Google's iOS keyboard is the GIF and emoji app of my dreams

I just deleted the Giphy app from my iPhone. This is notable because I adore GIFs. I find a deep, slightly perverse, pleasure in sending texts full of those little moving pictures to my loved ones, and the Giphy app streamlined my image-hunting process 10-fold. But now, it's gone from my home screen, deleted forever because I found something that makes texting with GIFs even easier. I found Gboard.

Gallery: Google's iOS keyboard, Gboard | 16 Photos

• 
 
• 
 
• 
 
• 
  +12

Let's not get melodramatic here: Gboard is simply Google's new iOS keyboard. It's not an app that will change your life or make your surly traditionalist uncle see the true value of technology, but it's a welcome addition to my own texting routine. Gboard features Google search right in the keyboard, plus the ability to hunt for emoji by name. There's also the Glide Typing swipeable keyboard and, of course, GIF search.

The embedded Google search function is ridiculously handy. It brings browser searching straight to the keyboard, eliminating the process of closing the texting app, opening a browser, copying a link, closing the browser and finally pasting the information into a message. Instead, tap the G icon in the upper left corner of the keyboard and search right there for anything on the web, including weather reports, addresses, flight information and nearby cat cafes (hey, we said anything). Search results pop up in a single row of clickable cards; tap one, and its headline and URL automatically populate in your message. If you want to add it, just tap the card, tap the message field, hit "paste" and voila!

Once you've searched for something, you're able to toggle among web, image and GIF results via three icons under the row of cards. To add an image or GIF, tap the card you want and it's automatically ready to be pasted, either as a boring static picture or a gloriously mobile, extra-short narrative experience. (Have I mentioned how much I love GIFs?)

But that's not the only way Gboard can add GIFs to texts. A small smiley face to the left of the spacebar brings up the standard iOS selection of emojis, plus the option to toggle to GIF search. Hit the "GIF" icon under those yellow smiley faces and search for whatever moving picture you'd like, or browse suggested searches such as "high-five," "thumbs up," "shrug" and "mic drop."

Even emojis are searchable in Gboard in a pleasantly natural way. Most icons seem to respond to a variety of terms -- for example, searching for "Halloween" brings up a jack-o-lantern. The search even works with some misspellings and inaccurate predicted text. Not using the swipeable keyboard, I searched for "Halloweeb" and still received the happy little pumpkin, while "jack" brought up the pumpkin and the Union Jack. Using the swipeable keyboard, I accidentally searched for "punishing" and received a row of fists -- and a jack-o'-lantern at the very end.

Emoji search is a wonderful addition to my texting life, since I find scrolling through rows of vaguely sorted icons to be time-consuming and frustrating. Plus, Gboard suggests emojis even when you're composing a text-only message. For example, I started asking my boyfriend if he wanted to get a burrito for lunch, and the first suggested "word" under the message was the burrito emoji. We also messaged each other about butts for a while, which is when I realized the peach emoji actually represents a booty, not a vagina. The more you know, indeed.

Overall, the Glide Typing function is suitably responsive (this isn't the first swipeable keyboard for iOS, after all), though I have to make sure the nail on my thumb doesn't interfere with my actual swiping.

• Source: Engadget

Gboard makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't be surprised if it became the standard for keyboards in the near future -- it's a welcome upgrade based on how people actually send text messages. And GIFs. We can't forget the GIFs.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Review

I like seven-inch tablets very much. They are compact and comfortable devices that can fit into a small bag or even into a jacket pocket. They are also more lightweight and less expensive than ten-inch models. The one we are reviewing here, the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, represents a logical sequel and extension of the compact tablet lineup by Samsung.

Design, materials & controls The right side accommodates the volume rocker and the power button. Their travel is short and soft, so the buttons are comfortable to use.

This one resembles many other Samsung tablets, and not only them actually.

On the left, we get slots for a microSD card and a SIM card (in 3G version). Both slots are covered with protecting caps that are perfectly fastened and don't seem to come loose in the future.

On the bottom, we can see the proprietary charging socket also used to connect the device to a PC. On both sides of it, there are speakers, covered with grids, and a microphone. The sound volume produced by the speakers is moderate, but if you hold the tablet horizontally, you may cover them with your hand.

On the top, we have a 3.5-mm audio jack and another microphone.

The entire front panel is occupied by the screen and a black bezel around it; the front camera eyelet and the voice speaker are above the screen.

