Turn Your Android Phone Into a Portable Scanner With CamScanner App

These days you can use your Android phone to do just about anything and scanning documents is no exception. With the phone’s built-in camera, you can easily scan any documents by photo shooting.

While taking a photo of your document may suffice for most, but it doesn’t offer OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities which converts scanned paper documents, or images into editable and searchable data in accessible formats like PDF file. And therefore, you need the help of a third-party app which can scan an image into a PDF file.

One of the most popular mobile document scanning apps is Camscanner. It is a powerful android app that enables you to scan and digitize documents, images, and anything you want using your mobile phone camera. Simply take a picture of any paper documents, and the CamScanner can auto-crop image, enhance image quality and create a PDF file.

You can change the scan quality and brightness to export the best possible result. The scanned documents can be shared via Email, uploaded to Cloud, and printed via Internet. You can also manage them by tagging or searching.

CamScanner is available in Free and Paid version. The free version watermarks your scans and has advertising in the app. The paid version removes the watermarks and advertising.

There is also a tablet friendly version of this application, called CamScanner HD, which turns your Android tablet to a portable scanner. It supports tablet with Android version 3.x and higher.

Other CamScanner features:

• Advanced Document Editing
  Make annotations on documents with a full set of editing tools. Also adding customized watermarks are made available to mark your own documents.
• Collaborate on Documents
  Want to get feedback on your documents? Invite friends or colleagues to collaborate on documents. They can view, comment and exchange ideas on documents in groups.
• Secure Important Documents
  If you want to protect confidential contents, you can set passcode for viewing important documents; also, while sending document download link, you can set password to protect others from seeing it.
• Quick Search
  When you have plenty of documents, you can use Tags to categorize and easily find them. In addition, OCR for Search helps you find texts inside image and notes. Just enter one keyword, you can quickly find the document you want.
• Sync across Platforms
  Sign up to sync documents on the go. Just sign in with your smartphone, tablet or computer (visit CamScanner website), and you can view, edit and share any document.

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Facebook Messenger Updated with Voice Message Support for Android Wear

After WhatsApp released a beta version for Android to support Android Wear devices, Facebook has also pushed an update to its Messenger app for Android that adds support forAndroid Wear.

The update brings support for voice messages directly from an Android Wear smartwatch, so that you can immediately respond to your friend’s message by talking to the watch. And if a voice message isn’t feasible at the moment, the messenger app also lets users send a “thumbs up” or “like” response to any message on the app.

Earlier the app only displayed phone’s notifications, but now you can read, like as well as reply to messages on Facebook with this app.

Since the Android Wear uses swipes to switch between the features inside an app, you can just swipe to access voice messages, like with a big thumbs-up symbol and more. You can also mute conversations right from the smartwatch’s notifications bar.

The updated Facebook Messenger app is now available on the Google Play Store.

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Android Wear: What Can The Google’s Smartwatch OS Do?

What is Android Wear?

Android Wear is a version of Google’s Android operating system designed for wearable devices, such as smartwatches. Google has partnered with several device makers like Sony, Samsung, LG, Asus, HTC, and Motorola to create Android Wear-based watches. It’s also teamed up with companies such as Intel and Qualcomm for the chip technology.

The first phase of Android Wear launch devices includes LG G Watch, Samsung Gear Live, and Motorola Moto 360, and the world’s first two Android Wear watches, the LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live, have already been revealed at the Google I/O 2014 and can be ordered via the Google play store or through Amazon.

What can Android Wear do?

The aim of Android Wear is to change the way users interact with wearable devices by bringing relevant information as well as notifications to wearer. As an operating system that is wearable, it makes suggestions to the user based on the current time, factoring in geographical information with the data, making the experience much more context-sensitive.

Android wear includes “Google Now” functionality for performing searches and issuing commands. you can simply say “OK Google” to ask quick questions. You can then get quick responses in the form of informational cards. You can get sports scores and schedules, check the weather, see the time in other time zones, translate words or phrases, get calories counts, check stocks, convert between units, and many more. For more details about instructions for each task, see the Android wear help page here.

In addition to that, Android Wear will help you monitor your fitness and health, as you can get fitness reminders and summaries as well as utilizing your favorite sports apps. Android Wearwill also let users access and control other devices such as music players, phones and TVs on your wrist.

