Google censors swear words on Nexus One

Google has confirmed it's censoring bad words on the Nexus One as part of the voice/text input feature.

The search engine made a big deal about the fact you can now speak your text and emails rather than tapping them out (which sounds to us suspiciously like phone calls) but it's also now confirmed that it will be hash-ing out them cuss-words.

Chinese Human Rights Sites Hit by DDoS Attack

Five Web sites run by Chinese human rights activists were attacked by hackers over the weekend, as a separate row continued between Google and China over political cyberattacks.

The Web site of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that lasted 16 hours starting Saturday afternoon, the group said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. A DDoS attack involves the attacker ordering a legion of compromised computers all to visit a certain Web site at once, overwhelming its server with requests for communication and leaving the site inaccessible to normal visitors. The group said it could not confirm the origin of the attackers but called the Chinese government the most likely suspect.

Service Pack 1 by Youtube???

Youtube has rolled out a series of upgrades to their video player, including HTML5 support, improved video resolution controls, an opt-in feature for a new streamlined “Watch” page, a music discovery service and a movie rental service.

8-Foot drop during weird stunt, and still iPhone survives

Now we all know the hell lot of list of iPhone features. But it seems we surely did come across this one recently which was actually not included in the list.
David Fermin, a pro MMA fighter who apparently forgets that he has an iPhone in his pocket when he swings from his exercise pipes, eight feet off the ground. Right guess, yeah, his iPhone takes a fall and survives it.

Siemens magic, hits 500Mbps with white LED lights

What can be more better than wireless power? Frankly, Nothing. This is the age of wicked fast transmission just through thin air. The recent breaking news is such that, Researchers from Siemens have broken their own record for wireless data transfer using white LED light, by hitting an enormous speed of about 500Mbps while working in collaboration with the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin.

No facebook and twitter for Manchester United players

Rival British football clubs Manchester United and Manchester City have recently banned their players from using Twitter. The players were banned from using social media services after many number of fake accounts were unceoverd recently, reports The Manchester Evening News.

Bill Gates' Blog on the web

After his arrival on twitter and almost a mayhem about it, Bill Gates has officially announced his next step into the social media world, his brand new blog, The Gates Notes.

For Pornography Crackdown, China to Scan Text Messages

Chinese mobile providers are up with a new way to keep China free from unhealthy content. They will now monitor all the text messages in the nation for "illegal or unhealthy content" and will immediately suspend service when any customer sets up such a red flag, according to a report in The New York Times.

All that you should know about Windows Mobile 7

Mobile World Congress is now just a few weeks away as it starts on Feb 15. Enthusiasts around the world are expecting newer version of Windows Mobile, version 7 to be launched. Rumors have been heard about the potential improvement over the current version 6.x codebase. A developer has recently commented that the new version is far distant from its earlier version and all the current WinMo apps are about go extinct.

First, WinMo 7 is essentially a copy of the Zune HD’s kernel. It comes in one screen size and will work best on OLED devices. Microsoft will give official specs to hardware makers and force them to comply or else refuse them access to the OS. This includes a regimented screen and RAM size as well as a minimum processor speed.

Disputes lead to Android launch postpone by Google in China

No clash of titans may go farther than the recent major world issues - Google vs China. The problems between Google and Chinese Government are not on a downfall but will rise even more with the Google's latest announcement regarding the Android phones. After deciding to stop censoring its Google.cn results, Google has stepped up its offensive with the announcement that two Android phones -- one from Samsung and one from Motorola -- which were to make their arrival on China Unicom on Wednesday have now been postponed. Google says if China plays it good then the launch will just be postponed and if not, then its "never gonna happen".

China has the world's most-populous mobile phone market, with more than 700 million accounts and increasingly prosperous customers who readily pay for the latest technology and services.

Microsoft Threatens, Switch from IE and risks will increase

Head of Security and Privacy for Microsoft UK has recently commented that users who did wander away from Internet Explorer, after the recent headline actually land up on a browser which is definitely less secure than IE.

