Re-Strike

When the cell phone first appeared on the Chinese market in the late 1980s it cost 10,000-20,000 yuan, and was the size of a brick. Regarded as the ultimate status symbol, it was called the da ge da, meaning very influential person. At that time, sales of mobile phones were under state control, and stocks were limited. Purchasers were required to place an order and make an 80 percent down payment. How things have changed! Mobiles are now available in multiple choices of size, color and function, on request.

Actuality

China has become the world's largest mobile phone manufacturing base and consumer market. In the first quarter of 2008, the total mobile phone shipment in China reached 134 million units, increasing 34.5% year over year. While the subscriber base of mobile services reached 480 million at the end of the first quarter of 2008, which increased approximately 20 million when compared to the statistic data at the end of last year

The Product

When it comes to affordable iPhone clones, Meizu seems to be leading the pack now that they've unveiled the pricing for their M8 cell phone. The 4GB model with built-in camera will go for $310 while the 8GB version will go for $400. The entry-level model (with no camera) will go for only $195 at 4GB and $285 at 8GB. Compare that to the iPhone's $499/$599 price and suddenly Meizu's option doesn't look so bad, though it's still an iPhone clone.

Apple's iPod is a media player that is portable. Since then many generations of iPods have been hitting the shop shelves one after another taking the world by storm - classic, touch, shuffle, mini etc. The latest model stores media on an internal hard drive and like other music players can also provide for external data storage.

Apples iTunes transfers music to the devices. The iPod is a veritable music library. From a CD it can play, burn and rip music as well as transfer photos, games, videos and calendars. The best thing is that the gadget is extremely user friendly and can be operated by young and old. The technical excellence does not surface and complicate matters for the ordinary user. It is the best selling audio player in digital history.

Apple surprised the world of sight and sound with the iPod in 2001. It is a player with the fantastic storage power of 5 GN (gigabytes). After a few generations of iPods there came the one with 160 G.

Both Mac and Windows are operable in iPod, although the latter belongs to the Apple family. What is it that makes iPod peerless? Firstly is the light form - the iPod 80 GB classic is less than 1 inch in depth and feather light - 4.9 ounces. In comparison one of the others in the market are 1.06 inch and 12 ounces with 20GB. Secondly is the extremely sensitive click wheel, which the thumb can easily operate. There are not enough rooms for any buttons. The latest models are dispensing with the wheel and going for multi-touch sensory system.

Apart from the iTunes integration and auto sync, the click wheel and the slim figure, the iPod has other notable features. Up to 40,000 songs can be stored in some models. The song details like name and artist can be typed in the search function. The click wheel helps to locate the number. The songs can be listened to at various speeds - slow, fast and medium without causing distortion. Through a jack it can be connected to the home stereo. There is a preset device for diverse music styles.

The 80-GB can store 100 hours of video and double the number of hours in 160-GB. It can be connected to the home theatre TV to view with sound slides or video on a large screen. The model is able to hold a maximum number of 25,000 photographs. The iPod can operate as a portable hard drive carrying all types of computer files. There is calendar contact syncing and pre-loaded games also. It can be integrated to the car with slight rearrangements, which the car mechanic will not find difficult to handle. New cars support this integration so much so that the device is controlled through a headgear or the controls of the steering wheel.

The story of iPod will be incomplete without mentioning the accessories. This is often referred to as the iPod eco-system. These accessories add extra features like sound recorders, FM radio tuners and cables) that connect to the television. There are also wireless remote controls and earphones.

Despite expensive repairs and early battery deaths people are hooked to it like never before. The 2007 wonder iPod model is the classic marvel that is fitted with audio and video players, photo viewers as well as portable hard-drive. Thus is it is a complete handy media center. The customer can pick either the 80 GB or 160 GB models with colour LSD display. To know, see and hear about tomorrow pick up an iPod today.

Cisco has just issued a report that backs up claims by many Internet service providers that video viewing over the Web is gobbling up huge quantities of network capacity and the problem is only going to get worse. The Cisco Visual Networking Index that IP traffic will nearly double every two years to 2012. Released Monday, the 2007-2012 forecasr that IP traffic will grow at a combined annual rate of 46%.
The growth is creating a new vocabulary of IP metrics of exabytes and zettabytes. One exabyte equals 1 billion GB, or 250 million DVDs. A zettabyte equals 1 trillion GB, or 1,000 exabytes or 250 billion DVDs.

"The broad and increasing adoption of visual networking is having a significant impact on IP traffic growth for both consumer and business services markets worldwide," said Suraj Shetty, Cisco's VP of service provider marketing, in a statement. "Until just a few years ago, 'exabyte' was an unheard-of term. However, because of the massive growth we're seeing, by 2012 we will have to reorient our vocabulary once again, as the metric that we need then will be the zettabyte."

Cisco didn't say so in its discussion of the report, but the explosive growth is likely to cause Internet service providers to push for Internet metering in an attempt to limit use of the Web by businesses and consumers who tend to be heavy video users. ISPs like Comcast and AOL Time Warner are experimenting with attempts to limit usage or to charge higher prices for some users who download quantities of video.

Noting that its Visual Networking Index is part of its ongoing effort to forecast the growth of Web traffic, Cisco said the growth surge will be a result of video communications, entertainment, and social networking. The networking company said it expects Internet video traffic to grow to 400 times the amount of video traffic that was carried on the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000.

Cisco said nearly 90% of all consumer IP traffic is expected to consist of video on demand, IP P2P, and Internet video in 2012.

While most business IP traffic through 2012 will be concentrated in North America, the fastest growing Internet traffic region will be in Latin America, which is expected to have the highest growth rate through 2012, according to the report.
Source : [IWEEK]

The world's fastest supercomputer, Roadrunner was unveiled on Monday. A $100 million machine that could perform 1000 trillion calculations per second, and mostly it could sustain its activity. The project was accomplished by engineers from Alamos National Labs and IBM corp.

According to IBM, Roadrunner is twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene System which itself is 3 times faster than any other super computers in the world. Since the computer is a speed demon, it could be used for nuclear weapons research. But officials said the computer also could have a wide range of other applications in civilian engineering, medicine and science, from developing biofuels and designing more fuel efficient cars to finding drug therapies and providing services to the financial industry.

To put Roadrunner's speed in perspective, if every one of the 6 billion people on earth used a hand-held computer and worked 24 hours a day it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.

The interconnecting system of Roadrunner occupies 6,000 square feet with 57 miles of fiber optics and weighs 500,000 pounds. Although made from commercial parts, the computer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory.

The cost: $100 million.

Semaine - A computer build on a sensitive artificial listener (SAL) that can interact with humans and react to their non-verbal gestures is being developed by a European team.

The computer will be able to perceive user's facial expression, gaze, and voice and then engage with the user. When engaging with a human, the SAL will be able to adapt its own performance and pursue different actions, depending on the non-verbal behaviour of the user, reports ScienceDaily.

SEMAINE is led by DFKI, the German centre for research on artificial intelligence and partnered by Imperial College London, Universities of Paris, Twente in Holland and Technical University of Munich.

"SEMAINE and projects like it will change the way people interact with technology. They mean that you will be talking to your computer in 10 years time.