Best Payment Gateway for Indian - Easy Integration and high success rate - PayUMoney

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* 5 Star Support - You will be given with one dedicated support executive whom you can reach for any kind of help and support. its amazing so far.

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* Seamless Integration: Are you worried about improving checkout experience? Well, PayUMoney provides the seamless integration, which means customer can just stay on your website or mobile app and completes the checkout. It eliminates the traditional way of checkout where customer gets redirected to payment gateway and come back to the checkout page.

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Features of Windows 10

Microsoft unveiled the first details of its Windows 10 operating system Wednesday, which they say will span devices from PCs and game consoles to smartphones and tablets.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive vice president of the company's operating systems group, says the latest rendition of Windows focused on "more personal computing."

Myerson says Windows 10 targets three pillars: "mobility of the experience," trust and "the right interaction at the right time," hinting the platform can be controlled by mouse, touch or even gaze.

Among the new features is the introduction of a successor to the Internet Explorer Web browser, dubbed Project Spartan. The browser, which will work across multiple devices, includes a note-taking feature for annotating webpages, a reading mode and built-in support for PDF files.

The Start menu appears to be a hybrid of the classic Windows PC interface and the tile-based presentation of applications, allowing users to go full screen with the Start menu for more information.

Microsoft will also add Cortana, the personal digital assistant users communicate with through voice, to PCs running Windows 10. Users will be able to ask Cortana to pull up PowerPoint slides, send e-mails or search for photos and other information.

Microsoft will integrate Skype across all devices, and include Office programs Word, Excel and PowerPoint on all Windows 10 phones and tablets. It will also feature an Xbox app where users will find their games or follow the activity of friends.

All owners of devices running Windows 7, Windows 8 or 8.1 will get a free upgrade to Windows 10 for the first year.

"We want to move from people needing Windows, to choosing Windows, to loving Windows," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

While PCs and mobile devices dominated the event, Microsoft offered an incredible glimpse into the future with a jump into holographic computing. The company introduced the HoloLens, a virtual reality style headset that allows its users to view holograms in the real world. Demos showed users watching Netflix programs on a virtual screen, or manipulating three-dimensional images.

Windows 10 is the first significant upgrade to the platform since the arrival of Satya Nadella as CEO last year. During his tenure, Nadella has made a strong push toward mobile, enterprise and the cloud as well as thrown support toward the company's popular Xbox video game brand.

The introduction of Windows 10 is the first step in Microsoft realizing Nadella's vision, says FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives. "This is about Nadella leading Microsoft into its next stage of growth away from the PC and towards a cloud, virtualized world which can connect all devices on one platform."

Features of Android Lollipop which aren't there in Android Kitkat

1. Tap and go

2. Use the flashlight

Flashlight apps have always been popular on Android, so Google has decided to roll one into Lollipop to save you the trouble of having download a third-party one. Pull down the notification drawer then tap the top bar to reveal the flashlight app alongside other options like airplane mode. The app will only appear if your device has an LED flash alongside its camera.

3. Prioritize your apps

Android 5.0 Lollipop lets you set up a list of important apps that are allowed to disturb you even when most aren't. Head to Settings -> Sound & notification ->App notifications and you can choose to block each app or mark it as a priority one. Tap the volume slider on your device to activate priority mode indefinitely or for one hour (a star will appear in the status bar).

4. Deal with notifications from the lock screen

In Lollipop all of your app notifications appear on the lock screen ready for viewing. Not only that, but you can interact with them as well. Swipe to dismiss, tap to reply and so on, depending on the app in question. A double-tap gets you into the relevant app. Head to Settings -> Sound & notification -> When device is locked if you want to hide sensitive alerts.

5. Pin apps

If you want to hand over your device to one of your kids or a friend, you can "pin" them inside one single app. First, activate the feature via Settings ->Security -> Screen pinning. Then, when you activate the multitasking screen via the square Overview button, you'll see a pin icon appear in the lower right-hand corner of the bottom app (drag it up if you can't see it).

