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Mahindra Reva and Vodafone Business Services today announced a partnership to share technological expertise. Vodafone will be providing Machine to Machine communication services to power Mahindra’s e2o electric vehicle. The e2o has been launched as a connected car in India and features telematics.

• Know the state of charge in the battery of their car and how far they can travel with the available charge
• Remotely control its air-conditioning and set schedules to pre-heat or pre-cool the car before they use it
• Lock or unlock the car doors
• Find the nearest charging station
• Receive alerts on various events with the car such as a disruption in charging due to power cuts, safety related reminders such as a door being left unlocked or a parking brake not applied.
• Get an emergency boost charge with a command on the smart phone to go an extra 8-10 km.
• Have the Mahindra Reva Tech Help Desk remotely do prognosis and diagnostics of the car.

Intex has launched the Intex PLAYER a new gaming phone with Dual SIM support. It has a 2.8-inch touch screen display, 1.3MP camera and FM Radio with recording. Intex launched the SENSE 3.0 dual SIM feature phone last year. It has 2 dedicated gaming buttons on the top to play over 1000 pre-loaded games. Several Indian mobile phone manufactures including Lava, G’Five and Maxx have released gaming phones in the past.
Intex PLAYER specifications
2.8-inch 65K TFT touch screen displayDual SIM (GSM

• 2.8-inch 65K TFT touch screen display
• Dual SIM (GSM +GSM)
• 1.3 MP camera with video recording
•  Audio player (MP3 and WAV) and Video player (25FPS, AVI, 3GP, MP4)
• Bluetooth, USB
• FM Radio with recording
• Hindi and English language support
• Expandable memory up to 16GB
•  Smart dial and auto call record and battery manager
• 1200 mAh battery with upto 4 hours and up to 200 hours standby

Cinemagram, one of the popular iPhone apps is finally available for Android. This app lets you  record a short looping 4s video, apply effects and share the GIFs to Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. It has likes, comments, hashtags and more just like Instagram that was launched for Android last year. Cinemagram was launched first on iPhone back in February 2012 for $1.99, and went free after a month.
Twitter launched Vine, a video sharing app for iPhone earlier this year that lets you share a video clip up to 6 seconds, but it doesn’t have effects like the Cinemagram.
Features of Cinemagram for Android
Free unlimited uploadsInstantly Share GIFs to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.Special effects – Stunning video filters, speed,and looping to create movie-like visual effects.Artistic Cinemagraphs – Create magical hybrids between photo & video.Direct MessagingInteract with your friends’ posts with likes, reposts, and comments.Explore and discover great content through hashtags, categories and trending posts.
Download Cinemagram for Android (4.0 and later) from the Google Play Store for free.

• Free unlimited uploads
• Instantly Share GIFs to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
• Special effects – Stunning video filters, speed,and looping to create movie-like visual effects.
• Artistic Cinemagraphs – Create magical hybrids between photo & video.
• Direct Messaging
• Interact with your friends’ posts with likes, reposts, and comments.
• Explore and discover great content through hashtags, categories and trending posts.

LG officially announced the launch of sales of the smartphone in Europe and Asia. The smartphone running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, has a 4.3-inch WVGA IPS display and its thickness is 8.7 mm (width is 67 millimeters in new items, and the length - 125.5). Performance of the device provides a single core processor running at 1 GHz and 512 MB of RAM. Available 4 GB of internal memory can be increased by means of cards MicroSD. The approximate cost is $ 300 smartphone.

“The One isn’t just the best smartphone HTC has ever made — it can legitimately lay claim to being the best smartphone ever produced by anyone.” That’s GDGT’s Peter Rojas speaking about the HTC One. Rojas isn’t alone in this opinion. The HTC One is a phone nearly universally loved by the Internet. The display, the size, the build quality, even HTC’s Android skin is nearly, well, perfect.


But even a perfect phone might not save HTC.


HTC released its March revenue figures today: lowest quarterly net profit since the company started selling products under its own brand in 2006. Revenue fell 37% to NT$42.8 billion from NT$67.79 billion, ringing in below the company’s February guidance of NT$50 billion to NT$60 billion. And the stunning One is one of the primes reasons for the slump.


