Cortana Developer Preview comes to the U.K. for Windows Phone 8.1 in less than two weeks

A tweet sent by Cortana's program manager, Marcus Ash, reveals that inside of two weeks, a developer preview for Cortana will be available. Keep in mind that the only Windows Phone 8.1 users in the U.K. that will be able to see and use Cortana, will be those who registered as developers with Microsoft. For the rest of you, the personal assistant will be unavailable for now, unless a hack is devised, of course.

 

Right now, only those in the U.S. with Windows Phone 8.1 are able to use Cortana. In his conversations on Twitter, program manager Ash said that while developing Cortana, Microsoft learned a lot about scaling; that is certainly one of the issues that the company would have to face when rolling out a project as ambitious as a virtual personal manager, to a large number of countries world-wide.

 

No word from Microsoft yet, as to when non-developers in the U.K. will be able to access Cortana.

Read More

Motorola Moto G2 Leaked

 

 

Motorola have decided to revisit the G-series of phones with a successor that intends to capitalize on the simple and cost-friendly features of the first G. The model 1068 XT, or Moto G 2nd Generation.

 

The panel of any device is usually the most expensive single piece and the G2 looks to have kept the resolution at 1280 x 720 pixels with a dpi of 320. In a world where 1080p screens and even QHD  displays (2560 x 1440 pixels) are becoming standard, the 720p screen still doesn’t look all that bad. Just five years ago, I thought the 320 x 480 (180 dpi) on my HTC Hero looked fine. Heck, even Apple makes such a big deal about having a 326 dpi screen that they gave it a fancy name like Retina Display. The internals of the new Moto G2, however, have been beefed up. The processor is now a quad-core ARM V7 (VFPv4 NEON) with an Adreno 305 GPU. The main, rear-facing camera, will be an 8 megapixel sensor and the phone will have dual-SIM capabilities.

 

That’s all we know right now. No word on physical dimensions, amount of RAM, internal storage or even battery cell size have been leaked as of yet. About the only thing I think is safe to assume is that the Moto G2 will be running at least Android 4.4.x, but, depending on when it’s released it could actually feature Android L.  While the first Moto G was $179 when it was released, Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside hinted that the Moto G2 could cost even less. Personally, if the phone was announced for around $100 unlocked, I’d really see no reason against picking one up for a “just in case” spare. What do you guys think? Is Motorola on the mark with this budget phone, or is it still not enough?

Read More

Upcoming NVIDIA Shield tablet image leaks out

The photo appeared on the web thanks to @evleaks.

The leaked image reveals the front of the upcoming Android slate. Its design closely resembles that of last year’s NVIDIA Tegra Note reference platform.

 

The NVIDIA Shield tablet is expected to debut in the immediate future. Its rumored specs include 7.9-inch touchscreen with 2048×1536 resolution, beefy Tegra K1 chipset, and LTE connectivity.

Read More

Apple expands availability of 2-step verification to 59 countries

Apple has greatly expanded the availability of its 2-step verification process for Apple IDs. While it was only available in 11 countries previously, the feature is now available in 59 countries worldwide.

For those not aware, 2-step verification or authentication puts an extra step between entering your ID and password and logging in. It sends a verification message with a code to a preset device or number and only upon entering that code will the person be allowed to log in. This way, even if someone gets access to your password, they still can’t access your account unless they have access to the special code.

 

Apple 2-step verification is now available in the following countries:

If you have an Apple device, then it is highly recommended you enable 2-step verification for your account. Or for any other service you might be using that supports this feature.

Read More

BlackBerry Messenger arrives on Windows Phone

BlackBerry has released their BBM application for the Windows Phone platform.

The app is beta for now, so you will need an invite to be able to use the app on your Windows Phone device. The app will be open for everyone but until then, this is only for those with an invite for the private beta.

Download Link

BBM for Windows beta

Read More

Nokia Reportedly Working On Android Powered Lumia Smartphone

Microsoft having officially taken over Nokia, we could be about to see our very first Lumia running on Android. Courtesy of a leak by perpetual informant Evleaks, a “Nokia by Microsoft” handset running on Android could be forthcoming, although teasingly, we don’t have any further details at this point.

