How to make Your Own iOS Game

The Apple company run by Tim Cook seems keen to promote a book written by Todd Moore and published by O’Reilly Media, Inc. which acts as a complete do-it-yourself guide on how to make your game thought a reality for the iPhone and iPad.

Spotify: The iPad App is 'in the works'

Spotify could be on the verge of announcing an app for the iPad – and not before time.

Speculation that the Swedish music-streaming service would create an iPad app has been circulating since its iPhone app first came out in the summer of 2009 and a special announcement by the company is due to take place overnight.

Echofon: A Twitter App for your Windows Desktop

Are you a Twitter User? If you uses your Twitter everywhere, Why couldn't you use it outside your web browser?

The New Instapaper 4.1 released with Retina Display

The popular read later service, Instapaper has launched their new version 4.1, with  retina support and many more features. An important thing about the new version 4.1 is that they contain a good set of new fonts.

How to fix iOS 5 Upgrade Errors 3002 and 3200

Are you trying to Upgrade your Apple Devices such as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch to the all new iOS 5 and receiving some Errors with codes that read 3002 and 3200. There are some possible solutions for this.

Tweetbot released in Apple IPad : A Client with Personality

The Tapbot team introduced a new Twitter app for the iPad users which had a revolutionary user interface with unique sound 

features, and with other EXCLUSIVE features which the

 others where not able to provide.

Last Year  the same team had come with a Twitter app for
the iPhone Users.

The allowed the users to do more with Twitter that you thought was possible by taking the APIs to its full potential.

Samsung buys Sony's stake in LCD venture

Sony Corp. sold its stake in the venture with Samsung Electronics Co. to make liquid-crystal displays to the South Korean company after predicting an eighth consecutive year of losses from TVs amid sluggish demand.

Samsung will pay 1.08 trillion won ($935 million) in cash for Sony’s stake in S-LCD Corp., a venture formed in 2004, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in a statement today. Sony, which invested 1.65 trillion won in the venture, will take a charge of about 66 billion yen ($846 million) in the quarter ending Dec. 31 after the deal, Japan’s biggest consumer- electronics exporter said in its statement.

The stake sale enables Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer, 69, to shed the responsibility of panel manufacturing amid losses in the TV business, where Samsung is the world’s biggest. To turn around Sony, which has forecast a fourth consecutive annual loss this year, Stringer has announced $8.4 billion of acquisitions in 2011 to bolster the profitable phones and music divisions and introduced tablet computers to challenge Apple Inc.’s iPad.

“It’s a step forward for Sony,” said Shiro Mikoshiba, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Tokyo. “Canceling out the venture enables Sony to become more flexible in procuring panels. Still, Sony continues to face falling prices and heavy fixed costs.”

Sony shares gained 1.6 percent to 1,394 yen at the close of trading in Tokyo today, while Samsung fell 0.2 percent to 1.07 million won. The deal was announced after the stock market closed for trading. The Nikkei reported the news earlier today.

‘Substantial Savings’

The maker of Walkman music players and PlayStation consoles has declined 52 percent this year, valuing the company at $18 billion, down from more than $100 billion in September 2000. Samsung has risen 12 percent in Seoul this year and Apple has jumped 25 percent.

Samsung had 50 percent of the venture plus one share, while Sony held the remainder, according to the statement. The two companies have also entered into an agreement for supply and purchase of LCD panels, Samsung said in the statement.

The transaction and the subsequent agreement will enable Sony to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices, and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility, Japan’s biggest consumer-electronics exporter said in its statement.

“Despite this one-time loss, Sony estimates that the transaction will result in substantial savings,” starting January, Sony said in the statement.

Downgrading Sony

Earlier this month, Fitch Ratings downgraded Sony’s long- term ratings to “BBB-,” one level above junk, from “BBB,” citing difficulties in reviving the money-losing TV business and deals that won’t improve profit.

Sony, the world’s No. 3 TV maker, is streamlining its main TV operation, which is estimated to lose 175 billion yen in the year to March. Last month, Sony predicted it will post a loss in the year to March 31 after the company slashed its TV sales target and the yen reached a postwar high.

The Japanese company lagged behind Samsung and Seoul-based LG Electronics Inc. in the global TV market last year, with 12 percent of sales, according to DisplaySearch. In the U.S., Samsung and Vizio, founded in 2002, had the biggest share for flat-panel televisions, based on research from IHS iSuppli.

Last March, Sony agreed to sell 90 percent of a TV factory in Nitra, Slovakia, to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., after disposing of 90 percent of its largest North American TV-making site to Taipei-based Hon Hai. Sony also agreed to sell a TV facility in Barcelona in September.

‘Unflagging Resolve’

Earlier this year, Sony agreed to divest its money-losing smaller-sized LCD business to a government-backed fund, which also bought a similar unit from Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. expenses at its marketing units.

“I have unflagging resolve” to turn the TV business around, Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai said Nov. 2. Sony’s management “feels a sense of crisis” about the unit’s losses, he said.

TV makers also face what Credit Suisse called a “generational culture shift surrounding video consumption.” Teens live in an Internet-based video culture that doesn’t depend on cable and satellite broadcasts, and they are satisfied with “small-screen experiences” and lower picture quality, the analysts led by New York-based Stefan Anninger

Education masters on web

We’re in the age of information. There, I put that straight up. We are not in the dark ages where our only source for information was the public library. It is just a Google query away. Or if Siri is the next big technology, its just a matter of picking your phone up and asking it.
We are free to learn whatever catches our fancy, from the most fascinating to the most bizarre. The web also makes learning a two-way street, enabling you to learn at your pace and adding a certain amount of intuitiveness while at it.
But for education to be meaningful, it must have a certain amount of structure and it is best delivered in the form of a ‘course’. The web sites listed below help you do just that.
On Udemy, you can find courses here from dance to making coffee to the obvious realm of coding and design lessons. Being a Silicon Valley firm, they also routinely put up lessons about startups and the like. I signed up for a course of the basics of Photoshop CS5 and its been a good experience.
You can also design your own course with slideshows or videos or both.
 
The Khan Academy started from a simple idea when an doting uncle made small, simple videos for his nephews. He decided to make this videos open to everyone and people wanted to see more of this. That’s how the Khan Academy grew and now counts The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation amongst its board. The site features an astounding range of videos on many subjects. From simple math to complex accounting lessons. They have also started adding practise exercises to make the process that much more intuitive.
This is how code should be taught. Start off with some really simple exams that even the old hag grandma next door can do and slowly walk them through as the difficulty increases. It’s just so simple that it works. I would, however, love to see a voice guide. Some people respond better to audio aid.

Here’s another awesome platform to learn coding online. Website’s designed to mimic the feel of a school. Tonnes of videos, interactive tutorials and the use of ‘gamification’ to improve grasping.

When the big daddy of the web starts offering tutorials, you better sit up and take note. With courses divided into 8 sections, we have quite a comprehensive list of coding goodies. My only gripe is that they don’t have video content from their insanely talented engineers.


The learning phase in education is all about consuming media. Be it a blackboard, a paper book, videos or anything else for that matter. Stepping away from the class of online video/interactive learning, we have Kno.com who provide textbooks for the iPad.
Kno fully utilizes the iPad for what it is, a great consumption device. It is a joy to read a Kno textbook on an iPad with all the interactive features the books have on offer. Another huge advantage I see is that kids wont have to lug heavy textbooks to class, incur the huge costs of the textbooks and actually learn better while at it.
Kno.com can be accessed via Facebook and the Web apart from the iPad. While I wouldn’t really recommend the Facebook app given all the social distractions, the Web readers gets a thumbs up from me.

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