If you’re familiar with jailbroken iDevices, you probably might have heard of Jay Freeman, a developer known as Saurik, credited with the development of Cydia, an alternative application store platform for iPhones that are jailbroken. Recently, Saurik made headlines yet again with the release of the Cydia Substrate for Android platforms. Capable of working with Android 2.3 and higher versions of the operating software, the Cydia Substrate platform will enable easier customization of software, particularly at times when the source code isn’t easily available.


Cydia Substrate also enables easy installation and removal of features, without having to resort to custom ROMS. The platform has been tested on several Android versions already as well as on a bunch of devices. Still under development, Cydia Substrate comes with a safety feature that disables modifications. The developer of this platform advises users to take utmost caution while using it to its best and as always, taking timely backups is crucial. That apart, Saurik has also brought the Winterboard theme engine to Android devices though this one requires root permissions and Cydia Substrate.

[Via - Xda-Developers]

I wondered how smartphones could trigger every sense. Here’s a day when we have them conque one more sense. The Chaku Perfume Co. Ltd. from Japan has developed a unique way we can use our cellphones to extend its reach beyond the usual senses and communicate via smells. Currently an iPhone application enables users to send smells across, which can be sniffed off a device called “Chat Perf”. The gadget is really simple with an atomizer and a smell tank, with which it fits snugly into your iPhone’s dock port. All you need to do is plug it into your iPhone and send the scent across to another iPhone user using the same device in a puff of spray. There are numerous possibilities that come to mind with an iPhone that can send smells across. If it is truly flexible in its use we can have dogs sniff and identify their masters from miles away. Or may be I’m just going overboard.


The idea of Chat Perf was born when a female employee complained about a phone’s incapability to send smells across. A representative from Chat Perf had these suggestions to get you thinking:
・You could send a smell that matches a favorite scene from one of your games while your playing with a friend.
・A tourist attraction could give gift-smell tanks to guests of aromatic yaku cedar, sure to get them to come again.
・You could receive the sweat smell of your favorite idol during a concert, fans caught up in the moment would go wild!
・You could include a pleasant scent with a news letter.

[Via - Rocketnews24]

Yesterday, Google’s annual I/O developer conference shed light on something we’re all too eager to lay hands on, the Google Glass Project and the apps that could come with it, early on. Among the first wave of major third-party Glass apps (which will henceforth be known as ‘Glassware’) include updates, information and more. Starting up is the cool breaking news update from CNN, which will keep users updated at all times. Then, we have notes and reminders from Evernote, social media updates from Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, Elle’s fashion tip brigade, a game called Ice Breaker (that also extends to offer alerts when other players are in close proximity), creation of posts and tweets by voice, a much more.


Of course, privacy and communication may suffer some blows, not because of lack in this case but because of excessive access to others’ preferences and lives. For instance, the game will allow you to click images with people in your proximity who have the game installed. What’s your old crone gonna have to say about that back home?

[Via - Wired]

The very term ‘social gaming’ has been marred by numerous games on social networks that abuse privacy, force users to pay and end up crashing one’s browser. However, Chrome Experiments has rolled out a new game called ‘Racer’. This game stands as a truly social game since it works across five devices and requires no downloads. Gameplay-wise there are no frills at all. It constitutes a simplistic stock car racing game, decorated with neon colors and patterns across the arena. It can be played on smartphones as well as tablets and all it takes is a Chrome browser. The best part is that it does not require users to go on and download elaborate game packs and add-ons. It uses all that’s already at hand. It uses HTML5 to load up in your mobile’s Chrome browser and once your friends do the same, you can enroll in a crazy stock car game.


A mere Internet connection and supporting phones is all that will be needed to play Racer.
This, without requiring the pesky downloads and request acknowledgements.

[Via - Geek]

NEC has managed a lot to match the increasing demands of the world. But beyond the casual gaming experiences, the company has also gone on to bring some bitter truths to life and resolve them. Take the Media X 06E smartphone for instance. The company’s smartphone steps in as one of the first water-cooled devices. It’s not just the water-cooling that’s winning it accolades and our much craved for attention. On the inside, it comes with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (clocked at 1.7GHz) processor! Thus, the CPU working in full gear will not take a toll on the speaker’s ear. Water-cooling is fairly comforting when it comes to an angry, heated smartphone. Unfortunately for most guys, the Medias X 06E is designed with a woman in mind. It’s stylish but packs the fine contours that elate the feminine mind.


Women would not mind a phone that takes special care to not char their ears. In fact, it is quite a good-looker with the frosty white coat with soft pink shells decorating its being. It would serve well to have one such wonder for the men as well. The insight that women have more elaborate conversations does not hold true in the corporate world.

[Via - Geek]

After a hard day’s work you hit a pub to find a little reprieve but the busy bartender delays the drink, it can be extremely distressing. Or you’re fastidious about your cocktails and the man behind the bar invariably screws it up, then you’ll definitely want Makr Shakr to serve you your share of poison. Welcome to the total recall world where services are tended by robots. Makr Shakr is a bar unit that has a kaku robotic arm that prepares the drink, mixes and stirs it and then delivers it on a ten-lane conveyor belt. And to ask for a drink, the request has to be punched in on a dedicated app that also closely tracks the blood alcohol level. A display behind the bar gives out information on the number of drinks ordered, number of drinks in queue and current waiting time. This amazing unit will be the centre of attraction of the After Hours party at Google’s I/O event tonight.


The fascinating engineering marvel is a part of MIT’s SENSEable city lab project and is headed by Yaniv Turgeman. According to him, Makr Shakr doesn’t aim to replace bartenders but will act as a tool to understand and explore the dynamics of consumption and social networks in the context of sensor and digital fabrication technologies. Google approached the lab to come up with a project to be showcased at 2013 I/O event and out of many Makr Shakr was their first and most probable choice. As a tool to conduct analysis it can produce vast data on behavioural attributes and social functioning. It’s still in its project phase so don’t expect to find it behind a bar any time soon, but for now you can check out the video uploaded by the research team.

[Via - Robohub]

According to recent health statistics, 30.6% of the United States population is obese, followed by Mexico and the UK. Japan may have its own problems but obesity is certainly not among them with only 3.2% of the population being obese. Which is one of the reasons why McDonalds Japan has introduced the Megapotato a super large serving of the oil and salt soaked fries. To be made available for May 24th in Japan it will sell for 490 Yen ($ 5).

[Via - MCDonalds Japan]

After the Star Wars edition coffee machine Nestle Japan has announced a first of its kind coffee machine specially designed for the summers. Developed along with toy maker Takara Tomy the machine makes cold coffees with a floating frozen cream on the top. One must taste and see to believe it but Nestle says the texture and taste of the frozen cream is ‘unprecedented’.


Only 10,000 of these would be available in the land of the rising sun in an online competition. So if you are a coffee lover head over to Japanese auction site next month.

[Via - Nestle Japan]

Cloud storage and backup has become more of a necessity than just a trend; it makes storing and preserving files hassle-free. Out of many options, Carbonite is a popular cloud back-up service in the US, founded in 2005 when cloud computing was still in its nascent stage. It has by now backed-up a staggering 300b files and restored 20 billion of them for its users. The company provides a host of different options and specs to choose from and the prices start at $59/year. For the most basic option at $59/year it provides unlimited backup space for a single computer – it supports Windows and Mac both for its Home version – and it backs up photos, music files, documents and emails automatically. The files are backed-up continuously when the computer connects to the internet – unless manually stopped – and files are encrypted and safely stored at Carbonite’s state-of-the-art data centre. However, files above 4 GB and videos can only be backed-up manually.


The subscription and downloading process is snappy, it hardly takes time to set it up. On Windows, the files backed-up are marked with a green dot. The info centre in the system tray is fairly intuitive and operating it is a no-brainer. The initial backing up process might take a little time depending upon the amount of files being uploaded and your internet speed. With Carbonite’s free smartphone app, you can access backed up files virtually from anywhere. Carbonite conveniently gives the option to do a full restore or to browse individual files. And more importantly, it provides 7 days a week free tech support through phone, chat and email. The basic home version doesn’t back-up more than 1 computer or external hard drives, though those options are available in the premium versions at a flat annual rate. For its price, unlimited storage and usability, Carbonite is a good cloud back-up option available in the US.

Carbonite offers a free 15-day trial with no credit card required. If you use the offer code SUNNY13 when you start your trial, you will receive two bonus months when you purchase a subscription.

[Get started with Carbonite now]

Square Inc., a San Francisco based company that builds apps and hardware for mobile payment and merchant service aggregation, has come up with another credit card reader that uses iPad for functioning. This glossy looking reader doubles up as an iPad stand and is bespoke for high-volume small businesses like eateries to function as a point-of-sale system. Before this, Square had put a similar device in the 30 NY cabs, but it needed Square app to function. The Square stand will function as a proper cash register; an electronic cash drawer, barcode reader and receipt printer can be directly attached to it with the help of built in USB ports.


Square Stand is much faster than its predecessor, Square Zero, though it was extremely small and cost almost nothing but it was painstakingly slow. The square stand has been given two magnetic strip readers for processing the card information faster and with its glossy white finish it looks classy, almost as if Apple themselves are manufacturing it. The price has been pegged at $299, but companies like Starbucks already backing Square Inc and reportedly planning to invest $25 million into the company, who knows we might find one of these at our nearest Starbucks outlet swiping credit cards soon.

[Via - Slate]

All of a sudden iPhone 5 is facing huge competition from all quarters, everyday a new competitor loaded with high specs and peppered with great hardware is popping up. We specially love the NTT DoCoMo’s latest summer 2013 range. “Aquos Phone SH-06E” is the third device we are covering from the same range and is a proper rival of iPhone 5. This smartphone has been an immaculate 4.8” HD display which has a pixel density of 460ppi, which is much more than iPhone 5’s 326ppi display and narrowly falls behind HTC One’s 468ppi screen. The HSV colour space with its green skin makes the display more vivid and bright. The phone runs on the latest Android 4.2 JellyBean and it has 13 MP rear camera with F1.9 lens with a fast shutter speed for enhanced optical capability.


Another brilliant feature of this smartphone is its custom built Sharp’s “Feel UX” which is a huge step up from Androids stock crude UI. The stock music has been replaced by a custom built player which corresponds to Dolby Mobile 3 and is loaded with codecs for better playback. But the best part of the smartphone is its price-tag, it’ll cost the buyer 40,000 Yen (US$390) which is amazing for a smartphone that’s loaded with such high features and specs.

[Via - Impress]

Japanese gamers are get more than their share of exclusive limited edition Nintendo DS handhelds. The recent Pokemon 3DS LL was a sell out in less than 24 hours and to feed the fan’s demands Pokemon center has announced a limited edition Eevee Nintendo 3DS XL. This one would not be sold on a first serve basis but rather in a unique lottery system where buyers would be randomly picked from a list. The limited edition Eevee 3DS XL will be a Pokémon Center-exclusive, featuring stripes with Eevee colors along with a cute design on the back and a white interior.



Although money would not be a object for someone waiting to get his hands on the Limited Edition Eevee Nintendo 3DS XL it will sell for 18,900 Yen ($ 190).

[Via - Siliconera]

Google opened the I/O keynote with a mind boggling stat – Over 900 million Android devices have been activated till date. In its four and a half year history the OS had touched the 400 million mark and has more than doubled itself in a year. So far there have been 48 billion installs on the Google Play store. Clearly the rise of Android and the expectation that Google is going to make some exciting announcements at the I/O developers conference this week has made the Google stock surge for the first time past the $900 mark.


Some more exciting numbers.
. 6,000: Approximate number of in-person attendees at Moscone West this week
. 1 million: Estimated number of people streaming opening I/O keynote on YouTube
. 750 million+: Active Chrome users
. 41: Number of updates rolling out for Google Plus alone
. 200 countries: Now detailed on Google Maps
. 50 countries: Covered in Street View imagery
. 1 million: Websites integrating Google Maps onto their sites

Your move Apple.

[Via - ZDNet]

Japanese telecom giant NTTDoCoMo has expanded its line up of handsets and it is the F-07E that caught our attention. It is the fourth version of Disney branded smartphones from the operator. The phone is powered by a 1.7 Ghz Quadcore processor and 2 gigs of RAM it packs in a 13.1 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 4.0, Mobile TV and the usual for Japanese phones – Waterproofing. To be made available in three colors the DoCoMo F-07E is preloaded with interactive Disney wallpapers, icons and sounds which are further complimented with a special glow in the dark back cover.


The DoCoMo F-07E will be available for Japanese Disney fans from mid-July onwards.

[Via - NTTDoCoMo]

While the Google Glass project has been occupying prime real estate in our thoughts off-late, we’ve just heard a buzz about yet another innovation to be unveiled by the makers of the jolly good Android! As per recent reports, the guys at Google are currently spending their nights up, working on a Google smart-watch. The device is said to use similar technology like the Google Glass and will keep wearers updated on the go! The watch will also hook up to Gmail, Google Maps and other Android-based applications.


The watch is said to be lined up for a near-future release and has been currently doing the rounds of Google’s offices in Berlin, Manchester and Mountain View. With Google’s I/O event just around the corner, the watch could very well see the light of the day soon! We aren’t hoping for too much as of now though and from what we’ve heard, the watch isn’t yet a standalone device and requires smartphone connectivity. As always however, we do trust Google to come up with something exceptional and put its competitors to rest though!

[9to5google]

Energy efficient lighting is great, particularly when these installations are easy to set up and use. What we’ve got here is a perfect way to illuminate your living space, be it a patio or your living room, with clean, green and energy efficient light! Called the Solala, this little device unveiled by Hoops is a solar-powered LED light. Sporting an internal battery that has charge trickling into it via solar cells, the Solala light powers on bright and clear, providing enough illumination for an ambient glow.


The Solala solar-powered LED lighting installation comes with a solar panel and an AA Ni-MH built-in battery. To charge this little device up, all you need to do is place it in direct sunlight for about 6 hours. On a full belly, the Solala light is capable of staying on for nearly six hours! Also, this lighting installation comes with a water-proof body, allowing you to safely use it outdoors, without fear of it spoiling away in the rain. The battery packed into the Solala can be charged 600 times and the lighting installation can also be juiced with AA batteries if required.

[Via - Impress]

Well, let’s be frank here and accept the fact that the Pirate Bay website has indeed done the most of us a huge favor. Hell, we probably wouldn’t get our hands on some great content that’s unavailable on the shores of our resident countries if it wasn’t for the Pirate Bay. Recently, we received tidings of Peter Sunde, the co-founder of this website, drawing up plans to run for the European Parliament elections next year. He will participate in the Finnish branch of the Pirate Party and hopes to claim seats, just like the Swedish Pirate Party did!


However, Peter does need to serve a prison sentence for his involvement with the BitTorrent site. The Pirate Bay co-founder has been fighting against his imprisonment since quite a while now, but all of this hasn’t washed away his elections dreams! Running as a candidate for the Finnish branch of the Pirate Party could bring into notice several topics like the influence of the copyright lobbyists and the legalization of non-commercial file-sharing services.

[Via- Torrentfreak]

Amidst all the rumours surrounding the Google I/O event scheduled for tomorrow we have learnt that Google has collaborated with Samsung to launch a Galaxy S4 “Google Edition”. But don’t get fooled, it isn’t going to be something absolutely new and neither mix it up with Google’s next Nexus device. The hardware is going be the same as that of Galaxy S4, but it’ll have a stock Android, most probably 4.2.2. There are a lot of people – like me — who get mesmerised by the phone’s hardware but are less than happy with the bloatware and extra layers the manufacturers put on top of the Android OS. In such cases the a new ROM like “CynogenMod” has to be installed on the phone, but the process is tricky, difficult and once done it voids the warranty, and frankly speaking very few except developers toy around with a brand new piece of hardware that costs that much. To resolve all these issues, Google has readied a pure AOSP (Android Open Source Project) version of the Galaxy S4 that’ll be launched tomorrow at the event. The pricing is still unknown along with details on who’ll be selling the device. It should hit the markets by June end, and should be a definite hit amongst people looking for a mighty smartphone with a stock ROM.

[Via - Geek]

Nokia has officially launched Lumia 925, some pictures were leaked yesterday. Finally Nokia has ditched its glossy candy coloured polycarbonate shell for a smart aluminium frame – this move will definitely attract buyers like me who wanted a Lumia with a metal body. Despite that majority of the specs inside the smartphone remains same as that of Lumia 920, Nokia has managed to bring down the weight considerably, the latest flagship weighs 46g lighter than 920. It has a 1.5Ghz Spandragon S4 dual core processor with 1GB RAM and a 2000mAh battery, but the internal memory has been reduced to 16GB. The 925 model also sports a 4.5” AMOLED HD+ display with a resolution of 1,280 x 768 and is coated with Gorilla Glass 2.

Nokia has paid maximum emphasis on its already strong point – its camera hardware and software. The smartphone has an 8.7 MP pure view rear camera with the same optical image stabilized CMOS as on the Lumia 928 and the dual-LED flash of the Lumia 920 which is paired with 6-component f/2.0 lens unlike 5-part plastic lens arrays previously used. Nokia claims it will produce sharper and better quality pictures in low light conditions. The front facing camera has a resolution of 1.2 MP. The smart cam app on this phone is similar to HTC’s Zoe app, it can perform an array of tricks like: it can take 10 images in a burst, and offers several options for using them. Best Shot, Action Shot and Motion Focus are few other features.

The smartphone packed in the metal case is pretty slim, but the back cover is fixed making the battery unchangeable by the user and unlike 920 it doesn’t have an internal wireless charging pad, rather it will come with a back cover that’ll make it wirelessly chargeable. The Lumia 925 will launch in parts of Europe and China this June, priced at 469 Euros ($609) and looks to be a great phone, but Windows 8 continues to be its Achilles heel.

[Via - Slashgear]

Nokia officially launches Lumia 925 with a slim aluminium body and 8.7MP PureView Camera is a post from .

People with hearing disability entirely rely on subtitles to enjoy movies; lack of proper support keeps them away from movie theatres, but not anymore! Sony Entertainment Access Glasses will give the deaf a way to watch the new releases in the theatres along with everybody else. Here’s how it works: The captions are projected onto the glasses and appear to float about 10 feet in front of the user, it is synchronised with the theatres digital projector and the text is received wirelessly.


Regal Cinemas, US, plans to provide these close captioning glasses at their 6000 theatres across the country. And that’s not all, along with it, Regal will also give headphone support for the blind, it’ll play an audio description of what’s happening on the screen or boost up the sound level for those who are hard of hearing. The glasses were announced last year and now it’s ready to be rolled out, it’ll be a huge attraction for the visually and aurally challenged.

[Via - Cnet]

New Closed-captioning Glasses by Sony to Help the Deaf Enjoy Movies at the Theatre is a post from .