Developers interested in developing for Android Wear compatibility can sign up to participate in a developer preview that is already available at developer.android.com/wear.

Below is a developer video detailing Android Wear and its basic functionality.

How does Android Wear work?

To use the Android wear device, you need to pair it with a phone or tablet running Android 4.3 or higher. More information about how to pair Android wear watch with your phone is availablehere.

Once that’s done, visit your phone settings and give your watch permission to access yournotifications. After you’ve allowed access, everything that shows up on your phone will shows up on your watch. You can also set different actions for different voice commands using settings in the Android Wear app.

Android Wear: Google’s Next Big Thing

There are lots of possibilities for wearable tech. At the moment it’s only found on smartwatches but over the coming years we’ll start to see it turn up on other wearable technology, like clips, pendants, and maybe even Google Glass.

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Two Simple Methods to Factory Reset Your Android Wear Watch

There are many different reasons why you might want to factory reset your Android Wearsmartwatch. For example, you might want to sell the watch and make sure all your personal data is removed from the device beforehand or just feeling like a fresh start or free up space. Whatever the reasons, you can easily restore your Android Wear watch to its out-of-box state. Here are two simple methods to perform a factory reset on an Android Wear device.

Please note that performing this action will erase all data stored on your smartwatch such as notifications and cards, fitness data, third-party apps, system settings and preferences. However, the smartphone counterpart will be unaffected. After the reset you’ll need to re-pair the watch with your smartphone again.

Method #1: Reset with Touch Display

1. Tap your watch’s screen to turn it on.
2. Tap again on the background and you’ll see a white screen with a red “G”.
3. Tap anywhere on the screen and a menu will show up
4. Scroll down until you see “Settings” option and tap on it.
5. Now, scroll down and select “Reset device.”
6. Confirm you want to reset your Android Wear watch by tapping the check icon.

After confirming the reset, the device will power off and perform a factory reset.

Method #2: Reset with Voice Commands

1. From the home screen, say “Ok Google”.
2. At next screen, say “Settings”.
3. Then scroll down until you see “Reset device” and tap on it.
4. Confirm your choice and wait for your Android wear to revert to factory settings.

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10 Easy Tips to Extend Your Android Phone’s Battery Life

Unlike standard mobile phones, Android phones are load with a ton of functions and features like gaming, web browsing, media playing, GPS, video calls, etc that blow away any other cellphones on the market.

However, many of the features available on Android devices can cause the battery to be drained very quickly. Therefore, Android users have to be smart and proactively manage the battery in their phone. There are many ways to improve battery life on Android phones. Here I’ve listed ten simple tips that may help you to extend your android phone’s battery life.

1. Reduce screen brightness
   One the biggest battery hogs on your android device is the screen. The brighter the screen, the more battery power it requires. Reducing the screen brightness can conserve more of your battery.
2. Don’t use Live Wallpapers
   Even though using live wallpaper can make your android phone look cool and attractive, but they drain a quite amount of battery. By changing live wallpaper to normal wallpaper can slightly extend your phone’s battery life.
3. Use black wallpaper or black theme
   Since black color is very dark, the screen don’t have to spend too much energy for creating colors and therefore, it uses less battery.
4. Remove home screen widgets that you don’t need
   The more widgets placed on the home screen, the more RAM they took for running the applications, resulting in more battery consumption. So trying not to go overboard with these.
5. Keep your battery away from extreme heat
   Make sure that your battery isn’t exposed to extreme heat as battery will lose it’s capacity when hot.
6. Disable Auto Sync
   Many Applications like Gmail and other email apps eat up a lot of battery due to auto sync features. When push e-mail is not required, turn off the auto sync and manual synchronization when needed. To turn of auto sync, go to Settings -> Accounts and Sync -> uncheck the ‘Auto-sync’.
7. Turn off WIFI when not in use
   The other kind of network connection that the android phone can connect to is Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is available where there’s a hotspot – not virtually everywhere like 3G. If you turn on the WiFi connection, it will keep looking for a Wi-Fi hotspot which may drain your battery life. So, keep Wi-Fi turned off, unless you’re using it right now.
8. Disable haptic feedback
   Haptic feedback gives touchscreen keyboards the sensation of a physical layout through small vibrations. While this feature can make typing feel more natural, it can affect your battery life. To disable haptic feedback, go to Settings -> Sound. Scroll down to system and uncheck Haptic feedback.
9. Turn off location services
   Location services such as GPS and Google Maps are very useful when it comes to find directions or locations, but they are also consume a lot of battery. So unless you are using it right now, keep them turned off.
   How to turn off location services:
   • Tap Settings -> Location services.
   • Uncheck all the the boxes available.
10. Disable auto updates for widgets
    Home screen widgets like weather updates and news get their information by pinging a corresponding website automatically. Some widgets allow you to disable automatic updates, while others have to be removed entirely.
    To disable a widget’s automatic updates:
    • Open the widget and press Menu -> Settings.
    • Tap on auto refresh and choose None
    If you can’t customize the widget and it’s something you can live without, we suggest you to remove it from the home screen. To do that:
    • Press and hold down the widget until it is highlighted.
    • Drag the widget to the trash icon to remove it from the home screen.

