Tech Buzz

Facebook‘s hackthon comes to India

2012-08-16T11:07:00.000+05:30

Facebook has announced the itinerary for the 2012 Developer World HACK, which includes a stop at Bangalore. The event is a two-month-long hackathon for software developers and will be held in 12 cities across the globe.

On the official blog of the world's biggest social networking site, the company's head of developer relations James Pearce posted, "Build an Facebook app at the HACK and you could win yourself a trip to San Francisco."

The event involves an eight-hour-long competition where the developers will demonstrate their skills, with help from Facebook engineers. Topics of discussion at the event 2012 Developer World HACK include Open Graph, iOS, Android, mobile web and social games.

Developers can choose work upon their existing apps or even some new ideas. At the end of the day, team demos and awards for the best apps will be distributed and the best team from each continent will visit Facebook's office in San Francisco.

The day-long events of the 2012 Developer World HACK will be held in the following cities:

Austin, USA - August 23;
Mexico City, Mexico - August 27;
Buenos Aires, Argentina - August 29;
Sao Paulo, Brazil - August 31;
Berlin, Germany - September 11;
Taipei, Taiwan - September 11;
Jakarta, Indonesia - September 13;
Bangalore, India - September 17;
Barcelona, Spain - September 18;
Vancouver, Canada - September 20;
Warsaw, Poland — September 28;
Moscow, Russia - October 1

All Windows 8 apps will offer a try-it-before-you-buy-it feature

2012-07-22T14:26:00.003+05:30

There's nothing worse than shelling out a couple bucks on an app, only to find out that it's absolutely terrible, right? Well, Microsoft has a plan to eliminate "app regret" — when you're considering an app from the upcoming Windows 8 Store, you'll be able to try it for free for seven days before you have to shell out cash for it.

The free trial program may be a necessary tool for Microsoft to overcome the challenges posed by their house minimum: All Windows 8 apps will have a price tag of $1.49 or higher (up to $999.99). That's significantly higher than the Apple App Store's 99-cent minimum. Microsoft no doubt hopes higher sales prices will mean more revenue — after all, the company just posted their first ever net loss last quarter.

While you're able to return Android apps for a refund within 15 minutes of purchase, Microsoft is truly offering a real try-it-before-you-buy-it option. While this is no doubt exciting for future owners of Windows 8, the news may also affect other operating systems if it proves successful. After all, if the public responds favorably to a try-it-before-you-buy-it scheme, it may very well become the standard.

BSNL's Pocket Wi-Fi Router @Rs 5,800

2012-07-15T16:03:00.000+05:30

The 3G router will act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling you to connect your phone, laptop, tablet to the router.

This might be an answer to all your data connectivity issues. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) in association with Shyam Networks is planning to launch a 3G Wi-Fi pocket-sized router called Winknet MF50. It is expected that the company will be announcing the router tomorrow, which will come bundled with attractive data plans. The cost of the router is reportedly Rs 5,800. The 3G router will act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling you to connect your phone, laptop, tablet to the router. You can carry the router in your pocket and is especially useful for on the move.

The company has launched Winknet 3G dongle for Rs 1,900, which also support 2G connections. It features a download speed of 7.2Mbps and an upload speed of 5.76Mbps.

BSNL will not be the first company to launch a pocket sized Wi-Fi router. LAVA Mobiles launched a wireless router, W150, back in September 2011 followed by Kobian who launched Mercury 3G Mobile Router which could provide Wi-Fi connectivity to up to 6 devices with the push of a button.

The 3G Mobile Router is especially useful for SOHO, students and even for home use without creating a mess of cables around. The device primarily makes you pay for one device but gets a payback for six users, making it easy to share a fast mobile broadband network connection.

Google Compute Engine available for preview

2012-07-05T00:44:00.005+05:30

Over the past few years, Google has been working constantly to build some cloud based platforms and other infrastructure for third-party developers, to help them build applications and websites, provide storage, or analysis of data.

Google has already built several products that do just this, such as Google App Engine, Google Cloud Storage, and Google BigQuery. The search giant recently introduced another product to that list at Google IO, called Google Compute Engine, which is a cloud based computing engine for application developers.

Google Compute Engine will allow users to run Linux Virtual Machines (VMs) in the cloud. It gives greater flexibility and control to application developers to manage and access computing resources more fundamentally.

