Web browser is one of the most important components in World Wide Web architecture. It works in the user’s side or the client’s side as the interpreter of data which is getting transferred through the internet. The main types of data interpreted by the browser are HTML, JAVA Script and CSS. Other than that modern browsers are capable of displaying many advanced types of data with the aid of third party plug-ins such as Flash and Apple quick time which deliver an aesthetic browsing experience to their users.

The battle of web browsers dates back to 1995, in the time Microsoft internet explorer started competing with Netscape Navigator. From that time until now many browsers came in to battle and some of them manage to mark their territory strongly while some of them lost and retreated. The major contributing factor to win this browser battle was always the speed of loading and data interpretation.

In the new millennium, battle of the browsers has become even competitive and lots of companies are showing their colors to be the first. In this article I’m trying to do a historical data analysis of battle of the browsers and its circumstances.

Early Time

The Very First One – Nexus

Back in 1990 the very early version of web browser came to the picture. In was called as WorldWideWeb and then change the name to Nexus. Today everyone knows it as Nexus. This web browser was capable of interpreting basic HTML and style sheets only in text formats. Further, most of the Common things that we do with browsers were there even with Nexus including spellchecking, next/previous buttons and file download.

Nexus Browser

This is the time just before internet boom. There were no many internet users and most of its users were from various government organizations and academic institutions. They all were using Nexus and its versions. By 1993 other web browsers came in to the world of WWW and Nexus was unable to give a good competition to them. In 1994 January Nexus was discontinued.

Arrival of Netscape Navigator

1993 is a very important milestone for internet. In that year the web browser Mosaic was introduced which was a major contributing factor to the popularity of World Wide Web. The main reason to make the Mosaic popular was that it was the worlds very first graphical web browser which could display images right inside the HTML page. In previous Nexus, users had to open a separate page to view images.

Later this browser was renamed as “Netscape Navigator” with its popularity and further development. This is the first time in history that a Web browser became popular among general internet users and it did a great job in popularizing internet. Netscape introduced innovative technologies to internet mainly Secured Socket Layer(SSL) and Java Script which are used even today with modern web browsers.

Netscape Navigator

By that time there was no significant competition to Netscape Navigator and according to statistics it was holding more than 90% of usage share back in 1994. However with the arrival of Microsoft Internet Explorer the trend of Netscape Navigator died and today it’s only a legend.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft also came in to the browser battle with their Internet Explorer in 1995. When it comes to functionality it was almost same as Netscape Navigator, but they were having other advantages. Mainly it came with the popular operating system Microsoft Windows. hence users won’t have to install a separate web browser. And of course Microsoft always polishes up the product to deliver the maximum user-experience.

This setup initiated the world’s very first Battle of the Browsers. On one side Netscape Navigator was competing with their innovative new technologies such as SSL, JS and even with the advantage of “Be the first to come”. In another side Internet Explorer was competing to gain more territory with Operating System support, market reputation and ease of use.

Microsoft Internet Explorer was able to win this war and Netscape Navigator had to retreat. By 1996 the popularity of Netscape Navigator started to decline while popularity if Internet Explorer was booming. After that Internet Explorer could hold his ground for many years without having any significant competition. The development was continuously going on and many versions of Internet Explorer came with Windows Operating System. This is the most powerful regime ever in history of Battle of Browsers.

Opera

Opera browser came in to the picture in the peak of browser battle and offer competitive feature to the internet users. Especially they were developing web browsers for mobile phones. The most interesting thing about opera browser is its performance. By that time speed of networking infrastructure was around 28 Kbps and managing the bandwidth was critical. Opera was offering the feature ‘fast rewind’ which allows the users to go to previous pages quickly without wasting data.

Opera Browser

However, opera never was able to gain a significant usage share. It was always fluctuating around 2%. I still recommend this as a very good browser if you are having slower internet connection. By the time I was using Dial up internet this was my favorite browser. But with the introduction to broadband internet the importance of Opera was not significant.

In New Millennium

Mozilla Firefox

The era of Internet Explorer was continued for many years and its users were satisfied with its capabilities. Mozilla Firefox is the very first browser which shows some new possibilities to the Internet Explorer users becoming a new competitor in battle of browsers.

The Mozilla Foundation was initially launched by Netscape, the early competitor in the battle of browsers. The idea was to set up the environment to develop open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer. It gave birth to Firefox and first version came in 2004. This came in with lots of new features such as Tabbed browsing that allows you to open many web pages in the same browser window, spellchecking, bookmark manager and download manger. Furthermore the browsing engine of Firefox is very fast due to the technologies like ‘pipelining’. With all these Mozilla Firefox could gain a usage share of nearly 40% in 2011 and limit the share of Microsoft Internet Explorer to 21%.

Safari from Apple

Safari browser came with Apple Mac operating system. Safari was having the same advantage as Internet Explorer since it comes with a popular brand and operating system. Initial version of Safari came in 2003 and of course gained popularity among Apple Mac users. It was having fastest browsing engine which was even faster than Mozilla Firefox and providing lots of competitive features as well. However it was unable to gain a significant usage share due to its limited platform compatibility. Throughout years its usage share was fluctuating between 5-10%.

Safari Browser

Chrome from Google

Chrome was developed by the internet giant Google and became very popular with the massive online promotion campaign and competitive features. Chrome introduced the “Tabs On top” style screen arrangement which is very user-friendly. In addition to that Chrome engine was very fast and ranked as world’s fasted browser. Additionally most of the Google features came built in with the Chrome browser which was an added advantage to become even popular as a web browser.

Right after introduction its usage share hit the roof and most of the people believed that it will surpass the share of Mozilla Firefox as well. But according to the statistic in w3schools it’s still slightly behind the Firefox browser. Different sources come up with different browser usage statistics. I’d like to stick to w3schools browser statistics. In there you can see the browser usage share by browser and different version of the same browser as well.

Recently there was news reported by many online news sources saying that Google Chrome has surpassed the usage share of Mozilla Firefox.

