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USB Type-C connector to succeed 3.0 with thinner double-sided design

It’s been almost 5 years since the USB 3.0 standard made its way into devices and peripherals alike, and finally, with a change of design trends, the folks at the USB 3.0 Promoter group have detailed the new Type-C connector. Officially the development has begun and is initially built on USB 2.0 and 3.1 technologies with scope for further growth and scalability. The main aim of this development seems to addressing shrinking sizes in thickness of smartphones and tablets. It is said to be similar in size to the micro USB type-B connector but will enable double-sided use unlike now.

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Large screen smartphones will slow down tablet growth to single-digit rates by 2017 – IDC

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Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to slow down to single-digit percentage yearly by 2017, according to a report by Research Firm IDC (International Data Corporation). The research reveals that the tablet shipments will reach 221.3 million units in 2013, compared to previous forecast of 227.4 million, but the shipment growth is expected to slow to 22.2% YoY in 2014 to 270.5 million units. Continue reading “Large screen smartphones will slow down tablet growth to single-digit rates by 2017 – IDC”

HP Slate7 Plus, Slate7 Extreme and Slate8 Pro Tegra-powered tablets launched starting at $150

HP Slate7 Plus, Slate7 Extreme and Slate8 Pro

HP unveiled the HP Slate7 Extreme and Slate8 Pro NVIDIA Tegra 4-powered tablets back in September. The company did not announce the pricing and detailed specifications of these tablets at that time. Now these tablets are on sale in the U.S. including a new HP Slate7 Plus tablet powered by a Tegra 3 processor and the Slate10 HD tablet powered by a dual-core Cortex A9 Marvell PXA986 processor. Continue reading “HP Slate7 Plus, Slate7 Extreme and Slate8 Pro Tegra-powered tablets launched starting at $150”

HTC One Max Review

Phablets are a reality. Often passed over as a fad, the large number of successful giant sized devices has proven that there is a demand for these phones. With the One Max, HTC is going after the Samsung Note 3. The end result is an HTC One that has been stretched to fit in a larger display while introducing a few new forgetable features. Read through our review to figure out if this behemoth is worth the small fortune that HTC is demanding for it. Continue reading “HTC One Max Review”

LG G Flex launching in Singapore and Hong Kong this month, coming to Europe early 2014

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LG Electronics has announced that the G Flex, the company’s first curved smartphone would go on sale globally starting in Singapore and Hong Kong this month. The curved smartphone was announced back in October and went on sale in Korea last month. It packs a 6-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD Real RGB Curved Curved Plastic OLED display from LG Display that vertically concave from top to bottom with a radius of 700mm, powered by a 2.26 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean).
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India to seek US help in monitoring messaging services such as BBM, WhatsApp and Viber

India will seek US help to intercept chats from mobile messaging services such as Viber, Whatsapp, Skype, WeChat and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), according to a recent report from The Economic Times. Police chiefs of both the countries would meet in the national capital in a two-day meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the matter, says the agenda note circulated by the Indian Home Ministry. Continue reading “India to seek US help in monitoring messaging services such as BBM, WhatsApp and Viber”

Beetel launches Retro Phone, a stylish landline phone for Rs. 1690

Beetel Retro Phone

Beetel Teletech Limited (Beetel), popular for its fixed line devices has launched Retro Phone – a stylish new fixed line phone with a colourful, sleek & retro look that combines new technological features including an LCD display, digital dial, 3.5mm audio jack and more. The 3.5mm audio jack lets customers to connect the device to a headphone for a mobile-like hands free experience. It also has anti-steal alarm which intimates against any parallel use of the number. Continue reading “Beetel launches Retro Phone, a stylish landline phone for Rs. 1690”

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite rumored to debut at MWC 2014

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Samsung Galaxy Grand Lite was rumored to debut at the MWC 2014, now SamMobile reports that the Galaxy Note 3 Lite (SM-N7505) would be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2014. Since Samsung has already launched mini variants of the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy S4, we can expect a Lite version of the Note 3. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite rumored to debut at MWC 2014”

VSCO Cam to be available on Android tomorrow

Visual Supply Co, a firm known for making tools for creators is the maker of the VSCO Cam app for iOS. The app is popular for its minimalistic UI and ultra-real film filters that professional photographers want on a mobile device. After a long wait, it is finally coming to Android tomorrow. The folks at VSCO have announced this at their blog with a small teaser video featuring the Android app, watch it here –

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Update: Now available for download!

