Intel's SSD Promises Speed

Intel’s quest to speed up data transfers has resulted in the launch of  a new lineup of Solid State Drives, this time infused with more speed.

The SSD 510 models are based on a 34nm process NAND flash memory and boast of fast SATA3 6Gbps performance, read speeds of up to 500MBps and 315MBps write speeds, which Intel said is twice as fast as its current solid state disk drives

From a gaming buff to a workstation user, the zipping speed is a treat for all. In an interview with The Inquirer, Pete Hazen, director of marketing for Intel's NAND solutions group stated that, "The Intel SSD 510 Series helps round out our SSD product line and was specifically designed for applications that require high sequential media transfers," said Pete Hazen, director of marketing for Intel's NAND solutions group. The drives have hit the stores and come in 250 GB and 120 GB capacities.

According to Intel, the unmatchable speed offered by these drives is currently the best that’s available in the market.

 

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Western Digital Rolls out Scorpio Black 750GB Notebook Hard Drives

Western Digital yesterday announced the launch of its Scorpio Black 750GB Notebook Hard Drives, which it has aimed at those looking for high capacities and high performance in the portable arena.

Check out the specs below:

• 750GB
• 2.5-inch
• SATA 3Gb/s
• 7200RPM
• 16MB Cache
• Data monitoring and protection features

"Our most demanding customers have come to expect "no compromises" from our all of our Black series products," explains Sushil Bandi, Country Manager for the Indian sub-continent, Western Digital.  "The new WD Scorpio Black drive does not disappoint, providing users of portable devices the necessary speed, significant storage and efficient power management needed to enjoy their favorite HD content, high resolution images, powerful office applications or gaming at home, in the office or on the road."

The 750GB Scorpio Black is available starting immediately for a price of Rs. 5,275 plus taxes for the WD7500BPKT model. It's backed by a five year limited warranty.

 

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Fujifilm XP30 available now

The heavy duty Fujifilm XP30 camera that was revealed at CES in January is now available for purchase. The XP30 is dustproof, waterproof, freezeproof, and has shock protection in addition to the ability to snap photographs. With a built-in GPS for you to geotag your photographs automatically, its 14 megapixel lens with 5x optical zoom is no slouch when it comes to shooting compositions. The ability to capture 720p HD videos at 30fps is a nice bonus as well, for those times when still images just don’t cut it. The Fujifilm XP30 will set you back $239 and is available now. Hit the break for a promo video:

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Jabra Launches SPEAK 410

Jabra, known for making handsfree and headset devices for mobile phones and other audio products, has just launched a speakerphone SPEAK 410. Measuring just 13 cm in diameter, this tiny speakerphone which looks like a speaker, plugs directly into a PC or Mac's USB port and the inbuilt sound card takes over the computer's multimedia functions becoming the default speaker and microphone. It can then be used for VoIP telephony. This is apparently the industry's only speakerphone with a 360 degrees microphone, allowing several people sitting around it to use it at once and also remain perfectly audible and loud to everyone. It comes with a travel case to carry it anywhere and has integrated cable management for easy setup and storage.

The SPEAK 410 is available in two variants - one compatible with Unified Communications solutions such as Cisco, Avaya and Alcatel-Lucent, while the other compatible with Microsoft Lync 2010. More information about this speakerphone can be found here. The Jabra SPEAK 410 is priced at Rs.9,858.

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Firefox 4 Averages 5K Downloads Per Minute

Four days after the release of its Firefox 4 browser, Mozilla on Friday released some stats about the launch, revealing that it hit 15.85 million downloads in the first 48 hours, with an average of 5,503 downloads per minute.
"The response to Mozilla Firefox 4 has been astounding," Mozilla said in a blog post that also included an infographic (click below) with launch stats.
After day one, the download tally was at 7.1 million. At its peak, Firefox 4 was attracting 10,200 downloads per minute about 91.7 downloads per second. After the first 48 hours, users had downloaded 193.4 megabytes worth of browser.

The top region downloading Firefox 4 was Europe, with 6.63 million, while the U.S. was the top country with 4.45 million.
Mozilla had some trivia to go along with its numbers. If each download were a mile, for example, that would equal 33 round trips to the moon. The 48-hour download tally is also bigger than the population of Los Angeles, the 12th largest city in the world, Mozilla said. Finally, it's also equal to the entire Internet population in 1995.
As of 5:30pm on Friday, the tally was at 26.6 million.
Microsoft's IE9, which made its debut last week, reached 2.35 million downloads in its first 24 hours. However, at this point, its reach is limited. IE9 can only be downloaded on machines running Windows Vista and Windows 7 - not XP - in order to accomplish its hardware acceleration using those OSes' version of DirectX multimedia APIs. According to February data from Net Applications, about 55 percent of computer users worldwide still use Windows XP, followed by 23 percent on Windows 7 and 11 percent on Vista.
On Wednesday, the Firefox team tweeted that "the IE team just sent us a congratulatory cake for #fx4."
Firefox 4 is available in 75 languages via www.firefox.com. Versions are available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

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Hotter Solar Energy

Solar thermal power plants that produce hotter steam can capture more solar energy. That's why Siemens is exploring an upgrade for solar thermal technology to push its temperature limit 160 °C higher than current designs. The idea is to expand the use of molten salts, which many plants already use to store extra heat. If the idea proves viable, it will boost the plants' steam temperature up to 540 °C—the maximum temperature that steam turbines can take. .

Siemens's new solar thermal plant design, like all large solar thermal power plants now operating, captures solar heat via trough-shaped rows of parabolic mirrors that focus sunlight on steel collector tubes. The design's Achilles' heel is the synthetic oil that flows through the tubes and conveys captured heat to the plants' centralized generators: the synthetic oil breaks down above 390 °C, capping the plants' design temperature.

Startups such as BrightSource, eSolar, and SolarReserve propose to evade synthetic oil's temperature cap by building so-called power tower plants, which use fields of mirrors to focus sunlight on a central tower.  But Siemens hopes to upgrade the trough design, swapping in heat-stable molten salt to collect heat from the troughs. The resulting design should not only be more efficient than today's existing trough-based plants, but also cheaper to build. "A logical next step is to just replace the oil with salt," says Peter Mürau, Siemens's molten salt technology program manager.

The German engineering giant will actually be the second player to try to push molten salts through solar collector tubes. Last summer, the Italian utility Enel began running molten salt through a field of about 30,000 square meters of trough mirrors adjacent to its natural gas-fired power plant near Syracuse, Sicily. The salt exits the 5.4-kilometers of collector pipe at 565 °C, boosting the power plant's output by 5 percent.

