Nokia highlights Refocus and RAW with great camera samples

allInFocus-nokia-refocus-sample

Apart from the marquee product launches of the Lumia 1520, the 1320 and the Lumia 2520 Windows tablet, two other announcements stood out from the Nokia World event, and the both were related to Nokia’s forte – imaging. The company announced a new imaging app for its Lumia smartphones called the Nokia Refocus, and also announced that the Lumia 1020 and the upcoming Lumia 1520 will be getting RAW support. With these announcements, the gap between Nokia and other companies in the imaging department became way wider than it is already. Especially with RAW, which is considered a landmark announcement for serious photographers who like to play around with the whole sensor’s data. Refocus too, kindled the “shoot first, focus later” mantra that the Lytro popularized. What you see above is a new sample from Nokia highlighting just that, and here is a fully interactive sample of the same picture above, using which you can change the focus –

[HTML2]

Continue reading “Nokia highlights Refocus and RAW with great camera samples”

Twitter for Android and iPhone updated with in-line image and video previews

Twitter for Android and iPhone previews

Twitter has updated both the Android (v 4.1.9) and iPhone (v5.12) apps with a new in-line preview. Now, Tweets that have images posted via Twitter and videos will be available in-line. You can just tap to see more of the photo or play the video. You can turn off the image previews from the settings. You can also reply, retweet or favorite a Tweet easily from your timeline just by a tap. Twitter for Android and iPhone got conversations view back in August. Continue reading “Twitter for Android and iPhone updated with in-line image and video previews”

Sony Xperia L Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update starts rolling out in India

Sony Xperia L Android 4.2

Sony Mobile has started rolling out the Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) update (version 15.3.A.0.26) for the users. This update brings a revamped homescreen, improved app organization, updated Media apps and new camera modes such as Burst mode and Auto Scene Recognition. Sony released the Xperia C earlier this month running on Android 4.2 out of the box and rolled out the Android 4.2 update for the Xperia Z and the ZL recently. The company has also promised Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) update for range of devices, but they did not announce the time frame of the roll out yet. Continue reading “Sony Xperia L Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update starts rolling out in India”

Facebook Messenger for Android gets a new design and new features

Facebook Messenger

Facebook has updated the Messenger app for Android to make it faster and more reliable. The new app is still in testing stage, that brings a completely new design with new tabs for conversations, people and settings and new features. You  can just tap across the top of the app or swipe left and right to switch between these tabs. This update lets you reach people faster and message your contacts easily, says Facebook. Continue reading “Facebook Messenger for Android gets a new design and new features”

BBM for Android and iPhone brings over 20 million new users in the first week

bbm-android-ios

BlackBerry has announced that there are 20 million new users of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), a week after its roll out of Android and iPhone apps. Last week BlackBerry revealed they saw more than 10 million downloads after 24 hours they resumed the launch of BBM for Android and iPhone. Totally BBM has 80 million monthly active users, says BlackBerry. The app topped as free overall app in 35 countries on Google Play and in 107 countries in the Apple iTunes Store. It is top in markets such as Canada, the US, the UK and Indonesia. Continue reading “BBM for Android and iPhone brings over 20 million new users in the first week”

Viber for Windows Phone 8 updated with redesigned UI and Viber desktop support

viber-wp8-update-1

Viber is a well known app, popular mainly for its VOIP services and chat. The company has been having its own Windows Phone 8 app for a while but it lacked some much needed features. With the announcement of the new desktop app, the integration was curiously missing out on the Windows Phone platform with the 3.0 update, but finally, the app has been now updated with a nicely refreshed UI with custom backgrounds support and better integration with Viber desktop that lets you take calls and transfer them over to phone from the PC or vice versa. You can download the update from the Windows Phone Store here.

Continue reading “Viber for Windows Phone 8 updated with redesigned UI and Viber desktop support”

Half of the Angry Birds games go free for Windows Phone 8

Angry Birds Star Wars II

Angry Birds has been a longstanding mega hit gaming franchise from Rovio and usually, a copy sells for 99 cents, or 55 Indian rupees, in the local currency. There was a time when the original game went free for a while, as a part of Nokia’s promotion, but suddenly now, half of the collection has gone free. We are not sure if this is a store glitch or something, but exactly half of the Angry Birds collection has gone free in the Indian Windows Phone 8 Store. The games that have gone free are – Original Angry Birds, Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds Star Wars II, while the Seasons, Rio and Space are still showing as paid.

