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News

Moto X selling on Flipkart at Rs 23,999

It’s official. Just like Motorola hinted, Moto X has come to India. Flipkart is the launch partner of Moto X and has begin selling the device: five colored and two wood variants of Moto X.

The five colors are Black, White, Royal Blue, Turquoise and Cherry. The two wood variants are Walnut and Teak. The plastic variants are priced at Rs 23,999 and the wood variants at Rs 25,999.

The Black and White pieces are available in stock right now, while the wood variants will be on pre-order and be delivered in the second week of April.

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Moto Maker and Moto Skip, the wearable device to easily unlock your Moto X without punching your pin/password every time, will not be available in India for now.

Flipkart will be selling only the 16 GB version of Moto X for now. The device is a single SIM variant.

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They will also be offering cash on delivery (COD) and In-a-day guarantee irrespective of the payment option.

Similar to Moto G launch, Flipkart is bringing many interesting launch day offers. The three launch day offers are :

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  • Rs 1000 cashback on purchase using the 6 months EMI option.
  • Flat 70% offer on Moto X cases.
  • 10 lucky winners get 100% cashback. Just like Moto G launch, the cashback will be provided in the Flipkart Wallet.

These offers will be applicable for orders placed today only.

Will Moto X launch in India be successful?

Moto X has a display of 4.7 inch. It is powered by a 1.7 GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Adreno 320 GPU and 2 GB RAM. It comes with a 10 MP camera at the rear and a 2 MP camera at the front.

It will run Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box and that’s one of the selling points.

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Motorola has kept the Stock UI for most part, adding a few exclusive features like ActiveDisplay, Touch Less control and Quick Capture Camera.

First, the device is too late to the Indian market. It was announced in August, 2013 in the United States.

Next, looking at the price tag, the Nexus 5 from Google costs an additional Rs 6000, but comes with better hardware. Also, Nexus devices promise latest software updates.

Nexus 4 can be a good choice too at this price.

Looking at the bright side, Google cut the price tag from the announced $550 to $399 in the United States in January, 2014. It was done to have a bigger impact at the markets outside the United States. Priced low in India, it could actually have a good impact despite the late arrival to the India markets.

Are you buying one today on Flipkart? Do tell us if you win the freebies.

Link: Moto X on Flipkart

Categories
News

Rdio buys Indian Music startup Dhingana, will launch later this year

Here’s some exciting news for Music addicts in India. Dhingana, a popular Indian Music streaming service which was shut down this month, is bought by Rdio.

If you didn’t know, Rdio is one of the best Music streaming services, not yet available in India though.

So here’s the big news: Rdio is coming to India.

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If you’re in India and want to use Rdio, you should stick to a VPN like Hola Unblocker and even then you won’t be able to get it to work on Mobile.

Apparently, if Rdio comes to India, we’ll be able to use it without having to trick anything. Expect ad-supported free Music streaming and premium plans on other side.

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Rdio currently charges 9.99$/MO for its Unlimited subscription – Web and Mobile access. For Web-only subscription, it’s 4.99$/MO.

I’m pretty sure these plans won’t work in India. Remember Flipkart’s Flyte? That’ll repeat again. Only difference is that, Rdio being a huge player in music streaming industry, will be fine even with losses.

I currently subscribe to Spotify using Entropay. That might change, if Rdio comes to India, and lower the prices a bit. There’s neck-to-neck competition between both of these services.

There’s no ETA given yet on release of Rdio/Dhingana in India.

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Reviews

Fiverr launches native app for Android devices

Fiverr for Android is now available. You can grab it from the Google Play store.

If you didn’t know, Fiverr is a platform for people to buy/sell micro jobs. You can hire people who are willing to do something for $5. Also, you can sell your own services for $5.

Fiverr has been available on the iOS platform since last December. It is the first time it has come to the Android world.

Based on first impressions, the app is beautifully coded. It has a menu section in the left side and there, you’ll find your Inbox, Collections, Sales, Shopping and Notifications.

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The app offers options to quickly purchase your favorite Gigs and also notifies you whenever a buyer contacts you or when there is an update to your sale.

It comes with a search box too, to help you find the Gig that you need among the millions that are available.

Sadly, there isn’t an option to create your Gigs. For creating Gigs, you’ll have to visit the Fiverr website on your mobile or desktop browser.

Link: Fiverr for Android

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News

Paytm for Android gets a new user interface, Bargain Chat

A new version of Paytm for Android is now available on Google Play. It brings a completely new user interface and Paytm’s Bargain Chat. Earlier, you could only make recharges for mobile phones, DTH, data cards, pay postpaid, landline and gas bills. Now, you can shop dresses, footwear, furniture and more.

