BSNL 3G speed hack

Samsung's New Android Phones: The Vibrant and The Captivate

Quotes & Information about Computers!!!

Quotes & Information about Computers!!!

Stupid quotes:

“I knew then (in 1970) that a 4-kbyte minicomputer would cost as much as a house. So I reasoned that after college, I’d have to live cheaply in an apartment and put all my money into owning a computer.”

-[Apple co founder Steve Wozniak]

“A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flaming”.

-[Henry Spencer, Canadian computer programmer and author of The 10 Commandments for C Programmers]

Did u Know!!!

» About 85% of microwave radiation emitted by a cellphone is absorbed by your head.

» According to research by Sprint, about 2/3rds of cellphone users use their backlights as torches.

» South Korean teenagers on average text an astounding 200,000 times a year. That is 60.1 messages EVERY

» Day.

» People view fifteen billion videos online every month.

» The first GPS satellite was launched in 1978.

» This is known as the Hermann-grid illusion, and experts don’t have an explanation for the dark spots that appear in the grid.

he The cellphone is actually a very complicated radio that communicates with the cell tower in the area.

» 130 million cell phones each year go into retirement.

» Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

» The annual revenue for the telephone industry is $210 billion, almost 8 times that of television and 23 times the revenue of radio.

» The original name of the telephone was the harmonic telegraph.

» Alexander Graham Bell originally wanted the greeting for the telephone to be “Ahoy” but Thomas Edison

» voted for “Hello,” a word he coined in 1877.

» The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobiles 112.

» Recycling 100 million phones would recover 3.4 metric tons of gold—gold that would not have to be mined.

» The busiest telephone exchange was by BellSouth at the 1996 Olympic Games, where 100 billion bits of information were transmitted per second.

» The first product to have a bar code on its package was Wrigleys chewing gum.

» The average person’s left hand does 56 percent of the typing.

» Your mobile battery is very low, you are expecting an important call and you don’t have a charger. Many Nokia phones come with a reserve battery. To activate the battery, key-in *3370# your cell will restart with this reserve and your instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

News to Be Remembered!!!

The first 1 GB hard drive was sold in 1950s, weighed 250 kg and cost about $40,000. Imagine carrying that bad boy in your back pack!

A typical fibre-optic cable five thousandths of an inch thick can carry up to 2.5 billion bits of data per second, or 32,000 simultaneous telephone calls.

Infosys was the first Indian company to release its annual report in CD-ROM format.

In computer slang, an ordinary, postal mail is called snail mail.

When Windows 3.1 was launched, 3 million copies were sold in the fi rst two months.

Windows 95 can officially run on a 386DX at 20MHz with just 4MB of RAM.

The first digital camera was designed by a Kodak engineer by the name of Steven Sasson. It weight 3.6 kg and was the size of a toaster.

The Japanese version of MS Office has a character you can’t find in any other version. The ‘Office Lady’ is a virtual assistant that bows and serves tea.

The Windows 95/98 logos were created with Freehand on a Macintosh

The term ‘petabit’ is used in discussing possible volumes of data traffic per second in a large network.

Intel’s Flying Pentium Ads and the ‘Intel Inside’ logo were made on an Apple Macintosh.

The computing for the Pioneer 10 spacecraft was done by the Intel 4004 microprocessor.

RDF (Resource Definition Framework) is a set of rules for creating descriptions of information available on the World Wide Web.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a protocol for client- server communication that sends and receives information ‘on top of’ HTTP.

Wake-on-LAN (WOL) is a technology that enables a computer motherboard to switch itself on (and off) based on signals arriving at the computer’s network card.

A ‘blue-bomb’ is a technique for causing the Windows operating system of someone you are communicating with

to crash.

David Bradley wrote the code for the [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] key sequence.

The name Epson for the popular brand of printers was coined when the subsequent models of their first printer Electronic Printer 101 were called ‘Sons if electronic Printers’.

A CD-RW disk can, in general, be-written about a thousand times. In contrast, a hard disk can be written over virtually an unlimited number of times.

When desktop scanners were first introduced, many manufacturers used florescent bulbs as light sources.

CD-ROM XA (Compact Disk-read-only memory, extended architecture) is a modification of CD-ROM that

defines two new types of sectors that enable it to read and display data, graphics, video, and audio at the same time.

In 1938, Claude Shannon first showed that electronic switching circuits could perform logical operations.

The CVAX is a chip used as a DEC Micro VAX II microprocessor. A message was inscribed on the chip, in Russian, which said, “VAX, when you care enough to steal the very best”!

A modern quarter inch square silicon chip has the power of the 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a full city block.

Andrew Grove, former Chairman, Intel Corporation, was flooded with over 120 names to choose from for its latest processor. He finally settled on ‘Pentium’.

Ted Hoff, Stan Mazor and Federico Faggin designed the Pentium Chip that was launched on March 22,

1993.

Intel’s code name for its effort to make the one GHz microprocessor was codenamed Project Foster.

