There are lots of websites over the internet that offers free SMS(Short Messaging Service) or even anonymous SMS services. But you will be amazed to know that your all time favourite Social Networking website Facebook also offers free sms service. You can send free SMS all around the globe for free. There is a Facebook Application ChatSMS that provides this awesome feature. The limitation of this App is that you can send only 100 character long SMS.
Reliance entertainment, the firm responsible for destribution of SRK's lastest movie Don2
and one of the leading Internet service providers of India, has once
again blocked access to filesharing sites. They had done the same during
release of other bollywood movies like Singham and Bodygaurd.
These websites are confirmed to be blocked:
rapidshare, mediafire and filesonic.
This is what shows up when someone, connected through Reliance, tries to access filesonic.com: http://i.imgur.com/4Aw50.jpg
Being an ISP, they should understand that filesharing sites are not only
used to download pirated movies. They are of great importance to
students, officials and anyone else who wants to share files. Reliance seems to care only about it's own profit.
After social networking sites refused
government's request to censor contents, Sibal had warned them and said
that government will be addressing this issue in it's own way and here
we are. The websites have been dragged to court and you can see the
outcome.
New Delhi: In a major blow to 21 social networking websites including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and YouTube, a Delhi court on Saturday asked them to remove derogatory content by February 6, 2012.
The court went ahead and said that contents of such nature can trigger communal disputes, voilence against women and what not.
The court gave these orders despite the fact that all these websites have decent content policies which are accepted worldwide.
I can't even being to imagine how these websites are going to
filter/censor huge volumes of user generated content on blurred grounds
like religion and politics where it is hard to decide whether content is
objectionable or not.
Many a time, we have witnessed Google coming up with interesting
easter eggs. "Do a barrel roll" and "Let it snow" are the easter eggs
recently introduced by Google. But this time, Facebook has come up with
an innovative easter egg that lets users add profile photos in their
Facebook chat messages.
It's very simple! All the users need to do is put the
[[username]] into the chat message, send it and they will see the text
replaced with the profile image. Though the image appears is quite small
like an emoticon, but it's cool.
Here I explain you in detail that how you can do it:
1. Go to any profile page that you want to use as an emoticon in your Facebook chat.
2. Take a look at the URL. You will find the username or profile
ID at the end of the URL. For instance, if you will go to my profile,
the URL appear will be:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002597027407. However in some
cases, you will find the name instead of an ID number such as
http://www.facebook.com/Akhil.s07
3. Put the name or number in double brackets like
[[100002597027407]] in case of the first URL, and [[Akhil.s07]] for the
second URL
4. Enter the same into your Facebook Chat. When you will send it,
the bracketed number or letters will replaced with the profile image.
Now when you have understood it, what are you waiting for? Try it and share the new feature with your friends.
Airtel 2G PLAN in 3G SPEED
*******************************
*******************************
.
3g speed in airtel 2g plan with airtel network yes my dear friends,
Iam here to share a another working trick for airtel 3g speed in airtel
2g plan trick.
As I already told you iam going to give you a CHRISTMAS gift and here
is your gift new airtel 3g trick by which you can catch 3g speed
internet with airtel 3g network (note: you can catch 3g speed in 3g
network area only).
Catch 3g speed in airtel by using simple step.
1. buy a Rs.10 zabardast card net pack (125MB 2 DAYS VALIDITY)
2. Dial *101*16 digit pin # call button. DONE!!! (RECHARGE IN UMTS MODE)
.
NJOY 3G SPEED IN 2G PLAN!!!
.
100% working tested by me...
.
Rs.98 1 GB DATA FOR 1 MONTH
WORKING FOR ME.. (Try At Your Own Risk)
(Try and Tested in Kolkata)
just simply follow the 4 steps below and it will change almost like magic. Also, the things in RED are colored for importance.
1) Goto http://www.Routerlogin.com or whatever your router homepage is. The user name Admin and password should be Password by default. If not then on the bottom of your router it will tell you, on the white label. Anyhow, it should look like this once you visit your router homepage login.
3) if you have a Netgear router (like myself) you need to scroll down and then go too where it sais : Mac Address, (I know if you have a different router maker, you will have to click around stuff to find this) Also don't
worry this wont harm your router in any way shape or form. When you
have found the mac address part it will then have numbers and letters
like this 00:23:52:25:18:12 you can change the numbers and leters to anything you like but keep it within 12 Letters/numbers and you need to take the dots out.
4) We're almost done now. When you have chosen what numbers/letters you want as your Mac address, on your router(s) it will say Use This Mac Address make sure that box is ticked/marked or whatever the option it gives you. After you've done this you Need to click apply after the proccessing has done, Reset both your modem and router Then your mac address you put will be in that box and also your ip address would of changed. We can check this by going to http://www.ipchicken.com
The Android Developers blog announced that they are launching a beta of Android Training, “a collection of classes that we hope will help you to build better Android apps.”
As the battle between Android and iOS continues to expand and with Microsoft creeping up slowly behind them, the need for better
apps is high. It seems that everyone, even Microsoft, have enough apps.
