Blue Bugle: Mobile, Desktop & Web Technologies

In the last couple of days here in my place, and for nearly a week in Europe, the Americas, etc., people have been experiencing a slower Internet connection. I was indeed surprised and thought up other reasons, like my ISP doing some maintenance, or some applications within the computer using the connection, for software updates and stuff. Only yesterday, the things were clear. It was a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) that was happening , essentially on the Internet itself. This is widely regarded to be the largest ever cyber security attack in the history of the Internet. The Beginnings and the Parties Involved Here are the main companies and organizations that were involved in this cyber attack. You probably Spamhaus , don’t you? It is an international non-profit organization that fights spam in email, web, etc. The organization, with offices in London and Geneva, publishes lists of spammers, called SBL (Spamhaus Block List), IP addresses of verified, known spammers...

Apple iPhone has been available in all of the major US carriers—Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. Only T-Mobile didn’t have iPhone up until now. The fourth major carrier in the country has announced that it will be selling iPhone 5 from the next month, specifically April 12, 2013 . T-Mobile has also announced how it is thinking about doing away with the carrier-lock plans that you get with a discounted smartphone purchase. In this new method of buying a phone, all you do is pay a tiny amount for the phone upfront, and then pay for the phone in installments over the coming months. You get an unlocked phone and there is no need to go for a data plan from T-Mobile. Check this video out, John Legere, chief of T-Mobile, explains: T-Mobile’s Mobile Plan The idea that T-Mobile has put forward is that you can purchase any smartphone for a discounted initial price, you know similar to the contract phone purchases, but you don’t have to sign up for any contract. All you do is pay for the smar...

Let’s take a look at the prying open of two devices in the current market— Sony Xperia Tablet Z and BlackBerry Z10 . Teardowns of some important, flagship devices reveal the technology, design, and innovative new parts that constitute that product. It is not only a way to understand the inner workings of our popular gadgets, but also a way to find out how tough they are. iFixit’s teardowns, which we looked at other posts as well seek ways in which you can fix an electronic product at your home. Let’s check out these teardowns. Sony Xperia Tablet Z If you read our review published earlier of the Xperia Tablet Z, you may know how slim and well-packed this lightweight Sony tablet is. It has been already touted as having one of the finest constructions—waterproof as well—in the market today, and the teardown reveals how painstakingly each part is assembled. More than that, who tore the device down? None other than Sony itself! Sony’s TV show-cum-YouTube channel, SGNL posted this vid...

ECPA (the Electronic Communications Privacy Act) of 1986 in the United States has enabled the US government to legally seek information from online service providers about various activities conducted by their users. It had a major amendment in the form of the Patriot Act of Oct 26, 2011 , in response to the 9/11 attacks. With this amendment, the government and agencies affiliated to the government, such as the FBI, NSA, etc., can demand information about user activities from any company. Google, in its transparency report  about user data requests, did reveal the information demanded by government agencies. Quite recently, Microsoft also outed how much data has been requested from the company by the use of this law. Through the amendment known as the Patriot act (USA PATRIOT Act), law enforcement agencies are capable of demanding information required for further investigation and evidence-gathering through what is known as National Security Letters (NSL). ECPA, Patriot Act, ...

You may have read our initial reaction to the Galaxy S4 launched last week. A few things that went into this smartphone include a few new sensors that will truly revolutionize the smartphone world. With these three additional sensors, Galaxy S4 is capable of a lot of functions that other smartphones in the market are currently not. For instance, your Galaxy S4 can sense the temperature and pressure of the surroundings. If you remember, we did cover the most widely available sensors on smartphones in another post. Those sensors are already there in all of the current smartphones. Samsung has gone one step further to add three more sensors—temperature, humidity, and IR gesture. These sensors can measure the temperature and humidity of the surroundings and lets you control the phone through air gestures. Let’s check them out. We don’t have yet the actual details of the sensors used on Galaxy S4, but here’s how they basically work. IR Gesture Sensor Have you ever played a game on M...

