iBall Andi 5c

Thursday, November 15, 2012 in Mobiles

When Samsung came out with the 5-inch Note, it was only a matter of time before which the Indian players would also get on that bandwagon. The iBall Andi 5c is one of them thanks to its affordable 5-inch Android 4.0 handset the Andi 5c. So is this the answer to those of you who are pondering over getting a large screen budget Android phone. We will find out.

Design and Build

On first glance it looks very similar to the Note line of phones. The Andi 5c has an edge to edge glass screen with the standard one button in the centre surrounded by the contextual menu and back softkeys around it. There is a 3.5-mm audio jack and a microUSB port on the top and the bottom edge is clean. On the left hand side you have the volume rocker and on the right hand side there is the power switch / stand-by button. One thing that we really liked about the Andi 5c was its textured back cover. The 5MP camera pops-out very slightly. You have the iBall and Andi 5c embossed on the rear side. The speaker section is present on the lower right hand side in the thanks to two slits in the back cover. The iBall Andi 5c is definitely on the heavier side of things when compared with the Note.

On opening the iBall Andi 5c battery cover, you will find a massive 2300 mAh battery, two SIM slots just above is and a microSD card slot on the extreme left hand side. While you may hotplug the microSD card, you will have to remove the battery to insert the SIM cards. The build quality of the phone is quite good and the chrome finish on the edges is a good touch. The textured finish on the rear side, gives the phone a very good grip. It fits well in the palm, but your thumb will not be able to touch all portions of the phone without you having to shift the phone in your palms.

Features and Specifications
The Andi 5c is a 5-inch phone and is powered by a 1 GHz Cortex A9 single-core processor. It sports an IPS panel with a highly reflective capacitive touchscreen. For a 5-inch phone, its resolution of 480x800 is quite less. It can take in two SIM cards (2 x GSM or 1 GSM + 1 WCDMA). You will get a stock Android ICS (4.0.3) with no customizations, which is a big plus.

On the rear-side you have a 5MP camera with a flash unit just below it whereas on the front you have a VGA camera. It comes with 4GB of internal storage of which only 2.8 GB is available to the user. It provides you the option to add up to 32GB of microSD storage.

As far as connectivity goes, it comes with all the regular options expected from such a phone, including 3G, EDGE and GPRS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth with A2DP.

Performance
It beat Karbonn A18 and Spice Stellar MI 425 in most of the benchmarks. The graphs below explain it better:
           

The onboard keypad wasn’t that great and you will be better off using SwiftKey 3. One hand typing is slow and will lead to thumb-ache. Typing in the landscape mode is quick though.

Call quality was quite good except in Zone 3 where you have just one bar on the signal. We did not face any dropped calls as such, but the phones default audio profiles don't seem to work. Despite being in the general or outdoor modes, and on full volume, we couldn't really hear the ringer. Finally on adding a user-defined profile, were we able to make the ringtones audible. Even while using WhatsApp and Messaging apps, you can hear the clicks if you are currently using the phone, else it just vibrates.

Backlight bleeding is very prominent along the edges if you view the screen at eye-level. Visibility in sunlight is horrible. We tried adjusting the brightness levels, but it did not help much. While scrolling text on websites, we noticed visible ghosting if you scrolled slowly and the page had images on it. Text does not look very crisp thanks to the resolution, but is quite readable.

Most of the standard definition content played back quite smoothly without any glitches. It could also playback 720p content but 1080p content was difficult to playback. Even in the 720p videos, in heavy action scenes, we noticed a jittery output and some definite frame-dropping.

Natively, it could not play .FLV and .MOV files but with .MP4 files we noticed that it could not playback 720p videos in MP4 format but SD videos were no problem. You can of course download apps which playback different file formats such as Mobo Player, so that is a non-issue really.

Coming to the camera, it tends to take quite a while to focus and it gets worse in low lit conditions. The images taken outdoors were actually pretty decent for this category of phone. Yes, the dynamic range isn’t great and you will see pixillation when you transfer images to your PC. But let’s face it, who ever wants to print out photos from a cellphone camera? The outdoor images look great on the phone screen and you shouldn’t expect anything more from this phone. Video quality is not at all good. You are limited to a 640x480 resolution and framing is very conspicuous.

