Nextbit's Robin is going to gain the talk next year.

Here is our comeback with the details of pretty good mobile which is to be launched early next year.

The smartphone space is quite cluttered right now. It might not seem like it in major markets, since Apple and Samsung dominate the smartphone industry, but there are dozens of companies around the world fighting for space in consumers’ pockets. Different companies use different strategies to try to separate their products from the pack, but by and large, most companies hit the same notes. Since Samsung and Apple dominate the high end, other companies compete on price.

Interestingly, no smaller smartphone makers have made a real effort to break through by addressing one of smartphone users’ top pain points in a new and creative way… until now.

Nextbit has been buzzing over the past few months and we all knew something fun was coming, but I’m not sure anyone expected the Robin. This sleek but unassuming smartphone isn’t an iPhone killer or a Galaxy killer, and it won’t kill any other smartphones on the market. Instead, it’s a problem killer, and it has its sights set on what is constantly listed near the top of smartphone users’ chief complaints with their phones: Storage space.

How many times have you gone to capture a video on your iPhone or Android phone and seen that dreaded storage full message? How many times have you tried to transfer new movies or music to your phone ahead of a trip and had to clear out space before you were able to?

Most of us have run into issues with free storage on our phones, and that’s why storage is consistently listed along with battery life as a top complaint in studies that look to determine users’ biggest problems with their phones.

Using some cloud-based software wizardry, the Robin solves the problem of storage in a brilliantly simple way. Well, it’s simple for the end user, but it’s a wonderfully complex engineering feat behind the scenes.

Nextbit calls the Android-based Robin the word’s only “cloud-first” smartphone, and that’s an accurate description. The handset ships with 32GB of internal storage, but that memory is completely dynamic and is supported by an additional 100GB of cloud storage.

Here’s how it works: you have apps, movies, music, photos, videos and all sorts of other files on your phone, but you don’t ever need to access all of that data at once. So, when your phone is nearing its 32GB local limit, the Robin begins intelligently deleting apps and files from your device to make room for new data.

But “deleted” isn’t the right word. Everything pushed off of your device is backed up to the cloud, complete with all user data and settings. So, for example, if the Robin removes Angry Birds from your phone to clear space as you capture some video at your daughter’s soccer game, you can pull it back down from the cloud on demand and you’ll be able to pick things up right where you left off.

The Robin also learns as you use it, so apps and files you use often will be kept on the device, while other items you rarely use will be the first to be kicked off to the cloud when you need more storage.

This smart solution effectively allows Robin owners to forget about storage space and just… use their phones. And in a meeting ahead of the phone’s debut, Nextbit was careful to point out a number of times that the magic behind this innovative cloud solution was designed with data caps in mind.

Data is used as sparingly as possible, and WiFi is favored heavily by 
Nextbit’s software. Since the handset backs up data frequently while connected to WiFi, it can delete unchanged apps, videos or photos on the fly without having to back them up on the spot when a WiFi network isn’t available. That said, it is not yet clear exactly how much cellular data Nextbit’s solution will use in practice.

Now, for the bad news: you can’t buy a Robin yet. The phone is slated for launch in the first quarter of 2016, but pre-orders go live on Kick-starter beginning immediately. 

The first 1,000 Robins will be made available at just $299, and then the phone will be $349 for the duration of Nextbit’s 30-day campaign. When the phone launches early next year, it will cost $399.

The phone comes with a simple design that uses concave circles and color accents to separate itself from the pack. There is also a set of LED's on the back to let you know when Robin’s cloud magic is working.

Then, the software is unmistakably Android.The software has a very “pure Android” look and feel that enthusiastic Android fans will love.Moreover the design of this phone is what that makes it interesting.Here are the specs.

 Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 
•    Memory: 3GB RAM / 32GB onboard / 100GB online 
•    Screen: 5.2in IPS LCD 1080p, Gorilla Glass 4
•    Rear Camera: 13Mp with phase detection autofocus, dual tone flash 
•    Front camera: 5Mp 
•    Battery: 2680 mAh
•    Dual front facing stereo speakers 
•    Fingerprint sensor 
•    NFC 
•    Quick charging 
•    Bluetooth 4.0 LE 
•    Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac 
•    Dimensions: 149x72x7mm 
•    Weight: Approx. 150g
•    GPS enabled

YuPlayGod launched Yureka Plus with octa core CPU for Rs 9,999.

Yu, a subsidiary brand of Micromax, has announced the launch of a new smartphone. The new handset, named as Yureka Plus, offers plenty of features at a lower budget, carrying on the legacy of its predecessors like Yu Yureka and Yu Yuphoria.

