Idea Cellular launches Aurus II Android smartphone with Jelly Bean

Idea Cellular has launched its new 3G Android dual-SIM smartphone, Aurus II for Rs. 6,490. Aurus II runs on Android OS v4.1 Jelly Bean, which is the latest of Android OS.

The Aurus II, dual-SIM smartphone is powered by a 1GHz processor and RAM of 512MB. It has a 3.5-inch screen with the resolution of 320x480 pixels. Aurus II features a rear camera of 3.2-megapixel and a VGA front-facing camera. It offers an internal storage of 4GB and external storage which can be expandable up to 32GB via micro-SD card.

Idea is also offering a 3G pack with Aurus II smartphone which can be purchased for Rs.261 that offers 1.6GB of 3G data and Idea TV subscription valid of 3 months.

This phone is the successor to Idea Aurus, which was launched in the September 2012. The Aurus II is the sixth 3G Android smartphone launched by the telecom operator Idea, in the Indian market. The other smartphones launched by Idea Cellular includes Idea Ivory, Idea Aurus, ID-280, ID-918 and Idea Blade.

Idea Aurus II key specifications

• 3.5-inch screen display
• 1GHz processor
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB internal storage
• Expandable up to 32GB via SD-card
• 3.2-megapixel rear camera
• Dual-SIM
• 3G and Wi-Fi
• Android OS v4.1 (Jelly Bean)

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New KALQ keyboard layout for touchscreen devices: 34% faster than QWERTY

KALQ layout

Texting got a lot easier! Researchers have developed a new keyboard for touch-screen phones that gives super-fast thumb-typing, that enables users to type 34 percent faster than a QWERTY keyboard.

The team of researchers is said to hav used computational optimization techniques with a model of thumb movement to filter among millions of layout combinations to identify the one that gives superior performance.

Typing on today's smartphones and tablets seems to be slow. since QWERTY layout is not much suitable for tablets and other touch-screen devices when typing with thumbs, researchers said. Thumb typing is very different from typing on a keyboard.

Researchers said that normal users using a QWERTY layout on a touch-screen device is able to type at a rate of 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the rate achieved on physical keyboards.

The researchers from the "Max Planck Institute for Informatics" and colleagues from the "University of St Andrews and Montana Tech" initiated the process of developing a layout for two-thumb texting with the goal of improving typing performance and reducing the strain for the thumbs.

"The key to optimising a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb," lead researcher Antti Oulasvirta said.

"We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other. Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We

derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimisation method," said Oulasvirta.

The researchers had two goals: To minimise the movement of thumbs and to approximate alternating sides as well.

The new keyboard layout "KALQ" has all vowels with the exception of letter "y" in the area for the right thumb, whereas more other keys are assigned to left thumb.

With this new KALQ layout improvements, users will be able to type 37 words per minute, which is reported as the best rate for two-thumb typing on touchscreen devices. Researchers said KALQ layout will be made available in play store as a free app for Android-based smartphones at the month of May.

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HTC E1 introduces PC style customization to the smartphone world

HTC started shipping its E1 smartphone in China. HTC is offering this smartphone as an affordable dual-SIM smartphone and the specification can be customized.

The user can choose to have either a 8GB or 16GB as internal memory for the smartphone. Also, you can choose this HTC E1 either with a 5-megapixel rear camera or an 8-megapixel one. Lastly, it offers six color options available for the back panel and you can pick the one that suits the best for you.

As per Engadget, HTC made a partnership with a micro-blogging site Sina Webio for suggesting the custom specifications for this HTC E1 smartphone. HTC and Sina offers suggestions on customizing the specifications of HTC E1 based on your zodiac and gender.

For example, if your zodiac sign is Virgo, the site recommends a 8GB internal memory that comes with an 8-megapixel camera. Also, it recommends for a "Lolita White" color for a Virgo.

Though HTC E1 doesn't offer much customization option, this seems to be a interesting marketing initiative and this may catch with other smartphone manufacturers as well.

The other specifications of HTC E1 are,

• - 4.3 - inch Super LCD2 WVGA display
• - 1.15GHz Dual-core processor
• - 1GB of RAM
• - Beats Audio Sound
• - 2-megapixel Front Camera
• - Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
• - HTC Sense 4.0+ UI 
• - Dual-SIM (WCDMA + GSM)
• - Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n
• - Bluetooth 4.0
• - External Storage up to 32GB (microSD card)

As per HTC's China website, HTC E1 costs between 1,699 Chinese yuan (approximately Rs. 14,800) to 1,899 yuan (Rs. 16,500) based on the customization. HTC had officially launched HTC E1 in China about a month ago. As of now, there is no word on whether HTC will be making its HTC E1 available in other markets and whether it will be offering similar set of customization in these markets as well.

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HP bundles Leap Motion: 3D motion controllers for HP's future products

HP will be using Leap Motion's motion control technology in some of its upcoming products, confirmed by both companies this Tuesday.

