iTech

Atlast 3G and 4G Technology available in Pakistan

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 00:43:00 +0500

Long awaited next-generation telecommunications licences 3G and 4G will now available for public of Pakistan, Pakistan raises $1.2 billion with 3G and 4G license auction. Government sold 4 license of 3G service and 1 for 4G connection, although one 4G license still on pending to auction.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in January predict of raising atleast $2 billion from both spectrum auction. To boos Pakistan's floundering economy, these were necessary measures.

Population of more than 180 million of country where more than 132 million mobile phone subscribers exist but has lagged behind its neighbors in setting up 3G and 4G. But no more waiting now, Both will be available soon.

The final bids for the 3G licenses totalled $902.82 million, while the 4G license went to Zong for the reserve price of $210 million.

"After this auction, not only 132 million subscribers but the whole Pakistani nation has taken the road of progress," Rashid Khan.

The successful bidders for 3G services were Zong (China Mobile), Telenor( Norway), Mobilink (Russian) and Ufone, (Pakistani government). where as 4G won by one and only Zong (China Mobile) company.

Zong will begin 3G services in the cities of Lahore and Karachi immediately, said by Sikanadar Naqi, a Zong advisor.

A study by the UK-based Plum consultancy in August last year said 3G could boost Pakistan´s GDP by between 380 billion and 1,180 billion rupees ($3.8 billion to $11.8 billion) by 2020.Up to 900,000 extra jobs could be created and between 23 billion and 70 billion rupees in additional tax revenue generated by 3G, the Plum report said.

Futuristic Technology Designed by a Pakistani, inspired from a hollywood movie

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 23:17:00 +0500

Inspired from the Steven Spielberg film "Minority Report", A pakistani young entrepreneur design the futuristic technology.

A scene from film Minority Report

In 2002, famous director Steven Spielberg directed a Sci-fi movie named "Minority Report",The overall theme of movie was to able to protecting citizens by preventing crime before he/she commit the crime.
While watching the film, inventor Farhan Masood realized he could design the futuristic technology. And he went on to create a successful multi-national company called SoloMetrics.

Farhan Masood

Masood, an engineer whose work was recognized by the MIT Enterprise Forum in 2012, is known as the originator of the Arabic, Urdu and Persian languages on the Internet.

Now SoloMetrics is partnering with Mace(R) brand to provide innovative technology and services that produce the next generation of safety and security products. The joint venture, named SoloMace, will significantly enhance the Mace(R) brand line of personal defense products and increase its range of law enforcement products.
"This partnership will create unprecedented opportunities in the area of security," said John J. McCann, president and CEO of Mace Security International.

Testing Solometric

SoloMetrics is a Chicago-based research and development company that invents and assembles technologies addressing gaps in security and access control, time and attendance, business process automation and location-based tracking systems.

Under the newly announced partnership, SoloMetrics will work alongside Mace Security International, its partners and customers to create integrated, automated and intelligent products and solutions. SoloMetrics will utilize its arsenal of patent pending hardware and software technologies including biometrics, complex pattern and gestures recognition, augmented reality and big data.
Mace(R) plans to launch SoloMace in the summer of 2014.
"This will transform what it means to protect yourself and engage law enforcement in new ways," McCann said.
Carter Kennedy, interim CEO at SoloMetrics, said, "Our alliance with Mace(R) brings together technology and protection. It creates a security blanket for people who could be in threatening circumstances."

Mace(R) brand (OTCPINK: MACE) is a manufacturer and provider of personal defense, safety and electronic security products for home, school, business and law enforcement use. The company provides site assessment and integrated security strategies, ranging from pepper spray devices to electronic surveillance and rapid response rescue networks. Mace(R) brand has been a source of non-lethal solutions since 1970.

SOURCE : Mace Security International

What’s new in WordPress 3.8

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 23:44:00 +0500

A new released of WordPress 3.8 in December focused on improving the user interface for WordPress admin with a lot of visual improvements. Here we will show you what’s new in WordPress 3.8 and how you can try some of these features right away.

There are already plenty of proposed features for WordPress 3.8 available for testing and development purposes as plugins. However, since most of them are highly experimental, it is not
recommended to use them on a production site.

User Interface For WordPress Admin & MP6 Plugin

The User Interface team at WordPress has recently presented a new but secret idea about how the admin interface can be reshaped. They shared this idea in the form of a plugin which is code-named MP6. The goal of MP6 is to rethink the WordPress user interface by simplifying it.It is official now.

The current default admin interface comes with only two default color schemes but MP6 improved admin user interface with flattened icons and beautiful color schemes. You can choose a color scheme from Users » Profile.

New Live Previews of Themes

Themes screen of new WordPress has not much text. It brought theme experience plugin (codename Thx38) into core. This will transform the theme screens in WordPress admin area. It has larger theme screenshots and a clutter free user interface. Theme search is moved to the top right corner of the screen. To try this as a plugin on WordPress 3.7 or earlier, you would need to install MP6 plugin first.

New Lighter Dashboard

The dashboard also become lighter in WordPress 3.8. Dashboard will have fewer and more relevant widgets.
For example, the incoming links widget will be removed. ‘Right now’ widget will be replaced by ‘Activity’ widget. QuickPress on the dashboard screen will be renamed to Quick Draft and will be much simpler.

An Easier Widget Area Chooser

Widgets allows theme developers to build themes with multiple widget ready areas, so the users can create their own website layouts.It's easier way for users to drag-drop elements into their sidebars and other widget ready areas. With multiple widget ready areas and tons of widgets to choose from, sometimes it becomes difficult to drag and drop a widget into the right sidebar but WordPress 3.8 has solved this problem with new User Interface for the widgets screen. The new Widgets screen will allow users to easily choose the sidebar they want to add a widget to without dragging it across different sidebars. The new widget interface will be cleaner, clutter free, and visually appealing.

New Default Twenty Fourteen Theme

Twenty Fourteen will be the new default theme for next year which is expected to be released in WordPress 3.8. It is a magazine style theme with support for featured content to be prominently displayed across the site. If your site does not use featured images, Twenty Fourteen makes sure that it looks pretty out of the box without featured images as well.

Turn your mobile into a 3D camera

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 14:19:00 +0500

An app named Seene let the user to use an iPhone into a 3D camera and lets users view images simply by moving their phone or mouse.

A sample image captured via Seene

Application is created by London base firm Obvious Engineering.

How it works
It takes a series of pictures and maps them onto to the model to give the effect of 3D.
Once created, the images can either be viewed on a phone or a PC, where moving the mouse causes them to change perspective.
When a Seene is created, a series of dots appear on the images, showing the perspective points the app can see to build its 3D model - the more there are, the better.
It then asks a user to take a series of photos of the subject by moving the phone around.

These images are then mapped onto the model, creating the seene.
When a user moves their phone, it appears that they look around the object.
The vision startup, based in London, aims 'to help smart devices to better connect with and understand the world that they see,' which is free from the App Store.

