Mobile Roadmap-2012

Mobile computing, consisting of smartphones and tablets, has been the most exciting part of the computing landscape for the past several years and that promises to remain true in 2012. In fact, you could argue smartphones have replaced traditional PCs as the center of the technology market since smartphone sales overtook PC sales this year (even though the PC market continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace).

The past few years have seen some truly revolutionary steps: the acceptance of the smartphone, the introduction of the iPad and Android-based consumer tablets, and the introduction of LTE. Nonetheless, 2012 foreshadows more evolution.

Operating Systems
Mobile operating systems have truly defined smartphones and tablets recently, and that's likely to stay the same. The first big change for next year should be the introduction of many more phones and tablets that run Android 4.0, known as Ice Cream Sandwich. The first phone based on this technology, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, is already out (here's my take), and a number of vendors have said some of their existing models will be upgraded to the new OS shortly. But 2012 is likely to see dozens of new phones and tablets all designed to run Android 4.0.

Microsoft's 2012 roadmap is also getting a lot of attention. For tablets, the company will push Windows 8, running on both traditional x86-based computers and on systems based on chips from ARM-based vendors Nvidia, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm. Although it will run on desktops and traditional notebooks as well, Windows 8 seems very much optimized for tablets. For phones, we haven't seen many details yet, but Microsoft—which just shipped Windows Phone 7.5, known as Mango in October—is working on Windows Phone 8, called Apollo, for the later part of 2012. It may well have an interim release in between. The other OS vendors will be upgrading their systems, as well.

Research In Motion has promised a February update for its PlayBook tablet OS. That should include native email messaging and calendar clients. In the later part of 2012, RIM has promised a new OS, called BlackBerry OS 10, which combines features from the QNX-based PlayBook OS with the traditional BlackBerry ones. One particularly interesting feature promised is a "Player" that will allow some Android applications to run on BlackBerrys.

And finally, there's Apple, which, as usual, has remained very tight-lipped about its plans. The latest version of its mobile OS, iOS 5, shipped just this fall, so it would be surprising to see a major revision any time soon.

Networks and Screens
Verizon rolled out its 4G LTE service this year on a variety of phones and says its service now reaches over 186 million Americans. AT&T is in the process of rolling out its service and recently released its first LTE phones. Sprint, which has backed Wimax for 4G until now, has said it will be launching LTE in mid-2012. U.S. Cellular is also planning an LTE rollout. Of the major carriers, that leaves T-Mobile, which is promoting its HSPA+ network as 4G, as the only one without an LTE strategy.

As a result, we're likely to see a lot more LTE devices next year. So far, just about all the LTE phones and tablets run Android, but Nokia has promised an LTE Windows Phone in 2012 and other makers seem likely to follow. BlackBerry is expected to get LTE support with the BlackBerry 10 OS. Apple isn't talking, but everyone assumes LTE support is coming next year, as well.

Over the past few years, led by the iPhone 4's retina display, almost all smartphones have dramatically increased their screen resolutions. While tablets often have a higher resolution display, it is spread over a larger area so the pixel density has been notably less. In 2012, I expect many of the screen makers, and thus many of the tablet makers, to offer higher-density displays, both from traditional LCDs and Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) screens.

Mobile Chips

Until a few years ago, no one outside of the industry cared which processors were running our mobile devices. Now, that has changed. Processors are routinely used to differentiate phones and tablets.
The vast majority of these devices run some version of the ARM architecture and the various makers of ARM-based chips compete, updating the number of cores, increasing performance and power efficiency, and enhancing integration.

Just about all of the major mobile chip vendors now have dual-core processors, but Nvidia has taken multi-processing to a new level. Its Tegra 3 chip, known as Kal-El, has four standard ARM Cortex-A9 cores plus an additional "companion core" that runs at low-power when the more powerful chips aren't needed. The Asus Transformer Prime pioneers the chip but Nvidia has said it expects new tablets and phones with Tegra 3 and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to be out in the first quarter of 2012.

The advantage of this chip, Nvidia said, is that it allows higher-performance games and 1080p playback, all while using notably less power than its previous Tegra 2 dual-core processor. Sometime next year, the company plans an improved version known as "Tegra 3+," followed by a major upgrade known as "Wayne" in the second half of the year and a version with an integrated baseband processor known as "Grey" in 2013.
Next year, Qualcomm will introduce its Snapdragon S4 line. It will use a CPU core known as Krait, which combines the baseband processor (for controlling the radio) with the applications processor on a 28nm process and will also feature its Adreno graphics. This should include such things as integrated LTE support and lower power usage, along with notably higher performance. These will be dual-core processors with integrated basebands; Qualcomm will also offer a quad-core S4 application processor with no baseband for tablets and other mobile computing devices.

Texas Instruments' OMAP4 line has been chosen as the initial processor for the first Android 4.0 devices, as well as the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, and has a big change planned for next year's OMAP5. This chip uses a new core from ARM called the Cortex-A15, which allows for 40-bit instructions (versus 32 in the current ARM Cortex-A9). TI has said this chip will have dual A15s running at 2 GHz or faster, as well as two Cortex-M4 cores for low-power applications and Imagination Technologies' PowerVR graphics.

Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments devices are used in Android phones and tablets and will be used in Windows 8 designs, as well.

But there are a number of other ARM-based vendors who sell chips for smartphones and tablets.
Samsung is already sampling its own Exynos series of processors using a 32nm process and dual Cortex-A15 cores, and is the first company to ship that core. To date, Samsung has mostly used its processors internally, rather than selling to other phone makers, but we'll see if that changes. ST-Ericsson has a new family of processors known as NovaThor, available either as separate application processor and baseband chips or an integrated solution, and has historically been quite strong at Nokia. Marvell has single, dual, and quad-core ARM chips as part of its Armada family of applications processors.

