Samsung Note creating a new genre of mobile tablets, called the “Phablet”

Move over tablets and phones, the Samsung Note is definitely creating a new genre of mobile gadgets aptly named the “Phablet” which is aimed at being a merger of a phone and a tablet. With the superior finger touch response by the iPhone, it looked like it was the end of the stylus which was a common appendage in the smartphones. However the Samsung Note has managed to revive the Stylus and it seems the industry is accepting it pretty well because Samsung has shipped more than a million units of the Note after just two months of launch.

What needs to be seen if other phones will join the bandwagon in including the stylus along with their phones. It looks unlikely unless the phones are expecting their phones to be used to perform PC computing like free form writing and drawing. For sure Samsung would be extremely encouraged with the response received over the Note and it must be considering including the stylus for other products.

However for now they can be content with the fact that their product seems to have coined a new genre of gadgets. Will the industry catch on to the Phablet? It all depends on how the Note performs in the industry in the days to come and going by some of the releases that are expected by the competitors the going will surely be tough. Nokia has already sounded the war cry with the Lumia smartphones and the next version of iPhone is due in the fall of 2012.

Download Facebook Messenger for Windows

After releasing its messenger service for the Android, iPhone,  and Blackberry Facebook has released the Facebook Messenger for Windows PCs. This Facebook Messenger for Windows will work only on Windows 7 and onwards. So if you have a Windows O/s that is dated before the Windows 7 then you might want to upgrade the O/s before you start downloading the FB Messenger application.

Download Facebook Messenger for Windows

For this release, the Messenger for Windows will offer users access to three mail features –

• Facebook Chat,
• The new Ticker feed, and
• Notifications.

However there are indications that the Facebook team is working on incorporating a host of other features into the Messenger tool. Though Facebook has not officially announced the upcoming features the news is that the following features might be slipped in silently as the day’s progress:

• Chatting with multiple friends,
• Video calling,
• Limiting chat availability, and
• Editing settings

The introduction of the Messenger standalone application is seen as an effort by Facebook to provide an alternative to all those users who don’t want to keep their browsers open but yet want to be active on Facebook most part of the day. Also the effort is to help the users have access to the most used features of Facebook in a quick and efficient manner.

The move to release an application only for Windows PC is a very strategic one as Facebook recognizes the fact that over 90% of the PC population lies with Windows. The Mac and Linux users may just have to wait until Facebook decides to have an application particularly for those operating systems. That might however depend on how the users accept the Windows based Facebook Messenger.

US’s most visited site in 2011 – Google

Google, leading search engine has outperformed its rival, Facebook in the competition in order to gain the title for being the most visited website throughout the year 2011 after having viewed by an average of 153 million individual visitors every month in US, while Facebook has had 138 million users each month in US.

As per the reports given by Nielsen, market research company, both the internet giants Google and Facebook has outdone Yahoo to be placed on third place with 130 million users each month. Data given out by Nielsen was gathered over three months during the start of 2011 and surveyed on a group of 200,000 people.

Yahoo’s problem for being the third most visited website is only since people are out in search for best-in-breed instead of all-you-can-eat service they offer as stated by Ian Maude from Enders Analysis. Though Facebook might be gaining popularity, Google is still the best web brand which is not yet beaten by anyone.

Both of these rivals of Yahoo have one specific purpose, like Facebook basically being a social network and Google being the internet’s largest search engine. Email is the primary area of focus for Yahoo, which is no longer the service and which tends to be affecting the firm badly.

Among the social networking and blog category, Facebook has topped it thrashing Blogger, Google+ and Twitter, Google+ has only recently been initiated with the purpose of giving stiff competition to Facebook but has been not as successful as expected coming out in eighth position with 8 million visitors a month.

Nielsen has been scanning over the web traffic coming from home and work computers throughout the months from January to October to come out with the top web brands for the year 2011. They have only restricted the data to include desktop and not the mobile visits which is of significant importance as there are several consumers who are switching to the use of mobile devices.

The list, prepared by Nielsen, of the number of visitors to various websites is as follows –

1. Google: 153,441,000

2. Facebook: 137,644,000

3. Yahoo: 130,121,000

4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing: 115,890,000

5. YouTube: 106,692,000

6. Microsoft: 83,691,000

7. AOL Media Network: 74,633,000

8. Wikipedia: 62,097,000

9. Apple: 61,608,000

10. Ask Search Network: 60,552,000

So.cl Gives Students a New Way to Learn

The web, search, and social networking are changing the way students collaborate.

