AMD Launches New Graphics Card Priced At $399

New Delhi: Computer graphics card and chip maker AMD has launched a new video card, Radeon R9 290 GPU that delivers ultra high definition performance and features for gamers.

The US-based company has priced the latest Radeon R9 series card at $ 399 (around Rs 24,700).
"With the AMD Radeon R9 290 GPU, AMD cements its position as the provider of ultimate gaming experiences," said Matt Skynner, general manager and corporate vice president, AMD Graphics Business Unit. The new card brings class-leading features and smooth frame rates to enthusiast gamers and shatters the 4K gaming graphics price barrier, the company said in a statement.

Equipped with new AMD TrueAudio technology and made to perform for ultra-resolution gaming, the graphics card enables today's most immersive PC gaming experience for enthusiasts, the statement said.

AMD TrueAudio technology brings a new level of audio immersion, surrounding gamers with realistic audio environments through stereo headsets and speakers, it said.

Time Spent On Screens Can Affect Eyesight

The British spend an average of 11 hours a day looking at screens, reveals a new survey, stressing on its detrimental effects on the eyesight - reduced blink rate and tear evaporation.

People are spending an increasing number of hours staring into their computer, mobile, TV, tablet and e-reader screens, indicates the survey, conducted on over 2,000 British people by Spectrum Thea eye care specialists, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

The respondents were aged between 16 and 24. Over half of the respondents, 54.4 percent of people polled to be precise, agreed that they had suffered from symptoms associated with conditions like Dry Eye and Blepharitis.

According to the research, an increased concentration on reading, playing computer games and watching videos can reduce a person's blink rate by a third. This reduced blinking can lead to a higher rate of tear evaporation, which can result in dry eye syndrome and further complications.

How to increase battery life on Android 4.4 KitKat

• Use the new GPS feature

Many apps -- not just the mapping types -- have recently found a way to incorporate location-tracking into their offerings. From check-ins to finding "nearby" business, these apps eat into your battery life as they work to pinpoint your location.

KitKat attempts to solve this issue with a new Battery Saving GPS mode, which minimizes the number of reference points used to find your location. Because it's still pretty accurate, it's a good default choice.

To enable this mode, head to Settings > Location > Mode, and enable Battery Saving.

Whenever you need super-precise tracking, switch this setting back to High Accuracy. Until then, enjoy the benefits of less strain on your battery.

• "Not OK, Google"

On the one hand, be thankful your phone is such a good listener. On the other hand, it's not worth killing your battery life.

Thanks to the new, persistent Hotword detection, you can say "OK, Google" from any home screen (or within Google Now) to prompt Google Search and Voice Actions. That means, however, that your phone is always listening, waiting for you to say those magic words.

To turn that feature off, head to Google Now > Settings > Voice, and disable Hotword Detection.

NFC when you need it

This one's a no-brainer, not new to KitKat, and yet, I often find that people leave NFC enabled -- even if they don't use it.

If you have an NFC-enabled phone (like the Nexus 5), ensure it's on only when you need it. For those who need to keep it enabled, double-check to see that Android Beam is disabled.

To adjust these settings, navigate to Settings > More (under Wireless and Networks) > NFC.

Get out of sync

When add an account to your phone, Google assumes you'd like to sync just about everything. That includes Google Play purchases, Google Keep, and even photos.

That last one is killer: photos. Each time you snap a picture, Google uploads it to your account to back it up. For those who use their phone as their primary camera (that's everyone, right?), this can seriously hurt your battery life.

There are two ways to change this. Head to settings and find your e-mail address under Accounts. Tap the account name again to access sync settings, where you can un-check the items you don't want synced. Included there is that "Google Photos" option.

Alternatively, head to the Gallery app > Settings, and disable Google Photos Sync.

Use the battery tool

To access the battery tool, call up the notification shade, tap the Quick Settings icon, then hit the battery logo. Here, you'll see a complete list of active apps. Take a look around to see if any are consuming an unusually high amount of power. Your phone's display and networking processes (like Wi-Fi) are unavoidable, but you might find that an app you downloaded is a battery hog.

Nokia Lumia 1520, 2520 to launch Nov 22 in US:REPORT

Nokia's Lumia 1520 smartphone and 2520 tablet will reportedly reach US consumers on November 22.
The Lumia 1520 was initially slated to launch on November 15, but that date was pushed back, according to WP Central. Microsoft actually jumped the gun this week when it unveiled a preorder page for the 1520 showing a release date of November 15 via AT&T.

Microsoft's preorder page had shown the price of the 1520 as $199 with the usual two-year contract and $549 without a contract. The Windows RT-based 2520 tablet is expected to sell for $499, though Verizon may trim that to $399 for a special Black Friday deal, WP Central said.

Assuming the date in the leaked inventory list is accurate, November 22 will be a big day for Microsoft as it will also mark the launch of the Xbox One.

India Leads In fake, Duplicate Facebook Accounts

An estimated 14.3 crore accounts on the popular social networking site Facebook may be false or duplicate, with a major chunk of them coming from developing markets like India and Turkey.

