Sony announced the flashy new Xperia Z5 line

Sony has unveiled the latest Xperia Z series - Sony Xperia Z5. This line will include 3 different phones - Xperia Z5 compact, Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Premium. All phones will be available for purchase starting October 2015.

One of the striking features of the flagship Xperia line is the camera and this time is no different. This series will be shipped with a 23MP 1/2.3-inch Exmor RS rear camera sensor with F2.0 G Lens. Snapdragon 810 will be powering these phones with Android Lollipop 5.1.1. Technical specifications wise all 3 phones are similar except for the display. The Z5 compact will have a 4.6 inch display, the Z5 will have a 5.2 inch display and the Z5 premium will have a 5.5 inch screen and a 4K display achieving an astonishing 806 ppi. The power button will now serve as a finger print scanner.

As usual, this flagship series is dust and water resistant with IP68 certification.

Following are some of the press images by Sony.

Xperia Z5 Compact

Xperia Z5

Xperia Z5 Premium

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The flip phones are back in town

Samsung and LG have decided to bring back the flip phones - Samsung Galaxy Folder and LG Gentle; and this time, they come with Android. Both Korean electronic giants announced the launch of their flip phones this month. An android flip phone is something else! We cannot wait to get our hands on one of these phones.

Samsung Galaxy Folder

Key features of Samsung Galaxy Folder:

• 3.8 inches TFT capacitive touch screen
• 480x800 resolution
• 8 GB internal storage with 1.5 GB RAM
• Micro SD slot
• 8 MP rear camera and 2 MP front camera
• Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
• Android 5.1 Lollipop 
• Quad Core 1.2 GHz processor

While Samsung Galaxy Folder will be available for the global market, it seems as though LG Gentle will be limited to South Korea.

LG Gentle

Key features of LG Gentle:

• 3.2 inches HVGA touch screen
• 1 GB RAM
• 4 GB internal storage 
• Micro SD card slot
• 3 MP front camera
• Android 5.1 Lollipop
• Quad Core 1.1 GHz processor 

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Teclast X98 Air 3G - A dual OS tablet

Teclast X98 AIR 3G is a dual OS tablet that support Android and Windows 8.1; Not Windows 8.1 RT, but the desktop version of Windows. Wondering how is it done? Here is the answer - powered by Intel Bay Trail -T Z3736F processor, a x86 based 64 bit processor which makes it possible to run both Windows and Android on the same hardware architecture.

Intel Bay Trail -T Z3736F is a quad core processor with a clock speed of 2.16 GHz which makes the tablet super fast. With a retina screen and support for 4K video playback, you can enjoy your favorite movies with stunning clarity.

During booting, the boot loader gives you an option to boot either into Windows or into Android. The boot process is seamless.

Some of the key features of this tablet are:

• Intel Bay Trail -T Z3736F 64 bit, 2.16 GHz processor
• 3G support (SIM Slot)
• 2048 x 1536 screen resolution
• 2GB DDR3L RAM
• 32 GB eMMC (Internal Storage)
• GPS with upgraded satellite antenna 
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4

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Combine bandwidth of two or more internet connections

How many times have you felt the need for additional bandwidth? How many times did you wish that you had more broadband speed? Well, all you need is two or more internet connections and a magical device called - bandwidth aggregation router or load balancing router which combines bandwidth of two or more internet connections. These routers have more than two WAN ports and at least one LAN port.

I have used TP-Link TL-R470T, which has 4 WAN ports. Speeds from 4 different internet connections can be combined. P2P fans will take this router as a blessing. Any application that opens multiple sockets performs excellently with this router as the bandwidth aggregation is just sublime.

It is possible to combine DSL connections, 3G connections (with the 3G sharing device), etc. 

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Sony launches Xperia Z4 tablet

Sony announced the launch of Xperia Z4 Tablet at MWC 2015 in Barcelona. Although Sony delayed the launch it's flagship device Xperia Z4, we are not all too disappointed as we can't wait to get our hands on this 10.1 inch tablet. As usual, this is going to be a waterproof tablet.

