Can the iPhone 5 at Rs 45,500 take down Android

Apple’s iPhone 5 will be officially launched in India today, at a starting price of Rs 45,500 the basic 16GB version.

According to Redington, one of Apple’s two distribution partners in India, the basic 16GB version of the iPhone 5 will be priced at Rs 45, 500, while the 32GB and 64GB will be priced Rs52500 and Rs 59500 respectively.

This makes it much more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S III which is available on Flipkart for Rs 34,900 and the HTC One X which sells on Flipkart for Rs 34,999.


Online retailers like Infibeam and Saholic had started accepting preorders for the 16GB variant of iPhone 5 with an advance payment of Rs 5,000 last week. Saholic had listed the 16GB version for Rs45500 with an estimated shipping date of 4 November.

Apple’s iPhone 5 has been one of the fastest selling smartphones ever as the company sold nearly 5 million devices in the first weekend itself. India might not be on the top of the list as far as Apple is concerned but the launch of the iPhone 5 has been much awaited.

Key features of the iPhone are: a 4 inch screen with a higher screen resolution of 1136×640 pixel which comes to around 326 ppi. That’s Retina Display quality for you.

The iPhone5 has the dual-core A6 chip, an 8 megapixel rear camera with a sapphire crystal lens cover for ‘clearer pictures’ and a 1.2 megapixel front camera. The dock connector is now called Lightning, and is an eight-pin plug.

Hitachi buys UK nuclear project from E.On and RWE

The UK's nuclear expansion plans have been boosted after Japan's Hitachi signed a £700m deal giving it rights to build a new generation of power plants.

Hitachi is to buy Horizon Nuclear Power, which was intending to build reactors on existing sites at Wylfa, Anglesey, and Oldbury, near Bristol.

Hitachi is buying Horizon from Germany's E.On and RWE, which are withdrawing from the UK nuclear market.

Prime Minister David Cameron said it was a major step for the UK.

"This is a decades-long, multi-billion pound vote of confidence in the UK, that will contribute vital new infrastructure to power our economy.

"It will support up to 12,000 jobs during construction and thousands more permanent highly skilled roles once the new power plants are operational, as well as stimulating exciting new industrial investments in the UK's nuclear supply chain. I warmly welcome Hitachi as a major new player in the UK energy sector," he said.

UK engineering companies Babcock International and Rolls-Royce have signed preliminary contracts to join the Hitachi deal, which the Japanese company said should be completed by the end of November.

There will then be regulatory issues to clear, but once Hitachi's reactor design is approved by the necessary authorities the company intends to build 6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, with the first plant generating power in the first half of the next decade.

Up to 6,000 jobs are expected to be created during construction at each site, thousands more in the supply chain, and a further 1,000 permanent jobs at both locations once operational.

Dependency
The Horizon venture, based at Brockworth, Gloucester, currently employs about 90 people and was set up in 2009 as part of the drive to meet the UK's carbon reduction goals and secure energy demand as old power plants are decommissioned.

But RWE and E.On put the business up for sale in March after Germany's move to abandon nuclear power in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster.

A consortium made up of EDF and British Gas-owner Centrica has maintained its interest but the two companies have still to decide whether to build two reactors at Hinckley Point, Somerset.


Companies involved in the nuclear industry have expressed caution over entering the UK market. Because of the huge capital costs, stretched over many years, companies want some certainty over how much they might be paid for the electricity generated by their plants.

Last week, the chief executive of EDF, Vincent de Rivaz, told MPs that his company needed safeguards from the government that the finances of future nuclear deals would be "fair".

Delays over decision-making and financing have led to doubts that new power capacity will come on stream before existing plants go offline. A so-called "energy gap" is likely to lead to rising prices and a greater dependency on gas imports.

Earlier this month, the energy regulator Ofgem warned that the UK risks running out of energy generating capacity in the winter of 2015-16. Its report predicted that the amount of spare capacity could fall from 14% now to only 4% in three years.

However, the government said that its forthcoming Energy Bill would ensure that there was secure supply.

With so many uncertainties still to be resolved, investment in the UK nuclear sector was still a "leap of faith", said George Borovas, head of nuclear projects at global law firm Pillsbury. So, he said, Hitachi's decision was a "significant... vote of confidence in the UK nuclear programme".

'Milestone'
Hitachi's proposed facilities will use its advanced boiling water technology, which is already used in four reactors in Japan. Mr Borovas said this technology was a "proven success", adding: "This should be very helpful with respect to its licensing in the UK and also opens up the possibility of significant export credit agency and commercial financing from Japan."

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said: "Hitachi bring with them decades of expertise, and are responsible for building some of the most advanced nuclear reactors on time and on budget, so I welcome their commitment to helping build a low-carbon, secure-energy future for the UK."

