New Facebook App to Notify Users about Malicious Content

At a time when the virtual space, especially social networks are rife with spam attacks, and hackers on the loose, an attempt by a bunch of students surely seems to be a force to reckon with.


Keeps it safe!


Students belonging to the University of California’s graduate class, Md. Sazzadur Rahman and Ting-Kai-Huang, and a company run by the school’s alumnus, put their heads together and developed a free Facebook application called MyPageKeeper.org, which the founders claim is capable of detecting spam, malware that are found on the walls, and news feeds of the user’s Facebook account. The app, according to the founders aims at delivering real-time protection from viruses, spam to the users. Web protection service, StopTheHacker.com encouraged the construction of the app.

The recent spate of malware attacks on Facebook, and other web domains have given more than enough reasons for attempts like these. Facebook, at present has over a staggering 700 million members, and miscreants have found it to be a place where it was easy to target people into letting spam into their profiles. Contradicting this, MyPageKeeper.org once installed into one’s profile, begins actively scanning the user’s wall posts, news feeds to see if any malicious content was posted. If found any, the app would immediately notify the user of the same and prompt him to remove the malicious content. The app, for now can be downloaded for free off www.MyPageKeeper.org. Although just recently started, the app already has won the confidence of several users.

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Samsung’s Galaxy S II passes screen test

Samsung’s Galaxy S II passes screen test by Number one technology news



After Apple’s second-generation iPad launched earlier this year with dual-core processors, it was inevitable that the technology would trickle down to mobile phones as well. Beating Apple at its own game, Samsung is among the first manufacturers in India to sport a dual-core processor in its Google A ndroid handset, Galaxy S II.

Weighing a light 116g and 8.5mm in thickness, the Galaxy S II is big but hardly cumbersome. Its huge 4.3-inch screen sports a resolution of 800x480 pixels, but that’s hardly the best thing about it. Samsung has generously equipped the phone with a ‘Super AMOLED Plus’ screen. As opposed to conventional LCD displays, AMOLED screens offer greater colour accuracy and black levels while going easier on battery life.

Although the phone’s all-glass front may fetch it swoons, the plastic body isn’t that impressive. There’s a solitary power button on the right side and a volume rocker on the left. Towards the bottom of the screen are two touch-sensitive buttons and a regular ‘Home’ button that will take you back to the home screen whenever you press it.

The next disappointment arrives when you switch on the phone. Although this Galaxy sports Google Android Gingerbread v2.3.3, Samsung has added its own user interface layer called Touchwiz 4.0. As compared to HTC’s Sense 3.0 interface, Touchwiz doesn’t look as polished where menu animations, icons and widgets are concerned. Certain tweaks are convenient — the lock screen shows missed calls and SMSes. Pressing the Home button for over a second invokes the task manager, which displays what applications are running in the background and lets you close them to free up the phone’s 1GB memory.

Samsung has loaded a host of applications on the phone such as a file manager to access the microSD card, a voice command app and Readers’ Hub – where you can read e-books, newspapers and magazines.
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The Galaxy S II packs in top-notch hardware such as an ARM 1.2GHz dual-core processor, an eight-megapixel camera, full HD 1080p video recording and 16GB of built-in memory. Connectivity includes 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS. Additionally, you can also use the phone as a Wi-Fi router with the Portable Hotspot feature and connect to other similar devices via Wi-Fi direct.
The 8MP camera shoots clear and well-focused photos even in low light. You can choose from a variety of scene modes, include macro and face detection. Videos, too, are sharp and accurate.

What we like
1.Glorious AMOLED screen
2.Dual-core processor

What we don’t like
1.Tacky build quality
2.User interface is average

Verdict
The powerful processor make using the phone a piece of cake. You won’t see any slowdowns regardless of whether you’re viewing the photo gallery, surfing the net or playing Angry Birds.|

Battery life at over 1.5 days puts the Galaxy S II at the top of its game. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S II just doesn’t feel like a premium phone. The plastic body and tacky user interface betray its Rs 30,999 price. For those migrating from a high-end HTC or Apple device, this is a step down in terms of eye-candy. But if you’re looking for firepower, this phone is brimming with it.

My Rating: ***1/2

First Nokia WP7 Phone In October?

You can expect the first Nokia WP7 handset, sometime during the end of this year. If new reports are to be believed, Nokia could unveil the device even a lot earlier than that. The company is holding a Nokia World event in London on October 26 and 27. This is the time when Windows Phone's Mango update, which is said to change the way WP7 performs, is scheduled to come out. Naturally, this is a good occasion to launch the new device. With the arrival of this update, all media attention will be focussed towards the platform.

The alleged Nokia Windows Phones

Having said that, Nokia could alternatively launch the device during the end of the year (in December perhaps) as earlier reports had suggested. We think that the company would make the announcement during October about a launch date of December. As of now, the Nokia World seems like the best bet to show off the device. However, it was expected that Nokia could announce the device during the already concluded Nokia Connection event, which was held in conjunction with the Nokia CommunicAsia 2011. Everyone will be eagerly awaiting the announcement of the "market disrupting device" or the Nokia N9, so we think that it was wise of Nokia to keep the suspense alive.

Apple iPad 2 Display Ranks the Best in Face-Off Against Android Hordes

Testing shows that the Apple iPad 2 surpasses other contenders in display quality, but it still has room for improvement.


The first thing you notice about a tablet is its display. Even when a tablet is powered down, its display is what jumps out first, since the screen is the most dominant part. The quality of the display is a critical component of a tablet, just as image quality is essential to any screen, be it for a laptop, a monitor, a smartphone, or even an HDTV.

