Top Five New Android Apps December 2013

It's been an incredible year of innovation in Google Play. Here's a list of the top 5 best new Android apps on Google Play that you need to know about.

1. Dolphin Zero

Dolphin Browser has released a new private browser, Dolphin Zero, which is focuses on bringing users a peace of mind. Dolphin Zero is similar to Dolphin Browser, but doesn't collect any browser history, passwords, cached data, user address book and cookies. You can download Dolphin Zero from the Google Play Store Dolphin Zero 

2. Android Device Manager

There's no shortage of "Find My Phone" type of apps on Android, but 2013 saw Google release its own integrated tracker.

Google Play (free)

3.  Blixt

Recent incidents like accusing developers of android app ‘Brightest Flashlight Free’ have revealed the trap hidden in free apps. The Federal Trade Commission is accusing the developers who created the Brightest Flashlight Free app for Android with selling personal data. Utility app named ‘Blixt’ claims to be  100% ad free and requires no unnecessary permissions to install.

Download the free app from Play store

4. Cover Lock Screen 

Cover is a simple and clean looking app which brings in some extra features to your lock-screen making it much more useful. Cover adapts and places your frequently used apps and keeps changing them based on your location and time of the day.
Download the app  Google Play store 

5. P90X

P90X is a health & fitness app developed by Beachbody, LLC, based on the popular workout trend. With the P90X app for Android, users can keep track of progress, share results, and stay motivated. Features include scheduling workouts, getting customized progress reports, and rack up achievement badges. Results can be shared on Facebook and Twitter. You can download P90X from the Google Play Store.

Finally - "A Free app which is not a Spy"

Its a setback for so called ‘free apps’ which steal and sell sensitive user data to third parties as apps so safe and secure to use is emerging in market. Last week, a utility app named ‘Blixt’ arrived at google play store claims to be  100% ad free and requires no unnecessary permissions to install.

Recent incidents like accusing developers of android app ‘Brightest Flashlight Free’ have revealed the trap hidden in free apps. The Federal Trade Commission is accusing the developers who created the Brightest Flashlight Free app for Android with selling personal data.

According to the statement, Goldenshores would collect certain kinds of information in order to improve the program. The FTC is taking issue with the fact that the company neglected to mention that the app would give this info to third-party advertisers.After downloading the app from the Google Play app store, users receive a prompt asking permission for data tracking related to internal purposes.It turns out that whether you agree to it or not, Goldenshores would give the info to these other parties.

Accubits Invent- India based company has come up with a simple flashlight app called Blixt with an easy to use UI. The uniqueness of this app is that, Blixt always keep you ‘one touch away’ from turning on flashlight, no matter you are using another app or playing games, you can still turn on or off flashlight right from notifications bar. You can also access Blixt from the widget or from within app.

Every flashlight apps available asks for unnecessary permissions and steal your data. Unlike other apps; Blixt will not collect user data and sell them to third parties. It will not request you any permissions other than permission to use flashlight in your mobile. That’s not all, Blixt is 100% Ad free, meaning there are no irritating ads . Moreover, it is developed with easiness and quickness in mind. Blixt is designed and developed in such way that the app use very less space and run with least resource of CPU and battery.

Accubits Invent “Everyone have the right to use essential utility apps without getting exploited. Thats our vision and we have started our works to achieve it. We will develop essential utility apps and make them absolute free for everyone because everyone deserve a worry less life.To use an essential utility app,you do not have to manage irritating ads. You do not have to share any sensitive data.”

Download the app from Play store

Check out the video :

Top 5 Android Root Apps

Android Root Apps Superpowers to your phone. There are plenty of reasons to root your Android device. You can  install custom ROMs, remove bloatware, overclock your processor, and otherwise tweak your device to make it do exactly what it should, and no more. Once you root your phone, you have complete control of your device. There are plenty of Android apps that help you exercise this control and here we take a look at the 5 best apps for rooted android phones.

1. Greenify :

Never should your phone or tablet become slower and battery hungrier after lots of apps installed. With Greenify, your device can run almost as smoothly and lastingly as it did the first day you had it!

Greenify help you identify and put the misbehaving apps into hibernation when you are not using them, to stop them from lagging your device and leeching the battery, in an unique way! They can do nothing without explicit launch by you or other apps, while still preserving full functionality when running in foreground, similar to iOS apps!

