15 Things you did not know about Apple

As Apple celebrates 30 years of groundbreaking computing, lets look at 15 things you did not know about the iconic company and the man behind it- the man who with his vision, left his mark on our desks, on our ears and in our hands.

1. Apple has loads of operating cash, even more than the U.S. Treasury.

Image Courtesy: Gizmodo

2. Smoking near Apple computers voids the warranty. Kick that butt now! Source: http://bit.ly/19uuHQy

Image Courtesy: engadget

3. Apple ships everything by air, not sea, preferring to move stock quickly rather than cheaply.

Image Courtesy: google

4.Everything you say to Siri is sent to Apple, analyzed and stored. Did you just feel Uncle Sam watching you!

Image Courtesy: google

5. Apple originally had three founders- Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.

Image Courtesy: Google

6. Steve Wozniak is still an Apple employee and receives a stipend estimated to be worth $120,000 a year.

Image Courtesy: google

7. Bill Gates and Microsoft helped Apple out of bankruptcy in 1997.

Image Courtesy: edible apple

8. The famous Apple advertisement from 1984 featuring IBM as the “Big Brother” was directed by Ridley Scott — the same man who also directed “Aliens” and “Gladiator.”

9. The extremely expensive Apple Lisa, which predated the Mac, was named after Steve Jobs’s daughter Lisa.

Image Courtesy: Google

10. A Macintosh is an apple variety.

Image Courtesy: Google

11. With the triple-six configuration of $666.66, Apple’s first computer was satanically priced.

Image Courtesy: mashable

12. Apple Invented the “Dogcow”.

Image Courtesy: Google

13. The original Apple Logo featured Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree with an apple about to hit his head.

Image Courtesy: Google

14. Apple was established on April Fool’s Day, 1976.

Image Courtesy: Google

15. Steve Jobs was adopted and half Syrian by birth.

Image Courtesy: Google

Now Google Glass Sex App to help you make love better

With Google Glass expected to come to market later this year, some very interesting apps too are in the development pipeline, one of which promises to boost your sex life! ‘Sex with Glass’ or just ‘Glance’ is an app being developed to allow partners having sex to see themselves from their partner’s point of view.

The app being developed by students based out of London, offers couples the chance to “see everything, from every angle” while making love, using a pair of linked-up headsets. The Glance app films a video of the tryst, so you can watch it later when all is said and done.

snapshot from glassandsex.com

To get started, just say, “OK Glass, it’s time,” and the app will begin streaming what your partner sees in front of your own eyes. If you feel like stopping everything, just say, “OK Glass, pull out”. The app then puts the footage together and shows a video of the “whole thing”, but the video will be deleted after five hours unless you save it.

To make use of the app, both partners indulging will need to wear Google Glass during the act. The voyeur app lets you see two different perspectives seamlessly- that of you and your partner’s. It changes the way you experience something intimate, claims the developers’ website. The project was conceptualized at a Wearable Tech Hackathon.

The app has gained huge traction even before its release!

Bangalore gets free WiFi zones – a first in India

In a first for an Indian city, Bangalore true to its image of the Silicon Valley of India, is all set to get at least 6 free WiFi zones. Free wireless internet services will be commenced in the commercial heart of India’s technology capital starting today itself i.e Jan 24 2014. Mahatama Gandhi Road and Brigade Road, two of the best-known shopping destinations, apart from Traffic and Transmit Management Centres (TTMCs) at Shanthinagar, Yeshwanthpur and Koramangala, besides CMH Road in Indiranagar will have free WiFi access as part of a plan to make Bangalore more “tech-friendly”. The idea is the brainchild of a government-appointed panel headed by Mohandas Pai, a former director at Infosys.

Brigade Road, Bangalore | Image Courtesy: Flickr

Taking a cue from the Bangalore Metro service – ‘Namma Metro’ the facility will be called ‘Namma WiFi’, which translates to ‘My WiFi’. It will be formally launched near the Metro station on M.G. Road.

To access free WiFi in the hotspots, any person having a WiFi enabled device – a smart phone or tablet – will need to open their browser, which will then direct them to the “Namma WiFi” page. After registering their mobile number, a password would be sent to them. Once the password is punched in, the user can browse internet for free. But the free service comes with a catch – you can surf the internet only for 30 minutes in 24 hours. Moreover, there will be restrictions on accessing certain websites. The speed will be limited to 512 kbps.

Nokia embraces Android – Leaked Photos, Specs of Nokia Normandy

Gone September, when Microsoft began the process of acquiring Nokia- the erstwhile mobile giant, grapevine was that once the deal goes through, work on the first android phone by the Finnish multinational, will be put in cold storage. However, all Nokia fans who always wanted to see an android mobile phone from Nokia have a reason to rejoice now.

According to latest reports and some UI images leaked on Twitter by the notorious but mostly accurate tipster @evleaks, it’s confirmed now that Nokia Normandy- Nokia’s first Android application is live and ongoing.

The design of the Android UI seems inspired from the Windows Phone interface. According to well placed sources, the call dialer is very similar to what Windows Phone users are currently using. Apparently Skype is included by default, a definite sign that Nokia will be utilizing non-Google services or at least embedding Microsoft backed apps as defaults.

The leaked screenshots from an AnTuTu benchmark and the phone’s About settings menu, the Android device from the house of Nokia runs the latestAndroid 4.4.1 KitKat OS, features a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 5MP rear camera, and has dual SIM card slots. The handset, codenamed A110, has a display resolution of 854×480. A NokiaPowerUser review further maintains that the phone will sport a 4-inch display and will have another variant codenamed RM-980.

What do you say, are you gonna love it?