Meant to be a powerful and affordable solution for businessmen and application developers, Google Compute Engine helps manage and process workloads in the cloud. Google claims you can run your workloads on Google's infrastructure efficiently. It actually provides 50% more computing power & high-end performance as compared to other cloud service providers.

Google Compute Engine provides various flexible services to users. It allows you to launch the Linux Virtual Machines inside it using variety of configurations. There are various additional solutions available to manage your workloads and those solutions are developed by the Google's ecosystem partners including RightScale, OpsCode and Puppet Labs.

Deployment of your various applications is now possible on an infrastructure that provides consistent performance. You can use some of the consistently fast, core technologies to store and host your data. You can launch Linux Virtual Machines on demands with the help of 1, 2, 4 and 8 virtual cores that provides 3.75GB of RAM per virtual core.

Google Compute Engine also provides strong security to protect your online resources efficiently. You can use built-in data privacy and security capabilities that helps to protect your system from unwanted access. You can connect your Virtual Machines together using high-performance network technology. It helps to form a powerful compute clusters and to manage the Internet connectivity using configurable firewalls.

For now, Google Compute Engine is running in limited preview trial mode, and is not yet publicly open to everyone. You have to submit your request (sign up here) for gaining access to GCE, and we suggest you provide as much information as you can to get your application reviewed successfully.

Bharti Airtel launches cloud computing service

2012-07-05T00:41:00.000+05:30

Telecom major Bharti Airtel today launched cloud computing services using HP's technology to provide software and related infrastructure to business organisations on pay-per-use model.

"Cloud computing market in India is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 40 per cent by 2014. With our end-to-end telecom solutions bundled with the latest technologies like 3G and 4G, Bharti Airtel is poised to lead this space," Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoorsaid in a statement.

Through its Cloud Enablement Platform (CLEP), Bharti Airtel will offer hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) applications to the small and large enterprises on a pay-as-you-go model, it added.

In cloud computing, end users are not required to buy software or devices as they are provided by service providers on a rental basis.

HP will implement and manage Bharti's CLEP. The company said that initially it will offer business solutions like ERP ( Enterprise Resource Planning), accounting packages and storage and compute.

Going forward, the company will introduce diversify SaaS applications on the same platform especially for small and medium business customers, the statement said.

Five Reasons Why You Must Try Firefox 13

2012-07-05T00:36:00.001+05:30

If you are using any other browser, use this opportunity to try Firefox, which comes with a fresh look and absolutely exciting features. Here are five reasons why you must try Firefox 13.

Mozilla has announced the latest version of its very popular browser Firefox. Firefox 13, which has been able to generate enough excitement is finally available for download. This new version of the free and open source browser brings along some new features, which promises much better browsing experience than ever before.

If you are a Firefox user already, you may get an update soon as Mozilla now follows the process of silent update. It began with the Windows version of Firefox 12. If you are using any other browser, use this opportunity to try Firefox, which comes with a fresh look and absolutely exciting features. Here are five reasons why you must try Firefox 13.

1. Fast Speed
Mozilla introduced SPDY with Firefox 11. This feature has been enabled by default in Firefox 13. SPDY is projected as the successor of HTTP and takes lesser time for the websites to load. An official blog post on Mozilla blog says, “You will notice faster page load times on sites that support SPDY networking, like Google and Twitter.”

2. Security
Security is one of major features of this Firefox. SPDY ensures a boost in security as it encrypts each and every communication with SSL, making browsing securer than ever.

3. A Revamped Home Page
Firefox 13 brings a redesigned home page. Some of the changes that you will notice is that the icons at the bottom page let the users access bookmarks, settings, history and downloads via one-click shortcuts.

4. A Better New Tab Experience
This new Firefox brings a better experience to the users each time they open a new tab. The experience is slightly similar to that of Google’s Chrome. You will find the thumbnails of the recently used websites. Firefox 13 lets the users customise the New Tab page as they can add or remove thumbnails of the pages they visit the most.

5. Totally localised
Firefox 13 brings support for the Khmer language. The browser is now available in more than 85 languages and is now available to additional 15 million users around the globe.
The browser is available for Windows, Linux, or Mac. Click here to download the all-new Firefox 13.

