Nokia will be able to customize 'everything' in Windows Phone 7, but likely won't

Nokia will be able to customize 'everything' in Windows Phone 7, but likely won't: "

Stephen Elop, in his financial and strategy briefing continuing Nokia's marathon Capital Markets Day, just posed an interesting rhetorical question: will Nokia be able to 'customize everything' on Windows Phone 7 in order to differentiate itself? 'Yes!' was Elop's ebullient proclamation, though he quickly pulled it back to say that Nokia likely won't make extensive use of this freedom to tailor Microsoft's OS. Instead, the company will be cautious and seek to maintain compatibility rather than pushing the boat out too far in tweaking the underlying software. That's a major shift for Microsoft, who forbade HTC from skinning Windows Phone 7 with Sense, something the Taiwanese company would surely have loved to do, and limited it to the introduction of a self-contained Hub. Now Nokia's saying it -- perhaps exclusively -- has been given the liberty to play around inside WP7 to its heart's content. We'll see how important that turns out to be whenever Nokia delivers its first device bearing its new smartphone OS. An insider tip tells us the current plan is to introduce such a handset by the end of 2011, potentially based on current hardware. Who's ready for Xbox Live on a future version of the N8?

Enjoy Bluray movies via usb on Samsung TVs - Tips & Tricks

One of the best features of Samsung's Plasma TVs is the ability to play video files directly from a USB memory stick or hard drive. This feature is alternately referred to as USB Movie 2.0 or Wiselink. Sure, you could buy a TV without this and then add on something like WDTV or Roku but that's an added expense and one more remote to clutter things up. Samsung has done a great job of integrating the media player into the TV. However, the manual doesn't explain everything as clearly as it could, so I've written down some of the problems and solutions I've encountered.

The TV supports a variety of video file formats, such as AVI, MP4, MKV, and VOB. These are really just "containers" for audio and video information, so just because you have one of these files there's no guarantee that the TV will play it. Within the container, the audio and video is stored using a codec. Common video codecs are Divx, Xvid, and MPEG4. Common audio codecs are AC3, MP3, and DTS. You can use software like VLC to tell what codecs were used to create a particular file.

Not supported audio codec

MKV has become popular with high definition material (720p, 1080p). However, the most common problem when you try to play an MKV file is that the video works but the error message comes up: "Not supported audio codec" and there is no sound. Most of the time, this is because the audio was encoded with Digital Theater System (DTS) which the TV doesn't support (Samsung didn't want to pay the license fee). You can easily fix this by reencoding the file to Dolby Digital (AC3) using PopCorn Audio Converter.

Dialog is not in English

MKV files often contain more than one audio track. However, the TV has no way to select between the tracks, so if the default audio track is not the one you want, you can't change it while you're watching. First, open the file with VLC to make sure there is an English language track in the file. Then, open the file in MKVmergeGUI (part of MKVtoolnix) which will allow you to select exactly which audio track you want, and create (aka "remux") a new file that has only that audio track.

It is possible that a file could have both problems - DTS audio and a primary non-English track. In that case, first remux a new MKV using mkvmerge with only the audio track you want. Then, run it through the DTS to AC3 conversion.

The TV won't display subtitles

Just as an MKV file can contain more than one audio stream, it may also contain subtitles, however the TV doesn't support this subtitle format. First, extract the subtitles from the file using MKVExtractGUI. Then, run the output through Subtitle Workshop to convert to SRT format which the TV supports. Make sure you name your new SRT file exactly the same as your MKV file (except for the file name extension, which will obviously be different: .SRT versus .MKV) and put it in the same directory as the video file. Then, you can activate the captions using the CC button on the TV's remote control.

