Skype for iOS gets an update, now supports 4-inch Retina Display

Skype's app for iOS has been updated and it now supports the new 4-inch Retina Display featured on the iPhone 5. The update also enables iOS users to integrate their Microsoft account with the contact list of the VoIP account.

The feature which merges your Microsoft account with Skype contacts will enable users to send instant messages and also call people from their Outlook, Messenger and Hotmail contact using Skype.

One can now edit instant messages simply by tapping and holding the text. There are a bunch of new smileys and animated emoticons which use the Retina Display. These features have already been present on the desktop and Android version of Skype

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Huawei T8830: Upcoming dual-core ICS smartphone goes on sale for $104 in China

Chinese OEM's have been able to introduce disruptive prices for their dual-core smartphones owing to the Mediatek MT6577 chip, which promised sub-$200 Android 4.0 earlier in the year. Some of these phones have trickled to India as well at nearly the same price point, the next disruption is likely to come from the MT6517 dual core chip, seen here on the Huawei T8830.

According to Gizchina, this ICS smartphone has a 4-inch WVGA resolution screen sheathed in Gorilla Glass, 512 MB of RAM, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. Apparently phones like the JiaYu G2 have better specs, but the T8830 will certainly be more superior to anything available at the same price point in India. 

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Steve Jobs was more 'Mac centered than iPod visionary', says ex-Apple engineer Fadell

American computer science engineer Tony Fadell, who created the iPod, which revolutionized the music industry, has revealed how Apple gave more importance to develop Macintosh computers, and not the portable media player. During an exclusive interview with the Telegraph, Fadell discussed his experience of working with the tech giant and its visionary founder Steve Jobs. Fadell revealed that the iPod team he built was largely taken up with “the day job” of building the Macintosh. 

“When I showed the iPod to Steve and he said ‘It’s a go’ he meant to the next milestone. He didn’t mean we were going to even ship it,” the paper quoted Fadell, as saying. “This is a company whose business was the Macintosh. It wasn’t as if there’d been this big decision to suddenly turn this way,” he said. “We wanted to do everything at the cutting edge to the very best of our ability, but we didn’t have this grand idea,” he added. According to the paper, Fadell, who left Apple in 2008, agrees that Apple is a visionary company today, and does builds amazing products. But at the same time he is unequivocal, and says at the beginning “there was no vision of taking everything to a world of iPhones and iPads”. According to Fadell, there was an iPod visionary. He just doesn’t say it was Steve Jobs.

Fadell, however, agrees that Apple made the iPod and the iDevices what they are. “Without the computing platform of Apple, it could all have been swallowed up by a Sony and we wouldn’t be where we are,” the paper quoted him, as saying. -ANI 

Photo: REUTERS/Peter Morgan

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World won't end in 2012, assures NASA

Innumerable reports have been doing rounds of the media regarding the end of the world, supposed to occur on December 21 this year. Top NASA officials, however, have dismissed reports about the end-of-the-world rumours. "Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, Dec. 21, 2012 won''t be the end of the world as we know it, however, it will be another winter solstice," Mashable quoted NASA as writing in a Google+ post.

To dispel these end-of-the-world rumours, NASA hosted a Google Hangout with a cadre of top scientists in relevant fields, including astrobiology and astronomy. The panelists included astrobiologist David Morrison, asteroid scientist Don Yeomans, solar/archaeoastronomer Mitzi Adams, heliophysicist Lika Guhathakurta, astrophysicist Paul Hertz, and Andrew Fraknoi, science educator from Foothill College in California -ANI

Photo Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

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Rumor: Next Xbox due at the end of 2013

Bloomberg claims to have gleaned from its sources that Microsoft’s roadmap for next generation console puts its release window, in and around Thanksgiving next year. The console may make its debut at E3 in June, or Microsoft may decide to have an exclusive launch event. It’s been well over five years since the launch of Xbox 360, and according to NPD numbers, the loss of interest is reflected in the sales numbers.

NPD says that retail sales of games, consoles, and accessories collectively raked in $755.5 million, in October. This is 25% less than the collection made in the same period last year. Microsoft, still leading the pack in US, sold through 750,000 Xbox 360 over the week around Thanksgiving.

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Kapil Sibal's website hacked

India Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal is apparently the latest public figure to win the unwanted affections of the collective that go by the name of Anonymous. According to a report by The Hindu, server hosting the website www.kapilsibalmp.com was broken into, and the paged vandalized to show Sibal in a poor light. This was allegedly carried out by Anonymous India group for the minister's stand on Section 66A of the IT Act.

As for today, the website showed no signs of being hijacked, aside from a few defunct links. There was no official comment on the matter from the government; however, Milind Deora of State IT department said that close to 294 government websites, and websites belonging to ministers were hacked between January and October of this year. He also mentioned that between 201 to 308 websites have been hacked annually since 2009.

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Samsung aims at 50 percent share of India's handset market

South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung is aiming to capture 50 percent market share in value terms of India's overall mobile phone market by 2013, a top executive of the company said here Friday. Currently, the electronics major enjoys 40 percent share of the country's Rs.45,000-crore handset market. "Next year, we will like to have 50 percent market share in overall mobile phone market, including smartphones and feature phones," Samsung Mobile vice president Asim Warsi told reporters after inaugurating the company's first Premium Brand Store in the city.

Warsi said he expected India's handset market to grow by over 10 percent in value terms next year. He said Samsung was aiming to continuously grow its smartphone business in India. Samsung, which is the market leader in smartphone segment, now has close to 48 percent market share by value. Warsi said that the company would like to garner at least 60 percent of the smartphone market by 2013. He said the company would open 20 brand shops by next year. It currently has three such stores. -IANS Photo: Pawel Kopczynski / Reuters

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Apex court issues notice on Section 66A of IT Act

The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the central government and four states on a petition challenging the constitutional validity of Section 66A of the IT Act that provides for proceeding against people posting annoying and inconvenient comments on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and other electronic mediums. An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir issued the notice - also to Maharashtra, West Bengal, Puducherry and Delhi - after Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati told the court that Section 66A has been grossly abused and welcomed the court's intervention. However, he said that per se there was nothing wrong with the section and defended it.

Petitioner Shreya Singhal has moved the Supreme Court seeking the striking down of Section 66A which was resorted to by the authorities to arrest two young girls: Shaheen Dhanda, 21, who had questioned the Mumbai shutdown after the death of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray Nov 17 and her friend Renu Srinivasan who had 'liked' the comment on Facebook. Singhal claimed that the section was vague and impossible to judge by objective standards, and thus liable to misuse.

Section 66A of the IT Act reads: "Any person who sends by any means of a computer resource…any information that is grossly offensive or has a menacing character; or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult… shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine." -IANS

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