a2z Information: 2013-05-12

Friday, May 17, 2013

Panasonic India Set to Redefine the Smartphone Segment

Continuing its strong focus on India, Panasonic India today announced the launch of the P51, Panasonic smartphone, a first in the series of revolutionary smartphones marking the entry of Panasonic into the mobile phone segment in India. This phone is targeted at the young generation – the always-on-the-go college youth, and the premium executive class, who is always on the lookout for better, faster and savvier smartphones on the go!

The Panasonic P51 is a premium AndroidTM smartphone with sleek design and brings HD experience to a 5 inch screen with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. Powered by a Quad Core1.2GHz processor and running on AndroidTM 4.2 (Jelly Bean), the P51 comes with a magnetic flip-cover stylus offering comfort and convenience to the consumer. This Wi-Fi enabled device also sports an 8MP camera (auto focus with flash) and a 1.3Mpxl 720p HD front camera making it an ideal phone

Google adds player matching to Android

Google is adding leaderboards and the ability to match players in online games to its Android operating system for smartphones and tablet computers.

The new features match those available in Apple's Game Center for the iPhone and iPad. Google is also making it possible to save game progress online, so players can pick up games where they left off, even on other devices.

Google spruces photo offerings, to give 15GB storage

Google is digging deeper into its technology toolkit to turn its social networking service into a more formidable threat to Facebook, sprucing up its photo features at a time when sharing snapshots online and on mobile gadgets is growing more popular.

Many of the 41 new features being added to Google Plus beginning Wednesday will draw upon the computing power, machine learning, algorithms, semantics analysis and other innovations that established Google's search engine as the most influential force on the internet.

Google revamps Maps service

Cartographers, beware: The map wars have begun.

First Apple built maps, and now Facebook wants its own mapping service. In the tech industry, maps have become essential, primarily because of the explosion of mobile devices, on which maps are a critical application. Maps are also seen as the gateway to commerce, both online and in the real world.

Yet even as maps have become a must-have service, Google, the leader in online mapping so far, is showing that experience pays dividends.

Google unveiled a new Google Maps, by far the biggest redesign since it introduced Maps eight years ago. Google announced the maps at its annual I/O developers conference, where it also showed off new tools for search, photo editing and to-do lists, along with a music service and features for Android and Chrome apps. Many of the announcements had an undercurrent - one-upping Apple. From its new music and photo services to maps to voice commands that rival Siri on the iPhone, Google seemed to be offering alternatives to Apple products.

The escalating number of attacks on web services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is one of the most spammed countries worldwide, has lent impetus to the cloud computing security market in the country. The growing use of cloud services in the next few years, especially in non-traditional verticals such as retail and logistics, will drive the demand for cloud computing security solutions in the country.

ZTE today introduced the ZTE Grand X2 In smartphone with Intel Inside® at the MedPi conference in Monaco. Featuring the Intel® Atom™ Processor Z2580 with up to 2GHz, Android Jelly Bean OS, an advanced 8MP camera and 1080p movie and video play back, the ZTE Grand X2 In provides high quality experience for the demanding and value conscious user.

The ZTE Grand X2 In provides instant performance with its advanced dual core Intel® Atom™ Processor Z2580 with hyper-threading running on the Android Jelly Bean operating system. Users can enjoy faster webpage loads, application launch times and content download times, as well as amazing graphics capabilities and responsive multitasking.

The company revealed some new search tools at I/O, its annual developers conference in San Francisco. Taken together, they are another step toward Google's trying to become the omnipotent, human-like " Star Trek" search engine that its executives say they want it to be.

When people ask Google certain questions, it will now try to predict the person's follow-up questions and answer them, too. Ask for the population of India, for instance, and you will also get the population of China and the United States, because Google knows those are the most common follow-up questions.

Internet enabled cars a threat to cybersecurity

With the cars becoming more powered and connected to the internet and operated by computers, the risk of cyberattacks have arisen.