Facebook, which boasts of 119 crore accounts globally, in a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing said it estimates up to 7.9 percent accounts being duplicate, and up to 2.1 percent and up to 1.2 percent accounts being user-misclassified and undesirable, respectively.The social networking giant said its monthly active users (MAUs) stood at 1.19 billion by September 30, 2013.

Smartphone Market To Reach 1 Bn Units This Year: IDC

Aided by rising demand for low-cost android phones and mobile phone makers launching flagship models, worldwide smartphone market is expected to touch one billion units this year, global research firm IDC said.
Worldwide smartphone shipments stood at 216.2 million units in January-March quarter of 2013 and 237.9 million units in April-June.

Global smartphone market rose by 38.8 per cent year over year in the third quarter of 2013 with mobile phone vendors shipping 258.4 million Smartphones during the period compared to the third quarter of 2012, it said in a statement.The global mobile phone market, including Smartphones, reached 467.9 million units in Q3 2013 compared to the 442.7 million units shipped in Q3 2012, a growth of 5.7 per cent.

The third quarter shipments were up 7 per cent compared to 437.4 million units shipped in Q2 2013. “The third quarter was up substantially over the previous quarter, which was also a record quarter for shipments, showing the real momentum of the smartphone market.

Verizon Wireless debuts Ellipsis 7 tablet for $250

Verizon Wireless officially got into the tablet game with the unveiling of the Ellipsis 7.

The new tablet features a 7-inch HD in-plane switching (IPS) display, a 3.2-megapixel rear camera, 1GB of RAM, and a 1.2GHz quad-core processor. It also comes with 8GB of internal storage and an SD card slot.
Verizon Wireless said the tablet will feature 4G LTE connectivity and mobile hot spot support for up to eight Wi-Fi devices. The compact tablet, which weighs less than 1 pound, runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. The Ellipsis 7 will be available online and in stores starting November 7 for $250.

NSA under fire by ANONYMOUS

Hundreds of protests around the world sparked up on Tuesday in what the hacking collective Anonymous called the "Million Mask March." Donning Guy Fawkes masks, the demonstrators' goal was to "defend humanity."

The protests were scheduled for 450 cities and towns worldwide -- from Tampa, Fla., to Amsterdam to Mumbai. According to the group's Facebook page, the demonstrations were meant to help people "remember who your enemies are: billionaires who own banks and corporations who corrupt politicians who enslave the people in injustice."
In Washington, D.C., demonstrators chanted "Obama. Come out. We've got some **** to talk about," according to NBC News. In Chicago, police and protesters exchanged hugs. While in Denver, a handful of arrests were made after it was reported that a building was being vandalized, according to the Denver Post.

In promoting the march, Anonymous said that violence would not be tolerated. The group even published an "advance disclaimer" saying, "Anonymous is a peaceful movement and is not affiliated with the rogue DC Citizen's Action to take the United States President, Congress, and US Supreme Court Justices Hostage."
Despite a few arrests here and there, it appears the protests have stayed relatively peaceful.

Anonymous is typically known for waging its protests in the online world via hacks, data leaks, and denial-of-service attacks. But increasingly, people claiming to be part of the collective o
r who have beliefs in line with those of the group are popping up at street protests. Demonstrators with Guy Fawkes masks are commonly seen at protests against the NSA surveillance program and in Occupy actions.

Call of Duty: $1 billion sales within 24 hours

Call of Duty: Ghosts, the latest launch in the famed franchise, has reached $1 billion in sales -- to retailers.
Activision announced on Wednesday that its latest launch sold more than $1 billion in worldwide sales to retailers. That is not to be confused with actual sales to consumers. Activision has essentially shipped $1 billion in Call of Duty: Ghosts product to retailers.
Still, the figure is notable. Call of Duty: Ghosts launched on Tuesday. Activision, therefore, hit the milestone in just one day.
In addition, Activision announced on Wednesday that Call of Duty: Ghosts is the most-preordered next-generation game, according to GameStop. The Call of Duty franchise has already logged a collective four billion hours of gameplay this year -- a figure that will grow substantially in the coming months.
CNET has contacted Activision for data on actual sales to consumers. We will update this story when we have more information.

Top 10 Favourite Countries For High-Tech Companies

Countries that attracts tech giants from the Silicon Valley offers a lucrative outlook in terms of a blended infrastructure, never-ending talent pool and a strong government backing.. As compiled by Rediff, let’s have a countdown of top ten countries that are often opted by majority of high-tech companies.
#10 Switzerland
Known for its beautiful landscape, chocolates and rich heritage; Switzerland is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. It has about 9 percent of publicly listed companies in the high-tech industries, making it one amongst the top ten countries favourable by high-tech companies.
#9 Finland
What makes Finland one of the most preferred nations to set up high-tech companies is its fabulous infrastructure and strong government support. About 10 percent of the overall publicly listed companies in the high-tech industries are conjugated in this beautiful place, thus making Finland stand in 9th place in high-tech companies’ favourite choice.
#8 Denmark
This European county is one of the richest countries in terms of culture and wealth. Thus it is no surprise why 11 percent of the publicly listed top high-tech companies prefer to carry out their corporate activities on this land.
#7 France
Haute couture Fashion, delicious food and a mecca for modern art; France has one of the biggest economies in the world. Due to its central location, this country is a magnet for high-tech companies and conjugates 11 percent of publicly listed high-tech industries.#6 Israel
Located on the south-eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea, this middle eastern country provides strong government backing. It is one of the major reasons why 15 percent of the publicly listed companies in high-tech industries opt for Israel.

