Apple iPhone Sales Grow By 400% In India; iPod Touch Becomes Cheaper!!

                The immensely successful, Steve-Jobs inspired Apple product 'the iPhone' is making it big in India. Thanks to the EMI as well as cash back schemes offered, Apple India's monthly iPhone sales have risen by 300% to 400% over the last few months. To quote the numbers, the iPhone sales are now nearing 400,000 units per month in India (analysts at Credit Suisse share). That is huge. How is this news significant, you ask? Well, it is the fact that the budget-driven, low-end feature phone prone audience in India no more seems to be perceiving the iPhone as a high-end product. It has become an affordable option for the masses. More importantly, this news coincides with another mind-boggling headline from Apple - the launch of a budget iPod Touch.



              Yep, Apple has launched a cheaper 16 GB iPod Touch that doesn't feature the rear-facing iSight camera for $229, which is $70 cheaper. Though the new iPod touch has the same tech specs - a 4-inch Retina display, a dual-core A5 processor, and a front-facing FaceTime HD camera for video calling, it now comes in just one color — grey with a black front.



               So, it seems Apple is growing by leaps and bounds in India. The key to its success is its super aggressive pricing and and the advertising mania it has created. You can rarely go through a fresh copy of newspaper or a TV channel without seeing an advertisement about the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S older models. It is interesting to note that those are not sold in any other country and have surprisingly created a strong foothold for iPhone as a product in India.



              What do CEans here have to say about this news? We would like to know, so speak up in the comments. And not to miss - if you are looking forward to buying the new iPod touch, know that it is shipping 'within 24 hours' if you live in the United States, or you can pick it up at an Apple retail store starting tomorrow, May 31.

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8K Ultra HD Camera & H.265 Encoder Developed!

             Engineers at NHK are developing an 8K Ultra HD television and the broadcasts are expected to begin in Japan in 2016. The camera head required is being jointly developed with Astrodesign and the initial prototypes are much compact and lightweight; with total weight approximately about 2 Kg. The engineering team has been successful in packing a 33MP image sensor and all the surrounding driving circuits inside a 10cm x 10cm box. The image sensor itself is just 25mm diagonally, which allowed the lens to be made compact as well. The lens is particularly used in digital cinema recordings, but now it can be used to capture Ultra High-Definition videos as well.




              The monitor has 4K resolution, but the signal processing is 8K. The team says that the image sensor itself can run at 120 Hz, however the signal processing component is not ready for it yet. The display, therefore, runs at 60Hz. 



           NHK has also developed the world's first HEVC/H.265 real-time encoder for 8K Ultra HD video. HEVC is the latest video encoding system and has been accepted as a standard this year. Compared to MPEG2, this code has 4x compression efficiency. While encoding an Ultra HD video with a very high resolution, encoding is done in real-time by dividing the screen in 17 strips. Compression to 85 Mbps enables on Ultra HD channel to be transmitted using one satellite transponder.

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Microsoft Windows 8.1 Update First Look - Here's An All You Want To Know!

              Probably the most significant news so far from Microsoft this year is this - an update to the operating system they built keeping in mind the mobility-driven significant change in the industry - The Windows 8 OS. Always abuzz with mixed reactions and sentiments since its release, Microsoft's Windows 8 has received all sorts of comments and feedback. Listening to the majority's demands, Microsoft has now planned to deliver hundreds of updates to its product and apps. The news came to everyone's notice when Antoine Leblond, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Program Management shared the details of Windows update with Windows 8.1 in a blogpost yesterday. Tapping-in on the key areas such as personalization, search, the built-in apps, Windows Store experience, and cloud connectivity.