The US based National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), believes that the interconnected electronic system is helpful in creating opportunities for vehicle safety and reliability but these systems now also pose cybersecurity threats of a very different nature.

Infosys, said that it might be issued additional subpoenas in connection with the B-1 business visa investigation that is currently underway in the US.

Infosys said it was in discussion with the US Attorney's Office on this matter, but added it cannot predict the final outcome of the investigation or the discussions.

Google Glass was a common sight on Wednesday as software savants here shared visions of games, weather reports, news and more delivered to the internet-linked eyewear. Many of the 6,000 developers attending an annual Google I/O event in San Francisco sported Glass as part of an "explorer" programme to tinker with creative applications for the eyewear, which cost $1,500 a unit.

Uses ranged from practical tasks such as shopping or delivering local weather reports to sharing real time video streams of riding cable cars or playing augmented reality games in which the world is the board.

The so-called ecofriendly LED lights may cause permanent damage to your eyes, a new research has claimed. The study found that exposure to light-emitting diode (LED) lights can cause irreparable harm to the retina of the human eye.

Once the retina cells are destroyed by prolonged and continuous exposure to LED rays, they cannot be replaced and will not regrow, Think-Spain.com reported.

Slowdown, Flipkart, Jabong cutting jobs

Online retailers are handing out pink slips in large numbers as they shift attention to controlling costs from acquiring customers, several industry executives said. Among the companies sacking staff are Flipkart and Jabong, which are among the biggest in the business, illustrating the growing pain in India's e-commerce sector.

Nearly 250 employees, or about one-tenth of Flipkart's workforce, are being shown the door, according to at least three people with direct knowledge of the development. At Jabong, too, a similar number of employees have been sacked, but the company employs fewer than 1,000 staff.

Innovation just got better with Google Glass now offering a facial recognition app called MedRef. The app was created in a medical hackathon where it was programmed for medical purposes.

One of the programmers Lance Nanek, who was part of the programmers' team, said that the hospitals would benefit with this app, as they have to deal with a lot of information about patients each day.

In a report by Fox news, MedRef will help medical professionals to scan their patients face and gain a quick access to their medical history. The doctors or nurses can also add quick voice notes to the medical information.

Micromax today launched a music phone under its Canvas series, called Music A88. This phone comes bundled with free JBL Tempo headphones and is priced at Rs 8,499 in the market. The Indian smartphone maker had showcased this phone, which will hit the stores from May 16, at the Micromax MTV Music Awards last month.

The all-new Canvas Music has a 4.5-inch touchscreen and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). Under the hood, the phone packs a 1GHz dual-core processor and features a 1,800mAh battery that offers talk time of up to 5 hours. On the back of the phone is a 5MP camera with LED flash, while a VGA unit has been used in the front. This phone supports microSD cards with capacity up to 32GB and provides access to free song downloads via MLive! app by Micromax.

Vietnam's booming internet scene is littered with failed startups that tried to take on Google and other entrenched US web companies. That's not deterring a newly launched Russian-Vietnamese outfit which believes it can unseat the American search engine in this fast-growing Asian market and also contend with a jittery, authoritarian government seeking to clamp down on freedom of expression online.

A breach of security at two payment card processing companies in India that led to heists at cash machines around the world has reopened questions on the risks of outsourcing sensitive financial services to the Asian nation.

Global banks that ship work to be processed in India, either in-house or to big IT services vendors, were already under pressure to step up oversight of back-office functions after a series of scandals last year.

As Amazon seeks to transform itself into a leading provider of technology to the world's largest corporations, it's discovering that it needs help.

The online retailer, which since 2006 has moved aggressively into the business of renting remote computing, storage and other IT services, is roping in thousands of consulting and technology partners, from Capgemini to BMC Software, in a major push to woo big-spending corporate customers to its cloud computing division.

