Apps to help achieve new year’s resolutions

Whether it is improving health or managing finances better, about 87% of Americans will make resolutions for 2013 and there are plenty of apps to help them achieve their goals.

Nearly half of new year’s resolutions are about setting health-related goals, which is the most popular category, according to a recent survey by online broker TD Ameritrade.

Rather than jumping into a rigorous fitness routine, a new app called 5K Runner suggests it might be better to ease into things slowly and focus on building sustainable habits. The iPhone app helps couch potatoes ramp up their running distance to 5km over the course of eight weeks.

"You’re slowly building this routine into your daily life with a lot of success and after eight weeks you’re literally running 5K, which is pretty big if (initially) you’re not running at all," says David-Michel Davies, the executive director of The Webby Awards, an annual ceremony honouring internet companies.

The app guides runners through each run, alternating periods of running and walking for 35 minutes.

Mr Davies also recommends Nike+ Running and RunKeeper, two popular and free fitness apps, which use GPS to track distance travelled, speed and calories burned. Both apps are available for iOS and Android devices.

Diet is another component of good health and a focus of many apps. Fooducate is an iPhone and Android app that helps shoppers make healthier purchases at the supermarket by allowing them to scan the barcodes of products and get insight into how healthy the product is.

Their database, which contains more than 200,000 products, displays a grade for the product and information on its contents. It can show whether there are hidden additives or the probability of containing genetically modified ingredients.

"There are a lot of healthy people out there who unknowingly buy products that have an inordinate amount of salt in them," Mr Davies says.

DietBet is an app for people with a competitive streak. Available for iPhone and on the web, it allows its users to join in a four-week weight-loss challenge to lose 4% of weight. Everyone bets money, which goes into a fund, and submits proof of weight lost. People who meet the challenge split the money.

"It comes back again to how people get motivated," Mr Davies says. "Gamification is something that technology has really enabled and for some people it really works."

To stay on top of finances, Mr Davies recommends Mint, which provides a visual view of all financial accounts and is available for iOS, Android and on the web.

Videocon 10-inch VT10 Android Tablet Up for Sale in India at ₹11,200

Videocon 10-inch VT10 Android Tablet Up for sales in India at ₹ 11,200
Although the official launch of tablet is waited, the 10-inch HD tablet has already popped on the online retailer's websites. The company has denied the official launch of the tablet in the country according to NDTV. However, it maintained that the tablet will be available through some of the online retailers. It was said that the device will officially come to India in 2013 January.
The tablet market of the country is splurging at this moment. Over the past couple of months, Indian market has seen the arrival of many budget and high end tablets.Videocon is the latest to join this bandwagon.
"It also the only large-screen tablet available in India for under Rs 11,000 that can boast of an IPS display," wrote RTN.
Many reports claim that Videocon's 10-inch tablet is the only large-screen tablet available in India for the price of 11,000. The tablet boasts a 10-inch screen with 1280×800 resolution and is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and packs 2 megapixel cameras on the front as well as rear.
The tablet sports 1 GB RAM along with an internal storage of 8 GB which is expandable up to 32 GB with microSD card slot. It packs a battery of Li-Polymer-6800mAh which according to the company will give a battery backup of 4 hours when browsing.
The tablet would be pitted against Micromax Funbook Pro, Zync Z1000 Tablet and Karbonn Cosmic Smart Tab 10. Zync Z1000 comes with a 9.7-inch screen and is priced in the same range. However, the tablet seemed to be out of stock most of the times. Karbonn Cosmic Smart tablet comes with a 9.7-inch (24.6 cms) capacitive touch screen with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. The device is powered by 1.5 GHz Cortex-A9 dual core processor and features 1 GB DDR3 RAM along with an internal storage of 1.5 GB which is expandable up to 32 GB with a microSD card.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini Gets Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Update

Folks in Asia, Indonesia and Vietnam to be exact, are apparently going to sign off 2012 on a high note. This is because the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini (which will not be sold in the US, by the way, in order to be dropped from the lawsuit that was filed and will go on trial in 2014 by Apple) has reportedly shipped with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean right out of the box.