To bring these elements together, Microsoft Research’s FUSE Labs is launching a site designed to give students the ability to network with peers, share useful information quickly, and build their own pages that collect information from both inside and outside the classroom—in a sense, transforming the web and social networks into the new classroom.

Called So.cl and pronounced “social,” the experimental research project is being made available to students in information and design schools at the University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York University. In time, more schools will be added, potentially expanding So.cl’s use as a learning and information-gathering tool.

So.cl has been designed for students studying social media to extend their educational experience and rethink how they learn and communicate. They can build posts with many elements—photos, video, text, and more—and share them with colleagues. They also can find students with similar interests and build communities around specific educational goals. So.cl might even give students the ability to create their own social tool, customized for their own community.

The researchers behind So.cl deliberately sought to collaborate with a student audience that is more holistic—encompassing representation from the sciences as well as the humanities—rather than simply technical, says Lili Cheng, general manager of FUSE Labs.

Lili Cheng

“What we’ve seen in the last year or two is innovation in the way schools are teaching and learning from students, creating new programs to study how information spreads, motivates learning, and creates expertise,” Cheng says. “A hugely popular freshman course in some schools is Social Media 101, which often leads to a project-based innovation course where students build and deploy their ideas.

“These are not just computer-science students, but also business, design, or humanities students. They don’t necessarily write code, but they can be encouraged to reimagine how social software and the way people are sharing and exchanging information shapes the world. We are experimenting with So.cl to use our own tools to partner with more students and learn from students with a broad base of expertise.”

So.cl reflects the fact that students today approach learning in a different manner than they did even a few years ago, says Shelly Farnham, a FUSE Labs researcher working on So.cl.

Shelly Farnham

“Today, social media is a really active part of the learning process,” Farnham says. “It’s a common story that we hear: Someone will first hear about something because their friend mentioned it on Facebook or they saw it mentioned on Twitter, and from there, they search in Wikipedia or through a search engine. Then they’ll go back and do searches within Twitter to find out not just the content of a news story, but also how their friends are responding to that news story. There’s this real sense of a conversation happening within social media around what they’re learning.”

So.cl’s ability to connect students who have shared interests is important, given that students today have more varied pursuits than those in the past. As Cheng notes, it wasn’t that long ago that students involved in athletics largely played only long-established sports such as football, basketball, or baseball. Now, they also pursue paddle-boarding, breakdancing, karate, or fencing—sports not necessarily part of the school curriculum—and they use YouTube or Internet how-tos to find experts and learn. With So.cl, students can build their own communities and collections around these pursuits or anything else they enjoy.

That, in turn, will help them learn more, Farnham says. Students today often choose study topics based on the passions of people with whom they connect. Subsequently, a goal of So.cl is to understand motivation and to give students a way to broaden their interests and to connect more effectively with people with similar interests.

So.cl’s user interface: clean, open, and flexible.

Using So.cl will come naturally to anyone who uses the web. It has a clean, open look and lets users follow people, set up feeds, search, and more. So.cl users can follow specific people or view the entire feed stream. Searches can be webwide, confined to news feeds or specific people, or limited to only images or video.

“If you’ve ever used a social network, it’s a comfortable experience,” Cheng says. “We expect people to continue using their favorite social network and search tools, and we hope that, by experimenting with how search and social networking can be combined, more people experiment with tools we already take for granted.”

So.cl borrows from other FUSE Labs projects to make it easier to compile photos and videos. It has a feature derived from the content-aggregation project Montage that enables authoring of a visual collage of images, videos, and stories. Montage influenced So.cl’s ability to let users quickly assemble content from a variety of sources to build pages about particular interests.

Cheng says she’s eager to see how students use So.cl. She recalls talking with students at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunication Program about the ways they engage with social media as a learning tool. She says she was shocked at their cleverness in employing it.

“I was just blown away,” she says. “They are so sophisticated about the way they share, riffing off one another’s ideas, having fun, and flowing between interests. A group of students lingered after and asked us how we could stay in touch and continue to share experiments.”

One of Cheng’s goals for So.cl is to create a platform on which students can experiment with their own ideas about a social network.

