India's first 1 GB/s Internet connection !!

                         

 

Google, launched its 1000mbps (1gbps) at kansas city (US), a leading tech incubator in US, as part of the Google Fiber Network. and Now, it is India's turn to get this speed.

Kerala, India's first telecom company incubator now has a new 1GB/s connectivity, Startup Village of Kochi has become the second place in the world, after Kansas city of US.
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Start up Village aims to build the elements of a world class tech ecosystem to realize the dream of a Silicon Coast in INDIA.

you can download a two-hour HD movie in 30 seconds or view 1080p video in YouTube at this lightning speed !!!
 

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Dell offers cheaper tablet for schools and small biz

                      

LAS VEGAS–Hot on the heels of a new crop of touch-enabled laptops, Dell is making another announcement, this time bringing the recently-launched Dell Latitude 10 to schools and small businesses, with more affordable configurations. The Dell Latitude 10 Essential is an enterprise-ready Windows 8 tablet to be used and shared among multiple users. The new configurations retain the basic features of the tablet, but at a more affordable price.

The Latitude 10 Essential is a full-featured Windows 8 tablet that is designed to slot into existing IT environments and support legacy software in addition to new apps. In order to better accommodate the limited resources of schools and businesses, the tablet also supports the sharing of a single device among multiple users.

So, for example, the Latitude 10 can be used by different classrooms, or shared among staff members. The Latitude 10 Essentials configuration is also tailored for use with Dell's Education Cloud services, which offers tools for curriculum management, ebooks and digital media, and lecture capture. It also features tools for collaboration among students.

Framed with lightweight and durable magnesium alloy, the Latitude 10 Essential has a soft-touch finish so it's more comfortable and secure in hand. Corning Gorilla Glass protects the screen from scratches and cracking. Dell's own support programs offer 24/7 tech support by phone or web, as well as optional Dell ProSupport.

The 10-inch tablet is equipped with a headphone jack, USB 2.0 port, and micro HDMI output. An integrated Kensington lock slot makes it easy to physically secure the device at a desk or workbench. For expanded productive use with keyboard and mouse, Dell also offers a standalone desktop dock, which adds AC power and charging, wired LAN connectivity, full-size USB ports, and an SD card slot.

A 64GB version of the Latitude 10 Essentials configuration is available now, for $579, with a 32GB version coming soon for $499.

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Serious security flaw spotted in Java

                     

Security experts and researchers have discovered a new loophole in the popular Java software that could allow attackers to infect your computer with malware.

The US-CERT group has released an alert saying that Java 7 Update 10 and the previous versions of the software come with the zero day vulnerability that allows attackers to remotely run arbitrary code. The attack can be induced if someone visits a website set up with the malicious code.

An independent malware researcher, Kafeine, spotted the exploit "in the wild" that is being extensively used in attacks -- on his blog on Thursday. The researcher also shared samples of the exploit with security companies. "This could be mayhem," he said. "I think it's better to make some noise about it."

                       

Researchers at Alien Vault Labs were able to reproduce the exploit in a fully patched new installation of Java. “The Java file is highly obfuscated but based on the quick analysis we did the exploit is probably bypassing certain security checks tricking the permissions of certain Java classes as we saw in CVE-2012-4681,” note the researchers.

The exploit has already been added to the popular Blackhole exploit toolkit used by cybercriminals, as well as to Cool Exploit Kit, a more exclusive spin-off of Blackhole, Botezatu said

Bogdan Botezatu, a senior e-threat analyst at antivirus vendor Bitdefender, also confirmed the exploit. "We reproduced the exploitation mechanism on Java 1.7 Update 9 and Update 10. Other versions may be vulnerable as well, we're currently analyzing whether other older updates are vulnerable,” Botezatu is quoted by ComputerWorld as saying.

"The curator of Blackhole, a miscreant who uses the nickname 'Paunch,' announced yesterday on several Underweb forums that the Java zero-day was a 'New Year’s Gift,' to customers who use his exploit kit," writes Krebs on Security's Brian Krebs. "Paunch bragged that his was the first to include the powerful offensive weapon, but shortly afterwards the same announcement was made by the maker and seller of Nuclear Pack."

