Awesome Techs

When I first saw Apple’s Siri in action, I was incredibly amazed. It was the perfect anything can get. A Perfect Virtual assistant. You can chit chat to it, ask for suggestions, ask for weather predictions(in a weird way and it will reply with the most accurate answer) and lots more. the possibilities were endless. Now I realized the bad news, just like all other apple products, it can only be used with an apple product. That meant it will never come to any other devises unless its from apple. I was sad, so sad, that I wanted to buy one iphone. But I didn’t, not because I didn’t like Siri that much, but because I don’t quite like Iphone or any IOS devices.

But as I am writing this post about someone cracking the Siri, I am happier than ever. That means, now the technology is out there, its free from the apple’s prison. The guys from Appilidium has done it very well. Now I guess more and more people will try to accomplish the impossible, and one day it may even succeed. Yes I meant one day it may come to android/windows device.

As per the techcrunch post, the tl;dr is this.

 tl;dr breakdown:

• By connecting Siri to a local router and then dumping data as it came through, they realized that Siri was sending all of its data to a server that we’ll refer to as “Guzzoni”.
• All trafic sent to Guzzoni was sent through the HTTPS protocol. With the “S” in HTTPS standing for “Secure”, this traffic wasn’t subject to simple packet sniffing. So they had a new idea: make a fake Guzzoni server, and see what came through on the other end.
• After a good bit of ridiculously clever SSL certificate trickery, they got Siri sending commands to their fake server. With each command comes the “X-Ace-Host” string, which appears to be unique to each iPhone 4S.
• After figuring out how Apple was compressing (read: not encrypting) the data, Applidium was able to decompress it and parse out a rough sketch of exactly what was being sent (including which audio codec Apple was using), and what Siri expected in return.

You may read the whole post from this link directly from the guys who cracked it. There they have given a  collection of tools by which you might even try this whole thing by your own.

The war started as soon as android started getting its publicity. I will be writing this article totally unbiased as I have both devices.

So first let me start with the googd things about iphones

1. The elegant look and feel
2. Millions of top notch applications to select from.
3. Siri – Yes, I have to write it separately. This app is simply amazing.
4. The display – Retina display is the best display available for any mobile device. It has The highest resolution.(But the display from Galaxy s2 is a close match for this one)
5. Camera – One of the best mobile camera available. (Same Galaxy s2 is almost the same + it has high profile 1080p recording)
6. User interface, IOS interface is simply awesome.
7. The audio quality, and battery back up.
8. The multi touch keyboard in iphones, nothing can even be compared to this one.

The good things about Android Phones

1. The number of devices available, lots of choices.
2. Samsung Galaxy s2(amoled+) has almost as good display as iphone 4s(Retina), almost better camera compared to iphone 4s ie, high profile, 1080p Video Recording & 2MP Front Camera.
3. Highly customizable Operating system.
4. Social networking integration with OS.
5. The regular updates for the android OS makes it more updated and user friendly.
6. Web and Data Speeds (Both the T-Mobile Galaxy SII (12.6 Mbps) and the Motorola Droid Bionic (11.6 Mbps) are faster compared to the AT&T iPhone 4S delivered speeds 5.3 Mbps but averaged 2.2 Mbps.)
7. Multi tasking is more flexible in Android.
8. Gives more control over the images and videos from the camera.
9. Almost all audio/video formats are supported out of the box.

Now Comparison among the goods and bads:

• If you need to install customized os in iphone, no, you can’t just simply do it unless you are a hardcore geek and knows very deep about the iphones. but in android, its not the case, there are lots of customized ROM’s available and you can use the step by step instructions from the ROM developer(which are freely available in forums like xda-developers.com). These customized ROMS will make your phone simply awesome.
• Now the overclocking ability. Almost all the phones comes under clocked, even the iphone. So if you want to unleash the power hidden in your phone, you can do that in android devices. But in iphone, even if its jailbroken, the overclocking is still too much difficult to an average user to try it.
• The android mobiles are almost brickable. even if it is bricked you can unbrick it using some tools and tutorials(that means it never truly bricks).
• The file management in the android is somewhat better compared to the iphone. You just need to plug it into you system and drag and drop the files you would like in the device. But in iphone, you will need itunes for doing this.
• You can choose to open a particular file in different different applications in android, in iphone i guess this option is not available(at least I haven’t seen it).
• Androids office applications and organizer is no where compared to that of iphone. its just unmatchable.
• The music player is also better in iphone, with all that organizing and syncing options out of the box.
• The quality of the application in app store is also better compared to the android market.
• The mobile assistant SIRI, is one of those applications, which makes iphone is worth buying.
• Almost all android mobiles have removable batteries, while iphone cannot do so.
• Android mobiles are available in different hardwares, so if you want more CPU power or Grpahics Processor power, you can gofor those kind of mobile like Samsun Galaxy S2. HTC Sensation etc. And if you need one mobile within some budget also, you can choose a lower end mobile, like Motorola Defy which itself has a Processor better than that of IPhone 3GS.

