Samsung demonstrates the Galaxy Camera

Samsung released a 13 minute-long walkthrough for its Galaxy Camera Android-powered digicam. It’s really worth it if you don’t have a store with a demo unit, but you are considering getting the device.

In case you need a refresh, the Galaxy Camera features a similar hardware to the Galaxy S III flagship smartphone (4.8” LCD HD screen, a quad-core 1.4GHz processor, Mali-400MP GPU, 1GB RAM) and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
On the camera side, the Galaxy Camera offers a 16.3MP sensor and a wide-angle lens with 21x optical zoom. Xenon flash, image stabilization and 1080p video recording complete the list. You can find the full specs here.
The device offers everything but telephony. It has a SIM slot though and you can use a data-SIM for sharing your photos on the go.

Here is the promised video:

Learning to Build A Gaming PC

Your Gaming PC Options

There are two ways to get into hardcore gaming fun. The first way obviously is to by a Gaming PC. There are several companies that make these, the big names being Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Velocity Micro and iBUYPOWER. These companies all put together great computers for gaming, but you pay a premium for them. You can pay anywhere from two thousand dollars to ten thousand and more. Why so much? First, because they use premium parts and second, you’re buying a brand name.

That leads us to the second way to get into hardcore gaming, building the PC yourself. The truth is that you can build the exact same computers that those gaming computer companies build, for less money. The problem with building your own, however, is that you have to have some basic knowledge, and you have to do the research.

Motherboard and Processor

To learn how to build a gaming PC, you need to know what to look for while you shop for parts. You will need to familiarize yourself with various terms like “front side bus” “socket” “chipset” and “HSF”(heat sink/fan). Let’s start from the core and work our way out under the assumption that budget isn’t a factor. We’ll start with the processor. You have to decide whether to go Intel or AMD, the two main processor (CPU) manufacturers. Reading up on each one, especially user reviews, will give you good information upon which to base your choice. Your choice of chipset will also determine your processor pick.


you go with AMD, you’ll be looking at a range of chipsets, from AMD 770 to AMD 890FX. On the Intel side, you’ll have to go with either P55 or X58. Chipset and processor need to be compatible, and you’ll have to do some research here. As an example, we’ll build a top of the line Intel set, since that’s what most gaming PC companies are going with these days.

Using an X58 for our i7 980X processor, we want to choose a motherboard that will complement the Processor – you can’t chose just any X58 motherboard. With gaming computers, the key is to get high-end components that can handle the demand that modern games require, otherwise you’ll be replacing parts in no time. Now, there is some opinion bias when it comes to who makes the best motherboards, but you’d be pretty safe with an ASUS, EVGA, MSI or Gigabyte board. Those are some of the most common boards found in gaming systems, but there are other nice ones too.

Got to Have RAM

Next you’ll want to get RAM. The things you are looking for here are the number of gigabytes you want and the RAM's speed. For 64-bit OS systems (which you’ll want, by the way), 4GB of RAM is probably enough, but we recommend that you go with at least 6GB or 8GB. You’ll definitely want to go with DDR3, and it ranges in speed from 800 to 2133MHz. 1333 to 1600MHz are very common speeds, but if it’s within your budget to go to the higher speeds, you’ll be happier with the result. Just remember that with these speeds you want to make sure that the motherboard’s memory bus speeds can handle the same or you’ll be bottlenecked at the lower speed of the two. Also, like everything else, you want to get high-end memory from manufacturers like Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, etc.

The other RAM specification you will want to look at is the CAS Latency. CAS latency is the time it takes to access and process information on your RAM. 5 is common for decently priced memory, however, the extremely fast 2.5 CAS Latency is a better choice, if almost twice as expensive. You also want to consider RAM channels. For a gaming rig, running 6GB (3X2GB modules) of DDR3 1600 (PC3-10700) in triple channel with a CAS Latency of 2.5 is an excellent choice.

GPUs, The Visual Experience

Graphics cards are the main muscle in a gaming PC. The main contenders are Nvidia and ATI (which is actually AMD as of 2007). Which one you go with is mostly a preference thing. There are fans from both parties that’ll tell you why one is the better than the other, but the end result is that you just want something that’ll play all your games on the highest graphics settings with high frame rates. The main thing you want to watch out for is what version of DirectX it supports. The reason is that if you have a game that uses only DX 11 features and your card only supports up to 9 or 10, you’ll have to upgrade to be able to run those features. In some cases you may not be able to play it at all without upgrading. For our example, we’ll go with the current top of the line card, the ATI Radeon HD 5970.