Holding down the Back and Overview buttons is enough to exit the pinned mode and get back to other apps. When you activate the pin, you'll be asked if you want to use a code or pattern to unlock it. This is tied to the same protection applied to your device, so if your lock screen isn't protected by a code or pattern then the option won't appear when you're pinning apps.

6. Jump to app settings

The lock screen really has been given a major overhaul with the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, and the improvements include the ability to jump straight to an app's settings or information panel right from the lock screen. Long-press on any notification and (depending on the app) you'll see a cog icon (the app settings shortcut) and an info icon (the app notification settings shortcut).

7. Predict battery life

New to Android 5.0 Lollipop is the ability to see how much time is left before the battery runs out of juice, or how long you need to wait before your device is fully charged up. Tap on the battery icon in the notification drawer to see either reading (the time-until-charged information also appears on the lock screen a few minutes after you've connected your device to a power source).

8. Search settings and networks

Google's search bar is getting more ubiquitous with each passing version of Android, and in Lollipop it's made it into the Settings app. Tap the magnifying glass icon to use it. It can be a quick way of finding a particular option you're looking for, especially if you don't already know what menu or heading it's under. You can use the same feature to bring up saved Wi-Fi networks too.

9. Enter Guest Mode

Sharing devices with other people (friends, colleagues, family members, distracted children) can be a real pain, but Lollipop's new Guest Mode eases it somewhat. You can access Guest Mode by dragging down the notification drawer, tapping on your user account avatar, and then selecting Add guestfrom the menu (or just Guest if you've been through the process before).

10. Improve text legibility

If you were wondering if the Accessibility menu within Settings would get overlooked in the Android 5.0 upgrade, there's a new experimental feature here called High contrast text. Essentially, it gives white or difficult-to-read text a black outline when it's being viewed on a light background. It's applied to the "OK Google" text inside the home screen search bar, for example.

11. Chromecast more quickly

There's an official Chromecast app from Google that lets you screencast from any device running Android 4.4.2 or higher, but the functionality is built right into Android 5.0, which is great news for anyone with one of the compact streaming dongles to hand. It's right in the notification drawer—tap on the Cast screen icon to locate your Chromecast and begin screencasting.

12. Add trusted devices

A trusted device is a specified Bluetooth or NFC-enabled gadget that will automatically disable the security code or pattern on your your Android phone or tablet when it's in range. This means you don't have to fiddle around unlocking the Lollipop device when you're at home or in the car, for example. Head to Settings -> Security -> Smart Lock to set up the feature.

13. Hang a 'do not disturb' sign

This works a little bit like the priority app notifications we mentioned earlier, but it's based around times and days more than apps. Go to Settings -> Sound & notification -> Interruptions to set it up—it's perhaps best used overnight when you don't want to be disturbed, but there is the option to let certain contacts through as well as messages and alarms, if necessary.

14. Get back to your apps after a reboot

If you reboot your device in any version of Android before 5.0, all of your recently opened apps will disappear. In Lollipop, they're still present on the Overview screen, so you can quickly get back to a previous conversation or website if you need to (not all apps will remember exactly where you were in the app). To remove a card from the list, swipe it away to the left or right.

15. Play Google's Flappy Bird clone

Like earlier versions of Android, Lollipop has an Easter egg to unlock. Go to Settings -> About phone then tap quickly four times on the Android version entry. Once the Lollipop graphic appears, tap quickly on it several times then finish with a long press to launch a clone of Flappy Bird with an Android robot in place of the bird. It's just as frustrating to play as the original too.

16. Save the battery

Android 5.0 Lollipop includes a built-in battery saver mode that you can get to kick in at 15 percent battery, 5 percent battery or never (you can also switch it on and off manually). It cuts off some background syncing and vibrations and makes various other tweaks as well. If you select Battery from the Settings app you'll find the battery saver on the menu behind the three vertical dots.