Effect of the Browser Battle

The Battle of web browser gave lots of good things to the users. Competition is always good. The major factor that improved throughout the years was mainly user-friendliness and performance. Even in the very early time Netscape won the war against Nexus due to the user-friendliness and performance. Along with those lots of new technologies were introduced to deliver excellent browsing experience such as Java Script, Flash and Silverlight. Lots of updates came for HTML and browsers were fighting to be the first to support those especially with HTML 5. With the arrival of Mozilla Firefox, browsers went open source and through community development lots of interesting features were added to the browser. At the same time it opens the opportunity to make the browser cross platform compatible. Today we can install Firefox and Chrome in many operating systems and hardware platforms.

The Battle of browsers didn’t give only the white side. There are some problems that came with this war as well. The major problem is increased browser incompatibility. In other words different browsers interpret the same mark up in different way which is a major problem for web developers and confusion to internet users. This occurred due to proprietary technologies that used to make the interpretation faster by different companies. The problem continues even today.

I always see the Battle of web Browsers as a good thing. It gave lots of good things compared to few drawbacks. In the future the war will continue mainly between Firefox and Chrome. Result will always be beneficial for the users since both browsers come for free anyway.

Tags: #Browser #Web

Social networks were gaining their popularity in an exponential rate in the past few years. If you take a look at Alexa web ranking you can see so many social networks at the top including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The major reason behind this success was people like to express themselves and they won’t get enough chances with their busy life style. And some people feel more comfortable to express their feeling with a online friend rather than real friend. Apart from that there were so many creative technological innovation done by social networks in order to make it easier to express their member’s feelings. However at this point Social networks has became a addictive web applications and you can easily find so many people who are spending large part of their life connection to them, playing games with their online friends, chatting without knowing what is happening in the real world.

Current Social Networks

Facebook

Facebook is at the top in when it comes to the popularity of social networks. It’s providing all the common features of any social network including personal profile, multimedia sharing etc. In addition to that Facebook API provides facility to develop 3^rd party application which can share facebook member details. This is the one of critical success factor of the facebook. In addition to that it provides highly performance tuned streamlined interfaces with a chatting module. In past few years facebook was doing so many developments and so many new applications were introduced. It leads facebook to highly sophisticate at the same time highly complex social network. However traffic ranking was continuously increasing for facebook.

Twitter

Compared to other popular social networks Twitter is new. But it gained exponential popularity due to its highly simple functionality. The major feature is members can write a message which contain maximum 140 characters and other member who follow can read it in their main page. In addition to that your message will be added to twitter main time line if your profile is not protected and the entire world can see it. Due to this simple functionality so many user were attracted to twitter and it was showing nearly 300% member base growth in past few years. And it won’t collect your personal data like facebook and other social networks. So there are lesser chances of privacy issues to occur. These days most of the online marketers using Twitter to promote their products and services to large crowd.

Ning

Ning is a special kind of social network concept. It allows its members to create their own social network on Ning platform. And they have made it so user friendly, so any non-technical use and create their own social network within few minutes. They also providing major functionality for the social networks and users can easily configure them by drag and drop development interface. At this moment Ning supports large amount of social networks on their platform. According to Alexa ranking it’s gaining its popularity in a decent rate along with the number of social networks on it.

There are so many other social networks including MySpace, Hi5, Flicker which is specially designed to share images, Orkut which is prowled by Google and LinkedIn.

Features

Networking

The most common feature in any social network is Friends network. It allows you to create your own profile and add your personal data in to that. After that you ne send request to other member, the one who confirm it will become your friends. Your selected private data will be shared with all the members and other may shared with your friends. It provides features to communicate with members through text messages and various other ways. Multimedia sharing is one of the popular features. There you can upload image or video and your friends can

Micro Blogging

This was a pretty old feature in social network. It was there in almost all the social networks including hi5 and Facebook with different names. But Twitter took only that feature and creates a new social network with lead to huge success and popularity. It allows you to write a message with limited length and share it with your friends.

Applications

So many social networks provide API which can be used to develop 3^rd party application which can be interact with it. Facebook is showing major success in there with Facebook API. In the Facebook there is millions of application developed and so many users are addicted to them. In Addition to that Twitter is also providing highly sophisticated API to control Twitter using 3^rd party application. However this has its negative effects, why so many people develop robots to spam and do other harmful things in the social networks using their APIs.

Future Of Social Networks

Privacy And Security

These days’ main concern in all the social networks is Privacy and security. In past few years there was so many incidents reported about the breach of privacy in social networks and sometimes they led to huge disasters as well. If you take a look at those incidents most of the time it about “Not using” provided security and privacy features. Due to that all the social networks providing highly simplified privacy and security controls. More creatively some social networks don’t collect member’s private details as far as they can. In future social networks will provide more sophisticated privacy features and users will be able to control each and every parameter as they want. And the privacy groups will be well defined like they have in Facebook now as Friends, Friends of Friends and Public. In the other hand when you increase privacy it will be difficult to share things freely. In order to solve such a problems social networks will provide clearly defined public data and more comprehensive searching to connect with each other. There may be search which shows a relationship between you and another member who is not your friend in a tree structure like graphical representation, but still you can see his personal details.

Simplicity

Twitter became success it selects only one feature which is micro blogging. At the same time Flicker is a huge success it select only image sharing. This is the future trend in social networking. People need them to be simple and highly user friendly rather than full of complex features. And most of the social networks provide mobile interface where users can control it over the phone or its browser. This further increases the interaction and simplicity of the social networks. In near future there may be dedicated mobile devices which can be used with Social networks.

More Personal Details

With the improvement of the security and simplicity of social networks people will share more and more probate information with them. Even now Google Latitude provides a facility to update your location via mobile phones GPS unit. And social networks already have your email, its password and large part of your personality details. In future if they manage to get your DNA structure online? There won’t be any privacy and it can simply re create you not just with physical features but with personality features as well.

There will be continuous and increasing impact on human civilization by online social networks. They can be positive or possibly negative according to current observation.

Tags: #Facebook #Social Networks #Twitter

If you have a Google Galaxy Nexus you must be enjoying sweet Jelly bean already. That’s the beauty of having Nexus branded device and you will always be the first to get OTA updates whenever a new version of Android comes out.