The tablet also has a rear side camera. The backside itself is made of grey matt plastic that feels nice to the touch and is quite wear-resistant; no scratches appear on it. So we can be glad Samsung decided not to use their favorite glossy plastic for the backside of this tablet.

By the way, the white version of this model also hit the shelves not so long ago.

There are absolutely no complaints about the build quality, unlike the majority of low-end tablets that normally produce lots of creak and crackle, but we get nothing of the kind here.

via Mobile-Review

First Look. Sony LT30p Mint

Introduction

Sony wants to make a strong effort to return to the market as a player both with strong and numerous solutions. Xperia S created a uniqure situation for the company, with only one new device available for more than a month with the rest of the same line up appearing on most markets roughly four weeks ago. This time around Sony is trying to create as many devices as possible with many or just a few differences betweebn them offered at different prices to offer one device for every consumer.

LT30p belongs to this new crop of models and along with Sony Tipo and a couple of other new handsets, which are also to be presented also tries to differentiate itself from the design philosophy that was used in Xperia S and all its junior sibblings. Lt30p aims at the high end maket to be placed as Sony's flahsgip for the third quarter of the year. While practically replacing Xperia S in that place, it has very few similarities both in terms of design and features.

Click Here to read more.

Lava Xolo X900: Intel Medfield-based phone to hit stores next week

Lava International is all set to release the first smartphone with Intel’s newly announced Medfield mobile chips in India. Dubbed the Xolo X900, the phone will run on as-yet-unspecified version of Google Android. The device was originally announced at the Mobile World Congress 2012 by the Lava executives and Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini. Intel has also signed deals with Lenovo, Motorola and Orange besides Lava to produce hardware solutions for its new Atom chips for mobile devices.

The Lava Xolo X900 will tout rich specs under the hood. The device will sport a 4.03-inch touchscreen with decent screen resolution and clarity. Intel’s new Z2460 single core processor with a clock-speed of 1.6GHz will power the gadget. The processor can ensure long battery life (up to 8 hours) with the 3G voice calling. You can enjoy six hours of HD video and five hours of 3G web browsing and 14 hours of standby on single charge.

It seems that Lava would become the first firm in the world to release an Intel Medfield-based device. Lenovo’s WMC 2012-featured K900 smartphone is only to come in May, 2012. Motorola and Orange haven’t yet announced their Intel devices. Thus, Lava Xolo X900 may be the first device with Intel's mobile processor.

The chip maker, which has been dominating the chip market for PCs and servers, wishes to enter into the mobile market with its new range of mobile processors. Mr. Otellini thinks that there is enough space for Intel to get into the mobile industry, which is currently dominated by the Cambridge, U.K-based ARM Holdings. Intel is in efforts to put holes in the supremacy of ARM. The company has already started talks with the leading tech makers like Apple and Samsung to encourage them to use its Medfield chips in their products.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 hands on video

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 features Samsung’s own PLS LCD display with a 1280×800 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 149 pixels-per-inch, 1 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, 3-megapixels back camera, VGA front camera and 7,000 mAh battery.


Check the hands on video:

Instagram for Android released

The wait is finally over for Android users, Instagram is available for download from Google Play store.
 

Instagram is photography and social networking app, its a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family. Snap a picture, choose a filter to transform its look and feel and post to Instagram. Then share it to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. It’s compatible with phones running Android 2.2 or above (with support for OpenGL ES 2), not compatible on Android tablets yet.
Features:

- 100% free custom designed filters and borders

- Lux works its magic by making your photos more vibrant and brings out details in your photos you couldn’t see before

- Instant sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare (Flickr coming very soon)

- Interact with friends through giving & receiving likes and comments

- Works with Android versions 2.2 and above that support OpenGL ES 2

-Full front & back camera support

- And much much more…

Download for free from Google Play store.

HTC One S – Video review

The HTC One S is the mid-range device in HTC’s One family. It features: 4.3-inch Super AMOLED capacitive display, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with HTC Sense v4.0, Dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB built-in storage, 8MP main camera, 1.3MP front facing camera and 1650 mAh Li-Po battery.


Check the video review:

HTC One X – Video Review

Aaron from PhoneDog reviews the global version of the One X, HTC’s newest Ice Cream Sandwich flagship smartphone.

Here are some basic specs, HTC One X features a  4.7″ HD S-LCD 2 screen, 1.5 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8MP ImageSense camera, front facing camera, 1,800 mAh non-removable battery, and Android 4.0 (ICS) with HTC Sense 4.

