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Google Maps 5.7 adds transit navigation

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Google has released an update for its maps application for based devices. Amongst the others, the star feature of this update is the addition of the navigation for public transit.

So now with the new Google Maps, people will be able to get turn by turn navigation while driving, and stop by stop navigation while using the public transportation system.

Transit Navigation uses to determine your current location along your route and alerts you when it’s time to get off or make a transfer. After starting your trip with Transit Navigation, you can open another application or put your phone away entirely; Google Maps will still display an alert in your notification bar and vibrate your phone when your stop is coming up.

This would be particularly helpful if you’re traveling in a foreign country, local language of which you do not know and hence can’t read the route maps or understand the announcements.

Although very useful, the transit navigation is still in the beta phase which means that there might be some minor issues with the newly added feature. Presently, the public transit navigation feature provides details and travel direction for both bus and metro routes in four major cities in India including Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi.

Besides, the Google maps application has also upgraded the search suggestions which will give faster and more accurate results. Along with that, Google Maps has also updated the directions that will tell the users the fastest possible route to the destination while using Google maps.

This update requires an Android 2.1+ device and works anywhere Google Maps is currently available.

You can download Google Maps 5.7 on your Android device manually or can also visit the Android Marketplace to do the same. Alternatively follow this link.

Store unlimited music on Amazon Cloud for $20

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Amazon cloud users, who pay at least $20 per year, could now get unlimited music storage and free storage for all and other music purchases made through Amazon.com. It will now become easier for the users to store their music library on the Amazon Cloud Drive and listen to them through Amazon Cloud Player.

“Customers are already enjoying Cloud Drive and Cloud Player and now for just $20 a year, customers can get unlimited space for music,” said Craig Pape director of Amazon Music.

Craig added, “Additionally, we are adding free storage for all MP3s purchased from Amazon MP3, and support for the iPad. Our customers love Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, and we’re excited to innovate these services on their behalf.”

The company has also added an iPad friendly Amazon Cloud Player. Initially available on PCs and devices, the Cloud Player later made its way to devices as well, though the support was not officially announced.

Amazon did score a point over Apple and Google by launching its cloud service earlier, but Apple’s forthcoming iCloud service has an advantage in terms of its tie ups with music labels, which the other two don’t have.

The Google Music Beta, on the other hand, provides free storage up to 20,000 music tracks to the users but so far no details about Google subscription plans are available.

The Amazon users would also be able to upload documents, videos and photos to the storage but the unlimited storage option would only be applicable to the music files. This is only a limited time offer and it’s not clear for how long Amazon would continue with the offer.

Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi gets cheaper by Rs 10,000

The Mobile Indian Network
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Motorola has announced that the WiFi model of its Xoom tablet will now cost $499 (Rs 22,200) instead of $599 (Rs 32,500) in the international market.
We are still awaiting for an official confirmation from Motorola whether they will reduce the price in India or not.

It is not yet clear whether other models such as Wi-Fi+3G and model prices would also be reduced.
The Motorola Xoom sports a 10.1 inch display and comes with two cameras, one 2 megapixel front facing camera and a 5 megapixel rear camera. The tablet is based on 3.0 (Honeycomb) apart from a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1 of RAM.

Motorola Xoom also features a built-in gyroscope, barometer, e-compass, and adaptive lighting. The tablet supports up to 10 hours of video playback.

Vodafone announces new 3G pricing for Kolkata users

The Mobile Indian Network
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Vodafone Essar has announced an all new pricing of the services for its postpaid customers in Kolkata.

Mobile Internet plans start from Rs 100 for postpaid subscribers and offers 100 of free data usage. The mobile plans ranges from Rs 650 to Rs 1,250 where customers can get data usage of 1GB and 5GB respectively.

Postpaid users will now have to pay 2 paise per 10KB post the consumption of free benefit for mobile internet, broadband and integrated plans of data usage. This offer will be applicable to new and existing postpaid customers. Existing postpaid users will be migrated to the 2paise per 10KB platform.

Handset Review: Intex VShow IN 8809

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This is a projector phone so the projector is the first thing to look for, which is of decent quality for such a small and low cost device.

The phone is capable of projecting on a big 32 inch screen; you can go bigger but the result will not be good. If you manage to keep the room completely dark the images come out pretty clean and bright. However, in case of low light, the images get slightly washed out, which is understandable.

