Android is our future, the stat mavens all agree, but for all its rapid growth, Google's OS still suffers from a shortage of top tier differentiation. This has in part been down to LG and Sony -- two of the world's biggest phone makers -- spending the majority of 2010 watching the battle for Android supremacy from the sidelines (the X10 disqualified itself when it announced it neither knew nor cared what Froyo was). 2011 might just be the year of redemption for both, however, as LG will soon assault the European market with a pair of truly desirable and powerful Android smartphones in the Optimus 2X and Black, while Sony Ericsson's well leaked portfolio of new Xperias includes the Arc, Neo and Play, each one of them coming with Gingerbread preloaded. We've wrapped our mitts around a pair of these high-hope devices, one from each manufacturer, and photographed the living daylights out of them sat side by side
This festive season has ignited celebrations of the highest magnitude as the entire country is lit with beautiful lights and fireworks. The mood is amplified by lines of lamps, floral decorations and exchange of gifts that lend grandeur to the occasion. Not wanting to be left out, the technological space too was sparkled with attractive gadgets. With modern life is driven by cool gadgets, we indeed witnessed a wide array of exuberant innovations. Here we list out some gizmos that added glimmer to the tech world this October.
Razer made an appearance with its thrilling Naga Maelstrom Special Edition and Molten Special Edition gaming mice. Gamers can look forward to an unmatched level of performance and distinctiveness. The enticing Maelstrom turns on with a whirlpool of charming blue light emerging right from its swirling core. The Maelstrom boasts of a zero-acoustic Ultraslick feet and glowing vertex design and offers 5600dpi Razer Precision 3.5G laser sensor and 1000Hz Ultrapolling/1ms response time while the Molten includes 5600dpi Razer Precision 3.5G laser sensor. The solutions house 17 fully-programmable MMO-optimized buttons and advanced macro functionality. This month we also spotted the company unfurling a new line of peripherals based on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty which included the Spectre StarCraft II gaming mouse, Marauder StarCraft II gaming keyboard and Banshee StarCraft II gaming headset. The month delighted many mobile enthusiasts with a new mesmerizing Nokia handset dubbed N8. Featuring unrivaled attributes, the mobile phone comes powered with the Symbian ^3 OS. Adorning a stunning real-glass 3.5-inch AMOLED screen, the device allures social buffs with several social networking options. Photo enthusiasts can capture their memorable moments as the phone sports an enthralling 12MP equipped with Carl Zeiss optics. Individuals can enjoy a complete entertainment experience since the device offers impeccable Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. The incredible N8 promises to put forth an enhanced user and developer experience. Dell uncloaked its new Dell Streak tablet which puts forth a unique combination of powerful and exciting mobile computing and broadband communication. Users can view remarkable images and videos on the vibrant 5-inch multi-touch WVGA display. The slim attributes enables owners to quickly slip the device into a pocket or purse. Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8250T mobile processor, the offering flaunts a captivating 5MP camera and a VGA front facing camera, thereby offering an effortless shooting experience. Individuals need not worry since the tablet functions seamlessly with an advanced battery life. Owners can store their most liked movies, videos and photos as the solution offers expandable 32GB memory. The solution undoubtedly creates a benchmark in the way individuals will experience the internet. Another beauty that popped up this month was the Apple MacBook Air, which comes without mechanical hard disks and optical drives. Nipping its waistline, the laptop now measures 0.68-inches at its thickest point and 0.11-inches at its thinnest tip. Crafted in an aluminum unibody framework, it integrates Intel Core 2 Duo processors coupled with Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics solution. This gizmo incorporates a built-in FaceTime camera, mic and stereo speakers, enabling users to make video calls effortlessly. Operating on the Mac OS X Snow Leopard, this laptop comes in two screen size variants, 11 and 13 inches. Fashioning enticing aesthetics, Apple’s latest offering sure seems to be an eye grabber. Up next is the recently launched BlackBerry Torch, which strides in as the first handset from RIM to mix in a QWERTY keypad with a full touchscreen display. Powered by the latest BlackBerry 6 OS, this smartphone is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled. One key highlight of the phone is the Universal Search which allows mobile aficionados to rummage through the device to locate any content on the smartphone. Flaunting a 5 megapixel camera, it furnishes an 8GB integrated memory and up to 32GB of additional storage support. Furthermore, the newly enhanced WebKit-based browser proffers seamless web navigation. Even though the smartphone amalgams a QWERTY and a touchscreen, it does not lose out on its sleekness. Windows’ recently launched 4GB Xbox 360 console might just appeal to Indian gaming enthusiast with a tight budget. Crafted with a matte finish, this gaming system has been embedded with five USB ports and touch-sensitive buttons. Fitted with a dedicated jack for the forthcoming Kinect, it will allow players to gain the most out of the controller-free system and offer a superior gaming experience. Supporting Wi-Fi connectivity, it also renders optical digital audio. The console furnishes three variants, namely the 4GB, Arcade and the 250GB systems.
