AskME APP – Baap of All Apps !!

Mobile – The only thing that can make a man go wild if he doesn’t find the device in his pocket. The phenomenal rise in the usage of mobile users combined with some awesome internet services has explored new regimes. Gone are the days, when we used to have phone just for Calling or messaging purpose. Messaging has been replaced with applications like Whatsapp, snapchat etc etc.

The Phase “A man is known by the company he keep” can very well be transformed into “A Smartphone is known by the number of applications it can run”. As the market of Smartphone increased, It was very obvious to see the increase in number of Applications – ranging from Games, Social Networks, Business apps and many more.

Coming to some of the most required App from a user’s perspective will be an App that can deliver all the information one is looking for (Just like a Mini Google). For me ASKME app is the perfect solution for all our problems. A perfect App that delivers results that matter most to us.

This App, launched in 2011, can be very handy in keeping yourself updated on all the discounts, Deals happenings in your area and It also allows one to add their review on Business places, restaurant. The App also has the feature of making our own list of Jobs, Businesses or create a AD for your Business. The ability to read/add reviews about Businesses in our city is a huge advantage as it enables us to keep ourselves refrain from not so good places.

 

This ASKME app caters to all our queries – be it seeking information on some nearby places, movies being played in theatres, Deals on spa’s in our locality or any other request being processed. The best thing I like about this App is the simple and easy User Interface and for me it’s a better search engine than Google as it only deliver the results that are useful to me. The easy to use interface enables users of every age group to navigate through the app and get exact information he/she is looking for.

This App will serve as a one stop destination for all internet users as they will get all the info on one single platform They, no longer , have to go to Zomato to check restaurant reviews or Indiamart to check info on some Business.

The App also provides a good list of addresses and phone numbers of many of the businesses in our area and the ability to call them directly via AskMe app. This app will certainly be very useful for every smartphone user as we all seek for some information every now and then.The app is available 24*7 for users so stop going elsewhere to search information and check AskME – Baap of all Apps.

So what are you waiting for , Check more details on the App here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.GetIt&hl=en

Ready To Rent Your Very Own Space Satellite Just For $250/Week!

This is not a joke; it is for real. Now anyone can own a satellite for a week by paying just $250 as rent, with full authority to access it for various purposes. Space exploration and associated research are the most obvious fields to work for the major space agencies; however, till date none of them have offered such options for public, which allows a normal person to rent their own satellite for a week for their research projects.

Noticing the exploration demand of this particular subject (Space), one of the leading space agencies – NanoSatisfi has announced that they’ll launch their first cube satellite on August 4th, 2013. It’s a nanosatellite sized just 10 cm wide which allow people to own for timely basis. The company has considered various fields for which people could require and rent the satellite for their usage. Top listed categories are: Research scholars, engineers, and school students and those engaged in the field of Science, Engineering, and Entertainment.

The company has named this nanosatellite as ‘ArduSat’. This project is being supported by well known fund raiser’s company – Kickstarter for raising money for this project, and it is all set to launch off the satellite into space. Major goals of this project are to get more people involved in space research program, tracking meteorites by tuning into the radio stations reflected by the meteors’ tails, writing algorithms to make the camera take different kinds of photos based on factors like gamma radiation and exposure to the sun, and even mapping Earth’s magnetic field.

The NanoSatisfi’s CEO – Peter Platzer said in a press conference that “Instead of huge, expensive machines, each of which is different, we have smaller, cheaper craft built on a single standard that allows anyone to create improvements for them. We’re taking Moore’s law, and we’re moving it into space.” He also tells that we could probably control this nanosatellite through our smartphones!

Ah, what else we could expect from new and cutting edge science and its proponents! I would love to see your take on this ultimate revolutionary in the field of science to bring space closer to humans than ever before.

 

Amazon Is Set To Roll Out Its New Kindle Fire Tablets With Competing Display Resolution!

Amazon Kindle eBook reader has been the best selling tablet after Apple iPad that holds 47% share of market as per the survey conducted by Yankee Group. After dealing with some software and hardware issues, Amazon has managed to be in the queue of top tablets manufacturers. The survey results show that the company is at #2 with 7% market share and leading Samsung by a wafer thin margin of one percent, which is at #3 with 6% of the tablet market. Considering the consistent growth and demand of the e-readers, the company has decided to increase its Kindle offerings by adding more devices in the segment. The Kindle series now has eight different e-readers variants that vary on the basis of price and features.

