Xolo has quietly introduced two new Android smartphones – Xolo Q600s and Xolo Q1200. Both the smartphones are available on e-commerce website Snapdeal for Rs. 7,499 and Rs. 14,999 respectively.
First up is the Xolo Q600s. It supports dual-SIM (GSM GSM) and has a 4.5-inch qHD OGS IPS display. The smartphone sports a 5MP rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera. It comes with 4GB built-in storage, expandable up to 64GB.
The Xolo Q600s runs Android 4.4 KitKat and is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Broadcom processor along with 1GB of RAM. Connectivity options include GPRS, 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It is powered by a 2000 mAh battery. You can check out the Xolo Q600s listing here.
The Xolo Q1200 has a 5-inch IPS display with 960 x 540 pixels resolution. It runs Android 4.2 upgradable to v4.4 KitKat and is powered by a 1.3 GHz Quad Core Processor along with 1GB of RAM.
It has an 8MP rear camera with Dual LED Flash, Sony Exmor R sensor and a 2MP front-facing camera. The smartphone comes with 8GB of built-in storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD. Connectivity options include 3G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB OTG. A 2000 mAh battery powers the device.
A high-end Android phone with a 10x optical zoom camera, the Galaxy K Zoom hopes to send your compact to the scrapheap.
If you regularly leave home laden with a phone and a camera, the Galaxy K Zoom demands your attention.
This mash-up of a smartphone and snapper combines the high-end specs and build quality of the Samsung Galaxy series with a retractable 10x optical zoom lens. In return though, it demands a lot more space in your pocket.
So is it the perfect phone for the photo-crazy, or just another example of convergence gone mad?
THE BIG PICTURE
Your first impressions of the K Zoom will be dominated by its size. We're used to large screens, and the dimensions of the 4.8in display are no problem at all. It's the thickness of the phone that's striking.
With the lens fully retracted it's 20.2mm from front to back, which is about two and half times thicker than a Galaxy S5. While we were out and about taking some test photos a passer-by commented "Wow! Is that a phone?"
It's also heavy: 200g, compared to the 145g mass of an S5. The increase in size and weight is all down to the camera lens of course, and once you've seen how far it extends at full zoom, you'll end up impressed by how well it manages to squash back down into the main body.
QUALITY CONTROL
The good news is that the camera is impressive - for a phone. You could pick up a very capable, very small compact camera with a 10x optical zoom for about £130, so we tested the Galaxy K Zoom's snapper directly against the Nikon Coolpix S6700. It turned out to be a very close contest. The Nikon sometimes found more detail where the Samsung was inclined to fill pixels with noise and smudges, but the Samsung was generally faster to focus and shoot. Then again, the Nikon was quicker to start up.
The dedicated controls of the Nikon make it a lot easier to use. Because of the touchscreen and Android softkeys on the Samsung, it's easy to accidentally turn it on, off, exit the camera app or launch some other app when all you want to do is shoot. At the risk of running out of hypothetical extremities, on the other hand, the Samsung's connected nature makes it incredibly easy to edit and share photos directly from the phone. So purely as a camera, the Nikon wins, but of course the Samsung is a lot more than just a camera.
HOW MANY TIMES IS 10X?
That zoom is very useful, especially if you're taking pictures outdoors or at large events, or if you want more control over depth-of-field effects. The difference between what you can frame at the wideangle setting and at 10x zoom is major. Check out this side-by-side example to get an idea of how much closer it gets you.
Controlling the zoom is done either by an onscreen pinch or slider, which feels quite precarious when you're trying to frame a shot, or with the hardware volume controls on the side of the phone. This allows you to keep a firm grip, although the midpoint of the rocker switch isn't well defined, so it can be a little unresponsive. There's also a dedicated shutter button below your right index finger which can be used as an alternative to the onscreen icon.
It was inevitable: After years of highs and then a plateau, digital music sales saw their first decrease in 2013. Last year, digital song purchases dropped almost six percent according to a Billboard report,
while digital album sales dropped 0.1 percent. Compact discs continued
their downward spiral as well, and took a 14.5 percent loss. On the flip
side, pure analog music (read: vinyl)
showed an increase of 31.9 percent -- representing a full two percent
of music sales. Until Nielsen's SoundScan report for streaming hits,
however, we won't know how much of an impact the likes of Spotify or
Rdio are having on purchases. We have a hunch it'll be rather telling.
[Image credit: karola riegler photography/Flickr ]
Asus Transformer Pad TF701T review Asus has added a 2560 x 1600 display and Tegra 4 grunt to its flagship slate – but is this keyboard-equipped tablet a racing stallion or a plodding workhorse?
