Breaking down Apple's $1 billion courtroom victory over Samsung

With a 20-page verdict form and 100 pages of instructions to explain it, many figured it would take longer for the jury to render a decision. But, the tech trial of the century has concluded, with Apple scoring a not-quite-flawless victory over its rival Samsung. While the company didn't win on every count, its cadre of lawyers did convince the nine jurors to award Apple over $1 billion in damages for Samsung's IP transgressions. Join us after the break and we'll hit you with the legal math that gave Apple a ten-figure bump to its bottom line -- and served as a shot across the bow of every other mobile phone manufacturer.

First things first, let's explain a little bit of the law that's put Samsung on the hook for such a sizable sum. A company's liable for patent infringement under Title 35 of the US Code, Section 271, for making, using or selling a patented invention in the US without authority from the patent owner. So, Samsung's US subsidiaries were accused as direct infringers for selling phones and tablets here in America. Samsung Korea, however, doesn't do business in the US, but is still liable under another part of Section 271. The pertinent statutory language states that "whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer."

The jurors were tasked with determining if Samsung's devices at issue infringed Apple's IP, and whether Samsung Korea induced its US subsidiaries to sell those infringing devices. Additionally, the jury had to decide if Samsung did so willfully, as such a finding gives Judge Koh the discretion to triple the damages and award attorneys fees to Apple. Lastly, the nine jurors had to make a call as to whether Apple's patents were even valid -- if a patent isn't valid, then it doesn't matter, damages-wise, whether it's infringed.

Apple brought three utility and four design patents to bear against Samsung. Patent number 7,469,381 is for the bounce back that occurs when you scroll beyond the edge of a webpage or document in iOS. Patent number 7,844,915 is for single-finger scrolling and two-finger zooming, while number 7,864,163 claims tap-to-zoom technology. As for the design patents, D618,677 claims the iPhone's edge-to-edge glass, speaker slot and display border, while D593,087 claims its rounded corners and home button, and D604,305 claims the grid-style icon layout in iOS. The last design patent, D504,889 is for the iPad's edge-to-edge glass, rounded corners, and thin bezel.

Apple hit a home run with the '381 bounce-back patent -- the jurors found that all 21 Samsung devices at issue infringed

Apple hit a home run with the '381 bounce-back patent -- the jurors found that all 21 Samsung devices at issue infringed and that Samsung Korea induced its subsidiaries to sell those infringing devices as well. As for the the '915 and '163 zooming and scrolling patents, team Cupertino was also successful, albeit not completely: the jury found that most, but not all of the devices infringed and that Samsung Korea was, once again, guilty of inducement. Apple enjoyed similar success with its design patents, with the jury finding that every Samsung phone at issue infringed the D'305 iOS icon grid patent. Meanwhile, the D'677 edge-to-edge glass patent was infringed upon by every handset except for the Galaxy Ace, and the D'087 rounded corners patent was infringed by the Galaxy S, Galaxy S 4G, and the Vibrant. The D'889 patent turned out to be Apple's sole loser, as the jury found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi and 4G LTE didn't infringe the iPad's design. To top things off, the jury found that all of the infringement was willful except for the infringement of the D'087 patent, and that all of Apple's patents are valid.

Apple's patent portfolio didn't provide its only victory, however, the company also won on a trade dress claim. As a (very) brief refresher for those not familiar, trade dress is a means of protecting a business's image and overall appearance and how that image is perceived by consumers. The most common example used to explain trade dress is the shape and design of the Coca-Cola bottle: people recognize the bottle and associate it with Coke. Similarly, consumers see the design of the iPhone and associate it with Apple. The jury had to determine if Apple's iPhone and iPad had protectable trade dress, and if their designs were famous enough to have their value diluted by Samsung's devices. Once again, the jury found in Apple's favor, deciding that the iPhone 3G's (but not the iPad's) trade dress was valid and that several Samsung handsets had diluted Apple's brand.

As for Samsung, well, it struck out. On everything. It alleged that Apple was infringing five of its patents, and while the jury found those patents to be valid, it decided that Apple wasn't infringing them. So, it had no wins to offset its considerable losses, which resulted in a resounding courtroom victory and a $1,049,393,540 windfall for Tim Cook's crew.

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Pioneering astronaut Neil Armstrong dies at 82

It's a story that we hoped we'd never have to report. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on Earth's Moon, has died at the age of 82 after complications from heart surgery three weeks earlier. His greatest accomplishment very nearly speaks for itself -- along with help from fellow NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, he changed the landscape of space exploration through a set of footprints. It's still important to stress his accomplishments both before and after the historic Apollo 11 flight, though. He was instrumental to the Gemini and X-series test programs in the years before Apollo, and followed his moonshot with roles in teaching aerospace engineering as well as investigating the Apollo 13 and Space Shuttle Challenger incidents. What more can we say? Although he only spent a very small portion of his life beyond Earth's atmosphere, he's still widely considered the greatest space hero in the US, if not the world, and inspired a whole generation of astronauts. We'll miss him.

[Image credit: NASA Apollo Archive]

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Alt-week 8.25.12: robotic noses, Nodosaurs and Space X launches again

Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

All good things come to an end, they say. Thankfully, most bad things do, too. So while the rest of the world of tech is dealing with the fallout, and possible implications of patent law, over here in the wild party that is Alt, we're fist pumping at all the awesome weekly sci-tech fodder. For example, we've got a robo-nose that can sniff out nasties in the air, a 110-million-year-old footprint found in NASA's back yard, and not one, but two space stories to reflect on. There's a hidden joke in there too, come back once you've read through to find it. This is alt-week.

