What an inning it was from Sehwag...

When Sachin scored a double ton at Gwalior against SA, people would have thought that one man who can outplay this record or chase it will be none other but Virender Sehwag. But no one would have thought that this will be accomplished so early and so comfortably.

One thing is quite clear, scoring a double ton takes aggressive batting with a strike rate around 130. In a match of 300 balls, where ideally you will be facing 150 balls, that too when u play full 50 overs, scoring a 200 is a very challenging job. Sachin, the God of Cricket was the first such person to score a 200 not out playing till the end of the match and today his opening partner for plenty of matches, Sehwag has scored 219 playing till 47th over. I wonder he would have crossed even 250 if he had batted till end.

A total of 400 in an ODI has happened a very few times so far and India has done it 4 times including this. SA and SriLanka both have done it twice earlier.

The way Sehwag played this inning was fabulous and very very interesting what you may call a complete 'Paisa Wasool' in local dialect. Most of the balls Sehwag played was either a boundary or a brilliant stop by some windies player. Crossed 50 in 41 balls, 100 in 69, 150 in 112 and the previous world record 200 in just 140 balls. With this inning he has become the highest scorer in both ODI and tests for India. It also produced highest total ever by India and highest individual score in ODI overall.

What makes it more interesting is that both the double tons in ODI has been scored in Madhya Pradesh itself. You will see it written on  a welcome board at MP : 'Welcome to Madhya Pradesh. Batsmen die to come here and bowlers come to die here.'

Grand Theft Auto to come on your smart phone

The most flexible and realistic open world gangster game, i ever played so far is definitely Grand Theft Auto. Just like Counter Strike and NFS series, i was a full-time addict of G.T.A. series as well in my college days. The reason why this game was so popular among us was because, as a gangster in this game, you are free to do anything you wish to do in the city. You can go to beach, can kick some ass, go and enjoy at bar, go date with a girl, fight with goons or road, run your taxi, work for hospital and lot others apart from the regular game objective.

And the great news is, after 10 years of the inception of Grand Theft Auto, the game is announced be released for smartphones and tablets in a week. One game of GTA series, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars,  is already being sold in Apple Apps Store but this will be the first time when the series will be released for both iOS and Android platform.

If you are one of the GTA lovers, what you will be dying to know is will it run on your smartphones or not. So here is the answer. The Apple version of the game will run on all iPads, the latest iPod Touch and the iPhone 4 and 4S. Whereas the game for android phones and tablets will be supporting the devices listed below :

SmartPhones: HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, T-Mobile G2x

Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive

CLICK HERE to know more about the new release of the game at the Rockstar Games company website.

Now send money to friends on FaceBook - Powered by Paypal

Sending money to your friends had never been his easy. Thanks to Paypal whose application allows you to send money on Facebook.

Send money - the simple and straight application launched by Paypal for FaceBook offers you the choice to send either an ecard with money or just money with no card. You select a card, choose a friend to send it to and then select how much money to send.

Unlike various other Paypal apps for Facebook, this is the first app to enable peer-to-peer payments via Facebook and PayPal. And because it's a peer-to-peer transaction, there is no transaction fee, though PayPal's regular limits and international fees still apply.

Beyond the primary aspect of financial transactions across the world's largest social network, the eCard aspect of Send Money is also being emphasized. As per Paypal report, approx 500 millions ecards are sent every year and on that basis Paypal came into action and offered a dozen of choices for everything from birthdays to congratulations through its FaceBook App.

App is expected to take off because of the simplicity and effectiveness. You can send a card and a cake the your friend online in a few minutes. Apart from wishes, it can also be useful in lottery pools and reimbursing friends for lunch. It's actually a big step toward making social payments a reality.

Video-sharing website YouTube might look different in a few days

You might see a changed YouTube in a few days, as the most popular online video repository is testing a new look these days and as seen prominently integrated Google+ will be playing a major role in the new design roll-out.

Though these changes are visible on only a handful of users and not visible for most of the millions of YouTube users worldwide. That's something which is not new from Google, it first tests the new changes with some accounts and depending on its results it roll backs the changes or enable the same for all the accounts.

After the prominent integration with Google+, the new design will show you most popular videos(on view basis) among your friends and also the video shared by your friends on YouTube. Here friends are none other but the people on your Google+ circle.

Not only this you will also find updates from channels on the top left side of the page which will list out all the updates from your subscribed channels. This would presumably make people more likely to keep coming back for original content posted by channel owners than only popping onto YouTube when they had a particular video in mind.

Definitely the new YouTube will look more social, more personalized and more evolved into your own defined circle.

Apple iPods could undergo some major design changes

If you are a regular iPod user, you would have surely share your ear buds with your friends in order to share iPod tunes but it is no one's favorite way to share the same. Answering the same, Apple is planning to install an in-built speaker in iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle to avoid the ear-bud sharing.

