Ubislate 7 to be India's next low-cost Android tablet, shipping in January

Will the Ubislate be the vehicle on which India's internet usage will rise? Given that awareness of computing has increased in general and the low cost of this tablet, there is a chance to the normal consumer of India would embrace this. They don't have to shell out a lot of money like they have to do for even an assembled desktop computer. The lower middle class could easily get into it this. What they might need help is a way for them to get hold of the right content? This means that somebody needs to play that role. Will the government do that (they might if they get time away from fighting with software firms to censor specific content and regulate all content). An increase in apps which are relevant in the Indian context will also help a lot. Will the developers in India respond to that?

Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal, Besting Microsoft and Yahoo

Google is shelling out a lot of money to Mozilla (though the amount may not be much from Google's perspective) to ensure that they are the default browser in Mozilla Firefox. I feel this is Google trying to ensure that nobody uses the Firefox browser market-share to get close to them in terms of search (Microsoft would have loved to, given the amount they have spent on Bing). I have heard others saying the Google is making sure that Firefox exists until Chrome can take over all the browser market share it can and thus eliminate significant competition. That is not far fetched in terms of what they might want but I am not sure whether such a thing will happen. Another thought is that Google might be trying to ensure that they appear in the good books of authorities looking for anti-competitive behavior (given google is acquiring a company every week according to them).


In the meantime I hope Mozilla can do some good with the money and resources they get hold off. A better firefox browser and other such products will always be good for consumer because it makes for better competition and provides more choice for us. Let us hope that is what happens.

Gartner’s Predictions for the Next 5 Years

Gartner has made top predictions for the next 5 years. As expected cloud is going to become mainstream and usage of mobile devices is on the rise. The quantification of these is something which Gartner can provide. There are other trends also mentioned. Some interesting ones for me are:

Reduction in investment on "social" endeavors (apps/sites) is expected. With so many new networks coming up, which also includes big players (Google+ and Microsoft Socl) as well as enterprise players (SalesForce chatter etc.) and feature set getting more common (lot of people think that the latest twitter changes make it look like facebook!) this is expected. These developments indicate that the consolidation of the market is imminent. Hence unless a new player in the market brings something very different to the table, something which brings in a different dimension of interaction and help the consumer (may be to get work done etc.), there is hardly any chance of that player getting any investment.

Mobile application development will rise significantly as per Gartner. This I think is very evident. I personally think there are going to be lot of mobile applications which use cloud based services to help consumers do different things (we see this a lot more of this now it self). Gartner's prediction though is much more specific where they say that the mobile applications development will outpace desktop application development 4 to 1. That number is the crucial part.

As cloud adoption increases, the security requirements on the cloud will become more and more important. Gartner predicts this is going to be super important to enterprises and there might be a rise of cloud security brokers who will independently assess cloud provider's security.

Asia's current status as outsourcing destination for manufacturing of finished goods and assembly line goods (I think that this refers mainly to China) is expected to change to some extent. Does this mean that Asia's growth is going to get affected? May not be given that the local growth will itself lead to local consumption of these goods. But it something which I can't predict now.

Security risks increase is predicted. With recent news on so many hacker incidents this is another thing which you expect. The actual values again are something which may not be obvious to people like us. The specific thing that Gartner mentions is the financial impact will rise i.e. more and more attacks would try to be finance-driven than just hacking for fun/social cause etc. That is much more worrying to me and folks like us.

Another interesting prediction is that lot of the big organizations won't be able to use big data analytics properly for their growth. I somehow felt this is expected at least in the near term, given that this is a relatively new field. The technology is still evolving, the business is figuring out how it can use this huge amount of data. So things are in a flux. And also lot of people are trying to get into this band-wagon. So they will do things which they don't understand fully. Gartner predicts that this will be case till 2015. I am reminded of SOA and its movement and trending in the industry in this context. Seems like there are parallels, but we will have to wait and watch.

Intel unveils Android tablet & smartphone line for 2012

Intel is getting into mobile and table space finally. At least they are showing prototypes. This is a long awaited development. With ARM almost monopolizing the space, Intel has to make a start. We heard at the Intel developer event about Google's android for Intel chips and this is offshoot of that.

One thing to note is that Intel is going to have android 2.x on mobile!! That does not inspire confidence. The tablets are planned to ICS, which is good.

The picture - take a quick look and it seems to resemble the iPhone 4(S) . They better not go down that path (I am tired off all this patent war news (see posts below).

Let's wait and watch.

Apple wins ban of HTC devices at US International Trade Commission

News on patents - good news for apple, bad for android fans...

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2647362/apple-wins-ban-of-htc-devices-itc

The Unit­ed States Inter­na­tion­al Trade Com­mis­sion just ruled in favor of Apple in its case against HTC and banned the impor­ta­tion and sale of cer­tain HTC devices. After a lengthy review, the Com­mis­sion found that HTC devices infringe two claims of patent #5,946,647, which is a sys­tem level patent issued in 1999 on ana­lyz­ing and link­ing data struc­tures— ulti­mate­ly impli­cat­ing Android itself and not HTC's spe­cif­ic imple­men­ta­tion. The deci­sion now goes to the desk of the pres­i­dent, who has 60 days to issue a rarely-used veto; the ban itself will go into effect on April 19, 2012 to pro­vide HTC with a tran­si­tion peri­od, and HTC will be allowed to import refur­bished prod­ucts for war­ran­ty replace­ment pur­pos­es until Decem­ber 19, 2013.

3 Ways Google's Majel May Out-Chat Apple's Siri (And 1 Big Way It Could Remain Speechless)

There are good possibilities for Majel. Let's hope Google does not bungle it. We android phone users will be very thankful :-)

http://www.fastcompany.com/1802035/three-ways-googles-majel-could-out-chat-apples-siri-and-one-big-way-to-fail?partner=rss

Siri is amaz­ing. Let's not pull any punches--ignore the critcs, as it's prob­a­bly the best mobile voice recog­ni­tion device that any user has ever encoun­tered. Above all else, it's a fab­u­lous PR tool, it works, and it threat­ens Google ad rev­enues. Google and its Android army know this. Why else would Sam­sung lam­poon it and Google execs poo-pooh it? Espe­cial­ly when you con­sid­er that Google is des­per­ate­ly work­ing on a rival to Siri. It's code­named Majel, and in sev­er­al ways it's got a seri­ous chance to out­smart Apple's smart assis­tant right from the get-go.

Google developing heads-up display eyeglasses?

Now this is sci-fi stuff. It would interesting to know what capabilities these cool glasses will offer. Connecting to google services will be nice, but currently I can't think of anything 'cool' about those services. Do correct me if I am wrong.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2647487/google-heads-up-display-eyeglasses-wearable-computer

Fol­low­ing up on an ear­li­er report today that Google is devel­op­ing wear­able com­put­ing devices, 9to5Google claims that the com­pa­ny might have big­ger ambi­tions than pre­vi­ous­ly hint­ed at. Specif­i­cal­ly, the rumor is that Google is devel­op­ing a full heads-up dis­play built into a pair of normal-looking, thick-rimmed eye­glass­es. Sup­pos­ed­ly the glass­es would not mere­ly be an Android periph­er­al, but com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly with Google's ser­vices instead of pair­ing with the phone — though pre­sum­ably it would need a phone for com­mu­ni­ca­tion when not near a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 used by American Airlines for in-flight entertainment

The skin on top of android comes to the fore again. American airlines seem to have put a skin on top of android to help them provide specific services to passengers. This means fragmentation, but it also demonstrates the power which android brings to the table for such specific scenarios. Will this mean industry/services/enterprise adoption of android will become more and more? I think there are examples already, but this adds another kind...