Electronic hands and arms are -- relatively speaking -- fairly commonplace. In fact, most of our extremities and senses have cropped up in digital form one way or another. This includes the humble nose. We've seen them sniff out air contaminents and cancer before, but this time 'round it's lung-fulls of harmful poisons, such as biological weapons and gas leaks. The technology is based on research by Nosang Myung, a professor at the University of California, Riverside. With a size of four by seven inches, this has real world application in areas such as farming, industry and security. However, the developers hope to reduce its footprint even further, to about the size of a credit card, which could see it pop up in even more places. We know this is a serious business, but for once, we'd love an anatomically correct housing to be developed for it. It's certainly spruce up those drab, dark warehouse corners.

From the top of the body, we now go to the other extreme -- the foot. Not just any foot, either (although, also, not a robotic one), as this hoof belongs to something called a Nodosaur. The more astute among you might have already figured, that this is a prehistoric creature, possibly roaming the earth some 110- to 112-million years ago. Madness. Also, where do you think you might find such evidence of an other-worldly creature? Why, on the grounds of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center of course. We kid you not. The print was discovered by dino-tracker Ray Stanford, who says the creature would have been an armored leaf-eater of some stature, describing it as a four-footed tank. Also, if you ever meet iron-oxide or hematite, buy them a drink, as it's their presence in the soil that gave us such a good preservation. "Almost like concrete" says Stanford.

You might wonder how something like a dinosaur footprint could go unnoticed for so long, but then we remember how busy the teams at NASA must be. Proof of this dedication came to light this week with the news that the mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope are now ready. There are 18 mirror sections in total, each of them gold plated and ultra-smooth. Once launched -- sometime in 2018 hopefully -- the 4.2-foot hexagonal sections will be the largest mirror ever flown in space. This should hopefully help it add to the work of Hubble, peering deep into the universe to help better understand the big bang and investigate alien planets. Certainly something to think about, the next time you're staring at your own tired visage during your morning routine.

If 2018 is a little too long for you to wait until your next space-launch fix, then fear not. Space X recently revealed that the first of it's 12 planned cargo runs to the ISS will take place in October. The news comes after NASA announced that Space X was fully certified to shuttle (as it were) cargo up to the permanent space station. Of course, you may remember Space X carrying out a similar mission recently, which it turns out was apparently just a practice run! With so many flights planned, they'll also likely be pleased to find out that scientists are pretty sure, now, that the universe is smooth, rather than fractal in nature as previously suggested by some camps. Should make for a smoother ride at least, not that they'd be going quite far enough for that really to be an issue. Maybe some day!

[Image credits: NASA, Space X, USC]

Seen any other far-out articles that you'd like considered for Alt-week? Working on a project or research that's too cool to keep to yourself? Drop us a line at alt [at] engadget [dot] com.

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Mobile Miscellany: week of August 20th, 2012

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you're like us and really want to know what's going on, then you've come to the right place. This past week was a bit slow, but we've managed to dig up a couple interesting MeeGo tidbits, along with an excellent utility for Nexus 7 / OS X users -- something to help you in the pursuit of slack. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of August 20th, 2012.

Kindle Cloud Reader app comes to MeeGo

The ability to read Amazon e-books from MeeGo devices has existed ever since the birth of the Kindle Cloud Reader, but for those who'd prefer an alternative to the web browser, well... there's now an app for that. Enter Firestarter for the Nokia N9 and N950, which was recently submitted for approval to the Ovi Store. The interface leaves a bit to be desired, as gesture-based scrolling isn't part of the mix, but the app also includes a nice workaround -- the ability to scroll and turn pages with the volume keys. Just check out the video to see what's in store. [My Nokia Blog]

Jolla's MeeGo handsets to include Android app compatibility

While the MeeGo platform may have a newfound Kindle app, the overall ecosystem still leaves much to be desired. Fortunately, that'll be less of an issue for owners of MeeGo handsets from Jolla, as the company has announced the inclusion of the Android Compatibility Layer (ACL) from OpenMobile, and like the name suggests, it brings the ability to run Android apps. If you've yet to see ACL in action, there's no time like the present to take a peek. [SlashGear]

PSA: AT&T's shared data plans now available

Perhaps you've already seen the billboards in front of AT&T stores, but if not, the carrier's Mobile Share data plans may now be added to subscriber accounts. For a detailed breakdown of the latest pricing scheme -- and to determine if you'll save any money -- be sure to check out our comparison of AT&T and Verizon's data share plans. [CrackBerry, AT&T]

Acer Liquid Gallant Duo now available for pre-order from Expansys UK

You might've missed it, but Acer launched its dual-SIM Liquid Gallant Duo this week. While we were treated to a full list of specs for the Android 4.0 smartphone, its price remained a bit of a mystery. Thanks to Expansys, however, you can start litera... figuratively camping at the storefront, as the Liquid Gallant Duo is now available for pre-order in the UK. The white variant can be had for £148 ($234), whereas the black version will set you back an extra quid. Keep in mind, however, that companies such as Expansys often charge a premium for the chance to be first in line, and you're likely to see the price drop in the future. [Unwired View, Expansys]

Nexus 7 Toolkit for OS X: all the essentials for rooting and unlocking at your disposal

Have a Nexus 7 tablet and a Mac? How about a burning urge to attain root access or install custom ROMs? If so, you'll most certainly want to check out the Nexus 7 Toolkit, a collection of scripts for OS X that'll provide root access, unlock / lock the bootloader, and install ClockworkMod Recovery. While each of the feats are rather simple to accomplish, the Nexus 7 Toolkit also includes a handy script to return your tablet to the factory software image -- think of it as cheap insurance. [Droid Life]

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Personal Energy Orb Aruino project knows you haven't been exercising, cripples your computer

Spending too much time indoors? You need a Personal Energy Orb, a glowing Arduino powered ball that allows you to trade physical exertion for a tolerable mouse speed. Developed by two students at the University of Munich for a physical computing course, the PEO connects to a bike-mounted revolution counter to note how far a user rides, counting the total distance toward usable time on a computer. A fully "charged" green orb will allow a user to use their PC unhindered -- but a spent red orb will drag Windows' cursor sensitivity settings to its lowest. The idea, the project's creators say, is to annoy the user off of the computer and back on to their bike. It sure sounds aggravating to us. Check out the full homework assignment at the source link below, complete with goals, follies and Python scripts.

