Yup, u have read it right.”Small is good,but what about smaller than small”. First we had the desktop and then we felt the need to have a smaller,more portable form of the desktop, the laptop or the notebook. We were pretty happy and decided to use as it fulfilled our necessities. But then as the technology progressed, we got an even smaller notebook, the sub-notebook. Few features of the notebook were stripped of, cost increased and the product was marketed well. So what was the result, success. But then we decided to go further and apple came out with world’s thinnest laptop “The Macbook Air”. Again overdoing things that shouldn’t have been done.

As it is we find it hard to maintain our personal accessories and when they get smaller, yes we find it easy to carry them, but what about the maintenance? The smaller it is the more delicate it becomes. Over the past few months I have seen some good technology at a very competitive price, which has enabled the consumer to get his hands on gadgets with more features(simply loaded), but it has come at a cost. The cost we’ve paid is deteriorating quality of these products and a customer service support which seems imaginary. A few products might be faulty but most of people who’ve bought the latest mobile, laptop or even car have found the lacking quality which used to be present. To cut down prices in this cutthroat market the manufacturers have decided to take the small route and making products with smaller than small component, showing the customer a beam of light at the end of the tunnel,not long before he/she realizes that it is of the coming train.

So what do you see ?

Here is why wordpress blogging service  is better than blogspot’s blogging service

1. A blog on WordPress is more personalized than that on blogspot. A blog on blogspot has a small bar on top of your blog with features such as next blog,create blog,sign in, which makes it less personalized as person on your blog can can click on it AND GO TO THE NEXT BLOG.
2. More number of themes are available in wordpress, which are far better than those on blogspot.
3. A wordpress page is around 8-10KB and a blogspot page is on an average of 15KB. This makes a wordpress page open much faster than a blogspot’s page
4. The number of widgets available on wordpress is far more than those in Blogspot
5. WordPress is Adfree(Can be taken as a drawback also)

But wordpress has a few limitations also

1.  WordPress is Adfree. In blogspot you can run adsense
2. In Blogspot you can customize the HTML coding to a fairly good extent. WordPress does not even support a tag of a marquee

These features make wordpress better( for me). The blogging service you use purely depends on the purpose of your blogging. If you want to make money, blogspot is surely better, but if you want a personalized blog wordpress is definitely better.

Advantages of 2G GSM

* GSM is mature; this maturity means a more stable network with robust features.
* Less signal deterioration inside buildings.
* Ability to use repeaters.
* Talktime is generally higher in GSM phones due to the pulse nature of transmission.
* The availability of Subscriber Identity Modules allows users to switch networks and handsets at will, aside from a subsidy lock.
* GSM covers virtually all parts of the world so international roaming is not a problem.
* The much bigger number of subscribers globally creates a better network effect for GSM handset makers, carriers and end users.

Disadvantages of 2G GSM

* Pulse nature of TDMA transmission used in 2G interferes with some electronics, especially certain audio amplifiers. 3G uses W-CDMA now.
* Intellectual property is concentrated among a few industry participants, creating barriers to entry for new entrants and limiting competition among phone manufacturers.
* GSM has a fixed maximum cell site range of 35 km, which is imposed by technical limitations. [1]

Advantages of IS-95

* Capacity is IS-95’s biggest asset. It can accommodate more users per MHz of bandwidth than any other technology.
* IS-95 has no built-in limit to the number of concurrent users.
* IS-95 uses precise clocks that do not limit the distance a tower can cover. [2]
* IS-95 consumes less power and covers large areas so cell size in IS-95 is larger.
* IS-95 is able to produce a reasonable call with lower signal (cell phone reception) levels.
* IS-95 uses soft handoff, reducing the likelihood of dropped calls.
* IS-95’s variable rate voice coders reduce the rate being transmitted when speaker is not talking, which allows the channel to be packed more efficiently.
* Has a well-defined path to higher data rates.

Disadvantages of IS-95

* Most technologies are patented and must be licensed from Qualcomm.
* Breathing of base stations, where coverage area shrinks under load. As the number of subscribers using a particular site goes up, the range of that site goes down.
* Because IS-95 towers interfere with each other, they are normally installed on much shorter towers. Because of this, IS-95 may not perform well in hilly terrain.
* IS-95 covers a smaller portion of the world, and IS-95 phones are generally unable to roam internationally.
* Manufacturers are often hesitant to release IS-95 devices due to the smaller market, so features are sometimes late in coming to IS-95 devices.
* Even barring subsidy locks, CDMA phones are linked by ESN to a specific network, thus phones are typically not portable across providers.

source:wikipedia

Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method utilized by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with cdmaOne (often referred to as simply “CDMA”), which is a mobile phone standard that uses CDMA as its underlying channel access method.

CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code). In communications technology, there are only three domains that can allow multiplexing to be implemented for more efficient use of the available channel bandwidth and these domains are known as time, frequency and space. By contrast, time division multiple access (TDMA) divides access by time, while frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) divides it by frequency. CDMA is a form of “spread-spectrum” signaling, since the modulated coded signal has a much higher bandwidth than the data being communicated.

New York: Technology might be just as addictive as alcohol and drugs and could also wreak havoc with personal and work relationships, a leading expert said.
John O’Neill, the director of addictions services at the Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas refers to it as “technology overload” when he sees addiction-like behavior in his patients using cell phones or emails.
“I think they share some of the same components as people who become addicted to alcohol and drugs in that we start to see that someone cannot really put it down and cannot stop the use of it even when there are some consequences,” he said. “We can become overloaded by technology and suffer consequences in our relationships,” he added.
O’Neill’s observations are backed up by psychologists who have classified technology addiction as an impulse disorder that can be as socially damaging as alcoholism, gambling and drug addiction. The Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Washington, which runs treatment programs and provides therapy, estimate that 6 to 10% of the approximately 189 million internet users in the US have a dependency on technology.
O’Neill said it’s all about teaching people how to manage their behavior in a healthy way. “How do you learn to set limits, develop boundaries, how do you make some sense out of what does it mean to healthily use the technology, or to healthily enter into a relationship with someone,” O’Neill said.
He added that warning signs that someone may be sliding into an unhealthy relationship with technology include using text messages, email and voice mail when face-to-face interaction would be more appropriate, or limiting time with friends and family to tend to your email, return phone calls or to surf the internet. REUTERS

Days after Apple Chief, Steve Jobs, unfurled the company’s newest innovation, the “MacBook Air” at the MacWorld 2008, information about Lenovo’s upcoming “MacBook Air Killer” has leaked onto the Internet.

Billed as a “MacBook Air Killer”, Lenovo’s to-be-launched ThinkPad X300 sports dimensions of 12.5 inches x 9 inches x 0.73 inches; is about 0.92-inches thick, has a 13.3-inches wide-screen LED backlit display, and weighs around 2.5 lbs. Powered by a 2Ghz/880Mhz Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core CPU, the X300 incorporates a 1.8-inches 64GB Solid State Disk (SSD), and up to 4GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 memory.

According to the leaked information, the X300 includes an ultra-thin (7mm) DVD burner that’s missing in Apple’s “MacBook Air”. At 1,440 x 900, the screen resolution is supposed to outdo that of the “MacBook Air” which is 1,280 x 800.

The X300 has three USB ports, three internal PCI-E slots, DisplayPort, ExpressCard slot, VGA adapter, built-in Web cam, stereo speakers, and three-cell Lithium-Polymer replaceable batteries.

In terms of wireless connectivity, the X300 offers Bluetooth, wireless USB, WWAN, WiMax, and GPS.

All said, if the leaked information is indeed true, Lenovo’s X300 looks poised to give Apple’s super thin MacBook Air a run for its money…

source : Techtree.com

Latest research on the possible effects of exposure to radiofrequency (RF) energy has raised concerns over the effects of radiations from mobile devices on sleeping habits.

A study carried out by Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and Wayne State University (USA) revealed that prolonged exposure (3 hours) to RF energy adversely affects the quality of sleep, and severely disrupts sleep patterns.
The study comprised 35 men and 36 women, aged between 18 and 45, who were exposed to mobile phone radiations as they prepared to sleep in three different sessions in the laboratory. The data collected during these sessions included self-reported symptoms such as headaches, cognitive functions, mood, and electroencephalographic recordings.

The participants were either exposed to sham exposure (sham) or 884MHz GSM wireless communication signals equivalent to those received when using a mobile phone.

In case of those exposed to actual exposure as against sham exposure, sleep was initiated a good one hour after affecting exposure. It took these people longer to enter the first of the deeper stages of sleep, and thus they spent less time in deepest sleep.

The study has revealed that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals, components of sleep that are believed to be significant for recovery from daily wear and tear are adversely affected.

Moreover, participants who otherwise had no self-reported symptoms related to mobile phone use, appeared to develop more headaches during actual RF exposure as compared to sham exposure.

