Photo Sharing Community Instagram now bigger than Twitter, has over 300 million users

Facebook‘s photo-sharing service, Instagram, said it now had more than 300 million users, sharing over 70 million photos and videos each day.

In comparison, the popular micro-blogging service Twitter has 284 million active users, according to its website. Four-year-old Instagram crossed 200 million users in March. This proves that the company has grown a whopping 50 percent in the past few months.

The service, bought by Facebook in April 2012, also said in a blog that users would now see a “verified” badge for celebrities, athletes and brands as Instagram pushes to deactivate spam accounts.

Instagram also said it will permanently delete spam accounts, which may cause a drop in some users’ follower counts.


In addition, Instagram recently launched the Hyperlapse app for capturing time-lapse videos using iOS devices. Hyperlapse videos can be saved on mobile devices and shared on Instagram.

Financial Times pointed out that, shares in Twitter have fallen 41 per cent so far this year as Wall Street concerns over slowing user growth mount. In contrast, Facebook’s stock has risen 42 per cent.

Apart from the fact that Facebook is one of the most popular online social-networking platform, the company also owns WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger which bring in huge monetary profits.

Earlier reports suggest that Twitter was to bring Instagram-like filters to our photos too. The option is exactly like Instagram’s filter selector. The intensity of the filters can be adjusted with a slider that is revealed by a double tap.

Source : tech.firstpost.com

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Vodafone Music service launched, to take on Saavn, Gaana Dhingana and others

Vodafone India has launched a new subscription-based music streaming service called Vodafone Music. The service, powered by Hungama, lets users stream music or videos for free or download them at nominal costs. The service can be accessed by Vodafone users via their mobile browsers at vodafonemusic.in or by downloading the Android app from the Google Play Store. Additionally, one can also SMS ‘Music’ to 111 to get more details about the service.

Vodafone Music charges start from Rs 3 for downloading a single song, Rs 10 for five songs and also offers subscription packs— Rs 29 for unlimited downloading for a week and Rs 99 for unlimited downloads for a month.

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Yahoo weather app launched for Apple iPads

Back in April, Yahoo launched a new weather app for iPhones and today it has released the same app for the iPads. You can download it from the App Store.

When the app was first launched, it was appreciated for its beauty with the simple animations and the background images. The image-centric weather app shows what the weather actually looks like in that part of the globe using real images sourced from Flickr. These images have been shared by users as part of the Project Weather Group.

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Viber for Windows 8 launched with most of the smartphone app features

Viber has today expanded its presence to the Windows 8 OS. Desktop PCs and tablets running on the OS will get to use most of the features seen on the smartphone apps, as well as get some OS-specific features like Snap View and Search charm among others in addition to the ability to pin the app to Live Tiles on the homescreen.

In addition to the ability to pin the app to Live Tiles on the homescreen, Viber takes advantage of the Snap View and Search charm on Windows 8. Other features included are VOIP calls, the recently launched stickers shop, and call transfers between desktop and smartphone apps. You can also customize the kind of notifications you want the app to push. This app though misses out on the recently released Viber Out calling feature. But with the feature set to be launched on the Windows Phone platform in the coming weeks, a release on Windows 8 couldn’t be that far off.

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Skydrive for iOS now gets automatic camera backup

Microsoft has updated its cloud-storage-based app SkyDrive for iOS, and now offers the long desired and very useful camera backup feature along with a revamped look and interface. With this update to the iOS app, the company is basically trying to bring uniformity across platforms.

Talking about the features, the update brings automatic uploading of the photos and videos in the SkyDrive app on any iPhone and iPad, which is one of the very useful features on its app on Windows Phone. 

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Nokia Asha 501 gets WhatsApp messenger via software update

Popular social messaging app WhatsApp has finally arrived on the Nokia Asha 501. WhatsApp’s CEO Jan Koum had taken the stage at the Nokia World 2013 to announce that the messenger would be arriving on the Asha devices in a phased manner.

