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Here is a list of new tablets launched in the month of October, so that you know about all the options before you buy one.

HCL Me Tab X1

The festival season is on, and the device makers are scrambling to launch newer devices to cash in on the festival spirit. However this makes it difficult for consumers to track what is the latest on offer.
Just to make it easier for our readers, we have prepared a list of tablets launched in the month of October so that you can make a fully informed choice.

Milagrow TabTop PC
The tablet runs on the Android 2.3.1 Gingerbread operating system and will be sold at a price of Rs 25,000 and Rs 29,500 for the 16GB and the 32GB model respectively.


The tablet is powered by a 1.2 GHz A2918 cortex processor coupled with 1GB DDR 3 (latest in RAM technology). You get a choice of 16GB and 32GB of internal memory.

Other functions include WiFi, Bluetooth, LAN connectivity and a built-in 3G module. It also has 2 USB slots, HDMI port and SD card port. The device has a 5000mAh battery which the company claims will provide up to 10 hours of battery life.

Additionally, the TapTopPC comes with dual cameras (a front facing and a rear camera) and has Live TV capability. While the tablet is feature rich, availability is limited right now and the quality of the product is still not known to us.

IdeaPad K1
This Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet is aimed at the casual user and comes with a 10 inch capacitive touch display. It uses Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor clocked at 1.0 Ghz, and has 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi connectivity options.


It also comes integrated with 2 megapixel front camera and a 5 megapixel back mounted webcam. MicroSD card reader, mini HDMI connector and optional docking port are also available.

Its capacitive touch screen also promises 10 point multi-touch functionality. The IdeaPad also will come preloaded with 40 apps which are specially customised for Indian users. The tablet weighs 0.75 kg and comes in four colour choices silver white, black, red and grey. It comes in two variants — 32 GB (3G) for a price of Rs 29,500 and 32 GB (WiFi) for Rs 33,990.

ThinkPad
ThinkPad on the other hand is aimed at business users, this Lenovo tablet offers some corporate friendly features such as Computrace which can find the tablet if it is lost or stolen and users can even remotely freeze the device or delete all the data if it can't be recovered. It also comes with Citrix Receiver which allows the tablet to remotely access PC desktops and use the applications as if they were running natively.


This 10.1 inch tablet comes with NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core mobile processor with built-in Adobe Flash Player, and Android 3.1 operating system.

ThinkPad Tablet comes with full-size USB port, SD card slot and mini-HDMI for connecting to external projectors and displays, as well as an optional Keyboard Folio Case with optical TrackPoint and digitizer pen.

Offering a 10.1 WXGA (1280x800) display, the ThinkPad tablet comes with scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass.
 
 Spice MiTab Mi720
Priced competitively at Rs 12,990, this tablet comes with a 7 inch screen that uses capacitive touch technology offering an 800 x 480 resolution and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MHzTurbo processor. It is based on older Android 2.2, and supports HTML browsing and Adobe flash player.


The tablet comes with built-in 3G, WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth as well. A 2 megapixel camera is at rear and a VGA at the front for video calling.Other features include voice call for phone calls from tablet by pairing a Bluetooth headset or with the inbuilt loud speaker. MiTab supports up to 32 GB expandable memory which allows you to save multiple files.

 Fly Vision
This tablet from Fly Mobile, called the 'Fly Vision' is priced at Rs 7,299.It has a 7 inch TFT LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 800x480 pixels. It runs on Android 2.2 Froyo OS and features a 600 MHz Rockchip 2818 chipset processor and 256 MB of RAM.


It uses a 4000 mAh battery that, according to the company, provides 6 hours of continues operation. This Android tablet also houses an external memory slot which can accommodate a 16 GB micro SD card. There is a 1.3 megapixel camera as well.

Beetel Magiq II
Beetel has now introduced a new Android tablet in India. Called Magiq II, the new tablet is meant to replace the original Magiq tablet, which was launched in India two months ago.


