Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Lumia Cyan update brings more features to Nokia’s Windows Phones

It has been a known fact that Nokia bundles its own software additions onto the Windows Phone build, which we call the device specific firmware. Likewise, Nokia will be releasing the Lumia Cyan update to its devices, to run on top of Windows Phone 8.1. This update brings more Nokia specific features on top of the default Windows Phone experience. After Amber and black, Cyan is the additive experience Nokia continues to provide on its Windows Phone devices. Some of the features added to Nokia’s firmware are enhancements to the Nokia camera app, updates to some photo apps and audio specific features for some devices.

Read more about Windows Phone 8.1

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This is Cortana, Microsoft’s take on Siri and Google Now

Cortana, once popular for being Master Chief’s personal assistant, is now truly digital, as it takes the form of Windows Phone’s own virtual assistant. Cortana is Microsoft’s take on Siri and Google Now, currently the two popular voice assistants for iOS and Android respectively. While Siri took a more personal approach to an assistant, Google took it another way with contextual search and ambient presence, while Cortana is trying to marry the both. Powered by Bing’s neural networks, Cortana literally takes advantage of all the data mined over the search engine’s life time. And not only that, it will learn you like Google Now on actions and like Siri on personal detail, which makes it a decent competitor to Google.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX9P6skzZNU

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Micromax joins the Windows Phone party, devices coming soon

Micromax, one of the top smartphone players in the Indian market, was rumoured to get into the Windows Phone game for a long time. We had expected the name to pop up when Microsoft announced new partners in India like Xolo, Lava and Karbonn, but it didn’t until now, when Microsoft revealed additional two partners, Micromax and Prestigio, at their Build 2014 keynote. Micromax now joins a big list of partners who are committed to bring Windows Phone 8.1 devices into the market. Bringing a seismic change of sorts to the ecosystem, the Windows Phone 8.1 update enables better hardware compatibility, with which a reference device from Qualcomm was developed. Adding on-screen button support and increased chipset compatibility has enabled players like Micromax to join the Windows Phone ecosystem.

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Windows Phone 8.1 is official, brings Cortana and a ton of new features

Microsoft has finally revealed Windows Phone 8.1, the long awaited update to its mobile platform. Packing lots and lots of new features, the operating system finally gets up to speed in several departments. Starting from the action center, the parallax wallpapers to Cortana, the intelligent digital assistant, it would be safe to say that the OS has finally come of age. It may be a little late, but it is definitely not a little minor update, as it brings with it the potential to change the ecosystem of devices it runs on. The update, announced today, will be available for all Windows Phone 8 devices in the coming months, while enthusiasts can get a hold of this update in the first half of April. Besides that, the OS will come pre-installed on all the new Windows Phone devices, including the just announced Nokia Lumia 930 and the Lumia 635 and the Lumia 630 Dual SIM phone.

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Xbox One Smartglass beta previews support for OneGuide and Universal Remote

Xbox One, the latest gaming console from Microsoft, surprised a few by being the first console to have HDMI input for TV, and support for a unified TV channel guide, with voice activated navigation. The voice commands, using the next generation Kinect, might have performed well enough for most, but there is a better way to control the console now. Smartglass, the app that acts as the second screen input for Xbox One, is now in a separate beta channel which lets users preview the new and upcoming features. Amongst the latest features that are going to be added to this app later are support for One Guide, the channel guide that was initially usable only on the console, and a universal remote that can give out commands through the Kinect’s IR blaster.

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Cortana shows up on Bing’s personalization settings ahead of reveal

Cortana, Microsoft’s own take on a virtual personal assistant, is all set to be revealed at the //build/ developer event today in San Francisco. While we still haven’t heard anything straight from Microsoft regarding Cortana yet, it’s own property, Bing, which will power Cortana, now has references to the long awaited assistant. Cortana has been rumoured to be like Apple’s Siri and Google Now combined, with it offering personalized results, recommendations and more, apart from setting your alarms, reminders etc like Siri.

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Phil Spencer will head Xbox, promises increased gaming focus on all Microsoft platforms

The Xbox division at Microsoft was caught in a flux after Don Mattrick, the previous head, left the company for Zynga. Julie-Larson Greene then took over along with other hardware divisions like Surface until she was reassigned to user experience recently. And then Marc Whitten, who was all set to become the head of Xbox, left the company for Sonos, so now, the baton has been passed on to the head of Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, announced this and other changes over a company-wide email, welcoming all the new heads into the senior leadership team. Phil Spencer will be leading the Xbox team responsible for Xbox – the console, Xbox Music & Video and Microsoft Studios.