Android is hoping to help developers build the best apps available
through this training.
With resources on topics ranging from Implementing Adaptive UI Flows to Advertising without Compromising User Experience,
Google hopes that by creating a collaborative atmosphere within their
platform, it will continue to paint Apple’s as obtuse and restrictive.
Whether that’s true or not is a question for developers themselves who
have worked with the various mobile platforms, but it’s the subtle
insinuation behind nearly everything that Google (and Microsoft) say
when discussing the differences between developing on their platform and
iOS.
Despite a massive Twitter campaign and a blog post that claims “Go Daddy no longer supports SOPA legislation” the company and their CEO have dodged questions
about opposing the bill. In essence, they are taking a lesser role by
not showing support for the bill. They have not opposed it.
This week, they lost around
72,000 domain registrations. At a yearly discounted rate of $6.99 (most
registrations are higher), that’s over half a million dollars per year.
It is apparently not enough for them to speak out against the bill.
How many domains is the company willing to lose before they oppose
this abomination of legislation? Do they believe that when they “step
back and let others take leadership roles” that we are going to see it
as something other than a “duck and cover” public relations move to try
to get out of the spotlight and hope someone else takes the brunt of the
attacks while they quietly support the bill?
Is 72,354 domains enough? Not even close. It’s a drop in the bucket.
The have anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 domains added daily. Despite
cries from the internet, yesterday was a good day with over 32,000
added. Go Daddy has not felt much pain yet. The “PR nightmare” that many
of us in the tech industry perceive is happening to them hasn’t hit
their pocketbooks in any real form, yet.
Until the effect is more pronounced, they can afford to deflect questions and let the negative PR pass. More must be done.
Facebook users will now see an advertisement on their news feed
everyday. Only most relevant ads will be displayed based on what
brands/pages you and your friends like or are connected to.
Have you wondered why Facebook is free and always will be ? These ads
are a major source of it's income so people should support them provided
that ads don't become too loud.
If implemented properly, ads could turn in enough money because facebook
has a huge userbase of 800 million people around the globe.
APN: airtelgprs.com
Proxy:85.31.186.21
Port: 80
Home Page:0.facebook.com
- This trick works at zero balance too and lets you enjoy resume supported downloads.
** Tested **
How to send messages to all guests in Facebook events... Facebook Trick
On Facebook sometimes people need to send any information or messages
in bulk,like many time when anyone organize any event and change the
place or timing etc., then they need to inform all guests, and if you
do it by message sending feature available on Facebook then you can
add only 20 people at most at a time, which is also very annoying and
time consuming.
Now i am gonna tell about a very simple trick, by which you can send
messages to hundreds of thousands of people just in one time.
This trick uses the event invitation feature, though some times before
you can free to send mass messages to all guests, but sometimes before
facebook has changed some settings and now you can only send updates
(not inbox message) that shows to the guest under 'updates' section of
'messages'.. about which people dont get any notification and they dont
look at it generally.
So here is a trick by which u can send your messages in inbox to all guests :)
Follow the process to send bulk messages on Facebook :
1. Create a Facebook Event
2. Invite Hundreds of thousands of guests.
3. Now for send ing message to all guests, login into mobile version of facebook through link m.facebook.com
4. Now go to More> Events as shown in image
5. Now open event you created and go down, Now under section 'send message to' choose 'all' if u want to send message to all guests, or you can choose any one from 'Attending / may be attending / not attending'.
and compose your message and send it.
Now your all guests will receive your message in their inbox with message notification at their FB home page :)
Facebook's
new Timeline has a profile cover feature, to which you can upload some
cover photos for your profile. Using this feature you can make your
profile even creative and more impressive. Taking inspiration from some
creative cover photos, i tried to do something similar, and after lots
of effort i managed to do it. Here in this article i will tell you the
way to make a creative photo cover for your profile.
First, Have a look on some creative cover photos i found from web:
Here first picture can be created easily, as it has just 2 different
pictures in profile photo and cover photo, but last two needs some
tricky work. Read the steps below to know how you can do it:
1. Select the photo you want to upload as cover, and resize it into a picture of size 853 pixels in width. 2. Now cut this picture into the following manner...
Note:-
From the picture you can see, cover photo should be of size 853 * 315
pixels, so you can directly cut it in this size without cutting the
profile photo.
2. Now resize the part you cut for profile photo into size 193 * 180 pixel, because Facebook does not accept profile picture of size less than 180 pixels in width.
3. Now you can upload both profile photo and cover photo on ur FB profile.
In my profile, i cut profile picture of size 124 * 87 from above
picture, and used white part for remaining 46 pixels, see the screenshot
of the cover i got.
Did you notice the white part in profile picture? so this way you can pretend to have only one picture on your FB profile.
