Samsung unveils midrange Galaxy Ace Style smartphone

www.gizmeon.com : Samsung unveils midrange Galaxy Ace Style smartphone

Samsung on Monday formally took the wraps off the Galaxy Ace Style, a midrange smartphone powered by Android 4.4 KitKat.

While the Ace Style sports the familiar Galaxy styling, the handset's features suggest that it's aimed at more budget-conscious consumers. Saying that the Ace Style is "designed to support and power young social consumers," Samsung's new handset features a 4-inch WVGA display and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor.

The Ace Style also sports a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a front-facing VGA camera and 4GB of internal memory. The handset will also come with TouchWiz Essence, Samsung's custom interface that runs on top of Android.

The Ace Style will go on sale globally in Cream White and Dark Grey beginning in April. Pricing wasn't revealed, but reports suggest that the handset will cost between $275 and $315.

Source: Gizmeon

Apple iWatch rumored

www.gizmeon.com : Apple iWatch rumored for third quarter

Will the much-rumored Apple iWatch finally debut later this year? Yes, at least according to one of the latest rumors.

Apple will reportedly unveil its long-awaited smartwatch in the third quarter of 2014, according to Taiwan's Economic Daily News. Based on an alleged bill of materials, supply chain sources told the news site that Apple is aiming to produce 65 million iWatches by year's end.

The watch itself will be manufactured by Quanta Computer, say the sources. Richtek Technology will make the chips, while TPK will create the watch's sapphire touch panels. Further, Apple is developing the watch's processor but will farm out chip production to Samsung, the sources added.

Samsung and other tech players have unveiled their own smartwatches, so Apple is already fashionably late to this party. But Apple could shake up the smartwatch market with a device that outshines rival products. Beyond pairing with your iPhone, an Apple iWatch reportedly would serve as a health and fitness tracker by tapping into an iOS 8 app called Healthbook.

This latest in a long line of iWatch rumors should certainly be taken with a grain of salt. Reports of an Apple smartwatch have been surfacing for quite a while now. But other recent reports have pegged a 2014 launch for the iWatch.

CNET contacted Apple for comment and will update the story with any further details.

Apple shares were up nearly $3 to about $526.40 in pre-market trading on Tuesday.

Posted by : Gizmeon

Microsoft to restore Start menu to Windows

Microsoft to restore Start menu to Windows. Microsoft this week gave customers a bare-bones peek at the future of Windows, saying that the next iteration after Windows 8.1 Update will restore a Start menu and let users run "Metro" apps on the classic desktop.

The sneak peek was part of the opening day keynote of Build, Microsoft's developer conference, which ran April 2-4 in San Francisco.

"I'm not here to announce the next version of Windows," Terry Myerson, the head of Microsoft's operating systems engineering group, said at Build. "But I am going to share that we are going all in with this desktop experience to make sure your applications can be accessed and loved by people that love the Windows desktop."

Myerson showed off two features of the unnamed update to Windows 8.1: A Start menu and windowed "Modern," née "Metro," apps on the desktop.
Both had been rumored to be coming to a future version of Windows; those claims first surfaced in December 2013.

As developers saw on the big screen behind Myerson, the new Start menu will be a blend of the traditional tool familiar to Windows 7 users and dynamic tiles that evoke the Windows 8.1 Start screen. The windowed Metro apps will be just that: resizable, draggable traditional windows on the desktop that will feature a title bar and the X-marks-the-spot close button to shut down the app.

"We will be making this available to all Windows 8.1 users as an update," Myerson said. He did not offer up a date or even a broad release target, or say what the update would be named.

How to save tons of money on printer ink

www.gizmeon.com : Studying ways to reduce paper and ink use for his school, a 14-year old teenager figured out that by switching from Times New Roman and other fonts to Garamond, organizations and businesses could save a ton of money on printer ink each year, CNN reports.

After collecting random handout samples from teachers and counting how often the most common characters were used in different typefaces, 14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani measured how much ink is used for each letter. “Next he enlarged the letters, printed them and cut them out on cardstock paper to weigh them to verify his findings. He did three trials for each letter, graphing the ink usage for each font,” the publication writes.

