Mac to the future

At the Apple keynote address in October this year, Steve Jobs jokingly asked the audience, “What would happen if a Macbook and an iPad hooked up?” But he wasn’t kidding then as he later unveiled the new range of Macbook Air laptops – they truly are the ‘next generation of Macbooks’. With the addition of 11 and 13-inch notebooks to the Macbook Air range, Apple is clearly sending a message - that the future of laptops are devices which are ultra light, ultra portable and ultra performers – all without the help of an optical drive. We tell you why the Air might be a worth considering – whether you swear by Macs or PCs.

For the Macbook user

If you’re an Apple loyalist, you’ll love it, though you might think that the Air would be a downgrade from the Pro. The folks at Cupertino have a different take on the subject though – they feel that the Air is the notebook of the future. The Pro has been marketed as a complete solution – a notebook to take care of your work and personal needs. So let’s see how the Air matches up to it. We got hands-on with the 11.6-inch version.

When you first lay your eyes on the Air, you’ll wonder if it can really pack in everything that the thicker and larger Pro has to offer. The 11.6-inch Air weighs just 2.3 pounds, and we found it really easy to carry around. It’s also incredibly thin - measuring just 0.68 inches at its thickest point and 0.11-inches at its thinnest. Its 13.3-inch big brother isn’t so big either – weighing just 2.9 pounds and measuring the same in thickness.

We’re used to the sturdy build of the Pro, so we naturally wondered about the Air being flimsy. But the Air too is constructed from a single piece of aluminium, just like the Pro, and is equally resistant to bumps and falls.

If you’re used to the Pro, you may think that a 11.6-inch notebook might be a compromise on functionality, but we found that the Air incorporates a full size keyboard and trackpad. The trackpad supports a variety of multi-touch gestures, which we explored in detail in our Apple Magic Trackpad review.

Inside, the software isn’t very different from what you get on a Pro. It’s powered by a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor and Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics. The 13-inch is slightly more powerful, with a 1.86 GHz processor. We had multiple windows open – a few Safari browser tabs, iPhoto, iTunes, TextEdit and QuickTime, and all the applications ran smoothly.

The screen is LED backlit, and at 1366x768 pixels, its high def. Apple promises 5 hours of battery life, and the Air didn’t let us down when it came to that.

Other features that the Air has to offer is a FaceTime camera and the new suite of iLife applications.

iPad 2 to launch in three versions?

Bangalore: With speculations abound in the Web about the iPad 2, the latest one says that iPad 2 will be launched in three versions.
One will support Wi-Fi only, the next will see a combination of Wi-Fi and UTMS support while the third version will come with support of Wi-Fi and CDMA.

DigiTimes reports that the mass production of the three versions will start in the latter half January 2011.
Since the current iPad shipments are mostly of 3G models, Apple aims to offer more wireless connectivity solutions with iPad 2.
Among other works to better the iPad 2, Apple is working on improving the anti-smudge and anti-reflective effects.
It is estimated that the production of iPad will stop after January and the iPad 2 is expected to launch by end of first quarter or start of the second.

iPad 2, when launched, is speculated to ship about 40 million units translating to 65-75 percent of global tablet market.
 

Canada is the most web-addicted nation on earth

Toronto: Canada is the most web-addicted nation on the planet. Canadians spend more time on the web and its offshoots - Facebook, YouTube and Twitter - than people anywhere else in the world. They are neck and neck with Indians for the number of Facebook accounts, says a report.

According to comScore, the leading online measurement service, Canadian online users log in more than 2,500 minutes a month, followed by Israelis with about 2,300 minutes. Users in a few other countries cross the 2,000-minute mark. 

Giving figures for the month of April, comScore said nearly 68 percent of the Canadian population was online, compared to 62 percent in France and the United Kingdom, 60 percent in Germany, 59 percent in the U.S., 57 percent in Japan, and 36 percent in Italy.

In this country which leads the world in internet access, Canadians also lead the world in various offshoots of the web - Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, according to the report.

"In Canada, YouTube per capita consumption of video is No. 1 in the world. It's just absolutely crazy in terms of how passionate Canadians are about YouTube," the Canadian Press quotes Chris O'Neill, Canada's Country Director for Google, as saying.

According to him, more than 21 million Canadians out of its population of 34 million visit YouTube each month, compared to 147 million Americans in a population of over 310 million.

But considering the U.S. has 10 times Canada's population, Canadians are way ahead on a per capita basis, says the report.

Canadians also watch more videos each month, with an average of 147 as compared to 100 per U.S. viewer.

With more than 17 million Facebook users, Canada has more than half of its population hooked to this socializing web site.

India and Canada are neck and neck for the 9th and 10th positions on the list of countries with the most Facebook accounts, according to the report.

Though no figures are available for Twitter accounts in Canada, their number has jumped 75 percent since the beginning of the year, according to Twitter.

In fact, Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber, who is just 16, has more than 6.4 million followers on Twitter.

Android laden Dell Venue set for India release?

Bangalore: Dell India has added a new smartphone on its website, the Dell Venue, hinting it may soon launch in India.

The device runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system. No price or specific release date has been mentioned yet. Venue debuted worldwide last week in Hong Kong.

Venue sports a 4.1 inch WVGA AMOLED capacitive, multi-touch display screen and is powered by a 1GHz QSD 8250 processor.

The smartphone is the Android cousin of Dell Venue Pro that is Windows Phone 7 based.

The phone measures 121 x 64 x 12.9mm with a 8MP camera, that has auto focus, digital zoom features. It also has a dedicated camera key for image and video capturing.

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB and GPS.

The phone ships with 1GB of internal memory, which is expandable up to 32GB with a microSD card. The phone with a 1400 mAh has other features like e-compass.

Like the Dell Streak, the phone comes with the Gorilla Glass that helps in preventing fingerprints, smudging and scratches on the display screen.

Motorola Droid X unveiled, 'made for video

More thanNEW YORK--Google CEO Eric Schmidt made a guest appearance at a press conference here Wednesday where Google, Motorola, and Verizon Wireless unveiled the new version of the popular Android Droid smartphone.

Schmidt took the stage first and touted the importance of the smartphone category.

The"This is not a toy or app engine," he said. "It is a powerful kind of operating system. What is happening now is that people are thinking mobile first instead of desktop first."

He cited the importance of a robust wireless network, as well as hardware with fast processors and big screens. But Schmidt said Wednesday's event is notable not just for the announcement of the new Droid, but for the emergence of the entire category of device.
Indeed, the new Droid X epitomizes this. The newest version of the Google Android phone made by Motorola offers an HDMI output, a 4.3-inch display, and 720p video capture. The device also comes with faster processors that will offer faster Web browsing. And it has an 8-megapixel high-definition camera.
John Stratton, executive vice president of Verizon Wireless, said the device is made for video. And there will be new apps designed to take advantage of these features, including a deal with Blockbuster to provide movies for purchase or rent.
The Droid X will cost $199.99 after a $100 rebate and will go on sale starting July 15. Unlike AT&T, which has switched to tiered pricing for its iPhone, Verizon said it will keep its unlimited mobile data plan for smartphones, which costs $30 a month.
The new Droid X also offers Wi-Fi hot spot capability, which allows users to connect up to five additional Wi-Fi devices to the Verizon 3G network. This feature will cost $20 extra a month for 2GB of data for the month. If users exceed the 2GB, they will pay 5 cents per megabyte.
Verizon is altering its upgrade policy to sweeten the deal for current customers looking to upgrade to the Droid. It will allow any Verizon Wireless customer whose contract expires in 2010 to upgrade to the Droid when it comes out on July 15.

