Android smartphones have made their way to the top position of the leading smartphones board within a short span of time. The variety of features, free apps and mainly the google sync makes Android smartphone irresistible. But as with majority of the smartphones in the market today, with great features comes a great need for power.

A lot of battery saving and monitoring apps have been roaming around in the Android market lately, offering features such as battery level monitoring, battery details and saving battery life by stopping the unwanted services and processes. But recently we came across a new app which claimed to charge Android when it is exposed to sunlight, so we decided to let you the trick behind the app named Solar Charger.

1 : The app claims that it does the following.

Features:
Detects the amount of light
3 different solar panels
Vibrates when charging starts
You can prevent the device from going to sleep mode
Nice charging animation

Future updates:
More efficient solar panels up to +50%
Tablet support
Samsung support

In the pro version:
Fart sound while charging
Samsung tablet support.

2 : When you run the app, it displays a solar panel on your screen along with a battery indicator and a meter of some sort. If you are in a dark place or at night it asks you to expose your device to direct light.

3: When you place your device in direct light, the phone vibrates once and the battery indicator in the application shows as charging.

Trick Exposed

Ah come on guys, right after hearing about this app you might have thought that this is impossible, same pinch as I thought the same. How can an Android device be charged by an onscreen solar panel, if you would all have thought that it is a fake, you were right.

Just look at this screenshot of the app description from the developers themselves, when you click on read more

Ofcourse it is a fake app and it will surely not charge your smartphone battery, but it is a cool trick to show to your unsuspecting friends, trust me some of them will fall for it.

This one is for members of The Tin Foil Hat club; long live Big Brother.

It is of course no surprise that cops track cell phones without warrants routinely. It is also no surprise that shopping malls do the same thing (and not just in Australia as it happens here too).

If this scares the bejeezus out of you, there are basically two ways not to be tracked by your cell phone.

Method 1: Periodically turn it off

This is a "duh" solution, but it works.

Do you really need your cell phone on when driving to the local convenience store less than 10 miles away? No, you don’t, so turn your phone off when you’re on the road.

I personally advocate turning your phone off not so much for protection of privacy, but rather just to be safer. For example, driving to any destination with the phone off means you will pay more attention to the road and not your stupid phone.

Method 2: Use a prepaid cell phone bought by someone else

If you give a friend 10 bucks, then instruct him to go buy the cheapest Tracfone at Radio Shack (which is 10 bucks), then give the phone to you, and purposely activate the phone from a payphone, your identity is never "attached" to that phone when you activate it. As long as you always buy your time cards in cash (such as at a Walgreen’s or CVS pharmacy), never register the phone online, never register the phone with any business (online or offline) and only have it turned on when you need to place a call or text someone, your privacy is secured.

This is basically as good as ‘the ultimate privacy’ in cell phones gets. The only way to get more privacy is not to use a cell phone at all.

Method 2a: Use Google Voice or Skype when at home

To keep those pesky Inner Party members from tracking your cell phone, you can further protect your privacy by having the prepaid cell phone off whenever you’re home, and using Google Voiceor Skype to place all your outbound calls.

You might be thinking, "But isn’t using Google or Skype just as bad concerning privacy?" That depends on your point of view. Remember, a VoIP call may originate from a specific IP (the one at your home), but the transmission is wired, meaning it’s not being broadcasted over-the-air.

This tutorial will teach you important and useful google tricks which is so easy but hiden to normal users.
*Know your IP address: 

Code to Google:
ip=?
Or,
what is my ip

It will give you this result, Your public IP address is 123.456.789.000, [123.456.789.000 will get changed to your IP address]. Now, you know your IP.

*Using google as unit converter: 

Code to Google:
1MB=?KB
Or,
1GB=?MB
Or,
1TB=?Gb
Or,
1TB=?MB
Or,
Any unit you want.

It depends on you, enter your desired number, for example 1GB=?MB or 15421GB=?MB, etc.
Please remember MB and Mb are both different things, Mb is a smaller unit than MB. 1MB is equal to 8 Mb. So, be careful while looking up.

*Advanced site search: 

Code to Google:
inurl:sitename.com
Or,
site:sitename.com

This will show you all links containing sitename.com in the url. This is most powerful search method to find something, just replace sitename.com with your desired site, for example hackalone.com or facebook.com

*Google as proxy: 

You may use google as free proxy, just open http://www.google.com/translate, and enter a site url that is blocked, and change the site language, for example, if you want to surf a site which is in english language, then select another language that you know, for example change it to hindi, and surf it freely. Well, its a trick but its too complicated, simply you can use http://www.proxy.hackalone.com

*Using google as currency converter:
1USD=?INR
Or,
1$=?INR

Simply replace the currecy code(INR) and number(1) as desired, it will give you 100% correct and latest info.