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Android Authority this week

Android fans, this week us brought us the best look yet at the upcoming Xperia Z4; Samsung showed us that its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge can take a beating, and a bending; LG began to unveil to unveil the G4 in slow motion, releasing info on its software and camera; HTC introduced the One M9+ in China, bringing a bigger screen, a different processor, and a fingerprint sensor; Cyanogen revealed the new features coming in CyanogenMod 12; and rumors emerged about Android Wear becoming compatible with iOS.

Inside AA HQ

It was relatively quiet around AA HQ this week, as the Android world is winding down a bit now that the Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9 have launched. Speaking of which, these two devices are almost in a class of their own in terms of quality, designs, and features, and we’re really excited to take them for a spin or even buy them as our daily drivers. Some of us are interested in getting the S6, while Joe has already got himself a shiny new One M9. If you’re interested in his impressions after using the M9 for about a week, check out his “review” on Google Plus (spoiler: he loves it).

The first batch of reviews for the Apple Watch came out this week, and they were a mixed bag. While the general tone was positive, reviewers pointed out many issues, a sign that not even Apple is sure what to make of the smartwatch concept. That said, Android Wear remains just as inconsistent, even if Google had a head start in bringing its wearable OS to maturity. Read Nirave’s “Top Android Wear alternatives to the Apple Watch” piece for an analysis of the Android Wear landscape right now.

For the second half of April, we look forward to two big announcements: Huawei Ascend P8 on April 15 and the LG G4 on April 28. We’re already set and booked for both events, so expect some prime coverage.

Congratulations to last week’s Galaxy S6 Edge giveaway winner Chen Po Y. (Hong Kong). This week we are giving away a Samsung Galaxy S6!

• 
  

• Tips and tricks: Getting an S6 Edge? Here are some features that you should know
• Review: Check out Nokia’s first real Android device, the N1, in Kevin’s review
• Review: It may not be well known, but the ZTE Blade S6 is worth your attention
• Tech talk: LPDDR4: what it means and why it matters
• Feature: Nirave looks at the Android Wear landscape at the arrival of the Apple Watch

• Feature: Android app permissions – you should read them, but should you be worried about them?

Top news of the week

And here are the top news in the Android world this week:

Xperia Z4 leak

• Sony’s Xperia Z4 is leaked and revealed in picture form

S6 and S6 Edge are here

• Video: S6 Edge bends at same load as iPhone 6 Plus, One M9 is slightly stronger
• Proud of how tough the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are, Samsung publishes its own drop test
• A Galaxy S6 Edge is assembled from bits and pieces in this new Samsung video

• Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge go on sale today: 15 things you should know

LG G4 announcements

• LG G4 to have f/1.8 aperture lens, and possibly a leather back
• LG unveils simpler, more human-centric UX 4.0
• LG giving away 4,000 LG G4s to test drive ahead of launch
• LG unveils LG G4 camera: 16MP with F/1.8 aperture, 8MP front cam

One M9+

• HTC One M9+ official: 5.2-inch Quad HD screen, MediaTek SoC, fingerprint sensor

Cyanongen 12 features

• Here are all of the new features you’ll find in CyanogenMod 12/12.1

Android Wear for iPhone

Report: Android Wear may soon work with iPhone

Sound off

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Happy Sunday!

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