Smartphone ‘projects’ a tech future

In beautiful Barcelona, a warning shot has been fired at television makers. After giving hell to camera makers, mobile phone manufacturers are set to unleash another game-changer.

Samsung, the marauding mobile phone giant, unveiled the Galaxy Beam phone at the Mobile World Congress, which has a projector that can show whatever is on the phone screen — videos or photos — on any flat surface at the press of a button.

The projection is equivalent to 50 inches diagonal screen size, or as much as a mega LCD television screen. The clarity isn’t LED class yet, but it’s a very, very decent picture. Samsung claims the ‘ultra-bright’ 15-lumens projector is good even outdoors.

Experts expect future iterations of the technology to beam clearer images. Combine that with streaming 3G technology that’s already here, and 4G on the way, and television makers have much to sweat about.

Today, top digital cameras sport such projector technology but Beam is the first smartphone to have it.

Such ‘pico’ projectors have till now been considered too big to be enclosed inside mobile phones. The Beam, which is 12.55mm thick, is bulkier than peers and kin that hover around 8-9mm in width, but it’s not a bulky brick by any stretch. Many phones available today are of similar dimensions.

The Beam also features a 5 megapixel camera, and runs Google's Android 2.3 or Gingerbread software on a 1.0GHz dual-core processor.

That, along with 8 GB of internal memory and 768 MB of RAM, powered by a large 2000mAh battery is enough juice for three hours of viewing.

Intel inside India smartphone market, ties up with Lava to launch XOLO

Intel on Monday announced plans to enter the fast-growing Indian smartphone market by entering into a strategic partnership with Lava International, which would introduce a smartphone running its microprocessor.

Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel made the announcement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and said that the move is built on similar arrangements with Motorola Mobility and Lenovo.

“We are very pleased to add new, important customers and capabilities to our phone offerings today. We remain focused on delivering exciting new features and outstanding performance to smartphone customers around the world,” said Otellini.

Underlining that the growth of smartphones in India is likely to be three times more than any other country if one goes by the statistics of the last two years, Otellini, when asked about Lava as the choice in India, said, “Why not? They appear to be good partners with whom we can do good business. We are assured of great results.” Vishal Sehgal, Lava co-founder and board director, announced the launch of XOLO smartphone.

“Over the last two and a half years, we have built our business in the feature phone segment where Lava has been the brand of choice for nearly 10 million Indian customers. We are targeting at the premium segment of the market. The XOLO X900 is based on Intel’s smartphone reference design and will be the first Intel technology-based smartphone in the Indian market,” said Sehgal.

The device, powered by a 1.6 Ghz processor would be available early in the second quarter of 2012.

(The correspondent was in Barcelona at the invitation of Huawei)

Will Apple Unveil a New Apple TV Alongside the iPad 3?

Apple has sent out invitations for an event widely believed to be the launch party for its next-generation iPad—but could the March 7 date also mark the unveiling of a new Apple TV?

That's what 9to5Mac was reporting late Tuesday as the buzz around Apple's first big hardware launch of 2012 began to burn up the wires.

"We have something you really have to see. And touch," the invitation read. Those ten words appeared to confirm the recent reports of a March 7 unveiling of the so-called iPad 3 at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts next Wednesday at 10 am. The venue has been used by Apple for several major product launches in the past few years.

But speculation about Apple's next attempt to penetrate the lucrative television market has also been rampant, particularly since a biography of Steve Jobs revealed that the late Apple co-founder believed the company had finally "cracked" the secret of television.

Citing "[r]eliable sources familiar with Apple's upcoming product release," 9to5Mac reported that the company will announce a new Apple TV that's internally code named J33 at the same March 7 event where it will unveil its next-gen tablet.

Previous rumors have pointed to the new Apple TV being full-blown television set, unlike the set-top boxes Apple currently sells under the Apple TV brand. The "J33" product supposedly sports a variation of Apple's dual-core, ARM-based A5 processor that can stream 1080p video, according to the tech blog.

There's been plenty more speculation about Apple's next TV product. One of the most pervasive rumors—made all the more interesting in light of 9to5Mac's reporting—is that the iPad and possibly other iOS-based devices will function as remote controls for the TV set.

The Apple TV picture started coming into focus over the past few weeks with several reports about potential retail and carrier partners gearing up for the launch of a next-generation HD television set that runs iOS, incorporates the Siri digital voice assistant, and could retail for about $1,500 in the United States.

