Raj Agrawal – Page 24

Raspberry Pi – A Delicious $25 Computer

March 10, 2012 by Raj Agrawal 2 Comments

Raspberry Pi – A credit-card sized computer has sold out after it’s soft release at the end of February, and the demand for this new device just keeps on rising!

Raspberry-Pi-Juke-Box — Image Credit: blog.ziade.org

A British organisation is behind the new Raspberry Pi, and there are hopes that this tiny PC will make computing accessible to everybody. 10,000 units went on sale from the 29th of February 2012, and the demand reached a rate of 700 per second. Like the purchase prices for most computing devices, you won’t really need to squeeze your savings, because the device only costs $25, while there is another model (with few hardware add-ons) available for $35. It’s a no frills piece of technology, which offers a computing experience to people that simply cannot afford to spend on an average PC.

Reasons behind its development

Designed by the Raspberry Pi foundation, a registered charity established in 2009, education was the stimulus behind its development. The foundation is supported by the technology company Broadcomm, and the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. The goal was to create a cheap device that would encourage and empower the next generation of computer programmers. The creation of Raspberry Pi has now opened the doors to a number of possibilities, specifically providing an hands-down solution for people from all over, who cannot afford today’s standard computer equipment.

What’s within (Tech Specs)

Raspberry Pi is simply a single-board computer. The developers have come up with two models of the device so far, simply called Model A, at $25, and Model B, at $35. The difference between the two is that Model B has the addition of a second UBS port and a network connectible Ethernet port, but apart from that both are identical. It measures 85.60mm x 53.98mm x 17mm, and weighs just 45g.

The Raspberry Pi is equipped with the ARM1176JZF-S 700MHz single-core processor, and a Videocore 4 GPU, which is capable of handling full High Definition Blu-ray quality video playback.

It has a total of 256MB of RAM, and an SD card reader which acts as the storage/ hard drive, for the device. There is a standard 3.5mm audio jack for plugging in headphones or speakers, and if you want to use a microphone, it can handle a USB powered microphone. There is an HDMI input port, so that it can be plugged into any HDMI compatible display device, along with an RCA video port so that it can be plugged into a standard television set too.

For Wi-Fi connectivity an external Wi-Fi adapter can be plugged into the USB port. The device is powered by 5v micro USB, and astonishingly, it is possible to run the Pi from 4 AA batteries!

What about software?

The developers of Raspberry Pi have been using a Linux operating system, and are using Fedora as their recommended distribution. Linux is free and open-source so that it can be developed and improved. While the Raspberry Pi used Fedora for now, it will soon support other Linux systems, like Debian and Arch Linux. The idea is go get people in the community to develop new software for the device, and if software can be compiled for the ARMv6 architecture it should, in theory, work on the Raspberry Pi.

Is there anything missing?

What the Raspberry Pi lacks is a keyboard, mouse, and display device, so they need to be bought separately. The Raspberry Pi foundation explains on its FAQs that,

We’re trying to build the cheapest possible computer that provides a certain basic level of functionality, and keeping the price low means we’ve had to make hard decisions about what hardware and interfaces to include.

A lot of time and though has gone into developing it, and seems that the Raspberry Pi is ticking all the right boxes so far.

In the strive to keep costs down, the bare-bones PC comes with an open board, so all the components can be seen. And at the moment, Raspberry Pi is being sold without any case (outer-shell) although they are currently being developed. And at the moment, Raspberry Pi is being sold without any case although cases are currently being developed. If you intend to get yourself one, then you can buy it from Farnell.com.

The Reign Of Rude, Fast And The Smartest Phones!

March 4, 2012 by Raj Agrawal 1 Comment

The year 2012 is going to be a huge step forward for the mobile market. The current generation is now poised to become the previous generation and new technologies are geared up and ready to replace the old ones. And, as with the advent of any new technology, every mobile company will try and get new handsets equipped with these new advancements as soon as possible to the masses in order to establish a following and make maximum use of the monopoly thus acquired due to lack of competitors. Today we look at the most anticipated handsets of the year along with the features which they claim will make them stand apart from other phones in the same specification range.

HTC One X

With the S2 beating the Sensation this generation, HTC had to come out all guns firing to ensure that it is not eclipsed by Samsung again. And hence, the One X. Featuring a swift Quad Core processor by Nvidia, this is probably the most anticipated quad core handset right now, until Samsung spill the beans on the S3. It also has enhancements to the UI and enhancements to the camera which enables it to click photos at a much faster rate and also enables burst mode which can allow users to click many images in an instant. Add to this the amazing build quality, and you have a complete phone, one which will give Samsung a run for its money.

Nokia 808 Pureview

Touted as being the biggest surprise of Mobile World Congress 2012, this phone has taken the world by surprise. Nokia seems to have given up playing the following game, and is trying to explore new areas of innovation to regain the ground that it seems to have lost. Instead of trying to create a superphone which has everything, it’s trying to delve into the one area which has been their forté over the years – Camera. This beast of a phone has a 41 megapixel sensor which interpolates images into 5 mp snaps. The kicker over here is that each pixel is actually a scaled down version of 8 megapixels, and hence the image does not lose any quality while zooming.

Asus Padfone

The Galaxy Note created a huge confusion among the users as to whether the device is a phone or a tablet. The Asus Padfone brings utmost clarity in this regard by being both a phone and a tablet without creating any ambiguity. So basically, what we have a here is a phone which is inserted at the back a tablet, and it becomes one with it to serve as the latter! The main advantage of this is the bigger screen and the improved battery life. Asus claims that with the tablet and the dock provided with it, battery life can improve almost 9 times as much as that of the average smartphone, which is huge! And with ICS (Android 4.0) integrated into it, there no reason not to put this as a prime contender on your wishlist when you go mobile shopping next time.