Project Butter, it’s supposed to increase the efficiency of CPU, GPU and Display by letting them to function independently and simultaneously, called Triple Buffering. The outcome is just in front of your eyes, UI transitions are smooth and it opened doors to new polished transitions as well.

However, this should consume more power which leads to slightly lesser battery life. By the time I was getting Jelly Bean I was prepared for this.  But surprisingly it worked the other way around.

ICS vs Jelly Bean – Power Consumption

When I was using ICS on my Galaxy Nexus and with my general usage style, it could last for approximately 20 hours after 100% charge.

My Wi-Fi was always on as well as Sync. I’m heavy user of Social Media and Web Browsing. At the same time I was addicted to Temple Run as well. With all these I was using Gmail and Calendar apps to manage my professional life. Throughout entire operation display brightness was set to Automatic.

When I updated my phone to Android Jelly Bean I noticed a significant improvement in battery life in the first day. I changed the battery to 100% and used the phone as usual till it reach 4% several times to test this. Here is the outcome.

Now with Jelly Bean, my Galaxy Nexus could run for nearly 28 hours as you can see in the above screenshot. This is nearly 40% battery life improvement. So Jelly Bean is not only giving you butter smooth performance, at the same time it improves the battery life as well, but how?

What is The Underlying Reason for Improved Battery Life?

In Android Jelly Bean Update log there are two statements about Battery life as below.

Jelly Bean has more reactive and uniform touch responses, and makes your device even more responsive by boosting your device’s CPU instantly when you touch the screen, and turns it down when you don’t need it to improve battery life.

Smart App Updates ensure that only the parts of an application that have changed will be downloaded when you next update it, saving up time, bandwidth, and battery when updating apps.

Second reason is irrelevant to general operations, but first one gives us a hint about improved battery life. However, with that technique alone, Jelly bean won’t be able to achieve 40% of improved battery life according to my personal point of view.

In order to achieve this energy efficiency, Google engineers must have done some serious kernel re-engineering. They must have embedded power management module in to the kernel itself. In addition they must have optimized the source code to consume lesser amount of CPU and other resources to achieve this level of efficiency.

However, I could not find official records to prove this point. You may find out good reason to explain this improved battery life in Jelly Bean devices. Our comment box is open to your point of view, information and experiences.

Tags: #Android #Battery #Jelly Bean

Nikon is one of the major camera manufactures in the world. They are producing SLR cameras, Digital SLR cameras and compatible lenses under the name Nikkor. Their most popular products are DSLR cameras. Their products range from DSLR cameras for basic use to some of the world’s best professional DSLR cameras.

Recently Nikon introduced to the world the new KING of DSLR cameras – Nikon D4. This is a high end professional camera which attracted many photographic lovers around the world and it is coming as advancement to the Nikon 3Ds. This camera is having many of exciting advanced high tech features for photography as well as cinematography like no other camera in the world ever offered.

Special Features

Expanded ISO Range

The main noticeable feature in Nikon D4 is its unbelievable ISO performance. It’s having 100 – 12, 800 standard ISO range and 50 – 204, 800 extended ISO range. There are few other cameras which offer similar ISO range but the main attraction here is noise performance.

Normally when you shoot in lesser ISO, sensor is less sensitive and has lower noise. It’s good if you have good light conditions in shooting environment. But when you have low light environment you have to increase ISO to achieve adequate shutter speed which also will make the images noisier. Due to that, having higher ISO alone is not enough. It has to be less noisy in higher ranges as well.

DxOMark.com has not yet tested Nikon D4 sensor, only previewed. However according to professional photographers who have tested this camera, noise level in Nikon 3Ds at ISO 6400 is equivalent to noise level in Nikon D4 at ISO 12800 which is amazing. This will let you shoot in higher shutter speed even under very low light conduction.

Image Sensor

The image sensor in Nikon D4 is nothing special other than its above mentioned ISO performance. It’s a Full Frame FX format CMOS sensor which is having 16.2 Mega Pixels.

However if you take a closer look in to the pixel size, it’s bigger than other similar type sensors. Its pixel size or pixel pitch is 7.3 µm. Most of the similar images sensors have pixel pitch less that 5 µm.

These bigger pixels give this camera the amazing capability of capturing maximum amounts of light and shoot under very low light conditions.

Super Speed Auto Focusing and Image Processing

Nikon is all about performance. It let you shoot fast action and time critical snaps like no other cameras. But with Nikon D4, it’s taking it to the next step.

The camera is coming with EXPEED 3 image processor which will give you amazing performance to your photography. 91, 000 pixel RGB metering sensor will give you accurate light metering in many different complex scenarios. MultiCAM 3500FX autofocus sensor works in very low light conditions and delivers super fast auto focusing with 51 point auto focusing system.

The auto focusing system offers a range of options for you. Mainly it gives you single point focusing (SF), area mode (AF), continuous (CF) mode and 3D tracking, same as in most of other Nikon DSLRs.

In addition to that Nikon D4 is having Object Tracking System which identifies the object in the given focal point and keeps focusing on to that object with any type of movements. This will be a great option for sports photography.

These features turn Nikon D4 in to a high performance low light shooting gear which is also having unbelievably fast low light auto focusing. Without having these advanced metering sensor and auto focusing sensor, Nikon D4 won’t be able to utilize the maximum power of its ISO range.

To make this high performance fast action photography capability even stronger, it comes with 10 fps continuous shooting mode. That allows you to shoot 10 pictures in one second with variable exposure and auto focusing as well. If you are using exposure lock you will be able to achieve the speed of 11 fps.

Live View

Same as in Other Nikon DSLRs, D4 is also having live view mode. It let you control different parameters to change the light and other image processing with real time reflection in the live view.

The specialty here is Nikon D4 is having two different live view modes for photography and movies with specialized set of features. In photography live view mode, it let you shoot in completely silent mode up to 24 images per second at 2 mega pixel resolution.

Full HD Videos @30fps

Nikon D4 comes with advanced movie mode which let you capture 1080p videos at 30fps. If you need to capture video and make it slow motion you can shoot at 60fps in 720p resolution.

The duration of a clip recordable at stretch has been increased from 20 min to 29 min and 59 seconds.

