TeluGlobe » Technology

The new Samsung Android Galaxy Tablet

Bhanu Prakash — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:26:35 +0000

Folks this year is going to be the “Tablet” year i.e. you will see a boat load of these sold during the Thanksgiving to Christmas time. We all know about iPad. Google is competing with Apple in this market segment with its Android operating system. The issue with Android tablets is , the hardware. Few companies released poorly designed Android tablets. Samsung is entering this market with its Galaxy. This looks to be the legit competitor to the iPad.

Check the Video. More details are at http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/

Why all Smartphones are priced at $ 199.00

Bhanu Prakash — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:06:46 +0000

There is an excellent article on why all of the newest and greatest smart phones are priced around the $ 199.00 price point.

Read it and comment away.

[ Via CNN ]

By David Goldman, staff writerSeptember 1, 2010: 3:41 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A hot new smartphone can be Incredible, Vibrant, Epic or just “eh,” but no matter how it stacks up, it’s a safe bet that it will start selling at $199.

On the four major wireless networks — Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T, Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile — there are 13 smartphones priced at $199 with a two-year contract. There are no phone models with a higher starting price (add-ons like more memory can increase the price tag), and there are more smartphones selling at $199 than at any other single price point.

But spending $199 doesn’t guarantee you a top-of-the-line phone. On AT&T’s (T, Fortune 500) network, $199 will buy an iPhone 4, the best-selling smartphone of all time. But you’ll need to fork over the same amount for a BlackBerry Bold 9700, a nine-month-old phone that lacks a touch screen.

It will also cost you $199 to get an HTC Tilt 2, which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 — an operating system so out of date that Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is set to completely abandon it in the next few months.

So what’s so special about $199?

“The obvious answer is that $199 is a magic price point for smartphone volume,” said George Appling, partner at consulting firm Booz & Co. “The not-so-obvious reason is that carriers are not charging customers what they pay.”

In other words, wireless carriers pay significantly more for smartphones than you do. In exchange for your signature on an expensive two-year contract, they’ll offer you the smartphone for less than it costs them but as much as they think you’ll pay for it — and right now, that’s $199 across the board. Buy an unsubsidized iPhone 4 straight from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and you’ll pay $599 for the 16 GB phone that AT&T sells for $199 with a two-year contract.

Smartphones generally cost carriers around $500 per unit. Volume deals and other negotiations with manufacturers can shave down that price tag, but the hotter the phone, the more a carrier will pay to buy it.

But that’s just the start of their calculations of what a phone “costs.”

0:00 /2:18The Motorola Droid 2 is unleashed

Phones that tend to eat up more bandwidth — hello iPhone! — add to the carrier’s overhead. Put together the upfront cost of the phone and the back-end cost to service it, and you’re left with the phone’s profit margin. For a model with really tight margins, the carrier might find itself essentially forced to charge more upfront than it otherwise would — it can’t discount the purchase price and still scrape out a profit. That sometimes leads to inferior phones, like the BlackBerry Bold, carrying the same price tag as more advanced rivals, like BlackBerry’s Torch.

It wasn’t always that way. Before the age of tricked-out smartphones with expensive touch screens and processors, cell phones were much cheaper to manufacture. That gave wireless companies more leeway to compete on cost, and prior to the iPhone’s mid-2007 release, phones had a wide variety of price tags.

But as phones got more expensive, a tiering of prices developed. Even the iPhone couldn’t hold the high ground: Initially priced at $599 — yes, even with a two-year contract — the phone plunged to $399 just two months after its debut. By 2008, it had settled into the $199 groove.

If you don’t need the latest and greatest, you can certainly score a gadget for less. Older, less exciting smartphones like the LG Ally, Palm Pre and Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500) Devour go for $149, or even $99.

But you won’t find many phones priced outside those $50 tier increments.

“There’s no $189 price point any more because operators don’t want to suggest that one phone is a little better or a little worse than another at the same tier,” said Charles Golvin, analyst at Forrester Research. “Carriers are looking for simplicity, even if that doesn’t reflect their margins.”

So will any carrier try to shake up the market and sell a cutting-edge phone for less? Don’t hold your breath.

“No price war is going to happen,” Appling said. “If Verizon got the iPhone tomorrow, it would probably sell for $199. They’re already in a $300 hole when they add a customer, so they’ll be extraordinarily hesitant to make that worse.”

That’s not to say the wireless carriers are getting a bad deal. They’re happy to take the initial hit in exchange for a data plan that costs subscribers an extra $30 or so a month on their bill. And smartphone users tend to stick with their networks longer than low-end phone users, according to Soumen Ganguly, principal at Altman Vilandrie & Co. That makes them dream customers: They pay more and churn less.

