All New HTC One M8 (2014) - First Impressions

After Weeks of Leaks and updates, the Device has finally launched. The HTC One M7 (2013) was one of the best android smartphone evers but did not sell too any units and could not turn HTC's fortunes (even with Iron Man helping!). The New HTC one has pretty high hopes and pretty big shoes to fill in for. Overall, Our first impression is that it's impressive that HTC, after making the best-looking Android  phone of 2013, has managed to make the All New HTC One (M8), a phone crammed full of power and great features while improving the highly impressive design. It improved in some key areas which Customers had complained but can we say that it can be best Android phone of 2014? Well, That might still be a No.Here is a Quick update of the first impression that we have for the device.

HTC One (M8)

All New HTC One M8 Design:

This is one area where HTC had set up the Bar higher than everyone else. It is good to see HTC improving on the good points of its Beautiful design for the original One. At first glance not much looks to have changed, but on closer inspection HTC has made a number of subtle yet very welcome improvements. HTC has increased the amount of metal in its handset aiming to make every point of touch from metal. The back is now 90% metal (with the antennas built in the body to avoid blocking signal) and there are fewer parts and seams with the metal now reaching right up to the glass.On the new HTC One M8, Metal goes all around the sides of the phone, making it feel great in the hand.This is in contrast with the 2013 HTC One which had plastic set into the edges. 

A Welcome addition in the new Design is a memory card slot. On various consumer forums and tech websites, customer had always complained about lack of memory card slot on flagships in favor of better industrial design and sleeker look. Its a good thing to HTC has incorporated a memory card as part of its design - An Excellent design too.

All New HTC One M8 : Specifications

Parameters	HTC One M8 Specifications
Body Dimensions	146.4 x 70.6 x 9.4 mm (5.76 x 2.78 x 0.37 in)
Weight	160 g (5.64 oz)
Colors	Gunmetal Gray, Glacial Silver, Amber Gold
Display	Super LCD 3 with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches (~441 ppi pixel density)
Processor	Qualcomm MSM8974AB Snapdragon 801 Chipset - Quad-core 2.3 GHz with Adreno 330
Memory(RAM)	2 GB
Storage	Internal: 16 GB / 32 GB ; External : microSD, up to 128 GB
Camera	Front: Dual 4.1 MP, 2688х1520 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash 1/3'' sensor size, 2µm pixel size, automatic simultaneous video and image recording, geo-tagging, face and smile detection, HDR, panorama Back: Yes, 5 MP, 1080p@30fps, HDR
Battery	2600mAH
Connectivity	Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, NFC , Infrared, USB OTG, MicroUSB, LTE
Operating System	Android 4.4, Sense 6.0 UI

All New HTC One M8 : Launch Date

The HTC One M8 is being released in over 230 carriers and over 100 countries. The phone is widely available online from a slew of carriers and partners, but the in-store and global launch date is April 10th, 2014. Meaning a day before the April 11th Galaxy S5 release date. If you are in US and on Big Red's Network, you can walk to Verizon stores across the USA  and it will be available in store! Or you can buy it online after 1 PM Eastern from one of the following US and Canadian carriers.

• AT&T
• Sprint
• Verizon Wireless
• Rogers
• Bell
• Telus

Price starts at $199 to $249 on-contract (depending on the carrier), while buying it off-contract will set you back $599 to $649. There will also be a Google Play Edition that will cost $699, but that version is coming later.

Iphone 6 to feature Bigger and Wider Screen [Rumor]

In the past, a number of unreleased smartphone designs have been revealed long ahead of their announcements by early protective cases shown off by third-party case makers. Apple is also no stranger to this and we have seen in past how cases for Iphone 5C were released much before the actual announcement of the device.
Looks like Apple is finally going to bite the bullet! After Sticking to 4" Screen size to maintain one hand usability, looks like apple is going to finally increase the screen size of their flagship iPhone 6 to around 4.7". Just a few days back, we had heard another Rumors that the Iphone 6 will launch with a 4.7" screen (389 PPI), with a 0.22" thick Body. The other rumored specs included an improved Camera and 20nm A8 chip from TSMC.

