Pirates Of Caribbean On Strangers Tide HD Wallpaper

Social Networking for Toddlers -IOBR

When you’re in the habit of being logged into Facebook or Twitter 24/7, you’d expect no less from your kids, right? And I’m not talking about your pre-adolescent son on your teenage daughter, but your toddlers. Yes, you heard that right! Two Finnish designers have come up with a social networking tool for kids called IOBR.

Tune your kids into social media

IOBR is a device that toddlers can use to tell others what they are doing. It has no reading or writing involved (duh), just what toddlers usually pick up when they’re growing. The IOBR has a set of different shaped blocks with an icon on each of them. For example, an eating block has the image of a fork on it, or a sleeping block will have the image of a bed with a horizontal figure on it. So if the toddler is taking a nap, all he or she has to do is place a triangle shaped block in its respective hole. The other toddler who has the IOBR will be notified immediately, as the block will light up on their device.
The IOBR was built from an existing toy, the Brio Shape sorting box, and the status updates are triggered using magnets in the blocks. Apparently, the two designers say that this device has been a huge hit with their children, especially the girls.

Inception Video Game Confirmed

A while back, director Christopher Nolan expressed an interest in making a video game adaptation of Inception. Today, he confirms via Entertainment Weekly that the game is a ‘Go ahead’ but is a long way from release.
"I always imagined Inception to be a world where a lot of other stories could take place. At the moment, the only direction we're channeling that is by developing a video game set in the world", Nolan told the magazine.

Cue badass music

Of course, don’t expect the game anytime soon as Nolan is busy working on the third Batman flick. On top of this, no developer or publisher has been attached to the project yet. However, he also mentioned that the game (or the franchise maybe?) would be a “long term proposition”. Now I’m not too sure what Nolan means by that but I’m guessing it’s another way or saying we’ll milk the daylight out of this franchise. Either that or they’re planning some sort of a persistent online game where mass mind jacking will ensue.
So has this announcement made your day, or will it give you sleepless nights? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Predict A Failing Hard Disk

Mechanical hard drives, as we know them, consist of moving parts such as spinning platters and moving read/write heads hovering above the spinning platters. It is natural that there is wear and tear as you use them. Since all your precious data that you have painfully collected for several years is usually on the hard drive, it is always better to know the health state of your hard drive. Fortunately, there are several ways to predict if a hard drive is going to give up on you, by looking for tell tale signs. Here are some of them.

1. The first thing to look for signs of trouble in a mechanical hard drive are strange clicking, grinding, whirring up and down, or clunking sounds, which you normally wouldn't hear from them. Such sounds can be heard as soon as you power up the PC with such a defective hard drive. You would be amazed to know that each brand of hard drives and even certain models make their own unique sounds before going kaput. There is a website, where you can listen to such sounds to know how they actually sound.

2. Another sign of a failing hard drive is when your computer intermittently freezes and returns back to normal repeatedly. Usually, this is associated with the clicking sounds we described in the previous point. While computers can freeze even when a hard drive is not faulty, it is the repeated freezing and unfreezing with the sounds that will let you decide that the problem is indeed with the hard drive.

3. Sometimes you may find that Windows runs CHKDSK at the start of each boot, even when you are sure that the computer was not abruptly shut down. Even when you manually run Scandisk, this still happens. You also often find cross-linked files and folder errors, files and folders disappearing suddenly or even files and folders with junk character names appearing. Such symptoms also point to a failing hard drive.

4. At times files and folders are visible, but cannot be opened. I have seen instances of a movie file partially accessible, and suddenly stopping in the middle of playback and the PC freezing. Sometimes you will notice that while copying a file or folder, it starts off well, but slows down and eventually comes to a sudden halt as the copying is in progress and the PC comes to a grinding halt. The reset button is the only option left in such a case to be able to use the PC again. This can happen if certain portion of the file is on a bad sector developed on the hard drive.

5. Here is another pattern observed in a mechanically defective drive, which is still in a fairly usable working condition. You may notice that it is not possible to install an operating system like Windows XP, while Windows 7 can be easily installed on the hard drive. Even then, you may notice that the system locks up during the booting frequently and you see the hard drive activity LED glowing steadily during such lockups.

6. You will frequent get Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) errors and these can happen any time, such as after Windows is up and running or even during boot time. There is not one particular error code for this, so you can find out only from trial and error.

