Google releases stock Android keyboard as standalone app in Play Store

 

It seems that Google has started to take the Nexus experience and provide bits and pieces of it to users on non-Nexus Android devices. To begin with, Google has released its Google Keyboard app for phones and tablets running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above. The app on the Google Play Store is now available for English speaking countries while Google says that more locales will be added soon.

The application gives you the stock Android keyboard that comes with Nexus devices. Much like how keyboard applications like Swiftkey and Swype work, you can download the Google keyboard application from the Play Store in order to replace the existing keyboard on your Android device. It is however important to note that while these popular keyboards are paid, Google has launched the Google keyboard free of cost.

The stock keyboard was updated during the launch of Jelly Bean and comes with features such as Gesture typing and next-word prediction. With gesture typing you basically glide through letters without lifting your finger and when done you can lift your finger to finish a word. You can also tap the microphone on the keyboard to compose messages with voice typing.

The keyboard comes with support for 26 languages. One major missing point that most users claim is the absence of emoticons, something that OEMs like Samsung, LG and HTC add to their keyboards.

For Nexus enthusiasts the stock keyboard coming to the Play Store is certainly positive news. Third-party applications that claim to give a Nexus keyboard experience are available on the Play Store, but there's nothing like the real thing. With the official Google keyboard now available for download, all these have surely become obsolete.

The keyboard is presently not available in India for download. But staying in line with Google's promises, we expect a roll out soon.

Lenovo K900 smartphone with 2GHz processor launched for Rs. 32,999

Lenovo has launched its flagship Android smartphone, the K900 in the Indian market at a price point of Rs. 32,999.

The phone will be available at 3,000 Lenovo outlets starting July. Lenovo has also launched five other Android smartphones, namely A706, A390, P780, S820 and S920.

The Lenovo K900 was first showcased at CES earlier this year. The K900 packs in Intel's dual-core Clover Trail+ platform, specifically the Intel Atom Z2580 dual-core processor clocking in at 2GHz. The device features a full-HD(1080x1920 pixels) display, 2GB RAM and is expected to come with 16GB of internal storage. It has a non-removable 2500 mAh non-removable battery.
Amar Babu, Managing Director, Lenovo India, said," The journey for Lenovo smartphones in India that began last November, takes a whole new dimension witth the launch of 6 new power-packed mobile devices, which offer an excellent choice for smartphone buyers in India. Our retail footprint has grown considerably to 3000 retail stores, since we launched our first range of smartphones last year. We will continue to expand our reach in India."
The phablet comes with 13-megapixel rear camera with a new Sony Exmor BSI sensor and a 2-megapixel front camera. Lenovo equipped the K900's rear camera with an f1.8 focal length lens, making it the first smartphone to offer such a wide aperture on its camera. In addition to these improvements to the rear camera, the 2-megapixel front camera has also been widened to an 880 viewing angle, the widest available on a smartphone front camera for convenient self-portraits and video calls. It ships with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
At 6.9mm and a 162gms (that's still heavy), Lenovo claims the K900 is the thinnest phone in its class. Despite its slim profile, the smartphone is strong and sturdy unibody construction sporting a stainless steel and polycarbonate exterior.




Lenovo K900 key specifications

• 5.5-inch 1080p IPS capacitive touch display
• Intel Atom Z2580 2GHz dual-core processor (Clover Trail+)
• 2GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage
• 13-megapixel camera with Sony's Exmor BSI sensor
• 2-megapixel front camera
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Nokia EOS with 41-megapixel camera, Windows Phone 8 spotted in leaked pictures

The much rumoured Nokia EOS camera focused Windows Phone 8 smartphone has finally made an appearance, if recent leaks are to be trusted.First posted by Chinese website WPdang, the renders of the phone show a large phone which sports a build similar to that of the Lumia 920, employing the use of polycarbonate materials. However, it has a huge hole, which is perhaps a placeholder for a large camera lens similar to that of the Pureview 808. It also appears to support wireless charging as it has inserts for an optional cover just like the Lumia 720 and Lumia 925. As per the site, the phone is expected to launch on July 9th.
Following the original leaks, @Vizileaks posted two new images of the purported phone on Twitter. One offered a close-up shot of the phone's camera lens that featured the PureView branding, the Carl Zeiss lens name, and what looks like a xenon flash.

The newly created Twitter account also posted a full image of the back of the phone depicting a large protruding lens and the charging cover connectors similar to the image that appeared on WPDang. While the phone in the image had 'XX' Megapixel label on the lens, the tweet mentioned that the resolution would be 41-megapixel, the same as Nokia's 808 Pureview phone.
A recent report claims that Nokia Lumia EOS is already being tested by AT&T, claiming that the phone is codenamed Elvis and will be released sometime in July. Apart from the 41-megapixel camera sensor, this smartphone is rumoured to have OLED display, which has a screen resolution of 768X1280 pixels and 32GB of internal storage. Much like the other smartphones in the Lumia series, Nokia Lumia EOS too is expected to come with a polycarbonate body and will not support microSD card. This smartphone is also alleged to come with Flip to silence feature.
Prior to that it was also reported that the phone features a new "Nokia Pro Camera" app that has a refreshed interface, while the regular camera app is also available. The camera interface also offers manual focus.