The $199 price point has another perk for carriers. We’re in the midst of a smartphone innovation boom, with companies pumping out new top-of-the-line phones every few months with better screens, memory and features. When those new phones are offered at the same price point older models once were, they seem like a steal in comparison. That draws new customers into the market — and inspires those with aging phones to trade up and lock themselves into a fresh contract.

“There will always be a next big phone coming out in two months that will justify the $199 price,” Ganguly said. “Manufacturers are innovating faster than the willingness of carriers to compete on price.”

Eight Clever Ways to Take Advantage of Free Calling in Gmail

Kanaka Byraju — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:52:54 +0000

As you all know that Google made it possible to make calls using Google voice from Gmail. Other than making it possible, they made it free calling to USA and Canada. If you think about it, this feature is definitely helpful and imagine your family calling from India for FREE! Here is the post from Lifehacker explaining different ways to take advantage of this free calling feature in Gmail. Enjoy and leave a comment.

Get Caller ID from Your Computer

Let’s say you’ve got a landline set up with Google Voice and you don’t want to pay for caller ID. Or you just spend a lot of time staring at your computer. If you’re logged into Gmail, and someone rings up your Google Voice number, you can see who’s calling on your computer without digging your phone out of your pocket.

Transfer Calls to (and from) Your Computer to Save Cellphone Minutes

Assuming you’ve already added your Gmail Chat account as a number that can be reached through Google Voice (which also assumes you’ve signed up for Google Voice), you can transfer calls from your phone to your computer to save cellphone minutes. Here’s how it works:

1) If you’re logged into your Google account, go to theGoogle Voice phone settings page. At the bottom, you should see a new option for Google Chat (like in the image). Make sure it’s checked.

2) Now, when you’re in the midst of a call on your cellphone—let’s say you were talking to someone in the car, and now you’re home—just hit the * (asterisk) on your phone’s number pad to send the call to another Google Voice phone. If your Gmail account is open, your inbox should start ringing. Pick up in Gmail and hangup your cellphone.

The opposite works, as well—i.e., transferring calls out from Gmail to your cellphone. Oh, and remember: If you’ve got a decent Bluetooth headset, you should also be able to stay relatively mobile, even if you’re talking from your computer.

Find Your Misplaced Phone

Misplace your cellphone under a pile of clothes or deep in your couch cushions? If you left your ringer on but don’t have another phone on hand, just log into Gmail, dial your cellphone number, and follow the faint sound of ringing.

Use It for a Quick-and-Dirty Speakerphone for Group Calls

Google Voice is already pretty good at setting up conference calls (demonstrated in the video above). Now that you can call from your computer, you’ve also got a quick-and-dirty speakerphone perfect for the group of people sitting around a table on your coast.

Make a Quick Followup Call in Response to an Email

This is less of an “amazing new thing” than a nice, practical side effect of having one more thing integrated with your inbox. Say you get an email from a colleague. You want to send a quick followup, but it’s going to be a lot more appropriate talking than typing a reply. Dial the person up in Gmail and talk it out without disrupting your workflow.

Secretly Record Calls

Google Voice has handy recording function, but whenever you enable it (hit 4 to start and finish recording), Google Voice announces “This call is now being recorded.” Prefer to record a conversation surreptitiously? Calling from Gmail puts the audio on your computer, where you can use any number of tools to record your system audio on-the-sly. (For example, despite what I thought at the time, Whitson later told me he wasn’t aware I was recording the call in the video above.) File this under the know-your-state-laws category.

Prank Time

Speaking of neat things you can do now that your computer hardware is accessible for both inputs and outputs, consider this: If you set your onboard system audio as your default input device rather than a microphone, you can, say, play the caller a little song. That’s maybe a little boring. On the other hand, it’s even easier to navigate to your favorite prank call soundboard and have a little fun.

Make Free Calls Anywhere You’ve Got Free Wi-Fi

Your mileage may vary on this one, but anywhere you’ve got your laptop and free Wi-Fi—like, say, any Starbucks in the U.S.—you can fire up a free phone call to anyone in the U.S. or Canada and chat away. There’s a good chance that many free Wi-Fi hotspots don’t provide you with enough bandwidth to make high enough quality calls, but if you’re desperate to save on minutes (or just don’t have a phone handy), it’s worth a try.

Unmanned Aircraft looses control in D.C Area.

Bhanu Prakash — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:29:59 +0000

The next generation air warfare systems are all about unmanned Aircrafts. America is far ahead of all the countries in this new warfare (no surprise). FYI, Indian DRDO is making the below unmanned air-crafts.
DRDO Nishant
DRDO Rustom
Lakshya PTA

One reason why America is ahead of the other countries is “Testing”. While all the countries are only fiddling these on fake targets, America is testing these drones in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan i.e. on real life war scenarios. Just give perspective, Pakistan alone provided a nice test bed for Americans since 2004 .

