Samsung Gear S Smart watch Now Available via Retail Stores in India
While Samsung is still taking online pre-orders for its 'forthcoming' Tizen-based Gear S smartwatch via its online store in India, NDTV Gadgets has learnt that the smartwatch is already available in stores.
Update: Notably, the Gear S smartwatch has now been listed with price on the Samsung India online store, at Rs. 27,900 - but is not yet available to buy.
Earlier this week, Samsung started taking pre-orders for Gear S with a booking amount of Rs. 1,000, but it did not include availability details. Samsung's online India store still lists the Gear S as a 'forthcoming' product which has an expected delivery time of 5 to 7 working days once it becomes available.
The South Korean giant had first unveiled Gear S smartwatch ahead of IFA 2014. The firm last month announced the Gear S in India will sport a Rs. 29,500 (MRP) price tag, and an estimated market operating price of Rs. 28,900.
The Samsung Gear S allows users to make and receive calls via 2G or 3G, and also offers Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi connectivity. It has a separate slot for a SIM card on the back panel along with the heart rate sensor and four pogo pins.
Samsung says the smartwatch will always remain connected, and can also switch between multiple networks to stay synchronised with the paired smartphone. However, to be precise, the Gear S smartwatch is not truly standalone, as it requires one of 20 Samsung smartphones during initial setup, and to download apps.
The Gear S features a 2-inch curved Super AMOLED display with a 360x480 pixel resolution. A dual-core 1GHz processor with 512MB of RAM powers the Samsung Gear S. It comes with 4GB of inbuilt storage and is backed by a 300mAh Li-ion battery, rated to deliver 2 days of charge with typical usage.
The new iPhones reached Indian markets recently and there's definitely a lot to like about them. In many ways iOS is starting to resemble like Android, with like extensions and third-party keyboards, while Android is looking to close the gap on iOS in terms of design with the new Material Design philosophy.
Though the two system are starting to resemble each other, Android's famously "open" ecosystem still gives many more options in terms of the kind of apps that are possible on the platform. Here are a few things you still can't do on iOS devices.
1. Smarten up your home screen One of the big differences between iOS and Android is how customisable the latter is. You can install a launcher that replaces your home screen, and there are a number of different reasons to do this too. An app like Nova Launcher lets you customise almost all the elements of your home screen, such as the size of the grid, the number of icons in the dock, adding widgets to the dock and much more. Others, like Yahoo Aviate andEverythingMe customise your homescreen to show you the apps that you need, before you even know you need them.
2. Automate everything On the iPhone, you can install IFTTT and automate some of the functions on your phone. It's pretty neat but also fairly limited. If you want to do more though, then you should check out Android apps like Tasker and Llama. Tasker is a paid app, but Llama is free - both are powerful automation tools. You can set up a geofence to turn your phone's Wi-Fi on when you're near your home or office, and keep it off the rest of the time to conserve battery. And you could disable the password when your phone is connected to the home Wi-Fi, for easy access, but re-enable it when you're outdoors, so your phone is never unlocked when you're not at home. Give it access to your calendar and you can have it keep quiet in meetings, and using your location it can automatically go silent when you're inside a cinema hall.
3. Make calls easier We lose sight of the fact that our phones are still used to make calls. But calling someone from an iPhone still means either searching through your contacts, or dialling a number from memory. Android phone makers usually put their own diallers which have different features, but you can also turn to apps like Dialer+ and Ready Contact List to add functionality. With Dialer+, for example, you get a T9 dialer so you can use the same keypad to either enter a contact's name or phone number, and it searches your contacts and shows matches while you dial.
4. Smarter SMS Along with calls, your SMS service can also be customised completely by Android apps. For example, Hello SMS comes with features like an automatic night mode where the screen switches to white text on a black background, tabbed view to quickly see messages from different senders, and automatically switching to instant-messaging over the Internet when connecting to another person who uses Hello.Messages+ from the same company that makes Dialer+, is an excellent SMS replacement app too. You can send free IMs to other Messages+ users, and it also integrates with WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, so you can see people's updates all in one place.
India Against Spam sounds like a political slogan, but this cool app is actually super handy if you're getting bugged by too many ads over SMS or calls. Authorities are cracking down on DND offenders, but it's still cumbersome to type out a complaint every time. India Against Spam gives you a one-touch option to do the same thing.