Continue reading “Half of the Angry Birds games go free for Windows Phone 8”

Sports Car Challenge 2 for iPhone and iPad launched for free

Sports Car Challenge 2

Volkswagen Group (China) and Fishlabs Entertainment has released the Sports Car Challenge 2, successor of the Sports Car Challenge game that was released back in November 2011. The first game got a major update earlier this year that brought a new race track and gameplay features, its sequel has 14 exclusive super sports cars ranging from Audi, Bentley and Bugatti to Lamborghini, Porsche and Volkswagen, additional gameplay features, completely overhauled 3D graphics and all-new visual effects. Continue reading “Sports Car Challenge 2 for iPhone and iPad launched for free”

Tweetbot 3 for iPhone with iOS 7 redesign launched as a new app

Tweetbot 3 for iPhone

Tapbots, the creators of the popular Tweetbot app has finally released a new version of the Tweetbot as iOS 7 update. The company had missed to update the app for the iOS 7 software that was released last month. It recently announced that they have finally submitted Tweetbot for iPhone to the app store on October 17th. When the existing Tweetbot users thought the app would be updated with iOS 7 support, the company has now released the Tweetbot 3 as a new app for iOS 7 users. Continue reading “Tweetbot 3 for iPhone with iOS 7 redesign launched as a new app”

Dhoom 3 game exclusively arrives on Windows Phone 8

dhoom-3-screenshot

Another day, another exclusive game/app for Windows Phone in India. Just after Krrish3, we now have Dhoom 3, another highly awaited multi starrer sequel in Bollywood this year, is getting its own game. Publishing games for movies is kind of a new marketing avenue for the respective movie producers and Yash Raj Films, Dhoom 3’s maker acknowledges this, by partnering with game dev 99Games Online Private Limited to release the Dhoom 3 game. It is an endless 3D moto racing game, which follows the popular formula of Temple Run and Subway Surfers with perks, power ups and feels like a good fit in this genre. You play Aamir Khan, whose bike you maneuver, who is being chased by Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra in two other bikes, and thus begins the endless chase to fight your boredom.

You can download the game from the Windows Phone Store here. And here’s a trailer for the game, it’s CG and does not represent actual gameplay –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0zuM-sWROs

Continue reading “Dhoom 3 game exclusively arrives on Windows Phone 8”

MapmyIndia Maps for iPhone launched for free

MapmyIndia Maps for iPhone

MapmyIndia, popular for its GPS navigation and mobile apps has launched the MapmyIndia Maps app for iPhone users. MapmyIndia made Sygic & MapmyIndia offline GPS Navigation app for Android completely free for Indian users last month. This offers  accurate and updated interactive maps of India including house addresses. It also offers Step-by-step driving direction, POIs and more. Even though this not an universal app, this works on iPads too. Continue reading “MapmyIndia Maps for iPhone launched for free”

Dead Trigger 2 for Android, iPhone and iPad released for free

Madfinger Games, the creators of the popular games such as Shadowgun and Dead Trigger has released Dead Trigger 2 as they promised . The Dead Trigger 2 is a first person zombie shooter similar to the first game that was released in 2012. You need to find a safe place to hide-out, get equipped, and fight for your life in a real time bid for survival against an onslaught of bloodthirsty undead. Continue reading “Dead Trigger 2 for Android, iPhone and iPad released for free”

BlackBerry OS 10.2 roll out starting this week

BlackBerry 10.2 Lockscreen Notifications

BlackBerry rolled out BlackBerry OS 10.1 maintenance release update for both the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 devices back in July, now they have announced that the the BlackBerry 10.2 would roll out for these devices starting this week bring a lot of new features including BlackBerry Priority Hub, BlackBerry Natural Sound for BBM and hundreds of new improvements. It also has new Docs to Go, new BlackBerry Hub icon, camera enhancements and more. Continue reading “BlackBerry OS 10.2 roll out starting this week”

Nimbuzz partners with Spectranet to offer International calls starting at 1 paise per second

Nimbuzz and Spectranet low-cost international calling launch

Nimbuzz, popular communication and entertainment platform, has announced that they have partnered with Spectranet hello ip to offer international calling to Nimbuzz users at affordable rates. This would let Nimbuzz users in India make international calls at rates as low as 1 paise per second, which is similar domestic calling rates. This platform hosts the Spectranet hello ip dialer where users can make international calls and also buy calling credit. Continue reading “Nimbuzz partners with Spectranet to offer International calls starting at 1 paise per second”

Nokia’s Refocus app for the Lumia 1020 and the 1520 lets you focus after you have taken the photo

nokia-refocus-app-lumia

Lytro camera made one innovation really popular. It allowed people to refocus a photo AFTER taking one. This provided really nice possibilities for people to not care about focus and just look at composition. But the Lytro had a few drawbacks like low resolution images and proprietary controller, but then we saw news of Oppo planning to release the first MEMS camera with auto focus so fast that it could take 6 full resolution images in a split second with different focus points. But guess who is doing it first, with just an app? None other than Nokia. After launching the Lumia 1520, the Lumia 1320 and the Lumia 2520 devices, the company has let loose a lot of new camera related features for its PureView devices. The Refocus app is one them. Yes, they just announced that the Nokia Refocus app will be able to let you change the focus after you take a photo, or you can keep the complete photo in focus. Just like the Lytro camera.

Continue reading “Nokia’s Refocus app for the Lumia 1020 and the 1520 lets you focus after you have taken the photo”