New features in iOS 6

This update contains over 200 new features, including the following:

•  Maps

◦  Apple designed vector based maps

◦  Turn-by-turn navigation with spoken directions on  iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (2nd and 3rd generation)

◦  Real-time traffic information

◦  Flyover for photo-realistic, interactive 3D views of major metro areas on iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad (3rd generation), and iPod touch (5th generation)

◦  Local search results with Yelp photos, ratings, reviews, and available deals

◦  Siri integration for requesting directions and finding places along a route

•  Siri improvements

◦  Sports: scores, player stats, game schedules, team rosters, and league standings for baseball, basketball, football, soccer and hockey

◦  Movies: trailers, showtimes, reviews and facts

◦  Restaurants: reservations, reviews, photos and information

◦  Send a Tweet

◦  Post on Facebook

◦  App launch

◦  Eyes Free in supported automobiles

◦  Local search available in Siri supported countries (availability may be limited during initial rollout)

◦  Additional country and language support for Canada (English and Canadian French), China (Mandarin), Hong Kong (Cantonese), Italy (Italian), Korea (Korean), Mexico (Spanish), Spain (Spanish), Switzerland (Italian, French, German), Taiwan (Mandarin), US (Spanish)

◦  Supported on iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad (3rd generation) and iPod touch (5th generation)

•  Facebook integration

◦  Single sign-on from Settings

◦  Post from Photos, Safari, Maps, App Store, iTunes, Game Center, Notification Center and Siri

◦  Add location and choose audience for any post

◦  View up-to-date Facebook profile photos and contact information in Contacts

◦  View Facebook events and birthdays in Calendar

◦  Like content and see your friends' Likes in App Store and iTunes Store

•  Shared Photo Streams

◦  Share selected photos with the people you choose

◦  Friends can view shared photos in Photos app, iPhoto and Apple TV

◦  Friends can like and make comments on individual photos

•  Passbook

◦  One place for boarding passes, store cards, movie tickets and other passes

◦  Barcode display for boarding flights, buying coffee, getting into movies and other actions

◦  Passes displayed on Lock Screen based on time or location

◦  Passes can be automatically updated

◦  Supported on iPhone and iPod touch

•  FaceTime improvements

◦  FaceTime over cellular support for iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (3rd generation)

◦  Receive FaceTime calls, sent to your iPhone number, on your iPad and iPod touch

•  Phone improvements

◦  Do Not Disturb to suppress incoming calls and notifications

◦  'Reply with message' option when declining a call

◦  'Remind me later' option based on time or location when declining a call

•  Mail improvements

◦  VIP mailbox to quickly access mail from important people

◦  Flagged email mailbox

◦  Insert photos and videos when composing email

◦  Open password protected Office docs

◦  Pull down to refresh mailboxes

◦  Per account signatures

•  Safari improvements

◦  iCloud tabs to see open pages on all your devices

◦  Offline Reading List

◦  Photo upload support

◦  Full screen landscape view on iPhone and iPod touch

◦  Smart app banners

◦  JavaScript performance improvements

•  App Store and iTunes Store improvements

◦  Updated store design

◦  iTunes Preview history

◦  Complete my season

◦  Complete my album

•  Game Center improvements

◦  Challenge friends to beat high scores and achievements

◦  Post high-scores and achievements to Facebook and Twitter

◦  Friend recommendations based on your Facebook friends

•  Accessibility improvements

◦  Guided Access to limit device to one app or restrict touch input on certain areas of the screen

◦  VoiceOver integration with Maps, AssistiveTouch and Zoom

◦  Support for Made for iPhone Hearing Aids for iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S

•  Improved privacy controls for Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos and data shared over Bluetooth

•  Reminders can be reordered in the Reminders app

•  Custom vibrations for alerts on iPhone

•  Clock app for iPad

•  Clock alarm with song

•  Search all fields in Contacts

•  Automatic movie mode for improved video sound quality

•  Definitions of a selected word for Chinese, French, German and Spanish

•  New keyboard layouts for French, German, Turkish, Catalan, Arabic and Icelandic

•  Keyboard shortcuts shared across devices via iCloud

•  Bluetooth MAP support

•  Global network proxy for HTTP

•  Features for China

◦  Baidu web search

◦  Sina Weibo integration

◦  Share videos to Tudou

◦  Share videos to Youku

◦  Improved text input for handwriting and Pinyin

Facebook messenger update for iOS and android.

Yesterday facebook came up with the update of their app and today they have updated Facebook messenger to its new version for both iOS devices and android devices.

See whats new:
Conversations can now extend beyond just your own friends, bringing friends of friends into the mix. When you’re sharing photos with someone, you can now include larger pictures than ever, with both pinch-to-zoom and tap-for-full-screen controls letting you see the whole thing.
One of the most useful changes sounds like it’s the new ability to quickly switch back-and-forth between conversations within the app, with pop-up notifications letting you know whenever there’s a new message available in one. Speaking of notifications, one of the bugfixes included in this release aims to make push notifications more reliable. Other changes include faster app load times and brisker in-app navigation. Finally, users can now easily delete individual messages from within a conversation.