Magiq II features a 768 MHz (Qualcomm Snapdragon) chip instead of the earlier 1 GHz unit. It's got a rather small 2200 mAh battery and also offers 3G connectivity and WiFi. This new tablet will not have internal memory either, which was 8 GB in the earlier version, and buyers will instead get an 8 GB SD card free. The tablet is priced at Rs 9,799.
 

 iBerry BT07

This 7 inch Android 2.3 based tablet with a price tag of Rs 6,990 comes with 1.2 Ghz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 512 MB DDR2 RAM, 4 GB in built storage, HDMI output and 3G USB modem support.

The 7 inch display will feature an 800 x 480 pixel resolution and a resistive touch based input system. For enhanced web experience, the device will feature Flash 10.3 support and for better gaming support it will has a Gyro based motion sensor and OpenGL ES 2.0 as well.

iBerry BT10
The 10 inch BT10 tablet is based on Android 2.3 Gingerbread and also features a 1.2 Ghz processor, 3G / 2G SIM support, 6 point capacitive touch based display with a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution, 512 MB DDR2 RAM, 4 GB in-built storage and HDMI output.


The BT10 also gets Flash 10.3 support for web browsing and video streaming. For better gaming support it will have a Gyro based motion sensor and OpenGL ES 2.0 as well.

Both the iBerry devices are capable of handling up to 32 GB of expandable memory via Micro SD cards. Also the devices will get a mini USB on the go port support that will allow them to connect devices such as pen drives and other peripherals to the tablet without any problems.

What are the other options
There are several tablets in the market, including cheaper ones like Reliance 3G tab, MSI Enjoy 7 and 10 and Viewsonic Viewpad. The costlier ones from Acer (Iconia), Samsung Galaxy 7, 8.9 and 10 (screen sizes) and Apple iPad 2 are all available for you to choose from.

Source: http://www.themobileindian.com/news/3497_Diwali-time:-Nine-tablets-launched-this-month

The festive season has just begun and offers are just pouring in. Acer has continued their Iconia series of products with the launch of Iconia Smart S300, which seems to be a hybrid between a smartphone and a tablet. The S300 is an Android 2.3 based device. The device looks absolutely gorgeous with its long display and fantastic screen.

• Android Gingerbread 2.3 with Acer’s unique UI
• 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• 4.8-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1024 x 480
• 8 Megapixel rear camera with AF and LED flash
• 2 Megapixel front facing camera
• Wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, HDMI
• 8GB internal memory along with a MicroSD card slot
• 6-axis motion sensing

After Steve Jobs anointed Walter Isaacson as his authorized biographer in 2009, he took Isaacson to see the Mountain View, California, house in which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its "clean design" and "awesome little features." He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who built more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Isaacson the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs.

"He loved doing things right," Jobs said. "He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn't see."

Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Isaacson's "Steve Jobs" does its solid best to hit that target.

As a biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius. But he wrote "Steve Jobs" as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a more painful and delicate challenge. (He had access to members of the Jobs family at a difficult time.) Jobs promised not to look over Isaacson's shoulder and not to meddle with anything but the book's cover. (Boy, does it look great.) And he expressed approval that the book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And there were awkward questions to be asked. At the end of the volume, Jobs answers the question "What drove me?" by discussing himself in the past tense.

Isaacson treats "Steve Jobs" as the biography of record, which means that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject's death. Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some of it is already quaint. (Jobs' first job was at Atari, and it involved the game Pong. "If you're under 30, ask your parents," Isaacson writes.) Some, like an account of the release of the iPad 2, is so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Isaacson says the device comes to life "like the face of a tickled baby."

And some is definitely intended for future generations. "Indeed," Isaacson writes, "its success came not just from the beauty of the hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to indulge in all sorts of delightful activities." One that he mentions, which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a slingshot to shoot down angry birds.

So "Steve Jobs," an account of its subject's 56 years (he died Oct. 5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion. It begins with a portrait of the young Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him and scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. ("They were my sperm and egg bank," he says.)

Although Isaacson is not analytical about his subject's volatile personality (the word "obnoxious" figures in the book frequently), he raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately, that glib question stays unanswered.

