Apple’s Australian iPad pages have changed to preemptively comply with rulings on 4G marketing. It now makes more generic claims to support “very fast cellular networks” and makes clear that the iPad doesn’t support the frequencies or technologies for what’s considered 4G in Australia. The hardware is “not compatible with current Australian 4G LTE networks and WiMAX networks,” Apple said.

Norway has also added to a number of countries that have involved themselves with similar concerns, including Denmark, the UK, and Sweden. The new Scandinavian complaint from the country’s ombudsman is concerned Apple is over-emphasizing LTE support for Norwegian customers that can’t use it.

The adjustments and disputes stem from current limitations surrounding 4G, as well as American marketing terms. Apple’s necessary choice of Qualcomm LTE chipset only gives it support for two frequencies and led it to choose the ranges that would cover two of its largest markets, the US and Canada. Pressure from AT&T and T-Mobile to define HSPA+ as 4G at the ITU has also given Apple a possible argument that it’s following 4G guidelines. Australian carriers still keep to the more accurate 3G label. [via MacRumors]

Last week, Nokia announced the price and availability of this device. This handset will go on sale from April 8 in the US. If you can’t wait for the next few days, then you can go ahead and pre-order this device. AT&T has already started taking the pre-orders of the Lumia 900 smartphone at their retail as well as online stores. Currently, you can pre-orders only for the black and cyan blue variants, since the white Lumia 900 will be available from April 22.

Nokia Lumia 900(video to Nokia Lumia 900) features a 4.3 inch ClearBlack display, sporting a resoulution of 800 x 480 pixels, 1.4 GHz Snapdragon processor, Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) OS, 8 megapixel rear camera with f2.2/28mm Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED Flash(Flash Video Converter for Mac), auto-focus and HD (720p) video recording, 1 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls, 512 MB RAM, 16 GB internal memory, 14.5 GB user memory and more.

It also comes with a 3.5mm headset jack, SkyDrive, Wi-Fi Internet Sharing for up to 5 devices, AT&T Radio, Office 365, Xbox(Xbox video converter) Live, Windows Marketplace, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Bing Maps, 4G LTE – up to 50 Mbps down/ 25 Mbps up, IE9 with HTML 5 support, AT&T Navigator, Zune, up to 60 hours of music playback in offline(offline dvd creator) mode, up to 7 hours of talk-time, up to 300 hours of stand-by time and a 1830 mAh battery.

The Nokia Lumia 900 will be available for just $99.99. If you are a new AT&T subscriber, then you can get this device for free with the usual 2 year service agreement and a $100 mail-in rebate. On the other hand, Walmart is also taking the pre-orders for the black and cyan blue variant at their online store for just $50, instead of the regular $99.99 price set by the carrier. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and get the Nokia Lumia 900 from AT&T or Walmart.

The Motorola Defy Mini runs on the Android(Android video converter) 2.3.6 (Gingerbread) Operating System and it comes with the Motorola’s MotoSwitch user interface, instead of the Motoblur UI found in the original Motorola Defy smartphone. Motorola Defy Mini is a dustproof and water resistant Smartphone(Smartphone Video Converter), which comes with the famous Gorilla Glass display.

This handset was expected to go on sale from February in most of the European and Asian markets, however it got delayed due to some unknown reasons. After waiting for nearly 2 months, this handset is finally available for purchase in the UK. Clove, a popular online(online video converter) retailer have already started selling this affordable rugged Smartphone(Smartphone Video Converter) for the folks living in the UK. If you are still unaware of the features, then check out the complete specs after the break.

Motorola Defy Mini features a 3.2 inch HVGA display with scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass, sporting a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, 600 MHz processor, Android(Android video converter) 2.3.6 (Gingerbread) Operating System, MotoSwitch user interface, 5 megapixel camera(dvd creator for camera video) with digital zoom and Flash(Flash Video Converter for Mac), VGA front-facing camera for video calls, 512 MB of RAM, 512 MB of ROM and more.

Other features include a 3.5 mm headset jack, FM Radio, MicroUSB, DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 3G connectivity, Ambient light, proximity sensor, Stereo Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, MicroSD card slot, 32 GB expandable memory, Google(Google video converter) Play Store, up to 10 hours talktime, up to 21 days stand-by time and a 1650 mAh battery.

