TG-Tech gist

Samsung S4 New Diamond Pixel Layout

2013-04-30T18:56:00.004+01:00

Samsung new S4 comes with a 1080 super AMOLED display.Over 2million pixels are aggregated into the screen that is about 5inches long diagonally.This attribute makes the display glow with a pixel density of 441ppi,which is a milestone and makes Apple's Retina Display look like a toy.During the unveiling of the S4 on March 14th, at Time square, USA, Samsung unveiled a new flagship phone with a cutting edge display.

If you did not understand the sophistication of the above paragraph,perhaps you would understand this one,the new S4 display panel does not make use of the standard RGB layout common on most displays,rather it uses the RGBG Pentile display whose subpixel have been tweaked.

From the above diagram,notice that in the standard RGB display, there is an equal amount of red,blue and green subpixels and the subpixels are the sam size.This is what we see in all LCD displays and the S2 Super AMOLED+ display.On the right,checkout the standard Pentile display where the pixel layout switches between red, green,blue and green resulting in 50% less red and sub pixels, thus saving space on the display and increasing efficiency because it maintains a higher number of more efficient subpixels.
This display enables Samsung to pack more useful subpixels in the same area by reducing the dead space between subpixels by increasing their geometric efficiency.

Motorola XT912 Leaked – Not the “X-phone”

2013-03-13T09:57:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago Google’s CFO told us that Motorola won’t release any products that will “wow us” by Google’s standards, as the company is still stuck with its old pipeline of products, that were planned since around 18 months ago. And now we get this leak about a new Motorola phone that looks much like a Nexus-styled smartphone with round edges.

The phone’s codename seems to be XT912, and it seems very unlikely that it would be the X-phone. While I think the phone doesn’t look too bad (I’d buy it if it came with Android 5.0, and I was going to buy a new phone soon), there’s also not much that unique about it. It also seems to be made out of regular plastic, and I’d prefer if it was made out of some kind of metal, or at the very least polycarbonate (unibody) or (very) hardened glass.

The phone is supposedly going to have an S4 Pro processor with Adreno 320, or possibly even an S600 (I would hope so because S4 Pro is getting old), 2 GB of RAM, and “only” a 720p AMOLED display that could be 4.3″ or 4.5″, which makes me think that the phone isn’t really meant as Motorola’s flagship device for this year, but more of a mid-range phone, or some kind of “intermediary” flagship.

The OS looks a lot like stock Android, which makes me happy, because I think this is exactly the thing Motorola needs to do to get back on track, and be loved by the Android community once again. Google should put stock Android on all of Motorola devices from now on. All of Motorola devices should be Nexus-like devices. The phone does look to have some extra Motorola widgets, but I wouldn’t mind that so much. I think it’s a very good way to differentiate without changing the core of Android.

I would also expect these devices to get at least 18 months of updates, just like the Nexus devices, although I really wish Google would make the upgrade cycle 24 months. That should mean about 4 major upgrades instead of just 3, like for Nexus devices. Since they are owned by them and not by others, it should be easier to do that, too. The only question is if they will want to support them for that long.

Google hit by $7m Street View fine in US

2013-03-13T09:26:00.000+01:00

Google has agreed to pay a $7m (£4.6m) fine for collecting people's personal data without authorisation as part of its Street View service.In a settlement with 38 US states, the internet giant agreed to destroy emails, passwords, and web histories.

The data was harvested from home wireless networks as Street View cars photographed neighbourhoods between 2008 and 2010.

Google said it was pleased to have resolved the issue.

"We work hard to get privacy right at Google. But in this case we didn't, which is why we quickly tightened up our systems to address the issue," the firm said in a statement.

"The project leaders never wanted this data, and didn't use it or even look at it. We're pleased to have worked with Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and the other state attorneys general to reach this agreement."

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the legal settlement.

"Consumers have a right to protect their vital personal and financial information from improper and unwanted use by corporations like Google," he said.

"This settlement addresses privacy issues and protects the rights of people whose information was collected without their permission."

As well as agreeing to delete all the harvested data, Google has also been required to launch an employee training program about privacy and data use which it must continue for at least ten years.

It must also launch a public service advertising campaign to educate consumers about how to secure their information on wireless networks.

Facebook facelift! Social network launches new version of News Feed

2013-03-08T14:15:00.000+01:00

The social networking company unveiled a redesign that allows users to control what types of posts will appear in the feeds. The new feed will also have space for more photos and videos.

Facebook Inc introduced a visually richer, mobile device-oriented “newsfeed” on Thursday, in the most significant changes to date for the social network’s most recognizable feature. The changes to the newsfeed, whose look and feel has remained largely unchanged since its inception, include a division into several sections, with separate areas for photographs and music.

They will begin rolling out in limited fashion from Thursday. The overhaul, which standardizes the feed across mobile devices and desktop computers, is designed to keep users active and interacting as well as appeal to advertisers, as Facebook battles Google Inc for Internet market share. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had singled out the feature as in need of a makeover as recently as January, when the company introduced “graph search” to address inadequacies in allowing users to trawl for information across the world’s largest social network.

Facebook’s newsfeed, an ever-changing stream of photos, videos and comments uploaded from friends, is the first page most users see upon logging in. It is one of three “pillars” of the service, along with search and user profiles. The last major update to the feature occurred in September 2011.