And guess what will happen if America tests an unmanned vehicle inside the country. ITS A MESS. A SCARY MESS.
US Navy said they lost control of an unmanned 30 foot helicopter looking aerial vehicle. The drone entered into the restricted air space, and was within 40 miles the capital. Imagine the situation in the control room

[To quote Gizmodo]

“The Times says that “the Navy did not describe the scene inside the ground control station as operators sought to re-establish communication with the drone,” but I’ll bet they were all like “oh shit oh shit oh shit.”"

Read the article from via NYT and don’t forget to comment.

WASHINGTON — The skies over the nation’s capital are crowded with presidential aircraft, military flyovers and the Delta shuttle, but this month a strange new bird was briefly among them: a United States Navy drone that wandered into the restricted airspace around Washington before operators could stop it.

Navy spokesmen could not say Wednesday if anyone on the ground was alarmed by the drone — officially an MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing unmanned aerial vehicle — which looks like a small windowless helicopter and was flying at 2,000 feet. The Navy did say that the drone got within 40 miles of Washington before operators were able to re-establish communication and guide it back to its base in southern Maryland.

Still, the Aug. 2 incident resulted in the grounding of all six of the Navy’s Fire Scouts as well as an inquiry into what went wrong. The Navy is calling the problem a “software issue” that foiled the drone’s operators.

Or, as Cmdr. Danny Hernandez, a Navy spokesman, put it: “When they lose contact with the Fire Scout, there’s a program that’s supposed to have it immediately return to the airfield to land safely. That did not happen as planned.”

Navy spokesmen said the Fire Scout, made by Northrop Grumman, was a little more than an hour into a test flight operating out of Naval Air Station Patuxent River on the Chesapeake Bay when operators lost its control link. The drone then flew 23 miles on a north-by-northwest course to enter Washington’s restricted airspace. A half-hour later, Navy spokesmen said, operators re-established control and the drone landed safely back at Patuxent.

The Navy did not describe the scene inside the ground control station as operators sought to re-establish communication with the drone.

The Fire Scout, about 31 feet long and 10 feet high, is a surveillance aircraft that can take off from Navy warships. In April, a Fire Scout was part of a drug arrest in the waters off Central America. According to the Navy, the Fire Scout relayed video of a suspicious fishing vessel to the Coast Guard and law enforcement officials, who moved in and seized 60 kilos of cocaine.

Complete Guide to Maximizing Your Android Phone’s Battery Life

Kanaka Byraju — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:23:46 +0000

You’re no doubt reading this article because you’ve got a shiny new Android phone, but there’s just one problem: you’re so addicted that the battery runs out on a daily basis. Instead of putting the phone down, let’s maximize the battery life.

Saving your battery life isn’t rocket science—the general principle is to get rid of the things that are draining the battery the most, and trim down other things that you need to use, but maybe can tweak a little. Keep reading for the full explanation.

Use Android’s Built-in Battery Usage Screen
There’s a screen built into Android that most casual users probably don’t even know about, and it can tell you exactly what is killing your battery. Head into Settings –> About Phone –> Battery use to see what has been killing your battery life.

From this screen, you can usually see what apps are the worst offenders, and you will probably notice that the biggest problem—at least, the biggest one that we can fix—is actually the backlight on the phone. Personally I’d prefer to talk less to other humans, but that isn’t always an option!

Note: on my phone, I’ve already configured the backlight to not be very bright—normally that number would be a lot higher.

Adjust the Backlight to be Less Bright

Since we’ve already determined that the backlight is usually the biggest problem, you should probably adjust the settings. Head into Settings –> Display –> Brightness, where you can choose to automatically adjust, which usually works fairly well, or you can just turn the brightness down to the lowest acceptable level.

You should make sure that the screen timeout value is set to turn off quickly as well.

Disable Your Wi-Fi When You Don’t Need It

Wi-Fi can really speed up accessing data on your phone, but it can also be a big drain on the battery if you don’t need it enabled, especially when you are out and about… The phone will try and scan for a wireless network even though you may not want it to.

To enable Airplane mode, you can head into Settings –> Wireless & networks–> Airplane mode.

You can easily toggle the Wi-Fi on or off with a widget or shortcut—there’s a built-in widget included in Android phones, or you can use the AnyCut or BetterCut utilities to create your own shortcuts to directly turn them on or off without requiring a widget.