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NASA to launch mini lab, test for cancer and disease in space

It's hard to find a good specialist on earth, let alone when you're floating 240 miles above it. That's why NASA will test the Microflow, a breadbox-sized device that instantly detects cancer and infectious diseases, and can even sense the presence of rotten food. The Canadian-made device is a "flow cytometer," which works by analyzing microparticles in blood or other fluids and replaces hospital versions weighing hundreds of pounds. Here on Earth, the device could let people in remote communities be tested more quickly for disease, or permit on-site testing of food quality, for instance. It will be particularly advantageous in space, however, where Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will test it during his six-month ISS mission, allowing crew to monitor, diagnose and treat themselves without outside help. Now, if we could just get it down to a hand size, and use some kind of radio waves instead -- oh wait, that's not until Stardate -105352.

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Vodafone Germany Announces LTE Version of ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity: TF700KL

Vodafone Germany has just announced the LTE version of the famous ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity tablet, that sports a Full HD display. Known as the TF700KL, the new model will be shown next week at IFA 2012 Berlin. The tablet will be priced at $1,026 without contract or $213 on contract. Pricey, right?

This LTE monster keeps the same specs as the original unit, with an optional keyboard dock, a 10.1 inch 1920 x 1200 pixel display, an 8 megapixel camera and more than enough storage. This is the second famous ASUS tablet to receive a LTE version lately, after the Transformer Pad TF300 got the same treatment and became the TF300TL. No idea when the TF700KL will hit the market, but I’m sure the Berlin IFA event will reveal more.

I am extremely curious to know how much the battery on the new Infinity Pad will be affected by LTE. It either loses an hour or two of its functioning time or simply it comes with a brand new battery, that’s probably bulkier and offers the same battery life. Is it worth to spend $1000 on this baby? What do you think? You could get 5 Nexus 7 units for the same price, you know?

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Facebook for iPhone and iPad is Actually a Functional App Now

It appears that Facebook may be a failure on Android, in the latest version of the app, but it’s also a hit on the iPhone and iPad in the meantime. The recent updates that FB underwent on the iOS platform made it much more reliable, so iPad and iPhone users rejoice. First of all, the app doesn’t crash as it used to and the interface is faster and smoother.

Facebook 5.0 is the newcomer and just for comparison sake, you need to know some faults of the predecessor app: it crashed unexpectedly, pages were jumbled and the app was very slow. In its official changelog, Facebook states that it rebuilt the software, so it will be faster and easier to use. The app loads fast, no more loading screen bothers you and the News Feed appears immediately. Also, the videos won’t be blank anymore and the pics will appear in the News Feed, something that failed to happen sometimes in the older version.
The new features here include a New Stories button, that’s placed below the navigation button and lets you get new stories from the News Feed. Refreshing is faster now and now you can quick swipe to close photos, making the experience fluid on the iPad. Photos load faster, quick notifications were also included and overall the experience is great. The app takes up about 7 MB of storage and it’s available from here.
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Windows 8 Lets Microsoft Know About the Apps You Install… Creepy Right?

It appears that there’s an interesting mechanism in Windows 8, one that automatically and instantly informs Microsoft about every app that you download and install on the OS. The info comes from programmer Nadim Kobeissi and is added to the long list of complaints regarding the OS, including the lack of a Start button and the Metro interface look.

The feature that sends MS the info about the apps is called SmartScreen. Microsoft responded to the allegations by saying that the function is meant to protect users from malicious programs by screening applications installed from the web and sending the info to MS for safety checks. The same programmer mentioned before says that it could be possible to intercept the SmartScreen communications and actually get all the data from your apps, some of them even banking related. Sucks, right?
Know that the feature called SmartScreen is turned on by default and when you disable it, Windows will press you to re enable it. Also, I guess that people will think twice before installing pirated games/software on their systems, especially if it’s a pirated Halo or Office, am I right? Privacy breach much? What’s next, Microsoft going through our music files?
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Low Priced Tablets Are Tough on Supply Chains, Especially in the Profits Area

Low priced tablets will cause some problems to supply chains, as the pressure increases and so does the number of units that need to be shipped. Prices keep dropping, so part suppliers also drop their prices, but who will make profit if this goes on? Tablet PC vendors are competing against each other and pulling the prices down, for whole units and parts too.

7 inch products are predicted to be the most popular items in the second half of the year, with emerging countries preferring them thanks to the lower pricing. Slate vendors insist on getting the cheaper components or the best parts at the best prices, thus making life harder for component makers. It’s an interesting situation: part makers fear getting into the cheap tablet biz, but they also fear missing out on the opportunity. It’s a big gamble, but if millions of units are sold, you stand to make a profit.
Then again, it takes one faulty chip to take it all back to the drawing board and profits can dip at any time. However, chip makers, for example can take their business to multiple companies, but there’s only a few names that supply the tablet makers with components, so it’s easy to be the one handling minor hardware, than the one that assembles all of it and sales it, hoping for profit.
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Lexibook Kid Tablet Coming to USA: 7 Inch Slate With $237 Price Tag

If you’re looking for a tablet for your kid, you may just want to give the Lexibook slate a try. This device is coming to USA from next month and the price is supposed to be pretty close to the Lexibook First version available in Europe. I’m talking about $237 here, a tad pricey if you’ve heard about the Nexus 7 before.