The Motorola Defy Mini comes with a price tag of ￡162 (approx. $260) in the UK. To get this smartphone, head over to this page at Clove.

In the past few days, the rumors of Google making and selling their own tablet(tablet video converter) have gained steam. The rumors also point to a Kindle Fire-like price point of $199. The instant reaction is to look at Google’s earlier attempt to sell hardware directly to consumers, the Nexus One(Video to Nexus One) phone. We know it was a failed experiment which Google acknowledged, by shutting down the operations.

Nexus tablet(tablet video converter), on the other hand, is a completely different story. I have firmly believed that tablets should not be sold by the carriers. Yes, there are some options with tablets where you can get cellular broadband service, but first and foremost, a tablet should be sold like a PC(PC video converter). I mean, a computer store or a consumer electronics store. Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics and the like. The carriers can also hop in and sell the 3G/4G versions of the tablets like they tried selling the 3G-enabled netbooks. So, taking the sales point away from the carrier stores is a good sign. Compare this with the phone where, at least in the US, it is extremely hard to sell a phone without subsidies. Nokia(Nokia video converter) tried it long time ago and failed. Even Apple briefly tried the unsubsidized route but realized people are much more sensitive to upfront price than you would think. Given that the sale of the phone is tied so much to a carrier, it does not make much sense to conduct the sale away from the carrier. Apple is clearly an exception here, like in many business processes today.

Secondly, the price. If the rumors are true and the tablet is in fact around $199, it will be a huge win. A stock Android Tablet(dvd to Android Tablet) with no “skins” installed, for $199 could be an interesting device. Kindle Fire(Kindle Fire Video Converter) has its ecosystem to rely upon but out of the box, it does limit which Android apps can run on the device. If a Nexus tablet can run all Android apps, and additionally support Amazon media consumption (either via Amazon apps like Kindle app or via the browser for Amazon Video), it becomes a superset of the Fire, for the same price as the Fire. Yes, the current Android tablets already do all of that, I understand. However, none of them have gained any traction yet, and if Google can get behind the marketing and sales, and create a Nexus phone-style clean and crisp user experience, I think users may get interested.

In fact, if this strategy does not work, you can presumably call it the end of the road for Android tablets.

Let’s face it, people are self conscious and need validation. So, there’s an app for that. A couple of applications(swf converter for applications) actually. In the marketing world, this is called social proof, to the average person, this is ego building.

The premise of the Android applications below is to supply a picture(swf to picture) to have other people vote up or down whether they like it or not. This is a pretty simple yet powerful way to get hones opinions from people because people are not afraid to tell a stranger what they think.

Both of the applications below need you to sign up for a free account.

1. Thumb

Thumb for Android is a social question asking and answering application. Think of Thumb like Stumbleupon. You can sign in, select the filters for the topics you’d like to vote on and you give it the thumbs up, down or neutral. There is also a text box to give your opinion. When people have no real interest in the outcome of something, people will be honest. And if they can be anonymous, they will be brutally honest so be careful what you ask about.

If you are asking a question, you can filter who sees your question. An example would be a guy going out on a first date with a girl. He could post a question so only women can see in the relationship section asking if the shirt he bought matches the shoes he wants to wear. Or if you are trying out dressing in a different way, you could try on a few outfits and see what strangers think.

2. Wayin

Wayin is a similar social application for Android. With Wayin, you have the option to answer questions people ask, but there is more you can do other than answering questions. There are Live Events. These Live Events can range from sporting events to parties to fans of a TV(video to TV converter) show commenting on a episode. All of the Live Events are people watching or participating in an event, for example, a game and talking about what is going on while the event is happening.

All of these are ways to meet other people who have the same interests as you do. During Springtime in the US, the NHL season is nearing the last couple months. There were a lot of hockey Games(flash Games converter) in the Live Events section.

In the account settings, you can search your social contact lists like Facebook(Facebook video converter) to find current friends using either service. Otherwise, you can use Wayin to meet new people.

