News Facebook Home for Android is official

Facebook went live with its Home for Android. It's a launcher which replaces your normal home screen with "Cover Feed" - a tool which gives you a gesture-operated aggregation of your friends' posts, pictures, statuses, etc.

Facebook Home will launch on Google Play on April 12 for a select number of smartphones, initially - the Samsung Galaxy S4, S III and Note II and the HTC One and One X+. It appears to act as any launcher out there. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the team behind Facebook Home worked hard to make it feel better than just any other app, which means we can expect Home to work seamlessly or like a native app.

Cover feed
From the moment you wake up your phone you become immersed in cover feed. Cover feed replaces the lock screen and home screen. It's a window into what's happening with your friends - friends finishing a bike race, your family sharing a meal or an article about your favorite sports team. These are the beautiful, immersive experiences that you get through Home.

You might have missed these updates before, but now they're a central part of the Home experience. Since Home is both your lock screen and home screen, the content comes right to you. You can flip through to see more stories, and double tap to like what you see.

Cover feed is for those in-between moments ­like waiting in line at the grocery store or between classes ­when you want to see what's going on in your world.

Chat heads
With chat heads you can keep chatting with friends even when you're using other apps. When friends send you messages, a chat head appears with your friend's face, so you see exactly who you're chatting with. Messages reach you no matter what you're doing - whether you're checking email, browsing the web, or listening to music.


You can move chat heads around and respond to messages. And since SMS is integrated into Facebook Messenger for Android, chat heads include Facebook messages as well as texts.

Notifications
Cover feed is great for seeing everything going on in the world. But when something happens that's more important and directed at you, like a friend posting on your timeline, you'll receive notifications with their profile pictures.

To open notifications, just tap them. And if you don't want to deal with them right now, you can just swipe to hide them and keep flipping through cover feed until you want them back.

Apps
It's as easy to get to your apps in Home as it is on any other phone. Swipe up to see your favorite apps in the launcher. There's also a screen containing all of your apps, and you can drag your favorite apps to the launcher.


How To Get Home
Home will be available as a free download from the Google Play Store starting April 12. Home works on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung GALAXY S III and Samsung GALAXY Note II. Home will also work on the forthcoming HTC One and Samsung GALAXY S4, and on more devices in the coming months.

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Alleged photo of a Nokia Lumia 950 prototype

An alleged photo of Nokia Lumia 950 prototype has emerged. Accompanying the photo were some rumored details on the upcoming device, whose name subtly harks back at the good old days of Nokia N95.

The Nokia Lumia 950 is reportedly going to feature an AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280x768 pixels. The display is reportedly sporting similar PureMotion HD tech as the one found in the Nokia Lumia 920.

The Nokia Lumia 950's camera is tipped to pack a larger sensor than its competitors'. Xenon flash, lossless zoom, oversampling, video stabilization, and superb low-light performance are among the camera's rumored features.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Android 4.1.2 Update Hits India

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 has now started receiving the Android 4.1.2 aka Jelly Bean update in the country. The update was rolled out by the company last month and we expected the roll out to reach Indian devices by end of March.

The company has informed that the software update will be rolled out in phases, meaning Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 users across different regions will have to wait for a while. According to the official firmware details, the software update goes by build number JZO54K. The firmware can be updated through Samsung KIES or via an over-the-air (OTA) download.

The Android 4.1.1 update for the tablet in India was rolled out by Samsung last year. The update offers new notifications bar, two home screen modes and a re-organised settings menu. Apart from that, the new update also comes with features like Smart Stay and Group Play, which was recently added to the Galaxy Grand smartphone, via small firmware update.

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Sony Xperia Z Gets It's First Update, Fixes Sudden Death Issue

Some users facing sudden-death issues on the newly launched Sony Xperia Z, wherein the phone turned off randomly and didn’t turn on thereafter. Sony acknowledged the issue as soon as it popped up and now, the company has released an update for the Xperia Z users, which reportedly fixes the sudden death issue on the smartphone.

The report of  Xperia Z users facing such issues first appeared in Xperia Blog and went on to say that some users have managed to power up their devices once again by hard-resetting the Xperia Z, by holding the power button + volume up but not everyone was as lucky, as some of the early adapters of Sony Xperia Z couldn’t power their bricked devices up via this method.

Now, Sony has released a fix and it appears that the Sony Xperia Z was suffering from some battery issues, which caused this problem and Sony says that the smartphone turned off randomly as it had problem dealing with low battery status. Contrary to what Sony has said, some users reported the bricking issue even while their devices were fully charged. However, this update should fix the woes of users who were facing this issue.

The update has just started rolling out, so it might not be available to everyone at the moment. However, Sony Xperia Z users should keep checking their notifications and update their smartphone as soon as the update shows up on their Xperia Z.

From whatever we’ve heard till now, the Sony Xperia Z should be updated to build number 10.1.A.1.434 after the update, but the Android version (4.1.2) and Kernel (3.4.0) appears to be the same.

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Sony also plans to roll out a 5-inch entry-level model

It is expected that the rumored smartphone will sport a 5-inch display and will be powered by the MediaTek MT6589 processor, which currently powers most of the budget quad-core smartphone available in the Indian market, like the Micromax Canvas HD. The report first appeared in DigiTimes.

The latest rumor strongly suggests that Sony is keen to tap-on the emerging markets as it plans to introduce a budget quad-core smartphone. Though there is nothing more known about the smartphone as of now, but it’s being said that the smartphone would be released sometime in Q3 2013.

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