Some of the key features of this tablet are:

• GSM/HSPA/LTE Support
• 10.1 inches IPS LCD Capacitive touchscreen
• Multi-touch support
• Scratch-resistant glass
• Android v5.0 Lollipop
• Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 Chipset
• Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2 GHz Cortex-A57 CPU
• microSD, up to 128 GB
• 32 GB Internal storage and 3 GB RAM
• 8.1 MP Primary camera and 5.1 MP secondary camera
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac support

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4 Ways to stay safe on Facebook

Facebook is undoubtedly the most used and arguably the best social networking website out there. It offers convenient ways of connecting with friends, family and loved ones. With so much recognition comes a few disadvantages. There are predators and other creepy people out there who are ready to scavenge on the information you upload. Here are a few ways to stay safe on Facebook.

1. Do not add people you do not know

It is best to stay away from strangers. You may receive tons of requests from people you do not know. It is a good idea to avoid them as their intentions may not be clear. The stranger could be a predator wanting to jump in action.

2. Avoid posting each and every detail of your life

The heading says it all. Post only what's required. You do not really want people to know when you go to have bath. Do You?

3. Take care while authorizing Facebook Apps

Facebook apps like Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. are a great pass time. At the same time, there are creepy apps which say one thing and do something else. When you authorize an app, read and understand the app permissions thoroughly. Some apps can read your personal information, post on your wall, post on your friend's wall, etc.

4. Make full use of privacy settings

Facebook offers plenty of good features and privacy settings is one of them. Go to Settings -> Privacy on top right corner and over there you can set who can see your stuff, who can contact you, etc. You can even hide your stuff from a particular person or a list of people.

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Extend your LAN connection through power lines

Ever dreamed of having an Ethernet port in every room? Or having a wireless connection throughout the house without the messy Ethernet cables running through the concealing pipes or through the walls? Well, you can do just that with Ethernet power-line adapters. You can extend your LAN connection through the already present power lines in your home, office, etc.

The technology is called power line communication (PLC). It is a standard that carries data on a conductor which is simultaneously used for electric power transmission. To use your power lines to extend your LAN connection, you need to purchase power line adapters and plug them in to a power socket. There will be a LAN port on the adapters, you need to connect a LAN cable between this port and a port of your main internet router. Plug another adapter in a different power socket where you would like to use the LAN connection. Connect a LAN cable between this adapter and your PC/Laptop. Your device will now be able to connect to the main router and thus to the internet through the power lines.

We will be covering one such power line adapter in brief - TP-LINK AV200+ TL-PA251

Features:

• Integrated power socket which allows access to power for other devices.
• Data transfer rate of up to 200 Mbps
• Mains filter for better performance 
• Range of up to 300 meters through the electrical wires
• Plug and play, no configuration needed

Extending Wi-Fi network through power lines:

In order to extend your Wi-Fi connection over power lines, you need a minimum of two power line adapters. One of the will be connected to your main router and the other to another Wi-Fi router in a different room where you want to deploy the wireless connection. You need to keep the same wireless network parameters such as SSID name, security type and security key in both the routers so that the network deployed by two routers behaves as one big network. Roaming will be automatically enabled.

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AirAsia flight QZ8501's black box found 14 days after it's disappearance. Wish technology could do more.

Year 2014 was a bad year for aviation, 5 planes belonging to international airlines crashed. The latest one being AirAsia flight QZ8501 which disappeared on December 28, 2014 while en route to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia.

The concerned search and rescue agencies did not have a clue about the plane's whereabouts for 2 days. On December 30th, the plane's wreckage was spotted for the first time and three bodies were recovered. More wreckage was spotted and a few more bodies were recovered on the following days.

On 11th January - 14 days after the flight disappeared, it's black box was found by deep sea rescue divers. We will soon know why the plane went down after investigators examine the data from the black box. Some sort of closure for everyone associated with AirAsia flight QZ8501.

Could advanced technologies have done more to locate the crashed plane if not to save it from crashing? Consider Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 which disappeared on March 8th, 2014. It has been 10 months now and no one knows what happened to the flight.

The questions we are asking are - Why cannot black boxes have a longer battery life? Why cannot planes report their GPS location on a real time basis even when they are about to crash? Why rely only on radars so much? It was revealed that Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 tried sending engine data to Boeing's maintenance cell via a British satellite. If that data had also contained GPS information then the probability of finding the missing jet would have been high and probably we would have known what had happened to the flight.

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