Motorola’s Xoom tablet takes on iPad

 Motorola’s Xoom tablet computer went on sale in the U.S. on Thursday, amidst positive reviews that labelled the device as the most powerful rival yet to Apple’s iPad.

Apple sparked the tablet computer craze last April with the iPad, and has since sold 15 million of the devices. It is expected to launch a second-generation iPad at a media event slated for March 2 in San Francisco.

Though companies like Samsung and Dell have tried to respond with tablets of their own based on Google’s Android operating system, the Xoom is the first tablet to feature the latest Android version, Honeycomb, which is optimised for tablets as opposed to smartphones.

The Xoom is roughly the same size as the iPad, and costs about the same for a similarly spec’d version, though buyers who opt for an iPad with limited memory and restricted to wi-fi connections can save hundreds of dollars.

The Xoom has slightly higher screen resolution than the iPad, and boasts front and rear facing cameras for picture-taking and video conferencing. Powering the device is a dual core 1GHZ processed with 1GB of RAM, and battery life is assessed at 10 hours.

Nevertheless, the consensus among established reviewers is that the device is a worthy competitor to the iPad.

“Both Motorola’s hardware and Google’s new software are impressive and I believe the Xoom beats the first-generation iPad in certain respects, though it lags in others,” noted Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal. “As much as I like the Xoom and Honeycomb, I’d advise consumers to wait to see what Apple has up its sleeve next before committing to a higher price for the Motorola product.”

Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky said that the Xoom’s ability to multi-task gave it a key advantage over the iPad, but that the device still lacks polish. “Honeycomb and the Xoom are spectacular — unfortunately they’re a spectacular work in progress,” he noted.

Apple to show-off iPad 2

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Apple Inc is hosting a media event next week to show off the next-generation of the iPad, as it prepares to take on new rivals in the fast-growing tablet market.

Apple, which sent an invitation to reporters on Wednesday via email, will host the March 2 gathering at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the same venue where Apple unveiled the original iPad in January 2010.

The characteristically succinct invitation featured an image of a calendar page with a giant "2" emblazoned in the center, peeled back just slightly to reveal the familiar form of an iPad. The invite teased, "Come see what 2011 will be the year of."

Given the sheer crush of competing tablets coming on the market, Apple will face a bigger challenge to wow consumers with the new iPad, which is expected to go on sale in April.

The iPad has completely dominated the nascent tablet computer market, but literally dozens of new devices are set to launch this year, so Apple will have to prove it can stay one step ahead of its pursuers.

Apple's rivals include Motorola Mobility, Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard Co, all of which are aggressively promoting their tablets.

Apple sold nearly 15 million iPads last year, when it had the market largely to itself. Analysts expect the company to at least double that figure this year, as the overall market explodes to more than 50 million units.

Industry watchers expect Apple to show off a thinner, lighter and faster version of the 10-inch touchscreen tablet, and also add a front-facing camera to enable video chatting using the company's FaceTime application.

Many analysts believe Apple may also add a chip that allows the iPad to run on CDMA networks like that of Verizon Wireless.

There is also the question of who will lead the event, with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs out on indefinite medical leave. As Apple's master showman, Jobs typically presides over major product launches.

If not Jobs on stage, other potential emcees include Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and marketing chief Phil Schiller.

With the original iPad priced starting at $499, investors will also be watching to see if Apple plans to creep farther down the price chain to broaden the iPad's appeal.

Apple's rivals has so far been unable to match the iPad on price. But Apple has pinched its own gross margins by pricing the tablet lower than its serious competitors.

ISRO finds cave in moon, could be used as base station for astronauts

  New Delhi: Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization have discovered a giant underground chamber on the moon, which they feel could be used as a base by astronauts on future manned missions to moon.

An analysis by an instrument on Chandrayaan-1 revealed a 1.7-km long and 120-metre wide cave near the moon's equator that is in the Oceanus Procellarum area of the moon that could be a suitable 'base station' for future human missions. Scientists of the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad said in a research paper published in the latest issue of Current Science that the cave provides "a safe environment from hazardous radiations, micro-meteoritic impacts, extreme temperatures and dust storms."

