Samsung launches the Galaxy Note 800 in India for a hefty price

Samsung has launched its latest Android based tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1, in India. As usual for Samsung, they have changed the name of the tablet to Galaxy Note 800 for the Indian market.

Other than the name, the Galaxy Note 800 is identical to the model sold internationally. 

However, it does come with a very hefty price tag. Samsung is selling the Note 800 in India for ₹39,900, which is approximately $720, an enormous $221 more than the international model that sells for $499.

In comparison, the new iPad starts at ₹30,500 ($548) for the base 16GB Wi-Fi only model and ₹38,900 ($699) for the base 16GB 3G model. Having said that, Samsung does enjoy tremendous presence and brand value in Asian markets such as India compared to Apple, so it may help offset the high price tag to some extent.

LG launches world’s first 84-inch, 4K 3D TV in Korea

LG has launched the world’s first 84-inch ‘Ultra Definition’ 4K 3D TV in Korea, with plans to release in international markets soon. This gigantic panel has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160, which is basically four times the resolution of a 1080p display.




The TV, which is named 84LM9600, comes with LG’s Cinema 3D and a whole bunch of other features with 3D in the name. You also get a pair of passive 3D glasses for viewing the 3D content.

While on paper, this display sounds fantastic, but the reality is that there is very little 4K resolution content available at the moment, which means most of the time you’ll be looking at 1080p content quadrupled to its original size, on an 84-inch panel. This, along with the 25 million won (US$22,105) price tag, makes the whole thing hard to swallow. But if you’re someone who has loads of money to spend and want the absolute best TV to watch all the videos you shot using your RED Scarlet camera then this should make a great buy.

The LG 84LM9600 is out in South Korea right now and will be available in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America starting in September.

Is Annualization killing Creativity in Games?

“It almost seems like this games are being manufactured a product line”

A lot has been said and written about how the gaming industry is so reliant on the success of established franchises. We’re being served sequel after sequel by the big publishers as the number of few IPs dwindles,  reduced to  the domain of the indie developers plying their trade via digital distribution platforms. However, my recent trip to the annual Xbox spring showcase made me realize that there’s some more serious problem within the sequel culture that’s starting to become a trend in the industry. Microsoft flagship racing series – Forza Motorsport, which seemed to have settled into a pattern of releasing a game every two years, will now seemingly, do so every year.

Talking a page out of the Call of Duty book, the Forza franchise is now set to developing by to  different studios i.e. Turn 10, the original developers of the Forza Motorsport sim racers, who released Forza Motorsport last year; and the playground Games, who will release ForzaHorizon – a more arcade-like approach to  the series,  this year. A near identical scenario is playing out at Codmasters, who released the rally focused Dirt 3 last year, and is set to release the more action-oriented Dirt Showdown this year.
Now, you may argue that annualization isn’t exactly new to the gaming industry; the likes of Need for speed and several sport franchises have been doing it for well over a decade now and with much success. Well, yes and no. Sports franchises like FIFA and NBA 2k are sort of the exception to the rule. Such is the following for these sports that simply new rosters and incremental gameplay changes are enough to prompt annual interest. Things haven’t worked about quite so well Need for Speed though. Only once in two years does EA manage to put a solid NFS game, with garbage like Pro street, undercover, and The Run shoved in between.

                           That said, you could still make a case for racing franchises being annualized, since they’re fairly technology driven and don’t really follow a set premise, allowing developers to put out something different each year. You could even make a case for annualization of Call of Duty, since the games made by two studios have no connection to one another. But what happens when a franchise with a rich backstory and a reputation for delivering great characters and memorable locations goes down the annual route?

              This is where Assassin’s creed finds itself. Ever since the phenomenal success of Assassin’s creed II, Ubisoft has trying to hold tight and replicate that success every year. And grated they’ve succeeded to an extend because the games that followed it weren’t bad by any means, but they didn’t really moved the franchise forward either. There are reports over, 1000 people working on Assassin’s  Creed alone, and it almost seems like that these games are now manufactured on factory production line rather than being the result of creative process.