In 2010, Samsung came to the market in a big way with the Galaxy S series
of devices. All products that wore this badge featured similar specs: a
4.0" Super AMOLED display powered by a 1GHz Hummingbird CPU with 512MB
of RAM. We saw the Galaxy S as the Verizon Fascinate, Samsung Captivate,
and many others. In 2011, Samsung is unleashing its next-generation
Galaxy S Android smartphone, to be known as the Galaxy S 2, which is
powered by a rocket-fast 1.2GHz Exynos CPU coupled with 1GB of RAM.
They've also bumped the screen size to a full 4.3 inches, all while
reducing the thickness of the phone dramatically: at about 8.4mm, the
Galaxy S 2 is the thinnest smartphone on the planet right now. Read our
full review of the hot new Samsung Galaxy S 2 below.
BOX CONTENTS
The Samsung Galaxy S 2 ships with high-quality earbud headphones, a
charging cable, and wall plug. Since the device comes with 16GB of
on-board microSD storage, there is no microSD card included.
HARDWARE
The Galaxy S 2 looks good not only on paper, but it looks good in
general. In terms of specs, you'll find a 4.3" WVGA (800x480) Super
AMOLED Plus display. Unfortunately, we don't get the qHD (960x540)
screen now shipping on other high-end Android smartphones. Powering the
device is an impressive 1.2GHz Samsung Exynos dual-core CPU, supported
by 1GB of RAM and around 15GB of on-board storage. The Galaxy S 2
supports Wi-Fi (b, g, n), Bluetooth 3.0, FM radio, and can do quadband
GSM and UMTS (850/900/1900/2100) along with support for HSPA+ up to
21Mbps. In terms of sensors, the handset has the following: light,
proximity, gyroscope, plus it has an accelerometer. There's also an NFC
chip inside. For imaging, there is a 2MP front-facing camera which
cannot take video (but can obviously be used with video chat apps), and a
rear 8MP camera with flash that can record 1080p video. You can output
1080p video to a television or projector with the HDTV Adapter, which is
not yet on sale. Powering the device is a 1650mAh battery.
The Galaxy S 2 is a beautiful phone, it really is. The facade is
characterized by a large piece of Gorilla Glass for the 4.3" WVGA Super
AMOLED Plus display. From this front view you can see the 2MP camera and
the proximity and light sensors. There's a single button on the front
of the device, which takes you back to the homescreen with a single tap,
and with a double tap, it will launch the voice command app. Though you
can't see them when not illuminated, there are back and menu buttons to
the right and left (respectively) of the home button. It's nice to have
a dedicated home hardware button on Android phone. You can also use
this button to take the phone out of standby.
The screen is gorgeous. In our tests, the Super AMOLED Plus doesn't
seem to be dramatically better than the Super AMOLED, but Samsung
already had a good thing going with Super AMOLED. Color saturation is
well-balanced, outdoor screen visibility is great, and contrast is
incredible.
The Galaxy S 2 is the thinnest smartphone we've ever tested, period.
On top is the 3.5mm headphone jack next to a secondary microphone
which is used for noise cancellation. Noise cancellation only works when
not on the speakerphone.
In our tests, the noise cancellation did indeed work well, though when
active (meaning, when there is a lot of background noise detected), the
caller on the end reported vocal quality becoming a bit metallic.
And on the bottom we have microUSB for syncing and charging.
On the right side we have the power/standby button.
And on the left side, we have the volume rocker.
On the back of the device we can see the 8MP camera sensor with an LED flash. The back battery cover
is a thin piece of plastic, and it has a nice texture on it to provide a
secure in-hand feel. Also back here you can see the single speaker,
which is plenty loud and provides a great speakerphone experience.
Behind the battery cover is the 1650mAh battery, microSD slot (which you must remove the battery to access), and SIM card slot.
Web browsing on the Galaxy S 2 is a fantastic experience. In fact, the Galaxy S 2 smokes all other devices in speed tests on the web.
SOFTWARE
All new to the Galaxy S 2 is TouchWiz 4.0. TouchWiz is a custom
Android interface that is similar to HTC Sense and Motorola Blur, in
that it impacts almost every aspect of the operating system. If you
don't like TouchWiz, you can install a third-party launcher like LauncherPro or ADW Launcher,
but certain parts of the operating system will always have the TouchWiz
look and feel (like email, the browser, the notification tray, etc)
unless you install a custom ROM.
For the homescreen, you get a choice of up to seven panels, or you
can have as few as one. Adding and subtracting homescreens can be done
with the zoomed-out view, accessible by a pinch gesture on the
homescreen. Samsung has added a variety of its own high-quality widgets,
many of which are resizable. Widgets include weather, analog and
digital clocks, calendar, note pad, task manager, and much more. Samsung
has also spruced up the interface for adding widgets. Instead of a
vertically-scrolling list of widgets, you get a horizontally-scrolling
list on the bottom of the screen. This is a nice touch, but it makes it a
bit slower to find a given widget, since you can only see four at once.
There's also a handy gesture that uses the gyroscope to help you
position widgets more precisely. This gesture is demonstrated in the
video above.
The application tray is part of the TouchWiz 4.0 interface as well.
