The Evolution of 21st Century Telecommunications

In the 21st century telecommunication plays vital role in the peoples lives. We rely so much on telecommunication these days, that we cannot even imagine how people were able to communicate with one another without the existence of internet and mobile phones which are one of the main tools for telecommunication in the present. Technology has a never-ending story. It speaks about change and evolution and not about permanence.

Technology changed the way the people look and use such stuff. It is not surprising to see communication tools evolve through the course of history. It is not surprising to see communication tools evolve through the course of history. From the Morse code and telegraph mode of communication during the early times come the modern and sophisticated communication tools, which are produced for a single purpose-to provide individuals an effective, reliable, and convenient communication channel in keeping in touch with their friends and loved ones all over the world.

See also: From 1 to 4: How We Got To 4G Cell Phones

Regular telephone lines started the saga of modern communication system, which allowed individuals to make voice calls anywhere in the world in exchange for a certain fee charge on a per-minute or per-call basis, depending on the telephone service provider. At the later decades of the 20th century, mobile phones were introduced to the market. Such mobile phones allowed a user to make voice calls even if he or she is in a remote area, provided that the mobile phone service reaches such remote area. Satellite phones are also produced to cater individuals who are living outside the coverage area of a regular mobile phone service provider. These are all products of technology to make existing communication systems convenient and reliable for the public to use.

At the early years of the 21st century, the communication industry introduced another form of modern communication, which is said to be the most reliable and cost-effective communication tool nowadays-the Voice over Internet Protocol, or commonly known as VoIP. This latest communication offering is now wisely used for business application and now getting popular among residential and other applications as well.

The infographic below, compiled and created by Speechpath’s team compiles information of the “The Evolution of 21st Century Telecommunications.”

Six Alternatives to WhatsApp

If you are uncomfortable about feeding your data to Facebook, here are some of the best alternatives for iPhone, Android and others

BY SAMUEL GIBBS

LONDON: Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp, which means those who have been avoiding feeding their data into the world’s biggest social network might think about switching to another instant messaging service.

As WhatsApp is based on phone numbers rather than usernames, Facebook has in effect just bought a list of hundreds of millions of phone numbers. “Currently, WhatsApp can change terms and conditions at any time, without notifying users, which many people who use this service aren’t aware of. Meanwhile, Facebook already has a very broad copyright license on people’s content and already shares your data with many other services,” explains St John Deakins, chief executive of online identity service Citizenme.

While WhatsApp is certainly the most high-profile text messaging replacement app in the UK, it is by no means the only horse in the race.

Line

WhatsApp’s biggest competitor is Line, a messaging app that lets users send text messages, images, video and audio, was well as make phone calls over the internet or video conference. The Line messaging app is available for almost every computer and mobile platform. Line has 350 million users globally, expanding rapidly from 10 million in December 2011 according to data from Statista. Line Corporation is head–quartered in Japan, a subsidiary of South Korea’s online content and search company Naver Corporation.

Kik Messenger

Another messaging app alternative, Kik Messenger sends texts, images and voice messages over a smartphone’s data connection avoiding mobile operator messaging charges. It also integrates a web browser into the application allowing users to browse content and share it directly with their friends. Kik is available on the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia’s Ovi store and BlackBerry. Now with 100 million users globally, Kik was released in 2010 and quickly hit one million users in just 14 days.

BBM

BlackBerry’s Messenger is the grandfather of the phone instant messaging apps. BBM was released for both Android and the iPhone in September 2013 making it cross platform for the first time. BBM for iPhone and Android was downloaded 10 million times in the first day, with over 80 million users globally across all platforms by October 2013. BlackBerry announced that by December 2013 BBM had 40 million users of its iPhone and Android apps.

Viber

A messaging app that stated out life as a direct Skype competitor for free voice calling, Viber has expanded into a cross–platform messaging client and was recently bought by the Japanese e–commerce giant Rakuten for USD 900 million. Viber is available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone, Samsung’s Bada and Nokia’s Symbian and Series 40, plus the desktop, making it one of the most widely available messaging apps. All users can send text, pictures and video messages using Viber, but voice calling and some other features are limited to the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone.

Google Hangouts

Google’s messaging strategy has historically been a bit of a mess with different messaging protocols across different services that could not communicate with each other. In 2013, Google launched Hangouts to unify its messaging platforms. Available on the desktop, Android and iPhone, Hangouts allows users to send text and images, as well as hold video calls and group messaging with read states and typing indicators.

Skype

Skype maybe known for voice and video calling, but it also integrates a solid instant messaging function. Available for Android, the iPhone, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, as well as desktops, home phones TVs and games consoles, Skype allows you to send text messages, images, videos, voice messages and send group messages.

