IPhone 4 Coming to Verizon Wireless Early Next Month

After years of rumor and speculation, the iPhone 4 is coming to Verizon Wireless on February 10. Existing Verizon customers will get exclusive pre-order access starting February 3.

Verizon has announced that the iPhone 4 will run on Verizon's CDMA network and not its new 4G LTE network as some have speculated. It will, allow for global roaming, with voice and text in more than 40 countries and data in more than 20 countries.

A splash page on Verizon's Website lists the iPhone 4's starting price as $199.99 for a 16 GB model with a two-year contract. A 32 GB model will cost $299.99, same as with AT&T. The 8 GB iPhone 3GS, which now costs $49 with AT&T, will not be available on Verizon's network.

Although the phone will be mostly the same as AT&T's iPhone 4, Verizon's version can also be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five connections through a pre-installed app. AT&T's iPhone can only tether to computers through USB. On the downside, Verizon iPhone users will not be able to talk and use data at the same time.

As for carrier bloatware, none will come pre-installed on the device, but a FAQ on Verizon's Website says it will make "other popular apps available in the market such as VZ Navigator, and V CAST Media Manager."

Some basic specs, unchanged from AT&T's version: The iPhone 4 has a 960-by-640 resolution screen, a 5-megapixel camera with Flash, a front-facing camera for video chat and gyroscope sensors for gaming.

Verizon and Apple won't say whether an iPhone 5 will launch this summer, as has been the custom with previous AT&T iPhones.

According to Technologizer's live blog, Apple has a multi-year, non-exclusive arrangement with Verizon. So there's a chance that the iPhone could come to Sprint and T-Mobile as well.

Verizon subscribers can check their availability here.

After Long Wait, IPhone Arrives on Verizon

iPhone fans rejoice, the rumors have finally come true: Verizon on Tuesday announced that it would offer Apple's iconic iPhone 4 on its network, becoming the second carrier in the U.S. to offer the smartphone after AT&T.

The smartphone will run on Verizon's3G EV-DO network, and will become available early next month, said Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, at a Verizon launch event in New York.

"All of Apple is very very happy to bring the iPhone to Verizon's 93 million customers," he said.

While the launch comes at a time when Verizon is ramping up the rollout of its LTE network, the new phone does not run on the faster network. That fact will surely disappoint hopeful customers. The phone is compatible with Verizon's 3G EV-DO network, which promises download speeds of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps.

That makes the iPhone 4 on AT&T capable of faster download speeds. Many reviewers report typical throughput of around 3 Mbps on the iPhone 4. However, even though that's faster than Verizon's EV-DO network, current iPhone users tend to complain about network coverage and availability. It doesn't matter how fast a network is if the user can't connect to it.

AT&T has been the only carrier offering the iPhone in the U.S. since its launch in June 2007. Users have complained about the performance on AT&T's network and believe they'd have better luck on Verizon's network. Rumors of a Verizon iPhone have been persistent nearly since the initial launch of the phone over three years ago.

Verizon began talking to Apple in 2008 about bringing to phone to its network, said Lowell McAdam, president and chief operating officer of Verizon. They started testing it in 2009.

The specifications of the phone appear to be similar to the original iPhone 4 that starting shipping in June last year. It comes with a 3.5-inch "Retina" screen that displays images at a 960 by 640 resolution.The phone will include an Apple-developed A4 chip. It remains to be seen how the availability of the iPhone from Verizon may impact AT&T. ComScore recently said that as of November, Apple had 25 percent of the U.S. smartphone market. That amounts to a significant number of phones on AT&T's network. In the third quarter of last year alone, AT&T reported it activated 5.2 million iPhones.

However, just last week, a Consumer Reports customer satisfaction survey ranked AT&T last among mobile operators. Over half of the 58,000 respondents who were AT&T customers used iPhones. Still, in order to switch to Verizon, an existing iPhone user will have to buy a new phone and potentially either wait out or pay to break their contract with AT&T.

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Get Photoshop To Do What Fairness Creams Failed To Do!

In my previous Photoshop articles I made a tutorial on How to Remove Certain Part of an image and How to Look Younger using Soften Skin Effect, It was liked by many of our readers and through a feedback I was asked to create a tutorial on how to create a fair skin effect. Read the simple tutorial for fair skin effect in few easy steps.

Step : 1 – Take the image duplicate it(Cntrl J)and move it to the right for comparis

Step : 2 – Select Quick selection tool and make sure Add to Selection in option bar is selected. Select the area you want to make it fair.

Step : 3 –After you made a selection Go to Image menu > Adjustment > Brightness/Contrast.

Step : 4 – The following  pop up appears adjust brightness and contrast as per your requirement.

and you are done with it, look at the image below.

Did you like this tutorial? If you have any questions feel free to ask them through your valuable comments.

Gallery Hosted – Host and share photo galleries with online tool

Most of us share photos on Flickr, Picassa or even on our Facebook profiles. This is usually done with friends and family. Sometimes I do not necessarily want my account URL for Flickr or Picassa with some people. This is where I liked the idea of Gallery Hosted. Gallery Hosted allowed me to upload a bunch of images and then share them online for others to look up.

Gallery Hosted Features

• I did not have to sign-up to upload a few images online. Just visit the website and upload the images you want to share. The best part was I could upload images in bulk and did not have to do this one by one.
• The best feature of GalleryHosted was that when I shared the URL of the gallery I uploaded, the visitor can look through thumbnails to navigate through the various images.
• The good point about Gallery Hosted is that is allows unlimited hosting and its free.
• To manage your galleries you will need to create and account.

