Get a GamePop Mini free with GamePop 1 year subscription; Android based gaming console from BlueStacks

I had reported about GamePop by BlueStacks a Indian run startup, which will now support iOS Apps and Games.   Well the company is not resting on its laurels.  Facing the heat from Ouya, which incidentally was declared a sold out just moments after it went for sale, GamePop makers have announce a gaming console of the size of a packet of gum to be given free with 1 year subscription of the GamePop console.  

The GamePop console itself is free if a buyer takes a 1 year subscription for $6.99 (Rs.420.00) a month upto July 1.  So as a buyer you will get GamePop and GamePop Mini if you go for the yearly subscription offer from BlueStacks within next two days.  

Though not much is known about the hardware and specs of GamePop Mini it is said to have the pretty much same capabilities as GamePop sans some ports and accessibility options.

The GamePop supports Android and iOS games and Apps which can be played and run on your normal Television sets.  After July 1 the  GamePop  console will cost $129 (Rs 7700.00).

Samsung' Galaxy Mega 6.3 inch Tablet ready for pre order in India on Flipkart at Rs.30,990.00

Galaxy Mega 6.3, the Samsungs oversized Tablet is now available for pre-order on online shopping website Flipkart at Rs.30,990.00 with delivery within 2 to 3 weeks.  The price on Flipkart is slightly lower than the price at which Samsung had officially announced price last month.

The Galaxy Mega 6.3 comes with a 6.3-inch display with a 720p resolution and runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS.  It is powered    GHz duual-core processor with a 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB internal memory.  It also has a expansion slot for microSD through which memory can be expanded upto 64GB

It has a 8MP rear camera and 1.9MP front camera.  It also has a dual SIM support and comes with standard connectivity options including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 also has NFC support unlike its younger sibling Mega 5.8.  Mega 6.3 is powered by a 3200 mAh battery.

Samsung Galaxy NX Professional Camera to be launched on 20th June, pictured leaked show hidden details

JK Shin's online confirmation about the Android-powered mirrorless camera has sent the tech world in a tizzy with lots of rumours and forum threads.  Now the Vietnamese tech site Tinh te has put up a couple of images of the product, code named Galaxy NX. The Galaxy NX combines two of Samsung’s categories, the smart devices and cameras.

The above are the first promotional shots put up by Tinh Te and   clear up a few of the questions users and future NX buyers may have.   From the shots seen, the Galaxy NX will feature interchangeable lenses, a proper viewfinder, an SLR looking body and a big rear display. 

Further the Galaxy NX will be coming to the market with a 20.3MP APS-C sensor as well as a 1080p video recording feature, with a maximum ISO setting of 25,600. The camera will also sport either a dual-core or a quad-core Exynos CPU.  Knowing Samsung, I will go for Exynos CPU as a favourite.

The rear display will feature a high resolution 4.3-inch screen, which will have touch screen capabilities, according to Tinh Te. The promotional shots also show a signal strength metre on the display from which we can safely infer that Galaxy NX will have some kind of cellular radio.

This is the furthest Tinh Te has gone and Samsung has not been so forthcoming about its latest launch.  So we will have to wait till 20th June to know the actual specs and features of the Samsung Galaxy NX professional camera.  I will post them as soon as they are available.

Nokia Lumia 925 arrives with a bang, a phone which tells you time and battery level even when locked

Nokia today launched its new Lumia 925 phone running on Windows Phone 8.  The new phone will be available first to the the Germans, followed by other countries.  United States and China will follow much later.  The new Nokia Lumia 925 smartphone can show you the time and battery life without you having to press any button.  Yep, it tells you the time and battery life even on dead screen.  This feature has been named as Glance Screen by the Nokia guys.  As it is still in beta stage you can disable the option through the settings menu.  

Other important features include a simple double tap mechanism to unlock the Phone.   It boasts of a 8.7MP PureView camera with image stabilisation.  The App within the phone called Nokia Smart Camera lets you take upto 10 snaps at a time and edit them.  

Lumia 925 is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and will have a AMOLED WXGA 1,280x768 pixel display of  4.5 inches.  The screen is made up of Gorilla 2 glass .  It also has a feature called Super Sensitive Touch which can handle taps and swipes by users wearing gloves or having long nails.

GamePop from BlueStacks to support iPhone and iPad games; play your favourite iOS games directly on TV with GamePop

This one is going to make Indians back home proud.  The Indians run startup  BlueStacks, the makers of Android emulator for PC seem to be on a roll.  After announcing  a Android based Gaming console called GamePop which lets you play a wide range of Android mobile games on your TV, BlueStacks today announced support of iOS games on GamePop.  

