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Apple is the biggest consumer electronics company in the world, without a doubt. No other company has captured the public’s fascination the way Apple has. Over the years it has transformed into more than just a company or corporation, but for many it has become a representation of a lifestyle or culture, and a status symbol complete with a larger fan base than most pop stars.


The company is known just as much for its veil of secrecy and ability to get the Internet buzzing with rumors, as it is for the actual products. You’re probably in on the gossip, but there are likely a few things you don’t know about Apple.

So read on for the origins of product names, factoids about the Apple logo, what Wozniak sold to finance the Apple I, and more wonders dug up from the archives of Apple’s past.


The First iPod Had A Secret Easter Egg

Apple’s first iPod came with a little secret, an Easter egg,  in the form of a game that could be accessed if you knew the right combination of buttons to press.

How to find the game is described in Nick Triano’s early 2002 Geek.com review of the iPod (memorable quote: “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it will change the way you listen to music”). “Go to the ‘About’ menu, hold down the center button for about three seconds, and you’ll get a Breakout (Pong) game to play while you listen.”

Breakout, the hidden game itself, is notable in Apple’s history as it was a product that both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked on together at Atari.


The Name “iPod” Was Inspired By 2001: A Space Odyssey

Clever copywriter Vinnie Chieco is credited with coming up with the iPod name as part of a team assembled by Jobs to create a consumer-friendly moniker for the new device.

The story goes that Jobs had already decided the MP3 player’s tag-line was to be “1,000 songs in your pocket,” which left naming options wide open since it wouldn’t have to explicitly refer something music related.

“As soon as I saw the white iPod, I thought 2001,” Chieco told Wired in 2006. “Open the pod bay door, Hal! Then it was just a matter of adding the ‘i’ prefix, as in ‘iMac.’”

Of course, Hal has another place in Apple history, in the sinister Y2K warning ad that Apple aired to advertise the fact that Macs would not implode with the whole 2000 switchover, unlike those pesky PCs people insisted on using.


Apple Made the First Mass-Market Color Digital Camera

Back in 1994, Apple actually launched the first mass-market color digital camera in the U.S. The Apple QuickTake 100 could snap an amazing eight photographs and connected to a Mac via a serial cable.

It cost $749, which is about the equivalent of $1,000 today, which seems ridiculous for a camera boasting less than one megapixel resolution and no digital display.

The QuickTake line expanded to two more models before Steve Jobs shut it down in 1997 when he returned to the helm at Apple and streamlined its product line.


The Name “Macintosh” Was Inspired by an Apple

It’s often cited that the Apple Lisa was named after Steve Jobs’ daughter, but where did the name “Macintosh” come from? Apple employee Jef Raskin is responsible for coining the machine after his favorite variety of apple, smartly tying the whole fruit theme together.

Macintosh was just a code-name, and Steve Jobs is said to have tried to change the project’s name to “Bicycle” while the McIntosh-loving staffer was out of office. But Raskin clearly knew a good name when he coined it, as Macintosh just had too much staying power and stuck right to the end of the product cycle.


Apple Invented the “Dogcow”


Ever heard of “Dogcow?” Early Apple users probably have, as she — yes she — was included in the Cairo font as part of the original Macintosh. After the Cairo font was discontinued, Dogcow lived on with LaserWriter Driver 4.0 and then became a sort of mascot for the Apple tech staff.

Designed by Susan Kare, Clarus — Dogcow’s given name — makes a “moof” sound and was found on all versions of the Mac operating system until OS X. In the late 1980s, she surged in popularity and started to be used by other developer groups — even Microsoft once used Dogcow in an advertisement.

As you could guess, Apple was none to fond of this, and the tech staff decided to write a Technical Note to stop the misuse. Later on, Technical Note #31 was included on the first Apple Developer CDs as an Easter egg, and Apple even registered trademarks for both Clarus the Dogcow, and her “moof” sound.


Wozniak Sold His Scientific Calculator to Raise Capital

In order to raise enough money to buy parts and build the first few orders of the Apple I, Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen van and Wozniak, then an HP employee, sold his Hewlett-Packard 65 scientific calculator for$500.