Huawei Ascend D Quad

Samsung did something different when it launched the S2; instead of putting a pre made processor into the phone, it created its own processor. Today the Esxynox is considered as the fastest processor of the last generation. It beats both the Tegra 2 and Qualcomm variants by quite some distance and made the S2 the absolute phenomenon that it turned out to be. Huawei seems to have taken inspiration from Samsung’s approach and are packing their own processor into their flagship Ascend D quad handset. They also claim it to be the fastest phone in the world, which is quite a tall claim with the next gen Tegra and Qualcomm processor making waves with their performance in the mobile market. But if the performance of the phone supports their claims, then we could have a new winner in the mobile market.

Samsung Galaxy S3

Samsung are quite mum about this one, but we know its coming. And we’re waiting; not just us, but the whole world is waiting. S2 owned the last generation, and the S3 is the only phone that can match the hype. Other competitors might have all the fancy new features, but S3 has the brand and following behind it. And it’s not like it won’t have tricks of its own; Samsung will make sure it packs the absolute best features available in the market today and make another classic which will blow us away. And i hope we don’t have to wait for too long for that to happen.

So these are our picks for the most anticipated and new smartphones of 2012. Feel free to comment on the article or add handsets/ of your choice in the comments section below!

NFC Technology – Everything You Need To Know

March 1, 2012 by Raj Agrawal 1 Comment

UPCOMING TECHNOLOGY – NFC Technology (Near Field Communication Technology) will bring in the ‘next level’ convenience and sensibility to the way we exchange information. This technology can easily be scaled up to many areas of applicability, which is what makes it another add-on into the list of ‘Next-Big-Things’. Now, lets look at some of the key aspects of NFC Technology including what it is, how it works, NFC in the market place and it’s future.

nfc-technology-bluebite — *Image credit – BlueBite*

What is NFC?

NFC stands for Near Field Communication and as the name suggests, the key for this technology lies in devices being in close proximity or contact with each other. Once devices have established the proximity, which is enabled very quickly (0.1 sec), the communication is enabled. The distances in terms for NFC must be very small, usually less than an inch and as such it is different from comparable communications like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for which there are natural comparisons.

**How NFC Technology works**

Near field Communication operates through short wave radio transmission. Devices that operate NFC technology like smartphones or PDAs, are equipped with an NFC chip. The process of communication between the chip in one device and the chip in another device is an electronic process called inductive coupling. This coupling is a development of an earlier technology, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). With RFID, the technology had a ‘send and receive’ process and was used in a one directional format. NFC takes this process to the next level and allows two way communication between NFC Technology enabled devices.

NFC in the Marketplace

The current scope of NFC services is in its infancy in terms of market launch and proliferation. The global range of the product is sporadic and there are a variety of test locations which have embraced this technology, the key markets of USA and Japan are showing a steadily growing rise in the number of transactions as the technology takes hold. In recent surveys, a growing number of people have stated that they would much rather pay using their phone than carry cash. The scope is of demand is being trialled in some key market areas in Europe and Asia with a growing body of evidence revealing general product in performance in France, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and Tanzania.

France offers the earliest evidence of information with NFC technology in operation, during the early May 2010. There, NFC has been used for purchases of civil services like transportation information and ticketing, similar services have been used for the system in South Korea from later in that same year. More recent progress of the technology can be seen in Turkey where, from early 2011 in Turkey up to 55,000 separate retail processes could be operated using the system. A more limited facility (15,000 outlets) mainly through banks and mobile phone companies has been in evidence in the UK through 2011 and Tanzania.

The statistical data on the number of Near Field Communication transactions globally illustrates a growing trend for usage, but one which is only at the tip of the iceberg if general predictions are to be believed. According to statistics released by Juniper Research Visa has issued 20,000,000 NFC enabled cards and Google Wallet can currently operate at 311,000 locations globally. Predictions for the number of transactions to be made using NFC devices over the coming couple of years show a sharp increase to a plausible 50,000,000 global transactions by 2014. The bulk of these will occur in Europe, US and Asia.

Brands already incorporating NFC

It is also estimated the more than 1/10th of the smart phones sold globally were NFC ready devices with many of the major brands including Blackberry, Nokia, Google and Samsung employing the technology in a range of their handsets. In addition to the handsets. the technology is a part of MasterCard and it can even be found in the Wii controller. Although this claim is yet to be verified, it is rumoured that Apple has come on board and has planned to have NFC as part of iPhone 5 and iPad 3.

Emerging markets

The growth of NFC technology is not limited to developed markets either with the rise in usage occurring in a number of emerging markets. A recent report for Financial Firm Citigroup stated that there were,

40 million mobile money users exist in Africa – the lion’s share of this is attributable to the over 20 million users of Safaricom’s M-Pesa offering in Kenya.
A further report by Communications Commission of Kenya highlighted this growing trend,
The continued growth is an indication of subscribers’ preference to mobile money transfer, which could be attributed to accessibility and affordability even to low-income earners who form the bulk of the unbanked population.

The Future of NFC

Near Field Communication is here and set to be the next big thing. Watch out for stores in your locality promoting the use of paying by handset. With key players like Google and Apple preparing themselves for this market, it is inevitable that the NFC Technology (with the era beginning with NFC Phones) will become a part of our society.