Royal Enfield Continental GT 535

Royal Enfield had us all excited when it first showcased the Cafe Racer Concept at the 2012 Indian Auto Expo. The bike harked back to the 1965 Continental GT 250 and was unlike any other bike in Royal Enfield’s lineup in India. It has been more than a year and a half since then, and now the company has announced that the Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 will be launched in India between November 25, 2013 to November 28, 2013.

By definition, a cafe racer is a light motorcycle with a adequately powerful engine which is built for handling and speed rather than comfort or cruising ability. The earliest cafe racers were hand-built ones, combining the powerful engines with better handling chassis. Cafe racers are characterised by clip-on handle bars, rear-seat footpegs, an long fuel tank with recesses for the riders legs and a humped seat. In short these were cheap to own-and-maintain, powerful, and agile racing bikes meant for the road, and were at home on the track too. Motorcycle companies realised the popularity of this design and decided to launch their own off-the-shelf cafe racers.

It comes equipped with a 535cc, four-stroke, single-cylinder engine with the option of button or kick-start and good for 29.1bhp and 4.49kgm of torque. It works in tandem with a one-down, four-up gearlever. There are features like a pass-light flasher and engine kill switch, among others and single disc brakes, front and rear. The manufacturer claims it will give a 25-30kpl fuel economy.

The engine is tuned so that it can be given the beans, running out of breath competitively higher in the rev band than other bikes from RE. Couple this enthusiastic engine to a smooth 5-speed (one down, four up pattern shift) transmission and you get a riding experience like no other RE.

Further encouraging the sporty riding is the dual-tube frame tuned by famous British racing parts developer Harris Performance Products. The 18-inch rims (with alloy spokes) are shod with 100 mm section tyres at the front and 130 mm tyres at the rear. These are Pirelli Sport Demon tyres, which are quite grippy and rated for 210 KMPH.

Suspension duties at the front are handled by 110 mm forks at the front and 79 mm gas-filled shocks from Paioli at the rear. This leads to a stiffer ride,which coupled to the short wheelbase makes the Continental GT very maneuverable. Braking duties are handled by 300 mm discs with twin-pot calipers sourced from Brmabo at the front and  240 mm discs with single pot caliper at the rear.

The Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 is not a scorcher of a bike, it is rather a style statement. It does allow the rider to corner harder, drive faster than any other RE bike but it cannot match other modern 500 cc (or sub 500 cc) bikes in terms of absolute performance. The Continental GT is supposed to be driven like any other bike from Royal Enfield, cruise at high speeds for hours upon hours, but because of it’s unique styling and rider position you look fast whether you’re standing still or cruising at a 140 KPH.

Specifications of Royal Enfield Continental GT :

Engine :

Type : Single Cylinder, 4 stroke, Air cooled

Displacement : 535 cc

Bore x stroke : 87mm x 90mm

Compression Ratio : 8.5:1

Maximum Power : 29.1 bhp (21.4 kW) @ 5100 rpm

Maximum Torque : 44 Nm @ 4000 rpm

Ignition System : Digital Electronic Ignition

Clutch : Wet, multi-plate

Gearbox : 5 Speed Constant Mesh

Lubrication : Wet sump

Engine Oil : 15 W 50 API, SL Grade JASO MA

Fuel Supply : Keihin Electronic Fuel Injection

Air Cleaner : Paper Element

Engine Start : Electric & Kick

Chassis and Suspension :

Type : Twin downtube cradle frame

Front suspension : Telescopic, 41mm forks, 110mm travel

Rear suspension : Paioli,Twin gas charged shock absorbers with adjustable preload, 80mm travel

Dimensions and Weight :

Wheelbase : 1360 mm

Ground Clearance : 140 mm

LengthxWidthxHeight : 2060x760x1070mm

Seat Height : 800 mm

Kerb Weight-(90% Fuel+Oil) : 184 Kgs

Fuel Tank Capacity : 13.5 Ltrs

Brakes and Tyres:

Front Tyre : 100/90-18, 56 H Pirelli Sport Demon

Rear Tyre : 130/70-18, 63 H Pirelli Sport Demon

Front Brake : Brembo 300mm Floating disc, 2-Piston floating caliper

Rear Brake : 240mm Disc, Single piston floating caliper

Electricals :

Electrical System : 12 volt – DC

Battery : 12 volt, 14 Ah

Head Lamp : 12V H4 60 / 55 W

Tail Lamp : 12V 21W/5W

Turn Signal Lamp : 12V 10 W (4 Nos.)

Royal Enfield Continental GT is expected to be launched in November 2013, the Continental GT is likely to command a price of Rs. 2-2.25 lakh.