             I hope Assassin’s Creed III proves me wrong that it reinvigorates the series the way Assassin’s Creed II did, because you can only be satisfied with the same formula year after year so long before it starts to get old and franchise fatigue starts to set in. Just ask Activision; they made that mistake with Guitar Hero.

Samsung has sold 10 million Galaxy Notes worldwide

During the US announcement of Samsung’s latest Galaxy Note 10.1, we found out that the Korean giant has sold 10 million Galaxy Note devices worldwide. The news was brought by Younghee Lee – Samsung’s SVP and head of global marketing.

The impressive number includes sales of both the international Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 and its US sibling, the AT&T flavored, LTE sporting I717. Given that the T-Mobile version of the phoneblet has been on sale for only a week now, we don’t believe that it has contributed heavily to the above sales number.

While 10 million units in a little less than a year might not appear like much by Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S family standards, it is nevertheless an impressive feat for a device, which many branded as unnecessary when launched. The truth is that Samsung put the use of stylus as an input device back in fashion with its Galaxy Note family.

And now that everyone has noticed, we can reasonably expect the upcoming sequel to do even better than the original. What do you think?

Google Maps gets traffic info for over 130 new cities

Yesterday, Google added live traffic to a host of new locations including some 130 smaller US cities and several South American capitals.

Besides the capitals of Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama, live traffic has been improved and expanded in a host of countries in Europe and America.

The new updates are, of course, available across both mobile and browser-based Google Maps platforms, and Google has implemented a feature which allows you to check typical traffic trends for a given location. This is great if you’re going to a new city, and want to see what kind of traffic you can expect while you’re there.

Check out the feature in action here:

Here’s to hoping we’ll see Google Maps with traffic in even more areas soon!

HP, Acer, Lenovo eye Windows 8 tablets

HP, Acer, Lenovo are expected to release Windows 8 tablets using Intel's most power-efficient chips. Overall, Intel expects more than 20 tablet and convertible designs based on its chips.

Hewlett-Packard, Acer, and Lenovo, among others, are expected to bring out Windows 8 tablets using Intel's latest system-on-a-chip.HP and Acer are working on designs, a source familiar with the vendors' plans told CNET. In addition, details leaked today about a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2, which will also use Intel's Clover Trail system-on-a-chip (SoC).These Intel-based Windows 8 designs are distinctly different from Windows RT tablets that will use ARM chips. Windows RT devices use a version of Windows 8 that does not offer backward-compatibility with the millions of existing Windows software programs. Intel-based systems offer that compatibility.And this is likely just a small sampling of Intel-based Windows 8 tablets slated to hit on October 26, when Windows 8 launches. "We are... tracking more than 20 Windows 8 tablet designs based on our low-power and low-cost Clover Trail Atom SoC in addition to a number of core-based tablets," Intel's CEO Paul Otellini said on July 17.

                      Laptop-tablet hybrids, or so-called convertibles such as Asus' Taichi, are also expected. Taichi uses a faster but less power-efficient Intel Ivy Bridge chip, the same chip that powers ultrabooks and Apple's MacBook Air.Throw the already announced Microsoft Surface Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro products into the mix, and it's obvious the market will get crowded quickly.

                       The ThinkPad Tablet 2 will sport a 10.1-inch IPS 1,366x768 display, weigh in at about 650 grams (1.4 pounds), have a thickness of 9.8mm (0.39 inches), and include an HSPA+ broadband option, according to Techin5

In this unique workshop, we show you how to create a secret partition on your USB pen drive that can be accessed only on your PC.