Download Epic Browser – First Indian Browser

2012-05-07T01:41:00.000+05:30

EPIC browser is Mozilla powered web browser for Indians. The browser support most of the Indian languages, also it decorated with many Indian themes. The other advantage is EPIC browser have many application integrations like video, facebook, twitter etc … And Epic is the world’s only Antivirus browser, you can also see a file browser inside the web browser. Built in Antivirus Scan downloads automatically. Scan your system manually. Epic Kills any viruses it finds.
.

        Difference from other Browsers

•    The makers claimed that it is the world’s only antivirus browser.
•    Browser has an inbuilt addon to detect websites that are dangerous.
•    It is the first ever web browser from India.
•    Anti-phishing protection – a big bold domain name on the address bar.
•    You can type in 12 different Indian languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu and Punjabi.
•    In the browser’s sidebar you can edit text, read news, view videos and pictures.
•    Having faster browsing and faster downloads.

Performance testing tool for HDD / DVD / SSD / Flash disks

2012-05-07T01:26:00.001+05:30

HD Speed is a free tool to check the performance of your hard drive, CD /DVD drives, Solid State Disks, Flash disks, Memory cards Etc. It is a standalone application. It will display a real time graph along with the average / current data transfer speed. This will help you to compare the performance of products like memory cards and pen drives. This tool is very helpful to check the computer performance when the PC got hung due to HDD errors. This application support a logging facility for the future reference also. You can freely download the software from Steelbytes

A little sneak peak to the world of "LINUX"..!!!

2012-05-06T20:55:00.001+05:30

Linus Benedict Torvalds, a 21 year old Finnish college student created operating system Linux. It was made public on August 25, 1991. A penguin named Tux is the official mascot of Linux. Linus named the software Freax (freak + unix), but his friend uploaded first public version of operating system into a folder that he named Linux. Linux today is one of the most widely used operating system running on small computers to huge servers.

Linux is open source operating system and millions of people around the world contribute to Linux development. Linux provides platform to developers, academic centers, government concerns and many other businesses and it is available with free license and supports changes as compared to other operating systems. It is quite flexible as it allows it users to use parts that they require for particular application or device they are working on. Linus continually works on the developments of kernel, but today his part of the original contribution is less than 2%. World known companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linked in etc use Linux as their main operating system..!! Established in 2007, Linux foundation works to grow and succeed in competition with other operating systems.

A MicroReview Of The Fantastic $9.99 MicroStylus

2012-04-27T10:08:00.000+05:30

This just might be the best stylus ever made. I’m completely serious. The problem with most styli is that there is never one around when needed. Besides that, the pen form factor is often not conducive for use on a small screen. But the MicroStylus, well, it’s so tiny but yet functional that it’s perfect for the task. Plus it’s only $9.99 and stores neatly in a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The MicroStylus isn’t going to completely disrupt the stylus space. This little guy is the perfect casual use stylus for a mobile person. Sit at a desk all day? Get yourself an Adonit Jot stylus. They start at $20 and are fantastically precise. But if find yourself needing a stylus on the go for note taking or gaming, the MicroStylus is perfect the task.

The MicroStylus is available in black or silver and $9.99 buys you one while two can be had for $15 at MicroStylus.com.

320GB hard drive showing only 298GB only..!!!

2012-04-21T23:32:00.000+05:30

One of my friend recently contacted me and asked a question that why his 320GB hard disk shows only 298GB of available space. He wanted to know whether the hard disk has some problems or his computer.

Actually, this is not a very big issue and its a normal thing.

The companies who sell hard disk consider the following:

1KB = 1000 Bytes
1MB = 1000 KB
1GB = 1000 MB
1TB = 1000 GB and further…

But, the Operating System or Computer System consider the following:

1KB = 1024 Bytes
1MB = 1024 KB
1GB = 1024 MB
1TB = 1024 GB and further…

Lets take an example.

Consider that you have bought a 1GB pen-drive.
So, According to company it is 1*1000 = 1000 MB and 1000 * 1000 = 1000000 KB and 1000000*1000 = 1000000000 Bytes.
So, when we divide 1000000000 Bytes according to computer system, its
1000000000/1024 = 976562.5 KB = 953.7 MB = 0.93 GB

So, the actual available space in a 1GB storage device is 0.93GB

Similarly, the actual available space in a 320GB hard disk is 298GB.

thinking of building a comic character or a comic strip...and dont know a way to do it...then this link will surely end your search..!!

