Read this before you buy the new iPad

As I write this, Apple fans the world over are gathering outside their nearest Jobsian temple, hoping beyond all else to wrap their plaintive, probing fingers around a new iPad. The zealots, blinded by pixels, blinded by the backlights of a thousand iPads emanating from the plate glass windows of these places of worship, want nothing more than to fork over hundreds of hard-earnt dollars for a slice of the latest and greatest Designed by Apple in California pie.

If you’re one of these avid Apple fans, please hear me out.

Even if you’re not an Apple acolyte, take heed: Today you will feel a gravitational tug towards the center of the technology universe. Despite your best intentions to stay loyal to Microsoft, Linux, or Google, even the strongest of us will be tested today; even the most iron-willed will be drawn to the local Apple Store to discover the cause of this orgiastic desire for slabs of brushed aluminium and Gorilla Glass — and by then it will be too late.

Ready? Here we go.

The new iPad is the least innovative iDevice Apple has ever released.

Before you throw your iPhone 3, 3GS, and 4 at my face, let’s look at this objectively; let’s compare the iPad 2 and 3, and you’ll see what I mean.

The basic specs of the iPad 2 are as follows: 1024×768 display, 512MB of RAM, dual-core A5 SoC at 1GHz, and various modes of 2G and 3G cellular connectivity.

Now the iPad 3: 2048×1536 display, 1GB of RAM, dual-core A5X SoC at 1GHz (quad-core graphics), and various modes of 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE connectivity.

Both tablets are the same height and width, but the new iPad is both 10% heavier (660g vs. 600) and 10% fatter (9.4mm vs. 8.6). This extra space is entirely dedicated to larger batteries: The iPad 3 has 60% more battery capacity than the iPad 2 (42.5 watt-hours vs. 25). Despite packing in billions more lithium ions, the battery life of the new iPad is exactly the same as the last (10 hours on WiFi, 9 hours on 3G/4G).

In short, then, the new iPad is heavier, but has a larger display, more RAM, two more graphics cores, and 4G connectivity.

Now, no one’s dissing the screen, but as we’ve covered before, squeezing 2048×1536 pixels into a 9.7-inch display is not an earth-shattering innovation; it’s simply the continuing advance of LCD technology. It’s possible that Apple helped with capital investment, but most of the credit must surely go to the manufacturer, Samsung, which has made leaps and strides in display tech over the last few years.

The doubling of RAM, while it will probably help with GPU performance, is merely the march of Moore’s law.

Beyond the screen, the doubling of GPU cores (from PowerVR SGX543MP2 to SGX543MP4) is probably the most exciting change in the new iPad. In theory, these additional cores will help drive games that make use of the super-high-resolution Retina display — but in practice, according to preliminary benchmarks, the new iPad’s GPU is not twice as fast. In fact, it’s only 20% faster than its predecessor. The most likely reason for this is that there is probably a bottleneck between the CPU and GPU, or perhaps between the GPU and the RAM. It could also be that apps need be written to take full advantage of all four GPU cores, much in the same way that only a handful of apps make full use of Tegra 2 and 3.

Then we have 4G connectivity, which according to iFixit is provided by the Qualcomm MDM9600 3G/4G modem. This is a standard, first-generation, battery-sucking 45nm LTE part, not the 28nm battery-sipping radio that we all expected. Let’s not forget that LTE 4G will only be available in North America, too; the new iPad lacks the right frequencies for Europe or Asia.

Finally, the A5X has exactly the same dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU as the A5; it’s even clocked at the same speed (1GHz). It’s possible that Apple made the jump from Samsung’s 45nm process to TSMC’s 28nm, but it seems unlikely given that the 4G radio is still at 40nm and TSMC still hasn’t shown true bulk capacity on its 28nm nodes.

In conclusion, the new iPad is not some magic, modern-day marvel. The only real innovation in the iPad 3 is a larger battery cavity — but that doesn’t sound very sexy, does it? Apple can get away with it, though; in part because the Retina display really is that good, and because the iPad is still leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in terms of apps and usability.

When you inevitably unbox your new iPad, though, just remember that Apple has done little more than cram a bunch of bits inside a slick tablet chassis; bits that, except for the display, aren’t very exciting at all. This isn’t the original all-in-one iMac G3, the first unibody MacBook Pro, or the jawdropping first iPod — this is simply the iPad 2S, another safe bet that is designed to squeeze as much money as possible from pixel-blinded technophiles, just like the iPhone 4S.

