Tech Updates

Distilled Water

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:15:00 +0000

Software Industry is one of the few industries that had grown enormously in the last decade. A unique set of health disorders of people also associate with this industry. They vary from minor posture issues to major paralysis issues. A simple way to solve them is drinking pure water. Yes, majority of disorders occur due to lack of exercise or chronic mind pressures. A walk from the desk to water dispenser provides a much needed break and exercise to move other organs. Even my organization has distilled water in every corner of the floor. The most best of all is that, it is a T6 water dispenser. It is a complete cost effective, time and space saving office water dispenser solution, offering instant filtered boiling, hot and chilled water from a modern, intelligent stylish unit. Every time I see T6, I say to myself “Thanks for saving me from all disorders”.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of PayPerPost.com

Want to watch DVD movies in HD?

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 22:29:00 +0000

The impact of movies on society has been enormous and it had been like that for a long period of time. For example, rewind back 30 years and take some random movies released on that year. Let the movies be of any genre. How they can tell about the living conditions at that time? Well, consider the following facts.

A blockbuster or cult movie wouldn’t have succeeded without its dialogues. If a film’s dialogues were at length and revolutionary, it means the state of that society is not stable. Audiences of those movies would be at end of their youth and feeling the responsibility in them. An epic or love movie wouldn’t have succeeded without its music. Even silence would have been the best music in those movies. Emotional bursts and real life scenes would have raged the pulse of youth. They form the major audience for those movies.

Many of us associate movies with our state of life at that period. The feeling a movie would impact varies from simple emotions to strong emotions. The common complaint would be with the quality of the video and now HD has become the hot favourite. There are a lot of Video editors available but using the imtoo DVD ripper will make life more simple and easy! It rips dvd's to more than 150 formats available and you can play it even on your iPhone, XBOX and Blackberry! Its not only available on windows but also on the Mac platform. Here you go - DVD ripper MAC. In addition to this, there is also a Video converter for Mac that rips dvds to various video formats like avi and mpeg. It allows some editing too. So why waiting, Feeling nostalgic now, go ahead, grab your favorite movie. Enjoy the movie and enjoy the feel!

Another perspective of PHP as a programming language

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 21:24:00 +0000

Learning PHP wouldn’t be that difficult for beginners, if they have some prior exposure to other programming languages like C, C++ or Java. Most of the coding paradigms like conditional structures. Loop blocks are very similar to that of other high level languages. PHP runs with most of the webservers and run in many top operating systems.

Ever since PHP is projected as a main stream programming language, it has been considered mainly for developing dynamic web pages. Apart from web applications, PHP is a strong contender for developing standalone applications also. PHP-GTK is a combination of PHP with Gimp Tool Kit (GTK) framework that enables development of standalone UI applications without the need of any webserver. Even more interesting, PHP scripts can also be used for embedded applications development. Unbelievable!, have a look here.

Recent releases of PHP also include support for object oriented programming. PHP provides many inbuilt libraries as reuse components and new libraries are imported easily. These libraries improve the robustness and flexibility of the language. This enables new developers to focus on the application logic rather than worrying about the functionalities. Having good knowledge of the available libraries enables rapid development of applications.

Google to block data from Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 22:48:00 +0000

Google Inc will begin blocking Facebook and other Web services from accessing its users' information, highlighting an intensifying rivalry between the two Internet giants.

Google will no longer let other services automatically import its users' email contact data for their own purposes, unless the information flows both ways. It accused Facebook in particular of siphoning up Google contact data, without allowing for the automatic import and export of Facebook users' information.

Facebook, with more than 500 million users, relies on email services such as Google's Gmail to help new users find friends already on the network. When a person joins, they are asked to import their Gmail contact list into the social network service. Facebook then tells the user which email contacts are also on the social network.

In a statement, Google said websites such as Facebook "leave users in a data dead end." Facebook did not immediately provide a comment on Friday.

While Google framed the move as an attempt to protect its users' ability to retain control of their personal data on the Internet, analysts said the move underscored the battle between Google, the world's largest search engine, and Facebook, the dominant Internet social network.

"The fundamental power dynamic on the Web today is this emerging conflict between Facebook and Google," said Gartner analyst Ray Valdes. "Google needs to evolve to become a big player in the social Web and it hasn't been able to do that."

"If people do search within Facebook, if they do email within Facebook, if they do instant messaging within Facebook, all of these will chip away at Google's properties."

Reciprocity
Google said that while it makes it easy for other Web services to automatically import a user's contact data, Facebook was not reciprocating.

