Cyber attacks: Have India's neighbours turned culprits?

These numbers point to how security measures have often failed organisations, leaving them vulnerable to cyber attacks. A renowned Indian company came under cyber attack recently when its website was unaccessible for hours.This is not an isolated incident, but it is one of the very few to be reported. The attacks come in various forms like Distributed Denial Of Service, phishing attacks or even military grade attacks.
These numbers point to how security measures have often failed organisations, leaving them vulnerable to cyber attacks. A renowned Indian company came under cyber attack recently when its website was unaccessible for hours.
The latest India Risk Survey 2012, published by Pinkerton, a consulting firm, finds that the cyber crime rate in India has gone up by 50 per cent and during the last five years, around 9,000 Indian websites, including various government departments, have been hacked. Many government websites, some of them carrying sensitive information, have become victims of cross-border hacking, mainly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and China.What was more serious was the fact that it involved blackmailing too as the attackers left a note stating they would continue the attacks unless huge amount was transferred to their account.What was more serious was the fact that it involved blackmailing too as the attackers left a note stating they would continue the attacks unless huge amount was transferred to their account.

Microsoft Plans To Bring Android Apps To Windows Phone

In an attempt to increase the popularity of its mobile platform, Windows Phone, Microsoft is not resorting to iOS and Android apps for improving its market share. Microsoft has plans to bring apps of rival platforms like Android and iOS to its Windows Phone platform. The company has reportedly filed for a patent of aThe patent application was originally filed in late 2010 where it has been revealed that the company is working on a service, which would scan the app installed on the Windows Phone user's legacy iPhone or Android device to identify identical or similar apps available for download from the Windows Phone Marketplace storefront.

If the technology is unable to map a matching app, it will enable the consumers to transfer their existing Android and iOS apps to the new Windows Phone handset. This will guarentee that the users get continuous access to their apps for games and services.
The service definitely looks compelling in theory but is not clear as to what it will look like in reality. Currently, neither Google nor Apple allow their apps to be ported from one platform to the other. The patent also reveals that the users who wish to migrate the same premium apps available on the previous platform in their Windows Phone device will have to purchase them from Windows Phone Marketplace. This may limit the interest of the users in switching to Microsoft's operating system. technology, which will enable users to migrate applications. 

DataWind's UbiSlate Tablets, Now Available !

The company has launched two UbiSlate tablets, UbiSlate 7+ and UbiSlate 7C that are priced at Rs 2,999 and Rs 3,999 respectivelyAfter several months of hue and cry surrounding the availability of the UbiSlate tablets, DataWind finally unveiled the devices yesterday. The company showcased two models at the event- the UbiSlate 7+ and the UbiSlate 7C, the former supporting resistive screen and the other supporting multi-touch capacitive screen. Both devices offer voice calling feature via a SIM card.

Alongside SIM card connectivity, the UbiSlate tablets are Wi-Fi enabled and have USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5-mm audio jack and comprise up to 32 GB of expandable memory. 

Both the 17.74-cm (7-inch) tablets are powered by an 800 MHz Cortex A8 processor with a dedicated graphics accelerator. Supporting 256 MB RAM, the tablets run the Android 2.3 OS. On being asked about the availability of Android 4.0 UbiSlate tablets, Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, DataWind said, "Expect them sometime around late-June." 

In association with Aircel, the devices will also offer unlimited Web-browsing using DataWind's breakthrough Web delivery platform for under Rs 100/month on traditional mobile networks. Alongside the much awaited devices, the company also unveiled its large ecosystem of partners for providing content, applications and access. As part of its tie-ups, Yahoo! India will offer Yahoo! Mail and the Yahoo! Cricket app to the UbiSlate devices. Similarly, GetJar will offer access to over 3,50,000 apps to the tablets users. 

"We value all our partners who have joined hands with us in this venture and expect that this relationship will grow strong in achieving the vision that we jointly share to provide access to information, connectivity and education to the masses of our country at a very affordable cost," added Tuli.  At the launch event, the UbiSlate tablets were provided to school children from Guru Harkrishan Public School.  

The UbiSlate 7+ is priced at Rs 2,999 and the UbiSlate 7C at Rs 3,999. Delivery of UbiSlate 7+ devices have started to those who pre-booked the device on DataWind's http://www.ubislate.com/ website, and will continue over the next several months before its made available commercially. Delivery of UbiSlate 7C devices will start at the end of May.

Windows 8 tablets in the enterprise: A disaster in the making

Tablets were clearly top of mind for the designers ofTablets were clearly top of mind for the designers of Windows 8. TheMetro interface sacrifices usability on the PC, which suggests thatMicrosoft is focused on overtaking the iPad. This design choice was met with conjectures that Microsoft believed enterprises would

favor Windows 8 tablets because they'd work in sync with Windows 8 on desktops and could be deployed and managed companywide with the same set of tools.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, the facts show something else. The company has revealed that any Windows 8 tablets powered by ARM chips will be no easier to manage in enterprises than iPads are. Such tablets won't be able to take advantage of Active Directory capabilities and won't support Group Policies, which are used to manage how machines work on a company network.

Windows 8 on tablets has a confusing past. Windows 8 for ARM devices was originally called WOA (for "Windows on ARM"), and then was recently renamed Windows RT. Not all Windows 8 tablets will run Windows RT; any that use Intel chips will require a different version of Windows 8. And it may well be that Windows 8 tablets with Intel chips will be managed differently than Windows 8 tablets running Windows RT. That certainly won't endear Windows 8-based tablets to IT departments, which face a difficult enough time trying to deploy and manage multiple types of devices. With Windows 8 tablets, IT may have to know what kind of chip each device runs on in order to know how to manage it.

