At the ongoing G8 Summit in Ireland, both U.S. and Russia have agreed to install a “cyber-hotline” which will be used to prevent an accidental cyber-war between these two global superpowers. A joint statement issued by President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin said both countries recognize that threats “to or in the use of ICT *information and computer technologies) include political, military and criminal threats as well as threats of a terrorist nature.” It is in response to those threats that both countries are working together to “increase transparency and reduce the possibility that a misunderstood cyber incident could create instability or a crisis” in the bilateral relationship, this according to a White House spokesperson.

The White House has said that there will be a “direct secure voice communications line” connecting US cybersecurity coordinator and Russian deputy secretary of the security council, should need arise of diffusing a crisis situation that is related to ICT security, as long as threats originate from either country. This reminds me of the “hotline” that U.S. and Kremlin had back in the days of the Cold War to prevent a nuclear war.

At the Reuters Global Technology Summit, NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang as confirmed that his company wants to license its graphics technology (IP) to other mobile chip vendors, thus opening a new business for NVIDIA. This is an idea that we first heard about during the GTC conference in March 2013. Although it has occasionally sold its IP for others to build chips (like the RSX graphics chip for Sony’s PlayStation 3), NVIDIA’s current business model is to sell “chips” rather than IP.

This is a model that has served NVIDIA very well in the past decade. Since PC components are standardized and mostly interchangeable, the company could focus on “performance” or other metrics important to its customers, and when the benchmarks warranted a victory, NVIDIA would get the contract. Little by little, the PC graphics industry went from more than 50 companies down to essentially three on PC and 5-6 if you include mobile graphics companies. During that time, NVIDIA terminated the PC business of companies like Imagination Technologies which has then successfully re-invented itself as a mobile graphics IP provider by scoring contracts with most mobile chip makers.
Read full post →Licencing NVIDIA Tegra Technology: Good Decison

I am not quite sure about you, but I have quit using the Internet Explorer browser for more than a decade already, first moving on to Firefox before Google’s Chrome came along. As for the remnant (and a rather large one at that) Internet Explorer users, you might be pleased to hear that the extremely popular ad-blocking browser add-on known as AdBlock Plus is now available on Internet Explorer, and this is made possible thanks to a preview version that has been published by the AdBlock team.

The software is not polished just yet, as it comes with a tiny amount of features or settings, but at the very least it is capable of removing those pesky ads from around the web. Expect AdBlock Plus to play nice on Internet Explorer 8 and above, but do take into consideration that after installation, it will be disabled by default, so you will need to do some minor tinkering before it works smoothly without any hiccups.

There has been plenty of buzz surrounding the Sony Xperia Z Ultra in the past few weeks, where the most recent bit of this upcoming smartphone touched on a rather massive 6.44” display (relatively speaking, of course) being leaked online. This is certainly a phablet that would be challenging to use with just a single hand for sure! We now bring you alleged screenshots of the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, also known as Togari if you prefer to address upcoming devices by their codename. The screenshots are said to hail from a prototype device, where the display has been listed at 6.21” with 1080p resolution, so how does that jive with the previously mentioned 6.44” size?

Well, chances are this can be explained in such a manner – the display size would most likely be just for the screen real estate sans the navigation bar, so the chances of the final product rolling out with a 6.44” display is as real as Usain Bolt’s 100 meter dash world record remaining for the next couple of years at the very least.

I guess it is not enough to roll out just any other ordinary smartphone in this day and age, as those are dime a dozen. What if you were to take another step forward by introducing a rugged smartphone that is also easy on the eyes? That is what NEC had in mind, when they designed the NEC Terrain while making it available via AT&T. This smartphone will be able to deliver dedicated enhanced Push To Talk as well as a QWERTY keyboard for business-minded folk who still have a soft spot for physical keyboards when it comes to their smartphones.

The NEC Terrain would retail for $99.99 a pop, where it is accompanied by a 2-year agreement. You can also use NEC Terrain over Wi-Fi, allowing U.S.-based customers to enjoy improved in-building coverage and access to the service courtesy of compatible Wi-Fi networks. Since this is a rugged smartphone, expect features such as water- and dust-proof design, a scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass screen and sturdy core construct which exceeds military specifications (MIL-810G) for shock distribution. Not only that, you can enjoy speedy 4G LTE connectivity to boot, while a 5-megapixel rear shooter and a VGA front-facing camera alongside 8GB of internal memory that can be expanded by a microSD memory card slot rounds off the list of features. The leaked image that you see above is courtesy of the folks over at @evleaks. [Press Release]

AT&T officially announced the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active over a week ago. This variant of the Korean manufacturer’s latest flagship is water and dustproof. AT&T said that the device will be launched on June 21st for $199.99 coupled with a two year contract. Pre-orders begun on June 14th. It appears that AT&T has already started shipping the device, two days before the scheduled launch. AT&T’s web page for Galaxy S4 now reads “Your Samsung Galaxy S 4 Active will be shipped on June 19, 2013.”

