iPhone 4S - 02nd December 2011

iPhone 4S -A touch screen slate Smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, a device that combines a widescreen iPod with a touch screen, mobile phone, and internet communicator.

Highlights

· The iPhone 4S introduced a new automated voice control system called "Siri", unique to the 4S,that allows the user to give the iPhone commands, which it can execute and respond to. For example, iPhone commands such as "What is the weather going to be like?" will generate a response such as "The weather is to be cloudy and rainy and drop to 54 degrees today".

· Initial operating system -iOS 5.0

· Display -3.5 in (89 mm), 3:2 aspect ratio, aluminosilicate glass covered 16,777,216-color (24-bit) IPS LCD screen, 960 × 640 px at 326 ppi

· Storage -16, 32 and 64 GB

· Processor-1 GHz (under clocked to 800 MHz) dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 Apple A5

· Memory -512 MB LPDDR DRAM

· Camera -8.0 MP f/2.4 image sensor with 1080p HD video at 30 fps, face detection, and video stabilization

· Released -October 14, 2011

· Lot more…..

Android - The Green Robot - 01st December 2011

2.3 Gingerbread

Refined the user interface, improved the soft keyboard and copy/paste features, improved gaming performance, added SIP support (VoIP calls), and added support for Near Field Communication.

3.0 Honeycomb

It was a tablet-oriented release which supports larger screen devices and introduces many new user interface features, and supports multi-core processors and hardware acceleration for graphics. The first device featuring this version, the Motorola Xoom tablet, went on sale in February

3.1 Honeycomb

Released in May 2011, added support for extra input devices, USB host mode for transferring information directly from cameras and other devices, and the Google Movies and Books apps

3.2 Honeycomb

released in July 2011, added optimization for a broader range of screen sizes, new "zoom-to-fill" screen compatibility mode, loading media files directly from SD card, and an extended screen support API. Huawei MediaPad is the first 7 inch tablet to use this version

4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Announced on October 19, 2011, brought Honeycomb features to smart phones and added new features including facial recognition unlock, network data usage monitoring and control, unified social networking contacts, photography enhancements, offline email searching, and information sharing using NFC. Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich is the latest Android version that is available to phones.

Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich

It became publicly available on November 17, 2011 with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Artificial Intelligence's Future? - 29th November 2011

Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science which aims at building machines that can think, feel and take decisions just like humans do. Before discussing artificial intelligence's future, let's understand exactly what artificial Intelligence is all about.

Artificial Intelligence - Current Usage:
There are many applications of artificial intelligence at present. Some of them have been listed here.

· Banks and other financial institutions rely on intelligent software, which provide accurate analysis of the data and helps make predictions based upon that data.

· Stocks and commodities are being traded without any human interference - all thanks to the intelligent systems.

· Artificial intelligence is used for weather forecasting.

· It is used by airlines to keep a check on its system.

· Robotics is the greatest success story, in the field of artificial intelligence. Spacecrafts are sent by NASA and other space organizations into space, which are completely manned by robots. Even some manufacturing processes are now being completely undertaken by robots. Robots are being used in industrial processes, that are dangerous to human beings, such as in nuclear power plants.

Artificial Intelligence's Future Usage:

What is the future of artificial intelligence? Can machines ever be as thoughtful, self-aware and intelligent as human beings? The answer to both these questions is inter-related.

Artificial intelligence in the future will churn out machines and computers, which are much more sophisticated than the ones that we have today. For example, the speech recognition systems that we see today, will become more sophisticated and it is expected that they will reach the human performance levels in the future. It is also believed that they will be able to communicate with human beings, using both text and voice, in unstructured English in the coming few years. However, will artificial intelligence be able to create machines that are self-aware and even more intelligent than human beings - is a question that nobody has an answer to. Also, even if this is possible, how much time it is going to take, cannot be predicted at present.

It is expected that in the future, such machines will be developed, which have basic common sense, similar to human beings, although pertaining to specific areas only. It is also expected that the human mind functions, such as learning by experience, learning by rehearsal, cognition and perception will also be performed by future intelligent machines. In fact, research and experiments are being conducted to recreate the human brain. CCortex , a project by Artificial Development Inc., California, and Swiss government's IBM sponsored Blue Brain Project, are two main ventures, whose goal is to simulate the human brain. Whether this brain will have human consciousness incorporated in it - there is still no answer for that.

It is expected that the robots in future, will take on everybody's work. Whether it is office work or the work at home, robots will accomplish it even more faster and efficiently than human beings. So if somebody's falling ill, they can obtain a robot nurse who will give periodic medicines to them. How much care, concern and empathy the robot nurse will have towards the patient is anybody's guess!

