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Amazon India introduces #AmazonCart; How to enable it and make purchases using Twitter

Amazon India recently announced the #AmazonCart launch. #AmazonCart is a new feature that allows the users to reply to tweets that contain Amazon India product link with ‘#AmazonCart’ and the product will automatically be added to cart. The user can finish checking out the cart later.

Launching with the slogan ‘Add it now. Buy it later’, this free feature is available for all the Amazon India users. To use this new feature, you will have to link your Twitter and Amazon India account.

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There are two ways to do this. You can either go to the #AmazonCart page and link your Twitter and Amazon India accounts. Or, if you are lazy to type the link in your web browser, reply with ‘#AmazonCart’ to any tweet that has Amazon India product link and Amazon India will send you a reply tweet with a link to connect your accounts.

Getting back to using this feature, when you reply with #AmazonCart to any product link tweet, the product will be added to your cart immediately and you will receive a confirmation reply tweet from Amazon India for the same. Also, Amazon India will attach the cart review link which will take you straight to the Amazon India cart where you can check out.

 

This feature was introduced first in the United States of America and the United Kingdom under the name #AmazonBasket and now, it’s here for Amazon India.

Will it be useful for Indians?

While most Indians are still positive about buying from brick-and-mortar stores, India has its own share of online shoppers. And these online shopaholics are seen mostly active on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook with Twitter users being the majority.

From the consumer point of view, Indians might really find this new feature useful, like the people in the United States – they are active on the social media.

Consider yourself scrolling down your Twitter Timeline. When someone shares an interesting Amazon India product, you will find it easy to reply to that tweet than clicking that link and adding it to the cart manually, right? That’s where this #AmazonCart feature helps. It makes shopping easy and more convenient for the buyers.

Privacy issues; other features needed

While this feature might look interesting and surprisingly easy to use, it comes with its own issues too.

With Twitter being a public platform, most of the tweets are available for public view. So, things you add to your cart will be visible to the public / followers. If you are cautious about your online activities, this feature is probably something you should stay away from.

Also, there isn’t an option to remove products from cart though. There are chances that Amazon India might bring it soon. Another feature that I would like to see is an option to check out without leaving Twitter – this can be achieved by using a pre-paid wallet service like Flipkart Wallet.

Amazon is growing fast in India

It has been one year or so since Amazon India launched, and it is over 1.5 crore products listed on the site already. After introducing many interesting services including quick deliveries, the company is doing its best to offer quality services and options to the customers in India.

And the launch of #AmazonCart will make things only better for Amazon India. This is the first time a e-commerce company has announced this feature in India. Flipkart, Snapdeal, HomeShop18, Jabong and others haven’t implemented any similar social media features.

What do you think about this feature? Do you find it useful for you? Do share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

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Xiaomi Mi 3 to go for sale exclusively on Flipkart at Rs 13,999 starting July 22

Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is moving into the Indian operations with the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 3. The Xiaomi Mi 3 will be launched exclusively on Flipkart at the price of Rs 13,999.

This is the third Xiaomi smartphone to enter the Indian market, after Redmi 1S and Redmi Note priced at Rs 6,999 and Rs 9,999 respectively.

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Xiaomi Mi 3 to launch on Flipkart

Xiaomi’s flagship device, Mi 3, will go for sale first on July 22. To buy the device on Flipkart, you will have to register yourself on the Flipkart website between July 15 and July 21, confirming that you will be buying this device in July 22.

Xiaomi Mi 3 comes with high end specifications at a low price tag. It comes with a 2.3 GHz quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and has 2 GB RAM.

This 5 inch 1080p LCD device is packed with a 13 MP camera at the rear, a dual LED flash and a 2 MP camera in the front for video calling purposes. It has 16 GB internal memory and sadly, there is no external storage slots.

It comes with Android 4.4 out of the box and has Xiaomi MIUI on the top of Android 4.4.