The others

There are a plethora of other messaging apps out there, including WeChat — huge in China but yet to break big in the UK — Tango and TextFree, as well as Apple’s iMessage, which is baked into the iPhone and iPad, but is also available on Apple’s computers. Facebook also has two other messaging apps. Its Facebook Messenger app is available through the Facebook desktop site as well as mobile apps for iPhone and Android, while Instagram allows users to send photos publicly or privately. Snapchat, the ephemeral image sharing app, also allows users to send quick photo and text messages. Beyond traditional messaging there is also Twitter’s direct messaging feature, which can also be used as an instant messaging system, sending private messages to followers.

Image: London Evening Standard

Everything You Need To Know About Samsung Galaxy S5

Take a look at the top rumors about Samsung Galaxy S5 according to major blogs Samsung Galaxy will be released in this month

Since Samsung Galaxy S4 there has been a lot of buzz about Samsung Galaxy S5

Samsung Galaxy S5 release date, news and rumors

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is old news. Sure, it’s a great smartphone — as you’ll see in our in–depth review — but now all eyes are firmly locked on the Samsung Galaxy S5.
Now that we’re almost certain to be seeing the phone during MWC 2014, all eyes are on what’s actually going to emerge from behind Samsung’s veil of secrecy — the good news for you, dear reader, is that we’ve trawled the web, examined all the rumors, and refined them to bring you a pretty good idea about what’s going to emerge.

In terms of the name we’d be very surprised if Samsung was to deviate from the highly lucrative Galaxy S prefix which has seen the Korean firm squeeze every last drop of money out of the brand with numerous handset spin offs of its top products.

Expect it to arrive as the Samsung Galaxy S5 — nothing else.

Cut to the chase
What is it? The sequel to the Galaxy S4 — and Samsung needs it to be amazing
When is it out? An earlier–than–expected MWC 2014 launch is on the cards
What will it cost? The Galaxy S5 will cost around £550 / $650 / AU$700
If you’re one of those interneteers that likes to skim read things in the hope someone will go through all the rumors and create a video render with them all thrown in together, well, you’re in luck.

Samsung Galaxy S5 release date and price

All the big smartphone manufacturers are relatively entrenched in annual product cycles now, which means we can usually predict when they will launch their headlining products.

Early rumors pegged Samsung as bringing the Galaxy S5 launch forward to February after the S4 failed to sell as many as predicted — this could also be due to the company being reportedly told to scale down its launches and make Android more of a star of the phone by Google.

And now that looks relatively certain after Samsung sent out a teasing invite for its “Unpacked 5” event on February 24 — and it’s that “5” which has caught everyone’s attention — that means the Galaxy S5, right? RIGHT?

From 1 to 4: How We Got To 4G Cell Phones

A nice overview about the development of 4G cell phones. Look over the different stages and the progress Technology has made!

Smartphones just keep getting smarter, and 4G cell phones are the smartest there is – so far.

However, the journey of the 4G cell phone was a long and tedious one.

In the beginning, the ‘cell phone’ was almost the same with the walkie-talkie or CB radio with its limited number of frequencies; they only differ in that the former allowed two users to speak simultaneously, while the latter required one to be cut off before the other could get a word in.

Then the first generation, or the 1G, analog technology was introduced during the 1970s. Using devices such as advanced mobile phone systems (AMPs), Nordic mobile telephone (NMT) and total access communication systems (TACS), it could now handle more than 359 simultaneous voice exchanges, with its speed peaking at 14.4 kbps. Wireless phones were used for transmitting voice calls only.

A decade later, analog was transformed into digital in the introduction of the 2G technology, which uses the global system for mobile communication (GSM). Aside from GSM, the other systems used were digital AMPS, code-division multiple access (CDMA) and Personal Digital communication (PDC). With a throughput of 9.6 to 14.4 kbps, 2G cell phones allowed multiple users on a single channel and were used for digital transmissions of both voice calls and data, in the forms of fax data short message sending.

Additional services supported by 2G included wireless application protocol (WAP), voicemail and voicemail notification services, mobile location service, cell broadcasting and the option to move from one mobile phone service provider to another while retaining your old number.

2.5G technology relied on the use of general packet data radio services (GPRS), an ‘upgrade’ of GSM. This upgrade included the support for sending graphics-heavy data faster via e-mail, marking the stirrings of early multimedia services and streaming. A few cell phone models also provided for web browsing.