The National Security Council (NSC) Secretariat, the apex agency looking into the country's political, economic, energy and strategic security concerns, has warned against Chinese gearmakers, especially Huawei and ZTE, and said that India must take steps to overhaul its domestic manufacturing capabilities to 'check, investigate and ultimately replace risks that come with foreign equipment'.

The NSC said that as per Intelligence Bureau reports, Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE were part of a Chinese Army project called PLA-863. "As per this programme, Huawei was mandated to focus on switches and routers, ZTE on mobile and fibre networks, Julong on switchboards and Legend on computers with the objective of dominating world telecom scene and strengthening its electronic warfare capabilities," the National Security Council Secretariat said in an April 15 report that was reviewed by ET.

The tweaked version of Microsoft's operating system nicknamed Windows Blue will be previewed on June 26 and will be a free update for users as Windows 8.1.

The update comes amid a lukewarm reception for Windows 8, an operating system released last year to help the software giant transition from personal computers to tablets and other mobile devices.

The move is part of a goal "of delivering continual updates to create a richer experience for Windows customers," a Microsoft blog post said.

Taking the battle right at the doorstep of Indian mobile maker Micromax, Samsung has launched its cheapest quad-core smartphone in India. The all-new Galaxy Grand Quattro runs on a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and is officially priced at Rs 18,260. However, the phone is available much cheaper on several e-commerce websites, with some websites selling it at Rs 16,500 approximately.

The all-new Galaxy Grand Quattro features a 4.7-inch TFT touchscreen with 800x480p resolution and 200ppi pixel density. The device is powered by Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and comes with 1GB RAM. This phone supports 32GBmicroSD card, while the India website has not mention onboard storage.

LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the world’s largest professional network today announced its India member base has crossed the 20 million mark, gaining the critical mass significant enough to represent a world-class city full of professionals and students. This city, “City of LinkedIn India”, would have a “member population” comparable to that of Mumbai’s total metropolitan area, and larger than that of many countries in the world.

City of LinkedIn India’s diverse “population” of 20 million comprises professionals at various stages of their careers, entrepreneurs and students, connected by a common interest – becoming even more successful and productive in the professional lives. Some interesting facts about the “personality” of this city are depicted here, including:

Nexus 4, the official Google phone, is available for pre-order on Flipkart, an e-commerce site, starting today at a price of Rs 25,990. The device will be shipped to consumers as soon as LG, which makes Nexus 4 for Google, officially launches it in India. The launch is expected by Friday.

Sources said that the pre-order is part of an exclusive deal Flipkart has struck with LG.

Chipmaker Nvidia said it will start shipping a hand-held gaming device in June, a bid to use its appeal with PC game enthusiasts to challenge console makers like Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp.

SHIELD, which was announced in January and uses Nvidia's Tegra 4 mobile processors, will be priced at $349, the company said in a release on Tuesday.

Nvidia's graphics chips are well-known to twenty-something fans who deck out their desktop computers with high-end components in order to get the best out of first-person shooters and other games.

The BlackBerry Q10 might not have been the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone to reach the market, but with its classic QWERTY keyboard it’s arguably the first proper new BlackBerry. Blending the new OS with both a touchscreen and the sort of physical text-entry functionality that BlackBerry addicts have been swearing by for years, the Q10 promises to bridge the gap between the Brave New World of touch and those for whom stabbing out an email reply wouldn’t be complete without the crackle of tiny keys. Does that make it the missing link in smartphones, or just a bygone of an era that ought to be forgotten? Read on for our full review.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation(DMRC), which handles the operations of Deli’s Metro travel services, has brought an end to woes of thousands of daily passengers by coming up with an online portal for the general public which will help them recharge their already availed smart cards through online transactions by using their debit and credit cards.

“With this new facility, commuters will now be able to top up their smart cards using debit or credit cards. However, recharge using net-banking facility is not available yet,” a DMRC official said.

