BIT Marvels daily technology digest 18-05-2016 part-2

BIT Marvels daily technology digest 18-05-2016 Part-2

Nokia announces return to phone business with Android phones, tablets

Call it the return of the prodigal son. Or the new great hope. Or something like that. But in a big announcement today Nokia, the company which has not been sold to Microsoft, has said that it is returning to the phone business with Android phones and tablets.  To reenter the market, Nokia is working with a Finland-based company HMD that will make and sell Nokia-branded phones based
on Google's Android operating system.  "HMD has been founded to provide a focused, independent home for a full range of Nokia-branded feature phones, smartphones and tablets. HMD's new smartphone and tablet portfolio will be based on Android, uniting one of the world's iconic mobile brands with the leading mobile operating system and app development community," the company said in a statement.  Nokia's announcement came minutes after Microsoft said that it would sell its feature phone business to Foxconn.  In fact, the whole deal involving Nokia, Foxconn, HMD and Microsoft is quite complex. When Microsoft bought Nokia's phone business in 2013, the company also acquired rights to use Nokia brand. The agreement also forbade Nokia from using the brand name on a mobile phone. However, Microsoft gradually phased out the Nokia branding from Mobile phones, limiting it to feature phones like the Nokia 130. Instead, the company used Lumia branding.  Now Nokia is saying that HMD has acquired the rights to use Nokia brand. "HMD has been founded to provide a focused, independent home for a full range of Nokia-branded feature phones, smartphones and tablets. To complete its portfolio of Nokia branding rights, HMD announced today that it has conditionally agreed to acquire from Microsoft the rights to use the Nokia brand on feature phones, and certain related design rights. The Microsoft transaction is expected to close in H2 2016," Nokia said in a statement.  The Nokia-branded phones will be possibly made by Foxconn at the facility that the Chinese manufacturer bought from Microsoft on Wednesday. Earlier, Nokia and Foxconn had partnered to create the N1 tablet.  Nokia has said that HMD is an independent company. "Nokia will provide HMD with branding rights and cellular standard essential patent licenses in return for royalty payments, but will not be making a financial investment or holding equity in HMD," said the company. "Nokia Technologies will take a seat on the Board of Directors of HMD and set mandatory brand requirements and performance related provisions to ensure that all Nokia-branded products exemplify consumer expectations of Nokia devices, including quality, design and consumer focused innovation."

WhatsApp on Windows: How to use it

For long a mobile-only app, WhatsApp now offers two ways to users who want to access it on their computers. Earlier, the company had unveiled a web version of the service. On Wednesday, it announced the native desktop apps for Windows and Mac.  So, how do you use WhatsApp on a computer and what all you need. Follow these steps:

To use WhatsApp desktop app:

-- You must have a computer, a phone with the latest version of working WhatsApp installed on it and working data connection in both the computer and the phone.

-- Download the WhatsApp native app from here.

-- Install the app.

-- Once the app is installed open it and the scan the QR code with your phone.

-- This will pair your phone with the computer app and you will be able to use WhatsApp on the computer. It is worth repeating that the desktop app can be used only if you have the working WhatsApp on your phone.

To use WhatsApp Web app:

-- Open web.whatsapp.com in a compatible browser. Chrome works fine.

-- Scan the QR code with your phone. This will pair the phone with the open web WhatsApp.

-- Once the phone is paired you will be able to use WhatsApp in the open browser Window. Although you will still need the working WhatsApp on your phone.

Work smart: 10 tips that will make you Gmail expert

Let's face it, Google today is synonymous with  internet.  With its numerous online services, it has become nearly impossible to go a day without Google. One of its ubiquitous service is Gmail, which has become an indispensable part of our lives. From sending school applications to forwarding job resumes, we today use Gmail almost all the time.  While using Gmail is quite simple, you can always choose to be the smarter one by exploring some of the hidden features that Gmail offers. Here are 10 tips that will help you use Gmail in a better way.

 Colour your stars Ditch those boring looking stars and show some love for the colours in your inbox. Not only the colourful stars look cooler, they also help you organise your inbox.  So how do you do it? Go to Settings and then look for Stars section in the General tab. If you're fine with the Google preset stars, you can select 4 stars or all stars to have more star colours available to you. You can also drag and drop each star from Not in Use category to In Use category.  Once you are done, scroll down and click Save.

Search big files

Also Read: Gmail full? Here are 5 steps you can take

If your Gmail inbox is running out of space, you can clean it up. And the best way to clean it is by finding the large emails.  Say for example, you want to find and delete all the emails that are larger than 10mb. To do so, go to the Gmail search bar and type: "larger:10m". This will fetch all the emails that are bigger than 10mb in size. Similarly you can search other heavy emails and clean the inbox.

Be wise and Archive

This is one another way to smarten up your inbox system. Gmail's Archive tool helps you remove your mails from inbox but keeps them in your account and your search box.  As Gmail says, it's like moving messages into a filing cabinet instead of putting them in the trash can.

How do you Archive messages? Here is the way. Gmail > Open or select the message you want to archive > Click the Archive button.

Label with a style

This is one more email management tool from Gmail. Labels are basically tags that help you categorize your mails. When you add a brightly coloured label, it's easy to see related messages. Also, you can add more than one label to a message. To create a label, click the Labels drop-down menu with the message or messages you want to label checked or open. Then Create new > Type the desired label name > click OK.

Spellcheck

You are wrong if you think only MS Word or online software have the power to check your grammatical errors. The Gmail is smart enough to show errors in mails. Here's how you can use it. Click on the down arrow placed next to the "Discard draft" icon at the bottom of your compose window. After that, click "Check Spelling". Errors  will be highlighted in yellow. Click the error to see Gmail's suggestions for similar words. Select a suggested word from the list to rectify the error.

Also Read: Now Google's Inbox will answer your emails on web as well

Undo Send for the oops moment!

Sent a wrong mail or probably forgot to attach your resume  to your job application? Well you still have few seconds to repair the damage.  That is if you have enabled the Undo Send. And you should enable it because it is a life saver. to enable Undo, go to Settings > Undo Send > Enable > Set the duration of delay before Gmail sends the mail.

Vacation Responder

Off to a vacation?  Want a time off from those continuous bombarding email? Gmail's vacation responder is just for you. By turning on the vacation responder, you can let people know that you won't be able to get back to them for the moment. While your vacation responder is turned on, Gmail will send your reply to people who email you. By default, the vacation responder starts at 12:00 AM on the start date and ends at 11:59 PM on the end date.

How to turn it on? Go to Settings > Vacation responder > On > Fill in the required details > Save changes.

Save time with keyboard shortcuts

Gmail has a tool that can help you save your time switching between your keyboard and the mouse. However, one needs to have 101/102-Key or Natural PS/2 Keyboard to use the shortcuts. While some shortcuts are always turned on some require to be turned on. You can find all the shortcuts on Gmail's help forum.

Share large files on Google drive

With Gmail you can only attach files up to 25 megabytes. But there is a way out. The Google drive gives you the luxury of sending up to 15 GB files. To insert an attachment through the Google Drive go to Google drive icon in the email compose window and then select the file you want to send and click insert. Of course, to do it, first you will have to upload the file on to the Google Drive.

Use signature

A signature is basically a small set of text, like your contact information or you office designation , that's automatically added at the end of every Gmail message you send. To set up your Signature, go to Settings > Signature > Enter the text > Save changes.

Google wants better representation of pro women in emojis

 Google wants professional women to be better represented in emoji form. In a proposal to the Unicode Consortium, which controls specifications for emojis, Google says it wants to create a new set "with a goal of highlighting the diversity of women's careers and empowering girls everywhere." The proposal says women -- and those under 30 in particular -- are the most frequent users of emojis.Sample emojis provided by Google in the proposal show several female characters in professional clothing, including business suits, lab coats, medical scrubs and construction hats. One sample emoji even has a pitchfork and a farmer's hat. Google has also included sample male versions of the same emojis. Mountain View, California-based Google wants Unicode to standardise the emojis by the end of the year.

It's official, Apple to set up app design & development centre in India

BENGALURU: It's official. Apple will set up an app design and development accelerator in Bengaluru to support engineering talent and grow the country's iOS developer community. The accelerator is expected to open in early 2017. The new initiative coincides with Tim Cook 's maiden visit to India as Apple CEO where tens of thousands of Indian developers will make apps for its operating system to provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices. The facility will also provide support and guidance on Swift, Apple's powerful and intuitive programming language created to build apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch.

Cook said India is home to one of the most vibrant and entrepreneurial iOS development communities in the world. "With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we're giving developers access to tools which will help them create innovative apps for customers around the world," he said. Bengaluru has emerged as an innovation hub for technology startups as well as larger enterprises. Over 1 million people in the city work in the tech sector, and over 40% of graduates from local universities specialize in engineering or information technology. Bengaluru has the largest developer community outside Silicon Valley. As of January last year, Apple had 1.4 million apps on its App Store .