According to images leaked on a Japanese Case maker's blog, Apple's Iphone 6 seems to have a display which is much taller that the previous iterations and also much wider.

This does suggest Apple might actually manage to do the impossible with the iPhone 6 and launch a smartphone with a much larger display that is still comfortable to use with one hand. As Motorola and Google had previously pointed out using various researches that 4.7" is the sweet spot for Mobile handsets, looks like Apple is ready to walk through that path as well. Based on the image of the case, the device seems to be around 4.64". Aside from the larger display, you can see expect thinner bezel on the sides of the screen. Also, a couple of interesting things in the post was that the device will be launched with Sapphire Screen and with 441PPI. I, for one highly doubt that Sapphire glass has become so much cheaper that Apple can launch a device with 4.7 " screen completely made of Sapphire.

This might please some always wanted Apple to release a phone with bigger screen to keep up with its Android rivals but it might just angst its Hardcore loyalists who think Apple should not get involve in the Android phone maker's slug fest and keep it separate from the competitors. Whatever the case might be, Iphone 6 seems to be the most Awaited Apple phone in recent times

HTC One M8 (2014) Leaked in 14 minute Video

Well, we have previously seen lots of leaks coming of devices before their launch date. Well, this might be one of the best leaks that we have heard in recent times. HTC one has been completely leaked in a German video. This is not some images which might be photoshopped or some information from supplier, this seems to be full review of the device.

HTC One (2014)

In the 14 minute leaked video you are shown complete preview of device and you get to see how the device looks and performs before the expected release date of Tuesday 25th March. And if you are a Verizon subscriber, you might be able to pick the New HTC One on the release date itself

The video shows off all sorts of different aspects of the device’s software and hardware. Some time is spent focusing on the new One’s dual camera setup he post-capture focus alteration does look pretty impressive. There's also some sort of "extreme" power-saving mode. Interested, go check this out. And if you are German, please let us know about what you make out of this video as well :)

Source: Android Police

All New HTC One (2014) to be Verizon Exclusive for 2 weeks [Rumor]

If you are a Big Red Subscriber, you wouldn't have probably forgotten what Happened last year with the launch of HTC one. Verizon was the last one to the major US carriers to launch the device. They had to wait till end of August to get their hands on their device. It seems like this has changed this time around. We had heard rumours previously that the device will be released on verizon along the same time as the other carriers. Seems like Verizon has gone even farther than that. According to HTC source, Verizon will be calling the dibs for two weeks on the latest HTC one handset. According to the Source,that the all new HTC One will go on sale in the US starting at 1PM EST on March 25th. This However, will be only Verizon exclusive.

 I know you'll love to go to a T-mobile or AT&T store and pick up the phone on 25th but looks like you'll have to wait for at least two weeks if you are not on Big Red's network! The source was not able to confirm Verizon’s pricing for the all new HTC One, but since the suggested retail price for the unlocked phone is set at $600, it’s safe to assume that you will be able to buy the all new HTC One from Verizon for $199.99 with a new two-year contract.

Well, 2-weeks isn't that long, especially when you consider most devices don’t launch until at least a few weeks after they’ve been announced anyway. Verizon Wireless just gets it sooner, that’s all. And for all of you globally, expect it to be launched in 110 markets two weeks after the release date.

iPhone 6 to be launched with 389 PPI Ultra Retina Display and 0.22" Body [Rumour]

iPhone 6 is arguably the most awaited handset of this year. Both the Apple fanboys and Android loyalists are waiting to see what apple has to offer this time for its flagship phone. The Company is largely expected to make some major changes on its iPhone to ward off increasing competition from the Android camp. Recently, New rumours have started to surface online for Apple's upcoming iteration of the iPhone handset. These rumours hint the iPhone 6 will arrive with a much thinner body, better camera, super powerful processor and a higher pixel density screen.

