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New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/nokia-or-microsoft-stores.html

Nokia or Microsoft Stores ?

When Microsoft bought Nokia’s hardware division they picked up a number of Nokia branded brick and mortar stores. Now that Microsoft has begun rebranding Nokia Lumia’s with the Microsoft logo, the same is happening to these retail stores. The stores were closed for rebranding and are now being reopened as Microsoft Authorized Reseller stores. Some readers may be surprised to hear of Nokia specific stores because the stores were not in the US and were mainly in countries where the Nokia brand was big such as Brazil and Malaysia.

In order to compete well with other big names in tech like Google, Amazon, and Apple, Microsoft needs to have a presence in the retail space. These stores give Microsoft a direct line to customers across the world and in places where there were previously no Microsoft stores. Windows Phones and some Windows devices have gotten a bad name in wireless carrier stores or electronics retailers. These physical stores enable Microsoft to show consumers what their products can do and how they can be used to their maximum potential. With Windows 10 coming soon, it will also be important for potential customers to be reassured they won’t be left in the dark with updates or new features.

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/is-this-samsung-galaxy-note-5-edge.html

Is this Samsung Galaxy Note 5 edge ?

ven though the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 isn’t expected to be unveiled until the NFL season kicks off (with Tom Brady on the sidelines?), we’ve already heard that the fifth-generation of the phablet is internally referred to as Project Noble. From keeping our ear to the ground, we’ve also heard that the Galaxy Note 5 will also be powered exclusively with an Exynos chipset of Sammy’s own making. Recently there was talk that the Exynos 7422 is being tested for use on the unit. This chip would go beyond the usual chipset and include the CPU, GPU, RAM, native storage, and a Samsung LTE modem in a single package.

Now, we would be dumbfounded, stupefied and at a loss for words if Samsung wasn’t planning a Galaxy Note 5 for release this year. Thus, the device’s appearance on the HTML5test website isn’t earthshattering in the sense that it proves the device exists. But if legit, it could show us that the Galaxy Note 5 is in testing mode. The HTML5test measures how well a specific browser supports HTML5.

The test measured Samsung browser 3.2 on the Samsung ZenZero. This is the code name allegedly being given to the rumored Samsung Galaxy Note 5 edge. This model will reportedly come with curved glass on both sides of the 5.4-inch or 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen.

The browser tallied 503, which is a very high score. To put it in comparison, a Nexus 5 using Chrome 42 with Android 5.1.1 just scored a 515 as did the same combination of Chrome 42 and Android 5.1.1 on the Pantech Vega Iron 2.

We suggest taking this story with the proverbial grain of salt. According to the HTML5test site, the data “could be fake or belong to a different browser than the one listed.”

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/meizu-to-publish-mx5-m1-note-2.html

Meizu To publish MX5 & M1 Note 2

If this rumor turns out to be true, then June will be a full month for Meizu. According to a new report out of China, the company is planning to hold two separate events next month, during which it will unveil two new smartphones.

The first one should happen on June 2, which is when we’re supposedly going to see a new version of the M1 Note become official. This will awkwardly be called M1 Note 2, and it will come with a Full HD touchscreen just like its predecessor.

However, the new M1 Note will also get a fingerprint sensor embedded in its Home key. Because of this, production costs will go up, so expect the M1 Note 2 to be more expensive than the original (which will probably stick around, since it’s barely six months old at this point).

Next up, at a dedicated gathering on June 30 Meizu is said to announce the MX5, its next flagship offering. This will come with a unibody construction (sans removable back cover), and an oval Home button also housing a fingerprint scanner. The lower front side of the MX5 may actually be portrayed by the image you can see above.

The MX5 could be powered by MediaTek’s MT6795 chipset, which comes with an octa-core CPU clocked at up to 2.2 GHz.

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/this-is-the-vision-0-100-in-less-than-2-sec.html

This is The vision : 0-100 in less than 2 sec

Zero to 62 mph (100 km/h) in less than two seconds? It can’t be done. Well, not in a standard production car, but when you’re designing a car destined only for the virtual pavement of a video game, you can go a little wild with your performance estimates. The latest in a seemingly endless stream of Vision Gran Turismo concepts, the Peugeot Vision GT flashes radical styling and even more radical in-game performance.

A collaboration between Peugeot’s design team and Peugeot Sport, the new Vision Gran Turismo is clearly inspired by the Onyx, a fetching 2012 concept car that the French automaker still brings to auto shows regularly. The video game car is 3.5 in (9 cm) lower, standing at 41 in (104 cm), and includes more fully shaped fender muscles, among other design variations.

The most interesting aspect of Peugeot’s Vision GT styling is the replacement of side windows with extended body work, creating a unique cabin shell with floating glass roof. The smooth form helps the low, powerful supercar sweep air aside on its way to the finish line. The Vision GT wears contrast red grill slats and lower body work, a more subtle interpretation of the two-tone body work that Peugeot has used on recent show cars, including the Onyx, and Exalt.

Below its smooth, aggressive body, the Vision GT features an 875-bhp turbocharged 3.2-liter V6 mounted just behind the driver. Output works its way to all four wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox and AWD system. The powertrain’s effectiveness is furthered by the car’s 1:1 power to weight ratio (it weighs 875 kg/1,929 lb), meaning that the needle will hit 62 mph in a mere 1.73 seconds. Clearly Peugeot has to keep up with the virtual competition, including the Chevy Chaparral 2X and its laser-fired 1.5-second 0-60 mph time. No word on what the car’s virtual top speed is, but Peugeot promises quick, sure stopping with the Brembo carbon disc brake package.

