| Technology Updates | Mobile Updates |

Interactive Wall

afkoffline — Fri, 06 May 2011 09:30:31 +0000

Researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington have found a way to harness the ambiance electromagnetic radiations produce by human.

What is its purpose?

It can change any wall in the building to an interactive surface from which light switches, thermostats, stereos, televisions, and security systems can be controlled. It also provide new dimension to gaming.

The ambient electromagnetic radiation emitted by home appliances, mobile phones, computers, and the electrical wiring within walls is usually considered noise. But the researchers chose to put it at the core of their new interface. The researchers said that every electromagnetic radiation needs a receiver and human body is a very good antenna for this.

When a person touches a wall surface with wiring at its back then he/she becomes an antenna and which is tuned by radiations generated by the wires producing a separate electrical signal. Thus the electrical signals received and collected can by a device in contact or close to the body (human antenna). When a person touches a spot on the wall behind her couch, the gesture can be recognized, and it could be used, for example, to turn down the volume on the stereo.

Video : Nexus One explored in five minutes

afkoffline — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:54:16 +0000

Just when I thought that we won’t be hearing anything more in relation to Google Phone, a walkthrough video has emerged onto the scene that shows the Nexus One running on top of Android 2.1. The 5 minute video shows a number of things from multiple home screens to your very favorite YouTube app. The video also shows the new Android Market in action

Even though the quality of video is on the blurry side, I don’t see a need to complain about that, since the multimedia content pretty much does a reasonable job in giving a quick tour of the various features of this cool Android powered mobile phone from Google.

Android 2.0.1 Eclair running on HTC Touch Diamond2

afkoffline — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:20:06 +0000

(Technology Updates) – The mobile hacking community never ceases to amaze us. Here is another amazing development – folks at XDA have come up with an Linux based emulator that makes its possible to run Eclair aka Android 2.0 on aWindows Mobile powered phone. pocketnow have released a video that shows Android 2.0.1 running on anHTC Touch Diamond2. Video commentary follows after the jump.

The emulator is good but not that good for using it on a daily basis or in other words as your primary mobile phone. But what it offers is the chance for you to see how the Android UI looks and what are the different options it brings such as the App Tray and more. Unfortunately, it does not support WiFi which is a big disadvantage.

SNL attacks iPhone and AT&T, uses Google Phone as its weapon

afkoffline — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:45:18 +0000

We said that the attacks on iPhone and its exclusive carrier in USA , AT&T are far from over and we have been proven right once again. No Verizon hasn’t done the honors this time. Saturday Night Live (SNL) (telecasted on CNBC) is the source of the latest swipe on Apple’s high flying mobile phone. Google Phone akaNexus One was used as the attacking weapon by the folks at SNL. Not only they declared the Androidpowered phone from Google as an iPhone competitor but also laughed over AT&T’s poor service. Here is what they said during the weekend update

It was reported this week that Google would soon launch its own cellphone as a challenge to the iPhone. Also a challenge to the iPhone? Making phone calls.

Google not only will be delighted upon the mention of its subsidized phone but also be excited over the declaration of its phone as an iPhone competitor.

More hardware specs for Nexus One leak out

afkoffline — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:01:49 +0000

Technology Updates – If you thought that the mobile phone geeks were done with investigating and leaking information aboutGoogle Phone called Nexus One. Then, think again. Guys at these are the DROIDS have dug deep into theAndroid 2.1 ROM running on Nexus One and have come up with more specifications. The latest leakage reveals that Google’s subsidized phone has an accelerometer, FM stereo, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and more. (Full specs listed below)

Nexus One hardware specifications

The Android based phone boasts of the following specifications:

Proximity sensor.
Ambient light sensor.
Accelerometer.
Magnetic compass.
WiFi (802.11n support).
Stereo FM speaker.
OpenGL ES 2.0 for gaming purposes.
Noise cancelling chip.
Camera with auto focus, flash, white balancing and anti-balancing features.

Microsoft unleashes Bing app for iPhone

afkoffline — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:57:10 +0000

Technology Updates – Microsoft has unleashed its very own Bing app for iPhone. iPhone and iPod Touch users can download the app from the Apple’s App Store. The app comes equipped with cool features such as voice-based search, Seadragon powered mapping and location aware search. Full list of features provided below.

ing app for iPhone features

The app which is developed specifically for Apple’s premier phone brings the following interesting features:

Voice search : Don’t like typing your search query. Well you can make your search by putting your voice to good use.
Bing Maps: Mapping engine powered by Seadragon which supports zooming and panning..
Location aware search: Say you are travelling in London, you will want to search for the nearest cinema within London. All you have to do is enabled this very feature.
One finger Zoom-out button : The button is designed to support zooming out of the map requiring just a single finger touch
Touch based search Swipe through search results including images as well
Movie listings
Flight Time : See arrival and departure time for different flight
News : Keep yourself updated with the latest and hottest news around the globe.
Daily image: High quality image with related trivia
“Locate Me” functionality
Ability to add pushpins and save locations
Show multiple locations on a single map

How to Download

Download it from the iTunes App Store right here
From your iPhone’s browser navigate to m.bing.com which will automatically take you to the download page.

