Popular Apple photo editing app Snapseed now on Android

Popular Apple photo editing app Snapseed has finally arrived in Android-operated smartphones. Snapseed, the creation of 17-year-old Nik software, launched on iOS a little over a year ago, and within a year, the app has seen a whopping 9.5 million downloads as the company was acquired by Google.

 “Before we released Snapseed we were primarily focused on [software for] professionals or advanced amateur photographers – the folks that are buying digital SLRs. The application has been really successful for us,” Josh Haftel, product manager at Google, and previously Nik Software, told Mashable. According to the report, along with the launch of the Android application, Google is knocking the price of the iOS version down from 4.99 dollars to free.

Not your average mobile photo editor, Snapseed has a number of different built-in enhancement options that let you do everything from crop and straighten an image to adjust the focus, many offering choices you might expect to find in a professional photo editor, the report said. “It’s very simple and straightforward, and also very powerful,” says Haftel. Each enhancement you select can be fine-tuned to the photo you’re working with. So, for instance, if you’re editing a photo of a friend who has a shadow on his face from wearing a baseball cap, you can brighten just his face in the photo rather than the entire image, the report added.

When you’re done editing a photo you can save it to the camera roll on your phone, or share it via Google+, Email, Facebook, or Twitter. -ANI

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Nokia unveils Lumia 620 Windows Phone 8 smartphone in Paris

Nokia recently unveiled its new Windows Phone 8 based smartphone at the Le Wen conference in Paris. This new device is called the Lumia 620 and seems to be a Windows Phone 8 based device in the affordable range.

The Nokia Lumia 920 will be available in seven different colors and it will support exchangeable shells with gloss or matte finish based on the color of your choice. This device has officially being priced at $250 which converts to Rs. 13,533 approximately.

This Windows Phone 8 based entry-level smartphone sports a 3.8-inch WVGA resolution ClearBlack display, 512MB of RAM, 8GB built-in storage and expandable memory up to 64GB via microSD card. It is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and includes a 5 megapixel rear camera with autofocus and LED flash along with a secondary front facing VGA quality camera.

Connectivity features include NFC capability, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 3G capability, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS/aGPS and GLONASS. The battery on the Lumia 620 is rated for up to 9.9 hours of talk time and 330 hours of standby.

Available will start in January, the device will arrive first in the Asia Pacific and African markets.

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Android based Xperia E and Xperia E Dual announced by Sony

Continuing to add new devices to its portfolio, Sony Mobile has recently announced the Xperia E and Xperia E dual, Android based smartphones. The Xperia E is a single SIM device while the Xperia E features dual-SIM capability.

Both have similar specifications, they feature a 3.5-inch display with a 320x480 pixels resolution and are powered by an 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7227A processor. Apart from this both include a 3.2 megapixel rear camera which supports VGA video recording. Along with other specifications like 512MB of RAM, 4GB built-in storage and up to 32GB of expandable memory via a microSD card. Both smartphones are powered by a 1,500 mAh battery.

Apart from the dual-SIM capability another major difference between the two is that the Xperia E runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean while the Xperia E Dual runs Android 4.0 ICS and it will later be upgradable to Jelly Bean.

These smartphones also feature HD Voice and noise cancellation for improved call quality and are equipped with xLoud for improved sound output. The Xperia E will come in white, black and pink colors and the Xperia E Dual will come in black and gold colors. These smartphones are expected to be available in Q1 2013.

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Facebook 'using Instagram as weapon' in war against Twitter

Social networking-giant Facebook is apparently using it’s recently aquired free-photo sharing service Instagram as a new weapon in its war with rival Twitter. It comes after Instagram, disabled its integration with Twitter's cards feature, changing the way its pictures are displayed on Twitter.

Instagram images are now awkwardly cropped, rather than sitting nicely in the timeline, meaning that you have to visit Instagram itself to see the picture properly, The Telegraph reports. “We’ve launched several improvements to our Web site that allow users to directly engage with Instagram content through likes, comments, hashtags and now we believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives,” Kevin Systrom, Instagram's chief executive said.

According to the paper, Facebook has made regular changes to its settings and policies in a bid to encourage users to share just a little bit more information, making themselves more valuable to advertisers in the process, the paper said. Its latest proposal would now allow more data to be shared with Facebok from advertising partners and affiliates, including Instagram, it added -ANI

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Apple to start manufacturing Macs in US

Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook has said that tech giant is to begin manufacturing one of its Mac lines exclusively in the US. In an interview with NBC, Cook said the company had been working on ‘doing more and more’ in the US. Apple's products are mostly assembled in China, where the company has faced criticisms over working conditions. During the interview, Cook noted that key components in Apple products such as the iPhone were already manufactured in the US, but were then shipped out to be assembled, the BBC reports.

