Yandex Launching Its Own Mobile App Store And Browser

Yandex, a Russian search engine, is the most visited website in Russia. It has come up with two of its own products: Yandex Browser and a Yandex Mobile App Store.

Yandex Browser

The browser is currently available for desktops and laptops only. We might get a tablet and mobile version in the future but no news on that for now. Built on the Chromium interface, the browser is based on cloud browsing, which according to the CEO Arkady Volozh, is the next generation answer to modern Internet challenges.

Yandex Mobile Application Store

Yandex is also releasing a mobile app store that will be available to all devices running Google's Android. The store will have 40,000 apps at launch and is expected to become available in a month's time. Devices from texet, 3Q and Pocketbook will come preloaded with the Yandex app store. The app will initially be available in Russia only, but the company intents to expand its market to the neighbouring former USSR territory, the countries where Yandex already operates.

Yandex is also negotiating with Apple to get its search engine as default in the Russian territory replacing Google. We can feel the heat and competition with Google.

Source:http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/russias-yandex-launches-its-own-browser-a-mobile-app-store-017585.php

Microsoft Surface: Exclusive Windows Tablet

Microsoft has announced its very first Windows 8 tablet with the name "Surface", it's actually the very first "Exclusive Windows" hardware if you will. No it's not an Asus nor a Samsung it's built and sold by Microsoft itself. So let's jump into the specs right away.

Surface is a 10.6 inch tablet which comes in two flavours, has an ARM chip version and an Intel chip version which will be announced later. The ARM chip version has an Nvidia ARM chip running Windows RT, it's 9.3mm thick and weighs about 1.3lbs. The display is a 10.6" 16:9 aspect ratio, Clear Type Full HD (1080p) screen protected by Gorilla Glass technology. The Windows RT version will be available in 32GB and 64GB capacities. For connectivity you have USB2.0 and a 2x2 MIMO antenna for WiFi, it also has a micro SD slot. The tablet has a nice kick stand and also a magnetically attachable keyboard. Microsoft claim that the keyboard is twice more sensitive than the screen itself, amazing! The case is made out of a new composite Magnesium material called "VaporMg" and feels quite sturdy in the hands.

The powerful Intel chip version will be running Windows 8 Pro, using a new Ivy Bridge Intel Core i5 processor. That model will be 13.5mm thick and it'll weigh about 2lbs. It'll be available in 64GB and 128GB models and will have USB 3.0 on board with the rest pretty much the same as the RT version. The nice thing about Surface is that the keyboard itself will act as a cover for the tablet as well, a solid idea too. Both the tablets will be having a front facing camera and a rear camera the details of which have not come yet.

The tablet will be released around the release of Windows 8 this winter hopefully. The device is really a strong step in making Windows a real competitor of other tablet OSes (Android and iOS). Only time will tell whether Surface can become the next king of tablet world replacing iPad, I think it is quite likely to happen. There was no word on the pricing but they say it'll cost pretty much the same as any other high end tablet. Now that people are fast switching to more compatible light weight forms of computer, Microsoft has turned its attention toward the more popular technology form factors by introducing Windows Phone and making coming Windows, that is, Windows 8 more like a tablet Operating system. A strong sign of Microsoft's prosperous future.

Galaxy Player 5.0: The Android iPod Touch

There was a time when people kept portable CD players and MP3 players to carry their music with them. Today most people would say that they don't need such a thing because their smartphone has it all. But those people either don't have huge collections or don't know the advantages of a dedicated media player. And not everyone who wants a portable device needs to make phone calls with it. iPod is the  undisputed champion in the world of PMP's, but Android lovers never got a device that's as great as the Apple's iPod touch. Many companies came up with their Android versions of iPod touch but they were either of too low specifications or had a too much sluggish interface. 