Since then, the company has incorporated ads directly into the feed and has shifted its focus to creating “mobile-first experiences,” because more people now access the social network from smartphones and desktops than from desktop computers.

The addition of advertising, however, prompted complaints from users who preferred an unblemished stream of personally relevant comments, underscoring the difficulty in balancing advertiser-friendly formats - such as larger images - with keeping its 1 billion-plus members engaged.

The Smart Toilet That You Can Flush From Your Phone

2012-12-18T20:23:00.000+01:00

The Japanese who are renowned for their technological developments especially in hi-tech toilet developments, having pioneered heated seats, musical playback and built in washing and drying systems, have added another major milestone to that repertoire of technologies – a toilet that can be controlled from a smartphone.

The toilet, designed and developed by Lixil, can be completely controlled by a smartphone app, which can also track user’s bowel movements. The app, which will be available for selected Android handsets, will go on sale in January or February 2013 and works with three of the firm’s new range of lavatories.

Using the My Satis Android app, toilet users will be able to control the Bluetooth-equipped bathroom fitting with their smartphone.

Every features including flushing, lifting the toilet seat and sprays can be controlled from the phone. Users can as well record their own preferred settings, and even play back music through the toilet’s speakers.

HOW IT WORKS

The toilet uses Bluetooth to communicate with the mobile phone app.

It can then control all of the toilet’s functions, and even play music through speakers built in to the toilet’s base.

Woman photographs herself unlocking stolen iPhone

2012-12-14T17:16:00.000+01:00

A woman unwittingly took a photograph of herself as she tried to unlock an iPhone that had been stolen from a nightclub.

The iPhone was stolen from the Coalition nightclub in Brighton, East Sussex, earlier this month.

But the owner had installed an app that takes a picture of anyone trying to unlock it and then sends the information back to them via email.

When the woman tried to unlock the iPhone her picture was taken and sent to the owner. It was then passed on to Sussex Police. It is thought the app used is iGotYa, which is activated when an incorrect passcode is entered into the keypad.

Pc Gavin Crute from Sussex Police said the app photographs anyone trying to unlock it, maps their location and sends the information back to the owner. “We know where and when the photo was taken and it appears to be in a vehicle with quite a large sunroof.”

“We don’t know that the woman is the person who stole the camera, but she obviously has had some connection with it in the meantime and I’d like to speak to her about it.”

Google Apps Setup Gets Easier with New Domain Registrar API

2012-12-12T23:17:00.001+01:00

In an effort to make it easier for users to configure domains to work with Google Apps email, Google has launched an API for domain registrars.

According to a post on Google Apps Developer Blog on Tuesday, there are nearly 20 domain registrars around the world that will simplify the Google Apps setup through the API over the next few months.

The RESTful API allows users to verify and transfer their email in three steps – down from 10 – and users no longer have to leave the Google Apps signup flow to complete domain registration.

Eliminating steps in any sign-up process is a good thing, and automating the DNS setup process may increase the likelihood that a customer won’t abandon the transaction.

This announcement comes a few weeks after Google added additional storage and compute capabilities and cut its Google Cloud prices by 20 percent.

While individuals that use Google Apps do so through a free account, the Google Apps for Business tier is increasingly used by government, educational and enterprise organizations.

A recent study by CloudLock analyzed a year’s worth of its mid-market and enterprise Google Apps clients, to get a better idea on how its customers were using their Google Apps domain. The research showed that the average enterprise has over 250,000 Docs/Sites on their domain, and that number will grow to 750,000 in 2013.

According to Gandi, a web host and registrar that has partnered with Google to offer the automated DNS change service, if users wanted to use Google Apps with their domain in the past, some specific MX records needed to be added to their DNS zone file. Now, users can configure the domain for Google Apps with the “touch of an authenticated button.”

“The fact that you can economically use Google for company email and collaboration, including Google Docs, as a paid SaaS (Software as a Service) offering has made it a vital competitor to in-house offerings from Microsoft like MS Exchange and MS Sharepoint,” Gandi chief operating officer Thomas Stocking said in a blog post last week.

Facebook helps the FBI bust cyber-criminal ring that stole £525million and...

2012-12-12T14:23:00.000+01:00

Facebook has helped the FBI to bust an international criminal ring said to have infected 11million computers with spyware and stole more than £525million from unsuspecting users.

Agents working in concert with the social network arrested 10 people who allegedly infected computers with software that stole credit card numbers and bank details.

Facebook's security team helped the FBI after the so-called 'Yahos' malware targeted its users between 2010 and October 2012, the agency said in a statement.The social network helped identify the criminals and spot affected accounts, it said.

Its 'security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats,' the FBI said.According to the agency, which worked also with the U.S. Department of Justice, the accused hackers employed the 'Butterfly Botnet'.

Botnets are networks of infected computers that can be used in a variety of cyberattacks on personal computers and legitimate online networks and websites.Hard data is tough to come by, but experts say cybercrime is on the rise around the world as PC and mobile computing become more prevalent and as more and more financial transactions shift online.

Because of the global networks of criminals involved and the remote nature of the crimes, police, cybersecurity professionals and targeted corporations increasingly hard-pressed to spot and ward off attacks.