Those may sound like fantasy video game numbers, but they’re much the same as the Pikes Peak record-setting 208 T16. That car also has a (twin) turbocharged 875-bhp 3.2-liter V6 and 875-kg weight and is just a few tenths slower, firing to 62 mph in 1.8 seconds.

The Peugeot Vision GT will be released in six colors on PlayStation 3 as part of an upcoming Gran Turismo 6 update. You can see what it’ll look like in the trailer below.

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/next-moto-x-will-have-16-megapixel-camera-with-ois-technology.html

Next Moto X Will have 16 megapixel camera with ois technology

Just the other day, we passed along some rumored specs for the third-generation Motorola Moto X. According to the leak, the next version of the Motorola Moto X will come with a 16MP camera carrying Clear Pixel technology. The front-facing camera, used for selfies and video chats, should weigh in at 5MP. The second-generation Motorola Moto X comes with a 13MP rear snapper and a 2MP front-facing camera. A new rumor insists that the 16MP rear camera on the next-gen Moto X will come with OIS to make sure that jittery or shaky hands don’t ruin your video. The rear camera is also going to be able to record in slow motion. For example, while in 1080p mode the camera will be able to record at 120fps. If you’re shooting video in 720p, video can be filmed at 240fps.

Considering that this is speculation until Motorola makes it official, you should take this with the proverbial grain of salt. Still, it wouldn’t be too crazy to expect Motorola to add these features to the next Moto X. After all, the Motorola built Nexus 6 employs OSI on its rear camera.

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/tutorials-articles/toturial-how-to-make-a-download-plugin-for-rapidleech-expert.html

Toturial : How To make a Download Plugin For Rapidleech (Expert)

How to make a Download Plugin For your rapidleech

Let start a little Different ;First of all take my excuse for being a little late , i got into some kind of personal problems and these days have  less time , but don’t worry ; yet  i’m here to give you the rarest Tuts in the net . So let’s  Begin.

Earlier this week we put a tutorial about  How To make a Upload Plugin For Rapidleech (Expert) ,and now we are going to learn making a download plugin.

Please Don’t mirror this post , and don’t copy it .

as  all of you know while ago , rapidleech main site got lost it’s data at all , so all the Tutorials and training about rapidleech get wiped and there is no main reference for this kind of tuts. so  we will be the first after a while .  Let’s start and make our conversation short.

Requirements

For this Tut we need some Specific things  :

Knowledge of Php- Html ( Inetmediate at least )

Knowledge of Web servers ( Not much )

Knowledge of rapidleech main script (expert)

Knowledge of Working With apps Like http  debuger

As an example We are Trying To make a Download plugin for zshared.net ( The file host is gone – But the concepts are the same and if you have any  question i will be there )

NOTE: We are using zshared download plugin as an example in this tutorial. The code you see is simply to illustrate how things work with it so you can see how to put the whole plugin together. Don’t expect to just copy this code into a new plugin and expect it to work!

NOTE: This May be a little old ,But the main purpose of making a plugin is the same, so  just change the Codes in your needs

How Rapidleech Works

When you request a URL to download from Rapidleech, Rapidleech will act as a browser. It will send a so-called HTTP request to the host’s server and receives the response. During this transmition, there are a few important components, which are referer, cookie and post.

Please make sure you do understand them before continuing. In order not to make this article too long, I will not be explaining them. Some file hosts require the correct referer and cookie value sent in order to give you the download link to download, so it is essential to always give the correct value. Now, you might be a little confused here, don’t worry, try to understand what I’m saying, eventhough you don’t know, just understand first, and continue. In this article, I will take the easiest file host as example: zshared.net. I believe that after reading this article, you will be able to write even more complicated plugins on your own. But of course, I will also explain some essential parts. When you want to download from zshared, you will first enter the file url, then hit enter on the browser. During this process, the browser actually sends a GET request to the server which looks like this:

GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: zshare.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive: 300 Connection: keep-alive

Upon receiving this request, the server will return a response, which looks as below:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.0-8+etch13 Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Last-Modified: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:32:36 -0400 Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0 Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0 Set-Cookie: sid=ed161d014ec131d4146ab3239892ac45; expires=Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:32:36 GMT; path=/; domain=.zshare.net Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT Pragma: no-cache Content-Encoding: gzip Vary: Accept-Encoding Content-Length: 4232 Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:32:36 GMT Server: lighttpd/1.5.0

Note that this is just the header of the response, there are still some more data below, which is the page which you will usually see when you open zshare.net in the browser. During this request and response, you can see that the browser first requested a page ‘/’ to the server, the server then responded with a cookie value which is defined by ‘Set-Cookie’. This value is usually very important as many file hosts will check the cookie value before allowing you to download a file.

