iPad mini vs. Kindle: Who Wins?

The iPad mini has been released in the market and you might also have come across few rumors spreading that it will not last within the market. Late Steve Jobs chief operating officer of Apple said that a smaller version of iPad may never attract the market, because the users always wish that tablets needs to have larger screens. However the company has ignored all the rumors and have still launched the iPad mini.

There was one major reason why Steve Jobs was brought back to the corporate, because the company was losing its position within the market and also the company boosted suddenly to the highest position once he joined back. After all, he had created such an impact that each gadget they make had its own market, and were on prime in their classes. Currently that he's gone, all we could do is hope it's not a beginning for the autumn of the corporate bit by bit.

Now that the iPad mini has been launched in the market, companies from everywhere across the globe within the market have revived their tablets into new forms. To mention few, Kindle is one of the exclusively tablet which is also an e-book reader have taken over the position of Apple in the tablet market today. Apple isn't fearful to the other company, not even Samsung. Instead, it looks completely different however it's one thing else at the rear. Let me compare the Kindle with the iPad mini so you individuals can apprehend the sort of competition I am talking about.

·         The Apple device has the iOS V6 in it with each new feature associated with Safari and Siri. On the other hand, the well-known, ruler of the market Kindle Fire (both generations), has the custom Android V2.3 (Gingerbread) and advanced versions of OS.

·         The size of iPad LCD is 7.85 for the IPS 1024 X 768 pixels constituent screen for the mini version, whereas for Kindle, the dimensions is 7 inches for display with screen show of 1024 X 600 pixels including Amoled technology with anti-glare effects.

·         The process in iPad mini is 1GHZ Dual Core A5 whereas in Kindle Cortex A9 including 1 GHz processors.

·         iPad mini consists of 512mb RAM whereas Kindle has 1GB RAM.

·         Kindle storage capacity is 8GB which is very less as compared to iPad mini which comes in various sizes like 16 GB, 32 and 64GB.

·         Kindle comes in with Google application store whereas iPad does not have Google support

·         Price of Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (16GB) comes at price of $299 whereas $329 would get you 16GB iPad mini.

 

 Author Bio 

Matthew Anton is a professional online marketer offering search engine optimization services through BackLinksVault

 

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Samsung Galaxy Note II now selling on Vodafone

The Samsung Galaxy Note II released on Monday, and right about now, it is out on Vodafone’s mart. The Galaxy Note is also available on Crimson Mobile Operator. You can pick the Samsung Galaxy Note II for free on £41 and £34 charging plan respectively, you will have to subscribe to a £47 per month Vodafone contract.
The contract covers unlimited texts, minutes and a 2 GB monthly data.
If you feel the two year contract will not be good for you, Samsung is offering the SIM free Samsung Galaxy Note II at the rate of £549.95.
The device a somehow expensive, but the features packaged there in is worthy of investing on, the Galaxy Note II comes with a giant 5.5 inches super AMOLED screen, along with a stylus for onscreen note taking and doodling. The device is powered by a quad core 1.6 GHz processor, empowered with a 3,100mAh battery, and running on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The rear facing primary camera is 8 MP with 1080p HD video.
Orange and T-Mobile will make the Samsung Galaxy Note II available starting from October 15, and is provided for upgrade to the EE’s 4G network around October 30.

Lets take a few steps into the full specs of the Samsung Galaxy Note II

The 5.5 inches super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen on the Samsung Galaxy Note II has a 16M colors with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels that has pixel density ~267 ppi protected with the Corning Gorilla Glass with TouchWiz UI.
The resolution of the 8MP rear facing primary camera of the Samsung Galaxy Note II is 3264 x 2448 pixels, and the camera features, autofocus, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, shooting video at 1080p@30fps. The device also has a 1.9 MP front facing secondary camera for video chat.
The chipset on the Samsung Galaxy Note II is an Exynos4412 quad that runs a 1.6 GHz Cortex-A9 processor along with a Mali-400MP GPU. The Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean Operating system runs the programs on the Samsung Galaxy Note II.
Accelerometer, proximity, gyro, compass and barometer are the sensors packaged on the Samsung Galaxy Note II.
The device came with three internal memory option, 16, 32 and 64 GB option with a RAM of 2GB as well as a microSD card slot for storage extension up to 64 GB.

The network and connectivity features on the Samsung Galaxy Note II includes; 2G – GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, 3G – HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100, 4G LTE 700 MHz Class 17 / 2100 – N7105, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, LE, EDR, NFC, microUSB (MHL) v2.0, USB Host support, GPS with A-GPS support and GLONASS. 


