Tuesday 30 June 2015

2 decades that changed the technology Phases

The Mobile’s alarm clock rung. The boy wakes up and checks his phone, replies to few texts. Gets up and switches on his laptop resting right next on his side table. Read news updates, Logs in to Facebook, updates a status and leaves to freshen up. Gets ready for work. Picks up his car keys, laptop and mobile phone and reaches office. Makes a record of his arrival time through magnetic ID card and enters in the office. Switches on his laptop, says hi to colleagues on Skype and start working on his laptop. After a while, he discovers that a file he needed urgently is missing, he searches his entire data but fails to find out the file needed. He immediately makes a call to the concerned person, and instantly gets the desired file via E-mail.

Now let’s picture a similar boy having same routine 2 decades back. The typical alarm set rings, boy wakes up and advance towards the door to get the current morning’s newspaper. Stares at the peaceful new day and goes to freshen up himself, comes back, picks up his bike’s keys and leave for work. Informs about his arrival time to the office receptionist and meets all his colleagues face to face and starts working on his files present on the table. After a moment, he needed another file but is unable to find on his desk. Goes to his colleagues one by one, spends hours to search it in bookshelves, file folders and comes back to his desk disappointed and comes back empty handed.

This is how literally technology has changed our lives for real in the 20 years. Whether we talk about business and communication, food and agriculture, education, our socializing routine, our personal and professional lives have been changed drastically after the rise of technology.

Earlier, running business was hell of a job. Getting a proper area and starting up a new business needed good investment, human resources needed to perform certain business activities had to be present in your neighborhood. And due to all these limitations, opening up a new enterprise was literally a dream coming. But now technology has taken business to new dimensions. No money to get an area to set up a store? No problem at all. You can easily start it online on various social media platforms as well as you can expand it virtually. Hire resources online and get your work done in no time. Can’t go overseas? Get hired by an international firm and serve online.

Not only business but other aspects of life has been transformed. Decades back, we had limited food options and choices to eat. But now enjoy the food items from any part of the world. Genetically engineered foods such as wheat after the green revolution, tomatoes etc. are part of our daily lives now.

How about education? In old times, studying was a burden, quite a difficult task as you had to do it on your own. Arranging tutors and going to coaching classes and paying huge sums of money was a common practice. But thanks to technology for getting us all the information on just one click away. Now you can get access to all your study related topics on the internet. You can watch videos or even attend lectures online for free. Moreover, the gadgets introduced such as laptops, smartphones, E-readers have revolutionized the education sector. It has changed the way students think and pick up daily routine concepts.

Well, let’s take a look on beauty industry. Previously people entering into showbiz, crazy to become a star had to undergo certain screen tests of whether they look good on screen or not. Most of them had to leave the fashion industry due to failing the test. But now, thousands of inventions have been made to improve your facial looks as well as your body figure. Every year, millions of people get plastic surgeries to improve their looks. Growing hair is not a problem now through hair transplant techniques, Botox is there to help you fight aging and what not.

How about technology bringing change in our personal lives? Well, most of you would agree that technology has dramatically transformed our lives.  We used to socialize by personally visiting to someone’s place and had a good chit chat time face to face. But now we barely find time to see our friends and relatives. We now have a long list of social media platforms through which we connect virtually and get to know about each other’s lives through regular updates. Even If you are sitting with your favorite people around, you can’t stop checking your phone and look at it again and again for no reason. If internet disappears for some time, it comes as a great threat to our social life. If you are not found doing any activity on the internet, people will surely consider you dead.

Over the last 2 decades, technology has revolutionized our lives, making our world smaller and smaller. No doubt it has brought much ease to our lives but yet made us so much dependent on it. We would surely like to restore some of our activities from the last two decades such as playing outdoor games with the friends present in the neighborhood rather than playing virtual games on X-box and PlayStation, taking pictures occasionally had its own charm, receiving them after few days was a source of excitement. Now you can get pictures and selfies in just few seconds. Writing letters to your beloved ones added much excitement to our love life. Now, texting has replaced these all luxuries. Talk easily and have endless chats. No more anticipation of love replies anymore. Well, we cannot deny the fact that technology has served us with best of its forms but at the same time has taken away a lot of traditional practices and activities. We can justify this as the opportunity cost of having technology.

Friday 26 June 2015

Toshiba Portege Z30t

Toshiba Portege Z30t
Recently, with increasing business responsibilities and with expanding official needs, the competiton is getting tougher among the business laptops. The 13-inch Toshiba Touchscreen UltraBook Core i5 is one of such laptops packed with features to fulfil your office work necessities.  Portege Z30t is an improved form of previously introduced Toshiba Z30. The Portege Z30t is a touch version which runs Windows 8.1 installed with the advance 4th gen Intel Core Processor. Reviewing it will help us to determine that whether this new and improved version has the balls to compete with the business laptops lined up in the competition and does it provide with ample amount of features to carry out the business tasks proficiently.  