Since it is an projector, lamp life will outlast the phones’ life itself, so there is no worry on that front. But, the problem area of this projector is the integration with the phone.

There is no physical button to switch on the projector. The only way to enjoy projector is to switch the projector mode, which will switch off the phones’ screen and then you have to navigate through the menu by looking at the projected screen. This is not the most comfortable of things to do.

Also, it you have opened a video without switching on the projector mode, then there is no way you can project it, for which you have to switch off the video and then navigate back to the menu>projector mode to do the same.

While the video plays well, there are many times when the video will vanish all of a sudden and then you will have to start again. The fast forward option is also too fast to get back to the right place, so you need to keep searching.

Now coming to the phone, it is decently equipped for a feature phone with dual SIM, FM recording, MMS office (open only), expandable memory up to 16GB, of 87 MB, and 2.0 camera with video recording.

The built quality is also good, although the phone has lot of bulk (it weighs 142 grams) thanks to the projector. The phone comes with two batteries (1000mAH each) so that you don’t run out of power.

In terms of accessories, the phone comes with a projector stand and rest is normal stuff like (which is in-ear canal type and offers good sound), charger and cable.

It would have been a stellar if Intex could somehow manage to offer AV in, which will let you to project your computer screen as well, but that’s not the case here. Right now you have to save your files into the SDcard and then you can project it.

Then there are issues of file support, somehow it doesn’t support most of the file formats, although 3GP is the best for this phone and most files can be converted to this format.
Thankfully for documents, it supports MS office so you can easily carry your presentations and show it anywhere using the projector.

Spice Popcorn and Intex VShow IN 8810 (touch screen) are two other such projector mobile phones but Intex IN 8809 comes cheap then the former two and its projection quality is atleast at par with the rest.

Verdict

Rest of the features are all standard that you expect in a feature phone these days. I would like to call it a mobile projector than a mobile phone. I hope that Intex brings out a projector phone with more processing juice so that one can enjoy what the projector offers. Right now in this one, the whole fun is killed by a measly that most of the times refuses to play videos smoothly.

WiFI and (or atleast WiFi) can be another feature that will go a long way in improving the user experience.

Even with all flaws, it will appeal to college students who want to watch a movie or two during the study breaks, or people who are constantly on the move, especially the sales guys who can use it to show presentations and watch movies while in their hotel rooms. Only advice use compressed videos so that you don’t overload the processor.

App Review: Google+

samir-makwana
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Last week Google made its third attempt at a social networking platform with the launch of its new Google Plus (Google+). A lot of buzz has been created online as well as offline about how Google Plus is fresh and at the same time appears to be a mashup of other social networks. Google also made Google Plus (Google+) available for devices running version 2.1 or higher. The Google+ app is free.

Google+ app will be usable only to those who are registered with the Google+ service. When you start the app, it asks for your Google email address and password. The homescreen interface of the Google+ app is neat with only five tab-buttons: Stream, Huddle, Photos, Profile, and Circles. Notifications are shown at the bottom of the app and it acts like a drawer similar to Android’s notification drawer. Now let’s take a look at each button and its function.

Stream

All posts that include text, images, URLs, links to videos and location are presented in a wide column in the center, which is called the Stream. It is a neat looking timeline with minimum information on it. So posts from any one, including those written by the owner of the Google+ account, will appear on that screen. The Nearby option on the top shows posts from people who are close to your physical location. Similarly, the Incoming option shows posts from people who have added you but have not been added by you.

On top you’ll see a Tick icon which stands for Check-in, allowing you to check-in at a particular place. The Camera icon is meant to quickly upload and share photos in your stream. And there is a Pencil icon for composing a new post, wherein the user gets a text box on the top followed by Location, (provided the device is on) and one can also attach photos to that post by clicking a new one or selecting one from the phone itself.

Also, you can check on the arrow just below the Post button to select the Circles to whom you wish the post your message.

Circles

Just like several Social Networks have Lists and Groups Google Plus has Circles. The Circles icon will give you a list of all the existing and new Circles you have created along with the number of users in each Circle. You can add people to a Circle by tapping the icon on the top right corner of the app.

By default, Google+ has five Circles &#151 Acquaintances, Family, Following, Friends and Work. These are comprehensive enough for basic classification of friends. You can also add the same person to more than one Circle. Clicking on the People tab will show you a list of people connected to you and then you can tap on View Suggested People to add new folks.

