Adobe Photoshop Express for Android updated with new engine, features and UI

Android users will now be able to enjoy a number of new features while editing images on their handsets, as Adobe has rolled out an updated version of its Photoshop Express app for the platform.

The news comes from Adobe's official blog post titled - 'Introducing the All New Photoshop Express for Android'.

The free to download updated version of the Adobe Photoshop Express for Android app, now compatible with the latest Android 4.4 KitKat iteration, will enable users to access and process the images from their SD cards "faster than before." The team is also said to have focused on making the app easy to use for users, by highlighting the most important features on top, such as looks, cropping, red eye reduction and auto-correct.

The app's Corrections menu has been also revamped with slider controls for controlling the image's exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, temperature, tint and more. The updated version of Photoshop Express for Android is powered by Adobe's latest rendering engine, which improves the overall performance and is capable of handling large files.

The updated Adobe Photoshop Express for Android app release also includes the Adobe Revel feature. Adobe Revel keeps all the photos clicked by the user organized at one place along with the sharing feature. The shared photos and videos can be contributed and viewed only by those who have been invited by the user.

The updated Adobe Photoshop Express for Android can be downloaded from the Google Play store.

Adobe recently updated its Photoshop CC software, part of the Creative Cloud subscription-based online service, to support 3D printing capabilities. All the new 3D tools and features are available as a free update for Creative Cloud subscribers.

Samsung to make big screen smartphones and tablets with new touch, display tech

Samsung's latest earnings result ended the South Korean company's dream run at quarterly profits, and the company attributed slowing global smartphone sales among other reasons. However, the company has revealed its plans to strengthen its big screen smartphone portfolio comprising 5-inch to 6-inch displays, apart from also concentrating on tablets.

ZDNet Korea in a report has cited Samsung's executive director Hyunjoon Kim, who has claimed that the South Korean major has been a leader in big screen market, ever since launching the first Galaxy Note phablet in 2011. The current claims of Samsung's executive go in-line with the company's plans for coming years which included smartphones with displays bearing pixel densities of 560 ppi and 4K resolutions in November last year.

The report further suggests that Samsung is planning to offer differentiated displays to its consumers and also improve its existing S Pen and Multi-Window features.

In addition, Samsung at its second analyst meeting in South Korea last year had also revealed plans for renewing its tablet focus to take on Apple. Following the strategy company launched four tablets atCES 2014 which included the Galaxy NotePRO (12.2-inch), Galaxy TabPRO 12.2-inch, Galaxy TabPRO 10.1-inch and Galaxy TabPRO 8.4-inch. The Galaxy NotePRO 12.2 and Galaxy TabPRO 12.2 tablets sport the biggest displays in the company's tablet line-up.

Unfortunately, Kim did not share many details about the company's upcoming big screen display smartphone, though we expect that the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo, previously dubbed Galaxy Note 3 Lite might be one.

The alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo was purportedly leaked in renders recently. The leaked press renders of the rumoured Galaxy Note 3 Neo showed the device's front and rear panel, which were reminiscent of the Galaxy Note 3 phablet. The new leaked renders seemingly confirmed that the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo would sport a faux-leather rear cover.

Notably, Samsung's operating profit tumbled almost a fifth in the fourth quarter, due to a one-off bonus and slowing sales of company's high-end smartphones, marking the company's first quarterly profit decline in two years.

Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini with Android 4.2 listed online at Rs. 14,490

Micromax's long-rumoured Canvas Turbo Mini has been listed at an e-commerce website for Rs. 14,490. Listed as 'out of stock', there is no word on the availability of the device, with the page providing a 'Notify Me' option for consumers.

The Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini (A200) is a dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) device which runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box. It comes with a 4.7-inch (720x1280 pixels) HD IPS display. The Canvas Turbo Mini is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor (unspecified chipset) with 1GB of RAM.