The FBI's release recommended users to update their operating systems and applications regularly, use anti-virus software and disconnect computers from the Internet when not in use to ward off future cyber attacks.

Why Only Samsung Builds Phones That Outsell iPhones

2012-11-10T03:01:00.000+01:00

For the first time in years, one single handset model has reportedly outsold the iPhone. Strategy Analytics says that more Samsung Galaxy S III phones than Apple iPhone 4S handsets were sold in third quarter of this year.

Samsung Electronics (005930) moved 18 million such handsets, while Apple (AAPL) sold 16.2 million during the three-month period, says the research firm. It should be noted that Samsung’s figures represent shipments, not actual sales, but there’s a bigger point to be made here: Samsung is currently the only company that can even come close to competing with Apple when it comes to smartphones.

Before explaining why, here’s a closer look at the data. Apple’s figures represent actual sales, while Samsung’s numbers reflect the shipments of Galaxy S III handsets to carriers. That means if a carrier has an unsold Galaxy S III on the store shelf, it counts in this comparison. As a result, the Samsung figures of actual sales are lower than shipments. And if you were to count the 6 million iPhone 5 shipments in the Strategy Analytics report, Apple would outpace Samsung: 26.2 million to 18 million.

In the big picture, however, that doesn’t matter. Back in 2010, I noted that Samsung was taking an Apple-like strategy for its smartphone business. At the time, Samsung offered the first Galaxy S handset running Google (GOOG) Android and Samsung’s own TouchWiz user interface. Instead of multiple handset models offered, Samsung decided to focus on one handset for its flagship phone. Others, such as Motorola (MMI) and HTC (2498), for example, opted for a slew of handsets, each similar but yet different. With one phone model—just like Apple—Samsung benefits from production scale, common components, and similar experience for its Galaxy phone owners.

I revisited this topic again a year later when Samsung was about to surpass Nokia (NOK) as the top seller of smartphones worldwide. I explained why Samsung was about to become the new smartphone king, pointing out even more reasons for the company’s rapid smartphone success. Samsung then introduced a successor flagship phone, the Galaxy S II, and it set a sales record: 1 million sales in the first 70 days of launch. Here’s the thing: Inside the Galaxy S, the Galaxy S II, and now the Galaxy S III are various hardware components manufactured directly by Samsung.

The company makes its own chips to power phones, Super Amoled handset displays, and flash memory for internal storage. Apple controls its iPhone hardware as well but not directly: It designs the chips for iOS devices, for example, which someone else builds, and it often invests billions of dollars in component manufacturing plants in return for good pricing and primary production capacity. Aside from Samsung and Apple, who else can manage the component supply chain this well? Not Nokia, Motorola, HTC, LG Electronics (066570), or any other smartphone competitor I can think of. Apple is using that manufacturing edge to produce more units with each new iPhone as well. That’s important, because it helps Apple introduce its smartphone in more countries and on more carriers as soon as possible after launch.

Guess what: When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S III this year in May, it said it would begin sales in Europe with 145 additional countries soon after. Not two weeks later, five U.S. carriers launched the device—a vast difference in the Galaxy S II launch, where the U.S. didn’t see the phone for six months or more. With each Galaxy smartphone iteration, Samsung continues to follow the Apple-like approach of controlling its own destiny as much as possible.

Other competitors simply aren’t equipped to do so. So while Apple may have created the playbook for smartphone success, Samsung has replicated it more so than any other in this market. That actually shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve followed the Apple v. Samsung trials: The courts have already found in favor of Apple for Samsung’s replication of certain smartphone design, features, and functions. Again, we can bicker over the definitions of sales and shipments, but I’m not sure that matters unless you want to declare a real “winner” today. More important to me is that Apple finally has some real competition in the market, even though it looks to be just one true competitor.

Whoops! BlackBerry rep shows off secret phone

2012-10-13T15:45:00.000+01:00

Someone forgot to tell a BlackBerry rep in Mexico that the company's newest L-Series phone is supposed to be a secret.

The rep demoed the phone to Mexican site Hola Telcel, which posted a video online. During the clip (below), the rep shows off features of the new BlackBerry 10 operating system like the ability to virtually "rewind" a photo taken with the device to settle on an expression you most prefer.

The video isn't the first leak about the device, with photos and video showing up last month.

RIM is counting on the new devices to help it better compete against Apple and the Android handset vendors, particularly Samsung.

The company hasn't provided many specifics about the device thus far, but the L-Series is expected to hit stores early next year.

Apple's iPad mini unveiling reportedly set for Oct. 23

2012-10-13T15:26:00.000+01:00

The drumroll in advance of the so-called iPad mini is getting deafening.

John Paczkowski -- who is rarely wrong about these things -- reported Friday that "people familiar with Apple's plans" tell him that the company will introduce a new, smaller version of the 9.8-inch iPad on Oct. 23 -- nearly a week later than we had predicted.

According to Paczkowski, the unveiling will occur at an invitation-only event, probably at the Apple's (AAPL) Town Hall auditorium in Cupertino. Beyond that, he says, details are slim: "Sources say the iPad's diminutive sibling will feature a 7.85-inch liquid-crystal display and a Lightning connector.

