A Detailed Look At The New Google+ With Card-Based UI, Hangouts, Awesome Photo Tweaks & More

Yesterday at Google’s I/O conference, the tech giant announced its much anticipated Music subscription service, revamped Google Maps, and the redesigned Google+. For most of us, Google+ failed to replace Facebook and the many comparisons drawn between the two services failed to sway users in favor of Google's offering. Soon after its debut last year, many of us had discounted it as another failed social network from the search giant. Google, on the other, has not conceded and has been making small improvements as well as significant new additions like Communities to the social network. The latest design is very Pinterest-like; the left bar can now be hidden, making it less of a screen hog. It’s also been cleaned up a bit and the ‘Explore’ option has been replaced with ‘What’s Hot’. Those who didn't like the two-column Timeline view that Facebook introduced might not like the new Google+ layout, which is divided into not even two but three columns. Read More

Hands-On With The New Features In Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

Staying loyal to its release cycle, Canonical has recently released the latest version of the world’s most popular Linux distribution – Ubuntu 13.04. Dubbed ‘Raring Ringtail’, this release brings with it a bunch of new features, along with several significant improvements to many existing ones. Just a couple of months back, we got to take Ubuntu’s under-development mobile OS, Ubuntu Touch Preview for a spin and were left fairly impressed. While not to be considered a major revamp of the last version, the operating system’s latest desktop release hasn’t been a disappointment either, improving significantly upon its predecessor. In what follows, we will take a look at some of the new features and improvements in Ubuntu 13.04. Read More

Twitter For Mac Updated With Retina Support & Easier Photo Sharing

Twitter has been integrated in Mountain Lion much like was in iOS 5 allowing you to tweet from just about any where. It does lack a universal hotkey that lets you open the compose tweet box, but you can easily add that with Quick Tweet. Even though Twitter has been integrated throughout the OS, this does not render Twitter clients obsolete as the timeline itself is not part of the integration, and thus, we continue to see Twitter clients evolve, even if slowly. The latest to upgrade its feature-set is none other than Twitter’s official Mac client. The update includes the long-awaited support for Retina displays, additional languages, and a new button that allows you to share photos directly from the New Tweet box. Read More

Share Articles From Pocket For Android & iOS Via “Send to Friend”

To celebrate a year since Read It Later was rebranded to Pocket, the service’s iOS and Android clients have just been updated with a useful new feature. Although the apps are meant to let users keep webpages bookmarked for their personal use, Pocket seems to be going a bit more social now. The newly added ‘Send To Friend’ option allows iOS and Android users to share any article with their friends pretty easily. You can even opt to have the app scan your phone’s address book to make finding contacts easier. The recipient of shared stories doesn’t even have to be a Pocket user to benefit from Send To Friend, since the app sends articles to others via email. To add to the feature’s usefulness, Pocket users get a notification whenever an item is shared with them by another user of the service. Read More

Facebook For iOS Updated To v6.0: Chat Heads, Stickers & UI Improvements Galore!

Mark Zuckerberg and his band of world-class engineers have made a habit of regularly iterating on Facebook’s design and features every few months even though, to the average user, the website works just the way they like. Each time, after some initial backlash from its enormous user-base, people just settle down with the updates, that is until the company decides that the current state of affairs isn’t good enough and changes everything all over again. This, I believe, is one of the biggest reasons behind Facebook’s success – revising design and features regularly keeps the service “fresh”. Read More

Install The Latest Redesigned Google Play Store 4.0.2.5 Right Away

Yesterday, Google announced an update to the Google Play Store app, bringing several user interface enhancements as well as a few new features to Android’s most popular app marketplace. The update has already started rolling out and according to Google, everyone should get it over the next few weeks. Though if you don’t want to wait for a few days or weeks to get the latest version of Play Store, we’ve got you covered. In what follows, we’ll take a look at some of the prominent changes made in the latest Play Store 4.0.25, and tell you how to get it up and running on your Android device right away. Read More

New In Firefox 20: Private Window, Improved Download Manager & More

Firefox 20 is out on the stable channel and it’s packed with good stuff, this time mostly for end-users. The previous few versions have all or mostly focused on something for developers, making the browser more secure, or adding support for new web technologies. We’re not saying any of that isn’t important, but Firefox already commands a huge developer audience in its user base and it needs to up its offering for the ordinary user. This release sees the implementation of side-by-side private and normal browsing sessions, a new download manager, protection against extensions or apps that try to hijack your default search engine, a faster way to stop plugins that are unresponsive, and support for blend mode added for HTML5 canvas. Read More