The tiny speaker, as said, will be added to the clip on the back side of the device. It will empower the tiny music player with a new desirable feature without adding an extra bulk. Not only this, Apples is also looking forward to provide iPods as wrist worn devices empowered with Nike+ fitness software which is likely to bring Apple's iPod in direct competition with Motorola who launched MotoACTV few months back.

To add more to it, Apple also has declared to add SIRI, its popular voice based software to the wrist-worn iPod Nano, so that you can ask SIRI for any request and get response thorough the tiny speaker installed in the tiny device worn on your wrist.

Apple has always been saying that iPod, even after iPhones and iPads, is a major and very important product for the company. Apple's new CEO proved the same with this new design modifications.

Facebook brings back its Recent Stories as another sort option

There had been a series of changes in Facebook in last months. Some were welcomes and some were disliked. One among them was the removal of 'Recent Stories' section from News Feed and replacing it with 'Highlighted Stories'. The idea behind this change was to put the most important story on top but the idea did not work out as expected may because people started missing important stories which were not popular but important for them.

There had been a lot of discussing over the web for this and some other changes which were not liked by FB users. As a result of the same, Facebook now rolls back one of its changes and has brought back 'Recent Stories' back to News Feed. Though the existing section 'Highlighted Stories' is still there but now users have an option to choose from two sorting types. They can either see the news feed sorted by most recent first or most discussed first.

This will definitely be a wise move from Facebook, keeping its idea and user's demand both into consideration.

Adobe flash to disappear from smartphones very soon

In April 2010, Apple's then CEO Steve Jobs stated that Adobe flash is no match with the upcoming web technologies and it is not at all suitable for touch screen based high end smartphones. He even ranted about Adobe Flash on Apple's website blaming it for major technical drawbacks and declared that iPhone and iPad will never have support Adobe Flash because new open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices.

We all are well aware of Flash, the very popular middle-ware solution which enables graphical animations and even games on web as well as mobile platforms. But now, identifying the caliber of latest web technologies, specially HTML 5, Adobe has planned to step down and abandon its one of the major product. Its nothing to be sad about as the new technology to be used is not only light-weight but widely supported and more efficient. 

Getting rid of this 15-year-old technology to instead embrace a universal standard for displaying rich media on the Web is definitely a bold move from Adobe. And this will also be a great news for Apple iPhones and iPad users who have not been able to view media coded for Flash on their mobile devices. Something which the icon Steve Jobs suggested Adobe one and half year back is going to be executed by the company now.

Adobe will abandon the flash application and will no more develop the same for smartphone platform whereas it will continue the support for Android platform.

A new iPhone bug has come into picture

All iPhone users, beware!! As you may get hacked and some of your vital information may get leaked. As per the researchers there is an existing bug in iPhone which could let hackers get into your phone. This bug allows users to take control of iPhone and iPad apps, using them to steal people's photos, contacts and even send text messages without the device's user knowing about it.

World's most popular Apple hacker Charlie Miller identified this bug alerted Apple to the bug three weeks ago and the company told him a fix was in the works. Though Apple never declared it in public and notified its users.

As per Miller, he identified the bug and reported to avoid any further hacking with bad intentions but Apple did not respond the way it should. Instead, Apple banned Miller from the iOS developer program for a year. Not only this the app Instastock, which Miller uploaded on App Store is also removed for this.

No doubt, App Store is still far safer than Android Market. But Apple should really fix the bug at the earliest and update the existing users for the same rather than punishing Miller for his generous effort.

Once again something unexpected from Google

Google is no doubt one among the largest and most innovative internet and technologies company in this world. But last week Google did something which was surprisingly unexpected when the company wrote on twitter - 

"The iOS app we launched today contained a bug with notifications. We have pulled the app to fix the problem. Sorry we messed up."
Whats worse is, its just one such setback from Google. Google latest update for Android market has also come into question and the latest update to Google Reader that was even described by a former Google employee as "a disaster."

What does these all indicate? Has the invincibility of the largest internet giant has come into question? At least tech pundits and popular bloggers think the same now.

As per Google Users, the excitement and also the faith on Google products is vanishing day by day. Gone are the days, when there had been excitement for any other new launch from Google. Google users are really losing faith on Google products and updates. There have been numerous complaints about the android app updates from Google. They are getting heavier, slower and less efficient, which is exactly the reverse of what an update must be.

Is the reason why Google is failing on various pillars lies somewhere in its involvement in wide range of services? This may be one of the cause because in last few years, Google has spread its wings into numerous new domains. Whereas, on the other hand the other top level companies like Apple are still more or less concentrated onto their product lineups.

