The learning process is subject to continuous changes due to the changing needs of users. These changes are most often accompanied by new technologies which are constantly appearing in our modern computerized society. The Internet has allowed the optimization of the learning process through supported learning platforms.
A Google executive has been killed in an accident in Cannes, France, the search company has confirmed.
According to reports, he was a member of the firm's UK team.He
was understood to have been attending the Cannes Lions event, an annual
gathering of people in the advertising and marketing industry.
In
a statement, Google said: "We lost a loved and respected member of our
team. We are deeply saddened and our thoughts are with his family and
friends."
No further details about the employee have been made public out of respect for his family.
ई-कॉमर्स कंपनियां 1 करोड़ से ज्यादा सैलरी वाले करीब 500 जॉब इस साल ऑफर कर सकती हैं। यह अनुमान आरजीएफ ऐग्जिक्युटिव सर्च, लॉन्गहाउस कंसल्टिंग और एबीसी कंसल्टेंट्स सहित पांच सर्च कंपनियों का है। कई हेड हंटिंग कंपनियों के अधिकारियों ने बताया कि फ्लिपकार्ट, ऐमजॉन, स्नैपडील, ओला, उबर, क्विकर, कॉमनफ्लोर, येपमी, ओएलएक्स, जंगली, फैशनऐंडयू, हंगामा, बुकमायशो, जबॉन्ग, क्लियरट्रिप, लेंसकार्ट सहित कई दूसरी ई-कॉमर्स कंपनियां इस साल 1 करोड़ से ज्यादा सैलरी वाले जॉब ऑफर करेंगी। इनमें फ्लिपकार्ट, ऐमजॉन और स्नैपडील सबसे ज्यादा नौकरियां देंगी।
एबीसी कंसल्टेंट्स के डायरेक्टर सिद्धार्थ रायसुराना ने कहा कि पिछले छह महीनों में एबीसी ने ई-कॉमर्स कंपनियों के लिए 100 से भी ज्यादा सीनियर लेवल सर्च किए हैं। करियरनेट की ऐग्जिक्युटिव सर्च डिविजन लॉन्गहाउस कंसल्टिंग को एक महीने में एक दर्जन से ज्यादा अधिकारियों की नियुक्ति कराने का जिम्मा मिला है। लॉन्गहाउस कंसल्टिंग के मैनेजिंग पार्टनर अंशुमान दास ने कहा, 'हमारी 70 से 80 फीसदी कमाई ई-कॉमर्स कंपनियों से होती है। उम्मीद है कि इस साल 180 से 200 अधिकारियों की नियुक्ति का जिम्मा मिलेगा, जो पिछले साल 75-85 था।'
आरजीएफ ऐग्जिक्युटिव सर्च के ऐग्जिक्युटिव डायरेक्टर जी सी जयप्रकाश ने कहा, 'लीडरशिप लेवल पर हम हर दिन कम से कम एक पोजिशन भर रहे हैं।' कंपनियां काबिल अधिकारियों को मोटी सैलरी देने से नहीं हिचक रही हैं। नाम जाहिर न करने की शर्त पर एक लीडिंग ऑनलाइन रिटेलर के एचआर हेड ने कहा, 'इन्वेस्टर्स करोड़ों डॉलर लगा रहे हैं। हम इसे इंफ्रास्ट्रक्चर पर या एंप्लॉयीज पर खर्च कर सकते हैं और हम ऐसा ही कर रहे हैं। हम कर्मचारियों पर यह पैसा लगा रहे हैं।'
एक अन्य ऑनलाइन रिटेलर कंपनी के एचआर हेड फिलहाल अपने कई सेगमेंट के लिए सीनियर अधिकारियों की तलाश कर रहे हैं। करोड़ से ज्यादा सैलरी का यह आंकड़ा कॉस्ट-टू-कंपनी (सीटीसी) है। आमतौर पर सीनियर लेवल पर सैलरी का 30 फीसदी हिस्सा स्टॉक्स और ईसॉप्स से जुड़ा होता है। ऐमजॉन इंडिया के एचआर हेड राज राघवन ने सैलरी पर कोई प्रतिक्रिया देने से इनकार करते हुए कहा, 'इस साल हायरिंग में कुल 30 से 40 फीसदी बढ़ोतरी हो सकती है। सीनियर लेवल पर भी ऐसी ही बढ़ोतरी होगी।'
स्नैपडील के एचआर वाइस प्रेजिडेंट सौरभ निगम ने कहा कि लीडरशिप पोजिशन पर हायरिंग बढ़ी है, क्योंकि कंपनी का बिजनस भी बढ़ रहा है। उन्होंने कहा, 'हमारी टीम में फिलहाल 5000 लोग हैं और हमें लीडरशिप हायरिंग बढ़ाने की जरूरत है।' इस मामले में फ्लिपकार्ट को भेजी गई ईमेल का जवाब नहीं मिला। powered by navbharattimes
hello everyone today i want to get opinion from u as comment plz comment what u think about this and if u explain in simple way plz write down..............