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/14/2635987/american-airlines-samsung-galaxy-tab-in-flight-entertainment

Start­ing today, the Sam­sung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be avail­able to first- and business-class pas­sen­gers on a num­ber of Amer­i­can Air­lines inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic flights as an option for in-flight enter­tain­ment. The Galaxy Tab will replace cur­rent enter­tain­ment sys­tems and be loaded with 70 movies, plus unspec­i­fied TV and music options; the air­line also plans to bring more con­tent to the Galaxy Tab, includ­ing Wi-Fi, games, and read­ing mate­r­i­al. Amer­i­can Air­lines is claim­ing it's the first domes­tic air­line to offer a "brand­ed" tablet to pas­sen­gers (though its pilots will have iPads in the cock­pit as soon as this Fri­day).

Should You Learn CoffeeScript? | Nettuts+

A good panel discussion on coffee script. It might help you to decide whether to learn coffee script or not. For me I realised that I need to become more proficient in JavaScript before I can seriously use this (may be even learn this). Some really strong opinions coming through. A really good read.

http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/interviews/should-you-learn-coffeescript/

I'd imagine that I represent a large portion of the web development community. I'm very intrigued by CoffeeScript; I've even learned the syntax and used it in a

Windows Azure Adds Node.js Support, Hadoop Preview

What is happening with Windows? This is not right. If they keep doing such things I might have to start liking them. By the way node.js is making more news - but that is nothing new. And they say the next year is the year of the hadoop. It does look like that.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/12/windows-azure-adds-nodejs-supp.php

When Win­dows Azure was launched in 2008, it was with the inten­tion, Microsoft said, of run­ning .NET Frame­work appli­ca­tions from the cloud. What ended up hap­pen­ing was that the PaaS mar­ket matured much faster than any­one in 2008 could have antic­i­pat­ed, so any cloud apps plat­form that needs to stay com­pet­i­tive must run with the lan­guages the devel­op­ment world is using.

Cypher - A view from a recovering SQL DBA

A useful comparison on SQL syntax with graph db (neo4j) syntax. A quick way to get some insight into the graph db world through the lense of a SQL developer.

http://systay.github.com/blog/2011/11/06/cypher---a-view-from-a-recovering-sql-dba/

For many years, I worked with SQL databases. I got to know the relational model and various SQL implementations very well, but then the world changed with the advent of NOSQL, and I changed too when I became heavily involved with Neo4j.

About the refurbished iPhone 4 in India [follow up]

Looks like the refurbished iPhones never made it to the retail world. Hmmm... All those dreams :-(

http://www.bgr.in/sections/news/about-the-refurbished-iphone-4-in-india-follow-up/

We had first report­ed about refur­bished iPhone 4 last month, a report which was wide­ly car­ried across main­stream pub­li­ca­tions and also drew a lot of inter­est from read­ers, who were obvi­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ed by Apple’s pric­ing for the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4 8GB. Many called us sen­sa­tion­al­ist and some even took to send­ing me abu­sive Tweets, com­ments and mails, because they couldn’t find them in the open mar­ket. I have per­son­al­ly replied to many that we will post an update about it as soon as we have more details to share. It is now time to share some details as to what hap­pened with the refur­bished iPhone 4 units. Read on…

Beware of fancy formulas and slick shortcuts

A really good article on how things/skills progress. No shortcuts. Some good examples. A decent read.

http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/2011/12/05/beware-of-fancy-formulas-and-slick-shortcuts/

When I used to teach the Afro-Brazilian mar­tial art of capoeira, new stu­dents would come in for their first class and watch the more advanced stu­dents doing fly­ing kicks and ariel cart­wheels.

Interfaces you can feel from Senseg

Super cool touch interfaces. The innovation is continuous. There is just a lot of stuff happening.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/interfaces-you-can-feel-from-senseg.html

Senseg patent­ed solu­tion cre­ates a sophis­ti­cat­ed sen­sa­tion of touch using Coloumb’s force, the prin­ci­ple of attrac­tion between elec­tri­cal charges. By pass­ing an ultra-low elec­tri­cal cur­rent into the insu­lat­ed elec­trode, Senseg’s Tixel™, the pro­pri­etary charge dri­ver can cre­ate a small attrac­tive force to fin­ger skin. By mod­u­lat­ing this attrac­tive force a vari­ety of sen­sa­tions can be gen­er­at­ed, from tex­tured sur­faces and edges to vibra­tions and more.

Senseye lets you control your phone by looking at it, will ship next year (video)

This is even more newer than voice. This is eye movement detection. I think google needs to jump on this one and grab them. Not only because it will be an android answer to apple's Siri, but also because in the world of advertisements tracking where your eye ball is very precious to let go. And remember, if google does not act apple will surely. If both of them delay even Microsoft might do something. But something tells me that Samsung is probably looking very hard at this.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/4/2609973/senseye-phone-eye-control-will-ship-next-year

Eye-controlled inter­faces have been around for years, but a new tool called Sens­eye might be the first mass-market imple­men­ta­tion. Using a front-facing cam­era and infrared LED, Sens­eye tracks eye motion with enough accu­ra­cy to dim the screen when no one is look­ing at it, auto-scroll text on a page, and let the user enter a pass­code or play a sim­ple shoot­ing game by look­ing at num­bers or ene­mies. The proof of con­cept uses a bulky case, but final ver­sions are planned as either small don­gles or part of the phone itself.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on the company’s future, U.S. plans

If you listen to this interview, you will get the feeling that Nokia is taking India very seriously as a customer base. That I think is an intelligent move.

http://www.bgr.in/bgr-interview-nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-on-the-company%E2%80%99s-future-u-s-plans/

We had a chance to sit down with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop a few weeks ago in New York City to get a the skin­ny on Nokia’s strat­e­gy straight from the top. We cov­ered the com­pa­ny’s upcom­ing push (and hope­ful­ly valiant return) in the Unit­ed States, Nokia’s lat­est smart­phones, poten­tial new Nokia tablets and of course the com­pa­ny’s new Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 Win­dows Phones. Catch the full video inter­view after the break.

Cheap beads offer alternative solar-heating storage

Happy to see some research in India mentioned here. Hope to see more and more of it.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/cheap-beads-offer-alternative-solar.html

Mechan­i­cal engi­neer Meenakshi Reddy of Sri Venkateswara Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy, in Chit­toor, Andra Pradesh, and col­leagues explain how cer­tain mate­ri­als, known as phase change mate­ri­als (PCM) can store a large amount of heat in the form of latent heat in a small vol­ume.

5 Cool Things Siri Can Do Now That She's Been Hacked

A good collection of Siri hack videos. It does seem really futuristic. I hope I can get hold of something like that soon (in android). Google what are you waiting for. Do something!

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/5_best_siri_hacks.php

Since launch­ing with the iPhone 4S in Octo­ber, Apple's new voice-controlled per­son­al assis­tant fea­ture called Siri has been enam­ored by Apple fans, mocked by some and been found to have a few humor­ous East­er eggs built in.

