Few days ago I was talking about one of the most popular Android tablet which is Amazon Kindle Fire and now they have released a new tablet with HD display. But that’s not the whole story.

They set the trend of 7 inch tablet and made it viral. Now they have come up with a full HD Android tablet and planning to make it viral with an amazing price tag. The device I’m going to talk about is Amazon Kindle HD 8.9 which is under NOG Spotlight today

Features Highlight

Display

This is the main attraction here. Its IPS panel with 1920 x 1200 px resolution will give it 254 ppi of pixel density. The capacitive touch sensor is capable of accepting 10 finger input at the same time. This is very rare among Android tablets, a true full HD display.

Processor and Storage

In Kindle Fire HD 8.9 you can find slightly improved hardware specification than 7 inch version. Processor is 1.5 GHz Dual Core running on TI OMAP 4470 chipset and GPU is PowerVR SGX544. It’s a Perfect combination for a high end high resolution Android tablet.

Internal storage is 16/32 GB, but non expandable since there you can’t find a microSD card slot. RAM is 1 GB which is pretty much standard for Smartphone as well as high end tablets.

Operating System

Same as all other Kindle devices, Fire HD 8.9 is also coming with Android 4.0. Again it’s highly customized and Amazon branded.

Camera

Making a big change to Kindle Fire, they include a 1.3 MP front facing camera in Kindle Fire HD. They have included same hardware in Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.

Connectivity

There are two versions of Kindle Fire HD 8.9. The basic version is not having GSM or LTE radio. It’s bundled with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB 2.0. Another version is coming with built-in LTE and GSM radio. So you can access data networks through HSDPA or lightning fast LTE.

As long as it’s having GSM quad band support, you should be able to make calls with it. If it won’t come with Android dialer, you can always install it manually. To verify that, you have to wait till it hits the market.

Battery Life

Same as Kindle Fire HD, the specification of battery is not officially released. Kindle Fire HD is having nearly 11 hours of battery life. With larger display, high performance processor Kindle Fire HD 8.9 will be have lesser battery life and it will probably settle for around 8 hours.

Wrapping Up

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is another great tablet from Kindle. It’s light weight- only 567g, thin body design and having great Full HD display. All the other hardware specifications are high end too. I’m not a big fan of themed and customized Android. I love pure Android flavor. Highly customized ICS is one drawback for me, yet it’s your personal choice.

Let’s take a look at price tags. It’s $299 for Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and $449 for LTE version. You have to decide whether you should pay extra 200 bucks for 3G and LTE or stick to Wi-fi.

There are very few Full HD android tablets in the market yet. Asus Transformer Infinity and Acer Iconia A700 are some of them. Kindle Fire HD 8.9 will be able to give them a solid competition in the market with its powerful hardware muscle and attractive price tag.

Tags: #Amazon #Android #Tablet

Android has now officially become the most popular and most used mobile operating system. It’s spread across a variety of devices in different manufactures and price ranges. One common thing about Android Smartphone is they have relatively bigger screens. Sometimes manufactures build larger screen to deliver unique user experience. Now it has been taken to the next step with even bigger Android Screen Size. The device going beyond the boundary is ViewSonic VCD22.

The main hook in this device is its massive screen. It’s having 22 inch display. You can’t call it a tablet and not even a PC. It’s a different category of devices and ViewSonic call it ‘All-in-one’ PC. Let’s take a closer look in to this device specification.

Device Specification

Processor and Storage

Device powered with 1GHz Dual Core Cortex A9 processor running on TI OMAP 4428 chipset.  RAM is 1 GB and there are no official records of internal storage. It’s coming with SD card slot, but it will act more as a card reader than an expandable storage port.

Operating System

This comes with Android 4.0 ICS. However they must have done some serious alteration to OS to work with its massive screen. Other than that other android tablet customization also will be there and you will notice them in the first look, especially in soft buttons.

Display

This is the magic here. ViewSonic VCD 22 comes with 22” LCD display with resolution 1920 X 1080 which will give you 100 ppi pixel density. This is ideal configuration for desktop monitor and will work great with this All-in-One computer as well.

