AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode)

AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) is a display technology for use in mobile devices and televisions. OLED describes a specific type of thin-film display technology in which organic compounds form the electroluminescent material, and active matrix refers to the technology behind the addressing of pixels.

As of 2012, AMOLED technology is used in mobile phones, media players and digital cameras and continues to make progress toward low-power, low-cost and large-size

An AMOLED display consists of an active matrix of OLED pixels that generate light (luminescence) upon electrical activation that have been deposited or integrated onto a thin film transistor (TFT) array, which functions as a series of switches to control the current flowing to each individual pixel.

Typically, this continuous current flow is controlled by at least two TFTs at each pixel (to trigger the luminescence), with one TFT to start and stop the charging of a storage capacitor and the second to provide a voltage source at the level needed to create a constant current to the pixel, thereby eliminating the need for the very high currents required for passive matrix OLED operation.

TFT backplane technology is crucial in the fabrication of AMOLED displays. Two primary TFT backplane technologies, namely polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) and amorphous silicon (a-Si), are used today in AMOLEDs. These technologies offer the potential for fabricating the active matrix backplanes at low temperatures (below 150°C) directly onto flexible plastic substrates for producing flexible AMOLED displays.

Comparison with other Technology

AMOLED displays provide higher refresh rates than their passive-matrix OLED counterparts, improving response time often to under a millisecond, and they consume significantly less power. This advantage makes active-matrix OLEDs well suited for portable electronics, where power consumption is critical to battery life.

The amount of power the display consumes varies significantly depending on the color and brightness shown. As an example, one commercial QVGA OLED display consumes 3 watts while showing black text on a white background, but only 0.7 watts showing white text on a black background. Because the black pixels actually turn off, AMOLED also has contrast ratios that are significantly better than LCD.

AMOLED displays may be difficult to view in direct sunlight compared with LCDs because of their reduced maximum brightness. Samsung's Super AMOLED technology addresses this issue by reducing the size of gaps between layers of the screen. Additionally, PenTile technology is often used to allow for a higher resolution display while requiring fewer subpixels than would otherwise be needed, often resulting in a display less sharp and more grainy compared with a non-pentile display with the same resolution.

The organic materials used in AMOLED displays are prone to degradation over a period of time. However, technology has been developed to compensate for material degradation.

Current demand for AMOLED screens is high, and, due to supply shortages of the Samsung-produced displays, certain models of HTC smartphones have been changed to use next-generation LCD displays from the Samsung and Sony joint-venture SLCD in the future. Construction of new production facilities in 2011 will increase the production of AMOLED screens to cope with demand.

Super AMOLED

Super AMOLED is Samsung's term for an AMOLED display with an integrated digitizer, meaning, and the layer that detects touch is integrated into the screen, rather than being overlaid on top of it. According to Samsung, Super AMOLED reflects 5 times less sunlight compared to the first generation AMOLED. The display technology itself is not changed. Also, Super AMOLED displays uses a PenTile RGBG subpixel arrangement that has fewer subpixels than a traditional RGB RGB subpixel arrangement.[citation needed]

Super AMOLED Advanced

Super AMOLED Advanced is a term marketed by Motorola to describe a brighter display than Super AMOLED screens, but also a higher resolution – qHD or 960 x 540 for Super AMOLED Advanced compared to WVGA or 800 x 480 for Super AMOLED. This display equips the Motorola Droid RAZR.

Super AMOLED Plus

The Samsung Galaxy S II, with a Super AMOLED Plus screen

Super AMOLED Plus, first introduced with the Samsung Galaxy S II and Samsung Droid Charge smartphones, is a branding from Samsung where the PenTile RGBG pixel matrix (2 subpixels) used in Super AMOLED displays has been replaced with a traditional RGB RGB (3 subpixels) arrangement typically used in LCD displays. This variant of AMOLED is brighter and therefore more energy efficient than Super AMOLED displays and produces a sharper, less grainy image because of the increased number of subpixels. In comparison to AMOLED and Super AMOLED displays, the Super AMOLED Plus displays are even more energy efficient and brighter.[citation needed]

HD Super AMOLED

The Galaxy Nexus, with an HD Super AMOLED screen

HD Super AMOLED is a branding from Samsung for an HD-resolution (>1280x720) Super AMOLED display. The first device to use it was the Samsung Galaxy Note. The higher pixel density required a change back to an RGBG-matrix (PenTile) with fewer subpixels instead of the RGB RGB arrangement.