#5 South Korea
Playing market host to companies like Samsung and LG, South Korea had the biggest exporters of electronic device and gadgets in the world. It acquires 16 percent of the publicly listed companies in high-tech industries, making it a hot spot location of top tech companies.
#4 Germany
Germany is Europe’s biggest powerhouse and it attracts many technological companies. It comprises of 17 percent of publicly listed companies in high-tech industries. Thus it acquires fourth rank on our list for being one of the most preferable countries by tech industries.
#3 Sweden
The society of Sweden is well-known for promoting equal status among people. Having one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, Sweden ranks third as it comprises of 18 percent of the overall of publicly listed companies in high-tech industries.
#2 Netherlands
Netherlands is popularly known for its open culture and provides world-class education system and high standard of living. Thus it is the second most favourable place for high-tech companies and it comprises of 19 percent of the publicly listed companies in high-tech industries.
#1 United States of America
Comprising of 23 percent of the of publicly listed companies in high-tech industries, U.S.A takes first place in being the most favourable of high-tech firms and it’s the birth place of most of the major companies and a home to the Silicon Valley.

China decommissions 1st nuclear submarine

Bingo! China has decommissioned its first nuclear-powered submarine after more than 40 years of service in the military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily reported Tuesday.The submarine's nuclear devices have been properly disposed of and scientists have decontaminated the warehouse where nuclear items were stored during the past 40 years.

The submarine will be used as an exhibit after it is released from military service, according to the newspaper.China's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Long March No 1, was launched in 1970. It was commissioned to the PLA navy in 1974.

The Long March 1 belongs to the Han Class nuclear-powered submarine (Type 091), which was produced based on technologies of the 1950s and 1960s and has short range weapons.With a displacement of 5,000 tons, the class is usually equipped with six torpedo tubes.

iPad Air cheaper to build than previous models: IHS

 Apple seems to have trimmed the bill for making its latest iPad along with the tablet computer's width and weight. The iPad Air that sells for $499 costs Apple $274 to make, based on an analysis released by the research firm IHS. That's a 13% decrease from the estimated $316 that it cost Apple to make the third-generation iPad introduced last year.

The iPad Air went on sale last week. IHS buys various devices and then takes them apart to assess how much the parts cost. "While the iPad Air slims down in size, the profit margins are getting fatter," said Andrew Rassweiler, IHS's senior director of cost benchmarking services, in a statement.

The gap between Apple's costs and the iPad Air's selling price is even wider on models that offer more storage. For instance, IHS estimates the 32GB version of the iPad Air only costs Apple an additional $8.40 to make yet sells for $100 more than the 16GB model.

The iPad mini, Apple's first tablet with a screen smaller than the standard 10-inch display, is the main reason prices came down. The prices for the iPad mini, which debuted late year, initially started at $329. That model is now selling for as low as $299 as Apple prepares to release a more sophisticated version of the iPad mini featuring a high-definition screen later this month. The top-of-the-line version will sell for $399 to help cover the costs for a more vibrant display.

Top MNCs have more staff in India than home nations

It's a measure of India's strength in software services and the number of engineers it produces that some of the world's largest IT companies have more employees in India now than in their home countries.

IBM, the biggest in the business, has been steadily reducing its US employee numbers and has simultaneously increased sharply its Indian ones. The company does not officially break up its employee numbers by geography, but the IBM employee organization Alliance@IBM puts the US figure for 2012 at 91,000, down from 127,000 in 2006. The last time IBM provided figures for India was in 2007, when it said it had 73,000 employees here. Since then, all estimates suggest that the company has added another 50,000 to 60,000 employees, taking the total count to about 1.3 lakh.

That puts the India number at more than 40% of the US figure. It also means — given IBM's global headcount of 4.3 lakh — that one in almost every three IBM employee is in India.

BlackBerry may abandon smartphone business

That may be a tremendous heart breaking news for Blackberry Lovers. The device that was so addictive that it was dubbed the "CrackBerry" might not have much of a future: Its new chairman and interim chief executive says he wants to emphasize software and services - not devices. That could mean the company might ultimately get out of the business of selling smartphones.

The possible change in strategy comes as Fairfax Financial, BlackBerry's largest shareholder with a 10% stake, said Monday it won't buy the struggling smartphone company and take it private. It said that instead Fairfax and other investors will inject $1 billion as part of a revised investment proposal.