App Store - MobiGuard

Will you use it guys! The battery drain itself will kill it for me. And I hope it does not start off some panic action unnecessarily. I guess a closer look will help. Anyway it will be known with time.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobiguard/id463011428?mt=8&ls=1

Read reviews, get customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about MobiGuard on the App Store. Download MobiGuard and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

More proof that enterprises love Node.js

More news on node.js adoption. Node.js fans will be delighted. Couple of frameworks mentioned as well. I guess it is here to stay and I am happy about it. Hopefully it will make people take JavaScript more seriously.

http://gigaom.com/cloud/more-proof-that-enterprises-love-node-js/

Node.js is following in Ruby on Rails' and NoSQL's footsteps to become the next hacker technology to be embraced by the enterprise. Just ask FloType, the Berkeley, CA. startup which built its NowJS architecture atop Node.js, the server-side JavaScript-based toolset.

iPads in the enterprise: CEO ego is driving adoption

Hmmm... Looks like egos have driving power everywhere. But the last point made in the article is something worth 'noting'!

http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/01/ipads-in-the-enterprise/

iPads have taken over the boardroom, and corporate CEOs and their egos are to thank for the somewhat surprising trend. At least that's the consensus among a panel of cloud computing and enterprise ...

Crypteks USB offers physical lock and AES hardware encryption

That's surely an imitation of Da Vinci's cryptex. Looks really cool!

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/29/2596033/crypteks-usb-physical-lock-aes-hardware-encryption

There's a Kick­starter cam­paign going that might inter­est those who carry sen­si­tive data and swooned over Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code — if it comes to fruition, the Crypteks USB drive will com­bine both a phys­i­cal lock as well as 256-bit AES hard­ware encryp­tion. The drive itself is sealed inside an anodized alu­minum cylin­der with five rings con­tain­ing all the let­ters of the alpha­bet; all you have to do to remove the drive is enter your pass­word. Once the drive is removed, you can reset the pass­word by remov­ing and re-orienting the rings in the posi­tion of your choice. Even after the drive is removed from its shell, it's still secured by thely in use by thet. …

Little Printer serves up a personalized receipt-sized newspaper, twice daily

Not sure this is great idea. Especially when I think of trees. What do you think?

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/29/2596138/berg-little-printer-cloud-receipt-sized-newspaper

It hap­pens to all of us: you wake up in the morn­ing and awk­ward­ly clutch your cell­phone, swip­ing through tweets, emails, weath­er, and news. You know it's a good day when you man­age not to drop the phone on your face while doing it. BERG's new Lit­tle Print­er plans to change that with a receipt-sized col­lec­tion of per­son­al­ized mate­r­i­al that's no longer than 10 inch­es in length, twice daily. With back­up from a ser­vice called Berg Cloud, it offers mate­r­i­al like top head­lines, weath­er reports, Sudoku puz­zles, to-do lists, bite-sized info on a range of top­ics, upcom­ing birth­days, word of the day, Nike+ work­out reminders, and recent Foursquare check-insd he­err. …

Google Maps 6.0 for Android adds indoor maps, new Places homescreen

This seems like a genuinely good idea. Hope they keep expanding it.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/29/2596484/google-maps-6-0-for-android-adds-indoor-maps-new-places-homescreen

Google Maps for Android 6.0 just hit Android Mar­ket, and it's a pret­ty big update: it adds indoor maps of select air­ports, malls, and retail stores in the US and Japan. High­lights of the ini­tial list include the Mall of Amer­i­ca, Chica­go's O'Hare and Mid­way air­ports, San Fran­cis­co Inter­na­tion­al, and var­i­ous Macy's, Bloom­ing­dale's, IKEA, and Home Depot loca­tions. We just tried it out and it's quite well-done: a tog­gle appears as you zoom in on a build­ing that lets you select each floor, and fea­tures like restrooms and retail shops pop right up. Addi­tion­al indoor maps are promised soon, and if you're a busi­ness owner you can upload floor plans to get your loca­tiond. …

Microsoft reportedly launching Office for iPad in 2012

Microsoft office is that one application (set) that still people care for in Microsoft setup. That coming for iPad is surely a welcome thing. At least for me.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/29/2596371/microsoft-office-ipad-2012-availability

Microsoft's released a few apps here and there for the iPhone and iPad but has kept one of its prize bread­win­ners out of the iOS fray. Accord­ing to The Daily, that all might change in 2012 with the launch of Office for iPad. The pub­li­ca­tion claims that this new release will play nice with Office 365's cloud-based ser­vice, and iPad doc­u­ments should be com­pat­i­ble with the desk­top ver­sions of Office. In fact, this close­ly mir­rors both Office for Win­dows Phone and iWork on the iPad, with doc­u­ment sync­ing and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty between mobile and desk­top apps. Office for iPad's price point also is rumored to be sim­i­lar to iWork on iOS's $10 per app pric­ing.h iggger. …

DIY 'privacy monitor' hides screen from prying eyes

This is an interesting application of probably a known concept. Spectacles specifically privacy spectacles of different styles could become a big part of new fashion very quickly.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/25/2586133/hidden-screen-diy-lcd-privacy-monitor

Adding a fil­ter to secure your screen is hard­ly unusu­al, but a new mon­i­tor hack actu­al­ly works bet­ter by remov­ing the built-in polar­iz­ing fil­ter. An LCD with no polar­ized film sim­ply dis­plays white light, but pop­ping lens­es made from the film into a pair of glass­es lets the wear­er use the com­put­er nor­mal­ly. And you thought 3D glass­es looked silly. Read the full instruc­tions for mak­ing a pri­va­cy mon­i­tor at the source below.

Ubuntu sees massive slide in popularity, Mint sprints ahead ... but why? | ZDNet

This is not great news for ubuntu fans like me. May be i need to try mint

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/ubuntu-sees-massive-slide-in-popularity-mint-sprints-ahead-but-why/16550

Try to please everyone, and pretty soon you please no one.

Asus Transformer Prime goes up for Pre-Order in the US 32GB for $500

Friends, this may be the thing you have been waiting for. Check it out!

http://igyaan.in/2011/11/asus-transformer-prime-pre-order-32gb-500/18227/

AdityaT | Android, Latest, Tablet News

Why Facebook Is Winning The Great Tech War In India

So guys it seems we are all siding with Facebook. I would have wished it to be google. Even apple would have been ok. Amazon is not very known to us yet. Guys can we side with google. But my wish is not your command!

http://www.fastcompany.com/1796532/india-big-tech?partner=rss

In Fast Company's recent cover story, The Great Tech War Of 2012, Farhad Manjoo plotted the battle plans for the four U.S. tech titans: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The four companies have dominated somewhat separate parts of the U.S. tech space in the past, but are speedily converging on eac…

Jeopardy contestant Roger Craig stomps competition with data mining

It's all about the data. I think data crunching and mining (especially big data) is something which none of us can ignore anymore. There is going to be lot of it in the near and far future. What do you think?

http://www.theverge.com/culture/2011/11/23/2583181/roger-craig-jeopardy-data-mining

When Jeopardy master Ken Jennings recounted his loss to computer Watson early this year, he referred to the game show's questions as an "open domain...