Writing The Plugin

Rapidleech passes the download url as $LINK. But before you request a response, you must parse the url into a few components: Host, port, path and query. You can do that by using:

$Url = parse_url($LINK);

Then, when you get the components of a url, you can request and receive response in this way:

$page = geturl($Url["host"], $Url["port"] ? $Url["port"] : 80, $Url["path"].($Url["query"] ? "?".$Url["query"] : "") ,$Referer , $cookie, $post, 0, $_GET["proxy"],$pauth);

In this case, all headers and body contents will be in the variable $page. Next, you will want to check if there are any cookie values set, you can do that by:

preg_match_all('/Set-Cookie: (.*);/U',$page,$temp); $cookie = $temp[1]; $cookie = implode(';',$cookie);

All cookies will be saved into $cookie. But you don’t have to do this everytime, you will understand about that later.

Proceeding to download page

So next, if you want to download a file, you will need to click on the download button, right? But how do you do that in Rapidleech? Well, you can emulate a browser receiving clicks. But you will have to see what type is it. There are basically 2 types of clicks, one is redirection, another is form submittion. Ok, so how do you differentiate it? In zshare, look for this line:

<form name="form1" method="post" action=""> <input name="referer2" type="hidden" id="referer2" value=""> <input name="download" type="hidden" id="download" value="1"> <input name="imageField" type="image" id="imageField" src="/images/download.gif" width="219" height="57" border="0"> </form>

Well, it seems obvious that they are using the post method. Form is the signature, the ‘Download Now!’ button you see in the browser is the line with name=”imageField”. When you see file hosts using post method, you must be extremely careful. You must pass every value of the input. As you can see, there are 3 input tags in this form. But the ones with values are ‘referer2′ and ‘download’, so you must pass these 2 values to the server. Besides, you must also note the form action, see where it is posting to. In zshared, the action is empty, it means it will be posted to the same page. Some file hosts will post the content to other pages, in this case you will need to get the url in the action. You can use the following function to get the url:

$url_action = cut_str($page,'<form method="post" action="','"');

But this will not work on every site, some site might not work with it. For example, zshare will not work. Because, cut_str actually finds the string

preg_match('/<form.*method="post" action="(.*)"/U',$page,$url_action); $url_action = trim($url_action[1]);

Remember to add the second line, the results returned by preg_match is in array. Both methods work the same but I prefer the RegExp method. However, in zshared, the action value is empty, so you actually don’t have to care about it. You can just post back to the same url.So, in order to post some values, we construct an array as below:

$post['referer2'] = ''; $post['download'] = 1;

See that it is important to put fields without values too. Sometimes your plugin might not work just because you miss out this important post value.Next, we send the post request to the server using the same command as previous:

$page = geturl($Url["host"], $Url["port"] ? $Url["port"] : 80, $Url["path"].($Url["query"] ? "?".$Url["query"] : "") ,$Referer , $cookie, $post, 0, $_GET["proxy"],$pauth);

But this time, you have a referer, which is the download link itself. In zshared, you can ignore it but in some other sites it might be important. In this request, the browser sends the following:

POST /download/57177513735828d7/ HTTP/1.1 Host: www.zshare.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive: 300 Connection: keep-alive Referer: http://www.zshare.net/download/57177513735828d7/ Cookie: sid=ed161d014ec131d4146ab3239892ac45 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 135 referer2=&download=1&imageField.x=90&imageField.y=35

It’s always a good idea to use a tool for analysing headers that are received and sent during a download/upload, such as LiveHTTPHeaders plugin for Firefox, or WireShark if you are more familiar. I personally prefer HTTP Debugger Pro. Some sites also use JavaScript to either set cookies or send information, so when you look at the headers you might wonder where some of them came from (how they got sent or received) – so look in the javascript for things like ‘onClick’ to see if it sets a cookie, or posts information along with the rest of the form. Well, if you are familiar with HTML, you might notice. Whenever there is an image input type, you must post the name.X and name.Y values together. But what about the referer2? Well, you can leave that out as that actually should be the page before you reach this download page, which is empty. So this is the correct post array:

$post['referer2'] = ''; $post['download'] = 1; $post['imageField.x'] = 90; $post['imageField.y'] = 35;

Ok, so in the browser, after we clicked the button, there will be a countdown before the link appears. Well, we will need to do that in Rapidleech too since the download won’t be available until the countdown finishes…

Counting down

So, in order to countdown from Rapidleech, we must get how many seconds exactly do we need to countdown first. I have found the countdown value here:

|start|link|document|important||here|50|class|onClick|Click|

To get the countdown seconds, use the method same as getting the action link:

$countdown = cut_str($page,'|start|link|document|important||here|','|'); Or preg_match(‘/|start|link|document|important||here|(.*)|class|onClick|Click|/’,$page,$countdown); $countdown = trim($countdown[1]);

So now, $countdown contains the value of time you will need to countdown. In order to let Rapidleech countdown and wait for the download link, use this function:

insert_timer($countnum, "Counting down...");

Well, you can put anything instead of “Counting down…”, just make sure it makes sense to the user.

