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Saturday, July 23

Android handset prices may go up

Posted by Unknown on 9:10 am ,

Now that Microsoft and Oracle are going after Android based smartphone makers, asking them to pay $15 to $20 per handset, the cost of the Android smartphones may go up by Rs 1,000.


Now that Microsoft and Oracle are going after Android based smartphone makers, asking them to pay $15 to $20 per handset, the cost of the Android smartphones may go up by Rs 1,000.

Google has been accused of breaching several patents in the process of creating its Android operating system. Now those handset makers who manufactured their handsets based on the Android operating system, run the risk of paying a huge amount to other companies for their patents.

The jolt would most likely be borne by the end users of these handsets. The first obvious beneficiary would be Apple, which will see its products iPhone and iPad widen their lead over the Android smartphones and tablets.
Partnering with Android may now prove somewhat costly to the handset makers such as Motorola, HTC and Samsung, who had based their calculations on the free Android operating system. Now that Microsoft and Oracle are going after Android based smartphone makers, asking them to pay $15 to $20 per handset, the cost of the Android smartphones would go up by Rs 1,000.
"It's not like Android's free. Android has a patent fee. You do have to license patents," said the Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to The Wall Street Journal. Oracle has already filed a lawsuit against Google alleging its Android infringes its Java copyright. The company is now directly asking the Android handset makers to pay the license fee.
HTC has already signed a deal with Microsoft, and would pay $5 per handset to the company. Motorola has not given in to Microsoft yet and has decided to fight Microsoft legally. Samsung is also reportedly negotiating with Microsoft.
The story does not end here. Microsoft, Apple and Research In Motion are facing an anti trust scrutinydue to their acquisition of Nortell patents, which they may use to "keep a set of patents out of Google's hands". The outcome of this investigation may also greatly influence Android's fate as well.

Nexus 3 to feature dedicated Google+ button

Posted by Unknown on 9:03 am

However, there is now confusion over who will manufacture the upcoming Nexus 3 smartphone. Earlier, Samsung claimed it would manufacture the handset but reports are now saying HTC will be the manufacturer.

Google has got some really big plans regarding Google+, its social networking website launched recently. According to a post on the Google+ fan page on Facebook, the upcoming Nexus 3 smartphone will be featuring a dedicated Google+ button which will provide one touch access to sharing and liking content on the social networking website.
And this button will not just be an inclusion in the software or the operating system of the device but will be a physical hardware button on the device itself. Having a hardware button dedicated for Google+ makes a whole lot of sense as it would definitely make content sharing a lot easier.
The post reveals some very shocking information about the upcoming Google Nexus device too. As mentioned in the post, Google Nexus 3 device will be manufactured by HTC. It is contrary to the earlier reports that the device will be manufactured by Samsung, who had also confirmed it on their Twitter page.
At this point, however, there is no clarity as the news seems to be based on rumours and an official confirmation on the same is yet to arrive and.
Also, earlier it was reported that Nexus 3 would not have any hardware button on it, which is now being contradicted by the announcement that talks about a dedicated hardware button for Google+ on the smartphone.
The disclosers about Nexus 3, however, are not official statements and an official statement from Google on this regard may come anytime soon.

Friday, July 22

Internet History - One Page Summary

Posted by Unknown on 12:31 pm

The Internet
The Intenet as we have it today was not meant to be in this way. It was earlier concieved as a faster way of communications between SuperComputers meant for Military & Scientific purposes. Various developments under the course of its way gave it its face as we see INTERNET today , for chatting , hanging out Social Networking along with research n educational purposes . Here is a summary of what went along in 20th Century which shaped the INTERNET .

The conceptual foundation for creation of the Internet was largely created by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about technology by accurately predicting its future:
  • Vannevar Bush wrote the first visionary description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
  • Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, inspiring future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
  • The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conferencecrystallized the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences.
  • Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture.