Connectivity and Interfaces

When it comes to connectivity this is having Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Using them you can access internet, pair this device with another support device and connect an external multimedia device.

There are 3 USB ports where you can connect any supported device, may be mouse and keyboard. In addition there is a HDMI port, SD card slot and 3.5 mm audio out.

Camera

There is a front facing 1.2 MP camera which will let you do video chatting. There won’t be a rear camera since this is not a portable device.

Wrapping Up

It’s a great idea to power up ‘All-in-One’ PC with Android. And yes, it will be a smart idea since Android can work great with minimum hardware resource than desktop OS and at the same time perform most of the common tasks.

You won’t be able to find a built-in battery in this device and you better have a UPS to power this up. Further, you will have to purchase a keyboard and mouse separately if you need them.

There can be various creative applications of this kind of devices. The main thing that comes to my mind is public information points. You can place these devices wherever necessary and let the public to access them and get any information they need. This will work great in tourist attractions. And you can use this to teach kids in schools as well as in home. Multimedia designers also will like this kind of device where they have touch controllers as well as keyboard and mouse. This also works great as a home multimedia system.

However, there will be very limited market for this ‘All-in-One’ computers including ViewSonic VCD22. Very few people out there will have this kind of specific requirement and most of them could be fulfilled by other tablets in market. So probably this won’t be a top selling device in the market.

Tags: #Android #Tablet #ViewSonic

Motorola had been a popular mobile phone brand for decades. They made their unique mark in early stage of analogue mobile phones as well as through the 2G and 3G era. When Android mobile OS come to play, they followed the trend and released many amazing handsets.

Down the way they separated mobile phone manufacturing division from the main company as Motorola Mobility. In 2012 Aug 15^th Google acquired Motorola Mobility. The main objective of this acquisition is to manufacture better quality Android handsets for lower price.

Signature of the RAZR brand was their ultra thin mobile phone design. This was a great inspiration for other manufactures to do the same. RAZR brand is the initiator of the trend of ultra thin handsets we are enjoying today.

In 2012 September they announced another Android handset. In the first look, it’s same as any other RAZR. But when you take a look in to specification, it’s not the case. Motorola RAZR I XT890 is under NOG spotlight today.

Attractions in Motorola RAZR I XT890

Most of the specification in this phone is same as any other android phone. It’s having 4.3 inch super AMOLED display behind Corning gorilla glass with 540x960px resolution which gives it 256ppi of pixel density. Thickness is 8.3 mm and weight is 126 g.

It’s having all common connectivity features such as 3G, HSDPA, LTE, Wi-fi, BT, NFC and microUSB. RAM is 1GB and internal storage is 8 GB expandable via microSD slot up to 32 GB. It’s having 8MP shooter at back capable of taking HDR pictures and 1080p videos. Front facing camera is VGA. Everything is powerd by Android 4.0.4 ICS upgradable to 4.1 Jelly Bean.

After reading above specs you might ask “So what’s the catch about this phone?” The magic is in the processor.

Android on Intel Atom Processor

Intel Atom Processor is very popular for Netbook and Slate computers. It’s capable of running most desktop operating systems such as Windows 7 and Linux based Ubuntu. It’s consuming lesser energy and efficiency is at a greater level.

Android Mobile OS was originally designed to run on ARM processors. Almost all of Android handsets you can find in market are ARM based. Android is having a Linux core. So with some changes it should be able to run on mobile processes such as Intel Atom. Intel was working on this project for some time and they manage to introduce few prototype Android-Atom handsets as well.

Motorola RAZR I XT890 is having a 2GHz Intel Atom processor inside. Unlike many of other Android-Atom phones this have recent Android version 4.0 and upgradable to latest 4.1. This handset is having all the other modern features as well. This combination would be a new experience to Android users. And this could be a path changing handset which is having more processing power and better energy efficiency.

Tags: #Android #Intel #Motorola #Smartphone

If you are a heavy user of eBooks, you know LCD, LED, IPS or AMOLED displays are definitely not the way to do it. The glare in display and sometimes lower refresh rate is giving you headache within few pages of reading.

