Psy's 'Ganganam' Crosses 1 Billion

• Korean pop sensation Psy has managed to set a number of new records on YouTube thanks to his hit video Gangnam Style. In less than five months, his music video surpassed Justin Bieber’s Baby to become the most viewed clip on the video sharing site. It’s an impressive feat when you consider that Bieber’s song has been online for nearly three years.

How Hybrid 3D printer Creating Implantable Cartilage That Could Be Useful For Humans

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have created a hybrid 3D printer that’s able to manufacture implantable cartilage for regenerative use in patients. The team combined traditional inkjet printing with electrospinning, a method that uses an electrical current to create extremely fine fibers from plastic polymers. The fibers can be manipulated to form a porous structure, attracting healthy cartilage cells that grow around the implant. Better yet, the artificial cartilage is able to withstand everyday use while those healthy cells are generated. The material was tested in mice over a period of eight weeks and found to have "enhanced mechanical properties" compared to traditional printed solutions while also sharing traits "typical of elastic cartilage." The printer is still confined to the laboratory for further testing, but the goal is to one day use the printed cartilage in human patients.

How Google's Spanner Database Runs With Atomic Clocks And GPS

Google's Spanner database is designed to operate seamlessly between data centers around the world, keeping data synchronized across time and distance. To manage the global database and keep it running smoothly, the company had to invent its own reliable way of keeping time consistent between its servers. To accomplish this task, Google created the TrueTime API, a system that uses atomic clocks and GPS receivers in each Spanner data center to keep time consistent between its servers. Head over to Wired for the full story on Spanner from Google's engineers.

AMD Announced It's A-Series APUs:Now Available In India

AMD, the underdog of processors, has announced the availability of its new A-series Accelerated Processing Unit chips for the Indian market. The new processors will be priced between the Rs. 3,000-8,000 bracket and are being targeted at consumers who would like to do more with their PCs (or laptops) than just browse the web or make word files, without breaking the bank.

Samsung Working On Android Jelly Bean For Galaxy Tab 2

Samsung has started rolling out the Android Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy Tab 2. Once installed, this will update the version to Android 4.1, and bring this pretty much on par with the likes of the Kindle Fire HD.

Google's Indoor Maps Now Available On Desktop And iOs

Google Maps has featured internal floor plans of malls, airports, and other popular hot spots for some time now, but only on the Android mobile app. Now, the company is rolling out the same functionality on desktops, just in time for Black Friday shoppers to plan their trip to the mall before leaving home.

A New Era Of Windows Phone From HTC

A new era of Windows Phone is finally upon us, and HTC is leading the pack with their flagship smartphone: the Windows Phone 8X. Designed to be more compact than the Lumia 920 but equally high-end, the 8X introduces a different yet compelling style to HTC's lineup of devices. We couldn't resist going hands-on.

Copies Of Windows 8 Pro Are Freely Available

Copies of Windows 8 Pro are freely available from Microsoft’s website for anyone who wants to try out the operating system. Normally, the software would expire after 180 days, a period that is meant to allow Volume Licensing customers to automate and manage the activation process. But a loophole in the company’s Key Management System allows anyone to legitimately activate their copy of Windows 8 permanently, for free.

Lenovo Launches Ideapad Yoga 13

Even Lenovo's lineup is all over the place. There's the Lynx convertible, which transforms from laptop to tablet. The Twist rotates and folds, and looks like the X Series tablets we've seen for years. And then there's the IdeaPad Yoga, perhaps the most enticing of the bunch — we've been waiting for this device to come out ever since it was announced at CES back in January. The Yoga's crazy gimmick is its hinge, which allows the screen to fold all the way back over the keyboard, so you can hold your laptop like a tablet.

Microsoft Celebrates XBOX 10Th Anniversary

It may be hard for some to believe but Microsoft’s Xbox Live service just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Microsoft launched the online gaming service on November 15, 2002, exactly one year to the day after the original Xbox first hit retail.

Lenovo Launched C-Series Desktop

Lenovo has announced a round of updates for its entry-level product lineup covering the Q-series of compact desktops and the C-Series all-in-one family. The former sees the introduction of the IdeaCentre Q190, an update to last year’s Q180 model that Lenovo likes to tout as the “world’s smallest full-function desktop PC,” while the C-series is getting as many as seven new models equipped with 18.5-inch to 23-inch displays.