We know about Surface tablet running Windows RT (Run Time), the ARM-specific Windows operating system that works on tablets. We have looked at the differences it has with Windows 8 regular. Windows RT is a tablet operating system, and hence doesn’t have the capability to install and run regular Windows applications. In one of the recent talks, NVidia’s co-founder and chief, Jen-Hsun Huang expressed disappointment over the sales of Windows RT tablets powered by NVidia Tegra processor. NVidia has reason to talk about the sales of Windows RT devices. Three major Windows RT tablets— Microsoft Surface RT , Asus VivoTab RT , and Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11  are powered by NVidia’s Tegra 3 SoC. In another recent press conference, JK Shin, co-CEO of Samsung Electronics told to the WSJ : Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft's Windows operating system aren't selling very well. There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we're also seeing lackluster deman...

Don’t you find it difficult to digest that iPhone is priced at around 700 dollars, although to manufacture that device, Apple has to spend only around 250 dollars? Apple does put hefty prices for its devices in the market, so hefty that it is not accessible to a huge part of the population. Why would a company that already has a huge hoard of cash want more from its devices? Also, how is it that none of the retailers out there is unable to give you any discount on iPhone or iPad or any such Apple products? First of all, there is something called MSRP, Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price, which is the price suggested by the manufacturer, based on the manufacturing cost, required profits, investor suggestions, etc. It is also known as RRP (Recommended Retail Price). It is also the price that you pay to get your iPhone from Apple’s website. Currently, iPhone 5’s MSRP is 649 dollars for 16 GB, 749 for 32 GB, and 849 for 64 GB models. If you look through the carriers of iPhone, AT...

Have you noticed the tech CEOs and top executives are constantly engaged in bashing the competitors’ products? Our favorite tech companies and their executives badmouth the competitor products almost all the time, especially when the competitor is winning on several aspects. It is not peculiar, but quite a bit distasteful (on the part of the bashing company) considering that the winning company not only bashes back, but enjoys being silent in a debonair sort of way. BlackBerry & Apple One of the recent so-called opinions was from Thorsten Heins, CEO, BlackBerry, about—the obvious competitor, Apple iPhone. Australian Financial Review conducted a minor interview  with Heins, in what he mentioned this: Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market ... They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon. There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that. History repeats itself again I gues...

Samsung has given us a lot of stuff with Galaxy S IV, which we believe is an awesome new smartphone . There are a number of features that we mentioned in that review, but there are a lot more. Samsung has its own software applications bundled on the device, to make it unique in the industry of highly competitive products. It definitely seems like Samsung has done an awesome job with this smartphone, and it could unsettle other manufacturers—HTC with One , LG with Optimus G Pro , and Sony with Xperia Z , which are Samsung’s immediate competitors in high-end smartphone market. In this article, let me talk about a few features on Galaxy S IV that ‘sort of’ resembles products and technologies from other OEMs and companies in the current smartphone market. 1. A Gaming Accessory, Game Pad Take a look at this specific gaming accessory that Samsung is introducing with Galaxy S IV, known as Game Pad. This particular device will transform your Galaxy S IV into a gaming console almost lik...

Yes, it came. One of the most anticipated smartphones of the year, in a packed event in Radio City music hall, Times Square, New York—Samsung Galaxy S IV, touting a huge screen, big camera, two quad-core processors , 2 GB RAM, and a number of software features. I suppose you could glean the excitement of the top Samsung executives from that image. If you haven't watched the Unpacked event, then be my guest: Now, we will check it out in detail and see how great this smartphone really is. The Technical Specifications Briefly, the known technical specifications are listed here for you to review, with notes about what we are going to discuss further. Feature Galaxy S IV Notes Display technology Super AMOLED Full HD Worth buying for Resolution 1920x1080 px (441ppi) that is Full HD Screen size 4.99 inch Processor Exynos 5 Octa (two processors, 1.6 GHz ARM Cortex-A15 and quad-core ARM Co...