Datawind to Launch Rs. 2,000 Android Phone With Free Lifetime Internet

 

With the aim to double its volumes, low-cost mobile devices maker Datawind on Friday said it will launch a Rs. 2,000 smartphone before Diwali that will come bundled with free Internet for life.The company said the device will be based on Android and have 3.5-inch display. Datawind currently has three smartphones and 5 tablets under its portfolio and is selling 40,000-50,000 devices every month.

"We are looking forward to launch our Rs. 2,000 smartphone and few other devices before Diwali and intent is to double our sales by the end of this calender year," Datawind Executive Vice President Rupinder Singh said here.

He added the company is in talks with 3 telecom operators for the free lifetime Internet offer but refused to divulge more details as the deal is yet to be finalised.
Asked about manufacturing in the country, Singh said the company has aggressive plans but did not mention any timeline for implementation.

Datawind had won the contract to supply 100,000 units of Aakash tablets priced at $49.98 apiece in 2011, translated into a price of Rs. 2,276 at that time.
The project was then handled by IIT Jodhpur which provided the specifications for the product. It, however, ran into controversy following IIT Jodhpur rejecting the devices manufactured by Datawind.

The project was then shifted under IIT Bombay and Datawind was asked to supply better version of the product, Aakash 2. Singh said the company had in May last year shipped all the tablets to the government.

The Aakash project was former minister Kapil Sibal's brainchild. The idea was to provide low-cost computing device at subsidised rate to students to enable them access Internet for educational purposes.

Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a recent press conference said Aakash project needs better specifications.
Asked if Datawind would be interested if the government comes out with a tender for Aakash, Singh said,"Absolutely we will be interested in that. Just a couple of months before the elections, a tender was opened for Aakash 4 by DGS&D and we emerged as the lowest bidder."

f8: Helping Developers Build, Grow, and Monetize

Facebook: 

Today we're hosting f8, our developer conference, to connect with the community and share where we're headed.

First, we're proud to announce a new, two-year stability guarantee for our core products and API versioning to simplify development. Our platform now supports almost half a trillion API requests per day, many coming from our own mobile apps. This means that all the work we do to support mobile apps with almost a billion people is available to every app on our platform.

Many of our developer products have an impact on people's experiences with Facebook, so we're making changes that put people first. We announced the new Facebook Login, which gives people more control over the data they share with apps by letting them opt out of individual permissions. We're also offering Anonymous Login, a new way for people to try apps without sharing any personal information from Facebook. Our goal is to give people quality experiences and remove the barriers that keep them from enjoying your apps.

Facebook and Parse give developers a bridge between platforms. Building cross-platform has been key to Facebook's success, and we want to help other companies succeed on iOS, Android, the web, and many other platforms. Below we've summarized all the new products that we're making available to the community today. You can also visit our changelog and upgrade guide for more details.

BUILD

Making it faster, easier, and cheaper to develop cross-platform apps

• Improved stability and Graph API 2.0: We're introducing a two-year stability guarantee applies to Login, Sharing, and other core products and a new version of the Graph API to help you build, grow, and monetize your apps. To protect people's information, we will begin to issue app-scoped user IDs instead of original user IDs for people who first log in to your app using the new Graph API.
• Facebook Login: The new Facebook Login puts control squarely in the hands of people by letting them choose what they share with apps. We've also made changes to friend permissionsand are introducing Login Review to help apps provide great Login experiences.
• Anonymous Login: An easy way for people to try apps without sharing any personal information from Facebook.
• App Links: An open-source, cross-platform solution for mobile deep linking. Over 20 top mobile apps have partnered with us to make all kinds of great content available for linking.
• New Parse Pricing: We've made Parse pricing cheaper, simpler, and more predictable.
• Parse Local Datastore: Parse now makes it easier than ever to build apps that work without connectivity.
• Parse Growth Analytics: Parse Analytics now has powerful dashboards for understanding your app's growth and user retention metrics.
• New Facebook SDKs: To support today's announcements, we're releasing updated SDKs foriOS, Android, and JavaScript and a new PHP SDK.