Buying suggestions

If you are planning to get a daily driver with a decent hardware and software specifications, Xiaomi Mi 3 is one good device to go with.

Other alternatives in the price range can be Moto G, Sony Xperia M 2 Dual. But if you are rooting for a device that can actually perform faster and better than other similar devices, Xiaomi Mi 3 is your best shot.

Success in sight for Xiaomi?

If you didn’t know, India is the third largest smartphone market, after United States of America and China. With Samsung dominating the smartphone market in India, Android is the most widely used mobile platform.

With Xiaomi’s launch, chances are that the company might see success like Motorola which recently sold 10 lakh smartphone units in India in the past five months. On the other hand, Nokia sold a relatively smaller figure of 7 lakh smartphone units.

Huga Barra, an ex-Android engineer joined Xiaomi last year and is the International Vice President of Xiaomi. Based on reports, he claims that the company isn’t expecting profits in the near future. But, considering that Android is the Indians’ favorite smartphone OS, Xiaomi Mi 3 might really find success in this new market. Also, the other two budget smartphones Redmi 1S and Redmi Note will be going for launch in the mid August and late August respectively.

Xiaomi has also setup 20 service centers in some of the biggest cities of India. There are also 2 exclusive Xiaomi centers in New Delhi and Bangalore. A 24/7 hotline is also setup.

Are you buying one? Do let us know if you’re ordering one on Flipkart. Tell us in the comments.

Link : Xiaomi Mi 3 on Flipkart

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Nokia announces it’s first Android app – Z Launcher

From being a mobile phone manufacturer, after selling itself to Microsoft, Nokia is fast developing into a software maker now. Nokia announced it’s first Android app and is calling it Z Launcher.

The launcher learns from your using of your smartphone and suggests the top apps to you at the right time. It’s not just the apps. The launcher learns from your web browsing history too.

It keeps suggesting you apps and content to access during different time phases – morning and evening to name a few. That is, the launcher will offer different apps when you are at work during morning and different ones when you are at home during evening.

Z Launcher learns and suggests apps and other content
Z Launcher learns and suggests apps and other content

The time and calendar widgets are shown above the apps suggestion. Five static apps are shown at the bottom of the apps suggestions.

Another unique feature is Scribble. Just scribble the first letter of the app that you wish to open and all the apps with that starting letter will be shown. You can access apps quickly this way. If you wish to open Uber app, scribble ‘U’ on the screen. (Check the video below)

The launcher is in beta form right now and is available for download for a quite few interested users. A dedicated website has been setup for the launcher. Interested users can connect with their Google account, download the APK file and try this new launcher on their device.

The launcher is available only for top selling models like Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, S5 and the Nexus 5 running Android 4.1 and above. The app is not optimized for tablets.

Link: Z Launcher website | Download APK via BGR

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Facebook launches Slingshot

Facebook has officially announced the launch of Slingshot app for iPhone and Android. It was leaked accidentally a week back before Facebook took down the app soon. The app allows you to send and receive photo or video messages that self-destruct after viewing. Yes, it does look similar to Snapchat, but it comes with a different working mechanism.

In Snapchat, you can see the photo or video that your friend sent and then respond with a similar one. But with Slingshot, you will be able to see what your friend sent only when you send one back yourself. You can use your rear camera to shoot a normal photo or video or the front one for a selfie. You can enable or disable Flash too.

 

Choose your friends and Sling!
Choose your friends and Sling!

When you receive a Sling from your friend, it is Locked by default. Locked Slings are pixelated and can’t be viewed as a normal photo or video. To Unlock the Sling, shoot a Sling of your own and send to that friend to Unlock the Sling he/she sent.

This is a Locked Sling. You will be able to see only the Pixelated view.
This is a Locked Sling. You will be able to see only the Pixelated view.

Once Unlocked, you can either tap the Sling to respond with one back, or simply swipe away the Sling to discard it. Do remember that once you swipe away the Sling, the message will no longer be available for your view.

