TECHNOLOGY and SCIENCE

iPhone 5 launches in India

2012-11-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

iPhone 5

IPhone 5 has finally been launched in India on 2nd November 2012. Ofcourse it is a masterpiece of a phone. But the cost is whopping. I read a newspaper ad of Vijay sales in mumbai selling iPhones at these costs

16 Gb at 45,000

It is shocking because you can't expand this memory. 16 GB would be used up in a month for a phone addict. The iphone price has come a s a real shocker to me. Well, all I have is a micromax A70 with all its disadvantages and the occasional advantage, but atleast dude I am so happy. Tleast I have not wasted money.

But anyway, whoever is a big fan of iphone 5 should surely use up all their saved money and get it asap. I've heard it is magical :)

see you around.

SIRI IPhone 4s for Newbies

2011-10-15T12:12:00.000-07:00

What is SIRI?

Siri is a new app that will be included with the iPhone 4S. This app is a wonderful new method that will enable you to actually 'talk' to your iphone.

Does it sound familiar? Are you thinking that androids have speech recognition since one year. So what's new with iPhone's Siri. Well, a helluva lot! Siri is AI - Artificial Intelligence while Android (they are awesome nonetheless) is just a software. So an AI system actually understands the 'context' while to an Android, specific clear instructions have to be given. You can tell Siri..'Whats the time in Newzealand'..Siri tells you the time..and you can continue saying..What about London'..Siri understands the context and replies with the time in London.

Siri can take action based on what you say, and isn’t limited to a small set of specific keywords to do what you ask.

How Does Siri Work?

Watch the following video to grasp what and how Siri could make a difference to your life.

Did you notice that the man says 'My Wife' and Siri actually connects to her. Ain't Siri amazing?

What all Can be done by Siri?

Siri can at present control many of the apps in your iPhone like the reminders, alarms, text, call, video, timers etc.

A compilation 0f some of Siri's capabilities.

Ask for a Reminder – At a specific time or place
Ask to play a playlist
Ask or the weather
Ask about your stocks
Ask for information – Like a restaurant
Ask to schedule a meeting
Ask to send an email
Ask to send a text
Ask to set an alarm
Ask for directions
Ask to set a timer
Ask about Siri
Ask for someone’s number

All these small actions are actually time consuming and often used. Siri quickens up the whole process for you. Siri is Smart!

One more video of Siri for iphone 4s to help you grasp its significance.

TechnIT's opinion: Siri for iPhone is AWESOME! Must buy iPhone 4s for Siri.

Power Of Internet: AUCTION of the Extinct SeaMink

2007-11-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

The Exotic animal Sea Mink ( Mustela macrodon ) , was a North American member of the Mustelidae family. The Sea Mink was hunted to extinction even before it was taxonomically described or scientifically studied.

But the power of the internet. And the irony of our times. Even the extinct sea mink can be bought for $3600 ONLY!!
Confused!!

SeaMink may have been extinct from this world, but it has its own , unique place in the virtual world - SeaMink.COM

:) Yes Thats it. There can only be 1 SEAMINK.COM , now at auction at Sedo. It is quite ironic that an animal which could not get enough attention to save itself from extinction from this earth, has managed to gain all the attention in the virtual world. Anybody could own seamink now via the .com , and convert into god knows what kind of site. The worst would be if it turns into a porn portal ,though highly unlikely, yet its quite a thought. :)

Poor, gentle sea mink. or rather Seamink.COM. Wish we had doled out enough dollars to save them earlier.
I sincerely hope that some environmental groups or individuals lay their hands on this domain. It could be our way of acknowledging this simple small creature whom we failed.

Environmentalists Please Check the Auction: CLICK HERE

Google Suit Raises Ethical Questions About Search Advertising Practices

2007-07-13T00:47:00.000-07:00

This Story has been written by Mr. Scott Karp for seekingalpha.com. i liked what he argues and have taken up the story to make it accesible to my blog readers.
read on...

Scott Karp submits: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is suing Google (GOOG) for deceptive advertising practices. I don’t know if the suit has legal merit, but it puts the spotlight on Google’s advertising formats (which are used by most search engines) and, given that this is a government suit, raises significant questions about commonly accepted search advertising practices:

The ACCC is also alleging that Google, by causing the Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota links to be published on its website, engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

Further, the ACCC is alleging that Google, by failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from “organic” search results, has engaged and continues to engage in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

The reference to two car dealers regards a third company, Trading Post, which offers listing services. Trading Post bought ads in Google AdWords that used the dealers’ names in the titles, but sent people who clicked on the ad to the Trading Post site.

Here’s where the details of the suit get a bit confusing, at least to me. According to the ACCC website, the two auto dealers “compete against Trading Post in automotive sales” — but the Trading Post actually provides listing services FOR auto dealers, including the two named in the suit. In fact, Trading Post actually has a listing page for the one of the dealer:

The ACCC site also details another instance where Trading Post bought the keyword “Stickybeek,” a listing site that clearly is a competitor, a directed the ad to the Trading Post site.

There’s a critical distinction that needs to be made here. I can only assume that Trading Post was using the car dealers’ names without the car dealers’ consent, thus stealing traffic away from their sites. To create an ad that leads users to believe they are visiting one site but instead sends them to another is utterly deceptive, full stop. But this is opposed to working with the car dealers to drive search traffic to the the dealers’ listings page on Trading Post — which I think is perfectly legitimate and something that a lot of classified sites, including newspapers, are doing.

The big issue for Google is that this is just one example of what are probably thousands (or tens or hundreds of thousands) of instances where an AdWords ad is deceiving users in one way or another. Google AdWords has scaled so beautifully as a money making machine because the self-serve system requires minimal resources to manage, and much of that management is automated. But if Google had to vet every ad for deception and other malfeasance in a way that required human judgment, it would be a logistical, cost-ballooning nightmare.