Galaxy Player 5.0 and Galaxy Player 4.0

The South Korean giants Samsung know the art of making loveable Android gadgets, and this time again with Galaxy Player they've given iPod touch a real run for its money. Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 are the gadgets that every Android lover is going to like and some people may even want to throw their iPod away. The difference between the two Galaxys is the screen size, one has a 4.0" and the other has a 5.0" screen. Let's have a look at the specification table for Galaxy Player 5.0:

  

Display Type	LCD
Display Size	5 inch, 800x480 pixels (187ppi pixel density)
Memory	8/16GB internal, 512MB RAM, Expandable upto 32GB
CPU	1 GHz Cortex A8
Operating System	Android 2.3.5 Gingrebread with TouchWiz UI
Camera	3.2MP, LED flash, autofocus, smile-detection, geo-tagging
Front Facing Camera	VGA
Body	141.3 x 78.2 x 11.9 mm, Plastic body, weighs 182g
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v3.0, Micro USB v2.0
Sensors	Accelerometer, GPS, Compass, FM Tuner
Battery	3700mAh, 8 hrs. of video

Galaxy Player 4.0 has the same specifications as 5.0 save the screen size that is 4 inch  and the battery that is 1200mAh. They both have the same screen resolutions so the images are sharper on the smaller screen of 4.0. I think Galaxy Player 5.0 is a better device of the two, so I'll not talk much about the 4inch version. In appearance the device looks much like Samsung Galaxy S smartphone or like a large version of Samsung Vibrant. It is a large device and won't be particularly comfortable in a jeans pocket, but that's forgiveable since the large screen is a pleasure to watch. It has a plastic body but feels nice in the hands, it's well built. On the front there's a large glossy screen with a Samsung logo at the top. On the top right corner there's a front facing VGA camera and the speaker is right above the Samsung logo. At the bottom there are three touch sensitive buttons for menu, home and back functions. The European version of the device, called Galaxy S WiFi has a hardware home button. The device comes in two colours, black and white, so the colour of the back will depend on what you've chosen. At the back, there's a 3.2MP camera with a flash and two speaker grills. The edges are curved and the device is easy to hold in one hand. One could have trouble reaching the capacitive buttons while holding the device with the same hand.

It has a 800 x 480 pixel resolution, so the screen doesn't look as sharp as that of iPod touch's. The pictures will occasionally look grainy due to the large screen, but overall the display is all right. The main reason why people would prefer Galaxy Player 5.0 over iPod touch is its large screen that is great to watch movies. It has a single core 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor with a 512MB RAM.  It runs every Android app smoothly without a lag, no complains in this regard. It performs just as good as Google Nexus One. The 2500mAh battery lasts about 8 hours of video. On a normal use with a few hours of video playing, some hours of online radio and web surfing, and some music the battery can last for nearly two days.     

It has a front camera so you can video chat on Skype. The back camera is a 3.2MP with flash, something that iPod touch doesn't have. The camera results are decent enough. It runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, the latest Android version for mobile  devices prior to Ice cream Sandwich. Android means that you have the freedom of drag-dropping your content unlike iOS. The device is ideal for watching movies, reading e-books and surfing the internet. The speakers are loud enough but the pre-installed music app produces static in the background so you might want to install a third party app as a solution. It comes with a nice pair of ear buds and the 3.5mm jack allows you to plug in any of your headphones. In my opinion this is the best portable media player in the market, highly recommended for anyone looking for a PMP.  

This year Samsung has announced Galaxy Player 70 that will come with a dual core processor and other hardware improvements but the device seems to be a Korea only product.  

The pictures used are the properties of their owners and

 are used for the sole purpose of knowledge and entertainment.

A Tablet For Everyone

This is for all those who want to try a tablet but either can't afford an iPad or just don't want to invest a good amount to get a taste of a different technology form factor. Chinese brands are difficult to trust because most of them don't build reliable products, but I think brands like Huawei and Ainol are going to change this.

Ainol was in the headlines last year when it became the first brand to offer a device running Android 4.0 Ice-cream Sandwich, the device was called Novo 7 Paladin. Although the company sold many units, it wasn't particularly successful because it ran on a MIPS architecture processor that is not compatible with a number of Android apps. MIPS processors offer a snappier performance and efficient battery life, but Ainol realised that supporting more apps is more important than having a slightly better processor. After gaining some popularity the brand released a number of tablets improving the specifications with every new device.

Ainol 7 Aurora White

For anyone who wants to buy an Android tablet that's budget friendly, powerful and looks great, Ainol's Novo 7 Aurora is probably the best choice. The device has a 1GHz processor, 1GB DDRIII memory, IPS display, a 2MP front camera and the latest version of Android, that is, 4.0 Ice-cream Sandwich. 