The Yu Yureka Plus offers a 5.5 inch IPS display with full high definition resolution (1920x1080 pixels). Like Yureka, it too comes with Cyanogen OS 12 that is based on Android operating system. With Snapdragon 615 octa core processor and 2 GB DDR3 RAM, the smartphone also promises smooth performance.

The Yu Yureka Plus has 16 GB of internal memory but a press release issued by the company speaks nothing about expandable storage option.

This phone offers dual SIM slots with 4G connectivity. It has a 2500mAh battery and a 13-megapixel rear camera along with a 5-megapixel front camera.

Unveiling the new device, Rahul Sharma, founder YU said, "With Yureka we ushered in the revolution that's 'YUPlayGod' and we couldn't have asked for a better response from our community. We have been overwhelmed with the enthusiasm and cheer we received for the Zeus of phones, Yureka. Grateful for the encouragement and support we are returning the love by breaking our very own unprecedented benchmark with Yureka Plus. ”

As per the press release, the phone will be available in grey and white colours.

Moto E 2nd Gen Is Currently The Cheapest 4G Smartphone In India.

  In the race of 4G smartphones in India, Motorola seems to have taken a big leap, at least as far as the pricing goes. It has announced the all new Moto E with 4G support at a jaw-dropping Rs 5,499.

However, there’s a twist. The said pricing comes after ‘the special offer of Rs 500 off on limited stocks+ Exchange offer up to Rs 1500+ Flipkart e-gift voucher of Rs 500 with a new Airtel Connection.’

The Moto E second-gen sports a 4.5-inch display compared to the 4.3-inch display in the previous model and will have a 540 x 960 pixels resolution. 

The offer is applicable on 4G LTE variant that comes powered by quad-core processor and runs the latest Android Lollipop OS version. It is coupled with 1GB RAM.

It comes with an internal storage of 8GB that can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD card slot. In terms of camera, the device has a 5MP rear snapper along with an auto focus sensor and includes features like geo-tagging, panorama, and HDR. It also comes with a front-facing VGA camera. The Moto E 4G variant runs Android 5.0 Lollipop.

In terms of connectivity, the device has WiFi, GPS, Radio and Bluetooth. The water resistant Moto E is fuelled by a 2390 mAh battery compared to the 1980 mAh seen in the previous model.

Android M Developer preview on nexus 5 sharply increased standby time!!

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Android M is going to have a few interesting and exciting features. One of them is called Doze and is activated when your Android handset is inactive for a period of time. With Doze, the phone goes into a deeper sleep than it currently does and and a result, standby times are more than doubled. Once Doze is disabled (which happens when you pick up the phone), syncs and open tasks which were halted are carried out by the model.

Another feature of Android M is App Standby. With this feature, once your phone is unplugged, apps deemed to be inactive are prohibited from receiving network support and any syncs and open jobs are suspended. Once you plug in your phone, the idle apps will regain network connectivity. Android M will most likely offer those who need specific apps to run at all times, the ability to disable the feature on certain apps.

To see how Doze and App Standby might work in real life, a Nexus 5 was loaded with the Android M Developer Preview and measured against the same model loaded with Android 5.1.1. The result? After 8 hours in standby, the Nexus 5 with Android 5.1.1 consumed 4% of its battery life as opposed to 1.5% with the Nexus 5 running Android M. After 24 hours, the Lollipopped version of the stock Android phone had burned through 12% of its battery life while on standby. The Android M powered handset had used just 4.5% of its juice during the same amount of time. After 48 hours, the Nexus 5 with Android 5.1.1 inside had devoured 24% of its battery power compared to the 9% used on the Android M powered version of the phone.

The Nexus 5 with Android 5.1.1 installed was projected to provide 200 hours of standby time. With Android M, the standby time was projected to jump to 533 hours. That means that Android M provided the phone with 2.7 times the standby time available with Android 5.1.1. This is an exciting bit of technology that Android users should be greatly looking forward to. 

Microsoft is Launching series of new ultra stylish windows phones !!

 It’s been a while since Microsoft announced a new flagship Windows phone, but a new report suggests it could have a whole bunch of devices ready to go in the near future. According to NokiaPowerUser, the company is prepping four exciting handsets.

Late last month, rumors about a successor to the Lumia 930 have started appearing online. Microsoft is working on new smartphones, dubbed the Lumia 940 and Lumia 940 XL, which will feature high-end specifications alongside a uni body aluminum design.

