Google Doodle Celebrates 95th Birth Anniversary Of Ustad Alla Rakha

Once again after a long stretch of time, Internet search engine giant Google has come up with its periodical Doodles. This time around the doodle comes around to mark the 95th birth anniversary of Indian tabla maestro Ustad Alla Rakha.

However, the doodle is not an interactive one and it features the cartoon caricature of Ustad Alla Rakha playing a tabla. The Google doodle has Alla Rakha playing tabla with the two instruments representing the letter 'o' in Google's logo. All the letters of the word Google have been given a very circular and rounded shape except for the letter 'l'. He is also respectably called Abbaji. Ustad Alla Rakha was also honoured with the Padma Shri in 1977 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1982.

To talk briefly about the maestro, Ustad Alla Rakha was born as Allarakha Qureshi Khansaheb on April 29, 1919 in Phagwal, Jammu. At the age of 12, he left home to learn tabla and joined All India Radio, Lahore, in 1936. His full name is Allarakha Qureshi Khansaheb.

He also accompanied Ravi Shankar number of times. Not only that but he has also accompanied other popular musicians like Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Allauddin Khan, Vilayat Khan, Vasant Rai and Ali Akbar Khan. He also collaborated with jazz drummer Buddy Rich, on their 1968 album ''Rich à la Rakha.'' In 1943, he entered the film industry in erstwhile Bombay, composing music under the name AR Qureshi.
Unfortunately, Alla Rakha died on February 3, 2000 in Mumbai following a heart attack.

Micromax Canvas 2 Colours A120 Now Listed for Rs 9,897: Top 10 Android Smartphone Rivals To Consider

Micromax has been releasing a number of handsets in India off late and the latest one that has started started selling in the market is the Micromax Canvas 2 Colors A120. India's best domestic smartphone brand has released the handset at the price of Rs 9,897.
Micromax has become popular in a very less span of time and yet it is making more and more progress in the low-to-mid range market. However, there are lot of other native smartphone vendors who have been releasing their players in the same category. Thus competition is inevitable. Thus today GizBot has come up with a number of devices that will stand against the company's latest offering -the Canvas 2 Colors A120. But before heading on to the rival devices, take a look at the specs of the handset.
The Canvas 2 Colors A120 comes in two color variants - Dark Grey and White. In terms of specs, the handset is not as impressive as the latest flagship devices from other domestic companies. The Canvas 2 Colour A120 comes with 5-inch IPS display offering an HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels.
It is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor clocked at 1.3 GHz coupled with 1GB of RAM. It also runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) OS.

In the imaging aspect, Micromax has offered an 8MP rear camera with LED Flash and a 2MP front-facing shooter as well. Internal storage capacity of the device is seated at 4GB of which only 1.61GB is user accessible memory which can be further expanded up to 32GB via MicroSD.
Connectivity options included in the device are 3G (HSDPA: 21Mbps, HSUPA: 5.76Mbps), WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0 and GPS. As usual, NFC is never used by the company. However, you will get Dual SIM support.
The smartphone is powered by a 2000 mAh battery. According to the company, the cell will deliver a talktime of 7 hours and 45 minutes with a standby time of 225 hours.
The added advantage that the customers will get with it is the free swappable back cover which comes in wide range of colors. The Dark Grey Canvas 2 Colour A120 will get Radiant Red, Vibrant Yellow, Splendid Green or Mystic Blue back cover panels, while the White Canvas 2 Colours will have the options of using Yellow and Green back cover panels.
You can now take a look at the specs and pricing of the rival devices in the sliders below:

Apple MacBook Air Series To Receive Faster Processor Upgrade, Says Reports

Apple's MacBook Air line of laptops have been subjected to quite a craze from fans over the past few years, mostly because of their great build, performance and the Apple tag. However, it seems like the Air series of MacBooks will soon get a considerable update for its processors.
According to reports generated via a source going all up, close and personal with 9To5Mac related to the new changes, a brand new leaked image has appeared on the web showing that Apple is indeed planning on upgrading the processor for the MacBook Air line up.

The brand new leaked image was revealed to the site recently with the new label also representing the new entry-level 13-inch model, "and the only noticeable change is that the computer will now have a 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz," states the report.
For the sake of comparison, current standard 13-inch MacBook Air models come with a 1.3GHz processor and Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz. For that matter, the new leak also indicates that the usual design and weight of the MacBook Air will be retained for this refresh.

While nothing has made official by the company related to a possible processor upgrade for the MacBook Air line of laptops, but it is massively expected that Apple will push out similar small boosts across the standard MacBook Air lineup.
Also, the built-to-order models are said to be moving from 1.7GHz to 1.8GHz), although not much else coming to the line until the Retina Display models ship later this year.

Apple is already expected to release a new range of MacBook Airs by this week, according to multiple sources. These sources have also mentioned about how the shipments of new MacBook Airs have begun arriving in large quantities to Apple Stores across the country.
More details on this are expected to arrive with the final release of the upgraded MacBook Airs.

