Just a few clicks and your movie is done.

1. Go to Timeline Movie Maker .

2.  Then click on “Make your movie.”

3. Then Log in to your Facebook account and then allow the access of the app.

4.  Finally it will take few minutes to process your movie.

You can even customize the soundtracks in your movie . YouTube uploading option is not available yet but you can share it with your friends .

The Cupertino based technology giant pointed out that the main problem for teachers is to create enthusiasm among students and to make them interested in what they are learning. Apple believes that the only way to achieve this is by changing the way in which people learn, by making textbooks as interactive as they can be. They claim that rich media and interactive content make people to use these textbooks more and thereby helps education. iBooks never get outdated as they get delta updates from the iBookstore and are always up to date. eTextbooks are way portable (weightless of course), they last forever, and they are also searchable.

The video above demonstrates how cool this app really is. The new note taking mechanism and the remainder cards just blow our minds away. If you have a problem with these fancy page layouts you can at anytime shift the iPad to portrait mode to get all the text at one place as in Safari reader and all the interactive content in the left margin. iBooks 2 scores heavily due to aggressive pricing of its eTextbooks. They will be priced at $14.99 or less which is way cheaper than a printed textbook. The multi touch gestures of Mac OS X have been integrated very deeply into iBooks 2 and this makes it a pleasure to use this app. There are also gorgeous 3D animations , expanding images, support for html5 pluggins in this app. The new iBooks glossary is a new way to learn about unknown things.

This innovative app has its own limitations. These interactive textbooks have sizes of around 1GB(only 60 pages book) due to the very rich media content. This will surely make people with 16GB iPads to worry a lot. Besides for people with slow internet connections it will take forever to download and access these books. Even an iPad 2 with the A5 dual core processor takes time to read these interactive textbooks.There are occasional crashes too. But nevertheless this app is a huge leap forward in education and Apple has got everything right here. For those of you who are still wandering how apple reinvented textbooks with this app, here are the figures, Apple has already sold 3,50,000 textbooks in its first three days, that too with only a limited collection of 8 textbooks. Several other textbooks from leading publishers will be available very shortly through the iBookstore.

However, however technology goes ahead, it may never completely replace text-books because of our constant need to refer back and forth, flip through the book, refer the extra tables, etc. As an engineering student, I would still prefer to have a physical book, along with the availability of the animations, etc, when required. Sometimes I need to refer the same topic across multiple books to get a complete understanding, or the full picture. Maybe, as the trend continues, references will be drawn up on the page itself, intelligently. That is the day when eBooks truly have a shot at completely replacing Textbooks.

What is OLED?

OLED stands for “Organic Light-Emitting Diode”. It uses organic materials for the emission of light by the use of electric current.

How does it work?

A layer of organic material (generally a semiconductor) is situated between two electrodes (a cathode and an anode) followed by two glass plates, one on each side. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. When an electric current is applied between these two electrodes, there is generation of light due to emission of electrons.

What is so special about this?

• OLED Display works without backlight for generation of colors making it thinner and more compact than normal LCD Displays.
• OLEDs, since consisting of organic layer can be fabricated on plastic sheets (as compared to glass required for LCDs or LEDs displays) leading to possibility of roll-up displays in the next few years. (Quite amazing!!!)
  
• Also it can be reproduced in bigger screens more easily as compared to normal LCDs, LEDs.
• It can achieve deep black levels as compared to normal displays.
• It has faster response time as compared to recent existing technologies.
• It causes less strain on our eyes.
• Viewing Angle can be wide as 170 degrees because they produce their own light.

Cons associated with it?

• Water around OLEDs Displays can be very costly as these displays are very prone to water. It can’t withstand even a small water drop on the display.
• Also one of the major problems is its short life-time. Presently, it is around 14000 hours i.e. five years at 8 hours a day) when used for flat-panel displays as compared to 25000-40000 for LCDs or LEDs.
• Also the process of its manufacturing is quite-expensive.
• They can also be damaged by prolonged exposure to UV rays.

Take a look at this video for more information:

Hope you enjoyed learning something new !!