Asus has carved out quite the niche for itself with its Transformer range of tablets, which offered users raw power, an honest-to-goodness physical keyboard, a massively extended battery life and, mercifully, a full-fat USB port.
The Transformer Prime was the first device that challenged the notion that tablets were consumption-only devices, and Asus’s Transformer Pad Infinity which built upon the Prime’s foundations took Asus’ hybrid vision further.
Can the all-new Transformer Pad TF701T (we’ll drop the random letters and numbers now, don’t worry) offer enough to tempt both existing Transformer users and newcomers alike? Let’s find out…
DESIGN AND BUILD: SUDDENLY, PLASTIC EVERYWHERE
In design terms, at least, the TF701 is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary – it sports the same premium-feeling, solid build with an aluminium spun-circle finish round the back, along with a plastic strip for better Wi-Fi and GPS connectivity. Unlike the Transformer Pad Infinity, the plastic actually looks like it's a conscious design decision, rather than a hastily cobbled-together fix for the Transformer Prime's issues.
Round the front, its 10.1 display is surrounded by a rather chunky bezel – especially when compared to the iPad Air's slender effort – and that makes the Transformer Pad look a little dated.
Once again, Asus has shuffled the arrangement of the physical controls. The volume controls now sit on the back top-left and it's a more natural-feeling position for them.
The array of micro-HDMI, microSD and 3.5mm headphone ports sit on the left hand side of the tablet - in the same location as on the Infinity, though the microphone has moved to the top left of the tablet. That's probably a good thing too as you're less likely to cover it up with your palm and muffle your words.
Irritatingly, Asus has changed the proprietary charging port on the Transformer Pad – meaning you won’t be able to use the same cable if you’re an existing Transformer Infinity owner.
DISPLAY: BIG, BRIGHT AND BOLD
The Transformer Pad sports a whopping 10.1in, 2560 x 1600 display, yielding up 299 ppi – that’s a higher pixel count and on a bigger screen size than the new iPad Air's 2048 x 1536 Retina display. Clever stuff.
It’s impressive given that it packs the same amount of pixels as a high-end 30in montitor into a far smaller space – and next to the Transformer Pad Infinity, the Pad’s display veritably massages your peepers with scented oils.
Text appears much sharper, while colour reproduction is close to that of the Infinity. As with the Prime and the Infinity, the display also has a super-bright mode for outdoor use, which is very handy for rendering text readable in direct sunlight.
What you choose to view on the Transformer Pad's super hi-res screen is up to you. Low-res, non-optimised apps won't exactly benefit but Full HD movies and hi-res images will look beautiful as will e-books, though be warned the 16:9 screen is a bit awkward in portrait.
POWER: TEGRA 4 KEEPS THINGS TICKING ALONG
The Transformer Pad has received a substantial, not to mention very welcome spec boost over its predecessors.
It crams in a quad-core Tegra 4 processor along with 2GB RAM, and although that's less than the 3GB found in the Galaxy Note 10.1, Nvidia's silicon keeps Android whizzing along with ease.
This performance boost is a huge relief. The Transformer Prime and Infinity’s Tegra 3 processor always stumbled when dealing with processor-intensive tasks or even relatively simple ones like opening web pages.
The Transformer Pad, by contrast, is a breeze to use, zipping through web pages, graphically-intensive games like Real Racing 3 and word processor apps without a hitch. This is the way it was meant to be and we’re glad that the Transformer series finally has the power it deserves.
KEYBOARD DOCK: PREPARE FOR DOCKING
The standout feature of the Transformer line is, of course, its keyboard dock, which comes complete with full-size SD card and USB 3.0 slots as well as a multi-touch trackpad. This time around it's been rendered in plastic – a cost-saving measure, which keeps the price of the tablet down to £430 (the Infinity launched at £600 for the 64GB model). The fact that it isn't available to pick up without the dock suggests that an affordable all-in price was clearly a priority for Asus.
In some ways the plastic build is a shame – it means that the Transformer Pad is substantially bulkier than the Infinity, and the combination of the tablet’s metal body and plastic strip, and the plastic dock, make it feel slightly bitty. But the dock's finish matches up pretty well with the metal used on the tablet, and it's certainly more durable than the notoriously scratchable aluminium finish.
Not only that, but we found that the plastic offered extra grip on our palms which slipped around less when typing over long periods of time compared to the old metal keyboard dock. And you can pretend you’re a DJ – running your nails along the bottom of the Pad’s plastic texture keyboard dock makes a pretty convincing vinyl scratching sound. Ahem.
