Dialy Tech News

Perhaps one of the most under rated inventions belongs to the barcode. Barcodes aren't given much thought by the majority of consumers, but these codes were fairly recently implemented, in a working fashion, in 1970.

A small food store owner decided one day that keeping records of the inventory of his stock and their associated prices was an extremely laborious process and so, in 1948, he took it upon himself to contact The Drexel Institute of Technology in a bid to work towards a feasible solution. Bernard Silver rose to the challenge and set out to investigate this problem, and began working on a solution involving an automatic way of keeping track of items which had been sold. Bernard Silver and a group of students from the institute realised their answer in the form of ultraviolet rays, ink and a scanner.

The system did work initially, but possessed two major negatives. The system was incredibly costly making implementation on a large scale much more economically draining and the system was also notorious as being unstable. If the invention was to become commonplace in grocery stores, these two problems had to be ironed out to provide a more viable solution.
The patent for the bar code system was filed by Silver and one of his students, Woodland. The patent was not granted immediately; in fact it took three years for the patent agency to grant their invention patent for the bar code, occurring on 7th October, 1952. The invention of the barcode is patent number 2,612,994, Classifying Apparatus and Method, the official title of the patent.

Despite this patent being issued, the system was still not welcomed by the majority of store owners. It wasn't until 1966, that the system began creeping its way into more and more grocery stores. This system was soon criticised, as there was no central mechanism for controlling uniformly coded items. In 1970, Logicorn developed Universal Grocery Products Identification code (UGPIC), soon shortened to Universal Identification Number (UPC). It was Marsh's superstore in Troy, which was the very first store to install this sophisticated barcode reading system and its popularity has soared ever since, obviously now commonplace in all types of stores worldwide.

The first product to have ever been added to the barcode system was a pack of Wrigley's chewing gum.

The invention of the bar code may not appear as complex, ground breaking, or as revolutionary as many other inventions, but few have been as understated, yet so effectively time-saving, efficient and manageable.
US cellphone owners are much more likely to use the devices to take pictures or send text messages than they are to run applications, according to a report released on Tuesday.The survey found that 35 percent of US adults have programs on their mobile phones that allow them to find information, play games, listen to music or access maps. But only 24 percent actually use them, according to the report from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
Eleven percent of cellphone owners, mostly older users, are not sure if their device is equipped with applications, commonly known as "apps."The Pew report found that among US adults, app use ranks well below using a mobile phone for other activities.Seventy-six percent of cellphone owners take pictures on their phones, 72 percent send or receive text messages and 38 percent use their phone to access the Internet, the report said.
Thirty-four percent play games, send or receive emails or record a video while 33 percent use the device to play music.Twenty-nine percent of cellphone owners have downloaded apps to their phone and 13 percent have paid to download apps, according to the report."An apps culture is clearly emerging among some cellphone users, particularly men and young adults," said Kristen Purcell, associate director for research at the Pew Internet Project and co-author of the report."Still, it is clear that this is the early stage of adoption when many cell owners do not know what their phone can do," Purcell said. "The apps market seems somewhat ahead of a majority of adult cellphone users."

The findings come from a Pew nationwide telephone survey of adult cellphone owners and a survey of recent apps downloaders by The Nielsen Company.Roger Entner, co-author of the report and head of research and insights for telecom practice at Nielsen, said the findings show "a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population.""This is a pretty remarkable tech-adoption story, if you consider that there was no apps culture until two years ago," Entner said.The Nielsen survey found that games were the most popular apps, followed by music, food and entertainment, news and weather, social networking and maps and navigation.Apple's App Store has the largest apps selection but other handset makers are also offering programs for their devices. Apple's App Store offers more than 250,000 free and paid apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.Among cellphone users with apps, the average adult has 18 apps on their phone, the report said, adding that app users are disproportionately male, young, educated and affluent.
Men accounted for 57 percent of app users and women 43 percent.Eighteen to 29 year olds made up 44 percent of apps users even though they constitute only 23 precent of the total US adult population.Only 14 percent of adults aged 50 and older are apps users although they make up 41 percent of the adult population.Women were more likely than men to have used a social networking app in the past 30 days -- 53 percent to 42 percent -- while men were more likely to have used a banking or finance app -- 31 percent to 25 percent, Nielsen found.
According to the report, 82 percent of American adults now have cellphones and 23 percent live in a "cellphone-only" household.The Pew survey of 1,917 adult cellphone users was conducted between April 29 and May 30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.The Nielsen data came from a December 2009 survey of 3,962 adult cellphone subscribers who had downloaded an app in the previous 30 days.
India's government on Wednesday began allocating third-generation (3G) bandwidth for cellphone services to mobile operators after a multi-billion-dollar auction of licences.
The auction for high-speed 3G services raised 15 billion dollars for the government from successful bidders who included leading mobile companies Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and VodafoneEssar, among others.
"We have started the allocation," a spokesman for the telecom ministry told AFP, declining to be identified.
The government had promised to start allocating 3G spectrum on September 1.
The government's auction of 3G bandwidth for cellphone services, which ended in May, saw the winning bids for 71 licences in 22 service areas soar to up to five times the original reserve price.
For at least the first year as 3G is rolled out, the main focus is expected to be on improving call quality. India's 2G spectrum is congested and, as well as serving high-end users, the 3G spectrum will also allow operators to free up bandwidth for more voice users.
3G uptake in India is expected to be slow in the initial stages as 3G handsets are costlier than second-generation handsets.
The country is following in the footsteps of fellow emerging market giant China, which started offering 3G services last year.
3G allows mobile phone users to surf the Internet, video conference and download music, video and other content at a much faster pace than the current second-generation service.
Analysts say India's rural areas offer huge market potential but rolling out infrastructure to support 3G networks will be costly and the main, immediate battleground for 3G customers will be in urban areas.
For telecom firms the high bids reflect the importance of retaining an edge in the world's fastest growing mobile market, which has more than 636 million subscribers and has been adding up to 20 million customers a month.
Seven of India's 14 mobile operators won the right to offer 3G services in different regions, but none managed to secure bandwidth in all 22 areas. Bharti and Reliance led the pack, securing 13 areas each in the bidding.

Companies are expected to form alliances so they can offer 3G service nationwide. State-owned telecom firms BSNL and MTNL were awarded 3G spectrum last year provided they matched the final auction price.
Step 1: -
Sign in to your Google Account by going to www.google.com/accounts

Step 2: -
From your Google Account page, click on the Edit link beside My Products.

Step 3: -

In the next page, if you want to delete only certain products from your google account, you may do so by simply clicking the delete link for the product that you want to remove. If you want to delete your entire Google Account, click the Close account and delete all services and info associated with it link to do so.

Step 4: -

On the following page, tick all the checkboxes for all your google products to confirm that you fully understand that you’ll no longer be able to use any of these products and all information associated with them, and that your account will be lost. Type your password again, and check the checkboxes for both Yes, I want to delete myaccount. and Yes, I acknowledge that I am still responsible for any charges incurred due to any pending financial transactions.

Step 5: -
Say bye bye to your google account. Then click Delete Google Account and your account will be deleted.