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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Apple iTunes 11 now available for download

Apple has finally released the updated iTunes 11 and it is now available for OS X and Windows users globally. The update is available on OS X via the Mac App Store, while Windows users can download it separately.

Primarily, Apple has completely redesigned the interface for iTunes making it much cleaner than ever before. This new user interface is being referred to as an edge-to-edge UI. Another new feature with iTunes 11 is expanded view, this allows the user to quickly access all the content of an album.

The Mini-Player has been revamped and it is not only smaller than the former but now also display much more information. It looks much better than its predecessor.

Another key new feature introduced with iTunes 11 is Up Next which enables users to select songs they want to play next and even create a queued list which spans several songs.

The biggest feature introduced with iTunes 11 is its integration with iCloud which the company’s cloud storage service. It allows users to access media stored on iCloud and one can continue songs or TV Shows right where they left it. This works across all Apple devices.

In addition to all this there is a new logo for the app and the upgrade weighs at 198MB. If you are a Windows user you can download it here.

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Microsoft to start shipping Surface Pro tablet in January, pricing revealed

Microsoft has finally announced the pricing and some availability details for the Surface Pro tablet which runs on Windows 8 and supports all legacy Windows applications. The 64GB variant is priced at $899 (Rs. 49,184 approx) and the 123GB variant is priced at $999 (Rs. 54,645 approx). Microsoft has also announced that these tablets will start shipping in January 2013.

Now the Surface Pro seems a lot more capable compared to the Surface RT, however it is a much expensive tablet which might be a huge challenge for Microsoft to sell. Unlike the Surface RT which is priced at $599 (Rs. 32,765 approx) for the 32GB and $699 (Rs. 38,242) for the 64GB when purchased with the Black Touch Cover, the Surface Pro does not even include this accessory, and it needs to be purchased separately.

However there is a huge hardware difference between the two devices. The Surface RT runs Windows RT and is powered by a NVIDIA Tegra 3 ARM processor. The Surface Pro on the other hand is powered by an Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor and it runs Windows 8.

In addition to the aforementioned the Surface Pro has a 10.6-inch Clear Type display with Full HD resolution, a USB 3.0 port, a mini display port and a capacitive digitizer. All this sure makes it a premium device and we are yet to see how it fares against other premium tablets.

It sure isn’t the sleekest tablet in the market but when it is coupled with its keyboard-cover accessory it will turn in to a brilliant portable device which can perform as tablet and also a powerful notebook. In addition to the great portability it runs Windows 8 which means that all those applications available for Windows are easily accessible to the user. It does seem like a much different device than the generic tablets. It is targeted at different set of consumer and is more likely to fill that gap between an ultrabook and a tablet.

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Dual-SIM capable Lava XOLO A700 launched in India

Lava’s new Android smartphone is called XOLO A700 and it is a dual-SIM capable device which is now available with online retailer Flipkart for Rs. 9,999. This device will be shipping in the next six to eight days and by that time we might also hear an official announcement from the company.

This device runs Android 4.0 ICS which may not be skinned with a custom UI. Unlike the much popular XOLO X900 which is powered by an Intel mobile processor, this device uses an ARM based dual-core chipset which is clocked at 1GHz.

Other specifications includes a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with a 960x540 pixels resolution, it has 512MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel rear camera and a secondary VGA quality front facing camera. It has 4GB of built-in storage, a microSD card slot and a 1,700 mAh battery which is rated for 6 hours of talk time on 2G and just 3 hours on 3G.

Its dual-SIM capability only allows the user to use a 3G+2G connectivity and both SIMs cannot have 3G networks running simultaneously.

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