IBLOG SPACE

Release Date: 28 October 2011 Genre: Drama Cast: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis Directors: Roland Emmerich Writer: John Orloff Studio: Sony Pictures Plot: A political thriller about who actually wrote the plays of William Shakespeare-- Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford-- set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her.

Release Date: 25 December 2011 Genre: Drama | War Cast: eremy Irvine, Emily Watson, David Thewlis Directors: Steven Spielberg Writer: Lee Hall, Richard Curtis Studio: Touchstone Pictures Plot: Follows a young man named Albert and his horse, Joey, and how their bond is broken when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to the trenches of World War One. Despite being too young to enlist, Albert heads to France to save his friend.

An unofficial port of the iPhone 4S’ Siri voice recognition system to the iPhone 4 has been revealed, though it’s unclear whether Apple will ever enable the speech control tech for the older handset. Currently the port – the handiwork of developer Steve Troughton-Smith and 9 to 5 Mac - is capable of loading the Siri interface and controls; however, since Apple’s server-side processes are integral to Siri’s interaction with the iPhone hardware, right now any spoken commands won’t be followed. There are also some significant speed issues, which are evident in the video demo below. Siri lacks the necessary iPhone 4 GPU driver since that wasn’t present in the iPhone 4S’s binary cache, and so the whole interface is a whole lot more sluggish than what you’d see on the iPhone 4S. On the flip-side, however, with that GPU driver in place, it’s entirely possible that the Siri system would work just as well on the iPhone 4′s A4 chip as it does on the iPhone 4S’ A5. Apple’s motivations for lim

This post is just a big reminder for you that we will indeed be hitting up China for some tasty treats this Tuesday at the Samsung / Google event in Hong Kong. It’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich we’re expecting, and we’re gonna get it! Not only that, we expect a lovely new device by the name of Samsung Galaxy Nexus – we’ve also hear Nexus Prime as a possible name, but if this poll has anything to say about it, Galaxy Nexus is the real deal. In Hong Kong the event is on the 19th of October at 10AM – conveniently that is also the time of day, 12 hours earlier, that it will be taking place New York time — October 18th at 10PM. Photo taken by Michael Wickus for TOTCB : “Squirrel from a Balcony” Per the invite we’ve received this past week, this event will both be taking place live in China and will be available to the whole world as a live streaming video event via YouTube.com/Android at the time listed above. You’re welcome to watch, and we encourage you to do so, but definitely sit here

It appears that there’s a rat in the house at Verizon, vermin just loving the idea of letting loose some key information on future products via a MAP which includes not only the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but a device by the name of HTC Rezound as well. These two devices will be released on the 10th of November if this little chart is to be believed, and both of them will be priced at $299.99 right out of the gate. Judging by the rest of the items on the chart, it appears that this price may well be the price ON a 2-year contract – but of course it’s the name that counts the most, isn’t it – Galaxy Nexus. Sounds kinda tasty, doesn’t it? The HTC Rezound has also been called the HTC Vigor in the past, a device that comes with Beats enhancements and official earbuds to bring you the hottest sounds on the block – but we’ve yet to confirm that they’re one in the same. Meanwhile go ahead and have yourself a look at the HTC Sensation XL while you’re waiting on the rest of the states-bound Beats

According to JPMorgan Chase analyst Rod Hall, the nearly four-day BlackBerry service outage may cost RIM more than $100 million. The service went down on Monday due to a hardware failure in Europe that caused a backlog on RIM’s servers, which then brought down the service in the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and eventually the US and Canada. RIM has been very apologetic about the situation and has updated customers with its progress throughout but has not revealed any plans regarding compensation for the downtime. During the press conference yesterday, co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced that the service was fully restored. He was asked about the matter of compensation, but responded that the company did not know at the moment as the focus and priority has been on getting the service back up and running. Under RIM’s service terms, the company is contractually obligated to maintain a certain ratio of up time for its servers. The nearly four-day outage could have b