The HTC One was announced on February 19th, ahead of the handset onslaught from Mobile World Congress and the Samsung Galaxy S4 debut. We were instantly in love with the device, raving about the look at feel after playing with it for just a few minutes. HTC was back, we thought.


HTC has long made quality handsets. The One is not a stark departure from the company’s track record. The company’s tag line has long been quietly brilliant. And that properly described HTC. The company rarely touted its achievements like Apple or Samsung, preferring to let its products, as they say, do the talking.


Ever since the Windows Mobile days, HTC has churned out impressive kits. The Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, even the original Android handset, the G1, felt like something special. Made out plastic, sure, but put together in a way that felt solid and above its price point.


As Android matured, HTC keep producing top-tier devices. At the time, Nexus One, EVO 4G, and the Droid Incredible seemed to state that HTC was always going to be the top Android brand. HTC kept the course, perhaps to a fault, and in 2012, outing the original One phones in the One S, One X and One V. Yet again, these were very nice handsets, but failed to capture the same sort of attention as their predecessors, largely living in the shadow of Samsung’s more-widely available Galaxy S II & III phones.





Benedict Evans, telecoms and technology analyst at Enders Analysis, made a fantastic point speaking to The Guardian. “HTC has a scale problem. Last year at this time both it and Sony launched great new products, and they went nowhere. Everybody is saying that the HTC One looks nicer than the Samsung Galaxy S4, but without the marketing and sales and commission budget, it can’t reach enough people. Making lovely bits of hardware is a necessary, but insufficient, condition in this business. Now it’s getting into a vicious circle where it has to cut back its marketing budget to get its cashflow under control.”


HTC was paying attention, though. The ONE was going to be different. It packs the best of HTC’s design and engineering and hit the market well ahead of competitors. The HTC One was supposed to launch worldwide in the middle of March, just a month after its unveiling.


That didn’t happen. But this did.


While the HTC One suffered numerous delays caused by a short supply of parts, Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 on March 14th. If the ridiculous announcement is any indication, Samsung is going to throw everything behind its latest smartphone. Expect a massive media blitz as the Galaxy S4′s Q2 launch window approaches, likely downing out any paltry marketing planned for the HTC One.


HTC has never been good at marketing partly because for the longest time the company didn’t have to. HTC used to make white label handsets, allowing other brands, such as Verizon and AT&T, to slap their logo on the devices and sell at higher margin. Most of the memorable marketing campaigns for HTC devices have come from the carriers rather than HTC.





If HTC wants the One to sell like gangbusters — and after today’s financial news, they need it to do so — the company will need to elevate its marketing efforts to a completely new level.


The HTC One launches in the States on AT&T and Sprint on April 19th. It’s hitting T-Mobile (and maybe Verizon) later. On AT&T and Sprint, it’s priced right with the 16GB available for $199 on a two-year contract (it’s only $99 on Sprint for new customers). It’s the best Android device available right now and for the foreseeable future. I would take it over the Galaxy S4.


HTC likely threw its entire company behind the HTC One. Pick one up. Try it. Feel it. The phone is closer to perfect than any other phone previously made. However, a perfect product has never been a guarantee of success. Like Benedect Evans said to The Guardian, while the HTC One might be a collection of lovely bits of hardware, that’s not enough alone.

Are We Headed for a Smart-watch War

You thought the smartphone wars were bad? Just wait till the battle heats up over the smartwatch. As Samsung goes public with its plans for a wristwatch-style computer, and rumors of an Apple “iWatch” hits fever pitch, the giants of the tech world have just begun to fight. Not that companies aren’t already competing for real estate on your arm, of course. Sony released an Android-powered model last April. The Pebble watch, which raised a record-smashing $10 million on Kickstarter, began shipping in January. And let’s not even mention the plethora of fitness bracelets—Fitbit, Jawbone Up, Nike Fuelband—that are vying for a slice of an increasingly saturated market. And although Google is preparing to roll out its highly anticipated “Glass” headset, don’t count the erstwhile search engine out of the running just yet. According to a patent filed in October, Google may be plotting a smartwatch with a Wi-Fi chip, a “tactile user interface,” and a “flip-up portion.”

Whether smart watches will be as indispensable as their handheld brethren still remains to be seen.

