Hotmail is to be replaced by Outlook.com

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Microsoft is overhauling its free webmail service, dropping the Hotmail name it has used since acquiring the product in 1998, and renaming it Outlook.com.

The revamped service will help sort messages as they arrive and allow users to make internet calls on Skype.
It said the move would help tackle the problem of "cluttered" inboxes.
The move may also be designed to win over users of Google's rival Gmail service.
Microsoft said that in many cases email had become a "chore" because its users accounts had become "overloaded" with material.
Its solution is to automatically sort messages into different areas to distinguish between emails from contacts, newsletters, package delivery notices, social network posts and other identifiers determined by the account holder.
In addition it is taking steps to link the Outlook account with other services the user might have subscribed to.
"We are giving you the first email service that is connected to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google, and soon, Skype, to bring relevant context and communications to your email," the firm's Chris Jones said on its blog.
"In the Outlook.com inbox, your personal email comes alive with photos of your friends, recent status updates and tweets that your friend has shared with you, the ability to chat and video call - all powered by an always up-to-date contact list that is connected to your social networks."
Targeting Google In what may be perceived as a dig at Google, Mr Jones added that the firm would not scan email content or attachments in order to sell the information to advertisers or others.

Large photos and video can be sent via the firm's Skydrive service avoiding attachment size limits

He also announced that web versions of the firms Office apps were built-in, potentially helping it counter competition from other web-based application suits such as Google Docs and Zoho Docs.
Outlook.com also links up with Microsoft's Skydrive cloud storage, allowing users to send photos and other documents via the service to avoid the risk of going over their attachment size limit.
This could pose a threat to the rival Google Drive service as well as Dropbox, Sugarsync and others.
'Cleaned up' Mr Jones said the firm had built a "brand new service from the ground up". But Matt Cain, an analyst at the tech consultants Gartner, played down the suggestion of a major leap forwards.
"Outlook.com represents reverse-consumerisation - taking a ubiquitous business tool and recrafting it for the consumer market," he told BBC.
"There really is no new technology here - the filtering tools have been around for some time as well as the social network integration.
"What is new is the cleaned up user interface, and the marketing spin, and the tight integration with office web apps and Skydrive, and the forthcoming integration with Skype."
Microsoft is offering the service in a "preview" mode for the time being and has not announced an official release date. Retweet this story

No more Hotmail by nextyear, says hotmail

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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT), the world’s biggest software maker, will introduce a new, free Web-based e-mail portal under its Outlook brand and phase out Hotmail over time as it seeks to draw users from Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG)’s Gmail.

A preview of the new service is going online today and Hotmail probably will be phased out in the next year, said Brian Hall, a general manager in Microsoft’s Windows group, in an interview.
By going with Outlook, Microsoft is trying to capitalize on the brand behind the most-used corporate e-mail service, sold as part of its Office suite. While Hotmail is the world’s most popular Web-based e-mail provider, it has lost ground in the U.S. to Google and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) (YHOO) as well as other, newer methods of communication, such as social media.
“E-mail is one of the only areas in technology that’s gone eight years without a significant change -- the last big move was the release of Gmail -- and for us it’s maybe been even longer than that since our last big change,” Hall said. “None of the social networks existed then, and the types of e-mail we get have changed.”
Hotmail was the only one of the top three Web-mail services to lose unique visitors globally in the year through June 2012, falling 4 percent, according to ComScore Inc. (SCOR) (SCOR) Yahoo Mail gained 2 percent and Gmail increased 17 percent.
Hotmail had 324.2 million unique visitors in June, compared with 290.3 million for Yahoo Mail and 277.6 million for Gmail, according to ComScore.

New Features

While Hotmail derives revenue through ads, the main value lies in how often people use e-mail, Hall said. Google is using Gmail to lure customers to its online word processing and spreadsheet applications and away from Microsoft’s Office.
The Outlook Web-mail service can tell whether an e-mail is from a personal contact, in which case it shows content from Facebook Inc. (FB) (FB) and Twitter Inc. from the sender. Users will be able to see if a sender is online and enter into a Windows Messenger or Facebook chat session with them. In the future, Skype Internet calling capability also will be added, Hall said.
The new portal will let users sort by types of e-mail to categorize messages from their contacts, social media updates or newsletters such as a Groupon Inc. (GRPN) (GRPN) offer. They can set it to only keep the latest Groupon offer or the last few, and clear out the rest.
It’s also meant to have a clean-looking design that leaves more space to display e-mails, compared with Gmail, Hall said. Ads are also less obtrusive, he said, and don’t appear alongside personal messages. Retweet this story

Taiwan university sues Apple over iPhone patents

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Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University has filed a suit against US tech giant Apple, claiming the company's Siri intelligent assistant has infringed on two of its patents.

