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Samsung Targets Asian and African Markets with Galaxy Grand

Samsung has released two new phones, Galaxy Grand and Galaxy Grand Duos. The Galaxy Grand has a 5-inch screen and looks a lot like it’s more famous cousin the Galaxy S3. The phone has been unveiled with no fanfare. It is expected to be priced significantly lower than high end phones like Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2. The price range would potentially make it a very lucrative buy in markets like India, south-east Asia and Africa.

Galaxy Grand Features

  • The phone has a 5-inch WVGA TFT Touchscreen. The disappointing part is the low resolution of 800 X 480 pixels.
  • It does have 1GB RAM and processor speed being 1.2 GHz. That is not exactly the 1.5 GHZ that most newer models over the year will sport. Internal storage is 8 GB.
  • It will feature the latest version of Android 4.1.2 and also have 8 MP back facing camera. The front camera is 2MP.
  • The phone supports 2G, 3G and Wi-fi networks. It is not compatible with 4G networks.
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The Galaxy Grand Duos has all the same specs with added functionality of using dual-SIMs.

Samsung might be getting a bad reputation for being a copy-cat but it has shown the ability to surprise. When the Galaxy Note was out, many experts (including yours truly) thought it was too big to be a phone. But Galaxy Note and Note 2 have sold in their millions proving that Samsung does have a keen sense of what the market might be looking for.

With Galaxy Grand it is obviously targeting buyers in markets like India and other countries where users might be interested in a low cost hybrid of Galaxy S3 and Note 2. This is potentially a smart move by Samsung as it might undercut competitors like LG to capture the mid-level priced smartphone niche. The phone might also be a hit with frequent travelers who would find the dual-SIM option useful.

What are your thoughts on yet another Galaxy phone by Samsung? Do drop in your comments.

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Google Plans to Create 500,000 websites for Small Businesses in India

India is a country where the entrepreneurial spirit has been alive and kicking. This is especially true in the small and medium sized businesses. Indian small business owners, especially the ones who are not into technology usually will not have a presence on the web. Google plans to change all this and have made as start in the famous Chandi Chowk market at Delhi. Over 2500 businesses have gone online for free, thanks to Google.

Why is Google so serious about small businesses in India?

  • According to Google, India has 137 million internet users. That number will only grow at a rapid rate over the 5 years.
  • India has over 47 million small and medium businesses. An overwhelming number of them do not have a web presence.
  • Google has a online campaign called “India get your Business Online” where they allow small business owners to create a website for free.
  • The campaign has got over 150,000 businesses online and Google plans to add upto 500,000 more sites.
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These stats are impressive but it makes sense for Google to get local businesses in India online, because that is the only way they can show these businesses for local search. Additionally local businesses having a web presence will also enrich Google Maps and Google+ Local in India. With growing number of smartphones users in India, it is only a matter of time people will look to search of local businesses with their phones.

Afterall if there is one company that really knows how to handle and extract value from big data, it has to be Google.

Here is a video of Google’s attempt at getting businesses in Chandni Chowk, New Delhi online.

Do your think Google attempt will be good PR but ultimately not really give much of a boost to local businesses getting online.

(via Google India)

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Updated Facebook App for Android is Super Fast!

Using the Faceobook app on my Android phone has not been a great experience. All that changes today with new update for Facebook on Google Play. The new app basically has moved away from HTML5 and built a native one for the Android ecosystem. The result is a dramatic improvement in speed.

Back in August, Facebook had re-built their app on iOS platform. So this update for Android was expected for a long time.

Facebook App on Android: What got fixed?

  • Speed: Earlier the android app was slow for browsing through the feed. The app would take many seconds to load up the initial screen, timline layout and notifications.
  • Photo Viewing: Previously when viewing photos, it would take us to the the albums of the photo section of the app. With the new update, photos can be viewed without leaving the news feed.

Upgrade or Download Facebook version 2.0 app for Android and drop in your views in your comments.

Link: Facebook on Google Play

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Microsoft Killing Off Live Mesh: Pitches for SkyDrive

This year, Microsoft has started pushing SkyDrive aggressively. So it was apparent that its previous file sync service called Live Mesh, was nearing the end of its days.

Today in a blog post, Microsoft declared that Live Mesh would be officially retired on 13th February, 2013. That does give users two months to move to other cloud storage and sync options. Obviously Microsoft is pitching its own SkyDrive service for PC and mobiles phones.