GROW

Helping you reach all the right people and keep them engaged

• Like Button for iOS: We're bringing the Like button to apps to let people like content in your app with one tap. An Android version is coming soon.
• Message Dialog for iOS and Android: People can now share your content in a more personal way using Facebook Messenger.
• Send To Mobile with Facebook Login: When people visit your website and log in with Facebook, they can get a notification sent to their phone to download your mobile app. This provides a convenient way for people to access your mobile app and convert your desktop traffic to mobile.
• Share Dialog for the web: We've redesigned the Share Dialog for the web and added support for Open Graph along with location and friend tagging.
• Mobile App Ads enhancements: We're making it easier to reach the people you want by supporting Android's advertising IDs for Custom Audiences. We're also letting you create audiences for a segment of people taking actions in your app and making it simpler to exclude people who already have an app installed. We have also added calls to action to Mobile App Install Ads to better drive the actions you want people to take.
• App Insights: We've updated App Insights to make it more actionable and reliable. The new App Insights makes it easy for you to slice & dice your data and compare your metrics with the rest of the ecosystem. As part of the this update, you an now segment your App Events users by OS, device type, language and country. Learn more in our App Events documentation for iOS and Android.
• App Center: We have redesigned App Center to help people find more games they'll love. The new version is faster and showcases screenshots and videos, so make sure your App Center assets are up-to-date and you've uploaded a video.
• Requests: We're adding better support for turn-based games so people know when it's their turn to play. We're also upgrading Requests to order friends by those who are the most likely to respond and play games.

MONETIZE

Earn more from your apps

• Audience Network: We're giving developers a new way to effectively monetize mobile apps. Audience Network offers developers rich audience targeting and ad formats that have proven to work on mobile.

We're also announcing FbStart, a program designed to help entrepreneurs turn their mobile apps into successful businesses. We're offering startups a package of useful resources, including Parse, mobile app ad credits, invitations to special events, and tools and services from other companies.

Thank you for building with us, and we hope to see you at f8 next year. Save the date: March 25, 2015.

[Source]

Winamp Shut Down

Iconic media player Winamp to shut shop in December

Winamp, an iconic media player from the nineties, will cease to exist from December 20, with its owner AOL deciding to shut down the service.

AOL, which runs the popular media player, has announced that it will shut down Winamp.com and its associated web services.

"Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download," a note on the Winamp.com website said.

Its last version (Winamp 5.66) was released yesterday. "Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years," the note added.

Once synonymous for playing music for PC users in the '90s, Winamp was developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev in 1997 as a freeware.

The music streaming services once boasted of a user base of over 50 million.

Frankel named his software company, Nullsoft, and continued development on the player. It was later turned into shareware with new features and functionality added to the player. Nullsoft was acquired by AOL in 1999.

Winamp's popularity grew with the growing trend of MP3 file sharing. It supports music playback using MP3, MIDI, MOD, MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2, AAC, M4A, FLAC, WAV and WMA. Winamp was one of the first common music players on Windows.

Initially developed for Windows, Winamp now offers betas for Android and Mac OS X and an alpha version for Linux as well.

What's new in Windows 8.1

Microsoft has come up with improvements instead of new features. The new Windows 8.1 is the result of feedbacks which Microsoft got from users since the launch of Windows 8.

So let see what Microsoft has new to offer.

Lets Start from the Start

There is a good news, now you can boot directly to desktop instead of permanent start screen. Basically you can boot directly to anywhere you want – to All apps screen, individual apps, the start menu. The start Button also returns in new Windows 8.1 but it will take you to Start screen not the old start menu (like in windows 7).

