Apple mulls settling patent fights with Samsung

 Top executives at Apple and Samsung have met recently about a potential patent settlement, a media report said Thursday.

"Apple CEO Tim Cook does not seem to share his predecessor's passion about laying all foes to waste. Cook appears to view litigation as a necessary evil, not a vehicle of cosmic revenge," Xinhua reported quoting the Bloomberg Businessweek.

Last April, Apple sued Samsung in a US court, alleging that the Korean maker's smartphones and Galaxy line of tablet computers violated Apple's patent and trademark. Samsung later countersued Apple, pitting against the rival in courts around the world.

Besides Samsung, Apple has also been filing suits against other manufacturers like HTC and Motorola Mobility, which are actually proxies for Apple products' major competitor Android, the operating system Google gives away to device makers.

In the official biography of Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder told author Walter Isaacson that "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to and I will spend every penny of Apple's USD 40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," according to the biography.

As Bloomberg points out in the cover story titled "Steve Jobs' last war", the tech giant could save themselves considerable legal fees and distraction in the short run. The process may resolve similar litigation in the desktop computer field.

In 1997, Microsoft announced an investment of USD 150 million in Apple, saying the two companies had reached settlement to a long-standing dispute over whether Microsoft's Windows operating system infringes on Apple's patents.

In the long run, the competition between Apple and Google is nowhere near resolution, said the Bloomberg report. While fighting for dominance in mobile devices, the two tech giants, along with Microsoft are all gearing up for a future battle over the market for smart TV.

Adobe Releases Photoshop CS6 Beta

Adobe has released a beta of Photoshop CS6.


Explore Photoshop CS6 beta for a sneak preview of some of the incredible performance enhancements, imaging magic, and creativity tools we are working on. Discover for yourself why Photoshop CS6 software will be a whole new experience in digital image editing.


Photoshop CS6 Highlights:
● Content-Aware Patch -- Patch images with greater control using the newest member of the Content-Aware family of technologies. Choose the sample area you want to use to create your patch, and then watch Content-Aware Patch magically blend pixels for a stunning result.
● Blazingly fast performance and a modern UI -- Experience unprecedented performance with the Mercury Graphics Engine, which gives you near-instant results when you edit with key tools such as Liquify, Puppet Warp, and Crop.* Plus, a refined, fresh, and elegant Photoshop interface features dark background options that make your images pop.
● New and re-engineered design tools -- Create superior designs fast. Get consistent formatting with type styles, create and apply custom strokes and dashed lines to shapes, quickly search layers, and much more.


Important Notes:
● Photoshop CS6 beta includes all the features in Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended. Take this opportunity to try out the 3D image editing and quantitative image analysis capabilities of Photoshop Extended*, but note that-while these features will be included in the shipping version of Photoshop CS6 Extended-they will not be included in the shipping version of Photoshop CS6.
● Adobe ID login and online activation are required either at installation or within seven days after your first launch of the Photoshop CS6 beta. The same requirements will be in place for the shipping version of Photoshop CS6 when it is released. Your Adobe ID provides multiple benefits, including an easy way to access your serial numbers, the Adobe.com community, and the upcoming Adobe Creative Cloud membership.
● Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended will be part of the Adobe Creative Suite, and Photoshop CS6 Extended will be part of Adobe Creative Cloud membership. Both Photoshop editions will also be available separately.

New Nokia Asha

Nokia has expanded its Asha portfolio in the country with the launch of Asha 303 smartphone. QWERTY-based Asha 303 runs on Symbian Series 40 OS and has been priced at Rs 8990.

First announced at Nokia World 2011 in October, Asha 303 comes with 1GHz processor and a 2.6 inch capacitive display. Other features of the phone include full QWERTY 170 MB of internal memory with support for memory card, 3.2 megapixel camera, built-in FM radio, Bluetooth and internet radio.

Nokia Asha 303 comes pre-loaded with applications such as Angry Birds Lite, Mobile TV with Zenga TV, Whatsapp, NokiaMaps and Nokia Music Unlimited. The phone is available in red and graphite colours.