Here's a short specification table for Aurora:

Display Type	IPS Display (by LG)
Display Size	7 inch, 1024x600 pixels
Memory	8GB internal, 1GB RAM, Expandable upto 16GB
CPU,GPU	CPU: 1.2 GHz All-winner A10, GPU: Mali 400
Operating System	Android 4.0.3 Ice-cream Sandwich
Front Facing Camera	2MP
Body	189 x 123 x 9mm, Plastic shell, weighs 313g
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 3G/WCDMA dongle, No built-in 3G support
Sensors	Accelerometer, GPS
Software	Flash 11.1, Android Market, YouTube, Skype
Battery	3700mAh, 6hrs of video

Ainol 7 Aurora Black

The device can handle almost anything you throw at it, it is smooth in performance and you can enjoy all the 3d games that Google Play (Android Market) has to offer, without a lag. The thing that sets Aurora apart from the previous Ainol products is its brilliant display, IPS screen made by LG. The colors are brighter and the viewing angles are literally 178° wide. There is no back camera or built in 3G support but then, it is too much to ask for such a small price. Unlike other cheap tablets, Aurora boards a capacitive touch screen with a 5 point multi-touch support, so you won't have any trouble regarding response. The device arrives with Chinese as the default language but you can easily change it to English, you'll have to perform a quick firmware update to get the regular Android Market and other standard Android apps. The tablet is available for around $170 (around Rs.15000 in Pakistan), comes in black and white colors. You can buy it in Pakistan from ShopnShop, Symbios and MyTabletPC.

The device has been extremely successful all over the world with suppliers running out of the stock several times. This month a new dual-core tablet is to be released with a price of just $199, it will be called Aurora II or Tornado. A similar, cheaper device Elf II priced at $149, will also be released with it but the Elf will come without an IPS display.

Stylize Your Desktop With Rainmeter

Windows does not come with a lot of customization options concerning the look of your desktop. Everyone likes to give a personalized look to their computer, but unfortunately Windows won't help you much in this regard. There is a great third-party application called Rainmeter, after installing which you can get any Rainmeter theme that suits you best. The application won't make changes to your system files so the taskbar and window appearance doesn't change.

 The first thing you need to do is download Rainmeter from rainmeter.net. You'll find a stable release and a beta  version, download the one you're comfortable with. After installing you can download themes from rainmeter.net or try these sites:

• customize.org
• deviantart.com

Both of these sites have a huge and great looking collection of themes, wallpapers and other customization stuff. The material at deviantart.com is more polished and the look of the site is great too.

One of the greatest rainmeter themes is Enigma that I'm currently using on my desktop. You can download the theme here. Note that in order to be able to use this theme you must first install rainmeter application. Here's a screenshot of the theme:

 The clock that you can see in the middle of the desktop won't come with the Enigma theme. You can download it from here. Here's my customized desktop:

Xperia Series In Focus

If you've been living in a cave these days, you might have missed some interesting news about the Consumer Electronics Show and the Mobile World Congress 2012. Sony has introduced some interesting gadgets lately. The big boy, Xperia S was unveiled in Las Vegas during the CES and the other two Xperia P and Xperia U were announced during MWC in Barcelona. The phones will ship with the brand name of Sony because Sony and Ericsson agreed a split earlier this year, on February 16 to be precise. Sony have renamed Sony Ericsson to "Sony Mobile Communications".

Sony Xperia S

Xperia S is Sony's flagship built to face the competition. It comes with a dual-core 1.5GHz Scorpion processor, 4.3" LED backlit screen with a 720p resolution, 12 MP rear and 1.3 MP front cameras. The P and U are more budget friendly phones with a little compromise on the specs. 

First let's talk about Xperia S. You won't get Android 4.0 ICS out of the box but that's not a big issue, you can later upgrade it. The competition has quad-core phones now, so the S is a couple cores behind other flagships. Sony's Reality Display does a great job here giving a brighter and more colourful screen that looks better than iPhone 4S and Galaxy II. The stills from the 12MP shooter are almost flawless and videos are great in full HD (1080p). Here's a short specification sheet of Sony Xperia S.