What's New in Facebook Version 5.0

Since developers updated Facebook app with all new cool features. 

• Its more speedier.
• New UI to view photos.

What's New in Version 5.0

They've rebuilt the app so it’s faster and easier to use.
* Scrolling through news feed is faster than ever
* New banner lets you tap to quickly see more stories – no need to refresh

 Facebook for iOS: Download now. 

Facbook for android : Download

Screeenshots available at the link

How corrupt recruiters are cheating jobseekers, colleges and IT companies

The hide and seek with Neeraj Garg would be comical, if it were not so tragic.

He comes well-recommended on LinkedIn, the professional networking website, which has 214 others bearing the same name. But the one we seek is hiding behind his old identity of a placement and training executive with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

C.B. Prusty, Avneet S. and Vivek Singh, all former colleagues of Garg's at CSC, once described him as "hardworking and knowledgeable", "one of the few resources the organisation is proud to have", and "a thorough professional and a wonderful human being".

They no longer want to talk about him, and qualify their recommendations by saying they were true at the time they were made, in 2008 and 2009.

One of Garg's friends, approached by BT, promised to organise a chat with him. Within moments Garg had checked out the BT correspondent's profile on LinkedIn. However, he did not accept a 'friend' request, did not call, and nor did he get in touch in any other way.


Chances are, he wouldn't. In October last year, CSC, a multinational corporation that employs 24,000 in India, forced Garg to resign. The story goes that he was caught negotiating a bribe from a college. Six people with knowledge of the incident accuse Garg of also engaging middlemen to conduct campus recruitment drives, in violation of company policy.

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"A hidden camera was used to pin him down," says a former CSC employee. Ernst & Young (E&Y), he says, has been engaged by CSC to investigate the matter.

CSC refuses to comment on former employees. "In this particular case, we can tell you that the individual concerned in your query is not employed with us anymore," says an e-mail from Neelam Gill Malhotra, Vice President of Human Resources (HR).

E&Y would not confirm its role in the CSC investigation, citing client confidentiality.

However, Arpinder Singh, Partner and National Director of Fraud Investigation and Dispute Services, says he has investigated eight to nine cases of recruitment-related corruption at different companies in the country in the last two years.

Amid all this, Garg's side of the story is lost. He did not respond to two e-mails sent to his Yahoo! address. The mobile phone connection he used while at CSC was taken away by the company. It has been impossible to get through to his current number, given to BT by the head of a fledgling university, which Garg ostensibly visited after leaving CSC to solicit business. Numerous calls to this number from Bangalore and Delhi either elicited no response or were rejected.

After being unsuccessful in reaching out to Wipro directly in spite of all efforts, I had to explore the middleman route. Somebody told me we had to go through a consultant: Mukti Mishra

This is just one of the worms crawling out of the information technology industry's recruitment can that has been prised open by one scandal after another.

Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, where engineering colleges compete with mango orchards for dominating the landscape, still has echoes of a story about a high-flying recruiter from Wipro Technologies: Russell Purushothaman. Placement officers in Nunna village, a half-an-hour drive from the city and home to no less than five engineering colleges, drop their voices to a whisper when you mention Purushothaman.

A few years ago, Purushothaman was quite the messiah. Newspaper archives have him hiring more students than any other recruiter and offering higher salaries, until he suddenly vanished in a haze of rumour.

According to a former colleague, he was "street-smart - the kind you would expect in sales". Here, however, he allegedly sold jobs, charging up to Rs 7.5 lakh to visit a college and Rs 50,000 for each offer letter.

His game was up when a colleague blew the whistle after he saw a newspaper advertisement put out by a college. It had photos of students selected by Wipro. One of those was a girl whom the whistle-blower had rejected. As more skeletons tumbled out, the bosses at Wipro summoned Purushothaman to Bangalore and interrogated him for six hours before agreeing on a not-so-graceful exit. For good measure, the company filed a case of cheating at the Madhapur police station in Hyderabad. The matter is sub judice.

Police officers confirm that Wipro has indeed filed the case against Purushothaman, though nobody wants to be "dragged into the matter". One of the officers merely read out some details from the report filed with the Madhapur station and gave the FIR number, which corresponds to the case number given by officials in the court of the IX Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad, where the case has been filed. Court officials initially agreed to give BT a certified copy of the case documents if an application was made through a lawyer, but later grew cold feet.

Purushothaman is harder to trace than Garg. LinkedIn shows him as working with an information technology company called Datamatics Consultants Inc - Asia. This company has no website or contact number. Its logo, just like its name, resembles that of Mumbai-based publicly-listed company Datamatics. A spokesperson for Datamatics says it has nothing to do with Datamatics Consultants Inc - Asia.

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Wipro is being coy. When BT broached the subject in an e-mail, Subhashini Pattabhiraman, part of the company's media relations team, responded with details of the measures taken to avoid recruitment fraud, efforts to create public awareness, and strategy to prevent other possible areas of HR corruption. Not one of the 603 words in the document reads either Russell or Purushothaman. When BT persisted, and sent another e-mail to Vipin Nair, head of communications, all it elicited was "no comments" and "regards".

