Samsung Galaxy Note Android 4.0 update starts rolling out

Samsung has started rolling Premium Suite upgrade for GALAXY Note users as they promised earlier this March. This brings Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and some extra multimedia features and a range of new S Pen optimized applications such as S Note and S Memo.

The Premium Suite offers new features and applications exclusive to GALAXY Note and its innovative S Pen such as S Note app, which was introduced with GALAXY Note 10.1 at Mobile World Congress 2012.

The OTA update is about 319MB and is currently rolling out in several countries. It might take some time for the update roll out globally based on the market and carriers.

Sony Xperia U up for pre-order in India for Rs. 17,399

Sony Xperia U is now available for pre-order in India from online retailer Flipkart. It is a part of NXT series that was announced at MWC 2012 and unveiled in India this April. It has 3.5-inch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine and is powered by 1 GHz dual-core processor. It runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and is upgradable to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It has 5MP camera with LED Flash, 720p HD video recording and  VGA Front-facing camera.

It is NFC enabled and has changable colour caps at the bottom of the phone. The transparent element illuminates to match the colour of photos viewed in the gallery or the album art of music tracks currently playing.

The connectivity features include, 3G HSDPA 14.4 Mbps; HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth, NFC, aGPS. Other features include, FM radio with RDS, 3.5 mm audio jack, 512MB RAM, 8GB internalmemory (4GB user memory) and 1320 mAh battery.

The Sony Xperia U is now on pre-order from Flipkart for Rs. 16,499  Rs. 17,399. It is expected to ship starting 10th May. Check out our Sony Xperia U photo gallery and hand-on from MWC 2012.

[Update: Looks like Flipkart has changed the price to Rs. 17,399 similar to Letsbuy that is also taking pre-orders for the phone. ]

Sony Xperia Sola up for pre-order in India for Rs. 19,999

Sony Xperia Sola is now available for pre-order in India from online retailer Flipkart. It was announced this March and packs in 1GHz Dual Core Processor, 3.7-inch (854 x 480 pixels) Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine and has 5MP autofocus camera with flash and 720p HD video recording. It runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) that is upgradeable to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

It has floating touch navigation technology and is NFC enabled. It is just 9.9 mm thick and weighs 107 grams. Other features include, 3G, Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth, aGPS, FM radio with RDS, 3.5 mm audio jack, 512MB RAM, 8 GB internal storage (up to 5 GB user-accessible memory), microSD card support up to 32GB and 1320 mAh battery.

The Sony Xperia Sola is available for pre-order from Flipkart for Rs. 19999. It is expected to ship in the 4th week of May.

Latest RedSn0w 0.9.11b1 Will Be Useful For Jailbreak 5.1.1 Untethered, Restore and Downgrade

It was mentioned by MuscleNerd that Latest RedSn0w 0.9.11b1 Will Be Useful For Jailbreak 5.1.1 Untethered, Restore and Downgrade. If you are an experienced jailbreaker or unlocker you already know that in order to restore our firmware ipsw we need to first create custom ipsw file using RedSn0w and then restore by going to the iTunes (by pressing shift button and clicking on Restore button + selecting the custom ipsw file).

MuscleNerd is going to make this process more simple for us for which we (at least me) are very thankful to him. He has tweeted just few hours ago that the new RedSnow in addition to jailbreak 5.1 will be supporting the restore including iPad 2, iPad3 and iPhone 4s. So now we will be able to use RedSn0w forJailbreak 5.1.1 untethered, Restore and downgrade to the old versions. Wow

MuscleNerd Tweeted:

“Upcoming redsn0w supports restoring, including iPad2/3 and 4S downgrades (with blobs) http://twitpic.com/9ixsqv ..also stitches on the fly  ”

So this is great news for whole jailbreaknation, and I hope we will get more out of the box once we get the new RedSn0w jailbreak. The picture on twitpic also reveals that the next version will be RedSn0w 0.9.11b1.

Below is his tweet snapshot and the screen shot from twitpic of RedSn0w 0.9.11b1.

If you want to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad using the latest Redsn0w jailbreak check forHow to jailbreak 5.1 Guide

Nokia 808 PureView to launch first in India and Russia, this May

Nokia has announced it will begin rolling out the Nokia 808 PureView cameraphone in select markets in May. The Finnish mobile giant also announced that India, and Russia, will be the first two markets to get the PureView on retail shelves.

The Symbian Belle-based Nokia 808 PureView, orPureView 808 as it was first known, stole the show when it was unveiled at MWC 2012, receiving the Best Mobile Device award at the prestigious event.

In the meanwhile, the Nokia 808 PureView has also won the award for Best Imaging Innovation for 2012 from the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA). Jo Harlow, Head of Smart Devices at Nokia, spoke about the importance of the device in the entire smartphone industry, saying:

ios 5.1 jailbreak Another Breakthrough by pod2g

I am happy to share with you another good news from the famous jailbreaker pod2g which he mentioned in his recent tweet. pod2g announced in his tweet that he has overcome yet another barrier that was preventing him from finalizing and finishing the 5.1 jailbreak. For your understanding ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) is a security measure introduced by Apple in recent versions of iOS due to which it has become very difficult for achieving the ios 5.1 jailbreak.

After Apple implemented this feature jailbreakers are continuously trying to find the way they can bypass the ASLR. Which they have achieved now, therefore we expecvt a good news very soon. Also pod2g on facebook mentioned that we are very close to jailbreak 5.1. Although there is still pending issue of ETA but we know our jailbreakers will make us happy by overcoming all barriers in ios 5.1 jailbreak.