Here are the details of Microsoft lumia 940 XL.

This is a sleek flagship device with dual stereo speakers at the bottom of this phone. With a 6.8mm waistline, this is a windows 10 devuce powered by Intel atom x7 64 bit processor with 5.4 inch screen. The display is super Amoled with quad HD resolution.

This device is packed with 4GB of RAM and 32GB inbuilt storage with a microSD card slot. The back camera is a Carl Zeiss optics packed with 24MP preview camera and 8MP front facing camera.

The designer also included a fingerprint scanner just right of the windows button. However this 940XL concept looks stunning and classy. This device is sleek and shiny.

Fitness tracker company Fitbit files to go public on the NYSE under the symbol 'FIT'.

Fitbit Inc., a pioneer in wearable fitness tracking, on Thursday filed for an initial public offering to help fend against a mounting assault from a range of corporate giants eager for a piece of the burgeoning market.

The San Francisco maker of devices that track movement and sleep quality revealed it earned a $131.8 million profit last year on revenue that nearly tripled to $745.4 million. Since 2007, Fitbit has sold roughly 20.5 million of its fitness-tracking devices—from the $60 Zip clip-on to the $250 Surge wristwatch—with more than half sold last year alone.

Fitbit said Thursday it is seeking to raise up to $100 million, although that amount is a placeholder and is subject to change. It aims to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol FIT. The company valued itself at roughly $1.2 billion in March. It isn’t yet clear what valuation the company will seek in the IPO.

Its products’ novel ability to count the number of daily steps and monitor distance traveled and calories burned seized the attention of data-obsessed modern consumers and paved the way for a new category of hardware technology.

Celebrities such as author David Sedaris and basketball player Shaquille O’Neal have professed their love for Fitbits, and President Barack Obama has been spotted wearing the Fitbit Surge in public outings.

But that success also has attracted a wealth of competitors, as Fitbit acknowledges in its IPO filing. Tech giants such as Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics Inc.all have launched smartwatches with the ability to monitor exercise, while Google Inc.’s Android platform has been embraced by a number of big hardware makers. Then there are smaller electronics makers such as Garmin Ltd., Jawbone and Misfit, as well as sporting-goods companies like Nike Inc. and Under Amour Inc., which all sell fitness bands on the market.

Fitbit also has had to recover from a big knock to its brand. In early 2014, the company was stung by a series of complaints from consumers that one the company’s fitness-tracking bracelets, the Fitbit Force, caused rashes on their wrists. Fitbit recalled the product in March 2014, saying a small percentage of its customers experienced an allergic reaction to materials in the bracelet.

In addition to the reputational hit, Fitbit’s IPO filing revealed that the recall cost the company $84.6 million in pretax income in 2013 and another $22.8 million last year. The recalls also led to lawsuits filed against the company. Fitbit says it has settled all class-action lawsuits, though a number of personal-injury claims remain unresolved.

Fitbit warned these claims could lead to “substantial” litigation or settlement costs.

Also, it is unclear how many Fitbit consumers remain loyal users. Of the 20.5 million devices sold since its launch, just 9.5 million were actively used in the first three months of the year, according to the IPO filing. Some earlier models may no longer be used because consumers upgraded to newer iterations.

The company, with 579 employees at the end of March, said its products are now sold in 45,000 retail stores in more than 50 countries, and commands 68% of the fitness-tracker market, according to NPD Group.

Fitbit’s 38-year-old chief executive, James Park, co-founded the company in 2007 with his business partner, Eric Friedman. Mr. Park, a Harvard dropout, came up with the idea after playing videogames at home, struck by the way the Nintendo Wii combined motion sensors and software. Messrs. Park and Friedman each own a 10.9% stake in Fitbit, according to the filing.

The company has raised at least $83 million in venture-capital funding from investors such as Foundry Group, True Ventures and SoftBank Capital. Foundry Group is the biggest shareholder with a 28.9% ownership.

Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank are listed among the underwriters of the IPO.

Google ensures your gmail account security by tracking duplicates.

No matter how much Google does to harden its servers, hire the world’s best security engineers, and root out hack able bugs in its products, it can’t stop dummies like you and me from handing our Gmail passwords over to the first cyber criminal who slaps a Google logo on a fake login page. But now, for users of its Chrome browser at least, it’s trying a new method to protect our passwords from ourselves.

