Fire alarm using thermistor & NE555

Fire alarm using thermistor & NE555

Description.

Many fire alarm circuits are presented here,but this time a new circuit using a thermistor and a timer to do the trick. The circuit is as simple and straight forward so that, it can be easily implemented. The thermistor offers a low resistance at high temperature and high resistance at low temperature. This phenomenon is employed here for sensing the fire.

The IC1 (NE555) is configured as a free running oscillator at audio frequency. The transistors T1 and T2 drive IC1. The output (pin 3) of IC1 is couples to base of transistor T3 (SL100), which drives the speaker to generate alarm sound. The frequency of NE555 depends on the values of resistances R5 and R6 and capacitance C2. When thermistor becomes hot, it gives a low-resistance path for the positive voltage to the base of transistor T1 through diode D1 and resistance R2. Capacitor C1 charges up to the positive supply voltage and increases the the time for which the alarm is ON. The larger the value of C1, the larger the positive bias applied to the base of transistor T1 (BC548). As the collector of T1 is coupled to the base of transistor T2, the transistor T2 provides a positive voltage to pin 4 (reset) of IC1 (NE555). Resistor R4 is selected s0 that NE555 keeps inactive in the absence of the positive voltage. Diode D1 stops discharging of capacitor C1 when the thermistor is in connection with the positive supply voltage cools out and provides a high resistance path. It also inhibits the forward biasing of transistor T1.

Circuit diagram with Parts list.

Notes.

• The circuit can be powered from a 6V battery or a 6V power supply.
• Click Here ! for the circuit diagram of a power supply circuit for this project.
• The thermistor can be mounted on a heat resistant material like mica to prevent it from damage due to excessive heat.
• The LED acts as an indication when the power supply is switched ON.

Contact Lenses with “The Terminator” Mode!!

Special Contact Lens

In the movie “The Terminator”, we see Arnold Schwarzenegger check out the complete profile of the subject he is about to face.  A similar technology has been developed by Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer at the University of Washington.

Babak designed a lens that can be used to display a single pixel at a time. This display can be switched on and turned off through a wireless medium. The lens consists of an IC which stores the energy, along with an LED that shoots the light towards the eyes. But, the lens is not capable of intercepting objects that are very close to the eye. This problem is overcome by placing some counter lenses in between the LED and the eye. The same principle can be simply tested by placing an appropriate magnifying glass to see your finger that is placed very near to your eye.

Till now, the lens has only been designed to display one pixel. But, there may be a time when you could use the lenses to bring together all the displays you interact with on a daily basis – your PC, fridge, chair, mobile – into one personal display in your eye. Later, the same technology could be modified to bring in virtual images into the real world. For example, you could design the interior of your plain room with paintings, furniture and so on.

As show in the figure above, the LED part of the lens is opaque, but these little dark spots shouldn’t make the images unnoticed. A control circuit and a radio are also shown. They are used to gather the energy from a transmitter kept at the edge of the lens and convey the information to the outside. The design is made sleek enough in such a way that they do not block the view in any way. The lens was first tested on animals and they have proved to be working perfectly without any safety problems. The officials are waiting for an approval to test it on humans.

If this technology does become famous, the researchers will have to take special care in protection of the software side. That is, someone could easily pop up spams inside the control circuitry of the lens and block the view of a person, who may be busy driving his car.

Google, Facebook's consumer privacy strategy faces hard sell

Emboldened by their victory in quashing online piracy legislation, U.S. Internet companies are gearing up for a battle over whether consumers should be able to restrict efforts to gather personal data. 

Google Inc, Facebook, Apple Inc and other tech companies have lobbied against 
congressional and federal agency proposals that would let Internet users press "do not track" buttons on their browsers to block targeted advertising. Consumers could also edit personal information that has been stored about them. 

With the privacy issue, the multibillion-dollar Internet industry faces a challenge larger than potentially harmful legislation or regulations that could limit their advertising and corporate growth. Their efforts to self-regulate continue to suffer setbacks amidst accusations of privacy violations and last year's Federal Trade Commission findings that Facebook and Google engaged in deceptive privacy practices. 

The FTC is expected to issue new privacy recommendations in the coming days, and companies are watching several legislative proposals on Capitol Hill. 

Privacy advocates are pushing to give consumers greater control over data collection. The companies must convince consumers that they benefit by allowing personal data to be collected and shared. 

Their pitch - in efforts like Google's current "Good to Know" advertising campaign - argues that data collection lets companies offer faster, smarter products, like better search results and customized mapping. 

Internet companies successfully fought legislation to limit Internet piracy. Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeffrey Silva said Web companies may feel confident that they can tackle other government intervention. 

"I think the lesson they've learned is if they don't like a certain bill, they can organize and create a lot of static and pushback," Silva said. 

A Multibillion-Dollar Business Internet data collection allows advertisers to target users in a demographic who are more likely to buy their product. These ads often subsidize Web content. 

Google, for example, has come under fire for a new policy that took effect March 1 that treats information from most of its products, including Gmail, YouTube and Google+, as a single trove of data for advertisers. 

Google contends the change will benefit customers. The company would be able to spot a signed-on user looking for recipes and seamlessly direct them to YouTube cooking videos. 