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Nokia Lumia 920 versus HTC WP8X: Camera performance and features compared

                     

The Nokia Lumia 920 has an 8.7MP rear camera and a 1.2MP front-facing camera. Its camera sports a floating-lens technology and offers optical image stabilization which is a first for smartphones.

We compared the Lumia 920 against HTC’s flagship WP8 device – the HTC Windows Phone 8X (which we've reviewed). As you will see in the accompanying video, the two phones were pitted against each other on two parameters – shooting pictures in low light conditions and image stabilisation while shooting video. Although the test conditions weren’t ideal (and we’d like to reserve our final judgement till we get the 920 in for a full fledged review) it was pretty obvious that the Lumia’s camera fared better. In the demo area there was a dark room created with minimal lighting and a flower vase as the subject.

Participants at the press conference got a chance to click pictures through the viewing window (as you will see in the video) to test low light photography. Again the Lumia 920 came out ahead. Although both cameras sport the back-side-illuminated sensor and the same aperture opening, the Lumia 920 gives more in terms of quality in low-light shooting. We attribute this to the sensor size. Strangely enough there were no details on the sensor size of the Lumia 920, but a quick online search reveals it to be ⅓-inch sensor (5x3.5mm) which we are guesstimating to be larger than HTC Windows Phone 8X’s sensor (no official details available).

The Lumia 920’s camera gives you two other interesting features called Smart Shoot and Cinemagraph. Many times, specially in very crowded places or tourist hotspots, while clicking photographs, you end up capturing a random stranger who just passes between the camera and the subject – an unintentional photobomb of sorts. With Smart Shoot, the Lumia phone detects any motion in the frame, and selects the area which can be removed from the frame.

Cinemagraph basically allows you to animate certain sections of your images. It is like a glorified GIF. Glorified because you can adjust the areas that you want to be animated and in effect create those fabled Harry Potter-esque moving pictures of the wizard world. Quite a nifty feature.

On a side note, another peculiar thing that we noticed while fiddling around with the 920 was that you could operate the touch screen with just about any object - from your fingernail to the back of a standard pencil. This can be attributed to the Synaptics layer built into the phone. While it was interesting to see this, our concern quickly went to accidental operations happening in your pocket. But that’s something we won’t know until we get the phone in for review. So stay sharp, stay tuned and watch this space.

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Apple's App Store goes past 40 bln downloads

                   

Despite the massive popularity of Android and its Google Play store, Apple has continued to witness a sharp growth of its App Store, which has now marked 40 billion downloads by its users since the store was launched in July 2008. About 20 billion downloads of the total came in 2012 alone.

The figures were announced by Apple on January 7. The company also notes a record growth in the month of December 2012, when App Store registered more than 2 billion downloads in a single month.

"It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community," says Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, in a statement. "Developers have made over 7 billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world."

According to Apple, its App Store features over 775,000 apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users worldwide. The App Store is available for users in more than 150 countries across the world, and has over 300,000 native iPad apps available in about 23 categories, including newspapers and magazines , games, business, health and fitness, news, sports, and travel.

Apple's feat with its App Store comes months after Google's Play store announced 25 billion download for content purchased through the store.

A study by ABI Research had ranked Apple's App Store ahead of rival app stores in terms of being easy for consumers to use. Google's Android Play Store stood second, while Microsoft's Windows Phone Store came in third, according to the study.

"In terms of implementation, Apple came first, ahead of Google and RIM," the report noted. Apple's "superior performance in this dimension is mainly down to its effective approach to monetization, large market share over the app industry, and the ability to achieve a large inventory of titles while maintaining a reasonably strict quality control."

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Toshiba launches 'touch and type' Satellite U845t ultrabook

 

Toshiba has unveiled an update to the Satellite U845 conveniently called the U845t. The device boasts of Windows 8 as the OS and is priced at $799 (approximately Rs. 44,300).

The Satellite U845t boasts of a 14-inch touchscreen display with a 1366x768 resolution, choice of third-gen Intel Core i3 or i5 CPU, 500GB hard drive with 32GB SSD and up to 6GB of RAM. The specifications of the device are the same as the non-touchscreen model and the price of the U845t is $50 more than the base model of the non-touch screen variant.