2. Titanium Backup :

Titanium Backup is the most powerful backup tool on Android. You can backup, restore, freeze (with Pro) your apps + data + Market links. This includes all protected apps & system apps, plus external data on your SD card. You can do 0-click batch & scheduled backups. Backups will operate without closing any apps (with Pro). You can move any app (or app data) to/from the SD card.

3. Fast Charge :

We already know that Android Consumes a Large amount of Battery. This App Help to users increase the Battery Power.

Features :-

• User supported database of fast charge kernels, please submit your kernels to help others.
• View battery status.
• View amount of time spent charging, discharging, on ac, on usb.
• View and change CPU settings (premium to change).
• View time spent in each cpu speed.

4. ROM Toolbox Pro:

ROM Toolbox combines all the great root apps into one monster app with a beautiful and easy to use interface. ROM Toolbox has every tool you need to make your Android device fast and customized to your liking. Save 85% by getting ROM Toolbox instead of spending $30 or more on other apps. ROM Toolbox is THE MUST HAVE APP for every root user.

5. JuiceDefender Ultimate :

For battery life just too good to be true, JuiceDefender Ultimate employs a ton of advanced, fully customizable and really effective power saving features. Absolute control for the highest energy efficiency try the ultimate battery saving experience!

JuiceDefender is a powerful yet easy to use power manager app specifically designed to extend the battery life of your Android device. Packed with smart functions, it automatically and transparently manages the most battery draining components, like 3G/4G connectivity and WiFi.

Google's BALLOON-POWERED INTERNET : Project Loon Balloons can circle Earth three times

Google’s floating network in sky — Project Loon — won’t just be mobile, following the stratospheric wind currents; it will be the very definition of a evolving network with new transmitters launched into the sky every 100 days. In a new video on Loon's Google+ site, Google explained that each Loon balloon is designed to stay aloft for three trips around the globe.

A key component of the Google [x] Lab project to deliver Wi-Fi to remote parts of the world via souped-up weather balloons, according to a new Google video.  Its Latest video takes it a step further: tearing apart one of its blimp-tracking antennas and explaining how it works. Every unit houses a radio, what Google is calling "radiating elements" and a disc-shaped reflector. This reflector has to be circular to boost the antenna's off-angle sensitivity, which enables the receiver to maintain an even signal with Project Loon's drifting internet-carriers. 

Pam Desrochers, Google's balloon manufacturing manager said “The most important part about keeping balloons in the air for a long time is making sure that they are leak-proof “. The surface area of the balloon is really vast, about 500 square meters, and it provides a lot of opportunities for little pinholes and leaks, which can shorten the life of our flight.”

The balloons will be subjected to big changes in temperature as the sun rises and sets, causing its internal pressure to change dramatically. Meanwhile, Loon will be “steering” the balloons in the stratospheric winds by pumping air in and out of them creating additional stresses.

 While originally the balloons that were tested in Project Loon's demo in New Zealand were made out of polyethylene film, the video makes it sound like Google is still undecided on what kind of material will best suit its balloons. Google now appears to be testing all manner of materials, subjecting them to durability, temperature and leak tests.

Samsung pushes its own New Mobile OS -Tizen

The Android and the iPhone ecosystems generate profit for Google and Apple every time smartphone users purchase a game or application. So now Samsung wants to expand its control beyond hardware to software, by building its own mobile operating system, called Tizen.

The South Korean electronics giant is in a quiet push to make its Tizen operating system a part of the technology lexicon as familiar as Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS. Its ambition doesn’t stop there. Samsung sees the software in your car, fridge and television too.

The first developer conference in Asia for Tizen wrapped up Tuesday after a two-day run, bringing together app developers and Tizen backers from Samsung, Intel and mobile operators.

Samsung did not announce a Tizen device, but it made a pitch for developers to create apps for the mobile operating system that is yet to be seen in the market. Samsung promised to give out $4 million cash to the creators of the best Tizen apps.

“With only hardware, its influence is limited,” said Kang Yeen-kyu, an associate research fellow at state-run Korea Information Society Development Institute. “Samsung’s goal is to establish an ecosystem centered on Samsung.”

Choi Jong-deok, Samsung’s executive vice president overseeing Tizen, said a launch of Tizen phone or televisions will happen “very shortly,” analysts said Samsung is unlikely to reveal the first Tizen device until February of next year, when the company said it will announce winners of its Tizen app contest.