Google Nexus 5 unvieled!

Google officially announced its latest flagship phone, the Nexus 5, during a press event today in San Francisco. The device will run the latest Android 4.4 KitKat operating system, and like its predecessor, it will be manufactured by LG.

However, the handset features several key changes, like a bigger 4.95-inch screen, a faster Snapdragon 800 processor, and most notably LTE support. It will be available unlocked at the Google Play Store for $349 (16GB) and $399 (32GB) starting today.

The handset measures 5.43 inches tall, 2.72 inches wide, and 0.34 inch thick, but weighs even less than the previous generation, at 4.59 ounces. Sporting the biggest screen yet in relation to past Nexuses, it has a 4.95-inch Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display. Keeping up with its competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One, the Nexus 5's touch screen has a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution and 445ppi. In contrast, the previous Nexus had a 1,280x768-pixel resolution with just 320 ppi.

Under the hood is a 2.3Ghz quad-core Snapdragon 800 and 2GB of RAM, pushing pixels to a glorious 5-inch 1080p display. LG has also seen fit to include wireless charging again, so you won't have to wear out that micro-USB port keeping the 2,300 mAh battery juiced, you can use it to power a TV over Slimport instead. You'll also find LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, dual-band 802.11ac WiFi and NFC on board - basically if there is a method of connecting to another device, the Nexus 5 has it.

 Credit : Cnet

"Now you have one version of the Android operating system that can ship across all versions of smartphones in 2014," Sundar Pichai, head of the Android and Chrome teams.

With Android KitKat, Google claims to have made the experience much more engaging. Google says, the new immersive mode in Android 4.4 automatically hides everything except what you want to see. Also with the new Hangouts app, all SMS and MMS messages will be together in the same place, alongside other conversations and video calls.

"It is a cutting-edge operating system meant to run on cutting-edge phones, but it can run on older phones as well," Pichai said.

Android KitKat 4.4 is here!

Google finally revealed the full details for Android 4.4 KitKat, the next version of its mobile operating system. But instead of delivering a raft of flashy new features to advance the mobile OS arms race, KitKat's most notable promise is to really fix the age-old Android problem of fragmentation.

The new mobile OS is based on efficiency that brings smartphones to "the next billion people," according to Android Senior VP Sundar Pichai. Google's own apps use less memory, and the interface will automatically scale back to fit on devices with only 512MB of RAM.

Most immediately obvious are a handful of design tweaks to the OS, which make Android cleaner and simpler than ever before. The status and notification bar are now translucent, and they disappear completely when you're in a fullscreen app; there's less chrome across the entire OS, and more space on the Nexus 5's five-inch display for whatever you're doing. There's a new launcher, a new condensed version of Google's Roboto font, and a generally lighter and cleaner look to Android. It's not nearly as stark a change as iOS 7 was, and generally speaking KitKat still looks a lot like Jelly Bean, but the design directions feel very similar.

Much of the interface has been streamlined. There's now a camera shortcut and more immersive "now playing" content on the lock screen, and there's an option to rearrange home screens. The navigation interface disappears when you're inside of supporting apps, giving back real estate on devices without hardware keys. The dialer and Hangouts make it easy to search for nearby addresses; fans of self-expression will be glad to hear that emoji icons are available in the keyboard. New frameworks bring both AirPrint-like wireless printing and support for third-party cloud storage in the Gallery app. Behind the scenes, Google is improving battery life through sensor batching, which cuts back on data requests. Developers can write apps that support infrared control, pedometer-like step counting and a carrier-independent NFC payment architecture.

Hangouts is one of the key features of Android 4.4, far more integrated into the operating system than ever before. Where there was once a Messages icon, there is now only Hangouts — the app was just updated to integrate SMS, and work better for voice calling, and it's now part of the way you'll talk to other people on Android. Texting, instant messaging, even voice and video calling, are all now done through Hangouts – it's like a combination of FaceTime and iMessage into a single application. If you don't want to use Hangouts, of course, you can select your own default texting app in KitKat.

There's built-in support for step detector and step counter sensors, so your phone can act as a pedometer without requiring apps developers to build fancy algorithms in order to detect when you're taking a step. The new Nexus 5 has those sensors built in. There's also a new API for IR blasters, so manufacturers can more easily build smartphones and tablets that can control your television and home theatre equipment, and a new screen recording utilty that can let you capture a video of what you're doing with your smartphone and store it as an MP4 file.

KitKat also puts a stronger emphasis on Google's main business, search. Voice search is going hands-free through keyword activation, and it will ask questions if it needs clarification. The speech recognition engine is about 25 percent more accurate, according to Google.