2012-04-20T00:18:00.000+05:30

Bitstrips.com

If you'd rather create your own cartoons than reading any of theose listed above, Bitstrips.com lets you do just that. You can create your own strips, consisting of single, three or more panels, depending on the story you wish to convey. The website gives you a limited choice of several characters, whose body language, facial expressions and surroundings you can alter. You can create a several series of comic strips and publish it for the world to read through the website itself.

Happy creating:)

Woooooo...someone's taking Mr.Rajnikanth too seriously..!!

2012-04-19T23:02:00.001+05:30

A Rajni-inspired "Offline Only" Website

We have already heard tales of Rajinikanth humbling Google with his email id: gmail@rajinikanth.com. This time around, he has beaten the entire web with a new website that does not require an internet connection!

The site has been developed by Desimartini.com and reportedly runs on "Rajini power". On visiting the home page, you are asked to disable your web connectivity. Thanks to some tricky coding, the Flash-based website downloads entirely to your computer, thus working even when offline. What's more, the continuously verifies if you're online, probably by pinging a reference site such as Google.com. If you enable the internet access at any point of time, the site displays a unique error message, "Aiyyo! That was unexpected".

The design is very gaudy, which does justice to Sir Rajinikanth's personality. Visitors can read the superstar's biography, some interesting facts, and a list of stuff that he can do (nobody dares to call it a bunch of jokes).

Here's the website link: www.allaboutrajni.com. Just make sure that you don't have any ongoing downloads.

Spamming gets innovative!!!

2012-04-19T01:13:00.001+05:30

Spammers Hakckers keep finding new and innovative ways to reach out to the masses. Since facebook has been immensely popular social network, it becomes vert attractive media for spammers. It also seems to be very easy to convince users to click a few buttons and steal all your data. They also post links on your friend's walls to attract more visitors.

Found a couple of my innocent friends posting these materials again and again.
How do you safeguard youself?

Dont click on any link that you do not know or is suspicious.
If any application asks you to approve/join/like do not do it unless you know the website/link
They will have very attractive images/text - Eg. Osama bin Laden's uncensored pictures. If its too good to be true, it may not be safe link.

What do they get by spreading these kinds of links?
Any of the following

Viral marketing - Website may be trying to make some product/website popular
Stealing your details - They may be collecting your name, geographic location phone etc to sell it further.
Stealing your id and passwords .

So please safeguard our accounts and share the good messages/links/videos with your friends. Do waste your and your friend's time and energy by clicking the wrong links.
Happy socializing.

Hoax mails..give away phones, bill gates sharing his fortune !

2012-04-19T01:05:00.000+05:30

Ah! another spam mail.. asking you to spread word of mouth and they are giving away cell phones free... Or bill gates is sharing his fortune..and you need to cc to some one.

I keep receiving such hoax mails and finally thought let write something on this topic.

Here is a sample mail.

Dear ALL ,
I just want you guys to take hold of this opportunity from Ericsson . Ericsson is distributing cell phones for free over the internet to compete with Nokia, which is doing the same. They want to be better known through the Internet by word of mouth and so they are giving away their new WAP phone.
All you need to do is mail this to 8 of your acquaintances. In two weeks you will receive an Ericsson T18. If you send this email to 20 people or more, you will receive an Ericsson R320 Wap Phone. Don't forget to mail a copy of this email to anna.swelund@ericsson.com to ensure that your participation is noted.

What do they get?
The company or the product gets benifited, surely word of mouth will spread their name to every corner of the world. But people wake up! You are just distributing the garbage..

How can you avoid spreading such mails
Thumb of rule! There is nothing called free lunch. Always strings are attached. So before expecting anything free think again. If you are in doubt, just search few keywords of that mail on any search engine, that will reveal the truth.
Checkout some similar mails collection at www.breakthechain.org

And finally if you still want to try your luck sending these mails.. here is a good list of such letters in circulation. http://hoaxbusters.org
:p Hehe just kidding..