Twitter / DataStax: Get a handle on #Cassandra ...

Cassandra is doing the rounds nowadays. DataStax CEO who is also the lead of apache cassandra is ensuring that people know more and more about Cassandra

http://twitter.com/DataStax/statuses/139137299098243072

Get a handle on #Cassandra in the #Cloud - 1M writes a second.#NoSQL #BigData http://t.co/5VWLihn2

How To Create A Product

Knowing the market is key. Put the market before you - that is the mantra to a successful product. That is the gist of what is below.

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/8190/how-to-create-a-product/

This four part series on cre­at­ing your own infor­ma­tion prod­uct will start with address­ing a vital start­ing point with prod­uct cre­ation: cre­at­ing a prod­uct that will sell.

Apache Wicket is a Flawed Framework

A read that will make you ponder about the wicket framework.

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/wicket-users/201111.mbox/%3C1321544691689-4080411.post@n4.nabble.com%3E

Where's that plane overhead going? Wolfram Alpha knows

That sounds cool. Wolfram Alpha, if I remember correctly is the brain behind SIRI. It would surely be good to know more about it. Also if it can be used in more places it will be great. Time to get to know more about it!

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/18/2570664/wolfram-alpha-can-now-tell-you-the-exact-flights-details-of-any

Wol­fram Alpha, the search engine that's more than just a search engine, has added a neat new trick to its reper­toire: it can now answer the ques­tion, "where is that plane over­head going?" More than that, it can tell you where the flight's com­ing from, what air­line is oper­at­ing it, the alti­tude the plane is fly­ing at, and even its angle from the hori­zon rel­a­tive to you. All that info is com­ing into Wol­fram Alpha from the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion, though it arrives with a five-minute delay that means Wol­fram's real time data is actu­al­ly a pro­jec­tion of each plane's posi­tion — cal­cu­lat­ed on the basis of its last known head­ing, speed, and alti­tude — rather than a per­fect­ly accu­rate mea­sure­ment. Anoth­er lim­i­ta­tion that aris­es from the source of the data is that the "flights over­head" search string only …

Thank you, young Mr. Suarez, for showing us what's possible (Jason Womack)

Its possible. If a 12 year old can get into development of iPhone apps, then what is impossible. Impossible in BS!

http://www.jasonwomackblog.com/working_outwhile_youre_ou/2011/11/thank-you-young-mr-suarez-for-showing-us-whats-possible.html

Early (in Lon­don) on a Thurs­day morn­ing, I gave myself the gift of watch­ing this "less-than-5-minute" TED.com talk by Thomas Suarez. The dude is 12 years old, and his mes­sage is clear ... "It is possible."

Titanoboa robotic snake sizes up against Mondo Spider

The snake motion is very realistic. The fluidity is amazing. At short distance it must be unnerving.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/16/2566209/titanoboa-robotic-snake-mondo-spider-eatart

In a move bound to prey on those with pho­bias, Cana­di­an robot­ic design house eatArt has released a video of its lat­est project: the Titanoboa, a robot­ic snake based on a 50-foot long pre­his­toric ser­pent. The video pits the basilisk-like robot against the Mondo Spi­der, a walk­ing machine large enough to hold a man, and there's obvi­ous com­pe­ti­tion between the two. While eatArt showed a short­er ver­sion of the snake rollerblad­ing at the Burn­ing Man fes­ti­val ear­li­er this year, at 35 feet this is the largest ver­sion of the robot so far, with the team aim­ing to reach the full length in the next year or so.

Apple iPhone 4 refurbished units will be available in India for Rs 22,500

This does seem like a good idea to me as a consumer. I would have jumped on it had I not already got the s2. Trying to convince my wife on this. A good opportunity guys! Go for it.

http://www.bgr.in/2011/11/15/apple-iphone-4-refurbished-units-will-be-available-in-india-for-rs-22500/

While we are wait­ing for an offi­cial announce­ment, we can con­firm that Apple iPhone 4 fac­to­ry refur­bished units are now avail­able in India for Rs 22,500 for the 16GB vari­ant. These units come with prop­er bill and one-year war­ran­ty. Refur­bished units should not be con­fused with usual second-hand units – these are sent back to the assem­bly fac­to­ry where they are cleaned, and some com­po­nents changed. They come with the same sup­port as new phones. We are also hear­ing there is a short­age of brand-new iPhone 4 16GB, which can be attrib­uted to the upcom­ing iPhone 4S launch in India on Novem­ber 25. Apple will intro­duce the 8GB vari­ant of the iPhone 4 and dis­con­tin­ue both the 16GB and 32GB vari­ants once the iPhone 4S is launched. If you are still look­ing for an afford­able iPhone 4, we think the …

Tangle: a JavaScript library for reactive documents

It really looks like a new idea (though I can't be sure). The initial examples seem simple but they drive home the point. A deeper look might reveal more possibilities. Exploration time guys!

http://worrydream.com/Tangle/

Tan­gle is a JavaScript library for cre­at­ing reac­tive doc­u­ments. Your read­ers can inter­ac­tive­ly explore pos­si­bil­i­ties, play with para­me­ters, and see the doc­u­ment update imme­di­ate­ly. Tan­gle is super-simple and easy to learn.

Google's Think Insights offers a peek behind the search giant's curtain

I am not sure what this is. Is it google trends productised. I guess we should check it out. I would really like to know whether I can find more about what google thinks about me and everybody else (search engine secrets so to say). We will see.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/11/2554455/google-think-insights-available

Google's pri­ma­ry rev­enue source — search-related adver­tis­ing — is get­ting a more pub­lic face with its Think Insights web­site that's now out of beta. The site is a cen­tral­ized hub for access to much of Google's search-related ana­lyt­ics and research stud­ies, which allow mar­keters and oth­ers to spot emerg­ing trends quick­ly and eas­i­ly. It's promised that you'll be able to use the site's "real-time insights find­er" (above) to gauge con­sumer opin­ion in real-time, but it's also just fun to dig around and see all of the data that Google has amassed. Accord­ing to the com­pa­ny, the site makes find­ing answers to most ques­tions — when does demand for pret­zels peak? — no more than 60 sec­onds away. There are also lots of charts to be made using Google's data in mere­ly sec­onds, like the one below com­par­ing smart­phone adop­tion in …

This superhydrophobic coating is truly stunning

This is truly DEFYing! Hope Apple does not buy them. I guess not since it has applicability in so many areas and Apple is too focused for that. If the manufacturing cost is cheap, it could revolutionize the 'material' world.

http://pulse.me/s/34E78

pulse.me/s/34E78

Supporting entrepreneurs around the world with Startup Weekend

This really seems like a great thing to participate. I am not sure when this will come to Bangalore (I really hope it does). It can probably provide us with an opportunity to try our hand at something new. Let us wait and watch.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/supporting-entrepreneurs-around-world.html

We rec­og­nize the trans­for­ma­tive power of star­tups and the entre­pre­neurs behind them that have the pas­sion and courage to pur­sue a dream; the impact they can make on soci­ety can be sig­nif­i­cant. Google was once a start­up in a garage, and Google Ven­tures is a tes­ta­ment to our ongo­ing com­mit­ment to entre­pre­neuri­al­ism. As we head into Glob­al Entre­pre­neur­ship Week, it’s clear that hav­ing a robust com­mu­ni­ty of entre­pre­neurs, men­tors and edu­ca­tion­al resources can be a key ingre­di­ent in a start­up’s suc­cess, and we’re excit­ed to be part of that.

