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Today’s Latest News
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Amazon smartphone in the works: Reports
LONDON: Amazon is reportedly planning to launch a mobile phone alongside updated versions of the Kindle Fire tablets and a new e-reader.
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Apple seeks to create `music streaming service`
London: Tech giant Apple is reportedly planning to create a custom-radio service to take on popular music streaming sites like Pandora and Spotify.
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Samsung may become a surprise factor in mobile OS race: Verizon
The price of Nokia Corp.'s NOK -2.13% flagship Lumia 900 Windows phone has been cut in half in the critical U.S. market, a little more than three months after the launch of the smartphone at AT&T Inc. T +1.38% stores.
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Citizens' group seeks helmet rule implementation in city
NEW YORK: Samsung Electronics may become a surprise factor in the battle for dominance of the smartphone software market, Lowell McAdam, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said on Friday.
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3G users likely to be the worst affected
CHENNAI: The new radiation norms for cellphone towers may be good for your health, but there is a flip side no one's talking about.
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Amazon smartphone in the works: Reports
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LONDON: Amazon is reportedly planning to launch a mobile phone alongside updated versions of the Kindle Fire tablets and a new e-reader.
Multiple reports suggest that Amazon is working on a smartphone that will run on a variant of the Kindle Fire's Android-based operating system.
According to The Telegraph, the phone is said to be currently unfinished, and therefore, the announcement is not set to contain too many details.
The launch will take place tonight, though details of the Kindle Fire have already been leaked out ahead of the event.
Sources have claimed that the new Kindle Fire will have either a GPS chip or Wi-Fi based positioning system, which will make the mapping services possible.
This will most likely include street maps as well as information about local businesses and perhaps even traffic updates, the report said.
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Featured Technology Talk
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Fiat inaugurates first exclusive workshop in Pune
Pune: Fiat Group Automobiles India Private Limited (FGAIPL) inaugurated its first independent state-of-the-art workshop in Dapodi, Pune
The workshop will be FIAT’s first exclusive workshop in India. The 20,000 sq ft service utility is specially designed to give a good servicing experience to its customers.
This is another move by the company in strengthening its brand presence in India, after having launched its Fiat Caffe in Pune a few months ago.
Speaking on the occasion, Ravi Bhatia, head of business development, FGAIPL, said: “This first exclusive and world-class FIAT workshop is our inexorable attempt to provide each of our customers with an unmatched servicing experience leading to a delightful vehicle ownership experience.”
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Apple seeks to create `music streaming service`
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London: Tech giant Apple is reportedly planning to create a custom-radio service to take on popular music streaming sites like Pandora and Spotify.
Such services create virtual ‘stations’ that plays music of the user's choice, either on Web browsers or smartphone apps.
Like traditional radio, they are typically free for users, but incorporate advertisements.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the move will help the US based hardware maker to expand its dominance in online music.
People familiar with the matter revealed that Apple's service would work on its sprawling hardware family, including the iPhone, iPads and Mac computers, the paper said.
According to a source, it would not work on smartphones and tablets running Google Inc.'s Android operating system.
Apple’s outsize presence in online-music sales and massive installed base of MP3 players, smartphones, tablets and computers could make it a much more serious threat to Pandora than any of its current would-be rivals, the paper said.
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Samsung may become a surprise factor in mobile OS race: Verizon
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NEW YORK: Samsung Electronics may become a surprise factor in the battle for dominance of the smartphone software market, Lowell McAdam, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said on Friday.
Google's Android and Apple's iOS operating systems currently dominate the smartphone arena.
But Verizon Wireless, the mobile venture of Verizon, has made no secret of the fact it wants to see a strong third competitor. The biggest US mobile operator has already said it will sell phones based on Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 software later this year to support a third system.
Another contender, Research In Motion, has fallen on hard times and will miss out on 2012 holiday sales as it has delayed its next BlackBerry system until next year. Verizon has also said it wants to sell the next BlackBerry phones when they are ready in early 2013.
Verizon's McAdam said it was too soon to count RIM out of the game and that it was not yet clear which system will win third place going forward.
