iTech: 2012

Crazy Windows Phone 8

The Lumia 900 sold me on Windows Phone. The 900 is a marriage of fresh hardware with a fun operating system. I dig the Start Screen with the Live Tiles. There are some shortcomings. The camera sucks, to be sure, and the phone isn’t yet available on Verizon. Plus, after using the phone for several weeks, it was clear that the phone’s large screen is wasted on Windows Phone 7.5. It’s more of the same concerning the 900′s HTC cousin, the Titan II. Microsoft clearly agrees.

Street lights that can spy installed in some American cities

America welcomes a new brand of smart street lightning systems: energy-efficient, long-lasting, complete with LED screens to show ads. They can also spy on citizens in a way George Orwell would not have imagined in his worst nightmare.

With a price tag of $3,000+ apiece, according to an ABC report, the street lights are now being rolled out in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh, and may soon mushroom all across the country.

Part of the Intellistreets systems made by the company Illuminating Concepts, they have a number of “homeland security applications” attached.

With incarceration rates on the rise, South Korea's latest robotic endeavor seeks to alleviate stress on overworked prison guards.

A prison in Pohang, South Korea has begun its first field trial of the world’s first robotic prison guards – roving, autonomous patrols that vaguely resemble a cross between Johnny 5 and a Zamboni. Equipped with 3D depth cameras, a two-way wireless communication system, and software capable of recognizing certain human behavior patterns, the 5-foot-tall bots keep a cycloptic eye out for trouble while patrolling the corridors of the prison block. The “guard” is designed to conduct self-directed patrols, guided by navigation tags located along corridor ceilings, but is supervised by a human guard and may be controlled via iPad. The pattern recognition algorithms focus on behavior that signals trouble and can alert controllers. In emergency scenarios, such as an impending suicide attempt, assault, or arson, correctional officers may respond. If the situation is less dire, two-way cameras and microphones can allow control center guards to communicate directly with restive prisoners, heading off an escalation in hijinks. At the moment, the design of the robot itself does not incorporate any features that would involve physical interaction with prisoners, alleviating previous reservations of inmates, who seemed concerned with the possibility of being roughly handled by the machines.

The robot was developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections in concert with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and manufacturer SMEC and costs 1 billion Korean won, or about $879,000 per unit. Steep price tag notwithstanding, prison authorities are optimistic that, if effective, the robots will eventually result in a cutting of labor costs. With over 10.1 million people incarcerated worldwide, they see the implementation of robotic guards as the future of penal institution security. “The purpose of developing this kind of robot is to secure prisoners’ life and safety and decrease the workload of correctional officers in a poor working environment,” said AFC Chairman Lee Baik Chul in an interview with Reuters. For their part, the designers say that the next step would be to incorporate functionality capable of conducting body searches, though they admit that this is still a ways off presumably to sighs of relief from prisoners.

The United States House of Representatives · House.gov

This afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) by a vote of 248 to168. Unlike SOPA, which focused on copyright violations, CISPA wants to give Internet companies and the U.S. government the tools to protect and defend themselves against cyber attacks by sharing information with each other. Critics, however, argued that this information sharing would be happening with very little oversight and would put Americans’ privacy rights at risk.

Google's SkechUp is actually Google’s first divestment ever, according to two sources, and we’re hearing the search giant made a profit, as it sold SketchUp for more than it bought it for back in 2006.

It wasn’t that SketchUp wasn’t working. It had 30 million activations since joining Google as part of Last Software in March 2006. But it just didn’t fit with the direction Google is heading in. It’s a relatively nice product for architects and the construction industry, game developers, and film makers. It doesn’t fit with Google+ that is last year launched, or this years plan to simplify everyone’s lives.

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 09: In this photo illust...

Most famous social network website 'facebook' announce to buy smart fone picture transfer application service 'instagram' in US$1 billion. Facebook announce to pay the payment in cash.
Instagram was publicise in October 2010.earlier this app was made for iPhone but from previous weeks

Google's new project ,we can say a remarkable improvement in Science and technology achievement.We’re more than a quarter of the way through 2012, and as you may have noticed, we have failed to acquire silver jumpsuits or jetpacks.

Acropolis Museum Collection

Now you can see world's famous Museums without travelling thousands of kilometres and spending thousands of dollars,'Google art Project' providing reality environment to the viewers to visit famous museums of countries including Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

By following Google street view technology, Google offers its user to view museum in 360 degree and the exited things is they can be viewed at gigapixel zoom. The project has been launched in Pinacoteca museum in Brazil.
The project started with 17 galleries in Feb 2011 and now features 151 museums around the globe
Visit http://www.googleartproject.com to enjoy viewing rare things around the world.

Total surveillance:Can not hide your self ?

Ever evolving high-tech gadgets and the Internet have given Big Brother a peep hole into the lives of everyday Americans. Now, without the hassle of planting bugs or breaking and entering, the government can monitor virtually anything it wantsThe CIA has recently claimed it would be able to “read” devices such as dishwashers or refrigerators, with the Internet – and perhaps even with radio waves from outside the home.

