Nokia to Stop Shipping Symbian Phones After this Summer

Earlier this year when Nokia announced its quarterly earnings report, it made this clear that the lifespan of its Symbian devices is coming to an end in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Phones.

Now Nokia has said that it all will finally come to an end this summer. The support of the devices will continue till 2016 at least though, so software updates will most-likely be rolled out until then.

The news of the ditching of Symbian smartphones comes as no surprise because Nokia’s Windows Phones sales finally caught up with the miserable sales of the the aging products, which were mainly pushed because of ground-breaking camera phones the N8, the later Belle devices and 808 Pureview.

According to the last quarterly report, only 0.5 million Symbian devices were sold compared to 5.6 million Lumia and 5 million Asha devices. After the discarding of the OS, Nokia has got only a single way to go: Windows Phones. Even if that fails then all is not over as the company has been hinting Android-running devices, saying that the doors are not completely being closed on them.

But even if you’re not a fan of the Symbian OS, you can’t help but be misty-eyed at the sight of the news. After all, its such an old OS and a vital part of our tech lives.

Alienware Announces Three New Gaming Laptops

Alienware, the gaming-laptop manufacturing giant owned by Dell has announced 3 new and striking gaming laptops. The Alienware 14, 17 and 18 are welcome additions to company’s line-up for this year and feature new designs.

The striking 10 LED lights found on each laptop can be lit in 20 colors and change their color accordingly with the game state. Apart from that, the design is almost 60% aluminium and magnesium alloy. Under the hood, the machines are powered by Intel’s 4th generation Haswell chips.

Alienware 14

The Alienware 14 comes with a 14 inch display with resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels for the base model which can be upped to 1920 x 1080 pixels.

The amount of RAM can be a maximum of 16 GBs (8 GB comes with the base model) while the hard drive memory can be increased to 512 GBs. It also has the ability to have up to 3 hard drives.

• 4th Gen Intel^® Core™ i7 processors
• Windows^® 7 Home Premium (64bit)
• Up to NVIDIA^® GeForce^® GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5
• Incredible Balance of Power and Mobility
• Starting at $1,199

Alienware 17

The Alienware 17 comes with a 17.3 inch display with resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels but you can have a 3D display with resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels as well. It can have up to 32 GBs of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. The Alienware 17 can hold up to 4 hard drives.

• 4th Gen Intel^® Core™ i7 processors
• Windows^® 7 Home Premium (64bit)
• Up to 32GB* 1600MHz memory performance boost
• Optional 3D display for an immersive experience anywhere
• Starting at $1,499

Alienware 18

The Alienware 18 is the best laptop of the trio. Packed with a 18.4 inch display with resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, it can have up to 32 GBs of RAM and a giant 1.5TB hard drive. It can also have up to 4 hard drives.

• 4th Gen Intel^® Core™ i7 processors
• Windows^® 7 Home Premium (64bit)
• Optional Dual NVIDIA^® GeForce^® GTX 780Ms with 4GB GDDR5
• Enthusiast desktop-class gaming performance from an 18.4-inch laptop
• Starting at $2,099

Intel Core i7 processor powers up the three systems but the Alienware 14 will have a Core i5 version too. Buyers can select either go with Windows 7 or 8 as their choice of OS. All the laptops come with optical drives but you can have Blu-ray readers too. They all use Bluetooth 4.0. The Alienware 17 and 18 also have the new Wifi 802.11ac. The new Nvidia GeForce 700 series GPU is used by the three laptops.

The trio is available for buying right now but should be available in Pakistani market later in the year.

Samsung Announces Yet Another S4 Variant: the S4 Zoom

The list of phones in the Galaxy S4 range is mind-boggling in itself. Following from the original international Galaxy S4 and the quad-core SnapDragon versions, we got theS4 mini and then the water-proof S Active and now, for the cameraphone fans, the S4 Zoom with a 16-megapixel sensor, a 10x optical zoom, and a Xenon flash.

