Microsoft has unveiled a new lock screen app called as Picturesque for Android devices. The app replaces your phones default screen and focuses on serving all the information up front.
The Picturesque app which is part of Microsoft Garage project brings the beautiful Bing home page images to lock screen and allows users to change the image with just a shake of the phone or by swiping to the right. Users can see their missed calls and text messages on the lock screen and also search directly from the lock screen without unlocking your phone.
Bing search bar can be seen at the top that can be accessed without unlocking your device. Users can scroll through up to six Bing-provided images, as well as access quick settings like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness and volume.Picturesque also provides a glance at news headlines, calendar appointments and the weather, and includes some quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, audio and the flashlight. There are also a few India-specific features, such as regional calendars. Finally there is a shortcut to the phone’s camera from the main screen.
Play Link - Picturesque Lock Screen App
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Microsoft has unveiled a new lock screen app called as Picturesque for Android devices. The app replaces your phones default screen and focuses on serving all the information up front.
The Picturesque app which is part of Microsoft Garage project brings the beautiful Bing home page images to lock screen and allows users to change the image with just a shake of the phone or by swiping to the right. Users can see their missed calls and text messages on the lock screen and also search directly from the lock screen without unlocking your phone.
Bing search bar can be seen at the top that can be accessed without unlocking your device. Users can scroll through up to six Bing-provided images, as well as access quick settings like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness and volume.Picturesque also provides a glance at news headlines, calendar appointments and the weather, and includes some quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, audio and the flashlight. There are also a few India-specific features, such as regional calendars. Finally there is a shortcut to the phone’s camera from the main screen.
Play Link - Picturesque Lock Screen App
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Samsung has appointed Lee Sang-chul as the new mobile marketing head. The move comes from the South Korean giant a month before the launch of its flagship Galaxy S6.
Lee Sang-chul was formerly head of the company's Russian operations. He has been tapped as head of strategic marketing for the mobile business. Kim Seok-pil, Sang-chul's predecessor, has stepped down from the role due to health reasons and was unrelated to performance. Lee, who also has worked as head of Samsung's Latin American operations, will look after the launch of the new Galaxy S device. Samsung Galaxy S5, launched last year has seen relatively poor sales hence, the upcoming device's success will be extremely critical. The company's mobile earnings declined 64 percent from a year earlier in October-December.
A latest report from IDC stated that in Q4, 2014, Apple has reduced the gap between Samsung when it comes to global market share. Samsung has sent out invitations for a March 1 event in Barcelona ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show where its next Galaxy S smartphone is widely expected to unveiled.
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OnePlus that shot to fame with just One smartphone in 2014 has published its first annual report for 2014. It details the company's growth and the growth of the OnePlus community in its first year. Even though it shipped only 7% of smartphones to India since it launched in the country only in December, it grabs the second spot when it comes to OnePlus forum members.
Percent of OnePlus One smartphones that were shipped to each region of the world
39% Ones shipped to East Asia (incl. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong)
32% Ones shipped to Europe (incl. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK)
22% Ones shipped to N. America (incl. Canada, USA) 7% Ones shipped to India (started shipping Dec. 2014)
In the infographic OnePlus mentions that they made over US$ 300 million revenues, shipped 1,055 tons of merchandise, got 100,000 media mentions, customer support spent 10.8 million minutes (about 20.5 years) answering tickets, added 78 employees and more. Check out the infographic below or head to the Annual Report 2014 page.
O2 UK have finally begun rolling out the Lumia Denim update for selected Lumia smartphones but for those receiving the update on the Nokia Lumia 930, it comes with a particular feature missing. One of the highlights of the update is the "Hey Cortana" voice activation but the Denim update for Lumia 930 users comes with this feature missing.
With the update now rolling out, users have reported on O2's official support forum that the update comes without the feature that adds extra functionality with the ability to activate Cortana using just your voice. The carrier is not remaining silent on the missing feature as on its official forums, Chris from the Social Media Team posted:
We’re trying to get the updates out sooner by streamlining the test and approval process. As a result, we were trusting Microsoft to test the O2 software updates for us and provide the results of the tests for us to approve, rather than us testing it, releasing back, and waiting for it to be pushed. In the case of the Lumia 930, the Cortana issue was missed by Microsoft, so we will be working together to improve the process for future updates.