The 2300mAh battery lasts for a decent 8 hours on regular usage which includes calling, messaging, a bit of gaming, watching movies and surfing the web.

Bottom Line
At a maximum retail price of Rs. 12,999 but an MOP of Rs. 11,000, the Andi 5c is still expensive for its performance. But under Rs.10,000 this can make for a great buy for someone looking at a budget large-screen phone. We would however, advise prospective buyers to wait for our reviews of more budget 5-inch smartphones before jumping the gun.

Operating System: Android 4.0.3; Screen size: 5-inch WVGA at 480x800 pixel; Panel: IPS; Internal Storage: 4 GB (2 GB for data); RAM: 512 MB; Camera (rear / front) in MP: 5 / 0.3; Connectivity: 3G HSUPA 5.76Mbps HSDPA 7.2Mbps (2100MHz), EDGE / GPRS Quad Band 850/ 900/1800/1900 MHz, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth with A2DP; Dual-SIM: Yes; Battery: 2300mAh

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Canon Powershot SX160 IS

Thursday, November 15, 2012 in Gadgets

Canon has a long standing history of producing great cameras, one of which was 2009’s Powershot SX120 IS. Since then, this point and shoot line has seen several upgrades, every year in August. We absolutely loved our SX120 IS, so when we got the newest version of the camera – the SX160 IS, we were extremely excited to figure out what new capabilities it offered.

For starters, the camera features a 16 megapixel sensor, 2 megapixels higher than the SX150 IS, a lower model point and shoot camera. Interestingly, Canon has stuck with the CCD type sensor for this lineup of camera from the beginning. It was a little disappointing at first to note that a back-side illuminated sensor was not part of the deal.

Build and Ergonomics
With the SX120 IS, Canon had pretty much nailed the ergonomic design. The camera was great to hold and use, with a button layout that made accessing most features very easy and intuitive. Nothing has changed in that regard to the SX160 IS. It’s still a great camera to use, well balanced with a flash that needs to be manually raised in the event it is needed (by the push of a button). The buttons are placed exactly the same way they are in almost every single Canon point-and-shoot camera, so if you’ve ever used one of Canon’s cameras, you’d know almost immediately where everything is.

The body of the SX160 IS gave us some mixed feelings. While we do like the cleaner flatter look of the camera, for some reason, it feels quite plastic-like to us. We received a silver model (matte finish) that is supposed to emulate brushed metal. Normally the phrase “plastic-like” tends to denote flimsy or weak, but that is definitely not the case with the SX160 IS. It feels sturdy, but one look at the camera and you know it’s made of plastic. The metal lens mount ring, though a good practical solution to protecting the lens, adds to the polarity of the plastic-metal design of the camera.
Lastly, the buttons are inset into the body of the SX160 IS, but easy to press. There is a dedicated video recording button right next to a 3x3 grid of ribbed dots, which we feel are for resting the thumb, but honestly, the flat surface doesn’t do much for thumb comfort. The right side of the camera has a neatly tucked away rubber door, behind which lie the mini-HDMI and mini-USB port for connectivity. At the bottom, we find a battery door which houses 2AA cells and an SD card slot.

Features
The Canon Powershot SX160 IS packs in quite an impressive set of features, which doesn’t seem like much if you compare it with the SX150 IS, but observing the growth of this camera overtime, you realize it has come a long way. For starters, it packs a 28-448mm optical zoom, but suffers in the aperture arena a little bit. While the SX150 IS’s aperture moved between f/3.4-5.6, the SX160 IS loses a little by having an aperture range of f/3.5-5.9. We’re talking about barely half a stop of difference here, but when you’re zoomed in at the entire 448mm, even that half a stop can make a lot of difference. The video on the SX160 IS gets a very slight bump in video spec too, retaining the 720p video recording, but also offering 25p frame rate along with the standard 30.