Another patent application, filed by Apple in April 2011, offers hints of a “wearable video device” modeled after the slap bracelet of the ’80s. The filing proposes a flexible “bi-stable spring substrate” with a wraparound touchscreen for pulling up visual information, such as the order of a current playlist or a tally of recent phone calls.

One company that isn’t playing coy about its pipeline is Samsung. “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, told Bloomberg News earlier in the month. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.”

Whether smartwatches will be as indispensable as their handheld brethren still remains to be seen. (Do we really need another way to receive Facebook notifications?) As for which one will come out on top, only time will tell.

Sony Xperia Z officially launched in India, priced Rs. 38,990

Firstly, the Sony Xperia Z sports a new design language from Sony. It looks quite impressive and it feels really sleek when you hold it in your hands. Apart from the new design Sony has also loaded this device with some great hardware.

The Xperia Z sports a 5-inch display with a 1920×1080 pixels resolution which is powered by Sony’s BRAVIA engine. The smartphone is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor which is clocked at 1.5GHz. In addition to this the device includes 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built0in storage and it has a 2,330 mAh battery. It sports a 13 megapixel rear camera which Sony’s latest Exmor-RS sensor enabling the device shoot HDR videos and stills, it also includes a 1.9 megapixel front facing camera. Regardless of its sleek new design, the Xperia Z features a waterproof and dustproof exoskeleton.

It is equipped with all the key connectivity option including Wi-Fi, 3G, NFC, etc. and it has an microSD card slot for expandable memory. This Sony smartphone runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box.

