Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 May 2014 01:27

wow! The Windows Phone Hindi devanagari keyboard is superb...their English keyboard is already the best out there but still very pleasantly surprised with the quality and ease of use.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 May 2014 08:33

Finally tech media gets it right...not that Mickey did a good job of publicly articulating its vision for Surface, in the last 1-2 years.

Can the Surface Pro 3 steal the MacBook Air’s crown?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 May 2014 08:38

dunno, but does MS has anything to challenge macbook pro retina with all the bells and whistles?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 May 2014 08:47

SaiK wrote:dunno, but does MS has anything to challenge macbook pro retina with all the bells and whistles?

Nope. Mickey doesn't make laptops in that category. YechPee/Lenovo do.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 May 2014 08:59

checked lenovo site and yetched pee, nothing comes close to features and performance. the del xps15 close, but not close enough for me. i was comparing against 15", 16gb, 512ssd

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 May 2014 09:02

I thought I saw something called the EliteBook or Envy or some such from YechPee just the other day.

XPS is too big/fat.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 May 2014 09:07

mmm.. i was talking about this one:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15-9530/pd

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 May 2014 09:24

RB and folks: my kids class launched the balloons with the phone camera yesterdin. The phone programming was done by a friend of their teacher. They were able to run the simulator and were using app inventor from MIT. Everything worked in the classroom. Then yesterday morn they launched and after a traveling about 300 feet or so the whole thingamajig got stuck in the powerlines. These are high voltage lines I know this because whenever I pass this intersection I lose my NPR signal on my car radio. So they called the power company who promptly came and retrieved the assembly. The kids fixed it up once more and were successful n launching the balloons. But unfortunately they did not get back GPS and camera data. They are not sure what the problem is. There are two theories - he electronics got fried because of the high voltage which they feel is unlikely. The most plausible explanation they came up with is that while the assembly was brought down by the power people or while they were fixing the phone got turned off. Anyway they had lot of fun and excitement with the whole process. May be next year they will be successful. I will get them a 149$ moto e and encourage them to try once again with lessons learned from this first try.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 May 2014 09:32

higher voltage shifts, erases the data to all 111111s. like in the good old EEPROM days, a voltage of 25 volt is enough to erase them. ~~q: on which device they stored the data?~~

nevermind, i read that as phone device.. obvious it should be the flash ram! (NAND?)

ps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_carrier_injection for writing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_electron_emission for erasing

i think

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 May 2014 01:12

SaiK wrote:mmm.. i was talking about this one:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15-9530/pd

hmmm....given its starting price it seems to belong to a TFTAer category than MBP, no?

matrimc wrote:RB and folks: my kids class launched the balloons with the phone camera yesterdin. The phone programming was done by a friend of their teacher. They were able to run the simulator and were using app inventor from MIT. Everything worked in the classroom. Then yesterday morn they launched and after a traveling about 300 feet or so the whole thingamajig got stuck in the powerlines. These are high voltage lines I know this because whenever I pass this intersection I lose my NPR signal on my car radio. So they called the power company who promptly came and retrieved the assembly. The kids fixed it up once more and were successful n launching the balloons. But unfortunately they did not get back GPS and camera data. They are not sure what the problem is. There are two theories - he electronics got fried because of the high voltage which they feel is unlikely. The most plausible explanation they came up with is that while the assembly was brought down by the power people or while they were fixing the phone got turned off. Anyway they had lot of fun and excitement with the whole process. May be next year they will be successful. I will get them a 149$ moto e and encourage them to try once again with lessons learned from this first try.

If they didn't check the phone after retrieval from powerlines, how do they know that it didn't get fried and merely got turned off?

They should have launched from some wide open space away from powerlines. Anyways good first attempt and probably a richer learning experience than if it just work flawlessly the first time.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 May 2014 01:13

Mentioned here many moons ago and hardly surprising since its a pretty logical decision on Mickey's part...

Microsoft announces Windows 8.1 with Bing

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 May 2014 22:10

Need advise!

I want to buy an all-in-one PC to play around with some of the open source s/w.

my budget is <$400. Pls suggest if you know better deals...

Which of these configs is better?

Processor & Memory:
Intel® Celeron J1800 dual-core processor 2.41GHz
1MB Shared Cache
4GB DDR3-1600MHz [1 DIMM]

Vs
Intel Pentium G2020 Processor (2.9GHz)
4GB DDR3 Dual-Channel Memory

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 28 May 2014 02:17

found a goof-up in macbook pro retina laptop display feature. after you would end up paying hefty 2.5-3K for this puppy, you will not have a touch screen!

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 01 Jun 2014 04:57

Todin Windoze installed "Bing Desktop" as an update - it comes as a permanent(but hidden) drop down menu @ the top centercorner of the laptop screen.