Down the time Amazon, the biggest online book shop came up with a cool way to read eBooks called Amazon Kindle. It’s having electronic paper display also known as eInk display. This became a blast and they sold many devices within a short time.

eInk display is not having any backlit and not getting refreshed unless you flip a page. It’s capable of displaying only black and white content. Simply it’s a paper which can change its ink electronically. You will always need external light source to read it since it’s not backlit, a book light would be a great idea for late night reading.

Early Kindle was having 6 inch display and physical QWERTY keyboard and there was another version without keyboard as well. It was capable of web browsing and had Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity in some versions. 4^th generation of Kindle came out with touch sensitive eInk display called as Kindle touch and it became a very interesting device among eBook junkies. Today I’m going to take a closer look in to this.

Device Configuration

Design

The design is simple as any other Kindle and it’s even smaller since there is no keyboard. Instead there is one home key. Other than that there are no physical keys. In the back panel at the bottom you can find stereo speakers. There is microUSB, 3.5 mm audio out and power button in bottom edge.

Processor and Storage

Processer in this device is 800 MHz Cortex A8 and having 4 GB internal storage, non expandable. For eBook reading practically this is like unlimited storage.

Display

This is the most interesting part here and its 6 inch eInk display with 600 x 800 pixels resolution which will give you 167 ppi pixel density. Its 16 level gray scale display optimized to display textual content.

Connectivity and Interfaces

USB connectivity is always there for you to transfer audio files. To download eBooks you can use Wi-Fi or built in 3G connectivity. You can always use 3G connectivity to access Wikipedia. However, web browsing is still an experimental feature in Kindle touch and you can use it only with Wi-Fi.

Battery Life

This is one great thing about all Kindle eBook readers, their battery last amazingly long. If you are reading eBooks for 30 minutes every day, your battery will last for nearly 1 month. This is like forever compared to other tablets and Smartphone.

Wrapping Up

Kindle Touch has taken the eInk display to its next level with entire on screen controller. However I’m missing physical keys to flip pages. You can access music player by tapping a page even while you are reading a book. Sometimes it’s nice to listen to some music while reading a book. The dictionary feature is also working great.

Since you are on a touch screen nothing stops you by using pinch to zoom. Its working great but eInk refresh rate is not the best for it, so I prefer old school double tap to zoom feature. Amazingly there is no more landscape which is a great minus point. Web browsing is also fine though it’s experimental.

If you are planning to buy Kindle Touch, there are few things to clear up. This is highly optimized for eBook reading and this is not a multipurpose tablet. It supports PDF, but to get the maximum experience you have to purchase Kindle friendly eBooks for Amazon. Finally there are two versions, with offers and without. If you hate to see Ads, go for without offers version and it will cost you some extra bucks.

Tags: #Amazon #eBook #Tablet

YouTube has expanded itself in to a massive knowledge base in the past few years. Number of videos you can find on YouTube is astronomical and new videos getting uploaded everyday are increasing the numbers exponentially.

You must be using YouTube to watch “how to” tutorials, news, and especially new music releases. What if you want to store a YouTube video in your iPod? YouTube doesn’t provide a built in feature to download files due to copyright issues. However there are several workarounds you may already know. If you want to convert the video to MP3 format it will add few extra steps.

Previously I was talking about a tool which is letting you to download YouTube videos in MP3 format with just few clicks. Today I’m going to introduce you to an even simple tool. It’s SnipMP3.com and here we go!

How to Use SnipMP3?

SnipMP3 is a JAVA applet. In order to run it on your browser you must have JRE (JAVA Runtime Environment) installed. If you don’t have, your browser will prompt you to install it. Follow the instruction and install it before you use SnipMP3.

A JAVA applet will require your permission to run for the first time. For this, again your browser will prompt you. You can click on “run this time” or “Always run on this site”. If you click run this time, every time you are using SnipMP3, you have to give permission. Always run on this site is one time permission.

• Now Go to SnipMP3.com
• It’s a very simple UI and there is a text box for you to enter the video URL
• Copy the YouTube video URL which you want to download and paste it here
• Then click Convert and within few seconds you will get audio file download link

It’s as simple as that. With just one click you can convert a YouTube video in to MP3 audio track. Now you can download your favorite music tracks from YouTube and enjoy them in your MP3 player.