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint called on the government to use this as an opportunity to encourage investment in nuclear research and design.

Unions also welcomed Hitachi's move, with Mike Clancy, general secretary designate of Prospect, saying: "The Horizon venture is an important milestone in securing future low-carbon energy generation capacity within the UK and its importance to local and national economies cannot be overstated.

"While Hitachi's advanced boiling water reactor design has yet to undergo the UK's generic design assessment approval process, it is a proven technology and therefore any construction in the UK will benefit from lessons learned from its construction in Japan."

Twitter to launch own video hosting service?

Social media site Twitter has been undergoing changes over the past 12 months. Could video hosting be the next change? Sources close to technology site All Things D claim Twitter is contemplating its own video-hosting technology that would allow its users to upload video directly through


related stories
Twitter to allow users to curate tweets
Twitter to let advertisers zero in on tweeters
a mobile app, cutting out third parties.
The potential move is seen as a way of further improving the site's user experience and of making Twitter's services even more appealing to advertisers as well as taking more control of how its content is used. For instance, the social media site recently moved photo hosting in-house.

Hosting video on Twitter is becoming more popular but, as All Things D highlights, the majority of video shared on Twitter is still via a link from a video sharing site such as YouTube and so far it is not clear if this activity would be halted or blocked as a result of of a new video hosting service.

Mercedes-Benz to recall 922 cars in China

Beijing: Mercedes-Benz China will recall 922 cars with defective airbags that could fail to protect passengers in the event of a collision, China's consumer quality watchdog said.

The recall will involve 922 cars from the company's E200, E260 and E350 Coupe product lines manufactured between April 2 and June 29, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement.

The statement said seams on the airbags are prone to splitting after the bags are inflated during a collision, rendering them ineffective, reported Xinhua.

The company will offer free airbag replacements starting from Nov 28.

Nokia out of top 5 globally, tops in India

Nokia, which is facing a major crisis in global sales, still tops the list of mobile handset market in India even as it has been displaced from the fifth spot in global sales by the beleaguered BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM).


According to a report by Cybermedia, Nokia had 22.2 per cent share of the Indian handset market in terms of total unit shipments in the first half of 2012, followed by Samsung with 13 per cent and Micromax in the third spot with 5.5 per cent share.

India's total mobile handset shipments topped 102.43 million units, of which 5.50 million were smartphones, as per the report. Samsung topped the list of smartphone shipments, followed by Nokia and RIM.

The report also revealed that Android (with 56.4% market share) was the leading operating system (OS) in India, followed by Symbian (17.4% share), BlackBerry (12.1% share), Bada (8.5% share), iOS (3.0% share) and Windows Mobile (2.6% share) on a base of 5.50 million units, during the same period.

India is one of the few markets where Nokia still has a hold. As per an IDC report, the Finnish company has now dropped off the Top 5 list of smartphone vendors, which is led by Samsung and Apple at number 1 and 2 positions. Nokia was replaced by RIM at fifth position whose shipment volumes appear to have flattened though the company posted the second-highest year-over-year decline among any the leading vendors.

According to Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Nokia's share losses and the company's transition away from Symbian to Windows Phone has left ample opportunity for rivals to steal share away from Nokia over the past 18 months.

'Most of the low-cost devices are good for nothing'

 Several governments are lining up huge orders for low-cost tablets to either meet the computing needs of their staff or, in what is seen as a quasi-political statement, to hand out to citizens, mostly children.

The intention currently visible from various governments adds up to 10 million tablets, according to numbers released by hardware body Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT).

Although it is not clear over what period this offtake will materialise, this number is about five times the total sales that research firm IDC expects in India in calendar 2012. "The government is fuelling demand for tablets," says Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst, Gartner India.

This January, the Central ministry of rural development bought 600,000 solar-powered tablets from Bharat Electronics at $72 (Rs 3,600) per unit for its staff to conduct the socio-economic and caste census. In the pipeline is a jumbo-sized order of 5.86 million tablets from the ministry of human resources and development, which it plans to give out at a subsidised price of $35 (Rs 1,750). The first phase of this is for 100,000 units of the Aakash tablet, the second version of which is due to be released by Canadian manufacturer Datawind next month.

Also waiting in the files are significant orders from at least four state governments - Goa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh - that went to polls in the past two years and whose ruling parties made the free supply of tablets an election promise. UP, for example, has promised free tablets to all students clearing the class 10 exam and Tamil Nadu the same to all students in government schools.

And then, in what could set a precedent, there's also a plan to procure 795 tablets for Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs (members of Parliament) to reduce their consumption of paper.

"In the government's case, it's like a blue ocean," says Gautam Advani, head of mobility, HCL Infosystems, a tablet manufacturer. "Plans are yet to fructify. But if it all comes, the volumes will fuel growth."