Novel technological advancements are here to stay, spreading the light of knowledge and enhancing minds world over. So while homes are being renovated to look fresh this Diwali, users can add a touch of technology to their lives this festive season. Let the true essence of Diwali sink in as the celebrations unfold.
Though the new Mac Pro tower and iMac is yet to hit shelves, gamers can already expect enhanced visuals on these PCs.The graphics cards powering the Apple iMac and Mac Pro tower come courtesy of AMD’s ATI Radeon graphics solutions as announced by the latter company.
AMD’s graphics solutions offer users an immersive gaming experience while playing HD content. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card with 1GB GDDR5 memory is built to deliver motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering or animation. The graphics card comes standard with the Mac Pro, though customers can choose to upgrade to the AMD ATI Radeon HD 5879 video card.
“Apple buyers demand the best, and AMD’s award-winning ATI Radeon graphics enable exceptional visual experiences for iMac users. AMD has conducted extensive testing and research to create superior graphics products for the iMac. This research is designed to dramatically enhance the Mac-user experience so that Apple users can enjoy responsive performance and play the newest games,” averred Matt Skynner, corporate VP and GM, GPU division, AMD.
The ATI Radeon HD 4670 video card is hosted by the new 22” iMac, while the ATI Radeon HD 5650 graphics card powers the visual output of both the 22” iMac as well as the 27” version. The new 27” iMac can also be configured with the ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics card. These AMD offerings are up on the Apple retail and online outlets.
Hailed by the social-techno-geek community as (almost) the solution to the world's problems, Google Wave is unfortunately going to be abandoned (official post), just shortly after exiting beta mode. Google said that Wave has failed to attract users in a meaningful way, and can't justify pursuing the work on this product, at least in its current form. Still, Google hails all the technological advances that came with Wave. Obviously, not all products developed in the lab can become mainstream, and we would agree that Google Wave did push the boundaries of real-time communication. However, there was also way to much hype around this product, and about the added-value that it would bring to collaborative work (Google Wave to change everything... maybe not). In the end, it was probably too complicated and too Google-centric for its own good. It’s just hard to collaborate, if you’re not using it.
Suppose you want to lock the folder games in d: which has the path D:\Games.In the same drive create a text file and type ren games games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Now save this text file as loc.bat
create another text file and type in it ren games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} games Now save this text file as key.bat
Now you can see 2 batch files loc and key.Press loc and the folder games will change to control panel and you cannot view its contents.Press key and you will get back your original folder.
Hey do not forget to change games to ur folder name.
10. Drakensang: The River Of Time Release Date: TBA 2010 Genre: RPG Drakensang: The Dark Eye was developed by Radon Labs and it was released in August 2008. The game had a deep combat system and good production values, but it was awfully mediocre in the storytelling department. Details on the storyline are scare; however it has been confirmed that The River of Time will be set in a timeline before the events of The Dark Eye.