Jobs, who founded Apple with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead. 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/hardware/Steve-Jobs-got-the-last-laugh-everytime/articleshow/10453300.cms

Aghanistan President Hamid Karzai has said that his country will stand by "brother Pakistan" if it was attacked either by the US or India, Xinhua reported. "God forbid, if anytime war erupts between Pakistan and the United States, we will stand by Pakistan," Karzai told Pakistan's Geo TV in an interview, parts of which were aired Saturday evening.

The full interview, conducted at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, will be telecast later.

"If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan's help, Afghanistan would be there with you," Karzai said.

"We are your brother as Pakistan has given us shelter (during the 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan by former Soviet Union), as Pakistan considered us brother and gave homes and we spent time in Pakistan with respect as refugees," he said.

Asked what Afghanistan would do if India attacked Pakistan, Karzai said: "Anybody that attacks Pakistan, Afghanistan will stand with Pakistan. Afghanistan will be a brother of Pakistan. Afghanistan will never betray a brother."
He complained that the Pakistani establishment has "done a lot (of harm) to Afghanistan" but he said "Afghanistan is still a brother".

Karzai's comments came amid sharply increased tension between Pakistan and the US after top American military officials threatened unilateral military action against Pakistan-based Afghan insurgent groups including the Haqqani network.

Karzai also dispelled the impression that Afghanistan and India signed a strategic partnership agreement in view of the worsening relations of his country with Pakistan following last month's assassination of Afghan peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani.

"Now, our relations with India, our signing of the strategic partnership with India, it did not happen at the spur of the moment. This is something that we have been working on for years now," the Afghan president said.
Karzai said the tensions between the US and Pakistan had not had an impact on Kabul's attitude towards Islamabad. "You know that we have had this engagement with Pakistan for a long time and if it comes to a brother-to-brother relationship, you'll find that Afghanistan will be there with you in times of difficulty," he said.
Karzai said his country's policies towards Pakistan would not be dictated by any country. "Afghanistan has its own policy, its own stand, its own clear view of things and from that point of view, it's dealing with our brothers in Pakistan."

Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz, the heir apparent to the Saudi throne and one of the kingdom’s most powerful princes until illness sapped his strength in recent years, has died.


Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/world/middleeast/prince-sultan-bin-abdel-aziz-of-saudi-arabia-dies.html

After Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, it's Aamir Khan's turn to make his debut on the small screen. The actor will be seen in a yet-to-be titled show which he calls his "most ambitious project".

The production of the show is yet to start and it will go on air next year. It is being jointly produced by Aamir Khan Productions and Star India.

"This show is my most ambitious project. This began as a dream some three-four years ago. Uday (Shanker of Star) coaxed me with the idea that I should think of dominating television now. That is how the spark ignited. After that meeting I actually started thinking about it passionately," Aamir told reporters on Saturday.

"I have been offered game shows before, but I didn't find them very exciting... not that they were not good but personally doing the same thing everyday didn't excite me much. So that is how I started to think and brainstorm for an innovative concept. Moreover, I have realized in all these years that TV is a very strong and powerful medium and I should make use of this platform to reach larger audience," he added.

The show will bring real stories and emotions of people on the small screen and for the 46-year-old it is a dream come true.

"Honestly I take time to make up my mind and it's like a dream come true for me. I have been living it and breathing it during all these years," said Aamir.

Uday Shankar, CEO Star India, calls it a pan-India show. It will be telecast in eight different languages.

"It's a pan-India show. The show has been woven around Aamir, it is his vision. He did not want language to act as a barrier, he said 'I want all your regional channels for this show'," Shanker said.

Source: http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_story.aspx?ID=ENTEN20110186566&keyword=bollywood&subcatg=MOVIESINDIA&nid=143450

The Bhatt camp, lead by famous director Mahesh Bhatt is known pretty well to create stars out of ordinary aspirant actors and models. Especially, Bhatt has brought in several fresh female faces in Bollywood, who have captured the imagination of audience with their sensuousness and beauty. Some of the famous stars who are the production of this camp are John Abraham, Bipasha Basu and Kangna Ranaut. Jacqueline Fernandez who debuted with “Murder 2” can be considered a brand new addition to the list of sizzling hot actresses discovered by Bhatt.  Let us have a look at a yet another revelation by the camp in the form of Esha Gupta, who will be shouldering the responsibility of carrying forward the Bhatt legacy of super sexy and hot actresses.

