a2z Information: 2012-12-23

Saturday, December 29, 2012

2013, Gadgets to go slimmer, sexier

iPhone 5, iPad Mini, Nexus 7 and Galaxy SIII rocked the devices market in 2012, but as gadgets get slimmer, sexier and more powerful, similar to those seen in 007 Bond flicks, gadget enthusiasts are in for a treat in 2013.

2012 saw users transitioning from feature phones to smartphones as they moved from just talking and texting to tweeting, networking socially and shopping with increasing mobileinternet penetration and lower data tariffs.

It would appear that the real impact of the Instagram Privacy Policy update (and subsequent revolt on the part of its users) has come to light – a relatively massive 25% decrease in daily users – but there’s a catch. While the statistics given by AppData could very well be due in part to Christmas and the holidays in general, a decrease of over 3 million daily users is nothing to scoff at for one of the most-used apps on the market. According to AppData the amount of daily users Instagram is working with fell from 16.4 million to 12.4 million between the week the Privacy Policy changes occurred and now… on Facebook. Meanwhile the app has taken off in popularity in its original iPhone and Android form.

iPhone 6, iPad 5 May Use Thinner, Higher Resolution Screens Says Rumor is a post by Josh Smith from Gotta Be Mobile.

The iPhone 6 and iPad 5 could feature a thinner, lower power, higher resolution IGZO display from Sharp according to new rumors. IGZO displays from Sharp were first rumored to appear in the iPad mini in October, but that did not come to life. Now, DigiTimes reports that Apple is in talks with Sharp to use IGZO displays in the next generation of mobile Apple

iPad continues to lead the tablet market in web traffic

The competition against the Apple iPad is constantly growing. There are a number of popular Android tablets on the market, particularly the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. While the competition is improving, the Apple iPad is still by far the most popular tablet on the market overall.

Advertising and analytics company Chitika has released its metrics update for the December 2012 tablet market. The company found that while competition is increasing, the iPad is still by far the dominant tablet on the market. According to the firm for every 100 page impressions made from an iPad, other tablets in the market produce only 14.75 combined.

samsung_galaxy_s_III_review_sg_7-580x431121

We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about Samsung‘s next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S IV, and we don’t expect it die down anytime soon. The latest rumor fresh out of South Korea is that Samsung is preparing the Galaxy S IV for an April 2013 launch, and it’s said that the new handset will come with S Pen functionality right out of the box.

A few details have been leaked by an anonymous tipster as to what the next-generation DROID RAZR M will be, building on the greatness of the already fabulous palm-sized beast. We had our first look at the original DROID RAZR M earlier this year in NYC, the reveal event also playing host to one of the first public showings of a newly minted Google-owned Motorola, complete with Google-minded software choices for Android – like on-screen buttons, for example. Here we’re seeing the logical next step for the DROID RAZR M with an “HD” name addition, but the specifications we’re seeing aren’t quite as solid as we’d hope – not logically, that is.

Rishad Premji may join the board of Wipro Enterprises. Rishad, 35, is considered a logical choice for the newly-formed, unlisted entity which comprises the non-IT businesses of Wipro.

Rishad, the older son of promoter Azim Premji, is currently on the board of Wipro GE Medical Systems Limited, a joint venture with American conglomerate GE. At Wipro, he works as the chief strategy officer. Rishad is also in charge ofmergers and acquisitions for India's third-largest software services exporter.

In a dismal real estate market, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed an agreement with Neptune Developers to lease the largest IT office space in the city.

TCS will take over 3.5 lakh sq ft space in Neptune Element, an 11-storey IT buildingconstructed by the developers in Thane's Wagle Industrial Estate. The two parties are learnt to have negotiated the deal for a lease amount of Rs 35 to Rs 40 per sq ft per month, which works out to an annual rent of close to Rs 16 crore. A formal agreement is expected to be sealed in a few weeks.

Tech giant Apple is working with Intelto manufacture a 'smart watch', a Chinese gadget blog has claimed.

According to the report, the Bluetooth watch would debut sometime in the first half of 2013.

Consumers have previously used the sixth-generation iPod Nano as a watch, with third parties producing wristbands for the product, News.com.au reports.

IT indices once again failed to earn return in 2012 largely on account of dull show by sector stalwarts, Infosys and Wipro and tepid return by Tata Consultancy Services. Following a sharp fall of 18% in 2011, the ET Infotech index lost 0.3% in 2012. With relatively lower valuations and expectation of sustained traction in outsourcing due to the need to control costs across Western economies and stable trend in billing rates, 2013 may very well be a comeback year for the index.

