Hobbymerge is shifting to a new domain !!!

It’s been an awesome fun blogging at hobbymerge and now to blog even more and to have more fun, I have shifted this domain to a new one : http://kiran.dhoux.com . Dear readers, please visit this link hereafter for more updated posts, as I’m not going to continue blogging here.

Thank you for all your comments and support

Cheers

Kiran

Power of Open Source and Android – Run Android Apps on iOS

I came across this post on engadget that really illustrates the potential of FOSS. It opens up a world of infinite possibilities. This is one of the main reasons for which I love Android more than iOS or Windows Phone. In the two latter cases, you cannot go beyond a certain limit due to the ‘closed source’ ness of these mobile operating systems. Even though Android too isn’t completely open sourced, it still beats the latter operating systems. The things you can do with an Android device are infinite.

This link shows how Android apps are being run on an iPad.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/10/hands-on-with-myriads-alien-dalvik-2-0-on-an-ipad-video/

Samsung vs Apple…Checkmate !

With the release of Galaxy Nexus, Samsung has overthrown Apple to become the largest mobile phone maker be revenue. Apparently Samsung sold over 28 million in the third quarter, where Apple managed to sell only 17 million devices. With this, Apple has been dropped to the third position behind Samsung and Nokia.

Nokia still retains the title of the largest mobile phone seller (in terms of volume). With the upcoming lineup of Nokia Windows phones, It can be said without doubt that Nokia will either retain it’s previous position or become the largest mobile phone maker both in terms of sales and volumes.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich – How tasty it could get

I’ve been eagerly waiting for weeks and months, drooling over the release of the latest Android version 4.0 termed Ice Cream Sandwich, and after seeing the reviews, I can gladly say that I’m not disappointed. The looks, the features are all on a whole new level. Some of the features that impressed me include :

• Face Unlock – This is a new concept of unlocking phones and a good way to protect your device without having the pain of remembering the passwords. In case the device isn’t able to recognise you, it switches to pattern unlock mode, so one does not have to worry about face unlocking in the night.
• Screenshots – Though not such an impressive feature, it is good to see it inbuilt in ICS
• Browser – The new browser definitely looks much  more faster and optimised as compared to the stock browsers in the previous versions. Again a +1 for ICS.
• Enhanced Speech to Text – This feature is one of the awesomest features of ICS. The Speech to Text is way better than the ones in previous OS versions. The time delay between conversion from speech to text is very less making it almost instantaneous. And the really really cool part is that it all comes inbuilt in the OS !!!
• Absence of Buttons – The design of ICS has been made similar to Honeycomb where button-less navigation prevails. Well I frankly don’t know if this would be cool, so i guess I’ll wait it out until I feel it for myself.
• Data Usage – Perhaps one of the coolest techie feature would be this one, in my opinion. You can now monitor your data usage, set timelines to monitor your data usage in, see what apps hog your data and so on. A really cool feature.
• Android Beam – Well this is not the first time I’m seeing this sorta app, but I must say that I’m impressed because ICS ports it as a stock app with the device ! For those who are wondering what this is, it is similar to the Bump app. You make your phone and the target phone to come into contact with each other and then transfer stuff like webpages, links, apps and so on.

There are a lot more cool features in this latest version OS of Android, but these are a few that really caught my eye. Well i would like to thank Google for their awesome efforts to take Android into a whole new level and make techies like me drool over it. Ice Cream Sandwich indeed.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Leaked

With the Samsung and Google Conference scheduled for tomorrow at Hong Kong, it seems like NTT Docomo, one of the largest wireless carriers in Japan, has let slip the Samsung Galaxy Nexus announcement just a couple hours early.

Features that apparently seem to be wrapped up around this device are :

• Dimensions: 5.4in x 2.7in x .35in (which is insanely thin, however the blog also mentions that its .45 inches at its thickest part)
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4460 processor
• 4.65-inch 720×1280 AMOLED HD display (which may just be the Italian translation for Super AMOLED Plus)
• 5-megapixel CMOS rear camera with LED flash, capable of video capture in 1080p
• 1.3-megapixel CMOS front-facing camera
• NFC
• 1GB of RAM, 16/32 GB of on-board storage

The phone seems really really thin. Just can’t wait for the official announcement tomorrow !