New iPhones :: iPhone 5C and 5S

One of the most awaited tech press conference of the year, finally has some news with it. On 10 Sep 2013, Apple, announced two new iPhones which can be aptly considered to be an upgrade of the existing iPhone 5. Facing stiff competition from a wide variety of models from Samsung and unable to capture the low cost smartphone market, this announcement was the need of the hour for Apple. 

Very briefly, iPhone 5S is an upgrade from the existing iPhone 5 whereas iPhone 5C is a similar configuration to iPhone 5 with a cheaper form factor in terms of plastic body. The key thing in iPhone 5S is the fingerprint recognition which improves as one uses it. This could be a game changer for Apple as such technology does not exist in any smartphone as yet. Along with that, an improved A7 chip and M7 coprocessor, 64 bit mobile architecture, the performance is significantly improved of high processing applications. Camera has been made better with a large sensor and larger aperture. Ofcourse iOS 7 is the final thing which will be the released on Sep 18 and available on iPhone 4 onwards. Also Apple for the first time has ventured into iPhone case market and is now providing leather cases for the iPhones. iPhone 5S comes in three colors, Gold, Silver and Black. The initial tagline for iPhone 5S is "Forward Thinking"

iPhone 5C is the Colorful thing according to Apple. Available in five different colors, white, red, yellow, blue and green, its the first time, Apple is moving away from its standard black and white. With an A6 chip, ultrafast LTE and iSight Camera, Apple has not compromised in the internal specifications of the phone. One more enhancement is the FaceTime HD Camera. The initial tagline for iPhone 5C is "For the Colorful"

Are these two products winner for Apple? This will be answered once they hit the shelfs in few weeks. Apple aficionados will pick it up on the first opportunity. Also Apple did not make an attempt towards giving a new shape to the iPhone unlike Samsung. Will have to wait and watch how much the iPhone 5C will penetrate the low cost Indian Market where a smartphone starts from as low as Rs. 2000 !!!

Bacardi Logo - Why Bats !!!

Strange right !! How come a logo consists of something weird like Bat.. Read on to find out more about it

There are two reasons for the existence of a free tailed bat in the logo of Bacardi. One of them is courtesy the basic ingredients and second is credited to its founders. 

The variant of bats called as Mexican free tailed bats are great pollinators of the sugar cane plant and are well known for eating the insects. This is why it makes sense for Bacardi to use them. 

The second as said earlier is related to the founder Facundo Bacardí Massó and his brother. They set up shop in a Santiago de Cuba distillery that they purchased in 1862. In the rafters of the building lived fruit bats, which helped to inspire the Bacardi bat logo. 

BrandTags Express Edition #22 :: Tennis Grand Slam Courts

First grand slam of this season, The Australian Open concluded a few days back. Unlike the 2012 encounter between Njokovic and Nadal, the final’s playoff between Njokovic and Murray became one sided after the 2^nd set leading to Joker winning comfortably at the end.

One of the interesting aspects of the Grand Slams is the type of court in which they are played. Each of the four Grand Slams Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open are played on different type of surfaces which add to the excitement of this sport. 

Both Australian Open and US Open are played on Hard Court. Australian Open is played on the Synthetic hard court whereas the US Open is played on the Acrylic Hard Court.

French Open is the only grand slam which is played on Clay Court.

Wimbledon, the second grand slam in Europe, is played on the Grass Court.

The recently completed Australian Open is also known as the Grand Slam of the Asia Pacific. The logo of Australian Open is below:

BrandTags Express Edition # 21 :: Twitter

In this edition, we are going to see something about the de facto standard in Social Networking - Twitter - The SMS of the Internet. 

Twitter, as we all know, is a real time information network providing one with almost everything which is happening around. Be it latest stories, upcoming movies, Hollywood gossips, Twitter is one place for all the information you ever need. 

Tweets is what makes up the Twitter. Tweets are 140 character long sentences which people use to describe events, happenings, news, stories or just anything. One can follow, have followers or just browse through the tweets and get to know "The Breaking News" within seconds of it actually happening. 