CEO Thorsten Heins is stepping down and John Chen was appointed chairman of BlackBerry's board of directors and interim CEO. Chen, the former CEO of software data company Sybase, said that BlackBerry employees need to start thinking differently about the company and accept that "we're really not in phones but we're in phones for software, for services.''

India's mission to Mars:All you need to know

India is the first Asian country and the fourth in the world to undertake a mission to the red planet in the hope of finding methane and minerals.

• The cost of India's mission to Mars is Rs 450 crore (about $72.9 million).

• The Indian-made rocket — Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C25 (PSLV-C25) is around 44 metres tall and weighs around 320 tonnes.

• The expendable rocket costs around Rs 110 crore, and has a single but important luggage — the 1,340-kg Mars orbiter costing around Rs 150 crore. Around Rs 90 crore has been spent on augmenting the ground support/tracking systems.

• The scientific mission will explore Mars's surface features, morphology, or the study of organisms, mineralogy, the study of minerals, and Martian atmosphere.

• The rocket will cover a distance of about 400 million km.

• The Mars orbiter will orbit the Earth till November 30 and then its motors will be fired to push it towards the red planet.

• For nearly 300 days, the motor will be off while the spacecraft floats through the inky void towards Mars.

• When the spacecraft nears Mars, the motors will be restarted and fired again to carry out manoeuvres to put it in Martian orbit around September 2014.

Cash-on-delivery addiction a drain on ecomm firms

Ecommerce companies may be growing at an explosive pace, but their overdependence on cash-on-delivery mode of payment remains worrisome, particularly since online retail ventures in India are not yet profitable.

Cash-on-delivery,customers pay for products at the time of receiving them, still accounts for up to 60% of transactions, according to a study by Internet and Mobile Association of India and audit firm KPMG. This, despite sales at some of these ventures expanding at over 500% annually.

Flipkart, considered the biggest ecommerce venture in India, is targeting to cross $1 billion (over Rs 6,100 crore) in sales by 2015.

Snapdeal has grown around 500% between 2012 and 2013 and is set to cross $500 million (over Rs 3,000 crore) in revenue this fiscal. Collectively, online retail firms have raised almost $1.4 billion (over Rs 8,500 crore) since 2011.

Clearly, the growing customer base for ecommerce companies has not translated into higher adoption of payments through credit or debit cards. Also, the additional processes required for cash-on-delivery orders, their longer payment cycle, higher instances of returns and associated costs are hurting margins

Meet World’s First 6TB Hard Drive Packing Helium

HGST, a Western Digital subsidiary, just announced a helium-filled 6TB hard drive — the world’s first discretely 6TB drive, mind you. Naturally, the helium part’s driving a bunch of pun-blighted headlines absurdly comparing hard drives to balloons, but there’s reason to be cautiously excited about the helium angle: The point of trapping helium in a hard drive is to

make the drive more energy efficient as well as increase its capacity. That’s not easily done, and HGST is taking a victory lap to celebrate the fact that it’s first to market with the Ultrastar He6 hard drive.

As noted, part of the allure here is that we’re talking a single 6TB 3.5-inch hard drive, not something like two 3TB hard drives in a RAID cluster. A single 6TB drive is a big deal if you’re stacking bunches of these things together in server arrays or building out large storage clusters where physical space is precious.
Aren’t we running out of helium? Helium is the second-most abundant element in the universe, but it’s rare on Earth — most commonly found in natural gas, which is where most commercial helium comes from. You can’t synthesize it (it took more or less the entire natural history of the planet to form), and every time you free it, it’s up, up and away, gone forever.

HGST says the Ultrastar He6 is ”the world’s first hermetically sealed, helium hard drive.” Because helium is only one-seventh as dense as air, HGST says that using it in lieu of air within the drive “dramatically reduces the turbulence caused by the spinning disk.” What’s more, helium cuts power consumption, in turn lowering the drive’s temperature, so we’re talking about cascading benefits.

An app that paints your picture while you drive

A Barcelona-based painter has developed a computer programme that paints your image as you drive and creates a portrait based on your journey. Artist Sergio Albiac installed the software as part of a branding exercise for a hybrid fuel Lexus IS 300h.

Albiac took a photo of Belgian art collector Walter Vanhaerents and uploaded it to the programme that then created a portrait of him using Albiac's hand brushwork, the Mirror reported. The painting changed as Vanhaerents drove and it was dependant on his speed and choice of fuel.

When he drove slowly and used electric power the software produced cooler, sharper colours, while driving faster on petrol created a picture with broad, expressionistic brushstrokes in warmer colours.

Google invests a huge amount £407m in Finnish data centre

Google is investing $608 million (£407 million) into its Finnish data centre in a bid to meet mobile video demand.The investment will be used to expand the datacentre's capacity, according to Bloomberg.

The site in Hamina, some 150 kilometres outside Helsinki, was opened two years ago after Google bought a facility from a Finnish paper company for £170 million. It is currently one of three Google data centres in Europe. Google said the construction will provide jobs to 800 engineers and builders and the data centre's head count will rise from 90 to 125.