National Award-winning film Pithamagan is the latest movie, which has attracted the Bollywood filmmakers. The Tamil movie, which was released in 2003, will be remade in B-town with Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan in the leads.

Director Sathish Kaushik, who had remade Vikram's Sethu in Bollywood as Tere Naam with Salman Khan, has bagged the remake rights of the blockbuster film. Other noted filmmakers like Boney Kapoor, David Dhawan and Vashu Bhagnani were also in the race but it was Sathish, who has got a last laugh.

The filmmaker, who is happy after bagging the rights, said that he had seen Pithamagan in a theatre in 2003. He claims that he was impressed by Vikram's mind blowing performance. Since then, he has been thinking to remake it in Hindi. Now it is materialising. Meanwhile, sources say that the filmmaker has neither approached Hrithik Roshan nor Saif Ali Khan but he wishes that their combination could be the right choice.

Pithamagan tells the story of a autistic graveyard caretaker named Chithan played by Vikram and petty thief Sakthi, which was performed by Surya. The former, who was an orphan at young age, grew without much human contacts. However, Sakthi tries to reform the uncivilised Chithan and they become good friends in the process. Meanwhile, the former is killed by a ganja dealer. How Chithan seeks revenge against him is the crux of the story.

Source: http://entertainment.oneindia.in/tamil/news/2011/hrithik-roshan-saif-ali-pithamagan-remake-051011.html

TRP ratings of Salman Khan-Sanjay Dutt's Bigg Boss is lesser than what Hrithik Roshan managed to get for his show Just Dance.

Hrithik Roshan's Just Dance garnered 4.7 TVR on the opening show whereas the opening TVR rating for Bigg Boss 5 was 4.25 TVR. Critics are quick to point out the difference. Not even crude jokes by Salman and Sanjay can save the show.

Moreover, the grand finale episode of Just Dance that had special appearances by Shahrukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra was watched by 97 million viewers. Whenever a contestant got eliminated, Hrithik Roshan would get emotional. Just Dance was particularly enjoyed for the 'human touch' that is somehow missing in Bigg Boss 5.

Source: http://entertainment.oneindia.in/television/news/2011/hrithik-roshan-just-dance-salman-khan-bigg-boss-131011.html

She can be sweet and she can be feisty. In a never-seen-before avatar, Sonakshi takes on a volley of questions and fires back replies in an interview with zoOm.

Who are the best dressed celebs in B-Town?
Among the women, I like Katrina and Deepika. Among the men, it's gotta be Akshay.

Who would you call the Catwoman of Bollywood?
Me, with all my catfights. Ha, ha, ha!

Of the seven sins, which ones are youreally guilty of?
Sloth and Gluttony. I'm lazy and I'm a foodie.

One role you'd give your left arm for?
Kareena's role in "Jab We Met".

One secret your fans don't know about you...
I'm very good at playing Scrabble.

Would you ever be in a live-in relationship?
My parents won't approve of it, so why hassle them?

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Im-the-catwoman-of-B-Town-Sonakshi/articleshow/10339094.cms

It was a common news that Bollywood's Shehanshah, Amitabh Bachchan produced a devotional album. But, what's new in it? Surprisingly, Amitabh Bachchan has also sung a song for the album. This is also the first time, Amitabh has rendered his voice to a devotional song.

The Devotional album titled "Hanuman Chalisa" has been recorded in Amitabh's voice along with 20 other renowned singers from Bollywood. Presented by Veecon Music & Entertainment & AB Corp Ltd, the album is composed by Aadesh Srivastava.

"The album is our humble effort to familiarise the youth of this country with our ancient traditions. Proceeds from the album will go towards the education of underprivileged children and children with special needs," Aadesh said.