I love Windows 7 because the main issue with Windows 8 is its user interface that feels good only on touchscreen based devices.

Swiping from the start screen brings up all the app and now there are more criteria to sort the app. The start screen can be now customized to more colors and you can now place desktop wallpaper behind the Start screen.

The on-screen Keyboard has some new gestures, now you can slide up from any key that has a number as a secondary key, and the number will be inserted automatically, instead of having to switch to a different panel.

The new Windows 8.1  is more cloud friendly with in-depth integration of  Microsoft’s cloud storage service SkyDrive. You can now decide in your apps whether to view files on your PC or on SkyDrive and where to save the files.

Windows 8.1 comes up with new Universal search. Searching any term will display results from them web and from your offline files. The Windows 8.1 Store is totally remodeled, with new lists that makes it easier to find things.

At last comes 3D Printing, Microsoft is partnering with Makerbot, 3D Systems, Form Labs, Autodesk, and several other software and hardware companies to add 3D printing support to 8.1.

Yahoo announcement: Updates to Yahoo! Messenger Features

Yahoo! Messenger Public Chat Rooms
The Yahoo! Messenger Public Chat Rooms will close down on December 14, 2012.
Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox
As of December 14, 2012, Pingbox will no longer be available on Yahoo! Messenger. If you’ve installed Pingbox on your blog or social networks, please click here to learn how to uninstall it.
Yahoo! Messenger interoperability with Microsoft Windows Live Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger will no longer be interoperable with Microsoft Windows Live Messenger as of December 14, 2012. Microsoft buddies will still appear on your Messenger contact list, but they will be greyed out, and if you try to send instant messages to them, the messages will not be delivered.
Yahoo! Voice Phone In and Phone Out feature
Effective January 30, 2013, we will no longer offer Yahoo! Voice Phone In and Phone Out capabilities, our co-branded landline and mobile phone service from Jajah. As of today, users can no longer add new funds to their accounts, and active users who currently have a balance in their accounts will receive emailed instructions in December from Jajah on how to request a refund. You can find more information on how to ask for a refund here, and you can contact Jajah with any questions at yahoovoice@jajah.com. Free Messenger-to-Messenger calls will still be offered through Yahoo! Messenger.

for more info: visit

Whats new in MS Office 2013 ?

At first glance, Office 2013 doesn't look much different than Office 2010. The layout of the apps is a bit cleaner, and on a tablet, most items are spaced well enough that the app is easily navigated by fingertip. Still, familiar touches remain. For instance, the ribbon of menu options introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 was rumored to be on the way out, but it's still alive and kicking in Office 2013. And, at least in the preview apps Microsoft supplied us, it's not hidden by default.

Does Office 2013 feel right at home on a Windows 8 tablet or did Microsoft simply shoehorn old Windows PC software onto a tablet?

Word 2013
Launch Word 2013 and you'll be greeted with a two-pane start screen, which contains some Metro design elements. On the left is a list of your recent documents and on the larger right pane are large tiles of the various templates. Select a template and Word opens. On the preview application we've been using, we were greeted by the large ribbon of menu options, which was expanded by default. You can collapse it by clicking or tapping on the small upward arrow on the very right edge of the ribbon. (If you hide the ribbon and close Word, it will remain hidden when you reopen Word.)

A new menu item has been added to the seven that carry over from Word 2010. In addition to Home, Insert, Reference, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, and View, you also get Design. The Design tab lets you select different document themes, page colors, borders, and watermarks.
Word is also more flexible with images and graphics. It features a Live Layout view. With it, you can drag images, charts, and other graphics around on the page, and text flows and wraps around it. The Format menu tab appears when you add a graphic. It has alignment guides, which help you line up graphics and offer various layouts wrapping text around your graphics.
Two new menu items are listed under the insert tab: Online Pictures and Online Videos. This duo saves you the step of having to save an image or video from Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or another online source to your computer or tablet first before embedding in a document. And Word lets you view embedded videos instead of simply adding a placeholder graphic. Word can also edit PDFs now, which is a huge time saver.

