All New Gadgets Updates

Airfone has a big announcement today, the company has launched two 'affordable' mobile phones. The AF222VD, a Dual SIM phone, along with video calling capabilities is priced at Rs.2,750, while the AF212 which boasts of a 75-day battery life is priced at Rs.2,899.

The AF222VD sports a 2.2-inch QCIF resolution display capable of displaying 262K colors. The Dual SIM phone supports Java applications and comes pre-loaded with Opera Mini, along with stereo Bluetooth, GPRS, 2MP camera (0.3 mp front facing camera), FM Radio, MP3 support, etc. The phones do not support 3G however, so we aren't quite sure how the video chat feature will work with other phones and networks other than their own 2G mobile broadband network.

The second major announcement is the AF212 which according to Airphone is capable of a 75 day battery life thanks to its rather large 3300mAh battery. Of course, take that number with a pinch of salt. Other features include a 2MP camera,Bluetooth, support for Java applications and Dual SIM support amongst others.

What can one expect to find in the hidden stash of someone who was once the most feared face of terror on the globe?

Post the Sunday showdown that killed the Al – Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, soldiers of the US Navy SEAL managed to lay hands on what they nicknamed ‘the mother lode of intelligence’. A bunch of computer drives and disks that were recovered might unlock the mystery on Al – Qaeda’s operations and provide other clinching evidences. However, at the moment this seems to be a far – fetched thought since, the information at hand might just be encrypted. The US officials fear the usage of the AES-256, an encryption method which, if used correctly, would make it potentially impossible to crack any sooner, at least not till the age of the universe. These fears aren’t baseless, and are most likely a possibility.

Last year, in an edition of Al – Qaeda’s magazine, Inspire an article appeared that explained in detail the methodology of using a piece of encryption software known as Asrar al-Mujahideen 2.0, which uses AES-256 along with other encryption methods. Usually, the officials would force the person in question to blurt out the password, but, with Osama having exited the picture completely, the lane of options seems to have grown frighteningly narrower for US in particular, and the world, in general.

A known alternative would be the ‘backdoor’ to the encryption scheme. However, now, its only the NSA that could reveal further.

The PDF (Portable Document Format) now has competition in the making. Conrad Wolfram plans to unveil the CDF, soon. The CDF or the Computable Document Format is under a developing process now. But, at the technology conference in London, Inspire; Wolfram shared his game plan.

At the conference, Wolfram spoke at length on the creation of, what he calls ‘better tools to illustrate information and let the reader discover new information’. The CDF format, unlike the PDF would allow users to play around with not only the text on the documents, but also the graphics which Wolfram claims, will give them the power to create something better. Their text files will be compatible enough with graphs and other figures and also leave room for editing, if need be – a feature absent in the PDF by Adobe. The CDF also aims at aiding students in educational institutions with the creation of digital textbooks or other innovations.

The major benefit that the CDF would bring to the table, and helps it separate itself from the PDF is the freedom to make changes to the existing document. Wolfram cited multi-usability of the CDF format by media professionals, students, and regular users. However, much cannot be stated before the CDF makes a final appearance. But, does this mean the end of the road for the PDF?

Child Pornography is one of the worst things to happen since the birth of the internet.  The battle against the victimization of children is one that is being fought by agencies worldwide, and it now has over 500 million friends to help them out.

According the Microsoft Blog, Facebook is joining Microsoft in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s PhotoDNA program to combat child pornography.  For those who are unaware of what the PhotoDNA program is all about. It was developed by Microsoft, working with digital imaging expert Dr. Hany Farid of Dartmouth College (North Hampshire) and it can identifies certain images irrespective of changes made to the image like resizing or cropping.

Microsoft began implementing PhotoDNA technology in Bing and SkyDrive, including images posted to SkyDrive through Hotmail. In over two years the PhotoDNA software was able to identify over 1,500 matches on SkyDrive and 1,500 matches through Bing’s image search index .Facebook is the first online service provider to join Microsoft and use the PhotoDNA software. To stay in perspective, Facebook services host more than 30 billion pieces of shared content, including photos, Web links, news stories, blog posts and more. Searching through them for child pornography will be a tough task, but not impossible thanks to PhotoDNA.

Google’s own email services have become so popular that we rarely might actually be using our Hotmail accounts anymore, forget about making a new one. But maybe this feature, Hotmail Aliases, might make you want to head back to your old faithful Hotmail account.

