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Google at the MWC 2018 event has announced the first beta of Flutter which is a new mobile UI framework that helps developers in designing high-quality native interfaces for both iOS and Android. It lets developers to create native apps in record time.
Flutter targets mobile development in performance and platform integrations of native mobile, with high-velocity development and multi-platform reach of portable UI toolkits. It comes with features like stateful Hot Reload, a new reactive framework, rich widget set, and integrated tooling which makes it easy to design fresh apps with brand new designs.
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Developers can take advantage of it to create expressive and flexible designs with composite widget sets, rich animation libraries, and a layered, extensible architecture. It also supports Google's portable GPU-accelerated renderer and high-performance, native ARM code runtime, and platform interop.
https://youtu.be/fq4N0hgOWzU
The Alpha release of Flutter last year managed to deliver features like screen reader support, accessibility features, right-to-left text, localization and internationalization, iPhone X and iOS 11 support, inline video, additional image format support, running Flutter code in the background, and much more.
It also supports Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, new refactorings to help developers have full control on the coding department. The beta release works with a pre-release of Dart 2 with improved support for declaring UI in code ...
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HMD Global introduced Nokia 1, its first Android Oreo (Go edition) smartphone at the MWC 2018. We got to check out the smartphone, check out the hands-on impressions and photo gallery.
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Bright colours greet you as you take a closer look at the Android Go powered Nokia 1. The most affordable Android handset from the company brings back with it the legacy of interchangeable Xpress On covers.
Designed as an accessible smartphone right from scratch, the Nokia 1 makes use of bright colours and plastics to drive costs down while still keeping things interesting. The Nokia 1 is a compact device with a 4.5 inch display. With a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels, this isn’t going to be turning heads anywhere but that’s not the point of this device anyway.
The Nokia 1 gives you a 1.1 GHz Mediatek MT6737M processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and most importantly, a pure build of Android guaranteed to get updates for the next 2 years. Performance is good enough for what the phone is aimed at. Basic social media use, browsing and phone should not pose an issue at all though you probably don’t want to game on this ...
At the Mobile World Congress, Google shared some major developments in Actions on the Google Assistant; it will now be available in seven more languages including Hindi, Thai, Indonesian, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch bringing the total supported languages to 16.
Google says that if developers localize their apps in these new languages, they will be among the first Actions available in the new locales, and will also earn rewards. Apart from languages, Google is also making it easier to build Action for global audiences. It recently added the building with templates creating an Action by filling in a Google Sheet without a single line of code for French, German, and Japanese.
Google is also making it a little easier to localize Actions into different languages by allowing developers to export the directory listing information as a file. With the file in hand, you can translate offline and upload the translations to your console, making localization quicker and more organized. Google to help developers in building the first action in new languages, suggested developers take a quick tour of some of the useful developer features that are rolling out this week.
Another biggest announcement is that Google said that by the end of the year the Assistant will reach ...
YouTube is announcing few new features to its live stream function to improve the user experience and make it accessible to more people. This includes automatic English captions to live streams whenever professionally provided captions aren’t available.
These automated captions provide creators a quick and inexpensive way to make live streams accessible to more people and YouTube is using its automatic speech recognition (LASR) technology for captions with error rates and latency approaching industry standards. This features will be rolled out in the coming weeks and will continue to improve accuracy and latency of automatic captions.
Furthermore, creators can now add a location tag to their mobile live streams and video uploads and share all their favorite hot spots with viewers. Users, on the other hand, can explore other videos with the same location tag by simply clicking on it. You can also use the location filter on the search results page to find other videos from the same location.
YouTube introduced the Super Chats to trigger real-life events last year and wow creators can set this up for their channels using IFTTT (If This, Then That) with over 600smart home devices like lights, pet feeders, and confetti cannons which can be connected to Super Chat which is already available on desktop and ...
HTC confirmed Android 8.0 (Oreo) update for some of its devices back in August last year. The HTC U11 was the first phone to get the Oreo update in November starting from Taiwan, later the U11 Life got the update, after a delay the HTC 10 got the update recently. Now the company has finally started rolling out Oreo update for Indian users that also brings VoLTE support for Reliance Jio users.