The 20 other Bollywood singers who have rendered their voice to the album are Aadesh, Hariharan, Sonu Nigam, Suresh Wadkar, Abhijit, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Roopkumar Rathod, Shaan, Kailash Kher, Mukul Aggarwal, Manoj Tiwari, Hansraj Hans, Prasoon Joshi, Kay Kay, Sukhwinder, Shankar Mahadevan, Babul Supriyo, Kunal Ganjawala and Vinod Rathod.

Source: http://entertainment.oneindia.in/music/indian/2011/amitabh-bachchan-turns-singer-devotional-album-121011.html

As part of a charity effort to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee, Blizzard Entertainment is auctioning off the server hardware originally used during the early days of World of Warcraft.

The auction will run from Monday, October 17 to Monday, November 14, and will include four separate rounds during which the hardware for different realms will be on sale.

Both the North American and European server blades will be sold during the auction.

"We’ve since upgraded the game's infrastructure with the latest technology to offer an even better player experience, but these 'honorably discharged' server blades are now unique collectors' pieces," says Blizzard on the official auction page.

Previously, Blizzard has raised money for charity foundations by selling in-game pets for World of Warcraft. Just this year, the company raised over $800,000 for the Make-A-Wish foundation via sales of a virtual Moonkin pet, and later sold a Cenarion Hatchling pet to raise money for the American Red Cross's Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief efforts.

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37880/Blizzard_Sells_Pieces_Of_World_Of_Warcraft_Development_History_For_Charity.php

The global patent battle between Apple and Samsung has witnessed another skirmish, this time in Australia. Apple has come out as the victor in this round at least.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Australian Justice Annabelle Bennett ruled at the Federal Court in New South Wales that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 couldn't be sold in Australia if it used features such as touch-screen technology that Apple claims infringe patents used in the iPad.

The WSJ quotes Paul Budde, an independent telecoms analyst, who called the Australian decision a short-term victory but long-term loss for Apple. "In the end it's a battle between Apple and Google,"said Budde. "I can clearly see that Apple has a case that it has created some innovative new technology, but on the other hand the reality is we live in an open world and you cannot because of one innovation stop the rest of the world going in similar directions."

Apple has already persuaded a court in Germany to ban sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab. The two companies have also launched patent claims against one another in the US, Japan and South Korea.

Samsung is expected to appeal the Sydney court ruling and has vowed to pursue a counterclaim, alleging that Apple infringes on some of its wireless-technology patents.

"We are disappointed with this ruling and Samsung will be seeking legal advice on its options," the company said in a statement. "We will continue to legally assert our intellectual property rights against those who violate Samsung's patents and free ride on our technology."

Apple responded to Thursday's court decision at the state by repeating a statement from its original filing: "This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Source: http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/news/oz-denied-tab-in-latest-round-of-apple-patent-spat

Hong Kong, Oct 13, 2011 - (ACN Newswire) - Two new gadget zones take centre stage at the HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Autumn Edition) and electronicAsia, which opened today and run until 16 October at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

More than 3,700 exhibitors (and over 5,300 booths) from 28 countries and regions a new exhibitor record are on hand for the concurrent electronics fairs.

The twin fairs have attracted close to 130 buying missions representing more than 5,600 companies and over 9,300 buyers from 68 countries and regions.

Some 3,100 exhibitors from 28 countries and regions are taking part in the 31st edition of the Electronics Fair. Among them are six group pavilions: the Chinese mainland, the Czech Republic, Fujian, Jiangmen, Korea and Taiwan.

Smart Devices

The latest zones to debut at the world's largest electronics event are:

- The Mobile Device and Accessories Zone, with some 40 exhibitors presenting smart devices such as tablet PCs, smartphones and related products

- The Invention Zone, a product-display area featuring innovations from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong institutions and companies. The zone's products are patent-registered or patent-pending, reflecting Hong Kong's growing role as a regional intellectual property centre

Hall of Fame

Electronics Fair highlights include the Hall of Fame, with more than 400 high-quality brands on hand, as well as several other major display areas in the Hall 1 concourse, including: the Green Electronics Square, highlighting environmentally friendly products; Silver Market and Healthcare Electronics, featuring products for the elderly; and Mobile Devices and Accessories, presenting the very latest gadgets.