5 major gripes against iPhone 4S despite its record sales in early days

Nothing is perfect in this world and the same is the story of the Apples's latest product iPhone 4S. It had applauds and very positive reviews so far but as time passes, there have been a number of complaints from the users already using it. Despite it record sales and over-sizing demands, the product to failed to be called a perfect model. Here is a brief detail about the 5 major gripes which iPhone 4S faced in these two weeks.

1. Slow service on Sprint

The big news on the carrier front for the iPhone 4S was that Sprint would be added as an approved mobile carrier, joining AT&T and Verizon. But some Sprint customers didn't get off to a very good start. Many users were reporting slow data speed for the first couple of days.

2. Weak battery

At the October 4 presentation unveiling the iPhone 4S, Phil Schiller , Apple vice president for product management, praised its "fantastic battery life" that would allow people to talk for eight hours before needing to charge the device again. But the user experience completely belied this claim. Users even complained of the new iPhone being more battery draining than iPhone 4.

3. Siri outside the United States

A product like iPhone is surely meant for a global market but not for a particular country or state. But the most discussed feature in iPhone, SIRI, failed to please the customers abroad. The same software which was praised in US for its revolutionary performance but all non-native English speakers faced problems using it.

4. Camera problems

An 8 megapixel camera was another selling point for the new iPhone, but users reported a number of issues not only about picture clarity but also about shutter speed. Some users even reported that iPhone gets stuck while using camera andthey have no other option but to restart the device.

5. Screen appearance

Users have also reported complaints about its display, as a yellowish tint or spots appears on the screen of their phones, making the resolution fuzzier than older phones. This issue was also there in previous iPhone. The tint and glow of the screen fades away in a couple of days.

Robotic sailboats to clean oil spill very soon

There have been a number of oil spills in the last few years including the one in Mumbai ocean this year. But the most severe such accidents took place in Mexico last year when the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men, injuring 17 others and triggering what is generally recognized as one of the greatest human errors ever made. And by the time, the leak could be capped, around 4.9 million barrels of oil covered the Gulf making it a toxic slick.

After each such tragedies, it becomes a real pain in their head to recover the ocean and the aquatic eco-system from the spreading toxic fluid. Cleaning this up manually with workers is not only less efficient but also risky for worker's life.

Cesar Harada, then studying in MIT Boston visited the tragic site at Gulf of Mexico and decided to leave the college in order to develop an open source oil spill cleaning robot called Protei. Our current available oil spill skimming technologies are only able to collect three percent of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico and carry health risks to humans and heavy economic costs. Whereas, Protei, the unmanned autonomous relatively inexpensive and open hardware, will be a far more potential and powerful weapon in the battle to clean up oil spills while preserving the safety of the workers who would otherwise be exposed to the toxic mess. The other usage of this sailboat drone may also be oceanography and surveillance.

MotoACTV : A tech gadget for fitness freaks

We had discussed in the last post, about the release of Droid RAZR, the retro step taken by Motorola to being back the once best selling smartphone.. The next release the same day was MotoACTV, a gadget by Motorola specially designed for fitness freaks.

MotoACTV is of the size similar to that of iPod nano and it is specially designed to be worn as a wristband. It has a capacity of storing upto 4000 songs and it has got built-in tools for recording workout information. With GPS, Wi-Fi and a heart-rate monitor, the sweat and rain-resistant gizmo is targeted at runners and other outdoor-exercise enthusiasts. Commenting on this launch, Motorola spokesperson said that Motorola has put more technology per cubic millimeter into this than any other device in our history, which shows the capability of this tiny gadget.

Moreover, MotoACTV is Android-based and has a 600MHz processor, which means that you can further hack it as root and deploy the application of your own or from market to add more feature to it in future. Though MotoACTV isn't exactly running an official version of Android; rather, it uses the building blocks of Android but still that enriches its future enhancement possibilities. 

Looks like a watch, works like a music player(listen through a bluetooth headset) which can download songs from your PC and wirelessly uploads your fitness data, with a heart monitor, which can determine which song or music gets your heart pounding the most. To add more to it, there is an FM player as well. The gadget is sweat proof and shock resistant with a fluid touch screen UI.

This smart watch which will surely outrun others existing in the market will come in 8GB and 16 GB models for $249 and $299 respectively and is expected to hit the market by 6th November. Let's see how many of you are going to own it and wear it?

DroidRAZR : The new android release of best selling smartphone from past

Motorola mobility seems to be back in action. This Tuesday, Motorola unveiled two of its very important products.

First being the Droid RAZR, the android version 2.3(Gingerbread) based super slim smartphone which was released first in 2004 (without android) and it captured global markets before the iPhone release. Motorola RAZR was released 3 years earlier than iPhone and it rocked the market for 12 quarters thereafter untill the third quarter of 2007, when iPhone came into a bigger picture. RAZR was definitely the best selling smartphone from any brand ever until the iPhone came along.