Videocon has launched two budget Android smartphones in India, named A20 and A30. With these two devices, the Indian manufacturer takes on phones by rivals like Micromax and Samsung. Interestingly, Videocon's flagship device shares the name with Karbonn's smartphone with a 5.9-inch screen, which was officially launched today.

The all-new Videocon A30 features a 4-inch screen and is powered by Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The device runs on a dual-core 1GHz processor with 512MB RAM and comes with 4GB internal memory and support for 32GB microSD card. This smartphone is compatible with 3G, 2G and Wi-Fi networks and can transfer files via Bluetooth 3.0.

Technology major Apple Inc has been fined $165,908 by a court here for allegedly selling unlicensed electronic versions of books online.

The Beijing No.2 intermediate people's court ordered Apple to pay a total of 1.03 million yuan ($165,908) to eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights.

Amazon.com remained the best website for shopping online, while JC Penney suffered the largest drop in customer satisfaction of any major online retailer this holiday season, according to a survey released on Thursday.

Flash sale sites Gilt.com and RueLaLa.com were among the worst performers in online shopping satisfaction this season, according to ForeSee's Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index.

A woman I haven't spoken to in six years is pregnant with her second son. Another college acquaintance reads the Bible a lot. A high school classmate likes to rant about politics. A college dormmate thinks he works too much.

On Facebook, I'm connected to a lot of people who are not my friends. Over the years, as my Facebook friend list grows, it's made me increasingly uncomfortable that I seem to know so much about people that I don't actually know.

Colleges offering students tools to clean online profiles

Samantha Grossman wasn't always thrilled with the impression that emerged when people Googled her name.

"It wasn't anything too horrible," she said. "I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren't of me, things I wouldn't want associated with me."

So before she graduated from Syracuse University last spring, the school provided her with a tool that allowed her to put her best web foot forward. Now when people Google her, they go straight to a positive image - professional photo, cum laude degree and credentials - that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York.

Percept said it has inked a three-year association pact with global video sharing giant YouTube for live streaming of the media and communications firm's annual dance music festival 'Sunburn'.

"The association which includes all Sunburn properties- Sunburn Goa, Sunburn Mumbai and Sunburn Noida - will have the events live streamed to a global audience in more than 100 countries worldwide," Percept Ltd said in a statement.

Apple is reportedly in continued talks with Japanese manufacturer Sharp for its Igzo (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) display panels for the next-generation iPhone, iPad and iPad mini.

A Digitimes report has cited sources as saying that Apple is, however, concerned over the number of panels that Sharp can manufacture during 2013 to meet its requirements.

The report also said Apple is assessing if AU Optronics' L5C line can manufacture the required number of displays for its mobile devices for 2013. Sharp has licensed its Igzo manufacturing technology to Innolux Corp as well, which may emerge as the third supplier for this display panel for Apple, sources say.

There are 2.2 billion internet usersworldwide. Google is now focusing its efforts to get the next one billion users online by 2015. Half of these users, Google says, will come from the emerging markets.

"And a quarter of the next billion coming online will be from India," says Julian Persaud, MD of Google Southeast Asia. He says new users will access the internet for the first time on a mobile device and not on a desktop. Persaud says India has more mobile-based internet traffic than desktop traffic.

Information Technology services and pharmaceuticals are likely to drive hiring growthin 2013, to fill mid and senior positions, said HeadHonchos.com, a leading job search and career management portal.

"The data in 'Management Hiring: Perspective report 2012', indicate that IT or software services and pharmaceuticals or life sciences could potentially drive the hiring growth in 2013," HeadHonchos said in a release.

South Korean company Samsung Electronics said it has sold more than 10 millionGalaxy devices in the Indian market since the launch of the first Galaxy device, 'Galaxy S', in June 2010.

"Innovative devices like the Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy SII and SIII, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy Y have caught the imagination of customers and helped us democratise the smartphone experience in the Indian market," Samsung VP (Mobile) Asim Warsi told PTI.

Getit partners with Yahoo for local search

Digital marketing company Getit announced its association with Yahoo wherein Getit will power results under Yahoo Local. Getit's databases of over three million business listings will be accessible to Yahoo users on Yahoo Local. Any search conducted on Yahoo Local will land on a co-branded section, powered by Getit, according to a release.

This association will help Yahoo which has 40 million unique users to create brand awareness of Getit. Further, for searches conducted on Yahoo! web search which correspond to a local need, Yahoo! users will have the benefit of the listings powered by Getit, depending upon relevance, location and keywords.

Mid-sized software exporter Mindtree has a simple philosophy to survive in India's competitive $100-billion IT services industry: Get back to the 'basics of doing business'. And, that's what the Bangalore-based company did when profits started to decline and then-chairman Ashok Soota decided to walk out two years ago.

