, you get to create your own MIBagency where you will train agents and assignthem to missions. You also get to play withthose awesome MIB weapons like the the Neu-ralyzer and the Noisy Cricket. Agent J and K arenot included.

Like in the MIB III movie however, there issome time travel involved. You will it between1969 and 2012 New York, ghting aliens acrossthe city. The game can be played in one personmode, but has an element of social interactiv-

ity. You can invite your Facebook friends to playand can ask them for help during ghts againstparticularly powerful aliens.


29/36

Instagram now available

on Android smartphonesInstagram, one of the most popular photo editing and

sharing app available for iPhone and iPad users is

now nally available on Android smartphones.

Android users have reason to rejoice. In-stagram, one of the most popular photoediting and sharing apps available for

iPhone and iPad users is now nally availablefor Andoid as well. While Android already hasa ton of other photosharing apps such as Little-Photo, PicsArt, Lightbox, etc there has been stilla lot of yearning for Instagram.

Last month, the app had crossed 27 million

downloads on the iPhone. Instagram allowsusers to add various innovative lters to photo-graphs and share them with others. In 2011, it

was voted as the best app for Apple and a dedi-cated community has been built up around it.

However as TheNextWeb has pointed out in thispost, searching for Instagram in the Google appstore is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Apparently it is still buried buried deepin the search results and requires some diligentand dedicated trawling around. (Also watch outfor fakes!)

Is this one more nail in the cofn of Apple fan-boy snobbery?


30/36

Android in India


31/36

New Delhi: Reliance Communications(RCom) today said it has entered into

an exclusive partnership with Google tomarket all devices built on Android platform fortwo years in India with its 3G connection andother facilities.

In line with the rapid growth of smartphonesin the country, Reliance has collaborated withGoogle to catapult the change by providing newexperience to device users in terms ofpeed, coverage and app (applications) ecosys-

tem across segments, RComs Group Headfor Brand and Marketing Sanjay Behl said in astatement.

Market sources said that RCom has made an

initial commitment to invest between Rs 25-30crore in promotions. Through this collabora-

tion RCom will offer an exclusive free 1GB usageper month 3G plan to all Android device users,the statement said.

RCom said that it will introduce expert custom-er care, carrier billing, exclusive applicationsand content in addition to Android experiencezone at Reliance retail outlets across the coun-try. To reveal the distinctive afliation betweenReliance and Android, RCom has introduced

the Reliance Android BLUE BOT advertise-ment campaign across various platforms, thestatement .

To reveal the distinctive afliation between Reliance

and Android, RCom has introduced the Reliance -

Android BLUE BOT advertisement campaign

across various platforms

RCom, Google tie up to marketAndroid devices with 3G connection


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Samsung launches updated Galaxy Tab,

interactive TV in India

Big things are in store for the geeky andnot-so geeky gadget lovers in India!Samsung Electronics has announced

plans to launch a smart interactive televisionin India. The product was unveiled at the 2012South West Asia Regional Forum held in Bang-kok. The futuristic television sets allow usersto control them through voice or motion com-mands, which means users can turn the TVon or off, activate select applications or searchfor select content in a web browser withouttouching the remote.

The Economic Times reported that the S8000LED Smart TV features a built in camera withmicrophone, voice control, gesture-based con-trol and face recognition. Thanks to the built in

camera, users can also have face-to-face videochats over Skype.

ES8000 is also the rst in a series of upgradable

TVs. An add-on Smart Evolution Kit will enablenew features on the TV as and when they be-come available. Prices for the Indian market areexpected to be Rs 80,000 onwards.

The smart interaction is available on the com-panys 2012 agship smart TVs, including theLED ES8000 series, LED ES7500 series and theplasma E8000 series.

Zee News said meanwhile, that the price ofthe smart TVs would range from Rs.45,000 toRs.2.65 lakh.

Samsung also announced an update to the Gal-axy Tab, called the Galaxy Tab 2 310. Featuringa 7-inch screen, 1Ghz dual-core processor and

the latest version of the Android OS, it weighsjust 345 grams and still retains support for 3Gand voice calls using a standard SIM slot. It isexpected to be priced at Rs 23,300 in India.


33/36

iPhone 4S a flop; Samsung,HTC cash in on let down

Apple faces a tough battle in India, the worlds second-

biggest market for mobile phones with more than 850

million subscribers, where smartphones account for just

over 5 percent of the total mobile handset sales.

Asian smartphone makers have a chanceto exploit a rare letdown from pacesetter

Apple after the new iPhone 4S failed towow fans and investors, leaving Android rivalsbetter placed to grab market share.