It will also probably be thinner. And that's about it." Meanwhile, Topeka's Brian White, who is wrapping up a tour of Apple's Asian component suppliers, reported Friday that he has held what he believes to be a prototype of the iPad mini.

He writes: We uncovered over twenty suppliers that showed us accessories for the iPad Mini (some already have the accessories boxed, labeled and ready for order) and we actually had the opportunity to play with a pilot iPad Mini used by one of the vendors.

This 7.85-inch iPad Mini fit our hands like a glove and we were easily able to tuck the device in our sport coat, offering consumers a more mobile iPad experience for certain use cases.

Last week, we highlighted the improved aesthetics of the new device and we believe consumers will like this improved feel to the back casing.

Also, the fatigue factor is less of an issue given the lighter weight and smaller size.

Mobile use 'topping six billion'

2012-10-13T14:50:00.000+01:00

There are almost as many mobile phone subscriptions in the world as people, a United Nations telecom agency has said.

A report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said there were about six billion subscriptions at the end of 2011.

There are nearly seven billion people on Earth.

Almost one billion subscriptions were in China, the study found. The report, called Measuring the Information Society 2012, looked at 155 countries, assessing their access to and use of information and communication technology (ICT).

The head of the agency's data division, Susan Teltscher, said: "We count Sim cards, not the number of devices or people, so if one person has two Sim cards in one device, it counts as two subscriptions; and we count monthly subscriptions as well."

Sim cards used in a tablet or to access the internet on a laptop computer had not been taken into account, she added.

The Geneva-based agency also said almost two billion people - about one-third of the world's population - had been internet users by the end of 2011.

In developed countries, 70% of the population was online, compared with 24% in developing regions, it said.

There were almost twice as many mobile broadband subscriptions globally as fixed broadband ones, said the agency.

The director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau, Brahima Sanou, said: "The surge in numbers of mobile-broadband subscriptions in developing countries has brought the internet to a multitude of new users.

"But despite the downward trend, prices remain relatively high in many low-income countries.

"For mobile broadband to replicate the mobile-cellular miracle and bring more people from developing countries online, 3G network coverage has to be extended and prices have to go down even further."

On 14 October, leading names in the ICT industry will gather at ITU Telecom World 2012 - a global networking and knowledge-sharing event in Dubai.

Some 300 global leaders are expected to attend the conference, including heads of state, ministers, regulators, academics, and representatives of such companies as Cisco, Kaspersky Lab, Huawei, Verizon, Qualcomm, Ericsson.

Toyota to recall 8,700 units of Corolla and Camry due to faulty power window switches

2012-10-11T09:49:00.000+01:00

Car-maker Toyota has decided to recall 8,700 units of its Corolla and Camry models in India so as to rectify faulty power window switches.

Reportedly, the Japanese automaker will recall Corolla Altis manufactured between July 30 to December 31 in 2008 and Camry's models manufactured from September 1, 2006 to July 31, 2008. The recall is a part of a global exercise and will start from next month.

The firm is reportedly going to recall around 2.47 million vehicles in the US, 1.40 million vehicles in China and 1.39 million vehicles in Europe. Moreover, Toyota will also recall 650,000 vehicles in Australia and Asia and around 490,000 vehicles in the near and Middle East.

The recall comes on the back of news that the company reported a dip in September sales by 48.9%, YoY, in China. Toyota’s decision to recall its vehicles is the second biggest single recall since Ford Motors pulled back 7.9 million vehicles in 1996.

Toyota recalls 240,000 vehicles in Canada

2012-10-10T12:27:00.000+01:00

Toyota is announcing another massive recall.This one involves 7.43-million vehicles around the world—including nearly 240-thousand in Canada—for a faulty power-window switch.

The recall by the Japanese auto giant affects more than a dozen models produced from 2005 through 2010.

Toyota says the switch on the driver’s side didn’t have grease applied evenly during production, causing friction and sometimes smoke.

No crashes or injuries have been reported.

Japanese Car Named “Lowest Roadworthy Car in the World”

2012-10-09T08:21:00.003+01:00

The Japanese have come up with a car which has been titled and certified by the Guiness World Records as the “Lowest Roadworthy Car in the World”. Christened the Mirai, the car was developed by a High School class in Japan.

Mirai is the handiwork of the students and teachers at the Okayama Sanyo High School in Asakuchi, Japan. The single-seater hugs the tarmac with the highest point on the car being as low as 45.2 cms which is 6 cms less than the Flatmobile, the previous record holder.

The Flatmobile was a far outrageous concept by all standards. Being jet-powered and with a top speed of 100mph, the Batmobile replica crafted by Britain’s Perrywinkle Customs, will certainly leave the battery-powered Mirai behind in a trail of dust.

Still the effort taken by these chaps in Japan deserve to be applauded. The driving unit comes from a “Q-car”, produced by CQ motors while the switching console is borrowed from a motorbike.

The chassis, body, suspension, steering system, lights, seat and all other parts were crafted in-house at the High School. The power for driving the motors is sourced from six main batteries.

Harada Kazunari, Principal at Okayama Sanyo High School, says, “It can be frightening to drive MIRAI on a big street, especially when the speed goes over 40km/h because the road is very close to the driver’s eye point. Also, you can feel afraid that you will be run over by other cars. So, we make it a rule, when we drive MIRAI on a busy street, to place a leading car to the front of MIRAI, and a guarding car in the rear.“ Interestingly enough, the Mirai lends the phrase “hitting an all-time low” with an all new meaning.