Read Mode, available from the View tab, removes the distraction of all of the menu items, giving you a full screen view of your document. It is particularly welcomed when working on a small tablet. Read Mode still gives you some tools; you can highlight text and add comments. And with comments, you can now reply to another's comment, and you can mark comments as done, which grays them out.
When you save a document, you can save it to your computer, to your SkyDrive, or to SharePoint (if your office has a subscription). And perhaps as a nod to its embrace of cloud computing, SkyDrive is listed above Computer on the Save As screen. You can share documents on social networks, including Facebook and LinkedIn, and you can send invites to people for documents stored in your SkyDrive account. If you share a document with someone who does not own Word, they will still be able to view it by opening it in their browser.

YouTube launch global short film contest on India

India's external affairs ministry and YouTube have partnered to launch a second global short movie contest for students, video amateurs and filmmakers, top

officials announced here.


The competition is open to people around the world on the theme - "India Is A...Visual Journey",
related stories

celebrating India and its diversity. The last date for submitting five-minute entries is Feb 9, 2013

 

Microsoft : 100 innovation centers in India

CHENNAI: IT giant Microsoft has planned to establish 100 Microsoft Innovation Centres in the country over the next two years.

The innovation centres will act as "innovation hubs" at select colleges and technology institutes, providing incubation and expert hands-on support on Microsoft technology, research and software solutions, to create student technology experts, a company statement said.

As a first step, the company has signed MoU with academic institutes across four states to set up 75 such innovation centres. Microsoft aims to launch 100 Innovation Centres in the country over the next two years, it said.

The innovation centres will cover five lakh students country-wide, it said, adding about one lakh students will be certified on Microsoft technologies.

"The programme will also drive innovation and help build a product-based software economy by supporting product development and over 500 start-ups", it said.

The Innovation Centres would operate on a hub-and-spoke model. The first 14 innovation centres proposed to be set up are in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Rajahmundry, Khammam, Bapatla, Guntur and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Tiruchirappalli, Vellore, Coimbatore, Madurai and Salem in Tamil Nadu.

"The Microsoft Innovation Centres are designed to offer a unique environment conducive for student entrepreneurship. The Microsoft Innovation Centres can play a vital role in generating powerful new ideas through training, education and knowledge transfer", Microsoft India, General Manager (DPE), Joseph Landes said.

The announcement by Microsoft comes after the India launch of company's new initiative, YouthSpark, aimed at addressing the opportunity divide faced by the young people of the world, the statement added.

Apple iPhone 5 Review

Apple iPhone 5 Review

For all the hype about the bigger display and the taller form factor, the iPhone 5 feels brilliant in the hand. The basic design remains pretty much like the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, with the slightly elongated form factor. We really mean it when we say that photographs don’t do it justice, and you need to hold it in all its real glory to understand all the excitement about it. The shape is exactly the same, just slimmer, with the four rounded edges and the metal strip running around the sides as a frame.

Features & Specifications
The biggest issue I have with the iPhone 5 is the switch to the nano-SIM. As if the micro-SIM was anyways too big, this switch doesn’t make any logical sense. Compounding to the problem are our hapless mobile operators who either have no idea what a nano-SIM is, or do not help. For example, the Airtel customer care on the phone has no idea about this SIM. Walk into an Airtel Store, and they tell you straightaway that they’ll cut a nano-SIM for us, but will be only available on a post-paid connection. They also refused to chop the SIM of an existing Airtel prepaid connection as well.

