ANDROID(updated)

Android (operating system)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Android (robot).

Android

The green Android logo, designed by graphic designer Irina Blok.[1][2][3]
Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean" on the Nexus 4
Company / developer	Google Open Handset Alliance Android Open Source Project
Programmed in	C, C++, Java[4]
OS family	Unix-like
Working state	Current
Source model	Open source[5]
Initial release	September 23, 2008[6]
Latest stable release	4.2.2 Jelly Bean / February 11, 2013; 3 months ago[7]
Marketing target	Smartphones Tablet computers
Available language(s)	Multi-lingual
Package manager	Google Play, APK
Supported platforms	ARM, MIPS,[8] x86,[9]I.MX[10]
Kernel type	Monolithic (modified Linux kernel)
Default user interface	Graphical (Multi-touch)
License	Apache License 2.0 Linux kernel patches under GNU GPL v2[11]
Official website	www.android.com

Android is a Linux-based operating system^[12] designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Initially developed by Android, Inc., which Google backed financially and later bought in 2005,^[13] Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance: a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.^[14] The first Android-powered phone was sold in October 2008.^[15]

Android is open source and Google releases the code under the Apache License.^[12] This open source code and permissive licensing allows the software to be freely modified and distributed by device manufacturers, wireless carriers and enthusiast developers. Additionally, Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of devices, written primarily in a customized version of the Javaprogramming language.^[16] In October 2012, there were approximately 700,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from Google Play, Android's primary app store, was 25 billion.^[17][18]

These factors have contributed towards making Android the world's most widely used smartphone platform,^[19] overtaking Symbian in the fourth quarter of 2010,^[20] and the software of choice for technology companies who require a low-cost, customizable, lightweight operating system for high tech devices without developing one from scratch.^[21]As a result, despite being primarily designed for phones and tablets, it has seen additional applications on televisions, games consoles, digital cameras and other electronics. Android's open nature has further encouraged a large community of developers and enthusiasts to use the open source code as a foundation for community-driven projects, which add new features for advanced users^[22] or bring Android to devices which were officially released running other operating systems.

Android had a worldwide smartphone market share of 75% during the third quarter of 2012,^[23] with 750 million devices activated in total and 1.5 million activations per day.^[24]The operating system's success has made it a target for patent litigation as part of the so-called "smartphone wars" between technology companies.^[25][26] As of May 2013, a total of 900 million Android devices have been activated and 48 billion apps have been installed from the Google Play store

BLACKBERRY(updated)

Research In Motion Limited (RIM), trading as BlackBerry,^[3][4] is a Canadiantelecommunication and wireless equipment company best known as the developer of theBlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets. The company is headquartered in Waterloo,Ontario, Canada. It was founded by Mike Lazaridis, who served as its co-CEO along withJim Balsillie until January 22, 2012. Its current CEO is Thorsten Heins.

for more:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry

APPLE(updated)

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is an multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California^[2] that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. Its best-known hardware products are the Mac line of computers, the iPod music player, the iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its software includes the OS X and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media browser, theSafari web browser, and the iLife and iWork creativity and production suites. The company was founded on April 1, 1976, and incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977.^[6] The word "Computer" was removed from its name on January 9, 2007, reflecting its shifted focus towards consumer electronics after the introduction of the iPhone.^[7][8][9]

Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue afterSamsung Electronics, and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker after Samsung andNokia.^[10] Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.^{[11][12][13][14][15]} However, the company has received criticism for its contractors' labor practices, and for Apple's own environmental and business practices.^[16][17][18]

As of May 2013, Apple maintains 406 retail stores in fourteen countries^[19][20] as well as the online Apple Store and iTunes Store.^[21] It is the second-largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization, with an estimated value of US$414 billion as of January 2013.^[22] As of September 29, 2012, the company had 72,800 permanent full-time employees and 3,300 temporary full-time employees worldwide.^[4] Its worldwide annual revenue in 2012 totalled $156 billion.^[4] In May 2013, Apple had made it to the top ten of theFortune 500 list of companies for the first time, taking the 6 position, 11 places up from the previous year.^[23]

^{for more click here:}http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.