9. Anno 1404: Venice Release Date: February 2010 Genre: Strategy In February, Ubisoft will release and expansion to Anno 1404 called Venice that will add multiplayer features to the city-building strategy game. The prospect of online play rarely fails to excite the PC gaming community, and Venice should add co-operative and competitive game play with support for up to eight players.
8. Star Trek Online Release Date: February 2010 Genre: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) After a long gestation period, Atari is able and willing to release Start Trek Online in early February next year. It will be a month where you will get the chance to fulfill your childhood fantasy and play a captain of your own starship, with a choice between Klingon and Federation.
7. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Release Date: February 2010 Genre: First Person Shooter, Role Playing Game Call of Pripyat has already been released in Russia and a few other European countries this year—a third installment in the series, sporting spanking new Direct X 11 features. The rest of the world will have to wait untill February next year to delve further into the barren wastelands of S.T.A.L.K.E.R universe.
6. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising Release Date: March 2010 Genre: Genre: Real-time Strategy (RTS) Relic Entertainment had always been quite innovative with the Warhammer universe and each their games have always had slightly different game-play than its predecessors. With Dawn of War II, the studio took an RTS game and turned it around to make something that was closer to party-based RPG. Chaos Rising will be released as a standalone expansion pack that will add a new campaign to Dawn of War II, where the Blood Ravens will go up against their bitter rivals, the Chaos Space Marines.
5. Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Release Date: March 2010 Genre: Genre: Real-time Strategy (RTS) 2010 is shaping up to be year of strategy games and joining the revelry is Command & Conquer 4—a game that will mark the end of the Tiberium saga. Taking a cue from Relic Entertainment, EA Los Angeles appears to be shifting game-play focus from base management to squad management.
4. Deus Ex 3 Release Date: TBA 2010 Genre: Shooter, Role Playing Game Having after underwhelmed many ardent Dues Ex fans with Invisible Wars, Eidos claims to be playing this one close to their hearts. The recently released information on some of the design choices did not win over too many fans of the original series; however many are waiting with hope and bated breath nonetheless.
3. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Release Date: TBA 2010 Genre: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Blizzard will be injecting a healthy dose of content into their persistent online world of Warcraft. Among other features, Cataclysm will add two new races in to the world, new locations and flying mounts. To accommodate all the new content, the level cap for a character will be raised to 85. Since this is Blizzard, we do not have a fix on a release date yet.
2. Star Wars: The Old Republic Release Date: TBA 2010 Genre: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Clan Bioware in renowned in the fiefdom of fantasy role playing games; however year 2010 should mark their foray into MMORPG space. Perhaps, they could not have asked for more established IP to start with, than Star Wars. The prospect of hundreds of Jedi Knights and Sith Lords set loose in the online space instills feelings of excitement and fear in equal measure.
1. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Release Date: TBA 2010 Genre: Real-time Strategy (RTS) Even though my spirits were a bit dampened when Blizzard announced that we will have to pay three times to enjoy the complete Starcraft II saga, the idea of visiting Starcraft universe after a long hiatus manages to invigorate any lost enthusiasm. Wings of Liberty will kick start the story of Starcraft II with a Terran single-player campaign, and assuring game’s longevity will be an overhauled version of Battle.Net system for online play.
0. Diablo III Release Date: TBA Genre: Action Role-playing Game (Action RPG) In spite of the likelihood of Blizzard releasing two huge titles in one year is quite unlikely, hope shines eternally in the hearts of Diablo fans. The wait is even more excruciating after Blizzard released game-play videos featuring new character classes. Diablo III will perhaps always find itself on a list like this one this the time it actually hits the store shelves.