In less than a week, more than 800,000 Indians have sent emails to
India's telecom regulator, demanding a free and fair internet.
India’s fight for net neutrality
A battle that could decide the future of the internet in India is being fought online, between telecom users and operators.
Activists set up websites like netneutrality.in and savetheinternet.in. A video on net neutrality
by a leading comedy group went viral, in much the same way that British
comedian John Oliver's show on net neutrality changed the debate in the
US last June, and flooded the US regulator with user support for net
neutrality.
Also, some leading companies, including the media behemoth Times Group, have pulled out of Facebook's Internet.org initiative, fearing it threatens the principle of "net neutrality".
Net
neutrality means service providers should treat all traffic equally.
Users should be able to access all websites at the same speed and cost.
In India, the trigger was a 117-page paper
published by the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI), titled Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for
Over-the-top (OTT) services.
Over-the-top services include apps like Skype or WhatsApp that ride on top of telecom operators' networks.
Backlash
Users
do pay data charges to access them, but they may eat into operator
revenue, such as when users make free Skype calls instead of paying the
operator much more for a long-distance call.
The paper followed
an attempt by leading operator Airtel last December to charge extra for
internet calls. A user backlash followed, and Airtel withdrew the plan.
Activists
focused on Airtel Zero, a platform that allows customers to access
mobile applications for free, with the internet data charges being paid
by the companies owning the application.
This is called "zero rating", and operators call it toll-free data. The data charges are paid by the app vendor.
Called Arc Welder, the tool acts as a wrapper around Android apps so they can run on Windows, OSX and Linux machines.
The
software expands the places that Android apps can run and might make it
easier for developers to get code working on different machines.
But one developer said it was better to write apps that run "natively" rather than via separate software. Google has released a tool that lets Android apps run on any machine that can run its Chrome browser
Native code
Arc
- the App Runtime for Chrome - was first released in late 2014 as a way
for Android apps to run on machines running Google's Chrome operating
system. The OS is used on many netbooks and other small machines made by
Google and some of its hardware partners.
Now Google has produced
a new tool, called Arc Welder, which converts Android apps into
versions that can be used with the Chrome browser, not just the OS. With
Welder it has also added support for many Google Play services so when
apps are converted they do not lose access to payment systems, maps and
other functions they expect. In its developer documentation,
Google said the underlying technology for Arc Welder meant converted
apps should run almost as quickly as they did on a phone or tablet.
With Arc Welder Google, it is seeking a way to help developers get their
creations onto as many machines as possible, but one developer was not
sure it would accomplish that aim.
"The best way to make apps by far is to make them natively using the
tools that they give us," said Sam Furr, director and co-founder of
development studio The App Developers.
He said that moving away
from those well-known development systems can mean losing some
behaviours, such as touch combinations, that people expect. He also
wondered if a converted app running via a browser sitting in a separate
operating system would be as fast as one developed natively.