Using the 2.5G platform, the third generation, or 3G, was developed. Multimedia support was further enhanced, allowing the transmission of video, audio, and applications, as well as better streaming quality. At its peak, it can reach up to 3.1 Mbps and thus able to sustain very high data rates. Its higher bandwidth – from 384 Kbps to 2Mbps – also supported video conferencing. Portability across different device types such as PDAs and telephones was now possible. Its air interface, the Enhanced data GSM environment (EDGE) was said to be able to cover wireless interfaces across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

3.5G followed, concentrating on faster speeds to support the ever-increasing data needs of users. From 3.1 Mbps offered by 3G, 3.5G offered 14.4 Mbps peak speed.

Then came 4G.

Speed was further increased for 4G, designed to keep up with the very high data access demand used by various services. Dubbed as the fastest among the standards developed over the past years, it was said to be able to reach 100Mbps on mobile and 1 Gbps when stationary.

When it comes to videos and audio, high-definition (HD) streaming was supported, and more 4G cell phone models were made with HD capabilities to accommodate them.

From the trend over the decades, it is not a far-fetched possibility that 5G is just around the corner, waiting to pounce. For sure, it would offer even faster or extremely high speeds for the users and let them use available bandwidth more efficiently.

Technology – communications technology included – is a continuous work in progress. Something faster, cooler and more packed with features will likely to be developed in the future, but at the moment, 4G cell phones are the smartest phones out there.

Smartphone Usage Statistics Highlight Its Importance In Our Lives [INFOGRAPHIC]

Have you ever been thinking about how important the smartphones are in our lives? How many people are using smartphones, how many applications are in the different stores we use, or what we had used before iOS and Android started their unstoppable rise?
Did you now that nowadays an average family spends $48 less on food, but $67 more on smartphone entertainment than before? Interesting, right?

Milan Aryal co-produced an infographic with Coupon Audit to share these insights with you. It will truly highlight the smartphones’ importance in our life through some well known and less known statistics.

iPhone 5S Versus iPhone 5C

The similarities are in many ways as exciting as differences between them

By Ken Subedi

Recently Apple launched the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C, and announced the retirement of iPhone 5. No doubt, you can still buy the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, but Apple releasing two brand new iPhones at the same time is a first. So a question whirls arises regarding the difference between iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

To find out real differences we compared the specifications of both. The iPhone 5C comes in five different colours: green, white, blue, pink, and yellow wheres the iPhone 5S comes in four different colours, gold, silver, space and gray.

Software and display

Both smartphones will start with iOS7, and can be upgraded for free to all new versions of Apple’s OS. One of the areas iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S look too similar is the screen. Both have four inch widescreen multi-touch display, with a 1136x640-pixel resolution that make for a pixel density of 326ppi.

Battery

Both phones have built-in, non-swappable lithium-ion batteries. As per the company, both batteries will give backup for the same time. The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C will last for up to 250 and 10 hours on standby and talk time. Web surfing is eight hours on 3G, and 10 hours on LTE and Wi-Fi. Apple declares 10 hours for video playback and 40 hours audio playback, for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

Camera

Both iPhone 5C and 5S have a front-facing (FaceTime) and a rear-facing (iSight) camera. The modus operandi of the specifications is as follows.

Having eight megapixel sensors, iPhone 5C iSight camera comes with ƒ/2.4 aperture and LED flash. With video stabilisation it supports 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps and 3x zoom in it. The same phone’s FaceTime Camera takes 1.2Mp photos at a resolution of 1280x960 offering up to 720p HD video recording.

On the other side, the iPhone 5S iSight camera has eight Mp sensor, listing it as eight megapixels with 1.5µ pixels. It has aperture of ƒ/2.2 and a true-tone flash. The video capabilities and the FaceTime Camera are like that of iPhone 5C.

Processor

The first smartphone to have 64-bit is iPhone 5S. With 64-bit architecture it comes with a brand new A7 chip. Apple also has M7 coprocessor that means it possesses uncountable apps that uses motion-tracking, for example fitness apps.

On the other hand, iPhone 5C comes with an A6 chip which makes the difference. It can be called as the iPhone 5 with a new appearance. Well, we can’t fairly comment on the level of performance it makes. But one thing is sure that if iPhone 5C’s performance is like that of iPhone 5 it be less valued as a smartphone. We hope that iPhone 5S is an improvement. However, Apple does not talk about the RAM it has put into its new smartphones.

Storage and dimensions

Another marker that makes them different is storage. The iPhone 5C comes in 16 GB and 32 GB ambience, but the iPhone 5S agrees all and goes up to 64 GB. The iphone 5S’s dimensions is 123.8x58.6x7.6mm and weighs 132g.

