Heads exploded in the tech world after Apple CEO Steve Jobs finally announced the long-awaited Apple iPhone during his Macworld 2007 keynote in San Francisco. The iPhone, as Jobs proudly dubbed the device to thunderous applause, will be three devices in one: A cell phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and an Internet communications device. We haven't gotten to hold an iPhone yet, but we're just as excited as the next person to finally write down our first thoughts, and we won't sleep until we get our hands on one. Check back near the product's US June release date for our full review

The first generation device was announced during second week of 2007 after years and years of speculation that made people sick. However, now, we have to admit that the device is quite lovely. The vivid display is especially attractive, and we like the sleek, minimalist design. The touch screen may involve a learning curve, but we're excited to try it out. The iPod functionality will no doubt draw many, and in particular, we're glad to see world phone support, the Yahoo e-mail app, stereo Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

On the downside, we were hoping for wireless iTunes music downloads. And it's too bad Apple stopped short of 3G support. Also, we hope that Apple introduces a standalone touch-screen iPod without the phone element as not everyone will want a convergence device. As for battery life, Apple is promising five hours for calling or video and 16 hours in music mode.

Overall, however, and despite the high price, we predict an iPhone success. The iPhone will garner interest simply because it exists, and as such has great potential to move music phones into the mainstream. Nokia's Xpress music phones and Sony Ericsson's Walkman handsets present a strong challenge on some level, but Samsung's new Ultra Music probably stands to take the biggest hit if the two devices go head-to-head.

Initially, Apple's notion was found to be somewhat ridiculous, since there was no clear intersection between the iPod and mobile phone markets and there was already far too much bloat on phones.

My 18 year old son is fond of games. When he cannot afford to go out for cricket, hockey, or football he finds other outlets such as, indoor games for his additional energy. In case an indoor diversion is not possible, he prefers to play a computer game. As soon as he gets up from his PC after 1-hour session of a game, I can tell without bothering to ask him what type of game he has been playing - violent or non-violent. It's simple, and does not require thorough knowledge of psychology to assess about human behaviors, and their apparent causes. With a non-violent computer game one remains calm, but with a game like Soldier Of Fortune a substantial change in a young man's mind-set becomes evident. Reason for such a decline is clear; violent computer games can increase a person's aggressive thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately, the rule not only applies to laboratory settings; it equally pertains to actual life.

Some say that the aftermath of such a game cannot be more disastrous than a movie wherein violence has been demonstrated. Furthermore they also add that there's a distinction between realistic violence and fantasy violence. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about.

Remember, a violent video game is more harmful than a violent television program, or a movie because most of the computer games are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers. Similarly, the terms, 'True Violence' and 'Fantasy Violence' are frequently misunderstood. Many a person, including psychiatrists and psychologists, tend to think: "Well, it is just a game, the youngster is able to make the difference between it and the reality. Let us not worry about it." One of the great myths surrounding media violence is this notion that if the individual can distinguish between media violence and reality, then it can't have an adverse effect on that individual. A little percentage knows that even if you are able to differentiate between reality and fantasy, your on-screen activities are bound to influence your behavior subliminally.

Most of the studies have demonstrated a causal link between exposure to media violence and subsequent aggressive behavior. Such studies have been done with individuals who were fully aware that the observed media violence was not reality. A few studies have used young adult participants who knew that the TV show, the movie clip, or the video game to which they were exposed was not "real." These studies still yielded the typical media violence effect on subsequently aggressive behavior. Amazingly some studies have also been made that found no significant effects in context of aggression despite the participant played an aggressive game.

Most of the research has focused on TV/movie violence (so-called "passive" media), mainly because they have been around so much longer than video games. However, the existing research literature on violent video games has concluded the same general types of effects as the TV and Cinema research. At a theoretical level, there are reasons to believe that the violent video game effects may prove larger than TV and Cinema effects.

The young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games. It's also revealed that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants.

One such study involved 227 college students who completed a measure of trait aggressiveness and reported their actual aggressive behaviors (delinquency) in the recent past. They also reported their video game playing habits. "We found that students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior," predicted a leading author quite a long time ago. It was also found that amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in school or college.

In the second study, 210 college students played either a violent or nonviolent video game. A short time later, the students who played the violent video game punished an opponent for a longer period of time than did students who had played the nonviolent video game.

"Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations," said a reputed psychologists Dr. Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D. "In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts. "Longer-term effects are likely to be longer lasting as well, as the player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise," the Dr. added.