Tutorial: How to create a virtual machine in Windows

The release of any new operating system is always exciting, but upgrades bring with them the potential for problems and software incompatibilities.
If you have a computer that you're planning to upgrade to the latest version of Windows, or you're thinking about investing in a new machine with Windows 8 pre-installed, you need to think about the applications and data you have been working with up until now.
Using a combination of VMware vCenter Converter and VMware Player, you can convert your computer in to a virtual machine, retaining all of your settings, applications and data, which you can then use in Windows 8.
The same can be done with other versions of Windows if you like, but here we're looking at creating a virtual machine from a laptop running Windows 7, which can then be run from within Windows 8 and used just like a regular computer.

Here in the weekend days before Google I/O 2013, the company’s big developer conference for the year, two new clues leading to a new era in Motorola-made Android smartphones have been added to story called X Phone. The device in question has appeared as an AT&T-supported smartphone in the FCC this weekend as well as in benchmark test results on a publicly viewable archive. This device will likely appear as a developer give-away at the Google convention on Wednesday.

Roundup: 10 best history apps for iPhone and iPad

The days when history was considered a lifeless, irrelevant subject are long gone. Today, people understand the importance of history, both from a global perspective and in terms of our everyday lives. History is about who we are and where we came from, and when it comes to bringing the past alive, your iPhone and iPad are the perfect tools for the job.
History apps allow you to combine the best of all worlds, giving you access to all the key details of a past period while allowing you to explore it through photos, video and even interactive 3D. If television made history popular again, your iPad allows it to express itself fully.
Despite the fact that apps were made for showcasing history, there aren't that many historical apps out there. Thankfully, the emphasis has been on quality rather than quantity, as the ten apps in this roundup demonstrate.

To mark the Cinco de Mayo holiday this year, Domino's Pizza festooned its Facebook page with a string of posts, including an image of a Mexican-themed guacamole pizza that garnered over 2,000 "likes". But visitors to Domino's companion Google+ page on that day found less festive fare: The most recent post was from October 2012.

Two years after introducing its social network, Google Inc is struggling to win over the brands and businesses that have been its most loyal customers in the Internet search market.

Why Twitter is betting big on Brazil

While Brazil struggles to finish its stadiums in time for the 2014 World Cup, Twitter is already working to cash in on what the US company's head of revenue, Adam Bain, sees as a potentially huge business opportunity.

Robust consumer spending, growth potential from still-low internet penetration and fast adoption of smartphones have turned this nation of 194 million people into an attractive market for Twitter and other online giants.

The new Nokia Asha 501, which was launched recently, will give 48 days of battery life on 2G networks while on standby, according to Nokia.

Along with the 48-day standby time, the 1200 mAh battery on the palm-sized device will also enable 17 hours of talk time and 56 hours of music playback, ABC News reports.

Holding Vodafone India guilty of deficiency in service, Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has upheld a lower court order which asked the service provider to pay Rs 20,000 compensation and Rs 5,000 costs to a doctor for failing to stop unsolicited commercial communications.

"Vodafone had failed to discharge its obligation and acted with imperfection, shortcoming or inadequacy in the nature and manner of purpose, which is required to be maintained by it under the regulations," observed SR Khanzode and Dhanraj Khamatkar in their order yesterday.

Posting offensive, harassing or defamatory content online may take a few minutes, but deleting it will take a lot of time and patience and what may seem like a lifetime.

According to a report by news.com.au, if one finds any content offensive or harassing in any nature it is not an easy thing to get rid of. Incidents of online bullying and harassment have become commonplace with the growing social networking.

The security breach that led to a Gulf-based bank getting ensnared in a multi-million-dollar ATM heist may have happened at a company based in Pune, people familiar with the matter said. Access to the National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC (RAKBANK) could have happened through Pune-based ElectraCard Services, which provides credit card payments processing services for the UAE-based bank.

US federal prosecutors said in a complaint last week that RAKBANK and Bank of Muscat Oman were hacked by a global cyber-crime ring that first breached the computers at an outsourced Indian credit card processor in December and then the computers of a similar American processor to gain access to critical data that made the crime possible. The cyber thieves are believed to have stolen $45 million (Rs 247 crore).