Conclusion

Social applications are meant to bring out the social butterfly in people. While applications and web events can bring people to events and activities getting them into the real world, some people feel more comfortable in the digital space. If you prefer to stay inside or glued to your Android Phone(Android Phone Video Converter), then meeting new people through apps like these should be a breeze.

How do you meet new people from all over the world?

The HTC One X and One S are high-end smartphones, while the HTC One V is a mid-range phone. These devices runs on the latest Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Operating System. Recently at a press event in Singapore, HTC confirmed that the much awaited One X and One V smartphones will go on sale from early-April in India.

HTC One X comes with a 4.7 inch Super LCD HD(HD video converter) display, sporting a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, 1.5 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core processor, Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS(OS video converter), HTC Sense 4 UI, 8 megapixel camera(dvd creator for camera video) with full HD (1080p) video recording, 1 GB RAM, 32 GB internal memory, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, 25 GB DropBox cloud storage, HDMI, DLNA connectivity and a 1800 mAh battery.

HTC One V features a 3.7 inch touchscreen display, sporting a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, 1 GHz processor, Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS, HTC Sense 4 UI, 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED Flash(Flash Video Converter for Mac), HD (720p) video recording and playback, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB internal memory, MicroSD card slot, 32 GB internal memory, Beats audio(audio converter), Bluetooth 4.0, 25 GB DropBox cloud storage, A-GPS and a 1500 mAh battery.

HTC One X and HTC One V will go on sale from April 2 in India. HTC has not yet announced the price and availablity of the HTC One S smartphone. The HTC One X will come with a price tag of Rs.35,000. On the other hand, the HTC One V will be available for just Rs.17,000. Stay tuned for more updates.

Activity Monitor can be used for more than just managing tasks and killing processes, it can also turn the Mac OS X Dock into a live system monitor where you can keep an eye on processor usage, CPU history, network activity, disk activity, or RAM use.

1. Launch Activity Monitor, found in /Applications/Utilities/
2. Right-click on the Dock icon and scroll up to the “Dock Icon” submenu and select one of five available options:
• Show CPU Usage – this is a live gauge of processor activity on the Mac, each CPU core is shown as a separate bar, this is probably the most useful of the five choices (shown up top)
• Show CPU History – this shows processor load and use graphed over time, each CPU core is shown separately
• Show Network Usage – displays a graph of incoming (green) and outgoing (red) network traffic, this can be helpful if you’re on a sketchy internet connection or are carefully conserving bandwidth
• Show Disk Activity – shows a live graph of disk reads (green) and writes (red) in the same format as Network Usage
• Show Memory Usage – displays a pie chart of current RAM usage and allocation on the Mac, green is free memory, red is wired, yellow is active, and blue is inactive memory

If you find yourself using this often, you may want to pin Activity Monitor to the Dock by right-clicking and choosing “Keep in Dock” from the Options submenu.

Here is what the memory usage pie chart looks like:

And here is what Disk Activity and Network Activity look like:

If the Dock isn’t your thing, the iStat Menu bar item offers similar features in the menu bar.

Thanks to Roman for the tip idea

With the help of a buried menu item, we can lock the Mac OS X screen right from the Terminal. This does not log a user out, it just brings up the standard Mac OS X lock screen and login window, requiring a valid user and password before the Mac can be used again.

Open Terminal and enter the following in a single line:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

There isn’t any confirmation, the desktop is immediately locked and the lock screen appears regardless of what is currently going on with the active user account.

For those wondering, the menu item being used is the same Fast User Switching menu that displays a user name in the upper right corner, and the lock screen shown is identical to what is summoned if one were to select “Login Window…” from that same menu.

You can lock a screen using a keyboard shortcut as well, but using the command line offers two obvious advantages; it can be included within scripts or entered from SSH to remotely lock a Mac.

How To Rollback/Downgrade iOS

Even the most recent iOS 5.1 seems to be available for downgrade. For this to work, you will need a few things, The iOS you want to install, these are all over the web, but let me help you out. I’ll give a list of download links, official from Apple, to get your prefered iOS. Obviously, to be able to downgrade your iOS, you’ll need to jailbreak your iPhone before doing that. These are stable versions, so we suggest downgrading to them.