If you already have a Hotmail account, you can now add a few extensions to show off your alter ego. An id like “bytehead” wouldn’t make it romantic enough if you want to chat up that new gal you met at the pub. For that matter, “cooldude4u” is an absolute no-no for sharing reports and pictures at your science club. So, Hotmail’s new concept lets you create up to five alternate ids and access all of them from your original Hotmail ID. For e.g. if my id is ashish@hotmail.com, I can choose the “Create a Hotmail alias” option and then put up any random name that I want to create. Now if technoblabber@hotmail.com is my alias, all mails sent to this address will actually come to my original email id, i.e. ashish@hotmail.com.

Similarly you can get mails from different email ids that you’ve created, all in the same mailbox. Alternately, you can also create special folders for receiving mails on any one particular alias. The feature looks cool enough to give it a shot, so try it out from here and tell us whether you liked the feature.

There's people who love their friends, and then there are people who REALLY love their friends. Here's a lady who loved her 152 friends on Facebook so much that she tattooed all their profile pictures in the form of thumbnails on her arm. It definitely looks cool, but what if she has a falling out with one of them? It's almost the same rule as never tattoo your significant other's name on yourself.

Watch the video below which shows the process of how she got 152 thumbnails tattooed on her arm. It seems bizarre enough to be a publicity stunt and she wouldn't be the first to get tattoos as a publicity stunt. However, imagine how much your heart would melt if you were one of of her friends and the next time you saw her, your face was on her arm (hopefully not on the underside because that would just be a diss).
              

Apple has deviated a bit from their usual WWDC traditions as 2011’s event saw no new hardware making it out. However there was no lack of enthusiasm at this year’s event either, as the company with head honcho Steve Jobs taking his position front and center have announced some pretty exciting services for Apple users.

They kicked things off with the latest version of Mac OS X called Lion that included a plethora of new features including Multi-Touch gestures, system-wide support for full screen apps, Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac, the Mac App Store that’s built right into the OS.

Their next big announcement was for iPhone and iPad users i.e. iOS 5. iOS 5 brings a large number of relevant updates to the platform that should make the new-generation iPhones and iPads a whole lot more functional. A new notification option has been added as well as a thumb-friendly split screen keyboard for the iPads amongst others.

Apple’s final announcement for the day was the introduction to their all new online storage system called iCloud that is essentially an upgraded version of MobileMe. It’s an online back-up system over Wi-Fi that can store all your data and some media for retrieval when necessary.

In case you missed it, you can get a quick glimpse of what went down at the Mascone Center, with our Live Coverage article here.

For a more detailed looked at the new announcements made click on the links below –
Mac OS X Lion
iOS 5
iCloud

Acer is adding some more mettle to their already-existing, huge range of laptops by bringing in the 8951G and the 5951G notebooks. Belonging to the Aspire Ethos series, these laptops seem to be well-equipped, at least in terms of features and specifications.

Both the 5951G and the 8951G will be featuring Core i processors and graphic cards from NVIDIA’s stable – GeForce GT500, to be precise. While the 5951G has an HD display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, the 8951G will have a Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and both of these displays are encased in scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass.

The new Aspire Ethos notebooks also boast of Dolby Home Theater v4 solutions. The 8951G has five Dolby-tuned built-in speakers and Acer’s own Tuba CineBass subwoofer. On the other hand, the 5951G will support 5.1-channel surround sound with built-in stereo speakers and with the Acer Tuba CineBass booster. Rest of the specifications include an option between a Blu-Ray or an optical drive, USB ports, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and what Acer calls as big sized HDD for storage purposes.

While the specs and features look good, these Ethos notebooks will be priced from a whopping £999 (approx Rs. 73,400).

Twitter, in yet another step to outdo third party competition, introduced its own URL shortner on twitter.com. When you place a link in the update box on twitter.com, it automatically shortens it to 19 characters when you hit "tweet". You no longer need an external URL shortner like bit.ly or even a third party app that does it automatically like Tweetdeck, when you want to shorten a link.


The way Twitter shrinks the link still allows you to see the site that the link points to. The smaller version is just a shortened version of the original link, even though it's assigned a t.co link ID. Twitter also looks to make link sharing more secure. If you click on a link that has been reported to be malicious, Twitter will send you to a warning page, before taking you to the linked page itself. If however, you want analytics for the links you post, you can still use third party link shorteners like HootSuite's.

UPDATE: The automated URL shortening doesn't work for some users yet (after repeated testing on both the old version of Twitter and the new version).

