STUMBLED UPON SOME INTERESTING & AMUSING FACTS

Have You Pheed Yet?

Have You Pheed Yet?

The latest kid on the block in the world of social networking is Pheed. Surprised you haven’t heard of it yet? Pheed is an Android App and a website available for free. It is quite similar to What’s App. What remains to be seen is whether Pheed has the potential to be the next what’s app or facebook or not?

It is a new way to express yourself in the social circles online. Use it to text, share – photos, audios, videos, voice and broadcast. It is available in the App Store (of Apple) and is soon going to be live on Google Play as well.

It symbolizes the youth with its rather a little weird symbolization of a young man with the hands on his head, with tattoos up his sleeves. It’s been analyzed that 81% of its user are the youth ranging from 18yrs to 25yrs.

To know more. Check it out yourself at https://www.pheed.com/or download in the your gadgets.

Zap It With The All New Xperia Z

Zap It With The All New Xperia Z

Z seems to be the flavor of the month, especially for the smart phone market, after the blackberry Z10 Sony has struck the market with its all new Xperia Z. And for what it’s worth even before the phone hit the market I fell in love with its campaign. The curiosity it had aroused has worked in its favor, and needless to say it has in every means met the expectation levels of the crowd, I would rather dare to say that it has surpassed them by leaps and bounds.

Doesn’t this very picture of a smart phone being ‘washed’ with water do something to you deep within, it certainly does to me – waterproof and dust resistant, wow! It has definitely commanded not only my attention but also my unquenchable thirst of wanting the phone (If my employer is reading this; please consider revising my pay at least for a month).

Design: Now I can’t wait any more to tell you more about how simply amazing this phone is. Needless to say it is a power packed combination of looks, power and sure connectivity. It is one of the best Sony phones in the market lately, yet how I wish it had Android 4.2. The larger than life screen size
of 5inch with 1920x1080 display with just 7.9mm thickness feels like wonder in the hand weighing just 146g. I guess that just made it the lightest phone available in the market. The massive screen size enables to browse desktop web pages and that too without zooming.

The glass front (Drogantail) and rare (Gorilla glass) combined with monolith design of the phone feels absolutely classy. *Spoiler Alert! It is a bit huge in size no doubt. It’s not the phone size for people like me though. Alas!

Camera: And don’t even get me started on the camera, when it is Sony it’s needless to point out their fetish for their camera pixels in their phones and this one too comes with 13.1 megapixels. This is however its more, there is image stabilization and HDR also in video mode. It is leak-proof in up to a meter of water for half an hour. It means it can take pictures underwater, which makes it perfect with the summer at our doorsteps (In India). Care for a dive!

Processor & Software: Sony has finally joined the quad core club with Xperia Z. The classy gadget comes packed with 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, backed by a roomy 2GB of RAM, making it one of the fastest smart phones. It clocks a score of 3,399 at 30 frames per second, beating both the Galaxy S3 (1,580) and the HTC One X (1,625).

The phone comes with Android 4.1 on board, with a promise of 4.2 update available soon after launch. The OS being Google’s.

Connectivity: NFC has been a part like its other members in the family since Nexus S. NFC allows the device to communicate with other Sony products, such as the latest range of Bravia televisions. Just by touching the phone to the TV, you can mirror the screen to show off your monstrous 13.1-megapixel snaps.

Key Feat in a Jiffy:

1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor
2. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
3. 2GB RAM
4. 5 inch full HD Display, resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels
5. 13MP rear camera; 2.2MP front camera for video calling
6. 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD slot
7. 4G LTE
8. 2,330 mAh battery
9. Waterproof, dust-proof

Competition: HTC One

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns - Review

Review - Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns

Cast: Irrfan, Jimmy Shergill, Mahie Gill, Raj Babbar and Soha Ali Khan      

Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia

In Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns, Tigmanshu Dhulia takes us back the modern day royalty of UP which he created in the first part Saheb Biwi aur Gangster. But one doesn’t have to cross reference to its predecessor as this movie is a standalone piece. As it was the case in the first part, even its successor has the same background where the relationships are sacrificed at the altars of power and money.

Set in Uttar Pradesh where all moustaches are twirled up with flair, Saheb aka Aditya Singh (Jimmy Shergill) is wheel chair bound from the earlier part while his Biwi aka Madhavi played by Mahie Gill is elected MLA. Saheb wants to humiliate everyone around him and his wife, Madhavi who is a drunkard but also looks to seek her husband’s attention who is in love with Ranjana (Soha Ali Khan). In comes the third protagonist – The Gangster played by Irrfan aka as Inderjit Singh who loves Ranjana but has a past that fuels his ambitions of taking on the Saheb - an ancestral feud.