France and Germany both started advising their users to leave IE and find a better option, which created a problem for Microsoft. But Micrisoft has not still ruled out the possibility that the vulnerability might be used out against the later versions.

Sony Memory Sticks now with Wireless TransferJet Technology

TransferJet Technology, many of us might be familiar with this and many may be not. But there are very less things more epic than this technology of recent times. Maybe thats the only reason why Sony is eager to adapt it into their memory sticks.

Internal Sabotag involved in Google attack - Rumour or Truth?

Google is investigating whether one or more employees may have helped facilitate a cyber-attack from China that the U.S search giant said it was a victim of in mid-December.

Google, the world's most popular search engine, said last week it may pull out of the world's biggest Internet market by users after reporting it had been hit by a "sophisticated" cyber-attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

HP TouchSmart tm2 tablet released, upgraded dv6t and dv7t with Core i5

HP has released the much awaited and soon to be apple of everyone's eye - the TouchSmart TM2, its ready for shipping in for near about $950, and will be empowered with a 12-inch capacitive multitouch display, a somewhat senescent SU7300 1.3GHz ULV processor, and 3GB of DDR3 memory.

"Square" payment dongle for iPhone

Wonder what it would be like after a Digg and Twitter copulation?? Ok, dont stress your minds as we already got the first result of it, The iPhone payment dongle. Square is Jack Dorsey's (Twitter co-founder) new startup that now has Kevin Rose (Digg founder) on board as an investor and YouTube pitch man for the prototype payment device that plugs directly into the iPhone's headphone jack.

Steady Hand is what required by N 97's Brain Maze

Now its obviously understood that not everyone in world has NeuroSky's Mindset brainwave interface headset, but if u do, and also got Nokia N 97 -- this could finally be your ticket to a sharper wit, improved hand-eye coordination, better-smelling breath, and frankly, a whole new you.

'Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars' Released in US

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was finally released into the Apple App Store yesterday evening. As far as the graphical quality is concerned this game for iPhone lies somewhere between the DS and PSP versions but if u take pure GTA gameplay into concern, everything seems to be intact.

Much like other versions of the game, screenshots barely do it justice. Liberty City in motion on the iPhone is amazing, and all the jagged edges in the screenshots quickly fade away when you're racing down a street, under elevated train tracks, and through alleys as you escape the police. The realtime clock in-game also changes the lighting of the city, shifting from the orange glow of a sunset to the street lights turning on at night. It really looks awesome.

Apple blocking VoIP, but WHY????

Here are few questions to be wondered about :
Why Skype hadn't enabled Push Notifications in their latest iPhone update, and more importantly, why we couldn't use Skype, or any voice over IP service, over 3G?

Peter Parkes, a Skype blogger, wrote in to clarify that they are working on the Push notifications and its surely coming. Also, the reason they can't enable VoIP over 3G isn't a limitation by AT&T.

Motorola Shadow = Nexus Two + sliding QWERTY keyboard?

The gang at Mobile01 have laid out two more photos of what is being called the Motorola Shadow, which in short looks like Droid / Milestone with a white keyboard and wrist strap. Even more interesting is the assumption that this could be Google's next flagship device, lovingly called as the Nexus Two.

Other countries are getting faster internet, but not WE

Akamai released their quarterly State of the Internet report this week, with the chart showing the nations across the globe with the fastest networks. Between 2009 and 2009 on an average, the world's internet got 13% faster with a bitter end that America's got 2.4% slower.

"Texting While Walking" - A considerable Epidemic

Now we all are familiar with the effects of texting while driving, but get ready for a new epidemic, that is Texting while Walking. Yeah, it seems sillier but equally dangerous.

Fa.il: Bing’s URL Shortener Is Longer Than Bing’s Own Domain

There seems to be a trend of shortening the URL these days. Some established names in this industry are bit.ly and adf.ly. But Facebook, Google and Youtube have recently joined the race. Microsoft tried to hop in too, but something is really weird about it.

Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition Trailer Illuminates New Missions (Video)

The latest trailer Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition trailer has a look at Lost in Nightmares and Desperate Escape, two extra missions where you get to play as a Jill Valentine.
I suppose the trailer also explains how Lost in Nightmares, which appears as a flashback also fits in the story too. Other added elements in Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition include a four costumes for Chris and Sheva, extra characters for the Mercenaries Reunion, and versus figures to collect.
Watch the video here.

Palm Pre Plus & Palm Pixi Plus – Pricing Leaked

While we’re learning more about the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus in terms of their hardware and specs, according to an anonymous tipster at PhoneArena, Verizon’s pricing for its first two WebOS smartphones has been leaked. The Pre Plus will be purchasable for $150 (after $100 rebate, with a cellular contract) and the Pixi Plus for $100 (again probably after a rebate).

Verizon and AT&T Cut Price on Unlimited Mobile-Calling Plans

Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. cut the price of calling plans with unlimited talk time as competition heats up between the two largest U.S. mobile-phone services.

Beginning Jan. 18, both companies will charge $69.99 a month for unlimited talk or $89.99 for a plan with unlimited calls and texts, the carriers said in separate statements today.

Verizon moved first to cut the prices earlier today, part of a plan to simplify pricing and encourage more customers to buy data plans that let smartphones access the Internet and download programs. The cheaper, unrestricted plans may persuade subscribers to upgrade, said Jennifer Fritzsche, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Chicago.

McDonald's starts dishing out free WiFi at most of its U.S. restaurants

McDonald's promised that it would be make its in-restaurant WiFi service available for free in "mid-January" and, right on cue, it's now kicked things open to everyone with a laptop and a fast food craving starting today, January 15th. That service previously cost customers $2.95 for two hours of use, and it's already available at 11,500 of the company's 14,000 locations. Incidentally, that also makes McDonald's one of the largest providers of WiFi hotspots (free or otherwise) in the United States, with the company itself claiming that no less than 16% of reported WiFi hotspots in the U.S. are located at McDonald's.

Korean Airline Uses PSPgo For In Flight Entertainment

Most airlines lend, sometimes for a price, headphones to watch in-flight movies. Jin Air, a no-frills subsidiary of Korean Air, lends PSPgos.
The South Korean based airline announced a PSPgo rental service for flights out of Incheon. Passengers can borrow a 16GB PSPgo for 4,000 won ($3.50). What’s loaded on it? The press release mentions games and Minis, but doesn’t specify titles. Sony Computer Entertainment Korea publishes a bunch of stuff they could put on it like Patapon, LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival, and Persona 3 Portable which is fully translated with hangul.

Apple retaliates: requests US import ban on Nokia phones

Apple Inc. filed a new patent- infringement complaint against Nokia Oyj, seeking to block U.S. imports of mobile phones and increasing the legal battle between the two over smartphone technology.

Notice of the complaint was posted yesterday on the Web site of the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. Nokia, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, filed its own complaint last month at the ITC, seeking to ban imports of Apple’s iPhone, iPod and MacBook products.

The patent fights are part of a larger battle over the smartphone market, the industry’s fastest-growing sector. Nokia’s share of the market fell to 39.3 percent in the third quarter from 42.3 percent a year earlier, while Cupertino, California-based Apple and Research In Motion Ltd., the Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of the BlackBerry, gained, according to research firm Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut.

HTC Bravo tipped for March 2010 launch by 3 Sweden

Star device on HTC’s leaked 2010 roadmap, the HTC Bravo – a 1GHz Snapdragon based handset with a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, running Android – has seemingly been prematurely confirmed by the Swedish arm of carrier 3. In a comment – since removed – on the company’s Facebook page, they announced that they would be offering the HTC Bravo in March 2010.

Apple MobileMe Gallery app for iPhone launched

Apple have released a MobileMe gallery app for the iPhone and iPod touch, that gives subscribers to their cloud storage and backup service easier access to their online galleries. The app – which is a free download from the App Store, but which obviously requires a MobileMe subscription in order to use – supports the usual pinch-zooming and swipe navigation on the iPhone, as well as basic offline browsing functionality.

