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Asus Transformer Pad Review

The Asus Transformer Prime TF201 was a fine example of how a premium Android tablet should be done. It came clad in a slick metal casing and was one of the first devices to have the Nvidia Tegra 3 SoC at its heart. Asus’ new addition to its Transformer line-up is the Transformer Pad TF300TG, which is a slightly scaled-down version of the Transformer Prime TF201. Does this mean it’s a bang for your buck? Let’s find out.

Design and build quality

Unlike the Transformer Prime TF201, the Pad TF300TG sports a plastic shell. The rear panel sports a fine concentric circle texture, which adds a classy touch. In addition to the Iceberg White piece that we received, the Pad TF300TG is also available in Royal Blue and Torch Red colours.

At 635 grams, the tablet alone is about 50 grams heavier than the Prime TF201. It’s also 1.6 mm thicker, all thanks to the thick plastic shell. This doesn’t mean it’s bulky; in fact, it’s quite compact and feels very sturdy.

When held horizontally, you have the volume rocker, micro HDMI port, microSD and SIM card slot on the left side. The power button is placed on the top left and the 3.5 mm headphone jack is placed on the right side. The rear panel sports an 8 megapixel camera and a secondary 1.2 megapixel camera is placed just above the 10.1-inch IPS display. The Prime TF201 featured a Super IPS+ display that was much brighter. However, at 1280 x 800 (149 ppi), the resolution of both the devices is the same.

If you notice the bottom of the frame, you’ll see a tiny downward pointing triangle, which indicates the location of the proprietary connector. The dock’s holder too has the same triangle, but pointing upward. When the two triangles coincide, you know that the tablet will fit on the dock. Press the tablet down gently and you’ll hear a distinct click indicating it has been locked in place.

The dock adds the convenience of a laptop courtesy a physical keyboard and touchpad. It also houses a secondary battery, a USB port and a regular SD card slot. That’s a few additional hours of battery life right away. A good thing is that when the tablet is docked, the battery of the dock is used first followed by the tablet’s battery. This ensures you’ll have maximum battery life when you head out with only the tablet.

The keyboard is similar to that of a netbook with the exception that the topmost row of keys has shortcuts for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness, web browser, settings, media playback, volume control and lock. You’ll find typing comfortable if you have tiny hands. Even if you have large hands or stubby fingers, you’ll find the keyboard more convenient than the on-screen keyboard. Not to mention, you also have a touchpad with left and right click buttons on a tiny chrome strip below. Note that the right-click functions as the back button.

The build quality of the dock isn’t at par with that of the tablet—it feels fragile and plasticky. The plastic used should have been of better quality.

Lenovo Miix 10 tablet up for pre-order; starting

The Lenovo Miix 10 tablet is finally up for pre-order on the company's store at a starting price of $479 (Rs 29,000 approximately). The 10.1-inch display on the Miix is powered by a 1.80GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor with 2GB of RAM.

3G (optional), Wi-Fi capabilitiesThis Lenovo tablet runs the Windows 8 OS and other specifications include a microSD slot and an optional case with a built-in keyboard that can be used to use this tablet as a notebook, depending on the need.

The built-in webcam on the tablet comes with Veriface Face Recognition Software, thanks to which a user's face becomes his password. The webcam essentially uses stored images of a user's face to allow them to quickly login. Additionally, it supports multiple users.

10.1-inch HD LED multitouch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixelsHere's a quick look at the specs of the Lenovo Miix 10 tablet:

Bluetooth v4.0
Micro USB 2.0, 2-in-1 audio jack (headphone and mic), Micro HDMI
1.0MP HD camera
2-cell Li-Polymer battery

The Lenovo Miix 10 tablet comes with a year's worth of warranty. Security and Support features on this tablet include Lenovo Companion, Lenovo Support, McAfee Internet Security 30-day Trial and Lenovo Cloud Storage by SugarSync. Productivity apps include Microsoft Office 2013 Trial, Evernote and Nitro Pro, while Multimedia features include access to Live TV, RaRa Metro, Zinio Metro and Amazon Kindle apps. The company site says that the Miix 10 tablet will start shipping on August 29.

Airtel to acquire 100% stake in Qualcomm's 4G venture by 2014 Report

Telecom major Bharti Airtel plans to completely acquire US firm Qualcomm's Indian 4G venture, Wireless Business Services, by end of next year.

"This is as originally planned. The event (2 per cent stake share subscription) took place in this quarter, resulting in our stake in this business promoted by Qualcomm in India, going up 51 per cent. As previously announced in May 2012, we plan to take our stake to 100 per cent by end of next year," Bharti Airtel's Group Chief Financial Officer Sarvjit Singh Dhillon said today in response to a query.