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Hike Messenger 2.5 for BlackBerry brings performance improvements and stickers

Hike Messenger for BlackBerry

Hike has updated their messaging app for BlackBerry OS 5,6 and 7 to version 2.5 that brings a lot of new features including performance improvements that prevents the app from crashes. The app has also been built from the ground up that makes users send messages and also navigate through the application much quicker. It also brings Indian stickers that lets users send stickers with a click of a button. Hike is already available for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone devices. Continue reading “Hike Messenger 2.5 for BlackBerry brings performance improvements and stickers”

3DMark for iPhone and iPad gets updated with 64-bit version

Futuremark has updated the 3DMark app for iOS to version 1.2.0 that brings a new 64-bit version to test the new iOS devices with a 64-bit processor including the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display. Scores from those devices will improve slightly with this update, says the company. Recently Futuremark started delisting Android devices with suspicious scores from the 3DMark charts. The company still continues to delist devices from the chart, which now applies to iOS devices as well, after the new update. Delisted devices appear unranked, and without scores, at the bottom of the 3DMark Device Channel. Continue reading “3DMark for iPhone and iPad gets updated with 64-bit version”

Jelly Bean now on 54.5% of Android devices, 1.1% devices running on KitKat

Android Distribution November to December 2013

Google has released the Android’s Platform Distribution Numbers for the period of November to December 2013. The chart shows that 54.5% of Android devices are running on Jelly Bean, in which Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) leads with 37.4% share. Only 1.1% of devices are running on Android 4.4 (KitKat). Google unveiled the Nexus 5 running on KitKat at the end of October. It also rolled out the Kitkat update for the Nexus 4, 7 and 10 and also released the factory images for these devices. Continue reading “Jelly Bean now on 54.5% of Android devices, 1.1% devices running on KitKat”

MapmyIndia launches ReachMe real-time location sharing app for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 8

MapmyIndia ReachMe

MapmyIndia has launched ReachMe, the company’s new real-time location sharing app for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 8 platforms. This app lets you share your location with friends and contacts by a single tap. The app also lets you share location details with a particular group. Earlier this year MapmyIndia launched Locate app for Android that also lets users share their location with others. Continue reading “MapmyIndia launches ReachMe real-time location sharing app for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 8”

Dungeon Hunter 4 for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 now available as a free download

Dungeon Hunter, a Diablo inspired dungeon crawler role-playing game, is now available for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 as a free download. This game, and its previous iterations have been available for Android and iOS devices for a while now, and a part of a deal struck between Gameloft and Microsoft, a set of games that includes Asphalt 8 and now this one, has landed on the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Stores respectively. This game is basically a top down 3D dungeon crawler in which you go around killing and collecting stuff to march through the story and in the end improve your character with powers and things.

Download for Windows Phone 8

Download for Windows 8

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How Broadcom is quietly “Connecting Everything”

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The mobile handset market today is pretty much dominated with phones powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset or a MediaTek chipset. But there are certainly few other players as well.You might be aware of Samsung’s Exynos chips and also Apple’s own custom chips found on the iPhone and iPad. Then there are Nvidia & Intel too. Another player who is not very popular in the market at least in India is Broadcom. The company is finally talking and had invited us to a Mobility Roundtable in New Delhi few days back where I got to speak to several executives from the Irvine , California-based company. You might have heard about the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, which is one the most popular phones to be powered by a Broadcom BCM28155 chipset. Another device which was powered by the same chip was the Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus.

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