Lenovo Launches ThinkCentre Compact Desktop

Lenovo Launches ThinkCentre Compact Desktop

Lenovo on Monday launched the ThinkCentre Chromebox, a small form factor Chrome OS-based PC meant for students and entrepreneurs. The desktop was announced at the company's Accelerate 2015 Partner forum in Las Vegas. The Lenovo ThinkCentre Chromebox starts at $199 (roughly Rs. 12,600) and will be available buy in June.

The firm adds that this is the company's first Chromebox that's designed to work with the 23-inch Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny-in-One monitor to provide an all-in-one experience. Measuring 177.8x35x182.8mm, the ThinkCentre Chromebox features four USB 3.0 ports, a full-sized HDMI jack, DisplayPort, and Ethernet jack. The Chromebox includes a fifth generation Intel Core processor clubbed with up to 4GB of RAM and up to 16GB of SSD storage, says Android Central.

The Tiny-in-One monitor which costs $279 (roughly Rs. 17,700) features a 23-inch full HD display along with an integrated webcam and microphone. It also supports a wireless keyboard and a mouse for the Chromebox.

"Lenovo was the first to introduce a one-litre commercial desktop and ThinkCentre Chromebox is a testament to our commitment to the continued evolution of the desktop and our promise to push the boundaries on innovation for our education and business customers." said Ouyang Jun, vice president and general manager, Desktop and Visuals, Lenovo of the launch. "Combined with the ThinkCentre Tiny-in-One, the new Chromebox illustrates our belief in more flexibility for teachers and IT managers to continue to offer desktop solutions in a modern day environment."

Read More

Micromax Canvas Spark Launched at Rs. 4,999

Micromax has launched the Canvas Spark (Q380) at an event in Gurgaon. The 3G-enabled smartphone has been priced at Rs. 4,999.Registrations for the first flash sale on April 29 open at 12pm IST on Wednesday.

The Micromax Canvas Spark is a dual-SIM smartphone, and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop out-of-the-box. It features a 4.7-inch qHD (540x960 pixels) IPS display along with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, and is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582M processor coupled with 1GB of DDR3 RAM.

Micromax has also tied up with Vodafone to provide a bundled data launch day offer of 500MB free 3G data per month for two months.The smartphone also features support for 21 languages with the Reverie language pack. It weighs 134 grams, and is 8.5mm thick.

The Canvas Spark bears an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and an M8 Largan lens, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It sports 8GB of built-in storage, which is expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB). Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, FM radio, and a 3.5mm audio jack. It is powered by a 2000mAh battery that's rated to deliver up to 335 hours of standby time. The smartphone comes in dual-tone colour options - White-Gold and Grey-Silver.