Google Android makes 2010 its coming-out party

The Android operating system, introduced by Google in 2007, was on only a handful of phones at the beginning of 2010. But by the end of the year, dozens of new devices sporting the open OS were available on every major U.S. operator's network. AT&T was the last of the four wireless giants to get Android, announcing it would have at least five Android phones in January 2010.

TheIn April, ComScore data showed the Android mobile platform growing faster than any other mobile platform on the market. By November Gartner placed Android second in terms of worldwide smartphone market share. The OS accounted for 25 percent of the market in the third quarter, Gartner reported. The year before it accounted for only about 3.5 percent of the worldwide smartphone market. Sales of Android phones only trailed sales of phones running Nokia's Symbian operating system.

Android phones have taken off in part because they can hit different consumer segments, Gartner said. Samsung has done well with high-end phones like the Galaxy S. But lower-price models are also proving popular as evidenced by ZTE's recent launch of a low-cost Android phone available in the U.K. as a prepaid package.
Phone makers went on a tear in 2010, releasing one hot Android phone after another. Some of the most popular devices were sold by Verizon Wireless, which focused marketing dollars on Android phones. In the spring, Verizon introduced the HTC Incredible, followed by the Motorola Droid X in the summer. These devices proved to be hugely popular with consumers.
But Verizon's rivals were not to be outdone. Sprint Nextel launched the Evo 4G, Sprint's first 4G phone, which also happened to be built on the Android OS. T-Mobile came out with the T-Mobile G2 and T-Mobile myTouch, both phones made by HTC.
These phones, among other Android devices, were some of the hottest smartphones of the year. And because they were in such high demand, some manufacturers struggled to keep up. By summer, thousands of customers looking for the HTC Evo and HTC Incredible left stores empty-handed. A sparse supply of components resulted in device shortages across the country.
While Google made big strides with the Android platform, Apple also managed to have another big year with the iPhone. The company launched the fourth generation of the iPhone, the iPhone 4, in June. The device, which added a slew of new features, including a video chat app called Facetime and one of the best display screens on the market, was highly anticipated.
Enthusiasm was at its peak for the new iPhone 4 when pictures of a prototype of the device showed up on Gawker Media's Gizmodo Web site. An engineer had accidently left the prototype at a bar where someone picked it up and offered it to Gizmodo for an early look. The dustup over the lost/stolen iPhone created a big stir, as the Gizmodo writer, who published the pictures, became the target of a police investigation, which culminated in a raid of his Silicon Valley apartment.
As expected, the iPhone 4 was a hit, even despite the fact that AT&T changed its data billing plan, eliminating its unlimited data service and replacing it with a tiered offering.
During the third quarter, AT&T, which still has the exclusive rights to sell the iPhone, said it activated more than 8 million smartphones, of which about 5.2 million were iPhones. It was the "most iPhone activations ever in a quarter," the carrier said. During the second quarter of 2010, AT&T activated 3.2 million iPhones.
But some consumers were initially unhappy with the iPhone 4, as it was quickly discovered that the phone's antenna, which runs along the outside of the device, could be undermined when holding the phone a certain way. After a few weeks of bumbling explanations, Apple fixed the problem by providing free rubber bumpers to new iPhone 4 customers.
Beyond the iPhone 4 and the various Android devices, other smartphone manufacturers came on the scene with new devices. For example, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion finally released its next-generation operating system, BlackBerry OS 6. The BlackBerry Torch, which has a touch screen and a QWERTY keypad, was the first device to get the new software. Microsoft alsolaunched its Windows Phone 7 devices on AT&T.
But other platforms that had been hyped in 2009 faded into the background, namely the Palm Pre. Palm was acquired in April by Hewlett-Packard, and soon after that, Palm became more of an afterthought in the rapidly evolving smartphone market.
What's ahead for the smartphone market in 2011? More Android devices top the list. Specifically, Verizon Wireless is expected to continue backing Android with a slew of new devices that will run on its LTE 4G wireless network. But the really big news is likely to be the end of AT&T's exclusive on the iPhone. Verizon is expected to announce a version of the iPhone for its network early in 2011. So stay tuned.

Featured Technology Talk Future refrigerators to provide fresh food

DLondon: Imagine your home refrigerator cleaning itself, offering up recipes depending on whether you prefer something Italian or fancy a spicy curry, cutting down on left-overs, and automatically re-ordering fresh food.

Well, your imagination may soon turn into a reality, thanks to British researchers who claim to be designing such a ' fridge of the future' which could help you save precious time in today's hectic life.According to them, the fridge of the future would be able to automatically place supermarket home delivery orders when required and move food near its use by date to the front of the shelves, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

In fact, a joint team from the University of Central Lancashire and online supermarket Ocado are working hard to make such a fridge available in the market.

The planned new features include the ability for fridges to scan their shelves to see what is in stock and use this information to both plan meals and automatically place a supermarket food order, say the researchers.

The smart fridge will use "nano-articulated technology" shelf surfaces which, whilst smooth to the touch, will have millions of independently controlled micro-tiles which will manoeuvre products which soon need to be eaten to the front of the fridge.

The fridge will also monitor gases released by degrading foods and push these to the front of its shelves, according to the designers.

Ultrasound-scanning technology built into the door will allow the fridge to "swipe and capture" the food on a plate before and after mealtime, meaning it can assess what type and amount of food is wasted.


London: Imagine your home refrigerator cleaning itself, offering up recipes depending on whether you prefer something Italian or fancy a spicy curry, cutting down on left-overs, and automatically re-ordering fresh food.

Well, your imagination may soon turn into a reality, thanks to British researchers who claim to be designing such a 'fridge of the future' which could help you save precious time in today's hectic life.



According to them, the fridge of the future would be able to automatically place supermarket home delivery orders when required and move food near its use by date to the front of the shelves, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

In fact, a joint team from the University of Central Lancashire and online supermarket Ocado are working hard to make such a fridge available in the market.

The planned new features include the ability for fridges to scan their shelves to see what is in stock and use this information to both plan meals and automatically place a supermarket food order, say the researchers.

The smart fridge will use "nano-articulated technology" shelf surfaces which, whilst smooth to the touch, will have millions of independently controlled micro-tiles which will manoeuvre products which soon need to be eaten to the front of the fridge.

The fridge will also monitor gases released by degrading foods and push these to the front of its shelves, according to the designers.

Ultrasound-scanning technology built into the door will allow the fridge to "swipe and capture" the food on a plate before and after mealtime, meaning it can assess what type and amount of food is wasted. Similar technological advances in the kitchen bin, with its own management system, would allow it to be linked to the fridge giving a more accurate measure of how much and what kinds of food are thrown out rather than eaten, says the team.

The fridge of the future would then be able to cross reference and act on this data - reducing the ingredients used in future meal suggestions and helping to minimise food waste. Dr Simon Somerville, a future forecasting expert from the University of Central Lancashire, said that someone feeling lazy could use the proposed fridge to whip up a recipe for them.