Turn On, Tune In to Apple TV

The Verge reported in early February that Best Buy sent out a customer survey that includes a question about an "all-new 42-inch Apple HDTV" priced at $1,499 that sports a 1080p LED flat panel display, works with iPhones and iPads functioning as remote controls, and connects to Apple's iCloud, iTunes, and App Store marketplaces.

A few days later, The Globe and Mail reported that Canadian carriers Rogers Communications and Bell Canada are vying to partner with Apple if and when the rumored television set is launched north of the border. Canada's two largest telecommunications companies reportedly have the new Apple TV in their labs for testing.

The Globe and Mail report added some details to what Apple may be building into its highly anticipated TV set. The new Apple TV will integrate Siri, which debuted with the iPhone 4Slast year, according to the paper's sources.

That means that users would be able to control the next-gen Apple TV via voice, according to the newspaper—and also, intriguingly, through hand gestures, which indicates that Apple could be building new Kinect-type technology for the television set.

While Apple itself has characteristically kept its future television plans tightly under wraps, evidence is certainly piling up that something is in the offing.

In December, it was reported that Apple was revving up its supply chain in order to deliver components for next-generation television products due out in the second or third quarter of 2012.

What's more, South Korean media reported late last year that Samsung began producing chips for next-generation Apple TVs back in November, while Sharp is reportedly supplying the displays for the units.

But the reports from Asia indicated that Apple was planning a 32-inch version and a 37-inch version of the rumored Apple TV set, not the larger model that's teased in the Best Buy survey.

PCMag will be at the March 7 Apple event, so stay tuned for all the details.

For more, see Report: Next Apple TV to Use Siri, Kinect-Type Interface, Steve Jobs 'Cracked' the Secret to an Apple TV Set Before He Died, Why You Should Wait to Buy the Next iPad, and an iPad 3 rumor roundup, plus the slideshow below.

Leslie Horn contributed to this report.

'Google privacy policy: 7 in 8 users are ignorant'

Majority of Google users have not read the internet search giant's new privacypolicy that comes into effect on Thursday, according to a survey.

The poll, carried out by YouGov, showed that only one in eight of Google users have bothered to read the new privacy policy, which will allow the company to use information about what users look for and what they do on-line.

The company's new policy aims to replace around 60 different existing privacy policies.

The poll conducted for the Big Brother Watch pressure group, found that 92 per cent of adults who use the Internet go through a Google service at least once a week.

But only 12 per cent of them have read the company's new privacy policy, which Google has been advertising prominently for weeks, The Daily Mail reports.

Nearly half of the adult population said it did not know Google was bringing in a new privacy policy, and only 40 percent of Google users said they thought the new policy should be brought into operation, the poll showed.

Nick Pickles, of Big Brother Watch, said that the impact of Google's new policy cannot be understated, but people are in the dark about what the changes actually mean.

"'If people don't understand what is happening to their personal information, how can they make an informed choice about using a service?," the paper Pickles, as saying.

"Google is putting advertiser's interests before user privacy and should not be rushing ahead before the public understand what the changes will mean," he added.

Big Brother Watch has called for an inquiry into how the new Google policy complies with British data protection law.

Microsoft, others complain to EU about Google+, report says

Microsoft and other firms have reportedly filed a complaint with the European Union over Google+, Google’s social networking site, Reuters reported.

Neither Microsoft nor Google could be immediately reached for comment about the report.

The nature of the complaint was not immediately clear, but unnamed people “familiar with the situation” told Reuters that the move could expand the European Union’s current investigation into Google.

The two tech giants have been in a few public conflicts in recent months. Microsoft publicly criticized Google for its privacy policy, and even went so far as to create a short video slamming the reliability of Google Docs. The video, oddly enough, wasposted on YouTube, which is owned by Google.

The companies also went head-to-head last week after reports that Google ads had circumvented Microsoft privacy controls in Apple’s Safari browser. In a company blog post, Dean Hachamovitch, the corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, said that Google was bypassing a Microsoft privacy standard called P3P privacy protection, too. Google fired back by saying that Microsoft’s policy was “widely non-operational” and that it is “impractical to comply” with Microsoft’s standard.

Microsoft also filed a complaint with the European Union last week stating that Motorola Mobility — which is in the process of being acquired by Google — was trying to block sales of Windows devices because of their capability to play Internet video.

