It might be true that nothing can rival Apple’s iPad tablets when it comes to performance delivery and software integrations, but certainly, when it comes to dimensions, here – particularly referring to thinness, Toshiba’s AT200 has already taken the lead, after Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 had taken the light from iPad prior the appearance of the AT200.

But then Toshiba AT200 cannot even rival Acer Iconia Tab when it comes to the 7 inch space, and definitely, neither can iPad, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10. 1 compete for now because the two are reportedly bigger than Toshiba AT200.

The new Acer Iconia Tab A100 is an Android tablet that is the smaller version of the 9-10 inches Acer Iconia Tab A500.

Although smaller in size, the operating system and the overall quality are really similar. They do not only have the same operating system but they also have the same applications and number of ports. The new Acer Iconia Tab A100 technically looses nothing in comparison with its siblings, except for the screen size of course, but that’s forgivable considering again that this is just 7 inches dimension wise. Besides, the user still gets to see websites at full width in this tablet, with the screen about 1,024 to 1,280 pixel screen widths.

The portability of the new Acer tab is really a great advantage over the iPad and all other tablets in the market.

The Iconia Tab A100 runs Android Honeycomb 3.2, the first Android optimised software designed for smaller tablets. This includes SD card support and the ability to use mobile Android applications originally specified for mobile phones and not for tablets. A disadvantage of the A100, is that it is quite heavier and thicker than the other tablets, weighing 410 grams. Still though, it packs functionality and power despite its small form.

A100 has 1GHz Tegra 2 processor, enabling fast website loads. It’s ports of Micro HDMI, Micro USB 2.0, Micro SD, headphone jack and docking ports are enough should the user plan to connect several external devices to the tablet. A 100 also has good speakers, microphone and built in camera.

Acer Iconia Tablet – 7 Inch Tablet is a post from: Tech Pinger

New Tablet Perspective: Toughness:

There must be something about thin tablets, given that they lead the market when it comes to devices and pcs, but perhaps the public and techno fans have take it for granted that other than the thinness, tablet durability might also be one factor to consider when buying tablets. Fortunately, not all tablet, desktop and mobile devices manufacturer concern themselves with the idea that thin is totally in.

Panasonic has decided to come up with a ruggedized Android tablet. Panasonic is known for its Toughbook notebooks, so it isn’t really surprising if the company has designed a touch shock resistant tablet.

The new design is deemed to be launched in 2012, and the target market for the product is not the same market that has popularized Android Honeycomb contingents like Samsung, Asus, Acer, Motorela, Toshiba and Sony. The target population then are people who may possibly give their tablets a rough environment, like those who are often outdoors and exploring.

This is of course good because the conventional market will probably turn a thumbs down to the tablet because they value thinness more.

The new Tough tablet, with a codename of CM111, is 10.1 inch with silver chassis, a number of hardware buttons upfront and wrapped with rubberised grip in the sides. It may not be as thin as the svelte and elegant iPad and Galaxy Tab 10.1 but the new unit is further designed to have a multi-touch matte-style display, one that’s good for viewing things under strong sunlight. It is also modelled to support stylus input but its 3G connectivity is optional.

So how tough is the new Toughbook tablet? CM111 will be definitely temperature tested, whether it can endure an 200 degree C oven heat atmosphere or it can outstand a cold dip in a -85 degree C water bath.

Another temperature test that will be run on the unit is whether it can also survive quick temperature changing environment. Other tests like spraying the tablet continuously with water while it’s turned on, and dropping it from a 120 cm height on slabs of concrete and wood will also be done on the tough tablet. All these procedures are actually the qualifying processes for all Panasonic Toughbook notebooks, thus, it is just logical that the same will be given to the tablet as well.

If CM111 will get through all these tests, then welcome launch for the product should be already organized as early as now.

Android ToughBook – What You Must Know is a post from: Tech Pinger

The trend of nowadays netbooks, laptops, and tablets are base on how skinny the gadgets are. The more skinny the more trendy, the more trendy the gadgets are the more possible to be bought in the market. The MacBook Air is the new product of apple that is super-thin. The Super-thin model of Apple has so many compromises which will appear less appealing to the customers.

Just for an instance:
1. Using 80GB iPod hard drive as system drive. Apple’s customers are much favoured to a thicker fashion of the MacBook rather than to have a skinny model that has an anorexic.
2. Non-expandable memory. The motherboard of the MacBook Air has a 2GB RAM, that’s too undersized memory for a notebook that’s worth 2,500-4,500 Australian Dollars.

3. 64GB flash memory as hard drive. As replacement for the hard drive memory is quite nice, the dreadful thing is that it is worth 1,400 Australian Dollars.

4. Single USB port. Without the USB hub with you or the extension cord, it cannot connect from one gadget to another. Branding MacBook Air as ultraportable notebook is already defeated.
5. No wireless broadband. Please Imagine, the trendy notebook that is so thin has no built-in broadband. It is quite mismatch for a thick broadband to connect in a single port notebook to have an internet connection.

6. Last Gen Processor. The latest processor of MacBook Air is equal to Core 2 Duo, Which means it is so slow version. Remember it doesn’t mean that when you’re using the word “latest” is equal to “better”.

7. No microphone port. Well of course you need to have a USB hub to connect.

8. Non-replaceable battery. If there’s already fussed in your notebook’s battery, expect to send it out the entire MacBook Air to Apple’s company.

9. Not that thin. Apple’s claimed that MacBook Air is the super-thin model of all competing notebooks. For the record, Fujitsu Q2010 is half a millimetre thicker than to MacBook Air. Thick a little bit but when we look the lifebook of Fujitsu it is more appealing than Mac Air.

10. No Ethernet Port. You need to have USB Ethernet adaptor just in case your router stops working.

What is super-thin yet anorexic? That’s the simple point for those who still want to have MacBook Air in their laps. Know the specs first and have review in every product, that’s the secret to get awesome notebook.

MacBook Air’s imperfection is a post from: Tech Pinger

Not too long ago, the only it seemed that the touch screen technology could only be found in styus-driven PDAs and tablet PCs. At one point, they were too expensive still and thus too costly too actually replace the functions of the keyboard and the mouse. But the latter mass demand for touchscreen technology called for using the interface in more than the PDAs and tablet PCs. But touchscreen technologies are not really the same for all type of devices. Here are a few insiders regarding touchscreen tech.

Touchscreen types. The simplest touchscreen tech is the resistive screen, a two layered electrically conducive material separated by a transparent insulators often observed as dots when a person presses the screen. It’s durable and works best for outdoors and industrial environments. However, it may not exactly be suitable for touch-based devices like tablet PCs because they only let 75% of the light from the screen.

Capacitive screens on the other hand work using glass that’s horizontally and vertically coated electrodes. This makes the screens more sensitive, thus there would be no need to physically push down screen to make it work. It lets through over 90% of the screen’s light.

Surface acoustic wave )SAW) touchscreens use ultrasonic transducers that send waves though the surface of a glass screen. Once the screen is touched, the touch interrupts the waves and they are converted into coordinates for software use. This type works with ATMS.

Another touchscreen types surrounds the screen with infrared LEDs, each having photodetectors installed grid-like across the screen’s area. Touching the screen actually breaks the infrared beam. This works optically through interfering with a light beam.

The multi-touch technology. The four mentioned touchscreen tech types are traditional and the touchscreen tech considered to be most wanted when it comes to devices involve more than the four types. This is the multi-touch technology, the one that is responsible for Apple’s success with its iPhone devices. Multi-touch technology allows sensors to detect several finger presses at one time. The alternative name for multi-touch is ‘mutual capacitance’. In a mutual capacitance screen, a small capacitor is found at every row and column intersection. iPhone 4 for instance having a 960×640 screen has 614,400 capacitors.Each capacitor is run by a voltage that changes at a finger’s touch. This interruption is usually fed back to the software as an X-Y coordinate pair.

A Look at the Inner World of Touchscreen Technologies is a post from: Tech Pinger

Virtual Assistant from Apple:

The voice control feature that comes with the latest version of iOS 5 may outshine the release of the newest iPhone model even if consumers have already eagerly waited for the announcement the latter mentioned device.

The voice control feature, which Apple calls as a Virtual Assistant, is deemed to change how people will interact with their iPhones.

People can practically converse with the devices when they are deciding on things and activity schedules.

This service, which has been reported by Charles Golvin from Forrester as a catch up act from Apple with Google has actually been around for quite some time now in concept.

This has been described by Former Apple CEO John Sculley as “Knowledge Navigator” in his 1987 released book Odyssey.

Apple had been exploring the concept over the next years and the Knowledge Navigator took form in a tablet computer that was made prior the production of iPad.

This had incorporated an advanced text to speech function with a speech comprehension system and multi-touch gesture interface, technologies that were much similar to iOS.

Technically then, Apple has had the hardware technology for iPad practically established for years now due to Knowledge Navigator but it has not perfected the text-to-speech and speech understanding chops until the Siri start-up came.

Siri started as an iPhone application utilizing voice recognition. This is much similar to the iOS Google Search and Android apps for voice search.

The difference is with Siri, one ought to give descriptive instructions and Siri would deliver results for the highest ranking items that reflect what has just been described. It also gives the nearest GPS determined location for the searched items.

The Siri is actually the one that serves as the Virtual Personal Assistant. It functions in such manner because it does not only search for results but also does other things.