McAdam said he also expects competition from Samsung, which focusses mostly on selling phones using the Android operating system, after it was recently dealt a bruising defeat in Apple's patent infringement court case against it in California.
"The dark horse here might be Samsung," McAdam said during a webcast of an investor call. "They've got the capability to go out on their own to do their own operating system. They've tinkered with it."
Samsung has developed a mobile operating system called Bada, which it uses for lower-end devices. It uses Android software for its top of the range devices.
However, Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder was skeptical Samsung has a strong Android/iOS rival in the works.
"What (McAdam is) trying to do is stoke the competition," Snyder said.
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TECHNOLOGY
"Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked."
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Adobe Reader 10.1 for Windows Phone 7.5 released
Adobe had tweaked the Reader app for the Windows Phone 7.5 devices with new features.
Adobe has released its new Adobe Reader 10.1 application with loads of new features for the Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 based smartphones. The Adobe Reader 10.1 brings support to open password protected files and portfolios besides several other features. The Adobe Reader 10.1 has been made available through the Windows Phone Marketplace but will take couple of hours before it shows up globally.
Adobe had earlier announced to cease its operations for Flash Player for mobile platforms but continues to improve its other offerings.
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Famous Scientist
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel (About this sound pronunciation (help·info)) (21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He was the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments.
Nobel held 350 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. He used his fortune to posthumously institute the Nobel Prizes. The synthetic element nobelium was named after him. His name also survives in modern-day companies such as Dynamit Nobel and Akzo Nobel, which are descendents of the companies Nobel himself established.
Born in Stockholm, Alfred Nobel was the fourth son of Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, and Andriette Ahlsell Nobel (1805–1889). The couple married in 1827 and had eight children, although, beset by poverty, only Alfred and his three brothers survived past childhood.
Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630-1702), and the boy, in his turn, was interested in engineering, and especially explosives, from a young age, learning the basic principles from his father.
Nobel travelled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in various countries in Europe and North America and keeping a permanent home in Paris from 1873 to 1891. He remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. Though Nobel remained unmarried, his biographers note that he had at least three loves.
In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper erroneously published Alfred's obituary.
The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses. There is no prize awarded for mathematics, but see Abel Prize.
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Citizens' group seeks helmet rule implementation in city
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WPUNE: The Save Pune Traffic Movement (SPTM) has sought compulsory implementation of the helmet rule in the city for two-wheeler and pillion riders. The movement has launched its 'Save 100 Lives' campaign to reduce fatalities due to road accidents.
At a press conference on Friday, Harshad Abhyankar and Rajendra Sidhaye of the movement, said, "Most two-wheeler road accident victims had not worn helmets. The headgear adds to the safety of the two-wheeler rider. It is unfortunate that in Pune, a significant number of people ride without helmets. Many say it is inconvenient, but that is only a misunderstanding."
The SPTM has said that two months should be given to the citizens by the Pune traffic police before enforcing the rule. "A specific date must be announced and helmets should be made compulsory in Pune. It is noticed that even police personnel ride without helmets. They must set an example and start wearing helmets so that citizens follow," Abhyankar said.
Sidhaye said that the Pune Cantonment Board has taken the step forward and made it mandatory for two-wheeler riders in their jurisdiction to wear helmets. "They have started prohibiting two-wheeler riders who do not wear helmets," Sidhaye said.
The SPTM said that some people find it inconvenient to wear helmets. "A helmet can never be inconvenient, but a safety tool and could save a life," Sidhaye said.
According to SPTM, some of the major objections citizens have include wearing helmet is a personal decision, helmets are not necessary as speed does not exceed 30 kmph on Pune roads and helmets affect vision, hearing and may lead to accidents.
Abhyankar said, "Not wearing a helmet is risking life not only of the person, but the entire family. Secondly, even if riders are slow, other vehicles may hit them resulting in a high-impact accident. And thirdly, there is enough gap between the helmet and the ears which allows the person to hear without any problem."