"When we talk about how the Internet will improve and grow for consumers, that's coming from online behavioral advertising," said Daniel Castro, senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. 

Strict privacy rules could lead to substantial cuts in online advertising dollars and an even larger hit to growth over the next five to 10 years, Castro said. 

A 2010 study by University of Toronto professor Avi Goldfarb and MIT professor Catherine Tucker revealed a 65 percent decrease in ad effectiveness after European countries implemented data collection rules for targeted advertising. 

Around 96 percent of Google's $37.9 billion revenue comes from advertising, financial statements showed. 

Filings ahead of Facebook's much-discussed initial public offering revealed 85 percent of its $3.71 billion in revenue last year came from advertising. 

Nearly two-thirds of Apple's fiscal year 2011 net sales came from its iPhone, iPad and related products and services that rely on tracking a user's exact location. 

New government data collection policies could have huge implications. "If Google got 65 percent less revenue than it got last year, that would be a big upset to a company like that," Castro said. 

Multi-Pronged Attack The industry got a break last month when the White House released a blueprint "privacy bill of rights" giving consumers more data control, but relying heavily on voluntary compliance by Internet companies. 

The FTC's expected recommendations are causing more anxiety. 

Analysts and privacy advocates predict that the FTC report will have more teeth, in part because FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz recently described Google's new privacy policy as a "somewhat brutal choice" for consumers. 

The FTC report may call for strict enforcement to ensure firms adhere to their privacy policies, according to sources familiar with the agency's thinking. 

It may also try to accelerate firms' adoption of the "do not track" technology, which could work like the "do not call" registry that caused telemarketing industry havoc. 

Silva said the FTC recommendations come from "people that live and breathe privacy policy and have a greater knowledge of the law, companies' practices and an institutional knowledge of what's happened before. They probably have a better feel for the degree to which self-regulation works or doesn't." 

As for legislation, numerous privacy bills are winding their way through Congress. 

A notable one is a bipartisan privacy framework from Senators John Kerry and John McCain. It would require companies to reassess their privacy practices for both personally identifiable information and online behavioral advertising profiles. 

Critics say it could force more companies to start charging for services like e-mail, social networks and other content currently subsidized by advertising. 

"I'm talking about American companies having rules that control their own destiny, before Europe or other trading partners impose their policies on all our companies," Kerry said. "Hell, establishing minimum privacy protections in law can help build consumer trust in the marketplace and in turn increase economic activity." 

Tech companies have argued that government regulations could cut its revenues, reduce job growth and hurt the broader economy. 

Lawmakers are looking for the "sweet spot" between too much regulation and none at all, Representative Mary Bono Mack, chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee on commerce, manufacturing and trade, said. 

"Any knee-jerk reactions could have a chilling impact on innovation and e-commerce in the United States and threaten our economic recovery," she said. 

Web firms' foothold Internet companies are well-positioned in Washington to push back against regulatory proposals. 

With the piracy debate, they came together to argue that bills designed to shut down access to overseas websites trafficking in stolen content or counterfeit goods were too broad. They argued that they could undermine innovation and free speech and compromise the Internet's functioning. 

What followed was an unprecedented online protest that saw Wikipedia and other sites go dark while bigger players like Google and Facebook displayed censorship bars and arguments against the bills on their sites. 

The effort was supported with 3.9 million tweets, 2,000 people a second trying to call their elected representatives and more than 5,000 people a minute signing petitions opposing the legislation. 

Privacy regulations are a harder sell, said privacy expert Amy Mushahwar, an attorney with Reed Smith.

"Consumers might not be able to immediately recognize that increased privacy obligations could lead to a lesser amount of content on the Web, which is really what the advertising industry is concerned about," said Mushahwar, a registered lobbyist for the Association of National Advertisers. 

Internet companies have tried to get ahead of mandatory reforms by adopting their own policies. 

The Digital Advertising Alliance rolled out new data collection principles that take effect this year. They explicitly prohibit collection and use of a person's Internet surfing data for determining their eligibility for employment, credit, insurance and medical treatment. 

The industry is also using old-school lobbying tactics.

Apple's next iPad to have 4G support?

Apple Inc is betting a 4G-equipped iPad will tempt more U.S. consumers to pay extra to watch high-quality video on the go, and in turn, give Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc a revenue boost. Until now, Apple's fan legion has been reluctant to shell out extra money even for iPads with 3G 

connections. The cheaper Wi-Fi-only model -- with more limited Web access -- is by far the top-selling one today.

The newest iPad will be capable of operating on a high-speed 4G "LTE," or Long-Term Evolution network, according to a source familiar with the product. At speeds roughly 10 times faster than current 3G technology, that may go a long way toward banishing the sometimes shaky video quality of older devices.

Such a juiced-up device would help boost the telecoms market if consumers catch on and can be enticed to pay more, some analysts said. The global tablet user base already reached 67 million in 2011, according to researcher Strategy Analytics.

"It's going to dramatically improve video consumption," said UBS analyst John Hodulik. "This is the device people want. They want the fastest speed. They want high resolution."

Apple, AT&T and Verizon declined to comment.

The Cupertino, California-based consumer device company is gearing up to unveil the iPad 3 on Wednesday, a faster and better-equipped version intended to thwart increasing competition from rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co and Amazon.com.