Tags: #MP3 #YouTube

Once you start using DropBox you get only 2GB of storage which is disappointing. But they gave you the opportunity to expand your DropBox by introducing your friends. The original plan was you get extra 250MB for one successful introduction and it goes up to 8GB.

When you go to DropBox web site, in the top navigation bar you can see a link with label “Get free space” with a gift icon. That’s where you can invite your friends and expand your storage. Today I visited this page and I noticed a difference.

What’s New with DropBox Referral Program?

At the top of page normally there is a message saying how much extra space you can get introducing new people to DropBox. Now that message has changed to this.

New Message

That’s a good news right? Now you can earn up to 16GB storage space and you get 500BM per introduction which is twice as before.

At the end of message there is a link named “Upgrade your account”. There are several packages which gives more storage for Pro users. Even if you are a DropBox pro user, you also can join referral program with extra benefits. You will get extra 1GB per introduction up to 32 GB.

The best part here is this new policy applies for your previous introductions as well. If you already have introduced friends, go and check your DropBox icon, you are already enjoying the benefits.

What is The Reason for This Expansion?

Apparently the reason behind this expansion is preparation for forthcoming competition. There are rumors speeding about new cloud storage service named “Google Drive” which gives you 5GB free space and document editing facility as well.

Once Google step in to something, they dominate it. It happened in Search engine, Email, maps and recently with Android OS as well. So DropBox must have felt the heat of tight completion.

I’m a big cloud storage fan and heavy user as well. This is great news to me and now I have 14GB storage space in DropBox. With another 2 successful invitation I will reach 16GB. If you are a DropBox user go to referrals page and start inviting your friends and expand your DropBox.

Tags: #Cloud Storage #Dropbox

If you are a photographer you know how image manipulation such as Adobe Light Room or Photoshop tool can be used to improve photographs. And yes of course you can do it since still images are having very high bit depth and resolution.

Video is also a series of photographs, yet you cannot apply all the photo manipulation techniques to video editing. The reason is most of the videos and their individual frames are having relatively lesser resolution and bit depth. Even if you consider Full HD videos, still they have 1920 X 1080 resolution compared to 4928 X 3264 resolution in semi-professional 16 mega pixel DSLR.

If you so badly want to apply photo editing techniques to videos, only option you have is expand frames and convert it in to series of photographs. Now you can individually edit each photo. Still the above problems are not solved. In addition this will take forever and slight mistake will add disturbing effects to your video.

A research team in University of Washington is unveiling a good news for cinematographers, which is a practical solution for most of the above problems. They have published details of their project and its outcomes including a video demo.

What Is This Project About?

As I mentioned earlier videos are having lesser resolution than photographs and in most of the cases poor exposure as well. These researches in University of Washington have come up with a framework to enhance videos combining high resolution still images. This technique works for static scenes and it all works automatically without any human involvement.

In addition this framework is capable of identifying the content of video and related details such as depth and motion. Then it comes up with a mathematical model which uses to combine still images with videos. According to their presentation the process goes through below steps.

1. System Inputs: Videos and Still images
2. Geometry estimation: Structure motions and Understand depth both in videos and still images
3. Image based video rendering: Video reconstruction combining still images based on geometry estimation output.
4. SpaceTime Fusion: Here comes the magic! This removes the disturbing artifacts in the final outcome.
5. Output: Final enhanced video.

What It Can Do?

Super Resolution Videos

This framework is combining high resolution still images with videos. Therefore videos could have four times of detail level, in other words resolution than usual. This is letting the video editor to zoom in videos to get the desired frame.

In addition you can edit still images to get an optimum exposure than videos. So through this framework you can add that optimum exposure level to videos through still images. All you have to do is edit few still images taken at the scene. Rest of the process is totally automated.

Use HDR for Videos

HDR is not a new thing for photographers. But so far there was no way to make HDR videos. Since this new framework is combining still images and videos nothing stops you by creating HDR videos. All you have to do is make few photographs with different exposure bracketing, make HRD still images and let the framework to combine them with video.