Horizon

It may be an alien term for some. However, It has become a common denominator for systems where television and/or video signals are distributed to subscribers or viewers using a broadband connection over Internet Protocol. Often this is in parallel with the subscriber's Internet connection, supplied by a broadband operator using the same infrastructure but over a dedicated bandwidth allocation. Or simply, it's a system where a digital television service is delivered using the Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure, which may include delivery by a broadband connection.

For residential users, IPTV is often provided in conjunction with Video on Demand and may be bundled with Internet services such as Web access and VoIP. The commercial bundling of IPTV, VoIP and Internet access is referred to as a Triple Play. Adding the mobile voice service leads to the Quadruple Play denomination. To make you more familiar with this term, remember that this type of delivery is also widely called as 'TV over Internet' or 'Internet Television.' In businesses, IPTV may be used to deliver television content over corporate LANs and business networks. Perhaps a simpler definition of IPTV would be television content that, instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cabling, is received by the viewer through the technologies used for computer networks.

In the past, this technology has been restricted by low broadband penetration. In the coming years, however, residential IPTV is expected to grow at a brisk pace as broadband is now available to more than 100 million households worldwide. Many of the world's major telecommunications providers are exploring IPTV as a new revenue opportunity from their existing markets and as a defensive measure against encroachment from more conventional Cable Television services. In the mean time, there are thousands of IPTV installations within schools, corporations, and other institutions that do not require the use of wide area connectivity.

Architecture

Broadcast IPTV has two major architecture forms: free and fee based. This sector is growing rapidly and major television broadcasters worldwide are transmitting their broadcast signal over the Internet. These free IPTV channels require only an Internet connection and an Internet enabled device such as a personal computer, HDTV connected to a computer or even a 3G cell/mobile phone to watch the IPTV broadcasts.

Because IPTV uses standard networking protocols, it promises lower costs for operators and lower prices for users. Using set-top boxes with broadband Internet connections, video can be streamed to households more efficiently than current coaxial cable. ISPs are upgrading their networks to bring higher speeds and to allow multiple High Definition TV channels. IPTV uses a two-way digital broadcast signal (sent through a switched telephone or cable network by way of a broadband connection and a set-top box programmed with software (much like a cable or DSS box) that can handle viewer requests to access to many available media sources. IPTV covers both live TV (multicasting) as well as stored video (Video on Demand VOD).

Currently, the only alternatives to IPTV are traditional TV distribution technologies such as terrestrial, satellite and cable. However, cable can be upgraded to two-way capability and can thus also carry IPTV.

Interactivity

An IP-based platform allows significant opportunities to make the TV viewing experience more interactive and personalized. The supplier may, for example, include an interactive program guide that allows viewers to search for content by title or actor's name, picture-in-picture functionality that allows them to 'channel surf' without leaving the program they're watching. Viewers may be able to look up a player's stats while watching a sports game, or control the camera angle. They also may be able to access photos or music from their PC on their television, or even use a wireless phone to schedule a recording of their favorite show, or adjust parental controls so their child can watch a documentary for a school report, while they're away from home.

Video On Demand

VoD permits a customer to browse an online movie catalogue, to watch trailers and to select the movie he wants to watch. The playout of the selected movie starts nearly instantaneously on the customer's TV or PC.

Technically, when the customer selects the movie, a point-to-point uni-cast connection is set up between the customer's decoder (SetTopBox or PC) and the delivering streaming server. The signaling for the trick play functionality (pause, slow-motion, wind/rewind etc.) is assured by RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol). The most common codecs used for VoD are MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and VC-1. In order to avoid content piracy, the VoD content (the movies) is generally encrypted.

Better Compression

IPTV uses a more efficient compression standard than Free-To-Air digital television, resulting in lower bit rates for streams, but higher compression may result in lower quality TV pictures in some instances.

Triple Play

Traditionally, TV has come down one wire cable TV or a terrestrial antenna, the telephone has used another (the "Plain Old Telephone System"), and the Internet has been available on either. Both cable operators and telecom-operators are starting to offer all three on one wire, which is more cost effective. Triple play is an expression used by service operators describing a bundle of telephony, data and video via a single connection.

