The new iPhone 5 is here and it’s a powerhouse!

The new iPhone 5 is here and it’s a powerhouse!

Well, finally after all this time the new addition to the iPhone family is here! And what do you know, it’s a true powerhouse! Not only the hardware and design have changed but also iPhone 5 is running on the new iOS 6. All this together managed to create a beast of a phone and a true competitor or even a new king amongst quad-core smart phones! That is right! It is running with a new quad-core chip, designed by Apple, bearing the name – A6 chip. But wait, the RAM was increased, the phone is supporting the LTE mobile connection which may actually be faster than home wi-fi connections (As stated by Apple) and the display is even bigger! Now the phone uses the new 4″ Retina display especially designed for this phone and like it or not, the phone is even slimmer! You’d think that all this new hardware and display would make it thicker and in the best scenario the same thickness as the iPhone 4s but no, the new design is proof that Apple can create even slimmer devices and we will surely be waiting for them in the future. Lets get into the design and hardware. All right then, the iPhone 5 is just 7,6 mm thick and weighs just 112 grams! Apple have ditched the SIM card and the 30-pin connector for the 44% smaller micro SIM and the Lightning connector which is 80% smaller and is double sided so that the 50/50 chance of plugging it correctly is eliminated, now there is a 100% chance of success. The Retina display is currently the thinnest on the market but thin does not mean worse! The quality and the battery life have been improved by this action and because of the bigger screen the resolution has been increased to the whopping 640 x 1136! That means 326 pixels per inch! So again there will be no pixels visible by the naked eye. The 8mp camera is now protected by a sapphire glass which makes it extremely hard to scratch! There will be people testing that but i for one trust the statement and will not try to scratch it. The new touch about the camera software is the option to capture panoramic photos which can make a photo look like it was taken by a larger mp camera, not a phone. Lets not forget the chips! The A6 chip is 2x faster and 20% smaller then the A5 chip and the two chips responsible for the voice and data transfer have merged into one. That is the new Apple LTE design! All this to conserve the much needed space for the goodies! Ok then, lets talk...

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Apple vs Samsung: Apple Wins and Gets $1 Billion Compensation!

Apple vs Samsung: Apple Wins and Gets $1 Billion Compensation!

The jury in the trial Apple vs Samsung has finally reached a verdict, which turned out to be pretty surprising and unexpected for almost everybody – Samsung have infringed a list of Apple’s patents and therefore the company from Cupertino, California will be awarded with a little over $1 billion in damages. It is known that the two tech giants are leading their patent wars all over the world but the outcome from the case in San Jose, California was the first big victory for Apple. Of course nothing is definitive – the two sides will be back in the court on 20th September, when Samsung will appeal the verdict. Although Samsung will pay Apple 2.5x times less than the expected – around $2.5 billion – the picture is really dark for the Korean manufacturer because the colossal compensation might only be the beginning. The court decided that Samsung have infringed a set of Apple’s patents, more specifically the 381 bounce-back functionality while scrolling down a list, the 915 for users’ navigation and finger gestures, the 163 tap-to-zoom, the grid layout of the icons, even the curved edges of the devices. All these functionalities, features and design specifications can be found in substantial number of devices: Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge,, Epic 4G, Exhibit 4G, Fascinate, Galaxy Indulge, Galaxy Prevail, Galaxy S, Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S II (AT&T), Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Gem, Infuse 4G, Mesmerize. Nexus S 4G. Transform. Vibrant   This means that if everything ends up in favor of Apple (which is highly expected) in front of Samsung there will be two choices – whether to pay additional license taxes to Apple, apart from the $1 billion or simply to take all the upper-mentioned products down from the US market and create new and unique ones. What is more the jury had made a mistake in the form, awarding the Galaxy Tab 10.1 with damages while it didn’t infringe any patents. After close check from the lawyers of the both sides the mistake was found and corrected which resulted in $2.2 million less in the final sum. Sadly Samsung were found guilty not only for infringing Apple’s patents, but infringing them willingly, leading to additional $57 million compensation. Don’t think that Samsung gave up without a fight – they also accused Apple of infringing a set of their patents like UMTS (3G) patent or the ability to listen music in the background while using your device for something else. Unfortunately their arguments were found invalid by the jury and thus Samsung will be awarded $0 in damages.   It is clear that Apple are more than delighted with the outcome of the trial, but who...

