NFC

 Introduction

NFC is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology that enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 cm distance. Near field communication (NFC) is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, usually no more than a few centimeters. Present and anticipated applications include contactless transactions, data exchange, and simplified setup of more complex communications such as Wi-Fi. Communication is also possible between an NFC device and an unpowered NFC chip, called a "tag”.

NFC is an upgrade of the existing proximity card standard (RFID-radio frequency identification) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. It allows users to seamlessly share content between digital devices, pay bills wirelessly or even use their cellphone as an electronic traveling ticket on existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation.

The significant advantage of NFC over Bluetooth is the shorter set-up time. Instead of performing manual configurations to identify Bluetooth devices, the connection between two NFC devices is established at once (under a 1/10 second).

Due to its shorter range, NFC provides a higher degree of security than Bluetooth and makes NFC suitable for crowded areas where correlating a signal with its transmitting physical device (and by extension, its user) might otherwise prove impossible.

NFC can also work when one of the devices is not powered by a battery (e.g. on a phone that may be turned off, a contactless smart credit card, etc.).

Uses (Elaborated)

NFC builds upon RFID systems by allowing two-way communication between endpoints, where earlier systems such as contactless smart cards were one-way only. Since unpowered NFC "tags" can also be read by NFC devices, it is also capable of replacing earlier one-way applications.

Commerce

NFC devices can be used in contactless payment systems, similar to those currently used in credit cards and electronic ticket smartcards, and allow mobile payment to replace or supplement these systems. For example, Google Wallet allows consumers to store credit card and store loyalty card information in a virtual wallet and then use an NFC-enabled device at terminals that also accept MasterCard Pay Pass transactions. Germany, Austria, Finland, New Zealand, and Italy have trialed NFC ticketing systems for public transport.

India is implementing NFC based transactions in box offices for ticketing purposes.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections

Samsung Galaxy Grand full specs

Features at a glance

The Galaxy Grand is mostly about having a big screen at an affordable price. The screen is not HD, it is not a high-resolution display, but instead to arrive at that price Samsung had to pick a WVGA, or 480 x 800-pixel panel. That works out to a pixel density of around 186ppi, which is far from retina and decisively mid-range, so you’d be able to see some jagged edges on icons. Under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy Grand runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor of unknown breed, and on the back there is a capable 8-megapixel camera. Good news is there is little shutter-lag and start-up is allegedly quick. The camera features backside illumination sensor (BIS) for better shots in low-light conditions, and it is capable of recording 1080p video. The Grand also has a front-facing, 2-megapixel camera for video calling. It all runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, which should mean that performance is smooth lag-free with Project Butter.

Main specifications:

GENERAL            

Micromax A116 canvas 3 HD full specs

Micromax is showing no sign of slowing down when it comes to the phablet onslaught, brought about by the Canvas 2 A110. The company has launched a high-end version dubbed the A116 Canvas HD, which raises the bar once again for mid-range Android, or simply smartphones in general. The A116 boasts of a higher definition screen and a more powerful quad-core CPU, something we’ve not seen in this price range till now. Its primary competition when it launches in the first week of February will be the Wicked Leak Wammy Sensation around the same price point and the just launched Samsung Galaxy Grand. Let’s breakdown the specification of the Canvas HD A116 and see how it stacks up against the competition.

Features/specs at a glance:

OS – Android 4.1 Jelly Bean The A116 will launch with 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box. This puts it ahead of the curb compared to other phones in this price range as well as well as some higher-end handsets. Jelly Bean brings with it Project Butter, which helps deliver a smooth UI experience as well as other enhancements like Google Now, a better camera interface etc.

Cellular network – Dual SIM GSM and 3G  The Canvas HD A116 will retain the dual SIM functionality and will support GSM and 3G networks. You should be able to use both SIMs simultaneously as well, although what’s not very clear at this point is whether or not it will support quad-band or even dual-band 3G.