The biggest asset of the movie is in its writing.  The screenplay and dialogues both done by Tigmanshu are par excellence. There are many dialogues for applause and seetis like “humare gaalion pe bhi taaliyan padti hai” and when Saheb tells his Biwi – “ Bahut sasti ho chuki ho tum. Tumhe dene ke liye humare paas chiller bhi nahin hai”.

There is intrigue at every door and a lot of twists and turns which makes a riveting first half. The characters are detailed. The second half tends to get a bit heavy with unnecessary songs ( especially the item song featuring Mugdha Godse).

From performance point of view, Jimmy Shergill as Saheb gets his act right and oozes royalty. Though bound on wheelchair his spirit is sky high. He deserves full marks for playing a subtle yet fiery character where most of his emotions are conveyed through his eye and expressions. Mahie Gill gives another terrific performance and rises above the expected drunk act and lights up the screen. Irrfan is the trump card of the movie and takes it to another level. This is fourth association of Irrfan with Tigmanshu post Haasil, Charas and Paan Singh Tomar and he doesn’t disappoint at all. He strikes the right note as a desperate royal who is seeking vengeance. It was good to see Raj Babbar back on big screen after a sabbatical and he fits the role and sinks his teeth into the character.

Despite a bit of downfall in post interval section with songs looking completely out of sync with the movie, Dhulia delivers a winner with an engaging movie and a brilliant climax.

I am going with 3.5 out of 5 for this tale. Might not be the best work of Tigmanshu post Paan Singh Tomar but watch it for a supreme storytelling and terrific performances from everyone.

Everything is gestures: BB Z10

Once again among all the berries in the world our favorite BlackBerry has launched its latest bullet Z10 all over the world. So I wanted to share with you how I felt and thought about it.

 It is definitely a clean break from its past look with a big touch screen and new-fangled OS, yet it has not left its true essence of being a business phone. However this time there is more to it than just business, it has a dash of fun added to it to cater to our much large and young audience.

Its fabulously refreshing sleek look makes it really sought after, it is quite light in weight but unfortunately the display is also lighter i.e. it is not as bright as it should be. But it felt good to hold, a change for a BB. It seems like for this model the company threw everything out of the window, and started all new – afresh. The curved design gives it a smooth look. The good news is that the Z10 battery is removable. Yet like a true BB there is a lot of LED flashing and alert tones throughout the day.

It however won’t be very easy to get tuned to in the beginning but once you catch up with it, it is an all new platform baby! Everything in this phone is literally gestures. To go to home swipe the screen from bottom to up.There is no home screen; it is rather all the latest used apps in tile form. There is no navigation button and zero visual clues.

Let's take a quick look @ the Key Features 

·        Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, tri/quad-band UMTS/HSPA, optional 100 Mbps LTE

·        4.2" 16M-color WXGA (768 x 1280 pixels) capacitive touchscreen TFT

·        Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait, 2GB RAM, Adreno 225

·        BlackBerry 10 OS; advanced on-screen keyboard; Office document editor

·        BlackBerry Hub with extensive social networking connectivity

·        BBM with video chat and screen sharing

·        8 megapixel auto-focus camera with face detection and Time Shift; LED flash, 2MP front facing camera

·        Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps; 720p recording with front-facing camera

·        16GB storage, microSD card slot; built-in Dropbox and Box integration

·        Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot; Wi-Fi sync

·        Bluetooth 4.0

·        NFC

·        standard microUSB port, microHDMI

·        3.5mm audio jack

·        GPS receiver with A-GPS

Argo - A Gripping Movie

Argo Movie Review – A Gripping Tale

‘Argo’ directed by Ben Affleck is a gripping tale set during 1979 Iranian Revolution when Islamist militants stormed the US embassy taking 52 American hostages. Six Americans manage to escape and take shelter in the home of Canadian ambassador. The story of Argo revolves around how Tony Mendez played by Affleck plots the escape of these 6 Americans in a daring and outrageous plan: Mendez will fly into Iran with fake passports from Canada one for himself and 6 for the other six compatriots, who are scouting locations for a sci-fiction Hollywood movie named “Argo” in Tehran.

The movie looks realer than real with Mendez getting the background detailing in place – right from right documentation and hiring real backers from Hollywood studios. What makes the story believable is it pans out in an uncomplicated way. The acting is top notch from everyone involved. Affleck himself gives a low key well nuanced performance. Bryan Cranston is superb as a no non sense CIA boss. But the clever liners of the movie and the best laughable dialogues are between John Goodman and Alan Arkin who play a pair of jaded movie veterans. A word for excellent casting of actors who are playing the six American escapees – they play their parts competently.

For his third outing behind the camera after Gone Baby Gone and the Town, Ben Affleck chooses this gripping tale of Iranian hostage crisis of 1980’s and handles it with great dexterity. Argo is by far Affleck’s best work

I would give 3.5 out of 5 for Ben Affleck’s Argo. Its binary view of history makes it fall just short of being a master piece.