HD Super AMOLED Plus

It is widely expected that Samsung will release a non-Pentile version of the HD Super AMOLED display. It's rumored that developer device made by Samsung branded as TIZEN is having a Super AMOLED Plus HD display.

Future

Future displays exhibited in 2012 have shown even higher resolutions with phone displays (4 to 5 inches) having Full HD (1920 x 1200 or 1920 x 1080) resolution capabilities. It is debated whether such displays are justified given the extremely high pixel density involved. Such displays may use the same or different marketing terms when they are launched in phones

Apple Introduces iPhone 5

Thinnest, Lightest iPhone Ever Features All-New Aluminum Design, Stunning 4-Inch Retina Display, A6 Chip & Ultra-fast Wireless

The thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, completely redesigned to feature a stunning new 4-inch Retina™ display; an Apple-designed A6 chip for blazing fast performance; and ultra-fast wireless technology*—all while delivering even better battery life. iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new features including: the all new Maps app with Apple-designed cartography and turn-by-turn navigation; Facebook integration; Passbook® organization; and even more Siri® features and languages.

“iPhone 5 is the most beautiful consumer device that we’ve ever created,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We’ve packed an amazing amount of innovation and advanced technology into a thin and light, jewel-like device with a stunning 4-inch Retina display, blazing fast A6 chip, ultrafast wireless, even longer battery life; and we think customers are going to love it.”

iPhone 5 is the thinnest smartphone in the world, with an all-new 7.6 mm anodized aluminum body that is 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than iPhone 4S. Designed with an unprecedented level of precision, iPhone 5 combines an anodized aluminum body with diamond cut chamfered edges and glass inlays for a truly incredible fit and finish.

The new 4-inch Retina display on iPhone 5 delivers even more pixels than iPhone 4S, making the already incredible Retina display even better. By making the screen taller, not wider, iPhone 5 is just as easy to use with one hand so you can tap, type and scroll the same way you always have, while enjoying even more of your content including amazing apps optimized for the larger Retina display, widescreen HD video, a full five days of your Calendar and more of every web page.

iPhone 5 supports ultrafast wireless standards including LTE and DC-HSDPA, so you can browse, download and stream content even faster. To support the latest LTE technology, Apple has pioneered a unique single-radio LTE solution that provides blazing fast speeds while fitting perfectly into the new remarkably thin design. iPhone 5 features dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi support for a wireless experience up to 150 Mbps.***

The all-new A6 chip was designed by Apple to maximize performance and power efficiency to support all the incredible new features in iPhone 5, including the stunning new 4-inch Retina display—all while delivering even better battery life. With up to twice the CPU and graphics performance, almost everything you do on iPhone 5 is blazing fast for launching apps, loading web pages and downloading email attachments.

The 8 megapixel iSight® camera is the most popular camera in the world and with iPhone 5, it’s even better. The new camera is completely redesigned with incredible optical performance, yet amazingly it’s 25 percent smaller than the camera in iPhone 4S. The new iSight camera in iPhone 5 features a sapphire crystal lens cover that is thinner and more durable than standard glass with the ability to provide crystal clear images. The new panorama feature lets you capture jaw-dropping panorama images of up to 28 megapixels by simply moving the camera across a scene in one smooth motion. New video features include improved stabilization, video face detection for up to 10 faces and the ability to take still photos as you record. A new FaceTime® HD front facing camera makes FaceTime calls incredibly clear and can also be used for self portraits and recording 720p HD video. iPhone 5 also allows you to share photos with friends and family using iCloud’s Shared Photo Streams.