Scientists said identifying sites for permanent base for human settlements on the moon is important for further exploration.

"Lava tubes provide a natural environmental control with a nearly constant temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius, unlike that of the lunar surface showing extreme variation, maximum of 130 degrees Celsius to a minimum of minus 180 degrees Celsius in its diurnal (day-night) cycle," they said.

According to them, the lava tubes offer a dust-free environment and adapting them for human use requires minimal construction.Deccan Chronicle ISRO finds cave in moon Indian Express ISRO scientists here have discovered a giant underground cave on the moon that they say could be used as a base by astronauts on future manned missions to earth's lone natural satellite.

The discovery was possible by examining images captured by the … Cave on moon could be a 'base station' for future missions The Hindu ISRO finds cave on moon; can be used as an outpost Economic Times Cave hope for moon house Calcutta Telegraph Gulf Today ?

Toward Computers That Fit on a Pen Tip: New Technologies Usher in the Millimeter-Scale Computing Era

A prototype implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients is believed to contain the first complete millimeter-scale computing system.And a compact radio that needs no tuning to find the right frequency could be a key enabler to organizing millimeter-scale systems into wireless sensor networks. These networks could one day track pollution, monitor structural integrity, perform surveillance, or make virtually any object smart and trackable.

Both developments at the University of Michigan are significant milestones in the march toward millimeter-scale computing, believed to be the next electronics frontier.

Researchers are presenting papers on each at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. The work is being led by three faculty members in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science: professors Dennis Sylvester and David Blaauw, and assistant professor David Wentzloff.

Bell's Law and the promise of pervasive computing

Nearly invisible millimeter-scale systems could enable ubiquitous computing, and the researchers say that's the future of the industry. They point to Bell's Law, a corollary to Moore's Law. (Moore's says that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years, roughly doubling processing power.)

Bell's Law says there's a new class of smaller, cheaper computers about every decade. With each new class, the volume shrinks by two orders of magnitude and the number of systems per person increases. The law has held from 1960s' mainframes through the '80s' personal computers, the '90s' notebooks and the new millennium's smart phones.

"When you get smaller than hand-held devices, you turn to these monitoring devices," Blaauw said. "The next big challenge is to achieve millimeter-scale systems, which have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment and our buildings. Because they're so small, you could manufacture hundreds of thousands on one wafer. There could be 10s to 100s of them per person and it's this per capita increase that fuels the semiconductor industry's growth."

The first complete millimeter-scale system

Blaauw and Sylvester's new system is targeted toward medical applications. The work they present at ISSCC focuses on a pressure monitor designed to be implanted in the eye to conveniently and continuously track the progress of glaucoma, a potentially blinding disease. (The device is expected to be commercially available several years from now.)

Social Gaming landscape in India warming up

The social gaming landscape in the country is witnessing a growth momentum driven by young and growing aspirational demographic that has increasing access to mobile and internet offering exciting platforms for expanding friend circles and indulge in informal interaction.

The growth of social networks sites, the time spent by users on them, the high entertainment value proposition and opportunity to engage in fun and casual interaction with friends, was fuelling the social gaming market, opine social gaming experts.

“Worldwide over 500 million play social games. In India more than 10 million (over 50 per cent) of the Facebook users play Social games”, says Deepak Abbot, Vice President-Product, Zapak.com, one of the leading social gaming players.

“Today conversations have found a new medium of interaction - Social Gaming. Social games now act as mini social networks. They have now become the conversation starters among two people active on the network.” said Rahul Razdan. President - Products & Operations, Ibibo web.

According to Rahul, on a social network site, only 10 per cent are really active posting their pictures or providing updates on social life, the rest only consumed the data.

But a social gaming format works differently. Here, a user could simply play a game, make a comment and respond to their friends’s moves and take active part without really bothering about whether they had something awesome to say or post pictures, as would be required in a social network site.