A vexing aspect of this problem is that deceptive advertising exists along a continuum, with a lot of gray area in the middle — Google would sooner give away its algorithm than have to manufacture some standard of deception and arbitrate which of the millions of ads in its system are over the line.

Google, of course, claims that “user experience” is its north star, and deceptive ads certainly make for a bad user experience. Google has in fact cracked down on some aspects of user manipulation, such AdSense arbitrage pages where someone uses an AdWords ad to send users to a page full of AdSense ads that pay more than the original AdWords ad costs. But there is so much gaming and manipulation of their system going on that there is no way Google can stop it all — and they have a financial incentive NOT to stop, since they make money off of every instance.

Google was able to let a lot of this advertising malfeasance get swept under the rug — until now. If the Australian government forces Google to police its ads, it could strike a harsh blow to Google’s business in that country — and other countries, especially in Europe, would be tempted to follow suit.

But it gets worse. The Australian government also contends that the way Google presents ads on its search results, labeled only with a “Sponsored Links” in small text, is deceptive.

Common sense tells you that there’s no way Google could make $10 billion without some people clicking on sponsored links because they mistook them for organic links. For example, the ads that appear right above the organic results in the yellow box are labeled “Sponsored Links,” but on high resolution wide screens, which are common on most computers, that label appears far to the right, such that a user focused on the content on the left could easily fail to notice it.

Google and others that have adopted this format walk a very fine line between being inadvertently misleading users and outright deceiving them. The colored background is a fairly strong cue, and I’d guess the majority of users can distinguish the ads from the organic results. But what if 10% of users can’t? Or 1%? Or 0.01%? How many deceptions are too many?

Of course, all advertising walks this fine line. You could also ask how many people turn to a magazine or newspaper ad, hear a radio ad, or see a TV ad and don’t realize that they’re seeing an ad? It’s probably a pretty small number, but I’m sure it’s not zero.

It’s very interesting to note that Yahoo has bought the keyword “Google search advertising” — this is not deceptive along the lines of what Trading Post did, i.e. if the Yahoo ad used the word “Google” in the title of the ad. But it’s still playing off of a competitor’s brand name — something that the open AdWords system enables and does not in any way discourage.

It’s striking that the Australian government chose to go to the mat with Google not just over policing specific instances of outright deceptive ads but also over Google’s entire search advertising format. Imagine the U.S. Justice Department bringing legal action a TV station or a newspaper for running an ad with false claims — and then failing to overtly label the ad as ad, something that traditional media ad formats typically don’t do.

The U.S. government gave Microsoft a beating with the antitrust lawsuit that stretched over many years, which cost Microsoft many millions and much headache to defend. It certainly didn’t put Microsoft out of business, but the effect on Microsoft’s business long term couldn’t have been positive.

It’s not hard to imagine Australia or some other government putting Google up against a legal challenge that similarly cannot be easily dismissed.

Story SOURCE

Consumers chose Microsoft as top brand

2007-07-12T01:51:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is the UK's number one brand, according to a new poll.

The technology behemoth held on to its crown as the public's top "superbrand", despite stiff competition from home-grown brands.

Coca-Cola was ranked second followed by internet search engine Google in third place.

In a separate assessment, media and marketing experts put Google in the number one slot followed by Apple.

Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the Superbrands Council which carried out the research, said: "The UK public clearly love Microsoft which performs strongly amongst all consumer groups, although relative newcomer Google is becoming a major challenger for that elusive number one slot."

The Superbrands Council is a group of marketing, advertising and media experts.

Members rated a list of 1,450 brands according to quality, reliability and distinctiveness.

Of these, the 725 highest-scoring brands were assessed by 3,265 consumers surveyed by YouGov researchers.

This survey was used to create the list of top "superbrands".

The top ten brands of 2007-08, as voted for by 3,265 members of the public are:

1. Microsoft

2. Coca-Cola

3. Google

4. BBC

5. BP

6. British Airways

7. Lego

8. Guinness

9. Mercedes-Benz

10. Cadbury

-------------------------

Story Source

Microsoft launches OneCare 2.0 beta

2007-07-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

Microsoft released a beta version of its next-generation Windows Live OneCare 2.0 desktop security and management package on July 11, touting a number of improvements made to the product, including the ability to monitor multiple PCs on a local network.

Available for free download on the company's Web site, the combined software and service offering -- which is aimed specifically at consumers and small businesses -- also adds new functionality for backing-up data and protecting against malware attacks.

Introduced roughly six months after the launch of Microsoft's OneCare 1.5 release in January 2007, the beta -- which like its predecessors includes firewall, AV (antivirus), backup, and antispyware programs -- boasts security improvements, including new tools for locking-down wireless networks and an automated, self-adjusting firewall.

Among the new management features being introduced in the product are support for the sharing of printers among multiple computers, a start time optimizer for speeding computer boot cycles, and an online backup system for photos and other images.

As part of the service portion of the offering, Microsoft said it has added more proactive system fixes and end-user configuration suggestions to the package along with monthly reports on important computer events or recommended upgrades.

The centralized backup feature claims the ability for users to configure and monitor automated storage controls for all PCs covered under a lone OneCare subscription -- which can cover up to three machines -- in a single network location.

The newest iteration of the package also adds support for 64-bit PC systems.

Microsoft, whose security software product business remains in its early stages, is the third major company to release a new version of its consumer endpoint protection tools in the last month alone as both McAfee and Symantec have also revamped their competing applications.

The software giant gave no indication as to when it might push OneCare 2.0 from beta into production but said it is actively seeking feedback from users who decide to try out the package.

Since its initial launch in May 2006 OneCare has drawn mixed reviews from end users and security researchers. While many experts have said that the product's pricing -- US$49.95 for protection and management of up to three PCs for one year -- has drawn the interest of many consumers, the product has fared poorly against its rivals in some head-to-head bake-offs.

In such a comparison study published in March 2007 by researchers at AV-Comparatives -- a project based in Austria and overseen by security researcher Andreas Clementi -- OneCare performed poorly next to similar products made by Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky Lab, BitDefender, Fortinet, F-Secure, and several other anti-virus providers.

