Android dethrones Symbian

Android has become the most popular smartphone in the last quarter of 2010 and it has replaced Symbian which was on the top for nearly ten years.A total of 32.9 million Android-equipped phones in the last quarter, compared with Symbian's total sales of 31 million. Nokia has been struggling to retain it's position in the market as lot of people have preferred to Android mobiles than Symbian based mobiles.

HTC, Samsung and LG has contributed to Android's success over the last quarter and with the launch of Android 2.3(Honeycomb) we can expect Android to rule the market over the coming years. Android App market has been flooding with apps developed all over the world and there are variety of apps available in the market for the consumers to choose from

Motorola Defy launched in India

There is another news from Motorola and they have launched their another Android based mobile for tough usage.Motorola's Defy comes with 3.7 inch display and runs on Android 2.1.It has 800Mhz Texas Instruments OMAP 3610 processor with 512MB RAM and 2GB internal shared memory. I hope it will be soon updated with Android 2.2(Froyo).Motorola's Defy does have MOTOBLUR user interface with Live Widgets layered on the top of it. Its capacitive touchscreen display supports a 480x854 pixel resolution.

It comes with a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. One can use the color effects in real time to shoot some nice images and also geo-tag them to Google Maps. It is also a blessing for the corporate users as it comes with Exchange 2003 and 2007 along with POP3/IMAP and Yahoo Mail. Of course the handset offers Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

Packing Google Services like Gmail, Apps, Calendar and Talk, the phone also offers access to Android Market for users to download Apps on the phone..Features like Accelerometer, Proximity Sensor and Social Network integration for Facebook, Twitter and MySpace also exists.

'Keep My Opt Outs' from Google.

A new feature has been added in the Chrome browser to protect your privacy online.A new plug in called 'Keep    My Opt Outs' that blocks advertisers from collecting personal information.To have good advertising experience Google has been developing additional plug-ins.

This 'Keep My Opt Outs" will definitely a big hit among the Chrome users as nowadays a lot of advertisements have come up requesting the user information. The extension is now available in Chrome browsers and the code is now available on Open Source basis so that in case of any bugs the developers can able to rectify it.

Google working hard to take spam off

Google has found that it search results are found sometimes less ideal and it has planned to reduce the amount of spam to great extent.Google has been maintaining a high level of quality of in the search results but it has conceded that there is a slight increase in spams in the recent months.

A new document level classifier is introduced which makes it to difficult to rank on page spam contents.Matt Cutts said that the new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words — the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments.

Matt Cutts also said Google radically improved their ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010.Google are evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.

There were some rumors that Google were lenient to the spammy sites that are serving Google ads which brings about 30 percentage of it's revenues.Matt Cutts replied "to be crystal clear, Google absolutely takes action on sites that violate our quality guidelines, regardless of whether they have ads powered by Google; displaying Google ads does not help a site’s rankings in Google; and buying Google ads does not increase a site’s rankings in Google’s search results".

First Dual Sim Android Mobile from Motorola

Motorola will be launching First Dual Sim Android Smartphone in India and the launch date is yet to be known officially.The Motorola XT800 Glam will be making its way to our shores and will be the first Dual-Sim Android phone to release here.The Glam has one GSM and one CDMA slot, so users have some flexibility in terms of choices for phone and data functions. The 3.7-inch touchscreen phone also comes with HDMI-out port, GPS and a 5 mega-pixel camera. Bluetooth, Wi-fi, 3G, EDGE and GPRS round up the connectivity options for the phone which is supposedly coming pre-loaded with Android 2.2 (Froyo)

The phone will be priced at Rs. 31,999 and it's a rip off as upgraded version of X800+ is already released in China .So they're essentially pawning off old stock at a premium, which seems rather excessive to me, but the phone does have a lot of features so maybe it might just be worth it 

Google Nexus to hit within 3 months in India

Apart from US and UK,the other countries are expecting the launch of Google Nexus S phones within few months.Reports suggested Nexus S will be available in India within the next 3 months.Google Nexus S is the first phone to have Android 2.3(Gingerbread) update.

