Now you must be wondering why it is the CDE s instead of the standard ABC s when discussing Android. This is not about the basic ABCs of Android. Rather it is about the Google Android version alphabet. We are still searching for the answer to why A and B have been missed (but we have a guess*) and you are most welcome to share any info on that.
Down below is how Google alphabetically and interestingly introduced their Android versions.
C for Cupcake
D for donut
E for Éclair
F for Froyo
G for Gingerbread
H for honeycomb
I for Ice cream sandwich
J for jelly bean
And K for Key lime pie
Now we will discuss flavor and taste of the desserts from C to J which are already served on the table while waiting to discuss about dessert K which Google is still cooking inside the oven…
Android version
Release date
Key features introduced
Cupcake
1.5
30 April 2009
Interactive widgets on home screen
Inclusion of copy and paste in the browser
Auto-rotation of the screen
Donut
1.6
15 September 2009
Multi-lingual speech synthesis engine
Introduction of WVGA screen resolution, and kicked off the trend of the ‘large screen’ phone.
Éclair
2.0, 2.0.1, 2.1
26 October 2009
Live wallpapers
Turn by turn directions in GPS
High resolution screen with better contrast ratio
Support for HTML 5
Tighter integration of Exchange and Google services
South Korean sensation PSY, created social media history on the 21st December when his hit single Gangnam Style became the first video to knock up 1 billion views on YouTube. Its truly astounding in the time he took to reach this milestone compared to other videos. The below graph shows the rise of Gangnam Style views against ‘Baby’ by Justin Beiber. At this rate, he will surely reach 1.5 billion views in 2013. It is really unlikely that anyone will be able to achieve this feat, atleast anytime soon.
YouTube has released a new video, Rewind YouTube 2012 which is a mashup of all the popular videos of 2012. The video runs to the music of the ever so popular ‘Gangnam Style’ and the catchy ‘Call me, maybe’. The most fascinating part of the video for us is that jehanr makes an appearance wearing the Sri Lankan cricket T-shirt. However most of the other characters would be unknown to the general Sri Lankan. The video is quite entertaining, and do check it out below.
Back in 2009 Google released the first Android phone called HTC Dream with Android Cupcake version 1.5. Few months later they released an update called Donut 1.6. After that we saw some decent amount of Android devices with 2.1 Éclair. In 2010 Google released Android version 2.3 Gingerbread with more improved features, which is currently the mostly used Android OS. At that time vendors like Samsung and HTC started to make their own skin on top the Gingerbread. Amazingly within a short time period Google Android became one of the worlds most powerful OS. Recently Google CEO announced that they are receiving 1.3 Million activations per day and there are 480 Million devices out there.
The latest Android release was Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean which has so many superb features but what about the next version? Most of the rumors believe it will be Android 5.0 and Google will name it Key Lime Pie. Yes! Finally we can say that the rumors are true because recently a Google software engineer shared an image on his Google+ page which showed the roadmap of the Android OS. As you can see in the picture below it started from Cupcake and it ends with Key Lime Pie. Another important thing to see is, the first cartoon shows how Android is started at the beginning and final cartoon shows how Android is performing currently. So what are the features you expect in Key Lime Pie?
Sri Lanka’s first telecommunications Satellite SupremeSAT – I was launched successfully on November 27, 2012 from China’s Long March 3B/E Launch Vehicle from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre. In this article, we talk about 10 important things that you should know about Sri Lanka’s first Satellite.
1. According to the chairman of SupremeSAT Mr. M. Manivan, that this is a $320 million project which is a 100 % private venture and the funding and every effort made was totally from the private sector. He said that the company can break even in seven years and they can utilize the satellite for another 15 years.
2. Sri Lanka is the third South Asian nation after India and Pakistan and the 45th in the world to possess space technology and own a communication satellite. This launch marked the 173rd orbital launch by China. It is also the China’s 18th success of 2012.
3. Initially, the flight was planned to occur on 22nd November, but hours before liftoff a leak on the launcher was detected leading to a launch delay to 27th Nov.
4. Confirmation of mission success was given by Thales Alenia, the satellite manufacturer from France. Liftoff of the launch vehicle was as expected and all the phases of flight were reported to be normal.
5. The satellite will operate from 87.5 degrees East Longitude in Geostationary Orbit. Geostationary orbit is a circular orbit 35,786 km above the earth’s equator and following the direction of the earth’s rotation. The satellite has an orbital period of 24 hours, and to ground observers, it appears as motionless standing at a fixed position in the sky.
Geo Stationary Satellite
Image Courtesy of Wikipedia
6. SupremeSat-I is also co-branded as ChinaSat 12 which is the internationally used name. To customers of SupremeSat, it is known as SupremeSat-I.
7. SupremeSat-I was manufactured by Thales Alenia Space of France. Launch contractor is China Great Wall Industry Corporation. Chinese communications provider China Satcom will provide communication facilities cooperated with SupremeSat of Sri Lanka.