Read More

How to Securely Delete All Data From Your Android Phone

microSD card
The first decision you need to make is about the microSD card. In case your old phone has a microSD card, you can simply insert the card in your new phone and continue using it - most data like photos, videos etc. should get migrated seamlessly.
In case your new phone does not have a microSD card slot, or you would not like to carry forward the card for some reason then you should delete all the data on the card by formatting it. First, back up all your pictures and videos.
1. Connect your phone to the computer with a USB cable. If you are on a Mac, make sure you have the Android File Transfer application installed before you do this.
2. Open My Computer on your PC, or Finder on your Mac.
3. Navigate to the SD card and copy all the files you want to save to your computer.
4. After the copying is done, you can unplug your phone.
Now, you can format your memory card.
1. On your phone, go to Settings > Storage.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap Erase SD card. You'll see a warning message telling you that you'll lose all the data on the card.
3. Tap the Erase SD card button to continue. If your SD card is secured with a password, you'll need to enter the PIN to continue.
A determined person can still recover your files from a formatted SD card, but the easiest way to deal with this is by "layering". Simply put, fill the space with something else, delete it, and repeat this process a couple of times and your original data is gone forever.
So for example, if you have a 2GB microSD card you've erased - reconnect it to your PC, and copy a file that's about 2GB to the card. Delete the file right away. Do this again, two or three times. The whole process shouldn't take more than ten minutes, but you can then safely sell the card as well.
Backing up the data on your phone
The most important thing to do is to ensure that you don't lose any of your contacts or pictures. The good thing with Android is that you need a Google account to set up the phone, and it automatically backs up your device. To make sure that this is the case, do the following.
1. On your phone, go to Settings > Backup & reset.
2. You should see a setting called Back up my data. Make sure that it's ticked.
3. Next, press Back, and then scroll down to ACCOUNTS. Tap on Google.
4. You'll see your Google account which was used to set up the phone with a green sync symbol next to it. Tap the account.
5. Make sure that all the options are ticked - this will use your Google account to sync everything from your calendar to contacts to email to the photos that you take, which get automatically backed up to Google+.
6. Not all versions of Android automatically back up pictures. We checked on a 2011 Samsung Galaxy Note and didn't see the option, while the recent Moto E does have this option. In case your phone does not support this, you'll have to use a PC to back up media via the USB as described above.
7. Back up any other media files to your computer by connecting the phone to your PC using a USB cable. Follow the steps in the first half of the SD card section above to copy the files to your computer.
This option will also backup the application data for some of your apps. Apps need to be registered with the Android operating system for this backup and restore service to work, and not all your apps may support this. To be safe, we recommend manually backing application data for all your favourite apps, like this method for backing up your WhatsApp messages.
Delete everything
Now that you've made a backup, you can safely delete everything on your phone. This is what you do.
First, fully erase the SD card as discussed above or take it out and keep it safely if you plan to use it in your new phone.
A simple factory reset will delete everything on your phone, but this data can still be recovered by a really determined user. If you want to be really sure no one can recover your data even after it is deleted then make sure you enable hardware encryption on your phone. For most people it should be safe to skip steps 1 and 2 and jump straight to step 3.
1. Go to Settings > Security and tap Encrypt phone. This takes a long time, so you need to connect your phone to the charger to proceed.
2. Tap Encrypt phone again to proceed. Some people have noted that at times this doesn't work right away, and you might need to try it a few times.
The process can take an hour, and so you'll need to leave your phone on the charger and wait.
Once this is done, just reset the phone:
3. Go to Settings > Backup & reset. Tap Factory data reset. On the next screen, tick the box marked Erase phone data. You can also choose to remove data from the memory card on some phones - so be careful what button you tap on.
4. You'll see a warning screen - tap Reset phone to continue.
5. This process may take a few minutes and your phone should reboot to the state that it shipped in, prompting you to choose language and sign-in all over again.
Congratulations, you've deleted all the data on your Android phone.

Read More

How To Burn an ISO File to a USB Drive

 

1. Download Rufus, a free tool that will correctly prepare the USB drive, automatically extract the contents of the ISO file you have, and properly copy the files contained within it to your USB device, including any files in the ISO needed to make it bootable. 
   Rufus is a portable program (does not install), works on Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP, and will "burn" an ISO image file to any type of USB storage device you happen to have. 
    
2. Double-click or double-tap on the rufus-1.4.12.exe file that you just downloaded. The Rufus program will start right away. 
   As I mentioned earlier, Rufus is a portable program, meaning that it just runs as is. This is a big reason why I prefer this ISO-to-USB program over some of the other options out there.
    
3. Insert the flash drive or other USB device you want to "burn" the ISO file to into your computer, assuming it's not already plugged in. 
   Important: Burning an ISO image to a USB drive will erase everything on the drive! Check that the USB drive is empty or that you have backed up any files you want to keep before continuing.
    
4. From the Device drop-down at the top of the Rufus program screen, choose the USB storage device you want to burn the ISO file to.