“I am surprised by the amount of frustration and the lack of design innovation in the design of everyday tools such as search, social networking, text messaging, and email,” she says. “None of these were designed for the way students communicate, and I haven’t found anyone who really loves the way they work together. We hope to reduce some technical barriers for students who are interested in exploring something different—and show that more experimentation is needed.”

So.cl got its start when Cheng and others in FUSE Labs were examining Facebook and Twitter data and how it is used in Bing. They could track URLs people were sharing on Twitter, for instance, and see how news and information were gathered and spread.

“We started to think about how we could create an experience around that,” Cheng says, “about making search social and making it easy to share rich, beautiful posts without having to leave your network.”

Key to that experience was taking the So.cl experience a step beyond what people have been doing.

“There have been social-search projects in the past,” Farnham says, “but they’ve generally focused much more on how to improve the experience of search. In So.cl, there’s a shift in emphasis toward improving collaboration and connecting with other people around common interests.”

Microsoft’s so.cl – a new social network

What is So.cl?

So.cl (pronounced “social”) is an experimental research project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, focused on exploring the possibilities of social search for the purpose of learning.

• So.cl combines social networking and search, to help people find and share interesting web pages in the way students do when they work together.
• So.cl helps you create rich posts, by assembling montages of visual web content.
• To encourage interaction and collaboration, So.cl provides rich media sharing, and real time sharing of videos via “video parties.”

We expect students to continue using products such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other existing social networks, as well as Bing, Google and other search tools. We hope to encourage students to reimagine how our everyday communication and learning tools can be improved, by researching, learning and sharing in their everyday lives.

Who can join?

We are formally partnering with selected schools (including University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York University).

However, anyone can participate in the FUSE Labs research community as several of our experiments are available for use on the web. For those who wish to be more involved with FUSE, please e-mail Socl@microsoft.com.

In So.cl, how do I share a search?

By default, searches in So.cl are shared publicly. As students work together, they often search for the same items, and discover new shared interests by sharing links. We see this trend today on many social networks, such as Twitter, where shared links spread virally and amplify popular content. So.cl experiments with this concept by automatically sharing links as you search. The So.cl search experience is powered by Bing, and we use the public Bing API’s to display search result data.

How does So.cl work?

The So.cl search experience is powered by Bing; we use the public Bing APIs to display search result data. As students work together, they often look for the same content, and discover new shared interests by sharing results. These results can be web pages, images, or videos found through Bing. We see this trend today on many social networks, such as Twitter, where shared links spread virally and amplify popular content. So.cl experiments with this concept by letting you easily share links as you search.

In So.cl, how do I create a rich post?

So.cl makes it easy to create a beautiful post you’re proud to share. Just find interesting images and links on the web, and So.cl helps you assemble them automatically into a compelling visual montage. To explore this concept further, try our related project Montage.

Example of a rich post in So.cl

In So.cl, what is a video party?

Students spend time sharing videos. So.cl extends this concept by making it easy to share video parties, with So.cl friends who are online. Video parties let you search, and quickly assemble a list of movies to view together with friends. You can view any existing party collection created by any other So.cl user, or create your own, and easily chat with other So.cl users.

Example of a video party in So.cl

Is So.cl data public?

Yes. Unless you mark it as “private”, your search results, and any other data you post to So.cl may be viewed by all other So.cl users. In addition, we will make data that was publicly posted on So.cl broadly available for use by other entities and individuals.

For more information please read our Privacy Statement at http://www.so.cl/app/privacy.

Public data enables new types of research and experimentation, a primary goal for So.cl.

Can I delete my data in So.cl?

Yes. You have options ranging from deleting a single item, search or post, to deleting all your history, or your entire account. The data you have deleted, however, may have been included in data sets shared with third parties. Deletion of your data from So.cl will not delete entries from such data sets. For more information please read our Privacy Statement at http://www.so.cl/app/privacy.

Does it cost anything to join?

No, So.cl is free.

Is So.cl a part of Bing?

No, So.cl is a research project from FUSE Labs in Microsoft Research that is focused on learning more about social search. So.cl uses Bing for search data via the public API, but it is not a Bing product.

Does my So.cl data appear on Facebook?

So.cl uses Facebook authentication, which means you use your Facebook account to log in, and your name and profile picture from Facebook appear in So.cl.