The user for example can ask it to make reservations in restaurants that provide services through the internet. Also, it can analyze the user’s personal preferences and interaction history to accomplish other tasks.

This happens as it is used several times.
Given these functions, then Siri may just take over the new iPhone’s popularity.

Virtual Assistant from Apple may just surpass the New iPhone model is a post from: Tech Pinger

Launching Google+ may have disputed the rumors that google is looking into buying Twitter, but that does not mean that such is actually the end of these possibilities.

For one, although Google had attracted more than25 million users in August, Twitter still has more, with a record of 300 million in May. Reason two pertains to relevance.

The social web is slowly turned into a site for product recommendations and others. This is because using the usual search engines just sometimes proves to be inefficient when trying to look for such information.

Google+ had made real-time search results for this case but Twitter being a social web modelled after such advertising scenario still takes the lead in the game.

Two questions however arise from this event. First, would this benefit Twitter? Well the action can cut costs and Twitterr will surely benefit from Google’s infrastructure.

The $8 billion to $10 billion price Google may offer, would make Twitter’s bank balance robust. Integrations of Google’s services like Google Talk and Gmail will make Twitter more useful and more popular as well.

But any deal may be scrutinized by anti-trust regulators and the rivals will probably react if Google will actually attempt to get into social search too, as it is already king of the web search.

Second, what can Goolgle really possibly do to Twitter? It might ruin Twitter as it is difficult to integrate the constructs of two entirely different companies.

If the integration goes bad, it may harm the successful real-time chat service that made Twitter a favourite among social search users.

Other than Google, are there any potential Twitter buyer just incase Twitter decided to sell? Well yes, but the potential buyers already have access to Twitter.

Microsoft for example has just renewed its Twitter search deal for Bing, while Apple has extensive Twitter integration in iOS 5.

Amazon too already uses the service for its Kindle users’ book ratings while and eBay isn’t as keen on buying another communications firm after letting go of Skype.

Given such scenario, and the price tag of $10 million, the best that Google can actually do is either bring back the real-time search feature I had that included Twitter’s “firehose” of content or just buy access to the social web instead of reaching for Twitter ownership.

Some Reasons that Google May Just Want to Look into Buying Twitter is a post from: Tech Pinger

Celebs Threatened By Hackers:

The Halo of hackers threatened to poke celebrities’ phones and e-mail accounts as promise in the video. Stated hacks of actresses are Scarlet Johannson and Mila Kunis which were posted on the web.

The FBI investigates the suspected hack linking Johannson and Kunis, including the private invasion into phone and social media’s accounts of some 50 celebrities, counting Vanessa Hudgens and Jessica Alba.

Hollywood Leaks the self-recognized Hackers boasted in YouTube targeting celebrities and Jew-controlled media over next weeks.

These are the statements in the video as stated by the self-proclaimed hackers:
“Attention Hollywood. We are Anonymous. We have been watching you. We have been listening to you. You have been allowed to run free too long.

The time of Jew-controlled media is over. We are taking back the media with your faggot vampires and Scientology pastors. We are here for the people.

We are here for the Lulz. We are here to stay. We have your lives. We have your blood, sweat and tears. Over the next couple of weeks, everyone will have them. We will rock you for ages. Consider this our acceptance speech for the Video Music Awards.”

Hollywood Leaks declared the liability for leaking the images of rapper Kreayshawn the most recent.

It is still under investigation about the leaks of information from Johannson in her seductive images and Kunis in her intimate settings with Justin Timberlake.

The leak is still under investigation. FBI are looking possibilities on how the infringes happened. It could be poor passwords, passwords entered in an unencrypted format and etc.

Celebrity Hacking started in 2003 when Nicolas Jacobsen breached the account of Paris Hilton. And last 2008, Josh Holly hacked the Gmail account of former Disney star Miley Cyrus.

As Josh were posting a series of offensive photos of Cyrus online that she had allegedly taken of herself and sent to singer Nick Jonas at some stage as she dated him.

The descriptions showed a 15-year-old Cyrus in a wet T-shirt in the shower, baring her midriff while kissing at the mirror, and posturing seductively in her underwear and bathing suit

Celebs Threatened By Hackers is a post from: Tech Pinger

Are reading emails soon to be extinct? Not yet..

The first to go in the written communication era were post mails, although a few people still use post mail to contact others and to send important documents.

Post mail services have almost died out due to the over popular communication means through electronic mail or email. Today webmail however is going for a dramatic dive to the pits due to mobile devices invading the technology market.

But this does not entirely mean that emails are dying out. What this only implies is the fact that people are relying less on webmail and desktop options when they check their emails.

Instead, they try to connect to their email accounts using their iDevices like their iPhones and iPad. This is of course, at the expense of web based providers, but with advance technology, the providers cannot really complain.

Further research by Litmus’ Email Analytics showed that in the past year alone, the email behaviour of most users have changed, with 150% of emails opened through mobile devices.

What is surprising however is the fact that although people use their mobiles to access their email accounts, Outlook and Apple Mail have still maintained a steady hold over usage because of its applications, giving problems again to webmail popularity.

Speaking of webmail popularity, Litmus’ Email Analytics also looked into the browser preferences of webmail users.

The company found out that the Internet Explorer browser is the browser most preferred by those who use Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail while Firefox (in the lead), Internet Explorer and Google Chrome are in a close tie in when it comes to the preferences of Gmail users.

The other communication means that are considered to be part of the trending electronic lifestyle are SMS, social media and IM.

Much of these communication processes are also accessed through mobile devices thereby emphasizing the fact that the mobile devices are really taking the lead in the communication process.

The 13% of all email accounts have been even opened through again the iDevices, thus, needless to say, mobile are really getting much used for email access.

Clearly then, given these facts and findings, email usage is not near extinction yet. People still rely on the comforts email can offer its users. In fact, by 2014, it is estimated that about 3 billion people will be using electronic emails worldwide.

Emails: are Almost Extinct? Not when they are read even through iPhones and iPads is a post from: Tech Pinger

Not all people like extreme sports, but some even just can’t get enough with the usual intensity that most extreme sports offer.

These people seem to want more than the adventure that extreme sports like hang gliding and kayaking can give. So what do they do? They try to challenge death through doing extremely dangerous stuffs.

For these people, safety is definitely out of the picture:

If you’re one of these people, you will love Valparaiso Cerro Abajo Urban Mountain Biking Race , the only downhill bike race that threads on definitely dangerous grounds.

Every year, extreme bikers go to Chile to participate in this insane event. However, it does not get much press coverage because only a few eventually enter the race.

Why? there are a number of reasons why other bikers avoid the Valparaiso downhill race.

For one, the set up is in the streets of Valparaiso, Chile, those that are definitely not conducive to normal biking, with their open man holes and canals, and loose packs of ground soil in corners.

Two, the bikers are also made to bike through sidewalks and levelled sidewalk stairs right in front of some Chilean residences.

And as if that’s not enough, animals like dogs are allowed to roam the areas, thus if you’re the one biking though, you may really have to watch out for them if you don’t want tumbling over them.

Three, the route is made more treacherous by narrowing the course to areas where the bikers would need to go over wooden tramps that have been poorly built. How poor is poorly built?

Some are just thinner than the usual 2 by 2 inches thick planks, and they are simply built manually using nails and hammers.

No precautions for thicker wooden ramp foundations are done.

What more, they are positioned in places where the bikers would to take off from streets with higher altitudes and land on narrow corners of the streets with lower altitudes than the take off points. This is of course tricky as the route becomes very tricky and unpredictable.

And as if people couldn’t care less about your safety when you bike through them, they happily wave their hands in front of your face as you fly by, obscuring your view of the route.

Technically there are two words that can sum this downhill bike race – and these are — insanely loose.

Love Intense Biking Experience? Try Valparaiso Cerro Abajo Downhill Bike Race is a post from: Tech Pinger

It is easy to actually pull off optic illusions through the use of software like Photoshop, whereas it was difficult before through the use of ink and manual prints. One simply has to have an understanding about optic illusions and its elements.

First, what is an optic illusion?

An optic illusion, otherwise known as a visual illusion, is an image that sometimes misleads and deceives an individual. The deception played is done through the colors, brightness, size, position, tilt and movement used.

The technical explanation for the visual illusions is that the brain automatically makes inferences from the things it sees.

The automatic inferences are based on old interpretations of events before, and the brain merely likens the present misleading stimuli to the previous one.

In the following Sick Optic Illusion for instance, the colors blue and green are technically the same color, this is green in reality but because of the other mixed colors in the swirl, the blue comes off as blue.

To see if this is true, you can always pull this into Photoshop and take out the other colors. This is sort of trippy but you might just want to try this. The result will be this one.

If you want to make your own optic illusions, you can also use the same Photoshop software. You can use a jpeg picture and open it using Photoshop.

Be sure that the picture has several colors, remember that you need such colors to create an illusion. Next you simply have to select Duplicate Layer and Desaturate the bottom layer.

Afterwards, pick a 50% gray color from the palette and use this to fill the top layer. Select Luminosity for mode and Opacity 100%, then adjust and invert.

You can try making other changes too like in the brightness and sharpening. Save both layers in JPEG formats and open them in Flash for animation.

You will have an image that create visual illusions.

Of course, this may not exactly be similar to the optic illusion shown above as the one above plays on the RGB format and the surrounding colors but this can be a good start for making your own optic illusions.

Cool Optical Illusions Through RGB Formats is a post from: Tech Pinger