digwhiz

Experimental Tablet design from Ainol | Runs on Honeycomb

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:12:00 +0000

Another Android Honeycomb tablet is about to appear in the market soon. This new tablet with rather "experimental" design is from Chinese electronics company Ainol (sound like "anal" ...) . Here are few sneak pics of this upcoming tablet.

New Android Tablet from Ainol | Back view

Android (Honeycomb) Tablet from Ainol | Watch out for keys, most of tablets are fully touch based

This new tablet from Ainol runs on cortex processor.

While full Ainol has not released full specifications of this upcoming tablet, yet we know enough about it. Here are technical specifications

the tablet will run on ARM Cortex A9 processor, a 1,280 x 800 IPS display of unspecified size (should be 9 inches ), WiFi and 3G connectivity, a microSD card slot, HDMI out

Lava mobile's website | half cooked

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:19:00 +0000

I wanted to look out for specs of Lava's most publicized mobile Lava A10, so I googled for their website and I was happily surprised to see it stands 1st in Google for a very common keyword "lava". My happiness was short lived, just spending few minutes with the site showed tons of unfinished and unprofessional stuff. Just have a look at this screen capture

If you are still not sure what I want to point out, just have a look at another mobile maker's website footer.

In todays time when a website represents that companies status such flaws can not be ignored. Hope Lava will take care of this soon and make it more user friendly and professional.

Shoot 3D Video With New LG G Slate

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:39:00 +0000

This year its raining tablets. Now it is not all about Apple, rather now it is about features and cost. LG is all ready to mark its presence in tablet market with LG G Slate. G Slate is expected to start shipping on 20th April.

New LG G slate with T-mobile

This new tablet will house all new and super cool specs - it will run on now fastest CPU for tablets, Tegra 2 (1 GHz speed with dual core) with a whopping 1 GB ram. LG is trying its luck with super hot buzz word of this year - 3D . LG G slate will have two back cameras capable of shooting videos in 3D.

LG G Slate

Here is a video showing this amazing technology and few other new features that LG G slate will be hosting.

LG G slate will be available with T-mobile contract. LG G slate will have 9.8 inch screen and will be available in 32 GB. Other features of LG G slate are its capability to play 1080 p HD video in 3D. It has got a HDMI port and an accelerometer, Gyroscope and HSPA+ connectivity.

New Airtel Commerical | Airtel Signature tune and logo 2010 | Harihar Das as a street dancer

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 07:43:00 +0000

Like many other big brand worldwide ( Pepsi , Godrej and others) Bharati Airtel has come up with its new logo.

New Airtel Logo

While the new logo’s cool quotient may be debated, one thing that is cool for sure is the new Airtel’s signature tune composed by the maestro A. R. Rehman. If you have seen the Airtel’s signature tune commercial “Street Dancer” you already know what I am talking about. If you haven’t seen this commercial , you can watch it here

New Airtel Commercial | Watch for Harihar Das performance and A.R. Rehman's composition

If you want to download this new Airtel Signature tune , you can download it here.

The dancer in the commercial is “Indis’s got talent” fame Harihar Das . This guy is phenomenal, when I saw his performance for the first time, I was speechless…

Harihar Das | Performing in India's got talent

Motorola Droid X | iPhone Killer?

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:36:00 +0000

With the release of Apple iPhone 4 on 24th June this year, other manufacturers are yet again finding themselves looking for an iPhone 4 killer. The most promising of the lot being Motorola’s Droid X. Droid X is getting rave reviews from all major technology websites (including Engadget).

Motorola Droid X vs Apple iPhone 4

We should not be comparing Motorola droid x with iPhone 4, rather this new Android phone from Motorola is worthy replacement for HTC EVO 4G. But as both Apple iPhone 4 and Motorola Droid X are super smart phones we can still compare it for buyers who are not very mobile OS specific.

Motorola Droid X has camera which opens when you slid open the phone

The very first thing we should compare is the price, so let us see what you can expect for your money.

Price

Motorola Droid X: The Droid X is available for $199 with 2year contract (after $100 mail in rebate). You need to get a data plan for $29.99 and you can opt for a mobile hotspot plan at an additional $20 per month (2 GB limit).