By default we do not post any content from So.cl into your Facebook stream. If you choose, you can post content to Facebook using the share to Facebook feature in So.cl.

Why haven’t you added features commonly used in social networking and search sites such as: Facebook, Twitter, Bing, or Google?

So.cl is not meant to replace existing full-featured search and social networking tools. It is an experimental research project using a minimal set of features which help combine search with the social network for the purpose of learning.

Why are you targeting students?

We feel that students are the best audience to evolve and discover more about the future of online social behavior. We have been amazed by the number of courses at universities that focus on using social networking and search tools to exchange information, particularly in the Information Schools within universities.

Can So.cl be used more generally for people not focused on learning communities and academics?

So.cl can be used by the general public, but it is our goal to focus on learning communities.

What are the other social experiments that you are engaged in?

Other ongoing experiments include:

• Kodu: teaches kids programming and creativity on the XBox and PC
• Montage: creates a visual album of the web on the topics you care about
• Docs: lets you discover, create and share documents with your friends, coworkers, and classmates on Facebook
• or see more projects from FUSE Labs

These projects are experiments from Microsoft Research, and like other research projects, you should not expect that these projects will be supported by a Microsoft product team.

Privacy Issues:

While delving into this research project focused on social searching, we expected that one of the big issues that would immediately concern users was the “privacy issue”.  Our mental model of searching has always been private— and the So.cl experiment flips that around, making the site’s emphasis broadcasting your searches and explicitly sharing them with the world.  Furthermore, it opens the doors to exploring what others have searched for.  When we asked what people’s concerns were in our focus groups with University of Washington students, it was no surprise that privacy was a significant issue.

“At first I thought it was an invasion of privacy “
“it’s too public!”

We wanted to carefully track their feelings around privacy, so we gave the students a questionnaire each week that asked about privacy and to what extent it prevented use.  Illustrated here in week 3 of their use with So.cl, we see a general trend suggesting that self-reported use was not affected by privacy to a huge degree.  In other words, as the weeks passed, for the majority of people, privacy was not a big concern. We also found that their overall concern for privacy decreased week by week.

 

 

Why was this happening?

As time went on, and students started to use the So.cl as their primary search engine, an interesting trend started to emerge. Searching started becoming not only a place to fill the gaps of your knowledge (as it has been used before), but also a place to post what you’re INTO, what you are ABOUT and what you find amusing..  via your searches. It started to look like students (and those of us at FUSE Labs) were using it for self-presentation, as well as for information sharing and information discovery. Search has been re-purposed as entertainment and self-expression. How cool.

Symbian Name Swap?…Nokia Responds

The Finnish handset maker offers a detailed statement in response to “heaps of questions” from Nokia fans about the name change of the next version of its Symbian OS.

  

“We are still using Symbian Belle with some audiences like developers but now we also have the flexibility of using Nokia Belle when referring to our greatest and latest Symbian software update. We are really looking forward to making Belle available to people as it will truly bring a new experience to everybody,” Nokia wrote on its official blog, apparently realising that it can’t just kill off a name like Symbian without elaborating on the reason behind the change.

Even though it has a different name, the all-new Nokia Belle has all the features previously announced in Symbian Belle. Offering users with more home screens, Nokia Belle expands the current three home screens you get with Nokia Anna to six. The home screen widgets have been improved and made more functional than before. In addition, some of them (including widgets for e-mail, music, favourite contacts and the calendar) give users now much more information making reading e-mails much easier at a glance.

A marginally more detailed statement has now been posted by the Finnish handset maker on its official blog. It reads as follows:

For some of our readers, this February update still seems too far away. They were told they would receive the update in Q4 of 2011, then Jan of 2012, and now Feb. Why has there been a delay?

Nokia Belle will make such a big difference in the user experience, and it is a major software update. We are progressing well in bringing Belle with a new look and feel to millions people across the markets at the same time, and are anxiously looking forward to delighting our consumers with Nokia Belle.

We reckon it will be well worth the wait for such a major update. As to the question of why is this update now not available for the Nokia 500? Some good news.

I am happy to say that Nokia 500 will also be one of those devices receiving Nokia Belle along with Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01,Nokia C7, and Nokia Oro.