Impossible Software has been building its product for a little while now. Founded 2008, its concentrated on real-time video, especially placing images and video into other videos. What do I mean here? I mean putting products into video that were never there in the first place: product placement. Yes, this has been done before, but I’m going to lay a bet you’ve not seen stuff like this.

The simplest way of explaining what they do is for you to try out the demos here

Apple was reportedly gearing up to begin production on the iPhone 5. A source from within China’s Foxconn manufacturing plant told 9 to 5 Mac that various different sample iPhone prototypes were floating around the floor, but there were a number of common features among the phones, including displays that measure at least 4 inches, and longer and wider form factors that do not match that of the iPhone 4 or 4S. The iPhone 5 will reportedly retain the rectangular shape of its predecessors, which would put to bed rumors of a thinner teardrop shape.

Wondering if the US government’s shadowy security agents are working behind the scenes with the biggest entity on the Internet? Don’t hold your breath waiting — one advocacy group has to take Uncle Sam to court for an answer.The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, is suing the United States National Security Agency to find out the truth behind any partnership between the NSA and Google, the Silicon Valley giants behind the Web’s most popular search engine and a laundry list of other online applications and services.

Travelling and unable to speak the local language? No se preocupe (don't worry)! Microsoft researchers have developed a program that will recognize and record your voice then translate it into another language for you.

Law enforcement in Sweden is reportedly planning to put more heat on The Pirate Bay.

It’s not easy being enemy number one in the fight against online piracy. This is a lesson The Pirate Bay has known for years. But it may soon face increased hassle, in the form of a visit from police. The Pirate Bay tells Torrentfreak that it has received information from tipsters that law enforcement authorities in Sweden, where The Pirate Bay is officially based, are preparing another raid on the popular file-sharing site.

Hector Xavier Monsegur,
aka Sabu, LulzSec hacker

Top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec have been arrested and charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.The FBI New York field office has confirmed the charges and said a court appearance is set for Tuesday.

One of the most popular browser in web world, is backing an add-on which would allow the users to monitor in real-time how their actions are tracked by various websites as they surf the net.The plugin is currently under development that present the flow of information as a network of bubbles representing on various websites.

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Google will offer prizes of $60,000, $40,000 and $20,000 – up to a total of $1 million – for demonstrating vulnerabilities in Chrome. The value of the prize will depend on whether the exploits identified have their origins solely in the Chrome, or in a combination of bugs in the browser and other software.

An upcoming campaign announced by the hacking group Anonymous directed against the Internet's core address lookup system is unlikely to cause much damage, according to one security expert.

The built-in file transfer system in Windows can be quite slow, as anyone who uses networked hard drives or moves large media files knows from painful experience. TeraCopy is a great, easy to use app that optimizes transfer speed while avoiding other pitfalls of Windows Explorer.

Pac PAD

Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Kamra (Pakistan) has launched 3 IT products in collaboration of Innavtek International Ltd (Hong Kong). This joint venture is named as CPMC (Commercial Products Manufacturing Cell). While products are being marketed with brand name of PAC (Pakistan Aeronautical Complex)

Motorola's Xyboard/Xoom 2 is an elegant design. It's the software that isn't so elegant. (Credit: Motorola) Comparing Apple's iPad 2 with Motorola's XyBoard and Amazon's Kindle Fire is fraught with peril. But here goes anyway.

Anonymous

Millions of computer users across the world could be blocked off from the Internet as early as March 8 if the FBI follows through with plans to yank a series of servers originally installed to combat corruption.

“Today’s cyber criminals have the ability to interrupt life-sustaining services, cause catastrophic economic damage, or severely degrade the networks our defense and intelligence agencies rely on,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said at a hearing last week. “Congress needs to act on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation immediately.”

The new Extreme SSD from SanDisk

SanDisk announced today its latest solid-state drive, the SanDisk Extreme.The company says the new drive offers up to 10 times the speed of a 7,200rpm hard drive and will greatly improve the boot and shutdown time as well as overall performance of a computer.

I’m thinking it would be great to have a gameroom, but then again, being a grown-up and all, maybe having a bunch of toys in a room is a little too juvenile. I mean the place can’t look like my college sorority, I have a reputation to uphold, sort of… but I gotta tell you, I love video games, all of them, and I have a special fondness for old school arcade games, whats a girl to do?

Court Orders

Apple's legal headache over the iPad trademark in China is getting worse, now that a local company is seeking a ban on iPad imports and exports there. Bloomberg reports that Proview International Holdings, which says it owns the rights to the iPad name in China, has filed paperwork with the country's customs body seeking a ban of both imports and exports of the device.

iCloud

More than 100 million people are now signed up to Apple's Cloud service, the company's CEO said today.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs annual Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again described the service as part of the company's strategy for the next decade, adding that more than a 100 million people were using it.