The hinge has a bit more give in it than that of the Infinity and feels a little too loose for our liking, though this might have been a conscious decision to make it easier to open. Still, it's not what we expect to see in a premium device and a stiffer hinge would be nice.
However, the docked tablet is less top-heavy than the previous Transformer and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to tip over at the slightest provocation. Typing on a busy train carriage with the Transformer Pad on our laps was a more comfortable experience but one that needed the odd bit of hand support. As much fun as a game of 'will the expensive shiny thing tip over at the next stop?' sounds, we’d rather avoid our £430 tablet smashing into a commuter-trodden floor.
We also found that we typed faster on the Tab than on the Infinity; there's less friction when moving your ball of your hand across the plastic dock than the metal one. Plus – and it's a small detail, this – the plastic is less chilly under the palms than the metal. Whether you prefer the plastic or the metal dock is going to come down to personal preference, but it’s certainly not a step down in build quality – just a different material.
CAMERA: FUNCTIONAL IS THE WORD
Asus’ tablets have never been known for their cameras, and the Pad is no exception. Its 5MP camera is functional rather than impressive while round the front there’s a 1.2MP camera for 720p Skype chats.
We try not to condone using tablets to snap photos, but if you absolutely must, then the Transformer Pad produces useable (if not excellent) shots in decent lighting.
Lose the light, though, and you’re in a whole world of trouble, thanks to its lack of flash. Then again, if you’re trying to take photos of a night out with a tablet then you’ve got bigger problems.
There’s the usual fare of effects and filters present and a GIF mode which converts 30 shots taken in succession into a gif, which you can then reverse. Unlike devices like that Galaxy Note 3 which also have this feature, you can’t manually select which parts of a scene you want to move/freeze.
OS: ANDROID 4.2.2
Running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, Asus has used a light touch when skinning Android, with a button in the bottom left pinging up a bar with a selection of floating widgets that you can strew across your homescreen. It's a bit of an odd placement; you’re surely more likely to use the back, home and multi-tasking buttons, which have been relegated to a slightly more awkward central position.
It’s worth noting that 10in Android tablets have always been a little underserved by apps – Android’s tablet app ecosystem has never held a candle to that of the iPad, and the runaway success of 7in Android devices has meant that many app developers have prioritised the smaller slates over their big brothers.
Apps like BBC iPlayer have only just been optimised for 10in tablets, while Sky Go still insists – bizarrely – that you watch videos in portrait mode. Then again, there’s a reasonable selection of key apps like Netflix and Kindle, and if you don’t mind the odd stretched-out Android phone app, you’re golden.
BATTERY LIFE: YOU GOT THE TOUCH! YOU GOT THE POWER!
The Transformer Pad packs in a 7,820 mAh battery while the dock tacks on another 4,170mAh’s worth of power which, by Asus' reckoning is 17 hours all-in. The upshot of all this is that the Transformer Pad will run out of juice long after you’ve nodded off on the couch after a hard day’s slog at the office.
Stay tuned for our full video rundown test to see what the beastly combination of the internal and dock battery can really offer in terms of battery life, but for the moment, we have no qualms in high-fiving Asus for giving us a tablet with such stellar longevity.
VERDICT: TABBOOK POTENTIAL REALISED
Previous generations of Asus Transformer tablets felt like beta versions of a brilliant concept – the Prime’s connectivity issues and the Infinity’s slightly underpowered Tegra 3 processor left them struggling to realise the potential of the tabbook form factor.
With the Tab’s ferociously powerful Tegra 4 chipset, it finally seems like that potential has been realised – this is a device that you can work, play and browse content on without feeling like it’s going to hang at any moment.
In terms of raw specs, the Tab is bested by Samsung’s 2014 Galaxy Tab 10.1, but of course, Asus has a very specific customer in mind: people who want to use a tablet with the option of an integrated physical keyboard dock.
Apple’s Tim Cook may rail against competitors “trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs,” but it’s clear that there’s a place in the tablet ecosystem for devices with physical keyboards. If you want a device for work as well as media consumption, the Transformer Pad can’t be beat; with USB 3.0, an array of productivity apps, full Word compatibility, a physical keyboard and a proper file and folder system, it’s a genuine laptop replacement. And its ridiculous battery life means you don’t have to worry about taking it on long trips, either.
Once you’re done with work, it’s plenty powerful enough, and just about portable enough, to go toe-to-toe with the top tier of Android tabs as a gaming and media device, too.