If we believe on the various reports on the web, then it seems like that Amazon is prepping for three new Kindle Fire release by the end of this shopping season that is sometime near September. The first of these appears to be a replacement of the current entry-level tablet that has a screen resolution of 1024x600p, and is being sold for $159 right now, with a new similar size 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet in series that features a higher resolution of 1280x800p.

Another upcoming tablet is a new version of Kindle Fire HD. The existing 7-inch Fire HD model has a display resolution of 1280x800p, which will be upgraded by a newer version that will have a resolution of 1920x1200p to offer brighter and appealing display in comparison to its predecessor. However, the size of the newer model will remain unchanged as 7-inches.

The third expected model for this year would be a replacement of current Kindle Fire HD 8.9” model. The existing Fire HD 8.9” model has a resolution of 1920x1200p, which is better than traditional full HD (1920x1080p). However, Amazon has planned to upgrade the pixel count of its new model to 2560×1600 which is way beyond than full HD, but lesser than ultra HD!

As far as the pricing is concerned then there is much speculation but no reliable information as yet until Amazon decides to spill the beans. The demand for these upcoming devices would primarily depend on the consumers’ budget and requirements and if history is anything to go by Amazon may have another winner on its hands with this new range. Keep watching this space more for updates on this.

Around the Block with Pretty Lights and Electro Hip Hop Soul!

Being more of an alternate fan, my reaction and judgment towards other genres of music has always been looked upon as biased and atrocious by my peers. The fact is that I wouldn’t blame them as I have ended up criticizing one artist too many who are generally considered as pioneers of a particular genre. Although in my defense, the commercialization and regularly regurgitated travesties in the name of music hasn’t really helped my power of opinion.

If I have to single out a particular genre to criticize, I would say hip-hop takes the cake. From repetitive beats to vile lyrics, hip-hop music today has very well been reduced to a shadow of what it was in its yesteryears. The fact that rap is now a quintessential part of the hip hop genre just highlights the weak backbone on which the genre is being sustained at the moment. But as they insightfully say, “No dark cloud is without its silver lining”. The silver lining here is the small minority of artists who are working in the background to add the sheen back into the hip hop scene.

One such artist that I have recently stumbled upon through thissongissick is Pretty Lights; the stage name for Derek Vincent Smith.  Having dropped out of college during freshman year in University of Colorado, Smith worked hard to make it to the big time through playing at concerts during 2007 and 2008. In 2009, he gave existence to Pretty Lights and played at some of the major American music festivals. And since the establishment of his record label Pretty Lights music, he has given a lot of fresh new artists to come forth and distribute their music for free. The label tries and plays its part in doing its bit for the society through the donation it generates from the official website.

Now anyone who has heard of him would have surely heard tracks like Finally Moving and I know the Truth with creative syncing of hip hop beats, synth lines and soul samples. And his latest one, “Around the Block” is another excellent track –

 

The video is nothing out of the world but his whole setup using 21:9 widescreen monitors is nothing short of mouth-watering. And the customary reaction I get from people after listening to Pretty Lights – “Oh how I wish there were more artists like him these days!”

Back On Earth Safely From Onboard The International Space Station!

Image credit to NASA

The space journey of three of NASA’s astronauts ended yesterday on May 14^th, 2013 at 10:31P.M. EDT, as Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA landed their Soyuz TMA-07M Russian spacecraft safely on earth in a remote location outside Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

Image credit to NASA

These three astronauts arrived at the International Space Station last year on Dec 21^st, as the Expedition 34/35 team and spent 144 days living and working on a zero gravity orbit in space. Commander Chris Hadfield delightedly handed over the charge of the international science laboratory to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and other flight engineers Chris Cassidy and Alexander Misurkin who are scheduled to live onboard the International Space Station till September 2013. The talented Hadfield also made some interesting videos during his 5-month stay onboard the ISS, the latest one being a cover of Space Oddity by David Bowie. The video has gone viral garnering close to 10 million views in a span of just 2 days!

