Simmtronics Launches India’s First Solar-powered Desktop

How’s this for green computing? Simmtronics Semiconductors have launched a new range of desktop PCs that are powered completely by solar energy. This new line-up is best suited for areas that encounter frequent power cuts or villages that don’t have the luxury of electricity. The solar PC is available for a price of Rs 28,990 that includes the solar setup, as well and a year's worth of on-site warranty.

Perfect for areas with frequent load shedding

Simmtronics claim the PC can run for more than 10hrs without solar energy, which is good enough for a day's worth of work. Now don’t expect a high end rig here, obviously the PC is designed for basic computing tasks like a few Office applications, light multimedia usage and internet surfing. The specifications include a Via C7 1.6GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, keyboard and mouse and a 15.6-inch LED monitor. The operating system used is Linux (exact distro is unknown) and the kit includes a 74W solar panel with charge controller, SMF battery and AC inverter. Powering it in the monsoons will be a bit of a challenge though, perhaps you'll need multiple batteries for a few days worth of power.

LG Accused of Selling Defective Optimus 2X (G2X) Handsets

Popular consumer electronics brand, LG has an impending court trial in the U.S District Court for Southern District of California in the wake of large scale defects being spotted on the T-Mobile’s version of Optimus 2X (G2X). Being sued at the Californian court, LG’s smartphones were found to randomly freeze, or shut down causing a lot of inconvenience to the users. These defects, the complaint stated occurred even when a call was on. If that was not enough, then the screen’s poor display qualities were exposed too making watching videos a hellish experience. As per the consumer complaints, the smartphone’s back light bled into the screen, thereby exposing its faults. The errors have been spotted on the T-Mobiles USA version of the prestigious Optimus 2X for a cool $250.

Defective?

Shockingly so, according to reports, these issues haven’t cropped up in a day. They have been around since the very beginning and LG too is aware of it, only that instead of addressing the issue, they chose to ignore it. Now, although a complaint has been filed solely under Terry Horvarth, it voices the displeasures of several other irate consumers. The complaint is a detailed account of Terry’s ordeal that began just days after he purchased his smartphone. Strangely, the problems persisted even after Terry got his model replaced. 

So either LG has to face a humiliating court trial or compensate the users - a number which is easily in thousands - in an out of court settlement, neither of which is going to help its image in the market.

Bareilly baby boy with 34 fingers and toes sets new Guinness record

Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh), July 20 (ANI): Akshat, a baby boy over the age of one, registered his name in the Guinness world records for having a total of 34 fingers and toes.

He has set the record for having the highest number of fingers and toes and hails from the Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh.

Amrita Saxena, the mother of the child, said it was difficult for her to believe that her son broke the world record, until a family friend convinced her.

"He (family friend) read on the internet about the baby born in China with 31 fingers. Then he said that my boy has broken the record of having 34 fingers. At first, I was not convinced at all. It was hard to believe that my son has broken the record. But later, he along with my husband and my younger sister registered the data in the Internet. Then I was asked to submit certain documents after which his name was in the Guinness World Records," added Saxena.

Doctors attending to the child informed the mediapersons that it was a rare phenomenon and diagnosed it as polydactyly.

"The person who is diagnosed with it is polydactylic. It is due to certain defects in the bone development of the uterus. The reason behind this defect can be either developmental congenital formation or chromosomal anomalies, which is due to maternal infection or drugs," said Dr. Parul Gupta, a gynaecologist.

Gupta further explained that this congenital physical anomaly could be easily cured by performing a surgery.

"Yes, it is absolutely curable. Mostly people go for plastic surgery. And sometimes when polydactyly is minimal, it can be cured normally, without an operation. And if there is a major problem, then people prefer to go for a plastic surgery," added Gupta.

Meanwhile Saxena was a little worried for her son's future. She aspires for her son to lead a 'normal' life and wants him to undergo proper treatment for it.

It is quite interesting to know that Polydactyly or polydactylism is also known as hyperdactyly. It is a congenital physical anomaly in humans, dogs, and cats having supernumerary fingers or toes. (ANI)

Catch up with Saina

Saina Nehwal launches the latest collection of Titan watches in Mumbai

Get Gadgeted Under Rs. 90,000

In a budget of Rs 90,000, one could go all out and buy the best possible gadgets out there, computers, MP3 players, HDTVs, speakers or even a complete home theatre system. The best part is that if you've just set this budget for a complete gadget overhaul, here's a blend of gadgets that you want to really consider.