Galaxy S4 Zoom is targeted specifically towards people who use their phone cameras as their primary photo-taking tools.

Weighing at 208g, Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD super AMOLED display with a resolution of 540×960 pixels covered with a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

Running on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, the phone is powered by a 1.5GHz dual core processor (which will vary to markets according to Samsung) along with 8GB of internal storage and 1.5GB of RAM that’s expandable via microSD card slot.

Connectivity options include WiFi a/b/g/n as well as Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC along with A-GPS and GLONASS, an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor, gyroscope, and light sensor. The battery is a 2,330 mAh pack, even though Samsung is not saying how long it will last.

At back, there is a full-fledged camera of 16-megapixel CMOS sensor with optical image stabilization, 24-240mm 10x optical zoom, with an F3.1-F6.3 lens along with 1.9-megapixel camera for video calls.

The smartphone camera hybrid comes with a fanatical shutter button .There’s a Xenon flash, rather than the usual LED, allowing up to 4fps burst photography with autofocus and support for recording up to 1080p30 HD video.

On the software front, as well as TouchWiz on top of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, Samsung has added quite a few new camera-specific features including up to 25 smart mode options. These smart modes are namely Beauty face, Best photo, Continuous shot, Best face, Kids shot, Landscape, Dawn, Snow, Macro, Food, Party/Indoor, Action freeze, Rich tone (HDR), Panorama, Waterfall, Animated photo, Drama, Eraser, Sound & Shot, Silhouette, Sunset, Night, Fireworks, Light trace and Smart mode suggest.

Another novel feature embedded in this device is Samsung Zoom Ring, which, if twisted when in a call, automatically kicks into camera mode allowing you snap a photo as well as sending it via MMS to whoever you are talking to.

However, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom will go on sale this summer in United Kingdom and then will move to other regions, though the company is yet to confirm pricing.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom key specifications

• Android 4.2.2 with Samsung’s Nature UX
• 15.4mm thick
• Weight: 208g
• Voice calling capability and 4G LTE supported
• 24mm wide lens with 10X Optical Zoom
• 16 megapixel camera with Xenon Flash
• Full HD 1080p video recording at 30fps
• HDR mode and Optical Image Stabilization
• 1.9 megapixel front camera
• 4.3 inch Super AMOLED display with qHD resolution
• Gorilla Glass 3 protection
• 1.5 Ghz dual-core processor
• 1.5 GB RAM with 8 GB internal expandable storage
• microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Infrared, GPS, Wifi Hotspot
• 2330 mAh battery

The S4 Zoom will be available in Q3 of 2013. The price is unknown right now though.

Top 5 Antivirus Software for your PC

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013

Bitdefender is a strong, easy-to-use antivirus that can stand against the onslaught of malicious malwares and do the best job. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 offers effective security, it is very easy to use, manages resources usage quite effectively and is priced quite reasonably. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a must-have, whether you are an advanced user or an average user who simply needs a set-and-forget solution.

The Bitdefender Antivirus Plus makes sure not to use your computer resources when you are using your computer. The most interesting feature is that it happily update itself and function without bothering you, unless you want to be more involved in the security decisions.

Kaspersky Antivirus 2013

Kaspersky antivirus has a very effectively organized interface and well managed scans. It is robust and secures the computers against worms, spyware, bots, rootkits and viruses in addition to detecting new threats and preventing them from infiltrating your system.

One of the ease of usability it provides is that you don’t need to restart your system after installing it. Moreover Kaspersky comes with a feature where users can opt to download a specialized tool that preemptively scans the PC and helps in removing the threat.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus’s hybrid protection approach identifies threats based on information streaming to Kaspersky Lab’s Security Network cloud and uses heuristic technologies to detect malware based on file behavior

Norton Antivirus 2013

Norton Antivirus 2013 is one of the most efficient and powerful antivirus suites ever which has undergone massive amounts of changes, in terms of features, support and interfaces in the past couple of years.