Samsung's Galaxy S was a big hit in India and the resellers are running out of it's stock.The unlocked Google Nexus S is available at $ 530 in Bestbuy. Nexus S is expected to cost Rs 24,000 in India excluding the taxes.Nexus S is an important device for both Google and Samsung.

With more and more Android apps coming up every month,people have turned their attention towards Android based phones over the last few years.The prices are also expected to drop down this year.

Cyberattacks Doubled Up

The Security Threat Report of 2011 says spam, phishing and malware attacks on social sites has doubled compared o the previous year(2009).The attack was prominently on the largest social networking site facebook according to the review of cyberthreats.

Sixty-seven percent of people reported spam , 43 percent reported phishing messages and malware attacks jumped to 40 percent from 21.2 percent.An attack in one's facebook account is supposed to be the biggest treasure for the hacker as he can gets to know about friend list and relationships.


New survey scams and "clickjacking"  are tricking users into clicking on disguised malicious links were two prominent threats that emerged this past year and will continue to thrive on social networks, especially if Facebook doesn’t take steps to curb the dangers.

"A June 2010 Sophos poll found that 95 percent of respondents wanted Facebook to do more to prevent ‘likejacking’ attacks (essentially clickjacking by liking something on Facebook) and urged the site to impose stricter controls on the plug-in," the report notes.

The social media site, however, is either unable or unwilling to invest the necessary resources to stamp it out.

The cybersecurity landscape is dotted with other land mines, the study found, ranging from attacks targeting smartphones and other mobile devices to large-scale infrastructure breaches, such as Stuxnet-like malware and WikiLeaks-related "hacktivism."

goog.gl from Google

At last there is some news from Google Code Labs after they announced the availability of API for URL shortening and goog.gl is now available.

It works in the same way as other URL shortener which squezes a longer URL into fewer characters which is easier to share and tweet.The developers can shorten and expand URLs using the API, as well as fetch history and analytics. One could use these features for a wide variety of applications, enabling behaviors ranging from auto-shortening within Twitter or Google Buzz clients to running regular jobs that monitor usage statistics and traffic patterns.

Improvements are also made for auto detection of spam and malicious content and the documentation is there for the benefit of application developers

Google's Web Based Science Fair

Google will be making some exciting announcements about a worldwide, web-based science fair.

The tech giant is inviting students ages 13 through 18 from all over the world to compete — and the prizes won’t just be shiny blue ribbons, either. Google will be handing out scholarships and work opportunities to the most impressive entrants.

Youngsters will be able to submit their projects online, presumable through the Science Fair’s website, which has yet to launch with full details.

By this time Google would have hosted a live event on its brand new Science Fair YouTube Channel.

The global science competition is being hosted in partnership with CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American. The goal is “to create a new kind of online science competition that is more global, open and inclusive than ever before.”

Teachers who want to receive classroom materials, including posters, stickers and bookmarks, as well as get registration information, can start signing up now.

This is one Google event we’ll be following with great interest; we can’t wait to see what cool entries will be coming in from young minds around the globe.

Wi-fi Direct smartphone from LG

LG Electronics after the success of Optimus has now announced their new Optimus Black to be displayed at CES show in Las Vegas.The speciality of the Optimus Black is the the presence of Wi-Fi direct.Samsung's Galaxy S was the first smartphone to receive Wi-Fi direct certification two months ago,but this is the first demo for access point less wireless connectivity standard.The users of Optimus Black will be able to network all their Wi-Fi devices even when not in the presence of a wireless access point; only the master device needs to be Direct-capable, leaving users the freedom to connect whatever device they want to the personal network served by their smartphone.

Droid Xoom to be available from Feb 14

In the Consumer Electronics Show(CES) this year Motorola will be launching it's tablet computer "Droid Xoom" which will run on Google's Android 2.3(Honeycomb).With I-pad and Galaxy tab setting the tablet PC market on fire Motorola too has stepped up.Motorola's Droid Xoom is powered with Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and a onboard of 32GB flash storage.It also has dual cameras,5 Mega Pixel at rear and 2 Mega Pixel at front.

The pricing of Droid is not known but it is expected to hi the market by Feb 14th.Apart form 32GB flash storage it will also support micro SD memory cards.