Running
a phone app on a desktop would inevitably mean losing some functions,
he said, because bigger computers lack some of the extras, such as
accelerometers and GPS receivers, that are now standard on smartphones.
Mr Furr said the ability to reach lots of different operating systems with just one app was potentially attractive.
"When
building an app you want to get it to as many people as possible but
you have to ask how long it will take to get it on other platforms," he
said.
"There's no shortage of cross-platform frameworks and some
of them are very good," he said, "but in our experience you do not get
the same end product as you would when you build it natively."
Google announces budget-priced Chromebits and Chromebooks
The range includes a new type of device called the Chromebit, which looks like an oversized memory stick, and turns monitors and TVs into computers when plugged into their HDMI ports.
The tech firm also revealed the cheapest Chromebook laptops to date, costing $149 (£101).
The move is likely to intensify competition with Microsoft.
The announcements came less than a day after Microsoft revealed plans to sell a new entry-level tablet-laptop hybrid of its own.
Its
Surface 3 costs more -$499, and £419 in the UK for the basic model -
but provides access to a wider range of software made for the Windows
platform.
"This is a booming sector of the market at the moment," commented
Chris Green, a tech analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy.
"With
the falling cost of hardware, schools are looking to families to equip
kids with their own computers - the idea of BYOD [bring your own device
to class].
"This has prompted manufacturers to create low-cost
entry-level laptops that parents then buy for their children as well as
themselves."
Google has pledged not to display ads to children
that use the education-related software it provides for its Chrome
platform, and does not charge manufactures to use its operating system.
Microsoft's Surface 3 costs more but can be used with a touchscreen pen and run Windows software
But one expert said the company still hoped to financially benefit in the long-term.
"The key goal here for both Google and Microsoft is to put their
brand and services out there in front of kids to build loyalty at a very
early age," said Ronan de Renesse, a consumer technology expert at the
Ovum consultancy.
"It's also a good way to to see whether or not
to extend these types of devices to emerging markets, where they could
be used outside education by people with very low disposable incomes."
For now, Google says the new Chromebooks and Chromebits will be limited to the US.
"We
hope to make these widely available in the future, however we have
nothing more to announce at this time," said a spokeswoman.
Stick computers
Chrome OS runs web-based software via the firm's Chrome browser and recently gained the ability to run a limited number of Android apps . The platform is designed to store most of its users' files in the cloud.
More
than five million Chromebooks and Chromebase desktops were sold across
the world last year, according to market research firm Gartner.
It forecasts that figure will grow to close to eight million units this year, and 16 million in 2018.
The Chromebits will be made by the Taiwanese manufacturer Asus.
Google said they would cost "less than $100" and go on sale before the end of the year.
The search firm has already had success with the Chromecast, a media streaming dongle with a similar form factor.
In recent months both Intel and Hannspree have launched Windows-powered "PC-on-a-sticks", albeit at a slightly higher cost.
Such
devices require their owners to provide displays, keyboards and other
peripherals, but the idea is that many people will already own them.
Great expectations
The two new laptops have already gone on sale.
The Haier Chromebook 11 is exclusive to Amazon while the Hisense Chromebook is being sold via Walmart.com.
Both
feature an 11.6in (29.5cm) screen and between 8.5 to 10 hours of
battery life, but keep their costs low by restricting themselves to 16
gigabytes of storage and 2GB of RAM.
Google also announced a
slightly higher priced model, the Asus Chromebook Flip, whose
touchscreen can be turned around. It will cost $249 when it goes on
sale.
"The [ultra low-cost] sector is still a relatively small
part of the entire PC market, but is growing fast, so is important,"
commented Mr de Renesse.
"What's key is to offer some of the
lowest prices. But that has to be balanced against the fact that the US
is a market with very high consumer expectation, even within schools."
Google has lost a Court of Appeal bid to stop consumers having the right
to sue in the UK over alleged misuse of privacy settings.