Display – 5-inch HD IPS Our major gripe with the Canvas 2 A110 has been addressed with the A116. Micromax has fitted the Canvas HD with a 720p IPS display, which brings the pixel count all the way up to 294ppi. This is the same pixel count as the first Galaxy Note. The Wammy Sensation has a slight edge over the A116 as it packs in the same resolution but on a smaller 4.7-inch display. The Galaxy Grand won’t be a very pretty sight since it only has a WVGA resolution at the same screen size. We’re not sure yet if the Canvas HD will have any scratch resistant glass fitted to it.

Form factor and weight – Will be a handful with nothing but a picture to go, we don’t have the official dimensions and weight of the A116, but we can safely assume it won’t be too far off from the dimensions of the A110. It does appear to be slightly thicker than the A110, but it’s quite hard to tell based on one picture alone.

Wi-Fi – 802.11 ‘n’ It’s business as usual over here. We have Wi-Fi 802.11 ‘n’ for connectivity. It’s not dual-band, but still good enough for everyday use.

SoC– MediaTek MT6589 (quad-core) - This is one area where Micromax has completely blown away the competition. The A116 features MediaTek’s MT6589 SoC, which contains a quadc-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and PowerVR Series5XT GPU. While the CPU uses the slightly older architecture from ARM, the SoC is built using the newer 28nm fabrication process, so it should do well in terms of power efficiency. Micromax hasn’t detailed all the multimedia capabilities of the A116, but digging a little deeper in to the chipsets capabilities, we find support for 1080p video recording. Whether or not Micromax chooses to use this is yet to be seen. Nevertheless, the four cores should easily help in gaming and even the general responsiveness of the UI. Another noteworthy feature is the inclusion of 1GB of RAM, which is on par with the Wammy Sensation and the Galaxy Grand.

Storage – 4GB onboard with room for expansion onboard storage is not much; thankfully, you have the option to expand it via a microSD card slot.

Primary Camera – 8MP sensor with LED flash The primary camera is an 8MP similar to the one used on the A110. Sadly, it’s not a BSI sensor like the one on the XOLO A800. We feel Micromax could have done a little better in this area. Still, we’ll have to wait and see how much of an improvement the camera on the A116 really is.

Front camera – VGA resolution The front facing camera is only VGA, so don’t expect a whole lot for video calls or even self-portraits.

Sensors – Accelerometer, proximityWe don’t have any details on the sensors in the A116, but it’s safe to assume that it will have a accelerometer and a proximity sensor. We hope that the Canvas also features an ambient light sensor and if we’re lucky, a gyro and a compass as well.

GPS – GLONASS and GPSMicromax has stuck with the good’ol GPS for the A116 as GLONASS is missing from the picture. We guess including that piece of hardware would have driven the cost up.

Battery – Li-Ion 2100mAh The battery size is the same as the one on the Galaxy Grand, however, the quad-core CPU in the A116 might take a toll at the end of the day. A larger battery would have been nice, but we’re guessing that would have automatically increased the weight or the dimensions of the phone.

MY conclusion:-No matter how much we try and nit-pick, there’s no denying the fact that the Canvas HD is currently the best Android smartphone, at least on paper. We don’t know if there will be any competition to the A116 by the time it actually hits retail, but it’s safe to assume that it’s going to be really tough to beat. Some of the strong points that work in its favour include an HD IPS display, quad-core CPU and Jelly Bean support. The only real area of concern right now is the battery life.

While it's great to see such a powerful handset at a reasonable price, the real question is, will people be ready to shell out more than Rs.10,000 for a Micromax? The company has undoubtedly produced some very good handsets in the past few months, but they’ve all been around the Rs.10,000. When you come to the 15K to 20K price range, things like aesthetics, quality of materials used, updates etc. tend to matter. Samsung has just launched the Galaxy Grand for an MRP of 21,500, so assuming the street price is around Rs.18,000, unless you’re on a very tight budget, a typical user would cough up the extra dough for a product from a more established company. If you had to pick between the A116 and the Galaxy Grand, which one would you go for?

