Nvidia SHIELD

This topic was recommended by Anuj tambwekar:

Nvidia, the company that makes all those powerful GPUs for those gaming machines, is coming up with a new class of gadgets. So what exactly is this? Well it is called the Nvidia SHIELD. It is a portable gaming machine that has a 5 inch high resolution multi touch display and a console like controller. according to Nvidia it runs the latest version of Android Jellybean. Thus, it will be able to play all games on the android market! but thats not all, it will also be able to stream compatible games from your computer! But only computers that have an Nvidia GeForce GTX GPU. For those of you didn't understand that, don't fret! It is basically a kind of processor (graphics card) in your computer manufactured by Nvidia. (most computers don't have it)

 Examples of games it will run, Batman Arkham City, Borderlands 2, Resident Evil 6 etc. For Android, you can acces the playstore for games and also Enjoy two pre-loaded SHIELD-optimized games right out of the box. Under the hood is some serious power. It's got a TEGRA-4 quad core processor with 2 GB of RAM. 5 inch 1280x720 (294 PPI) Multi-Touch Retinal Quality Display. And 16 Gb of flash storage. (which isn't a lot for gaming) Now, for all of you who didn't understand that, well in one word it is powerful for a portable device. 

So, when can we expect this device? Well Nvidia says it will start shipping by the end of June of this year. You can pre-order this device right now from Nvidia's website. (Link is below) This device will only be available for sale in North America. And how much will this device cost? Well Nvidia hasn't told anyone yet. For all you Tech Geeks who want to know what are the exact requirements for streaming from the computer to the SHIELD, here is is:

• GPU: GeForce GTX 650 or higher desktop GPU (Notebook GPUs are not supported at this time)
• CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz or AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8GHz or higher
• System Memory: 4GB or higher
• OS: Windows 8 or Windows 7
• Software: GeForce Experience application and latest GeForce drivers
• Routers: 802.11a/g router (minimum). 802.11n dual band router (recommended).

Link to the website : Click Here

See you next time!

Tips to save your device's battery

Does your phone or tablet's battery run out quickly? would you want it to stay just a bit longer? Well you are not alone. Many people around the world have this problem. They try to use battery saving apps, but the truth is that these apps help little if they even turn out to help. So how do you fix this problem? Well here's how:

1. Always turn of your bluetooth and GPS unless you absolutely need the. These 2 features are always power hungry and are your worst enemies when it comes to saving your phone's battery.
2. If you have 3G data on your phone, whenever you can, switch to WIFI. In the long run WIFI uses far less power than 3G data.
3. There is a feature called Auto-sync on your phone. What this feature does is it automatically connects to your E-mail account or you Facebook, Twitter etc. every now and then and checks if you have any emails or any new posts, or status updates etc. and will tell you once it has collected the data. Turn this feature off because while doing so it consumes a fair amount of power.
4. If your phone has an ambient light sensor, turn the brightness to automatic. What this does is it senses the amount of light in your surroundings and adjusts your phone's brightness accordingly, so your phone's screen will never be too bright or too dim. If your phone does not have this sensor just set the brightness to 50%.
5. Always remember that your phone will consume more power when it vibrates compared to when it rings. 
6. To make sure that your phone's battery stays in tip-top condition, avoid keeping your phone in direct sunlight for a long time since this damages the battery and after sometime, your battery may only charge to 80%.

Well following these tips well definitely save your phone's and tablet's battery life. See you next time!

Top Android keyboards

The best thing about Andorid is its customisability. Today I will be testing 3 keyboards and I will tell you which one is the best. Before I start, I must tell you that all these keyboards are absolutely free, not like Swift Key which has a 28 day free trial or like Smart keyboard which in 14 days you loose some functionalities. Also, I am not referring to the pro or paid versions of these keyboards if they have one. Also, please note that these tests have been conducted on a phone, not a tablet. So, let's jump into it.


First up, GO Keyboard. This keyboard has tons of options for themes, sounds, settings etc. This keyboard too has the Swype functionality without the need to switch, just like the previous keyboard.
However, I didn't find the Swype experience enjoyable and I couldn't justify its autocorrect function. The landscape mode however was really nice, but I must say that this keyboard looses to the previous keyboard because of its sloppy autocorrect function.


Next, Touchpal Keyboard. This keyboard is feature packed. It starts off with a friendly tutorial and teaches you the cool stuff this keyboard can do. Let me give you a few examples, to delete the previous word in one go, you just slide left from the back space button. To get emoticons, long press the symbol button on the main screen. This keyboard comes with Swype built in. Swype is a form of typing where you don't lift you finger from the screen, instead you just trace a path from letter to letter. You don't even have to switch between normal typing and Swype, you can use them both on the go! However, during fast typing, this keyboard just can't catch up, unless you are using landscape mood where this keyboard performs really well.

Lastly, we have the Jelly Bean Keyboard. It is the stock Android jelly Bean keyboard and is also available for download from the Play Store. This keyboard isn't the worst in the world, but at the same time it is not the best. It can keep up with fast typing in the portrait mode, but fairs better in the landscape mode compared to the Go Keyboard.

