It looks like the Apple iPhone 5S has, possibly in the first time in history, copied something from Microsoft’s Windows operating system. We’re talking about the dreaded blue screen of death or BSOD that has been passed down through the generations of Windows and lives on to periodically haunt desktop users. However, the BSOD that the iPhone 5S suffers from is similar to a Windows’ BSOD only for the colour blue. Check out the video below to see the BSOD in action on the iPhone 5S, or rather putting the iPhone 5S out of action:
Monday, 14 October 2013
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Gravity: Scientific Hits And Misses
Gravity - the new sci-fi space disaster/survival thriller by Alfonso Cuaron, featuring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney is arguably one of the best movies this year. Without going too much into details and spoilers (although there may be some unavoidable spoilers: you have been warned), the premise of the movie is about things going wrong on a routine space mission and the quest for survival in the seemingly hopeless void of space. Sandra Bullock plays bio-medical engineer Dr Ryan Stone, who is on her maiden space shuttle mission as a Mission Specialist, while George Clooney plays veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, in final mission of his career. While everything seems to be going just fine during an EVA (extra vehicular activity), space debris from a Russian missile strike aimed to destroy its defunct satellite, results in a chain reaction that destroys the space shuttle with several other astronauts, leaving our two protagonist astronauts stranded in space, only tethered to each other, being only be able to communicate with each other as the contact with Mission Control is lost.
Friday, 11 October 2013
Dell Kicks Off Festival Season With Two Offers
Dell India has two special offers for this festival season with its "Celebrate Dell Se" campaign, which started from 7th October and will go on till 5th November. Customers will receive something extra with every Dell Inspiron, XPS, or Alienware purchase worth Rs 35,000 and above via a variety of gift vouchers. Existing customers can avail special discounts on extended warranty on their Dell laptops.
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
Apple Could Go “Bigger” Screen With iPhone 6 In 2014
We keep on criticizing Samsung for leading the charge in the mobile phone industry as it keeps on blowing up screen sizes that may one day match TVs. It is not really a wonder that many a manufacturers are following suit simply because there really is a demand for large screen phones in India. However, it may come to you as a shocker that as rumour has it, the next iPhone may come with a much larger screen.
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Micromax Teases New Canvas Turbo A250 Flagship Handset
Micromax seems to be preparing to launch a new flagship smartphone - Canvas Turbo A250. According to a tweet by its deemed official insider MMXNewxcaster, the A250 will be the company's first smartphone with a Full HD screen. It is also mentioned that this will feature a quad-core CPU, which is obvious by its flagship status. The tweet doesn't even show any photo of the phone itself, but rather just the stylised name itself.
align="center" Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 to be the First Full HD (1080p) phone from Micromax. To sport Quad Core processor. #News pic.twitter.com/eNrcKmNJtG
— @MMXNewscaster (@MMXNewscaster) October 6, 2013
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Guide: How To Backup And Restore A Windows Phone 8 Handset
Windows Phone 8 is still the newest kid on the block as far as mobile OSes are concerned. There are some things that many users who have taken the leap of faith to this new platform, do not know about this OS. One such feature is the ability to backup and restore the phone settings. In this guide, we will take a look at just how this can be done.
Backing Up Your Windows Phone
In case you are wondering, there is no special software that will really let you back up your Windows Phone 8 data to your computer unlike Zune could for Windows Phone 7.x devices. Everything happens in the cloud, which may not be to everyone's taste. However, something is better than nothing, and we really hope that Microsoft will allow for a way to back up your phone data to your hard drive in the near future. Until then, we will have to go in the following way.
Backup is an automatic feature on a Windows Phone handset. To enable backup, you must go to Settings > backup. Here you will get to see that you can back up your apps list and settings, text messages, and even your photos and videos. The latter can upload to the cloud in the best quality only over Wi-Fi, although it is possible to upload photos in "Good" quality over mobile internet. It is best to disable backup of photos and videos and simply copy them to your hard drive as this will save a lot of your time while restoring. Once done, your phone gets backed up periodically whenever a data connection is available.
Restoring Your Windows Phone
You may opt to restore your Windows Phone in two scenarios:
1) if you have factory reset your phone for some reason,
2) if you have bought a new Windows Phone. In either case, the procedure is the same.
When you start up a new or reset Windows Phone, you will be presented with a screen asking you to sign into a Microsoft account, create a new one, or sign in later. In order to restore your backup, you are required to sign into the Microsoft account associated with your previous backup at this point. It is also necessary that you must have some sort of a mobile data plan as Wi-Fi cannot be used at this point.
