Wednesday, May 25, 2011

iPhone 4 in India - 27 May


Indian mobile carrier Airtel has been taking pre-registrations for the iPhone 4 since earlier this month, but now competitor Aircel is going to hit the market first.
Aircel is launching the iPhone 4 on Friday for both pre-and-postpaid plans. The retail price isn't cheap -- you can expect to pay Rs 34,500 (about $763) for the 16GB iPhone 4 or a whopping Rs 40,900 (about $905) for the 32GB model.
There's something that should make the sting of paying for the iPhone price up front a bit less painful. Aircel is using a reverse-subsidy program, and you can recover the full cost of the iPhone 4 in monthly credits over the next two years.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

How Do Polaroids Work?

It does seem like a particularly miraculous feat that a tiny sheet of photo paper can have a photo printed on it instantly. But how does it happen? And how do pinhole cameras work? Photojojo sketches the explanations. Photojojo

Facebook Fails



Facebook wants to be your life. They want you to chat, exchange messages and publish your photos using their services. That's ok. It's a good concept. It's just too bad their technology sucks to the point of being unusable at times.
There's plenty of reasons to hate Facebook. And then some more. But I don't care about those. To me it's not about the privacy, their terms of service or Zuck's dog.
The main reason is a critical one: Reliability. That's where Facebook fails.

Being good is not good enough

At this point Facebook has 500 million active users. 50% of those login every single day, and they have an average of 130 friends each. They are associated or interact with 900 million objects, including pages, groups, events and community pages. Together, Facebook users create and share 30 billion new links, articles, wall posts, notes and albums. 30 billion new pieces of content every month. Breath.
Those are staggering numbers. All that information is stored in a giganormous distributed database, which ties everything together. The fact that a system like this works on a daily basis may seem impressive to most people, and it is. And the fact that it very rarely goes down—unlike other less-complex systems like Twitter—is good too.
But if you want to take over every aspect of people's lives, good is not enough. Being just "good" is a failure. You have to be absolutely perfect, and that requires—first and foremost—that your messaging and chat facilities work flawlessly, with no loss of data whatsoever. Sadly, that is not the case.

Broken messages

For years now we have been suffering Facebook's chat system, perhaps the worst in the industry. You can't maintain a conversation without you or your buddy being logged off. Sentences, entire paragraphs don't get delivered. I can't count the times I've wanted to punch the screen and given up. Everyone else I've spoken to has had the same experience.
But now, with the merging of chat, the message box and their new mail address, things are even worse. During the last few weeks, some messages have been lost. Gone. They show up in the notifications panel, but they are nowhere to be found in the actual inbox. This problem is actually the number one problem in their Help Center's messaging section, labeled as "known bug." How can this be a known bug and not be fixed?
You get the first phrase but can't access the rest. You see you have received a "Hey! Yes, I definitely would love to..." but nothing else. Would love to what? Would love to go out to the movies but can't? Would love to strangle me? Would love to get me in bed? Would love to bake a cake? Would love to spread some jam on my monkeys? What would you love? What? What's going on, in the name of the Holy Underpants!

While you may think that Facebook communications are inconsequential, the fact is that they are not. Many people depend on Facebook to keep in contact with very important people in their lives. They carry all kinds of information, from the trivial to emotionally charged messages. A message has the potential to make or break marriages and friendships. Many people depend on it just like Facebook wants and, for them, any reliability level below 100% is completely unacceptable. No computer system that wants to be an integral, irreplaceable part of our lives can fail like this. And data loss is absolutely out of the question.
On top of all this, there's the issue of their user support. Facebook support pages are a joke, and critical issues like losing messages redirect you to a feedback form. I'm still waiting for an answer to my request, sent days ago. If you want to have people depending on you, you need to provide instant feedback. Not a black hole and the promise that your problem may get fixed one day.
Zuck and crew: Get your act together. It has been years since Facebook has had chat and it's still unreliable. Messaging fails too, a "known bug" according to your own help pages. Now you want to further get us inside your cave with your mail services. But how can we trust you with yet another part of our communications when you have not been able to get the basics right in years?
We can't. You can't pretend to be the planet's digital life hub and then offer services that fail and no technical support. Your objective requires that your system's reliability is absolutely perfect. Less than that is not acceptable.
Until then, you are Failbook.