The most attractive feature here is Nikon D4 is capable of sending uncompressed video streams through HDMI out. It let you use a separate video storage device by-passing the camera’s storage. This is really a cool feature since there are lots of movie recording devices in the market which accepts HDMI input as the video source.

Connectivity

Nikon D4 is having USB connectivity which can be use to connect the camera to a PC and transfer the file. The brand new feature here is, it comes with LAN port as well, which will give you even better and faster data transfer.

Other than that it supports wireless adaptor like most of other Nikon DSLRs. But unlike other Nikon DSLR it let you control the camera remotely, through a PC, tablet or a Smartphone. Further, it’s capable of directly streaming the live view through Wi-Fi to a destination controlling device.

Storage

Nikon D4 is not supporting standard SD cards. It supports Compact Flash and XQD chips mainly having the objective of higher data transfer rate. There are other DSLR cameras which support CF, mainly the gears which are fine tuned for cinematography. But Nikon D4 is the first DSLR camera that supports XQD chip.

XQD is the next generation of removable storage which delivers ultimate reliability and performance. The main reason to include XQD in Nikon D4 is to get the speed and reliability to turn the device in to high end movie camera. This will be a huge advantage to win the Nikon-Canon war in DSLR cinematography.

Usage of Nikon D4

Low Light Photography

When it comes to Photography the main usage of Nikon D4 would be low light photography. Its exceptional ISO noise performance advanced metering and auto focusing sensor will make this possible. Photojournalists who are covering various music concerts etc will love to use Nikon D4.

To control the camera functions in low light environments, it comes with illuminated buttons in rear panel.

Other than that even when you are using an external light source, you will have the flexibility to control the light and capture what you really need. You will be able to minimize the usage of external lights as well. This will help you to save the battery life of your flash gun.

Sports Photography

Sports photography will require higher shutter speed to freeze the motion. To achieve higher shutter speed you need strong light and wide aperture. In the case you don’t have strong light condition, like in early morning or evening only wide aperture won’t help. There you have to increase the sensitivity of sensor to go for a higher shutter speed which is Nikon D4 is well capable of.

Other than that, it comes with ultra fast image processor, light metering and auto focusing sensor which will never let you miss a moment. When you do sports photography, you will use continuous focusing mode, 3D tracking mode or most importantly subject tracking mode.

These snappy performances will probably make the Nikon D4, the best gear for sports photography. Other than that, it is having a solid build with full Magnesium alloy body which is moisture and dust proof. Hence, you don’t have to worry about the durability when you take your camera to the sports fields.

For Cinematographers

Most of the advanced features of Nikon D4 are focusing on cinematography. Most of the previous Nikon DSLR also came with 1080p HD video but not 30fps. Most importantly there was no way to make real slow motions till this camera came with 60fps.

As a special feature there is a function to produce time lapse videos automatically. It takes pictures in a given interval and you don’t have to worry about producing it manually. Camera exports the entire set of images captured as a movie in 1080p resolution and given frame rate.

Nikon D4 is the first DSLR which streams uncompressed video through HDMI output. These open lots of new opportunities for movie producers. They can only use the sensor and image processor of the camera, with external display and recording device. This will give them the opportunity to expand storage unlimitedly and easily plug external video monitor.

Wireless adapter which comes as optional feature of Nikon D4 gives you the opportunity to connect an external device, stream live view and control the camera remotely. This will let the video producers to control the camera when it is mounted in to cinema rig.

Though Nikon D4 is having FX sensor, you can shoot videos in DX format. In that case it will give you 2.7 x extra zoom for your existing lens without reducing the quality of video which is 1080p.

Drawbacks

No argument that Nikon D4 is one of the best DSLR in the world. But it also has few minor drawbacks according to my point of view.

The main drawback is it doesn’t support common types of storage cards. It’s true that if you are doing cinematography, you need extra speedy storage. But if you are doing photography, it’s not that critical. In that case it’s really cool if you can use common type of storage card like SD.

When it comes to connectivity still Nikon D4 is not supporting USB 3.0 which let you transfer the files in a super fast manner. However, most if the professional photographers don’t use USB connectivity, but external card reader.

Most of the competitors are already providing RAW format support for videos, yet Nikon D4 is still having compressed MOV format though it has other high end cinematography features. Other than that it is a bit heavy and lot more heavily when you use it with a cinema rig.

Nikon D4 will be coming in to USA market by 2012 February and will start worldwide shipping really soon. It’s not surprising if this make a sales record in DSLR camera category with all these amazing features and market price $5999.95. You might say the price is too high, but compared to the features and facilities you are going to get, it’s a worthy investment.

Tags: #Camera #DSLR #Nikon

Social networking has become a part of our lives to the extent where we can’t live without them anymore. However, history of social networking is not going back too far. That’s why, most of our parents have no idea what the Facebook is. We are in a time where lots of interesting features are introduced to social networks to provide the real social experience online and make it even more interactive. These efforts made online social networks a very powerful communication tool which we never even imagined.

If you take a look at the social networks, basically it allows you to connect with your friends and communicate with them. For communication you were able to use text in the early stages, but with time you are offered the facility of using rich media as well. With the improvements of broadband internet speeds, developers could introduce better rich media features to social networks like videos. In this article I’m going to take a look in to historical milestones of ‘social video networking’, technology used, its social impact and future trends.

Reasons for Growth

In the early time on Social Networks, most of the features were limited to text based communication such as Messages, wall posts, Blog, forums etc. After some time there was some involvement of graphical media such as images and GIF animation. Trend initiating online social networks including Friendster, MySpace and Hi5 were using various different combination of above features with different brandings.

There were several limitations for web applications to use rich media, mainly the speed of internet. During the time of ‘Dial up’, web developers had to think twice before they include even an image. Therefore, most of the online communication was practically limited to text and few images. Other than that there were problems related to videos such as users had to download and watch the video and video recording required advanced professional gadgets.

With time, technology improved and mainly below factors triggered the evolution of an era of social video networking solving the problems of load time, video playing and recording.