If you think last week’s budget of Rs. 60,000 had some great products, wait till you see what we’ve got in store for you this time, as we have taken it up a notch to Rs. 90,000. Read on and drool!

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 - Rs. 36, 172

•�� �Weight: 2.6 kgs
•�� �Screen size / resolution: 15.6-inch / 1366 x 768
•�� �Processor: Intel Core i3-350M, 2.26 GHz
•�� �RAM: 3 GB
•�� �Hard drive: 320 GB
•�� �Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 310M
•�� �Operating system: Free DOS

Lenovo's IdeaPad Z460 and Z560 series of laptops are great choices if you're looking at entry-level multimedia laptops. The IdeaPad Y series are better in terms of performance but they're slightly more expensive and even look rather jazzy in comparison. The best part about the IdeaPad Z560 is that, for less than 37K you're getting a 15 incher with discrete GPU, 3 GB RAM and enough muscle to run mainstream applications. You can even play games at low to medium settings (depending on the game). So all-in-all, despite the absence of a Windows OS, we'd say that at this price, the IdeaPad Z560 is a good deal.

Benq-MK2432 Full HDTV – Rs. 18,999
This 24 inch TV is definitely one of the best deals you can get, as it supports a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (Full HD). With a host of video outputs like HDMI, component, composite S-video, DVI and analogue, you can hook this baby up to your DVD player, PC or even your laptop via HDMI. And with a response time of 5 ms, watching action movies, sports and even gaming will be a real pleasure. It also has 5 watt speakers so you don’t have to turn on your home theater system every time you want to watch some regular TV. To sum it up, this is a great LCD TV to have, and at this price, it’s an absolute bargain.

Philips-HTS3555 - Rs. 5,900
What’s the point of having a brilliant full HDTV, when you haven’t got a home theater system to go along with it? The HTS3555 is a great value for money option for those who want a complete 5.1 home theater package with an HDMI output.� Apart from all the usual functions that a DVD player has such as a stereo audio input and a digital coaxial jack, this one has a couple of extras such as support for DivX files via the USB port and a docking system for your iPod or Philips GoGear portable media device (yes, you read that right!). For a home theater system that costs this much, the HTS3555 sounds great, and is an absolute steal.

Western Digital-My Passport Essential WDBAAA5000ABK – Rs. 3,700
There’s nothing like 500 GB of extra hard disk space to go with your spanking new laptop, which is why we’ve included this one. This version of Western Digital’s My Passport wins over the rest because of its affordability, at the cost of just Rs. 7.4 per GB of storage. Needless to say, the WDBAAA5000ABK has all the features of a modern day plug and play external hard drive such as automatic continuous backup, password protection and such. Western Digital is known for their quality, and for this kind of space, you couldn’t really ask for a better deal.

Samsung Wave S8500 Mobile Phone - Rs. 16,875
The Samsung Wave is a great multimedia handset, that won’t be too hard on your pocket. It is comfortable and lightweight, with a very smooth and easy-to-use user interface and has some awesome features including 720p playback, great camera and a powerful battery that lasts for around two days on a single charge. Even the audio quality from the built in MP3 player is really good, with a customizable EQ option that includes 5.1 surround sound settings.� Apart from all this, the Wave handles 3G connectivity, supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0. All in all, this phone is a great option for those who love entertainment on the go.

Transcend-MP860 Portable Media Player (4 GB) - Rs. 4,230
The Transcend MP860 is a really versatile device, and it comes with a lot of features for a really good price. It supports a bunch of formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC and OGG for audio and MPEG4 SP (XVID) and FLV for video. It also has a line in so you can record audio from an external source. Apart from all this, it comes with built-in FM radio, voice recorder, text file reader and a facility that synchronises lyrics on the display and supports 13 different languages. And that’s not it. Not only does this little wonder boast of over 22 hours of continuous music playback, but it also has provisions for expandable memory. Now that’s what I call a really good deal!

