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10 online scams & ways to avoid them   Internet fraud can take many forms: identity theft, injecting malware, fraudulent transactions. It can occur through e-mail, smartphones, websites, and chat rooms. Here are some such scams and ways to avoid them. 1) Infected sites These are the sites that are not legitimate and have malicious software to hack your personal information. A lot of such infected sites come up during festive season, when people are buying gifts online, and hackers build these using popular search items. Another variation of infection is legitimate sites that get heavy traffic and, hence, are injected with ads and images that have viruses. A good way to avoid these is to go with familiar, popular sites or install ad blockers on your browser. 2) Fake phone apps Be very careful about the apps that you download on your phone. Android and Apple phones are particularly vulnerable to fake apps in their stores, and these can introduce m

Windows 8.1 gets Skype update   Internet calling and messaging service Skype has been reportedly rolled out for Microsoft's latest Windows 8.1, allowing it to match with the operating system's multitasking feature. With the tweaked OS, multitasking is one thing that has been made easier and the updated Skype service lets a user work on varied apps while continuing the chat on the Skype screen.    The Skype on Windows 8.1 also lets user share and receive files of any size at anytime along with easier navigation through a list of favourite friends. The messaging and video calling service offers free Skype-to-Skype video and voice calling andges low rates for calling mobiles and landlines worldwide, sending text messages or making group video calls with up to 10 people.

Recharge your phone‘s battery with sunglasses   What can you do with your sunglasses when the Sun goes down? You can use them toge your smartphone! An Indian designer based in the US has turned a pair of sunglasses into a smartphoneging device by adding solar panels to them.  Sayalee Kaluskar's The Ray-Ban Shama Shades are part of a project at Miami Ad School - San Francisco, CNET reported. The shades have a small solar panel on each arm, and that's apparently enough toge a smartphone when the Sun goes down.  According to PSFK.com, Kaluskar placed small solar panels on each side of the frame, allowing the sunglasses to harness solar energy during the day.  At night, the frames can be detached and used toge a smartphone, the report said. Kaluskar worked with Ramiro Ramirez on the project as part of their student work.  Experts say people are keen on tapping solar energy on the go, provided they can harne

How iPad got its design   The modern day iPad reportedly went through a lot of designing, redesigning and experimentation before becoming what iconic design it has today. The tablet's design history has been detailed in Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products, by Leander Kahney. According to Gizmodo, John Ive was secretly working on the iPad while boss Steve Jobs was publicly rejecting claims of an early tablet release. While working on the iPhone design, Ive's team was also working on the tablets, starting with the exact size of the future-gadget. Moving onlaptops and netbooks, Ive proposed at an executive meeting in 2008, that tablets in his lab could be Apple's answer to netbook, suggesting that it was basically an inexpensive laptop without a keyboard, an idea that appealed to Jobs and he gave a go-ahead to Ive to work on the prototypes and make a real product. Ive started by ordering twenty models made in varying

Social network Worldfloat to offer 25,000 movies free   Social networking site Worldfloat has introduced free online movie watching service offering over 25,000 English and Hindi movies and plans to include films in other languages. "We have introduced movie service. It is for free. Worldfloat movie feature is currently the largest free movie service in the world for both English and Hindi languages," Worldfloat founder Pushkar Mahatta said. He said over 25,000 movies - 18,000 English and 7,000 Hindi - are available on Worldfloat.com for free online viewing. It coversgenrescomedy, horror, drama, action, romance, family and classic. Worldfloat is India's homegrown social networking site with user base of over 40 million. Apartthe social networking and free movie services, the site also provides search engine and news services. Mahatta said Worldfloat would soon introduce thousands of free moviesother foreign languagesFrench and Italian,

Study shows bright future for driverless cars   A researcher has said that in the future there will be driverless cars that will drive its occupants to their destination. Martin Spring, the Lancaster University professor who co-authored a paper on the potential of self-driving cars, said that in the future there is going to be a network of self-drive cars that you simply book; they'll arrive and take people to their destination, FHM India magazine reported.  He said that because they are runa centralised network, they'll never crash, never have to find a parking spot and never be caught in traffic again.  Spring said that a driving seat, a steering wheel or any driving paraphernalia will not be needed inside. He said that instead, people will be able to get dressed in the car as it whisks them to work, guided by cameras, lasers and GPS maps downloadedthe internet as they go.