Internet Speed

If you go back to 1990’s internet speed was limited to 48 kbps which was Dial up internet. By that time it was adequate to carry out text based online communication, yet nowhere near for online video. But with the advancement of global broadband internet technologies, global average of internet has increased to 9.83 mbps.

This speed of internet is more than enough to stream an online video without interruption and upload video quickly as well. Other than that this higher speeds made it possible for the users to share HD videos online as well.

In addition to wired internet connections there was a significant growth in mobile broadband as well. Today most of the hits coming to social networks are from mobile devices.

This growth of internet speed removed the major barrier for Social “Video” networking and allowed the users to share their lives online, more comprehensibly using videos going beyond text and images.

Web Technology

In the early time of Social networking, there was sufficient technology to let the user to upload the video and store them properly. But when it comes to playing, the technology was no sophisticated enough. In the case a user need to see a video he had to download the whole video and play it using a locally installed media player and it was a considerable limiting factor for Social Video Networking.

With the time, web technologies improved and gave birth to the concept ‘online video streaming’. This technology let the users to watch the video without downloading whole file at once, right on the web interface. The most popular application used to achieve this was Adobe Flash Player for web. Users had to install it to stream the video in a web interface.

Other than Adobe Flash player, there are alternative technologies introduced recently including Microsoft Silverlight and HTML 5. Most of the popular Social Video networks are already using HTML 5 which is a high performance replacement for Adobe Flash player and it doesn’t require any plug-in installation to watch the video.

Portable Video Cameras

Video uploading, storing and streaming technologies were developing exponentially, but the problem is how to produce these videos. Few decades ago producing video was limited to high end video production studios. But with the technological advancement, today you can carry a personal video production kit in your jacket pocket.

Lots of manufactures are releasing various different camcorders which are capable of recoding videos just by pressing few buttons. The video quality of those is also improved to a position where they are good enough to be broadcasted in a public TV channel. If you take a look at the market prices of camcorders, they were starting from approximately $250. Therefore in a short period of time camcorders became a house hold item. Video recorded from those directly came to social video networks with the time.

Other than the camcorders, lots of DSLR cameras introduced to the market were capable of recording high end, professional, quality videos other than their normal usage which is capturing still images. Those devices also helped the Social video trend to grow not only in quantity, but also by quality.

Other than all the above, the most interesting trend of social video is footage captured by mobile phones. We keep the mobile with us always and let us capture valuable moments and share them online without even the help of a computer.  Today most of the Smartphones are equipped with HD video recording capability and very high speed mobile broadband internet. Hence, users can record high quality videos and upload them to social video networks without further delay.

Big Players

YouTube

YouTube is the most popular Social Video Network which is providing most of the interesting features, specially the video streaming performance. This is managed by Google and it has been integrated with Google+ which gives it most of the advanced social networking features. It’s using adobe flash as well as HTML 5 as video streaming technologies.

It was founded in 2005 and became the trend setter for Social Video Networking. This web application changed the public image of online video in a short period of time. Today it’s hosting billions of social videos and connecting many users, as subscribers through channels.

Vimeo

Vimeo is very popular especially among video produces. It’s a Social video network where produces can share their video and get feedback from other produces and users around the globe.

Same as In YouTube this is also using Adobe Flash player and HTML 5 to stream video and provide the video player for users. Users can upload many different formats of videos including HD content.

Facebook

Facebook is THE social network in the millennium and still at the top unbeaten. It also has the facility for the users to share videos. It’s having its own video player for facebook hosted videos and at the same time users can embed YouTube videos as well.

Same as most of the social video networking sites, facebook is also using Adobe flash, HTML 5 and giving HD video support.

Social Impact

Even at the time where social networks were limited to text and images, their social impact was massive. When the era of social video rose it made that social impact even stronger. Today TV has practically been replaced by Social Video Networking sites.

The main thing that users will expect from a social network is a platform to connect with friends, already known in real world or may be the unknown, and express themselves freely like they can never do in real world. Hence the sole objective so any social network is to give maximum facility for the users to express themselves much freely and comprehensively.

With the growth of Social video networking many new things that world never knew, came out to public. Most of the interesting video stories are recorded by non professional individuals. They contain ‘cover versions’ of popular songs and different invaluable moments captured on the go. Here is one good example.

Everyday most of the social video networking sites are getting millions of videos captured by individuals using their personal camcorders or mobile phones that contain interesting content. Those videos are shared among public and the best part is people can give feedback to those unlike in Television. This social conversion around a video made a huge impact on how people think and global life style changes.

Other than personal videos, after seing the crowd gather around these social video networks, most of the professional video produces also started releasing their videos online. Those mainly contained the videos you can already see on TV channels such as music videos, news and other programs. The number of hits those videos are getting is amazing and here is one good example, the most viewed video on YouTube.

Other than that marketing professionals are using Social Video Networking for creative promotions campaigns. The reason here is that there are billions of people around the globe connected to these sites, which is way higher that any public television channel. Once they come up with some promotional video you can easily publish it online totally free of charge and social engagement is way higher that television.

Social networks are self sustaining systems; people upload videos, watch videos, rate and comment by themselves too. The application owner only provides the platform to carry out those operations and that gives this amazing power to Social video networking. Application of technology allow the user to upload not only HD video but 3D videos as well.  It’s very difficult to say where this trend will go next, but for sure this will lead television broadcasting to its grave.

Tags: #Social Networks #YouTube

Many of today’s mobile phones will break or crack almost immediately with a single drop. Nowadays, people tend to focus solely on the beauty of a phone’s design and how fast it can browse the internet, as opposed to picking a phone that has a strong foundation, perhaps is water resistant, and is built to work properly even in difficult situations.

The good news is that there are three rugged mobile phones that provide rich features and are extremely durable, such as the Casio G’Zone Commando, Sonim XP1300 Core, and the Motorola i886.

Casio G’Zone Commando

The Casio G’Zone Commando is an Android Smartphone that is truly meant for the outdoors. It was created to be water proof, resistant to harsh impacts (very difficult to crack), dust and heat damage. A lot of times phones may stop working if they are not in room temperature, but the Casio G’Zone Commando has such a tough exterior that heat or cold weather could not freeze or shorten the phone’s life span.