Huddles

Huddles is the group chat option which shows up as a separate app on your device. Using huddle you can ask people to join group chat and can invite them by finding them via name or email. The best part is that whether you are a creator or just a participant you can always add more people to Huddle. Every Huddle is like a conversation session and it stays there until you leave the conversation. Do note that simply closing the Huddles app doesn’t remove you from conversations. In Huddles, you can see the list of participants on top.

At this moment, you can only leave those Huddles that have been created by you. Other huddles won’t get cleared from your list unless the creator removes them.

Photos

Google Plus’ Photos is one of the distinct features of the app. If you have clicked a photo using your phone camera, the Google Plus app caches and uploads that picture online to your Google+ account. The picture is then visible only to you and not to anyone else. This feature can be enabled by choosing the Instant Upload option in the Settings of Google Plus app. You can always customise instant upload’s settings to make the process faster, and can save some bucks by disabling instant upload when you are on roaming.

So when you click on the Photos button in the Google Plus app you see four albums: from your Circles, photos of you, your albums, and from your phone. Here the limitation is that at a time one can share not more than eight photos. The good part though is that it doesn’t matter what size the photos are.

On each photo under Albums you will see the number of comments received, which can be checked by tapping on the respective image.

Conclusion

Google Plus is really useful for people who wish to use a nonsense-free application without gut-loads of features. No need to master hidden gestures or short cut tricks. Everything is neatly placed and the app’s performance is nice &#151 considering you are on WiFi or networks. The app is clean, easy to use for beginners and heavily functional along with super-integrated settings for notifications.

The Google+ app is certainly recommended to Android users. Google+ app for has been submitted for review so in the coming weeks we can expect to see the app for iPhone and iPad devices as well.

Game Review: Slice It

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Draw a few lines and then divide the drawn shape in to desired or equal parts &#151 it might sound simple but is painfully difficult. The game, Slice It, utilises the same concept to offer the players hours of fun and, along with it, a lot a brain activity as well.

The game is based on a simple principle: you have to slice any and every given thing or shape. Either a structure needs to be divided in to equal or exact shapes or to be divided in parts with equal volume.

The game takes up less than a minute to install on any smartphone using a Wi-Fi network and slightly above four minutes to download and install if you are using 2G for connectivity.

The game has a very simple and easy to use interface. The application opens up to a simple page with three option including play, about and more games from the developer. The game has in total five different level and along with it in total 180 different stages.

Level 5 is the special level and to unlock this stage, a user needs to reach a certain level like the Stage 2 in level 5 opens when user gets 50 stars in the level 1.

All the levels offer greater difficulty than its predecessor and that goes for the stages too. You start off with the very basic stage and go on for more and more difficult stages.

Users can use hints to know how to clear a particular stage if not getting it but for getting those hints users have to use hint points which can be earned only by completing stages with 5 stars rating.

In application advertisement comes as a bit of annoying part as after every stage or retry, the advertisement banner shows up and you will end up skipping it many times and accidentally opening it often which shifts the focus from the application to the advertisement.

Overall the “Slice It” game offers hours of fun and a lot of brain activity for the players with its 180 stages. Any and all members of the family, be it youngsters or the grown ups, can play it. The advertisement bit can be ignored as due to that only the game is coming to us for free. But a quick tip: you can turn off the data connectivity or the WiFi connectivity while playing to avoid the advertisements.

App Review : Evernote

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How many times it happened to you &#151 you tried to remember something and you can’t. One possible solution for this is that keep a writing pad and jot down the information you want. Sure, if it’s a picture or an audio clip, you may need a drawing pad and an audio recorder respectively.

Alternatively, install the Evernote in your smartphone. With Evernote, you can create notes which can be simple text or a picture or an audio voice and even a video or a mix of all while saving it to a place from where it is difficult to be lost.

Notes created on Evernote automatically get saved on the cloud which in turn can be accessed anytime later on any computer or a mobile phone using their internet connection.

Evernote for Android is the exact replica and not just a striped down version of the service that is available for PCs. It offers the same functionality that the web version of this service offers.

The interface of the application is somewhat inspired by the PC application of the Evernote service. The opening page gives easy and quick access to creating new notes and accessing older notes, notebooks and even the tag on which the notes are tagged. This tagging for the notes can easily be done manually or even automatically done by the service itself.

