Nikon unveils Android-powered Coolpix S800c camera

New Delhi: Nikon has announced its innovative Coolpix S800c point-and-shoot camera, which is Nikon's first Wi-Fi compact digital camera running Android operating system.

The new S800c lets you capture photos and HD video, and also offers a portal to connect to social networks and popular imaging applications through an Android Operating System.

The camera has 10x NIKKOR zoom lens and the 16-megapixel CMOS sensor. Powered by Android, the camera's connection features allow users to seamlessly connect, browse and upload to their social networks, including Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

Users can also take advantage of the full functionality of Android technology to surf the web or even download applications and games onto their S800c. Just like a smartphone or tablet device, the camera has the opportunity to run camera-specific photo and video applications.

The S800c also lets users access Google Play, thereby providing access to a a plethora of applications for games, productivity and personal communication/ email. Users are also able to watch video downloaded from Google Play right on their camera.

With the S800c, users can capture full HD 1080p HD videos. It also has built-in GPS.It has a 3.5-inch touchscreen OLED monitor.

The S800c will be available in September 2012 in both White and Black for a suggested retail price of $349.95.

-IBN Live & Engadget

Spouses of dead Google employees get half of salary for 10 years

New Delhi: Google has often been ranked as one of the best places to work. This reputation has been earned largely due to amenities offered to employees, such as laundry, dry cleaning and automotive services, swimming spas, gourmet meals, on-site massage and free on-site doctors. Now we can also add post-death benefits to the list.

In an interview with Forbes, Google's Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock said that the Internet giant has "announced death benefits at Google." Under this employee benefit, rolled out in 2011 for Google's US employees, the surviving spouse or partner will receive an annual payment equivalent to the dead employee's salary for 10 years.

There is also no tenure requirement to be eligible for the benefit. In addition children of the dead employee will receive a monthly payment of $1000 until they turn 19 or 23 in case the child is a full-time student.

When IBNLive enquired whether the benefits will also be made available to Google employees in India, a Google India representative said that Google is working on a plan to implement the scheme in its India offices.

In a recent study Google India was ranked as the best place to work for in India. The company was rated No. 1 on the list for the third consecutive year.

-IBN

Top 10: New features in the new Microsoft Office

New Delhi: Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office. The next release is touted to feature an intuitive design that works with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard across new Windows devices, including tablets.

It takes advantage of cloud computing and is designed for use with the upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

The new Office will be delivered to subscribers through a cloud service that is always up to date.

Here are the top 10 features of the new Microsoft Office:

1. Touch everywhere: Office responds to touch as naturally as it does to keyboard and mouse. Swipe your finger across the screen or pinch and zoom to read your documents and presentations. Author new content and access features with the touch of a finger.

2. Inking: Use a stylus to create content, take notes and access features. Handwrite email responses and convert them automatically to text. Use your stylus as a laser pointer when presenting. Color your content and erase your mistakes with ease.

3. Included in Windows RT: Office Home and Student 2013 RT, which contains new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications, will be included on ARM-based Windows 8 devices, including Microsoft Surface.

4. SkyDrive: Office saves documents to SkyDrive by default, so your content is always available across your tablet, PC and phone. Your documents are also available offline and sync when you reconnect.

5. Roaming: Once signed in to Office, your personalized settings, including your most recently used files, templates and even your custom dictionary, roam with you across virtually all of your devices. Office even remembers where you last left off and brings you right back to that spot in a single click.

6. New subscription services: The new Office is available as a cloud-based subscription service. As subscribers, consumers automatically get future upgrades in addition to exciting cloud services including Skype world minutes and extra SkyDrive storage. Subscribers receive multiple installs for everyone in the family and across their devices.

7. Skype: The new Office comes with Skype. When you subscribe, you get 60 minutes of Skype world minutes every month. Integrate Skype contacts into Lync and call or instant message anyone on Skype.

8. Reading and markup: The Read Mode in Word provides a modern and easy-to-navigate reading experience that automatically adjusts for large and small screens. Zoom in and out of content, stream videos within documents, view revision marks and use touch to turn pages.

9. Eighty-two-inch touch-enabled displays: Conduct more engaging meetings, presentations and lessons, whether in person or virtually, with these multitouch and stylus-enabled displays from Perceptive Pixel.

10. People Card: Have an integrated view of your contacts everywhere in Office. The People Card includes presence information complete with pictures, status updates, contact information and activity feeds from Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

While the full lineup of offerings and pricing plans will be announced later this year, Ballmer discussed three new Office 365 subscription services.

