We have all seen the Mac vs PC ads, with Apple taking potty shots on the PC. But it is payback time now. Samsung ‘s latest ad takes on the whole Apple culture of fanboys queueing up days ahead of a product launch. Very smartly so, Samsung has pointed out how these fanboys seem to think themselves as being “creative”, and hence cannot be seen with an Android or a Samsung phone or anything non-Apple – sipping away their coffee, checking blogs on their Mac.

And then a Galaxy S2 user points out – why are you guys not on 4G speed? A helpless iPhone user can only mock the S2 user in utter desperation and helplessness. And another iPhone user complains how others will know if he’s upgraded or not. Poor fella, you’re outta luck.

Watch the amazing advert video embedded below.

Any of you Apple fanboys feeling uncomfortable with the inconvenient truth?

Mobile phone games will always suffer somewhat compared to games played on a dedicated console or even a computer, largely because the controls are optimised for smartphone purposes rather than gaming. The screen size is also a major limitation. Processing power is not so much of an issue as it once was, particularly with the latest high-speed, high-memory, dual-core phones.

So, what kind of games work well on smartphones? Anything where you can touch the screen to control the action; anything where the screen size doesn’t need to be large; and, on older phones, retro-style games that can manage with less processing power than the latest console or PC games. Platform games fulfil most of those requirements, but admittedly they can be tricky with standard phone controls. Plus, the market is somewhat flooded already, particularly when it comes to free and advert-supported games. We take a look at which ones work best, and offer most fun, for Android mobile phones.

Replica Island (requires Android 1.5 or higher; free download)

Replica Island has been specially designed for Android, rather than ported over from another OS, and it really shows. It’s a labour of love for its developer – which is also very obvious when you play – and already has 40 brilliant levels of old-school, Mario Brothers style platforming fun. Plus, it’s all open source, so if you fancy trying your hand as an Android game developer yourself, making a new Replica Island level might be a good place to start. Perhaps our favourite thing about this game, if “free download” and “huge fun” weren’t enough by themselves, is that the character you control as you jump from platform to platform on Replica Island is none other than the iconic green Android mascot. Only with rocket packs in his feet.

Abduction! 2 (requires Android 1.5 or higher; free demo download or £1.29 full game)

Save cute animals from alien abduction! Control your equally cute, bouncing cow heroine by tilting your phone, as she ascends the levels to rescue her farmyard chums from unseen but doubtless grisly experiments.

Doodle Jump (requires Android 1.5 or higher; £0.61 download)

This is a highly addictive platformer, with almost perfectly balanced gameplay. It’s unforgiving, and starts off quite tough, but you’ll quickly master the basics of bouncing the Doodler from one platform to the next, without bouncing into any enemies or dropping off the bottom of the screen. There’s none of that wimpy “three lives” nonsense here – the game ends as soon as you make a mistake – but that’s part of the reason it’s so addictive, and so good.

Puffle Launch (requires Android 2.1 or higher; £0.63 download)

Puffle Launch is technically a physics/platform crossover game, but it’s so good that we decided not to let that stop us including it in our “best of” list for platformers. Cartoony graphics, 36 detailed and engaging levels, and a hugely fun boss battle make Puffle Launch a real standout.

Cordy (requires Android 2.2 or higher; free download)

If you’re not already playing Cordy, and you have a phone that runs it, go and download this beautiful 3D platformer right now. With great graphics, and impressive gameplay blending platform and puzzle game elements, this really is a must-have. Although there’s a superb free game here, you can unlock extra levels with a small payment if you love it as much as we do.

Android has in the past been accused of not having much of interest on the Android Market, but as some of these games show, Android is quickly becoming the platform of choice – not just for gamers but for game developers too.

This is a guest post, written by Simon Drew, who is a Marketing Executive at MD Operations.

Kapil Sibal - Internet Censorship in India

Until the last week, he was more famous as the man who brought to the world, the $35 laptop. And today, he is a laughing stock, not only amongst us Indians, but also in tech blogs worldwide. Even Engadget (Link) is reporting this as a shameful initiative. And if we go by the trending hashtags of Twitter in India, you will find the top 5 to be pointing towards Mr. Kapil Sibal’s idiocy. This is a Harvard and St.Tephen’s alumni we’re talking about, who is now the Minster of Communications and IT in India. What made Mr.Sibal turn on his own head to become Mr.Scissorshands with the Internet?

