$40 Aakash 2 tablet to get Ice Cream Sandwich update.

It’s as official as it can possibly get. Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind, the company responsible for the Aakash project, has announced that the Aakash 2 tablet will be updated to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The Aakash 2 tablet is hitting the Indian market in two to three weeks and it’ll take another two months until users can experience Ice Cream Sandwich on their units. It’s yet unknown how the update will be distributed – over-the-air or as a PC download, but Singh Tuli is certain it’s coming.

What makes this ICS release so special is that the Aakash 2 only has 256MB of RAM, 2GB of storage and a single-core 800MHz processor, which doesn’t meet the Ice Cream Sandwich minimum requirements. You might remember Google refused to update the original Nexus One to ICS, and that one has 512MB of RAM and a 1GHz CPU.

Android app design guidelines updated.

The Googlers over at Android Design have just put up some new sections into their guide for Android developers.

Highlights include a brand new section on how to create a design layout for application settings, as well as how to link to other Android applications and how to navigate to your app using widgets.

India gets its first 4G LTE network, courtesy of Bharti Airtel.

India is about to join the list of countries with fully operational 4G LTE networks. And the company responsible for this is Bharti Airtel, which also happens to be the fifth largest carrier in the world by number of subscribers.

Kolkata, a large metropolitan area in Eastern India, is the first area to be blessed with 4G LTE service. It will be followed by Karnataka, Punjab and other parts of India in Q3 of this year.

Since 4G-enabled smartphones aren’t yet available in India, the Bharti Airtel LTE network will be initially only be used with 4G USB dongles, which will enable connecting your laptop or tablet to the fast network. Manufactured by ZTE, the 4G dongle will be priced at 7,999INR ($155), which seems rather steep, though.

Toshiba announces the Excite.

Toshiba has finally made official the Excite trio of tablets – 7.7, 10.1 and 13.3. We already saw them twice back at CES in January and then at the MWC in February. We even went hands-on with the SuperAMOLED-packing 7.7 slate.

Today we finally got some official specs and the retail names – Excite 7.7, 10.1, and 13.3. All three slates are based on the quad-core Tegra 3 chipset and run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and have a pretty decent connectivity set – 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. The Excite 7.7 – is probably the most interesting one. It is built around a 7.7-inch SuperAMOLED 1280x800px display, has a 5 megapixel main camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing snapper, a microSD card slot and a choice between 16 and 32GB of integrated storage.

Toshiba Excite 7.7

The Excite 7.7 is expected to hit the shelves on June 10 with a $500 price tag.

Toshiba Excite 7.7

The Excite 10.1 features the same internals as the 7.7, but the 7.7″ SuperAMOLED on the front has been replaced by a 10.1″ LCD. Thanks to the bigger shell Toshiba has managed to squeeze a regular size SD card slot here and a micro HDMI port. You will be able to choose between 16, 32 and 64GB internal storage options with this one.

Toshiba Excite 10.1

The Excite 10.1 will be released on May 6 with a starting price of $450.

Finally, the huge Excite 13.3 comes with a high-res 1600x900px LCD screen and will also offer SD card slot and a micro HDMI port. There is no bump in the camera department though – 5MP at the back and 2MP at the front is all you get.

Toshiba Excite 13.3

The 13.3 slate is expected to land on June 10 and will cost as much as $650.

Instagram for Android passes 5 million downloads in just 6 days.

There must be a wild party going on at the Instagram office – not only did Facebook buy them for awhopping $1 billion, but also their brand new Android app has already shot past the 5 million downloads mark.

Instagram for Android hit the 1 million milestone on the first day of its existence. Now it’s just over 6 days old and over 4 million new users joined in on the sepia photo sharing fun.

Considering that Instagram used to be available only on iOS so far (that version of the app had 27 million users in mid-March), those Android users should all be newcomers to the Instagram flock.

The ceramic surface on the HTC One S might have a problem.

HTC did a lot of bragging about the super tough ceramic finish on the black HTC One S. It is five times more durable than stainless steel, they said, but several user reports beg to disagree.

At least three separate users have noticed that the ceramic coating gets chipped in places and they claim they haven’t dropped the device. More and more reports keep rolling in too.

Note that the alleged issue only concerns the black HTC One S – its aluminum unibody is put through a process called micro arc oxidation. The grey one is anodized instead and there are no complaints about it for now.

Microsoft Office lands on Symbian.

