Vodafone launches mobile wi-fi device

Telecom service provider Vodafone Essar Monday launched its mobile wi-fi device - Vodafone R201 - in India, which can be used by five users simultaneously to connect to Vodafone's 3G network.

The device contains a sim slot to connect to the 3G network and five users can then connect their computers, mobile gaming devices, digital music players to the device over wi-fi to enjoy 3G speeds, the company claimed.

"The Vodafone R201 is designed to provide customers with an advantage of connecting and communicating on-the-go," said Kumar Ramanathan, chief marketing officer of Vodafone Essar.

The device has a battery life of up to four hours and allows users to enjoy uninterrupted 3G internet services at a speed of up to 7.2 mbps on high-speed downlink packet access enabled devices.

Priced at Rs.5,500, this device is powered by battery, mains or USB along with plug and plays software of 128 MB flash memory, the company said.
Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Apple sold nearly one million iPad 2s in debut weekend: Analysts

Analysts expect Apple Inc to have sold close to a million iPad 2 tablet computers in its first weekend, trumping debut sales of the first iPad that went on sale last April.

"We would not be surprised to see Apple sell closer to 1 million iPad2s in the opening weekend," said Wedbush Securities analyst Scott Sutherland.

The original version crossed the one-million mark 28 days after its launch.

Best Buy on Friday said some of its outlets ran out of the tablet and its accessories within 10 minutes.

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry estimates Apple may have sold three times more iPad 2s in the first two days compared to the previous version.

The profile of iPad 2 buyer is 60 percent existing iPad owners, 40 percent first-time iPad buyers and 100 percent own at-least one Apple product, Global Equity's Chowdhry wrote.

Nokia E7 touch-and-type phone launched in India

Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia Monday launched in the Indian market its much talked about touch-and-type business smartphone - Nokia E7 - equipped with a four-inch touchscreen display and a slide-out four-row QWERTY keyboard.

"Consumers today seek a device that allows them to do a lot more, both in their personal and professional lives. Nokia E7 is an all-in-one business smartphone that offers a superior mobile office experience coupled with compelling entertainment options," said D. Shivakumar, vice president and managing director, Nokia India .

"We are confident that with Nokia E7, we will redefine the consumers' expectations from smartphones segment," he added.

As a special offer, the company has tied up with telecom service provider Vodafone to offer 2GB of data per month free for six months.

The handset comes loaded with an eight megapixel camera and applications including adobe PDF reader, world traveller app, anti-theft software for mobile and Nokia Ovi maps with GPS navigation.

The handset will also support opening and reading Microsoft Office documents along with creating and editing new documents and mailing them on the go.

The phone is priced at Rs.29,999.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

New forms of 'zombie ant' fungi discovered

Scientists have discovered four types of fungus in the Brazilian rainforest that can take control of ants.

These "zombie fungi" alter the behaviour of the Carpenter ant and kill the insect in a spot where the fungus has ideal conditions for its spores.

The fungi were found in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and have been described in the journal "Plos ONE" by the team of scientists around David Hughes from Pennsylvania State University.

The newly discovered fungi belong to the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis complex of fungus which infects ants and causes their death. An infected ant will make its way to a leaf, bite into a leaf-vein and lock its jaws before dying.

The unique characteristic of the newly discovered fungi is that each one has specialised in dealing with a certain type of Carpenter ant, according to the scientists, and is an example of how rich in diversity the area of Brazil where the fungi were discovered is. The fungi also possess different types of spores tailored to infect their hosts as efficiently as possible.

Earlier studies have already shown how, and why, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis attacks ants. The fungi's spores attach themselves to an ant's exoskeleton while later a stalk will grow into the ant's head and alter its behaviour.

The ant then migrates from its nest in the trees down to the ground where moisture conditions and temperatures are more suited to the fungus. The fungus then develops a fruiting body with spores that will go on to infect more ants.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

High-capacity hydrogen storage breakthrough

Hydrogen has been touted as a promising alternative to fossil fuels since the 1970s due to its clean combustion.

But to replace the gasoline as a fuel, hydrogen must be safely and densely stored and easily accessed.

Limited by materials unable to leap these conflicting hurdles, hydrogen storage technology has lagged behind other clean energy candidates.

Now, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have achieved a breakthrough in this regard.

They have designed a new composite material for hydrogen storage consisting of nanoparticles of magnesium metal sprinkled through a matrix of polymethyl methacrylate, a polymer related to Plexiglas.