"We have decided to change our approach slightly to reflect the fact that users often aren't aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook, they are effectively trapped," Google said in an emailed statement.

"We will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users' Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites," Google said.

Some technology blogs were reporting that Facebook still appeared to be allowing users to import their Google Gmail contacts into Facebook as of mid-day Friday.

A Google spokesman told Reuters that the company had begun enforcing the new rules "gradually."

Google also stressed that users will still be able to manually download their contacts to their computers in "an open, machine-readable format" which can then be imported into any Web service.

Google has coveted the wealth of information that Facebook's half-billion users generate and amass. Having access to that data could be especially valuable to Google, whose business model is based on allowing its users to find any information anywhere on the Web.

"Google is trying to use the leverage that it has to get as much access to the Facebook social graph (network of friends and interests) that it can, so it can provide the best search function that it can," said Wedbush Securities analyst Lou Kerner. "The more data Google has access to the better its search results are going to be."

Last month, Facebook announced a deal with Microsoft Corp allowing Facebook information -- such as Web pages that Facebook users have endorsed by clicking on "like" buttons -- to appear within Microsoft search results.

Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in September the company would add social "layers" to many of its existing Web products in the coming months, following its less-than-stellar track record of developing stand-alone social networking products like Orkut and the recently shuttered Wave service.

Google also has acquired a slew of small social networking companies in recent months, including Slide and social payment company Jambool.

Gartner's Valdes said access to the explosion of new types of data generated by Web services, such as location-based services, would provide further flashpoints between Google and Facebook.

"It's one skirmish among many to come," said Valdes.

Google's shares closed Friday's regular session down 81 cents at $625.08.

Google sues US govt for favouring Microsoft

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Google has filed suit against the US government claiming the terms for a large Department of the Interior contract favour rival Microsoft.

The lawsuit was filed by Google and Onix Networking Corp, a reseller of Google products, in the US Court of Federal Claims.

Google argues that the terms of the bid for an email, calendar and document collaboration system for some 88,000 Interior Department employees implicitly rule out a Google product and favor one from software giant Microsoft.

The company is promoting its Internet-based suite of office tools, Google Apps, for the contract over Microsoft's solution.

It said it was told there would be a "full and open competition" for the contract but the bid request "specified that only the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal could be proposed."

Google said it was bringing suit on the grounds "that such specification is unduly restrictive of competition" and in violation of US law.

The Internet giant said it was told its product was "not compliant with (Interior Department) security requirements," but that is not the case.

Google announced in September that three million businesses and more than 30 million people are using Google Apps, which are hosted on the Internet "cloud" as services on demand.

Google Apps include products or services such as Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs and are seen as the Mountain View, California company's challenge to Microsoft's popular Office software.

The Wall Street Journal said the Department of the Interior contract is estimated to be worth $58 million over five years.

How are Alexa's traffic rankings determined?

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:40:00 +0000

Alexa's traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users and data collected from other, diverse sources over a rolling 3 month period. A site's ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview. The site with the highest combination of users and pageviews is ranked #1.

Alexa's traffic rankings are for top level domains only (e.g. domain.com). We do not provide separate rankings for subpages within a domain (e.g. http://www.domain.com/subpage.html) or subdomains (e.g. subdomain.domain.com) unless we are able to automatically identify them as personal home pages or blogs, like those hosted on Geocities and Tripod. If a site is identified as a personal home page or blog, its traffic ranking will have an asterisk (*) next to it: Personal Page Avg. Traffic Rank: 3,456*. Personal pages are ranked on the same scale as a regular domain, so a personal page ranked 3,456* is the 3,456th most popular page among Alexa users.

20 Ways to Increase your Alexa Rank

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:15:00 +0000

Here is a collection of methods you can use to boost your Alexa Rank. Most of these tips are derived from several fellow webmasters who claimed to have derived positive results through their experiments with the Alexa Rankings.

To increase your Alexa rank in the long run, I would highly recommended that one focus on developing quality content which attracts and maintains a large audience instead of purely focusing on artificially increasing your Alexa Rank.

Great link-worthy content will leads to an natural increase in site traffic and is an excellent way to passively increase your Alexa rank.

It is important to emphasize that you should devote most of your efforts in growing your site audience alongside integrated implementation of any of the following tips below.

Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the most basic step.
Put up an Alexa rank widget on your website. I did this a few days ago and receive a fair amount of clicks every day. According to some, each click counts as a visit even if the toolbar is not used by the visitor.
Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar. This includes friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers. Be sure to link to Alexa’s full explanation of their toolbar and tracking system so your readers know what installing the toolbar or extension entails.
Work in an Office or own a company? Get the Alexa toolbar or SS Firefox extension installed on all computers and set your website as the homepage for all browsers. Perhaps it will be useful to note that this may work only when dynamic or different IPs are used.
Get friends to review and rate your Alexa website profile. Not entirely sure of its impact on rankings but it might help in some way.
Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking.
Flaunt your URL in webmaster forums. Webmasters usually have the toolbar installed. You’ll get webmasters to visit your website and offer useful feedback. It’s also a good way to give back to the community if you have useful articles to share with others.
Write content that is related to webmasters. This can fall in the category of domaining and SEO, two fields in which most webmasters will have the Alexa toolbar installed. Promote your content on social networking websites and webmaster forums.
Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?karthicknk.blogspot.com . Replace doshdosh.com with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will count a unique IP address once a day so clicking it multiple times won’t help. There is no official proof that redirects positively benefit your Alexa Rank, so use with caution.
Post in Asian social networking websites or forums. Some webmasters have suggested that East Asian web users are big Alexa toolbar fans, judging by the presence of several Asia-based websites in the Alexa Top 500. I suggest trying this only if you have the time or capacity to do so.
Create a webmaster tools section on your website. This is a magnet for webmasters who will often revisit your website to gain access to the tools. Aaron Wall’s webpage on SEOTools is a very good example.
Get Dugg or Stumbled. This usually brings massive numbers of visitors to your website and the sheer amount will have a positive impact on your Alexa Rank. Naturally, you’ll need to develop link worthy material.
Use PayperClick Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in Traffic. Doubly useful when your ad is highly relevant to webmasters.
Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa. This acts as an easily accessible resource for webmasters or casual search visitors while helping you rank in the search engines.
Optimize your popular posts. Got a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines? Include a widget/graph at the bottom of the post, link to your Alexa post or use Alexa redirection on your internal URLs.
Buy banners and links for traffic from webmaster forums and websites. A prominent and well displayed ad will drive lots of webmaster traffic to your website, which can significantly boost your rank.
Hire forum posters to pimp your website. Either buy signatures in webmaster forums or promote specific articles or material in your website on a regular basis. You can easily find posters for hire in Digital Point and other webmaster forums.
Pay Cybercafe owners to install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as the homepage for all their computers. This might be difficult to arrange and isn’t really a viable solution for most. I’m keeping this one in because some have suggested that it does work.
Use MySpace . This is a little shady so I don’t recommended it unless you’re really interested in artificially inflating your Alexa Rank. Use visually attractive pictures or banners and link them to your redirected Alexa URL. This will be most effective if your website has content that is actually relevant to the MySpace Crowd.
Try Alexa auto-surfs. Do they work? Maybe for brand new sites. I think they are mostly suitable for new websites with a very poor Alexa rank. Note that there be problems when you try to use auto surfs alongside contextual ads like Adsense. They aren’t also long term solutions to improving your Alexa Rank so I suggest using with caution.

How 100 mn Facebook users' info got leaked

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 05:30:00 +0000

The man who harvested and published the personal details of 100 million Facebook users has said that he only disclosed what was already public information.

Ron Bowes, a security consultant, used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user's privacy settings.

The list, which contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile, name and unique ID, has been shared as a downloadable file. Bowes said that he did it as part of his work on a security tool.

"I'm a developer for the Nmap Security Scanner and one of our recent tools is called Ncrack," the BBC quoted him as saying. "It is designed to test password policies of organisations by using brute force attacks; in other words, guessing every username and password combination," he added.

By downloading the data from Facebook, and compiling a user's first initial and surname, he made a list of the most common probable usernames to use in the tool.

In theory, researchers could then combine this list with a catalogue of the most commonly used passwords to test the security of sites. Similar techniques could be used by criminals for more nefarious means.

Bowes said his original plan was to "collect a good list of human names that could be used for these tests.” "Once I had the data, though, I realised that it could be of interest to the community if I released it, so I did," he added.

Bowes confirmed that all the data he harvested was already publicly available but acknowledged that if anyone now changed their privacy settings, their information would still be accessible.

"If 100,000 Facebook users decide that they no longer want to be in Facebook's directory, I would still have their name and URL but it would no longer, technically, be public," he said.

Bowes said that collecting the data was in no way irresponsible and likened it to a telephone directory. "All I've done is compile public information into a nice format for statistical analysis," he said

In a statement, Facebook confirmed that the information in the list was already freely available online. "No private data is available or has been compromised," the statement added.