Here are the three subscription models:

1. Office 365 Home Premium: designed for families and consumers. This service also includes an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month.

2. Office 365 Small Business Premium: designed for small businesses. This service also includes business-grade email, shared calendars, website tools and HD webconferencing.

3. Office 365 ProPlus: designed for enterprise customers who want advanced business capabilities and the flexibility to deploy and manage in the cloud.

When available, each new subscription offer will include the new 2013 editions of the Office applications — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.

The customer preview is available here

-IBN

New projector smartphone, Samsung Galaxy Beam up for pre-order at Rs 29,900

New Delhi: Samsung is all set to introduce its new projector smartphone - the Samsung Galaxy Beam - in India. The phone is available online for pre-order on the Samsung India e-store. Available for Rs 29,900, you have to pay the full amount in the beginning itself.

The Samsung Galaxy Beam's 15 lumens projector allows users to display and share multimedia content anywhere on a large luminous projector screen - walls, ceilings or improvised flat surfaces.

Powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor, the phone has a 4.0-inch (480x800) TFT display. The Galaxy Beam has a 5 megapixel autofocus rear camera with flash and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera.

The phone has an internal memory of 8GB, which is expandable up to 32GB using a microSD card. The Samsung Galaxy Beam has 768MB RAM.

Measuring 12.6mm thin, the phone has a 2000mAh battery. The Galaxy Beam was first announced back in February during MWC 2012.

-IBN

Appy ever after, with a smartphone network for lovers

A smartphone app that caters mainly for bashful Asian lovers has recorded a million downloads since its launch last November, and now the developers are eyeing new markets. Couples unwilling to share their relationship with the world through Facebook or other social media have flocked to sign up for Between, an intimate app designed for two.

"Imagine how stressful it would be if your boss followed you on Twitter, or parents added you on Facebook...Between is the new solution for such pressure," one of the South Korean developers, Park Jae-Uk, told AFP in an interview.

Between, available on iPhones and Android-equipped models, offers privacy for couples who want to swap photos, messages, schedules and short voice messages via smartphone.

Developers say some 4.6 million messages and 350,000 pictures are exchanged daily. Between was named Best Mobile App of the year at a competition for new global ventures in the Dutch city of Amsterdam.

"Facebook and Twitter may do a good job in connecting people in all sorts of ways, but we thought maybe some people want a closed and private relationship," said Park, whose VCNC company runs the app.

"So we turned our eyes to unmarried couples who need such a private relationship platform more than any other groups."

Between lets them share photo timelines, send messages and mark anniversaries, birthdays and other dates on each other's calendars.

Connection to the service is completed when both parties enter each other's phone numbers after registering. If a couple breaks up, one of them may disconnect the service and all the data will be deleted.

"No matter how hard you try to conceal information on other social networking services, it still seems like they are wide open...so we decided to base our appeal on how tightly closed and protected our service is," said Park.

The application is password-protected and is never available to more than two people at any one time.

Absolute Betweeners
Between is available in 13 languages including Korean, English and Japanese. At present it mainly targets Asian users because of their culture of keeping loving relationships to themselves.

Some 75 percent of users are Koreans, 7 percent Chinese and 6 percent Japanese.

"I take a lot of photographs with my boyfriend and needed an exclusive space to share them by phone," said 23-year-old Hong Jee-Won.

Another user, Jun So-Min, said Facebook "is way too public, so to keep a record of private content like photos and messages, I use Between. It serves its purpose well and I'm satisfied with it."

Park is now looking for growth in Europe and the United States by tailoring the service.

"The culture is a little different in Europe and the US, so we will try to cater to long-distance couples or engaged couples getting ready for marriage," he said.

Currently, 79 percent of Between users are single and 96 percent of all users are in their 20s to mid-30s.

"Between in a way represents a commitment made by couples, so we rarely see teenagers using the service...their relationship usually doesn't last long enough to take full advantage of it," said Park.

That is why VCNC's engineers plan to develop a system which backs up data for up to one month after a breakup, just in case lovers decide to reunite and reopen their accounts.

"Think of it as an adjustment period for couples," said Park, adding users quite often complain when data is wiped under the current system.

VCNC is also looking for business models from next quarter, such as advertisements and promotions related to couples such as tour agencies, flower shops and wedding stores.

The company currently relies on a one billion won ($880,312) investment made by SoftBank last year and has not yet reported profits.