Check the video review:

[via]

Samsung adds ‘blink’ feature to ‘Face Unlock’ to spruce up security

Face Unlock is one of the most talked about features in the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). However, tech-blogs and phone reviewers have used it and also come out with ways to override this security unlock feature and get access to the phone.

As have been experimented, Face Unlock, unlocks phone even if you use a photograph of the user. This has been taken up seriously by Samsung and they have come up with a tweak to the feature that asks you to look into the front facing camera and blink as well to serve as an assurance of a living human being. This feature will be included in the custom version of ICS upgrade that will be pushed to Samsung’s devices in coming months.

The feature was announced on Samsung’s blog, Samsung Tomorrow, along with other company and product related updates.

[via]

Android 4.0 ICS on the Samsung Galaxy S ll Skyrocket – Video walkthrough

Lisa Gade from MobileTechReview walks through a leaked Samsung version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket.


Check the video walk through:

 Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket is slightly tweaked version of the standard Galaxy S II with 4G LTE on AT&T. Still no official word from AT&T and Samsung when official 4.0.3 update will be available to the public, but according to this review no major flaws have been found in the leaked build.

Everything you need to know about Sony Xperia Sola

Sony Ericsson announced Xperia Sola earlier this month on 13th March. The phone has average specifications for a smartphone and runs on Android Gingerbread. Now that's nothing surprising, however, it has one feature to blow your mind. The phone incorporates an innovative touch technology called “Floating Touch”. The screen integrates two different types of capacitive touch technologies: Mutual capacitive and Self Capacitive. Mutual capacitive sensors help the phone to pick physical touches and the self capacitive sensors helps it pick touch events from a distance of 22 millimeters. So you don’t even have to touch the screen now, plus the phone also supports multi-touch gestures.

What’s great?
The phone is not yet set for sales and would take a few more changes before it gets into the market. But surely the aspects look promising. The phone’s floating touch would provide you a whole new web browsing experience. NFC (Near Field Communication) is also integrated in the phone which enables fast app loading and data sharing. Sony Ericsson has used their revolutionary Bravia Engine for the 3.7 inch display, this produces very sharp and crisp, real like images. The phone is powered by 1 GHz Dual core processor for super fast processing with multi-tasking. For sound the phone has 3D surround sound and xLOUD technology for clear and fuller sound. The phone is currently made on Gingerbread but it would be upgraded to Ice cream sandwich (v4.0) before the official release. Sony claims that this phone would bring an excellent opportunity for app developers to create innovative apps.


What’s not so great?
The phone has a few key features missing, which we found should have been incorporated. The phone does not have a front facing camera for the video calls. It also lacks an HDMI output port to view images, videos etc. on an HDTV. And lastly and most importantly, it should have had a better battery and a better power management. But things are open and we think that they can do something about it.

Things to watch out for
The cursor behaves same as a mouse cursor and, as you move your finger above, it gets highlighted and moves too. When you want to make a selection, you just tap the screen like before. As we said earlier, the phone would go many changes before it is lined up for sales. It would also take some time for the app developers to create something innovative and exclusive. So we think one should not buy it as soon as it is released. We recommend that you should wait a little longer after the release so that you could have a refined product. The NFC smart tag feature is also on hot selling point for the phone and would have a lot of applications in near future.


Verdict
If we talk about the looks, the phone looks dashing and would come in three colors: black, white and red. The release data for the phone is not yet known but it should be out there in the second quarter of the year. Also there is no officially released pricing for the phone out yet. The technology is completely new and would evolve into something great. So we just have to look out what really happens with this technology and we don’t want it to be abandoned after something new. But one big question still remains: Should we still call it a touchscreen?

MWC 2012: Acer's Uncertainty

Acer CludMobile and Liquid Glow smartphones had been announced before the expo but MWC 2012 it was the first time I had a chance to see them. Unfortunately, the demo CludMobile handset was not operational so it is pretty pointless to describe it. It looks like a typical Acer phone – the company managed to create a recognizable style for their smartphones except for the first generation devices after the company purchased E-Ten.

The size of CludMobile is very convenient: it is not too big or too tiny and the curved battery lid makes it even more comfortable to use. The battery lid plastic has a square pattern that looks unusual and feels nice.

The quoted specs are as follows: 1280x720 4.3” screen (HD-IPS matrix), the Qualcomm 8260A platform with a dual core 1.5GHz processor, 1GB of system memory and 8GB of storage space. The reps did not mention a memory card slot. The main camera is an 8MPix module. This smartphone runs Android 4.0. Technically it is almost a flagship – it is the most attractive Acer Android device as of early 2012. However, it is obvious that Acer is having difficulties especially on the smartphone market. The fact that Acer did not come to the main mobile event of 2012 proves that Acer will not be betting on CludMobile which is too bad because if the price was right this phone could be a success.

