One Thousand Crore. Thats the number of individual apps downloaded from the Apple App Store which was launched in 2008. The person who downloaded the 1000th crore or 10th billion app will be receiving a $10,000 USD iTunes Gift Card from Apple that can be redeemed for anything in the iTunes store or the App Store including apps, music, audiobooks, television shows, and movies.

That’s really huge, especially considering the only comparable number to be coming from the Android Marketplace which, if current projections are right, should be at right around 2,750,800,000. Will the Android marketplace ever overtake the AppStore? It is estimated that currently 1000 apps are being downloaded every 9 seconds from Android Marketplace while it takes less than 3 seconds in Apple’s AppStore.

Lets see if Android Marketplace will overtake the Apple AppStore.

Finally the long long wait is over. High Defination services are officially launched in India. Thanks to Sun Direct.

HDTV is considered to be one of the world’s best digital broadcast platforms with a higher resolution than traditional television system. The images and pictures appear more clear and sharp and sound quality is also enhanced.

The company first introduced its DTH services in the country in late 2007.

Sun Direct offers 41 add-on packages, ranging from Rs. 6 to Rs 300 per month, of the most viewed channels. A basic package of over 130 channels in digital clarity with DVD quality pictures and sound has been priced at Rs. 499 as introductory offer — five months subscription i.e. just Rs.99 per month, excluding taxes. This price includes Dish and Set top box, however it excludes installation charges.

Currently the number 2 service DTH provider, proclaims Sun Direct, in the coming fiscal year plans to grab the number one position. The company claims that it has 3.1 million active users and aims to add another three million by 2010.

The Set Top Box(STB) with HD capability is priced at Rs.10,000 and Rs.100 is charged per month per channel.

At present 1 Tamil and 1 Telugu Movie channel is being  broadcast in HD quality. Though the price is bit expensive at the moment, it is expected to lower once the competiton increases as other DTH operators like Big TV, Tata Sky, Airtel and Dish TV start the HD broadcast.

More info on Sun Direct HD can be found here

Tired of having your ringtones listed and played together with your music? Here’s how you can hide the tones from the Music Player.
To prevent a file or folder with ringtones from being listed in the MP3 player:
1. Get yourself a file manager that allows you to change file/folder attributes. Y-Browser will do the job – http://www.drjukka.com/YBrowser.html
2. Create a separate folder and place in it all the ringtones and melodies you want to hide from the player. I recommend using the memory card – this will help you repair the file system in case something goes wrong.
3. Open the file manager from Step 1 (not the build-in File Manager) and navigate to the folder from Step 2.
4. Change the attributes of the folder to ‘System’. For Y-Browser highlight the folder and choose Options -> Attributes then set ‘System’ to ‘Yes’ and press Save.
5. Exit the file manager and refresh the library of the Music Player. Now the folder/files are not shown in the Music Player/File Manager but are still listed on music file selection dialogs (like ‘Ringing tone’ option in Contacts).
You can also hide single files by setting their attributes to ‘System’. I do not recommend this, though.

If you’ve held back that urge of yours to buy a PS3, your wait has finally paid off! Sony has launched the 80GB PS3 in India, which comes bundled with a copy of Resistance 2 and boasts of a pretty decent price tag of Rs. 25,990.

And here’s what Atindriya Bose

, Country Manager – Sony Computer Entertainment had to say, “The introduction of high definition gaming and entertainment systems among the Indian audience is a result of extensive research into the entertainment needs and preferences of the next generation of PS3 owners.  It has allowed us to deliver an extremely advanced, yet incredibly affordable High Definition gaming and entertainment system which has resulted in creating an entire new dimension to the overall entertainment experience.”

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HP will be offering four models in the Mini 1100 series

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Computer sales are down in most categories, but the netbook market continues to post significant growth. Most computer makers have jumped into the netbook market in an effort to give consumers what they want in the poor economy and grab their share of the market.

HP is the largest computer maker in the world and it announced its first netbook in October of 2008 called the HP Mini 1000. Prior to the netbook making its official debut, specifications of the 1000 showed up on the HP website.