The new iPad will be "critical" to Apple if it is to continue to dominate the global tablet market, said Frost & Sullivan's analyst, Phil Harpur.

"A lot will depend how receptive the market is to the new features offered by iPad 3, two of which are believed to be quad-core processing and 4G-LTE capabilities," he said. "While iPad 2 offered only minor incremental upgrades, this time the market will be expecting a lot more."

The unveiling at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where the company also introduced the last two iPad generations, will be Chief Executive Tim Cook's second major product launch, after the iPhone 4S unveiling last year at the company's headquarters.

The smartphone was initially a disappointment as it was perceived to be mostly a software upgrade, but "Siri," its voice-enabled personal assistant technology, helped to make it a bestseller.

Cook will again be flanked by Apple's top cadres on Wednesday, when he kicks off a typically tightly choreographed show scrutinized by investors and industry insiders. On hand will likely be Apple's top marketing executive Phil Schiller, its head of Internet services Eddy Cue and software chief Scott Forstall -- the standard cast for major launches following the death of founder and consummate showman Steve Jobs last year.

UPGRADE TO APPLE TV IN WORKS?

The company, legendary for keeping its agenda under wraps, has not said what it plans to reveal but invited speculation with its cryptic event invitation, graced by a partial image of an iPad screen and the tagline: "We have something you really have to see. And touch."

Some predict an upgrade of the Apple TV, one of the rare company products that has not seen mass adoption.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said the "see and touch" reference was "very curious."

"An upgrade of the Apple TV set-top-box is possible as well as a remote chance for an iTV television set due to a reference to a large screen size," Misek said in a note to clients, adding that it was possible that Apple could also announce an actual TV despite not having a finished product.

Until then, it is the iPad 3's 4G capabilities that may be commanding the firmest speculation.

iPad sales doubled in the December quarter to 15.43 million units. The company has sold about 55 million iPads since it was introduced in 2010, and recorded more than $20 billion in sales and related services and accessories in fiscal 2011.

But dozens of new devices are set to launch this year, so Apple needs to stay a step ahead of its deep-pocketed rivals.

Handset makers including Samsung and Motorola Mobility already have LTE-capable tablets available, so in a way Apple is already late to the game.

The Samsung and Motorola tablets run on Google Inc's Android software, which is fast gaining ground on Apple's iOS.

Market share of Android-based tablets in the fourth quarter rose to 39 percent from 29 percent a year ago, while the iPad's market share slipped to 58 percent from 68 percent, according to Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston.

But the early high-speed tablets have not caught on. They accounted for a mere 1 percent of total tablet sales in 2011, partly because they were expensive, Mawston said.

While Apple is not breaking new ground with LTE, it may play a big hand in the technology's take off on tablets, because of the popularity of its iPad platform. The iPad 3 may also be helped by recent expansion in the availability of LTE services, according to Mawston.

Both Verizon and AT&T have been upgrading their networks with LTE but since Verizon Wireless had a head start in rolling out LTE -- its first markets came on line in late 2010 -- it should have an advantage over AT&T, which launched its first LTE markets last Summer.

Verizon's LTE network covers markets with a population of 200 million while AT&T's covers 74 million. Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 U.S. operator, will offer LTE later this year.

One impediment to the success of the iPad 3 with the faster connectivity could be rising data service charges.

Carriers charge customers for data on a per-usage basis, which can quickly add up. For example, watching 30 minutes of video a day on Verizon could add up to almost twice as much data downloads as its monthly $30 service package provides for.

If people really like how the new device works, UBS's Hodulik said they may not mind the charges. Even if only 10 percent more iPad users bought the 4G instead of the Wi-Fi version, it would help service providers, which do not subsidize the price of the iPad, Macquarie analyst Kevin Smithen said.

"Generally it should be incremental revenue for the carriers," Smithen said.

So far the most popular version of the current iPad is the cheapest -- the one that works only on Wi-Fi, a short-range wireless connection, and does not connect to service providers networks. So it could still be an uphill task to convince most buyers to pay for iPad services even with faster speeds.

"It's very important for a decent size subset of the users, probably somewhere in the 10 to 15 percent range," Gartner analyst Van Baker said. "For 85 to 90 percent of people, it's just not going to matter."

Google syncs recent searches to mobile devices

Google is enticing users to forget about their online privacy and web search tracking concerns in favor of convenience and functionality.

When users log on to their Google accounts and enable Web History, Google will now sync recent searches across platforms. The feature means you can search 

for a place on your laptop before you leave home and find out more detailed information on your mobile phone (without even having to remember the name or address of the place you were looking for) while you are on the go.

“How often are you doing a Google search from your computer to find information about a place before going there?” asks Google Software Engineer Junichi Uekawa in a post on the company’s Google Mobile Blog. “Now, next time you go to Google.com on your Android phone or iPhone, information about that place will be conveniently available under the new ‘Recent’ icon. Calling, getting directions or seeing details about the places you just searched for is now only one tap away.”

Users can locate recent searches in the new “Recent” icon on the Google.com mobile homepage (when they are logged into their account). Recent cross-platform search results will be available for approximately 24 hours.