There is no simple way to partition USB pen drives, as they show up as a removable drive on the PC. In order to do so, you need to trick the operating system into recognizing the USB pen drive as a fixed hard drive. To do this, you will need to create your own set of drivers. In this workshop, we will show you how you can partition a USB pen drive by tricking the operating system into believing that it is handling a fixed hard drive. Doing so, you can create multiple partitions and store your private data on it. Only the first partition will be visible and the other partitions will not show up on any PC other than your own. In this way, you can secretly store your personal data away from your friends and family, and also you can avoid viruses affecting this data when plugged in on another computer. To do this, all you need is a simple universal USB pen drive driver, which can be downloaded from http:// www.mediafire.com/?oqlgdvcymzz. Download the archive, uncompress it to a folder on your Desktop and get started. Don’t forget to backup the contents of your pen drive as it will be formatted.

Step 1: Plug your pen drive into your PC’s USB port. Next, right-click on ‘My Computer’ and click on ‘Manage’ in the context menu. Click on ‘Device Manager’ on the left pane. This will show all your hardware devices connected to your PC. Now on the right pane, scroll down to ‘Disk Drives’ and you should see your pen drive connected here. Right-click on the pen drive and select ‘Properties’

Step 2: In the properties window that just opened up, click on the ‘Details’ tab. From the scroll down menu under ‘Property’, choose ‘Device Instance Path’. You should see a string of characters highlighted in the ‘Value’ window below, which should read something like ‘USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_&PROD…..’. Right‑click on this value and select ‘Copy’.

Now close all the windows without saving changes.

Step 3: Now open the folder that you uncompressed after downloading the universal USB flash drive driver. In this folder, find and open the file named ‘cfadisk.inf’ in ‘Notepad’ or any test editor you prefer (Notepad++ is ideal. Download from notepad-plus-plus.org).

Step 4: Now locate the words ‘device_ instance_id_goes_here’, which is available at line 26. You need to replace these words with the string you just copied to the clipboard from the Device Manager.

Save the file and close the editor.

Step 5: Now go back to the ‘Device Manager’ page (repeat step 1). This time, click on the ‘Driver’ tab and click the button ‘Update driver’.

Step 6: On the next window, choose ‘Browse my computer for driver software’ when the system asks how you want to search for the driver software. Then on the next window, choose ‘Let me pick from a list of drivers…. ‘.

Step 7: On the next window, uncheck the box ‘Show compatible hardware’ and click on the ‘Have disk button’. Now click on ‘Browse’ and from the universal USB driver folder on your Desktop, select the ‘cfadisk.inf’ file and click on the ‘Open button’, followed by the ‘OK’ and then ‘Next’ buttons on the previous windows.

Step 8: An update driver warning message should show up stating that you are trying to install a driver which is not compatible with your hardware. Ignore the message and click on ‘Yes’. Don’t worry; it is safe to do so. The system will start installing the driver and show up another warning that the driver is not a verified or authentic driver. Ignore this one too and click on ‘Install this driver software anyway’. Let the system update the driver and you will receive a message of a successful driver update.

Note: you can use this modified driver for this pen drive only. To use another pen drive, you will need to perform the whole process again.

Step 9: That’s all you needed to do. Once you are back to the ‘Computer Management’ window, click on ‘Disk Management’ from the left pane and start partitioning your pen drive as you would with a regular hard drive. You can create multiple partitions.

Note: You can access all the partitions on the pen drive only from your PC. Other PCs will only be able to see the first partition. Make a copy of the driver on the first partition of the pen drive and you can install it on other PCs in case you need to access the other partitions.

           In this way, you can plug in the pen drive on a shared PC without allowing access to your data. Others won't know that the other partition even exists another. To reset everything back to normal, simply delete the partitions and uninstall/delete the driver for the pen drive from the Device Manager.

Microsoft Surface to launch along with Windows 8 on October 26

Microsoft has revealed in its annual report filed this week that the anticipated Windows 8 based Surface tablet will be released along with the operating system on October 26.

So far we only knew that the tablet would go on sale sometime after the launch of the OS but it’s good to know that the tablet will also be releasing on the same day.In case you are not aware, the Surface is Microsoft’s upcoming tablet designed completely in-house by Microsoft. There will be two versions of it, the Surface, running Windows RT on an ARM-based NVIDIA Tegra processor and the Surface Pro, running Windows 8 on an Intel Ivy Bridge processor. The Surface has a 10.1-inch HD display, whereas the Surface Pro ups the resolution to FullHD. The tablet has an molded magnesium casing called VaporMg with an integrated kickstand. Microsoft will also be providing a unique soft cover for the tablet that has built-in capacitive keyboard and trackpad.

