Daily Tech Digest

HTC has officially launched HTC Desire HD in UK on 21st October,2010 & is available through Vodafone and 3 UK. It has got many new features and enhancements, that sets it apart many of the current competitors in the smartphone market.

Available on Vodafone UK from £25-£55 (24 Month contract) and £30-£60 (18 Month contract)

3 UK is offering it on a £40 a month (24 Month contract)

It comes with Android latest OS Froyo 2.2 that means 100% flash support and many more new features.

It also comes with HTC Sense, which includes some very cool features of tracing and keeping in-touch with your phone, anytime & anywhere. If your phone is lost, the contacts and message scan be deleted remotely so that non one else can access your personal info. Calls can be redirected in-event of forgetting phone at your home or office.

It has also got media streaming facility wherein video and audio can be streamed to a DLNA compatible TV and if the TV is not compatible, no need to worry, there is a separate DLNA adapter through which the TV can accept the wireless streaming.

The best feature for traveler’s is that there is a zero wait maps in-built into the phone so that you don’t have to wait when you really need it (similar to preloaded maps in the device). Another feature which comes in handy is that if the phone rings while you are navigating, the maps screen stays on and there will be little pop-up at the bottom of the screen alerting about the call (this is really a great idea which all companies should follow).

It also includes in-built support for DivX playback (eye candy for a 4.3 inch HD screen), Wifi Hotspot, Wifi b/g and n support, 720p HD recording, 1.5GB internal storage and many more features.

So, do you think Android phones are better than iPhone iOS? Feel free to leave your feedback.

Check out HTC official website for more info.

Good news for all those HTC Desire Android users that they can now enjoy flash support, 720p HD video recording, WiFi Hotspot, App sharing and many more features. The recent Android OS  Froyo 2.2 update for HTC desire has brought about a massive change in the smartphone market which includes 100 percent support for flash that means now you can now browse almost any website and watch videos on your mobile (mind you that still the big players in the market including apple still does not support flash).

As of now the Froyo 2.2 update is available to all the unbranded and some branded HTC Desire’s (ie. the software loaded on your phone should be directly from HTC rather than from the provider like Vodafone, Orange or O2). The users who have got there phones from Orange, Vodafone or any other provider might find that they still wont be able to take update their phone to the latest stock-ROM. One of the ways to the get the update for branded phones is to debrand them and then install the official stockrom from HTC and get the future updates directly from the manufacturer. There are many ways through which the phone can be unbranded and one of them is given below (scroll through XDA developers website for an inside and troubleshooting for any Android based phone).

Note:- This update worked for me and its not necessary that it will work for you as well. I do not accept any responsibility if anything goes wrong. (i hope that it works for all Desire users)

Create a Goldcard first using these instructions

Tools needed:

* GoldCard Tool
* GoldCard Source

Requirements:

* Latest HTC Sync software installed (www.htc.com)
* Spare microSD card
* Windows PC (Tested on Windows7 x64,Vista x86)
* .Net Framework 2.0

Goldcard creation steps:

* Format the microSD card to FAT32 format.
* Put the microSD card in your device and boot it.
* Launch GoldCard Tool (Right Click and run as Admin if needed)
* Connect Android device to USB (USB Debugging must be enabled on the device)
* Click ‘Get CID’ (If MMC1 fails try MMC0)
* Click the link to open revskills.de, enter the CID number from Goldcard Tool and create your goldcard image, which will be e-mailed to you.
* Enable USB Mass Storage on the device.
* Click ‘Refresh’ and select your microSD card in the drop down menu.
* Click ‘Load GoldCard.img’ and open the .img file you got by email.
* Click ‘Patch MMC’

You now have a goldcard!

Step 1: Root

Root your phone (don’t worry, you’ll unroot it later) using instructions contained here:
[ROOT] Method for HBOOT 0.83 (SLCD phones) – xda-developers
The description is straightforward so I won’t repeat it.

Step 2 (optional): Backup

It’s wise to backup your phone while you have the ClockworkMod installed, it could come in handy later.