Today specifications for the new Mini 1100 series netbooks have turned up, which could mean the netbooks are set to debut very soon. There are specifications for four models on the HP website including an 1131CL, 1135NR, 1140NR, and the 1141NR.

For the most part the specifications are the same and include an Intel Atom N270 CPU at 1.6GHz, 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA 950 graphics. Storage for all four models is to a 60GB 4200 RPM HDD and each has the same 10.1-inch 1024 x576 LCDInfinity BrightView LED display. Wi-Fi is integrated along with HD audio, a webcam, and an integrated mic.

Two of the models offer Bluetooth including the 1135NR and the 1140NR. The 1141NR is also listed as coming with a Vivienne Tam sleeve, which marks it as the red dolled up designer version of the family. One nice feature is that all of the machines offer an integrated ExpressCard slot supporting /54 and /34 cards.

Exactly why HP chose to offer four models of the netbook is a mystery, especially considering that they are all virtually identical. Perhaps some features are not listed on the site that will make the different models make more sense when they get official.

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AMD hopes that Dragon platform will heat up sales of its new Phenom II processor

On Thursday, AMD released its new Phenom II processors. As DailyTech predicted the day before, the new processors came in a Phenom II X4 920 and an X4 940 quad core variant. The X4 940, dubbed the “Black Edition”, is clocked at 3.0 GHz, while X4 920 is clocked at 2.8 GHz. Both processors have proved solid overclockers in early testing, falling just short of the Penryn and Nehalem (i7) Intel processors in terms of overclock, based on early testing.

The processors greatest advantage is price. The X4 920 retails at $235, while the X4 940 Black Edition retails at $275. A motherboard for the platform costs around $120 and memory comes at around $75. Together this is much cheaper than Intel’s i7 platform, which has a processor cost of $295 for the i7 920 2.66 GHz model and a cost of $565 at Newegg for the i7 940 2.93 GHz model. It also does not require more expensive DDR3, which the i7 platform does. So while the i7 trumps the Phenom II significantly in performance, this is largely offset by a higher price.

Price wise, the Phenom II X4 940 is most comparable with Intel’s Penryn quad-core, the Q9400 (2.66 GHz), while the 920 is similarly priced to the Q9300/Q8200. The Phenom IIs in initial testing appear to be the better pick at these price points.

Together with its already released 48xx series of ATI Radeon graphics cards and its 790 series chipsets, first released in November 2007, the new processor forms AMD’s hot new Dragon platform.

The platform offers AMD’s Fusion for Gaming technology, which suspends background tasks to channel extra resources into gaming. It also features AMD OverDrive, which allows an overclock to be more easily applied with a single button press, during system operation.

DailyTech spoke with sources at AMD who said that they expect Dragon-based desktops to be shipping at under $900 by the middle of the year. At this price point, and with its strong performance the platform could prove very dangerous to competitor Intel, already reeling from the beating NVIDIA’s new Ion chipset is laying on its chipset offerings.

Coming off a turn-around victory with its 48xx series of graphics cards, AMD is looking to translate that success into the CPU realm. And while expectations were low among many consumers and those in the reporting community, assuming it has no supply issues; AMD seems to have pulled off a surprise. At their price points, the Dragon platform and the Phenom IIs appear poised to pull off a shocker, besting Intel’s similarly priced CPUs, while continuing to outcompete NVIDIA’s GPUs. However, in terms of the high-end of enthusiast products Intel’s i7 platform still holds an edge.

One of the first Dragon models to ship will be the XPS 625, with a Dragon-based model priced at $1,749.

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Although NASA is without a leader and will likely have to announce layoffs in the immediate future, the U.S. space agency may be ready to announce alien microbes living below the Martian soil are the cause of a methane haze surrounding the Red Planet of Mars.

NASA is expected to have a press conference at its Washington D.C. office to confirm the findings. News of the scheduled press conference was first posted in The Sun, with NASA and European scientists excited about the possible findings from such a monumental announcement.