Now there’s no guarantee that everyone will be receiving their devices today. For example if you made your pre-order yesterday, the device might not arrive today. If pre-order was made on June 14th, perhaps your unit might be shipped today. There’s really no yardstick here to judge this, its mere speculation. The device itself doesn’t feature any major changes as opposed to the conventional Galaxy S4. It ships with Android 4.2.2 pre-installed, has a 5 inch full HD 1080p display, 1.9GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB RAM. Just yesterday AT&T announced that it will also launch Galaxy Note 8.0 on June 21st as well.

While the stock Internet browser on Android-powered devices function well enough on their own, there are still other alternatives out there from third party developers, and the Dolphin Browser from MoboTap is one of them. Having said that, MoboTap has just redesigned their Dolphin Browser for Android smartphones and tablets, where they have decided to throw in all-new Web app store as well as introduce a more streamlined navigation experience overall.

The new ‘Web Store’ can be said to be the most significant addition among the lot, where it comes with support for its fair share of high-profile apps and services, where among them include Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and Amazon. Needless to say, this could be interpreted as a move to ensure users remain within the browser environment so that they do not turn to native Android apps, allowing them to access Web apps from the Dolphin home screen or a new tab, while sorting them into conventional folders as and when required. What do you think of the new Dolphin Browser for Android?

Huawei announced that much awaited Ascend P6 smartphone yesterday in London. Already the Ascend P6 pre-order has gone live in UK and Finland. It currently has the title of being the world’s slimmest smartphone, measuring just 6.18mm thick. Carphone Warehouse in UK will be shipping Ascend P6 starting July 4th, Elisa in Finland has slated the release in mid-July.

The sim-free Ascend P6 has been priced at £329.95, though some five carriers will be offering it on contract as well. The smartphone is free with a two year contract coupled with various monthly plans. Finland’s Elisa is offering Huawei’s latest flagship for €359, they’ve not yet given an exact release date. It is not yet know when the smartphone will be released Stateside, and if any of the carriers here will be offering it. Huawei releases the Ascend P6 first in China later this month. The smartphone has 4.7 inch 720p in-cell LCD display, 1.5GHz quadcore processor, an 8 megapixel rear facing camera and Android 4.2.2. It also has an “industry leading” 5 megapixel front facing camera, which is undoubtedly going to turn out some amazing selfies.

We all know that the biggest Internet search giant in the world, Google, is cash rich, and many of the top management executives are millionaires in their own right due to the amount of stock that they hold (needless to say, their founders are billionaires and have been for quite some time already), and so they can be “forgiven” if the company seems to spend cash in a frivolous manner from time to time. Their latest purchase would be forking out $40 million for a robot that can learn human dance moves, and the Hubo Two, as it is called, will rely on motion-capture cameras which can track a human dancer’s movements before trying to replicate those dance moves.

The Hubo two is a highly flexible robot, as it comes with arms that are more than flexible to perform the famous lasso-swinging move in Psy’s Gangnam Style hit. With two robots purchased, the folks over at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (whose researchers came up with such robots) are now $80 million better off. It would be pretty ironic to see the Hubo Two emulate a robot dance performed by a human, don’t you think so?

LG has certainly been making waves in the news recently, and their Social Tree installation in Singapore’s Changi Airport is a prime example in bringing technology to the masses in a different and modern way. Well, it seems that they are on the verge of yet another big thing in the industry with word that the South Korean consumer electronics giant is about to mass produce flexible displays for the smartphone industry sometime in the final quarter of this year at best, or perhaps in the first half of 2014.

According to the folks over at Korea Times who did have a chat with a bunch of LG Display executives, they managed to share this with Korea Times, “LG Display has completed the development of our first flexible displays. We’ve already shipped samples to clients including LG Electronics. LG Display will mass produce flexible displays from the fourth quarter of this year,” It remains to be seen, however, whether LG will be able to hold a big share in this potentially lucrative market as their bitter rival, Samsung, is also said to ship flexible displays of their own this year as well.