Measuring in at just 22mm (0.86 inches) wide, the Q190 is targeted at the HTPC crowd and those in the market of a space-saving computer. Exact specifications for the base model aren’t available yet but Lenovo says it can be configured with up to a third-generation Core i3 processor (the Q180 was powered by Atom chips), 8GB of DDR3 memory, 1TB of hard drive storage alongside a 24GB SSD cache, and Windows 8 Pro.

Other specs include an optional Blu-ray disc drive, integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, up to 7.1-channel surround sound support (via HDMI), an S/PDIF connector, USB 3.0 and 6-in-1 card reader. Lenovo says the tiny IdeaCentre Q190 will be available in January starting at $349.

Moving on to the C-series all-in-ones, the new lineup starts with the C240 and C245 at $350, both featuring a fixed-position, 18.5-inch display and an Intel Celeron or AMD E2 dual core processor respectively.

The C340 and C345 feature 20-inch displays alongside an Intel core i3 with Nvidia GeForce 615 2GB graphics for the former at $499, or an AMD E2 dual core processors with AMD Radeon HD graphics for the latter at $479. Similarly, the C440 and C450 represent Intel and AMD flavors of the 21.5-inch model at $519 and $499, respectively, while the C540 rounds out the roost with a 23-inch screen and an Intel-only CPU for $549.
All of them offer up to 1TB of hard drive space, with the exception of the C540 which offers up to 2TB, as well as up to 8GB of RAM, a 720p HD webcam, Dolby Advanced Audio V2, and Windows 8. The C240 and C245 will be available in November, while the rest will be available in January.

iPad 4G Review

Features:

The fourth-generation iPad looks almost exactly like the previous model, and it's priced the same, too. There are 16, 32, and 64GB sizes in Wi-Fi-only ($499, $599, and $699) and same-size 4G LTE variants ($629, $729, and $829). If you want to be able to keep apps, movies, and music on your tablet, I advise getting at least 32GB. For this review, I tested the $699 64GB Wi-Fi-only model.

Just like the second- and third-generation iPads, this tablet has a 9.7-inch screen surrounded by a black (or white) bezel, with a curved metal back, and a single Home button. Apple's magnetic Smart Cover, which was released with the iPad 2, clips on just fine. The tablet still has a sealed-in battery, and no ports other than a standard headphone jack. There's a 1.2-megapixel camera right above the display on the middle of the top bezel, and a 5-megapixel camera in its traditional location on the back upper left corner.

On the bottom is Apple's new, compact Lightning connector, which isn't compatible with earlier accessories, but Lightning accessories are starting to appear, and I'm confident the ecosystem will develop quickly with more than 8 million Lightning-compatible phones, PMPs, and tablets already in people's hands.
The 2,048-by-1,536-pixel Retina Display is sharp, clear, and bright. At 263 pixels per inch, it beats every other tablet on the market right now except Google's Nexus 10, which offers a 300ppi, 2,560-by-1,600 10-inch screen. But both Web browsing and gaming look better on the iPad's screen because of superior software choices. In the browser, Apple picked better-looking, better-kerned fonts, and cross-platform games showed generally superior graphics and coding on the iPad.

Apps:

The new iPad, like the old iPad, runs Apple's iOS 6. See our full review for a look at the ins and outs of the iPad's operating system. We've also reviewed and profiled hundreds of iPad apps if you want to get an idea of the richness of the software for this device.

In the eight months since the third-generation iPad was released, most of the apps I have been using for testing have been upgraded to Retina versions. The OS smoothes and improves standard elements within many non-Retina-enhanced apps, too, including text and embedded maps.

Speaking of those maps, Apple's troubles with mapping don't affect this iPad as much as other iOS devices because the Wi-Fi-only model lacks GPS. Still, though, if it can find Wi-Fi the tablet can find its location, and you can download a third-party mapping app if you like; here are 10 solid Apple Maps alternatives.