Freescale is sampling one-, two-, and four-core versions of its i.MX6 family, including a quad-core Cortex-A9 version with a 64-bit memory bus and Vivante graphics. While Freescale focuses more on "intelligent systems" and embedded markets, it has also seen success with e-book readers and low-end tablets, and will be breaking into the tablet market next year. Broadcom, which is known for its highly-integrated connectivity chips (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.), is also making a move into the smartphone category with application processors and 4G LTE basebands. A few companies that make processors based on the MIPS core (a competitor to ARM) are working on Android-compatibility versions, as well.

But it's Intel that really hopes to change the market by embracing Android 4.0 with a new design of its x86-compatible Atom chip, known as Medfield. Intel has long promised it would be a player in the phone market, but has always come up short. Through the chip's support of Android and its move to 32nm technology, Intel hopes to be more of a player in 2012, and I expect to see a big push for this at CES in January.
For the past several years, Intel's Atom has been on 45nm technology, while its Core processor line has been on new process technology. That will change over the next few years with a 32nm architecture known as Saltwell slated for 2012, a 22nm version known as Silvermont for 2013, and a 14nm version known as Airmont in 2014—all of which have multiple chips. On the 2012 32nm roadmap, Medfield is aimed at Android-based tablets and smartphones, while Clover Trail is aimed most directly at Windows 8 tablets. (Of course, you'll also see some Windows 8 tablets based on the more powerful but more power consuming Core family, using notebook style chips.)

AMD also plans a break into tablets and smartphones with Desna, a variation of its E-series processor based on the low-power Bobcat core. This was slated to be replaced in 2012 by a version known as Hondo, but AMD's roadmap is currently unclear.

And then there's Apple, which of course, hasn't announced its plans. It is widely expected, though, that its dual-core A5, based on the ARM architecture and manufactured on Samsung's 45nm process, will be replaced by a new processor called the A6, widely rumored to be on a 28nm or 32nm process with four cores. I'd be very surprised to see a new iPhone next year without a new processor.

From operating systems and processors to screens and networks, 2012 promises all sorts of changes for makers of mobile devices.

By Anonymous with No comments

Reveal Asterisk(****) Passwords Using Javascript

Want to Reveal the Passwords Hidden Behind Asterisk (****) ?

Follow the steps given below-

1) Open the Login Page of any website. (eg. http://mail.yahoo.com)

2) Type your 'Username' and 'Password'.

3) Copy and paste the JavaScript code given below into your browser's address bar and press 'Enter'.

javascript: alert(document.getElementById('Passwd').value);


4) As soon as you press 'Enter', A window pops up showing Password typed by you..!


Note :- This trick may not be working with firefox.

By monty with No comments

Creating IM Bot

This quick tutorial will show you how to develop your own functional IM bot that works with Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live and all other popular instant messaging clients.

To get started, all you need to know are some very basic programming skills (any language would do) and web space to host your “bot”.

For this example, I have created a dummy bot called “insecure” that listens to your IM messages. To see this live, add insecure@bot.im to your GTalk buddy list and start chatting.

If you like to write a personal IM bot, just follow these simple steps:-

Step 1: Go to www.imified.com and register a new account with a bot.

Step 2: Now it’s time to create a bot which is actually a simple script that resides on your public web server.
It could be in PHP, Perl, Python or any other language.

Example Hello World bot:
The example below illustrates just how easy it is to create a bot.
This example is coded in PHP.
<?php

switch ($_REQUEST['step']) {
case 1:
echo "Hi, what's your name?";
break;
case 2:
echo "Hi " . $_REQUEST['value1'] . ", where do you live?";
break;
case 3:
echo "Well, welcome to this hello world bot, " . $_REQUEST['value1'] . "<br>from " . $_REQUEST['value2'] . ".<reset>";
break;
}

?>

Step 3: Once your script is ready, put it somewhere on your web server and copy the full URL to the clipboard.

Step 4: Now login to your imified account, paste the script URL

Screen Name: insecure@bot.im
Bot Script URL: http://www.biteitzone.com/imbot.php

Step 5: Add that im bot your friends list. That’s it.

This is a very basic bot but the possibilities are endless.

For instance, you could write a bot that will send an email to all your close friends via a simple IM message. Or you could write one that will does currency conversion.

By monty with No comments

Remotely Shutdown Your Computer With Cellphone

 This video will show you how to shutdown your computer from anywhere using a cell phone, Microsoft Outlook and a free account from www.kwiry.com

By monty with No comments

AT&T's 4G LTE spotted in Los Angeles

More than a day after it surfaced in San Francisco, AT&T's 4G LTE network now seems to be available in the Los Angeles area, as well.

CNET editor Jessica Dolcourt noticed the 4G LTE icon on her phone in the City of Angels just about an hour ago. A quick speed test with the Speedtest.net app showed that she got download speeds of around 15Mbps and upload speeds of some 7Mbps.

These are very high numbers, comparable with those of mid-range broadband plans from cable providers such as Comcast. If these numbers are consistent, which they seem to have been so far comparing what we've seen in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Verizon might no longer claim that it has the fastest 4G network in the U.S..

AT&T has only promised that 4G LTE would be available in the New York area by the end of the year, without mentioning when it will be available in Northern and Southern California, making this exciting news for AT&T users. The fact that the company's "true" 4G (as opposed to its 4G masquerade) network has been spotted in both cities suggests that the company's plan to roll out the new and faster service has gone better than expected.

By Anonymous with No comments

The Application Store of the Future – What It Could Mean For Gamers

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel at DIGIDAY’s Mobile Apps conference focused on the HTML5/Native Apps debate. (If you missed it, check out Mobile Marketers coverage of the event here). My fellow debater, Adam Broitman of Circ.us, made a rather bold statement during the course of our discussion – that by 2015, the traditional “app store” will look significantly different when compared to the app stores that we see today. The driving force behind this shift, hypothetically, will be the widespread adoption of HTML5.

