Category Archives: News

Chinese New Year 2012 – Year of Dragon

Gong Xi Fa Ca! That’s the traditional Chinese New Year greeting that means “wishing you prosperity” in Mandarin. The first day of the Chinese New Year – which begins at midnight on January 23, 2012 – is the most important of Chinese holidays, celebrated by billions in China, and by millions of ethnic Chinese around the world. It’s a celebration that lasts for 15 days, culminating with the Lantern Festival. Each year is associated with one of twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. For 2012, it’s the Year of the Dragon.

There are several variations on the mythology behind Chinese New Year celebrations. Most are based on a ugly bloodthirsty monster named Nian that would emerge on the last night of each year to destroy villages and eat people. A wise elder advised villagers to scare the monster away with loud noises. That night, they set fire to bamboo, lit fireworks, and banged their drums. The monster, afraid of the loud noises and lights, ran away to hide in its cave.

In another version of the myth, an old man persuaded Nian to turn its wrath on other monsters, not the villagers. Before he was seen riding away on Nian, the old man, actually a god, advised the people to hang red paper decorations in their homes and set off firecrackers on the last night of the year to keep Nian away. On the first day of the new year, the villagers celebrated, greeting each other with the words “Guo Nian” which means “survive the Nian”, a tradition that has continued to this day to mean “celebrate the new year.”

In China, the familiar Gregorian calendar is used for day-to-day life. But Chinese calendar dates continue to be used to mark traditional holidays such as the new year and the fall moon festival. It’s also used astrologically to select favorable dates for weddings and other special events.

Each year of the Chinese lunar calendar is represented by one of twelve animal symbols of the Chinese zodiac: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. For 2012, it’s the dragon’s turn. According to Chinese astrology, people born on the year of the dragon are said to be strong, self-assured, eccentric, intellectual, and passionate, among other things

 

 

Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally lasts 15 days, from the first day (during a new moon) to the 15th day (a full moon). Each day holds a special significance that varies according to local traditions. But first, before the arrival of the new year, homes are thoroughly cleaned to sweep away ill fortune, and to welcome good luck. On new year’s eve, there are family gatherings to celebrate and enjoy sumptuous traditional feasts, and to greet the new year with fireworks at midnight.

 

The celebration culminates on the 15th day with the Lantern festival; on this night of the full moon, families mingle in the streets carrying lighted lanterns, often creating a beautiful light display.

Bottom line: The Chinese New Year for 2012 will be celebrated on 23 January. It’s the most important of Chinese holidays, celebrated by billions of people across the world. Festivities traditionally last for 15 days to culminate with the Lantern Festival. This calendar is based on a complex lunisolar calendar system that uses both lunar and solar cycles to mark time. As a result, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, between January 21 and February 21 of the conventional Gregorian calendar. Each Chinese lunar year is associated with one of twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. For 2012, it’s the Year of the Dragon.

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Martin Luther King Jr. – I Have A Dream

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., graduated from Morehouse College (B.A., 1948), Crozer Theological Seminary (B.D., 1951), and Boston University (Ph.D., 1955). The son of the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King was ordained in 1947 and became (1954) minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Ala. He led the black boycott (1955-56) of segregated city bus lines and in 1956 gained a major victory and prestige as a civil-rights leader when Montgomery buses began to operate on a desegregated basis.

In March 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles……

In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

King, representing Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was among the leaders of the so-called “Big Six” civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963.

In 1964, King also was opposed to the Vietnam War on the grounds that the war took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare services like the War on Poverty. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. He summed up this aspect by saying, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death”.

In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the “Poor People’s Campaign” to address issues of economic justice. The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States. King traveled the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created a bill of rights for poor Americans

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.”  Said by King

 

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

Awards and Recognition:

In 1964, At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1959, King was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

King was also awarded the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII calling for all people to strive for peace.

1965 King was awarded the American Liberties Medallion by the American Jewish Committee for his “exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty”

In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded King the Margaret Sanger Award for “his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity”

King was posthumously awarded the Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights by Jamaica in 1968.

In 1971, King was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.

the Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded to King by Jimmy Carter. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed King on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans

iPad 3 Concept Design and Pictures

After the success of iPad 2, Apple is planning to release iPad 3. The latest iPad 3 rumor comes from China’s Economic Daily News, and suggests that the tablet could be released on February 24 to commemorate Steve Jobs, since this date is also his birthday. Suppliers are reportedly doing the best they can to ramp up production in an effort to have the tablet fully ready and in the quantities needed by Apple. Here are some iPad 3 concept design pictures and expected features for you all….