According to the report, OneCare ranked last among the products tested in detecting Windows viruses, worms, macros, scripts, and other OS threats, detecting 91 percent of the threats.

In stopping systems intrusion through backdoors, Trojan viruses and other malware attacks, OneCare also ranked last out of 13 vendors with 79.6 percent detection.

Despite any perceived shortcomings in OneCare, at least one industry analyst said that Microsoft has had a significant impact on the consumer AV landscape for its relatively short run on the market, specifically around pricing.

By offering coverage for multiple PCs for much less than it would have cost using older products from market leaders Symantec and McAfee, Microsoft has forced those companies and others to drop their own pricing and changed consumer perceptions about the cost of AV tools, said Natalie Lambert, analyst for Forrester Research.

"The market is dramatically changing, and Microsoft is part of reason for that," Lambert said. "If you look at demand, consumers are not willing to pay for security software as they were in the past, they've found ways to get these programs for free, and Microsoft started some of that activity by driving prices down."

In terms of functionality, Lambert said that OneCare 2.0 appears to have pulled Microsoft closer to some of its rivals, although she does not believe that most consumers are ready to use all of the tools, such as centralized backup for multiple PCs.

Instead of buying off-the-shelf AV products as they may have done in years past, the analyst said that consumers are increasingly using programs bundled for free in their PCs or signing up for services offered by their ISPs, many of which are offered at no charge.

"Partnerships are more essential than ever before in this market," she said. "Winning this space will come down to who has the most and best partnerships in the future; consumers want full functionality, but they don't want to pay for it, and the vendors will need to get money from someplace, and it will be from the PC manufacturers and ISPs."

This story has been taken from HERE . Thank you Computerpartner.nl

News: Ubuntu - It's tough to install on laptops

2007-07-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

THIS IS NOT MY STORY... I borowed it from here and am presenting here without any changes... The first person referred to is Mr.Alexander Wolfe. Anyway.. its true that Ubuntu is tough to install on laptops. Read on...

I started my Linux journey wanting to like Ubuntu. It's pitched as a great operating-system option that's ideal for newbies and experienced PC users alike. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth is, like Bill Gates, both an entrepreneur and a philanthropist. And there's something appealing about joining a community that's built up such a robust ecosystem in so short a time (Ubuntu was introduced less than three years ago.) What could go wrong?

Unfortunately, none of the Ubuntu stories--no Linux reviews, for that matter--talk about the inevitable problems many people run into during the installation process. Yet online forums are rife with traffic on stumbling blocks, which often cause people intent on converting to the open-source operating system to give up and go back to Windows.

When Ubuntu starts up from the Live CD, it commences by loading the Linux kernel.

Things go most smoothly when you pick the plainest of plain vanilla desktops for your Ubuntu install. Selecting anything else--like the reasonably standard HP laptop I chose--could be an invitation to a software nightmare. Sadder still, the average homebrew Linux newbie will falsely feel that it's his technical ignorance that's the problem.

By now, you can guess what my conclusion is: Ubuntu isn't all it's cracked up to be. Indeed, if you're an individual user--and even more so if you're supporting an enterprise--the only path around problems is to use a heavily tested, commercially supported distro. My preference is SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (though Red Hat is probably fine, too). I don't doubt that many fanboys will take issue with this (leave your comments below), since you'll have to pay $50 for SLED 10, and that's counter to the "free" open-source ethos.

Now that I've told you where I'm going, let me show you how I got there. Come along on my Ubuntu safari.

My test bed was an average machine, picked at random from the computer detritus lying around the house. The salient detail for our tale is that it's a laptop, not a desktop. Notebooks are always harder to work with, whether you're talking Linux, Windows, or hooking up add-on hardware. That's just a fact of life, because of the unusual variety of specialized drivers and hardware permutations you'll often find in downsized systems.

Preparing For Liftoff

My laptop guinea pig was an HP Pavilion ze4200 laptop, running Windows XP, purchased new in January 2003. The 6.6-lb laptop has a 14.1-inch display and is powered by a 1.53-GHz Athlon XP-M 1800+ processor. It's also got 256MB of DDR SDRAM, a 20GB hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, and two USB 1.1 ports. While this might seem like a light configuration today, it's more than capable of running Ubuntu. The 20-GB drive is well above Ubuntu's 4-GB disk-space requirement. The 256-MB of memory exceeds the 64-MB minimum posted on the main Ubuntu installation page, though it only just meets the minimum spec on the 7.04 release notes, so I'm primed to accept a slightly longer installation time.

True, my HP laptop has nowhere near the heft of the four systems Dell is offering with Ubuntu. Dell's machines include two notebooks--the 1.73-GHz Core 2 Duo-based Inspiron E1505 N and 1.5-GHz Core 2 Duo Inspiron 1420 N--and two dual-core-based desktops, with 1.6-GHz and 1.8-GHz Intel processors.

When I requested a review unit from Dell in June, they said they didn't have anything immediately available. (Dell's reps recently told me they should have a tester available in about a month. I'll review it then.) That's when I decided to install Ubuntu out on my own machine.

....technit again.... i'll get the review too on my blog. But thanks for an eyeopener. Story SOURCE

Ubuntu launches new "freedom-focused" Gobuntu derivative

2007-07-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

Although Ubuntu is highly regarded by desktop Linux users, the popular Linux distribution has been the subject of perpetual criticism from a small but vocal minority of users who believe that it doesn't set a high enough standard for software freedom. New initiatives announced this week aim to tackle those criticisms at their source, by resolving the perceived problems. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced the availability of daily CD images of a "freedom-focused flavour of Ubuntu" called Gobuntu.