The iPhone 4S hit stores today, now being offered through AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. The phone is identical on all carriers with each having to differentiate based on other factors like network speed, reliability, customer service, and data plan terms. If you’re still undecided about which carrier and network speed is key to your decision, then definitely check out this speed test video of all three iPhone 4S models side-by-side after the cut. AT&T has been touting that its iPhone 4S will be the fastest because the device supports the carrier’s HSPA+ enhanced 3G network, whereas on Verizon or Sprint, you’d be getting just standard 3G speeds. But in the below video, you’ll see that Verizon and AT&T are neck to neck with Sprint generally behind. However, the SpeedTest.net comparison shows AT&T way ahead with a download speed of 0.65Mbps, Verizon with 0.26Mbps, and Sprint with 0.16Mbps. The tester claims that the results were similar no matter how he arranged the posit

Apple released iOS 5 on Wednesday and officially launched the iPhone 4S today to massive lines. But things have not been going so smooth for Apple fans and early adopters attempting to either download iOS 5 or to activate their iPhone 4S. The massive load of traffic on AT&T and Apple servers have caused many to experience either errors or messages that the process they’re attempting is still pending. Several AT&T iPhone 4S owners that attempted to activate their devices encountered server issues and got messages stating either that “iPhone activations are unavailable at this time,” or that “Your activation is still pending. You will receive an email notification once your activiation is complete. We’re sorry. There was a problem connecting to the server. Please try again.” This isn’t the first time AT&T’s servers went down during a mad iPhone rush. Back in 2009, activations for some new iPhone 3GS owners took up to two days. However, the iPhone 4S launch may be Apple’s

Google is doing some fall cleaning and sweeping out plenty of old experimental projects and social features, including the failed social attempt that was Google Buzz. In a blog post today, Google VP of Product, Bradley Horowitz, essentially explained that success requires focus and thought on what you work on as well as what you don’t work on and therefore their decision to discontinue several products. Back in July, Google had announced that it was shutting down Google Labs and integrating some of its projects into more successful products while axing others. Today seems to be the finalization of that clean out with Google Labs completely shutting down later today. Horowitz also confirmed that Code Search, Jaiku, iGoogle’s social features, and the University Research Program for Google Search will all shutdown on January 15, 2012. Google Buzz will get the cut in a few weeks to focus on the much more successful Google+ social network. During yesterday’s Q3 earnings call, it was tou

It appears that it’s not just the hoards of iPhone lovers that are heading to the market to jam their hard-earned dollars in the pockets of Apple Computer, stocks have jumped – or steadily rose, however you want to look at it, by right around 3% in the morning hours of iPhone 4S launch day. Since 10AM local time on October the 14th, 2011, the same day the iPhone 4S was launched, until the time of this posting (approximately 3:36 PM local time the same day), APPL stock rose 12.07 points for a total of 2.96 percent and trade at $420.50 per share, this showing the stock as rising quite nicely since September 19th when it was then big news that it’d hit a record high at $413.23 per share. UPDATE: the Siri screenshot you see here is more recent – and higher! If only, as nearly everyone on earth is saying, we’d invested earlier. Shares also rose last week in what may have been a sign of solidarity in Apple after co-founder Steve Jobs passed. What we’re thinking now is that Apple, currently

Apple may be planning to add customizable avatars to its iOS Game Center. It’s something we’ve long seen with Microsoft’s Xbox Live Avatars and Nintendo Miis, but Apple may soon be hopping on the bandwagon. The company has filed for two patents titled “Avatar Editing Environment” and “Personalizing Colors of User Interfaces,” revealing the avatar customization interface that is in the works for iOS. Dug up by AppleInsider, the patent applications reveal that the iOS Game Center avatar interface would start with a blank canvas and then allow users to choose basic features like type of eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, etc. Other accessories like glasses or hats can also be added. All the selections, including rotating and resizing, would be easily made on the multi-touch screens of the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, Both manual and automatic avatar creation is offered to simplify the process and similar to how avatars work in Wii games and Xbox Kinect games, the iOS Game Center avatars wou