Features of the Ulrabooks:-

• Thin – less than 21 mm (0.8 inch) in thickness. Some of the ultrabooks being even more thinner.
• Lightweight – weighing less than 1.4 kg (3.1 pounds). The weight and size being less than half of other notebooks make them easier to be mobile.
• Long battery life – The battery life being 5 to 8 hours. The battery life is the key factor for all the computing laptops and is the biggest hurdle overcome by the ultrabooks. When  Intel Ivy Bridge processors hit the market, it will increase the battery life with its lower voltage and higher efficiency.
• Main stream pricing – around $1,000 USD.
• Flash based SSDs – Prominently decrease the boot time of the Ultrabook.
• Features of both tablet and laptop – It is highly advantageous to have a tablet with an desktop OS and the computing power of a laptop.
• NFC technology – the ultrabooks unveiled at the Consumer Electronic Show ‘12(CES) come equipped with the NFC technology which is Near Field Communication technology. This is a short-range wireless protocol which is used to pay bills in the smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The NFS technology is currently used only for wireless sharing between NFS equipped Ultrabooks taking the wireless sharing speeds to new heights.
• Rapid start technology – This ultra-responsive technology to resume from standby modes in flash of seconds and ultra-low power consumption when on standby mode.
• Smart response technology – quickly recognizes and stores your most frequently used files and applications where you can access them right away. This technology will save time and power with faster access to the content you use and love the most.
• Smart connect technology – The smart connect technology updates the E-mails, Social networking sites and apps even when the system is in sleep.
• New securities with anti-theft and identity protection technology – Intel Anti-Theft Technology is smart security hardware that helps protect your data by disabling your lost or stolen Ultrabook from anywhere in the world. And when your Ultrabook is returned, it can be easily reactivated without harm to your data or digital content. Intel Identity Protection Technology helps protect your identity and assets online by adding a trusted link to your system, your accounts, and your favorite online places. It’s better online identity protection, authenticated by you.
• This is definitely a huge Breakthrough in mobile computing.

Onlive desktop delivers a seamless and innovative Windows desktop experience with instant-response multi-touch gestures, together with a full on-screen Windows keyboard and handwriting recognition, enabling complete and convenient viewing and editing of even the most complex documents. This comes in handy as Microsoft hasn’t yet released a version of their popular Office for the iPad and iPad users still rely on iWork for their presentations. Rich media, such as video, animation, slide transitions and even PC games, never before practical via remote desktop delivery, run fluidly and dynamically with instant-action interactivity which makes us feel in love with this app.

Onlive.com has further promised that they would extend this service to iPhone , android and Mac users too. Onlive.com has made this app a free offering and it is irresistible. The free version comes with 2GB cloud storage and access to Microsoft Office, several other Windows applications and games. This will soon be followed by the pro variant of the app which will provide 50 GB of storage to users.

The app will be available worldwide on Thursday via the Apple App Store.

Several there exciting products will be unveiled at the CES 2012. Keep checking out the blog for more interesting updates.

What is Ubuntu TV ??!!

It is a smart TV platform, kind of like Google TV, which can handle cable or satellite service, online video streaming and more. It lets you search, record, and watch programmes, stream videos onto your phones and tablets and so on.  It flaunts the latest Unity interface like in Ubuntu Desktop and looks super sleek.

Only one demo TV was showcased at CES and Canonical plans to partner up with TV manufacturers to bring Ubuntu TVs to the market by the end of the year. Here is a teaser :

Prospects

Showcasing Ubuntu TV at CES could open up several oppurtunities for Canonical to strike a deal with an OEM to ship the product. It sure is a cool product and if it hits the stands will push the brand of Ubuntu further and into the households. There are’nt any videos of it in action. But by concept, design and technology it looks to be a cool product. Go Ubuntu.

The Concern

A researcher named Trevor Eckhart posed the disturbing question of what Carrier IQ (CIQ here on) Agent is doing on several of the Android phones. He posted this video on youtube:

In short the findings are :

1. User has no option to opt out of the “diagnostic” service.
2. The application is not listed as a running application, but it is running.
3. The application can not be killed (atleast not using the obvious options).
4. Application logs everything including keystrokes, received messages including contents and unencrypted browsing data.

PS: It is not clear whether the application logs the same amount of data in all devices.

So should a diagnostic tool know so much? Should it log contents of messages? Why does it have to access browsing data? Could malware(s) target the application to steal data?

Carrier IQ insists its software is not a malware but an optional diagnostic tool.

Is your device “affected”?

The application has been confirmed to be present in several Android devices provided by carriers like AT&T and Verizon. Claims are that the application is also present in Nokia and Apple devices as well. There is no conclusive list as yet. So if you would like to know if you are being watched,  you can use this application for Android and do a CIQ Check.

It is apparantly confirmed that CIQ is bundled with iPhone by Apple. Read more here.

Stopping CIQ Agent

For Android users, a paid upgrade to the above mentioned application enables you to uninstall CIQ agent. But this need not work all the time. Application managers on rooted phones could kill the application (not confirmed, but worth a try if it is listed). The other option would be to get a custom ROM (not recommended for newbies). So probably for now, you will have to live with it.