Nokia has partnered with Vodafone India to provide attractive data offers for the smartphon

Aakash II to be launched in April

A faster, upgraded version of Aakash tablet -- touted to be the world's cheapest -- would be launched in April without hike in price, Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal said today.

Sibal said during Question Hour in Lok Sabha that Datawind will supply one lakh high speed tablets with a longer battery life and better screen.

"These higher specifications which include 700 MHz Cortex A8 processor, 3200mAH battery with three-hour usage time and a capacitative touch screen have been necessitated to overcome the initial difficulties observed in the devices," he said.

The first phase of one lakh tablets were targeted for students in higher technical education institutions so as to further ascertain technical feedback on its operation and usability, the minister said.

To demands from members for extending the distribution of tablets to school students, Sibal said the same would be made available when the proposed National Mission of Education through ICT for Schools got necessary funds.

He said once the production capacities are built up, norms for distribution with an aim to prioritise empowerment of students, especially from disadvantaged and marginalized sections of society, through this low cost access-cum computing device would get developed.

Panasonic set for $10.2 billion loss

Japan's Panasonic on Friday warned it would see its worst-ever net loss of 780 billion yen ($10.2 billion) for the year to March, blaming the strong yen, flooding in Thailand, and acquisition costs. The electronics giant said the huge net loss - which would be one of the worst everrecorded by any non-financial Japanese company - was due to one-off costs it incurred to acquire rival Sanyo, among other factors.
"We expect a sizable decline in sales due to the impact of massive flooding in Thailand last October on broad supply chains, together with a global economic slowdown triggered by the European debt crisis," the firm said.

It made a net profit of 74 billion yen in the year to March 2011, and its first forecast for the current year had been a 30 billion yen profit.

Osaka-based Panasonic revised downward its annual sales forecast to 8.0 trillion yen, from 8.3 trillion yen earlier. Operating profit for the year is now seen at 30 billion yen, compared with 130 billion yen projected earlier.

The company separately said it posted a net loss of 333.82 billion yen for the nine months to December, reversing a 114.70 billion yen profit in the corresponding period a year earlier.

Operating profit for the period plunged 85.0 percent to 39.54 billion yen on sales of 5.97 trillion yen, down 10.3 percent. On top of the impact of the Thai floods and the eurozone crisis, Panasonic blamed the strong yen and the impact of the March earthquake and tsunami, as well as severe price competition.

Heart Attacks And Hot Water

A very good article which takes two minutes to read. Heart Attacks And Drinking Warm Water

This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about .Heart Attacks. The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals, not cold water, maybe it is time we adopt theirdrinking habit while eating.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by theintestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.
Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...
A serious note about heart attacks - You! should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be theleft arm hurting . Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.
You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.

A cardiologist says if everyone who reads this message sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read this & Send to a friend. It could save a life... So, please be a true friend and send this article to all your friends you care about.

Motorola launches Atrix 2 in India

At Rs 22,990, this seems to be a very reasonably priced high-end handset with equally appealing specification.

Motorola Atrix 2 is now available in India for Rs 22,990. Though it does not have the best of specifications amongst high end smartphones, but it certainly offers the best for the price.

Motorola Atrix 2 comes with a 4.3-inch qHD display with a resolution of 540×960, 1 GHz dual-core processor, 8 GB internal memory which can be expanded to 32GB, 8 megapixel rear camera and a 0.3 megapixel front camera as well. The phone is based on Android 2.3 OS.

Atrix 2 is also compatible with Motorola's lapdock, which is a laptop shaped docking station that has its own battery and screen but uses phones processing power to deliver laptop like experience. Currently this docking station is not available in India, however with the launch of two compatible devices (Motorola RAZR and Atrix 2) in India, we can expect the lapdock to come to our country very soon.

The well designed Motorola Atrix 2 comes preloaded with EA games. At Rs 22,990, this phone is priced in the close vicinity of phones like HTC Desire HD, HTC Radar (Windows Phone), Blackberry Bold 9780, and Samsung Galaxy R.

In terms of Android based phones, there are very few phones that are priced near the Atrix 2, and in comparison to all the above mentioned handsets, Atrix has slightly better specifications and features. Thus it will be a good buy for people looking at an Android smartphone below Rs 25,000