According to IDC, 250,000 tablets were sold in India in calendar 2011, which is expected to increase to 1.74 million in 2012.

"It (the government) is expanding the personal computer market and there are about 70 tablet makers in the market to meet that demand," says Tripathi of Gartner. Adds Venu Reddy, research director, IDC India: "Tablet price point and functionality (ease of Internet access) have converged to make it the right device for the masses."

According to Alok Bhardwaj, president, MAIT, most government orders are expected to be for low-cost tablets (below Rs 5,000). "Governments have been trying for long to get a device at an affordable price point. Tablet fills that gap," says Milind Shah, managing director of Wish Tel, a manufacturer.

The government's appetite for low-cost tablets is birthing manufacturing businesses. For example, Wish Tel, which started in surveillance systems (like security cameras), entered tablet manufacturing in December 2011 with the specific intention of catering to government demand. Shah says the company participated in the HRD ministry's low-cost tablet bid and was the second-lowest bidder, after Datawind. It has invested Rs 70 crore in a unit in Ahmedabad that has the ability to assemble 30,000 tablets every month.

Pantel, another player, started in February 2012, with an assembly unit in China and Bangalore. The company imports tablets from China and sells half of its 100,000 units outside India. Says Vijendar Singh, managing director, Pantel: "Earlier the (government) slogan was 'one laptop per child'. Now, it's one tablet per child." Even though the government is an attractive customer, not everyone is enthused about this market. Says Tripathi of Gartner: "Most of the low-cost devices are good for nothing."

Microsoft Windows 8 launched

windows 8

Microsoft said on Thursday its 'reimagined' Windows 8 will launch on Friday in 37 languages and 140 worldwide markets, as the tech giant unveiled the new version of its computer operating system. "We have reimagined Windows and the result is a stunning lineup of new PCs," said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer in announcing the new system of Windows designed to help the transition to growing mobile Internet use. At an event, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division announced the ability of Windows users to upgrade to Windows 8 online and in the store. The updates start at $39.99 for consumers.

Sinofsky claims that Windows 8 has a better battery life, , faster boot time, smaller memory footprint, strong work with partners, and compatibility with Windows 7 hardware and software.

"Windows 8 is designed to work with mouse and keyboard, as well as touch. That's the big selling point of the new OS," he said. "The potential market for Windows is the largest of any platform," he added. "You will see fully capable PCs for Windows 8 for under $300," Sinofsky said.

The software giant has gambled by changing long familiar user interface features to make Windows 8 compatible with trends toward keeping programs and data in the Internet "cloud" and relying on mobile gadgets at work and at home.

85 percent of digitisation in 4 metros completed: Govt

New Delhi: With the deadline for complete switchover to digitisation in the four metros ending on October 31, government on Friday said only 15 percent of the process is remaining.

The percentage of digitisation in the four Metro cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata   as reached 85 percent, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said on Friday.

This figure has been achieved by considering digitisation of only the Cable Homes, the Ministry said in a release. "Taking into account DTH, the percentage of digitisation has gone up to 90 percent. Metro-wise progress shows Mumbai has nearly achieved 100 percent digitisation. Delhi has achieved 83 percent digitisation of Cable Homes and with DTH, the percentage of digitisation is 88 percent," it said.    

In Kolkata, Cable homes have reached 80 percent digitisation and with DTH, the percentage of digitisation goes up to 82 percent.

3-D printed airplane takes test flight

University of Virginia engineering students have built an unmanned aerial vehicle, using 3-D printing technology, and flown successfully. 

When the students posted a YouTube video last spring of a plastic turbofan engine they had designed and built using 3-D printing technology, they didn’t expect it to lead to anything except some page views.

But executives at Mitre Corporation, a McLean-based defense contractor, saw the video and sent an announcement to the School of Engineering and Applied Science that they were looking for two summer interns to work on a new project involving 3-D printing. They just didn’t say what the project was.



Only one student responded to the job announcement: Steven Easter, then a third-year mechanical engineering major.

He got a last-minute interview and brought with him his brother and lab partner, Jonathan Turman, also a third-year mechanical engineering major.

They got the job: to build over the summer an unmanned aerial vehicle, using 3-D printing technology. In other words, a plastic plane, to be designed, fabricated, built and test-flown between May and August.

The engineers work with insight from their adviser, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor David Sheffler, a U.Va. Engineering School alumnus and 20-year veteran of the aerospace industry.

It was a daunting project – producing a plane with a 6.5-foot wingspan, made from assembled “printed” parts. The students sometimes put in 80-hour workweeks, with many long nights in the lab.

“It was sort of a seat-of-the-pants thing at first – wham, bang. But we kept banging away and became more confident as we kept designing and printing out new parts,” Easter said.

Sheffler said he had confidence in them “the entire way.”