Logitech G330 Gaming Headset - Rs. 2,500
The G330 is definitely one of the most comfortable gaming headsets and has great sound to boot. What sets this baby apart from the rest is the width-adjustable design that goes behind the head. It also has an adjustable boom microphone and a USB dongle adaptor.

Kingston – DT100/16GB Flash Memory Drive - Rs. 1,850
Now, we had a little money left over, so we’ve added this 16 GB pen drive even though it’s gone a little over the budget. This is a handy little drive to have around, is quite spacious, and is definitely worth the money with its fast transfer speeds and reliability.

Be it for gaming, watching movies, listening to music, working from home, and storing data, this list of gadget will take care of everything. While this list tells you what all you can get in a 90K budget, the scope for changes and replacements of gadgets in this list is endless, especially when you already own one or more of these products. Instead of choosing a home theater system you could go for a better more powerful laptop. As opposed to an MP3 player and headset, you could choose a high-end iPod dock, and so on.

So now that you've seen what you can get with various budgets ranging from under Rs. 30,000 - Rs. 90,000, it should be easier for you to go on a gadget-buying spree.

Five Fruits to keep you Cool this Summer

These are time of scorching heat. Sun is ruthless and the heat wave unsparing. But these are also the time when
exotic fruits bloom in plenty.
And these fruits can have an immensely chilling effect on us. But the problem comes when an entire generation falls for Coke and Pepsi and gets estranged with the bounties of nature. People are quite oblivious about the health properties of these fruits. And even if they know, few care about procuring them.
MensXP recommends these five summer fruits to beat the heat this summer:

Black Plum or Jambul

The fruit is useful in spleen enlargement. The seed of the fruit is well-known diabetes. It reduces the quantity of sugar in the urine and quenches the maddening thirst. The fruit is also a good source of antioxidants.

Litchi

The luscious litchi/lychee or Chinese Hazelnut is a very delicious fruit. People eagerly wait for its arrival during the summers. May-June is the best season for the fruit. This sub-tropical fruit has very good cooling, demulcent and aphrodisiac properties. It is also a good thirst-quencher.

Mango

It's not for nothing that Mango is called the 'King of Fruits' in India. The vastly delicious fruit is a storehouse of vitamins A and C. The ripe mango tones the heart, improves complexion, stimulates hunger, improves vision and is greatly helpful in liver disorders, loss of weight and physical abnormalities. The popular mango powder (amchur) made from green/unripe mango is very beneficial in scurvy and pyorrhea.

Muskmelon

Muskmelon is a popular tropical fruit which is readily available during the summers. The fruit contains Vitamin A, B, C and minerals like magnesium, sodium and potassium. It has zero cholesterol and is safe for blood cholesterol patients. When consumed with jaggery, it helps in the curing of skin diseases. It greatly reduces the body heat when consumed regularly.

Watermelon

The succulent, scarlet-red watermelon is a delicious and health-building fruit. It contains large quantities of easily assimilable sugar. Being an alkaline fruit, it can be easily enjoyed by persons with acidosis. Its juice quench the thirst like anything. Rich in vitamin A,B, and C, products based on its juice can serve as wonderful cooling drinks. The fruit is also beneficial for combating hypertension. (MensXP.com)

5 lies that women tell their friends

It has been revealed that women, who usually share everything under the sun with one another, tell five lies to their girlfriends when they do not want to reveal something very personal.

According to Madame Noire, a lifestyle publication, women especially lie when they want to keep things private.
1. How long they really made their new man wait. As they do not want their girlfriends to know about the actual date, they just say somewhere from 3 to 6 months.
2. How much they earn, and most lie so that the question of borrowing money won't be a factor, while others just refuse to answer. 3. When a haircut has gone bad. Women would tell their girlfriends that it does not look so bad just to spare them from feeling worse.
4. When the issue of what the man has bought arises. Women cover up whatever cheap gifts a man has bought them by naming a few gifts they wished he had bought.
5. About their ex not being in their lives anymore. Women do so because they have discussed all the negative aspects of their ex with their girlfriends.
When they start backing their ex they keep it away from their friends, as it is difficult to go back on all the negative things they have said about him to their girlfriends.
So instead, they deny any communication, at least to see if he's going to be in their lives for a while. (ANI)

Hypersonic, Eco Friendly Flights By 2050?