In fact, it was as recent as last month when the little smartphone that could came with Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean on board, so to hear that it has arrived with this new version is definitely nothing short of encouraging. In fact, Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean is proud to come with its Premium Suite, where a bunch of new features such as Page Buddy, Multi Window, Paper Artist, Group Cast, Smart Rotation, a new customizable notification panel, and a new gallery app are thrown into the mix. What do you think of this development – will you import a Galaxy S3 mini?

Apple App Store trounces Google Play in mobile app sales

The Apple App Store has vastly outpacedGoogle Play in sales of mobile applications this year, numbers showed Wednesday, Dec. 26.

According to 2012 numbers reported by market researcher Distimo, Google's revenue from sales of applications purchased from the Play store average about $680,000 per day for its top 200 apps.

On Apple's best 200 apps for iPhone and iPad, the company earns about $5.4 million per day.

Statistics show that Android is still the most popular operating system in the industry. This is no secret, considering hundreds of different devices are running a version of Android.

Although Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is available, some devices are shipped with older versions of the software. Most of those devices have access to the Google Play, Android's answer to Apple's App Store. That should equate to increased revenue from the store, correct? Not so fast.

Google's revenue from its Play store is derived from different sources such as searches, various ad searches, third party applications and, of course, when users buy applications directly from the store.

The giant disparity between Apple and Google app sales can be attributed directly to Android's target: the low cost sector. As millions of Android users will find, many Play apps are free. This continues to cause poor cohesiveness between Google and users seeking premium applications and willing to pay for them.

Apple, with its charge-leading iTunes, seems to have the premium sector figured out. Similar toiTunes, where nothing is free, the majority of apps in the App Store come with a price.

Designing for Android is also an increasing battle for developers. Simply making an app for a flagship device and popping it in the Play store isn't enough. Developers must ensure that apps work on about 600 different devices and multiple versions of Android.

LG Nexus 4 available online in India now at Rs 35,999

The LG Nexus 4 is a hot selling device and if one is able to get their hands on one, they should consider themselves extremely lucky. The price of the 16GB Nexus 4 on eBay was previously listed as Rs 29,990, but the units got sold out from eBay seller Cart2india2010. The handset is now available through other sellers, but at a considerably higher price, which is Rs 35,999.

Those who had managed to procure the Nexus 4 last month through eBay.in should consider themselves lucky as the price has skyrocketed since. There are listings on eBay.in with price as low as Rs 30,000 for the 16GB version, but one would need to bid for it. This in turn could take the price a lot higher. The model with a ‘Buy it Now’ option is for Rs 35,999 and this appears to be the cheapest listing on the popular retail site.

The handset had also been listed on online retailer Tradus.in with the 8GB version selling for a steep price of Rs 31,999 and the 16GB model selling for Rs 37,999. Even though these handsets had a higher price than that of eBay, both devices are already listed as sold out. So any hope of procuring it from there has been reduced to nil as of now.

As usual, we would caution you about buying it online as there may be issues with the buying process and as a worst case scenario, there may be the chance of one not even receiving the device at all. However, if you are eager to get your hands on this device no matter what, then it is available on eBay.in, but at a higher price.

If rumours are to be believed, then the LG Nexus 4 is expected to launch in India in January 2013. Along with this handset, LG is expected to introduce the LG Optimus G in India, too, which is the brand’s flagship handset.

Google had announced the latest devices in its Nexus line-up in late October, along with a new flavour of Android – version 4.2. The new version is still named Jelly Bean. A revised version of the Nexus 7 tablet, a new 10-inch tablet called the Nexus 10, was also announced alongside the LG Nexus 4.

The Nexus 4 is Google's latest smartphone developed together with LG. It has a quad-core processor, runs on android 4.2, has a crisp 4.7-inch (320 ppi) display and boasts of wireless charging. The company has reinvented the photo experience with Photo Sphere, which lets you capture shots up, down and in every direction to create 360-degree experiences that you can share on Google+. You can also add your Photo Sphere to Google Maps for the world to see.

Android 4.2 bring some great goodies, including Gesture Typing, which lets you glide your finger over the letters you want to type on the keyboard—thus adding the functionality of the Swype keyboard into the stock Android keyboard. Android 4.2 also adds support for wireless displays, so you can wirelessly watch movies, YouTube videos and play games right on a Miracast-compatible HDTV.