I liked GalleryHosted for its speed. If you are looking to try out something different from Flickr, giving Gallery Hosted a look won’t be a bad idea.

Do try it out and drop in your comments and views.

Link: Gallery Hosted

Cheapest 3G Data card in India for just Rs. 1300!

We all know about data cards available from Tata DoCoMo, BSNL and Reliance, however what we don’t know is that Data cards are nothing more than Mobile phones without their screen, keypad and other features.

Then why they are sold for such high costs, sometimes even more than the costs of good mobile phones available in the market?

Reliance and Tata have always been selling their Data cards for about Rs. 2500-3000 with BSNL presently selling their 3G Data card (upto 7.2 Mbps)(mentioned earlier in our post) for Rs. 2500 (that too after a discount!). Finally two Indian students from Bhubaneswar in Odisha (formerly Orissa) have announced their latest innovation, a 3G data card for just Rs. 1300. The data card is presently not available in the market, however it is trying to tie up with biggies like Future Group to make its presence in the huge Indian market.

Some Features of the Data card

• Supports almost all network bands like WCDMA/UMTS 2100MHZ/EDGE/GPRS/GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHZ.
• Download Speeds upto 7.2 Mbps (HSDPA) and upload speeds upto 384 Kbps (HSUPA).
• It comes with High speed 2.0 USB connectivity.
• Supports any GSM/3G-based SIM card.
• Send and receive SMS also
• Works with almost all Operating systems including Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7, Linux/Mac.
• The datacard even supports Flash memory upto 4GB.
• Few sources claim that the datacard can even support upto 21.1 Mbps download connectivity though it has not been tested yet.

The innovators even claim that they can bring down the cost of the Data card to only Rs. 900 if they receive any support from the Government to manufacture on a large-scale. They are even expecting this to generate large-scale direct/in-direct employment.

Let me know if you have already found any store where the iWebLeaf 3G data card is available. Guys, I am missing your comments. Do post them! It hardly takes a minute after all :)

Link: iWebLeaf

5 Must Visit Websites Launched in 2011

With about trillion of websites on the Internet, I know you don’t want to waste time sitting and reading this part of the article.. So let us move on towards what I have to share with you all. These websites were all officially launched on the 1st of January 2011 but may be registered long before the launch date, pretty natural huh!

#1. ItsHacked

This one is particularly a niche website (blog) for people who are interesting in  topics like Hacking, Network Security, Identity theft etc.

What’s so extraordinary – The website is fast, looks simple and uses a Tag cloud also.

What’s not so extraordinary – Frequency of posts is low and design do not looks like a priority.

LINK: ItsHacked

#2. UK Government Data

Yeah, yeah I know… Please do ask me what’s so interesting about sharing a Government site with you! My answer would be “see it yourself and then decide”.

What’s so extraordinary – Being a Government website, it’s nicely designed and organized. The best part about this website is that it opens up a lot of data from the Government of UK for the public to see, analyse and see summaries. You can even create applications using the wide data available.

What’s not so extraordinary – Not such a nice website if you are not much interested in Socio-IT trends.

LINK: UK Government Data

#3. Indiavibes

The first Web HD TV in India which will host a large collection of TV shows and movies.

What’s so extraordinary – It boasts of using adaptive streaming which will practically let you watch Videos without any interruption or buffering.

What’s not so extraordinary – You cannot download any show or movie as it uses adaptive streaming.

LINK: Indiavibes.tv

#4. Teach Parents Tech

This one is from the house of Google which has made an interesting move by trying to help Parents and older people nice stuff about technology and a great ‘How-to’ series. Anybody can introduce their parents or someone they know of having less knowledge related to things on a Computer.

What’s so extraordinary – The website is nicely designed and looks cool, yeah the Google style! It is simple & quick to use and has nothing much hidden.

What’s not so extraordinary – The website provides a platform for the young ones to share Technology videos to their parents and other old pals. However nothing apart from videos has been put in place, also what if someone doesn’t even know how to install the plug-ins on a browser to run videos!

LINK: Teach Parents Tech

#5. iPhone Experience

What else will you need if there is a dedicated blog explaining you different tips and tricks about your iPhone, isn’t that cool? Everyday the blog comes out with some new application for iPhone which let you decide what all to keep on your own piece.

What’s so extraordinary – The blog is truly dedicated to iPhone and just iPhone. The frequency of posts is quite good for now and quality of content is fine.

What’s not so extraordinary – Design blocks are not organized properly and the colour scheme must be revamped. The topic is displayed in a font which looks quite not so good to my eyes.

LINK: iPhone Experience

Few interesting ones which I could not ignore (though they will be launched later in January):

• TicketPlease

An Ajay Devgan company, TicketPlease is going to launch on 10th January. The website is similar to Bookmyshow.com which also sell tickets for movies, concerts, plays and other events. Ticketplease will also let  you buy movie CD and DVDs.

• Zing Social

Looks like another social networking website but with a difference in its Privacy features. The beta version of the website also claims to have 1 lac users and is going to launch officially on 15th January 2011. The website sources maintains that they are not looking for any competition with established portals like Facebook or LinkedIn.

I hope you liked this post and interesting too, let me know guys about some interesting topics you would like me to cover or review.