It does take some thinking, doesn't it, to grasp the idea of a wind-powered vehicle actually traveling faster than the wind itself? That's what Rick Cavallaro and crew managed to achieve, making record runs during the July 4th weekend at El Mirage, California. The North American Land Sailing Association ratified the results and made it official on Tuesday, where the DWFTTW cart managed to travel directly downwind at 2.8 times the wind speed. This was achieved using an innovative ultra-lightweight, aerodynamically sound cart with a 17-foot propeller which is driven by the vehicle’s wheels. The wheels will turn the propeller which in turn will turn the wheels courtesy of a heavy-duty transmission. Where does the wind figure in all of this? It will function as an external power source in order to move the cart faster than the wind is blowing.
After combatting many years of desktop spyware, users must be more cognizant now of the apps, webpages, and content they put on their mobile devices as smartphones are gaining more potential. At the Black Hat security conference, Lookout, which does analysis of web applications and the access that is given to apps on phones, have identified a number of vulnerabilities on the iOS iPhone platform as well as Google Android. The project is called the App Genome Project, which found that 14% of free iPhone apps and 8% of freeware apps on Android have the ability to collect contact data on a phone--all without the user's knowledge.
YouTube previously limited its non-partners to just 10 minutes or under for video uploading, but now the Google-owned video service has increased that time to 15 minutes, giving users more control over the content they upload. The ten-minute cap before was instituted in large part due to copyright concerns--YouTube and Google didn't want users to upload a full TV show or movie and infringe upon the copyright holder's rights to the film, but now that YouTube has implemented better safeguards, the company is moving the maximum upload length to 15 minutes. According to YouTube product manager Jshua Siegel, the Content ID system implemented helps identify content that may be protected: "Now, all of the major U.S. movie studios, music labels and over 1,000 other global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube."
LG did announce earlier this month that it will be introducing an Android-powered tablet later this year, and today we have confirmation that it will be part of its new Optimus brand as it hits the market in Q4 2010. While Q4 2010 is an extremely broad window where a launch is concerned, it seems as though LG wants to position themselves to make it in time for the frenzied holiday shopping season. If this is not a Korea-only exclusive, will a worldwide launch interest you?
The HRP-2 Promet from AIST has surely come a long way, where this robot is now able to handle minor changes in height on the ground which it is walking on. Of course, this is still a far cry away from Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, let alone another bipedal robot from the good people at Boston Dynamics (again) - we're talking about the PetMan this time round. Hopefully AIST will be able to play catch up, and fast! At least this is a good start, now for the real hard work to begin.
Just how popular is the Opera Mini mobile browser? How about the fact that it serves up a delicious one billion page views daily? This Java ME-based mobile browser is definitely heading in the right direction despite pretty decent browsers being bundled together with the iPhone and Android-powered handsets to date. This mobile browser's main distinguishing feature would be its compression technology that is smart enough to compress web page content up to 90% on Opera’s servers before sending them to the actual device, which will go a long way in helping you save time and bandwidth.
With more and more studios releasing films in 3D our fad towards this technology has been ignited exponentially. To play with this technology, now you can watch and share your videos on YouTube in 3D with this simple trick.
Just follow these simple steps to give your pre-uploaded videos on YouTube a 3D touch :-
Sign in to your YouTube account and then navigate to My Videos for the list of all the videos uploaded by you.
Pick a video you wish to give 3D effect and click on edit video.
Now add “yt3d:enable=true” without the quotes in the tag field.
Voila, next time when you will stream this video on YouTube you will see an option to play the video is 3D in the seek bar. Now all you need is a 3D pair of glasses to sit back and enjoy.
The limitation of the above trick is that you can bring the effect only on the videos uploaded by you and not to any other public videos.
GameStop, a retailer of games with over 6,400 stores globally, is beginning to make a push into digital game delivery by acquiring San Francisco-based Kongregate Inc. Though GameStop did not disclose the amount it paid for Kongregate, the game distributor and retailer said that it has set aside $100 millions to invest in its digital business, to compete against popular online games such as Zynga's Farmville, playable on Facebook, social games that require Internet connectivity, and the advent of instant game downloads on mobile devices popularized by the iPhone.
