Sixth-gen iPod nano hacked, jailbreak imminent?

A promising breakthrough was just announced in iPod nano hacking. James Whelton (@jwhelton) has taken the first steps to unlocking the latest, sixth-gen iPod nano — and his work will undoubtedly lead to more developments in this exciting new area.

It’s still in its infancy but Whelton has succeeded in bypassing the devices cache comparison and installed a simple Springboard hack that allows for a blank space previously possible only on jailbroken iPhones and iPads. Whelton hopes that his work will enable other developers to expand the functionality of the new nano by installing a bootloader onto it.

Could we see a jailbroken iPod nano in the short term? Absolutely.

This could be music to the ears of people who like to wear their iPod nano on their wrist. Especially if a jailbroken iPod nano could run the Movie and Calendar apps.

Since the new nano doesn’t have any wireless radios apps like Email, Safari and Twitter make less sense but the possibility of new apps on the nano is definitely exciting.

Update: MacStories‘ Federico Viticci notes that Whelton has discovered some hidden strings in the nano’s OS:

Next is the discovery in some of the device’s plists of reference to support of Movies, TV Shows, Apps, Games, vCards, Calender events and so on, with a few other cool things like a passcode lock. With the bypass I figured out, I hope to enable these pretty soon. It seems like the OS is a rehashed version of the previous Nano’s OS.

India's 'first web TV' to be launched

KOCHI: Kochi-based Vibes Visual and Media Private Limited said it will launch Indiavibes, claimed to be India's first web TV, on New Year's day.

"We are focused on targeting people and not celebrities. The production hubs will be set up at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore, to start with," the company's founder Andrine Mendez said.

"We cover all categories... fashion, music, films, business, technology, blogging, lifestyle, current affairs and wish to make Indiavibes, as its name suggests, the one-stop shop for all the entertainment for global audiences," said Mendez.

The public can access it on indiavibes.tv from Jan 1.

Tech Mahindra partners Microsoft to offer solutions to telcos

NEW DELHI: IT firm Tech Mahindra today said it has partnered with software giant Microsoft to offer customised CRM solutions for telecom service providers.

As a part of the initiative, Tech Mahindra has inaugurated a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Lab in Noida to focus on providing CRM offerings to telecom service providers globally, Tech Mahindra said in a statement.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management solution that provides tools and capabilities needed to create and maintain profiles of customers.

The hi-tech fridge of the future that will tell you what to have for dinner

Afridge of the future that tells you what to cook with your left-overs and automatically re-orders fresh food is being designed in the UK.

The self-cleaning 'fridge of the future' will automatically place supermarket home delivery orders when required and move food near its use by date to the front of the shelves.

Researchers hope the fridge could clean itself, cut down on wasted food and offer up recipes - which could be tailored to different countries, cuisines and seasons depending on whether people want to whip up something Italian or fancy a curry.

With Brits putting in 36 million hours every year of free overtime - leaving little time for household chores - the fridge could help save precious time during hectic modern-day lives.

These new developments are in the pipeline thanks to collaborations between scientists at the University of Central Lancashire and online supermarket Ocado.

The planned new features include the ability for fridges to scan their shelves to see what is in stock and use this information to both plan meals and automatically place a supermarket food order - with Ocado saying they could be hooked up to their website making grocery requests even simpler.

The smart fridge will use 'nano-articulated technology' shelf surfaces which, whilst smooth to the touch, will have millions of independently controlled micro-tiles which will manoeuvre products which soon need to be eaten to the front of the fridge.

The fridge will also monitor gases released by degrading foods and push these to the front of its shelves, according to the collaborators.

Ultrasound-scanning technology built into the door will allow the fridge to 'swipe and capture' the food on a plate before and after mealtime, meaning it can assess what type and amount of food is wasted.

Similar technological advances in the kitchen bin, with its own management system, would allow it to be linked to the fridge giving a more accurate measure of how much and what kinds of food are thrown out rather than eaten.