Here is one thing that we absolutely love about the SX160. It runs on AA batteries. Now, you must be wondering how constantly spending on new batteries can be a good thing and we’re going to tell you how. Ever been in a situation where you need your camera but the battery died on you prematurely? Yeah, good luck finding a proprietary lithium ion pack to power your camera. This is where AA batteries come in handy. Now only are they cheap to purchase, but they can be bought practically anywhere (except the North and South Pole, we hope).

We also really like that just like its predecessors; the SX160 IS maintains a full suite of PASM modes that can be easily accessed using a mode dial. Lately, we’ve been seeing that the PASM options along with the mode dial have been disappearing from a lot of point-and-shoot camera segments, deepening the divide between the regular cameras and the advanced ones. The SX160 IS isn’t an average camera and certainly by no means an advanced point and shoot, so seeing the PASM modes here is a great relief as it allows some creative control even for those who might at some point want to experiment.
Image Quality
Now the IQ part of the SX160 IS is something that we were hoping a lot out of. Like we had said earlier, the camera houses a CCD sensor instead of a back-side illuminated CMOS sensor. Traditionally, CCD sensors were known to have better noise performance than a CMOS sensor, but with the BSI CMOS sensors, that has changed, with the two performing at par, if the latter not doing better.

The images out of the SX160 IS look as vibrant in color and with a good deep contrast. The images, especially those shot in daylight, tend to be exposed in favor of the highlights, causing the detail in the shadow areas to dip a little more than we’d have expected. What did, however, impress us is the measly 1cm minimum focusing distance for macro shots. Of course, given the right light and shooting conditions, this can yield some of the most amazing images one would come across, but we found that at such a close distance, there was often the shadow of the camera itself making an appearance in our shot. Minimum focusing distance seemed to increase drastically as we zoomed in. Regardless, we love the ridiculously small minimum focusing distance. The images shot at this range come out tack sharp too, with very little to no JPG artifact.
The low light performance of the SX160 IS left us feeling quite disappointed. As good as it performs in good light, the low light performance on this camera leaves a lot more to be desired. We noticed that as soon as we moved indoors, the camera had a hard time not only acquiring accurate focus, but also developed noise very quickly, not just in the shadows, but also in the mid-tones. We’re not even talking about night time, but just day time indoor shots with a decent amount of sunlight streaming in through several open doors and windows. Skin tones were also quite easily effected in low light, with browns quickly developing red dots.

The video behavior of the SX160 IS follows the same pattern as the image quality. Great video quality in broad daylight, with a tendency to expose for highlights, but low light video is just riddled with blotches of red and blue dots. We’re not happy that the camera is still limited to just 720p recording as many in this segment have moved on up to 1080p.

Conclusion
The Canon Powershot SX160 IS is a camera that comes from line of cameras that have historically and very delicately balanced the price, feature set and overall performance. The SX160 IS does pretty well in that regard, but compared to the SX150 IS, we really wish it had more to offer than just a bump in focal length and megapixel count. Improvement in low light performance would have been greatly appreciated and 1080p HD video would have made this our favorite camera. Then there is the finish we’re not too fond of, which makes the plastic construction of this camera a little too obvious.

However, not everything about this camera is bad. We love the focal length, especially the relatively wide 28mm starting focal length. There is also the PASM mode dial and full control on the shooting that’s great. The macro mode on the SX160 IS is also another feature that we’ve absolutely enjoyed playing with. Let us also point out that the camera costs just Rs. 12,995, which is far less compared to what you’d pay for other models from different manufacturers. All in all, if you’re on a tight budget, but require at least above average image quality with a good focal length, we’d say you should definitely go for the SX160 IS. If you’re already using the SX150 IS, we’d say keep it and wait for the next upgrade as the 160 isn’t really that much of a phenomenal upgrade from its one generation old model.
 

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Apple iPad (4th Generation, Wi-Fi)

Thursday, November 15, 2012 in Mac OS

Now in its fourth iteration in two years, the Apple iPad continues its reign as king. The best large tablet you can buy today, the Apple iPad (4th Generation) has it all: top performance, a stellar screen, a surprisingly good camera, speedy Wi-Fi, and a breathtaking library of spectacular apps. Unlike other 10-inch tablets on the market, it's the full package, which makes it a very rare five-star product, and a slam dunk for our Editors' Choice.

