Temple Run hits Windows Phone alongside Gravity Guy 2 and other games

Temple Run is finally available on Windows Phone platform. The version launched on Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 platform is the original Temple Run game, not the recently launched Temple Run 2

 

“At the risk of stating the obvious, Temple Run sets you off on one of the most heart-pounding challenges ever,” said Microsoft in a blog post.

“Swipe to turn, jump and slide as you race over obstacles and whip around corners on a pathway resembling China’s Great Wall, all on your way to capturing hidden treasure. Collect coins, buy power-ups, and see just how far your feet can take you, with the beat of native drums setting your pace.”

 

The original Temple Run has so far seen a massive popularity with more than 170 million downloads from Apple's App Store and Google Play since its launch in 2011. Following its success, Imangi Studios came up with a sequal for Android and iOS platforms – Temple Run 2. In the meanwhile, Imangi also tied up with Disney to launch two themed versions of the game called Temple Run Brave, and Temple Run Oz.

Temple Run is available for free on Windows Phone 8 platform. You can Download the game from here.

Besides Temple Run 2, Microsoft has rolled out a slew of other games including the Gravity Guy 2, the next series of the popular Gravity Guy. The game priced at $2.99 is available for download now, and will be sold exclusively to Windows Phone for next month.

Other games that make their way to Windows Phone are Chaos Rings, 6th Planet, Propel Man, Orcs Must Survive, and Fling Theory. It's notable Chaos Ring is only available for Windows Phone 7.5 devices.

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British teen sells mobile news app to Yahoo for GBP 18 million

Yahoo buys the Summly news app from 17 year old Nick D'Aloisio.

 

A 17-year-old London schoolboy has made big news, after he sold his news app company to Yahoo, for an estimated £18m. Nick D'Aloisio hails from Wimbledon in south London, had created the app called Summly – which provides crisp summaries of content from various news sites. The total transaction value is understood to be £18m, assumed to be 90% in cash and 10% in shares at Yahoo. However, some reports suggested the total could go up to as much as £40m.

D'Aloisio, who learnt how to write code for apps when he was 12 years old, developed the Summly app at the age of 15. The application was made for the iPhone, and till the time it was pulled from the Apple App Store after the announcement of the Yahoo deal, had clocked 1 million downloads. The application had content deals with 250 news sources globally, including the Rupert Murdoch owned News Corp., and was managed by a team of 10 employees based in London. Over a period of time, D’Aloisio got monetary backing from Horizons Ventures, the venture capital arm of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing as well as Zynga Inc.'s Mark Pincus and actor Ashton Kutcher.
“We will be removing Summly from the App Store today but expect our summarization technology will soon return to multiple Yahoo! products - see this as a ‘power nap' so to speak”, Nick says in a post on his website.
This could be a big acquisition for Yahoo, as it aims to refresh and rebuild its offerings, after having lost relevance significantly, at least in the smartphone ecosystem.
"To me, Yahoo is the best company to be joining right now because it's one of these classic Internet companies," D'Aloisio said in an interview. "With new leadership from Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has a strong focus on mobile and product, and that's the perfect fit for Summly."
D'Aloisio, who is currently on a break from studies for a short period to give complete focus to Summly, will join Yahoo's London office. Meanwhile, he will continue with his education. "Technology has really been the driver behind this whole deal. I can't wait to see how it plays out at Yahoo", he says.

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DataWind's UbiSlate 7C+ Edge tablet launched for Rs. 5,999

Priced at Rs. 5,999, the new UbiSlate tablet comes with SIM slot for voice calling and Wi-Fi. DataWind says the UbiSlate 7C+Edge is its recommendation for the Aakash 3 tablet.

 

DataWind, the company spearheading the Aakash tablet project, has released a new tablet called the UbiSlate 7C+Edge. It's notable the tablet is DataWind's recommendation for the Aakash 3.

Online retailer Snapdeal is selling the new UbiSlate tablet for Rs. 5,999 and promises to dispatch the device within 5 working days. The tablet is however listed 'out of stock' on DataWind's official website.

DataWind's UbiSlate 7C+ Edge comes with SIM slot for voice calling. It has a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen with 800x480 pixel resolution. The tablet runs Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich and is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor. It has 512MB of RAM. There's a front VGA camera and G-sensor as well.

The tablet has an internal storage of 4GB and comes with microSD support that enables additional storage up to 32GB. For connectivity and networking, the UbiSlate 7C+ Edge supports Wi-Fi, microUSB and EDGE. Check out the full specifications of the tablet here.

The release of the UbiSlate 7C+ Edge comes amid reports of the HRD Ministry is looking to shelve the Aakash tablet project due to delays in manufacturing and supply. DataWind was supposed to deliver some units to the government by March 31, but it looks unlikely the company will be able to meet the deadline.

