Android most popular OS online

Mumbai: Google’s $12.5 billion buyout of mobile handset maker Motorola Mobility signals the growing dominance of Android— Google’s mobile operating system—even as it increasingly poses a threat to Apple’s iPhone in the smartphone category. 
    Google’s Android has emerged as the most popular operating system (OS) among online customers in India during first six months of 2011, said a survey by NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey company. 
    About 45% online consumers discussed the Android OS compared to 32% a year ago while all other systems, including Blackberry, showed a decline in share of buzz. Apple’s iOS occupied the second spot, dropping from 31% to 27%. 
    The survey, findings of which were exclusively shared with TOI, said Samsung was the most popular handset maker on the Android platform followed by HTC, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson. Just 5% of consumers talked about Nokia’s Symbian OS, probably reflecting the troubled handset maker’s depleting dominance in the market. 
    “Google’s Android is dominating conversations on social media sites in India. Our online review shows a shift towards Android-based phones in India over the last year. This trend of is likely to continue,” said Farshad Family, MD, Nielsen Media. 
    The study also said mobile applications for use on a particular OS are the biggest drivers of the conversation for mobile handset operating systems. The study shows that among Android users, 40% of discussions centered on apps while 33% of conversations on the iPhone are focused around its apps and only 30% of discussions around the Symbian OS are related to apps. 
    The total number of apps available on Android had crossed 250,000 in July this year, said CyberMedia Research. 
    “Samsung’s app store has seen exceptional increase of India-specific apps and this is getting the attention of large number of Indian users. This growing demand is due to Indians increasingly using more apps and smartphones which are Android based,” said Ranjit Yadav, country head , Samsung Mobile. 
    Samsung is targeting almost 40% share of the Indian market by December 2011, almost doubling it from 23% currently. 
    The interest around brands like Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson has increased recently, said the survey. Motorola registered the biggest increase as it jumped from 14% to 20% on the chart of most talked about Androidbased phones. 
    “Since 2010 we have been preparing for a strong roadmap for smartphones and have experienced high market acceptance of our Android phones particularly,” said Vishal Chopra, business head, LG India. LG’s share went up from 15% to 17% on the mostdiscussed brands which use the Android system. 
    “It will become harder for handset brands that rely on Android to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace,” said Nielsen’s Family. After Monday’s Motorola buy, Google said it would continue to license the Android platform to other mobile manufacturers. Industry observers are now waiting for Apple’s response to Google’s game-changing move in the smart phone business.

Google+ attracts 25 million visitors

Google+, launched in late June, had 25 million unique visitors as of July 24 and is growing at a rate of roughly one million visitors a day, comScore noted in a presentation.

In contrast, it took Facebook about three years to attract 25 million visitors, while Twitter took just over 30 months, according to comScore.

While the data show Google's latest attempt at breaking into social networking has started strongly, it may not mean the project is a long-term success. MySpace grew to 25 million unique visitors in less than two years -- faster than Facebook or Twitter. However, it's lost a lot of visitors in the past year, comScore data show.

The United States had more than 6 million unique visitors, and India more than 3.6 million, the data show,

Canada and the UK had around 1 million unique visitors each, Germany over 920,000 and Brazil just over 780,000. France and Taiwan each had around 500,000.

Internet @ speed of light

MUMBAI: German scientists created a method for computers & smartphones to transfer data at super high speeds using easily available LED lighting.

Regular LEDs can be turned into optical WLAN with only a few additional components thanks to visible light communication (VLC). The lights are then not just lighting up, they also transfer data. They send films in HD quality to your phone or laptop, with no loss in quality, quickly and safely.

Just imagine the following scenario: four people are comfortably in a room. Each one of them can watch a film from the Internet on his or her laptop, in HD quality. This is made possible thanks to optical networks. Light from the LEDs in the overhead lights serves as the transfer medium.

Sci-fi to reality
For a long time, this was just a vision for the future. However, scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications and Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) in Berlin, Germany, have managed to developed this new transfer technology.