I cannot decide if the initiative announced by Mr.Sibal to censor “the internet” is more stupid, or is it the incident which triggered this initiative which deserves a place on the stupid-er throne. He picked a post that targeted Sonia Gandhi, to be the reason why he wants the internet in India to be screened, censored and then released for the public. Now, I am not speaking in favour of anyone’s motive to malign a public figure. But across the world, we have a lot of “I hate abc” and “I love abc” clubs. The fact that a public figure like Sonia Gandhi has been picked on, and Mr.Sibal feels the need to censor the entire fucking internet in India is beyond me (well, I know his motive, well, sort of). So, here is my open letter to Mr Sibal.

@Mr Kapil Sibal :

I will try to keep it simple, and for your understanding, will present it to you in the form of bullet points.

#1.  The internet, as they showed in the IT Crowd, is not a simple box. So, if you want an initiative to scan through the whole internet, please get a reality check. Here are some stats for a starter.

There are 48 hours of YouTube video uploaded every minute, and 250 million tweets are generated per day. (Source: Labnol).

And that is just two websites. We are forgetting user generated forums, blogs, self hosted websites, Facebook, YouTube alternatives etc. etc. And oh, there are also proxy servers, and VPN networks to allow people to access anything from anywhere. Is this getting too technical for your liking? Good!

And the fact that you want, not algorithms to scan them through, but actual humans to do it for you is in itself worthy of an applause (sarcasm, check)! Best of luck with that. Perhaps, this might be your new Yuva Naukri Yojna (Youth Employment Scheme).

#2. Censor the internet you say? Why does it give me a deja-vú of what happened in Egypt and Libya? Oh yeah, they did it there, didn’t they? Speaking of blanket filtering of content, isn’t that reminiscent of China’s Internet filters. So, in the largest democracy in the world, are we now opting *that* as a role model?

#3. I would like to point you Mr.Sibal, towards a recently premiered TV series called Black Mirror – it is an interesting watch (review with spoilers here). The premise, is of a YouTube viral video released to the nation (UK). The video features a kidnapped Princess, who is faced with a death threat, and in ransom demand, the PM has to perform an obscene act involving a pig.

Now I know the UK is a different nation altogether, with different political and national sensibilities. But it is still similar in some respects. Like, the UK has its Royal family, and the Congress would like to believe the Gandhi family is India’s political royalty. But there is more to take in from this TV series.

The government tries to take down the ransom video from YouTube, but with every single video taken down, 6 clones would be uploaded the very next minute. This goes to show, that unlike traditional media, the internet is beyond territorial regulations, and can be made available from ​anywhere across the world. So, if you think that you can censor the internet with India, how are you going to control the millions of Pravasi Bhartiyas from creating another Facebook page?

#4. Last but not the least, Sonia Gandhi is a public figure. She might be an icon to the Congress, but she is just another democratically elected Member of the Parliament for me and the 1.2 billion Indians. So the whole objective of censoring internet to be triggered by this so called “I Hate abc” page, just goes to show the seriousness of your concern towards the Indian democracy.

I hope you read this, and I hope that you release an apology letter soon. I also hope that your trending hashtag finishes its innings sooner than Rakhi Sawant’s last breaking news. I miss Chetan Bhagat on my twitter hashtag.

Sincerely,

An online Indian.

For now, it is only the Galaxy Nexus which has got the latest version of Android OS, the Ice Cream Sandwich. Amongst other improvements over the previous versions, is the new improved keyboard which has better suggestions, targetting and shortcuts. And if you have an Android phone running 2.2 or later version, then you don’t have to wait for the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwhich.

The keyboard is available for download for free, and ready for you to use.

Go hit the Android market link here:

But is it worth the download? Hit the jump for the review of this keyboard.

Review:

There are a few changes compared to the default one on my Samsung Galaxy S2.

Good:

The num keys option of symbols is reduced.

Apart from that, the keys look well layed-out with quite generous spacing. The layout is very standard Android, and the highlight colour is pleasant blue.

Also, the punctuation suggestions at the end of each word is very welcome here.

Bad:

The ICS Keyboard does not have any pre-installed keys for emoticons. You can insert emoticons if you are texting, by hitting the menu button, and selecting “Insert Smileys”.
But if you are trying to use it as a text keyboard for any other app, you are out of luck. You’d have to write your own emoticons.

Other:

If you are searching for this app in the Android Market on the phone, it is the one developed by Johntanmi, and not Nick Zhang.

Techkeyla Rating: It does what is says on the tin, and then some more. Full marks on functionality, but the exclusion of emoticons is a step backwards.

The Ice Cream Sandwich keyboard gets 3.5 *** / 5

Let me know if it works as well on your Android phone, and leave your comments below.

We all have our good days and bad days with Excel. But with these 40 keyboard shortcuts, you can be assured that your session with Excel will all mean business.

Here are 40 of the most awesome Excel keyboard shortcuts to enable you to sail through all your regular and reptetive tasks like an Excel Spreadhseet Ninja.