Apple iPhone 4 : To get the iPhone 4 for the lowest price, you must sign up for a two-year service contract with AT&T. All new AT&T customers will get these subsidized prices, as will existing AT&T customers who are eligible for an upgrade.

16GB iPhone 4 (Black or White): $199
32GB iPhone 4 (Black or White): $299

AT&T subscribers who are not yet eligible for a handset upgrade will be charged the following "Early Upgrader" prices.

iPhone 4 (Black or White): $399 (with two-year service contract)
32GB iPhone 4 (Black or White): $499 (with two-year service contract)

Prices without any contract are

16GB iPhone 4 (Black or White): $599
32GB iPhone 4 (Black or White): $699

Apple iPhone 4 | New Sleeker design

Carrier

Motorola Droid X:A Verizon exclusive device.

Apple iPhone 4: AT&T and recently T Mobile .

Apple iPhone in white color

Display / Dimensions

Motorola Droid X: 4.3 inch display with FWVGA LCD screen,854 x 480 resolution with capacitive screen.

Apple iPhone 4: 3.5 inch display with 640 X 960 LCD screen, has so called Ratina Display (eyes can’t easily distinguish pixels in the display)

Camera:

Motorola Droid X: Droid X has only rear camera . IT has an 8 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash with autofocus.

Apple iPhone 4: A 5 megapixel camera with 5 x Digital zoom, has build in single LED flash. Front camera is a VGA camera better suited for video calls

Droid X | Easy Handling

Video:

Motorola Droid X: 720px HD Capture, HD Playback via HDMI or DLNA, H.263, H.264, MPEG4, WMA v10 .

Apple iPhone 4: Video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio.

Side View of Droid X

Operating system

Motorola Droid X: ANDROID™ PLATFORM Android 2.1 with motoblur , Can run homebrew applications easily.This translates to all the cool apps you can ever need will be available to you.

Apple iPhone 4: packs Apple's latest mobile operating system iOS 4. Among other things, the new OS promises features like multitasking, spell check, Folders and iBooks. However, the OS still doesn't support email attachment and built-in photo editing feature.

Processor

Motorola Droid X: 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP3630 processor (45-nanometer).

Apple iPhone 4: iPhone uses the 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 technology.

Motorola | A smart looking phone

Memory

Motorola Droid X: 512MB internal memory,the phone comes with 8GB onboard memory and 16GB microSD support (pre-installed). MicroSD storage is expandable upto 32GB, taking total expandable memory to 40GB.

Apple iPhone 4: 512MB internal memory,16GB and 32GB of external memory.

Internet

Motorola Droid X: CDMA phone, so don’t look for EDGE, GPRS in specs anywhere, it has WIFI and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO (3.2 MBPS).

Apple iPhone 4: Quad band 3G at 7.2 Mbps

Gaming

Motorola Droid X: Android plateform has 3rd party game developers, games are cheaper than what you pay for iPhone games. And the best thing about Android plateform is that it can run many fun filled homebrew games.

Apple iPhone 4: in this area Apple has got a stronghold, having one of the largest games repository for a plateform.Just have a look at the list of games offered by Apple. Its amazing.

Verdict : So what is the final verdict on Droix X being a iPhone killer ? I am a long time user of Apple iPod Touch , this makes be biased for iPhone over Droid X . I am used to the look and feel of springboard that iOS offers. But I guess if I were a complete new to both Motorola Droid X and Apple iPhone 4 , I would go for a Motorola Droid X . This phone is a smart, comes with Android which is the fastest growing mobile OS and backed by Google. Droid X’s specifications are most competent in any given category, making it one of the best android cell phones available in the market.

BlackBerry PlayBook is smart with a smarter price

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 13:12:00 +0000

Reserch In Motion has announced its new tab Playbook which will be available in US market in Q1 2010. Company’s CEO Jim Balsillie has given us a clue about the expected price of Playbooks. While making the live demonstration of PlayBook at Adobe MAX, he was heard saying “Very competitively priced” and “under $500”. If this figure is to be believed, this will make other tabs prices spiral down.

