Into iOS 8.1

Apple’s new update for the latest iPhone OS release iOS 8.1 was launched on Monday. This release is quite a great update for the iPhone; it has brought some really cool features to the phone with bringing back the Camera Roll app.

Camera Roll is back

One of the prominent features of the previous iOS releases was Camera roll and it was quite popular, but apple removed it in the initial release of iOS release. But after the negative feedback from the users over the removal the famous feature is back. Yes the 8.1 release have brought back the Camera Roll with which you very so familiar, now the users can again see the pictures taken by their iPhone in the roll form, no need to go to your gallery.

Photos go Cloud

The new iOS 8.1 release brings the Photo Library feature to the whole new level by adding iCloud Photo Library to it. Now the users can add their photos to iCloud directly and this makes it possible to watch and share at all internet enabled devices. And the storage up to 5gb is free, what more a user can ask for ! Moreover the larger storage plans are also available for very cheap price, starting with 99 cents a month for 20GB, and $3.99 for 200GB and higher tiers are available, up to 1TB. Though the feature is in public beta, it’s quite amusing and is sure to be improved over the time.

iMessage Integrity

The "green message" or the iMessage feature which allowed the users to get messages from other iPhone user to their iPhone and iPad has now integrated more tightly and now it also allows to get the texts from non-iPhone user to be forwarded to the iPad. The feature is still same for the iPhone contacts as you can receive messages from them for free as always, but the message from the non-iPhone user is transmitted over the carrier network, so it might be counted and you might be billed against the same.

Seamless Continuity

The new iOS 8.1 allows you to move between you devices seamlessly, So now if you are checking your mail on your iPhone on safari, you can continue reading it on you iPad as safari will have it synced for you and you can reply to the same from you Macbook directly, similarly you can play with all of you apps as the apps will be now synced seamlessly. A call you have on you iPhone will be available on you Macbook and you can keep talking, read sms or reply to all of them from your Macbook or iPad without even touching your iPhone again. Though the feature is amusing, it also require compatible hardware, so you will need iOS Yosemite and a device from 2012 or latter.

Instant Hotspot

Your iPhone can be converted to a HotSpot now with just a single flip. The new Instant HotSpot feature of the iOS makes it possible to make you iPhone discoverable as a HotSpot just by flipping a single button in settings. Though the feature was available in other devices preciously, it have finally come to iOS. This new feature uses you data connection to provide bandwidth to the connected devices.

Apple Pay

Now the biggest and coolest feature of iOS 8.1, the Apple Pay, now you can pay to each and every thing you purchase on move with your iPhone. Yes the iPhone 8.1 have made it possible to pay your bills with a single tap at your phone. All you have to do is to add a credit or debit card to Apple Pay app, verify it with you bank, and you are ready to go. So now on whenever you purchase something from a Apple supported store, just tap your phone to the payment terminal and you will get a confirmation screen on your phone, verify and done, yeah no more logins or connecting screens from vendors or banks. The feature is available with limited vendors, but field tests have been positive, also the hardware required is not a special one, so it is expected to grow a scale up very easily. Independent users have reported a very great experience and it has been reported to be working great at MacDonolds to Walmart and also with the New York taxi.

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Is Google Watching You ?

Recently Google helped law enforcement officials in arresting a Texas man who was allegedly trying to send a abusive image of a girl . The offender named John Henry Skillern was trying to send the picture to his friend, but he was caught by an email scanning bot of Google. Google reported incident to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Houston , which further coordinated with local law enforcement to arrest the criminal. Similarly the tech giants efforts have been much helpful in preventing child abuse and porn crime in past. Google is working in close collaboration with National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation  to track down and curb child abuse and pornography. This news have been covered by all major media outlets like The Telegraph, Huffingtonpost and have brought a lot of praise to Google.

