Apple officially launches iPad 3

Tim Cook launching the 'new iPad'

 Apple does have the rumor mills work overtime, and the wait for its next generation of iPad – the new iPad (or the new iPad3/iPad HD) was no different. Yes, the Cupertino-based company has officially launched its next and the third version of the iPad. Cook began talking about the post PC devices and how iPad has successfully created a separate device category, altogether, before he began pitching in “the new iPad” that weighs 1.4lbs and is 9.4mm thin. We only wonder what's with the 'new name' Apple choose for its next generation iPad.



The next gen iPad as expected, employs a 9.7-inch Retina Display with high resolution of 2048 x 1536 and around 44 percent more colour saturation. It delivers four times the pixels, compared to the iPad 2, and the 3.1 million pixels in the Retina display are more than one million more pixels than an HDTV. It is fuelled by the powerful A5X dual core processor with quad-core graphics designed for swifter performance and responsive user experience to support the Retina display. It offers twice the performance, compared to A5 chip, while maintaining the power efficiency.

After camera-less original iPad, the company has shown room for improvements and gladly the iPad 3 features the 5 megapixel iSight camera with support for 1080p video recording. It comes with 5-element lens and IR filter. The new iPad will bring in voice dictation, giving everyone the taste of Siri. As expected, it also supports 4G LTE, it now supports 21Mbps HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA at 42Mbps, with LTE at 73Mbps (Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus and AT&T will be the LTE partners). The battery life is maintained 10 hours, while 9 hours on 4G. 


The iPad Wi-Fi + 4G comes with built-in next generation 4G LTE that supports faster networks for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA, and both CDMA and GSM iPad users can reap the benefits. Personal Hotspot can be used to share the fast network connection on your iPad with up to 5 other devices using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. On typing the microphone icon on the keyboard, iPad listens to you and converts it into text.  This can be used to write messages, take notes, search the web and more. It works with third-party apps and capable of updating Facebook status, tweeting, or writing Instagram captions.

The new iPad also brings in the latest update to the OS as the iOS 5.1. Chris Cheung from Autodesk showcased the new SketchBook Pro, a drawling app that focuses on art line for artists, exclusively available for iOS from April. Mike Capps, President of Epic Games launched Infinity Blade: Dungeons. Randy Ubillos, Chief Architect for Photo and Video apps talks about reinvention of iPhoto with new gestures, new effects, multi-touch editing, and you can beam photos directly between devices. There’s a new bezel gesture, too. Other elements to be updated are iWork and GarageBand. 


A quick look at the highlights of the new iPad:
• A5X chip with quad-core graphics
• 9.7" Retina display with 3.1 million pixels
• 5 megapixel iSight camera
• 1080p video support
• 4G+LTE
• iOS 5.1 operating system

The new iPad has been dipped in shades of Black and White and will be made available starting March 16. It is now available for pre-order for select countries - Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the U.S Virgin Islands. The end of March will see the device reach another batch of countries, like New Zealand, Greece, Hungary, to name a few. Obviously, you won't see India making it to any of these lists, but going by the latest trend, we shouldn't have to wait too long, till the dainty devices reach our shores. The 16GB iPad is priced at $499 (approx Rs.25,092), 32GB at $599(approx Rs.30,120) and $699 (approx Rs. 35,150) for 64GB. For 4G services, the prices are $629 (approx Rs. 31,630), $729 (approx rs. 36,652) and $829 (approx Rs. 41,679), respectively.


With the launch of the new iPad, the ipad 2 is made available at an affordable price of $399 (approx Rs.20,063) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and just $529 (approx Rs.26,596) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model. 






Source:- Tech2

Twitter now supports right to left languages

Twitter started working on supporting right to left languages, back on the 25th of January and now it's finally here. The four languages that Twitter now supports are Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu. The addition of these languages comes from thirteen thousand volunteers around the world working with the Twitter Translation Center to translate and localize Twitter.com. Twitter announced in a blog post that the individuals in that group of thirteen thousand come from diverse backgrounds. There was a Saudi blogger, Egyptian college students, a journalist at the BBC, IT professionals in Iran and Pakistan, an Israeli schoolteacher, the co-founders of the grassroots #LetsTweetInArabic campaign, academics specializing in linguistics, and teenagers in Lebanon. These were the people responsible for helping Twitter support right to left languages.

Some of these individuals live in countries with oppressive regimes, including those where Twitter is blocked. Twitter says that they are now available in 28 languages from various parts of the world and right to left languages posed a specific problem, especially with tweets that contained both left to right and right to left content. To overcome this problem, Twitter's tech team built special tools to make sure tweets, retweets, hashtags and numbers behave in the proper way.

Including the above four mentioned languages, Twitter is also available in Traditional Chinese, Indonesian, Portuguese, Italian, Filipino, Finnish, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Danish, Malay, English, French, Korean, Swedish, Spanish, Simplified  Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, German, Russian and Dutch. The Twitter Translation Center employes about 4,25,000 volunteers from all over the world. This move of adding right to left language support is critical as the role of Twitter in the Arab Spring is pretty well known and important. Twitter users in those countries could still tweet in their native languages just by typing in those languages, however, they had to interact with Twitter in a language other than their own. And of course, hashtags weren't supported. Now, however, Twitter should be easier to use to dispense information and take appropriate action in more place where it is needed.




Source:- Tech2

Nokia to shut down Ovi share service

Nokia is now shutting down its Ovi Share service, which allowed users with Ovi account to upload their photos, videos and files from their phones to Nokia's servers. The Finnish company informed its users via e-mail about the closure of the service, also said to be Nokia's version of Dropbox.

After March 13, users will not be allowed to upload files, while last date to download any file from the server is May 30. The Ovi Share will completely shut down on May 31.