#ThankYouSachin: 3 million tweets, digigraph viewed 4 million times    Twitter revealed that the #ThankYouSachin campaign run by BCCI on Twitter generated over 3 million tweets. As part of the campaign, BCCI handed out a digitally autographed image of Sachin Tendulkar to any Twitter user who made a tweet mentioning BCCI's Twitter handle and this particular hashtag. In a blog post at Twitter, the company's India chief Rishi Jaitly added that the digital autographs were viewed over four million times. "Fansover the world took to Twitter to say #ThankYouSachin, honoring cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar as he finished his storied, 24-year career," said Jaitly. #ThankYouSachin was used not only by common Twitter users but also celebritiesMahendra Singh Dhoni. On November 13, Sachin acknowledged the campaign. "I am really touched with #ThankYouSachin messages. Your supportthese

Apple stores may get iPhone-connecting transmitters in Share Apple is likely to equip its retail stores with transmitters that connect to visitors' iPhones and provide messages based on the products of their interest.     The iBeacon transmitter system has been designed to enhance the shopping experience of people who visit the store. According to Cnet, the transmitters would connect to a user's iPhone and send messages as the user takes a look around products in the store, offering more product information or invitation to workshops. The report said that stores such as Nordstrom experimented with such a system before bringing in the wrath of customers who discovered they were being tracked as they wandered through the store.

Next-gen Google Nexus 10 tablet’s image leaked   Post the recent launch of Nexus 5 and Nexus 7, Google is now reportedly investing its energies into the next big product in its hardware portfolio - Nexus 10. The first-generation Google Nexus 10 was launched in October last year and the model seems set to get an upgrade. The first image of the second-generation GoogleNexus 10 tablet has been leaked by a Reddit user who claims to work for Spanish operatorTelefonica. The model in the leaked image looks quite similar to its predecessor (made by Samsung), but will reportedly be manufactured by LG. The leaked image of Nexus 10 shows that a single speaker will be placed above the display (in landscape mode) and the Wi-Fi + cellular version will cost 299 pounds. It is said to come in white and black colour options and hit the market on November 22. The model number of the tablet is LG-V510 and recently got its Bluetooth certification. Though key specifications of the device

Coming soon: Self-healing batteries   In a first, scientists have invented a battery electrode that heals itself, paving way for next generation of long-lasting batteries for electric cars, cell phones and other electronic devices.  The self-healing electrode is madesilicon microparticles that are widely used in the semiconductor and solar cell industry.  The secret behind the invention is a stretchy polymer that coats the electrode, binds it together and spontaneously heals tiny cracks that develop during battery operation, according to Stanford University researchers and colleagues.  Chao Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford and one of two principal authors of the paper, developed the self-healing polymer in the lab of Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, whose group has been working on flexible electronic skin for use in robots, sensors, prosthetic limbs and other applications.  For the battery project, Chao added tin

Cash-on-delivery addiction a drain on ecomm firms E-commerce companies may be growing at an explosive pace, but their overdependence on cash-on-delivery mode of payment remains worrisome, particularly since online retail ventures in India are not yet profitable. Cash-on-delivery, where customers pay for products at the time of receiving them, still accounts for up to 60% of transactions, according to a study by Internet and Mobile Association of India and audit firm KPMG. This, despite sales at some of these ventures expanding at over 500% annually. Flipkart, considered the biggest ecommerce venture in India, is targeting to cross $1 billion (over Rs 6,100 crore) in sales by 2015. Snapdeal has grown around 500% between 2012 and 2013 and is set to cross $500 million (over Rs 3,000 crore) in revenue this fiscal. Collectively, online retail firms have raised almost $1.4 billion (over Rs 8,500 crore) since 2011. Clearly, the growing customer ba

New films to protect your phones from water Researchers in Georgia have created a new way to produce better films using atomic layer deposition that will safeguard your phone's high-tech organic light-emitting diode display from every whiff of oxygen or molecule of water vapor. Existing methods for manufacturing these high-performance barriers aren't perfect . Due to the way they're made, they often have small defects, resulting in tiny holes that let in water or oxygen. Samuel Graham and his colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created new barrier films that can protect electronics in very harsh environments — when submerged in salt water for months, for example. Graham said that by creating such barrier films, we are able to extend the lifetime and reliability of electronic devices.