Enel's plant uses collector tubes from Italy's Archimede Solar Energy, the only producer of collector tubes designed to handle molten salts. Their collector tubes use a heat-stable metalloceramic coating to maximize heat absorption, as well as thicker titanium-stabilized steel pipes to resist bending at high temperatures. Paolo Martini, Archimede's business development director, says the plant is operating well. Enel plans to build a 30-megawatt plant in Sicily.

Since 2009, Siemens has amassed a 45 percent stake in Archimede, but it has opted to go back to pilot-scale to optimize the molten-salt concept before offering commercial-scale plants to global clients. "We are convinced the technology itself will work. But a lot of work needs to be done to optimize the economics," says Mürau.

Siemens is building a molten-salt pilot plant on the grounds of the University of Evora in Portugal. The plant should be operating by early next year. The plant—part of a German research consortium including salt and chemicals giant K+S AG and the German Aerospace Center—will be used to drive down energy losses associated with both the highest and lowest temperatures that a commercial plant will experience.

At the high end, the losses come from heat that's captured by the collector tubes and then dissipated before it can be delivered to the plant's turbines. "The heat loss is an exponential curve, and it climbs very steeply at the higher temperatures," explains Mürau. Siemens will seek to achieve the highest temperatures possible without going so high that these losses outweigh the gains from the hotter steam.

The low-end challenge stems from molten salt's high freezing point. The mixture of molten potassium and sodium nitrate used in heat storage systems and in Enel's demo plant freezes when it cools below 220 °C. Freezing is easy to prevent in centralized energy storage tanks, but presents a serious risk in kilometer-long stretches of collector tube. To counter the freezing threat, Enel's plant maintains the salt in its tubes above 290 °C, using considerable heat that could otherwise be used to generate power. Mürau says Siemens is looking for a salt formulation with a 150 °C or lower freezing point, which would mean they'd  have to use .much less heat to prevent the tubes from freezing.

If Siemens's efforts succeed, trough plants heating molten salt could reduce the cost of power generation by more than 10 percent compared to an oil plant, according to Mürau. (Estimates of current solar thermal costs vary between 13 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is still significantly higher than power generated by fossil fuels.) The cost reduction comes from both a several-percent increase in generation from turbines running on hotter steam, and a lower cost of construction.

However, some experts argue that the risk of freezing could still be a deal-killer for commercializing molten-salt-based plants. Thomas Mancini, program manager for Sandia National Laboratory's concentrating solar-power program, says he remains "skeptical" of using molten salts in collector tubes given the inherent freezing threat. Mancini says that even at 100 °C (the temperature that boils water), there would be a significant risk of freezing.

But others in the industry are warming to molten salt's potential. In January, for example, Colorado-based SkyFuel kicked off a $4.3-million R&D effort, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, to scale up its metallic film-based trough mirrors for use with high-temperature collector tubes.

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Hackers Take the Kinect to New Levels

Soon after Microsoft released the Kinect gaming device, hackers found a way to pull raw data out of the system, radically expanding its potential uses. Enthusiasts have used the hardware to draw 3-D doodles in the air with hand movements, to play with virtual onscreen characters, and allow a robot to recognize gestures and map its surroundings.

But one of the biggest goals of Kinect hackers—controlling a computer with gestures—is proving difficult to achieve.

Researchers at MIT's Media Lab have created a new Chrome Web browser extension that lets users interact with any Web page via the Kinect if the device is plugged into a computer. Their project is one test case for the promise and limitations of hacking Microsoft's gaming peripheral for nongaming uses.

The extension, called DepthJS, uses JavaScript to translate a small number of hand gestures into commands that can be executed by the browser. For example, a rapid arm movement to the left switches between open browser windows. Opening and closing a hand quickly acts as a mouse click.

The goal isn't really to use the Kinect as a practical means of browsing the Web. Instead, DepthJS is meant to act as the interface between a variety of Web applications and the gestures captured by Kinect.

"Getting Kinect's events into the Web browser is all about lowering the cost of entry to exploring and creating applications using depth information," says Doug Fritz of the Fluid Interfaces group at MIT, who worked on the project. Computer users spend most of their time in the Web browser, Fritz notes. And most computer programmers (especially Web developers) know how to use JavaScript. This makes it an easy point of entry for Kinect programming.

One trouble is that unlike using a mouse, keyboard, or touch screen, there is no widely recognized (or naturally intuitive) vocabulary for gestural computing. Microsoft has developed a small number of gestures to let Kinect users navigate menus and browse media on the Xbox.

"Most of us hadn't even used a Kinect with the Xbox before we started working, so we weren't really burdened by the gesture language Microsoft has developed," says Fritz. The team was inspired by the iPhone's multitouch gestures and work by 3-D computing pioneer John Underkoffler. Surprisingly, some of the gestures created for DepthJS are similar to those Microsoft came up with. "Right now we are in that state of rapid change where people are remixing familiar interaction techniques with what feels natural," Fritz said.

Limor Fried and Phillip Torrone from Adafruit Industries, a company that supplies equipment to hardware hackers, helped kick off the race to hack the Kinect by putting out a bounty of $3,000 for software that could connect the device to a regular computer.

Both are excited about the future of the Kinect as an off-the-shelf sensor for everything from high-end robotics to art projects. Developers have created a steady stream of videos of different applications using the Kinect. "These videos are really just proof-of-concepts that show some of the possibilities for further development," says Fried. 

One of the most popular videos is of a 3-D interactive puppet. "It's fun, it's intuitive, and it's something that would be really hard to do without this inexpensive, off-the-shelf component. As you bring down the barriers, people have room to get creative."

MIT's Fritz is quick to note that three-dimensional, natural user interface computing using gestural recognition and depth sensors has been in play in the research community for years. The Kinect is a breakthrough device in terms of packaging and implementing these technologies for consumers. The more familiar users become with it, the more likely they are to translate it to spheres beyond gaming.

"The keyboard and the mouse aren't going anywhere, but there is a lot of space for something more, and I think people are ready for that," Fritz says.

But any effort to translate gestures to the screen inevitably bumps into the fact that we're still three-dimensional beings trying to interact with a two-dimensional world. Most Kinect games solve this problem by matching us with an onscreen avatar who imitates our movements. Whether we're dancing, playing volleyball, or whitewater rafting, the characters on the screen perform a stylized version of our movements offscreen.

One solution could be to use light projectors to create virtual objects in real space that we can interact with. Microsoft Research has already taken steps in this direction with Mobile Surface, a projector-based multitouch environment.

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Gestures that Your TV Will Understand

Thanks to Microsoft's Kinect, millions are casting aside their controllers and using their bodies to play games. Now the company that created the motion-tracking hardware for the Kinect wants to make waving your arms an accepted way to control everything from your TV to your desktop computer.