Those born after 1990 might be surprised that a mere calculator would raise any kind of capital, but back in 1976, a scientific calculator cost as much as a laptop does today, and the HP-65 was in fact marketed as “the smallest programmable computer ever.”

Wozniak got a decent price considering it retailed for $795, and we imagine any calculator in his possession would have been more than fairly well used. We wonder if the buyer knew he was getting a piece of computing history — just imagine how much that calculator would fetch on eBay today.


The First Apple Logo Featured Isaac Newton


Although the now-retro rainbow logo is arguably Apple’s most well known, the very first Apple logo featured Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, with an apple about to hit his head. (Legend has it that he was literally hit on the head with an apple and that led to the concept of gravity.)

The Newton logo was designed by the lesser-known Apple founder Ronald Wayne (the guy who sold his stake — that today would be worth $22 billion — to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for $800 – ouch!) and was only used briefly in 1976, since its high level of detail didn’t really show up that well when shrunk down and stuck on a product.

The rainbow apple, designed by Rob Janoff, replaced Sir Isaac and remained the symbol of the company for many years until the simpler monochromatic apple logo was introduced in 1998.



Technology in movies is evolving at a rapid rate which can be seen in the movies like avatar, inception etc. Film makers also prefer to target tech audiences nowadays, so that they get most out of their films. Here is a list(Not Sorted) of 10 movies which made use of fantastic technology.



10. 2001: A Space Odyssey

After 5 years of development A Space Odyessy was released in 1968 but wasn’t a hit at that time. A few decades later, it is considered one of the most influential and important films in modern history.The movie shaped how computers and the overarching ideas of technology would be portrayed in cinema.It encapsulates the wonder of technology and raises questions about how machines intersect with our lives.
The film had a tremendous amount of influence on films like WALL-E and TRON: Legacy.



9. Minority Report

Even today, Minority Report continues to influence the technology we use and develop. What made Minority Report so striking in 2002 was its realistic and reasonable projection of how the world would look in 2054. From tablets with instantly changing/updating content, to touch- and motion-based UI controls, to stores that greet you by name and ask about your last purchase, seems unreasonable.
Filmmaker worked with technology innovators and researchers to create this film and design its interface. It’s impossible to deny the influence Minority Report has had on consumer electronics and industrial design in general.

8. Collapsus

Collapsus movie is an exploration of the imminent energy transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. What makes the film an the entire project is the way in which the material is created and brought together.

7. WALL-E

WALL-E is a story of a lonely, forgotten robot who loves Hello, Dolly! and manages to find love  and life. 
Its story is thought-provoking, especially in the context of how technology can make things easier, but also make living less of an experience. The visuals of the movie are very impressive indeed.

6. We Live in Public

In an award winning documentary, We Live in Public, profiles Josh Harris who was  a dot com millionaire from the Web 1.0. Harris, who the film bills as “the greatest Internet pioneer you have never heard of” was truly ahead of his time in his business plans for video and social communication over the Internet.
Harris was also ahead of his time when it came to living out his life in public. Long before Facebook, YouTube and Twitter made sharing personal photos, videos or missives commonplace, Harris was living out his life in avant-garde public displays and streaming that content online.
Harris also experienced the downside of living so publicly long before the privacy implications of Facebook became front page news.


5. Avatar

Not only is Avatar the most successful motion picture of all time, it is also one of the most technically impressive.
Using a 3D camera system, Avatar manages to toe the line between animation and live action in a way like never before. The visuals of the film, especially in 3D, go beyond what we can express in words. Avatar, like Star Wars before it, has set the tone for how technology will be used in film going forward.
 

4. Inception

We think Inception is one of the best films of the year. The film has many technical elements, but this is the sort of film that is more about the puzzle, rather than the gadgetry.
The visuals, the music and the overlying subject matter which the nature of the film necessitates, makes this one of the best science fiction thrillers to come out in years. 

3. Iron Man/Iron Man 2

One of the most impressive comic book films in recent years was Iron Man. It and its sequel Iron Man 2 manage to appeal to the die-hard comic book/tech geek, while still resonating with mainstream audiences.
In addition to that, Tony Stark and Stark Industries have some of the coolest gadgets around. In fact, aspects of the Stark character are purportedly based on a real tech titans.