Main Specifications

Xperia tablet z full specs

Xperia tablet Z rumors started after the launch of Sony Xperia Z at CES 2013. Just two days before the launch of this tablet, we had posted about the existence of this tablet. Finally, Sony Japan officially announced the Xperia tablet Z which will go on sale in japan in the spring 2013. This tablet seems to be very good as far as the specifications are concerned. It is also water-proof and dust proof like the Xperia Z smartphone.

Watch this video:

Main Specifications:

Hardware

5 GHz quad core snapdragon processor APQ 8064.

Includes - Adreno 320 GPU for enhancing graphics quality.

O.S.

 It will come with Android v4.1 Jellybean, planned upgrade to v4.2 when launched.

Dimensions

The tablet has dimensions of 266 x 172 x 7.9mm.

It weighs around 500 grams approximately.

 Display

Boasts LED backlit display with capacitive touch-screen.

The size is brilliant 10.1 inches with HD resolution of 1980 x 1080p with pixel density of 225.

It also comes with Sony mobile BRAVIA engine.

Connectivity options:

HTC Butterfly full phone specs

Lead everyone in every way. The new HTC Butterfly is sure to make a lasting impression on the world’s first full HD 1080p, 5-inch screen. Its convenient front and rear cameras allow you to capture every moment in a flash. The front camera also comes with the widest angle f2.0 lens to capture more action. Plus, its driven by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ Quad-Core S4 Pro, optimized for the fastest mobile experience.

Specification’s Overview

Full HD Entertainment.

You’ll never experience a dull moment on the captivating 5-inch, 1080p full HD display. View all your favorite shows, movies, photos, and more. Thanks to the eye-popping, 440 PPI display, you’ll enjoy rich, print-quality images in all their breathtaking beauty.

Sophisticated Design.

Enjoy comfort and style right in the palm of your hand. Thanks to innovative stacking methodology, the HTC Butterfly is slimmer, curvier, and more comfortable than any other phone of its kind. Instead of placing the battery on top of the working parts, we install ours directly into the case first, leaving room for design without compromise – and comfort beyond compare.

Powerful Quad-Core Processor.

Do more of what you want to do. Surf the web and stream HD movies to your TV wirelessly at the same time. Reply to emails and download apps simultaneously. With the power and performance of the unbelievably fast, latest generation, 1.5 GHz Quad-Core S4 Pro processor, anything’s possible

Also known as HTC Deluxe.

Main Specs

NEC medias W

Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo just outed its spring lineup of handsets, and the Medias W N-05E caught or eye, just like it did as a hollow mockup at last year's Mobile World Congress. The NEC-made handset has gone from a mere plastic shell to an LTE-wielding phone with a pair of 4.3-inch LCD displays (each 540 x 960 in resolution), a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel shooter, 16GB of built-in storage and a microSDHC slot. When open, the device serves up roughly 5.6 inches in diagonal screen real estate, and measures up at 64mm in width when shut. Thanks to the nature of the dual-screened beast, apps can use each screen independently or together to provide more space. Despite the Jelly Bean-toting rig's penchant for going over the top, it leaves out NFC and Japan-centric digital TV tuner functionality. The smartphone is slated for an April release with an unspecified price tag, but there's no word on availability in other territories.