Another British newspaper, Telegraph, quotes the upcoming release to claim: “Living systems produce more than 90 per cent of Earth’s atmospheric methane; the balance is of geochemical origin. On Mars, methane could be a signature of either.”
Researchers from around the world have shown a greater interest in the Red Planet, as possible traces of water and ice dust have raised hopes of discovering signs of life on or underneath the planet’s surface. Even though methane is created on Earth by volcanoes, scientists haven’t found any active volcanoes on the Red Planet.

In addition, it seems NASA researchers found high levels of methane in the same regions as water vapor clouds, which are absolutely necessary for life. The study was conducted during a seven year examination of the planet.

It’s possible the Martian life form is in suspended animation, but it’s possible they could be revived, according to John Murray, a Mars Express European space probe scientist told The Sun.

British space expert Nick Pope spoke with the online news site and showed enthusiasm and excitement over the finding. “What could be more profound than to know it’s not just out there? “We’ve really only scratched the surface — it’s an absolute certainty that there is life out there and we are not alone.”

Regardless of this announcement, NASA, ESA, JAXA, Chinese and Russian space programs all have shown an interest in Mars exploration. Science fiction fans long dreamed of life on Mars — even before space probes were launched to the planet — and excitement will continue to grow as researchers learn more about the planet.

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The current SDHC cards are artificially limited to just 32GB. A new Secure Digital eXtended Capacity (SDXC) format was introduced today at CES. SDXC cards have a theoretical maximum capacity of 2TB and theoretical maximum read/write speeds of 300MB/sec.

“Here comes the killer of big storage devices”

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Ideal for gaming enthusiasts, the XFX GeForce GTX 295 and XFX NVIDIA GeForce 285 offer improved performance.

MUMBAI, INDIA: Created for serious gaming enthusiasts, the XFX GeForce GTX 295 graphics card offers the memory volume and frequency of two GTX 260 cards and the processor horsepower of two GeForce GTX 280 cards.

The XFX GeForce GTX 295 delivers 1792 MB of memory, a core frequency of 576 MHz and a heatsink that can dissipate 289 watts of power.

The new XFX Nvidia GeForce 285 graphics card has also been introduced, which delivers 10 percent greater performance than the XFX GeForce 280 along with improved power consumption.

The product clocks in with a 648 MHz core, 1476 MHz shaders and 2.48 GHz of memory.

Commenting on these two latest graphic cards, Kapal Pansari, Director—Marketing, Rashi Peripherals said, “It is believed that gamers win against their competition unfairly because they use XFX Graphic cards. The performance of both XFX GeForce GTX 295 and 285 is so merciless and monstrous that no one can withstand the assault of these two monsters. So we are confident that the gamers are going to swear by the performance of both these cards.”

The XFX GTX 295 comes with all of the cutting-edge equipments, including second generation Nvidia unified architecture, DirectX 10 support, PureVideo HD technology, PCI-Express 2.0, Nvidia HybridPower, Dual-link HDCP capability, and Nvidia PhysX and Nvidia CUDA technology.

Furthermore, the product features Dual DVI, S-Video output, HDTV, 1GB GDDR3 graphics memory, and 240 stream processors, and a similar 10.5-inch length to the GTX 280.

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Symwave will show a demo of a USB 3.0 storage solution next week in Las Vegas

USB 2.0 has been around for a long time now and its successor, USB 3.0, will be coming in the next few years to offer much faster transfer speeds. USB 3.0 will be available with products on the market by 2010 according to the USB-IF, the body in charge of the specification.

USB 3.0 will be the focus of attention at a demo slated to be shown at CES 2009 starting next week, put on by Symwave and partners from the data storage and hardware industry. Symwave says that its demo will show off the capability to stream data at speeds not previously available.

The big commotion surrounding USB 3.0 is its ability to transfer data at speeds of 5Gbps, roughly ten times the speed USB 2.0 is capable of. The massive speed increase will make it much easier for computer users to backup large amounts of data to an external storage solution using USB connectivity.

USB 3.0 was unveiled by Intel at the 2007 IDF show and was the source of some contention when AMD and NVIDIA alleged that Intel had the important open host controller specifications ready, and wasn’t releasing them to other manufacturers to give Intel a lead to market. Intel released the open host controller specifications in November.

DailyTech – USB 3.0 Storage to be Demoed at CES 2009