Google is testing new Dashboard tab at the bottom to show all important emails, events and photographs in one section.

Google is testing new Dashboard tab at the bottom to show all important emails, events and photographs in one section.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Google Now is also testing an Explore Interest feature
• The new tab will show important emails and events
• Dashboard collects data from other Google services

As the launch of Google Assistant nears, it seems as that the search giant is adding many new functionalities to Google Now. A few days ago, Google was reportedly testing a new feature called 'Explore Interests' in Google Now to get regular updates on selected categories and key interests. Now, the tech giant is testing new Dashboard tab at the bottom to show all important emails, events and photographs in one section.

Specifically, the new Dashboard Tab will open a new page where all information from various Google apps and services will be collated and kept for the user to browse. This could mean important emails that need your attention, special photos from Google Assistant, reminders, to-do lists, and important events from calendars. For now, this tab only appears for select users with the Google Now Launcher that was leaked last week. The leak gave away this new feature which was supposed to still be in its testing phase. There are no clear details on what the Dashboard tab will feature and how it will work.

There is also no official word on when (and if) Google plans to release this feature commercially. There is also noise that the new Launcher will only be exclusive to Nexus devices, and won't be seen on other devices. To the few users who do have it for now, have reported bugs and claim that the tab doesn't function properly. But mind you it's just in its testing phase and Google doesn't want you to use it currently anyway. The tab appears at the bottom with the option to return back to the homepage. Google is anticipated to release Android 7.0 Nougat soon, where more clarity on the matter will be obtained.

Source gadgets.ndtv.

Samsung announced that the IconX, Gear Fit 2, and New Gear VR will be available in India.

Samsung announced that the IconX, Gear Fit 2, and New Gear VR will be available in India.

HIGHLIGHTS

• New Gear VR will be available from September at Rs. 7,290
• IconX will be available from August-end at Rs. 13,490
• Gear Fit 2 will be available from August-end at Rs. 13,990

At its New Delhi event on Thursday, Samsung announced that the Galaxy Note 7 will be available in India at Rs. 59,990 from September 2 . However, the company also launched its wearables including the new Gear VR headset, the IconX wireless earphones, and Gear Fit 2 fitness tracker for India at the same event.

Samsung launched its new Gear VR alongside Note 7's global launch earlier this month and the new virtual reality headset has a dedicated home button and also provides up to 101-degree field of view.

The new Gear VR comes with USB Type-C and Micro USB ports, and sports an accelerometer, gyro meter, and proximity sensors. The headset will be available for Rs. 7,290 when it goes on sale from the first week of September. The new Gear VR headset is compatible with the Galaxy Note 7, Galaxy S7,Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, and Galaxy S6 Edge+. Launched in a Blue Black colour variant, it weighs 345 grams, and measures 207.8x122.5x98.6mm.

IconX, the wireless earbuds by the South Korean company, were also launched for India at the Thursday event and can track fitness details and also provide users with feedback on their running performance. The new Gear IconX comes in three different sizes of ear tips and wingtips. The IconX wireless earphones have been priced at Rs. 13,490, and will be available from the end of August in India.

The Samsung Gear Fit 2 comes with several improvements over its predecessor and now features an embedded GPS sensor as well as a heart rate monitor. The new fitnes band from Samsung also comes with auto activity tracking feature which effectively means that users will not have to manually activate the sports band. The band is capable of tracking various movements like running, walking, cycling, or even using rowing machine or elliptical trainer. Gear Fit 2 has been priced at Rs. 13,990 and will also be available from the end of August in India.

Source gadgets.ndtv

Trai said it will bring out a consultation paper on Net Neutrality by the end of the month.

Trai said it will bring out a consultation paper on Net Neutrality by the end of the month.

Image Source gadgets.ndtv

Telecom regulator Trai Wednesday said it will bring out a consultation paper on Net Neutrality, and separately also firm-up its views on the issue of Free Data by the end of the month.

"For net neutrality, the pre-consultation has happened and we are now in the process of firming-up the final consultation paper, hopefully by the end of this month," Trai Chairman, R S Sharma said on the sidelines of a conference.