5. Download Torrents There are a lot of different legal torrents available, through which you can download software or free media. Downloading these torrents on an iPhone isn't possible though - you'll have to use a workaround such as using a webapp or Dropbox to trigger your desktop torrent software via a 'watch' folder. If you're an Android user though, the download can take place right on your phone, with the official BitTorrent app on Google Play. The popular movie torrent service Popcorn Time is also available for Android users - and the simple interface makes it particularly well suited to use on a mobile device.
6. A full-fledged media centre There are a lot of great media player available for smartphones and tablets but if you're looking for a full featured media centre that can manage your playlists, download metadata, subtitles and lyrics, load streams from a number of sources (both legal and otherwise) and make sharing your media simple, then nothing comes close to XBMC. And unless you've jailbroken your iPhone, you're not getting it. Android users can side=load the official XBMC app, or they can install TVMC instead. TVMC is XBMC with a lot of the settings and additional streams already downloaded - so you don't have to figure out how to use repositories and add-ons.
7. Fully enjoy Google Now Apple users aren't cut off from Google Now - you just have to launch the Google app to see your cards and recommendations, but Android users get to enjoy the full benefits. Google Now is one of the most compelling - some might say creepy - things about Google's services, and it's amazing how useful it can get over time, popping up cards as and when you need them. Integrate with Android Wear for even more effective use. Other fully-functional virtual assistants like Shifu are also only possible on Android.
8. Manage files With iOS 8, Apple introduced iCloud Drive, that lets apps share files with each other. But there's still no way to browse the files stored on your local device. On Android, using the default file manager can be fairly confusing, but thanks to apps like ES File Explorer you can find everything with a simple swipe. ES File Explorer is our favourite file management app, and aside from the basic functions of browsing and editing the contents of your storage, it also lets you see all the media or documents in one place, making it easy to keep track of your data.
9. Control your phone from your PC Apps like AirDroid and Pushbullet make it simple to have your different devices working together. You can share files, pictures and more between devices, install apps on your phone from your desktop, send SMS messages from your computer, or share clipboards across devices. Apple users can experience this with the new Continuity features in iOS 8, but you need to be locked into multiple Apple devices for that to work.
These are our favourite Android-only apps - if you know of Android apps, or if you use some essential iPhone apps that Android users are missing out on, let us know via the comments.
Why You May Have to Pay More for Your Calls and Mobile Data
Industry body COAI has said mobile tariffs may go up soon as telecom operators are expected to pass on to customers the burden of spectrum cost they will incur in the upcoming auction.
The auction of airwaves is likely to be conducted in February next year.
"Definitely there will be an upward pressure on tariffs as the debt burden of telecom players will increase post auctions, they have to pass on the cost to customers," COAI director general Rajan S Mathews told PTI.
He said operators have to pay around Rs. 40,000 crore for the spectrum even if the airwaves would be sold at reserve price in 900MHz and 1800MHz bands.
"From where the money will come? Banks are also unwilling to lend to telecom operators due to high debt burden. Also the telcos have to spend on network infrastructure. So, after paying such huge amount for spectrum only, they have to pass the burden to customers," Mr Mathews said.
Telecom sector regulator Trai had suggested a 10 per cent higher base price for the next round of spectrum auction in the 1800MHz band.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended a price of Rs. 2,138 crore per MHz for the 1800MHz band and Rs. 3,004 crore per MHz for the premium 900MHz band.
The spectrum auction will be conducted for radiowaves in 900MHz held by existing telecom operators Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications through their licences that are expiring in 2015-16.
In the 900MHz band, about 184MHz of spectrum is likely to be auctioned. In 1800MHz, government has proposed to auction 104MHz of spectrum which included spectrum held by licences that are expiring in 2015-16 and unsold airwaves in February auction.
Telecom operators have been cutting back on freebies and discounted minutes to maintain profitability. Analysts say this trend may continue as they have to pay for the fresh spectrum purchases.
After the last auction held in February this year, Vodafone India CEO Marten Pieters had said the telecom industry in India has reached a point where the tariffs need to increase every year to sustain itself.
The February 2014 auctions fetched about Rs. 62,162 crore.
Google Wants Inbox to Be Your Email System for the Next Decade
Two years ago, a team of engineers and designers on Google's Gmail team decided that Gmail wasn't cutting it.