Australia Unveils New $155 Million ASKAP Telescope

2012-10-06T16:21:00.000+01:00

Australia has unveiled a new $155 million telescope that could start to capture radio images as soon as today.The Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is one of the world’s fastest telescopes and sits in Australia’s outback.

ASKAP has 36 antennas with a diameter of 40 feet each and forms part of the world’s biggest radio telescope projects.The telescope is located at the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory, 196 miles northeast of Geraldton in the Western Australian desert.

Dr. John O’Sullivan, from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), told BBC that the telescope is a “very powerful instrument to start to get a look [at] the origins of galaxies… It is the beginning of a great new period, I think.”

The telescope’s remote location offers an area with very little interference from man-made radio signals.ASKAP will help scientists look for black holes in the universe, which are mysterious, hard to observe objects.

The new telescope is part of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) that is set to begin construction sometime in 2016.

SKA will become the world’s biggest radio telescope project based in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. This project will consist of thousands of radio-wave antennas that will all link together by high bandwidth optical fiber.

The antennas will work together as a single instrument with a collecting area approximating one square kilometer, or .38 square miles.CSIRO built the telescope. The organization announced back in August that a new supercomputer would be installed at iVEC’s Pawsey Centre in Perth, Western Australia to help support the data being carried out using ASKAP.

“I’m delighted that years of hard work, by so many people in so many organizations, has paid off,” the Australia–New Zealand SKA Project Director, Dr. Brian Boyle, who is also from CSIRO, said in a statement. “A dual SKA site will ensure that the expertise brought to the international project is truly capitalized on.

Concentrating radio-wave antennas at the superbly radio quiet MRO will maximize our scientific return. We look forward to further details as they evolve.”

redOrbit

Facebook 'likes' add automatically without user-clicks

2012-10-06T16:05:00.002+01:00

Facebook 'likes' are being added to webpages irrespective of whether users have clicked a like button or not, or even visited the social networking site, the company has acknowledged.

A US security researcher has found that simply sending a web address to a friend using Facebook's private messaging function adds two likes to the page.

Leaving a comment on a story within a Facebook page also adds to the tally, the 'BBC news' reported.

"We did recently find a bug with our social plug-ins where at times the count for the Share or Like goes up by two, and we are working on fix to solve the issue now," the site said.

Facebook explained that the figure represented how many times an item was shared - not how often users had clicked "like" on the page.

However, the number appears next to the word "like" and the site's distinctive thumbs up icon.

This means that users who may be sharing pages to highlight negative content - such as campaigners - are inadvertently making the page appear more popular.

The news comes a day after Facebook said it has surpassed the milestone of one billion monthly active users.

6 Creative Ways to Earn Extra Money

2012-09-25T23:30:00.000+01:00

There are a lot ways you can earn some extra cash on the side. Plus, with today's economic condition, earning some extra money wouldn't hurt. With today's economy, people have undoubtedly limited the way they spend their money.

1.Start a Blog

In the world of blogging, there's a place of expertise for everyone. If you're an expert at something, people would want to know about your expertise. Advertisements or recommending products could help you earn some profit from your blog. Connecting to services like Google adsense,Addyanamo,Chikita and other affialiates program could bring in a good cash flow.

2.Take Advantage of your artistic talents

Get your creative juices flowing by designing t-shirts and selling them online. You can check out Café Pressor or Zazzle where you can set the price of your t-shirts.

Another great option you have is Threadless, where you can submit your design for the website community to vote for and comment on your design. If your idea is selected you will receive $2000 in cash and $500 in gift certificates.

3.Learn How to DJ

If you love music and like to mix it up then learn the trade of a DJ. DJ's earn big money today and if your music is good you can gain reputation fast.

4.Write a Book
If you have the knack for writing, try writing your own book. You can uses LULU to self-publish your book using one of their templates. Just write the content and Lulu will do the rest (while taking their cut of course).

5.Do freelance work

Nowadays, almost any job can be done on a contract or freelance basis. Check out sites like Sologig, which lead jobs seekers to consulting, freelancing, and part-time projects that will help you earn money.

6.You can even take up writing online articles, become a graphic designer, you can end up designing logos, or marketing campaigns for companies since most companies today are looking to outsource their work.

Apple unveils iPhone 5: Thinner, lighter, 16:9 4-inch display, LTE, and available Sept 21

2012-09-13T10:02:00.000+01:00

Apple CEO Tim Cook and vice president Phil Schiller have unveiled the iPhone 5. In most major markets, the phone will be preorderable on September 14 and will begin shipping on September 21. In December, the iPhone 5 will be made available in 100 countries on 240 carriers. The iPhone 5 will cost the same as the iPhone 4S (starting at $199 in the US with a two-year contract).

The iPhone 5 looks exactly as the leaks suggested — longer and narrower than the iPhone 4 — but we now know that the iPhone 5 is also considerably thinner (7.6mm, the thinnest smartphone in the world, apparently) and much lighter (112g, 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S).