Review-Google laptop impressive, but not for all


This image provided by Google shows the company's first high-end chromebook Pixel. According to a review by the Associated Press, the Machine feels light and comfortable in my hands and its high-resolution display makes photos appear sharp. (AP Photo/Google) Google's first high-end laptop, the Chromebook Pixel, is an impressive machine. It feels light and comfortable in my hands and on my lap. Its high-resolution display makes photos look sharp and video come to life. From a hardware standpoint, it's everything I'd want a laptop to be. But the Pixel isn't very practical—at least not yet—for most people. It works well when you have a steady Internet connection, but can't do much once you lose that connection. And because it uses Google's own operating system, it doesn't run enough software yet to replace your other machines. I brought the Pixel along for a nearly three-week trip to Thailand and Cambodia, where I knew I wouldn't have the type of round-the-clock access I'm used to in the U.S. I was surprised by how much I could do, but quickly got frustrated when I couldn't do more. Such frustration doesn't come cheap. Prices for the Pixel start at $1,299, just $200 less than a MacBook with a comparable screen and the ability to do much more offline. A higher-end Pixel with cellular access costs $150 more than the basic model and is scheduled to start shipping Monday. For those unfamiliar with Google's entry into the laptop market—I guess that's many of you—the Pixel and other Chromebooks run a Google operating system called Chrome OS. Based on the Chrome Web browser available for Windows and Mac computers, Chrome OS underscores Google's vision of letting the Internet do all the heavy lifting instead of your computer. As a result, you can power up and start working on the Chromebook right away. Boot time is minimal because there's not a lot of software to load. Those functions are pulled from the Internet as needed. That also means updates come regularly and don't need any installation on your part. There's not a lot of storage on the machine either. The idea is to keep as much as you can online, through a storage service such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Think of the Chromebook as a gateway to the Internet. You can download apps from Google and others to run on the Chromebook, but many of those apps do little more than access a website on your Chrome browser when you're online. Previous Chromebooks haven't been too powerful. They have tended to be low-cost machines ideal for casual users who mostly need computers for Internet tasks such as email and Facebook. Google is changing the dynamics with the Pixel. It's targeting power users who are willing to pay more money for the best features. For $1,299, you get a well-built machine sporting a touch-sensitive display that measures nearly 13 inches (33 centimeters) diagonally. The screen's resolution is among the best out there. At 239 pixels per inch, it tops the 227 pixels per inch on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, though your eyes might not be able to discern that small difference. The basic Pixel model comes with 32 gigabytes of storage and has a slot for external storage, such as a camera's SD card. Each machine also comes with a three-year subscription for 1 terabyte of online storage through Google Drive. It's normally $50 a month. Google also offers a $1,449 model that has double the internal storage, at 64 GB, and 100 megabytes a month of LTE cellular data access through Verizon Wireless for two years. That's suitable for occasional use, but if you'll be away from Wi-Fi a lot, you'll need a data plan. Prices start at $10 a day. The LTE model isn't set to ship until Monday, but Google lent me one to try out. I was impressed with the LTE offering, as the cellular access would help cover some of the gaps I'd have outside my home and office. But it's of no use abroad. Nor is LTE of use on airplanes. Both models offer 12 free sessions with Gogo's Wi-Fi service on airplanes, but those are good only for flights that offer that capability. Those tend to be domestic flights in the U.S. So I found myself trying to use Chromebook without a steady Internet connection. This image provided by Google shows the company's first high-end chromebook Pixel. According to a review by the Associated Press, the Machine feels light and comfortable in my hands and its high-resolution display makes photos appear sharp. (AP Photo/Google) Before I left, I configured the Chromebook browser to enable offline access to Google Docs, the company's set of online tools such as word processing and spreadsheets. With offline access, you're able to access and edit documents. Changes get synced with the online versions the next time you connect to the Internet. I was able to do a fair amount of writing offline, but every now and then, my document would disappear, replaced by Google's "Aw, Snap" error message sporting a sad face icon. That would be cute if hours of work weren't at stake. Although I was usually able to recover the file and never lost more than a paragraph of writing, I got nervous with every crash. Google Docs lets you save copies on your computer as text files or in Microsoft's Word format. But that function works only when you are online, even for changes you are making offline. Even without the crashes, I wasn't getting tools such as spell-checking while offline. That's not an issue when using Word or Apple's Pages on other machines. Beyond text documents, the Chromebook is able to view photos, PDFs and other files, just like any other computer. It can also read files in Microsoft's Word and Excel formats, though you must convert them to Google Docs to make changes. And obviously, it can browse the Web. I successfully paid credit card bills, bought magazines and watched Hulu video on the Pixel. I was able to read an e-book on Amazon's Web-based Kindle app, too. But there are limits, particular when sites require plug-ins that aren't available for the Chromebook. And while I was able to write this story on a Chromebook, our publishing system isn't compatible with it. Chromebooks are ideal for those who have steady Internet access and do most of their computing on Web browsers. But those people may be fine with one of the other, much cheaper Chromebooks. One is the $249 Samsung Chromebook, which I have tried and like for simple tasks when Internet access isn't an issue. If you need a machine as powerful as the Pixel, you might also need an operating system that can do more, especially when offline. Google executive Caesar Sengupta admits that Chromebook owners might still have to turn to a Windows or Mac computer now and then. In many ways, it reminds me of the early days of the Mac, when most software was written only for Windows. That makes the Pixel expensive for a machine that can't serve as your sole computer. At $1,299, I'd rather spend another $200 for a MacBook with a high-resolution display and four times the storage, at 128 gigabytes. You don't get a touch screen with the MacBook, but frankly, I didn't use the Pixel's touch controls even once during my Asia trip. On the other hand, Sengupta told me that selling Pixels isn't Google's main goal with the machine. Rather, the company made it to showcase Google's vision for the future of computing. In that case, Google has succeeded in producing a machine that is a pleasure to use—as long as you're online. About the Chromebook Pixel: The device represents Google's entry into the high-end laptop market. It runs Google's Chrome OS operating system, which largely assumes you'll have round-the-clock Internet access. You can still work with the device offline, but functionality is limited. The basic model costs $1,299 and comes with 32 gigabytes of storage. For $1,449, you get 64 gigabytes and LTE connectivity through Verizon Wireless. Both models come with a terabyte of online storage through Google Drive for three years, a $1,800 value at $50 per month. Not everyone will need as much storage, and Google Drive offers free and cheaper plans. The pricier Pixel model also offers 100 megabytes a month of LTE cellular data access through Verizon Wireless for two years. If you need more, you can buy a day pass with unlimited data for $10. Or you can buy 1 gigabyte of data for $20, 3 GB for $35 or 5 GB for $50. Those are good for a month. If you're a Verizon customer with a plan for sharing data allotments over multiple devices, you can add the Pixel for just $10 a month.