The data centre draws on seawater from the Bay of Finland for cooling and wind energy from Sweden for power as Google seeks to keep its environmental impacts to a minimum. Google also serves customers in Europe from data centres in Dublin, Ireland, and St Ghislain, Belgium.

Other large tech companies also have their data centres located in Scandinavia. For example, Microsoft announced in September it will invest £211 million in a new Finnish data centre, while Facebook opened its first non-US data centre in Lulea, Sweden, this summer.

Countdown Begins to join the international Space Race to Mars, T-minus 24 hours:Report

India's countdown to join the international space race to Mars is officially under t-minus 24 hours. The Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO) is set to launch their Mars Orbiter Mission probe Tuesday afternoon from a small island off the southern coast of the country.

The unmanned craft will take 11 months to travel the 140 million miles to Mars. "Orbiting Mars itself is a challenge," said ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan. "This is our first interplanetary mission. There will be bigger missions later."

If all goes according to plan, India will join the few who have launched successful explorations to the Red Planet, including the United States, the European Union and the former Soviet Union. Earlier this year, NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover began sending back images and test results from the Martian surface. NASA is planning another mission to Mars in just 14 days. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission is scheduled for a Nov. 18 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Is India’s Mars mission a comperative one with NASA

Michael Braukas, a Nasa spokesman has told Computerworld that India’s mars mission will complement research by Nasa.

 Braukas told Computerworld that India’s Mars mission is not a cooperative one with NASA, but added that the US agency will provide the Indian agency some deep space communications help. The US plans to provide data from its satellites and antennas that show the craft’s position in space, for instance.

 Nasa already has robotic rovers Curiosity and Opportunity exploring the surface of Mars along with orbiters Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter taking images, studying the Martian atmosphere and relaying data compiled by the rovers back to Earth.

BlackBerry abandons sale process, CEO out

BlackBerry abandoned its sale process on Monday, and announced it will replace its chief executive.Fairfax, BlackBerry's largest shareholder with a 10 percent stake, said it won't buy the struggling smartphone
company and take it private but said it and other investors will inject $1 billion as part of a revised investment proposal.BlackBerry says CEO Thorsten Heins is stepping down. Heins took over in early 2012 after the company lost billions in market value.

John Chen will serve as interim CEO. Fairfax head Prem Watsa will be appointed to the board.BlackBerry announced in September that Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. signed a letter of intent that contemplated buying BlackBerry for $9 a share, or $4.7 billion, and taking it private. Fairfax said then it wouldn't increase its 10 percent stake and the company went about trying to attract other investors.

"They never had any money beyond the Fairfax money," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said. "It's an under $5 billion market cap company with $2 billion in cash, you put up a $1 billion and you couldn't get the rest?"

Gillis said it's not an unexpected outcome because the stock was trading well below the possible $9 bid price. He said potential investors must have looked at the books and didn't like what they saw.

The BlackBerry, pioneered in 1999, had been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and other consumers before Apple debuted the iPhone in 2007 and showed that phones can handle much more than email and phone calls. In the years since, BlackBerry Ltd. been hammered by competition from the iPhone as well as Android-based rivals.

Indian scientist claims to have found true origins of life on Earth

An Indian American scientist has claimed that he has found the answer to the question about how life on earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago.Sankar Chatterjee, professor of geo-sciences and curator of paleontology at the museum of Texas Tech University, has claimed that meteor and comet strikes likely brought the ingredients and created the right conditions for life on our planet.

 Mr. Chatterjee said that regular and heavy comet and meteorite bombardment on earth's surface during its formative years, nearly four billion years ago, created large craters that not only contained water and the basic chemical building blocks for life, but also became the perfect crucible to concentrate and cook these chemicals to create the first simple organisms.

After examining the environments of the oldest fossil-containing rocks on earth in Greenland, Australia and South Africa, Chatterjee came to the conclusion that these could be remnants of ancient craters and may be the very spots where life began in deep, dark and hot environments.

"When the earth formed some 4.5 billion years ago, it was a sterile planet, inhospitable to living organisms," Chatterjee said in a press statement."It was a seething cauldron of erupting volcanoes, raining meteors and hot, noxious gasses. One billion years later, it was a placid, watery planet teeming with microbial life," he said.Chatterjee said life began in four steps of increasing complexity - cosmic, geological, chemical and biological.

Teen Dropout Rate Spooks Facebook Investors

Facebook on Wednesday reported a rise in third-quarter profit and growth in mobile ad revenue. It posted total revenue of US$2.02 billion, a 60 percent jump from the $1.26 billion it reported in the year-ago quarter. Advertising accounted for $1.8 billion of that revenue.

Facebook now has 1.19 billion active monthly users, an 18 percent jump from the same period a year ago. Many are signing on via their mobile devices -- the number of active monthly mobile users rose 45 percent to 874 million.