GamePop hardware is available to users for $129.00(Rs.7000.00) and in addition to the hardware you can buy a unlimited subscription of $6.99 per month(Rs.400.00) and play unlimited games on your TV.   GamePop runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and the games are saved on the console itself.

Now with BlueStacks announcing support of iPhone and iPad games to GamePop, the company is headed for a brighter future.   The iOS games are run using a new, so-called “Mobile-to-TV technology” called Looking Glass. BlueStacks CTO Suman Saraf explains:

“There will always be popular titles that are iOS-only, like Clash of Clans. Looking Glass enables these titles to be brought into the living room.  Some of the retina iPad games for example look spectacular on TV.”

Check out the BlueStacks Promo video below :

 

Though not much is known about the hardware that has gone into making of GamePop, it is sure to turn the mobile gaming into one hell of a lifetime experience.

You can pre order the BlueStacks GamePop here.    Only wish the Indian entrepreneurs behind BlueStacks would launch a similar service in India soon.

The latest smart phones available in India BlackBerry Q10, HTC Desire U and HTC XDS

It was announced prior to MWC 2013 and was officially launched with BB10, the new OS from BlackBerry.  Now almost 6 months later, Q10 with BB10 OS is available in India, but the price tag is too steep for any comments.  Priced at Rs.44,990.00 it is around 5K more expensive then Z10.  

A little about the Q10.  The Q10 is a phone loosely based on Z10 but with a traditional BlackBerry Keyboard.  The Q10  has a 3.1 inch touch screen display with 720 x 720 pixel resolution (328 PPI).  It is powered by 1.5 GHZ TI OMAP 4470 dual core process and has a PowerVR SGX544 GPU on board.   The Q10 has a 8MP rear camera capable of shooting full HD videos and the front one is a 2MP one.  Q10 has an internal storage of 16GB (quite insufficient) and you can expand it to 64GB via a MicroSD card slot.  It runs on 2100 mAh Li-ion battery.  On the connectivity front, there’s Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n with dual-band support, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP support, microUSB and miniHDMI ports, and support for NFC.

I have my own opinion that this piece is priced to heavy for the users pockets but BlackBerry Qwerty fans may like this one.  I think BlackBerry messed on a good opportunity to make this phone a popular one by pricing it way too high.

The next smarts phones to be available for Indians from today are from HTC stable.  HTC Desire U is now available for Rs.13,499.00 and the Desire XDS costs Rs.16,089.00. Both handsets have dual-SIM functionality and are targeted at the mid range Android users..

The Desire XDS has a 4-inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels(233 ppi).  I is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor from Qualcomm. This, coupled with the 768MB of RAM, should be able to handle most apps. It has 4GB internal memory, which is expandable up to 32GB through a microSD card slot. It runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box and sports HTC's Sense 4 UI.

The smartphone is equipped with a 5 megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash. Desire XDS will also sport the HTC Beats Audio and will have connectivity features like 3G, Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS with A-GPS. It will run on a 1650 mAh battery.

The Desire U is a slightly cheaper version of the XDS. It has the same 4-inch display with the 800 x 480 pixel resolution. The HTC engineers have cut down on the inside with it running  on a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM. It also has 4GB of internal storage and the memory is expandable up to 32GB via microSD. For photography, the phone features a 5 megapixel camera with WVGA resolution video recording. 

The connectivity features are same as HTC Desire XDS and there is no mention of HTC Sense UI in the release.

I like the Desire XDS as it is rugged and has all the features a smart phone user needs.  Pricing wise it is really good.  

Keyboard for Android devices launched now as a standalone App by Google

Google yesterday announced that the Google Keyboard will be available as a downloadable App for Android devices.  Though the new keyboard may not be as good as Swype or a SwiftKey keyboards already available for Android devices, but knowing Google, these guys now have a serious competition.  

The announcement came through a Google+ post which said that the new keyboard will offer  "Gesture Typing".  Gesture Typing in Google's words is Typing which lets you glide through letters to form a word, just lift your finger to enter a space.  Google also said that the keyboard will have  automatic error correction, and word predictions. 

You can also tap the microphone to compose messages with Voice Typing when you’re on-the-go. Together with dictionaries for 26 languages (plus keyboard layouts for a dozen more), it provides a fast, accurate, and reliable typing experience.

The best is yet to come from Google for this is just a foray into the world of keyboards.  However one issue I have with the new keyboard is that it is available only for Android devices running 4.0 and up.  This being Google's own product, it could have made the keyboard support available for Android devices starting 2.3 and up as majority of low budget smart phones still fall in that category.  