Nanoscale whiskers could grow human tissue

Minute nanoscale whiskers taken from sea creatures hold the key to creating human muscle tissue, say researchers.

University of Manchester academics Stephen Eichhorn and Julie Gough, working with doctoral student James Dugan, chemically extracted cellulose in the form of nanowhiskers from tunicates, known as sea squirts.

"Cellulose is being looked at very closely around the world because of its unique properties, and because it is a renewable resource. But this is the first time it has been used for skeletal muscle tissue engineering applications," said Eichhorn.

Cellulose is a polysaccharide - a long chain of sugars joined together - usually found in plants. It is the main component of paper and certain textiles such as cotton, according to a Manchester statement.

Tunicates grow on rocks and man-made structures in coastal waters. Nanowhiskers are tens of thousand of times smaller than muscle cells and are the smallest physical feature found to cause cell alignment.

Nanowhiskers are already being used for a number of different medical applications, including wound dressings, but this is the first time it has been proposed for creating skeletal muscle tissue, help repair existing muscle or even grow muscle from scratch.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change

It's hard enough to get your bearings when the time changes twice a year. It's all but impossible when your phone starts playing tricks on you, too.

Users of Apple's iPhone peppered the Internet with complaints Sunday when their phones bungled the one-hour ``spring forward'' to daylight savings time that went into effect overnight Saturday.

One user complained of missing church, another of almost missing yoga. One called her iPhone stupid and several just asked for help.

It turns out some users' phones fell back one hour instead of springing forward, making the time displayed on the iPhone two hours off.

This is just the latest clock woe for Apple's chic iPhone. A clock glitch prevented alarms from sounding on New Year's Day, causing slumbering revelers to oversleep. The devices also struggled to adjust to the end of daylight savings time back in November.

The glitch affected iPhone owners who subscribe for phone service through both AT&T and Verizon.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Twitter was abuzz with a simple solution: Either shut down and restart the phone, or switch the phone to ``airplane mode'' and then back.

Apple has sold more than 100 million iPhones since they were first offered in 2007, dazzling customers with features that allow users to watch movies, play games, surf the Internet and get driving directions on a small, sleek device.
Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Blast strikes Japan plant; 2,000 bodies found on coast

A hydrogen explosion rocked the earthquake-stricken nuclear plant in Japan where authorities have been working desperately to avert a meltdown, compounding a nuclear catastrophe caused by Friday's massive quake and tsunami.

The core container was intact, Jiji news agency said, quoting the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), but the local government warned those still in the 20-km (13-mile) evacuation zone to stay indoors. Seven people, six of them soldiers, were missing in the blast, Jiji said.

A TV station also reported a new tsunami on Monday but it turned out to be a false alarm.

Japan battled through the weekend to prevent a nuclear catastrophe and to care for the millions without power or water in its worst crisis since World War Two, after the huge earthquake and tsunami that likely killed more than 10,000 people.

Kyodo news agency said 2,000 bodies had been found on Monday on the shores of Miyagi prefecture, which took the brunt of the tsunami.

The government had warned of a possible explosion at the No 3 reactor because of the buildup of hydrogen in the building housing the reactor. TV images showed smoke rising from the Fukushima facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Internet usage transforming news industry

The rapid growth of smartphones and electronic tablets is making the Internet the destination of choice for consumers looking for news, a report released on Monday said.

Local, network and cable television news, newspapers, radio and magazines all lost audience last year, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism , a research organization that evaluates and studies the performance of the press. News consumption online increased 17 per cent last year from the year before, the project said in its eighth annual State of the News Media survey.

The per centage of people who say they get news online at least three times a week surpassed newspapers for the first time. It was second only to local TV news as the most popular news platform and seems poised to pass that medium, too, project director Tom Rosenstiel said. Local TV news has been the most popular format since the 1960s, when its growth was largely responsible for the death of afternoon newspapers, he said.

``It was a milestone year,'' he said. People are just becoming accustomed to having the Internet available in their pockets on phones or small tablets, he said. In December, 41 per cent of Americans said they got most of their news about national and international issues on the Internet, more than double the 17 per cent who said that a year earlier, the report said.

In January, 7 per cent of Americans owned electronic tablets, nearly double what it was three months earlier. Rosenstiel said it's the fastest-growing new digital technology, ahead of cell phones when they were introduced.