The device offers a 600 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 4 GB of storage, a microSD card slot and parental control. To that we add WiFi 802.11 b/g and Android 2.2 Froyo, so don’t expect much on the OS side. There will be a preview launch at Toys R Us stores all over the nation and the official debut will take place on September 15th. The educational content on board involves 500 sheet of general education info, tests and quizzes.
There are School Zone apps and 200 preloaded ebooks to have fun with and learn from. Stories, rhymes, Susie Tallman’s top songs and karaoke videos, everything a child needs to develop and learn is available here. 25 games and 52 discovery activities are bundled, as well as a camera with photo editing software. There’s also a specific app store for this slate: LexiBook Market, including apps like Pig Rush, games like Angry Birds and more.
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Rise to Fame: the Music RPG for iPad, an Original Game, Reminds me of Rock Band, With a Different Twist (Video)

If you want a cool game that includes headbanging and living the life of a rockstar, maybe you’ll try Rise to Fame: the Music RPG for iPad. This title can be found on the App Store for $1.99 and it was last updated on July 26th 2012. It takes up 146 MB of storage and it’s a reaction RPG, as its makers call it.

This involves living the life of a rockstar: smashing guitars, dodging objects thrown by the crowd, getting the girl’s attention and more. Your audiences will even include zombies or cowboys, so it’s a pretty cool game. You get music, fast paced casual gameplay and great rewards. 5 original rock songs and 3D graphics are available and you even get to alter music tracks using your special abilities.
Great gigs earn you both money and fame, like in real life. You can unlock special skills and new gigs, plus make in game money for the band. And then there’s the strange RPG area, with buying skills, potions and more. I liked that you can customize the band’s look with outfits and all that and get the instruments you want. Over 20 upgradable skills are available. You can download the game from here or scan the QR code below to get it.



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Samsung SGH-T779 Gets Bluetooth SIG Approval; New Tablet or Just a Rebranding?

Samsung has managed to leak something that’s not the Galaxy Note II today, a device codenamed SGH-T779, that could be a new tablet or simply a new version of an existing one. This slate is possibly headed to T-Mobile and it’s coming with Bluetooth 4.0, indication that we’re dealing with a higher end model, with the new standards on board.

The Product Name is “Samsung Mobile Tablet (SGH-I497)”, that should point towards a device also headed for AT&T. However, the SGH-i497already passed through the FCC and it’s believed to be the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. It could be that model in a new carrier version or maybe a newcomer, like that rumored Retina Display Samsung tablet or maybe the Galaxy Note 10.1 in a different version. IFA 2012 will clear up all the rumors and show us which new products Samsung is ready to unveil.
In the meantime know that we’re testing the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet right and we’ll be back with an unboxing and review ASAP. Pretty good tablet so far!
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Cyber Forensics (Computer Forensics) Facts and Research in India

Cyber forensics or computer forensics is a field of science that works on computer storage media and collects, preserves and presents the information in an acceptable form of law. So it is obvious that cyber forensics is strictly based on digital media or rather computer. Now we all know that how computer technology has changed our world in every aspect.
As the phrase states that “with great power comes great responsibility”, so with the emerging technology of digital media there comes a huge responsibility to keep it smoothly running as there are many fraudulent people who are constantly trying to break the security. Digital evidence is quite fragile as anyone can change the information and that can be done by any criminal, hacker or just the employee of the organization.

With the development of computer or digital technology there comes cyber crime. These can be in any form like hacking into sites, child pornography, copyright violation and many more. With the time the definition of cyber crime and also cyber forensics has changed. Now many of us many might think that cyber forensics is a technology that investigates and collects information about cyber crime. Yes it is true by some part but it’s not the only field of it. There are many more fields where cyber forensics is needed. Around the world it is getting popular as people are now thinking a good career in this field and also laws and judgements are now highly dependent on it.
We may think that if the computer parts like hard drive got burned then the data may be lost. But on an investigation it’s been seen that the burned hard drive didn’t lost the individual data platters due to heat. Also too much burning may damage it all.In another investigation in a corporation a corrupt employee installed many key loggers in the computers to have the credentials. Now the forensics experts tracked back to the installation date and time and with that matched the security camera footage and marked the thief.This is a funny one that one couple trying to cheat a property dealer. The dealer handed over the documents to the couple but the couple made a copy of that with different date so that they can prove that they have paid more than that of market price. While investigating it’s seen that the couple didn’t have MS Word in their computer. So the case becomes so easy to solve.In a case where a cargo ship sunk, one of its clients asked an investigation. Upon examining the computer files it’s seen in the log files that the file’s data were altered after the ship sunk.In a US District Attorney office more than 30000 files were burned into 2 CDs. The office couldn’t access those files as the files were unreadable. Forensics experts found that the files are GIF files and the header files are not arranged for those files. So they fixed the bug and files were recovered.Cyber forensics is used not only in the field of cyber crime but also in the continuous monitoring of the digital media. Now there are three types of files that present in a computer.
Active data, which are easy to access and used by operating system and are common data files and log files.Next is archived data, which is stored and backed up in a backup tape, CD, floppy or even entire hard drive.The hard one is latent data, which is deleted and overwritten and needs special tools to access those files.Now cyber forensics deals with all those data and works on those in an orderly manner. The digital data are first recovered and stored in a safe place. Next experts make a catalog of the active, archived and latent data. After recovery of data and analysis it’s been present to the court and provides expert testimony witness.
In India cyber laws are not so up to date relating to the technological growth in the field. In the “The Information Technology Act” (Act 21 of 2000) have specified some extra laws and amendments. More can be found on CDAC website.
The govt as well as the private sectors are taking part in the cyber forensics. Many private investigation farms are into this. Here is some site information which may help in the context:
Cyber Forensics
Perry4Law
IFSR
Forensics Guru
PTLB
I hope after going through this article you will have an clear picture about cyber forensics and all the rules and regulations associated with this and probable fate of breaking these rules.
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Apple Defeats Samsung in Court; South Koreans Must Pay $1.05 Billion in Damages

After long weeks of debates, questioning, sci fi proof, name calling and various testimonies, the Apple versus Samsung lawsuit has reached an end, with the verdict being in favour of Apple. Samsung will have to pay up $1.05 billion to Apple in damages, after the jury decided that Samsung did copy the creator of the iPhone and iPad.