The digital strategy employed by GameStop will help the physical retailer mitigate the risk of obsolescence experienced by other entertainment retailers, like Blockbuster--who have been out-challenged by Netflix--and Tower Records who lost the race with the digital rise of iTunes. In fact, sales of traditional games are slowing--down 6% in June compared to a year ago.
Faster Internet connections, increases in storage capacity, and rises in CPU power are helping to fuel the digital trend, but for dedicated gaming consoles with high-resolution 3D titles and intense graphics the shift to digital downloads may not happen right away due to the size of the game and the storage required. In that regards, physical game sales may be safe for now, but an early digital strategy may help the retailer thwart off competition in that space.
Kongregate has 10 million players and 30,000 titles of web-playable games accessible on computer browsers. Revenues generated by Kongregate is split evenly between advertising and sales of virtual currency to help players customize their experience and quickly move through levels.
Facebook is reportedly testing out a new feature that will finally allow users to terminate and delete their account, with no waiting period. The current method requires users to wait 14 days from the day they deactivate their account to the day it gets deleted. Those of you who’ve tried this will know how Facebook bombards you in this period with reminders of the friends you’ll be leaving behind and how they will miss you, all in an effort to entice you back.
Check out the rather short Facebook exit questionnaire below. The feature is being tested on a very select number of users, so don’t expect it to show up on Facebook in a hurry.
Bungie and Microsoft, with their long history of partnership on the Halo franchise, have gone ahead and made a Halo: Reach Xbox 360 bundle, which apart from featuring the game, also gives a fresh new UNSC look to the console. This is not the first time that Microsoft has released Halo-inspired special edition Xbox 360 hardware. Priced at $399, the Limited Edition Halo: Reach 250GB Xbox 360 bundle gets you two wireless Xbox 360 controllers, a copy of Halo: Reach, apart from visual and audio Halo design elements in the interface. It goes on shelves on September 14th, the same day the game releases. Check out some more images below (click to enlarge):
Limited Edition 250GB Xbox 360 Slim Halo: Reach bundle
Olive Telecom has launched India's first 3G tablet, the OlivePad-VT100. It runs on Android OS, has a host of interesting features, not to mention a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen. The OlivePad-VT100 has built-in support for 3.5G HSUPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless communication. The OlivePad-VT100 tablet has a 600-MHz Qualcomm M7227 chipset, 512MB ROM and 512MB RAM -- expandable to 32GB with a memory card. The OlivePad-VT100 tablet also has a mini USB port.
The OlivePad 3G Tablet has a 7-inch form factor with a glossy screen finish. A 3MP (megapixel) autofocus camera with 4x zoom resides on the tablet's rear panel, and the OlivePad-VT100 also incorporates a compass, G-sensor, ambient light sensor and dual speakers. The OlivePad-VT100 tablet makes good sense for reading ebooks and browsing the Web over its Webkit browser which supports Flash. Its support for quad-band GSM and tri-band WCDMA makes the OlivePad-VT100 a tablet that also has the features of a smartphone, allowing voice and video calling. While we await the Apple iPad and Notion Ink's Adam Tablet, Olive Telecom's OlivePad-VT100 tablet will have to whet our appetite for tablet PCs. The OlivePad-VT100 will retail in Croma stores in August for a price of Rs. 25,000.
This festive season has ignited celebrations of the highest magnitude as the entire country is lit with beautiful lights and fireworks. The mood is amplified by lines of lamps, floral decorations and exchange of gifts that lend grandeur to the occasion. Not wanting to be left out, the technological space too was sparkled with attractive gadgets. With modern life is driven by cool gadgets, we indeed witnessed a wide array of exuberant innovations. Here we list out some gizmos that added glimmer to the tech world this October.
Olive Telecom has launched India's first 3G tablet, the OlivePad-VT100. It runs on Android OS, has a host of interesting features, not to mention a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen. 
