Micromax To Launch Windows Phone Devices Next Year

After hiring Hugh Jackman for the Canvas Turbo and revealing its intentions of entering European markets via Russia, the Indian smartphone brand is also planning to launch LTE and Windows Phone smartphones. Due to the rising popularity of Windows Phone devices in the affordable smartphone segment, Micromax is probably hoping to provide a cheaper Lumia alternative in the market. One thing is for sure, any OEM joining the platform is a good news for the Windows Phone ecosystem.

In an interview with the Economic Times, Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma revealed that Micromax would launch its LTE smartphones in December, “We want to establish ourselves on LTE and offer products that are LTE ready by December, so that consumers would not need to change their handsets whenever voice over LTE becomes available, be it six months or eight months later,” Sharma is quoted as saying.

A camera for your smartphone : Sony Cyber-shot QX10 and QX100

  

Capable of being used with most smartphones today, Sony's QX10 and QX100 attachments both look like removable camera lenses, but they are in fact complete cameras. Well, they're complete except for the viewfinder or the display, but that's where smartphones come in.

It can be attached to smart devices and paired with them through Wi-Fi or NFC, following which photos and videos can be shot with the help of Sony's PlayMemories app, which is available for both iOS and Android converting the device's screen into a real-time viewfinder. The same app lets users tinker with camera settings, coming with the ability to release the shutter, start or stop movie recordings, and adjust common photographic settings like shooting mode, zoom, Auto Focus area and others. Once pictures or videos are taken, they can be saved directly on both the phone and the camera or either, and can be shared instantly via social media or other common mobile applications. If the lens is not paired with the device, pictures and videos can be saved on a microSD card or a memory stick on the camera lens.

Sony DSC QX10 Camera Lens specifications

• 18.2 megapixels 1/2.3 type (7.76mm) Exmor R CMOS sensor
• BIONZ image processor
• Sony G Lens, with 7 groups (including 4 aspheric elements)
• F3.3(Wide angle)- F5.9 (Tele) aperture
• 10x optical zoom
• 12MP images and 1080p ((1440×1080) video recording at 30fps
• Optical SteadyShot (with Active Mode for movies)
• Memory Stick Micro / Memory Stick Micro Mark 2 and Micro SD/SDHC/SDXC Memory Card (Class 4 or Higher)
• Dimensions - 62.4 x 61.8 x 33.3 mm, weight 90 g (main unit only),  105 g (battery and Memory Stick Micro)
• 630 mAh Sony NP-BN rechargeable battery

Sony DSC QX100 Camera Lens specifications

• 20.2 megapixels 1.0 type (13.2 x 8.8mm) Exmor R CMOS sensor
• BIONZ image processor
• Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T*, with 7 elements in 6 groups (4 aspheric elements including AA lens)
• F1.8(Wide angle)- F4.9 (Tele)
• 3.6x optical zoom
• 12MP images and 1080p ((1440×1080) video recording at 30fps
• Optical SteadyShot (with Active Mode for movies)
• Memory Stick Micro / Memory Stick Micro Mark 2 and Micro SD/SDHC/SDXC Memory Card (Class 4 or Higher)
• Dimensions – 62.5 x 62.5 x 55.5 mm mm, weight 165 g (main unit only),  179 g (battery and Memory Stick Micro)
• 630 mAh Sony NP-BN rechargeable battery

Sony is trying something new, but most consumers might see the wisdom of putting that money into a proper standalone camera. Aside from structural and operational awkwardness, the prices of the QX10 and specially the QX100, makes them expensive add-ons for already expensive smartphones.The Sony DSC QX10 and the DSCQX100 comes in Black color and are priced at Rs. 12,990 and Rs. 24,990.

Nokia Lumia 1520

Credit : engadget

Nokia Lumia 1520, the long-rumored, big-screened smartphone, which has finally been announced at Nokia World in Abu Dhabi. With a 6-inch display it’s the biggest Windows Phone ever, and its 1080p resolution is a first for Microsoft’s mobile operating system.

The new Lumia 1520 is a top-end phablet that comes with a 20MP BSI F/2.4 PureView camera with OIS and Carl Zeiss lens. There's also something Nokia calls the Refocus Lens, which is a fruit of the company's Scalado acquisition; this lens is like a software-based version of Lytro, which uses "clever algorithms" to let you change the focus of your photo after it's taken. (This lens will debut on the 1520 and eventually make it to older Lumia devices, such as the 900 series.). It's 8.6mm thick, 85.4mm-wide and runs on a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset. The handset also has 2GB RAM, 32GB expandable storage, 3,400mAh battery, NFC and wireless charging.