*Know time of a country: 
country time

Replace country from the code to your desired country, for example, change it to india, then the code is india time or change it to new york, then the code is new york time, it will show the current time of that country.

*Flight status: 
Delta fligh 007

Simply enter the flight name, and it will return you arrival and departure times.

*Rotate google at 360*:
do a barrel roll

Your screen will rotate completely once. Its a great trick.

*Know license of a software(Is it freeware or shareware): 
winrar license?

Simply change winrar to your desired product and it will give you a message like this, Best guess for WinRAR License is Shareware, this result will change according to your software. Please note this may not give all product info.

Most of us are so accustomed to identifying incoming calls based on unique ringtones that we don't quite know what to do when we have to mute our phones in meetings or theaters.

Fortunately, the freemium app Vibe steps in to help us find our way, letting us assign one of five unique vibration patterns (or 10 for those who pay $4 for the upgrade) to our contacts. Here's how to use it:

1. Install the Vibe app from the Android market.
2. Once you're started, Vibe shows you your contact list. Tap any contact to select it, or long-press to select multiples to be assigned the same vibration pattern.
   

   Step 2: Choose vibration pattern.
3. You should see a list of available patterns; tap any vibration pattern to preview it, or long-press to select it for that contact (or list of contacts).

That's it. Though it may take some time to get used to IDing callers this way, it does become intuitive--and after a while, upgrading to 10 patterns looks a lot more attractive!

Time-lapse photos are a fun way to document a series of moments happening around you with a camera.

And now there's an awesome app available for Android that lets you bring this same method to your smartphone or tablet. All you need is a quick download and a bit of setup to get started.

 

Step 1: Download Lapse It from the Android Market. There is a free version that will only allow lower-resolution photos and a Pro version, which allows images up to 720p.

 

Step 2: Open the app and press the Start new capture button.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

 

Step 3: Set the time interval of your photos by pressing the timer button on the left, and then enter the interval in seconds. This example will work with 2 seconds as the interval.

Step 4: Press the Capture button (big red dot in the top left-hand corner) to start taking pictures!

Hint: The menu will be hidden when you start taking pictures. To get it back so you can stop the camera, slide your finger along the left side of the screen (when holding horizontally). A pause button is located at the top, with Stop just a few choices down.

 

Step 5: Press play to preview your set of pictures. To edit these pictures, turn the device back into portrait mode and you will see options for trimming, adding effects, or rendering. Rendering will create an MP4, MOV or FLV (your choice in settings) from the photos, so you can share it with friends or family.

If you forgot to render one of your photo sets when you created it, here's how to get back to it:

Step 6: Head to the main menu of the app and press the List captured button.

 

Step 7: Tap the series you want to edit or share, and select View Details from the pop-up menu.

 

Step 8: Click the Render button on the right and type in a name at the bottom and click the smaller Render button in the bottom right-hand corner.

Step 9: Play or publish (share) the video through your social network of choosing.

If you created a time-lapse movie you want to share, add it in the comments.

Have you ever wondered if you were listening to your music too loud or just curious how loud your partner's snoring was? With a free app and your Android phone, you can turn your phone into a noise meter and find out.
Download Sound Meter from the Android Market and launch the app. It starts right up to the sound meter and measures the minimum, mean, and maximum ambient sound levels in decibels (dB). It also highlights the typical noise levels of everyday sounds so you can get an idea of what those noise levels represent. Additionally, you can change the chart to a time-based graph.

 

The app uses your Android phone's mic for measurements, so depending on your phone's hardware, you may not be able to reach the top end of the scale.
If you're interested in learning more about noise and hearing loss prevention, check out the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). It even has a noise meter on its Web site that lets you listen to a range of different noises and indicates what their noise levels are.

Now you can add calendar appointments to the screen you see most often on your Android.
The calendar widget is fairly useful, but it takes up a considerable amount of screen real estate. For this reason, it often lands on the screens to the left or right of the main home screen. And then comes the out of sight, out of mind practice. The only way to keep tabs on the events if you don't remember to look at them is to set reminders. But how good is a reminder if it reminds you at an inconvenient time? Here's how to avoid a mess like this:
Note: This app may not work on some Samsung Galaxy SII handsets and HTC Sense user interfaces. This is because they work with an altered lock screen, which does not allow editing of the content displayed through a third-party app like this one. If the support is added in the future, the developer states that he/she will add support for those devices.
Step 1: Download Lockscreen Calendar from the Android Market.

 

Step 2: Open the app and choose which calendars you'd like to display events for.

 

Step 3: Set the app's update intervals and how far ahead into the future you want to check for new calendar events, then press Update.

 

Step 4: Pick how many events to show and then adjust the date formatting to your liking.

 

Step 5: Lock your device's screen and then turn it back on to see your upcoming events.
No more excuses for forgetting events on your calendar, especially since they'll be staring you in the face every time you use your device.