He said: "Cookbooks are essentially inventory lists of food items. To this end the most available information that the refrigerator will have is a set of permutations that allow a set number of ingredients to produce a large number of quite different dishes.

"The key concept in the successful implementation of this process is accurate inventory tracking. Based on information contained within each menu, such as 'this dish is typical to the north of Italy', allows a menu selection based on geographical location -- all the time the user choice is compared by the refrigerator to what it knows it holds.

"If the specific item for a recipe is not present, the refrigerator might suggest a delayed option, which allows time for delivery, or possibly attempt to find or propose a passable alternative for the missing ingredient."

IBM designed memory Racetrack takes another step toward reality

When Aparna (name unchanged), a lawyer, typed her name in Spokeo's search box, the results shocked her. The address where she had stayed in the United States — a piece of information she thought was not public — was there on the map for anyone to see.

Spokeo (www.spokeo.com) says it is “not your grandma's phonebook.” It is true because the site does something your grandma's phonebook could never dream of — it mines the net collecting public information on a person, stitches the scattered bits of data together to weave a comprehensive snapshot of the person. You can obtain such a dossier on virtually anyone in the online world for as low as Rs.150 a month. Pipl, 123People, and Intelius are sites similar to Spokeo.

“Informed consent,” is the key to sharing information online, says Balachander Krishnamurthy, a researcher with AT&T Labs Research, U.S., whose interests include Internet privacy and online social networks. Though the first step to informed consent is awareness, many users seem unaware of who can see their data and to what purpose such information is used for.

For instance, your visits to many popular websites are tracked. This means someone else (other than the site you are visiting) knows what you do there. Such companies, called aggregators, track your online behaviour to help marketing efforts.

These aggregators have been around for a long time, but most users are unaware of the current reach and enormity of this industry. A growing population (of around two billion users now) visiting popular sites tracked over many years — you do the arithmetic. Interestingly, most of the tracking and aggregation of this multi-billion dollar industry is done by a handful of companies.

In a 2008 paper, Dr. Krishnamurthy and Craig Wills of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, U.S., reported that the penetration of the top 10 aggregators in tracking user-viewing habits across a large number of popular websites grew from 40 per cent in 2005 to 70 per cent. “Things have gotten worse as there has only been more aggregation,” he says.

The recent figure stands at 84 per cent, Dr. Krishnamurthy says, and at the top is Google with a penetration of 75 per cent.

Dr. Krishnamurthy and Dr. Wills found that when these aggregators tracked you on an online social networking site, your profile information such as age, address, photographs, and relationships, could “leak” to the aggregators.

This they reported in a 2009 paper. So it is possible for the same set of aggregators to access both — data on online viewing habits and profile information. This implies these aggregators have the potential to link the two. The existing privacy protection techniques have limitations in preventing privacy diffusion, according to these researchers.

So the answer to whether you have a choice in deciding who sees your data seems to be no in many cases.


Do you like it when marketers track your behavior across the Internet, in the name of providing you with targeted ads? If you said no, you're in the majority, according to a new Gallup Poll and common sense. But don't worry. Advertisers will continue to follow you anyhow.

AdAge took a look at the new survey's unsurprising results:

“
When asked if advertisers should be allowed to match ads to people's specific interests based on other websites they've previously visited, a clear majority of 67% said no, compared with 30% who said yes.

Marketers defending behavioral targeting have argued in part that the public might not understand how much this advertising fuels free websites. "Because there's been so much scare-mongering, people have been frightened about behavioral advertising," said John Montgomery, chief operating officer of GroupM Interaction, a unit of WPP. "People are now equating it to something more pernicious."

”
Survey respondents also balked at the idea that behavioral advertising is okay because it allows web sites to offer free, ad-supported content, with 61% saying it wasn't justified.

The Federal Trade Commission has been critical of the practice and has recommended that web browsers include a "Do Not Track" tool that could monitor tracking and allow users to opt out of tracking. New versions Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are expected to include this function.

Now, a 3D printer to serve you food

London: Technology has made our world easier in more than one way. With the convergence of technology these days, you can expect one gadget to do several jobs, away from what it is actually meant to do. A case in point here would be a printer that will serve you food. Don't believe it? Read on.

The scientists at Cornell University, New York are in the process of developing a 3D food printer that will have ink in the form of raw food. How it will work is the raw food ink is fed into the printer and then you need to load the recipe of the desired food item and just click a button. And there you have your food readyAn electronic blueprint guides you as to where will each material be placed. It is created by using computer aided design (CAD) software.

The Daily Mail quoted Dr. Jeffrey Ian Lipton on the working of the printer, "FabApps would allow you to tweak your food's taste, texture and other properties. Maybe you really love biscuits, but want them extra flaky. You would change the slider and the recipe and the instructions would adjust accordingly."

The scientists have tasted success with the printer with food items like cookies, cake and 'designer domes' made of turkey meat. A chef in Chicago, Homaro Cantu, has printed sushi out of an ink jet printer.

Cantu said, "You can imagine a 3D printer making homemade apple pie without the need for farming the apples, fertilising, transporting, refrigerating, packaging, fabricating, cooking, serving and the need for all of the materials in these processes like cars, trucks, pans, coolers, etc."

Cantu believes 3D printing will do for food what e-mail and instant messaging did for communication.

HP to take on Apple iPad with its PalmPad in Jan

Bangalore: In a move that could stir up the tablet war further, HP is all set to unveil its much-awaited tablet powered by Palm's webOS software at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month, reports Clayton Morris from Fox News.HP's long-awaited competitor to the iPad, called the PalmPad is expected to challenge the market dominance of Apple iPad. HP had acquired the smartphone manufacturer Palm back in in April 2010.HP is likely to introduce three models of the PalmPad at CES which will have very minor hardware differences and each will run a new version of the webOS operating system, version 2.5.1.FoxNews which also claims to have obtained exclusive images of the PalmPad, reveals that the consumer version of the PalmPad will run on Sprint's 4G network. The hardware specifications are said to be similar to that of Apple iPad.
It features a screen similar in size to the iPad's 9.7-inch display and front and rear-facing cameras at 1.3 and 3 megapixels with LED flashes for picture taking and videoconferencing. It also has an HDMI port for feeding video to an external screen.The report also says a fourth PalmPad is planned for fall 2011 and will be customized for university students which will feature a smaller 8.9-inch screen.

Robot waiters in China never lose patience

Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hotpot meals are not as famous yet as the staff who never lose their patience and never take tips.The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in Shandong province, is touted as China’s first robot hotpot eatery where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want.The service industry in China has not always kept up with the country’s rapid economic growth, and can be quite basic in some restaurants, leading customers in the Dalu restaurant to praise the robots.

“They have a better service attitude than humans,” said Li Xiaomei, 35, who was visiting the restaurant for the first time.“Humans can be temperamental or impatient, but they don’t feel tired, they just keep working and moving round and round the restaurant all night,” Li said.

Inspired by space exploration, robot technology and global innovation, the restaurant’s owner, Zhang Yongpei, said he hopes his restaurant will show the world China is a serious competitor in developing technology.

“I hope this new concept shows that China is forward—thinking and innovative,” Mr. Zhang said.

