Nokia 808 PureView creates a stir at MWC

It can not be overlooked. It's jaw dropping! Nokia has unveiled a new smartphone - the Nokia 808 PureView - at the MWC 2012, which has a 41 megapixel camera sensor with Carl Zeiss optics.
Yes, you read it right. It's 41 megapixel! As you might have speculated, the 41-megapixel sensor does not mean shooting pictures the size of billboards. Instead, it's about creating pictures at normal, manageable sizes.
It lets users shoot photos at different resolutions, say 2 megapixel, 3 megapixel, 5 megapixel, high resolution 8 megapixel or full resolution. The maximum resolution you can shoot at is 38 megapixels in 4:3 aspect ratio and 34 megapixels in 16:9 mode.

 The large sensor enables pixel oversampling, which is explained in detail in the white paper (embedded below). But in a nutshell, it means the combination of many pixels into one perfect pixel. In other words, the camera can use oversampling to combine up to seven pixels into one "pure" pixel, thereby eliminating the visual noise.
PureView imaging technology is touted to be the result of many years of research and development and the tangible fruits of this work are excellent image quality, lossless zoom, and superior low light performance, said the company.

The phone comes equipped with a 1/1.2" sensor, which is approximately 2.5 larger than the sensor used in the Nokia N8.

Besides, the camera performance also extends to video. The camera allows for 1080p recording at 30fps, with 4X lossless zoom thanks to the big sensor and powerful image processing which is said to be handling over 1 billion pixels per second, as claimed by the company.

The phone has a Nokia Belle operating system and a 4-inch, ClearBlack AMOLED display underneath Gorilla Glass. Powered by a 1.3GHz processor, it has 16GB of internal user memory, with support for MicroSD cards up to 32GB to contain all the pictures and video you’ll be shooting.
Reportedly, the Nokia 808 PureView will be launched in May 2012.

Google updated Google Earth (Google Earth 6.2) - Directly from Google Blog

We're taking bird's eye view to a whole new level with the latest version of Google Earth, released today. With Google Earth 6.2, we’re bringing you the most beautiful Google Earth yet, with more seamless imagery and a new search interface. Additionally, we’ve introduced a feature that enables you to share an image from within Google Earth, so you can now simply and easily share your virtual adventures with family and friends on Google+.

A seamless globe


The Google Earth globe is made from a mosaic of satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates and under different lighting and weather conditions. Because of this variance, views of the Earth from high altitude can sometimes appear patchy.

Today, we’re introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smoothes out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves the unique textures of the world’s most defining geographic landscapes—without the quilt effect. This change is being made on both mobile and desktop versions of Google Earth. While this change will appear on all versions of Google Earth, the 6.2 release provides the best viewing experience for this new data.

Grand Canyon before and after

Sri Lanka before and after

Share your explorations with Google+
Google Earth is a great way to virtually explore the globe, whether revisiting old haunts or checking out a future vacation spot. With the Google Earth 6.2 update, we’ve added the option to share a screenshot of your current view in Google Earth through Google+. If you’ve already upgraded to Google+, you can share images of the places you’ve virtually traveled to with your Circles, such as family, friends or your local hiking club. To try this new feature, simply sign in to your Google Account in the upper right hand corner of Google Earth and click “Share.” Images of mountains, oceans, deserts, 3D cities, your favorite pizza shop on Street View—you can now experience all these amazing places around the world with people on Google+.


Search improvements
We’ve also made some updates to the search feature in Google Earth. Aside from streamlining the visual design of the search panel, we’ve enabled the same Autocomplete feature that’s available on Google Maps. We’ve also introduced search layers, which will show all the relevant search results (not just the top ten), so now, when looking for gelato in Milano, you can see all the tasty possibilities. Finally, we’ve added biking, transit and walking directions, so if you’re itching for a change of scenery or looking for a new route for your regular commute, you can now use Google Earth to generate and visualize all your options.

Biking directions in Google Earth

Download Google Earth 6.2 and start exploring and sharing today!

IBM Offers Endpoint Manager To Manage Enterprise Mobile Phones

 

IBM has targeted organisations struggling to deal with the arrival of mobile devices into the enterprise, as part of the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend.

IBM rolled out an endpoint manager for mobile devices running iOS, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile and Windows Phone mobile platforms, the company said 31 January. Interestingly enough, IBM omitted Research In Motion’s BlackBerry platform from its mobile software.

Mobile Control

IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices helps organisations manage and secure the rapidly expanding number of mobile devices that are being brought to the corporate offices and being used to connect to company networks and access corporate data, IBM said. The software provides organisations with a single platform to secure and manage all endpoints, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop PCs and servers.

“The new offering from IBM will help organisations manage personal and enterprise-owned mobile phones and tablets across IT networks in order to minimise risk, increase productivity and enhance innovation,” said Bob Sutor, vice president of IBM Mobile Platform.

Endpoint Manager extends the capabilities that IBM gained as part of its Big Fix acquisition in 2010. Big Fix software was designed to manage and secure servers, desktops, roaming laptops and point-of-sale devices. The new Endpoint Manager extends the Big Fix features to the mobile platform, according to IBM.

With Endpoint Manager, organisations can selectively wipe data from devices when lost or stolen, as well as enforce passcode policies and the use of encryption on these devices. The software can also be configured to require employees to use a VPN when accessing the enterprise network.
IT administrators will be able to install the IBM software relatively quickly and begin remotely setting policies, identifying potential data compromises and wiping data off the devices, IBM said.
Both employee-owned and personal devices can be secured by a single platform that uses a combination of email-based and agent-based management tools. IT staff will be able to identify devices that are not complying with corporate policies and take appropriate action, such as denying email access or by issuing notifications to the user device as a reminder on what remedial steps need to be performed, according to IBM.

BYOD Trend

Organisations need mobile security and management policies in place to take advantage of the BYOD trend, according to Sutor.

A number of security companies are rolling out new products to make remote wipes and endpoint management easier for mobile devices. In Cisco’s second annual “Connected World Technology Report” released last November, more than half of young professionals and college students said they’d rather lose their wallets or purses before losing their mobile devices.
McAfee just updated its Mobile Security software on 30 January with new capabilities to protect mobile devices from Web threats as well as from data leakage in case of loss or theft.
In a separate announcement, IBM acquired private company Worklight, an Israeli company that makes smartphone and tablet software. The acquisition is part of IBM’s push into the mobile space and will “advance” IBM’s portfolio by providing clients with an open platform that will speed up application delivery to multiple mobile devices. Watchlight will also securely connect smartphone and tablet applications with enterprise IT systems.