Mobile apps such as Firefox Home provide a similar function, enabling signed in users to sync bookmarks and already opened websites between PCs and mobile devices.
Google has come under fire for its recent privacy policy changes. Under the new policy the web giant is able to combine user information gathered from different Google products to build a more complete user profile. Google says this will “enable us to build a better, more intuitive user experience across Google for signed-in users.”

Relationships with other disciplines

There exists an overlap between the sciences and engineering practice; in engineering, one applies science. Both areas of endeavor rely on accurate observation of materials and phenomena. Both use mathematics and classification criteria to analyze and communicate observations.

Scientists may also have to complete engineering tasks, such as designing experimental apparatus or building prototypes. Conversely, in the process of developing technology engineers sometimes find themselves exploring new phenomena, thus becoming, for the moment, scientists.

In the book What Engineers Know and How They Know It,^[28] Walter Vincenti asserts that engineering research has a character different from that of scientific research. First, it often deals with areas in which the basic physics and/or chemistry are well understood, but the problems themselves are too complex to solve in an exact manner.
Examples are the use of numerical approximations to the Navier-Stokes equations to describe aerodynamic flow over an aircraft, or the use of Miner's rule to calculate fatigue damage. Second, engineering research employs many semi-empirical methods that are foreign to pure scientific research, one example being the method of parameter variation^{[citation needed]}.
As stated by Fung et al. in the revision to the classic engineering text, Foundations of Solid Mechanics:

"Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem, or an improvement on what is existing. Since a design has to be concrete, it must have its geometry, dimensions, and characteristic numbers. Almost all engineers working on new designs find that they do not have all the needed information. Most often, they are limited by insufficient scientific knowledge. Thus they study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics. Often they have to add to the sciences relevant to their profession. Thus engineering sciences are born."^[29]

Although engineering solutions make use of scientific principles, engineers must also take into account safety, efficiency, economy, reliability and constructability or ease of fabrication, as well as legal considerations such as patent infringement or liability in the case of failure of the solution.

engineering-history

History

Engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles to develop useful tools and objects.
The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325, when an engine’er (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to “a constructor of military engines.”^[4] In this context, now obsolete, an “engine” referred to a military machine, i.e., a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). Notable exceptions of the obsolete usage which have survived to the present day are military engineering corps, e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The word “engine” itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium (c. 1250), meaning “innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention.”^[5]
Later, as the design of civilian structures such as bridges and buildings matured as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering^[3] entered the lexicon as a way to distinguish between those specializing in the construction of such non-military projects and those involved in the older discipline of military engineering

Interviews Institutional changes needed

HT spoke to traffic police chief Satyendra Garg on a range of issues faced by pedestrians in Delhi. Excerpts: Traffic police launch so many drives but pedestrians are still dying on roads.
The number of accidents involving pedestrians is going up nationally. But in Delhi, the number

is reducing and we are happy about it. But I agree that the number should come down further. We are making efforts to improve the situation.

How can the streets be made safer for pedestrians?
We should create more infrastructure for them such as footpaths and ensure that pavements are not encroached upon. There is a need to create more facilities to cross the road and those facilities should be constructed at right places and should be in a usable condition. Motorists should also be careful. Moreover, pedestrians should use the facilities created for them. We need to change the mindset. Certain institutional changes — such as how driving licences are issued and the way commercial drivers are trained and introducing heavy penalty for traffic violations — also necessary.
How receptive are road building agencies to the ideas given by traffic police?
Road owning agencies do take our suggestions. UTTIPEC also brings all stakeholders on board where issues are discussed and decisions taken. All agencies concerned are jointly responsible for the decisions taken.

NASA was hacked 13 times last year

NASA said hackers stole employee credentials and gained access to mission-critical projects last year in 13 major network breaches that could compromise U.S. national security. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Inspector General Paul Martin testified before Congress this week

related stories

• TWACKED: Celebrities hacked on Twitter
• Understand and protect your online privacy
• HACKED! Websites hacking scandals