Another attack by Anonymous against one of the biggest anti-virus maker company,According to Bloomberg ,the hacker group calling itself 'Lords of Dharmaraja'.Anonymous demanded $50,000 from Symantec before releasing stolen source code for several Symantec products onto the web.The group was in contact with Symantec from a weeks

Traditionally known as F*ckFBIFriday, this weekend's eve turned into F*ckCIAFriday, as hacktivists downed the official website for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States cia.gov.

At approximately 3:10 p.m. Eastern time one of twitter accounts related to the hackers' group announced "cia.gov DOWN. #UMAD?#Anonymous."

Apple's more attractive and significant retina display ipad is going to be launch soon.

Will following Prominent features:

0.7mm thicker than the super slim iPad 2.
A quad core processor
screen resolution will be increased to an absolutely ridiculous resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels.

If you've ever implemented a technology project at a nonprofit, you know it's true: technology is 90% psychology. Success rarely hinges on the hardware and the software; technology hinges on the humans involved.

These days, technology has forced its way into every single aspect of our organizations. While we used to use change management strategies to help soothe the fears of those who would reject the new database, now we need something slightly more radical: entirely new organizations.

Apple's iPod Spy Shots

You certainly can't call the past few days boring for Apple.
The company filled a vacancy left on its executive team, was handed a fairly major setback in a German court, and maybe had its next iPod's big trick unveiled in some alleged spy shots.
That was all on top of a petition from a third-party consumer watchdog group demanding Apple improve working conditions at overseas factories where its products are made

A recent trans-Atlantic call between the FBI and the UK's Scotland Yard in which operatives from the two law enforcement agencies discussed ongoing cases regarding a number of alleged hackers was intercepted and recorded—by hackers.“Do you want to talk about cheese?” is the conversation opener in a trans-Atlantic phone call intercepted by hacker collective Anonymous between the FBI and the UK’s Metropolitan Police (aka Scotland Yard).

The Metro interface

Windows 8 is the Metro interface. Designed for touchscreen computers and tablets, and built to use HTML5 and CSS3, Metro ties into Internet apps like SkyDrive and Flickr. As with Windows Phone 7, you can swipe to navigate through tiles showing live Web info like stocks and news as well as more traditional apps.
But Pund-IT analyst Charles King questions whether businesses will really see benefits from Metro, saying it is mainly just a new paint job over the existing Windows interface.

U.S.-military-developed-self-guided-bullet-can-travel-over-a-mile-and-change-direction-before-it-snags-its-target

Adding another impressive technological accomplishment to its arsenal, the United States military has recently developed and created a self-guided bullet, able to twist, turn, and travel over a mile before it hits its target.With the ongoing advancements in modern technology it should come as no surprise that military agencies, in this case the United States military, are seeking to apply new technologies to the battlefield.

It’s true amazing solar tech innovations just keep coming. Some advances come in the form of new handheld devices and applications. Others promise to elevate solar into a mainstream energy source that may one day replace greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels. Here are five recent innovations that have left both solar experts and newbies in a daze.

Windows 8 running on a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor at CES.

Windows 8 is stable on the ARM chip platform and will be seeded to developers soon, sources told CNET. Devices may be priced significantly less than their Intel counterparts, too.Windows 8 on ARM should go to developers in February, said one source, who had some hands-on time with a high-profile device from a major PC maker, adding that Windows 8 was impressive and stable.
"In October of last year. [Windows 8 on ARM] scared the industry because it was unstable. But what we are seeing now is quite stable," said another source, who also confirmed an expected February developer time frame.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal and others are working together on a standard that can be used across the Internet for blocking phishing e-mails.

The 15 companies will be announcing on Monday DMARC.org, which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance--a system for verifying that e-mails are coming from legitimate companies and not importers trying to trick people into clicking a phishing link.

Kim DotCom (at right) and other MegaUpload employees
appear in court following their arrest on January 19.

MegaUpload users can rest easy about the fate of the digital files they stored at the cyberlocker service.

With MegaUpload disabled by the feds and accused of widespread piracy, and many of its top managers in jail or out on bail, there has been no way for the company to pay Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications, the services that host its data. For a while, it looked like those companies would begin deleting user data as early as Thursday.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can’t defend his top-spot score in the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 from behind bars he was recently bumped to the no. 2 spot by a player named Azaros.

On Wednesday, a judge denied Dotcom bail, meaning he likely won’t be able to usurp Azaros’ Modern Warfare 3' title anytime soon.

Researchers from MIT have developed a highly efficient electric car for commuting around the city. Dubbed the Hiriko, the tiny vehicle is powered by a single electric engine and can fold in on itself once parked to become even smaller. In addition, the wheels can rotate 360 degrees making parallel parking much easier as drivers can simply steer sideways into the parking spot.

At this year’s Macworld event, Schneider Optics showed off the iPro Lens System. The package includes professional-quality fisheye and wide-angle lenses, a clever protective cover and a case that doubles as a tripod mount or a convenient handle.

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