Given that Microsoft is actively trying to promote and improve its own mobile platform, going for a device running on stock Android, or a variant thereof, would seem an odd tactic, but there are ways in which the Redmond could tweak the experience to suit Windows Phone. By using the Android compatibility as a shoo-in to a corner of the market that might otherwise have skipped a Lumia, Microsoft could take advantage of the new-found user base and tie said consumers into its own products.

But there’s a lingering feeling that, despite industry pressure and the aspersions of some commentators, Microsoft will remain defiantly faithful in pushing Windows Phone, and part of this belief in the ecosystem may take the form of not building smartphones for rivaling platforms.

 

Still, as consumers, we’d love to see some the likes of the Lumia 1520 and 1020 running on Android, with its broader range of apps and general flexibility. The cameras placed into these handsets, particularly the 41-megapixel offering of the Lumia 1020, are market-leading, and while we’re not going to throw out the confetti just yet, we’re quietly hoping that there’s some truth in these utterances.

Read More

Microsoft to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

 

Microsoft Corp. MSFT +1.02% Chief Executive Satya Nadella recently pledged to be "bold and ambitious" to remake the company and its culture. The first task, he signaled in a memo on Thursday, would be cleaning up some of his predecessors' messes.

The recently named Microsoft chief is cutting up to 18,000 jobs in the next year, or about 14% of the company's workforce, the largest layoffs in its history. About two-thirds of the cuts would come from its phone and tablet staff, which bulged after former CEO Steve Ballmer agreed to buy Nokia Corp.'s NOK1V.HE +2.27% handset business last fall.

Microsoft said it plans to eliminate as many as 18,000 jobs, or 14% of its workforce, over the next year, part of a sweeping plan to streamline its operations following the recent acquisition of Nokia's devices and services business. Scott Thurm joins MoneyBeat.

The shape of the job cuts reflect a tough reality for Mr. Nadella: He must repair parts of the company he inherited from former CEOs Bill Gates and Mr. Ballmer before he can reshape Microsoft as he wants. Outside of staff overlap with Nokia, the cuts amount to about 5,500 people, or about 5% of the company's staff before the Nokia deal pushed it to 127,000 people.

Microsoft declined to make Messrs. Gates and Ballmer available to comment.

The company said the job cuts and undisclosed "asset-related" charges would cut pretax earnings by up to $1.6 billion over the next four quarters. Investors sent shares up 1% to $44.53 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Mr. Nadella also showed glimpses of his blueprint. He plans to revamp the way Microsoft organizes its engineers and will close a high-profile project that Mr. Ballmer launched to create television-like programming for its Xbox videogame game console. Mr. Nadella also halted work on a line of Nokia smartphones powered by the Android operating system, which had put Microsoft in the position of supporting the software of rival Google Inc.

"Steve Ballmer threw a massive house party for a decade, and now Nadella is there the morning after cleaning up," said FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives. "He's using this opportunity to clear the decks so they enter the next fiscal year in a position to put good money into the strategic areas they want to focus on."

One an advantage for Mr. Nadella is that, unlike many companies that carry out large layoffs, Microsoft is financially healthy.

Revenue is growing, and analysts project the company generated $22.5 billion of net inco

me in the year ended June 30. The company's stock has outperformed market indexes since Mr. Nadella took over, and a recent turnaround in personal-computer sales is likely to prove a financial windfall for the company.

His challenge is making Microsoft relevant in fast-growing technology areas including mobile computing. Executives fear the company's empire in corporate software could be at risk if it doesn't act decisively.

Read More

Western Digital My Passport Slim 1TB review: A sleek drive with good build quality

Price

₹6,895

Western Digital has been coming out with My Passport drives for a while now. We have seen the drive getting cosmetic changes over the years. But with the My Passport Slim, WD is concentrating on making slimmer drives, which employs WD’s Slim series of internal HDDs. We had last seen the WD My Passport Ultra which didn’t impress us much. Let us see how it fares.

Build and Design

WD My Passport Slim comes in 1TB and 2TB variants

With the My Passport Slim, WD has not just gone for a slim profile, but the build quality has also improved. We move from the older plastic bodies to an aluminium enclosure. WD has stuck with simple dual-tone finish on the My Passport Slim with silver colour on top and dark blue on the rear side. It has rounded edges and is portable enough to fit into your jeans’ back pocket. It is just 12.3mm thick which puts it in the same segment as the Seagate Backup Plus Slim drive, which is 12.1mm thick on the sides.

Features

WD My Passport Slim 1TB is 12.3mm thick, placed above the Seagate Backup Plus 1TB which is 12.1mm thick

The My Passport Slim comes in two variants – 1TB and 2TB. In the 1TB variant – code named WDBGMT0010BAL – gives 931GB of unformatted space. The drive is powered by the USB 3.0 interface. It houses a drive with a rotational speed of 5400 RPM and an 8MB cache. WD also bundles in its proprietary software along with the drive.

The WD My Passport Slim has a USB 3.0 interface

The bundled utilities are divided into three main segments such as WD Drive Utilities, WD Security and WD SmartWare. Under the SmartWare utility you can backup data from your system to the WD Ultra or even to Dropbox. You will need to activate the Dropbox access via the activation code which you will be prompted to enter. You will have to register your email ID and the utility will get upgraded to SmartWare Pro which is a paid utility. You can even schedule backups or have category-wise backups. WD Security allows you to password protect and encrypt your drive.The final utility named WD Drive Utilities, allows you to run diagnostic tests, set sleep timers for the drive when not in use and secure erasing of the drive.

Test Setup

Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K

Motherboard: ASRock Z87M Extreme4

RAM: 2 x 4GB GSkill RipjawsX

OS Drive: Intel SSD, 80GB

Source Drive: Corsair Neutron GTX, 240GB SSD

PSU: Cooler Master 800W Silent Pro Gold

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Performance

We used the native USB 3.0 ports on the ASRock Z87M Extreme4 to test the hard drive. We start off with the synthetic testing using Crystal Disk Mark 3.0 and ATTO benchmark. ATTO gave 105.94 for sequential reads and 106.52 for sequential writes. Crystal Disk Mark scores are as below.

For the real world performance test, we transferred a 10GB single RAR file and a 10GB assorted file to get real life sequential and random file transfer speeds. To simulate a file write we transferred files from the Corsair source drive to the target Seagate Backup Plus drive and vice versa to simulate a file read. After each read and write operation we restarted the system to clear out any cache. Finally we performed the intra-drive test. The results are as follows.

Verdict and Price in India

Western Digital has a good looking drive which performs decently as compared to its competitors. In terms of raw performance, it is slower than the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB drive, but the difference isn’t that great. The thing going for WD is the presence of its utilities which is lacking with Seagate drives. But then, the Seagate drive has social media backup, which is not there in the My Passport Slim. It all comes down to the pricing in the end.

At Rs 6,895, the WD My Passport Slim offers a cost/GB of Rs 7.4 which is higher than Seagate Backup Plus’s Rs 6.44 (based on Rs 6000 MRP). Pricing for the WD is on the higher side considering Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB comes for around Rs 5,100 now. Sure, the My Passport Slim has better build quality. It all depends on what you are looking for. If WD’s security and backup utilities are more dearer to you than the Seagate Backup Plus’s social media backup, then go for the My Passport Slim. But if you just want a regular 1TB external drive with USB 3.0 interface, there are drives which start from Rs 4,800 for the 1TB variant with both WD and Seagate.

Original Source

Read More

Aircel launches 4G services in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Odisha

Telecom services provider Aircel  today launched its 4G services across Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Odisha. With this launch, Aircel will now offer services under all the three existing technologies of 2G, 3G and 4G LTE.
Aircel holds 20MHz of spectrum in the 4G LTE 2300 MHz band across eight circles - Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam and North East and Jammu and Kashmir.
"The parameters that will differentiate Aircel’s 4G LTE services include customized offerings with a quick turnaround time for deployment of services to Enterprise and Home customer," said Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel.
Aircel’s enterprise customers will experience a 4G LTE high-speed network to receive dedicated internet and secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) services whereas its home customers will experience various infotainment services on high-speed broadband that will help connect any WiFi device to support services such as faster internet access, Smart TVs, Virtual Home Solutions, Home Security and online gaming.

Read More