on the breaches, which appear to be among the more significant in a string of security problems for federal agencies. The space agency discovered in November that hackers working through an Internet Protocol address in China broke into the -network of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Martin said in testimony released on Wednesday. One of NASA's key labs, JPL manages 23 spacecraft conducting active space missions, including missions to Jupiter, Mars and Saturn.
He said the hackers gained full system access, which allowed them to modify, copy, or delete sensitive files, create new user accounts and upload hacking tools to steal user credentials and compromise other NASA systems. They were also able to modify system logs to conceal their actions.
"Our review disclosed that the intruders had compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users, giving the intruders access to most of JPL's networks," he said. (bit.ly/yQFSB8)
In another attack last year, intruders stole credentials for accessing NASA systems from more than 150 employees. Martin said the his office identified thousands of computer security lapses at the agency in 2010 and 2011.
He also said NASA has moved too slowly to encrypt or scramble the data on its laptop computers to protect information from falling into the wrong hands.
Unencrypted notebook computers that have been lost or stolen include ones containing codes for controlling the International Space Station, as well as sensitive data on NASA's Constellation and Orion programs, Martin said.
A NASA spokesman told Reuters on Friday the agency was implementing recommendations made by the Inspector General's Office.
"NASA takes the issue of IT security very seriously, and at no point in time have operations of the International Space Station been in jeopardy due to a data breach," said NASA spokesman Michael Cabbagehe.
AIR FORCE SCRAPS IPAD PURCHASE
In a separate development, the U.S. Air Force said on Friday
it had scrapped a plan to outfit thousands of personnel with second-generation iPad tablet computers from Apple Inc, but denied the reversal was because some of the software it wanted on the devices had been written in Russia.
Two days ago, news website Nextgov raised questions about a requirement that the 2,861 iPad2s come equipped with GoodReader, an electronic document display program written by an independent Russian developer.
The devices were to be used to store and update flight information, regulations and orders, according to procurement documents.
"The cancellation was not the result of any concern about GoodReader," said Matt Durham, a spokesman at the Air Force Special Operations Command.
He said the cancellation of the six-week-old order followed a decision that the procurement should not have been reserved for small businesses.
The military and other branches of government have been putting an increased emphasis on "supply-chain security" as they try to make sure that hardware, software and other components have not been tampered with by other nations.
This has proved challenging because so many parts come from overseas. Even American companies often contract for programming work abroad.
Mike Jacobs, who headed the National Security Agency's program for defending U.S. equipment, said in an interview he had killed a major procurement of encryption software within seconds after learning that a U.S. supplier had included a small amount of Russian-made code.

Microsoft to unveil Windows 8 today

Microsoft Corp unveils the first widely available test version of Windows 8 on Wednesday, giving the public the first chance to try out the slick, new-look operating system it hopes will restore the company's fading tech supremacy. Windows 8, as the first Microsoft operating system

related stories

• Microsoft sees future in Windows 8 amid iPad rise
• New Windows 8 logo : It's a window, not a flag

compatible with low-power microprocessors designed by ARM Holdings Plc, will run on tablets as well as desktops and laptops. "The operating system has begun to be seen as largely irrelevant," said Sid Parakh, an analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen, which holds Microsoft shares. "This is the release that will have to prove its relevance all over again."
Tablets and smartphones and cloud computing have made Bill Gates' vision of "a computer on every desk and in every home" seem quaint, and Apple Inc and Google Inc and Amazon.com now set the agenda for the computing industry.
Still, all of those companies' fancy new hardware devices need basic operating software, and Microsoft is betting there is still more than a little room for Windows.
"The big increment here is that it'll be viable on the ARM platform, that there'll be a tablet form factor -- that kind of makes it a big deal," said Dan Hanson, a portfolio manager at BlackRock, which holds 5 percent of Microsoft's shares through various funds. "Microsoft correctly identified the relevance of the tablet form factor over a decade ago. This operating system may allow them to finally execute."
THE PRODUCT
Windows 8 will come in two main flavors -- one that works on the traditional x86 chips made by Intel Corp for desktops and laptops, and a new version for the ARM microprocessors that have become the standard for tablets, smartphones and other portable devices.
Microsoft says it is aiming to get machines running on both the ARM and Intel platforms into the market at the same time but has not set a target date.
In both versions, Windows 8 features a completely new interface, borrowed from what Microsoft calls the "Metro" style of the current Windows Phone software. It features blocks or 'tiles' that can be moved around the screen or tapped to go straight into an application.
The tiles update in real time, so you can see if you have emails, voice messages or Facebook notifications at a glance. If PC and laptop users do not like the new format, they can revert to the old style with a click of the mouse.
The key for any operating software -- be it Apple's iOS for iPhones and iPads, Google's Android software for smartphones, or Windows -- is to attract the support of the software developers who build applications, and on that score Windows 8 is off to a decent start.
"The biggest hurdle our designers have had is trying to get inside the mood of a Metro user, where less is more," said Paul Murphy, business development manager at Aviary, which makes a photo editing tool that can be integrated into iOS and Android apps. "That was and still is a challenge, but I think now that they've been at it for a couple of months, they actually really like it. They appreciate the simplicity of the design."
Developers who have already created apps for Microsoft's Windows Phone are finding it easier to adapt to Windows 8, said Ryan Lowdermilk, who hosts a popular podcast for apps builders.
"Porting your code over, people are finding that to be pretty straightforward. But as far as finishing that last mile where some of this newer technology for Windows 8 comes into play, they are finding little hiccups and bugs here and there."
WINDOWS + OFFICE = $
The Windows 8 release has to be good, and soon, say industry experts. "Now that the tablet market is being defined by the iPad and the (Amazon) Kindle, if they come out with a buggy first version, they won't get a second chance," said Michael Cherry, a former Microsoft engineer who now works at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. "They can't afford to disappoint customers."
Microsoft has not put a timetable on the final release, but Windows unit head Steven Sinofsky has said new versions of Windows should be no more than three years apart, which would put a Windows 8 debut around October 2012.
The public will get its first good look at Windows 8 on Wednesday, when Sinofsky launches the "Consumer Preview" at an event in Barcelona. Everybody will be able to download a test version of Windows 8 that will run on PCs and laptops based on Intel chips. But they won't get to try out Windows 8 on an ARM tablet until later this year.
Initial buyers for Windows tablets are expected to be consumers, as most business users have not yet even moved onto Windows 7. But the long-term success of Windows 8 will depend on Microsoft's core business customers.
A Windows tablet that works seamlessly with Microsoft's Exchange email system and Office applications would be a godsend for corporate technology managers, who have been bending over backward to put their CEO's iPads -- "executive jewelry," as one analyst puts it -- onto their company's email and security systems.
Microsoft's killer punch is Office. After months of silence, Sinofsky confirmed earlier this month that the world's most popular suite of work applications, including the newest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, will come installed on tablets running the ARM version of Windows. That's a big and potentially risky departure for Microsoft, which has in the past sold Office separately.
They will not be in the new "Metro" style, but they will be optimized for touch. That would give Windows tablets a unique selling point over iPads and Android tablets.
HIGH STAKES
Even a wildly successful Windows 8 might be less profitable for Microsoft than its predecessors, simply because the company won't be able to charge nearly as much for software that runs a $400 tablet than it could for software running a $1,500 PC.
The Windows unit averages about $80 per PC sold now, but will likely get half that from tablets, Sanford C. Bernstein analysts estimate. Wall Street is expecting a bump in Windows sales for at least 12 months after the release, fueled by consumer demand for tablets but does not foresee a spike matching the hot-selling Windows 7.
Analysts are estimating a 12 percent jump in Microsoft's earnings per share for each of the next two fiscal years, which is better than the flat expectations for this year, marred by lackluster PC sales.
But it is not exceptional for a company that posted nearly 30 percent increases in earnings per share for the last two fiscal years. Gross profit margins, while still comparatively high, are expected to drift slightly lower.
Several analysts have recently raised their outlook for next year's earnings, helping the stock rise to a four-year high on Tuesday, partly buoyed by building interest in Windows 8.
"The next four to six quarters will be extremely important for Microsoft," said Parakh at McAdams Wright Ragen. "They have to prove they too have a competitive product, not just on traditional desktop PCs and laptops but on the tablet and even phones. And this is their chance."

