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Skype for Android has been updated to version 2.5.0.108 that brings 2-way video calling support to 14 more Android phones and tablets.The new version also supports video calling in some of the Android 2.2 (Froyo) devices. The Skype v2.1 brought the video calling support for 17 devices.
The compatible devices are Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, HTC Nexus One, HTC Shooter, Sony Ericsson Xperia Live with Walkman, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V, LG Optimus Black, LG Optimus 3D, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Photon, Motorola Droid 3, Motorola Bionic, Motorola Xoom, Motorola Atrix and Acer Iconia.
This version also has improved support for bluetooth headsets and number of bug fixes and performance enhancements video enhancements. Some of the other features include option to switch between portrait and landscape mode during video calls, and zoom in with a simple double tap on the screen, In-client advertising, conversations are now grouped around your contacts in recent view and option to edit and delete IM messages.
Download Skype for Android from the Android Market (2.1 and up) for free.
Flickr has launched their official app for Android. This lets you take photos, enhance them with filters, and quickly send to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more. You can also capture the image from the app and upload it to Flickr or select images from your collection.
Features of Flickr for Android
Share photos only with the people you want to with easy privacy settings.
Full screen browsing and slideshows for your photos just by tapping it, your contacts photos or any of the public photos from the global Flickr community.
Share the story behind your photo with titles, descriptions, comments and tags.
Comment, Favorite or view the full details of the photos
Keep your track of where you took your photo by keeping your location data automatically through geo-tagging.
Select the custom photo size or upload the original photo
Search for photos or people to add them as your friends
Download the Flickr app for Android from the Android Market (Android 2.1 and up) for free. This app is available only in select countries as of now.
Amazon today announced a handful of new Kindle e-reader products, including the first ever Kindle with a colour display – the Kindle Fire.
Firstly, Amazon has lowered the barrier of entry once again with a new entry level Kindle. For $79, the WiFi-powered Kindle Button features a none-touch 6″ e-ink display. It will be the first Kindle without a built-in QWERTY keyboard. The new Kindle Button will be available from today.
Next up is the $99 Kindle Touch. Like the Kindle Button, the Kindle Touch will not have a QWERTY keyboard. Instead text entry will rely on the infrared touchscreen similar to the technology used by Sony on their PRS e-readers. WiFi is included as standard. A 3G version is priced at $149. Both versions will be available from November.
Finally, Android has announced that it will be making its entry to the tablet market with the Kindle Fire. Priced at $199, the Kindle Fire will feature a 7″ IPS display and dual core CPU. It will run on a fork of Android, and thus will be compatible with Android apps. The Kindle Fire will be compatible with a few Amazon services announced today, including the multimedia orientated Whispersync and Amazon Cloud Storage. It will ship from November.
The new Kindle devices are available for pre-order today.
Mozilla has just released the latest version of its Firefox browser for Android. Firefox 7 is immediately available in the Android market bringing improved copy and paste functionality along with performance updates.
The changelog also includes built-in language detection on first run and new WebSockets APIs, which should allow web developers to build better web apps and sites.We know it’s not the huge overhaul that the version number change suggests, but that’s usually the case since Mozilla switched to the new rapid release schedule.
Still updates are always nice so, if you would like the experience the latest and greatest Mozilla browser on your droid hit that Android Market icon, or follows this link for the web version of the app repository. And don’t forget to drop us a line, mentioning if you like it, in the comment section below.
Looks like the clouds surrounding the future of MeeGo have finally cleared up. Intel has announced today that it is bidding farewell to MeeGo and joining Tizen project which is part of the Linux Foundation. The Tizen project was announced yesterday by the Linux foundation and the LiMo foundation as an open-source Linux based device software platform. Tizen covers smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle infotainment systems. The first devices powered by Tizen are expected to hit the market in mid-2012.
The development of Tizen will be completely open (as in open source ) and led by a technical steering team composed of Intel and Samsung. Surprisingly Nokia just announced yesterday that it is shippingits only MeeGo device the N9 and would provide support till 2015. The Nokia Intel marriage sadly never worked, and Intel is betting on a more aggressive player Samsung this time round. It’s hard to say at this point if Tizen devices will be good enough to take on Android , WP7 or iOS, only time will tell.
Steve Kondik, CyanogenMod’s chief developer, has confirmed that CyanogenMod 7 (CM7) will be coming to Sony Ericsson Xperia handsets in its upcoming release. They have been working with FreeXperia team to make this happen and this team is now part of the CyanogenMod development group.
Most these phones already run on the Android 2.3, with the Xperia X10 being the latest one to get this update. This is definitely a happy news for the Xperia X8, Xperia X10 Mini and Xperia X10 Mini Pro users who are still with Android 2.1.
I am sure that almost everyone has heard about VLC media player, it is a cross-platform media player, which is now available for Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone and now the application for Android has entered Pre-Alpha stage.
VLC supports almost every video format out there, you can play both video and audio files, VLC automatically detects and shows the media files present on your SDcard. It is already available on appstore for iOS, but was in development stage from a long time for Android, and now finally an alpha build is available for download, this build is not very stable and is buggy, also eats up lot of battery.