5 ways to use Microsoft OneNote on Windows Phone 8 Here are five trips to use Microsoft's note taking app OneNote on your Windows Phone 8 device. Among the free Microsoft Office Mobile apps on a Windows Phone 8 device is a version of OneNote, the remarkably versatile and Evernote - rivaling note-taking tool that can handle voice transcription and sync notes across other devices - among other things! Back in 2010, when Windows Phone was first unveiled, an advertising campaign soon followed which demonstrated mobile OneNote's sync capabilities. These are only the tip of the iceberg of what can be achieved with this flexible little app. Personally speaking, I use it for making notes on the fly, jotting down bits of overheard dialogue that I think might prove useful in any scripts I'm writing. It also proves useful as a way to manage an itinerary. Upon further investigation, however, it seems that there are many other ways to use Micro

The GALAXY Note 3‘s stunning Full HD Super AMOLED display explained   If you are a gamer or a movie fan, then you've probably found the expansive 5.7-inch Full HD Super AMOLED screen to be one of the Samsung GALAXY Note 3's biggest draws. After all, with a combination of vibrant colours and pin-sharp image quality, the Super AMOLED display can handle Full HD with ease. In this feature, we are going to take a deeper look into the tech behind that screen. What is Super AMOLED? How does it work? And what are the apps that will help you get the mostyour Samsung GALAXY Note 3's display? A potted history of Super Active Matrix OLED The two major types of display currently in use are variations on Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD) and Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLED). LCD is still common in many flat-panel displays and computer monitors but OLED is growing in popularity. Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) adds a thin layer of semiconducting film behind the OLED pa

'Hugely addictive' Candy Crush making pockets lighter Smartphone app Candy Crush is notoriously addictive and has huge effect on the brain in addition to one's pockets. Technology blog Gamasutra calls the addiction to this game a "fun pain", where so-called reward mechanisms defeat a person's ability to make informed choices about the costs and value of these products, News.com.au reported. Sudhir Kale, a marketing and gaming expert from Bond University, said that only a small number of people become addicted to games like Candy Crush and addicts become stimulated by a secretion of dopamine by the brain. Kale said that the brain starts secreting dopamine, the same when someone's doing cocaine or recreational drugs, but it doesn't happen to every person. The game's manufacturer, King, makes $670,000 a day from users, who purchase extra lives or access to the next level.

Super-sized Samsung tablet to begin production?   We're expecting a 50-foot Samsung tablet at some point Tablets that are as big as traditional computer screens may well be right around the corner, as Samsung is set to launch a 12.2-inch monster. This isn't the first that we have heard of Samsung's plans to introduce a massive tablet, as specs have previously been leaked. It could be argued that Samsung kick started a revolution in massive smartphones, with the launch of the original phablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note. Could it be trying to do the same with the tablet market? Of course it's not the first to blast past the 10-inch screen size, but its huge marketing campaigns may make this offering the most well know. Reports picked up by Digitimes from Taiwan-based supply chain makers, say that Chinese firm Shenzhen O-film Tech is providing the film-based capacitive screen. Samsung Galaxy Mega Note 12.2? Samsung certainly has no qualms about super-

World's first 6TB HDD is helium powered, looks to deflate storage costs     The new drive boosts a 50% increase in capacity WDC-owned HGST has unveiled a new storage device that is the first of a new generation of hard disk drives that are helium-filled. Unlike other hard disk drives on the market that use air, the Ultrastar He6 uses the second lightest element, which allows it to pack more platters and offer 50 per cent more storage space compared to the market's highest capacity HDDs (currently topping 4TB). The secret is in the gas Swapping air for helium also comes with a number of other advantages. Reducing drag (and therefore friction) for example means that the hard disk drive, which has thinner platters, is also quieter, cooler and consumes less power than previous generations. HGST quotes a drop of 4oC and a reduction of nearly 50% in Watts per TB thanks to a lower motor power. Physically, nothing differentiates the He6 from a tradit

Handwriting enters digital world, thanks to apps Writing with pen and paper is entering the digital world thanks to new apps that work with smart pens to capture the written word and share and edit the content. New apps take what people write or sketch on paper with a smart pen and enhance it with highlights, graphics and text. The written word can also be shared by email or to other apps such as Dropbox, for cloud storage, or Evernote for archiving. EquilNote, an app for the iPhone and iPad, is paired with a smart pen called the Equil JOT. Its creators said the appeal is to preserve the art of writing, while updating it with digital enhancements. "The best ideas often start on paper," said Greg Appelhof, president of the Americas for Equil, a South Korea-based company. "But people use all sorts of ways of capturing notes, from sheets of paper to very expensive journals. We wanted to create something that could capture it all, re

An app that paints your picture while you drive A Barcelona-based painter has developed a computer programme that paints your image as you drive and creates a portrait based on your journey. Artist Sergio Albiac installed the software as part of a branding exercise for a hybrid fuel Lexus IS 300h. Albiac took a photo of Belgian art collector Walter Vanhaerents and uploaded it to the programme that then created a portrait of him using Albiac's hand brushwork, the Mirror reported. The painting changed as Vanhaerents drove and it was dependant on his speed and choice of fuel. When he drove slowly and used electric power the software produced cooler, sharper colours, while driving faster on petrol created a picture with broad, expressionistic brushstrokes in warmer colours.

