In the eye of recent hacking attempts on the micro-blogging site, Twitter today introduced an added layer of security to its login page. Twitter calls it the ‘two-factor authentication’ system, which uses one’s mobile phone as an added way to verify if it is genuine login attempt.

To enable this optional security system, a user has to visit the accounts settings page and select the ‘Require a verification code when I sign in.’ Once selected, you will have to register your phone, and henceforth every time you login, you’ll be asked to enter a six-digit code that will have been sent to the phone via a text message.

Twitter’s product security head Jim O’Leary has warned that just applying the two-factor authentication system is not enough, and users have to set a strong password and follow the steps mentioned by Twitter to keep the account secure.

The micro-blogging site has been working hard to boost its security ever since it was a victim to a massive cyber attack in February, which saw hackers gaining access to nearly 250,000 accounts including usernames, email addresses and passwords.

Google has released an updated version of the Drive app for Android that has a number of enhancements. Some of these new features include a card style file display like Google Now, an option to scan and keep a track of important documents in Drive, and several other performance tweaks. Recently, Google had also clubbed the memory space for Drive with that of Gmail and Google+, resulting in a total of 15GB of free cloud storage.

To begin with, Google seems to bring uniformity across its services by adding the card style UI across most of its services. It had recently introduced the card style interface to the Google+ app and now is offering a similar experience in Drive as well. This means that files in Drive will now be displayed in a clean, simple card-style manner unlike earlier. One can swipe between files to see large previews for quick reviews, which will help in discovering the information easily. In fact, Android users can now download a copy of the file to save it in their Android devices for accessing it later. This option will be available inside settings.

The Drive app for Android now features a Scan option in the Add New menu for easy tracking of important paper documents like receipts, letters, business cards and billing statements. So all you will need to do is to take a photo of a document by using the phone camera and the Drive will turn it in to a PDF and store it for easy accessibility later. Google has used the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology feature in Drive which will help retrieving these scanned documents later. Evernote offers similar functionality.

Besides this, Google has improved the editing experience in Google Sheets by introducing font type and size adjustments for spreadsheets, and changeable cell text colors, and cell alignment within the app. Additionally, it now supports Cloud Print which will help users print documents from Drive with a cloud-friendly printer.

A couple weeks ago we reported that the Galaxy S4 had sold more 6 million units and was right on track to cross the 10 million barrier in less than a month after its release. Today, Samsung has confirmed this as the Galaxy S4 has sold more than 10 million units in less than a month.

Samsung claims that four units of the Galaxy S4 are being sold per second. The device has managed to cross the 10 million units mark in 26 days after its global launch on April 27.

Its predecessor, the Galaxy S III managed to cross the 10 million units mark in 50 days. The Galaxy S II in comparison managed the same in 5 months and the original Galaxy S took even longer at 7 months.

Interesting, Samsung has announced that it will launch the phone in five new colors, including Blue Arctic and Red Aurora, followed by Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn. Currently, the device is available in White mist and Black forest.

Asus today has launched Transformer All-in-One P1801 PC which features dual OS namely Windows 8 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and comes with a detachable display that doubles up as a standalone tablet, in India. The PC is available for a price starting from Rs 86,999.

Asus is known for design innovations in its products and the Transformer AiO is another example of an incredible design module used by the company. The Transformer AiO PC comes in two parts – the desktop PC station and a detachable tablet.

The desktop station runs on Windows 8 platform, comes with a 3rd generation or 5th generation Intel Core desktop processor, an NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M graphics processor, a multi-touch display, and a dual-band Wi-Fi amongst other features.

The tablet comes with an 18.4-inch LED-backlit IPS full HD display offering 1080p resolution, an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor and an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.  It also offers up to five hours of battery life and features a carrying handle and a folding stand for comfortable tabletop use away from the PC Station.

The impressive part is that both the desktop and tablet mode running different OSes can be used individually at the same time. And one can easily switch between the OSes using a dedicated button for that. Apart from this, the Transformer AiO also features dual Wi-Fi mode and Asus’s SonicMaster audio technology.

The Transformer AiO PC with Intel Core i3 is available for Rs 86,999 while the Core i5 model is available for Rs 92,999.

Earlier this month, a report claimed to have leaked information on a new Micromax device only known as the A110Q Canvas. Today Micromax has officially launched that device as the Micromax A110Q Canvas 2 Plus on its own e-store for Rs 12,100.

Staying consistent with the previously leaked information, the Canvas 2 Plus sports a 5-inch IPS (480×854 pixels) display and is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589 A7 processor and 1GB of RAM. You can also expect an 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel camera at the front, 1GB of internal storage that can be expanded to 32GB using a microSD card and a 2,000mAH battery that the company claims has a standby time of 280 hours.

On the software front, the device runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and connectivity-wise supports 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and USB ports. With a price point of Rs 12,100, we expect the Canvas 2 Plus to be up against the likes of the Xolo Q800 and the Karbonn S1 Titanium among others, but has a slight advantage over the others as it runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

On a different note, we are worried Micromax is getting too inspired by Samsung. First with its ads and now the nomenclature of its phones!