As customers enter the dimly lit restaurant lined with blinking neon lights to simulate a futuristic environment, a female robot decorated with batting eyelashes greets people with an electronic “welcome.”During the meal, crowds of up to 100 customers are entertained by a dancing and talking robot that looks more like a mannequin with a dress, flapping its arms around in a stiff motion.Mr. Zhang said he hopes to roll out 30 robots -- which cost $6,000 each -- in the coming months and eventually develop robots with human-like qualities that serve customers at their table and can walk up and down the stairs.

Apple removes Wikileaks app

Apple has removed a WikiLeaks app from its store on the grounds that it violated the company’s developer guidelines for applications for use on its iPhones and iPads, the company said Tuesday.The action places Apple among a group of major U.S. companies who have cut ties or services to the whistle—blowing website and have subsequently been targeted by hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks.The 1.99—dollar app was initially released on Friday and allowed users of Apple’s iPad or iPhone devices to access WikiLeaks with a single click, rather than having to use a web browser to navigate to the site.The app has no official ties with WikiLeaks, but its developer did promise to donate all the income to the site.
“We removed the WikiLeaks App from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines,” said Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California—based Apple. “Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or target group in harm’s way.” Apple keeps strict tabs on the apps it offers, unlike the more open platform offered on rival Android phones, prompting some users to “jailbreak” their devices to circumvent the company’s restrictions.

Panasonic brings the world's largest 3D HD plasma TV to India

New Delhi: Consumer electronics brand Panasonic has launched a 152 inch 3D high definition plasma television in India. The plasma TV is touted to be the world's largest, giving an experience of a mini theatre and is priced at  3.50 crore.

Daizo Ito, President, Panasonic India said that the the plasma TV screen was equal to nine 50 inch screens. The resolution of the TV is 4096 X 2160 pixels with 3D support. The key features of the TV include cross talk reduction enabling clear and high definition 3D images, with a full HD X 2 frame sequential method.
The television first made appearance in January this year. This makes it a pretty late entry into the Indian market. Ito explained the technology of the television saying, "Panasonic's unique display technology brings out that full potential of the plasma display to achieve powerful 3-dimensional effects and a feeling of total immersion that draws the viewer right onto the image."

The television is the world's first development for a self-illuminating display, producing about four times the amount of information of a full HD panel.

What's in store for technology in 2011?

Abu Dhabi: While 2010 saw the unveiling of hot products like the iPad and iPhone 4 -- as well as the widespread adoption of the Windows 7 and Android operating systems -- 2011 looks poised to build on the best of what the preceding year had to offer.

Tablets everywhere Apple's iPad was just the beginning. In 2011, expect an onslaught of competitors that want to take a bite out of Apple's near monopoly in the "pad" market.

New models from HP, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, Motorola, Dell, Asus, Cisco, Lenovo, and others are expected to be rolled out in 2011.

While these products may not have the instant name recognition of an iPad, they'll all likely have something that the iPad doesn't: affordability.

What will Apple do in response? There are plenty of shortcomings in the iPad that could be addressed by an iPad successor.

Social networking warfare Upstarts like Facebook and Twitter took the world by storm in 2010. Will tech heavyweights like Google stand by and watch success like that go unchallenged? Unlikely.

Twitter's 140-character niche may be tough to replicate, but expect 2011 to see competitors attempt to chip away at Facebook's success. Google is currently rumoured to have a 'Google Me' product in the wings, which is expected to give Facebook some competition in 2011. Others are likely to follow suit.

Clouds everywhere There are plenty of reasons for cloud computing to be taken seriously -- by both corporations and consumers -- in 2011.

The first is accessibility. Internet access is close to ubiquitous in many areas now, so storing your data on some server that you can reach only when online is less of an issue than it used to be.

The second, though, is cost. In an age when budgets are under the microscope, the cost of running and maintaining your own storage or servers is a factor that can feasibly be eliminated by using cloud-based applications and storage.

And finally, there's the issue of backups. Put simply, backup routines are someone else?s problem when your data is on the cloud -- and that's a good thing, since many people fail to back up their data adequately, if at all.

Storage Think big and fast in 2011. Traditional mechanical hard drives will be available in 3-terabyte (TB) capacities and larger -- and at prices that will be budget-friendly.

Speed freaks, though, will want to look at the upcoming crop of solid state drives (SSDs), which will take full advantage of the newest 6 gigabit per second (Gb/s) SATA drive connectivity standard to pump data through your PC at roughly twice the speed of today's widespread 3 Gb/s standard.

SSDs will continue to command a price premium in 2011, but increasing capacities overall will bring down prices on the units that are currently the costliest. For those who have been waiting for SSDs to get big enough to be interesting, expect 600 gigabyte (GB) drives to appear early in the year.

Networking Networks are generally boring, but 2011 will see some exciting advances in how you get online -- and how quickly.

First, the speedy 802.11n wireless standard will become firmly entrenched in notebooks and wireless routers, making wired-like speeds widely available to notebooks and other wireless devices.

Even better, a plethora of 'three-stream' routers will hit the market, making it possible to stream different types of data across wireless spectrums, so your music listening and file downloading won't slow down your internet surfing.

For those who want the reliable speed of wired connection, the new HomePlug AV2 standard will allow gigabit networking speeds over the standard electrical wiring in your home.

USB 3.0 was unveiled in 2010, but hardly anyone noticed. Expect that to change in 2011, as a flood of new products are unleashed that take advantage of USB 3.0?s tremendous speed advantage over USB 2.0, as well as its bi-directional communication prowess.

Not only will 3.0's theoretical 10x speed advantage over 2.0 make fast external storage a reality, but its ability to send and receive data simultaneously will mean that a wide range of peripherals that bumped up against the limits of 2.0's data transfer rate will be able to adopt USB wholeheartedly. In 2011, don't buy a desktop or notebook PC that's not equipped with the improved USB standard.

Mobile shake-up Expect more choice and more tumult in the mobile space than ever before. For the first time, the smartphone market won't consist of BlackBerry and iPhone and everyone else.

Google Android-based phones and even Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 will provide real competition for the market leaders from both a price and feature standpoint.

For users, though, not everything about 2011 will be good in the world of mobile tech. Expect improvements in network speed to be slow and unsatisfactory, and expect more advertisers to begin crowding the content you get on your mobile device as well.

After TVs, phones, now comes a 3D website

Sunderland, UK: In what is touted to be the world's first 3D website, Stereografix, a UK based company has launched a stereoscopic 3D website which is designed specifically for viewing on 3D HD TV sets. Although the website is still a prototype, the basic requirements to correctly view 3D components on the website include your computer/laptop to be connected to a 3D television, a compatible browser and 3D viewing glasses.

The website, stereoscopic-3d.co.uk, features a 3D interface as well as additional content. The company's Founder Saif Chaudhry said, "I don't think many people are even thinking this far ahead, and we've got a prototype already. It's not every day you can say you're first with something where the internet is concerned."

However Chaudhry is of the opinion that there is a demand for more 3D TVs and computer monitors before the website actually becomes mainstream.

The 3D website has two optimised display versions: Active (LCD Shuttering) and Passive (Polarised). Although you need 3D glasses to view the site now, the company is working toward a version with passive 3D televisions planned.

Stereografix was launched in March and offers services in the latest 3D technology to organizations.