The Evernote application for Android also allows the users to create notes and tag the location of the note using the smartphones’ capabilities.

Overall the Android based application provides an easy and intuitive way of accessing the notes while adding a whole lot of freedom and mobility to the Evernote service.

The Evernote application is available free of cost and can be downloaded and installed on any smartphone with Android v 1.5 and above. The service is available in two different variants. The free variant of the Evernote app offers all the functionality mentioned above and makes sense for all the users who want to make notes and keep them for later use.

But for more advanced users, the paid version of the Evernote service is suitable which will cost $45 or Rs 2,000 approximately for a year. The paid version provides up to 1GB storage space every month along with access to almost any file type including Doc, PPT, and Exl. The files can be accessed using any device (mobile or a computer). The file size restriction of a note also goes up to 50 for the paid version from 25MB of free variant.

Acer Iconia to get Honeycomb 3.1 upgrade in July

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Iconia A500, the 10.1 inch tablet from Acer, will get the much awaited Honeycomb 3.1 upgrade by the end of this month or by early next month.

“We will be releasing the upgrade by the end of July, which is much later than its international debut date which starts from today,” said a spokesperson of Acer India to ‘The Mobile Indian’.

The delay, the spokesperson added, is due to “the unavailability of (over the air) upgrades in India as many of the service providers here in India do not support it.”
Over the air updates allow devices such as tablets and smartphones to updates directly from the service provider without having to connect the handset to a WiFi network.

The Android Honeycomb 3.1 upgrade includes standard enhancements brought to the original version 3.0 Honeycomb, including a port that can be used to plug USB 2.0 devices such as mice, keyboards and even games console controllers to the tablet.

The update will allow users to resize their homepage widgets to suit their need in terms of the layout and the appearance. Also included in Android 3.1 is a robust application switching and multi tasking mechanism that enables more productivity compared to the previous version.

Not just Acer but many other similar device manufacturers are suffering because of the unavailability of OTA upgrades in India. The delay in upgrade times could be considerably lessened if OTA upgrades were possible in India.

Microsoft working on Switchboard app for real time multiplayer gaming

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Microsoft Research scientists are working on a multiplayer gaming platform codenamed Switchboard, which is meant for Windows Phone 7 mobile phones.

The team of scientists at Microsoft Research working on Switchboard aims to eliminate most issues related to multiplayer gaming, such as connection dips while on the move, and data and limitations.

Perhaps in a couple of years from now Windows Phone platform will get the Switchboard for more responsive and real time multiplayer gaming.

Victor Bahl, director of the Mobile Computing Research Center at Microsoft Research, Redmond, said, “Multiplayer gaming on smartphones is a very challenging technical problem. Gamers move around, the wireless channel is hostile, the bandwidth you need is not always there, disconnections can happen, and smartphones are energy-constrained. If you just take a game and put it on a smartphone, it is not going to work.”

Network is absent in the blind spots between cellular towers. Here there is no signal. In addition to that there are several other limitations in the technologies available today that backlogged the rise of multiplayer gaming for mobile devices while on the move.

To overcome the limitations of multiplayer gaming, a team of Microsoft Research scientists are working on Switchboard app. This application is being designed keeping network strengths and weaknesses in mind. Based on network strength and device latency, Switchboard app pings the device to check if it is suitable for multiplayer gaming, and it then adds the device to the clan or group.

Sharad Agrawal, researcher in the Networking Group at Microsoft Research, said, “There are techniques for multiplayer games to handle ‘jitter’&#151 occasional spikes in network delay. When those techniques react to jitter, you may see a player or object jump from one spot to another. Such ‘glitches in the matrix’ become problematic if they happen frequently. A major challenge in this work is to predict what a player’s will look like for the foreseeable duration of a game, and minimize such glitches.”

Apple has solved this problem for itself by building Gamecenter for iOS.

Meanwhile Microsoft is looking to develop its application as a single solution for the multiplayer gaming platform on Windows Phone devices. Over here, network plays an important role especially when WiFi is not being used on the go. Switchboard is being tested for Wireless Network Standards and will work on as well.

We expect to see Switchboard apps available to a large variety of Windows Phone devices. This could happen with the next major update or version of the Windows Phone mobile operating system.

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