Watch This Stunt Pilot Shave a Man With a Helicopter


I don't know how practical it is, strictly speaking, to be able to open beer bottles, balance a glass of water, and shave another man's face with the helicopter you're piloting. But man is it fun to watch.
This Siberian pilot does some of the best stunt helicopter flying I've ever seen—not saying much, but still. Although I will admit, I'm more impressed with whoever first volunteered to get his whiskers trimmed by a hotshot and his wingless flying machine.

Clickfree C2 hard drive can fall down

There's just something about the phrase "built to strict U.S. military standards" that makes us want to go positively medieval on a rugged device. Sadly, the aforementioned qualifier doesn't mean that Clickfree's new C2 Rugged Back-up Drive is capable of withstanding, say, a hail of gunfire, but the rubberized diskwill continue to work after being dropped from four feet. The peripheral also features the company's Easy Run software, which will start automatically backing up your PC when you're done showing that storage device who's boss. The 500GB C2 is available now through Clickfree's site for $140 -- or $100, if you're one of the lucky 100 first people to buy, so maybe buy two, in case you go a little overboard.

Google's CR-48 apparently shipping again, doing the prototype death rattle

Reports are trickling in that Google has begun shipping the CR-48 to eager testers who've thus far been empty-handed after signing up for the units back in December. Could it be? Is the plucky prototype Chrome OS laptop getting a stay of execution after being declared all dried up back in March? That's pretty unlikely, given the impending release of the Samsung and Acer netbooks that we saw announced during Google I/O. It seems a lot more plausible that the company is just exhausting the supply, so if you signed up late last year and haven't received one yet, we wouldn't recommend holding your breath.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Unlock your iPhone remotely

CYS now offer Remote iPhone Unlocking Services for certain carrier locked iPhones.  Please make certain when selecting this service you choose the carrier that your iPhone is LOCKED to/Originally purchased from.  See list of supported carrier locked iPhones at CutYourSim.

Windows 7: 350 million licenses


Eighteen months after Windows 7 was released, Microsoft is boasting that it has sold 350 million licenses of its flagship operating system. The platform's sales have barely slowed since the company last bragged about numbers; after 12 months, 240 million licenses had been shipped.
All a far cry from Windows Vista's market take-up. Though Windows Vista sold well—around 330 million Internet users two years after launch—its reception was lukewarm, and though users actually quite like it, it failed to achieve acceptance in the essential corporate market.
Windows 7, in contrast, is flourishing both at home and at work. Microsoft cites an IDC estimate that 90 percent of corporations are currently in the process of migrating to Windows 7.

Android: Aai Aai!! Captain


Wired is reporting that the US Army has chosen to use an Android-based phone as its first smartphone for US troops. Now in prototype stage, the US Army Android smartphone is called the Joint Battle Command-Platform and will have its SDK released to Android developers in July. Currently, the phone has mapping apps and apps that track where friendly forces are.
It's really no surprise the US Army opted for an Android phone over an iPhone. Android phones allow the US Army to build their own specific hardware and not rely on a company like Apple for system-level improvements.

Keep a check on your earphones with Applecore



AppleCores are available in a variety of sizes and colors, and it looks like an ingenious way to organize your cords and cables, especially those Apple white headphones and chargers. They range in price from $2-$5, practically a steal, no?

Prototype iPhone



Jonathan Geller of BGR scored a look at an internal Apple iPhone prototype, N94, running on T-Mobile’s AWS 3G bands.
We have verified that the phone itself is running a test version of Apple’s iOS, much like the one we saw in those videos from Vietnam, and it includes internal Apple test apps like Radar and Apple’s employee directory app. [...] Combined with the fact that it wouldn’t make sense to release an iPhone 4 on T-Mobile at this point in time, we’d wager that Apple is just testing the new T-Mobile-friendly radio with its current iPhone 4 hardware, possibly in preparation for integration in a future device.
The AT&T/GSM iPhone 4 was N90, the Verizon iPhone 4 was N92 and iPhone 5 was supposed to be N94, is this an iPhone 4 with T-mobile or is it a new model in the very famous iPhones.....