Specs

TYPE: Smartphone 

OPERATING SYSTEM: Android (Ice Cream Sandwich [4.0]) 

SCREEN SIZE: 4.3 inches 

INTERNAL MEMORY: 16 GB 

CAMERA: 8 megapixels

General

Antenna: Internal

Input

Input type: Touchscreen (Capacitive [finger])

Camera

Camera: 8 megapixels

Camera : featuresFlash (LED), Contact pictures

Storage

Internal memory: 16 GB

Connectivity

WiFi: 802.11 b, g, n (2.4, 5 GHz)

WiFi encryptionWEP, WPA, WPA2

Media

Media : playbackYes

AudioAAC, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA

VideoAVI, h.264 / AVC, MPEG-4

OTA videoStreaming / internet

Images: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG

Messaging

SMS: Yes

MMS: Yes

Browser and email

Browser: HTML (Javascript)

Email: POP3, IMAP, Push email (Exchange, Gmail)

Sync

Sync PIM dataOTA sync

Apps

Apps (default)Alarm, Calculator, Calendar, IM, Maps, Stocks, Stopwatch, Tasks / to-dos, Voice recorder, Weather

Rings / alerts

Custom ringtones: Polyphonic, MP3 / audio, Contact ringtones

Vibrate mode: Yes

Sound profiles: Yes

ANNOUNCED: February 28, 2012

Wireless charging

When Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 920 they also introduced wireless charging, a feature that makes charging a mobile phone as easy as leaving it on the table.

Basically Nokia has announced a series of accessories that will either charge the Nokia Lumia handsets or charge and perform other functions, such as work as a speaker set or NFC tag.

This is the Nokia Charging Plate DT-900. You plug it to the wall and any time you drop your Nokia Lumia 920 on the charging plate it will start charging. No mess plugging and unplugging cables from the phone.

Nokia wireless chargers are compatible with Qi inductive power standard. Devices can be charged up to 4cm from one another. It's pretty much the same principle used in some electrical toothbrushes you can find in your supermarket. Other smartphone manufacturers also support the Qi standard, including HTC, Samsung, LG.

Here is Nokia Lumia 920 charging wirelessly. It even works through the Otterbox Commuter case we put it on:

From the experience charging time seems to be similar to what I'd get if using a USB wall charger.

Wireless charging is a feature on Nokia Lumia 920. If you have a Nokia Lumia 820 you can use an optional Nokia charging shell, replacing the original backing of your smartphone to achieve the same results.

Google goggles

Google Goggles is a downloadable image recognition application created by Google Inc. which can be currently found on the Mobile Apps page of Google Mobile. It is used for searches based on pictures taken by handheld devices. For example, taking a picture of a famous landmark would search for information about it, or taking a picture of a product's barcode will search for information on the product.

Click here to download its .apk file
or else download it directly fom google play (for android) or ios store(for iphone)

History

Google Goggles was developed for use on Google's Android operating systems for mobile devices. While initially only available in a beta version for Android phones, Google announced its plans to enable the software to run on other platforms, notably iPhone and BlackBerry devices.[3] Google has not discussed a non-handheld format. On 5 October 2010, Google announced availability of Google Goggles for iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 4.0.

Uses

Currently the system can identify various labels or landmarks, allowing users to learn about such items without needing a text-based search. The system can identify products barcodes or labels that allow users to search for similar products and prices, and save codes for future reference, similar to the failed CueCat of the late '90s, but with more functionality. The system will also recognize printed text and use optical character recognition (OCR) to produce a text snippet, and in some cases even translate the snippet into another language.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced in December 2011 its collaboration with Google to use Google Goggles for providing information about the artworks in the museum through direct links to the website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Future uses

Nokia lumia 920 full phone specs

Highlights

- 4.5 Inch PureMotion HD+ Display

- 1.5GHz Qualcomm Dual Core Processor

- 1GB RAM

- 32 GB On-Board Storage

- 8MP PureView Camera

- 1.3MP Front Facing Camera

- Wireless Charging

- 2000mAh Battery

Network

Technology / Frequency Bands:                GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

                HSDPA: 900/2100 MHz

Data speed - Upload: LTE Cat 3 - 50 Mbit/s, HSUPA Cat 6 - 5.76 Mbit/s

Data speed - Download: LTE Cat 3 - 100 Mbit/s, HSDPA Cat 24 - 42.2 Mbit/s, EGPRS MSC 12 - 236.8 kbit/s

