Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

People increasingly have more than one device, and they switch between them many times a day. Nexus—Google’s hardware line for Android devices—gets rid of the hassle. Just sign in with your Google Account and everything is there ready to go, whatever device you’re using: photos, emails, contacts, bookmarks, even your entertainment on Google Play.

Today, we’re excited to announce three great new Nexus devices … in small, medium and large. And they all run Android 4.2, a new flavor of Jelly Bean—which includes the latest version of Google Now and other great new features.

Google Nexus 4 specs with Android 4.2 leaked online

Details of Google's new flagship Nexus 4 smartphone have apparently been leaked by the UK's largest independent mobile phone retailer.
Carphone Warehouse's website briefly displayed a listing offering the LG Nexus 4 on contract from 31pounds per month on O2 or Vodafone from 30 October.
The device is expected to be the centrepiece of a Google event in New York on Monday, 29 October, when the firm is also expected to update its Nexus 7 Android tablet, The Telegraph reports.
Carphone Warehouse's page, which has now been removed, said the Nexus 4 will have a 4.7-inch screen with density of 320 pixels per inch.
The handset was listed as measuring 68.7 by 133.9 by 9.1 millimetres, apparently thicker than its Apple rival's 7.6 millimetres.

Is the iPad Mini Worth Buying?

Apple has unveiled a new member of the family: the iPad Mini. This device is a clear response to the market pressure the cheaper Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus 7 have placed on the existing iPad. So how does this scaled down version of the iPad compare with its newly refreshed big brother and the Android tablets that still come in at a lower price? 

Comparing Specs with the Competition
Screen Size: iPad Mini's screen comes in at 7.9 inches, compared to the 9.7 inch screen of the iPad and the 7 inch screens of the Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus 7. With a narrower bezel, iPad Mini fits a bit more screen into the same real estate.

Resolution: 1024x768 — this is not the Retina display that Apple touts as its high end screens on the iPhone 5 and the bigger iPad. Rather, it's the same resolution as the iPad 2, but with more pixels per inch. Also, the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD have higher resolution 1280x800 screens.
Thickness: 7.2mm thick — that's roughly 1/3 of an inch, or a little thinner than a pencil, and significantly thinner than either of the leading competitors.

Fresh Windows, but Where’s the Start Button?

Over the years, Keith McCarthy has become used to a certain way of doing things on his personal computers, which, like most others on the planet, have long run on Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows software.
But last week, when he got his hands on a laptop running the newest version of Windows for the first time, Mr. McCarthy was flummoxed.
Many of the familiar signposts from PCs of yore are gone in Microsoft’s new software, Windows 8, like the Start button for getting to programs and the drop-down menus that list their functions.
It took Mr. McCarthy several minutes just to figure out how to compose an e-mail message in Windows 8, which has a stripped-down look and on-screen buttons that at times resemble the runic assembly instructions for Ikea furniture.
“It made me feel like the biggest amateur computer user ever,” said Mr. McCarthy, 59, a copywriter in New York.

Google Holding Event on Oct 29, Is Next Nexus Coming?

Google is sending out invite for their next event happening on October 29, 2012 at 10am in New York. The invite states “The playground is open” and there are no further information aside from the fats that the event mainly focuses on Android.

Google has already announced Android v4.1 (Jelly Bean) platform and their first tablet, the Nexus 7 is already out in the market. So now the gadget world is eager to know what more does Google have to please them? There were rumors spirally the web about the upcoming Android v4.2 (Key Lime Pie) operating system and a new Nexus smartphone running on this new platform.

A report on Wall Street Journal in the month of May stated that Google might be parenting with more than one manufacturer to launch a bunch of new Nexus smartphones by the year end. And this news seems to be true with all those rumors about LG, Sony, Samsung and HTC making next Nexus devices.

5 Useful Widgets Every Androider Must Have

Widgets helps you to do certain useful stuffs with your smart-devices. These special applications are pretty useful; they boost the performance of your device, serve unique functionality and make your daily tasks easy.  Android users will find numerous widgets in Google Play; here we have listed the most useful ones which are available for free.

1. Netquin: Android Booster

The Netquin Android booster is a system optimization tool. As the name suggests this widget boosts the performance of your android device by maintain the optimum performance. It comes with features like battery saving and task management.

The users of this widget can optimize their devices in just one tap by closing all unwanted application, connectivity options and freezing the memory for better processing. The application is also internally linked with other free utilities of Netquin.

The most interesting and useful feature in this widget is the presence of 'bandwidth manager’; this feature supervises the data usage of the device and therefore keep a check on your data consumption.

10 Best Entry-Level Smartphones in India

Very recently the India smartphone manufactures; Karbonn mobile launched as many as 5 entry level smartphones into the market at one go.  With the number of smartphones increasing in the market day by day a guide to what to buy is very helpful. So here are top 10 entry level smartphones that might help you decide which handset to invest in.