Epson launches all-in-one photo printer at 13,999

Mumbai: Epson, a digital imaging and printing solutions provider, has released a new all-in-one photo printer, the Epson Stylus Photo TX720WD, which is the fastest photo printer in Epson's printer line-up. The print resolution of the Stylus Photo TX720WD printer is of 5760 x 1440 dots per inch (dpi).

The inkjet printer produces up to 40 pages per minute (ppm). This includes both black and color text. It can also print a 4 X 6 inch photo in 10 seconds. It incorporates a flat touch pad, and betters it predecessor Epson Stylus Photo TX700W, by integrating a new integrated duplex printing module. The new technology will help users in saving papers.
“We Samba Moorthy, Senior General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Epson said, "We are very proud to present photo enthusiasts with our latest Epson Stylus Photo TX720WD which we are confident will exceed their expectations in performance. The printer features wireless connectivity, which allows it to be conveniently stored in cupboards or book shelves, saving desktop space."

The Epson Stylus Photo TX720WD has integrated Ethernet and wireless capabilities, which allows it to be shared with multiple PCs. It also has 2.5 inch LCD screen for users to preview their photographs before printing, without connecting to a PC.

The printer is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7 OS and also with Professional Mac OS. It is available in market at a price of  13,999.

4G in India on a testing phase: 80 Mbps Download Speed

After the acquisition of Infotel Broadband Ltd by Mukesh Ambani?s Reliance (RIL), the rumour was there in market that Mukesh?s Reliance will come up with the most speedy Internet connection in India. As Indian market is still waiting for proper implementation of 3G network by major players, Reliance has started testing 4G connections.As per some initial reports, RIL team at Navi Mumbai started trials of 4G connection and got download speed of 80 Mbps and upload speed of 20 Mbps. It is way ahead than current 3G connection of 3.1 Mbps or 7.2 Mbps. Tata Indicom (Docomo) and Reliance Communication (Anil Ambani?s ) also stsrted giving 21 Mbps download speed on supported devices. Reliance is using Ericsson equipment to test this 4G network. As the above testing results are in ideal scenario, that may drop to 40 to 50 Mbps depending on the system load and distance from the nearest tower etc.

As wireless Internet is at boom in India and other parts of world but still we are way behind most of the western countries. We are still waiting for the proper coverage of 3G network when Smartphone makers started selling 4G phones in countries like US and UK. But finally we are getting good news on Wireless Internet connectivity, as Reliance is expected come up with good plans in future for such fast Internet connections.

Reliance is currently having 22 of 44 licenses of broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum which were auctioned in June 2010. As they need to start the implementation in less than a year, so we can expect to get the service by March ? May 2011.

Hope to get better wireless data transfer option in future. Share your thoughts on this 80 Mbps 4G connection trails by Reliance. Do you think, Mukesh Ambani?s Reliance can come up with better plans than current 3G offers?

Wireless mice and keyboards now hot sellers

They lived a fringe existence in their early years, but they are now standard parts of the home office: wireless keyboards and mice. The rise of the laptop in particular has helped accelerate the spread of these cordless devices.

Wireless mice and keyboards open up space on the desktop. They are designed to broadcast signals to a receiver, typically attached to the computer’s USB or PS/2 port.Devices communicating via the Bluetooth standard are typically more expensive than standard wireless devices. That said, many newer computers already offer Bluetooth connectivity and don’t require a separate receiver.There can be quite a broad price spectrum, however. There are keyboard/mice sets available from 18 dollars, but it’s also quite easy to spend 70 dollars or more, reports Germany’s Computer Bild.The magazine tested a broad range of models.When making a purchase, the buyer should check that the mouse fits comfortably and ergonomically into the hand. Two navigation buttons and a scroll wheel in the middle are at this point considered standard equipment.

It can also be helpful if the scroll wheel is capable of moving left and right as well. “That makes it easier to flip through a large Excel table, for example,” the magazine says.One thing to watch for in keyboards is how far the keys need to be pressed before the letter appears. Keys that require a lot of movement before the letter appears can make fingers tired on longer documents.The keys should also be divided into clear zones, such as a zone for the numerical keypad.For a long time, the benefits of wireless connectivity were mitigated by performance issues.The devices were simply unable to deliver data to the computer via the wireless connection as quickly as a standard cable-bound model could. Newer, more refined technology has since been introduced and closed the gap somewhat.Hardcore gamers, for example, continue to rely on cable-bound mice.Among serious gamers, where split-second reactions are needed, the Razer Mouse Bungee offers a compromise solution. A special apparatus uses a rail to guide the mouse cable through the air. This is intended to simulate the convenience of a wireless mouse while still delivering the precision of a cable-bound mouse.

Manufacturers are trying to address a broader target audience through wireless input devices featuring new technological refinements, performance, and precision. The way the mouse measures movement is one example.Computer mice have traditionally detected movement by scanning an infrared light against a defined surface. A second generation of mice achieved greater accuracy by using a laser beam to scan the surface.

Microsoft is now putting a new technology called BlueTrack in its Arch Touch Mouse. It involves a blue laser beam instead of a red one, combined with a special mirror optics system.The benefits of the technology: The mouse can be used on difficult surfaces like an optical mouse, yet still offers the precision of a laser mouse.

The blue light beam is “four times as large” as on standard laser mice, allowing the mouse to scan even the surface of a deep pile carpet with precision, according to reports. A mouse working with a red laser beam would be fooled by the gaps in the rug.Among the disadvantages of wireless input devices is that they can’t draw their energy from the computer, and thus require either standard or rechargeable batteries.That means extra costs for the consumer, who must calculate those costs in when making a purchase, advises Computer Bild.The troubling dependency on additional batteries is also in the sights of at least one hardware maker, Logitech.The Swiss peripherals specialists have developed a computer keyboard that draws its power from ambient light. The Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 can be used even if direct sunlight isn’t available.

“The first solar keyboard from Logitech draws energy from light, regardless of whether it’s from a natural or artificial source,” says Markus Mahla, the head of the company’s German subsidiary. It has been available online since mid-November and will be in stores in January

Won't share encryption keys: Google to India

Kolkata: Google has made it clear to the security agencies in India that it is not going to share the encryption key of its email service, asserted a Google executive. The internet giant said that sharing the keys would lead to compromising the privacy of Gmail users, reports Kalyan Parba of The Economic Times.Vinay Goel, Products Chief, Google India shared that it will not be possible for Google to offer real time access to the Gmail server even if the Indian government requested. The reason cited for this is that the Gmail service is governed by the U.S. laws . He added, "When users entrust their data with us, we are expected to protect it, which is why, user privacy is very important for Google."

However, Goel made it known that the the Union Home ministry or the Telecom ministry have not made any such request to Google so far. Citing possibility of sharing the data only in exceptional times, Goel said, "But we are not advocating non-compliance and are definitely open to offering the Indian government access to encrypted Gmail communication in the event of a large-scale risk to human life and property."The news comes after the Indian government came down heavily on BlackBerry makers Research-In-Motion (RIM) in the recent past on the issue of intercepting its corporate messages. The deadline fixed for RIM to share their encryption keys is January 31, 2011. Meanwhile Nokia has gone ahead and announced the installation of its server in India.