You can add or remove pages, which scroll horizontally. You can also
move icons from one page to another, which makes it easy to set one page
for your games, one for your multimedia, and so on. You can even add
folders to the pages, which is a nice touch, and a great way to keep
your application tray as minimal as possible.
Beyond the homescreen and application tray, you'll also find
TouchWiz 4.0 in the notification shade, in the settings, and in all of
the stock applications. In the case of the notification shade, Samsung
has added quick access to WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, sound, and screen
rotation switches. In the settings, it's colorized the entries and added
additional options to control certain motion gestures. Then, in the
stock applications, we see various aspects of TouchWiz show up in the
dialer (which, thankfully, has smart-dial), email (which sadly lacks the
ability to multi-select messages), calendar, contacts, browser, and FM
radio.
Then, there are a handful of interesting built-in apps that make the
Galaxy S 2 a more well-rounded device. Here's a survey of the in-built
apps of note:
1. Reader hub: allows you to access newspapers, magazines (through Zinio), and books (through Kobo).
2. Music hub: powered by 7Digital, this music store has a vast selection of music that you can purchase.
3. Games hub: a simple games suggestion engine that links you to trials of games, many of which require huge 200mb+ downloads.
4. Voice command: powered by Vlingo, the voice command app lets you
perform a wide variety of device functions with your voice. You can even
post an update to Twitter or Facebook without opening either app.
5. Kies Air: allows you to remotely manage your phone through a web
browser. You must be on a local wireless network for this to work. From
Kies Air you can manage your bookmarks, ringtones, photos, videos and
more. It's super easy to use and set up.
6. Photo editor/Video maker: these apps allow you to edit photos, plus make short movies with music and effects, respectively.
CAMERA
Photos taken with the 8MP of the Galaxy S 2 looked fantastic. Colors
were accurate, contrast was great, and the pictures were sharp. The
only trouble we detected was some over-exposure during our outdoor test
shot in the bottom right picture above.
The Galaxy S 2 is among the small number of smartphones that can
record video in full 1080p. Above are two samples, one taken indoors,
and one outdoors. As you can see, the sharpness of both videos is quite
high, and the color saturation is very good. What's not so good is the
framerate. Turning the video quality to 720p improved the framerate.
PERFORMANCE
While the Galaxy S 2 is one of the best-performing smartphones we've
ever tested, we did run into some trouble. For example, pressing the
home button often resulted in a 1-2 second display before the homescreen
appeared. Then, once on the homescreen, some widgets had trouble
redrawing. This was easily fixed with a third party launcher, confirming
our suspicion that TouchWiz 4.0 on the homescreen is a bit resource
intensive.
The copious amount of RAM on the Galaxy S 2, a full 1GB (only about
833MB is accessible) means that many programs can stay in memory at
once. While the phone has a great task manager, we seldom found
ourselves having to worry about memory management, since at any given
time, at least a third of the RAM was available.
Beyond that, web browsing was ridiculously fast, installing applications was particularly speedy, and opening most apps provided near-instant access.
Quadrant: 3152
Smartbench 2011: Productivity 3679, 2343 Games
LinPack Pro: 47.85 MFLOP, 1.75 Seconds
CALL QUALITY/NETWORK SPEED
We tested the Galaxy S 2 over AT&T's network. Call quality was
outstanding, and we experienced no dropped calls. Data speeds were also
quite impressive, especially while over HSPA+ (which we found in
Washington D.C.). Our fastest speeds clocked in at 5-6Mbps down, and
about 1.5Mbps up. On average, over HSDPA, we clocked about 2Mbps down
and 1Mbps up.
BATTERY LIFE
Two processors means a lot of battery drain. The Galaxy S 2 has an
impressive 1650mAh battery, but we wish it were bigger. With heavy use,
you'll barely get through a day. With moderate use, expect to charge by
the next morning on the second day. This puts the Galaxy S 2 a bit below
average in terms of battery life.
But what's unique about the Galaxy S 2, and all Galaxy S devices, is
that the backlight can be turned down very low without impacting screen
readability as much as you'd expect on an LCD. We found that by turning
off automatic screen brightness and setting the slider to about 1/8, we
were able to increase battery life
by 30-40%. Not bad. Turning off automatic screen brightness also means
that the screen becomes less visible outdoors, but it's still readable.
PURCHASING AND AVAILABILITY
The Samsung Galaxy S 2 can be purchased for £440 (that's around $720) over at Clove.
PROS
+ Extremely thin and light
+ Gorgeous Super AMOLED Plus screen
+ Blazing fast performance with dual-core Exynos
+ Super-fast web browsing
+ Records full 1080p video
+ Fantastic photo quality
+ Has 16GB of built-in storage
+ Loud, clear speakerphone
+ Top-notch call quality
+ Supports HSPA+ on AT&T
+ TouchWiz 4.0 has a lot of goodies
CONS
- Battery life is below average (can be rectified by overriding automatic brightness)
- Screen resolution is only WVGA
- Annoying "charge complete" sound can't be turned off
- TouchWiz 4.0 feels slower than stock Android
- Email app doesn't allow for multi-select
REVIEW CONCLUSION
Seldom do we rate a phone a full 5/5, but the Galaxy S II is one of
the most advanced, well-rounded, and powerful smartphones we've ever
tested. Samsung truly delivered on its second-generation Galaxy S. We
can't get over how thin the Galaxy S II is, and it's a true joy to be
able to browse the web with such smoothness and speed.