So these are the final results. If you want a highly customisable keyboard, choose the GO Keyboard. If you want an all-round keyboard, choose the Touchpal keyboard. However, if you like simplicity better over features, the jelly Bean Keyboard is your best bet. I am now going to switch over to the Touchpal keyboard. So see you next time!

Google Drive

The future of the world lies in cloud computing. Today, I'm going to go through an application called Google Drive. Google Drive is a free application which offers cloud storage. So what can you do with this app?

Well for starters, I use this app to create office documents which I can access from my phone, iPad and Mac. It is easy to create word documents, spreadsheets and presentations. To get started, all you need to do is download that application on your phone, tablet and laptop/desktop. Then all you do is sign in with your google ID and you are done! So once I have typed out, lets say a project for school on my mac in Google Drive, I walk up to my iPad, open Google Drive and there I have it. Next, I can change some sentences on my iPad, walk back to my Mac and there it is! The latest version of it! The best part is that you don't need to even save it. It automatically saves the document once you have made any changes to it. And thats not it. You can also upload photos, music PDF files and video clips. Then it syncs with your google account and you have it on all of your devices. Also, it is easy to share the files and documents stored.

I have just gone over this app briefly but you can check out all it's capabilities in detail on the developers website which is at the end of this blog. If you have an android phone, the link to download it is below.
To sum up, this is THE BEST cloud storage option available as of this date. It is a must have. See you next time!

Link to the Developers Website
Link to the Android Play store Android Play Store

Google Goggles

Many people know a lot of Google applications but how many know Google Goggles? Google Goggles is a free app by google that claims to do the following -

1. - Scan barcodes using Goggles to get product information
2. - Scan QR codes using Goggles to extract information
3. - Recognise famous landmarks
4. - Translate by taking a picture of foreign language text
5. - Add Contacts by scanning business cards or QR codes
6. - Scan text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
7. - Recognize paintings, books, DVDs, CDs, and just about any 2D image
8. - Solve Sudoku puzzles
9. - Find similar products

So I decided to test every single thing they claim to see if it works consistently and accurately.

1. I scanned 3 item's barcodes. First,a tic tac mint box. It scanned it and performed a google search of it and then i got the usual web results. Then, I scanned a Hardy Boys book. It scanned the barcode and opened up Google Shopping and then even told me how much the book would cost. Third, an Agatha Christie book unfortunately, it was not able to scan it. That is 2 out of 3.
2. I then tried the QR code scanner. I scanned a QR code of a college. It gave me their website and offered to save its contact. Perfect. 3 out of 4.
3. I then scanned the Taj Mahal, but instead of giving me information, it opened up Google Shopping and showed me an iPhone case which had a Taj Mahal picture on it. Epic Fail. I then took a picture of the Eifel Tower and it surprisingly worked. So I give it half a point. That is now 3.5 out of 5.
4.  I then took a picture of I'm hungry in chineese and took a picture of it, but it couldnt translate it since it only suppourts these languages. - 
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish. Then I tried the same thing in French and it worked perfectly. The score now is 4.5 out of 6.
5. Test 5 is combined in test 2. 
6. I scanned the heading of the Times Of India newspaper and it offered to search the web for its logo or for the text "Times Of India." Perfect again. 5.5 out of 7.
7. I took a picture of the most famous painting in the world. The Mona Lisa. It worked again giving me a description of the painting. Great! 6.5 out of 8.
8. I took a picture of a Sudoku puzzle. Unfortunately, it only searched Google for sudoku. Thats 7.5 out of 9.
9. For the last test I took a picture of a tic tac mint , hoping that it would reply with results of Altoids or Polo, but it only gave me information of the company and searched Google for it.

Thats the end of the test folks. 7.5 out of 10 is what it scores. Note that this test was conducted under below average lighting conditions, so you shouldn't have a problem with lighting. To sum up, this is a great application which everybody should have on their smartphone. Till next time!

Opera Mini web browser VS. Google Chrome

Smartphones have many great features. One of them is surfing the web. With so many web browsers out there on the store, how do you know which one is the best. Well it turns out that I just figured it out.  At the begining I used to use the standard browser that came with the phone. Then i switched over to the world famous google chrome. Then I heard of the Opera mini web browser. I had tried the desktop browser of it and clearly it lagged behind google chrome, so I didnt set up high expectations for its mobile version. Opera claims that web pages would load up faster and it would take less data to do so. And I found out that they werent totally telling the truth. Google searches did load up just a fraction faster compared to google chrome, however it took pretty much the same amount of data.

In the main screen your bookmarks show up with nice pictures. While surfing, at the top of the screen is the search bar. On the bottom of the screen is a tool bar that stays in the same place even when you scroll. Overall, it is a nice web browser and while many might prefer it, I would still stick with google chrome since it has a nice and sleek UI. However, you might want to check Opera's browser out too. Here are the links below. Happy surfing!

Google Chrome 
Opera Mini web browser