Category: Brands and Companies

All Brands and Company Names

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mirrorless Camera Announced

The Olympus OM-D E-M10 is the latest addition to Olympus’ OM-D CSC camera line-up. The new interchangeable lens camera (ILC) shares the retro looks of the E-M1 and M5, but in a more compact form factor with consumer-friendly features including a built-in flash.

The E-M10 has a 16-megapixel sensor, Olympus’ new TruePic VII processor, and ZUIKO optics, with 81-point FAST AF borrowed from the EM-1 and Tracking AF. There’s in-body, 3-axis VCM IS, and 8fps sequential shooting, and Olympus has even found space for a pop-up flash and a live-view EVF with 100-percent coverage to go with the 3-inch, 1037k dot LCD. ISO 100-25600 is supported.

The OM-D E-M10 also has built-in Wi-Fi, a pop-up flash and is compatible with all micro four thirds lenses.

There are also 2 HDR modes, interval shooting modes with time-lapse movie capture, a Live Composite Mode for long exposure shot previews and 12 art filters.

The Olympus OM-D E-M10 is available from mid-February for £529.99 body only, in black or silver. There’s also a kit for £699.99, which comes with an M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 EZ pancake electronic zoom lens.

January 29, 2014
Android Gingerbread Users Will Soon be Able to Use BBM App

Blackberry’s Messenger app has been available on Android ever since its dramatic launch. However the BBM application was only available for users on Android Ice Cream Sandwich and above, but Blackberry clearly wants BBM to be used by all so the company decided to make the BBM app available for the Gingerbread Android users.

BlackBerry has just confirmed that the BBM app will also be available on Android Gingerbread in the month of February. Gingerbread takes 21 percent of over all Android platforms, and BlackBerry mentions in the blog that they are expecting lot of more downloads for the app after it is made available for Gingerbread.

[Source]

January 29, 2014
Video : iOS in The Car Functionality Shown Off

Last week, app developer Steven Troughton-Smith shared a series of screenshots of what seemed to be Apple’s “iOS in the Car” feature announced by Apple as “coming soon” to iOS 7 devices.

The developer has now taken this a step further by posting a video showing the feature running via iPhone Simulator. The video below shows iOS in the car running on iOS 7.0.3 in the iOS Simulator software which is available for developers, the in dash display is shown by an 800 x 480 pixel window.

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5OZMu5u0yU”]

Apple first demoed the new feature at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2013. During an earnings call last summer, Apple CEO Tim Cook called the feature a “key focus” for the company.

Since then, a number of car manufacturers have announced their support for the feature. These have included: Acura, Chevrolet, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Kia, Volvo, Opel, and Jaguar.

Troughton-Smith points out that the iOS in the Car feature supports multiple resolutions of external displays, touch input and hardware controls, and voice input.

– Supports Multiple Resolutions
– Supports touchscreens (presumably single-touch?), hardware buttons, wheels and touchpads
– Does not support multitasking – car display will always show same current on-screen app as iPhone (which can be locked/asleep)
– Whitelisted to specific Apple apps – no public API for developers [yet?]
– Has no keyboard UI – voice recognition as input
– UI clearly subject to change
– Missing functionality in video is due to iOS Simulator not containing all the stock iOS apps

January 28, 2014
Ericsson and Samsung Reach Agreement on Patent War

Companies getting sued by other companies, this is something we hear almost everyday. Developing new technology these days brings up some or the other lawsuit. We are sure none of us like this dispute among the companies, and it seems Samsung also wants that.

Ericsson and Samsung have reached an agreement on global patent licenses between the two companies. The cross license agreement covers patents relating to GSM, UMTS, and LTE standards for both networks and handsets. This agreement has placed with a huge payment of 650 Million USD, which is also said to be followed by some regular payments.