There are two version of VLC available right now, Neon and non-neon, the neon version can only be used in neon based processors, you can check that by finding a file called cpuinfo inside the folder proc, use root explorer to find this file, one the file is found, search for neon inside the file, if there is neon then your processor supports neon, if it is not there then you can download the non-neon version.
We will do a full review of the app once it officially launches.
Samsung has announced Samsung Omnia W, their first handset to feature Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). The phone has 3.7 inch Super AMOLED display, 1.4GHz processor and 5 MP Auto focus camera with LED Flash and a VGA video calling camera. The Windows Phone Mango has Windows Phone People Hub that has built-in social networking services like Windows Live, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It also has Marketplace Hub, Office Hub, Game Hub, and Picture Hub, Music & Video Hub – powered by Microsoft Zune.
Specifications of Samsung Omnia W
3.7 inch (800 x 480 pixels) Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen display
10.9mm thick and weighs 115.3g
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango
1.4 GHz Processor
5 MP Auto focus camera with LED Flash and a VGA video calling camera
3.5mm audio Jack, FM Radio with RDS
3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v 2.1, aGPS / Bing Map, and USB 2.0
512MB RAM, 8GB Internal Memory that is expandable up to 32GB with MicroSD
1500 mAh Li-on battery
It also comes with pre-installed Samsung’s apps like Now, RSS Times, Video Call(3G), Photo Studio, Mini Diary, All Share(DNLA), Fun Shot, Wireless Manager and some of the downloadable apps like Dictionary, Photogram and Rubik’s Cube.
The Samsung Omnia W will be available starting in Italy from end-October and would gradually be rolled out globally including Europe, CIS, Latin America, Africa, South East and South West Asia.
Google Nexus One which is also known as the grand father of Android Phones and Google’s first Nexus device get’s updated to Android 2.3.6. Last update which Nexus officially received was of Android 2.3.4, now Google has decided to skip 2.3.5 and jump directly to 2.3.6. Well I have not updated my Nexus One yet as it is on CyanogenMod and I am sure they will be including Android 2.3.6 in their next nightly. The update does not have anything in particular except dome bug fixes. Follow the instructions below to manually update if you haven’t received the update yet.
Note:
Android 2.3.6 update should be applied on top of Android 2.3.4 and if you are running a customROM then first download and apply Android 2.3.4 (GRJ22) from here. Just rename the downloaded zip file to “upodate.zip”, transfer it to the root of your SD card, then apply update from SD card.
If you are rooted and are running a custom ROM then you will lose all your data and root, so it is better if you take a Nandroid backup before performing the procedure below.
It was a big day for Facebook yesterday as they announced a raft of new features for the world’s most popular social networking website. Mark Zuckerberg himself announced all these new features at the Facebook f8 keynote yesterday, which included stuff like the new Timeline view and integration with music and video services, among other things.
Let’s start with Timeline. Timeline will be your new Facebook profile page but instead of just showing your latest posts and info it will show your ‘stories’ as Facebook likes to call them, that will stay there regardless of the new content coming in. You can choose what content is visible in the Timeline and who can view it. It can have your posts, images, videos, apps, etc., all in one place that will help people learn more about you as a person. And there will be a timeline that users can go through to see your stories from that particular period of time. Whether you see it as a great new way to share your information with others or a scary new way for stalkers and other unwanted people to access your information is for you to decide.
Another new addition is Facebook Music. This isn’t a new music service however, but one that relies on existing services such as Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, SoundCloud, etc. to share with others the music you are listening to and to find out what your friends are listening to right now, which is basically what Ping was, or is (I keep forgetting that it’s still active).
This is not just limited to music. Facebook has also partnered with Netflix and Hulu, so you can share and watch movies and TV shows on Facebook itself.
Lastly, there are also some new verbs added for the grammar nazis among us. Find yourself cringing at the overuse of the word ‘Like’ on Facebook? Well, now you can be ‘Reading’ a book, ‘Watching’ a movie, ‘Listening’ to a song, etc. Developers of apps are now free to pair any verb with any noun and are no longer restricted to just make you ‘Like’ stuff.
All the new features mentioned here except for Timeline are now available to users. Timeline is currently in beta and restricted to developers but will be available to others in a few weeks.
For more information, click on the source link below.
The much anticipated WP 7.5 update – Mango is scheduled to start rolling out in a week or two says Eric Hautala (General Manager, Customer Experience Engineering at Microsoft).
When the update is released users will also get some model-specific software from the manufacturers of their smartphones. That is required as Mango is tuned to work with each phone and its apps perfectly. The update is said to arrive in the next couple of weeks .
Eric Hautala also advises users to get the updated versions of Windows Phone 7 connector for Mac and Zune for PC, which have received a number of update-related improvements. He did address the issue of non-official firmwares, which he advises users to stand clear of, as they interfere with updates. Phones with unofficial software versions may be unable to receive the real Mango when it rolls out.