Microsoft have identified the issue ...
Samsung has only just begun issuing invites to its March 1 MWC 2015 event in Barcelona where the Galaxy S6 and S Edge are likely to be announced but already we're hearing alleged pricing for the handset. According to AndroidPit, the Galaxy S6 and S Edge will both be available in three storage sizes and the Galaxy S6 will begin at €749 whilst the Galaxy S Edge will be approximately €100 more.
The Galaxy S6 with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB storage options and will be priced at €749, €849 and €949 respectively whilst the Galaxy S Edge will be available with the same storage options and will be priced at €849, €949 and €1049 respectively. These prices equate to approximately £565, £640 and £715 for the Galaxy S6 and £640, £715 and £790 for the Galaxy S Edge but it's worth noting that we usually hear higher pricing ahead of the official launch and actual release price could be lower.
These prices are similar to the launch pricing for the Galaxy S5 which started at £550 in the UK for the 16GB and the Galaxy Note Edge which had a launch price of £700 in the UK (although it was available from ...
The LG G Flex 2 was announced almost a month ago at CES 2015 and shortly after we heard that it was coming to the UK as a Vodafone exclusive for six weeks. Since then, there's been very little information about a release date but now it has been revealed the handset will launch in the UK on March 19th with pre-orders opening on February 12th.
Carphone Warehouse have teamed up with Vodafone to launch the handset in the UK and have opened a pre-registration page for the LG G Flex 2 but neither the retailer nor the network have announced any pricing information as yet. Carphone Warehouse also confirmed that they will begin accepting pre-orders for the G Flex 2 on February 12th and the handset is expected to be widely available in its stores from March 19th.
To recap, the LG G Flex 2 specs include a 5.5 inch Curved P-OLED Full HD display with 1080p (1080 x 1920 pixels) resolution that offers 403 pixels per inch density and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Under the hood is a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset with quad-core 1.5GHz and quad-core 2GHz processors. There's also an Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB RAM, ...
Samsung has sent out invites to its March 1st event where we're expecting to see the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S Edge announced and in the run up to the event, we're now hearing that both handsets will come in these four colours.
Sammobile is reporting that the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S Edge will be available in four different colours: dark blue, blue-green, gold and white (shown below).
Previous Samsung flagship have come in a range of colours but there's usually a Gold and White version announced. There's also always the customary dark colour which is black on the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 but was dark blue on past Samsung flagships.
The blue green is the colour that strikes us the most as it's not one used by Samsung in the past yet it could appeal to some users; we'd definitely like to see them offer Red or Rose as a colour variant as these could sell well. As always, these colours are not confirmed so take the information with a pinch of salt but would you buy the blue-green Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S Edge? Let us know in the comments below.
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Micromax has beaten Samsung to be the top smartphone maker in India, according to a latest report from Canalys. The homegrown smartphone maker has achieved the heights in Q4, 2014, mainly due to shift of mobile phone users upgrading to smart phones.
As per the report, Micromax is responsible for 22% share of total smartphone market in India while Samsung is just behind with 20%. The company's flagship line of products has very effectively targeted the US$150 to US$200 (Rs 9,000 to Rs 12,000) segment, with products such as the Canvas Nitro and Canvas Hue”.
"Micromax has been quicker than its competitors to improve the appeal of devices, for example, by including a wide variety of local languages on its Unite phones. Lava, another domestic vendor, has launched devices that cater to the preference for greater battery life – in this case a couple of days. But vital to success is selling these handsets at low price points to appeal to the bulging mid-level income market in India."
said Canalys Analyst Rushabh Doshi said.
India shipped a total of 21.6 million in Q4, 2014, up 90 percent year-over-year. 23 percent of these smartphone shipments were priced under US$100 (INR6,000). Almost double that number, 41 percent of ...