New Blackberry PlayBook is sleek and has killer looks

While announcing the Blackberry Playbook, co-CEO Mike Lazardis talked about features Playbook will be shipped with.Here are few excerpts about blackberry PlayBook at Adobe MAX.

co-CEO Mike Lazardis talks about new Blackberry PlayBook

Mike Lazaridis emphasized the Playbook's ability to play the "full web,” that translates to Flash playing capability for us.
Blackberry Playbook would be “enterprise ready." That’s expected from anything coming out of research in motion.
Specs disclosed so far are, announced at the press release of Blackberry PlayBook.

7" LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
1 GHz dual-core processor
1 GB RAM
Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
HDMI video output
Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
Measures 5.1"x7.6"x0.4" (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future

Blackberry PlayBook will start shipping in Jan-Feb 2011, It is going to be priced at below $500 and its cool.

Though we still don’t know what this new tab will be supporting in terms of apps , this is for sure RIM is relying on its huge repository of applications and other cool stuff that blackberry users already use.

Should we wait for PlayBook ?

If you are not a loyal customer of Apple and are not already planning to buy a Samsung Galaxy Tab , it is recommended to wait for PlayBook , its market release is very near and even if you don’t buy the PlayBook you can certainly buy other tabs at cheaper prices because of the price was that is expected after the release.

Blackberry PlayBook vs Apple iPad vs Samsung Galaxy Tab vs Dell Streak

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 10:31:00 +0000

BlackBerry PlayBook

Dell Streak

Apple Ipad

Samsung Galaxy Tab

A Detailed Comparison Of PlayBook , iPad ,Galaxy Tab and Dell Streak

	Blackberry PlayBook	Apple iPad	Samsung Galaxy Tab	Dell Streak
Screen size	7 inches	9.7 inches	7 inches	5 inches
Resolution	1024x600	1024x768	1024 x 600	800x480
Pixel density (approx.)	170	133	170	187
Platform	BB Tablet OS	iOS 3.2.2 (4.2 in November)	Android 2.2	Android 1.6 (2.1 / 2.2 in future)
Adobe Flash support	10.x	Not Supported	10.1	Not supported
Processor	1GHz dual-core Cortex A9	1GHz Apple A4 (ARMV7)	1GHz Cortex A8	1GHz Snapdragon
Graphics	Unknown	PowerVR SGX 535 PowerVRSGXs40		Adreno 200
RAM	1GB	256MB	512MB	512MB
Internal Storage	16GB/32GB (unconfirmed)	16GB/32GB/64GB	16GB/32GB	512MB
Expansion	Unknown	None	microSD	microSD
Connectivity	802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR	802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR	802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0	802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Cellular data	3G and 4G promised for future	3G optional (AT&T)	3G (all carriers)	3GCAT&T)
GPS	None	3G models only	Yes	Yes
Camera	3MP front, sMPrear	None	1.3MP front, 3MP rear	VGA front, SMPrear
Weight	0.9 lbs	1.5 -1.6 lbs	0.84 lbs	0.49 lbs

Google Docs OCR option | Good for text only documents

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Recently Google gave its users another useful feature in its Google Documents. Now you can convert your images and pdf documents into searchable text. Procedure to convert images/pdf into documents using Google docs is very easy; all you need to do is to select the option “Convert text from PDF or images files to Google Docs documents”

While uploading your documents in Google Docs ,you have an option of converting it into asearchable text.

Once Google is done with converting the format to Google Docs, you get a searchable text from your images and PDFs.When you try to open the converted document Google will give you a message like

“This document contains text automatically extracted from a PDF or image file. Formatting may have been lost and not all text may have been recognized. “ (And true to its warning, at most of the times I did lose my original formatting while testing this feature.)

So how good is this new OCR feature of Google Docs? I ran a few tests to get an idea about its capabilities and to find out where it falls short of expectations.

And what exacty can be expected from a typical OCR app ?

A good OCR should

Recognize the text in a document !!!
Support the document’s language.
Should retain the format of the document.
Segregate images and text present in a document.
Conversion should be fast.