Apple introduced the voice-activated assistant technology when launching the iPhone 4S in 2011.

But Cheng Kung University in south Taiwan's Tainan city said the technology infringes two patents held by one of its research teams, both related to speech recognition.

The team is led by Wang Jhing-fa, a professor who specialises in chip designs and neural networks facilitating speech and pattern recognition.

"We filed a lawsuit against Apple at a Federal district court in Texas Friday," Yama Chen, a legal affairs manager at the university, told AFP.

Apple Taiwan was not immediately available for comment.

Earlier this month, Chinese technology firm Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co Ltd filed a similar claim against Apple over Siri.

The company's Xiao i Robot software, patented in 2004, operates in a similar way to Apple's personal assistant and works on the iOS and Android operating systems.

Greater China -- which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan -- has become Apple's fastest-growing region, with revenues second only to the United States.

© 2012 AFP

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US Government: NSA to hire hackers

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Wearing a t-shirt and jeans, America's top spymaster -- National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander, also the head of the U.S. Cyber Command -- took the stage Friday at the nation's largest hacker convention to deliver a recruiting pitch.
"In this room, this room right here, is the talent our nation needs to secure cyberspace," Alexander told the standing-room-only audience at DefCon, a grassroots gathering in Las Vegas expected to draw a record 16,000 attendees this year. "We need great talent. We don't pay as high as everybody else, but we're fun to be around."
Alexander's appearance is a milestone for DefCon, a hacker mecca with an often-uneasy relationship with the feds. DefCon is the older, wilder and far less official sibling of BlackHat, a cybersecurity conference that wrapped up Thursday in Las Vegas.
BlackHat draws corporate infosecurity workers in suits. At DefCon, they switch to t-shirts and spend the weekend mingling with cryptographers, script kiddies, security researchers and a liberal smattering of military and law enforcement agents -- both in and out of uniform.
DefCon is famed as an elite hacking showcase. The registration badges alone are a technical feat, featuring a customizable circuit board and cryptographic scavenger-hunt puzzle. A hacker group called Ninja Networks set up a private cellular network to chat on during the show -- a stunt that drew admiring praise from Alexander during his talk.
Those are the kinds of skills the government needs, he said. Playing to his audience, Alexander rattled off a long list of tech-industry stars like Vint Cerf and Dave Aitel who did pioneering work on the federal payroll.
"We're the ones who built this Internet," Alexander said, citing the key role agencies like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) played in the network's early days. "Now we're the ones who have to keep it secure, and I think you folks can help do that."
To hammer the point home, the NSA set up a special recruiting site for the show: http://www.nsa.gov/careers/dc20/. It's not your standard government careers page. This one includes the line: "If you have a few, shall we say, indiscretions in your past, don't be alarmed."
The NSA is especially keen to draw in people like those holed up in a conference room just 20 feet away from Alexander's presentation, hunched over laptops and takeout cartons. They're competitors in Defcon's "Capture the Flag" battle, a kind of geek Olympics.
Hacking is usually a glamorless sport, but Defcon plays up the drama for its famed-in-nerd-circles CTF showdowns. In a darkened arena filled with rock music and colored laser lights, 20 competing teams fight for 48 hours to break into each other's servers and steal key information, called "flags," while holding off rival attackers. The winner will be announced Sunday evening during DefCon's closing ceremonies.
Coders from around the globe battle through a series of qualifying rounds to make it to the CTF. "These hackers here are the top of the world," one observer murmured in hushed tones, watching the teams bang feverishly on their computers a few hours after the contest's Friday morning kickoff.
The NSA would love to learn more about the exploits those CTF hackers are using. But do the hackers want to play ball?
The audience reaction to Alexander's talk was generally favorable. Organizers had to turn away hundreds of attendees from the at-capacity conference hall, and the crowd that made it in listened attentively to the general's talk.
One attendee near the front -- a corporate security researcher who specializes in defending against digital espionage -- said he came away impressed. More importantly, from NSA's point of view, he says he would consider checking out the agency's career options.
"I think it would be thrilling," said the researcher, who asked to remain anonymous. "I mean, that's the real deal. We're trying to protect our corporate IP. They're trying to protect the country and people. It would be absolutely awesome -- even though the pay is nothing."
Of course, not everyone was so easily won over. A few rows further back, a group of cynics kept up a running counterpoint to Alexander's talk.
"Sometimes you guys get a bad rep," Alexander said at one point. "From my perspective, what you're doing to figure out the vulnerabilities in our systems is absolutely needed."
"Then stop arresting us!" one of the hecklers called back. Retweet this story

Is China's space program a new threat to America'?