DataWind in a detailed clarification over the alleged delay said verifications process that Customs needed to conduct on the Exemption Certificates for certain components issued by IIT-Bombay had led to delay. Read about DataWind's clarification here.

In the meanwhile, reports suggest the government is working on the Aakash 3 and Aakash 4 tablets. Union ministry Kapil Sibal recently revealed that he had formed a joint working committee when he was the HRD minister. The committee had been assigned to work on the Aakash 3 and Aakash 4.

"That committee consists of head of CDAC, IIT (Madras), IIT (Bombay) and some others. It has representatives of HRD as well. I spoke to Ashok Jhunjhunwala who is also part of the committee. He has told me about 18 vendors want to manufacture Aakash in India," he said.

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World's biggest DDoS attack blamed for slowing down global Internet speeds

DDoS attack blamed but there could actually be other reasons for slow Internet.

 

A massive DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack levelled against Dutch anti-spam group Spamhaus may be causing global Internet speeds to fall, news reports have claimed. A BBC report states that the DDoS attack entailed Spamhaus’ servers being assaulted by 300 Gb/s of data through a technique called DNS reflection.According to an executive at security firm Arbor Networks, the largest DDoS attack before this one comprised of a peak data rate of 100 Gb/s. While speaking to the BBC, cybersecurity expert Alan Woodward said that this massive traffic was resulting in falling Internet speeds across the world.

The DDoS attack against Spamhaus comes in the wake of the blacklisting of Cyberbunker, a Dutch web hosting service, by the anti-spamming group. Cyberbunker, whose infamous and unofficial motto is that it will host anything that’s not child pornography or terrorism related, has been accused by Spamhaus of colluding with Eastern-European criminal gangs to wage the DDoS attack in retaliation for the blacklisting. Cyberbunker has rejected the accusations and has instead pointed a finger towards Stophaus, an online group formed by ISPs and users disgruntled by Spamhaus. While speaking to RT, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, a spokesman for Cyberbunker, also accused Spamhaus of falsely accusing ISPs of being spammers and blacklisting them without any evidence.
Kamphuis also claimed that the DDoS attack wasn’t causing Internet speeds to fall and blamed CloudFlare, the security firm that helped Spamhaus deal with the attack, for exaggerating information in order to show itself in good light. Gizmodo also gave this claim some degree of veracity by pointing out that no other company, apart from CloudFlare and Spamhaus, that relies on the Web has come out with reports of service outage. Also, sites that monitor global Internet speeds and general service health didn’t show any major anomalies generated by the DDoS attack.
However, many users in India did complain of slow speeds yesterday but that could probably be blamed on undersea cables near Egypt being cut- cables that provided Internet access to parts of Asia and Africa. Other Internet gateways providing services to Europe and India were also undergoing maintenance at the same time, which may have also been directly responsible to slow Internet speeds rather than the DDoS attack.
Spamhaus has said that law enforcement agencies from five different countries have started investigations in response to the DDoS attack.

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Apple planning to open more than 130 exclusive stores in India by 2015

 Apple is planning to greatly increase the number of stores selling its products in India, with a target of 200 stores by 2015. According to The Economic Times, Apple franchisees have revealed that the company has asked them to scale up their presence in India by opening more stores selling its products. Currently there are 17 franchisees in India that are running 65 exclusive Apple stores, known as Apple Premium Resellers, and Apple hopes to triple that number in two years time.
                                

The Apple Store located at Fifth Avenue, New York

 

The franchisees also revealed that Apple would be sharing design specifics and manpower to build new stores in India, in order to make them similar to the Apple Stores that the company itself runs in many countries abroad including the United States and China. Apple has decided to fund the new Indian stores by reimbursing the total amount (estimated at Rs. 1 crore per store) to the franchisees over a year.

Although Apple Stores have been phenomenally successful abroad, the iPhone makers will find it very difficult to open its own stores in India because of Government regulations. According to these regulations, any product being sold by the manufacturer through its own single brand store should either be made in India or should at least have 30% of its components sourced locally. Since Apple products like the iPhone and the iPad are completely manufactured in China and imported into India, Apple will not be able to sell them through its own stores. The franchisee model, therefore, allows Apple to circumvent that rule by letting Indian retailers sell its products.

 

Apart from the exclusive stores, Apple is also planning on increasing its presence in multi-brand stores in India such as Croma and Reliance Digital.