Nokia has begun rolling out an over-the-air software update for the Asha 501, which brings WhatsApp to the device. WhatsApp for Asha are optimized to work on 2G and Wi-Fi, and just like the smartphone version, users can send photographs, videos and voice messages. When someone sends a message, a user will be notified on Fastlane, which is the second home screen on the Asha devices.

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Now send messages via Facebook Messenger to contacts who are not your Facebook friends

Facebook today released an update to its Messenger app for iOS and Android, which brings a new design as well as an improved set of features. This update integrates phonebook contacts with Facebook friends, makes the app overall faster and adds a much-needed icon for online status of contacts. This version was earlier released in beta for select Android users, which after today’s release will be more widely available for Android users as well as all iOS users.

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Nokia’s Refocus Lens camera app offering Lytro-like features launched for all Lumia PureView smartphones

Back in October, along with unveiling the Lumia 1520 at the Nokia World 2013, Nokia also announced that the phablet will come with a new camera app called Refocus Lens. What this app essentially does is bring Lytro-like features that let users to choose the point of focus in a photograph after it has been clicked. Nokia had promised that other Lumias would soon get the app, and moments ago it delivered on that promise.

This release is right on line with what BGR India had exclusively revealed back in May. In an interview, Nokia’s Jo Harlow had talked about how Nokia plans on using computational imaging. She had said, “If you look at where imaging is going computational imaging is an area of exploration. Being able to capture even more data — data you cannot even see with the human eye that you can only see by actually going back to the picture and being able to do things with them,” she said.

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Viber for BlackBerry updated with image support on chats and more

Viber for the BlackBerry platform has been updated with new features that bring it almost on par with its Android and iOS counterparts. This is the first big upgrade for the BlackBerry version, since voice calls were introduced back in April.

The new update brings features that allow users to attach images to conversations and also check when one’s messages were last viewed, something similar to what WhatsApp offers. Additionally, Viber has also improved privacy settings, location sharing features and fixed some bugs. This update is compatible with BB 5, 6, and 7, but not the new BB10.

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BBM for iPhone and Android crosses 10 million downloads in less than 24 hours

Along with launching the Z30 smartphone in India moments ago, BlackBerry’s Sunil Lalvani also revealed that more than 10 million users had downloaded BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) in less than 24 hours of it being launched on Android and iOS platforms.

After a long wait and a botched up launch in September, the Canadian company officially released the popular BBM app on Android and iOS. Not surprisingly, the app was downloaded more than 5 million times in the first eight hours and shot to the top of the App Store, even though BlackBerry introduced a queue system to give users access to the service. If you are in the queue and on the verge of losing your patience, here’s a quick way to skip the line and get immediate access.

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Rovio’s Angry Birds are seeking a nest in India

Everyone has played Angry Birds or knows about the game. I realized this yesterday when I told my mother I was meeting the guys from Angry Birds and she knew about it, despite never having played the game herself. I believe it when Rovio’s senior vice president for Asia, Henri Holm tells me that Angry Birds is the true “four quadrant” brand. “Boys and girls, men and women, all over, enjoy the Angry Birds gameplay or know about it,” he says.

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An app to access cell phones remotely

Kerala start-up company Livares Technologies has come out with a new application PhoneAway that enables users to access their mobile phones remotely.

By using the ‘PhoneAway’ application, users can access contents in their phone from another mobile phone or PC. The application can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store.

Jaseel Abdul Rafeek, chief innovation officer, Livares Technologies (P) Ltd., said PhoneAway is an utility app available now in Android platform. It offers a simple yet feature-rich experience for users to access their phones remotely.

The company is based primarily in Technopark here and Startup Village, Kochi.

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Angry Birds’ version of ‘Mario Kart’ to arrive on iOS and Android on December 11

Rovio has announced the next big game in its Angry Birds franchise called Angry Birds Go. Think of Mario Kart, but with the characters replaced by the famous birds and pigs and we have Angry Birds Go. The Finnish developer has released a gameplay trailer to give a glimpse at what we can expect come December 11.