A group of users claim that Google bypassed security settings on the
Safari browser to install tracking cookies on their computers in order
to target them with advertising.
Google said it was "disappointed with the court's decision".
One of the claimants called it a "David and Goliath victory".
The
case revolves around a so-called Safari workaround, which allegedly
allowed Google to avoid the Safari web browser's default privacy setting
to place cookies, that gathered data such as surfing habits, social
class, race, ethnicity, without users' knowledge.
Safari is a
browser used on Apple computers, iPads and other devices while cookies
are small text files stored by browsers which can record information
about online activity, and help some online services work.
Google
had attempted to prevent the action, claiming there was no case to
answer because consumers had suffered no financial harm.
In its judgement, the Court of Appeal said: "These claims raise serious issues which merit a trial.
"They
concern what is alleged to have been the secret and blanket tracking
and collation of information, often of an extremely private nature…
about and associated with the claimants' internet use, and the
subsequent use of that information for about nine months. The case
relates to the anxiety and distress this intrusion upon autonomy has
caused."
Landmark case
"The
Court of Appeal has ensured Google cannot use its vast resources to
evade English justice," said Judith Vidal-Hall, one of three claimants.
"Ordinary computer users like me will now have the right to hold
this giant to account before the courts for its unacceptable, immoral
and unjust actions."
The landmark case potentially opens the door
to litigation from the millions of Britons who used Apple computers,
iPhones, iPods and iPads during the relevant period, summer 2011 to
spring 2012, said Jonathan Hawker who represents the Google Action
Group, a not-for-profit company set up to manage claims against the
internet giant for breach of privacy.
Dan Tench, a partner at law firm Olswang who is acting for the claimants, welcomed the decision.
"Google,
a company that makes billions from advertising knowledge, claims that
it was unaware that was secretly tracking Apple users for a period of
nine months and had argued that no harm was done because the matter was
trivial as consumers had not lost out financially.
"The Court
of Appeal saw these arguments for what they are: a breach of consumers'
civil rights and actionable before the English courts. We look forward
to holding Google to account for its actions."
Google has already
paid fines of over $40m related to this incident in the US. It was fined
by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and separately by 38 US states.
Regulators at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had been
investigating complaints from Google's rivals about its dominance of the
internet search industry.
An internal report obtained by the paper showed that some FTC officials had wanted to prosecute.
Instead, the regulator persuaded Google to change the way its software worked.
Google said the "exhaustive" review showed there was no harm to competitors or consumers.
The FTC began its probe of the search market in 2011 following complaints from Google's competitors.
During the investigation the regulator's officials gathered
nine million documents and obtained evidence from firms such as Yelp,
TripAdvisor and Amazon, who had accused Google of taking content from
their web pages.
The information Google gleaned was allegedly used by the firm to improve its own search ranking system.
The evidence gathered was enough to convince some FTC investigators that legal action should be taken, said the paper.
However when the regulator's investigation ended, the agency
concluded that the company had not abused its market position to hurt
rivals.
Even so, the FTC arranged a deal with the company to end some of the practices that its rivals had complained about.
The report was inadvertently sent to the Wall Street Journal when it asked for details of a separate FTC investigation.
The agency has not commented on the accidental release of the report.
In a statement Google said: "After an exhaustive 19-month
review, covering nine million pages of documents and many hours of
testimony, the FTC staff and all five commissioners agreed that there
was no need to take action on how we rank and display search results."
It added: "Speculation about potential consumer and competitor harm turned out to be entirely wrong."
Google is taking yet another approach to getting mobile payments off the
ground with Android Pay, which will give developers an API for building
mobile payment capabilities into an unlimited variety of apps. Google
aims to unify mobile payments with Android Pay, SVP Sundar Pichai said
at MWC in Barcelona. NFC, MST, EMV and other technologies all might be
compatible with the Android Pay framework
The larger 42mm (1.7in) models of the Watch will cost about $50 more
than than the 38mm (1.5in) versions in the lower-priced ranges.