Apple’s decision to ramp up its presence in the Indian market comes in wake of the newfound success that company is experiencing in India. With the help of retail schemes that offer premium Apple products to Indian consumers through installments, and a bigger marketing push, Apple has managed to rack up a 400% jump in its total sales in India, as revealed by an IDC report released in February. The report also showed that Apple had jumped to the second spot in terms of revenue in the Indian smartphone market. For a company that has been conspicuous by its absence from the Indian electronics market in the past, Apple has revealed a new India-focused strategy for the new year, which will mean that Apple products will be launched in India at around the same time that they are launched elsewhere.

 

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Samsung, Apple to fight for your wrist with 'smart-watches'

 In technology news, we’ve learnt that there are very few actual coincidences. So, excuse us if we can see a direct link between recent stories about Apple seriously working on a smart watch and yesterday’s reveal by a Samsung executive that the South Korean company was also developing a smart-watch. While speaking to Bloomberg, Executive Vice-President of Mobile Business for Samsung, Lee Young Hee said that Samsung had been working on a smart-watch for a while.

Just last month, we reported that Apple was taking the smart watch concept seriously enough to assign a 100 member team to work on it. Patents filed by Apple show that the watch could have a battery that’s powered by movement and solar energy, it could feature a slap bracelet-like mechanism to wrap around the user’s wrist and also feature a display that changed its surface area according to the size of the user’s wrist.

Samsung hasn’t revealed any details about its watch but this won’t be the first attempt by the Korean company in making a watch that does more than just tell you the time. The Verge points out that in 1999, Samsung released the SPH-WP10 a wristwatch that also had a built in mobile phone. Ten years later, in 2009, Samsung launched the S9110, a watch with a touchscreen display that was also able to sync Outlook mails and play music and came with Bluetooth 2.1 support along with voice recognition. However, since then, this is the first that we’ve heard from Samsung regarding a smart-watch.

Apple, on the other hand, has seen some (maybe inadvertent) success because, thanks to accessories, the new iPod Nano has seen somewhat widespread use as a watch.

Why Smart-Watches & Why Now?

The Bloomberg story points out that wearable computing devices may just be the next big thing in personal technology especially considering the fact that the mobile phone segment is supposed to hit its saturation soon with annual growth falling to 9.7% in 2017 from 27% in 2013. The global watch market, on the other hand is worth $60 billion and although that number may be a lot less than what the mobile segment segment is worth, it’s not exactly a segment to laugh off.

With Google also showing interest in wearable computing with its Glass project, and devices like the Pebble smart-watch gaining popularity, it seems likely that it won’t be only Apple and Samsung throwing their development behind smart devices that you can wear.

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ZyXEL launches N300 Gigabit NetUSB wireless router at Rs. 10,600

The NBG4615 v2 Wireless N300 Gigabit NetUSB Router helps you share data with USB-equipped wireless devices without any tricky wiring.

 

ZyXEL Communications has launched the new NBG4615 v2 Wireless N300 Gigabit NetUSB Router, with an MRP of Rs. 10,600. According to the company, the NBG4615 v2 Wireless N300 Gigabit NetUSB Router has some excellent features, such as easily connecting to multiple laptops and PC's through the router, and wirelessly sharing files, etc. The router is already available on retail shelves.

Speaking on the launch, Mr Madhukar Swayambhu, Sales Head India and SAARC region, ZyXEL said: “ZyXEL’s N300 Gigabit Net USB Router would strengthen the product portfolio by delivering high speed connection with optimum streaming and gaming facilities. This router expands the ZyXEL’s reach to the SME and home users.”

Users will be able to share multiple USB-equipped devices with NetUSB support. The NBG4615 v2 Wireless N300 Gigabit NetUSB Router comes with two built-in USB Ports which can be connected easily through a local PC. The user can enjoy enhanced gaming and multimedia through configurable QoS technology that ensures smooth delivery of gaming, video as well as downloading.

ZyXEL says users will be able to keep their private data secure with Internet-only access for guests. This ensures that a user's network data remains protected and confidential. Users can also configure the router through the "Easy mode" which helps you set up quick navigation. It also has an "Expert Mode" for expert navigation that gives a detailed configuration.

 

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ORIGOSafe: A new system that helps prevent texting while driving

Developed by a U.S.-based company, ORIGOSafe costs USD 279. The system currently works only with the Samsung Galaxy S III. Versions for iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 are in the works.

 

Texting and driving together is dangerous. But, many of us are tempted to do that despite knowing the grave consequences. Well, there is no more need to risk your and others lives, as a company in the U.S. have come up with a system that will prevent people from texting while driving.

Before starting the car, driver needs to insert his/her smartphone in the system called ORIGOSafe. As a user drives the car, the device charges the phone, and only allows making and receiving phone calls via Bluetooth.

Users can remove the phone while driving, but the system will sound an alarm and alerts a system administrator, such as a parent or manager. Subsequently, the driver is prevented from restarting the car. But, that is until an administrator or parent punches in a code on the ORIGOSafe's keypad.