How likely is complete, industry-shifting adoption? In my opinion, not that likely. In the grand scheme of things, we’ll be more likely to see a combination of both HTML5 and Native development serve as the next generation of apps.

But nevertheless, the discussion spurred some thoughts. What would this new app store model look like? What would it mean for publishers, advertisers and handset/OS makers? It’d mean more competition, and that’s not always the best for consumers.

If we remove the current restrictions in place by Android, iOS and Blackberry, we’ll see the rise of more independent app stores. From there, we may see some changes that benefit the consumer – better sale prices, package deals on apps, and so on. But there may also be some changes that hinder the consumer’s overall experience. One of my biggest fears from the consumer perspective? That app stores may adopt the current models in place for the sale of certain popular video games.

When a gamer goes to purchase a title today, they’re faced with multiple versions of the game which they can purchase from a number of different stores. With popular titles, no matter where gamers go, they don’t get the “full” game. Rather, they get a version of the game that features a piece of content exclusive to the store from which they purchased the game. This leaves gamers with different, incomplete, versions of the game.

App developers could do this just as easily with game launches within individual app stores to entice these stores to provide them with prime placement. This wouldn’t happen with every app – productivity apps, for instance, would be safe. But nonetheless, it raises an interesting concern for the consumer looking to have a complete experience at launch.

If these stores could offer competitive pricing for in-app purchases (which is where assumingly this special content would originate), then it’s still possible that we may see individual app stores rise. But as it stands, it’s more likely that app stores will maintain restrictions for now. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t know that it’s the worst thing in the world.

By Anonymous with No comments

Microsoft's Sliverlight 5.0 is released

Microsoft has updated its Silverlight platform to version 5.0 – bringing key new features that should boost its popularity.

Silverlight 5.0 brings the eagerly awaited hardware decode of H.264 media – which is a key new addition for the rich application framework –alongside other new efatures.

"New features in Silverlight 5 include Hardware Decode of H.264 media, which provides a significant performance improvement with decoding of unprotected content using the GPU; Postscript Vector Printing to improve output quality and file size; and an improved graphics stack with 3D support that uses the XNA API on the Windows platform to gain low-level access to the GPU for drawing vertex shaders and low-level 3D primitives," explained the Silverlight team in a blog.

Trusted:
Also changing is the 'trusted application model' which is extended to the browser for the first time – allowing people to stay within the browser but perform complex tasks (such as "multiple window support, full trust support in browser including COM and file system access, in browser HTML hosting within Silverlight, and P/Invoke support for existing native code to be run directly from Silverlight" explains Microsoft).

Although Silverlight has impressed with its feature set and potential – it has never made the crossover into a high-profile Microsoft product, despite the growth of apps and the growing importance and familiarity of the browser to the public when doing more complex tasks.

With the tech world's attention firmly fixed on HTML 5, will Silverlight 5.0 give it a fighting chance of some much-needed attention? Only time will tell.

By Anonymous with No comments

Google launches Scheme: aims to rival 4square, Facebook events

Days after launching a Flipboard rival, Google has now taken on the location-based social networking website Foursquare with the launch of Schemer.com. The new Google website aims to help users find new things to do, share "schemes" with friends, and "make the most of your day." Also considered to be Google's answer to Facebook's 'Events', Schemer allows users to select activities/events they are interested in and let their friends know about it. Apart from keeping track of completed activities, the website will also recommend new schemes depending on users' interests.

Google's new site is in beta-phase and an invite-only product presently. The new website is backed up a number of content partners ranging from National Geographic to the Rolling Stone. However, Google has not clarified how it is going to use them. Schemer.com has been developed by a small group of Google engineers, who announced on the social networking site Google+:

    “Ever wonder what to do? Us too. We’re a scrappy group of Google engineers, united by a passion to help people discover and share stuff to do in the offline world. And we’ve built something to do just that—we call it Schemer!”

The new service was first announced on Google+ and according to reports, it is extensively promoted on Twitter. If you're interested in joining Schemer, all you need to do is register and add themselves to the waitlist.

By Anonymous with No comments

Firefox 8: The Next Major Version of Mozilla's Browser

While many Firefox users are still working with version 7, Mozilla has made a beta version of Firefox 8 available, and this version can be thought of as the next major iteration of the browser. You can download the beta now. It's the latest of several upgrades to Firefox that Mozilla has delivered since moving to a rapid release cycle in February, which came in response to machine gun-paced releases of Google Chrome. Firefox version 8, is in Mozilla's own view, the next big upgrade.

                                                                         
Among many new features, Firefox 8 lets you do Twitter searches directly from your toolbar. Firefox 8 also works more efficiently with tabs, and facility with tabs is one reason that many people favor Firefox. Another reason some people favor Firefox is that the universe of great extensions for the browser is substantial, but some recent versions of Firefox have been criticized for having problems with add-ons.

Firefox 8 warns users before they launch any extensions for the first time, and Mozilla has also confirmed that version 8 will simply work better with extensions. Mozilla has been steadily soliciting reports from users who have problems with extensions, and implementing better processes for working with extension developers.

As we noted here, Firefox 8 also promises to compete more directly with Google Chrome in performance terms. In recent years, although Mozilla stresses that beta versions of Firefox are only for testing, the beta versions have also been pretty stable. There are reports that Google Chrome may soon surpass Firefox in market share, but many users are going to move to Firefox 8.

By Anonymous with No comments

Steve Jobs Life’s Worst Mistake Cost Him for $29,000,000,000!!!

Former Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is said to be the Best CEO of last 50/100 years and he was the man who build Apple empire on the bases of his visionary dreams and endless efforts. Though he was an iconic tech personality and was the hero of many young techies, yet he had many character flaws in his personality.It was his one of the character flaws or something else on the bases of which he committed his life’s worst mistake that cost him for $29,000,000,000. What that mistake actually was? Tim Parker of Investopedia just reviews the wholwe story.

                                                                             
He estimates that Steve Jobs might be $29,000,000,000 richer had he not made one worst mistake of his life.