The total sum that needs to be paid is in fact $1,049,343,540 in damages, less than the $2.5 billion requested by Apple, but still a big victory. The jury filed out a 20 page verdict form, that includes 33 multi part questions about the infringement by Samsung through over 20 handsets and tablets. Samsung was found infringing on software and hardware design patents and “trade dress”, design aspects that are non essential to the functioning of a device.
As far as design patents go, we’ve got Samsung guilty of infringing on the design of the iPhone back and front, the copying of the iOS app icon design and the iPad design. To quote from the documents, Samsung is supposed to have copied the “clean front, edge to edge glass, thin bezel, thin outer border and rounded corners”. The Galaxy Tab devices were strangely not found as infringing, but Samsung will still have to pay, a weird decision that’s still under investigation.
As far as the Samsung versus Apple lawsuit goes, Samsung’s case was rejected, seeing that Apple didn’t violate any Samsung patents. While Apple couldn’t prove that Samsung’s patents were invalid, they still won’t have to pay them a cent. Biased ruling anyone?!
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Tricks and Tips to Recover from the Google Penguin Effect

On 24th April, 2012 Google released a new algorithm update whose code name is Google Penguin for decreasing ranking of those websites in Google search results that breaks guidelines of Google by participating in link schemes, using black-hat SEO techniques and others. If you are owner of a website and after 24th April of this year, there is a decrease in traffic in your website then you are a victim of this new Google Penguin algorithm.

After its release in April, Penguin has received only a single update till date. The details are given below:
After its original release in April, the first update of Penguin was pushed in may 2012. This is a data refresh of penguin algo. This update affected only 0.1% of  English search queriesOn 24th April, 2012 Google released a new algorithm known as Google Penguin for decreasing ranking of those websites in Google search results that breaks guidelines of Google by participating in link schemes, using black-hat SEO techniques and othersWithin the time from 1995 to 2011, there is a huge increment of registered domains from 15,000 to 350,000,000. So Google released a new algorithm in April, 2012 named as “Google Penguin” for giving lower ranking of those sites that breaks guidelines of Google by participating in link schemes, using black-hat SEO techniques and others. Mainly Google designed this algorithm for the following reasons: To detect hidden Links and Texts.To penalize websites that are using Black-hat SEO techniques and duplicate contents.To detect Cloaking and Keyword stuffingDo not implement Black-hat SEO techniques like cloaking, keyword stuffing and others.Present the same and actual content to search engines that is actually present in your websites. Design pages for your users.Don’t load pages with keywords that are not relevant. To learn more about importance of keywords click here.The pages should not have malicious behavior like viruses, phishing, and others malware.Don’t use products that send programmatic or automatic queries to GoogleDon’t use duplicate content. Use only quality and unique contentCheck the performance of your site and also optimize load times. To check the performance of sites, webmasters can use “Page Speed”, “YSlow”, etc.; as fast sites will improve satisfaction of the usersSocial bookmarking in Google+ and Facebook works great.Collect back links from wiki sites, news sites and quality forums.Your page should contain reasonable number of content links. Make sure that there are no broken links in your pageIf you want to know what links have caused the penguin effect on your site – here is the best resource in identifying the link penalties and also on how to remove spammy links that are pointing to your site.Have you received any warnings in your Google webmaster tools (message – inbox) regarding the unnatural links ? and if your answer is yes, then you need to see this article on how to survive the over-optimization and Google spam link warnings.Also if you are interested, here is a case study about a website named (WPMU.org) on how it recovered from the Google penguin effect. In this article the author clearly mentioned some tips and tricks how he removed huge number of links that are considered as spam by Google.Here are 2 videos about the Google penguin update where a person can learn from a basic point to an advanced level – video 1 and video 2.
Also I want to mention that identifying links that are bad for your site may be an easy task but if they are so many in number and then the situation becomes so difficult. Situation at present is that there is an increase in number of new companies that are working for removing links. I think we usually see companies working for building links and now situation is changed with new demands. The only solution for the people who cannot afford the companies to clean your huge bad/ low quality links is – DISAVOW LINKS TOOL (which is not yet released) from the Google webmaster tools. Let’s all wish that it will come soon !
I hope that after reading this, you can be able to tackle your website problems and can recover from Penguin effect. But if you think that you followed all the above steps and Google accidentally penalized your site, then you can submit a reconsideration request for Google. To submit your site, click  here. If you want to know more about Google guidelines, then click here.
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Windows Media Player 12 Tricks – Make your Entertainment more Amusing

Windows Media Player 12 has got more new features and traits. Windows Media Player 12 is seemed to be most popular since most people consider it to be the best media player ever launched by Microsoft. There are various Windows Media Player 12 tricks that can help you to use the player in the easier way.
Here are some of the best Windows Media Player tricks.
Windows Media Player 12 provides three options of looks such as the “Default Full Mode”, “The Compact Mode” and “Skin Mode”. While you listen to music, you can easily switch to compact mode by clicking on a small arrow. You can just press the “Enter” key to return back to the Full mode. You can apply the skin mode by going to Menu option and then clicking on “View” and then on “Skin Mode”. You can also opt to use shortcuts too. You can use “CTRL+1” for Full mode and “CTRL+2” for Skin mode.
You can use 3 different keys to increase, decrease and mute volume easily. They are F9, F8 and F7 respectively.
Since Windows Media Player is never bundled with all the codecs available, this is one of the best Windows Media Player 12 tricks. However, there are some freely available codec packs filled in Windows Media Player that help you to play anything and everything right from Real Media to DivX. To know the codecs that are installed in your Windows Media Player, you need to click on “Help” option and then select “About Windows Media Player” option. You can then click on “Technical Support Information”. You will view a browser page that lists out the audio and video codecs present in your Windows Media Player. Using the K-Lit codec pack, you will be able to play anything. However you also need to have XP codec pack and Vista codec pack. These two types of codecs can be downloaded from the following links:

You can easily search your library for audio tracks by using a blend of search terms. You can use “AND” and “OR” operators to search. For instance, you can use the “AND” operator to search by song and singer by just applying AND operator in between the song name and the singer name. Likewise, you can use “OR” operator to search over two features. You can have a look at the help file by typing “How do I perform advanced searches” in the “search help” box
This option allows you to increase the bass of an audio track for high quality sounds. You can access the “SRS WOW Effects” under the menu View>Enhancements. You can turn on the SRS WOW Effects and then choose the type of your speaker. You can move the Trubass and WOW effect sliders as per your wish.
Streaming content relies mainly on buffers to playback the audio track or a movie in a smooth manner. To balance the temporary interval of internet bandwidth because of slow internet speeds or packet drops, Window Media Player will store a few seconds of the content before it actually starts to play. Once the streaming starts, some content will be stored in the backdrop which is known as the buffer. You can change the buffer size if you sense that the streaming is not that smooth. Go to the “Options” menu and then choose “Performance” tab.
Under the “Networking buffering” option select the buffer option and then enter value between 0 – 60 to enable the streaming media to buffer that amount of content before it starts to play. However, you need to note that surplus buffering can slow down the download.
If you desire to watch movies with subtitles and if you have Windows Media Player 12 installed on your system, you might wonder what to do. There is a simple process that can help you to watch movies with subtitles. You need to download and install DirectVobSub add-on to offer access to famous subtitle formats along with the video file. You also need to consider two important points. Make sure that the filename of the subtitle is the same as the name of the video [but see to that you don’t change the file extension] and also ensure that both the video and subtitle files are located in the same folder.

So from now on use these Windows Media Player 12 tricks and master your movie watching experience which is a whole new world of entertainment.
Download Portable Windows Media Player 12 for XP and Vista
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How to Block a Website in Firefox, Chrome, Windows 7 and XP

Now a days Internet and World Wide Web is playing a vital role through out the globe. It is being used by huge number of people ranging from students to people of almost all spheres. Even though it has made life easy for paying bills online,booking railway tickets, shopping online, auctioning, placing orders etc.
Besides this, social networking sites distract children from study, some sites contain offensive contents and porn pictures which are a threat for young generation. Some sites even contain spams, viruses, and malwares. While opening those sites these malicious files automatically get downloaded to the local system and affects the system, even sometimes the systems are hacked to get valuable information from the concerned computer. In order to prevent these things, it is required to block these sites. Here we will see how to block websites in different browsers:
Before observing different ways to block websites, we will first understand what blocking of website means. It means denial of access of a particular URL address of a website or content of a website temporarily or permanently and meanwhile user will not be able to access those sites and contents as well.
Following are the steps to be followed to block a website in Firefox
1. Navigate to Hosts file which are located at
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC for windows Vista and XP
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC for Windows 2k
C:\WINDOWS for Windows 98 and ME
2. Open Hosts with a notepad
By default Windows Hosts looks like below

# Copyright © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# this file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP addresses and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a “#” symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
#
127.0.0.1 local host

3. Now under the line 127.0.0.1 Local host, we just have to type:
127.0.0.1 The URL we want to block
For example if we want to block the www.facebook.com homepage we have to type:
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
like this we can add as many sites we want to block in Firefox
4. After this we have to close the notepad and answer YES when asked.
5. Then we have to reboot the computer and then have to try to navigate to the website we have blocked. We will see a ‘cannot find server’ message on the screen.
Following are the steps we need to follow to block websites in Google chrome
We have to open Windows Explorer and locate the folder ”C:/windows/system32/drivers/etc”Then we have to right-click on the hosts file and choose open and open the file in notepad.Now at the bottom of the document, we have to add the numbers 127.0.0.1 followed by at least one space, followed by the URL of the website we want to block.Then we have to save the file and restart the systemNow, any attempt to visit the site you blocked in Chrome  will show connection failedFollowing are the steps we need to follow to block websites in Windows 7
We have to click on the start button and search for Internet OptionsNow in a new window, Internet properties will open. Then we have to click on sites, which will be under the privacy tabWe have to add the websites over here which we want to block. Text field is provided in the next window. Then we have to click on the Block button to block the website and then have to click on OKNow, any attempt to visit the site you blocked in Windows 7  will show connection failedFollowing are the steps we need to follow to block websites in Windows XP
We have to load Internet explorer and have to click on tools->Internet options.Now we have to click on Privacy tab. Under the privacy tab we have to click on sites.In sites we just have to type the URL we want to block and then we have to click on OK.Now, any attempt to visit the site you blocked in Windows XP  will show connection failed.This was the information about how to block websites in Firefox, Chrome, Windows 7 and Windows XP. Hope you will find this information useful.
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How to Earn Money via Flipping Website and Blogs

Making money via internet has always been a craze among the techies. With the advancement of internet and e-learning the scenario has changed a lot. Now people are making money just by sitting at their home by doing various internet related jobs like blogging, content writing, reviewing products, and the interesting one – by flipping websites for free. If this term seems new to you then you will be amazed to know that flipping websites is gaining is getting quite famous in terms of  easy way of making money online. Yes, it is quite easy but with some particular strategy and knowledge of what you are doing.