MOVIE: THE SOCIAL NETWORK

The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield asEduardo Saverin and Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, the other principals involved in the website's creation. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book.^[3] The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010.

The film received widespread acclaim, with critics praising it for its editing, acting, score, direction and screenplay. However, some people, including Zuckerberg himself, criticized the film for its many inaccuracies. The Social Network appeared on 78 critics' Top 10 lists for 2010; of those critics, 22 had the film in their number-one spot. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers said "The Social Network is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing wit with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade."

It received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director(Fincher), and Best Actor (Eisenberg), and won three for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. At the 68th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

Person of the Year 2010

Mark Zuckerberg

On the afternoon of Nov. 16, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was leading a meeting in the Aquarium, one of Facebook's conference rooms, so named because it's in the middle of a huge work space and has glass walls on three sides so everybody can see in. Conference rooms are a big deal at Facebook because they're the only places anybody has any privacy at all, even the bare minimum of privacy the Aquarium gets you. Otherwise the space is open plan: no cubicles, no offices, no walls, just a rolling tundra of office furniture. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, who used to be Lawrence Summers' chief of staff at the Treasury Department, doesn't have an office. Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO and co-founder and presiding visionary, doesn't have an office.

The team was going over the launch of Facebook's revamped Messages service, which had happened the day before and gone off without a hitch or rather without more than the usual number of hitches. Zuckerberg kept the meeting on track, pushing briskly through his points — no notes or whiteboard, just talking with his hands — but the tone was relaxed. Much has been made of Zuckerberg's legendarily awkward social manner, but in a room like this, he's the Silicon Valley equivalent of George Plimpton. He bantered with Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, a director of engineering who ran the project. (Boz was Zuckerberg's instructor in a course on artificial intelligence when they were at Harvard. He says his future boss didn't do very well. Though, in fairness, Zuckerberg did invent Facebook that semester.) Apart from a journalist sitting in the corner, no one in the room looked over 30, and apart from the journalist's public relations escort, it was boys only.

The door opened, and a distinguished-looking gray-haired man burst in — it's the only way to describe his entrance — trailed by a couple of deputies. He was both the oldest person in the room by 20 years and the only one wearing a suit. He was in the building, he explained with the delighted air of a man about to secure ironclad bragging rights forever, and he just had to stop in and introduce himself to Zuckerberg: Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, pleased to meet you.

They shook hands and chatted about nothing for a couple of minutes, and then Mueller left. There was a giddy silence while everybody just looked at one another as if to say, What the hell just happened?

It's a fair question. Almost seven years ago, in February 2004, when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was billed as "an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges." This year, Facebook — now minus the the — added its 550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. They speak 75 languages and collectively lavish more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Last month the site accounted for 1 out of 4 American page views. Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day.

What just happened? In less than seven years, Zuckerberg wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest, behind only China and India. It started out as a lark, a diversion, but it has turned into something real, something that has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale. We are now running our social lives through a for-profit network that, on paper at least, has made Zuckerberg a billionaire six times over.

Facebook has merged with the social fabric of American life, and not just American but human life: nearly half of all Americans have a Facebook account, but 70% of Facebook users live outside the U.S. It's a permanent fact of our global social reality. We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is the man who brought us here.

Zuckerberg is part of the last generation of human beings who will remember life before the Internet, though only just. He was born in 1984 and grew up in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., the son of a dentist — Painless Dr. Z's slogan was, and is, "We cater to cowards." Mark has three sisters, the eldest of whom, Randi, is now Facebook's head of consumer marketing and social-good initiatives. It was a supportive household that produced confident children. The young Mark was "strong-willed and relentless," according to his father Ed. "For some kids, their questions could be answered with a simple yes or no," he says. "For Mark, if he asked for something,yes by itself would work, but no required much more. If you were going to say no to him, you had better be prepared with a strong argument backed by facts, experiences, logic, reasons. We envisioned him becoming a lawyer one day, with a near 100% success rate of convincing juries.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2036683_2037183_2037185,00.html #ixzz2W8dFB6SR

THEY DID IT: FACEBOOK

THEY DID IT:APPLE