Clicking on next after entering your credentials will take you to the next screen where you will be presented with the available sets of backups that can be used to restore the Windows Phone handset. You can choose one and click Next. The backup data starts downloading. This can take a long time depending on the amount of data being restored.
You can now enter your credentials for various accounts from the original Windows Phone handset such as Hotmail, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc and click Next. Your apps will start downloading once the phone reaches the Start screen. At this point, it is wiser to quickly connect to Wi-Fi and then switch off mobile data to save data charges.
Is This Really A "Backup"?
While some of the data does get backed up, this is not really a total backup of the phone data. This is more so with third party apps as only the unique number associated with these apps is stored online and passed on to the handset. Also, any additional settings associated with such apps such as the progress of a game are lost.
Another major problem is that the restore functionality totally depends on the mobile data connection, so you need to have a SIM card inserted into the phone during this process and the SIM must have a data connection (preferably 3G). If you miss this step and go to the Start screen, then the only way to restore the data is by resetting the phone and doing the procedure all over again.
If you thought you could manipulate the backup from the cloud in some way, you are gravely mistaken. The data that is present in the cloud is not available to the user and there is a total lack of transparency not only about what exactly is being sent up and when, but also about the visibility of the content to the authorised user. Thus, if you want to take a look at a particular SMS sent on a particular day, you will not be able to view that because such a facility simply doesn't exist.
Contacts are not backed up in Windows Phone 8 as they are simply stored on the users Gmail or Hotmail accounts present in the phone. So your contacts become available once you log into those accounts in the restored handset.
It is also strange that simple settings such as the placement of Live Tiles, ringtone, theme, etc are not backed up to restore. You are therefore better off taking screenshots beforehand to save the trouble.
This issue can be easily resolved via a software approach like Zune does for Windows Phone 7.x devices. While it is no secret that Windows Phone 8 is a remarkably different and fresh mobile operating system with oodles of capabilities as compared to other veteran mobile OSes, there are a few simple things that need to be addressed to allow it to stake a claim as a stronger third alternative.
Backing Up Your Windows Phone
In case you are wondering, there is no special software that will really let you back up your Windows Phone 8 data to your computer unlike Zune could for Windows Phone 7.x devices. Everything happens in the cloud, which may not be to everyone's taste. However, something is better than nothing, and we really hope that Microsoft will allow for a way to back up your phone data to your hard drive in the near future. Until then, we will have to go in the following way.
Backup is an automatic feature on a Windows Phone handset. To enable backup, you must go to Settings > backup. Here you will get to see that you can back up your apps list and settings, text messages, and even your photos and videos. The latter can upload to the cloud in the best quality only over Wi-Fi, although it is possible to upload photos in "Good" quality over mobile internet. It is best to disable backup of photos and videos and simply copy them to your hard drive as this will save a lot of your time while restoring. Once done, your phone gets backed up periodically whenever a data connection is available.
You may opt to restore your Windows Phone in two scenarios:
1) if you have factory reset your phone for some reason,
2) if you have bought a new Windows Phone. In either case, the procedure is the same.
When you start up a new or reset Windows Phone, you will be presented with a screen asking you to sign into a Microsoft account, create a new one, or sign in later. In order to restore your backup, you are required to sign into the Microsoft account associated with your previous backup at this point. It is also necessary that you must have some sort of a mobile data plan as Wi-Fi cannot be used at this point.
Clicking on next after entering your credentials will take you to the next screen where you will be presented with the available sets of backups that can be used to restore the Windows Phone handset. You can choose one and click Next. The backup data starts downloading. This can take a long time depending on the amount of data being restored.
Image Credit: Nokia Conversations
Is This Really A "Backup"?
While some of the data does get backed up, this is not really a total backup of the phone data. This is more so with third party apps as only the unique number associated with these apps is stored online and passed on to the handset. Also, any additional settings associated with such apps such as the progress of a game are lost.
Another major problem is that the restore functionality totally depends on the mobile data connection, so you need to have a SIM card inserted into the phone during this process and the SIM must have a data connection (preferably 3G). If you miss this step and go to the Start screen, then the only way to restore the data is by resetting the phone and doing the procedure all over again.
If you thought you could manipulate the backup from the cloud in some way, you are gravely mistaken. The data that is present in the cloud is not available to the user and there is a total lack of transparency not only about what exactly is being sent up and when, but also about the visibility of the content to the authorised user. Thus, if you want to take a look at a particular SMS sent on a particular day, you will not be able to view that because such a facility simply doesn't exist.
Contacts are not backed up in Windows Phone 8 as they are simply stored on the users Gmail or Hotmail accounts present in the phone. So your contacts become available once you log into those accounts in the restored handset.
It is also strange that simple settings such as the placement of Live Tiles, ringtone, theme, etc are not backed up to restore. You are therefore better off taking screenshots beforehand to save the trouble.
This issue can be easily resolved via a software approach like Zune does for Windows Phone 7.x devices. While it is no secret that Windows Phone 8 is a remarkably different and fresh mobile operating system with oodles of capabilities as compared to other veteran mobile OSes, there are a few simple things that need to be addressed to allow it to stake a claim as a stronger third alternative.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
In Conversation With Mrunmaiy Abroal Of Opera Software
Opera has recently introduced a new browser - Coast, which is currently exclusively available for the iPad. The Norwegian company known for its synonymous browser had started off with desktop browsers, going on to make the famed Opera Mini browser that actually made feature phones smarter, and now is foraying into the TV segment. I recently had an opportunity to have a tête-à-tête with Mrunmaiy Abroal, Communications Manager - India for Opera Software. Read on for the interaction as we find out the big plans of this company.
Q. What was the need to make Coast? Was Opera Mobile not good enough for tablets?
People have been accessing the web from their computers since 1990. But with the evolution of devices and web technology, we wanted to bring about an evolution in the browser as well. Today’s websites and apps invite you to interact in new ways, but browsers have been stuck in a keyboard-and-mouse world. The web experience on tablets has been limited to browsers that are either scaled-up versions of mobile browsers or scaled-down desktop browsers.
At Opera, we are passionate about making the internet better. These outdated browsers bothered us. So we made Coast from the scratch and specifically designed for iPad. It has a minimalist and uncluttered user interface with a full canvas, large icons and attractive animations. It’s comfortable to use, looks great and is based on intuitive swipe gestures.
Q. What was the reason to make Coast only for the iPad?
When we started the Coast project iPad was the most popular tablet and Android had not yet made a big splash in the market. So it made sense to start with iPad.
Q. Will Coast also make an appearance on other platforms such as Android and Windows Phone?
As a rule, we don't comment on future road-maps. If we happen to do it, we'll let you know.
Q. Under the bonnet, does Coast use the same technologies as Opera Mini for iOS devices?
Coast is a native browser based on Web Kit.
Whereas Opera Mini uses Opera’s advanced compression technology to render webpages and reduces the amount of data downloaded on your device to a little as 10% of its original size.
Q. Tell me a bit more about Opera's foray into the TV segment.
At Opera our aim to build a seamless browsing experience for all types of connected devices.
Opera´s TV solutions allow TV OEMs to provide a superior, connected and interactive TV experience to their customers, combining full internet browsing with a cloud-based TV app store full of exciting web apps optimized for TV. For users, their TV viewing experience becomes more entertaining and connected.
Our product lineup for the TV segment is as follows:
- Opera Devices SDK, an extensible TV platform for developing connected, interactive TV solutions. We have more than 50 customers for the Opera Devices SDK, ranging from TV OEMs, middleware providers, silicon vendors and operators. Some of our major customers are Sony, Toshiba, Philips, Vestel, TCL, Loewe, Technisat, Hisense, Sharp, Panasonic and Pioneer.
- Opera TV Store, Opera's HTML 5 app platform for Smart TV devices . It has already been shipped with Sony Bravia TVs and Blu-ray Disc players and later in 2013 will see the Opera TV Store in TVs by TCL, Humax and MediaTek.
- Opera TV Snap, a next-generation TV app technology with the ability to transform online video into apps for connected TV . Since the launch of Opera TV Snap in July, over 100 content providers from Dailymotion, the world´s second-largest video site, have created and submitted Smart TV apps for the *Opera TV Store using the Opera TV Snap tool and their own video content. Among the brands to jump on board and bring their online video to the TV screen quickly, easily and at no extra cost is The North Face®.
- Opera TV Emulator, a solution which allows web developers to test HTML5 and CE-HTML content for TVs and other appliances running the Opera Devices SDK
- Opera TV browser, the full web-browsing experience for connected TVs
Q. Like Firefox, does Opera plan to introduce a mobile OS in the near future?
As a rule, we don't comment on future road-maps. If we happen to do it, we'll let you know.
