Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Android Lollipop Unwrapped



The Latest Version of Google’s Mobile Operating System Android 5.0 Lollipop's most obvious new features come in the form of visual enhancements and user interface changes, which Google has dubbed Material Design. The platform has new, more fluid animations, a cleaner design with a bolder color palette, a revamped multittasking menu, and offers new ways to interact with your voice. Many of the new Material Design features can be seen in the recent updates that Google has released for its own Android apps such as Google+. The Material Design initiative is meant to unify the software's look and feel across various form factors, whether that's a tablet, smartphone, home media streamer, or something else.


In addition to a visual overhaul, Lollipop brings over 5,000 new APIs for developers to tap into and lets multiple different Android devices with various form factors work better together. Google says that things such as songs, photos, apps, and recent searches can be seamlessly synced across various Android devices. Lollipop also includes new notification controls to limit alerts during meetings and other times, a new battery saver mode that can eke out 90 more minutes of life between charges, multiple user accounts, guest user modes, and new ways to secure your device via trusted Bluetooth connections. Lollipop will also include a protection against resetting the phone to factory defaults, which is designed to make it difficult for phone thieves to use a stolen device. Many of these features have been implemented by various Android device makers on their own smartphones and tablets for some time, but Google is now making sure they are part of the core Android experience.


Android 5.0 Lollipop is a big release for Google — it's the most significant visual update to Android since 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was released in 2011, and it lays the foundation for Android to grow as a platform outside of smartphones and tablets. Google is very clearly pushing Android as the software for the future, and it wants Android to be on every connected device we interact with. Lollipop is the first step to getting there.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Windows 9 - will it be Free !

Disgruntled windows 8 users there is finally light at the end of the tunnel! Microsoft is planning to roll out Windows 9 technology preview in late September or early October which is much sooner than expected.

We all know that start menu will make a reappearance in Windows 9. Other features may include Cortana - the voice-activated digital assistant, Virtual Desktop and a new tool to replace the Windows 8 Charms bar.

Windows 9 Start Menu

If rumours are to be believed then there can be a huge surprise on the pricing front to convince reluctant users who are still using older version like Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 to finally move to the latest Windows operating system available. Microsoft may even give a free upgrade offer, which has never happened before.

Clearly the attempt to have a unified OS (aka Widows 8) across devices of all form factor has not gone down well and Windows 9 is going to be a part or Mircosoft’s strategy to regain the lost share in OS market with a desktop centric OS.