In May, the scientists demonstrated the results of their research. They were able to transfer data at a rate of 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s) without any losses, using LEDs in the ceiling that light up more than 90 square feet. The receiver can be placed anywhere within this radius, which is currently the maximum range.

"This means that we transferred four videos in HD to four different laptops at the same time," says Anagnostis Paraskevopoulos from the HHI.

"For VLC the sources of light - in this case, white-light LEDs - provide lighting for the room at the same time they transfer information. With the aid of a special component, the modulator, we turn the LEDs off and on in very rapid succession and transfer the information as ones and zeros. The modulation of the light is imperceptible to the human eye. A simple photo diode on the laptop acts as a receiver.

As project manager Klaus-Dieter Langer explains, "The diode catches the light, electronics decode the info and translate it into electrical impulses , or the language of the computers."

One advantage is that it takes only a few components to prepare the LEDs so that they function as transfer media. One disadvantage is that as soon as something gets between the light and the photo diode (for example, when someone holds his hand over the diode) the transfer is impaired. Laptops, Palm devices or mobile telephones are all potential end devices.

Reaching where Wi-Fi can't 
The scientists emphasise that VLC is not intended to replace regular networks. It is best suited as an additional option for data transfer where radio transmission networks are not desired or not possible - without needing new cables or equipment in the house.

The new technology is suitable for hospitals, for example, because radio transmissions are not allowed there. Despite this fact, huge amounts of data must be transmitted and unzipped. If part of the communication would occur via the light in the surgical room, it would make it possible to control wireless surgical robots or transmit x-ray images.

In airplanes, each passenger could view his own program on a display, saving manufacturers miles of cables.

Currently the scientists are developing their systems toward higher bit rates. "Using red-blue-green-white light LEDs, we were able to transmit 800 Mbit/s," said Klaus-Dieter Langer. "That is a world record for the VLC method."

Acer Iconia Tab A100 will Land in August for $300

Acer Iconia Tab A100, the 7inch Honeycomb tab from Acer will finally be making an appearance in August. This is pretty much the same as the 10inch Acer Iconia Tab A500 with a few toned down features such as RAM. The A100 tab will be the first 7inch tab in the market with Honeycomb on board – just the thing many people have been waiting for. Other 7inch tabs only feature Android 2.2 or Android 2.3.

Acer Iconia Tab A100 was announced in February but the release was delayed more than once because of supply issues and Honeycomb compatibility problems. With the latest Android 3.2 update that brings 7inch form factor compatibility with Honeycomb, these issues seem to be part of the past. Porting the latest OS version on the A100 tab caused another month’s delay but that’s something no one minded waiting for.

A leak at Walmart had set the price of Acer Iconia Tab A100 at $350 but it looks like the tab could launch with an even more competitive price. The 16GB WiFi Acer Iconia Tab A100 could retail for $300 while the 32GB version may sell for $350. The 3G version will probably be $100 dearer.

Do you need reminding of what the Acer Iconia Tab A100 offers? It sports a nifty 7inch LCD capacitive display with 1024×600p resolution, Android 3.2, 512MB RAM, 1GHz processor, 2mp front facing and 5mp rear facing camera, 16GB/32GB internal storage, micro-SD card slot for up to 32GB internal memory, 1080p HD video playback capability, Dolby Mobile sound, WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, HDMI port, mini-USB and full-sized USB port.

Acer Iconia Tab A100 will have many takers because there are quite e few fans out there who prefer the portability 7inch tablets bring. Ten inches of glass is too unwieldy for them and doesn’t come in the “portable” category as far as they are concerned. Well, now they have something to be happy about.

Apple extends legal action against Samsung and HTC

Apple filed a complaint against HTC in the High Court last week. Details of the lawsuit have not been revealed but it comes two weeks after the US International Trade Commission ruled that HTC had violated two of Apple’s patents.

Meanwhile, in Australia, Apple sought to prevent Samsung from releasing its Galaxy Tab 10.1. The new version of Samsung’s tablet computer has a 10” screen and runs Google’s Android operating system. Apple claims that it is a “blatant copy” of the iPad.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Samsung had agreed to halt sales and advertising for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is scheduled to launch in Australia next week.