Gobuntu, which will eschew virtually all proprietary software components, aims to pacify critics who think that Ubuntu's support for "non-free" software is detrimental to users. Last year, the Free Software Foundation announced the release of gNewSense, an Ubuntu derivative without proprietary graphics drivers, proprietary plug-in components like Adobe's Flash player, and patent-encumbered proprietary media codecs. According to Shuttleworth, the goal for the Gobuntu derivative is to "provide a cleaner and easier to maintain base for projects like gNewSense."

Shuttleworth says that the current focus is on hardware drivers, but more significant differences will emerge as the team grows. In his announcement, Shuttleworth asks for interested developers to participate by joining the Gobuntu development team. "This is a call for developers who are interested in pushing the limits of content and code freedom—including firmware, content, and authoring infrastructure—to join the team and help identify places where we must separate out pieces that don’t belong in Gobuntu from the standard Ubuntu builds," says Shuttleworth.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, also announced plans to start releasing parts of the web-based Launchpad project management system under an open-source license. Launchpad's proprietary status has been source of controversy since the web site's inception. Earlier this year, Mark Shuttleworth responded to the criticism by saying that Canonical was "actively working on making Launchpad open source," but that it couldn't be done "until there is a clear revenue model to be able to pay the salaries of the developers working on the platform itself." Canonical took the first step towards opening the Launchpad source code this week by releasing Storm—Launchpad's Python-based object relational mapper—under the permissive LGPL license. Storm source code and documentation are now available from Canonical's web site.

This Story has been taken from HERE ( thank you arstechnica.com)

Automatically update your Ubuntu system with cron-apt

2007-07-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

Updating all the software on your system can be a pain, but with Linux it doesn't have to be that way. www.builderau.com.au shows you how to combine the apt package management system with a task scheduler to automatically update your system.

If you've been using Linux for even a short time you'll surely have experienced the wonders of having a package management system at your disposal. For Debian and Ubuntu users the package manager you get is the excellent apt-get system. apt-get makes installing a new program (e.g. xclock, a graphical clock) as simple as:
% apt-get install xclock
That's nice, but the real reason apt is so useful is that updating your entire system all at once is just as easy:
% apt-get update
...
% apt-get upgrade
...
This will refresh the apt system with the newest information about packages and then download and install any packages that have newer versions. Do it regularly and you can be sure that you've got the latest and most secure software on your machine, without needing to hunt down the newest edition of each program individually.
You can make things even easier, however, by combining the apt system with the Linux scheduling daemon cron. cron let's you schedule any command to run periodically at given intervals. Take the following command:
% (apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade) > /dev/null
Which both updates the apt cache and upgrades the system. The -y flag tells apt-get to answer yes to every question, which prevents the process from hanging waiting for user input, say in the middle of the night so the bandwidth from the downloads won't bother anyone. It's also a good idea to redirect the output of the command to /dev/null, so that your terminal is not flooded with the results of automatic maintenance.
It's a bad idea to just install everything regardless of errors, sometimes incompatible software can creep into the repository, and that can bring down your whole system. A better idea if you want to be more careful with what your machine is doing is to add the -d flag, which tells apt to merely download the packages, but not install them. You can then run apt-get dist-upgrade later to install the packages without waiting for them to download, and letting you keep a watchful eye over what's being installed without having to wait for everything to download.
If you want to use this approach then you can add the following lines to your crontab using crontab -e, which will download new packages every Sunday morning at 12am:
# Automatic package upgrades
0 0 * * 0 root (apt-get update && apt-get -y -d upgrade) > /dev/null
There is still an easier way -- using the cron-apt package, which as the name might suggest, combines the cron and apt utilities, but provides a bit more flexibility and a simpler interface -- as well as supporting e-mail alerts on errors or new information. cron-apt automatically adds the -d flag, so you'll have to run apt-get dist-upgrade to install the changes. You can install cron-apt like any other common utility by using apt:
% apt-get install cron-apt
The configuration for cron-apt reside in /etc/cron-apt/config -- except how often the script runs, that's depended on cron so you can find it in /etc/cron.d/cron-apt. One popular configuration change is to add the line:
MAILON="always"
This will make sure an e-mail is always sent when the update runs, rather than only when an error occurs.
That's it. Setting up your machine to automatically update itself is as simple as a couple of lines in the console. If you need to have closer control over what is happening during the automatic update process then you'll want to write your own script, the Ubuntu help pages have a good run down of how to write a script around aptitude to achieve the same results.

[ This story has been taken from HERE ]

Microsoft to take part in the Olympic Games in 2008 with Vista

2007-07-03T04:40:00.000-07:00

On Friday in Beijing, the organizational committee for the Olympic Games 2008 and Microsoft China announced that the software vendor would be an official software supplier to the Games, which will

be held the capital city of China. In addition to standard software, Microsoft will also be working on systems to capture and process information for the Games.
Furthermore, the software vendor's Chinese subsidiary will be providing operating systems, databases, office software, solutions for project management and administration, and professional support for the IT infrastructure required at the Games. The Committee estimates that between 11,000 and 15,000 computers will be used at the upcoming Olympics.
Microsoft says it will be providing 1500 experts to help the technology for the Olympics run smoothly. Vista will be one of the products used. According to Chinese media reports, Microsoft is currently looking into the use of Vista at the Olympics in a research lab cofounded with Lenovo. The organization committee for the Olympics says that it will, however, also be using products from other vendors. (Craig Morris) / (jk/c't)

Universal 'to revise iTunes deal'

2007-07-03T04:02:00.000-07:00

Universal Music Group is reported not to be renewing its annual contract to sell its music through Apple's iTunes.

The New York Times quoted unnamed executives as saying that Universal had decided to have monthly deals instead.
That would allow Universal to remove songs by some or all of its artists quickly if there are disagreements on terms and pricing in the future.
But the San Francisco Chronicle carried a denial from Apple, which said that talks were still continuing.
"We are still negotiating with Universal," the newspaper quoted an Apple spokesman as saying.
"Their music is still on iTunes and their not re-signing is just not true," he added.