The new LCD screens will be QXGA displays with a 2048 x 1536 resolution, double that of the iPad 2?s 1024 x 768 resolution, and will maintain the 4:3 aspect ratio of previous iPad screens.

Retina Display: People were expecting a retina display with the iPad 2; but the iPad disappointed them with the same display of the previous iPad. Now followers are waiting for an iPad 3 with a retina display.

SD card slot: People are expecting revolution in Apple iPad 3 with SD card slot. Hopefully Apple may introduce SD card slot with iPad 3

Improved HDMI: Yes iPad 2 also supports HDMI playback but you need to have Apple Digital AV Adapter, and that is too at additional cost of $39. So it is much expected from iPad 3 to have HDMI port that eliminates additional requirement of HDMI cable.

Camera flash: Camera with the Flash is long awaited feature of iPad, people were expecting iPad 2 to have Camera flash, now we would be wonder if iPad 3 will not have Camera with Flash.

Thunderbolt: The iPad 3 may have Thunderbolt port. That will offer power, Video and data connectivity using the same connector at lightning speed.

Wireless Synchronize: People are expecting iPad 3 to offer wireless sync of content rather than traditional wired connectivity.

 

 

 

 

IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon-NASCAR

Dan Wheldon, who moved to the United States from his native England with hopes of winning the Indianapolis 500 and went on to twice prevail at his sport’s most famed race, was killed in a 15-car pileup at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday in the Izod IndyCar Series season finale. Wheldon was 33.

The crash started in front of Wheldon, the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion and 2005 series champion, and his car launched off of a car in front of him, flipped into the catchfence and erupted in flames on Lap 12.

At one point during the crash, three cars were airborne and upside down.

Wheldon was going for a $5-million bonus for he and a fan in Sunday’s race. After starting last, he had worked his way up to 24th place in the 34-car field. (The video starts on board Wheldon’s car)

After announcing Wheldon’s passing at 6 p.m. ET, IndyCar announced that the race would be halted and the drivers would participate in a five-lap parade in tribute to Wheldon.

He was one of the most successful drivers in America and twice winner of the Indianapolis 500, the sport’s showpiece event, in 2005 and 2011.

“IndyCar is very sad to announce that Dan Wheldon has passed away from unsurvivable injuries,” IndyCar chief executive Randy Bernard said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today.”

 

 

“Dan Wheldon was a dear friend and an incredible race driver. His family and friends were with him at the track today, and he was surrounded by love. He was doing what all true racers love best. There is a massive hole in my heart, but I am blessed to have shared in his life, his family and friends and his mighty racing accomplishments.”—Scott Borchetta, president and CEO of the Big Machine Label Group & sponsor of Dan Wheldon’s car.

 

 

“It’s a black day for the sport. We came in here hoping for a good season-finale and ended up losing a very close friend and a very good racing driver. —IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe.

“All of us here at Las Vegas Motor Speedway are deeply saddened by the death of Dan Wheldon. He was a tremendous race car driver and a great representative for IndyCar racing. Our prayers are with Dan’s family as well as the officials and sponsors of IndyCar.”—Chris Powell, president of LVMS.

 

Dan Wheldon_injured

 

“We put so much pressure on ourselves to win races and championships, and that’s what we love to do, what we live for. Days like today, it doesn’t really matter. I lost, we lost, a good friend. Everybody in IndyCar considered Dan a friend. You saw what the reaction was. Dan was one of those special, special people, from when he first showed up at IndyCar.”—Dario Franchitti (Wheldon’s former teammate and 2011 season champion)

 

Dan Wheldon_accident

 

“Dan Wheldon was a tremendous competitor and great racer and an even better person. It was an honor to have him be a part of our team. All of us at Sam Schmidt Motorsports are deeply saddened by his passing. On behalf of everyone at Sam Schmidt Motorsports, our prayers go out to all of his family, especially his wife, Susie, and their two children.”—Sam Schmidt, owner of Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

 

Dan Wheldon

 

“We’re all going to miss him. A little bit of everybody in IndyCar racing died today.”—Chip Ganassi, owner of Chip Ganassi Racing, Wheldon’s former team.