There certainly is room for improvement here. Samsung ought to work
on making TouchWiz as lean as possible, and it'd be nice to turn it off
entirely and revert back to stock Android for maximum speed. We also
wonder whose idea it was to have the device make a beep when the battery
is fully charged...if you like waking up at 3AM, this won't be a
problem for you, but for those of us that like to sleep soundly, it's a
big annoyance.
1. Search "let it snow" on Google, snow flakes will falling from the top of the screen 2. Search "tilt" or "askew", the web page will tilt 3. Search "do a barrel roll" 4. Search "Google gravity", click the first search result 5. Type "Red search", "Blur Search","Yellow Search", click I'm feeling lucky.
Microsoft has had plenty of successes in 2011, from record-breaking
sales for Kinect and Xbox to the positive reaction to Nokia's Windows
Phone.
Windows 7 and Office are still selling well, Bing has
managed some moderate increases in market share, especially in the US,
and the departures of big names like Ray Ozzie and Robbie Bach haven't
caused any ripples.
For the second year in a row, everyone is taking Microsoft seriously.
But
when you do well, you have to do even better next time and 2012 could
be a challenging year. Microsoft has to ship - and sell - Windows 8
(especially on tablets), Windows Phone has to compete with whatever
Apple and Google can come up with next, IE10 has to keep up with Chrome
and whatever ridiculous number Firefox gets up to and Microsoft still
needs to impress users with its cloud services.
Xbox is still
going strong and Kinect could revitalise the market for PCs that aren't
all about being as thin and light as a MacBook Air but can Microsoft
pull it all together?
Windows Phone 8
There
are plenty of Windows Phone 7.5 launches still to come next year,
especially for the US market, building on Nokia's momentum with the
Lumia 800 – and bringing Skype to the phone. Back at the MIX conference
in April corporate vice president Joe Belfiore said Skype would be on
the platform "this fall" along with the Mango update.
Unless it
squeezes out before Christmas like Lync for Windows Phone, SkyDrive for
Windows Phone and iOS, and OneNote for iPad, we're expecting to see
Skype for Windows Phone at CES 2012. SKYPE EVENTUALLY:Promised for Windows Phone this autumn, maybe we'll see it at CES
The
bigger news is the two new versions of Windows Phone expected next
year; the Tango update that brings Windows Phone to cheaper handsets for
developing countries (and anyone who won't switch away from their
feature phone until smartphones are just as cheap) and the more
interesting Apollo, which will have improvements in the grahics APIs, in
Bluetooth and is when we'll probably see NFC.
Apollo, or Windows
Phone 8, is what Microsoft mysteriously calls 'common core'; we think
that means key programming frameworks from Windows 8 coming to the phone
rather than the Windows 8 kernel and we certainly don't think it means
throwing away all the Windows Phone 7 apps.
We should get more
details on both at Mobile World Congress in February and we expect to
see Tango in the spring and Apollo, with IE10 included, by next
November.
Windows 8 – and IE 10
The beta
of Windows 8 is due a little later than we'd expected; we expect
Microsoft to tell us more about what's getting updated during CES but
the beta (which will have new features in) will be available in late
February, along with the beta of the Windows 8 Store.
That still
leaves time for a release candidate and the final release for the
autumn; Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs has suggested the launch will be soon
after September (so we might see the second service pack for Windows 7
first).
That's when we'll see the final version of IE 10 as well
for Windows 7 as well as Windows 8 (and yes, it will have spell checking
on Windows 7); "We will release an IE 10 Beta and Release Candidate on
Windows 7 prior to IE10's general availability," the IE team said on the
official blog. That's a lot longer than the 12 months it took to create
and release IE 9. WINDOWS 8 BETA: Don't worry, the beta won't be this green
The
autumn is also late for Windows tablets; by then they'll be competing
with iPad 3 and BlackBerry 10 tabs and it's possible Google will have Android Jelly Bean
out by the end of next year too. Microsoft obviouslydoesn'tthink it's
too late to bring out a tablet but there's certainly a sense of urgency.
Windows
Phone president Andy Lees has just taken a sideways step to handle what
Steve Ballmer calls "a time-critical opportunity focused on driving
maximum impact in 2012 with Windows Phone and Windows 8". We think that
means making sure Windows 8 ARM tablets come out on time, work well and
don't cause confusion for Windows Phone handsets – especially with
Apollo's Windows 8 connection.
Microsoft isn't thinking about
Windows 8 as an update that makes the way you use a PC today a little
better; this is the operating system the Windows team hope you'll be
using for a decade, the way you did Windows XP. Tablets matter but we're
expecting to see Microsoft push some exciting new PC ideas too.