Meanwhile, back in Cupertino, I’m sure Apple is working on a real successor to the iPad 2. It will have 28nm chips throughout, smaller batteries, and a svelte form factor to boot.

source : View the original article here

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Thunderbolt for PCs a reality as Ivy Bridge launch nears

If you’re a PC user dreaming of Thunderbolt, today’s news will be music to your ears. According to reports, Intel has begun shipping its second-generation Thunderbolt controller, which means motherboards supporting the technology (like Intel’s DZ77GA) and the company’s next generation CPU will be able to ship. Cactus Ridge is Intel’s first Thunderbolt chip that supports Windows, and is expected to launch alongside the chipmaker’s upcoming Ivy Bridge CPU.

Cnet reports that Ivy Bridge should land on April 23, and Intel is making a push among partners to include Thunderbolt support in motherboards built for their new CPUs. The company obviously has a vested interest in seeing this happen: it co-created the technology alongside Apple and, with USB 3.0 taking hold in the industry, Intel’s window is closing fast.

Ivy Bridge CPUs will have integrated support for USB 3.0 but not for Thunderbolt, so the additional controller is required. Acer, Asustek, and Lenovo are expected to be some of the first to debut the high-speed interface for Windows computers, but it is believed the option will be restricted to high-end laptops and desktops.

Why? Intel is fighting a battle of perception among PC manufacturers. HP has committed exclusively to USB 3.0 as it sees no “value proposition” in Thunderbolt. That is bound to hurt the specification overall, as HP is the world’s largest PC maker by a decent margin. Second place Dell has so far been quiet on its plans, further adding to the uncertainty.

Uncertainty is not the friend of business, and this is the biggest reason why manufacturers have so far steered clear of producing peripherals with Thunderbolt support. Save for a handful of drives and ultra high-end items such as Apple’s Thunderbolt Display, there isn’t much out there. Compare this with USB 3.0, which already has dozens of peripherals, and is widely available, including through retailers like Target and Walmart.

Thunderbolt will try its best to catch up, though. Intel’s PC Client group chief Kirk Skaugen said earlier this week at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing that he expects at least 100 Thunderbolt-capable devices available at retail by the end of the year, increasing to the “hundreds” in 2013.

PC support is key. While HP may be a lost cause, Intel must focus on the rest of the market, especially Dell, to ensure that Thunderbolt does not go the same way that FireWire did. There too Apple had its hands in the pot, and created a standard that was too expensive to implement. Sounding like Thunderbolt yet? USB 2.0 was cheaper and easier (and also featured backward compatibility), and it won the day.

As ExtremeTech’s Sebastian Anthony pointed out last year, if Thunderbolt peripherals continue to cost $200-300 more, it doesn’t matter who supports it — nobody’s going to use it.

source :  View the original article here

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Facebook, Microsoft, Mozilla form W3C group to clean up the mobile web

Citing severe mobile fragmentation and unstandardized standards, Facebook, Mozilla, Microsoft, Samsung, Verizon, Intel, and almost every player in the mobile space — except Apple and Google — have announced at Mobile World Congress 2012 that they’ll be forming the W3C Core Mobile Web Platform (Coremob) Community Group. This group will bring together developers, OEMs, browser makers, and carriers to agree on core features that will “accelerate the adoption of the Mobile Web.”

Now, we can dissect this development in two ways: First, this could just be 29 companies looking after their mobile interests. While desktop browsers are all fairly close in terms of feature parity — the HTML5/hardware acceleration Browser War of 2010 made sure of that — mobile browsers are horribly disparate. At best, mobile browsers support a tiny subset of HTML5 and have fairly awful JavaScript performance — at worst… well, I’m sure you’ve all had an awful mobile surfing experience that you can draw from. This W3C group might simply have the noble intention of getting mobile devices to the stage that they can reliably run open web apps.

But then why are Apple and Google not part of Coremob? Both are active members of the W3C in general, but for some reason they’re not interested in cleaning up the Core Mobile Web Platform. When it comes to standards, mobile Safari and Android’s stock browser are certainly two of the better browsers out there, but they’re still no where near powerful enough to be the basis of a mobile web platform — so that can’t be the reason. The reason they’re not part of the W3C group, of course, is because they’re both making vast amounts of money through their proprietary, locked-down app stores.

Curiously, though, Google does have the Chrome Web Store, and Chrome is coming to Android, so you would think it would be somewhat interested in the mobile web platform. Google has historically been very hot on emerging web standards in desktop Chrome, but perhaps the conflict with the Android Market is too hairy to ameliorate.

