Cyanogen to open an office in India this summer
India’s fast growing smartphone market has attracted a lot of attention over the past year, with local talent and foreign brands all looking to grab a share. Cyanogen has also sensed the opportunity and is preparing to set-up a dedicated base of operations in the country over the next three months.
The Indian team will be located in either Bengaluru or Delhi and will consist of some 50 members, adding a third to the company’s existing employee headcount. Once setup, the group will be working on adding local flavors to its custom Android operating system, possibly in the form of some local apps and features that Cyanogen talked about before. Quality testing and assurance in the country will also be done from the new base.
“India is very attractive. It is one of the hyper-growth markets for mobile today, … Premji Invest is a big investor…and that was a deliberate decision, as India a big market for us,” – Vikram Natarajan, senior vice-president of global partnerships and distribution at Cyanogen
The costs are being covered by part of the recent $80 million round of funding and could also be used to acquire some small local companies to help get things moving. Premji Invest, an investment firm based in India, was one of the largest backers in the last round of funding.
Of course, Cyanogen is no stranger to India. The company has done a deal with Micromax to exclusively install its Cyanogen OS onto the company’s handsets. We’ll have to see how Cyanogen’s expansion plans play out and whether it will continue to partner up with local brands or if it has something more ambitious in store for India.
The Sharp AQUOS Xx is announced today with very little bezel and lots of power
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Some of the world’s most beautiful smartphones of the past year have ironically come from one of the smaller players in the smartphone world. Sharp, a company name not normally tied with smartphone manufacture, has today announced another breathtakingly beautiful device to add to its lineup, this time the 5.7-inch phablet, the Sharp AQUOS Xx. Much like the Sharp AQUOS Crystal before it (which Stormy took a look at last year), the Sharp AQUOS Xx also has a bezel-less frame, featuring almost no screen-to-edge gap on its top and side edges.
Unlike the Sharp AQUOS Crystal, however, the Sharp AQUOS Xx won’t have mid-range specs – the device was announced with a Snapdragon 810 and 3GB inside, as well as shipping with Android Lollipop. Probably the only disappointing part of this package is the 1080p display, which would need to be 2K to stay toe-to-toe with other devices in its class, but who’s counting pixels anyway when you’ve got that bezel-less frame, am I right? Sharp has so far only announced availability of the Sharp AQUOS Xx in Japan, though we hope it makes the jump to other regions like its predecessor did.
What do you think about the Sharp AQUOS Xx? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: The Techolic via Phone Arena
The post The Sharp AQUOS Xx is announced today with very little bezel and lots of power appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Bold Knot is a smart charging solution for users on the go
Modern day Android smartphones pack massive batteries inside which could last you a full day when necessary. However, for power users, even this doesn’t do the job and they ultimately have to resort to plugging in the charger just when they’re about to end their day.
That’s where an accessory like the Bold Knot could be of great use to the customers. This Indiegogo backed charging cable comes in a neat bundle of knots, with a cable on each end, one for the USB adapter and the other for your phone (micro USB or Lightning). It carries juice on its own, with up to 3 hours of usage time said to be provided by the accessory.
The cost of this accessory has been set at $99 for a bundle of four, which is a limited period offer and a savings of $60. So if you want to buy the accessory at a later date, it will set you back by $40 a pop. You can watch the demo video below to understand how Bold Knot works.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Source: Indiegogo
Come comment on this article: Bold Knot is a smart charging solution for users on the go
Nintendo kills off the basic Wii U in Japan
Nintendo is about to halt production of its 8GB Wii U Basic in Japan, according to a notice on its product site. The white-clad product has been around since 2012, but was never super popular since the 32GB version is typically only $50 more. In fact, the rumor mill had it being killed off two years ago after it went out of stock at GameStop and Best Buy, though Nintendo later called that a “misperception.” Somehow the model has hung on until now, but has gradually become harder to find.