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Android Oreo comes with lots of new features and improvements including Background limits, Notification channels, snooze notifications, Autofill APIs, Picture in Picture (PIP) display, Adaptive icons and much more.
The v3.18.400.2 for the HTC 10 is 1.43GB in size, but it still has Android security patch for December, 2017.
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Lava today introduced Z50, the first Android Oreo (Go edition) smartphone in the country. Apart from the Android Go edition features for smooth performance, it has Bokeh mode and an LED flash for both front and rear cameras. It also offers search in 10 major Indian languages (including Hindi) besides enabling search for images, weather and also translate from search home screen.
Airtel also announced that it has partnered with Google to bring low-cost smartphones powered by Android Oreo (Go edition) to the Indian market. In addition to Lava, Micromax will also introduce Micromax BHARAT GO smartphone powered by Android Oreo (Go edition) in partnership with Airtel. The phones will be launched under Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ program starting March, 2018. These will also come pre-loaded with compatible apps, including MyAirtel App, Airtel TV and Wynk Music.
Lava Z50 specifications
4.5-inch (854 x 480 pixels) FWVGA 2.5D curved glass display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection
1.1GHz Quad-core MediaTek MT6737M with Adreno 304 GPU
1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD
Android 8.1 (Oreo) Go Edition
Dual SIM
5 MP rear cameras with LED flash
5MP front-facing camera with LED flash
4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
It will come in Black and Gold colors ...
Google today announced a strategic partnership with SBI to deeply integrate SBI bank on the company's digital payments app Google Tez. This partnership lets users create SBI UPI Id; @oksbi and get access to exclusive offers for SBI customers and enable wider adoption of digital payments and growing the digital payments ecosystem in India.
Google now claims that since the launch of Tez in September 2017, has processed over 250 million transactions and has over 13.5 million monthly active users, across India, from the major cities to Kashmir and Kanyakumari. Currently, Tez supports over 70 UPI enabled banks.
Google's Tez is built on the Indian government-supported Unified Payments Interface (UPI), allowing users make small or big payments straight from their bank accounts to the accounts of others from over 70 UPI enabled banks free of cost. Since the app was built for India, it is available in English and seven Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.
Commenting on the partnership, Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, SBI said:
We are committed to create an enabling environment to promote digital payments for more Indians. We already have a multitude of services including e-commerce and m-commerce, and this partnership with Google Tez will drive innovation and deliver exciting new opportunities ...
Google with an aim to offer healthcare related information quickly in search results, rolled out the Health Cards with over 400 health conditions back in April 2016. Today it announced that it is adding information about commonly searched symptoms like common cold, acute bronchitis, flu, pneumonia, chest infection and Hindi language support.
Google will now show an overview description along with information on self-treatment options and what might warrant a doctor’s visit. Google says that it is aiming to navigate and explore health conditions related to the symptoms and take you to a place where you can quickly talk to a health professional or do more in-depth research on the web.
To make this information tailored to India, Google said that it is working closely with Apollo Hospitals. These results are intended for informational purposes only, and for any additional support, it is always recommended to consult a doctor for medical advice and treatment. This cards of information are to prepare you before you present your problem to a doctor and what questions you should be asking.
The new symptom search experience will be available in Hindi and English on the Google App.
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Xiaomi launched the Mi Band 2 in India back in September 2016, but it went out of stock after few months. It also launched the Mi Band HRX Edition in the country without heart rate sensor a year later. Today Xiaomi has announced that the Mi Band 2 is back in stock in the country at a new price of Rs. 1799.
To remind you, the Mi Band 2 has a 0.42-inch OLED display that shows time, steps and also heart rate when you tap the button below the display. It has upgraded pedometer algorithm for more accurate heart rate tracking and gathering better fitness and sleep data. It has IP67 ratings for water resistance.
Xiaomi Mi Band 2 specifications
0.42-inch OLED display with scratch-resistant glass, anti-fingerprint coating shows time, step and heart rate
Photoplethysmography (PPG) / Heart rate sensor
Monitors your fitness and tracks your sleep
7g ultra light body
IP67 ratings for water resistance
Bluetooth 4.0 LE
70mAh Li-po battery with up to 20 days of standby
The Xiaomi Mi Band 2 is available for Rs. 1799 from mi.com. Check out our Mi Band 2 Review here, if you are planning to get it. Xiaomi also started selling Mi No. 1 Crewneck T-shirt on Mi.com at a discounted price of Rs. ...