The rumours come from Sonny Dickson. For those of you who do not know he is, he is the Australian teen who rose to fame by leaking largely accurate information about Apple iPhone 5S. So, It would be interesting to see if he gets it right this time as well! Dickson has bone to microblogging site twitter and posted information about the upcoming iPhone. Dickson, in one of his four tweets on the subject, said, "iPhone 6 will be 0.22 inches thick #JustSaying."

On the other tweets about the iPhone 6, Dickson mentioned the inclusion of an Ultra-Retina screen, which will pack 389 pixels per inch (ppi). His Tweet read- Ultra-Retina screen will be 389 ppi #JustSaying. This is as per previous leaks which had tapped sources in the display supply chain to analyze panel sizes and resolutions currently under development. Those leaks had suggested that Apple could be exploring a 4.7-inch 1600x900 with a 386 ppi screen and/or a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 with a 401 ppi screen.

He furthermore talked about the chipset that might arrive in the next Apple iPhone. His Tweet on the topic was - "The new Apple A8 processor will run at 2.6GHz #JustSaying," his tweet read. The iPhone 5s incorporates a 64-bit A7 28-nanometer chip manufactured by Samsung. Previous leaks on this had suggested that Apple's iPhone 6 will reportedly incorporate a 20-nanometer A8 chip from TSMC, which will be both smaller and more energy efficient.

Dickson finally tweeted "These specs could be the real thing #JustSaying." Well, we would have for the actual iPhone to arrive to see if that is the case but these leaks and various others do indicate that Apple is finally making some drastic changes on its iPhone line after iPhone 4. I, for one,  am very excited

Source:
Sonny Dickson's Tweets

LG G3 Leaked screenshots allegedly confirms 2K Display

Mobile Technology is going at a blitzkrieg pace nowadays. All the companies are jumping in to the battleground to come with the best specs for their flagships and to outgun the other flagships. Samsung Galaxy S5 was expected by many to be launched with a 2K display but this time Samsung decided to disappoint its fans. Well LG wants to take this vantage point and come with first ever 2K Display on a mobile device.

Well, don't we just love the time before the launch of any Flagship device. The Leaks have started to surface again for the next flagship from LG and with every leak there is an iota of confirmation that LG will be launching a 2k Display. According to the rumors courtsey the Dutch blog lgg3open.nl, LG G3 is said to arrive on the scene with a stunning 2K display Well. The Dutch site  just published the first screenshots allegedly taken from the upcoming LG G3 device with a resolution of 2560 X 1440 Resolution (2K).According to the cited source, the South Korean company might unveil the LG G3 no later than April, though an exact release date has yet to be confirmed. Now, We for one can't wait to see the device in action.

Check out the full High resolution images below. The clarity is stunning on these images. Well, after this I would sure look at my Nexus4's display (720p) differently.

Source:
LGG3Kopen.nl

Read old Magazine and Newspaper Articles Online

Do you want to read your old magazine back from your high school? are you feeling nostalgic and want to remember good ol days? Or do you want to go back in time and see how the technology was back in the time? A few decades ago, If you wanted to access something from magazines and newspapers that were more than a couple of years old, it was necessary to visit a library that maintained archives of the actual publications. For accessing these magazines ore newspapers to get that last detail, if you visited any library then it would have taken hours and hours to find the actual magazine or newspaper you wanted. Even then you cannot say for sure that it would have the exact information that you need

Don't worry. This is the information age and as long as you have a device with internet connection (which I assume you have  since you are already reading this article), You do-not need to go anywhere else. This article will give you many different and best ways to find old magazine and news paper articles online.Old newspapers and  magazines offer a wealth of insight into history and critical events as they were unfolding at that time.Now you can get all that without the need for going to a Library. You can have them from the comfort of your browser

 How to Read Old Articles # 1: Google News 

Want to Read whats happening - Simplest way is go to Google News.Google news is the simplest free website to read news from all corners of the world. This is an excellent choice for reading about current happenings from around the globe but you can also use this to Read old news, articles and stories.