If you can get past its large bezels and slightly hefty weight and are looking for a tablet for work as much as play, then you can’t go wrong with Asus’ best hybrid yet.
Google last week announced a beta service that will offer protection from Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS) to human rights organizations and media, in and effort to slow the amount of censorship that such attacks cause.
The announcement of Project Shield came during a presentation at the Conflict in a Connected World summit in New York. The gathering included security experts, hacktivists, dissidents, and technologists, in order to explore the nature of conflict and how online tools can both be a source of protection and harm when it comes to expression, and information sharing.
Protecting free speech
"As long as people have expressed ideas, others have tried to silence them. Today one out of every three people lives in a society that is severely censored. Online barriers can include everything from filters that block content to targeted attacks designed to take down websites. For many people, these obstacles are more than an inconvenience—they represent full-scale repression," the company explained in a blog post.
Project Shield uses Google's massive infrastructure to absorb DDoS attacks. Enrollment in the service is by invitation only at the moment, but it could be expanded considerable in the future. The service is free, but will follow page speed pricing, should Google open enrollment and charge for it down the line.
However, while the service is sure to help smaller websites, such as those ran by dissidents exposing corrupt regimes, or media speaking out against those in power, Google makes no promises.
"No guarantees are made in regards to uptime or protection levels. Google has designed its infrastructure to defend itself from quite large attacks and this initiative is aimed at providing a similar level of protection to third-party websites," the company explains in a Project Shield outline.
Inviting new types of attacks
One problem Project Shield may inadvertently create is a change in tactics. If the common forms of DDoS attacks are blocked, then more advanced forms of attack will be used. Such an escalation has already happened for high value targets, such as banks and other financial services websites.
"Using Google's infrastructure to absorb DDoS attacks is structurally like using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) and has the same pros and cons," Shuman Ghosemajumder, VP of strategy at Shape Security, told CSO during an interview.
The types of attacks a CDN would solve, he explained, are network-based DoS and DDoS attacks. These are the most common, and the most well-known attack types, as they've been around the longest.
In 2000, flood attacks were in the 400Mb/sec range, but today's attacks scale to regularly exceed 100Gb/sec, according to anti-DDoS vendor Arbor Networks. In 2010, Arbor started to see a trend led by attackers who were advancing DDoS campaigns, by developing new tactics, tools, and targets. What that has led to is a threat that mixes flood, application and infrastructure attacks in a single, blended attack.
"It is unclear how effective [Project Shield] would be against Application Layer DoS attacks, where web servers are flooded with HTTP requests. These represent more leveraged DoS attacks, requiring less infrastructure on the part of the attacker, but are still fairly simplistic. If the DDoS protection provided operates at the application layer, then it could help," Ghosemajumder said.
"What it would not protect against is Advanced Denial of Service attacks, where the attacker uses knowledge of the application to directly attack the origin server, databases, and other backend systems which cannot be protected against by a CDN and similar means."
Google hasn't mentioned directly the number of sites currently being protected by Project Shield, so there is no way to measure the effectiveness of the program form the outside.
In related news, Google also released a second DDoS related tool on Monday, which is possible thanks to data collected by Arbor networks. The Digital Attack Map, as the tool is called, is a monitoring system that allows users to see historical DDoS attack trends, and connect them to related news events on any given day. The data is also shown live, and can be granularly sorted by location, time, and attack type.
Elon Musk Transforming 007 Lotus Esprit Submarine Car
The iconic Lotus Esprit submarine car that featured in the 1977 Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, has been snatched up by no other than Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Elon Musk Transforming 007 Lotus Esprit Submarine Car
Elon Musk Transforming 007 Lotus Esprit Submarine Car
Through Jalopnik he said: “It was amazing as a little kid in South Africa to watch James Bond in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ drive his Lotus Esprit off a pier, press a button and have it transform into a submarine underwater. I was disappointed to learn that it can’t actually transform. What I’m going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real.” Elon Musk Transforming 007 Lotus Esprit Submarine Car Elon Musk has quite a job on his hands, as making an electric submarine that can also drive on land is no mean feat. The engineer team will need to find a way of making the car safely transform from a land car to a sea vessel capable of dealing with salt water. Another challenge will be overcoming the natural downforce created by the Lotus’ bodywork, which sends the vehicle sinking to the sea floor.
However, seeing as this is Elon Musk we’re talking about, aka Tony Stark, perhaps it’s not such a difficult task after all.