PrimeSense, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, makes a package that combines one or two conventional cameras, an infrared depth sensor, and specialized computer chips. Together they collect and interpret a person's movements in 3-D. The movements are calculated by projecting a grid of infrared light spots into a room, tracking how light bounces back, and correlating this with information from the stereo cameras. Certain motions can be translated into computer commands or, in the case of Kinect, used to control an on-screen avatar.

While Microsoft focuses on gaming, PrimeSense is trying to establish other uses, for example TV control. In collaboration with PC manufacturer Asus, PrimeSense has developed a device called the WAVI Xtion. It looks a lot like the Kinect controller, but connects via a PC to the TV and lets the viewer use gestures to control what appears on the screen.

The WAVI Xtion camera is positioned next to the TV, while the control box connects to the computer. A user waves a palm in front of the TV to call up a simple menu that would let him choose between watching shows, playing games, or looking at photos. The user points to one of these options with his palm, which is tracked by the cameras and infrared sensor. To choose an option, the user holds a palm over a particular video, or he can flip through options by waving to the right or left. When the clip is playing, he can wave a palm at the screen to call up the controls to rewind the video or turn up the volume.

Adi Berenson, PrimeSense's vice president of business development, says the hands-free approach eliminates a major sticking point with efforts to bring the Internet to televisions. "We believe that the industry is trying to force-fit the PC into the living room, and it won't work," he says. "It's a more relaxed environment that needs a more natural way to interact." Google TV—the search giant's Internet TV effort—relies on a full QWERTY keyboard, a feature that many think is too unwieldy to be practical

 

 

Asus and PrimeSense are also interested in adding gesture control to conventional PCs. Within weeks of the release of the Kinect controller, hobbyists had figured out a way to access it, leading to an explosion of new ideas about how gesture control could be used—everything from robots to air guitar. "We didn't expect that to happen so fast," says Berenson. "It is a validation of how many good ideas developers have, and we want to help them bring them to users."

PrimeSense has accelerated the rollout of a software tool kit to aid experimentation with the controller and plans to offer a $200 hardware kit for developers.

"Not having to bring a controller is great for situations with multiple changing participants," says Doug Fritz, part of a team of Kinect hackers at the MIT Media Lab that developed software for controlling the Chrome Web browser.

Stepping in front of the camera and taking control with gestures could make group work easier than having to take turns at a keyboard or mouse, Fritz says. However, he adds, much more would be possible if the device could track hand shapes. "The current technology is good for body gestures, not fine-grain control," he explains. That makes things like text input a particular challenge.

Doug Bowman, a professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who has developed 3-D gestural interfaces based on more expensive tracking technology, agrees. One of his students, Tao Ni, has developed a system that allows a user to navigate menus on a TV using simple movements such as pinching fingers together (see a video of a prototype). "These freehand gestures could replace a remote or keyboard altogether in, say, an entertainment scenario," says Bowman. However, Ni's prototype requires a special glove to capture the precise orientation of a person's hand and their finger movements. "The Kinect is not capable of that yet," says Bowman. "But perhaps in the future it will be."

Berenson says that improving the resolution of PrimeSense's tracking is one area of active research. "We are thinking about tracking resolution and trying to follow fingers," he says. Another future direction would have the system interpret subtle body language. "We want to make it less explicit and more implicit," he says. "For example, it should be possible to have the volume go down on your TV when you pick up a newspaper and start reading it."

 

 

 

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Better Tools for Kinect Hacking

A new generation of tools will soon make it even easier to tinker with the Kinect, the $150 Microsoft device that lets people control video games by gesturing.

Since the Kinect's release in November, Microsoft has sold upwards of 8 million units and perhaps inadvertently started a frenzy of hacking, as academics and hobbyists have adapted the sensors available in the Kinect for projects ranging from robotics to unorthodox displays. The Kinect is so popular for such projects because it offers an inexpensive way to set up gestural controls. Unlike the Nintendo Wii, the Kinect can "see" users' gestures without requiring a remote or special clothing. And it's designed to work with USB, the protocol that's commonly used to connect devices to computers.

Hackers figured out how to communicate with the device just days after its release, but recently companies—including Microsoft—have given their activities more official support.

To work with the Kinect, the hacker has to be able to get information from the device—such as the depth map that the Kinect constructs to be able to "see" what's going on in a room. The hacker also needs to be able to define what should be done with the information the device picks up—in other words, what gestures to recognize. Software is needed for both of these roles.  Last week, Microsoft announced that it will release a noncommercial-software development kit for Windows, to make it easy for academics and researchers to get deep into the Kinect. The kit will offer access to the device's audio system, direct control of the main sensor, and system-wide application programming interfaces. The company plans to follow that with a commercial version of the kit.

PrimeSense, a company based in Tel Aviv, Israel, which provided some of the technology that Microsoft licensed for the Kinect, has also been supporting hackers. It sells the PrimeSensor Reference Design, a device that's very similar to the Kinect, and offers open-source drivers for it.

Finally, SoftKinetic, a company based in Brussels, Belgium, which specializes in 3-D gesture-recognition software, will offer a free version of its middleware; this will be available for download in mid-March. This software can take depth-sensing input from any device, including the Kinect, and it can be used to program a device to respond to gestures.

Kinect hackers already rely a great deal on shared information. "I don't believe I actually hacked the Kinect," says one tinkerer, Jim Spadacinni. He is owner and creative director of Ideum, a company that develops interactive exhibits for science museums and other institutions. Spadacinni is also the principal investigator for Open Exhibits, a project funded by the National Science Foundation, which is aimed at developing free open-source software to help put together exhibits. He has rece

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Wearable Sensor Reveals what Overwhelms You

That's what I found when I tested the Q Sensor, a device made by Affectiva, a company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. It looks like a large digital watch with no readout. A button on its surface lights up in different colors to convey the level of battery charge. Two small silver electrodes on the underside of the device continually send out a low electric current to measure skin conductance. Skin conductance rises along with physiological levels of stress, including both excitement and fear.

Over the last year, the Q Sensor has been snapped up by researchers studying everything from sleep to game design, eating habits, and brand design. Scientists are using it to tailor new treatments for autistic children; others are planning studies to see if information about stress can help treat people with drug addictions or post-traumatic stress disorder. But anyone might benefit from the information the sensor provides. Knowing our daily state of stress could help us understand ourselves and our daily lives better. It might also, perhaps, help us de-stress more effectively.

"We know stress exacerbates medical conditions," says Rosalind Picard, a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT and lead inventor of the Q Sensor. "Stress takes a huge toll on people's health. It's starting to be more biologically understood."