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On Sunday, China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft successfully docked with the orbiting Tiangong-1 space lab, heralding the Asian superpower's arrival as a technological leader in the space race. China is now one of three countries, including the U.S. and Russia, to pull off such a feat, and Beijing's mission also marks the first time that China has sent a female astronaut into space. The docking caps phase two of the country's 30-year, three-phase plan to build an expansive, fully operational space station to rival NASA's Skylab, which orbited Earth from 1973 to 1979. And with China's space-age ascendance sharply contrasting with the United States' increasing reliance on private entities like SpaceX to carry out routine missions, will China's presence among the stars soon surpass America's?

Not in the near future: China's space program still has a long way to go to catch up with the U.S. and Russia, says Joan Johnson Freese at CNN. China's development has been slow and steady, while NASA advanced very quickly during the Apollo phase in the '70s — a veritable "tortoise and hare" comparison. Despite China's incremental progress, America still benefits from its decades-long headstart. Plus, China's ambitions "do not come with an unlimited budget," and the U.S. government's decision to lean increasingly on the private sector for its "low-Earth orbit needs" means NASA "can focus its limited budget on new, more distant exploration goals."


China is merely trying to keep pace: China's aim isn't to race past the U.S., but rather to avoid "falling too far behind," says N. Gopal Raj at India's The Hindu. Beijing's planned space station finds its origins in the Chinese government's "Plan 863," a 1986 scheme to "close the gap with advanced nations in chosen areas of science and technology." Obviously, a Chinese space station is decidedly less ambitious than U.S. dreams of a mission to Mars, or even a short trip to the moon. Clearly, China is in no hurry.

But the U.S. is losing out on a real opportunity: Congress forbids NASA from working with China cooperatively — and that's a shame, astronomer Jonathan McDowell tells NPR. While it "does make sense for the United States to be protective of some of its advanced technology," we should still work with the Chinese. The blanket ban "goes against the scientists' natural tendency to want to talk to each other in this very international and globalized world." It's easy to make Americans "afraid of China" as "both a national security competitor and an economic competitor," but I think "the more we communicate, the less the tensions will be." The current stand-off is bewildering. Retweet this story

The World Most Fastest Fighter Jet: $62 billion.

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The f22 raptor is the most advanced fastest  twin engine fifth generation, super maneuverable fighter aircraft in the world, Its stealth makes it almost invisible to enemy radar, if not completely. It swiftness makes it easily to maneuver in combat without any problem, which other fighter find difficult to do. The raptor avionic system,  turns  its invisible to other fighter in combat by jamming their the radar detector. The  raptor is so advance that it can carry out electronic warfare and signal intelligence roles. The raptor can be said to have of the finest view  of beauty due to the romantic illuminating light from  it cockpit.

A woman once said that the raptor night cockpit, view, give an emotional  desire, of how sweet a romantic dinner is  in a blue sky.

The raptor weapon system make it to able to shot at target from any angle of maneuvering and it can easily fire at target at it back with out having to turn around at first as other fighter has to do. The weapon systems allow the raptor to strike at any position of  target, on land, sea and air.

The speed of the raptor at 2.25 (1,500 mph, 2,410 km/h) makes it the fastest fighter jet in combat,  its able to takeoff within a short space of time, and can ascend almost in less  than 8 seconds. The air refueling system of the raptor makes it able to remain in combat  flight, staying away from land. The raptor remains for now the most superior combat fighter jet of the time, it was built at the cost of $62 billion.

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Skype to start 'wiretapping' all your video calls

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The video calling service Skype recently made a change to how it routes calls.

Yawn, right? But here's where it get a little juicier: Hackers and bloggers are saying the changes, which push some of the video calling process onto Skype's own computers instead of onto random machines on the Internet, could help the app spy on users' calls, presumably at the request of a court or government.

"Reportedly, Microsoft is re-engineering these supernodes to make it easier for law enforcement to monitor calls by allowing the supernodes to not only make the introduction but to actually route the voice data of the calls as well," Tim Verry, from the website ExtremeTech, wrote last week. (Supernodes are third-party computers that act as a sort of directory service for routing calls.)

"In this way, the actual voice data would pass through the monitored servers and the call is no longer secure. It is essentially a man-in-the-middle attack, and it is made all the easier because Microsoft -- who owns Skype and knows the keys used for the service's encryption -- is helping."