7. SMART Diagnostics present in the drive give you a hint about the health status of the hard drive. Most hard drive manufacturers provide utilities for their drives to report health. There are quite a few third party utilities to find this out as well, such as Everest and AIDA64.
While the above signs are to be taken seriously, a hard drive may not exhibit any of the above symptoms and still crash.

What can you do if your hard drive crashes?

A crashed hard drive is usually not the end of the road. You can still recover data from it. There are software utilities available, both free and paid, that can do the job. The rate of success varies though, and depends upon the degree of damage suffered by the hard drive. It is always better to at least try to recover data using free software such as Recuva, or you can refer to my earlier article about free data recovery software for a complete list. But if your data is really precious and you are ready to spend money, then you can go for paid software. Sometimes, you will not be able to recover your data yourself, so you will have to take professional help, which is very expensive.
It is best to take care of your hard drive and computer as much as possible to reduce the likeliness of facing this situation. Some of the tips in my older article may be of help. Remember that a hard drive eventually dies, so back up your data to newer hard drives as their prices plummet. You can also back up your data to optical drives, since they also have a fairly long life if stored carefully. Yet another way would be to back up your important data online, as there are several free online services available that allow you to securely store your data.

US Military’s New Weapon

A US soldier prepares to fire the XM-25

A new gun the US military hopes will help take on the Taliban has been unveiled.

Called the XM-25 it has been described by the US Army as a 'game changer'.

It uses a laser guidance system and specially developed 25mm high explosive rounds which can be programmed to detonate over a target.

Richard Audette helped develop it for the US Army and says it's a big leap forward because it's the first small arms weapon to use smart technology.

Full solution

"The way a soldier operates this is basically find your target, then laze (laser) to it, which gives the range, then you get an adjusted aim point, adjust the fire and pull the trigger.

"Say you've lazed out to 543 metres... When you pull the trigger it arms the round and fires it 543 metres plus or minus one, two or three metres."

The XM-25 is already being used by US soldiers in Afghanistan

It means the weapon can be used to target insurgents hiding behind walls or in ditches without the need to call in air strikes.

"That makes it a full solution fire control weapon".

It's already been issued to soldiers in the US military serving in Afghanistan and could be used by British special forces too.

In a statement the MOD wouldn't comment on the new gun but said it is committed to provide front line troops in Afghanistan with the best possible equipment.

In addition it said it is always interested in evaluating emerging technology.

Microsoft: Windows Tricks

Trick 1

Nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer

which can be named as "CON".
This is something pretty cool…and unbelievable. ..

At Microsoft the whole Team, couldn’t

answer why this happened!
TRY IT NOW ,IT WILL NOT CREATE " CON " FOLDER

Trick 2

For those of you using Windows, do the following:

1.) Open an empty notepad file
2.) Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes)
3.) Save it as whatever you want.
4.) Close it, and re-open it.

is it just a really weird bug? Confused?

Trick 3

This is something pretty cool and neat…and
unbelievable. .. At Microsoft the whole Team,
including Bill Gates, couldn’t answer why this
happened!

It was discovered by a Brazilian. Try it out
yourself…

Open Microsoft Word and type

=rand (200, 99)

And then press ENTER and see what happens

Windows 7 Smartphones Released in UK

Microsoft released the first wave of Windows Phone 7 handsets in the UK on 21 October with little fanfare from the company’s mobile network partners.The company’s CEO Steve Ballmer said that there will initially be six handsets arriving in the UK, while nine handsets will be available in the US.

The new devices include three HTC handsets – the HTC 7 Mozart, HTC 7 Trophy and HTC HD7 – as well as the Samsung Omnia 7, LG’s Optimus 7 and the DellVenue Pro, which won’t be available until December. Most of the phones share similar specifications because of the limitations that Microsoft has placed on device manufacturers.There won’t be any customization of the user interface, in order to give customers a more consistent Windows Phone 7 experience. All the phones have a 1GHz processor and at least a 3.7in screen with a 480×800 resolution.
“I’ve been looking forward to this day for some time,” said Ballmer. “We think very much that after today, that with Windows Phone, we really have built with our partners, a different kind of phone.”

Ballmer explained that the difference between Windows 7 and other mobile systems is the focus on getting users away from their phones. Ballmer said the new Live Tile design is key to this. Icons are larger than on iOS or Android devices and pull data out of the application, allowing the user to see relevant information.