The iPhone introduced in 2007 with thetouchscreen template now adopted by its ri-

vals is the gold standard in the boomingsmartphone market, and its sales have dealt a

blow to ambitious plans of many competitors.

Shares of Samsung Electronics, HTC and LGElectronics, who all make phones using GoogleInc.s Android operating system, ended up on

Wednesday.

These companies could now aggressively pro-mote their agship high-end models ahead ofChristmas, potentially helping boost sales in the


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most crucial shopping season.

Apple no longer has a leading edge, its cloudservice is even behind Android; it can only sellon brand loyalty now, said Gartner analyst KCLu in Taipei.

Users may wait to buy the next iPhone, if theycant wait, they may shift to brands with moreadvanced specs.

The new iPhone 4S is identical in form to theprevious model, disappointing fans who hadhoped for a thinner, bigger-screened design ofa product that had not been updated for morethan a year.

While the devices high-tech wizardry such

as voice commands for sending messages,searching for stock prices and other applica-tions caught the attention of many analysts, itmight not be enough to make it a must-have forconsumers.

Major concerns for Samsung had been that itssmartphone momentum will decelerate with

Apples new iPhone, but thats now less of a con-cern as the new iPhone failed to excite many,

said Kim Young-chan, an analyst at ShinhanInvestment Corp in Seoul.

Shares of Taiwanese smartphone maker HTCrose 0.6 percent in a weaker Taipei market,

while Korean rivals Samsung and LG climbed1.7 percent and 0.4 percent respectively, in a

broader Korean market down 2.3 percent.

MID TO LOW-END STRATEGY

However, Apples move to price the iPhone 4Sfrom $199 in the United States, and analysts es-timates of lower price points in major countries,could help the company expand in developingmarkets such as Asia, Samsungs backyard.

Apple is cutting the price of the older iPhone 4to $99, and said an even older 3GS model will

be available for free to customers who sign along-term contract. This might allow Apple to

take a bite out of a low-end market it had es-chewed.

The continued sales of the iPhone 4 and 3GS

are a bigger story, because they represent thebest answer Apple has to its strategy for emerg-ing markets and the low end of the smartphonemarket, said Ovum analyst Jan Dawson.

Even before the low-cost phone, Apple was setto exponentially grow its China business as itstitches deals with operators in the worlds larg-est mobile phone market, home to more than900 million subscribers.

Apple faces a tough battle in India, the worldssecond-biggest market for mobile phones withmore than 850 million subscribers, wheresmartphones account for just over 5 percent ofthe total mobile handset sales.

Very aggressive pricing in the higher-end cat-

egory of smartphones is unlikely in India in thenear future, primarily because the volumes arenot strong enough to justify that kind of playin that segment, said Deepak Kumar, researchdirector at IDC India.

TOP SELLING SMARTPHONE

Phones based on Googles Android, which isavailable for free to handset vendors such as

Samsung, HTC, LG and Motorola, have a great-er combined market share than Apples iPhone,

which is still the worlds No. 1 selling smart-phone.

There are still many consumers who dont havethe iPhone experience, and Apple still has a lotof markets and carriers to enter, so when theresa new model with better specs, it helps to liftshipments, said Ming-chi Kuo, analyst at Con-

cord Securities in Taipei.

The iPhone 4S targets users who are expiringon their two-year 3GS contract.

Globally, iPhone shipments rose 9.1 percent inthe second quarter while Nokias plummetedmore than 30 percent, handing the top spot to

Apple with a market share of 18.4 percent, ac-cording to IHS iSuppli. Samsung, whose ship-ments grew faster, is coming on strong with a

market share of 17.8 percent.

The lukewarm reception of the new phone hitshares in Apples suppliers.


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Taiwans Hon Hai, Apples biggest supplier, wasdown 1.9 percent, while casing company Fox-conn Technology fell 6.9 percent. Camera mod-ule maker Largan Precision shed 6.6 percent.

The casing companies should be the most-hit,correcting from the previous rise, because themarket has expected a metal case for the newiPhone, said Mike Fang, a fund manager ofParadigm Asset Management.

Fang did not expect iPhone shipments to dropon the disappointment over its appearance

however, as a cheaper price would allow sales toexpand at a faster pace.

The demand is still there from users upgradingfrom iPhone 3GS because its two generations

behind, he said.

In Japan, the countrys second-largest mobilecarrier KDDI will sell Apples new iPhone, end-ing rival operator Softbanks highly protablereign as the sole provider in Japan.


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