BSNL Launches 3 Tablets, Lowest Model Priced at Rs.3250

State-owned telecom services provider BSNL has launched three tablets with the cheapest model costing a mere Rs.3,250, making a quiet entry into the increasingly competitive market for the hand-held computers.

Recently, Datawind, promoted by a Canadian India, had made a much-publicised entry into the market

in a tie-up with the government to provide cheap networking devices ''Aakash'', priced at Rs.2,250 for students.

The three tablets launched by BSNL are priced at Rs.3,250, Rs.10,999 and Rs.13,500. Two of them come with 7-inch resistive screen with Android 2.3 operating system, while the third comes with an 8-inch touchscreen, a BSNL official said.

Made by Noida-based Pantel, these tablets will be sold with discounted data plans from BSNL, sources said.

According to Pantel, the T-PAD IS701R has 1GHz processor and 256M RAM and is wi-fi enabled. The built-in 2GB memory can be expanded by up to 32GB.
The second model T-Pad WS704C has 512MB DDRIII RAM and can be connected to TV through HDMI.

The costliest model, T-PAD WS802C is powered by a 1.2GHz processor and 512MB DDRIII RAM and also has a built-in Global Position System.

Lytro Camera: Shoot Now Focus Later

 Lytro, a startup camera maker has unveiled its first Lytro consumer light field camera. The Lytro camera introduces a new way to take and experience pictures. The amazing feature in this camera is it captures all the rays of light in a scene which helps to focus a picture after it is taken.

This camera offers

a powerful 8x optical zoom lens in an iconic rectangular design and creates interactive living pictures that can be refocused constantly. The camera feature a light field sensor that collects the color, intensity, and the direction of every light ray flowing into the camera, capturing a picture in four dimensions. In addition to that, the camera uses a light field engine which allows refocusing pictures directly on the camera.

The camera has a sleek design, no unnecessary modes or dials it just have two buttons: power and shutter buttons and has a touchscreen display. The camera also comes with a Lytro’s desktop software, through which you can easily imports pictures from camera and computer. The software allows users to view, interact with snaps, organize and share it to social networking sites.  The camera is available in two models: 16 GB and 8GB, in three colors: red hot, graphite and electric blue and has a starting price of $399. This device is not yet available in India

4 ways Windows 8 beats iOS and Android

Windows 8 debuted recently, and most reviews are raving about how good it is. Microsoft, in fact, even announced that the OS had made more than 1 million downloads in the first 24 the OS’ test version was released.


One report even stated that Microsoft could leapfrog Apple with Windows 8, but how does the OS compare against Android?
Well according to a report on Wired.com, the customer preview beats the best that iOS and Android have to offer for now. Here are 5 ways Windows 8 beats iOS and Android:


1. The Picture Password: The picture password feature has been talked about since Windows developer preview and the test version of Windows 8 has made it open to everybody to try out. This alternative system unlocking option is easy, convenient and a lot more fun to use compared to the other options traditionally used, according to Wired’s review of the Windows 8.

People had their doubts about its efficacy in keeping password thefts at bay, but Microsoft detailed how this method is actually better, in a blog post, saying “the use of three gestures provides a significant number of unique gesture combinations and a similar security promise to a password of 5 or 6 randomly chosen characters. Additionally, using three gestures ensures a Picture Password that is easy to remember and quick to use.”
The same blog post also explained how this method could be even more secure than the traditional PIN-based security measures.  “If the user is free to use any combination of taps, circles, and lines, then the total number of permutations is, where n is the length of the picture password, and m is the number of points of interest.” (We’ll leave you to do the math). “Assuming the average image has 10 points of interest, and a gesture sequence length of 3, there are 8 million possible combinations, making the prospect of guessing the correct sequence within 5 tries fairly remote,” the blog post said.
 A report on Ars technica had Amol Sarwate, research manager at security management vendor Qualys, back Microsoft’s claim, saying “Based on your gestures, the circles you draw, the size of the circle, the direction of the circle, the lines that you draw on the screen, the machine creates a password which is virtually impossible to crack.”



