Monday, December 15, 2014

Lumia Gestures

Microsoft has released Gestures beta app, which is soon to be inbuilt in future windows versions. A simple glance to it's call features is below.


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Easy authentication - NokNok

NokNok is a product software company, that specializes in authentication hardware/software. The below video speaks about their recent plans and updates. Slowly, we can forget things like forgot password etc., with biometric authentications, that use voice/keys/fingerprint and the list is going on.



Bitcoin

Lot has been in news about bitcoins. Tidbits about it.

Bitcoin has been created by Satoshi Nakomoto in 2009 and released as open source software. There are a finite set of coins, which can be mined(by solving complex algorithmic problems) or can be bought from people who have already mined. They are used for payments in e-commerce etc., similar to normal currency. Bitcoin is not a Fiat currency, since no recognised central government of any country backs it. It is hailed by it's followers as first unified currency for all the world.



But don't think you can mine a bitcoin. It's not simple today, since as the coins grew scarce, the complexity of problems goes up. Today people are renting huge offices and running multiple computers to mine them. So it's near impossible to mine. The easy way would be to buy.

The speculation about their rates, in the initial days was high, and there is a saying that a man bought an apartment in London selling the bitcoins he mined. But today, their price is not volatile and it has become a bit flat. So no use in even buying them. Just for the sake of having an antique piece, the first sign of liberty in currency, you can have it.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Apple loses "App Store" patent fight in Australia

The Federal court of Australia today ruled against Apple, which wanted a patent for the term "App Store". Apple wanted it since App came int usage only after it's iphones and "App Store" has a creative element in it and thus wants the patent. The court ruled that the usage of App is there before Apple invented it, and the widely used term in public should not be contained and patented.



Apple went to Federal court after the Registrar of trademarks, Australia refused to grant patent for the same.






Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Solution for Wordflow Keyboard not working - Windows Phone

With Windows Mobile 8.1, Microsoft introduced Wordflow keyboard, where you can swipe the keyboard attaching the letters and it automatically converts it into the most accurate predicted word. This may not work sometimes, since it may not be supported on all types of keyboards. This keyboard setting may have changed without your knowledge or by mistake you would have changed.




For wordflow to work, long press the "ENG" or what ever is in it's place in the above screenshot. You will get options to change your keyboard language. Change it to some different "ENG", like if you are an Indian, you can change into UK English or US English and vice versa. Try if word flow keyboard is working. If not, change the keyboard and try again. It will work for one of the keyboards.

If it doesn't work at all, the only reason could be, your phone is not updated to 8.1.












Monday, December 1, 2014

NASA - Mission to Mars

NASA started planning to put man on Mars by 2021. The first step in that direction is happening on Dec-4th, when NASA's next generation spacecraft Orion will be put in deep space, at an altitude of 3600 miles from Earth. Although this is not a big distance, since moon is 252,088 miles away from earth, this will help NASA in verifying how the space suits will adapt to environments and the strength of Crew module. This is an unmanned journey.


Personally I feel a bit weird, since man already went to Moon, which is almost 1000 times away from current testing distance and the last mission to moon, Apollo-17 human beings spent approximately 22 hours on Lunar Surface in 1972. Why then these adaptability tests for crew modules and space suits?

Where in the current rockets are tremendously powerful compared to 1972, and space suits more safe and light weight too. One more thing is after 1972, no human being went beyond the Low Earth Orbit which is at max 1200 miles away from earth.

Anyway, the bottom line is governments need to spend aggressively on space exploration, so that we can have regular space crafts between Mars and Earth like our Aeroplanes by 2040.