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3G users likely to be the worst affected
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CHENNAI: The new radiation norms for cellphone towers may be good for your health, but there is a flip side no one's talking about. Consumers across telecom networks may experience inferior voice quality, increase in call drops and congestion in coming months as companies rejig networks to decrease the power supplied to their transmission towers.
The new norms for towers, which came into effect on September 1, have made the radiation limit more stringent by reducing it from 9.2 W/sq m to 0.92 W/sq m, a 10-fold decrease. It is lower than the US (12 W/sq m) and higher than China (0.4 W/sq m) and Russia (0.2 W/sq m).
There are around 4.5 lakh telecom towers in India, of which 5% (around 22,000 towers) currently don't meet new guidelines. Most of them are in core areas of Delhi and Mumbai and suburbs of cities like Bangalore and Chennai, apart from other tier-1 cities, said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
To achieve the new norms without changing the entire infrastructure, telecom companies will manually decrease the power supplied to the towers, which will bring down radiation levels. While this solves the compliance problem, it means the coverage area of each tower goes down and more towers will be needed to cover the same area. This, in turn, will increase the number of 'handovers' required to complete a call. When we move from the vicinity of one tower to another while on a call, the phone searches for the closest tower and call duties are 'handed over' to the new tower by the network. "More towers mean your phone will search and switch between towers much more frequently than before, leading to more call drops. Up to 5% of calls can get dropped due to increased handovers," said the chief technology officer of a leading telecom tower equipment maker who did not wish to be quoted. "Subscribers will not be getting the same quality."
As companies try to move towers around or add new ones, gaps are also likely to emerge in the network, leading to insufficient coverage for both calls and data services. Most towers have both voice and data units.
"As a result of these measures, degraded services, higher congestion, lack of coverage and higher number of call drops will result for customers," said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). Vodafone and Airtel didn't comment directly on the story and forwarded the queries from TOI to COAI.
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Tips to make your browser secure
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Browsers may be among the most commonly used applications, but they also offer the greatest number of attack options for dangerous content on the net.To keep viruses, worms and other malware away from your computer when surfing,it's crucial to configure your browser for security.
The firewall on a DSL router is a good first step for protecting the computer during surfing, says Marco Rinne from the computer portal chip.de. But that doesn't hold true if your browser is out of date: “Internet Explorer 6 and 7 or Firefox 2 no longer satisfy current security standards,” he says. For optimal protection, he therefore urgesusers to keep theirbrowsers updated.
There are numeroussecurity tools already present in Firefox and Internet Explorer. The pop-up blocker,for example, prevents more than justannoying ads. It alsothrottles other windows that can be used to sneak malicious software onto PCs. Phishing filters protect personal dataagainst theft.
Firefox offers additional configurationoptions underthe Settings item in the Security tab of the Options dialog box: thisincludes the ability to block risky or forgedwebsites.It's also a good idea to prohibit websites from installing add-ons on their own. Similar settings are possible under Internet Explorer in the Security tab of the Internet Options dialog box, accessible from the Tools menu.
Computer owners should also activate all options for warning against attacks, advises Markus Linnemann, managing director of the Institute for Internet Security (ifis) at the Polytechnic University of Gelsenkirchen in Germany. This applies in particular to warnings about suspicious content to be displayed using ActiveX, Flash, or JavaScript.
Yet the warning mechanism on most browsers alone isn't usually enough, Linnemann says. Those who wish to be especially careful can, for example, use the Firefox add-on 'No Script,' which blocks all active content of a website by default and allows the user to decide which should be permitted. The problem is that most users are unable to determine which content represents a threat to their computer, Rinne msays.
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Cartoon of Technology
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HTC Drops Out of Top Five Phone Makers
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The new world order of mobile phones shows that HTC (2498.TW) has dropped out of the top five. Samsung (SSNLF), maintained its lead over Nokia (NOK) and Apple (AAPL) as the world's top mobile phone vendor. Sony Ericsson (SNE) and Research In Motion (RIMM) rounded out the top five, which collectively shipped 34.8 million units in the second quarter of the year according to research firm IDC.
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“You are limited only by your fears."
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