Actually, Steve Jobs invested $1,500 only in starting Apple. When the stock went public on Dec 12, 1980, he became the owner of 7.5 million shares at that time. Since Apple has the policy of three two-for-one stock splits, Jobs would have had 78,909,091 shares of Apple, today.

At a $400 share price today, Steve Jobs would be worth about $31.6 billion if he held all of his initial shares versus an estimated $2.2 billion in Apple stock today (at $400 with 5.426 million shares of Apple). Of course, we all know that didn’t happen. When Jobs was ousted out of Apple in 1985 he sold all but one share so he could still get the annual report. It was not until he came back in 1997 that he was rewarded additional shares in Apple.

Parker further note that Jobs most of net worth comes from the sale of Pixar to Disney, today. At present, his net assets are estimated to have a worth of $6.5 billion to $7 billion that makes him world’s110th richest person.

Again saying, If  Steve Jobs hadn’t sold any of his Apple shares in 1985 he would have worth $36 billion today, and smiling as a world’s fifth richest person on Forbes “Top Billionaire List”.

By Anonymous with No comments

How To Change The Mac OS X Login Background Image

The newest version of Apple’s operating system is well worth the upgrade, the log-in background image in Lion is far from attractive.

                                                                                     
When I first saw the solid dull gray background on my MacBook Air, I thought for sure that Apple would provide a default way to change it. But sadly, they don’t. However, thanks to a nifty little utility called Loginox, you can easily change the background image and even the Apple logo of your login screen.

Let me show you how easy it is to do it, plus I’ll also show you how Apple now provides a way to add contact information to your login screen, as well.

Using Loginox

After you download and install Loginox, you simply select and drop in your favorite wallpaper (see this article for some recommendations) into the “New Login image” window.

                                                                           

As pointed out on the Loginox website, the image size of the log-in screen will be automatically adjusted. “If the image ratio does not fit, the image will be cropped to a suitable size.” Also, you will need to use an image that does not obscure the buttons at the bottom of the log-in screen.

                                                                               

Now simply click the “Set new Login image” button, and then log out of your account, or switch to the Login Window. Presto, your new wallpaper background should appear.

If you do not like the results, you simply go back to Loginox and click the “Reset to default image” button to start over.

Changing Login Logo

The existing log-in logo may not be a good fit with your new wallpaper image. So again you can use Loginox to make the change for you. But you say you don’t have a different login logo? No problem, just do a Google image search for “Apple login logo”. When you find one you like, select and drag the image to your desktop.                                                                           

Your new log-in logo will probably not have a transparent background, so let’s open it up in Preview and knock out the white background.

                                                                                                                                                                                         

If you are using Preview in Lion, select the Instead Alpha tool in the toolbar, and drag your cursor from one corner of white space to the edge of the image, and release. If you’re using Snow Leopard, the Alpha tool is in the drop-down menu of the the Select button.

                                                                                       

Now select Edit>Cut to remove the white background. Save your edited image.

(Note: Lion’s Preview may require you to duplicate the image and save it in a required format.)

                                                                               

Now drop your new logo into Loginox and let it make the changes for you.

Adding Contact Information

One little feature that Apple finally put into Mac OS X is the ability to add contact information to your log-in screen of your Mac – at least in the latest Lion version. In past versions, this couldn’t be done with without a special third-party app or performing some Terminal tricks.

To add contact information in Lion, open System Preferences and select Security & Privacy.

                                                                   

Click on the lock at the bottom left, and then enable “Show a message when the screen is locked.” Now simply type your contact information. This info will appear on the log-in screen, and maybe a good Samaritan will contact you if your laptop is lost.

The developer of Loginox has three other nifty tools  (not free), for resizing images and renaming and sorting files and folders. If you like Loginox, please consider giving the developer a donation for his creative work.

By Anonymous with No comments

Burn, Erase & Fixate CDs & DVDs With InfraRecorder

Infrarecorder is a free CD/DVD burning tool for Windows 2000 through 7. It’s available as a desktop client or portable application for both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems and has been translated to over 20 languages. InfraRecorder is open source software released under the GNU General Public License version 3.

                                                                               
InfraRecorder has a very intuitive and appealing interface. Unfortunately, the screenshots on the website and the FAQ are not up to date. This article will guide you through the latest version of the tool (0.52).


What Are The Features Of InfraRecorder?

InfraRecorder is a CD/DVD burning program that supports rewritable discs, multi-session discs, and dual layer DVDs. You can use the software to burn data discs, audio discs, video discs, and mixed mode discs. The latter are discs in which different disc/data types are combined, for example multimedia and audio. With InfraRecorder you can also write images (ISO and BIN/CUE) and copy discs on the fly or by using a temporary session.

How Do I Get Started?

The screenshot below shows the start screen. You can use the tiles to start a new project, but you can also go through the > File menu, for example to open an existing project.

                                                                                     

How Do I Put Together A Project?

The interface will look familiar because it resembles the Windows Explorer. The bottom row shows the present project, i.e. the files you will burn to your disc. The top row allows you to browse files on your computer. You can drag and drop files into your project (bottom row) from either the top row or from anywhere else on your computer. You can drag and drop files from your desktop or various open folders into your project, including files located on external drives. An axis at the bottom of your project indicates how much space or time is left on your disc.

                                                                                   
How Do I Burn A Disc?

You can burn any file type, including audio files as a > Data Disc. To play audio files on a CD player that does not support mp3, you need to specifically burn an > Audio Disc. The same holds true for a > Video Disc that you want to view using a DVD player. Note that due to patent license restrictions, the installation package does not include the plug-in required to encode MP3 files. But fear not, you can download and install it separately.

Once you have dragged and dropped all files in place, find the buttons menu and click the third icon from the left to > Burn the current compilation to a physical compact disc.

Before the disc is burned, you can change a few settings, for example change the device, adjust the write speed, or select a write method. When you’re ready to burn, click > OK.