Computers & Peripherals, Healthcare Electronics, Home Appliances and In-Vehicle Electronics & Navigation Systems also have their own dedicated areas, while Hong Kong researchers and companies present their latest technology in the Technology Exchange Zone.

Green Electronics

Promotion, research and networking opportunities include a Product Demo & Launch Pad, as well as such seminars as Digital Audio Broadcasting, the Trend of Green Electronics and Taiwan Experience, RoHS Updates, Flat-Panel Display Products and Digital Devices, and Seizing Business Opportunities in Low-Carbon Electronics Production.

electronicAsia

The concurrent electronicAsia features nearly 630 exhibitors from 13 countries and regions, as well as group pavilions from the Chinese mainland, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

Highlights include the World of Display Technology, featuring the latest technology research, technical improvements and innovations, and the World of Solar, showcasing solar technology, components, products and services, and photovoltaic and renewable energy equipment and engineering.

Solar Conference

Special events at electronicAsia include the World of Solar Conference 2011 Application of Photovoltaic and Energy Efficiency Systems in Buildings, featuring academics as well as representatives from GE Energy (China) and Building Technologies of Siemens Ltd.

Hong Kong exported electronics products worth US$217 billion in 2010, while shipments increased to US$157 billion in the first eight months of this year, up 12 per cent, year-on-year.

Fair Websites
www.hkelectronicsfairae.com ; www.electronicasia.com


About HKTDC

A statutory body established in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is the international marketing arm for Hong Kong-based traders, manufacturers and service providers. With more than 40 global offices, including 11 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China and throughout Asia. The HKTDC also organises trade fairs and business missions to connect companies with opportunities in Hong Kong and on the mainland, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and online. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com .

Source: http://en.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/7740/new-gadget-zones-debut-at-world%27s-largest-electronics-fair

After years of failing to get Microsoft to adopt a formal environmental sustainability policy, shareholders seem to have won: Microsoft will now insist its hardware suppliers comply with the company's social responsibility requirements.


Hardware makers will be asked to go beyond good environmental behavior and adopt Microsoft's full code of conduct. These cover legal compliance, business ethics, labor and human rights standards, respect for intellectual property and environmental protection. Two years ago, Microsoft was booted off the Nasdaq Sustainability Index "due to inadequate disclosure of quantitative environmental metrics," according to Microsoft. For the past two shareholder meetings, activist investors have been trying to get Microsoft to take board-level action to improve its sustainability track record.

While Microsoft's new effort "is generally headed in the right direction," environmental activists question how much impact it will really have, says Casey Harrell, an environmental analyst at Greenpeace International.
Specifically, select hardware vendors in Microsoft's supply chain will be asked to file reports and submit to audits. The results will be published in Microsoft's annual Citizenship Report. Microsoft didn't name names but said this policy will affect a dozen of its key vendors and contract hardware manufacturers. Microsoft is also asking that suppliers publicize their own results.

Could Dell be one of those suppliers? One of the policies in Microsoft's code of conduct is: "If applicable, identify the chemicals or other materials being released that pose a threat to the environment and manage them appropriately to ensure their safe handling, movement, storage, use, recycling or reuse, and disposal."
Greenpeace has been after Dell for years to cut the dangerous chemicals out of its electronics manufacturing. It won a concession from Dell earlier this year, when the company agreed to use more environmentally friendly packaging, and has been working with Dell to eliminate toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFR) from its products. A report card on Dell's progress is due out later this year and Harrell says it now expects Dell to push out more PVC/BFR-reduced and PVC/BFR-free models.

In its press release, Microsoft credited the new policy to shareholder John C. Liu, the New York City Comptroller working on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds, with about $120 billion of assets under management.