Have your flights made you wish that you reached your destination in less than half the time it says it would? Well, this innovation seems to have been picked out of one such wish. Come 2050, a ‘Hypersonic’ jet called Zehst; an abbreviation for Zero Emission Hypersonic Transportation will slice its way through London, and take you to Tokyo in 2.5 hours flat. Just in case you’re wondering, it takes a good 11.5 hours to reach Tokyo from London, at present. The surprise doesn’t end there, the jet claims to go easy on pollution, and can ferry about 50 to 100 passengers. Jet..set..go The Zehst plans are scheduled to be made public today at Le Bourget airshow, near Paris by the European Aerospace leader, EADS. The jet will be powered by normal engines, only it will be run on biofuel made by seaweed, before the rocket engines are turned on. The rocket engines are fuelled by hydrogen and oxygen that owing to their elemental properties (leave behind plain water vapor) help the jet maintain an altitude of 32km. However promising the concept may seem, the jet wouldn’t be seen around in action before 2050, which is indeed, a long time to wait for. The EADS, in collaboration with Japan can be expected to roll out a prototype of the same by 2020. Source: nzherald.co.nz

Silicon Power Unique 530 16GB - Quite Ordinary

Portable storage solutions first started off with flash drives. Initially, they were expensive and slow but things quickly improved. Large capacity drives could be bought at cheap rates and even now, hard drives continue to be the choice for those who want large storage capacities. Today, flash drives with capacities up to 16 GB can be bought for as little as Rs. 1,000. Silicon Power has introduced a new rough-and-tough drive called the Unique 530. We received the 16 GB capacity model for review. Features and Design Silicon Power has adopted a somewhat different design with their new Unique 530, which has a full silica gel body. Flash drive manufacturers are slowly moving to the new USB 3.0 specification, but Silicon Power has gone with the USB 2.0 spec on this drive. Sturdy design The top of the drive has  a small metal loop, so you can tether it and hang it around your neck. The flash drive itself is a plastic memory stick that slides out. It’s similar to the really compact flash drives that are larger than a finger nail. Silicon Power claims that the drive is water proof, vibration proof and dust proof. Since there is no particular component that gets exposed or anything that can corrode, there’s really nothing that can go wrong with the drive. We even dropped it a couple of times and it worked just fine. The flash drive we received was white in colour with a grey band - overall, it does look attractive and is sturdy. Performance The performance of the best USB 2.0 drives around have always been limited to roughly 30 to 35 MB/s, but the Unique 530 performed poorly in our benchmarks. The synthetic benchmark tests for the Unique 530 16GB showed read speeds of 17.4 MB/s which is nowhere close to the USB 2.0 bandwidth bottleneck. Real world performance turned out to be slower. We tried copying a single 4GB file only to find that the write speed was 12.33 MB/s. Similarly the multiple set of 4 GB data saw write speeds of 11.22 MB/s which is a little slower than the single file write test. There wasn’t any phenomenal improvement in the read speeds either. A sequential 4 GB file was read at a speed of 18.2 MB/s, and the multiple set of the same capacity was read at 17.96 MB/s. There are better pen drives out there Verdict We weren’t terribly impressed with the performance of the Unique 530 16 GB flash drive. It’s handy  for copying small amounts of data such as a few images, documents and some music. But go a little higher like if you want to copy files larger than 4 GB, it will take more than five minutes to do so.To add to the below par performance, the price of the drive makes recommending it difficult. At Rs. 1,580, it’s more expensive than most of the flash drives in the market. While the Unique 530 boasts of a sturdy design, it’s very unlikely that the flash drive will be put to a lot of abuse. You’re better off purchasing a regular 16 GB flash - it’ll be cheaper, equally compact and offer roughly the same performance. The SanDisk Cruzer Blade and Transcend V500 have the same capacities and will cost you about a few hundred Rupees less.

Google Unveils Icons for Mobile and Voice Search for Desktop

Google unveiled a variety of new features, including some for its mobile version and some for the desktop. The mobile version of Google gets icons at the bottom of search pages. These icons include those for restaurants, bars and coffee shops and will point you to ones near your phone. Google Goggles also got a new feature where you can point your mobile device at Russian text and get a translated version. Both features will launch today.