WLAN features

WLAN Security: WPA2 (AES/TKIP), WPA, WEP, PEAP-MSCHAPv2, EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA

Battery

Type:                     Li - Ion

Capacity:              2000 mAh

Standby:              400 hours

Talktime:             1020 mins

Battery:                BP-4GW

Battery voltage: 3.7 V

Removable battery: No

Maximum 2G talk time: 18.6 h

Maximum 3G standby time: 460 h

Maximum 3G talk time: 10.8 h

Music playback time: 74 h

Wireless charging: Yes

Built

Dimensions:       130x70.8x10.7 mm

Weight:                185 g

Form Factor:      bar

Colors:  Yellow, Red, White and Black

Display

Size:       1280x800 pixels

Dimensions

Height:                                  130.3 mm

Width:                  70.8 mm

Thickness1:         10.7 mm

Weight:                185 g

Volume:               99 cm³

Display and User Interface

Display size: 4.5 ''

Touch screen technology: Capacitive Multipoint-Touch

Screen height: 1280 pixels

Screen width: 768 pixels

Display features:   Polarization filter, Light time-out, Ambient light detector, Brightness control, Corning® Gorilla® Glass, Orientation sensor, Proximity sensor, High Brightness mode, RGB Stripe, Sunlight readability enhancements, Pixel density 332 ppi, Luminance 600 nits, Aspect ratio 15:9, Super sensitive touch, Color boosting, IPS, Refresh rate 60 Hz, Sculpted 2.5D glass

Display height: 97.0 mm

Display width: 58.0 mm

Display colors: 16.7 million

Display technology: PureMotion HD+

Keys and Input Methods

User Input: Touch

Dedicated hardware key: Camera, Power, Volume, Search, Back, Windows Start key

Camera / Imaging / Video

Primary camera sensor size: 8.7 megapixels

Resolution:         3264x2448 pixels

Zoom:                   yes

Flash:                    yes

Secondary

 Camera:              yes

Camera Flash Type: Short pulse high power dual LED

Carl Zeiss Tessar lens: Yes

Camera resolution: 3552 x 2448 pixels

Camera Focus Type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key

Camera F number/aperture: 2.0

Camera digital zoom: 4 x

Camera minimum focus range: 8.0 cm

Camera focal length: 26.0 mm

Flash operating range: 3.0 m

Main camera features

Camera feature: Nokia PureView camera, Touch to Focus and capture in a single tap, Landscape orientation, Geo-tagging, Auto and Manual White Balance settings, Still image Editor, Optical Image Stabilization, Lenses applications, Sensor type: BSI, True 16:9 sensor, Pixel size 1.4 µm, Sensor size 1/3"

Camera image format: JPEG/Exif

Image capturing

Flash modes: Off, Automatic, On

Scene modes: Automatic, Night portrait, Sports, Night, Close-up, Backlight

Capture modes: Video, Still

White balance modes: Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight, Automatic

Photos viewed by: Camera Roll, Timeline, Photo editor, Favorites, Album, Photos from Social networks

Secondary camera

Secondary camera resolution: 1280 x 960 pixels

Secondary camera minimum focus range: 35.0 cm

Video

Main video camera

Video playback frame rate: 30 fps

Video camera resolution: 1080p (Full HD, 1920x1080)

Video recording features: Video Light, Video zoom, Optical Image Stabilization

Camera video frame rate: 30 fps

Camera video zoom: 4 x

Video white balance modes: Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Automatic, Daylight

Main video camera features

Video streaming: YouTube browsing and video streaming

Video feature: Video recorder, Video call, Video sharing, Video player

Other features (video)

Video sharing and playback: Video sharing to social network, Video sharing to Facebook, Video sharing to Skydrive

Secondary video camera

Connectivity