Facebook and Mozilla might come across as unlikely bedfellows, but at the end of the day they bothreally, really want to live in a world where the web is truly free from monolithic, monopolistic corporate interests. As it stands, through almost complete domination of the smartphone and tablet markets, Android and iOS dictate the direction of the mobile web. It’s a scary thought, but if Apple and Google decide that open web apps pose a threat to their empires, they don’t have to support them. Much in the same way that Microsoft stifled the internet with Internet Explorer 6, Apple and Google could do the same.

The only way to break this stranglehold is through competition. Firefox for Android has been jogging along and is now fairly usable. Boot to Gecko opts to do away iOS and Android entirely, and replaces the OS with a web browser Samsung has Bada, its own OS. Microsoft and Nokia are doing jumping jacks on the sidelines, waiting for a chance to shine — and of course there’s Windows 8, which will make a huge splash.

Back then it was Firefox that broke through the Internet Explorer iron curtain — this time Mozilla’s back, and it’s brought some friends.

source : View the original article here

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US and EU antitrust regulators have their eyes on Windows RT

US and European regulators have a watchful eye on Microsoft, after it emerged last week that it would be impossible for other vendors, such as Google and Mozilla, to develop browsers that are competitive with Internet Explorer on Windows RT (Windows 8 on ARM).

Microsoft disclosed last year that development of third-party apps would be limited to Metro on ARM processors. Microsoft leaned on security concerns as its chief reasons for why it was locking down the platform, but that wasn’t enough to prevent developers from complaining.

It is surprising that it took until now for somebody to make a big stink about it, but here we are. At issue is the 2009 decision in which the EU required Microsoft to give users choice of browser when installing Windows, as well as offering a version of Windows without Internet Explorer. Mozilla claims that Microsoft’s locked-down Windows RT violates this ruling.

Microsoft’s in the clear — for now

Not so fast. The European Commission says it is aware of Mozilla’s claim, but the ruling applied to PCs only. This means that if Mozilla wants to push the issue, it will have to argue that tablets are still PCs. That said, there is the possibility that ARM-based PCs could pop up in the future — actually, that’s probably likely — so Microsoft’s going to have to figure out a defense of its position soon.

The US is taking the same “wait and see” attitude. According to TechNewsWorld, the Senate Judiciary Committee does plan to review Microsoft’s browser decision, but called it “preliminary” and said no hearing is scheduled. So while there may be some question as to whether or not Microsoft is running afoul of the law here, it appears for the time being that Redmond is in the clear.

So, is Microsoft really doing anything wrong? I don’t think so. Windows RT is not Windows, and really isn’t intended for PCs but devices, where other companies have similarly strict app requirements. Look at Apple, it does the same thing in keeping a lot of apps out of iOS. Microsoft is doing the same, and in both cases it has a lot to do with security.

It’s all about security

Browser vulnerabilities are the most common way attackers gain access. When code for these apps are more tight, there are less holes for the hacker to exploit. The browsers in these mobile platforms are more tightly linked to the OS itself. Device operating systems are very strict in who they let in to certain processes — regardless of whether its iOS, Android, Windows Phone, etc. — and that’s a good thing.

While it is disappointing that we cannot select our own browser with modern mobile operating systems, in reality we’re much better off. The attack vectors are limited and if somebody’s getting in, it’s the platform’s fault. The evidence has shown that the tighter the control on the ecosystem itself, the less of a chance of malicious attack. Just look at the difference between Android and iOS when it comes to malware.

Android’s much more lenient app rules have allowed attackers to exploit the OS much more frequently then they have on the iOS platform. But even there, Google has clamped down on some sections of the code in an attempt to protect you the user. Then above and beyond security, the device market is nothing like the PC industry.

In mobile devices, you have something called choice. Don’t like one platform and its rules? There’s plenty of others to choose from. It’s not like you’ll ever be forced to use a Windows RT device — and heck, if you really want to use a different browser, there’ll be plenty of low-power x86 Windows 8 tablets anyway.

source :  View the original article here

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How many people does it take to make 9 million Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphones?

Over the last year, a truly huge number of column inches has been dedicated to Apple’s relationship with Foxconn, the Taiwan- and China-based manufacturer who produces the iPhone and iPad. First those stories revolved around a spate of suicides and explosions, then we boggled at the fact that Foxconn has 1 million employees, and finally the news cycle was rounded out with Apple working hard to improve worker conditions at the factory — and its public image.