He further said the regulator will take a view on Free Data in a similar timeframe. "By month-end, we will be able to take a call... I can't say what will be the outcome of that.

Every consultation paper does not have to result into regulation or tariff order but whatever the conclusion, we will be able to make it, by the month-end," he said.

The two issues, Free Data and Net Neutrality, will be handled separately. "These two will be different, certainly. Because in the Free Data paper, we have said that whatever architecture is brought out that should respect the principles of Net Neutrality," he said.

In Free Data, the regulator is exploring models to give consumers free Internet service within the Net Neutrality framework, after barring platforms like Facebook's Free Basics and Airtel Zero under its differential pricing rule.

It sought public views on whether there is a need to have TSP-agnostic platform to provide free data or suitable reimbursement to users, without violating the principles of its differential pricing for data rules.

In May this year, Trai, through a pre-consultation round, sought public views on aspects of Net Neutrality that need be considered for a discussion framework.

There has been a conflict between telecom operators, Internet companies and consumers interest on the issue of net neutrality.

While all the three major stakeholders - telecom operators, Internet companies and consumers - favour net neutrality, they define it differently from their standpoint.

The debate on net neutrality picked up in India when telecom operator Bharti Airtel in December 2014decided to charge extra for making Internet calls. But, the company rolled back its plan after public protest.

It then launched Airtel Zero platform which provided fee access to websites under it, while websites were required pay for being on it.

Later, Facebook also came up with a zero rating platform 'Free Basics' which provided free access to some websites available on its platform for Reliance Communications customers in India. Both these platforms were seen as violation to net neutrality and later Trai issued a regulation which barred zero rating platform.

Source gadgets.ndtv

how The design of the Opera Mini browser looked and performed

how The design of the Opera Mini browser looked and performed

Opera Mini Review

Opera Mini is back with a new update that brings some useful new features to the mobile browser. If you haven't heard of Opera Mini before, it is a mobile browser that is popular for its data saving features and customisations. Opera Mini is available on iOS and Android as a free application.

Design
The design of the Opera Mini browser is clean and smooth, and it feels lighter than the other browsers. We were using Opera Mini alongside UC browser, which is one of the most popular mobile browsers onAndroid, and felt that Opera Mini has a less cluttered interface, though UC browser has more tools.

We tried opening quite few tabs to see how the interface looked and performed and the tabs don't look cluttered while multi-tasking. The main interface is quite intuitive. You can also view pages in night mode to avoid eye strain, or select themes to dress up your browser.

Features
On the iPhone, there are three modes for the Opera browser - Opera Mini, Opera Turbo, and Off Mode. Opera Mini maximises the speed and data savings when you are on a slow connection, giving you many different settings to choose from to maximise data savings. If high resolution pictures are eating up your data, you can decide whether you want to see them in a lesser resolution. Simply go to the browser's advanced settings and select the image resolution - low, medium or high, or you can even choose not to load images. This is great when you are on a slow connection.

On Android, you can switch on the Extreme mode. This mode, like the Turbo mode, boosts data savings and speed on poor networks. Some heavy pages don't work seamlessly on this mode. The video boost and the images feature on Android work the same way as on iOS. You can always switch the mode off if you want to continue browsing without data saving functions.

Turbo mode also gives you speed and data savings by letting you block ads, or play videos faster using the video boost feature. Once, you turn the video boost on, it will compress the resolution of the video, so that you will have less buffering on slow connections. We logged on to a couple of websites that usually bombards us with ads, and we saw the difference. Videos also played faster than the other browsers, but Facebook took a little longer to load on Opera, when compared to Chrome.

The third mode is the "off" mode where you can disable all data savings. When you are in a fast data connection, this works well. This is ideal for when you're at home or in office and are connected to a Wi-Fi network, and want to load pages with all the visual elements in place.

One thing we liked was the customisation possible in the browser. For one thing, you can change the language of the browser UI into your language - English, Tamil, Afrikaans, Hebrew, etc. There is a speed dial feature where you can add websites to the main page, making it easier to get to your favourite sites.