Wireless Business Services (WBS) has won BWA spectrum, that can be used for 4G services, in four circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala.

Airtel holds 51 per cent stake in the company, which was initially launched by chip maker Qualcomm.

Bharti Airtel also has 4G spectrum in four service areas of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kolkata and Punjab. However, it is providing only high-speed 4G mobile Internet services in Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune and Chandigarh.

WBS has approached the Department of Telecommunications for allocation of mobile numbers to start testing of voice call services on 4G network in four service areas. It has requested DoT to allocate 25,000 numbers in each service area for testing of voice service.

Twitter Music review

Until now, my problem with social music services has been this. Following friends doesn't really turn up much music I actually want to hear. We didn't become friends because we share musical tastes, and too few of them are using the services I'm trying out.

Twitter's new music service solves this problem. It helps that it's free. With it, I'm able to sneak a peek into the musical interests of the artists I like. For example, I discovered that Gotye likes the Divine Fits, a Los Angeles-based band I'd never heard of until now, because he follows them on Twitter.

With a tap on the colorful photo representing the band, I can listen to a 30-second preview of the new song of theirs that is being tweeted about the most. For the Divine Fits, that's "Like Ice Cream." It was catchy enough for me to want to hear more.

After listening to a preview, I can tap a button to buy the track on iTunes or listen to the full song through a $10-a-month subscription from Spotify or Rdio. I can also find other songs from the artists through those outside services.

As a discovery tool, Twitter's #music service provides a convenient, visually pleasing way to filter through the deluge of music that's out there.

Sure, I could have replicated this feature by digging through Gotye's Twitter profile and individually going into the profiles of people he's following to determine if they're artists. Then I could search elsewhere for their songs or music videos. But that's more work than I'm ready to put into this.

The #music service highlights the artists for you and features the song preview right there.

The service also has a tab for emerging artists that it somehow digs out from tweets. I'm not sure how they're selected, but random poking around this page is how I found the broody music of Skylar Grey.

Finding new music can be tough. It's easy to get hit over the head by the chart-toppers, who are everywhere. There's also a "popular" tab in #music for a rundown of which artists are trending on Twitter.

It's way more difficult to find music you like if you never knew a band existed. This provides a way.

For now, #music is available as an iPhone app and on the Web. Twitter says an Android version is coming, but it didn't say when.

Beyond its usefulness for music discovery, the Twitter #music app is fun to play with. It is far more engaging than Twitter's regular app, and swiping around makes the squares representing artists bounce around. Tapping to play a song clip generates a spinning icon with album cover art that harkens back to the heyday of vinyl records.

True, this is a marketing tool and I was skeptical to start. And #music is not perfect for listening. Artists have only one song apiece on their profiles, so if you want to hear more you've got to go elsewhere.

And even if you buy a song from iTunes after discovering it here, tapping the play button on the artist's square again will still play the 30-second preview. I discovered this after buying Skylar Grey's "Final Warning" for 69 cents. To hear the full version, I had to go back to the iPhone's music player.

It also didn't track the #NowPlaying tag very well, despite putting it in all my tweets from the service. There was a considerable lag in showing these tweets from people I follow compared with my normal Twitter feed.

For full song plays within the service, you have to sign up for a premium subscription to Spotify or Rdio, each of which costs $10 a month.

This made using #music much better, although I discovered more artists by listening to just 30 seconds, making a quick decision and moving on - kind of like speed dating for music. The clips will play back-to-back, which can make for a jarring listening experience. But you also can focus your time on quick music discovery and go elsewhere to learn more.

Connecting the service to my Rdio account helped because the songs I played through #music showed up on the Rdio app's history list. That way, I could switch to Rdio to listen to the whole album.

Thanks to #music, I discovered that I like the Divine Fits and Skylar Grey within, say, a half hour of fiddling with the service. That makes it worth downloading, in my view. I'll go back to it when I'm on the hunt again for music I didn't know was there.

PayPal now allows Indian merchants to receive up to $10,000 in one transaction

Online payments provider PayPal has increased the per-transaction receiving limit for merchants in India to $10,000.

This essentially means that merchants registered with PayPal will be able to receive up top $10,000 in one transaction for export-related payments for goods and services.

According to an email communication from PayPal, merchants will be able to accept credit and debit card payments on their website, mobile, eBay listing, or by sending an invoice.

However, to be able to receive export-related payments, merchants would need to confirm their email address, and add a Permanent Account Number (PAN), Purpose Code and local bank account to their PayPal Account.