Symbian Belle Is Now Nokia Belle

The all-new Nokia Belle operating system will hit older Nokia phones by February next year. Handsets lined up for the scheduled update include the N8, the E7, the E6, the X7, the C6-01, the C7 and the Oro.

It’s time to say good-bye to the Symbian name! Nokia has renamed the Symbian Belle operating system it has been touting over the last several months to Nokia Belle. “The all-new Nokia Belle (previously Symbian Belle) user interface will soon be available for download to some existing smartphones and begin shipping with a selection of smartphones that are already on the market,” the company announced on its blog.

Though it seems apparent that the Finnish handset maker has been slowly moving away from Symbian, the company has not yet abandoned the ageing platform completely. Earlier this year, Nokia entered into a deal with software giant, making Windows Phone 7 the “principal” operating system in its smartphone line-up. However, it appears that Nokia will likely continue to use Symbian in some capacity for more time.

Offering users with more home screens, Nokia Belle expands the current three home screens you get with Nokia Anna to six. The home screen widgets have been improved and made more functional than before. In addition, some of them (including widgets for e-mail, music, favourite contacts and the calendar) give users now much more information making reading e-mails much easier at a glance.

“The enhanced versions of Nokia N8, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6-01 have now started their journey from the factories to the shops with Nokia Belle pre-installed, arriving first in China, then around the world. For those already owning a Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7, and Nokia Oro, the wait for Nokia Belle is almost over. Starting in February 2012, Nokia will release the all new Nokia Belle software update to existing customers and you’ll be able to download it right on to your phone, bringing a whole heap of improved features,” Nokia said.

 

Google’s Eric Schmidt: The Internet and mobile can “change the world”

 

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has spoken about how he believes technology can change the world by bringing greater information, transparency and values to Internet users across the planet.

Speaking at The Economic Club of Washington’s event yesterday, broadcast by C-Span, Schmidt opened by stating that technology, and the Internet in particular, is an enabler that can help people push themselves forward:

All of us would agree that people can search for their dreams, they should be able to archive what they really want.

Government and citizens

Schmidt spoke of the emergence of two rival systems which are being brought together by the Internet: offline institutions — such as government, politics and law — and cyberspace.

They are getting into conflict in some governments and places, as technology is empowering people in ways they have never been empowered before. You can think of this as a community of citizens and a community of governments.

As technology develops and time passes, Schmidt believes that “a new equilibrium will emerge” to serve both communities in different ways. Cyberspace, he says, will ultimately serve to keep governments more honest in many ways, while equally government will have influence on the negative things that happen in cyberspace.

Companies changing the world

Schmidt continued on to look at exactly how the Internet and leading tech companies are helping to improve live across the world, saying:

Technology is at a point where we are  seeing emergence of global scaled platforms, that are impressive in their reach, with a chance to change the world.

He specifically identified four companies — Google (of course), Apple, Facebook and Amazon — as those which have platforms that are impacting political and business systems across the world.

Construction of these systems is the probably most important business today. The combined market value of these corporations is very high, but they are just beginning. Within 10 yeas, computers will be 30 times faster…which will allow us to do amazing things.

The Google chief firmly believes that the Internet can make an unprecedented difference across the whole world:

My view, is that we should be very optimistic about all of this. The world isn’t perfect but it is going to a much safer and more informed place. The things that [the US] can bring to the world really will change a lot of these countries and lift people out of financial poverty, and information poverty.

Schmidt highlighted the captive market for these changes by pointing out that, in some countries, people are placing greater priority on having a mobile phone than getting running water at home.

Personal super computer

Speaking about the future, Schmidt is optimistic that computers and artificial intelligence will not take over the world. Instead he believes that a complimentary scenario will emerge:

Over five to ten years, human and computers will be distinguishable. Humans will still be very good at what we do — intuition, fun, entertainment, innovation — and computers will get extraordinarily good about what they are very good at, such as needle in a haystack problems and infinite memories.

Schmidt believes that the value of mobile devices is the networks of information that they are connected to, rather than the device itself:

I don’t think of this as my phone, it is my personal super computer that can answer any question that I care about in life.

Tablets and mobile devices are often referred to as points of access, and Google is continuing to invest it its network, having recently broken ground on two new data center in Asia, amongst many of its other projects.

Top Ten Media Apps of 2011

 

If you have the impression that 2011 was particularly rich in news, it’s not just you. According to CNN’s MD Tony Maddox, this was “the most demanding year we can remember.”