8. ChinaSat 12 is designed to serve the demands of communication, satellite broadcasting, data transmission, digital broadband multimedia system and media streaming services in China, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, Australia and China sea area, the Indian Ocean region. SupremeSat will use the satellite for Direct-To-Home broadcasting.
Location of the orbit (87.5E)
Image Courtesy of Chinasatcom
9. SupremeSat-1 is featuring two solar arrays and onboard batteries, a communications payload, space driving systems and electronics for a total mass of about 5 tons. The Satellite is equipped with 24 C-Band and 23 Ku-Band transponders. A transponder is a device that receives a radio signal and automatically transmits a different signal. Given two bands are frequency ranges in the microwave spectrum that ranges from 1.0 GHz to 30 GHz in frequency. C-band operates between 4 to 8GHz and Ku-Band operates between 12 to 18GHz. In contrast, a domestic microwave oven emits a 2.45 Hz microwave radiation in heating food.
10. SupremeSat-I carrier rocket Long March 3B/E is the biggest launcher of the Long March Family standing 56 meters tall with a main diameter of 3.35 meters and a liftoff mass of 4.6 tons. It has three-stage rocket with four strap-on liquid rocket boosters.
Also do check out the following videos on Satellite SupremeSAT – I
You may have seen full HD 1080p TVs and you may have seen big monitors with high resolution, but this isn’t about a TV or a LCD monitor this is about a 1080p smartphone which has only 5inch screen and it has a whopping 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. Few weeks back the popular Android smartphone vendor HTC launched the phone Droid DNA, it’s only 141mm x 70mm x 9.7mm in dimension but somehow HTC managed to squeeze a 5inch screen inside that smartphone thanks to edge to edge screen technology. As I mentioned earlier this 5inch has 1920 x 1080 pixels, normally other 720p display smartphones have only 300 to 320 pixels per inch but this screen has a whopping 440 pixels per inch. Engadget has mentioned in their review “Images appear to just float above the screen. The font rendering is crisper than anything we’ve ever seen, and 1080p movies look simply stunning” Yes! This is 100% true because this 5inch screen is not any ordinary display, it’s a Super LCD 3. Even exceeding the Samsung AMOLED displays, these Super LCDs produce better saturation and sharper images.
Even exceeding the Samsung AMOLED displays, these Super LCDs produce better saturation and sharper images.
This HTC Droid DNA smartphone is a powerhouse, because it’s powered by Qualcomm’s custom made ARM quad core processor called S4 Pro APQ8064 (28nm technology) and it has 2GB of RAM. This quad core beast runs at 1.5GHz and it has an Adreno 320 GPU (can push up to 225 million triangles per second) built-in. this is the best performing processor currently out there and it scored 7698 in Quadrant benchmark, 13826 points in AnTuTu.
Droid DNA comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Sense 4+ out of the box. As we know Jelly Bean OS is the most stable and the most powerful Android OS currently out there, its new features like “Project Butter”, triple buffered graphics, extended Vsync timing and animation frame rates to 60 FPS made the OS buttery smooth, and on top of that HTC added their own skin called Sense 4+ which includes more apps and features. Looking at the camera, the Droid DNA featured an f/2.0 28mm wide-angle 8 mega pixel camera which can shoot up to 4 pictures per second. Both front and rear cameras can record 1080p video at 30fps and from the rear camera you are able to shoot images while you are video recording. This device packs a 2020mAh battery, Gsmarena claims it handle 6:40 hours web browsing, 7:30 hours of video playback and it has 11 hours of 3G talk time. However personally I think the battery capacity is insufficient for this powerhouse. Check out the full specs of the HTC Droid DNA below.
Full Specifications
Processor: Qualcomm S4 Pro APQ8064 at 1.5GHz (Adreno 320 GPU)
Display: 5inch Super LCD 3 with 1920 x 1080 pixels (Gorilla glass 2)
RAM: 2GB
Storage: 16GB not expandable
Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi b/g/n, NFC
OS: Android Jelly Bean 4.1 with HTC Sense 4+
Camera: 8Mega pixel with 1080p recording
Battery: 2020mAH
With time we spend online ever increasing, it is useful to know shortcuts that will make your browsing experience better. Below i have listed 8 useful shortcuts for the Google chrome browser that many people are unaware of. Check them out and save time and clicks, while you can also impress friends and colleagues with them.
The Cyber security week 2012 organized by Sri Lanka CERT|CC is underway and its 5th Annual conference will be held on the 5th of December. “Strategize….Plan….Act….A recipe for Effective Security” will be the theme of the conference. The conference will feature presentations from noted speakers, panel discussions and a lightning demonstration(an Electronic Banking hack)
On the 6th of December, Technical Workshop 1 will be held on the topic of “OWASP ESAPI: making it work for you”. It will be conducted by Mr. Wong Onn Chee, President, OWASP Singapore Chapter.
On the 7th of December, Technical Workshop 2 will be held on the topic of “Practical secured software security testing “. It will be conducted by Mr. Tin Aung Win, Application Security Advisory Board Member, (ISC)2®.
So I was browsing on the Google Play store, and came across a couple of Jacqueline Fernandez apps. They are simple apps with wallpapers of Jacqueline, most probably created using standard wallpaper app template. However these probably are the first apps which represents a Sri Lankan actress, and Miss Fernandez gets the honours most likely due to her Bollywood fame. Surely many more apps will follow including an official app for Jacqueline. So even though these two apps are not up to standard, if your a fan do check them out.
1) Jacqueline Fernandez HD– 20 wallpapers of mixed image quality. Options are available to set as wallpaper, share, save and Slideshow
2) Jacqueline HD Wallpaper -24 wallpapers of mixed image quality and some images stretched. Only option available is to set as wallpaper
It is a known fact that the recent advancement in the internet industry has allowed Sri Lankans to unleash their potential in many ways. The internet has helped us to stay connected with each other, grow our businesses, learn on new areas and much more. However the internet, just like other technologies is a doubled edged sword; we have its benefits but it can hurt us as well. Therefore it is vital that we are aware of its pitfalls and how to stay safe from them.
To create that awareness, Google together with ICTA and the ministry of child development & women’s affairs recently launched(29th Nov) an informative trilingual website “Good to Know” for Sri Lanka. This site aims to provide information to keep you as well as your data safe online.You can visit the site here. I guess the recent privacy concerns raised on Google is also a reason for this initiative.
The site provides information in four main categories
Stay safe online – Best practices on browsing and sharing your data online
Your data on the web – How the web collects information about you and and how it makes websites more useful to you
Your data on google – Understand the data google collects on you, and how they use it to give you better service
Manage your data – How to control what you share with other web sites and Google.
The site does have some useful information, and I recommend you dive in and check out the information which are good to know.
Few months ago Firefox promised that they will make a mobile OS of their own, and two days back Firefox announced that they have released a beta version of the OS and consumers can install it as an add-on for Firefox. This Mozilla’s operating system coded named “Boot to Gecko” based on HTML5 web standards which is good news for developers. ZTE, Alcatel and some other vendors have already announced that they are already developing ARM based hardware for this OS. However, I have major doubts on how Mozilla is going to survive from the huge mobile OS war.
Even for Windows Mobile, although their developers are giving their best against Android and Apple, they can’t see any big improvements. Recently Newegg said “Windows Mobile phone sales are slow” at the same time Nokia lost $1.27 billion in last 3rd quarter and its sixth quarterly loss for them. This shows just how hard it is for a new OS to break through in to the market. However Mozilla strongly believes in success, according to “the Guardian” website, Director of Research & Development at Mozilla Corporation Andreas Gal recently said “We wanted to break out of the “silos” presented by competitors like iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. We think we can change this by doing the same thing we did on the desktop,” that’s good because more competition means better products for us.
Before writing this article, I experienced the Firefox OS add-on so I can write what I personally think. The first moment I saw the OS I was like what? Is this Android? Yes it’s very similar to Android, it has a pull down notification bar where you can see your notifications and your toggle switches. If you long press the home button it will bring up the multi-task menu so you can close them by swiping up. There is no dedicated app drawer so if you swipe left you can see the app icons which already installed. Swiping right brings you the search menu and it’s bit similar to iOS search menu. I don’t think that’s a good idea for Mozilla to have similar features like iOS considering the latest legal battles. Anyway this is not the final version and who knows, the final version may be drastically different. This add-on version of Firefox OS is so sluggish, but no worries because it’s still a beta version. Firefox uses the Nokia maps for their map services. I don’t know why they chose Nokia Maps instated of Google Maps. This beta version already has a Marketplace built-in. I installed Twitter and it worked pretty nice. I hope we can see more essential apps from Mozilla when it’s available for consumers. According to Matthew Key, chair and chief executive of Telefónica Digital, the first Firefox OS based mobile devices will appear in Brazil in 1st Q2013. So next year we can see how it’s going to perform against other operating systems giants.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you would be very much aware of the viral hit Gangnam Style by PSY. The Youtube phenomenon which was released in July 2012 have to date been viewed over 787 million times. At the rate is going it is only a matter of time till it dethrones the current most viewed video “Baby” by Justin Beiber which currently boasts 802 million views.(JB haters will love it!) Its quite amazing when you take into consideration that Gangnam style took only 4 months to achieve this number, compared to JB’s 2 years. Check out below the youtube stats related to his hit single.
Gangnam style has also become the most liked youtube video with over 5 million likes. PSY was a happy guy receiving the Guinness World record certificate stating that…
I’m honoured,this is the first certificate I’ve ever had… I didn’t get one at school
Well certificates aside, Gangnam style will rule youtube views by the end of the year and will in all likelihood be the 1st video to hit 1 billion youtube views. Take a look at it one more time below