The latest iPad packs an Apple A6X processor which Geekbench reports to be running at 1.4GHz (Apple won't confirm or deny). The custom-designed A6, as seen in the iPhone 5, was already one of the fastest CPUs available; the A6X enhances the A6 with even better graphics.

The results are stunning. The fourth-gen iPad outmatched all other Apple products on the Geekbench and GLBenchmark benchmarks, scoring 1,768 on Geekbench to the iPad 3's 749. Similarly, the heavy game "Need for Speed: Most Wanted" launched in 18 seconds on the new iPad as compared to 37 seconds on the iPad 3. Yes, it's more than twice as fast. With the iPad 3, I found apps that stressed the older A5 processor.
Gaming performance is significantly better on the new iPad, too. Intense games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Asphalt 7 run at a smooth 60 frames per second on the new iPad and render landscapes in advance of viewing; the Nexus 10 had frame-rate trouble in both games and would render buildings as I came up to them, which was distracting. Scores on the GLBenchmark graphics benchmark tell the tale. On GLBenchmark's "Egypt HD On-Screen," which renders a complex game-like scene, the iPad 3 scored 22 frames per second, the Nexus 10 hit 27, and the iPad 4 marked 42. That's a noticeable difference.

The new iPad upgrades both cameras. The 1.2-megapixel front camera records 720p video; the rear camera takes 5-megapixel stills and 1080p video. The cameras offer the same excellent performance as on the Apple iPad mini. The front camera takes sharp 1.2-megapixel shots, even in low light. In very low light, images get quite noisy, but that's preferable to blurry. Its 720p HD videos record at a noisy 24fps in very low light, and 30fps outdoors. The main camera captures sharp, clear, and well-balanced 5-megapixel images and 1080p video at 30 fps indoors and out.



Final Review:

Most 10-inch Android tablets, including the laudable, but flawed, Google Nexus 10, still lack the level of polish and the range of third-party apps designed for Apple tablets. Yes, the Google Play store offers a small selection of featured tablet apps, but for the vast majority of Android apps, it's hard to tell before downloading (and paying for) them whether you'll get a true tablet app or a blown-up phone app. Once again, those scaled phone apps look okay on a medium-resolution, seven-inch tablet and generally awful at a super-high-res 10 inches, so this is more of a concern with larger tablets.

Secret Behind Abandoned Island From The Movie Skyfall

In Skyfall, the Japanese island of Hashima serves as the secret headquarters of Raoul Silva, the well-coiffed Bond villain played by Javier Bardem. In reality, it serves as a sobering reminder of the pitfalls of industrialization, and the human toll it can exact. Late last month, Messy Nessy Chic published a detailed history of the island, which, at the turn of the 20th century, was a bustling coal-mining town owned by the Mitsubishi Corporation.

Things took a turn for the sinister at the dawn of World War II, when the Japanese turned the island into a bona fide labor camp for Chinese and Korean prisoners. By 1959, the island boasted the highest population density on Earth (139,100 per square kilometer), and living conditions soon deteriorated. That changed once Japan turned to petroleum, and today the island is completely abandoned and degraded, as it has been for the last 38 years.

In 2002, Swedish filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad visited the island with a Japanese man named Dotokou, who grew up on Hashima. The occasion marked the first time that Dotokou had been on the island as an adult, and his experience is nothing short of harrowing. Throughout his visit, the former Hashima resident excavated memories from his childhood, gazing at the decorations his mother hung on their apartment walls, and paying homage to a deceased friend with whom he grew up. Nordanstad documented the trip in a film called Hashima, Japan, 2002, embedded below in its entirety.

Internet Explorer 10 Preview Finally Available For Windows 7

Aside from Microsoft's unilateral decision to enable Do-Not-Track by default, the most controversial thing about Internet Explorer 10 may have been its limited platform support. Except for its first couple of previews, the browser has remained compatible only for flavors of Windows 8. Today though, Microsoft has released their first Windows 7 compatible preview of IE10.

When IE10's first preview was birthed in April, its release notes indicated it would only be compatible with Windows 7 and up -- Vista and XP users be damned. Microsoft seems to have a habit of doing this kind of thing, but -- oh well -- that's just the way it is.