Motorola today unveiled two new Bluetooth headsets called the Elite Silver and the Elite Flip. Both headsets pack NFC chips, which means pairing the headsets with NFC-equipped handsets is as easy as tapping the two together. They also work with Motorola’s My MotoSpeak app so that users can compose and send text messages by voice as well as listen to incoming texts. Both headsets feature HD Audio Plus for boosted voice quality and CrystalTalk dual-mic technology for noise cancellation. Motorola also boasts that the Class 1 Bluetooth technology used has an extended connection range of up to 300 feet. The Elite Silver is the more discrete of the two with a wrap around design and weighs less than half an ounce. It boasts up to 15 hours of talk time when combined with its special storage case that allows the headset to be charged while stowed away. The Elite Flip is a larger headset with much of the same features and TrueComfort technology for three distinct wearing styles, but only has

Today’s the day that everyone who ordered an iPhone 4S OR headed out to an Apple store in the wee hours of the morning to purchase will be getting their handsets. We’ve got just the posts that’ll help you decide whether or not you’re going to participate in this social movement if you’re still on the fence, including a full review of the iPhone 4S and a full review of the operating system iOS 5 on the device as well as a review roundup from amongst those chosen to have a look at the device before anybody else. Meanwhile there’s those of you who’ve already decided – here we ask you, what did you choose? Why? If you were amongst those who decided that they would head to the store today to pick up the newly released iPhone 4S, tell us why! And tell us about your experience – were you in line starting in the early early morning hours, or were you in a location that had no trouble serving you? And then the million dollar question: what do you think about the phone now that you’ve got it i

It’s not like the logo was called in to the police station for questioning, no, instead what’s happening now in the week after the passing of the legendary entrepreneur designer inventor Steve Jobs is an argument over who created the now omnipotent “face in apple” logo that you’ve almost certainly seen since it went viral in the past few days. The dispute over who originally created the logo, or more specifically who came up with the concept for the logo, has been quietly, and I emphasize quitely, raging between several graphic design-minded parties. There’s one fellow by the name of Chris Thornley, aka Raid71, who claims that he conceptualized and executed the logo back in May of 2011. There’s another fellow by the name of Farzin Adeli who says that he conceptualized and executed the logo in the hours after Jobs’s passing was announced formally. Then there’s a third designer in the mix, Jonathan Mak Long, who got credit for the logo from Rueters the morning after the announcement ab

If you’ve been following along with the epic telling of Target Superstore’s future in the Mobile business with your humble narrator, you know that they’re certainly having an interesting time selling Android tablets. Amid the Apple’s iPad 2 sitting always at least one aisle away from the Android selection in a MUCH nicer showing than the Android tablets have ever had and the smartphone wall being dominated by two iPhone displays three times the size of any other smartphone, one would think that Apple would be dominating. As it turns out, one Android tablet in particular may be jumping off the shelves. It’s the Acer Iconia Tab A500 (aka the Wi-fi version of the A501, available carried by AT&T) that we’ve got a tip on here, the photos above and below coming from none other than the Roseville, Minnesota Target location, also known for being the first Target store on earth. The sign you see above shows that this tablet, though featured in this week’s ad, is low on stock, even after ha

The following concept design comes from a workshop held yearly by Sony, the product being here a hand-held device that records sounds, attaches them to symbols, and stamps them on objects for later scanning. When you scan a symbol later on, the device plays back the sound you recorded at an earlier date. Can you imagine the possibilities this simple set of functions could hold? Fantabulous! This device is conceptualized by Shan Hao Cheng, and is made with the Sony brand on it simply because of the event that Sony holds yearly in China. I must remind you, as I must remind everyone who happens upon an early concept design post such as this, that the product isn’t yet brought up to speed with the technology needed to execute it. Because designers in this particular Sony event are allowed to design without exact execution in mind, the imagination can run wild, and the designs can essentially be magic. We’ve got something similar to this out there right now in QR-code creating and scann

 Those of you using the Kindle that Amazon is now calling the “Kindle Keyboard,” aka the Kindle 3, will be glad to hear that today there’s a software update out there that gives you access to Kindle Cloud for your personal documents. This is the same cloud that the Kindle 4 has access to, the one that, as always, you’ve access to every ebook you’ve ever purchased from Amazon, complete with all the notes and highlights you’ve left in them. Now you get your archived personal documents too! Get this update NOW via Amazon’s simple to use update process — not only will you get the update to be able to access your personal documents, there’s also an expansion of elements you’ve already been enjoying, including Whispersync of last page read, bookmarks, and annotations to your archived personal documents that have been converted into Kindle format. Can you resist such excellent updates all included in this free update? All you’ve got to do to get to this update on your Kindle 3 is, startin