“The engine in [the iPhone] is made in America... but engines are made in America and are exported. The glass on this phone is made in Kentucky. We've been working for years on doing more and more in the United States,” the report quoted him, as saying. According to the report, in a separate interview with Bloomberg Business Week, Cook said the company would be investing ‘over 100 million dollars’ in making more in the US.

Cook also discussed the furore around Apple Maps, created to replace Google Maps software on its devices. “We screwed up and we are putting the weight of the company behind correcting it,” the report quoted him, as saying. “On Maps, a few years ago, we decided that we wanted to provide customers features that we didn't have in the current edition of Maps. It didn't meet our customers' expectation, and our expectations of ourselves are even higher than our customers,” he added. -ANI

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Smartphones can work as medical labs too

Smartphones doubling up as diagnostic labs may soon become a reality, thanks to the initiative of a University of Sydney researcher. "This method makes heart rate research more inexpensive, portable and straightforward," said James Heathers, the doctoral student from University's School of Psychology behind the project.

"The sensor, placed on a finger instead of using electrodes on the chest, is so small we can mail it to study participants," added Heathers, according to a Sydney statement. Data on tiny fluctuations in our heart rate provides critical information on the state of our nervous system, and is essential for a range of psychological research including on anger, anxiety, stress and self-control.

At the moment, heart rate variability (HRV) research is done in a university lab with a group of study participants. Electrodes are attached to their chests to measure HRV and the data is recorded, one person at a time, using a lab computer. "The idea struck me because I'm by nature impatient and my area is psychophysiology -- which is all about the relationship between physiological and psychological states," said Heather.

"By providing people with a sensor and then using their smartphone to process the data, we are no longer tied down to booking appointments in a university laboratory, and can record dozens of separate data streams at the same time. "Heathers collaborated with Simon Wegerif, a biomedical engineer. Wegerif's company, HRV Fit Ltd, already had an HRV phone app - iThlete - widely used by professional sports teams and athletes, for whom heart rate variability is an important measurement of their performance and recovery.

The challenge was to adapt a similar app into a tool that can collect and provide HRV data in a way useful to researchers. "We have run tests of our sensor linked to a smartphone and the software is working very well. I expect it to be up and running - and available for free - in the next few months," said Heathers.

Heathers plans to use the HRV data to expand theories on the day-to-day fluctuations of the nervous system, and to collect data from groups that are traditionally hard to access. These results were presented at the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology conference 2012. -IANS

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Apple faces biggest share drop in four years, $35 billion wiped off tech firm

Apple has suffered its worst one-day share price fall in almost four years after the US-based tech giant lost 34.9 billion dollars in market cap, says a report. The iPhone maker saw its shares fall 6.4 percent to 538.79 dollars, the biggest one-day drop since December 17, 2008. According to the Telegraph, America’s biggest company lost almost 35 billion dollars off its market value, and is now worth just under 507 billion dollars. Traders were also spooked by a report from research firm IDC forecasting that Apple’s share of the tablet market will slip to 53.8 percent this year from 56.3 percent in 2011, while Google’s share will increase to 42.7 percent from 39.8 percent, the paper said.

It added that Apple’s tablet share would slip below 50pc by 2016, as total global tablet sales more than double to nearly 283million units in four years as consumers increasingly opt for them rather than personal computers, the paper added. According to the papper, analysts expressed concerns that Apple risked losing ground to Nokia smartphones in China, while failing to keep pace with Google in the tablets market. -ANI

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Apple faces biggest share drop in four years, $35 billion wiped off tech firm

Apple has suffered its worst one-day share price fall in almost four years after the US-based tech giant lost 34.9 billion dollars in market cap, says a report. The iPhone maker saw its shares fall 6.4 percent to 538.79 dollars, the biggest one-day drop since December 17, 2008. According to the Telegraph, America’s biggest company lost almost 35 billion dollars off its market value, and is now worth just under 507 billion dollars. Traders were also spooked by a report from research firm IDC forecasting that Apple’s share of the tablet market will slip to 53.8 percent this year from 56.3 percent in 2011, while Google’s share will increase to 42.7 percent from 39.8 percent, the paper said.

It added that Apple’s tablet share would slip below 50pc by 2016, as total global tablet sales more than double to nearly 283million units in four years as consumers increasingly opt for them rather than personal computers, the paper added. According to the papper, analysts expressed concerns that Apple risked losing ground to Nokia smartphones in China, while failing to keep pace with Google in the tablets market. -ANI

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