No price information is known at the moment but it is speculated that the base Surface will start at $499, same as the new iPad.

OS X Mountain Lion Released

In their sales call yesterday where they announced their third quarter results, CEO Tim Cook also mentioned that the next version of OS X, Mountain Lion, was released on July 25.

Until now, all we knew was that Mountain Lion was coming some time in July, although rumors were circulating that the release will be some time this week. Now that you have the official confirmation, you can look forward to downloading it from the Mac App Store, for a very attractive price of $19.99. Just like with Lion, you will be able to purchase Mountain Lion once and install it on all your Macs. Also, if you bought a new Mac after June 11, 2012, you are eligible for a free upgrade.

In case you are wondering what’s new in this update, Mountain Lion brings about 200 new features, which includes iCloud integration, iMessages (free messaging to iOS devices and other Macs), Notification Center, Gatekeeper (prevents unsigned apps from installing), Reminders, Notes, Power Nap (checks for updates, mails, does backup while the system is in standby), Dictation, Facebook integration, Game Center, improved Safari and several features targeted at the Chinese audience.

You can find out more about it here.

Razer announces Ouroboros, wireless customizable gaming mouse

Razer has announced the latest entrant in its gaming series of mice, called the Ouroboros. Keeping with their tradition of naming their products after extinct or mythical creatures, the Ouroboros mouse shares its name with an ancient symbol depicting a serpent swallowing its own tail and forming a circle.

                The Ouroboros has got quite an interesting design. It has a customizable design that reminds one of the Cyborg R.A.T.7, although it is not quite as customizable. What you can do on the Ouroboros is adjust the length of the back arch, making the mouse longer. The arch also tilts so you can have a shape that fits your palm best.The side panels are also removable and you can choose from two types depending upon how you hold your mouse while gaming. Those with a claw grip tend to hold the mouse on the sides using their fingertips. They can use the standard side grip on the mouse. Those who use a palm grip can use the extended winged finger rest panels to rest their thumb and pinkie.

                           Unlike the R.A.T.7, the Ouroboros is ambidextrous, so both left as well has right handed gamers can use it equally well.

                     
                        The Ouroboros is also a wireless mouse, rare for devices meant for gaming but Razer says that the mouse has been designed to work well either way. Also, if you must use a cable, you can.The Ouroboros also supports 4G dual sensor system up to 8200DPI, that supports both surface calibration and customized cutoff. There is a switch at the bottom that lets you disable the side keys while gaming. The Ouroboros runs on a single AA cell that provides up to 12 hours of continuous battery life. You can use the provided dock to charge the mouse when not in use.

The Razer Ouroboros will be available by the fourth quarter of this year and will set you back by $129.99.

BOLT-One Cable for All Devices

The universal standard Thunderbolt can replace all current PC ports and is four times faster than USB 3.0. Macs already have it; PCs will get in only in 2012

PC users have dreamed of this for years: fewer cables on their devices, and higher transfer speeds for all data. This could become reality with Thunderbolt. Instead of fidgeting around with different cables and standards for HDMI, VGA, Display Port, DVI, eSATA, USB or FireWire, the computer user will be able to connect just one Thunderbolt cable. And in addition, Thunderbolt also achieves much higher data transfer rates than the USB 3.0.