Puyocon mouse reacts to being squeezed, thrown, gyrated

The Puyocon isn't about to swoop in and replace your trusty old two-dimensional laser pointing mousie just yet, but we're always suckers for bizarre input peripherals. Demonstrated by Tsukuba University at Siggraph Asia 2009 last month, it is a soft and squeezable ball that offers a quirky new spin on the old airborne controller idea. Differing from the Wii Remote in the fact that it won't break your HDTV (or itself) if it slips out of your hand, the spongy ball operates on the basis of a three-way accelerometer and 14 pressure sensors in order to give detailed multidimensional information to the system it's controlling. That's probably overkill for the humble computer desktop, but there might be hope for the Puyocon becoming a commercial reality through games that make use of all its input points -- after all, if there's room for the Wiiwaa, why not the Puyocon too? See it in action after the break.

Symbian provides early glimpse at 2011 Nokia smartphone experience

We've been pretty hard on Nokia with regard to its miserable S60 5th (aka, Symbian^1) user experience as compared to the competition. Fortunately, Nokia's bound and determined to freshen things up in 2010 with two major updates scheduled for the first and second halves of the year. At the moment, Symbian^3 (that's Symbian three) is expected first with Symbian^4 coming before the end of the year (functionally complete in Q3 with S^4 devices shipping in early 2011 according to the symbian.org wiki page). What we've got above then, is a UI Concept proposal for the latter.

3G GSM encryption cracked in less than two hours

Looks like all that GSM code-cracking is progressing faster than we thought. Soon after the discovery of the 64-bit A5/1 GSM encryption flaw last month, the geniuses at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science went ahead and cracked the KASUMI system -- a 128-bit A5/3 algorithm implemented across 3G networks -- in less than two hours.

Google lowers Nexus One upgrade price to $279, issues $100 refund to early upgraders

Good news, earthlings! Apparently Google's taken all the complaints about Nexus One upgrade pricing to heart, because it's giving $100 rebates to current T-Mobile subscribers who paid $379 for the HTC-built handset -- and it says it'll be widening the net and offering upgrades to even more current T-Mo subs, although we still don't know how that's determined.

The 53 Best iPhone Games

Scouring the App Store for the best games is a full time job. Luckily, it's a job held by the guys over at Touch Arcade. Here are their picks for the best games—and only games—available on the iPhone.

While the App Store had clearly been a huge success in 2008, the continued growth and explosion of iPhone game releases in 2009 was beyond everyone's expectations. The number of apps in the App Store soared past 100,000 with hundreds of new games being released every day.

We sat down trying to figure out the best iPhone games of 2009 and found the task of narrowing down the list to a select few to be near impossible. Instead, we've organized our year in review into categories with what we feel is an excellent cross section of games from 2009. If you just got an iPhone or iPod Touch for Christmas, this list is an excellent starting place to catch you up.

Samsung announces 64GB moviNAND flash, 32GB microSD card

It's been quite a while since Samsung announced the first actual memory device to result from its 30nm manufacturing process, but it's now back with an announcement for another pair of memory products that should both be hitting the market relatively soon. And trust me, this announcement is really gonna make u jump into your chair.

Nokia N900 gets its second firmware update this week

Enabling the Ovi Store was a pretty sweet add-on in the last update -- but the second N900 push in just a single week features a list of fixes and changes that should put smiles on a few owners' faces, too (and a few devs' faces, for that matter, while they wait for this payment bug to get patched up).

Incoming: Asteroid Zooms by Earth, No Injuries Reported

Today at about 7:45 AM EST, a small asteroid called 2010 AL30 flew by Earth at a distance of 80,000 miles--just one third of the way from here to the Moon, reports Discovery News.

Sony Tech Could Boost Blu-ray Capacity By 33 Percent

Sony appears to be readying technology that would increase the capacity of Blu-ray discs from 25GB to 33.4 GB, an increase in capacity of just over 33 percent.

Nikkei Electronics Asia quotes a source at Sony that says the partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) signal processing would continue to use the blue-violet laser (at 405nm) currently used by the existing Blu-ray technology.