It’s officially here. The internet’s now going to have a new address. Tonight when the clock strikes 12, some of world’s best known, largely used websites including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Bing, will switch over to internet’s newest address – IPv6, albeit for a day. But, a change is in the waiting. What began as a way of identifying individual connections to a computer network in the early 1980s, today boasts of a roster of about 4.3bn addresses roughly.

The global tech space is at the moment brimming with newer devices that keep pouring in. There are more than 80 million devices waiting in queue to be assigned an address. The older IPv4 addresses have been outrun by these increasing numbers, and hence this change seems to be the logical next step. Today, on World IPv6 Day, internet companies will indulge in this test, nicknamed a technical exercise to try their hands on their new address. As mentioned earlier, this change is inevitable. However, for those who haven’t switched yet, the change of address shouldn’t worry you as much now.

But, users are now expected to move forward bearing in mind the switch-over. For those who’ve gotten enterprising and have jumped on to the IPv6 bandwagon, the regular URLs should be accessible, anyways. ISPs everywhere, too will have to gear up to this impending change, and get in new routers that would support the new addresses. Companies worldwide, especially Tata Communications, one of world’s largest Tier 1 transit providers are highly optimistic of the change. Yves Poppe, Director of Business Development for IP Strategy, Tata Communications expects the change to be ‘smoother than expected’.

We’re living amidst interesting times, as technology progresses and goes mobile, the need for a larger roster would become imminent. Here’s hoping for smoother times!!

TOP 2 WAYS TO REDUCE PLASTIC WASTE

1. Carry reusable shopping bags.
   Carry whatever works for you. Some people like reusable canvas totes. Others prefer to put their purchases into a backpack or messenger bag. Do you often forget your reusable bags? ChicoBags are a great emergency alternative. While they are made from synthetic materials, they compress into their own attached stuff sack, which makes them very convenient and likely to be used. I carry several of them in my purse so I am never without a bag. If you have a car, keep your grocery bags in it and remember to bring them into the store with you! And one more thing: reusable bags are not just for groceries! Carry them for all your purchases, from electronics to clothing.
   
   
2. Give up bottled water.
   Not only does it come in a plastic bottle, but tremendous resources are used to extract, bottle, and ship it. And many brands of bottled water are simply filtered tap water. Get a reusable stainless steel bottle (like Klean Kanteen) or stainless steel travel mug, fill it up with tap water before leaving the house, and refill it wherever you happen to be. I don’t recommend reusable plastic or aluminum bottles. Plastic may leach chemicals into the water and aluminum bottles are lined with an epoxy resin, some of which has also found to leach into water depending on the brand. Why take a chance? Read my posts about bottled water for more information.
   
   

PLASTIC-FREE GROCERY SHOPPING

3. Shop your local farmers market
   Farmers markets are a great way to buy fresh, local produce without plastic, as long as you remember to bring your own bags. Normally, the fruits and vegetables at farmers markets don’t even have those little plastic stickers on them. Read more about farmers markets going plastic-free.
   
   
4. Say no to plastic produce bags.
   They are generally unnecessary. What are we worried about? That our apples won’t get along with our broccoli during the trip home? Or is it that the produce will get dirty? Hey, it grew in the dirt, and we’re going to wash it anyway, right? I put produce directly into my reusable bag, whether I’m at the farmers market or in the grocery store.
   
   
   If you do feel you want a separate bag for produce, cloth options are available. Some alternatives are EcoBags, Acme produce bags, or handmade bags from Etsy sellers. Check out this video of a woman who can make five reusable bags from one T-shirt!
   
   
   Wondering how to store your produce without plastic once you get it home? Check out this extensive list of ways to store produce without plastic.   (And read why I never use Evert Fresh green bags.)
   
   
5. Buy from bulk bins as often as possible.
   We have some great bulk food stores here in the Bay Area (Rainbow, Berkeley Bowl,Whole Foods, for example) and I can get almost all dry foods as well as some personal care products from the bulk bins. These foods include rice and other grains, pasta, beans, seeds, nuts, all kinds of flour, baking soda and other dry baking ingredients, cereal and granola, pretzels and chips, some candy, tofu, oils, nut butters, olives, herbs, tea & coffee, and more things than I can think of right now.
   
   
   The key is bringing my own reusable bags and containers with me to the store. You can carry the same kind of cotton bags for bulk purchases as for produce (see above.) Glass jars and other containers work great as well. Why shop from bulk bins and take new plastic bags?
   
   
   A question I am frequently asked is how to avoid payin