This Sling is Unlocked
This Sling is Unlocked

Slings can also be customized with a text message (limited to 140 characters). You can also draw something on your Slings before Slinging them.

There is an option to Sling to all your friends too. Simply click the Select All button while you are about to Sling your message.

Since the messages self-destruct automatically, the photos and videos that you send or receive are not stored locally on your device. But, there is an option to opt-in to save your images to your local storage – check the Settings section inside the app.

The app is made by Facebook Creative Labs, the same team that made the Facebook Paper app. Slingshot is available for free on the iTunes App Store and the Google Play store, but is limited to the United States for now. As for the Android users, the Slingshot APK is already available on the internet.

Related : How to install Facebook Paper for non-US users?

What do you think about this app? Do you think Facebook’s Slingshot will succeed over Snapchat, the company which denied Facebook’s offer of $3 billion? Do share your thoughts with us.

Link : Slingshot website | On iTunes App Store | On Google Play store | Slingshot APK

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Transfer Cash to Friends from One MobiKwik Wallet to Another

MobiKwik is one of the largest online recharge/bill payment websites available in India. It is not just a recharge website. It is more like an online prepaid wallet that you can use to make payments. BookMyShow and redBus are few partners where you can use MobiKwik wallet.

MobiKwik Logo

A recent update to the MobiKwik wallet brought a much need option – the ability to transfer virtual cash from one account to another. You can send as well as request money. This is the first time an online wallet service is offering this feature. Even Paytm, the most used Indian online wallet, doesn’t have this option.

The feature is available only on Android app for now. But, iOS and Windows Phone apps are available too. To transfer money from one account to another, follow these instructions:

  • Open MobiKwik app on your Android device.
  • Sign into your account and navigate to My Account > Transfer Money. If you do not find this option, update your MobiKwik app to the latest version on Google Play Store.
  • Now, you will find two options : Send Money or Request Money. Choose the one needed.
  • Enter the recipient’s email ID or mobile number.
Now send/request money to other MobiKwik wallets
Now send/request money to other MobiKwik wallets
  • Enter the amount and confirm the details.
  • You will be sent an OTP (One Time Password) to your registered mobile number to confirm this transaction.
  • Once you initiate the transfer, the recipient will be notified about this transaction and he/she will be sent an OTP too and asked to confirm the transaction.
Invoice of successfully completed MobiKwik transfer transaction
Invoice of successfully completed MobiKwik transfer transaction
  • Once he/she confirms the transaction at his/her end, the transaction would be completed successfully.

This is a simple and easy-to-follow feature to quickly transfer cash between friends. Are you a MobiKwik user and did you find this feature useful? Do let us know in the comments.

Links : MobiKwik website | MobiKwik Android app | MobiKwik iOS app | MobiKwik Windows Phone app

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Apple announces OS X Yosemite, works better than ever with your iPhone/iPad

Apple has yesterday announced updates for OS X and iOS at their annual developer conference – WWDC. A lot of focus was on OS X this time, and rightly so.

Last year’s Mavericks release was all about memory/battery efficiency, with iOS 7 taking center stage at the WWDC. It was OS X’s turn this time and they did what everyone expected – integrate it deeply with iOS.

Design

Though Jony Ive is touted as one of the best industrial designers of current time, most people, even fanboys, would accept that he didn’t do a great job with iOS 7 redesign.

Finder

Excessive use of Helvetica, neon colours, childish icons and more, there’s nothing perfect about iOS 7.

Now here’s the bad news: All of this is going to make it to Yosemite.

That’s pretty scary right? Turns out Apple didn’t do such a terrible job with design in Yosemite. The icons do look terrible, but as a whole it looks not too bad. Apparently, one needs to use it, to make a firm comment on design.

One of the most intriguing feature for me is dark mode. It basically turns all the context menus dark, which is a huge visual change.

Spotlight

Spotlight is one of the standout features in Yosemite. Apple basically borrowed a lot of inspiration from Alfred, a third party app launcher.