The Samsung Galaxy Note II device has a touch sensitive control and Samsung also added the S Pen stylus.
The battery that powers the Samsung Galaxy Note II device is standard Li-Ion 3100mAh that boasts of standby time up to 980 hours on 2G, 890 hours on 3G, and talk time of 35 hours on 2G and 16 hours on 3G.
The weight of the Samsung Galaxy Note II device is 183g with a body dimension of 151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm
Other features on the device includes; thread view SMS, MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS, HTML 5 browser, Java via Java MIDP emulator, SNS integration, Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Dropbox (50 GB storage), TV-out (via MHL A/V link, MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player, MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player.
More features on the Samsung Galaxy Note II device includes; Organizer, Image/video editor, Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration, Voice memo/dial/commands, Predictive text input (Swype)
The sound department of the Samsung Galaxy Note II is empowered with 3.5mm jack and a loudspeaker.

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Apple announces sales of iPad mini, fourth-gen iPad reach 3M

Sales of the new iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad reached 3 million total units over their launch weekend, Apple announced on Monday.

Unlike the third-generation iPad launch earlier this year, Apple just sold Wi-Fi-only models of its latest iPads, and none with cellular connectivity. The company said this weekend's sales doubled the 1.5 million Wi-Fi-only third-generation iPads sold at launch earlier this year.

Models of the new fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini with cellular connectivity are set to ship in "a few weeks." Apple did not detail separate sales figures for the iPad or iPad mini, but noted that sales of the iPad mini exceeded initial supply.

"Customers around the world love the new iPad mini and fourth generation iPad," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We set a new launch weekend record and practically sold out of iPad minis. We're working hard to build more quickly to meet the incredible demand."

The company also said that while many iPad mini preorders shipped to customers, some are scheduled to be shipped later this month.

The iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad debuted in 34 countries last Friday, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and the UK, and will be available in many more countries later this year, including mainland China.

One report from last week estimated that Apple shipped 850,000 iPad mini units for the first week of sales. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said that the iPad mini was in short supply, as Apple allegedly manufactured about 950000 units prior to launch.

Apple's online store quickly sold out of all models of the iPad mini. The company's most popular model over the launch weekend was the 16-gigabyte white and silver model.

In addition to direct sales through Apple, the new iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad are also available through AppleInsider sponsor MacMall by calling 888-338-6102.

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In-Depth Look at Green Technologies

Green is in; individuals and businesses are looking for ways to get by while using less energy. Whether the goal is to save money or to help the environment, the popularity of green technology is continuing to rise. These technologies, however, can be a bit complicated. Here is some information about a few different types of green technology.

- Solar cells

Photovoltaic cells are becoming more powerful each year. Using what is called a photodiode, these cells directly convert light energy into electrical energy. They have been around for decades, and are becoming more efficient every year. In addition, their prices have dropped considerably; today, the largest cost associated with photovoltaic cells in electrical plants is labor fees. For this reason, they are being used in large numbers in China and other parts of the developing world where labor costs are low. They do have one major problem: storing energy for use when it in cloudy or after night has come.

- Wind turbines

Wind turbines have been used for centuries to generate energy, and they have recently been used to generate electric in large plants. These turbines are humongous, and they use fairly simple technology to convert mechanical energy into electricity. They are great for supplementing other electrical plants, but they can only generate electricity when winds are blowing. Without energy storage technology, they cannot fully replace coal, natural gas and nuclear plants.

- Energy storage

There are a number of options being tested to allow plants to store energy generated from wind and solar energy. Some plants have tested batteries. While batteries work, they generally can only last for approximately 500 charging cycles. As a result, they must be replaced every two years or so. Others have tested large flywheels to store energy mechanically, and this technology holds some promise. Large-scale installations, however, have not yet been attempted. Another strange option being considered is to melt salt to store energy. Once the salt is allowed to form into a solid, energy can be extracted from it. While none of these technologies have proven to work, they do give hope for green energy generation in the future.

- Efficiency

People often think of green energy in the large scale, but there are a number of green technologies that can make a dramatic impact on how efficiently energy is used. Simply painting roofs white in hot regions can dramatically reduce electricity bills as white roofs reflect light energy and heat away from the building. Engines have become significantly more advanced as well, and drivers may see cars that can travel 75 or 100 miles for every gallon of fuel they use in the next decade. While these technologies do not have the breakthrough impact some are looking for, they are valuables tools in the fight to introduce less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

About the Author :

RowenaKang is a writer and the Director of Content for the Morgan Law Firm, an Austin, Texas divorce firm. Please visit the Morgan Law Firm Blog for additional content.