For a company as large as Apple — to date it has sold around 200 million iPhones and 80 million iPads, and it’s by far the most valuable company in the world — such scrutiny is inexorable, but it also means that other companies tend to get washed away by a tsunami of Apple press. Take Samsung, for example, a South Korean conglomerate with 350,000 employees worldwide and $220 billion in revenue in 2010 — more than twice Apple in 2011, its biggest year yet (by far). While Apple has sold 180 million iPhones in total, Samsung sold 300 million phones in 2011 alone — and its market share is increasing. On the back of the Galaxy S2, Samsung’s smartphone market share in the US rose from 10% to 24% between 2010 and 2011. Worldwide, Samsung is by far the largest smartphone maker.

Which brings me neatly onto the Galaxy S3. This morning, Reuters announced that pre-orders of the Samsung Galaxy S3 now total 9 million. This is huge. First-weekend sales of the iPhone 4S totaled “just” 4 million. 9 million would make the Galaxy S3 the fastest selling gadget ever — a title currently held by Microsoft’s Kinect, which sold 8 million units in 60 days.

Buried at the bottom of the Reuters report is another equally interesting tidbit: According to an unnamed Samsung official, its smartphone factory in South Korea is running at “its full capacity of 5 million units per month.” Back in March, a Foxconn insider said the company was gearing up to produce 57 million iPhone 5 handsets this year — divide that by 12, and you get 4.75 million units per month.

Now, I’m not entirely sure how Samsung does this, but South Korea actually has a rather high income per capita — $24,000 — and the average monthly salary for a factory worker is $2000 per month. The average monthly wage for a Chinese Foxconn worker is only $400. As far as I can tell, this simply means that Apple pays significantly less to produce its iPhones. A report from February confirms this disparity: If you average it all out, Chinese workers get $8 per iPad, while Korean workers get $34 per iPad.

If we throw some other numbers into the mix, we can derive some other interesting facts about the manufacture of Apple and Samsung smartphones. In March, what seems like the diary of a Foxconn worker was published on the web. This worker, named Li Qi, says that in the lead-up to the launch of the new iPad, his production line churned out 150 iPads per hour. Li Qi’s base wage is 2,350 yuan per month ($370) — and considering Foxconn employees work six days a week and eight hours per day, that means he gets paid around $15 per day, or $1.85/hour.

Looping back around to that $8-per-iPad figure: If the team produces 1200 iPads during an 8-hour shift, and they get $8 per iPad, then it costs Foxconn $9,600 to staff each production line for a day. Divide that by the employee pay of $15-per-day, and we get 640 — the number of workers on each production line.

We’re not done yet! Another report from a Foxconn worker says that iPhone production lines are expected to spew out 3,500 units per day. We don’t know if this is because iPhone production lines have more workers, or because they’re easier to make. If we assume the latter, then 640 employees can create 84,000 iPhones per month (before overtime). If the Galaxy S3 is roughly equivalent to the iPhone 4S in terms of manufacturing complexity, then Samsung’s South Korea factory must have 60 production lines to produce 5 million Galaxy S3s per month, for a total of 38,400 workers.

This might seem like a fairly small number compared to Foxconn’s city-sized factories, but it’s more than 10% of Samsung’s total workforce, or more than Google’s entire workforce. It’s also worth noting that Samsung produces almost every component found inside the Galaxy S3, too, from the Exynos processor, to the OLED display, to the RAM and NAND flash — so, all told, we’re probably looking at at least 75,000 people working flat out to produce the first 9 million pre-orders, and then the tens of millions of Galaxy S3s that will be sold in 2012.

source :  View the original article here

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Home » Cool Windows Apps & Tricks » How To Unlock Your Computer After Forgetting Your Windows Login

Most passwords aren’t that difficult to reset, particularly those online. There is one that can give you trouble, however – your Windows login password. If you forget this you will be locked out of your account and unable to access all of the files and software specifically tied to that account.

Unlocking your computer won’t be easy, but it is possible. Let’s take a look at how you can access your system even if the login has been forgotten.

Resetting Your Windows Login Password – The Super Legit Way

Windows has a built-in password reset feature. It would be rather pointless if anyone could reset it, so you have to do the preparation before you forget your login if you want to be able to use this feature. This consists of creating a password recovery disk, which can be any removable USB drive or even a floppy disk. Please note the instructions here apply to Windows Vista/7.

To begin, do a Windows Search for Password Reset Disk. You should see “Create a password reset disk” as your first option. Select it.

This will open the Forgotten Password Wizard. The introductory screen explains the basics, and once you’ve read it, click next. Here you can select the disk that you want to use for password recovery. Since only removable drives can be used, only they will appear as an option. Select a drive and click next.