Apple also revealed that the devices are due to go on sale on 24 April.
Rivals' smartwatches have only seen limited sales to date.
There had been speculation that
Apple would seek a bigger price gap between the model and the basic
aluminium-based Sport-branded version - something that would have
restricted its appeal.
"Apple's pricing demonstrates the confidence it has in the
new Apple Watch's functionality, design and consumer appeal," commented
Ian Fogg from the consultants IHS.
Apple's website lists a total of 38 models, which might pose a challenge to how it markets them.
Same specs
The US firm did not announce any difference in specifications
between the aluminium, steel and gold-cased versions - there had been
speculation that the higher-end editions might have more storage or
allow some of their parts to be upgraded at a later point.
"When there were estimates of $700 or $800 for the basic
stainless steel versions, I would have expected more than just a
difference in materials," said James Moar from Juniper Research.
Its website adds that the models take 2.5 hours to charge from 0% to 100%, and that the larger model has longer battery life.
It also reveals that a Power Reserve facility means that the
Watch should continue to show the time for "up to 72 hours" after other
functions are turned off.
The firm said on stage that thousands of new apps had already been developed for the Watch ahead of it going on sale.
The social networks Facebook and Instagram, the car pick-up
service Uber and the Chinese messaging app WeChat are among those
confirmed to have developed software for the device.
Apple touted the Watches ability to unlock compatible hotel room doors
Apple also highlighted that its wrist-worn device could be used to make touchless payments and receive phone calls.
Other functions demonstrated by Apple included:
using the Watch as a means to open a compatible hotel room lock as an alternative to a key card
checking the name of a song via the app Shazam
opening an internet-connected garage door remotely
"What was very clear is that disruption will not come
from specific features that Apple will bring to the watch, but by
enabling developers to add value through their apps," commented Franciso
Jeronimo, an analyst at IDC.
CCS Insight forecasts 20 million units will be sold by the end of
this year - representing about 7% of the compatible iPhones currently in
use.
However, other analysts range widely in their predictions,
forecasting sales as low as eight million units to as high as 60 million
in 2015.
For comparison's sake, the iPad sold 14.8 million units in the first nine months after its launch, more than double Wall Street's most optimistic estimate.
The UK, US, France, Germany, Japan, Australia and Canada are
among the first wave of countries where the smartwatches will be sold.
Samsung S6 Edge with curved screen unveiled at MWC
Samsung will sell two versions of its next flagship phone, one of which has a screen that curves round its sides.
The Galaxy S6 Edge uses the feature to provide a quick way to
stay in touch with select contacts, and to alert owners to important
information.
It will be sold for a higher price than the standard S6, which otherwise has the same specifications.
Samsung lost market share to Apple and others after the S5 sold fewer copies than its predecessor in many countries.
Metal frame:
The South Korean firm said it had set out to address past
"missteps", and had codenamed the devices "project zero" to reflect the
need for a rethink.
Changes include making the TouchWiz user interface simpler to
use by cutting the number of pop-up messages and introducing a metal
frame and glass back instead of the plastic styling of earlier models.
The redesign has, however, meant some features have had to be
jettisoned: the phones are not water-resistant, they do not have a
microSD slot for extra storage and their backs cannot be removed to
change their batteries.
"The software has been made into a much more crisp and clear experience,
the design of the product has clean lines and looks very nice, and the
marketing campaign is expected to only pinpoint three things - and
that's certainly something that had been missing from Samsung's products
for quite some time."
Coloured contacts
The three topics Samsung is focusing on are:
Revamped designs, including the premium model's curved screen
Camera upgrades
In-built support for wireless charging, with support for two rival standards
The S6 Edge uses its curves to provide a couple of services.
The first is called People Edge, which provides a quick way
to bring up calls, texts and other messages from five acquaintances of
the owner's choosing. Each person is assigned a different colour, which
the phone's edge flashes when it rings, providing a hint of the caller's
identity even if the device is face down.