The burning process in progress is demonstrated in the screenshot below.

Conclusion

InfraRecorder is a straightforward CD/DVD burning software with some neat features. It sports a clean interface and is low on resources (13,032K while burning). Keep in mind that it does require some free hard disk space to create cache files when burning a project.

By Anonymous with No comments

Customize The Color In Windows 7′s Aero Glass With These five Tools

One of my favorite features in Windows 7 is Aero Glass. There’s something really appealing about the whole Aero look, and I love changing the look and feel of my system by changing Aero colors.

                                                                             
But Windows 7 only offers 14 pre-set Aero colors, and if I need a change I have to go to my display options and do it manually. So Aero colors are a lovely thing, but let’s admit it, they’re a bit limited. So I’ve rounded up some cool tools that will enliven your Aero colors experience, be it custom colors, colors that match wallpapers, or even the weather.

AeroTuner

AeroTuner is a portable app that helps you do one thing: customize Aero color. If you’re tired of those same old default options, use AeroTuner to create your very own Aero color.

With this little application you can choose your main color and glow color, and then start playing with color balance, blur balance and Aero stripes. You can pretty much create any look you want, and within seconds, your system will have a unique look no one else can match!

If you change your mind, simply click restore and your previous colors will return. You can also find your previous colors in the Personalize area when you right-click the desktop area.

Aura

Windows 8 is going to have a new feature that will change Aero Glass color according to wallpaper. But what if you don’t want to wait? Try Aura.

This small and portable tool can change Aero color according to either wallpaper color or active window icon color. If you’re using IE 9 (which I’m not), it should also change color according to active tabs.

What Aura essentially does is turn the task bar transparent, so it reflects the wallpaper, and the windows themselves get a color that matches the wallpaper or the active window. I’m not sure how the algorithm works, but it seems to be giving out greys a fair number of the times. Nevertheless, the general feeling is rather pleasant.

AeroBlend

AeroBlend is very similar to Aura, but in my opinion seems to work a little better. This might be due to the algorithm that it uses to calculate the colors. It is also an actual installation, and not a portable app.

As in Aura, you can choose whether it should change colors according to wallpaper, icon or content (not only IE9!), and you can control the color intensity right there from the settings window. You can also choose to check the mysterious option “Fade colos”.

I’m assuming “Fade colos” is fade colors, and some testing seem to show that this is in fact the case. When you uncheck it, the change in color is immediate. The difference, however, is almost unnoticeable.

As you can see, AeroBlend creates a pretty good match to wallpaper color, and the entire work environment becomes much more lively. Fun!

AeroWeather

One of the coolest tools I’ve found on my quest to boost my Aero color is AeroWeather. This nifty little tool changes Aero color according to either temperature or weather conditions.

To start, you’ll need to set up your location (zip code works in US only) and choose whether the colors should change according to temperature or conditions. If you choose temperature, you can decide the range according to which you’d like the color to change. When the temperature is close to the lower end, your desktop will look bluish-purplish:

When it’s close to the higher end, it will turn reddish:

There are all sorts of other colors in the middle.

AeroWeather can also dim your Aero color at night, which is a really cool feature. If you can’t see a real change, try increasing color intensity in Windows’ Personalize –> Window color.

AeroRainbow

AeroRainbow is another fun application – this time, an Aero color randomizer. This little app comes from the same developers as AeroTuner, but does something a bit different. The main feature is a constantly changing Aero color, either randomly or according to a list you can build yourself.

You can decide how often the change occurs, but the slowest setting is one change per minute, which is still a bit fast for my tastes. You can also use AeroRainbow to change your colors according to wallpaper, active window or active window icon, and choose whether this will be according to dominate color or average color.

If you create a nice color list, you can have a truly fetching desktop that never gets boring!

Bottom Line

Aero color tweakers, if you use them right, can help you create a system that is both fun and aesthetic. Just trying these tools out made me a happier person. Go ahead, indulge yourself and start playing with colors. It’s the easiest way to change your work environment so your eyes never get bored.

By Anonymous with No comments

Amazon to lose money on each tablet sale, analysts say

How did Amazon.com manage to build a tablet computer for less than the $199 price tag?

                                                                           
According to analysts' estimates, the company couldn't. In order to meet the low asking price, Amazon will sell the Kindle Fire at a loss when it debuts on November 15, analysts said. The Internet's largest retailer is apparently aiming to make up the costs by selling other goods, as it and other retail giants such as Wal-Mart Stores often do.

Each Fire costs $209.63 to build, which includes paying for parts and manufacturing, according to technology research firm IHS iSuppli. That amount does not factor in research-and-development investments or marketing, executives for the firm have said.

The preliminary estimate is typically based on analysts' talks with people in the supply chain and does not change significantly once iSuppli is able to tear down the hardware for a thorough report, executives say.

Shortly after Amazon's announcement on Wednesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster sent a note to investors saying Amazon is likely to lose $50 on each sale of the Fire. When factoring in marketing and other costs, Munster's estimate could jibe with iSuppli's.

Another analyst group, UBM TechInsights, says the parts cost $150, not including assembly. Even if this estimate is accurate, the margins for Amazon would be razor thin.

Amazon is making a potentially expensive entrance into the tablet market with its aggressively priced tablet.

The company could make up for the losses with digital sales or physical products bought through its online store using the tablet. It could also heavily market the Amazon Prime club subscription to Fire customers. Though, over what timeframe Amazon will recoup its costs is unclear.

"We're very excited about tablet computers," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a television interview last year, "because they have great Web browsers, and they make it easier for people to shop at Amazon."

Factoring in projections for all of the e-books, music and video that customers will likely purchase for the device, Amazon is expected to turn a profit of $10 per Fire, iSuppli said in a statement.

