Despite its oddball proportions the Samsung Galaxy Note phoneblet has manged to be quite popular among those with big hands (and pockets). The first million mark was passed in just two months after the launch of the device and now two months later since that event, the Galaxy Note has crossed the 2 million mark.

Samsung says it has already sold 2 million Notes since last October’s launch, and plans to sell another 10 million by the end of 2012. In comparison, Samsung managed to ship over 10 million Galaxy S II in the first five months.

Source: Forbes

Quite similar with Siri on iOS, Speaktoit Assistant is an Android application built as an personal assistant for the user. Head on to my last post about it for more information. Moving on to the next step, the developer now has released Speaktoit Assistant for iOS platform, giving Siri-like functions to iPhone users.

Just like Siri, Speaktoit Assistant is a virtual buddy for your smartphone that answers questions in natural language, performs tasks, and notifies you about important events. The Assistant saves you time and makes communication with gadgets and web services easier and less stressful.

The app is available for free on Android but will set iOS users back $1.99. Additionally, it will also soon be launching on Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Bada.

The best part is, this application supports for older iPhones, not just iPhone 4S.

Give it a try. Get it on the App Store, the Android Market or go to the developer’s homepage.

An interesting new startup called Priceonomics tackles a question that we all face eventually – how much can I sell my old phone for? According to their research, iPhones have the best resale value, while Android is almost tied with BlackBerrys in this respect.

If you try to sell your 18-month old phone, you’d get 53% of its original price on average if you have an iPhone, 42% if it’s a droid and 41% for a BlackBerry. Check out this graph that shows how quickly smartphones deprecate in value.

To make things more specific, if you buy an iPhone, you can sell it for $13.20 less for each month you keep it. BlackBerrys and Androids on the other hand lose more – 40% more in the case of Android.

Not all droids are born equal though – there are some phones that keep a lot of their value over time. The HTC Wildfire, the Samsung Exhibit 4G and the Motorola Triumph can be sold for 86% of their original price.

Priceonomics have some tips about minimizing your total expense when buying a phone and selling it after a while. First off, buying an iPhone with more built-in memory will set you back $100 more, but when selling it will earn you just $10. Also, breaking a contract and paying an early termination fee is still cheaper than getting an unsubsidized phone.

Source

In software, Eclipse is an open source community which develops open platforms and products. The projects are focused on building an open development platform consisting of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the life cycle. The Eclipse Foundation is a non-profit corporation which acts as the steward of the Eclipse community.

In the software world, a simple mention of “Eclipse” usually refers to the Eclipse software development kit (SDK). The Eclipse SDK consists of the Eclipse Platform, Java developments tools and the Plug-in Development Environment. The Eclipse Platform is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment (IDE) and an extensible plug-in system. It is written mostly in Java. By means of various plug-ins, it can be used to develop applications in various programming languages including Ada, C, C++, COBOL, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Scala, Clojure, Groovy and Scheme. It can also be used to develop packages for the software Mathematica. Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) for Java, Eclipse CDT for C/C++, and Eclipse PDT for PHP, among others.

The initial codebase originated from VisualAge. The Eclipse SDK (which includes the Java development tools) is meant for Java developers. Users can extend its abilities by installing plug-ins written for the Eclipse Platform, such as development toolkits for other programming languages, and can write and contribute their own plug-in modules.

Released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, Eclipse SDK is free and open source software. It was one of the first IDEs to run under GNU Classpath and it runs without issues under IcedTea.

Eclipse is a powerful and popular tool for Android application development. Currently, I’m doing a self-project by using Eclipse to develop Android application. This is my first project and I’m still a beginner in this area. By sharing this information I hope to improve my knowledge and skills. You can download the software from Eclipse.org.

Source: Wikipedia

 

After the releasing of Apple iPhone 4S, now everyone  is talking about its awesome voice assistant feature, called “Siri”. But now, Android users don’t have to buy the iPhone 4S just to feel the feature, because there are a lot of Android apps that work just like “Siri”! Below are some of the apps. Don’t worry, 9 of them are free!

Vlingo Virtual Assistant (Free)

 

Try saying “Text John; What’s up?” or “find italian restaurants” or even “update Facebook; Vlingo rocks!” Vlingo Virtual Assistant will complete whatever action you’ve told it to do. More over, this apps is highly recommended by most Android users. Plus, there are some opinions said that it is more powerful than Siri in term of usability, capability, accuracy and speed.

Its functions include: Send texts and emails, voice dial, search the web, find local restaurants, shops and other businesses, get directions, update status on Facebook or Twitter, check in with foursquare, get answers to just about any question, buy movie tickets and book hotel rooms, open other apps, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaktoit Assistant (Free)

 

Speaktoit Assistant works with your smartphone to get maps, search for news and images, look up weather reports, convert currency and measurements, send email, and much more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Voice Actions (Free)

 

This application uses Googles PHENOMENAL Speech Recognition to start conversation with the users. Talk to it and you will be able to set alarms and reminders, send text messages and email, voice-dial your contacts, listen to music and poems, get news, facts and translations, search images, videos, apps and places and much more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVA Intern (Free)

 

Completed with text-to-speech technology and voice recognition, the best part of EVA is you can activate it by just shaking your phone.

Its features include making memos, calls, expense reports, getting basic stock quotes, announcing incoming calls, mapping addresses and locations, posting on Facebook, starting applications, loading web pages or bookmarks, managing contacts, contact groups, lists, calendar, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edwin, Speech-to-Speech (Free)

 

Tweet, text, translate, weather, convert and more, all by voice. Edwin is a speech-to-speech voice assistant & utility. Ask it the weather, make calls, SMS, tweet and tons more! It requires SpeechSynthesis Data and TTS Extended apps to be installed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cyberon Voice Commander (UK) ($5.99)

 

With Speaker-Independent (no training is required), hands-free(for Android 2.2 and above) and eyes-free, Cyberon Voice Commander provides users to say commands like “call contact“, “digit dial”, “redial” or “callback”, “call history”, “find contact“, “start application“, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hands-Free Voice Dialer (Free)

 

Hands-Free Voice Dialer is a hands-free replacement for Android’s Voice Dialer, with verbal confirmations.

This version allows you to make voice commands like “Call Jim Harris at mobile”, “Next song”, “Shuffle play music”, “Find contact for Ed Bly”, “Send a text to Jay Snow”, and “Set my Facebook status”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TopVoiceControl (Free)

 

TopVoiceControl is a not-bad-voice assistant app for Android users. With user-friendly interface, its features include number dialing, application launcher, service enabler, text-to-speech and acting without key-pressing when only 1 recognition result is available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonalight Text by Voice (Free)

 

Sonalight Text by Voice will automatically read incoming text messages aloud and give you a chance to respond. You can also set an auto responder for incoming text messages, and have Text by Voice start automatically when you start driving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PhoneVoice (Free)

 

PhoneVoice is a text-to-speech utility for Android phone which is able to send you notification in voice form for incoming calls and SMS. Useful for people who are driving, on meeting, having important appointment or doing work.

 

Your average tablet looks like a pipsqueak next to a prototype 65-inch Android touch screen that was recently unveiled. It’s not pocketable, but it is impressive.

Ardic Technology is the Turkish startup that created the monster. Powering the 1080p touch-screen behemoth does require docking with a normal-size Android Honeycomb tablet.

The prototype has two touch sensors that support simple gestures such as pinching and swiping. Future versions should be more sophisticated, with the addition of more touch sensors.

While a gigantic Android tablet has some obvious appeal for presentation-packing business users, what we really want to hear about is the gaming experience.

A demo video shows one of the creators taking on the Fruit Slice game. Whacking nearly life-size virtual bananas into bits looks like good fun. I can’t wait to see Angry Birds in action.

According to a report in Engadget, Ardic is chatting with education and enterprise customers about putting the jumbo tablet into production.

 

-news.cnet.com

p/s: I’m not so sure about this. But it’s look like a TV with a touch screen that supports Android.

I found this collection of iPad wallpapers for video gamers on Hongkiat site. Those video gamers who owned iPad will surely looking forward for these beautiful, awesome wallpapers. Enjoy! Click the displayed images below to view and download the high resolution images.

 

Apple iPad have been so much popular nowadays among kids, businessmen, students, as well as bloggers. I’m pretty sure a blogger who owned iPad would really love to use some apps to help him in blogging. Basically there are a lot of useful apps out there for them to download. Today I will list some of the apps that I found on the internet.

1. DropBox

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

2. FTP On The Go PRO

An FTP client for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. View and edit HTML/CSS/JS/PHP/ASP, or other files on your server with its built in editor to change your website from anywhere. View images and documents (JPG, PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, etc) too.

3. Pages

Exclusively designed for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, Pages lets you create, edit, and view documents wherever you are. Every page looks stunning and clear on iPad — and also on iPhone 4 and the latest iPod touch, thanks to the high resolution Retina display. Pages uses Smart Zoom to automatically zoom in on text while you type and zooms back out when you’re done, so it’s easy to write and edit on iPhone and iPod touch.

4. WordPress

It’s easy to manage your WordPress blog or site from your iOS device. With WordPress for iOS, you can moderate comments, create or edit posts and pages, and add images or videos with ease. All you need is a WordPress.com blog or a self-hosted WordPress.org site running 2.9.2 or higher.

5. Flipboard

Flipboard, is the award-winning app built for iPad. Using this app you can post photos, and even share Flipboard pages across Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader, and also can compose a new post inside Flipboard. Flipboard is like RSS feed, a magazine, a social browser, and serves as an endless resource for the blogger who wants all his frequently visited sites to be kept at one place. This awesome app is available for free.