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Bargain Chat aims at remodeling the way buyers and sellers interact. It first came with it the iOS version of Paytm. It allows the buyers to bargain with the sellers before purchasing products using Paytm app. When the seller agrees to your bargain, he/she will give you a Bargain Code. You can apply this code during checkout to get the discount that you asked for.

The Bargain Chat button is available in every product page, at the bottom left. Once you click it, it’ll connect you with the seller and you can bargain with the seller through text messages.

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Some of the popular sellers include Yebhi, Yepme and Ferns N Petal.

There are many categories like Men, Women, Sports and fitness, Home decor. Holi special is a special category that will be available for a limited time now.

The best thing about this update is that, you can use your Paytm cash not only to recharge, but also to make payments for shopping. In the near future, you will be able to use the Paytm cash for paying your education fees too.

You can continue to choose Paytm coupons in this new version. There is an option to enter promo codes too.

Link: Paytm for Android

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News

WordCamp Mumbai 2014 on 15th – 16th March

Last month I wrote about the WordCamp culture in India. In it I mentioned briefly about WordCamp Mumbai. WordCamps are basically WordPress informal conferences. The idea is for WordPress enthusiasts from a particular city meet-up and interact with the other WordPress enthusiasts and experts from all over the country. It is ideally an annual event.

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Mumbai will host it’s second WordCamp (first one was in 2012) this weekend (15-16 March, 2014). I have attended a few WordCamps and they usually end up being informative and a lot of fun. It is always a lot of fun to see interesting new ways WordPress is used.

I am personally involved in WordCamp Mumbai 2014 as an organizer. For DW’s parent company rtCamp too, this WordCamp will be a very special one as EasyEngine – a CLI tool that helps users to easily manage their WordPress sites on Nginx will be introduced to the community. Rahul Bansal will be speaking on it in a session.

You can check out the event schedule here.

So if you live in Mumbai or nearby and want to check out WordCamp Mumbai – do register and buy a ticket online here.

Important Links for WordCamp Mumbai 2014

Categories
News

Nokia X to be available in India at Rs 8,500 from March 15

Two weeks back Nokia announced the Nokia X family at the Mobile World Congress 2014 held at Barcelona. The Nokia X family consists of Nokia X, X+ and XL.

Immediately after launch, Nokia X was available in the US markets. The device is already listed in The Mobile Store. The device price is not available right now, but the page title says that the price is Rs 8,500. Also, it is said that the delivery will start from March 15.

Nokia X runs Android and is priced at 89 Euros. It has a 4 inch display with resolution 854 x 480, and is powered by a 1 GHz dual core Snapdragon 200 processor. It has a 3 MP camera at the back and comes with Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box. It does not come with Google services. Instead Microsoft’s and Nokia’s services are bundled in it. You will find Bing, Nokia app store, Outlook and more in it.

Outlook and Bing are already available for every Android device. Why would anyone move to Nokia X and risk losing Google services? Basically, not having Google apps doesn’t give pure Android experience.

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On a happy note, Nokia does give you an option to sideload Android APK files. But, you cannot be sure that all the Android apps will work with Nokia X. Nokia has requested developers to add a few extra lines of code to make their apps working on the Nokia X.

Also, there is now an option to root Nokia X and bring Google services, including Google Play. Thanks to Kashamalaga, an Android developer.

Before rooting the Nokia X, you should remember that rooting the device removes Microsoft and Nokia services. In turn, this voids the device’s warranty.

Categories
News

Download official Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone now

Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone is now available. There may be many apps in the Windows market that mimick the Facebook Messenger, but this is the official app by Facebook.

Facebook Messenger allows you to connect easily with your Facebook friends. You can send messages, share multimedia files, location and more. Similar to the Android and iOS versions, Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone comes with Facebook stickers. But it misses voice messaging and Chat Heads options. These features should be coming in the near future.

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It needs Windows 8 to run. It comes with the traditional Windows Phone style user interface.

Facebook has now killed off the Facebook Messenger app for Windows desktop and Firefox browser. Rumors about Facebook Messenger for Mac OS X may not be true considering Facebook is dropping support for desktop messaging.

Link: Download Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone

Categories
News

Apple fixes Critical Security flaw in Macs with OS X 10.9.2

Last month, Apple has released a small update to iOS, patching a security vulnerability. Just like how Mac and iOS share a lot of things, it turns out they share this vulnerability too.