Do continue to send/forward mails to your friends that are worth their time and attention. Happy mailing ;)

LED bulb with 20 year life goes on sale in the US

2012-04-18T23:23:00.000+05:30

Traditional incandescent bulbs are history and LED bulbs are here. LED bulbs are known to be energy efficient and offer more light than the power they consume. A news by Psys states that Philips is going to be launching one such model of LED bulbs this weekend in the US. It’s being priced at close to $60 (roughly Rs. 3,100). Now, this seems like a fairly large sum of money for a bulb but consider the fact that the bulb is said to have a life of 20 years. Philips, the makers the of bulb has already received the L Prize, which was a contest for creating a cheap, highly efficient bulb. Incandescent bulbs are highly wasteful of energy and a lot of it turn to heat. They are also not as reliable as the new LED based bulbs being sold in the market.

The future of lightning

Philips hopes that the product's price will drop to a more affordable $22 (Rs. 1,200) in a year’s time after the launch. The L Prize was meant for products that could offer a replacement to the 60W incandescent bulb. Philips was the only company to enter the contest and their product came out winning the product after a long testing period. The product is said to offer a very natural looking light while being very energy efficient at the same time. Attempts are being made to drop the price of the product further. Discounts have got that price down to $50 (approximately Rs. 2,600)

The Philips LED bulb is said to consume only 10W and is expected to save some $8 a year, if used for four hours a day. Considering the life of the bulb, it should make up for the investment in a few years time itself. CFL bulbs have the advantage of being cheaper but their life isn’t as long as LED bulbs. 40W and higher intensity incandescent bulbs are being used across the world. It looks like LED bulbs are going to take their place very soon. India on the other hand has a long time to go before LED bulbs become mainstream, more affordable and easily available.

QR Codes

2012-04-17T23:19:00.000+05:30

Do you know what is QR Code?

A QR code (short for Quick Response) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data.

These are easily readable by most smartphones with camera by

installing small app.

It was first designed for the automotive industry.

Convert Youtube to other formats

2012-04-17T23:03:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered how to play youtube video in your cd player or how to watch it offline?
For those of you who havent explored or asked this question, here is some gyan.

Lot of freeware applications exist (do check their reliability from the reviews) that can take youtube URL (song address) and download it for you to almost any format.

http://www.vidtomp3.com/ Converts the URL in to standard or high quality mp3 file. You can play it strait in your car(Provided you have a mp3 player in your car). Found this site very handy.

Just search for download youtube + format you want and some website will convert it for you withought even downloading/installing any software.

Meet A Delhiite Who Won Google Code-In Contest Twice!

2012-04-14T19:47:00.001+05:30

Gautam Gupta, a 16-year-old boy, is currently involved in WordPress, bbPress and LimeSurvey. He enjoys writing plug-ins and contributes to the core.

Scene 1: The National Employability Report 2011, prepared by employability assessment company Aspiring Minds, says only 17.45 per cent of the engineers roped in by the IT sector are employable nationally.

Scene 2: A 16-year-old Delhi boy wins Google's Code-In contest twice.

These two situations are rather contradictory in nature and show the two extremes of the Indian technology world. But they both are true. In a nation like India where such employability reports grab the headlines, a boy like Gautam Gupta knows how to make a mark of his own when it comes to world-class competitions like Google Code-in.

Google Code-in is an online programming competition organised by Google for high school students in the 13-17 age group. The contest is held over a period of around two months. Open source organisations appoint some mentors who create byte-sized tasks for the students. The tasks could be anything ranging from programming, translations, documentation, research and so on. For the first task that the students complete, they get a t-shirt. For completing every three tasks, they get a hundred dollars. The maximum amount they can receive is 500 dollars. Based on the number of tasks the student completes and the difficulty of the tasks, the students are ranked. The top ten are then invited to visit the Google headquarters, also known as Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Gupta has won the contest twice.

Speaking about his achievements, the teenager said, “It all started with a tweet that was about this competition, linking to a blog post which stated that an open source organisation, WordPress would be participating in a programming competition organised by Google. Such coding competitions for high school students are rare so I thought of being a part of it. When I first participated in the Google Code-in I was 15 years old and in IX grade. I had always been trying to find international level competitions for children of my age group and younger, in which they could get a chance to show off their talent in the world of programming, and Google Code-in was exactly that!”

