October, 2011

Imagine is a library for managing and manipulating images with PHP.

With the boom of JS-powered canvas manipulation libraries, Imagine is a big step for those familiar with OOP (well, we can all agree that JS isn’t exactly OOP).

The library can apply filters, manipulate colors, resize and crop an image, and also offers functions for drawing shapes (useful for generating, e.g., circled avatars).

What’s also exciting about Imagine is that the library supports drawing text on top of images, which is quite useful for prototyping and logos.

Raven is a Mac-only browser that features site-specific browsing — a form of browsing that creates a dedicated browser instance for each of your favorite web apps.

Raven runs on WebKit — one of the safest and fastest browsing engines in the world.

The browser features a ‘smart bar’ which enhances your productivity by adding extra features to websites you regularly use.

One of the key functions to Raven is its history panel, which allows you to quickly find pages you visited before, and preview them easily.

Raven also divides between ‘favorite’ pages and ‘bookmarks’, with favorite sites being regularly used bookmarks, but ordinary bookmarks are treated as pages you’ll simply want to read later, and that is a distinction I’ve personally been longing for.

Although some of the features that Raven claims as “new” — such as address suggestions and searching in your web history — are in fact implemented in other browsers (think Chrome), Raven does make a great leap forward as a browser that’s intended for the websites that users use most often, not for simply providing all-round functionality.

Well this is certainly embarrassing for an attorney, not being able to distinguish between your clients product from the one, makers of which are suing your client for patent infringement. Apple and Samsung are battling it out in court as Apple pleads that Samsung has infringed various patents and have blatantly copied the design of iPad 2 for their Galaxy Tab 10.1. At a recent court hearing, an attorney for Samsung was unable to distinguish the between the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1, giving yet another point to the prosecution as they can now claim that the defendants lawyers can’t even distinguish between the blatant copying of design!

News agency Reuters, reporting recent proceedings, reveals that a US judge said that Samsung has indeed infringed Apple’s patents whereas Apple needs to establish the validity of its patents. While more evidence wasn’t needed to support the claim that Samsung copied iPad’s design, when asked to distinguish between the two tablets held roughly 10 feet away from him, Samsung’s lawyer was unable to differentiate between the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Koh [US Judge] frequently remarked on the similarity between each company’s tablets. At one point during the hearing, she held one black glass tablet in each hand above her head, and asked Sullivan if she could identify which company produced which.

“Not at this distance your honor,” said Sullivan, who stood at a podium roughly ten feet away.

“Can any of Samsung’s lawyers tell me which one is Samsung and which one is Apple?” Koh asked. A moment later, one of the lawyers supplied the right answer.

Need we remind you that we’re not criticizing the ability of Samsung’s attorney. We’re quite sure that all of them are highly qualified in matters of the court proceedings. The factor of human error exists in every profession and one must not negate the logical aspects that can be behind this. For example it is essential to keep in mind that all tablet, more or less, look like each other. The fact is that tablets will also look tablets, like TVs always look like TVs no matter how much you change design. The screen of both tablets was off, making it difficult not just for the lawyers but anyone really to distinguish between two separate devices.

Then again, there’s some irresponsibility on the lawyer’s part as well. Lawyers should understand that they’re defending their client which has been sued for alleged copying of design as well as software. It is up to them to accustom themselves to the products under scrutiny because as it turns out, there is a major difference between Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad 2. The former does not have a Home button on its bezel like the latter does. Also, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is wider than the iPad 2. Anyone who has seen or used both of these devices would have been able to tell them apart, after a fair deal of squinting from 10 feet away.

In the end however, one of the lawyers for Samsung was able to differentiate between iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1. While that lawyer might have saved further embarrassment for both the lawyers and Samsung, it gave yet another point to the prosecution as they have further proof that Samsung copied iPad’s design for Galaxy Tab. The verdict on this lawsuit is still a long way to go, we’ll keep updating you about this in the coming days.

Most of you would think that because Apple released iPhone 4S this October instead of the anxiously awaited iPhone 5, the energy of its deceased former revolutionary CEO Steve Jobs was focused on this project. However it turns out that you’re wrong because reportedly Steve Jobs was working on the iPhone 5 project before he died.