Finally, to test the iPhone 5, I had to resort to ordering a nano-SIM cutter on ebay.in and chopped down one of the existing test SIM cards we had. Just to clarify, we used a Vodafone SIM card when the dust settled. This is quite a pain to implement. But, as pointed out by one consumer, what happens if my SIM card suddenly malfunctions when I am travelling to some city within India, where you may not necessarily get a nano-SIM? And we have to agree with that logic, considering these SIMs are not easily available even in the metro cities! Apple should consider the global scenario before deploying any new ideas. They may be able to ensure the operators in the U.S. offer the necessary services, but what about the rest of the world? Surely this is something to ponder for the wizards in Cupertino. And the mobile service operators in India surely need to do some introspection, with shame writ large on their faces.

The hardware on the iPhone 5 is one of the bright points, which ensure that the nano-SIM related gloom feels worth it at the end! The processor is an Apple A6 dual-core clocking at 1.2GHz and is paired with 1GB of RAM. The storage capacity options are 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. We tested the 16GB one, in white colour.

Apple increased the display size on the iPhone 5 to 4-inches with a resolution of 1136 x 640 pixels. Compared to the iPhone 4S, this is a rather considerable upgrade. The 4S had a 3.5-inch display with a 640 x 960 pixel display. The display quality does look considerably better on the iPhone 5, in a side-by-side comparison with the 4S. The colour looks more vivid, the blacks look deeper and the overall picture looks more lifelike. The iPhone 4S’s display was the best at its time, but the latest iteration of the iPhone display is quite far ahead of the predecessor. With the 16:9 aspect ratio, this phone is better for multimedia consumption. There will be no black bars at the top and the bottom of the widescreen format videos. The crispness of the display and the sharpness of the text is pretty much the same as the 4S. Also, the iPhone 5’s display is certainly reflecting ambient light, and offers slightly better viewing angles. Also, the 4S’s display seems less bright than the iPhone 5, at the exact same brightness levels.

People had often claimed that Apple will not increase the display size of the iPhone, and that 3.5-inches were optimum. However, the increased display size on the iPhone is actually making the experience more comfortable, at least when you are consuming data. On a web page, there is more information in one screen, and you scroll through the pages quicker. Unfortunately, since the iOS has not been tweaked to use the extra screen space for any additional features, which is pretty much about the apps getting more real estate. Hopefully, this will change with the next iOS update. 

Processor: Apple A6 dual core 1.2GHz

RAM: 1GB

Display: 4-inch (1136 x 640 pixels)

Graphics: PowerVR SGX543MP3

Storage: 16GB (also available in 32GB and 64GB)

Camera: 8MP iSight

Battery: 1440mAh

Platform: Apple iOS 6

 

Need for speed : Most Wanted

 

Need For Speed: Most Wanted is not pretending to be something it isn't and Criterion has made sure that you are very aware of that. It is an arcade racer and an exceptional one at that, nothing else. The developers have done a superb job in polishing this title and making sure that the game is fun. It is a very polished game that looks gorgeous and plays well. Beware though, this game is a graphical powerhouse and unless your system is up to the challenge, you will be hard-pressed to get playable frame-rates from the game. There are very few games that can fulfill your need for speed the way this game does and is, quite surely, a must-play for any racing fanatic out there.

The game has no narrative or story and doesn’t even pretend to have one. You’re given a car, given 10 targets, and then let loose on the road to have fun, race, wreak havoc; whatever takes your fancy. There are over a hundred cars scattered throughout the world and you can drive up to any one of them and take them for a spin. You’re not restricted to any car and if you find it, it’s yours. There is no more of that hierarchy where you go from bad cars to better cars to superlative cars.

 Each car has about six races specifically tailored for its type and you can have fun, competitive racing with any car you like and find. Each race win nets you upgrades that add essential features to your car, such as nitrous or off-road tyres, etc. This focus on pure arcade-style fun even extends to the cut-scenes; every race has an intro that is, from an aesthetic and design stand-point, really cool. They’re not realistic, you’ll see cars floating in the air, or emerging like a growing crystals and it just looks fantastic.