In terms of connectivity, the Toshiba Satellite U845t has an HDMI and Ethernet port, SD card slot, one USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports. The device is quite light weighing a mere 1.8kgs and is quite slim too, measuring a mere 0.8-inches in thickness.

With Windows 8 optimised for the touch screen as well as the traditional mouse and keyboard, we have seen the launch of a lot of laptops that boast of a touch screen as well as hybrid devices that double up as a laptop as well as a touchscreen tablet.

If you are interested in picking up a Microsoft Surface tablet we suggest you take a look at our 13 alternatives to Microsoft Surface Pro. If you are one who is looking for a Windows 8 device in the market today, and cant wait for the launch of the devices being showcased at CES 2013.

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Google Asia servers to go online this year; expect 30 percent faster speed

Fed up of slow YouTube streaming and web searches? Well, Google's new data centres based in Asia are slated to go operational this year, which means you can experience Google services at 30 percent faster speed.                   

                     

Internet users in India and other Asian nations will soon experience Google's services such as web search and YouTube streaming at about 30 percent faster speeds as the tech giant's new data centres installed in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are slated to go operational this year.

According to an Economic Times report, Lalitesh Katragadda, country head, India products at Google, notes web connectivity speed in India isn't very high. “These data centres will be crucial to this market due to its proximity," he adds.

The Google official admitted that several Google services including its video sharing site YouTube and video conferencing service Google Hangouts weren't accessible at optimal speeds in the country right now. The new data centres are likely to reduce the time taken to access these services 'dramatically'. Katragadda is hopeful the move will help increase adoption of Google services in the country.

Back in 2007, Google had begun searching for suitable locations in Asia. The company had considered sites in Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, India and Vietnam. Outside Asia, Google has seven data centres in the US, and one each in Finland, Belgium and Ireland. Katragadda reveals India's hot weather was the prime reason why Google did not choose the country as data centre location.

Raj Gopal AS, managing director at Bangalore-based NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Services says the proximity would help speed up Google services by 30 percent. Proximity to the data centres is believed to help access data faster on the internet. A report from web-based content delivery firm Akamai Technologies says India is at the 112th position globally in internet speed.

The Economic Times report notes India is among the largest markets for Google with the nation having more than 100 million users. “Google enjoys a share of over 95 percent of India's internet search market, according to research firm StatCounter. Over the next three years, Google expects 500 million internet users from emerging markets to come online as against just about 15 million from the United States,” says the report.

"More people from India are coming online every day and this is an important market as Google looks to bring the next one billion online," Katragadda added. "We plan to invest disproportionately in India in the coming months and years."

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Datawind becomes third largest tablet seller in India

Datawind, the company behind India's most talked about budget tablet, has become the third largest tablet seller according to data from technology market researcher CyberMedia Research, behind Samsung and Micromax.

                                        

According to the latest data from technology market researcher CyberMedia Research, Datawind, the company that won the tender from the Indian government and is the manufacturer of the Aakash tablet, has become the third largest tablet seller in India.

During the time period of July to September, Datawind faced some criticism for missing the deadline for its Rs. 2,263 Aakash tablet to the government. During that period, Datawind has a 12 percent market share in India. This market share is excluding the Aakash tablets provided to the Indian government.

The research form has said that the total number of tablets in India in 2012 was close to 3 million. During the three months leading to September 2012, over one million tablets were sold in India. Samsung is the leader in this segment in India with a share of 24% followed by Micromax, which has a market share in India of 15%. The gap is a considerable one between the two market leaders.

A whopping 135 vendors have launched their tablets till Q3 2012 flooding the budget tablet market with a slew of homogenous products.

According to Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CyberMedia Research Telecoms Practice, "A majority of the tablets currently on offer have built-in WiFi connectivity with 3G access enabled through a USB dongle. However, going forward, increased penetration of 3G networks, declining ASVs of 3G-enabled media tablets and launch of BWA (4G / WiMax / LTE) services in the country is likely to see a rise in 3G-only tablet devices with larger screen sizes. This trend is expected to give a fillip to new types of data services and content being demanded and consumed by subscribers, which in turn will drive a further increase in adoption of Media Tablets in India "

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