Retrieving the link and download it

Ok, here comes the difficult part. You will need to know the exact link which points to the file you want to download. zshare seems to make it complicated enough like here:

var link_enc=new Array('h','t','t','p',':','/','/','d','l','0','1','2','.','z','s','h','a','r','e','.','n','e','t','/','d','o','w', 'n','l','o','a','d','/','f','0','5','1','d','8','9','2','e','d','c','3','0','8','8','2','1','f','f','7','b','0','d','5','a','2','7','3', '2','b','6','9','/','1','2','3','7','3','4','3','8','0','3','/','5','7','1','7','7','5','1','3','/','c','o','r','e','_','d','e','c','.','p','h','p');

Notice the download link? They are all splitted by “‘,’”, so you know what I mean? So here’s the easy way: First, get rid of those extras like var link_enc etc:

Then, you just get rid of those “‘,'” to get a valid download link! 1

Inside this ‘if’ statement is step 2. Use the ‘else’ statement for step 1 like:

if ($_GET['step'] == 1) // Step 2 else // Step 1

In step 1, you must get the captcha and display it to the user and let the user enter the captcha. In step 2, you will post the captcha the user entered to the file host and request the download link.

To get the captcha, you must find the captcha image in a page. There are 2 types of captchas, 1 is static with the link and another is dynamic. Static ones display the same letters and numbers in the captcha no matter how many time you refresh with the image link. The dynamic ones will renew itself each time it is accessed. To identify whether a captcha is dynamic or not, find the captcha’s image link.

However, some file hosts change their image everytime you request it. In this case, you can only request it once from the server and save it to the server temporarily and present it to the user. For example, ziddu is a file host which is considered dynamic captcha. You will have to retrieve the url of the captcha image first. In ziddu, you can find the captcha image here

<img src="/CaptchaSecurityImages.php?width=100&height=38&characters=5" align="absmiddle" id="image" name="image"/>

So you can retrieve it using the technique above. I’m not going to show you once more, if you still don’t know how to retrieve it, you might need to restart all over again. After you got the url of the captcha and saved it into a variable like let’s say $img, we then parse the url to download it and save it as a file:

$Url = parse_url($img); $page = geturl($Url["host"], $Url["port"] ? $Url["port"] : 80, $Url["path"].($Url["query"] ? "?".$Url["query"] : ""), $LINK, $cook, 0, 0, $_GET["proxy"],$pauth); $headerend = strpos($page,"\r\n\r\n"); $pass_img = substr($page,$headerend+4); write_file($download_dir."ziddu_captcha.jpg", $pass_img); $randnum = rand(10000, 100000); $img_data = explode("\r\n\r\n", $page); $header_img = $img_data[0];

In some circumstances, the host will pass some cookie values together with the image, just remember to capture them. So you got the image as files/ziddu_captcha.jpg then you must display it to the user so he/she can enter it.

As I have mentioned above, these types of plugins have two stages, one occur before the captcha and one after it. These two stages does not share the same session so variables are not stored. In order to pass the variables, you must enter it together with the form. Like the ziddu plugin, it appears like this:

print "<form method=\"post\" action=\"$PHP_SELF\">$nn"; print "<b>Please enter code:</b><br>$nn"; print "<img src=\"$download_dirziddu_captcha.jpg?id=".$randnum."\" >$nn"; print "<input name=\"link\" value=\"$LINK\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"referer\" value=\"$referer\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"flink\" value=\"$flink\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input type=hidden name=id value=$id[1]>$nn"; print "<input name=\"zd\" value=\"ok\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"cookie\" value=\"$cook\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"name\" value=\"$name\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"fid\" value=\"$fid[1]\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"tid\" value=\"$tid[1]\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"fname\" value=\"$fname[1]\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"securecode\" value=\"$securecode[1]\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"keyword\" value=\"$keyword[1]\" type=\"hidden\">$nn"; print "<input name=\"securitycode\" type=\"text\" >"; print "<input name=\"submit\" value=\"Download\" type=\"submit\"></form>";

Some are the variables retrieved from forms earlier and some are required to let Rapidleech know that is in the next stage. Below is a checklist that you should always not forget to put together with this form:

1. First and foremost, the captcha image and the field

2. Next, it’s important to put an input element with the name ‘link’ and the exact value that is entered by the user, this ensures that Rapidleech will later come back to this specific plugin

3. A variable to let the plugin know that it is entering the next stage. In ziddu, we have ziddu=”ok”.

4. POST values that may be passed to the host. Next, when the user enters the captcha and submits the form, it is our time to submit the results to the file host.

Submitting the captcha

We need to know that we are now entering this after captcha stage. So you must see this in the code:

if ($_POST['zd'] == 'ok') {

In this stage, we must capture all values which are posted from the previous stage, although some are not needed. When we get those values, we can post them to the file host. In zshare, the download will be initiated once you post the captcha. So we collect the variables passed:

$post = Array(); $post["fid"] = $_POST['fid']; $post["tid"] = $_POST['tid']; $post["securitycode"] = $_POST['securitycode']; $post["fname"] = $_POST['fname']; $post["securecode"] = $_POST['securecode']; $post["Keyword"] = 'Ok'; $post["submit"] = 'Download'; $cookie = $_POST['cookie']; $Referer = $_POST["referer"]; $Href = $_POST["flink"]; $FileName = $_POST["name"]; $Url = parse_url($Href);

Make sure to capture cookie, referer and the download link, determine the filename and off we go posting it!

Conclusion

Writing a plugin for a file host is a very flexible thing. Process written here is not necessary followed and you will have to twist your mind to follow the file host not this tutorial. Besides, file host love to always change their script to break our plugins as a present, so the most important is that you frequently check. Users will report, but it is always good to fix before any reports turn up, isn’t it?