Angry Birds Go is essentially a high-octane downhill racer featuring various tracks, upgradable karts and character-specific unique powers. And like the recently launched Angry Birds Star Wars II, the game will also support Hasbro’s Telepods, so that you can scan physical toys to bring them on to the virtual race track. From the short trailer, the graphics look neat and the gameplay fun, though we will reserve our judgments till December 11, when it will be available for free on iOS and Android.

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Microsoft updates Outlook.com Android app with server-side search and colored interface

Starting from today, Microsoft is rolling out a significant update to the Android app for Outlook.com. The Outlook app for Android now gets several new features including server-side search, support for downloading old mails, vacation replies, aliases, new backdrop colors and several other improvements.

Microsoft claims that out of the 400 million Outlook.com users, 68 percent access it via mobile devices. And in order to make their app more competent, the company has worked on these features and improvements on the basis of user feedback and feature requests received for this app.

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Sygic’s MapMyIndia offline navigation app for Android goes free in India

Sygic and MapMyIndia today announced that their offline navigation app for Android has gone free in India. Previously, this very GPS Navigation app was available for Rs 1,399 on the Google Play store, but is now available for free.

The app sources its data from MyMapIndia, which provides one of the most reliable map repositories in India. The app offers voice guided GPS navigation.

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BBM for iOS submitted to App Store for review

Earlier this summer BlackBerry had announced it will open up its BlackBerry Messenger service, popularly known as BBM, to Android and iOS devices. Multiple leaks that included the official landing page, the user guide as well as a video demo later, BlackBerry has submitted the iOS version of the app to the App Store for Apple’s approval.

The news was revealed by Alex Kinsella, who is a senior account manager for BBM and BBM Channels at BlackBerry. Spotted by Slashgear, Kinsella revealed that BlackBerry had submitted BBM for iOS for review to the App Store two weeks ago. BlackBerry had earlier released the beta app to select Android and iOS users for testing purposes.

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Google’s new Chrome Apps look and function like native desktop apps

Google has announced what it describes as a “new” breed of native/web apps called Chrome Apps, which are essentially web apps that are programmed to look and work like desktop apps. Chrome Apps are currently only available on Windows and the Chrome OS, with a Linux and Mac OS X version in the pipeline.

To put it simply, they are like the many apps you find on the Chrome Web Store, but are programmed to function differently. These apps can work offline and in full-screen mode (without toolbar, navigation buttons, URL bar), store data locally, handle photos, videos and multimedia, send desktop notifications and can also interact with USB and Bluetooth-connected external devices. Google has also announced an app launcher for Windows, which lets users launch the new apps directly from their desktop.

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Nimbuzz for Android updated with new swipe UI

Nimbuzz has announced an update to its popular instant messaging app on Android. The new app does not only feature a new swipe UI, but also loads of new features. The new UI adds ‘easy swipe between chat screens’ and ‘trendy emoticons’.

Other than this, the app now has faster and more convenient file sharing options, richer user profiles that include user bios, social accounts, a new invite friend widget that can access contacts and send invites via SMS, a notification centre and a completely rehashed dialer that makes voice calls a click away.

The app can be downloaded from the Google Play store or the Nimbuzz website itself.

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Microsoft relaunches YouTube app on Windows Phone store

After some disagreements between Microsoft and Google over Microsoft’s version of YouTube app on Windows Phone, Microsoft is finally re-launching the YouTube app. A spokesperson from Microsoft has confirmed it to the TheVerge that both Google and Microsoft have worked together on this updated version of the YouTube app, which will be available from today itself.

The company’s spokesperson added that this updated version of the app will “provide the great experience our consumers expect while addressing the concerns Google expressed in May, including the addition of ads.”

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Skype’s updated iOS app adds HD (720p) video call support

Skype today has launched an updated version of its iOS app with high definition video call support, which was earlier seen on its app for Windows Phone 8 as well. Besides support for HD video calls at 720p, the new version of the app for iPhone and iPad also brings improvements in audio and voice call quality, an easier to use country code selector and some bug fixes. The update also comes with a significant improvement in stability based issues faced by the iOS 7 beta users.

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