LG Optimus 2 now available in US

LG Optimus 2 is the latest addition to the LG Optimus series line-up. Powered by Android 2.3 OS, the Optimus 2 is now available in US from C-Spire & Cellcom operators.

LG Optimus 2 comes with 3.2-inch capacitive touch screen with resolution of 320 x 480 pixels, virtual Swype keypad, 800 MHz processor, 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera and camcorder, 179 MB internal memory, and up to 32GB expandable memory.

LG Optimus 2 also features HSDPA network, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS and 15oo mAh battery. This Android smartphone also sports 5 customizable home screens and app categories, to easily arrange and customize your favorites.

LG Optimus 2 is now available from C Spire for free with the two year contract and for $209.99 without contract. Cellcom is also selling LG Optimus 2 for $0.95 with a new two-year contract.

Travancore University had invited Nobel laureate Albert Einstein to be its V-C, but he refused

CHENNAI: Just a couple of kilometres from the headquarters of the Kerala University in Thiruvananthapuram lay mounds of gold, diamonds, emerald, rubies and myriad precious stones roughly valued at a trillion rupees, in the vaults of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, hardly known to anyone for decades, except for a few trustees of the temple.

Just as the temple is basking in the glitter of that awe-inspiring treasure find last year, the university, which is celebrating its platinum jubilee this year, has dusted out of its annals what really would have been another crown jewel for it and the state: Albert Einstein as its vice-chancellor.

When the Travancore University, which later metamorphosed into the Kerala University, was established in 1937, the diwan (prime minister) of the princely state, Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer, is famously known to have invited the founder of modern physics, Albert Einstein, to be its first vice-chancellor. The legend who gave the world the theory of general relativity, however, turned down the offer and opted to be an associate with the Princeton University in the US.

"We have no official records of such a communication to prove the veracity of the invitation to Einstein," a Kerala University official told ET, but there is a mention of the invitation on the university's website, and corroborated by the late historian professor A Sreedhara Menon, whose book talks about the invitation to Einstein to be a professor at the university for a monthly salary of Rs 6,000.

There are some who raise doubts whether this was indeed true, given that the diwan himself drew a salary of only Rs 4,000. In the event, it was the Travancore king Chitira Tirunal Balarama Varma who led the university as chancellor, queen mother Setu Parvaty Bai as pro-chancellor and the diwan himself as vice-chancellor.

Diwan CP Ramaswamy Iyer has few equals in Kerala history in having die-hard fans and foes alike, and for the same reason, while many feel that it was his foresight that led him to invite a person as eminent as Einstein to head the princely state's first university, others insist it was the shrewd politician in him that made him float such an idea to quash the hopes of some local academicians who were eager to grab the post. Iyer, who is also remembered for suppression of communists in Kerala, resigned in 1947 after a failed assassination attempt on him.

Notwithstanding the disappointment of missing out on Einstein, Kerala University had some eminent personalities as its vice-chancellor, including John Mathai, who was Jawaharlal Nehru's finance minister and also vice-chancellor of the Bombay University. "When Mathai was invited by the first Left government in Kerala, the then state education minister Joseph Mundasseri is said to have asked him, 'Is it because we are Communists that you have a problem?", says Govindan S Tampi, a former CAT member and a long-time bureaucrat.

The invitation to Einstein, if it indeed occurred, could also be taken as a reflection of the strong culture of education that had already taken root in the state, aided in no small measure by printing presses established by European missionaries.

Those were also the years when literacy rates in Kerala were the envy of the rest of India. In 1951, for instance, the first census after independence showed a literacy rate of 47% in Kerala, compared to a rather wretched 18% for India.

Wishful thinking lingers about just what might have been if the Nobel winner had indeed settled down in coconut palm-fringed Thiruvananthapuram, but Kerala University has moved on from those days. Its degree certificate now comes with a hologram and boasts of as many as 112 security features.

