Kiran Upadhyay

When it comes to massive phones, nothing is more iconic than the Samsung Galaxy Note. It has gained popularity not only due to its size, but its additional features such as a stylus and a larger battery make it a more useful phone. Samsung released the third generation of the Galaxy Note in October, updating the phablet with a larger screen and improved hardware. Read through our review, then join the giveaway to win the  Samsung Galaxy Note 3 ! Competitors Of course, other Android competitors haven’t let the $640  Galaxy Note 3  be the only player in the phablet market. There are others such as the  Sony Xperia Z Ultra , the Samsung Galaxy Mega , and the other more common phones that are reaching 5″ screens such as the  Samsung Galaxy S4 , the  HTC One , and the  Nexus 5 . Unlike the normal-sized top contenders, the Galaxy Note 3 has a bigger screen and larger battery. It also offers specific features (surrounding the S Pen stylus) that aren’t found on any other phablet co

A second blogger has published evidence that his LG-manufactured smart television is sharing sensitive user data with the Korea-based company in a post that offers support for the theory that the snooping isn't isolated behavior that affects a small number of sets. In addition to transmitting a list of shows being watched and the names of files contained on USB drives, the Internet-connected TV also sent the names of files shared on home or office networks, the blogger reported. He made the discovery after plugging the Wireshark packet-sniffing program into his home network and noticing that an LG TV—model number 42ls570, purchased in April—was transmitting file names that sounded vaguely familiar even though there was no USB drive plugged in. "It turns out it was pulling filenames from my shared folders over the network and broadcasting those instead," he wrote in a  blog post published Thursday . "I moved all the media out of the folder and put a few duds in

Winamp, the storied MP3 player bought by AOL in June 1999 for over $80 million, is set to shut down in exactly one month. According to a  post  that went live Wednesday at 12:00pm ET on the Winamp website: On Wednesday, Ars confirmed the announcement with Geno Yoham , Winamp’s general director since October 2008. He declined immediate comment but said that he would try to arrange a future interview. Ars wrote an  extensive feature on the rise and fall of Winamp in June 2012 , detailing AOL’s mismanagement of the property since its dotcom-boom acquisition. As we reported then, Winamp continued to receive updates and make a tiny amount of money for AOL throughout the last 15 years. AOL even released the  first Android version in 2010   and a Mac version in 2011 . While the company has declined to release official figures, former employees who worked on Winamp estimate its current revenue at around $6 million annually. And Winamp still has an estimated user base of millions worl

Back in April, orbiting observatories started picking up the first indications of a gamma-ray burst. By the time observations wrapped up, the event (GRB 130427A) produced the largest outpouring of photons of any yet detected, and it set a record for the highest energy photon we've seen from these events. And because it was unusually close to Earth, GRB 130427A provided a wealth of information about these extreme events—and told us that we don't really understand how they produce the gamma-rays that are their signature. Yesterday's issue of  Science  contains four papers that describe the event, partly because it was unusually well-documented. The enormous stars that produce gamma-ray bursts were much more common in the early Universe and, as a result, most of them occur out at the edge of the observable Universe. But GRB 130427A is an exception; the Universe was already about 10 billion years old when it happened, meaning the supernova that produced the gamma rays occu

Finding tablet apps on the Play Store has historically been a bit of a trial-and-error process. It usually involves finding an app and hunting through the screenshots for a tablet picture. If there isn't one, you install the app anyway and hope a tablet layout will magically show up. With Android tablets gaining more and more market share, Google has decided to  turn up the heat  on app developers that don't build apps with tablets in mind. Apps that don't include certain tablet enhancements will display a "designed for phones" tag on the tablet version of the Play Store, making users with tablets less likely to install them. Google is also upping the ante on the front page and "Top app" lists on the tablet Play Store, which will now hide phone apps by default. Google has a  tablet quality checklist  for developers hoping to avoid a public shaming. There's also a tablet compatibility section in the "optimization tips" section of the