“We are pleased that we could reach a mutually fair and reasonable agreement with Samsung. We always viewed litigation as a last resort,” said Kasim Alfalahi, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Ericsson. “This agreement allows us to continue to focus on bringing new technology to the global market and provides an incentive to other innovators to share their own ideas.”

This agreement ends complaints made by both companies against each other before the International Trade Commission (ITC) as well as the lawsuits before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. This agreement has put end to this patent issue and we hope now these companies will concentrate on innovation as they did earlier. Peace!

January 27, 2014
Samsung and Google Sign Global Patent License Agreement

Samsung Electronics and Google Inc. further extended their partnership with a global patent cross-license agreement covering a broad range of technologies and business areas.

“This agreement with Google is highly significant for the technology industry,” said Dr. Seungho Ahn, the Head of Samsung’s Intellectual Property Center. “Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes.”

This new agreement covers Samsung’s and Google’s existing patents as well as the ones that will be filed over the next 10 years. This agreement allows Samsung and Google to get access to each other’s patents portfolios, which might lead to focus more on product innovations than on filing lawsuits.

“We’re pleased to enter into a cross-license with our partner Samsung,” said Allen Lo, Deputy General Counsel for Patents at Google. “By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation.”

January 27, 2014
Report: Apple to Build a Mobile Payment Service

After adding the touch sensor to the iPhone 5s, Apple is looking to do more with the fingerprint sensor it seems. As per a report, Apple is looking forward to build a Mobile Payment Service.

The Wall Street Journal reported that, Eddy Cue, the company’s senior vice-president of Internet software and services, has met with “industry executives” to discuss Apple’s role in handling payments for physical goods and services. The mobile payment service is not used by many as people are sceptical about it, with companies like PayPal are working to give easier experience to users to pay for physical goods with their smartphones.

Having said that, the App Store is the only store with these many users registered with credit cards. In June of 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that its then cache of 400 million iTunes accounts with credit cards made it “the store with the most credit cards on file anywhere in the world by far.”

As per the report, Apple is building a payment service which will not only be used in the app store but for other purchases as well. Apple has not commented on this yet, stay tuned for more.

January 26, 2014
Google To Face Hefty Fine For SimpleAir Push Notification Patent Infringement

SimpleAir is seeking $125M in damages from Google after a jury found that push notification services in Android infringe on a SimpleAir patent, the company said Tuesday.

The accused services are the Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) and Android Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) services. The services are used by Google to process and send instant notifications for Android applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail.

It’s worth noting that Google isn’t the first company to run into trouble with SimpleAir. Microsoft, Apple and even Blackberry all have licensing agreements with the company, after all.

Because the jury did not agree on how much to award in damages, a limited second trial will be held to determine the amount. SimpleAir said in a press release that it will seek US$125 million, though it did not specify how it had calculated the amount.

[modal heading=”Press Release” text=”Press Release” size=”btn-medium”]Federal Jury Finds Google Infringed SimpleAir Patent January 21, 2014 03:45 PM Eastern Standard Time MARSHALL, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SimpleAir announced today that a federal jury returned a verdict that SimpleAir’s U.S. Patent No. 7,035,914 is infringed by Google. The verdict was reached on Saturday, January 18, 2014, following a week-long trial presided over by the Honorable Rodney Gilstrap, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas. “We are grateful for the jury’s hard work in this case and pleased with their verdict” SimpleAir had alleged that Google’s push notification services for the Android smartphones and tablets infringed five claims of the ‘914 patent. The jury agreed unanimously on all counts of infringement and also found unanimously that each claim was valid. The validity of the patent had previously been confirmed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during a Reexamination proceeding that concluded in February 2013. The accused services are the Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) and Android Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) services. The services are used by Google to process and send instant notifications for Android applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail. The jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the amount of damages to award for Google’s infringement. The damages issue will be decided by a separate jury in a limited second trial. SimpleAir will seek damages in excess of $125 million for Google’s infringement in the damages retrial. “We are grateful for the jury’s hard work in this case and pleased with their verdict,” said John Payne, who is the lead inventor and majority owner of SimpleAir. “There was a lot of information presented to the jury and they did an exceptional job figuring out what mattered and what didn’t. We look forward to addressing the issue of damages in the second trial and hope the jury in that trial will be as dedicated as this one was.” SimpleAir is an inventor-owned technology licensing company. The company holds eight issued U.S. Patents and several pending patent applications in the areas of wireless content delivery, mobile applications, and push notifications. SimpleAir has licensed its inventions to many leading technology companies. SimpleAir is represented by Greg Dovel, Jeff Eichmann, and Simon Franzini of Dovel & Luner LLP and by Calvin Capshaw, Elizabeth DeRieux, and Jeff Rambin of Capshaw DeRieux LLP.[/modal]