Though, Microsoft admits there’s a long road ahead. “We do realize this isn’t going to be an easy journey,” said Ashley Highfield, managing director of consumer products at Microsoft UK. “We hope to change the perception of those who haven’t been too happy with our previous efforts.” One such person was Stephen Fry, who is known for his love of all things Apple, who came on stage during the London event to give Windows Phone 7 his seal of approval, as he pulled a Windows Phone 7 handset out of his jacket pocket, “my first feeling was, it’s fun to play with. I have felt enormous pleasure using this phone.

Windows 7 Phone Launched handsets

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COD:Black Ops HD Wallpaper

GOOGLE Earth Updated!

Finally, Google has launched the latest version of Google Earth. The software that made us familiar to satellite navigation and helped us check out different places of the world now has three new features added to it.
Street View which became a craze with Google Maps is now integrated into Google Earth. Pegman (that little man that indicates your current position) is placed alongside the navigation controls and launches Street View the way it did in Google View. Wherever you see a highlighted blue road, pick up and drop Pegman on that position. Once you reach the position, you can look around through the mouse or navigation controls. Unlike before, where you could only move point to point, this time you get to move around seamlessly and if you want some far off destination, click exit and you return to aerial view.

Unearthing different places!

While 3D buildings have been there on Google Earth, the next are the trees that come with this effect to give a realistic environment. As a starting point, try a search for "Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco." Once you arrive at your destination, click the zoom slider. You'll then be taken down to the ground where you can use our new ground-level navigation to walk among the trees.
Through historical imagery, you can watch the maps of certain places, lets say Hiroshima and Nagasaki before and after the nuclear bombing, Indonesia before and after the tsunami, etc. If a place has historical imagery, it will appear in the status bar. Clicking on the date will take you to that time period from where you can browse or close the time control.
So yeah, some new features that you can try, especially if you’ve been a Google Earth fan.

Nvidia GTX 570: Specs and Release Date

As we draw nearer to AMD's HD6900 (Cayman) launch date, Nvidia is pulling out all the stops by quickly releasing refreshes of the older Fermi cards that bombed. After the GTX 580 we now learn there's a GTX 570 on the horizon that would be replacing the GTX 470.

This upcoming GPU is based on the new GF110 core and packs in 480 CUDA cores (shaders), 320-bit wide memory bus, 1.28GB of GDDR5 memory. The clock speeds are as follows; Core speed is 732MHz, 1464MHz for the shader and 3800MHz effective for the memory. The power consumption is rated at 225W.
We can expect an official announcement on the December 7 from Nvidia. Let the games begin.

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Best Android Phones: Sept-Oct 2010

Back in June, we gave you a list of the best Android phones that you could choose from. Since then several new phones have been released that we have reviewed. So, here's a list of top phones sporting Google's 'tasty' Operating System.
Under Rs. 10,000

For people not very keen on lightening their wallets for a mobile phone, but yet want features of this celebrated mobile OS, here's a phone that can do it all - the Samsung Galaxy 5 i5500. We had a brief hands-on with this phone, and going by what it offers at Rs. 9,000, we think it is a sweet deal.
Packaged in a cute and petite body, the i5500 has a decently sized 2.8-inch display, (unlike the tiny 2.55-inch one on the X10 mini) with a QVGA resolution. Being of capacitive nature and running a 600 MHz processor, this phone is snappy in its functioning. The phone has got good connectivity options given the price range -- 3G (HSDPA), Wi-fi and A-GPS. It also has a 3.5mm headphone jack that lets you plug any earphone to it. 

It runs Google's one-generation-older Android 2.1 OS, with access to the Android Market, which was surprisingly missing on the Acer beTouch e110. However, the 2 megapixel fixed focus lens is the only sore point of this phone. The X10 mini is cuter but paying almost Rs. 15,000 is just criminal, as the only thing that's brighter about this phone is its 5 megapixel camera. Incidentally, this is exactly what I'd said months ago even before the X10 mini had launched. 

For Detail Click Here

Tips and Tricks for iTunes 10

Sync only specific albums and genres

While iTunes 9 only allowed syncing of entire music library into your iDevice, iTunes 10 offers more advanced music syncing choices. In addition to existing artists and playlists, users are now allowed to sync selected albums and genres. All you need to do is to go to the Music tab of your iDevice and select "Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres" to enable this option.