- Boot to recovery mode. Steps: 1. power off; 2. power on while pressing volume down button; 3. when you can interact with the phone (it takes a few seconds), choose ‘recovery’ (use volume keys to navigate and power button to select).
(A hint that was useful to me: in ClockworkMod, you navigate by volume buttons but enter menus by the optical trackball button, not power button.)

- Select ‘nandroid’ from the menu and perform a backup.

- After the backup has finished, go to ‘partitions’ submenu and mount the sdcard as a USB drive.

- Now that the SD card is visible as a removable drive, copy everything in the clockworkmod directory to a safe place.

Step 3: Reflash

As you’re running 1.24 firmware, normally you wouldn’t be able to install generic 1.21 — RUU installer will not allow you to downgrade version. Hence you need to cheat your phone into thinking it’s 1.21 first.
Source: [HOW-TO] Downgrade HBOOT – HTCPedia.com forums , plus my modifications.

- You will need Android SDK. If you don’t have it, download it here and unpack to your chosen location.

- Download this RUU: (Make sure you get this one; others won’t work and will break your phone if you have hboot 0.83 and SLCD screen!)

- Go to Desire mtd0.img creator . Enter CID 11111111 and ROM version 1.21.405.2. Download and save the mtd0.img file for later.

- Download flash_image binary and save it along with previous file.

- Boot the phone to recovery mode.

- Connect the phone (still in recovery mode) to your PC via USB cable. In ClockworkMod recovery menu, navigate to Partitions and mount /data partition. It takes a while, don’t panic, wait until the menu returns.

- Open commandline on your PC. Go to the folder with Android SDK you downloaded earlier. Go to tools subdirectory.

Note: Before you run the command make sure that you copy “flash_image” and “mtd0.img” to the SDK tools subdirectory and push it from there.

- Do the following in the cmdline:
adb push /flash_image /data
adb push /mtd0.img /data

Then:

adb shell
chmod 755 /data/flash_image
/data/flash_image misc /data/mtd0.img
exit
adb reboot oem-78

Now your phone has been told that it has firmware 1.21 and was rebooted to RUU mode. Leave it as it is and launch the RUU installer you downloaded earlier. Follow the instructions.

If everything went smoothly, you should have a fresh, sparkly, unbranded, unrooted, stock 1.21.405.2 in a few minutes, and OTA upgrade to FroYo should appear soon.
(Source: Androidforums)

In the past we have seen many big companies that came in to change the way we think,communicate, search and analyze the data we receive. No matter whether it’s related to something as simple as making our journeys pleasurable to navigating for information to using machines with the least of knowledge about it. The list of companies goes on from the likes of Ford, IBM, Yahoo, Apple, eBay, Microsoft, Toyota, GM Motors to the latest MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and the last but not the least Google which brought a virtual revolution in the 21st century and forced me to further investigate and discuss the ideas given below.

Earlier to Google there were many search companies like Alta Vista and Lycos who offered good enough service of extracting information from data but it was not sufficient and accurate enough to meet the demands of the ever growing demand for information. Google came in and devised it’s very own ranking system called as “Page Rank” which filtered out the relevant information from load of data on the internet. The main idea behind it was that it judges the relevance of a web page by the links its getting from other sites on the web which indirectly worked as a ranking system and then giving the importance on the no. of links its getting. It worked wonders for Google and soon they became the leaders in the search engine industry on the internet. This was the turning point for Google as they knew how to gather and distribute the information across the internet and by which they came to know the likes and dislikes of the users. After this enormous success they were struggling to make some money out of their own invention and after the brainstorm they came up with an idea of stepping into advertising sector which again transformed the way in which goods and services are sold which was named Google Adwords and Adsense. It changed the traditional “Push Strategy” to “Pull Strategy” in the advertising world.

The third biggest service they launched was Gmail – an email service which has a very easy to use interface which has a similar design to their search engine ( i would refer the similarity to the search engine by colors they use ie. white background and blue or black font color which is very simple yet appealing). It has got all the perks you can ask for like chatting within email that too with the facility of video chat as well and it also has got the facility of adding plug-ins to enhance the overall experience.