Other news outlets, including Forbes and Slate, picked up on the discussion. Forbes says there is "tremendous buzz" in the hacker community on this topic.

The problem? It's unclear what exactly changed, and a Skype spokesman contacted by CNN for clarification would not release more than a pre-written statement.

Chaim Haas, the spokesman, would not say, for instance, if the update actually enabled the company to tap into and record Skype calls. He also would not answer questions about when the update took place or whether wiretapping was a motive.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to continually improve the Skype user experience, we developed supernodes, which can be located on dedicated servers within secure datacenters," the statement from Skype says. "This has not changed the underlying nature of Skype's peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, in which supernodes simply allow users to find one another (calls do not pass through supernodes).

"We believe this approach has immediate performance, scalability and availability benefits for the hundreds of millions of users that make up the Skype community."

Skype, which grew out of the peer-to-peer downloading network Kazaa and how has 254 million "connected" users per month, has a long reputation for guarding the privacy of its callers. Skype calls usually are routed from one caller to another, rather than through a middleman.

"Historically, Skype has been a major barrier to law enforcement agencies," writes Ryan Gallagher at Slate. "Using strong encryption and complex peer-to-peer network connections, Skype was considered by most to be virtually impossible to intercept."

For technical reasons, this meant that Skype actually could not comply with an order to wiretap a particular Skype user's conversations, a spokeswoman told the tech news site CNET in 2008. "We have not received any subpoenas or court orders asking us to perform a live interception or wiretap of Skype-to-Skype communications," the spokeswoman said. "In any event, because of Skype's peer-to-peer architecture and encryption techniques, Skype would not be able to comply with such a request."

But after the recent change, some insiders are speculating that such digital eavesdropping may indeed be possible.

The difference involves the third-party "supernode" computers. Until recently, those supernodes were other Skype users who had fast Internet connections and could handle the work.

Now, according to Skype's statement, those supernodes have moved onto computers owned by Skype, which is owned by Microsoft. That has some people concerned.

Haas, Skype's spokesman, wrote that "it is also important to note that Skype calls DO NOT (emphasis his) pass through supernodes -- they act in a directory function only."

He added: "As was true before the Microsoft acquisition, Skype cooperates with law enforcement agencies as is legally required and technically feasible."

This seems to mean that Skype can't intercept calls just because it owns the supernodes now. The spokesman, however, declined to answer follow-up questions on this point.

Others are unsure what it means.

"I'm a little bit surprised and slightly skeptical about that statement" about how calls "do not pass through supernodes," said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Maybe in most cases calls would not actually pass through a supernode in a way that they could be tracked, Eckersley said, but, for technical reasons, some types of computer connections may require a call to route though a supernode.

If you are really truly geek fluent, Eckersley's question for Skype may interest you:

"If two Skype users are firewalled so that they can only make outbound TCP connections and cannot make UDP connections, how do you route a call between those two users?"

Eckersley said he can't think of an answer, aside from pushing a call through a supernode, which now would be on a Skype- or Microsoft-owned computer.

In any event, Eckersley said, this update may not be all that significant in the big picture. His group already does not recommend that people who live in authoritarian regimes use Skype, because of the relative likelihood that communications could be tapped.

In dangerous places like Iran and Syria, using a service like Gmail is safer, he said.

"As of 2012 we don't believe the Skype architecture is secure," he said. "There are a lot of people out there, a lot of governments out there, that have the means to break Skype, and this remains true regardless of whatever Microsoft just changed. Retweet this story

On 6 August, Mars rover will land on planet Mars,after 8months and half of flying in space