Flipping websites and blogs are just like the realty business. In realty business a promoter buys a land which has some good future prospects, and then makes a beautiful house or flat or shopping complex on it. He or she also makes that piece of asset much popular within the local people. After that the promoter sells it to a potential buyer and makes huge profit. This is what flipping of websites mean in the digital world.
The first decision that you will need to take is whether you are going to create your site from scratch or you are going to buy it from someone else. My suggestion would be creating it by yourself, cause you never know that you are already buying a flipped website. If you create it by your own then you are sure that your website doesn’t contain any spoof, or hacks which will bring the site down in search engines. Just create an elegant site with simple theme so that it is pleasant to all kinds of users and buyers.
So when the site is ready you can put it online and then go on maintaining it and gaining more traffic. Listing the site on the popular search engines, like Google, Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, Microsoft Live, Bing, etc. and doing proper Search Engine Optimization is important. When the site will seem to be quite famous then make sure to talk about it in several places. Make huge list of friends on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Yahoo! Groups, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Blurp, Plurk, Meebo, Mashable, StackOverflow, etc. and all other popular social networks so that thousands of people come to talk about your new site.
So now, when your site will gain some online tracking and people will start talking about it, you can think of selling it. Keyword to note here is “think”. Not directly sell it. Cause you still might have to uncover the true power of your baby. Checkout the following sites and list your site there -
These sites help to sell your sites to potential buyer. Choose a right community/category because the right place will gain higher price tags and the profit can be larger. But for some days you should just checkout the prices of similar websites being sold on those sites. That will give you the idea that whether your site is still ready or not. If you think you can compete with the similar sites listed on those websites then make sure to bargain the highest bid!
Selecting the popular keyword for the site is very important otherwise the site will not become interesting to several buyers.Don’t make your site look like a spam site.You have to make the site popular enough before putting it on a sale otherwise you will loose the earning capability of the site. Don’t just buy and sell.Make sure you create a very impressive marketing material for your website which depicts the benefits of your site and how it can impact the income of the buyer.Be transparent to the client like give an appropriate information about the site like about advertisement, traffic and all.Give the fact and figures to the client that how much traffic the site is generating and its popularity, if possible Alexa Rank also.Try to connect to the social networking sites so that you get your job noticed and may find good client and also can get constructive thoughts from others.Follow these tips and you will not be running out of the race easily. You will have to fight in the beginning as there are already several big players in the website flipping domain, but you will gradually make it too. So when you are becoming a pro in flipping websites and blog and making good money out of it, please share our experience with us and put your preferred list of websites here so that we can include them in our list and other money makers can benefit form your experience.
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Tricks and Tips to Recover from the Google Panda Update

On February, 2011 Google introduced a new algorithm for affecting ranking of those websites in Google Search engine which contains ‘low quality content’. It lowers down the ranking of those websites which contains duplicate, thin, and weak content. It affected 12% of Google search engine results. Panda will affect your entire site and not a single page. Suppose your site contains some pages having low quality content and some other pages contains high quality content, panda will penalize your entire domain and the ranking will goes down because of those low content pages. Mainly the sites which are affected by panda are as follows:
Sites which contains poor or duplicate content.Sites which have too much advertisement on it.Websites Which have poor branding and usability.Product based sites with poor content.
It was a data refresh with no update in algorithm. It affected  1% of all search queriesUpdate was minor which affected  1% of all search queriesHere the algorithm of finding high-quality sites was improvedThis update mainly targets over optimization, keyword stuffing and spammy websitesUpdate was minor which affected 1.6% of all search queries. The update hampers traffic of  blog networking websites a lotHere the algorithm of finding sites with fresh contents, spam detection techniques and Link Evaluation method was improved. In this update shopping rich snippets was launched internationallyHere the algorithm of finding high-quality sites, spelling correction and auto-complete function in queries, Scrolling for image search, image search quality was improved.Update is minor which affected  1% of all search queriesUpdate is minor (Not confirmed by Googlers)Update is minor (Confirmed by Googlers)An update version of panda 2.5Here the algorithm of finding high-quality content sites was improvedThis update can affect search results to all search queries. No matter which languages you are using for search queries.It comes with an improved version of algorithm for differentiating between higher and lower quality sites.Motive of this update was to detect Scrapper sites. But this was not completely successfulThis update can affect search results if your search queries are even smaller than 2.0 release.Implemented globally to affect the search results if the queries are in English language only. This update affected only 2 % of  search queriesMainly targets content firm that contains user generated and many low quantity pages. This version was implemented only in US
Within the time from 1995 to 2011, there is a huge increment of registered domains from 15,000 to 350,000,000. So Google released a new algorithm in February, 2011 named as “Google Panda” for giving higher ranking of those sites that have unique content so that the user can get better search results in Google search engine. Mainly Google designed this algorithm for the following reasons: To filter sites with low quantity content.For detecting scrapper sites.For reducing spam.To filter those sites that contains too many advertisements.Reduce low quality content from your sites and focus on unique content.Design your pages for users.Don’t use too much advertisement.Don’t use irrelevant keywords. Resource : To learn more about importance of keywords.Social bookmarking in Google+ and Facebook works great.Don’t make poor grammatical mistakes.The behavior of the pages should not be malicious like phishing, viruses, etc.The users who once enter in your site; make sure that they won’t leave your page within seconds so that bounce rate is improved.Check the performance of your site and also optimize load times. To check the performance of sites, webmasters can use “Page Speed”, “YSlow”, etc.; as fast sites will improve satisfaction of the users.Your page should contain reasonable number of content links. Make sure that there are no broken links in your page.
Finally what we should understand from Google’s point of view by seeing all the information about panda recovery and also regular Google updates is that – we should concentrate on few very important things and they are:
Content should be useful for the users – please keep in mind this phrase “content is king” – which is ever green and Google’s favorite! So make well researched content that is attractive, useful and informative and never write for the search engines (by stuffing keywords and irrelevant articles by just targeting the keywords)Okay! At least by now if you feel like changing your mind and started to clean up your site content – here is a very good resource on identifying and fixing the low performing and worst landing pages. By seeing this you can know the importance of the content and how Google will take signals considering your site’s bounce rate, time spend on your site and also conversion rate and so on. PLEASE NOTE : There is some controversy about the BOUNCE RATE of a site whether the high bounce rate will hamper the site or not – and for that, Matt Cutts