In a statement, Samsung said: “Apple Inc. filed a complaint with the Federal Court of Australia involving a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 variant that Samsung Electronics had no plans of selling in Australia. No injunction was issued by the court and the parties in the case reached a mutual agreement which stipulates that the variant in question will not be sold in Australia.”

Samsung said the Galaxy Tab 10.1 would be released in Australia “in the new future” but did not give a date.


Apple was not available for comment at the time of writing.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is due for release in Britain on Thursday.

The actions against Samsung and HTC follow a complaint by Apple against Amazon in Germany that forced the Amazon Appstore to suspend new app submissions until the resolution of a dispute with Apple over who owns the name ‘App Store’.

Biggest series of cyber-attacks in history uncovered

Security experts have discovered the biggest series of cyber attacks to date, involving the infiltration of the networks of 72 organisations including the United Nations, governments and companies around the world.

The security company McAfee, which uncovered the intrusions, said it believed there was one "state actor" behind the attacks but declined to name it, though one security expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.

The long list of victims in the five-year campaign include the governments of the US, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Canada; the Association of South-east Asian Nations ; the International Olympic Committee (IOC); the World Anti-Doping Agency; and an array of companies, from defence contractors to high-tech enterprises.

In the case of the UN, the hackers broke into the computer system of the secretariat in Geneva in 2008, hid there unnoticed for nearly two years, and quietly combed through reams of secret data, according to McAfee.

"Even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organisations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators," McAfee's vice president of threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, wrote in a 14-page report released on Wednesday.

"What is happening to all this data ... is still largely an open question. However, if even a fraction of it is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (due to having stolen the other team's playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat."

McAfee learned of the extent of the hacking campaign in March this year, when its researchers discovered logs of the attacks while reviewing the contents of a "command and control" server that they had discovered in 2009 as part of an investigation into security breaches at defence companies.

He said that McAfee had notified all the 72 victims of the attacks, which are under investigation by law enforcement agencies around the world. He declined to give more details, such as the names of the companies hacked.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, was briefed on the discovery by McAfee. He said it was very likely that China was behind the campaign because some of the targets had information that would be of particular interest to Beijing.

The systems of the IOC and several national Olympic Committees were breached in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, for example. And China views Taiwan as a renegade province, and political issues between them remain contentious even as economic ties have strengthened in recent years.

"Everything points to China. It could be the Russians, but there is more that points to China than Russia," Lewis said.

He added that the US and Britain have capabilities to pull off this kind of campaign, but said: "We wouldn't spy on ourselves and the Brits wouldn't spy on us."

New tools to measure levels of influence on Twitter and Blogs

PR firm Edelman has launched two tools for communicators to identify and recognise who is influential on a particular topic on a designated platform, BlogLevel and version 2.0 of TweetLevel.

TweetLevel helps finds influencers on Twitter and BlogLevel helps find influencers in blogosphere.

These free tools help one determine – buzz around a topic, who is relevant and influential on that topic, what else are people talking about on the topic, and which web links are frequently shared.

The new tools are built on the original TweetLevel which MTV used to select its first “Twitter Jockey,” in 2010.

Using a specially developed algorithm, TweetLevel and BlogLevel track bloggers and tweeters in any language and in any country, and score them according to their influence, using 40 distinct metrics. People who rank highest are those who create unique ideas that are then amplified, and those who engage with their followers by providing informative and relevant content.

Commenting on the launch of tools, Robert Holdheim, Managing Director, Edelman India, said, “Social Media is not only about popularity. Factors like engagement and trust play an equally important role. Through our proprietary tools like BlogLevel and TweetLevel, we can better guide our clients on identifying the leading online influencers for their brand and measure the effectiveness of online campaigns.”

He added that although the tools were primarily developed for internal use, the algorithm and tools are being made widely available because the broader application for communicators is clear, and that Edelman welcomes a crowd-sourced approach to the tools’ evolution over time.