The second is Information Stream, which displays the time, weather and selected notifications on the curved part.
It appears Samsung has deliberately kept the functionality
more basic than on its Galaxy Note Edge - a larger handset whose screen
curves only around one of its sides. The older phone uses the extra
space to both run apps of its its own and to add controls to other apps.
The S6 phone's front camera has been upgraded to five megapixels, while the rear one stays at 16MP.
Both gain from a wider aperture, which should improve their ability to take photos and videos in low light conditions.
Samsung has also taken steps to make the camera quicker to
use, saying it now takes less than a second to double tap the home key
and snap a shot.
The firm is claiming a "world first" by embedding support for both the PMA and WPC's Qi wireless charging standards.
The Android-powered handsets are also faster to recharge, and
should return to 50% battery strength within half an hour of being
plugged in.
Samsung said that this was half the time it would take to charge an iPhone 6.
Other improvements over the S5 include:
Increased screen resolution - now 577 pixels per inch - and the ability to go 20% brighter
A new 14 nanometre processor designed by Samsung, rather than bought from Qualcomm, that should be more energy efficient
The addition of Samsung Pay, a smart wallet service that allows
the handsets to act as a credit or debit card when tapped against a
shop's NFC chip reader or used to transmit magnetic stripe data. It will
initially be limited to the US and South Korea
Google launches Android Pay to take over where Google Wallet failed
Service will work as a mobile payment system for third-party developers,
allowing users to pay for goods and services using an Android
smartphone
Google has announced a rival mobile payment service to Samsung Pay and Apple Pay
called Android Pay. The new service will allow users to pay
contactlessly for goods and services using their Android smartphone.
Each transaction will generate a single-use “token”, which is sent to
the receiving device to secure against fraud.
Android Pay will use near-field communication
(NFC) initially, but will be able to take advantage of biometric
devices such as fingerprint scanners at a later date. Credit card data
will be stored locally so that payments can be conducted without a data
connection on the smartphone.
“We are doing it in a way so that anybody else can build a payments
service on top of Android,” said Google’s senior vice-president of
product, Sundar Pichai, at a press event at Mobile World Congress. “In places like China and Africa, we hope that people will use Android Pay to build innovative services.”
The service is being pitched to developers to build directly into
their apps. Users will be able to pay for goods in bricks-and-mortar
stores, but Android
Pay will not exist as a standalone app, like Apple Pay on an iPhone.
Instead, it will be used by third-party apps to create payment products
such as store- or payment provider-specific apps, acting as a payment
source as well as a credit card replacement.
Google Wallet will continue to exist, but will integrate Android Pay
as a payment source. Pichai also said that Google will look to work
alongside Samsung Pay, but that the Korean company is working to
different timescales. No timeframe for its launch was given, but more is
expected from Google’s developer conference in June.
Despite being available on Android smartphones since 2011, Google Wallet has failed to spread beyond limited use
in the US. Mobile phone operators have also tried to leverage their
billing systems as a way to pay for goods and services using a
smartphone.
It was Apple’s entry into the payments space last year that ignited a
new race from technology companies to capture a slice of the
potentially lucrative market.
Samsung launched four new smartphones for the Indian market on
Monday: the Galaxy Grand Prime 4G, Galaxy Core Prime 4G, the J1 4G and
the new Galaxy A7 which is part of the Series of full-metal body
smartphones.
The smartphones were on display at the Samsung Forum 2015 in Bangkok
and we got a chance to spend sometime with each of these phones. The
Galaxy A7 is the device that has already been launched in India, with a
price of Rs 30,499, while the other three will launch in mid-March.
Samsung is expected to announce the price of Grand Prime 4G and Core
Prime 4G phones at the time of the launch, while the J1 4G will cost Rs
9,990 in India.
The Galaxy A7 which is the most expensive smartphone of the A series
is part of Samsung’s new series which are sleek in design, sport a
full-metal body and aimed at the mid/high budget segment user. Here’s
our first impression of the smartphone.