Result: So in my opinion, Android wins the war for most of the people. The choice of available models for android makes it a winner. But not for everyone. Android is more like an open ground, on which you can build things and customize around. But IPhone is more like a closed house, on which for everything there will be a limit. If I have to choose one, I will choose android set as I like to go and build/configure stuffs. But if you are one among those people who want an elegant look and royal feel, you may go for an iphone device which will be the perfect choice for you. Iphone will never disappoint you.

Apple has done it again. A sexy performance beast. Here you can read about the latest iphone from apple Iphone 4S. This will not be a comprehensive guide for iphone 4s. Rather this post will be a quick look on the features of the new iPhone.

This iphone is equipped with one of the most powerful processor for a mobile device. A Dual Core A5 Chip. Apple says it can deliver upto 2 times the performance and 7 times the graphics compared to the previous version of iphone. Another thing to be noted is the power efficiency of this chip, giving it an excellent battery life.

IPhone 4s comes with the latest apple IOS, that is, IOS5.

Now this IOS5 has another awesome application comes out of the box, Siri. This is like a personal assistant. You can talk to it, you can ask questions, you can ask for suggestions etc. For example, you can ask it “Do I need an umbrella”? And Siri will check it there is any chances for raining and will tell you the answer accordingly. Now if you ask it “Are there any Good Italian restaurants here?” It will give you a list of Italian restaurants near to your current place. Its more like a personal assistant to you. Its like it has got a mind of its own.

Siri Video Examples:

It has got an 8 MP camera with video recording of 1080p is, full HD. One of the best camera ever in a mobile phone. The quality of the video and photos takes are just mind blowing.

Video Recording at 1080p.

It has got the best display of all phones with the highest resolution. It is called retina display and it shows the images and videos with sharp picture quality.

You cannot just point out even one bad thing in this phone. This phone has everything.

Unlocking and Jailbreaking

As it has been recently released, the unlocks and jailbreaks are not available yet. The jailbreaks and unlocks are available for iphones till iphone 4. But not iphone 4s. There may be lots of people or websites offering thr unlocks, but in my opinion don’t just blindly beleive them.If there is an unlock/jailbreak it will most probably be available for free at iphone devs blog. So don’t be fooled for any websites which offer unlocks for iphone 4S phones.

Applications:

Like all iphones this version of the iphone also has applications in the apple store. You can get the applications downloaded using your apple store account. Millions of applications are there for downloading. Lots of them are free. So enjoy your iPhone.

Developemnt:
IPhone development is the same except a few differences because of the latest advancements in the IOS. But there are lots of tutorials on how to develop an application for iphone. If you haven’t started yet, I recommend trying it for once atleast. The future is iphone and Android as of todays status. So knowing how to code applications for them will be a great advantage. You can get the tutorials from the itunes university or try googling some terms like Iphone dev secrets, iphone develpment tutorials etc.

Today Mashable reported that One of the 200 original Apple-1 computers hand-built by Steve Wozniak and sold from Steve Jobs’s garage in 1976 has sold for £133,250 (about $210,000) at auction at Christie’s in London.

Some people are just crazy. this report proves that. Its processor works 1,000 times slower than the Apple iPad, but this Apple computer has sold for 425 times the price.

The Apple I, one of only 200 such models ever made, was sold Tuesday afternoon at Christie’s auction house in central London for 133,250 pounds (about $210,000.) It came with its original packaging and a signed sales letter from Steve Jobs, one of Apple Computer’s co-founders and the current CEO of Apple Inc.

When the Apple I was introduced in 1976, it was the only personal computer to come with a fully assembled motherboard, making it ready to use straight from the box — provided the user supplied a keyboard, power supply, and display, Christie’s said.