As I wore the Q Sensor throughout the day, I took notes on moments that seemed particularly stressful or relaxing. I assumed a meeting would cause the highest level of stress, and lunch the lowest. At the end of the day, I went to Picard's office at the MIT Media Lab to see my readout. She explained that the raw data can be hard to understand. A peak doesn't necessarily indicate negative stress—it could reflect excitement or an artifact like a hot room. Indeed, there were some artifacts in my data—places where the stress line mysteriously drops suddenly and slowly builds back up. This usually occurs when the sensor is bumped accidentally, Picard explained: when the sensor moves slightly, it comes in contact with dry skin. Because skin conductance goes up with heat as well as stress, an accompanying temperature sensor helps identify artifacts of another kind. And an accelerometer keeps track of the wearer's motion, to indicate, for example, if the person is biking or running.

I wore the sensor on my left, nondominant wrist, which Picard noted moved a lot during the day, probably when I was typing. There were small spikes of stress leading up to the afternoon meeting at which I had to present ideas in front of colleagues, but surprisingly, the largest spikes occurred when I was responding to a bevy of e-mails in the morning. Picard showed me a graph of her own data recording from the day she took her son to an amusement park. Her stress levels were high on the roller coasters—but they were even higher in the morning, when she was getting everyone organized.

Stress test: This graph shows my stress levels throughout the course of a typical day. The three colored lines at the bottom are accelerometer readings; above that is a temperature reading. In the middle of the graph is the skin conductance, indicating stress levels. Sharp drop-offs (at 1:20 and 3:16) indicate that the sensor reset itself. Spikes of stress occurred in the morning, when I was multitasking and replying to e-mails.

Credit: Technology Review

Now that I know multitasking can be more stressful to me than a meeting, what can I do with the information? Picard is working on ways for the Q Sensor to give immediate feedback by, for example, transmitting data to a smart-phone app. The device could then issue an alert to serve as a reminder to relax.

Picard says the sensor could also help in more dire situations—for example, helping to prevent drug relapses (researchers have shown that drug cravings trigger peak levels of physiological stress). Picard is in the process of setting up a study with post-traumatic stress patients being treated for addiction at a Veterans Affairs rehabilitation center. For the study, phones supplemented with psychological surveys and positive messages will read and respond to a person's Q Sensor.

Kevin Laugero, a professor in the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, studies the neurophysiology of eating and the ways in which stress can affect decision-making related to food intake. He is using the Q Sensor in combination with other tools to look into whether preschool children are more likely to eat a snack when their stress levels are high. In the past, Laugero and his team had to measure stress by taking samples of saliva and checking the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, a process that yielded intermittent rather than continuous data.

The Q Sensor has business applications as well. "It is becoming an active part of our diagnostic set," says John Ross, CEO of Shopper Sciences, a marketing and advertising firm that helps companies understand consumer behavior. When a fast-food company wanted to know why customers were not returning to its restaurants despite reporting overall satisfaction with the food and atmosphere, Ross used the Q Sensor to solve the mystery. It turns out it was the process of selecting the food from the menu that was frustrating customers, says Ross. 

Ross is planning to build an extensive Q Sensor database to learn about patterns in larger groups and predict consumer reactions to different situations. "Our goal is to have the largest database of shopper physiological response of any company in North America by the end of the year," says Ross. 

Picard hopes the device could eventually have broad appeal. A lot of people simply don't know or believe they're stressed. "This is technology that can transform people's ability to understand themselves and participate in the process of health and medicine,

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Game Developers Conference 2011 Highlights

The Game Developers Conference is obviously not as flamboyant as an E3 or a Tokyo Game Show. That probably has something to do with the fact that this is a conference for game developers and not the media. Most of the event is full of keynote speeches, demonstrations and previews so expecting earth shattering announcements is a tad silly. However we’ve combed through the entire event and here’s what we found interesting.
Without a doubt I would say Battlefield 3 was the highlight of the event. After teasing us with an uhh teaser trailer, DICE finally blew open the doors to their highly anticipated military shooter and it did not disappoint. Not only were we treated to photo realistic visuals but thanks to EA Sports' animation system, character movements now seem extremely fluid and lifelike. In addition to this, the destruction synonymous with the Bad Company series is back in a huge way. This game also marks the debut of Mother Nature in the Battlefield series where she’ll be tearing stuff down through some immensely powerful earthquakes.



Never judge Dead Island by its trailer

Where did all the drama go?

The Dead Island trailer took the world by storm when it hit the internet two weeks ago. People couldn’t get enough of a family’s plight as they were torn apart – quite literally - by a zombie outbreak on a sunny, tropical island. It was obvious the game wouldn't play like the trailer but you’d assume that the game would definitely sport a somber and more morbid vibe than most zombie games out there. However, it seems developer Techland have adopted a more over-the-top, comical vibe as seen in games like Dead Rising, according to IGN. In addition to this rather disappointing direction, packing in a token black dude who’ll sprout phrases like "Daaaaaamn, that b***h was huge!" and "You a dead b***h now!" when he kills zombies doesn’t particularly instill us with confidence.

 

Epic unveil "next generation" of Unreal 3 engine

Smoking is still bad for you

Are you of the opinion that the Unreal 3 engine now looks dated? Well then Epic sure have a surprise up their sleeve in the form of a “next generation” version of this engine showcased at GDC 2011. Headache inducing jargon aside (stuff about DX11, PhysX and Tessellation) you can make out it looks real swell. Unfortunately you won’t see it in action anytime soon as Epic feels the current crop of consoles won’t be able to handle it. You’ll have to make do with some cam footage for now as Epic haven’t officially released a video yet.



Ninja Gaiden 3 Teased



Ninja Gaiden 2 was like the bloodiest game ever made and it looks like Ninja Gaiden 3 could up the ante. Being a teaser trailer, there isn’t much to analyze here but Team Ninja have promised a full reveal at E3 2011.

Steam coming to TVs

Coming soon to a TV near ya

There’s no doubt that Steam is the Holy Grail for PC gaming today. Valve however understand that sometimes you may want to play certain Steam games on your television set and so at GDC they announced a initiative through which users will be able to do just that. How this works wasn’t revealed, and all we know is that "Big picture mode will enable gamers to enjoy Steam and their library of Steam games on more screens throughout the house."

Create your own missions in inFamous 2

Level editors FTW!

Allowing users to create content for any game will significantly increase its shelf life. This was most evident in LittleBigPlanet where users created thousands of free levels for others to play. And now it seems developer Sucker Punch’s open world game, inFamous 2 will allow players the very same creative liberty. You’ll get a taste of things to come when Sucker Punch launch a public beta this April

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Belkin Launches New Hi-speed USB Hubs

Belkin tod

ay announced the launch of their new lineup of Hi-Speed USB 2.0 4 and 7 port-loaded USB Hubs. These hubs will provide your devices easy USB access to your PCs. The hubs will not require any driver installations, because they're simple plug-and-play devices.Belkin promises this will not block any of your other USB ports and will provide transfer speeds of upto 480Mbps.