Disable Bluetooth if You Don’t Use It

If you aren’t using a wireless headset, there’s no reason to have Bluetooth running all the time, and you should probably cut it off to save the battery life. If you never use it at all, head into Settings –> Wireless & networks–> Bluetooth.

You can also enable or disable the Bluetooth when you do need it, using the power widget.

Use the Power Widget to Easily Toggle GPS, Bluetooth, Wireless, and Screen Brightness

Android includes a built-in Power Widget that can easily toggle these settings on or off—just long press on the background of one of your screens, choose Widget –> Power Control to add it to the screen. You’ll notice in this example screenshot that I’ve got my GPS enabled but I’m not using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth at the moment—the icon all the way on the right lets you easily toggle the screen brightness settings.

This is probably the simplest and easiest thing that you can do to save your battery without having to dig into the settings all the time.

Disable Apps that Sync Constantly

The built-in Email application (not the Gmail one, which uses Push technology) can suck the battery badly, because it syncs on a too-regular basis, especially when you have lots of accounts—each one of them is set to sync every 15 minutes. You’d be better off setting it up to sync manually, but if you want it to sync automatically, you should set it to sync less frequently.

Open up the Email application, head to your account, and choose Account settings –> Email check frequency from the menu. Change this to something more like an hour… or never. You can always hit refresh manually when you want to read your email.

The same thing holds true for other accounts, like Twitter clients, which are even less important to update all the time. For Seesmic, you can head into Settings –> Background Updates from the main screen. For the official Twitter app, the settings are similar.

[Read More from How to Geeks]

TG Tip: How to Migrate Your Entire Google Account to a New One

Kanaka Byraju — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:16:01 +0000

Whether you finally decided to shed sassyhacker957@gmail.com for a more professional handle or you want to swap Google accounts for less embarrassing reasons, Google doesn’t have a built-in system for migrating your data to a new account. So we figured it out.

A lot of us have a ton of data stored in Google’s services, but if you want to migrate to a new Google account, you’ll need to do some digging. Here’s how to migrate your data from Google’s most popular services (Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Reader, Voice, Blogger, and YouTube) from your current account (hereafter referred to as “Account 1″) to your new account (hereafter, “Account 2″) while incurring the least amount of data loss.

A few of the services (such as Google Reader) adhere to some fairly universal import/export standards that make it easy, whereas other services (such as newer YouTube accounts) may require you to start from scratch to keep full functionality. In these few cases, we’ll note what you can do and what you’ll lose by using that method instead of starting over.

Note: Unfortunately, Google Apps has still not caught up to regular Google Accounts in terms of available services. While some of these (such as Calendar and Documents) will work for migrating to a Google Apps account, other services (such as Reader or Voice) are still not available to Google Apps at this time. I’ll note where the service is not available to Apps users, as well as when they need to go through a different process of migrating that particular service.

Migrating Gmail

Migrating all your email from one Gmail account to another is a fairly involved process—and one which we detailed in our guide to changing your Gmail account without losing your email. So hit up that original guide for your Gmail migration, then come back for the rest.

Migrating Google Calendar

There are two ways to migrate your Google Calendar. One of them takes a bit longer, but we’ll only use that method for your main calendar only (the one that, by default, is named after your Gmail address). All of the sub-calendars, or “delegates”, of the account are easier to migrate, so we’ll do that second.

To migrate your main calendar, go into your Google Calendar settings and click on the Calendars tab. You’ll see an option to export all your calendars, at once, to your hard drive in iCalendar format. Export them to your drive and unzip them if necessary.

Next, go to your new account (it’s easiest to have each account logged into Google in a separate browser), go to Settings > Calendar Settings > Calendars and create a new one. Name it whatever you like, click Create Calendar, and then hit the import button at the bottom of the page. Choose the .ical file corresponding to your main calendar and upload it, choosing the empty Google Calendar you just created as its destination. You’ll see that it shows up in calendar view.

If you have more calendars you want to import beyond the default, we’re just going to share them with the other account. Go back to the Calendars tab of Account 1′s settings and hit the “Share This Calendar” button next to a calendar. Type in the Account 2′s address and hit Enter. Change the permissions in the drop-down window to “Make Changes AND Manage Sharing” and hit Save. Account 2 will receive an email saying that you’ve shared a calendar, and provide a confirmation link. The first time you receive an invitation, you’ll need to click on this link, but afterward the calendar will just show up automatically. You can then go back to the Calendars tab of your new account’s settings, hit the “Shared: Edit Settings” link and remove Account 1 at the bottom, by clicking the trash can icon. (This removes Account 1 from sharing the calendar, so Account 2 is left with full ownership of the calendar.) Repeat this for each of your calendars and you’ll have migrated everything you need. This method works for both regular Google accounts as well as Google Apps.