It creates reasons for interaction with every action of a player demanding a counter reaction. “It is an inclusive traction”, he said.

Gaming in India though dominated by men, has a sizeable women gaming population as well. Games that favoured aesthetic expressions, building, growing a farm witnessed traction among women, while games relating to mafia, violence and hard core action saw men gravitate toward them.

“The statistics were skewed towards women (55 per cent) when it came to word games”, he said. Surprisingly a game like Teen Pati (a game of cards) on Ibibo actually saw 30 per cent of women playing the game on Diwali night, said Rahul.

“The age profile of social gamers is usually 18-34”, said Deepak. “The Indian social gamer is a bit younger than the average international gamer”, he said.

“Women constitute 30 per cent of the Facebook and Internet users in India, the same per cent can also be assumed in the social gaming space. As the games are more related to building, collaborating and managing these games appeal to women too. There is hardly any skill required to play Social games therefore gender is not an issue”, said Deepak.

Microsoft launches WebMatrix, a free Web development tool

Bangalore: Microsoft India has announced the availability of WebMatrix, a free Web development tool designed to help website developers. It helps to create, customize and publish websites to the Internet. There is also a set of video tutorials, how-to tips and other resources for helping new Web developers get started.

Available in nine languages, WebMatrix includes tools to create new websites, using code provided through a variety of available templates or using existing free open source Web applications, such as WordPress, Joomla DotNetNuke and UmbracoWebMatrix is useful to a variety of people like students, developers, Web agencies, and professional developers. Professional developers can also contribute to a directory of code published through NuGet, a free open source package management system, so others can benefit from their expertise.

The tools provided by WebMatrix include Web server, database and Web frameworks. When a website is ready to be published, Web developers can publish it to their own hosting provider or one available through WebMatrix.

Moorthy Uppaluri, General Manager, Developer Partner Evangelism, Microsoft India said, "WebMatrix is designed to provide a simple yet powerful set of tools that developers of all backgrounds and skill sets need to build, customize and deploy Websites on Windows.

Nokia Ovi Music service goes desi

New Delhi: Looking to strengthen its domestic market position, Nokia India is offering tailor-made mobile applications through its Ovi Music, which are are free of cost.

The Music Unlimited (OMU) service is made available on Nokia X6, 5235, 5233 and 5800 XpressMusic handsets in India for delivering the latest and rich local songs and musicNokia Ovi Music is exclusive application store from where the customers can download or share music.

"The service offers more than four million tracks from across 19 genres including Rock, Rap, Hip Hop, Pop, Bollywood, Sufi, Indipop, Indian Classical, Devotional, Ghazals, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi and Bhojpuri, amongst others,"
Nokia India Head OPM and Devices Jasmeet Gandhi said.

Gandhi further added that consumers who buy a Nokia Ovi Music Unlimited enabled device will be able to download millions of tracks for free, direct to there mobile phone or to their personal computer from the Ovi Music Store for 12 months.

The service offers consumers free access to the latest high quality legal digital music downloads and customised playlists.

It also offers full metadata and improved search, with the ability to search for tracks by the name of the actor, actress or movie.

Tracks can also be shared between Ovi Music Unlimited users through Bluetooth technology. New songs by major labels will also be available on Ovi Music Unlimited when released in India.

The service includes catalogues from major global labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music.

Nokia's local partnership with Indian Music Industry (IMI) brings a consortium of more than 150 music companies,
Hungama that represents major labels including Yash Raj, Tseries, Eros, and SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association), among others.

The customisation of Ovi Music Unlimited includes reducing the Ovi client size from 60MB to 3MB to address broadband seed challenge, multiple PC access to address the challenges around low PC penetration, sharing music through Bluetooth and creating search parameters by actor, actress and movie names.

The freedom and simplicity of the service is unparallelled and Nokia is confident that it will influence how the Indian users consume music in future.

