HP Launches ALL-IN-ONE Multi-Funtional Smallest Inkjet Printer

On Monday HP revealed their latest printer series, called DeskJet Ink Advantage 3700 All-in-One Series. Available in the market from September 26th with a price of Rs 7,176, the new DeskJet is said to be world’s smallest all-in-one printer.

The HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 3700 series offers easy printing on smartphones and tablets for social media accounts like Instagram and Facebook by combining robust print, scan and copy capabilities.

“Today’s launch has unfurled a new chapter about amazing engineering experiences that weoffer to our customers. HP’s new DeskJet Ink Advantage printers is yet another innovation which is an answer to the evolving customer needs,” Rajiv Srivastava, HP Managing Director in India, said.

The company claims that the device is “half the size of other inkjet all-in-one printers”, fundamental reason for its inclusion in TIME Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time. The Hp All-in-One printer measures only 15.86 inches wide by 17.75 inches deep by 10.39 inches tall. For a multi-function printer, that’s very small.

Is the Claim Correct?

Well what’s strange is that HP’s claim that this is the smallest all-in-one printer doesn’t quite check out. It seems a company named Primera has an all-in-one printer which is far smaller than this one. Even HP itself has launched an all-in-one printer smaller than this, dubbed HP Officejet 150.

So how can HP claim that this is the world’s smallest printer in the world? It seems HP’s claim comes with an asterisk (*). The claim is limited for any all-in-one printer which costs less than $250 while the two all-in-ones we just mentioned cost even more than that amount.

Considering the price of the HP 3755 all-in-one, it definitely makes more sense to buy a small multi-function printer than to spend upwards of 25K for one. So HP has definitely done well with this one, keeping the price and size to a minimum, albeit their claim is a little misleading.

Standout Feature

Apart from being compact, the 3700 All-in-One Series provides facility for HP All-in-One Remote mobile application to be synched with the device.

Features such as print, scan and copy can all be carried out wirelessly using the free application. The app is available across all three major mobile platforms; iOS, Android and Windows devices.

The mobile devices can not only access their printer without a network but also print directly using Wi-Fi Direct.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Parikshet Singh Tomar, Director, Printing Systems claimed that HP will introduce IoT if the demand increases.

He said, “The company has a different thought process today. We are working towards satisfying the needs of the Next-Gen consumer. If IoT printer is required, I’m sure HP will build one.”

A bottle of monochrome ink is capable of printing 480 pages and the device is available in cardinal red, sea grass and electric blue colors. However, do keep in mind that HP has recently disabled third-party (cheap) cartridge support for their old and new printers. So, you’ll have to pay a handsome amount when changing printer cartridges from now on.

LinkedIn Launches its Online Learning Portal With Over 9,000 Courses

LinkedIn, the business-focused social network which Microsoft recently bought for an astounding $26 Billion, is now trying to turn over a new leaf. They have now introduced a new online-learning section with over 9,000 courses covering everything from coding and programming to writing and accounting.

Called “LinkedIn Learning”, it is built on content taken from the popular e-learning portal, Lynda. LinkedIn acquired the portal back in 2015 for $1.5 billion and is now finally making full use of their plethora of courses.

What is LinkedIn Learning?

LinkedIn Learning is an ambitious e-learning portal tailored to individuals. The subjects available include business, technology, and creative topics. The social network has also added some extra features to make the online learning system work better with their business-minded goal. Consequently, businesses looking to keep training their employees and even educational institutions exploring e-learning courses can make use of the portal.

Currently, individuals looking to start learning through LinkedIn will have to sign-up for LinkedIn’s Premium service. Once signed up, LinkedIn Premium users will get 25 new courses every week. You can also try out LinkedIn Learning for free for a whole month.

LinkedIn Learning for Business

Employers and HR managers can recommend courses for their employees and then track their performance through LinkedIn’s analytics products. The analytics tools can not only monitor employees’ progress but also look at the wider range of what is being studied as a point of reference.

The company has also said that they will soon be releasing an enterprise tier so that large companies can take subscriptions for their entire employee base.

Apart from its e-learning initiative, LinkedIn has introduced a handful of other changes. They announced an updated design for their desktop website which will come with a revamped newsfeed as well as new messaging features.

Google makes it easier to search your Files in Google Drive

Google’s cloud storage service, Google Drive, just got a big search update. The update will enable Drive to respond to search queries just like Google’s very own search engine sifts through the internet, billions of pages at a time.