Can't decide what to watch on TV? A new app may help

Can't decide what to watch on TV? A new app may help

Reuters
February 27, 2012

First Published: 17:07 IST(27/2/2012)
Last Updated: 14:16 IST(28/2/2012)

Share more... 0 Comments          Email     print

Android apps

Channel surfers know that finding a great show to watch on television can be a daunting task, especially among the hundreds of channels available.

Peel, an app for iOS and Android, aims to solve the problem by providing personalized recommendations based on the television shows that users

already like. The app is similar to how Pandora recommends music, or how Netflix suggests films.

"It stemmed from recognizing the complexity that the average user is faced with when selecting the right TV program," said Scott Ellis, the vice president of marketing for Peel.

"We wanted to move away from the channel grid that has become so pervasive and think about content at the core of the experience."

Released last year as a personalized TV guide, the app was relaunched last month to incorporate a social platform for sharing and discovering television shows with friends.

According to Ellis, the impetus for incorporating a social platform was to replicate the "water cooler" type of conversations that tend to be the way most people discover new content.

"It's about how to use an intelligent app to find the right show to watch based on the shows I like today and based on shows my friends are watching," he said.

Through the app users can share their favorite shows with friends, as well as their "guilty pleasures", which Ellis said usually consist of reality shows. Friends' favorite shows are also accounted for in the algorithm that makes content recommendations.

The app also pairs up with the Peel Smart Remote for consumers who want to control their television sets without using their remote controls. The pear-shaped piece of hardware takes commands from the app and then uses infrared to control the television, settop box, or virtually any other device in a user's living room.

"You can go from discovering, to selecting and then watching," Ellis said, adding that the device solves another modern day problem -- having too many remotes.

Ellis said that once more devices incorporate infrared, it will be possible to control the television without requiring another piece of hardware.

The company has partnered with Samsung, which has pre-installed Peel on select devices that have infrared. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus, launched in October, was the first device to incorporate what they call the Peel Smart Remote app.

"Within a single element experience, users can discover shows and control the television set without purchasing a separate piece of hardware," he said.

Ellis said that the next steps for the app are to integrate a more interactive second-screen experience for television shows. The company plans to focus on the social aspect of the app going forward, and to announce a partnership with a major television show in the coming weeks.

LUMIA 710 Razer Electra Galaxy Note Acer Aspire S3 Moto Razr XT910 Xperia neo V Gaming headphones Razer Electra reviewed These headphones are meant to enhance your mobile gaming experience. Since most mobile games don’t have very demanding sound, the Electra doesn’t really have a tall task ahead of it, but let’s find out how it performs... other stories Apple, Google most admired firms: Fortune Apple topped the list of most admired companies for the fifth year in a row, based on a Fortune magazine survey released Thursday showing Google as number two and Amazon number three. Apple employees already using iOS 6 Apple market value hits $500 bn Apple plans new-generation iPad event 'Cyber-threats will become top worry'

When Apple launched they iPad, they positioned it as a device meant to fill the gaping chasm between the smartphone and the notebook. However, some people thought that a 10-inch device would be too big to carry around so manufacturers started coming up with 7-inch tablets. But then someone thought

related stories

• Samsung launches new tablet in Indian market

even that was too big. That someone was Dell, who then went ahead and launched the Streak 5.

