Samsung's yet-to-be-announced Galaxy Note 3 Neo, previously thought to be called Galaxy Note 3 Lite, might see the light of day soon, if a new leak is to be believed. Sammobile has posted some alleged press renders of the rumoured Galaxy Note 3 Neo, which showcase the device in its full glory. The site claims that the renders were sent by an unnamed person working with a Belgian retailer, and also claims that the device will go up for pre-order soon in the country.
According to the site, the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo will be priced at 599 Euros, which translates to roughly Rs. 50,200. Unfortunately, if the leak turns out to be true, the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo, which has been the much-anticipated cheaper option of the Galaxy Note 3, might not be so 'cheap' after all. However, Samsung has not revealed any details about the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo yet. samsung-galaxy-note-3-neo-leak-rear-635.jpg
The leaked press renders of the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo show the device's front and rear panel, which are very reminiscent to the Galaxy Note 3 phablet. The new leaked renders seemingly confirm that the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo will sport a faux-leather rear cover. Rumoured specifications of the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo include a 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display, an 8-megapixel rear camera and will pack a 3100mAh battery. Previous leaked documents further claimed that the device would include a 2GB of RAM and 16GB inbuilt storage, similar to the Galaxy Note II.
 An earlier report suggested that the rumoured Galaxy Note 3 Neo would be powered by a 1.7GHz dual + 1.3GHz quad-core (Hexa) processor, which if true, will be a definite upgrade to the Exynos processor equipped on the Galaxy Note II. Earlier this month, the alleged Galaxy Note 3 Neo was leaked alongside the Galaxy Note 3 phablet.

Educational solutions startup Metis Learning today launched an Android 4.2-powered tablet targetted at kids aged between 2 and 10 years. Its focus is clearly on educator-selected learning content, while there are infotainment apps preloaded on to the tablet. Eddy, the latest Android-powered kids tablet to hit stores, is being offered at an introductory price of Rs 9,999 till February 20th and at present is exclusively available on Amazon.com and the startup’s website. Speaking at the launch, Metis Learning CEO Bharat Gulia said: “India is a huge potential market for tablets and the country saw the sale of about 4.5 million units last year. The kinds tablet space has a potential of about 4.5 units.”
 Eddy is the only tablet to map school curriculum to games and has been designed by a team with over 100 years of combined experience, he added. On being asked about the units it plans to sell, Gulia said: “We expect to sell about 50,000 units in the first year.” The 7-inch screen tablet sports a 1.6 GhZ dual core processor with 1 GB RAM and an internal memory of 8 GB, which can be expanded to 32 GM with a micro SD card. A 3200 mAH battery ensures more than 4 hours of continuous usage time on full charge. The tablet has been manufactured in China, Gulia said.
 “Eddy is set to usher a new paradigm for early year’s education in India with its concept of game-based learning,” he added. Children can read books, learn to play the piano, explore the world and the universe as well as practice math through games on Eddy, he added. The team of seasoned educators and experts behind Eddy have ensured that only games that are highly engaging, violence-free and suitable for children have been selected.
Parents also have access to over 50,000 educational apps on Google Play Store, in addition to other apps that can help children learn. Eddy also comes with an exclusive recommendation engine for parents, the Kids Radar, which recommends the most suitable learning apps for their kids on the Play Store.

John Vert, a Valve representative, jumped on the Steam Universe group on Monday and announced the release of a new SteamOS disk image (ISO) that doesn't require UEFI. This official version stems from one that was created by the community called Ye Olde SteamOSe, which also allows users to dual-boot, among other "improvements."
"I just posted a SteamOS ISO that can be used to install SteamOS on non-UEFI systems," Vert writes. "Thanks to directhex and ecliptik for their work on Ye Olde SteamOSe - this incorporates many of their changes. Dual-boot and custom partitioning are now possible from the 'Expert Install' option." 
"PLEASE note there has been very little testing on this, especially any kind of dual-boot setup. So don't install it on any machine you are not prepared to lose," he adds. The new SteamOS ISO file can be downloaded here. Meanwhile, the latest Ye Olde SteamOSe build can be downloaded here. A list of improvements include support for BIOS-based systems, support for DVD and 1 GB USB stick installations, dual-boot support, resizing NTFS partitions, support for almost any sound card, support for LVM and software RAID, and more. SteamOS is a Debian Linux-based operating system that was released in beta form on December 13, 2013.
The platform is meant for Steam Machines, but it's also made available to anyone wanting to build their own. However, because it's focused on playing Linux-based games, the platform is rather limited; by default, it doesn't provide an image viewer or a file manager.

Microsoft announced today that they will be taking additional measures to help protect their overseas users from NSA surveillance. The company will now be offering their foreign customers the opportunity to have their data stored outside of the United States. Microsoft will now become the first company to offer this type of protection for its customers. The NSA has managed to break into both Google’s and Yahoo’s private networks before, so there is not guarantee that offshore storage will prevent them from getting the information they are seeking. However, it does give added protection and will certainly make it more difficult on them, if nothing else.
Other countries have not reacted lightly to what the NSA has been doing. Brazil recently announced plans to completely cut its internet ties with the U.S. completely by running an undersea fiber-optic cable. In the meantime, Microsoft’s additional protection should help concerned parties. Though, some warn that it won’t stop the NSA from trying. “Just because you take steps to make it more difficult for the NSA doesn’t mean the NSA packs up their stuff and goes home,” said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist and senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union in a recent interview with The Verge. President Obama recently addressed some of these concerns on a domestic level, calling for action to limit access to millions of Americans phone records.
This is in addition to other changes in an attempt to re-vamp the NSA surveillance activities that are currently being conducted. The NSA surveillance programs have been a major point of concern for people ever since Edward Snowden leaked confidential information about global surveillance programs the NSA had been running. This new program will, unfortunately, not be able to benefit Microsoft customers in the United States, but it does offer a comfort in knowing that the company is willing to go the extra distance to protect its customers private information.

Can Facebook be compared to an infectious disease? A new study thinks the best way to chart the growth and fall of online social networks is to compare them to how diseases spread. And researchers from Princeton University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering predict that Facebook is fighting a losing battle. The world’s biggest social network’s growth has been pegged for a rapid decline within the next few years and the researchers claim it will lose up to 80 per cent of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017.
 The research is yet to be peer reviewed, so the findings will likely change after other experts weigh in. Researchers used models of how diseases spread along with publicly available Google search query data on Facebook and the likes, to figure out exactly how social networks grow and die. “Ideas, like diseases, have been shown to spread infectiously between people, before eventually dying out, and have been successfully described with epidemiological models,” the research states. For this study, they considered joining Facebook as the onset of disease and leaving the social network as recovery. As recovery spreads, other users begin to leave the social network, just like Myspace, the study argues. Myspace, which reached its peak user base in 2008, died out in 2011,
when it was sold at a loss for $35 million. Researchers claim Facebook has already reached the peak of its popularity and recent reports about the teen exodus from the site seem to corroborate their assessment that it has entered a decline phase. And while a epidemiological model may not exactly be the best counterpane to study online social networks against, one cannot argue against the face that the idea of leaving Facebook has suddenly become appealing to millions of users. Whether Facebook can indeed fight this recovery and continue its spread, depends on the various moves the company takes to tackle the exodus. For now, though, the rate of infection has certainly fallen.