DAVID POGUE: The big breakthrough was the iPad: a flat, thin, beautiful, nearly buttonless computer, all touch screen. But that was three years ago. Ever since then, Apple’s rivals have churned out iPad clones in different sizes. Ten inches diagonal? How about 11? How about 9? Or 7? Or 5? In Samsung’s line alone, you can buy a tablet that matches almost any shoe size.

WASHINGTON: Historic misquote? Neil Armstrong's famous quote "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" uttered by the American astronaut after becoming the first person to land on the Moon in 1969 had a small error, according to a new study. A team of researchers from Michigan State University and Ohio State University has taken a second listen to Armstrong's famous quote and may have provided evidence that he did indeed say the wor

Plants that were frozen during the "Little Ice Age" centuries ago have been observed sprouting new growth, scientists say. Samples of 400-year-old plants known as bryophytes have flourished under laboratory conditions.

Samsung launched its biggest phablet, Galaxy Mega, on Tuesday. The phablet is available in two sizes, 5.8 inches and 6.3 inches, priced at Rs 25,100 and Rs 31,490 respectively. The Mega 5.8-inch weighs 182 grams, while its bigger iteration weighs 199 grams, both are fairly light for their sizes.

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics said Monday it had successfully tested super-fast fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology that would eventually allow users to download an entire movie in one second.

SINGAPORE: For those on the go, finding a clean toilet in Singapore and giving feedback on the best and worst commodes is now in hand with a new app for mobile phones and tablet computers. The Restroom Association of Singapore (RAS) already has the LOO Connect service on its toilet.org.sg website that allows people to pinpoint and comment on public facilities and to see those given three, four or five stars.

MELBOURNE: Sleep problems can drastically lower the fertility among young men, a study has warned. Scientists at the University of Southern Denmark examined nearly 1,000 men in their late teens or early 20s about to do military service gave sperm samples and answered questions about how well they slept. Questions included how often the men slept badly and how often they found it difficult to nod off.

Lava Mobile has launched the Iris 455 as part of its Blockbuster Phone Day, where it launches a new smartphone every Friday. The device has a 4.5-inch screen, with a resolution of 540×960 pixels and runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It has a1GHz dual-core processor and 512MB RAM. The phone comes with 4GB internal storage, that can be expanded via microSD card. The maximum limit of the microSD card is 32GB.

A US supercomputer called Roadrunner has been switched off by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The machine was the first to operate at "petaflop pace" - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second - when it launched in 2008. It has been used to model viruses and distant parts of the universe, as well as in nuclear weapons research.

A new initiative to share information on cyber threats between businesses and government is to be launched. It will include experts from government communications body GCHQ, MI5, police and business and aims to better co-ordinate responses to the threats. There will be a secure web-portal to allow access to shared information in real time, like a "secure Facebook".

NEW YORK: Samsung unveiled a slim, feature-rich Galaxy S4 as its new champion to take on Apple in the fiercely competitive smartphone arena. The South Korean consumer electronics giant introduced the Galaxy S4 on the stage of New York City's Radio City Music Hall and said the smartphones would roll out in 155 countries in late April. Pricing was not disclosed.

GENEVA: Physicists said on Thursday they are now confident they have discovered a crucial subatomic particle known as a Higgs boson, a major discovery that will go a long ways toward helping them explain why the universe is the way it is. They made the statement following study of the data gathered last year from the world's largest atom-smasher, which lies beneath the Swiss-French border outside Geneva. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said that what they found last yea

LONDON: Google Inc (GOOG.O) is to retire Google Reader in July, it said on Thursday, citing declining usage for the application that aggregates content served by web feeds. "There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we are pouring all of our energy into fewer products," Google said in its official blog.

NEW YORK: A new app allows users to watch videos on a translucent browser that they can see in the background as they work. The transparent browser can be placed behind any variety of other programs --word processing documents, spreadsheets, other browsers -- that allow users to do their work, while watching videos of their choosing in the background, the New York Daily News reported.

Sony India launched its flagship mobile phone - Xperia Z in India on Wednesday. The phone will cost Rs 38,990. The five-inch phone is water-proof and dust-resistant, making it ideal for use in India. The phone has a stunning 1080-pixel display with a resolution of 441 pixels per inch. The 13.1-megapixel camera is among the best in the market, with good performance even in low light.