After roll out stable Android Oreo update for Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 last month, HMD global has started rolling out Oreo beta update for the Nokia 3 (TA-1020 and TA-1032), as it had promised. The company’s Chief product officer; Juho Sarvikas has announced the same on Twitter.
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Android 8.0 Oreo brings range of features including Background limits, Picture-in-Picture (PIP), notification channels, Wide-gamut color for apps, Adaptive icons, Companion device pairing, Keyboard navigation, AAudio API for Pro Audio and more.
The update will be available via Nokia phones beta labs and the beta testers will be the first ones to test the Android 8.0 followed by wide-roll out post the best testing phase. The update has version number 3.220. Stable update for the phone is expected soon, and the company already confirmed that Nokia 2 will go straight to 8.1 and will include memory optimization features found in Android Oreo (Go Edition).
To join the Nokia phones beta labs, you need to have a working Nokia 3 phone and need to create an account and validate your device by entering the IMEI number. Once you are with the whole process, you will be getting the beta software Over-The-Air (OTA) update which might take up to 12 hours post activation. ...
At the MWC event, KaiOS Technologies announced that it is partnering with Unigroup Spreadtrum & RDA, Airfind, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Doro, HMD Global, Micromax, NXP, Qualcomm to integrate with newest chipsets and offer advanced functionality on lite phones. Furthermore, KaiOS is already supported on high-performance LTE chipset platform Spreadtrum’s SC9820A which is now running on JioPhone.
With this new partnership with various companies, Kai is planning on bringing tailored apps to KaiOS-powered devices and bundle the KaiOS on mobile brands including Micromax, new Doro feature phones, and a new Nokia feature phone powered by KaiOS. With its partnership with NXP, Kai is planning on adopting embedded Secure Element (eSE) and near field communication (NFC)-based mobile solutions in the JioPhone.
KaiOS 2.5 will also be optimized and supported on Spreadtrum’s SC9820E and 3G device solution SC7731E chipsets later this quarter. This partnership is aimed at offering users a broader selection of lite phones that support advanced mobile functionality. The company says that emerging markets see a particular benefit from Spreadtrum’s technology as these new advanced chipsets give a competitive advantage in terms of price and efficiency.
KaiOS will be powering affordable, lite phones and other connected devices that use limited memory while still offering that offer rich user experience. In ...
Back in February last year at the MWC, Samsung and Jio announced I&G (Infill & Growth) Project for Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd in India for LTE services upgrade across India by expanding both the current network capacity as well as network coverage. Today the companies have extended the relationship to further boost LTE network coverage and capacity, and deploy a next-generation cellular IoT network.
The companies said that the partnership will bring LTE coverage 99 percent of the Indian population and significantly improve network capacity across the country. The IoT network will support a variety of consumer and enterprise use cases such as vehicle tracking, smart appliances, smart metering, security, surveillance and more.
The NB-IoT service utilizes existing Jio's spectrum and is enabled by a simple software upgrade of the already installed base stations. It also users new and dedicated Cellular IoT virtualized core. The commercial NB-IoT network has already been established by Jio and Samsung in Mumbai this month, and will roll out in other parts of the country soon.
Commenting on the partnership, Jyotindra Thacker, President of Reliance Jio Infocomm, said:
Making sure that everyone benefits from mobile broadband that is both available and affordable to all is our top priority. We will once ...
Asus along with the Zenfone 5 has also introduced the Zenfone 5 Lite at the MWC 2018 event. Just like the Zenfone 5, the 5 Lite also packs full-screen display. We have got our hands on the phone so let’s take a detailed look at hardware and specifications of the phone.
The Asus Zenfone 5 Lite sports a 6-inch (2160 x 1080 pixels) display with 18:9 aspect ratio. Even the Zenfone 5 Lite packs a glass body design and a great build that gives it a premium look. The phone comes in two variants; Snapdragon 630/ 430 64-bit Octa-Core Mobile Platform with Adreno 508/505 GPU coupled with 3GB RAM with 32GB storage and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage.
