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Author Archives: SoftIT Solutions
Expect not iPhone 7 redesign in 2016
New iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus won’t feature any major design changes, This is according to The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s. Instead, they’ll be slimmer as if anyone is asking for thinner iPhone. Apple’s decision to ditch the headphone jack will result in improved water resistance, according to the report.
All hope is not lost however, the iPhone due 2017 will be a major design refresh as Apple celebrates 10 years of the iPhone. Just like the latest Galaxy Edge devices, the iPhone will have a curved, edge-to-edge OLED screen and a Touch ID fingerprint sensor built into the display itself — eliminating the need for a physical home button. According to the Journal’s sources, Apple design chief Jony Ive has “for years” pushed for the iPhone to “appear like a single sheet of glass.”
🙂
Google self driven car crush into a bus.
A New York judge ruled in favor of Apple in its fight with the government.
The decision is the latest development in the tech company’s ongoing battle to bar the FBI from unlocking the iPhone of a an alleged San Bernardino terrorist who killed 14 people. Apple’s lawyer is scheduled to testify before Congress today, according to 9 to 5 Mac.
A self-driving Google car crashed into a bus. The tech giant finally released a statement for the incident yesterday evening, reports Engadget .
The crash may be the first incident where the autonomous car was partially at fault.
The Hacking Team may be back. The discovery of newly developed malware suggests the infamoubased company, which sells malware to companies and countries alike, may be making a comeback.
🙂
SoftIT Solutions.
List of blocked websites in China
China is currently facing one of the most sophisticated internet censorship in the world which has grown enormously in scope and strength in the past decade. It now blocks many of the most popular websites. The websites of billion-dollar companies like Google and Facebook, with billions of users in the rest of the world, are dark, shuttered rooms in China.
The Great Firewall (GFW) has been deployed near the gateways of all Chinese domestic ISPs. With deep packet inspection (DPI) technology, GFW wiretaps all international links and inspects the traffic to detect any sensitive keywords going through the gateway. GFW depends mainly on three technologies to block
- “harmful” information: IP blocking
- DNS (Domain Name System) injection
- TCP RST (Reset).
Below is the list of blocked website in China
Search engines
Google, DuckDuckGo, Baidu Japan, Baidu Brazil, Yahoo Hong Kong, Yahoo Taiwan
Social media
Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Google Hangouts, Google Blogspot, WordPress.com, Line, KakaoTalk, TalkBox, selected Tumblr sites, FC2, Soundcloud, Hootsuite, Adultfriendfinder, Ustream, Twitpic, Instagram
Newspapers and media
New York Times, New York Times Chinese, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Businessweek, BBC Chinese, Chosun Chinese, WSJ, WSJ Chinese, Flipboard (international version only), Google News, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, LiveLeak, Break, Crackle, selected international Wikipedia pages, selected Chinese Wikipedia pages, Wikileaks
Redux: gagging Google
Yes, a lot of those are Google services. Let’s recap the Google blocklist in full:
Google search, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Translate, Google Calendar, Google Picasa, Google Groups, Google Keep, Google Voice, Google Wallet, YouTube, Google Earth, Google Earth, Google Chrome homepage, Google Code, Google Blogspot, Google Feedburner
Work and productivity
Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Slideshare, iStockPhoto, Google Drive, Google Docs, Gmail (inc Gmail’s IMAP, SMAP, and POP servers), Google Translate, Google Calendar, Google Groups, Google Keep
Online tools
Flickr, Google Play, Google Picasa, Feedburner, Twitter URL shortener, Google URL shortener, Bit.ly, Archive.org, Pastebin, Change.org, 4Shared, The Pirate Bay, OpenVPN
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“Indigenizing the Academy” without Indigenous people: who can teach our stories?
Simple things you should know about external hard drive
External hard drive
There are a number of things you should know about your external hard drive.
° Make sure the hard disk is getting good air flow
°Always use the option “Safe Remove Hardware “ This step may seem trivial and often forgotten by users.
°Use a position that does not disturb the position of the USB connector
°Do not slam In contrast to the flash disk, external hard disk still has a mechanical component in it.
°Keep away from liquids .
