coolstuffs: Nexus S: The Best Android Phone

coolstuffs: Nexus S: The Best Android Phone: "The first phone to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread which unlike their predecessor who only runs on Android 2.2, Google proudly claims Nexus S as..."

Nexus S: The Best Android Phone

The first phone to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread which unlike their predecessor who only runs on Android 2.2, Google proudly claims Nexus S as the best Android Phone. “Pure Google” That’s the tagline Google is using to promote the Nexus S. The Nexus S’s distribution strategy is more conventional. It’ll be sold at Best Buy for $199 with a two-year T-Mobile contract or $599 with no commitment. The 4-inches screen size is just right which makes it noticeably roomy. The screen uses AMOLED technology, which makes for vivid colors and deep blacks. Another Nexus S feature, its support for a technology known as near-field communications (NFC), it lets the phone communicate wirelessly with other NFC-equipped objects that are no more than 4 inches away. Setting up the phone doesn’t involve much more than entering your Google account name and password, Android then automatically configures services such as Gmail and Google Calendar.

Google Nexus S and iPhone 4-Comparison

Exterior Look and Feel

The most obvious and important difference between these two elite smartphones is the exterior. While the Nexus S looks pretty elegant with its rounded and curved case, the iPhone 4 has more of an industrial look and feel, which may put off some people. The Nexus S actually looks more like the older iPhone 3GS than the new iPhone. The difference in size is negligible, though the iPhone 4 is smaller overall at 115.2×58.6×9.3 mm, but taking into consideration the bigger 4 inch display on the Nexus S, its 123.9x63x10.9 mm aren’t that much of a difference, and it actually makes it feel better in your hand.

Display

Both the iPhone 4 and Nexus S have beautiful screens, but there are a few important differences between them. The iPhone 4 has a 3.5 inch unit with an amazing resolution of 960×640, making it the most pixel packed display on any smartphone. The picture is simply incredible – very crisp and clear. The only bad thing is that the LCD backlight limits the potential contrast and it’s very hard to read the text on the screen in its normal size on a website from a distance of more than 5-10 inches

Processor, Graphics and RAM

The processor, video adapter and RAM type and amount are the same on both the Nexus S and the iPhone 4. The Nexus S has the Samsung Hummingbird 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU coupled with a PowerVR SGX540 video graphics adapter and 512 MB of RAM, which should provide enough performance for any task for years to come.

WiTricity - Wireless Electricity

Our  forefathers marveled  at  the  invention  of  glowing  light  bulbs  by
Thomas  Edison  in  1879.  However,  to  us  21st  centurions,  the  light
bulb  is  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary.  When  computers,  cellphones,
laptops, iPods, etc. were invented our antennas tweaked. Now this is
what  you  call  invention!  However,  as  time's  progressing  we  are
getting used  to  these devices.  In  fact, charging all  these appliances
has become so very cumbersome. 

What is WiTricity  

WiTricity is nothing but wireless electricity. Transmission of electrical
energy  from one object  to another without  the use of wires  is called
as WiTricity. WiTricity will ensure that the cellphones, laptops, iPods
and other power hungry devices get charged on their own, eliminating
the need of plugging them in. Even better, because of WiTricity some
of the devices won't require batteries to operate. 

 
 

What's the Principle behind WiTricity

WiTricity  -  Wireless  Electricity,  these  words  are  simpler  said  than
done.  The  concept  behind  this  fascinating  term  is  a  little  complex.
However, if you want to understand it, try and picture what I state in
the next few lines. Consider two self resonating copper coils of same
resonating  frequency  with  a  diameter  20  inches  each. One  copper
wire  is  connected  to  the  power  source  (WiTricity  transmitter), while
the other copper wire is connected to the device (WiTricity Receiver).

The Brain behind WiTricity 

Prof.  Marin  Soljacic  from  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology
(MIT),  is  the one who has proved  that magnetic coupled  resonance
can be utilized in order to transfer energy without wires. What's even
more  interesting  is  how  he  came  about  this  idea.

Why was WiTricity not Developed before?

 It  is often said  'necessity  is  the best  teacher' and can be applied  in
this  case  as  well.  Only  in  this  century,  has  the  need  for  wireless
electricity emerged so rapidly, spearheaded by the agony caused by
the  cumbersome  charging  of  endless  devices.  Earlier  people  didn't
need it, so they didn't think about it.

What's the Future of WiTricity

MIT's WiTricity is only 40 to 45% efficient and according to Soljacic,
they  have  to  be  twice  as  efficient  to  compete  with  the  traditional
chemical batteries. The team's next aim is to get a robotic vacuum or
a laptop working, charging devices placed anywhere in the room and
even  robots  on  factory  floors.  The  researchers  are  also  currently
working  on  the  health  issues  related  to  this  concept  and  have  said
that  in  another  three  to  five  years  time,  they  will  come  up  with  a
WiTricity system for commercial use. 

Applications

The concept can be used to lighten the weight of an Formula 1 car and reduce expenditure on lightening of an aircraft using no wires and many more.....

The Anti-Facebook Revolution

Face-to-Facebook is a project by Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico. The two artists stole one million Facebook profiles, filtered them through face-recognition software, selected their 250,000 favorites, grouped them by facial expression (smug, climber, funny, easy-going etc.) and uploaded them to a custom-made dating website, Lovely Faces.
Facebook is too crowded to be a home, claim Cirio and Ludovico, and too familiar to be a street. It's an "eternal, illusory party." And they decided to crash it.
Face-to-Facebook

Facebook sent a message too - a cease-and-desist letter - because the artists (activists, pirates, assholes) had raided their data.
Mark Zuckerberg knows exactly how wrong this is, having pillaged Harvard's system back in the day to create his Facebook prototype, FaceMash.
Facebook's privacy controversy last year piqued the collective consciousness about online security. On Facebook and many other sites, we re-embody ourselves through data and surrender our data bodies to the powers that be.
A lot of people find this terrifying and a lot of people don't. A lot of people care, but aren't sure why and a lot of people don't care and aren't sure why. I, for one, while not so perturbed, also know that future me is often disappointed by present me's decision-making. I am therefore withholding judgment.
But Google hasn't.

Facebook Resistance is plotting the insurrection. The plan is to scramble the website's homogenized layout, which tidied the messiness and creativity of a Geocities or a Myspace into a 2.0 repository of economically valuable data.
"It's like if everyone's living room had the same Ikea furniture," said Tobias Leingruber, the artist spearheading Facebook Resistance.
Already one million people, Leingruber claims, have downloaded the plug-in and "disliking" is part of their Facebook reality.
Other viral acts of vandalism in the works include custom wallpapers, a gender spectrum slider, the ability to list multiple romantic partners and to manically graffiti your friend's wall.
Some of the ideas are political, while others are as pointed as a kid with a crayon. But the idea is to restore fundamental principles that Facebook, and other sites like it, threaten: The importance of being anyone and not just someone, and of taking control of your online identity, before someone comes along and tags you as "smug."