The move comes after the Reserve Bank of India issued a notification allowing Online Payment Gateway Service Providers like PayPal to increase the per transaction receiving limit to $10,000 for export related remittances, as reported by MediaNama.

Previously, the receiving limit per transaction was capped to $3,000 by the RBI. While merchants carrying out transactions through online payment providers will now be able to receive payments of up to $10,000 in one go, it's worth pointing out that these payments will be automatically transferred to their bank accounts as payments are auto withdrawn every day. The steps taken by the Reserve Bank of India are to ensure that these transactions get recorded.

In September 2011, the RBI had capped overseas payments per transaction to $500. The limit was increased to $3000 after just one month.

Microsoft for lack of Windows Phone updates, apps

It looks like Nokia has finally come out in the open against Microsoft's slow pace of pushing updates to Windows Phone 8.

While the Finnish handset giant has been churning out new handset models and updated versions of its own services and apps, Microsoft has often been criticised for not playing a very conducive role when it comes to bringing its mobile OS on par with Android and iOS.

Till now, tech evangelists and Nokia fans had been panning Microsoft for ignoring the Windows Phone 8 platform, however, it now seems that Nokia also wants Microsoft to get out of its slumber.

In a recent interview with International Business Times, Bryan Biniak, Vice President - App Development at Nokia, has fired salvos at Microsoft, subtly conveying the message that smartphone sales are suffering due to lack of updates.

He said, "We are trying to evolve the cultural thinking [at Microsoft] to say 'time is of the essence.' Waiting until the end of your fiscal year when you need to close your targets, doesn't do us any good when I have phones to sell today."

Biniak also talked about the problem related to lack of apps, and how it's affecting the consumer's perception against Nokia's Lumia smartphones.

"We are releasing new devices frequently and for every new device, if there is an app that somebody cares about that's not there that's a missed opportunity of a sale," he added.

"To give you a reason to switch, I need to make sure the apps that you care about on your device are not only on our phones, but are better. I also need to provide you unique experiences that you can't get on your other devices."

While the Windows Phone platforms boasts of 165,000 apps, a number of major apps including Instagram are missing form the platform. New releases and variants of popular games like Angry Birds and Temple Run also arrive on Windows Phone, months or sometimes years after they release their iOS and Android versions.

A lot of software development on the Windows Phone platform is being supported by Nokia, with the company developing its own imaging software for its camera-focused offerings.

Nokia says it will continue to invest in the platform's development on its own.

"As a company we don't want to rely on somebody else and sit and wait for them to get it right," said Biniak.

BMW unveils electric car i3 in 3 continents; eyes Indian market

Beijing: German luxury car maker BMW Group Monday launched the first production series of its all-electric 'i3' city car simultaneously in three continents -- Asia, Europe and the US.

The company said it sees huge potential in India for the BMW i3 and is in talks with the government on the issue of sustainable mobility.

The i3 would go on sale in London by the end of this year and in Beijing and New York from the beginning of 2014.

While it will be priced 35,000 euros in Europe, the i3 will cost USD 41,350 in the US. The company has not yet decided price for the Chinese market.

Asked if the company has plans to launch the i3 in India, the Group's Board member for production Harald Krueger said: "I was in New Delhi last week. We have discussed about this with the concerned minister. We will definitely come to India as we see there is a potential market. But we cannot say when (i3 will be launched in India)."

The infrastructure in India for such electric vehicles has to be developed first, he added.

The four-seater i3, with its zero emissions all-electric engine and a range of 130-300 kilometres, is designed mainly for city use.

Commenting on the launch, BMW AG Norbert Reithofer said: "It is a milestone in motor industry. BMW i3 is a revolutionary car for sustainable mobility. This day will be remembered in future."

The car is made of carbon fibre and reinforced plastics on a light aluminium chassis to reduce weight.

"This is for the first time carbon fibre has been used for mass production in BMW. It is a technology breakthrough. Use of carbon fibre is 50 percent lighter than steel. It makes it (car) safe," Krueger said.

The car weighs 1,200 kg, while battery about 230 kgs. More than 80 percent of the vehicle parts can be recycled. It can be charged at home from conventional domestic plug socket or have a BMWi wallbox installed to charge battery in around six hours. It can also be charged at public stations.

The i3 will also have the option of a range extender which uses a two-cylinder petrol engine with nine litre fuel tank to maintain exclusively the charge of the lithium-ion battery, thereby increasing the range of the vehicle to around 300 kilometre in day-to-day driving.

The BMW created a separate 'i' sub-brand to market electric vehicles. The Group has invested more than one billion euros in developing BMW i3, the Group's Board member for Finance Friedrich Eichiner said.

The company plans to unveil 'i8' hybrid sports car next year.