That increase generated a rise in mobile advertising revenue, which now accounts for 49 percent of Facebook's total advertising revenue, up from the 41 percent it comprised in the second quarter. That's an important figure for Facebook since so many of its users sign on through their smartphones and tablets.
hares initially rose more than 15 percent in after-hours trading but abruptly slumped when the market opened, in part due to concerns over teens losing interest.

Overall, teen use in the U.S. was stable from the second quarter to the third, but Facebook acknowledged a decrease in daily use among younger teens.The stock recovery likely reflected the realization that there are many factors influencing Facebook's revenue, said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group.

"Reactions to comments on teen use of Facebook seemed like an overreaction," he told the E-Commerce Times. "As teens aren't the entities spending advertising on Facebook, there is little to worry about near-term."
(It's a little bit late news, but it's cool I think :) )

Is Flipkart,Indian e-commerce company in Danger

Now Free shipping on a 100 rupee book in Amazon, where Flipkart provides free shipping on 500 rupees or more.Delivery times guaranteed to the minute. These are some of the incentives the world's biggest online retailer Amazon is using to entice Indians to shop on the web, a sector where growth has been stifled by payment problems, low Internet usage and a challenging logistics environment. Amazon's investors are counting on its international business and expansion to help drive growth and support its $165 billion market value, one of the highest among US firms.

India is Amazon's third emerging market investment after Brazil and China, and one Vice President and Country Manager Amit Agarwal said would take time to pay off. Most Indians do not own a credit card, and less than half the 152 million Internet users have shopped online. Then there are the bad roads, the snarled bureaucracy and the petty bribery that greases business.

The potential, however, is vast. Online retail sales in India are forecast to grow more than a hundred-fold to $76 billion by 2021 from just $600 million at the end of 2012, retail consultants Technopak said. E-tail sales in China, by comparison, are expected to grow to $650 billion by 2020 from around $200 billion in 2012, consultants McKinsey predict.

Indians, on average, spend between $24 and $35 per online transaction, a figure dwarfed by the $150-$160 spent by US shoppers online per transaction, according to data from US based analysts comScore and Retail Decisions. Agarwal spent two years advising Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos at the company's Seattle headquarters, and believes Amazon's long-term strategy will work in India like it did in the United States, where the company ran up losses for years. Amazon's biggest local rival is Flipkart, set up by two ex-Amazon employees in 2007 and which has yet to turn a profit. Since July, Flipkart has raised $360 million from investors that include South Africa's Naspers It said it aims to have $1 billion in sales by 2015.

Agarwal would not give any forecasts or figures, but said Amazon's investments in India have a 7- to 10-year horizon. He said Amazon was building its own logistics network, which it can leverage when the rules change and it can sell directly to consumers. Indian regulations now prevent international e-tailers from making direct sales.To avoid shipments getting stuck at toll booths or held up by police demanding bribes, Amazon gets all the permissions and documents required, as well as extra permits, just in case.

Piracy Isn’t Hurting The Entertainment Industry:Survey Report

According to a recent report by the London School of Economics and Political Science, file-sharing is actually helping, rather than hurting, creative industries. The common perception is that people who illegally download content through file sharing services rarely buy products legitimately.
“Contrary to the industry claims, the music industry is not in terminal decline, but still holding ground and showing healthy profits. Revenues from digital sales, subscription services, streaming and live performances compensate for the decline in revenues from the sale of CDs or records,” said Bart Cammaerts, one of the report’s authors.

According to the report, the digital gaming industry is doing extremely well, the publishing sector is stable and the U.S. film industry continues to break records. The promotional effect of free services like YouTube, SoundCloud and a study that shows file-sharers spend more money on entertainment than those who  don’t, are all discussed in the research.“Despite the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) claim that online piracy is devastating the movie industry, Hollywood achieved record-breaking global box office revenues of $35 billion in 2012, a 6% increase over 2011.”

According to TorrentFreak, even the music industry, a sector commonly cited as one of the most hard hit by piracy, continues to do well. Concert, publishing and digital revenue has increased slightly since the the early 2000s. As expected, the revenue for archaic music platforms like CDs continues to decline, though. However, according to the study, there is apparently not very much evidence that indicates piracy is the main cause of this decline.

“Within the creative industries there is a variety of views on the best way to benefit from online sharing practices, and how to innovate to generate revenue streams in ways that do not fit within the existing copyright enforcement regime,” reads the report.

The research concludes by advising the U.K. Government to review its Digital Economy Act to take into the account the interest of the public and copyright holders. It also states that France’s three strikes piracy law isn’t as effective as the entertainment industry wants the public to believe.

A Teddy Bear is enough to Monitor Your Child’s Health

A teddy bear that measures heart rate, temperature and blood-oxygen level when a child hugs or plays with it was one of the more engaging startup products on show at the Tech Crunch Disrupt show here in the German capital. Called Teddy the Guardian, the toy is the work of two young entrepreneurs, Ana Burica and Josipa Majic, both graduate students at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.

“It is a pediatrician tool,” said Ms. Majic. “It helps nurses to get data in a way that is friendly for the child so the data does not get skewed by the child being stressed.” But alongside the medical uses, Ms. Majic said there is perhaps an even bigger market for the toy among parents, and particularly first-time parents, worried about their child’s health and development.