[Read More @ Lifehacker]

Killer Street View from Bing Maps.

Kanaka Byraju — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:09:57 +0000

Microsoft researchers may be looking for a way to best Google Street View, and, we admit, its Street Slide project comes close. Google and Bing utilize what are known as “bubbles,” discrete units of perspective that allow you to virtually explore a 360-degree view for a given chunk of space. But, as most seasoned Street View users know, you must click through each “bubble” to advance your perspective in one way or another.

Microsoft’s Street Slide combines panoramic views of streets with the 360-degree capabilities of Street View, allowing you to see whole (and even multiple) city blocks at a time. The downside is that you get a very thin panoramic slice when you zoom out too far, for which the researchers have tried to compensate by adding business logos, street numbers and directional information. A pretty interesting development to be sure, but, unless you’re a Thomas Pynchon fan or an astronomer, all the talk of parallaxes may put you to sleep. We suggest that non-nerds only listen to the snooze-worthy narration if you’re interested in “efficient browsing of building façades.” Check out the demo of the project, which is still in the early development phase, after the break.

[Via - Switched]

The largest Multi-Touch trackpad ever

Kanaka Byraju — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:42:56 +0000

Along with hardware upgrades to their Mac Pro, iMac, and Cinema Display lines, Apple unveiled something entirely different for owners of their desktop computers: a fully functional, stand-alone “Magic Trackpad” that offers the same multi-finger control of the MacBook trackpad.

It’s likely the first move by a major manufacturer to push finger controls for screen manipulation on a desktop computer, and while most desktop users probably aren’t ready to ditch their mouse entirely, it will be interesting to see what develops, and if the idea of using a trackpad rather than a mouse takes hold.

Apple’s certainly designed their Magic Trackpad with side-by-side in mind, as the device lines up at the same angle as their Bluetooth keyboard. Read up on the Magic Trackpad at Apple’s store and at Gizmodo, and tell us whether your desktop experience could make room for a trackpad in the comments.

[Via - Lifehacker]

Desi Browser – Epic

Sandeep — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:42:22 +0000

Impressive stuff… feels great to see browsers to be developed in India.

In the CEO’s words:

The Epic Browser is the first-ever web browser for India and the first product from the software company Hidden Reflex.

Hidden Reflex is a software product startup founded by Alok Bhardwaj in 2007 and based in Bangalore. Alok, who was raised in the U.S., was inspired by the success of open source software and web 2.0 innovations. Hidden Reflex began as a team of three but soon progressed and now has dedicated teams working on two products simultaneously – the Epic Browser and NewsDrink. The company also has three patents pending related to its product innovations.

The company’s vision is to become the first globally recognized, consumer-oriented software product company in India. According to Alok Bhardwaj, CEO and Founder of Hidden Reflex, “We want to prove that India can be a hub for innovation in software and technology.”

Our mission with the Epic browser is to create the most secure, most productive and most “Indian” browsing experience of any web browser!

PC world’s review:

An Indian startup company Hidden Reflex has launched first ever web browser from India. Epic has been stuffed with many features and applications. It has something which we have never heard of before, an integrated antivirus protection in a browser. The built in antivirus and antispyware is powered by ESET. The browser has a sidebar with lot of widgets already installed such as skins, maps, jobs, news, gmail, yahoo, games and many more. Epic claims to have around 1500 free applications which can be added in the browser.

Related News

Android Gets Opera Mini 5.1

Firefox 4 Beta 1: Overview

The Battle of Browsers: Firefox 4 Beta vs. Chrome

Firefox Beta 4 Launched by Mozilla

Google Chrome Integrates Flash

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Orkut are also included in the sidebar. You can log in to your account and on the same time continue working on other things. There are many utility functions in the Epic Browser which I liked. It has a free word processor, a to do tool, snippet app, timer and most importantly it allows you to access your files and folder from the browser itself. It also has an application called Indic which allows you to type in many Indian languages. Hidden Reflex claims that the browser supports 12 Indian languages currently. The browser also allows you to watch videos from YouTube in a small window, so that you can browse other websites while watching videos.

Epic Web Browser is build on Mozilla Firefox and is customized for the taste of Indian users. We liked the look, feel and speed of the browser and is definitely worth trying. Get the browser here.

Open source seems to be of great help in competing against the biggies in the browser market. Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer seems to be on its way down with a combination of bugs, regulatory bodies asking MS to have a browser ballot and other browsers gaining market share. Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Opera, Mozilla’s Firefox, and Internet Explorer are some of the web browsers jostling for a share of the pie and gain share.