Will they be able to solve "the problem of the mind" and incorporate all the human, mental, emotional qualities in the machines? Let's wait and watch!

What is cloud computing in the simplest words? (24-Nov-2011)

Cloud computing is the provision of all computing resources through the medium of the Internet. Cloud computing is about taking the client server architecture of a computer networking system to an extreme, in terms of scaling and resource sharing. A computer or any mobile device connected to a cloud computing network will have all its data, along with all the processing programs hosted on a remote server farm.

He will access data and use the resources on the cloud computing servers from any terminal connected to them. Just like power is supplied to any region in a power grid, according to demand, so are the resources allocated to terminals in a cloud computing network, based on demand. The 'cloud' in cloud computing essentially stands for the Internet.

Instead of installing programs on your own computer, you can access the same programs as web service applications that are made accessible via a web browser. So, any user can access and save his work or data on the cloud computing server. This provides users with the freedom to access their work from any terminal they choose to work on, which can make a remote connection with the cloud computing server network.

Cloud computing has been made possible because of the increasing high speed connectivity provided by the Internet to remote locations. The power of Internet connectivity has been harnessed to share resources on a cloud computing network. Google is one of the main players in the cloud computing business and it is aggressively promoting this concept across the globe through introduction of its own cloud computing resources.

Aakash: The World's Cheapest Tablet PC (23-Nov-2011)

As the electronic world advances in the domain of microelectronics, more and more amount of hardware can now be fitted within the same confined space. This leads to the miniaturization of laptop computers into smaller counterparts, with the present trend being, giving away with the keyboard altogether. The screen of the computer is manufactured as a touchscreen doubling up as an input device as well as a screen, and thus giving birth to the tablet computer. Tablet computers are user-friendly and comfortable to operate. They are used as an audio-video device more often than other computers. The first tablet computer to be made was the iPad by Apple, completely revolutionizing the tablet scene. The iPad has a superior screen performance and an outstanding OS but was priced reasonably higher than existing laptops. The iPad opened a market for tablet PC’s and a hoard of companies followed including Samsung, HP, Acer, Toshiba etc. However, this technology never really reached the hands of students and those who couldn’t afford this design of personal computers due to high prices. Until now.

India, in 2009 announced the development of a low-priced tablet computing device during the inauguration of the National Mission of Education Program. The main aim of this mission was to educate people from different strata of society, empowering them with knowledge. The tablets already available in market were priced too high for this venture and India had decided to make its own tablet specifically to improve the education scene. Thus, in 2010, the Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal revealed a prototype of this device stating that prices are going to be around 35$ per piece. However, due to recent inflation, the final device unveiled on 5th October 2011, ‘Aakash’, had a price tag of 46$, around eight times cheaper than any tablet sold in the market.

Looking at the technical aspect of this device, it has the minimum functionality, but will be useful for viewing multimedia content, MS Office files, Adobe Reader, WinZip, WinRAR, install upgrades, watch streaming video files, Java Plu-gin, Wi-Fi network connector, Internet browsing etc. This device will be running on a 366MHz Connexant processor with hardware acceleration. It has a memory of 256MB, an internal storage space of 2GB with an external support of up to 32GB, a single USB port, an audio in-jack and an audio out-jack. The display screen is on the lower end running at 800 by 480 pixel resolution within a size of seven inches. It will be running the Android 2.2 operating system Froyo, developed by Open handset alliance led by Google. It weighs only 350 grams and has a battery life of up to three hours depending on the usage.

Release of ‘Aakash’ had mixed public reactions; some said it could be improved, others said the basic functionality was all that is required, but since this device was designed with students and related education in mind, it fulfilled those requirements and is going to be launched as it is. A newer version of this tablet is in progress and probably an ‘Aakash:2’ might be seen in the near future.

The whole tablet is completely ‘Made in India’, with some preloaded applications to use. More applications are being currently developed by IIT Rajasthan in the area of computer aided studies, to help students in their education. Moreover, the government of India is currently going to provide up to 50% subsidy on these tablets for students from rural parts of India. This slashes the cost again by half making it a 25$ tablet! Indeed, this is a welcome move from the Indian government and once again, in terms of innovation, India has shown how a limited budget coupled with innovative thinking and a noble motive can revolutionize the lives of many.

Introduction

The main aim of this blog is to share the latest technology updates which will in turn keep us updated on the current trends. The original version of KYT is in mail. Prakash Raju is the actual author of this KYT version of mails. since we wanted this series of useful mails has to be recorded permanently, we created this blog.

Hope this would be useful not only for a specific set of people but to a large extent of people through this blog.