Intel’s project on the first processor to use the new 64-bit architecture was under the code name Merced.

Bits & Bytes!!!

TECH ONE-LINERS:

Windows contains FAT.

Use Linux – you won’t ever have to worry about weight.

Programming is an art form that fights back.

Unix is user-friendly. It’s just very selective about who its friends are.

The best way to accelerate a Mac is at 9.8 m /sec^2.

The only problem with troubleshooting is that sometimes trouble shoots back.

Do you remember when you only had to pay for windows when *you* broke them?

Programmers don’t die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

There can never be a computer language in which you cannot write a bad program.

If you can’t beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.

Why do they call this a word processor?

It’s simple, ... you’ve seen what food processors do to food, right?

Google Mobile App for iPhone, now with Google Goggles:

One of the biggest downsides of being in the iPhone camp rather than the Android camp is not getting early access to some of the cooler mobile things Google is working on. One of those is Google Goggles, a visual search feature that launched last December for Android. Now, almost a year later, it’s finally here for the iPhone as well.

As they’ve announced on their Google Mobile Blog today, Google has placed Google Goggles for the iPhone as a feature inside of their Google Mobile app on the device. That app, which already allows you to search via text and via voice, now is even more powerful.

Check It Out:

Says Google:

In the new version of Google Mobile App just tap on the camera button to search using Goggles. Goggles will analyze the image and highlight the objects it recognizes — just click on them to find out more.

Google notes that Goggles is still a Labs project as they continue to perfect it. They say that it works well for things such as landmarks, logos, and products, but not so well yet for animals or food — they’re working on that.

I’m not seeing the latest update to the Google Mobile app in the App Store just yet, but Google says it should be rolling out throughout the day. It’s a free download.

Detecting Pulse Rate using a Webcam!!!

MIT-Harvard graduate student Ming-Zher Poh has demonstrated a system that can extract accurate pulse measurements from ordinary low-resolution webcam imagery.

The system measures slight variations in brightness produced by the flow of blood through blood vessels in the face. Public-domain software is used to identify the position of the face in the image, and then the digital information from this area is broken down into the separate red, green and blue portions of the video image.

Reference: http://bit.ly/cVWwc6

Vodafone 553 QWERTY MOBILE!!!

Vodafone 945 Android smartphone and Vodafone 553 touch QWERTY feature phone unveiled:

Vodafone seem pretty keen on continuously expanding their portfolio of own-brand phones and smartphones. The previous global announcement regarding the Vodafone handset line took place in April and unveiled the first Android-powered Vodafone device, the 845.

Vodafone’s second Android smartphone, the 945, was just announced today. This one is clearly a step up in features and specifications from the 845, though it’s not meant to be a replacement, as they’ll both be selling side by side.

The Vodafone 945 features:

• Android 2.1
• a 3.2-inch WQVGA (240×400) capacitive touchscreen
• HSDPA, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth
• 5 megapixel camera with flash
• 300 MB internal memory, microSD card slot
• Colors: black or silver

If priced accordingly, this could sell very well thanks to its good spec sheet and prove to be a worthy competitor toOrange’s San Francisco (which has a bigger and higher-res screen but a lower megapixel count). The San Francisco’s price, however, is rather tough to beat.

Alongside the 945, Vodafone also introduced the 553. This is a budget touch+QWERTY device. As such, it features a 2.8-inch touchscreen and a side-sliding full QWERTY keyboard. There’s no fancy smartphone OS here, as this is a featurephone. It comes with Opera Mini 5 preinstalled and Vodafone’s 360 People address book.

Other notable features of the Vodafone 553 include a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, FM radio and a microSD card slot.

Both phones will be available in time for the holiday season. The 553 will be aimed more at the pre-pay/pay as you go market.

Pricing is not available yet, but these are (or should be) budget devices after all, so don’t expect anything that will break the bank.

Wireless USB 1.1 Specification Now Available

The Wireless USB Promoter Group today announced the completion of the Wireless USB 1.1 specification, the technical map for product developers to bring the next generation of Wireless USB products to the market.

Wireless USB 1.1 delivers key performance enhancements to Wireless USB technology, as well as added UWB upper band support for frequencies of 6 GHz and above, and offers backward compatibility with Wireless USB products currently in use by consumers.

Wireless USB is evolving with optimized power efficiency and ease of use. Lower idle power requirements and improved battery life enhance Wireless USB power efficiency, and the new association model offers support for Near Field Communication (NFC) and proximity-based association, making Wireless USB even easier to install and use.

"The Wireless USB 1.1 specification is the next step in Wireless USB technology,".

"Consumers want a fast, easy-to-use solution to wirelessly transfer content from PCs to devices. Wireless USB 1.1 is the solution supporting robust, high-speed wireless connectivity among devices."

Reference: TECHNEWS

Flickr Access on UAE!!!

UAE Gets Access to FLICKR....

After 5 years of on and off blocking the most popular image sharing platform UAE residents get access to Flickr just to raise the question: how long this time?