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If you’re contemplating a mission to Mars, Nasa’s Chronology of Mars Exploration makes depressing reading. For every successful Russian Mars 3 or American Viking 1, there’s a failed Beagle 2 (UK) or Mars Polar Lander (US). In fact only of the 42 missions listed, only 17 have been successful. The odds, over the past half-century, of a Mars mission succeeding are around 40%.
To be fair, several early missions didn’t even make it off the launch pad and the chances of success have improved considerably over the decades. But you don’t have to go back far to see failure. Only last year, Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission to the Martian moon Phobos failed to make it out of Earth orbit (well, it did eventually when it burned up on re-entry). Perhaps the most infamous though is Nasa’s 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter, where a mix-up between imperial and metric measurements sent the spacecraft careering into the Martian atmosphere to be destroyed.
On 6 August (GMT) 2012 Nasa will try again with what is almost certainly the most ambitious and exciting Mars mission ever launched. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) with the Curiosity rover is designed to investigate whether the planet ever had the conditions to support life.
The rover is essentially a robotic geologist, that will collect and analyse soil and rock samples as it trundles across the Martian surface. And it is big: around the size of a Mini Cooper or small SUV; at 900kg (almost a tonne), it’s heavy and when hurtling towards the planet, it’s travelling at some 5km/s (mps), roughly 18,000km/h (11,000mph).
So, here’s the engineering challenge: successfully land a rapidly moving, car-sized rover on an alien planet. Remember to show your workings.
“When you have a big vehicle, it’s actually very difficult to slow down,” says Dan Rasky from Nasa Ames in Silicon Valley, California. Rasky, now the director of the Emerging Commercial Space Office, helped develop the MSL heat shield that will protect the spacecraft as it enters the Martian atmosphere.
“The major part of slowing down is being done with your heat shield,” says Rasky. “It’s a very tenuous atmosphere – similar to 100,000 feet [30,000 metres] here on Earth – but if you design things right, you can still slow things down enough that you can land safely.”
‘Scary’ idea
Nasa engineers originally planned to employ the same material that was used to land the Viking missions in 1975. But when they tested it in a special wind tunnel, equipped with high intensity heaters designed to simulate the conditions the MSL spacecraft will face, things didn’t turn out as expected.
“The material didn’t work,” Rasky tells me. “The very high heat just burned through the heat shield which would have burned into the structure of the spacecraft. So you would have got to the surface in pieces.”
Instead, the engineers turned to Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator, or PICA for short. Phenolic is the same material that we use for saucepan handles, a plastic that burns but doesn’t melt. PICA was first used on Nasa’s Stardust mission and is also fitted to the SpaceX Dragon Capsule.
“There’s part of it that gets burned away. The Phenolic burns to generate a pyrolysis gas, which turns out to be an important way that it absorbs the heat,” Rasky explains. “SpaceX intends to get multiple uses out of its heat shield, which you can do if you size it correctly.”
Once the heat shield has done its job, the MSL spacecraft should have slowed to around 400m/s. With the rover still encased in the shell of the heat shield, the parachute deploys to slow the descent down even further. Parachutes have a proven track record on Mars – most recently with the Phoenix mission. But with MSL, the parachute is only the first stage in a much more complex landing process. This will be the first mission to use a ‘sky crane’. Retweet this story

‘Dark Knight’ Batman, Rises to Box Office Records: $160.9 million

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The Dark Knight Rises opened to an impressive $160.9 million click here to continue  Retweet this story

1,300 Cisco workers to lose thier jobs

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US computer network giant Cisco Systems said Monday it was cutting 1,300 jobs, or two percent of its global workforce, as part of "a continuous process of simplifying the company."

The California tech firm, seen as a bellwether for the industry, said it was carrying out "a focused set of limited restructurings" that include the job cuts. Retweet this story

first American woman in space, dies

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Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died Monday after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, her company said. She was 61.

"Sally lived her life to the fullest, with boundless energy, curiosity, intelligence, passion, commitment and love. Her integrity was absolute; her spirit was immeasurable; her approach to life was fearless," read a statement on the website of Sally Ride Science, a company she started to help teach students -- particularly young women and girls -- about science, math and technology.

Ride flew into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983 to become America's first woman in space. She took a second trip aboard the same shuttle one year later.The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who orbited the Earth 48 times in 1963."As the first American woman to travel into space, Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model," President Barack Obama said soon after news of her death broke. "She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools. Sally's life showed us that there are no limits to what we can achieve, and I have no doubt that her legacy will endure for years to come."

A Los Angeles native, Ride attended Stanford University, where she earned four degrees, including a doctorate in physics, according to NASA. She joined the agency as part of the class of 1978, the first to include women. Ride responded to an ad in the Stanford student newspaper and was selected from some 8,000 applicants.

She was assigned to a third flight, but that was scratched after the Challenger exploded shortly after lift-off in 1986, claiming the lives of seven crew members on board. Ride helped investigate that accident and later that of Space Shuttle Columbia, becoming the only person to serve on the commissions investigating both accidents. In 2003, the Columbia disintegrated during re-entry into the atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.

She served as a special assistant to the NASA administrator for long-range and strategic planning and was the first director of NASA's Office of Exploration, according to her company.

After leaving the agency, Ride joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, where she was a professor of physics and director of the California Space Institute. She was also the author of several books.

During a 2008 interview with CNN, Ride recalled what it felt like to look back on Earth, saying the view gave her a new perspective.