“I feel so bad for Susie and their kids. It’s so tough to understand when somebody is gone that quickly. Dan was always a very happy guy; he was always smiling. He was a funny, great person that touched a lot of people. He will be missed.”—IndyCar driver Oriol Servia.

 

 

“The passing of Dan Wheldon today is a great shame. Dan was a great driver as evidenced by not only his Indianapolis 500 victories, but by his many wins and great performances in the race car. But he was much more than a great driver. He was a good guy, good family man and really seemed to have a bright future, not only as a driver, but as a television personality as well.”—Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Racing.

 

 

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dan Wheldon’s family and friends on this sad, sad day. All of us in the IndyCar family feel an unexplainable sense of loss. Not just for the sport, but for all who knew Dan Wheldon. Dan was a family man, a father, a husband, a son and a brother. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner was also a competitor and a colleague … our deepest condolences go out to all who knew Dan.”—Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons.

Steve Jobs through Pictures

Steve Jobs (1955-2011), who has died aged 56 following a long battle with pancreatic cancer, made an unprecedented impact on the world’s consumer electronics markets with a string of hit products, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad. In little over a decade, he took Apple (the company he co-founded in 1976) from near-bankruptcy to being the world’s second most valuable company by market capitalization.

© Apple.com

 

 

© (Susan Ragan/AP Photo)AP Photo)

A bearded Jobs giving the keynote speech at the opening of MacWorld Expo in San Francisco on Jan. 6, 1998.

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© Getty Images

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© (Apple Computers Inc./AP Photo)

Steve Jobs in 1977, introducing the new Apple II in Cupertino, Calif. This was widely considered the machine that established Apple as a force — both in the worlds of computers and design.

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© (Cindy Charles/Liaison)

Jobs and Apple CEO John Sculley unveil a new Macintosh computer, Feb. 6, 1984. The relationship between Jobs and Sculley began to sour, and in 1985 the board removed most of Jobs’ powers and he left the company. Jobs had famously lured Sculley from Pepsi with the question, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

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© (Paul Sakuma/AP Photo)

Jobs leans on the new Macintosh personal computer following an Apple shareholder’s meeting Jan. 24, 1984 in Cupertino, Calif. The Macintosh, priced at $2,495 at the time, was more stylish and easier to use than the machines made by IBM that ran software made by Bill Gates’ Microsoft.

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© (Shahn Kermani/Liaison)

Jobs introduces the NeXT computer system, Oct. 12, 1988 in San Francisco. Apple’s purchase of NeXT — the company he founded after being forced out at Apple — in 1997 brought Jobs back to where he had started.

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© (Moshe Brakha/Liaison)

Jobs posed with Apple’s new iMac desktop computer on May 18, 1998. Apple marketed its computers in cheerful colors to make them stand out from the beige boxes that dominated the personal computer market at the time.

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© (Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo)

In 1999, Jobs, then acting CEO of Apple, showed off the company’s new iBook consumer laptops. This picture was taken at the Macworld Expo in New York, July 21, 1999. The new computers, priced at $1,599, came in two fruity colors, tangerine and blueberry.

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© (Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

Steve Jobs with the two best-known members of the band U2 — Bono, left, and The Edge — at the release of a new family of Apple iPod products, Oct. 26, 2004 in San Jose, Calif.

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© (Jack Arent/Palo Alto Daily News/AP Photo)

Jobs speaks at graduation ceremonies at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, Calif., June 12, 2005.

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Steve Jobs holds up Apple’s new iPhone, introduced at Macworld on Jan. 9, 2007 in San Francisco.

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Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs speaks during an Apple event on Jan. 27, 2010 in San Francisco. Apple was introducing its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop.

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© (Andy Freeberg/Getty Images)

Flash back to 1985: Steve Jobs with his competitor Bill Gates.

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© (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs (foreground) speaks during an Apple event Jan. 27, 2010 in San Francisco. Projected behind him is a picture from Apple’s beginnings, showing Jobs on the right with his co-founder, Steve Wozniak.

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© (Sal Veder/AP Photo)

In this April 24, 1984, photo, from left, Steve Jobs, chairman of Apple Computers, John Sculley, president and CEO, and Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, unveil the new Apple IIc computer in San Francisco.