Even as per sales records, Motorola sold around 110 million of RAZR in those three years(2004-07), a target which Apple took 4 years(2004-11) to reach. Recognizing its earlier sales records, Motorola will surely have bundle of expectation from its new Android release of RAZR.

With this move, Motorola seems to move retro by bringing back its once best selling smartphone. The next tech gadget to be unveiled the same day was MotoACTV which we will be discussing in the next post.

Buzz to be terminated very soon by Google

Google has its plan to kill off Buzz, which was its first trial towards social networking initiated around 18 months back by Google. Due to its new initiative in social networking i.e. Google plus, now Google is planning to close Buzz in a week or so.

It seems Google is scrapping a number of its products which have not yet achieved a major footprint on www. Dumping such projects to the scrap heap, including Code Search, a tool for finding open-source code on the Web, and Jaiku, a Twitter-like micro-blogging service that Google acquired in 2007, are more such examples. 

Earlier Google had an explosion of wrong steps taken with the launch of Buzz. One of them was that the network's default settings automatically set members to follow their most e-mailed contacts and then posted those contacts publicly after a user "buzzed" about something. Read this blog post for story of one such Buzz victim. Though, Google started altering all such settings and features in order to rectify its mistake but it was too late by then and the damage had already been done.

Closing Buzz will also help Google to focus on its 3 month old effort of social networking Google plus, which according to Google, is going to be a big success and a competitor to Facebook. Google claims that Google plus has now grown up to 40 millions users from the earlier count of 10 million users at the end of last quarter. 

For a not, as per Google's spokesperson, closing Buzz will not allow you to post anything on Google Buzz later on, but you can still view the older posts and they will also be able to download it using Google export tool TakeOut.

The new cricket rule-set from ICC

India's most successful(though some of my friends give this credit to his luck rather than his cricketing skills) captain i have ever seen, MS Dhoni, has won India the first ODI against England yesterday with a large margin. But before the match and even after the win, the only point he was worried about and commented upon was the new cricket rules set by ICC which has been applied on and after 1st Oct this year, most importantly the powerplay rules.

Here is a brief insight of the 9 new rules as set by ICC :

POWERPLAY RULES

Applicable : ODIs only

The batting and bowling Powerplays must be taken between the slots from 15th over to 40th over. which means that Powerplays will have to taken on or before the beginning of 36th over. Earlier they could take Powerplays at any time after the completion of the tenth over of the innings.

Reason : Bowling team does not have lot of options while powerplay is taken in death overs.

RUNNER

Applicable : All formats

Any batsman under any condition will not be allowed to call a runner. They can take retired hurt and return back later to bat if they feel so.

Reason : All the batsman do not have same running skills and capability which makes a difference when a runner is called.

TWO NEW BALLS PER INNING

Applicable : ODIs only

Each fielding team will be given two new balls to be used in alternate overs, one at each end. The mandatory change of the ball after the 34th over of an innings will not take place anymore. 

Reason : Ball changes have brought significant results earlier.

OBSTRUCTING THE FIELD

Applicable : All formats

If a fielding team appeals and the umpire feels the batsman has significantly changed his direction without probable cause, while running between the wickets, and obstructed an attempt to run him out, the umpire can give the batsman out for obstructing the field. The on-field umpires are allowed to consult the third umpire in making the decision. The other circumstances in which a batsman can be out obstructing the field are still applicable.

Reason : Intentional obstruction changes game result.

PENALTY TIME

Applicable : All formats
If a player, who still has some unexpired penalty time, applied due to any reason, remaining from a previous absence, is on the field when play is interrupted by bad weather, light or other reasons, the duration of the stoppage will be deducted from the remaining penalty time.

Reason : To make penalty time independent of weather or other conditions.

ATTEMPT TO RUN OUT AT NON STRIKER END

Applicable : All formats
Previously, the bowler could run out a non-striker backing up only if he did so before entering his delivery stride. But now, the bowler is permitted, before releasing the ball and provided he has not completed his usual delivery swing(that is when his bowling arm passes the normal point of ball release), to attempt to run out the non-striker.

Reason : To prevent unnecessary step out from crease at non-striker end.

EXTRA TIME FOR A MATCH

Applicable : Tests only
The umpires may decide to play 15 minutes (a minimum of four overs) extra time at the scheduled lunch or tea interval of any day if requested by either captain if, in the umpires' opinion, it would bring about a definite result in that session. If the umpires do not believe a result can be achieved no extra time shall be allowed.

Reason : To avoid change in match results due to lunch to certain extent.

