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Today’s Latest News
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WickedLeak Wammy Passion X, 5-inch octa-core water-resistant smartphone launched
Touted as the world's first hydrophobic smartphone, the Wammy Passion X is packed with incredible features such as octa-core processor and Aqua Protect technology.
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Apple introduces buyback discounts of up to Rs 40,000 on MacBook in India
After trying to penetrate the mid-range mobile segment with the outdated iPhone 4, Apple India has decided to offer buyback discounts on the MacBook if you are returning your old Apple laptop. According to the Cupertino-based company, you can expect discounts of up to Rs 40,000 if you trade-in your existing laptop for a new one under Upgrade to Mac promotional program.
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Wear backpack, walk and charge mobile phone!
To address growing demands to recharge electrical devices in a world that is constantly facing power outages, researchers developing a new, portable charging source that relies on human walk.
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Karbonn Mobiles to launch dual-OS smartphones in June
Homegrown mobile phonemaker Karbonn Mobiles is all set to launch dual-OS (operating system) devices, which will support both Android and Windows, by June.
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Indiagames’ founder Vishal Gondal’s new venture GOQii adds human touch to fitness devices
Vishal Gondal, who had resigned from his post as the managing director of the digital arm of Disney UTV in April last year has launched his new venture. Gondal, who is the founder and CEO of Indiagames, the country’s largest digital gaming firm (which was acquired by UTV and is now part of Walt Disney), had decided to leave the company to pursue entrepreneurship.
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WickedLeak Wammy Passion X, 5-inch octa-core water-resistant smartphone launched
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Touted as the world's first hydrophobic smartphone, the Wammy Passion X is packed with incredible features such as octa-core processor and Aqua Protect technology.
WickedLeak has launched a new smartphone – Wammy Passion X. The smartphone is powered by a 1.7GHz MT6592 octa-core processor. Touted as the 'hydrophobic phone', the Wammy Passion X features 'AquaProtect Technology', which WickedLeak claims gives sustenance power of more than 30mins in water and any waterbased liquid. The smartphone is priced at Rs. 22,500.
“AquaProtect nano coating procedure coats all the internal and external components of a device with water-resistant molecular layer which is invisible to the naked eye (1/1000th the size of the Human hair). The result being that AquaProtect will survive most splashes and quick dips that would instantly destroy most smartphones. We see AquaProtect becoming an industry standard in the near future, says Aditya Mehta, Founder, WickedLeak.
The WickedLeak Wammy Passion X is a dual-SIM smartphone, featuring a 5-inch display with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. It runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and has 2GB of RAM. The smartphone has 16GB of built-in storage and supports additional storage up to 64GB.
The Wammy Passion X 13MP rear camera with flashlight and auto focus, up to 4096 x 3072 pixels resolution and support 1080P video record. It has a 5.0MP front camera.For connectivity, the smartphone supports 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB. It comes with a 2,000 mAh battery.
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Featured Technology Talk
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AirTel Wants to Restrict Your Whatsapp
Instant messaging application firms like WhatsApp, Line and Skype should be brought under some regulations and jurisdictions, just like telecom firms are regulated, a top official of the Bharti Airtel said today. "Telecom companies are subject to regulation and jurisdictions. Many of these companies (Instant messaging application firms) operate outside regulations and jurisdiction.
"I think we need a framework by which these companies are subjected to similar jurisdiction ... because that will benefit everybody concerned," Bharti Airtel Joint MD and CEO (India operations) Gopal Vittal told . A debate should start on putting that framework in place, he added. WhatsApp had recently announced that it would start offering voice service by June this year. Social networking site Facebook had already announced acquisition of WhatsApp by $19 billion.
The instant messaging application, which allows users to exchange texts, pictures and videos using smart-phones, is popular in India. WhatsApp has 450 million users worldwide. It claims it is adding one million new users every day. In the last few quarters, there has been a huge surge in text volumes from platforms like WhatsApp, Tencent-backed WeChat and Line that presents a cheaper alternative to SMS. The data cost incurred for sending messages through these apps by users are cheaper than those charged by telcos on SMS. According to experts, the instant messaging has already overtaken traditional SMS, which is a key revenue source for operators. The popularity of such applications has dented the revenues earned from text messaging by telcos.
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Apple introduces buyback discounts of up to Rs 40,000 on MacBook in India
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After trying to penetrate the mid-range mobile segment with the outdated iPhone 4, Apple India has decided to offer buyback discounts on the MacBook if you are returning your old Apple laptop. According to the Cupertino-based company, you can expect discounts of up to Rs 40,000 if you trade-in your existing laptop for a new one under Upgrade to Mac promotional program.
Those who already own a MacBook can have it exchanged and expect at least Rs 20,000 off on the new one. And if you own one of these systems which is less than two years old, then you may be in for a discount of as much as Rs 40,000. Similarly, notebooks older than two years will fetch you Rs 30,000 and those bought 3 to 4 years ago can look forward to getting Rs 20,000 off.
Buyback schemes have already proved to be helpful for Apple products in the past. Such deals were introduced in April last year on the iPhone and again in September on the newer versions of the gadget. The iPad has also been the recipient of more attention from buyers due to the programs. And now it is the laptop’s turn.