The Other Side

But there is other side of story too. This news have brought positive comments from child welfare organizations but it have also brought sharp reviews from privacy and free internet advocates. People are concerned about their privacy, though this systems prevents criminals, it also peeks into personal data of innocent citizen. As BBC have pointed out that this system is an integral part of Google's system and each and every mail passing through its system is scanned. Google uses this information for providing personalised ads and results and while re-targeting you. So this means that Google is using this system to snoop in every innocent users account. A few of the web experts have even suggested to move away and look at other privacy protected venues.

 How It Works

The privacy concerns look really horrible though but its not that gruesome if we look closely. So here we have brought a closer look at the working of this scanning system.

How Gmail scanning works

This system is designed to scan every mail for pattern. Google scans patterns to gather business intelligence about the markets. But this system could also be used to scan other kind of patterns. The anti child abuse patterns come's in scene here. Whenever any kind of child abuse or pornography offence is reported, these result are hashed to produce unique signature and saved in a database of all known abusive images.

So whenever a sender sends a mail, here is what happens:

1. Google's mail bots scan your mail for patterns, and every image hash is also scanned.
2. The notice worthy thing here is that your actual image is never used, only its hash is used, this was the image never goes inside the system and remains privet.
3. If the image hash is matched with a known abusive image then a positive match flag is set. All the records in database are previously known and confirmed abuse incident. And the hash are unique for every file and matches only for exactly same files. So if you are sending an image of little your Sally or Joe, there are know chances of false matching as hash for you pictures will be unique and non reported.
4. If a positive match is found against a image then a human reviewer takes a final look at it. This is the first place where your image are exposed to a human.  These reviewers are from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation are actively working for child safety and are good guys for sure. So those concerned with privacy can take a breath of relief.
5. If a reviewer find's an image offensive, it is reported to law enforcement for further tracking and arresting. And if image is found non offensive it is trashed and pattern is reviewed.

Conclusion

The system seems to be intrusive, but actually its not that much of a threat. The system doesn't flags any new image, it just tries to find out previously reported images. So offensive images might go undetected, but it ensure that no false positive is generated. Also this all system uses hash's, therefore assuring that original pictures are never used. Hash's assures only uniqueness, and cant be used to recreate original image, so your images are safely stored away from any human eyes inside system. The first interaction of images occurs only after this much of security and the results are limited to only the organisations responsible for protection of children. So we can take at-least this much of risk so that our children are safe.

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Facebook Aquires Whatsapp: How Things Will Change

Whatsapp in New Avtar

Mobile messaging consolidation is coming fast and heavy recently, with the Viber/Rakuten deal and today’s WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook.There is a lot of buzz going around about this takeover. The funny thing about this takeover is that the founder of Whatsapp tried to get a job at Facebook before founding whatsapp and was turned down, four years later with the 419 millions user on his platform, #Jan Koum have somersaulted directly in the facebook managerial board after this acquisition as a press release from Faceook states "WhatsApp will continue to operate independently and retain its brand. In addition, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum will join Facebook’s board." This is how this have changed.
But the bigger question is, How things will Change ?

How Things Have Changed

The Past

Whatsapp Ethics

The image above is a note that Koum keeps on his desk, outlining the focus of the company on building a ‘focused messaging experience’. Sequioa’s Jim Goetz says that founder Koum’s time growing up in a communist country shaped how he developed WhatsApp.

The Present

4 Years Of Whatsapp

$19 billion is…

• 4x the market cap of BlackBerry
• Approximately one-third the market cap of Ford
• 2.8x the market cap of GroupOn
• Effectively equal to the market cap of The Gap
• Slightly more than Sony’s market cap (around 10 percent)
• Around three-fourths the market cap of Delta
• 7.5 Mark Cubans
• Almost precisely one-third of HP’s market cap
• 2 nuclear submarines
• 62 percent of Twitter’s market cap
• 76,000 trips to space on Virgin Galactic
• Almost 60 percent of Sprint’s market cap
• 25 Instagram acquisitions