Spotlight

It’s not just a menubar app anymore. Instead it floats as a small window on top of all apps.

Apart from searching for files/apps, you can now get showtimes for Movies, locations, unit and currency conversions and more. Think Google Now.

I really wish they open it up for developers to add custom search engines. You could then search Spotify for songs etc.

Continuity

This is probably the best feature Apple has baked into OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. It’s a problem many people face and Microsoft has tried to solve it with Windows 8. They couldn’t, but Apple probably has got it right.

Calling from Mac

The idea is simple: you are composing an Email on your iPhone, turns out the Email is lengthy, you want to use your Mac. You put the iPhone to desk and start drafting the exact same Email on your Mac. Exactly where your left off.

This works with most system apps and of course developers can use it for their apps.

In addition to this, you can now make and receive calls/SMS messages right from your Mac. That’s pretty amazing. You can even start a Wifi hotspot on your iPhone, from your Mac (which isn’t connected to internet).

There’s a lot more stuff packed into this update, like redesigned system apps, mainly Safari, bringing widgets to Notification Center, MailDrive and iCloud Drive.

The update will be available this fall. For free.

For the first time, Apple has a public beta program, where you can sign up with your Apple ID and get hands on OS X Yosemite this summer. Follow this link.

Have you watched WWDC? Tell us what you think in the comments.

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Use popular mobile to-do planner AnyDO on web

One thing that AnyDo (Any.do) gets right is that it simplifies planning your day. Any.DO did something rare, which was start from Android and then move to iOS. The simply idea of creating these to-do lists was ability to allot tasks and organize them according to time sensitive folders like Today, Tomorrow, Someday etc or even type sensitive folders like Work, Home etc.

It has a nice Chrome extension that works well with Gmail tasks on the browser. But one thing missing was the option of using it on the web. A couple of days ago AnyDo has finally made a web app available.

AnyDO web app
Using Any.do through its website

The style and format of the web app for Any.Do remains more or less consistent with the mobile apps.

Personally I have always liked Any.Do for its simplicity. But that is just a first impression. It has a lot of small tweaks that can help you plan your week and day. It also has a Cal app on the phone, though that does not seem to have a web app as yet. I have used Any.Do but tended not to use it as much as I could not use it just on a website. So this new feature will probably have using it more than before.

Try out the new app at web.any.do and see for yourself.

Link: AnyDo apps

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Gmail for Android gets ‘Save to Drive’ button and other new features

Gmail for Android is now updated with a couple of new features. The app now has the much needed Save to Drive button that automatically uploads the attachments to your Google Drive. The announcement comes with +Gmail on Google+.

The Save to Drive button helps you to reduce the burden of downloading the attachment to your local storage (laptop, desktop or your smartphone) before uploading to your Google Drive account.

‘Save to Drive’ button automatically sends attachments to your Drive
‘Save to Drive’ button automatically sends attachments to your Drive

Other updates in this new version include improved readability for Right-to-Left languages like Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Faster access to side navigation menu. You will now be able to access the navigation menu whenever you want to.

On the user interface part, the mail refresh bar has received the Google Now colored refresh style. And also, the app seems faster and sleeker than earlier.

The update is being rolled out to all the users. At the time of writing this post, the update was available in the Indian Google Play store.

Google is known for integrating most of it’s native apps together. There are no reports on if Google is integrating Google Hangouts with other apps or not. As of now, Hangouts stands as a separate app.

If you didn’t know, Gmail for Android is the first Android app to reach the 1 billion unique installations ever. It reached this milestone a few days back.

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Swarm for Android and iOS is here, Brings Neighborhoods, Swarm Planning

A few weeks back Foursquare announced that the company is splitting it’s service in two – Swarm for check-ins, Foursquare for discovering new places. And now, Swarm for Android and iOS is here.