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Bing – The Socialized and Upgrated Search Engine!

Bing – The Socialized and Upgrated Search Engine!

How often do you use Bing.com and do you use it at all? Probably no! Google is the search engine that takes all the glory while Bing is left aside in the corner. In the recent years the word “google” has affected our life so deeply that it has even replaced the verb “search” – if you don’t know something simply google it! The truth is that Google are holding a massive share of the search market while Bing is just Microsoft’s search engine that most of the time takes negative comments and no one really uses. But taking into account the events from the last months – the introduction of the so called new Bing and some of the “improvements” of Google that weren’t liked by the general public – more and more factors are indicating that we might be approaching a turning point in the search industry. Better Search Results + Great Social Integration = The New Bing. When using a search engine you normally expect it to provide you with something useful and helpful. Type in your query, hit search and browse all the links, labels, pictures and maps. But how search engines work – they work with keywords, link juice, Alexa Ranking and a bunch of other metrics, metrics that are measurable – they are combination of numbers, symbols, letters and nothing else. I am not saying that search engines provide useless results – on the contrary they have got even smarter after all the Panda and Penguin updates, particularly from Google, all the combinations with Maps and other services. My point here is that 2/3 of the people usually ask some of their friends for advice or recommendation when it comes down to take a decision – from small ones like which train to take from Washington to NYC to big ones like where to organize my wedding. So what is both really valuable and can’t be found in the search engines results – genuine human opinion. Of course forums, chats and review sites are out there to help, but most of them require registrations, additional applications and are time-consuming. What lefts on the horizon are the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others.  OK but using them would lead to opening a new tab in the browser, entering Fb for example, and starting to look for particular people that can help me. Can’t it be easier? Of course it can! The developing team of Bing has come up with the idea to greatly improve the search engine and to make it much more helpful and easy-to-use – they have integrated something like a social searching panel that provides 100% relevant and authentic...

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Cloud Computing & Cloud Based Services

Cloud Computing & Cloud Based Services

For understandable reasons in the technical world the term cloud refers to anything that is distributed or used through the Internet. However in the recent years the collocations “cloud computing” and “cloud based services” started gaining more and more popularity, especially when it comes down to file storage and management systems. Probably names like DropBox, iCloud and SkyDrive make the picture a little bit brighter, but they are going to be discussed later in the article. Before going to these modern and really useful file sharing cloud based services, let’s take a closer look at the evolution of the file sharing as a whole and its different levels for the last decades. The evolution of the file share Floppy disks. Probably most of you weren’t even born in the 70s when these were in fashion. “1.44 Mb storage capacity?!? My profile picture is bigger than that, man!” That is totally right, but back then 1.44 Mb were way enough for caring mostly text documents. What followed the floppy disks were the Compact Disks and after that – the DVDs. Much higher data capacity, preserving the information for longer but with one big disadvantage – most of the CD and DVDs weren’t rewritable and in the end of the day you end up with endless piles of plastic disks, some of which you had used only once. That was what made Flash drives, known also as Flash memories to come on the stage. Nowadays everybody that uses any computing device on a daily basis has at least one flash drive. They are small, portable, rewritable and with high-data capacity – perfect for storing and exchanging any type of files and information. They even made a revolution in the computer producing industry – more and more laptops are now being designed and manufactured without CD-drives. Not to mention the new class of ultrabooks and tablets devices that are extremely thin and a CD or DVD-ROM simply doesn’t fit. Software producers like Apple Inc are also supporting the wider replacement of the Compact Disk with Flash Drives – they ship their operating system on Flash Memories. So far so good, but there is one thing that is now and will continue to change the picture again – multidevice users. Agree with me that it is really annoying to transfer your presentation for tomorrow from the PC to the laptop, or manually distributing the new song you downloaded to the smartphone, the tablet and the laptop by flash drive. That is where the next step of the evolution comes – the so much talked about cloud based file sharing systems! Actually they have been around since a long time ago but what is...