 

Read More

How to Use Your Laptop as a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Internet sharing on Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1

Thankfully, there are quite a few apps that let you use your machine as a Wi-Fi hotspot. Before you use any of these apps, you may want to check the steps on Microsoft's site to see Windows' built-in Internet sharing and see if you have better luck than we did. We do recommend that you skip that and use a third-party app instead, since the experience is usually much better.
We tested some popular apps that let you do this - Connectify and Virtual Router Plus. The latter didn't work very well for us. Our anti-virus flagged it as a threat and during installation it tried to make us install unwanted software.
We didn't have the same issues with Connectify. It is a reliable app for turning your computer into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Before you proceed, know that you will need a Windows PC with a Wi-Fi adapter (or built-in Wi-Fi) to make this work. If your computer does not have Wi-Fi, then you can buy one that connects via USB, such as this one.
Here are the steps to setup your Windows machine as a Wi-Fi hotspot:
1. Download Connectify and install it. The installation is pretty straightforward and when installation is complete, restart your computer.
2. After restarting the computer, check whether it is connected to the Internet. If it is, run the Connectify Hotspot app.
3. You'll see two tabs in the app - Settings and Clients. In the Settings tab, under "Create a..." click Wi-Fi Hotspot.
4. Under Internet to Share, you'll see a drop-down menu. Expand it and select the connection you want to share. We tested this app with a wired and a wireless connection and found that it worked perfectly with both.
5. Under that, you'll see some more options. Add a Wi-Fi password. Click Start Hotspot.
That's all you need to do. Now other devices will detect a Wi-Fi network labelled Connectify-me. Key in the password and you're good to go.

Connectify is a paid app, but it has a stripped down free version. You can create a hotspot with the free version, but the main limitation is that it automatically disconnects every 30 minutes and shows pop-ups asking you to buy the pro version. You'll have to re-enable the hotspot manually to start using it again.
The Pro version has more features and costs $25 (Rs. 1,550) for a year and $40 (Rs. 2,450) for a full licence. Apart from unlimited hotspot uptime, you get features such as custom hotspot naming, the ability to share Internet from 3G and 4G networks (for sharing USB Internet dongles), and advanced firewall controls (choose which devices can access Internet and personal files on your LAN).
Internet Sharing on OS X
Mac users have it a lot easier. Here's how to share your Mac's Internet connection.
1. Open System Preferences > Sharing > check Internet Sharing on the left.
2. On the right, expand the drop-down menu next to Share your connection from: and select the connection you want to share. You can share Internet connections from Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or even iPhone USB.
Typically, you'd want to select Ethernet, if you are using a wired Internet connection iMac, Mac Pro, or MacBook Pro. If you are using an external Ethernet adapter with a MacBook Air, you'll want to select USB Ethernet or Thunderbolt Ethernet, depending upon the kind of dongle you are using (usually it's USB).
3. Just below that, there's a box next to To computers using: where you should check the box next to Wi-Fi.
4. Click the Wi-Fi Options button below the box. Pick a Network Name, Security Type and enter the password twice in fields named Password and Verify. We strongly recommend you choose a password, instead of leaving the Security option has None. You can leave Channel as the default value unless you know what you are doing. Click OK.
5. If the connection is active, you'll see a green icon and text Internet Sharing: On under System Preferences.
That's all. You'll be able to use the Internet on other devices now by  connecting to the network you specified under Network Name.

Read More

Send text messages directly from your PC Using AirDroid

Send text messages directly from your PC Using AirDroid

There are some other simple things you can do using AirDroid such as sending text messages directly from your PC.

1. In the browser window, click on the Messages app.
2. All the text messages on your phone will show up here.
3. Click New Message on the top-right to compose a new text. Click Send to send it across.
4. When you receive any text messages, you'll get a notification in the browser. Click the notification to view the text. Alternatively, you can click the Messages app to view all incoming messages.

You can also initiate a call using AirDroid on your PC, but the call isn't shared with your computer. The PC is only useful as a phone dialer.