"You can't get it just standing on the ground, with your feet firmly planted on Earth. You can only get it from space, and it's just remarkable how beautiful our planet is and how fragile it looks," she said.

Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy, her mother, her sister and other family members.

"Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism -- and literally changed the face of America's space program," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Sally's family and the many she inspired. She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly." Retweet this story

Mom Faces Charges for Hacking School Computer to Change Kids’ Grades

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Catherine Venusto is facing six felony charges for allegedly hacking into her children’s school computer to change her children’s grades.
According to ABC News, the Pennsylvania mom allegedly changed her daughter’s failing grade from an F to an M for “medical” in 2010, and her son’s 98 to a 99 in February 2012. She is also accused of reading school official’s emails
Venusto was arraigned this week on three counts of unlawful use of a computer and three counts of computer trespassing and altering data.
Venusto, who worked for the school district from 2008 to April 2011, managed to hack into the school’s records 110 times before anyone caught on. Jennifer Holman, Northwestern Lehigh School District’s assistant superintendent, said once a teacher noticed that Superintendent Mary Ann Wright was in their grade book, administrators and state police began looking for whoever snatched Wright’s password.
If convicted, Venusto could face up to 42 years in prison or a $90,000 fine.


 July/August Giveaway – Win a Samsung Galaxy S III (unlocked) GT-i9300 16GB Android Smartphone International version
 
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Samsung ' has sold 10 million Galaxy SIII smartphones

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South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the world's top smartphone maker, has sold more than 10 million units of its newest Galaxy S III model since its launch about two months ago, a report said Sunday.

The company said earlier this month it expected a record operating profit of 6.7 trillion won ($5.9 billion) in the second quarter, boosted by strong sales of its flagship Galaxy smartphones.

The Korean firm, which is battling with Apple's iPhone and iPad for supremacy in the lucrative smartphone and tablet market, has seen heavy demand for its new Galaxy S III phone, which was introduced in Europe in May.

"It appears that it (accumulated sales) has exceeded 10 million units," said J.K. Shin, head of the Samsung's mobile communications division, according to Yonhap news agency.

Shin said last month he expected the global sales of the new phone -- available in more than 140 countries -- would surpass 10 million by the end of July, including sales of about a million units at home.

The third version of the firm's Galaxy S series offers face-recognition technology and improved voice-activated controls as well as a more powerful processor.

It also has a 4.8-inch (12.2-centimetre) screen that is 22 percent larger than the previous S2 version, while it can detect eye movements and override the automatic shutdown if the user is looking at the screen.

Samsung shipped 44.5 million smartphones in the first quarter, exceeding the 35.1 million of US arch-rival Apple, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics in April.

Samsung, embroiled in a slew of patent suits with Apple in international courts, is pinning its hopes on the S III to further erode its market share before the expected new version of Apple's iPhone 5 this year.

Earlier this month, Samsung won one of those patent battles, with a British judge ruling that Samsung's Galaxy tablet did not infringe Apple's registered design and that consumers were not likely to confuse it with the iPad tablet.

© 2012 AFP

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Facebook acquires mobile app maker Acrylic

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The engineer behind Canadian startup Acrylic said Friday that he was closing up his one-man shop and joining the design team at leading social network Facebook.

Facebook confirmed that it has bought Acrylic in an "acqui-hire" that brings on board founder Dustin MacDonald, the creator of mobile gadget applications for newsfeeds and digital wallets.

"Facebook is an invaluable service that we all use daily, and a company I believe is one of the most innovative and important around today," MacDonald said in a blog post announcing his move to California.

"After visiting late last year, I discovered that we shared many of the same core product design goals and principles, and it soon became obvious that it was a natural fit."

Acrylic's best-known applications -- Wallet and Newsfeed -- were not acquired by Facebook in the deal. Buying promising startups for the talent and not its products has become common in the competitive Internet technology world.

Facebook recently bought startups Spool and TagTile in "talent acquisitions" aimed at helping it stay in synch with users as they shift increasingly to using smartphones and tablet computers.

© 2012 AFP

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A Nigerian has just invented a new ipad, is this the rise of Africa technological global strenght?

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Saheed Adepoju: I pitched the idea to my parents, who gave me £40,000 to start with

Nigeria's Saheed Adepoju is a young man with big dreams. He is the inventor of the Inye, a tablet computer designed for the African market.

According to the 29-year-old entrepreneur, his machine's key selling point is its price - $350 (£225) opposed to around $700 for an iPad.
He believes that, because of this, there is a big market for it in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, particularly amongst students.
He is also hoping to sell his tablet - which runs on the Google Android operating system - to the Nigerian government and plans to have at least one computer in each local government area.