1. HTC Desire C

Price: 14,990

This HTC Desire C, entry level smartphone from HTC was unveiled in the month of May 2012. The smartphone comes with a 3.5 inch HVGA Capacitive touch screen. The screen supports a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. The phone is powered by a 600 MHz S1 series Qualcomm processor. The phone functions on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

Desire C comes with a 5 mega pixel rear camera with an LED flash. But the phone is missing the front facing camera that would allow the user to make video calls and even the face recognition app in the ICS operating system would not be applicable in this handset.

The handset comes with internal memory of 4GB and a slot for a microSD card with expandable memory up to 32 GB and an additional memory of 25 GB in Dropbox. The Desire C has a 1230 mAh battery compared.

Targeting Google, Russia‘s Yandex goes global

Russia's leading internet search engine, Yandex, will take the fight to Google in emerging markets like  Turkey in a bid to offset the inroads made by the US giant in its home market.
Yandex founder and chief executive Arkady Volozh told Reuters on Friday the firm was likely to use its own experts to expand into new countries, but would not rule out acquisitions or partnership deals.
"We are focussing on the markets with Google dominance in search... where they have 90-plus percent market share," Volozh said in an interview in Dublin, adding Yandex would stress to consumers the dangers of one firm dominating the internet.
Yandex is currently focussing on Turkey, where it has eked out a 1 percent market share since it entered the market last year. It describes this as a base for a significant expansion and says it will look to other large markets where it sees no real competition to Google, though Volozh refused to name them.
Yandex, which raised $1.4 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in New York last year, has seen its share of the Russian search market fall to 60 percent in the second quarter from 64 percent a year earlier, according to LiveInternet.

Google allows Indian developers to sell apps on Android

Google has some good news for developers in the country. The company has announced Indian developers can now sell their apps on Google's Android platform, Google Play. Till now, developers from India could only offer their apps for free downloads on the Google Play   marketplace.

In a post on Android Developers blog, Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, product manager of the Google Play team said, "Developers in India can sell paid applications, in-app products, and subscriptions in Google Play, with monthly payouts to their local bank accounts."

6 alternatives to Apple's tech toys

Apple has spent more than a decade leaching its hip little tech toys into American homes and pop culture with very little pushback from the stodgy tech sector. Time's up.

A month after releasing its iPhone 5 and about a week away from debuting its iPad Mini and newest 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple finds itself in a peculiar position. Revenue jumped 23% last quarter from the same period a year ago and the company's next year-end summary follows up a 66% annual revenue spike in its 2011 report.
As ubiquitous as the company seems, though, it's still not as big a force as it could be. Its 17% market share among mobile phones in the U.S. still trails Samsung (25.7%) and LG (18.2%), according to market research firm ComScore.
Meanwhile, its iOS platform's 34.3% share of the U.S. smartphone market still trails Google Android's growing 52.6% stake.
That disparity is far more pronounced globally, where research firm Gartner says Nokia and Samsung's 41% mobile market share dwarfs Apple's 5%. Among global smartphone users, Apple fares somewhat better, with a 24% share of the market that's still been surpassed by Android's 50% dominance.
Among computer operating systems, Mac and iOS are still small players. According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, Microsoft Windows is the operating system of choice on 84% of all personal computers in the world. Mac operating systems are just 6.30%, or little more that Windows Vista's 6.15%.

HSBC‘s websites hacked globally

Banking giant HSBC said that some of its websites had been hit by a "large scale" cyber attack that disrupted online services, but it assured customers that their data were not compromised.
The bank said in a statement that HSBC servers came under a "large scale denial of service attack" on Thursday.
It said a number of sites were affected around the world but did not give an exact number or say where they were.
"This denial of service attack did not affect any customer data, but did prevent customers using HSBC online services, including Internet banking," the bank said.
"We are taking appropriate action, working hard to restore service," the bank added. It said some of the sites are back up and running.
A denial of service attack typically involves sites being saturated with requests.
The London-headquartered, Asia-focused lender said it is working with authorities to investigate the incident. It gave no indication of who it believed might be behind the attack.

Microsoft Surface priced below Apple‘s new iPad

Microsoft is setting the price of its new Surface tablet below comparable versions of Apple iPad, signaling its intent to grab a slice of the booming tablet market. 

The world's largest software company, which announced its surprise foray into computer manufacturing in June, said it would sell a 32-gigabyte (GB), Wi-Fi only version of its tablet at $499, versus $599 for a comparable version of Apple's new iPad.

Microsoft's tablet, which is taller and slightly heavier than an iPad, will go on sale on October 26 as the company launches the new touch-friendly Windows 8 operating system. A limited number will be available for pre-order from a Microsoft website from Tuesday morning.