In a further briefing the NASA has announced that the undocking brought Expedition 35 to an end and marked the start of Expedition 36 under the command of Pavel Vinogradov. Currently onboard the station, Vinogradov, Cassidy and Misurkin will continue working for the time being as three more members will join them shortly with the docking scheduled on May 28^th. To know more about Expedition 35’s experiences and to watch its landing video visit www.nasa.gov.

Flipboard Has Received A Version Update 2.0 For Android

The much awaited Flipboard’s Android update has been rolled out on a global platform a couple of weeks ago. Flipboard version 2.0 was first made available to download for iOS users in March. The new Android version of this application allows people to create and organize their own personalized virtual magazine for absolutely free.

Android users would now be able to share and edit their own aspiring feeds with contents, images and videos on their board to make them look like their own visualized publication. They can even set privacy controls on their magazines for public and private viewing and can also share it with friends via social networks. Earlier, board users’ could have only read through the content and feeds that had been previously posted by the editorial team of Flipboard. But with this update they can personalize it according to their own taste and preferences.

The Andriod users were previously restricted to the limited ‘read only’ functionality of the magazines that were created on iOS. Whereas now, the Android users are on par with iOS users, as in, they also have the same ability –  to create their own collective articles, images and various add ons, for giving a materialize appearance to their boards.

The Flipboard has recorded an astonishing 500,000 magazines having being created and personalized within first two following weeks of the launch of the application version 2.0 on iTunes for Apple users. With the UK, US and Canada emerging among the top five countries, where the users have downloaded and used this application to create magazines.

The app new version 2.0 is now available to download from Google Play for Android devices. We would love to hear your opinion or experiences on this updated app version in the comment box below.

Seagate Introduces The World’s First Consumer-Grade SSD Drive

A Solid State Drive is also known as Solid State Disk. It is a storage drive which uses electronic integrated circuits unlike any other hard drive. The “Seagate 600 SSD” which was announced yesterday is geared for general users who want to upgrade from their conventional HDD. The company officials have confirmed that this model has been designed for pro-consumers and enterprise use.

Solid State Drive:

The Seagate 600 is the world’s first consumer-grade SSD drive in the market and is available in two variants – 7mm and 5mm thick. This difference in disk thickness will have no effect on its functioning as each of them will perform same and will be available in three different capacities – 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB. The 240GB and 480GB SSD offer upto 500Mbps and 400Mbps consecutive reading and writing speed respectively. Whereas the 128GB version has a somewhat slower writing speed of 300Mbps for consecutive writing.

Design:

The 600 SSD has been designed in the same standard 2.5inch size which supports the latest SATA 3 (6Gbps) and on-the-fly error-correction algorithms. It uses 19nm Multilevel Cell NAND flash memory. The officials say that the new 600 SSD can be used the same as any other Seagate 2.5 inch HDD and it is also adept to support the Native Command Queuing and Data Set Management with Trim for better performance. One must ensure that it is used with Windows 7 or 8 to ensure apt use of the Trim functionality.

And unlike a traditional HDD, SSD drives do not use any external mechanical components. It is pretty clear that in the future SSDs will be in mass consumption by manufacturers in laptops, desktops and other electronic devices. As far as the prices of Seagate 600 SSD is concerned, then generally SSDs cost 7-8 times more than a traditional hard disk drive although we are yet to hear about the pricing and the product launch date by the company.

LG Become The World’s Third Largest Smartphone Seller!

Just a month ago I read somewhere on the web that “considering LG’s dedication towards its incredible work and consumer response especially in the mobile segment, it lets us witnessed very soon that the company (LG) will also be in line along with Apple or Samsung to generate maximum revenue from its mobile sector”. And finally, that day has come! Strategy Analytics has confirmed that worldwide smartphone shipments have reached 210 million units that shows the growth of 36% annually in just the first quarter of 2013. The Major market share was captured by the top giants Samsung and Apple obviously however, they were followed by LG at number three for the first time ever.