The similarities between the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S are in many ways as exciting as differences between them. The battery life, display and software offered by them are more or less the same. But the iphone 5S is faster with a better camera and some additional features.

The writer is associated with Braindigit IT solutions and can be reached at kengb1@gmail.com.

Image credit

A New Dawn for the iOS

After the unexpected drop of the long-time Apple iOS executive Scott Forstall, people have been keeping on what the next version of the iOS will bring. Now under senior vice presidents Craig Federighi and JonyIve, the iOS has changed a lot. The newest installment to the iOS family, the iOS 7 brings a whole lot of change in terms of functionality and design. The iOS is much whiter and with more flat look and the icons have a more 2D feel to it than its predecessor, iOS 6, with its glasslike smooth icons. The iOS 7 brings a lot to the table than any of its previous updates. And although there have been numerous complaints about the battery life and installation problems, iOS 7 still proves a worthy foe to its mobile OS competitors.

Apple has decided to drop most of its older generation phones like the iPhone 3GS and iOS 7 and only supports iPhones 4 and above. Although there have been numerous complaints about the performance of iOS 7 or iPhone 4s, there seems to be no problems with iPhone 4S and above. The first thing iOS 7 users will notice is the new feel to the iOS 7, unlike any other iOS. Apple has decided to get rid of its old flux-glass icons and have reverted to more basic, color-prioritized flat icons. The applications have lost most of textures and now provide a basic streamlined design. No more of the notepad feel to the Notes app and no more of the rich black leather or the brown wood textures. This flat user-interface feel more like a mobile app and makes it easier for the user to concentrate on the more important buttons and content of an app. The latest version of the iOS has been known for its Android and Windows 7 Phone-type features, like the Android-styled control center or the Windows Phone animations. There are plenty of features on the iOS 7 that you won’t find on any of its competitors.

Turning on your phone will introduce you to a more Android Ice Scream Sandwich-type of lock screen that seems to have done away with the thick bars and the realistic slider. Now you are greeted by a simple text and two bars on the top and bottom that encourage you to pull down the notification center or the control center, again a feature previously seen on Android devices. But no matter how different you expect the iOS 7 to be, the general feel and usability of the iOS remains the same. It’s the same page-by-page application icons, and the much loved widget feature of the Android system still seems to be absent although multitasking has been improved greatly with the Web OS-style app switcher. The recent applications that have been running around show up next to each other and dismissing them is as simple as swiping them up or down.

Another visual upgrade on the iOS 7 is the more prominent User Interface (UI) animations that had been much simpler and transparent than the ones on iOS 7. Unlocking the phone prompts a swooping effect of the application icons. Opening up a folder icon or the application switcher prompts a zoom-in and zoom-out effect and even the screen’s off and on animations have been beautified with a slight fadeout and fade-in. The notification icon on the top of the phone also seems to have undergone some serious redesign. The signal bar seems to be the most prominent with dots instead of bars that puts the whole mobile design into question because of the fact that bars have turned into a universal language for network. Can Apple change it to dots is yet to be seen.

The iOS 7 also brings a lot of new features, like the Control Center that provides quick access to frequently used settings. It’s in stark contrast to its predecessors when every setting had to be changed from the setting app. Or the new tabbed notification center that makes it easier to browse notifications by type, or the new translucent feel to all of these features. There are colors everywhere now, even in places where it becomes more of a nuisance rather than an addition to design. The new design to the iOS design also calls for new application design. Most of the applications on the AppStore are built for iOS 6 and that slight hiccup on switching from a more modern design to the old would call for a light inconvenience. Most of the proprietary software that comes designed by Apple possesses the streamlined feel of the OS but many third-party applications still need a facelift.

The performance of the new OS seems smooth and quick on the newer A5 and A6 processors but on older phones like the iPhone 4, which sports an A4, the OS can seem quite slow and sludgy. The OS also creates new opportunities for sluggishness with more prominent animations that can be easily noticed if it stutters. Another problem that the iOS 7 brings is the quick depletion of the battery life. The iOS 7 seems to be notorious for hogging the CPU and cutting down on battery life.

But all in all, the iOS 7 seems to bring a lot of new features and clean new UI design to the table. No doubt that it poses a big threat for its competitors but the new iOS also seems to spark up some love and hate relationship with its users. Some users seem to love the new flat look of the iOS 7 whereas others seem to prefer the more professional look of the iOS 6. The iOS has definitely changed, but for the better or the worse is yet to be seen.

Prajesh Sjb Rana, the writer of this post is República The Week’s much loved tech guru.