Google’s search engine is a marvel of software engineering and the search giant wants its other products to perform in the same way. It has now brought over Natural Language Processing (NLP) over to Google Drive, allowing it to understand your search queries much better and present better results.

For example, you can now say things like “find my budget spreadsheet from last December” or “show me presentations from Alissa” and Drive will quickly pull them up. Previously, you were restricted to using a specific syntax or keywords in order to find your required document(s).

Moreover, Drive can also auto-correct terms in your search queries, just like Google. It’s a really small addition but an incredibly useful one and can be a big time-saver. There are also a couple of other small changes like the ability to split your document into multiple columns and auto-saving of a copy of non-Google files when editing them in Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Google says that the features are going to be available globally and the rollout has already started

WhatsApp Introduces Group Chat Mentions, GIFs and more in Latest Update

On social media, many people expressed their discomfort when it came to group chat conversations, especially when using Whatsapp.

The users were very keen in asking for a feature which allows users to scroll directly to the related part with their name being tagged then having to go through the entire conversation to do so.

It seems that Whatsapp has finally granted them their wish. WhatsApp has added a much need option which allows users to tag other group chat members in the latest update (Version 2.16.272).

How to Use @mentions in Group Chats

To tag a group member, all you have to do is use the symbol @ and select them from the drop down list and add them as a mention.

This feature is very similar to the method of tagging people on Twitter and WhatsApp competitor Telegram.

But that’s not the only new feature that Whatsapp is getting in this update.

If you are getting annoyed by increasing number of messages in the group chat but you can not mute the chat either, well, now you can! The new Whatsapp chat allows users to still get notification in muted chats if a member has mentioned him/her using “@”.

Whatsapp previously added the option to quote messages, a welcome change by the messaging giant. By introducing this feature, people might not feel that annoyed with a thousand messages waiting them in group chats.

Future Updates

Telegram may not be competing with WhatsApp in terms of users but it has the world’s most used messaging app beat in terms of features. However, that could soon change as WhatsApp plans to bring in features which have been Telegram exclusive for quite some time.

iOS users can now successfully send, receive and view gifs in conversations. However, Android users still cannot properly do that. Whatsapp is aiming to fix the issue in future updates.

For people who are concerned about their security, Whatsapp has also promised to bring a two step authentication system in the coming versions.

The new service agreement also reports that bots will also feature on Whatsapp for further automated help:

Adblock Plus to sell Ads

The popular browser extension that a lot of people use to block ads, Adblock Plus, will be selling ads too soon.

Yes you heard that right.

Good Ads and Bad Ads?

Instead of removing ads from the websites you visit, Adblock plus will instead replace the “bad” ads with the “good” ones.

Here’s how Adblock will classify the good ad from the bad – the ‘bad’ ones include any ad that are too big and intrusive and ultimately irrelevant to you. While the ‘good’ ones will be the smaller and more subtle ads.

And that’s not all. Adblock is going to be launching a marketplace for ‘good’ ads.

New Ad Marketplace

Adblock Plus will be launching an ad marketplace which will let blogs and publishers choose ads from and run them up on their websites.

Essentially, this means that if you have Adblock Plus installed on your browser you will still get ads on websites who are using the ad marketplace, thus entirely killing the idea of installing the Adblock.

Ben Williams, operations and communications director of Adblock Plus says,

It allows you to treat the two different ecosystems completely differently and monetize each one, and crucially, monetize the ad blockers on on their own terms.

In fairness, Adblock had been running an Acceptable Ads program since 2011 but it was fairly limited in scope.

Whitelisted ads could be displayed on websites but the process of whitelisting was a complex and time consuming process. Not to mention Adblock Plus charged the websites to allow them to display whitelisted ads specifically on their websites.

Extension to “Acceptable ads” Program

Through the new ad marketplace, Adblock Plus is hoping to expand their already existing Acceptable Ads program. The publishers will be able to sign up and start running the whitelisted ads after making small modifications to their website’s code.

Whitelisted ads will not be able to track you from different websites and will adhere to specific site and relevancy guidelines as defined by Adblock Plus.

Toll Charging Gatekeepers

They are aiming to place themselves as the gatekeepers, charging a toll from the publishers to let them have that ad revenue they are missing due to blocked ads.

This move is said to be “publisher-friendly” as 80 percent of the ad revenue will go to the publisher while the remaining 20 percent to third parties involved in serving ads (including Adblock Plus, which will be getting 6 percent of it).

The Ad marketplace launches in beta today while the full version is expected to roll out later this year.