This mobile phone also has features like Gmail, Youtube, a web browser, Bluetooth, GPS, social network capabilities and more. The Commando also has a very nice exterior design as well. So not only is a great phone, but it also catches the eye.

Sonim XP1300 Core

This mobile phone, the Sonim XP1300 Core, was built a little different from the Casio G’Zone Commando. It’s has grips on the side, which makes it much easier to hold. One of the best things about the Sonim XP1300 Core is that it has such a strong foundation, that it can be dunked in antifreeze or thrown down a number of stairs and will not break.

The Sonim does have an internet browser, but it is pretty basic. Other features are ringtone and vibration alerts, if a person happens to be an entrepreneur, then they can have many conference calls, and the usage of the speakerphone is very convenient. There are a number of things this rugged mobile phone has that can be incredibly useful.

Motorola i886

The Motorola i886 is not an android smartphone, but is more like a Nextel mobile. It’s features consist of Bluetooth, calendar, GPS, a music player, memory slot, customer service number, corporate email support, a rugged and durable design, and much more. However, try not to be misleading into thinking this rugged mobile is an android smartphone, since it does have a similar interface that is almost identical to the Android.

So there you have it, all three of these mobile phones are incredibly useful for a long period of time. Not only can they withstand harsh conditions, have a wide range of features, but their beauty appeals to the public’s eye.

Written By Mike, Catch me @thetechlegend

Tags: #Motorola #Smartphone

The early version if apple iOS launched back in 2007. In that time it was very inferior mobile operating system, yet could service due to the famous trade mark apple, smooth user interfaces and exceptional hardware like iPhone. There were lots of limitations in the operating system. Basically it could not handle two applications at the same time while basic version of Nokia OS could do it. Your Skype mobile client goes off when a call or SMS comes which was very annoying.

No matter what technology and creativity never end and fly through obstacles, especially Apple Inc. Down the time they manage to upgrade the iOS to compete with other available mobile operating system. In version 4.0, they manage to introduce many significant features including multitasking for 3^rd party application, JAVA Scrip support and Wi-Fi multimedia streaming.

With those features iOS became a huge threat to other mobile operating system and sometimes it could dominate very old market empires. Symbian OS, HP WebOS (previously palm OS) and Windows Mobile OS like giant were moved with the improvement of Apple iOS. In 2011 June Apple announced the latest iOS 5.0 comes with lots of amazing features and it was launched in October. This OS initially came to the market with Apple iPhone 4S. It’s a good time to take a look in to effect that iOS 5.0 made to the mobile device world.

New Features

Notification Center

The notification canter is one of the main components in any Mobile OS not just in iOS. Previously the way it used to give the notification was not user-friendly and sometimes it was disturbing to the currently running application. In iOS 5 they have redesign it. The notifications come at the top of screen and disappear very quickly. In the case you need to see entire list of notification you can swipe the top edge of the screen. Further, when the screen is locked the list of notification displays and you can respond to them easily. You can configure the notification center to display the desired items the ways you want including news, weather etc.

iMessaging

This is a brand new messaging service only for iPhone and iPad users who are using iOS version 5. This is providing the facility for you to send text messages through 3G or Wi-Fi based data networks. The text messages are displayed in usual threaded design. You are free to send any type of content including text, images, video and many more. If you need group messaging it’s possible through this application. Its really cool that application keep the messaging history, so you can re join the conversation which you did maybe sometimes ago. To ensure the maximums security of your message which going to be transfer through a public network, the application uses advanced encryption algorithm.

Camera and Photos

iOS 5 provide many new features to iPhone camera. Manly it has made the access easy. From the lock screen you can directly go to camera without unlocking it. So you will never miss an unforgettable moment. Additionally it provides grid lines, to align objects in your frame, tap focusing and zoom in and out gestures. Normally iPhone camera decides the optimum exposure to the frame. But if you are moving rapidly through areas with different light, it doesn’t work well enough. To solve that problem, iOS 5 provide exposure lock to iPhone camera, which is a feature comes in professional cameras. And you have a hardware button, which is volume up button to capture a frame which is way better than previous touch screen virtual button.

The photo viewer of iOS 5 provides on screen photo editing. You can do basic editing while you watch the photos like Auto enhancement which correct, exposure, blacks and color balance intelligently, cropping and red eye reduction. This is really helpful for frequently traveling people, especially for e journalists. They can capture the photos on sight, then edit them right there in iPhone and upload them to web site or social media applications.

PC Free

With previous versions of iOS it requires a computer which connected to internet to setup the device for the 1^st time. In other words, if you want to own an iPhone, before that you must own a PC or a MAC. But with the iOS 5, it has made the iPhone and iPad independent. The device itself can connect to internet right out of the box and download latest updates of iOS through any data service. Same with the 3^rd party applications, the device itself can connect to internet and download them. When it comes to your images, emails and contact like content, again you don’t need a PC or MAC since you have online storage, iCloud comes free with iOS 5.

iCloud

iCloud is one of the interesting feature that comes with iOS 5 and it’s totally free. It’s a online storage where you can sync all the data in your device. Hence you can use the same data in many devices after successful login. This service is integrated with multimedia contents like images and videos.

Ex: Once you take a photo you push that in to iCloud and you can access the same photo in another iOS 5 powered devices without extra effort.

With this service you will never miss any data if you are using many iOS powered devices. iOS comes with new email client that is also powered with iCloud, so you can access your mails with any iOS device. Same service could be used to sync and back up calendar entries and reminders too.

Other

To support the booming trend of social media iOS 5 has included the twitter application built in. Good news for twitter junkies! Gestures were introduced in previous version of iOS as well and iOS 5 has come up with more full hand gestures to make the device more usable. iOS is probably the most used mobile OS for gaming. So there is an upgraded gaming center in iOS 5. AirPlay was introduced in some previous version though this version iOS 5 support HD video mirroring through Apple TV. This will be a cool feature for professionals who planning to use iPhone and iPad for presentations. Location alert in reminders is another cool feature, which let you set a reminder which triggers not in specific time, but in specific place using GPS.

Other than visible features, there are various optimization of source code which of course no one knows for sure except Apple development team. The optimization are having the target of utilizing the battery power when heavy processes are going and utilize the processing power when multiple tasks are running.