When Linux Hangs or Completely Freezes

Posted by Unknown on 9:07 am , ,

When Windows hangs itself we all know what to do right? Were just reaching for the combination [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] (Control Alt Delete). But if you try this in Linux nothing happens (in some distributions, like Ubuntu, you actually get the menu for shutting down your system, but this don’t work when your system hags or freezes).
So what to do?
There is 3 keyboard combinations every Linux user should remember (or write down). But before we begin I want you to understand some of the signs I use: If a symbol is surrounded by [ ] means that it is a button or key on your keyboard. +means that you have to hold the keys down at once. And > means that you have to click the buttons one by one, remember that you have to press each key for 2-3 seconds. Now that you have learned this we can move on to the commands:
Fist you have the combination [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[BackSpace] (backspace is the [←] over[Enter]) that restarts X or GDM (you will be logged out), and you can kind of call it Linux’s Control Alt Delete equivalent. This command gives your programs time to make emergency backups of unsaved files (for example if you writing on a document in Open Office) and it  prevents that you get a file system error during the crash.If you use Ubuntu or a distribution based on Ubuntu you will have to use[Alt]+[PrtSc]+[K] (PrtSc = Print Screen) instead, but you should note that some Ubuntu based distros (like Linux Mint) still use the universal [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[BackSpace].
But what to do if this combination doesn’t work? 
Then you have to use something called Magic SysRq Keys. In short they are keys which allows you to perform various commands regardless of the system’s state, like in this case get the system to recover from a freeze. Note that these keys wont work if your system is in kernel panic. Like I said there are tree combinations that you will have to remember and since we have already learned one, there are two to go:
This command will get your freezed system to restart safely:
Hold [Alt]+[PrtSc] then type [R]>[E]>[I]>[S]>[U]>[B] (press each key for 2-3 seconds). In short the keys mean: unRaw (take control of keyboard back from X), tErminate (send SIGTERM to all processes, allowing them to terminate gracefully), kIll (send SIGKILL to all processes, forcing them to terminate immediately), Sync (flush data to disk), Unmount (remount all filesystems read-only), reBoot (restart).
A common idiom to perform a safe reboot of a Linux computer which has otherwise locked up, the QWERTY (or AZERTY) mnemonic "Raising Elephants Is So Utterly Boring", "Reboot Even If System Utterly Broken" or simply remembering the word "BUSIER" backwards, is often useful.
This command will get your freezed system to shut down in a safe way:
Again hold [Alt]+[PrtSc] then type [R]>[E]>[I]>[S]>[U]>[O] (press each key for 2-3 seconds). These keys mean: unRaw, tErminate, kIll, Sync, Unmount , shutdOwn (does it really need an explanation?).
Excerpt From Tamag.co.cc

Thursday, July 21

Are Indian Social Networking Sites Destined to Die? BigAdda changes tracks to E-Commerce

Posted by Unknown on 11:27 am

 BigAdda.com, one of India’s popular social networking sites has just announced that it is planning to close its social networking business and will now be relaunched as an e-commerce portal.

When BigAdda was launched by Reliance Entertainment, in 2007, social networkers had high hopes that this would be the next big thing in the digital space. The site even had popular celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Harbhajan Singh blogging on it, and TV channels using it for promotional purposes. But, with the dominance of Orkut, Facebook and other global players in the social networking space in India, the buzz created by BigAdda soon fizzled out.
In an email that was sent to its subscribers, BigAdda said:

We value and appreciate your long standing support for Bigadda.com. In the past few months we explored our potential as an ecommerce portal by providing branded products at profitable deals to you and have found immense success. We are reaching newer heights everyday and hence are planning an expansion in the same arena.

 

We request you to download all your personal collection of blogs, audio files, video files and images from Bigadda.com as we are scaling down our Social Networking services.

Wednesday, July 20

Are Ubuntu's Glory Days Over?

Posted by Unknown on 8:20 am

Are Ubuntu's Glory Days Over?

"The Ubuntu apologists are making all sorts of noise about how Canonical is targeting a new market (tablets and similar screen resolution devices), but we've seen this show too many times before," explained Slashdot blogger Barbara Hudson. "Red Hat didn't get to be profitable (something that still eludes Canonical) by dumping their target customers every year to chase new opportunities."

If there's any lesson to be learned in high school, it's that popularity is a fickle mistress.

One day, you can be riding high on the strength of your awesome gaming skills, say, and the next, a fleeting fashion faux pas can bring you crashing down again.

But maybe that was just Linux Girl. In any case, popularity is nothing if not changeable, as Ubuntu has aptly demonstrated in recent weeks.

 

A Sudden Upset

The Unity desktop, specifically, has raised more than a few eyebrows in the Linux community, causing some to speculate even thatCanonical has lost its way.

Such concerns have been bandied about ever since Natty Narwhal's launch, of course, but last week some data emerged that appeared to give them weight.