2. You can switch apps easily based on your gestures:  It’s obvious that Windows has taken time off to implement a cohesive design-sensitive interface, but the way the OS works with regard to recent apps, is just easy and intuitive, according to Wired’s review. Google’s latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of the Android OS had this feature: it pulled up the most recently used apps when you clicked on the system bar icon; but Windows 8’s feature comes off as a lot more instinctive-- a swipe from the left edge of the device immediately brings up the last app you used. Since it’s a natural gesture, Wired says there are very few chances of you doing it by mistake.



The best part of this feature is that it’s as fast as channel browsing—but on your tablet.
If you have a number of apps open, the gesture-based app-switching feature allows you to move through the apps by swiping (or moving your mouse) back and forth along the edge of the (touch)screen to show you preview windows of the apps you have open. From there, the app is just a click or a touch away.
Now although iOS 5 for iPad too had a similar strategy to navigate through the open apps, you would either have to double-tap the icons of all the apps lined up, or you’d have to use four fingers to swipe your way to the app you need. In comparison with the gesture needed to navigate through Windows 8, it’s unnatural.


 Swiping with just a finger-- and allowing you to do it with ease is another elegant, quick and involuntary solution that makes the Windows 8 OS score.


3. The “Chromeless” full-screen app experience: The whole OS is designed like the Metro interface that was introduced in the Windows 7 phones. The interface on the OS is stripped of “chrome”, i.e. all those busy interface elements that can trash a desktop or app interface are all gone. There are no menu bars, task bars or even navigational buttons which are permanently pinned to the display. Now icons such as the battery signal (which indicates the charge on your device), time, navigational buttons and other icons that link to other information are all done away with. When you are using an app, you are given access to the full-screen app, so that your activity is not interrupted by such icons. You can check the time when you want to, or check out other apps at a whim.
This is another way the Windows 8 OS beats the iOS and Android—they have these icons pinned to the user interface no matter what app you are on.
A number of iOS apps have the navigational buttons persist across the app's entire user experience. And even apps that don't do this have a thin bar at the top of the screen showing data connection strength, the time, and other things. These icons are permanently locked to the iOS home display.
In the case of the Android Ice Cream Sandwich there are three virtual navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen that persist all over the UI. Most of the time there is also a bar across the top of the screen (which mimics the iOS screen) in addition to the buttons at the bottom of the screen.


4. The style and utility of the Home Screen:  iOS allows you to organize your home screen app icons so you can place your favorite ones within reach. Android on the other hand, allows you to add to rearranged icons, the ones that have updated information so that your home screen looks personalized.
Windows 8 gives you the best of both of these so that you can organize your apps tidily like you can on an iOS, but also do it with the freedom of personalization, and utility that was offered by Android.
Moreover, Android widgets usually have their own developer-specific themes and designs, so when you put them all together on your home screen, you could end up with a busy and chaotic patchwork-quilt-looking home screen. Windows 8, in comparison has live tiles which update information just like the Android widgets. Although you can organize them in any order they have a consistent look and feel, and you can choose whether they should be square or rectangular in shape.

Countries without Military Forces

India spends nearly $41.3 billion a year on its military which is about 2.7 percent of its GDP while the United States tops in military spending, way ahead of India, with around $1630 billion spent in 2010. However, in this era of mindless pursuit for sophisticated military force, there are a few countries with no set military forces at all, quite surprisingly. Here is the list of 10 countries that manages to survive, not going by the global trend of developing a strong military for the country.

1. Costa Rica

Bordered by Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the southeast, Costa Rica stands tall with no military force on its own, though it had a military force in the past. Costa Rica, which means "Rich Coast", constitutionally abolished its military permanently in 1949 when the then president, Jose Figueres Ferrer, signed legislation against a formal army after the deadly civil war in the country that killed almost 2,000 people. Marking the abolition of army, the president himself broke the wall of Cuartel Bellavista, which was once an army headquarters location. Costa Rica has been a part of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance of 1947 which enables the country to depend on other 21 countries including U.S. if any war situation arises. The country has a public security force, Fuerza Publica which manages law enforcement, border patrol, ground security and many other common duties held by a police force.