As soon as the Kindle Fire was unveiled, I think we all knew this tablet would be popular thanks to the low price. With that low price, we can also bet that the things will be hard to get with tablets being sold out shortly after launch. Analyst Ashok Kumar is now stating that Amazon may move more tablets than previously thought. Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw, said that his check with the supply chain indicated that Amazon could move as many as 5 million tablets in Q4. That would give the Fire about half the numbers of the iPad. The reason for the increase is also cited as the record pre-orders that were received. Naturally, supply will need to go up to meet that demand. The Fire might give Apple a real run once things get going, if it can keep the momentum. Amazon is the first real competitor to launch a tablet that has a chance at matching the iPad. Things can turn quickly for Amazon though it the tablets get into customer hands and have issues with performance.

The iPhone 4S’ Siri personal assistant system is one of the new smartphone’s headline features, but buyers outside of the US have been discovering not all the functionality is present. Currently – as we mentioned in our iPhone 4S review - Siri cannot access Maps or Yelp business functionality outside of the US, but according to Apple’s FAQ those services will be added “in additional countries” come 2012. The exact list of countries where international support will be enabled isn’t known, though right now Siri – which Apple describes as being in beta – is only available for US English, UK English, Australian English, French and German anyway. 2012 will bring support for additional languages, Apple also confirms, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian and Spanish. Without the local functionality, many of Siri’s headline-grabbing features don’t currently work outside of the US. Asking your iPhone 4S to find nearby restaurants isn’t supported, and neither can the smartphone bring

Motorola’s phones were tanking on the market after the Razr flip phone years ago was so popular. The company hadn’t had a really desirable phone until it embraced Android and started anew in popularity. Motorola is now set to revive that Razr name with a new smartphone dubbed the Droid Razr. A new rumor has surfaced with a tipster claiming that the Droid Razr will be a phone to watch. In fact that tipster claims that the hardware inside is faster than the iPhone 4S. The smartphone is expected to go official on October 18, but the tip sheds light on the hardware ahead of that launch. The unverified tip claims the smartphone will run a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and has 1GB of RAM. The iPhone 4S has 512MB of RAM. The screen is said to be a 4.3-inch unit similar to the qHD offering on the Droid X2 and Bionic. The smartphone will also apparently support LTE 4G connectivity and is said to be the thinnest LTE smartphone to date. Other rumors point to the Droid Razr being in Verizon store

Back in July Jawbone announced that it would be bring a new interactive bracelet sensor to iPhone users called the UP. The bracelet was supposed to be able to track all sorts of things and be worn constantly by the user. It can track what the user eats, their sleep, and how they exercise and then shoot that content to the iPhone via an app. When the UP bracelet was announced, we didn’t know when it was coming or how much it would cost and details were missing. AT&T has now listed the UP on its website and the device will be going on sale soon. This bracelet is interesting, but it doesn’t look like something many people would wear all the time. It does allow you to track your caloric intake using a photo of what you are eating taken with the iPhone. That will certainly make it easy for dieters. The app can also track your sleep phases so you can be sure you are resting well and it can send you wake up alarms that others won’t hear. The app also has more than a little bit of soci

CREE makes a bunch of different LED lighting products. LEDs are starting to go more mainstream today as a green replacement for traditional bulbs. The upside to the LED is that it needs less power than a traditional incandescent bulb and lasts much longer. The downside is that the LED lights are still much more expensive than others forms of green lighting and traditional bulbs. CREE has announced that it has been part of the first LED lighting project in China. The project saw more than a million CREE LEDs placed along highways that total over 10,000 streetlights. The CREE LEDs were used along nearly 75 miles of roads. The lights were installed along four different highways and inside one tunnel. The lighting was installed by Kingsun Optoelectronic Co. Ltd, a lighting company in China. The lights installed were 270W and 300W Apollo LED luminaries. The new lighting is expected to save 60% in electricity costs.