Flat charges
There have been disagreements between Apple and record labels in the past about the pricing and protection of the songs on iTunes.
Apple has stuck to a flat charge of 99 cents per song in the US since iTunes was launched four years ago.
But many of the labels are understood to want to be able to charge more for popular songs and less for songs that they are trying to promote.
There have also been objections to the copy-protection that iTunes uses, which means that iTunes downloads cannot be played on MP3 players other than Apple's iPod.
In February, Apple boss Steve Jobs called on labels to allow iTunes to remove the copy-protection. EMI has since begun to sell "premium" versions of its tracks through iTunes without copy protection.
But some labels have refused to have the protection removed and say that Apple should instead license its technology so that its copy-protected songs can be played on other devices.

Shares fall
Both Apple and Universal have much at stake if their relationship deteriorates.
If Universal pulls its catalogue from iTunes then the store would lose access to record labels that account for one out of every three new releases sold in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
On the other hand, iTunes is by far the most popular download store, with a 70% market share, according to the NPD Group.
Reports of a dispute hit Apple shares on Monday - they closed down 78 cents at $121.26 on Nasdaq, although that was also linked to some disappointment about the first weekend's sales of its new iPhone.

iPhone owners: Most gush, some glitches

2007-07-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

(via CNN)
Of 11 iPhone owners contacted, nine reported little or no trouble setting up their handsets.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Proud owners of Apple Inc.'s iPhone raved about their first day with the device Saturday, but a glitch took the shine off the year's most anticipated device for a few unlucky customers.
Of 11 iPhone owners contacted by Reuters Saturday, nine reported little or no trouble setting up their handsets, a combined cell phone, music player and Web browser.
An iPhone buyer proudly displays his loot Friday at an Apple store in New York.

"It's awesome, it's the best thing I ever saw in my life," said New York private detective Jerry Gregory. "Once people see this phone they are going to want one. Everybody I show this phone wants one, even people who were anti-iPhone."
But Brad Bargman of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, who waited in line nine hours Friday to buy his phone, said excitement turned to dismay when the device stubbornly refused to activate, meaning it can't be used.
"It's a real buzz kill," said Bargman, adding that repeated calls to AT&T failed to get the device to work. "Now I'm soured on it a little bit."

David Clayman, the third person in line at Apple's flagship Manhattan store, said he was still unable to activate his iPhone a day later, probably because he couldn't update the software on his computer needed to start the process.
The iPhone, which costs $500 or $600 depending on memory capacity, is activated through a process handled by the phone's exclusive carrier for two years, in Apple's iTunes online music store.
In a sign of strong initial demand, AT&T said it had sold almost all its phones within hours of the device going on sale at its 1,800 stores. The company did not say how many units it had sold. (For a quick estimate of first-day sales, click here).
Asked about problems some buyers were having, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the "vast majority" of customers were able to use their phones within minutes. "There are some whose activation process is being delayed and that's something that can happen in a launch like this and we're resolving those on a case-by-case basis," Siegel said.
Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock declined to comment on the number of iPhones sold at its outlets, saying only: "So far we've seen a lot of excitement and buzz."
Apple aims to sell 10 million units in 2008, giving it 1 percent of the global mobile phone market. The company is banking that the iPhone will become its third pillar product alongside its popular iPod music players and Mac computers.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday, Apple's store in downtown San Francisco was crowded with shoppers interested in the iPhone display. The store was sold out of the $600 models and about 10 $500 models were visible on shelves.
Indeed, the iPhone's inclusion of so many features into a sleek package triggered a sort of nerd rapture among enthralled gadget freaks.
"It's not like it's a computer, it's not like it's a phone, it's like a living sculpture in my hands," said Dale Larson, a mobile business consultant in San Francisco.
Buyers cited the large screen, full-blown Internet browser, ability to play music and video, and camera quality as among the phone's best features.
Two of the top concerns raised prior to the phone's launch - the on-screen keyboard and quality of AT&T's network - were annoying to some people, but no one said they regretted buying the device.
"At first I tried to use my thumbs to type but it didn't work so well. But if I use my finger it's okay," said software developer Tim Brown.

Google Desktop for Linux Released

2007-07-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

Close to three years after its launch for Windows, Google has finally ported its Google Desktop software to Linux.

Come April, Linux users will be able to take advantage of the software’s potent indexing and search functions, which enable documents, emails and other files to be

located virtually instantly.

The software is currently compatible with Red Hat’s Fedora Core 6, the ever popular Ubuntu 6.10, SUSE 10.1, Debian 4.0 and Red Flag 5. However, Unlike the Windows and recent Mac version, Linux users will have to wait a while longer for the applications fluffy other bits, such as the sidebar and Gadget features.
A Gadget is a small web-enabled application that sits in the sidebar or on the desktop and displays streaming information from internet sites or elsewhere. While handy and growing in popularity thanks to the likes of Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft’s Silverlight, index and search are the most important aspects of the application, particularly considering Google Desktop for Linux can also hunt down old versions and recover files that have been deleted.

“Google Desktop hit the operating system trifecta today with the release of a version of Google Desktop for Linux,” said Google in a written statement.
“Now available on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, the Google Desktop application allows users of every major operating system to search their desktop and the web as quickly, easily and comprehensively as they search the web with Google.”

Rare conjunction (Venus+Saturn) spectacle in skies

2007-07-01T02:09:00.000-07:00

Venus and Saturn will be in conjunction with each other on June 30-July 1,2007 a full moon night.

Ajay Talwar of Delhi's Amateur Astronomer Association told HT, "The Celestial show begins on Saturday evening. When the sun is about to set, Venus will appear first , a bright point of light not far above the horizon and as the sky darkens, one will also be able to spot Saturn.

The two planets will almost touch each other."The planets will get closest on July 1.Talwar said this conjunction happens once every 13-14 months approximately, but most of the time, the distance between them is much larger or the conjunction happens in the fierce glare of the sun.