On Wednesday, Google released a new extension for Chrome it calls Password Alert, designed to deal with the stubborn problem of phishing sites that impersonate login pages to steal passwords. Any time you type your Gmail password into a login page that’s not an actual Google login, the new extension shows you an alert and gives you a chance to immediately reset your Gmail password before it can be used to compromise your account. For corporate users, the extension can even be configured to automatically alert a company’s incident response team.

“In the security industry we expect users to know when it’s ok to type their password. That ‘accounts.google.com’ is ok, and ‘accountsgoogle.com’ isn't. That’s an unreasonable demand,” says Google security engineer Drew Hintz. “This helps you make that decision as to whether the place you just typed your password was a fine place to type it or not.”

 THE WARNING PASSWORD ALERT SHOWS WHEN THE USER TYPES HIS OR HER PASSWORD ON A LOGIN PAGE OTHER THAN GOOGLE’S.

Password Alert also helps to tackle another problem that internet services have often considered outside their control: Careless users who reuse the same password across many different sites. Sign up for any other service with your Gmail password, and all of Google’s expensive security is reduced to the security of that other service. Hackers learned long ago that passwords and usernames spilled by one security breach often work on other sites, too. But reuse a Gmail password with Password Alert installed, and it triggers the same alert as a phishing attempt, an annoyance that could lead users to give up the bad habit of sharing passwords between sites.

Phishing remains one of the most serious and intractable problems in information security, and is often the initial breach point for hacker schemes ranging from mass credit card harvesting to sophisticated, state-sponsored targeted attacks. Google estimates that as many as 45 percent of some well-crafted phishing emails can successfully trick users, and that 2 percent of all Gmail messages it sees are phishing attempts.

Google itself has been battling phishing attacks for years, says Hintz. He’s “refereed” Google’s own internal penetration tests, which showed again and again that password phishing was “a vulnerability you can’t patch,” he says. So three years ago, Hintz says Google began implementing a version of the Password Alert Chrome extension internally. It turned out to be effective enough that the company decided to roll out a version to users.

Hintz says that upcoming versions of Password Alert will give users the option to monitor other passwords, too, such as those for their banking or corporate accounts. In the current version, it immediately asks the user to log back into their Google account when it’s installed. Then it records and stores a cryptographically hashed version of the password locally on the user’s machine—a scrambled version of the password that the extension can check for matches but can’t in theory be used by anyone who accesses it. (Although Password Alert requests on installation the rather disturbing permission to “read and change all your data on the websites you visit,” Hintz says the extension never communicates anything back to Google’s servers.)

This is hardly the first step Google has taken to try to protect users from phishing scams. It already offers users two-factor authentication and Chrome include a “Safe Browsing” feature. In its constant crawls of the entire visible Web, Google seeks out sites that seem to be infected with malware or phishing attempts, and Chrome issues a warning if a user visits one. Firefox and Safari also use Google’s Safe Browsing data to flag those malicious sites.

Password Alert adds another layer to those protections, though it doesn't yet share that safeguard with other browsers as Google does with Safe Browsing. Hintz points out that the extension is open-source and available on Github, ready to easily port to other browsers.

If Google’s approach catches on with other internet services and browsers, it could serve as an broad new form of password hygiene, keeping your most sensitive character combinations off the sketchy websites that have been a scourge of internet security. If only the password post-its struck to the wall of your cubicle could be so easily eradicated.

Now, just google your phone

Losing your phone can happen easily. Unfortunately, finding it again can often be not so easy. Google has just made the search process a little easier for Android users, however. Now they need only type "find my phone" into Google Search using a desktop browser.

In order for the functionality to work, users must be logged into the same Google account on the browser as they are on their phone. They must also have the latest version of the Google app installed on their device. Assuming all that is the case, a "Find your phone" map will appear at the top of the Google Search results.

         

Once Google has successfully pinpointed the phone in question (as long as it's powered on, this should work), it displays the location of the device on a map and offers to ring it. Ringing it, of course, helps in those occasions that your phone has slipped behind a couch cushion or whatnot, while displaying it on map is useful if you've left it somewhere like a coffee shop or bar.

Previously, it was necessary to install the Android Device Manager app to locate a lost Android phone (assuming you hadn't turned the service off, as it's on by default). Plenty of users simply won't have been aware of those possibilities – and this new approach, which is simply a web-based version of Android Device Manager, makes it easy for anyone to locate a lost device.

Obtaining HDR images is now a faster process.