However that does not take away anything from the Google for out thinking and out smarting the competition, namely SwiftKey and Swype who will soon feel the heat of the search giants entry into keyboard Apps. Right now the Keyboard is available to English speaking countries and other languages will be added soon. To download your Google's own Android keyboard visit  Google Play here.

If your country is not yet supported due to region restrictions download the keyboard from following sites :

Mirror 1

Mirror 2

Mirror 3

Mirror 4 (Latin)

Wikipad 7, the truly dedicated Android based gaming tablet to be launched soon!!!

There was a need for a true blue gaming tablet and Wikipad was quick to pounce on the opportunity.  If you have tried playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Anniversary Edition are ported to touchscreen devices, you will know what I am eluding to.  The problem with playing the console games ported to tablets is that they rely on the on screen controls.  These controls are known to be inefficient and never as responsive as the console buttons.

Nokia had tried it already way back with e-gage but failed miserably for the want of good games to go with the platform.  The Wikipad is a probable answer to the gaming addicts, in response to shoddy controls in some tablet games, especially those that have been ported from other platforms.  

The Wikipad 7 has been classified as a gaming tablet thanks to the detachable gamepad controls that it comes bundled with. The specs of Wikipad 7 are also made compatible to handle the regular games available on Google Play. The Wikipad 7 will have a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 having a pixel density of 215 ppi. It will run on Nvidia's Tegra 3 chipset and have a 16GB of internal memory which in turn is expandable through a microSD card slot. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box and has PlayStation Mobile certification, which lets it run PS-certified games. With the inbuilt  Tegra chip, the tablet can also access the TegraZone.

The Wikipad 7 will be hitting the stores on June 11 as per the company release and will cost $249(Rs.14000.00) which is a cheaper option then buying a high end smartphone.

So if you are hooked up to gaming, here a new device worth waiting for.

Facebook embraces file sharing, launches Pipe a 1GB file sharing integration with Facebook

The world of cloud storage and file sharing gets more crowded from today with Facebook announcing the launch of Pipe, the Facebook integrated App to be available from today.  Pipe has been in testing mode with a year of invite only and beta status at the Facebook labs.

The launch of Pipe adds a new dimension to the cloud and file sharing platform as with Pipe you get to share your files on a peer to peer network from within the Facebook page itself. 

The app incorporated within Facebook has been developed by a Berlin-based company called Pipe Dream Technologies. Since it is fixed inside your Facebook account, it lets you connect with your friends and share files up to 1GB in size in real time on the social networking website just like that.  No hassles, no sign ins or no permissions.  

You will simply need to drag and drop a file into the Pipe app to send it to a friend. Pipe should be available on the App Center on your Facebook page right now, so you can start sending out files to your contacts today onwards. 

Pipe establishes a P2P connection with your friend’s computer when both of you are online. The app makers assure that neither does Pipe make use of any servers to establish contact between two computers, nor do your files pass through Facebook. This ensures that there is no third party involved and you can send you private files at no risk.  In case a contact is offline and you need to send him or her a file, Pipe will store the file in a locker for your friend to retrieve it later. These lockers however have a limit of 100MB of data but you can make use of as many of them as you like.

Simon Hossell, Founder and CEO of Pipe had to say this on the launch

“We’ve worked really hard to make Pipe this simple. Anyone can use it. The user just drops a file in the Pipe and their friend receives it. We’ve made the technology invisible,”  

While Pipe is limited only to desktops as of now, mobile versions of the app seem to be in the works. The CEO says that while the iOS version of Pipe is almost ready, an Android version is still being developed.  So there you go, file sharing gets a new dimension and now you have the required privacy for sharing your files.  Can't wait till Google Drive and Google+ are reverse integrated!!

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 to be powered by Intel Inside; Atom Z2560 processor powers the 10.1 inch Tab

Finally Intel has something to celebrate.  Samsung yesterday announced two new Galaxy Tab 3 models and Intel will be powering the 10.1 incher brand new Galaxy Tab 3.   

The new  Android 4.2.2 run 10.1 Galaxy Tab 3 will be powered by 1.6GHz dual core processor, Atom Z2560.   Atom Z2560 belongs to the Intels Clover Trail family of chipsets  which includes the SGX 544MP2 GPU which has clocked 400MHz.   Intel claims that the SoC provides double the performance and triple the graphical capabilities of earlier Atom-powered Android devices, with "competitive" battery life.