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© (Paul Sakuma/AP Photo)

In this March 30, 1989, file photo, Steve Jobs of NeXT Computer Inc., left, and David Norman, president of Businessland, pose beside a NeXT work station in San Francisco, Calif.

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© (Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from the company since January, made an unexpected appearance at Apple’s iPad 2 event in San Francisco, March 2, 2011. “We’ve been working on this product for a while and I just didn’t want to miss today,” he told the crowd.

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© (Paul Sakuma/AP Photo)

In this June 6, 2011, photo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivers a keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

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Steve Jobs

 

Apple iPad 3: Photos and Expected Features

According to the latest news, the Apple iPad3 will feature a new, thinner and sleeker design, down nearly 20 percent in size compared to the iPad 2. It will also support full touchscreen HD display with a screen resolution of 2048 x 1536. The iPad 3 will also have a lighter battery life, reducing the weight of the tablet.

A6 Processor

Now Apple is aiming to make the competition tougher by sporting an A6 Quad-core Processor in the iPad 3. This would make the iPad 3 as powerful as any high-end desktop.

 

iOS 5

The iPad 3 will come with the latest iOS 5, which will host the multi-touch gesture technology. However, analyst and tech enthusiasts predict that Apple would introduce OS X Lion for the tablet, since it will be powered by a quad-core processor.

 

Retina Display

Retina Display (after we’ve seen this function on the iPhone 4 we thought that iPad 2 will also going to have it but there wasn’t any, iPad 3 will probably come up with this improvement. With the Retina Display feature, the screen resolution of the iPad3 will be 2048 x 1536 pixels. However, it is said that the third version of the tablet is delayed due to Retina Display issues, and Apple is expected to ship the tablet in early 2012.

 

 

 

Cloud Computing

Apple will definitely include the iCloud technology in iPad 3. With iCloud users can store photos, apps, calendars and access songs on iTunes without having them to store in the phone’s memory.

 

 

Fingerprint has already been granted patents on this technology, and is working real hard to make the iPad3 fingerprint proof. The touch screen will be coated with oleophobic materials, which will reduce the oil and fingerprints on the screen.

 

 

 

 

 

Camera

The new tablet will come with LED flash to support the camera. The display comes with a 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution display that can enable HD 1080p capability for watching high def movies on its 9.7 inch LCD screen.

 

 

iPad 3 Concept Designs

Rumors indicates that iPad 3 Release Date is somewhere in September, 2011. May be iPhone 5 and iPad 3 are going to launch on the same date. These are just rumors, there is not iPhone 5 and iPad 3 official release date announced by Apple yet. But according to The Wall Street Journal, iPad 3 release date is scheduled for earlier 2012 and it will go under first trial run of high resolution retina display in October 2011.

I collected the recently released best iPad 3 concept designs for you. Let me know which one is your favorite.

iPad 3 Features Expectation

  • Retina Display: People were expecting a retina display with the iPad 2; but the iPad disappointed them with the same display of the previous iPad. Now followers are waiting for an iPad 3 with a retina display. There is a rumor that the iPad 3 may offer a resolution of 2048×1536 pixels.
  • SD Card Slot: People are expecting a revolution in Apple iPad 3 with an SD card slot. Hopefully Apple may introduce SD card slot with the third generation iPad.
  • Improved HDMI: Yes iPad 2 also supports HDMI playback but you need to have Apple digital AV adapter, and that comes at an additional cost of $39. So it is much expected from iPad 3 to have an HDMI port that eliminates additional requirement of the HDMI cable.
  • Camera Flash: A camera with flash is a much-waited feature of the iPad; people were expecting iPad 2 to have camera flash; now we would be wondering if iPad 3 will have camera with flash.
  • Thunderbolt: The iPad 3 may have a Thunderbolt port. That will offer power, video and data connectivity using the same connector at lightning speed.
  • Wireless Synchronize: People are expecting iPad 3 to offer wireless sync of content rather than the traditional wired connectivity.

iPhone 5 Latest updates with Pictures

The latest rumor is that Apple will launch the iPhone 5 in the UK on November 21.

Analysts are already speculating that the iPhone 5 will have a pico projector and access to live TV. The camera and battery life are expected to enhance. Numerous other features are expected to show up, promising the ease of use and better user experience.

But we never know what might show up. So for now, lets just expect the best and enjoy the rumors.

Continue reading iPhone 5 Latest updates with Pictures