Pricing and Physical Features

The fourth-generation iPad looks almost exactly like the previous model, and it's priced the same, too. There are 16, 32, and 64GB sizes in Wi-Fi-only ($499, $599, and $699) and same-size 4G LTE variants ($629, $729, and $829). If you want to be able to keep apps, movies, and music on your tablet, I advise getting at least 32GB. For this review, I tested the $699 64GB Wi-Fi-only model.

Just like the second- and third-generation iPads, this tablet has a 9.7-inch screen surrounded by a black (or white) bezel, with a curved metal back, and a single Home button. Apple's magnetic Smart Cover, which was released with the iPad 2, clips on just fine. The tablet still has a sealed-in battery, and no ports other than a standard headphone jack. There's a 1.2-megapixel camera right above the display on the middle of the top bezel, and a 5-megapixel camera in its traditional location on the back upper left corner.

On the bottom is Apple's

new, compact Lightning connector, which isn't compatible with earlier accessories, but Lightning accessories are starting to appear, and I'm confident the ecosystem will develop quickly with more than 8 million Lightning-compatible phones, PMPs, and tablets already in people's hands.
At 7.3 by 9.5 by 0.37 inches (HWD) and 23 ounces, the new iPad is the same size and weight as the third-generation model. It's a little heavier than the 21-ounce Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, and the Google Nexus 10 (21.2 ounces), but I didn't really notice during testing.

The 2,048-by-1,536-pixel Retina Display is sharp, clear, and bright. At 263 pixels per inch, it beats every other tablet on the market right now except Google's Nexus 10, which offers a 300ppi, 2,560-by-1,600 10-inch screen. But both Web browsing and gaming look better on the iPad's screen because of superior software choices. In the browser, Apple picked better-looking, better-kerned fonts, and cross-platform games showed generally superior graphics and coding on the iPad.

The Retina display takes its toll on battery life just as it did on the third-gen iPad. I got 5 hours, 36 minutes of video playback at full brightness, almost the same figure as the previous model. (That's still longer than the Nexus 10, which clocked in at just over 5 hours on the same test.) I'll retest at half brightness as well; with the third-gen iPad, halving the brightness bumped video playback time up to 11 hours. And the big battery still takes a long time to charge: Six hours on our first try, even with the new, more powerful 12-watt charger.

Apps and Performance
The new iPad, like the old iPad, runs Apple's iOS 6. See our full review for a look at the ins and outs of the iPad's operating system. We've also reviewed and profiled hundreds of iPad apps if you want to get an idea of the richness of the software for this device.

In the eight months since the third-generation iPad was released, most of the apps I have been using for testing have been upgraded to Retina versions. The OS smoothes and improves standard elements within many non-Retina-enhanced apps, too, including text and embedded maps.

Speaking of those maps, Apple's troubles with mapping don't affect this iPad as much as other iOS devices because the Wi-Fi-only model lacks GPS. Still, though, if it can find Wi-Fi the tablet can find its location, and you can download a third-party mapping app if you like; here are 10 solid Apple Maps alternatives.
The latest iPad packs an Apple A6X processor which Geekbench reports to be running at 1.4GHz (Apple won't confirm or deny). The custom-designed A6, as seen in the iPhone 5, was already one of the fastest CPUs available; the A6X enhances the A6 with even better graphics.

The results are stunning. The fourth-gen iPad outmatched all other Apple products on the Geekbench and GLBenchmark benchmarks, scoring 1,768 on Geekbench to the iPad 3's 749. Similarly, the heavy game "Need for Speed: Most Wanted" launched in 18 seconds on the new iPad as compared to 37 seconds on the iPad 3. Yes, it's more than twice as fast. With the iPad 3, I found apps that stressed the older A5 processor. That just isn't the case any more.

Apple's efficient software comes into play when comparing against the Google Nexus 10 too. While the Nexus 10 notched a faster Geekbench score at 2,480, the iPad creamed it on all of our actual Web-browsing tests, Sunspider, Browsermark, and GUIMark, as well as in the speed of loading pages. I saw delays and stutters in the Nexus 10's interface that I never saw on the iPad. Updating a large number of apps went more slowly on the Nexus than on the iPad. And under heavy strain, the iPad got a bit warm, but the Nexus 10 became even hotter.