BlackBerry Q10 launched in India for Rs. 44,990

BlackBerry has launched its much anticipated QWERTY smartphone, Q10 in India. The smartphone will be available for Rs. 44,990. BlackBerry Q10 will start retailing from Friday in 20 cities and 1000 retail stories. We had reported a week back that the Canadian smartphone maker will be launching Q10 in India on June 6. BlackBerry Q10 sports a 3.1-inch super AMOLED touchscreen. It also comes with a physical QWERTY keyboard, which has been associated with BlackBerry devices since the company started offering smartphones. There is an 8-megapixel rear camera on-board and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G and NFC. BlackBerry Q10 also packs in 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a 2100mAh battery.
BlackBerry Q10 was also available on pre-order from snapdeal.com. Interested customers had to shell out Rs. 1,000 in order to pre-book this smartphone.
BlackBerry had introduced the BlackBerry 10 operating system in January 2013 along with its flagship smartphone BlackBerry Z10. BlackBerry Z10 was launched in India almost a month after its global debut for Rs. 43,490.
BlackBerry Z10 is a full-touch device that comes with a 4.2-inch LCD screen with a 1280x768 resolution. The smartphone is powered by a dual-core processor that clocks at 1.5GHz along with 2GB of RAM. The internal storage available on the smartphone is 16GB, which can be further expanded by up to 64GB. It has an 8-megapixel rear camera that can capture 1080p videos and 2-megapixel camera in the front. Z10 comes with 1,850 mAh battery, which as per the company claims gives 10 hours of talktime and 312 hours of stand by time.


BlackBerry Q10 key specifications

• 3.1-inch super AMOLED touchscreen
• 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus
• 2GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage
• 8-megapixel rear camera
• 2-megapixel front-facing camera
• Wi-Fi,Bluetooth, 4G and NFC
• 2100mAh battery
• BlackBerry 10

5 Handy Camera Apps For Android

Get the most out of all the megapixels on your Android device's snapper.

 

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With smartphones packing in cameras with higher megapixels, better sensors and features such as flash, auto focus, smile shutters, and the works, a decent app that lets you tinker around with your shots comes across as a welcome addition. After the trend sparked by the likes of Instagram, apps that let you add filters and effects as you snap pictures, have now become a rage. If you are looking at getting the best out of your Android device's camera, here are a few apps that can come in handy.
 

Snapseed
While Instagram is now revered as the best app for photo effects on smartphones, Snapseed is slowly catching up. Unlike several apps which only let to add effects and filters to shots captured via the app, Snapseed also lets you add effects to photos which already exist on your memory card. So if you have a point and shoot that lets you take better images than the snapper packed in to your handset, just transfer pictures to your phone and go play!

Wondershare Panorama
After the iPhone 5 and Microsoft's Photosynth made panorama shots famous, there has been mushrooming of several apps that let you capture seamless panoramic scenes using your Android handsets as well. The Wondershare Panorama app is quite easy to use, and stitches images quite well too. If you are looking for a full 360 degree panorama app instead, then the Panorama - 360 (Free) is a handy alternative.

GifStitch
After Nokia introduced the world to its Cinemagraph app, there seems to be a sudden fondness for animated GIFs. Although the Cinemagraph is available only to Lumia users, Windows Phone users now have apps like Super Camera for company. For android users there is GifStitch. The app lets you create GIF images using existing photos or fresh clicks. It also lets you add colour effects to your GIFs and share the images with the world.

Face Swap
If you liked the Face Swap app on the Windows Phone platform, then a similarly-named app on the Android platform will surely interest you. The app is quite straightforward to use. You can swap faces between two images, but the swapping happens only between two faces in a single picture.  The lite version is available for free, and you can purchase the full version for Rs 110, which will be free of ads and will not put a watermark on your swapped images.

Paper Camera
If you are looking to turn your camera into a toy cam, the Paper Camera is an amazing app to have.  You get can add interesting effects including cartoon, sketch, comic book, noir, neon, and painting and it works not only with new clicks but also your existing snaps, and also lets you capture videos using the effects. The app will set you back by approximately Rs 100, but that would be money well spent. Also, the developers promise to refund your money if the app doesn't work with your device.

Danger Ahead: Here is the first entirely 3D printed gun

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3D printing is being heralded as the biggest technological revolution since the Internet and if you were to believe certain political doctrines, there can be no revolution without a gun. So it should be no surprise that the world’s first entirely 3D printed gun is here.

Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student of University of Texas, had founded Defense Distributed, a company that manufactures gun parts using a 3D printer. Now Cody, who had been working on a fully 3D printed gun, has unveiled his creation. The 3D printed gun, called "The Liberator", is capable of firing standard handgun rounds using interchangeable barrels for different calibers of ammunition and is made entirely of plastic, except for a nail that's being used as a firing pin and a 170 gram piece of steel that is embedded in the gun’s body so as to allow the gun to be detected by metal detectors.