The 10.1 inch Galaxy Tab 3 will be the Samsung's first Intel Inside Android tablet.  Intel has been nearly invisible in the smart phone processor market with Qualcomm's Snapdragon reigning supreme.

Vijay Prabhu

Apple bows to popular wishes, to release a cheaper no frills 16GB iPod touch, says coming soon on website

Image courtesy engadget.com

Apple has finally realised the futility of high pricing its products and releasing a no frills 16GB iPod touch.  The new release is priced at $229 (Rs.13000.00 approx).  As I have mentioned it comes without the rear camera even the front camera has been toned down.  The front camera will be a 1.2MP one with 720p (HD) capability.  This version will not have the loop which you can connect to your wrist. 

The Apple India website has an image of the new release with the quotes "Coming soon".   As far as I can tell it should be available by the first week of June, 2013.  

A brief description about the 16GB iPod touch.  It comes in two colours, Black and Silver.  The 16GB variant features a 4-inch Retina display, Apple’s A5 chip and Siri. Housed in an anodised aluminium body, like the 32GB and 64GB variants, it is even slimmer than the iPhone 5 at just 6 mm thick. It weighs 86 g.  

The fifth generation iPod is said to deliver twice processing and 7 times faster graphics compared to it older sibling.  It can also give you a 40 hours non stop music playback or a 8 hours video playback on one charge. It will also ship with the the popular Apple EarPods.

So if you are planning to get one, visit this site for further news.  Do comment in on the article.

Vijay Prabhu

Samsung Galaxy S IV Mini to follow S IV launch, spotted on Samsung's UK website

Samsung already seems to have made plans to launch a Samsung Galaxy S IV Mini to followup the successful launch of Galaxy S IV in the world market.  You watch the image closely you can see that the 5th smart phone is listed as Galaxy S4 Mini.  While there were rumours about Samsung launching Mini S4 but nothing concrete had come of the rumours.  However Redmond Pie managed to take the above screenshot and post it online.   But when I visited the site, it was taken off.  So maybe somebody looking after the Samsung App website accidentally included the device in the list.  

But that said and done, Samsung Galaxy S IV Mini is indeed a reality now and hopefully will be a cheaper and smaller version of the flagship phone.  This is good news for people who want a Samsung S4 but cant afford $650.00 + or (INR 40000.00+) for the same or for those who feel S4 is too big for their pockets!

Though the specs aren't available just yet, earlier this month S4 Mini specs had made appearances on the forums.  And as per those leaks the Mini will boast of 4.3 inch screen with a much lesser 256 ppi density compared to its big brother.  It will also not be sporting the famous Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset that the S4 has, but rather have a much subdued dual core 1.6 GHz running aboard.

I will keep you abreast of any information on the Mini.  Kindly write in your comments on this article.

Google Chrome 27 released, Google fast pacing its updates at one a day, gives voice search service to users

Close on the heels of Opera's full fledged launch of its browser, today, Google has released Chrome v27.  Google has said that this is a stable release of Chrome 27 after a brief beta testing period.

The new Chrome loads 5 percent faster then the previous version.  Also with the new release comes, a bunch of goodies.  The new API allows users to sync and save content to Google Drive.  Google has also rehashed ranking of predictions, spell correction and Omnibox predictions. 

In all the Chrome 27 has fixed 14 bugs which had been identified by Google and beta testers from around the world, who were suitably rewarded by Google.  Another big boost for the Chrome 27 is the new Adobe Flash build in.  This would please the harried users who had been stuck with the security issues of old Flash version.  

The best of all is the interactive 'Conversation' feature in the new Chrome.  It lets the users ask any thing and you will get a spoken reply.  For example if you ask what is the temperature in Mumbai?  It will reply with the temperature at given time.  You can then follow up the conversation with a question like will it rain in Mumbai? and get a reply from Chrome.  If your question deals with a bigger issue with many search results,  the Chrome reply is coupled with information cards supported by Google's Knowledge Graph.

To activate it download the Chrome 27 browser or by going here, go to the settings page and click on the Help line entry option.  You will be prompted to restart the browser and you are done.  Once you restart the Chrome 27, head straight over to www.google.com and hit the microphone icon in the search box.  It will ask you necessary permissions to use your voice and now start asking.  

Quite sensation update this from Google, coming close on the heels of launch of Opera's browser.  This will start the new browser wars of 2013.  Keep asking and get spoken results.  Plus this article if you like it and comment on the new update from Google.

Another thing  which I forgot to mention was the Easter Eggs in the new Chrome,  spot one and be an instant hero on the world wide web.

Vijay Prabhu