1. Click the phone icon at the top of the page, next to the search bar on web.airdroid.com.
2. Dial the number in the keypad. As you start typing the number, a list of contacts with similar numbers will show up on the right. So you can also click the contact you want to call.
3. Click the blue Call button. Now you will have to switch to your Android phone to speak to the person. This is an unfortunate limitation and we suggest that you use a Bluetooth headset paired with your phone as a workaround.
4. AirDroid doesn't let you receive calls via the computer either, but you can reject calls with a text message. When someone calls, you will see a pop-up in the browser window. Click Reject to disconnect the call or Reject with message to send a text message to the caller.

Read More

Huawei Ascend P8

The Huawei Ascend P8 will be available in two versions, Standard (16GB inbuilt storage) and Premium (64GB inbuilt storage). While the standard version is priced at EUR 500 (roughly Rs. 33,300), the premium version costs EUR 600 (roughly Rs. 40,000). Huawei says Europe, Middle East and South Africa will be the first regions to get the flagship smartphone, followed by a worldwide release within one month.

The Huawei Ascend P8max is due to launch in 30 countries and will arrive almost a month after the Ascend P8. Priced at EUR 550 (Rs. 36,700) for its 16GB inbuilt storage variant, the phablet will also be available with 64GB inbuilt storage version at EUR 650 (roughly Rs. 43,300). Both the Ascend P8 and Ascend P8max sport a metal unibody design made of space-grade aluminium.

The Ascend P8 (seen above) also comes with a special nano-coating that the company says makes it splash-proof. The handset houses a 5.2-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) resolution display (424ppi). Huawei says the display takes up to 78.3 percent of the front panel, as compared to Apple iPhone 6's 65.8 percent and Samsung Galaxy S6's 70.8 percent. The 4G-enabled smartphone also has an E-Ink cover accessory, which adds a 4.3-inch display suited for outdoor reading.

The Ascend P8 is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Cortex-A53 Hisilicon Kirin 935 SoC clocked at 2GHz coupled with 3GB RAM. Backed by a 2680mAh battery, the smartphone is said to run for 2.3 days of regular use and 1.5 days on heavy usage. The smartphone's Signal+ tech enables the device to switch between the two antennas (one on top and one at bottom), which Huawei says will help find best the data and call connections.

The smartphone measures 144.9x72.1x6.4mm, weighs 144 grams and will be available in Mystic Champagne and Titanium Grey colour variants.

Read More

Lenovo A6000 Plus With 2GB RAM,Launched at Rs. 7,499

Lenovo A6000 Plus With 2GB RAM,Launched at Rs. 7,499

Lenovo on Friday launched a slightly more powerful variant of the popular Lenovo A6000 smartphone, the Lenovo A6000 Plus, priced at Rs. 7,499. Registrations for the smartphone's first flash sale via Flipkart on April 28 will begin on Friday, 2pm IST.

The dual-SIM supporting Lenovo A6000 Plus is identical to the Lenovo A6000 except for featuring twice the RAM and inbuilt storage. The handset equips 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage as compared to the Lenovo A6000's 1GB and 8GB inbuilt storage.

The smartphone features a 5-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) IPS display and is powered by a 64-bit 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) SoC with Adreno 306 400MHz GPU. The Android 4.4.4 KitKat-based smartphone runs Lenovo's Vibe UI 2.0 skin on top. It features Dolby Digital Plus speakers.

Other specifications include an 8-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash; a 2-megapixel front camera; apart from a 2300mAh battery that is rated to deliver up to 11 days of standby time on 2G/ 3G, and up to 22 hours of talk-time on 2G and 13 hours on 3G. The Lenovo A6000 Plus supports the same 4G bands as the A6000, i.e., FDD 800MHz / 1800MHz / 2100MHz / 2600MHz (Band 1, 3, 7, 20), and TDD 2300MHz (Band 40). The smartphone measures 141x70x8.2mm and weighs 128 grams.

Read More

Amazon Offers Android Apps Worth Up to $105 for Free

Amazon Offers Android Apps Worth Up to $105 for Free

A new Amazon Appstore for Android Free App of the Day Bundle is now available, which features 24 paid apps and games worth up to $105 (roughly Rs. 6,500) available for free for limited time.