Google News indexes thousands of newspaper websites from around the world and organizes news in clusters for easy reading. In addition to current news, Google News also offers access to stories published in old newspapers that you can search for free.Although many of these newspaper issues are scanned images of the original printed version, you can use Google search to find stories inside the papers through the magic of OCR.Google does optical character recognition (OCR) on documents that it indexes and identifies as scanned PDFs. The actual content is hosted on other sites and Google will show if it cost any money to read that issue /news story.

How to Read Old Articles #2 Google Books 

If you’re looking for an older issue of a magazine, Google Books might be the best place to find it. Google Books is no longer limited to just books, 

But Google offers a vast arrays of magazines for you to Search. These magazines are scanned and searchable and can be read online using the standard Google Book interface. Decades worth of material are available, and the magazines are laid out just as they were when they were originally printed. You can read archived magazines cover to cover, including the original articles, index, cover, and advertisements. Unlike some of the book results, magazines found through Google's book search are offered as full articles—helpful for performing that last tidbit of research online without hiking to a library in the dead of night. 

How to Read Old Articles # 3 Trove 

Trove is an online searchable database from The National Library of Australia. The news available here can be read by anyone for free. These newspapers can be viewed on any of the modern browsers.

Trove

Trove has a large selection of newspapers from across Australia archived online that anyone may read for free.   All the newspapers are completely scanned and can be viewed online in any modern browser, or you may download them as a PDF for offline reading.

How to Read Old Articles # 4. Library of Congress 

The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress, but which is the de facto national library of the United States. The Library of Congress has a large repository of historic newspapers published in America between 1880 and 1922, available as PDFs.

The Library of Congress has made digitized versions of collection materials available online since 1994, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else. If you are not able to find it anywhere else, you are most likely to find it here. Additionally, the site has a database of records of all newspapers printed in America from 1690 to the present, including newspapers that are currently not published.

How to Read Old Articles # 5 : Wayback Machine 

The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet created by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. 

Simply enter a news website address into the search box (nytimes.com for example), and the Wayback machine will show you a list of snapshots of  that site. You can then read the news as it appeared on that day. It also includes collections of news articles from major events like 9/11 attacks.This historic collection is invaluable to scholars trying to understand the interactions between people and events. Currently this sites has about 400 Billion Web pages saved!

How to Read Old Articles # 6 The Olden Times 

If you’re looking for a popular article about a major historical event, the Olden Times may be a good place to look for it. Although they do not contain entire newspapers, they do have snippets including popular news articles, print advertisements, and personal information sections such as births and obituaries. 

You can find Old obituaries, birth & marriage announcements, old news stories,  old advertising, recipes, cartoons , humor, and more  All content is free, and the content ranges from between 1788 and 1920.

How to Read Old Articles # 7 Newseum 

Here you can find and download front pages of hundreds of newspapers from around the world and the newspaper gallery is updated every day. Every morning, more than 800 newspapers from around the world submit their front pages to the Newseum via the Internet to be part of Today's Front Pages.You can read articles by opening a scalable PDF file or by clicking a link directly to the newspaper's website.

The collection includes small-town and local newspapers as well as globally-distributed big papers. They also maintain an archive of newspaper front pages belonging to dates of significant importance (for example, see the September 11 archive, or Government shutdown of 2013 or the birth of Royal Baby).

How to Read Old Articles # 8 OMA

Old Magazine Article.com is a privately owned and operated Website based out of Los angeles which is like The Olden Times but for past magazine issues. Old Magazine Articles contains magazine pages covering from famous historical events. 

All the primary source content that appears on the site is a digital facsimile of the original, presented in PDF format in order that the users will be able to save the files or email them to friends. The articles can be downloaded as PDF files for free though they have been mildly edited to remove advertisements from the original magazines. If you want to print the article though, you have to pay a fee of $6.00. After paying, the printable version is faxed or emailed to the User. Teachers and schools may pay a flat fee of $30.00 (U.S.) per year to have articles emailed or faxed. The Old articles, essays, poetry, cartoons and photographs that can be found on the site have all been collected from a number of different libraries, bookshops and yard sales throughout the United States and Europe

How to Read Old Articles # 9 Newspaper ARCHIVE 

NewspaperArchive.com is a commercial online database of digitized newspapers. The site was launched in 1999 by its parent company, Heritage Microfilm, Inc. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This is the world’s largest online archive of historical newspapers published from 1753 onwards.  You can browse newspaper issues by date or find articles that match a particular phrase.