Bowes supported the view by adding that harvesting this data highlighted the possible risks users put themselves in. "I am of the belief that, if I can do something then there are about 1,000 bad guys that can do it too. For that reason, I believe in open disclosure of issues like this, especially when there's minimal potential for anybody to get hurt.

"Since this is already public information, I see very little harm in disclosing it," he said Facebook has a default setting for privacy that makes some user information publicly available. People have to make a conscious choice to opt-out of the defaults.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

How hackers snoop on private web browsing

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Experts have identified how their web browser's 'private mode' setting is also vulnerable to hackers.

Most web browsers offer a private mode, intended to leave no trace of surfing history on the computer.

But Collin Jackson at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues, have found ways to detect which sites were visited with the mode enabled.

Even if private browsing is enabled, details relating to the key remain stored on the computer's hard drive, allowing a hacker to establish that a particular site had been visited.

A hacker could "guess what sites you've been to based on traces left behind," New Scientist quoted Jackson as saying.

These attacks on privacy "do not require a great deal of technical sophistication and could easily be built into forensics tools," he added.

However, Rik Ferguson -- a UK-based security researcher at Trend Micro of Tokyo, Japan -- says that any attacker with the knowledge to exploit the weaknesses would probably look to other attacks first, which may yield more detailed information.

"If someone is capable of tracking your browsing habits in this way, then they are probably also tech-savvy enough to know about commercial spyware which could much more effectively track your computer use," says Ferguson.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Get the New Rupee Symbol On Your PC

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:47:00 +0000

With India announcing a new symbol for its currency - Rupee, people have been working overtime to bring it to the next obvious place your PC.

A Mangalore based company Foradian Technologies has already made a new font available for users who would like to use the new Rupee symbol on their computers. While the sign may take time to be adopted by Unicode, that doesn't mean you should not be using the font all the while.

The font, available for download here. Foradian has also posted instructions as to how the Rupee symbol can be used in your computer for various applications including MS Excel, Lotus Notes, Silverlight, Blend and Visual Studio. They even have versions for Linux and Mac users.

Foraadian's posterous blog has all the details you need to use the new Rupee symbol on your PC.

Get Unlimited Web Hosting for just $10

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:49:00 +0000

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Nexx Online. All opinions are 100% mine.

Can you believe that a site is offering you one full year of UNLIMITED web hosting and one free .COM domain name for only $10...??? Sound's unbelievable..huh? But there's actually a web-hosting company based in North America, Nexx Online, Inc., that offers Unlimited Web Hosting and a free dot-com domain all for just $10. Literally speaking, this plan is far better than all those existing web hosting plans offered by various companies till date.

The plan also offers a lot more features that includes Unlimited Diskspace, Bandwidth and E-mail, One-Click Wordpress and Blog installations. It also includes an easy to use control panel which allows users to install popular open source apps like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and Zen Cart at the click of a button. It gives us $50 Google Adwords Credits and $50 Facebook Ads Credits which is really essential in driving traffic to your site. Its clustered server technology, allows proper resource allocation at all times so customers’ websites will never go down or slow down.

I am sure with this great and affordable deal, you can easily establish and grow your web presence. Above all the features Nexx offers us, what's more exciting is that there's a 30-day money back guarantee, which means, if you are not satisfied with the Quality of Service offered by Nexx, you could get your money refunded.

Do not forget to use the promotional code SPARK10 when subscribing to Nexx to get the $10.00 deal. Good luck!

Don't buy Apple iPhone 4: Consumer Reports

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:45:00 +0000

Consumer Reports said it cannot recommend Apple's iPhone 4 to buyers after tests confirmed the device's well-publicised reception glitches.

It added that that AT&T Inc, the exclusive mobile phone carrier for the iPhone 4, was not necessarily the main culprit.

The influential nonprofit organisation, which publishes guides on everything from cars to TVs, said in a report that it also tested other phones -- including the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre -- and found none had the signal-loss problems of Apple's latest iPhone.

The report was the latest blow to the iPhone 4, which sold 1.7 million units in its first three days on the market but has been plagued by complaints of poor reception. Many of the complaints involve a wraparound antenna whose signal strength is said to be affected if touched in a certain way.

Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said he was surprised by the stance that Consumer Reports took on the new iPhone. Wu noted that the group's recommendations are used as a guide by many consumers.

"Consumer reports is a respected publication. This could have an impact on iPhone sales," Wu said. Apple shares were down 1 per cent at $257.06 on Monday afternoon on the Nasdaq.