2. Solomon Islands

The country, consisting of nearly one thousand islands, had a heavy ethnic conflict between 1998 and 2006 which was ended at the intervention of countries Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific countries. Though the country has no standing military forces, it has a police force of nearly 500 includes a border protection unit. The police force is responsible for fire service, disaster relief, and maritime surveillance. In 1983, the United Kingdom instituted a protectorate over the Solomon Islands and the country was free of major violence until the beginning of ethnic conflicts in 1998. Although Solomon Islands has no set protector of the Solomon Islands, Australia would be the first one to protect the Island nation.

3.  Vatican City

The smallest country in the world, Vatican City, has no military force of its own; however, it maintains a Gendarmerie Corps for internal policing. Many militaristic groups were formed to protect the Pope and the country and the Swiss Guard belongs to the Holy See, not the Vatican City State. Pope Paul VI had abolished the Noble Guard and the Palatine Guard in 1970. The Pontifical Swiss Guard is assigned with the duty of protecting the Pope and the Palace of the Vatican. The Gendarmerie Corps responsible for traffic control, public order, border control, and investigating criminal activity, is a civilian force rather than military. Although there is no defense treaty with Italy, Italian military protects Vatican City as it’s located in Rome.


4.    Nauru

The smallest island country in the world, Nauru has no set military force and probably due to its size, doesn’t even have a capital. The 8.1 sq miles spread country has a Police Force that maintains the stability of the country. Nauru, placed in a group of thousands of tiny islands called Micronesia, is totally relied on easily accessible phosphate. Australia protects the country under an informal agreement between the two.


5. Liechtenstein

Like Costa Rica, Liechtenstein abolished its existing army in 1868 as after the Austro-Prussian War as it was too expensive for the country to afford it. Once the country was out of the German Confederation, it was obliged to create an army for its own but the funding was not available. Principality of Liechtenstein National Police, the police force of the country, keeps the stability and peace of the country. Switzerland might help the country in the event of an attack, although there is not official word about it.

Toshiba Releasing World's Thinnest Tablet 'Excite LE'

Toshiba’s new tablet ‘Excite LE’ which is thinner than Droid Razr and lighter than iPad is going to be launched on March 6, 2012. Excite LE showed its first appearance at CES 2012 and was initially named Excite X10, and now it has got a final release date.

Excite LE is a 10.1-inch tablet which is unbelievably thin measuring only 0.3 inches and weighs just 535 grams. Excite LE is meant to compete with Samsung Galaxy Tab 2- a 10.1-inch tablet which is 0.38 inches thick and weighs 589 grams and iPad-9.7-inch screen tablet which is 0.34 inches thick and weighs 603 grams.


Excite LE has a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP 4430 processor from Texas Instruments and runs on Android 2.3 which will be upgraded to Android 4.0 in this spring. The device also features Micro-USB, HDMI, Micro SD ports and front and rear-facing cameras.


Initially the device will be shipped to U.S. market costing $529.99 for the 16GB model and $599.99 for the 32GB model. Toshiba has not net confirmed this new device’s availability in the world market, but the company says variants of this tablet will be released soon for other countries.

India's Growing Obsession with Porn Culture

Three Karnataka ministers were caught on television on 7 February, pouring over a cell phone watching a woman in a petticoat gyrating wildly. The ministers lost their jobs for watching pornography in the sacred boundaries of the Legislative Assembly. The incident is a high-profile example of a classic reality: porn is pervasive through the Internet across India, easily and freely accessible, and not just available to wary politicians but to children and adults in millions of ordinary homes, writes Damayanti Datta from India Today.


The times have changed in India too. Sunny Leone, 30, the most famous international porn star with Indian roots appeared on Indian television, on the reality show Big Boss 5 and has now launched a ‘clothes-on’ Bollywood career.