The Amazon Appstore for Android often introduces such offers, over and above its regular Free App of the Day offerings, and includes both apps and games. Some of the apps available in this time's bundle have been made available in previous bundles, such as Table Top Racing, Wolfram Alpha, and Sega's Virtua Tennis Challenge, while some apps are new to the bundle, such as Prince of Persia Classic, Unmechanical, and Amazing Alex Premium.

Here is a complete list of the paid apps that are available for free with this time's Free App of the Day Bundle.

1. Wolfram|Alpha
2. Adventure Time Game Wizard
3. Table Top Racing
4. Runtastic PRO GPS Running, Walking & Fitness Tracker
5. F18 Carrier Landing II Pro
6. Songsterr Guitar Tabs & Chords
7. Flightradar24 Pro - Kindle Edition
8. MeteoEarth
9. Virtua Tennis Challenge
10. Amazing Alex Premium
11. Unmechanical
12. Pudding Monsters HD
13. Prince of Persia Classic
14. Osmos HD
15. CityMaps2Go Pro - Offline Map and Travel Guide
16. LectureNotes
17. A Better Camera Unlocked
18. Oxford Spanish Dictionary
19. RDP Pro Client: aRDP
20. TouchDraw
21. Mobile Doc Scanner (MDScan)
22. Fun English Course - Language Learning Games for Kids Aged 3-10.
23. Splashtop Whiteboard
24. Chess and Mate - Premium chess learning program for children and the whole family

Read More

Microsoft Lumia 540 with 8-Megapixel Camera Launched

Microsoft on Wednesday launched a new mid-range smartphone, the Lumia 540 Dual SIM. Priced at $150 (roughly Rs. 9,361), the smartphone will start rolling out early next month to India, Middle East, Africa (IMEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC) countries. The Lumia 540 Dual SIM comes in layered Cyan, Orange, White and Matte Black colours.

 the Lumia 540 Dual SIM also comes with 30GB of free OneDrive cloud storage. It sports an 8-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash while also housing a 5-megapixel wide-angle front-facing camera. The Lumia 540 Dual SIM's connectivity features include USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi with hotspot, GPS, and 3G network support. Peer-to-Peer sharing and support for up to 8 Wi-Fi enabled devices for Wi-Fi hotspot are also included. The handset is backed by a 2200mAh replaceable battery, measures 144x73.69x9.37mm, and weighs 152 grams.

The Lumia 540 Dual SIM features a suite of Microsoft services including Microsoft's Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote), Outlook, Skype, OneDrive, and users can download more apps from the Windows Phone Store.

For specifications, the Microsoft Lumia 540 Dual SIM features a 5-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) IPS LCD display offering a pixel density of 294ppi. The smartphone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. It comes with 8GB of built-in storage expandable further via microSD card (up to 128GB).

Read More

Asus ZenFone 5 Price at Rs 9,999

Asus ZenFone 5 Price at Rs 9,999


The Asus ZenFone 5 was launched in July last year alongside the ZenFone 4 and ZenFone 6. The 16GB model shares the same specifications as the 8GB storage variant, including a 5-inch HD (720x1280 pixel) IPS display; a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 processor; 2GB of RAM; an 8-megapixel rear camera; a 2-megapixel front facing camera; inbuilt storage expansion via a microSD card (up to 64GB), and 2110mAh battery to back them all.

ZenFones have reached audience in more than 300 cities with the extensive reach of Flipkart. The phones have been successful in terms of the feedback received from masses and even in terms of the sales that we have observed. In view of this response, we have introduced this special price to go a step ahead to serve our existing and prospective customers," said Peter Chang, Regional Head - South Asia & Country Manager - System Business Group - Asus India of the launch. "Aesthetically crafted ZenFones have been successful to touch the heart of Indian tech lovers and we are affirmative about the future as well. We are aiming to achieve 5 percent market share in the country by next year," he added.