Apple drops patent claim against Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini

Apple has agreed to withdraw patent infringement allegations against Samsung's new Galaxy S3 Mini in exchange for assurances that the South Korean electronics giant will not market the smartphone in the U.S.

Apple disclosed the agreement today in a filing with the U.S. District Court for Northern California. The iPhone maker requested last month that the new smartphone and other Samsung products be added to the ongoing patent dispute between the two companies. Samsung countered that the S3 Mini was unavailable for purchase in the United States, however Apple noted that the new smartphone was listed on Amazon's U.S. storefront and had been purchased and delivered to multiple U.S. addresses.

"Apple will agree to withdraw without prejudice its request to include the Galaxy S III Mini in this case given Samsung's representation that it is not making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing that product into the United States," Apple said in its filing.

The unlocked phone quietly appeared on Amazon last month, running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and featuring a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, a dual-core 1-gigahertz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage. While the new phone supports either T-Mobile USA or AT&T, it lacks support for any 4G LTE connectivity.

Apple had previously argued that the device infringed on the same patents included in its $1.5 billion verdict against Samsung. However, Apple has been unsuccessful in securing sales bans.

Representatives for Apple and Samsung declined to comment.

SOURCE:CNET

Christmas day app downloads climb to a record-setting 328 million

App download records for iPhone, iPad and Android devices were shattered on Christmas Day, with 328m downloads on 25 December alone, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry.

That's up from 242m iOS and Android downloads on Christmas Day in 2011, representing a hefty festive bonus for developers of the most popular apps on Apple and Google's platforms.

Flurry's software is used by developers to track usage of more than 260k apps, giving it a good insight into overall market trends. Based on the same data, the company estimates that 17.4m new iOS and Android devices were activated on 25 December, up from 6.8m in 2011, and 2.8m in 2010.

In a blog post announcing these figures, Flurry's Peter Farago estimates that over the first 20 days of December 2012, daily activations of iOS and Android devices averaged 4m, showing the scale of the Christmas spike.

Of the 17.4m new activations on Christmas Day, Flurry estimates that 51% were tablets and 49% were smartphones. The company hasn't broken that down by device and manufacturer, other than saying this:

"The big winners were Apple iPads, Apple iPad Minis and Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7" tablets. In particular, Amazon had a very strong performance in the tablet category, growing by several thousand percent over its baseline of tablet activations over the earlier part of December."

Some developers have already talked about their own figures for Christmas Day downloads.

For example, Imangi Studios co-founder Keith Shepherd tweeted that its Temple Run game "had over a million downloads on iOS, over a million on Android, and over 500k on Amazon on Christmas day" – Amazon being a reference to the Amazon Appstore for Android devices, including the Kindle Fire range but also other devices.

Flurry expects downloads for the week up to New Year's Day to continue to soar. "Flurry anticipates downloads to surpass more than 1.5 billion, and have a shot at breaking through the 2-billion download barrier for the first time ever," blogs Farago.

Best Android apps of 2012: Evernote, Pinterest make it to the list

Best apps of 2012

Here’s the list of the apps that made it big on its app store this past year. As per Google, the apps it has made a part of its list are among the best apps available. While some of these launched this year, there are others that were issued updates – combining utility, beauty and accessibility. Most of these apps are available globally, and Google shares that these offer a great user experience on both tablets and phones. 

Evernote 

Evernote makes it to the list

Among these is Evernote, the popular note taking application. Recently, Evernote for Android was updated to version 4.3, bringing a host of new features to the table. With the latest update to the Android app, the Note Editor toolbar on Android has been de-cluttered. The app excludes everything that doesn’t pertain to editing and instead, puts it into the Action Bars along the top of the note. Using the toolbar, users can style their text and even go ahead and organise it with bullets, lists and checkboxes. If users want to hide the toolbar, they can do so by tapping on the arrow. 

Pinterest

Pinned to the best apps list

Pinterest, the social bookmarking service, launched its Android application in October this year. The Pinterest app for Android devices "makes it simple and fast to pin". The makers assure that the app has been made such that it works well on both Android phones and tablets irrespective of the device's cost, speed or screen size.  