Truecaller has opened up its crowdsourced database of phone number directory to third party developers, GigaOm reports. This is a big deal considering Truecaller claims to have a user curated database of 600 million numbers with information about spam/marketing numbers that enables users to know whether they should take a call or not.

A useful service, Truecaller has been a constant source of privacy fears from users though the most recent update has made it easier for users to manage their own information and how it is visible to other users.

Luckily though, Truecaller says that it will be handpicking developers who will be able to use the data 3-Scale managed API and, telemarketers are not welcome at all.

Truecaller has proven to be an incredibly reliable contact filtration service. It derives its data mainly through traditional phone directories and users who opt to share their details.

It remains to be seen how this decision pans out and it will be interesting to see how developers utilize the data.

Sony plans to assess a proposal by its top shareholder Daniel Loeb to spin-off part of its entertainment business to fund other departments, Reuters reports. According to the report, Loeb has asked the board to sell as much as 20 percent of its Entertainment business.

A recent NewYorkTimes report claimed that Sony had earned nearly $4.4 billion last year alone from the sale of tickets of hit movies like Men in Black 3, Skyfall, The Vow and Zero Dark Thirty among others. Daniel Loeb who owns about 6 percent of stocks in Sony that are worth $1.1 billion, recently suggested the Sony board to spin-off as much as 20 percent of its entertainment departments so they could fund Sony’s electronics business which has been hurt by bigger rivals like Apple and Samsung among others.

In this continuing saga WSJ now reports that under pressure from Loeb, the Sony board has finally agreed to consider his proposal. CEO Kazuo Hirai said in a statement, “The proposal from Third Point, Dan Loeb is something that we should discuss thoroughly at a board meeting and then we’ll decide Sony’s stance. Therefore, we are now going to start the discussion and we are still at the starting stage,” he added. Hirai though didn’t give a timeframe on how long the board was going to take to come to a decision.

It will be an understatement to say that HTC is going through a rough period in its history. It is struggling to compete with Samsung on Android, and with Microsoft playing favorites with Nokia, it’s safe to say its chances are not good in the Windows Phone camp either. Additionally, its latest flagship smartphone has been riddled with production delays, and their profits have taken a giant tumble in the last few quarters. TheVerge is reporting that its chief product officer, Kouji Kodera has left the company. Kodera was the person responsible for the inception of the critically acclaimed HTC One.

Only last week HTC’s VP of global communications, Jason Gordon had announced his exit on Twitter. Some of the other notable exits recently include Rebecca Rowland, who was its global retail marketing manager, Jason Starkweather, who was the director of digital marketing and Eric Lin, who managed product strategy.

It appears that CEO Peter Chou was forewarned that the HTC One could be plagued by manufacturing and production issues, but he went ahead anyways. After launch, the HTC One has faced production issues especially for the anodized black model. It was reported earlier that Chou had promised to resign as CEO if the HTC One turned out to be a failure.

Adding to the problems was the case of the HTC First, which was launched alongside Facebook Home and came preloaded with Facebook’s new Android launcher. Apparently, Facebook Home was supposed to be an exclusive to the HTC First, but Facebook changed its plans at the last moment and released the launcher on the Google Play store in the very week the phone was launched. This meant because of its underwhelming specifications, the HTC First was dead on arrival, and it has been reported that AT&T is contemplating killing off the device.

While the HTC One has received rave reviews the world over, the combination of its production issues and Samsung’s pure dominance of the Android ecosystem have made things difficult for HTC.

HTC is no Samsung, and it cannot match the supply chain prowess of Samsung which uses its own homegrown chipset and displays in the Galaxy S 4. The final knockout punch comes in the form of Samsung’s brutal marketing prowess. In spite of all this, HTC has recently announced that it plans to double the production for the HTC One, but is it already too late?

Lenovo India has appointed Sudhin Mathur as the director for its smartphones business in India. Prior to this, Mathur had worked as the business head for LG Mobiles and had served as the general manager of the Sony Ericsson brand in India. His key responsibility areas in Lenovo will include development of growth strategies for smartphones.

With PC shipments falling, Lenovo is looking at the smartphone and tablet space for future growth. It plans to launch an Android smartphone running on Intel’s chipset in India soon. The Chinese PC giant believes that with a strong background in the mobile sphere Mathur will help the company track record for growing mobile phone brands and establishing the company as a leading smartphone player in India.

In his twenty years of working experience, Mathur has been a part of several industries including telecom as well. He specializes in brand building, retail business management, sales and distribution, and organization strategies.

It has become somewhat of a trend for Xolo’s forthcoming phones to be listed on e-commerce sites even before there is an official announcement by the company. It happened with the recently launched Q700 and X910 and now the Q1000, which is listed under a ‘Coming Soon’ badge.

According to the listing, the dual-SIM Q1000 is said to flaunt a 5-inch HD IPS (1280×720 pixels) display and powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, PowerVR SGX544 GPU and 1GB of RAM. The smartphone also comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera, 1.2-megapixel camera at the front, 4GB of internal memory that is expandable using a microSD card and a 2,100mAH battery.