The organized $12 billion (60, 000 crore) American adult entertainment industry, to which Sunny belongs, has bred explicit images beyond the limits of imagination and they are free. Fuelled by the Internet and facilitated by high-speed data service, pornography, born in dozens of studio lofts around the world, has managed to enter teenagers' mobile phones with the force of a dangerous flood. It threatens to squeeze conventional notions of morality, raises tension in bedrooms, tempts children into a world they do not understand, and initiates a culture that threatens the ethnicity of family life.

Google Trends reported that the search volume index for the word 'porn' has doubled in India between 2010 and 2012. Online porn is increasingly affordable, accessible and acceptable with instant net connectivity and flexible payment options. 7 Indian cities are among the top 10 in the world on porn search, as per Google Trends, 2011. According to a 2011 IMRB Survey, one in five mobile users in India wants adult content on his 3G-enabled phone. More than 47 percent students discuss porn every day, suggests a public school survey by Max Hospital in Delhi. Porn tops the list of cyber crimes in India, as per the National Crime Records Bureau.


New terminologies and innovative formats, borrowed from foreign cultures are trendy on the web. Anime and manga refer to Japanese formats of sexually-explicit animation and comics. The new spotlight is the service sector, with ‘shy massage girls’ seducing clients, doctors and ‘hot babes in nurse uniforms’ getting wild.


Sunny Leone takes the credit for the 'pornification' of India. She said to India Today "My presence on Bigg Boss has empowered a lot of people to be open about their sexuality." She is one of the richest adult actresses in the industry, with her SunLust Pictures in Los Angeles reporting a top line of over $1 million and she is the most-searched Google celebrity-powered by India, Bangladesh and Pakistan and has 1, 47,326 Twitter followers.


Sunny's success indicates greater acceptability of porn in everyday life. Internet is the new tool, exploding every embarrassing sexual adventure of public personalities and making every striking detail an item of private consumption. Coming after the midwife Bhanwri Devi's sex cds with Rajasthan politician Mahipal Maderna in November last year, public reaction to the Karnataka disaster has ranged from resentment to amusement, but not shock.

While Leone seeking some respectability said "A porn star doesn't automatically mean prostitute," as reported to India Today.  She spoke of her parents' initial shock turning into respect, years of hard work, professionalism, restrained personal life and how they taught her to be a "good person” and lack of regrets. Her attempt will not be too difficult for today's young adults, who grow up with cable TV, DVD players and the Internet, exposed to much more adult material than their parents.

School students these days discuss porn too. Dr Samir Parikh, chief psychiatrist at Max Healthcare, calls it "risky indulgences". In a survey on 1,000 children from top public schools in Delhi in 2010, he found that 47 percent boys and 29 percent girls visit porn sites and talk about it in school.  He said "I understand sexual inquisitiveness and peer pressure around sexuality, but pornography on the Internet is fake, unreal, often violent and downright perverted." "Moreover, a new technology in young hands could lead to irresponsible behavior and ruin their lives," he added. There have been streams of MMS scandals that have hit campuses across the country since 2004, when two Class XI students of a school in Delhi created a sensation. In many of these cases, either one partner was not aware of being filmed or did not expect the videos would get circulated.

Also, the arrival of smartphones is changing the country's porn landscape further. India has the lowest access of smartphones, 10 percent, among the youth globally. With email, social networking, chatting, messaging and gaming, it is a device much craved for by the youth. And now there are porn applications as well. It is like a 'pocket' girlfriend or boyfriend, who can strip, talk dirty, and make sexual noises. "These are some of the 'apps' that can be downloaded on smartphones," Pranesh Prakash, programme manager with Bangalore-based think-tank Centre for Internet and Society was qouted as saying to India Today. He added "App download data shows the popularity of sex-themed apps on smartphones, apart from the adults-only stores." As for the age restrictions for applications, mostly there is just a pop-up asking if one is over 17. Smartphones are the future of anytime-anywhere porn, as estimated by TRAI, as over 50 percent of all Internet users in the country access the web via mobile phones today.


The threshold of what can be called 'pornography' is changing. Mainstream and hardcore entertainment is coming closer. It's also hard to draw the line between porn and art in vulgar item numbers, from Sheila ki Jawani to Munni Badnam Hui.