By contrast, Apple's iPad 2, the most popular tablet, costs $333.25 to make, iSuppli says. The iPad costs at least $499 at stores. Not including Apple's expensive marketing campaigns, that's more than $100 in profit on each sale with better margins for the more expensive models that have larger storage capacities.

The strategy to lowball the price of a sought-after product in order to "upsell" customers on other merchandise is common for retailers, but is less so in electronics hardware. Hewlett-Packard has found buyers after slashing the price of its TouchPad tablet to $99, which it only did because the company is discontinuing the product.

However, the business strategy is not unheard of.

Microsoft was able to break into the video-game market by selling the original Xbox, then the most powerful console, at a loss. In the next game generation, it took Sony years for the PlayStation 3's manufacturing costs to come close to catching the price customers paid. In that industry, console makers reap licensing fees from game software publishers.

Amazon, too, can try to make up its losses on software. It hosts an app store, digital music retailer, streaming video service and bookstore, all of which it takes a cut from. Not to mention the piles of nondigital stuff Amazon sells to be delivered to customers' doors.

The only thing missing from the Fire is an app to let the delivery person in.

By Anonymous with No comments

chat with a friend or client on you Network

                                                                                               
If you want a private chat with a friend or client on you Network, you don't need to download any fancy program!!!
All you need is your friends IP address and Command Prompt.
Firstly, open Notepad and enter:

@echo off
:A 
Cls
echo MESSENGER 
set /p n=User: 
set /p m=Message: 
net send %n% %m% 
Pause 
Goto A 

Now save this data as "Messenger.bat". Open the .bat file and in Command Prompt you should see:
MESSENGER
User:
After "User" type the IP address of the computer you want to contact.
After this, you should see this:
Message:
Now type in the message you wish to send.
Before you press "Enter" it should look like this:
MESSENGER
User: 56.108.104.107
Message: Hi this is Bite-it ZONE
Now all you need to do is press "Enter", and start chatting!

By Anonymous with 2 comments

How To Encrypt Your Dropbox Data With ENCFS [Linux]

Dropbox is arguably one of the best online file sync tools around. In fact, I do not have any geek friends that don’t use Dropbox, but instead use it heavily. However, if you’ve been skimming through the tech news lately, you’ll see that Dropbox is having some privacy issues as of late (here‘s one out of many).

Aside from the never-diminishing threat of a break-in by hackers, Dropbox has also said that it will turn over your data to the government if requested. This implies that, even if the data on their servers is encrypted and not just the connection, they have a way to decrypt it and see what you’re storing. Although I am sure most of you do not have anything to hide, we feel more comfortable with some privacy. Therefore, encrypting the files before they are sent to the Dropbox servers is the way to go in order to keep eyes away.

There are a couple different ways of achieving this, as of late. My favorite method in the past has been to use Truecrypt, but having to create containers that store the encrypted information is not the best for Dropbox, which constantly syncs changes. If I have to make 50MB+ containers, and changing anything in one of them means that I have to re-upload 50MB of encrypted info, then that is a little waste of time and resources.
 Instead, I need to encrypt files individually, and in a serious, not-cheesy way. ENCFS is the perfect solution for this kind of problem.

The Idea:

The technologies behind ENCFS are a pretty tricky to explain, so I’ll let you do that on your own time if you are interested. However, the principle of what it does is easy enough, so we’ll dive right into that. The idea is that ENCFS creates two folders. One is for unencrypted data, and the other is for encrypted data. You’ll want to have the unencrypted folder somewhere in your Home folder, while the encrypted folder should obviously be inside your Dropbox folder. Whenever you put something into the unencrypted folder, ENCFS goes to work and spews out the encrypted version into the encrypted folder, which Dropbox then syncs. If you do the same on a different computer, ENCFS will take the encrypted file and decrypt it, sending it to your unencrypted folder. It’s simpler than it sounds.

Installing:

To get started, you’ll first need to install ENCFS. You’ll need to look around in your package manager for the exact package name, but for Fedora it’s fuse-encfs and in Ubuntu it’s simply called encfs. Next, you’ll need to head over to this site, download the contents, unzip, and copy the “gnome-encfs” file to an easy to access location. Then, switch to root if needed, and use (sudo) install /path/to/gnome-encfs /usr/local/bin. This program will help with automatically mounting this setup each time you boot up your computer. Alright, everything is now installed.

Create your Encryption Setup:

Next, we’ll need to actually create the setup. To do this, you’ll need to run encfs ~/Dropbox/.encrypted ~/Private. You can change the actual paths if you like. Just know that the path represented by ~/Dropbox/.encrypted is the folder where the encrypted data goes, and ~/Private is the folder where you put your unencrypted files into. The tilda represents your home folder and the period in front of folder names sets the folders to hidden (Hit CTRL+H in Nautilus to see hidden folders).

ENCFS will ask you a couple questions about your setup, such as whether to create the folders you specified if they don’t already exist, what kind of encryption you would like (if you want an easy and very secure setup, hit p), and the password for your setup.

Next we need to automatically mount this setup. Type in gnome-encfs -a ~/Dropbox/.encrypted ~/Private and hit enter. You’ll be asked for the password that you set earlier, and then whether to automatically mount the setup. Say yes, and you’re done!

Conclusion:

You’re ready to go! You can start copying files into the Private or unencrypted folder if you chose a different name/location, and see that encrypted files are being made in your specified Dropbox folder.

You’ll also notice that there is an .xml file, which contains some information about the key. No, it isn’t the key itself, so you’re still safe if you sync that with Dropbox. However, if you feel extra paranoid, you can copy the .xml file to a different location, type dropbox exclude add ~/Dropbox/.encrypted/.encfs6.xml into your Terminal, and then delete the file and make sure it’s also purged via the Dropbox website. Note that, as far as I know of, it may be possible to use this setup with Macs as well, but Windows is currently not in the game. Therefore, this setup is most effective for people who use only Linux and want to encrypt files they know they only need between computers, and not on the go where Windows may appear.