                 So, let us check out the "first look" of the much-welcomed update - Windows 8.1. There's just so much to find out, that we will check out each feature one by one. Firstly, for personalizing the user's experience, now users will be able to turn on their PC or tablet into a picture frame by making the Lock screen a slide show of personal snaps, either locally on the device or photos from the cloud in SkyDrive. Moreover, now without the need of logging-in, users can click pictures with the built-in camera right from the Lock screen. There's support for adding backgrounds that move and ability to select multiple apps all at once, resize them, uninstall them, or rearrange them is now provided. In Windows 8.1, you will be able to press and hold (or right click) to move things around and filter the apps by name, date installed, most used, or by category. There's also the much needed provision for when you install a new app from the Windows Store, you’ll find it under apps view, marked as "new" where you can choose to pin the apps you want to your Start screen.

 
               The search on Windows 8.1 has been enhanced to provide global search results from Bing that integrates apps, files and all the content on your SkyDrive. The built-in apps will be all revamped too. For example, Photos app with new editing features, Music app with new design. The Windows Store in Windows 8.1 has a more descriptive app listing, app updates install automatically & search is available in the upper right hand corner. In addition to this, the new SkyDrive app is update to give you access to your files that are on your device or in the cloud, and files are accessible even when offline. The updated PC Settings mean no need to go to the Control Panel on the desktop. With Internet Explorer 11 (IE11), Windows 8.1 will have the only browser that is built for touch that provides faster page load times.

               Lastly, we have the much talked about feature - the Start button. Now, it is accessible because Microsoft's changing the Start 'tip' to be the familiar Windows logo. The new tip appears anytime you move the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen, and is always visible on the taskbar when on the desktop.


                That's not all. There's more. And we will be reading about it frequently as Microsoft keeps updating its blog. More importantly, from June 26th when the developer conference 'Build' commences, we get to see a preview of Windows 8.1 release. At Build, Microsoft's sharing more about Windows Embedded, which will be updated in the same timeframe as Windows 8.1. So, keep on hooked to your screens as more updates roll out.

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Bullet Train To Run In India On Mumbai-Ahmedabad Route Using Japanese Technology

               India seems to be keen on setting up a high-speed bullet train route between Mumbai & Ahmedabad. The technology to setup bullet train will be provided by Japan. The project is expected to cost about $1billion in Yen-based loans to India. France too is interested in setting up their TGV high-speed railway network in India; but the Japanese seem to have won Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh's heart. The overall length of the route is expected to be about 500 kilometers. The technical reviews of the route are expected to be complete by 2014.


                Japan Railways Group operates the 'Shinkansen' which is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. The maximum operating speed of the train is about 320 kmph and test runs have already cracked the 440 kmph barrier. The maglev trains are way faster than the bullet trains with a record speed of 581 kmph. 
 

              We wonder why Indian government has not opted to trust Indian engineer to design and develop high-speed trains in India than taking up loans from Japan to acquire decades old technology. It'd be an interesting mega-engineering project for Indian engineers. 

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Raspberry Pi Heads For The Skies; Captures Stunning Images of Earth From A Height Of 40 Km

             Our favorite $25 computer has proven that it can work for you any way you want. It has been used in simple projects like voice activated garage doors and high-tech ones like wardriving. Now it is headed for the skies thanks to UK’s Dave Ackerman. He made use of the mini computer’s newly launched $25 camera attachment to capture gorgeous images of earth from a height of about 40 KMs from the ground.

           Dave used the Model A of the Raspberry Pi computer along with its 5MP camera attachment (also capable of capturing 1080p videos) and attached it to a hydrogen balloon and a parachute. He set the camera to capture images of three quality types. The low and medium quality images that would be sent back to two wireless receivers and high quality images would be stored on the on-board SD card. In order to track location and flight path of the computer he installed a tracker powered by AA batteries that would last for the entire fight time. To make sure that only the “good” images are stored in the SD card the on-board software deleted the images that had bad exposure settings. At the end of the three hour flight the balloon burst the parachute was deployed for a safe landing of the 1.1kg payload that had been embedded in a piece of memory foam shaped like the Raspberry Pi logo. The above project also be seen as a low cost alternative to the PhoneSat projects.

        For a complete gallery of images shot by the Raspberry Pi head over to Dave’s website.

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