Things to remember

Below is a list of things to remember:

1. File host change their script frequently to break our plugin, don’t forget to fix.

2. Always remember to check for cookies and hidden input elements when posting forms.

3. Don’t leave out the referrer when redirecting or posting form.

4. If you encounter some problems and want to debug so that you know what Rapidleech is receiving instead of what you’re seeing in the browser, use this line: echo “<pre>”;var_dump(nl2br(htmlentities($page)));echo “</pre>”;exit;

This will print out the html source of the page Rapidleech is receiving.

5. You can also use this link to find out if your regular expression is working or not!

6. Last but not least, if you still can’t find where the problem is, you can request help in the forum! Provide a valid link to the file host you’re trying to write the plugin for, and state what you have done and what kind of problems you are facing. The community is always ready to help!

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/cloud-version-of-windows.html

Cloud version of Windows

With Windows 10 officially announced as a free upgrade for PCs and devices for at least the first year of distribution, the news has left many wondering what the future of Windows will be. Windows enthusiasts, doomsday prophets, skittish investors, and tech journalists are all very eager to weigh in with speculations and rumors.

The predominant theory for the future of Windows has Microsoft turning the company’s traditionally licensed operating system into a Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) model. The idea started floating around on ZDNet as a journalist and Microsoft news insider Mary Jo Foley began noticing patterns of unbundling and rebranding of Microsoft services leading up to the Windows 10 unveiling. With speculation becoming fact regarding a free Windows 10 upgrade, the SAAS theory seems beyond plausible. In fact, the SAAS approach seems to be the only reasonable course Microsoft has after their ‘free upgrade’ announcement.

Russian leaker WZor is offering up his two-cents to the rumor mill today on Twitter. Once translated, the tweet all but confirms Mary Jo Foley’s original theory. WZor believes that Windows will transition into a cloud-based OS by the end of 2020. According to the tweet, there are people inside of Redmond currently working on a Windows cloud client, and when complete, the release will follow the Windows 10 free upgrade president.

Once the ‘free’ floodgates are open, there is no going back. To date, developers, content creators, businesses, and services are struggling to find ways to garner a sustainable business with free options. Some have sought pay-as-you-go options, others have taken to freemium models and lower cost bundled subscriptions approaches. Eventually, Microsoft will have to decide what works best for the company and its users. Just like us, we’re sure Microsoft is keeping a close eye on the adoption and success of the new free approach. Once the ‘free’ offer becomes a reality for consumers, it’ll be very interesting to see how Microsoft pivots on the enterprise, as well as the next few upgrades for Windows in the future.

Interestingly enough, the rumor of Windows Cloud first appeared back in April of 2014, when Wzor claimed Microsoft was working on a prototype operating system called Windows Cloud. At the time, Windows Cloud was rumored to be an operating system that requires an internet connection for full functionality. While in offline mode, the operating system would be similar to Microsoft’s budget operating system, Windows Starter, offering basic functionality. This obviously smells like something you would see in Chrome OS on a Chromebook. Could Microsoft be experimenting with something similar?

New Post has been published on http://www.sctut.com/news/use-x-rays-and-make-better-chocolate.html

Use X-rays and make better chocolate

Have you ever unwrapped a piece of chocolate only to discover that it looked a little old? That white substance that appears on the delicious confection is known as a fat bloom. As the fats in the chocolate crystallize, they form the rather unattractive white stuff. Fret not, though, a group of scientists from Nestlé, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) and the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) are using extremely powerful X-rays to examine exactly what causes the process.

And, of course, searching for a method of avoiding the “defects.” With DESY’s PETRA III, which happens to be the brightest storage ring X-ray in the world, the team can examine the blooming process as it happens zoomed in to just a few nanometers. This means watching liquid fats (like cocoa butter) migrate to the surface of the chocolate. A number of factors could prevent the unsightly bloom, from storing chocolate below a certain temperature (around 65 degrees) to adjusting how porous the product is so that those migration routes are slowed. While some permanent solutions are still in the works, if you happen to come across of piece of bloom-covered candy, don’t worry: it’s safe to eat.

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Drone you can put it in your pocket

A drone and controller combo so small it can fit in your pocket? That’s the promise of Wallet Drone, a new mini-quadcopter and controller/docking station combo on Indiegogo that’s no bigger than a typical wallet.

The idea of a mini-quadcopter isn’t new — there are several such devices already available — but the company claims the Wallet Drone is the world’s smallest. The drone itself measures 1.57 inches by 1.57 inches by just over half an inch (4 centimeters by 4 centimeters by 1.75 centimeters), and the remote and docking station isn’t much larger at 4.23 inches by 3.35 inches by 1.1 inches (10.75 centimeters by 8.5 centimeters by 2.8 centimeters).

The Wallet Drone is a cheap hobby gizmo that could be fun to fly around, plus it’s small enough to be pocketable so you can take it to the park without needing to carry any extra gear. Like most micro-quadcopters, the Wallet Drone doesn’t have a camera, so if you’re looking for aerial photos, you should probably look elsewhere.

The Wallet Drone has a flight time of five to seven minutes on a 20-minute charge, and it can be charged via the included USB cable (or, if you’re on the go, the controller doubles as a docking station that charges the drone thanks to four AA batteries onboard). The device has three preset speeds, 360-degree rotational yaw, six-axis gyro-stabilization and a trick mode that lets the drone do rolls and flips more easily.