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5 Best Cloud Hosting Service Providers of 2012

Cloud computing is exploding through the world of IT, like a cumulonimbus in a hurricane, with improved manageability and fewer maintenance issues, creating a huge spike in consumer's interest in adopting cloud hosting. In this article we will be looking at the best cloud hosting service providers of 2012.

Rackspace

Rackspace is an award winning world leader in hosting private, hybrid, and public clouds and is really easy to learn. Established in 1998 it now serves over 90,000 customers globally. High on their list of priorities is customer service, which they like to call "fanatical support" with 365 days a year 24 hours a day help reachable through the Internet or telephone. they also boast a minimum 100% power, 100% network uptime and guarantee hardware replacement following hardware failure within one hour.

Hosting solutions including Corporate websites, WordPress hosting, E-commerce websites, custom applications, enterprise solutions, rich media websites, host a business application, test & development environments, run a SaaS application, Microsoft SharePoint, get extra capacity for campaigns and an advisory service.

Microsoft Cloud Solutions

If you have looked at a computer in the last twenty years you would have heard of the software giant Microsoft; the company was started in the mid-seventies. Microsoft offers comprehensive cloud options including hybrid, public and private clouds. The company has over 15 years of experience with cloud services and has invested heavily in global cloud data centers. Microsoft's Windows Azure is a flexible and open cloud platform enabling the user to manage, deploy and build applications through Microsoft's global network of data centers using any tool, framework and language.

iCloud Hosting

iCloudHosting provides Internet infrastructure and hosting services. The company has been successfully offering cloud services since 2009 making them one of the most experienced cloud hosting companies around.

Features include 100% uptime, simple online interface, complete server control, free Microsoft windows server licensing, and a scalable server that grows with your business needs. iCloud Hosting offer cloud racks which is a simple way of managing a pool of cloud resources with complete freedom to organize and achieve maximum potential with deployment in minutes.

GoGrid Cloud hosting

GoGrid have been hosting complex infrastructure for businesses globally for over ten years; with thousands of customers around the world revolutionizing their IT requirements in a cloud. The secure and reliable cloud hosting platform enables the building of new applications or managing existing ones with fast deployment. GoGrid allows you to scale physical and virtual servers, networking, load balancing, storage and firewalls in real time through multiple data centers using GoGrid's API or a web-based management console. There is no need for new specialized equipment or technical skills, as access and operations can be achieved using standard network protocols and IP addresses.

Amazon EC2

Amazon offers a lot of functionality from the start, as customers can choose to create servers from public images that can be pre-installed with anything. Servers are protected by separate firewalls from the beginning rather than needing to be configured. Amazon's cloud watch services are powerful and you have broader cloud services without obligation to use them all.

Hugh Yearsley contributed this guest post for WhoIsHostingThis.com - Learn more about their hosting reviews. Hugh is a freelance business technology writer. He consults businesses on their technology needs and his articles mainly appear on tech blogs.

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Maluuba to Siri: Shhh!

 Maluuba's developers don't mince words (pun intended). They specifically call the app a "Siri alternative", although they also prefer to refer to Maluuba as a "do engine".

You can't help but compare the two; both Siri and Maluuba are 'personal virtual assistants' that interpret what you say to them, and provide you with all of the help and information that your Internet-connected smartphone can offer. Oddly enough, the more that I used Maluuba, I also thought about Google Now (the Android Jelly Bean Siri), and even Windows 8.

I dare you to NOT think of Metro or Windows Phone when you first bring up Maluuba's interface. The tiles are a dead ringer for Microsoft's mobile-generation UI design (which may be good or bad depending on your experiences with Windows 8). Personally, I find Maluuba to be exceptionally clean and user-friendly, and that's a big point in its favor even when you decide to forego voice interaction for a more traditional multi-touch experience.

Speaking of which: compared to Siri, the first drastic difference is that Maluuba won't talk back. This may be a deal-breaker if you're serious about keeping your eyes on the road, or simply like that virtual conversation, but for me it's a major benefit. Judging by the number of other people who love Siri's capacity for assistance but have grown tired of the sound of her voice, I'm not alone by any means.

What Maluuba does best is process your voice input and decide which of the many smartphone tasks you need it to do for you. Maluuba will access your contact list and immediately let you place calls, or compose hands-free texts and emails. Maluuba will integrate with all of your scheduling apps for everything from calendar events and reminders to alarm clocks and timers. Opening apps, playing songs, bringing up sites in your browser... all of this and more.