The company has been sued by iPhone customers in at least three complaints related to antenna problems. "When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side -- an easy thing, especially for lefties -- the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal," contributor Mike Gikas said in a report on the Consumer Reports website.

"Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that 'mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength,'" Gikas said.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Gikas recommended covering the gap in the wraparound antenna with duct tape or some other non-conductive material. Apple has said almost any cellphone will suffer a loss of signal if held in certain ways. It said later it had discovered a software glitch that overstates signal strength, though it did not directly address concerns about the antenna with that admission.

On the flip side, Consumer Reports said the iPhone scored high on other testing grounds such as battery life, sharp display and high-quality video camera.

However, Gikas said the signal problem was the reason the iPhone 4 would not be classified as a "recommended" device in its smartphone ratings.

"Apple needs to come out with a permanent -- and free -- fix to the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone4," said Gikas in his blog post on ConsumerReports.org.

Google remains at risk in China

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:49:00 +0000

China’s government confirmed that it renewed Google Inc’s Internet license, after the US company’s local venture pledged to allow its Web content to be supervised by regulators, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Beijing Guxiang Information Technology Co, operator of Google’s China website, has undertaken to comply with Chinese law and provide no law-breaking content, Xinhua reported, citing an unidentified official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Getting the go-ahead gives Google, which disclosed China’s decision to renew its license last week, a chance to win search share lost to market leader Baidu Inc and woo advertisers put off by the company’s half-year dispute with the government. Some Google operations were in jeopardy as it balked at censorship rules that require companies to filter Web content.

Google was surprised by how quickly China renewed the company’s Internet-services license, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a July 9 interview. There were no formal negotiations between Google and Chinese officials over the decision, a person familiar with the matter said.

China renewed the license through 2012, and officials will revisit the decision annually. China’s government can still use its authority to yank the license if it deems Google’s compliance wanting, said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Caris & Co. in San Francisco.

‘At risk’
“Google remains at risk in China,” Aggarwal said. “Chinese regulators gave them a back door.”

Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, went public with its dispute in January, saying it was no longer willing to comply with China’s filtering regulations.

“We look forward to continuing to provide Web search and local products to our users in China,” the company said on its July 9 blog. Spokeswoman Jessica Powell declined to say whether China had imposed any conditions on renewing the permit.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, won approval after changing the way it handled search requests. After closing its Chinese search engine in March, it had been automatically redirecting users to its unfiltered site in Hong Kong. To allay officials’ concerns, Google added an extra hurdle for Chinese Web surfers, directing them to a landing page that in turn pointed them to the Hong Kong site.

To go for HD set-top box or not?

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:33:00 +0000

Watch out before you go for that high definition (HD) DTH set-top box. Even as DTH companies gear up for relaying content in high definition, the content backing it is very little.

Only two channels -- Discovery and National Geographic -- are available in HD. While Essel Group channels -- Zee TV and Zee Cinema -- are available only with Dish TV, ESPN has only two properties, the ongoing Fifa World Cup and Wimbledon, currently available for HD broadcast, and that too with select DTH operators.
Leading players such as Dish TV, Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, Sun Direct are marketing HD set-top boxes.

“There is no demand for HD content from broadcasters,” says Nikhil Alva, MD of Miditech, the country’s third-largest production house that supplies content to many major TV channels.

“Also, the number of high-definition television sets in the country is miniscule. Transmitting HD is significantly more expensive for channels, so it is not a priority for them. Also our analog cable networks that supply content to the majority of C&S homes is already too clogged with channels to deliver HD content. For now, HD is a niche phenomenon and largely a marketing gimmick,” Alva adds.

Even DTH players admit that sale of HD set-top boxes will take some time. “The numbers on HD set-top boxes will be low,” says Salil Kapoor, COO, Dish TV.

Only 503 Microsoft Kins Sold?

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:35:00 +0000

Barely days after Microsoft s (in)famous Kin disaster wherein the company had to take the not-so-difficult decision of scrapping the entire project, here comes a shocker. According to one rumour, Microsoft, in all actuality, sold a total of just 503 Kins. That s including both the handsets.

While the 503 figure does seem unrealistic, this is what is the number claimed by John Gruber of Daring Fireballs who in turn claims to have heard it from an unnamed source from Microsoft. There is a different twist to the story as well with Pocketnow pointing out another interesting stat. Pocketnow noted that the Kin, being a social networking handset, came with a Facebook application. The interesting thing about this app is that this app is specific only to the Kin and using it one can actually see the number of monthly active users of the application. Since this app can only be used on a Kin, a rough estimate of the number of Kins out there can be guessed by the number of users that are connected to Facebook using it. This number is way off the 503 mark and is somewhere close to the 8,000 mark. Having said that, even 8,000 isn't such an awe inspiring number but heck, it is anytime better than the 503 figure we first heard.