Taking a first look at Swarm, I should say that Foursquare has worked really good at keeping this app simple and more focused on what is to be done – check-ins, rather than putting everything together like in the previous Foursquare app. The Foursquare app is still the same for now. But, in the near future, Foursquare will be working on making Foursquare app more focused on discovering places and will remove check-ins option soon.

Getting back to Swarm, you get to login with Facebook, Foursquare or sign up with your email ID. Once you are in, you will be introduced to ‘Neighborhoods’ and ‘Swarm Planning’.

Neighborhoods basically displays where your friends are. Unlike Foursquare, Swarm shows the location of your friends even if they haven’t checked in at a place. It scans their location signals and beams you their location. Still, Foursquare gives you options to stop this Neighborhood feature to stop beaming your location to your friends.

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Neighbourhood shows where your friends are

The next section shows the list of your friends’ check-ins. You can favorite those check-ins or drop in comments.

And, here’s another new feature – Swarm Planning. You can Create a plan and your friends can vote I’m interested or create a discussion right there. A built-in group messaging section makes this possible. This way, you can create plans and discuss with your friends before actually executing them. Planning to go to the movies this weekend? Swarm Planning will help you work out things with your friends.

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Make plans and discuss with your friends

And the last section shows notifications to you just like notifications on the previous Foursquare app.

Talking about Mayorships and Badges, they are not available on Swarm. It looks like Foursquare will be retaining those in the Foursquare app and not port those to Swarm.

So, Swarm is an app that looks good only if have lots of friends on Foursquare. If you do not have much friends or live in remote areas, the app is useless. Swarm is all about beaming your friends’ location to you. If you are more into discovering new places, Foursquare app is the one for you.

If you haven’t downloaded Swarm yet, you can get the app at your respective app markets with the links below.

Link : Swarm on Android | Swarm for iOS

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Flipkart to sell Moto E at Rs 6999, How Motorola is playing smart

Flipkart is again the exclusive launch partner for yet another Motorola smartphone. Moto E is all set for launch on May 14 0000 hours. This time Motorola has placed the price tag really low. Moto E is available at a very cheap price of Rs 6999.

Moto E, a 4.3 inch device, is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual core Snapdragon 200 processor and a Adereno 302 GPU. It is also packed with a 5 MP camera at the back and has 4 GB internal storage. You can expand the storage till 32 GB with external storage cards.

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Also, Motorola has used the Corning Gorilla 3 glass on this latest smartphone. Also, the device has water repellent features.

Talking about the software part, the device comes out of the box with Android 4.4 KitKat. The device is a dual SIM smartphone.

Offers on Flipkart

Flipkart is offering 3 offers with the launch of Moto E.

Flat 50% offer on Transcend 8 GB memory card, flat 50% offer on Moto E cases and e-books worth Rs 1000 come prepacked with the device. You will have to download the Flipkart e-books Android app to access the e-books.

Blow at the other Indian manufacturers and sub-10000 smartphones

With the launch of Moto E, without doubt, Motorola is playing the aggressive game perfectly. It is believed that Moto E will be immensely popular among the budget smartphone buyers.

For the price tag, Moto E comes with really impressive hardware and software configurations. As for India, Android updates are pushed really slow to the users. A majority of the Android users in India are still running Gingerbread. The launch of Moto E with Android 4.4 KitKat might attract lots of Indian buyers.

Some of the other top smartphones in this price range include Lumia 520, Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2, Karbonn Titanium S5 Plus. Even Micromax’s smartphones are not priced as low as Rs 6999.

Also, Motorola is now covering all the segments of smartphone based on price – the low budget Moto E, Moto G priced a little high at Rs 12,499 and the high end Moto X at Rs 23,999.

Moto G LTE version

Also, Motorola announced a LTE version of Moto G at the London event. Moto G 4G also comes with an external SD card slot for expanding memory till 32 GB.

What’s your thought on Moto E? Do you think it will be as popular as Moto G and Moto X? Do tell us if you are buying one.

Link : Moto E on Flipkart