Kinect comes to PC
The rumours about the next Xbox
are wilder than ever, including a faster connector for a new Kinect
that could be sensitive enough to detect the expression on your face –
or read your lips.
What we do know is that the PC version of
Kinect (launching in "early 2012") is optimised for recognising things
that are closer to the screen – like your hands rather than your whole
body. That means you can gesture at the screen with your fingers.
So
while the idea of TVs from Vizio and Sony with Kinect built in as a
remote control is attractive, it's much more plausible that those
rumours are actually about monitors for your PC that have Kinect in. The
TV market is all about low prices and we don't see TV makers lining up
to add a pricey sensor. But a Kinect screen could be the same price as a
touch screen monitor – and the perfect match for Windows 8.
Think
about it; waving at the Metro Start screen deals with all those
complaints about fingerprints and gives you a natural interface that is
perfectly suited to a screen you want further away than a tablet or
laptop.
It also builds in a microphone for voice control –
something Windows already has but hardly anyone uses; expect a Windows
version of TellMe to compete with the rumoured Siri-controlled Apple TV.
But
when you add Kinect to a screen, you get more than gestures; you get a
PC that knows when you're sitting in front of it and which way you're
looking. That could lock the screen when you walk away; it can also make
video calls look more realistic by adjusting the image to the right
perspective.
Steven Bathiche who runs the Applied Sciences group
at Microsoft wants to use a Kinect-enabled screen with a Wedge lens
(made by a company Microsoft has recently bought) to give you 3D images
without glasses, by detecting where your eyes are and steering the beam
of light towards them. That could be a 3D TV – or a 3D Xbox screen…
Silverlight 6
Even if we never see Silverlight 6, rumours of Silverlight's demise are almost certainly exaggerated. The newly announced support policy for Silverlightpromises
updates for the browsers Silverlight 5 works with today (including
Safari, Firefox and Chrome) and hints at support "as browsers evolve".
More
importantly, the technology behind Silverlight will continue to be key
for building Windows Phone apps, Silverlight is making its way to Xbox -
and it's a key part of Windows 8 as one of the ways to build
Metro-style apps using WinRT (which is an almost exact superset of
current Silverlight features).
Using the XAML markup language,
developing in C# and VB.NET on a subset of the .NET runtime, running in a
secure sandbox and distributing apps using HTTP rather than an
installer; the key principles of Silverlight will all still be there,
whatever the technology is called.
The question is really whether
there will be another browser plugin called Silverlight. In the long
term, Microsoft is moving away from plugins; Andy Lees hinted at this
last year when he explained to TechRadar that one reason the Windows
Phone browser doesn't have Flash or Silverlight plugins is that
"browsers are going to a different extensibility model" and it's even
clearer in the plugin-free Metro version of IE10.
As HTML gets
more capable, there will be fewer things you need a plugin for - but as
long as those things include playing DRM video served by major
broadcasters using Microsoft's streaming media server technology,
Microsoft will be doing the engineering work to make that happen and
delivering a plugin to build on that makes sense.
Office, Live and SkyDrive
A new version of Windows means a new version of Officeand
while there are rumours that the beta of Office 2012 will be ready at
the end of January it's more likely that we'll see it around the same
time as the Windows 8 beta.
The leaked build from Microsoft Russia
we saw in August had a cleaner look that matches the Metro-influenced
look of desktop apps like the Windows 8 Task Manager, but there will
also be Metro versions of key Office apps. The Moorea app for creating
HTML pages on a tiled grid that's in the leaked build might be a hint at
the type of Metro interface we'll see.
Certainly the Office Metro apps will have to stand out from the Mail, Calendar, People, and Messaging Windows Live Metro appsthat
were previewed at the Build conference (they'd be the ideal apps to try
out from the beta of the Windows Store and we expect to see them with
the Windows 8 beta). SKYDRIVE: It'll be everywhere - out for Windows Phone and iPhone first
Live
is going to get more social network features, although it's more about
being what the Microsoft job adverts call a "one-stop-shop for users to
connect with friends and all their social network" than competing with
Google+ and Facebook; this may be where odd social network projects from
the research lab in Boston (like Spindex and socl.com) fit in.
And SkyDrive ("your cloud store for anywhere access to your data") is coming to Xbox according to this job advertwhich talks about IEB as well as Windows and Phone. METRO OFFICE: Could Moorea be the new Office look?
Microsoft
is betting on Windows 8 – Steve Ballmer famously called it the
company's biggest bet – but it's backing that bet up with cloud services
that will be available on more and more platforms. It's going to be
another busy year.
If you wanted a stylishly light and powerful Toshiba laptop, you would immediately look to the Japanese company's Portege R830. That is, until you came across the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U, priced at £999 in the UK (the US price isn't yet available).
Toshiba's shiny entry into the ultrabook market will go up against the likes of the Acer Aspire S3 and the Asus Zenbook UX21.
These super light and thin laptops are already among us, and are aiming to take some of the limelight away from the Apple MacBook Air. Helped by chip manufacturer Intel, which laid out very specific price and performance requirements for manufacturers, the Ultrabook is set to become a common sight in 2012.