“These attractively designed lightweight hubs add connectivity and high speed performance to any consumer computing platform, whether it is a desktop or a laptop. Their compact size also makes it a perfect travel tool, designed to easily tuck into the pockets of any laptop bag,” said Mr. Mohit Anand, Managing Director, Indian Subcontinent.

The Belkin USB hubs come with a USB 2.0 transfer cable, a power adaptor, 3 year warranty and in three variants - 4 ports in a Pebble design, and 4 and 7 ports in Drumstick designs. They are priced at Rs. 456, Rs. 919 and Rs. 1,359 respectively.

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Hawk-Eye Technology: What is it All About?

It’s pretty obvious that we are getting the otherwise viral cricket fever, all thanks to the Cricket World Cup 2011. Right from free apps for your smartphones to evolution of cricket games, we’ve done them because we’re getting into the cricket groove. And today, we’ll take a look into a certain technology that we’re so familiar with otherwise, because countless clips of cricket matches and some crucial decisions.

The most recent will definitely be Ian Bell’s LBW decision of the India VS England match. The home camp – including the fans, thought that it should have been out. Guess what, even Hawk-Eye said so. But anyways, keeping controversies aside, let’s see the different aspects of Hawk-Eye.

What is Hawk-Eye?
This question is strictly aimed at those born yesterday! Well not exactly, but there are scenarios where you’ve heard about it so much, but not really known what it actually meant. So do you know that Hawk-Eye has been bought by Sony and that it’s not officially used by the ICC? Yeah, it’s quite surprising, but that’s exactly what the official Hawk-Eye website says. Anyways, Hawk-Eye is a technology used in cricket which gives you a virtual understanding of the angle and distance of where a ball travels once it pitches. One very common use of Hawk-Eye are the LBW decisions,  where the viewers can see the virtual future path of the ball after it’s being pitched and in conclusion get an idea of whether the batsman should actually have been adjudged LBW or not.

How does it work?
The whole setup involves six high speed vision processing cameras along with two broadcast cameras. When a deliver is bowled, the position of the ball recorded in each camera is combined to form a “virtual” 3D positioning of the ball after its being delivered. The whole process of the delivery is broken into two parts, delivery to bounce and bounce to impact. Multiple frames of the ball position are measured and through this, you can calculate the direction, speed, swing and dip of that specific delivery. 

  

Different Features of Hawk-Eye
Now that we’ve read about Hawk-Eye and its’ working, there are some other features that this technology brings along with the standard LBW appeals.

Wagon Wheels
So when you see Yusuf Pathan blast his way to a quick fire 50, it’s also exciting to see the various directions on which he must have sent every bowler packing! The Wagon Wheel gives you an idea of the different areas where the batsman has been targeting to score singles, doubles, boundaries or sixes. Plus, looking at the trajectories of the shots you easily know why Dhoni is one of the most feared batsman incricket! 

  

DeSpin
Only if we could see the angle of deviation of the ball of the century! Yeah we’re talking about Shane Warne’s leg-break delivery that left Mike Gatting spellbound! But let’s not deviate from the topic here, it’s still about a virtual system of checking the angle of turn or deviation of a ball after it has pitched. The blue trajectory shows the actual deliver had it not spun or seamed and the red trajectory shows the actual delivery.

Pitch Maps
This consists of a virtual map of the various areas of the pitch where the bowler has bowled a delivery. It shows you how consistent a bowler is, in terms of line and length. There’s a split-screen format where you can see a particular bowler bowling to left and right-handed batsman. Last but not the least, it also clearly indicates why although being extremely fast, Shoaib Akhtar might just not be the best choice for a bowler in comparison to Glenn McGrath!
 
Beehives
Somewhat similar to the Pitch Map, this one takes it from a batsman’s perspective. So, you can see which deliveries were scored for runs and which were just left for dot balls. I’d personally want to see a Beehive of Sachin playing Warne at Sharjah!

  

RailCam
Another feature of Hawk-Eye, which is aimed at bowlers. RailCam lets you see the difference in speed and bounce between the deliveries bowled either by the same bowler, or by different bowlers. While this also talks about a bowler’s line and length, you can see whether he has variations in his repertoire!

Ball Speeds
This is as simple as it gets. Ball Speeds lets you trace the different speeds of a ball after delivery. So you can see whether a batsman gets knocked out by a fast paced delivery, or fooled by a slower one.

Faster and faster

Reaction Time
I’ve mostly seen this applied at the reaction time of a particular fielder, especially during an awesome catch. But, you can also see how quickly a bowler pitches the delivery. So guess how long does Yuvraj take to dive for that catch of the century?

Quick reaction this

So today, we finally read and got to know some more about the Hawk-Eye technology. What I do like about this is that some crucial decisions can go the right way. There are times when the human-eye can actually miss a certain detail and Hawk-Eye can help in such circumstances. An event like that of Ian Bell’s LBW decision was certainly unfortunate and maybe the officials should turn to such technologies rather than going with the umpire’s decision. What do you think?

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Pwn2Own Update: Bugs Discovered in iPhone 4 and Blackberry Torch

The Pwn2Own hacker contest that began two days ago has been highlighting the bugs in its participants.

The latest ones to have been slammed are the iPhone 4 and Blackberry torch. Apple's iPhone 4 was hacked by the four-time Pwn2Own winner, Charlie Miller using a drive-by download attack that detected bugs in its Safari browser. Charlie Miller in less than a week used the same technique with which he had discovered bugs in Mac's Safari browser. According to contest diktats, he walked away with $15,000 and the coveted iPhone that he had cracked.

Blackberry, on the other hand, was exposed by Willem Pinckaers and Vincenzo Iozzo, who gained access to the entire contact list from the Blackberry with the photos and dumped them onto a memory card. They did so by very stealthily built up a website taking all the shortcomings of the phone and its browsers and managed a breakthrough.

Internet browsers – Safari and Internet Explorer were crushed on the very first day of the hacking competition. Chrome, however, remains untouched.

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Updated: Play-Asia Offers Awesome Deal on Undisputed 2010

As part of their weekly sale Play-Asia.com is offering MMA game, Undisputed 2010 at Rs. 689. We've reviewed it and at that price, it's an utter steal.

UFC Undisputed 2010 is as accurate a representation of MMA as you can get. It uses the UFC license to its maximum potential, with a huge roster of fighters and accurate TV-style presentation. It’s also just as technical as the sport of MMA itself, which means it’s not easy to just pick up and play. You’ll have to put in many hours before you start to discover how good it really is. If you’re unwilling to give it that time, this isn’t the game for you. But if you are, you’re sure to be rewarded with a game that is fun and deeply fulfilling.