Android 4.4, KitKat, which comes on Nexus 5, will also soon be available on Nexus 4, 7, 10, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One Google Play edition devices in the coming weeks, and hopefully everyone else in the not-to-distant future.

For more details : http://www.android.com/versions/kit-kat-4-4/

Motorola unveils project Ara to allow users design their mobiles!

US-based smartphone maker Motorola has unveiled a project, Ara, that empowers the user to decide and choose the components they want in their mobiles.

The Google-owned handset company on Monday announced Project Ara, a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. An endoskeleton, or structural frame, holds the smartphone modules of the owner's choice, such as a display, keyboard, or extra battery. The approach should allow users to swap out malfunctioning modules or upgrade as innovations emerge, providing a handset that stays up-to-date much longer than today's smartphones.

"Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones," Motorola wrote in a company blog post. "To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it's made of, how much it costs, and how long you'll keep it."

In the works for more than a year, Project Ara recently partnered with Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks."We've been working on Project Ara for over a year. Recently, we met Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks. Turns out we share a common vision: to develop a phone platform that is modular, open, customisable, and made for the entire world," the firm said.

This isn't Motorola's first foray into smartphone customization, though Project Ara takes things much further. Over the summer, the company launched its Moto Maker service, which lets buyers of Moto X phones indulge their build-to-order desires, mixing and matching body and interface features including onboard memory, wallpaper, and front, back, and accent colors for the device's shell.

"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines," Motorola said in its blog post.

Motorola says the MDK (Module Developer’s Kit) will be released sometime in the next few months, where developers will soon be invited to start creating modules for Project Ara. Interested in becoming an Ara Scout? Motorola is inviting regular folks like yourself to collaborate with them on “special missions” that will help shape Project Ara for the masses.

Project Loon : Google's stratospheric Internet plan

Google estimates there are 5-6 billion people around the world without access to the internet. The majority of people on the planet are completely devoid of connectivity through poverty, a remote locale, a lack of infrastructure and, in some cases, all three.

Google's vision for Project Loon procures schooling for those currently without education, brings doctors for people who cannot travel to see one, and provides important weather data to assist farmers, whose harvests are affected by droughts and floods.

Illiteracy, Disease and Famine could be dealt a swift and telling blow with a little Wi-Fi and according to Team Loon, balloons stationed so high above the earth they can only be seen with a telescope, is the most affordable and best way to achieve this.

"The materials are pretty inexpensive," says Project Loon's Richard DeVaul.

"The plastic of the balloons is similar to that in shopping bags and the electronics aren't that different from consumer electronics. This is a very cost-effective way to connect the world."

Give a child a balloon and maybe they'll smile for a day. Give them one with Wi-Fi and the possibilities, Google hopes, are limitless.

What is a Project Loon?

aturally, the balloon itself is not just your average birthday party accoutrement. These massive structures are 15-meters wide and made a from polyethylene film that's only three times thicker than a supermarket carrier bag, but still thick enough to withstand high altitude air pressures without exploding.

However, the responsibility of the balloon, and its helium gas filling, is to get the real tech wizardry in the air and keep it there. Each unit carries a mini Linux-based computer, toting the all-important Wi-Fi radios, GPS and several sensors recording air temperature, altitude and speed of movement. All of this information is sent to Google's Command Centre on the ground below where the each balloon can be controlled to a certain degree.

Once it has reached the altitude of 20km (65,000ft), it's will end its ascent. Then, as Google explains: "Signals are transmitted from the balloons to a specialized Internet antenna mounted to the side of a home or workplace that use radio frequency technology.

"The Internet antenna is connected to a consumer grade router. Web traffic that travels through the balloon network is ultimately relayed to ground stations, where it's connected to pre-existing Internet infrastructure, like fiber cables and our local telecommunications partners."

From they're, they're like sailboats, which Google says will eventually be able to stay in the air for 100 days at a time. When they reach the end of their shift, they can be directed to a designated rescue centres around the world and replaced.

As each balloon is able to communicate with its fellows, it'll move accordingly to ensure that, while doing these laps around the world, the balloons remain a sufficient distance from a colleague. The result? A balloon is always in range for the folks on the ground.

"Is it possible to have a nicely spaced out flock of balloons? The answer is yes. Once people could see this was possible, it became a feasible project, not some crazy science project," said Dan Piponi, a Rapid Evaluator for Project Loon.

So what happens now?

Since its test in New Zealand, Google has gone quiet about Project Loon. It's been almost a month since its last video update on Google+ and our request for an interview for this piece was shut down.

At this point, it is possible there are hundreds of Loon balloons in the sky; that the project is much further along than we're all currently aware. Having gone public with its proof of concept exercises, it seems more likely than not that Google will go all-out with this one.