Design, Screen: The USP of this smartphone is the
slim design (it’s only 6.8mm thick) and comes in a full metal unibody
design. Personally, this is one of the best-looking phablets from
Samsung I’ve seen. The screen is 5.5-inch full HD Super AMOLED which
means its big enough to watch videos and movies and the resolution is
quite sharp. While a big screen is not my personal preference, for those
who want a phablet that doesn’t look too tacky and is available for
under Rs 40k, this is a worthy option to consider.
It’s a slim phone aimed at the chic crowd, the one that Samsung hopes
will go for its phones because they might find the iPhone over-priced.
Thankfully Samsung kept the back cover design simple and did not add any
faux leather look, which looked tacky on older phones.
Storage, Processor, RAM, Connectivity: Samsung’s
smartphone comes with 16 GB total storage space, 2GB RAM and a Qualcomm
Snapdragon 615 Octa-core processor which includes two quad-core A53
chips clocked at 1.5 and 1 GHz respectively.
Users can expand the space on the phone to 64 GB via a microSD. Of
course, for users who want more space this won’t seem like a great
option given that other phones on the market offer more space for a
lower price. Examples include OnePlus One (which comes with 64GB and is
priced at Rs 21,999) and the Xiaomi Mi 4 which has launched a 64 GB version of smartphone in India for Rs 23,999.
The phone supports Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, WiFi. There appear to be two
versions of the Galaxy A7 , one which is an LTE Cat 4 and an HSPA+
version. It’s not clear if the A7 will support 4G in India, given that
Samsung did not specify which bands the India version of smartphone
supports. If this isn’t a 4G phone for India users, this would appear to
be quite an expensive buy, especially if 4G as an option is available
in your city.
Camera, OS: The Galaxy A7 has a 13 megapixel rear
camera and a 5 megapixel front camera with a wide-angle for
group-selfies. It’s also got the usual-modes that Samsung tends to add
on its smartphone camera, which also includes a Beauty-face mode.
While there was no lag on the camera and it was fairly easy to switch
modes, I wasn’t too impressed by the beauty face mode. The skin tends
to look rather plasticky and a flawless that borders on the unnatural,
which isn’t something I favour. Of course, if you want selfies with
perfect skin and a really good-looking smartphone to flash while you’re
taking them, then the A7 is a phone for you to consider.
The Galaxy A7 runs Android 4.4.4 which is dated now specially considering the Galaxy S4 has already got the Android 5.0 Lollipopupdate
(and also a price drop to Rs 17,499). The A7 might be a new phone but
the old OS is a disappointment and once again highlights the problems of
the fragmented Android universe.
Cost elimination on data usage: GOOGLE to launch "zero rating " system
Once you get a smartphone, the biggest concern
remains the data usage. If you have a sufficient data plan you will
download more and more
apps, if not you will hesitate to do.
What if someone is paying for your data plans so that you
can access, download and update all the apps you want? Yes, Google, according
to some reports, is looking for capitalisation of data. Google has started discussing the idea called
'zero rating' with some app developers about reduction, and possible cost
elimination of data.
In India, Google is reportedly planning the same with
biggies like Redbus, Flipkart, Ola cabs and others.
Under zero rating- mobile network operators do not charge
end customers for a pre-specified data volume for specific applications or
internet services, via the operator's wireless network in metered data plans
and tariffs.
A study from Mckinsey and International Labor Organization,
involving some 8,000 smartphone owners, has revealed that expensive data is one
of the biggest reasons why people hesitate in downloading or using apps on
their phones. As per the survey, over 25 percent people from India, Thailand,
Egypt, Indonesia and Philippines experience this problem.
Reportedly, Google may be looking to capitalisation of data
costs. People actually use their smartphones looking for lucrative apps and
everything, but downloading the same is a headache with current plans.