Whatsapp At a Glance

The future:

This is Facebooks take on this deal:
Facebook fosters an environment where independent-minded entrepreneurs can build companies, set their own direction and focus on growth while also benefiting from Facebook’s expertise, resources and scale. This approach is working well with Instagram, and WhatsApp will operate in this manner. WhatsApp’s brand will be maintained; its headquarters will remain in Mountain View, CA; Jan Koum will join Facebook’s Board of Directors; and WhatsApp’s core messaging product and Facebook’s existing Messenger app will continue to operate as standalone applications.
“Our explicit strategy for the next several years is to focus on growing and connecting everyone in the world,I don’t personally think ads are the right way to monetize messaging.” Zuckerberg said.

And this is how Whatsapp CEO Koum takes the matter:
Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing.
WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.
Koum also made a similar statement today in his post about the acquisition, saying, “You can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication.”

What You Can Expect

Right now, the two companies are willing to delay making money off WhatsApp to ensure it becomes the dominant mobile messenger around the world. Putting a dollar price tag on it could drive users to competitors that are free to download, like WeChat, Kik, KakaoTalk, and Line.

And therein lies perhaps the biggest advantage to being acquired for WhatsApp. Facebook makes plenty of money from advertising in its main app and website. That money unshackles WhatsApp from polluting its product with ads or slowing down growth with a subscription fee. Instead, it can drive full-speed towards getting to 1 billion users.

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Reliance Offers iPhone 5C, 5s For Free Under 2 Years Contract

The Dream Come True !

Finally the  dream of Indian mobile users of owning a iphone have come true. Today Reliance communication announced its plan to offer latest phones in iPhone series to Indian customers on a similar model used in United States. Here in a release Reliance revealed that they will be  offering the new iPhones at upfront costs as low as zero, with fixed monthly charges, under a 2-year contract.
It was revealed that now consumers can take home  the 16GB models of iPhone 5S and 5C by paying Rs 2,999 and Rs 2,599 per month, respectively, for 2 years. You can Register for more information here.

Why You Can't Say No 

The process of getting is also very easy, customers will not have to pay any kind of down payment as the  old times.  Adding icing on the top, the users will not receive any usage bill for 24 months, as the monthly payments include all usage charges.  They will only have to  pay  for international calls and international roaming, means it will be virtually free for the local users.

Easy And Cheese.

Further adding that the other versions of the iPhone will be also available for users at a very low down payment. Reliance is offering this offer to  bring more smartphone users to its 3G network, being the leading data services provider, if the could tie customers via the two years contract, it will increase postpaid customers to its customer base.  To make the offer  fast and easy Reliance communication has tied up with banks, including ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank so that the credit card customers could avail the service readily.

Let The Fight Begin 

While this news is spreading like fire there are no news from the other leading  operators like Vodafone and Airtel . But we could hope that they will soon sprung up and will try to offer more lucrative offers to customers. So all of us can wait for some time to let the fight begin, and see iPhone going to the never heard before lowest prices.

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Google Nexus 5 Swaps The Market

The Wait Is Over ! Presenting Google Nexus 5

The many weeks of leaks and speculation are over, Google announced company’s latest flagship Android phone Nexus 5 quietly today on the Google Play Store, without a flashy event. and for the most part, it wasn't all that surprising. All of the leaked photos and videos that we’ve seen were, real images of the what we have now as the officially launched final phone.