Namely, Ubuntu dropped from its longtime No. 1 spot on DistroWatch's popularity rankings -- all the way down to No. 3.

'Has Ubuntu Had Its Day?'

Tuesday, July 19

HootSuite Now Have 2 Million Users

Posted by Unknown on 11:03 am

After hitting 1 million users in Nov 2010, HootSuite, the social media dashboard and analytics tool has now achieved the milestone of 2 million users. HootSuite is used by large organizations, businesses, and individual social media enthusiasts, the most amazing feature of HootSuite is that it let you schedule posts/updates to all renowned social networking sites like, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare etc.

See Below for an infographic that has been created by HootSuite for reaching a milestone of 2 million users.

Monday, July 18

Netbooks: RIP or Live Long and Prosper?

Posted by Unknown on 9:17 am

Netbooks: RIP or Live Long and Prosper?

"Who makes up this insanity?" asked Slashdot blogger hairyfeet. "It is like saying, 'motorcycles are gonna kill delivery vans' while ignoring that they are two different vehicles for two completely different roles!" A netbooks is "a 'baby laptop,' and as such is good for most jobs a laptop is good for," he explained. A tablet, by contrast, "does one job and one job only: consume content."

Well, the Fourth of July has come and gone for another year here in the stars-and-stripes section of the Linux blogosphere, where persistent scorching temperatures are beginning to make certain reporters despair.

Rather than raging at the heavens, however, Linux Girl is using the current infernal weather as an excuse to spend more time with her favorite barstool down at the Broken Windows Lounge, whose frosty air conditioning is just one of many temptations on offer.

More time on the barstool, of course, tends to equate to more gossip overheard, and that's just what happened for Linux Girl over the weekend. The topic that caught her attention this time? The death -- or not -- of the trusty netbook.

 

A Murder Is Announced

Sunday, July 17

New Microsoft social search service called Tulalip revealed on socl.com

Posted by Unknown on 9:39 pm

Yesterday I discovered Microsoft was the new owner of the domain socl.com by chance, when I was trying to learn more about the mystery buyer of social.com.  Earlier I had found out (while monitoring Marksmen’s name servers) that Marksmen who co-brokered the sale of social.com for $2.6 million, had also acquired socl.com days later on behalf of a mystery client.  The mystery client turned out to be Microsoft according to the Whois record I checked yesterday.
A teaser landing page has been revealed online today on socl.com and it appears to be a new “social search” service by Microsoft as shown in the picture above.
The four letter domain socl.com would complement bing.com.
Although the site isn’t operational, visitors can get an idea of where Microsoft is going with the service called “Tulalip”, which also happens to be the name of a group of Native American tribes located not far from Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. 
“With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever”, reads a message on the home page.
You’ll also be able to sign in using your Facebook or Twitter account. 
Matt McGee of Search Engine Land got in touch with a Microsoft spokesperson who had this to say about Socl.com: "Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft’s research teams which was mistakenly published to the web."  Microsoft has taken the site down and posted a message stating, "Thanks for stopping by.  Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest."]
At the time of this post, the links on the home page such as “See How it Works”, don’t work.

What the World's Fastest Systems Say About Linux

Posted by Unknown on 4:14 pm

What the World's Fastest Systems Say About Linux

Linux is popular in cloud computing infrastructure largely thanks to its flexibility and source code availability for customization and fine-tuning. Similarly, the open source OS is used by supercomputer system engineers as a resource that can be expanded or stripped down like no other option.

I've been tracking the Top500 Supercomputer List with a particular eye on Linux for some time now, highlighting how Linux continues to power the majority of the world's fastest supercomputing systems.

So it's no surprise to see continued dominance for Linux, but there are some interesting changes every six months when the new fastest supercomputer system list comes out. The most recent list, released last month, reinforces Linux leadership, as every single one of the top 10 fastest supercomputing systems in the world runs Linux. We had previously seen Linux in four of the top five systems or seven to eight of the top 10, but this year was marked by a sweep of the top 10 for Tux.

Facebook’s new ‘Happening Now’ feature is a fail

Posted by Unknown on 8:07 am

It was just few days back that we informed you about Facebook’s new ‘Happening Now’ feature that Facebook team planned to roll out (as a testing feature) for limited amount of users. Guess what? The idea of Facebook for testing and launching this ‘Happening Now’ feature is extremely opposed by the large number of people using Facebook.

In previous post of ‘Happening Now’ mentioned Facebook’s statement about its new feature, which says:

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