Unfortunately for Dell, the Streak 5 was not just big in size but also a big failure. Dell’s lack of reputation for making quality smartphones coupled with the fact that the Streak 5 was actually a pretty mediocre device resulted in the company abandoning it a few months later.

Now Samsung is trying to revive the 5-inch tablet segment with their Galaxy Note. Unlike Dell, however, Samsung has positioned the Galaxy Note as a large smartphone, rather than a small tablet. Also, unlike Dell, Samsung has a massive fan following in the smartphone segment and on paper at least the Galaxy Note looks promising. It is essentially a big Galaxy S II. How can anyone go wrong with that? But is the Galaxy Note really a great product? Let’s find out.

Design and BuildThe Galaxy Note is massive in size, almost comically so. It looks exactly how the Galaxy S II would look if it was stretched from every side. I said comical because unlike the Streak 5, you can tell that the Galaxy Note is essentially a phone first, which is why its dimensions makes it look silly.

Unfortunately, things get sillier when you actually hold the device in your hand. Unless you’re Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four, there’s no way your fingers will reach every corner of the display. I had a hard time reaching the menu button on the left side of the display while I was holding the phone in my right hand and I don’t have particularly small hands. It’s very difficult to hold and use the phone comfortably with one hand and for most things you feel the need to use your other hand. And you should too because there is a good chance you will drop the phone if you attempt to use it with just one hand.

Thankfully the phone is pretty thin and also unusually light for its size. That’s mostly due to the plastic that is used for the entire body of the phone, except for the display. The plastic neither looks good nor does it feel good in your hand. The flimsy back cover also gets scratched up easily, which meant I had to keep the phone on its face but then picking up the phone became very difficult. The good thing about the plastic is that it isn’t fragile, so it won’t break easily if the phone were to fall.

The Galaxy Note has the power button on the right and a volume rocker on the left. All the buttons are placed right near the top, which coupled with the wide girth of the phone, makes using the keys a bit problematic.

The Galaxy Note comes with a capacitive stylus that is tucked inside the phone like the good ol’ days. The stylus has a button on it, which when pressed, lets you perform certain gestures. Unfortunately, for such a small stylus, the button is pretty big, which means you end up pressing it even when you don’t want to. The stylus does not work with any other capacitive touchscreen.

On the back of the phone you can see the 8-megapixel camera lens on the top with an LED flash and a loudspeaker near the bottom. The battery cover on the Galaxy Note is probably thinnest I’ve seen on any device. Had it been any thinner it would have been transparent. Underneath the cover lies the massive 2,500mAh battery. Unfortunately, the battery blocks both the SIM as well as the microSD card slot. I noticed that the Note also lacked the NFC hardware inside but at this point, NFC is just an item on the spec sheet with little practical value so it’s not that big a deal.

Overall, as far as the design is concerned, the Galaxy Note is well built and light but too big to be used single-handed and the plastic body feels a bit cheap.

DisplayThe display on the Galaxy Note is its biggest feature, both literally and figuratively. It has a massive 5.3-inch, Super AMOLED display. But it’s not just the size that’s impressive. The Galaxy Note is the first smartphone to have an HD display. That’s 1280 x 800 pixels in the palm of your hands.

Being a Super AMOLED display, it uses the infamous PenTile matrix layout for the subpixel. Instead of the common RGB layout, the PenTile matrix display uses a RG-BG layout, which means that each pixel has only two sub pixels instead of the usual three. Each pixel has a green subpixel and either a red or a blue subpixel. The problem with this type of layout is that it reduces the sharpness of the display, making text in particular not as sharp as on traditional RGB display.

This, however, is not a big enough issue on the Galaxy Note due to the high pixel density. Since there are so many pixels in a (relatively) small area, the lack of sharpness is not really noticeable as it was on lower resolution displays, such as the one on the Nexus S or the Galaxy S.

The high resolution does make the display really nice to look at. The only display I’ve seen that looks smoother is the Retina display on the iPhone 4/4S. The icons looks look great, text look great, even the camera viewfinder looks great. The high resolution is accompanied by the outrageously vivid colors of the AMOLED panel, which makes everything pop out. Unfortunately, the colors sometimes look too oversaturated, which can be annoying, especially during web browsing.

The AMOLED display has some advantages too such as the perfect black levels and the wide viewing angles. The display visibility under sunlight is excellent as well.

The size of the display makes it really great for certain activities such as video playback and web browsing. Even though I have a tablet I didn’t really miss it during the short time I had the Galaxy Note. But as mentioned before, the large display comes at the cost of ergonomics and portability.

Hardware and SoftwareInternally the Galaxy Note is identical to the Galaxy S II with the only difference being the CPU, which is clocked slightly higher. So instead of 1.2GHz you get a dual core 1.4GHz Cortex A9 with the same Mali-400 GPU and 1GB of RAM. As for the storage space you get 2GB phone memory, 16GB USB storage (of which 11GB is available to the user) and microSD expansion up to 32GB.

