Apple iOS 5 assistant - Siri Intelligent voice recognition

Apple iOS 5 and possibly iPhone 5 will employ a new voice interface called the iOS assistant. Its a voice controlled system that enables the user to do a multitude of activities like clicking sending test messages, emails, search, maps etc.

All these by simple voice commands.

Macrumour has created a mock up of the system in action. It still remains to be seen how the actual product will be. Being a android user, I cant but help notice the striking resemblance to Google voice search.

Video:

Keywords : Apple, Apple iOS 5, iOS 5 assistant

HTC to launch HTC explorer in India and other Europian and Asian markets

HTC is all set to launch HTC explorer in the Indian market. It would also sell the handsets in Asia, Europe and African markets.
The phone is equipped with a 3.2 MP camera and HTC's own sense UI on top of Android

Hit the link below for more details :

http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-explorer/

Price : Rs.12,500

Specs :

HTC Explorer

Size:	102.8mm x 57.2mm x 12.9mm (4.05" x 2.25" x 0.51")
Weight:	108 grams (3.81 ounces) with battery
Display:	3.2-inch touch screen with 320 x 480 resolution
Screen:	81.3mm (3.2")

Netflix for android

Netflix for Android lets you to enjoy your favorite movie or TV show on the go. With recent updates, Netflix is now compatible with all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices.

Netflix for android is available for download and install here : Link

Below are some of the screen shots

The home screen gives the title currently being played with an option to resume from where you left it and those that were played recently.

Amazon Kindle Fire Web Browser - Amazon Silk

Along with the announcement of Kindle Fire, a great publicity was given to the Amazon Silk browser. Amazon claims to provide a much better mobile browsing experience with its new "Split Browser" architecture.

It promises to do so by doing chunk of the processing in the Amazon cloud servers and then delivering a optimized content to the devices themselves. It would also employ content compression and last mile connection optimization to do so.

Whether this is any different than Opera Mobile's and SkyFire browser remains to be seen.

Official note after this :
{Source : Amazon }

Amazon Silk

Revolutionary Cloud-Accelerated “Split Browser”

Modern websites are complex. A typical web page requires 80 files served from 13 different domains. This takes a regular browser hundreds of round trips, and adds seconds to page load times.
Amazon Silk is different in a radical new way. When you use Silk, without thinking about it or doing anything explicit, you’re calling on the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud (AWS). We've refactored and rebuilt the browser software stack to push pieces

Amazon announces four new Kindle devices

Amazon has silently announced four new Kindle devices : 

Kindle for $79

Kindle Touch for $99

Kindle Touch 3g for $149

Kindle Fire - An android tablet for $199.

The announcement from Jeff Bezos - Amazon CEO and Founder after this :

Dear Customer,

There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.

We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199.

Amazon unveils its new android Tablet - Kindle Fire

Amazon has dived head first into the tablet market with its Kindle Fire ending a long running speculation that Amazon would release its own tablet.

 Price : $199

 The price seems the true differentiator. With a solid spec including an IPS panel but no 3g, it is in fact a sweet deal.

 Below is the official Amazon announcement of the Tablet :

Stunning Color Touchscreen

Will a new android tablet be unveiled in today's Amazon press conference ?

Today is the Sep 28th 2011 and everyone is eager for the announcement that will be made for invitation of this sort. The invitation bears striking resemblance that Apple employs in terms of of both simplicity and the way it is designed to evoke a curious and what will happen there response.

The speculation is that Amazon will announce a new 7 inch tablet powered by android. And given Amazon's experience with content availability for hand held readers, it remains to be seen how it is going to differentiate itself from the plethora of android tablets available.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Android fastest growing Mobile OS - not iPhones' iOS

According a recent study published by Nielsen android has been the choice of OS for more than 56 % of the consumers who got a new phone.

Apple iPhones iOS trails at a distant second at 28%. The leader of yesteryear, Blackberry come third and managed to hold only a meager 9 % of the total market share.

The increased moment in android sales may be attributed to the wide variety of hardware availability, a vibrant apps ecosystem that has prompted a interested developer community, choice of carriers, possibility of customizing the software and a plethora of other reasons.

The OS share :

 {Source : Nielson}

Apple to announce iPhone 5 on October 4

Apple as always kept the excitement high for it's next iteration of the iPhone. It seems like the date would be October 4 10 Am when it would make an announcement regarding iPhone5.

Technology blog engadget is reporting that the wait is in fact over and that invites are being sent out to a select few.

One cannot but appreciate the simple and subtle nature of the invite picture below.

{Source: Engadget}

Honda civic 2012 - Interior

Honda Civic 2012 has a two stage instrument cluster as in the 2011 model. But the panel has been totally revamped to look more modern and sophisticated. The top row houses the Fuel Gauge, Speedometer and the Fuel Economy meter. The iMID is also placed in the top row.
The second row houses a huge Tachometer.

The whole audio system console and the climate control panel is nicely arched towards the Drivers. You have to inside the car's cockpit (yes ..cockpit) to see the ingenuity of the design. You will wonder why this wasn't thought up earlier.