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Winamp 1.0 for Android Released

Remember Winamp? Yeah, that music player software we all used back in the day, and one that some still use today. Well, Nullsoft have been pushing hard for the Android version recently, and it was in the beta stage for a while now, but it finally has a stable release.
Version 1.0 has a few new features – the interface has been changed quite a bit and the app is now integrated with Snipper. This allows you to discover new and free music, as well as save your selections for later purchases. However, Winamp doesn’t come with one of the most iconic parts of the desktop version, the graphic equalizer. While that certainly is a disappointment, this could be a good choice if you’re looking for a different music player app.

You can download Winamp 1.0 for Android here.

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X-Mini V 1.1 Capsule Speaker - Xtremely Disappointing

Xmi launched their V 1.1 Capsule speakers a couple of months back. Their previous X-mini Capsule Portable Speakers that we tested were decent in terms of sound quality, but they weren’t very loud. So what about the V 1.1? Let’s see how well it does in comparison. 

Design and Features
The V 1.1 Capsule Speaker has the standard capsule design with a neat rubberized finishing which gives a good feel to the speaker. The little lid that covers the driver of the speaker gives it a glossy look and protects it from dust. We all know how tough cleaning that tiny little port can actually be. The neck of the speaker is made of good quality plastic and makes it easy to close and open the speaker.

 

The bottom of the V 1.1 has a small crevice designed to house the 3.5 mm audio cable, which lets you neatly put it away once you’re done using the speaker. The base has the volume wheel, a 3.5 mm audio jack and a mini-USB port for charging and all of these are pretty convenient to use. The power switch is a wee bit tight, but then that’s not much of an issue. The speaker is compatible with your portable media players and almost anything that uses a 3.5 mm audio jack like a smartphone or a laptop.

Performance
In the simplest of words, sound quality didn't meet the expectations. There was a lot of shrillness and although the V 1.1 can get pretty loud (audible enough in a room), you can easily identify the distortion present in it.

  

For a speaker of this size, the base is pretty decent and the mids are quite manageable as well. But again, you wouldn’t want to turn up the volume because of the distortion and the high-pitched tones just hitting at your ears! Also, at high volumes, the speaker doesn’t remain stable and the vibrations might just push it off the desk so that’s another reason why you shouldn’t increase the volume.

Verdict
I like the compatibility with various devices bit and little features like a lid over the port and a small groove for the audio cable is all nice. Also, the V 1.1 is just a single unit speaker, so it does add to the portability. However, there’s not much of emphasis in performance and for a price of Rs. 1,249, they feel a tad expensive. You can probably check out the F & D V620 speakers which are priced at Rs. 885.

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VMware View For iPad Available For Remote Access To Windows

VMware, the virtualisation and cloud infrastructure specialist, has launched its VMware View app for the iPad, enabling it to run its program on the device. The VMware View software allows users to remotely access virtual Windows desktops through the device, as well as data from anywhere. Best of all, the app comes free of cost!

This is certainly an interesting offer from VMware. As far as I am aware, remote access is not very popular and doesn’t have a widespread usage in India as of now. Could this move to offer remote access technology to the fastest growing consumer electronic device in recent history provide the spark?  Also, what about remote access to other operating systems, as VMware has not explicitly mentioned anything in that regard. What do our readers think?

VMware has launched new software for Apple's iPad that allows its VMware View program to be run on the device.
The virtualisation and cloud infrastructure specialist launched the client on the Apple App Store for free.
It allows iPad users to access virtual Windows desktops through the device, as well as data from anywhere.
The program is intended to bring the iPad's high-resolution multi-touch interface to a modern desktop environment.
Christopher Young, vice president and general manager at VMware, said: "The growing popularity of the iPad in business presents a new opportunity for enterprise IT organisations to empower their mobile workforces by providing users with anytime access to business critical apps on the go."
The announcement comes shortly after VMware demonstrated its virtualisation software running on an Android smartphone at the GSMA Mobile World Conference in Barcelona last month.

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Apple iPad 2 Preview

The second generation iPad went on sale earlier today, to much fanfare and long, long lines. We're hard at work on our full review of Apple's second generation tablet but there were a few things we wanted to chime in on before too much time passed.

The iPad 2 is a very logical update to the original iPad. The hardware gets an upgrade, with revised industrial design, a slimmer chassis, and Apple's new A5 SoC inside. A5 brings along two Cortex A9 cores, a dual core version of PowerVR's SGX543 graphics chip, and 512MB of memory. Software stays mostly the same but gets some tweaks; the iPad 2 ships with iOS 4.3, which was released earlier this week as an update for the iPhone 4 and original iPad.

The industrial design has changed pretty significantly, from the convex curvature of the original iPad's back to the flat back of the new iPad. Starting with the iPhone 4, Apple has been moving away from the continuous curvature that dominated their handhelds two or three years ago (think iPhone 3G/3G-S, iPod touch 2G/3G, and the 4G/5G iPod nano) and more towards a flatter and more rectangular design language across the board. The iPhone 4 is the only one that's really angular, but the 4th generation iPod touch debuted the same flatness with more ergonomically friendly curves. The iPad 2 basically carries the iPod touch 4G design language on a larger scale.

 

The iPad 2 is slightly lighter but easier to hold than the previous generation. Laying in bed and reading is probably where the difference becomes most apparent. The gentle curvature running around the edge makes the in-hand feel surprisingly different, as does the considerably thinner profile. I'm actually shocked at how dramatic the difference is.

The downside to the very large radius curvature on the outside is that the dock connector is now awkwardly exposed. It's very similar to how the iPod Touch looks, with about 2 mm of exposed connector visible viewed from the back.

The previous generation dock connector was the subject of constant criticism for being way too tight. Apple has over-corrected with the iPad 2 and now the dock connector is too loose. Just browsing the Apple store, I noted several units whose dock connectors appeared plugged in, but had come just loose enough to not charge.

  

When connecting 30-pin dock cables, there's not too much resistance holding the cable in place, and the port itself is difficult to locate without flipping the thing over or viewing it from below.

Another welcome change - the return of the white iDevice. After the no-show that was the white iPhone 4, I was pleased to see Apple ship the white-bezeled iPad 2 on time with no production hitches. I was also wrong about how good white would look. Instead of being overwhelming or busy, the white bezel actually has one notable advantage over black - it doesn't show fingerprints or dust. That alone was what constantly drove me crazy about the previous generation - it always looked dirty. Shockingly, white seems to actually make sense.