“In legal proceedings on both sides of the Atlantic, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft take its products off the market, or else remove their standards-based ability to play video and connect wirelessly,” wrote Dave Heiner, deputy general counsel for Microsoft’s corporate standards and antitrust group in a blog post.

Google Offers $1 Million Reward For Hacking Their ‘Chrome’ Browser

For the last three years, Google’s Chrome browser has left the world’s premiere hacking competition unscathed, even as Firefox, Internet Explorer andSafari have all been taken down by the assembled security researchers. So this year, Google is offering hackers a million reasons to re-focus their efforts.

Google has today announced that it’s putting up a bounty of $1 Million for anyone who can hack its Chrome browser and pinpointing vulnerabilities within it.

The competition called Pwnium will take place at this years CanSecWest security conference on March 7th. With prices totalling a million dollars, with prizes for $60,000, $40,000 and $20,000, for finding vulnerabilities in Chrome.

Pwnium is being organised by Google and is a splinter contest from the well known Pwn2Own hacking contest. The competition will be run on a first come first serve basis and winners will also be given a tasty new Chromebook.

Google decided to launch its own contest this year due to the organisers of Pwn2Own, Tipping Point say that contestants do not need to reveal the techniques used to breach the browsers’ security. Google explains:

We will issue multiple rewards per category, up to the $1 million limit, on a first-come-first served basis. There is no splitting of winnings or “winner takes all.” We require each set of exploit bugs to be reliable, fully functional end to end, disjoint, of critical impact, present in the latest versions and genuinely “0-day,” i.e. not known to us or previously shared with third parties. Contestant’s exploits must be submitted to and judged by Google before being submitted anywhere else.

During previous Pwn2Own competitions Google’s Chrome browser has with stood the onslaught of hackers and come away without being hack for three years on the trot. Unlike other well known browser such as Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer that have all been hacked each year.

For more information on the competition and prizes jump over to the Google Pwnium Blog post.

Source: Google

Nokia's 808 PureView smartphone packs 41-megapixel camera

There's a saying among photographers that "the best camera is the one that's with you," and for many of us nowadays, that camera happens to be a smartphone too. That's where Nokia's 808 PureView smartphone and its 41-megapixel/1080p camera plans to come in.

The Finnish phone-maker is looking to raise the bar in smartphone photography far past what currently passes for a good camera-phone. Most high-end smartphones are currently packing 8-megapixel cameras or 5-megapixel cameras, which has resulted in millions of fantastic, detailed shots taken and uploaded to the likes of Facebook, Flickr and Instagram.

The world doesn't seem to be crying out for even more detail from their smartphone photos, but Nokia is also a company that is looking to revive its brand, as it has lost market share to rivals running Google's Android operating system and the iPhone.

So far, Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system has been the marquee strategy to the company's turnaround — along with giving up on the Nokia-built Symbian software.

With the unveiling of the 808 PureView at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, Nokia is looking to expand its comeback beyond Microsoft to rely once again on its own software and now photography too.

The 808 PureView runs on Nokia's new Belle operating system, which is built with the same underpinnings as the abandoned Symbian OS. Thankfully, the company did say in a blog post that its PureView camera technology will make its way "to several Nokia products going forward," including Windows Phone handsets.

And while the 808 PureView can shoot up to 41-megapixel images, Nokia said it intends for users of phones with its PureView cameras to still take most of their photos at resolutions of about 5-megapixels, which takes up less storage space on a smartphone.

But even at lower resolutions, Nokia is claiming its PureView cameras will result in better-looking photos by combining multiple shots in a technique it calls "oversampling."

The 808 PureView, for example, uses "oversampling to combine up to seven pixels into one 'pure' pixel, eliminating the visual noise found on other mobile phone cameras. On top of that, you can zoom in up to 3X without losing any of the detail in your shot — and there’s no artificially created pixels in your picture, either," Nokia said. The 808 PureView also claims the ability to record audio in videos shot on the phone at CD-like quality.

No word yet on when the 808 PureView will make it to retailers, or when a PureView camera will show up in a Windows Phone handset. Aside from the impressive new camera, the 808 PureView is pretty much a standard Nokia smartphone. That means mid-range specs and no buy in with the quad-core processor trend happening among Androids.

The 808 PureView has a 4-inch screen with a surprisingly low 640 x 360 resolution, along with just 512-megabytes of RAM and a 1.3-gigahertz single-core processor.