Google's signature email program first hit the Web in 2004. In its earliest days, it was a godsend to everyone who battled against a daily rush of messages.
But email has once again become too onerous. There's too much mail and it performs too many functions in our lives. Email is a place for correspondence, for status alerts from social networks and online stores and airlines, and a file system for transferring and storing important documents. For many people it's also a to-do list and quasi-calendar, the central planner and task manager for your day. And though it is tremendously useful and will never die, email is also, for many people, completely annoying.
So the Gmail team decided to rethink email. "We decided, 'What if we cleared our minds, started fresh, and built something new to help people get back to what mattered to them?'" said Alex Gawley, Gmail's product director, in an interview at Google's headquarters. "What if we did more of the work for them?"
The program that Mr. Gawley and his team have come up with is Inbox, and Google on Wednesday plans to release a version for Android, iOS devices and the web on an invitation-only basis. Inbox isn't an upgrade to Gmail. It's a long-term replacement for it. Though Gmail isn't going anywhere - Inbox's creators stressed that they love Gmail and that Google plans to keep working on it - Inbox is meant to be your email system for the next decade. You'll sign into Inbox with your Gmail account and you'll see all your old messages there, and much of what you do in Inbox will be reflected in Gmail. But Google expects most people to use Inbox or Gmail, not both. In fact, both Mr. Gawley and Jason Cornwell, Gmail's lead designer, say they get their mail through Inbox, not Gmail.
Google's Inbox replaces email's familiar main screen with more thoughtfully designed previews of messages that share the overall aesthetic of a social-networking feed.Credit
Google showed me an in-depth demo of Inbox, but I wasn't given a chance to use it on my own email. What I saw of it looked interesting. Inbox replaces email's familiar main screen - a list of subject lines and senders - with more thoughtfully designed previews of messages that share the overall aesthetic of a social-networking feed. When your friend sends you some photos, you see the pictures right on the main screen, and you can flip through and dismiss them without going into the message.
The iOS version of Google's new Inbox app, which integrates social and to-do list functionality with email. Credit Inbox also relies on Google's data-mining prowess to improve these highlights. For instance, instead of showing you a message from your airline about your flight, it shows you real-time information about that flight gathered from the web. When you click on the highlight, you can always see the underlying message, but if the software does its job well, you won't have to click on the message.
Finally, Inbox functions as a to-do list. You can create tasks and reminders that appear in your inbox alongside your messages. The tasks are super smart, pulling in relevant data to make them useful. If you type "call my dentist," it might populate the task with your dentist's phone number and only her office hours.
Some of these features aren't completely novel. Inbox requires a series of gestures to navigate and sort your messages, a system that feels similar to that of Mailbox, an email start-up that was bought by Dropbox. (Box names are popular in Silicon Valley.) It also automatically categorizes some of your email in a way that Gmail and Outlook already do.
Overall, though, there's enough that's new in Inbox that I'm eager to give it a long-term whirl. I'll report back if it improves how I deal with my messages, or if it's just another gloss on a eternal tech problem.
Why the Avengers 2 Trailer Has Us Worried for Captain America
When news broke that the official trailer for the Avengers 2: Age of Ultron would air with the next episode of Agents of SHIELD, everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before it was leaked. That's exactly what happened on Thursday, and Marvel reacted in the smartest way possible, by releasing an official HD version of the trailer, and even making a small joke at its own expense, as you can see in the tweet below:
The trailer looks interesting - it's much moodier than the trailer for the first Avengers, and there are some moments from the video that really caught our eye. Even though Ultron is a commanding presence, it's the all-too short fight scene between Iron Man and Hulk that is making the fans go wow. Take a look at the trailer below, and then let's talk about how this connects with what we know about the next Captain America movie.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been divided into "phases", and phase one was all about establishing the universe. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America all set up the terms of the shared universe and established the characters, before Marvel gave us the big climax with The Avengers.
Phase two of the movies has been generally darker in tone - Iron Man 3 dealt with Tony Stark's PTSD, while Thor: The Dark World killed off a lot of major characters and made the ridiculously cheerful Thor cope with loss. As for Captain America: Winter Soldier, the movie shook up the film universe and took away Shield as a powerful institutional authority - something that had been very important to Captain America/ Steve Rogers.
