Verizon Wireless will start selling the iPhone in January of next year, according to a report from Bloomberg. While this is hardly the first Verizon iPhone rumor, Bloomberg is citing two people familiar with the matter.
In the wake of the successful launch of the iPhone 4, a Verizon iPhone would solve the number one complaint U.S. users have about the phone: the carrier (AT&T).
In the U.S., the iPhone has been under an exclusive contract with AT&T since its launch, and although the carrier originally agreed to a five-year agreement with Apple, the actual specifics of that agreement and what leg-room may exist for bringing the phone to other carriers has never been made public.
Aside from exclusivity contracts, the other big hurdle with bringing the iPhone to Verizon is that the phone would need to be built to be compatible with Verizon’s cellular system. This in turn would require Apple to have two production lines, one for the Verizon phone and one for every other phone.
While having two manufacturing lines may not be the most efficient process, it may become a necessity for Apple, especially as Android sales on the Verizon network continue to rise.
Despite frequent customer complaints over network call quality and call drops, Apple re-teamed with AT&T when offering its 3G data plans for the iPad. But it is important to note that those plans do not require a contract.
AT&T, meanwhile, has been working hard to update its network and has partnered with companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks to offer free Wi-Fi at these locations, but the problems are still not over. The latest attempt to curb data usage has come in the way of new data pricing plans that put a 2GB limit on iPhone or iPad data (each additional gigabyte of data is another $10 a month).
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
1.7 Million iPhones Sold in 3 Days!!!!
A sleeker design, gloss on both sides, better camera, video calls,multitasking, etc.. these are some of the features of iPhone 4 that’s dragging new/old iPhone users to the stores.
Even after a huge pre-order system melt-down Apple managed to ship over 1.7 million phones in less than 3 days since its launch.
The phone is currently selling in only 5 countries. 18 other countries will be added to the list by the end of July and 88 countries in total by the end of September.
The following quote from Steve Jobs, give us a sense of what these numbers mean to Apple and ofcourse to the other competitors in the business:
Among other issues, iPhone 4’s antenna issue seems to be the most discussed and written about. Initially, Steve Jobs, responded by saying “Just avoid holding it that way.” But that seems to have changed to something that indicates that the company might be working on a Hardware/Software solution for the new iPhone users.
The phone is currently selling in only 5 countries. 18 other countries will be added to the list by the end of July and 88 countries in total by the end of September.
The following quote from Steve Jobs, give us a sense of what these numbers mean to Apple and ofcourse to the other competitors in the business:
“This is the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,”
Among other issues, iPhone 4’s antenna issue seems to be the most discussed and written about. Initially, Steve Jobs, responded by saying “Just avoid holding it that way.” But that seems to have changed to something that indicates that the company might be working on a Hardware/Software solution for the new iPhone users.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The Indian Rupee Symbol to be changed!!!
Imagine your computer keyboard having a new key with a new symbol. And the Rupee note you hold sporting an altogether a new look with a currency symbol you have not seen before.
This is just what’s going to happen in the next few months, with our Indian Rupee all set to get its own unique symbol, in line with the world’s most powerful currencies — the US dollar, the British Pound, the Euro and the Japanese Yen.
“The unique symbol will give Indian Rupee a place of its own in the world financial market, making it easily tradeable in the West. It will also establish the supremacy of the Indian economy and the prowess of the Indian Rupee,” says K. Narasimha Murthy, IDBI director.
The symbol will also give a distinct identity to the Indian currency as neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka also use the abbreviated letters Rs for their money. “This is leading to confusion in the world financial market. A unique symbol for the Indian currency is the need of the hour,” Murthy points out.
Though India is the second largest democracy in the world, its currency does not have a unique symbol in the world financial market.
This is in contrast with currency symbols of powerful nations — $ sign for the US dollar, £ for British pound and ¥ for Japanese Yen. The new symbol for the Rupee will be in Devanagri script representing the letter ‘Ra’ (ra).
The Finance Ministry received as many as 36,000 responses to the ‘Unique symbol for the Indian Rupee’ competition it held last year. Of these entries, officials have zeroed in on five, for approval by the Cabinet. The winner (whose design is selected) will get a reward of Rs 2.5 lakh, but he has to surrender the rights over the unique design.