The other new smartphone Acer Liquid Glow is a lot simpler. It looks somewhat similar to CludMobile but it is smaller and has simpler hardware. The 3.7” 800x480 screen uses a TFT matrix, the phone features a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of system memory, a 5MPix camera and runs on Android 4.0. It looks good for a budget Android phone but no info on the release date is yet available.

T-Mobile Pulse Android Smartphone Announced for UK

Made by HuaWei, T-Mobile Pulse has been announced today and will be available next month in UK. The T-Mobile Pulse is the third Android-based smartphone in T-Mobile’s mobile-device portfolio. In addition, the T-Mobile Pulse is the first Android-based smartphone that supports both the MyCommunity and Media Center services.


Via MyCommunity, users can keep constant track of their contacts and get in touch with any of them by phone call, text message or their on-line community. The Media Center allows user to select personal media content for viewing on their smartphone, computer or TV set via Entertain and for sharing with other people.

The HSPA technology used by the T-Mobile Pulse supports Internet connections of up to 7.2 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream. The Pulse also comes with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth and microSD card slot.

Specifications:

• Dimensions (LxWxH): 135 x 62.5 x 13.6 mm
• Weight: 135 g
• Standby: Up to 300 hours
• Talk time: Up to 210 minutes
• GSM frequency band (MHz): Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900)
• UMTS / HSDPA / HSUPA / GPRS / EDGE
• Display: TFT color display, 480 x 320 pixels, 16 million colors
• Camera: 3.2 megapixels
• Processor: Qualcomm 7200A 528 MHz
• Internal memory: 256 MB flash memory
• microSD card slot
• Bluetooth, WLAN

[via slashgear]

Motorola Android Smartphone Called Motorola CLIQ (DEXT) with MOTOBLUR UI

Motorola this week has unveiled its first Android smartphone, the Motorola DEXT or the CLIQ for T-Mobile USA. Like HTC’s Sense UI, Motorola announced its MOTOBLUR, which is exclusively for Motorola’s Android smartphone with tight social network integration. Updates to contacts, posts, messages, photos and more are streamed together and synced from sources including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Gmail, and work and personal e-mail. MOTOBLUR automatically delivers these updates to the home screen in easy-to-view streams so there is no need to open and close different mobile applications to keep up with the latest content.

The CLIQ delivers a reliable mobile Web experience by harnessing the power and speed of T-Mobile’s 3G network and Wi-Fi. Additional CLIQ features include a 3.1-inch HVGA touch-screen display, a 5 megapixel auto focus camera with video capture and playback at 24 frames per second, a 3.5mm headset jack, a music player with pre-loaded Amazon MP3 store application, Shazam, iMeem Mobile, and a pre-installed 2GB microSD memory card with support for up to 32 GB of removable memory.

DEXT will be available exclusively launching with Orange in the United Kingdom and France, Telefonica in Spain and America Movil in Latin America. Known as CLIQ in North America, the device will be available exclusively with T-Mobile USA.

Specifications:

• Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz
• QWERTY side Slider
• WCDMA 900/1700/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900
• HSDPA 7.2 Mbps (Category 7/8), EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12
• GPS
• Android 1.5
• Weight: 163.00 g; 5.7 oz
• Dimensions: 58 x 114 x 15.6 mm; 2.28 x 4.49 x 0.61 in
• Battery: 1420 mAh
• Bluetooth
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Wi Fi
• Display: 320 x 480 pixels (w x h)
• 5 megapixel camera, auto-focus
• microSD card slot

[via Android Community]

LG First Android Smartphone GW620 Announced

LG has just announced its first Android-powered smartphones, the LG GW620. While details specs is still unknown except a 3-inch full touchscreen and slide out QWERTY keyboard, the LG GW620 will also support the social networking sites and to be available in the fourth quarter of this year in select European markets.

“The LG-GW620 will appeal to first-time smartphone customers by offering a new and different kind of user experience,” said Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Our objective is to provide a wide selection of smartphones to satisfy the diverse preferences of today’s consumers. This Android phone is just one of many smartphone models we plan to introduce worldwide in the years ahead.”

In addition to the Android model, LG announced in early September that it will be introducing a minimum of 13 new smartphones over the next 16 months that utilize Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. The newest release, version 6.5, was announced just last week.