Software and connectivity-wise, the device runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and supports 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and microUSB ports. Though there is no price mentioned yet, if we go by the above specifications we can expect the Q1000 to be priced in the Rs 13,000-Rs 15,000 range.

Google India has just dropped the prices of Google Apps for Businesses quite dramatically. The move can be seen as a challenge to Microsoft’s Office 365 suite, which remains the de facto Office suite for many businesses in the country. As a part of the new pricing, businesses can have a Google Apps plan for Rs 150 per month for a single user if they are on the flexible plan or Rs 1,500 per user as a part of their annual plan. Google says this is a 45 percent reduction in the price from the previous plans.

As a part of the Google Apps suite, users will have access to a Gmail account, Google Drive, Google Hangouts for video chat, a Google + account, Google Calendar and Google Doc. Google says companies can safely access their data on BlackBerry, iOS, and Android mobile devices.

Ricky Kapur, Director of Enterprise Sales, Asia said, “India is home to around 47 million small businesses, yet only 1 percent of these businesses are online. We hope that by making Google Apps more affordable, more small businesses in India will be able to move to the cloud and access a business-ready package of communication and collaboration tools.”

In comparison, Microsoft offers its Office 365 suite for small business for Rs 693 per month for a single user and costs Rs 8,311 annually for a single user.

Back in April, Nokia launched the Asha 210 with a QWERTY keypad and a dedicated WhatsApp key. The device has finally hit online retail stores in India and is available for Rs 3,999.

To recap on the specifications, the Asha 210 available on the e-commerce sites is the dual-SIM variant and sports a 2.4-inch QVGA (320×240 pixels) display. You also get a 2-megapixel rear camera with a dedicated physical key, 64MB of flash memory which can be expanded to up to 32GB using a microSD card, FM Radio, a 1,200mAH battery that Nokia claims will last for up to 24 days and connectivity options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth.

On the software front, the phone features a Series 40 Asha UI, free WhatsApp messenger app, Nokia Xpress browser, Facebook Messenger, Twitter and a Social phonebook integration that allows users to launch WhatsApp directly from contact cards in the Phonebook.

We have reached out to Nokia for confirmation on the availability and are awaiting their reply.

Apple might have been in the news for the past few months for its plans to integrate fingerprint scanning in its future iPhones but now we have some indications that Samsung may also be in the fray for biometric features for its upcoming Android smartphones.

Sammobile has found several images of fingerprints on the leaked firmware of Galaxy SIII, a few of which indicate that Samsung would integrate this fingerprint-based software on the home button of its future phones. There is no other information extracted  on other related features for now, but we might see some other native apps or functions to be connected to this fingerprint-based technology.

Last year Apple acquired AuthenTec, a mobile software security company that also made fingerprint scanning sensors, for $356 million. This raised expectations that the next generation iPhone could have some sort of biometric scanning features. In fact, the fingerprint scanning feature has been claimed to be one of the reasons behind alleged iPhone production delays.

Yesterday Microsoft announced the Xbox One which will be the successor to the Xbox 360. It showcased multiple new features, and there was a great focus on the new Kinect module. In fact, the Kinect could be used to operate each and every aspect of the console. One of the more peculiar features of the Xbox One is that it can be activated using a voice command to start the machine. This is possible as TheVerge reports that the Kinect will be always on and will be watching the user for commands.

While this will surely bring out privacy concerns and privacy proponents will bring out the knives against Microsoft, the Xbox maker revealed that the camera was not snooping on users and only responded to the ‘Xbox On’ command for the console to be started.

In a statement to EuroGamer, Microsoft’s Phil Harrison clarified that the Kinect module was not spying on the users. He said “We aren’t using Kinect to snoop on anybody at all. We listen for the word ‘Xbox on’ and then switch on the machine, but we don’t transmit personal data in any way, shape or form that could be personally identifiable to you, unless you explicitly opt into that.”

Microsoft also allayed the fears to the Verge in a statement by saying “The new Kinect is listening for a specific cue, like ‘Xbox on.’ We know our customers want and expect strong privacy protections to be built into our products, devices and services, and for companies to be responsible stewards of their data. Microsoft has more than ten years of experience making privacy a top priority. Kinect for Xbox 360 was designed and built with strong privacy protections in place and the new Kinect will continue this commitment.”

Unlike the Xbox 360 where Kinect was an optional add-on, the Xbox One makes it compulsory to have Kinect, which will be a standard part of the new Xbox kit.

Powermat has acquired PowerKiss, a Helsinki based company focused on wireless charging technology. Only in March, PowerKiss had joined the Power Matters Alliance (PMA), but now it will operate under the Powermat umbrella.

PowerKiss will bring more than 1,000 Qi enabled wireless charging terminals throughout Europe. It’s also worth noting that PowerKiss will exclusively operate under the Power Matters Alliance.

For those who don’t know, PowerKiss has been bringing wireless charging solutions to cafes, hotels, restaurants and airports throughout Europe.