Reeder Bids Google Reader Farewell, Mac & iPad Apps Go Free

Although Google Reader still has a few months of life left in it, a mass exodus has already begun. People are switching to alternatives of the service, and have started discovering that the world won’t end on the 1st of July. If you are on iOS, apps like Rockmelt offer options that are certainly better than Reader itself in many ways, and it is nice to see that there are other conventional Reader alternatives available as well. Reeder is one of the most popular Google Reader clients available on iOS and Mac. Since it has, up till now, relied on Google Reader to function, its users feared the worst, and assumed that it will stop working as soon as Reader goes down. Fortunately, the Reeder team has refused to throw in the towel, and the service is expected to become independent of Google Reader before July 1. Not only that, the Mac and iPad clients of Reeder are now available for free! Read More

Advanced Mobile Care For Android Gets Anti-Theft, Call Blocking & More

Some time back, we covered an Android optimization app named Advanced Mobile Care that houses a plethora of mobile maintenance features wrapped in a fancy and intuitive UI. Originally sporting features such as 1-tap performance boost, virus protection, privacy protector and more, the app later received an update bringing in support for cloud backup, a very slick privacy adviser, and a revamped App manager. The app's development team seems to be a serious believer in there always being room for improvement, as  Advanced Mobile Care has just received another major update, bringing in newer features and some improvements to existing ones. The app now houses a new Anti-theft system, call blocker, and improved battery saver, and adds supports for Android tablets including the Nexus 7. Let's take a look at all that's new in Advanced Mobile Care after the break! Read More

Evernote For Mac Gets New Menu Bar Helper; Adds Drag & Drop Clipper

Evernote for Mac underwent a major design overhaul a short while ago and the difference between the old and new version’s interface isn't just monumental; it’s amazing! Evernote 5 looks like a real Mac app now - beautiful and well designed. While the app's UI was overhauled significantly, Evernote didn't do much about its Menu Bar options until now. The Evernote Mac app has just been bumped to version 5.0.6 now, and this latest update features a Menu Bar popup that actually goes with the look of the rest of the app. The functionality is pretty much the same as before, but the new interface is easier to use and allows you to add files by dragging & dropping them on the popup. Read More

A Look At The New Features In Avast 8

Avast is known for creating some of the best security tools in the industry. The company has been producing robust, reliable and efficient antivirus and security applications for the past several years, winning many accolades and certifications from critics and computer security experts. Avast! 8 is the latest incarnation of their long running antivirus suite and we've got to say it does pack a serious punch of features. The security juggernaut has debuted the program in four flavors: Avast Free Antivirus 8 (the one reviewed here), Avast Pro Antivirus 8, Avast Internet Security 8 and the top of the line Avast Premier 8. Let’s see take a closer look at the new features added in Avast 8. Read More

Any.DO For Android & iOS Gets New ‘Moment’ Feature & DashClock Support

Any.DO is a cross-platform to-do list and task management app for Android and iOS best known for its elegant interface, gesture-based controls and the ability to keep your tasks synced online. The app has just been updated in the Play Store as well as iTunes App Store with a brand new feature called Any.DO Moment – a personal virtual assistant of sorts that keeps you informed about your upcoming tasks for the day and lets you plan them accordingly. Once scheduled, the Moment feature will automatically notify you about your various tasks listed for the day through a beautifully designed, animated UI. Using various task management options at hand, you can then check out all the upcoming tasks in a chronological order, reschedule them for some other time of the day, mark them as done, postpone them to a user-specified time, or delete them from your to-do list altogether. Apart from the newly introduced Moment feature, the latest update also brings several other goodies and performance improvements to both the supported platforms. Details to follow. Read More

utter! For Android Now Boasts Completely Offline Voice Recognition

utter! is one of the few fully voice-controlled virtual assistants for Android that is universally accessible from anywhere within the entire OS. This functionality combined with the app’s ability to interpret a broad range of voice commands and perform various actions in response makes it a serious competitor in this arena. If you're using Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or higher, you will definitely want to check out the latest utter! update. utter! v3.0 claims to have become the first app of its kind to bring complete offline voice recognition support to any device rocking Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or above. That’s right – utter! is now capable of understanding and carrying out your voice commands even if your device is not connected to the internet. Read More