Incidentally, the case was called in the court of the IX Metropolitan Magistrate on August 9, the day this article was finalised, and posted for hearing on October 8 this year.

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Typically, the colleges that succumb to the charms of dodgy recruiters and placement consultants are those that are not accredited and are located in areas which see little traffic of reputed recruiters. They face the classical chickenand-egg situation. They need recruiters to attract students and students will come only if recruiters do. In come the facilitators - middlemen, corrupt employees, college authorities who are willing bribe-givers - who embolden the colleges to declare to the world "100 per cent placement" and guaranteed salaries.

This at a time when research reports say only a handful of those passing out of professional colleges are employable straightaway. A recent study by testing and assessment company MeritTrac says recruiting companies found only 21 per cent employable MBAs out of 2,264 from 100 schools outside the top 25. According to Aspiring Minds, another assessment company, less than 17.5 per cent of engineering graduates can be employed in the IT sector.

In this scenario, any claims of "100 per cent" should be taken with a generous serving of salt, but try telling that to an eager parent, who sees an MBA or an engineering degree for her child as a ticket to untold riches. The middlemen are happy. Colleges pay for their travel, stay, and other needs. In one case, a recruiter blew Rs 25,000 on foreign liquor in a small town hotel in a single night. And colleges get their bragging rights. But the students fall in the gutter that lies in between.

That number in the gutter runs into thousands every year, say HR professionals. And it is difficult to even fix the blame for it.

Illegal and immoral practices actually go way deeper. There are junkets on offer for placement officers to Dubai, Colombo and Bangkok. Colleges give kickbacks: Subroto Bagchi

"I face pressure from parents," says Sai Krishna Kota, Training and Placement Officer with Prasad V. Potluri Siddhartha Institute of Technology in Vijayawada. "They ask why certain companies are not visiting my college when they are going to the neighbouring ones. 'Give them money, get the company at any cost,' they say."

The pressure from parents, say colleges, started unethical conduct in recruitment. The parents made HR professionals corrupt, not the other way round. However, colleges, for their part, are eager to cater to the parents and more than eager to pay bribes if these help in placements.

More than 15 placement officers of rural engineering colleges from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh told BT that their placements in a good year ranged between 20 and 60 per cent. Rural colleges, particularly those that have come up in the last five or six years, struggle to get topflight companies - the big recruiters - to their campuses. They bribe HR personnel, seek the help of middlemen, and end up inviting bogus companies.

"After being unsuccessful in reaching out to Wipro directly in spite of all efforts, I had to explore the middle-man route. Somebody told me we had to go through a consultant," says Mukti Mishra, Co-founder of Centurion University of Technology and Management, which runs colleges in one of India's poorest districts, Gajapati in Orissa.

The middleman, engaged late last year, has thus far failed to get Wipro, or any other company in that league, to Centurion. Wipro, which has tightened its HR processes after the Purushothaman episode, doesn't approach colleges through a third party.

Colleges have to be accredited, or empanelled, by toptier companies before they come to recruit. The process involves a physical inspection in which the college's infrastructure and faculty, among other things, are evaluated.

But middlemen still fancy their chances. "I might use my good offices to recommend a college," says Visakhapatnam-based Vamsi Kiran, whose name somehow became associated with HCL Technologies. He runs a training organisation but says colleges often "request" him to help in placements.

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In June HCL Tech got worried enough to send an e-mail to a university clarifying its position. "In the recent past we have found that a certain individual named Vamsi has been misrepresenting HCL and our intent… he or any other individual does not represent HCL for our talent acquisition needs," said the e-mail from Puneet Kumar Pandey, Director, Human Capital Management. The company also told other colleges it had nothing to do with Vamsi. A memorandum of understanding between a rural college and a Bangalore-based middleman - neither can be named because the middleman has threatened the college with consequences, and, curiously, also hinted at suicide - is revealing. Under "financials", the agreement says the college will pay Rs 10 lakh as capital advance to initiate accreditation with Wipro and TCS.

When this was pointed out to TCS, the company said it "has never heard about a person like him nor has it engaged his organisation to work, canvass, engage on behalf of TCS at any point of time for any work". Wipro said it had nothing to do with this middleman, who, incidentally, claims to have placed at least 30,000 graduates over the last decade.

For colleges, it is not that easy to dismiss the middleman phenomenon. They in fact are forced to foster it. Nothing moves without money or gifts, say placement officers. When HR teams of companies visit remote campuses, colleges pay for their tickets and stay.

When offers are doled out, they express their appreciation through gifts like mobile phones, tablets, and even gold. All this in the hope that they will come back next year and hire in larger numbers. In September last year, midtier IT company MindTree recruited from a college in Tirupati.

My team and I created the Talent Quality Group at Wipro. The group can also do retrospective inquiry–dig into the records of employees who are not fresh and check their previous employment details: Pradeep Bahirwani

In May this year, when two HR executives visited the same college on an employee engagement trip, each was "forced" to accept a gold bracelet worth Rs 75,000. They declared the gifts when they got back to the headquarters and the bracelets were sent back. 