The company is hoping the Surface - along with Windows tablets from other hardware makers - will challenge the dominance of Apple's iPad, which has 70 percent of the tablet market after essentially inventing the category in 2010.

The iPad's popularity demolished the market for mini-laptops called netbooks, and crimped the sales of full-scale PCs, eating away at Microsoft's Windows market. 

Samsung Galaxy Premier’s specs, price, pics leaked

Samsung is reportedly working on a new Android-powered smartphone called the Galaxy Premier. A report in technology blog MobileGeeks says that the upcoming phone, code named Samsung GT-i9260, will not be the speculated Nexus 4, but an altogether new device.
In Galaxy Premier, the South Korean smartphone manufacturer seems to have stuck to the pebble-esque design which it introduced in its flagship Galaxy S III and then followed in Galaxy Note II and the recently-unveiled Galaxy S III Mini.
The upcoming Galaxy Premier will boast of a 4.65-inch touchscreen with 1280x720 resolution, 1.5GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A-9 processor and will run on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) skinned with TouchWiz UI. On the imaging front, the post on MobileGeeks says that the new smartphone will have an 8MP primary camera with LED flash, while the rear camera will have 2MP resolution.
According to MobileGeeks, the yet-to-be-announced Samsung Galaxy Premier will come in 8GB and 16GB variants and will support microSD card of up to 64GB capacity. In terms of connectivity, the device is expected to have Wi-Fi, DLNA, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G, 2G and microUSB. The size of the upcoming device will be 68.1x133.97x8.8 mm, as per the post.
The post on MobileGeeks said that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Premier will cost 480 euros. However, considering that the unlocked version of the Galaxy S III, which has better specs, in Europe is priced at around 450 euros, this price seems unlikely. Samsung may choose to place this phone between the Galaxy S II and Galaxy S III, since it has no smartphone in that price bracket, expect for Galaxy Note, which is too big for most people.

Samsung Galaxy S III mini preview

The Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini is like a nostalgic return to the roots for the highly successful Galaxy S franchise. Quite similar to the original Galaxy S specs-wise, the new SIII mini aims to get as much of the Galaxy S III's personality into a smaller package that's easy on the thumb - and pocket.
The original Samsung Galaxy S III is currently the smartphone to beat, but to many it's too large of a slab to handle. A strong point can be made that a large screen is a must for a great browsing experience or video watching on the go, but not everyone is willing to put up a with the body size such a screen implies.
The Galaxy SIII mini is ready to deal a serious blow to the competition in the midrange, by offering a more compact (and cheaper!) way to get the premium smartphone experience. An ambitious goal it is, but Samsung isn't afraid of a challenge.

iPad mini:What you need to know before buying

If you're experiencing a bit of déjà vu from the hype over a new Apple product, it's completely understandable.
After all, we just got through another iPhone launch, with an incredible amount of online buzz, industry speculation, insider info and leaked photos leading up to it.
So here we go again.
The rabid tech community has now turned its sights to what seems to be an imminent announcement by Apple for a smaller version of its best-selling iPad tablet.
Dubbed by many as the iPad Mini, iPad Air or iPad mini (if Apple takes a page from its iPod touch, nano and shuffle line), this compact and less expensive ebook reader on steroids would go up against the likes of Amazon's Kindle Fire HD, Google's Nexus 7, B&N Nook HD+ and the Kobo Vox.
While Apple hasn't commented on any of this, the following is a collection of the rumors swirling about the iPad's little brother, said to debut within a few weeks. And hey, if it's true, Samsung will need to quickly shoot a new TV commercial that pokes fun at all the hype.

Samsung launching Galaxy S III Mini on Oct 11

Samsung Germany has sent invites for an upcoming device being launched on October 11, 2012. The invite says "So big can be small and so small can be big" and "Get ready for a little sensation" in German, with the characteristic 'S' of its flagship Galaxy S series in the background.

This hints that the South Korean manufacturer will probably launch a small device at the event. Speculation is rife that the company will roll out a smaller version of its current flagship, the Galaxy S III, currently being called the Galaxy S III Mini. Rumours say that the smartphone will be powered by Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) with Samsung's TouchWiz UI and will feature a 4-inch touchscreen and a dual-core processor.

If such a phone is, in fact, launched, it will be a decent alternative for those who want a smartphone with a 4-inch screen (same as the new iPhone 5). Considering that Samsung's current 4-inch Android smartphone, the Galaxy S Advance, has not been updated to Ice Cream Sandwich, it is possible that the Galaxy S III Mini will take its place, though there is no confirmation yet.

The Samsung event follows the launch of iPhone 5 and the device to be launched there is expected to go on sale before the beginning of the holiday season. This strategy will help the company lap up sales during the crucial holiday season.