TECH NEWS : ANDROID APPS, GOOGLE PLAY, NOKIA 1, AMAZON KINDLE LITE

Tech News

Amazon launches the 2MB Kindle Lite

Amazon announced the launch of Kindle Lite, the lightest reading app for Android in India. An India first product, the Kindle Lite App is less than 2MB and provides Kindle features such as personalized recommendations, Whispersync (synching your eBooks across devices) as well as free eBook samples and titles across English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, and Malayalam. During the first month of launch, customers will also get 80% cashback on their first eBook purchased on Kindle Lite through Amazon Pay.

Kindle Lite consumes less memory on a customer's phone while providing a reading experience - even over slow internet connections and patchy networks.

It is available to download for free on the Google Play Store for all Android phones.

Amazon launched the Kindle Lite app as an open beta on Google Play Store last year to improve the customer experience with faster downloads, instant reading, and a lighter app. With Kindle Lite, customers can read eBooks instantly without having to wait for the entire book to download.

Customers can also enjoy existing Kindle features such as easily buying eBooks, having a personalized shopping experience, ability to zoom into images, night-mode for reading, changing font sizes and simply navigate through the table of contents for a better reading experience.

The Kindle Lite app is available for download now on the Play Store. Customers can also continue to enjoy full Kindle for Android App.

• Lightest reading app - Kindle Lite is less than 2MB and downloads under a minute on your phone.
• Read instantly- You don't need to wait for eBooks to download completely to begin reading.
• Read on all networks - Read your favorite titles on 2G/3G networks.
• Uses less space on your phone- Kindle Lite allows you to actively manage storage for downloaded eBooks as well as monitor your data usage over WiFi or mobile networks.
• Ease of navigation - Whether it is moving to the next chapter in your book or searching through your library, Kindle Lite allows you to move between pages seamlessly.

Apple is independently selling its Space Gray Magic mouse and keyboard

Apple had released the iMac pro which is one of the most power-packed devices from Apple back in December 2017. Along with the iMac Pro Apple had also showcased a space grey combo of the Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard.
The Space Gray combo of the Magic Mouse and Magic keyboard were only available with iMac Pro up until now. Now as per some sources from the internet, Apple will now be selling the Space Gray Magic Mouse and Magic keyboard separately starting today. The devices will be available with $20 increase over the usual pricing. Now users can purchase the peripherals separately without having the need to purchase iMac Pro.
With this announcement, it seems like that Apple wants to please its users by making available the devices that were available earlier only with select Apple products.
That said about the Space Gray Magic Mouse and Keyboard which were exclusive to Apple iMac Pro and now are available separately for purchase. As mentioned above the iMac Pro is one of the most power-packed devices available in the market and we have covered about the device in one of our previous articles as well, let's have a quick refresher at what the iMac Pro offers in terms of features and specifications. Apple iMac Pro is priced at Rs. 4,15,000, only the base model of new all-in-one workstation has made its way to the Indian market. The iMac Pro was first unveiled at WWDC 2017, followed by the launch in the US and other select markets in December last year.

Nokia 1 Android Go smartphone

Nokia 1, which was first launched at MWC 2018, has made its way to the Indian market. Priced at Rs. 5,499, the smartphone is now up for sale in the country. Despite being a budget offering, Nokia 1 has quite a few highlights. It is one of the first Android Go devices to arrive in India. The smartphone runs on Android Oreo (Go Edition).
Another USP of the Nokia 1 is that it offers 4G LTE connectivity. What's more, the smartphone has interchangeable polycarbonate covers. At this price point, the smartphone is pretty impressive. While it doesn't come without flaws, Nokia 1 is a good phone on its own.
Since the smartphone is available for purchase in India starting today, let's find out about its highlights in detail.

Android Oreo (Go Edition)

As stated, Nokia 1 is an Android Go smartphone. In other words, it runs on Go Edition of Android Oreo. This means the smartphone arrives pre-loaded with the Go Edition apps aimed at rendering a smooth experience on the low-end devices.
Users will get all the popular apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Google Maps and many more. Do note that, Nokia 1 comes with inbuilt Google Assistant Go.
For those who are not aware, Google last year launched the Android Go program for providing a powerful experience for entry-level smartphones. Basically, the smartphones that are part of this program run on an optimized version of Android Oreo.

Google Play Movies and TV now get updated search function for streaming videos

Google is known for rolling out latest updates for its apps and services on a regular basis. The latest app joining the update bandwagon is the Google Play Movies and TV app. As per some reports from the web, the latest update for the Play Movies and TV will show which third-party video on demand (VoD) platform is currently streaming the show or movie a user wants to watch.
The reports further suggest that at the moment there are 28 different services which are being indexed includes Amazon Prime Video, HBO Go/Now Showtime, Hulu, CBS, ABC, NBC, Comedy Central, Fox, HGTV, and others. However, it is quite strange that one of the most popular third-party videos on demand service (VoD) 'Netflix' is missing from the list.
There is no information as of yet when the Netflix will be added to the list. However, Google claims that it is in talking terms with Netflix and there is a possibility that we might see the partnership between Netflix and Google Play Movies and TV in the coming days. That said, we will keep you posted with further updates related to this topic and will inform you if Netflix and Google join hand soon in the future.
Also, in one of our recent articles related to Google, we covered that the tech giant has recently made an announcement that it is officially rolling out the 'mobile-first-indexing'. In the 'mobile-first-indexing,' the Google bots or what many of us know as the spider will crawl to index the mobile versions of web pages instead of crawling or indexing the desktop pages. It is being reported that the company is aiming towards making the switch beneficial for its 'primarily mobile' customer base.

Android apps with over 500,000 downloads affected by malware

Android apps infected by malware are not new. Lately, we came across a report wherein Google removed over 700,000 problematic apps and 100,000 malicious developers from the Google Play Store in 2017. Now, the company is again in news for a major malware incident, which has been discovered once again.
This time, it looks like seven QR code and compass apps have been affected by malware, which allows infiltrators to use the Android devices in order to push in click-based advertising even when the app is inactive.
According to a report by SophosLabs, a security firm, a few applications on the Google Play Store have been using a new malware family called Andr/HiddnAd-AJ.
It is also said that some of the affected applications were downloaded over 500,000 times. These apps did not activate the malware for the first six hours, reveals the study. However, after the initial phase of inactivity, these apps ran full-screen ads, ad-related webpages, and unleash notifications those will attract users to generate revenue for the infiltrators.
When the malware-infected apps are run for the first time, these apps will call for a configuration and the information transferred to the server is controlled by the crooks. Each such configuration download will give the malware, a Google Ad Unit ID, a list of URLs those will open in your browser to push ads on you, a list of messages, icons and links appearing in the notifications, and the time to wait before calling home for the next configuration update.
The malware affected Android applications are claimed to have been removed from the Google Play Store. Despite the evidence of malware existence, the report recommends installing applications only from the Play Store.
Paul Ducklin, a Security Researcher at SophosLabs, stated in a blog post that Google's app vetting process is not too perfect but the company does carry out some pre-acceptance checks. There are many third-party Android app repositories those do not have any such checks. Such platforms are open to anyone and can be handy to infect any app those are not available on Google Play Store.