SkyDrive cannot exactly have all the features of Live Mesh. Live Mesh supported remote desktop experience too, allowing users to access files and apps remotely. But the alternatives are built into Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise platform.

Is SkyDrive good enough?

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According to Microsoft’ claim most Live Mesh users are on SkyDrive. Today only about 25000 active users are there on Live Mesh. That is a seriously small number but it claims that million did use it at some point of time.

I do have SkyDrive installed on my laptop running Windows 8 but I basically end up using Dropbox and Google Drive. For working online, I only use Google Drive and it makes sense with the integration of Google Documents and recently added features like annotations on images.

SkyDrive is a decent sync service but many people who own multiple devices and need their files synced are not using Windows platform. This does make SkyDrive not very useful to many. SkyDrive’s popularity on Android and iOS is probably negligible and that is its big challenge.

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Official Google Maps App Available for iPhones

Google Maps Apps is now available on iOS App store. The Google Maps App for iOS will include turn by turn navigation which is voice based, vector based maps and will support 2D and 3D layouts. When Apple introduced iOS 6 at the WWDC 2012 event, it decided to do away with Google Maps for its own Map service.

The newly approved Google Maps app on App store, has been created ground up. It includes an expandable info sheet for more details on businesses and landmarks.

Apple’s Google Maps Saga

Apple’s own Map service was disastrous as it simply did not match up to Google Maps. That was expected as Google has spent years collecting and refining the data for its maps feature. The issue became critical when users upgraded to iOS6 and found Google maps missing. Apple’s own mapping service had many errors and outside the U.S and Europe, it was more or less considered useless. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, did apologize for the maps fiasco and even went on to recommend using Bing and Nokia Maps along with Google Maps via the Safari browser.

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Google had never released a official maps app on iOS platform. Since iPhone was introduced, Apple used date from Google Maps to create a default app for the iPhone. This meant that when people upgraded to iOS 6 there was no way to access the Google Maps app on the phone.

If you own a iPhone or iPad, download the official Google Maps App and do let us know about your views.

Link: Google Maps App for iOS

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Facebook’s “Year in Review” Shows Your Life’s Top 20 Moments for 2012

The month of December, is one of those when many people take a look back at what happened in the year. Most media outlets often showcase important events that happened during the year. Facebook has personalized this by allowing users to look back at the top 20 moments on their profiles page. This is introduced as a feature called “Year in Review”.

If you are logged into your Facebook account today, you should see the link (see image below) to your “Year in Review”. Users can also share this link for others to take a look at the years events on your profile. Since Facebook has the Timeline feature for over a year, this sort of reviewing a year was expected.

Just click on that link and you will be able to look back at the whole year and 20 most important updates on your profile.

You can also check it directly with by entering the URL in this format.

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https://www.facebook.com/yearinreview/[username]

This way I can actually check the review the year of any Facebook user, as long as I know their username ID. The privacy options remain intact and that means not everyone sees the same year in review. For example your top photos for you might not show to others who you have not shared the photos with.

I tired to check if the same can be used for Facebook Pages but it does not work.

I actually do not use Facebook for a lot of check-ins or share too many personal photos. I also do not add Life Events, so that might be a reason my year in review is not as interesting. But I am sure a lot of very active Facebook users will enjoy looking back at the year’s memories.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Facebook Year in Review

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Google Drive Introduces “Save Image to Drive” Extension and Adding Comments on Images

Google Drive today has introduced a couple of new things. First is an “Save Image to Drive” Chrome extension. It allows users to directly save an image while viewing it on the browser to their Google Drive. It also allows users to additionally save the entire webpage as an image.

How the Extension works:

  • Download the extension from here.
  • Once installed it will show on the right hand side next to the Chrome address bar. It will also enable saving an image using right-click from the browser.
  • Clicking on the icon save a full size image of the entire webpage we are viewing.
  • That is not all, in the extension options there are options to save the entire or visible part of the page as an image, save it as an HTML page or web archive (.mht) and finally as a Google Document format.

Add Comments to saved Images

Additionally we can also start adding comments to images saved within Google Drive. The option allows basically to zoom into an image via the web interface of Google Drive and highlight a certain part of the image. A comment can be left regarding the selected part of the image.