Opera Mini also has a news feed that has news on global affairs, entertainment, sports, food, business, arts, and more. You can customise this according to your tastes as well. The news feed works fine when you want a quick glance at what is going on around you. You get your content from all sorts of publications depending on what country you are from. There is also region specific content, so you'll find stories from India in Hindi, for example. Of course, if you're more interested in, say, a global perspective on technology, that's available too.

Verdict
Between Opera Mini or UC browser, it is about whether you are a minimalist or you like to have a lot of features. For data savings, Opera Mini has an edge over UC browser. It's faster and consumes less data. It also has a lot of customisation options which is great. For a country like India where you end up browsing in slower connections, Opera Mini is a good option.

Source gadgets.ndtv

How Users get free access for 3 months, maybe longer if the launch is delayed

How Users get free access for 3 months, maybe longer if the launch is delayed

How to Get a Reliance Jio SIM for Free

HIGHLIGHTS

• Reliance Jio is still offering free SIMs to 'test' its network
• Commercial launch is a few months away, says Mukesh Ambani
• Users get free access for 3 months, maybe longer if the launch is delayed

Reliance Jio is still not at the point of a commercial rollout, so it's too early to say what the actual user experience will be like on the network. Even the actual pricing has to be announced - as of now, not much is clear really about the network. But you can sign up for Jio and enjoy high-speed connectivity without paying a paisa, and free hai to acha hai, right?

The actual rollout of Jio will no doubt affect speeds, network availability, and could lead to call drops as well - while other networks, which stand to lose customers in the process, might actually see some improvement in their services. That's all hypothetical though - but for now, we are really enjoying using our Jio account, and would recommend that you try and get one too.

There are a few different ways in which you can get a Jio SIM. The network works on 4G, and uses VoLTE for calls, but the latter is not available on old phones. There is an app called JioJoin that Reliance offers which works around this through VoIP calling, in case your phone doesn't support VoLTE, so it isn't a very big problem. If you have a 4G compatible phone, you can get started with Jio, here's what you need to do to get a Reliance Jio sim:

1) Make friends with someone working for Reliance
The easiest way to get a Jio SIM is to know someone who works with Reliance. The company allows employees to refer a certain number of people to get Jio SIMs that can be used in your phone. Most Reliance employees are probably used to getting friend requests on Facebook from people that just want a SIM, so you might want to try one of the other methods instead.

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2) Buy a Lyf phone
Reliance Retail's Lyf range of phones hasn't been getting the most spectacular reviews, but it's the easiest way to get a new Reliance Jio connection right now. Just walk into a Reliance Digital Store, ask for a new Lyf phone, and you're live on Reliance Jio. You can get a phone for around Rs. 3,000, and you'll get three months of free, unlimited Internet access and calling along with it.

We can inform you that buying a phone like this, turning on the Wi-Fi hotspot, and using 4G to power your entire home's Internet access, works just fine, and the speed and reliability (at the moment) is better than most broadband connections at home.

This gives you free, unlimited data, calling, and access to all of Jio's apps for three months, or until the commercial launch of Reliance Jio, whichever is later. But if you don't want to carry around an extra handset everywhere you go, there are more options.

3) Get a high-end Samsung phone
If Lyf is Jio's bottom up approach to getting people to try out the network, then it's Samsung offer is the top-down method. If you've got one of the following (relatively recent/ better) Samsung phones, then you just need to download the MyJio app, and tap on "Get Jio SIM". Here are the eligible phones.

Samsung Galaxy A5 2015, Galaxy A7 2015, Galaxy A8, Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy Note 5 Duos, Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, Galaxy S7, and the Galaxy S7 Edge. There is also talk of the offer being extended to iPhones in the near future but this has not been announced yet.

Once that's done, you will get a bar code that you need to take to a Reliance Digital where you have to show your phone and you'll get a SIM. Remember to carry a photograph for the form, and your photo ID, and the staff will do the rest. Quick tip: in our experience - and what many other people online are also telling us - the Reliance Digital Xpress Mini Stores are much more efficient about this process than the larger Reliance Digital stores.

