Technology
The latest buzzword – Google Buzz
Feb 10th
What is Google Buzz? Well it is definitely a threat to the likes of facebook and twitter.
As far as searching is concerned, Google is the defacto standard for internet users. But when it comes to social networking to keep in touch with friends and family, usually sites like facebook, myspace, twitter etc are used.
Google Buzz may change this. Google Buzz adds social networking functions such as the ability to share links, photos, videos and status updates with friends from GMAIL. So Google has finally extended the gmail users with the social networking tools to keep in touch with their contacts who are already in gmail.
Google Buzz is also accessible from smartphones. That makes it even more interesting. Though it is officially launched some gmail users still do not have buzz enabled for their account. As google is enabling buzz for gmail users in steps. So if you are a gmail user and you don’t have the BUZZ yet, not to worry. When it is avaiable you will automatically see it when you login.
Apple’s IPad – Not IPod. What is it?
Jan 31st
IPad is the next device from Apple in line with IPod, IPod Touch and IPhone.
IPad has a large touch screen and makes internet browsing, emailing easier and much more interesting. Almost 140000 applications are available on IPad from day one. Listed here are the features of IPad. IPad maynot be available commercially in your countries. But it is sure to come with a bang.
Features of Apple IPad
Safari
The large Multi-Touch screen on iPad lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen — one page at a time. With vibrant color and sharp text. So whether you’re looking at a page in portrait or landscape, you can see everything at a size that’s actually readable. And with iPad, navigating the web has never been easier or more intuitive. Because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger. Scroll through a page just by flicking your finger up or down on the screen. Or pinch to zoom in or out on a photo. There’s also a thumbnail view that shows all your open pages in a grid, to let you quickly move from one page to the next.
See and touch your email in ways you never could before. In landscape, you get a split-screen view showing both an opened email and the messages in your inbox. To see the opened email by itself, turn iPad to portrait, and the email automatically rotates and fills the screen. No matter which orientation you use, you can scroll through your mail, compose a new email using the large, onscreen keyboard, or delete messages with nothing more than a tap and a flick. If someone emails you a photo, you can see it right in the message. You can also save the photos in an email directly to the built-in Photos app. And iPad works with all the most popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.
Photos
With its crisp, vibrant display and unique software features, iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy and share your photos. For example, the Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap the stack, and the whole album opens up. From there, you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, or watch a slideshow. You can even use your iPad as a beautiful digital photo frame while it’s is docked or charging. And there are lots of ways to import photos: You can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the optional Camera Connection Kit.
Video
The large, high-resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching any kind of video: from HD movies and TV shows to podcasts and music videos. Switch between widescreen and full screen with a double-tap. Because iPad is essentially one big screen, with no distracting keypad or buttons, you feel completely immersed in whatever you’re watching.
YouTube
The YouTube app organizes videos so they’re easy to see and navigate. To watch one, just tap it. When you’re watching in landscape, the video automatically plays in full screen. And with its high-resolution display, iPad makes the latest HD YouTube videos look positively amazing.
iPod
With the iPod app, all your music is literally at your fingertips. Browse by album, song, artist, or genre with a simple flick. To play a song, just tap it. iPad even displays album art at full size. Listen to your music with the powerful built-in speaker or with wired or Bluetooth wireless headphones.
iTunes
A tap of the iTunes store icon lets you browse and buy music, TV shows, and podcasts — or buy and rent movies — wirelessly, right from your iPad. Choose from thousands of movies and TV shows (in both standard and high definition), along with thousands of podcasts and millions of songs. Preview songs before you buy them. Or just sync iPad with the content you already have in your iTunes library on your Mac or PC.
App Store
iPad runs almost 140,000 apps from the App Store. Everything from games to business apps and more. And new apps designed specially for iPad are highlighted, so you can easily find the ones that take full advantage of its features. Just tap the App Store icon on the screen to browse, buy, and download apps wirelessly, right to the iPad.
iBooks
The iBooks app is a great new way to read and buy books.* Download the free app from the App Store and buy everything from classics to best sellers from the built-in iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your Bookshelf. Just tap it to start reading. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich color, so it’s easy to read, even in low light.
Maps
Finding your way is a completely new experience on iPad. Tap to view maps from above with high-resolution satellite imagery, up close with street view, or with topography in a new terrain view — all using Google Services. Search for a nearby restaurant or landmark, then get directions from your current location.