This time the conjunction is almost 45 degrees away from the sun and the event will be clearly visible, he added.Although the planets appear close, the distance between them is 9.4 AU. 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) is 149,597,870 kilometres.

Images from google image search

Software pirate ordered to pay NT$740 million

2007-06-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

COPYRIGHT VIOLATION: Lin Jung-peng had also been sentenced earlier to two years in prison for selling 148 types of software that he downloaded from a Chinese Web site.

The Taoyuan District Court yesterday ordered an online dealer of pirated software to pay damages totaling NT$740 million (US$22.52 million) to 10 software companies.

The court estimated that from July 2002 to January 2005, Lin Jung-peng(林榮鵬) earned NT$3 million by selling 148 different types of professional graphics software that he downloaded from a Chinese Web site before being caught by police. The court ordered Lin to pay NT$5 million for each type of software pirated in violation of the Copyright Law
(著作權法).

The court had already ruled last month that Lin must serve a two-year prison sentence, after which the software companies can apply to the court to force him to make monthly payments out of his salary. Lin must also print apologies to the software companies in newspapers.

Acknowledging that Lin might not be able to pay such an astronomical figure, Judge Chen Ching-yi (陳清怡) said the verdict was more symbolic than practical.

Sung Hung-ti, chair of the Taiwanese branch of the Business Software Alliance, an international organization representing software manufacturers, said that the NT$5 million in civil damages per program that the companies claimed was the maximum.

However, the programs that Lin pirated typically sold for less than that on the legal market. Lin sold the programs -- including Advanced Design System, AutoCad, Cimatron and Windows operating systems -- for between NT$8,000 and NT$10,000.

The 10 companies included nine US companies and one Israeli company.

The court awarded US software manufacturer Autodesk the highest amount of compensation at NT$190 million after 38 of its programs were pirated. Parametric Technology Company was second with NT$145 million, and Bentley Systems was third with NT$135 million.

Chen said that buyers of the pirated programs could pass them on to other users, making it impossible to calculate exactly how many other people received pirated copies, as well as contributing to the severity of Lin's infringement of intellectual property rights.

Source

Video: How to protect a cell phone

2007-06-28T00:28:00.000-07:00

Protect Your Cell Phone Warranty
Water damage will void you cell phones warranty, but how dothey know its been wet? Well there is a little dot behind thebattery that changes color, UNLESS you protect it when you get your phone! Its quick and easy.. A video guide..

Protect Your Cell Phone Warranty - Click here for another funny movie.

IPhone dials up YouTube: Apple device will stream videos

2007-06-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Add YouTube to the new Apple iPhone’s list of promised goodies.
California-based Apple said yesterday iPhone buyers will be able to stream videos from Google’s YouTube wirelessly.
It’s yet another feature being tacked on as Apple prepares to launch one of the most-talked-about devices in years.
At first, about 10,000 YouTube videos will be available in the high-quality format used by the iPhone. The rest will be available by fall.
The anticipation has been building for months around the launch of the iPhone on June 29.
And, in the end, all that hype might come back to bite Apple as the hoopla leads to unreasonable expectations, said Christopher Hazelton, senior analyst at Framingham-based research firm IDC.

“It’s gotten to the point where it’s such a big phenomenon, it’s such a household name, it’s almost out of control,” he said.
The question remains whether Apple can turn that buzz into big sales - the kind its music player the iPod has been able to rake in.
The iPhone will carry a high price tag, running between $500 and $600.
But Apple is hoping to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008. “That would be quite unprecedented,” said John Jackson, an analyst with Boston-based the Yankee Group.
And the iPhone faces some major hurdles. Its high cost coupled with the price of dropping another cell phone plan to sign up for the iPhone, which can average around $175, might keep many consumers away, analysts said.
Consumers need to take a step back and consider other options that might better suit them, said Bill Nebes, chief executive of IMO Independent Mobile. “It’s sort of like cars you get excited about. You want to buy it, but you don’t think about how it’s going to drive in the snow,” he said. Nebes said other, cheaper alternatives might work better for certain features. The Ocean from Helio, for instance, is good for instant messaging and the Sprint Upstage M620 has a music player while costing less than the iPhone.
But already the iPhone is causing a stir in the mobile industry as more cell phone makers are adopting similar touch screens, Hazelton said. Also, unlike other manufacturers who depend on cell-phone carriers to market and distribute their products, Apple has largely taken control of its launch in spite of its five-year deal with AT&T, Jackson said. Other manufacturers might take a closer look at that business model, he added.

Yahoo Mail Links With IM

2007-02-12T22:37:00.000-08:00

Rollout of messaging and mail integration begins this week.

Yahoo will soon start to fulfill a promise it made to users several months ago to tie its new Web mail service with its instant messaging application.

Starting today and continuing over the coming months, Yahoo will activate this feature for users of the new version of Yahoo Mail, which is in beta, or test, phase but available to all users of the service.
Chats Encouraged

Yahoo officials demonstrated the integration of the Yahoo Mail beta with Yahoo Messenger in November at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The audience reacted enthusiastically to the plan.

The new feature alerts Yahoo Mail beta users if their contacts are logged on to Yahoo Messenger and gives them the option of starting a text chat session from within the mail interface. If the user is composing an e-mail message but wants to chat instead, Yahoo Mail can grab the text and paste it into the text chat window. Likewise, the chat session can be automatically imported to an e-mail message form.
More Links to Come

This integration with Yahoo Messenger is the first of several tie-ups the company plans to implement in the (Yahoo Mail beta), because it wants the service to offer multiple communication options to its users, said John Kremer, Yahoo Mail's vice president.

Although he declined to confirm future plans, he acknowledged it would make sense to let Yahoo Mail users launch voice conversations and to create links to the company's social networking service, Yahoo 360. Another likely development would be to extend Yahoo Messenger's interoperability with Microsoft Windows Live Messenger into the Yahoo Mail beta, he said.