Phase two will end with the Age of Ultron, but we've already gotten a few hints about what to expect from the next Captain America movie. Last week it was reported that Iron Man will be a big part of the next Captain America movie, to kick off the Civil War storyline.
Civil War was a big comic book "event" storyline that involved a massive crossover with heroes fighting heroes and the occasional villains in there wondering what the heck was going on, and from what we can see in the Age of Ultron trailer, it's doing a solid job of setting that up.
When you look at the trailer that was released, you can see that the Avengers are back with Nick Fury and it seems like they're on the offensive against Hydra now. From what we've seen so far, Tony Stark creates the robot Ultron to help them in this fight, but something clearly goes wrong, as you can see in the shot where it looms over everyone and growls, "there are no strings on me."
Incidentally, if you were wondering about the music in the trailer, it's a creepy, slowed-down version of this song from Disney's Pinnochio.
Phase three looks like it's going to lead to the end of the Avengers as we know them - this ties in with many of the actors, particularly Chris Evans (Captain America) talking about how they are fatigued with the roles and want to take a break - and the formation of a fresh team with new Avengers.
That's where Civil War comes in - a superhero team gets involved in a fight that leads to a lot of civilian casualties, while the Hulk/ Bruce Banner goes on a rampage in LA. The US government decides that these living weapons of mass destruction need to make their identities public, and be registered with the government.
The superheroes fall into two camps - those who support this idea, and the ones who stand against it, and pretty quickly, the two groups end up in all-out war. What is interesting is the people who are backing each side - the US government side is being backed by Tony Stark, while Captain America is on the anti-registration side. This event tears up the Avengers as we know them, and leads to Captain America forming a new superhero team called the Secret Avengers. The aftermath of this event is the death of Captain America, and Bucky Barnes - the Winter Soldier - taking up Captain America's mantle.
Coming back to the trailer for Age of Ultron, there are some interesting moments that show how all this is lining up. In the video, you can see Captain America's shield split in two.
This shield is made using an alloy called Vibranium, and it's basically supposed to be indestructible. In the first Avengers movie, we saw it take a hit from Thor's hammer Mjolnir - and here it's broken, probably by Ultron, Iron Man's creation.
This ties in with the fight we do see between Iron Man and the Hulk. We get a look at the famous Hulkbuster armour, created by Tony Stark specifically to fight the Hulk if he ever goes out of control. It's a really cool clip that shows us how powerful the Hulk really is - Stark's new armour looks like a tank, and the Hulk is seen holding his own against it.
But it also tells us something about Iron Man - this is someone who is always thinking of the angles, and even if you're his friend, he's thinking of how to take you down if need be. In the movies, we see Tony Stark bond with Bruce Banner in the Avengers, and Iron Man 3 is framed as a flashback where Stark is telling Banner what happened with the Mandarin and Extremis. And yet, even though they're friends and they're bonding, Stark has built an Iron Man suit to take out the Hulk if needed.
And he's probably thought about how to take out Captain America as well - the fact that the shield was shattered wasn't just symbolic, it also shows us that Ultron can break the vibranium. This is almost certainly something that Stark has thought of, should he need to fight Captain America.
It's hard to say how Marvel's phase three will end. It might focus on the Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos, as teased by the end of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, but based on the rumours and what we've seen, Civil Wars seems more likely. And if that's the case, then it might be time to say our goodbyes to Steve Rogers. Because that broken shield from the Age of Ultron trailer makes us believe that Iron Man already has a plan in place to take out Captain America.
Creator of the modular smartphone Phonebloks is stepping into the wearable market with a customization, modular smart watch called Blocks.
AndPhonebloks, now an independent organisation focused on the reduction of electronic waste, wants to bring it to wear
The beautiful thing about a PC is that it can be customised for your needs. You need better graphics capabilities? You can upgrade your video card. Running out of memory? You can install some more. Heck, you could gut the entire case and fill it with entirely new components if you wanted.
With the ubiquity of mobile devices now, it would seem that that level of customisability would be very useful -- which is what designer Dave Hakkens hoped to introduce with Phonebloks, a modular phone concept that has since been bought and is being developed by Google Motorola as Project Ara.
And Phonebloks, now an independent organisation focused on the reduction of electronic waste, wants to bring it to wearables, too: it has created Blocks, a modular smartwatch with mix-and-match features.