Display Type	Sony Bravia LED Backlit LCD, 16M colors
Display Size	4.3", 720x1280 pixels(342 ppi)
Memory	32GB internal, 1GB RAM, No card slot
CPU,GPU	1.5 GHz Dual-Core CPU, Adreno 220 GPU
Operating System	Android 2.3 Gingerbread, upgradable to 4.0
Camera Primary	12MP autofocus, LED flash, 1080p video
Camera Secondary	1.3MP, 720p video
Data Communication	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v2.1, MicroUSB v2.0, USB on-the-go
Sensors	Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Extras	Adobe Flas 11, A-GPS, 10 point multi-touch HTML5, JAVA, Micro HDMI port
Battery	1750mAh Li-ion, 450hrs standby on 2G

Xperia P looks quite similar to S but it's smaller, comes with a 4.0" screen, the camera is downsized to 8MP but still does 1080p videos, has a VGA front camera and the processor is a 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9.

Xperia U is the littlest of the three. This one's packed with a 3.5" screen, a 5MP camera  with 720p video capability and VGA front and importantly a dual-core 1GHz processor.

All three of them have a unibody aluminium casing and a transparent strip at the bottom that really gives a nice look to the series. This actually acts as an antenna for the phone so it has some functionality too. Despite the departure of Ericsson from the alliance, Sony has produced some great phones and they do look better than any phone released by Sony-Ericsson. It's a good job from the company keeping in mind the economic blow it must have faced when Ericsson took its shares back.

The pictures are the official images by Sony of the Xperia Series. They are the property of Sony and are used here for the sole purpose of knowledge and entertainment. 

iPhone 5 In Limelight

One of the most acclaimed brand of our time is the Apple Inc. and iPhone is the company's weapon in smartphone industry. We all know what hype it creates when a new version is expected to hit the market soon. Well, its been almost two years since people started talking about the release of iPhone 5 and the features it will have. But now the heat has intensified.

Add caption

  Just two days ago Apple won the dispute over iphone5.com domain name but sources say that the new product will still be called something else. Some one said it might be named "Patent Troll" but I fear the fans might not like it.
  The new iPhone is expected to have bigger screen, all previous versions had 3.5" screens. The new device according to some will have a 4.0" screen and some even say it could have a 4.7" screen but 4.0 is more likely. This will need some extra work though because the apps written with iPhone-iPod screen requirements are designed for 3.5" screens and won't look great on a 4.0" screen. Apple has two ways here: it can either create a new set of requirements for the new device, like it did when iPad, a 9.7" tablet was introduced or use the universal build proposition which works for all devices. A bigger screen is quite a nice idea because it will bring the portability of iPhone and the large screen experience of the iPad in one device with a little sacrifice on both sides. But still the company hasn't yet made a final decision about the screen.

Some expect that the hardware home button will be replaced by a capacitive button, may be buttons or might even rely completely on gesture navigation. The current iPhone, that is iPhone 4S still has battery issues and despite software updates the problem doesn't go away. So, Apple must think a way to deal with it either by making changes in the OS or providing a bigger battery with the new phone. Another feature that's on the supposed-iPhone5 specs list is 4G LTE connectivity, so that the users can enjoy a faster data rate. The new phone will have a slimmer and taller body, probably 2mm thinner and 10mm taller than the current version. It is supposed to get a uni-body metal case and a more robust design and claims are that it'll be equipped with an A5X chip. Some new materials would be used in the new phone, because Apple has been registering patents of new materials in the recent past. Also, there's a possibility of the inclusion of wireless charging capability.

Samsung has been hurting Apple for the past few months, the most painful blow was the recent release of Galaxy S III and of course Apple has to fight other operating systems too with its iOS. The company's main target now is Samsung so it will try to beat the flagship smartphone from the Koreans. The device is expected to be released in October 2012, and until then the iPhone5 gossip will not cease.

The pictures included are concept designs of iPhone 5 created by some

 creative graphic designers. These are the properties of their respective 

 owners and do not belong to me. I have included them for the sole purpose  

of knowledge and entertainment. I don't mean any copyright infringement.