The Nokia-Microsoft alliance is still going strong and Symbian smartphones are the one with the benefit this time.

If you own a Nokia 701, 700, 603, E7, X7, C7, Oro or C6-01, you can now install the Microsoft Office app via the Software Update tool on your smartphones or via the Nokia Suite app on your computer. The Office app will also become available to Nokia N8, Nokia E6 or Nokia 500 in the following weeks, while the 808 PureView will have it preinstalled when it ships.

Until now, the true Microsoft Office experience was reserved to Windows Phone users (and WinMo old-timers), but Symbian fans (the few that remain) will now be able to join the party.

The mobile version of Microsoft Office aims to deliver functionality close to that of its PC counterpart. The Word documents support viewing and editing of all kinds of content including tables, SmartArt and charts, while PowerPoint mobile even features the Outline view, which lets you quickly browse through slides. With Excel mobile, you can create charts, or insert formulas and view rich data and charts from anywhere. 

Opera Mobile new beta released.

A new beta version of Opera Mobile web browser is now available and it offers support for mobile extensions. This makes Opera Mobile the third mobile web browser after Dolphin Browser HD and Mozilla’s Firefox Mobile to do so.

The design of the beta release is not final, and Opera hopes to intrigue developers by making extensions run on both Mobile and desktop versions of Opera.

The Norwegians have also developed an Opera Mobile emulator for PC, Mac and Linux to make it easy for developers to test their extensions. Despite sounding very serious about them, Opera doesn’t commit to including the extension support in the final release of the Opera Mobile browser.

Lenovo unveils 9.7″ IdeaTab S2109 with Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Lenovo just introduced the latest addition to its lineup of Android-powered tablets. The Lenovo IdeaTab S2109 runs on Ice Cream Sandwich and packs a 9.7″ 4:3 IPS LCD with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (sound familiar?).

The IdeaTab packs a standard microUSB jack for charging and data transfers, while a microHDMI enables high-res TV-output. The on-board microSD card slot makes storage upgrades a breeze, while the four speakers at the back aim to deliver the best audio in the tablet world.

The 8.9mm slim gunmetal unibody of the Lenovo IdeaTab S2109 should give it a pretty sophisticated look, while the battery the Chinese managed to squeeze inside should enable a run time of 10 hours on a single charge. Strangely enough, Lenovo didn’t disclose the chipset powering the S2109, but Tegra 3 is tipped as the most likely option.

Instagram for Android.

You probably remember that at its launch a few days back, Instagram for Android did not support tablets – a fact which left quite a few wannabe users frustrated. Well, folks, it took the photo sharing app’s developers only 3 days to fix that wrong.

The tablet support is not the only change which the update has brought to Instagram for Android. The app can now be installed on your device’s microSD card too. Some other minor bugs have been addressed well.

Dolphin Browser 4.0 for iOS.

MOBOTAP has updated its Dolphin Browser for iOS to version 4.0. The main feature in this new update is Dolphin Sonar, which lets you do things like searching the web, sharing links on social networking sites, adding bookmarks, etc. using just your voice.

Other additions include the URL keyboard, ability to quickly switch between four different search engines, night mode, ability save images directly to your phone’s photo library, additional font size options and general stability and performance improvements.

Other than this, it retains other great features from previous versions such as Webzine, which arranges the page in a magazine like layout while stripping it of all the ads, gesture support to quickly open a site, one click share on Twitter or Facebook and speed dial.

Dolphin Browser 4.0 for iOS is now available for download for free. Click on the source link to download it.                  

 Source

Angry Bird with this remote control helicopter.

After being downloaded countless millions of times, the Angry Birds games have inspired Rovio to expand its business by introducing various sorts of merchandise including pillows, plush toys, t-shirts, cases… the list goes on and on.

The latest Angry Birds-themed product is this RC helicopter. Sporting dual counter rotating rotor blades and the unmistakable body of the unibrow red bird from the game series, this helicopter is aimed at children ages eight and above.

The wacky little helicopter measures at 20 x 20 x 12.5 cm and is pretty simple to control; you can steer it left or right and make it descend or ascend. The remote control seen above, can control three of those Angry Birds helicopters at the same time at altitudes of up to 15 meters.

Unfortunately, the six AA batteries will only keep this little pig-smasher in the air for about 8 to 10 minutes and will need 40 minutes to fully recharge. Nevertheless, this is a fun way to spend your hard-earned $49.95.