However, the technological, ethical and political challenges remain. Can Google's Project Loon rise above them with its latest "moonshot?"

As W Clement Stone wrote: "Always aim for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

Source : www.techradar.com

WhatsApp hits new record after processing 27 billion messages in one day!

The notoriously press-shy WhatsApp have published usage statistics, revealing to the Wall Street Journal that it now attracts more than 300 million active monthly users. Founded in 2009 by two ex-Yahoo employees Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp is one of the earliest entrants into the field. 

The competitive field of so-called ‘over the top’ (OTT) instant messaging platforms has seen explosive growth over the past couple of years, with a variety of different companies offering near-identical services and vying for dominance.

Mobile messaging service WhatsApp has announced record user numbers, after revealing that the service just processed 27 billion messages over a 24 hour period. That’s significantly up on its previous best of 18 billion from the final day of 2012.

The company has signed deals with operators across the world and has partnered handset makers — including Nokia, which built a physical WhatsApp button on the Asha 210 – in a bid to widen its base to make the service useful for increasing numbers of people.

BlackBerry, which once dominated the space, says its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service has 60 million users who send and receive some 10 billion messages each day.

Asia’s other messaging giants — WeChat from China, Line from Japan and India’s Nimbuzz – do not reveal message volumes, but have built impressive user bases of more than 300  million, 150 million and 150  million respectively.

Voice messaging will be especially important for many WhatsApp users whose languages can be harder to type. For instance, Koum said he has many friends that he corresponds with in Russian. It can be difficult because the Russian alphabet has 33 letters, which get compressed into narrow buttons on a touchscreen. Now that won’t be an issue, because he can just send them voice memos.

However, despite this catalogue of impressive statistics, OTT messaging will not be pushing out SMS services anytime soon. Informa analyst Pamela Clark-Dickinson even predicts that SMS revenue will continue to increase through to 2016, partly because the insularity of OTT messaging communities means that “users typically use SMS when communicating with non-OTT users” but also because “SMS is starting to hit its stride in the enterprise mobile messaging market.”

Daily Revenue Estimates $858,389 of Insanely Addictive Game Candy Crush Saga!

The game, which still sits stubbornly at number-one in the Apple app store, asks users to match sets of colorful candies into groups of three or more in order to clear the board. It’s become so popular that the game’s creator, King, makes about $650,000 a day from users spending money on premium features like unlocking new levels. Though the Mail says women ages 25 to 55 are the game’s “most loyal” demographic, New Zoo reports that about 40 percent of the game’s users are men, so they’re playing it, too.

However, "70% of the people on the last level haven't paid anything. It's designed so you can complete the game," says Tommy Palm, whose official job title is "Games Guru" at King, although his role is more akin to a head of global studios for the social and mobile games publisher.

Why, then, has Candy Crush Saga become so big? Palm doesn't have a big secret to reveal, perhaps unsurprisingly. "The theme is very good, everybody can relate to the candy pieces: it's very positive and makes for very colourful and nice shapes," he says.

"Then of course there is the accessibility of the entire game: it's a cross-platform game you can play on computer then continue from your smartphone and you tablet. The game is free to play, of course, and there is the social aspect of seeing how your friends are doing."

You could say the same about a growing number of mobile games, but none of them are as big as Candy Crush Saga, so there's clearly something else going on here – even if it's just a perfect storm of luck and fortuitous timing akin to the one that fuelled Angry Birds' sharp rise in early 2010.

Candy Crush Saga is currently being played 700 million times a day on mobile devices alone. Palm declines to give an active-users figure, but analytics site AppData claims that the game currently has 132.4 million unique monthly players across web and mobile – a figure that only includes people who've connected the game to Facebook.

What is Augmented Reality?

Credit : HowStuffWorks

This new technology, called augmented reality, blurs the line between what's real and what's computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell.

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one. Augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable.

On the spectrum between virtual reality, which creates immersive, computer-generated environments, and the real world, augmented reality is closer to the real world. Augmented reality adds graphics, sounds, haptic feedback and smell to the natural world as it exists. Both video games and cell phones are driving the development of augmented reality. Everyone from tourists, to soldiers, to someone looking for the closest subway stop can now benefit from the ability to place computer-generated graphics in their field of vision.

Credit : The Guardian

Augmented reality is changing the way we view the world - or at least the way its users see the world. Picture yourself walking or driving down the street. With augmented-reality displays, which will eventually look much like a normal pair of glasses, informative graphics will appear in your field of view, and audio will coincide with whatever you see. These enhancements will be refreshed continually to reflect the movements of your head. Similar devices and applications already exist, particularly on smartphones like the iPhone.