Apple's latest operating system iOS 8 is present on 72% of iOS devices, as per latest numbers from App Store distribution. The iOS 8 adoption is up 3% since is was 68% in January .
iOS 7 now stands at 25% which is down from 29% in January. While all the older versions are claiming a total of 3% of installs also down from 4% since last month. iOS 8 adoption has been somewhat slower than iOS 7 adoption, as iOS 7 was running on 80 percent of devices in January of 2014, compared to iOS 8’s 68 percent adoption rate at that same time.
Apple had released iOS 8 in September last year and since then has updated the OS with bug fixes an stability improvements. Last week, the company released 8.1.3 update. There were a few bugs when iOS 8 launched so Apple quickly launched iOS 8.1.1 in November and iOS 8.1.2 in December for Touch ID and cellular network issue.
Yesterday, Google released the Android distribution numbers for February 2. It showed that the latest version of Android 5.0 Lollipop released in November, is currently only installed on 1.6 percent of Android devices. A majority of Android users are still running KitKat, which was released ...
Samsung has started rolling out the Android 5.0 Lollipop update for Samsung Galaxy S5 Exynos variant. The OTA update is coming to Exynos-powered G900H Galaxy S5 model in Kazakhstan.
In December, Samsung started rolling out the Galaxy S5 Lollipop update to the international variant, the SM-G900F. Samsung had launched the Galaxy S5 in two variants one powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 chipset and the other one by the company’s proprietary octa-core Exynos 5422 SoC.
As we know Lollipop updates will get include features like Material Design, lock screen notifications, better performance, updated native apps, new Flashlight toggle in Quick Settings, the new Screen Pinning feature, better battery statistics and more apart from Samsung’s own customizations to the TouchWiz UI on top of Android. Users will need to go to Settings > General > About phone > Software updates > Check for software updates. You can also check for the update via KIES.
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Samsung has joined hands with Good Technology to create Good for Samsung Knox. The collaboration will be used to provide enterprise users access to Good for Knox.
The Samsung Knox platform has now extended beyond private use to now encompass businesses and enterprises. This new program is designed to offer businesses a way to allow their workers to download apps that are secure on devices that run the Samsung Knox security platform.
“Together, Samsung and Good are addressing the growing importance of mobility management for enterprises by delivering an unmatched secure mobile productivity solution for Android that will relieve organizations of past concerns with Android adoption. The combination of Samsung and Good represents the best solution for secure enterprise Android productivity – no matter whether corporate-liable, COPE(Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled) or BYOD(Bring Your Own Device) device ownership models are being used.”
said Injong Rhee, executive vice president of enterprise business, IT and mobile business at Samsung Electronics.
Samsung claims that Good is the first enterprise mobility management (EMM) that’s fully integrated directly into Samsung Knox. Good for Samsung Knox can eliminate virus and malware concerns that come with Android adoption in the enterprise, added the company. The latest partnership comes after Samsung Knox and Blackberry ...
Samsung today announced that it has started mass producing of world's first ePoP (embedded package on package) memory. This is a single memory package that includes a 3GB LPDDR3 DRAM, 32GB eMMC (embedded multi-media card) and a controller to be used in high-end smartphones saving approximately 40 percent of space.
Commenting on the new ePoP solution, Jeeho Baek, Senior Vice President of Memory Marketing at Samsung Electronics, said,
By offering our new high-density ePoP memory for flagship smartphones, Samsung expects to provide its customers with significant design benefits, while enabling faster and longer operation of multi-tasking features. We plan to expand our line-up of ePoP memory with packages involving enhancements in performance and density over the next few years, to further add to the growth of premium mobile market.
The 3GB LPDDR3 (4 x 6Gb) mobile DRAM fabricated on 20-nanometer (nm) class process technology inside the ePoP operates at an I/O data transfer rate of 1,866Mb/s, and sports a 64-bit I/O bandwidth. The ePoP does not need any space beyond the 225 square millimeters (15x15mm), compared to separate eMMC (11.5mm x 13mm) package that takes up 374.5 square millimeters. The single-package configuration also meets the semiconductor package height ceiling of 1.4 millimeters (mm).
Samsung is ...