At
its thickest point, the Satellite Z830-10U measures only 16mm across,
but Toshiba has still packed in Sandy Bridge power and given us one of
the best trackpads we've yet seen on an ultrabook. It's not without
niggles, however, and we found parts of the chassis to be inferior to
stronger machines such as the Asus Zenbook and the MacBook Air.
The
13.3-inch Satellite Z830-10U is truly an ultrabook for the road. Giving
us not only the lightest chassis we've yet seen, but also an excellent
battery life, this could be the answer for frequent travellers who need a
long-lasting machine full of performance for under £1,000.
Although
this has the same 128GB solid state drive (SSD) that we've seen
elsewhere, it offers better connectivity than other ultrabooks currently
on the market. In what could quickly become its main selling point, the
Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U gives you three USB ports, of which one is
USB 3.0, and an Ethernet connection - the only ultrabook to do so.
We
enjoyed our time with the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U and looked past a
couple of irritating points to find that it is certainly one of the
ultrabooks you should be considering.
It sits alongside cheaper brother the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10T, which costs £899 in the UK or $849 in the US, while Toshiba's Portégé Z830 offers another ultrabook choice.
Specifications
While
the outward appearance of the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U might not
stray far from the ultrabook mould, that's no bad thing. Ultrabooks look
sexy, and you can tell one just by looking at it.
At 16mm wide, it's only slightly thicker than the Acer Aspire S3 and the Asus Zenbook,
but it weighs a light and airy 1.1kg. Toshiba has opted for a muted
silver brushed aluminium finish and a solid black isolation-style
keyboard.
Unfortunately, the chassis isn't anywhere near as firm as the Asus Zenbook UX31
or the Lenovo Ideapad U400, and we found there was some pretty obvious
flex on the screen and around the keyboard. While this adversely affects
the build quality in our opinion, it's difficult to fault the machine's
build too much when it weighs so much less than the other ultrabooks.
Toshiba
has shunned any kind of reflective coating for the Toshiba Satellite
Z830-10U's 13.3-inch screen. The trade-off is a slight lack of richness
when watching a movie or looking at pictures. It's not a major cause for
concern, though, as the 1366 x 768 pixel resolution is still detailed
enough to play 720p high definition movies.
The keyboard fares
much better, however, and feels both strong and spacious. It was also
reassuring to find function and arrow keys that haven't been squashed
into the corners of the chassis. But special mention must go to the
touchpad, which has a slightly tougher texture than the rest of the
chassis and is extremely responsive. You also have two solid click
buttons beneath that are firm and expertly weighted.
Where the
Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U can also lay some serious kudos down is on
the speaker side. Twin vents at the front of the laptop give stereo
sound, backed up with a subwoofer underneath the chassis. This produces a
rounded sound which is bolstered by the impressive volume you can get
from this laptop if you push the dial up.
One of the big selling points of the Asus Zenbook was the integrated speakers, and we feel the Toshiba is certainly able to keep up here.
Connectivity
on the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U is a real highlight, and Toshiba has
included several ports on the back of the laptop - a distribution choice
that has fallen out of favour recently. This gives you three USB ports,
one of which is the newer USB 3.0 connection.
This is one more USB port than both the Acer Aspire S3 and the Asus Zenbook can offer, and the Satellite Z830-10U is also the only ultrabook we've seen that boasts an Ethernet port.
If
you want to extend the display, you can use the VGA or HDMI ports to
hook the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U up to an HD TV or external monitor.
Performance
Cinebench: 7,039 3D Mark '06: 3,988 Batter Eater: 205 minutes
The
Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U is the more advanced ultrabook of the two
Satellite Z830s that Toshiba has produced, boasting an Intel Core i5
CPU, 6GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD hard drive.
The second model, the
Toshiba Satellite Z830-10T, manages a Core i3 CPU and 4GB of RAM with
the same 128GB SSD, but is £100 cheaper, at £899. The difference is
negligible, but opting for the 10U will afford you that extra level of
future-proofing, especially given the silhouette of Intel's next
generation Ivy Bridge processors beginning to form on the horizon.
Performance
shows here, and the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U can proudly take its
place in the ultrabook ranks. We timed starting up from sleep mode to
Windows at seven seconds, and from total shutdown at 25 seconds, which
is well within Intel's specifications for ultrabook status.
The extra RAM keeps the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system on its toes, and multiple applications running at once.
Although the Sandy Bridge CPU has a built-in graphics rendering chip - the Intel HD 3000 - it's not quite up to Battlefield 3
levels of visual mastery. You'll be able to use the Toshiba Satellite
Z830-10U for some light gaming or working on Photoshop or Dreamweaver,
but the most recent games and editing suites will struggle.
However,
one sour point of using the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U is Toshiba's
insistence on including bloatware from the get-go. A couple of antivirus
samples, some music and games programs, Toshiba warranty registration
and BBC iPlayer, Skype and Ebay apps all contribute to a cluttered
start-up that users can easily do without.