RT @gigaom: Need to optimize your sleep? There’s an app for that. http://t.co/iUbx2WLa

http://t.co/iUbx2WLa

New in 11: Diff Tool for Binary Files http://t.co/oYZgBX4M via @zite. Funny, should check it out.

http://t.co/oYZgBX4M

Kill the Telcos Save the Internet - The Unsocial Network http://t.co/EXFMGqHB via @zite. Good read on the inner working of the Internet!

http://t.co/EXFMGqHB

This is as futuristic as it gets! Ok may be it is not yet that polished.

Sony HMZ-T1 Personal 3D Viewer review

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/10/2552518/sony-hmz-t1-personal-3d-viewer-review

Hardware / design

That is cool! May be we could get that in our office ;)

Biscotti video conferencing camera puts Grandma on your TV for $199

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/9/2548251/biscotti-video-conferencing-camera-for-tv-199-demo

We've seen plen­ty of failed home video con­fer­enc­ing cam­eras ideas come and go, but that sad his­to­ry hasn't deterred Bis­cot­ti — the start­up just announced a $199 video cam­era that sits on top of your TV and can call both other Bis­cot­ti units as well as phones, tablets, and PCs using Google Talk. The cam­era itself is fair­ly clever: it sits between your TV and cable box's HDMI con­nec­tion, allow­ing it to over­lay its menus and UI on top of what­ev­er you're watch­ing. You can also set it to auto-answer calls and even auto­mat­i­cal­ly turn on your com­po­nents using HDMI-CEC con­trol, so it's fair­ly par­ent- and grandparent-friendly. We got a brief chance to play with it and the menus and inter­face seemed well-thought-out and com­plete, but we'll wait to com­ment on video qual­i­ty when we actu­al­ly get a review unit.

Did not realise that it is a quad core too! Cool Asus Eee Pad!

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime: the first quad-core Tegra 3 tablet arrives in early December for $499

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/9/2548200/asus-eee-pad-transformer-prime-pricing-release-date-quad-core-tegra-3

Asus promised an offi­cial launch of its Eee Pad Trans­former Prime on Novem­ber 9th, and not a moment too late, the com­pa­ny is ready to give up the remain­ing details on its forth­com­ing tablet. How­ev­er, those hop­ing that "launch" meant the world's first quad-core Tegra 3 tablet would start hit­ting stores today should be pre­pared to be dis­ap­point­ed — the $499 tablet (with 32GB of stor­age) and its $149 key­board dock won't be arriv­ing until early Decem­ber. (The 64GB ver­sion will ring up at $599.) That said, after you read on below about all the improve­ments, you'll like­ly think it's worth the wait.

This is really cool! A tablet with a natively attachable keyboard.

ASUS launches the new Transformer Prime with Tegra 3 and 12 Hour Battery (PR)

http://igyaan.in/2011/11/asus-launches-transformer-prime-tegra-3-12-hour-battery-pr/17795/

Asus has Launched the Eee Pad Trans­former tablet in India, with the option­al dock. The 16Gb WiFi only ver­sion was launched for Rs. 32,899/- and the ...

The second spot light has also focused on Html5. This time the shift is from silver light

Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/9/2548975/microsoft-may-halt-development-work-on-silverlight-after-next-release

It's not just Adobe that's alter­ing its plans when it comes to brows­er plu­g­ins designed to play back rich web media — Microsoft's join­ing in too. New releas­es of Sil­verlight, Red­mond's big com­peti­tor to Flash Play­er, are report­ed­ly going to be aban­doned after the launch of Sil­verlight 5, expect­ed later this month. This infor­ma­tion comes from mul­ti­ple sources cited by the usu­al­ly well-informed Mary Jo Foley. They don't know how long Microsoft will main­tain sup­port for Sil­verlight 5 or if there'll be any ser­vice packs, but it does seem like the com­pa­ny will be switch­ing its oper­a­tional focus to other areas and halt­ing active devel­op­ment of Sil­verlight.

WIMM One review http://t.co/0Is09oGI more smart watches... Android this time!

http://t.co/0Is09oGI

Looks like Apple has finally truly won! Good bye flash. Html5, please take centre-stage. You are truly on the spotlight

Adobe ends Flash development for Android and PlayBook, will focus on HTML5

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/9/2549196/adobe-flash-android-blackberry

Adobe officially kills Flash Player for mobile, says HTML5 is 'the best solution'

Watch "Samsung Flexible AMOLED and Transparent OLED Screens" on YouTube ... http://t.co/TKdr0gGu

http://t.co/TKdr0gGu

This would be really something if we pull it off. http://t.co/e5EEJP1S

http://t.co/e5EEJP1S

Nokia exploring free Wi-Fi service in India http://t.co/ZvFaQMCL Is it dream or reality

http://t.co/ZvFaQMCL

Google Reader interface changes

As I read news and articles from my twitter and google reader (ah the irony!), a repeated theme in the last few days has been the interface changes on Google reader. I have heard lot of complaints about it. These did induce me to go a take a look at the google reader page. After spending less than 5 minutes, which means I was superbly (is that a word! never mind) superficial, I felt there have been changes. But I could not form an opinion of whether it is good or bad. I guess I hardly spent any time to make such a conclusion.
It might seem that I probably don't use google reader. The truth is quite the opposite. I spent quite a bit of my reading time on feeds from google reader. But the google reader has become my backend for feeds. For consuming the feeds, I am using specific applications like Flipboard on my Ipad and d7 google reader on my phone. Even on my laptop I use news square or feedly (both used sparingly as I do most of my feeds reading in the tablet or the phone).  Hence the change in the google reader UI did not impact me at all.
How will these changes play out? Are the complaints just temporary - rants from people who resist any kind of change which will die eventually? Will the might and dominance of google in this area just make people stick to it despite there being problems (if there are any at all)? Will people start moving to other alternatives for consuming there feeds (like me)? Will a new and good alternative to google reader emerge out of this? Throwing these questions in the air. At least time will answer them (but I am open to getting answers from others too!)

RT @mashable Siri Gives Apple a Two-Year Advantage Over Google, Says VC http://t.co/GjchBxFh .precise answer engine is better than search

http://t.co/GjchBxFh

Log4j, Stat4j, SMTPAppender Integration-Aggregating Error Logs to Send Email http://t.co/ZAgK3ToE . Should we try it in our projects?

http://t.co/ZAgK3ToE

Enterprises Can Now Create Google+ Accounts http://t.co/UR7uAC0t via @zite. Should we try it in our office?

http://t.co/UR7uAC0t

My dad taught me cashflow with a soda machine http://t.co/eTu43hK2 via @zite. Really a fantastic article.

http://t.co/eTu43hK2

Why did MDE Missed the Boat? http://t.co/QzUAwAiC via @zite

http://t.co/QzUAwAiC

http://t.co/aIENk6O6 http://t.co/pWZvoE74 via @zite what is this? have to find out!

http://t.co/aIENk6O6

Project Proposal: JFX http://t.co/ZjPcVGte via @zite. Oracle's desperate effort to revive java fx. Will it work? I have my doubts.