While we expect these basic functions In any OCR app , the challenges a OCR application faces are

A Scanned document with hardly recognizable text in it
Accuracy of the OCR decreases drastically if a document is not properly vertically aligned.
Documents with complex structure having images and text together.

Now let’s see how Google Docs OCR faired in these expectations. I chose following document to test Google Docs OCR capabilities

A Scan of old document (text only)

A scan of newspaper cutting having different fonts in different sizes and with images.

A document with images and text

And the last one

A scanned document with complex structure.

And here are the results

Test in the first scan was recognized with considerable accuracy .Here is the result

“"Molasses will remove mildew" stains from the most delicate fabrìfo,” Writes a; reader in reply to a remedy for the stahl published recently in these columns. In place of the more laborious method he prescribes the treatment A employed by seamen for mildewed sails. The sheets which are covered for a time with common molasses, when washed are found free from blemishes. I e

A package of absorbent cotton is a con-
venience in the household. One of its uses is in removing grease spots from woolìens. If applied immediately after oil, milk, butt/er or has been spilled onthe fabric it will absorb every trace.
A strong solution of ammonia. is the best ‘agent for 'cleaning out glass. If the carafe shows murky inside markings, fill it half full of the liquid and add some small pieces of potato parings. Shake it vigor: ously and rinse it carefully in clear water, Scrub the outside with a, small brush.

“

With minor glitches, Google docs OCR converted the entire text with considerable accuracy.

Now I tried converting the second scan which had different fonts and had images.

And this is what I got in return

“I Newsmaker
vidya
journey called India
British historian and broadcaster Michael W00d’s "The Story of India” made its debut on American TV recently. India’s long pluralistic history has relevance today in a world coming toterms and cultural issues, says Wood. Excerpts
with 21 host of human from a conversation... PATEL
hat attracted yan tu India? On British and American TV, You see ancient Rome. Greece,
dlines. It aired in England in 200'?. Then
Women's Day
Celebrating the new
Se
mg sateume maps, changing some ila sages, cutting others. Ayodhya, fo

“

Forget about images, in this case Google Docs OCR was not even able to correctly recognize entire text. It messed up entire formatting and gave a result which was far from what is desired from even most basic OCR application.

And not the last test with a scanned document having complex format

to my disappointment result was even poorer than the last one

“Convert to perceptually-oriented color space
Scan a document
Luminance
Next pixel
..._1 Examine local neighborhood
- Inverse halftoning
Y Í More Pixels?
| Corr. y Ü 120 _ 4,“ Variable contrast mapping tf?" - - - -I | L | 12' il
Chrominance Channel Cleaning
Selective smoothing including bleed-
through reduction
* 128 I Post-processing i-I

“

My verdict on Google Docs OCR capabilities: Google docs is not meant to be a replacement for commercial OCR softwares like Abby Finereader , ReadIris etc . It simply gives a very basic functionality of OCR which is capable of converting all text scans only. If you are looking something more than this , read my blog on a comparative test of commercial OCR softwares.

How to send large files | iSendr - Peer to peer at its best

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:16:00 +0000

This cant possible get any better…and this is what exactly I was looking for. A way to send that 28 MB video file to my friend over internet. I didn’t want to open an account in Youtube and upload the file which would be a waste of time , and it would have left my friends just watching that video online and there would be been no option to save the video and watch it offline and share it further.

iSendr.com is just wonderful , a free file sharing service which lets you share your large files without installing any fancy application and without any requirement of registering anywhere.

iSendr has a very simple interface

Interface is pretty simple; on the first page itself it asks you to pick a new file to share. All you have to do is to browse for the desired file. Once you do that Isendr gives you a URL that you need to share with your friends.

Just share the URL with your friends

All your friend needs to do is open this URL in a browser…file downloading will start once you select a file storage location.

Your file download speed is limited only by your internet speed

iSendr gives you freedom from the file size limit that is imposed by popular email services like Gmail and Yahoo. This is hassle free and clean. Peer to peer had never been better than this…

First Apple 1 Gets A New Owner

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:47:00 +0000

Apple 1 Advertisement (January 1977)

Marco Boglione , an Italian collector, bought the first Apple 1 device during a Christie’s auction in London.