These comments can be replied to by anyone else who the image is shared with.

This extension is good only for saving images while viewing them. Below are a couple of posts on that you might find useful to save attachments from Gmail to Google Drive and SkyDrive.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Save to Google Drive (Chrome)

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Twitter Introduces Photo Filter Feature: Hits Back at Instagram

Twitter has introduced a new feature for iPhone and Android users. It’s latest update will allow users to post photos with built in filters. The new feature has initially 8 photo filters out of which anyone can be chosen. The photos also can be viewed in a grid system.

Essentially, Twitter is mimicking the features of Instagram. Instagram is owned by Facebook now and that makes this a lot more interesting.

Twitter introduces Instagram-like filters on Android and iPhone apps

Instagram Vs Twitter

Instagram has a similar service but in the past week it toyed with the idea of removing support for Twitter cards on its website. Finally they did end up removing Twitter cards completely. Twitter cards are used basically to allow users to check photos or snippets of a webpage, inside the Twitter stream and not requiring users to visit another page.

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Instagram probably took this step to integrate itself more closely with Facebook. This could be mainly to ensure that Instagram also could bring in more advertising revenues. Instagram at the moment of all its fame, is still is not really monetized.

Check out Twitter’s the video intro of photo filters:

I can’t help but thinking that at the end both Twitter and Instagram are losing out and short-changing users. Instagram is actually at some stage giving up relevance on Twitter, while Twitter might end up not using the social juice from Instagram’s popularity. Users in the meanwhile will just have to make do with more restrictions and a less open system, while Twitter and Facebook keep marking out their territory.

What are your views on Twitter’s new photo filter feature? Do drop in your comments.

(via Twitter Blog)

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New Google Apps Sign-up No Longer Free

Even though at work I use a an app account which is a paid version, I have one which is free for a personal website. I was sent a email by Google that they would be discontinuing new sign-up of their free version of Google apps. While many people are using the paid version of Google apps, these free app accounts were a favorite of small business owners.

So here is how app users stand. Both paid and free versions of Google app accounts will remain intact. Only new sign-ups will not be allowed.

Currently the apps accounts is offering upto $50 per user for the whole year. For Indian users they are offering the same package at INR 2700/-

This price is a little too high but I think many small business owners will still sign-up.

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Why is Google shutting out Free Apps account?

While some websites are suggesting that Google makes revenues upto $1 billion from its App accounts offerings. It still has a several million users who are using the free version. Google app accounts is not just about the email but also offers Google Drive, Google Reader, Google+ and other Google related products. It might also be planning to bring out more offerings to compete better with Microsoft’s Enterprise solutions.

By the way if you are the worrying kind and want to move your Google+ circles and followers from app account to Gmail, so check this tutorial out.

What are your views on Google apps removing the free package? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Google Apps

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Google+ Communities Pushes for Interest Based Social Sharing

While I have never been a big fan of Facebook, I love following some really interesting groups on it. It is the one feature I have always complained about missing on Google+. Not any longer, Google+ has not started rolling out “Communities” feature today. The new Google+ Communities feature should show up over the next 24 hours on your account.

While some might say that Google+ Communities is yet another borrowed idea from Facebook, but it really is very different.

How are Google+ Communities different from Facebook Groups

  • The big difference is that on Google+ Communities, the discussions can be separated under different categories. Nothing like that exists on Facebook Groups. Actually it resembles the old school forum style discussion groups. Google Groups itself is created on similar lines, so maybe they are leaving room for more integration in the future.
  • The privacy model is very similar to Facebook groups. It allows Private communities, public communities where all posts are public and finally hidden communities which are not indexed publicly.
  • Hangouts can also be held between community members. This is going to be a big deal for DIY (Do it yourself) communities. Unfortunately on Facebook groups, only text chatting works.
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Facebook has a very irritating feature that allows users to add their friends without permission to a group. I was not able to check if Google+ had omitted this one as Google+ Communities is not available on my account as yet.

Google+ Communities Video

Google+ is a place were we search for things based on interest, while on Facebook it is a lot more about searching for people we know. This could really give Google+ a lot of great traction as communities are perfect for finding like minded people instead of just people you know.

Has your Google+ account got the Communities feature? Do drop in your first impressions in your comments.

(via Google Blog)