"We are investigating the matter very seriously," says MindTree Chairman Subroto Bagchi. "I believe this incident is nothing compared to what is happening all over the country and the illegal and immoral practices actually go way deeper. There are junkets on offer for placement officers to Dubai, Colombo and Bangkok. Colleges give kickbacks for coming to their campus for hiring and commission to intermediaries who bring students for engineering admission. I have personally decided to take the matter head on. We simply cannot tolerate what is going on."

What is going on goes beyond demands for "end-to-end hospitality" by HR executives. It includes fakes: fake offer letters and fake companies. o understand the fake phenomenon we need to go back to the engineering college cluster in Vijayawada. About a 100 km from the city is Khammam. On a 35-acre plot here, new blocks are being added to a six-year-old college, Sarada Institute of Technology and Science. The principal's office, in the college's main block, is a huge rectangular room. At one end of the room is a desk laden with a PC, printer, newspapers, a book on thermodynamics, a dictionary and a tray full of resumes.

The Principal, K.V. Narasimha Rao, sits right under a large, black and white portrait of Albert Einstein. Rao is sifting through resumes, looking to fill a placement officer's position. He has been meeting and rejecting candidates, most of whom only talk of paying bribes to get students placed.

"They tell the college management that companies ask for bribes. When funds are made available, the placement officers can pocket some of the money," he says, peering from behind his rimmed glasses.

The pressure to meet the "100 per cent placement" target - much crowed about in advertisements these days - forces placement officers to invite all kinds of companies. The result has been disastrous. Fake companies that operate only for a year or so have been cropping up over the last three years. They start recruiting students starting August-September, collect money either from the college or from the students directly, citing training expenses or a refundable security deposit, and vanish by May of the next year.

Try to Google the website of Achievers Business Corporate (ABC), which was hiring till the other day. Even the omniscient search engine comes up short. The few places on the Internet where you do find ABC mentioned, you would also find incensed comments from people alleging that the company was "fake" and had disappeared after making offers. Some say they had sent Rs 5,000 along with their documents to "confirm" their jobs, but later found the company's premises locked, phone numbers disconnected and emails bouncing.

ABC, which called itself Indore-based, offered jobs to as many as 20 students of Ballari Institute of Technology and Management (BITM), in Bellary, Karnataka. "ABC came to recruit electronics graduates saying it had projects in the telecom sector.

It had a community on Facebook," says Aneesh Nirguna, one of the 20 'recruits'. The offer letters were issued on March 30 last year and the 'recruits' were asked to join in September. "We had to furnish a demand draft of Rs 5,000 as security deposit. Since we had been recruited by ABC we did not apply anywhere else. We waited till September, only to realise that we could no longer find the company," says Nirguna.

A BITM trustee, who did not want to be named, says the management never quite trusted ABC but the students pressured it into inviting the company. "ABC was recruiting in the neighbouring colleges and the students asked us why we were letting the opportunity pass. These were students who had not been placed until March last year and had 40 to 50 per cent marks."

Kumar Gorasa and K. Ram Kishore paid Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh, respectively, to Prodigy Solutions, which called itself an IT company and collected the money as a precondition to joining. There are many companies in the world which call themselves "Prodigy Solutions", but the one in this case was housed on the sixth and ninth floors of Cyber Towers in Hyderabad, a landmark address for the IT industry. According to police officers, the company collected Rs 4.15 crore from 660-odd recruited employees before it vanished: lock, stock and CEO.

A company that called itself March-End Consultancy approached 20 to 30 colleges in Andhra Pradesh last year and charged Rs 8,000 to Rs 15,000 for every offer issued on behalf of IBM and MphasiS. The letters turned out to be fake. "The company recruited 140 students from my college in February last year and took Rs 500 from each as registration fee. They identified themselves as recruiting vendors for IBM. Three persons the company brought along impersonated IBM executives.

They carried IBM business and identity cards. The college also received an e-mail from a fake IBM domain," says V.S. Rama Krishna, Placement Officer at BVC Engineering College, Odalarevu.

An IBM spokesperson said the matter was under investigation and the company was assisting the authorities. MphasiS at first did not respond to BT's queries. When reminded, a spokesperson for the company sent an SMS with a smiley, saying: "No update …asked around. Looks like it is far too dated to scoop out dope now."

Pune-based Persistent Systems discovered in November last year that a company called Orange Software Technology, based in Hyderabad, was hiring on its behalf - and, of course, charging the candidates money. A legal notice, says Persistent's Chief People Officer Sameer Bendre, put an end to it.

TCS, which hires more every year than any other private company in the country, is a perennial favourite with fraudsters and has taken out advertisements in newspapers asking colleges and students to be careful. Fellow IT giants IBM and Wipro have done the same.

Public awareness campaigns, though necessary, may not be sufficient. Placement officers will need to do more due diligence, and, eventually, structural changes alone may address the malaise.

Many suggest a single cross-industry test which doesn't exclude any student from any college, however remote. Companies can pick students on the basis of their score. Well-organised pooled campuses - in which students from many colleges gather at a common venue to write a company's test - could also help.