This method was earlier working on all 4G phones, but the company seems to be plugging the gaps now - however, the SIM you get can still be used on other phones. The SIM, and usage, are both free for now even using this method.

4) Switch to HP
Jio is also keen to go after users at home, taking on broadband providers and not just other phone networks. For HP customers, Jio is offering three months of free 4G data, although you have to pay Rs. 2,899 for the wireless compact router. That still works out to less than Rs. 1,000 a month for free, unlimited, fast data, so it's a pretty good deal considering that unfair FUPs are the norm on all other networks.

The JioFi is a small Mi-Fi device that can create a Wi-Fi zone that up to 31 devices can connect to simultaneously; great for taking your phone, laptop, and tablet online all at once. It takes three hours to charge, and can be used to broadcast a signal for six hours on battery, so you can use it at home or on the go.

Once again, the offer comes with free and unlimited access for three months, and like all the other methods, you also get access to Jio apps for live television, video on demand, movies, and more. All you need to do is register for the offer on this site, then print out your referral code. Take that to Reliance Digital, or Digital Xpress Mini, along with your ID and address proof and your photo, and you'll be able to buy the JioFi device. The offer is only open until August 15, so you should take advantage of it soon if you're interested in getting a free Jio connection.

All these methods can help you get a Jio connection right away, before the actual consumer launch in the "coming months". Have you already started using Jio?

Source gadgets.ndtv

How Sasha Obama to do Her responsibilities at work Inspiration for Young Generation.

How Sasha Obama to do Her responsibilities at work Inspiration for Young Generation.

Sasha Obama Working At A Seafood Restaurant Is A Stellar Example Of How Much The Obamas Value Simplicity

Instead of spending time lazing around and enjoying the perks of having powerfulparents like most other teenagers nowadays, the daughter of the President of America, Sasha Obama is utilising a part of her summer break serving customers at a popular seafood restaurant called Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

nydailynews.com

Leaving the comfortable confines of the White House, the 15-year-old daughter of President Barrack Obama works four-hour shifts while being guarded by six secret service guards. 

nydailynews.com

Her responsibilities at work include setting up the place for lunch, waiting on tables and operating the cash register when required. 

nydailynews.com

Keeping it real. First Daughter Sasha Obama working summer job as take-out cashier on Martha's Vineyard.

 

It just shows how much the Obamas value labour and inculcate the value of simple living in their children. Something we don't see very often nowadays. Well done, Sasha!

Source indiatimes

How To avail 10-Minute Free Talk Time benefit for Interrupted Calls

How To avail 10-Minute Free Talk Time benefit for Interrupted Calls

Vodafone Offers 10-Minute Free Talk Time for Interrupted Calls

Vodafone India under its ongoing Vodafone Delights offer introduced free 10-minute talk time to customers whose conversation gets interrupted for any reason, a company statement said on Friday, evidently aimed at bettering its image in the current scenario of frequent call drops.

"Each conversation on our network is important and must carry on uninterrupted. At times, however, conversations do get interrupted. To continue such conversations, we are offering 10-minute talk time benefit, no questions asked," said Sandeep Kataria, Director - Consumer, Vodafone India.

To avail this talk time benefit, customers need to SMS 'BETTER' on 199 and talk time of 10 minutes will be credited immediately (within 30 minutes) to their number.

This initiative on voice follows close on the heels of the up to 67 percent data benefit to customers, announced earlier this week.

For prepaid customers, the free minutes will be valid till next day midnight and for postpaid customers, till the end of the billing cycle. Vodafone says the free talk time credit can be availed once during the month long bonanza and is applicable only when calling from a Vodafone connection to another Vodafone number within the same circle.

Vodafone is launching this campaign across August, which is the Vodafone Delights month and this 360-degree campaign, built on the key premise that 'conversations should always continue' will be seen across the country on television, radio, social media, OOH and print.

Source gadgets.ndtv