"Seeing two copycats already showing up on the market, I am sure the couple-related business has great potential, because people become less hesitant to open their wallets when it comes to their lovers," said Park.

"Even though differences might exist between cultures, I believe love is universal anywhere in the world -- and that's what makes Between possible."

-AFP

BEWARE! Skype bug sending private messages to random people

Skype has confirmed that a glitch in its software has been sending copies of messages to random contacts. Many ‘shocked’ Skype users complained that private instant messages had been re-sent to other contacts. According to The BBC, Skype then admitted messages sent between two users were being copied to a third party, in ‘rare circumstances’.

Some users said they would stop using the service because of the glitch.

The firm said it was working on a fix for the bug, which appears to have been introduced in an update to Skype applied in June.

According to the report, Skype said it hoped to put out a software update in the ‘next few days’ to fix the problem.

It said it would also prompt users to download and apply the update to prevent the problem spreading.

-ANI

Microsoft unveils 'Surface' tablet in iPad challenge

Software giant Microsoft unveiled its first tablet computer, Surface, in a major hardware launch clearly designed to take on long-term rival Apple's market-ruling iPad.

Chief executive Steve Ballmer described the iPad challenger -- complete with a built-in stand and ultra thin covers-cum-keyboards in a range of colors -- as a tablet that "works and plays."

"The Surface is a PC, the Surface is a tablet, and the Surface is something new that we think people will absolutely love," he said at an hour-long presentation in a Hollywood design studio.

No prices or release dates were given, but the Surface is expected to go on sale in the fall, with retail prices "competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class" computers, Microsoft said.

There were spontaneous bursts of applause and whoops from tech journalists and bloggers as key features of the new tablet, which has a slightly bigger screen than the iPad, but in wide-screen movie-style 16:9 format.

There was also one nerve-jangling moment for Windows Live Division chief Steven Sinofsky, when the first Surface model he was demonstrating failed to respond to a touch command. To his relief, a replacement worked immediately.

"It feels natural in your hands," he told the invite-only event, shrouded in secrecy reminiscent of Apple icon Steve Jobs, and held in a venue underlining cutting-edge design values, traditionally not Microsoft's strong point.

A version of the Surface tablet running on Windows RT software tailored for ARM mobile device chips will measure 9.3 millimeters thick and weigh 676 grams.

It boasts a 10.6-inch (26.9 centimeter) high-definition screen and will be available with 32 or 64 gigabytes of memory. A model powered by Windows 8 Pro weighs 903 grams and will be available with 64 or 128 gigabytes of memory.

"It's a whole new community of computing devices from Microsoft," Ballmer said. "It embodies the notion of hardware and software really pushing each other."

The Surface features a flip-out rear "kickstand" to prop it up like a picture frame and can be combined with a 3mm-thick Touch Cover that, when opened, acts as a keypad so tablets could be switched into "desktop" mode.

There is also a 5 mm-thick Type Cover with moving keys for a more traditional typing feel.

The keypad-cover attaches with a magnetic clasp familiar to iPad users, combining to feel like a book in weight and form, as confirmed when journalists were briefly given a brief chance to hold the device after the presentation.

"We designed this like a book. This spine feels like a book," Michael Angiulo, vice president for Windows Planning, Hardware & PC Ecosystem told the audience.

Microsoft did not specify when the tablet would be available but it is likely to be timed with the release of Windows 8 software later this year.

"This product marks a crucial pivot in Microsoft's product strategy," said Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps.

"It puts the focus on the consumer rather than the enterprise," she continued in a blog post. "And it lets Microsoft compete with vertically-integrated Apple on more even ground."

Microsoft, which built its fortune by specializing in software and leaving the job of making computers or other devices to partners, has had mixed results from its hardware ventures.

The Redmond, Washington-based technology colossus has stamped its brand on personal computer keyboards, headsets, speakers, webcams and mouse controllers.

Microsoft has occasionally weighed in with more significant hardware when it appeared that rivals were running away with the market.

The company's most successful effort in devices has been its Xbox gaming console, in contrast to its failed music player known as Zune.

Microsoft this month unveiled a SmartGlass application that developers can use to synch iPads or other tablet computers to Xbox 360 consoles.

Zune handheld digital media players were released in late 2006 in a Microsoft challenge to Apple's culture-changing iPod devices.

Microsoft discontinued Zune hardware last year. But it continues to operate its Zune service offering online music, films and other entertainment content, weaving it into the offerings available on Internet-linked Xbox 360 videogame consoles.

-AFP