Below are some random grabs mostly from my cellphone. Pardon for the quality.

More pictures below

What is Android or Android Phone

What is Android?

About Android:

Android is an operating system intended for  mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers and more recently used in car other electronic devices such as media players, VOIP phones, Car dashboards and even refrigerators and Micro Waves. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.

In the beginning:

Before 2007, Android would have meant a completely different topic, a robot built in the image of humans.

Google purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005. The Open handset alliance led by Google itself consisting of major tech companies was created to further the OS.

The first commercial product was the T-Mobile G1 smartphone manufactured by HTC. It was released October 2008 for T-mobile. It had the Android OS platform version 1.0. The OS lacked many of the refinements that the current day versions have. In fact the phone saw a major improvement in performance when it was updated with OS version 1.5 (Cupcake).

The 1.5 update brought in many enhancements like automatic screen orientation using the accelerometer and improved Bluetooth functionality.

The phone got mixed reviews. Cnet commented that the Phone was not really suitable for mainstream consumers and business users.

Evolution:

CyanogenMod V7 Android Rom - Supported Devices and direct links

About Cyanogen Mod :

CyanogenMod (pronounced sigh-AN-oh-jen-mod), is a customized, aftermarket firmware distribution for several Android devices (See above for supported devices & how to install CyanogenMod on said devices). Based on the Android Open Source Project, CyanogenMod is designed to increase performance and reliability over Android-based ROMs released by vendors and carriers such as Google, T-Mobile, HTC, etc. CyanogenMod also offers a variety of features & enhancements that are not currently found in these versions of Android.                                                                                                               (as in Cyanogenmod.com)

Below is the list of supported devices and links to the download and info pages for the respective device :

Devices :

Barnes & Noble

B&N Nook Color

Commtiva

Geeksphone z71 Variants

Geeksphone One

Geeksphone Zero

Google

Google Nexus One

Google Nexus S

Google Nexus S 4G

HTC

HTC Aria

HTC Click (Tattoo)

HTC Desire GSM

HTC Desire CDMA

HTC Desire HD / Inspire 4G

HTC Desire S

HTC Desire Z / G2

HTC Evo 4G

HTC Evo Shift 4G

HTC Hero GSM

HTC Hero CDMA

HTC Incredible

HTC Incredible 2

HTC Incredible S

HTC Legend

HTC Dream / Magic

T-Mobile myTouch 4G

HTC myTouch 3G Slide

HTC Wildfire

Huawei

Huawei U8220

LG

T-Mobile G2x

LG Optimus 2X

Motorola

Motorola Cliq

Motorola Defy

Motorola Droid

Motorola Droid 2

Motorola Droid X

Motorola Cliq XT

Samsung

Samsung Captivate

Samsung Fascinate

Samsung Galaxy S

Samsung Galaxy S II

Samsung Vibrant

Viewsonic

Viewsonic G-Tablet

ZTE

ZTE Blade

New Android Market - apk download

Android market has been updated to closely reflect the Full web version of the market. Though much slower than the previous market version, it offers more information in a organized way and more main categories.

New Categories added are Movies and Books.

It now also includes new lists like Top grossing, New apps top list, New apps top grossing lists, trending etc which were originally available in Web version of the market only.

Download link from XDA here

Below are the screen shots :

Android market : Main Page

Android Market : Top Grossing

Android Market : Apps - Featured

Android Market: Trending

Movies :

Virtuous Unity Sense 3.0 based Android Rom - myTouch 4g

Virtuous Unity  is a Sense 3.0 based Android Rom available for the following devices :

Supported Devices

• HTC Desire HD (Ace)
• HTC Inspire 4G (Ace)
• HTC Desire Z (Vision)
• HTC Desire S (Saga)
• HTC Incredible S (Vivo)
• T-Mobile G2 (Vision)
• T-Mobile myTouch 4G (Glacier)

This ROM is available as a download in the free version of the Rom Manager. Rom Manager is available from Market here

Since this is a Sense based ROM, I consider this as a logical upgrade to myTouch users who are used to the myTouch sense interface and like it. After using a multitude of ROMs, I definitely liked the refinement and the simplicity of the Sense 3.0 UI. There have been negative comments about Sense slowing down the phone. But in my perspective, the hardware is totally capable of running the ROM without any noticeable lag. The Rom has a overclocking Kernel and also has a graphical tool to overclock the CPU if you require more speed.

For additional information : http://www.virtuousrom.com/

The below screen shots are from a myTouch 4G.

Home Screen :

Calendar Widget :

3D Page transitions :

Good looking yet functional Lock Screen :

The icons/functionality available in the lock screen can be configured as required using the below screen :

Home screens preview :

Cute little baby rat pups - Panasonic FZ50

Cute little baby pups with not even their eyes open. Taken by Rakesh.

Honda Civic 2012 Sedan

Honda civic 2012 - LX. San Diego

Honda Civic 2012 photos

Honda Civic 2012 - LX
For Interior photos: Here