Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia says it has shipped the 1.5 billionth phone running its S40 operating system.
The first S40 device Nokia 7110 was released in 1999. A 21-year old Brazilian woman made the historic purchase 1.5 Billionth purchase in São Paulo.
Nokia claims its development over the years means that it now blurs the line between feature phones and smartphones. Phones like the Asha 303 can do smartphone type things like play Angry Birds, browse the web, and use social networks.
The desktop remains central to our everyday work and play, despite all the excitement around tablets, TV’s and phones. So it’s exciting for us to innovate in the desktop too, especially when we find ways to enhance the experience of both heavy “power” users and casual users at the same time. The desktop will be with us for a long time, and for those of us who spend hours every day using a wide diversity of applications, here is some very good news: 12.04 LTS will include the first step in a major new approach to application interfaces.
This work grows out of observations of new and established / sophisticated users making extensive use of the broader set of capabilities in their applications. We noticed that both groups of users spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, navigating the menus of their applications, either to learn about the capabilities of the app, or to take a specific action. We were also conscious of the broader theme in Unity design of leading from user intent. And that set us on a course which lead to today’s first public milestone on what we expect will be a long, fruitful and exciting journey.
Head-Up Display, or HUD, which will ultimately replace menus in Unity applications. Here’s what we hope you’ll see in 12.04 when you invoke the HUD from any standard Ubuntu app that supports the global menu:
Searching is fast and familiar, especially once we integrate voice recognition, gesture and touch. We want to make it easy to talk to any application, and for any application to respond to your voice. The full integration of voice into applications will take some time. We can start by mapping voice onto the existing menu structures of your apps. And it will only get better from there.
But even without voice input, the HUD is faster than mousing through a menu, and easier to use than hotkeys since you just have to know what you want, not remember a specific key combination. We can search through everything we know about the menu, including descriptive help text, so pretty soon you will be able to find a menu entry using only vaguely related text (imagine finding an entry called Preferences when you search for “settings”).
We are sure that this is going to be a lot of fun. To read the Mark Shuttleworth’s blog post click here
Samsung has released Android 2.3.6 update for Galaxy Ace S5830I in India. The update is available via Samsung Kies.
The new version is S5830IXXLA2/S5830IODDLA1.
you might receive notification of this update on your device, if you have received such a notification- follow the onscreen instructions and update with the same.
If you have not received any such, then you can check it manually. To do that follow the path of home screen and hit Menu > Settings > About Phone > System update and click on Android update. Your update will be automatically be installed on your handset and you would be able to use your handset within 10 minutes.
Notion Ink partners with Texas Instruments
21 January 2012, Bangalore
Notion Ink has partnered with Texas Instruments (TI) Incorporated for its next generation Adam II Tablets. Adam II will be using OMAP44xx processor along with other TI components like Wi-Link 7.0 and Phoenix Audio Power Amplifiers. Adam II will also leverage the power optimizations achieved using mature combination of TI’s integrated power-management IC.
Designed specifically for best Power Performance and Multi-tasking Experience, Adam II will be based on Google’s IceCream Sandwich Operating System.
The OMAP44xx platform’s smart multicore architecture pairs its main CPUs with several differentiated features including programmable accelerators, hardware composition engines and a dedicated ISP. Imagination Technologies’ super-fast PowerVR SGX5xx GPU and enhanced memory architecture add still more functionality while an OMAP-specific distributed composition architecture enables advanced image and video layering for crisp, HD visuals. These elements and more are the force behind the OMAP44xx processor’s ability to enable fast and fluid multitasking while maintaining ultra-low power consumption.
Adam II will release the world’s first Modular Based Software Architecture which will further expand the scope of application development and use nearly every single hardware feature in a “user customizable” application. Drag and drop features will enable easy application modification and Open Source Module will further expand the use cases and tablet deployment. Node operations like in Blender, and “Application Authoring Tools” are primarily aimed at non-programmers for composing applications, games and use-case flows in a drag-and-drop fashion, utilizing visual editors and behavior-based logic system.
This System will help consumers, professionals and students become productive as they will be able to use the tablet as a logic analyzer, medical imaging device, signal acquisition and processing, 3D modeling and multi-media.
For more information about TI OMAP processors, visit www.ti.com and follow this blog for Adam II.
Airtel and Vodafone on Thursday announced fixed fee-based plans with different terms and conditions which will allow unlimited use of BlackBerry Messenger Service to their customers.
While Vodafone’s plan to be launched next week under name ‘Go BBM’ unlimited access to BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) for Rs. 5 per day or Rs. 129 per month for prepaid. There will be fixed price of Rs 129 per month for post-paid subscribers, the statement said.
Airtel in a statement also announced unlimited BBM service usage plan for its post-paid customers against monthly rental of Rs. 129. This plan will also provide 300 local and national SMS to BlackBerry handset user, the statement said.
To subscribe, existing and new postpaid Airtel mobile customers on BlackBerry can call 121 or walk-in to their nearest Airtel postpaid activation help-desk.
Corel has released Photo Management software AfterShot Pro for Linux. Its main features are
Corel® AfterShot™ Pro is a fast, flexible photo workflow solution that combines robust photo management, advanced non-destructive adjustments and complete RAW processing. Organize your photos in catalogs or folders. Find images quickly with extensive Metadata tools that let you search by camera settings, keywords, tags and more. Experiment with and alter images freely with non-destructive adjustment tools and apply enhancements precisely with selective editing. Easily output your work for albums, web sites or client review. With RAW support, powerful batch processing and incredible speed, AfterShot Pro is the fast way to professional photos.
To try AfterShot Pro visit Corel AfterShot Pro Website