Thunderbolt is coming to Windows

Thunderbolt has only available in around a dozen devices till now, since Apple has been the only computer maker using it. But PC firms are following suit and even Windows computers will come with Thunderbolt in 2012. Large corporations like Acer and Asus want to first build Thunderbolt into their Ultrabooks. In order to successfully launch them in the market next year, the work on Thunderbolt has already been going on for a long time behind the scenes. Intel first introduced the technology in 2009 under the codename Light Peak. The idea then was of an interface that would work between computers, monitors, peripherals and entertainment electronics. As the name suggests, Intel had planned for an optical transmission medium, but in the official introduction of the Thunderbolt standard at the beginning of 2011, a traditional electronic process with copper wires was used because of cost considerations. However, one of the strengths of Thunderbolt is that the optical transfer option has not been shelved entirely. A layer has explicitly been specified in the protocol for electrical and/or optical transfer. The transportation medium is defined as an independent layer in the stack. Intel has already communicated that a second generation of Thunderbolt devices will use the optical transfer technology. This will require fiberglass cables, but all controllers and connections that are already available with the first generation devices should also work with optical cables without any problems. One huge advantage of the change will be that cables up to 10 meters long will be possible, instead of the 3-meter maximum in the current specification.

Flexible distribution of data streams

What is unique about Thunderbolt is that it uses parallel data channels that work in both directions simultaneously. The full bandwidth capacity is thus available in both directions, and there is no division of capacity between upstream and downstream devices. The two bidirectional channels can transfer a total of 10 GB per second each. Since you can connect up to six devices on one cable, the speed will be divided if several devices simultaneously send data to and fro along the same channels. The first benchmarks from the CIS(Cyber info Scripter) Test Center show that this maximum rating has not been achieved in reality. We could coax a superb transfer rate of 825 MBps from a Promise hard disk array. This was still disappointing, considering the maximum theoretical rate of 1,250 MBps. As it turns out, other components are the limiting factor here, like for example the RAID controller, which causes bottlenecks. Thunderbolt has even more potential though. In 2015, Intel plans to push through with 50 GBps per channel, and then in 2019 up to 100 GBps. A look at the transfer protocol architecture shows

that Thunderbolt uses Display Port and PCIe, two existing and popular standards, as the basis for its own metaprotocol. For computers, connected devices and installed programs, it appears as though known protocols are being used. The Thunderbolt protocol stack primarily ensures that the data packed together is transferred efficiently and lands at the correct spot. Besides traffic routing, Thunderbolt also offers one or more other user-friendly functions. Hot Plugging, the concept of connecting and disconnecting devices while they are running, is something that we now take for granted. Still, a lot of work is required in the protocol stack to allow for this kind of user behavior. The heart of the Thunderbolt protocol is the transport layer, which ensures that the connected devices are running synchronously. Another advantage of Thunderbolt cables is that they can also be used to provide power to connected devices. Intel specifies up to 10 Watts per Thunderbolt cable.

Speedy socket for everything The expensive cables have chips

 embedded at either end to actively manage data traffic.

Cheaper with new chips

What momentarily overshadows the excellent impression made by Thunderbolt is that devices and even cables are expensive. Although they are mechanically identical to existing Display Port cables, Thunderbolt cable ends have active circuitry which makes their production extremely expensive. Hence, Apple sells a 2-meter long Thunderbolt cable for a steep US $50. First-generation Thunderbolt controller chips are acknowledged to be too expensive in comparison to other technologies, but that situation will improve over time. With the next generation of Thunderbolt controllers, Intel will offer a standard model (codenamed Cactus Ridge) as well as a low end version (Port Ridge). At 5 x 6 mm, it measures just one third of its more expensive sibling and will represent the breakthrough for Thunderbolt technology in reasonably priced computers.

Jelly Bean SDK officially released

It seems that Google are wasting no time in getting the development kit for the latest version of Android into the hands of developers.

Less than a month after Android 4.1 was announced at Google I/O, the new SDK allows developers to optimize their applications with a wide variety of new features. Among the things Google have warned developers to look out for is taking care when optimizing a particular application to work with the larger 7 inch screen size, such as the one found on the Nexus 7.The Google devs also urge application developers to start taking advantage of the new richer notification styles introduced in JB, as well hardware accelerated rendering to take advantage of the new framerate optimizations.

For more info on developing for Android 4.1, check out Android Developers. Meanwhile, the new SDK can be downloaded from here.

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