Converged Services

Another advantage of an IP-based network is the opportunity for integration and convergence. Converged services imply interaction of existing services in a seamless manner to create new value added services. A good example is On-Screen Caller ID, getting Caller ID on your TV and the ability to handle it (send it to voice mail, etc). IP-based services will help to enable efforts to provide consumers anytime-anywhere access to content over their televisions, PCs and cell phones, and to integrate services and content to tie them together. Within businesses and institutions, IPTV eliminates the need to run a parallel infrastructure to deliver live and stored video services.

Limitations

Because IPTV is based on the Internet Protocol, it is sensitive to packet loss and delays if the IPTV connection is not fast enough. Currently, most IPTV systems do not have support for HDTV.

In Pakistan

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has awarded the first IPTV license to incumbent telecom operator PTCL. The operator, which is controlled and managed by UAE telco Etisalat, will supply TV, Internet and voice telephony over a single connection. PTCL is expected to offer facilities including conditional access, parental control, pay TV, video on demand, high-speed data and telephony pretty soon.

BEIJING: Chinese teenagers are getting addicted to the Internet and taking to crime at a younger age than in any other country. Of China's 18.3 million teen Internet users, more than 2 million were addicts, with "good kids who impress their parents and teachers" the most vulnerable to the affliction, the China Daily said, citing a study by the Communist Youth League. "Internet addicts in China are as many as 10 years younger than those in the West. They are more susceptible," told a psychology researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a top government think tank.

Most Internet addicts were male and aged between 15 and 20, he said, with as many as 15 percent of those in large cities needing "urgent help". He blamed lack of diversions at schools, forcing addicts into often illegal Internet cafes and exposing them to crime and violence. "They will naturally turn to the virtual world if they cannot find an outlet for their energy either at home or school," he added.

Under a new rule that will come into force next month, European registrars for the ".eu" domain will be able to immediately stop the transfer of ownership of a domain name if it's suspected of abuse.

The rule, set to take effect February 19, will make it easier for investigations into activities such as spam, although the website can still function, said the communications manager for the European Registry of Internet Domain Names (Eurid) that's a nonprofit organization based in Diegem, Belgium, that oversees administration of the .eu domain, which started accepting registrations in December 2005. So far, about 2.4 million websites now carry the .eu top-level domain suffix.

Under current rules, registrars had to give domain owners 14 days notice before putting a hold on ownership transfers. Eurid, which has been running for about a year, is also circulating a draft of a code of conduct for its registrars. The code lays out a series of best practices that weren't appropriate to include in the legal agreement Eurid already has with domain registrars. Eurid has already had trouble with registrars. In July 2006, Eurid suspended 74,000 .eu Web addresses and sued 400 registrars after it suspected domain names were being registered with the intent to sell them, which is forbidden. Later, Eurid said it appeared all of the suspended domain names and registrars were linked to just three UK-based companies.

Eurid is accepting comments through February 19 from registrars on a draft version of the code. The code will be finalized next month and will be voluntary for registrars. After electing a new executive board of registrars, the code should be put into practice by the end of March. Registrars that adopt the code will be entitled to place a ".eu Code of Conduct" logo on their website to alert users, indicating the registrar meets the code's service standards. -IDG News Service

Digital music sales doubled in 2006 due to better distribution, but the rise hasn't made up for the decline in CD sales, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says. Revenue is expected to come in at $2 billion for the year, accounting for about 10 percent of the total music market.

The recording industry trade group blamed music downloads from peer-to-peer networks as a continuing problem, although lawsuits against file-sharers and file-sharing networks have acted as a deterrent. The organization said 10,000 legal actions were taken in 18 countries in 2006.

Research shows 14 percent of portable device owners usually get their content from legal sites, but the same percentage use peer-to-peer networks for unauthorized downloads. Overall, however, a relatively low level of music stored on devices had been purchased. The music industry has blamed piracy for a drop in CD sales for years.

Unfortunately, BIOS passwords can be a liability if a user forgets their password. There are a few known backdoors and other tricks of the trade that can be used however, to bypass or reset the BIOS password on most systems.

Before attempting to bypass the BIOS password on a computer, please take a minute to contact the hardware manufacturer support staff directly and ask for their recommended methods of bypassing the BIOS security. In the event the manufacturer cannot (or will not) help you, there are a number of methods that can be used to bypass or reset the BIOS password yourself. They include:

• Using a manufacturers backdoor password to access the BIOS

• Reset the CMOS using the jumpers or solder beads.

• Removing the CMOS battery for at least 10 minutes

• Overloading the keyboard buffer

• Using a professional service