It's notable the system allows user to remove phone if the parking brake is engaged and the vehicle is idling. The device has been developed by a Virginia-based company is priced at $279, plus installation. Currently, the system is only compatible with the Samsung S III. The company is working to build versions that are compatible with the iPhone 5 and 4S. 

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Samsung Galaxy S4 benchmarked as 'fastest smartphone yet'

Benchmark scores of the Samsung Galaxy S4 have surfaced on the Internet, which suggest that the recently announced device is the fastest of the current crop of smartphones. The GeekBench score for the S4 has appeared on Android Authority, healthily beating other flagship Android smartphones (and even the Apple iPhone 5, BlackBerry Z10) available in the market.

As you know, the international version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is powered by the Exynos 5 Octa chipset. This particular chipset has four Cortex-A15 cores clocking to a maximum of 1.6GHz, and four Cortex-A7 cores clocking up to 1.2GHz. The graphics are handled by the PowerVR SGX 544MP3 chip from Imagination Technologies. There will also be a second version of the S4 that will only hit certain markets. This version will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset with its quad-core Krait 300 chipset (1.9GHz) and the Adreno 320 graphics. Both versions will have 2GB of RAM, and will get the LTE feature in certain markets. It will also feature wireless charging in some markets.

 

 

Interestingly, Qualcomm Snapdragon 600-powered Samsung Galaxy S4 scores a whopping 3163 in the GeekBench test, and the HTC One holds the second place with a score of 2687. The difference is quite a bit. The third place is held by Google’s flagship smartphone, the Nexus 4, with a score of 2040. We can’t wait to see what the Exynos 5 Octa-powered Galaxy S4 will score.

 

In terms of other specifications, the Galaxy S4 features a 4.99-inch 1920x1080 pixel Super AMOLED display, giving it a pixel density of 441 ppi. There will be three storage options – 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. With such high scores, users can rest assured that the smartphone will be the smoothest fastest Android experience available – until of course, the next big thing comes along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Govt. mechanism to intercept phone calls, web data to be operational soon

The government's Central Monitoring System (CMS) meant to monitor phone calls and Internet data in the country is reportedly start functioning in a limited manner by April this year.

According to reports, the mechanism will help the authorities end all manual intervention during tapping exercises and also lessen the risk of leaking. It will also help reduce dependency on the telecom operators for phone interception.

The technical paraphernalia for the mechanism is expected to be announced by August 2013, but a pilot run will begin next month.

The government had decided to set up the Central Monitoring System after the much-talked about Niira Radia phone tapping case, which involved conversation of the political lobbyist Radia with journalists, politicians and corporate houses. 

                                

The CMS costs about Rs. 4 billion that will be connected with Telephone Call Interception System (TCIS) setup to monitor voice calls, SMS and MMS, GPRS, Fax Communications on landlines, CDMA, GSM and 3G networks, and video calls.

The mechanism's man hub will be established in New Delhi and will have direct electronic provisioning of target telephone numbers by government agencies. Other than its main New Delhi base, the system will have four hi-tech regional hubs.

The agencies that will have access to this system include Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Narcotics Control Bureau, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

"Once fully operational, all phone taps will be put on auto surveillance mode," an official is quoted as saying. "Even the records will be destroyed automatically after a fixed period of time so that it may not be misused by compromising privacy of individuals."

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Sony PlayStation 3 becomes more colourful; with three new variants

Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3), one of the few popular gaming consoles in the market, has just released in three new colours.

After being available in “Charcoal Black” since its launch, the 500 GB console will now be available in “Classic White”, “Garnet Red” and “Azurite Blue” colours.

Not only are the console units coloured, but the DualShock controllers will also be of the corresponding colour, matching the body of the console unit.

All the three colour variants are based on the slim PS3 model which was released some time back. They have a curved body and smooth edges along with a sliding disk cover at the top. The top sliding cover has nice horizontal texture lines to it and the sides of the console are smooth and glossy.                        

 

                               

The best part about the slim version is that it allows users to place the console unit anywhere they may want to place it in their homes without running into too much trouble with space.

                                           
These new coloured models can be purchased from retail stores at Rs. 23,490 which Sony claims is a special price for the summer holiday season. However, Sony is also quoted saying that this new and slim PS3 model is not compatible with PlayStation 2 games.
                                            
But we think that, as the crop of next generation consoles, that is the PlayStation 4 from Sony (controller, eyecam and details revealed recently) and the Xbox 720 (name not confirmed) from Microsoft are about to be revealed soon, it doesn’t make much sense to go out and buy the older consoles considering they have been in the market for so many years now. Be advised that the PS4 as well as the Xbox 720 won’t come cheap and are sure to cost a bomb, at least when they launch later this year.

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