NEW DELHI: Samsung seems to be on a price cutting spree. The company has cut the price of both the versions of its Galaxy Tab 2 in India. Galaxy Tab 2 P3110, which was launched in India earlier this month at Rs 13,900, now costs Rs 12,750 officially and comes with a free Bluetooth headset. Samsung has also reduced the price of Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 to Rs 16,499 from Rs 19,500.

NEW DELHI: Blackberry has finally launched the Blackberry Z10 smartphone in the Indian market, pricing it at Rs 43,490. The launch in India follows the global launch of the new operating system BlackBerry 10. The Z10 is competitively priced, keeping in mind the likes of Apple iPhone 5 (Rs 45,000). However, it will face stiff competition from smartphones which are more strategically priced — Samsung Galaxy SIII (Rs 30,000) and Nokia Lumia 920 (Rs 38,200)

BARCELONA: Nokia Monday expanded its Lumia range with the launch of Lumia 720 and Lumia 520 at the Mobile World Congress here, upping its ante against global rivals – Apple and Samsung – in the smartphone category. Lumia 520 will be Nokia's most affordable Windows 8 smartphone, with the same digital camera lenses on Lumia 920. It will be priced 139 euros onwards.

NEW YORK/NEW DELHI: Now you can stream and play video games hosted on servers, thanks to Sony. The Japanese electronics giant has unveiled its next-generation video game console PlayStation4". The PS4 which comes with more updated features like touchpad, motion control and a "share" button is preceded by the seven-year-old PlayStation 3.

LONDON: Google has revealed for the first time what view users will get through its 'Project Glass' wearable computer. The glasses allow wearers to see sat-nav directions, take pictures and reply to emails, but until today Google has refused to show how they actually work. But now the firm explained for the first time what looking through its high-tech glasses feels like, the Daily Mail reports.

The creature that gave rise to all the placental mammals - a huge group that includes whales, elephants, dogs, bats and us - has at last been pinpointed. An international effort mapped out thousands of physical traits and genetic clues to trace the lineage. Their results indicate that all placental mammals arose from a small, furry, insect-eating animal. A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived; it came about after the demise of dinosaurs. That had been a hotly debat

LONDON: Mobile maker Nokia has been approved for a 1.35 billion dollars grant to develop the ‘world's strongest material,’ known as graphene. Graphene is made up of pure carbon and is only one-atom thick. Nokia claims that it is 300 times stronger than steel. According to News. com, au, the substance has a number of applications and is theorised to have benefits in electronics, solar energy, medicine and water desalination.

Medical illustrators and neurological imaging experts have figured out how night-hunting owls can almost fully rotate their heads without damaging the delicate blood vessels in their necks and heads, and without cutting off blood supply to their brains. Combining angiography, CT scans and medical illustrations to examine the anatomy of a dozen of the big-eyed birds, the Johns Hopkins team, led by medical illustrator Fabian de Kok-Mercado

LONDON: Astronomers have discovered the largest known structure in the universe - a group of quasars so large it would take 4 billion years to cross it while traveling at speed of light.The immense scale also challenges Albert Einstein's Cosmological Principle, the assumption that the universe looks the same from every point of view, researchers said.

NEW DELHI: This could be termed as one of the biggest Indian gadget launches of the year. Finnish handset maker Nokia has launched the Lumia 920 in India.

Technology demonstrations at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show highlight that wireless charging and power is about more than keeping the batteries of smartphones and tablets permanently topped up. As interest in wireless charging continues to grow, Fulton Innovation is giving consumers a glimpse into its vision of a wireless future, as well as the first live demonstration of two-way wireless power charging.

LONDON: Apple's patent on pinching to zoom, a key issue in its battle against Samsung, has reportedly been declared 'invalid' by the US Patent Office, who claim that the patent should never have been granted. The rejection comes as a blow to Apple's 1 billion dollar lawsuit against rival Samsung, and is the second such occurrence in just a few months.

NEW DELHI: Sony India unveiled the next generation of hybrid ultrabook PC - VAIO Duo 11 - which also turns into a touchscreen tablet. With its Surf Slider design, the VAIO Duo 11 PC switches between tablet to PC modes. It has a 29.4cm (11.6-inch) Full HD OptiContrast Panel. The device features USB 3.0, USB Sleep Charge to charge your USB charging devices like mobiles or music players on the go; even when the PC power is off, HDMI, Ethernet and VGA video ports. It weighs approximately 1.3kg and i