http://t.co/ZjPcVGte

Weird Funny Java! http://t.co/7wah9lkC via @zite. Something to really try out.

http://t.co/7wah9lkC

ScriptCover: Javascript coverage analysis tool http://t.co/GzuUw9wp via @zite. That's quite useful. Another chrome based tool. Firefox?

http://t.co/GzuUw9wp

The Story of Siri, from Birth at SRI to Acquisition by Apple—Virtual Person (via @ReadItLater) interesting read http://t.co/tViZiKiT

http://t.co/tViZiKiT

Rapid Prototyping For Any Device With Foundation http://t.co/ipJ3TRZr via @zite. Based on responsive design. Seems interesting!

http://t.co/ipJ3TRZr

RT @jquery: Announcing the jQuery Standards Team http://t.co/HWMdAc1G chance for us to participate in something big at least in a small way.

http://t.co/HWMdAc1G

Faster Web vs. TCP Slow-Start. http://t.co/1SfhrIZs

http://t.co/1SfhrIZs

JDK 7 Adoption Guide - seems like a good summary of features! Check out. http://t.co/s7RxBH9z

http://t.co/s7RxBH9z

Twitter to tie-up with Airtel to offer free access - tweet using sms!! http://t.co/PG5ZDmYb

http://t.co/PG5ZDmYb

Hands-on with camera from the future – Lytro - Software controlled output! http://t.co/CQurjO5P

http://t.co/CQurjO5P

I guess this is the phone angle...

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Launched, Official Ice Cream Sandwich

http://igyaan.in/2011/10/samsung-galaxy-nexus-official-4-65-hd-amoled-display-ics/

Sam­sung and Google intro­duce GALAXY Nexus

From the horse's mouth. The changes are decent. Everybody is talking about the UI. We ll see

Android Ice Cream Sandwich

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/10/android-ice-cream-sandwich.html

Google and Sam­sung launched Galaxy Nexus, the third Nexus Smart­phone, and Ice Cream Sand­wich (ICS), the new Android ver­sion that brings many of the Hon­ey­comb fea­tures to smart­phones. Ice Cream Sand­wich is the first Android ver­sion that will work on smart­phones, tablets and TVs, but today's launch only focused on smart­phones.

Nice little cartoon. May be it is not just funny. May be there some truth in the fun

Geek And Poke: DDT

http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2011/10/ddt.html

Tweet

Firefox going native (no XUL) on android.

Firefox for Android Plans to Go Native

http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/10/firefox-for-android-plans-to-go-native/

Fire­fox on Android.

Some really good pictures!

http://email-junk.com/photo/cool-inventions-15-pictures.html

http://www.stumbleupon.com/to/s/5wZfa4

http://www.stumbleupon.com/to/s/5wZfa4

Siri ad. Quite cool

iPhone 4S: What can you say to Siri?

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/05/iphone-4s-what-can-you-say-to-siri/

Curi­ous about the iPhone 4S's new voice assis­tant fea­ture? So were we.

I have always thought I need something like this. May be I need to check this out.

Belkin Power Pack – Charge your phones and tablets on the go

http://thegadgetfan.com/gadgets/belkin-power-pack-charge-your-phones-and-tablets-on-the-go.html

Belkin has released its Power Pack, a mobile charg­ing dock in India. There are 3 vari­ants which are avail­able and the price ranges from Rs. 1999 to Rs. 4799. Belkin Pow­er­pack allows simul­ta­ne­ous charg­ing of two devices.

Siri - will it work for us (not US) guys who have a different accent. May be not! Check the video out.

Siri gets lost in translation with Japanese ‘master’

http://www.bgr.in/2011/10/14/siri-gets-lost-in-translation-with-japanese-master/

This has to be one of the fun­ni­est videos involv­ing Siri doing the rounds. Pre­sum­ably shot in Japan, where the iPhone 4S went on sale today, all this guy wants to know from Siri is the weath­er out­side. But Siri, for some rea­son, wants to hook him up with Linda. No mat­ter what he asks, Siri keeps tak­ing him back to Linda. Mind you, the man is not a native Eng­lish speak­er and can man­age some bro­ken Eng­lish at best. Also, Siri remem­bers your past ques­tions and con­sid­er­ing this is a store where hun­dreds of peo­ple would have asked her all sorts of ques­tions, we can spare her for get­ting dis­ori­ent­ed. Nev­er­the­less, it is one of the most hilar­i­ous clips so far. Watch it after the break.

Android on Hp touchpad getting better... Interesting. If only we had that sale.

Cyanogen Mod 7 Comes to Touchpad in Alpha Build

http://igyaan.in/2011/10/cyanogen-mod-7-touchpad-alpha-build/

While we still un-package our touch pads, Team Touch­droid has man­aged to dual boot WebOS and Android 2.3 on he ...

Goodbye Mr.Ritchie. Thanks a lot too...

Dennis Ritchie who created C and co-created Unix has died

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/10/dennis-ritchie-who-created-c-and-co.html

Ritchie was best known as the creator of the C programming language and a key developer of the Unix operating system, and as co-author of the definitive book on C, The C Programming Language, commonly referred to as K&R (in reference to the authors Kernighan and Ritchie).

Ice-cream sandwich has come.... Hold on, I meant the statue!

Android Ice Cream Sandwich statue arrives outside #44 at Googleplex

http://www.bgr.in/2011/10/14/android-ice-cream-sandwich-statue-arrives-outside-44-at-googleplex/

By: Rajat Agraw­al | Oct 14th, 2011 at 03:18AM

Looks interesting to us, sadistic to bugs!

How many bugs does it take to charge a Snapdragon powered smartphone? [video]

http://www.bgr.in/2011/10/12/how-many-bugs-does-it-take-to-charge-a-snapdragon-powered-smartphone-video/

Have you ever won­dered how many bugs would it take to power your smart­phone? We haven’t either. But some­one at Qual­comm did and decid­ed to find out. Nope, it ain’t one of those how many XXXX does it take to change a light bulb joke. Watch it for your­self and let us know whether you think this is the real deal or not. Either way, Qual­comm has man­aged to get its point across about its power sip­ping Snap­drag­on proces­sors and we can­not wait to see what Nvidia and oth­ers come up with.

Had not heard of DAAS before. The use case does make some sense though.

Orbitz outsources analytics to the cloud

http://gigaom.com/cloud/orbitz-outsources-analytics-to-the-cloud/

Travel-booking service Orbitz chose Kognitio's Data Warehouse as a Service offering. The decision to move such a critical piece of the analytics stack to Kognitio's cloud service highlights Orbitz's commitment big data and is further proof that the cloud is an ideal place for it.

The Games community group for HTML. They are getting really serious about gaming on the web. Look at some of the features they are adding.

Workshop on HTML.next for Games

http://www.w3.org/2011/09/games/

The Open Media Web project organized a very successful workshop on HTML.next for Games on Saturday 24 September 2011, co-located with the onGameStart conference in Warsaw, Poland. This page reports on the outcomes of the workshop, in particular the creation of the Games Community Group in W3C, decid…

Android now blackberry like. Don't worry, only from a security point of view. RIM which is already in bad shape is going to get really fried

The Most Secure Android Phone, Ever | Fast Company

http://www.fastcompany.com/1786472/most-secure-android-phone-ever-blackberry-headache?partner=rss

A new German project makes Android phones significantly more secure for business communications--this could change the way people use smartphones, entirely. The project, Bizztrust, creates virtual "work phones" on Android smartphones, and employs BlackBerry-style encryption to guarantee secure commu…

Could this be true! It will be great if it does. Let us wait with our fingers crossed!