To Mars and back quickly: Improved propulsion technology in works

A concept image of a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. In this image, the crew would be in the forward-most chamber. Solar panels on the sides would collect energy to initiate the process that creates fusion.

New propulsion technologies may blast astronauts through space at breakneck speeds in the coming decades, making manned Mars missions much faster and safer.

Souped-up electric propulsion systems and rockets driven by nuclear fusion or fission could end up shortening travel times to the Red Planet dramatically, proponents say, potentially opening up a new era in manned space exploration.

"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," John Slough of the University of Washington, leader of a team developing a fusion-driven rocket, said in a statement earlier this year. "We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace." 

Fast track to Mars

Putting boots on the Red Planet is a chief ambition of NASA, which aims to send astronauts to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

As it works toward this goal, the space agency is investigating and encouraging the development of advanced propulsion systems to take the reins from traditional chemical rockets, which could get astronauts to Mars and back in about 500 days. That's too slow for NASA's liking. People living in deep space for that amount of time could accumulate relatively high radiation doses, officials say, and they'd have to exercise a great deal to stave off bone loss, muscle atrophy and other hazards of long-term microgravity exposure.

One possible solution is the nuclear fusion rocket being developed by Slough and his team, with funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC. 

Such a system could get astronauts to the Red Planet in just 90 days or so, the researchers say. In fact, they're designing their work around a reference mission that lasts a total of 210 days — 83 days for the flight out, 30 days on the Red Planet's surface and a 97-day journey back to Earth.

European Satellite will crash to Earth Sunday Night or Monday

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite is ready to make an uncontrolled entry into Earth’s atmosphere in about a day. However, nobody knows where the satellite will end up. 

Fragments from satellite are set to crash into Earth late Sunday or Monday, as the probe has completed its fact-finding mission. The Gravity Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite was sent into space in March 2009 

GOCE, or Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, ran out of gas last month and has been steadily sinking towards the Earth. ESA says that the 1,100 kg satellite has already fallen to an altitude of 160 km. 

“Most of these fragments will completely burn up. A small fraction of the initial spacecraft mass -- about 20 percent or 200 kilograms [440 pounds] -- is expected to reach ground, distributed across dozens of fragments, spread over a sizable re-entry ground swath.”

Professor Heiner Klinkrad from the ESA said: "At present we can not say where the re-entry is going to happen except that it is not going to happen north of the 85 northern latitude or south of 85 southern latitude.

The chances of it dropping on your head are remote. For one, Earth is over 70 percent water. Secondly, there are large uninhabited parts of the world.

Score Alarm-Sophisticated Live score App

Score alarm is one of the most sophisticated mobile live score application.It enlightens you with the latest scores and updates of over 19 various sports around the world ranging from Football,Tennis,Basketball to Darts.

Score alarm provides you with not only scores and updates of various sports but also match schedules for the forthcoming matches. So with Score alarm you can actually prioritize the matches to your interests and also set up an alarm to notify about the updates of those particular matches as well. It also allows you to search competitions of various sports around the world and categorizes a country-wise competition list for your disposal.Score alarm helps you to personalize the application according to your interests, which most of the present live score applications does not support. With an ios7 supported workframe this app proves to be user friendly in its own means.

Score Alarm – Don’t miss the game! from Score Alarm on Vimeo.

For all the sport’s freaks out there this is a must have application. You can download the lite version(free version) of it from the AppStore, further update of a paid version is also available to the consumers. The paid version features live match statistics,lineup statistics,previous match details,competition tables and much more. Score Alarm is simply the whole of sporting world in your pocket.

Man Implants Smartphone-Sized Computer Into His Arm

Self-professed biohacker Tim Cannon has become the first human being to have a non-medical computer implanted inside his body. The Circadia 1.0 is about the size of a small smartphone and was implanted in Tim’s forearm without the aid of anesthetic or a licensed doctor. The device is designed to gather biometric data and beam it to a mobile device, making Tim Cannon the first DIY Cyborg.

The wirelessly charged sensor, developed over the course of 18 months by Cannon and his fellow hackers/artists at Grindhouse Wetware, monitors his vital signs, then transmits that real-time data via Bluetooth to his Android device.