"As of 30 May 2012, we will be discontinuing the Ovi Share service. If you already have another copy of your files existing on your computer or another sharing service, you do not need to do anything," it says. You will continue to have access to Ovi Share until 30 May 2012; however you will not be able to upload new files after 13 March 2012,” reads the Nokia e-mail.

According to Nokia, shutting down the Ovi Share service will help make its business simpler and more focussed on mobile and location based services. “Discontinuing Ovi Share was a business decision to help us focus on our core Nokia service offerings. The new business unit Location & Commerce, established in June 2011, is now in the center of our revised services strategy, bringing you leading location-based services like Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps and Nokia Transport,” says Nokia.

However, Nokia users will still be able to access Nokia's other services with their Ovi account.

Check out the detailed instructions on downloading/saving the files on your computer from Ovi Share

Source:- ThinkDigit

Android Market renamed as Google Play Store

Google Inc is renaming its online storefront for music, books and digital goods, its latest move to raise its profile in the market for electronic content sales and to better compete with Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc. The company has retired the Android Market name for its store that sells apps, videos, music and electronic books on the Web and on mobile devices. From Tuesday, the store will be rebranded as the Google Play Store. The change is designed to make it clearer to consumers that Google offers a broad catalogue of content in addition to the apps programmed for smartphones and tablets based on its Android operating system.

"Some people see the Android icon on their homescreen and they think it's just for apps," said Chris Yerga, engineering director for Android Digital Content, in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

The name is being introduced three and a half years after Google launched its Android Market as a central outlet for consumers to download the mobile apps created for the growing number of Android-based smartphones. Android is the world's No.1 smartphone operating system, used in smartphones sold by Motorola , Samsung  and HTC, among others. There are more than 450,000 Android-compatible apps available from third-party software developers versus 550,000 apps available for Apple iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad.


Source;- Tech2

'Cheetah' is now the world's fastest robot

The age of the robot is at hand and as scientists ready the next stage of non-human development, the world will anxiously wait to see just how far we’ve come. The latest in the field has just set a new land speed record. At least in the robot domain.

According to a report, a ‘Cheetah’ has just set the new robo-record for a speed in the four-legged robot category. Reaching speeds of up to 18 mph on a treadmill at a laboratory in Massachusetts, the ‘aptly named’ robot is definitely going to make a ‘speedy’ climb in the field of robotics. The previous record was 13 mph that was achieved by a two-legged robot, back in 1989. The test was conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with funding coming in from the U.S’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) under their Maximum Mobility and Manipulation programme.


Naturally, the application for this type of speed in robotics hasn’t really been implied during the test processes or after, so it’s merely considered an advancement in this type of technology. One of the scientists on the Cheetah programme, Dr. Alfred Rizzi who also happens to be the chief robotics scientist at Boston Dynamics, stated that the goal of this experiment is to, at some point have the robot go much faster and then move the experiment to an outdoors setting.

"We designed the treadmill to go over 50 mph but we plan to get off the treadmill and into the field as soon as possible," Rizzi said in a statement. "We really want to understand the limits of what is possible for fast-moving robots."

The practical application of such a robot in a real-world type situation has tremendous potential. For one, it could be used on a battlefield to deliver medical supplies to on-site medical units and officers in the field. It could also be used other hard-to-reach locations for similar purposes, if it were enabled to traverse all kinds of environments and geographic locations.


Check out this video. It shows 'Cheetah' breaking the record:

LifeSize announces the first HD video conferencing touch screen phone

LifeSize, a division of Logitech today announced the second generation of LifeSize Phone, the first touchscreen conference phone optimized for HD video conferencing. The phone elevates the overall user experience for audio and video conferencing by making it simple to use and easy to navigate, ultimately driving broader adoption and accessibility. LifeSize Phone is globally available today with the LifeSize Room 220 HD video conferencing system.

Video conferencing tools have always been key in connecting businesses around world. LifeSize is one of the pioneers in high-definition video collaboration. Designed to make video conferencing truly universal, LifeSize solutions are simple to buy, adopt, support and use. Offering video conferencing systems and software applications, as well as a full line of video infrastructure, available on premises or in the cloud, LifeSize is committed to universal video collaboration.

Source: Tech2

Facebook Messenger for Windows officially launched

Facebook as a social networking service enjoys a very healthy lead over its competition - Google+ and Twitter. Now, here are those who’ve given up on Google Talk and other messaging utilities and have opted to use Facebook as a way to communicate with family and friends. The Facebook Messenger for mobile devices has been around for a long time now, but there’s a Windows version of the messenger that has been in development for a while. Initially, there were rumours and then, there was an early development build released to the public. Now however, a final release is ready and it’s available for download. If you want to try it out, you can head over to the Facebook Messenger page.

The messenger app is easy to use and sits in the system tray and lists all of your friends. It’s design to let you chat with your friends without having to open up your browser and login to your Facebook account. Chat messages from your friends immediately pop up on screen and updates, notifications from your friends are also shown in the program. Facebook says that the program is compatible with Windows 7 as of now and that they’re working on a Windows Vista version. There isn’t any Windows XP support as of now, so if you’re still using it, it’s time to upgrade. Also, there isn’t support for group chat or the option to have video conferences with others.

 

Some of the other features, include the ability to dock the window to sides of the Windows desktop. It appears every major social networking site wants to have some presence on all major platforms - desktops and mobiles. For example, Twitter had bought over Tweetdeck for a large sum and they have both mobile and desktop applications, some by themselves and some made by Tweetdeck. Facebook has made the move and launched mobile apps as well as iPad apps. Google, too has made mobile apps that allow users to chat and quickly access streams on the Android platform.

Source:- Tech2