Get back the old Album view

The new Album view in iTunes 10 shows the cover art only when an album has five or more songs. If there are less than five songs only a blank space is displayed in place of the cover art, thus not wasting space. Still, if you want the old Album view, you can get it back by simply going to View > Always show artwork. This option is accessible when you are in Music Library.

Music player in album artwork

You know how you can click on an album's cover art in the lower-left corner of iTunes to enlarge it? In iTunes 10, it's not just for show - they've built playback controls into it. You can even close the main iTunes window and use the artwork viewer as a mini player.

For More Detail Click Here

Samsung Galaxy 3 Android Mobile Phone

Samsung’s Galaxy range of devices is gaining quite a bit of popularity and after the success of their Corby devices, the company is getting more of the spotlight. One of their latest Android devices is the I5801 aka Galaxy 3. It’s offered up as a lower end Android device and could make things for the Spice Mi-300 a little difficult. Here’s a closer look.

Form Factor
The design is chunky and although quite comfortable to hold, I’m not happy with the look. It’s quite plain and the bulky and I know Samsung has a better fashion sense than this. The chrome finish makes it more of a mirror than a display (3.2-inch, 240 x 400 pixels) making it hard to view in bright sunlight. The 3.5mm handsfree socket, micro USB port and power/screen lock button are placed at the top. A hot swap slot for both the microSD card and SIM card are located under the rear panel. The Galaxy 3’s bundled handsfree is an in-ear styled speaker and is capable of delivering high quality sound while being comfortable to wear for long periods.

Features and Performance
Interface
If you buy the device right now you’ll be running Android 2.1 aka Éclair but the Galaxy 3 does support Froyo which will be out soon via an OTA update. Samsung’s Touch Wiz 3.0 UI is running on top of Android and, while I’m no fan, is nevertheless easy to navigate. The integration of Social Networking accounts with your phone book could have been better, but it gets the job done. There are Android and TouchWiz widgets available for the multiple desktops and you can download more off the Android market or Samsung’s App store. Swype for Android is by far one of the best assets that the Galaxy 3 comes pre-equipped with. It’s disappointing that other a generic Android Swype app isn’t available for all Android phones.

One major issue I did have with the device is that it was quite sluggish. It took really long to read an 8GB memory card for starters and there was a considerable amount of lag when trying to accessing apps/games etc. The light sensor has similar problems with delay. Oddly though multi-touch capabilities were a non-issue. It could be an issue with the test piece, but if any of you readers who own the device are facing similar issues, please let us know.
Media
The one thing that almost all Samsung handsets, irrespective of price, manage to deliver on is media. The Galaxy 3’s media capabilities are no exception. Thanks to Samsung's DNSe audio enhancement the music player dishes out loud and very clear tones from the high to the low frequencies. With the assistance of Effects, presets and an 8 band customizable setting, tone quality can be personalized to your preference. A 5.1 Surround sound option is also thrown in to sweeten the deal. The device can also read .AVI video files in a DivX or XviD format which is another bonus. You won’t need to convert videos, just drag and drop files for playback. The 5.1 Surround option is also applicable here. The handset also comes with an FM radio that worked out quite well and a voice recorder.

For More Detail Click Here

Fallout 3 HD Wallpaper

 

 

Avatar Spinoff Series Announced

Nickelodeon has just greenlit a new animated series from Avatar: the Last Airbender creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. According to the network's president, Brown Johnson, the series-- currently titled The Legend of Korra-- will be expanding the mythology of the Avatar franchise, setting it roughly 70 years after the original show's events with a whole new cast of characters.
"Mike and Bryan have imagined a compelling new story inspired by the Airbender mythology that they so brilliantly crafted when the TV series began," Johnson said. "This new avatar is not only a girl, but also hot-headed, independent and ready to take on the world."

- Nickelodeon

The Legend of Korra

The Legend of Korra follows the adventures of a "passionate, rebellious and fearless" teenager from the Southern Water Tribe, a girl named Korra. Having already mastered three of the four elements (Earth, Water, and Fire), she seeks to master the final element of Air. Her travels eventually lead her to the metropolis of Republic City, an epicenter for the modern Avatar world. Although a thriving society of benders and non-benders alike, Republic City is also ridden with crime, including an anti-bending rebellion that is gaining momentum. Under the guidance of Aang's son, Tenzin, Korra begins her airbending training as she confronts the dangers ahead of her.
The Legend of Korra will be produced at Nickelodeon Animation Studios and is expected to begin airing sometime in 2011.

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Picture Perfect - Basic Post Processing Workshop

Yesterday we showed you a few simple tips to help you take better pictures and today we’d like to give you a few tips on how to make a good picture better in post processing. As the terms suggest, post processing is the cleaning and enhancing of images to make them ready to use for high quality print, web publishing or just look great on your mantel place. In this workshop, we’ll be using Adobe Photoshop to show you Step-by-Step guides to various techniques to quickly and seamlessly enhance portraits, landscapes and indoor product shots.
Cut-out
When you shoot a product, even with a white background, the backdrop isn’t always appealing, which is why cut-outs are used. The idea with cut-outs is to get only a product without its jarred background so that you can place the product onto a fresh white backdrop or another background of your choice.

Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Open the image in Adobe Photoshop, zoom in to it (100%), and select the pen tool from the tool bar on the left. Create a digital trace along the edges of the product, we’ve used a laptop for illustration.
Step 2: Look for the edge of the product that runs in a straight line, and click on it to create your first node. Instead of creating multiple nodes, go to the end of this straight line and click to create the second node. Ensure that the line joining these two nodes matches the edge of the laptop.

For More Detail Click Here

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Naruto HD Wallpaper

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Nokia N900 MID

 

Nokia’s N900 is, like I said before, more of a mobile computing device or an MID (Mobile Internet Device). It could be misconstrued as a miniature tablet PC as even the ones on their way will comply with most ‘mobile phone’ standards like taking and making calls and messages, but it’s really not. We ran a poll recently asking our readers to share their experiences and views on the N900 and received plenty of feedback (thank you dear readers). This is however my experience with the device and after having sat with some of Nokia’s tech advisors, a few of my issues were cleared up and I’d like to share those with you, should you be interested in buying the device. Take a closer look.
Form Factor
It’s bulky, I’ll say that, but not very much unlike the N96 or N95 for that matter so it’s still easy to carry around even if it does weigh in at 181 grams. The 3.5-inch display is bright and clear enough to view in all conditions and sports an 800 x 480 pixel resolution. I just couldn’t believe they went with a resistive touchscreen. But I was pleasantly surprised to find response was a non-issue. Like the N96, the N900 also has a prop up stand that’s placed around the 5MP camera that’s hidden away by a sliding lens cover (it also activates the cam when slid open).

Volume/zoom keys, a screen lock/power button and the camera’s shutter release are situated at the top. A slider lock for the display and 3.5mm handsfree socket are located on the side, since this is a device that’s meat to be used in landscape mode, this would be considered the side and not the top. This would have been very badly placed if it were to be used in portrait consider the speaker (for calls) is located at the other end beside the display. A micro USB port is placed on the opposite side and doubles up for a charging. Speakers are strategically placed on either side. A stylus can be pulled out from one side at the bottom, but I hardly ever required its use.
The slide out QWERTY keypad, took me a little while to get used. I think it’s just a little small but the placement of the keys are, nevertheless, well laid out. In addition to the 32GB of built-in memory, the N900 also supports external memory via MicroSD cards(hot swap under the rear panel) up to 16GB.

While the N900 may be a large (ish) device it’s quite well balanced, the only problem is, this is not easy using with one hand.
Features and Performance
Interface
I am officially a Maemo 5 Fan but I do believe there is still room for improvement. Keeping with today’s multiple-desktop trends, the N900 also offers widget, shortcut and bookmark support for these desktops enabling quick and easy access to all your favorite features and functions. While the multitasking menu set up makes it very easy to switch between running tasks, I noticed that quite a few simple applications and functions somehow took quite a long time to load even if nothing was running in the background. Running more than 4 apps at a time made things even worse. It seemed like the devices ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor had quite a bit of trouble multitasking. The weird part is there was no lag at all while actually using any of these apps, even if multiple were running, it just took the processor an effort to get it’s foot in the door, so to speak.