Bad News to IT Systems Vendors and Consulting companies

aparupal — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:09:08 +0000

Analyst firm Gartner has formed a new advocacy council around the issue of IT maintenance contracts and issued a “code of conduct” it wants vendors to follow, actions that could further intensify an already hot topic.
Maintenance fees, which are charged annually in exchange for product updates, bug fixes and technical support, have come under increased scrutiny in recent years as companies have looked to reduce IT spending amid the economic crisis. SAP’s 2008 move to transition customers to a richer-featured but pricier support service was met with considerable blowback, and the applications giant ultimately made some conciliatory concessions.
For vendors, maintenance dollars are crucial, as they provide a steady stream of income even when new license deals are scarce.
But maintenance also represents the single largest expense for many IT shops, Gartner said in a report accompanying the announcement.
The new code of conduct, developed by Gartner along with a number of technology executives in its newly formed Gartner Global IT Council for IT Maintenance, seeks to correct any imbalances between the value customers receive for maintenance fees and the revenue they provide vendors. It includes the following clauses:
• a right to “regular, appropriate, predictable updates to software products”;
• response times and support levels “based on application criticality and other business factors”;
• fair percentage ranges for annual maintenance fee hikes or reductions, and long-term caps on increases;
• the ability to stop or alter support at any time for unused products;
• predictable and reasonable support levels for the entirety of a product or contract’s life cycle;
• clearly spelled-out support time lines for older systems; and
• the right to “explicit statement and approval of support details at the line-item level”
Members of the council hope the code will act as a starting point for discussion, “with the goal of transforming these basic principles into standards that are accepted and respected across the industry.”
Altimeter Group analyst Ray Wang, who has carved out a niche as an advocate for end-users concerning maintenance issues, praised Gartner’s action, but with a caveat.
“It’s a good start. Customers need a good base line and a bill of rights evens the playing field,” Wang said via e-mail. “There could be more rights across the lifecycle, and third-party maintenance should be a key requirement.”Third-party maintenance firms offer reduced-price services to companies with no immediate desire for upgrades, which are only available through vendor-provided support.
Another industry observer echoed Wang’s stance.
While the code’s recommendations are sound, “the elephant in the room, of course, is third-party maintenance, and Gartner is silent on this point,” said Frank Scavo, managing partner of the IT consulting firm Strativa, via e-mail.
“Some vendors these days are attempting to preclude customers from seeking service and support from third parties,” Scavo added. “A customer-friendly maintenance contract should explicitly allow customers the right to go to a third party for software maintenance without jeopardizing warranties.”
The market for third-party maintenance has been clouded by ongoing litigation. In 2007, Oracle sued SAP and its former subsidiary TomorrowNow, which provided third-party support for Oracle software. Oracle claims TomorrowNow workers made illegal downloads of its IP in the course of servicing customers.
Earlier this year, Oracle also sued Rimini Street, which is led by CEO Seth Ravin, a co-founder of TomorrowNow. Rimini duplicates TomorrowNow’s “corrupt business model,” according to Oracle.
Rimini Street has denied any wrongdoing. SAP has said TomorrowNow was authorized to download materials from Oracle’s website on behalf of TomorrowNow customers. It also acknowledged some” inappropriate downloads” had occurred at TomorrowNow, but said those materials remained in TomorrowNow’s systems.
Some observers believe the outcome of these cases could lay clear ground rules regarding third-party maintenance rights.
Meanwhile, to be a true advocate for customers, Gartner needs to do more than release the report and bill of rights, according to Vinnie Mirchandani, of the consulting firm Deal Architect and a former Gartner analyst.
“I would love to see Gartner put some teeth behind this code. Have the guts to call out IBM, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and others as they violate those principles,” he wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “Gartner could easily anonymize the client names but share them with the world.”
But Gartner must execute a careful dance, added Mirchandani, long nicknamed “Vinnie Maintenance” for his constant drumbeat on the issue. “Given these software vendors are also some of its biggest clients, the language will likely be ambassadorial and likely take years to show much progress.”

Windows Mobile 7 Previews

Bhanu Prakash — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:19:42 +0000

Microsoft Mobile 7 is entering the fierce mobile business. After few years of hibernation Microsoft is slowly waking up. Personally I think it will be an uphill task. Apple and Google are the undisputed leaders. Blackberry is innovating with all new BB OS 6.0. HP+Palm have the slickest OS. Nokia is still fighting with its MaeMo. I doubt Microsoft is ready for this battle. The early previews are “Fine” not “Great”. Read for yourself.