"Wearable devices are very personal devices, so naturally being able to customise yours would be amazing, as you could make it unique to your own lifestyle! Also, because smartwatch technology is so new, there are new versions of products being released every few months, so the sustainability angle that modularity brings would also be a huge plus," wrote designer Hakeem Javaid on the Phonebloks blog.
"After months of research, we finally managed to prove our modular concept in one weekend. Not a normal weekend due to the extreme lack of sleep, but time well spent on proving it worked. We had built simple display, processor, motion sensor and temperature sensor blocks, and we could connect them in any combination we liked."
Proposed modules include rectangular and circular touchscreen faces; an E Ink face, a la Pebble; microphone; motion sensor; gesture control; GPS; heart monitor; blood oxygen monitor; environment sensor; fingerprint scanner; audio jack; camera; extra battery; concealed USB stick; NFC chip for contactless payments; flashlight; programmable button; SIM port; and kinetic charging.
Phonebloks
Each of the modules will also have removable covers, meaning that you can customise the look, as well as the functionality, of your device -- and you could even swap out which modules the watch contains on a daily basis if you needed to. As for where these modules all fit, they make up the links of the bracelet.
"Over the past 8 months we've been working non-stop on our next prototype, and we decided to take part in Intel's Make It Wearable challenge. Out of 400+ applicants, we ended up as one of the top 10 finalists. Not only did that bring us $50,000 funding from Intel, but also provided us with their latest processors!" Javaid said.
"Having gone very far with the hardware and design of Blocks, we're now focusing more on the software side. We're currently aiming to base our OS on Samsung and Intel's Tizen OS, and are working towards supporting Android, iOS and Windows Phone."
Blocks will enter a crowdfunding phase in Q2 of next year, with pricing yet to be announced. The watch will ship, Phonebloks says, towards the end of 2015.
Samsung has quietly revealed the dual-SIM variant of the GalaxyNote 4 in China.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Duos is now listed on the company's China site and is currently available in three variants - SM-N9109W for China Telecom; SM-N9106W for China Unicom, and the SIM-free (unlocked) SM-N9108V.
Sammobile reports that the unlocked version of the Galaxy Note 4 Duos is priced at CNY 5,199 (Rs. 52,000 approximately) and is compatible with 4G LTE networks on most carriers. Unfortunately, the pricing details of the Galaxy Note 4 Duos SM-N9109W and SM-N9106W variants are not available.
The report also suggests that the first SIM card slot of all three variants of the Galaxy Note 4 Duos supports 4G over TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE networks, while the second SIM supports just 2G networks.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Duos listing features few specifications, but Sammobile notes the smartphone comes with slightly different innards from the original Galaxy Note 4. Apart from dual-SIM support, the Galaxy Note 4 Duos comes with 16GB built-in storage compared to 32GB inbuilt storage on the original variant, and is also backed by a 3000mAh battery instead of the 3220mAh battery on the Galaxy Note 4.
The Galaxy Note 4 Duos is powered by a 2.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor. The rest of the specifications of the Galaxy Note 4 Duos are thought to be the same as the original Galaxy Note 4.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 runs Android 4 .4 KitKat, and features a 5.7-inch Quad-HD (1440x2560 pixel) Super Amoled display with a pixel density of 515ppi. The Galaxy Note 4 comes in two versions based on chipsets - 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor and a 1.9GHz octa-core (1.9GHz quad-core + 1.3GHz quad-core) Samsung processor. It comes with 3GB of RAM.
The Galaxy Note 4 features a 16-megapixel autofocus rear camera with Smart OIS, and a 3.7-megapixel front-facing camera with an f/1.9 lens. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS/ Glonass, NFC, Bluetooth v4.0, IR LED, USB 2.0, and MHL 3.0. The Galaxy Note 4 features an accelerometer, geo-magnetic sensor, gyroscope, RGB, IR-LED, proximity, barometer, hall sensor, finger scanner, UV, heart rate monitor.
Considering the official listing of the Galaxy Note 4 Duos, the handset also seems to feature Adaptive Fast Charging that according to the company charges from 0 to 50 percent in 30 minutes.
Recently, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 wenton sale in India priced at an MRP of Rs. 61,500, and a market operating price between Rs. 58,300 and Rs. 58,500. Interestingly, the Galaxy Note 4 was available to buy in India the sameday as Apple's iPhone6 Plus
