Intel acquires McAfee for $7.68 billion

Intel has picked up the Santa Clara-based security / antivirus company for a cool $7.68 billion, which works out to $48 per share in cash. McAfee will function as a wholly owned subsidiary (under the control of its Software and Services group). This comes hot on the heels of the company’s acquisition of TI’s cable modem unit, and possibly signals a new focus on security for connected devices. “The cyber threat landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years, with millions of new threats appearing every month,” said McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt.”We believe this acquisition will result in our ability to deliver a safer, more secure and trusted Internet-enabled device experience.”

Stamp sized Sandisk’s 64GB SSD!

Designed to be soldered right onto a motherboard, this drive is the size of a postage stamp, weighs the same as a paperclip, and will be available in sizes ranging from 4 to 64GB. Read and writes clock in at 160MB/sec and 100MB/sec, respectively, plenty fast enough to run a full OS, with an SATA interface ensuring broad compatibility. Early units are available now, with bulk orders shipping soon.

Droid Incredible and Droid X to get Froyo!

Droid Incredible is now in line to receive Android Froyo Upgrade.. The rollout might start on August 18th according to Engadget..

As for the Droid X it will be getting Froyo somewhere in Spetember.. the dates no one is sure about..

HTC Desire – Now available in India!

This is EPIC, HTC Desire has now launched in India, though a official announcement is pending, you can buy it from flipkart.

The delivery of the phone will take 7-9 business days… God knows how many people are waiting for this news, including me!!!!

My travel log – Chennai to Tirupathi

I recently brought my bike from Hyderabad, this gave me freedom to think of instantaneous journeys and go on long drives according to my mood.. On 12th August an opportunity presented itself in the form of my langotia yaars!! I recieved a phone call on my week-off that they are coming to Tirupathi and were 2 hours from Tirupathi.. We’ll, firstly my week-offs are not the usual weekends, they come bang in the middle of a week(mostly), another fact that helped me make this trip was a night shift the next day, so I had the whole day with me… This got me thinking and within 1 hour flat I was on my way to Tirupathi..

The problem was I dint know of a good way to go, searched the net some and read a blog by some Dude which took the following route:

• Porur Road
• Ponammallee
• Thiruvallur
• Thirutthani
• Tirupathi

Since I had no idea and looking at Google Maps was not sufficient, I took the one above.. I didn’t account for some facts like, this route was mostly in Tamil Nadu and I cant understand Tamil more than a few common words and second, it was not a proper Highway..

I started at 16:30 Hrs, the exact route came something like this:

1. Madhya Kailash – Porur Road (Sardar Patel Road)
2. Porur Road – NH4
3. From NH4 Right turned onto SH50 (State Highway) towards Thiruvallur
4. From Thiruvallur towards Thirutanni (via NH205, though its completely unlike a National Highway)
5. Thirutanni to Tirupathi

Covered a total of 145.5 Kms, the road was good, but the road is difficult to drive in low light (Could not use Helmet Visor) in a bike owing to absence of reflective road studs in the middle as there were no road dividers and apart from all the bugs and mosquitoes it was just fine . I reached Tirupathi at 20:00 Hrs stopping many times to confirm the way as there were not many sign boards and since I could not understand most guys…..

Settled in the Hotel and had a good time chatting to my friends…. Woke up late the next morning and I was planning to start at around 14:00 Hrs from Tirupathi one of my friend knew of waterfalls near Tirupathi, he thought it was 30Km but turned out to be more than 60Km.. anyways we reached there and what a place it was! Dense Forrest and small roads, meant we were feeling awesome!!!

We saw a dry path of flow, and we started trekking on that path, it led us into a place where there was a small waterfall, I will upload the pic later cause I dint take it from my phone.. but it was just awesome, there was a board which also said that one tree around that place was around 300 years old!

We then returned back in a hurry and did not see the main waterfall as I had to be in office at 22:00 Hrs and the time was already 16:45 Hrs… So we started back and around 18:30, I started from Tirupathi back to Chennai and my friends went north!