According to Forbes, all 16 pieces of the Liberator prototype were printed in ABS plastic with a Dimension SST printer from 3D printing company Stratasys.

Meet the world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun (Image credit: Forbes)

Wilson’s company Defense Distributed operates defcad.org, where he plans to upload the blueprints and designs of the Liberator once the gun has undergone testing and is proven to work reliably. While Defense Distributed may be a licensed gun manufacturer, once the prints and designs of the Liberator become available to the general public, anyone will be able to download them and print their own gun without any oversight. This means that we could see illegal, unlicensed, 3D printed plastic firearms readily available to anyone who has access to a 3D printer.

While politicians in the US are already mulling laws to control lethal plastic firearms produced by 3D printing, Indian lawmakers could find themselves playing catch up again with yet another technological advancement. If we don’t take cognisance of this development and draft our regulations carefully, we could very well see legal fiascoes similar to the ones around "controlling" social media and censoring the Internet play out again and all forms of 3D printing enmeshed in a hurried and uninformed regulations.

Build a powerful desktop PC for less than Rs 27,000

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We kick-start our summer desktop PC-buying guide with building a basic yet powerful desktop. We could have started off with an ultra-low budget PC which would

We kick-start our summer desktop PC buying guide with building a basic yet powerful desktop. We could have started off with an ultra-low budget PC which would have been good enough for Internet surfing but why build an entire PC for that price, when a tablet or even your smartphone would suffice. If all you want to do is browse the Internet, then a tablet makes more sense. The PC we’ll be building today will cost you about the same as a Sony Xperia SP but only more powerful.

We’ve put together an Intel and an AMD rig so you can choose which platform you prefer. The AMD rig will give you better multimedia performance out-of-the-box due to the better GPU onboard. The Intel rig on the other hand will scale better in games once you add a graphics card. The rigs below don’t include the cost of the OS. If you don’t want to spend more money then any free Linux distro like Ubuntu will suffice. Windows will set you back quite a bit, whether it’s 7 or 8 but if you plan on turning this into a gaming rig in the future then it will be worth the investment.

CPU – AMD A4-5300 or Intel Pentium G630

The AMD A4-5300 APU is currently the most value-for-money offering at this price point. It’s a dual-core CPU running at 3.4GHz along with a Turbo frequency of 3.6GHz. The A4 APU prides itself by bundling along a very capable GPU which excels in graphics intensive applications and games. It’s also slightly cheaper. The Intel CPU may have the Pentium branding but it’s based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. The CPU is slightly faster when it comes to single-threaded as well as multi-threaded tasks and the memory performance is also slightly better.

Delivers strong multimedia capabilities

PSU – Corsair VS450
Corsair is one of the most trusted names when it comes to power supplies and the VS450 makes an excellent buy and fits our budget nicely. The PSU features a full powder-coated design along with sleeved cables for better cable management. The dedicated single +12V rail ensures optimal delivery of power and it also offers up to 85% efficiency and Active PFC.

Monitor – Dell IN2030M
Whether you’re going to be just watching movies or surfing the web, having a large monitor is never a bad thing. Dell has just the solution with the IN2030M. This budget monitor does not skimp on features as for the price, you get a 16:9 20-inch LED backlit panel, 1600 x 900 resolution and VGA and DVI connectors.

An excellent solution on a budget

Speaker - Logitech Z130
For sound, we've gone with the Logitech Z130 2.0 speaker system. It's advisable to stay away from budget 2.1 speaker systems in this price range since they won't perform as good as a 2.0 system, especially at high volumes.

Good audio quality for the price

Putting it together

AMD Platform
Components		Price (Rs.)
Processor	AMD A4-5300 (3.4GHz, dual-core)	3000
Motherboard	MSI FM2-A55M-E33	3600
RAM	G.Skill RipjawsX 2x 2GB (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL)	2300
Hard drive	Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB	3200
Power Supply	Corsair VS450	2600
Cabinet	CoolerMaster Elite 310	2000
Monitor	Dell IN2030M	6600
Optical Drive	LG/Sony	950
Speakers	Logitech Z130	1000
Keyboard and mouse	Logitech MK200	900
TOTAL		26150

Intel Platform
Components		Price (Rs.)
Processor	Intel Pentium G630 (2.4GHz, dual-core)	3400
Motherboard	MSI B75MA-E33	3800
RAM	G.Skill RipjawsX 2x 2GB (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL)	2300
Hard drive	Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB	3200
Power Supply	Corsair VS450	2600
Cabinet	CoolerMaster Elite 310	2000
Monitor	Dell IN2030M	6600
Optical Drive	LG/Sony	950
Speakers	Logitech Z130 (2.0)	1000
Keyboard and mouse	Logitech MK200	900
TOTAL		26750

Note: All prices mentioned above are an average taken from various online stores such as Flipkart, PrimeABGB, SMC International, The IT Wares and the IT Depot. Depending on your location and from where you’re ordering, you might get components for a little cheaper or even slightly more.

Now that we’ve got the budget rigs out of the way, it’s time to start putting together gaming rigs for various budgets, so hang tight, there’s lots more coming your way.