"The issues around corruption have recently been brought to our notice. I have discussed them with our Executive Council and with HR executives at our HR summit in Chennai two weeks back. We all need to review our processes. I am sure the industry will take the necessary steps," says Som Mittal, who heads NASSCOM, the industry lobby for IT, the largest recruiter at colleges and in whose name the most fraud happens.

There are lessons to be learned from Wipro, which has tightened its HR processes. "My team and I created the Talent Quality Group at Wipro. The group can also do retrospective inquiry - dig into the records of employees who are not fresh and check their previous employment details. Wipro has since then received a patent for some of the innovative recruitment processes that the group put in place," says Pradeep Bahirwani, former vice president of Talent Acquisition, who has left the company to write fiction.

He may be able to churn out a real thriller writing facts. 


Original post at : http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/recruitment-racket-fraud-it-companies/1/187011.html

Elitmus or AMCAT

If you are looking for a job and till now just making the efforts. Think once again!

Are the efforts paying you off ?

Thinking about giving some placement paper? then we are here to help you with and choose which exam can help you out!

Elitmus or AMCAT ??

Here are some people's views which can help you out.

1. I have given both, and I got three calls within 15 days from eLitmus but I didn't got any calls from AMCAT though I scored equally good in both of them, only good company that came for recruitment through AMCAT was Ericsson(for ECE), that too after a year from giving the test... Its your call, if you are from ECE, you might consider giving it coz its cheaper(300 when I gave) compared to eLitmus(700), if you are from any other branch, AMCAT is a wastage of money. Companies that hire through AMCAT are mostly BPO's, when the AMCAT ppl came to my college they used to say that HCL is hiring, thats why I gave, later I came to know that it was HCL COMNET (BPO). No calls came thereafter. 
   -Mridul
2. elitmus is definitely better... i have give amcat also n scored good score in that ....there r no recruitment through amcat ... bpo companies r coming or small companies with lower package...give elitmus n try to score well in it then u will have chance... -Dhruv

Independence Day special

This is the day, 
That Our nation sings 
This is the day 
That the liberty bell starts to ring 
This is the day 

We all start to remember
What We stand for
And to celebrate our Independence
We stand up high, as We
All start to cry
As we think about,
All that died
For you, for me, for our whole country
Risking there life
Each & everyday here is a salute
To all that lay ...

Happy Independence Day :)

IT boom

Hello folks, IT companies are on a boom again...
With the fall in the indian economy their revenues were also going down. But major companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS are getting mammoth projects and their quarterly profit is also rising.

Infosys had a 33% growth in the first quarter of FY 12.
Wipro Technologies had a 18% growth in the first quarter of FY 12.

Blogger in Draft: Introducing Google Scribe in Blogger:

Hello Bloggers! Do you ever find yourself writing slowly, staring at a blinking cursor or lookin...

The most expensive programming mistake ever?

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote an excellent piece claiming that the choice of NULL terminated strings for the C language may be the most expensive mistake in the history of programming, and it was only a one-byte mistake at that. I write the TechRepublic Patch Tuesday column every month, and I can tell you that the kinds of issues that NULL terminated strings cause are the biggest cause of security issues for Windows, and therefore cost billions of dollars every year in security violations and lost time patching systems.

Does “social” fit into your mobile apps?

Appcelerator released its latest quarterly mobile developer survey, which has a big focus on “social” and how it fits into mobile apps. I think that mobile apps + social is a great blend. While I’m not that big on social stuff for enterprise scenarios (do you really want your server Tweeting that it’s had a failure?), I think it’s a good match with mobile devices, which tend to have a lot of consumer features.
Windows Phone 7 has a lot of social capabilities, and it is a great experience. For example, when my daughter was born a couple of months ago, I was able to get details and photos out to my friends and family within minutes of the birth, allowing those who could not be there to still participate.
I’m not sold on Google+ for a number of reasons, and Google’s history with its APIs makes me reluctant to recommend integrating apps with them, but an integration with Facebook and Twitter (where appropriate) makes perfect sense for many mobile apps.

10 reasons not to buy an iPad for your college student

The fake Apple store

Android 3.2 became official

The most recent version of the operational system Google Android for the tablets is official now. The new system Android 3.2 will surely arrive on some tablets very soon, according to cnet.com.

The first proof of this fact is that Motorola already started to offer this update for its tablet Xoom. According to the sources, there are already other Android 3.2 eager. The next brands that will have this software update are Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Iconia Acer Tab 500 and Toshiba Thrive.

This comes right after a month since the Huawei announce that said that its tablet will be the first in the entire world to have a seven inches display with dual-core and Android 3.2 system.

According to an official statement of the company, the new Android 3.2 is a very important launching that adds more features both for the developers and the users.

The new platform includes some API changes (that is a programming interface for the applications). This is not the only company’s update. There are also wide ranges of the display dimensions that can be supported, not only the 10.1 inches ones, the media files can be directly loaded from the SD card and these aren’t just a few.

According to the experts, Android 3.2 will not revolutionize the tablet’s way of using, but the facilities that the new operational system brings are new and very interesting. The new display dimension feature will probably be the first one that the tablet manufacturer will use, because the quick appearance of bigger tablets.