The Canvas Turbo Mini features 4GB of inbuilt storage, though there is no word on expandable storage. It sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, while there is a secondary 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

On the connectivity front, the Canvas Turbo Mini includes 3G, Wi-Fi, Micro-USB, and Bluetooth. The yet-to-be-announced Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini packs an 1800mAh battery, which according to the listing, delivers up to 6 hours of talk time and up to 180 hours of standby time on 2G network.

The new smartphone from Micromax is now listed on Flipkart in two colour variants Blue and White. It was first spotted by FoneArena.

Recently, two of Micromax's smartphones, Bolt A24 and Bolt A71, were spotted on the official site.

The Micromax Bolt A24 runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread out-of-the-box, while the Micromax Bolt A71 on the other hand runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

The Micromax Bolt A24 Android smartphone is a dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) device, and supports regular SIM size. It comes with 2.8-inch TFT display with a 240x320 pixels (QVGA) resolution, and is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex A5 Spreadtrum SC6820 processor along with 256MB of RAM.

The Micromax Bolt A71 is a dual-SIM phablet with support for GSM+GSM. It features a 5-inch WVGA (480x800 pixels) display, and is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A5 processor along with 512MB of RAM.

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 launched in India

Samsung has officially launched Galaxy Grand 2 smartphone in India. It comes with a 5.25 inch HD resolution touchscreen (1280x720 pixels) and runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.3 operating system. On memory front, it has 1.5 GB RAM, 8 GB of internal memory expandable up to 64 GB using micro SD card. The device comes with a 1.2 GHz quad core processor. It has a leather-like stitched back panel, which was first introduced in Note 3. 

Galaxy Grand 2 sports 8 MP auto focus rear camera with LED flash, and a 1.9 MP front camera. It is 8.9 mm thick in size and weighs 163 grams. There is a 2600 mAh battery. 
For Grand 2 users, Club Samsung comes for free for 3 months. Club Samsung is a content store that provides stuff like music, movies and live TV. Club Samsung gives access to language content across 5000 Movies, 4 Lakh Songs and Live TV with 90+ channels. It offers content in Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati.

Though Samsung has not quoted the exact price, it is said to be priced between Rs 22,900 - Rs 24,900. The device will be available in the market in the first week of January 2014

NaMO Mobiles...

It seems Narendra Modi is all over India. With 2014 general elections pending, Narendra Modi has already invaded the social networking space in a huge way. Now a group called Smartnamo, which called itself independent, has announced two smartphones, namely Smartnamo Saffron 2, Saffron 1. The Saffron 1 will be available in two variants.

"All the three phones will be available in India online from this Sunday. The Saffron 2 will be available for Rs 24,000," 

"There Saffron 1 will be launched in two versions: one will have 2 GB RAM and 32 GB ROM and will be available for Rs 23,000. The other version will come with 1 GB RAM and 16 GB ROM and will be priced at Rs 18,000. 

How to disable JAVA

Java in Windows, Linux and even in Mac was vulnerable to a zero day exploit which is hosted on a malicious domain. See fireeye post for more detailed analysis.

Oracle published security updates today and now current version of java is Java 7 update 7. Oracle is also providing security patches for Java version 6. Current version for that is Java 6 update 35.

Exploit was available long ago in Crimeware toolkit like Blackhole. and now in Metasploit. Availability of this zero day exploit forces a system admin or user to uninstall or disable Java. Security researchers are suggesting to turn off Java, unless there is a strong use case. Java is running on almost 3 billion devices, which includes PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets. So before disabling it is very important to understand that which component or software uses Java. As exploit is hosted on a website, all browsers running on systems were found to be vulnerable if they had the Java plugin installed, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. In the UN-availability of security updates a user can prevent attack by disabling java plugins in their respective browsers.

For Windows users:

In Mozilla firefox: Go to Add-ons manager.Click on the Java (TM) Platform plugin to select it. And click Disable.