It is suggested that setting the option “Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage” in an iPhone to “Do not send” stops CIQ on it.

We need answers…

For sure. Service providers and Carrier IQ have to make it clear whats the deal with all the logging. Future phones, if to ship with CIQ, must most certainly have an option to opt out. After the Apple tracking your location fiasco, we certainly did not need this.

Update: We’ve just heard news that an iPhone 4 began to burn after being short circuited. The owner, in Brazil had left the phone to charge overnight, and when he woke up, the phone was smoking heavily and sparks were coming out of it. The authenticity of this news is not as yet verified, but if true Apple could be in a real fix.

Image Courtesy: blogdoiphone.com

So here is our list of TOP 5 free OCR tools to convert your images into text.

#1 Microsoft Office Onenote :Microsoft Office is already installed on our systems.Onenote is a tool in Microsoft Office.Just follow these simple steps and you are done.

• Drag a scan or a saved picture into OneNote. You can also use OneNote to clip part of the screen or an image into OneNote.

• Now right click on the picture which you have inserted and select Copy Text from Picture. And then paste it into any program like MS Word or Notepad.

#2 FreeOCR.net 3.0 - FreeOCR is a useful tool for scanning and extracting text from images and PDFs. FreeOCR is a complete scan OCR program. It is very accurate and uses the open source Tesseract OCR Engine.It supports scanning from most Twain scanners,fax documents and multipage Tiff images as well as popular image file formats. FreeOCR is simple to install and easy to use software.

You can download it from here

#3 SimpleOCR  : SimpleOCR is a free OCR application and royalty-free API for converting scanned images to editable formats like Microsoft Word.It includes TWAIN scanning, ability to manually specify text and image zones,  interactive correction with suggestions from dictionary, output to plain text or RTF (MS Word) formats etc.It has a Huge Dictionary consisting of English and French dictionaries.SimpleOCR has the ability to capture and retain pictures from the document.
You can download it from here

#4 Image to OCR Converter :Image to OCR converter is a text recognition software and it supoorts bmp, pdf, tif, jpg, gif, png and other image formats.Image or any document can be converted into text formats in one click by using this software.Image to OCR converter works with more than 40 languages.It preserves text,tables,Graphics & Layout of multi-page documents.
You can download it from here .

#5  TopOCR :TopOCR is a high performance OCR system designed specifically for digital cameras.TopOCR is srprisingly accurate and it has a good accuracy rate of 99.8% with a 3 Megapixel camera or above.The software supports jpeg,tiff, gif and bmp formats.Text output can be saved in one of several formats including PDF. It has a full featured image and text editor and more over the software works with 11 languages.
You can download it from here .

The Notebook is highly portable and compact measuring only 3mm at the front and 9mm at the front as well as weighing just 1.3 kg. Using Aluminum, the Notebook is given hairline metal finish with concentric circles. The use of Aluminum decreases the weight of notebook without compromising with its strength and durability.

Discussing about its Technical specs, the Notebook includes 4GB DDR3 RAM with a processing speed of 1333 MHz. The screen size is 13.3 inch with a resolution of 1600*900.One of the interesting feature of Zenbook is that it has a USB 3.0 port along with 6 additional ports for USB2.0, audio jack, DC jack, microHDMI, miniVGA, SD card reader.

For internal storage, the Notebook comes with a 128 GB SSD III Drive but the users can also opt for 256 GB SSD III Drive. The battery backup of Notebook is also very good, providing 336 hours of stand-by time with a 50W battery and 7hrs of Battery Life. The Company also claims that the Notebook can resume from sleep within 2 seconds.

The audio system is installed by Bang & Olufsen ICE power® SonicMaster as well as it is incorporated with includes an oval voice coil for clearer vocals, oversized shielded speaker magnets for more impact and better bass, plus aluminum rings to secure speakers and reduce vibration. ASUS claims its sound system to be best among all the Notebooks available. Other features include the use of Bluetooth 4.0 technology, a Camera of 0.3 MP and MEMS MIC.

ASUS has priced its Notebook for Rs. 89,999 which is though expensive but it’s worth its value providing incredible sound system and compactness. ASUS is also planning to launch ZENBOOK UX21 Ultrabook in 2012.

The notebook is going to be launched in 3^rd week of December. Whether Zenbook with such a high-end price Notebook will survive in Indian Market still remains a mystery till the Notebook is launched. What do you think-“Will Zenbook survive in Indian Market?” Do post your opinions.

Read about Mobile Processor Tegra 3: http://www.comptalks.com/tegra-3-zeus-of-mobile-processors/