According to the report issued by the researchers team of Strategy Analysts, Samsung, Apple and LG shares were as mentioned below:

Brand	Smartphone Units Sells	Market Share in (%)
Samsung	69.4 Million	33.1
Apple	37.4 Million	17.9
LG	10.3 Million	4.9

Currently, LG is wooing the market with the Optimus G Pro while Samsung looks all set to rule the roost again with its powerful Galaxy S4. The Korean manufacturers have some strong competition from Taiwanese company HTC with their super stylish HTC One and let’s not forget the iPhone 5 which has been around for a while. In essence, all these companies are pushing hard for market dominance. However, it all comes down to the decision of today’s customer who is well informed and nitpicky and can easily differentiate between the different flagship mobiles.

Now LG’s unit volume might look meagre as compared to that of Samsung and Apple but the truth is that it is a big step in the right direction as these sales show that end users now have a much more positive outlook towards LG mobile as compared to the insipid response from previous years. It is also the perfect catalyst for LG to constantly improve and increase its market share in the coming years.

Monitor Your Kids’ Internet Activity From Your Work Places

Parental control applications and features are already available there in various digital devices at home but the question is does this feature ever let the parents know exactly how much time their children are spending on the internet on a daily basis? Or what your family members are doing on the web in your absence or whether your kids are accessing websites which they are not allowed to? The answer is NO, we do not have such precise control yet. However, if you are looking for some serious control over your home’s Wi-Fi network through which you can manage, monitor and control every single internet activity of your family while on-the-go, you can do it with the help of Skydog, a smartphone application which is required to be connected to your home network.

A Paloalto, California based network company has developed ‘Skydog’, a combination of smartphone application and a Wi-Fi router which uses cloud services to give real-time accessibility report of the internet.

Functioning

One can setup a network by replacing their existing Wi-Fi router with Skydog’s 802.11n wireless router and then signing up using Skydog account. As soon as you are done with this setup, you can monitor all the activities such as – what all devices are connected, who exactly is online in your home and which websites are being accessed and even the usage of current bandwidth. Skydog provides relatively detailed output which you can easily review on your desktop or on mobiles.

The administrator can easily set priorities on various websites as per their choice. For example, if you want your kid to access Twitter for around an hour a day, Skydog allows you to set their accessing time limit. And if your child exceeds their time limit you will get a notification message from the system alerting you that your child has crossed his/her usage limit for the day and is still online.

In an interview Jeff Abramowitz, CEO and founder of PowerCloud describes that this application can also be used for positive purposes – “For example, Abramowitz said parents can see how much their child have engaged with a mathematic site. You can see the level of activity and then you know with confidence that your kid is putting forth the effort towards the right things.”

So readers, what is your opinion on Skydog parental control, is it worth considering or not?

Lenovo Launches Ideaphone S890 In India

With remarkable success in PC and laptop industry, Lenovo now seems to be targeting growth in the Smartphone segment in India. We have all witnessed and experienced Lenovo’s laptops and All-in-One Desktop PCs which have great demand in the Indian market. And the company is currently focused on garnering consumer attention with their appealingly designed larger screen Android phones. The company has introduced S890 which is a successor to S880 that was launched earlier this year.

The S890 has a 5-inch IPS capacitive touchscreen with a display resolution of 540 x 960 pixels at 220 PPI which is undeniably more than the screen resolution and pixel density of Samsung Galaxy Grand which comes in the same screen size. As far as the phone’s built is concerned, the design is quite similar to the S880 model with the notable difference being that S890 sports a slimmer bezel as compared to S880.

Furthermore, this device is running Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1. Along with dual-core 1.2GHz processor, it has 1GB RAM and comes with 4GB internal memory and can support up to 32GB flash memory through the external MicroSD card. Have a look at the device specifications below:

From what we have seen and read about this phone, it is pretty clear to us that this phone is better than Samsung Galaxy Grand in terms of its design and screen resolution. Having witnessed Galaxy Grand’s launch and using it extensively during the first hands-on experience, we were disappointed about the fact that such a big display employed substandard resolution; a major factor in the enthusiasts staying away from this phone.

Based on personal opinion, the Lenovo S890 looks like a Value-For-Money proposition on paper. For those who are looking for a feature-laden smartphones within a similar price range, here is a useful link which gives you a comparative insight of Grand and S890. But here’s the deal: don’t let a few web articles dictate your choice. Make sure you have had extensive hands-on experience on both these Smartphones before making the final buying decision.