भारत ने पाकिस्तान को जीत के लिए 301 रन का लक्ष्य दिया. भारत का स्कोर 300-7
Saturday, 14 February 2015
Android was born out of the spirit of the Android operating system—A
Language that lets anyone make, build, offer or buy all sorts of
things,
but in a way that helps all those things work together. Even the Android
mascot is open source. So go ahead and share … use Android to turn the
little
green mascot into your own creation.
Besides enabling communication with the cloud, Android's wireless APIs also
enable communication with other devices on the same local network, and even
devices which are not on a network, but are physically nearby. The addition of
Network Service Discovery (NSD) takes this further by allowing an application to
seek out a nearby device running services with which it can communicate.
Integrating this functionality into your application helps you provide a wide range
of features, such as playing games with users in the same room, pulling
images from a networked NSD-enabled webcam, or remotely logging into
other machines on the same network.
This class describes the key APIs for finding and
connecting to other devices from your application. Specifically, it
describes the NSD API for discovering available services and the Wi-Fi
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) API for doing peer-to-peer wireless connections. This class also
shows you how to use NSD and Wi-Fi P2P in
combination to detect the services offered by a device and connect to the
device when neither device is connected to a network.
The Android Extension Pack has ASTC as a standard format, removing the need to have different formats for different devices.
In addition to being supported on modern hardware, ASTC also offers
improved quality over other GPU formats by having full alpha support and
better quality preservation.
ASTC is a block based texture compression algorithm developed by ARM.
It offers multiple block footprints and bitrate options to lower the
size of the final texture. The higher the block footprint, the smaller
the final file but possibly more quality loss.
Note that some images compress better than others. Images with
similar neighboring pixels tend to have better quality compared to
images with vastly different neighboring pixels.
Android operating system is a stack of software components which is
roughly divided into five sections and four main layers as shown below
in the architecture diagram.
Application components are the essential building blocks of an Android application. These components are loosely coupled by the application manifest file AndroidManifest.xml that describes each component of the application and how they interact.
There are following four main components that can be used within an Android application:
1. Activities
An activity represents a single screen with a user interface. For example, an email application might have one activity that shows a list of new emails, another activity to compose an email, and another activity for reading emails. If an application has more than one activity, then one of them should be marked as the activity that is presented when the application is launched.
2.Services
A service is a component that runs in the background to perform long-running operations. For example, a service might play music in the background while the user is in a different application, or it might fetch data over the network without blocking user interaction with an activity.
3.Broadcast Receivers
Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications or from the system. For example, applications can also initiate broadcasts to let other applications know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use, so this is broadcast receiver who will intercept this communication and will initiate appropriate action.
4.Content Providers
A content provider component supplies data from one application to others on request. Such requests are handled by the methods of the ContentResolver class. The data may be stored in the file system, the database or somewhere else entirely.
Android operating system is a stack of software components which is roughly divided into five sections and four main layers.
Linux kernel
At the bottom of the layers is Linux. This provides basic system functionality like process management, memory management, device management like camera, keypad, display etc. Also, the kernel handles all the things that Linux is really good at such as networking and a vast array of device drivers, which take the pain out of interfacing to peripheral hardware.
Libraries
On top of Linux kernel there is a set of libraries including open-source Web browser engine WebKit, well known library libc, SQLite database which is a useful repository for storage and sharing of application data, libraries to play and record audio and video, SSL libraries responsible for Internet security etc.
Android Runtime
This is the third section of the architecture and available on the second layer from the bottom. This section provides a key component called Dalvik Virtual Machine which is a kind of Java Virtual Machine specially designed and optimized for Android. The Dalvik VM makes use of Linux core features like memory management and multi-threading, which is intrinsic in the Java language. The Dalvik VM enables every Android application to run in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine.
Application Framework
The Application Framework layer provides many higher-level services to applications in the form of Java classes. Application developers are allowed to make use of these services in their applications.
Applications
You will find all the Android application at the top layer. You will write your application to be installed on this layer only. Examples of such applications are Contacts Books, Browser, Games etc