“Start Quote

The Inye is a mobile internet device. It gives you access to the internet; it allows you to play media files and watch movies”

"The Inye is a mobile internet device. It gives you access to the internet; it allows you to play media files and watch movies. What we have is an 8-inch device, a device that is half-way between a laptop and a mobile phone," he told the BBC's series African Dream.

"You have the standard software applications that come pre-installed and then you have the ones that we are working with various local developers to bundle on," he added.
Among those local apps there is one designed to raise awareness about HIV and others related to water and sanitation.
"We work with local developers that have expertise in particular areas so that we don't end up doing so much work and we just have a collaborative way of doing things together," he said.
'Word of mouth' Mr Adepoju has a background in software development and is a Sun-certified Java programmer.

Saheed Adepoju

• Age: 29
• Degree in Maths and computer science, The Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria, 2005
• Advanced Computing, Bournemouth University, UK, 2008
• Worked briefly for a consulting firm
• Cofounded Encipher Group with Anibe Agamah
• Starting capital: $60,000
• The Encipher Inye was released in 2010
• Inye means One in Igala, a language in Nigeria

After doing a first degree in maths and computer science in Nigeria, he completed another one in advanced computing by research at Bournemouth University, in the United Kingdom.

Upon graduation in 2009, he returned to his home country and started working for a consulting firm.
"Within eight months I got fired, primarily because of differences in approach to doing business. In the middle of all this, the Apple iPad launched, back in January of 2010, which inspired us to actually look to build such [a] product within the African marketplace," the entrepreneur told the BBC Africa's Chris Ewokor.
He said that, with that goal in mind, he borrowed money from friends and family, raising a total of about $60,000.
According to him, all of that went on the devices and the logistics - there was no budget for marketing, so early advertising was "word of mouth" on social media.
The first 100 units of the Inye, which means One in Nigeria's Igala language, were built in China and, after receiving feedback from its users, a second version was launched in May 2011.
Encipher Group, the company he cofounded with web developer Anibe Agamah, also offers customised IT services and products, including cloud computing, which are mostly based on open technology to keep costs down.
Raising capital According to Mr Adepoju, the company and the apps it develops are focused on preserving local culture through technology and making products which are specific to the local market.

Inye

• Screen: 8-inch capacitive touchscreen
• Processor: 1Ghz
• Connectivity: WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth
• I/O: USB, micro USB, SD card slot (up to 32Gb), 35mm sound jack, HDMI, SIM card for 3G
• OS: Android
• Battery: 5hrs
• Storage: 8Gb internal, 16Gb in the box
• Warranty: 12 months
• App store: Google play store
• Local apps: Spinlet for streaming local Nigerian music and many locally inclined applications

Source: Encipher Group

Another product that the firm has been working on is Encipher TV, a box where people can watch African television, plays and films.

However, he says that it has not been easy to raise capital in order to develop the business faster.
"Here venture capital (VC) is still in its infancy and most VC firms wound want to invest in tried and trusted companies that have gained some form of traction," he said.
"We face the challenge of getting people to listen to the various propositions. We've been to a number of private investors and also to the government," he explained.
Not surprisingly, his immediate plan is to "try and raise capital from whatever sources we can get - locally, internationally or privately - and to try and still to push the brand forward as much as we can".
Will his tablet computer succeed in such a competitive environment? Only time will tell but Mr Adepoju and his colleagues are adamant that it will, not only in Nigeria but also in other African markets.
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The strenght of japan space rocket

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A Japanese H-IIB rocket blasted off Saturday to deliver an unmanned supplies vessel to the International Space Station.

The rocket lifted off into an overcast sky from the southern island of Tanegashima on schedule at 11:06 am (0206 GMT), according to live images relayed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

About 15 minutes later, the rocket successfully released a cargo vessel called "konotori" (stork in Japanese), containing supplies such as food, clothing and tools necessary for experiments to be done in space.

The cargo should reach the International Space Station, where Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide is staying, on July 27.

Japan's leading aerospace firm Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which helped develop the rocket, is expected to take over future operations of the H-IIB and send four more cargo vehicles to the International Space Station by 2016.

After the launch, JAXA president Keiji Tachikawa said the rocket should also be used to explore the potentially lucrative satellite launch market.

"By expanding the scope of its use, (the H-IIB) I hope, will be used to respond to various demands of clients," he told reporters.

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Why is Google after Apple?

