Hands On: Amazon wants you to trust it with your photos

Amazon's cloud storage service for photos isn't just for Kindle HD users anymore. The company made its Cloud Drive Photos app available for most Android devices today. Signing in with your Amazon account will net you 5GB of free space for your pictures.

Android phone and tablet users have yet another option for cloud-based storage, though this time it’s specifically for photos. Amazon has made its Cloud Drive Photos app, which is already integrated into the Kindle Fire HD, available on most Android devices. This app looks like a service that will serve constant photo-snappers quite well.

The app initially asks for users to sign in using an Amazon account. You’re going to want to sign up for an account if you don’t already have one, because this app is completely useless if you don’t. The point of a cloud drive service is to save space, not take it up. Once you’re signed in, you’ll be greeted with the app’s home screen, or the “Cloud” tab. This simply explains to you how to access your drive online and add content from your computer that can then be viewed on your phone or tablet.

There is a second tab atop the display in this app called “Photos.” This is where you will actually be able to see the photo content that is currently saved on your device. Your camera roll, screen captures, Draw Something drawings, Instagram images, and all other photographic data is displayed. These are displayed by category, which can then be explored to see what each album holds. Pressing and holding on an album or an individual picture will allow you to manage the selection, prompting you to either remove it from the device or upload it to the cloud. These are very contrary choices, so make sure you select the one you want. The app also doesn’t appear to automatically sync and there is no option to do so in the settings, so you’ll have to manually update your sync after every snapshot, making this app annoyingly out of date compared to options from Google+ and others. 

All users of Amazon’s Cloud Drive Photos get 5GB of free storage. That can be upgraded to 20GB of space for $10 a year. Everything you upload is accessible right from your Amazon account, making it easy to manage from your phone or your computer. The app isn’t exactly feature rich, but it does the job it claims. An auto-sync feature would be nice, but it looks like we’ll have to wait until the next update to see if it’s there.

you can download the Amazon Cloud Drive Photos app on the Google Play store or Amazon’s Appstore.

Source : http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/hands-on-amazon-wants-you-to-trust-it-with-your-photos/

Read More

Apple unveils new super-svelte 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac models

Apple has announced a new version of the iMac with a completely revamped design that ditches the optical drive, but has an edge that's only 5mm thick.

Apple has announced a new stunningly, slim iMac in two sizes – one with a 27-inch display and one with a 21.5-inch display.

The new iMac is 80 percent thinner than the last model with a 5mm edge. Apparently this incredibly trim form factor is thanks to something called “friction stir welding.” The display comes in two sizes: The 27-inch model has a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, and the 21.5-inch model has a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.  There’s a 178-degree viewing angle and over 300 nits of brightness (that’s really bright). It’s also fully laminated so it’s less reflective. It’s not a Retina display, but it looks good.

This svelte all-in-one is sporting a built-in FaceTime HD camera (720p), dual microphones, and left and right speakers. The specs make it a tempting proposition. The 21.5-inch model comes with a 2.7GHz quad-core Core i5 with 8GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 640M, and a 1TB HDD for $1,300. The 27-inch model has a 2.9GHz quad-core Core i5 with 8GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 660M, and a 1TB HDD for $1,800.

There’s a 128GB of flash storage and 1TB or 3TB of HDD storage in the form of an Apple Fusion Drive. You get the speed benefits of SSD and bags of space for file storage in this hybrid drive. Core apps and the OS remain on the SSD for fast launching and documents and files will go on the HDD. It can even switch your most used apps on to the SSD to maximize speed and performance.

There are also 4 USB 3.0 ports, a headphone port, SD card slot, Gigabit Ethernet port, and two Thunderbolt ports. Naturally, it comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse. It is also energy efficient and Apple claims it uses 50 percent less power than its predecessor when idling.

It’s been a while since Apple updated the iMac line. The iMac is the best-selling desktop model in the US, according to Apple. There have now been seven generations of iMac. The last one came out in May 2011 so this new version will be a welcome release for many.

The smaller iMac ships in November, the larger model will start shipping in December.

Source : http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-unveils-new-imac-2012/

Read More