It should be noted that Upgrade to Mac is only applicable on the MacBook. The Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro are not eligible for it. You can head over to the Apple stores or visit one of the authorized retailers such as Reliance Digital stores, Croma, Vijay Sales or more to make the most of the scheme. Make sure the MacBook you wish to exchange is in perfect working condition.
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Wear backpack, walk and charge mobile phone!
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To address growing demands to recharge electrical devices in a world that is constantly facing power outages, researchers developing a new, portable charging source that relies on human walk.
Led by material scientist Zhong Lin Wang, the team of US researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology has created a backpack that captures mechanical energy from the natural vibration of human walking and converts it into electrical energy.
This technology could revolutionise the way we charge small electronic devices.
The backpack contains a device made from thin, lightweight plastic sheets, interlocked in a rhombic grid.
As we walk, the rhythmic movement that occurs as weight shifts from side to side causes the inside surfaces of the plastic sheets to touch and then separate, touch and then separate.
The periodic contact and separation drives electrons back and forth, producing an alternating electric current.
This process, known as the triboelectrification effect, also underlies static electricity.
Wang added highly-charged nanomaterials that maximise the contact between the two surfaces - pumping up the energy output of what Wang called the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG).
“The TENG is as efficient as the best electromagnetic generator and is lighter and smaller than any other electric generators for mechanical energy conversion,” explained Wang.
In the lab, the team showed that natural human walking with a two-kg load generated enough power to simultaneously light more than 40 commercial LEDs.
“The backpack would be able to generate between 2 and 5 watts of energy as the wearer walks - enough to charge a cell phone,” noted researchers in a study published in the journal ACS Nano.
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TECHNOLOGY
"A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy."
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Some hi-tech additions but bigger is still better
I'M a particular fan of Samsung's Galaxy Note 3, a phone with a large 5.7-inch screen and oodles of features. So the tech giant's new 5.1-inch Galaxy S5 is, from the off, a hard sell for the likes of me. To sweeten the deal over the Note and the (almost identical-looking) Galaxy S4, Samsung has added a few technical and lifestyle features that it hopes might catch the public imagination.
First, the S5 has a security fingerprint scanner (on the home button) that acts as a replacement for a security pin check. (It can also facilitate Paypal account payments.) Second, it has a pulse monitor on the back of the phone that can measure your heart rate. Both of these features work, though I do wonder about their appeal: time will tell on this.
On the technical end, the S5 has a marginally better 16-megapixel camera and (what it claims is) faster connectivity to 4G networks. Under the hood, the S5's power comes courtesy of a quad-core 2.5Ghz chip and 2GB of RAM supporting Android 4.4. There's a choice of 16GB or 32GB of storage, while the large 2,800mAh battery promises to comfortably see a user through until the end of a day.
Aesthetically, the phone is very, very similar to its predecessor, the Galaxy S4, with the exception of a more tactile back cover (which strongly resembles the Note 3). Although Samsung has added four colours, the device has not been significantly altered in look and feel.
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Famous Scientist
Svante Arrhenius
Svante August Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903. The Arrhenius equation, lunar crater Arrhenius and the Arrhenius Labs at Stockholm University are named after him.
Arrhenius was born on February 19, 1859 at Vik (also spelled Wik or Wijk), near Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Svante Gustav and Carolina Thunberg Arrhenius. His father had been a land surveyor for Uppsala University, moving up to a supervisory position. At the age of three, Arrhenius taught himself to read without the encouragement of his parents, and by watching his father's addition of numbers in his account books, became an arithmetical prodigy. In later life, Arrhenius enjoyed using masses of data to discover mathematical relationships and laws.
At age 8, he entered the local cathedral school, starting in the fifth grade, distinguishing himself in physics and mathematics, and graduating as the youngest and most able student in 1876.
Arrhenius next received a travel grant from the Swedish Academy of Sciences, which enabled him to study with Ostwald in Riga (now in Latvia), with Friedrich Kohlrausch in Würzburg, Germany, with Ludwig Boltzmann in Graz, Austria, and with van 't Hoff in Amsterdam.
In 1889 Arrhenius explained the fact that most reactions require added heat energy to proceed by formulating the concept of activation energy, an energy barrier that must be overcome before two molecules will react.
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Karbonn Mobiles to launch dual-OS smartphones in June
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Homegrown mobile phonemaker Karbonn Mobiles is all set to launch dual-OS (operating system) devices, which will support both Android and Windows, by June.
The company has just signed the licence agreement with Microsoft to make Windows-based phones and will put this along with its existing Android system to bring out the dual-OS phones in about six months, the company's chairman Sudhir Hasija said.
This comes soon after Nokia moved out of its Windows-only strategy to launch low-cost smartphones that run on the Android operating system.
"Microsoft has eased the regulations and is opening up its platform for other players. We signed the agreement two days ago and will launch a range of Windows phones in about three months," Hasija said. The dual-OS phones will be out by June, and will target office-going professionals and 'techies', he said. The company is yet to zero in on the price range.