For existing Nokia users, switching over to the new OS will be a cinch as they’ve tried to retain as much of the Symbian UI as possible with familiar icons so the transition isn’t going to be an issue. Good thinking. The best part is you can use any and every part of the UI, irrespective of how tiny some options are, without the use of the pesky stylus. After you’ve calibrated the screen you’re good to go. The layout of the menus and over all set up of the new OS is well planned but the icons and fonts could have been just a little larger. There didn’t seem to be any option to enlarge them either.
The onscreen QWERTY keypad is very large and makes for easy typing. Too bad it doesn’t switch to portrait view because using this handset in landscape is not a good idea while commuting. Another rather serious problem I faced with this piece is when calls came in. The device didn’t really let me answer a call in landscape and the switch to portrait was anything but smooth. Most of the time it would hang and display a blank screen with the ringtone still ringing out loud. Since there are no physical keys I was unable to answer those calls.
Media
As media a device I have mixed feelings about the N900. The music player, although capable of clear tones, dishes them out a very low decibel level. Even with Nokia’s new canal type in-ear earphones, the volume (at peak) was too low to really enjoy my music in this noisy city. The speaker phone was however loud enough to place on your desk and have a handsfree conversation without an issue. The lack of any EQ settings is sincerely missed. The N900 doesn’t have a preloaded FM radio although it has built in antenna. What you’ll have to do is head on over to the App Manager and you can download an FM radio app as well as tons of other useful stuff from there. Unfortunately the radio didn’t really work out too well in my case. All I got was a lot of static most of the time even in locations where I usually get good reception on other devices. Internet Radio worked great though.

I tried using my iPhone earphones with the N900 and all I seemed to hear was static. So I tried it with another pair of standard earphones and had the same issue. It seemed like the N900 was poised to accept only the bundled handsfree as that seemed to work without a hitch.
At last, Nokia has decided that at least one of their devices will support drag and drop video playback. I was ecstatic. The native player supports codecs for almost all kinds of video files including AVI and FLV. Now if only Nokia could incorporate support for DivX and XviD codecs in other handsets they would reign supreme with no peers. It also has TV out support for which cables are provided.

For More Detail Click Here

All You Need To Know About Kinect

At E3 2010 Microsoft concentrated all its efforts (and a truckload of money) to promote their motion controller technology, Kinect. We've snooped around to bring you all the relevant information you would need to make a purchase (or not).
What is it: Microsoft’s motion controlled technology previously called Project Natal where the player becomes the controller.

How does it work: Complicated jargon aside, the Kinect sensory device comes mounted with a hi-tech camera that’s capable of scanning the entire human body and rendering it in 3D into a game or the Xbox360 console.
How much will it cost: Nothing’s officially been announced but rumor suggests it will cost $150 that roughly translates to Rs. 7,000.

When will it be available: Kinect will launch officially on the 4th of November 2010 in the US. Expect it to hit India then or early next year.
What kind of games can I play on it:  As of now Kinect only supports casual games but all that may change if some of the more hardcore game developers get behind this technology.
The launch titles expected are:

• Kinectimals - Like Nintendogs but with cats like lions, cheetahs, tigers etc.
• Joyride - A racing game where you control the vehicle with an imaginary steering wheel

• Kinect Sports - Like Wii Sports but with more activities.
• Kinect Adventures - Like Wii sports resort but with more river rafting

• Ubisoft’s Your Shape: Gym too tough for you? Work out in the comfort of your own house - while playing video games.
• Dance Central - Hone your dance skills with this dancing game from the makers of the Guitar Hero series.

Does Kinect only work with the new Xbox360 slim: No. Kinect will work just fine with your older console. You will however need to invest in another power brick to power it.

What else can I do with Kinect: Besides gaming, Kinect will allow you to interact with your console without a remote. Watching movies, surfing Xbox Live, listening to music or even video chatting all will be possible with a wave (or two) of the hands.
Will I have to stand and play it at all times: No. According to IGN.com Microsoft said that you would be able to play Kinect games while seated on your couch.
Should I buy Kinect at launch: Well right now we suggest you don’t. Sure the technology powering Kinect is impressive but as of now it’s strictly geared toward the casual gamer. Plus word around the internet is that it isn’t terribly responsive. Also unless you have a big enough living room, jumping around the place may prove harmful to you - or your living room.