Google introduces new digital book database

Bangalore: Google has made a huge database of words and short phrases collected from nearly 5.2 million digitized books available to the public for free downloads and online searches. The search engine giant has thus widened the possibilities for research and education to greater levels, reports Patricia Cohen of The New York Times.The digital database of words and short phrases also contains a year-by-year count of how often they appear. A collection of this magnitude on the web is of great help for students of Ph.D., middle school students and anyone who does research. The storehouse consists of the 500 billion words that are contained in books published between 1800 and 2000 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Russian and Hebrew.
Although the target audience is the scholarly, anyone with the help of a simple online tool, can plug in a series of up to five words and see a graph that shows the phrase's use over time.
In an interesting finding, the database shows that on an average, technological advances took nearly 66 years to be adopted by the larger society in the early 1800s while it only took 27 years in the period between 1880 and 2000. It also reveals that English lexicon has grown by 70 percent to more than a million words in the last 50 years.

Now make HD calls on your iPhone, courtesy Nimbuzz

Bangalore: After announcing HD voice calls on Google Android phones a few days back, the multi-protocol chat client Nimbuzz has declared the same for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, reports Rohan Naravane of Techtree.com.HD calls are VoIP calls with higher quality. This new technology uses the peer-to-peer (P2P) calling system instead of routing calls through their servers. As a result, it can make a direct connection between the mobile devices. With this newer concept, which is similar to the file-sharing systems like BitTorrent, calls are expected to be connected faster with better audio clarity.

However, this new version requires the phone to be connected to a high-speed network. It automatically detects when the user has such a suitable connection.

Apart from the HD calls, users of iOS will get additional features like offline mode, new contact list and profile layout, multiple contact sorting options and improved stability of the software.

Apple set to launch Mac App Store on Jan 6

Bangalore: Apple is all set to launch its Mac App Store, an online store on January 6, 2011, where consumers can purchase Mac applications. After the launch, the Mac App Store will be available to shoppers in 90 countries, where both paid and free apps will be available, reports Paul McDougall of Information Week."The App Store revolutionized mobile apps," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a statement. "We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can't wait to get started on January 6," Jobs added.

Similar to the iPhone store for the iPhone, app developers selling apps through the Mac App Store will get 70 percent of the profits. Moreover, they need not to pay any fees regarding hosting, marketing, or credit card processing. 

Apple will add Mac App Store support to users of OS X 10.6 or Snow Leopard. The users will also get a free download facility through a integrated update mechanism.According to analyst, the Mac App Store would be 'disruptive' to the traditional software channel, as many Mac developers are likely to sell their apps through the new App Store directly to customers.

U.S. to create cyber security coordinator

Washington: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that a new coordinator for cyber security will be created at the State Department to help ensure classified material remains protected.
The new post was being created as part of a larger plan to reform the department and U.S. diplomacy to make it more streamlined, effective, and faster at responding to international crises and developments, Clinton said Wednesday.Clinton's announcement about the new plans was contained in the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review at a townhall-style meeting with State Department employees.In a separate process, the U.S. government has launched a comprehensive review on the safety of secret documents and diplomatic correspondence since WikiLeaks began publishing classified State Department documents Nov 28.The documents were believed to have been leaked to the website by a government employee.

After 3G and 4G, its the time for the NGNs

Bangalore: The telecom industry is currently experiencing a period of unprecedented change. The rapidly expanding range of telecommunication services is causing consumers and companies to adjust their expectations at the same time forcing operators to respond with an ever-increasing urgency to develop strategies to give a stiff competition to their competitors, build new revenue streams, improve margins, reduce churn and capture new subscribers into previously untapped markets.The demand for powerful new communications and to enhance customer service has paved its way to new technological change as 3G LTE and 4G wirelesses. At the same time, Next Generation Networks (NGNs) represent a fundamental paradigm shift in the wireline and wireless core networks from circuit switching to packet switching. 

Next generation network is a key architectural evolution in telecommunication core and access networks. The general idea behind the NGN is that one network transports all information and services (voice, data, and all sorts of media such as video) by encapsulating these into packets, like it is on the Internet. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term "all-IP" is also sometimes used to describe the transformation toward NGN. NGN can also be operated on a multi-vendor environment.The NGN is able to support highly customizable services that are easily and rapidly created as well as deployed economically throughout the network. In this respect, the NGN technology provides a single solution for various network types integration, and of all communication technologies it embraces (fixed, mobile, wireless), and addresses the problems in providing service “ubiquity” and “seamlessness” connectivity, besides dealing with issues such as, zero service disruption for moving, roaming, handover users and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee among different technology networks with diverse QoS.Next generation networks have finally been identified as network with the following common characteristics: convergence of various data communication types over the IP, i.e. data, multimedia, voice, video; fixed, wireless and mobile network convergence; access to a common set of services that can be provided over multiple access network types (ADSL, UTRAN, WiFi, WiMAX, etc) with features like user handover and roaming capabilities; IP-based core transport networks; possibility for using any terminal type (PC, PDA, mobile telephone, set-top boxes, etc).

Facebook takes to facial recognition to identify friends

San Francisco: Facebook has gone on to enhance its face detection feature, launched in July, and has come up with a new feature called "tag suggestions". The new feature makes use of face recognition technology to suggest which friend is probably featured in which photo.

How it works is, say you have uploaded a huge number of photographs, Facebook will group together the faces that look similar, based on the premise that they are photos of the same person. Facebook also goes and looks into the past photo tags and suggests who in the picture.Facebook believes the new feature will simplify the process of photo sharing. Also for users who want to maintain their privacy and not have their name suggested, they can use the privacy settings of the site and turn off the feature.

The earlier face detection feature allowed users to only tag the photos and not suggest the faces. The feature will start off in U.S. in the weeks to come.

Apple eyes dominance in e-readers, launches more color E-Books

Bangalore: Apple has announced that it will launch more than 100 color e-books in its iBookstore, an assortment of children's books, photography books and cookbooks.
A The New York Times article by Julie Bosman revealed that some of the most popular children's picture books of all time will be available, including some of the 'Olivia' picture books, published by Simon & Schuster. Apart from this, other popular books from different categories such as Ad Hoc at Home by chef Thomas Keller, Beginnings by photographer Anne Geddes and In the National Parks, a collection of photos by Ansel Adams will be available.Apple plans on a bigger expansion of the iBookstore with these titles and more. Apple has struck deals with many major publishers such as Disney and Macmillan, HarperCollins and others.

Simon & Schuster stated that many of its children's picture books are on the Apple list such as 'And Tango Makes Three' by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, 'Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide!' by Candace Fleming and 'When Dinosaurs Came With Everything' by Elise Broach.Apple is all set to take the lead in e-reader market with expansion of e-books in its iBookstore while the rival Amazon seems to be lagging behind as it features E-ink screen and therefore cannot handle color. The iPad and the Nook Color provide an option for publishers to convert their illustrated books into e-books.iBookstore will be featuring more books from publishers including HarperCollins, the Hachette Book Group, Disney Publishing, Macmillan and Workman Publishing. Some of the books released for Apple devices like the iPad are exclusive to the iBookstore, while others are available through other digital book retailers. But viewing two consecutive pages as one uninterrupted image is only possible on the iPad and not available through reading applications from Kindle and Nook for Apple devices.