Dual graphics cards are quite common in gaming computers but not necessary if you have a nice single card. SLI and CrossFireX setups will obviously improve game play since they are running 2 to 4 cards simultaneously but buying that many cards is expensive. If that’s the route you want to go, you’ll also need to get a motherboard that can handle this setup, which is pricey too. One with 3 or more graphics card slots is best so that you can space 2 cards out. If they’re right next to each other you may have heating issues. There can be space issues with SLI/Crossfire systems so your best bet is to get a full size tower.

Everything Else

Once you've addressed graphics, you’ll want a good hard drive. Ensure that you are using a Sata 3 or 6 if your board supports it. There's no point in running a Sata 1.5, half the rate of a 3. Western Digital, Samsung and Seagate make some of the best ones but there are a few others. Western Digital’s VelociRaptor will give you 10,000 RPMs, which is quite a bit faster than the standard and typical 7200 RPMs. Any faster and you’ll probably want to go with an SSD (solid state drive). SSDs are fast but quite expensive and there have been a number of issues with them. As for the example, we’ll go with a pair of 600 GB Western Digital VelociRaptors.

Next on the list is an optical drive or two -- and you can go as fancy as you want with that. Since technology is moving to Blu-rays, we’ll put a pair of 10X Blu-ray RW, DVD+/-RW combo drives in the example. tying is all together are the power supply and tower. Towers are mostly a preference thing. Cheap ones will probably get the job done, but the more expensive ones will have convenience features like the ability to hide your cables. They will also usually look better. Just pick one out that you like and fits all your hardware. Mid-size towers are more compact but can have issues when it comes to SLI/Crossfire, so you may want to go with the full-size tower. We’ll put a full-size in the example to allow plenty of room for upgrades later on.

For a power supply you just want to make sure that it's robust enough to easily cover your PC, monitor and anything you plug into it that doesn’t have its own power source. The example we're building will probably require at least a 750 Watt PSU. If we decided to put a Crossfire board in it down the road, and add other things like liquid cooling, cold cathode lights, a front bay LCD display, a fan controller, multi-displays and overclocking, we’d have to up the power supply accordingly. Don’t skimp on the PSU because it’s not worth risking all your hardware.

And That is That

There you have it -- building a gaming PC in a nutshell. Obviously, you’ll have to get all your peripherals, like a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Since those are purely preference, we won’t get into them; just get what fits your style. As a brief recap, get what you want but watch for the key compatibility issues we mentioned. All that's left after that is to plug in and enjoy.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City coming to Android and iOS

n celebration of the 10 year anniversary of 80′s style car thievery and gunplay, Rockstar is re-releasing Grand Theft Audo: Vice City for Android and iOS on December 6th.

It seems like just yesterday we were busy rolling through Miami on a killing spree to the tune of Roxette.

The 10th Anniversary Edition features native high-res graphics for mobile devices, updated character models and lighting effects, fully customizable controls, and precision targeting and firing options.

Rockstar has also released a list of compatible devices:

Apple iOS Devices: iPad, iPhone 4, 4S & 5, iPod touch 4th & 5th Generation

Android Phones: Motorola Razr, Razr Maxx, Razr Maxx HD, Motorola Atrix, Motorola Photon, Motorola Droid Bionic, HTC Rezound, HTC One X, HTC One S, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Sensation, HTC Droid Incredible 2, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy Note 1 & 2, Samsung S2, Samsung Galaxy R, Sony Xperia Play, Sony Xperia S, P, T & TL, Sony Walkman Z Series Media Player, Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 4

Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, LG Optimus Pad, Medion Lifetab, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 / 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Sony Tablet P, Toshiba Thrive, HTC Flyer, Google Nexus 7, Google Nexus 10

This is most likely not a complete list of compatible devices, as Rockstar was probably unable to test all Android devices out there.

Look for GTA: Vice City on the Play Store and on iTunes for $4.99 starting December 6th.

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MasterCard with LCD Screen and Touch Keypad

Mastercard has launched the  next generation credit card with LCD screen and touch keypad in collaboration with Standard Chartered Bank Singapore and claims to be Singapore’s first interactive payment card, or security token card, that features the next generation  MasterCard’s Display Card technology.

How many times have you been asked for the One Time Password (OTP) when using online banking and online payment portals? Usually an OTP is the six digit security code sent to your mobile phone by your bank or credit card company,which you can type online to confirm and process your online payment.

The new interactive Mastercard DisplayCards allows users to generate and display the One Time Password in the LCD display instantly. Thus, the token generated by these “Authentication Cards” can be used to authenticate online transactions securely. They claim that in future the card could display more information like credit balance, reward points etc.

The MasterCard Display Card is manufactured by NagraID Security and functions like a normal credit, debit or ATM card in every other way.

Google said to be working on an AirPlay alternative for Android and Google TV

Apple’s AirPlay is a fantastic feature. You connect your Apple TV and then you just beam content from your iOS and OS X device wirelessly with no setup required. It just works. Unfortunately, it just works on Apple’s devices

Google is now said to be working on a similar feature for it’s own set of products, namely, Android and Google TV. Unlike Apple’s version, however, Google’s service will be open and will allow other software and hardware vendors to implement it in their products.