The fridge of the future would then be able to cross reference and act on this data - reducing the ingredients used in future meal suggestions and helping to minimise food waste.

Dr Simon Somerville, a future forecasting expert from the University of Central Lancashire, said that someone feeling lazy could use the proposed fridge to whip up a recipe for them.

He said: 'Cookbooks are essentially inventory lists of food items. To this end the most available information that the refrigerator will have is a set of permutations that allow a set number of ingredients to produce a large number of quite different dishes.

'The key concept in the successful implementation of this process is accurate inventory tracking.

'Based on information contained within each menu, such as 'this dish is typical to the north of Italy', allows a menu selection based on geographical location - all the time the user choice is compared by the refrigerator to what it knows it holds.

'If the specific item for a recipe is not present, the refrigerator might suggest a delayed option, which allows time for delivery, or possibly attempt to find or propose a passable alternative for the missing ingredient

UID No. to be used for mobile user verification

NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification (UID) number project, which is poised to use the 700 million-plus mobile subscriber database and distribution network, will in turn become the basis of issuing mobile connections in the future. The UID number will be the definitive proof for subscriber verification.

Security agencies often fret about lack of proper subscriber identification norms and paperwork before issuance of mobile numbers and SIM cards, especially among the fast growing prepaid segment. This is because subscribers across states and socio-economic categories do not have proper paperwork which either forces mobile companies to make exceptions or prevents potential and needy subscribers from getting onto India’s mobile network. Agencies have tried everything from tightening norms to penalties and failed.

Sixteen years after mobile operations were first launched in the country, the government and industry are yet to find a permanent foolproof response to this issue.

When ready, UID may just be the answer. DoT secretary R Chandrashekhar told TOI, “Serious consideration is being given to make UID the fundamental basis of subscriber verification. This will mean that the present arrangement will continue for a period of time but once UID is up and running the transition could occur very quickly and nationwide.”

UID is also far more secure than any of the other verification documents, except perhaps for the passport , which is available with only a very small fraction of the Indian population.

In a terror-prone country like India it has been proved time and again that mobile phones are the favourite communication device for terrorists and anti-social elements. They are easy to get and easier to dispose of, especially under the pre-paid scheme. The watered down subscriber verification norm often allows them to forge documents and other data, which could become considerably difficult, if not virtually impossible , with the coming of the UID number.

This will be especially helpful to genuine consumers in border states and Jammu & Kashmir, where the government has had to intervene on account of security requirements time and again, making it burdensome for the common man to access mobile service.

South Korean Schools Get Robot Teachers

A group of 30 egg-shaped robots have started teaching English at primary schools in South Korea, reports The Daily Mail. Developed by the Korea Institute of Science of Technology, these machines are 3.3ft high and have a TV panel that displays a female Caucasian face. The robots can wheel around the classroom while speaking to the students and can even read books and dance to music moving their head and arms. However, they are not autonomous human beings, but controlled with a remote by English teachers living in the Philippines, who can see and hear the children via a remote control system. Cameras detect the teachers facial expressions and reflect them on the avatar's face. They cost £5,600 each and will provide extra support for teachers, not replace them

Scientists Create Ultra-fast Computer Chip

Here comes a computer chip that is 20 times faster than the ones found in the current desktop PCs.
Dr Wim Vanderbauwhede, of the University of Glasgow, and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Lowell have created an ultra-fast computer chip which could speed up machines and make them greener. Modern PCs have a processor with two, four or sometimes 16 cores to carry out tasks. But the central processing unit (CPU) developed by the researchers effectively had 1,000 cores on a single chip, Daily Mail mentioned in a report.

To do this, "scientists used a chip called a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which like all microchips contains millions of transistors - the tiny on-off switches which are the foundation of any electronic circuit. But FPGAs can be configured into specific circuits by the user, rather than their function being set at a factory. This enabled the team to divide up the transistors within the chip into small groups and ask each to perform a different task," the report explained.

Dr Wim Vanderbauwhede added, "FPGAs are not used within standard computers because they are fairly difficult to program but their processing power is huge while their energy consumption is very small because they are so much quicker - so they are also a greener option."