This busy year was not only about news itself, but also media apps, which have undergone significant transformations over the last months.

1. Bambuser

According to its homepage, Bambuser lets you “share live moments from your phone or webcam” – but forget about the holiday pictures Bambuster uses to advertise itself. As we reported, Bambuser has actually become a tool for citizen journalism, and Egyptian activists have been using the service to broadcast Tahrir Square protests in real time from their mobile phones.

This goes well beyond Egypt; Bambuser now has about 1 million users worldwide, from 190 countries. Its founders are also well aware of its potential when it comes to real-time news, something they envisioned from the very beginning. Still, giving a voice to protesters doesn’t come without trouble, and the service has suffered temporary shutdowns in the Middle East.

Yet, Bambuser has also become a reliable source for traditional media outlets, as its co-founder Jonas Vig told our Middle East Editor Nancy Messieh last month in reference to Egypt:

“On the 25th of January, when Twitter was flooded with all the tweets. One of the partners we have with public broadcasters in Sweden, they couldn’t validate the news. So they turned to Bambuser, and since this is real-time, could validate that there were thousands of people in the Square. They used a Bambuser video in their traditional broadcasting as well.”

It’s a future Bambuser fully embraces; “What we want to do is to work with as many media outlets as possible,” Vig added.

➤  Bambuser, via multiple platforms

2. Shelby.tv

Shelby.tv may only be a few months old, but we’ve already written about it quite a few times; no later than today, we listed it as one of the companies that are building the future of social video.

So what does Shelby.tv do? A TechStars startup, it gathers all the videos your friends are posting on social networks, and lets you watch them very easily. Beyond simplicity, its best asset could well be its design – here’s what the iOS app looks like if you haven’t tested it yet:

➤  Shelby.tv, via the App Store

3. Miso

2011 was a very interesting year for Miso – not only because it kept on acquiring new users, but also because it does much more than it used to. From an entertainment check-in service à la GetGlue, the service has gradually become a social TV platform, integrating second screen apps (‘Sideshows’) within its own app, which is now available on iOS and Android (see our interview with Miso’s CEO).

What it means is that using Miso isn’t just about telling the world which series you’re currently watching anymore. You can also read trivia about a TV show and its cast, find out which music track is playing and share your favorite comedy quotes with your Twitter and Facebook friends.

➤  Miso, via multiple platforms

4. GetGlue

Miso’s decision to expand beyond TV check-in doesn’t mean it isn’t a very promising segment. GetGlue knows it very well: according to its blog, it is now “a community of over 2,000,000 entertainment fans, that checked-in more than 100,000,000 times in 2011.”

Unlike foursquare, GetGlue only focuses on media check-ins, around movies, TV and music. However, both sites share gamification mechanisms through badges and discounts – GetGlue has closed partnerships with major film & TV brands such as True Blood and Twilight.

However, it would be wrong to see foursquare and GetGlue as direct competitors, and GetGlue added foursquare integration in March this year. In other words, GetGlue found a niche and is filling it very well.

➤  GetGlue, via multiple platforms

5. Financial Times

Even if you’re not a frequent reader of the Financial Times, you should care about its app if you are the slightest interested in the future of media. As we reported in July, the newspaper decided to dodge Apple’s 30% cut on in-app subscription plans by offering a paid-for web app.

It seems it wasn’t such a bad idea: according to the newspaper, its browser-based HTML5 app has registered over one million users since its launch.

Does it mean grass is greener outside of Apple’s walled garden? Not having to hand over 30% of their revenues is certainly appealing for publishers and newspapers, but there’s more than that, as many also worry about the limited access they’d get to subscribers’ data if the whole process is managed by Apple within its own environment.

In this context, newspaper web apps are highly likely to mushroom over the next months. Will smaller publications be as successful when deciding to follow the FT’s lead? Only time will tell, but this showdown between Apple and the press will definitely be one of 2012′s top stories to watch.

➤  Financial Times

6. Zeebox

If you don’t live in the UK, you may not have heard of Zeebox – but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start paying attention to it. As we reported, it was launched as an iOS app by a team which includes Anthony Rose, the former head of iPlayer at the BBC, well known for his vision on the future of television.