Part of this is thanks to the iPad's excellent Wi-Fi performance; on PCMag's 5GHz 802.11n network, I got 37Mbps down on the iPad and 23Mbps down on the Nexus 10. Both speeds are fast, but it's the iPad's processor and software that seem to be making the difference here.

Gaming performance is significantly better on the new iPad, too. Intense games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Asphalt 7 run at a smooth 60 frames per second on the new iPad and render landscapes in advance of viewing; the Nexus 10 had frame-rate trouble in both games and would render buildings as I came up to them, which was distracting. Scores on the GLBenchmark graphics benchmark tell the tale. On GLBenchmark's "Egypt HD On-Screen," which renders a complex game-like scene, the iPad 3 scored 22 frames per second, the Nexus 10 hit 27, and the iPad 4 marked 42. That's a noticeable difference.

The new iPad upgrades both cameras. The 1.2-megapixel front camera records 720p video; the rear camera takes 5-megapixel stills and 1080p video. The cameras offer the same excellent performance as on the Apple iPad mini. The front camera takes sharp 1.2-megapixel shots, even in low light. In very low light, images get quite noisy, but that's preferable to blurry. Its 720p HD videos record at a noisy 24fps in very low light, and 30fps outdoors. The main camera captures sharp, clear, and well-balanced 5-megapixel images and 1080p video at 30 fps indoors and out. I think people look ridiculous taking photos with the main camera of a 10-inch tablet, but many people do it.
The single speaker on the bottom of the iPad is tinny and of medium volume like most tablet speakers, but the headphone amp is impressive; I got rich, powerful sound through a pair of Monster earphones. The iPad also works just fine with Bluetooth headphones and speakers.

The iPad has always been an excellent media player, and there's no change here. The hi-resolution screen lets you watch 1080p HD videos without downscaling, and they look spectacular. You can also output HD video to a TV either through Apple's $49 HDMI adapter, or via Wi-Fi using Apple TV's AirPlay feature.

The combination of the new processor and faster Wi-Fi fix the AirPlay problems I saw on the previous iPad, too. Using a 5GHz network, I streamed a 1080p version of "The Hunger Games" purchased from iTunes on an Apple TV, and watched a high-quality stream of "Arrested Development" on Netflix with no skipping. High-quality racing games showed good frame rates over AirPlay, but there was a bit of lag in the controls because of Wi-Fi latency.

Comparisons and Conclusions
Yes, I'm rating the iPad as the best 10-inch tablet, while its little brother, the iPad mini, isn't the top seven-incher. The big iPad's performance stands head and shoulders above the competition, and it provides premium screen and processor specs to match its premium price. The iPad's library of tablet-focused apps matters a lot more, and look better, at 9.7 inches rather than 7.9. And while a 4:3 aspect ratio tablet looks a bit too squarish in the smaller size, it's an ideal form factor for a larger device.

Most 10-inch Android tablets, including the laudable, but flawed, Google Nexus 10, still lack the level of polish and the range of third-party apps designed for Apple tablets. Yes, the Google Play store offers a small selection of featured tablet apps, but for the vast majority of Android apps, it's hard to tell before downloading (and paying for) them whether you'll get a true tablet app or a blown-up phone app. Once again, those scaled phone apps look okay on a medium-resolution, seven-inch tablet and generally awful at a super-high-res 10 inches, so this is more of a concern with larger tablets.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 leaped into our esteem by offering up uses that aren't covered by the standard Android apps: multi-windowed Web browsing and a pressure-sensitive stylus. While the Note maintains its windowing advantage and is still an excellent tablet, the new iPad has caught up with third-party pressure-sensitive styli, including the Editors' Choice Adonit Jot Touch.

And how about the Microsoft Surface RT? It's definitely a competitor, but it isn't quite there yet. The A6X processor's performance beats the Nvidia Tegra 3's, and the Retina screen beats the Surface's 1,366-by-768 panel. More importantly, though, Apple's massive library of excellent apps and accessories dwarfs the still-tiny ecosystem around Windows RT. (Remember, RT can't run true desktop Windows apps.) Want to dance around clicking a keyboard onto your tablet? The iPad offers plenty of options like the Editors' Choice Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover .

The previous iPad received 4.5 stars; I dinged it for its A5 processor. At the time, I told iPad 2 owners to wait for the next model. And this is it. The fourth-generation Apple iPad is the only product I have ever personally rated five full stars because it represents the tablet state of the art.

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Sandy leaves 40 dead; 7.5 mn without power in US

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 in World news

As Hurricane Sandy lost its ferocious punch and veered towards Canada leaving a trail of destruction up and down the US East Coast, President Barack Obama cautioned "The storm is not over yet." It left at least 40 dead and some 7.5 million people without power along the East Coast with New York's subway system paralysed by flooded tunnels and much of America's financial hub of Manhattan, in the dark.

Workers clear a downed tree blocking East 96th street in Central Park the morning after Hurricane Sandy in New York City. 

As Hurricane Sandy lost its ferocious punch and veered
"We're going to continue to push as hard as we can" to provide resources, said the president who has left the campaigning for the Tuesday's election to surrogates to deal with the situation from the White House.

"No bureaucracy, no red tape," was the message to his administration, he said during an afternoon visit Tuesday to the headquarters of the Red Cross in Washington after signing Major Disaster Declarations for worst hit New York and New Jersey.

The aftermath of flooding following Hurricaine Sandy in the Financial District of New York.

 

The lifeline for millions of New Yorkers spanning 468 stations and over 600 miles of track, pulsing through four of New York City's five boroughs, was expected to remain silent for days and power could be out for a week, authorities warned.

More than 18,000 airline flights have been cancelled and according to one estimate Sandy would cost America $10 billion to $20 billion in economic damages.

"The New York City subway system is 108 years old," Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was quoted as saying by the New York Times. "It has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night."

Recovery efforts across 15 states and Washington city were starting to take hold Tuesday night, but thousands of people waited in shelters, not knowing whether their homes had survived, CNN said.

Atlantic City, a resort town famed for its beaches, boardwalk and blackjack, became an extension of the ocean as seaweed and flotsam swirled in the knee-deep water covering downtown streets.

While the East Coast was still grappling with the scope of the disaster, federal officials warned that Sandy was an ongoing concern with the potential to inflict more pain on inland states.

"The coastal impacts are certainly less today than they were last night, but the effects are not zero," National Hurricane Centre Director Rick Knabb told reporters in a conference call. "There are still some fairly strong winds out of the south."

The storm was centred about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh and packing 45-mph winds Tuesday evening, bringing flood warnings to Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania and blizzard warnings to high elevations in the Appalachian Mountains.
  
Officials in the states of Connecticut, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia all reported deaths from the massive storm system, while Toronto police said a Canadian woman was killed by flying debris.
  
Sandy had already killed at least 67 people -- including a US national in Puerto Rico -- as it swept through the Caribbean over the past few days, meaning the overall toll from the storm is now 110.
  
The total deaths in New York state spiked to 23, after New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said at least 18 people had been killed in the Big Apple alone.
  
"Tragically we expect that number to go up," Bloomberg warned.
  
Three people died in New Jersey, including two parents who were killed when a falling tree crushed their car, sparing their children aged 11 and 14 who were inside with them, Governor Chris Christie said.
  
Christie added that rescue operations were still under way, with three separate teams deployed in Atlantic City, the coastal casino town near where the storm made landfall at 0000 GMT Tuesday.
The aftermath of flooding following Hurricaine Sandy in the Financial District of New York. AFP Photo

Another four people were killed in Pennsylvania, including one killed from a falling tree and another when a house collapsed, emergency management officials told AFP.
  
Connecticut Emergency Management spokesman Scott Devico reported four storm-related deaths in his state. Governor Dan Malloy earlier said that one of the dead was a firefighter.
  
Two storm-related deaths were reported in North Carolina, including a woman on board a replica of the HMS Bounty who was plucked from the sea Monday and later died at hospital. The captain was still missing Tuesday after the tall ship went down off the coast of North Carolina. http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/Popup/2012/10/31-10-12-biz-04.jpg
  
North Carolina's State Highway Patrol also reported that a driver slammed into a tree Monday evening and died on the spot.
  