5 tips to maintain privacy online

Bangalore: In this information age, biggest challenge is how to manage privacy that too when you are online. Taking certain precautions one can maintain privacy.Mark Milian of CNN provides 5 tips to maintain privacy:
1. Adjust social-network privacy settings
Facebook has made strides in simplifying its privacy settings, but their many options can still seem like a labyrinth. Still, it's worth going in there every once in a while and familiarizing yourself with how much of your information is shared with the world.To get there, log in to Facebook, and type "privacy settings" into the search box. Facebook recently shrunk that feature to be accessible from a smartphone.The settings page now offers quick toggles to decide whether your profile is shared just with approved friends, with their friends, too, or publicly. Because many people draw privacy lines differently, you can also fine-tune individual switches.Taking a leap further, you can give the "super-logoff" trick a try. It's especially popular among young people.Twitter, another popular social network, also lets you lock your account from public view. In settings, there's a feature called "protect my tweets."
2. Ensure personal data is sent over a secure connection
When sending credit card numbers, banking information and passwords, verify that there's an image of a padlock on the address bar of the browser. This denotes a secure connection to the site. This technology encrypts the data you send and receive, so it's difficult for anyone snooping on the line to access your info.
3. Consider opting out of ad tracking
Online ad networks often install a small file on the computers of people who visit certain websites. These so-called cookies can log your surfing habits, allowing advertisers to tailor ads to your interests.
But what if we don't want to be tracked?
For starters, many Web browsers have a feature in their settings panel that lets you disable cookies from third-party websites. This will stop many ad networks from gaining a fast track into your computing activities.A couple of organizations offer systems for opting out of popular ad networks. The Network Advertising Initiative and PrivacyChoice.org let you opt out of ad networks with a few clicks. You'll need to activate this on every computer you use. But be warned: Some ad companies may continue to track you even though you've elected to opt out.

Like commercials on TV, advertising provides the cash to keep many websites running. Opting out of tracking won't make ads go away, but tracking advocates say it makes them more annoying because they're less relevant to the user.

4. Use private Web browsing features or install a VPN

Most modern Web browsers provide an extra layer of protection. Called either "private" or "stealth browsing," these sessions keep out cookies and don't log site history.

For stronger protection, you can install what's called a Virtual Private Network. This encrypts practically everything you do on the Web while the VPN is enabled. Many companies offer this feature to their employees, which sends the data back to corporate-owned servers. There are a number of free VPNs available for download.Another handy program, Little Snitch, will report whenever software may be doing something fishy. Anytime an app on your computer tries to send information over the internet without your permission, an alert will pop up.
5. Think before you post
This may sound obvious to some, but if you're posting information to a company's server, you have little guarantee that it won't find itself elsewhere.Even if all of your privacy settings are in order, a social network might change its policies later. The system might spring a hole vulnerable to search bots or hackers. A trusted friend might see one of your party photos and decide to pass it on.

Tech helper: Have YouTube your way

The “you” in YouTube doesn’t necessarily mean that you can have the world’s most popular online video site just the way you want it. Or does it? As YouTube has grown up, logging on and just watching the videos has become increasingly fraught with annoyances. There are ads to sit through, offensive comments, and more. Can you get the old YouTube back -- or some semblance of it? With some know-how, you can come close. Read on for some answers.
Q: I often watch YouTube videos with my children. Unfortunately, sometimes the comments that appear under the videos are offensive, and I do not want my kids to see them. Is there a way to turn them off?
A: There should be, but YouTube seems to have removed the generally available feature that allowed viewers to see videos without displaying the comments underneath of the videos.But there’s good news -- if you use Google’s Chrome browser. The No YouTube Comments browser extension (http://bit.ly/b6lMYj) will automatically hide all YouTube comments for you, so that you’re left with just the video to enjoy.An extension, by the way, is an easily installable add-on that gives a browser new features or tools. To install the No YouTube Comments extension, download and install Chrome if you don’t have it already, start it up, and then navigate to the No YouTube Comments hyperlink above. When you do, you’ll see a blue Install button prominently displayed on the extension’s website. Just click it, and a message will notify you that installation was successful. Now navigate to YouTube, and you’ll see no comments.Firefox users can try the YouTube Comment Snob extension (http://bit.ly/j40NE). While this add-on does not remove comments, it will allow you to filter them for profanity and other characteristics.
Q: Is there any way to get rid of the ads that appear within and before YouTube videos?
A: Often, if you press F5 to reload the page on which the video appears, you can bypass the videos that appear before YouTube videos.
The video will restart without the advertisement. This usually works, but not always. It’s worth nothing that many such YouTube videos are actually hosted on other sites -- such as Vevo -- so YouTube does not embed the ads itself.
There are also extensions available that will eliminate advertisements within YouTube videos. These ads, like the ubiquitous Adsense ads you see on many websites today, appear along the bottom edge of videos.TubeStop for Firefox (http://bit.ly/YnVaq) is a popular choice for stopping these in-video ads. This extension is also available for Chrome (http://bit.ly/7NAQuN). Originally designed to disable the autoplay feature in YouTube -- which automatically plays a video that you click -- TubeStop has the pleasant side-effect of also playing the video without embedded ads.
Q: Is there a way I can download YouTube videos to play them later when I’m not connected to the internet?
A: Several websites exist primarily to make it easy for you to download YouTube videos that you’re watching. With any of these websites, the process for downloading YouTube videos is essential the same.First, go to YouTube and navigate to the video you wish to download. Make sure your browser’s Address bar is displayed. The Address bar is the box at the top of the browser that contains a website’s address (http://www.youtube.com/etc.).
Once you have the video displayed, place your cursor in the address bar, and before the “youtube” word in the web address, type either “kiss,” without the quotation marks, or “kick,” again without any quotation marks. Press Enter, and depending upon which word you typed, you’ll be whisked off to either KissYouTube (http://www.kissyoutube.com) or KickYouTube (http://www.kickyoutube.com), with the address of the video you were watching already populating the box next to the Download button.Click Download, and select your desired download format. You have two to choose from: FLV and MP4. For maximum compatibility, you’ll probably want to choose MP4, which can be played by Window Media Player and many other desktop media applications.Once you’ve chosen your download format, you can sit back and allow the video to be downloaded. Be sure you know the folder into which your browser will save the video. When finished, you should have a playable video in the folder that you specified.