For the applications that are loaded directly from the mobile phone or just using a little resolution that the screen one, there is a facility now.

It allows the filling of the screen through the pixel’s scaling. The tablets that have a slot card will access the multimedia content directly from the card, without the copying of the content in the internal memory.

Another interesting update allows the developers a precise control of the graphic interface. This news is a very good one for the uses that wants to launch application compatibles with the 3.2 version of the operational system Android. For them, another alternative is to get the new SDK from Google.

The analysts think that Android 3.2 is the last major update for the Honeycomb family, before the company will pass on the Android 4, the next generation for this operational system.

Is Google+ the new Facebook?

After the lukewarm response to Google Buzz, the search giant is back again - this time with the feature-packed Google+. Touted as the rival to Facebook, the new social networking place has the online forums buzzing. While most people are going gaga over its cool features like Circles and Hangout, some are just slamming it as a mere copy of Facebook.
While you still make up your mind whether to love or hate Google's latest offering, here's what the experts are saying.
Expert talk
Danny Sullivan, searchengineland.com
The terrible name is a bad start. Google+? Google+! I can't even question or exclaim about the bad name without it looking bad in writing.Pronounced "Google Plus," the product is officially written as Google+ - making placing any punctuation after the name fairly awkward. And Google+ looks like and quacks like Facebook in several ways.
Ben Parr, mashable.com
No matter what Google says, Google+ is the company's response to the rise of Facebook. The two companies are in heated competition for talent, page views and consumers. While Google controls the search market and has a strong presence on mobile with Android, it hasn't been able to crack the social nut. Its most successful social product, YouTube, had to be acquired, and it still ranks as one of the most expensive acquisitions in the company's history.
Mark Hachman, Pcmag.com
Put simply, Google+ is a social network for geeks. But users used to Facebook's minimalist interface may find Google+ jarring. And, sad to say, Google's "field trial" suffered from overcapacity, an issue which may or may not have rippled into our evaluation on Tuesday afternoon. I and other PCMag.com staffers experienced numerous annoyances, which resulted from either poor design decisions, alpha glitches, or the overcapacity issue - I don't know which.
Brian Womack, bloomberg.com
With Google+, users easily share information based on the circle of friends they think would most like to see a photo or read a message, such as immediate family or people who like a certain hobby or sports team.
Ryan Tate, defamer.com
Really! Dump Facebook and tell all your friends about your new, richer social network. It's like Facebook but with much better groups (purportedly), so you can segregate your relatives and friends into different "Circles" that get different streams of information from you. You can name your circles and add whoever you want to each one; the relationships can be one way, so you can receives shares without sharing back. There are some other features, but that's the only one you need to care about. Google is touting Plus as a big improvement over Facebook.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, readwriteweb.com
With Google+, users such as immediate family or people who like a certain hobby or sports team. Once users sign up, they have a profile page with security settings that let them share or hide personal information, such as education or job descriptions. Contacts are suggested based on user e-mail accounts.

Buying iPhone 4? Read this

Puneet Kumar recently bought an iPhone 4 from a shop in Amsterdam where he went for a business trip. It was an unlocked device, bought at 680 euros from a shop that was very much legitimate. Puneet got a bill along with the device and a “two-year international warranty”.

Unfortunately for him, his iPhone 4 started malfunctioning days after he came back to India. The home button was “erratic” and many a time Puneet found pressing the button wasn’t bringing him back to the home screen. Armed with his copy of bill and a receipt that “specified world-wide warranty”, he visited a service centre that was authorized by Apple to provide after-sales service in Delhi. But he was in for a rude shock.
The customer care executives at the service centre refused to touch his iPhone 4, saying it was not covered under any warranty. Their position was that iPhones are not covered under Apple’s international warranty and the only way for Puneet to get his device fixed was to talk to the dealer in Amsterdam and ship the device to him. Exasperated, Puneet decided to ring up Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. There too he was told — according to him in a not-too-nice manner — that his device is not covered by any warranty in India. While he was free to deal with the dealer in Amsterdam in whatever manner he deemed fit, officially, Apple could not help him in any way.
After coming to know about Puneet’s experience, I decided to dig a little deeper into the warranty policy that Apple follows for iPhone 4 in India. Due to delayed launch of iPhone 4 in India, a large number of people in India use iPhones that they bought abroad — with all bills and warranties — or from the grey market. We hope this information will be useful for these people, as well as to those who plan to buy iPhone 4 in future.
1- No international warranty: Apple is renowned for its warranty. People who use Apple products often talk about how their grievances are handled efficiently without any questions. All because of one simple fact. Most Apple devices are covered under international warranty.
But iPhone 4 is an exception. In India, Apple provides warranty for only those iPhones that have been bought in this country. In fact, for iPhones — because they are often linked to carriers — there is nothing called international a warranty. If some dealer abroad tells you that you will get international warranty on an iPhone, he is misleading you. He may provide a “seller’s warranty” but that is not Apple’s warranty.