After IE10's June developer preview arrived, Microsoft seemingly abandoned Windows 7 users, supporting only Windows 8 from then on. Fast forward to recent times and IE10 is bundled with Windows 8, but Windows 7 users have remained in the lurch. Sure, we've known since April that IE10 would be available for Windows 7 but of course the problem was no one really knew when. We learned in October that Microsoft was getting very close to releasing its Windows 7 version in "mid November" and it appears that rumor spot on.

Microsoft has been mum in regards to when Windows 7 users can expect the finalized version of IE10. However, if the lag time between past IE previews and final releases serve as an indicator, we can probably expect the final version to hit Windows 7 in spring 2013.

Verizon Launches The 5-inch Droid DNA By HTC

The big question a lot of mobile users right now seem to be asking themselves is whether or not they need a tablet and a smartphone, or just a phone that acts as both. This often takes users into the realm of giant smartphones, of which we’ve now seen several — phones that are arguably unusable with one hand and allow you to take in more content than you’d be able to get on a smaller smartphone. Today, HTC and Verizon took to the stage to announce their 5-inch collaboration, the Droid DNA.

The Droid DNA is the first smartphone on Verizon Wireless to sport a 1080p screen, an impressive feat in a space where many of HTC’s competitors are just now working with 720p displays. The design of the Droid DNA follows Verizon and HTC’s previous collaborations, which sport a glossy black front with a matte black back and red accents everywhere. The Gorilla Glass 2 front of the phone plays home to the three touch sensitive buttons that HTC has been placing on their phones since Android 4.0 was released. The 5-inch screen sits in a casing with almost no bezel on the sides, and HTC claims the form factor is almost identical to the smaller screened HTC One X.




With a quad core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 and 2GB of RAM, the Droid DNA immediately sets itself above most of the other smartphones being released right now. With 16GB of storage onboard and no removable storage or removable battery, the Droid DNA joins the Nexus 4 in being a very powerful sealed phone. The 8MP camera features HTC’s ImageSense Chip and a new “Sightseeing mode” that offers even more features to an already impressive camera. The Droid DNA comes with Android 4.1 running HTC Sense 4+ and the BeatsAudio enhancements that go with owning an HTC phone.

Google Nexus 7 Review

The name "Nexus 7 with mobile data" is a clunky mouthful, but it's perfectly appropriate — this tablet is the Nexus 7 with a little bit of connectivity grafted onto it. This tablet is exactly, utterly the same as the tablet we reviewed in June, save for a tiny cut-out rectangle about a third of the way up the left side. Poke a SIM tool or paper clip into the small hole in the cut-out, and out pops a SIM card tray. Pop in an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card, and you're off and running. The whole thing is so well camoflauged that you might never notice it's there, even feeling along the side with your fingers.

it's a really solid device. (I bought one myself, and love it.) Its soft-touch back is comfortable to hold, and everything from text to movies look good on the 7-inch, 16:10, 1280 x 800 display. The design is great for reading in portrait, and for turning on its side for watching movies — personally, I prefer the form factor to the iPad mini. It's a little thick and heavy, especially compared to the iPad mini, but it's still really usable in one hand. Its Tegra 3 processor is fast, and Android 4.1 (since upgraded to 4.2) is a reliable and mature operating system.
The Nexus 7's problems make the jump to the new model as well. There are limited storage options (only up to 32GB), the Play Store doesn't have the depth or breadth of content some of the App Store, and most of all there are still far too few good apps for Android tablets.

The HSPA+ connection makes the Nexus 7 Mobile feel more like a portable device than any other tablet I've used — including the Nexus 7. Same goes for the iPad with LTE, or Verizon's Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. With no connection, your tablet is only as good as the last time you synced it, but these always-on models are great for streaming music, quick Google Maps lookups.

Final Review:

All of this is to say that if you're thinking about buying a tablet, you're still probably best off with an iPad. But if you're sold on a Nexus 7, I can't think of a good reason not to buy it with mobile data. I recommend buying the cellular version of any tablet, actually, but it's an even easier sell on this device. The deciding factor with other tablets is price: you pay a $130 premium on the iPad for LTE connectivity, and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is only available for $399.99 from Verizon. At $299, the Nexus 7 costs only $50 more for the HSPA+ model — it's $100 more than the entry-level model, but you also get 32GB of storage instead of 16.

Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 Available Through Play store

Google has started accepting orders for the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 in the Play Store. Shoppers in the UK eager to pick up the stock Android phone can choose from 8GB or 16GB variants, priced at £239 and £279 respectively, while those in Australia will be paying A$349 for 8GB and A$399 for 16GB. Anyone in the UK more interested in Samsung’s tablet, meanwhile, will pay £319 for the 16GB model and £389 for the 32GB version, while Australians will be paying A$469 or A$569.

Several stores across Europe are also live — including France, Germany, and Spain — with the 8GB/16GB Nexus 4 priced at €299/€349, and the 16GB/32GB Nexus 10 costing €399/€499. The devices aren't up in the US Play Store just yet, but when they do go live, customers will be paying $299/$349 for the 8GB/16GB Nexus 4, and $399/$499 for the 16GB/32GB Nexus 10.

•  The Play Store has been sluggish since orders first began, no doubt due to sheer demand, and now it looks like some models of the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 are no longer available to buy.

•  The Nexus 4 has completely sold out in the UK, as has the 32GB Nexus 10, but the 16GB version of the tablet is still available. As for the US? We're told that the Play Store will go live with the devices at 9AM PT/12PM ET.

•  The US Play Store is now live with the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 slightly ahead of schedule.

•  And just like that, the Nexus 4 has sold out, with both capacities reverting to "Coming soon" status. The Nexus 10, meanwhile, is still up for grabs.

•  Google has posted an update on the situation, stating that "There's been so much interest for the Nexus lineup that we've sold out of some of our initial stock in a few countries!" The company says that it expects to add more inventory in the coming weeks. However, we were able to order a 16GB Nexus 4 through the Google Play Store just moments ago, so if you're anxious to get your hands on the latest Android flagship phone, it might be worth checking out the site throughout the day.

•  Google Play now lists the Nexus 4 as "Sold out" in the US.

Doodle 4 Google

Search engine Google today displayed "A Prism of Multiplicity", an award winning doodle designed by Chandigarh teenager Arun Kumar Yadav.

More than 100 million people across India will take a dekko at an Indian emblem, a winning Google doodle, on the search engine's homepage on


Children's Day November 14, the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister.
The doodle, "A Prism of Multiplicity" showing a soccer player, a kathakali dancer, gold jewellery, a peacock, a farmer and flowers, was designed by Arun Kumar Yadav, a teenager and a student from Chandigarh.

Yadav was declared winner of the Doodle4Google contest, which received 200,000 submissions from 60 Indian cities.

The competition was judged by a two-member jury comprising cartoonist  Ajit Ninan and actor Boman Irani.

"The theme for this year's competition was 'Unity in Diversity'.


The Doodle4 Google competition was instituted four years ago to encourage children to take up creative work, Rajan Anandan, vice-president and managing director, Google India, said.

"We are also promoting art awareness through Google. The search engine has tied up with 41 countries under the Google Art Project to bring the best world art to more than two billion Internet users. Art is the least accessible of all other genres," Anandan said.

Blackberry 10 Launching On January 30th

A recent security clearance win for BlackBerry 10 from the U.S. government was a bit of good news for RIM, and today there’s some good news for the company’s remaining fans. CEO Thorstein Heins has made it official: BlackBerry 10 is really going to launch on January 30, 2013.

It would have been nice to see BlackBerry 10 arriving before the holiday shopping rush, since millions will likely be purchasing new devices before the clock runs out on 2012. Still, it’s good to see that Heins has set a definite date and that RIM isn’t going to put the brakes on again — there have already been more than enough delays leading up to this launch.

During that time span, RIM has taken a beating both in terms of market share and consumer perception. Its devices have gone from being the way to interact (thanks to BBM) to being second-class citizens, overshadowed by the likes of the iPhone and Galaxy S3. But Heins has promised big things, and he’s all too well aware just how much is riding on the launch of BlackBerry 10. The Canadian company was a leading innovator for years, and Heins clearly believes there’s still plenty left in the tank.