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Gionee Elife S5.5 Photo Gallery

Gionee had introduced the world’s slimmest Smartphone, the Elife S5.5, to India, at a huge event in Goa today. Powered by a MediaTek Octa Core processor, the Elife S5.5 will sell for a price of Rs. 22,999, but that tiny detail aside, the device is all about design and engineering. The svelte frame, machined at a stunningly thin 5.55 mm of thickness makes the device look really appealing to see as well as touch. Sporting a 5 inch 1080p screen, the device looks like a sleek slab from the front as well as the sides. It’s styled well, with a minimalistic approach to design, and evidences of it being too thin show up, especially with the camera module. The frame itself is an engineering marvel, as we had seen when we went hands on with the phone at the Mobile World Congress event, where it was introduced to the world. Today, we had our chance to have a look at it again, but this time, without the intrusive cables. Skip past the break for some photos of this gorgeous device.

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Gionee Elife E7 Review: Best in class

The Elife E7 is Gionee’s first flagship smartphone that is aimed at the premium high end segment of the market. The device is powered by the powerful Snapdragon 800 processor and sports a seemingly good 16 MP camera, which brings it closer to the likes of other flagships like Nexus 5 and the even the S5 to an extent, but offers a price advantage making it one of the best VFM products out there. But can a newer brand like Gionee instill confidence in the high end consumer, with its hardware and software package? Lets find out in our Gionee Elife E7 Review.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QnwfoiMKo

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Dell Venue 8 Unboxing

We might have reviewed the Dell Venue 8 Pro way ahead of its Indian reveal, but the tablet trio, that includes two other Android tablets, launched only a while back. Dell’s Venue 7 and 8 were Android tablets with two different screen sizes with largely the same specifications inside. Powered by an Intel processor, these tablets are placed at the mid range segment of the marketplace, which is the most popular segment for Android tablets these days. The Venue 8 is priced at Rs. 17,499, which might be a bit high when compared to the competition like the new Nexus 7, but is it good enough? While we’ll tell you that in our review, here is a preliminary look through our unboxing and overview video –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjFLcwol0jA

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Dell to pay Microsoft tax for its Android and Chrome OS devices

Dell is not just one of the biggest PC makers out there, but also a close ally to Microsoft, with the latter recently helping out when the company went private. But being an independent company, Dell did make its foray into other platforms, with Android, and eventually even Chrome OS, both Google products. So, naturally, much like any other OEM, Dell is now in a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft where it will pay royalties for its products based on Android and Chrome OS. But surprisingly, even Microsoft is licensing some patents from Dell for its Xbox gaming consoles, making this deal more balanced than usual.

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HTC One (M8) Duo Camera: Explained

HTC has finally revealed its most awaited flagship phone, the One (M8), at an event in New York today. The flagship phone takes on a countless number of other Android flagship devices with an upgraded design and internals, bringing it up to speed, literally. The new One improves upon the older one in a lot of ways, and one of them is by innovating(again) on the camera side. The original One had the industry’s first Ultrapixel sensor, a 4.1 MP camera with pixels sized at 2 microns, which is back on the new HTC One (M8) but it is also accompanied by a secondary camera. While the Ultrapixel is all about gathering more light, this curious little camera that sits above the main unit enables a whole lot of enhancements that HTC proudly portrayed at their event. So what is this “Duo Camera” all about, and how does it really work? Let’s find out.

ICYMI earlier – HTC One (M8) Hands on and our live blog.

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Xiaomi will soon be directly selling phones in India

Ever since Xiaomi, the popular smartphone manufacturer from China, laid out plans for expansion to Singapore, we knew that India was coming. As a confirmation to this, we have a Cnet interview of Hugo Barra talking about the company’s impending entry into the burgeoning Indian smartphone market and a tweet from the head of Google India, who had a meeting with Xiaomi’s Lin Bin and Hugo Barra as a part of the ongoing initiative. Xiaomi recently launched in Singapore, its first market outside China, and looks to expand rapidly to become a true global player.

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Nokia’s devices and services sale to Microsoft delayed to April

The Microsoft takeover of Nokia’s devices and services division is easily one of the most high profile acquisitions from the recent past. After the announcement of this deal, it was said that the regulatory bodies all around the world would have to give their go ahead and only then can the deal be closed. Initially, it was meant to be completed within the first quarter of 2014, but it has now been revealed that some of the regulatory approvals are still pending and the deal is now expected to close in April 2014.

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The new HTC One gets a 14 minute video preview

The all new HTC One hasn’t even launched yet, but the Internet is still abuzz with leaks and videos of this device. It is all set to launch tomorrow at an event in New York but that hasn’t stopped a German blogger from posting an in-depth video preview of the highly anticipated flagship device from the Taiwanese manufacturer. The video, in German, shows off the entire hardware and bits and pieces of the new Sense 6 UI, which gets up to speed with other OEM skins with features like Double tap to wake, gets on screen buttons and a slightly differently styled UI with Android 4.4 KitKat on board. Here’s the full video –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEB10wqk1X4

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