While coming I took another route, this was through Sri Kalahasthi another famous temple town.

While coming back I took another route because I did some inquiry here and there.. This route would make me get on the Golden Quadrilateral(NH5), given that it started getting dark even before I started, so it was no doubt a much better road to take.

1. Tirupathi – Srikalahasthi

2. Srikalahasthi – Tada

3. Tada – Chennai

The roads were just awesome, though it was a 2 lane road till Tada, the roads were just awesome, even in complete darkness I could see the road because of the reflective road studs, starting from Tirupati I did not stop till Tada which is some 90 Km far, even though my ass became numb (remember my 22:00 Hrs shift?) ! From there It was another 70 Km, but it went in a breeze as it was NH 5 and 4 lane throughout . I reached the outer skirts of Chennai around 21:00 Hrs and again not knowing the route from this side of Chennai I used my Phone’s GPS to the full extent.. got stuck in Mount road for half an hour though…. reached home at 22:00 Hrs and by 22:30 was in office all filthy and my face had a fine layer of black dust on it

Now, since this was a tight trip, I could not do much but now I am looking out for good places around Chennai (max – 500 Kms, it should be worth to max it!) Anyone got some personal favorites?, please let me know by leaving comments.. I want to do more awesome journeys……

Sam

Droid will get second Froyo update – Verizon

Verizon confirmed that their flagship phone Motorola Droid will get a second Android 2.2 update because it missed mobile hotspot or tethering functionality also, second update will make it possible to download the official release of Adobe Flash for mobile…. Isn’t it dumb for Motorola not to do that???

We’ll, I don’t see why they held up these features which are very much sought after within the Android community….

iPhone CDMA – Possible?

Apple’s love for AT&T seems to be loosing day by day. First there are facts that the plethora of Android devices are eating into iphone’s share and second, Android has become the most selling OS in US, this was held by iPhone’s OS before. Thirdly, there is a strong rumor about iPhone CDMA being tested and just 2 steps shy of reaching production..

If this proves to be true, the market dynamics of US smart phone market will be bound to change.. but in what direction is yet to be seen. In the mean time Android is really gaining fast on many things which were desired..

Sony Ericsson to introduce Android 3.0 gaming platform

Sony Ericsson(SE) will introduce a Smart phone focused on gaming something like PSP-Go. It will come up on Android 3.0 platform whereas the other smarphones from SE are still in the Android 1.6 stage. SE is also developing a eco-system around the gaming platform and I hope it comes out with legendary products like the Walkman series.

Presently, Android as a gaming platform has not taken flight, this is set to change with this, also, in my earlier post about Android 3.0, I mentioned UI focus, who knows that there might be a focus on gaming as well!!!

All this bodes too well with consumers as now everyone has a variety to choose from in each segment..  Android does seem like a way to go ahead..

Engadget’s full story here.

Samsung Epic 4G coming soon

Epic 4G from Samsung is soon to come, August 31st, this phone will be for Sprint’s 4G network. The phone has a physical QWERTY keyboard.. many rumors have it that it is a Galaxy S with keyboard… The specs are the same as the Galaxy S model but it has a front facing camera too.. now this is good news….

The sad news is that it will be running Android 2.1, these days most of the high end phones are being announced with 2.2, but Engadget.com has reported that it doesnt slow the phone..

Samsung’s Android Tablet – to be unveiled on Sept 3

Samsung is going to unveil its Tabled, which might be named as “Galaxy Tab”, at IFA ( Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin – International radio exhibition Berlin) next week in Germany. This will be a direct competion to Apple’s iPad.

The specs:

1. AMOLED display

2. Android 2.2

3. 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processor

4. 16GB of on-board memory

5. WiFi and 3G connectivity

The specs look juciy as hell but has to be seen how well the Tab will perform given the already launched and hugely popular Apple iPad!

But, what the hell, go Android go!!