A vehicle driver and his passenger were killed in the Virginia state capital of Richmond in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, city police said.
  
Three storm-related deaths were reported in Maryland, Ed McDonough with the state Emergency Management Agency told AFP. Two were killed in vehicle-related accidents, while a third died when he was crushed by a tree that fell into his home.
  
And in West Virginia, a 48-year-old woman was killed when her car collided with a cement truck while driving through heavy snow caused by the storm, a local official said.
  
The National Hurricane Center said Sandy had weakened early Tuesday as it moved inland, but could still generate gale-force winds and flooding along the Eastern Seaboard.
  
US authorities had warned the threat to life and property was "unprecedented" and ordered hundreds of thousands of residents from New England to North Carolina to evacuate their homes and seek shelter.
  
Falling trees dragged down power cables, plunging millions of homes into darkness, while storm warnings cut rail links and marooned tens of thousands of travelers at airports across the region.
  
Disaster estimating firm Eqecat forecast that the massive storm would affect more than 60 million Americans, a fifth of the population, and cause up to $20 billion (15 billion euros) in damage.


Truce frays as Obama, Romney navigate Sandy aftermath
President Barack Obama planned to tour superstorm Sandy's debris field and Mitt Romney plotted a return to campaigning Tuesday, as high-stakes politics stirred back to life a week from election day.

During an unprecedented 24-hour truce so close to a US presidential vote, the campaigns assessed the storm aftermath and how to squeeze the best use from fast dwindling days left in a race either man could still win.

The storm -- which killed at least 43 people in the United States and Canada, swamped homes on the eastern seaboard and sent floodwaters gushing through lower Manhattan -- muffled campaign trail rhetoric and jumbled political battle lines.

Obama was in presidential mode Tuesday, firing off orders to government emergency chiefs, telling victims that America found their plight "heartbreaking" and affecting not to notice the looming November 6 poll.

But his trip to New Jersey on Wednesday and meeting with Governor Chris Christie -- a Republican Romney backer who has poured praise on the president's handling of the disaster -- will take place in a highly political context.

Romney meanwhile concluded that in such a tight race, he could not afford another day watching Obama dominate the headlines, announcing plans for a three-event tour of tightening battleground Florida -- which he must win.

Still, Obama will still control the media narrative on Wednesday as he picks through wreckage and consoles storm victims alongside a key Republican, as Romney plays the grubbier game of campaign politics in sunny Florida.

The no-nonsense Christie is a frequent Obama critic and was playing the same talismanic role and raising his own profile while managing disaster as New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani played in the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Cars floating in a flooded subterranian basement following Hurricaine Sandy in the Financial District of New York. AFP Photo

In one aside on Tuesday which likely pleased the Obama camp, Christie snapped at a Fox News interviewer when asked if Romney would get a disaster photo-op.

"If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don't know me," said Christie, often mentioned as a future White House hopeful.

Though the principals were off stage and the political heat was turned down, the campaigns did trade punches, with each side accusing the other of desperation as they sought to lock in key states on the electoral map.

Obama took full advantage of the tools of the presidency as he projected a sense of authority and organization, marshalling the federal government emergency effort and empathizing with millions in the storm's path.

"Do not figure out why we can't do something. I want you to figure out how we do something," Obama said he told federal workers, after a visit to the American Red Cross headquarters in Washington.

"I want you to cut through red tape, I want you to cut through bureaucracy, there is no excuse for inaction at this point."

Obama's response to the storm, which roared ashore as a hurricane on Monday, could help his approval ratings, but both sides believe there are few undecided voters left, so it was unclear whether it would actually shift votes.

While the US media establishment is based on the East Coast and is fixated on the storm, swing states like Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and even Virginia where the election will be won and lost, escaped Sandy's worst wrath.

But Romney will still face a test of tone Wednesday in Florida, and must decide whether to soften negative attacks on Obama to avoid being seen as a political opportunist.