Sony creating 3D technology without the glasses

Bangalore: The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was all about tablets and 3D technology this year. The just concluded event witnessed a lot of technology manoeuvres in terms of 3D.
A pioneer amongst the 3D exponents is Sony. The company has displayed a prototype of a 3D TV model that eliminates the issue of images emerging out of the screen without requiring viewers to stand exactly in front of the TVIn an era where 3D technology is showcasing many advancements,
the elimination of glasses to view the contents remains a prime hurdle for many companies bringing 3D products.
Sony maintained that it would continue working toward 3D "with or without glasses".

Sony's prototype 3D TV used a wide angle viewing prospect for showcasing 3D content that did not need viewers to stand in front of the TV directly.

Sony's CEO Howard Stringer believes in the technology the company is working on and shushed the cynics by saying that Sony has earlier overcome the skepticism shown in other technologies like HDTV and color TVs.
Seeing 3-D without glasses is more convenient," Sony Senior Vice President Yoshihisa Ishida said Thursday at Tokyo headquarters.
"We must take account of pricing before we can think about when to start offering them."

Sony, the Tokyo-based electronics and entertainment giant, showed its latest 3-D products for the Japanese market, including flat-panel TVs and Blu-ray recorders.
Sony unveiled for the Japanese markets six models of quick-start Blu-ray players/recorders that can record and enjoy watching 3D images with those glasses.

Sony said it plans to be No. 1 in market share in Japan in 3-D TVs and 3-D players and recorders, taking advantage of its position as an electronics maker with a movie studio.

Sony said it will start selling in Japan next month two films and two music videos in 3-D, and planned home software of 3-D theater releases, including a 3-D Spider-Man opening in 2012.

New Caparo IPhone app helps households to reduce waste

London: Experts at the NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul-funded Caparo Innovation Centre here have developed a new and innovative iPhone application that helps households reduce the amount of food they waste.

The app "Consume Within" has already been listed as 'New and Noteworthy' in the iTunes App Store.

It is an innovative and easy to use application that is the first to track the use by dates of both shop-bought and home-made itemsThe Apple iPhone application has been developed at the award-winning Caparo Innovation Centre (CIC), a partnership between Caparo and the University of Wolvehampton.

The app monitors food items in three different locations - fridge, freezer or cupboard - and the user can set their 'consume by' dates set individually. Each entry can be accompanied by a photograph that makes the item easy to identify at a later date.

For all those similar looking food packages that have spent a few days in the freezer, Consume Within also provides unique stickers that people can use to help them identify foods at a later date. The app alerts users daily of the items that are about to expire within the next three days and displays them by location or as a single list.

Andrew Pollard, Industrial Professor at the CIC, said: "Reducing food waste is a major issue, it costs the average family with children 830 pounds per year and has serious environmental implications too - in the UK 8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households each year.

"The App will help you save money, save the planet and keep the fridge tidy. It is very versatile - it will allow you to monitor not only food bought in but even meals prepared at home, and can be used for adult food, baby food, and even cosmetics."

The application is available now to download from Apple iTunes. The Lite version is free and allows users to monitor up to four items at a time, while the full version can monitor an unlimited number of items. The latter is priced at 1.79 pounds, a Caparo release said today.

Using Wikipedia to change the language of the Web

Nothing exemplifies the power of Wiki – the open and collaborative platforms for content creation – like the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. The site that everybody can freely and collaboratively edit is credited not only with having created a massive repository of knowledge but also democratising the presentation of content on the Web.

Wikipedia, which turns 10 this January, has over 35 lakh articles. In 2010, we saw several Wiki Media Foundation bigwigs visit India, hold public meet-ups with the Wiki community and appoint the first Indian to sit on the board of the Wikipedia Foundation, Bisakha Dutta. Apart from the formal Indian Wikipedia chapter, that has been on the anvil for some time now, Wikipedia Foundation has also chosen India to set up its first offshore office.

Why India?