Cannon told Vice's Motherboard that Circadia 1.0 could “send me a text message if it thinks that I’m getting a fever.” The device could then help determine what factors are causing the fever. Future versions of the sensor are expected to monitor the pulse and — thankfully — come in a smaller, less ghastly package.

The team at Grindhouse Wetware claims to have already perfected a pulse sensor that will be integrated with the next version of the Circadia. Cannon expects the first production series of the chip to be ready in a few months and said it will cost around $500. 

World's first Bitcoin ATM Opens

Three young Canadian entrepreneurs have opened the world's first automated teller able to exchange bitcoins for currency. The world's first Bitcoin ATM has opened in Vancouver, Canada - "An ATM that converts bitcoins to Canadian dollars and vice versa".

The machine, which resides at Waves Coffee House in Vancouver's downtown area, uses a palm scanner to access each Bitcoin owner's account. Users who don't already own Bitcoin can still exchange cash for the currency, and create an account on the spot. The ATM is the world's first, said co-owner Mitchell Demeter, a local entrepreneur who started trading in bitcoins several years ago. 

Customers use a private key - like a bank PIN - to access their online account of bitcoins on the ATM. They withdraw cash equivalents for their bitcoins, or deposit cash bills, which are then converted into bitcoins and deposited into a virtual account. The prevailing conversion rate is about one bitcoin for C$200 (HK$1,484). Users can then spend their bitcoins with a smartphone, in a similar way to how credit cards are used, or by transferring the money to purchase goods and services online. "It's the currency of the internet, as real as any other," said Demeter.

In Vancouver, bitcoins are accepted by some 15 local businesses, from coffee shops to a landscaping business. The ATM machine, operated by Vancouver-based Bitcoiniacs and Nevada-based Robocoin.

"We're freaking out [due to excitement]," says Robocoin CEO Jordan Kelley. "What this machine has done is it's removed the barriers to entry for the masses."

Kelley says he hopes to have Bitcoin ATMs across Canada by the end of the year, and into the United States in 2014. Interested users can expect the first Bitcoin ATM to crop up in Boston, he says, followed by California and New York.

Google and HP Team Up to Bring featherweight Chromebook 11

After releasing the “prototype” Chromebook Pixel earlier this year, Google has gone the opposite way for the mass market with the lightweight, low-powered Chromebook 11 from HP.

Google and HP collaborated on the design of the new Chromebook, which ships this week for $279. It is essentially a successor to last year’s $250 Chromebook from Samsung, with the same ARM-based Exynos 5250 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and two USB ports. Both the old and new laptops have 11-inch displays, each with a resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels.

The improvements in the Chromebook 11 are all about design and fine-tuning. Google says this new Chromebook has a sturdier magnesium frame, so it won’t flex when you hold it up from one corner, and it manages to be a tenth of a pound lighter than the Samsung Chromebook, weighing in at just 2.3 pounds.

Although the screen resolution is unchanged, the display has 176-degree viewing angles. Google also claims that the Chromebook’s speakers are “finely tuned,” and placed under the keyboard so the sound projects toward the user.

While there is offline support for Google documents and other apps, this a laptop that is best when connected to a Wi-Fi network. As with other Chromebooks, Google throws in 100GB of Google Drive storage for two years and 12 free GoGo in-flight Internet sessions

Volvo new battery technology that uses car body panels

Electric vehicles are a fast-growing technology that is ever evolving, and one of the latest contributors to that technological evolution is Volvo. The auto maker has come forward with details about its new battery technology, which, among other things, utilizes the car’s body panels and super capacitors. We’ve got all the details on this tech after the jump.

That technology aims to improve the amount of energy an electric vehicle can store and utilize, making the entire process more efficient and giving better range for the driver, not to mention being environmentally-friendly. The project, which was funded under a larger EU research mission, took place with eight unnamed “major participants” and the Imperial College London academic lead.

Volvo says it is the only auto maker working as part of the project, helping to find a way to reduce the weight and size (and comparable costs) of modern EV battery solutions. By utilizing nano-structured batteries, carbon fibers, and super capacitors, a solution has been identified — the feasibility of such, at least. For other auto makers, the design is more cost effective due to the car structure options it poses.

Energy regeneration from the brakes is used to charge a material made of polymer resin and carbon fibers, which is moulded into shapes that can be implemented into the car’s larger design. The capacitors are then set within the “component skin.” One of its upsides is also more rapid charging than current battery tech.