LUNCH DELAY WHEN NINE PLAYERS ARE OUT

Applicable : Tests only

If a team is nine wickets down at the time of the lunch interval, the break will be delayed by a maximum of 30 minutes. Previously, only tea was delay-able, while lunch was taken even if a team was nine down. 

Reason : To avoid unnecessary delay caused by two breaks in previous case.

INTERVAL DURATION BETWEEN INNINGS

Applicable : ODIs only
The minimum interval for an uninterrupted ODI match has been increased from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. 

Reason : Time required for planning and executing needed extra time in certain matches.

Denis Ritchie, who laid the foundation for IT companies

On the warm evening of this Wednesday, 12th of Oct, the man behind the current fortress of IT industry passed away. The response from hardware techies for his demise was immense but it nowhere matched the river of praise and ocean of grief that flew after the announcement of death of iconic Steve Jobs. But it really should, the world may not recognize him as much as Jobs, may be because he was not that popular public face but his contribution were at par even more.

Denis Ritchie was not only the father of C Programming language but with his fellow Bell Labs researcher Ken Thompson, he used C to build UNIX, the operating system which is now the backbone of most of the IT empires including Apple. All popular languages, including Java, are based upon C and all operating systems are developed and designed on C's base. Today the application for mobile platforms - Android and iOS apps are also developed in Objective C, which again is based on C.

The contribution of Richie is definitely much more than any IT company's CEO and COO as he laid the foundation for where IT industries stand now. He is the shoulder where Steve Jobs and other IT giants stand upon.

SONY Pictures to bring biography of Steve Jobs

Well, you can call it a quick move as just one week of Steve's demise SONY Pictures is all set to buy the movie rights to an upcoming biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. To add more to it, the talk is already in final stage and Sony is expected to pay $1 million for the rights to the book, which traces Jobs' story from college dropout to CEO of the world's leading tech company.

On the other hand, the leading publisher, Simon & Schuster, from NewYork which was to release the authorized biography of Steve Jobs by 21 November has suddenly shifted its date to 24 October following the demise of Steve Jobs earlier this month.

Comparing both these released, personifying the most iconoclastic personality in IT industry ever on written pages is going to be much simpler task than portraying him on canvass. The major problem when making a biography movie of a popular face is that you could not get a look alike face for the actor playing the lead role. The option is to being out energy and enthusiasm from the actor playing those icons which will bring the character closer to the one expected. For example Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, or more recently, Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles did the same.

Moreover, in Job's case there will be some more added difficulty to Sony as they have to play both Steve of early college days when he started the company in a garage as well as the 50 years old CEO who captivates his audiences with high profile launches of iPhones and iPads. Not only age, the health is also going to be a major concern as Jobs lost his weight dramatically when battling with the pancreatic cancer in his final years. Let's see with whom Sony Pictures comes out to play Steve Job's role.

Apple Co-founder first in line to get the new iPhone

It was so interesting to watch the Apple Co-founder Steve Wazniak standing in the long queue outside the Apple Store on 13th night. 

As the new device was going on sale on Friday, 14th of Oct, Wozniak was first in line when he showed up Thursday at the Apple store in Los Gatos. The line started forming since 2PM on 13th and Steve Wozniak was one among the five people who reached at that time. This shows the craze and commitment of the co-founder with the company and its launches.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the duo behind the most innovative company of the world, who incorporated the idea in 1975 and the company Apple in 1977, have started their first office in Jobs parent's garage at the same city Los Gatos in California where Wozniak was seen to be the first one in line for the new iPhone.

As we all know, Apple's latest iPhone has already broken all records of pre-orders and it will be delivered starting 8AM today for all timezones.

Facebook released its iPad App after long 1.5 years

It has been one year, six months and seven days after the first iPad went into the sale, when Facebook released its app for Apple's tablet iPad. A number of iPad users have been looking for this iPad applications since long and now finally its here.

The long delayed release of this application has been in conversation as well. Some says that the reason behind the delayed launch may be the rift between Mark Zukerberg and the Apple's top executive over Apple's ping social networking site. Some also says that Facebook preferred to be accessed online on iPad as that way it does not need to follow Apple Store strict set of rules.

Former Facebook developer Jeff Verkoeyen, the lead engineer on the the iPad app, wrote on his blog recently that he quit the company after Facebook continually delayed the release of the iPad app. As per him, Facebook was working on it since Oct 2010 and for some reason, which he denied to unveil, the launch kept on delaying. At present, Verkoeyen is working for Google.

Though delayed, the experience of having facebook app on your iPad will surely be great as you will have your entire world on your fingertips. Here in the snap you may see how the app will look like.

What does 'S' stands for in iPhone 4S?