Then came the most used navigation software in the world called Google Earth (earlier called BBS Keyhole) which revolutionised the way we find our way around work & home. They further polished it with the introduction of Street view in almost 15 countries raising concerns over privacy but at the end it was Google who won and still leads in the best online navigation systems. The whole list goes of products released after goes on and on and on and from which the latest being Google Android OS for mobile phones which is also gaining very quickly over the rivals. It is one of the best open source operation system for a mobile device in the market as of now. Many operators have opted to go for it on their devices which include the likes of Sony, Samsung and HTC as of now and many manufacturers would follow the same in future. Google is also ready to release their Operating System called Google Chrome for netbooks this year but would move into Laptop & Desktop PC’s in future. The forecast about Google making wave in the OS market is very thin as people are very used to Windows and MAC  as they have been in the market for more than 35 years and its not that easy to overtake them so quickly.

As you see the growth of Google in the recent years, there have been one common trend in Googleplex and that is acquisition of budding companies who they think will overtake them or give them a run for their money. The list starts with one of the most successful companies bought by Google known as YouTube which streams over 2 Billion Videos per day. It has become so famous that many of the celebrities have their own homepage and many channels can now be watched free of cost in HD quality from comfort of your home. Recently it also hosted LIVE Twenty20 WorldCup for users worldwide. They are one of the best companies in forecasting the future of their rivals with some of them described below.

-> Google Picasa – Product born from Idealab acquisition.

-> Google Earth – Product born from BBS keyhole acquisition.

-> Google Youtube – Product born from Youtube acquisition.

-> Google Android – Product born from Android Inc.

What is my Opinion about Google?

Well my personal experience tells me that no matter how many companies they might have acquired to gain an upper hand in the competition, they are still the best The best thing about them is that they know how to polish an unfinished product and then release it with all the required options that meets the end user requirements.

So Do I THink that they are becoming the sole authority on the (Pla) Net?

I         WOULD              SAY                  YES…….

All the opinions expressed above are my personal and does not reflect any authority whatsoever. Feel free to leave your comments on my article.

Microsoft beware there is one more rival in the OS world, Google. In the latest turnaround Google have announced that they are working on a Operating System which would be probably released by mid of 2010 for Netbooks as a starter and then expand to the mass market depending on how it performs. There have been many speculations over the years that Google has been working on their own variant of operating system, which has now become a reality and can give Microsoft a run for their money.

The latest news has been given at the official blog of Google with further details given that the OS will be open source and lightweight and would be targeted towards the online community users and there would be no need for any spyware or malware removers in it!!!!!!!! It will run on both x86 and ARM chips which will include netbooks in the first phase and then the laptops and desktops at a later stage.

In brief this operating system as told by Google

Is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google. (Source: Official Google Blog)

So for further updates stay tuned on this website or you can visit the official GoogleBlog.

Google has now covered UK in its Street View service that includes London, Belfast, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Cardiff (street-level maps), giving its users a 360-degree view of the city streetscapes. The users can have a look around including traffic, people and buildings with the help of the pictures taken by Google car cameras.

This service was introduced in 2007 in US followed by France, New Zealand, Japan and now UK with some uproar from the privacy authorities and individuals regarding the privacy issues which was then rectified by blurring the images of car number plates and faces of people to protect them from falling into to the wrong hands.

Users have the option of flagging the images which they think are inappropriate or private and then Google will make sure that they are blurred or removed from the maps. Ed Parsons, a geospatial technologist for Google assured their users by these comments.

“Privacy is really important to us. We think we have largely addressed those issues. Anything that can identify an individual person or car, we are doing our best to try to remove (that) image.”

This is the part of their future plans to introduce this service in another 100 cities in 9 countries. The pictures are taken from a special car equipped with 30 cameras to capture the public streets aroud major streets.

I think that it has been and will be very helpful for all of us to find a wayout, no matter where we are going at any time  of the day. What do you think? Feel free to leave your comments.