  

Other hardware chances are the addition of front and rear facing cameras for FaceTime and taking pictures, but unfortunately, they seem to be pieces lifted from the iPod touch and nothing near the iPhone 4's 5 megapixel shooter. We'll talk about what this means for picture quality overall later on in the preview. The switch on the side can now be configured to either be a device silencer or a rotation lock switch, and there is now a large speaker on the bottom right corner of the device.

Overall, the new design really works - the iPad 2 feels good in hand, and instantly makes its predecessor feel a little clunky. But we didn't just pause our testing to talk about design, there's a lot under the hood of the iPad 2 that demands attention.

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Researchers Muffle Radio Noise to Make WiFi Break through

A team of Stanford researchers have come up with "full duplex" radios that can talk and listen at the same time -- a feat that enables communications simultaneity over WiFi networks. Cutting through existing WiFi congestion could double network speeds and capacities, encourage ambitious new projects -- such as citywide WiFi -- and even help prevent plane crashes.

On a radio or over the TV airwaves, speakers have to rely on back-and-forth communications because radio traffic only flows in one direction at a time on a frequency. Or so said scientific conventional wisdom, until Stanford researchers developed so-called "full duplex" radios that can send and receive signals at the same time. Twice as fast as existing radio devices, the new technology promises less congested, more efficient networks.

"Textbooks say you can't do it," said the technology's principal investigator Philip Levis, assistant professor of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford. "The new system completely reworks our assumptions about how wireless networks can be designed."

Dreams of supercharged WiFi connections are already dancing.

"Full-duplex technology like this could literally double the speed of WiFi connections almost overnight," said Jason Katz, founder and CEO of instant messaging and wireless video technology provider Paltalk.com. "This could greatly enhance each and every WiFi user's Internet experience." 

WiFi Workaround

Used to telephones and cellular phones, most people don't think about the inability to communicate simultaneously on radio. Perhaps they should, because cellphones route around the problem with expensive technologies whose costs get passed along to consumers -- and make similar fixes unfeasible for wireless networks that often come free, including WiFi.

The idea for communications simultaneity came virtually simultaneously among three Stanford electrical engineering graduate students -- Jung Il Choi, Mayank Jain and Kannan Srinivasan.

They wanted to answer this question: "What if radios could do the same thing our brains do when we listen and talk simultaneously: screen out the sound of our own voice?" Stanford science writer Sandeep Ravindran explained.

Simultaneous talk on a radio can build a Tower of Babel in no time.

"If both people are shouting at the same time, neither of them will hear the other," Levis told TechNewsWorld.

With help from Levis and Sachin Katti, an assistant professor of computer science and of electrical engineering, the grad students had to overcome an intrinsic flaw in radio communications. That is, a radio's own transmissions -- billions of times stronger than anything it might pick up from another radio -- overwhelm incoming signals, Levis explained.

"It's like trying to hear a whisper while you are shouting," he said. Filtering out the noise became the basis for the new solution, which Paltalk's Katz said should encourage further innovations.

"I would think enabling this technology would encourage more WiFi projects designed to blanket large areas such as cities," he told TechNewsWorld. "Networks should be far less congested, and cities would greatly benefit."

Double Time

Sending and receiving signals simultaneously doubles the amount of information sent, Levis said, which means faster home or office networks -- and a boost to air traffic controllers, a high pressure bunch often beleaguered by the demands of skyward communication critical to safety.

Presently, if two aircraft try to call the control tower at the same time on the same frequency, neither will get through. Such blocked transmissions have caused aircraft collisions, Levis said, a problem the new approach would resolve.

Provisional patent in hand, the Stanford group is trying to increase both transmission strength and distance, necessary before the technology is WiFi-ready.

With an instant messaging client that allows users to share video, audio and text with up to 10 people at any time for free, the thought of faster, cheaper networks that allow more people to communicate at once impresses Paltalk's Katz.

However, where the Stanford innovation goes from here depends "largely on how the inventors decide to commercialize it," he explained. "Regardless, it should cause a new cycle of hardware purchasing to enable the technology."

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Samsung Adds New Stars to Android Galaxy

Samsung has further expanded its Galaxy brand of Android devices this week with the introduction of three new handhelds, each running various forms of the Android operating system. It's added the Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Mini and the Galaxy S WiFi as an iPod touch competitor. But will Samsung be able to maintain line cohesion as the Android OS evolves and fragments?

Last year, Samsung put its production of Android devices into full gear and delivered its newly minted Galaxy line.  

Originally just used for its highest-end Android phones, the Galaxy name has branched off to a new tablet product, and now to lower-end smartphones as well as a rival to the iPod touch.

Android, Android, and more Android

Samsung's products on display at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona have one thing in common: Android.

Lots of mobile manufacturers are finding a comfortable home with Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) open source mobile platform, but as the world's second most prolific maker of phones, Samsung's devotion is especially noteworthy.

At MWC, the Galaxy S II certainly got its share of visitors hoping to get a look at the best smartphone Samsung has to offer.

Galaxy S II

As smartphone screens go, the Galaxy S II's is rather large at 4.27 inches, with 800 by 480 resolution and Super AMLOED technology.

There's also an 8-megapixel camera with the ability to record 1080p HD video.

It's one of the few to support Android's newest smartphone OS, version 2.3 (also known as "Gingerbread"), and an incredibly slim profile of just 8.49mm thick. It's also one of the first phones in the world to have a dual-core chip, and should run apps at a very fast pace.

Galaxy Mini

The Samsung Galaxy S II

Samsung's also expanded the Galaxy brand to a smaller, less powerful smartphone, the Galaxy Mini.

With a 3.14-inch display and just 160 MB of onboard memory, the Mini is designed for users who want a smartphone but don't intend to use its data abilities heavily and don't want to spend as much to purchase the actual handset.

However, the Mini will have an older version of Android installed -- version 2.2 -- and there's no guarantee of getting upgraded.

Meanwhile, the more curious device is the Galaxy S WiFi, which can best be described as a competitor to the iPod touch.

Just like the latter is basically an iPhone without the phone, the Galaxy S WiFi is a top-end Samsung smartphone without a mobile radio.

It can run Android apps, has Samsung's interface and support, and features a large touchscreen.

It's also a way for Samsung TV and Blu-ray player owners to interact with special Android apps without needing a Samsung phone.

The Samsung Galaxy Mini

Samsung already plans to launch two different versions of the Galaxy S WiFi -- a 4-inch model and a 5-inch model. With the Galaxy Tab rivaling the iPad, and this new media player as a direct competitor to the iPod touch, Samsung is clearly targeting Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) in the mobile space.

The Galactic Battle

That, said Travis Hodges, Drum Marketing account executive and social media adviser, is the right approach to take.