  

How To Get Back Lost Space on A USB Drive

  

DID THE SPACE ON YOUR USB DISAPPEAR? READ THIS

The other day I was trying to mount a bootable iso image on my thumbdrive to install a Linux distro. Unfortunately, none worked but in the process my USB lost all its capacity in thin air. And what I was left with was just 255MB of usable space. I couldn't see the rest of space anywhere in the properties. I tried to find a solution and what I found is quite easy.

If you are in a similar situation, then follow these steps:

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, start Control panel and switch to the "Classic view". Open "Administrative Tools" and start the "Computer Management" utility present at the top. Select "Disk management" from the left pane of the window. Select your USB drive and if you see that a large space is "Unallocated" then the solution is easy and your drive is safe and uncorrupted.

1. Make a backup of the data if there's any on the USB drive.
2. Click on the start button and type "diskpart" in the search bar and hit enter. A command line window will open up.
3. Type "list disk" and hit enter to see all the disks attached to your computer.
4. Type "select disk 1" and hit enter. In this case Disk 1 is your USB drive.
5. Once you have selected the right drive, type "clean" and hit enter. This will erase all the data present on your drive so be careful in selecting the disk.
6. Now, type "create partition primary" and hit enter. The unallocated space has now been reallocated.
7. Type "exit" to quit out of the utility.
8. Now open "Computer" and right click on the USB disk and select "Format" from the menu. You can choose the file system you want to format it in; by default it is FAT32. After formatting your USB will return to its normal condition with all the storage capacity restored.

I hope this was helpful, any comments are welcome.

Using Keyboard As Mouse

Today I discovered a very handy feature of the windows operating system. Suppose, your mouse stops working and you have something important to do on your PC, an idea comes to the mind of using your arrow keys as mouse. It's very easy, all you have to do is remember these few steps:

Press ALT+SHIFT+NUMLOCK simultaneously. A message looking like this will pop-up:

                   

Select YES and you now you can use your numpad as your mouse. You can access the settings of this 

function by double-clicking the mouse icon in the notification area.

Once you start using the numpad as your mouse, you'll notice it's very slow. So, you might want to go in to the settings and turn the acceleration and top speed to full.

You must know the controls, so here they are:

• The "4" key will take cursor left, "6" right, "8" up and "2" down.
• Use "5" key for left click, "+" key for double click, "-" key for right click.

So this is almost all you need to know about it for using keyboard as a mouse. Hope, you found the post helpful.

Time for Windows Phone

FORGET iPHONE AND ANDROIDS. IT'S TIME FOR WINDOWS PHONE!

Windows 8 Metro UI

 Today when someone decides to buy a smartphone, they usually choose an android device or an iPhone. But it is soon going to change. Microsoft have decided to take over the market, and no one can stop them. Currently 92% of the desktop users use Windows OS and that puts Microsoft in a commanding position. Windows phone OS was introduced in the second half of 2010. At the beginning the only things attractive about the OS was its nicely animated UI, strong Facebook integration and live tiles concept, but most people called it immature compared to Android and iOS. Windows phone improved a great deal with its mango update ,the most important addition being "multitasking".
 

Nokia has adopted Windows Phone as its primary smartphone OS leaving aside Symbian and now along with the major manufacturers (HTC and Samsung) the Taiwanese are determined to make the OS popular.
Now, the main reason why in a couple of years Windows Phone will probably be more popular than Android and iOS is that Microsoft has decided to create close ties between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 (code- named "Apollo"). Both will be using the same kernel which will allow developers to write a single code and then run the application on their Windows desktop as well as on the Windows Phone smartphone. Skype which is the most popular video chat application will be integrated into the OS. The new version allows multicore processors and WP devices will now be available with different resolutions, currently all devices come with a single core processor and 480x800 resolution. It will come with the latest version of the browser, IE-10 and already Microsoft claim that the current version is faster than any other mobile browser.

  Windows Phone 8 is a part of the "Windows Reimagined" project that Microsoft announced for Windows 8. Both will be released closely to each other and will share the same user experience. It's always nice to have a familiar feel across all of the devices one owns so there's no reason Windows Phone 8 will not flourish.