“The demand comes from the consumer demand,” she said. “We started taking preorders in July and since then we have had €500,000 [$689,000] in preorders.”

There are two main sensors, one in each arm, and a secure data-communication unit in the teddy’s stomach. The outer surface of the bear is removable and washable. “In a hospital, it has to be able to stand washing at 90°C to prevent cross contamination,” she said.Data can be shared among parents to allow anxious parents to compare their child’s readings with others.

In order to make the bear more likely to be adopted by a child (the target age range is 2 to 6), the bear can also play your child’s favorite song. The song can be changed and controlled via an app on a smartphone.
The medical version will be sold to hospitals for €169. Pricing for the consumer version has yet to be determined.

IMAX to offer $250,000 luxury home theatre systems in China

China's newly minted rich can now get up close and personal to the movies after mega-screen maker IMAX Corp signed a deal to produce luxury home theatres in the company's second largest market.

The fifty-fifty joint venture with Shenzhen-based TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Ltd will give Chinese the chance to watch IMAX-enhanced Hollywood blockbusters in the comfort of their homes, maybe even on the day of their world premieres.

The price? At least $250,000. The joint venture is targeting wealthy homeowners in Hong Kong, Russia, and the Middle East, but the main focus, IMAX Chief Executive Richard Gelfond said, is China. Mississauga, Ont.-based IMAX earns 16 percent of its revenue in China, and now has 131 screens installed there.

Like other global brands, IMAX is betting on the appetite of ultra-rich Chinese for luxury goods and unique experiences, which is also helping the sales of retailers like LVMH and Tiffany & Co.

The number of Chinese millionaires rose by more than 14 percent last year to 643,000, the most recent wealth survey by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management shows. The country is now home to the fourth largest number of high net-worth individuals in the world.

Neither IMAX nor TCL Multimedia Chief Financial Officer Edmond Chen would forecast how many home systems the company expects to sell when it kicks of production in 2015. The deal was signed this week.

TCL estimates annual growth for home theatre sets is likely to exceed 20 percent in the next five years. It said the market for home theatres may be about 2,000 sets now.

In July, IMAX announced an agreement with local conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Corp to build up to 120 new theaters in China. The deal would raise the number of IMAX theaters to about 400, with Wanda running around half.

Gelfond in September helped Dalian Wanda launch a $8 billion production, entertainment and real estate project in the coastal city of Qingdao, surrounded by stars including Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Nexus 5,Nexus 7 to be available in India soon

Google has released the India prices of the second-generation Nexus 7 tablet and the newly 
launched Nexus 5 smartphone that was unveiled earlier this year. The second-generation Nexus 7 tablet will cost Rs 25,999 in India for the 32GB Wi-Fi and 4G variant. The company has listed only the US prices of the 16 and 32GB Wi-Fi versions of the model,giving rise to speculations that only the top variant will be available via Play Store.

Online retailers recently slashed the prices of all models of the first-generation Nexus 7 tablet.
 The device is now available for as low as Rs 9,999 in the country, while the top model costs Rs 16,999. Nexus 4 is available for less than Rs 22,000 in the country,down from its launch price of Rs 25,999.The new Nexus 5 will be available for Rs 28,999 and Rs 32,999 for the 16GB and 32GB variants in the domestic market. The prices are listed on the Play Store, suggesting that buyers will be able to purchase the phone online directly from Google. Nexus 4, which was launched earlier this year, was not available via Play Store in the country.
Features:
The new Nexus 5 smartphone has a 4.95-inch LCD screen with Full HD (1080p) resolution and protected by Gorilla Glass 3 panel. It packs the 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor under the hood, with 2GB RAM. The device will be available in 16 and 32GB versions (with no microSD support) and come in white and black colours.

On the back, Nexus 5 sports an 8MP camera with optical image stabilization, 1/3.2-inch sensor and f/2.4 aperture. LED flash is present on the back, while a 1.3MP unit is used in front. Its connectivity suite consists of 2G, 3G, 4G,Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and LE, NFC and microUSB. Powered by a 2,300mAh battery, this device has wireless charging.

Nexus 7 tablet has a 7-inch screen with 1920x1080p resolution and runs Android 4.3 natively; it will soon get the Android 4.4 update from Google. The device has 2GB RAM, 16 and 32GB storage options and is powered by the 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. Running on a 3,950mAh battery, this device has a 5MP rear camera and 1.2MP front camera. It can access the internet over 2G, 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi networks and transfer data via Bluetooth 4.0 and LE, NFC and microUSB 2.0.

Adobe hack: 38 million users affected, not 3 million

Software company behind Photoshop and Acrobat admits security breach a month ago was far bigger than first reported,the obtaining data on more than 38 million customer accounts.The software maker also said that hackers had stolen part of the source code to Photoshop editing software that is widely used by professional photographers.