There’s no word on whether Nintendo plans to kill the basic version in the US and Europe, but a Japanese death often presages a similar fate elsewhere. However, the company plans to launch a white version of the 32GB Premium model, so at least you won’t get too nostalgic for the color.
Source: Nintendo
Britain now prefers cashless payments to notes and coins
It’s taken a while, but the UK is now primarily cashless. No, it’s not all-digital, but for the first time, consumers and businesses are making more payments with cards, smartphones and online banking than standard notes and coins. That’s according to the Payments Council, which found that 52 percent were completed without physical currency, with debit cards accounting for almost a quarter (24 percent) of all payments.
Despite the change in overall habits, consumers are still clinging on to cash — at least for now. Notes and coins were used in 52 percent of all consumer transactions in 2014, but the Payments Council believes that the figure will fall below 50 percent next year. Cash certainly won’t go away, especially with the expansion of free-to-use ATMs in the UK. Contactless payment limits are also rising from the current £20 limit to £30 in September, so people may soon be more inclined to pay for their shopping on their card. There’s also initiatives like Apple Pay, which has yet to make it across the Atlantic, but smartphone payments could reduce the stress of needing to take your wallet/purse, or having to head to the cash machine first.
Filed under: Cellphones, Household, Internet, Mobile
Source: The Payments Council
Jide Remix Android tablet now available on Amazon (costs more than $39)
Do you remember the Jide Remix ultra-tablet that was being given away for as little as $39 through Kickstarter a while ago? If you feel you missed out, you can now head over to Amazon to purchase the Android powered, Microsoft Surface look-alike tablet. But it will cost a little more this time.
Jide is a small company that was started by a few ex-Google engineers, they broke off to focus on productivity focused Android devices, and the first result is the Remix tablet that was announced and first made available this year.
A few lucky Kickstarter backers managed to receive their Jide Remix tablet as early as the first week of May. In an effort to help get the name out there, and to get live user feedback on the device so that they can fine tune it as they go, many backers were given the Android tablet regardless their amount of support to the successful Kickstarter campaign. We announced this at the time, and tried to get in at the lowest available barrier to entry ourselves, with $39 being the least expensive accepted donation.
The Jide Remix is a 11.6-inch device with full HD touchscreen display. It is powered by the Tegra 4+1 SoC and 2GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage with support for up to 128GB microSD card. Front and back finds 5MP cameras pointing each direction and a nice sized 8100mAh battery keeps the lights on.
The tablet itself is designed, we hate to say it, near identical to Microsoft’s Surface tablet, at least at first glance. A kickstand supports two levels of viewing and a magnetic click on keyboard turns the device into the laptop form-factor, ready for your productivity tasks.
Perhaps the most important, and maybe even the most appealing feature of the Jide Remix is the operating system. Named Remix OS, it is, at its core, Android 5.0 Lollipop, but we are looking at a custom ROM here that has been modified to bring a more familiar look and experience to your laptop. A built in file manager is a good start, a dedicated task bar along the bottom offers that Windows-like experience and multiple window support takes Android to a new level. Watch out later this year, as they plan to release the OS for you to flash to your favorite tablet.
For more info, or just to grab your Jide Remix tablet, head on over Amazon where it can be had for $399.00.
What do you think of this Jide Remix tablet idea, will it bring new life and purpose to the faltering tablet market?
Cyanogen launches Platform SDK, starting with a Quick Settings Tile API
Cyanogen wants to give app developers better access to the features of CyanogenMod/Cyanogen OS with the launch of the new, open source Platform SDK.
The Cyanogen Platform SDK will be a collection of APIs developed by Cyanogen, as well as the CyanogenMod community, that will give devs better access to “key parts of the platform.” The goal is to make developing for the Cyanogen platform more approachable and modular.
The inspiration for the project is a Stanford University-hosted hackathon, according to the Cyanogen team:
“Developing against an SDK rather than to an entire platform is a lot more approachable for developers, providing a lower barrier of entry to get a quality product up and running in a shorter span of time,” said Cyanogen’s Leigh Momii in a blog post.