Notes
With its expansive display and large, onscreen keyboard, iPad makes jotting down notes easy. In landscape view, you see not only a note-taking page but a list of all your notes. iPad even circles the current note in red, so you can see where you are at a glance.
Calendar
iPad makes it easy to stay on schedule by displaying day, week, month, or list views of your calendar. You can see an overview of a whole month or the details of a single day. iPad even shows multiple calendars at once, so you can manage work and family schedules at the same time.
Contacts
The Contacts app on iPad makes finding names, numbers, and other important information quicker and easier than ever before. A new view lets you see both your complete contacts list and a single contact simultaneously. Need directions? Tap an address inside a contact and iPad automatically opens Maps.
Home Screen
The Home Screen gives you one-tap access to everything on iPad. You can customize your Home Screen by adding your favorite apps and websites or using your own photos as the background. And you can move apps around to arrange them in any order you want.
Spotlight Search
Spotlight Search allows you to search across iPad and all of its built-in apps, including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, iPod, and Notes. It even searches apps you’ve downloaded from the App Store. So no matter what you’re looking for, it’s never more than a few taps away.
Skype in TV
Jan 20th
Using VoIP two internet uses can communicate with each other via their, computer, mobile phone, video phone etc. They can see each other face to face and chat with each other as if they are in the same room. Many companies have provided free application to enable this VoIP communication. But Skype leads them all in terms of functionalities and market share.
Now Skype has come forward to provide their Skype service via TV. Skype has agreements with LG and Panasonic TV manufacturers as they are producing TVs with internet connectivity. Now you can make video calls via internet TVs. When Panasonic introduced 2010 Viera Castenabled HDTV, they announced that using this TV skype can be used. This model will be available commercially very soon.
Similarly LG launched their ‘Netcast Entertainment Access’ TV with internet access. LG also announced that Skype can be used from their TV. Therefore these TVs will come with a microphone and a camera to enable video calls. Panasonic TVs with Skype will be available in March and LG TVs with skype will be available in April 2010.
15 Milestones in the evolution of Information Age
Jan 10th
Ten years back, if you needed some information you would have asked an expert in the neighborhood or you would have made a trip to the local library to search for a related printed book. But today everything has changed. Now we are able to do everything by just a click of a button. Be it from mobile phones, handheld devices or computers. Here is a list of most important technologies and milestones that changed our lives forever and helped make this information age a reality, listed in Alphabetical order.
- Blackberry: Research In Motion introduced this handheld device in 2002. Blackberry combined the features of Email, Web Browsing, Mobile Telephone, Text Messaging, Internet faxing and so on. The introduction of Blackberry was a turning point in the mobile information industry.
- Blogs: Peter Merholz founded this new word BLOG in 1999. It was a short form of weblog. Even though there were thoughts about blogs ten years earlier, it only took off after 1999. In countries were freedom of expression is a given, even government bodies have their own dedicated blogs to keep in touch with their people.
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a technology used to transfer and share information between various devices including mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices. This enables easy exchange of information between peers and friends.
- Camera Phone: These days every mobile phone has inbuilt digital camera. This enables camera phone users to easily take pictures and videos wherever they are and share it with the rest of the world. Some websites and blogs allow easy upload of these user generated content which has resulted in huge amount of information that are end user generated.
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook in 2004 at the age of 20. Today millions of active users use facebook to share information and network with their friends, colleagues and family. It is an interesting fact that more than 20 percent of these facebook users are using their mobile phones to share information.
- File Sharing: File sharing has a long history. In fact its origins date back to as early as 1980. However with introduction of bit torrent technology the file sharing took off fast. Though media industry still has objections of these technologies, people still use these to share files, songs, pictures and even movies.
- Firefox, Chrome: When IE was the defacto browser that totally removed Netscape’s Mozilla browser from the market, Firefox came with a bang and slowly took some market share from IE. Tabbed browsing, increased speed, live bookmarking, multiple home pages, security, robustness etc are some of the features that firefox had which propelled its uptake. Google introduced Chrome recently and is the third most popular browser in the market today.
- GMail: Today you can safely say that anyone who used email, has at least one gmail account. Even though email had been around for quite a while before gmail was introduced, GMAIL took everyone by surprise when it was launched in 2004 with 1GB free space. The free space has been increasing ever since and gmail users too have increased ever since and is set to overtake all other email providers.