iPhone 5 features the new Lightning™ connector that is smaller, smarter and more durable than the previous connector. The all-digital Lightning connector features an adaptive interface that uses only the signals that each accessory requires, and it’s reversible so you can instantly connect to your accessories. The Lightning-to-30-pin Adapter is also available to connect iPhone 5 to legacy 30-pin accessories.

iPhone 5 introduces new enhanced audio features including a new beam-forming, directional microphone system for higher quality sound, while background noise fades away with new noise canceling technology. iPhone 5 now includes support for cellular wideband audio for crisper word clarity and more natural sounding speech. Wideband audio will be supported by over 20 carriers worldwide at launch. iPhone 5 comes with the new Apple EarPods™ featuring a breakthrough design for a more natural fit and increased durability, and an incredible acoustic quality typically reserved for higher-end earphones.

iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new user features including: an all new Maps app with Apple-designed cartography, turn-by-turn navigation and an amazing new Flyover™ view; Facebook integration for Contacts and Calendar, with the ability to post directly from Notification Center; Passbook, the simplest way to get all your passes in one place; new Siri features, including support for more languages, easy access to sports scores, restaurant recommendations and movie listings;***** Siri and Facebook-enabled apps like Photos, Safari® and Maps; and Shared Photo Streams via iCloud®.

10 Famous Software Disasters

We all know software bugs can be annoying, but faulty software can also be expensive, embarrassing, destructive and deadly.  Following are 10 famous software “disasters” in chronological order:

​1.  Mariner Bugs Out (1962)

​Cost: $18.5 million

​Disaster: The Mariner 1 rocket with a space probe headed for Venus diverted from its intended flight path shortly after launch.  Mission Control destroyed the rocket 293 seconds after liftoff.

​Cause: A programmer incorrectly transcribed a handwritten formula into computer code, missing a single superscript bar.  Without the smoothing function indicated by the bar, the software treated normal variations of velocity as if they were serious, causing faulty corrections that sent the rocket off course.

2.  Hartford Coliseum Collapse (1978)

​Cost: $70 million, plus another $20 million damage to the local economy

​Disaster: Just hours after thousands of fans had left the Hartford Coliseum, the steel-latticed roof collapsed under the weight of wet snow.

​Cause: The programmer of the CAD software used to design the coliseum incorrectly assumed the steel roof supports would only face pure compression.  But when one of the supports unexpectedly buckled from the snow, it set off a chain reaction that brought down the other roof sections like dominoes.



3.  CIA Gives the Soviets Gas (1982)

Cost: Millions of dollars, significant damage to Soviet economy

Disaster: Control software went haywire and produced intense pressure in the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, resulting in the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in Earth’s history.

​Cause: CIA operatives allegedly planted a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased by the Soviets to control their gas pipelines.  The purchase was part of a strategic Soviet plan to steal or covertly obtain sensitive U.S. technology.  When the CIA discovered the purchase, they sabotaged the software so that it would pass Soviet inspection but fail in operation.



4.  World War III… Almost (1983)

Cost: Nearly all of humanity

​Disaster: The Soviet early warning system falsely indicated the United States had launched five ballistic missiles.  Fortunately the Soviet duty officer had a “funny feeling in my gut” and reasoned if the U.S. was really attacking they would launch more than five missiles, so he reported the apparent attack as a false alarm.

​Cause: A bug in the Soviet software failed to filter out false missile detections caused by sunlight reflecting off cloud-tops.



5.  Medical Machine Kills (1985)

​Cost: Three people dead, three people critically injured

​Disaster: Canada’s Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients.

​Cause: Because of a subtle bug called a race condition, a technician could accidentally configure Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode without the proper patient shielding.



6.  Wall Street Crash (1987)

​Cost: $500 billion in one day

​Disaster: On “Black Monday” (October 19, 1987), the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its total value. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%.  This was the greatest loss Wall Street ever suffered in a single day.