January 23, 2014
Intel Will Cut 5000 Jobs In 2014

Intel has said that it plans to reduce its global workforce by over 5,000 people over the year.

During a conference call Thursday evening to discuss the company’s financial results, Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith disclosed that Intel would be “bringing down employment” in 2014; the company went into greater detail Friday, confirming with Mercury News that it would be shedding about 5 percent of its global workforce of 107,000 employees, or about 5,350 workers.

The cutback was decided following Intel’s projection of virtually no revenue growth this year, and will be accompanied by the company’s re-orientation toward mobile and other markets.

A company spokesperson told news media that the move is “part of aligning our human resources to meet business needs.” Intel has not yet said where the cuts will be made, or how they might affect departments or product lines.

Intel dominates the PC chip industry, but it has been slow to adapt its processors for smartphones and tablets, markets now dominated by rivals such as Qualcomm Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Last month HP announced that it would be eliminating 5,000 jobs in 2014, bringing its multi-year restructuring plan up to a total of 34,000 layoffs.

January 19, 2014
Motorola Moto G Hands On

The Motorola Moto G is one of the most widely anticipated smartphone in India, with no firm release date revealed yet. We managed to get our hands on one.

In terms of hardware, the smartphone sports a 4.5-inch HD display with a 1,280×720-pixel resolution and 329ppi. Powering its insides is a quad-core, 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, Adreno 305 graphics, and 1GB of RAM.

There is a 2070 mAH battery inside, but unfortunately there is no expandable storage. At the back of the Moto G there is a 5 MP camera and a 1.3 MP camera at the front.

The Motorola Moto G has proven to be hugely popular in the regions that it is already available, and is set to reach other countries shortly. No pricing has been revealed yet. You can check out the hands on video at the top.

January 18, 2014
Microsoft : Syrian Hackers Hacked Into Employee Accounts

Microsoft yesterday confirmed that the Syrian Electronic Army accessed a “small number” of employee e-mail accounts.

As The Verge notes, those published screenshots “mainly discuss[ed] the latest compromises of several Microsoft-owned Twitter accounts.” Included among the published screenshots was an email from Steve Clayton to Frank Shaw.

The Syrian Electronic Army — a political hacking group that supports Syrian President Bashar Assad — appears to be waging a war on Microsoft. Over the weekend, the group took control of the Twitter accounts of Xbox and Xbox Support, along with Xbox’s Instagram account.

As the Verge reports, it’s not immediately clear how many email accounts were targeted during the recent attacks, or how much data the Syrian Electronic Army were able to obtain before the accounts were reset. A Syrian Electronic Army representative says that the latest attacks were designed to be a distraction, indicating there could be further compromises in future. “We are making some distraction for Microsoft employees so we can success in our main mission,” the SEA told The Verge by email.

January 16, 2014
Google Launches Chrome 32 Browser

Google today released Chrome 32 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

While users running beta versions of Chrome might already be familiar with some of the new features, it is the first time Google has brought these features to the masses.

One of the features that are present in Chrome 32 are tab indicators for when a site is playing sound, accessing the webcam and sending video to your Chromecast. Google uses a speaker icon, blue rectangle and red dot to indicate these different functions.