BlackBerry abandons sale plans, will replace CEO BlackBerry Ltd is abandoning a plan to sell itself and instead will replace its chief executive officer Thorsten Heins. Thorsten Heins, the chief executive of BlackBerry, will leave after the collapse of a tentative takeover offer from BlackBerry's largest shareholder, the company said on Monday. Instead of purchasing BlackBerry and taking it private, the largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, and an unnamed group of institutional investors will invest $1 billion through debentures that can be converted into common shares at a price of $10 a share. In premarket trading, shares of BlackBerry were plummeting. There has long been skepticism about the ability of Fairfax to turn its tentative offer, which values BlackBerry at $4.7 billion, into a firm bid. Since it first made the offer in September, shares in the ailing smartphone maker never rose to Fairfax's $9 a share price. John

Android’s Biggest Changes Aren’t Part of KitKat My HTC One isn’t running Android 4.4 KitKat, but it feels pretty close. I just downloaded several apps that come standard with Google‘s Nexus 5. The apps were graciously posted by Droid Life, and when combined with a new “Google Home” launcher, the experience is a lota stock Android phone. I didn’t even have to root the phone or void my warranty. For now, this is somewhat of a hack, a way for enthusiasts to use Android as Google intended, even on non-Nexus devices. But it’s no accident that some of the biggest new features in Android 4.4 don’t require you to have Android 4.4 at all. In the future, it’s likely that Google will let users switch to the Nexus experience to practically any Android phone, with no rooting or sketchy third-party download sites required. Ron Amadeo of Ars Technica wrote a great story last month about how Google is taking back con

Testing, testing! Netflix adds Ultra HD trial footage ahead of 2014 roll out While it hasn't made any official proclamation on the matter, streaming giant Netflix has apparently been adding Ultra HD/4K footage to its library, ahead of the planned roll out in 2014. GigaOm reports that a number of videos, including "El Fuente 24 fps" have been added to the on-demand portal promising to show "an example of 4K at 24 frames per second." The test footage, which appears to be a promotional video for Mexico, can be viewed by anyone and appears to be for the purposes examining the quality of 4K streaming under different conditions. Naturally, users will need a 4K television in order to reap the benefits. Disrupting the landscape Earlier this week, Netflix CEO Reed Hasting's reiterated the company's desire to disrupt the TV landscape further by pushing 4K content in 2014. During the company's quar

Is Google plotting a Nexus 8? Mystery tablet pops up on Android webpage A photo on Google's Android promotional website has led to speculation that the company may be gearing up to launch a new 8-inch Nexus tablet On the Apps and Entertainment section of the Android.com site, a woman is shown enjoying a tablet that appears to be larger than the existing Nexus 7. The mystery device is running Android 4.4 KitKat, has very slim bezels and slows on-screen navigational buttons. As Ars Technica points out, Google never uses fake devices for its promotional materials, so appears that Google may have leaked its next big hardware move. iPad mini killer? An 8-inch Nexus tablet would give Google the opportunity to battle the new iPad mini 2 with Retina Display and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 tablets. This is the first mention of a potential Nexus 8 tablet. Until today,speculation has focussed on a Nexus 10 refresh, which is yet to materialise. Might a Nexus 8 rep

Apple's head of iOS engineering, Henri Lamiraux leaves company after 23 years   Lamiraux decided iOS 7 was to be his last release Apple's Vice President of iOS Engineering, Henri Lamiraux has left the company after 23 years, it emerged this weekend. After changing his employment status to 'Retired' on Facebook and LinkedIn, Lamiruax confirmed to 9to5Mac that he had indeed left the company he first joined back in 1990. He told the site he'd been away from Apple for two weeks and had decided a "little while ago" that iOS 7 would be his last major release Lamiraux, who'd been officially woking on iOS since 2005, was in charge of developing the applications which come with the software, according to reports. Critical "The executive also led feature-implementation across the operating system, and he managed both bug-fixing processes and feature distribution to consumers. He also managed the frameworks within the operating system