The iPhone 5 has a 4-inch 1136×640 (326 PPI) Retina display — so yes, Apple has finally moved from the 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9. As far as we can tell, this new space will simply be used for another row of icons on the home screen — and other important apps, iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, etc. have all been updated to use the additional real estate. In the case of apps that haven’t been updated, the new iPhone will simply display the app at standard resolution (960×640) with black bars above and below (yes, I can hardly believe it, but there you go).

The new 16:9 display also ups color saturation by 44%, bringing its color gamut to full sRGB — “the most accurate display in the industry,” according to Apple. The touchscreen assembly is apparently built into the display, making it more accurate — but we don’t have any more details on that yet.

The Apple A6 SoC

Powering the iPhone 5 is the new Apple A6 SoC, which is apparently twice as fast as the A5, both in terms of graphics and computation. Apple wheeled out some EA executive to tell us that the A6 is capable of “full console quality” graphics, but we remain dubious. Battery life is apparently slightly improved from the iPhone 4S, too.

We don’t have any more details to share at this point, but given the doubling in speed the A6 is probably a dual-core Cortex-A15 design — similar to Samsung’s Exynos 5.

LTE support, no NFC

Beyond the new chassis, the other “big” feature is the addition of a cellular radio capable of HSPA+, DC-HSDPDA, and LTE. Details weren’t given, but we believe this modem is the Qualcomm MDM9615, a single-chip 28nm solution. A large number of supported carriers were listed, including AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon in the US, and a bunch of European and Asian providers. We will have much more details on the iPhone 5′s radio capabilities later.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no NFC support on the iPhone 5 — indicating Apple still doesn’t believe that NFC is ready for prime time.

iSight camera

The iPhone 5 features an 8-megapixel shooter, with a backside illuminated CMOS sensor, f/2.4 aperture, and other fancy tricks to improve image quality and low-light performance. The new A6 SoC also has some new hardware in it that will improve image quality. Apparently the iPhone 5 is 40% faster at capturing an image (presumably we’re talking about processing time here, rather than shutter speed or something else). There isn’t any optical image stabilization like the Lumia 920, though!

Apple did show some amazing sample images during the presentation, but we’ll have to get our hands on some real sample images before we can decide if Apple or Nokia will be this generation’s camera king.

Rounding out the camera, there’s a few other neat features (face detection, panorama mode), and the front-facing camera can now do FaceTime calls over cellular networks (unless AT&T stops you, of course).

Die, 30-pin connector, die

With the iPhone 5, Apple is debuting a new 8-pin connector called Lightning (to go withThunderbolt, get it?). Other than being a lot smaller, the most exciting aspect of Lightning is that it’s reversible; you can shove it in whichever way you want. There is of course an adapter ($29!) if you need to connect your new iPhone to some old hardware (such as, you know, your car).

Rather than being related to Thunderbolt, though, Lightning is probably based on USB 3.0. Again, we don’t have any specifics to share (seems to be a recurring theme, for some reason).

90,000 Chrome users fall for malicious Facebook Timeline extension

2012-09-12T18:30:00.000+01:00

Security researchers at Barracuda Networks have spotted a handful of malicious Chrome extensions lurking in the Web Store that shared a common M.O. All of them were designed to track a user’s browsing activity, and all were disguised as Facebook mods that could revert the site from Timeline to its traditional layout. In total, around 90,000 Chrome users had been tricked into installing the three extensions spotted by Barracuda.

Beyond tracking their users, the extensions also pushed bogus surveys and urge users into joining fake Facebook events. That part of the scam is what attracts new users to scammy extensions like this in the first place. In the Web Store, it’s hard for them to stand out when other legitimate extensions are already established and offer a long list of reviews and good ratings that prove their utility. In order to lure their marks into the van, the extension authors push it on Facebook — where frustrated users are more likely to jump on the first thing they see that promises to undo the Timeline view.

Fortunately for Chrome users, Google has already caught on to the scam, too. As of this morning, all three of the extensions flagged by Barracuda as malicious have been removed from the Web Store.

Now that Chrome is the most-used web browser in the world, Google’s going to need to remain vigilant. It should be a bit easier to keep malicious extensions at bay now, what with the company’s acquisition of the web-based malware scanning service VirusTotal going down last week.

FBI launches 1 billion dollar nationwide facial recognition system

2012-09-12T17:28:00.000+01:00

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun rolling out its new $1 billion biometric Next Generation Identification (NGI) system. In essence, NGI is a nationwide database of mugshots, iris scans, DNA records, voice samples, and other biometrics, that will help the FBI identify and catch criminals — but it ishow this biometric data is captured, through a nationwide network of cameras and photo databases, that is raising the eyebrows of privacy advocates.

Until now, the FBI relied on IAFIS, a national fingerprint database that has long been due an overhaul. Over the last few months, the FBI has been pilot testing a facial recognition system — and soon, detectives will also be able to search the system for other biometrics such as DNA records and iris scans. In theory, this should result in much faster positive identifications of criminals and fewer unsolved cases.

According to New Scientist, facial recognition systems have reached the point where they can match a single face from a pool of 1.6 million mugshots/passport photos with 92% accuracy, in under 1.2 seconds [PDF]. In the case of automated, biometric border controls where your face and corresponding mugshot are well lit, the accuracy approaches 100%. Likewise, where DNA or iris records exist, it’s a very expedient way of accurately identifying suspects.