Google has fixed five vulnerabilities in its Chrome 32 browser and also has activated a feature that will block malicious file downloads automatically. The change is a major security upgrade for Chrome and will help prevent users from unwittingly downloading harmful files, an attack vector that attackers count on for the success of drive-by downloads and other attacks.

Google has also introduced the beta version of its “supervised users” feature, which will help parents monitor and control their child’s browser activity.

If you’re a Windows 8 user, Chrome now looks much better on Microsoft’s latest OS. In Metro mode, Chrome 32 now looks like ChromeOS with its integrated app launched on Windows.

You can get more details on Chrome 32 here.

January 15, 2014
LiveBlog : Samsung CES 2014

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztsmusDQ9jU”]

For all the Latest CES Coverage on iGyaan : Click Here

January 7, 2014
Bump and Flock Will Shut Down On January 31

Google acquired contact and file-sharing app Bump back in September. Bump co-founder and chief executive David Lieb said the company was “thrilled” to join Google, citing similar passions for sharing information between people and devices. We’re not too sure he’ll feel the same way now.

Bump and Flock are no more and will stop working and be removed from Google Play (and the App Store) on January 31st, 2014. The reason for this decision: Lieb and his team are now “deeply focused” on new projects within Google and don’t have the resources or time to devote to innovating on either product.

The app allows iPhone and Android users to “bump” together two phones to share contact details and files between devices. Later versions also allowed phone users to “bump” phones with desktop computers.

In September 2011, the company announced it had 50 million downloaders and 10 million active “bumpers.” Just less than a year later, more than 600 million photos were shared by “bumping” phones. Later it released an iPhone-only version photo-sharing app dubbed Flock (not to be confused with the social browser of the same name).

January 1, 2014
Google Celebrates the Last Day of 2013 with a Doodle

Google’s doodle for today, is the last doodle that you will see in 2013. The doodle features numbers 2 0 1 and 3 on the dance floor with the number 4 waiting along the side. The word Google is seen sandwiched between two speakers, with the second O replaced by a disco ball.

The Doodle showcased today is not interactive, unlike other Doodles. However, Google has included an option below the search bar that says: “What did the world search for this year? Remember the moments of 2013“, once you click on the link it will give you various options like: What did the world search for in 2013? and also gives you an option to look around the top 100 stories of 2013.

Some of the most popular stories include, Nexus 5, iOS 7, HTC One, Windows 8.1, Samsung Galaxy S4, BlackBerry 10, Xbox One, iPhone 5s, PlayStation 4 and alot more.

December 31, 2013
HTC Executive Indicted For Leaking Secrets

Six employees of leading local smartphone maker HTC Corp, including vice president of product design Chien Chih-lin, were indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday on charges of leaking trade secrets and breach of trust.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Chien, formerly VP of product design at HTC, has been charged with leaking details of a future smartphone interface design, believed to be version 6.0 of the company’s Sense software for Android.

In addition, prosecutors allege that Chien and his collaborators profited to the tune of 33.6 million New Taiwanese dollars ($1.12m) by accepting kickbacks from suppliers and charging fake expenses back to HTC.

The Taipei Times named the 5 other HTC employees involved in the indictment as HTC senior manager of design and innovation Huang Kuo-ching, HTC research and development director Wu Chien-hung, senior manager of design and innovation Huang Hung-yi, manufacturing design department manager Hung Chung-yi, and employee Chen Shih-tsou.

An HTC representative said that “The company expects employees to observe and practice the highest levels of integrity and ethics. Protecting the company’s proprietary and intellectual properties, privacy and security is a core fundamental responsibility of every employee. The company does not condone any violation.”

Leaking company secrets could carry prison sentences of up to 10 years. The indictments top off a year of bad news for HTC, which has struggled with poor sales and executive management.

December 28, 2013