The beta version, a free service, offers a number of improvements over the current version, including a more agile interface based on AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) that works like a desktop application. The beta was introduced in September 2005. Unlike typical Web mail services, it lets users drag and drop messages into folders, provides a pane to preview messages' content and offers the ability to have multiple message windows open.

Viacom Demands YouTube Remove Videos

2007-02-03T22:24:00.000-08:00

Viacom Inc. on Friday demanded that Google Inc.'s online video service YouTube remove more than 100,000 video clips after they failed to reach a distribution agreement.

Viacom said it sent a notice to YouTube on Friday morning asking the popular video-sharing site to remove clips from Viacom-owned properties including MTV Networks and BET. The media company controlled by Sumner Redstone said its pirated programs on YouTube have generated about 1.2 billion video streams, based on a study by an outside consultant.

A YouTube spokeswoman said it would comply with the request and added, "It's unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube's passionate audience, which has helped to promote many of Viacom's shows." The company has historically removed clips at the request of copyright owners within hours.

"Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized video," Viacom said in a statement.

The company is taking a hard stance against the Internet's most popular video service Youtube, which is renowned for its quirky, viewer-contributed video clips as much as for being a repository for unauthorized television shows.

"This is a negotiating tactic," UBS analyst Ben Schachter said. "We think a deal gets done ... The terms have major implications for the value of content online."

Viacom's move also runs counter to the strategies employed by other media companies, such as the Warner Music Group, Vivendi-owned Universal Music Group, and General Electric controlled NBC Universal, which have all landed deals with YouTube to test the service.

CBS Corp, which was spun off from Viacom, also has a deal with YouTube.

CBS, which last year said YouTube viewership of its clips contributed to traditional TV viewing, held a contest in which YouTube users submitted videos they created. The winners will have their videos aired on CBS television.

Hours after Viacom made its announcement, CBS said it would show the first winning video on Sunday.

Universal Music threatened to sue YouTube last year, but reached a partnership with them. Its deal included taking a small stake in the company, according to several published reports.

Even as some media companies have decided to experiment with YouTube, other companies including News Corp., NBC and Viacom have held discussions to create its own online video business, sources have said.

Last October, Viacom asked YouTube to take down some of its video clips including those from hit shows from cable network Comedy Central, whose on-air talent joked about the site's popularity during the shows. But thousands of clips remained on the service.

"YouTube and Google retain all of the revenue generated from this practice, without extending fair compensation to the people who have expended all of the effort and cost to create it," Viacom said. "The recent addition of YouTube-served content to Google Video Search simply compounds this issue."

It was not immediately clear what percentage of YouTube's estimated 100 million views per day Viacom clips represent.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told analysts on Wednesday YouTube was in "various stages" of introducing technology, such a digital "fingerprinting", to identify copyrighted material.

"That is an area of big research in the computer science community and also a significant investment here at Google," Schmidt said after Google's quarterly results.

Apple TV: Cool enough to buy?

2007-02-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

IT is clear that Apple is not a company that will sit back and relax while the money is flowing in. They have become the masters for developing cool and funky gadgets.

The iPhone has not yet disappeared from the front pages of technology reviews and the Apple TV has already been announced.

But the questions I have are: Is the Apple TV really cool enough and will this gadget make you rush to the closest vendor to buy one? Is this a new and fresh idea?

The cool factor

What will make this a cool product to own?

It firstly looks good; it has the ability to stream video and music from another source within its built-in wireless range.

The Apple TV has a built-in 40GB hard drive to store your music, digital photos and downloaded movies or TV episodes (not that I think any of these movies would be legal) and enjoy it on your television at any time.

All this features come with a funky new user interface and remote control.

The un-cool factor

Unfortunately for the Apple TV the list of un-cool factors is longer.

So what does make the Apple TV un-cool?

The first thing I'd like to have seen built-in to the Apple TV is an input channel, thus giving it the capability to record from your television reception.

The second thing - and this is probably one of my biggest considerations before I will buy one - is: It can't play standard DivX files.

For those of you who don't know, DivX files is an encoding for video and sound mostly used in internet downloaded movies and television episodes. Converters are available from third party developers to convert DivX files to work on the Apple TV, but this is time consuming.

And even though Apple TV looks good, and comes with a cool logo, there are lots of other similar and even better products on the market. Some have bigger hard drives, are compatible with DivX and other formats, utilise 5.1 surround sound and some even have the ability to record.

There have been reports that Cisco - under their Linksys brand - is also developing a product similar to the Apple TV, but with more capabilities. Cisco has a score to settle for the iPhone name, the name they allege Apple stole from them.

Although I still like the idea that Apple keeps developing new gadgets and broadening their focus, I think they could have done more with the Apple TV. I will definitely be the first in line when they bring out an updated version.

Source

How to Program a DirecTV Remote to Control an Xbox 360

2007-01-22T23:57:00.000-08:00

Written by EDFACTOR
Monday, 22 January 2007
This is pretty awesome. If you don't have the Xbox remote control, you can use a DirecTV Universal Remote to navigate through the Dashboard and to play DVDs and whatnot in 4 easy steps.

1) Switch the DirecTV remote to AV-1. Point the remote away from your receiver. Press and hold the select and mute buttons until the light above the AV-1 switch blinks twice.

2) Press 991, then press 2. Now press Power.

3) Press Ch. Up 35-40 times, pausing between each press. The light above AV-1 should go on every time you press it.

4) When your Xbox 360 turns on, immediately press Select.

Article From : HERE

Shocker on Orkut, obscene calls for airhostess

2007-01-22T23:48:00.000-08:00

It was the worst joke one could have played on her. A 23-year-old airhostess with a private airline was shocked to see her profile posted on Orkut, describing her as a “sex-struck woman”.

The person who got her on Orkut, popularly known as an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends, also posted her neighbour’s phone number along with her profile. A photograph of the airhostess in her uniform was uploaded with her profile, and she was made a member of online communities soliciting sex. To make sure her friends and colleagues notice her, the person also connected her to communities of airhostesses, both national and international airlines, and multi-national companies.