Kin One

In a different twist to the story, according to Business Insider, the fact that even Microsoft employees weren't particularly impressed or hopeful about the Kin is somewhat evident from the sentiments from the blog posts at Mini Microsoft, a blog of sorts where Microsoft employees rant about their problems. The blog has interesting quotes from people who are either current Microsoft employees or had worked for the company and left it as well, looking for greener pastures. A former Danger employee (Microsoft took over Danger) calls Microsoft a "dysfunctional organization where decisions were made by politics rather than logic". Another person commented, "I for one can't believe that no one has been axed over the Kin debacle. Billions of dollars were wasted, not to mention all of the smart people over there who spent 3 years with no return on the investment."

Kin Two

With the kind of things going on at Microsoft, looks like it is going to have a big task at hand ensuring Windows Phone 7 doesn't end up like the Kin.

Capture 3D Images with New Sony Cyber-shots

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Sony has announced three new digital point and shoot cameras - WX5, TX9, and T99 with HD video shooting capabilities. The all new Cyber-shot WX5 and TX9 boast the capability of shooting 1080i HD movie. The new T99 digital camera is capable of shooting 720p HD video. The most interesting part is that WX5 and TX9 features Exmor R sensor that boasts of Super Auto mode. These new cameras would be available by mid-September this year.

This well deserved refresh for Sony's point and shoot cameras comes in the middle of the year. All new cameras come with BIONZ processor. New Cyber-shot DSC-WX5 and DSC-TX9 come with a 12.2 megapixel EXMOR CMOS sensor that brings Super Auto mode capturing high-speed burst of up to six frames at the press of the shutter button. Settings get optimized as per the shooting conditions.

For the first time, Sony introduces 3D image capturing capability in point and shoot cameras with 3D Sweet Panorama that lets clicking images in press-and-sweep motion. The Sweet Multi-Angle shoots high-speed burst of fifteen frames to create 3D style image of the subject from different angles. The camera also has built-in sensors to detect side to side movement of camera after the image is shot to show the multi-angle views.

These 3D images can be obviously viewed on 3D TVs but Sony's Multi-Angle view enables watching it on normal 2D TV too. The difference between WX5 and TX9 is that the former has 5x Optical zoom supporting Sony G Lens while the latter sports 4x optical zoom supporting Carl Zeiss lens.

Snorkeling enthusiasts can make the best out of TX9's Underwater Sweep Panorama for amazing underwater photos. As mentioned earlier, both WX5 and TX9 are capable of shooting AVCHD 1920x1080 (1080i) full HD video in MP4 format. The TX9 features Background Defocus that simulates the depth of field.

All new T99 features 14.1 megapixel image sensor with 4x Optical Zoom offering Carl Zeiss lens. Sony packs almost all features in T99 but most importantly, this digital camera comes with Sweep Panorama including Underwater Sweep Panorama. This budget friendly digital camera also supports 720p HD video recording at 30 frames per second in MP4 format.

Pricing of the new Cyber-shot cameras:

DSC-WX5: $300 (Rs. 14,100 approx.) - available in Black, Silver, Brown, Gold and Violet
DSC-TX9: $400 (Rs. 18,800 approx.) - available in Dark Grey, Gold and Red
DSC-T99: $250 (Rs. 11,700 approx.) - available in Black, Silver, Pink, Green and Gold

Mozilla Releases Firefox 4.0 Beta

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:54:00 +0000

Mozilla has released the first beta of its Firefox 4.0 web browser based on the Gecko 2.0 Web platform layout engine. Obviously, all the add-ons you've been using with the Firefox 3.7 version won't work on with the new Firefox 4.0 beta. This new 4.0 beta version of the web browser mainly revamps the looks and brings a sizeable number of features that include WebM video format and HTML5 support.

The first noticeable feature of this new Firefox 4.0 beta is that all tabs would be visible on the top. However, this is visible for Windows based OS users only. We believe that the visual delight would slowly appear for the Linux and Mac OS X versions of the web browser when the final build of Firefox 4.0 releases. The new significant features included in the Firefox 4.0 beta are:

* Add-ons Manager: More space to efficiently manage your favorite add-ons, plugins and themes.
* HD Video: The future WebM format is supported and promises HD-quality hardware accelerated HTML5 video on the web.
* HTML5 Support: Better HTML parsing, support for HTML5 form controls and also runs the latest web apps based on HTML5 such as Google's Gmail and Yahoo's Mail interface for the mobile phones.
* Full WebGL support for in-browser 3D rendering.