For the past two years, shareholder activist John Harrington, of the socially responsible investment firm Harrington Investments, has submitted shareholder proposals asking for a board-level committee on environmentally sustainability. Both years, Microsoft's board recommended a "no" vote to shareholders. The board explains that it is already the responsibility of Microsoft's Governance and Nominating Committee to "review Microsoft's policies and programs that relate to corporate responsibility, which specifically includes environmental sustainability," according to statements included in the annual proxy statement. Ergo, a separate board-level committee isn't needed. Microsoft pointed to accomplishments like its "Generation 4" data centers, which drastically cut power consumption.

Last year's shareholder resolution did not pass. With today's news, it is unlikely that shareholders will ignore the board's "no" recommendation and vote in favor. Microsoft's shareholder meeting will be held next month.
Note that Greenpeace gave Microsoft a "C" on its Clean Cloud Report Card in April [PDF]. While Harrell is encouraged by Microsoft's new efforts, she's not convinced.

"In general, more data is good -- especially if this is cross-referenced with other audits. This reporting work becomes much more useful if Microsoft is to actually require its suppliers to adhere to more stringent standards than the law allows," she says adding that specific, high standards are necessary "if Microsoft wants to be game changing." As an example, she points to an announcement by Sprint on Wednesday in which it, too, is now requiring better reporting from hardware suppliers, and also wants them to set goals for reducing emissions.

The rules that Microsoft will push at its supply chain go far beyond environmental standards. Microsoft also wants ethical business practices and regulatory compliance. For instance, in the section of legal and regulatory compliance, Microsoft insists that its companies follow trade laws, do not engage in antitrust behavior (has Microsoft learned its lesson there?) and "Do not participate in bribes or kickbacks of any kind." This is interesting coming from a company that caused worldwide scandal in 2007 for allegedly bullying and bribing members of the International Standards Organization to fast-track acceptance of Office OpenXML.
The company goes on to list unacceptable business practices such as insider trading, and offers a commendable list of no-no's in labor practices, including forbidding vendors to engage in discrimination in its hiring practices, child labor or abuse.

"Microsoft has taken an important step to promote sustainability and transparency among its global suppliers," Liu said in the press release. "If more firms showed such leadership it would hold more suppliers accountable for protecting human and workers' rights, and reduce the legal and reputational risks that companies and their shareholders face."

Apple and Foxconn, we're looking at you.
Bort is the editor of Network World's Microsoft Subnet and Open Source Subnet communities. She writes the Microsoft Update and Source Seeker blogs. Follow Bort on Twitter @Julie188.
Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Phrase books and botched pronunciations may soon be a thing of the past--well, for smartphone users, anyway. Google Translate for Android makes it easier for world travelers to ask for directions in foreign lands without embarrassing themselves or creating an international incident.

Translate's Conversation Mode, which Google unveiled in January, allows Android users to translate speech between languages in real time.

The initial version supported only two languages, English and Spanish. But the new and improved edition is a multilingual powerhouse that works with 12 additional languages, including French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Czech, Turkish, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Korean, and Polish.
Phrase books and botched pronunciations may soon be a thing of the past--well, for smartphone users, anyway. Google Translate for Android makes it easier for world travelers to ask for directions in foreign lands without embarrassing themselves or creating an international incident.

Translate's Conversation Mode, which Google unveiled in January, allows Android users to translate speech between languages in real time.

The initial version supported only two languages, English and Spanish. But the new and improved edition is a multilingual powerhouse that works with 12 additional languages, including French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Czech, Turkish, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Korean, and Polish.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/241896/google_translate_realtime_speech_translation_in_14_languages.html#tk.hp_new

So I've been thinking, something I try to do every month or two just to keep the synapses from clogging, about the future of technology in the post-Jobs era. Because make no mistake, this entire industry has been basking in the glow coming from Cupertino for the last decade. And now it's over.