​Cause: A long bull market was halted by a rash of SEC investigations of insider trading and by other market forces.  As investors fled stocks in a mass exodus, computer trading programs generated a flood of sell orders, overwhelming the market, crashing systems and leaving investors effectively blind.



7.  AT&T Lines Go Dead (1990)

​Cost: 75 million phone calls missed, 200 thousand airline reservations lost

​Disaster: A single switch at one of AT&T’s 114 switching centers suffered a minor mechanical problem and shut down the center.  When the center came back up, it sent a message to other switching centers, which in turn caused them to shut down and brought down the entire AT&T network for 9 hours.

​Cause: A single line of buggy code in a complex software upgrade implemented to speed up calling caused a ripple effect that shut down the network.





8.  Patriot Fails Soldiers (1991)

Cost: 28 soldiers dead, 100 injured

​Disaster: During the first Gulf War, an American Patriot Missile system in Saudi Arabia failed to intercept an incoming Iraqi Scud missile. The missile destroyed an American Army barracks.

​Cause: A software rounding error incorrectly calculated the time, causing the Patriot system to ignore the incoming Scud missile.

​

​

9.  Pentium Fails Long Division (1993)

​Cost: $475 million, corporate credibility

​Disaster: Intel’s highly-promoted Pentium chip occasionally made mistakes when dividing floating-point numbers within a specific range. For example, dividing 4195835.0/3145727.0 yielded 1.33374 instead of 1.33382, an error of 0.006%.  Although the bug affected few users, it become a public relations nightmare.  With an estimated 5 million defective chips in circulation, Intel offered to replace Pentium chips only for consumers who could prove they needed high accuracy.  Eventually Intel replaced the chips for anyone who complained.

​Cause: The divider in the Pentium floating point unit had a flawed division table, missing about five of a thousand entries and resulting in these rounding errors.





10.  Ariane Rocket Goes Boom (1996)

​Cost: $500 million

​Disaster: Ariane 5, Europe’s newest unmanned rocket, was intentionally destroyed seconds after launch on its maiden flight.  Also destroyed was its cargo of four scientific satellites to study how the Earth’s magnetic field interacts with solar winds.

​Cause: Shutdown occurred when the guidance computer tried to convert the sideways rocket velocity from 64-bits to a 16-bit format.  The number was too big, and an overflow error resulted.  When the guidance system shut down, control passed to an identical redundant unit, which also failed because it was running the same algorithm

Android Jelly Bean 4.1

On 27 June 2012 at Google I/O

Google announced the next Android version, 4.1 Jelly Bean. It is an incremental update with the main focus of improving the user interface, both in terms of functionality and performance, the latter involving "Project Butter" which uses touch anticipation, triple buffering, extended vsync timing and a fixed frame rate of 60fps to create a fluid and "buttery" smooth UI.

New supported features:

• Vsync timing across all drawing and animation done by the Android framework, including application rendering, touch events, screen composition and display refresh
• Triple buffering in the graphics pipeline
• Enhanced accessibility
• Bi-directional text and other language support
• User-installable keyboard maps
• Expandable notifications
• Automatically resizable app widgets
• Multichannel audio
• Bluetooth data transfer for Android Beam
• Offline voice dictation
• Improved voice search
• Improved camera app
• High resolution contact photos
• Google Now
• Added 18 input languages including Hindi, Thai....etc

Following link will help you to understand about Jelly Bean 4.1 feature in details:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcE9t9hyiEA&feature=player_detailpage

20 iPhone Tips & Tricks

The iPhone had come into the market after a whole lot of suspense.When i got it in my hand i was thrilled to explore it just like any tech savyy "human being".

After all I felt it comfortable.I want to share with you some of the shortcuts that i came to see in it.Here are the most useful and best shortcuts that i think i have found in iPhone. Go through mentioned linked below http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wcQVv7rWkU4

Junal Munshi: Fourth Generation (4G) mobile technology is a set ...

Junal Munshi: Fourth Generation (4G) mobile technology is a set ...: Fourth Generation (4G) mobile technology is a set of standards for providing broadband Internet access to devices like cellphones and table...