°Keep away from magnetic objects
°Use the Y cable in order to get a good power supply
°Not too often pull out the USB cable plug
°Avoid placing the hard disk where it often vibrates
°Unplug the USB cable by pulling the plug head.
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SoftIT Solutions.
“Ping Test” to determine a leaking microwave oven.
When radiation is mentioned most often we think of nuclear bombs and X-ray
Radiation in general is a term for energy that is emitted or “radiated” from a given source.
Microwave energy has characteristics that allows them to be used in cooking. However, long term exposure of microwave radiation is harmful if the micro wave oven is leaking without your consent.
Microwave and wireless networks (802.11) operates on nearly same frequency (between 2.4 and 2.5 Ghz) hence a “pinging test” can be done to test if your microwave radiation is leaking from the oven.
Below is a “Pinging Test” procedure that you can use to determine if the microwave oven is leaking or not.
What you need is:
° Wireless network (802.11), WiFi network
° 2 Laptops
Step #1.
Unplug microwave oven from power supply.
Step #2
Make sure your laptops are on and connected over the network (WiFi)
Step #3
Open the oven door and put one laptop inside, close the door carefully.
Step #4
Using the other laptop, try to ping the laptop inside the oven, if there is timeouts, your oven doesn’t leak when it is in use. 🙂
If the ping is complete without timeouts, chances are that your oven is leaking. 😮
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) limits the amount of microwave that can leak from an oven through out its lifetime to 5 mW of microwave radiation per square centimeter at approximately 2 inches from the oven surface.
You may wish to replace the inner oven casing, oven door or even settling for a new oven for your safety.
References:
At Risk
Business Week
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SoftIT Solutions.
Google has finally taken the wrapper off the next version of Android “Marshmallow 6.0”
As the calendar continues to unfold deep into 2015, more apps and innovations continues to pop up.
Today, Google has finally taken the wrapper off the next version of Android and confirmed the latest version as Android ‘Marshmallow’ 6.0. (M)
“Marshmallow 6.0 SDK is now available to download via the SDK Manager in Android Studio. Said Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android in a blog post.
If you’ve got a Nexus 5 or Nexus 6 smartphone, or Nexus 9 tablet, then you can install Android M Developer Preview. It’s not straightforward, you’ll need to be happy to wipe your phone entirely, download and install various tools and flash a new ROM to the wiped handset. Get descriptions of how to install at Android.
Some of the existing features include:
° Integrated Android Wear support.
° Manual camera functionality.
° Night/Dark mode.
° Better notification syncing between devices.
° More sophisticated data usage warnings.
° Smart app uninstalls.
° Ability to uninstall any app.
° More unlock options.
° Faster updates.
Are you excited for Android Marshmallow (M) 6.0 release?
Share your thoughts with us and remember to hit share. 🙂
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SoftIT Solutions.
Google and Safaricom launches `WAZE`, a real-time traffic information app in Kenya.
#TechHub #InnovationHotBed. Yesterday Safaricom and Google launched the ‘Waze’ application that offers motorists accurate and real-time traffic information, based on crowd-sourced data from other road users.
The app uses a Global Positioning System technology to collect traffic information varying from; accidents, impassable routes, traffic jams and advices on alternative routes.
The partnership will help Safaricom widen its data network usage as more subscribers enroll onto the program to get a traffic update through Waze. Sylvia Mulinge, Director, Consumer Business at Safaricom said that traffic information on Waze, which is updated in real time, will save users the hassle of enormous amounts of time spent in traffic by offering alternative routes.
Waze is available on the Android or iOS App Stores. Customers are required to enter details of their information on the application to access traffic information.
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SoftIT Solutions.
Patent to startups from Google.
SoftIT Solutions.
Google is giving away patents to startups. Some in the tech press said the plan, which will see 50 young companies receive two patents apiece, will help them fight patent trolls. But this isn’t really true – at least in the short term. Instead, the startup program should be seen as just one part of Google’s emerging efforts to remake the economic impact of patents in the tech industry.
The search giant’s strategy has several pillars and the so-called “Google Patent Starter Program,” announced last week, is the newest one. It involves an application process to award free patents to 50 companies that have between $500,000 and $20 million in revenue. If a company is picked, Google will dangle three to five relevant patents before the recipient, and ask it to select two.
