Gaana receives $115 million funding from Tencent, to invest in AI

Chinese Internet conglomerate Tencent is funding $115 million to Indian music streaming service Gaana. The popular music streaming service continues its investments pace in the country with backing from domestic giants like Flipkart and Ola last year. Tencent already holds majority stakes in Tencent Music Entertainment, which is China’s largest music streaming business and it also operates JOOX, a leading music streaming platform in Southeast Asia. Biggest of all, it holds stakes in Sweden's Spotify service. On the other hand, Gaana currently has over 60 million monthly active users in January is now said to use the latest round of funding in technology developments including a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize music experiences for consumers. Gaana is aiming to cross 200 million active users mark in three years and is already improving its Social platform which recommends songs based on what friends and family are listening. Gaana Originals platform has more than 100 million playouts. Digital music service in India is expected to cross Rs 3,100 crore in revenue by 2020 with over 273 million online active music listeners. Commenting on the same, Prashan Agarwal, chief executive of Gaana said: Music streaming is the future of music consumption globally, and in India, we are only 10% of the way towards building a business ...

Google Flutter beta launched for faster cross-platform app development

Google at the MWC 2018 event has announced the first beta of Flutter which is a new mobile UI framework that helps developers in designing high-quality native interfaces for both iOS and Android. It lets developers to create native apps in record time. Flutter targets mobile development in performance and platform integrations of native mobile, with high-velocity development and multi-platform reach of portable UI toolkits. It comes with features like stateful Hot Reload, a new reactive framework, rich widget set, and integrated tooling which makes it easy to design fresh apps with brand new designs. [HTML1] Developers can take advantage of it to create expressive and flexible designs with composite widget sets, rich animation libraries, and a layered, extensible architecture. It also supports Google's portable GPU-accelerated renderer and high-performance, native ARM code runtime, and platform interop. https://youtu.be/fq4N0hgOWzU The Alpha release of Flutter last year managed to deliver features like screen reader support, accessibility features, right-to-left text, localization and internationalization, iPhone X and iOS 11 support, inline video, additional image format support, running Flutter code in the background, and much more. It also supports Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, new refactorings to help developers have full control on the coding department. The beta release works with a pre-release of Dart 2 with improved support for declaring UI in code ...

Google Clips goes on sale in the US for $249

After briefly going on sale in January, Google Clips is now officially available in the USA just in time for the promised March shipping time frame. Clips is Google's  A.I powered camera was introduced back in October at the Pixel event. Users who have managed to purchase the Clips camera during the sale in January will also get their deliveries starting today. Google Clips is capable of recording moving image leveraging on machine learning techniques without any human intervention. It connects via Bluetooth LE and WiFi Direct in order to sync with Android and iOS and in quickly recording spontaneous moments. It also has an option to create short movies using the recorded clips. Google Clips comes with a 12-megapixel sensor with f/2.4 aperture, 1.55 µm pixel size and 130-degree wide-angle lens and also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It has 16GB internal storage. Google claims that it can offer up to 3 hours of smart capture on a single charge. Clips use USB Type-C port to connect. As you keep using the camera, it gets familiarize with the faces so that, it will start taking more photos of the known faces, instead of strangers. Clips app for Android and iOS lets you view, save, delete and share ...

ASUS Zenfone Max (M1) with 5.7-inch full-view display, dual rear cameras, 4000mAh battery announced

ASUS introduced Zenfone Max Plus (M1) in Russia back in November last year, now at the MWC 2018, it has introduced the Zenfone Max M1. It has 5.7-inch HD+ full-screen 2.5D curved glass display  with 18:9 aspect ratio and 82% screen-to-body ratio and has a 13-megapixel / 16-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, PDAF for 0.03 second quick focus and a secondary 8-megapixel rear camera with 120-degree wide-angle lens for group photos. There rear camera arrangement is is vertical compared to horizontal arrangement on the Max Plus M1. It also comes with 13MP or 8MP front camera with face unlock. It is powered by Snapdragon 430 / 425 SoCs with 2GB or 3GB RAM. It has a metal finish, features a fingerprint sensor on the back, comes with dedicated dual SIM and microSD slots and packs a 4000mAh battery  that promises battery life of 41 hours on standby, up to 23 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi, or up to 16 hours of video playback. It also lets you charge other devices. Asus Zenfone Max (M1) (ZB555KL) specifications 5.7-inch (1440 ×720 pixels) HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 ( 4 x 1.2 GHz Cortex A53 + 4 x ...

Amazon Prime Music launched in India, free for Amazon Prime users on Android, iOS and web

Amazon has finally launched Amazon Prime Music service in India. It was introduced last year exclusively for Echo devices in the country. It is available for Android and iOS devices and is also available on the web at music.amazon.in. As the company had announced previously, the service is free for Prime customers since it is including in their package, and is also ad-free. It lets you choose music in different languages such as Hindi, English, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati and Rajasthani. It also has offline music downloads and Alexa voice support that lets you search for music with your voice. Amazon says that it has millions of of songs. It has playlists for Indian and International artists and also has curated playlists across genres, moods, activities and more. Amazon Prime Music - Android | iOS | Web

ASUS Zenfone 5 Lite Hands On and Photo Gallery

Asus along with the Zenfone 5 has also introduced the Zenfone 5 Lite  at the MWC 2018 event. Just like the Zenfone 5, the 5 Lite also packs full-screen display. We have got our hands on the phone so let’s take a detailed look at hardware and specifications of the phone. The Asus Zenfone 5 Lite sports a 6-inch (2160 x 1080 pixels) display with 18:9 aspect ratio. Even the Zenfone 5 Lite packs a glass body design and a great build that gives it a premium look. The phone comes in two variants; Snapdragon 630/ 430 64-bit Octa-Core Mobile Platform with Adreno 508/505 GPU coupled with 3GB RAM with 32GB storage and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage. It has a 20MP front camera above the display along with earpiece, microphone, LED flash the and usual set of sensors. It also has a secondary 120-degree wide-angle lens. There are ultra-slim bezels on all corners. The volume rockers and the power button are present on the right side. While the SIM card tray is present on the left side. The phone comes with dedicated Dual SIM and microSD slots. The secondary microphone for noise cancellation and a 3.5mm audio headphone jack is present on the top. The main speaker grill ...

