android
CrowdCall Brings Mobile Conferencing to a New Level
For those of you who have done a conference call in the past, you would know how difficult it is to synchronize everybody with a special code that must be given out to all participants prior to the call and all the other actions necessary to take part in the process. An application that can be used on iOS and Android called CrowdCall by SocialDial now does all the work for you for up to 20 participants.
The free application only requires you to choose who you want to be included in the conference call and will call up each person (they will be notified of a normal call from your number) and connect everyone in the call. After answering the call, they will be greeted with a recorded message from CrowdCall, letting them know that they’ve been invited to a conference call. The will be given the options of pressing ‘1’ to join the call or hang up if they’d rather not. Not only is the application free for download, but the person who makes the call is the only person required to have the application.
Yet another interesting bit about this application is that you can save your list of people involved in your conference call for future use. However, like everything, a couple of issues that were unearthed by our friends over at TheNextWeb do mar the clean image portrayed thus far. The first is that once someone gets disconnected or chooses not to join the call automatically, there is no way to add them to the conversation mid-call.
The other added worry is that once the call is done, everyone that was invited to the call will get a text message asking them to download CrowdCall for their device. The fact that this application comes free does make up for those two admittedly small downfalls but with regards to the second one with the text message, you would hesitate to use the application for an important business meeting but it should be alright for friends and colleagues. Let us know with a comment below if you will be trying out this application and how it worked for you if you already did.
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?