Twitter is a brain child of Jack Dorsey, who belonged to Odeo Corp which now exists as Obvious Corp. Version 0.1 of Twitter was written by Dorsey with Noah Glass on March 31, 2006. It debuted as Twttr similar to the 5 letter American short code for SMS. 

There have been several records on Twitter for the number of tweets per second for a particular event or a piece of news. The current record as of January 1, 2013, was set by all citizens of the Japan Standard Time Zone as the new year began, reaching a record of 33,388 tweets per second beating the previous record of 25,088, also set by Japan after a television screening of the movie "Castle in the Sky". 

The current logo of twitter just spots the "Twitter Bird" replacing the Larry Bird logo which existed until June 2012. The Bird is the sole branding of Twitter on the web. Douglas Bowman is considered to be the designer of Twitter. The current Twitter bird seems to be resembling the Male Mountain BlueBird.

500000 and Counting

Yes. 500000 is the current count of visitors to the blog. Thanks to everyone for making this happen. More to come from my end. 

BrandTags Express Edition #20 :: Microsoft's New Logo

Shifting our attention from the Olympics 2012 which have been a fair success for London, we now move on to another landmark event in the history of one of the IT giants.

On 23rd August 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new Logo. Year 1987 was the last time when Microsoft had modified its logo and this one has come after nearly 25 years which is a significant time for any organization. Its believed that the change in the logo comes in the anticipation of one of the biggest launches for Microsoft in recent times - The Launch of Windows 8 in October 2012. The primary aim of this logo is to provide a common theme across the new launches which the company is planning. 

The new logo is shown below:

Segoe is the font using which the word "Microsoft" is written in the logo. The four colored square boxes represent the portfolio of products which are supported by Microsoft. The tagline of Microsoft remains the same - "Your Potential, Our Passion"

The tech community globally is not too happy with this new logo. There have been mixed view on the logo and people say that with this logo Microsoft has shown once again the bias towards Windows. Truly speaking it really does not represent the entire product line of Microsoft along with the fact that its very contemporary and dull. 

BrandTags Express Edition # 19 :: Olympic Trivia 2

1. During London 2012, Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian with a record haul of 22 medals in the history of Olympics. His tally of 22 medals includes, 18 Golds, 2 Silvers and 2 Bronze medals. While achieving this feat, he surpassed Larisa Latynina, belonging to erstwhile USSR, who won 18 Medals including 8 Golds as a Gymnast way back in 1964.

2.  Usain Bolt, aptly names as the World's Fastest Human Being, defended his 100m and 200m titles at London 2012. With the London 2012, He is the first man in the history of sprinting to have six gold medals in his pocket. 

3. India delivered its best ever performance at Olympics by winning 6 medals which comprised of 4 Bronze and 2 Silver medals. Gagan Narang was the first Indian to win a medal at London 2012. Saina Nehwal became the first Indian to win a medal in Badminton at Olympics. Following were the other medal winners for India: Vijay Kumar (Silver Medal in 25 m Rapid Fire Pistol Event), Mary Kom (Bronze in the Fly Weight category of Boxing), Yogeshwar Dutt (Bronze in 60 KG freestyle Wrestling), Sushil Kumar (Silver 66 KG Freestyle wrestling)

4. USA topped the medals tally, followed by China and in the third place we had the host nation Britain. 

5. First Gold Medal of London 2012 was won by China's Yi Siling in 10 m Air Rifle event at Royal Barracks. 

6. London is also going to host the Paralympic games starting from 29 Aug. The name Paralympic signifies a competition which is happening at par or parallel to the Olympics. The world Paralympic was quoted as part of the Summer Olympics of 1988 held in Seoul.

7. Unlike the symbol of Olympics which signifies the five continents, the Symbol for Paralympics is composed of three agitos colored red, blue and green. Agito as in Latin refers to "I Move". Below is the logo for the 2012 Paralympic games. The tagline for this is: Inspire a Generation