HTC M8 Ace: 5-Inch FHD Monster Smartphone Coming Soon To Crush Samsung Galaxy S5

Ever since Taiwan-based HTC launched the One (M8), the company has been making constant efforts to stir up the high-end smartphone market.
Not surprisingly, HTC continues to divert media attention from the Samsung Galaxy S5 by using their unique tactics, which is fair in this fierce battle to win market share.
It's been only less than two months ever since HTC introduced the HTC One (M8), and now the company is readying yet another high-end handset. Yes, you heard it right!
Not long ago, a leaked picture from earlier this month was enough to speculate that HTC would reveal an affordable version of the HTC One (M8) sometime in May, dubbed the HTC M8 Ace. Multiple reports in the past had suggested that the HTC M8 Ace could be a replica of the HTC One M8, but it might not be crafted out of aluminum chassis.

Now more alleged details around the HTC M8 Ace have made it to the web. According to a new leak from Engadget, the HTC M8 Ace is indeed coming, and will be directly used to crush the ever growing stature of the Samsung Galaxy S5.
The HTC M8 Ace will reportedly feature plastic design, and is said to cost CN¥3,000 (about Rs. 29,000). That being said, it is tipped to arrive with a 5.0-inch Full HD display and a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor under the hood. For the time being, other incremental details (Camera, RAM and internal memory) about the device have not come in open.
Going the leaked info, the HTC M8 Ace will be a monster phone with specs at par with the Samsung Galaxy S5. HTC's decision to launch a plastic version of the One (M8) could be a game changer decision and it may help the company in long run. HTC is reportedly planning to launch three more handsets by June 2014. The makers behind the HTC Butterfly have yet to reveal whether the device in question (referring to the HTC M8 Ace) will be made by June or not. Watch this space for more action!

Nokia Tablet Existed Nine Years Before First Apple iPad, Claims Ex-Employee

If you are a keen technology buff keeping note on the smartphone and the tablet business, then you will be no stranger to Apple's massive popularity with its iPad range of tablets. However, a new revelation claims that Apple was not the first one to create a tablet device.
According to reports generated via the comments about the same from an ex-Nokia employee, Nokia had already developed its first tablet device much before Apple's iPad came into prominence. The time span that has been provided is exactly nine years.

As revealed via communications telecommunications expert Mr. Esko Yliruusi, who was part of the team responsible for creation of the tablet, around 1000 pieces of the Nokia M510 web tablet were produced in 2001.
And while all this happened nine years before the first iPad, but according to Nokia´s market research at that time, the consumers weren't ready for the device.

Interestingly enough, the tablet also went into production but before the entire process could be continued, Nokia halted the production of the device.
According to Mr. Yliruusi, the project was suspended because the device was way ahead of its time. A market research was conducted by Nokia and the results showed that there was no demand for such a product at that time.
"There are approximately 130 surviving devices. The development team got tablets of their own as a farewell gift. Rest of the devices were scrapped," the Digitoday report states.

Later, after the demise of the project, the development team was sacked. While some of them were later re-employed by Nokia, several others joined somewhere else.
Apparently, Mr. Yliruusi was associated with the project from early 2001 until August when the project was dropped.

5 Best Value-For-Money QWERTY Handsets To Buy in India

One of the most respected handset maker, which brought its name to a major highlight only using the QWERTY keypad was BlackBerry. The Canadian company has off late been struggling to come up and face the market competition. However, thanks to its BBM messaging app, the brand name was kept alive in the market.
BlackBerry, despite launching a series of latest devices powered by its BB10 operating system, didn't crack the mainstream market which is basically ruled by Android devices. On the contrary, the company chopped down the pricing of its device to some extent a couple of months ago.

But BlackBerry fans are still out there waiting for the company to strike back at the market. These stern followers are undauntedly comfortable using the physical QWERTY keypads and are pretty much against the touch and type display.
 
Thus today for those who are looking out for a handset with a QWERTY keypad and can't afford to go beyond their limited budget, GizBot hs come up with a number of devices, which might serve the best as an alternative to the BlackBerry handsets.

Next iPad Could Arrive with Touch ID Support, Shows iOS 7.1 Code

More new Apple-related news to follow up on, and this time it points at the next iPad that's set to come from the company. According to reports, there are signs that the next iPad could arrive with Touch ID support, as revealed via the iOS 7.1 internal codes.
Apparently, an existence of iPad Touch ID support has been discovered by French iOS developer Pierre Blazquez, as noted by iDownloadBlog.

The new evidence related to the same comes in the form of a BiometricKit bundle in iOS that comes as the basic framework for the Touch ID functionality. The bundle, interestingly, has been listed as being compatible with both iPhone/iPod and iPad families.
"Notable mentions of Touch ID for the iPad have been discovered in the iOS code, indicating an upcoming iPad hardware refresh might include the fingerprint sensor," the iDownloadblog reports reads.

"It's worth pointing out that iOS code frequently contains placeholders and hooks for unreleased features that never see the light of day."
As of now, A text string accompanying the ‘BiometricKitUI.axbundle' folder describes an image showing a person "holding an iPhone with their right hand while touching the Home button with their thumb."

The BiometricKit, although later removed from the iOS 7 Beta 5 SDK, still presents itself via smaller traces of it appearing in subsequent SDK releases.
However, it's hard to tell if Apple is planning to launch a new tablet this spring, since tablet sales haven't been up to the mark in recent times. But it will be interesting to see of the company indeed introduces the feature in the new tablet. Only time will tell.

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