Not that I think Apple will stop making great products -- it won't. It's just that the products won't matter as much. We've had the miraculous life-changing shift to tablets, and we're done for the foreseeable future.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Cringely calls it -- Steve Jobs was like no other. | Want to cash in on your IT experiences? InfoWorld is looking for stories of an amazing or amusing IT adventure, lesson learned, or tales from the trenches. Send your story to offtherecord@infoworld.com. If we publish it, we'll keep you anonymous and send you a $50 American Express gift cheque. ]

(On that note, having used a tablet steadily for the past three months -- no, not an iPad, a 10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab -- I can tell you that tablets are definitely not PC killers. They're handy for all kinds of situations where a PC is awkward -- reading my email or messing around on Facebook in bed, for example -- but that's about it. I never thought I'd pine for a QWERTY keyboard, but I do, which is why I'm writing this post on my netbook.)

Life is now divided into the Before Steve and After Steve epochs. In the After Steve era, hardware doesn't matter. Smaller, cheaper, faster, whatever -- been there, done that. The lackluster response to the insanely overhyped iPhone 4S debut proved it. The most impressive part of that whole demo was the Siri Voice Assistant that can understand plain English commands. The era of slobbering over every great new phone has unofficially ended. Software is the new king.

Actually, not even software, as we usually think of it. Apps -- little chunks of code that do one thing really well across any device you happen to encounter, whether you're carrying it in your pocket or they're embedded in the walls around you -- are the new black. And we've barely scratched the surface.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/life-after-steve-its-the-apps-stupid-175784

When was the last time you knocked off work at 6 p.m.? If you're a developer or an IT hand, you probably can't remember. But if you're a Google App Engine customer and need help at, say, 6:01 p.m., you'll find that customer support is closed. If support were free, that would certainly be understandable. But App Engine customers who opt for the $500-a-month Premier service, are no better off -- support stops at 6 p.m. Pacific time for them, too. (It reopens at midnight, leaving a six-hour gap.) Got a problem on the weekend or a holiday? Sorry, nobody's home.

How come a company that earned $2.5 billion in just three months this year can't provide decent customer support to business or consumers? Google blew it when it launched the Nexus One Android smartphone with no provision for support. It also angered small-business owners who find they can get no help when some clown alters their Google Places listing to fool people into thinking they are out of business. Now it's shortchanging companies that use App Engine to supplement meager in-house resources. See the pattern?
[ See why Bill Snyder says Google is a big baby that refuses to grow up. Keep up with the key tech news and analysis with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld's Tech Watch blog. ]

App Engine, which has 200,000 customers, according to Google, is hardly the high end of cloud services. But neither is Amazon Web Services, where customers who pay just $400 a month can get round-the-clock support.

Making matters much worse, Google last spring raised App Engine prices significantly, leaving some developers complaining. When I asked Google about this, the company ducked the question, saying only that it offers premier support service during business hours in the United States and Europe "and looks forward to expanding coverage in the future."

The dream is dead
Google's Jessie Jiang, a group product manager, announced the support options in his blog on Tuesday: "So today, we are launching Google App Engine Premier Accounts. For $500 per month, you'll receive premier support, a 99.95-percent uptime service level agreement, and the ability to create unlimited number of apps on your premier account domain."

If downtime falls below 99.95 percent for a month, Google customers can obtain credits toward future monthly bills. That's a bit different than Amazon.com's agreement, which offers a service level of 99.95 percent over the service year, and better than Microsoft's Windows Azure's 99.5 percent uptime promise. (However, I wouldn't hold up Microsoft's cloud services as a model of reliability, not after a major September outage.)

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/google-app-engine-customers-dont-call-us-well-call-you-175874

Children in East Africa are starving as the crisis continues. In some areas, a child is dying every 6 minutes. We are on the ground in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia getting life-saving aid to children facing starvation. But we urgently need your support to reach more children and save more lives. Please help us.

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Crisis continues

The worst drought in decades has wiped out livestock, crops and income in large parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia and left over 12 million people in the grip of a devastating food crisis.
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Our response

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Death and desperation in Daadab

Our chief executive on what he witnessed on a visit to the world's largest refugee camp in Kenya. Source: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/east-africa-appeal.html