Review: Samsung Wave II

How can a smartphone stand out from the sea of options available today? Simple: over-the-top attention to detail, build quality and a fantastic screen that blows you away with eye-popping colours and deep blacks.

The Wave II (or S8530) is powered by Samsung?s own Bada operating system and it is their second phone on the Bada platform after the Wave. It?s not a small or light phone by any stretch, but it is quite slim at 11.5mm and feels very solid and well put together. The screen occupies most of the front, with chrome answer/end buttons and a large central button just below. Along the side, it has the buttons for the camera shutter, lock and volume.

In many ways, the Bada OS is similar to Android. Like Android, Bada has a notification area on top of the screen. It also has multiple, customisable home screens. Even the homescreen wallpaper moves from side to side as you swipe through the multiple screens.

There are a lot of appealing things about the Wave II. The screen is not AMOLED, but the Super Clear LCD offers excellent colours and richness. The liberal use of metal panels gives it a very solid feel. Multimedia playback is excellent (especially DivX movies, which playback without any conversion). The new T9-Trace input method allows you to type a work by tracing a path on the keyboard (similar to Swype on Android & Symbian^3). And thanks to the 1Ghz ARM Cortex A8 processor and dedicated graphics chipset, there is a lot of power under the hood for the nice animations and everything runs along without any hiccups or lags.

Call quality is excellent and the large 1500mAh battery will surely last you a day even with heavy usage of email, music, calls and messages. The camera takes good pictures in daylight, and the bright LED flash also helps at night, though as expected, some noise does creep into low light shots.

Create your own WiFi hotspot with 3G

Almost all the portable gadgets we use today need to be connected to the internet. Instead of getting an individual internet connection for each of them, you can use one of them to create a personal, mobile Wi-Fi hotspot. All your other Wi-Fi enabled devices will then be able to connect to this hotspot and share the primary internet connection.

Apart from the practicality angle, there can be many uses for this. Your laptop can have high-speed internet connectivity on the move. Within your own network, you devices will be able to share data with each other. And you?ll save quite a bit of cash at the end of the month if you share just one unlimited data plan with five other devices.

Using a Symbian Phone
Symbian Series 60 phones with Wi-Fi were actually the first to get the ability to create a Wi-Fi hotspot, using a free app called JoikuSpot Light. JoikuSpot also supports certain Samsung Symbian Series 60 phones like the Omnia HD i8910 and the Maemo-powered Nokia N900. Well, JoikuSpot is still around (joiku.com) and has been upgraded to include support for Symbian Series 60 5th Edition (touch phones like the Nokia 5800 and 5530 Xpress Music) and the latest Symbian^3 (for phones like the Nokia C6, C7, N8 and E7). With the Light version of JoikuSpot, you cannot name your network and the Wi-Fi hotspot that you create is unsecured, meaning that anyone with a Wi-Fi enabled device will be able to connect to it.

The Light version is also limited in the sense that it only supports basic internet protocols (not all websites will be accessible using a hotspot created by JoikuSpot Light). Apart from that, there are no restrictions on the Light version, no time limitations and no obligation to upgrade to the paid version. To download the Light version directly to your phone, visit joikuspot.com/light from your phone?s web browser. If you prefer to secure your Wi-Fi hotspot so that only you can access it, you can get the paid version for $12.50 from joikushop.com.

India has effective system for Tsunami alerts

India has put in place an effective system to issue Tsunami alerts after the catastrophe had hit country in 2004, a senior government official said.

Ruling out any shortcoming in the tsunami alert system in the country, Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary Shailesh Naik said that Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is a world-class tsunami warning system.

"This has been proved now, as we were able to issue the first bulletin just seven minutes after the massive quake in Japan, ruling out a tsunami threat for the Indian Ocean, where as the American tsunami warning system, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its first alert 12 minutes after the massive earthquake near the coast of Honshu," he said.

The Indian tsunami warning system, which was conceived after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, works by assessing data it received from seismic stations, sea level gauges, bottom pressure recorders (tsunami buoys) and predicts the water level changes expected at various locations.

"Following a big earthquake, the system can issue a tsunami alert within in 10 minutes not only in India but also for other neighbouring countries," Naik said.

The Rs 125-crore tsunami warning centre set up in 2007 at the INCOIS in Hyderabad has assessed 25-30 major earthquakes in the last three years.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us