2- Buy from ‘authorized’ shops: In plain terms, this means that you should specifically ask the seller if he is authorized to sell the iPhone. It's even better if you check the list of authorized stores at Apple, Airtel or Aircel website and only buy from a shop which figures on the list. It is a fact that iPhone 4 has been launched in India, but not all shops or websites are authorized to sell it. So take care.
3- You are doomed (likely) if you bought iPhone 4 from the grey market or from abroad: Officially, service centres authorized by Apple in India are not supposed to touch any iPhone 4 that has not been bought from “authorized source”. This means that even if people are willing to pay money for parts and service, Apple will officially not provide any service to such a device in India. That’s the official policy. In reality, some centres — read the more benevolent ones — may take pity on you. But that is no guarantee.
4- iPhone is an exception: Apart from iPhone, all other Apple products are covered under international warranty in India. Apple claims that because of the complexity — read jail-broken devices — and its business model that relies on carriers like Airtel and Aircel, the company does not provide any international warranty to iPhone 4 in India.

India has 25 million Facebook users

The number of Facebook users in India has crossed the 25-million mark, the social networking site said Thursday.

"Facebook currently has 25 million users in India," said David Fischer, vice president advertising and global operations, Facebook at an interactive advertising and digital marketing exhibition, Ad-tech.

Facebook has become one of the most popular websites for active internet users in the recent past in India, leaving behind other social networking sites such as Orkut and Twitter.

"We are also looking forward to building strong relationship with India's strong network of developers and entrepreneurs who are increasingly harnessing Facebook to create unique sharing experiences on the social web," said the company.

The 25-million and growing Facebook users in India range from business people and students to public figures and institutions, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Delhi Traffic Police and bollywood perfectionist Aamir Khan.

From January, Municipal Corporation of Delhi has also started using Facebook for users to post problems for immediate action on areas like sanitation and garbage cleaning.

New White Apple iPhone Begins Shipping to INDIA

Apple is starting to ship a version of their iPhone in the classic white color that is well-known on their other products. Although somewhat strange why they did not sell it until now, the white-colored iPhone has been requested by numerous customers (or should I say, fans!).
There have been some who have created knock-off iPhone shells that are white and sold on the black market for many dollars. It’s no surprise that Apple has finally decided to cash-in on this large demand.
How much do you want a brand new white iPhone? Is it worth getting a new one phone, just to change colors?

9 things you can do with Wi-fi ...

Wi-Fi can be used for a lot more than just connecting to your computer or phone to the internet. The technology can come handy for a variety of other tasks.

Here are nine little-known uses of Wi-Fi.

Make DTH signal go the distance
Monsoon Multimedia's Vulkano is a device that connects to (and controls) your existing DTH set top box (STB).
It has to be set up so that the STB outputs to the Vulkano, while the Vulkano is connected via HDMI to the TV.

You can watch TV normally, but Vulkano also lets you stream your existing TV, which you've already paid for, to any internet-connected PC, Android phone or iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.
Whether you're within your Wi-Fi connected home, or anywhere in the world, you can connect to the Vulkano box, switch on the STB and watch or record live TV.

If you have a recorder like TataSky+, the Vulkano box can also be used to schedule a recording on it.
At $280, this is a cool new way to make your TV channels go the distance.

Control DSLR over Wi-Fi with your iPhone
If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, an app called DSLR Camera Remote by OnOne Software ($19.99 for the pro version, $1.99 for the lite) can work as a remote viewfiner and shutter release for one of the compatible Nikon or Canon DSLRs.

Connect the DSLR to a PC using USB, download and install the client software and then the app on the iPhone/iPod.
As long as both the iPhone and the PC are on the same wireless network, you'll be able to see what the DSLR sees, even in another room.

Apart from actually taking the photograph, you can also control the exposure and various other settings remotely.

Turn webcams into surveillance cameras
An app called iCam ($4.99) for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch can be used to remotely monitor your home when you are away.

You need to install the free iCamSource software (available for Windows & MAC) on each laptop or PC that you want to use, and then configure it to the iCam software in a simple , two-step process.

You can configure up to 12 different webcams with each iPhone, and view the feeds from four of them simultaneously. Like a high-end surveillance system, iCam also offers push notifications.

The app continuously monitors the camera feeds for movement. If movement is detected, a message will pop up informing you of the same.

Share Net connection using Wi-Fi
Free program called Connectify turns your Windows 7 machine into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Download Connectify from connectify.me and set it up by giving your Wi-Fi network a name and password, just as you would with a regular Wi-Fi router.

So whether your laptop is connected via Ethernet or to a USB broadband modem, you can share internet with other nearby laptops or devices like Wi-Fi enabled phones, iPods and tablets.

Similar functionality can be found on smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S and HTC HD2; both have built in software that lets you share your GPRS connection with other Wi-Fi devices in the vicinity.

Transfer photos from digicam to PC
Imagine a memory card for your digital camera that never ran out of space. That's what the Eye-Fi wireless SD can do for you.
The card packs in regular flash memory and a Wi-Fi adapter into a standard SD card that can fit many digital cameras.

When you first get it, you need to configure the card to your Wi-Fi network by connecting it to a PC.
You can also configure it with Flickr, Picasa, Evernote, YouTube, Snapfish, Photobucket and many more.
When you get within range of your configured Wi-Fi network, photos and videos stored on the card will automatically get transferred to your computer or connected site.