Newspaper Archve costs $9.99 a month if you subscribe for an year. NewspaperArchive.com currently provides full text search for 909 million articles on 85 million pages over 240 years that represents 2,875 publication titles in more than 748 cities.This includes newspapers from Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States.

How to Read Old Articles #10 Ancestry.com 

Although Ancestry.com is designed for building family trees or for finding information about your ancestors, its archives also includes thousands of newspapers and periodicals dating back to the 1700′s. Subscriptions start at $19.95/month or $12.95/month if paid per year.

Microsoft Office 365 Personal Subscription Launched

Microsoft originally launched its subscription version of Office back in September 2012 under the umbrella of Office 365 Home Premium . Since then, this service has grown significantly and now has about 4 million subscribers. The cost for this is  $8.33 per user per month or $99.99 per year. The cost is per user cost and the subscriber can use the software on up to five PCs and Macs.

Microsoft is now turning it focus towards individuals now. Today it launched Office 365 Personal, a relatively affordable subscription version of its popular productivity suite.Office 365 Personal is a $6.99-per-month (or $69.99 a year) subscription service that provides access to the Office 2013 applications for Windows, and the ability to install and use the Mac and mobile versions of the application. While the $9.99-per-month Office 365 Home Premium allows you to use the service across up to five PCs or Macs, Office 365 Personal is valid for just one computer and one tablet.

Also, Microsoft will continue to offer the previous version of Office Home premium for $9.99 as usual but under the Office 365 Home brand. The company is renaming Office 365 Home Premium to "Office 365 Home.Also, an additional advantage of choosing any of these two options is an additional 20GB of storage on One Drive and 60 minutes of Skype Voice Call.

Source:
Office Blog

Twitter's Vine bans porn with New Terms of Service

So, Years of campaigning and complaints have finally worked. The California based firm Twitter which bought the micro-video messaging service Vine in 2012 has revised the terms of service with the aim of banning "pornographic or explicit sexual content. Vine users are no longer allowed to post sexually-explicit content on the popular six-second video sharing service.

Company announced the new policy on the vine blog via  a post titled 'A change to Vine content rules'. In tne post, the company said that there is a very small percentage of videos that are not a "good fit" for the community, prompting the change in policy. Twitter said the changes will not affect 99 percent of Vine users, adding, "we don't have a problem with explicit sexual content on the Internet - we just prefer not to be the source of it."

Vine was launched by Twitter in January 2013, with an iOS app. In June 2013, it introduced the Vine app for Android, and finally brought the service to the Web in January 2014.Within days of the app's official launch in January 2013, sexually explicit and pornographic clips began to appear and Twitter has been heavily criticized for not enforcing this ban sooner.

 The original minimum age for Vine was set at 12-years-old, but this was raised to 17 shortly after the app was launched, in part because of the high level of explicit content on the site. Twitter also had to apologize weeks after the official launch when an explicit clip was made an Editor's Pick. The site claimed the video appeared at the top of the homepage due to a 'human error' but had refused to take down such pornographic videos because it didn't want to censor its users

With this move, Twitter distances Vine from the notorious 'sexting' reputation other photo and video messaging apps such as Snapchat, Kik, and Between have built for themselves.

Twitter has put up a 'Vine explicit sexual content FAQ' page on its Help Center, that includes a list of what's acceptable (artistic or documentary depictions of nudity, Breast feeding) and what's not okay to post (nudity that is sexually provocative or in sexual context).Twitter has put up a 'Vine explicit sexual content FAQ' page on its Help Centre, that includes a list of what's acceptable (artistic or documentary depictions of nudity, Breast feeding) and what's not okay to post (nudity that is sexually provocative or in sexual context).Vine defines explicit sexual content as any content that 'includes depictions of sex acts, nudity that is sexually provocative or in a sexual context, and graphic depictions of sexual arousal.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think the ban is justified? Leave a comment to let us know.