Somewhere between the turkey and the eggnog, someone in your family is almost certainly going to mention their plans to pick up a cheap tablet or TV set. Or maybe someone will bring up the nearest mall electronics store’s “amazing” deals on HDMI cables. The holidays are no time to slack on the year-round battle that comes from being more tech-savvy than other members of the family; in fact, the end of the year requires extra vigilance to stop those nearest and dearest to you from letting the consumer electronics manufacturer/retailer train take them for an unholy ride. Without our help, family members can all too easily spend too much of their money on bad, outdated, or overpriced products. But with so many casual consumers in one place planning so much shopping, the battle you face is prodigious. Reasoning with your family about money and buying products may be only a slightly better topic than the latest political issues, but darned if we don’t all try to help them understand,

Windows 8.1 came with big promises: booting to desktop, the return of the Start button, and generally more user friendliness. Expectations were high as Microsoft made it sound as if they had listened to disappointed users of Windows 8. What Windows 8.1 turned out to be was an upgrade riddled with serious issues for a great number of people. Worse, with no option to downgrade back to Windows 8, affected users are stuck with those issues or forced to re-install Windows 8. Before you step into the same trap, make sure your computer is compatible with Windows 8.1! What Are The Issues Windows 8.1 Can Cause Microsoft decided to introduce  new hardware requirements  related to 64-bit chipsets. If your hardware does not support CompareExchange128, you’ll be stuck with Windows 8. If you do have a 64-bit CPU, search the model name in Microsoft’s Compatibility Center or check with the manufacturer whether it support CompareExchange128. Many users report graphics-related issues. Some e

Last week , AOL announced the impending death of Winamp, saying that the 16-year-old media player would be shut down within a month. " Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date," AOL announced. But fans of the venerable software have launched a "Save Winamp"  website  and  petition  asking AOL either to keep Winamp alive or to open source its code. "The history of digital music started with Winamp," says the group, which includes nine developers who have pledged to improve Winamp if the source code is released. "Our goal is to convince Nullsoft [the AOL subsidiary behind Winamp] to release the Winamp source code and we will take it further in an open-source way." The petition was started by Web hosting company owner  Peter Zawacki  of Australia, and it has more

Sick and tired of paying a fortune for air travel? The easiest solution would be to skip the plane and take a road trip instead, but many of us don’t have the time or energy to do that. Plus, with gas prices on the rise, the road trip might end up costing more than air fare. And that’s assuming you aren’t traveling across an ocean in the first place. Fortunately, there are a few tips and tricks you can make use of in order to maximize your savings when purchasing airline tickets — in fact, you might even be able to save a few hundred dollars per ticket in some cases. That’s a lot of extra spending money you can use while away from home! The next time you’re planning a flight, keep the following guidelines in mind. The Right Time to Buy Did you know that there’s a right time to make your ticket purchases? It’s hard to pinpoint an exact rule of thumb since the industry is always adapting to variations in demand, but there are two important factors always in play. Don’

The latest version of Viber (4.0) was recently released. It introduced Push To Talk as well as a fun new feature called Sticker Market, where users can have access to a thousand playful stickers. But how I wished it looked like this. Ramotion (the guys behind the Messages for OS X design concept) thought they’d have a go at giving Viber a complete makeover — and it looks sweet! They’ve streamlined the registration process, used colour gradients to focus the user’s attention to a particular part of the screen, and played around with the concept of identifying contacts through their profile pictures and removing the need to display text after a certain period of time. Take a look at the complete Viber iPhone iOS 7 Concept project on Behance.

Are you a tech support person on the go? Maybe you just want to be able to set up a download on your home computer while you’re away. There are any number of reasons why you might want to use your Android device for Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access to a Windows computer. If you’ve got an Android phone or tablet, and can set up Remote Desktop Protocol access on your Windows computer, you will find at least one good RDP client for you here. If you’re looking for something for your iPad, James Bruce writes it up well in The Best Free Remote Desktop Apps for Your iPad. Before we go any further, we should clarify that these clients do require a Windows computer to be set up with Remote Desktop Connection enabled. There are other ways to remotely connect to, and control, your desktop. Often they use an intermediary service like  LogMeIn  or one of these12 Excellent, Free Screen Sharing & Remote Access Tools You Haven’t Heard Of Yet . There are also open source alternatives, most