I've had dozens of tablets cross my desk, and their display quality has varied dramatically. When I look at a tablet's display quality, I judge it on a number of criteria: brightness, color accuracy, contrast, and image clarity. The last point is a tricky one, as it covers image sharpness and detail as well as text sharpness, areas that can be influenced by how well a mobile operating system renders those elements in software.

Rewind to the debut of the first Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets--those early models running Android 3.0 all suffered from a bug that caused digital images to render improperly in Google's Gallery app, the default program for viewing pictures. Images looked fuzzy, with little detail. Google quietly fixed the bug later, in Android 3.1; nevertheless, image reproduction could be better, and the Gallery still natively displays images in just 16-bit color.

So where does that leave the discerning buyer hoping to get the best tablet display possible? To find out, the PCWorld Labs lined up eight tablets and compared their image quality side by side. Our testing is ongoing, and we will fold the results into our ratings for tablets in the future. Right now, we can offer a glimpse of our early findings.

Tablet Displays Tested

This first pass of our subjective testing focused on images and color, not text. Our jury reviewed four identical images on the eight tablets, with brightness settings on max for all. What we found was a bit surprising, in that the images varied dramatically and noticeably. During my earlier hands-on testing, in which I compared all comers with the standard-bearer, Apple's iPad 2, I had noticed some differences and issues--but to see the variety in a lineup was something else altogether.

In our comparison were the Acer Iconia Tab A500, Apple iPad 2, Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101, HTC Flyer, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi (7-inch), and T-Mobile G-Slate. Many of the tablets we looked at run Android 3.0; only two of the five 10.1-inchers, the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, had Android 3.1. (Click the chart below to view it at full size.)



The Apple iPad 2 was clearly and consistently the leader of the pack; it stumbled only on a photo with a variety of skin tones and colors, failing to strike the right balance. In another shot, the iPad 2 had the best color balance and accuracy, and it showed the best distribution of colors on our grayscale and color-bar images.

The two next-best displays were not on flagship Android Honeycomb tablets, but on tablets running Android 2.2 and 2.3--the Samsung Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi and the HTC Flyer, respectively. Each of these models did particularly well with skin tones and color balance in actual photos, although neither one quite nailed the balance in our color-bar shot.

None of the Android 3.x tablets we tested could compete with the iPad 2, or with the Android 2.x tablets. In our tests, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 did better overall than its next-closest competitor, the Motorola Xoom. But the Tab blew out colors with oversaturation, and crushed shades of black; this tendency was clear in our test photos as well as in the grayscale and color-bar images.

The Xoom's display never particularly impressed me, but in the end it did better on balance than some of the other Android tablets we tested. It suffered from washed-out skin tones, poor handling of brown hues, and a lack of sharpness--even with the Android 3.1 update. The touchscreen grid was evident on the Xoom, too.

Falling in between were the T-Mobile G-Slate and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101. The results from these two tablets were close, although in our detail shot the G-Slate appeared to have slightly better detail and color balance despite its tendency toward a greenish cast. The Transformer offered a great angle of view (which we expected given that it has an IPS display), and it did a reasonable job of reproducing browns, but its reproduction of reds was off-base.

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 consistently landed at the bottom. As with the Xoom, you can see the touch-panel grid on the Iconia Tab, but in this case it's clearly visible pretty much any way you hold the tablet, making the grid a viewing annoyance at best and a deterrent at worst. Running the Android 3.1 update, the Iconia Tab struggled with reproducing skin tones and browns, and it tended to give a slightly bluish tint to images.

Common Tablet-Display Issues and Needs


As I mentioned at the outset, some of the questions surrounding displays are hard to pin down. So much about how an image looks can be tweaked in software. Even more can happen in subpixel rendering, or in aggressive software algorithms aimed at optimizing the image (I've seen some hints of how this approach can work in the upcoming Toshiba Thrive). But some issues, such as angle of view and high reflectivity, are physical in nature, and as a result no software fix can address them.

All of the tablets we've seen, including the ones with IPS displays, have angle-of-view limitations--some are worse than others. And all of them have an air gap between the glass and the LCD layer beneath; that gap increases reflectivity, which causes the mirror effect that makes tablets terrible for use in bright sunlight. (The sole exception is not marketed primarily as a tablet: Barnes & Noble's Nook Color employs a bonding process that minimizes, but doesn't eliminate, reflections.)

Our look at tablet displays is a subjective experience, putting real images to a real-world test. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate also published findings today from quantitative-measurement tests of the iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, and Asus Transformer displays. His findings delve deep, and echo much of what we've seen in our lab subjectives. In his tests, the iPad 2 was on top, with the Transformer besting the Xoom. I'd wager that the result came in part from the Transformer's Android 3.1 update; for our early wave of tests, we still had the original software on the Transformer.

We're in the process of revisiting our testing, with the latest Android and firmware updates applied where appropriate. Stay tuned for our second wave of tablet-display tests in July.

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Facebook to launch music service

NEW YORK: Social network Facebook will launch a new music service on its website in partnership with other online music services, a media report said.

The launch is likely to be announced at a conference in August, Xinhua reported citing US media.

Technology blog GigaOM said users will find a new tab called Music in the left-hand column on their pages, right where Facebook lists Photos, Friends, Deals etc, and clicking on the new tab will open a page called Music Dashboard.

The dashboard will feature friends' recommended songs, top songs, top albums and a "happening now" ticker that shows songs friends are playing.

The blog said that Facebook had reached a partnership with European music streaming service Spotify, which is gearing up to enter the US market.