While there have been a lot of rumours about the upcoming iPhone model, there have been very few evidences about the device's existence. Now, technology website Stuff has revealed that it received an image which shows that the next Apple smartphone will be called iPhone 6, not iPhone 5S.

The report says that the image is of Vodafone UK's till system, showing an inventory that clearly names the model as '4G iPhone 6'.

Rumours have been flying thick and fast about Samsung readying to launch a smaller version of its Galaxy S4, and there may be more than one versions of the phone on the anvil. Recent reports have claimed that the South Korean mobile titan is preparing at least two variants of the rumoured Galaxy S4 Mini.

A report in SamMobile, which has a stellar record in Samsung leaks, says that Samsung is developing Galaxy S4 Zoom. This phone has a 16MP autofocus camera with optical image stabilisation and 10X optical zoom. Galaxy S4 has a 13MP camera, offering the highest resolution among the phones in its portfolio, while other top-of-the-line devices like Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III feature 8MP units.

The time you spend playing video games may actually have its advantages. Take, for instance, a new study, presented by the University of Iowa, which suggests that gaming slows down mental decline among adults. On the other hand, young parents today have a totally different point of view.

They fear that the number of hours their children spend gaming is directly related to the decline in the number of hours they spend playing or communicating with real people. The average amount of time spent by a person playing video games has been recorded at 18 hours a week. With the numbers seeing a steady rise over the last few years, BT finds out if there is any truth in the statement that the next generation could be one that lacks social skills.

LinkedIn unveiled its website 10 years ago this week, from a tiny Silicon Valley office next door to an emerging social-networking service called Friendster. A decade later, Friendster is kaput and LinkedIn is going strong, boasting 225 million users and a stock price that's almost quadrupled since the company's public debut in 2011.

The challenge for chief executive officer Jeff Weiner and co-founder and chairman Reid Hoffman is to avoid becoming another internet also-ran by continuing to add products as membership growth slows. With a stock that trades at more than 120 times projected earnings for next year, more than twice Facebook's ratio, investor expectations are unrealistic, said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. "I have trouble with hundred multiples," said Pachter, who recommends holding the stock. Facebook, the largest social-networking site, trades at 48 times the earnings, while ratios for Google and Yahoo are less than 20.

India has the potential to lead the world in the adoption of the Nexus of Forces, the convergence of social interaction, mobility, cloud and information.

The manner in which IT is used, developed and managed will change significantly because of the Nexus of Forces, said IT advisory firm Gartner. These pivotal technologies include the use of media tablets, mobile applications, context-aware computing, the Internet of things, next-generation analytics and in-memory computing (IMC).

Mobile messaging company WhatsApp, which claims more users than Twitter's 200 million, is looking to expand in India through tie-ups with telecom firms. The California-based company— which has an alliance with Reliance Communications— is talking to at least two other telecom service providers, Neeraj Arora, vice president for business development , told ET.

How many users do you now have in India?

General Motors says a new supercomputing data centre and a fledgling shift to bring software development in-house should help it limit the size of future safety recalls.

The Detroit automaker, which formally opened the giant data storage centre in suburban Warren, Michigan, on Monday, said the changes are examples of how it is moving faster to cut costs and serve its customers better by bringing more computer technology inside the company.

A professional US body of engineers has asked the Senators to reject any move to increase the number of H-1B visas, popular among Indian professionals, arguing that it has a damaging effect on American economy.

In a statement issued yesterday, IEEE-USA - the largest American body of professional engineers asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject amendments to the comprehensive immigration bill that would increase H-1B temporary visa numbers, weaken safeguards for US and foreign workers and facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs.

An anonymous bidder has paid $6,05,000, the highest amount ever, for a half an hour meeting with Apple's chief Tim Cook in a charity auction for celebrities' time.