Pornography lately is growing big in India. But, the U.S., particularly the Los Angeles area, has the biggest porn industry in the world, followed by London and Budapest, estimated between $4 billion (20, 000 crore) and $15 billion (75, 000 crore) annually. Top porn stars without doubt earn a quarter of a million dollars annually.

Going by India Today Sex Surveys, Kolkata has the least taste for pornography. But still it is one of the top seekers of porn online, as per Google Trends reports. Sunny Leone's CDs are bestsellers in Kolkata. Step inside the dirty alleys between shops selling electronic goods, and piles of pirated blue film come out of hiding with 120 for just a CD and 250 for one with Leone on the cover. You ask too many questions and they show you the door. The police are their friends, though motorcycles stand ready for sudden crackdowns. One said "Sunny's CD is selling like hot cakes, 200 a day." While a 33 year old customer puts away the CD in his plastic bag with quiet satisfaction and says "I will have to watch when the wife is not looking."


Watching porn alone is another rising trend among men, all thanks to the Internet. India Today Sex Surveys in 2009 suggested video as the most popular porn format with just 10 percent men out of 2,661 watching porn alone. This year the number has gone up to 44 percent. Dr Vijay Nagaswami, Chennai-based expert on sexual psychotherapy said "It is usually a sign of cybersex addiction." He said that "Compulsive porn-watchers often become dysfunctional. They stay up late for online porn to get active on instant messengers, webcams, demand more private time, neglect family, work and normal sexual activity." As for what most Indians watch. Google Trends indicates that the typical Indian porn-watcher opt for more tame keywords, 'sex' and 'how to kiss', the most.






So, has the battle against porn been lost? Anti-porn feminists in the U.S. have admitted defeat while India is not quite there. In spite of the hyper-sexualized climate, ministers do get thrown out over porn. Cyber law expert and senior associate of SNG & Partners, Rahul Sud points out "Personal consumption of porn has never been an offence. Child pornography, publishing and transmitting are."

Nokia 808: A Monstrous 41MP Camera Phone

The Mobile World Congress 2012 (MWC) kicked off at Barcelona on February 27 and Nokia announced a slew of new phones at the event. The company introduced a camera phone ‘Nokia 808’ with jaw dropping 41 megapixels of sensor.

The Nokia 808 is the largest announcement by the company at MWC. The high density 41 megapixels sensor camera comes with Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash and a new oversampling technology. This sensor enables to select from various megapixels options while taking pictures like 5 MP, 8 MP and up to 32 MP. It means the image will be with more pixels to work after zooming and cropping the image.

The camera can also record full HD videos at 1080 pixel and comes with Nokia Rich Recording that offers CD like audio quality. The Nokia 808 is the first mobile to have CD like audio quality without the support of external mic, previously CD like audio quality was only possible using an external mic.


The 808 is a Symbian Belle based phone, packed with 4 inch AMOLED touchscreen featuring its own CleatBlack technology for better viewing at sunlight. It’s powered by ARM single-core 1.3 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, can be expandable up to 48 GB via microSD card. For connectivity it has Bluetooth, Near Field Connection (NFC), GPRS, Wi-Fi, 3G, micro USB and USB on-the-go support.


Along with Nokia 808 Pure View camera phone, the company has also introduced two new Windows Phone based Lumia smartphone – an entry level Lumia 610 and a high end Lumia 900.


The entry level Lumia 610 comes with 3.7 inch WVGA TFT touchscreen, 5 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash. It is powered 800 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. It also features 8 GB internal memory and for connectivity it has Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi, GPRS and GPS.


The Lumia 900 was already launched at Consumer Electronics Show 2012 in Las Vegas and now Nokia introduced the non-American version of Lumia 900 at MWC. Click here for more details about Lumia 900.


The Nokia 808 Pure View is expected to be priced at 29725, Lumia 610 for 12484 and the Lumia 900 would be around 31705. All these phones are expected to hit the market by May 2012.