But why India? The large number of potential Net users here, and the ‘ground support' that exists in the form of a passionate community of Wikipedians, drive these “offshore efforts”. However, they realise, that the ‘Indian Internet' is by no means a homogenous entity. During recent visits to India, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has repeatedly articulated the need to approach Wikipedia growth here from a strictly ‘localised' perspective — by expanding the user base for the local language Wikipedias.

Yes, the Internet, with English as its predominant language, can barely make inroads into vast areas of the country. Indian language content on the Internet is low, and is restricted either to niche blogs or news content. Internet firms are also interested in changing this by enabling web advertisers aim to target larger local audiences.

So, how can Wikis help drive this change? It seems natural that a massive task like this one — that of creating and expanding local language content — is best tackled ‘collaboratively'. And that is just what Wiki communities do best. As of today, there are Wikipedias in over 20 Indian languages. While there are 58,000 articles in the Hindi Wikipedia, Telugu and Marathi too have been growing steadily, clocking 47,000 and 32,000 articles respectively. The Tamil Wiki has around 26,000 articles, Bengali (22,000), Malayalam (16,000) and Kannada (9,900). Together, Wikipedia is arguably the single largest source of Indic content online.

ISRO to implement regional navigation satellite system

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to implement the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) to provide India and neighbouring countries with the Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) service, S.V. Kibe, Brahmprakash Professor in the ISRO Headquarters, Bangalore, said on Wednesday.

The government had approved the project, which would be implemented in the next few years. Initially, the system would have seven satellites and then 11, he said, addressing the Space Summit at the 98th Indian Science Congress at Kattankulathur near here.

At present, two space navigation systems operate in the world — the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). The Galileo of Europe and China's COMPASS (Beidou) are likely to start working in five to 10 years.

Giving an example of the application of the satellite navigation system, Prof. Kibe said a combination of satellite navigation and satellite communication had resulted in the production of handset phones capable of communication and position determination.

He said the ISRO's GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) project was being implemented for the benefit of civil aviation. It would especially be useful in aircraft landing.

“For landing, you need accuracy of less than six metres.” Despite being useful in position, GPS did not offer the guarantee of service, he said, and this shortcoming would be addressed in the GPS augmentation system like GAGAN.

Talking about the challenges in space observations, R.R. Navalgund, Director, ISRO Space Applications Centre, said very high resolution system, instruments to measure accurately greenhouse gases and constellation of satellites for disaster monitoring, besides long-term calibrated climate data records of land, ocean and atmosphere, would be required to assess the likely scenario of changes in the resources of the earth.

Delivering a talk on small satellites, T.K. Alex, Director, ISRO Satellite Centre, said some Indian universities and other organisations developed and launched small satellites through the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

The SRM University, which is hosting the Congress, was developing one and expected to launch it soon.

On space biology, P. Dayanandan, emeritus professor, said 14 nations of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, including India, were hopeful that one day, human beings might live and work in other destinations within the solar system.

The most challenging of all problems in space colonisation would be to provide a permanent life support system.

The research now focused on building bio-regenerative systems, which would be based on the principle of biospherics that imitated the life-sustaining biosphere of the earth.

He appealed to the Union government and the ISRO to establish a comprehensive space biology programme and give academic institutions greater encouragement.

V. Adimurthy, Satish Dhawan Professor, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology,

Thiruvananthapuram, said future challenges in space transport offered a scenario that would be marked by multi-disciplinary optimisation and the cooperation among academia,

industry and aerospace agencies across the countries.