The software on the Galaxy Note I was using was Android 2.3.6 with the very latest firmware available at that time. On top of Android, the Galaxy Note was running Samsung’s TouchWiz 4.0 interface. Now when it comes to TouchWiz, opinions are known to divide, with most people hating it with a vengeance. I’m personally not a big fan of the design of the UI, which I think looks gaudy and a bit juvenile. However, there is no denying the fact that it is a very functional addition to Android and is filled with useful features. For starters you get a ton of homescreens and you can add or remove them as you please along with some great widgets. The notification menu has been pimped and has useful shortcuts to important functions such as the Wi-Fi. Bluetooth and my personal favorite, the automatic orientation switch.

Then there are other additions too, such as an FM radio, voice recorder, stop watch and countdown timer, basic things that are missing from stock Android. There is a proper built-in file manager, proper video player that can play almost any file you throw at it and an improved music player with support FLAC files and equalizers. So in the end, even though I hate the UI design, I would take it any day over stock Gingerbread due to the added functionality.

The Galaxy Note offers a different note taking application compared to the standard TouchWiz. This one lets you use the built-in stylus to draw on the screen. I personally found very little use for this feature even though Samsung made a big deal out of it. I also find it very difficult to draw on a touchscreen due to the slippery nature of the display, which makes it hard to draw with precision. .

With all the horsepower under the hood I was expecting the Galaxy Note interface to be buttery smooth. In some cases it was but it wasn’t as good as one would hope. At times the phone would stutter unexpectedly, like in the Contacts application, where you would least expect it. The general lack of smoothness has been a common issue on Android and something that becomes instantly apparent when you use an iPhone or a phone running Windows Phone 7, even though these devices don’t have the same powerful hardware as Samsung’s latest.

I also had an issue with the keypad in TouchWiz. It comes with Swype and the standard Samsung keyboard built-in. I’m not a big fan of ‘swipe and pray’ nature of the Swype keyboard and the Samsung keypad is just terrible. The stock Gingerbread keypad is actually a lot better and Samsung should have just stuck with it. I instead resorted to using SwiftKey X on the Note but it not being optimized for the Note meant that it had its fair share of issues.

Having a stylus meant that there was bound to be handwriting recognition software on board and the Note did not disappoint. I will just go ahead and say that it is the most accurate handwriting recognition software that I’ve ever used. Considering my poor handwriting, which gets worse on a touchscreen, the phone did an admirable job of recognising what I was scribbling.

Since this was the first time I was using an Android phone with an HD display I was a bit curious to see how the applications would work with this resolution. Surprisingly, quite a lot of the apps I tried stretched to fit the resolution. Naturally, this resulted in some amount of ugliness due to some of the UI elements stretching in ways they were never meant to. Sometimes the UI elements were unusually large and sometimes there would be a lot of empty space in an app, which usually wouldn’t be there. In some cases, such as the Speedtest.net app, the app used the highest resolution it supported, which seemed to be qHD and left large black borders on the side. Fortunately though, with more and more phones coming out with HD displays this year, soon application compatibility will not be a problem.

Camera The Galaxy S II was lauded for its terrific camera and the Galaxy Note carries over the same camera. It is one of the best cameras I’ve seen on a phone till date. The stills look fantastic with the right amount of details, contrast and color saturation. Even the low-light images are quite respectable. One of things I liked about shooting on the Galaxy Note was the massive viewfinder that you get, which made things look good even before you shoot them.

The video camera too was excellent. The only problem I had with the videos was that when you switched over to 1080p mode, the filed of view dropped down significantly.

Video playback Video playback is one of the things you should buy this phone for. The large, high-resolution display coupled with an excellent video player that plays almost any video format up to 1080p resolution makes it brilliant for watching movies on the go. Unfortunately, the internal memory is FAT formatted and the phone does not accept NTFS formatted memory cards, so there is no way to transfer files over 4GB, which is a shame because the phone could have easily played them had it not been for the file system limitations. Other problem is the loudspeaker, which isn’t very loud and since there is just one of it on the side it sounds awkward, so its best to use headphones when watching videos.

Battery LifeSince I only got the phone for a few days, I was faced with the choice of actually using the phone or keeping it aside as it ran the battery life tests, so naturally I went with the former. In general, the phone seemed to have no trouble lasting through the day on a single charge. Video playback and web browsing in particular seemed to make the battery go down a lot faster. The AMOLED display might consume less power when display darker images but ends up consuming a lot more power when displaying bright screens, such as a white web page. I’m sure you get battery packs to extend the life of the battery but the Galaxy Note is in no real need of one, not to mention they would make the phone even more unmanageable.

VerdictThere are two ways to look at the Galaxy Note. There is the ‘glass half empty’ approach where you will dismiss the Galaxy Note for not being as pocketable as a traditional smartphone and at the same time not offering the video playback or web browsing experience of a proper tablet and then there is the ‘glass half full’ approach, where you can applaud the Galaxy Note for offering a near-tablet-like experience while still managing to fit in your pocket.

Personally, I enjoyed the web browsing and video playback experience on the Galaxy Note. However, I could never really get used to the size. In the end, the size for me was the deal breaker and I could never see myself buying a phone this big.

If, however, you’re honestly fine with the size then the Galaxy Note makes more sense than the Galaxy S II. At Rs. 32,700 (Flipkart) it is expensive but you will only be spending a bit more over the Galaxy S II and for that you get a lot in return. But again, only do this if you’re fine with the size. Otherwise the Galaxy S II is a lot more practical option