Researchers from the Optics Department at the U. of Granada have developed a new algorithm for the capture of high dynamic range (HDR) images which reduces the time of capture or the level of noise in the resulting image. Beyond the field of photography, this new development can also be applied to artificial vision systems, medical imaging, control quality systems in assembly lines, satellite images, vigilance systems and assisted or automatic driving systems for vehicles, etc.

This research has been published in the journal Applied Optics, and it has facilitated the generation of an algorithm which, based on the way in which each camera responds to light, adapts the times of capture of different images in an automatic and instantaneous fashion, in order to reduce the total capture time, thus adapting to the conditions and needs of each captured scene.

Although the most striking and visually attractive application of HDR techniques is in the field of photography, these techniques are particularly relevant in robotic vision systems. "In the same way in which the human visual system has a high dynamic range, artificial vision systems also need this sort of techniques to behave in a similar, or even more sophisticated, way vis à vis our human visual system", according to the author of this research, Miguel ÁngelMartínez Domingo, from the Optics Department, U. of Granada.

The exposure time is the time in which the camera sensor is exposed to light during image capture. In a short exposure, the dark zones of the scene appear overexposed (black) in the final image. In a long exposure, by contrast, the most luminous zones in the scene appear saturated or burnt out (black)

Sub exposed or saturated zones

"In general, in any scene captured nowadays, and even though our camera automatically adjusts the time of exposure, there will always be sub exposed or saturated zones. This happens due to the fact that the range of luminosities (or dynamic range) which the sensor in any conventional camera can capture correctly in a single shot is smaller than the actual dynamic range of the scene itself. This is where HDR capture techniques make sense", according to Martínez Domingo.

What really matters is not just that the final image turn out to be nice or realistic for a human eye: it can be important, for instance, to highlight with a low degree of noise the details of a very bright component and another dark one in an integrated circuit. Consequently, the levels of noise in the resulting image are incompatible with the total time of capture for the different images required.

This algorithm developed by U. of Granada scientists allows for the optimization of the balance between a reduced time of capture and a lower level of noise in the resulting image. The level of noise becomes lower the more exposures are captured to make up the HDR image, but the use of many different exposures would excessively increase the time of capture. "The new algorithm does not just adapt itself to the camera we are using and the scene we are capturing, but also to the specific needs of the application we are developing," according to Martínez Domingo.

Consequently, "for the first time an HDR image capture algorithm adapts itself to any camera, any scene, and any application, in an easy and optimal way, without having to use complex optic systems or non-conventional sensors architectures".

Apple found 40 percent of its users interested in the new apple watch

Apple is back on creating its hype,expecting its existing users to show interest on its new apple watch.

About 40 per cent of adult Apple iPhone owners in the United States are interested in buying the company's new Apple Watch, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The high-tech smartwatch, which will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model, is Apple Inc's first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors.

Owners of the iPhone are a particularly important market for Apple as it launches the new watch, which goes on sale April 24. Because the watch needs an iPhone to work fully, analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets. 

BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said that with more than 100 million active iPhone users in the United States and closer to half a billion globally, the survey was "pretty encouraging" for a product that has not been seen in shops, even if was unclear how much of the interest would translate into purchases.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andrew Hargreaves said it was not clear how many people wanted or needed a smart watch. But he expected Apple's cache and marketing might to deliver strong initial sales of the Apple Watch.

"Winning Apple customers is more realistic at this point," said Hargreaves.

The watch allows users to check email, listen to music and make phone calls.

Ipsos surveyed 2,469 Americans aged 18 and older online between March 9 and March 17 and found that 24 per cent expressed an interest in purchasing the Apple Watch, including 10 per cent of those describing themselves as "very interested." The data was weighted to reflect the US population and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

Among the iPhone owners, 39 per cent were interested in purchasing the Apple watch, including 17 per cent describing themselves as very interested. There were 788 iPhone owners in the survey with a credibility interval of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Discussions about the watch have flooded online social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook since Apple held a splashy event in San Francisco on March 9 to showcase the watch.

Social media chatter about the Apple watch was 15 per cent positive and 5 per cent negative in the week following Apple's event, according to an analysis that the firm Networked Insights conducted for Reuters. The remaining 80 per cent was neutral. By contrast, the social conversation for Apple's iPhone 6 during the same week was 5 per cent positive and 0 per cent negative, according to the analysis.

Among the conversations relating to the Apple watch during the one-week period, 5.8 per cent of the comments showed an intent to purchase, according to Networked Insights, which analyzes tweets, public Facebook posts and other sources. Social comments about the iPhone 6, which has been on sale since September, showed a 2.9 per cent purchase intent during the same week.