"We cleaned up our act and we did it decisively," says Subroto Bagchi, who co-founded Mindtree with 10 others, including Soota, a former vice-chairman of Wipro.

In the week after the optimistic management commentary, the TCS stock has gained 5%, beating the sector index BSE IT, which earned a little less than 3%. Following the management's iteration of stable billing rates and sustained demand scenario right through the next few quarters, some of the analysts have reaffirmed their buy rating on the stock.

Considering its strong presence in the global outsourcing business, the company is expected to outperform the benchmarks and sector indices in the coming year as it did in 2012. In a recent analyst call, TCS's management said that it has so far not witnessed major project cancellations. A report from the equity research wing of Barclays noted that the management has cited a strong pipeline, rise in deal wins and positive client discussions on discretionary spending.

Why apps that read out, reply to SMSs, email are dangerous

Smartphone apps that read out and respond to text messages while people are driving, are a dangerous distraction and should not be used, according to police.

Text Star, available for Australian Androidphones in early 2013, automatically replies to all texts and emails with a preset message of people's choice, whenever it detects that people are travelling faster than 16km/h.

Another free android app DriveSafe.ly, uses text-to-speech technology to automatically read out loud text messages and emails the instant they are received, so that people can keep their hands on the wheel and avoid a heavy fine and demerit points.

It has taken years, but Google seems to be cutting into Microsoft's stronghold - businesses.

Google's software for businesses, Google Apps, consists of applications for document writing, collaboration, and text and video communications - all cloud-based, so that none of the software is on an office worker's computer. Google has been promoting the idea for more than six years, and it seemed that it was going to appeal mostly to small businesses and tech startups.

Legal hassles, poor 3G coverage and patchy broadband haven't stopped the rapid growth of social media across India— both for people at home and for businesses looking to build digital campaigns to reach increasingly networked consumers.

If Facebook has crossed some 65 million users in India, others such as LinkedIn and Twitter, with more than 15 million and between 10 and 33 million users (depending on whom you ask), respectively, and newer sites such as Pinterest and Quora too have grown sharply in the past 12 months.

Samsung seems to have silently launched Galaxy Music Duos smartphone in the Indian market. The company had unveiled it internationally in October 2012 and begun taking pre-orders in India in the first week of December. The official cost of the device in India is Rs 9,199, though the street price is Rs 8,990.
The all-new Galaxy Music Duos is a dual-sim smartphone aimed at music lovers and comes with two speakers in the front, a dedicated music key and audio technologies like Sound Alive and SRS. This device has a 3-inch LCD touchscreen with 240x320-pixel resolution and runs on an 850MHz processor with 512MB RAM. It has 4GB internal memory and supports 32GB microSD cards for expansion.

Bharti Airtel, the country's largest mobile phone company by customers and sales, has sought government's approval for testing voice services on its fourth generation networks.

The move is significant as Reliance Industries-owned Infotel Broadband, the only company that has pan-India 4G airwaves, is set to get the telecom department's (DoT's) approval for testing voice services on this technology platform.

ET recently reported that the DoT committee looking into RIL's demand had recommended that the company be allowed to test 10,000 connections (for 4G voice services) and that it also be allotted these many mobile numbers.

Netflix blames Amazon for Christmas Eve outage

An outage at one of Amazon's web service centers hit users of Netflix Inc's streaming video service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas Day, a spokesman for the movie rental company said on Tuesday.

The outage impacted Netflix subscribers across Canada, Latin America and the United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies and television shows from home, Netflix spokesman Joris Evers said. Such devices range from gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 to Blu-ray DVD players.

Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, California, has 30 million streaming subscribers worldwide, of which more than 27 million are in the Americas region that was exposed to the outage and could have potentially been affected, Evers said.

India Inc is expected to dole out an average pay hike of 11.2 per cent across job roles in 2013, lower than 12 per cent increase witnessed this year, says Hay Group. Global management consultancy Hay Group said pay for performance is the new mantra.

Noting that salary increases are projected to be 11.2 per cent next year, Hay Group said the "amount represents a slight reduction against an actual average salary increase of 12 per cent across India Inc in 2012".

Too much Internet use may leave kids brain dead, Expert

A 'Google generation' which relies on the Internet for everything is in danger of becoming 'brain-dead', a leading UK inventor has warned.

Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio, said children are losing creativity and practical skills because they spend too much time in front of screens.