Within no time, she was flooded with scraps (messages) “very obscene in nature”. Her neighbour, an official at Lok Sabha Secretariat, also started receiving “vulgar” calls. “For three weeks, men have been calling up these numbers asking to get in touch with my client. They have posted more than 250 messages in the scrapbook (on Orkut). The accused has also made her a member of several communities that involved prostitutes and sex workers,” the woman’s lawyer complained in a city court on Monday.

Rest of the story: HERE

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360) Review

2007-01-21T22:18:00.000-08:00

January 22, 2007 After you've heard about Lost Planet selling one million copies since its initial release less than a month ago (only a week if you're outside Japan), you're probably wondering if this figure is more to do with the lack of any Christmas blockbusters for the Xbox 360, or because it's a great game in its own right. Our Games Editor has the lowdown after spending a bit too much quality time with the game.

The Story
In the future, humans decide it's a good idea to colonise a frozen planet infested with nasty, hostile insects ranging in size from big to absolutely massive. In the process, they determine the insects are storing thermal energy (T-ENG) in their bodies, and that this energy source is the key to their survival, and develop Vital Suits (VS) to aid their battle. Think MechWarrior/Virtual On...

There's no question it's a premise with potential, however the progression of the story throughout the game is decidedly B-grade, shoestringing the missions together in a manner that barely justifies the action. Your team (comprising of the is-he-evil-or-not scientist, token cute girl and sickeningly cliched hacker kid) decide to risk your life more than once for the sake of investigating a heat signature, at a stage in the game it's obvious that heat signature is a massive insect. It's pretty painful stuff, and does little for the experience aside from providing two key game mechanics, in that you constantly have to top up on T-ENG to stay alive, and provide fuel to the Vital Suits you'll also be needing to stay alive.

Presentation
The first thing that will sell you on Lost Planet is the amazing graphical detail. Crisp textures, incredibly detailed models, beautiful expansive environments, and realistic explosions and (somewhat overused) smoke effects put Lost Planet on par technically with Gears of War, albeit in a drastically different art style. This is a real testament to the power the 360 has under the bonnet, and Capcom doing a damn fine job harnessing it.

Unlike Capcom's Dead Rising, you'll be able to read in-game text on a Standard Definition TV without a microscope (we at gizmag don't look down on late-adopters of HD technology), but needless to say, everything steps up a notch in beauty when running through a computer monitor or HDTV.

Game Mechanics
This game is arcade shooting done 2007 style. You're constantly outnumbered, and underpowered, and the only way to survive is to kill everything that moves, and collect the T-ENG their dead bodies spew forth to stay alive. An unfortunate thorn in the side of this arcade feel is the relatively slow movement of your character. You will grow accustomed to it, but it detracts greatly from the feel of the game.

This article has been borrowed from and continued at: GIZMAG

2 Linux Consortia join Together

2007-01-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

Linux, the free operating system, has gone from an intriguing experiment to a mainstream technology in corporate data centers, helped by the backing of major technology companies like I.B.M., Intel and Hewlett-Packard,

Paul Sakum/Associated Press

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, with the system’s penguin symbol, will assist the Linux Foundation.

Those same companies have decided that the time has come to consolidate their collaborative support into a new group, the Linux Foundation, which is being announced today. And the mission of the new organization is help Linux, the leading example of the open-source model of software development, to compete more effectively against Microsoft, the world’s largest software company.

“It’s really a two-horse race now, with computing dominated by two operating-system platforms, Linux and Windows,” said James Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “There are things that Microsoft does well in terms of promoting Windows, providing legal protection and standardizing Windows.”

He added that “the things that Microsoft does well are things we need to do well — to promote, protect and standardize Linux.”

In data centers, both Linux and Microsoft have benefited from the shift to data-serving computers powered by lower-cost microprocessors and other industry-standard hardware using personal computer technology. These machines, running Linux or Windows, have increasingly replaced more costly, proprietary hardware, typically running Unix operating systems.

That shift to industry-standard hardware has helped makers of personal computer chips like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and makers of PC-technology machines including Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Dell, and Fujitsu.

Traditional rivals of Microsoft in the software business, including Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Dell, NEC and Fujitsu. and I.B.M., have championed Linux to undermine an adversary and have tweaked their database and other software programs to run on Linux. Companies like Red Hat and Novell distribute Linux and charge companies for technical support and maintenance.

So while Linux is distributed free, a sizable market has grown up around it. The yearly sales of Linux-related hardware, software and services is more than $14.5 billion, according to estimates by IDC, a research firm.

The new Linux organization is “a clear sign that we are going to continue to work together,” said Daniel D. Frye, vice president for open systems development at I.B.M.

There is vigorous competition among companies in the market for hardware, software and services that work with Linux, Mr. Frye said. But collaboration is also essential to move Linux technology forward, he said, and avoid the kind of splintering of the marketplace that occurred in the 1980s, when different companies supported different versions of the Unix operating system.

The work of two other groups — the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group — will be folded into the Linux Foundation, and those organizations will no longer exist. Mr. Zemlin had been the head of the Free Standards Group.

Stuart F. Cohen, the chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs, said he was starting a new venture that would use the open-source development model to build software applications tailored for individual industries like financial services.

The Linux Foundation will pay salaries to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, and a few other key Linux programmers. That support had previously come from the Open Source Development Labs.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Torvalds noted that some of the original reasons for forming the Open Source Development Labs six years ago, like “helping companies come to grips with Linux and open source in general,” had in large part been addressed.

Referring to the new organization, he said, “The technical, legal and standards issues do seem to be part of a bigger whole.”

Mr. Torvalds said his role would not change. “I work on the technology itself, not any of the other issues,” he wrote. “I literally just sit in my basement and do technical management. Nothing else.”

Screenshots: 2 worlds (Xbox)

2007-01-21T02:21:00.000-08:00

Screenshots: Two worlds (Xbox)

Source: