Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Biggest Websites In The World

20 Biggest Websites In The World

Bangalore: From online candy sales to a website to search other website, everyone has got a website under their name these days. The popularity of a website is the measure of visitors it has garnered, and it is what draws the defining lines between being big and being meager. If you were thinking Google is the biggest website in the world, you are wrong! It is another one from USA. comScore, the digital analytics company came up with the list of most popular Website in the world. If you are curious to know which ones found their way up in the ladder, then here are the 20 biggest websites in the world, compiled by Business Insider.



#20 Amazon.com
163 Million Unique Visitors


The company: Amazon.com is the world's largest online retailer. Started as an online bookstore, it soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry. The company was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos called his "regret minimization framework", which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the internet business boom during that time. Amazon was originally founded in Bezos' garage in Bellevue, Washington.


The company also produces consumer electronics—notably the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and the Kindle Fire Tablet—and is a major provider of cloud computing services.




#19 Sina.com.cn
169 Million Visitors


Sina.com is the largest Chinese-language infotainment web portal. It is run by Sina Corporation, which was founded in 1999. Sina was recognized by Southern Weekend as the "Chinese Language Media of the Year" for 2003 and in the early 2000s, it was known as the "Yahoo of China." Sina launched a microblogging service Weibo in 2009, and has grown to more than 400 million users. Sina has said it has more than 60,000 verified accounts, consisting of celebrities, sports stars and other VIPs. The top 100 users now have over 180 million followers combined.




#18 WordPress.com
170.9 Million Visitors


WordPress.com is a blog web hosting service provider owned by Automattic, and powered by the open source WordPress software. WordPress has been able to attract users by offering dead-simple tools for blogging and web publishing. Given that it's open source, WordPress has the upper hand on other platforms that require licensing fees.


There are nearly 60 million WordPress.com sites, which receive more than 100 million pageviews per day. Everyday over one million new articles and over one million comments are published. Some notable clients include CNN, CBS, BBC, Reuters, Sony and Volkswagen. In September 2010, it was announced that Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft's blogging service, would be closing, and that Microsoft would instead be partnering with WordPress.com for blogging services.





#17 Apple.com - 171.7 Million Unique Visitors


Apple.com is online destination for Apple products and software. It is the domain for the Apple Store as well as customer support pages for all Apple products. It's bookmarked as the default homepage on Safari browser that is the default browser in all Apple Internet-connected products which are owned by countless number of people already.





#16 Sohu.com - 175.8 Million Unique Visitors


Started in 1997 as the country's first online search company, Sohu.com is a Chinese portal and search engine. It offers advertising, online multiplayer gaming and other services. Sohu was ranked as the world's 3rd and 12th fastest-growing company by Fortune in 2009 and 2010 respectively.






#15 Bing.com - 184 Million Unique Visitors


Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft. The Redmond Company has aggressively advertised Bing, and made huge efforts to make the search engine much easier to use, with the addition of things like the social sidebar and improved algorithms. Microsoft also pays other Websites to link to Bing.


On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search.[6 hat it is: Web search engine.




#14 Twitter.com - 189.8 Million Unique Visitors


Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets". Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and by July, the social networking site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million registered users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the ten most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet."


The presence of news organizations, politicians, and other industry-specific experts have turned Twitter into the ultimate source of information.




#13 Taobao.com - 207 Million Unique Visitors


Taobao.com is Chinese marketplace for clothing, accessories, jewelry, food, electronics, and more, similar to eBay and Amazon, operated by Alibaba Group. Founded by Alibaba Group in May 10, 2003, it facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online retail stores that mainly cater to consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.




#12 Ask.com - 218.4 Million Unique Visitors


Ask is a question answering focused web search engine powered by Google. It founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California.











#11 Blogger.com - 229.9 Million Unique Visitors


Blogger.com is one of the earliest dedicated blog-publishing tools; it is credited for helping popularize the format. It allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a sub domain of blogspot.com.







#10 MSN.com - 254.1 Million Unique Visitors


MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.


MSN was once a simple online service for Windows 95, an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet, and one of the most popular dial-up Internet service providers. Today, MSN is primarily a popular Internet portal.




#9 Baidu - 268.7 Million Unique Visitors


Baidu is a Chinese web Services Company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing. It offers many services, including a Chinese language search engine for websites, audio files, and images. Baidu also offers 57 search and community services including Baidu Baike, an online collaboratively built encyclopedia, and a searchable keyword-based discussion forum. Baidu was established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu.


Baidu is one of China's most popular search engines. It employs thousands of China's best engineers to continually update the quality and speed of its search engine.





#8 Microsoft.com - 271.7 Million Unique Visitors


Microsoft.com is destination for purchasing Microsoft products, and downloading MS software and updates. There are a lot of Microsoft Windows-powered computers out there, and most of them come with Microsoft.com bookmarked for customer support and lots of other functions, no wonder it’s on this list.






#7 QQ.com - 284.1 Million Unique Visitors


QQ.com is China-based search engine and portal. QQ is an abbreviation of Tencent QQ, which provides customers with a popular instant messaging software service. Due to popularity of the instant messaging software service, by 10 September 2012, there were 784 million active user accounts with approximately 100 million online at a time.





#6 Live.com - 389.5 Million Unique Visitors


Live.com is Microsoft's new email service. It was a customizable portal launched by Microsoft in early November 2005 and it was one of the first Windows Live services to launch. Live.com lets users add RSS feeds in order to view news at a glance. Building off Microsoft's Start.com experimental page, Live.com could be customized with Gadgets, mini-applications that could serve almost any purpose.


Some gadgets integrated with other Windows Live services, including Hotmail, Live Search, and Favorites.





#5 Wikipedia.org - 469.6 Million Unique Visitors


Wikipedia.org is simply the easy and best source of knowledge. It is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 24 million articles, over 4.1 million in the English Wikipedia, are written collaboratively by volunteers around the world.


As of February 2013, there are editions of Wikipedia in 285 languages. It has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, having an estimated 365 million readers worldwide.



#4 Yahoo.com - 469.9 Million Unique Visitors


Yahoo.com is a search engine and platform that connects to users to other Yahoo properties, such as Yahoo Finance and Flickr. Yahoo is one of the original Web portals from the 1990s; it offers news, sports, finance, and email.








#3 YouTube.com - 721.9 Million Unique Visitors


YouTube.com is the platform for uploading, sharing, and watching user-created videos. It was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google, and the site got more popular.






#2 Google.com - 782.8 Million Unique Visitors


Google.com is web search engine, popularly known as ‘search giant’. Google entered a crowded search engine market in the late 1990s, but won because it was the fastest and had a clean design. It was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while both attended Stanford University.





#1 Facebook.com - 836.7 Million Unique Visitors


Facebook.com is the largest social networking site with over a billion registered users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.









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Nokia Lumia 820

Nokia Lumia 820 review

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Android and iOS have been ruling the smartphone space across the world. Most analysts and tech lovers are now looking at Windows Phone 8 to provide a third alternative. Since Nokia is the only smartphone maker that is investing solely in Windows devices, expectations from the company are even higher.
The Nokia Lumia 820 is one of the first Windows 8 devices to be available in India. It is a mid-range smartphone and comes with brightly coloured interchangeable shells. So will this device with its unique sense of design and Windows Phone 8 appeal to price conscious Indian consumers? We take a look.

Design/ Hardware
The Nokia Lumia 820 is not the best looking smartphone that the company is offering but it's not tastelessly done either. So let's get to the good part first. The Lumia 820 looks solid and the idea of interchangeable shells will certainly appeal to people who are looking for a funky or colourful looking smartphone.

The other important thing to note is that the Lumia 820 is not a unibody smartphone like its elder sibling, the Lumia 920. However, it is difficult to judge this aspect of the Lumia 820 at first glance. That said, one can remove the back panel and the battery to insert the Micro-SIM card and a microSD card. But getting to that is a task!

Nokia Lumia 820 Covers.jpg
After failing to locate how to get the back cover open, we had to search the Internet regarding the same and found Nokia's post that explains how to do it. You have to push the screen hard on both sides to see the internals of this smartphone. Additionally, the back panel of the smartphone feels plasticky and cheap especially when compared with the rubbery and soft back panel of the Lumia 800 and Lumia 900.

The front of the screen is taken up by the 4.3-inch WVGA screen. Just below the screen are three soft press buttons - Back, Home and Search and above it is a front facing camera.

At 10mm thick, this smartphone has no desire to join the size zero brigade. However, thanks to the thickness, the side buttons of this smartphone are fairly large and easy to access. The right panel has the volume rocker, the power button and camera shortcut key. The top panel features only the 3.5mm jack while the lower panel houses the USB/ charging slot. There are no keys on the left panel of the smartphone. Weighing 160 grams, the Nokia Lumia 820 does feel lighter than the Lumia 920, but not in comparison to the other smartphones in its price range.

Display
The Nokia Lumia 820 sports a 4.3-inch AMOLED screen with ClearBlack technology. It has pixel dimensions of 800x480 translating to a pixel density of 217 ppi. It is noteworthy, that Samsung Galaxy S II has display 217 ppi while the Sony Xperia Ion boast of 323 ppi. So the Lumia 820 is not offering the best display at this price range, but it is not bad either. One can easily read the text on the device and the experience of watching YouTube videos was quite average.

The viewing angles of the Nokia Lumia 820 are good and so is the under sun visibility, all thanks to the ClearBlack technology. It has a reflective display. The Lumia 820 doesn't have Gorilla Glass protection but we did not really miss it much on this smartphone.

Lumia_820_windows_tile.png
Software/ Interface
The Nokia Lumia 820 runs on Windows Phone 8. This operating system comes as a breath of fresh air and provides an interesting change from the existing range of Android smartphones. The customizable tiles look good and are easy to get accustomed to.

If you are not comfortable with the tile style of the display, you can swipe the screen to the right and see all the applications in the smartphone in an alphabetical order.

Windows Phone 8 also offers the 'People Hub', which helps in assimilating all contacts from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email address book and phone memory in one place.
Nokia does offer a handful of pre-loaded apps on this smartphone including the Nokia Drive, Nokia Music, Nokia City Lens, Nokia Care, Nokia Maps, Smart Shoot et al.

Nokia Drive is a navigation application that gives turn by turn navigation. Nokia Music on the other hands gives access to DRM-free music for a year. To listen or download music from here, one needs to make an account and sign in via the same.

Smart Shoot is a camera app that clicks photographs in burst mode and enables users to choose the best click amongst the pictures clicked.

As these are Nokia apps, they are only available on the Nokia devices and not available on other Windows 8 devices being offered by the other handset makers such as Samsung and HTC.

The smartphone also comes with Microsoft Office pre-installed and for more apps one can hit the Microsoft Marketplace. The other apps available are Cinemagraph, Angry Birds Roost, Panorama, Wallet and CNN.

About_lumia820.png
Though the Microsoft Marketplace has been adding applications and at the last count there were 120,000 apps in there, but there is still space for more quality apps to be added in.

There are no prizes for guessing that the smartphone uses Internet Explorer to browse the Internet and the experience of using the same is breezy.

Camera
The Nokia Lumia 820 does not come with the PureView branding found on the Lumia 920 and the much talked about PureView 808. But the 8-megapixel shooter on-board is not bad in itself. The pictures clicked from this smartphone are crisp and sharp. The dedicated camera button makes it easy to click pictures and one can use touch gestures to zoom-in or out of the frame.

With the help of the stock camera app one change the settings for exposure value and white balance.
The clicked images can be shared via Bluetooth, NFC or can be sent as MMS.

One can also download more camera apps through the Lenses feature that can aid photography.

The Lumia 820 is capable of clicking videos in 1080p at 30 fps, however the default setting is of 720p. The videos clicked through this smartphone are decent.

Performance/ Battery
Nokia Lumia comes with a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor accompanied by 1GB RAM, which is adequate to make this smartphone zippy and responsive. We did not experience any lags while multi-tasking on this smartphone.

We tried playing popular car racing games and Fruit Ninja on the device and the gaming experience was satisfying.

The smartphone comes with 8GB of internal storage of which 5.1GB is available to the user. One can also add up to 64GB of memory through a microSD card. The Finnish smartphone maker is also offering 7GB of free cloud space through SkyDrive.

The call quality of the smartphone through loudspeaker and the headset is great. Even music playback on this smartphone is pretty good. The in-ear headphones that come with this smartphone are soft and comfortable to wear for longer durations. The smartphone supports MP3 and WAV audio formats and MP4 and AVI (up to 1080p) video formats. However, the native player does not support MKV files.

Lumia820_battery-635-with-watermark.jpgThe Lumia 820 comes with a 1,650mAh battery and it easily lasts a day and half with moderate usage without using any power-saving techniques.

Just like the Nokia Lumia 920, the Lumia 820 also supports the Qi wireless charging standards. Users will have to purchase separate charging covers for the device at an additional cost.

Verdict
We found the Nokia Lumia 820 to be a decent offering and a welcome change from the Android smartphones. Though these are still early days for the Windows Phone 8 OS, we can see how the ecosystem has evolved over a period of time.

We think the Nokia Lumia 820 is a well packaged smartphone from the company that delivers a good performance and offers a decent battery backup for the price that it commands.

There are quite a handful of interesting apps, and Microsoft is striving to add more value in this direction and hopefully things will look up for this eco-system as we progress further.
Overall, the device performs well and is a quite an interesting mid-range offering.
Price: Rs. 25,990

Pros
  • Good battery back-up
  • Speedy performance
  • Decent camera

Cons
  • Plasticky feel
  • Low-resolution display

Ratings (Out of 5)
Design: 3
Display: 3
Performance: 4
Software: 3
Battery Life: 4
Value for Money: 3
Camera: 3.5
Overall: 3.5


MOST ANTICIPATED GAMES OF 2013

10 most anticipated games of 2013

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At E3 last year, we saw gaming franchises share with us with some of the most awaited games across platforms. While some games were mere teasers, others were shown off through interesting gameplay 
footages. This year we expect to see some of these games arriving on store shelves. So which ones are they going to be? Here's a list of the top 10 games that are likely to launch this year and make 2013 memorable.


1. The Last of Us (PS3 exclusive)
Ever since Naughty Dog gave us Crash Bandicoot, the Jak and Daxter Series and the immensely popular Uncharted franchise, we've been waiting to see what's next. The answer is The Last of US. First teased at the Spike Video Game Awards last year, the game features a father-daughter duo portrayed by Ellie and Joel, who begin their journey from the post apocalyptic city of Pittsburgh, gradually exploring other areas out of the city. This PS3 exclusive draws inspiration from various movies and novels like I Am Legend and City of Thieves. The game is all set to debut on 7 May 2013.




2. Tomb Raider (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
Developer Crystal Dynamics has planned to reboot the franchise with a young Lara Croft embarking on a quest for survival that unfolds her identity as the Tomb Raider. Players will get a chance to play various side quests, explore the island and face other challenges. In-game graphics of this open-world action adventure game look stunning and so do the interesting bits revealed in gameplay footage so far. Will this game prove successful as other games in the Tomb Raider franchise? Find out on 5 March 2013 when the game releases across platforms.




3. Dead Space 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
The third installment in the Dead Space series, the game features a new co-op campaign as well as a new playable character that will be named John Carver. Set on a new frost planet of Tau Volantis, the game follows lead protagonists Isaac Clarke and John Carver to end the Necromorph invasion once and for all. Towards that endeavour, the duo must overcome avalanches, treacherous ice-climbs, and the violent wilderness in order to save the earth from an imminent armageddon. The E3 trailer's ending was typical Dead Space style with main protagonist Isaac Clarke being eaten by a large red insect and showing his effort to fight against the insect's digestive elements and his fate left uncertain. Don the role of Isaac Clarke on 5 February 2013.




4. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3, Xbox 360)
A spin-off in the Metal Gear series, this action-paced game from Platinum Games is set to take place several years after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots. The game focuses on cyborg Ninja Raiden fighting cyborg enemies while attempting to rebuild an unknown country and is expected to include more action sequences. Get ready to slash enemies and objects at will in 19 February 2013;




5. God of War: Ascension (PS3 exclusive)
God of War Ascension is a prequel in the God of War franchise and will narrate the story of Kratos before he became the Ghost of Sparta. In this seventh iteration of the series, vengeance is the focal point as a younger Kratos is out to seek revenge for being tricked into killing his wife and child by Ares. The game is a first in the series to offer multiplayer support for upto eight players. Set out to avenge Kratos' wife and child on 12 March 2013.



6. Beyond: Two Souls (PS3 exclusive)
Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream unveiled its newest and upcoming game titled 'Beyond: Two Souls'at E3 last year, narrating the story of Jodie Holmes played by Ellen Page. Players get to journey through Jodie's life to discover the true meaning of the entity, Idan, alongside her throughout the story. The plot revolves around question about what happens after humans die and promises an experience never like before. Want to find the answers? Beyond: two Souls releases this year.



7. Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360 exclusive)
Co-developed by Epic Games and People Can Fly, this version of the game is a prequel that takes place years before the concluding events of Gears of War 3. But even though the major storyline seemed to have concluded fairly definitively, the series is too popular to simply let die. Odds are that we will once again see Marcus Fenix chainsaw something, but for now the series switches to Augustus Cole and Damon Baird and a story from the early days of the war against the Locust. New multiplayer modes will be present, of course and the campaign will expand on the mythology that made this series one of the best on the Xbox. Keep an eye on this one for it releases on 19 March 2013.



8. GTA V (PS3, Xbox 360)
A first major title in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008, the 15th game in the overall series, GTA V is set in Los Santos in the state of San Andreas and its surrounding areas, based on modern-day Los Angeles and Southern California. Developer Rockstar says that the game will focus on  "the pursuit of the almighty dollar". For the first time in the Grand Theft Auto series, GTA V will feature three playable protagonists. The multiplayer mode will feature "Crews" similar to Max Payne 3. A new Social Club functionality will connect play across multiple titles, starting with Max Payne 3 and GTA V. Playing the multiplayer mode in both games allows crews seth up in one game to be carried over to the other. Race your way in the sec on quarter of this year with GTA V.



9. Star Trek (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
Developed by Namco Bandai Games in association with Paramount Studios, little details are known about this epic action action adventure. What is known is that it features an original storyline and offers immersive co-op gameplay featuring Kirk and Spock, who lead up the fight against the Gorn, an enemy not seen since the days of Star Trek The Original Series. Hop on-board the adventures of the U.S.S. Star Enterprise in Q1 2013.



10. BioShock Infinite (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter game set in the year 1912. As the game's lead protagonist, former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, you make your way across the floating air-city of Columbia to find a young woman, Elizabeth, who has been held captive there for the last twelve years. After a successful rescue attempt, both are pursued by the city's warring factions; the nativist and elite Founders that strive to keep the city for pure Americans and the Vox Populi, a rebel grouping representing the common people. Booker discovers that Elizabeth is key to this conflict and that she is endowed with strange powers to manipulate rifts in the time-space continuum that ravage Columbia. After being postponed last year, the third installment in the BioShock series is set to release on 26 March 2013.



Well, that concludes our top 10 list.