In other words, Zeebox plans to be much more than a local second screen app, and ambitions to expand way beyond what it currently is. At the moment, the app itself feels like a work in progress (see our review), albeit a promising one, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see new features added to improve user experience in the near future.

The app is also set to become available across Europe and the US in the future; if Zeebox’s co-founders are to be believed, you’ll probably hear a lot more about Zeebox in 2012.

➤  Zeebox, via the App Store

7. Flipboard

If one app has changed the way tablet owners consume their news, it’s Flipboard. Although it took time, iPhone owners have also joined the club, and it was worth the wait: Flipboard’s iPhone app makes the most of the smartphone’s small screen.

Not only has Flipboard dramatically grown over the last month (see our post), its model is also evolving, and could be much bigger than many thought. While Flipboard initially focused on giving its users a way to browse multiple sources through its app, it’s increasingly moving towards high levels of aggregation – up to the point where it could soon become a magazine of its own.

➤  Flipboard, via the App Store

8. Google Currents

Google Currents is Google’s latest mobile newsreading app (see our previous post). Thanks to partnerships, users get access to full-length content from over 150 leading media outlets. But that’s not all: independent content owners can also use the platform to make their own content available.

While it is only available in the US at the moment, it could gain more space in mainstream media once Google decides to give the app a global boost. From our perspective, it has what it takes to become a hit, and its interface is very sleek, at least on a tablet. It is now mostly down to Google to get marketing right and bring it all to fruition

➤ Google Currents, via the App Store and the Android Market

9. YouTube

Though many of us still think of YouTube as a website, it is also a very successful app. This is true on mobile devices, but also on connected TVs – earlier this year, Samsung announced that YouTube was one of the 5 most popular apps in its TV Apps Store.

This market isn’t as small as you may think; over 5 million apps have been downloaded through Samsung TV Apps platform in just a year. As a result, YouTube has changed and adapted itself to this growing market opportunity.

This is true of features and interface, which are increasingly compatible with a “Leanback” experience – especially on Google TVs.

But this evolution is also influencing YouTube’s offer, as the platform closed a flurry of deals with movie studios, celebrities and other TV content producers to attract professional, premium content to the platform. From “Movies” to “Channels”, YouTube may well be your next TV.

10. Facebook

Like it or not, Facebook also deserves to be on this list – and not just because it finally released a pretty good iPad app, putting an end to a long wait.  The reason why we listed it? Its transformation into a media platform (see our round-up post about F8).

As you may have noticed if you’re one of the million people who use Facebook on a daily basis, it is now much more than a social network. Instead, it also lets you listen to music and share it with your friends, and the same goes for movies.

But what interests us the most is Facebook’s impact on news; people are increasingly getting their news by looking at what their friends have been sharing on social networks. These ‘friends’ can include media outlets, and those which decided to jump onboard are already seeing impressive results; as we reported, The Guardian’s Facebook app has been installed by over 4 million people in two months. In other words, it seems that audacity pays off.

From partnering with Facebook to saying no to Apple’s rules, risk-taking strategies have brought rewards to prestigious sources such as the FT and The Guardian, and could inspire other media outlets to follow the trend.

No matter what they decide, there is one thing they need to be aware of: the future of media will be social.

Top 10 Technology Events Of 2011!

2011 will be fondly remembered as the ‘year of technology’ with a number of intriguing events taking place in the technology world. We saw the launch of Google’s social network, downfall of Nokia, launch of Aakash (the world’s cheapest tablet), emergence of Samsung and phenomenal growth of Android as the positives, but we also saw loss of Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie, who helped shape the technology era.

To sum it up, here is a look at the events that made a difference to the technology world in the year 2011.

Launch of world’s cheapest tablet device: The stage was set. The world was looking at India when the nation proudly launched Aakash, world’s cheapest tablet device. Aakash came and conquered the world within no time. It was launched for Indian students, but attracted attention at an international platform and became much bigger than expected. The world now wants to be a part of Aakash. It was developed by Datawind, a London based IT firm in collaboration with the students of IIT Rajasthan. The device runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) OS, 366Mhz Atom processor, 256Mb RAM and comes with more than 15k pre-installed apps.