Those looking to back the project can preorder a Wallet Drone in one of four different colors for as little as $35 (about £25, AU$45) for early backers. That price includes free shipping anywhere in the US, but Canadian backers will need to add $12 for shipping and international backers have to shell out an extra $25 (about £15, AU$30).

This is a fixed campaign, so the Wallet Drone will only ship if the campaign reaches its goal of $11,894. As of this writing, it’s raised $4,965 toward that goal with more than a month left. If the campaign succeeds, the product is expected to ship to campaign backers in July, so people can start terrorizing their friends, kids and pets this summer.

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6TB SSD ?

If you want terabytes of storage inside your PC or laptop, then the traditional hard drive is still the obvious choice. 6TB drives are now common, and 8TB and even 10TB drives are set to arrive and go mainstream very soon. They’ll also cost significantly less than even a 1TB SSD. However, that doesn’t mean we aren’t getting larger SSDs, and the world’s first 6TB SSD is set to launch in July.

Japanese manufacturer Fixstars is planning 3 new 2.5-inch SSDscarrying the names 1000M, 3000M, and 6000M. The 1000M and 3000M models will use 19nm flash memory, a 6Gbps interface, and offer 1TB and 3TB of storage respectively.

It’s the 6000M SSD that’s the most interesting, though. It will use 15nm flash memory to offer 6TB of storage while retaining the 2.5-inch drive footprint. Read speeds are expected to be 540MB/s and write speeds of 520MB/s, which is typical of any high-end 6Gbps SATA SSD today.

Pricing has only been announced for the 1TB drive, which is set at $820. We can expect a large premium on the 3TB model, and an even larger premium on the 6TB drive. It’s also unlikely Fixstars has any intention of offering the 6TB drive to consumers. There’s a growing demand for large SSDs in the datacenter, and that’s where Fixstars’ focus will be, at least initially.

As we’ve seen repeatedly, the cost of SSDs is coming down while the sizes on offer increase. 120GB and 250GB SSDs are now affordable. True, they still carry a much higher price than hard drives, but the benefits in terms of speed and power use are clear, and in a lot of cases worth the added cost.

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New From ZTE : Xiao Xian 2

The ZTE Xiao Xian 2 has been unveiled in China, and surprisingly the budget handset includes a fingerprint scanner. Priced at the equivalent of $144 USD, this model has the biometric scanner placed at the back of the device. It also offers 4G LTE connectivity and at 8.9mm thick, this is not a “fatty”. It also is fairly light at 126 grams. The ZTE Xiao Xian 2 (aka the B880 in some regions) comes with a 5-inch screen carrying a 720 x 1280 resolution. It all works out to a 268ppi pixel density. A quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6735 CPU drives the phone. 1GB of RAM is inside along with 8GB of native storage. A 32GB capacity microSD slot is available for those desiring additional memory, and a 13MP camera is on the back, carrying an aperture of f/2.2. In front, an 8MP snapper takes care of selfies and video chats. Keeping the lights on is a 2400mAh battery, and Android 5.0 is pre-installed.

For $144, you’re getting pretty good value for the money and the fingerprint scanner is icing on the cake.

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Galaxy Note 5 must be like this ?

ast year’s Galaxy Note 4 was the best Android-powered phablet money could buy, but Samsung has proven with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge that it can do a lot better.

As a big Note fan, and having used a Galaxy S6 for over a month now, here are five things I want to see — and some things I don’t — from the Galaxy Note 5 this fall.

Better Design

Samsung ushered in its new design language with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, and I’m not the only one who loves it; feedback has been overwhelmingly popular among critics and consumers. Samsung would be crazy not to do the same with the Galaxy Note 5.

I wouldn’t mind if the Galaxy Note 5 was just a larger version of the Galaxy S6, with the same aluminum frame and glass back. It would be great if Samsung could integrate amicroSD card slot into the side of the device — and I think it probably will — but I wouldn’t mind giving that up if it means the end of a tacky plastic back panel.

Wireless Charging

Now that I’ve gotten used to charging my Galaxy S6 wirelessly, I want to do the same with all of my devices — including the Note 5. And no, I don’t want to have to buy a $60 case to get it; I want it built-in just like it is on the Galaxy S6.

Exynos Processor

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are Samsung’s fastest devices to date, and Samsung didn’t need to rely on Qualcomm chips to make that happen. Rather than delivering two Note 5 variants, then, I’d like to see just one powered by an Exynos chip.

For the Note 4 and other devices, Samsung released multiple variants powered by Exynosand Snapdragon chips, meaning a slightly different experience depending on your market. It wasn’t a big deal for most consumers, but it meant those who like flashing custom ROMs had to choose new firmwares carefully.

I wouldn’t mind if Samsung used the sameExynos 7420 chip from the Galaxy S6 in the Note 5, but I suspect we’ll get a newer, faster model instead.

Better Fingerprint Scanner

I don’t think fingerprint scanners are absolutely necessary — I can still use a passcode if I need to — but if Samsung is going to include in the Note 5, it needs to be better than the Note 4’s, which was just inconsistent, unreliable, and just pointless.