The Flickr blocking ‘phenomenon’ had it’s foundations laid over 5 years ago back in 2005, with the service being unblocked on occasion, it apparently was considered offensive to the nation’s culture described in UAE’s TRA (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) 13 Prohibited Content Categories[PDF].

A heard news of Du one of the UAE’s two teleco carriers unblocking the service two days ago, but users feared it to be a breath of fresh air that wouldn’t last long before the door was slammed on it as previous incidents show, mostly during Firewall updates and service maintenance.

But with increasing reports today from Etisalat & Du users in the UAE in addition to a tweet sent out by Etisalat’s twitter account implying the decision was made by TRA and not Etisalat themselves means it’s probably official. Flickr is unblocked and very much accessible to UAE residents.

VLC Media Players for Ipad!!!

VLC For iPad Heralds A New, Friendlier App Store Era:

Good news for people who think outside the iTunes box, multimedia player VLC hit the Apple store today, meaning you can now play AVI and Quicktime movies without having to convert them to iTunes, and also meaning that the app will presumably be taking at least some eyeball traffic away from the iTunes store. Does this generous decision on behalf of Apple mean that the kinder gentle App store is here to stay?

Yes, the same app store that approved Google Voice and Opera is now giving the thumbs up on an open source multimedia player, an odd reversal from the strict polices of the app store of yesteryear. On September 9th Apple released a series of guidelines making clear what is and isn’t allowed (“no fart apps”), and told developers it would consider apps built using whatever languages they wanted including Flash and Java. And it looks like it’s keeping it’s word.

Since the closed iTunes media platform is at the crux of Apple’s business model, the fact that an app would get approved that allows you to upload non-Apple compatible files to your iPad it seems counterintuitive when considering how viciously Apple has treated apps that were even slightly competitive in the past.

But this recent chain of approvals are signs a less greedy Apple is going easier on what constitutes “duplication of functionality.” What’s next, Bittorrent on the iPad?

To Apple developers the VLC approval is as symbolic as Google Voice was a couple of days ago. You can’t get more open than the free VLC which comes with a bunch of Codecs so you can basically play anything, and is open source meaning that developers can build on top of it. Giddy off of their newfound Apple seal of approval, Apptitudes, the company behind the app, holds that they plan on making an iPhone version soon.

So what happened that made Apple change their tune with regards to App Store approval policy? No one quite knows. One theory I’ve heard is governmental intervention on what were viewed by many to be monopolistic tendencies. In any case, get ready for a new App store era.

The statement that started it all, below:

• With over 250,000 apps and 6.5 billion downloads, the App Store has become the world’s largest mobile application platform and App Store developers have earned over one billion dollars from the sales of their apps.
• We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.
• In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

BlackBerry tablet may be announced next week - BlackPad and SurfBook likely names

A report by the Wall Street Journal has indicated many things about RIM’s still rumoured upcoming tablet, and one of them happens to be the fact that it could possibly be unveiled as soon as next week, during its Developer Conference to be held in San Francisco.

Also reported is that the BlackBerry tablet will still be priced at around $499, and will only support Wi-Fi and BlackBerry tethering. QNX Software Systems (an infotainment company RIM acquired in April for $200 million) will apparently be making the OS from scratch, while Quanta will be manufacturing the device, and Marvell powering it. Interestingly, the report also pointed out that RIM might be considering switching all its phones to QNX's operating system.

With all the rumoured details so far, a lot of us feel quite knowledgeable about what the BlackBerry tablet would be like, however, the name still remains a mystery. While RIM taking over the Blackpad.com domain gave us a clue, it could certainly just be an option or even a marketing gimmick. RIM also applied for a trademark of the SurfBook name in Canada a few days back, so for now, the tablet’s name still remains a mystery. We’ve taken a liking to BlackPad, it certainly has a dark yet hilarious sound to it…But will RIM go ahead with it? Let us know what you think in the comments section below...

Cell Phones to Project Images on a Wall:

Now, It is possible that we can project the images by using Cell phones with the help of Miniature Devices...

A new one-cubic-centimeter projector head that can be integrated into a portable computer or mobile telephone has been developed by Lemoptix, a spin-off of Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), and the Maher Kayal Laboratory.

Little Energy will be required to projector requiring on average 30% less current than the matrix- or LED-based technology currently available on the market.“This micro-projector functions using tiny mirrors of less than a millimeter’s thickness. Positioned on a silicon (wafer) disc, they reflect red, blue and green laser beams”.

The device, contained in a tiny glass case (3 mm x 4 mm), oscillates so rapidly that the beam can scan a surface up to 20,000 times a second. In August, Maher Kayal’s team was able to generate a color image in VGA resolution (640 x 480px) for the first time.

The improved brightness and contrast will enable it to replace LCD screens. The Lemoptix team envisions an interactive version that would allow you to touch the projected image to zoom or change screen.

Reference: Newspaper (Hindu)