android
Google Docs app for Android goes native
Smartphones of today pack much more processing muscle compared to what your top-of-the-line Pentium had all those years ago, and it is able to do so much more apart from just helping you keep in touch with family and friends. After all, take away your smartphone for a day and chances are you would have felt as though you’ve lost an extension to yourself. Phones these days double up as MP3 players, video players, and even a mobile workstation to perform basic edits to simple text documents and spreadsheets.
Google knows this, and has enhanced their Google Docs app for Android by making it native to smartphones, making it a whole lot easier to filter and search for your content across any Google account – and best of all is this, you are able to jump straight into the action of editing docs thanks to the implementation of online mobile editors. Not only that, this app lets you share items easily with contacts on your phone straight from the app itself.
The Google Docs app also enables you to upload content from your handset and open these documents straight from Gmail itself. With the inclusion of a widget, you can also access three core tasks in a jiffy – jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap.
Available in English only at the moment, the new Google Docs app will play nice with Android 2.1 and above powered devices. You can get it by scanning the QR code here or pay a visit to the Android Market via your handset.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?