By Anonymous with No comments

How Linux is advancing astronomy

Go to any gathering of amateur astronomers and almost all of the computers on show will be running Windows, with a handful displaying applications such as Nebulosity and Starry Night on a Mac OS X system.

While Macs are still the preferred option for media creation, Windows has a better selection of astronomy apps, such as Maxim DL, and wider driver support for cameras and charge-coupled devices (CCDs).

                                                      
Head into the professional world of astronomy, though, and Linux machines are ubiquitous. Speaking to science colleagues, fellow developers and reading this very magazine, it becomes clear that there are a wealth of options out there for avid stargazers and the same names and distros crop up again and again.

Apart from astronomy software, the other key issue is driver support for telescope mounts and cameras.

When it comes to commercial camera options, there are three approaches. The first, and probably cheapest, is using standard DSLR-type cameras, modified by removing the infrared blocking filter to increase sensitivity to night-sky objects such as faint emission nebula.

These tend to give good wide-field views with telescopes, but suffer from a high level of noise when it comes to imaging. As you're typically exposing on an object for minutes at a time, building up over several hours or even days of exposure time, noise level is critical.

Noise tends to look like speckles on the image, or an annoying glow in one or more corners (caused by thermal noise from the camera's electronics). The speckle is particularly bad, because the star fields look largely the same.

Windows software such as Deep Sky Stacker or Maxim DL happily copes with this using calibration image frames. On Linux, Astrotack supports dark frame manipulation, and applications such as Siril can support the stacking of individual images.

Controlling DSLRs in Linux starts with simple shutter/release and sensitivity control applications, which communicate to the camera via USB cables - the Canon EOS range is the most popular, because the cameras can easily be modified. You can then either transfer the images to the computer with a USB stick, or take out the CompactFlash (CF) card and insert it into a reader.

Watch this space:

                                                         
With the second approach - using dedicated astronomical cameras rather than commercial DSLRs - the noise issue is less of a problem.
These cameras connect directly via USB, GigE or FireWire to your computer, and usually have one or more stages of integrated cooling, which reduces the problems caused by thermal noise. The downside is that they generally have smaller fields of view, or when they don't they cost about 10 times more.
When picking a camera, the monochrome flavour is usually more flexible with astro imaging, because it permits the use of the CCD with specialist narrow-band filters, which pick up specific frequencies of light emitted by things such as nebulae. It also has the side benefit of eliminating almost all light pollution caused by street lights. This is usually how deep sky imagers who live in suburban areas get their pictures.
On Linux, serious astro cameras for deep sky imaging, by companies such as SBIG, QSI and Finger Lakes, are supported, with applications including GoQat for the QSI series also handling some of the pre-processing dark frame subtraction, as well as having integrated autoguider support.

                                                                
COOL OPERATOR:
The Atik 383L+ cooled CCD camera, one of the most popular on the market

An autoguider is a small camera that works alongside the deep sky imaging camera, and sends the telescope little corrections to its tracking systems to ensure you get pin-sharp stars. Telescopes usually track the sky in what's known as side-real tracking, which follows the motions of the stars across the sky as the Earth rotates, but even the more expensive telescope mounts have small errors.

For visual use or short exposure use, this isn't a big problem, but when taking very long exposures it leads to unsharp and trailed star and object images. The autoguider effectively locks on to a star near where the main imaging camera is pointing, and keeps it locked in-between crosshairs.

If the mount should move incorrectly, the camera picks this up and sends a command to the telescope mount to correct it. This is how 99% of all long exposure deep sky imaging is done, from the home observatory through to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The third type of camera approach, typically for lunar, solar and planetary imaging, uses a high framerate webcam-type device to take a video of the object. The goal here again is to reduce noise, but mainly the effect of the atmospheric turbulence above us.

With 100km of sky to punch through, large professional telescopes use adaptive optics lasers to measure this turbulence and send corrections to the telescope's mirrors. Adaptive optics is available in the amateur domain but it's expensive and only works with micro mirrors and no laser.

For planetary and lunar imaging, the way most people beat the "seeing" (atmospheric mush) is to take hundreds of images in quick succession, as a video. Software combines these images, removing the ones where the seeing is not so good, and then composites the good frames to make one final sharp image. This is known professionally as "lucky" imaging, and while it was developed by professionals, the amateur community has taken to it far more.

There is a lack of widespread driver support for CCD cameras in areas such as planetary and lunar imaging. However, companies such as Imaging Source and Lumenera, and firms that make the deep sky cameras we've already mentioned - SBIG, QSI and Finger Lakes - can or do provide Linux support for their products, and will, in many cases, assist with installation.

If Linux is your platform of choice, check first that your camera is supported, though, because the deep sky ones mentioned are all quite expensive. When it comes to image post-processing, a few applications seem to be more popular than others on Linux. While their commercial Windows counterparts sometimes offer more options, these examples are no slouches.

                                               
STAR TREKKING:
DS9 is a popular image-processing application both in professional astronomy and education

For image processing and data reduction there is the multi-platform DS9. It's used widely in educational projects, as well as at research facilities by people such as the Faulkes Telescope team.

Handling Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) along with other file formats, it enables photometric analysis, basic image processing, histogram adjustment and image mosaic creation. DS9 is simple, but effective at what it does. It required a download of the source and then some command line compilation but, as with many of the applications, the clear online instructions made this pretty straightforward on our Ubuntu system.
Dancing with the stars :

                                                  
Again multi-platform, the Java-based image manipulation and processing tool SalsaJ is more comprehensive, and requires compiling and running initially from commandline interfaces. (There are software GUI-based tools that really help with this, but the command line approach is straightforward.)

Widely used in education and available in multiple languages, SalsaJ also comes with online exercises for developing your astronomical skills, from measuring Doppler shift in exoplanets and looking at spectra, through to determining the weight of a galaxy.