Before the world even knew what the next generation iPhone would be called, what we now know as iPhone 4S, it was widely presumed that Apple would release a fully redesigned and feature packed iPhone 5. It was going to be a complete overhaul of the iPhone as we know it. However on October 4 Apple unveiled iPhone 4S, a minor refresh of the iPhone 4 with the only changes being made were those under the hood. For now, we can forget about an imminent release of iPhone 5, however due to the fact that Steve Jobs was working on it, we know for sure that the iPhone 5, whenever it is released, is going to be absolutely extraordinary.

Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar believes that the iPhone 5 is going to become more of a cult classic, with die hard Apple fans as well as others buying it due to the fact that its the last product Steve Jobs ever made. Apple already has had phenomenal success with the iPhone 4S while it did not meet the expectations of those waiting for iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S has broken all previous iPhone pre-order records on launch day only. There’s no doubt in the fact that whenever iPhone 5 is released, its going to be an even major hit primarily because people would want to have the last device Steve Jobs focused his amazing skills on.

If there’s anything that can predict what iPhone 5 is going to be, its the next generation iPad. For namesake, lets refer to it as iPad 3. If Apple releases iPad 3 with a quad-core A6 processor, improved accelerometer and gyroscope, more storage option and better battery life, we can be sure that all of those specifications will be present on iPhone 5 as well. Besides the fact that iPhone 5 will feature an all new design which is going to be radically thinner than all previous designs because its going to be tapered, as per my sources.

Apple is known to follow its release cycles. We’ve seen Apple announce a new iPhone model at their annual WWDC conference, however this year they didn’t do so. There’s a possibility that Apple might announce iPhone 5 at WWDC 2012 and begin shipping it by mid 2012. Its just a matter of time before the countless rumors about iPhone 5 start coming in, once again. All we know is that regardless of the uncertainty behind its release, the iPhone 5 will really change the way we perceive iPhones as of now.

A week back Apple said that it will officially begin selling unlocked or contract free iPhone 4S in the US from November. They did not provide a specific date however it turns out that they have already started selling unlocked iPhone 4S in specific Apple Stores across the USA.

The unlocking process is quite simple actually and does not require lengthy procedures that need a jailbreak. You simply walk in to one of these few Apple Stores selling unlocked iPhone 4S, purchase one than connect it to your computer via USB and fire up iTunes. Immediately you’ll be taken to a screen which says Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked and from there on out, simply proceed to set up and sync your brand new officially unlocked iPhone 4S.

Apple announced the iPhone 4S at their October 4 media event. While most of us were looking forward to a completely redesigned and much rumored iPhone 5, Apple only released a minor update of the iPhone 4 this year aptly named iPhone 4S. No cosmetic changes have been made and all of the improvements have been made inside the device. iPhone 4S sports a dual-core A5 processor with 512 MB of RAM. An 8 megapixel camera with five lenses capable of shooting full 1080p HD video with auto image stabilization. By default iPhone 4S ships with iOS 5, Apple’s latest update to its mobile operating system which comes with over 200 new features. The most amazing feature on iPhone 4S has to be Siri voice assistant with which Apple has successfully commercialized artificial intelligence. Simply say any of these commands to Siri and it will do the appropriate required tasks for you.

Initial demand for the iPhone 4S was very high despite the fact that it let down those who were waiting for iPhone 5. Apple received over one million pre-orders of iPhone 4S on the launch day breaking the previous 600,000 units on launch day record of iPhone 4. As of now, Apple has sold out of its initial US pre-order stock while shipments to another 28 countries begins from October 22.

The iPhone 4S is offered in three different storage options. The prices for unlocked iPhone 4S models are as follows: 16GB for $649, 32GB for $749 and 64GB for $849. These prices are for off contract, officially unlocked iPhone 4S whereas if you buy one from a carrier like AT&T, Verizon Wireless or Sprint with a two year contract, a 16GB one will lost you as low as $200. Keep in mind that as of now, iPhone 4S has sold out on all US carriers. However a carrier locked iPhone 4S won’t be suitable for you if you travel a lot outside of AT&T’s coverage areas and would want to use other local carriers in different countries of the world.

BluCSS is a CSS framework for creating responsive layouts. It supports not only re-sizeable layouts per se, but also has image resizing capability.

BluCSS has ten columns with a percentage size allocated to each one.

Making elements responsive has never been easier than with BluCSS, as you simply need to add a “blu_” class to an element to make it responsive.

Overall, BluCSS is a great framework for, perhaps, not web applications, but definitely websites that need to run on various platforms.