35$ tablet to be available from October 5th

Kapil Sibal, the Union resource minister of Human Resource unveiled the 35$ tablet on 22nd July 2010. Since then, techspace has been keeping track of the latest happenings regarding this cheapest 35$ tablet. The Government also announced a subsidized rate of Rs.1100 for students.



The 35$ tablet will be launched officially on October 5th. The device features a 7"  Touch screen, 2 USB Ports, 32 GB Hard Disk, 2 GB RAM with Video conferencing and multimedia capabilities. The tablet runs Android OS but the version is unknown. There has been no news on the processor speed and continues to remain a mystery until October 5th. The name of the tablet will be revealed on the day of launch. The tablet was supposed to release in the month of June but the tender with Manufacturers, HCL was cancelled causing the delay.

There are a few expectations on this tablet. If proven good, then this may bring lot of changes in the Indian education system.

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TRAI limits 100 SMS per user per day

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has made a few rules that is going to effect the SMS texters in India. Announced in Times of India, from september 27th onwards, users will not be able to send more than hundred messages per day. Even if users are subscribed to special SMS packages which gives loads of free messages, the package will not be valid after September 27th and users will have to pay for it. This rule also reduces those hundreds of messages that you get from Telemarketers.

Popular websites like way2sms, 160by2 are going to be affected too with the new rules.

• You will not be able to use these services between 9PM to 9AM.


• You will not be able to send messages to people who are subscribed to DO NOT DISTURB Registry.


• You will not be allowed to send messages with your mobile number as sender.

Seems to be a total spoiler to lot of telemarketers and extensive SMS users. People will probably end up calling their friends rather sending messages.

What is your feedback on this?

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How to try the New Facebook profile?

Facebook in the F8 Conference last week announced the release of new interface to facebook profiles. The interface is so designed to give a timeline of updates a person goes through. The timeline scrolls back to the day you first joined facebook. The new facebook interface encourages users to share more data over the social network. The new interface is still in development version and happen to have a few bugs and some more features are yet to be integrated. If you want to try out the new interface, then here is the step - by - step guide.

Instructions -

• Go to your Facebook developers page. Click Here if your logged in .


• Next  Click " Create New App ".


• Name it anything you want it to sound like . both app display name and app namespace. Do agree to the checkbox which says " I agree to platform privacy policy ".


• Next there ll be a CAPTCHA security verification .


• On successful verification your app s basic setting page ll be opened.


• Click "Open Graph" on the left side of the screen.


• Next screen is "Open Graph : Getting Started " .


• Type in whatever you want in accordance to the examples shown there. and then click "Get Started ".


• Next 2 screens just scroll down and click "Save changes and next ".


• And last screen just scroll down and click " Save and Finish ".


• Wait..then go to your "home". You ll be invited for the developers release of New timeline


• Accept it .. and have fun :) :)

Thanks to Sourabh K Rao for his post on A Cynic's Viewpoint.

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Metal X 1.2 - Beautiful Gnome Shell Theme

Gnome gives very little applications to customize the appearances. The default theme may look quite good, but any person would eventually get bored of it and would want a change. Lately, lot of third party developers have released themes for Gnome Shell. Here is one of those most beautiful ones.

Metal X Theme

Download Gnome Metal X Theme from here.

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Beetel enters the market with its new touch phone

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Micromax A70 - Specifications

This phone was released last July but somehow I missed to put it on mytechspace. This phone is one of the cheapest and best phones. The capacitive touch is very sensitive. Lags a little with HD Graphics but a decent phone for the price you get it for. Here's the complete review of phone.

General		GSM
Operating System		Android 2.2 Froyo
Processor Speed		600 MHz
Size	Dimensions	111 x 58 x 38.5 mm
	Weight	85g
Display	Type	TFT Capacitive touch screen
	Size	3.2 inches
	Colors	256k
	Resolution	320 x 480 pixels
	Pixel Density	180 ppi
	Sensors	Proximity Sensor, Accelerometer
Memory	Internal	160 MB
	External	Expandable up to 32 GB
Camera	Primary	5 MP Camera without flash
	Secondary	VGA
	Video Recording	VGA recording
Multimedia	Audio	MP3, WAV, AAC
	Video	MP4, H.263
Connectivity		GPRS, EDGE, 3G HSDPA @ 7.2 Mbps, Bluetooth v2.1, microUSB v2.0
Battery		1450 mAh Standby up to 168h Talktime up to 4h
Other Features		Pre installed applications like Mundu TV, Picasa, Youtube etc.
Pros		Very Cheap Touch sensitivity is good. Screen clarity is good. 5MP Camera
Cons		Slow Processor. Lags during HD graphic play. No Flash Support. VGA video recording. No LED Flash.
Price		Rs. 7200 on Flipkart

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Facebook now introduces "Subscribe" Feature

Facebook has now introduced its latest feature with the Subscribe button. The Subscribe button will appear on one's profile page just next to the Add as a Friend Button. Here's a quick look of where it is going to appear.