It Is estimated that less than 30 Apple 1 computers are still present, making it a rare collector’s item.

Marco Boglione’s brother was present on behalf his brother , who cleared the bid with a staggering

£133,250 ($210,000) , making this auction the highest paid ever for a personal computer. This Apple 1 was accompanied with a letter signed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with Apple Computer

In 1976 Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak and Steve Jobs created the first apple computer code named Apple I in a small garage. They never had any big plans for this first Apple, which was way ahead of its time, but just to impress the local electronic enthusiasts group Homebrew Computer Club and they had never thought that Apple will become what it is now !!!

It was Steve Jobs who suggested to Woz that they should start a company selling Apples 1 . They sold their first Apple 1 for 666.66 $ in April 1976.This Apple I also known as Apple 1 was piece of art. First ever personal computer that came with fully pre- assembled motherboard. It had interfaces to connect a keyboard, a monitor, power supply.

Fully Assembled Apple 1

Steve Woz used a 6502 Motorola processor, which was newly launched at that time, instead of more famous 8080 Intel processor .Steve Woz chose 6502 because it was cheaper than Intel’s 8080.

Apple 1 with 6502 MOS processor ran at 1.023 MHz. it had 4k RAM.Apple 1 supported display (normally a TV set at that time) with frame rate of 60.05 Hz, could support 40 characters per line at 24 lines, with automatic scrolling.

Apple 1 Display

Hackers completely off the hook | Playstation 3 gets its share of jailbreak!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Whizard) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:54:00 +0000

For those who are joining this party late , this is already a party in full swing.PS3 got hacked , patched by Sony , then hacked again. This all started sometime back around April this year and by our own genius -George Hotz (also known as Geohot ) ,the same person who gave us blackra1n the jailbreak for iphones/ipod touch ….

“thats a pretty secure system … Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.” - George Hotz

George Hotz

Yes that’s true …once an invincible system…Playstation3 is now modchipped...and is playing all the homebrew softwares and all the games you backed up on your external hard disks (Check out my next blog on how to take game backups in Playstation3 ).

Latest Playstation 3 comes with firmware v 3.5

Now lets see what are the available jailbreaks for playstation 3.

USB Dongles: There is a whole slew of USB dongles claiming a plug n play type of usability. PS Jailbreaker being the first of the lot comes now in just 20$.there are others with price range of 25-35$ .Most of them do the job just right, at least up to firmware v3.1. Though newer dongles claim to jailbreak firmware V3.41 and 3.5 but it is not clear how many of them will really do the job. (PSGroove and PSFreedom work with v3.5 firmware).

These USB dongles do not support new firmware versions (3.41 & 3.5)

This nice little video gives a quick USB dongle installation walkthrough

Jailbreak with IPhone / IPod Touch / IPad : It seems there is no end to what an Iphone/Ipod touch can do.It plays music,plays videos,displays images,runs cool games,runs all sort of apps and now it can be used in jailbreaking playstation 3.Process of jailbreaking with Iphone is not that simple , one needs fair amount of experience in dealing with apps like openssh , openiboot , vmware and jailbreaking iphone itself with blackra1n. In my next few blogs , I ll write about how to do it but for now here is video which shows what exactly can be done with a jailbroken iphone.

Jailbreaking PS3 with Android mobiles / with Calculators !!! This is insane , but very true. One can jailbreak PS3 firmaware V3.41 and even 3.5 with a calculator !! Here is a proof..

Few words of wisdom – If you have your Playstation 3 with firmware 3.1 or lower ,just be happy and don’t jump blindly into upgrading to a newer version of firmware just for the sake of doing it.Do it if you really need to do it. Older versions of firmware are in a better place when it comes to jailbreaking and it always takes some time to bring jailbreaks for newer versions.

Jailbreaking is easy with USB dongles and it does not voids any warranty from Sony (though its not legal) as it works only when you have USB dongle attached to your playstation 3. The time you take out the USB dongle your PS3 comes back to its earlier state. This is also true for most of the others methods involving PSgroove and PSfreedom , just check out the specific details before trying any method.

If you are wondering about anything related to jailbreaking PS3..just shoot your question below in comment section. Happy Gaming J