Gupta's journey with open source began in 2008 when he was introduced to WordPress and bbPress. He continued, “That was the time when I had already acquired a year's experience with PHP and used to write small scripts. I tried porting a social bookmarking plugin for WordPress named SexyBookmarks to bbPress and released it as Social It in 2009. Then I wrote more plug-ins and eventually started contributing to the core and have been doing that since then, with exams playing the role of speed-breakers.”

He participated in the competition for the first time in 2010. Recalling his first time experience with the contest, Gupta said, “The first time the competition was held, I went straight to work the first day and started contributing to the all new bbPress plug-in for WordPress. bbPress basically allows to run forums on a website. My first task was to allow users to mark topics as favourites, then I did other tasks like handling errors, topic subscriptions, profile pages, topic stickies and so on. I remember continuously coding for around 16 hours by the end of the competition.” Being one of the 10 winners was more of an experience for the youngster. With age on his side, Gupta decided to be a part of that event again in the following year.

He added, “In 2011, I was already looking forward to it. This time, I mainly contributed to the OSS organisation LimeSurvey, which is a tool for creating surveys. The tasks were mainly to port it to the Yii framework from CodeIgnitor due to licensing issues. I also did some OpenIntents tasks as I had acquired some Android Application development experience too. In addition to that, I helped in finding libav bugs. As things turned out, I completed a total of 40 tasks, acquiring 116 points, which positioned me on the sixth place on the leaderboard.”

BUT... the journey was not as easy as it appeared to be. The boy had to face some virgin challenges, but could move out of them with flying colours. Talking about the challenges, Gupta said, “I was completely unfamiliar with the open source projects I was going to work with during the competition. I had absolutely no experience with Limesurvey or Yii, nor did I know anything about libav or zzuf. All I had was a little experience with Android. This contest changed all of that. I got an opportunity to work on awesome pieces of software and collaborating with cool people. Another challenge was time particularly when I participated for the second time. Since it was 10th standard, I was busy with the activities and tests happening in schools. But when you're passionate about something, you achieve it.”

Gupta is now passionate about open source technologies. He tries his hands on WordPress and Linux the most. The freedom of open source technologies impresses the lad. “I like to attend meetups. I recently attended DevFestX at Google Gurgaon, where I got to meet many open source lovers and know about new and interesting technologies. Open source exposure in school is rare, but I like to open source anything that I make,” he explained.

Gupta is currently involved in WordPress, bbPress and LimeSurvey. He enjoys writing plug-ins and contributes to the core.

DataWind UbiSlate7+ Coming This Month, Aakash 2 'Early May'

2012-04-13T20:04:00.000+05:30

The wait is over! The much awaited DataWind UbiSlate7+ is all set to arrive this month and Government of India's Aakash 2 may get released officially by early May.

Ubislate7+

It seems that the launch of India's cheapest tablet is imminent. "We will be launching our UbiSlate7+ later this month," revealed Suneet Singh Tuli, president and CEO, DataWind, in an exclusive conversation with EFYTimes. He further stated that the company would announce the exact launch date very soon.

When asked about the Government of India's Aakash 2 launch, he responded, "The Aakash 2 launch date will be set by HRD minister Kapil Sibal--probably early May."

According to a report, the upgraded version of Aakash will get Google's Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Confirming this news, Tuli shared, "At launch, Aakash 2 will support Android 2.3, but we're also actively working on Android 4.0 and expect to be able to offer an Android 4.0 upgrade in about six to eight weeks after delivery."

Regarding the specs upgrade for Aakash 2, Tuli provided us with the details for the key differences in the Aakash 1 (IIT Rajasthan) version and the upgraded Aakash 2 (DataWind recommendation) unit as below:

While Aakash 1 comes equipped with ARM 11 366Mhz processor, Aakash 2 brings a faster single-core, 800MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor. On the display front, Aakash sports a resistive touchscreen whereas the upgraded Aakash 2 packs a projective capacitive, 4-point multi-touch screen. The other key differentiator is the battery power. The earlier version packs 2100 mAh battery but the upgraded one comes with a better 3200 mAh battery power.

"Over time, there will also be significant improvements in the processor, as we are continuously seeing price drops for microprocessors," he further elaborated.