Official iOS 4.3.5

iPhone 4 (GSM)
iPhone 3GS
ipad 2 WiFi
iPad 2 GSM
iPad 2 CDMA
iPad 1
iPod touch 3G
iPod touch 4G

Official iOS 4.3.4

iPhone 4 (GSM)
iPhone 3GS
iPad 2 WiFi
iPad 2 GSM
iPad 2 CDMA
iPad 1
iPod touch 3G
iPod touch 4G

Official iOS 4.3.3 / 4.2.8

iPhone 4 (GSM)
iPhone 4, iOS 4.2.8 (Verizon)
iPhone 3GS
iPad 2 WiFi
iPad 2 GSM
iPad 2 CDMA
iPad
iPod touch 3G
iPod touch 4G

After downloading your iOS, download TinyUmbrella and/or RecBoot. You will need them later on if you get an error message (and you will get one) to exit your iPhone from the Recovery Mode. Good, so you downloaded your materials, now it’s time to actually do it. There are 2 methods to do this,and both of them have been tried and tested and they all work, so if one fails, no fear, you can try another way.

1. Restore From Backup

Some people have said that this method does not work anymore, but then again, there are lots who say they do. For this to work, you will need an earlier backup of your iPhone, made on the iOS you want to install. For this restoration method, you won’t need to download a new iOS, but you will use TinyUmbrella. To do this downgrade, follow these steps:

• Open TinyUmbrella, navigate to the “Advanced” tab and uncheck “Set Host to Cydia On Exit”. After doing so, click “Apply”.
• Restart your computer (this is necessary)
• Connect your iOS device to the computer and turn it on
• Launch iTunes and if it shows you an error, just ignore it.
• Enter the recovery mode on your device (hold down the Home button and power button at the same time for 10 seconds, then release only the power button, holding the home button down until iTunes tells you that your device has successfully entered recovery mode, after this, release the home button)
• You can now restore with iTunes back to 4.3.3
• In iTunes, restore your last backup to your iPhone

As I said, many have complained that this method does not work any more, but give it try, it might do it for you.

2.Manually Download and Install iOS

In order to do this, you have to download one of the iOS’s from before. After doing so, then you must navigate yourself to find the “hosts” file on your computer.

For Windows, go to: C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc
For Mac: /etc/

• Open the “hosts” file and add the following line at the end: 74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com. Save the the file and move on to the next step.
• After doing this, open iTunes, select your device, but don’t click Restore just yet. Hold down the Shift Key on your keyboard, and click Restore while holding it down. iTunes will now prompt you for the location of the iOS you want to install. Navigate to wherever you saved it and select it.
• Now the installer starts. At some points you might encounter an error, to get past this, use TinyUmbrella or RecBoot to exit the Recovery Mode, and you are all set.
• Your iPhone starts in the older version iOS.

Keep in mind that doing this rollback will wipe your iPhone clean, so be sure to backup your apps, files, contacts and other data before doing it. You will have to do Jailbreak all over again and sync your files and preferences. iOS 5 is, in itself a fairly good OS, I myself do not see why would someone want to change back to an older version, but then again, it’s just me. I hope I heled you get the information you needed and I’m not responsible if anyone brickes their phone trying to change OS’s. But hopefully, it won’t come to that.

Nokia Lumia and AC/DC? Who saw that coming…

Microsoft and Nokia have announced they plan to invest €9 million each into a new apps development program known as AppCampus.

‘AppCampus’, which is going to reside in Nokia’s homeland of Finland, will reportedly be managed by Aalto University, website TechCrunch reported.

The goal is to help fund news apps developed for the Windows Phone platform, helping to make the platform more attractive to developers and consumers.

Although Windows Phone now boasts 70,000 apps and counting, it’s no way near as many on the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store.

Of course, quality is better than quantity and you could probably write off about 80 per cent of apps and games for both Android and iOS. However, there are many obvious omissions from the Windows Marketplace, including Angry Birds Space, Path and Draw Something.

And whenever we ask developers about their launch schedule, the usual development train of thought is either ‘wait and see’ or ‘we’ll do it later’.

Considering Nokia has put most of its eggs into the Windows Phone basket, there’s not a lot of margin for error. Fortunately, it seems as if the platform is starting to sway consumers with its simplistic Metro interface ways.