Now, even Einstein would have been proud of such scientific expertise, though the relativity guru might also have wondered why in the world Keralites would want to use their ingenuity to counterfeit the certificate of a university he might have headed.

Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus announced

Samsung has officially unveiled a new Galaxy series phone dubbed as Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus. Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus is the enhanced version of Galaxy Ace smartphone. Featuring 1 GHz processor with 512 MB of RAM this phone runs on Android 2.3 OS.

Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus specification include- 3.65 inch HVGA display, 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 3 GB on internal storage, 32 GB of expandable memory, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB and 3.5 mm audio jack.

Other features of the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus are Social Hub, Music Hub, Samsung TouchWiz UI, Samsung ChatOn mobile communication service, and more.

Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus will be available in Russia starting this month, followed by Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Africa and China for 299 Euros ($388).

Samsung captivate glide feature and specification.

Samsung introduced its new Samsung Captivate Glide ,the slider full QWERTY keypad phone.It sports 4.0-ich Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen 16M colors Gorilla Glass display.Samsung has heighten Exchange ActiveSync support for IT policies, task synchronization and global address lookup .it comes with a internal memory of 8 GB and external memory can be expanded up to 32GB through microSD slot.For browsing purpose it comes with WAP 2.0 and supports xHTML and HTML.

Features and specifications:

• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 (2G Network) and HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 (3G Network)with 4G LTE network support.
• This 4.0-ich Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen  will produce 256k colors.
• It is a slider full QWERTY keypad handset.
• Stereo FM radio with RDS with 3.5mm headphone jack.
• It comes with 8GB of internal storage, 1GB RAM, & 1GB ROM and external memory upto  32GB through microSD slot.
• It has 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 AP20H dual core processor and Android v2.3 Gingerbread OS with with TouchWiz UI.
• It has a 8 megapixel autofocus rear-facing camera with LED flash and Camera resolution 3264 x 2448 pixels that will take good Quality snaps.
• It has also secondary 1.3 megapixel fornt-facing camera for Video Chat.
• It can record a video at 15 frames per second.
• It is Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot ,GPRS  and EDGE enabled set for internet purpose.
• Data connectivity supported by microUSB v2.0 and Bluetooth Yes, v3.0 with A2DP.
• For text communication it comes with SMS,MMS,email,push mail and IM facility.
• Users can browse internet through WAP 2.0 using xHTML and HTML.
• It has some pre loaded java applications .
• It supports MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player ffor audio  and MP4/H.263 player for video.
• The standard Li-Ion battery gives good battery support.

Price of Samsung Captivate Glide in India is  not yet Announced.

Will 2012 See the Last Big, Bold CES?

By Rob Enderle
I was on the advisory council for Comdex the year it failed, and the reasons were similar to wh at now plagues CES. The show was ill timed, it had become too broad, and the major players just didn't see the point anymore. Microsoft's pullout from CES after this year indicates the show is trending down and will likely need to be rethought for this century if it is to survive and prosper.

This month begins the march to 2012 technology with the Consumer Electronics Show just around the corner. Vendors have already started prebriefings for what will likely be a cascade of announcements all happening in the same one-week time frame.

This will be the last year that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) keynotes or has a major presence at this show. Like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft is moving to an event-driven, rather than show-driven, schedule. The reason is showcased by the fact that Microsoft will be announcing Windows 8 about a month before it is really ready to be announced. This makes me wonder if we are having a Comdex moment and this could be the beginning of the end for CES and other massive shows of its type.
After exploring that issue, I'll close with my product of the week: a cool new superphone fromSamsung.