So far, so good — catching criminals faster and making less false arrests must be a good thing, right? Well, yes, but there are some important caveats that we must bear in mind. For a start, the pilot study has only used mugshots and driving license photos of known criminals — but the FBI hasn’t guaranteed that this will always be the case. There may come a time when the NGI is filled with as many photos as possible, from as many sources as possible, of as many people as possible — criminal or otherwise. This might be as overt as parsing CCTV footage and collating every single face into a database; or maybe you’re just unlucky and your face ends up in the system because you’re in the background of a photo starring a known criminal.

Imagine if the NGI had full access to every driving license and passport photo in the country — and DNA records kept by doctors, and iris scans kept by businesses. The FBI’s NGI, if the right checks and balances aren’t in place, could very easily become a tool that decimates civilian privacy and freedom. Time to invest in a hoodie, I think…

New Coke Machine Can Take Your Picture, Has a 46" video screen,a Microphone,,,

2012-09-12T17:03:00.002+01:00

Intel showed off a new fancy Coca-Cola machine at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today. Why did Intel show off a glorified sugar water dispenser? Well, that’s because the device happens to house an Intel Core i7 microprocessor.

It needs all that computer horsepower to function its many doodads, like the microphone it has for no apparent reason. The machine also comes equipped with a camera, which would theoretically be used to gather demographic information, but is thoroughly creepy regardless. Dadi Perlmutter, Intel’s executive vice president, presented the machine during his keynote speech.

Old coke dispenser

A camera and microphone isn’t all it has, according to VentureBeat:

Perlmutter said the 46-inch video screen has full 1080p high-definition playback and a microphone. It has a Wi-Fi wireless network, a QR Code reader, and an old-fashioned money slot and dispenser. In case you want to watch a movie on the Coke machine, it’s entirely possible.

Why a soda machine would have the majority of these additional options is confusing. It’s takes the glorious no-nonsense approach of a traditional dispenser out of the equation and replaces it with depressingly corporate set of shenanigans. At least it will look snazzy, though.

Google Launches Open Course Builder

2012-09-12T16:40:00.000+01:00

Google launched an open source course building web application for the growing list of K-12 and big-name universities developing online classes. The barebones website is a lightweight way to bring course material online, track student engagement (with web traffic and surveys), and evaluate performance. “We want to use this launch to show that Google believes it can contribute to technology in education,” says Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig.

Course-builder came off the back of an experimental Google class, “Power Searching with Google,” which went out to schools across the country to educate students on the more advanced features of Google for online research. The power-searching course “was a strong success and also generated some technology that we thought would be useful to share with the world,” says Norvig. “We feel that by sharing the code that we’ve generated, we can impact more people in the education space. There is a lot of experimentation going on in the industry at this point, and we felt that contributing an open source project would be a beneficial starting point that could help everyone.”

Google is hoping that big-name universities, such as Stanford and MIT, who have started to put their courses online for free, will adopt the technology.

There are many websites, such as Udemy, that have long offered services for individual users to create (and get paid) for their own classes. Universities, however, are looking for an in-house solution, and a common code-base to evolve custom courses could be helpful.

GoDaddy goes down

2012-09-11T18:24:00.002+01:00

WEB HOSTING FIRM Godaddy saw its services go down for several hours last night as a mystery problem knocked thousands of websites offline. The firm admitted to the problems in a string of messages on the microblogging website Twitter.

There it said that it was aware of the problem and was working hard to fix it. This was denied and rather scorned, however, by the rest of the group. The account holder, called Anonymousown3r, says that he was working alone, and asked that people not associate the attack with the wider Anonymous group.

He claims that his still attacking Godaddy but has not given any reason for the attack. In statements on Twitter the hacker has suggested that the attack was easy, claiming that when he chooses to mount a denial of service attack on a website he can keep it offline for months.

Godaddy has not yet responded to our request for comment, but in a statement on its website has told customers that no personal information has been taken in the attack.

Update

Godaddy has reponded to the outage, revealing that there was no hacking involved.

A spokesperson said, "The service outage was not caused by external influences. "It was not a 'hack' and it was not a denial of service attack (DDoS).

We have determined the service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables.

"Once the issues were identified, we took corrective actions to restore services for our customers and Godaddy.com. We have implemented measures to prevent this from occurring again." )

HP, Dell: Biggest PC makers in desperate need of a reboot

2012-08-29T09:02:00.000+01:00

Hewlett-Packard Co. used to be known as a place where innovative thinkers flocked to work on great ideas that opened new frontiers in technology. These days, HP is looking behind the times.

Coming off a five-year stretch of miscalculations, HP is in such desperate need of a reboot that many investors have written off its chances of a comeback.Consider this: Since Apple Inc. shifted the direction of computing with the release of the iPhone in June 2007, HP's market value has plunged by 60 percent to $35 billion. During that time, HP has spent more than $40 billion on dozens of acquisitions that have largely turned out to be duds so far.

"Just think of all the value that they have destroyed," ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall said. "It has been a case of just horrible management."Marshall traces the bungling to the reign of Carly Fiorina, who pushed through an acquisition of Compaq Computer a decade ago despite staunch resistance from many shareholders, including the heirs of HP's co-founders.