ASUS Zenfone 5 Hands On and Photo Gallery

ASUS just introduced the Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 5 Lite smartphones at the MWC 2018 event just as promised. The Zenfone 5 comes with 19:9 aspect ratio full-screen display with minimal bezels, falling in line with most of the smartphones launching these days. We have got our hands on the phone so let’s take a detailed look at hardware and specifications of the phone. The ASUS Zenfone 5 sports a 6.2-inch (2246 x 1080 pixels) 2.5D curved glass display with 19:9 aspect ratio and Corning Gorilla Glass protection. It has a glass body design with a great build that gives it a premium look. The phone is powered by 1.8GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 636 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 509 GPU coupled with 4GB/6GB RAM and 64GB storage. The phone comes with iPhone X style top-notch where the 8MP front camera is present right above the display along with earpiece, microphone and usual set of sensors. Since the phone has 90% screen-to-body ratio and an 19:9 aspect ratio, there are ultra slim bezels on all corners except for the top where the notch with the front cam is present. The volume rockers and the power button are present on the right side. While the SIM card tray is present on ...

ASUS Zenfone 5 Lite with 6-inch FHD+ display, Snapdragon 630/430, dual front and rear cameras announced

Along with the Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 5Z, ASUS also introduced the Zenfone 5 Lite at the MWC 2018 in Barcelona. It has a 6-inch Full HD+ display with 1.79mm slim bezel and 80.3% screen-to-body ratio with support for glove touch. It is powered by Snapdragon 630 or 430 SoCs with 3GB or 4GB RAM. It runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with ZenUI 4.0, but it will get Android Oreo update with ZenUI 5.0 by Q3 2018, says the company. It has a 16MP rear camera with f/2.2 aperture, 0.03-second PDAF, LED flash along with a secondary 120-degree wide-angle camera. It also has a 20-megapixel front-facing camera with Sony IMX376 sensor, f/2.0 aperture and soft LED flash along with ASUS SelfieMaster technology for smart beautification in selfies, videos and live streams. There is also a secondary 120-degree wide-angle camera. It also has 3-axis electronic image stabilization for both front and rear cameras. It has a 2.5D curved glass finish on the back as well. It has a fingerprint sensor on the back that can unlock the phone in 0.3 seconds. It has dedicated Dual SIM and microSD slots and packs a 3300mAh battery. ASUS Zenfone 5 Lite specifications 6-inch (2160 × 1080 pixels) Full HD+ ...

ASUS Zenfone 5 with 6.2-inch FHD+ 19:9 bezel-less display, Snapdragon 636, 6GB RAM, dual rear cameras announced

ASUS just announced the Zenfone 5, the latest smartphone in new series at the MWC 2018 in Barcelona, as expected. It has a 6.2-inch Full HD+ 19:9 Super IPS display with notch design and 90% screen-to-body ratio. The company says that it has AI Display with auto color temperate adjustment and smart screen on. It is powered by Snapdragon 636 with support for up to 6GB RAM and runs Android Oreo with ZenUI 5.0, which the company says is the cleanest ZenUI yet without any separate apps for browser, email, messaging and minimal third-party apps like Facebook and Instagram. It has a 12-megapixel rear camera with support for OIS, Sony IMX363 sensor and 0.03s  Dual-pixel PDAF along with AI scene detection to detect 16 type of scenes automatically including  Food, Sky, Animals. It also has a secondary 8-megapixel rear camera with 120-degree wide-angle lens for portrait shots and shoot images with wider view. ASUS also has ZeniMoji, similar to the iPhone X's Animoji. It also has an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with auto portrait and Selfie panorama modes and has Face unlock apart from fingerprint sensor on the back. It has dual speakers with five-magnets and NXP Smart amplifier. It is also the world's ...

ASUS Zenfone 5Z with 6.2-inch FHD+ 19:9 bezel-less display, Snapdragon 845, 8GB RAM, dual rear cameras announced

ASUS today announced the Zenfone 5Z, the top-end smartphone in Zenfone 5 series at the MWC 2018 in Barcelona, as expected. It has the same 6.2-inch Full HD+ 19:9 Super IPS display with notch design and 90% screen-to-body ratio with AI Display for auto color temperate adjustment, but this is powered by Snapdragon 845 SoC with support for up to 8GB RAM. It runs Android Oreo with ZenUI 5.0, has a 12-megapixel rear camera with support for OIS, Sony IMX363 sensor and 0.03s  Dual-pixel PDAF along with AI scene detection to detect 16 type of scenes automatically, has a secondary 8-megapixel rear camera with 120-degree wide-angle lens for portrait shots and shoot images with wider view. It also has an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with auto portrait and Selfie panorama modes and has Face unlock apart from fingerprint sensor on the back. It has dual speakers with five-magnets and NXP Smart amplifier. It is also the world's first smartphone with DTS Headphone: X for 7.1-channel surround sound and comes bundled with Hi-Res Audio earphone. ASUS Zenfone 5Z specifications 6.2-inch (2246 × 1080 pixels) Full HD+ 19:9 2.5D curved glass Super IPS display with 500 nits Brightness, 95.4% NTSC color gamut, DCI-P3, 1500: 1 Contrast Ratio, ...