Top 10 Mobile Applications of 2012

For many of the categories on this list, there are a number of mobile apps that are already available today. But what Gartner makes clear is that we're just getting started when it comes to their use.

For example, location-based services (LBS) - there still isn't one single app which everyone uses to find their friends out in the real world via their mobile phones. Instead, we have a number of similar but competing applications all vying to be the Facebook of location-based apps.

Another example is money payments - this type of service is having more of an impact in the developing world right now where access to banks is more difficult than here in the Western world where people just want the convenience of paying through their mobiles. When was the last time you paid someone or paid at checkout through your mobile phone? Never? That sounds about right.

The List

The full list is as follows:Continue

World’s Cheapest Indian Tablet PC at 50$

Aakash is the new name of India’s aspiration to produce an Indian computing device. Announced by the Minister for Human Resource Development (MHRD) on July 22, 2010 as “Sakshaat”, it was launched in New Delhi on Oct 5, 2011.

India’s aspiration to create a “made in India” computer was first reflected in a prototype “”Simputer”" that never went into industrial production. Later, the Ministry of Science & Technology launched an India designed laptop named Mobilis and that was launched by Kapil Sibal. Mobilis did not take off and the Govt of Brazil cancelled the order and blacklisted the Indian supplier.

Four years later Kapil Sibal, this time as Minister for Human Resource Development MHRD, the name India gives its Education Minister, announced a new low-cost computing and access device that was supposed to compete with One Laptop per Child, OLPC, a low-cost laptop cum tablet designed at MIT’s Media Lab and led by Professor Nicholas Negroponte with a difference. While OLPC is designed for the underprivileged younger school going children in places that lack both physical and teaching infrastructure, Kapil Sibal’s low cost computer was targeted at urban, college going students.

The device was supposed to be designed by the students of India’s famed IITs that while being known for producing capable undergraduates have yet to distinguish themselves globally in research, development and product creation. When MHRD announced the low cost computer what he showed was purchased off the shelf. None of India’s electronic components and PC and laptop manufacturers were ready to bite the bullet and the project languished for about a year.

Distance Learning Courses

No time for professional education after joining a job’, ‘Attending regular classes for higher education is monotonous’, ‘Learning by reading books is a past habit, ‘No mood for study after return from work’, ‘Job is the first priority and study the second’, ‘Not going for a regular professional development course because it is expensive’. These are merely unacceptable excuses in the present age of distance learning or online learning.

Distance learning is the preferred and popular medium of higher education in the present Internet dominated world where distance is an unheard word. Distance learning means learning away from an institute but in close touch with instructors of the institute online. Distance learning means learning at home and on the move by going online. It is better defined as learning wherever and whenever.


No need to visit the campus of an institute for regular classroom learning keeping all other works aside. No need to go abroad to study a course at any foreign university. No need to quit job in order to join a course for further professional development. No need to cram the daily schedule by including a fixed time for regular study. These are the exclusive benefits of distance learning.

Distance learning makes higher education easy and fun. Higher education by distance learning is much less strenuous than campus based learning. You don’t need a teacher to give you lessons by illustrating a theory on blackboard as in classrooms. A complete departure from the traditional teaching and learning system in classrooms, distance learning courses are studied through e-learning materials.

E-learning the base of distance learning programs is practical, interactive and engaging to the core. E-learning study materials are developed by integrating image, graphics, audio and video with text in harmony. Learning through such study materials is highly impactful for the brain and mind as it entails watching, reading and listening at the same time.

Having a desktop or laptop or notebook with Internet connection, you can go through the e-learning based course materials anywhere. E-learning study materials come also recorded in CDs and DVDs which you can use for learning purpose, without access to the Internet. Through distance learning, education is extremely comfortable and convenient. Learning at relaxed pace is relaxation in itself.
A1StudyCenter has opened the door to the education of RDI UK and KSOU for Indian students through distance learning. You can be assured of researched study materials and consistent online tutor support if you enroll on a course at RDI or KSOU through A1StudyCenter. A1StudyCenter helps individuals to undergo the online admission process easily. It takes care of their needs, addresses their queries and provides them with all requisite information.

Technology in EducationE

Many people warn of the possible harmful effects of using technology in the classroom. Will children lose their ability to relate to other human beings? Will they become dependent on technology to learn? Will they find inappropriate materials? The same was probably said with the invention of the printing press, radio, and television. All of these can be used inappropriately, but all of them have given humanity unbounded access to information which can be turned into knowledge. Appropriately used-- interactively and with guidance-- they have become tools for the development of higher order thinking skills.

Inappropriately used in the classroom, technology can be used to perpetuate old models of teaching and learning. Students can be "plugged into computers" to do drill and practice that is not so different from workbooks. Teachers can use multimedia technology to give more colorful, stimulating lectures. Both of these have their place, but such use does not begin to tap the power of these new tools.

In this area, you will find descriptions of how computers can be used to stimulate and develop writing skills, collaborate with peers in foreign countries, do authentic kinds of research that is valuable to the adult world, and do complex kinds of problem solving that would otherwise be impossible.Read More

The Web of Knowledge: Vision, Design, and Practice

The Knowledge Web (K-Web) is an interactive tool for understanding and inspiring the creation of ideas, and for vividly demonstrating how our world is a direct result of ideas and events of the past. Students can trace the profound influence not only of Aristotle's logic, but also see how perspective in painting literally changed the way we see the world, or how the invention of the car would not have been possible without the perfume bottle. By flying through its unique 3D nested globes, which combine space and time into a single intuitive construct, users can explore how seemingly unrelated people, places and disciplines interrelate in unexpected and unpredictable ways to produce our world.

The first section of the article, The Vision, traces the origins and socioeconomic importance of the K-Web. Patrick McKercher sketches what the K-Web will do, including how it will be enhanced by virtual reality in the second section--The Design. Andy Rogers and Judy Bonne conclude with a discussion of the involvement of teachers, and suggest why and how the K-Web can be integrated into the classroom--The Practice.Read More

Technology:The newest and greatest computer technology

Computer technology is one of the most rapidly changing and developing fields within the world! There are so many different things that computers can do, and every year many new computer products and technological advances are announced! Here are a couple of the newest and greatest pieces of computer technology:
Newest: One of the newest types of computer technology is a new product which Bill Gates calls "Surface." This project took five years to make, and it was only known by its secret code name "Milan." The "Surface" looks like a low, blacktop coffee table, but it is sensitive to the touch. Keyboards and mousse are not needed, because "Surface" is completely controlled by hand gestures and movements! The hardware for this product is run by a special version of Microsoft's Windows Vista. "Surface" is scheduled to be released to the public in November of 2007. It is thought that this easier way of computer technology will be more accessible and user-friendly to people who struggle with keyboards and the computer mouse. In addition, "Surface" will also be helpful to retailers. T-Mobile USA has a contract with Microsoft for "Surface," and they will be able to place different cell phones on the top of the "Surface" screen. The screen will sense which different types of cell phones are there, and then pull up a list of the phones' different features!
Newest: Another one of the newest types of computer technology is the Apple TV. This is a new product which will use computer technology to hook the computer and TV together. It is known as Apple TV and iTv. Using computer technology, the Apple TV will be able to wirelessly stream both music and videos from the computer or Internet. The basic television set will be able to pick up on these signals, and the image will be available for viewing on the television screen! This is one of the newest and most exciting types of computer technology that has been announced recently. This new computer technology also is giving Macintosh, or "Apple" computers a way to directly compete with the Personal Computer industry (also called PC computers). The Apple TV, in conjunction with iTunes, could make Apple computers the most popular computers on the market.
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