Sony PlayStation 4 is Available For Pre-Order in India

The most awaited gaming console is now available for pre-order in India.  Yes, Game4u.com is taking pre-orders for the Playstation 4 at Rs.3000 deposit.  Before heading over to the portal please read the terms and conditions.  The Rs.3000 you pay now as deposit will be deducted from the final cost of console.  And the pre-ordered product will be available to you for a period of 7 days from the date of launch of PS4, if you dont pay the balance amount and claim your PS4 within this period, your Rs.3000 will be forfeited by Game4you.

Back during its pre-E3 press conference, Sony had announced that the PlayStation 4 will be launched in November and will cost $399 (Rs 23,300 approx) in the US, which is $100 less than rival Microsoft's console, the Xbox One, which is priced at $499 (Rs 28,900 approx).

For the price being paid, Sony is offering the system along with a controller and USB, HDMI and power cables. PlayStation 4 Eye is not part of the package, though, and can be bought separately for $59 (Rs 3,400 approx).

KEY FEATURES

• The all new Sony PlayStation 4  is powered by the most  powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art 1.84 TFLOPS graphics processor with 8GB of ultra-fast GDDR5 unified system memory, easing game creation and increasing the richness of content achievable on the platform. The end result is new games with rich, high-fidelity graphics and deeply immersive experiences.
• The DualShock®4 controller features new innovations to deliver more immersive gaming experiences, including a highly sensitive six-axis sensor as well as a touch pad located on the top of the controller which offers completely new ways to play and interact with games. The new Share button puts video streaming and sharing a tap away.
• Engage in endless personal challenges with your community, and share your epic triumphs with the press of a button. Simply hit the “SHARE button” on the controller, scan through the last few minutes of gameplay, tag it and return to the game – the video uploads as you play. The PS4 system also enhances social spectating by enabling you to broadcast your gameplay in real time.
• The PS4 system has the ability to learn about your preferences. It will learn your likes and dislikes, allowing you to discover content pre-loaded and ready to go on your console in your favorite game genres or by your favorite creators. Players also can look over game-related information shared by friends, view friends’ game play with ease, or obtain information about recommended content, including games, TV shows and movies.
• Remote Play on the PS4 system fully unlocks the PlayStation®Vita system’s potential, making it the ultimate companion device. With the PS Vita system, gamers will be able to seamlessly play a range of PS4 titles on the beautiful 5-inch display over Wi-Fi access points in a local area network.

SPECIFICATIONS

Main processor

• Single-chip custom processor
• CPU: low power x86-64 AMD “Jaguar”, 8 cores
• GPU: 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based graphics engine

Memory

• GDDR5 8GB

Storage size

• 500GB Hard disk drive.

BD/DVD Drive (Read Only)

• BD x 6 CAV
• DVD x 8 CAV

Input / Output

• Super-Speed USBx (USB 3.0) port x 2
• AUX port x 1

Networking

• Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 1
• IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)

AV Output

• HDMI out port
• DIGITAL OUTPUT (OPTICAL) port

Fore More Please Visit the Link - http://in.playstation.com

Microsoft Surface Pro 2

Credit : The Verge

Microsoft has launched the second version of the Surface Pro. The Surface Pro 2 is a device designed to be a laptop and tablet in one.

As with the original Pro hybrid, the Surface Pro 2 resembles a plain old tablet until you unfurl the integrated kickstand and attach a keyboard cover to the base, transforming the device into a small, funky-looking laptop. Many other details are unchanged. The tablet alone weighs 2 pounds and measures 0.53 inch thick, and boasts a 10.6-inch, 1920-by-1080 display. You’ll find a full-size USB port and a headphone jack on one side, and a MicroSD card slot and a Mini DisplayPort output on the other.

Enter the Surface Pro 2, which comes with one of Intel's latest fourth generation processors and runs the full 64-bit version of Windows 8.1 Pro. It's available with 64GB, 128GB 256GB and 512GB of storage, but you'll need some very deep pockets for the 512GB version, as Microsoft has started pre-order prices at £1,439 – and that's not including a touch or type keyboard cover. Fortunately, the 64GB version reviewed here costs a lot less, but at £719, we reckon the £799 128GB version is the best option when it comes to good value storage.

On the outside, the Surface Pro 2 is virtually identical to its predecessor. It's a little lighter, weighing 900g instead of 916g, but the tablet's sleek gunmetal grey magnesium chassis is still a slim 13.5mm thick and has the same soft-touch texture on the back panel. The ports haven't changed either, as you still get a single USB3 port, a micro SDXC card reader, a mini DisplayPort for connecting the Surface Pro 2 to an external display and a combined headphone and microphone jack.

Over to the right a micro-SD card slot allows memory to be boosted up to 64GB. It sits alongside a power connector that's still a bit more fiddly than we would like it to be, and alongside that is a MiniDisplay port that supports daisy chaining of two external monitors of resolutions up to 2,560 x 1,440 pixels.

On the left-hand side of the Surface Pro 2 is a single USB 3.0 port, a volume rocker and headphone jack, alongside a groove to help you flip the kickstand into its open position.

Luckily, the Pro 2 also comes with a Surface Pen to make interacting with the screen that bit easier. It works much like other drawing tablet pens and the screen will sense it even when it’s 2cm away. We found it a little difficult to use with the original Surface Pro unless it was lying flat on our work surface, but the Pro 2’s wider kickstand angle now makes it much more comfortable to use when the tablet’s propped up in laptop mode.

The pen is much more precise than using your fingers, but the accuracy of its sensor still isn’t completely perfect. Like the Surface Pen that came with the Surface Pro, we experienced a few tracking issues when we held the pen at an angle near the top corners of the screen. Unless we held the pen perpendicular to the display, the sensor would run away from our pen into the corners of the screen, making closing and minimising windows a little tricky. We didn’t experience this problem anywhere else on the screen, but it was a little disappointing to see this hasn’t been fixed yet.

Surface Pro 2 ships with Windows 8.1 Pro x64. Since there's no connected standby 64-bit version of Windows 8/8.1 yet, Surface Pro 2 ships without the feature. It also continues to behave more notebook like in the sleep/wake sense as a result. There's a delay between when you press the power/lock button and when you'll see the tablet respond as the system comes out of its sleep state. Ironically Surface Pro 2 comes with nothing more than a link to try Office 2013, while Surface 2 comes with a free copy of the Home & Student edition.

Harley-Davidson Street Glide launched in India at Rs 29 lakh

Harley-Davidson has launched the new 2014 edition of its motorcycle 'Street Glide' in India, priced at Rs. 29 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The new offering is the first motorcycle to be launched under the company’s Project Rushmore - a global customer-driven initiative by Harley-Davidson. The new bike has been updated with features, which include revised styling including a new batwing fairing, ABS, dual halogen headlamp and improved suspension set-up.

Anoop Prakash, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson India said “Project Rushmore is an epic, customer-focused journey by Harley-Davidson to fundamentally improve the riding experience for owners of touring models. It not only showcases our commitment to our core customers but also represents a new direction in product development at Harley-Davidson. The new Street Glide is our premier offering for the Indian market and offers the perfect balance between custom touring style and long haul functionality. With its stunning design and rider focused engineering, I am confident that it will rouse a sense and feeling of freedom like never before.”

The Street Glide boasts a new 4.5 inch colour-screen infotainment systems, Bluetooth connectivity, voice recognition, text-to-speech technology, GPS navigation, plus support for intercom and CB communications in a single module. To keep the rider entertained, the new Jukebox compartment on the fairing dash features a USB port for charging and playing electronic devices, including Apple iPod/iPhone and other MP3 sources, an SD card, and mobile phones with 5.25 inch  speakers. The new Jukebox compartment on the fairing dash features a USB port for charging and playing electronic devices, including Apple iPod/iPhone and other MP3 sources, an SD card, and mobile phones. Apple iPod and iPhone functions are available through the hand controls. The Jukebox compartment features a cushioned bottom and water-resistant foam seal around the one-touch door.

Engine

Type                     V-twin, four-stroke, Air-cooled, 1690cc
Bore/stroke           98.4mm x 111.1mm
Torque                  14.07kgm at 3500rpm
Transmission
Type                      6-speed, 1-down, 5-up

Dimensions

Length                    2450mm
Width                       135mm
Height                    1625mm

Chassis & Body

Weight                      372kg
Tyres                        130/ 70 x 18 inches (front), 180/ 65 x 16 inches (rear)

Suspension

Front                        49mm inverted forks
Rear                         Twin adjustable shock absorbers

Brakes

Front                        Twin discs (ABS, linked)
Rear                         Single-disc (ABS, linked)

Economy

Tank size                  22.7 litres
Mileage                    15.43 kpl

McLaren P1 can go 0-100kmph in 2.8 seconds!

McLaren Automotive has finally officially released performance figures for it's halo hypercar, the McLaren P1. The new McLaren is a petrol-hybrid hypercar that features a 3.8-Liter V8 twin-turbo petrol engine and electric motors that help make a total of 916PS and an earth shattering 900PS of torque. Although the spiritual successor to the legendary McLaren F1, the P1 does not have the eccentric 3-seater layout but a more conventional two-seater setup. 

The McLaren P1 mates a mid-mounted twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8 engine to an electric motor for a combined total of 903bhp, a healthy 276bhp more than the McLaren F1. And while it’s set to weigh comfortably more, (unconfirmed reports suggest 1400kg, over 20 per cent higher than the F1’s 1137kg), its performance figures embarrass the former fastest car in the world.

As with the McLaren F1, the P1 is rear-wheel drive, mid engined and used a carbon fiber monocoque body and roof structure called a MonoCage. The McLaren P1 costs about £866,000 in the United Kingdom without any optional extras. The price however, is not the impressive figure. The McLaren P1 can do 0-100kmph in 2.8 seconds and can crack 0-200kmph in just 6.8 seconds while 0-300kmph takes only 16.5 seconds. P1's top speed is electronically limited to 350 kmph.

The car is chock full of modes, Launch, Track, Race, Sport, and E among them. They’re all activated, fittingly, once you depress the “Active” button. They variously enable breakneck getaways, adjust suspension height and firmness, tweak powertrain programming and power delivery, and adjust other sundry chassis settings. Stability control can be fully defeated in Track and Race modes.

Like the F1, the P1 also aims to be an immensely satisfying driver’s car. The electro-hydraulically boosted, Alcantara-wrapped steering whirls through just 2.2 turns from lock-to-lock, ensuring immediate response to any input. The brake hardware includes Akebono-supplied carbon-ceramic discs measuring 15.4 inches up front and 15.0 inches out back. McLaren also says it tuned the anchors to work seamlessly and to provide consistent pedal feedback no matter what the hybrid powertrain is up to. The adjustable suspension, which incorporates a lift mode to avoid speed bumps, is a hydro-pneumatic setup that has separate circuits to independently control body roll and squat/dive. Specially crafted Pirelli P Zero Corsa rubber is wrapped around lightweight 19-inch front and 20-inch wheels forged from a military-grade aluminum alloy.

The P1's quarter-mile performance is particularly impressive, though, the distance completed in 9.8sec at 152mph while a Bugatti Veyron does in 10.5sec at 140.2mph. Priced at £866,000 – equivalent to a Pagani Huayra while much less than an Aston One-77 or Bugatti Veyron – the new McLaren P1 will be limited to 375 units, all of them set to be left-hand drive. McLaren claims that the entire run is close to being sold out, with just a few units left to sell in Europe.

A closer look at McLaren's P1 hypercar (courtesy : McLaren)

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Save Big with these Festive Offers!

Indian online retailers Snapdeal.com and Flipkart.com is luring the customers with festive season offers on many products. Smart phones and tablets are offered with great discounts.

• Nokia Lumia 1020, priced At Rs.47,222 offers free eBooks worth Rs 2300/- on activation of Flipkart ebooks app.
• Nokia Lumia 520 is available in Snapdeal.com with 23% discount for Rs.8,091 only.
• Latest prestigious Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is available in Snapdeal.com for offer price of Rs.45,999 only.
• Sony Xperia C priced At Rs.18,281 offers free Sony headphones + Free eBooks worth Rs. 1000/- on download of Flipkart eBooks App.
• Micromax Canvas Music A88 priced At Rs.9199 offers free JBL headphones (in the box) + Free eBooks worth Rs. 1000/- on download of Flipkart eBooks App.
• Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 priced At Rs.40,690 offers plantronics ML2 Bluetooth Headset free with Mobile.
• Huawei Ascend Mate price At Rs.23500 offers Maxx PBS-26-SDI Smart Charger free with Mobile.
• LG Optimus G Pro E988 price At Rs.30,999 offers veready UM 22 Power Bank for Smartphones free with Mobile.
• HTC’s dream flagship phone HTC One is offered with 9% discount for Rs.40,067 in Snapdeal.com.
• Budget phone Lumia 510 is offered with 54% discount for Rs.5,081 only in Snapdeal.com.

Best camera phones in India

Nokia Lumia 1020

Credit : Engadget

The camera's 41-megapixel sensor is undoubtedly the Lumia 1020's major selling point. The combination of the wide-angle lens, f/2.2 aperture, very effective built-in image stabilizer and maximum ISO speed of 4000 makes this smartphone better suited to hand-held low-light photography than most other comparable devices. The Lumia 1020 offers a built-in, lens-based image stabilisation system that Nokia claims offers a 3-stop advantage compared to smartphones with no anti-shake. In practice we could hand-hold the Lumia 1020 in fairly dark conditions and still get sharp results for both stills and video without resorting to using the rather ineffective built-in flash.

You can digitally zoom the lens by 3x by swiping up and down on the screen - we'd recommend that you forget this feature, though, as zooming in does degrade the picture quality slightly, despite the claims that it's a lossless zoom, and its also only applied to the image at 5 megapixels, rather than the highest resolution of 38 megapixels. The lens has a minimum focus range of 15cm, not bad, but not really good enough for macro shots.

Apple iPhone 5S

Credit : iMore

The iPhone 5S' improved camera is probably its biggest selling point. Cameras are no longer afterthoughts on smartphones: they're becoming the most important feature, for many, as they slowly but surely replace point-and-shoot cameras.

If you're getting a new iPhone for its camera, get the 5S. A suite of new and useful upgrades help make the already-good iPhone 5 camera into something even better...but, in a landscape riddled with increasingly impressive phone cameras, the iPhone stands out a little less than before.

Unlike many megapixel-packing smartphones, the iPhone 5S camera stays at 8 megapixels, the same on paper as last year and even the year before. The sensor, as Apple will proclaim, however, is 15 percent larger: the pixels are physically bigger (1.5 microns), even if there are the same number of them. The camera's aperture is larger (f/2.2). All of these elements add up to better low-light exposure.

Newer A7-driven processing also enables true burst-mode shooting: hold down the shutter button and you'll snag as many shots as you desire. The iPhone 5 could take multiple shots with quick taps, but the iPhone 5S can capture rapid-motion activities like sports events (or, in my household, random baby tricks). Instead of spamming your Camera Roll with identical-looking images, the new iOS 7 camera app cleverly bundles them in a subfolder, and even autopicks what it considers the best shots. This decision is based on image crispness and other factors; you can pick your own favorites easily, and delete the rest at the touch of a button.

Samsung Galaxy S4

Credit : Cnet

The Samsung Galaxy S4 camera is a big upgrade over other sensors it has put into phones, and with a 13MP sensor you can see why. It is capable of taking some stunning photos and comes with a decent auto mode, which enables you to get really great shots no matter what the framing. In terms of camera features, the Galaxy S4 comes with a whole bunch of new shooting modes like Drama mode, Animated Photo, Eraser, Dual Shot. Panorama Mode, Rich Tone (HDR) to name a few.

HTC One

Credit : Techno Buffalo

A big change on the HTC One is the camera: it's 'only' a 4MP sensor. It should be put into context though: the camera has a smaller sensor but much larger pixels to capture 300 per cent more light than traditional imaging sensors, and therefore more data, to make your pictures look that much better on the go. It comes with a fast F2.0 lens but also offers an optical image stabilization system. The HTC's camera menu is quite comprehensive for a smartphone, but we would prefer some of the options, for example exposure compensation and ISO, to be more accessible. It's also worth mentioning that the latter option is only of limited value as the HTC One, like most smartphones, does not display shutter speeds.

Nokia Lumia 925

Credit : Fonearena

Nokia Lumia 925 has an 8.7-megapixel lens with PureView processing algorithms.

Instead of the 928's Xenon bulb, the 925 returns to LED flash; two of them, in fact. This time around there's a sixth lens in the Carl Zeiss optical assembly, which Nokia says will take clearer daytime shots. In addition, you have a backside-illuminated image sensor, autofocus, and 4x digital zoom.

The camera app is pretty plain by default, but like all Nokia phones, it includes lenses for panorama and Nokia Smart Cam, which adds a load of effects you also see on top Android phones. You'll be able to edit photos as well.

The "World's Slimmest Smartphone" launched In India

The Chinese manufacturer Huawei has now rolled out its premium handset Ascend P6 in our country.

The P6 features a sleek metallic body, 6.18 mm to be precise. the phone is powered by a 1.5 GHz Huawei K3V2 quad-core processor. It sports a 4.7 inch HD screen. Apart from that, you get an 8 megapixel camera, 5 MP front-facing snapper, and 2000 mAh battery.

The phone is also light in weight at 120 grams. The Ascend P6 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and features Huawei's Emotion UI 1.6 OS layer on top. It offers 8GB of inbuilt storage expandable up to 32GB via microSD card. The smartphone comes in Black, Pink and White colours.

Huawei has officially launched its Ascend P6 smartphone in India at an MRP of Rs 29,999.

The lack of NFC and 4G also sets the Ascned P6 back from the forefront of the mobile market, as missing two of the latest mobile technological breakthroughs won't endear it to the tech-enthused masses.

The Huawei Ascend P6 shows that the Chinese manufacturer can really make an impression on the Android market with its stunningly slim - if slightly derivative - design, as well as some quirky features that mark it out as a little bit different.

The Ascend P6 may be Huawei's flagship device, but it's not a smartphone which will find itself at the top of smartphone tree - more playing catch-up to an ever strengthening pack.