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Flash is Dead and Gone from the Mobile Market!

Flash is Dead and Gone from the Mobile Market!

What has been going around the web for the last year and what became obvious at Google I/O 2012 was the fact that Flash is slowly leaving the mobile market (some argue whether it had ever entered it). Of course it won’t happen as fast as you think but the cards are already down on the table – there is no Flash support in Android 4.1 jelly Bean. This might sound a little outdated but something more fresh is the fact that Adobe removed the Flash player app from the Google Play Store a few days ago. It was just the next pinch of salt in Adobe’s wound that only consolidates the inability of Flash to gain the same fame as in the PC sector. Looks like the Flash vs HTML5 is finally and officially over, at least on the mobile market. No flash support in Android 4.1 and Removing the Flash Player from Google Play – What a “Surprise”! The removal of the Flash player from Google Play doesn’t mean that Android users won’t be able to use it any more. For those who have it already installed nothing will change but those who are currently purchasing new Android devices it won’t be as easy as going online in the store, downloading and installing it like before. The version of the operating system is also a key factor – Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has no Flash support. Luckily for the users, the JB-powered devices represent only 1% of all the Android smartphones and tablets. Nearly 60% are held by 2.3 “Gingerbread”, 17% by 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” and around 16% by 2.2 “Froyo”. Practically everything that is below 4.0, including 4.0, can run Flash untroubled. If the user eventually decides to upgrade his device to 4.1, Flash’s behavior is said to be strange and unpredictable. Put bluntly – Flash is no longer available for the next generations of Android users, but the effect from this will be felt only in the following one and a half – two years. From Adobe have promised to release updates for the people who continue to work with their product, but this will happen in the distant future – September, 2013. Seriously guys, seriously?!? Take into account and the ratio of given promises/realized promises of Adobe for the last 4 years and you might reconsider you priorities (if you haven’t already done this). Do any of those events really surprise you? Probably no because nowadays there isn’t anything for mobile devices that can’t be done in easier way. Flash Player? Nowadays the most popular video sharing networks like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and the sites of the leading world medias are providing videos...

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Windows 8 and Its Metro Style Interface

Windows 8 and Its Metro Style Interface

In the context of the latest 90-day both developer and user trial version of Windows 8, the distribution of the OS to the manufacturers in the first week of August and the approaching official October release, parallel with the Surface Tablet, I have decided to write an article about the Microsoft’s new tile-looking baby and it prospects for success. Currently more than 85% of the mobile market are held by Android and iOS combined and the most probable candidate for the third position is exactly Microsoft with the rather humble 6%. This of course is in a short-term plan. If we look a little bit further in the future some experts predict that it is really possible for Windows Phone 8 to conquer nearly 20% of the market. The question is whether the new cross-platform OS with Metro style interface is capable of this or not. A little prehistory and basic concepts of windows 8. After Windows Vista that was defined as a fail came Windows 7 that was the “Improved Vista”. The same was the situation with the successful Win XP and the previous Win 2000. That is why some started joking that now it is the time for buggy Win version and the next one would be the better one but things are now quite like that. Actually Microsoft have put and are continuing to put a lot in Win 8. Although the average user doesn’t like new things there will be many changes in Windows 8. Profound redesigning and new outlook – both Metro style and Desktop style, something I will refer to later in the article, functionality and performance optimizations and most notably – removal of the fundamental Start button. It is normal to be confused and even to hate Windows 8 at first but only after a few weeks you will get used to it. It is like the cultural shock (maybe shock is a little bit exaggerated) that the user goes through when switching from Win to Mac, but this time it is from Win to Win Metro (Feel the Irony). The fact itself that there is such a shock means that Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft, and his team have found that the key to success is the innovation – don’t upgrade the old, create something new! The interface of Windows 8 is extremely intuitive and easy-to-navigate (particularly the touch oriented Metro one). There are some basic gestures like touching the bottom left corner for the home screen, tapping the top left corner for the last used app, dragging the left side of the screen for seeing all the running application or dragging the right side of the screen for accessing options...

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