Test components

Volvo Car Group has evaluated the technology by creating two components for testing and development. These are a boot lid and a plenum cover, tested within the Volvo S80. The boot lid is a functioning electrically powered storage component and has the potential to replace the standard batteries seen in today’s cars. It is lighter than a standard boot lid, saving on both volume and weight. The new plenum demonstrates that it can also replace both the rally bar, a strong structural piece that stabilises the car in the front, and the start-stop battery. This saves more than 50% in weight and is powerful enough to supply energy to the car’s 12 Volt system

It is believed that the complete substitution of an electric car’s existing components with the new material could cut the overall weight by more than 15%. This is not only cost effective but would also have improvements to the impact on the environment.

Wind, rain pound India as massive cyclone hits; Half a million evacuated

Cyclone Phailin is expected to be the biggest storm in the region for 14 years

An immense, powerful cyclone that lashed the eastern Indian coast, forcing 500,000 people to evacuate and causing widespread damage, weakened Sunday after making landfall.

Five people died in the rains that fell ahead of the storm, most killed by falling branches, Indian media reported, but the situation on the ground in many areas was still unclear Sunday morning after Cyclone Phailin made landfall the previous evening in Orissa state, and power and communications lines were down in coastal districts.

Cyclone Phailin caused one of the largest evacuation operations in Indian history, with 500,000 people moved to higher ground in the coastal state of Odisha, which is expected to bear the brunt of the storm. The storm, which made landfall early Saturday night near the town of Golpalpur in Odisha state, was expected to cause large-scale power and communications outages and shut down road and rail links, officials said. It’s also expected to cause extensive damage to crops.

Men try to remove fallen trees from road due to rain
in Odisha

Officials in both Odisha and Andhra Pradesh have been stockpiling emergency food supplies and setting up shelters. The Indian military has put some of its forces on alert, and has trucks, transport planes and helicopters at the ready for relief operations. Roads were all but empty Saturday as high waves pounded the coastline of Odisha state. Seawater pushed inland, swamping villages where many people survive as subsistence farmers in mud and thatch huts.

Around 500,000 left their homes for storm shelters

Hurricanes typically lose much of their force when they hit land, where there is less heat-trapping moisture feeding energy into the storm.

By Friday evening, some 420,000 people had been moved to higher ground or shelters in Odisha, and 100,000 more in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, said Indian Home Secretary Anil Goswami.

Meanwhile, the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre predicted that Phailin could produce gusts of up to 296km/h (184 mph), while the London-based Tropical Storm Risk classified Phailin as a Category Five storm - the most powerful. Satellite images showed the cyclone filling nearly the entire Bay of Bengal, an area larger than France that has seen the majority of the world's worst recorded storms, including a 1999 cyclone that killed 10,000.

A big wave smashes into a breakwater at a fishing harbour in Jalaripeta in the Visakhapatnam disrict, AP

Alice Munro wins 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature

  Alice Munro near her home in Clinton, Ontario

Alice Munro, the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. 

Making the announcement, Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, called her a "master of the contemporary short story".

The 82-year-old, whose books include Dear Life and Dance of the Happy Shades, is only the 13th woman to win the prize since its inception in 1901.

Alice Munro was born on the 10th of July, 1931 in Wingham, which is in the Canadian province of Ontario. Munro started writing stories in her teens, but published her first book-length work in 1968, the story collection Dance of the Happy Shades. 

Munro is primarily known for her short stories and has published many collections over the years. Her works include Who Do You Think You Are? (1978), The Moons of Jupiter (1982), Runaway (2004), The View from Castle Rock(2006) and Too Much Happiness (2009). The collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) became the basis of the film Away from Her from 2006, directed by Sarah Polley. Her most recent collection is Dear Life(2012).

Munro is the 13th woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and the 17th Nobel laureate born in Canada. She is also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction and the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

FACT ABOUT NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

106 Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded 1901-2013.

13 women have been awarded the Literature Prize so far.

4 Literature Prizes have been divided between two persons.

42 years was the age of the youngest Literature Laureate ever, Rudyard Kipling, best known for The Jungle Book.

88 years was the age of the oldest Literature Laureate ever, Doris Lessing, when she was awarded the Prize in 2007.

64 is the average age of the Nobel Laureates in Literature the year they were awarded the prize.