Business magnate Y. Harischandra Prasad, who headed CII State chapter till recently, observes the symbol will give a “definite edge” to the Indian currency as India is “poised to become a major financial superpower.” It will also boost exports.
While the Rupee gets a unique symbol, the changeover is not going to be an easy task. First, computer manufacturers will have to create a new key on the keyboard to accommodate the new Rupee symbol, or replace one of the existing characters with the Rupee character.
Secondly, the Reserve Bank of India and the foreign agencies invol-ved in the printing of the currency will have to make changes in their printing set-up. Thirdly, there has to be a massive campaign to inform people that both the new currency and the old currency continue to be the legal tender.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mu-kherjee announced that the Rupee would get the unique symbol during 2010-2011.
According to BS Rawat, deputy secretary to the Government of India, the symbol will represent the historical and cultural ethos of India as widely accepted across the country. The symbol will also be applicable to standard keyboards.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Send Postal Mail for Free!!!
Blogged by PrimeRose.
Many people on a budget stop and think about ways to cut costs. One way that you've probably never thought about though is sending mail for free. Mail can be expensive. Packages and books especially cost a lot of money to send, but there are ways to get free mail services. :)
Method 1:
Use an online service. With everyone using the internet these days, companies are beginning to offer creative methods of sending snail mail to those who do everything online. Simply fill in the address and content of your letter and these websites will print and mail your letter for free!(provided you accept one of their advertising offers).
Method 2:
Join the army! Members of the armed forces who are currently deployed can take advantage of free mail services to addresses in the United States. You have to be deployed in a declared combat zone, however.
Use an online service. With everyone using the internet these days, companies are beginning to offer creative methods of sending snail mail to those who do everything online. Simply fill in the address and content of your letter and these websites will print and mail your letter for free!(provided you accept one of their advertising offers).
Method 2:
Join the army! Members of the armed forces who are currently deployed can take advantage of free mail services to addresses in the United States. You have to be deployed in a declared combat zone, however.
Method
Get elected to Congress. Congressmen are allowed to something called a frank in place of postage. A frank is a signature of the congressmen, entitling him to free mail services anywhere he likes. The government sets aside money every year to pay for this.
Method
If you live in Britain, Canada, or the United States, there is a special class of mail designed specifically for the blind. Books, papers, letters, games, watches, walking sticks, guide dog harnesses and more are shipped for free. Altough I would not really recommend going this far! :P
Method
My favorite way is to send mail from work. Depending on your employer, it may be a pain to have your mail metered; but it does get you free postage. Just be sure not to do this too often, or risk wrath of your supervisors.
Skype Offers Free Calls to FIFA 2010 Playing Countries
As a part of Fifa World Cup 2010 celebrations, Skype is now offering free Skype calls to landlines to your favorite countries like Argentina, Brazil, Italy, South Africa, Spain, UK, Portugal and many others.
Share the excitement and the thrill of FIFA with your loved ones and best buddies over Skype. The following is a list of countries enlisted under Free Skype calling countries for this season:
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines in Algeria for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Argentina for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Australia for a month.
- 400 minutes free calls to landlines in Brazil for a month.
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines in Cameroon for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Chile for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Denmark for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in France for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Germany for a month.
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines in Ghana for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Greece for a month.
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines and mobiles in Honduras..
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Italy for a month
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines and mobiles in Japan for a month..
- 120 minutes free calls to landlines in Mexico for a month
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in the Netherlands for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in New Zealand for a month.
- 120 minutes free calls to landlines in Nigeria for a month.
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines in Paraguay for a month.
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines in Serbia for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Portugal for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Slovakia for a month.
- 120 minutes free calls to landlines in Slovenia for a month.
- 120 minutes free calls to landlines in South Africa for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in South Korea for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in Spain for a month.
- 120 minutes free calls to landlines in Switzerland for a month.
- Unlimited free calls to landlines in the UK for a month.
- 60 minutes free calls to landlines in Uruguay for a month
- Unlimited free calls to landlines and mobiles in the USA for a month.