I’d like to see the Note 5 adopt the same fingerprint scanner the S6 and S6 edge have. It uses a tap rather than a swipe — like Apple’s Touch ID — and it’s much more reliable. There’s still room for improvement, I think, but my Galaxy S6 recognizes my fingerprint about 90% of the time, and that’s great.

Better Camera

Finally, the Note 5 needs a better camera. It’s a hugely important feature to a lot of smartphone consumers — me included — so much so that it can be a deal-breaker.

Samsung realizes that now, which is why the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge have the best cameras you’ll find on an Android-powered smartphone right now. But I want to see the same camera — if not an even better one — integrated into the Note 5 as well.

The Note 4’s camera isn’t terrible, I must admit. In fact, in many situations, it performs excellently. But it pales in comparison with the S6’s, and given the Note series is supposed to be Samsung’s biggest and best device, it has to either match it or beat it.

3 things I don’t want from the Galaxy Note 5

In the past, Samsung has had a tendency to overload its devices with unnecessary features that no one wants. Its latest Galaxy S devices are much better, thanks mostly to their improved TouchWiz software, but I don’t want Samsung to undo all that hard worth with the Note 5.

So I couldn’t finish this piece without including some of the things I don’t want to see from the Galaxy Note 5.

A 4K Display

I know 4K displays on mobile devices are going to be commonplace eventually, but I don’t think we need them right now.

Quad HD displays are more than good enough — no matter what you’re using your smartphone for — so anything sharper is just excessive. Furthermore, there is no 4K content for smartphones yet. Apps and games aren’t ready for it, and 4K video is hard to come by — and it takes up a heck of a lot of space.

In addition, a 4K display would require more power, which means battery life wouldn’t be as good. And if Samsung ditches the Note’s removable battery like it did with the S6, that’s going to become an issue for some users. For now, then, I think Samsung can hold off on this one.

Painted Accents

The painted accents on last year’s Note 4 and this year’s Galaxy S devices certainly looks good when you first start using your device, but over time, it’s prone to chipping. Once this starts happening, your handset suddenly loses its premium look.

I’d rather Samsung just did away with the paint altogether for the Note 5. It’s not necessary, and as Apple and HTC and others have proven, naked aluminum looks just fine.

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Apple's S1 chip By samsung

Apple Watch is powered by the so-called Apple S1 chip, which specs Apple is still keeping under wraps. Indeed the S1 tiny piece turned out quite an achievement packing an amazing set of features into a single tiny 5.2 x 6.2 mm chip.

Many are still trying to figure out all the pieces inside the S1 chip, including its ARM processor, and more and more details are coming to light.

Probably the latest major discovery is the S1 manufacturer. As it turns out the S1 chips are manufactured by Samsung on a rather dated 28nm process. Of course, Apple is entirely responsible for the design, while Samsung is doing the manufacturing according to Apple’s blueprints. However given that most of the mobile chipsets are currently made on a 20nm process and Samsung even uses a 14nm one for its latest Exynos, one can’t help but wonder why Apple didn’t do better. The shrinking of the process would have been even more beneficial on a watch where power effeciency is crucial for achieving a passable battery life.

Apple is known for designing its components for years and it always tries to come up with technological breakthroughs. It seems Apple has finally achieved something great as it is closely keeping the S1 specs and details in the dark. Even weeks after the Apple Watch premiere no one still knows its deep secrets.

What is known so far is the S1 chip packs an ARM processor, 512MB RAM, PowerVR SGX543 GPU, Maxim audio controller and amplifier, ADI AD7149 touch controller, Skyworks Wi-Fi, NFC controller and signal booster, among many other components. Check the scheme below:

The (presumably) Cortex processor is yet to be revealed though.

The S1 chip is carefully sealed into a single package, but oddly the six-axis sensor is left outside.

The impressive thing here is packing all those components into such tiny single chip. If you want to know more details about the tech behind the Apple Watch hit the source link below. This technological achievement seems a bit crippled by the battery life, so here is hoping Apple do its magic for the successor.

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Ericsson sues Apple

Communications company Ericsson has opened a new legal front in its ongoing lawsuits with Apple.

Ericsson has filed lawsuits against Apple in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, alleging that the iPhone maker is violating patents it holds related to wireless communications technology. The lawsuits, which were filed on Friday, followed an attempt by Ericsson to enter into arbitration with Apple to arrive at a decision on patent royalties, the company said.

The new lawsuits are just the latest development in an increasingly tumultuous relationship between Apple and Ericsson. In February, Ericsson announced that it had sued Apple in the US for allegedly violating the same patents related to 2G and 4G/LTE standards, semiconductor components, user interface software and other mobile technologies.

At the crux of those lawsuits is a global licensing agreement that was previously in place between Apple and Ericsson. Ericsson’s patent portfolio includes over 37,000 patents and the company has signed more than 100 patent-licensing agreements. With Apple, the company’s agreement covered standard-essential technologies, or intellectual property that is required, in general, for the ongoing operation of a business in its respective market. Standard-essential patents are called such by patent-governing bodies and must be offered on “fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory” (FRAND) terms in order to ensure proper competition in the marketplace.

The idea behind standard-essential patents is that certain companies develop technologies that become the standard in the marketplace. When that happens, governing bodies, like the International Trade Commission, force patent holders to offer their intellectual property to any and all companies competing in a respective market. In order to maintain competitiveness and not provide the patent-holder with too much control over the market, they are required to offer that intellectual property on a fair basis or face the possibility of losing the patent altogether.