India May Ban 3G Services

In a meeting on Monday(December 21, 2010) with representatives of telcos, the home ministry and security agencies, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reportedly sought a temporary ban on all 3G data services, unless telecom operators demonstrate that these facilities could be tapped in real time. IB officials said they were unable to intercept services such as video calls and instant messaging flowing through 3G networks on a real-time basis. Last week, DoT had issued notices to Reliance Communications (RCom), Tata Teleservices and Bharti Airtel not to launch 3G mobile services as these can be traced only a few minutes after they have ended. Though RCom and Tata Teleservices, along with state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL, have already launched 3G data services, Airtel plans to begin offering them by the end of this month.

According to the Economic Times, "Operators have been given up to seven days to demonstrate that data services can be tapped in real time, failing which the services will be disallowed." IB officials may discuss internally some of the proposals suggested by telcos during Monday’s meeting, and come back within the next couple of days, the paper quoted a DoT official as saying.

Any temporary ban on 3G services is likely to impact high-speed Internet, download of music and video clips, chat and Internet telephony calls.

Kno -- The Linux-based Educational Tablet

Kno, a California-based startup has announced that its Linux-based single-screen and dual-screen educational tablets for students will be shipping this week. This tablet is not competing with iPads or Galaxy Tabs, but has its own niche market -- students. The major use of this 35.8-cm (14-inch) Linux tablet will be to read textbooks, take notes and browse the Web. Kno is a multi-tasking browser that is capable of HD video playback. The Linux OS also enables it to support an HTML5 Web browser.

The single screen model has two variants of 16GB and 32GB costing $599 and $699, respectively. The dual-screen 16GB model costs $899 while the 32GB variant would cost you a whooping $999. It is needless to say that for a device with no apps and other 'fun' features, it costs a lot and would have a tough time doing business.

However, Osman Rashid, CEO and co-founder of Kno, Inc. argues that Know provides what others don't -- easy navigation through e-textbooks with large page sizes and hundreds of pages, and taking random notes alongside the text itself.

But are these enough to draw the crowd? A feature like this can be achieved by an app itself. Why would users buy Kno when it provides no apps? Rashid agrees to this but answers that there are students and parents who prefer a device which is void of features which distract users. He adds that purchase from these customers would be enough to make Kno a significant company.

Rashid also has a justifying answer for the high price of Kno and says that shifting to Kno is economic over spending on textbooks. He adds that the company has estimated that a student would be saving $1000 after converting to such digital textbooks.

Kno has not partnered with any publication to get these e-books for their format. The company has developed an automated process which converts e-books to the format supported by Kno. Rashid adds that thousands of titles have been converted already.

Even after so many assuring answers, I doubt if Kno will have many takers. What happens to this Linux-based educational tablet will be revealed with time.

Android Tablet Zen Pad Launched For Rs 13,999

Zen Pad, one of the newest Android tablets to be launched in India, has taken everybody by surprise, for it retails only for Rs 13,999. This makes it the most affordable Android tablet in the market today. Built by by H.T. IMPEX, which is a computer peripherals company and is known under the brand name ZEN The Master, the slim 17.8-cm (7-inch) tablet runs on Android OS 2.1 and can be used for Web browsing, watching photos, videos and movies, listening to music, reading eBooks and playing games, besides social networking and chat applications. It comes with a 1 GHz processor, 256 MB DDR2 memory, LED screen (800x480) having an aspect ratio of 16:9 and Wi-Fi. It also has a back-camera possessing a resolution of 0.3MP. Zen Pad comes with an 8GB memory card and a pouch with keyboard.

New iPad 2 rumors focus on smaller size and louder speakers

Just in time for the holidays, we have new “information” about the supposedly imminent iPad 2. As usual, the rumors come from anonymous sources in China, and have slight technical details about Apple’s (AAPL) next-generation tab.