Design and display

The 13-inch Toshiba Portege Z30t is a robust machine with sleek and slim compact design well suited for a business notebook. The ultra-book looks graceful as it has magnesium alloy chassis with fine Magnesium silver finish. It comes with the resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (166 ppi) which decently provider sharper images on the bright display. However, its competitor ThinkPad X1 has a better resolution of with 2560x1440 pixels (221 ppi).

Moreover, it has an excellent multi-touch display interface with anti-finger coating which makes it more advance. The background illumination and contrast ratios are pretty much impressive as they constant and powerful throughout the use. But, it is not suitable for the daylight use even with highest degree of brightness which is quite disappointing but it works fine in shady areas.  

Performance Test

The Tohshiba Portege Z30t unfortunately couldn’t leave a decent impression in terms of its performance. It runs on a Haswell Intel Core i7 processor, the dual core CPU which is same as used by the model Z30. Integrated with 8GB RAM and Intel graphics 4400, it evoked much expectations. Other ultra-books in competition such as HP EliteBook and Lenovo X1 bear similar kind of features but we found it disappointing in terms of competing with its fellow competitors such as EliteCBook Folio and Lenovo X1 Carbon. In order to judge the performance more accurately, numerous tests were carried out. The PCMark 8 recorded scores on total 4 standardized categories namely Storage, Work, Creative and Home. To our shock, it failed badly at performing better than its predecessor Z30.

Testing on its graphics output was also revealed average results. It is equipped with HD Graphics 4400 with200 - 1,100 MHz not delivering a notable 3D performance. 

Battery Life

If your office working routine demands long hours, then this ulta-book is exclusively here to impress you with the superb battery life lasting for around 12 hours which is way better than its competitors.  This is actually the selling point of Z30t as only few of such devices belonging to the similar family are able to achieve this.

Connectivity Options

With a wide-array of connectivity options, it comes a lot useful for fulfilling your business needs. It is fully equipped with three USB 3.0 ports along with VGA and HDMI enabling you to connect your other devices and see your stuff on bigger screens, deliver presentations and watch videos with greater satisfaction. Additionally, it also offers with Gigabit Ethernet and SD card slot making things more happening.

Verdict

The Toshiba Portege is no doubt a very valuable business Ultra-book installed with striking features and sleek design. It has a smooth touch with anti-finger coating. Boot time is impressive too. However, as compared to its fellow contestant business laptops it could not perform remarkably. But based on overall examination, we can conclude that it offers with wide range of features, good enough to carry out the business tasks efficiently. It is not an outstanding ultra-book but definitely not inferior to its competitors.

Monday 15 June 2015

Deciding on Laptop/Tablet PC; What Should I Buy?



Laptop or tablet whatever you are going to buy depends on your need. If you want multitasking and heavy workload then go for laptop and if your requirement is just daily usage and light net surfing then tablet will be the right product to buy. Tablets have been in fashion since Apple introduced it’s iPad in 2000. Compact and easy to carry anywhere these tablets does not offer that of a wide range of functions to fulfill any multitasking like laptops do. You might not need a spare bag for tablet but still you cannot have a fully equipped device in your hands as compared to laptop that come with keyboard, bunch of connectivity options and DVD  drives. With the advancement in technology and innovation lover technology manufacturers, tablets have changed a lot more than just a screen with few functions but still along with the display you need to have spare keyboard and other devices that might prove to be hectic for you to connect each device while you are sitting outside .Following are the few key points of both laptop and tablet that will be helpful enough for you to decide what should you buy:

Battery life

Tablet have proven to have better battery life than laptop. Where laptop have heavy structure and other devices built in it to operate it only ends up providing you with a battery life of less than two or three hours whereas tablet can keep going on for eight hours or more and can be on standby for days.

Performance

When it comes to performance tablet cannot compete laptop top in handling heavy usage. Tablet can be acceptable but will not be suggested fir handling of heavy data processing .Due to its limited capabilities tablets cannot be a good choice for multitasking whereas laptops are preferred for long term projects.

Mobility

Laptops are heavier and bigger than tablets that makes them less convenient for moving around whereas tablets can be carried like a smartphone in your hands.

Input Method

For heavy typing, keyboards are better to be used rather than touch-screen. On tablet you have to perform all the functions of keyboard and mouse that can be tiresome.

Display
Laptops offer you larger displays than tablets. If you have simple usage of just watching videos then go for the tablet but for studying and project making laptops must be bought.

Ergonomics

Laptops have been controversial because of their heavy heat releasing harmful for people who use their laptops on their laps or in bed. It is suggested to use your laptops on desk. Tablets are less harmful as they can be used within your hand and does not release any harmful heat and weigh lesser.

All in all it is up to the buyer who he/she want to go for as both of these products have their own pros and cons and different work usages.