In the auction organized by Charitybuzz website, this bid surpasses the earlier auction of an entire day with former president Bill Clinton that stood at 225,000 dollars although it reaches the site's previous record in March when a Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster was auctioned at 610,000 dollars, The Guardian reports.

Japanese display maker Sharp, a supplier to Apple, will aim to boost sales to the iPhone maker's rival Samsung Electronics under a three-year rehabilitation roadmap after posting a worse-than-expected $5.4 billion net loss in its latest financial year.

The business plan, due for release on Tuesday, will lean further on banks that last year saved it from failure, as a 200 billion yen ($2 billion) convertible bond will fall due in September.

It may be politically incorrect to take prints but printers are here to stay. In fact, printing technology has advanced by leaps and bounds revolutionizing the two broad categories of printers: inkjet and laser.

Micro Piezo inkjet technology, developed and patented by Epson, uses a highly sophisticated combination of paper handling mechanisms and image-processing technologies centred around a special printhead. Interestingly, this high-precision process has been derived from Epson's experiences in making quartz watches.

With a new app, Twitter Music, referenced in print as #music, Twitter has promised to "change the way people find music". It lets you see what songs people share and lets you listen too. You need to know a few things to get started.

First, Twitter Music is distinct from Twitter, so you will have to download a separate app. The music app, right now only for Apple products , lets you see a list of 140 songs in each of four categories.

The CEO of BlackBerry will deliver a keynote speech amid speculation that he will introduce a lower-priced phone running on the BB10 platform at the company's annual three-day conference in Orlando, Florida.

CEO Thorsten Heins is set to speak Tuesday morning. The Canadian manufacturer unveiled new, versatile BlackBerry phones earlier this year after delays allowed Apple and others to dominate the smartphone market.

A top German court has ordered Google to act on requests to remove autocomplete entries from the search engine after a suit claimed the feature made defamatory suggestions.

The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe upheld a complaint from an unidentified company selling nutritional supplements and its founder, identified only as "RS."

Yahoo! India is set to conduct the sixth edition of its programming fest -- Open Hack India -- in Hyderabad in July or August this year. The day long competition in India has been traditionally hosted in Bangalore, where Yahoo!'s second largest global research and development (R&D) facility is located.

"We were looking at many other cities but we zeroed in on Hyderabad as it is one of the biggest technology hubs in the country that houses many IT development centres. We hope that the participating developers will come up with concepts that can later make way into our products," Yahoo! India R&D vice-president and head Hari Vasudev said.

Finnish manufacturer Nokia, once the undisputed leader of the mobile market, has suffered a mighty fall from the pole position it once enjoyed. Despite encouraging sales of Lumia series, Nokia has slipped to the tenth position in the smartphone market, according to research firm Gartner.

Nokia sold 5.1 million Lumia smartphones in the first quarter of 2013, according to Gartner. In the fourth quarter of 2012, the company was ranked at eighth position in the global smartphone market. During 2012, the manufacturer sold 39.3 million phones, down 53% over the preceding year.

Elon Musk and David Sacks abandon Zuckerberg s lobbying group FWD.Us

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame launched a lobbying group called FWD.Us, which purports to be for immigration reform and has more than a few big names associated with it, including Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, who joined a couple weeks after its unveiling. Among those big-name supporters was Elon Musk of Tesla and David Sacks of Yammer, both of whom have abandoned the group, according to sources who are said to be familiar with the matter.

We’ve heard rumblings of Google‘s new unified chat service in the past, called Babel, but it seems the company is expected to announce the new service at Google I/O next week. However, before they do that, it’s been reported that Babel is being rebranded as Google Hangouts, and will merge with the company’s current Google+ Hangouts video chat feature.

TechRadar reports that their sources at Google have confirmed that the company is ditching the Babel moniker and will be going with “Hangouts” for its official launch. New screenshots also suggest that the new chat service has been rebranded as Hangouts, showing menu items that say “Sign out of Hangouts” and “add people to this hangout.”

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