There is a lot to do in this world. Racing past speed cams chalks your name up on a leader board that you and your friends can see and compete against, the same goes for the hoardings that you smash. All these, coupled with the races and police chases net you points that add up, eventually allowing you to take down a “Most Wanted” rival when you get enough points. What sets this game apart from the previous game is the socializing that goes into it. Seeing your friends smash one of your speed records would make you want you to pick yourself up and take back what’s yours.  

Google+ growing to 500m users

MOUNTAIN VIEW: Like the strong-willed youth it is, Google's budding social network is confidently going its own way.

In an AFP interview, Google+ vice president Bradley Horowitz shrugged off Silicon Valley obsession with a Facebook rivalry and focused on the internet titan playing to its strengths with an eye on the future.

"The way we think about Google+ is not pretending that today we can compete along every dimension of every competitor that is in a space," Horowitz said.

"The goals for Google+ are long-ranging and broad," he continued. "This is a reinvention of the consumer's relationship with Google that is going to unfold over a period of years."

The average number of people who use Google+ each month has climbed to 100 million since it opened to the public in September of last year. The figure for daily users is 50 million.

"Eventually, the 100 million users today are going to blossom into 500 million and by that time you will discover that all of your friends will be there on Google+," Horowitz predicted.

A unique Hangouts feature that lets as many as ten people at once get together for group video chats is a huge draw at the online community.

Hangouts can be limited to invited friends or opened to anyone.

The US president, musician Will.i.am, Desmond Tutu and even the Dalai Lama have taken part in "On Air" hangouts in which intimate online gatherings can be openly viewed at the social network.

"We think looking somebody in the eye and communicating in the normal social way we've learned to do over millennia is important," Horowitz said. "We wanted to bring that authenticity back into the equation."

Hangouts have surprised the Google+ team. They have been used for language and music lessons. A stutterers' support group uses them for group meetings.

Hangouts are used to let bedridden people virtually explore the world.

Longtime photographer John Butterill of Canada was new to Google+ when he took a sick friend on a "virtual photo walk" using a smartphone, a professional camera, and a hangout.

Butterill hiked snowy woods near his home during a streamed hangout in which his friend saw through the camera lens and directed the shots. A video of the walk posted at the social network went viral.

"I came home from the walk and there it was being shared by everyone," Butterill told AFP. "My mouth dropped open."

The friends launched a Virtual Photo Walks page at Google+ with a mission to "walk for those who can't."

Google+ users in cities around the world have signed on to act as legs and hands of people physically unable to venture out for themselves.

A photographer in Australia freshly recovered from a broken back virtually took a woman with Multiple Sclerosis on a walk to a beach in Perth.

"She said she never thought she'd hear the ocean again," Butterill said. "These people really know how to choke you up."

A photographer for nearly 40 years, Butterill insists that those directing shots get credit and rights to walk images.

"I am just the arms and legs," Butterill said. "It is like the person on the other side is holding the camera. It's just plain cool."

Virtual photo walks can go beyond picture-taking to being a way for people with disabilities to attend meetings or political events or even negotiate contracts in real time, according to Butterill.

"A soldier could take his hospitalized friend virtually to a pub for beer," he said.

Butterill's vision includes taking sick children on virtual photo walks of Disneyland.

"When we brought hangouts to market we knew we had something very special, but there was no way of telling whether this would be the next Chatroulette or something more meaningful," Horowitz said.

"It is really delightful when a product you built changes people's lives and you get these heartfelt stories about how it has touched them."

Google is weaving its social network into offerings such as its search engine and online video-sharing stage YouTube for a synergy that could offset the edge given Facebook by its network of more than 840 million members.

"Google of five years ago had many magical products, but they didn't sing in harmony," Horowitz said.

"We are creating a more comprehensive user experience across all of what we are doing," he continued. "We are threading the needle very carefully to do that without spoiling the magic."