The 'Subscribe' button is similar to Twitter's Follow feature and somewhat similar to Google+ 's Add to Circle option. The person to whom you subscribe need not have to accept like in a friend request. But the person who subscribes to you will be able to view all the public updates on his news feed. Additionally, you can also view profiles of the people who have subscribed to you which means, no secret followers. Facebook in one of its post explains this feature to be most useful to celebrities. It says -

It is most useful for public figures like journalists, artists, and local politicians. For example, if you’re a journalist, you can use a profile to share your press coverage with your readers and ask them to post tips to help guide your research and investigation.

This is really good because celebrities and popular figures need not have to accept friend requests from infinite fans neither the fans have to wait for their friend request to be accepted. This feature is likely to attract more celebrities to appear on facebook.

If you want to have a Subscribe button on your facebook profile page, then you have to go to this site facebook.com/about/subscribe and click on "Allow Subscribers". This will enable the Subscribe button on your profile.

Ever since Google+ is released, facebook is on a spree of rolling out new features. The features provided by both the giants are more or less the same. Online forums are already discussing the genuineness of features as to who first introduced which feature. The discussion is taking egg or hen pattern, as no one knows which one came first, the egg or the hen. Same is in this case, no one can really tell who copied which part of the feature from whom.

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Micromax X222 - Cheapest Touch phone

Yet again we are posting another Micromax mobile phone. Micromax has this time come up with the cheapest touch phone in India, the Micromax X222. Micromax X222 is a tiny little phone with dual sim support and costing less than 2k. The phone comes with a 2.4" resistive touch display screen. More features here -

Form Factor	Full Touch Bar Style
Band	Dual GSM Band (900/1800 MHz)
Dimensions	92mm*52mm*14mm
Display	6cms, 65K TFT(240*320 Pixels)
Weight	83gms
Music	Multi Format (MP3, WAV, AMR)
FM Radio	Yes
Camera	VGA
Audio/Video Player	Yes
Expandable Memory	MicroSD (upto 8GB)
Bluetooth	Yes
SMS/MMS/GPRS	Yes
Battery Type	Li-ion 900mAh
Talk Time	Up to 6 hours*
Standby Time	Up to 157 hours*

Price : Rs. 1990

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Restore GRUB 2 after Windows installation wipes it out

One of the biggest problems of installing windows after installing ubuntu is that windows wipes out the Grub 2 and makes Ubuntu inaccessible. The solution to it is available everywhere on the internet and some are on mytechspace too. But since there are different methods, it is natural for anyone to get confused. So here I've summarized all the known methods to restore GRUB 2.

Before getting started, I assume you are in this situation. You have just installed some version of Windows, it could be Windows XP or 7 or Vista or anything. Your GRUB (Boot loader) is gone and you have no way to boot Ubuntu. You have a Ubuntu Live/Installation CD but you do not want to install it afresh again. You boot windows and open mytechspace and you follow one of these methods.

Method 1

Step 1: Boot Ubuntu using the Ubuntu Live CD and open Terminal through it.

Step 2: Execute the following command and find out which partition the Linux (Ubuntu is installed)

[stextbox id="grey"]sudo fdisk -lu[/stextbox]

The output of the instruction will be a few columns. Check the row that ends with "Linux". The First column of that respective row gives the partition where your Linux is installed.

In my case it is /dev/sda3

Step 3: Create a directory to mount this partition

[stextbox id="grey"]sudo mkdir  /media/mntlinux[/stextbox]

Step 4: Mount the Linux ( Ubuntu ) partition.

[stextbox id="grey"]sudo mount /dev/sda3 /media/mntlinux[/stextbox]

Step 5: Now Install Grub.

[stextbox id="grey"]sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/mntlinux /dev/sda
[/stextbox]

Method 2

Install Grub-Customizer. This is one of the easiest way of installing GRUB. Just install grub customizer by executing the following in your terminal -

[stextbox id="grey"]sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer
[/stextbox]

If you find any problem with any part of this, please comment here. We will be glad to help.

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Vodafone's Android phone - Vodafone Smart VF858

Vodafone has finally joined the race of affordable Android phones with Micromax and other manufacturers with the release of its new Vodafone Smart VF858. Vodafone Smart is powered with a 528Mhz ARM processor and runs Android 2.2 Froyo.



More features of Vodafone Smart VF858 -

• TFT Capacitive Touch Screen, 256k Colors


• 2.8" screen with 240 x 320 pixel screen resolution - 143 ppi pixel density


• Accelerometer and Proximity sensors


• 130 MB internal memory, expandable up to 32 GB through microSD


• GPRS, EDGE, 3G (3.6 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Wifi - Hotspot


• Price: Rs. 6,695

Vodafone Smart is priced Rs. 6,700.

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