Read More:

1. Vine Blog
2. Twitter Help Centre

No Its Not a Router : Cerberus INDIEGOGO - The Mini PC

The Desktop market has recently seen lot of changes. While Laptops are being replaced by Tablets, PCs are being replaced by All in one or boxes with really small form factor. Small is the new bug currently in the PC market. There is greater demand for Computers which take up less space and can be hooked to a HDTV and can also be used for editing spreadsheets if required. We have recently seen companies like Alienware and Lenovo making the shift towards smaller form factor. If you are one of those who does not have too much space at your house, you would love this device.

If you take a close look at the device, you might think that this is a router. But do not let the looks fool you. It is a fully functional Computer. This can perform any task that you throw at us, you can connect it with your TV, add a Keyboard and mouse and you have a fully functional PC. Cerberus is an all in one solution which allows you to:

• Stream movies and TV shows from the web, any source, anywhere, any time
• Access your email, your work content, run all your PC Productivity Apps such as MS Office, CAD, Web Design, Photo Editing, etc
• Read, Update and Post your Social Content, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc
• Play games with your friends, on-line or local multiplayer games, on any PC supported game platform, including Chrome Apps, Windows 8 Apps, and more
• Share your content at Gigabit speed to other TV's and devices including tablets and phones anywhere in your house
• Store and serve up content from the internal 500GB Hard Drive (expandable up to 2TBytes), or use the internal Solid State Drive (expandable up to 480GB) for Ultra-Fast Access, or both!
• Wide-spaced USB ports let you use those fat dongles that don't fit anywhere else.
• Add a Blu-ray Player/Recorder via USB3 or Network Attached Storage via Ethernet
• Add a Camera and Stereo Mic for HD Video Calling on the big screen (and show off those new bunny slippers you got for your birthday)

The rig is powered by AMD 2Ghz Quad-core processor with 4 GB of RAM. It also includes a Desktop Class 3D GPU for a solid mid-range PC gaming experience. Port selection includes  two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, two HDMI, Ethernet, and audio jack. For Internet, it has High-Speed Network Access via 802.11AC Gigabit Wifi (backward compatible with 802.11b/g/n) along with Gigabit Wired Ethernet

It supports Linux/Windows (8.1/8/7) and Chrome OS and the size enclosure is 153mm x 110mm x 38mm (6" x 4.33" x 1.5").

Excited? They are currently holding a crowdfunding campaign to fund and market the PC. you can also be on board. The Base model costs $599 but for $999, you cna get it two months ahead of scheduled Aug 2014 delivery date. Interested? Check out their Link

Windows Phone 8.1 Personal Assistant "Cortana" - Preview

Have you heard about - Cortana?  She is the personal assistant on the Windows mobile 8.1.

We have a video for you which shows cortana in Action. The video starts with Cortana introducing herself, saying that she "can help make life a bit easier for you. She then asks you about your Microsoft account information to you this feature. Once you set that up, you are good to go. Also, user will be able to set the name that Cortana will refer to he or she as. She also asks the user what do they do at evenings. Under the question of what are the most enjoyable parts of one’s evenings, Cortana presents options like Cooking something, Going out,Hanging out with friends or Spending time with family

From the video it appears that Cortana is a cross between Apple's Siri and Google Now. We would be interested to see if this a good merger or have gone horribly wrong.

But the leaks seems promising and it sure looks like a huge improvement over current voice search of Bing.

Cortana is a small blue circle that will animate when its responding to a user query. Also, leaks have suggested that Cortana will reportedly collect information related to a user's identity, contacts, behaviors, emails to deliver features of Google Now. The Personal assistant feature would be like Apple's Siri. For example, as shown in Video, there is a setting for Quiet mode. During this mode, cortona can handle a User's incoming call and messages and silence nay other notifications. The user can also ask for specific notifications to be enabled or disabled.

Enough Said, Check out Cortana in action below:

Source:

1. The Verge
2. Unleash the Phones