Norton Antivirus 2013 is effective against viruses, worms, bots and spyware. It uses the traditional method of detecting viruses via known signatures

Norton is quite easy to install and use. According to AV-Test labs in Germany Norton Antivirus is among the best antiviruses in terms of its ease of use, ability to protect against malware and ability to disinfect machines that are already infected.

AVG Anti-Virus 2013

AVG Technologies one of the best antivirus software in the market with its corporate offices in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. It has been rated by many as one of the most handy antivirus software products.

In addition to protecting your PC from malwares, AVG Anti-Virus software checks the links that you share within Facebook, mySpace or Twitter. While surfing the internet, AVG prevents you from landing on a site that looks suspicious

AVG maintains a database of known threats in order to block them while using cloud technology to quickly deploy defenses against zero-day threats.

Avast! Pro Antivirus 7

Avast Pro Antivirus is a great choice and one of the best antivirus software applications. Avast! Antivirus Pro 7 comes with numerous security features which are unique and well-admired among PC lovers including WebRep, SafeZone, AutoSandbox and Security Gadget.

WebRep provides proactive scanning of links with color-coded security reputation ratings on search results.

SafeZone is virtual desktop (sandbox) tool for safe online shopping or banking.

AutoSandbox automatically opens suspicious applications in the protected virtual sandbox saving your PC from potential harm

Security Gadget is a small desktop widget for Windows 7 or Vista that provides your current security status.

Top Rated Free Image Editing Softwares for 2013

Image editing software is an application which allows you to edit, create and enhance your previous photos. Some people use it for business purpose like for websites while others use it just for fun like to upload to social media sites. There are numerous image editing software’s available but here are the top 5 software’s which are liked by many designer.

Top Rated Free Image Editing Softwares for 2013

-GIMP

This software is developed by The Gimp Development Team. The interface is very user friendly. You can manipulate both simple as well as the complex images. Similar colors can be chosen in several ways as it includes color chooser, palettes and an eyedropper tool. Tools such as pencil, air brush, eraser and ink can be used in editing the image. There are 150 standard effects and filters in this software which also involves features like Drop Shadow, Blur, Motion Blur and Noise. It supports on operating systems such as Linux, Microsoft windows, FreeBSD and Solaris. This software is available in multiple languages.

-Picasa

Picasa is an excellent image editing software which comes with various features. Image can be edited at just one click and similarly these images can be shared via email. One best feature this software includes is the face recognition technology. It keeps the track of keyword for each image.  This software has the capability to scan the hard drive and organize the images into folder based albums. Similarly you can also share your images on Picasa web album through this software. The operating systems for this software are Windows, Mac OS X.

-Paint. NET

Paint. NET is a freeware image editing software which comes along with a user friendly interface and is available in multiple languages. It posses features such as 3D, sharpening, blurring, red eye removal, etc. Plugins are involved in this software through which you can make image adjustments and effects. Similarly it also supports additional file types. Plugins such as Shape3D are involved due to which you can render a 2D drawing into a 3D shape. It supports operating systems like Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

-Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011

This is a freeware program developed by Microsoft. It contains a lot of features like rotate, crop and red eye removal. The main feature of windows live photo gallery is that you can download and also share your images after manipulating them. Similarly you can replace your default OS image viewer with this one. Some new image editing technologies which are developed by Microsoft research such as panoramic stitching, photo fuse and auto collage are also included in this software.

-PhotoScape

Photoshop is a freeware program developed by MOOII Tech. It has the capability to convert RAW images into JEPG format. It comes with various editing options like resize, add effects and clip arts and enhance and color balance. You can also use it like an image viewer. Similarly is has the feature to find similar faces through the internet. This software comes in multiple language and supports on platforms like Windows XP, Windows Vista. Windows 2007, Windows 2008 and even on older versions like Windows 2000 and NT.