Q. What is Opera's game plan to catch up with competing desktop browsers?
The increased competition in the browser market is positive for the consumers, as the browser makers are now fighting to provide the best and most innovative products.
Along those lines, Opera keeps reinventing itself and chose to adopt the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, to focus on developing the new features and user-friendly solutions that are expected from a company that invented so many of the features used today by the browser industry at large.
Opera stays true to its goal of providing browsers that operate across devices, platforms and operating systems, while delivering a faster, more stable and flexible Internet experience than its competitors.
Q. When will Opera bring its popular mobile browser to the Windows Phone platform?
As a rule, we don't comment on future road-maps. If we happen to do it, we'll let you know.
Q. What was the need to make Coast? Was Opera Mobile not good enough for tablets?
People have been accessing the web from their computers since 1990. But with the evolution of devices and web technology, we wanted to bring about an evolution in the browser as well. Today’s websites and apps invite you to interact in new ways, but browsers have been stuck in a keyboard-and-mouse world. The web experience on tablets has been limited to browsers that are either scaled-up versions of mobile browsers or scaled-down desktop browsers.
At Opera, we are passionate about making the internet better. These outdated browsers bothered us. So we made Coast from the scratch and specifically designed for iPad. It has a minimalist and uncluttered user interface with a full canvas, large icons and attractive animations. It’s comfortable to use, looks great and is based on intuitive swipe gestures.
Q. What was the reason to make Coast only for the iPad?
When we started the Coast project iPad was the most popular tablet and Android had not yet made a big splash in the market. So it made sense to start with iPad.
Q. Will Coast also make an appearance on other platforms such as Android and Windows Phone?
As a rule, we don't comment on future road-maps. If we happen to do it, we'll let you know.
Q. Under the bonnet, does Coast use the same technologies as Opera Mini for iOS devices?
Coast is a native browser based on Web Kit.
Whereas Opera Mini uses Opera’s advanced compression technology to render webpages and reduces the amount of data downloaded on your device to a little as 10% of its original size.
Q. Tell me a bit more about Opera's foray into the TV segment.
At Opera our aim to build a seamless browsing experience for all types of connected devices.
Opera´s TV solutions allow TV OEMs to provide a superior, connected and interactive TV experience to their customers, combining full internet browsing with a cloud-based TV app store full of exciting web apps optimized for TV. For users, their TV viewing experience becomes more entertaining and connected.
Our product lineup for the TV segment is as follows:
- Opera Devices SDK, an extensible TV platform for developing connected, interactive TV solutions. We have more than 50 customers for the Opera Devices SDK, ranging from TV OEMs, middleware providers, silicon vendors and operators. Some of our major customers are Sony, Toshiba, Philips, Vestel, TCL, Loewe, Technisat, Hisense, Sharp, Panasonic and Pioneer.
- Opera TV Store, Opera's HTML 5 app platform for Smart TV devices . It has already been shipped with Sony Bravia TVs and Blu-ray Disc players and later in 2013 will see the Opera TV Store in TVs by TCL, Humax and MediaTek.
- Opera TV Snap, a next-generation TV app technology with the ability to transform online video into apps for connected TV . Since the launch of Opera TV Snap in July, over 100 content providers from Dailymotion, the world´s second-largest video site, have created and submitted Smart TV apps for the *Opera TV Store using the Opera TV Snap tool and their own video content. Among the brands to jump on board and bring their online video to the TV screen quickly, easily and at no extra cost is The North Face®.
- Opera TV Emulator, a solution which allows web developers to test HTML5 and CE-HTML content for TVs and other appliances running the Opera Devices SDK
- Opera TV browser, the full web-browsing experience for connected TVs
Q. Like Firefox, does Opera plan to introduce a mobile OS in the near future?
As a rule, we don't comment on future road-maps. If we happen to do it, we'll let you know.
Q. What is Opera's game plan to catch up with competing desktop browsers?
The increased competition in the browser market is positive for the consumers, as the browser makers are now fighting to provide the best and most innovative products.
Along those lines, Opera keeps reinventing itself and chose to adopt the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, to focus on developing the new features and user-friendly solutions that are expected from a company that invented so many of the features used today by the browser industry at large.
Opera stays true to its goal of providing browsers that operate across devices, platforms and operating systems, while delivering a faster, more stable and flexible Internet experience than its competitors.
Q. When will Opera bring its popular mobile browser to the Windows Phone platform?
As a rule, we don't comment on future road-maps. If we happen to do it, we'll let you know.
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