Free roaming, high broadband speeds in new telecom policy

http://www.bgr.in/2011/10/10/free-roaming-high-broadband-speeds-in-new-telecom-policy/

The new tele­com pol­i­cy will bring cheer to con­sumers with the gov­ern­ment Mon­day propos­ing to remove roam­ing charges for sub­scribers with­in the coun­try, expo­nen­tial­ly increas­ing broad­band avail­abil­i­ty and speed and allow­ing for mobile num­bers to be port­ed to any part of the coun­try.

Just got curious about GTD. Came across this. A starting point I think if you are interested.

"Getting started with "Getting Things Done""

http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/getting-started-with-getting-things-done

This article was originally posted during the first week of 43 Folders' existence, and, pound for pound, it remains our most popular page on the site. Please be sure to also visit related pages, browse our GTD topic area, plus, of course you can search

More Mustache integration stuff

Last week, we talked about scalate. We specifically talked about using mustache as the templating mechanism for the view. Since mustache was the template mechanism I wanted to try it out, I sought other mechanisms of integrating mustache with spring mvc. Mustache integration through java is the obvious choice (scalate is of course great but it still means adding the entire scala runtime/infrastructure to be embedded for just that use... seems a bit too much). When we check the mustache page, it leads to the framework/library created by Sam Pullara.
I did some more search just out of curiosity. I hit upon another library called jmustache created by samskivert (Michael Bayne). The documentation seemed to be there and I also found another github project by sps (Sean Scanlon) which integrates jmustache with spring mvc. So Viola! Everything was available readymade. I put in similar code to last time and things worked like before.
So now I had mustache spring mvc integration in java itself. Hopefully I will be using it more and will be able to comment on how good it is. Keeping the other implementation by Sam in standby for now.

Chrome is getting good tooling I guess. This is nice. Will add this to my chrome right away.

Pendule – A Neat Web Developer Plugin [Chrome]

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pendule-neat-web-developer-plugin-chrome/

I do quite a bit of Web development, and Google Chrome is my main browser these days. Chrome is pretty developer-friendly as it is, and you can also set up Firebug on Chrome. But today I wanted to show you a different Chrome extension called Pendule. Pendule supplements Chrome’s built-in Inspect Ele…

Chrome is getting good tooling I guess. This is nice. Will add this to my chrome right away.

Pendule – A Neat Web Developer Plugin [Chrome]

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pendule-neat-web-developer-plugin-chrome/

I do quite a bit of Web development, and Google Chrome is my main browser these days. Chrome is pretty developer-friendly as it is, and you can also set up Firebug on Chrome. But today I wanted to show you a different Chrome extension called Pendule. Pendule supplements Chrome’s built-in Inspect Ele…

A sneak peek into samsung galaxy nexus - ice-cream sandwich flagship phone

Samsung Galaxy Nexus caught on video

http://www.bgr.in/2011/10/07/samsung-galaxy-nexus-caught-on-video/

Well, it was bound to hap­pen soon­er or later. Google’s upcom­ing flag­ship device, the Sam­sung Galaxy Nexus, has leaked out in video form cour­tesy of Gadget.ro, and it’s almost a minute and half of pure Google. Ice Cream Sand­wich looks like an evo­lu­tion of Hon­ey­comb, and it cer­tain­ly does look like it will be at home on both smart­phones and tablets. There are also thank­ful­ly some nice sub­tle design enhance­ments that start to make Android seem more cohe­sive. Video is after the break.

Apple's Future

When Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO, there were questions about Apple's future. Some people thought that Apple might find it difficult to come with new innovative products like it has done for sometime. One of the important counters to that talk was that Steve Jobs was still around to provide his vision to the company.
The current news of him not being around; Does that change anything?

Sending this message from an IPad... Can't understand the feeling. But one thing is there... What a life he has led! bye Steve Jobs!

Steve Jobs RIP – How the world is reacting

http://thegadgetfan.com/apple/steve-jobs-rip-how-the-world-is-reacting.html

Steve Jobs, the vision­ary who built many beau­ti­ful things have passed away at the age of 56. Jobs has stepped down as Apple’s CEO only recent­ly and made sure that the tran­si­tion will be smoother. More than Apple, more than the prod­ucts Jobs built it’s his atten­tion to detail that strikes me the most. Excel­lence is what Jobs strived for. If there are two things I have learnt from the man it is this – Para­noia and excel­lence.

The camera is surely better but 'Siri' seems to be the exciting stuff!

Breaking : Apple intros new iPhone 4s with A5 Chipset Retina display same design as the iPhone 4 (PR)

http://igyaan.in/2011/10/breaking-apple-intros-iphone-4s-a5-chipset-retina-display-design-iphone-4/

Apple Launch­es iPhone 4S, iOS 5 & iCloudiPhone 4S Fea­tures Dual-Core A5 Chip, All New Cam­era, Full 1080p HD Video Record­ing & Intro­duces Siri

Beware of these calls

After spam SMS, phishing ISD missed calls menace beckons | Video & Photo Reviews of Gadgets at BGR I

http://www.bgr.in/2011/10/04/after-spam-sms-phishing-isd-missed-calls-menace-beckons/

After spam SMS, phishing ISD missed calls menace beckons | Get Video & Photo Reviews of latest gadget launches at BGR India Website. Get insights from all gadgets shows with a complete expert tech review.

Setting up Scalate with Spring MVC

A week back I tried out using scalate with spring mvc:

The above link talks about just the spring configuration entry. I thought I could add a bit more information.

Get the required libraries

Yeah, this must be obvious. But just to keep things explicit.

• scalate libraries  - scalate-core-1.5.2.jar, scalate-util-1.5.2.jar (I did not know I need the util jar also till I hit an issue) 
• scalate spring mvc integration library - scalate-spring-mvc-1.5.2.jar
• scala jars (hmmm... now that was obvious but yet...) - scala-library-2.9.1.jar, scala-compiler-2.9.1.jar.  Still not sure why the compiler is required!!!

Configure the spring configuration file

I think this is already covered in the above link. It tries to configure a view resolver for scalate templates.


A sample Spring MVC controller

A sample controller which provides some data to the template (I used the mustache based templates which we will see soon).

@Controller
public class ScalatePOCController {

	@RequestMapping("/scalatePOC.html")
	public ModelAndView pocHandler() {
		ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();

		String name = "Superman";
		Product product = new Product();
		product.setId(10l);
		product.setName("Super Belt");
		return modelAndView;
	}

}

A sample template

I used mustache as my templating mechanism. Kind of like the fact that I can use the same template on both server and client side.
Hello Basic POC working!!!

Hello {{name}}!

This is the Product you want!!!
	{{#product}}
		{{id}}
		{{name}}
	{{/product}}

That I thought should get me rolling. When I then ran my tomcat to see the page, I got OOM (OutOfMemoryError). The JVM perm gen space had run out. Looks like all the scala stuff meant I needed a little more memory (could be just my case because I had other stuff also in my project.... so may not happen to all). I increased my perm gen space by giving the following jvm argument.
-XX:MaxPermSize=256M
That did it! I got my simple scalate - spring mvc app running...