Apple never revealed what exactly 'S' stands for in iPhone 4S. With the success and popularity of its voice recognition tool, it seems that 'S' may well stand for SIRI.

SIRI, the new voice recognition software has received a bunch of positive applauds worldwide. Almost all technical gadget reviewers have appraised and given positive response to the iPhone 4S its new voice-recognition software, faster processing speed and improved picture-taking quality.

Though the new release was earlier criticized by the reviewers for various drawbacks as for example not altering the body design. But now they are widely accepting that the new voice recognition software SIRI make up for all these limitations with its features that lets users ask for weather updates, make calendar appointments or send messages without tapping on the keyboard. SIRI is also recognized as crazy good, transformative, category-redefining speech recognition first of its kind software.

Talking about the sells, iPhone fans did not even wait for the reviews to come. There is already an advanced order of around one million iPhone 4S and by the coming week this number is likely to reach the target of 3 millions. And now after such a positive review by most of the critics, the sales graph is likely to go beyond the expected margin. Good new for Apple...

The connection between Steve's death and iPhone 4S fortunes

Last tuesday, just two days before the death of the legend Steve Jobs, Apple launched iPhone 4S which was definitely not even at par to the expectations of the customers. Actually Apple had to release iPhone 5 but since certain features could not be achieved by then, so Apple had to end up releasing iPhone 4S.

Though, iPhone 4S featured some important specs attributed to the imaginary iPhone 5, like 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, an Apple A5 chipset and an 8-megapixel camera. It also had features like a 3.5-inch TFT Retina multi-touch display and is loaded with the latest Apple operating system iOS 5. But at the same time it lagged on features like edge-to-edge design, larger display, 4G LTE and NFC. Responding to these feature limitations, Apple shares responded to the Tuesday announcement of iPhone 4S and stocks lost 5 per cent though it recouped some losses later on.

But at the same time, one event took place that was the death of the man behind iPhone - Steve Jobs. And as its aftermath, iPhone 4S sales started rising from day 3, that is after Steve's death news. As per the present scenario, tech Web sites are predicting that Apple's fifth generation smartphone will become its fastest-selling device ever. This was exactly not the kind of reception the iPhone 4S announcement got on Oct. 4. When pre-orders started, iPhone 4S showed its massive sales potential and is now poised to become the biggest launch day success story from Apple. As per AT&T, there has already been 200,000 iPhone 4S advance orders, raising the prospect of iPhone 4S shattering all previous sales records at Apple. iPhone 4s is scheduled to start delivering from 14th this month.

Even Apple rivals postponed their phone launch after Job's death

There has never been such an iconic figure earlier whose death not only effected his company but also influenced its rivals to postponed their schedules in the wake of the cause. Steve Jobs is no doubt an unforgettable icon and his contribution to the smartphones will be remembered forever.

New nexus with curved screen

Following Steve's death on thursday evening, Apple's major rivals Google and Samsung announced the very next day that the launch of their latest new Nexus phone will be delayed due to the grave news of Steve. They told when the whole world is in deep sorrow, this is not surely the right time to launch a phone, which is a new product of the same line up, to which Steve Jobs has contributed his best of the lot.

While asking about stages of development and if the product is ready, Google Spokesman said that product is ready and well set to be released as announced earlier i.e. on Tuesday 11th of Oct, and the only reason why we are delaying the launch event is the grave news of Steve's death from which the whole world is yet to recover.

As we know, Google was to launch its new Nexus Phone which will be the first ever model with a curved touch screen and running on the latest Icecream Sandwich version of Android. Of course this is going to be major launch from Google and this surely is not the right time to launch an innovative model of smartphone when the person who changed the way smartphones operate died days ago.

Hot air could be the next free fuel for us

It is quite obvious and known to all, irrespective of whether you are a science major or not, you all will be knowing that temperature keeps rising on our planet and also that heat rises upwards. But have we ever imagine that it can come out to be a free fuel alternative for future. I am sure you would be thinking of its feasibility by now but good news is its not only feasible but an Australian company EnviroMission is already working on the same.

We have already seen electronic devices which cools the surrounding because of the heat transfer from hotter bodied to colder bodies like in refrigerator. Depending on the similar concept, the main idea of the entrepreneur Roger Davey from EnviroMission is to design one such solar chimney which will allow the rising air to go out of the building, taking the heat with it. This rising air will turn 32 turbines mounted on the tower and they will be turned to spin fast enough to generate electricity. The goal is to create, capture and control hot air to help power cities. EnviroMission has its plan to build a huge solar updraft tower, 2600 feet tall, in the Arizona desert.

A plus-point for this energy over the other renewable sources of energy is that solar and wind both are subjected to limitation as solar energy is not effective at night and wind energy is suitable only for coastal areas. But the heat air movement is a very common phenomenon is any region at any particular time so the energy generation will be more spasmodic and hence more reliable.