Source : BGR

Friday, April 22, 2011

Apple ranked as highest grossing mobile phone vendor

Reuters reports that a new study from research firm Strategy Analytics is showing that Apple is now the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer as measured by revenue, outpacing Nokia for the first time ever in the January-March quarter.
Apple Inc (AAPL.O) became the world's largest phone vendor by revenue in January-March, overtaking Nokia Oyj (NOK1V.HE) for the first time ever, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Thursday. "With strong volumes and high wholesale prices, the PC vendor has successfully captured revenue leadership of the total handset market in less than four years," said analyst Alex Spektor.
According to the report, Apple's iPhone revenue of $11.9 billion last quarter easily topped Nokia's phone revenue of $9.4 billion.

Apple has long led the mobile phone industry in profits, now ranking in half of the industry's total profits. But Apple's ascendance to the top of the list for revenue in addition to profits demonstrates that the company's strong growth in the smartphone market is continuing.

GREE buys openfeint for $104 million


GREE, Japan’s leading mobile social gaming platform, today announced its entrance into the global market with the acquisition of OpenFeint's outstanding securities for US $104 million, plus additional capital for accelerated growth of the OpenFeint platform.
GREE is a popular Japanese social networking service and is said to be the largest social network in Japan with over 25 million users and a market cap of $3 billion. The acquisition brings in OpenFeint's 75 million users across Android and iOS.

OpenFeint began as a two-person iOS gaming company called Aurora Feint. Aurora Feint launched on the first day of the App Store's release with a free game game called Aurora Feint: The Beginning. That game was very well received but they soon branched off to become a social gaming network, providing high score systems, achievements and more.

Indicators on a helmet


Riding bicycles at night is dangerous. It's hard to see the road and it's even harder for people to see you. Sure, you can get light attachments for your helmet—but they all look goofy and cluttered. That's where the Blink Bike Helmet rides in.
The Tron-looking helmet has LED turn signals, that you activate by touching, on the left and right of the helmet and LEDs on the front and back. The helmet is only a concept right now, but someone should get on making one ASAP. I, for one, can't wait for them to distract drivers with their coolness at night.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Rumor roundup: Is samsung planning to have a 2GHZ Dual-Core Phone next year

A Samsung rep has been caught claiming that they are "planning to release a 2GHz dual-core CPU-equipped smartphone by next year," adding that "this product will have the data processing capacities of a regular PC." Not only does Samsung plan on using these chips in their own smartphones, they're also hoping to sell the components to other manufacturers as well.

Will you buy a $6400 toilet?


Kohler thinks yes.

The latest addition to the manufacturing company's line of bathroom and kitchen products is the Numi: a super-luxurious toilet complete with built-in music system, ambient lighting, heated seat, foot warmer, a bidet attachment that'll clean and dry your delicates — all controlled by a touchscreen pad.


It might sound a wee bit excessive, but the technology is still impressive. A motion detector lets you raise and lower the seat with a foot tap. The automatic flush varies in power level depending on how long you've been sitting; it's quiet and uses less water than your average toilet.

HTC might be working on a 16MP camera phone

A slip of an internal video has shown that HTC's got a 16MP cameraphone in its midst, but could it be too good to be true? That's double the megapixels that they've currently got on sale, so if this video is the real deal—which we're not too sure about—then that could be a pretty amazing handset, if you're of the megapixel-counting ilk.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Will apple be 1st Trillion $ Company





If there's one company that will hit a trillion dollar market cap, it will be Apple. Apple could do it in the next three years. USA Today came up with Apple's trillion dollar market cap based on its five-year average increase of 59% a year. So given today's market value of about $310 billion, if Apple continues to increase in value by 59% each year, in 2014, we'll have the first trillion dollar company. How huge is that? The most valuable company ever was Microsoft in 2000. That year it hit a $604 billion market cap.


But hey, I'm just a blogger. I don't have a degree in finance or economics. Though I'm sure you'll find many analysts who agree with me, there are probably plenty who won't.


Source

Sony's PS3 makes a half century



Sony has a couple of sweet numbers to report with regard to sales of its gaming hardware. The PlayStation 3, that venerable old powerhouse of console gaming, has surpassed 50 million units shipped around the globe, while the PS Move controller introduced late last year has also kept pace and rounded its own milestone with eight million units shipped.