Windows 8

CES will be the coming-out party for Windows 8, but the problem is that Microsoft isn't expected to begin the Beta process until more than a month later, making this show ill-timed for the announcement. Much like Apple did with MacWorld, Microsoft is calling this the last CES it will have a major part in, making this an historic event for the company.
Windows 8 heralds a new class of computer called either "hybrid" or "crossover," depending on your predilection for automotive terms. This class was pioneered by the Asus Transformer, a tablet/laptop combination product designed to address the desire of many early iPad users to have the capabilities of an iPad and MacBook Air without having to carry both products at once. The iPad was often left at home.
This new combination product promises to address this problem, but it will need to work through some interesting choices as it will come in both ARM(Nasdaq: ARMHY) and X86 platforms, and size is in flux. The size problem isn't trivial, because folks don't seem to like tablets over 11 inches or Laptops less than 12 inches, making a compromise on size difficult. Still, this is the form factor that will best highlight Windows 8 capabilities, and it is likely it will be the most interesting of the 2012 PC designs. I expect you'll see some early designs at CES as a result.

USB Monitors

One of the things that may make this new device class workable is the coming wave of USB portable monitors. I've been using one from Lenovo for much of this last month, and coupled with an ultrabook -- doubling the available screen real estate -- it is well worth the typical sub-US$200 price.
It fully powers off the USB port and weighs in 2.4 lbs. with cover (1.8 without). I've generally been annoyed at working on the road because I use two 27-inch monitors in the office, and dropping down to a single sub-14-inch monitor is a huge pain. I think the option of doubling that on the road is well worth the $185 this monitor costs, and that this class of product could make the small screen on a hybrid/crossover-class product usable.
Granted, you'd fall back to using a mouse or touchpad for stuff on the USB monitor, but it would allow you to work off reference material, play a video, or just monitor Twitter orFacebook much more easily.

OLED TVs

Just when you had settled on that brand new LED/LCD TV with 3D and smart features, LGpre-announced a 55-inch OLED prototype, and it is drop-dead gorgeous. The company is hinting at an aggressive price point that still will likely be more than twice what a similar LED/LCD TV might cost, but it knows the pressure will be to get that price more competitive. If it does, we are so screwed, as we'll want one.
This TV is about as thin as a pencil (if you can remember what a pencil looked like) or 5-millimeters thick (an iPad is 8.8 mm thick as a comparison). Other than price, the bad news is that OLED TVs are infamous for their short lifespan, and most of the last generation appeared to lose 50 percent of its brightness within the first year. That makes even the original plasma technology look good by comparison.
So, I'll be watching to see if LG has addressed this chronic OLED problem. The good news is that not only are the TVs fabulous looking, they tend to use less power -- so you might be able to justify buying one to your spouse because it's green. Good luck with that.

Multi-Core Tablets

Expect to be up to your armpits in 4-plus core tablets running technology from Nvidia(Nasdaq: NVDA) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM). This will be the changeover year, when tablets stop being mostly about consumption and move solidly into creation.
Hovering over the show will be the rumored announcement of the iPad 3 brought to market early to fight off this emerging breed of high-performance iPad alternatives.
Most of the products will show up later in the year with the initial batch running Ice Cream Sandwich (which was recently pulled due to battery issues and a nasty tendency to brick devices). We'll see if tablets survive as a separate category this decade, but they'll likely still be hot in 2012.

Improved Security

IBM (NYSE: IBM) will be back at the show for the first time in years, and it is expected to showcase security and technology solutions (rumored to be the ones that helped Apple with the iPhone 4 antenna problems).
IBM has made some interesting predictions for next year, including mind control for computers (targeted mostly at paralyzed patients).
The most pertinent to CES is effective biometrics to eliminate the very vulnerable passwords we now have on our smart devices, and this couldn't be timed better given how vulnerable folks like McAfee say we now are.

Wrapping Up: Last Year for CES

I was on the advisory council for Comdex the year it failed, and the reasons were similar to what now plagues CES. The show was ill timed, it had become too broad, and the major players just didn't see the point anymore.
CES really comes too soon after Christmas now for the OEMs to be ready to showcase products for the following fall, and the show has become so broad that getting around it is a huge pain in pretty much every part of our bodies.
Buyers tend to meet with vendors on their own schedule, and while this does provide a great place to meet a lot of people, remembering any one of them becomes problematic, due to the number of meetings.
Apple hasn't been a CES supporter, and it even pulled out of MacWorld for similar reasons. While I doubt this will be the last year for CES, the Microsoft pullout indicates the show is trending down and will likely need to be rethought for this century if it is to survive and prosper -- likely as a set of smaller, better-timed and better-focused events.