Below is the screen shot of the tweet:

Apple Doesn’t Care about Security

While thousands of Apple customers suffer from a serious malware outbreak, the company answers to the problem by trying to close down the security company which warned of the attack.
Over 500,000 Macs are already infected with Flashback malware because Apple failed to update some Java software. Nevertheless, the situation has revealed just how useless the company is when it comes to such problems. Surprisingly enough, the first action of Apple was not to update the Java software, but to take down the server of the Russian security company that revealed the problem to the world.

Boris Sharov, CEO of the Russian-based security company called Dr. Web, confirmed that this week the Russian Web registrar Reggi.ru was demanded by Apple to shut down one of its domains. For some reason, Apple believed that the site in question was being used as a “command and control” server, without bothering to take a look at the site owner. Therefore, Apple still hasn’t realized that the domain was one of those which Dr. Web has been using as a spoofed command and control server working as a “sinkhole”.

It seems that Apple didn’t have much experience in dealing with the real world outside. According to Boris Sharov, Apple simply had no idea how to work in a team when tackling security, but rather believed that it could order servers switched off and its problems would fade away.
Dr. Web explained that Apple claimed to the registrar that its domain was involved in a malicious scheme, though the security company wasn’t controlling the sink-hole or harming users. When the security outfit first contacted Apple to let the company know about the Mac-based botnet, Apple never replied. The security outfit has provided the giant with all the data it had, but was responded with a demand that its monitoring server be taken offline.

Meanwhile, locating and closing down command and control servers is a common practice for the outfits trying to cripple a botnet. Dr. Web confirmed it has worked with Microsoft on those efforts. However, Apple won’t even tell anyone about its antivirus group, if it has one at all. And it still insists that its software can’t be infected! Dr. Web slammed the company for its delay in issuing a patch for security vulnerability in Java which allowed the malware to exist. 

Android Can Be Hacked through SMS

Security experts from NQ Mobile have recently detected new Android malware which is controlled through SMS messages. The malware, dubbed TigerBot, is able to record calls and surrounding noise.
TigerBot was detected while circulating in the wild through non-official Android channels.
The malware is wise: it can hide itself on a targeted device. TigerBot refuses to install an icon on the home screen, and masks itself with an ordinary application name like Flash or System.

Once active, TigerBot registers a receiver marked as a high priority in order to listen to the intent with action “android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED”.

NQ Mobile explained that when a user receives a new SMS message, the malware would run a check to find out whether the message is a specific bot command. In the event it is TigerBot will prevent it from being seen by the user, after which it will execute the command.

The malware is able to record sounds in the immediate area of the device, along with the calls themselves. It is also able to alter network settings and report the current GPS coordinates of the device. TigerBot was proved to manage capturing and uploading pictures, killing other processes and rebooting the infected device.

However, the malware isn’t written perfectly enough. For instance, some of its commands aren’t routinely supported: the command to kill other processes can only be performed on early Android versions. Still, the mobile security company points out that the fact that this piece of malware and any of its variants might be controlled without your knowledge does mean that it is a serious threat. The insecurity specialists added that users are recommended to always reject unknown application requests and attentively monitor permissions requested by any program.

Samsung to unveil ‘the next Galaxy’ phone on May 3rd in London

Samsung has started sending out event invites for the next Galaxy phone event that is scheduled for May 3rd in London. Though the invite does not mention the name of the device, it might be the most expected Galaxy S3. Samsung already announced that it would launch the S3 at a separate event and this also coincides with the most recent rumor that suggested that the phone would launch at an event in London in May.
According to the previous rumors, the device is expected to come with 4.7-inch Super AMOLED HD (1280×720 pixels) display, Android 4.0 and 1.5 GHz quad-core processor. We have 17 more days to find out what Samsung has to offer.
[Update: Samsung has officially announced that the event is at London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre on 3rd May 2012 at 7pm BST (11:30PM IST). They would also offer livestream at Samsung Tomorrow site and Samsung Mobile Facebook page.]

Coolest Windows 7 Tips and Tricks – Hidden Perks

Microsoft Windows 7 has some really cool Hidden Perks for its users. Today we are going to explore some of these.

psr.exe – Hidden Tutorial Maker in Windows 7

During testing of Windows 7, the engineers working on the Operating System wrote a program to document movements made by mouse in order to debug the Operating System. The program is still in Windows 7 but it is hidden from public. You can access it using command psr.exe. Just click on Start, type psr.exe and hit enter. The following Toolbar will appear.

Press record and go on with whatever work you want to record doing. The program will  save it in a .mhtml file that you can later use for presenting, teaching, etc. This tool also allows you to add comments. With this tool, it is very easy to make presentation and show it to people who want step by step procedure to do any work.

By the way, there is another tool in windows called Snipping Tool that you can use to take snap shot of any thing on the screen(the above picture is taken using this tool). You can find it in Start >> Accessories >> Snipping Tool.

Hidden Themes in Windows 7

There are a few beautiful themes and Wallpapers hidden in windows 7 that you can use. The idea by Microsoft was to Install only that theme which matches your location i.e. if you live in USA United States theme is installed automatically. The other themes that are there and not installed by default are Australia, South Africa, Canada, and United Kingdom. The themes contain  1920 x 1200 resolution wallpapers from the respective countries. Just open explorer and type

C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT

in the address bar , hit enter. It will open the folders containing Wallpapers and themes.

Hope you like my set of hidden Perks. Do let me know in the comments. Stay tuned for more.