Blackberry Playbook

The words "play" and "book" are a bit of an odd choice for RIM's latest attempt at consumer relevance, a tablet that, at its core, runs one of the most hardcore and industry-friendly operating systems known to man. The OS is QNX and the hardware is, of course, the BlackBerry PlayBook. It's an enterprise-friendly offering that's also out to conquer the consumer tablet ecosphere, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the BlackBerry handsets that have filled the pockets of corporate executives and BBM addicts around the globe.

It's something of a serious tablet when compared to the competition running software from Apple and Google and, while it certainly 
has games, its biggest strengths are rather more boring. It does a really great job at displaying PowerPoint presentations, for example, and has the security chops to keep last quarter's dismal sales figures from falling into the wrong hands. Exciting stuff? No, but useful features for sure, and regardless of whether you find those intriguing or boring this is RIM's seven-inch, Flash-having but 3G-lacking tablet clad in an unassuming but extremely sophisticated exterior. It's what's running behind the glass that disappoints.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Jajah calls your facebook friends for free




JaJah is an app for Android (and soon to be iPhone) that lets users make free phone calls to Facebook friends without punching in their phone number. It's neat! The people you call don't even have to have a JaJah account. All you do is select them in the JaJah app and they'll be pinged through Facebook chat.
It's a pretty smart idea since phone numbers can be a hassle to remember. Through the JaJah app you can see a list of all your friends who are logged into Facebook Chat. Tap the person you want to talk to and they'll get a IM with a link to a voice call. All they have to do is click the link to start the conversation.
The best thing about JaJah is that the other user doesn't even have to be a JaJah account to talk to you. So many of these other alternative calling apps require both users to have accounts that it defeats its convenience. JaJah puts convenience for users first. An iOS version of the app is awaiting approval from Apple.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Probable iPhone 5



The above photo gives clear signs of iPhone 5 as it covers various demanded and rumored features like
it boasts a 4" inch screen, the touch sense on the back for controlling movement or shifts in volume, the much awaited dash, the very usual of apple increase in drive capacity, also to make it a little cheezy the iPhone 5 is in white, to kill the demand for the white iPhone 4.

Critical flaw in Flash, Steve jobs passes a smile

Adobe has found yet another serious security flaw in Flash. We can already hear the iOS fanboys warming up their commenting fingers. The vulnerability affects all platforms, including Android, though only attacks on Windows have been seen in the wild so far. Just like last month's exploit, this one is spreading via malicious .swf files embedded in Office documents, only this time it's Word instead of Excel being targeted.

iTable iPhone dock



iPhone/ iPad have been around for a long, long time, with different manufacturers looking to make quick money. One of the more modern iPhone docks that we’ve seen so far would be the iTable that you can see above – it looks as though it is shaped after an iPhone, thanks to Kyle Buckner’s design. Apart from holding your iPhone, it will also come packed with a set of four aluminum-trimmed cup holders, alongside LED lights that delivers more mood lighting to the overall situation. Since it is hand-crafted, we don’t suppose that you can also ask Kyle to build a model that fits another smartphone apart from the iPhone 4.

Apple's Final Cut Pro rebuilt with 64 bit support


Apple tonight took the wraps off Final Cut Pro X, a new version of its professional video-editing software that the company says is a complete rewrite of the 12-year-old platform.
Final Cut X is a 64-bit application written in Apple's Cocoa. It sports a new interface, as well as features to speed up the editing process, including background rendering, full use of multicore processors, and Apple's Grand Central Dispatch system, as well as the option to make edits as footage is being imported.
Apple says the tool will be available to users in June as a direct download for $299, replacing the $199 Final Cut Express, and coming in at a steep discount compared with the company's $999 Final Cut Studio suite.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Airtel to bring iPhone 4 in India

Airtel just informed us they are bringing theApple iPhone 4 to India. No pricing or exact launch date has been revealed but the note simply says that the Operator will launch the iPhone 4 in India in the coming months. Hope Airtel can pull it off before the iPhone 5 launches this summer. What do you think ?