Video Stabilization

Other than combining videos and still images this new framework is capable of identifying depth and motion of video accurately in the phase of geometry estimation. Those are the most required details to stabilize video shake.

There are lots of video stabilizing software in market. But this new framework is way better and producing extra smooth video even with highly shaky footage.

Dynamic Masking

Same as video stabilizing software there are lots of options you have in software market in the case you need to add a dynamic mask for videos. But none of those are measuring the geometry of video as this new framework.

Using dynamic masking you can remove unwanted objects in your video. All you have to do is make the edit in one frame, and the framework will automatically propagate the change throughout the video. Same way you can introduce new objects to your video as well.

Demo Video

Click here to go to official web page of this project. There you can read more detail about this and download related materials.

Final Wrap Up

The result of this research will turn the video production industry upside down. If you have an entry level DSLR, with this new framework you can easily produce cinema quality videos. The production freedom you will get is unbelievable, if there is any effect that you can apply for a photograph, you can do the same with videos.

With all those, news is spreading that this new framework is acquired by Adobe and is going be integrated with their next release of After Effect which is CS6. However there is no official news confirming this.

With all the advanced photo manipulation tools, today you have no way to believe what you see in a photograph. Sooner or later with Adobe After Effect or with some other video editing tool, this framework will come to market. Then after sometime, as same as photographs, you won’t be able to believe even a video you are seeing with your own eyes.

The best part is that video produces can expand their boundaries like never before and we will be able to witness magical video productions.

Tags: #Adobe #Photography #Video

Every time Google release new version of Android, parallels they release a reference model compatible device as well. If you take a look at Android powered devices there are various models from different configuration. The objective of releasing a reference model is to set standard for android handsets to deliver a great user experience. With the previous version which is Android Ice Cream Sandwich they release Galaxy Nexus and the handset manufacture was Samsung. A smart choice by Google of course, they are the market leaders.

Quick Catch-up

Recently they release next version of Android which is jelly bean. Since Jelly bean is tablet optimized OS, they release reference model tablet, Google Nexus 7along with that. Again a smart choice, this time they worked with Asus. Previously I was talking about the shape of forthcoming Google Nexus tablet. The real device is pretty much similar to what I expected and when it comes to software configuration in Android Jelly bean it surprised me.

Quick Catch-up

• Shape of Forthcoming Google’s Nexus Tab

The device came with 7 inch IPS display with 1280 x 720 px resolution. Processor is 1.3 GHz Quad Core Cortex A9 running on NVidia Tegra 3 chipset with 12 Core GeForce GPU. RAM is 1GB and internal storage is 8 / 16 GB, non expandable. As connectivity features it’s having Wi-Fi, BlueTooth, USB, and NFC. It’s having only a front facing camera which is 1.2 MP. To power up the whole thing there is a 4325 mAhbattery. Device weight is 340g which is very light.

Attractions

Android Jelly Bean

The biggest attraction in Google Nexus 7 is latest version of Android. Jelly bean comes with lots of cool features which can make all other mobile operation systems looking old school.

Quick Catch-up

• What’s New in Android Jelly Bean?

Google Now

Another interesting thing about Google Nexus is Google Now. This is actually comes with Jelly Bean and capable of giving you location based result and respond to your voice commands. In near future this will be a good competitor for Apple’s Siri.

Battery Power

Battery power, the most important factor in any tablet and Nexus 7 is taking the lead here. It comes with a huge battery and practically you can use it more than 10 hours with heavy multimedia activities. Standby time will be way longer than all the other competitors.

Price Tag

Nexus 7 is now available for pre order and I’m pretty sure that the price tag will surprise you. It’s $199 for 8 GB model and $249 for 16 GB model. You will never be able to find a Android tablet with this configuration for this price anywhere in the world.

Wrapping Up

Google Nexus 7 is a trend setting tablet. It’s developing a new culture for 7 inch tablets with its hardware and software configuration along with amazingly low price tag. This is definitely a good competitor for other products and will be a great experience for users of all kind. However, one of the greatest strength in Android platform which is flash support won’t be there anymore after Android Jelly bean. Web developers targeting mobile devices now have to switch to HTML 5 for good.