Key people in Twitter's history Twitter has several people who have played key roles in the building of the popular one-to-many messaging service Twitter has several people who have played key roles in the building of the popular one-to-many messaging service: Jack Dorsey (@jack), 36, the best-known of the Twitter founders, was also the author of the first tweet on March 21, 2006. Dorsey claims the idea behind Twitter and developed the computer code with German programmer Florian Weber (@florian). Dorsey was chief executive from 2007 to 2008, and now is executive chairman. He is also head of the payments firm Square, started in 2010. Dorsey holds 4.9 percent of Twitter shares and has a fortune estimated by Forbes Magazine of $1.3 billion.. Evan Williams (@ev), 41, is the largest stockholder with 12 percent of Twitter capital. Williams worked in Silicon Valley startups Pyra Labs and Odeo before joining Twitter. He succeeded Dorsey as CEO before leaving that po

Small towns spend big online Online shopping is growing fast in India and smaller towns are playing a leading role. They match metros when it comes to transactions, whether they're buying toys or two-wheelers. "More than half our business comes from users in 450 non-metro towns. This segment is growing faster than the metros," said Vikas Ahuja, chief marketing officer of Myntra. com, an online retailer of apparel and footwear. "The sheer number of brands and variety of goods, not available in brick-and-mortar stores near them, is a big pull." Buying clothes and jewellery online would be unthinkable for many people a few years ago. Today, these goods have a growing market online. "Touch-and-feel is the most important barrier, but guaranteed offers to take back products and return money, along with better service, is changing that," said Ahuja. "After a good first transaction, the propensity to spend online increases sig

Two new Diwali magazines play with sound and apps A group of IT professionals has created a set of apps for a digital magazine focussed on Diwali, with open-source data. Over a fortnight last month, a group of IT professionals had been working overtime. But instead of tackling the nitty-gritty of programming, the long hours involved persuading friends to write stories, figuring out the safest way to light a rocket, and pestering grandmothers to part with their secret recipes. The data gleaned from this expedition though, is open-source. Swapnil Gondkar, Mayuresh Naik and Pranit Gore, have made it part of their digital Diwali ank (annual magazine published close to the festival), created for the tablet platform. "Software development is our profession, and we thought of using it to make something different for the younger generation," says Gondkar. "We searched online but couldn't find any Diwali ank of this kind." The app

8 ways to save your data from getting corrupted You can take simple precautions to protect important documents and e-mails, photographs, music files and videos. Data loss - whether from hardware failure, digital corruption, or even accidental deletion - is a hard, yet inevitable truth in this age of computers. But you can take simple precautions to protect important documents and e-mails, photographs, music files and videos. Your Windows OS comes with tools that will help you take a backup; your external hard drive comes with backup software. Yet, despite best intentions we fail to create copies of our files. It's probably because the process might seem daunting. Well, its not... Local storage The quickest place to save a backup of your data is on the hard disk in your PC. Here, however, you will first need to ensure that your copies are stored on a separate physical drive in your machine. A note of caution: different partitions do not mean

Apple iPhone 5S, 5C sold out in India Apple has completely sold out its iPhone 5S in India in less than 24 hours, while iPhone 5C has become the fastest-moving model in stores. Apple has completely sold out its premium iPhone 5S in India in less than 24 hours of its retail launch, while the iPhone 5C model has become the fastest-moving model in stores and is expected to be sold-out during the weekend, the country's top multibrand cellphone retail chains said. This is the first time a new iPhone model got sold out in India in such a short span of its launch, with fresh stock of iPhone 5S available again from Wednesday. Sales of the lower priced colourful iPhone 5C, however, picked up pace only from Saturday with consumers buying the model since 5S was sold out, mirroring a global trend. The Cupertino-based giant launched its two new iPhone models in India at 5pm on Friday in a series of events in the top six cities of India and commenced ret

Hands on: Gigantic Microsoft Surface 2 review With the general public champing at the bit for larger-screen devices, Microsoft is out to prove it's on trend. On the same week that the Surface 2 is hitting stores, no time has been wasted in pushing out a super-sized version of the Windows RT 8.1 device and we were among the first to get our hands on it. Design On the standard Surface 2, Microsoft is telling us loud and clear that it'sabout maximising productivity and portability in equal measure. While you'll still be getting the full Surface 2 experience in the larger variant, we found the whole portability thing had taken a bit of a step down. Sure, it's got the same sleek look and feel of its smaller sibling, but using it on the tube, for example, could prove to be difficult given space limitations. It's a niggling thing but worth bearing in mind if you dislike being over encumbered on your commute. That said, the size is no detriment t