All these features have extended the usability of iOS powered devices to initiate new trends and open whole lots of possibilities.

New Trends and Possibilities

Business Usage

Even in the early stage of iPhone some of the businessmen were using it to monitor and control their business through custom made applications. With the arrival of iPad this trend hit the roof due to the extended usage of iPad, specially its big touch screen. Introduction of iOS 5 has open more possibilities for the businessmen to use those devices more effectively. Mainly iCloud provide online platform to manage data and make them portable which comes handy for any professionals. You have your emails, calendar entries, to do list and other files wherever you go. With the improvement of mail clients, calendar application and new reminders, those made possible. With the performance optimization in core OS, they can trust the device for time critical online application like Stock trading. With new Notification center, you can easily configure it to display the status of stock market.

Communication

No matter what, the main purpose of any mobile device would be communication. I have mention many times before as well, conventional communication mediums like voice calls and SMS are less discussed subjects today, yet they are the most used. iOS 5 provide seamless integration of front camera to give excellent video conferencing experience to users. Further new iMessage general users can communicate through data service with much lesser cost. As always iMessage and SMS are having threaded discussion mode. And there is a new feature Newsstand let you manage your online subscription to various news sources.

Social Media

Social media is always made easy with iPhone and iPad. The increasing number of mobile social media users proves it today. Facebook applications came built in with previous version of iOS and now twitter application also comes with iOS 5. Using these applications provides more features that conventional web interface and let you utilize the full power of the device. With the new features in camera, we will be able to see more social photos uploaded to social media sites. And new image viewer provide on screen photo editing, color correction, cropping and red eye reduction. Users will be able to edit the photos, right in the device before they upload them to social media, without help of a PC or MAC.

Optimization and Continuation

The development of iOS is always backed by its previous success and version 5.1 beta is already out for developers. It’s expected to be containing with many more cool features. In next releases of iOS I expect it to be more performance tuned and more importantly less battery power consuming, unlike the previous version. Most of the users were complaint about the battery drain in iOS versions when they work with many applications at the same time. At the same time developers will have to keep a track on memory foot print, which was not a huge problem in iOS so far, yet highly complained issue in Android Mobile OS. When they increase features in iOS and make it ready for 3^rd party applications they might face the same problem. Looking forward to take a look at the iOS 5.1 and wishing all the best for Apple iOS developers.

Tags: #Apple #iOS #Smartphone

Rumors are spreading about one of the famous consumer electronic product which is Apple’s iPhone. The next version is expected to be named as iPhone 5. Apple fans are looking forward for another technological surprise as previous launch of “The new iPad”.

However the situation is not as the same as few years ago. There are no much competition to Apple in Tablet world yes. But in Smartphone world Samsung is dominating and according to the latest statistics already surpass the popularity of Apple iPhone.

So this time Apple will face a tight solid competition and they must hit it hard to keep the spirit in the market. As usual they are not giving up. Instead they try to innovate and hold their crown as the best. Seems this time they are trying to uplift the standard of iPhone body. That’s where the “Liquid Metal” came to the picture.

What is Liquid Metal?

The subjected liquid metal is not really a liquid. It’s a metallic allow which you can mold like plastic, but still it’s having metallic characteristics. Back in 2010 Apple inc got the patent rights to use this in their commercial products.

Liquid metal could be used to manufacture fine structure due to its molding capability. After the construction it will be strong as any other metal. After 2010 Apple has used this liquid metal material to manufacture some parts of their products such as SIM removal tool in iPhone 3G.

Advantages of Using Liquid Metal for iPhone Body

Liquid metal marital is stronger and durable. Regardless of the strong behavior it could be molded like plastic. This makes ideal material to produce the iPhone body. With liquid metal it will be stronger, thinner and very fine construction like you never experienced.

Wrapping Up

Recently Apple purchased a massive amount of material which need to produce Liquid metal. That is the underlying reason for us to assume that it will be used in next iPhone. However there are no official records to prove this news.

If they actually decide to use Liquid metal for iPhone body it will solve lots of problems which current iPhone has. Even today iPhone is having solid build quality compared to plastic body of Samsung phones. The material used to build the body is Glass and metal. There is a glass layer on top of metal body to give a smooth finish.

If they will be using Liquid metal there is no requirement to use Glass to give it a smooth finish. Liquid metal could be molded to give same or better finish. Due to this body will be thinner and lighter.

So there is a high chance that Apple will use Liquid metal to construct the iPhone 5 body. This will be a breakthrough in Smartphone build quality. The expected release is around next September. Be prepare to enjoy a technological excitement and a war.

Tags: #Apple #iPhone #Smartphone

As a person who lives in information era you have no way to avoid internet. You may not be a techy person, but still it has already become a large part of your personal and professional life. One of the major question people ask every day is “How to transfer large files” via internet. In past few years worldwide broadband infrastructure improved impressively, yet there are very few services letting you to transfer “Gigabyte” sized files.

Previously I introduced many services with their own unique features. Depending on your requirement you can select any of those and most of them are comes for free.

Quick Catch-up

Today I’m going to introduce another service which is letting you to transfer large files online for free. This service is also coming with many of its unique features. DepositFiles is under NOG spotlight today.

How to Transfer Large Files DepositFiles?

• Save the file which you need to transfer in known location in your hard drive. If the file is Giga sized you won’t be able to attach it in a email or upload to many of the file hosting services.
• Go to DepositFiles home page.
• Click on choose file, locate the file in your hard drive and click on Upload now.
• It will show you the transfer rate and progress.
• Once the upload it completed it will show you sharing options including URL, Forum link and Social media.

Pros and Cons of DepositFiles

You already noticed that DepositFiles is a very simple and user-friendly tool. It accepts files up to 10 GB, so you can transfer large files through this service. Once you upload the file, its life span is infinite. In other words it will be there in DepositFiles forever. If you want to delete it, you should do it manually. Even for that there is a very simple mechanism. In file sharing options, you can see the delete URL. Once you access it, the file will be automatically deleted.

If you want to transfer large file online, upload them through a web interface may not be the best options. Therefore DepositFiles giving you many upload options as below.