According to a report from Ars Technica, the new iPad will be smaller and flatter, with better, improved speakers on board. That information comes by way of the Kanteidan Blog, out of Japan. It says the new iPad’s outer case will lose three millimeters from the length and width, which won’t affect the 9.7-inch LCD screen. Reportedly, the iPad 2 will also be flatter on its back side, in some ways emulating the iPod Touch.

More important than the minor size changes are the iPad 2’s rumored on-board speakers. We heard something about openings on the rear of the case that have been speculated to allow for an SD card reader or USB port, but the source for Kanteidan Blog says the opening is actually for rear-facing, wider-range speakers.

And as expected, the source also says the iPad 2 will have a front-facing Facetime camera, as well as a rear-facing camera capable of shooting video and high-definition photos.

It’s not a ton of new information, and we’ve heard or expected to hear a lot of this stuff before. But the addition of higher-quality speakers may kill the idea that iPad 2 will support USB -- something that was an exciting possibility for connectivity to various other devices. Seems that dream might be squashed.

IBM's 5 in 5

It is no secret that technology changes rapidly - the cellphone you carry may be the envy of everyone around, but be rest assured that it would be outdated in as soon as six months' time. It is significant to adapt ourselves to changing times in order to stay relevant. It has been an annual practice at IBM to predict the technology of the future and how would it affect our lives. The company just released its "Five in Five" list - carrying five innovations in the next five years and the list is anything but astonishing.

Battery technology - Since most of us are going mobile now with smartphones and tablets, it can be predicted that future gadgets would come with much more battery power and durability. But it running on air using oxygen as a component looks like a plot from a sci-fi movie. But it is all going to be available and ready to use by 2015. Smaller gadgets like, say an MP3 player may not require a battery at all as it would run on static or kinetic electricity.

Heat from servers and computers - If you work in a substantially large company or have ever been to a server room, you must have seen how important it is to maintain the temperature inside the premises and always cool down the servers; 50 per cent of the total power consumed by a modern datacentre goes toward cooling it down. The tremendous amount of heat generated is wasted - in fact, it is unwanted and that is why different types of coolants and air conditioners are installed to keep the heat away. In the next five years, the same heat from your datacentre could be recycled to be used to power up your homes -- that's what IBM thinks would be the future.

Holograms - Some of the science-fiction movies have already demonstrated this and it might be the inspiration behind this technology too. By 2015, you would be able to interact with your friend/relative - anyone you wish to talk to in real time using a 3D image of the person right in front of you. We already see the rapid adoption of 3D imagery in movies, LCD TVs, laptops, projectors etc. In the future, these holographic cameras that project 3D imagery will become so small that they could fit into your mobile device and be used to interact with anyone in real-time 3D imaging. Fascinating, isn't it?

Predicting traffic conditions - In the future, you wont be stuck in traffic waiting for the jam to be cleared so that you could reach work on time. It would all be personalised based on your most common routes, days of work, local events affecting common routes and hundreds of other possibilities that would combine to give you your personalised route for commuting. We already see some of it when you check in "traffic conditions" on Google Maps. Although, this isn't available anywhere in India, but users in the US use it to know which routes are jam packed and the best possible route to reach a particular destination.

Citizen Scientists - You have heard of the term 'Citizen Journalist'! Now get ready to become a scientist in the future. All your activity beamed through the sensors in your phone, tablet, car, wallet etc. will act as huge data sets to actual scientists who would study it to make useful products.

Using Chrome OS Is Careless Computing

The founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman is criticising Chrome OS for being based on cloud computing, according to a report by the Guardian. Stallman told Guardian that Chrome OS looks like a plan "to push people into careless computing" as it forces people to store their data in the cloud on someone else's sevrver instead of their own devices which is fully under their control.

Using Chrome OS Is Careless Computing

The founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman is criticising Chrome OS for being based on cloud computing, according to a report by the Guardian. Stallman told Guardian that Chrome OS looks like a plan "to push people into careless computing" as it forces people to store their data in the cloud on someone else's sevrver instead of their own devices which is fully under their control.