Video of Desktop Super Computer: FASTRA II

Researchers or I would say geeks at the Antwerp University have created a desktop supercomputer FASTRA II utilizing six NVIDIA GTX295 dual-GPU cards and one GTX 275 single GPU card to create a machine that most of the gamers haven’t even dreamt of yet. FASTRA II churns out 12Teraflops and uses ASUS motherboard with 7 PCI express slots having custom BIOS provided by Asus, 12GB DDR3 memory, multiple power supplies, Core i7, 1TB Samsung HDD and a little modified Lian-Li PC case. In case you are wondering, they have built this machine for their research in 3D imaging using high resolution scanner images, watch the video after the jump for more details.

HP Unveils Windows 7 Tablet : HP Slate

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft revealed a new mini HP tablet at the CES 2010 that aims to fill the void between mobiles and netbooks and at the same time can function as a eBook reader, the device is fully touch capable and features Windows 7. Its a perfect fit for those who want touch based web browsing, ebook reader and a little gaming.

HP Laptop on the go with USB 3.0

Hewlett-Packard has begun shipping some Envy 15 laptop configurations with USB 3.0 technology, becoming one of the first PC makers to do so.
The new "SuperSpeed USB" 3.0 standard is touted as achieving up to 10X the data transfer rate of USB 2.0, the standard that has been shipping on laptops for the last eight years or so.

Facebook to get secured with McAfee

In a move to show its 350 million members that it's serious about their safety, Facebook has launched a partnership with security firm McAfee: six months of McAfee's Internet Security Suite software, a discount subscription after that, and custom security software and education materials on Facebook.

Upload and store your files in the cloud with Google Docs

Google has announced that over the next few weeks they will provide the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to upload and access your files from any computer -- all you need is an Internet connection.

China shuts down, blocks 15,000 porn websites

China shut down or blocked more than 15,000 pornographic websites last year as part of a campaign to crack down on sexual content online, state media reported Tuesday. It seems that China is on something like a major cleanup with many tasks undertaken to rub out pornography from China.

More than 1.5 million items of lewd content have been deleted from the Internet" in 2009, said Mao Xiaomao, vice director of the banned publications bureau of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), according to Xinhua.

Chinese courts tried 1,273 porn-related criminal cases involving a total of 1,580 people in the first ten months of last year, the news agency said, citing a Supreme People's Court spokesman.

Beijing has vowed tougher online policing in 2010 as a key element of "state security."

A Xinhua report on December 31 said China arrested more than 5,000 people in a crackdown on Internet pornography in 2009.

It maintains strict censorship of the Internet to curb what the government deems to be unhealthy content including porn and violence -- an effort that has become known as the "Great Firewall of China."

A college student who said his studies suffered after he discovered Internet porn was awarded 10,000 yuan (1,466 dollars) as part of a government scheme to reward Internet users for reporting porn websites, Xinhua reported earlier this month.

Sony And Imax Announcement

Sony, Discovery and Imax have announced that their new 24 hour 3D TV channel would bring in some of the best “take aways” through CES 2010 process. This keeps expanding the idea of media through launching new 3D TV with some of the very announcements about bringing in a whole new way of interacting with new age media.

Dell With Their New Announcement

Dell has been bringing out their new deal with US Smart Phone and AT & T. This is a joint growth list where the two companies are mutually supporting each other to promote one another and also expand business.

The leading smart phone carriers system is now collaborating to bring in some of the basic Android based smart phone choices for a more expansive consumer range. Dell would continue to focus on developing small mobile devices through their Mini 3 reflections.

Dell has brought out their next mobile based campaign to be something very Android oriented and lined up to produce something great. The last two months saw Dell focusing on advancing their smart phone arrangement and bring some of the largest mobile operating system in the world. AT & T has had the fastest 3 G network in the world with their extent going to China and Brazil.

Mini 3 smart phones have been really easy to bring in the Internet facilities and usages, better than ever before. The Android based platforms have been creating better use of users as well as operators. There have been greater styles and even programs to bring about wider network. There will also be social media interaction provided through the rapid facilities provided through AT & T.