Of
course, part of the appeal of the ultrabook is the portability, and
this wouldn't be the case without an impressive battery life. Thankfully
the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U will keep you going through an entire
day at the office.
Toshiba quotes an eight hour battery life, and
our own extreme stress tests, involving a battery draining program and
looped high definition video, gave us a respectable score of 205
minutes. We're pretty confident that the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U
would be able to survive a full day of real-world usage on just the
battery.
You know all about the best gadgets of 2011. You probably own quite a few of them, and you'll still be paying for them well into 2013.
But what about the numerous duffers?
What
about the products that promised a revolution, talked the talk,
appearing looking exciting in advert breaks during the football, but in
the end only delivered a whimpering lump of nothing good only for your
friendly local landfill site?
We like to be inclusive here at TechRadar, so here are the losers of 2011.
The
biggest letdowns in tech of the last 12 months, the products that ought
to be recalled not for safety purposes, but to preserve the reputations
of the manufacturers involved.
If you get any of these for
Christmas, it's a signal that not only does Santa Claus not exist, but
also the person or people in your life acting on his behalf don't like
you enough to carry out even the most cursory piece of research into
products before buying.
1. Pentax Q
Pentax
created a stylish and slim case for its mirrorless interchangeable lens
debut, but the resulting images were barely above what you'd expect a
decent digital compact to produce. And the Pentax Q costs twice as much as a quality compact. So it's half as good. Or twice as bad, however the maths of the situation works out.
2. ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro
You'd
think it was the messiah. Windows and Android in one convenient,
fashionable touchscreen tablet! But no. It weighs (almost) a tonne,
Windows 7 isn't ideal on a touchscreen and the Android implementation -
through a virtual app - is patchy and prone to errors and runs poorly.
The ViewPad 10Pro was a master of no trades at all. Don't believe the bullet points on the box.
3. Siri
It all looked very exciting and futuristic in the Apple launch announcement, but when Siri arrived
on the iPhone 4S there was something... not quite right. Apple hadn't
signed up a local business data partner for the UK, so a rather large
chunk of the personal assistant's brain was left empty. The partially
lobotomised UK Siri was therefore a bit of a disappointment. Just like
every voice-controlled thing there has ever been.
4. Toshiba AT100
Toshiba took a place on last year's worst gadgets list with its appalling, half-broken Folio Android tablet and it's back once again with the AT100.
Released in the US as the Thrive, Toshiba's tablet was at least a step
up over the Folio, but it still managed to be bigger, bulkier, slower
and more expensive than the numerous other Android tablets it was up
against. Better luck in 2012, Tosh.
5. Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman review
Odd
to see Sony Ericsson launching a cheap Walkman-branded phone powered by
its Java-based OS in 2011, what with the Xperia Android range doing
such a great job. The Mix Walkman
therefore seems like a throwback to the middle of the last decade,
further marginalised by a collection of bugs that made the phone reboot
itself at random. Not all mobile phones are smart.
6. HTC EVO 3D
The
novelty 3D display works, no doubt about that, but the rest of the
package is very underwhelming. The inclusion of two cameras makes the EVO 3D
one of the biggest, fattest and heaviest smartphones around. It's one
for the coat pocket only. HTC is the master of Android, though, making
the EVO 3D an excellent performer in terms of smart features - but the
huge price premium and bulky case mean smartphone fans would be better
off with... any one of around 50 other Android phones released in 2011.
7. Lenovo IdeaPad K1
How can you go wrong with a 10" Tegra 2 Android tablet? Well, in Lenovo's case, you can mess the IdeaPad K1
up by putting in a dark screen, temperamental buttons, software that
regularly crashes and locks up, and then wrap it all up in a case that's
bigger and less attractive than the competition. Textbook technological
underachievement.
8. Sony VAIO C Series
The latest update of the VAIO C Series
looks the part, with a great screen and solid build. But for around
£700, you need more than two hours of battery life when running a word
processor without Wi-Fi. And only managing an hour of uptime while under
heavy load renders it about as useful on a long journey as carrying a
luminous green paving slab in your manbag.
9. Samsung Chromebook Series 5
The
hardware is great on the outside - a typically lightweight and
well-balanced Samsung chassis with a nicely sized 12.1" screen. The
problem with the Samsung Chromebook Series 5
is on the inside. The Atom processor regularly struggles with many
simple tasks, while the Google OS simply isn't yet advanced enough to
take the place of a laptop or even the skimpiest of budget netbooks,
offering very poor media playback support. At half the price it might
battle the netbooks, but there are thousands of WIndows notebooks out
there doing everything better for this kind of money.
10. Microsoft Touch Mouse
A bit of a disaster for Microsoft, this one. The Touch Mouse
is unresponsive and vague, which is the last thing you want in a mouse -
especially one sold on its touch sensitive nature. You have to press so
hard to make it register your touches that you can't help but fantasise
about the reliable old microswitch, as you sit there accidentally
reorganising your desktop thanks to the clumsy controls.
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