Read More

Xiaomi Mi Note

Xiaomi Mi Note

The Chinese tech major pulled the wraps off the Xiaomi Mi Note and the Xiaomi M Note Pro in grand fashion at an event in Beijing on Thursday. The Mi Note has a fairly powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor but its more powerful sibling, aimed
at Xiaomi's community of loyal fans and power users, has a beefier Snapdragon 810 processor. While the Mi Note Pro looks very enticing, you'll have to hold your horses at the moment since it is not expected to hit stores in China until the end of Q1 this year.

On the other hand, the Mi Note is priced at CNY 2,299 (roughly Rs. 23,000) for the 16GB model, while the 64GB model will set you back by CNY 2,799 (roughly Rs. 27,900). These will start selling in China from the 27th of this month. Xiaomi did state that an India
launch of both devices was on the roadmap, but couldn't give us even a tentative date.

This is primarily because the body uses Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 with a 2.5D curve on the front and 3D curve on the back.
The glass is supported by a sturdy metal frame with chamfered edges. Interestingly, the iPhone 6 Plus also has a 2.5D curved glass on the front. 

A large 5.7-inch screen dominates the front of the device and the bezels are thin. The full-HD display springs to life when it is woken up and the viewing angles looked good too. We couldn't test sunlight legibility since Beijing is a hazy city at this time of year.
Xiaomi claims that the screen has an anti-glare coating a la the iPad Air 2, which cuts reflections. The phone is 6.9mm thin, which actually undercuts the thickness of the iPhone 6 Plus by 0.2mm. However, this distinction was not apparent to us immediately.

There is a 13-megapixel rear camera with a Sony CMOS sensor, six-element lens, optical image stabilisation, and two-tone flash from Philips. We tested it and found that despite the cold lighting around our demo area, it managed to correct the white balance automatically. Images looked good on the phone's screen, but we could not transfer them to a PC to check more thoroughly.
The Mi Note has a dedicated ESS ES9018K2M audio chip, which Xiaomi touts is the "highest quality of audio chip on any phone till today". 

The phablet supports LTE and has a 3,000mAh battery under the hood. There is 3GB of RAM and 16GB/64GB of storage space. On the software side of things, Xiaomi adds support for one-handed usage by allowing the screen to be shrunk.

Read More

Asus EeeBook X205 Launched at Rs. 14,999

Asus EeeBook X205 Launched at Rs. 14,999

The Asus EeeBook X205 runs on Windows 8.1 with Bing and features an 11.6-inch HD (1366x768 pixels) resolution display with 16:9 aspect ratio. Powered by a 64-bit 1.3GHz Intel Atom 'Bay Trail-T' Z3735 processor (2MB Cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 1.33GHz base clock, 1.83GHz turbo), the notebook also includes 2GB of DDR3L RAM.

A 32GB of inbuilt storage comes equipped inside the Asus EeeBook X205 notebook. The inbuilt storage is however expandable up to 128GB (via microSD card). Besides a
front-facing VGA (0.3-megapixel) camera, the EeeBook X205 sports 2 USB 2.0 ports, micro HDMI port, Bluetooth 4.0, and Wi-Fi connectivity.


Microsoft Office 365 along with the device. The Microsoft Office 365 comes with one year subscription to full versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access and other apps alongside 1TB of cloud storage. The firm additionally offers 500GB of Asus WebStorage for two years. The EeeBook X205's audio is powered by SonicMaster. Asus also claims that its notebook has a 36 percent larger touchpad than its other 11-inch rivals do in the market.


"We are persistently focusing towards delivering value products with premium feel and functionality and the introduction of EeeBook is testimony of the same fact. Streamlined curves, compact dimensions and a tactile finish; it will complement all
your on-the-go computing requirements. We are elated to bring EeeBook which is lighter than any 11 inch notebook and employs simple yet elegant design," said Peter Chang, Regional Head, South Asia & Country Manager, System Business Group, ASUS
India at the launch. 

Read More