The patents included in the Apple lawsuit are standard-essential and according to Ericsson, the terms of the deal were being offered on a FRAND basis. However, Apple decided not to renew its license to the patents in January, arguing that the terms were incongruous with FRAND terms. The companies held negotiations and Ericsson offered arbitration, but Apple declined those offers, Ericsson says.

That decision to not negotiate came after Apple filed its own lawsuit against Ericsson in a US District Court in January. Apple acknowledged in its lawsuit that it’s using technologies that are included in Ericsson’s patent portfolio in its iPhone, but said that the wireless company is trying to fetch too much in royalties. Apple said in a statement that it would be “willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights to standard-essential patents,” but the company wrote in its lawsuit that the way Ericsson tries to charge for royalties is off. Apple argues that royalties on the patents should be charged based on component costs and not as a percentage of the entire cost of the iPhone, which Ericsson has demanded.

Regardless, Ericsson’s decision to expand the scope of the lawsuit is familiar ground for Apple. For years, the company was embroiled in worldwide lawsuits with Samsung over patents until the companies finally decided to end all international lawsuits and focus solely on patent-infringement claims in the US.

So far, no court has ruled on the status of the patents and how royalties should be calculated. However, Ericsson last year inked a deal with Samsung worth $650 million to end a similar patent dispute. Apple, meanwhile, was ordered in February to pay $533 million in damages to Smartflash for allegedly infringing patents held by that company.

Neither Ericsson nor Apple immediately responded to a request for comment.

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GTA V Rockstar Editor For ps4 & Xbox one

GTA V console players that were a little disappointed to learn about the new Rockstar Editor features and application that were rolled out with the recent release of the PC version of the Grand Theft Auto game.

Will be delighted to learn that Rockstar has this week revealed that the GTA V Rockstar Editor will also be making an appearance on the next generation console versions of the game in the near future.

Rockstar explained during their online Q&A this month :

“The Rockstar Editor is an advanced tool requiring additional processing power so it would not be compatible with GTA V on the older systems, but we are currently working on a version tailored for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles – and we hope to release that sometime this summer, or as soon as it is ready. We are also planning to bring The Lab radio station to all four consoles in a forthcoming title update. Please stay tuned for more information.”

Rockstar explains more about their PC madden policy :

“We have always appreciated the creative efforts of the PC modding community and we still fondly remember the awesome zombie invasion mod and original GTA map mod for GTAIV PC among many other classics. To be clear, the modding policy in our license has not changed and is the same as for GTAIV.  Recent updates to GTAV PC had an unintended effect of making unplayable certain single player modifications. 

This was not intentional, no one has been banned for using single player modifications, and you should not worry about being banned or being relegated to the cheater pool just for using single player PC mods. Our primary focus is on protecting GTA Online against modifications that could give players an unfair advantage, disrupt gameplay, or cause griefing. 

It also bears mentioning that because game mods are by definition unauthorized, they may be broken by technical updates, cause instability, or affect your game in other unforeseen ways.”

For more information about new features that will be rolling out to the GTA V game jump over to the official Rockstar website for details, via the link below.

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Earth's ozone improves while CO2 levels worsen

Good news: the hole in the ozone layer is shrinking. Bad news: worldwide levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached another terrifying milestone. First up, NASA’s Goddard Space Center is promoting a scientific paper from December that claims that Earth’s ozone layer is gently beginning to repair itself. With data from the agency’s AURA satellite, scientists believe that the hole in the ozone, which currently measures 12 million square miles, will drop below that figure by around 2040.

Unfortunately, we’ve lurched from one ecological crisis to another with the news that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has increased. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that the global monthly average for airborne CO2 us now 400 parts per million. That’s only eight months after the UN’s World Meteorological Organization calculated that we’d cross that threshold in roughly two years. So, not only is the rate of change getting faster, we’re now 50ppm past the UN’s agreed “safe limit” for atmospheric carbon emissions.

If you’re wondering what can be done, the NOAA has struck something of a pessimistic tone. The outfit believes that the only way to halt the rise of CO2 is for 80 percent of the world’s fossil fuel emissions to stop, ideally this instant. If, however, we wanted to bring that figure down to a safe level, then we’d all have to abandon fossil fuels — which we’re sure few will want to do, even if the UN has said it’s cost-effective.

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Windows 10 is the last ?

At Microsoft’s Ignite conference, Microsoft employee and developer evangelist Jerry Nixon said that “Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10.” That sounds like Microsoft won’t be releasing any more versions of Windows 10, which is true more or less.

Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, in the sense there won’t be any major releases of Windows hereafter. Microsoft plans to turn Windows into a service, where it will continue to get updates but there won’t be any major releases. The OS has now become modular to the point where Microsoft can update parts of it individually, which is exactly what it plans to do. The next update will be in 2016, codenamed Windows Redstone, but it will still be Windows 10, and not 11 or anything else. Basically, no more Windows X releases, where X is a version number or name.

As a customer, this probably doesn’t change much. You will continue to get free updates on a monthly basis to ensure your Windows experience continues to work smoothly. There may not be big numbered releases to look forward to, but Windows itself will continue to evolve and get better.