Steven Sinofsky Departs From Microsoft

Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft executive in charge of Windows, has left the company. Julie Larson-Green is to assume control of Windows software and hardware engineering, and CFO Tami Reller will be in charge of the Windows business. The changes are effective immediately, and no reason was given for Sinofsky's departure. He had the following to say in a statement:

    "It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company."


Sinofsky says"I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company."  Sinofsky had a reputation as a brilliant yet controversial leader who could be difficult to work with, despite a strong record of shipping products on time. After working with Microsoft Office, he took control of Windows 7 following the troubled Vista launch and continued this role through last month's Windows 8 launch. His official title was President of the Windows Division.

Julie Larson-Green has been at Microsoft since 1993 and was responsible for program management, user interface design, and research on Windows 7 and 8. Her new role will encompass "all future Windows product development in addition to future hardware opportunities," and Ballmer described her as "the best possible person for this job." Just two weeks after the Windows 8 launch, however, the real question is why now is the time for Sinofsky to go.

The main reaosn for Steven Sinofsky's departure is that  executive shake-up wasn't based on any issues with Windows 8 or the Surface launch, but personality clashes within the ranks.

Google Engineer Designs Air Suction Scanner

For the past eight years, Google has been working on digitizing the world’s 130 million or so unique books. While the pace of new additions to the Google Books initiative has been slowing down, members of the team have come up with a new automated scanner design that could both make the project much more cost efficient and give everyone with $1,500 and a little know-how access to a page-turning scanner of their very own. In the video below, Google Books engineer Dany Qumsiyeh presents the prototype design that he and other teammates created during the "20 percent time" that Google (and now Apple, among others) allocates for personal projects, showing the design challenges he overcame along the way.

The scanner uses air suction from an ordinary vacuum cleaner to isolate individual pages, scanning the front and back in one pass along the device's prism-shaped body. After a quick 40-second setup, it can digitize a 1000-page book in a little over 90 minutes (although that could be easily improved with a faster motor), and unlike many popular scanners on the market it doesn’t require anyone to operate it once it’s been set in motion. But what makes the project really intriguing is that all of the plans have been open sourced with open patents, meaning you’re free to experiment, build on Qumsiyeh’s design, and even sell derivative scanners without worrying about Google’s army of lawyers swooping down on you. And with half of Qumsiyeh's $1,500 price tag being eaten up by the scanner he tore apart for parts, we'd say there's still a lot of room for optimization.

AT&T's Samsung Galaxy Camera Launching On November 16Th

For those looking for a device that's a camera first and smartphone second, AT&T has just announced that the 4G-connected Samsung Galaxy Camera will be available starting November 16th for $499.99 without a contract. That price is significantly less than the £399.99 that customers in the UK need to pay and the lack of a 2-year contract is also a boon, but actually using the cellular radio inside will still require a data plan.

The cheapest option would likely  be as an add-on to AT&T's Mobile Share plan at $10 a month (not unlike how the company deals with tablets now), and AT&T is hoping to offset that cost with a $100 discount on the camera if purchased in conjunction with an on-contract Galaxy smartphone. Whichever way you game out the pricing, you'll still be paying a premium to get a cellular-connected, Android-powered camera instead of a more traditional point-and-shoot.

AT&T is selling the same model that Samsung is selling internationally, with a quad-core 1.4GHz processor and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The camera includes a 4.8-inch HD Super Clear LCD display, a 16MP backside illuminated CMOS sensor, and a 21x optical zoom lens. One last spec: the "4G" label AT&T is appending refers to its HSPA+ network, not LTE.

Google Releases Acer C7 Chromebook For $199

Just over a month since it introduced the new Samsung Chromebook, Google is expanding its lineup again with the Acer C7 Chromebook. Like Samsung's latest effort, the Acer C7 Chromebook includes an 11.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution. It's powered by an unspecified Intel Core processor and comes with the expected array of features, like a built-in HD camera, dual-band Wi-Fi, and HDMI output. Where it differs largely from its Samsung sibling, however, is storage and battery life.