Click here to learn more about Skype free calls to mobile and landlines.
Friday, June 25, 2010
iPhone 4 doubles 3G bandwidth speeds!!!
The iPhone 4 is catching a lot of criticism for an antenna issue that is causing some users to lose connectivity when holding the iPhone 4 in a way that blocks the lower left corner of the device. Apple’s reaction to the problem has been typical: “Just avoid holding it in that way.”
People at ZDNET have not been able to replicate the antenna problems that have been reported. In fact, in the first two days of using the iPhone 4 I’ve had a shocking discovery: It is giving them far better bandwidth on the AT&T 3G network.
I started noticing this on Thursday after they picked up the iPhone 4. The first bandwidth speed tests that we ran showed that we were getting much higher bandwidth numbers then I was used to seeing on AT&T. I was getting over 2 Mbps on downloads and over 700K on uploads. At first, I didn’t think too much of it, because it was only a little higher than normal. In my 3G bandwidth tests on various devices in different cities across the U.S., the 3G speeds tend to top out at about 1.0-1.5 Mbps down and 250-500 Kbps up.
However, the increase was enough to pique my interest and so we ran a bunch of additional speed tests. The results were startling. In several spots we were able to get upwards of 4.0 Mbps down and 1.0 Mbps up.
We wondered if AT&T had done a network upgrade to coincide with the iPhone 4 launch.
To verify whether this was just a general AT&T upgrade or if there was something going on with the iPhone 4, we had one of my friends who has an iPhone 3G come into my office so that we could both run the same speed tests and compare the results.
We used the two most common iPhone speed test apps, the one from Speedtest.net and the one from Xtreme Labs. I had him start his test and then I started mine. In both cases, the iPhone 4 blew away the iPhone 3G. Take a look at the results below:
Speedtest.net
Xtreme Labs
So Apple wassup?
Google worried about Facebook social search?
Yes but frankly it’s not quite as dramatic as Facebook makes it out to be. They call Facebook’s Social Graph-based search “a full scale attack on Google on all fronts at this point.”
Most of us are inclined to believe that it’s more of a wakeup call for Google in terms of really needing to tackle social and semantic search, not the end of the road for the search giant.
If you’re spending money to place ads next to search results, you want assurances your ad will appear next to the most relevant results, and Facebook search has a long way to go on the relevance factor.
Display ads are a different story, as Facebook continues to turn itself into a sticky destination site. There’s no question that Google is watching Facebook closely as it turns into a Web powerhouse.
Google is already surfacing search results from your social networks in its standard searches, but Facebook, despite the inaccuracy and unpredictability of the web search results appearing in its “Social Graph” search, has hit on an important tool. The search results from Facebook are based on web properties that Facebook users “like.”
As social networks become ubiquitous among much broader demographics, leveraging the web viewing patterns of users rather than links from other sites (essentially the core of Google’s PageRank algorithm) will become increasingly accurate, relevant, useful, and, more importantly, monetizable. If Facebook could find the right algorithms to match ads with user interests and search, then there’s some serious money to be made.
This is really the heart of semantic search. Google has managed to leverage search histories and location fairly well, but nobody has discovered the secret sauce for true semantic search, some of the most important drivers for which will be in users’ social networks. Frankly, Google remains in the best position to do this given their analytics capabilities and extensive investments in PageRank and search history data collection. Facebook isn’t going to displace them in the search market, but will hopefully drive them to further innovations in semantic and social search.
As usual, this means that we’ll need to cede additional privacy to Google since they’ll need to know our deepest darkest thoughts to make the web more “personal.” However, as the web continues to grow, it will become vital for search results to be refined based on our interests, preferences, and needs.
If you’re spending money to place ads next to search results, you want assurances your ad will appear next to the most relevant results, and Facebook search has a long way to go on the relevance factor.
Display ads are a different story, as Facebook continues to turn itself into a sticky destination site. There’s no question that Google is watching Facebook closely as it turns into a Web powerhouse.
Google is already surfacing search results from your social networks in its standard searches, but Facebook, despite the inaccuracy and unpredictability of the web search results appearing in its “Social Graph” search, has hit on an important tool. The search results from Facebook are based on web properties that Facebook users “like.”