It has a 20MP front camera above the display along with earpiece, microphone, LED flash the and usual set of sensors. It also has a secondary 120-degree wide-angle lens. There are ultra-slim bezels on all corners.
The volume rockers and the power button are present on the right side.
While the SIM card tray is present on the left side. The phone comes with dedicated Dual SIM and microSD slots.
The secondary microphone for noise cancellation and a 3.5mm audio headphone jack is present on the top.
The main speaker grill ...
Amazon has finally launched Amazon Prime Music service in India. It was introduced last year exclusively for Echo devices in the country. It is available for Android and iOS devices and is also available on the web at music.amazon.in. As the company had announced previously, the service is free for Prime customers since it is including in their package, and is also ad-free.
It lets you choose music in different languages such as Hindi, English, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati and Rajasthani. It also has offline music downloads and Alexa voice support that lets you search for music with your voice.
Amazon says that it has millions of of songs. It has playlists for Indian and International artists and also has curated playlists across genres, moods, activities and more.
Amazon Prime Music - Android | iOS | Web
ASUS introduced Zenfone Max Plus (M1) in Russia back in November last year, now at the MWC 2018, it has introduced the Zenfone Max M1. It has 5.7-inch HD+ full-screen 2.5D curved glass display with 18:9 aspect ratio and 82% screen-to-body ratio and has a 13-megapixel / 16-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, PDAF for 0.03 second quick focus and a secondary 8-megapixel rear camera with 120-degree wide-angle lens for group photos. There rear camera arrangement is is vertical compared to horizontal arrangement on the Max Plus M1. It also comes with 13MP or 8MP front camera with face unlock.
It is powered by Snapdragon 430 / 425 SoCs with 2GB or 3GB RAM. It has a metal finish, features a fingerprint sensor on the back, comes with dedicated dual SIM and microSD slots and packs a 4000mAh battery that promises battery life of 41 hours on standby, up to 23 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi, or up to 16 hours of video playback. It also lets you charge other devices.
Asus Zenfone Max (M1) (ZB555KL) specifications
5.7-inch (1440 ×720 pixels) HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display
Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 ( 4 x 1.2 GHz Cortex A53 + 4 x ...
After briefly going on sale in January, Google Clips is now officially available in the USA just in time for the promised March shipping time frame. Clips is Google's A.I powered camera was introduced back in October at the Pixel event.
Users who have managed to purchase the Clips camera during the sale in January will also get their deliveries starting today. Google Clips is capable of recording moving image leveraging on machine learning techniques without any human intervention. It connects via Bluetooth LE and WiFi Direct in order to sync with Android and iOS and in quickly recording spontaneous moments. It also has an option to create short movies using the recorded clips.
Google Clips comes with a 12-megapixel sensor with f/2.4 aperture, 1.55 µm pixel size and 130-degree wide-angle lens and also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It has 16GB internal storage. Google claims that it can offer up to 3 hours of smart capture on a single charge. Clips use USB Type-C port to connect. As you keep using the camera, it gets familiarize with the faces so that, it will start taking more photos of the known faces, instead of strangers.
Clips app for Android and iOS lets you view, save, delete and share ...
Google at the MWC 2018 event has announced the first beta of Flutter which is a new mobile UI framework that helps developers in designing high-quality native interfaces for both iOS and Android. It lets developers to create native apps in record time.
Flutter targets mobile development in performance and platform integrations of native mobile, with high-velocity development and multi-platform reach of portable UI toolkits. It comes with features like stateful Hot Reload, a new reactive framework, rich widget set, and integrated tooling which makes it easy to design fresh apps with brand new designs.
[HTML1]
Developers can take advantage of it to create expressive and flexible designs with composite widget sets, rich animation libraries, and a layered, extensible architecture. It also supports Google's portable GPU-accelerated renderer and high-performance, native ARM code runtime, and platform interop.
https://youtu.be/fq4N0hgOWzU
The Alpha release of Flutter last year managed to deliver features like screen reader support, accessibility features, right-to-left text, localization and internationalization, iPhone X and iOS 11 support, inline video, additional image format support, running Flutter code in the background, and much more.