There is not much known about it at this point but once launched you should be able to beam content from your Android device to, say, your Google TV or a standard TV connected to something like Nexus Q. I’m not sure why Google is bothering with this, though, as they recently included Miracast support in Android 4.2, which pretty much does the same.

Rockstar releases new trailer for Grand Theft Auto V

Rockstar has released a new trailer for the upcoming GTA V. The video does not feature any gameplay sequences but gives a look at the general setting of the game.

GTA V will take place in the fictional location called Los Santos in San Andreas. It will be Rockstar’s biggest open world game yet and feature three new protagonists, all of whom will be playable. The three characters have different stories that intertwine as the game progress and eventually you will be switching between the characters as they work together to accomplish a single goal.

GTA V will be released in spring 2013. Till then, you can watch the trailer below.

How Parents & Children Actually Use Smartphones

According to a new survey conducted recently, an interesting thing comes into picture that youth of today do have one main thing in common with their parents, and that is technology, specifically smartphones in one to many ways.

As per the survey, Canadian parents and children revealed that about 24% of parents owned Android while 31% of children owned Android as their smartphone. 32% of parents and 38% of children owned Apple iPhone while 30% and 25% of parents and children owned BlackBerry.

This clearly shows how close the percentage of using same type smartphones, well to give more better facts and figures about the findings, our friends at OnlinePsychologyDegree.net come up with an interesting infographic.

Google announces new Acer Chromebook

After announcing the aggressively priced $249 Samsung Chromebook last month, Google has now announced an even more aggressively priced Chromebook

This new model is manufactured by Acer and is sold for just $199 in the US. For that price you get a machine that has a 11.6-inch display, an Intel Core processor, 320GB hard drive with additional 100GB free storage on Google Drive, 3.5 hour battery life and of course, Google’s Chrome OS.

According to Google, the machine boots up in 18 seconds and is capable of streaming 1080p YouTube videos. If you’re someone who only uses their computer for browsing the web then this can be a pretty solid purchase.

The Acer Chromebook will go on sale in the US on the Google Play, BestBuy.com and select Best Buy stores starting today. In the UK, it will be sold on Google Play, Amazon UK, PC World and Currys. It is supposed to be released in other countries soon.

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Sony launches Full HD 3D Home Cinema Projector

Sony has launched its latest full HD 3D home cinema projector, the VPL-HW50ES. With the already competitive VPL-HW30ES making strides in 3D home projection, Sony has ensured that this new model encapsulates the latest technologies and delivers a premium 3D home cinema experience that is ahead of the market.

With a plethora of innovative new features that draw on Sony’s latest technologies, the VPL-HW50ES sits at the forefront of advanced Home Cinema Projection. This includes utilising an adapted version of Sony’s clever ‘Reality Creation’ technology which was developed for Sony’s EISA Award winning VPL-VW1000ES 4K home cinema projector. The technology ‘Reality Creation’ employs an originally developed digital signal processing algorithm to restore any information lost when packaging from original content to disc, recreating high quality, colour-rich, full HD images.

High brightness of 1,700 lumens has been achieved by improving the light efficiency of the lamp and optimising the optical block. Together with a new Bright Cinema and Bright TV Mode, the VPL-HW50ES achieves 30 per cent greater brightness than the previous model without any loss in colour reproduction.

Sony’s new contrast enhancer technology and optimised Advanced Iris 3 algorithm combine to give the projector a dynamic contrast ratio of more than 100,000:1. The contrast enhancer works by analysing each scene and then automatically optimising contrast in real-time by compensating for dark and bright parts of the image. Additional features such as Sony’s 3D crosstalk reduction system and SXRD panel technology result in 3D images which are stunningly detailed and high in definition.

“The earlier launch of the VPL-HW30ES set a high standard for the home projection market last year. With the announcement of the VPL-HW50ES, we’re confident that Sony has raised that bar again, setting a new benchmark for home cinema projection,” said Mr. Satoru Munetaka, Deputy General Manager, Professional Solution Division, Sony India “ HW50ES has an “Reality Creation “function using Sony unique algorism technology to reproduce “real HD picture”. We are sure end user can enjoy true vivid and crisp picture than ever

As well as encompassing Sony’s latest technologies, the VPL-HW50ES also features a number of functionality upgrades that make it more user-friendly. These include a built-in 3D sync transmitter, a wider lens shift that makes its vertical shift range become +/- 71 per cent and whisper-quiet fan noise suppressed to a mere 21dB.

The VPL-HW50ES is priced at Rs. 259,900 and is available in black and white colour, across India through all authorized distributors