Google Search Android App Adds Google Now Widget, Movie Ratings & More

If you've got a device running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or higher, you better not miss out on checking the latest update to the Google Search app, as it is a massive one! As always, there are a number of new Google Now smart cards added to the mix, but most importantly, the brings a dedicated Google Now widget for for your home screen and lock screen, for the first time since the inception of Google Now. That’s right – you can now have all the automatically updated location and travel-based information from Google Now displayed right on your Android device’s home as well as lock screen. In addition to the new widgets, the update adds movie passes from Fandango, movie ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, real estate listings from Zillow, better support for US college sports, and a dedicated music button on the app’s voice search UI indicating the active status of Google Search's song identification feature. Read More

Silence For Android Gets Holo UI, Calendar Events, Power Toggles & More

Silence the handy event-based sound profile automation app for Android – has received a pretty impressive update in the Play Store today. Besides sporting a shiny new Holo UI, the app now allows you to play around with several other volume and power toggles, so that you can use it to completely automate your Android device’s behavior as per your requirements. Already capable of automatically switching back and forth between user-selected sound levels during and after certain events, Silence can now toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile data as well. The app’s integration with Google Calendar now allows you to import events from your personal calendar, so that you can easily define your device’s volume and power settings during your events. That’s not all – there is also support for recurring events till a particular date, and you can now set a specific volume level for each sound toggle instead of silencing it completely. Details to follow. Read More

Plume For Android Updated With New Widgets & Facebook Support

The last major update to the famous Plume Twitter app for Android brought with it the much-awaited Holo UI and support for posting comparatively longer tweets. Today, the folks over at LevelUp Studios have pushed another significant update to one of the most widely used unofficial Twitter clients for Android. Plume v5.0 has been beefed up with quite a few noticeable features such as much improved scrolling speed, profile banners, and a prompt to post the text part of your image-oriented tweets in case the image itself doesn't load. However, the biggest improvement in the entire update can be seen in the app’s refreshed widgets (for both home and lock screens) that are now more customizable than ever before, and fully capable of sporting content from your Facebook Wall as well. More than anyone else, the new customizations in Plume are undoubtedly going to suit those of us who have connected multiple Twitter accounts with the app. Read More

iOS 6 Jailbreak Tool evasi0n Updated To 1.1 With Long Boot & Weather App Fixes

With so many devices, firmware versions and variations of installed apps and configurations, it is essentially impossible to release a jailbreaking tool that is completely bug-free. Team evad3rs’ evasi0n is no exception. The recently released tool that comes with support for all 22 variants of iOS devices running iOS 6.0, 6.0.1 or 6.1 has three such bugs or errors, which we have discussed over the past couple of days. Read More

How To Update To Windows Phone 7.8 Right Now

Almost all Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) users were frustrated at the announcement of Windows Phone 8, since it sounded like the end of major updates for WP7 devices as they weren't to get updated to WP8. However, Microsoft surprised everyone with their intentions to bump all Mango devices to WP7.8, bringing several features of WP8 to them. After months of anticipation, the Portico update has finally started rolling out, and unsurprisingly, the Nokia Lumia series is the first to get the goodies. The rest of you don’t have to despair either, since there is quite an easy method of getting Windows Phone 7.8 on any Mango device right now. If you know for a fact that the update won’t be rolled out for you in the near future, go ahead and try this rather safe method; all it requires is a simple desktop tool and some spare time. Read More

Amazon Cloud Drive Photos For Android Adds Instant Upload & More

Amazon debuted Cloud Drive Photos in November last year to provide Android users with a dedicated cloud storage service and visually-rich gallery for images. As mentioned in our review, the initial release of the app lacked several basic features that most rival companies had been offering for quite long. It seems Amazon has eventually realized the significance of most of the missing features, and included them in the latest update of the app. To begin with, the much-awaited instant, automatic photo upload feature has been added to the mix, meaning your Amazon Cloud Drive is now capable of handling your online photo backups in a much better and automated manner. If your device is running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher, you can now snap fresh images right from the app using the new camera mode. Continue reading past the break to find out more details regarding the update. Read More

GroupMe v4 For Android Exits Beta; Gets Revamped UI & Tablet Support

GroupMe is a popular cross-platform group messaging app for Android, iOS, web, Windows Phone & Blackberry that needs no long introduction. A few days back, the company behind the app announced an invite-only beta of its updated Android variant (v4) for those interested in trying out its new look and features. If you missed out the news, fret not, because the app is now out of beta and available in the Play Store for everyone. Besides a totally revamped UI, the biggest addition in GroupMe v4 for Android comes in the form of the much-awaited tablet support. You can now invite anyone to existing groups by sharing a public URL, and sending direct messages to select contacts has also been made a lot easier; by just tapping a user’s avatar anywhere within the app, you can start chatting with them in private. Read More