The 75-year-old from Twickenham, south-west London, said he fears that the next generation of inventors is being lost, with young people often unable to make anything with their hands, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

Top priority for technology providers and practitioners will be to drive business transformation using technology solutions. Given that the business environment is expected to remain volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, businesses will be under pressure to reinvent the way they work. IT service providers and practitioners will be expected to drive business transformation initiatives which help organisations optimize cost and increase productivity. IT will consider business transformation initiatives like: a) Workshifting: IT will drive programs like work from home or move work to a more optimized location and cutreal estate cost and delight employees, b) Executive Mobility: IT will enable employees to work with people, apps and data from any device and any location thus increasing the productivity of employees.

Recently, rumours about a Nokia tablet made quite a buzz, but details have been scarce. Now, sources close to the Finnish manufacturer have started dishing out leaks and one says Nokia's upcoming tablet will be powered by two batteries - one standard and the other in the keyboard cover.

According to a report in technology news website The Verge, the keyboard cover that will come with the device will have a battery and work as a kickstand, much like the one in Microsoft Surface. Users will be able to switch the keyboard-based battery in when the tablet's battery runs low.

Microsoft is eyeing Indian start ups that have the potential to influence life of lakhs of consumers and groom them so that they are fit to stand out in the digitial arena. The IT giant has embarked on a mission to support and counsel start ups to get them visibility on the digital platform.

So be it Focaloid, the homegrown social networking platform for photographers, or Tookitaki, a social recommendation platform for businesses to discover their target audience, or ToCha, which develops mobile applications in the edutainment and travel space orPlaypower, which is about educational games for PCs and mobile devices, Microsoft is handholding and mentoring these startups under the Microsoft BizSparkprogramme.

Industrial sites in Iran under cyber attack

An internet virus attacked computers at industrial sites in southern Iran, in an apparent extension of a covert cyber war that initially targeted the country's nuclear facilities, an Iranian official said.

Iran, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, has tightened online security since its uranium enrichment centrifuges were hit in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which Tehran believes was planted by arch-adversaries Israel or the United States.

The brave new world for US retailers can be found in small cities like Martinsburg, West Virginia.

That's where department store chain Macy's Inc recently opened a facility the size of 43 football fields -- big enough to stock 1 million pairs of shoes -- just to fulfill orders made online.

The $150 million building, its third one dedicated primarily to supporting macys.com, has already been handling 60,000 orders on a busy day this holiday season. Macy's expects that figure to triple in two years.

New images apparently showing upcoming Blackberry smartphone have been leaked online.

If genuine, the images show a straight keyboard similar to the one seen on the Torch model.

The photos were first revealed by CrackBerry.com, via Chinese site CNBeta.

According to the Daily Mail, the site reported that the latest image shows the BlackBerry 10 N-Series, which is rumored to debut with a touchscreen L-Series phone next month.

Whether it is improving health or managing finances better, about 87 per cent of Americans will make resolutions for 2013 and there are plenty of apps to help them achieve their goals.

Nearly half of New Year's resolutions are about setting health-related goals, which is the most popular category, according to a recent survey by online broker TD Ameritrade.

Viruses and worms spreading through flash drives along with rise in malware targeting Android OS are the main trends of malware landscape in India in 2013, predicts ESET, a provider of security solutions to businesses and consumers.

Although throughout 2012 detections related to certain malware (like INF/Autorun) have been decreasing in India, the threat continues. USB flash drives are still an effective way of compromising computers. One of the reasons, according to ESET researchers, is that users are prone to installing pirated software including OS itself along with pirated security software, if at all the latter is installed on the system. Besides, a very basic security practice as scanning removable media with security software is ignored by majority of Indian computer users.

As Nirbhaya's story grips the nation, the IT &BPO industry -- which has a sizable chunk ofwomen employees and where workdays ending in the wee hours is routine -- is further tightening its security measures.

The industry got a wake-up call with the horrific rape and murder of Pratibha Murthy in Bangalore in 2005. The country's IT & BPO sector, in which women account for 35% and 50% of the total workforce respectively, said they have periodically upped safety measures for women employees in the past five years to counter the unsafe environment outside office space.

HCL Learning, the education division of HCL Infosystems, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a South African educational firm Spatial Data Holdings, to launch their products in five African countries including South Africa. Through this agreement the company has already started selling its educational content , tablets anddongles in Africa. The countries are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia.

Tech giant Apple is planning to launch a fifth generation tablet in March, a report has claimed.

According to Japanese tech blog Macotakara's inside source, the new iPad will look like the iPadMini in design and detail and the dimensions of a slightly smaller iPad 2.

The new model, according to the blog, would feature the Retina display with the same resolution as the third and fourth-generation iPads.