As social networks become ubiquitous among much broader demographics, leveraging the web viewing patterns of users rather than links from other sites (essentially the core of Google’s PageRank algorithm) will become increasingly accurate, relevant, useful, and, more importantly, monetizable. If Facebook could find the right algorithms to match ads with user interests and search, then there’s some serious money to be made.
This is really the heart of semantic search. Google has managed to leverage search histories and location fairly well, but nobody has discovered the secret sauce for true semantic search, some of the most important drivers for which will be in users’ social networks. Frankly, Google remains in the best position to do this given their analytics capabilities and extensive investments in PageRank and search history data collection. Facebook isn’t going to displace them in the search market, but will hopefully drive them to further innovations in semantic and social search.
As usual, this means that we’ll need to cede additional privacy to Google since they’ll need to know our deepest darkest thoughts to make the web more “personal.” However, as the web continues to grow, it will become vital for search results to be refined based on our interests, preferences, and needs.
IPhone 4 : 1-888-FACETIME
We all now know that FaceTime calls are limited to iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 and on Wi-Fi networks only!
A number of users have complained about the FaceTime functionality after the phone was launched. The fact that Apple decided to setup a FaceTime number (1-888-FACETIME) for iPhone users to call, try the FaceTime feature and learn all about it is Apple’s way of saying “There is nothing wrong with it, you are not doing it right!”
Apple is aggressively defending its newly released phone, iPhone 4. After suggesting iPhone users to correct the way they hold the phone (sic), Apple sent an e-mail out to iPhone users inviting them for a FaceTime call with an Apple representative.
We called the 1-888-FACETIME (1-888-32238463) to try it out. The call was received in a couple of rings and after confirming that I am calling from an iPhone 4 and have immediate access to a Wi-Fi network the call was transferred to a FaceTime representative, we tested the feature and he explained FaceTime to me.
-FaceTime call can be initiated right from the contacts itself.
-FaceTime calls are treated just like the regular calls, users can hit the “Home” button to multitask during the call
-The small window where you see yourself can be moved anywhere on the screen
If you have any questions or want to try out the FaceTime app, try calling 1-888-FACETIME (1-888-32238463)
A number of users have complained about the FaceTime functionality after the phone was launched. The fact that Apple decided to setup a FaceTime number (1-888-FACETIME) for iPhone users to call, try the FaceTime feature and learn all about it is Apple’s way of saying “There is nothing wrong with it, you are not doing it right!”
Apple is aggressively defending its newly released phone, iPhone 4. After suggesting iPhone users to correct the way they hold the phone (sic), Apple sent an e-mail out to iPhone users inviting them for a FaceTime call with an Apple representative.
Here is what we know now:
-FaceTime calls are treated just like the regular calls, users can hit the “Home” button to multitask during the call
-The small window where you see yourself can be moved anywhere on the screen
If you have any questions or want to try out the FaceTime app, try calling 1-888-FACETIME (1-888-32238463)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
MicroSIM Cutter: iPhone 4, iPad 3G
iPhone 4 just released a few days back. It runs on something called Micro-SIM, that’s smaller version of MINI-SIM. Micro-SIM isn’t available in most of the countries yet, so people buying their phones here and taking it to their countries will have to cut the MINI-SIM into a MICRO-SIM to make it work.
Apparently that works and there is a gadget which does just that. The gadget is called MICRO-SIM cutter and looks a lot like a stapler.
Just put your MINI-SIM in it, punch it and, voila! You have your MICRO-SIM ready to use. Price of MICRO-SIM Cutterranges between $25 and $45 depending upon where you buy it from.
There are quite a few available on e-bay or you can order one from CutMySim as well. None of the orders will be shipped before June 30th. Also, the badges that are supposed to ship on June 30th are all sold out. So, if you order one now you will get it towards the end of July or in early August.
Apparently that works and there is a gadget which does just that. The gadget is called MICRO-SIM cutter and looks a lot like a stapler.
Just put your MINI-SIM in it, punch it and, voila! You have your MICRO-SIM ready to use. Price of MICRO-SIM Cutterranges between $25 and $45 depending upon where you buy it from.