The iPhone 4S rumors have given way to the real product, as disappointed as some were by the new smartphone. The rumors of the next version are already heating up and the rumors on the next iPad are going strong too. An analyst from Susquehanna named Jeff Fidacaro is claiming that sources in the supply chain are saying the iPad 3 is headed into production. According to Fidacaro, supply chain checks suggest that production numbers for the iPad are ramping up for Q4. This is to be expected since Apple is gearing up for a heavy holiday sales season as always. The production numbers are claimed to be climbing to 12 to 14 million units from about 11 to 13 million. That increase in production is also claimed to be partly due to an early run of the iPad 3. Fidacaro told AllThingsD that he is seeing 600,000 to 1 million iPad 3 builds in the supply chain. The iPad 2 was unveiled in March so a ramp up now would be in line with another unveil in March. The analyst also expects that Apple will

Pundits are clamoring to make ambitious estimates for iPhone 4S launch demand, with some analysts pegging weekend sales in the region of 4m units: in fact, the enthusiasm for the fifth-gen smartphone is so great, the biggest surprise would not be multi-million sales but if crowds proved indifferent. That looks unlikely, however; after queues in Europe this morning, sales have kicked off the east coast of the US and Apple Stores – along with Verizon, AT&T and Sprint stores – are opening from 8am to deliver the coveted handset into shoppers’ hands. Reports across Twitter confirm interest in the iPhone 4S is high, and of course Apple already has over 1m pre-order customers to deliver to today. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak leads the line at the Apple Store in Los Gatos, California, tweeting that “the long wait begins.” As for quite how many have followed Woz and plan on grabbing an iPhone 4S this weekend, estimates vary. Bloomberg surveyed the analysts and found that all question

All eyes may be on the iPhone 4S queues this morning, but Apple’s recent iOS 5 update is also prompting some feedback, and not all of it positive. iPad owners upgrading to the latest version have discovered that their first-gen tablets in fact won’t get multitasking gestures, something it seems Apple has quietly updated its iOS features page to clarify. Unfortunately, the company is yet to amend the UK version along with other international versions of the page, at time of writing. According to those pages, first-gen iPad owners running iOS 5 should be able to “using four or five fingers, swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar, pinch to return to the Home screen and swipe left or right to switch between apps.” As many have complained about in Apple’s support forums, however, that’s not the case. Apple is yet to comment publicly, but instead has reportedly been pruning some of the more frustrated posts from its user forum and making the amendments to the US site. Limitations betw

Last month we wrote about something that the researchers at the CERN particle research facility and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy had stumbled across that rocked the physics world. The team of scientists though they had observed neutrinos that traveled faster than the speed of light. If true this would undermine the long-standing theory of special relativity Einstein came up with decades ago. Since the announcement, there have been lots of researchers trying to figure out how to debunk or how to prove that the neutrinos did travel faster than light. Another scientist thinks that he has figured out how the neutrinos arrived to the Gran Sasso Lab seemingly before light should have been able to get there. The neutrinos were 60 nanoseconds early. The new argument comes from Ronald van Elburg from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His argument is that the team forgot to take into account the time distortions introduced by the GPS satellites in orbit that were used to sy

Spotify has landed on the Boxee Box, offering subcribers to the streaming music service a way to listen to tracks, as well as access playlists and artist information, from their set-top box. The latest in a number of implementations of Spotify in standalone home entertainment systems, the Boxee app also gives access to the What’s New section, flagging up the latest content to arrive in the catalog. What you can’t do is create or manage Spotify playlists, something Boxee reckons is best left to computers and tablets. You’ll need a Premium Spotify account in order to use the Boxee Box integration, priced at $9.99 or €9.99 per month, and of course a Boxee Box to access it on. They’re currently running at around $180 online. Spotify previously announced a deal with Western Digital to put the music service on the WD TV Live range, joining an existing line-up of hardware from partners including Sonos and Onkyo. More details on Spotify here.

Apple’s iPad may still be sitting pretty at the top of the consumer tablet charts, but questions still remain over whether Android 3.x Honeycomb really has been a sales failure so far. Google and its manufacturer partners are yet to announce official sales figures for tablets running Android, leaving us dependent on supply chain rumors and guesstimates. Android developer Al Sutton reminded us, though, that with a little math we could get an estimate of quite how many Honeycomb slates are in the wild. The number? Roughly 3.4m. That’s based on Google’s latest platform version stats – the fortnightly updated breakdown of what proportion of devices use each Android version – and the official activation numbers announced as part of the search giant’s financial results yesterday. Then, Google CEO Larry Page claimed 190m Android devices had been activated in total. According to the platform stats, 1.8-percent of Android devices that have accessed the Android Market within the 14 day perio

Sony Ericsson offered up the quarterly earnings report (PDF) for Q3 2011 today and the numbers aren’t the most interesting thing to come out of the results. The numbers clearly show that Sony Ericsson is seeing sales slip away as the number of units shipped has dropped compared to last year. In Q3 2011 SE shipped 9.5 million units compared to Q3 2010 when it shipped 10.4 million units. The Q3 shipment numbers are up significantly from Q2 2011 though, in Q2 SE shipped 7.6 million units. The average selling price in Q3 2011 is up as well at 166 euro compared to 154 euro in Q3 2010. In Q2 2011 SE reported a significant loss of -37 million euro. That has turned into a 38 million euro gain with an operating margin of 2%. SE CEO Bert Nordberg announced that the more than 80% of the devices that SE sold were smartphones. This is where the most interesting part of the investors chat came in. SE will shift its entire portfolio to smartphones in 2012. That means no more feature phones or oth

Exclusive: Presenting the all special tribute of Shaan to his father - Manas Mukherjee. Enjoy the beautiful melody of Naina...

Raftaarein is the new video track from much awaited & anticipated movie Ra.One. This song also showcases some visuals of making of this song. After Dildara,Chammak Challo & Criminal, this is our latest offering.

Finally our favorite song from Love Breakup Zindagi. Sung by the legend Shafqat Amanat Ali, probably the most underrated song... Beautiful listen.

I have been saying for a long time now that my generation is the last of the old media users. I am raising my kids, the next generation of media consumers in a way that is completely different than my parents raised me. It’s not that I am forcing my kids away from traditional print media, it’s that they simply don’t need a magazine and prefer something more interactive. It’s the same for video, my kids don’t need to be in front of the TV or a big screen, they will watch what they want when they want it on any screen that happens to be nearby whether it is a 3DS, smartphone, tablet, TV, or a computer. This video is a perfect example of how tech is changing the children of today and that will have a massive impact on the future of traditional media. Children are growing up on tech that is easy, intuitive and they expect everything to be that way. Take this tiny baby working the iPad with her chubby little fingers. Sure, the video is adorable and cute, but it has some massive implicatio

If you are a hard-core camera geek, you may be the sort that is into hacking firmware to give your camera the features you wish the maker had given it from the factory. There have been some interesting hacks put forward for the Panasonic GH2 in the past and the latest that has surfaced makes the camera video quality much, much better. Out of the box, the GH2 can record video in 24Mbit AVCHD format full HD resolution video. For some of us that is plenty of quality, but others want more. This new hack has cranked the GH2 up a bunch of notches and lets the camera record 176Mbit AVCHD Intra video. That Intra tagged onto the back is a huge change. AVCHD grabs only some of the frames from the sensor to make the video. AVCHD Intra on the other hand will grab every frame from the sensor making video look better when played back. You can see a video below from a user going by Driftwood that was shot using the GH2 in 176Mbit AVCHD Intra and see what you think. How exactly you apply this hac

Trimble is a name that many outdoors enthusiasts will know. Trimble makes a bunch of different handheld GPS devices to help you navigate in the woods or on the trials. The company has a new app for the iPad that is called the Backpacker Map Maker app and is specifically for the iPad. The touch interface of the app allows the hiker or backpacker to find just where they want to go using seamless topographical maps. The app offers maps for the US and Canada and allows them to view, create, and annotate maps right on the tablet screen. It also offers aerial, hybrid, street, and terrain maps. Access to over 68,000 USGS topo maps that are stacked together and enhanced in MyTopo mode is included. A wealth of other features makes this a very useful app. It has place search to find campgrounds and peaks. Dual maps let the user turn on dual map mode for precise trip planning with street maps and topo maps on screen at once. The trip plans can be saved to the cloud, waypoints can be marked, a