IIT-M to aid research on innovative projects

IIT-Madras will soon have an inter-disciplinary ‘Centre of Excellence' that will showcase and facilitate research on innovative projects in embedded systems, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design and enabling technologies by fostering partnership with various industrial players, Kamakoti Veezhinathan, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Madras, said here on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the inaugural session of the 24th international conference on VLSI Design that, along with the 10th international conference on Embedded Systems, seeks to facilitate discussions on designing embedded solutions for emerging markets in infrastructure, energy and automotives. Over 100 researchers, designers and industry experts will present their views on various aspects of electronic design automation and embedded systems that underpin the semiconductor industry. The three-day conference will also witness discussions on the challenges faced by India's growing VLSI sector. VLSI is demand-driven, and it is necessary to draw the attention of young engineers to opportunities in this area, said Professor Kamakoti, who is co-chairing the conference. “Instead of training students of engineering to be ‘industry-ready,' engineering colleges should equip them with the fundamentals of design and engineering, that would help them understand processes better,” he said.

The shortage of skilled faculty in the specialised fields including circuit design and VLSI is a serious concern, he added.

The conference will include technical paper sessions on latest research and embedded tutorials, industry presentation sessions, panel discussions, design contests and industrial exhibits.

While discussions and deliberations will focus on technology, manufacturing, markets, applications, finance and policies, the workshop on Reliability Aware System Design and Test (RASDAT) on Thursday and Friday will delve into the issues of data compression techniques, reliable computing, VLSI circuits and partitioning algorithms.

Stanford University professor Thomas H Lee said that the best is yet to come in ‘Embedded revolution.' “The increasing pervasiveness of microprocessors in all walks of life including communications, consumer care, industry, defence and health care shows that they are very much in the fabric of our existence, but just invisible,” he said. 

Symantec launches data insight storage solution

Mumbai: Security and systems management solutions provider Symantec on Wednesday announced the launch of a new solution that,
it said, would help organizations better understand and manage their increasing unstructured data.

The solution, Symantec Data Insight Storage , will help improve data governance in organizations, the company said..
PUnstructured data growth is one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today and it has a direct impact on their profitability.
The new solution will help improve data governance in organizations through insights into ownership,
usage and lifecycle of unstructured data," Symantec Director (Systems Engineering) Anand Naik said in release here.

This solution would help IT managers have greater visibility of data and align data management with the overall business goals of the organization, he said. e.

Amazon to start app store for Android devices

Amazon has taken its first step toward creating an app store for devices that run on the Android operating system. It has thrown open a portal wherein interested developers can submit their apps for Android-based devices.

The next would be starting a full fledged store that is scheduled to come up sometime later this year. Amazon proven expertise in the business of selling will make it a strong case for both app developers and customers.

The company will put a price tag to the apps and recommend on which apps to purchase. Amazon will also test the apps before putting them into the store.

Amazon will share the remunerations on the apps with the developers. As per the Amazon's developer license agreement, Amazon will pay the developer 70 percent of the purchase price or 20 percent of the list price for sale of an app.

"Amazon's innovative marketing and merchandising features are designed to help customers find and discover relevant products from our vast selection, and we're excited to apply those capabilities to the apps market segment," said Amazon.

With Amazon joining the race of app stores, Google's Android market app store may be in for some challenge.

anoscoops’ batteries that charge ‘40 times faster than conventional one

ensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers are pioneering a new study in which they have developed a type of nanomaterial that could spark a new generation of Lithium ion batteries for electric automobiles, laptop computers, mobile phones, and other devices.

Called ‘nanoscoop’, it can withstand extremely high rates of charge and discharge, thanks to its unique material composition, structure, and size.

Professor Nikhil Koratkar and his team demonstrated how a nanoscoop electrode could be charged and discharged at a rate 40 to 60 times faster than conventional battery over 100 continuous charge/discharge cycles.

“Charging my laptop or cell phone in a few minutes, rather than an hour, sounds pretty good to me,” said Mr. Koratkar.

“Moreover, this technology could potentially be ramped up to suit the demanding needs of batteries for electric automobiles. Due to their nanoscale size, our nanoscoops can soak and release Li at high rates far more effectively than the macroscale anodes used in today’s Li-ion batteries,” said Mr. Koratkar.

One limitation is the relatively low total mass of the electrode, he added. But the team’s next steps are to try growing longer scoops with greater mass, or develop a method for stacking layers of nanoscoops on top of each other.