Bangalore police want to fight crime with Periscope

Periscope seems to be everywhere these days, giving folks an easy way to stream everyday life to anyone willing to watch it. For some people and organizations, including Android Authority,Periscope is a way to reach out to fans and share an inside look at events and the like. For others, Periscope is for sharing streaming images of their food, letting people watch them brush their teeth, and all other matters of, well… idiocy. For Bangalore’s police department? They are hoping it can be turned into a crime fighting tool.

Police commissioner MN Reddi says that they plan to embrace Periscope by starting small and livestreaming police press conferences to any interested in watching. Beyond this, however, the commissioner is hoping that they can eventually get to the point where willing citizens use the platform to record crimes in progress. Essentially someone at the police station would monitor these special Periscope feeds and would react to them by dispatching an officer, etc.

While an odd sounding idea, Bangalore has already had a great deal of success embracing Twitter with many residents of the city more than willing to send alerts and complaints to the police via tweets. This is just the next evolution for the city’s plans to use social media to improve their police force. Of course the idea of every citizen having the power to act as CCTV camera for catching crime might seem a little discomforting to some. Considering slow mobile broadband speeds and limited data for many smartphone users in the city, it’s also probably a little too ambitious at this point. Still, we have to commend the city’s police force for thinking outside of the box.

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A look at the new Samsung Qi Wireless Charging Pad

Samsung needed a new wireless charger to pair up with the Galaxy S6, and it’s a pretty nice piece of gear.

Even though it didn’t actually offer a phone with Qi charging built-in, Samsung has previously sold a basic Qi charger for those who added it after the fact to their phone. Now that the Galaxy S6 has wireless charging from the start, it was as good a time as any for Samsung to refresh its wireless charger with a new design. The Wireless Charging Pad, as it’s simply known, now looks like it belongs in the same design category as the GS6 and will likely be added on to plenty of phone orders in the coming months.

Qi wireless chargers are all pretty much the same in terms of function, and aside from the looks there’s not much you can do to differentiate. The Samsung Wireless Charging Pad is about the same size as many others out there — 3.75-inches wide, and about .75-inches thick — but of course stands out a bit with its circular design. The flying saucer style charger also comes in both black (or very deep blue, depending on the light) and white colors to perfectly match the color of Galaxy S6 you choose, and has a nice 5-foot long charging cable and 5V / 2A charging brick included in the box.

A rubber pad on the bottom keeps the charger well planted on your desk or table, and a small rubber circle on the top of the charger does its best to hold onto your phone. Unfortunately Samsung’s choice to use a flat glass back on the Galaxy S6 is working against it when it comes to keeping the phone planted on any wireless charger, and the amount of rubber on the Wireless Charging Pad isn’t quite enough to keep Samsung’s own phone stable on the top.

Unless the charger is on a perfectly-flat table (our best guess is your tables aren’t) that’s never touched or walked near, you’ll have to be careful about how you place the phone to keep it from sliding off. If you’re smart about it you let the camera pod on the back rest up against the edge to keep the phone on its spot, but more than a few times we found the GS6 had slid off of its charger while we were away. The Galaxy S6 kept itself stuck a bit more consistently on larger flat chargers like the TYLT Vu Solo (which is also about $10 cheaper), so we would’ve preferred if Samsung put a little more grip to the top of its offering.

In order to tell at a glance whether your phone is charging the Wireless Charging Pad does have a nice little LED array on the front edge of the charger that will light up a light blue when charging and green when completely charged. During the day the LEDs aren’t quite bright enough to be seen from afar, but at night they may be bright enough to bother you if the charger was next to your bed. We didn’t have too much of a problem with it, but wouldn’t be surprised if the always-on light while charging was a deal breaker for those who wanted to charge overnight with it.

At $50 this certainly isn’t the cheapest Qi charger out there, and though it’s one that nicely matches your fresh new Galaxy S6 — in color and brand — it probably isn’t the best choice in terms of features or value. If you plan on using your Galaxy S6 without a case you’ll probably want a larger, rubber-topped Qi charger that’ll hold onto the phone more securely. And if you don’t have a Galaxy S6, there’s no real reason to pay the premium for this charger over any other — maybe keep an eye out for when this one gets a price cut.

Source:Android Central

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Nokia rolls out Windows Phone 8 Amber update for Lumia smartphones

Nokia’s much-awaited Amber update for its Lumia Windows Phone 8-based smartphones has finally started rolling.

The Amber update is built upon the latest update for Windows Phone 8 from Microsoft with some exclusive features added by Nokia. The new Nokia Lumia Amber software update adds some new and improved features like Nokia Glance Screen with the standby clock and new and improved camera features for better imaging experience, a new FM Radio player, improvements to Xbox Music and the default browser, Internet Explorer for Nokia Lumia users.

The biggest improvement with the update is to camera capabilities of the phones that will now feature the all-new Nokia Smart Camera mode that debuted on the Nokia Lumia 925. This update brings improved image processing with better noise reduction, color reproduction, exposure control, autofocus, refined low light performance, and a number of other camera improvements depending on the phone model and its camera capabilities. It offers the ability to take ten shots at a time and then edit with tools and effects like Best Shot, Action Shot and Motion Focus.

Another addition will be the Pro Camera app that was introduced with the Lumia 1020 and it will be rolled out to Lumia 920, Lumia 925 and Lumia 928.

Other features include flip to silence, double-tap to unlock, storage check and faster map updates. Another major new feature is Glance Screen, that brings a clock to your screen when the phone is inactive, along with indicators to show the battery level when running on a low battery or the phone is charging, and whether your phone is set to ‘silent’. Nokia says that Glance Screen will be available for all Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices except the Nokia Lumia 520 and Lumia 625.

The update will be applicable for current line of Lumia smartphones that includes the Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 820, Nokia Lumia 720, Nokia Lumia 620and Nokia Lumia 520.

The Amber update will be available first for the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 in select countries as well as the Lumia 521, Lumia 810, and Lumia 928 in the US, and will be reaching out to all devices including Lumia 520, Lumia 620, Lumia 720, Lumia 820 or Lumia 920 by the end of September. Exact delivery timings will vary by region, phone and operator, but Nokia says the update will reach Lumia 520, Lumia 620, Lumia 720, Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 users by the end of September.

The Amber update is the biggest change to hit Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones since they were launched. The update was announced at the time of the launch of Nokia Lumia 925, that shipped with the update pre-installed.

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