JavaScript again... And google- what happened to dart

Introducing Google JS Test - Google Open Source Blog

http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/09/introducing-google-js-test.html

News about Google"s Open Source projects and programs

Quite useful hmmm...

Spice Mi 350 : First 3G Dual SIM Android phone

http://thegadgetfan.com/mobile-smartphones/spice-mi-350-first-3g-dual-sim-android-phone.html

Spice Mobil­i­ty, which gave India its first taste of a dual SIM mobile phone is the first to launch a 3G Dual SIM Android phone. Spice Mi350 is a dual SIM (GSM+GSM) phone pow­ered by Android 2.3 and will cost Rs. 9000. Spice Mi350 has other great spec­i­fi­ca­tions like a 3.5 inch touch screen and 5 megapix­el cam­era. Before we get to that let’s clear what’s first about this dual SIM phone.

Hmmm... Watch out for Amazon!!

Amazon to buy Palm and WebOS?

http://thegadgetfan.com/tablets/amazon-to-buy-palm-and-webos.html

Ama­zon not con­tent with its Android fork is shop­ping for WebOS. Sam­sung has backed out and HTC is still think­ing, leav­ing Ama­zon to grab Palm. In all like­li­hood Ama­zon will buy Palm and WebOS. If and when that hap­pens, the mobile game and tech indus­try dynam­ics will change one more time.

Nokia does not want to put all the eggs in one basket after all! Why? Is it worried about the basket or it's peers.

Nokia to turn mobile landscape on its head with ‘Meltemi’ smartphone OS

http://www.bgr.in/2011/09/29/nokia-to-turn-mobile-landscape-on-its-head-with-%E2%80%98meltemi%E2%80%99-smartphone-os/

Nokia is again devel­op­ing a pro­pri­etary smart­phone oper­at­ing sys­tem after announc­ing this past Feb­ru­ary that it would aban­don both Sym­bian and MeeGo in favor of Microsoft’s Win­dows Phone plat­form. Cit­ing mul­ti­ple anony­mous sources, The Wall Street Jour­nal on Wednes­day report­ed that Nokia’s exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of mobile phones, Mary McDow­ell, is head­ing up the project. Code-named “Meltemi,” the new mobile plat­form is report­ed­ly Linux-based and it is intend­ed for use on low-end smart­phones. BGR has inde­pen­dent­ly con­firmed the report, and we have learned addi­tion­al details that paint an excit­ing new pic­ture of the mobile indus­try should Nokia’s new OS real­ize its poten­tial.

A possibility of having super long lasting and super cheap batteries!

First Energy-Storage Membrane

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/09/first-energy-storage-membrane.html

The new membrane promises greater cost-effectiveness in delivering energy, but also an environmentally-friendly solution. The researchers used a polystyrene-based polymer to deposit the soft, foldable membrane that, when sandwiched between and charged by two metal plates, could store charge at 0.2 farads per square centimeter. This is well above the typical upper limit of 1 microfarad per square centimetre for a standard capacitor.

Microsoft is really making a lot of noise of the right kind nowadays. Watch out!

Sencha Likes IE10: A Native Apps Library for JS is Coming

http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/09/sencha-likes-ie10-a-native-app.php

The big ques­tion among Web devel­op­ers has been whether brows­er and plat­form mak­ers are sim­ply lever­ag­ing HTML5 as an open-ended means to a closed end: specif­i­cal­ly, as a stan­dard lan­guage for pro­duc­ing native apps for mul­ti­ple plat­forms, as opposed to a sin­gle, cross-platform app that plays for all. That ques­tion may very soon be ren­dered moot if and when the lead­ing pro­duc­ers of JavaScript libraries ren­der native-looking con­tent using cross-platform code.

Something about Amazon fire you should know

Fire

http://cdespinosa.posterous.com/fire

I don’t comment on Apple products or development here, but I’m absolutely fascinated by the Amazon Fire announcement today, and it has nothing to do with the iPad. Lost in the “Is it an iPad Killer?” hype is the audacious introduction of the Silk browser. Under the guise of increasing speed (on WiFi…

More news on mongodb.... Now monitoring too...

10gen - MongoDB Monitoring Service (MMS)

http://www.10gen.com/mongodb-monitoring-service

MongoDB Monitoring Service is a publicly available SaaS solution for proactive monitoring of your MongoDB cluster. MMS’s web interface features charts, custom dashboards, and automated alerting; and since it runs in the cloud, MMS requires minimal setup and configuration. Within minutes your devops …

This is good news. Please spread the word

Marketing SMS, calls ban imposed; 100 SMS cap comes into effect

http://www.bgr.in/2011/09/27/marketing-sms-calls-ban-imposed-100-sms-cap-comes-into-effect/

By: Rajat Agraw­al | Sep 27th, 2011 at 11:24AM

Come on... Einstein is also wrong now! Naah...

Neutrinos Travel Faster Than Light, According to One Experiment at CERN

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/09/neutrinos-travel-faster-than-light.html

"We tried to find all pos­si­ble expla­na­tions for this," said report author Anto­nio Ered­i­ta­to of the Opera col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Web sockets rock! I guess you knew that already.

CometD 2.4.0 WebSocket Benchmarks | Webtide Blogs

http://webtide.intalio.com/2011/09/cometd-2-4-0-websocket-benchmarks/

Slightly more than one year has passed since the last CometD 2 benchmarks, and more than three years since the CometD 1 benchmark. During this year we have done a lot of work on CometD, both by adding features and by continuously improving performance and stability to make it faster and more scalabl…

Sencha is getting really serious about using it as the chosen mobile app development platform. Now cloud services for syncing data on the cloud for backup and sharing... And image resizing as well.... Hmmm... Have to check out the pricing though.

Sencha.io Sync Open Beta and App Contest Extension

http://www.sencha.com/blog/senchaio-sync-open-beta-and-app-contest-extension/#date:18:00

Sep­tem­ber 19, 2011 | Aditya Ban­sod

Some really cool photos under water. Although some of them don't feel real, others are really good!

Showcase of Fabulous Underwater Photography

http://www.noupe.com/photography/showcase-of-fabulous-underwater-photography.html

When in search of inspi­ra­tion, one recipe that tends to always pro­duce suc­cess­ful results is to look at the world around you in a dif­fer­ent light, so to speak. This flipped per­spec­tive can often lead our think­ing and cre­ative process­es out of the box, as we see things dif­fer­ent­ly than we nor­mal­ly would. Pho­tog­ra­phers are fan­tas­tic at doing this with a sim­ple loca­tion change. By tak­ing their sub­jects and sub­merg­ing them in water, or seek­ing them out under the sea, pho­tog­ra­phers make some truly stun­ning cap­tures.

Enjoy the free app of the day!

Amazon Appstore now available for Android users in India

http://www.bgr.in/2011/09/20/amazon-appstore-now-available-for-android-users-in-india/

Ama­zon App­store is now avail­able for Android users in India. If you own an Android smart­phone or a tablet then you sim­ply gotta hit this link to get start­ed with the Ama­zon App­store. You can down­load thou­sands of free apps from there. Stay tuned in as we’ll be post­ing our views on this store short­ly!

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