Following his research, he concluded that his school district could reduce ink consumption by 24 percent and save $21,000 each year.

Suvir published his findings in Journal for Emerging Investigators (JEI,) a publication founded by Harvard grad students in 2011 that offers means for middle school and high school students to showcase their work.

“We were so impressed. We really could really see the real-world application in Suvir’s paper,” Sarah Fankhauser, one of JEI’s founders said. JEI then challenged Suvir to apply his project to the federal government. After repeating his tests, the teenager found that switching to Garamond for all printing, the federal government could save almost 30 percent or nearly $136 million each year. On top of that, an additional $234 million could be saved if state governments also switched fonts.

However, the government doesn’t seem that eager to change typefaces, even though it found Suvir’s work “remarkable.” Instead, the Government Printing Office will focus on printing fewer documents each year and using recycled paper.

Posted By : Gizmeon

Facebook Improves Free Voice Calls in Messenger App

www.Gizmeon.com : Facebook updated its Messenger app Thursday with improvements to the app's voice calling feature.

The latest version of the app makes it easier for users to make calls by changing the location of the call button so it appears next to a contact's name within conversations. (Previously, the call button was behind a menu.)

Facebook Messenger's voice calling feature is similar to other standalone messaging apps such as Viber and WeChat. Users can make phone calls to friends for free, provided they have at least a wifi connection.

Facebook first added voice calling to its Messenger app in January 2013. Last week, the company added preset groups and message forwarding to the app.

The update comes weeks after photos that showed voice calling on WhatsApp— a feature rumored to be in the works for some time— leaked online.

Facebook Messenger is available to iOS , Android andWindows Phone users.

An earlier version of this article stated that voice calling was a new feature added in the most recent Facebook Messenger update. Voice calling was already part of Facebook Messenger and the most recent update improved the functionality and changed the location of the call button. We regret the error.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Posted by : Gizmeon

App that lets you chat without data connection!

www.gizmeon.com: Move over WhatsApp. Here comes a revolutionary chatting app that has taken the mobile messaging to another level. With this, you are able to send and receive messages even when you do not have an actual internet or Wi-Fi data connection.

Yes, you read it right.

This iOS-enabled app uses Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity framework — essentially a peer-to-peer feature that lets you share messages with other app users nearby.

“FireChat allows the device to connect directly to others nearby using Bluetooth, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi or traditional Wi-Fi networks so you do not actually need a data connection,” Micha Benoliel, CEO of Open Garden firm that developed the App was quoted as saying.

The Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity APIs can be used for everything from collaborative editing and file sharing, to multiplayer gaming and sensor aggregation, said a report.

Posted By : www.gizmeon.com

Chrome inches past Firefox in desktop browser battle

www.gizmeon.com : Google’s browser outpaced its Mozilla rival last month by fraction of a percentage point, according to Web tracker Net Applications.

Google Chrome has snuck past Firefox to take second place among desktop browsers, at least as seen in the latest Web traffic stats from Net Applications.

In March, Chrome took home a 17.5 percent slice of all desktop brower traffic, bumping Firefox to third place with a 17.2 percent cut of the action. That effort marked a first for Chrome, which has consistently ranked behind Firefox in Net Applications' monthly reports.

Chrome has been rising up the ranks to challenge Firefox, though not without some bumps in the road. A year ago, Firefox's share of desktop browser traffic was more than 20 percent, while Chrome's was 16.5 percent. Chrome fell further behind during the second half of 2013. But by February, Firefox's cut had dropped to 17.6 percent, while Chrome's had inched up to 16.8 percent.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer ended March with a 58 percent share of desktop browser traffic, down slightly from February but up from 55 percent a year ago.

Among specific browser versions, IE 8 held the top spot last month with a 21 percent share, followed by IE 11 with 15.7 percent and Google Chrome 33 with 12.6 percent.

Posted By : Gizmeon