There are quite a few available on e-bay or you can order one from CutMySim as well. None of the orders will be shipped before June 30th. Also, the badges that are supposed to ship on June 30th are all sold out. So, if you order one now you will get it towards the end of July or in early August.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
One Hour, Four EarthQuake - Indonesia
Four earthquakes struck within an hour's time near the northern coast of Papua, Indonesia, midday Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
A 6.4 magnitude quake quake struck at 12:06 p.m. local time, followed by a more powerful 7.0 magnitude quake 10 minutes later. Within the next 40 minutes, a 5.1 magnitude quake also rattled the region, along with a magnitude 6.2 quake.
The epicenters of the earthquakes were clustered within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of each other and about 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Enarotali, Indonesia.
No major damage or injuries were immediately reported, according to Priyadi Kardono, with the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency.
"People ran out of their houses and headed for higher ground in fear of a tsunami," said Denni Siregar, the police chief of Yapen Island sector, which lies near the epicenters. "There's no injuries reported yet but at least one house is damaged."
A tsunami watch that was issued by the Indonesian Meteorological Agency was later lifted.
A 6.4 magnitude quake quake struck at 12:06 p.m. local time, followed by a more powerful 7.0 magnitude quake 10 minutes later. Within the next 40 minutes, a 5.1 magnitude quake also rattled the region, along with a magnitude 6.2 quake.
The epicenters of the earthquakes were clustered within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of each other and about 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Enarotali, Indonesia.
No major damage or injuries were immediately reported, according to Priyadi Kardono, with the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency.
"People ran out of their houses and headed for higher ground in fear of a tsunami," said Denni Siregar, the police chief of Yapen Island sector, which lies near the epicenters. "There's no injuries reported yet but at least one house is damaged."
A tsunami watch that was issued by the Indonesian Meteorological Agency was later lifted.
Brazil launches self-promotion exhibition at FIFA 2010 World Cup
Brazil is launching a self-promotion exhibition in South Africa ahead of the 2014 World Cup.
The Casa Brasil in Johannesburg will provide visitors with promotional information about the South American country. It will give details on the host cities and the nation's plans for the World Cup, which will take place in Brazil for the first time since 1950.
Brazil's ministers of sports and tourism will attend the exhibition's inauguration on Tuesday.
The government says it will "take visitors on a journey through the history of Brazilian football" and other aspects of Brazilian culture.
The Casa Brasil is where the official 2014 World Cup logo will be unveiled in July.
The Casa Brasil in Johannesburg will provide visitors with promotional information about the South American country. It will give details on the host cities and the nation's plans for the World Cup, which will take place in Brazil for the first time since 1950.
Brazil's ministers of sports and tourism will attend the exhibition's inauguration on Tuesday.
The government says it will "take visitors on a journey through the history of Brazilian football" and other aspects of Brazilian culture.
The Casa Brasil is where the official 2014 World Cup logo will be unveiled in July.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
T-Mobile phones are all free on June 19th for family plan converts
T-Mobile announced that they will be offering up all of their phone for FREE (some with mail-in rebates) this Saturday, 19 June, for customers who sign up for a family plan with at least two phones on it.
This is a great deal though if you have been thinking about switching to a family plan or adding a family member to your account. The HTC HD2 is still sold out, but the new myTouch 3G Slide (regularly $180 subsidized), Garminfone (regularly $200 subsidized), or BlackBerry Bold 9700 (regularly $100 subsidized) are also nice choices.
If you already have a family plan, you can get the deal by adding another line, which is currently only a $5/month add-on at T-Mobile. The new lines will come with a two-year contract as well and have a maximum limit of Five.
This is a great deal though if you have been thinking about switching to a family plan or adding a family member to your account. The HTC HD2 is still sold out, but the new myTouch 3G Slide (regularly $180 subsidized), Garminfone (regularly $200 subsidized), or BlackBerry Bold 9700 (regularly $100 subsidized) are also nice choices.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
iPhone 4 - Available @ Walmart, BestBuy,ATT and RadioShack
While you wait to get your hands on the new iPhone 4 from Apple on 24th June, you may also want to find out the other places are selling iPhone 4 other than Apple store to the avoid queues.