Lenovo building plants to make tablets, smartphones

Chinese PC maker Lenovo plans to invest more than $796 million to build facilities for the development and production of tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices, it said Monday.

Lenovo said it held a groundbreaking ceremony for the company's new industrial center located in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The facilities there, which will house research and development, production and sales, will begin operations in October 2013.

Lenovo said the new facilities will help the company bring more mobile devices to both Chinese and foreign markets, while also improving its supply chain. The sales revenue generated from the facilities will reach 10 billion yuan by 2014, and later reach 50 billion yuan within the next five years, according to the company's projections.

Lenovo, now the world's second largest PC maker, has been steadily expanding to compete in the smartphone, tablet and smart TV markets. Last year, the company established a new business unit devoted to the development of such products, while also breaking ground on a production center in Chengdu, China, partly meant for the eventual manufacturing of mobile Internet devices.

Many of the company's newest mobile products have gone on sale in China first, acting as a kind of testing ground, before arriving in foreign markets, according to analysts. For example, Lenovo has released several smartphones under its "Le" series in the country. It plans to sell the smartphones in emerging markets as well.

China has also become a major market for mobile devices, with the country already surpassing the U.S. in smartphone shipments, according to research firm IDC. Given Lenovo's extensive sales reach and strong PC business in China, the company shows major potential to succeed in the country, said IDC analyst Teck Zhung Wong.

Lenovo's share of China's smartphone market recently saw a major jump, moving up from 1.8% in last year's third quarter, to 9.1% in the subsequent fourth quarter, according to IDC. This made it the fifth largest smartphone vendor in the country during the fourth quarter.

"Lenovo's building of the R&D center seems to indicate they are serious about this market," Wong said. "Once they have success in China, this can make their expansion into other markets smoother."

Samsung launches Galaxy S III with voice and face recognition

Samsung on Thursday unveiled a larger Galaxy S III smartphone in London, and said the phone would be sold in the U.S. this summer after launching in Europe on May 29.

The Galaxy S III smartphone from Samsung.

Samsung didn't name a U.S. wireless carrier or the price for the smartphone, but said the U.S. version will run over LTE and HSPA+, an indication it could run on AT&T's or T-Mobile's network. A white version of the Galaxy S III was unveiled by Samsung's president of mobile communications, J.K. Shin, at a crowded London media event that featured a live orchestra and was also webcast.

The Galaxy S III, will run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and will have a 4.8-in. touchscreen with an HD Super Amoled display at 1280 x 720 pixels. It includes an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera. It will also come in blue.

The touchscreen may seem large at 4.8 inches, Samsung officials acknowledged, but the device is not much bigger than the previous model, the Galaxy S II, because the bezel area around the screen has been reduced. Overall, the screen is 22% larger than the Galaxy S II.

Intelligent software in the phone provides face and voice recognition.

The phone will come with a "smart stay" feature that recognizes how a user's eyes are moving when reading an e-book or browsing the Web and will adjust the screen brightness accordingly. In a demonstration video, Samsung showed how the phone's screen will go black when a user's eyes are closed.

An "s voice" natural language user interface will allow voice control of the phone. The demonstration showed how a user can use a voice command to play a song, for example. Officials said s voice goes beyond earlier voice recognition technology from Samsung, but didn't elaborate.

Samsung said it expanded on Android Beam technology by allowing a 1GB movie file to be shared in three minutes by touching one Galaxy S III to another. Android Beam works over Near Field Communication wireless technology, but Samsung enhanced the feature with Wi-Fi Direct technology for quicker sharing, officials said.

The NFC chip in the phone also allows mobile payments, but Samsung didn't elaborate on which mobile payment app might be supported. Officials did say users will be able to make mobile payments with the phone at the Olympic Games venues in London. In the U.S., AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are working together in a consortium called Isis to launch mobile payments this summer.

Samsung said the Galaxy S III will have a 2,100 mAh battery, bigger than many of the recent smartphones on the market. The phone has a 1.4 Ghz quad-core chip based on the ARM Cortex A9 . The phone's 16GB of internal memory can be expanded with a 32 GB microSD card, with a 64GB card available soon.

The 4.8-in.size of the device's screen was an attention getter. The wildly popular iPhone has a 3.5-in. screen, but there are reports that screen will be 4 inches for the iPhone 5 due later this year.

"In the U.S., larger screens are certainly a must-have," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner. "Vendors are going larger to differentiate ... We are getting to the point where we are reaching the physical limit before smartphones become more like tablets. "

Samsung also makes the Galaxy Note, a 5.3-in. smartphone sold by AT&T for its LTE network.

Latest Tablets...................

Two more Aakash Tablet models headed for India

The new crop of ultra-cheap reader tablets have nothing on the Ubislate/Aakash, Datawind’s dirt-cheap tablet for the Indian educational market. In addition to the slightly updated Ubislate 7+, the Ubislate 7C will soon grace shelves and schoolrooms on the subcontinent. The only difference between the two is that the 7+ uses a resistive touchscreen while the 7C uses a more modern capacitive model – the same kind that’s installed on pretty much every smartphone and tablet out there

                                                                        Both tablets get a 7-inch, 800×480 screen, an 800mhz single-core processor, 256MB of RAM and Android 2.2 Froyo. The retail versions of the tablet bring the price up to the Indian equivalent of about $75 – still a pretty good deal if all you want is a slate device for some (very) basic web surfing and media. The Ubislate comes standard with a 2.5G wireless connection on top of WiFi, but users can add 3G with a dongle accessory.

The Ubislate/Aakash has garnered a lot of international attention, though admittedly nearly all of it is from the price. With government subsidies, Indian students can purchase one of the small tablets for just $35, and the popularity has exploded. Future models will reportedly even get Android 4.0 – which is more than we can say for a lot of smartphones and tablets around these parts.