Take a series of photos using the app to make a person in a photo look 3D

Download | Seene , Offical Site

Crazy Windows Phone 8

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:13:00 +0500

The Lumia 900 sold me on Windows Phone. The 900 is a marriage of fresh hardware with a fun operating system. I dig the Start Screen with the Live Tiles. There are some shortcomings. The camera sucks, to be sure, and the phone isn’t yet available on Verizon. Plus, after using the phone for several weeks, it was clear that the phone’s large screen is wasted on Windows Phone 7.5. It’s more of the same concerning the 900′s HTC cousin, the Titan II. Microsoft clearly agrees.

Full disclaimer: I haven’t touched a Windows Phone 8 device yet. That said, it’s hard to look at the several dozen screen shots and demo videos from today’s event and not be excited about the future of Windows Phone 8. Yes, it’s a busy interface. But my oh my the new Start Screen is – if I may – a clusterfuck of goodness.

Windows had some cojones releasing Windows 7 some 18 months ago. It was totally different. It lacked key features. It had poor hardware and carrier support. But clearly ignoring analysts, pundits and ignorant bloggers, Redmond kept at it, steadily releasing updates that solve current issues while introducing new features.

The current release, Windows 7.5, is a solid mobile platform worthy of serious consideration. Admittedly, it’s not necessarily better than Android or iOS, but rather different in key ways that make it special. And now with Windows Phone 8, and in the interim, Windows Phone 7.8, the core system might actually be better than its competitors.

The new Start Screen that will debut on some current devices with Windows Phone 7.8. The Live Tiles are now customizable, allowing owners to completely reshape their Start Screen in a grid of application shortcuts. What’s more, an upcoming SDK will allow app developers to utilize this ability and craft their respective Live Tile for different sizes and functions.

This evolution matches the industry’s trend of supersized phone screens. Why have a relatively standard grid of Live Tiles when there is so much screen real estate on new phones? Short answer: With Windows Phone 7.8 and 8, you don’t have to!

Microsoft is allowing phone owners to totally customize their phone in ways not possible with iOS and Android. All iPhones look the same but no Windows Phone 8 device will look like any other. For better or worse, this organized chaos is a result of a philosophy that has always centered around users getting tasks down quickly. The New Start Screen is just the next step towards this goal – and it’s totally fresh.

Microsoft pulled out all the stops on today’s Windows Phone 8 event. Plus, this was just a preview of the Windows Phone 8 and 7.8. More info will come later. It was a media bonanza complete with pre-briefings and the like. Microsoft is clearly proud of its new baby and wanted to show it off — just like it did two days back with the Surface unveiling. It’s also clear that Microsoft has found a new swagger. Microsoft might be back.

street lamp can hear, see and bark at you

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:34:00 +0500

America welcomes a new brand of smart street lightning systems: energy-efficient, long-lasting, complete with LED screens to show ads. They can also spy on citizens in a way George Orwell would not have imagined in his worst nightmare.

With a price tag of $3,000+ apiece, according to an ABC report, the street lights are now being rolled out in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh, and may soon mushroom all across the country.

Part of the Intellistreets systems made by the company Illuminating Concepts, they have a number of “homeland security applications” attached.

Each has a microprocessor “essentially similar to an iPhone,” capable of wireless communication. Each can capture images and count people for the police through a digital camera, record conversations of passers-by and even give voice commands thanks to a built-in speaker.

Ron Harwood, president and founder of Illuminating Concepts, says he eyed the creation of such a system after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He is “working with Homeland Security” to deliver his dream of making people “more informed and safer.”

“The system represents Big Brother on steroids,” commented the website InfoWars.com, which sees Intellistreets as a major threat to privacy. courtesy | Rt..com

South Korea’s new robotic prison guards

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:41:00 +0500

With incarceration rates on the rise, South Korea's latest robotic endeavor seeks to alleviate stress on overworked prison guards.

A prison in Pohang, South Korea has begun its first field trial of the world’s first robotic prison guards – roving, autonomous patrols that vaguely resemble a cross between Johnny 5 and a Zamboni. Equipped with 3D depth cameras, a two-way wireless communication system, and software capable of recognizing certain human behavior patterns, the 5-foot-tall bots keep a cycloptic eye out for trouble while patrolling the corridors of the prison block. The “guard” is designed to conduct self-directed patrols, guided by navigation tags located along corridor ceilings, but is supervised by a human guard and may be controlled via iPad. The pattern recognition algorithms focus on behavior that signals trouble and can alert controllers. In emergency scenarios, such as an impending suicide attempt, assault, or arson, correctional officers may respond. If the situation is less dire, two-way cameras and microphones can allow control center guards to communicate directly with restive prisoners, heading off an escalation in hijinks. At the moment, the design of the robot itself does not incorporate any features that would involve physical interaction with prisoners, alleviating previous reservations of inmates, who seemed concerned with the possibility of being roughly handled by the machines.

The robot was developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections in concert with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and manufacturer SMEC and costs 1 billion Korean won, or about $879,000 per unit. Steep price tag notwithstanding, prison authorities are optimistic that, if effective, the robots will eventually result in a cutting of labor costs. With over 10.1 million people incarcerated worldwide, they see the implementation of robotic guards as the future of penal institution security. “The purpose of developing this kind of robot is to secure prisoners’ life and safety and decrease the workload of correctional officers in a poor working environment,” said AFC Chairman Lee Baik Chul in an interview with Reuters. For their part, the designers say that the next step would be to incorporate functionality capable of conducting body searches, though they admit that this is still a ways off presumably to sighs of relief from prisoners.

The project, which was first publicized last November, was organized by South Korea’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy, which has been investing heavily in robotic development. In February, the MKE stated that the Korean robot market had grown by 75 percent over the previous two years, citing its present value at 1.78 trillion won or $1.56 billion. In 2010, following the escalation in tensions between itself and neighboring North Korea, South Korea deployed a number of armed sentry robots along the Demilitarized Zone at the 38^th parallel, the border between the two countries. Robots have also been used in education as English-speaking teaching assistants, and private firms in the country hope to begin selling robots that aid in elder care before the end of the decade. The ministry said it will continue its efforts to boost robot demand both locally and abroad by investing 22.4 billion won this year.

Couretsy | digitaltrends

Video credit: Reuters

U.S. House Passes Controversial CISPA Cybersecurity Bill 248 To 168

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:37:00 +0500

This afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) by a vote of 248 to168. Unlike SOPA, which focused on copyright violations, CISPA wants to give Internet companies and the U.S. government the tools to protect and defend themselves against cyber attacks by sharing information with each other. Critics, however, argued that this information sharing would be happening with very little oversight and would put Americans’ privacy rights at risk.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), an outspoken critic of the bill, argued that the bill would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity. Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on.”

Even though this bill has now passed the House, chances are that it will not get through the Senate. On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement condemning the bill and on Wednesday, President Obama threatened to veto the legislation because it “fails to provide authorities to ensure that the nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected while repealing important provisions” of long-established privacy law.

Critics, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that the current version of this bill is basically a major violation of established privacy rights and would allow companies to hand anything and everything you do and say online over to the government in the name of “cybersecurity.”

Proponents of the bill, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.),argue that the bill is “needed to prepare for countries like Iran and North Korea so that they don’t do something catastrophic to our networks here in America.”

An earlier provision in the bill that would have given Homeland Security more authority to monitor the Internet was dropped before the bill (PDF) passed. In return, though, a number of last-minute amendments, including one that expands the list of reasons for which shared information can be used. While the bill still allows for Internet companies to hand over confidential customer information to U.S. security and intelligence agencies, as well as local low enforcement services, it is worth noting that it does not require them to do so.

Google’s First Dead Loss Product Ever :But Sold on Profit

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:34:00 +0500

Google's SkechUp is actually Google’s first divestment ever, according to two sources, and we’re hearing the search giant made a profit, as it sold SketchUp for more than it bought it for back in 2006.

It wasn’t that SketchUp wasn’t working. It had 30 million activations since joining Google as part of Last Software in March 2006. But it just didn’t fit with the direction Google is heading in. It’s a relatively nice product for architects and the construction industry, game developers, and film makers. It doesn’t fit with Google+ that is last year launched, or this years plan to simplify everyone’s lives.

This could signal a sea change in how Larry Page executes his vision for a leaner, more focused Google. The company frequently shuts down extraneous products, but that requires redistribution of their team members internally. If it’s now willing to sell them instead, Google could streamline around the theme of making user’ lives more convenient, while making some money at the same time

So rather than sink it in the deadpool, Google sold it to someone that can actually use Trimble, a mapping, surveying, and navigation equipment company. Analysts speculated that Google paid $45 million for SketchUp in 2006. As Trimble called the acquisition of the product “immaterial”, and therefore less than 5% of its annual revenue, it couldn’t have paid more that $90 million for it. That would mean Google could have made up to $45 million in profit on the sale, though its likely closer to a few million.

US$1 Billion company within 2 years

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:21:00 +0500

Most famous social network website 'facebook' announce to buy smart fone picture transfer application service 'instagram' in US$1 billion. Facebook announce to pay the payment in cash.
Instagram was publicise in October 2010.earlier this app was made for iPhone but from previous weeks
,this app has also been launch for android phones.
Facbook founder Mark Zuckerberg decide to make this instagram service as seprate brand to compete with other competitors.

According to Zuckerberg "This is an important initiative for facebook,because we have bought first time that kind of application ,who had already alot of users".

Instagram is a free application,which provide 17 filters to use on pictures.Instagram is one of the most famous service used by users,and according to instagram there daily users are 30 million ,who are uploading more than 50 lac pictures daily.

Google :Sci-Fi Glasses

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 20:38:00 +0500

Google's new project ,we can say a remarkable improvement in Science and technology achievement.We’re more than a quarter of the way through 2012, and as you may have noticed, we have failed to acquire silver jumpsuits or jetpacks.
In fact, aside from that headset in your ear, smartphone in your pocket and tablet in your purse, everything is looking quite boringly un-futuristic.But if Google has its way, we will start wearing some very science fiction-like glasses by year’s end.

The search giant’s research arm launched a Google+ page Wednesday for Project Glass, its augmented reality glasses project. The page revealed that Google researchers have started testing the glasses, with an Android-run heads-up display, that the New York Times suggested Google will start to sell this year for roughly the cost of a regular smartphone.

The page also contains one of those “here’s what the future will look like” videos, to explain the concept better than words can. Check it out:

Cleverly, the video’s first-person point of view dodges one of the main problems with the glasses — that you may look kind of dumb wearing them. The pictures shared on the page all show largely glass-free frames with what appears to be a projector on one side.

Think of a kind of monocular Geordi LaForge, and you’re almost there.

But it’s the look of the thing that appears to be what the researchers are interested in getting your feedback on. “We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input,” reads the post from Google X employees including Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thrun. “What would you like to see from Project Glass?” courtesy | meshable

Free Visit Museums Around the world

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Wed, 4 Apr 2012 23:35:00 +0500

Acropolis Museum Collection

Now you can see world's famous Museums without travelling thousands of kilometres and spending thousands of dollars,'Google art Project' providing reality environment to the viewers to visit famous museums of countries including Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

By following Google street view technology, Google offers its user to view museum in 360 degree and the exited things is they can be viewed at gigapixel zoom. The project has been launched in Pinacoteca museum in Brazil.
The project started with 17 galleries in Feb 2011 and now features 151 museums around the globe
Visit http://www.googleartproject.com to enjoy viewing rare things around the world.

Total surveillance:Can not hide your self ?

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:04:00 +0500

Ever evolving high-tech gadgets and the Internet have given Big Brother a peep hole into the lives of everyday Americans. Now, without the hassle of planting bugs or breaking and entering, the government can monitor virtually anything it wantsThe CIA has recently claimed it would be able to “read” devices such as dishwashers or refrigerators, with the Internet – and perhaps even with radio waves from outside the home.

The US intelligence officials say that by 2020, up to 100-billion of these ordinary devices could be wired to the internet, just as PCs and cell phones are now.

The CIA Director David Petraeus had previously painted a picture of America’s dystopian freefall when describing the emergence of “The internet of things.”

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters – all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said earlier this month.

The digital data trail of every American will soon be connected to a massive mainframe in Utah, as construction of a$2 billion data center for the US national security agency is said to be underway. The complex will reportedly be able to collect, analyze and store all forms of personal communication, including online purchases, cell phone calls, Google searches and yes, private messages.

“They’re actually looking at de-encrypting all the data that comes out. For example, when you use gmail, all your emails are encrypted by default,” says Amie Stepanovich from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “The NSA Center is designed around building systems that will de-encrypt that data and remove any protection you could put on to it.”

And if the biggest-ever data complex or refrigerators connected to the Internet are a matter of the not too distant future, some “control” technologies are already being used.

“You’re walking down the street and the camera that takes a picture of you is able to compare it, through facial mapping, is able to compare it to your driver’s license photo, or some other photo, and say alright you were on the corner of Baxter and Canal at three o’clock on Thursday. Ok, we have another camera shot. You were on the corner of 47th and 8th at three o’clock, last Saturday,” says Steve Rambam, private investigator and the founder and CEO of Pallorium, Inc., a licensed Investigative Agency.

In addition to facial recognition technology, New York City’s police department is just one of many law enforcement agencies that also require citizens to undergo an iris scan before being released from police custody.

In the past six months, iris scans have been used on hundreds of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrators placed under arrest, as many activists can attest.

“They really don’t tell you why. They just say it’s another form of identification. and it’s really creepy to have someone holding up some machine to your face and you have no idea, not only the health effects of it, but what their larger purpose of using it is for,” says OWS Activist Christina Gonzales, who was arrested during demonstrations.

Iris scans are like a high-tech finger print, but much faster. Officials can quickly identify anyone whose unique scan is on a database.

So, if biometrics, robotic spies and state surveillance were the makings of a sci-fi flick staring Tom Cruise a mere decade ago, many scenes from the Hollywood blockbuster “Minority report” have arguably become an American reality today – with life ominously imitating art. courtesy | RT News

Impossible Software Do Impossible Things With Your Video

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:29:00 +0500

Impossible Software has been building its product for a little while now. Founded 2008, its concentrated on real-time video, especially placing images and video into other videos. What do I mean here? I mean putting products into video that were never there in the first place: product placement. Yes, this has been done before, but I’m going to lay a bet you’ve not seen stuff like this.

The simplest way of explaining what they do is for you to try out the demos here

What’s new here is that the company is now fully releasing itself and the complete product suite and and API to the market with some big name customers. Everything is built 100% HTML 5, so it works on your iPad, Browser – something no other company has done before. A consumer version will drop soon.

First up, have you ever seen a TechCrunch video sponsored by Coke? No? Well we just went back and re-did it, selecting from a number of possible brands. Click on the image and try it out:

The company already has a US office and co-founder Claus Zimmermann will leave partner Torsten Appel to start an office in New York City to complement offices in Hamburg and Boston. The company is 9 super geeks strong.

The core technology is about dynamic video, real-time video and video editing, across all devices. Invested in by Cinco Capital – the investment vehicle owned by Lars Hinrichs (founder of Xing) – and Corporate Finance Partners, the company has raised only $2 million to date.

There are four main business areas and audiences: Video Advertising Technology; Commercial / OEM users / API users; Semi-Professionals and finally Consumers.

A demo of the first is the ad technology. Check out this ad campaign for shoe retailer deichmann.com. The platform generates video spots dynamically featuring the products a user selects on retailer’s website. It’s slick, though I wouldn’t say groundbreaking. Then again, Impossible says there are 2.16 million possible product complications, so maybe fairly slick.

Impossible has a B2B play as a SaaS service. So for instance, seambi.com has used it like this:

For consumers and semi-professionals, soon there will be HTML5 web based video editing applications. I’m told it will be comparable to WeVideo, but no Flash, just HTML5 based so it will be usable on tablets or desktop browsers.

The applications range from point-and-click personalized video greeting card creation to simple video editing to more professional post-production tools.

We’ve demo’d it and it’s pretty cool. You just mark a certain corner of the video and images or video are just inserted automagically. This is very hard to do in a mere Web App.

It will be interesting to see what Impossible comes up with when it launches its consumer facing app.

Courtesy | techcrunch.com

Apple’s iPhone 5

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:53:00 +0500

Apple was reportedly gearing up to begin production on the iPhone 5. A source from within China’s Foxconn manufacturing plant told 9 to 5 Mac that various different sample iPhone prototypes were floating around the floor, but there were a number of common features among the phones, including displays that measure at least 4 inches, and longer and wider form factors that do not match that of the iPhone 4 or 4S. The iPhone 5 will reportedly retain the rectangular shape of its predecessors, which would put to bed rumors of a thinner teardrop shape.

Previous reports have said the Apple iPhone 5 will feature an improved version of Siri, the voice-activated AI system that was only released as a beta in the iPhone 4S, as well as a bigger screen. Last November, Hitachi and Sony reportedly began shipping 4-inch LCD panels for final production of “new iOS devices” believed to be the next-generation iPhone. Upgrading the iPhone’s 3.5-inch screen to a 4-inch display would require a rebuilt Retina Display, but a bigger screen would help Apple compete against phone makers that make bigger screens, such as Samsung, while also providing a more immersive iPhone experience.

Before Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S on Oct. 4, the Internet was flooded with photos of a thin, large-screen iPhone 4. The photos were widely believed to be doctored until one Chinese site discovered “mold engineerings” of an iPhone 4 with a noticeably larger screen. The renderings depicted an edge-to-edge design for the iPhone’s screen, which looked to measure about 3.7 inches. Component industry trackers believed that the images represented Apple’s wish to compete with rival devices with bigger screens.

Apple wants its next generation of mobile devices to look beautiful, and the company is reportedly working on giving its devices greater pixel density. Bigger screens with more pixels in the Retina Display mean higher resolution for watching movies and viewing detailed images, from PDFs to X-rays to MRIs to 3D architectural renderings. Even text will appear rich and razor-sharp. While the new iPad doubles the pixel density of the iPad 2, it’s likely that Apple would reconfigure the iPhone’s Retina Display, not only to feature more pixels, but also to match a slightly bigger screen. Apple fans and users would benefit from a bigger and more beautiful Retina Display, but this switch could force app developers to learn an entirely new way to write their iOS software.

Given that the new iPad is also the first iDevice to feature LTE, it’s a near-certainty that the high-speed network will also come to the next iPhone. Apple originally hoped to include LTE in the iPhone 4S, but Tim Cook nixed that idea, as “first generation LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises.” Apple would have needed to increase the phone’s thickness to accommodate a larger circuit board and a bigger battery, as it did in the new iPad.

“The iPhone 4 PCB [printed circuit board] is already incredibly small, not leaving any room for an extra chip to enable LTE without shrinking the size of the battery,” said Anand Shimpi, a chip expert and CEO of Anandtech.

Fortunately, Qualcomm recently unveiled the fifth iteration of its new chip, which supports TD-SCDMA, TD-LTE, HSPA+, EV-DO, embedded GPS, and LTE on TDD and FDD networks worldwide. The chip works with Android and Windows 8 devices, but by targeting so many different carriers, there’s a high degree of likelihood that this will be the same chip inside the iPhone 5.

The fall could be a busy season for Apple, which could release the iPhone 5 alongside a smaller, 8-inch iPad, which is also expected to debut in October. The original report from Apple’s Taiwanese supply chain was later confirmed by The Wall Street Journal, which said Apple is working on an 8-inch iPad.

On Jan. 24, Cook released Apple’s record-breaking Q1 2012 earnings, announcing $46.33 billion in overall earnings, $13.1 billion in profit and $17.5 billion in cash for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, 2011. In the last 14 weeks of the year, Apple sold 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” Cook said. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

courtesy | sananews

Intelligence Agency (NSA) links with Google

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:30:00 +0500

Wondering if the US government’s shadowy security agents are working behind the scenes with the biggest entity on the Internet? Don’t hold your breath waiting — one advocacy group has to take Uncle Sam to court for an answer.The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, is suing the United States National Security Agency to find out the truth behind any partnership between the NSA and Google, the Silicon Valley giants behind the Web’s most popular search engine and a laundry list of other online applications and services.
EPIC has been asking for information on an alleged alliance since 2010, but with the NSA refusing to submit to Freedom of Information Act requests, the US District Court of Appeals will hear arguments later this month that the advocacy group hopes will mean that they will soon learn the truth regarding whether or not the two are in cahoots.

In February 2010, DC-based non-profit group EPIC filed a FOIA request with the NSA as reports were unearthed suggesting that the government’s security group was hammering out a deal with Google on the topic of cybersecurity. EPIC was curious at the time about any correspondence between the parties that could concrete rumors of a relationship and filed the necessary paperwork to obtain materials. Although the NSA responded that March, the agency did so by saying that they could neither confirm nor deny any partnership between the two. For failing to disclose information pursuant with the FOIA request, EPIC took NSA to US District Court last July, only for US District Judge Richard Leon to stand with the government and further reject EPIC’s requests.

More than two years after filing their first FOIA request, EPIC and the NSA will face off again this month when the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit will hear arguments on March 20. EPIC is hoping to have Judge Leon’s 2011 decision overruled, in turn approving the non-profit’s motion for summary judgment.

Although the last court ruling granted the NSA the motion for summary judgment that has kept them from having to disclose any documents, EPIC now says that the NSA cannot be entitled to summary judgment when it neglected to even search for the materials requested. “Without first conducting the search, not even the agency can know whether there is a factual basis for its legal position. The decision of the District Court should be reversed and the case remanded with an order requiring the agency to conduct the search for responsive records,” writes EPIC.

EPIC’s attorneys drafted and published their oral arguments in January and will present them before a three-person panel of appeals judges later this month. It will be then in a DC court that they will argue that the NSA is required to conduct a search for responsive agency records before the agency can flatly opine they can neither confirm or deny any partnership, an explanation referred to in legal circles as a Glomar response. Following the initial request from 2010, the NASA invoked Exemption 3 of the Freedom of Information Act to defer acknowledging any assistance — or lack thereof — of NSA records pertinent to the request. EPIC was quick to fire back, however, filing an administrative appeal that May stating that the NSA had failed to provide evidence that the materials in question warranted a response on par with what the agency provided.

In explaining their case now, EPIC’s attorneys write that “The Glomar response is appropriate where ‘to confirm or deny the existence of records … would cause harm cognizable under a FOIA exception.’” On the contrary, argues EPIC, “The NSA has failed to meet this standard and has failed to perform the segregability analysis required by statute to determine whether non-exempt records may be released.”

“The NSA asserted Glomar, a narrow doctrine for a special category for records, without ever searching for any responsive records within the agency’s possession, without ever attempting to identify materials that could be disclosed, without even creating a record that would allow appellant or the court to evaluate the agency’s position on an agency activity that is widely report in the national media, acknowledged by the former director of the agency, and impacts the interests of millions of Internet users. The agency’s position is contrary to FOIA and prevailing case law,”adds EPIC.

Over their lack of cooperation and assistance in the inquiry, EPIC charges that “While the agency may choose to assert several statutory exemptions if it wishes to withheld records in its possession, acknowledging the existence of unsolicited third-party e-mails sent to the NSA does not reveal any information about the NSA’s functions and activities. Moreover, if records in possession of the agency reveal activities that fall outside of the agency’s proper functions and activities, these too would be subject to disclosure under the FOIA.”

In appealing, EPIC quotes US President Barack Obama, who announced on his first full day in office that FOIA requests “should be administrated with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails.” Although Obama campaigned with the promise of creating an administration more transparent than any other in history, watchdog groups such as EPIC continue to be locked out of FOIA request and whistleblowers, including PFC Bradley Manning and WikiLeak’s Julian Assange, are prosecuted and shunned by the federal government.

EPIC also argues that the NSA has been responsive to FOIA requests in the past, which adds to the intrigue over a possible government-Google alliance. “This Court has never granted the broad authority that the NSA seeks in this case, to issue a Glomar response without conducting a search for responsive records, particularly when the agency itself has put so much information about the subject matter of the request in the public record,” claims EPIC.

Calling into question any conspiring between the search engine giants and the government, EPIC adds, “Google provides cloud-based services to consumers, not critical infrastructure services to the government.”

Despite an array of violations identified by the Securities and Exchanges Commission, Google has repeatedly been left off the hook by the federal government with merely a slap on the wrist. Earlier this month, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom attacked the partnership between Silicon Valley’s private sector and the US federal government for allowing Google to walk over copyright infringement charges while the alleged file-sharing kingpin could end up behind bars for life for similar crimes.

“I'm not Google. I don't have 50 billion dollars in my account and right now I've not a penny on my account. All my lawyers currently are basically working without a penny and they are all still on board and all still doing their job because what they see here is unfair, is unreasonable and is not justice,” Dotcom told New Zealand’s 3news, adding he felt the persecution was “political.” Courtesy | RT NEws

Translates your voice into another language

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 01:17:00 +0500

Travelling and unable to speak the local language? No se preocupe (don't worry)! Microsoft researchers have developed a program that will recognize and record your voice then translate it into another language for you.

Let’s face it, unless you’ve learned another language growing up, learning a second language can be pretty difficult later in life. Thankfully the nimble minds at Microsoft know this and are currently underway developing software that would learn the sound of your voice, and translate it into another language.

According to a recent article in MIT’s Technology Review, Microsoft researchers are plugging away at new speech recognition technology that could one day allow travelers the ability to communicate in other languages they don’t speak fluently. Additionally, the software is being designed to help language tutoring software more user friendly.

So how does it work? According to the team’s research the program would operate in three steps: first the program would begin by recognizing your speech in whatever language you spoke in, second it would translate this speech, and finally, once translated, output the speech into another language. The program would even be able to retain your voice – meaning you wouldn’t sound like a traveling automaton.

According to Microsoft researchers the program is said to require about an hour of training, which when compared to the months, even years, it takes to master a language the traditional way is practically nothing. We imagine a program like this would have wide-ranging applications, least of which would make it easier to communicate among languages as well as begin to remove some of the existing language barriers through the use of advanced technology.

Currently, the program is able to convert between a total of 26 different languages including Spanish, Italian, English, and Mandarin Chinese. No word yet, though on when this technology will be available to consumers, but we imagine it will be later rather than sooner. Voice recognition programs can be pretty tricky – we all know how well Siri understands what we say – so although this will certainly prove revolutionary, we wont be throwing away our Rosetta Stone DVDs just yet. courtesy | digitrend

The Pirate Bay under police raid threat

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 01:04:00 +0500

Law enforcement in Sweden is reportedly planning to put more heat on The Pirate Bay.

It’s not easy being enemy number one in the fight against online piracy. This is a lesson The Pirate Bay has known for years. But it may soon face increased hassle, in the form of a visit from police. The Pirate Bay tells Torrentfreak that it has received information from tipsters that law enforcement authorities in Sweden, where The Pirate Bay is officially based, are preparing another raid on the popular file-sharing site.

According to The Pirate Bay team, Swedish authorities have obtained warrants, and have enlisted two well-known anti-piracy prosecutors, Frederick Ingblad and Henrik Rasmusson, to lead in the case against The Pirate Bay.

“The Swedish district attorney Fredrik Ingblad initiated a new investigation into The Pirate Bay back in 2010. Information has been leaked to us every now and then by multiple sources, almost on a regular basis. It’s an interesting read,” writes The Pirate Bay on its blog.

The last time The Pirate Bay was raided, in 2006, officers failed to shut down the torrent site, but managed to gather information that was later used to convict the site’s founders.

Now, however, The Pirate Bay crew says they are more than prepared to deal with snoop-happy law enforcement.

“TPB is set up in a very special way to make sure that it will stay up. This means that no one really knows exactly where the servers are, but we’ve made sure to stay out of the United States of Arrogance and some other countries where the governments do not like free speech.” writes The Pirate Bay.

“The only box someone could find is the one in the front, that needs to be public. We have multiple of those, scattered like diarrhea around the world. They contain no storage device, no graphics card. Only a network cable, a cpu and memory. Being nice people, we’ve put small easters egg into each box though, for the hard work put into finding that public machine! Nothing dangerous though, just funny.”

In February, The Pirate Bay change its website to a .se domain, from a .org domain, because .org domains are controlled by the United States, and can be shut down at the US government’s request. The Pirate Bay says that, since its switch to a .se domain, “the investigation [against TPB] has been cranked up a notch.” Despite this legal threat, the team is not concerned. Courtesy | digitrend

Traitor in Anonymous hackers Group

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 19:38:00 +0500

Hector Xavier Monsegur,
aka Sabu, LulzSec hacker

Top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec have been arrested and charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.The FBI New York field office has confirmed the charges and said a court appearance is set for Tuesday.

The trial will be prosecuted by the US District Attorney's Office. Earlier news reports said that three of the five hackers were arrested and the other two were charged with conspiracy. The five are identified in the report as Ryan Ackroyd, aka "Kayla" and Jake Davis, aka "Topiary" from London, two residents of Ireland, Darren Martyn, aka "pwnsauce" and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, aka "palladium", and Jeremy Hammond aka "Anarchaos," from Chicago, USA. According to the FBI press release, all but Davis face charges of computer hacking conspiracy and varoious other charges. Each carries a maximum 10 year prison sentence.
One of the detained, Jeremy Hammond, is named in the report to have been the main person behind the hack on US security company Stratfor last year.
It is reported that the arrests were made possible after turning the group’s "senior leader", Hector Xavier Monsegur "Sabu", 28, who is believed to be a cooperative witness after the FBI turned him last June. Monsegur pled guilty to several charges of computer hacking conspiracy, for which he could receive a maximum of 124 years behind bars.
According to the court papers, Sabu was an "influential member of three hacking organizations – Anonymous, Internet Feds and Lulz Security – that were responsible for multiple cyber attacks on the computer systems of various businesses and governments in the United States and throughout the world." He allegedly acted as a "rooter," a computer hacker who identified vulnerabilities in the computer systems of potential victims.
Following the reports, Anonymous posted on its Twitter feed: "We are Legion. We do not have a leader nor will we ever. LulzSec was a group, but Anonymous is a movement. Groups come and go, ideas remain"
It is unclear what to expect from Anonymous in reaction to the arrests. The hacking group is known for revenge cyber attacks. After 25 Anonymous members were arrested on February 29, the group downed Interpol’s main website. The same thing happened when the CIA website became a victim of Anonymous. The group also downed several large music industry websites in responce to the shutting down of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder Kim Dotcom.
News reports have quoted several FBI officials involved with the investigation as saying "this is devastating to the organization", and claiming these arrests are "chopping off the head of LulzSec."
Anonymous were quick to reply, using their twitter AnonyNewsNet handle to say "by no means is this 'cutting the head off' of #Anonymous or 'devastating to the organization'. Do we really have to explain why?". The same account was also used to post comments about how the betrayal was not news to most of Anonymous members, as "Sabu was pegged for f*cking months as a turncoat".
The evident change is mentioned a lot and by many – including Gizmodo editor Sam Biddle, who said in his article that he personally "talked to Sabu multiple times, and on each occasion he's seemed more and more distant, to the point where it was hard to get in touch with him at all. Now, says the FBI, it's because he was busy ratting out his cadre."
The irony is painfully evident – the man who every week helped the internet community celebrate #FuckFBIFriday allegedly did so sitting at an FBI desk. But Anonymous members everywhere seem to have been united by this betrayal, rather than disheartened, as the Feds may have hoped.
Anonymous is a movement that has “resorted to direct action,” and prosecuting its members is only going to make things worse, Robert Harris, a member of the UK Pirate Party, told RT.
“I think prosecuting and locking them up will not actually cause any significant damage,” he said. “It is only going to make things worse and encourage more people to join the group.”
Anonymous and LulzSec is just a collection of people with the same beliefs without an organizational structure “in a sense you would get in a neo-political party,” Harris says. “They don’t see the [existing] democratic structures open enough for them to be able to participate with their views.”

Mozilla Tracking the trackers

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Sun, 4 Mar 2012 13:25:00 +0500

One of the most popular browser in web world, is backing an add-on which would allow the users to monitor in real-time how their actions are tracked by various websites as they surf the net.The plugin is currently under development that present the flow of information as a network of bubbles representing on various websites.
It tracks the sites which the user visits and also shows their known partners – ad companies, behavior profilers and other third parties. As surfing continues, a pattern emerges revealing that different popular sites are linked to the same data collectors, which are building up their knowledge on the user’s habits and preferences.

The ultimate goal of those companies is to identify what kind of advertising would ring a bell with each user, and then to target them accordingly.

Google’s controversial new privacy policy aims to share info on users of its various services to build more accurate advertising profiles. The policy came into effect on Thursday amid a chorus of objections from activists and officials that it violates privacy and may be illegal in some jurisdictions. Another example is Facebook, which learns about every visit to a page which has its “Like” button on it.

The amount of data collected by Google, Facebook and other players less-known to the general public is astounding. But the majority of Internet users are oblivious to this fact. Mozilla’s new add-on – called Collusion – aims to change that.

“Collusion will allow us to pull back the curtain and provide users with more information about the growing role of third parties, how data drives most Web experiences, and ultimately how little control we have over that experience and our loss of data,” says Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs in his blog.

The full version of this tool will also work together with other tools like TrackerBlock to allow users to hide from other trackers.Mozilla wants the users of Collusion to submit data on their surfing habits to build up a database on who tracks them and how it is done. It is intended for researchers, journalists and privacy activists who would monitor data-tracking practices and find possible abuse..

$1 million prize to hack Chrome

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:24:00 +0500

Google will offer prizes of $60,000, $40,000 and $20,000 – up to a total of $1 million – for demonstrating vulnerabilities in Chrome. The value of the prize will depend on whether the exploits identified have their origins solely in the Chrome, or in a combination of bugs in the browser and other software.
The IT giant Google has offered hackers a reward of up to $1 million for pinpointing vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser.The contest, called Pwnium, will be held at this year’s CanSecWest security conference on March 7, the company announced in its blog.

The prizes will be paid on a “first-come-first-served” basis. Each winner will also receive a Chromebook – a laptop computer running the Google Chrome OS operating system.

Google is offering such a massive reward so that the flaws of their web browser can be identified and vulnerabilities repaired.

This year’s Pwnium is a splinter from the annual Pwn2Own browser hacking contest held at the same conference. Google has taken part in previous years, but decided to hold a separate competition in 2012. That is because organizer Tipping Point said teams did not have to reveal the techniques they used to breach the browsers’ security.

Last year no team challenged Chrome’s code despite Google’s offering $20,000 on top of the $15,000 prize offered by the organizer. This year’s Pwnium is only offering a combination of Chrome/Windows 7 as the target for hackers. courteay | RT news

Anonymous threatens to DDOS root Internet servers

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:21:00 +0500

An upcoming campaign announced by the hacking group Anonymous directed against the Internet's core address lookup system is unlikely to cause much damage, according to one security expert.

In a warning on Pastebin, Anonymous said last Thursday it would launch an action on March 31 as part of "Operation Global Blackout" that would target the root Domain Name System (DNS) servers.

Anonymous said the attack has been planned as a protest against "our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun".

The DNS translates a Web site name, such as www.idg.com, into a numerical IP (Internet Protocol) address, which is used by computers to find the Web site.

The 13 authoritative root servers contain the master list of where other nameservers can look up an IP address for a domain name within a certain top-level domain such as ".com."

The group said it had built a "Reflective DNS Amplification DDOS" (distributed denial-of-service) tool, which causes other DNS servers to overwhelm those root servers with lots of traffic, according to the Pastebin post.

But there are several factors working against the Anonymous campaigners,wrote Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security.

"They might affect a few of the root DNS servers, but it's unlikely they could take all of them down, at least for any period of time," Graham wrote. "On the day of their planned Global Blackout, it's doubtful many people would notice."

Although there are 13 root servers, an attack on one would not affect the other 12, Graham wrote. Additionally, an attack would be less successful due to "anycasting," which allows traffic for a root server to be redirected to another server containing a replica of the same data.

There are hundreds of other servers worldwide that hold the same data as the root servers, which increase the resiliency of DNS.

ISPs also tend to cache DNS data for a while, Graham wrote. ISPs may cache data for a day or two before needing to do a fresh lookup, a time period that can be set on servers known as "time-to-live." It means that even if a root server was down, it would not necessarily immediately affect an ISP's customers.

Lastly, root DNS servers are closely watched. If trouble started, the malicious traffic to the root servers would likely be blocked, with disruptions lasting a few minutes, Graham wrote.

"Within minutes of something twitching, hundreds of Internet experts will converge to solve the problem," he wrote. courtesy | IDG News

How to speed up file transfering

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:59:00 +0500

The built-in file transfer system in Windows can be quite slow, as anyone who uses networked hard drives or moves large media files knows from painful experience. TeraCopy is a great, easy to use app that optimizes transfer speed while avoiding other pitfalls of Windows Explorer.

To get started with TeraCopy, download and install it from here.
While you can drag and drop files into TeraCopy, I prefer to right-click files and folders from within Windows Explorer and select TeraCopy... from the context menu.

Step 2: Right-click and select TeraCopy.
(Credit: Rob Lightner)
This opens TeraCopy in a new window. Click the Copy icon in the top center to switch between copying and moving files.
Select Browse... to choose a destination or choose from your recently used places.

Step 4: Select destination.
(Credit: Rob Lightner)
Once you do, TeraCopy starts the transfer. From the transfer window, you can click Always Ask to choose file replacement options. I stick with the default, but your needs may be better served with a different option.

Step 5: Transfer files.
(Credit: Rob Lightner)
Click one of the icons in the upper right to choose what TeraCopy does after finishing the transfer: Shut down entirely, eject the drive you're using, test the files, and/or simply close the window.
TeraCopy defaults to always being on top, which I find annoying, but easily remedied. Just click Menu at the bottom right, then deselect Always On Top.
From that same Menu button, you can access TeraCopy Preferences. Most of these are fine set to default, but again, your needs may be different.

Step 8: Set Preferences.
(Credit: Rob Lightner)

That's it! One of the great stealth features is that file transfers aren't aborted if there's an error, so you don't have to keep an eye on the process if you don't want to. Courtesy | Rob Lightner

PAC Pad, nBook, eBook 1 Specifications & Price

noreply@blogger.com (Information Technology) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:44:00 +0500

Pac PAD

Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Kamra (Pakistan) has launched 3 IT products in collaboration of Innavtek International Ltd (Hong Kong). This joint venture is named as CPMC (Commercial Products Manufacturing Cell). While products are being marketed with brand name of PAC (Pakistan Aeronautical Complex)

These are first ever IT products manufactured in Pakistan. Here you will find specifications, price and all other details about these IT products.

PAC nBook 1 Notebook Specifications and Price

PAC nBook 1 is especially designed keeping in view the requirements of students and professionals. User can install operating system of his choice. 160GB Hard Disk, Webcam, 1.66GHz Processor and 1GB RAM are only few features of PAC nBook1. Below are complete specifications of PAC nBook1.

Price	Rs. 25,500
CPU	Processor	Intel Atom N450 @ 1.66 GHz
	Motherboard Chipset	Intel 945GSE+NMI10
OS	DOS (Pre-installed), Windows XP and Vista, Linux
Memory	Hard Disk	160GB 5400rpm SATA HDD
	Card Reader	4 in 1 (SD/MS/MMC/MS Pro)
	RAM	1GB DDR2
Display	10.1” WXGA 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution
Camera	1MP webcam for video chat and video recording
Size	266 x 180 x 30 mm
Weight	1.2 Kg (without Battery) 1.4 Kg (with Battery)
Video Card	GMA 3150 High Performance Video Card
Wireless Wi-Fi	802.11b/g/n
USB	3 USB Interface
Keyboard	83 keys
Audio	High Definition Stereo Speaker Output Stereo Headphone Output Stereo Microphone Input
Power/Battery	Battery Time		4 Hrs.
	Power Rating		2200 mA, 65W
	Adapter		3 Pin
	Battery Type		3 Cell
Warranty	1 year

PAC Pad1 Specifications and Price

PAC Pad1 is a professional grade product. It has vibrant crisp color display. Find full details below.

Price	Rs.15,500
Processor	Processor	Arm 11 @ 1GHz
OS	Google Android 2.3
Memory	Flash Memory	2/4/8/16GB
	Memory Card	Support up to 32GB SD/TF Memory Card
	RAM	256MB
Display	7” Multi-touch Capacitive TFT Touch Screen
Camera	0.3MP
Software	MS Office (Word, Excel, Power Point) PDF Reader Thousands of Free Software/ Applications are available online
Internet	Opera, UC Web, SkyFire, Dolphin Browsers
	Supports Online Video, Online TV, Online Movie, Online Music, Online Radio
Entertainment	Audio Video Player
Games	3D Games are also supported with built-in 3D Accelerator
Size	192 x 128 x 13 mm
Weight	385g
Wireless Wi-Fi	802.11b/g
USB	USB 2.0
Battery	Music Playback		10Hrs.
	Video Playback		5Hrs
	HDMI Output		4Hrs
Miscellaneous	G-Sensor
Warranty	1 year

PAC eBook1 Specifications and Price

PAC eBook1 is a state of the art eBook Reader. You can carry as much books, audios, videos and photos with you as you want everywhere. Below are some of the key features of PAC eBook1 Reader.

Price	Rs.8,500
Memory	Micro SD Card up to 16 GB
IC	Rockchip 2738
Display	7 inches TFT Screen 800 x 480pixels resolution
Supported Formats	Text	TXT, PDF, HTM, HTML, EPUB, FB2
	Audio	MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG
	Video	AVI, MP4, 3GP, MPEG, FLV, WMA, DAT, VOB, MPG, MOV, MKV, APE, RM, RMVB
	Image	JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG
Keys	Numeric Keypad 4way Navigation Key
Size	210 x 137 x 13 mm
Weight	305g
USB	USB 2.0
Battery	Battery Type	Built-in Polymer Battery 2400mAH
	Reading Time	5Hrs
	Music Playback Time	4Hrs
	Video Playback Time	3Hrs
Warranty	1 year

PAC Display Centres

Above products are currently available only at following PAC display centres/ offices. While efforts are being made to make it available throughout Pakistan very soon.

Islamabad Head Office

House No. 220-A, Street No. 39, F-11/3, Islamabad (Ph. 051-2110482)

Rawalpindi

House No. 804, Street No. 1, Chaklala Scheme-III, Rawalpindi

Shop No. 15, Singapore Plaza, Bank Road, Saddar, Rawalpindi

Shop No. 16, Singapore Plaza, Bank Road, Saddar, Rawalpindi

Shop No. 4, Paris Plaza, Commercial Market, Rawalpindi

Shop No. 21, Paris Plaza, Commercial Market, Rawalpindi

Phone Numbers: 051-5153958, 051-5110 007

Kamra

PAC Commissary, ARF PAC Kamra

Android vs Apple

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:48:00 +0500

Motorola's Xyboard/Xoom 2 is an elegant design. It's the software that isn't so elegant. (Credit: Motorola) Comparing Apple's iPad 2 with Motorola's XyBoard and Amazon's Kindle Fire is fraught with peril. But here goes anyway.

Let me preface my review by saying that a few overzealous readers (I'm being charitable with that description) almost invariably call the writer (me) an idiot for not being as savvy and/or perceptive as they claim to be. That's par for the course. But let's get a few things straight here.

First, this isn't an official review. Like the kind you would find at CNET Reviews. Second, I don't favor one manufacturer over the other. So, let me state the obvious (though, I realize, this will never satisfy conspiracy theorists). If Product X makes what I need to do easier, then I will favor it over Product Y.

And, third, as a corollary to the above, I have personalized needs, like anyone. A graphic designer will place a very different set of demands on a tablet than I would. So, my use case doesn't necessarily apply to everyone.

That said, I have used the iPad 2, the Motorola XyBoard (aka Xoom 2), and the Amazon Kindle Fire long enough to understand their strengths and weaknesses for my particular needs.

I've had the iPad 2 for 10 months (and if you count the original iPad, that's about 22 months of iPad use). The XyBoard for about 2 months. The Amazon Kindle Fire for a little more than 2 months.

And availability addresses an important point. Apple has been making 10-inch-class consumer tablets longer than anyone. That gives Apple an advantage. Based on my own personal preference, I had to wait until Motorola came out with the second-generation Xoom to justify the purchase of a 10-inch-class Android tablet. (Motorola didn't ship its original Xoom until about a year after Apple announced the original iPad.)

So, here's my (admittedly somewhat cursory) evaluation.

Xyboard with Android 3.2 is in dire need of performance tweaking: Web browsing is probably the most basic task that anyone can ask a tablet to do. Unfortunately, the Xyboard doesn't do that basic thing well.

The stock Android browser on the Xyboard can be deceiving. In the first few weeks I used the Xyboard, Web browsing seemed fast. That's because, as it turns out, I wasn't using it for extended periods of time. In other words, when I picked up the Xyboard and played with it for 15 minutes or so--which I tended to do in the first few weeks because I couldn't immediately wean myself off the iPad that I had customized over the previous ten months--it seemed fast.

But once I started customizing the Xyboard and used it for long stretches (as I'd been doing with the iPad), it broke down.

News Web sites, which tend to have a lot of graphics, began to refresh too slowly. YouTube became very erratic: sometimes working OK (i.e., refreshing pages at acceptable speeds), sometimes not--tempting me to drop-kick the tablet across the room. Keep in mind that this is predicated on all things being equal with the iPad and Kindle Fire, i.e., not related to connectivity.

And, bizarrely, the Xyboard can't access the mobile versions of some Web sites, despite relying on a mobile browser. (Browsers like Skyfire solve this particular problem but introduce others. And Opera Mobile can be faster, but it too has its own problems.)

Even a simple thing like typing in a Web address in the stock browser can become so slow (molasses comes to mind) that you have to wonder what Motorola and/or Google were thinking. (Google, after all, is slated to become Motorola's parent company).

And it gets worse. My Xyboard, despite being announced just as Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) was being released, came with Android 3.2. And it won't get Ice Cream Sandwich until "Q3" (third quarter) of this year. If, in fact, Motorola doesn't delay the update (not unheard of in the annals of promised updates).

I don't know if ICS would solve the performance problems, but it might at least be a start.

I could go on, citing other negatives (text input), but I won't because I've covered the most serious shortcoming for me: browsing.

I want to like the Xyboard: Not only because I spent my own money but because I like the design--more than the iPad's. That was probably the single biggest reason I walked into my local Verizon store and grabbed the Xyboard.

I like the wide 10.1-inch screen and I like the way it sits in my palm (again, more than the iPad on both counts). And I like the LTE "4G" (though it doesn't work in 4G areas as consistently as I had hoped).

I also know that the Xyboard's dual-core Texas Instruments' OMAP 4430 chip with an Imagination SGX540 graphics chip has a lot more potential than Motorola and/or Google have been able to wring out of it. I know there's potential for some very snappy sustained performance, but Motorola and/or Google haven't optimized the software to enable that.

Amazon got it right with the Kindle Fire: The Kindle Fire (Android 2.3) is a much better experience. Browsing with the built-in Android browser is reliable and consistently faster than browsing on the Xyboard. E-mail works as advertised, text input is snappy, and the apps that I need work well. (And note that the Kindle Fire uses the same TI chip as the Xyboard does.)

So, how did a Web retailer create a tablet for $199 (about $500 less than what I paid for the Xyboard) that works surprisingly well for a Gen 1 product? And do a better job than a device heavyweight like Motorola? I would submit that Amazon is much more focused on fusing the software with the underlying hardware. Sound familiar? Yeah, just like Apple.

Of course, in some respects the Fire is very different from the iPad. It's smaller (7-inch screen), runs Android, and is not billed as being as versatile as the iPad. That said, as a limited-function tablet, it works surprisingly well.

And if Amazon comes out with a larger tablet as rumored, I would seriously consider it based on my experience with the current Fire.

The iPad 2 just works: Which brings us to the iPad 2. I don't have much to say because the iPad just works. On pretty much everything (browsing, e-mail, light productivity) I need it to do, the iPad delivers. In fact, it comes about as close to a productivity device as a tablet can get.

While there are some obvious limitations to extended data input, formatting, and precise image editing (among other tasks), that could change in a heartbeat.

In other words, imagine an Apple-designed hybrid tablet-laptop (think: Asus Transformer Prime as a template) running iOS. Would that render the MacBook obsolete? An interesting point to ponder as we wait for Apple's imminent iPad 3. |Courtesy: Brooke Crothers|