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A French startup behind email applications for Apple gadgets has been bought by Google as the Internet titan increasingly tailors hit software to run on its rival's hardware.

Sparrow co-founder and chief executive Dominique Leca announced on Friday that the Paris-based startup's team will go to work on Gmail, Google's free Web-based email service.

"We're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision," Leca said. "While we'll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users."

A Sparrow email application for iPhones became available for purchase in Apple's online App Store in March, and a version of the software for Macintosh computers has been available since early last year.

"The Sparrow team has always put their users first by focusing on building a seamlessly simple and intuitive interface for their email client," a Google spokesperson said.

"We look forward to bringing them aboard the Gmail team, where they'll be working on new projects."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition came as Google ramped up software offerings that compete with custom programs that Apple builds into its iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices.

Google last month took the Web browser battle to iPads and iPhones with the release of Chrome software for popular Apple devices built with Safari online surfing programs at heart.

Safari remains the default browser used in Apple gadgets and the "engine" that Chrome or other Web-surfing applications rely on to function.

© 2012 AFP

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China To overtake America in space??

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China's space plans are ambitious, incremental and extensive. Should Americans be worried that China will overtake us in both space exploration and military capability in space?

No, not yet.

This week, China successfully achieved its first manned space docking with the launch of the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft that carried two men and China's first female astronaut. Part one of China's Project 921, a 30-year plan for space exploration that was approved in 1992, is complete. This is progress, indeed.

Project 921 is the result of China's fear of being left behind in the development of space technology. Part one was about attaining human spaceflight. Part two -- which is where China is now -- focuses on testing advanced technologies, like maneuvering and docking. Part three envisions a large (about 20 tons, the size of Skylab) space station.

A manned mission to the moon was never included in the plan and has only recently become a topic of discussion in China. When talks do come up of putting a Chinese on the moon as early as 2016, they can rile U.S. officials and engender international prestige for China, especially as the U.S. space program appears to be floundering.

But China is not overtaking the United States in space. It is, however, advancing. The execution of China's space program has led to "tortoise and hare" comparisons with the United States.

During the Apollo phase, the United States advanced very quickly, launching many missions which culminated in reaching the moon by a decade's end. In contrast, China launches a mission about every two years, but takes large steps with each one and has a much longer timeline for achieving its goals. What China has that the United States lacks -- and what may give the Chinese an advantage over the long run -- is patience.

China's path to space is not without obstacles, though. Launching their large space station will require a new heavy lift vehicle, the Long March 5, which is still in development and behind schedule. And China's ambitions do not come with an unlimited budget, even though it has already spent billions.

In response, the U.S. needs to keep moving forward.

The Obama administration's decision to redirect the civilian space program to a private-public partnership is smart. A space exploration program fully funded by the government is unsustainable. The recent use of the privately developed Flacon-9/Dragon duo to resupply the International Space Station indicates that if the private sector can handle low-Earth orbit needs, then over time NASA can focus its limited budget on new, more distant exploration goals.

But Americans are not known for patience. The real danger for the United States is in ceding space exploration and leadership to China because it lacks the political will to proceed at a steady, supportable pace. This will have broad strategic implications.

Complicating the issue is the largely dual-use nature of space technology, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes. And it is difficult to discern whether military space assets are intended for offense or defense. The difference between a rocket and a missile is considerable in political considerations, but nominal in terms of technology. A country that possesses missile defense could also use it as a weapon.

So what can be done if we need to protect our space assets? One thing is clear -- weapons are not the answer.
Click here to read related story: Is China's space program a new threat to America'? 

China's irresponsible 2007 anti-satellite weapon test exponentially increased the amount of space debris in orbit, which is dangerous to operating satellites. Space debris is now recognized by all countries (and militaries) as a threat to space assets.

An International Space Code of Conduct is being discussed in the United Nations. It would state what responsible spacefaring nations consider acceptable behaviors in space. Though legally nonbinding, it would be a first step toward maintaining the sustainability of the space environment for use by all.

The United States largely knows what space technology China possesses, but it doesn't know what China's intentions are. The United States should try to better understand China's space goals.

However, NASA is prohibited by law from working with China. This makes no sense. If one believes that China and the United States are not inherently enemies, then working together on space projects -- with technology transfer controls -- will benefit both countries. If one believes that China is inherently a threat to the United States, then the adage "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" comes to mind.

The script for U.S.-China relations -- and space relations in particular -- is constantly evolving. The United States can influence the direction, but only if we engage and persuade the Chinese to engage with us. It's one way of preventing a scenario of a galactic Wild West in which China has become the world's leader in space.


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