It’s a nice gesture on Google’s part, but will two patents make a big difference for the startups? Not really. One reason is the patents Google is giving out are mostly deranged. They come with licensing terms that prevent the new startup owners from invoking them against certain companies and, more broadly, a patent can only be used for defensive purposes – otherwise the startup will have to give it back to Google.
The other big reason the Google giveaway won’t mean much for startups is that those patents – or any other patents – won’t stop the trolls. That’s because patent trolls, unlike productive companies, are just shells without real assets or business operations, meaning they’re not vulnerable to counterclaims in a patent case. As it stands, for now, the trolls will continue to plague startups and big companies alike unless Congress musters the will to pass proposed laws to undercut their business model.
So will the startups receive any value at all from Google patents? Yes, a little bit. The patents could, for instance, provide a deterrent to any competitor that wants to hobble them with nuisance lawsuits. The startups will also benefit from Google’s offer of free access to Innography (a commercial software tool for analyzing patents portfolios) and, more generally, from an in-the-weeds exposure to IP issues.
Ultimately, though, receiving a Google patent will not change the destiny of any individual startup. History shows that successful startups – think Uber or Pinterest or AirBnb – get where they are by focusing on innovation and execution, not by mastering patent strategy.
The real significance of the Google Patent Starter Program is instead more subtle, and should be seen against the backdrop of other moves Google is undertaking to change the economic incentives that have made patents such a problem for the tech sector in the first place.
One other such move came in April when Google opened a temporary patent portal in April that let sellers ask if the company wanted to buy their assets. According to Kurt Brasch, a lawyer at Google, the program was a big success. In a phone interview, he wouldn’t provide many details, but did say the company bought numerous patents at purchase prices ranging from $3000 to $250,000. He didn’t say so, but the process also no doubt gave Google unique strategic information about the overall market for patents, including price signals.
This raises the question of whether Google has another agenda on the patent front. Perhaps the search giant is actually tempted to follow the example of older companies like Microsoft and Qualcomm which, as their capacity for product innovation fades, have turned to their patent portfolios as a new revenue stream. Brasch, however, quickly dismissed this suggestion.
“I can certainly say we’re not headed in that way,” he said, explaining Google has no intention of using its patents to coerce others into buying licenses. Instead, he said the goal of the purchase program was in part to create more realistic expectations about the actual value of patents in the secondary market. (Translation: they’re not worth as much as some speculators think they are).
Brasch’s claim is bolstered by other Google initiatives, including the launch of a powerful new search tool for uncovering so-called “prior art” references that can help attack bad patents, and prevent them from being issued in the first place.
The patent purchases and the new prior art tool are thus part of Google’s larger strategy to lower the number and the value of patents affecting the tech industry. The most important piece of this strategy, however, involves the expansion of the License on Transfer Network (LOT ).
The LOT serves as a mutual non-aggression pact among a web of companies that include Pandora, Newegg and JP Morgan. Part of the pact entails a cross-license for companies within the network. And, crucially, it obliges any company that sells a patent outside of the network to attach a condition to the patent that prevents the new owner from using it to attack anyone within the network.
This network is critical to Google’s overall patent plans and, if you look closely, it’s easily the most important piece of the new “Patent Starter Program.” More specifically, the new starter program obliges the startups who receive Google patents to sign up for the LOT network, a condition that’s easy to accept since Google will pick up the first two years of the membership tab.
The upshot of the “starter” program, then, is that Google has found a way to add 50 potentially important young companies to the patent non-aggression pact. Their inclusion in the network will ensure that, if the startups fail, their intellectual property will be less attractive to patent trolls looking for shakedown weapons. And if they succeed, their executives will be part of a culture that rejects the use of patents as a tool for aggression and ruinous lawsuits.
The bottom line is that Google’s patent giveaway won’t protect startups from patent trolls or lead them to succeed in the market. But the Patent Starter Program has the potential to create big long-term ripples in how the tech industry views and uses patents.
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SoftIT Solutions.
SoftIT Solutions 