Google will launch voice search

The desktop version of Google added voice search and drag and drop image search. There will be a microphone icon next to the search bar and you can click it to speak your search words. You will also be able to drag and drop an image into the search bar and Google will give you its best answer for what's in the image. These features will launch next week.

 

Lenovo Mini Wireless Keyboard - Complete Control

For those of us with HTPCs, we know very well that finding each bit of component that suites our setup is difficult. One of those key components that complete a HTPC is the keyboard and mouse. Now, regular wireless keyboard and mouse setups are bulky, large and heavy to use. Ideally, you might want to use something which is the same size as a standard TV remote control. There are remote controls in the market, but they need to be configured and setup properly for them to work. They don’t also have a keyboard on them, so you’re bound to use the onscreen keyboard on your OS and that can be a very annoying experience.

Compact and lightweight - just what HTPC users need

For those who want a full QWERTY keyboard experience on their HTPC, you have the Lenovo Mini Wireless Keyboard N5901.  It’s a little larger than a standard remote but maybe, it has the correct amount of compromise between keyboard and remote.

Design and Features
The Lenovo Mini Wireless Keyboard N5901 is like its name suggests, a wireless keyboard and trackball mouse built into a single device. The devices looks like a larger version of a typical QWERTY keyboard found on a smartphone attached with a small handle attached to the bottom of it. The QWERTY layout of the keyboard is pretty identical to a full-fledged desktop keyboard but many of the other keys aren’t aligned in the same way. There are a set of multimedia buttons at the top of the keyboard which should be handy with media players and HTPC software. There is a Fn toggle key that can be used along with some other keys to access some special characters. There’s even a combination that can be used to access the Ctrl + Alt + Del combination. One thing we noticed missing was the Function keys that you find on a keyboard. There is also a missing Alt key on the left side of the keyboard.

Multimedia keys above the standard QWERTY layout

The plastic body of the keyboard makes it feel light weight also gives it its somewhat cheap feel. The lower half of the device has a glossy finish which automatically attracts a lot of fingerprints. It also houses the trackball in the centre and two mouse clicks within it.

The keyboard panel is placed exactly above it. The keys on the panel are large enough to type short messages and even search the web. It’s when you try to type long e-mails and documents that things start getting a little uncomfortable. The trackball on the device is easy to operate even with it held in the palm of one hand. Using the keyboard held in that position is not possible unless you have a really long and flexible thumb.

The smooth flowing trackball

The handheld keyboard-mouse set is powered by a set of AAA batteries that tuck into the back of the device. There is a really compact USB dongle that sits in this same compartment.

Performance
The keys on the keyboard offer a fair bit of feedback while typing. It’s a little easier to type than on a mobile phone keyboard once you get used to it. The trackball is very smooth and offers good tracking. We didn’t have to adjust the sensitivity too much and it worked just fine with the Windows sensitivity set to medium. The wireless range is pretty impressive as well. We tried using the keyboard from some 10 feet away and it worked flawlessly. We even moved to the other side of a cubicle and noticed no performance drop. This was with the PC and the USB dongle placed under a table.

Verdict
The Lenovo Mini Wireless Keyboard N5901 sells in the market for Rs. 1,999, which might seem like a lot. For those looking for compact, portable keyboards with a trackpad or trackball integrated, you’ll know that a solution like this is hard to come by. If you’re building a fairly high-end HTPC and you do not want to spend on something as exotic as the Logitech Dinovo Mini for example, you’ll find yourself satisfied by its performance and also by the leftover cash in your wallet.

Japanese Readies A CanBot: A Robot in a Can

We’re surely living in interesting times. Imagine your beer can walk up to you, and if that weren’t creepy enough, you realize that it isn’t your regular ‘beer can’, but a CanBot. Ask Ron Tajima, and you’d know that the CanBot he has readied is a robot packed snugly inside the body of your regular beer can.

CanBot that can...

The CanBot is a robot, complete with batteries, 3 RC-servo legs, and an embedded control board and neatly encased within the body of a beer can. The CanBot is remote-controlled, which he calls the Wiimote. The CanBot apparently isn’t Tajima’s debut creation. He had previously readied Pacmba (wherein, he could play Pac-Man with the Roomba), and Wiimba (which was a portable, remote controlled vaccum cleaner).Tajima has a video (look below), in which the CanBot can be witnessed in action.