The 4GB Eye-Fi SD card is available for 3,800 (including customs & delivery) from eBay India's Global Easy Buy program.
Note: Although Eye-Fi is supported by over 1000 camera models, before buying, do check the compatibility list on the company website.

Send photos to digital photo frame
The iGala Wi-Fi photo frame looks just any other 8-inch photo frame. But it's actually pretty advanced.
Based on Linux, the touchscreen can be used to configure it to your Wi-Fi network.
Sign in to your Flickr account on it to instantly have it display photos from your stream.

You could also use it just like any other photo frame, by displaying images from the 1GB built in memory or external SD/USB devices.
Available from Thinkgeek.com for $240 (They ship to India; customs and shipping charges extra).

Make your own portable Wi-Fi hotspot
You may not always have an available Wi-Fi connection to get your fix. However , with the help of a handy new device, you can create your own Wi-Fi hotspot wherever you go.

The Tata Photon+ Wi-Fi is a small, battery-powered device that connects to Tata Photon's broadband network (just like the USB device) and instantly creates a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can be used by up to five devices at a time.

It also has a single Ethernet port to connect to a desktop or laptop without Wi-Fi .
Buy the device for 6,499 and choose from a number of different plans starting at 500 per month.

Modern warfare with the Parrot AR.Drone
Designed solely for the Apple iOS platform, the AR.Drone is a toy quadricopter that you can control via Wi-Fi from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
The Drone broadcasts its own Wi-Fi network and connects to your iPhone/iPod once you download the free app.

Each pairing between an AR.Drone and iOS device is unique, so you can even have multiple Drones in the same area.
Meanwhile, two cameras built into the drone relay a live video feed directly to your iPhone/iPod so that you can send it along on reconnaissance missions (just don’t stray too far away).

Multiple AR.Drones can take on each other in a dogfight or a race around obstacles if that takes your fancy.
For indoor use, the supplied hull shield needs to be out on that surrounds the rotors and protects them from any impact against the wall or other Drones.

The hull can be removed for outdoor use.
The Parrot AR Drone is available from international reseller shopyourworld.com for 21,000 (including customs and all shipping charges)

Monitor entire house with Rovio
Rovio is a toy, but a pretty advanced one at that. The battery-powered, camera-toting and Wi-Fi enabled Rovio will wait patiently at home for your command. Connect to it from a remote location, and you'll see what Rovio sees.

You can also move Rovio around and use it to communicate with other people thanks to the built in speaker and mic.
Teach Rovio your home's layout by setting waypoints and Rovio can navigate to those preset locations all by itself.

And Once Rovio's battery is depleted, it can automatically back itself into the charging dock at home.
Available from Thinkgeek.com for $199 (They ship to India; customs and shipping charges extra).

HP TouchPad Tablet Promises Superb Multitasking Performance

Finally, the unveiling of one of the most awaited tablets has occurred. The HP TouchPad tablet was announced in an event held on Wednesday in San Francisco. First impressions by those who were lucky enough to play with the device were mostly positive. The HP TouchPad succeeds in delivering superb interface and animations on the 1024 x 768 display. This is made possible because of the intuitive webOS.

So far, among the notable features in the TouchPad’s performance is the stacked notification. If an update comes, it immediately appears on the upper right portion of the screen, so the user can immediately check it out even if he’s in the middle of something in the Tablet.
Aside from that, it also allows panel-like viewing to see all the accounts. Scrolling through the panels is possible as well. Stacking is another great feature to help minimize space. The user can break down the stack as he pleases.
The virtual keyboard is another great feature because its size can be changed to small or large, depending on the user’s preference. The HP TouchPad tablet also connects easily and conveniently to the user’s web photos.
Users can also go into gaming while doing other things in the TouchPad. Game can be passed in the background while writing email or dealing with notifications.
So far HP TouchPad tablet promises great multitasking performance with its webOS and dual-core Snapdragon processor.

Are ENTREPRENEURS born or made?

Thanks to Social Networking websites we have no face to face interaction.

Interaction is a part of our daily life, either face to face or by some networking websites. Facebook, orkut, Myspace are some of the names in social networking area that needs no introduction. Most of these sites are attractive in design, easy to use, and are aimed at connecting people around the globe grabbing more and more users like us. Their huge success speaks for their addiction as more and more people are joining everyday. Even it surprised google also as Facebook is the most visited site over the internet. These sites have become addiction due to some of their features like chat, games etc. which demands more and more time of the user and hence user becomes an introvert though he may seem to be an extrovert with 100’s of friends in the list including those with whom he never had any face to face interaction.

These networking websites have some benefits and some losses too. Benefits for those who are in a long distance relationship, for those who serve their community people instead of meeting personally.  And losses like the person on the other side can easily fabricate the information he/she is supplying, so we can never judge the person is pretending to be real or fake. Though these network giants help people to get instant access to friends and relatives and make their web presence but it is also deteriorating their social life.

As popular quote says “Excess of everything is bad”. Yes social networking websites are a boon to the society if they are used within limits else they may make a person socially insocial.