In Google chrome: visit the Plug-ins page at chrome://plugins/. Find the java plug-in and click Disable.

In Internet explorer: If you use Internet Explorer version 7 or above, open Internet Explorer and select Tools | Manage Add-ons then skip to Step 2.

If you use an older version of Internet Explorer, open Internet Explorer and select Tools | Internet Options and continue to Step 1.

1. From the Internet Options window, click the Programs tab and select Manage Add-ons.

2. From the Add-ons windows, click once to select (highlight) Java Plug-in then click the Disable button. Click Close and OK to accept the change.

For MAC users:

In Safari: Go to Safari > Preferences, click “security” and uncheck “Disable Java”.

In Mozilla firefox: Go to Add-ons manager.Click on the Java (TM) Platform plugin to select it. And click Disable.

In Google chrome: visit the Plug-ins page at chrome://plugins/. Find the java plug-in and click Disable.

For Linux users:

In Google chrome: visit the Plug-ins page at chrome://plugins/. Find the java plug-in and click Disable.

In Mozilla firefox: Go to Add-ons manager.Click on the Java (TM) Platform plugin to select it. And click Disable.

Note: you can re-enable Java easily by following the same steps above, this time selecting the enable option.

Microsoft windows 9 in April 2014

Microsoft is trying to put Windows 8 firmly in its rear-view mirror by sparking a new discussion about its upcoming Windows 9 operating system (code-named Threshold) to debut this April at the company's Build 2014 conference in San Francisco, according to reports.

Microsoft Threshold will be released in the spring of 2015 with alpha code available to developers as early as the end of this April, according to Windows SuperSite's Paul Thurrott. Windows 9 details include the return of the Start button; the ability to run Metro-style apps within the Windows desktop environment; and the OS having closer ties to Xbox One and Windows Phone, according to the report.

Announcements of Windows 9 come as disenchantment over Win 8 continues to dog Microsoft. Win 8 has barely crossed the 10 percent installed base compared to soon-to-expire Windows XP, which still runs on 29 percent of PCs

"This signals an aggressive release cycle for Microsoft, but one I think it needs to execute on if it wants to be competitive in an increasingly mobile-centric world dominated by Apple. The timing is perfect. Over the next year, Microsoft will have finished its soul searching, and a new CEO will be able to put a stamp on the next Windows 9 OS," said Larry Velez, CTO and Founder, Sinu, a New York-based MSP partnering with both Google and Microsoft.

Rumors of Windows 9 come as disenchantment over Windows 8.1 among enterprise customers continues to dog Microsoft. In December, Windows 8.x barely crossed the 10 percent install-base milestone compared to Microsoft's soon-to-expire Windows XP operating system, which still runs on 29 percent of PCs, according to a new report from Net Applications.

"An OS lifespan is only so long. With XP, it makes sense. But for the enterprise, I don't think they are going to want to have to consider a new OS like Windows 9 anytime soon. Most of my business this year is going to be migrating XP systems to Windows 7," said Bob Hochmutch, Executive Vice President, Sales, SLPowers, a Florida-based solution provider and Microsoft partner. "None of my customers are thinking about Windows 8.1. Windows 9 is going to have to be remarkable if it wants to make an impression in the enterprise."

Microsoft hasn't given up on Windows 8.1. In April, Microsoft is expected to release a service pack Update 1 for the OS. Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 will also take center stage at Build 2014, with developers expected to have a huge presence at the developers conference.

"Microsoft needs to be careful here. It is trying to show it's cloud-centric and moving forward to embrace the mobile PC landscape, but it needs to remember its bread and butter is the enterprise customer. And those customers don't like change. They just care about security, ease of use and a smooth transition from old to new," Hochmutch said.

Microsoft did not return request for comment for this report.

"Windows 8.1 was a first, yet imperfect, step to where Microsoft needs to go. I hope that Windows 9 will actually be a strong second step, before it's too late for Microsoft to regain its innovative lead," Velez said.