It sold for $666.66 and was available until it was discontinued in 1977.

Bidding on the Apple I came quickly, with the computer eventually going to Italian businessman and private collector Marco Boglione, who made his offer over the phone.

Marco’s brother Francesco Boglione, who attended the auction in person, told The Associated Press that Marco’s purchase was a testament to his love of computers.

“The first time I had heard of the idea of a personal computer, it was from Marco,” Boglione said. He bought it “because he loves computers.”

Present at the technology auction, which aslo included manuscripts, prints, and science-themed texts, was Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, who agreed to add an autographed letter to the lot.

He said the auction was a historic moment for his work, especially when sold alongside such other technological greats as an Enigma, the German code-making machine, and writings of British mathematician Alan Turing, considered one of the founders of modern computing.

“Today my heart went out as I got to see things auctioned off like the Turing documents and the Enigma machine — and the Apple I,” Wozniak told journalists after the auction. “It really was an important step, (even though) I didn’t feel that way when I designed it.”

“I’m very delighted for the gentleman who purchased it,” he added.

Boglione said his brother’s newly purchased Apple I would likely be returned to working condition — and eventually join a collection of Apple computers.

Yahoo news reported about the Auction.

Register reported that Apple will be bringing Apple’s idea of multi-tasking to the iPad and a load of other good stuff to iOS devices.

Register said about the event:

The update was announced at the beginning of September, and beta releases have been knocking around for the more adventuresome Apple fan, but later today will see a general release of the update for which the iPad has been waiting, and which everyone else will appreciate too.

Version 4.2 comes with a load of tweaks, but notable is the universal inbox to bring differing email accounts together, the addition of streaming to a an Apple TV box over Apple’s AirPlay – and, if you’re lucky enough to own one of the handful of supported printers, then AirPrint will give your mobile applications a route to physicality.

Multi-touch or multitouch functionality has been attracting consumer attraction, thanks to iPhone and iPod Touch, two-finger-scroll in Apple MacBook with TrackPad, and Windows 7, which has built-in multi-touch mapping application, photo viewing program, and gesture support in Internet Explorer 8. Multi-touch is essentially a set of interaction techniques which allow computerusers to interact and control graphical applications with fingers.

However, for marketing reason, Synaptics official standard drivers for most Synaptics TouchPads does not support multi-touch Synaptics Gestures. Synaptics’ drivers lock gesture features on all non-supported OEM notebooks and laptop PCs, except for certain gadgets such as ASUS EEE PC. So multi-touch is disabled even though touchpad hardware does support them.

But now if you want to experiance this awesome multi touch features, well there is good news. One guy has developed a modded driver for synaptic which will enable the multi touch functionality in a normal PC with windows.

The Synaptics TouchPad driver should support all Windows operating system such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. However, do note that the digital signatures of the modded drivers have been broken, and the drivers are no longer signed. Thus, there may be issue when use in 64bit operating system which enforces strict driver signing requirements.

Installation:

1. Uninstall all current Synaptics drivers from Control Panel’s Add and Remove Programs or Programs and Features.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Install the modded driver by running the setup.exe inside the ZIP archive.
4. Windows should prompt a warning about unsigned driver. Continue to install the driver anyway.
5. Restart the computer after installation is completed and Synaptics TouchPad driver is updated.
6. In Device Manager’s Mouse and Other Pointing Devices” section, Synaptics PS/2 Port Touchpad should have driver version of 10.2.4.

Now just play around a little bit and you will know how awesome this features are.

Also there is a two finger scrolling application which is a project hosted in google code. So this application is all you need if you just need the 2 finger scrolling functionality in windows.

This application can be found here:

Download: http://code.google.com/p/two-finger-scroll/downloads/list

The moded drivers from synaptic can be found here:

Download synaptics_v10.2.4.0_allOS_modded_b2.zip or touchpad_synaptics_v10.2.4_vistax32x64_xpx32x64_modded_build2.zip

Or you can just download all the required files from here:

Mirrors:

1. Synaptics Multi touch mode (all) – Selfhosted
2. Synaptics Multi touch mode (all) – Rapidshare – Recommended

Credits: MyDigitalLife

IMPORTANT: Do not upgrade the Synaptics TouchPad driver if you love these touch features, as Sypnatics locks and disable the advanced touch features from driver v11.0.0.0 onwards.