- Google: There is no doubt that in the last ten years Google is the most visited website. Larry Page and Sergie Brin invented Google searc engine in 1998. It will take very many years to beat Google’s dominance in the Internet (If at all it happens).
- IM (Instant Messaging): Today we can see people messaging using IM whether from home, office, train, bus and anywhere, anytime. Google Talk, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live messenger are some of the popular IMs.
- IPod, IPhone: Apple introduced IPod in 2001. This revolutionized the way we used to hear music and songs. It started with 5GB, 10GB and so on and today 160GB memory is available with IPod. The IPhone which was launched in 2007 with a touch screen phone features, push email, browsing and millions of downloadable IPhone applications free and paid has reduced the gap between man and machines.
- Memory stick and Blueray: In 2000 8GB flash drive was available commercially. 256 GB thumb drives are available today. Similarly in 2006 Blueray disks were introduced which may soon replace DVDs. In a similar size as DVD, blueray disks have 10 times more storage capacity.
- Youtube: What Shakespeare said has come true today. When he said the whole worlds a stage, probably he was thinking of Youtube. Today Youtube has become part and parcel of internet life. From 2005 until now it has grown tremendously and its importance in future information sharing became evident when google bought it over for 1.6 billion.
- Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia in 2001 and from day one it has been a hit. Today millions of articles in various languages are available freely for anyone to read. It is contributed by volunteers worldwide and anyone can contribute to this knowledgebase which will be a HUGE encyclopedia for coming generations.
- Twitter et all: Last but not the least, web 2.0 technologies and user generated content, social bookmarking sites, networking sites are mushrooming and taking this information age to a new level.
Difference between Google Chrome OS and Chromium OS
Dec 15th
Google Chrome OS is to Chromium OS what Google Chrome browser is to Chromium.
Chromium OS is the open source project, used primarily by developers, with code that is available for anyone to checkout, modify and build their own version with. Meanwhile, Google Chrome OS is the Google product that OEMs will ship on Netbooks next year.
Therefore Chromium OS is the source code released by Google which can be used by any developers to build and create their own OS. Chrome OS is a end product that will be released by Google and developed from this Chromium OS as the base.
Chrome OS in USB Drive
Dec 15th
By now, you may have come across the source code for Chrome OS. Some Torrent sites have now released the Chrome OS that can be downloaded to your USB drive. It seems Engadget guys have tried this on a Dell Vostro A90 netbook computer and it worked fine.
The booting time for Chrome OS is just 22 seconds and they claim that they were able to browse the internet instantly. However it seems that the device drivers for this OS are all in starting stages only. Hence some devices maynot function in your computer as expected. If you are one of those guys who would like to try the Chrome OS before it is officially announced and released for public then you can download it from http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/. Just download the bootable image into your flash drive and you can use it in your netbook.
Biometrics Security
Dec 13th
We have seen in James Bond movies that doors can be opened by giving voice copmmands. In some hollywood movies, you would have seen thumb impressions are used to open doors. All these are nothing but Biometrics.
Think of these scenarios.
- You go to a bank to withdraw money. You fill up the withdrawal form, sign it and give it to the bank clerk. Your signature is used to verify your identity
- You are shopping using your credit cards. While paying the photograph on the credit cards and the signature on the credit cards are used to verify your identity.
- In big companies, all employees are issued an ‘employee pass’ with their photograph. People with these ‘employee pass’es are allowed access to the company premises.
In all these above scenarios, signature and photographs are used to verify a person’s identity. In reality any person can learn to use another person’s signature. Worse still is they can replace your photograph with their own photograph on these cards. Therefore, these existing authentication methods are not secure enough.
Biometrics solves these above issues. Every person’s face is unique. Each person’s thumb impression is also unique. Everyone’s voice is different from others. The eyes are also unique for every person. Therefore it makes sense to use these unique features of each person as a means of authentication.
Therefore for using computers, passwords are no longer required. To enter one’s company , employee passes are no longer required. Your body is sufficient. Using any parts of your body the biometrics system can identify you. America, Canada and some european nations already use these security systems.
What is a Biometrics system?
There are two main modules in a biometrics system. “storing” and “comparing”. The sytems must first store your information before it can use this stored information to compare and verify. The storing process however differs between different systems.
For instance, if the biometrics system uses thumb impression as the mode of verification, then your thumb impression will be first captured in film and stored in the biometrics database system. Instead of storing as it is, the system will compress and store it.