Tech Events That Made 2011 Memorable

Bangalore: With 2011 waving us all goodbye, there are some things that techies will always remember when they look back at this year.

1.  The birth of Google+:  Google ventured in to the social networking domain with Google+, which issued private invites for the launch of its beta version, but receiving a limited edition invite soon became a popular thing and everybody wanted one. Google+ then became available to everybody, and Buzz (which had privacy-related concerns and problems) had to go away so that people would focus on the new social networking site. Google+ was different from other social media sites as it incorporated the concepts of categorizing friends into “circles” and a group video chat feature called “hangouts”.

2.   The war of the patents: Apple warred over patent rights and sued Samsung, HTC and Motorola (notable android phone and mobile device development companies) since they had used the features, and style of Apple products. Samsung and Apple have filed around 24 court suits since April all around the world, with Apple scoring partial wins in the form of delaying the release of the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tab in Australia, and banning it temporarily in Germany. However, this month saw Apple also denied the petition to temporarily prohibit the launch of four other Samsung products.

3.   Netflix and its indecision:  October saw Netflix was emerging as one of the top DVD rental and movie streaming sites, with around 20 million subscribers. However, its decisions to split the business into NetFlix for streaming and Qwickster for renting DVDs; and to double the rates of its services caused an outcry among its customers. By the time the company revoked its decision in the same month, it had lost around 800,000 customers, as revealed during its earning calls.

4.  RIM’s migraines: RIM suffered a lot of problems this year with its newly released “Playbook” tablet not making as many sells as hoped, and the sold playbooks facing the need to be recalled due to a problem in the device’s software. Moreover, the company’s music sharing software was made belittled, while the company’s largest network outage caused its market share in the US to shrink, and the company’s website was hacked after it offered its co-operation with the UK government in the aftermath of the riots and havoc in London.

5. Sony hacked too… twice:  Sony was hacked twice this year with the first event leaving 70 million gamers in the lurch, and the second event making people question the credibility of its security system. Sony had to boost its PR by sending out a “welcome back” package to all its customers affected by the hack so that it could keep its customers with it.

6.  Speaking of Hacks…: Hacker collectives Anonymous and LulSec took center stage this year with the attacks they raged on websites that ranged from belonging to the CIA and US defense contractors to child pornography and MasterCard and gaming websites. Moreover, they played pranks, defacing various other websites and are still wanted by Interpol and cybercrime authorities all over the world.

7.  Social media helped the world become a better place: Social media sites such as Facebook helped Egyptians come together and revolt against the 30-year rule of a dictator, Hosni Mubarak. As a result, the government blocked the website, but some natives found work-around it and used the website as a platform to express themselves. By the time the website came back online, Egyptians were celebrating the end of Mubarak’s reign, and praised Facebook for providing them means to come together.

8.  iPhone 4S and iPad 2: Apple brought its audience another two more shiny devices that captivated people all around the world with its high end technology. The iPhone 4S brought in a personal voice-activated assistant called Siri. The iOS5 was the major highlight of the device with all its new features. The iPad 2 was thinner, sleeker and had an all powerful processor that wowed all its users.

9.  Android dominating the world: Google’s OS dominated the world as the most used platform this year, among mobiles as well as tablets and computers.

 

 

10.  Facebook’s f8 developer conference:Facebook’s newly released Timeline and OpenGraph were new featured that made major changes to the way users prioritized information on Facebook, and it was welcomed by most.