While the Samsung Chromebook offers 16GB of SSD storage and 6.5 hours of battery, the Acer C7 incorporates a massive 320GB hard disk drive and has an estimated usage time of 3.5 hours. Google will offer all new Chromebook owners 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years. The Acer C7 Chromebook will be available tomorrow, November 13, for $199 on Google Play and various electronics retailers in the US and UK.

Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook Latest Features

Samsung Series 9
The Samsung Series 9 is one of the most amazing laptops that we have tested recently. It has everything to be called an ultrabook, yet it has been branded as a notebook by Samsung. Nevertheless, the blazing performance, the ultra slim form factor and the exquisite build quality are truly awesome. It costs a lot of money, but then again, this is the best option for a Windows ultrabook which actually competes with and beats the MacBook Air, overall.
Ultrabooks are meant to be slim and sleek, as much as possible, keeping the dimensions in check and the weight down. There are a lot of devices running around that aren’t the slimmest by any means, but do get classified as ultrabooks. The Samsung Series 9 deserves that tag more than anything.

DESIGN:

Straight out of its very premium packaging, and you literally have to rub your eyes to be doubly sure of what you are seeing. The Samsung Series 9 is slimmer than even the MacBook Air! The Series 9, at its thickest point is 12.9mm thick, while the MacBook Air tips 17.2mm at its thickest point. That didn’t stop Samsung from fitting in 2 USB ports, mini HDMI out, the 3.5mm jack and a memory card reader. You get adapter options for LAN and VGA out, with the LAN adapter a part of the package. Even the power adapter is a thing of brilliance, with its compact design small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
The Series 9 has corresponding chunky portions on the sides close to the display hinge side, and that is where the ports are fit in. From there, a flowing design seamlessly slims down the machine without any fuss. The curves carry on where the lid meets the hinge, and is very much appreciated when the Series 9 is placed on a table with the lid closed.

The Samsung Series 9’s 100% aluminum chassis mostly consists of Duralumin. This is used to create what the company calls a “slim and aerodynamic design”, and is usually used in aircrafts. The result is a solidly built laptop that is very light to pick up and move around.

FEATURES:

No shortage of power on the Series 9. This is powered by an Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7-3517U processor and paired with 4GB of RAM. This processor clocks at 1.9GHz and Turbo Boost takes it up to 2.4GHz.For your data storage, the Series 9 comes with a 256GB SSD. This drive is one of the fastest ones around, something that we will explain in greater detail in the performance section.

The Series 9’s 13.3-inch display has a resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels, which is much higher than the fairly common 1366 x 768 pixels. This difference shows up clearly, with absolutely amazing clarity of text. Readability on this screen is by far the best among all ultrabooks we have tested, helped immensely by the sharpness and the largely non-reflective nature of the display. Black level depth and white saturation levels are slightly on the lower side, but the display does very well in the pixel stability tests.

PERFORMANCE:

Without a shadow of a doubt, the Series 9 powered by the Core i7 processor is the fastest among all ultrabooks that we tested. The PC Mark Vantage score of 12972 is the only one breaching the 10000 mark, with the second highest being the 9966 scored by the HP Envy 4. The PC Mark 07 score of 4647 is again the highest, with the Fujitsu Lifebook U772 quite some way behind in second place clocking 4221. If you remember reading a bit earlier about the fast SSD on this machine, the drive test score of 41503 is pipped only by the 128GB SSD on the Lifebook U772, with a score of 42453. All other SSDs are considerably slower.

The battery life offered by the Series 9 is a delight. Quite frankly, we were surprised to see this clock 246 minutes in the stressful battery test. But the surprise element was that this is by far the best battery backup time clocked by any ultrabook, including the less powerful Core i3 and Core i5-bearing machines! In a typical day at work, this should give you around 6.5-7 hours of battery backup.

Final Review:

The Series 9 seems to have done that quite successfully, doing everything right. Right out of the box, the exquisite build quality justifies the money you have just spent. Switch it on and the performance is a delight. Battery life ensures you can almost last one full day of usage at work without reaching for the sleek power adapter. All in all, the Series 9 does it all. You can flaunt your bank account’s strength without compromising on functionality and performance. This is the closest a Windows machine has come to a MacBook Air overall, and that is a compliment in itself.