If for instance your face is used as the mode of verification, then your face will be photographed in different angles and stored in the biometrics database systems. The same goes for voice recording and eyes mode of verification.
Once this storing process is done, the ‘comparing’ process is done daily or as and when required. For example let us assume that your company uses finger print biometrics systems. When you come to office daily, there will be a finger print reader at the entrace. You will have to put your finger on this finger print reader which will capture your finger print and send to the biometrics system. The biometrics system will then ‘compare’ this finger print to the finger print that was previously stored in the database. If both of them match then you are authenticated.
Advantages of a biometrics system
The fact that you will have to personally be present in order to authenticate yourself is the advantage of this system. Finger print or retina of the eyes of one person do not match with anyone else’s data in the database. Therefore there is abosolutely no chance of other people using your identity.
Disadvantages of a biometric system.
- The finger print of those people working in Chemical industries are often affected. Therefore these companies should not use the finger print mode of authentication.
- It is found that with age, the voice of a person differs. Also when the person has flu or throat infection the voice changes or if there there are too much noise in the environment this method maynot authenticate correctly. Therefore this method of verification is not workable all the time
- For people affected with diabetes, the eyes get affected resulting in differences.
- Biometrics is an expensive security solution.
A VoIP Tutorial
Dec 13th
VoIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol – is a very popular buzzword in the Internet world.
VoIP makes communication possible without telephone wires, telephone exchanges and even without telephones. You can make voice calls free of charge or at a minimal charge over internet.
If VoIP can give the same quality and standard of voice as in normal telephones then there will not be any need for telephone exchanges any more. People will change to free or cheaper VoIP alternative sooner or later.
The VoIP service is available in two types. Free service and cheap service. Skype is a free VoIP service. While services such as Phonewala, HCL, sathyam provide payable VoIP service. You can download Skype software from www.skype.com .
In payable VoIP service PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) plays a part. Therefore you can call any other phone number through this service. The called person may have subsribed to the VoIP service or maynot have subscribed to the VoIP service, you can still make calls to him. Generally the subscribers of the same VoIP service provider can talk with each other freely. The free VoIP service does not use PSTN. Therefore if you are using the Free VoIP service then you cannot call other telephone numbers and vice versa. But you can use the free VoIP service to talk with each other using computers conencted to the internet.
Ok, now you have decided to try and use VoIP. What are the requirements to use VoIP?
You computer should have sound card, Microphone and speakers. If you have a headphone then it is better. And then you should have internet connection. Broadband connection is better.
In 1999, Internet Society, introduced the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP protocol is used to find out whether the computer that you want to call is currently connected to the internet and is available for making a call. Even internet phones use this SIP protocol.
Earlier I mentioned that using VoIP you can make free calls between computer to computer. You can also make phone calls from your computer to another phone but at a cheaper rate than the normal phone charges.
If you compare VoIP calls to a normal phone to phone call, it is like comparing the quality of a mobile call and a land line call. Many agree that the quality of a land line to land line call is better than the mobile to mobile call. Similarly the quality of the VoIP calls as compared to phone to phone call is slightly below standard. In VoIP, your voice is converted to digital signals and packed into small data packets and then sent over internet. There is no guarantee that these data packets will be received in the same order in which it was sent. The data packets may get mixed. Therefore in order to get all the data packets and arrange them in order it may take some time and hence there may be delay. This is called ‘Jitter’.
If some data packets take too long to arrive then the routers may reject these packets. This will cause ‘Packet Loss’. Therefore the speech may be intermittent and sometimes irritable.
And some argue that VoIP is crackable and crackers may evesdrop to these data packets and listen to your conversations. But even normal telephones can be tapped. The VoIP technology is fast evolving and some VoIP providers use Public Key Encryption to encrypt the data packets and hence cannot be cracked.
To read more about VoIP and to download some free VoIP software visit m-indya.com.
Best practices in a network
Dec 13th
If your computer is not part of a network then you don’t have to worry much. But if your computer is part of a network then the mistakes you do will affect the whole network not simply your computer. Ever heard of the phrase, ‘the strength of a chain lies in its weakest link’? Likewise even if one computer user does not use follow best practices then it will affect the whole network.
Listed below are the best practices that every network computer user should follow:
- Do not give your network computer’s password to anyone. Not even to your network system administrator.
- Change the passwords often
- Always keep a difficult to guess password. For example do not keep your wife’s name, child’s name, husband’s name or your birth date etc.