Surely there is lot to be done yet and a number of huddles to overcome but not doubt the concept is brilliant and of course the need for the time as energy sources are depleting day by day.

Alibaba disclosed its interest in purchasing Yahoo

The online giant Alibaba from China has expressed its desire to purchase all of the struggling online services based company Yahoo, whose stakes are falling day by day. Jack Ma, CEO Alibaba shown this interest at the China 2.0 conference at Stanford University last friday.

At present, Yahoo is also having 40% stake in the Alibaba, but the relation between both these companies has always been contentious. The only choice to get the shares held by Yahoo back is to purchase Yahoo itself and that may be one of the reason behind this disclosure. For now, there is no comment from Yahoo on this statement of Jack Ma.

Earlier, former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Jack Ma had a dispute over ownership of AliPay, an online payment unit similar to eBay-owned PayPal. In May, Yahoo disclosed that Alibaba has handover 100% of AliPay shares to a new entity controlled by Jack Ma. 

On the other hand, if we see the future of Yahoo, there have been a huge sliding of Yahoo shares in last few months as the only option for Yahoo shareholders to earn profit was through service like AliPay which had to be executed by both Yahoo and Alibaba but after the AliPay event, this hope was diminished. Yahoo the CEO Bartz was also fired and the only option for Yahoo seems to lie in selling Yahoo. Yahoo's online services have already been hampered by Google and its online publishing services is also being severely harmed by Facebook. In 2008, Microsoft has offered $47 billion to purchase all of Yahoo and with time this value also goes down. In short, nothing is going the right way for Yahoo.

Good news : FB will never charge you for usage

Since the inception of the new features and changes in the Facebook earlier this year, there has been a ubiquitous rumor that one of these changes might be the charges Facebook is likely to put on its usage. But fortunately Facebook has no such plan not only in near future but also in a long run of its business.

I am sure you would like to know the reason behind this. So here it goes...

There are some obvious reasons why Facebook will never do that, first of all Facebook is earning much more than it planned to earn in its projected business plan. Moreover its about to go public in few months after which it revenue is likely to be about $80 billion to $100 billion.

Next big reason for this lie in Facebook's business model. Right from the time when the idea of Facebook originated its target has always been to increase the number of users and not to get money from its actual users itself. Following this strategy Facebook was free of ads for several years. Its just four years back (2007) when Facebook actually started putting ads on its pages.

Of course Facebook business is to make money but not in a direct manner. It has plan to monetize but not fetching money for usage which will do nothing but decrease its number of users. It is using Facebook credit system at present with games like Farmsville, Mafia Wars and others which is in turn building a platform similar to that of Paypal in a long run. It may come out to be one of the competitor of Paypal. Similar there are some other ways facebook is making money for example by selling third party products online etc.

Google Analytics offers real time website tracking for free

If you own and operate your own website, you will surely be aware of the most popular website traffic analyzer tools by Google - Google Analytics. The good news for all you is that Google Analytics has got a major upgrade this thursday and now it will be Google's first free real time traffic tracker.

Google Analytics has been a very useful tool for website owners since long as it offers services to track number of visits, visitors location, time spent by them over your page and various others features which help you optimize your website and popularize it on a global scale. Earlier there was a time lag of upto 24 hours in Google Analytics that is the visits today and its statistics will be shown hours later from actual visit time. But with this major upgrade, you will be seeing live statistics of your website.

Google Analytics was launched by Google in late 2005 after Google acquired the popular analytics software maker Urchin. Since then the service is being used increasingly and at present this free service from Google has millions of users worldwide. It seems that now Google is escalating its analysis services as earlier this week Google had also started Google Analytics Premium as a paid service for comparatively larger website.

iPod Classic and iPod Shuffle : Soon to be dumped by Apple

iPod Classic

iPod Classic and iPod Shuffle are some very old iPod models launched by Apple which are dated now and have been superseded by the sleeker designs of the relatively newer models like iPod Nano and iPod Touch. This is the reason why Apple is supposed to stop production of these two old models from next week onwards.

iPod Shuffle

As per the assumptions, Apple has plans to announce this along with the release of iPhone5 next week. Though the sources are not authentic and completely unofficial but as per the report, the classic is a holdover from 10 years of iPod existence, bearing many similarities to the original iPod whereas the shuffle is basically the same form factor as the nano, minus a screen.

Moreover, this groundbreaking device in personal tech, credited with reinvigorating Apple a decade ago, the iPod line at present accounts for just about 7% of Apple's overall revenues. The iPhone and iPad, which offer music and video streaming along with lots of other features, have in some way trumped the iPod's usefulness. 