Loop Mobile Launches Reply All SMS Service With SMS GupShup

Loop Mobile, Mumbai’s leading mobile service operator, and SMS GupShup, India’s largest SMS network today announced the launch of the “Reply All SMS” service. This will enable Loop Mobile subscribers to simultaneously communicate with multiple people using SMS. This takes social networking via mobile to a new level.
Any Loop Mobile subscriber can create a Group of up-to 7 friends including him self. This Group is assigned a dedicated shortcode by SMS GupShup. Members on the group can send messages to this shortcode to communicate with each other. The messages reach all members of the group at the same time and if anyone replies, the reply too reaches all members of the group. Loop Mobile subscribers can invite friends from other operators to the group too. Every message to the shortcode is charged at a nominal price of only 50p per message
Reply All SMS service extends the capabilities of SMS from basic person-to-person (P2P) messaging to many-to-many (M-to-M) messaging. As we have options of CC and Reply-All available on e-mail and commonly used over decades, Loop Mobile’s Reply All service makes it available for the 1st time on mobile. The service works on every handset, across operators, is easy to use, requires no training, no software downloads, no data connectivity nor change in handset.  
How does it work?

• Reply All SMS is simple and easy to use, similar to the CC and reply-all features on email.
• A Loop Mobile subscriber can start a conversation by sending the following message to 555999: CHAT 98210xxxxx 98200xxxxx 92235xxxxx (where 98210xxxxx etc. are the numbers of the friends, who may be on any operator network).
• The system will create a group and prompt the user to send a message, which goes to all participants in the group. Participants can reply to the message – which will also be sent to all participants in the group.
• The group can have at most 7 participants, including the initiator. This service is currently being offered free of cost to all Loop Mobile users till the 30th June 2010, after which users will be charged 50 paise for every message sent to the group.

Cloud Computing: Online applications

In addition to online video-sharing sites like YouTube, the web also offers free online image-editing and video-encoding tools, but it seems that standalone web applications haven’t yet gained enough traction, as much as applications common to social networks like Facebook have. Or maybe it’s the social networking buzz that’s driving online application to a great extent, who knows?

In our cloud computing week , we’ve spoken about various aspects as to how far will people adapt to the technology and whether it will see as much success as far as the end consumers are concerned. In this article we’d like to have a quick discussion on which applications or application areas, for that matter, are used on the cloud.

Now, some people might be using online applications for various tasks and not even realizing that they’re actually working in the cloud. Let’s take for example Google Docs, where we share documents that are stored in some server somewhere across the globe, and they can be accessed and edited by a group of people, from anywhere. We think, that’s an awesome tool for bloggers, online publishers and freelancers alike.

But it doesn’t obviously end here. There are other application areas that are taking to the cloud, like photo-sharing, photo-editing, logo-making and such. But not all are received very well. Let’s quickly look at some of the websites that many of us might be using on a regular basis. Also, feel free to add your favorites to this list, be it for data storage, sharing of digital media or any other application that’s in the cloud.

• Google Docs
• Microsoft Office Live
• Fotoflexer.com
• www.freeonlinephotoeditor.com
• www.zenfolio.com
• www.Smugmug.com
• Flickr.com
• Picasa.com
• Photobucket.com
• Armorgames.com
• Miniclip.com
• Lulu.com
• Writing.com

In the past week, we discussed Cloud Computing with different perspectives. Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft, spoke on the subject with a holistic view as to how the technology will play a major part in the future of computing. Then, industry veteran, Vijay Mukhi clarified a few aspects as to how cloud computing could be the mainstay as far as using office documents like spreadsheets, documents and such, are concerned. We even touched upon the topic of the cloud on smart phones . Today, we’ve short-listed a handful of online applications that can be used (or are already popular) for trivial tasks and to avert the use of heavy applications when not needed.

Although by now, we have a certain amount of clarity on the concept, what’s most important is, to know what we, the consumer wants, and is likely to use. For instance, personally, I don’t see myself using an online photo-editor, and I’d rather stick to Photoshop or a similar application that is feature-rich. Instead of using an online video-transcoder, I’d rather use Avi Demux or a similar application which is not only free to use, but offers a plethora of options. Similarly, each one of us has a set of applications we use for different purposes. So, can these applications actually be replaced by what the web offers today? Are you comfortable uploading personal pictures or data for editing or storing them online? If you don’t want to invest a heavy amount for certain software, wouldn’t you rather opt for a cheaper or even free alternative? Is social networking the prime reason that online applications and games are becoming popular? Speaking of which, there are people who ridicule Farmville, which perhaps is one of the most famous applications on Facebook. So why would a majority of people rave about it?

In any case, these are some of the questions which a consumer can answer best, so tell us what your opinion about cloud computing and online applications really is and maybe we’d know where the technology is really going.