Fourth Generation (4G) mobile technology is a set of standards for providing broadband Internet access to devices like cellphones and tablets. Though it first became available in the US in 2009, no specific technologies were officially designated as 4G until 2011. Despite this, many devices were labeled as "4G" even though they did not meet the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) standards for the technology. The main difference between it and previous standards is a big increase in data transfer speeds and the types of media people can access with it.

Features

The general features for 4G mobile technology are laid out in International Mobile Telecommunication-Advanced (IMT-A) standards written by the ITU. According to IMT-A, 4G mobile devices must be IP-based and able to provide data speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) when the device is being used while moving and up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) when stationary. All devices must also be able to be used for digital voice and rich media, which includes things like web pages with streaming videos or expandable banners. Additionally, they have to provide certain types of security for the transmissions. 

Other Versions

Former versions of LTE and WiMax, and another technology called HSPA+, are also commonly referred to as 4G; despite the name, none actually meet the standards set out in IMT-A. The technologies were marketed so often as "4G" that the ITU allowed them to claim the designation. Most major carriers in the US work with at least one of these standards, with some supporting both. Generally speaking, LTE services are faster than WiMax, but WiMax can often support a farther-ranging signal than LTE, meaning that a user could conceivably use the mobile device farther away from a hotspot. Additionally, LTE is primarily used for cellphones and similar mobile devices, while WiMax is sometimes used to provide at-home Internet connections.

As Compared to 3G

The main difference between 4G mobile technology and the previous standard, 3G technology, in terms of end usage is the data transfer speeds provided. This means that users can access much more sophisticated data that requires a lot of bandwidth very quickly. Depending on the service provider, however, 4G mobile devices may be limited to specific zones for making phone calls that are generally smaller than the areas covered by 3G. This means that people trying to make a call would have their call dropped if they went outside the covered area. Some 4G phones also have much shorter battery life than most 3G phones. 

WHY DOES SOFTWARE HAVE BUGS?

· Miscommunication or no communication - as to specifics of what an application
should or shouldn't do (the application's requirements).

· Software complexity - the complexity of current software applications can be difficult
to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development.
Windows-type interfaces, client-server and distributed applications, data
communications, enormous relational databases, and sheer size of applications have
all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity. And the use
of object-oriented techniques can complicate instead of simplify a project unless it is
well engineered.

· Programming errors - programmers, like anyone else, can make mistakes.

· Changing requirements - the customer may not understand the effects of changes, or
may understand and request them anyway - redesign, rescheduling of engineers,
effects on other projects, work already completed that may have to be redone or
thrown out, hardware requirements that may be affected, etc. If there are many minor
changes or any major changes, known and unknown dependencies among parts of the
project are likely to interact and cause problems, and the complexity of keeping track
of changes may result in errors. Enthusiasm of engineering staff may be affected. In
some fast-changing business environments, continuously modified requirements may
be a fact of life. In this case, management must understand the resulting risks, and QA
and test engineers must adapt and plan for continuous extensive testing to keep the
inevitable bugs from running out of control

· Time pressures - scheduling of software projects is difficult at best, often requiring a
lot of guesswork. When deadlines loom and the crunch comes, mistakes will be made.

· Egos - people prefer to say things like: 'no problem', 'piece of cake', 'I can whip that
out in a few hours' 'it should be easy to update that old code'
Instead of: 'that adds a lot of complexity and we could end up making a lot of
mistakes' or ‘we have no idea if we can do that; we'll wing it', 'I can't estimate how
long it will take, until I take a close look at it', 'we can't figure out what that old
spaghetti code did in the first place'
If there are too many unrealistic 'no problems', the result is bugs.

· Poorly documented code - it's tough to maintain and modify code that is badly written
or poorly documented; the result is bugs. In many organizations management
provides no incentive for programmers to document their code or write clear,
understandable code. In fact, it's usually the opposite: they get points mostly for
quickly turning out code, and there's job security if nobody else can understand it ('if
it was hard to write, it should be hard to read')