Cyanogen hopes that developers will submit their own APIs, enriching the platform and making it easier for other devs to jump onboard. API submissions will be vetted by Cyanogen however and tested against its Compatibility Test Suite to ensure functionality and backward compatibility.
Cyanogen is “seeding” the alpha version of the Platform SDK with just one API for now, the Quick Settings Tile API. This will allow app developers to create their own tiles, for quick access to various toggles and settings. Cyanogen showed “Turn on Bike Mode” (seen in the image above) as an example of the kind of tiles that can be quickly created using the API.
If the project takes off, app makers will have a strong incentive to develop for Cyanogen and CyanogenMod devices. Making Android more open is one of the stated goals of Cyanogen, the business, and this initiative should make it easy for partners to access the core of Android and create richer experiences.
For more details on the Platform SDK, visit the project’s Github home.
Amazon’s one-hour delivery service now features local stores
When it’s not busy sending its delivery personnel on the New York subway, Amazon has quietly been working to expand its one-hour delivery service. From today, customers in Manhattan, the company’s first Prime Now location, can shop at a number of local businesses and have fresh food delivered within 60 minutes. D’Agostino, Gourmet Garage and Billy’s Bakery are the first companies on board, offering groceries, cooked meals and freshly baked cupcakes respectively alongside Amazon’s own range of goods. The online retailer is starting small but plans to add more stores across Manhattan over time, with Italian food market Eataly and Westside Market already waiting in the wings. As before, Prime Now’s one-hour deliveries cost $7.99, so be sure to factor that in before impulse buying those delicious treats.
Filed under: Household, Internet, Mobile, Amazon
Source: Amazon (Businesswire)
Oculus VR figures out how avatars can mimic your facial expressions
Imagine a VR game where your avatar can laugh, smile or frown as you do while interacting with other players — sounds fun, right? Well apparently, that kind of face-tracking tech already exists. Facebook’s Oculus division has teamed up with University of Southern California researchers to develop a way to track your facial expressions while wearing a chunky VR headset. What they did was insert strain gauges within the the Rift’s foam padding to monitor the movements of the upper part of your face. To monitor the lower part not covered by the headset, they attached a 3D camera to a short boom clipped to the center of the Rift. As you can see in the video below the fold, a virtual avatar successfully mimicked the expressions of their testers with that setup.
Project lead Hao Li believes the technology could make it more compelling to interact with others in virtual words; talking face to face, even as avatars, feels a lot more personal than text chats, after all. Unfortunately, Li told MIT’s Technology Review that the Oculus team worked with him purely for research purposes. But he also said that in the future, it would be easy to turn this proof of concept into an actual product with loads of potential applications. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg once revealed that he’s looking for new ways to socialize online — he didn’t mention anything specific, but this sounds like exactly what he’s looking for.
Filed under: Wearables, Facebook
Source: Hao Li
Americans are using more energy, but green tech is softening the blow
It may be tough to satisfy the US’ seemingly never-ending thirst for energy, but clean power sources are at least helping to soften the impact. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have determined that Americans’ energy use climbed 1 percent year-over-year in 2014, but its carbon emissions hardly budged at all. In fact, they were down significantly for coal and petroleum-based power. While some of that decline is due to industry using less-than-clean natural gas, it’s also helped by big jumps in solar and wind energy, which respectively grew by 33 and 8 percent.
These eco-friendly sources still represent just a tiny piece of the puzzle at 2.2 percent of the US’ entire demand, so there’s no doubt that dirty power still dominates. Scientists are quick to add that green tech is running into roadblocks, as well — wind turbine deployments have slowed down in the past two years, and California’s drought shrank the use of hydroelectric power. All the same, it’s evident that environmentally conscious electricity is significant enough to mitigate the US’ damage to the planet.
[Image credit: AP Photo/John Raoux]
Filed under: Science
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