… And came a Facebook competitor, Google+: Google might have failed in the world of social media with Orkut and Buzz, but it has certainly not lost the spirit to make it big in the world of social networking. Google came up with the new Google+ in 2011. Google+ was initially launched for limited users only, but after a few months it was opened to everyone. Many Google services now also carry a link to user’s Google+ profile, which is usually seen in the black bar at the top. Google+ gained good amount of popularity soon after its launch and became the most important service for Google. It reached the mark of 25 million users within 2 months of its launch.

Death of Steve Jobs: The loss of Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs was not just a loss for the company, but for the entire technology world. We lost a visionary, a man who could think way ahead of his times. His death was one of the saddest events in 2011. Jobs died on 5 October, 2011. The man is and will always be remembered for the revolution he brought to the world of personal computers. He will be best remembered for his iPod and iPad devices.

Apple-Samsung patent war: Apple and Samsung are the biggest names that make the technology world survive today. This is the reason why the patent war between the two giants became an important event to remember for the passing year. The battle surfaced on 18 April, 2011, which later extended to more than nine nations across the globe. Apple blamed Samsung of aping the design of its iPhone and iPad devices. European nations including Germany and Netherlands banned the sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab. Australia also banned the sales of Samsung Galaxy phones, which was later lifted. This could emerge as one of the biggest battles in the technology world.

Microsoft purchased Skype: Microsoft became the proud owner of Skype, which is by far the best VoIP service. The software giant purchased Skype for $8.56 billion, which reaches over 124 million per year. With Skype, Microsoft is looking to challenge Google and Apple in the mobile platform arena. The software giant wants to offer a tough fight to Google Voice and Apple’s Facetime.

Launch Of Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich: Android 4.0 is the latest entrant in the Android family…possibly the most impressive too. Android 4.0 is fondly called the next step for the mobile operating system. The new Android offers a lot of impressive features that will give smartphone buyers reasons to upgrade to this one. Android is already dominating half of the world in terms of smartphones. With Ice Cream Sandwich, Google aims to touch new heights. The new features of Android 4.0 have forced the smartphone makers to switch to this one. Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus is the first device to come with Ice Cream Sandwich.

The launch of iPhone 4S: iPhone 4S was the last device launched during the lifetime of Steve Jobs. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone and combines Internet communicator, mobile phone and touchscreen with widescreen iPod. The device runs on iOS5 operating system with A5 dual core processor making it one of the fastest iPhone ever, 8MP camera that allows 1080 HD recording, better data transfer speed and lots more. And of course, how can we forget Siri, the voice assistant that comes exclusively with iPhone 4S. Siri has been in the news ever since it was launched.

iPad 2 was launched: Apple made one of its biggest announcements with iPad 2 in 2011. It was released in 25 nations across the globe. Needless to say, the device is now a rage and serves as a platform for Web content, presentation, games, music, movies, periodicals and audio visual media books. The device is lightweight, runs iOS5 operating system and gives full support to cloud computing.

Nokia lost its crown: This year has been ‘disastrous’ for Nokia. The emergence of Android cost Nokia its market share. After ruling the smartphone market for more than 15 years, Nokia lost its crown and to Samsung. Samsung became the biggest smartphone marker in the world while Nokia slipped to 3rd spot. However, Apple continues to occupy the second position.

Death of Dennis Ritchie: Not many days after the demise of Steve Jobs, technology world saw another loss in 2011 with Dennis Ritchie, the greatest American computer scientist on 12 October, 2011. Dennis was the creator of the UNIX operating system and was extremely popular amongst students across the globe for his C Programming language. His death did not enjoy as much media attention as Steve Jobs but his work in the field of computers will remain inevitable always.

Android Smartphone Can Be A Document Scanner Too!

You can use your Android device as a document scanner with the help of an app called CamScanner. It is a free Android app that converts your smartphone into a scanner and digitise a paper document using your smartphone camera. The app also brings along features like cropping, image enhancement and the ability to create a PDF from your scanned files.

CamScanner also allows the user to upload documents to the cloud and manage them by tagging or searching. With this app, the Android phone users can manage their written notes, business cards, memos, and magazines at a place and carry them with themselves anywhere. According to an AG Beat report, CamScanner offers batch scanning so multi-page documents are simple to scan and all documents can immediately be e-mailed or shared to the cloud.

With the app, users can also back up their files to SD card, so they can be restored any time and the app can condense file sizes of PDFs and other files too. The free version of the app has advertisements, a watermark on the PDF and a limitation of 50 documents.

Here is how CamScanner works: