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9
Apr

Bing and Cortana are ready for the Indian Premier League 2015


The eight edition of the Indian Premier League, the premier club tournament of Twenty20 cricket, is upon us, and sure enough Bing and Cortana are ready for it. Microsoft offered similar extensive coverage for the recently concluded ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

9
Apr

Users sticking around longer for BBM than WhatsApp and Snapchat


BBM retains more users than most other mobile messaging apps, according to new data published by mobile analytics group Quettra. Measured against 22 messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Snapchat, and WeChat, BBM held on to 93% of its users after 30 days. The app also experienced higher user loyalty after the 60 and 90-day marks, according to BlackBerry:

As reported by The Information and CNBC, BBM held onto more than 93% of its users after 30 days, more than double the 43% average user retention after 30 days for all apps measured. After 60 days, 89% of BBM users remained loyal, and 82% after 90 days. Only Facebook Messenger ranked higher than BBM.

These high retention numbers aren’t really surprising. Just last month, BBM crossed 100 million downloads from Google Play, though it should be noted that a number of BBM’s competitors share similarly high download numbers, without experiencing the same loyalty from users. Recent updates to the app have also added many long-requested features, including custom BBM PINs and support for Android Wear.

Source: BlackBerry

9
Apr

The Asus Transformer Book Chi T100 notebook goes on sale in the UK April 13


The Asus Transformer Book Chi T100 Windows 8.1 notebook will go on sale in the UK on Monday, April 13 for £399.99 via retailers such as Currys/PC World and John Lewis. The display of the 10.1-inch device can detach from its keyboard to be used as a stand alone tablet.

9
Apr

The Bridge, find your way in this beautiful puzzle game for Windows and Windows Phone


The Bridge is a puzzle combined with beautifully hand-drawn art in the style of a black-and-white lithograph. Before we continue, let’s get one thing out of the way. It costs $5.99 at the Windows Phone Store without a free trial. We’ve probably turned off many people by now, but on a positive note, you can buy the game once, and download it both for Windows and Windows Phone. The Bridge has also won the Unity Game developer contest, standing out from over 600 other entries. Watch our gameplay video to see it in action.

9
Apr

A closer look at the Porsche Design P’9983 Graphite


Just under a month ago we got our first look at the Porsche Design P’9983 Graphite, and today we’re getting a closer look at the details that make up the phone.

As before, the P’9983 Graphite is essentially the same phone as the standard Porsche Design P’9983, just with a design that’s all-black stainless steel frame with a hand-wrapped leather back cover instead of the glossy carbon fiber. It’s the P’9983, but stealthy.

Read More »

9
Apr

Cricket introduces three new payment plans, including a rent-to-own option


Cricket Wireless previously only offered a single off-contract price for devices, but they have just introduced three new payment plans which now bring different payment options to customers. Not everyone can go out and purchase a device off-contract, and Cricket’s new plans make paying for your new device much easier.

9
Apr

How to use iCloud Photo Library: The ultimate guide


iCloud Photo Library aims to deliver on the promise of having all your photos available on all your devices all of the time.

To accomplish this, iCloud Photo Library works with Photos for iOS and Photos for OS X, as well as iCloud.com, as the glue that holds everything together. Shoot a video on your iPhone, take a picture with your iPad, import from your DSLR on your Mac, and all of it goes up to Apple’s servers and is made available on all your other devices. Part backup, part sync, part storage optimizer, if you let it, iCloud Photo Library can make micromanaging your pictures and videos a thing of the past. Here’s how!

Should you use iCloud Photo Library?

Apple’s new photo sync option, iCloud Photo Library, lets you seamlessly access, manage, edit, and share images and video from any device you own. It’s free to use — though if you want to sync any real amount of data, you’re going to have to pony up for a paid iCloud storage plan. Now that Photos for OS X is here, we’ve had a lot of people ask whether they should turn on iCloud Photo Library: Is it safe? Is it secure? Is the cost of an iCloud plan worth it? After several months of both iOS and Mac beta-testing, here are our thoughts.

What iCloud Photo Library storage plan should you choose?

iCloud Photo Library stores all your pictures and videos on Apple’s servers so they’re available to you on all your devices. If you optimize storage, it can save you a lot of space on your iPhone, iPad, or even your Mac. It will, however, take up storage on your iCloud account. Apple gives 5 GB to everyone for free, but if you’ve got a photo library of any size, you’ll almost certainly need more. Especially since iCloud Drive, iCloud email, and iCloud backup all pull from the same storage pool. Apple offers additional storage, from 20 GB to 1 TB, on a monthly subscription basis. How much you need will depend on how much you can afford — as online options go, it isn’t cheap — and how much you need. Here are your options!

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on iPhone or iPad

iCloud Photo Library lets you store all your pictures and videos online but still have fast, local access on your iPhone and iPad. It does that by uploading everything you take with or save to your iPhone or iPad and downloading everything you import on your Mac. You can either keep all of it on your device, or you can let iCloud Photo Library intelligently manage your storage for you, keeping recent, favorite, and frequently accessed pictures and videos available and leaving older and seldom accessed content up on the cloud, just a tap away. It also serves as a backup and syncs your non-destructive edits. In other words, iCloud Photo Library helps you make the most of your pictures, videos, and your devices. All you have to do is enable it!

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your Mac or PC

If you want your Mac’s photos to wirelessly sync to all your other iOS devices and computers, you want to set up iCloud Photo Library. Apple’s photo sync service lets you back up your images on all your devices as well as access them — online or offline — on said devices. If you’re willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos, all accessible at the touch of a button or multi-touch screen. Here’s how to set it up on your Mac with Photos for OS X as well as how to access your images from a PC or older Mac.

How to access iCloud Photo Library on the web

iCloud Photo Library lets you easily access all your pictures and videos from anywhere, including the web. Sure, the Photos apps for iOS and OS X are fast, convenient, and pack a lot of features, but there might come a time when you don’t have either available to you. That’s when iCloud Photo Library being part of iCloud really comes in handy — because you can access everything you have online straight from any web browser you have available to you. All you need is a connection, your Apple ID, and iCloud.com.

How to use iCloud Photo Library to save storage space on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac

Images and videos eating up all the storage on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac? With iCloud Photo Library you never have to worry about running out of space again. Thanks to “optimized storage”, Apple can intelligently keep track of and manage your free space, ensuring your recent, favorite, and frequently accessed images and videos are immediately available on your device, while your older, less frequently accessed one are kept safely off your device and up on Apple’s servers, just a download away. It’s not magic, but if you’re tight on space, it’ll absolutely feel that way.

How to back up iCloud Photo Library

iCloud Photo Library stores all of your images and videos online, but what if you also want an additional backup? The old saying, when it comes to backups, is one place is no place. With something as precious as your photo and video collection, you want to make sure you don’t just have a backup to iCloud Photo Library, but a backup of the backup. “One local, one cloud” is the minimum. “Two local, two cloud” is the recommendation. Luckily, Photos for OS X lets you keep a copy of all your originals, all on your Mac. If you have at least one good-sized hard drive, that makes “one local, one cloud” easy. If you’re already backing up that Mac as well, then it makes “two local, two cloud” take care of itself as well.

How to delete pictures and videos from iCloud Photo Library

The great thing about all your pictures and videos being online is that sometimes all your pictures and videos are online… iCloud Photo Library makes sure all the pictures and videos of all the people and places you love, and all the memories you want to keep safe are backed up and available on all your devices, iPhone, iPad, and Mac. If you’ve got stuff you simply don’t like, or personal pictures and videos that you don’t want to keep and don’t want available, you can delete them. That way, neither you nor anyone else is at risk of ever seeing them again.

How to use iCloud Photo Library while offline

Photos for OS X and iOS let you sync your library to iCloud, so that you can have thousands of photos at your beck and call without having to store them locally on your machine or device. But what about when you don’t have Wi-Fi or cellular data readily accessible? Never fear: Whether you’re stuck on a plane, in a tunnel, or simply want to show off photos when you don’t have internet access, here’s how you can still view and manage your iCloud Photo Library images.

9
Apr

How to use Photos for OS X: The ultimate guide


Photos for OS X brings the Mac into the modern age of picture and video management, tying it into both the operating system and the cloud.

With Photos for OS X, all the pictures and videos you’ve taken on your iPhone or iPad, or imported into iPhoto or Aperture, will always be available to you on any of your Macs, as will any future pictures and videos you take or import, including your DSLR images, even in RAW. Add to that automatic, intelligent grouping based on time and place, and face detection, non-destructive editing, and the ability to order prints, books, and more, and Photos for OS X makes for the ultimate picture and video app for the mainstream. And here’s your ultimate guide to setting up and using it.

How to get started with Photos for OS X

Photos for OS X opens the door to a new era of Mac picture and video management. It builds upon foundations laid by iPhoto and Photos for iOS to offer users a speedy and functional way to manage, edit, and share all their pictures and video. Whether this is your first time using a photo management app, you’re upgrading from iPhoto, or you’re exploring a non-Aperture or Lightroom avenue, here’s what you need to know to get started with Photos for OS X.

How to get started with iCloud Photo Library

iCloud Photo Library aims to deliver on the promise of having all your photos available on all your devices all of the time. To accomplish this, iCloud Photo Library works with[Photos for OS X as well as with Photos for iOS and iCloud.com, as the glue that holds everything together. Shoot a video on your iPhone, take a picture with your iPad, import from your DSLR on your Mac, and all of it goes up to Apple’s servers and is made available on all your other devices. Part backup, part sync, part storage optimizer, if you let it, iCloud Photo Library can make micromanaging your pictures and videos a thing of the past.

How to find and manage your pictures and videos in Photo for OS X

Photos for OS X uses the same hierarchy as Photos for iOS — intelligently grouping images and videos into moments, collections, and years. That lets Photos for OS X show you small moments in time and space, like yesterday at the park, but also collections of moments marked by larger changes, like that party across town or that week at the beach, and even an entire year all at once. That way you can quickly zoom out, drill down, or scrub through to find exactly the photos and videos you want to look at, edit, or share. And all it takes is a few clicks and swipes! Of course, you can also find by faces, location, keywords, and more!

How to edit your pictures and videos in Photos for OS X

From magic wand, to basic color, light, and black & white tweaks, or full, granular control over exposure, saturation, intensity, and more. You can also rotate, flip, crop, and straighten, remove redeye, touch up blemishes, and more. Photos for OS X has everything you need to make your pictures look exactly how you want. What’s more, all the edits are non-destructive, so if you don’t get something perfect the first time, you can change it again whenever you like, or even go right back to the original. Combine that with the large screen, and editing photos on the Mac isn’t just easy, it’s accessible to everyone.

How to share pictures and videos from Photos for OS X

Share directly via iCloud, Mail, Messages, or AirDrop, or socially with Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, or Flicker. Either way, you can do it quickly and easily right from Photos for OS X. Simply find the picture or video you want to share — or multiple pictures or videos — choose the way you want to share them, and you’re good to go. Thanks to OS X sharing extensions, other services can plug in as well. It’s the fastest, easiest way to get your pictures and videos from where they are to where you want them to be.

Photos for OS X

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9
Apr

Dot View app picks up small update on the HTC One for Windows


If you are one of the many who sport the underrated HTC One (M8) for Windows, head to the Store today to grab a rare update for their app for the Dot View case.

Version 1.3.0.3 is now live in the Store. This is a small bump from the 1.3 update that came in December, which brought numerous new functions including notification support for new apps.

9
Apr

The Microsoft Lumia 640 is now on sale in Ireland for €179


Microsoft has started selling the Lumia 640 smartphone with Windows Phone 8.1 in Ireland. The unlocked version of the 5-inch smartphone is being priced at €179 on that country’s Microsoft Store site.

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