(head of Google web-spam team) told in one SEO conference “high bounce rate can be related in a way by thinking that the user is going out of the site by getting the info so easily from the site and also he added that right now Google is not taking signals from the Google analytics data. But I am not sure about the future If you still unable to know whether you got hit by panda or not and if the traffic dip is related to panda or some penguin – this article will help you in identifying and fixing Google panda.Finally I would like to provide you with a video resource on google panda – made by seomoz.com and this will be really helpful for people who are still getting confused about it and also to those who wanted to know the real meaning of Google panda.
I hope the information and data provided above will help you in recovering from the Google panda effect and you can comment box below if you have further doubts!
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Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Apparently Has Jelly Bean on Board, New Details Surface

And here’s another batch of leaks related to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, the phablet that everyone is waiting for and that will be unveiled next week at IFA 2012 Berlin. Although initially we thought this model would launch with Android 4.0 ICS on board, it turns out that it will actually come with Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean on August 29th.

Korean publication Seoul Newspaper is behind this story, claiming that the Galaxy Note 2 will have the latest Android installed when it hits the stores later this year. The same source claims to have obtained the specs sheet for the upcoming handset, revealing the hardware features, that include a 5.5 inch Super AMOLED display with 720p resolution, a Exynos 4412 quad core CPU and an 8 megapixel rear camera. Listed as the GT-N7100, the device will come in 16GB and 32 GB versions and run Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean.
The specs sheet also mentions the presence of 3G and 4G LTE connectivity and a 16:9 aspect ratio for the display. The same source claims that the Galaxy Note 2 design won’t sport the same curves as its predecessor, that could protect the product from any potential lawsuits from Apple. So, once again keep your eyes peeled for the Unpacked event on the August 29th event, that will showcase the device.

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Nexus 7 Quad core CPU Overclocked to 2 GHz, Beats All Rivals in Benchmarks

The Google Nexus 7 has the Tegra 3 CPU on board, but you already know that. You also know that it’s running at 1.3 GHz, but recently the folks of XDA pushed it to the limit, reaching 2.0 GHz in frequency. The screenshots below are pretty clear on that aspect and last I heard this model was overclocked to 1.7 GHz, but now it surpassed that limit.

At 1.7 GHz Nexus 7 scored 7000 points in Quadrant and now it’s at 8000 with 2 GHz. Now the customization doesn’t involve the famous Trinity (derkenel) software, instead relying on a solution from Simms22 and Clemsyn at XDA Developers. Clemsyn came up with an experimental test kernel, one not meant for the public, that pushes the CPU to 2.0 GHz. While some are using his solution to push the performance to 1.8 GHz, the 2.0 GHz one is not stable and causes some issues.
With the scores you see here, even the Qualcomm quad core Snapdragon S4 is beat. Simms is saying that the Nexus 7 and Tegra 3 at 2.0 GHz are not stable, but with a few more tweaks it may become that way. More details can be found in the XDA thread in the source link below. Now imagine an overclocked Snapdragon S4 Pro…

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Raspberry Pi lands MPEG-2 and VC-1 decoding through personal licenses, H.264 encoding and CEC tag along

Making the Raspberry Pi affordable involved some tough calls, including the omission of MPEG-2 decoding. Licensing fees alone for the video software would have boosted the board's price by approximately 10 percent. Now, after many have made media centers with the hardware, the foundation behind the project has whipped up a solution to add the missing codec. For $3.79, users can purchase an individual MPEG-2 license for each of their boards on the organization's online store. Partial to Microsoft's VC-1 standard? Rights to using Redmond's codec can be purchased for just under two bucks. H.264 encoding is also in the cards since OpenMax components needed to develop applications with the functionality are now enabled by default in the device's latest firmware. With CEC support thrown into the Raspbmc, XBian and OpenELEC operating systems, a single IR remote can control a Raspberry Pi, a TV and other connected gadgets. If you're ready to load up your Pi with its newfound abilities, hit the source link below.

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Latest and New Windows 8 Wallpapers – 2012

Here in this article we are going to enlist brand new Windows 8 Wallpapers. Before enlisting we will discuss Windows 8 Wallpapers and its features with extensibility property. Moreover we will see how to set wallpaper on your desktop (the main screen that is visible to user immediately upon booting) through the following steps:
Right click on desktop screen (By Default it will have some wallpaper set appears immediately upon booting).
Select the option “Properties”.Choose “Desktop” tab.Click on “Browse” Button to select the desired wallpaper, saved in directory.Click on “Apply” followed by “OK” to apply the changes.After setting the wallpaper, you will get new wallpaper chosen once you boot your system.
Dual Monitor support was there in all the previous versions of Windows but wallpaper can be set for the primary monitor not for the secondary but here in Windows 8 wallpaper and taskbar can be extended to Secondary Monitor as well.
To extend the wallpaper, you need to have wallpaper of right dimension with proper resolution so that it can be extended in both the monitors. All the Windows 8 wallpapers have high pixel density with High Resolution and Retina Display feature which can be minimized to lower Resolution as well.
Wallpaper can be extended through the following steps:
Right Click on the DesktopClick “Customize”Select “Windows Extended” under Aero Themes.Having selected, choose your extended wallpaper.Click on “Desktop Background” followed by browsing to the location where Extended Wallpaper is saved to set the wallpaper for the multiple monitorsIf it is not set through the above steps, navigate to the wallpaper, right click on it and select “Set for all monitors”.
So here is the list of high resolution Windows 8 wallpapers:




















So, in this article we have given a long list of Windows 8 wallpapers. You can choose any of them and set it as wallpaper in your desktop and enjoy the Windows 8 flavor.
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