Tags: #Android #Google #Jelly Bean #Nexus #Nvidia

Dropbox is the most popular and best cloud storage service out there. I believe most of you guys are already using it. In my previous posts I was talking about different creative applications of Dropbox. Today I’m going to tell you one more.

Here we are extending its scope beyond cloud storage service, file backup system or sharing. Today we are going to use Dropbox to remotely launch uTorrent and auto start downloading a given torrent file. Before you proceed, check whether you have properly configured Dropbox folder and uTorrent installed.

How to Use Dropbox to Launch uTorrent?

Here you don’t have to use any application modification, patch or anything. We are going to simply use existing application functions. Here are the steps.

• Open uTorrent and go to preferences -> Directories.
• Check “Automatically load .torrents from” and set location to any folder which is inside Dropbox folder. (To avoid hassle I’ll create a separate folder named Torrents)

• For you convenience check “Put new downloads in” and set location to desired folder.

• Now go to UI setting and remove the tick from “Don’t start the download automatically” in When adding torrents section.

• Keep the computer ON and let your other torrents download.
• Now you are good to go!
• Whenever you need to remotely start downloading a torrent, all you have to do is upload the torrent file to above selected folder in Dropbox.
• Then it will get synced in to your computer then uTorrent will fetch it and start downloading automatically.

• Hardware: Intel Core i5 2nd Gen // 4GB DDR2
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium // 64 Bit
• uTorrent: 3.2.2
• Dropbox: 1.4.7

Now you can auto start downloading torrents from anywhere in the globe. All you have to do is keep your torrent downloading computer ON and uTorrent open.

In order to ensure smooth operations make sure you have not enabled auto shutdown in uTorrent. Before you trust this system for remote auto start downloads, try it out locally by adding torrent file in to local Dropbox torrent folder. If it’s working perfect, you are good to go with remote auto start downloading.

If your uTorrent downloads are unusually slow, read my uTorrent speed optimization guide.

Tags: #BitTorrent #Dropbox

When you are using WWW, sometimes you will need to hide your identity or fake your location. You may do this for security purposes or maybe for some experimental reasons. Whatever the reason it is, to get this done you need a VPN (Virtual Private Network). It tunnels your traffic to a Proxy server in some other location and show the WWW that you are actually coming from there.

Most of the traffic tunneling services offers you a web interface. There you can enter your URL and access the web page anonymously from a different location in the world.  There are many restrictions in this kind of service such as no JavaScript support and Flash support. Performance is also at a minimum level.

There are VPN clients which you can install on your PC and it tunnels the whole traffic unlike previous web interfaces. Using them you are free to browse the web the way you want without restriction, yet anonymously.  Most of this kind of services comes with great cost, but I found a very affordable, simple and user-friendly service which any one can use. Best thing here is, they are giving free service as well with limited monthly data transfer. The service is TunnelBear and it’s under NOG spotlight today.

How to Setup TunnelBear?

• Go to TunnelBear website, download the client and install it.
• When you are running the application for the first time it will ask you to create an account.
• It’s only asking for basic information and proceeds with registration.
• Once the registration is done installation will continue and finally it will open TunnelBear client after automatic sign-in.
• The interface is pretty simple with a wood-like theme.
• There you can fine two main controllers. One to activate service and another one to change the location.
• Whenever you want anonymous web browsing, all you have to do is open TunnelBear client, switch it on and select the location you want to appear.
• It will take some time to activate and once it’s done it will tunnel whole internet traffic in to your computer, not only browser.
• In the main interface you can see a chart of data transfer rate and reaming amount of data.
• Free version is giving you only 500 MB and if you want another 1 GB you can tweet about TunnelBear.
• You can upgrade the account to get unlimited access.

Wrapping Up

The VPN client is very easy to install and setup, no advance configuration required at all. Performance level is great and you can surf the web and even stream videos without noticeable delay. The download speed is almost same as direct connection. Even if you want to buy the service, it’s affordable compared to other VPS services. No doubt that TunnelBear is a great VPN service that anyone can use, simple like never before and a must-try piece of software.

Tags: #Security #VPN