Facebook buys Instagram for $1B

2012-04-12T15:25:00.003+05:30

Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking service, snapped up the hugely popular photo-sharing app Instagram on Apr. 9, for roughly $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock

Facebook announced that it has agreed to acquire photo sharing iPhone and Android app Instagram for a reported $1 billion. Technology blogs and internet users are buzzing about the news and posting their thoughts on the deal.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the acquisition will help the social network provide better photo sharing experiences for its users, but some Instagram users are already concerned about the privacy implications.

“Time to cancel my @instagram account before Facebook violates that veil of privacy,” said one Twitter user. “So will Facebook now own my photos? Will my privacy become not private? Will everything I do be tracked and kept on file?” questioned another.

"Part of the concern is that it's Facebook," Chris Conley, an attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, told CNET. "And their history of privacy and respecting user choices is mixed."

Mark Zuckerberg, however, insists that the Instagram purchase is all about improving the photo sharing experience on Facebook.

“For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family,” said Zuckerberg. “Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.”

If you want to take your Instagram photos and run, CNET and Gizmodo have both posted how-to tutorials that explain how to export your pictures and delete your account “before Facebook ruins everything.”

The Washington Post and Lifehacker have suggested some great alternative apps (such as Hipstamatic, Camera+, Hipster, Pixlr-o-matic and Lightbox) for those who are concerned about using Instagram now that it’s been purchased by Facebook.

Java loses top spot in language index

2012-04-12T14:39:00.000+05:30

C takes the top ranking in Tiobe's monthly assessment on the popularity of programming languages

Java has fallen off the top spot in Tiobe's monthly index on the popularity of programming languages, giving way to C in the April report released this week.

C was being used by 17.555 percent of developers in the Tiobe Programming Community Index for April, while Java was used by 17.026 percent. Last month, Java was used by 17.1 percent of developers while C was used by 17.09 percent of developers.

While Java has dominated the index over the years, it has slipped out of the top spot before. Java has been the top language in the index since 2001 with a few exceptions between mid-2004 and mid-2005 and couple of months in 2010.

"It took some time but Java's long-term downward trend line finally crosses C's stable (almost flat) popularity line," Tiobe said in its report this week. "Although it is expected that Java will not decline much further due to the popularity of the Android platform, C is able to remain number one for at least another couple of months. This can be concluded by looking at the extrapolation of moving averages for both languages."

Tiobe also cited other interesting moves this month as the entrances into the top 50 of Visual FoxPro, coming in at number 42; Scala, at 45 and Alice, ranked 48. Exiting are Eiffel, PL/I, and Tcl. The index gauges the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses, and third-party vendors using a particular language, and ratings are determined through assessments of popular search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, as well as other sites such as Wikipedia, Amazon, and YouTube.

Rounding out the top 10 languages are C++, used by 8.896 percent of developers; Objective-C, 8.236 percent; C#, 7.348 percent; PHP, 5.288 percent; Visual Basic, 4.962 percent; Python, 3.665 percent; JavaScript, 2.897 percent; and Perl, 2.387 percent.

Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS Protocols

2012-04-12T13:08:00.001+05:30

HTTP:

HTTP or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol symbolizes how information is transferred in to and fro direction between the client machine and the web server. Here, protocol signifies the language in which the information is transferred. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol transmission would take place over PORT 80, via a wire. When you write http:// in the address bar, it indicates that the website you are visiting is lacks security features, enough to caution you, not to share confidential information across the net. The information transferred to the website can be available to third party making it vulnerable.

HTTPS:

HTTPS or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure is a safe and secure way of transferring information from the client machine to the web server. The ‘S’ in the end is what makes HTTPS different from HTTP, tagging it with extra security. HTTPS Protocol was brought forward by Netscape and was introduced as an inbuilt feature into Netscape’s browser. PORT 443 is used in HTTPS while interacting with TCP/IP, instead of PORT 80 as used in HTTP.

While we use http, for surfing normal websites, https, on the contrary is used while logging into online shopping sites where the credit card information is disclosed to maintain the security of information passed. The first page that you encounter while entering https in the address bar is “You are about to view pages over a secure connection.” The moment you type https, the interaction with the website is made secure where no third person can have an access to the details you put forward, there.

For this reason, you need to be careful that you never enter your bank or login details into any http website. The risk factor is maximum for such websites to be given your sensitive information across.