Adobe disclosed the breach on 3 October, saying attackers took credit card information and other data from nearly 3 million customers' accounts.The company also said that the hackers accessed an undisclosed number of Adobe IDs and encrypted passwords that were stored in a separate database. On Tuesday, it revealed that about 38 million records from that database were stolen.

On O3 October, the company also reported that the attackers stole source code to three other products: Acrobat, ColdFusion and ColdFusion Builder.Adobe spokeswoman Heather Edell said the company is still investigating to determine how much invalid account information was breached and is in the process of notifying affected users.

Even though the company believes the stolen passwords were encrypted, the attackers may have been able to access them in plain text by one of several methods, including breaking the algorithm that Adobe used to scramble them, said Marcus Carey, a security researcher and expert on cyber-attacks, who formerly worked as an investigator with the National Security Agency(NSA).

They could likely use those passwords to break into other accounts because many people use the same passwords for multiple accounts, he said.

Now you know your personal data is not safe in anywhere,not only in social networking sites like Facebook,Google but also in Adobe also.

Top 5 Twitter's accounts are all from Japan

During an Aug. 3 airing of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece Castle in the Sky, thousands of anime fans watching the broadcast in Japan tweeted in unison to coincide with an exciting scene during the film's climax.
The resulting spike in Twitter activity didn't simply surpass the previous "tweets per second" mark. It blew it out of the water. In one moment, the site experienced a whopping 143,199 tweets, more than four times the previous record. The influx of tweets was surprising. The party responsible was not.
Japanese Twitter users have set this record many times, most recently on New Years Eve 2013 when the clock struck midnight in Japan and Korea. A separate Japanese broadcasting of Castle in the Sky resulted in the tweets per second record back in 2011 and, during the 2010 World Cup, a Japanese goal during a match against Cameroon resulted in 2,940 tweets per second, a record at the time.

The tendency for Japanese Twitter users to tweet en masse is interesting, but it's also indicative of a much deeper relationship between the country and the technology: Japan simply loves Twitter.

Apple now owns Japan

Despite a not-so-stellar third quarter for Apple, Japan was a bright spot for the iPhone maker. Apple now commands a record 34% market share in the country once dominated by domestic brands.
It's the first time a smartphone brand has surpassed 30% market share in Japan in a decade, and Apple is poised to grab even more.
Japan's smartphone market has typically been dominated by domestic companies including Sony and Sharp, and until this past quarter Apple didn't hold much sway in the country.
Apple skyrocketed from third place in Japan's mobile handset market to the top spot in part because the iPhone finally launched on NTT DOCOMO, the island nation's largest wireless carrier. The move allowed Apple's iPhone 5s to become the best-selling smartphone in Japan in September, with about half a million in sales.

But it wasn't just the 5s that tipped the scales for Apple. To compete with DOCOMO, other Japanese carriers offered massive discounts and incentives on the iPhone 5, grabbing consumers who didn't want to endure the two-week wait for the 5s.

Apple is expected to maintain its new lead in Japan, and a Gartner analyst told Reuters he thinks the company could grab as much as 50% of smartphone market share in the country.

Apple looses to Samsung again : JD Power

Again Samsung wins over Apple in Tablet if you consider user's point of view.Samsung tablets have reportedly scored better than Apple's iPads in terms of consumer satisfaction revealed by JD Power.

Apple iPads which have been winner of nine consecutive JD Power awards have been outshone by Samsung tablets for the first time.
According to The Verge, Samsung scored 835, while Apple scored close second with a 833.Apple iPads have scored full five stars for performance, features, ease of use, physical design, and overall satisfaction, falling only at the final hurdle, cost, where Samsung's tablets took the cake for their value for money.

So the golden days for Apple is going to sunset like Blackberry? If it happens the day is not very far from us when everyone talks about Samsung,not about our beloved Jobs' magical creation of Apple products.

Indian BI revenue forecast 2014: $140 Million

Yes, that's a good news of course. Indian business intelligence (BI) software revenue is forecast to reach US$139.5 million in 2014, a 16 per cent increase over 2013 revenue of $121.2 million, according to Gartner, Inc. This forecast includes revenue for BI platforms, packaged analytic applications and corporate performance management (CPM) software.

BI and analytics have grown to become one of the larger application software segments. End users continue to prioritise BI and information-centric projects and spending to improve decision making and analysis. As more information is generated, business models need reinvention, and it's increasingly clear that mastering analytics on big data will be a central area of focus over the coming decade. While these are fundamental drivers in the near term, growth will be hampered by sluggish macro indicators, as well as confusion around big-data and how to tie that to ROI.

“We will see a change in the focus of type of BI deployments to areas that will help reduce cost like  spend analysis, and profitability forecasting, along with reporting for achieving regulatory compliance,” said Bhavish Sood, research director at Gartner. “These internal and external pressures are driving increased adoption of analytics solutions across the country."

“Business users are increasingly influencing selection of BI technology, and as such, advanced technologies, such as interactive visualization, mobile BI, geospatial and in-memory technologies will increasingly play an important part in selection criteria,” said Sood.