Monday 8 June 2015

Is Apple’s CEO Right on Attacking Facebook & Google on Privacy?

Asking someone about their presence on Facebook is like asking a question if the water is wet. According to the We Are Social’s new Digital, Social and Mobile 2015 report, there are about 3.010 billion active internet users worldwide out of which 2.078 have active social media accounts. About 1.685 Billion own active, mobile social accounts. Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass 1 billion registered accounts in 2015 whereas Google+ has 300 million users.

We all love using Facebook. It is similar a daily diary in which we share our day-to-day life events. Sharing pictures, videos, status updates, and personal details is a regular routine. Likewise, using Google apps & Gmail is a common practice as well to carry out business activities, personal mails etc. With all this whole load of offers made by these social media platforms, people are quite satisfied. But along with such facilities, a question on privacy still remains.

However, Apple’s CEO Peter Cook criticized Google & Facebook on grounds of advertising-supported business models for their disregard for users’ privacy. He was of the view that some of the most prominent companies at Silicon Valley have been successful in building up their businesses on the basis of personal information that is being shared by their customers. The customers are assured about the safety of their private data but according to Cook, this is not really the case. “They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetise it. We think that’s wrong. And it’s not the kind of company that Apple wants to be.” Cook said.

Well, he did not name any company specifically apart from Google. He attacked Google’s new photo service. Through this facility, Google has given Photos users free, unlimited storage for pictures and videos at the highest resolutions used by average smartphone owners. Reacting to this Cook said, “We believe the customer should be in control of their own information. You might like these so-called free services, but we don’t think they’re worth having your email, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose. We think someday, customers will see this for what it is.”
                                      
Mr. Cook might be right in many ways but a bit of hypocrisy can be observed as its App Store distributes the apps of these companies to the iOS devices bought by its customers. Likewise, Apple was also targeted on security concerns back in November 2014. The security researcher Jeffery Paul discovered that several of his personal files had been automatically uploaded to Apple’s iCloud Storage service.

Looks like the rivalry among these companies has a long way to go. These are some possible attacks that would be made by either of the parties. Cook does show concern on privacy matters but should also be worried about the Apple’s privacy terms also. Till then what users need to do is act smart by not sharing too much of the personal information on different platoforms, striking a good balance.

Monday 1 June 2015

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact Review

The baby brother of 5.5-inch Xperia Z3, Z3 Compact is a new entry in the Sony Xperia’s Z line. A 5.5 inch is hard to handle with one hand for most of the people so Sony decided to launch a compact version of Z3 so that more and more people can enjoy the features of this amazing smartphone. Despite being small in size, Z3 Compact share almost all the functionalities of Z3.

Design

Taking the design cues from the bigger Xperia Z3 it features a stylish and elegant design. It features an OmniBalance design which according to Sony is a design which can easily be handled and used no matter what you are doing. Either making videos, browsing webs or chatting with your friends. The extremely thin bezel surrounding the screen is responsible for its compactness and keeping the dimensions down to 127 x 64.9 x 8.6mm. Weighing just 129g it can easily be handled with one hand and you can easily reach the corner of the phone with your thumb. Z3 Compact features a translucent plastic surround that protects it from drops and bumps plus also give it a classy look.

Screen

With 4.6-inch IPS LCD screen you get enough room to do your things accurately plus it is the perfect size for keeping in the pocket. Having a 720p HD resolution and the pixel density of 319ppi it delivers you bright and vibrant images. Anyhow it does not share the Full HD display of Xperia Z3. Though Z3 is sharp and extremely bright but if you take it in sunlight you may have to face some glares.

Performance

The factor that stands Sony apart from all other smartphones is the power. Like other Sony Xperia phones Z3 Compact also has blistering fast speed. It is powered by 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor which is same as Z3 but it is equipped with 2GB instead of the Z3’s 3GB. With this complete package of powerful specs it gives you a smooth performance in every task you plan to do on it. But there is one problem which is common in most of the Xperia Z line’s phone and is also found in Z3. These phones overheat very quickly, if you are playing a heavy game just for 30 minutes the back will start warming up.


Camera

Most of the phones which are the mini versions often lack behind because of their cameras. But this is not the case with Z3 Compact. It is equipped with same cameras as of the original Z3. Which means you’ll be able to enjoy some most advanced features like 25mm wide-angle lens, ISO sensitivity and much more in this mini version. Featuring a 1/2.3-inch sensor, dedicated camera shutter which when combined with the water proof body of Z3 Compact becomes an outstanding camera for taking under water pictures.

Verdict

If we compare Z3 Compact with some of the best smartphones then it might not be able to compete them but if we compare it with the mini versions of smartphones then definitely Z3 is capable of excelling them. So if you are planning to buy any mini smartphone then Sony Xperia Z3 Compact can be a good option for you.