                                                 
It supports the FITS file format, commonly used in astro photography, along with dozens of others and the range of options will enable you to process images to a level as good as those offered by its commercial counterpart. (Albeit with a steep learning curve and acceptance that the UI is possibly not as intuitive as Photoshop's.)

In terms of actual imaging acquisition, we've mentioned GoQat for the QSI range. Another popular application that supports both deep sky imaging cameras and the high framerate webcam approach is wxAstroCapture, which runs under Kubuntu, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu.

Again, with clear instructions I was able to get this running with my Artemis cooled deep sky cameras. While their implementation for Windows of ASCOM-compliant autoguider support was not in the Linux version, preventing very long exposure photography, the user interface and level of control matched many of the features of my typical workflow software on Windows.

With just a few extra tweaks to support autoguiders and the filter wheel (an Atik USB-controlled five-position wheel to change the types of filters my monochrome cameras use), I could have run an entire imaging session just in Linux.

As an astro imager, I focus on deep sky objects and imaging comets, and this is something that many people with an interest in astronomy and computers fall for. You see those lush Hubble-type images in magazines, and Linux will pretty much enable you to achieve the same effects.

Professional observatories such as the VLT, Keck and so on all have toolsets, which are sometimes freely available, so you can dive in at the deep end and look at the applications' professional use on a day-to-day basis. Being able to tap into the vast software resources of professional observatories should set you in good stead.

It does take some work, research and effort to get many aspects of astronomy on Linux working and ticking over - for free and with the stability that professional astronomers crave - but the future for Linux is looking better than ever.

By Anonymous with No comments

How are terrorists tracked and what does it cost?

The United States government defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".Terrorist groups are difficult to identify and track. Unlike military units or agents, a terrorist's affiliation with a particular country or ideology doesn't have to be official. Terrorists may operate with or without the knowledge of any official authority.

The anonymity and mobility of terrorists is part of what makes them so dangerous. It's also difficult to apply political pressure to stop terrorist activities. While one government might be able to gather international support to pressure another government to end hostile activities, there are few political channels a government can pursue to curtail terrorism.

In some countries, governmental authority isn't strong enough to crack down on terrorist groups. In others, the government might have a similar philosophy to terrorist cells. These governments might not put forth much effort to ending terrorist activity.

That's why the United States dedicates billions of dollars to fighting terrorism -- the 2010 budget request for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counterterrorism/counterintelligence programs was $3.1 billion [source: U.S. Department of Justice]. Other government agencies also have budgets for counterterrorism task forces. However, the details of the National Counterterrorism Center's budget are classified [source: Hunt]. So, it's really impossible to say exactly how much money goes to tracking terrorists.

But how does the government track these groups in the first place? What sources of information are reliable? Is there coordination among various antiterrorist task forces? Let's take a closer look.

Countering Terrorism:

The 9/11 tragedy in the United States raised many questions about how the government gathers intelligence on terrorist cells. The government recognized a need for a centralized task force to compile and store the stacks of information various intelligence organizations had built over the years. Most of these agencies had limited communication with other groups. While the United States as a whole had a great deal of information about terrorists, that information was split up among various agencies. The country needed a more unified approach.

Presidential Executive Order 13354 was an attempt to establish an agency dedicated to such a goal. It established the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in 2004. The head of the NCTC reports to two individuals: the President of the United States and the Director of National Intelligence. The NCTC employs around 600 analysts. It's their job to collect information from other groups such as state, local and tribal law officials as well as federal agencies like the FBI. The NCTC then collates this information and makes it available to other law agencies to help with investigations.

The NCTC oversees an enormous database called the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE). According to the NCTC, there were more than 564,000 names in the TIDE database as of January 2009 [source: NCTC]. The NCTC points out that many of these names are aliases -- the organization estimates that the list actually represents about 500,000 people.

Most of these names come from reports submitted by law enforcement and intelligence officials. As these officials gather data, they submit it to the NCTC. The NCTC must format and file the information in the TIDE system. This is more complex than it sounds -- each agency might have its own format for collecting information. The NCTC must take all of these different styles and convert them into a single format to make the database usable.

The NCTC makes the list available to customs officials, the Department of State's visa office and port authorities. The people working in these offices are the United States' first line of protection against terrorism. It's their job to check people entering into the country against the terrorist watch list.

Now we look at how the government tracks terrorist cells.

Keeping Watch for Terrorism:

The United States relies on its own agents as well as foreign governments to keep track of terrorists. U.S. officials investigate terrorist activities, interview locals and monitor foreign press to gather information.

In addition to basic footwork, several intelligence agencies monitor global financial transactions to search for evidence of terrorist activity. This is a monumentally difficult task -- daily transactions number in the billions. Sorting through those data would be impossible. Agents must rely on leads to help find transactions that connect to terrorism. They also keep an eye on various charities and businesses believed to be covers for terrorist funding programs.

Once they do find such evidence, the United States government will often apply pressure to have the terrorists' accounts frozen. This cuts off the funds a terrorist cells needs to pay its own agents and purchase supplies.

An emerging opportunity to gather intelligence is through the Internet. Some terrorist cells recruit through message boards and chat rooms. Agents posing as potential recruits gather information online in an effort to expand our knowledge about who the terrorists are and what their plans may be.

One area of contention is spying on personal communication. In the wake of 9/11, the United States government expanded its ability to monitor private communication between individuals. Civil liberties proponents criticized these policies. The formation of the Information Awareness Office (IAO), in particular, caused concern. The IAO's goal was to achieve total information awareness by leveraging technology to identify and track terrorists. Human rights groups said that such a goal would violate privacy for innocent civilians.

The IAO had a short lifespan -- after much bad press, Congress decided to disband the program. Many of the projects that existed under the umbrella of the IAO continued in various departments, mostly at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) [source: Cherry].

There will probably be a struggle between security and privacy for many years to come. Gathering intelligence is, by its very nature, invasive. But without intelligence, it would be difficult or even impossible to predict and prevent terrorist activities.

By Anonymous with No comments