The bug is now patched in OS X too. Along with the bug fix, 10.9.2 brings FaceTime Audio to Mac and more.

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If you got a Mac running Mavericks, update to 10.9.2 right now. Why is it so serious? Read on.

The bug lies in SSL protocol implementation on iOS and Mac devices. It lets an attacker to track and modify data exchanged in sessions protected by SSL.

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So let’s say you’re connected to a public Wi-Fi hotspot and are doing a bank transaction (HTTPS) – an attacker can use a network analyser (like Wireshark) and decode packets of data that are being transmitted. This is a huge flaw.

It seems, the bug is a result of single bad ‘goto’ line. Check out this Wired article for in depth analysis on this silly bug.

Bug fix aside, OS X 10.9.2 finally brings FaceTime Audio for Mac. Ideally, FaceTime Audio should have been included in Mavericks itself, but it didn’t. iMessage app now has a ‘blocked’ list allowing you to block messages from people.

You can check the full list of change log on Apple’s website.

Categories
Tips

How to pay for your friends’ WhatsApp subscription

WhatsApp now has a new feature with which you can buy subscription packages for your friends. I’m not quite sure whether this is a new feature or it has been seen ages.

I’m using an unreleased WhatsApp APK that I pulled off from the WhatsApp website to hide my Last Seen, status and profile photo. And, this APK has this feature.

If the users find these features useful, these features should appear in the markets soon.

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Pay for a friend on WhatsApp

Getting back to the topic, purchasing a WhatsApp subscription package for your friends is easy. You can purchase for any contact that you have on your WhatsApp contacts list. You cannot purchase the subscription package for more than one friend at once.

Is this feature useful?

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This feature should be useful for those who do not have a credit card that works with Google Wallet or PayPal. You can also use this to gift subscription packages to your dear ones on their special days.

If you plan on changing your number, you can take your account information along with that.

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How to purchase for your friends?

  1. Go to More > Settings > Contacts > Pay for a friend in the app.
  2. Choose a friend and make payment for 1, 3 or 5 years package using Google Wallet, PayPal or the payment URL.
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Purchase screen on WhatsApp

Once the payment is made, your friend will be notified about this. Note that if your friend is using Android, BlackBerry or BlackBerry 10, he’ll see the updated expiry date immediately. If your friend is using iPhone, Nokia or Windows phone, he’ll have to restart the device to see the new expiry date.

If you are unable to purchase for your friend at some time, you may try again after some time. Or maybe purchasing for that friend isn’t available at that time.

Related : Facebook buys WhatsApp for $16 billion

If you wish to get this feature immediately, instead of waiting for official market rollout, you can download the new APK in the WhatsApp website.

Categories
News

After Moto G success, Moto X is coming to India in few weeks

Motorola has announced that it is bringing the Moto X to India in the next few weeks. It will be available in Australia too. The announcement comes from the official tweet from Motorola.

At this moment, Moto X has been available only in the US, UK, Germany and Mexico and Latin America.

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Similar to Moto G, it is expected that Motorola will be selling the Moto X only on Flipkart. This strategy has worked well for Motorola, except that the demand for the low cost Moto G was huge in India that it went out of stock every now and then.

The price tag is unknown, but it should cost more than Moto G.

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The launch in India will not come with Moto Maker. The Moto Maker is available only the US for now. It allows the buyers to customize the Moto X to their needs. They can choose the front and back panel colors, camera rim and more. Over 2000 combinations are possible, says Motorola. Once designed, the Moto X will be delivered straight to their doors.

About Moto X

The Moto X comes with a 1.7 GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB RAM, 4.7 inch 720p HD AMOLED display, 10MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and has 16GB/32GB internal storage. It comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box. But, a promised Android KitKat update is available.

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Moto X comes with PixelClear technology and has Active Display. Active Display displays your notifications in a brilliant way that the screen doesn’t light up. Only the notifications are shown with a black screen covering the rest of the area. If you wish to get this feature on your Android, you should try ActiveNotifications.

Moto X is well known for its brilliant voice recognizing feature. The device hears you all the time. You can give voice commands even when the device display is turned off and it will respond you.

Motorola’s next plans

Motorola has announced that the Moto Maker will be available to Western Europe and Mexico in the next few months. And, if Moto X finds success in India, Moto Maker may be available in India too.

Based on reports, Motorola is developing a Moto X2, the next generation of Moto X. It is believed to go official in the late summer of 2014.

Also, Motorola is making its first smart watch. It is said that Motorola is keeping the smart watch high on style and design. It will be available later in this year.