Windows 8 Features

Windows 8 is a computer science masterpiece trapped inside a user interface kerfuffle. Microsoft’s new operating system for phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and servers brims with innovative technologies, bold ideas, and visual elegance.

.The system’s radical new interface, called Modern, is a pleasure to use on phones and tablets. And although that interface fares poorly on today’s larger desktop computer screens, Windows 8 probably won’t damage the company’s standing in corporate America. It might even shore up its eroding presence on residential desktops and laptops by offering a user experience that’s new, fun, and different from anything offered by Apple and Google. Indeed, that’s my only real criticism of Windows 8: the touch-based user interface is clearly designed for consuming information and having fun, rather than for doing serious work.

It makes technical sense for Microsoft to maintain a single, core operating system with a consistent set of application programming interfaces (APIs). In fact, it makes so much sense that Apple and Linux moved to a single kernel years ago. What’s different about Windows 8 is that it gives users a similar graphical user interface (GUI) on every platform, too. Microsoft has spent more than a decade trying to get cut-down versions of its operating system, with names like Windows CE, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile, accepted on mobile platforms. Some of these systems even had scaled-down versions of the standard Windows desktop interface—complete with pop-up windows, buttons, scroll bars, and even tiny Start buttons. But their GUIs and APIs were just different enough to confuse programmers and users alike. Windows 8 finally delivers consistent GUIs and APIs across the Microsoft ecosystem, although it is now the desktop that wears the tablet’s clothes.

Facebook launches App Center in India 

Facebook has launched its application centre — App Center in India and six other countries, a move that will help users to find games, music services and media content easily.

The social networking giant had launched the App Center in the U.S. last month.

“The App Center is now available to everyone in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K.,” Facebook software engineer Drew Hoskins said on the blog on Monday.

In addition, Facebook said that it will be launching App Center to users in Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, and Turkey in the coming weeks.

The launch is part of a plan to expand its reach to a large number of Facebook users, with 80 per cent residing outside the U.S. and Canada.

The users can access new App Center icon located on the left side of the home page on Facebook.com recommending apps to users based on their interests. Additionally, the service is also available on Apple and Android mobile devices.

“App Center makes it easier for people around the world to discover the best apps and games for them, wherever they are,” Mr. Hoskins added.

 

Keep cookies and spies off your computer

No sooner have you purchased a new pair of shoes online than you’re suddenly seeing them everywhere — primarily in banner ads across other sites gracing your computer screen.

Are you being tracked? In a word: yes. But there are steps you can take to cover your internet tracks.

The fact of the matter is that there are entire lockers of data being gathered online by advertising agencies, from just about every web surfer, whether they consent or not.

This data tracking is a tool for creating a profile of a customer.

The more these ad agencies know about potential customers, the more effectively they can advertise to them.

So long as it remains anonymous, it’s no more than annoying. But as soon as a user is identified, and his movements start getting tracked through the net, it’s no longer a laughing matter.

Blame it on cookies, these internet trackers that hunker down in your computer and make sure you’re always recognisable.

“The advertising networks gather up a user’s surfing behaviour and give him a globally unique identification number,” says Christian Krause of the independent data security centre of the German state of Schleswig Holstein.

“Users with that kind of number on their computer can always be recognised again.” That’s how an online store knows which pages you’ve already looked at and what you did there. But personalised ads are the least of the worries floating out there. Things can get really problematic when you’re on a page where you have to log on with your name, like on a social network such as Facebook or Google+.

“The problem is, that this data gets assigned to your name,” says Thilo Weichert of the Schleswig Holstein centre.

That’s especially worrisome to privacy advocates, since this name-linked data isn’t just for use by the advertising industry, but also companies that want to know a customer’s background or more about his finances. Government agencies also track this data.

And the demand for more data is only growing, according to a study by Xamit, a consulting agency that specialises in data security. It showed that 29.9 per cent of sites inspected during 2011 used a web statistics service that allowed user tracking. The year before, that figure was only 24.7 per cent.

About three-quarters of those sites examined used a service that did not adhere to data security standards, noted Xamit.

But there are strategies internet users can adopt against attempts to suck up data.

“Users should always try to delete stored cookies and the browser history after every internet session,” says Ragni Serina Zlotos of German computer magazine c’t. “That’s possible with all contemporary browsers. With Firefox, you can even set it so that the cookies are automatically deleted after every session.”

But that strategy only works with normal cookies. Online advertisers have upped the ante, now using flash cookies that, according to data security experts, are saved on the computer, independently of the browser. These have to be deactivated in the settings manager of Flash Player, which can be found in the System Controls.

Firefox users should also consider the add-on Better Privacy, which can delete flash cookies and so-called DOM storage cookies.

The browser add-on Ghostery, available for all browsers, also provides some protection from internet snooping. It shows which tracking services and advertising networks are currently following you, and then blocks them. “This has a real ‘A-ha’ effect for a lot of users,” says Krause.

Ghostery also tries to block the tracking. “But you shouldn’t count on that working. The programme performs differently depending on the browser employed,” according to Krause.