The way eventually led to assembly of the plane and four test flights in August and early September at Milton Airfield near Keswick. It achieved a cruising speed of 45 mph and is only the third 3-D printed plane known to have been built and flown.

During the first test, the plane’s nosepiece was damaged while the plane taxied around the field.

“We dogged it,” Easter said. “But we printed a new nose.”

That ability to make and modify new parts is the beauty of 3-D printing, said Sheffler, who works with students in the Engineering School’s Rapid Prototyping Lab.

Mitre Corp. representatives and Army officials observed the fourth flight of Easter and Turman’s plane.

They were impressed and asked the students to stay on through this academic year as part-time interns. Their task now is to build an improved plane – lighter, stronger, faster and more easily assembled. The project also is their fourth-year thesis.

Apple’s scroll technology patents ruled invalid

US authorities have said that one of the smartphone patents at the center of the legal dispute between Apple and Samsung Electronics, which awarded huge damages to the US-based iPhone maker, ‘lacked novelty’.

In August a California court awarded Apple 1.05 billion dollars in damages, after ruling Samsung had infringed patents.

 But the US Patent and Trademark Office has ruled that 20 patents relating to scroll technology ‘are invalid’, the BBC reports.

The so-called rubber-banding patents, also known as overscroll bounce, refer to the bouncing animation that takes place when a user scrolls past the end of a page.

According to the report, Samsung has submitted the preliminary ruling from the patent office to Judge Lucy Koh, who is considering appeals.

The preliminary ruling follows an anonymous request in May to re-examine some of Apple's patents for touch-screen heuristics.

Some of the patents were rejected because there was not enough of an inventive step between the prior technology and Apple's patent.

Apple will have the chance to appeal against the decision, the report said.

Social networking websites: Home Ministry official summoned

New Delhi: A Union home ministry official was asked o Friday by a Delhi court to appear before it to verify the forms for serving summonses to US-based websites Facebook and Google among others, accused of promoting class enmity and undermining national integrity.

Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja asked Union home ministry's Under Secretary Amar Chand to appear before him on November 19 after the forms, required to be filled under the treaty between India and the USA, were submitted to the court by complainant Vinay Rai's advocate.

Rai's advocate Shashi Tripathi submitted the forms to the court in accordance with its earlier order.

"The assistance of Amar Chand (MHA official) is required to verify the acceptability of the said forms. Let Amar Chand be summoned for November 19," the court said.

The court was earlier informed by the complainant's counsel that the process of service of summonses is being done in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the two countries.

The 25 worst passwords of 2012

If any of your passwords are on this list, then shame on you -- and go change them now.
SplashData, which makes password management applications, has released its annual "Worst Passwords" list compiled from common passwords that are posted by hackers. The top three -- "password," "123456," and "12345678″ -- have not changed since last year. New ones include "jesus," "ninja," "mustang," "password1," and "welcome." Other passwords have moved up and down on the list.
The most surprising addition is probably "welcome."
"That means people are not even changing default passwords," CEO Morgan Slain told TIME Tech. "It doesn't take that much time to make a new password."
You should have different passwords for all of your accounts. To make it easier to remember them all, Slain suggests thinking about passwords as "passphrases." For instance, use a phrase like "dog eats bone" and add underscores, dashes, hyphens, and other punctuation marks to satisfy the special character requirement: "dog_eats_bone!"

Here's the full list:

1. password
2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty
6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball
11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
13. 1234567
14. sunshine
15. master
16. 123123
17. welcome
18. shadow
19. ashley
20. football
21. jesus
22. michael
23. ninja
24. mustang
25. password1

Apple's Schiller: 'Old technologies are holding us back'

With Tuesday's unveiling of the iPad Mini and a fourth-generation full-sized iPad, this has been a major week for the iPad. On Friday, Windows 8 went on sale — making it an even bigger week for Windows PCs.
But this newsiest of tech news weeks also turns out to be a reasonably significant one for the Mac. Much of Apple's Tuesday event was devoted to new models, including a substantial overhaul of the 13″ MacBook Pro with a Retina display, two absurdly thin new iMacs and an updated Mac Mini.
 Photos: Apple unveils iPad mini
The profusion of new models was good news for Mac fans who have been known to fret that the Mac is being neglected as the iPhone and iPad become ever more important to Apple's bottom line and future.
As usual, Apple teed off its announcements with happy recent stats. I was aware that the Mac has outpaced the rest of the PC industry in sales growth for years, but I didn't know that the MacBook is the best-selling notebook line in the U.S., and the iMac is the best-selling desktop. Those achievements are more evidence that Apple's Mac strategy — build premium machines, sell them profitably and don't obsess over market share — doesn't mean that it can't end up with impressive market share anyhow.
After the Tuesday presentation, I sat down with Apple Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller, who did the presenting of new models on Tuesday, and chatted with him about today's Macs, and how they got that way.