Archiving your DVDs to a hard drive

With 1TB hard drives available for under $100 now, you might want to backup your DVD collection. This would allow you to play any of your movies off the hard drive without having to search for the discs. However, if you try to just copy the files off your DVD and play them on the TV, you probably won't get what you're expecting, even though the TV supports VOB files. The file may not play at all, or the video will start and end in weird places. This is because the DVD menu also contains instructions on where the video should start and stop, but the TV doesn't know how to read that data. The solution is to use DVDShrink to remaster the DVD and extract just the video you want. This will work for both a movie that is one big file as well as a DVD with TV shows on it, where you want a separate output file for each episode. Put the DVD in the computer and start DVDShrink. Select the Re-Author function and then select the various video tracks that you want to extract. Select Backup to copy those files to your hard drive. Now you can open each of those VOBs will be a self-contained video file that the TV can recognize.

Portal 2: A Puzzle Game Worth Checking Out!

Portal 2: A Puzzle Game Worth Checking Out!: "

I knew in the back of my mind that in the beginning of next year, Valve planned release Portal 2. However, it wasn’t until I watched this trailer that I got excited about it. I remember the original Portal from several years back, and it was a fun little puzzle game.

However, Portal 2 looks completely different. Valve definitely took things up a few notches this time! It even takes place hundreds of years after the first game. According to YouTube, this trailer showcases the cooperative aspect in the first-person puzzle game.

Portal 2 has already won numerous awards including “Best PC Game” and “Best Action/Adventure Game” for the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3. You know what one of my favorite parts of this game is? It’s the robot hugs. Aww… I am buying this one for sure! Portal 2 comes out on February 9, 2011 for PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and Playstation.

[Image Credit: notcot]

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Symbian^3 is OPEN !!!

When the Nokia N8 arrives, it will be Nokia’s first device to run Symbian^3, the Symbian Foundation’s newest mobile platform, and their first entirely open source release.

If you’ve used a Nokia smartphone in the past 10 years you’ve used Symbian, the platform that powers Nokia’s smartphones, as well as those of several other device manufacturers. With more than two-fifths of the worldwide smartphone market share, Symbian is by far the world’s most used smartphone platform. To understand just how dominant Symbian is, that means that out of all the smartphones in the world, a little less than half run Symbian, and the other half run a mobile OS from one of about four major competitors. During Q1 of 2010, roughly 260,000 Symbian devices were shipped globally every day: an average of just over 3 phones a second. Symbian^3 is the next evolution of the Symbian platform, introducing improvements and features such as HDMI support, touch gestures, and multiple, 3D-accelerated home screens (a more comprehensive feature list can be found here).

The Benefits of Being Open

Right now, you must be thinking, “Great, but how is any of this of benefit to me?” Essentially, by becoming open source, the Symbian platform will be able to evolve and improve more quickly than has been possible in the past, as anyone in the world will be able to suggest and contribute modifications or improvements to the platform. Symbian already multiple programming languages and application environments, including Qt – now it will be easier than ever to write programs for Symbian, as programmers have access to the system’s complete source code. For one, this will allow them to integrate their programs into the platform in ways not possible in a closed system. Also, by reading the source code, programmers will be able to create more cohesive and elegant code.

An open-source approach allows users to be more pro-active with their devices as well. For example, as Ovi Suite is currently Windows only, many users find it difficult to sync data between a Nokia phone and a Mac/Linux machine. Now that the codebase is open source, someone will be able to come along, look at the operating system’s sync mechanisms, and write their own solution to interface Symbian and the personal information manager of their choice.

When the Symbian Foundation released its entire codebase as open source (tens of millions of lines of code) a full four months ahead of schedule, it was an amazing feat. Here at Nokia, we’re excited about the experience that the new open source Symbian^3 platform promises to deliver on our new Nokia N8 device.

How a 16 Years Old Kid Made His First Million Dollars

How a 16 Years Old Kid Made His First Million Dollars: "The British teen—that lives in Corby, Northamptonshire—got his first £MILLION, after starting his business at the age of 14. He lives with his parents, company secretary Alison, 43 and factory worker dad Julian, 50."

The Secret to Fast Torrent Downloading

The Secret to Fast Torrent Downloading