According to the Daily Mail, these theories have been backed up by Digitimes and come from a source known for its accuracy regarding insider information about Apple products.

Craig Mundie, one of twoMicrosoft executives who took over Bill Gates' role at the company, has relinquished control of Microsoft's large research organization and is to retire from the company in 2014.

Mundie is taking on a new role as a senior adviser to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, according to a memo circulated internally earlier this month but only made public recently.

"Gangnam Style" topped YouTube's list of the most attention-grabbing videos this year, as other professionally produced works outshined the amateur clips that had originally made the website famous.

"Almost everything on the list this year was created by professional or creative talent for an online audience,"YouTube trends manager Kevin Allocca told AFP shortly before the results were released.

"It's different from years ago, when homemade videos or random, funny stuff from smartphone cameras were the hits."

Indian mobile devices company Lava International hopes to file 100 patents for mobile applications in the field of education, entertainment and productivity over next 2 to 3 years.

"We have realised that just by selling handsets it is not possible to maintain growth momentum. Innovation in product is key to survival. Our wishlist is to make a century of patents in the next 2 to 3 years," Lava International Co-founder and Director SN Rai told PTI.

Pune-based Byond Tech Electronics said it is eyeing to sell over one lakh smart phones per month by launching new range in lower price bracket and targeting Rs 400 crore turnover from smart phones andtablets in 2013-14.

"We are targeting to sell more than one lakhsmartphones in India as demand for such phones is enormous and its market is growing very fast," company's founder and CEO Prashant P Bora told PTI here.

Bora said the company has set a target of achieving sales of Rs 400 crore from smart phones and tablets in 2013-14.

More than five million domain names were added to the Internet in the third quarter of 2012, bringing the total number of registered domain names as of September 30, 2012 to more than 246 million worldwide across all Top-Level Domains (TLDs), a report said today.

According to Domain Name Industry Brief, published byVeriSign Inc, a provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world, the increase of 5.7 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 2.4 per cent over the second quarter of 2012, and marks the seventh straight quarter with greater than two per cent growth.

Bricks and mortar retailers like Nordstrom and Walgreens have found a way to deal with growing pressure from Amazon, by joining forces with small e-commerce companies.

Through acquisitions, investments and partnerships with smaller, emerging start-ups, large retailers are breaking into new markets and tapping into the social media and marketing expertise of the firm's often tech-savvy founders.

Google's senior vice president for Chrome and Apps, Sundar Pichai, 40, is among the three Indians in the top team of CEO Larry Page. He is also the mind behind products such as GoogleDrive, Chrome and Apps. Pichai, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, stopped over in Bangalore en route his annual visit to Chennai. In a chat with ET, he spoke about how search will evolve in the future and Facebook's search bar. Excerpts:

What is the reason behind the frequentGmail outages? Can businesses trust Gmail and Google Apps with these frequent disruptions?

Social networking site Facebook has launched a new app which erases pictures and messages within 10 seconds of being sent.

It is an advanced version of one of the the social networking site's original apps, the 'poke'.

The equivalent of a head nod or wink, the 'poke' in its old form is rarely used today as the site has become more advanced, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

Keep misplacing your car keys? Just wave your smartphone to unlock the door!

Engineers at South Korean automobile majorHyundai have invented a new system that will allow your smartphone to double as your car keys, and the technology will be made available to buyers within two years.

Rather than using Bluetooth, the system by Hyundai uses wireless Near Field Communication ( NFC), allowing you to lock and unlock the car by waving your phone over a small tag on the car window.

A smartphone application which enable a user to send SOS alerts with the information of location to family and friends in any emergency situation has been launched by MindHelix Technosol.

The smartphone application 'Sentinel' can call friends and family in case of danger on the press of a button. It works in multiple scenarios even without triggering an alert manually, a company release said.

Admist nationwide uproar over brutal gang-rape of a paramedic student, the Telecom Ministry today announced a three-digitwomen helpline number '167'. "For helping women in distress, Delhi chief minister requested (telecom minister) Kapil Sibal to allot a three-digit phone number.

"Though DoT has limited resource in respect of three-digit numbers, yet within two hours of the request, a three-digit number '167' has been allotted for chief minister's helpline," a statement from the Department of Telecom said.

Microsoft Releases Wordament, the First iPhone Game with Xbox Live Achievements

Microsoft has released a game tonight called Wordament for the iPhone. The game has been a popular Windows Phone game, but is now also available on iOS. Wordament was originally a side-project for two Windows Live employees that was later acquired and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Wordament is notably the first Microsoft game to come to iOS with Xbox Achievements. When you sign in with your free Microsoft account, you can earn up to 50

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