What's In The Box

The Google’s new phone, which was built by LG, is all what has been expected after so much of leaks, it comes pre-loading with the latest version of Android 4.4 “KitKat,” and features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.2 GHz quad core processor,  it has a 5-inch touchscreen, which is covered with Gorilla Glass 3, and boasts a 1080p resolution. and 16 or 32 gigabytes of on-board storage. The phone comes in white or black, and is available for $349 off contract for the 16 GB model and $399 for the 32 GB model. It boasts an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera  with an LED flash and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. One of finest feature is it that equipped with optical image stabilization and HDR+ which brings the photos to life. The phone also has NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and dual-band Wi-Fi, and unlike the Nexus 4, there’s 4G LTE connectivity too

New Android for All

In addition to the new phone’s launch, Google also announced that KitKat will be coming to its Nexus 4 phone, as well as the Nexus 7 and 10 tablets “in the coming weeks.” The new Android Kitkat features new Hangouts application, which adds your SMS text messages into the mix, plus Google has added voice control using the “OK Google” command seen on the Motorola Moto X.  HTC also confirmed that the HTC One Google Play edition should get its update within the next couple of weeks, while the standard HTC One will get KitKat within the next 90 days.

Over The Counter !

Nexus 5 is now available for purchase (no contract required) on Google Play in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K., Australia, Korea and Japan, with orders expected to ship in the next few days. And contracted versions are available on T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint, but will not be available on Verizon. Like Google’s other handsets, the price of the phone is unsubsidized, and is sold off-contract.

But Wait ! You'll Have To Wait.

Are just running out to grab one ? But wait, the latest update is that if you’re looking to pick up one of the 16 GB models, you’re going to have to wait. The Google have declared the product completely sold out and have provided no clue about when the new stock will arrive.

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Phonebloks Moves to Pre-Alfa : Meet Motorola 'Project Ara'

More Open World !

The world is becoming more open and open with every day. With thousands of community supported open source projects  being developed all around the world the technology is reaching people like never before. After programming, designing and software development projects, the mobile phone hardware have also gone the open way.

After Android, Arduino Meet 'Ara'

Technology took a big leap when Android came to public views. The world of small intelligent devices was again revolutionized with the Arduino going open to masses. While the former impacted the software world later evolved the open hardware world.  Nearly a year ago, Dave Hakkens bought the philosophy of both to the mobile world and proposed a open hardware platform for mobile Phonebloks. Since  then the support for the cause has grown around the world. It seems the thoughts are taking shape as Motorola announced the first open source hardware platform for mobile 'Ara'.
The Motorola announced that they have joined hands with the phoneblok think-tank Dave Hakken  to develop a phone platform that is modular, open, customizable, and made for the entire world.  The project is led by Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group which have set goals after a taking mass user input through hackthons organized top tech universities including MIT and Caltech over past years.

The giant leap : Going wide open.

The  Motorola Advanced Technology and Projects group leader Paul Eremenko said that goal is to create a standard endoskeleton, or frame, that can hold different modules, such as a battery, a physical keyboard, a screen, a camera, an extra-powerful processor or memory chips for storing more music, all based on the customer's preferences.
On its website, Phonebloks envisions an online store letting consumers read reviews of smartphone components, order custom-designed handsets and shop for new and used parts.
Further adding he gave Dave Hakkens credit for creating such a strong community and said that Motorola too have put a great technical effort to this project, both of which are necessary for such open projects. Motorola hopes to share its technical development work with Hakkens' widespread social media communities to develop   project openly and create experimental modules.

Give smile, Get Smile !

Motorola will be rolling out  a Module Developer's Kit (MDK) this winter, It plans to invite developers and recruit "Ara scouts" to help research and shape the project, so people can begin designing their own components for the phones. There is also something in store for  volunteers who will  bring smiles to the mobile users. Motorola also suggested that volunteers can expect an exclusive discount when the product launches and the 100 most active will be getting free phones.

What Next

The world was gone more happier when Google launched the Android platform, it revolutionized the O.S. world and with passing time the computer and smartphone world has come a long way. Today smartphone world is evolving at lightning fast pace and more and more fascinating things are coming out every day. It seems that soon mobiles  too will be too different from  as we know today.

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FIFA 14 Fever : A Grand Theft Entry

A Grand Entry

FIFA 14 has only been out for little less than a week but already it has established itself as one of this year’s most popular gaming titles stealing away gamers from all other games including GTA V.

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