Selected PCs from HP with Leap Motion's technology will be available in stores this summer, Cherie Britt, HP spokesperson told. Devices embedded with Leap Motion Controller technology will come later.

"At HP, it's all about delivering incredible user experiences," Britt said. "Leap Motion's groundbreaking 3D motion control, combined with HP technology and amazing developer apps, will create incredible user experiences."

HP will be the second major OEM to work with Leap. ASUS made an announcement in January that it will bundle Leap Motion Controllers with its premium All-in-One PCs and high-end notebooks later this year.

"We're still working with ASUS," Michael Buckwald, CEO of Leap Motion, told. The company is also working with "a number of" major OEMs, but HP "is the first OEM to announce plans to embed Leap Motion's technology into unique devices."

About Leap's Technology

The Leap Motion Controller has a 150 degree space of view, it can be able to track all of a user's fingers at a rate of 250 frames per second. The touch-free technology used in this controller uses sensors rather than using VGA cameras to detect motion, synthesizes the information from that sensor data and displays the result.

The technology can track movements smaller than the head of a pin, the company said.

Leap Motion has opened up its application programming interface (API) to developers.

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Twitter launches it's "Music App" for iPhone

Twitter's Music App

Twitter has finally unveiled its much anticipated music application for Apple's iPhone. The application is available to every iPhone users via Apple's iTunes App Store.Users will also be able to use the service on the web later in the day at "music.twitter.com"

Twitter's music application for Google's Android is coming soon. The announcement of Music App was first made on "Good Morning America" program. Twitter launched the service last week exclusively to musicians.

The music app is separate from Twitter's primary social network, though helps users to find music based on the artists and bands they follow.

Twitter's Music App suggests for the bands users might like, also it shows what music the people we follow are currently listening to. Users can also search popular music enjoyed by the universe of other app users, and Twitter surfaces what it calls "emerging" trends and artists.

Through partnerships with Rdio and Spotify streaming music companies, subscribers of those services can be able to listen to music straight from Twitter's new app. Users are also be able to hear previews of music on iTunes and purchase songs.

Twitter said it will be adding new music services to its app.

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The second coming of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook Inc made a very bad decision back in 2010. Instead developing separate apps for Androids, iPhones, BlackBerrys, Nokia phones and Microsoft phones, he made his engineers to design a version of Facebook which could be operated on any platform.

In effect, he was confident that as different platforms jostled for control of mobile devices, standalone apps would go away and soon it would be able to surf websites on our smartphones as we do on our PCs.

Zuckerberg was wrong. Apple's iOS and Google's Android started dominating the world of mobile operating systems, and Facebook applications which were built with web-centric worldwide view in mind, didn't work well on either platform. There were bugs, slow in performance and often crash.

A 2011 of Facebook application gathered 19,000 reviews with one-star in the Apple App Store in the first month. "It's probably one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made," Zuckerberg tells during an interview at Facebook's Menlo Park, California headquarters in late March.

Six years after it had been founded, Facebook -- the company that had begun in the social networking era was missing the next big step in technology. Around the world consumers were using mobile devices with array of downloaded applications designed for touchscreen mobile phones.
Meanwhile, Facebook had only one engineer dedicated for iPhone and most of the mobile team were coding for mobile web browsers.

The person, Mark Zuckerberg who tasted enormous success in his career had to come to terms with failure and he had to make cultural and structural changes at the young company. Instead of working for mobile web, they had to develop apps.

And instead of trying to reach the broadest possible audience with a killer product, Facebook ultimately would have to pick one operating system to show off what it could really do in mobile. "I can't overstate how much we had to retool the whole company's development processes," he says.

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Twitter unveils "ad tool" for marketers

Twitter Inc one of the famous social networks unveiled a new tool through which marketers can broadcast targeted messages to the users based on the contents of their tweets. The technology could hike Twitter's effectiveness as an advertiser to a rarefied level demonstrated only by digital leading advertisers like Google Inc.

Twitter's advertising business is modest and according to the consultancy eMarketer, it is likely to generate 2013 global revenue of under $600 million.

The fast-growing social network, which has 200 million users around the world, hailed its new tool as a technological breakthrough. Until now, Twitter has been able to understand a user's interests mainly by analyzing the list of accounts the user follows, also known as "interest graph".

With the use of Twitter's new tool, the marketers are able to make a thorough study of the content of a user's tweets to display most relevant ads.

Early tests of the new keyword-based targeting mechanism showed that in some cases, users clicked on ads 11 out of 100 times they were shown, a remarkably high rate in the realm of digital advertising, according to Kevin Weil, a senior director of product at Twitter.

The new ad tool also has the advantages of the existing features of "hashtags" -- the pound sign that Twitter users include to signify a topic of discussion.

"It's already used today as a way to focus conversation," Weil said. "Now it's also a way for users who are talking about something to see really relevant."

In a blog post Wednesday, Twitter said the new keyword targeting technology would be available globally to marketers in 15 languages.

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