• Desktop Client: You can upload files to DepositFiles through this piece of software. Highly reliable than web interface and you can download it here.
• FTP Upload: After creating a DepositFiles FTP account, you can configure it with your FTP client. Then you can transfer files through FTP client. In this method transfer rate will be higher and reliable too.
• Remote Upload: If you file is already uploaded to a web server and if you want to transfer it to DepositFiles use this method.

In addition to those DepositFiles is giving you mobile interface and embeddable flash interface as well. In order to access advanced features you should register with DepositFiles or you can sign in with supported services.

However, DepositFiles is not giving you direct links to files. If you want to download files you must go to their Download files and then only you can access the file. For free accounts there is a download limits and you can get rid of it by purchasing Gold account.

Deposit Files will give solid answer to your question “How to transfer large files online?”. It’s not only about transferring. It’s about managing them and upload them efficiently. Try DepositFiles and share your experience with us.

Tags: #Files #Online Tools

In the early time of Smartphone competition there were only two major players, Apple and HTC. At that time Apple managed to lead the game with their iPhone while HTC also held a significant market share. For a long time iPhone was the major attraction in the Smartphone world and everyone were talking about the amazing features they offer, specially the smooth touch screen. But after sometime HTC also started moving fast ahead with the power of Android mobile OS while many other companies came in to the show with lots of competitive Smartphones.

In the year 2011, lots of attractive Smartphones came to the market mainly HTC’s Desire, LG’s Optimus 2X and 3D, Apples iPhone 4S and Samsung’s Galaxy S 2. If you take a closer look in to these phones you will see that early market leaders like Apple and HTC are going to be defeated by the new comers like LG and Samsung with the amazing features they offer. Out of all these competitors Samsung Galaxy S 2 stands tall due to very sharp features that it comes with.

Why It Became The Best?

Design

The major attraction of the Samsung Galaxy S 2 is its amazing design. It’s simple and usable single block. The rear panel gives good grip to the device while smooth front panel give you amazing touch screen experience. The built is pretty solid and appears to be durable. When it comes to dimension, it’s very thinner (only 8.5mm) than many other competitors, yet larger in width and height of course to accommodate huge display. Even if you consider the weight, its way lighter (Only 116g) than most of other same level competitors. In front panel every component is placed in scientific manner, well proportionately. Touch buttons are highlighted by a backlight which is very smooth design. Proximity sensor and the front camera are also carefully integrated with the design. If you take a look at the rear panel, camera and LED flash is seamlessly integrated with design in much protective way.

Operating System

Another major contributing factor the Galaxy S 2 to become the best is its Android Mobile OS. It comes with the version 2.3, Gingerbread. Since its open source, Samsung has developed its own version to go with the device and its features. The popular Samsung TouchWiz UI comes with this device as well. Android has recently developed another version named ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ which is also going to come for Samsung Galaxy S 2, though the time frame for that is not yet specified.

TouchWiz UI

Hardware

The hardware that comes with Galaxy S 2 is totally unbeatable, by any Smartphone available. It’s having Cortex A9 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 1 GB RAM, 16/32 GB internal memory which turns it in to a super fast mobile device. This enables fast internet browsing, data connectivity and gaming as well. Built in Accelerometer, Gyroscope and proximity sensor enhance the gaming experience even more. As a standard feature of any Smartphone it comes with a built in compass and GPS-A device. There is a 3.5 mm audio out and micro USB device which also could act as HDMI out. Phone comes with plenty of storage, yet if you need more storage there is a microSD slot card which support up to 32GB.

Display

Galaxy S 2 is having 480 X 800 pixels 4.3 inch display with pixel density of 217 pixels per inch which is pretty much standard. But it’s a Super AMOLED display which gives you contrasting colors with 16 million colors.  This display is good enough for general operations, web browsing and gaming as well. It’s coming with multi touch sensitivity again pretty much standard for any Smartphone. Display is covered with a denser glass called Gorilla glass to protect the display from scratches.

If you take a look at the battery usage of Samsung Galaxy S 2, talk time, standby time etc, you will be amazed by those figures compared to other Smartphones. The major contributing factor for this is its display which is specially designed to save battery life while delivering an excellent user experience.

Camera

The image quality of Samsung Smartphones was always good and it’s going to be the same with Galaxy S 2 since it’s coming with 8 Mega pixels camera. The camera is accompanied with a LED flash which allows you to take photographs in low light. However single LED flash is way not enough for dark photography. The camera provides you touch to focus auto focusing system, face recognition and image stabilization. Other than still imaging it support 1080p full HD videos at 30 fps which turn your Smartphone in to a professional quality camcorder.

If you consider the front facing camera, which is there for video conferencing, is also having 2 Mega pixels. It’s a way good figure compared to other phones and of course you can use this camera as a digital mirror as well.

Web Browsing

Another major usage of Smartphone is web browsing on the go. Samsung Galaxy S 2 provide excellent platform for you to browse web with the power of Android Platform and high speed data connectivity. Galaxy S 2 supports up to 42.2 mbps HSDPA connectivity. Additionally it comes with built in Wi-Fi to connect to internet in hotspots. Therefore you can surf through the fastest possible way on this earth. Other than that controller in the browser is very user-friendly, especially when it comes to scrolling down, Zooming in/out and open another browser window.

Apple iPhone never had a browser that supports Adobe Flash player which was a major disadvantage of that device. Further it never supported JAVA applications as well. Samsung Galaxy S 2 is having both these advantages which give more flexibility to the users.

Conclusion

Samsung Galaxy S 2 Smartphone has most of the advanced features among all the Smartphones that came in year 2011. If I think about what I wish to be there is, more sharp screen with high resolution and greater pixel per inch like iPhone 4S. Other than that I wish it comes with 3D display like HTC Evo 3D or LG Optimus 3D. Apart from that in other aspects it tops the list. Especially the processing power, huge RAM and storage, super bright display, thinner design, excellent battery life and multimedia capabilities obviously make Samsung Galaxy S 2 the best Smartphone that was introduced to market in year 2011.

Tags: #Android #Samsung #Smartphone