Leaked Road Map Offers Glimpse of Future Windows Phones

 By Richard Adhikari

A purportedly leaked product road map -- which Microsoft would neither confirm nor deny is the genuine article -- has offered a view on what's ahead for Windows Phone. The next iteration of the OS will apparently be called "Tango" and will be designed for compatibility with budget phones. The next, Apollo, will be Microsoft's attempt to compete with its rivals' superphones.

A road map for the future development of the Windows Phone OS has apparently been leaked. The new information comes in the wake of a recent flurry of criticism over Windows Phone's performance in the smartphone market.

The road map, published by the VMPowerUser blog, is purportedly accurate as of October 2011.
If that's true, it could alleviate some critics' concerns regarding the way Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has been marketing Windows Phone.
However, the road map is too vague to tell anyone much, Rob Enderle, principal analyst at theEnderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.
"For each version [of the OS] there will be improvements, so this [road map] really only gives you the code names and target release dates," Enderle pointed out. "Since these dates tend to be fluid, there isn't really much you can sink your teeth into here."

What's in the Road Map

The published road map lists four versions of the Windows Phone OS, two of which have already arrived.
The first is WinPho7, with general availability (GA) listed for Q4, 2010. Next is Mango, with GA listed for Q4, 2011. Microsoft has followed the outlines of these two phases so far.
Next will come Tango, slated for Q2, 2012. It will be for products with the best prices -- in other words, low-priced, budget-minded handsets.
Finally, there's Apollo, scheduled for Q4, 2012. Microsoft's goal by that time will be to sharpen its competitive edge and increase overall volume. The road map seems to also indicate that Apollo will be for "superphones" and will be targeted strongly at business users.
Microsoft spokesperson Lacretia Taylor declined to comment on the road map for this story.

The Possible Import

It appears that Microsoft plans to target lower-end smartphones with Tango and re-engage business with Apollo, though Enderle has his doubts about the effectiveness of that approach.
"With smartphones, the key cost is the service, not the device, so lowering the cost of the phone probably won't do that much," Enderle pointed out. Further, "Business already likes Windows Phone just fine, the problem is, the users aren't demanding it."
That lack of user demand means Microsoft is failing to catch the wave of the consumerization of IT, which is driving sales of mobile devices.

Choking in the Market?

To date, Windows Phone devices have underperformed in the global smartphone market.
Worldwide sales of mobile devices totaled more than 440 million units in Q3, 2011, according to Gartner (NYSE: IT). A strong marketing push from both Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and its partner Microsoft to flog the new Lumia smartphone, which runs Windows Phone, should bring some improvement soon, but a true turnaround won't take place until the second half of 2012, Gartner predicts.
The second half of 2012 is when "Tango" and "Apollo" will kick in, according to the leaked road map.
Former Microsoft GM Charlie Kindel attributes the poor performance of Windows Phone devices to Microsoft's approach.
Microsoft's restrictions on carriers and device manufacturer leads them to place less emphasis on WinPho devices, Kindel stated. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), on the other hand, gives manufacturers and carriers a free hand to do what they want with Android devices, which accounts for that OS' tremendous popularity in the market.
However, those with long memories will recall that Microsoft had previously adopted Google's approach with Windows Mobile, the predecessor to Windows Phone, leading to complaints that the OS was fragmented and there was no continuity between devices from different manufacturers.
Those complaints left Windows Mobile 6 dead in the water, and Microsoft decided to redesign WinPho from scratch and maintain control over both the hardware and the OS as a result.

Addressing Complaints About WinPho

Microsoft "has given Nokia a lot of leeway with regard to [Windows Phone], and if that works, it might relax its restrictions elsewhere," Enderle pointed out.
However, Redmond needs to revise its approach to Windows Phone, Enderle suggested.
"They are losing money on this, and Steve Ballmer has been unwilling to loosen the purse strings to assure success," Enderle said. "If he spent about a third [as much] on this platform as he's spending on Bing, he'd likely have far greater success."