One of the green technologies that could eliminate or greatly reduce the need for petroleum in the future is the fuel cell. The fuel cell is able to create power using reactions inside the cell. Fuel cell powered vehicles are green and produce no emissions. One of the companies that is working hard towards a fuel cell vehicle is Nissan and Nissan showed off its first fuel cell back in 2005. Nissan has announced that it has greatly improved the fuel cell design with its new next gen fuel cell compared to that cell unveiled in 2005. The massive improvements in the new cell were achieved with a new membrane Electrode Assembly and a new separator flow path. The improved power density of the new Fuel Cell Stack makes it 2.5 times more powerful than the 2005 version. Nissan gives the fuel cell a power output of 2.5kW per liter. Nissan also used a new single row lamination inside the fuel cell that makes the overall size of the cell reduced by more than half compared to conventional cell

The Indian pay TV market, which at present stands at Rs 240 billion, has huge growth potential as it is underpenetrated and the ARPU (average revenue per user) is very low. However, there are challenges like fragmentation in the cable industry, outdated technology and high capex requirements which are hindrance in the growth path. These were the thoughts expressed by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) MD and CEO Punit Goenka while delivering the keynote address at the India Digital Pay-TV Summit (IDPS) 2011, organised here by Indiantelevision.com and MPA. Goenka warned that if the issues are not tackled in time, India could skip cable and evolve to a wireless delivery of TV market, like in the case of telecom sector. He first started his presentation with the ground realities of today’s pay TV scenario, saying that the market is under penetrated and the ARPUs are very low compared to the global markets. Also, the cable industry is fragmented and the there is no serious inve

Hathway Cable & Datacom will require an investment of Rs 6-7 billion to digitise its existing subscriber base if the government mandates the phasing out of analogue cable, a top official said. In the first phase involving the four metros, India’s leading multi-system operator (MSO) will need Rs one billion. Hathway has cable TV operations in Mumbai and Delhi. In Kolkata, Hathway has a presence through its joint venture company, Gujarat Telelinks Pvt Ltd (GTPL), which acquired a 51 per cent stake in Kolkata Cable and Broadband Pariseva. “Our requirement in the first phase will be about one million set-top boxes. This would mean a funding need of around Rs 1 billion,” said Hathway Cable & Datacom managing director and CEO K Jayaraman. Overseeing Hathway’s subscriber universe is eight million. “We have digitised around two million homes. We will need to digitise the remaining six million homes. Our funding requirement will be Rs 6-7 billion as we need to subsidise the set-to

India will have 1.2 million HD subscribers on DTH by the end of this fiscal, industry experts said here today. Pricing is a sticky issue but aggressive marketing will push the demand for HD channels. Demonstrating the success of Movies Now, Media Network and Distribution Network India CEO and MD Yogesh Radhakrishnan said the idea for an HD channel came in 2007. In 2009 the decision was made that Movies Now had to be taken across digital and analogue on the same feed. The analogue market is large and the channel looks better than competition even in this segment. “So we went the dual way. We approached the DTH operators,” added Radhakrishnan, conceding that it was a humongous effort to transfer all content to HD. “There was a starting cost, but it has paid us twice over. We backed the project. People looked at our product as being superior.” Demand is key for HD channels to work. “We want to drive the HD market. We are looking at having an English music channel. We would also wa

After pioneering the launch of HD in India, Tata Sky today announced the launch of ESPN HD on its platform. ESPN HD will showcase exciting sports action in High Definition from ESPN STAR Sports’ stellar line-up of premier international sporting events including soccer, tennis, golf and motor sports among others. Action starts right away on ESPN HD with the live broadcast of the first ever Formula One Indian Grand Prix on October 28th. The highly anticipated 2011-2012 season of the Barclays Premier League will also be showcased live on ESPN HD. ESPN HD will be part of the HD Gold pack and will be made available just in time for India’s historic Formula One Grand Prix to be held this month. All subscribers who have currently subscribed to the HD Gold Pack will be able to enjoy the channel at no extra cost. With the introduction of ESPN HD, Tata Sky has now expanded its bouquet of true HD channels to eight.

Ford has a long history of auctioning off customer cars that its team members build up and donating the profits to charity. Back before the 2012 Boss 302 cars hit dealers for customers to buy, Ford had a custom Boss 302 Laguna Seca auctioned off at Barrett Jackson with the proceeds going to charity. The company has another one of a kind Boss 302 that is being put on the auction block. This Boss 302 was designed by Ford Designer Melvin Betancourt. Betancourt designed the Boss 302 to look like the one that famous Ford race driver from the 60′s and 70′s took the the championship in the Trans-Am series in 1970. The car is painted in a color that will be coming for the 2013 Boss 302 cars called School Bus Yellow. The name of the color is a throwback to the 1970 racing series. It looks orange to me. Rather than using decals like the production Boss 302 racing cars, the designer painted on all of the stripes for the special car and will have Parnelli Jones sign the car at the event where

There are rumors circulating around the tech world today that Google may be getting ready to launch its own MP3 store reports the NYT. We already have some giant MP3 stores to choose from with iTunes being the top for people that are on the iPhone platform. When it comes to getting music onto your Android smartphone many people use Amazon’s music store. There are also a wealth of other music stores on the market to choose from. Amazon may not be the place of choice for many Android fans for long with the new rumor floating that Google wants to launch its own MP3 store. I think many Android fans especially would flock to a Google offering since Google also makes the OS. Google already has the cloud service, Google Music, where you can upload your tracks to stream to any device. The new rumor is something different from the Google Music service and would be a direct sales store. This one rumor is not hard to believe though with Google already selling books and movies. Adding music is

ThinkGeek always has your back when it comes to getting the weird and strange items you need for any holiday. For Halloween, which is only a couple weeks away now, ThinkGeek has some interesting offerings that you might like to get scary festive at your house or office. The most interesting things are the Plush Zombie slippers. I think these might be perfect for the premiere of the Walking Dead coming up this weekend too. These slippers look like a rotting green corpse is eating your stumpy little legs. You can get your own pair of slippers for $19.99 and they are available now. I also like the Plush Zombie hat to go with those slippers. The hat will keep your head nice and toasty and it looks like a zombie munching on your brain when you wear it. The final bit of geekery is the 8-bit LED Jack O’Lantern. This is exactly what it sounds like, a pixilated pumpkin with some lights on it for your home or desk. That zombie hat will set you back $14.99 and the 8-bit pumpkin will cost you

Apple is readying a refreshed range of MacBook Pro notebooks, it’s rumored, with Bluetooth 4.0 and faster processors each tipped to be included in the new line-up. Supplies of the existing versions are currently constrained, 9 to 5 Mac‘s source tells them, but the updated versions have already shown up in Apple’s inventory systems ready for imminent release. It’s possible that Apple’s changes could pave the way for broader Siri voice control support across the desktop. There are no huge changes planned: the new MacBook Pro models will look the same, and there will still be two 13-inch, two 15-inch and one 17-inch pre-configurations on offer. However, although unconfirmed, the changes are expected to be faster Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, with Apple keeping pace with its PC notebook rivals, along with Bluetooth 4.0 as found in the iPhone 4S launching today. Internally the new versions are known as K90IA (13-inch), K91A (15-inch) and K92A (17-inch). Bluetooth 4.0 is special becau

Make some more noise for our Desi Boyz. Watch the latest song "Jhak Maar Ke from Desi Boyz" featuring Akshay Kumar, John Abraham and Deepika Padukone. The male lead singer of this song is Neeraj Shridhar.

Release Date: 28 October 2011 Genre: Drama Cast: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis Directors: Roland Emmerich Writer: John Orloff Studio: Sony Pictures Plot: A political thriller about who actually wrote the plays of William Shakespeare-- Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford-- set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her