For your convenience, I have divided them into 5 broad sections viz. – Selection, Switching, Creation, Formatting and Formula.

So here it is: 40 Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Selection

1. Ctrl+* – Select current region.
2. Ctrl+Home – Goes to the first cell of the sheet
3. Ctrl+End – Goes to the last active cell of the sheet
4. Ctrl+Spacebar – Select entire column
5. Shift+Spacebar – Select entire row
6. Shift+Up/Down Arrow – Select adjacent column
7. Shift+Left/Right Arrow – Select adjacent row
8. Ctril +Up Arrow – Select first active cell in a column
9. Ctrl + Down Arrow – Select last active cell in a column
10. Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow - Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the beginning of the row
11. Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow - Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the end of the row
12. Ctrl+Shift+Home – Select all cells from active cell to the first active cell in the sheet
13. Ctrl+Shift+End – Select all cells from active cell to the last active cell in the sheet

Switching

14. Ctrl+Page Up – Switch between sheets in the same worksheet from left to right
15. Ctrl+Page Down – Switch between sheets in the same worksheet from right to left
16. Ctrl+Tab – Switch between worksheets
17. Alt+F11 – Open VBA Editor

Creation

18. Shift+ F11 – Creates New sheet
19. Ctrl+F3 – Define name for a cell
20. F3 – Paste name for a cell
21. Ctrl+; – Pastes Current date in the active cell
22. Ctrl+Shift+; – Pastes Current time in the active cell
23. Alt+F1 – Creates a chart using the active region
24. Alt+F2 -Displays the Save as dialog box

Formatting

25. Ctrl+1 – Format cells
26. Ctrl+2, Ctrl+B – Bold
27. Ctrl+3, Ctrl+i – Italics
28. Ctrl+4, Ctrl+U – Underline
29. Ctrl+5 – Strikethrough
30. Ctrl+9 – Hides selected rows
31. Ctrl+0 – Hides selected columns
32. Ctrl+D – Copy formatting of top most cell
33. Ctrl+G / F5 – Go to box
34. Ctrl+K – Hyperlink
36. Ctrl+L -Create List
37. Ctrl+R – Fill Right / Copy content and formats of leftmost cell in a selection

Formula:

38. =+FunctionName+Ctrl+A – Inserts new function
39. Ctrl+Shift+Enter – Array formula
40. Shift+F3 – Opens Formula Dialogue Box

Fell free to share this post using the buttons below. Or just proudly show off your Spreadhseet Ninja skills on your own.

The Li-ion battery as we know it, is going to have a major overhaul, if reports are to be believed. In a research work done by Northwestern University, this most common place battery used in pretty much every laptop and smartphone could be made to charge much faster and last much longer.

There is a major change in the design of the Li-Ion battery, which currently uses carbon-based graphene sheets, which have a limited capacity to hold Li ions. During charging of the battery, these free ions need to oscillate to and fro between anodes, and due to the limitation in capacity of graphene to hold more than one Li ion, the charge process takes place at a much slower rate.

The solution – Silicon. Silicon has more capacity to hold four Li ions, which is four times the amount that graphene can hold. Here is an excerpt of the methodology of creating a “shortcut” to charge Li-ion batteries faster. (from Wired’s article).

Silicon is the answer after all — it can hold a whopping four lithium atoms for every silicon atom — but carefully sandwiching clusters of it between the graphene sheets avoids the disastrous fragmentation problem. And by poking tiny holes (10 to 20 nanometeres wide) in the graphene, the lithium ions have a “shortcut” to the anode.

For the research report, visit Professor Kung’s page on NorthWestern University’s website here.

(via WIRED )

Here are a few photos I captured at St.Paul’s Cathedral, London of the Occupy LSX movement.

There are more pics after the jump. Click the pics to see the higher resolution version.

Proposal for a new spot being made for the tents to be moved.

Tents set up outside St.Paul’s Cathedral

A protester being interviewed.

To know more about the Occupy LSX movement, go here.

If you feel the need to rebel against the capitalism and global media dominance of Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, then this Chrome web app should save you the hassle of entering a list of Murdoch’s owned websites into your block list. To install the app, go to this page of Chrome Web App Store. There is a similar addon available for Firefox which can be found here: Firefox Addon – Murdochblock

For the comprehensive list of the websites that are blocked by the app, go to this wiki page. As rightly pointed out by commenter Alec on the app page, the websites of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph have been incorrectly blocked as well, even though these are not owned by Newscorp, but are owned by1Barclay Brothers. Probably, this is due to some confusion since Murdoch owns the Australian The Daily Telegraph (thedailytelegraph.com.au).

This is an open-source app and the source-code is here:  http://code.google.com/p/murdoch-block/