A lot of browsers also come with do-not-track functions.

“You can install the browser settings so that you’re not followed,” says Zlotos. Whether internet trackers adhere to those rules is the question. So far, Twitter has required them to honour it.

Another tip: if you’re going to do a lot of surfing with Facebook or Google+, but don’t want to be recognised everywhere, use two browsers, says Krause.

“You use the one for social networks, the other for all other internet sites.” The little bit of comfort you sacrifice is made up for by the protection it provides for your personal data.

 

A neighbourhood-friendly App in Nokia phones

Want to know the nearest restaurant or transport facility available in your neighbourhood?

The City Lens augmented reality browser on Nokia’s Lumia (Microsoft Windows) and Belle (Symbian) devices are a guide to everyday needs. It allows the user to explore options in food, hotel, shopping, landmarks, transport and entertainment.

Available at Nokia Beta Labs, the App has data from 196 countries, including India, and for nearly 2,000 cities and towns in India. The user has to choose from the options: food, hotel and landmarks, and point the device in the direction of search. A list of the places available in the direction comes on the screen with details of distance. When the specific place is chosen, the address, photos, reviews, and directions to reach the place are available. There are multiple sources for data collection in each city for this feature, apart from the Nokia points of interest.

Another feature available on Lumia phones is public transport. The feature is available for 11 Indian cities now. Only the schedules of public transport are available. In other countries, real-time update of the transport service is available. For instance, when details of the destination and the current location are entered, a point-to-point information on public transport is available. It also provides different modes of public transport and real-time update of the schedule.

(The correspondent was at Nokia’s design studio in Helsinki recently on invitation by the company).

 

Google’s Nexus 7 tablet-----Boon to Indian Markets

It is important to classify the current generation of tablet PCs as ‘modern tablet PCs’ or ‘Post-PC tablets’ (as Steve Jobs liked to classify it) because Apple reinvented the idea with the iPad in 2010. Handheld portable tablet PCs had been around for more than a decade and ironically Microsoft was among the first companies to unveil a prototype as early as 2001.

But since its launch in 2010, the iPad has come to define the genre and ended up cornering a substantial share of the market with its competitors making mere dents, or in some cases, such as the HP TouchPad, getting completely obliterated. It bodes well for consumers to have a wide array of choices, which is why recent announcements about Microsoft’s Surface and Google’s Nexus 7 tablets hold out much promise.

 

Late to the party

Microsoft arrives to the tablet PC arena almost as late as it did to the smartphone arena. (The iPhone was launched in 2007 and the Windows Phone in 2010.)

In a rather hurried and surprise event last month in Los Angeles, it unveiled its Surface tablet as a device running its upcoming Windows 8 operating system. The tablet comes in two iterations: the Surface RT and the Surface Pro. While the lighter RT version will run the Windows 8 in its Metro interface, the Pro version is expected to run the full desktop version of the OS.

The Surface tablets have a 10.6-inch (diagonal) 16:9 full HD screen and will sport among other things a USB port, a microSD card slot and will have internal storage of 32, 64 and 128 GB depending on the iteration.

The tablet PC has managed to wow with its design, something that has not quite been Microsoft’s forte over the years. With its magnesium alloy body, a quirky little kickstand and a cover that combines an inbuilt keyboard, a few renowned technology blogs have even said that the company has bettered Apple in the design game.

But what really matters is how soon Microsoft will deliver the product on a worldwide scale and what its key-differentiators will be, including the pricing. It had highlighted that Surface will not be just a consumption device and will allow people to work the way they do with a laptop. The impending release of Office 2013 (a consumer preview is currently available online) is expected to bolster its chances.

The other big hoop, the company will have to jump through, is pricing. Microsoft has not announced the exact numbers yet, but has said the pricing would be comparable to that of the range of Ultra notebooks. That could make it costlier than the Apple iPad, which will put the product on top of the premium category. There are some unconfirmed reports that the basic Surface RT is being pegged at around $599 (approximately Rs. 33,000).

Technical Specification

Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, announced at the Google’s I/O developers’ meet, is already viewed as a game-changer mostly because of what it offers for its $199 (approximately Rs.11,000) pricing. A few technology websites that had the benefit of the preview at the Google event last month have said it could potentially affect Amazon Kindle Fire’s growth in the entry-level tablet PC game.

This is also the tablet PC Indian consumers can look forward to, as Kindle Fire is not really tuned to the Indian market. For the cost-conscious Indian consumer, this could well be the tablet PC to own, since most of the economic tablet PCs flooding the markets here, leave much to be desired in terms of engineering and build quality.

The Nexus 7, running Android’s latest mobile operating system 4.1 (Jelly Bean), has a seven-inch 1280X800 HD display and features a quad-core Tegra3 processor, a micro-USB port, wireless and bluetooth connectivity and 1 GB RAM. It comes in two iterations in terms of internal storage: 8 GB and 16 GB.

The other big advantage for Nexus 7 is its already established Android Apps market that was recently rebranded Google Play. One can expect Nexus 7 to make a substantial buzz in the Indian market when it arrives here