- Android gaining fast against iPhone, reason for the HTC suit? – http://blog.quantcast.com/quantcast/2010/03/mobile-os-share.html #
- HTC on Nexus One cracked screen: "They don't go in pockets" – Crave at CNET UK http://bit.ly/dmz5P3 #
Read the following stories on 2010-03-05
Posted 05 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category General
Category General
Read the following stories on 2010-03-04
Posted 04 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category General
Category General
Microsoft Tag for Android
Posted 04 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category Droid
Category Droid
I finally downloaded a Microsoft apps onto my Droid. Microsoft Tag is now available for Android. Microsoft Tag is more like a barcode reader. According to Microsoft, From your mobile phone, simply snap or scan a Tag image anywhere you see it – in editorials, advertisements, product packaging, signs and storefronts – and gain instant access to Websites, videos, reviews, schedules, contact information, social networks, discounts, promotions and more! All you need to do is download the free Tag reader on your web enabled camera phone and when you see a Tag, snap or scan it to interact with the world around you in new ways!
You can download Microsoft Tag by searching Microsoft Tag in the Android market. I installed it today, but haven’t gotten a chance to scan anything. Will try it soon.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft Tag, Android, Droid, Barcode, Scanner
Gesture Search for Android from Google
Posted 04 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category Droid
Category Droid
Google Lab has introduced a new feature called Gesture Search for Android. Once you install the application from Android Market (search for Gesture search), Start it and it’ll inform you how to activate the search. I installed it and tried few options and it worked great. It showed the search results from contacts, bookmark, applications, music tracks etc.
You can search by entering multiple characters and you can delete the last character by swiping from right to left at the bottom of the screen and you can delete the entire search query by swiping from left to right. It’s pretty cool. Give it a try. The only issue is, it works only with devices running Android 2.0 or later, so majority of Android phones are ruled out.
Credit: Google Labs.
Technorati Tags: Gesture Search, Google Lab, Android
Read the following stories on 2010-03-03
Posted 03 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category General
Category General
Read the following stories on 2010-03-02
Posted 02 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category General
Category General
- Visit the town Google, Kansas – http://cjonline.com/news/local/2010-03-01/topeka_to_be_google_kansas #
- Innocomm Shows Android Smartphone With Analog TV http://bit.ly/cBH6aC #
- Apple lawsuit is all against Android http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/the-complaint-apples-patent-lawsuit-against-htc-is-all-about-android/ #
- Best Google Ad Integration Ever – http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2010/02/best_google_ad_integration_eve.php #
How to play m2ts files smoothly using VLC
Posted 02 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category Technology, Ubuntu
Category Technology, Ubuntu
I recently bought a Panasonic HD camcorder which records the videos in m2ts format. m2ts is a high definition MPEG format used in Blu-ray discs and AVCHD. After I copied the files to my desktop, when I tried to play the video using VLC, it was jerky. It wasn’t smooth at all. When I played the video using the Panasonic supplied HDWRITER software, it was smooth. After Googling, I got VLC to play the video smooth. All you have to do is, go to Tools – Preferences in VLC, select Input & Codecs option and select ALL from the drop down menu for Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding (picture below). Save the preference and play the video. The video should be smooth and perfect. I tried this in Ubuntu 9.10, but it should work with all OSes.
Technorati Tags: m2ts, Panasonic, AVCHD, Blu-ray, Codec, H.264, Ubuntu
Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis and shortened the length of the day
Posted 02 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category Science
Category Science
Here is an interesting article I read in Business Week today. According to the article, the earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile couple of days back shifted the earth’s axis and shortened the day. The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second). The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).
Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake. The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds.
Technorati Tags: Business Week, Earthquake, Chile, Concepcion
Read the following stories on 2010-03-01
Posted 01 Mar 2010 — by Arun
Category General
Category General
- Google buys Picnik – http://blog.picnik.com/2010/03/google-acquires-picnik/ #
- More condoms than medals in Vancouver – http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/01/condoms.vancouver.olympics/index.html #
Ubuntu One Music Store Information
You might have read the news in the web that Ubuntu is planning to launch a music store named Ubuntu One music store. Ubuntu has released an FAQ on that. You can find the FAQ here.
Ubuntu One Music Store will be driven by 7Digital. The songs will be DRM (Digital Rights Management) free, so you can copy the songs to your music player, burn them to a CD or copy them to any computer you want. The songs will be available in high quality 256Kbps MP3 and some songs might be in higher bit rate.
Ubuntu One Music Store will be integrated into Rythmbox. This helps you download the songs and copy them to iPod or other music players. Ubuntu is also planning to release the integration as a plugin, so users using Banshee or Amarok or other music player would be able to use Ubuntu One Music Store.
The following are the features you can expect from Ubuntu One Music Store.
- Search by artist, album, or track
- Browse recommendations and genres
- Discover new releases or just released songs each week
- A convenient shopping basket
- Support for a variety of payment options
To purchase the songs, you need Ubuntu One account. If you already have an account, you are ready to go. If not, you can easily create one. You also get 2GB of online storage free with your Ubuntu One account. Purchased songs are automatically transferred to your cloud storage, synchronized to all of your computers, and added to Rhythmbox. Customers will find a new library that contains purchases from the Ubuntu One Music Store.
Customers can download the purchased songs 3 times maximum from the music store. This will help in case they lost the songs they purchased due to error or hardware issue or some other unknown issue.
In order to use Ubuntu One Music Store, you have to have Ubuntu 10.04 installed (which will be released this April).
Technorati Tags: Ubuntu One Music Store, Rythmbox, Banshee, Amarok, 7Digital