RIP Facebook – could be your FB status in 2017

Facebook Is Dying

Have you lately felt that Facebook isn’t anymore as exciting as it used to be? But still it gives you kicks to check your timeline every few minutes! Does it seem like a viral disease that has infected your senses! Well you may be right.

A new research by authors at Princeton’s Aerospace Engineering School has equated Facebook to a plague. The report adds that the world’s most visited website has spread like an infectious disease but people are gradually developing immunity to its seduction. The study says that the social network will lose about 1 billion users in 3 years and will meet a fate same as that of MySpace. “Facebook will see a rapid decline in the coming years, losing 80% of its peak user base between 2015 -2017,”  predicts the study, an “Epidemiological Modeling of Online Social Networks.”

Facebook Android Version

The researchers, Cannarella and Spechler employed what is known as the SIR (susceptible, infected, recovered) model of disease, which generates equations to map the spread and recovery of epidemics. The study has also utilized Google Trends data about MySpace—the website that was founded in 2003 and reached its peak in 2007 with 300 million registered users, before falling out of use by 2011—the Princeton study records similarities to how Facebook is on a similar path to being a thing-of-the-past.

But investors seem least baffled about the report; they don’t seem to be heading for the exit for now. The largest social network’s share price reached record highs this month, valuing the company at $142bn. Looks like Mark Zuckerberg has not many reasons to worry just yet.

The report comes just days ahead of Facebook’s 10th birthday on Feb 4 2014.

Alleged Dropbox hack is a hoax – Website up and running

Hours after a hacker claiming to be an affiliate of the notorious hacking club Anonymous took credit for knocking off the website of the cloud storage provider, the company denied any external factors, attributing the outage to internal maintenance instead.

Dropbox tweeted

Dropbox site is back up! Claims of leaked user info are  a hoax. The outage was caused during internal maintenance. Thanks for your patience!

Also, a known Anonymous Twitter account is officially denying their involvement. Needless to say, the group claiming credit may incur the wrath of the hacktivist contingent Anonymous since the former claimed “their” attack in the name of the late internet activist Aaron Swartz who committed suicide last year while facing a federal trial on charges of barging into the M.I.T computer network.

Earlier, hackers who call themselves AnonOpsKorea, a Korean spinoff of Anonymous, said one of their associates, using the Twitter handle @1775Sec, was responsible for the attack.

The group also claimed to have successfully siphoned off a list of email addresses from the Dropbox database which they pasted on the website pastebin.com. This data incidentally has been found elsewhere on the web and was first published on 12/09/13.

Wanna tour outer space with Virgin – here’s all that you must know

Sir Richard Branson’s promise of making an astronaut out of you and me and everybody else has been taking shape very well. His first-of-its-kind-ever venture in partnership with Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments has been relentlessly working on making the project a reality and if all goes well, some of us would be experiencing the outer space very soon. The world’s first commercial spaceline, yesterday, successfully completed the rocket-powered supersonic flight of its passenger carrying reusable space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2) for the third time. In the process, the SS2 blasted through the sound barrier and sped to Mach 1.4 reaching a record altitude of 17,000 feet or 13.5 miles.

Nine things you needed to know about this spaceflight

• Virgin Galactic’s spacevehicle will be launched from a large aeroplane, giving the spacecraft more initial thrust and altitude than if it were launched from the earth’s surface.

• 640 wannabe space tourists including Stephen Hawking, Tom Hanks, Ashton Kutcher, Katy Perry, Brad Pitt and Anjelina Jolie have already signed up for the expedition.

• The ticket price of $250,000 per person is expected to be raised once at least 1,000 passengers have signed up. So you better hurry up, just in case you got plans!

• Inspired by the science fiction series Star Trek, the first two ships are named after the fictional starships— Enterprise and Voyager!

• The SpaceShipTwo (SS2) will accommodate six passengers and two pilots at a time.

• SS2 in turn will be carried to about 16 kms, by a carrier aircraft, White Knight II. At that height, the SpaceShipTwo will separate and continue to over 100 kms.

• The time from liftoff of the White Knight ‘mothership’ carrying SpaceShipTwo until the touchdown of the spacecraft after the suborbital flight will be about 150 minutes.

• The “space” flight itself will last for only about 6 minutes. Passengers will be able to release themselves from their seats during this time and float around the cabin experiencing weightlessness.

• The supersonic flight will reach a top speed of 4000 km/hr during the flight, faster than current fighter jets.

Google opens your Gmail inboxes to strangers- Here’s how to opt out!

In a move that may stir another privacy row, Google plans to bolster its failed  social network Google+ by letting strangers contact you without them needing to know your email address. The new privacy concern lets anyone with a Google+ account send emails to Gmail users, and vice versa.

This is how, Gmail product manager David Nachum, in a blog post, described the new feature.

“Have you ever started typing an email to someone only to realize halfway through the draft that you haven’t actually exchanged email addresses? If you are nodding your head ‘yes’ and already have a Google+ profile, then you’re in luck.”

Well, that sounds significantly useful if you are the sender— but rather invasive if you are on the receiving end!

Here’s what it looks like.

How to opt out

Well, the good news is you are still in control. You control whether unknown people can reach you this way with a new setting in Gmail.

Emailing Google+ connections also takes advantage of Gmail’s new inbox categories. When someone in your circles emails you, the email will land in the Primary category of your inbox. But if they are not in your circles, it will be filtered into the Social category (yet another reason to enable the categories, if you haven’t already). Further, if you don’t reply or add them to your circles, they won’t be able to continue spamming you.

You will start seeing this feature over the next couple of days. You’ll get an email with information and a link to the setting when the feature is made  available for your account.

Having said all that, it would make more sense if Google had made it into an “opt-in” feature rather than an “opt-out” one. But then the internet giant loves to keep those privacy advocates in business!

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