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Spice partners with Huawei to offer co-branded handsets

Friday, October 19, 2012 in Mobiles

The Spice Group has partnered with Chinese telecommunications giant, Huawei, to offer co-branded handsets across the company’s markets – which include India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and some parts of Africa.
The Spice Huawei handsets will be branded ‘S Huawei’, and the duo is expected to launch 7 to 10 handsets in the near future. The first product under the partnership was the Ascend Y 100. The two companies would spend equal amounts on marketing. Spice would provide the retail space, while Huawei will provide R&D and manufacturing.

The Spice Group also announced it plans to sell 10 million handsets globally by June 2013, a figure which includes 7.5 million 2G handsets, and Huawei’s handsets. According to the company, roughly 50 percent of its revenues come from its international markets.

Spice also said it intends to expand its global footprint, from 1,250 stores to 5,000. Spice has also tied up with select operators to offer bundled 3G data plans, such as Airtel, Aircel, and Tata Docomo.
 

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Apple update removes Java applet plugin from Mac OS X browsers

Friday, October 19, 2012 in Mac OS

Apple has announced it will be removing its default Java plugin from Safari, and other web browsers on Mac OS X, in a bid to maintain security from potential vulnerabilities of the older version. The move by Apple is days after Oracle announced a patch for Java, once again fixing security issues.
The update, called Java for OS X 2012-006 1.0, uninstalls the Java applet plug-in from web browsers. Users will still be able run Java applets via the browser however, if they download the plugin directly from Oracle. The update also upgrade’s the operating systems default Java version to the latest - Java SE 6 1.6.0_37.

The advisory says: "This release updates the Apple-provided system Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_37 and is for OS X versions 10.7 or later. This update uninstalls the Apple-provided Java applet plug-in from all web browsers. To use applets on a web page, click on the region labeled "Missing plug-in" to go download the latest version of the Java applet plug-in from Oracle."

Dark Reading quotes Randy Abrams, research director with NSS Labs, as saying the move makes sense: "By ripping Java out of the browser, a lot of those malicious downloads are not going to find what they need to exploit. This was really a significant step. I'm guardedly optimistic that this means Apple is really beginning to take security more seriously."

Apple is definitely trying to protect its users, whilst trying to maintain the no hassle security that its computers are famous for. Cyber-criminals have started to target the Mac OS however, whether by click-based attacks, or via third-party plugins. Users are recommended to invest in an anti-virus suite for their Mac systems, despite previous deserved complacence.

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Google unveils $249, ARM-based Samsung Chromebook

Friday, October 19, 2012 in Google

The ARM-based Chromebook includes an 11.6-inch, 1,366-by-768 display. It weighs in at 2.5 pounds and is 0.8 inches thin. Google promised over 6.5 hours of battery life and 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years.

The device includes a VGA camera and ports for USB 2.0 and 3.0, as well as HDMI. There's built-in dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 compatibility.

The Samsung Chromebook runs an ARM Cortex A15 processor known as the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor. Its predecessor, the Samsung Chromebook 550, runs an Intel Core processor.

Chromebooks made their debut in May 2011. They tap into the cloud, allowing you to sign in with your Google account and start working no matter which Chromebook you fire up. The Series 5 Chromebook 550 was released earlier this year for $549.99, and PCMag found it to be "an attractive package that does what it sets out to do." But for the same price, we noted, "you can get an inexpensive Windows laptops that stores more and is useful even when the Internet isn't available."



           
           

That's where the new Samsung Chromebook comes in, Google said today.

"In order to have one, two or more computers around the house, they need to be easy to use and much more affordable. So together with Samsung, we designed a new laptop—the new Samsung Chromebook for $249—the computer for everyone," Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for Chrome & Apps at Google, wrote in a blog post.

Pichai promised a 10-second bootup and instant resume. "High-resolution videos (in 1080p) are beautiful to watch and when using the touchpad, you'll notice smooth scrolling due to a hardware-accelerated user interface," he wrote.

The Samsung Chromebook is now available for pre-order online via Amazon, Best Buy, PC World, and other retailers. It will be in 5,000 Best Buy stores in the U.S., 30 PC World and Currys stores in the U.K., and on Google Play next week.

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