AOC has announced E40, the company's latest entry-level Android smartphone. It has a 4-inch WVGA display, is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat). It has a 2-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera. It has a dual SIM support and come with 3G connectivity.
It comes with regional language input with Adaptxt Keyboard), free F-Secure Antivirus and Anti-theft worth Rs.1000 for 365 days , Your Movies app to download movies worth Rs. 2000 for 60 days, Music downloads and streaming using Hungama worth Rs. 1000 for 30 days, Free Reading with readwhere worth Rs.1000 and more.
AOC E40 specifications
4-inch (800 x 480 pixels) WVGA display
1.2 GHz dual-core processor with Mali-400 GPU
512MB RAM, 4GB internal memory, up to 32GB expandable memory with microSD
Android 4.4 (KitKat) OS
2MP rear camera with LED flash
0.3MP (VGA) front-facing camera
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n , Bluetooth, GPS / A-GPS
1600 mAh battery
The AOC AOC E40 comes in Black and white colors and is priced at Rs. 5,299 (MRP). It is backed by a 1-year warranty.
Google just announced that it will launch Android One smartphones in Indonesia later this month. Google launched Android One smartphones in India back in September last year and it expanded to Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka last month. Indonesia becomes the fifth country to get Android One smartphones officially.
Google has released three smartphones - Evercoss One X, Mito Impact and Nexian Journey in the country. All these have similar specifications as the Android One devices that were launched in India that includes a 4.5-inch FWVGA screen, 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB RAM and a 1700mAh, but these have 8GB of internal storage and runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop), while the Nexus devices are running on Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop). It also promise updates to the next version of Android for up to two years.
Google has partnered with service provider Telkomsel to offer free over-the-air (OTA) updates and 200MB per month worth of app downloads from Google Play for the first six months for all these Android One smartphones. These smartphones would be available from online retailers such as erafone, Global Teleshop, Oke Shop, Selular Shop as well as offline channels.
Microsoft has released a new app that allows Windows Phone 8.1 users to customize their smartphone's home screen and lock screen. Dubbed as #TileArt the apps offers a quick way to customize the tiles on the Start screen.
The app which has been made by Ricc Webb, who works as "Mischief Maker" at Microsoft Mobile, enables users to create custom lock screen as per their choice. #TileArt lets you create tile layouts by managing tiles just like you would on your start screen. Once the layout is set, users can select an image and edit each tile. These tiles then can then be pinned to the start screen. The images for these tiles can be selected from the phone gallery or from the predefined photos in the app which are categorically divided into different themes.
Users can create custom tile layouts using either your own images, or creations from the #TileArt Gallery that comes with the app. Transparent PNG files are supported, and you can easily share creations with friends. The #TileArt app is free to download via Windows Phone Store.
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Google today released three new Android One smartphones with three new partners in Indonesia running Android 5.1 (Lollipop) out of the box when users in India with Android One smartphones are eagerly waiting for the Lollipop update. Today Google India announced that it will be rolling out the Lollipop update for the Android One smartphones in the next few weeks. Google already promised to offer software updates for Android One devices for two years after its release.
Even the Android One devices in India are expected to get the Android 5.1 update. Google's Nexus and Google Play Edition devices that are currently running on Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop) are are also rumored to get the Android 5.1 update in the next few weeks. It is not clear when OEMs such as Motorola, HTC and others those have already released the Android 5.0.2 update for devices plans to release Android 5.1.
The Android 5.0 Lollipop update brings Material Design with bold, colorful, and responsive UI design, better notifications, battery saver feature, better security including Android Smart Lock, New Quick Settings, Improved network hand offs, flexible sharing, faster, smoother and more powerful experience with ART, 15 new languages and more.
We will let you know once the Android Lollipop ...
Microsoft has updated Yammer for Android with Android Wear support and iOS with Handoff. The apps have been updated for easier collaboration and a more streamlined experience.
"We’ve been focused on delivering weekly enhancements to the Yammer mobile apps for iOS and Android, including profile and group viewing/editing, improved search and notifications, integrated message translation to 25 languages, performance and reliability gains and much more,"
Yammer's Carlos Bohorquez Marin stated in an official blog post.