2. The Social Network

When it was first announced that a “Facebook movie” was going into production, the world laughed out loud. When The Social Network was released, we stopped laughing.
Perhaps more than any other film to date, The Social Network effectively captures the experience of hacking code. The film is about much more than just the website Facebook, but by the same token, it still manages to effectively bring the online experience to the big screen in a way that accurately portrays the reality of the experience.

1. TRON: Legacy

When the original TRON was released in 1982, it was a breakthrough not only in how computers were portrayed on screen, but how computers and technology were used in the creation of motion picture.
Twenty-eight years later, the technical reception for TRON: Legacy is quite different. Combining not just a technical story, but also 3D visuals like Avatar and CGI motion-capture technology, this film is incredibly advanced.
It has been released on 17th Dec,2010.




 
 Facebook on Sunday introduced a redesign of its user profile pages in advance of an interview on the “60 Minutes” news show where CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the redesign.


The changes include a clustered listing of biographical information under the user name at the top of the page, including such details as the person’s job, hometown, relationship status, where they went to college, what languages they speak and birthdate. Beneath that will appear a set of the five most recent photos that a user allows to be posted at their profile page. A new sports category is listed under interests, where users can list their favorite sports, teams, and athletes.

Although in her taped interview with Zuckerberg, Lesley Stahl said that viewers of the show Sunday night were the first to see the redesign, the new look had actually debuted early Sunday morning in a promotional clip for the show at the CBS News website. The redesign was also announced later in the day at the Facebook blog by software engineer Josh Wiseman.

The TV interview focused much more on how Facebook came to be, its culture, issues related to users’ privacy, and its efforts to make inroads in the search market than on the redesign. Zuckerberg said that he and his Harvard University friends who created what became Facebook as a way to connect students there never imagined that their creation would “lead the whole Internet in this direction” of social networking. Stahl, who had interviewed him in the past, said that Zuckerberg is more relaxed now than he was then, even if he still seldom blinks.

A dozen designers worked on the redesign in a “war room” where a clock ticked down the time they had left to complete the update, according to the “60 Minutes” account, which showed the redesign using Zuckerberg’s page (he’s a Yankees fan, the new sports category reveals about his baseball interests).

The revamping of profile pages, which had been expected, is already being rolled out to any of the site’s 500 million users who are interested in changing the look of their Facebook pages now. Those who opt to wait will find their pages automatically revamped in the coming weeks, according to Facebook. Visually, the new design makes more use of photographs users have posted at their pages and displays those more prominently, including photos of friends.

Users will also now be able to “highlight the friends who are important to you, such as your family, best friends or teammates,” the blog says. New groups of friends or the featuring of existing friends lists also is part of the redesign. Interests and activities also now have more focus on the profile pages and are more in evidence.

The redesign, as with all aspects of Facebook, is aimed in part at appealing to advertisers and marketers who mine information about users from the site. But it also is meant to make it easier for people to find information on friends and to provide “a more compelling visual experience.”
The site’s constantly controversial privacy settings have not been altered in the redesign. Stahl addressed privacy by raising with Zuckerberg that third-party applications share information about users. He insisted in response: “It’s against all of our policies for an application to ever share information about our users.” Stahl interrupted him to say, “but they do,” which prompted Zuckerberg to say that those third-party applications are shut down.

As always with any Facebook change, users were quick to express criticism and support. “Horrible design and against near every solid UI principle in web design,” writes user Shawn Hesketh, who on his Facebook page is identified as the owner of LeftLane Designs in Houston. Christopher Bradshaw of Liverpool, England, decries the changes as “not fair” because he uses Facebook for business purposes including paying for advertising at the site, and the changes alter layouts of those ads and promotions making some appear “tiny,” he wrote in response to Wiseman’s blog announcement.

But user Craig Gunnels of San Antonio, Texas, writes simply, “love the new profile page!” Others in response to Wiseman’s post note that some people simply don’t like change and will adjust to the new look with time.

Other users expressed confusion because their profile pages had not changed. Although on “60 Minutes,” Stahl said that the redesign would roll out on Monday, users were able to make the updates on Sunday. Those who want to change the look of their pages immediately can do so by going to a Facebook page that explains the changes and offers a link at the bottom to update now.


at 8:22 PM Article by Unknown 2 Comments


Are you frustrated with waiting for your system to boot up for long time? You probably don't want to wait so long to start working, specially when you are in a hurry! Now there are softwares that helps you analyze whats taking so much time to boot. And if the program is not essentially required by the Operating System, you can remove unnecessary programs that prolongs boot time using these softwares. One such software is Soluto.