Nokia Lumia 1020 vs. Smasung Galaxy Note 3

At the international unveiling of the device, Nokia said it will be priced at $749 excluding taxes.

Nokia is expected to soon launch its Lumia 1520 phablet in the Indian market and has already listed the device on its official website for the country. The India website of the company does not have the local pricing of the handset.

A Look at ZF’s 9-speed Automatic gearbox

Credit : inautonews.com

ZF, a leading global supplier of automobile transmissions, says it is looking to set an industry benchmark after becoming the first to develop a modern nine-speed automatic for passenger cars.

It’s a nine-speed transaxle for transverse applications sporting a 9.8 ratio spread and it promises 10-percent better fuel economy when compared to a six-speed slushbox. In a market that goes full frenzy by one-percent here and two-percent there, 10 can’t be ignored.

The trouble with engineering a transmission for a transverse application is packaging. The gearbox, along with the engine, has to fit between the shock towers. According to ZF, which announced it will initially supply the 9HP to the Jeep Cherokee and the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque with more customers to come, the maximum width for such a transmission is about 14.6 inches. It’s no surprise, then, that the 9HP is 14.4 inches wide. With four planetary gear sets and six shifting elements (brakes and clutches) that’s a very dense 14.4 inches.

Of those four planetary gearsets, two of them are nested. In this nested pair, the annulus, or ring gear, of the smaller planetary doubles as the sun gear of the larger set. This arrangement trims some width from the four-gearset tranny.

Speaking at the sidelines of the news conference, ZF board member Michael Hankel expressed confidence that the 9HP would receive a good response from the market worldwide.

"The worldwide penetration of front-drive compact cars, smaller cars, is that the market share in total is roughly 75 per cent worldwide," he said. "A lot of cars have this dimension, so they would potentially need a nine-speed automatic transmission."

Again, that’s according to ZF. If a 10-percent improvement isn’t enough, chew on this: at a steady 75 mph, the 9HP delivers 16-percent better fuel economy than a six-speed.

Apple's iOS 7.0.3 update

iOS 7.0.3, which went out as a free update on 22nd October, brings back iCloud Keychain - a feature which Apple had initially announced when it first showcased the OS at the WWDC event in June, but did not make it into the final release. As mentioned, the iOS 7.0.3 update adds iCloud Keychain that allows users to save and sync account user names, passwords, and credit card numbers across all their approved iOS and Mac (the ones that run OS X Mavericks) devices in the Safari web browser.

It also brings the Password Generator through which Safari suggests unique, hard-to-guess passwords for users' online accounts. The update also brings back the ability to search the web and Wikipedia through Spotlight search, allowing users to search for keywords directly via iOS' universal search feature.

Credit : Apple

A number of users complained about iOS 7's motion graphics and animations and to address these issues, Apple has fixed calibration issues with the iPhone's sensor, which means your phone will no longer be a couple of degrees off. It also updates the Bold Text setting to change dial pad text.

The 7.0.3 update also delays the display of "slide to unlock" when Touch ID is in use, for iPhone 5s users.

Interestingly, there's also a security fix as Apple mentions that the update fixes a bug that could allow someone to bypass the Lock screen passcode.

LG reveals its curved display smartphone

Credit : Cnet

LG's much-rumored G Flex will feature a 6-inch 720p curved display, according to specifications released Sunday by the company.

The phone, which uses flexible OLED screen technology to allow for a dramatic curve on the horizontal axis, is between 7.9 and 8.7mm thick at various points and weighs 177g. Inside there's a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera, and a 3,500 mAh battery.

A "dual window" mode allows the screen to be divided to accommodate multitasking and a "swing lock screen" changes the appearance of the handset's wallpaper in relation to how the device is being held and presents different unlock touch effects based on the position of the user's finger.

Comparing one of the handset's features to superhero Wolverine's ability to regenerate tissue cells to heal his wounds, LG said its smartphone will also have a "self-healing" scratch-resistant film applied to its back cover that the company promises will remove light scratches "within minutes."

The G Flex is coming to all three major carriers in LG's home nation next month, there aren't any details of an international release.

Google stock crosses $1000 mark

Credit : Reuters

(Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O) shares jumped past $1,000 on Friday as investors bet on the Internet company's continued dominance of the mobile and video advertising businesses despite aggressive competition from Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O).

Shortly after the markets opened Friday, Google Inc. shares jumped 14 percent to $1,015.46 and closed a day heavy trading at $1,011.41. The gains marked Google’s biggest one-day jump in more than five years.

At the $1,000 mark, Google shares were up 41% from the beginning of the year, and the company's market value reached $334 billion, still shy of leader Apple's $461 billion.