On Android, Yammer has gained support for Android Wear. You can now read and like team messages directly from your wrist, and even reply using voice commands. Users will need to download the Yammer app on your phone to access it on the smartwatch. The notification experience has improved on the host device as well. Notifications now roll up by thread and are accompanied by a flashing LED to let you know that they have arrived. Users can read and “like” team messages on your smartwatch and reply with voice commands.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEJX_-M_PUc
On the other hand it supports Handoff in iOS and OS X, which lets you switch back and forth between a Mac and iPhone or iPad with a single swipe. The upgrade allows a smooth transition, so you can continue ...
Samsung launched the Galaxy E5 smartphone in the E series in India last month for Rs. 19,300. We brought you the unboxing and the photo gallery of the smartphone recently, here we have the benchmarks. It powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) SoC that has four ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs clocked at 1.19 GHz per core and Adreno 306 GPU clocked at 400 MHz, similar to other A and E series smartphones. It has 1.5GB RAM, 5-inch HD (1280 x 720 pixels) display and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat). Let’s check out the performance of the smartphone in a range of synthetic benchmark tests.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSH7yEop5c0
Quadrant Benchmark
It scored 12214 points in the Quadrant benchmark and lies bending the Galaxy E7 and A5.
AnTuTu Benchmark 4
It scored 20815 points in the AnTuTu Benchmark 4 and grabs the fourth spot, behind other Samsung smartphones powered by the same Snapdragon 410 SoC.
Vellamo 2.0 HTML5
It scored 1671 points in the Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark.
Vellamo 2.0 Metal
It scored 723 points in the Vellamo 2 Metal CPU subsystem performance test and grabs the second spot.
Linpack Single Thread
It managed to clock around 110.45 MFLOPS in the Linpack Single Thread benchmark.
Linpack Multi-Thread
It managed to clock around 228.85 MFLOPS in the ...
YU has rolled out the first Cyanogen OS update, XNPH05Q for the YUREKA smartphone in about three weeks after the smartphone went on sale, as it promised at the launch. As you can see from the screenshot, the incremental update brings security fixes and improvements for the proximity sensor and dual SIM functionality.
After the update you can see the model number of the smartphone mentioned as AO5510, instead of YUREKA in the earlier XNPH52O version. The baseband version has also been changed to MPSS.DPM.1.0.2.c1-00096 from MPSS.DPM.1.0.2.c1-00064 and the Keranal version has seen a minor change. The latest build is dated January 28.
The latest Cyanogen OS 11.0-XNPH05Q incremental update is rolling out for YU YUREKA smartphone over-the-air (OTA) and it is 73MB. Have you updated your smartphone yet? Have you noticed any improvements or changes after the update? Let us know in the comments section below. YU already promised to offer Lollipop update for the Yureka smartphone, but no details about the exact release date yet. The fourth YU YUREKA sale on Amazon.in is at 2PM tomorrow, February 5th.
Lenovo S90, the company's latest smartphone in the S Series is now available in India from the official Lenovo Store. It has announced back in November last year as Sisley S90 in China and packs a 5-inch HD Super AMOLED display, is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor with Adreno 306 GPU and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat) with Vibe 2.0 UI on top. It looks similar to the iPhone 6.
The Indian variant has 2GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage without expansion slot. According to the Lenovo website it supports 4G LTE FDD Bands 1, 3, 7, 20 and not the LTE TDD band 40 that is currently available in India.
Lenovo Sisley S90 Specifications
5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD Super AMOLED display
1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with Adreno 306 GPU
2GB RAM, 32GB internal memory
Android 4.4 (KitKat) with Vibe 2.0 UI, upgradable to Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Dual SIM
13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PureCel Sensor
8MP front-facing camera with BSI Sensor
6.9mm thick and weighs 129 grams
4G LTE / 3G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
2300mAh battery
The Lenovo Sisley S90 is currently available in Graphite Grey color in India and is priced at Rs. 19,990. It is available for order from the official Lenovo Store and ships starting from ...