Grimm's Snow White

This paid app on Google Play is an interactive pop-up fairy tale book for children. The classic tale for children will take them on the adventures of Snow White with the seven dwarfs, trying to escape the wicked queen.  

Pocket

This offline reader allows users to save and view articles, among other things. So, if you find something worth reading on the web, but want to push it for later, you can put it in Pocket. The app syncs to a user's device.

Expedia

Expedia app on Google Play lets users book hotels and flights at their convenience. The app was updated last month, allowing users to book flights on their phones. They can also browse through photos of the deals near them. 

Pixlr Express

Lets you do great things to your photos

Another interesting app mentioned in the list, it lets you do great things to your photos. The app boasts of over 600 effects, overlays and borders to help you personalise your image. 

Ancestry

This interesting, free app on Google Play lets you show off where you've come from (quite literally!). The app claims that it makes finding one's heritage fun and easy. Users can interact with their family trees or build a new one. 

Fancy

As cryptic as it may sound, Fancy app on Google Play lets see you discover great stuff, collect things you like and unlock good deals. The app description on Play calls it part store, magazine and wishlist. 

TED

You know what TED is all about. The official Android app brings users talks from some of the most fascinating people in the world – education radicals, tech geniuses, medical mavericks, business gurus and music legends. 

Seriesguide Show Manager

Then there is the Seriesguide Show Manager app on Google Play that allows users  to manage the progress of watching their chosen TV shows. The app lets users keep track of the show coming up, to know what to watch next.

SOURCE:tech2

Android app verification service misses 85% of sideloaded malware

Xuxian Jiang, an associate professor from NCSU's department of computer science, revealed that Android's new built-in application verification service is failing to stand up to its task, missing a large portion of malware that is already known to be malicious.

While Google's Bouncer service sits on the Google Play store and scans for malware, not all applications can find their way on to a device via official channels. Users can opt to "sideload" applications, bypassing any protection offered by Bouncer. To address this, Google introduced its application verification service in Android 4.2, which allows users to send information about the app to Google to determine if it is safe.

However, Jiang's research, which pitted the service against 1260 samples of known, malicious apps, found that only 193 of them were identified as being dangerous — a detection rate of only 15.32 percent.

The samples come from the Android Malware Genome Project, an initiative by Jiang and his colleague Yajin Zhou to collect and characterise Android malware for the benefit of researchers and the IT security industry. The project makes its datasets available to those that request them, presumably meaning that vendors that have the information should be able to detect all samples. So far, the majority of organisations that have requested the information come from universities and some security vendors, but there are some other noteworthy listings, such as Nokia, Samsung, AT&T, T-Mobile, GSM Association and Qualcomm.

Jiang also took a random samples of malware and ran them through VirusTotal to compare Google's service against the following antivirus engines:

• Avast
• AVG
• TrendMicro
• Symantec
• BitDefender
• ClamAV
• F-Secure
• Fortinet
• Kaspersky
• Kingsoft

Google and each of these companies had requested the Genome Project's datasets, with the exception of ClamAV, Fortinet, Kaspersky and Kingsoft. Jiang's research doesn't name which vendors received what score, except for Google, but seven companies had detection rates of above 90 percent (with two receiving complete detection rates). Of the remaining vendors, two companies scored 77.5 percent and the final one, 51.02 percent. Google's own result was 20.41 percent.

Jiang's research in November 2011 found that when looking at four vendors, detection rates ranged from 20.2 percent to 79.6 percent, indicating that the majority of vendors have significantly picked up their game.

While Jiang said that the application verification service is a step in the right direction, he also had further criticisms for Google beyond its poor detection rates.

"Our study indicates that the app verification service mainly uses an app's SHA1 value and the package name to determine whether it is dangerous or potentially dangerous. This mechanism is fragile and can be easily bypassed. It is already known that attackers can change with ease the checksums of existing malware (e.g., by repackaging or mutating it). To be more effective, additional information about the app may need to be collected."

He also believed that Google could be leveraging its own assets in a better manner. Aside from having the datasets that Jiang has made available to it, Google is also a hardware donor for the project and owns VirusTotal. Jiang raised the question of why Google hadn't taken advantage of the fact that it could, potentially, use VirusTotal to provide better scanning of malware instead of relying solely on its own verification service.