With the growing technology and the demand of iPhone and iPad in Apple's store, iPad is losing its space day by day. You may very soon see once very popular iPod completely out of market.

This is how Facebook is going to look after few weeks from now

Hi friends, this post is specially meant for all you facebook addicts. I know most of you are more than regular on facebook and here is a news on which you may tend to revolt. Yes, you guessed it right, this is about new features and changes in facebook.

I am sure all of you must have noticed by now some of such changes done in facebook recently, most significantly :

1. The new real-time "Ticker" at the top right of your Facebook profile.
2. The "Top Stories" that now appear at the top of your Facebook news feed

and lot others...

Facebook users globally reacted negatively to these changes just like most of my friends posted on their wall and even on some of the blogs. If you are one of these users, who is disappointed with these miniscule  changes in facebook interface, then here is a shocking news for you as facebook is about to transform its interface into a complete new design which will look similar to the snap here.

These changes are to be done within a weeks and the most surprising fact is that even 10% of the users of the most popular social networking site are not aware of this. Like most of my friends, i am sure you will also agree with the fact that all the new features launched by facebook are not useful and you would have disliked it. In this case, this may come out to be a freaking news for you.

So, what exactly are these big changes we are talking about? 

Facebook will change your entire profile page ,which should be optional for first few months most probably, so that you can get back to restore your profile to earlier design if you don't like the new one. Your Facebook profile will go from having one central column to two, with boxes of text, photos, videos and even maps of your favorite locations. Rather than just displaying your most recent activities, your profile will become a scrapbook documenting your entire life, all the way back to your birth. Facebook will become a record of your existence: All your memories, your victories and your defeats, your loves, your losses and everything in between. This is exactly what Facebook Timeline Profile is meant for. You'll add a big, new "Cover photo" to your page and waste a few hours preening your Timeline, choosing to feature your happiest memories, hide the inconsequential ones, and lingering awhile on the most bittersweet of moments. It will in turn put all your highs and lows on the profile and with time you will notice that your facebook says more than what you know of yourself.

So yes, you will be shocked and most probably you will even hate the new Facebook profile when it will be launched in the coming weeks. But as facebook developers claim, with time you may realize that Facebook has unleashed something so remarkable that you didn't even recognize it at first: A meaningful social network. And like any other groundbreaking technology, the PC, the smartphone, the iPad, you'll wonder why life wasn't always this way, and how you got by without it.

An amazing experince with a moral of anti-corruption

This is a great experience one of my friend had today which started day before on a traffic signal. Below here is the experience as stated by him :

Yesterday, on the way to office, I was stopped by traffic policemen, and asked to show relevant documents of my bike. I told them that -

1. pollution certificate has expired and 
2. Insurance copy that I was carrying is also outdated (although I have the renewed Insurance policy but was not carrying at that time). 

The senior Inspector told me to that this will reach to a heavy penalty amt. So he offered me to SETTLE DOWN the matter then n there. (A thought ran in my mind, asking myself: I was the part of people supporting "Anti-Corruption" movement lead by ANNA HAZARE, just a month back, and the practical situation was in front of me, n how to deal with that). Suddenly, I got my answer, and I refused them to pay anything, and asked them to issue a CHALLAN. Hence, they issued the same with 2 offenses viz. 

1. Expired Pollution and 
2. Expired Insurance and retained bike's RC (Registration Certificate). 

To pay the penalty I was to appear at Karkardooma Court (room no. 30) by 4pm today. So, I went there, at the scheduled time. The moment I parked my bike, a bunch of people called Agents approached me and started querying about the matter, and were assuring to do the job done in 15 min. and were telling me that for both the offenses I 'll be charged about Rs. 2000/-, and if I had the Insurance then Rs 1100/- at least, but they can settle the matter within 500-600 rupees (including their commission worth Rs. 100). From parking up to Room no. 30, some dozens of Agents approached me and delivered the same damn story. I told them "listen, If I were to pay You people then I would have paid the policemen and need not come here".

I submitted the copy of CHALLAN and waited for my turn in Room no. 30. The (Lady)Judge appeared in the court and began hearings... after 5-7 minutes my name was called and was asked to present the valid Insurance doc. I presented the Original doc. and in fraction of seconds she announced the PENALTY AMOUNT, paid the amount immediately, collected my RC and the Amount Receipt later after the rest of hearings. HMMM... I know, u all are interested in the Penalty Amount, to my SURPRISE!! as well, it came to just Rs 100/-, nothing else. I was getting a feeling of Satisfaction and Proud, in the sense that, ATLEAST I TRIED to live up to the Ideology of 'ANNA's Movement' against Corruption, in real sense.

MORAL: Never hesitate to approach the officials directly to resolve our personal matters. This way, we will get to know the actual rules n regulations and could contribute in removing CORRUPTION