Click here to read from the engadget
Click here for Gizmodo take

Via engadget

What do you think of the phone after watching the previews ? Would you buy the phones ? I doubt you will have TORI on it anytime .
Comment away.

iPhone Antenna Problem Funny Chinese Animation

Bhanu Prakash — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:09:54 +0000

Watch it in its entirety. Don’t know if you remember Tiger Woods crashing the car while wife chasing him animation, it has become normal for thes chinese media channels to animate few popular news

Best Camera so far, Nikon D700.

Kanaka Byraju — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:54:51 +0000

I love photography and coming to USA made me to explore it further. Since its an expensive hobby, I have started doing some paid shootings and finally ended up doing weddings. So far I have been shooting with D2H and D70 with a handful lenses.

I have been looking for a full frame DSLR and ended up buying Nikon D700. It is expensive but after looking at my pictures, its totally worth it. Shooting at 1250 ISO and look at these samples. Shot all these with 50mm 1.8 lens. With other cameras I was not able to go beyond 400 and if I need to, ended always with flash. All the below pictures are with out flash and at 1250 ISO. Will share more soon.

No post processing done to any of these pics and all are just out of camera.

[View with PicLens]

How to Test Drive Android on Your PC Without Buying a Phone

Kanaka Byraju — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:54:43 +0000

Interested in test driving the latest version of Google’s Android OS without buying a new mobile device? Here’s how to run Android on your PC for free with the Android SDK Emulator.

Android is the latest mobile OS to take the world by storm, but everyone doesn’t have access to the latest mobile devices. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to run Android on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. Google provides an Android emulator with their SDK, which is designed to let developers test their apps on Android before running them on handsets. We can use this to test drive Android on our computer, here’s how to do it.

Getting Started

The Android Emulator requires Java to run, so if you don’t already have Java installed on your computer, download it and install as normal.

Note: When installing Java, make sure not to install any crapware it tries to sneak in like the worthless Yahoo toolbar.

Then, download the Android SDK from Google, and make sure to select the correct version for your computer. Once it’s downloaded, unzip the files as normal. In Windows, run theSDK Setup.exe program to get started running Android on your PC.

The SDK will check Google’s servers for available packages.

If you see an SSL error message, click the Settingstab on the left in the SDK and AVD Manager window that opened in the background. Here, uncheck the Force httpsbox, click OK, and then reopen the setup.

Now, the Package Installer will open. You can choose what you want to install, and then click Install to begin installing the Android emulator on your computer.

By default, all of the SDK platforms, samples, and APIs will be selected for install. This can take quite a while to download, as several versions of Android are currently available. If you only want to play around with Android, choose the version you want. You’ll want the SDK Platform Android your.version. Then click the Reject bullet on all the other entries, and click Install. We wanted to try out the latest Android 2.2 as well as the older 1.5, so we downloaded both of them.

Once you’ve started installing, you’ll see a window showing the download and installation progress. This may take a few minutes, depending on your Internet speed. You’ll have some little Androids in your taskbar, but unfortunately they don’t show the download progress.

Setup an Android Emulator

Once the download is completed, you can setup an emulator to test drive Android on your computer. Select Virtual Devices from the left menu, and then click the New button on the right.

Enter a name for your virtualized Android, and select the version of Android you want to use from the drop-down menu. This will only show the version you installed previously, so you may only see one version listed depending on your selection.

Enter a size under the SD Card entry; this is a virtual SD card that’s actually an IMG file that Android will use to store your settings and files in. Then, select a screen size from the skin options. The default is a standard, Nexus One-type display, while the others are different sizes including even a BlackBerry-style device.

Click Create AVD when you’re finished.

The program may appear to freeze while it is creating the AVD, so just wait until you see the confirmation window.

You’re now ready to run Android on your PC! Select your new virtual Android, and click Starton the right.

You can choose to scale the display if you’ve chosen a larger screen size than your monitor will fit, and then select Launch.

Android will now begin to load in your emulator. Several command prompt windows may open, and then you’ll see the emulator itself. Notice that the default, large screen size will display a keypad and virtual buttons on the right side of the emulated device.

Android may take several minutes to load, especially on your first run. After a while, the boot screen will switch to an Android boot animation.

Finally, you’ll be presented with your new Android home screen! Use your mouse as you would normally, though remember that you don’t need to double-click to open apps.

You can open pre-installed apps from the launcher menu, though unfortunately these emulator images do not include the Android Marketplace.

View your favorite websites in the browser, and they will render just as they would on an Android device. Note that you can enter text using the on screen keyboard in the emulator, or with your standard keyboard. Since this is an emulator, you may notice some lag in entering text.

You can also install Apps that are directly available online.

Default apps such as Email work great, and you can even see most of the device settings in Android.

Click and hold on the home screen to change the background or try out widgets.