After HP ousted Fiorina in 2005, other questionable deals and investments were made by two subsequent CEOS, Mark Hurd and Leo Apotheker.HP hired Meg Whitman 11 months ago in the latest effort to salvage what remains of one of the most hallowed names in Silicon Valley 73 years after its start in a Palo Alto, Calif., garage.

The latest reminder of HP's ineptitude came last week when the company reported an $8.9 billion quarterly loss, the largest in the company's history. Most of the loss stemmed from an accounting charge taken to acknowledge that HP paid far too much when it bought technology consultant Electronic Data Systems for $13 billion in 2008.

HP might have been unchallenged for the ignominious title as technology's most troubled company if not for one its biggest rivals, Dell Inc.
Like HP, Dell missed the trends that have turned selling PCs into one of technology's least profitable and slowest growing niches. As a result, Dell's market value has also plummeted by 60 percent, to about $20 billion, since the iPhone's release.
That means the combined market value of HP and Dell—the two largest PC makers in the U.S.—is less than the $63 billion in revenue Apple got from iPhones and various accessories during just the past nine months.
The hand-held, touch-based computing revolution unleashed by the iPhone and Apple's 2010 introduction of the iPad isn't the only challenge facing HP and Dell.
They are also scrambling to catch up in two other rapidly growing fields—"cloud computing" and "Big Data."
Cloud computing refers to the practice of distributing software applications over high-speed Internet connections from remote data centers so that customers can used them on any device with online access. Big Data is a broad term for hardware storage and other services that help navigate the sea of information flowing in from the increasing amount of work, play, shopping and social interaction happening online.
Both HP and Dell want a piece of the action because cloud computing and Big Data boast higher margins and growth opportunities than the PC business.

It's not an impossible transition, as demonstrated by the once-slumping but now-thriving IBM Corp., a technology icon even older than HP. But IBM began its makeover during the 1990s under Louis Gerstner and went through its share of turmoil before selling its PC business to Lenovo Group in 2005. HP and Dell are now trying to emulate IBM, but they may be making their moves too late as they try to compete with IBM and Oracle Corp., as well as a crop of younger companies that focus exclusively on cloud computing or Big Data.

A revival at HP will take time, something that HP CEO Meg Whitman has repeatedly stressed during her first 11 months on the job."Make no mistake about it: We are still in the early stages of a turnaround," Whitman told analysts during a conference call last week.

The problems Whitman is trying to fix were inherited from Apotheker and Hurd.
HP hired Apotheker after he was dumped by his previous employer. He lasted less than a year as HP's CEO—just long enough to engineer an $11 billion acquisition of business software maker Autonomy, another poorly performing deal that is threatening to lump HP with another huge charge.

Before Apotheker, Hurd won praise for cutting costs during his five-year reign at HP, but Marshall believes HP was too slow to respond to the mobile computing, cloud computing and Big Data craze that began to unfold under Hurd's watch. HP also started its costly shopping spree while Hurd was CEO.How much further will HP and Dell fall before they hit bottom?

HP's revenue has declined in each of the past four quarters, compared with the same period a year earlier, and analysts expect the trend to extend into next year. The most pessimistic scenarios envision HP's annual revenue falling from about $120 billion this year to $90 billion toward the end of this decade.

The latest projections for PC sales also paint a grim picture. The research firm IDC now predicts PC shipments this year will increase by less than 1 percent, down from its earlier forecast of 5 percent.

Whitman is determined to offset the crumbling revenue by trimming expenses. She already is trying to lower annual costs by $3.5 billion during the next two years, mostly by eliminating 27,000 jobs, or 8 percent of HP's workforce.Marshall expects Whitman's austerity campaign to enable HP to maintain its annual earnings at about $4 per share, excluding accounting charges, for the foreseeable future.

If HP can do that, Marshall believes the stock will turn out to be a bargain investment, even though he isn't expecting the business to grow during the next few years. The shares dropped 37 cents Monday to finish at $17.21, HP's lowest closing price in eight years.

One of the main reasons that Marshall still likes HP's stock at this price is because of the company's quarterly dividend of 13.2 cents per share. That translates into a dividend yield of about 3 percent, an attractive return during these times of puny interest rates.

Dell's stock looks less attractive, partly because its earnings appear to still be dropping. The company, which is based in Round Rock, Texas, signaled its weakness last week, when it lowered its earnings projection for the current fiscal year by 20 percent.

Dell executives also indicated that the company is unlikely to get a sales lift from the Oct. 26 release of Microsoft Corp.'s much-anticipated makeover of its Windows operating system. That's because Dell focuses on selling PCs to companies, which typically take a long time before they decide to switch from one version of Windows to the next generation.

Dell shares slipped to a new three-year low of $11.10 in Monday trading before closing at $11.12, down 14 cents.As PC sales languish, both HP and Dell are likely to spend more on cloud computing, data storage and technology consulting.

Although those look like prudent bets now, HP and Dell probably should be spending more money trying to develop products and services that turn into "the next new thing" in three or four years, said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan law and business professor who has been tracking the troubles of both companies.

"It's like they are both standing on the dock watching boats that have already sailed," Gordon said. "They are going to have to swim very fast just to have chance to climb back on one of the boats."