Apart from these features, the new Firefox 4.0 beta also promises performance improvement and the necessary security improvements to protect browser history.

Download the Firefox 4.0 beta for Windows, Linux or Mac OS X from here.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade Prices Slashed

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:44:00 +0000

Microsoft India has lowered the price of Xbox 360 Arcade gaming console for the Indian audience. The Xbox 360 Arcade console price was introduced for Rs. 16,990 last year in June. Now, the price of Xbox 360 Arcade has been dropped to Rs. 14,676. Apparently, this price cut doesn't apply to special bundles.

Xbox 360 Arcade is a bare bones version of the gaming console that comes with Xbox 360 Wireless Controller, standard AV cable, an Xbox LIVE Arcade Compilation Disc that includes 5 Arcade games and 256MB Memory Unit. We aren't sure as of now whether 512MB internal memory unit loaded Arcade SKUs are available in India.

Do note that Kinect for Xbox 360, the controller free gaming device, would be usable with this Arcade model via a special adapter cable. But that will be taken care of when Kinect is announced for India.

The price cut on Xbox 360 Arcade is effective immediately so if you have been planning to buy one, now is a good time.

Some File Extensions You Need To Know

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:06:00 +0000

File Extension Part
PART is a Partially Downloaded File, a file extension used primarily by Internet download managers, programs designed to speed up and handle multiple downloads. These download managers work on the principle that smaller files take less time to transfer than large ones. The download manager takes one or more files from the Internet and breaks them into smaller data chunks, and then when all of the data chunks have been downloaded, the download manager converts them back into one file again.

File Extension JAD
JAD stands for Java Application Descriptor. This file extension describes java applications, which are distributed as JAR files. JAD is specifically a decompiler of Java as it reads class files that belong to Java as well, subsequently converting them to Java source files available to be compiled once again. JAD file extension is purely a C++ program that works faster than decompilers that have been written in Java. JAD files are used to package Java games or applications that can be downloaded onto mobile phones.

File extension ITHMB
File extension ITHMB falls under the category of image or media files and is a creation of the Apple Inc company. The ITHMB files are utilized by the Apple iPOD and are made up of four images of different resolutions that have been designed to be displayed on a variety of screen sizes. A file extension ITHMB is most commonly a picture files which are in a thumbnail format that is specific to the iPOD. They cannot be read by regular photo programs. When a thumbnail is clicked on, the images are then displayed.

Airtel Brings Free Facebook Access

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:56:00 +0000

Airtel has announced that it will offer free access to the mobile version of Facebook on its network. The company, which has a subscriber base of over 130 million will offer free access for a period of two months ending August 31.

The mobile version of the site enables users to post status updates, comment and write on walls, message others, and also be able to view or upload photos.

For existing mobile Internet customers on Airtel, there is no need to do anything - they can immediately start connecting with their friends by visiting the Facebook mobile site. Those who are accessing the mobile Internet for the first time need to SMS 'FACEBOOK' to 54321 to take advantage of this offer.

Airtel will also offer Facebook in six Indian languages - Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam, initiating with Hindi and English.

Looks like Airtel customers who are Facebook fans have a lot to rejoice!

IBM to employees: Use Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:29:00 +0000

Technology giant IBM wants its workers around the world to use free, open-source Mozilla Firefox as their window into the Internet.

"Any employee who is not now using Firefox will be strongly encouraged to use it as their default browser," IBM executive Bob Sutor said yesterday in a blog post at his sutor.com website.

"While other browsers have come and gone, Firefox is now the gold standard for what an open, secure, and standards-compliant browser should be."

Making Firefox the default browser means that workers' computers will automatically use that software to access the Internet unless commanded to do differently.

All new computers for IBM employees will have Firefox installed and the global company "will continue to strongly encourage our vendors who have browser-based software to fully support Firefox," according to Sutor.

New York State-based IBM, known by the nickname "Big Blue," has a corporate history dating back a century and now reportedly has nearly 400,000 workers.

"Today we already have thousands of employees using it on Linux, Mac, and Windows laptops and desktops, but we're going to be adding thousands more users to the rolls," Sutor said.

Sutor is the vice president of open source and Linux at IBM, which launched an Open Source Initiative in 1998.
Open-source software is essentially treated as public property, with improvements made by any shared with all. Firefox is the second most popular Web browser in an increasingly competitive market dominated by Internet Explorer software by Microsoft.

Google Chrome has been steadily gaining market share, last week replacing Apple Safari as the third most popular Web browser in the United States.

"We'll continue to see this or that browser be faster or introduce new features, but then another will come along and be better still, including Firefox," Sutor said.

"I think it was Firefox and its growth that reinvigorated the browser market as well as the web. That is, Firefox forced competitors to respond."

Govt threatens to ban BlackBerry, Skype

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:10:00 +0000

India has given Internet telephony pioneer Skype and the makers of BlackBerry handsets a deadline to fall into line with strict security-monitoring regulations or be blocked, a report said.

India's intelligence officials have long complained that they are unable to decipher encrypted data sent on Blackberry handsets, made by Canadian firm Research In Motion, or intercept calls on Skype.

The government has threatened to ban or block BlackBerry and Skype services if the companies fail to adhere to a 15-day deadline to make data available in formats that can be monitored, a leading business newspaper said.

Google has been asked to ensure emails on its Gmail service can be deciphered, though no deadline has been issued, the paper said.

"The latest development indicates that security agencies are again finding it difficult to intercept or decipher messages sent through BlackBerry phones," the paper said.

The Indian telecommunications ministry was unable to comment when contacted by AFP.

India, which faces a strengthening home-grown Maoist insurgency and constant threats from Islamist groups, is highly sensitive about the potential risks of technology.

The government has been restricting imports from Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers because of Indian intelligence agency fears that "spyware" could be embedded in the equipment.

It has also restricted the use of mobile phones in violence-wracked Indian Kashmir, where pay-as-you-go phones and the use of text messages have been curtailed. The area is a hotbed of anti-India activity.

Samsung mobile offers 67-day standby time!

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:21:00 +0000

Korean giant Samsung has unveiled a rugged phone called Samsung Xcover E2370 which offers a standby time of 67 days.

This means the phone's battery can last upto 2 months (1,600 hours) in a standby mode, or upto 22 hours in talktime mode.

The phone features a 128×160 pixel TFT display, packs a 5MB internal memory and a VGA camera.

Other key features include Bluetooth, GSM/EDGE connectivity, music player, flashlight with a dedicated button and a microSD slot for upto 2GB memory expansion.

The phone is certified with IP54 rating which means it can withstand dust and water.

Now enjoy HD Webcam streaming on your Skype

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:05:00 +0000

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Google building Facebook rival

noreply@blogger.com (Karthick N) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Web world is abuzz with rumours that Google's Facebook rival is in works. The rumour mill began churning after Digg founder Kevin Rose posted a tweet last weekend (saturday to be precise), saying, "Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon 'Google Me,' very credible source."

Wondering how Google Me will really work? Experts believe that Google already has almost 30 different social properties that it has acquired or built including YouTube, Picassa, Google Profiles, Google Docs, Google Friends Connect and Google Latitude. So, the company largely has almost every component that it requires to built a Facebook killer. All it needs to do is a bit of organisation and create a common platform for all these networks.

However, so far Google is still to get a hit in the social networking space. Orkut, one of the pioneers in social network, today has little following except in Brazil and India. More recently, the company made another foray into social networking arena with Google Buzz, which aims to upgrade Gmail into a social networking hub from just an e-mail service. However, the service has been relegating to more of a Web 2.0 sharing tool than a social networking hub.

Several analysts also wonder if Google would really risk waging a full-scale war against Facebook, which has seen its fortunes soar in the past year.

Writes eWeek's Clint Boulton, "Google challenging Facebook in social is like Facebook challenging Google in search," he writes. "People are comfortable socializing on Facebook, which is where their friends (and their friends of friends are) and they are comfortable searching on Google, which is where all of the data about businesses, places and other facts live. Unless and until there are technological improvements on both sides, paired with practical user behavior shifts from consumers, never the twain shall meet."

While analysts may continue to debate the issue, the rumour has been further fanned by Adam D’Angelo, former Facebook CTO and now founder of Q&A service Quora (on Quora only).

Here's what Angelo wrote on Quora.

* This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.

* They realized that Buzz wasn't enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook.

* Unlike previous attempts (before Buzz at least), this is a high-priority project within Google.

* They had assumed that Facebook's growth would slow as it grew, and that Facebook wouldn't be able to have too much leverage over them, but then it just didn't stop, and now they are really scared.