Forget light bulbs: In future, your walls and ceiling will glow

Forget light bulbs. In the future, organic light-emitting diodes will cause portions of your walls, ceilings or anything else desired to give you all the illumination you need, where you need it, according to a team of German researchers.
As in “Star Trek,” a simple voice command or a short push on the light switch -- and the whole ceiling lights up in a uniform and pleasant colour.
The technology behind this marvel is based on organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs for short. These diodes use special molecules to emit light as soon as current passes through them.The first OLEDs have only recently become available, and they are small and expensive. A flat disk with a diameter of eight centimetres costs nearly 300 dollars.But researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen are working together with Philips to develop a process for making these lamps distinctly bigger and cheaper -- and thus suitable for the mass market.These new lamps are expensive primarily due to the costly manufacturing process. An OLED consists of a sandwich layer structure: a flat electrode at the bottom, several intermediate layers on top, as well as the actual luminescent layer, consisting of organic molecules.
The final layer is a second electrode made of a special material called ITO (indium tin oxide). Together with the lower electrode, the ITO layer has the job of supplying the OLED molecules with current and causing them to light up.The problem is, however, that the ITO electrode is not conductive enough to distribute the current uniformly across a larger surface.The consequence: Instead of a homogeneous fluorescent pattern, the brightness visibly decreases in the centre of the “illuminated ceiling.” “In order to compensate, additional conductor paths are attached to the ITO layer,” says Christian Vedder, project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology. “These conductor paths consist of metal and distribute the current uniformly across the surface so that the lamp is lit homogeneously.” Normally the conductor paths are applied by energy-intensive evaporation and structuring processes, while only a maximum of 10 per cent of the luminous area may be covered by conductor paths.
“The large remainder, including the chemical etchant, has to be recycled in a complicated process,” explains Vedder.
This is different in the new process by the researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology. Instead of depositing a lot of material by evaporation and removing most of it again, the scientists only apply precisely the amount of metal required.
First of all, they lay a mask on the surface of the ITO electrode.
The mask has micrometre slits where later the conductive paths are supposed to be.On this mask, the researchers deposit a thin film of metal made of aluminum, copper or silver -- the metal out of which the conductor path is supposed to be made. Subsequently, a laser passes over the conductor path pattern at a speed of several metres per second.The metal melts and evaporates while the vapor pressure makes sure that the melted drops are pressed through the fine slits in the masks on to the ITO electrode. The results are extremely fine conductor paths. At up to 40 micrometres, they are distinctly narrower than the 100-micrometre conductor paths which can be produced with conventional technology.
“We have already been able to demonstrate that our method works in the laboratory,” says Vedder. “The next step is implementing this method in industrial practice together with our partner Philips and developing a plant technology for inexpensively applying the conductor paths on a large scale.” The new laser process could be ready for practical application in two to three years.

Now, you can track your lost laptop

Bhubaneswar: To allow law enforcement agencies access a novel method of tracking and recovering lost laptops, leading anti-virus solution provider Quick Heal launched a service.All that a laptop owner has to do is register with 'Quick Heal' on its website for the service through Mac-id and it keeps continuous track of where the laptop is.If the laptop is stolen the tracker service traces it on the basis of Mac-id and IP addresses. This information can then be used by the police to track the laptop down and retrieve it, said the company press release.The method is aimed at helping police by providing them an interface with the website, said the company Managing Director and CEO Kailash Katkar.
"This technology from Quick Heal will provide a powerful tool to the society at large and to the police, thus reducing their burden," he said .Launched as part of corporate social responsibility, the service is free of charge and can be availed by anybody, whether a 'Quick Heal' user or not, he said.
The service, already launched in Indore and Jaipur, would soon be started in other cities.Besides, the company also aims to create a database of stolen laptops for the help of users and potential buyers.

LG's Android breakthrough?

LG made its entry into the Android market with its first smartphone, the LG GW620. While the phone wasn't a bad first attempt, it failed to make its mark in the smartphone market. LG then introduced the Optimus, an entry-level smartphone which took some flak for its resistive touch screen. The company recently launched the P500 (Optimus One) in India, a handset which reportedly sold one million units in its first 40 days in the market. We got up close with the phone to see if this was really LG's redeeming Android attempt.
First impressions
At first glance, the P500 is a very unconventional looking smartphone. Encased in a slim rubberised panel, the phone certainly feels sturdier than most smartphones, but doesn't really give you that sleek, corporate feel. The screen is a decent sized one, at 3.2-inches. There are four buttons below the screen, and instead of the usual touch sensitive ones that we're seeing on most phones now, these ones are physical. While these buttons (for Menu, Home, Return and Search) don't really impress with their looks, it was nice to physically click them. The two buttons in the centre are placed on a brushed aluminium surface, which reminds you of the phone's predecessor, the Optimus.The 3.5mm headphone jack and power button are located at the top, and the mini-USB-cum-charging port is at the bottom. The sides are bare except for a volume rocker switch. There is a 3-meg camera located at the back, but the phone lacks an LED flash. We also missed having a physical camera button.
Unlike in the Optimus, the P500 doesn't have a blinking indicator light, to alert us for new notifications.
User interface
The P500 runs Android v2.2 or Froyo. Although v2.3 or Gingerbread has already made an appearance in the market, Froyo isn't outdated yet and worked well on this handset.You can choose to have either five or seven home screens, which are customisable.LG has added a curved dock at the bottom of the screen which houses buttons for the dialpad, contacts, messaging and browser. You can't customise the dock though. You can choose to add a number of widgets on your home screens, including a handy little messaging widget which displays your most recent texts. However you may want to skip this one if you're a stickler for privacy.You can also add folders to your menu screen, and you can drag and drop applications into that. This feature is especially useful if you have a lot of apps.Unlike the previous Optimus, the P500 has a capacitive touch screen, which was quite responsive. The only time we had problems was during scrolling, when we would inadvertently activate icons.
You have a choice of Android or LG keyboards. The LG keyboard was actually a pleasure to type on, and even offered predictive text. In portrait mode, you can choose to have either an alphanumeric or QWERTY keyboard, which gets a thumbs up from us. We are big fans of handset customisation!

Forget chargers, recharge phones the wireless way

London: How often have you forgotten your mobile chargers and been in trouble unable to charge your mobile at crucial moments? Now disregard the need to remember your chargers, Japanese technology company Fujitsu has developed a system capable of charging multiple portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras and laptop computers without the need for cable connections simultaneously.The new prototype system unveiled by Fujitsu at an Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers conference at Osaka Prefecture University will also enable electric car users to charge their vehicles with the help of this technology. Fujitsu’s technology, averted to be the first of its kind works on the foundation of the transmission of electricity using magnetic fields between the charger and the electronic device and will support wireless charging at distances of up to several meters and aims at installing public "charging spots" on the streets in order to enable easy charging around the clock.

Products incorporating the new wireless charging system will be commercially available by early 2012 as stated by scientists at Fujitsu Laboratories though they did not mention anything about its cost. "This technology paves the way to integrating compact wireless charging functions into mobile phones and enabling multiple portable devices to be charged simultaneously without any restrictions on their position with respect to the charger," as the company was quoted by the Telegraph in a statement.

AMD India team develops new fusion chip

Hyderabad: The India team of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has designed and developed its latest fusion chip 'Ontario' - combining a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) in one chip and at least three times more powerful and economical compared to its competitors, company officials said Friday.
AMD India managing director and corporate vice president Dasaratha R. Gude told reporters the research and development team in Hyderabad produced the chip after working hard for two years."It has put India on the global map with product development capability that involved design and development of product from drawing board to mother board," he said.While shipping began recently, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will roll out their products powered by Ontario beginning January 2011.Ontario will power netbooks/tablets, small form factor desktops and devices, while Zacate, another version of Ontario, will be tucked in to energize the ultra-thin mainstream and value notebooks, desktops and all-in-ones.
The 90-member team that developed the fusion chip include Gude, project director Ajay Naini, chief engineer Michael Goddard and design manager Srini Gutta.
According to Naini, the estimated total available market for products of this ilk is 100 million units a year to power multiple consumer gadgets. The annualised market size is pegged at $30-40 billion.AMD India plays a significant role in the design of microprocessors, Fusion SoCs (system on chips), graphics and media solutions.