The company’s next big update could come in the form of Android 4.4 KitKat and the Nexus 5, which are expected any day now.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition

Last year’s Galaxy Note 10.1 promised to finally bring all the stylus power of Samsung’s Note smartphones to a big-screen tablet, but its upsides were utterly defeated by the device’s crippling performance issues. Samsung is back with a new and improved 10.1 that aims to win with its screen and new S Pen features.

Samsung has greatly improved upon many of the original's shortcomings; it even added more storage space! Unfortunately, though, Samsung also boosted the base price by $50 as a result. Sporting a 10.1-inch display, measured diagonally, the Note tablet goes on sale in the U.S. on Thursday at a starting price of $550.

Samsung also added a touch of elegance to the back of the device by swapping out the standard glossy plastic back,here, we have a soft, textured "leather-like" material that's meant to resemble a leather book cover.

The Note 10.1 sports a beautiful WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600) TFT LCD panel, which is precisely the resolution bump we wanted to see in last year's unit, and under the hood there is an octa-core Samsung chip clocked at 1.9GHz, and an impressive 3GB of RAM. The Note 10.1 2014 features an 8-megapixel main and a 2-megapixel front cameras. It will arrive in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models.

The first of the multitasking features, called Multi-Window, has been available in Samsung devices for about a year, but it works with many more apps now. You can run two apps side by side, such as Facebook on one side and YouTube video on the other.You can change how much of the screen each one takes, a capability coming with Windows 8.1, but you can't choose to have a window take up just the top left corner, the way you can on PCs. In addition, Multi-Window isn't a universal feature. You currently have about 18 apps to choose from, including Facebook and a variety of Google and Samsung apps.

Credit : The Verge

At the center of the S Pen experience, on both the 10.1 and the Note 3, is a new widget called Air Command that gathers together a bunch of tools designed specifically for the stylus. The Air Command widget automatically appears when you remove the pen from its holster, or it can be invoked at any time by holding the pen near the screen and clicking its one button. The semi-circular popup provides quick access to five S Pen tools: Action Memo, Scrap Booker, Screen Writer, S Finder, and Pen Window.

Removing the stylus from its slot will start the Air Command feature, which allows users to quickly access features such as Action Memo, Scrapbook and S Finder.

For a pen-enabled tablet, it's not geared toward pen users, with its high price and sluggish performance, the $549.99 Note 10.1 feels old and clunky; it’s certainly not worth the price when the iPad costs $499 and the Nexus 10 $399.

Here's how Nokia's 41-Megapixel Smartphone Works!

The Finnish company has released a comprehensive introduction to technology used inside Nokia’s new flagship Lumia 1020.  The company claims it has features only found in SLR cameras, giving you an idea of how advanced Nokia’s system is.

First, the sensor size is 1/1.5-inch (up to five times larger than typical smartphone sensors), 41-megapixel, with both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios. The lens itself uses a system of six lenses (five molded high performance plastic elements, one high precision glass element), f/2.2, mechanical shutter and new optical image stabilization tech.

Additionally, Nokia has developed new image processing and pixel oversampling tech specifically for the 1020, along with new algorithms for auto-exposure, auto-focus and auto-white-balance for better image quality. There’s also a Xenon flash onboard for more evenly dispersed flash shots.

Through a combination of oversampling and high resolution zoom, the Lumia 1020 is able to utilize a dual capture method that produces quality yet unseen in the smartphone market. Nokia explains that the 41-megapixel sensor is able to capture 34-megapixel and 38-megapixel images at 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios, respectively. At the very same time, the device captures a 5-megapixel oversampled image, which uses data from up to seven pixels of the sensor.

With those capabilities, the large sensor ensures no drop in quality for the 5-megapixel image when zoomed. “In other words, the high resolution image is lossless,” Nokia said. “At maximum zoom, the Lumia 1020 system behaves more like a traditional camera, but there are still some advantages: as only the center part of the optics is used, the optical and geometric distortions are minimal and vignetting is negligible.”

Triumph's India debut on November 28

Triumph has confirmed in a press release that it would be entering the Indian two-wheeler market on November 28, 2013. The British motorcycle manufacturer had generated a lot of curiosity among the performance deprived bikers in the country with its mouth watering pricing back at the 2012 Auto Expo in January when it first showcased its bikes for the Indian market. Given the rise in Dollar rates and other factors it seems that Triumph would not be able to stick to the original pricing, which it had announced at the 2012 Auto Expo.

It is almost certain that the iconic Bonneville, Street /Speed Triple, Daytona 675, adventure bike Tiger 800 XC and the flagship Rocket III would make its way to our shores.

Triumph is also developing a India-specific model which could also be exported to other Asian markets like the KTM Duke 390 and the up-coming Harley-Davidson 500cc bike.