Correct me if I am wrong, with this Microsoft’s search engine app is available for Windows Mobile, BlackBerryand off course iPhone. Hang on where is the app for the Android platform? Will Microsoft be rolling out the Android version in the upcoming days as a Christmas gift?

Attention Zune Nation, Launch of Twitter App for Zune HD hours away

afkoffline — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:22 +0000

Remember a few months back, Zune team promised to launch Twitter and Facebook app for its latest multimedia player, Zune HD. Well it turns out that, you will finally be getting your very own Twitter app for Zune HD that will hopefully meet your micro-blogging and tweeting purposes. The much awaited app is expected to land within a few hours. This exciting news was discovered via a tweet from Microsoft’s ZuneTwitter account.

Unfortunately no word on the functionality that this overdue app will provide. Although I personally would be disappointed if it did not support the new retweet functionality. Anyhow, this little piece of news means that no longer you will be required to use the Zune HD’s browser to perform your Twitter activities.

One more thing, there is a high probability that this app like other apps will be available for free.

This news just makes you wonder when will the Zune team unleash the much awaited Facebook app? Any guesses?

Google’s URL Minimizing Service

afkoffline — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:16:47 +0000

URL shortening — a niche service that exploded into the mainstream along with Twitter — has suddenly become a hotly competitive market, with a handful of new offerings. Market leader Bit.ly, as well as TinyURL and scores of other smaller players, now have to contend with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Facebook.
The Google URL Shortener (goo.gl) is currently available only in updated version of the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner.

Facebook reportedly is readying its own service for launch.
Bit.ly isn’t standing still; it just rolled out a new service called “Bit.ly Pro,” which allows publishers and bloggers to use their own short domain names to point to pages on their sites. As part of the initial beta program, Bit.ly is making custom URLs available to AOL, Associated Content, Bing, Clicker, The Daily Telegraph, foursquare, GDGT, Hot Potato, The Huffington Post, IGN, kickstarter, Meebo, MSN, /Message (Stowe Boyd), MTV Networks, The New York Times (NYSE: NYT), OMGPOP, Oneforty.com, The Onion, Slideshare, Someecards, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network — which includes WSJ.com and MarketWatch.com — and blogger Baratunde Thurston.

Chrome gains third spot, pushes Safari down to 4th spot

afkoffline — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:58:47 +0000

Technology Updates – Chrome has gone past Safari in browser market share, according to a recent study by a Web measurement company called Net Applications. Net Applications performs analysis and keeps track of the browser habits of 160 million unique visitors on a monthly basis. Currently, Chrome is placed at the 3rd spot pushing Safari down to 4th spot, something which will not please Apple at all.

During the last week, Google released Beta version of Chrome for Mac and Linux which is one of the reason that helped Google’s browser to move past Safari. In the second week (6-12) of December, the search engine giant’s browser share increased to 4.4% topping Safari’s 4.37% market share. On a related note, 1.3% users used Chrome on Mac OS X aka Snow Leopard powered Macs.

Chrome experienced an incredible boost in the browser usage sector as it managed to increase its share from 3.81% (during November) to 6.34%.

Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of Net Applications believes that Chrome on Linux platform is an area worth watching:

I believe Linux will be the more intriguing arena to watch. Firefox currently dominates browser usage on Linux the way that IE dominates Windows systems and Safari dominates Mac systems. With the emergence of Chrome, I’ll be curious to see if Chrome will be to Firefox on Linux what Firefox is to IE on Windows … a forceful competitor

As impressive as it may seem, there is no denying that all this is happening due to the people wanting to experiment the latest Beta offering from Google.

While all this is good news for Chrome, Google will be well aware that it still has a long way to go specially when you consider the fact, that Internet Explorer and Firefox ranked one and two, have a market share of 63.6% and 24.7% (during November) respectively.

If you are interested in finding more about the recently released beta version of Chrome for Mac then you may want to check out the following links:

Download Google Chrome 4.0.266.0 for Windows and Linux

Google Wave gets undo functionality

Google ponders risky Android solo act

All you need to know about Chrome in 5 minutes

Facebook app for Android updated, brings native support for viewing photos and profiles

afkoffline — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:42:15 +0000

(Technology Updates) – Remember Facebook for Android ? Yes the app, which was seriously lagging behind the iPhone version of Facebook app in terms of functionality? Guess what, Facebook has decided to change that, as it has introduced an updated Facebook app for Android. One of the disadvantages that original Android version of the famous social networking app brought was that it opened Facebook in a browser to fulfill users’ request for certain options. Well that is no longer the case. (New and missing features listed below)

New Features

The changes that this updated Facebook for Android brings include:

View Profiles natively in the Facebook app.
View photos right inside the Facebook app.
Speed has improved as well.

Missing Features

The features that are missing from this app are:

Inability to send/receive messages.
Lacks support for events.
Facebook chat still missing.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to the Android Market to get the updated Facebook for Android app.