It also supports Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, new refactorings to help developers have full control on the coding department. The beta release works with a pre-release of Dart 2 with improved support for declaring UI in code ...
Chinese Internet conglomerate Tencent is funding $115 million to Indian music streaming service Gaana. The popular music streaming service continues its investments pace in the country with backing from domestic giants like Flipkart and Ola last year.
Tencent already holds majority stakes in Tencent Music Entertainment, which is China’s largest music streaming business and it also operates JOOX, a leading music streaming platform in Southeast Asia. Biggest of all, it holds stakes in Sweden's Spotify service. On the other hand, Gaana currently has over 60 million monthly active users in January is now said to use the latest round of funding in technology developments including a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize music experiences for consumers.
Gaana is aiming to cross 200 million active users mark in three years and is already improving its Social platform which recommends songs based on what friends and family are listening. Gaana Originals platform has more than 100 million playouts. Digital music service in India is expected to cross Rs 3,100 crore in revenue by 2020 with over 273 million online active music listeners.
Commenting on the same, Prashan Agarwal, chief executive of Gaana said:
Music streaming is the future of music consumption globally, and in India, we are only 10% of the way towards building a business ...
Xiaomi today has launched India's first Mi Home Experience store in Chennai. It is not a regular Mi Store, but a Store where products that are not available in India at Mi Home stores can be experienced. The Mi Home Experience Store will open tomorrow.
Xiaomi has announced that it is offering phone engraving with the designs you need but the free option is only for a limited period. Xiaomi products like Ninebot Plus, Home cleaning Robots, Mi sports shoes, Blood pressure monitor, 90-point luggage carrier, Smart Rice Cooker and much more will be showcased at the Mi Experience Store. It is Xiaomi's 25th Mi Store and 1st Mi Home Experience Store in India.
As the name suggests, you can't buy any of these products. Instead, you can go and experience the products which are the only option for now. The Mi Home Experience Store will be opened tomorrow, March 1st from 11:00 AM in Phoenix Market City Chennai 1st Floor. Xiaomi has also announced that it aims to reach 100 Mi Home Stores in 2018 itself. Let's hope that Xiaomi brings some of the products to India as well.
Another MWC means it’s time for one more Samsung Galaxy flagship. The Korean giant finally unveiled the S9 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and S9, S9 Plus combo could very well be the hottest Android phones this year. We spent some time with them at MWC and here’s what we think.
Now in its 9th generation. The Galaxy S9 looks more or less identical to the Galaxy S8. It retains the same premium build, look and feel that made it look like a futuristic slab glass and metal while refining things all around.
At the front, the Galaxy S9 sports a 5.8-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity display with a pixel density of 570ppi. Like the S8, the screen stretches all way around the edges. The S9 doesn’t quite make the leap to an all screen design which would entail the use of a notch. There’s the usual niceties like Gorilla Glass 5 protection and while the screen is the same as from the S8, brightness levels have been boosted marginally.
The general button layout is essentially identical to the S8 and the phone continues to be exceptionally comfortable to hold despite the large display in use. The one big change ...
Samsung announced the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones with new dual aperture camera, Super slo-mo and several features at its Unpacked 2018 event at the MWC 2018 earlier this week. It also started pre-booking for the phones in India soon after the announcement. Today the company has confirmed that it will launch the flagship smartphones in India at an event on March 6th.
Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ specifications
S9 – 5.8-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity display with 570ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection
S9+ – 6.2-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity display with 529ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection
Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with Adreno 630 GPU / Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 9 Series 9810 processor with Mali G72MP18 GPU
S9 – 4GB LPDDR4x RAM with 64GB/128GB/256GB storage (UFS 2.1), expandable memory with microSD
S9+ – 6GB LPDDR4x RAM with 64GB/128GB/256GB storage (UFS 2.1), expandable memory up to 400GB with microSD
Android 8.0 (Oreo)
Single / Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano / microSD)
S9 – 12MP Dual Pixel rear camera with LED Flash, f/2.4-f/1.5 variable aperture, 960fps super slo-mo
S9+ – 12MP primary rear camera with f/2.4-f/1.5 variable aperture, LED Flash, 960fps super slo-mo, 12MP secondary rear camera with f/2.4 ...