- Do not write and keep your password everywhere. Don’t keep your password stored in a file in your computer. Just remember it in your mind.
- Do not leave the computer unattended while it is on. If you shutdown before you leave it saves power as well as prevent unauthorised people from logging in to your computer.
- If there is a need for someone else to use your computer then logoff from the computer and leave him to use.
- If anything goes wrong in your computer get help from your network administrator.
- Do not store your personal files in your ‘home’ directory in the network.
- If you need to share an important file with your colleague do not make your whole home directory as ’shared’ folder. Copy those files in to a common folder and share that folder only. After the colleague copies the file immediately delete that folder.
- In any circumstance, do not leave important files in common folders.
- Without your system administrator’s knowledge do not install any application in your computer. Do not download programs from internet or copy programs from CDs
- Do not download unnecessary audio, video, images from internet. These are the common route for viruses.
- During working hours avoid using Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger or any other instant messengers to chat with unofficial persons. You may however use them to communicate for official needs.
- Avoid using your personal emails during office hours except your office mails.
- Do not send unwanted mails to others in the network.
- Do not send emails with big attachments. If you need to send a big file to many colleagues copy it to a network folder and then ask your colleagues to view it from there.
- Do not use your office email address to join mailing lists and newsgroups. Doing so may increase the possibility of SPAM mails.
- Do not open email attachments from unknown persons. Always use a good anti virus software in your computer.
- Do not reply to SPAM emails and do not click on unsubscribe link in these mails. Delete them immediately.
- Refrain yourself from chain emails.
- Do not enter to directories and folders that are not designated to you in the network.
eBook Vs Paper Book
Dec 13th
Electronic Books (eBooks) have gained much popularity these days. It is very useful to those who travel a lot. Because while traveling you may not like to carry more luggage. Less Luggage, More Comfort is indeed true.
You can store many books each containing hundreds of pages in a single thumb drive or memory cards. Then you can connect this flash memory or thumb drive to your laptop, handheld computer or tablet PC and read it at your leisure or even in the plane.
For example assume that you want to bring 400 story books with you on your one month vacation. If we consider one book weighs 250 grams then the 400 books will weigh 100 KG. How difficult it is to carry 100 KGs with you everywhere. Moreover how many boxes you will need to pack these 400 books. How much space they will occupy? Just imagine and see.
Now did you know that you can actually copy the contents of these 400 books into a 256MB thumb drive. The size of the thumb drive is 1 x 2 inches or even smaller in some cases. There is no weight. Now you would have understood why people just love eBooks.
Doctors, Engineers, Lecturers, Researchers who often travel need to carry ‘Reference books’ wherever they go. Just image how useful it will be if they can carry these as eBooks.
At the end of paper books there will be an index. You can use this index to search for some information in the book. But eBooks have the ’search’ facility. You can search based on keywords and key phrases to find the right information in a eBook.
In paper books you can high light certain text. Highlight pens are used just for this. In paper books you can write your comments and additional thoughts wherever you want. Due to this the paper gets damaged in the long run. And it is very difficult to delete or erase the highlights and written text on paper.
In eBook you can highlight wherever you want. Add and insert where you wish. eBook will not get damaged by doing this. And the best part is that you can remove your changes as and when necessary.
In roads, Airports or railway stations it is difficult to read a big paper book. Due to its weight it becomes difficult to stand steadily and hold the book while reading. eBooks doesn’t have this problem.
To turn to the next page, you just need to press a button in an eBook. If you open more than one window, then you can view a picture in one window and read the related text in the other window. In Contrast, while using a paper book it is very troublesome to turn back to the image page for reference while reading about it on the next page.
But though there are so many advantages of using an eBook you may wonder why the eBook has not been widely used and didn’t take off. Here are the reasons why eBook is not so successful.
- You need an eBook Reader to read eBooks. This software is quite expensive. Pocket PCs, Handheld computers, Tablet Pcs and Laptops can use these reader software to read eBooks.
- Not all the books are available in eBook format. However more and more publishers are acknowledging the benefits of eBooks now.
- It is a bit confusing since there are many different formats.
- The price of an eBook is more or less the same as the paper book version of the book
- Copywrite issues are there in eBooks
- Unlike eBooks, Paper books can be given to your friends and then if you don’t need it can sell it second hand.
- Some even complain that the usuall paper and ink smell that is common in a paper book is not available in an eBook
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