"Apple knows what it's doing, and it never hurts to mimic the success from other companies," Hodges told LinuxInsider. "By creating brand awareness for the 'Galaxy' name, consumers will begin to look at Samsung's products as devices that are connected to one another. It's important to have that connection on top of just recognizing the manufacturer's name."

One uphill battle is it will never be able to have the same cohesion as all of Apple's products, thanks to the evolving nature of Android. Because Samsung is targeting a wide range of prices with its products, it has to deal with the issue of fragmentation, which has an ugly ring to it. But does it have to?

The Samsung Galaxy S WiFi

"Android fragmentation is never going to go away, but what can change is the reaction to it," Yankee Group analyst Daniel Taylor told LinuxInsider.

"Just look at the PC market," he added. "You would never expect all computers to be running the same version of Windows. Smartphone owners and developers just need to begin look at the Android platform in that same way."

From this week's new products alone, there's already a discrepancy. The Galaxy Mini will have Android 2.2, while the Galaxy S II will have Android 2.3. It's currently unknown when the next smartphone-targeted version of Android will come out and which phones will continue to be upgradeable.

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Color, Sketch and Explode, Oh My: Three Must-Have Photo Apps

Sure, you can edit your iPhone photos using any of the million desktop photo applications out there. But why bother with all that syncing when great editing tools can be loaded to the phone itself for just a couple of bucks? Sketch Me, Color Splash and FX Photo Studio are three great places to start if you want to add a creative twist to your photography while on the go.
Sometimes it's easy to forget there are thousands of cool apps that extend the built-in features of your iPhone or iPod touch, and photography apps are one category I've been slow to adopt.
After all, I have a decent built-in camera for snapshots and video in my iPhone 4 already, and if I want to edit the photos I take, I can do it in iPhoto when I import them to my Mac ... or in Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Photoshop Elements, or Pixelmator.
And yet, there are two reasons you need to start exploring camera-focused apps right now:

1. The whole point of your iPhone or iPod touch is mobility, and camera apps provide you with on-the-go tools you can use right from the palm of your hand, and
2. these apps give you focused tools to do cool things like turn photos into sketches.

Besides, who has the free time to actually sit down in front of their Macs and edit photos these days anyway?
As it turns out, I'm finding that I'm more likely to wildly enhance photos on my iPhone than even bother importing them into iPhoto in the first place.
Here are three that I consider must-have photo enhancement apps -- but know that there are many other fine apps that can achieve similar results.
If you've been stuck in a built-in Camera App rut, start here.

Etch a Sketch

Sketch Me!, an app from Bluebear Technologies, is available for 99 US cents at the App Store.

Sketch Me!

Sketch Me! is a super-easy-to-use gem of an app that does exactly what it says it does. It works best, I believe, with close-up portraits, but it can also yield some surprising results with bigger canvases.
To get it started, you can take a photo from within the app itself or load one from your Camera Roll on your iOS device. Simply loading the photo kicks the app into gear, and it'll strip out the color and turn edges into what appear to be hand-drawn pencil lines. Often enough, the default looks great, but you can edit the results by tapping a little "gear" icon, which will give you slider controls for blur radius and effect strength, along with a split-screen option that will let you see the changes compared to the original as you make adjustments.
Along the bottom, there are six little circles that are easy to miss noticing -- these are preset sets of sketch types, and tapping them will sketch your photo in different ways. If you want to play with color, there's a color brush, but for the most part, I've ignored the feature. I go to Sketch Me! to create instant sketches. Oh, there's Facebook integration too, but the ability to take a snapshot of a cool event and then immediately sketch it and send it via the app via email to a friend can generate a nice surprise on the receiving end. To send it via MMS, you have to save the sketched file to your Camera Roll library on your iOS device ... and then MMS it from there.

World of Color

Color Splash, an app from Pocket Pixels, is available for 99 cents at the App Store.

Color Splash

When I first saw the Color Splash icon of a black and white hand holding a bright green apple, I had the impression that Color Splash was all about adding color to photos. I was mistaken, and in retrospect, I'm glad I was: Instead of adding color, you simply remove all color to create a black and white photo ... and then paint the color back into the areas you want to add color. It represents a different way of thinking about your photos, and your best results will come when you actually make your brain work for a second, teasing it into recognizing how a splash of color can really pop in a photo.
The first thing you want to do with Color Splash is watch the built-in general tutorial video. Some dude with an interesting accent will walk you through the basic process, and with a little practice and patience -- as the guy says in the video -- you really can finger paint your way around a photo by zooming in and out. In addition to finger painting color back into a photo, you can toggle over to finger paint the black and white back in -- handy when you make a mistake.
Either way, there's an undo button, which you'll use until you get the hang of it. One more thing: It's cool to slowly push your finger along an edge and see color bleed back into the image.
Social media posting? You bet, for Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Emailing, yes, definitely, and for MMS ... head back to your Camera Roll to get that job done.

Special FX

FX Photo Studio, an app from Macphun, is available for $1.99 at the App Store.

FX Photo Studio

FX Photo Studio provides 181 different filters for just a $1.99. I find that pretty amazing, especially since each of the filters has a slider control that changes the strength of the effect.
The filters give you things like crumpled paper, rough fabric, yellow glow, night vision cam, stencil posters, grunge rays, tilt-shift, blurs, neon lights, old film frames, and many more. At first glance, they are a bit daunting. Fortunately, the app is snappy and quick, so you don't have to wait long for the filters to take effect.
You will, of course, find several that you really like, and these you can add to your favorites, making it easy to find what you want. Feeling playful? Tap the "dice" button in the upper right and get a random effect. Tap it again for a new one. It's a good way to find surprising filters for a photo that you might not have considered on purpose.
You can also navigate through them by categories, like Art, Blur, Color Fantasy, Color Temperature, and the like. Again, handy. There's even simple filters, like "Photo Border 2" that gives you a white paper-like raised border effect. It's quite nice, actually. Tasteful, even.
Beyond the high-profile filters, FX Photo Studio is packed with some important other tools, like the ability to crop your photos, rotate them, or apply a gamma filter. You can save the photos to your photo album, a documents area, or the clipboard for pasting. Social media sharing gets built-in action with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, tumblr., and, of course, old-school email. Seriously, for $1.99, you can't go wrong.

All in All, You Need Some Photo Apps

Perhaps the most important takeaway of having a few of these kinds of apps is that they'll train your brain to remember that you can mess around with your photos. And maybe even frame them with some of these filters and effects in mind so you've got an interesting project right from the moment you tap the shutter button.
These three are definitely worth exploring, but don't let that stop you -- there are plenty more apps in the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) App Store that are sure to cover your individual way of seeing the world.

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