Abhiroop Basu
Contributing since December, 2010
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184articles
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About Abhiroop Basu
Abhiroop Basu is an opinionated tech and digital media blogger. As a doe-eyed twenty-something he started his first blog TechComet to comment on anything tech-related that caught his omniscient eye. Since then he has blogged for Android Police, Make Tech Easier, and This Green Machine. In the real world, Abhiroop Basu is a resident of Singapore and the Editor of The Digit, a subsidiary of The Potato Productions Group.
Latest Articles
Xin Nian Kuai Le, or Happy Chinese New Year! Our favourite figurine maker Dead Zebra has decided to welcome in the Year of the Dragon by bringing to you a family of three Android mini-collectibles, representing Fortune (祿), Blessing (福), and Longevity (壽)!
Since launch, the ASUS Transformer Prime's GPS issues have hampered an otherwise stellar tablet. To make matters worse, ASUS confirmed that the problem was due to the Prime's all-aluminium construction, indicating that a software fix was unlikely. Indeed ASUS was forced to release a new version of the Prime (TF700T), with an updated back panel to improve the GPS functionality. However, ASUS has not given up all hope on the original Prime as a new OTA update (V9.4.2.7) is rolling out, which could fix the GPS drivers.
Motorola recently announced two entry-level Android smartphones for the Chinese, European, and Latin American markets, the Defy Mini and the Motoluxe. Both devices are now available for pre-order on Clove, and they are expected to ship in late February/early March.
The CyanogenMod team recently teased us with a video of CM9 running on the Touchpad and now it looks like their efforts have culminated in the first Alpha ("Alpha 0") release of CM9 for the WebOS tablet.
Reports from CES 2012 indicate that Windows Phone 7 may be a competitive mobile platform, however Microsoft has decided to hedge its bets and continue making money from Android by signing a patent-licensing agreement with LG. The terms of the agreement will likely require LG to pay Microsoft royalties for all LG tablets, phones, and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome OS platform. This deal likely mirrors Microsoft's ten previous patent-licensing agreements with Android and Chrome OS manufacturers, including Samsung, HTC, Acer, and ViewSonic.
Popular video sharing service Vimeo has finally launched its official Android app today. The new app has included all the important features found in the web version, including the ability to browse, watch, download, and upload videos onto Vimeo.Upon starting the app, the user is shown a 3x3 grid of options for creating, uploading, watching, and sharing videos. While not a requirement, creating a Vimeo account and logging into the service also allows the user to comment on, "like", and subscribe to videos, as well as save them to the "Watch Later" list.
Today, ASUS is introducing the Transformer Prime TF700T, its new flagship tablet and upgrade to the Transformer Prime TF201. The TF700T, which according to ASUS does not replace the TF201, remains practically the same as the original Prime, save for a higher resolution (1920x1200) display, a better front facing camera (2MP), and featuring a new back panel design.
Despite recent stumbles, Netflix has successfully managed to become the de facto video streaming service in the US, Canada, and Latin America and now it has set its sights on Europe by launching in the United Kingdom and Ireland. This also means that the highly rated Netflix Android app is now available to Android device owners in those same countries.
The latest unaudited results from HTC for Q4 2011 indicate that total revenues reached NT$ 101 billion (US$ 3.34 billion), a 2.49% drop as compared to the same period in 2010. In stark contrast, Samsung just had a record breaking quarter with profits reaching 5.2 trillion won (US$4.5 billion), almost double the figures of Q4 2010. Samsung's results for Q4 2011 breaks its previous record profit period of 5.0 trillion won (US$ 4.3 billion) from Q2 2010 and is an increase of 22% from Q3 2011. According to an analyst Samsung shipped an estimated 35 million smartphones in the previous quarter alone, but this is likely to include Samsung's low-end bada operated devices.
Along with a software update to the TiVo Premiere DVR, Margret Schmidt VP of TiVo User Experience tweeted the release of their first Android app:
Announced late last year, the Acer Iconia Tab A200 is a slick Tegra 2 Android tablet which will be one of the first Ice Cream Sandwich devices available in the market. The tablet has the following specifications and features:
Late last year Google chairman Eric Schmidt commented to an Italian newspaper that "in the next six months [Google planned] to market a tablet of the highest quality". His statement generated much speculation primarily over whether Google planned on releasing a self-branded "Nexus" tablet or whether they would merely partner with a device manufacturer, such as Motorola, Samsung, or HTC.
Did you give or receive an Android device for Christmas? Even if you did not, it looks like a whole host of people found the green robot under their tree this Christmas. According to a tweet from the ever-so-candid Android head Andy Rubin, 3.7 million Android devices were activated over the 24th and 25th of December.
Intrepid Google+ user and Android head Andy Rubin mentioned yesterday that there are now over 700,000 Android devices being activated every day.
Amazon has just launched the Amazon Student app for Android, providing students with an easy way to shop for textbooks, electronics, apparel, and all the other gear they need to survive their college year.
Amazon's recent update to its Kindle for Android app brings an important change by allowing native support for reading PDF documents.
Our inaugural Monthly Home Screen Challenge for the month of October was a great success. So much so that we decided to keep the challenge going, and we got some awesome submissions for November. As always, it was tricky picking a winner, and after much deliberation we finally settled on Hotmann, who came up with an interesting take on the periodic table.
Apple is famous for crafting beautifully designed products, but it is a little condescending to start giving design advice to its competitors. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Apple has done in a legal brief filed with their earlier request for a ban on Samsung's devices in the United States (a request which was denied by a district judge a few days ago). The legal brief from Apple describes both what their U.S. design patents cover and what the patents do not cover. The latter is especially interesting as they are essentially guidelines on what Samsung can do to avoid being sued in the future.
The patent wars between Samsung and Apple are stretching everyone pretty thin, lawyers and judges from 10 countries are contending with over 20 cases, manufacturers are having to make last minute adjustments to devices, and most importantly reporters, including yours truly, are having a hard time keeping up with it all.