On the next screen you will have to enter your current password. Do this and click next to begin creation of the password recovery disk. This will likely be a fast progress – it literally took five seconds on my PC. And you’re done.

Resetting your Windows login is now easy as pie. Just click the “reset password” link below the login screen and follow the on-screen steps. You’ll have to select the appropriate disk and then enter a new password. Presto! Your computer is unlocked.

Resetting Your Windows Password – The Not-So-Legit Way

Using the password reset disk is just fine if you have prepared beforehand, but if you are reading this article, I’d say there is a fair chance that you didn’t. I don’t blame you. Windows doesn’t remind users to create a reset disk.

If you are locked out of Windows without the legitimate recovery option you will have to turn to a third-party password cracking tool. The best free option is Ophcrack, a tool which uses something called a “rainbow table” to guess your password.

To use Ophcrack, you must download the .ISO and then burn it to a CD. This creates a live cd that you can boot from. Most computers are set to boot from any bootable CD by default, but you may need to change your BIOS options so that your optical drive is first in your boot order. There are separate versions for Windows XP and Windows Vista (the Vista version should work with Windows 7) so make sure you download the correct one.

Once you boot via the Ophcrack Live CD you need to select a mode. The default is “automatic” and that is what you should generally use. The software will run through several more steps, which include black screens with running lines of text, before entering into the Ophcrack menu and beginning the cracking process. Don’t be alarmed – things are working as intended. Once a password is cracked it appear in the right-hand column on the main window.

There are some severe limitations to what this tool can do. Ophcrack won’t work against strong passwords that use many random characters – particularly if you are trying to crack a Vista/7 password. The cracking process can take some time, as well, depending on the password you are trying to crack. Simple passwords tend to be quick – complex passwords take more time.

Another problem is lack of support. There aren’t many solutions if you run into a bug or error, and since the software runs by booting into a Linux environment, troubleshooting can be particularly tough if you don’t know much about Linux (like me). If you are running in to any problems with the tool, try Ophcrack’s FAQ wiki page.

Conclusion

These methods can work, but they’re not perfect. Recovering your Windows password via the legitimate method requires preparation. Ophcrack, on the other hand, is open source software with poor support that has difficulty with complex passwords.

source :  View the original article here

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Home » Cool Mac Apps & Tips » Apply Instagram-Like Effects To Your Photos On Your Desktop With Perfect Effects 3 [Windows & Mac]

Ever since Instagram was introduced on iOS, people have been easily adding filters to their images to make them look better, or cooler, or any other adjective you can think of. The only downside to Instagram is that it is only for iOS and Androiddevices, so it cannot be used while you’re on your desktop, laptop, or other daily driver. What can you possibly use instead?

About Perfect Effects 3

Perfect Effects 3 is a program that, in a nutshell, adds effects and filters to any image on your hard drive. Don’t worry though – as a desktop application, it does have some more features so you can click-and-go or mess around with a bunch of sliders. In any case, the images look very nice at the end of the process.

Download & Installation

Free Effects 3 can be downloaded by going to this page and clicking on the download link, which will ask you for a few pieces of information before sending you a download link via email. The download (at the time of writing) is 216MB, so please be aware of that as you’re planning your download. Once the download completes, unzip the setup file from the zip folder and run it. Click next on each screen in the installation wizard, and in no time the program will be installed and ready for use.

Program Features

When you first launch the program, you will get a nice little walkthrough of some of the features. When you go ahead and click on Effects at the top right of the screen, another small walkthrough appears, where you can then start applying your different effects.

Settings related to each effect can be found in the panel on the right side, and once you are done tweaking for that specific effect, click on “Add” to add it. You can repeat the process for every effect you’d like to add, and when you’re done you can click on “Apply” to create the new image with effects.

Finally, you can save the image by going to File –> Save As. In there, you can choose a few different formats, including .psd for Photoshop or other compatible software like GIMP. However, if you don’t want to tweak it in the future, JPEG is the way to go.

After doing some tweaking of my own on an image I chose, I saved this image as the final result after adding three effects to the image. I’m not that great with art in general, so this is only an example. You can mix and match your own effects to get your own desired effect.

Conclusion

Perfect Effects 3 is a great way to add that Instagram-esque feeling to all of your photos if you choose to use a regular desktop or laptop or if you don’t own an iOS or Android device. With a good amount of control for each effect, you can get just the right amount of each effect so that nothing is too light or too overbearing. This also makes image enhancing easier than using professional tools, which is perfect for friends, family, and other every day users.

source :  View the original article here

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