You’ll even see the nifty Android Lock screen if you leave your virtual machine alone for a few minutes. Just click the arrow and drag it to the other side of the screen to unlock.

You can always repeat the steps later to create a new Android virtual machine. Here we’ve created an Android 1.5 virtual machine with the QVGA screen size.

We did experience a few crashes in our tests, and the emulator felt somewhat sluggish, but in all, it’s fun to try out a new mobile OS before spending money on a new phone.

Launch Android Virtual Machines Later

Anytime you want to launch your Android virtual machines in the emulator, just run the SDK Setup.exe as before, and select them from the Virtual Devices list. Alternately, you can launch an emulator directly from the command line. To do this, browse to your Android SDK folder and open the Tools folder. Press the Shift key and right-click, and then select Open Command Window Here.

Now enter the following in the Command Prompt, substituting the name of your Android virtual machine for your_device:

emulator @your_device

Create a Shortcut For Your Android

Alternately, right-click on the Emulator.exe in the SDK Tools folder, and select Create Shortcut.

This shortcut would actually only run the emulator in Command Prompt and not load an actual virtual device. We’ll need to change the properties to do this, so right-click the emulator and select Properties.

Next, select the Shortcut tab, and then scroll to the end of the Target box. Enter the name of your virtual Android as before, as @your_Android after the emulator.exe, and then click OK.

Now you can launch your Android directly from your Desktop or Start menu.

Whether you’re a developer who wants to write the next greatest app for Android or are simply are curious about Android and would like to try it out without buying a new phone, the Android Emulator is a great way to get started for free. It is also a great way to try out new versions of Android if you have an older device. We were disappointed that the Android Marketplace wasn’t included. but check back in the next couple days and we’ll show you how to run it in the emulator!

[Via - Lifehacker]

WFH – An Evolution in Workplace

msaradhi — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:08:35 +0000

There has been a tremendous shifts in workplace or rather what we call workplace. The primary driver for this shift are the advances in Information Technology and Communications or simply, ICT.

One of premise in Transportation Systems Planning is that transportation is a derived demand. Meaning transportation is a means but an end in itself. In typical urban constellation people make millions of to-and-fro trips in day from their place of living to their destinations. Without much impact to accuracy, the work and education trips constitute a greater percentage of the total trips.

In early 1980s or late 1970s Alvin Toffler had envisioned these shifts and wrote an excellent futuristic book, a number one best seller those days, ‘The Third Wave.’

So coming back to our discussion, ‘Work From Home’ or WFM in short, has caught up to maturity in major corporations across the globe. While this is not applicable for all types of roles (especially front desk or customer facing roles), a great many service oriented opportunities can be de-linked from the traditional 4-walled office buildings.

In a First Wave Society, man is more like a prosumer, and his workplace is nothing but his own home or his own field. With the advent of industralisation in the Second Wave, man is forced to relocate to the factory or massive work compound from his place of residence. This has given rise to the birth of ‘work trip’ and brought to the fore the crux of moving people in large scale from their respective places of residence to respective places of work.

In the Third Wave dominated by ICT, created a newer vast pool of services industry, in turn office complexes to house these soft skilled people. On another front, ICT also enabled remote connectivity to enterprise computing virtually from anywhere, and the only requirement is that the person needs to have a desktop, laptop or any other mobile device, connectivity to the internet!

Leveraging on these possibilities major corporations de-linked their staff from cubicles. Here everyone is a winner: the corporations reduced drastically on workstation costs, utility charges, consumbles (coffee, tea…), and even storage space. Where the employee had the flexibility to work at ease from his home environment, avoiding or minimsing the need to travel. Even if a trip is required he could probably plan during off peak periods. Society has the advantage that it receives lesser traffic loads, improved infrastruture maintenance costs, less fuels, lesser carbon foot print…

Infact, this is primary enabler that shifted whole lot of work packages to off shore, ie., how India is enojoying todday the boom of ICT opportunities.

In essence, in the 2nd Wave people moved where there is work. The ICT Revolution facilitated to distribute back the work closer to the employee’s home. Implying work moved where the employee is!

This is a very interesting shift in work delivery, and I am sure many are enjoying WFH culture. Of course, the employee needs to be more disciplined, at times, faces boredom; and the managers face difficulty to enforce compliance; and there is lesser opportunity for inter personal relations. Despite of all these short comings WFH is still an inevitable move for the society, and for good.

In early 1990s I was working on Collaborative Models for a large scale project of Singapore Government. Of course, the technologies are more wide spread now than then, but those models I envisaged haven’t yet became common place yet. There must be a revolution in Communications or Internet, Security has to be strengthened. Once that happens Anywhere Workplace to a great majority becomes a norm rather than exception. I believe that may not be too far…