Karbonn, which at present sources all their products from Taiwan and Korea, is actively working on setting up a manufacturing unit in India, with a capacity to make one million phones a month. While local manufacturing will not give any cost benefits, it will help with faster turnaround of new launches in the market, Hasija said. The company is considering Tamil Nadu to set up its factory since the state has access to ports and a precedent in the supply chain for mobile phone manufacturing with the Nokia factory.
New launches apart, the company will also focus on driving up sales using apps that promote augmented reality. On Friday, Karbonn launched a range of mobile and tablet apps that use augmented reality to bring out features and games related to characters from the movie Kochadaiiyaan with Rajinikanth in the lead role.
The company will also soon start making interactive hoardings and newspaper-advertisements where the characters in the hoarding/newspaper will come alive in 3D through the app on the phone.
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Indiagames’ founder Vishal Gondal’s new venture GOQii adds human touch to fitness devices
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Vishal Gondal, who had resigned from his post as the managing director of the digital arm of Disney UTV in April last year has launched his new venture. Gondal, who is the founder and CEO of Indiagames, the country’s largest digital gaming firm (which was acquired by UTV and is now part of Walt Disney), had decided to leave the company to pursue entrepreneurship.
The new venture, called GOQii basically offers a combination of advanced wearable technology, expert-led personalised coaching and elements of social philanthropy (karma) to enable its users to make a permanent shift to a healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle. For the same, it focuses on sustained engagement and goal reinforcement, and offers a complete ecosystem as a single integrated solution, which is a combination of technology and human connection.
“The GOQii philosophy is driven by the passion for healthy and meaningful living. Having used many other wearable tech products, I felt that something was missing – they were just a bunch of gadgets, apps and online data-crunching solutions, which lacked sustained engagement, motivation, customised advice or a human connection. I needed something more than data; I was looking for a complete solution for a more fulfilling way of life,” said Gondal.
According to him, the differentiating factor for GOQii lies in the fact that while existing apps, wearable gadgets and online solutions only provide simple data collection tools or diet logging apps, leading to short-term results, the company integrates the ‘human factor’ via a GOQii personal coach, who works with the user’s data to provide customised advice on a regular basis, to keep the user motivated and on track to success by goal reinforcement.
What’s it about? : With a goal to enable millions of people across the world to ‘be the force’, GOQii’s offerings include:
GOQii Band: An advanced fitness tracker that has a number of features, including a full touch display, a vibrating alarm, ultra-lightweight water resistant construction with skin sensitive materials, and automatic wireless syncing via Bluetooth LE. Its key functions include a watch, a motion sensor that can track steps, calories, distance, active time as well as ‘Karma Points’, which is basically a virtual currency for philanthropy.
The human connection is also provided in the band since it enables the user’s GOQii coach to remotely vibrate the band to motivate the user.
GOQii Experts: An array of health, fitness and habit experts responsible for designing GOQii Life. They also help users in making sense of their data along with training the coaches on the methodology and techniques related to motivation, nutrition, fitness and habit development.
GOQii Coach: Consists of leaders from the fields of fitness, sports, nutrition and behavioural science, who are trained to apply scientific methods to enable users to make sustainable and incremental changes towards a more healthy and active lifestyle. Users are seamlessly connected to their personal GOQii coach via an app and pre-scheduled monthly video/audio calls. This system is minimally intrusive, while simultaneously giving users flexibility for on-demand access as well as regular communication with their coach.
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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.
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New York's Central Park was opened in 1876
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Cartoon of Technology
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ZTE Announces Organizational Changes
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In 2014, ZTE will channel increased resources to grow its 3 pillar businesses: operators, mobile devices and enterprise. At the same time, ZTE will step up efforts to target three emerging market segments: metropolitan public IT systems, new energy technology and mobile Internet.
ZTE Mobile Devices will operate as an independent unit of the company, to be headed by Mr. Zeng Xuezhong, Executive Vice President of ZTE. Mr. Zeng was previously in charge of ZTE's operations in China. Mr. He Shiyou, Executive Vice President of ZTE and the former head of terminals, will remain as an Executive Director of ZTE Corporation.
Mr. Pang Shengqing, Senior Vice President of ZTE, has been appointed as head of ZTE's enterprise business. ZTE anticipates that rising demand for cloud-computing, big data, Smart City and the Internet of Things will help drive growth in the company's enterprise business.
Mr. Zhao Xianming, Executive Vice President of ZTE, has been appointed Chief Technology Officer of ZTE.
In ZTE's business serving telecommunications operators, the company will intensify its focus on key areas of higher profitability and strive for increased efficiency by adopting a flattened management structure. ZTE aims to be a market leader in 4G, and will pursue game-changing breakthroughs in development of 4G equipment, 4G semiconductors and 4G devices.
"In 2014, the company is excited about the opportunities in enterprise and mobile devices, and the organizational changes will strengthen our capabilities in these areas," said Mr. Hou Weigui, Chairman of ZTE Corporation. "Telecommunications and technology are intensely competitive industries, and it is vital that we constantly renew ourselves in order to excel."
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“I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma."
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