So it’s been several weeks now that
everyone’s been complaining about the new Yahoo Mail and how they can’t
find anything, the folders are no longer in plain view and buttons are
missing, not to mention various other glitches.
About a week back, I provided a solution
involving the simple removal of a word in the URL. However, the fix is
only temporary, it disappears once you log out or close the tab and
doesn’t even seem to work for everyone, which may also be an issue
related to the browser they use.
There is another way to get your old Yahoo Mail back. And when I
say “old,” I do mean “old,” since this method will get you to an older,
basic, version of the service and not the one they just retired.
Anyway, getting it back is quite simple if you follow these steps.
In the new Yahoo Mail, click on the gear icon in the top-right corner and choose “Settings” from the menu. Once the new panel appears, go to “Viewing email,” which is the second entry (*check out the screenshot at the beginning of the article).
At the bottom of the page, you can view “Mail Version” where “Full featured” will be enabled and which Yahoo recommends.
Clicking on “Basic”
will take you back to an older version of the service that lacks a lot
of the design features and plainly offers an actually usable email
service.
Once you open up an email in this interface, the
Delete button is right in the top ribbon, as well as Reply and Forward
and other actions are also present, such as moving to a folder or giving
the email a marking. Printing is a bit more difficult and I’d actually
recommend just hitting Ctrl+P rather than clicking the “Full Header
Printable View” button.
This solution might not last forever
since Yahoo has the habit of switching everyone over to the newest
version after a while. Hopefully, it will last long enough for things to
improve.
Micromax Canvas Magnus 12 megapixel camera online price
Micromax Canvas Magnus 12 megapixel camera online price
Micromax Canvas Magnus 12 megapixel camera online price
Micromax is all set to introduce its next mid-range smartphone in India, called the Canvas Magnus. The smartphone is now available for Rs. 14,999 at an ecommerce website, Snapdeal. However, the company is yet to officially unveil the device.The yet-to-be-launched Micromax Canvas Magnus will join the Canvas family, which already includes the Canvas 2, Canvas 2 plus, Canvas Lite, Canvas Music, Canvas 3D, Canvas HD, Canvas 4, Canvas Doodle and Canvas Doodle 2. Micromax Canvas Magnus 12 megapixel camera online price The Micromax Canvas Magnus comes with a 5-inch IPS display with a 720x1280 pixels resolution. It is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor (unspecified chipset) along with 1GB of RAM. The Canvas Magnus is a dual-SIM device with support for GSM+GSM. It features a 12-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and full-HD video recording support, apart from a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and packs a 2000mAh battery. Connectivity options on the device include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS/ AGPS, and 3G. It comes with 4GB of inbuilt storage which is further expandable up to 32GB via microSD card.
Earlier this week, a new rumour claimed to shed some light on the specifications of the teased Canvas Turbo. As per the leaked sketch of the Canvas Turbo, the device is said to come with a 5-inch full-HD display, 13-megapixel camera accompanied by an LED flash, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The leaked sketch further suggested that the smartphone would be dual-SIM, with support for micro-SIM, and the slot on the left panel.
Dwolla is slowly but surely working towards its goal of bypassing the credit card system for consumers and retailers. The online payment system helps people to move their cash around at the click of a mouse or tap of a smartphone button. The two most appealing factors of Dwolla are that users can transfer funds in real time without paying over the odds transaction fees. Now though, the online payment company have gone one step further by offering Dwolla Credit to its customers. Credit Card replacement Dwolla Credit Dwolla Credit is a lot like the financial credit you would expect from any credit card company only no credit card is used. Users will simply have an allotted amount of money available to them which is accessible through Dwolla. Dwolla Credit can be used by consumers to pay for goods in the ecommerce community, B2B or even peer to peer. The additional sum can be used for any reason and paid to any other Dwolla user. The fees will be just as the Dwolla Cash service; no fee for transactions under $10 and a standard fee of $0.25 for anything over.
In order to achieve a trusted, secure credit system that works for everyone, Dwolla has partnered with Alliance Data Systems Corporation (ADS). ADS is a provider of many branded credit card programs and will be using their expertise in this area to conduct all the necessary procedures that you would expect from a credit provider. Users will be assessed and approved in the normal way with ADS setting the credit limit, APR and settling any disputes etc.
Online retailers will be able to choose how they would like to integrate the Dwolla Credit option on their websites through either plug-ins or customized checkout options. To begin with, over 40 businesses who use Dwolla at the moment will go on to utilize the Dwolla Credit system as part of the beta test process. Dwolla expects to roll out the full scale Dwolla Credit to consumers in 2014.