The study was sponsored by the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an industry group representing makers of cell phones.

source: Techtree

Though seemingly crazy, many dog lovers tend to converse with their canine friends believing their dogs can decipher what it is they’re trying to convey. What you’re now going to learn may seem impossible but it might just help you understand what your pet pooch is trying to tell you!

A couple of Hungarian scientists are working on a computer software that will analyze dog barks, enabling human beings to understand their precious pets’ emotions.
At Budapest’s Elte University, Ethologist Csaba Molnar and his colleagues have tested a software that distinguishes between the emotional reactions of up to fourteen dogs (belonging to the Hungarian Mudi Hearding Breed) to six different situations, like when the dogs are alone or they get to see a ball or they fight or see a stranger or go for a walk, and so on.

The experiment found the computer software to correctly recognize the emotional reactions of these dogs — based on their barks and yelps — in 43 percent of the cases. While human beings were found to correctly judge the same emotional reactions in a close 40 percent of the cases.

All said, the study proves that human beings can understand different types of dog barks, even if they don’t have any prior experience with the dogs.

Meanwhile, the scientists working on this project say that the computer software can be improved further, and that people can expect commercial applications for dogs-to-men communications in the future.

source: www.techtree.com

Following close on the heels of Opera 9.25, Mozilla has released a second, and much improved beta version of its Firefox browser. Microsoft also joined the announcement frenzy with a note that the software will be out in the first half of next year.

Web browsers are getting much more attention recently with Mozilla staying on its course to mature its next-generation Firefox browser and especially Microsoft, which apparently is reaching first significant milestones with IE8. The next Internet Explorer is scheduled for a H1 2008 released, which is rather surprising as IE7 is just over one year old now and IE6 has been in place for more than five years before the current version’s release.

According to Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft’s IE team, IE8 “correctly rendered” the Acid2 page, which includes reference code to test a browser, on December 12. Microsoft considers the Acid2 test as “one of several milestones for the interoperability, standards compliance, and backwards compatibility that [Microsoft is] committed to for this release.”

Meanwhile, Firefox 3 Beta 2 has been released to developers and public download and delivers some important updates addressing stability and feature set of the browser – which wasn’t quite usable in its Beta 1 version yet. Mozilla said that the Beta 2 comes with more than 900 improvements over the first Beta. Changes include enhanced cookie management, some security improvements, the integration of a new download manager, a better integration with Linux, as well as improvements for the location bar, the smart bookmarks folder, the places organizer and protocol handlers. Mozilla said that the Beta 2 is substantially faster than Beta 1 as well.
Spurce: TG Daily Newslet

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -

Now that the excitement of Apple’s Macworld Expo is over, it’s time for some hard numbers. The Cupertino, Calif., computer and gadget maker is expected to report strong results Tuesday afternoon, in the wake of a strong holiday quarter–but investors will be looking carefully for any hints of weakness to come.

According to analysts polled by Thomson Financial, Apple’s (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) earnings for the quarter ending in December are expected to surge 45.1% to $1.5 billion, or $1.62 per share from $1.0 billion, or $1.14 per share, during the year-ago period. Apple sales are forecast to hit $9.5 billion from $7.1 billion during the year-ago period, analysts predicted.

The news will cap a strong 2007 for Apple. Shares of Apple have risen nearly 80% over the past year, thanks to strong sales of Apple’s notebook and desktop computers and Apple’s new iPhone, which went on sale in June.

Yet investors were disappointed after last week’s Macworld Expo, with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs tweaking Apple’s lineup rather than adding anything revolutionary. Apple updated its poor-selling Apple TV set-top box, iPod Touch music player and the iPhone, and built out Apple’s lineup of notebook computers with a new, lightweight laptop. Apple shares plunged 20% from a brief trading peak of $202.96 on Dec. 27 to $161.36 at Friday’s close.

Any sign of a slowdown in consumer spending for the current quarter from Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer will send Apple’s shares lower. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expecting Apple’s second-quarter net income to be $989 million on $7.0 billion in sales.

“We believe Apple is disproportionately exposed to a potential slowdown in U.S. consumer spending,” Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote in a note to investors Friday.

Another concern: While Apple’s phones and computers are selling well, Apple’s music players are losing momentum. Bernstein expects Apple have sold between 2.4 and 2.5 million iPhones during the quarter and 2.19 million Macs, up 37% over the year-ago period. By contrast, Bernstein expects Apple iPod sales will grow just 6% to 22.4 million iPods over the year-ago period.

If confidence continues to slip, look for the novelty of more than just the iPod to start wearing thin with consumers.

Source:www.forbes.com