Some of you may ask “Why should I visit a store when I can pre-order and get it shipped home?”
Well, not all of want to shell out couple hundred dollars without seeing or playing around with it for a while.
Apple is making it really easy for people interested in buying the newly released gadgets by adding more retailers to the list of stores that will carry the new iPhone on the launch date. Though not all of the listed retail stores have officially confirmed the rumours of carrying the iPhone 4 on 24th June, it is strongly believed they will.
Following is the list of retailers other than Apple stores who will carry the iPhone 4:
AT&T Stores: Starting 15th of June, AT&T the official carrier of iPhone will start taking pre-orders on its website and retail stores but if you don’t want to pre-order your phone you can simply drop at one of the AT&T stores on 24th of June to buy yourself an iPhone 4.
Best Buy: All Apple authorized Best Buy stores will carry at least 45 units of iPhone 4 (15 units of iPhone 16GB and rest 32GB Units).
Radio Shack [Not Confirmed]: Radio Shack is also said to be one of the authorized retail chain to that will sell iPhone 4 on 24th of June. Though there is no official confirmation from Radio Shack yet, retail store employees have been heard confirming it to their customers.
Wal-Mart: True to its image, Wal-Mart will not only carry iPhone 4 on 24th of June but will also offer the lowest prices on the new hardware. iPhone 16GB will cost you $197 and $297 for 32GB at Wal-Mart.
Apple is making it really easy for people interested in buying the newly released gadgets by adding more retailers to the list of stores that will carry the new iPhone on the launch date. Though not all of the listed retail stores have officially confirmed the rumours of carrying the iPhone 4 on 24th June, it is strongly believed they will.
Following is the list of retailers other than Apple stores who will carry the iPhone 4:
AT&T Stores: Starting 15th of June, AT&T the official carrier of iPhone will start taking pre-orders on its website and retail stores but if you don’t want to pre-order your phone you can simply drop at one of the AT&T stores on 24th of June to buy yourself an iPhone 4.
Best Buy: All Apple authorized Best Buy stores will carry at least 45 units of iPhone 4 (15 units of iPhone 16GB and rest 32GB Units).
Radio Shack [Not Confirmed]: Radio Shack is also said to be one of the authorized retail chain to that will sell iPhone 4 on 24th of June. Though there is no official confirmation from Radio Shack yet, retail store employees have been heard confirming it to their customers.
Wal-Mart: True to its image, Wal-Mart will not only carry iPhone 4 on 24th of June but will also offer the lowest prices on the new hardware. iPhone 16GB will cost you $197 and $297 for 32GB at Wal-Mart.
Technically it is only a $2 difference only but it is cheaper than anywhere else!
So are you ready to beat the queues?
Huge Earthquake Hits Nicobar Islands, India
A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of India early Sunday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
A local tsunami watch for India was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, but was later canceled.
"Man, that felt scary. My whole bed shook," said Inderjith Mathivanan in Chennai, India, who felt the tremor last for about four seconds.
The quake struck around 1 a.m. local time about 150 km (95 miles) west of the Nicobar Islands at a depth of 35 km (22 miles). It was downgraded by USGS from an earlier magnitude of 7.7.
A receptionist at the Marine Hill, Port Blair SeaShell Hotel on the islands described the quake as "a little bit shaking, the land." Sumit Govind said the quake caused no damages to the islands.
Police confirmed no loss of life or damage on the Andaman or Nicobar Islands. Officials are monitoring the situation and are ramping up patrols in the area, police said.
A local tsunami watch for India was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, but was later canceled.
"Man, that felt scary. My whole bed shook," said Inderjith Mathivanan in Chennai, India, who felt the tremor last for about four seconds.
The quake struck around 1 a.m. local time about 150 km (95 miles) west of the Nicobar Islands at a depth of 35 km (22 miles). It was downgraded by USGS from an earlier magnitude of 7.7.
A receptionist at the Marine Hill, Port Blair SeaShell Hotel on the islands described the quake as "a little bit shaking, the land." Sumit Govind said the quake caused no damages to the islands.
Police confirmed no loss of life or damage on the Andaman or Nicobar Islands. Officials are monitoring the situation and are ramping up patrols in the area, police said.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Twitter warns of possible World Cup traffic-related outages
Twitter, which has suffered a series of outages this week, has warned that there could be more problems amid heavy FIFA 2010 World Cup traffic.
Mr Jean-Paul Cozzatti, a Twitter engineer, said on the Twitter blog that the micro-blogging service's problems this week were due to an internal network being over-capacity.
Mr Cozzatti said Twitter was doubling capacity and rebalancing traffic on the network to redistribute the load.
When Twitter goes down, a picture of a whale — known as the "fail whale" — appears on Twitter.com and Mr Cozzatti said his engineering team was hoping for fewer appearances by the creature.
"You may still see the whale when there are unprecedented spikes in traffic," he said on Friday.
"For instance, during the World Cup tournament and particularly during big, closely-watched matches we anticipate a significant surge in activity on Twitter. "While we are making every effort to prepare for that surge, the whale may surface," he said.
Mr Jean-Paul Cozzatti, a Twitter engineer, said on the Twitter blog that the micro-blogging service's problems this week were due to an internal network being over-capacity.
Mr Cozzatti said Twitter was doubling capacity and rebalancing traffic on the network to redistribute the load.
When Twitter goes down, a picture of a whale — known as the "fail whale" — appears on Twitter.com and Mr Cozzatti said his engineering team was hoping for fewer appearances by the creature.
"You may still see the whale when there are unprecedented spikes in traffic," he said on Friday.
"For instance, during the World Cup tournament and particularly during big, closely-watched matches we anticipate a significant surge in activity on Twitter. "While we are making every effort to prepare for that surge, the whale may surface," he said.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Get FIFA 2010 on your Smart Phone
The 2010 FIFA World Cup for iPhone is an have-it-all application for iPhone users who’d like to keep up with everything that’s happening at the FIFA 2010 World Cup. From live scores to News to Video’s to Tables, Stats, Teams, and almost everything else you can think of.
You can also buy the paid version of this application for $7.99 to get live commentary, live alerts for all 64 matches and a lot of other information.
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Click Here to Download The App (iTunes Link)
BlackBerry Phones:
The BlackBerry users too got nothing to worry about.You too got an app for the World Cup.
The application is developed by ZonaBlackBerry and S42 for the RIM platform. The user interface of the application does not have a native support of BlackBerry touch phones but it does work on the Storm handsets.
The application will keep you updated with the information that matters. It is available in English and Spanish languages.
The application is developed by ZonaBlackBerry and S42 for the RIM platform. The user interface of the application does not have a native support of BlackBerry touch phones but it does work on the Storm handsets.
The application will keep you updated with the information that matters. It is available in English and Spanish languages.
FIFA World Cup 2010 for Android:
Even the Android users can buy the FIFA World Cup application ($2.99) to keep up with the scores. This app, like its counterparts shows live scores, news from FIFA’s official site, Tournament Schedule, Team profiles, World Cup history, etc..
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Watch FIFA 2010 Online on your Computer
The FIFA 2010 World Cup is almost here! For those of us who could not make it to South Africa, it’s time to find ways to keep up with the scores and live streams when away.
Well let’s see how we can watch the FIFA World Cup Live on our computer.
ESPN3.com FIFA World Cup 2010 Live Stream:
ESPN will be broadcasting all the matches live. The live coverage is free of cost for viewers who have internet subscription from one of the ESPN partners or if you are browsing from a U.S based campus network or from a military base.
This is one of the best way to catch up with the live streaming when away from home or TV.
FIFA World Cup – South Africa 2010 for Chrome:
This is one of the best way to catch up with the live streaming when away from home or TV.
FootieFox for FireFox:
This plugin is one stop shop for all your FIFA World Cup 2010 Live Scoreinformation. The plugin is designed to show information based on Groups A-H and Round of 16 through the Final on July 11th.
This plugin takes a team based approach. Just select the team you want to follow and every time you click on the plugin it will show you the team related scores along with the other information.
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