SOURCE:ZDNET

Android 4.2 random reboots: What's going on?

Google's recent Android 4.2 release introduces some interesting new features. It also, unfortunately, introduces some pesky new bugs.

The most vexing issue that's arisen thus far is the occurrence of random reboots: Some users are finding that their devices suddenly restart during both active use and idle time, with no warning and for no apparent reason.

I didn't experience this phenomenon while I was testing a pre-release version of Android 4.2 on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 some weeks back. I have, however, experienced it sporadically in the days since the platform's debut -- both on upgraded devices like the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus and on some of the new Nexus hardware.

It isn't clear how many users the glitch is actually affecting, but it's enough to make a decent amount of noise. A quick search of the Web turns upnumerous threads discussing the Android 4.2 random reboot issue, both within Google's official Android issues site and within enthusiast forums likeXDA Developers.

The good news is that help is on the way: I've confirmed with Google that the Android team is aware of the issue and has pinpointed the problem -- and that a fix will be included in the next incremental release.

So what's actually going on here? Officially, Google has yet to divulge any details about the nature of the glitch. We can, however, use the data in front of us to make some educated guesses.

Android 4.2 random reboots: Tracking down the cause

Let's start with the obvious: A lot of users reporting the Android 4.2 reboots have noticed a correlation between reboots and the presence of HD Widgets, a popular and highly rated widget utility available in the Google Play Store. Some users observed that uninstalling HD Widgets seemed to stop the random reboots from happening, which led to a theory that HD Widgets might be the culprit.

That theory is not entirely accurate -- but it isan important piece of the puzzle. First off, if you read through the various bug reports, it's clear that even though HD Widgets is a common variable, it is not absolute; there are users who are experiencing random reboots and don't have HD Widgets installed. That alone tells us there's something bigger at play.

Second of all, members of the HD Widgets development team say they've talked to Google about the crashes. Google, they say in the "User Reviews" section of their Google Play Store page, confirmed to them that the app itself is not to blame and that the bug resides on the OS level.

That makes sense for a couple of different reasons. Given the architecture of the Android platform, it shouldn't be possible for a single app to take down an entire system in the first place, no matter how badly it fails; at worst, an app would cause a force-close error informing the user that its process has "stopped unexpectedly."

Beyond that, some sharp power-users have discovered that disabling Google's location-based services seems to stop the reboots from occurring, with or without HD Widgets in place. This has come up in several places and been replicated by numerous people.

Android 4.2 random reboots: Putting it all together

All combined, the logical conclusion is that Google's location-based services -- GPS and/or mobile network location -- appear to be unstable in certain circumstances with Android 4.2. Apps like HD Widgets access those services on a regular basis, which is likely why they're connected to the issue.

(HD Widgets' user base, incidentally, is strongly skewed toward Android 4.2 -- about 15 percent of the app's 500,000-plus active users are on that version of the platform, according to the developers -- which may help explain why it's been the most frequently noticed commonality among those troubleshooting this issue.)

There may also be a connection to the lock screen widget feature introduced with Android 4.2. HD Widgets was one of the first and most prominent third-party apps to offer support for that functionality. What's more, the lock screen widget feature wasn't available with the pre-release software loaded on review devices, which could explain why I didn't experience this issue during my initial evaluations.

These details, of course, are merely conjecture. But the pieces sure do seem to add up.

Android 4.2 random reboots: The next steps

So what's next? For the moment, there's not much to do other than wait and optionally apply a temporary Band-Aid. Disabling location-based services either within the main Android settings or within the settings of third-party apps that use them seems to be the most reliable workaround, if you're among those experiencing the reboots. Yes, it's far from ideal -- but for now, it's the best we've got.

[UPDATE (12/5/12 7:00 p.m. ET): The developers of HD Widgets have just released an update that they hope may improve the issue as it relates to their app. Long story short, they're implementing a workaround within HD Widgets that prevents the app from using a specific Android service connected to the reboots. The update has been pushed to the Play Store and should be widely available by Wednesday evening.]

With any luck, Google's permanent solution will be here sooner than later. Regardless of how many users it's affecting, I think we can all agree this isn't the kind of issue you'd want to leave unresolved for long.