TECH FLASH

Scientists have developed a smartphone app that can help you figure out what triggers your mood swings.  The Emotion Sense app created by a team led by Cambridge University is being credited with having implications for psychological therapy.  The app uses sensors on your phone to collect information about where you are, how active you have been and who you have been speaking to, for example.  This data is cross-referenced with information keyed in by the user giving an overview of their feelings which is refined by a survey.  "Most other attempts at software like this are coarse-grained in terms of their view of what a feeling is," said Dr Jason Rentfrow, senior lecturer in the university's Department of Psychology and a research team member.  "Many just look at emotion in terms of feeling happy, sad, angry or neutral. The aim here is to use a more flexible approach, to collect data that shows how moods vary between people. That is somethi...

While there have been a lot of rumours about the upcoming iPhone model, there have been very few evidences about the device's existence. Now, technology website Stuff has revealed that it received an image which shows that the next Apple smartphone will be called iPhone 6, not iPhone 5S.  The report says that the image is of Vodafone UK's till system, showing an inventory that clearly names the model as '4G iPhone 6'.  Recently, French website Nowhereelse.fr released the image of an internal document of Japanese telecom operator KDDI. This document states that the upcoming iPhone will be announced on June 20 and hit the stores in July. This internal document states that the device will get an upgraded 13MP camera, as compared to the 8MP unit used in its predecessor. The phone will run on iOS 7, it states.  A Chinese website previously leaked what it claimed to be the first photos of the next-generation iPhone in production. From the photos, it appears A...

While there is a lot of talk about Apple losing its innovative streak after its visionary founder Steve Jobs passed away, the company seems to have a few tricks up its sleeve after all. The maker of the revolutionary iPhone has recently been granted a patent dubbed "disappearing button or slider." Tech grapevine is now abuzz that future iPhone models may have invisible buttons. According to the patent document, buttons in iPhone's as well as other devices featuring this patented technology will remain hidden by default and appear only when needed. These controls will be made using the same material as casing of the device so that they are not visible and will be "selectively backlit through tiny holes." They will also get activated upon sensing heat, sound or motion of fingers along the surface. This patented technology would work not only on smartphones but also on laptops and gaming consoles. While this feature may still take sometime to grace...

Seems mobile giant Nokia too is all set to join the big screen phones fray. Speculations are rife that the company is readying its biggest  Lumia  smartphone yet. According to a report in technology website GSMInsider , the Finnish manufacturer is working on a smartphone called  Lumia  625 that has a 4.7-inch display. This screen size makes the display of the speculated device bigger than that of flagship  Lumia  920 and the upcoming Lumia  928. While details about the upcoming  Lumia  625 are sparse, the report claims that this phone will have display resolution of  800x480p . This translates into pixel density of  199ppi , as compared to  332ppi  of  Lumia 920. These two phones will share the dual-core Snapdragon processor, with maximum clock speed of 1.5GHz.   The report says that  Lumia  625 will be unveiled at an event in London on May 14. However, in case Nokia does not u...

This week the developer teams working for Windows Phone camera and photos have announced that users will soon be able to instantly save full-resolution photos and video to the cloud no matter where they are on our planet. Previously this feature had only been available to select users in limited areas, and a full roll-out wasn’t yet on the books. This week Windows Phone 8 will have its full connection to SkyDrive the whole globe wide. This feature will be available within the next few days to everyone using Windows Phone 8, and will be accessible in Photo settings. Heading to a Windows Phone 8 device’s Photo app, heading down to the three dots (aka More), hitting Settings and SkyDrive will bring up the Auto Upload options. With this option tapped, users will no longer only see two options, they’ll see six. In SkyDrive storage, Windows Phone 8 users will see the ability to upload both videos and photos to the cloud in Good Quality and Best Quality sizes. If a user selects Goo...

Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud storage services on the internet today, and in an effort to bolster its email capabilities, Yahoo has included Dropbox integration with Yahoo Mail, making management of your various email attachments much easier and quicker than before, allowing you save and retrieve attachments from the cloud. The Dropbox integration only supports English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, but you’ll be able to access your Dropbox folder from right inside your Yahoo Mail inbox. You can save attachments in email messages directly to your Dropbox, or include attachments into outgoing email using files from your Dropbox. Current Dropbox and Yahoo Mail users can take advantage of the integration right this second, and if you don’t have a Dropbox account, you’ll be able to create one right from Yahoo Mail. What’s perhaps one of the more notable features to come from this integration is that you don’t have to worry about the 25MB attachment limit in Yaho...

Taiwanese manufacturer Asus has launched the 32GB variant of Google Nexus 7 tablet in India just a week after the search giant rolled out the 16GB iteration of the device in the country. This new version of the tablet comes in Wi-Fi as well as Wi-Fi+3G variants, whereas the model being sold via Google Play Store does not support mobile data.  Asus has priced the Wi-Fi-only variant of Nexus 7 at Rs 18,999, while the Wi-Fi+3G model costs Rs 21,999.  Manufactured by Asus, Google Nexus 7 features a 7-inch IPS screen. This tablet is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with 1GB RAM and runs on Android 4.1, upgradable to Android 4.2. When it comes to connectivity, this tablet can access the internet only via Wi-Fi as well as cellular data (optional), while other data transfer options include Bluetooth, NFC and microUSB. Google Nexus 7 has no rear camera, while a 1.2MP camera is placed in the front.  Apple iPad mini with 16GB storage capacity and no 3G data c...