Foursquare’s new Swarm app is a social heat map of friend activity

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Foursquare has changed a lot. The popular location based social network has gone through several ideological changes in the past and it is at a point where data points to utter confusion for the consumer, as well as for the company, as to what Foursquare actually is. It was initially really popular for its “Check in”s and then the company slowly added more social components to its app, like a discovery engine, a friend feed and more. At this point in time, there are just too many components to the app, and hence the New York based start up has decided to un-bundle some of its core features into a separate app, called Swarm.

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Worldwide tablet market posts just 3.9% growth YoY in Q1 2014, down 35.7% QoQ

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Samsung and Apple are still the leading tablet vendors by shipments in Q1 2014, according to preliminary data from research firm IDC (International Data Corporation). The worldwide tablet market grew just 3.9% year-over-year in Q1 2014, with shipments of 50.4 million units in the quarter, down 35.7% compared to last quarter. Yesterday IDC reported worldwide smartphone shipments that was down just 2.8% compared to the holiday quarter. Continue reading “Worldwide tablet market posts just 3.9% growth YoY in Q1 2014, down 35.7% QoQ”

Snapchat gets Instant messaging and live video chats

Snapchat

Snapchat has finally added support for instant messaging for its Android and iPhone apps and also brings live video chat. Once you swipe to the right on a friend’s name in your Snapchat inbox, you can start chatting with them, send them photos and videos, just like any other messaging apps. Once you leave the chat screen, all the messages will be cleared for both. But either of you can always tap a message or a screenshot to save them. Continue reading “Snapchat gets Instant messaging and live video chats”

Google Glass teardown estimates total cost less than $80

Teardown-Google-Glass

Google Glass, the futuristic wearable product from the Mountain View company, has been all the rage among the tech community. But, with an astronomical entry cost of 1500$ and a limited invite-only model, it is extremely clear that it is not ready for the market. But in the future, it will be ready, but what will be its approximate cost? We can not know now, due to the rapid commoditization of technology, but we can surely get an idea of what it costs Google to make the current version of Glass, thanks to a teardown by the popular site going by the same name. It estimates the total cost of the “Bill of materials” to under 80$ for Google.

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LINE Messenger offers more than 1500 paid stickers free for Indian users

Line Free Stickers India

LINE Corporation is giving away over 1500 paid stickers worth Rs. 4000 to Indian users to celebrate 400 million registered users worldwide. It crossed 18 million registered users in India recently and offered free talk time worth Rs. 50 to all its users in India last month. Earlier this year LINE partnered with Groupon India to offer exclusive weekly deals for LINE users. Continue reading “LINE Messenger offers more than 1500 paid stickers free for Indian users”

Sony Xperia E1 dual gets a price cut, now available for Rs. 8054

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Sony launched the Xperia E1 dual along with the Xperia E1 in India last month at a price tag of Rs. 10,490. It went on sale at Rs. 9,999 and got a price cut to Rs. 9,490 few weeks back. Now the phone has received another price cut and is available for as low as Rs. 8,054 in India online. The E1 dual has a 4-inch (480 x 800 pixels) touch screen display, powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor and runs on Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean). Continue reading “Sony Xperia E1 dual gets a price cut, now available for Rs. 8054”

Airtel launches 4G on mobile in Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula

Bharti Airtel has launched 4G on mobile in three cities, Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula in India. The company launched 4G LTE service on mobile back in February starting from Bengaluru and also set up experience zones in the city to showcase the power of 4G on mobile in partnership with LG and Qualcomm. Continue reading “Airtel launches 4G on mobile in Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula”

Motorola schedules an event in India on May 13th to launch affordable smartphone

Motorola launch invite May 13

Few hours back Motorola announced that they would unveil the company’s next smartphone at an event in London. Motorola has just sent us an invite for the India launch event on the same day as the London event. Yesterday LG announced several simultaneous events on May 27th and 28th to unveil their upcoming flagship, the LG G3. Continue reading “Motorola schedules an event in India on May 13th to launch affordable smartphone”

Facebook Messenger for Android updated with better photos and video sharing

Facebook Messenger 5.0 for Android

Facebook updated Messenger app for iOS with some great features earlier this week. Now, the social network is bringing these features to Android. The latest update allows users to share photos, videos and other types of media content faster with others.
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Google Search updated with Google Now parking reminder card

Google, which already takes care of your many day-to-day activities will now even help you remember where you have parked your car. The tech giant has updated its Search app on Android with Parking Location card that offers the ability to automatically detect where you have parked your car and help you find that spot later.

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Huawei Ascend P7 press shots leaked ahead of official announcement on May 7th

Huawei Ascend P7 leak

Huawei Ascend P7, the successor of the Ascend P6 was expected to be unveiled at the MWC 2014 earlier this February when the live images of the phone leaked, but Huawei unveiled the Ascend P7 mini at the MWC ahead of Ascend P7. The company recently announced that it would unveil the Ascend P7 at an event Paris on May 7th. A week before the launch, @evleaks has posted some press shots of the smartphone. Continue reading “Huawei Ascend P7 press shots leaked ahead of official announcement on May 7th”

Google releases Docs and Sheets apps for Android and iOS

Google has launched Docs and Sheets apps for Android and iOS.  These standalone apps will enable users to edit, create, and view files both on and offline. In addition, the company said that its will soon launch Slides, an app for editing PowerPoint-style presentations.

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Qualcomm spins off location aware business into separate entity

Qualcomm today announced its intentions to spin off it’s bluetooth beacon business into a separate entity dubbed as Gimbal Inc. Gimbal was Qualcomm’s take on Apple’s iBeacon and the company had started selling the proximity beacon in December.

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While Qualcomm will remain a substantial stakeholder in the business, it plans to sell off the Gimbal business to third party investors. Working in the same vein as iBeacon, the technology allows stores to create proximity based networks that can communicate with consumer smartphones. With location information of each shopper within the a store, it will be possible for retail locations to notify the consumer of special offers or to perhaps load up a loyalty card. Because iBeacon uses bluetooth positioning to narrow down your location instead of GPS, it can be a lot more accurate when used indoors. Continue reading “Qualcomm spins off location aware business into separate entity”