Using a PC can be a deeply frustrating experience if its slow. Now you can analyze the pc booting sequence and reduce pc boot time significantly. Unless you’re a power-user, you probably don’t know what’s causing the frustrations, those moments where some mysterious process is hogging your PC’s resources. 

Even if you are a power-user, it can take quite some time to pin-point the causes. Soluto’s goal is to bring an end to the frustrations PC users encounter by :

Frustration detection : Our patent-pending low level driver technology detects when you’re frustrated by your PC and tells you which application is causing it.
Power of the crowd : Soluto harnesses the power of the crowd to learn which actions really eliminate frustrations and improve user experience, and leverages this user wisdom for the benefit of all PC users.  

Analyze Slow PC's Booting Sequence, Reduce Booting Time: Soluto

Does your PC take too long to boot up? With Soluto, you can trim that boot time and find out exactly what’s taking so long with Soluto.
Download this amazing software using this link.





5 years ago, the PC industry embraced the dual-core processors to address the growing demands of computing and to tackle the power consumption surge on the single core CPUs. Multi-core processors helps to complete a task faster and that too with lower power requirements. To realize how, we need to understand how processors work and how they consumer power.

 One of the most basic way of improving the processor performance is the to increase the operating frequency - Think about frequency as the number of instructions that can be executed per second. When you increase the operating frequency, you get more instructions executed in the same timeframe. But there is a basic problem. To increase the frequency, you need to supply more voltage. This increased power consumption has two drastic effects. First, it dissipates more heat. Second, it strains the power budget by consuming more power (in-case of batteries, it drains faster). To dissipate the additional heat generated, you need larger cooling solutions. The whole thing is leading to inefficiency. To tackle this the processor industry came up with the multi-core architecture where you have two or more CPUs working together to perform a task. Basically, the workload is shared and spread among more processors.
But you may ask, "If there are more than one processor, wouldn't the power consumption be higher than before?". In reality, the dual core processors consumer lower power than the single-core processor.

Let's take an example. If you have a single-core CPU operating at 1GHz and 1.1V and is 100% utilized and lets call the power consumption as P. When you deploy a dual-core processors (each operating at 550 MHz and 0.8V) to complete the same task, you have two cores that are 50% utilized. So, the overall power consumption works out to 0.6P. [Power consumption is proportionate to operating frequency and to the voltage square]. In effect, the dual-core processor completes the task at 40% lower power requirement! The figure below illustrates the concept well.

 

Mobile phones are following the same trajectory as that of PCs. Users are expecting more from their mobile devices. Mobile devices are used like PCs! These days you can play full-HD video, video and audio streaming (video calls), full-fledged internet browsing with complete support for javascript and flash, 3D Gaming, super-cool interfaces, video editing and multi-tasking..All these are placing a strain on the single-core CPUs and on the battery life of the mobile phones. To tackle this performance and power consumption problem, mobile phone industry NEEDS to go the route of multi-core processors!

We already have answers..NVidia Tegra2 is the world's first dual-core processor for mobile phones.This SoC is based on ARM Cortex A9 MPCore architecture. This multi-core architecture employs symmetric multiprocessing, out of order execution and superior branch prediction to delivery fast performance. All this enables a smooth browsing experience on mobile phone and super-smooth user interaction interfaces.
Tegra2 delivers five major benefits:
  • Faster Web page load times
  • Lower power consumption and higher performance per watt
  • Higher quality game play experience for advanced console
  • Highly responsive and smoother User Interfaces
  • Faster multitasking
NVidia has published a white paper on the benefits of multi-core processors for mobile phones. This is one of the easiest and insightful whitepapers. I would suggest to go through the whitepaper to understand how things work...! Worth your time..

And by the way, NVidia is already working on a quad-core processor for mobile phones :)

To quote Jen-sun Hang, CEO of Nvidia "Dual-core processors will be the standard in 2011, and quad-core is coming in the near future!" Hail Super phones :)



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