Looks nifty and light and the search is well integrated to Bing.Has a "trends" feature akin to Twitter.
However not too much India specific customization yet.
But looks like Unkil Google will see its market eaten into by more switchovers to Bing - While Aunt EU can look forward to slapping another round of billion dollar fines citing antiTrust on M$.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 01 Jun 2014 05:26

I have had it for over a couple of years now on my laptop (more like a heavy portable desktop - it has a monster 17.5" screen and very loud - onr of the first gen Asus i7). Sometimes it is a n annoyance and the time for the desktop to appear after login takes more time due to Bing starting up. Not sure whether it is worth it.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 01 Jun 2014 07:09

Unkil Chacha will find it hard to make the case as it is the 800 lb gorilla in search.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 02 Jun 2014 19:36

Samsung breaks from Android with its first ever Tizen phone

Finally Sammy dares to do it....

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 02 Jun 2014 19:37

SaiK, answer to your question?

ASUS's Zenbook NX500 is a thin and light laptop with a 4K screen

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 02 Jun 2014 19:52

Android apps are not compatible with Tizen natively and Google play is also not available. No Java. However there is a third party emulator available for running Android apps.
Tizen uses heavily modified version of Enlightenment C++ toolkit (BSD licensed UI library - cross platform) for application development. Some JavaScript is also used.
Also, code reuse is not possible due to different languages used by respective API sets.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 02 Jun 2014 19:53

I guess they may do it like GB. Sammy already has its own app store for a while now and the only critical piece they are really missing is a location based service platform...maybe they can license HERE.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 02 Jun 2014 19:54

KrishG · Post by **KrishG** » 02 Jun 2014 20:19

SRoy wrote:GB?

BR name for Nokia.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 02 Jun 2014 20:25

hmm...Gumboot.

>>

App developers should try their hands on Qt toolkit, if cross platform deployment is a requirement.
We use it for iOS and WP apps.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 03 Jun 2014 10:23

SRoy wrote:GB?

In case you're wondering

member_23651 · Post by **member_23651** » 03 Jun 2014 19:37

SRoy wrote:hmm...Gumboot.

>>

App developers should try their hands on Qt toolkit, if cross platform deployment is a requirement.
We use it for iOS and WP apps.

Also not to mention Cascades for Blackberry 10 is offshoot of QT. Backend code is complete c++ & QT. Frontend is qml based cascades.
Dunno why I feel Ubuntu Mobile OS is again going to be flop, but QT was going to be its preffered dev env.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 03 Jun 2014 20:27

Intel's Windows 8.1 Pro Broadwell tablet is thinner than the iPad Air

Finally ChipZ wakes up.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Jun 2014 21:29

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Jun 2014 21:33

No mention of aiyyo Ess 8 ? I guess no one cares about Fruitco anymore with bawarchi at the helm. As for me, I am hoping 7.1.x aiyyo Ess will be jailbroken soon, so I can enable tethering using MyWi .

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 03 Jun 2014 22:37

never done that! is it possible to do tethering with iphone4+aiyo s7?

sampat · Post by **sampat** » 03 Jun 2014 23:33

why do you need to jail break for Tethering? personal hotspot works fine for wifi sharing in iphone 4s.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Jun 2014 23:56

Personal hotspot = $$ to be paid to american thieves and thugs (AT&T) . I think Tmo has free hotspot, but not AT&T.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Jun 2014 00:21

Suraj wrote:Personal hotspot = $$ to be paid to american thieves and thugs (AT&T) . I think Tmo has free hotspot, but not AT&T.

What will Mortullah say?

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 04 Jun 2014 01:24

Suraj wrote:Personal hotspot = $$ to be paid to american thieves and thugs (AT&T) . I think Tmo has free hotspot, but not AT&T.

The most apt description of AT&T, I have come across.
Suraj is right. You have to root/jailbreak your phone to use tethering for free on AT&T. Same for Verizon too I think.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 04 Jun 2014 01:52

I have Tmobile, but I dont think they let us create a free hotspot. If they do, please let me know.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 04 Jun 2014 04:06

KJoishy wrote:I have Tmobile, but I dont think they let us create a free hotspot. If they do, please let me know.

They have separate plans for enabling hot spot, but the cost is the same as the regular data plans. Talk to customer service.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 04 Jun 2014 10:09

I read an article in the ET yesterday about Notion Ink coming out with a Wintel tablet this year for ~17-18k INR. Wonder if it will be any good.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 04 Jun 2014 13:43

Ok saar, was just wondering

Meesa very happy with my Dell Venue 8 Pro - bang for the buck.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 04 Jun 2014 13:49

pandyan wrote:This is pretty big news: Truecrypt has shutdown. truecrypt was a good software to protect and backup your personal data files. now they have shutdown and that too with a warning that it may not be secure (true baki style ).

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/security ... -your-data

pHuck.

Bob V · Post by **Bob V** » 04 Jun 2014 15:09

Hello everyone, I'm looking for Android phone with a budget of upto 13k rupees.
My requirements are -
- 4 inch screen or above
- Dual Cameras (secondary VGA camera is fine)
- Dual SIM (atleast one SIM should be a normal size)
- 3G and Wifi feature.
- Atleast 1GHz processor
- 1GB RAM if possible, 700mb RAM is ok
- External memory slot -expandable to atleast 32GB
- Battery - 1500mAh (1800 would be awesome)
- Internal memory - minimum 4GB
Please let me know about regarding your choices.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 04 Jun 2014 15:11

micromax.