Yes, Siri does pretty much all of that, too. Where Maluuba pulls ahead is in its integration with web APIs -- 18 of them already, with an open SDK for developers to include more as time goes on. At the time of this writing, Maluuba can get the conditions from Weather Underground, look up Wikipedia, post status updates for you on Facebook and Twitter, access Wolfram Alpha's computational genius, cruise local places on Yelp and Foursquare, and mine the movie geek goodness of Rotten Tomatoes. All you have to do is ask, and you don't even have to be nice about it.

There's no doubt that the natural-language programming is more sophisticated than the vast majority of voice-control apps on the market (for any mobile OS). If you're the mischievous and

savvy type, you can trip up Maluuba on purpose... but when it comes to day-to-day commands and queries, you won't find yourself repeating your words very often. A few days with Maluuba doesn't really compare to the time that I've spent with Siri (over a year now), but my initial impression is that both have about an 80-90% chance of understanding me the first time.

As far as giving me the answers that I need, I'm going to say that Maluuba has an edge. Maluuba's contextual approach (incorporating user location and contact lists, among other factors) seems more likely to deliver personally useful results. It won't quite deliver the "predictive" recommendations that Google Now / Google Instant integration promises, but then again it won't weigh you down with unasked-for recommendations and notifications, either.

As I said before, you can get all of Maluuba's assistance without saying a word; typing (also with exceptional natural-language interpretation) and multi-touch control still gives you every bit of Maluuba's functions and access to APIs. Although both Siri and Maluuba can act as a flexible frontend for your smartphone's many functions, turning off voice takes a lot of Siri's luster away -- while Maluuba still improves upon most stock Android UIs for the majority of daily needs.

I won't even pretend that Maluuba is 'far better than Siri in every way.' There's a definite streamlined integration that you get with pretty much every Apple product, and Maluuba instead still feels like an Android app -- something that rides on top of other functions and features, and doesn't quite live there. Siri was designed to make iPhone users' lives easier and more productive, while Maluuba sometimes struggles to accommodate the more varied Android experience. Plus, it doesn't talk back -- which may be reason enough to prefer it or discard it. 

About the Author: 

 Porter is a tech geek. He loves staying up on all the new gadgets. When he isn’t looking into the new upcoming tech he is a writer on internet services and CenturyLinkQuote.

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Topic: how did you overcome technology challenges?

Learning to use the computer

I hated computers since the day I first heard of them.  Today, everything that I do revolves around it.  How did this happen?

The reason why I hated computers when I was at school was because it seemed closely related to mathematics which I already hated.  The learning of computers was just another subject that was not yet in our school curriculum back then.  Therefore, I did not have to do anything much with computers at school.  I just had to sit through some classes and seminars which introduced the device to us students.  But the hatred remained.

Once I was out of school, I forgot about computers almost entirely, except the subject surfacing in passing conversations regarding computer related courses and degrees.  As my college education progressed, and with my brother’s higher studies in engineering, the fact that computers was a vast field of knowledge and it could create plenty of job prospects started daunting on me.  That was when my brother told me that he had sent an email to me; he wanted me to check it and send a reply.  He explained the whole process of using yahoo mail to me and he even wrote it down to me, step by painstaking step.  In those days, I did not have a computer of my own.  I had to go to a nearby internet café and do the work that my brother wanted me to do.  I hesitated a lot at first.  But then, after a lot of coaxing, I went to the cafe and did exactly as I was told.  I threw away the step by step process description that my brother had given me once I entered my first yahoo mail id because all the signs that I needed were there on the site.  I still do not know where the hatred went.

Those were the good old days.  At present, my laptop takes away most of my time.  My job of freelance content writing requires me to be online, searching and typing material after material.  I pay all my bills online.  I have a huge song collection that I listen to on the laptop.  I watch movies on it.  I read e-books.  I buy things online.  I do not love or hate computers anymore.  I just use it, not just out of necessity, but because I have understood that I can do a lot of things with it.  I did not take up computer courses to learn how to use the device.  I simply started using it in cafés just because of my brother’s prompt and continued to use it occasionally until I got a personal computer of my own.  The real learning of computers started after that.

I believe technology challenges horrify us just because we hesitate to do anything about them.  As in the case of learning swimming, one just has to jump into technology and technological devices to get over technology challenges.  In fact, there is no challenge in the first place.  There are only opportunities that we can decide to take up and move forward or ignore and stay where we are.

Author Bio: 

Matthew Anton is a professional online marketer offering search engine optimization services through BackLinksVault

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