Apple launched the iPad in India just before the iPad 2 was launched in USA and now we are hearing news about the iPhone 4 coming to India when the whole world is waiting for the iPhone 5!
Here is the press note
New Delhi, 11th April 2011: Bharti Airtel will launch iPhone 4 in India in the coming months. iPhone 4 is the most innovative phone in the world, featuring Apple’s stunning Retina display, the highest resolution display ever built into a phone and FaceTime, which makes video calling a reality. For further information, please visit www.airtel.in. For more information on iPhone 4 please visit http://www.apple.com/iphone

For all Steve Jobs fans!!!!


For all those who look upto Sir Steve Jobs and apple, here is a short film on him......

Mac chick of the month (March '11)

Each month Macenstein features a different die-hard, Mac-loving girl who is (almost) as well designed as the Apple products they love. This month they present you with the lovely Jax Turyna, a full time model, student, and of course, a die-hard Mac Chick!


For more photos checkout macenstein and keep yourself updated with GadgetTap.

Tell me this happens to apple fans

Check out this pretty sweet (and much less bloody) iBoy parody originally aired on the Israel channel 22 Tv show Eretz Nehederet. By the way, can anyone verify that “Nimrodi” is an actual Israeli name, or are they just screwing with the kid further?

Sony to manufacture iPhone 5 camera, eyes at 8MP


There has been a lot of speculation about the iPhone 5 but the camera department has rarely been mentioned. Well now we know its manufacturer and resolution.
Previously there was just those vague rumors that Apple is considering changing their current OmniVision-produced camera with a Sony one.
Well now we have a confirmation that the Cupertino-based company has gone ahead with the move from no other, but the Sony CEO. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Sir Howard Stringer let slip that his company is supplying camera modules to Apple. And since none of the existing Apple products use Sony modules it's only logical to assume that those units are set for the iPhone 5 production.
Which leads us to the conclusion that the Apple iPhone 5 will pack one of those sweet 8 megapixel Exmor R backlit sensors. The other Sony module that's meant for cameraphone usage is 16.4MP unit, but it seems unlikely that Apple will use it as it is significantly larger and that would make the iPhone 5 way thicker than its predecessor.
Sony creates those image sensor technology in the Sendai factory in Japan, which is one of the affected factories by the earthquakes and tsunamis, which hit Japan this year. It's yet unclear if that will affect the iPhone 5 availability, though.
So, larger screen  an 8 megapixel camera and, possibly, NFC for the next iPhone then. It's starting to look as a pretty decent upgrade, right?

20 most wanted iPhone 5 features

20. Built in IR.
19. Biometric Security
18. HD Output
17. RFID ( Radio Frequency Identification)
16. Removable battery.
15. More memory.
14. Expandable memory.
13. Enhanced voice controls.
12. Improved home screen (with a real dashboard).
11. Facetime over 3G/4G.
10. Flash support.
 9. Better cloud computing support.
 8. Better Camera (8mp / 12mp).
 7. Dual core processor ( A5 ).
 6. Improved 3D graphics.
 5. Better battery life.
 4. More Carriers.
 3. Fewer failed and dropped calls( Antennagate )
 2. ios5.
 1. 4g network compatability.

Evolution of Mobile Phone....Unfortunately Apple

Mobile phones have come a long way. And though you probably haven't been following it quite as closely, so has 3D projection mapping. Vodafone uses the technique in this stunning new video that celebrates the cell phone from the Zach Morris days, through the Snake era, and up to the feature-laden smartphones of today. see the video here!

Apple jobs carbon fibre experts

With the exception of the MacBook, Apple's entire Mac lineup is currently cut from aluminum. However, Apple's been caught experimenting with its newly acquired liquidmetal materials recently, even as rumors swirl around new ultra-lightweight and durable carbon fiber components and enclosures. Speculation about the latter has been fueled by an Apple patent application for a process that would use carbon fiber materials woven into the reinforced device housings of mobile telephones, laptops, desktops, and tablets. Interestingly enough, the patent app was filed by Kevin M. Kenney (developer of the first all carbon fiber bicycle frame) on behalf of Apple back in 2009, a man who changed his job title to "Senior Composites Engineer at Apple Inc."