Google Moves Forward In Designing Its Search Engine

Google has unveiled a new design for its search results page that gives more real estate to its Knowledge Graph results and makes the look and feel on desktop computers consistent with those on smartphones and tablets. In a nutshell, the new layout shifts the advanced search options from the left sidebar to the horizontal bar above results where options to search verticals like Images, News and Maps are located.

The advanced search tools themselves aren’t changing. Clicking on the “Search tools” link brings up virtually the same options as before, allowing you to filter results by date ranges and a handful of other criteria (sites with images, related searches, nearby, translated foreign pages, etc.).
Google says the new search results page will be available only to users in the US initially, with a gradual roll out to other languages and regions coming as soon as possible. A quick browse to Google.com shows the new design is live even for users outside the US, however.

Here's the full announcement:

"You’ll notice a new simpler, cleaner design on the search results page — we’ve been working on ways to create a consistent search experience across the wide variety of devices and screen sizes people use today. We started with tablets last year, got it to mobile phones a few weeks ago, and are now rolling out to the desktop.

With the new design, there’s a bit more breathing room, and more focus on the answers you’re looking for, whether from web results or from a feature like the Knowledge Graph:
t’s going out to Google.com users in the U.S. to start, and we want to get it to users in other languages and regions as soon as we can. We hope you enjoy this design refresh — let us know what you think on our Google+ page."

Windows 8 Beats Android

Data from Internet traffic analytical firm StatCounter reveals that Windows 8 has overtaken Android with regards to web traffic. It’s an impressive feat given the fact that Microsoft’s new operating system has only officially been available for less than two weeks.

Judging by the traffic analysis chart above, we can also see what Windows 8 tallied a decent amount of web traffic even before the October 26 launch date. This of course is due to a few different reasons. It’s likely that some users are still running the Release Preview of Microsoft’s operating system that was first made available for download on May 31.

Even more likely, however, is the fact that the final RTM build of Windows 8 was made available for download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers in mid August. There’s no doubt that a number of enthusiasts picked up a copy of the new OS at that time.

'Angry Birds Star Wars' Released

Angry Birds Star Wars unites the most popular video game of this generation with the most popular film franchise ever. Such a high profile combo may trigger a gag-reflex in the throats of gamers and Jedis alike, and understandably so. Both have been thoroughly spurned by insipid tie-ins and cash grabs. But Rovio's latest flies to the tender core of such cynicism and blasts it to stardust, with a payload of creativity, playfulness and reverence for the beloved sci-fi classic.

Understand that the Angry Birds games, in the most basic sense, are about gravity. The original Angry Birds pitted the player against Earth's gravity, requiring him to use the familiar up and down arch of a projectile to attack an enemy. Angry Birds Space improved upon this concept by adding and subtracting gravities, demanding players navigate multiple gravitational fields and the frictionless space between them.



Angry Birds Star Wars is the first in the series to allow players to manipulate gravity. The Obi-Wan-bird (that sound you hear is a thousand Star Wars fans groaning at such a phrase) has the ability to use the Force (a telekinetic-like power) to bend the gravity surrounding objects on the screen, batting them like tinker toys in any which direction, often toppling nearby, precariously built architecture in the process. The Force also serves the enemy pigs. Darth Vader-pig levitates platforms in certain stages, and taking him out releases the objects, raining down on helpless Empire-pigs. The Force isn't just a gimmick in Angry Birds Star Wars, it's a layer of strategy.

This app is the inverse, a game clearly made by people who love Star Wars films. Bonus levels, unlocked by collecting stars in the campaign, go so far to let the player play as R2D2 and C-3PO-birds — both with unique abilities — while a cut-scene reveals who truly shot first in a certain controversial showdown on Tatooine.

Angry Birds Star Wars leaves plenty of room for expansion. The first two sets of levels track the events of A New Hope, while a soon-to-be-released free Hoth level pack will dig into the beginning of Empire Strikes Back. If you're looking for more, you can buy an additional level pack, set in Dagobah, at a cost of $1.99. It's a bit irritating to see this sort of thing on the release day of a comparably brief game.