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Augmented Reality is no longer a science fiction or lab-technology, thanks to augmented reality applications like Atol les opticiens, Kinect Magic Mirror or AR Business Cards the technology is increasingly making it's way to the mainstream usage into our daily lives.

To get the ball rolling forward, an uber-cool augmented reality application for Google Android is now available for free to users (free during limited period beta) - named "iOnRoad Augmented Driving". The winner of 2011 Mobile Summit App contest allows users to make use of their device camera, processing the captured data via an real-time image recognition algorithms to auto recognizes the vehicle in front, measuring the time-gap and warn the user in-case a danger is detected. The dynamic augmented reality driving and real-time collision detection application delivers a visual radar by combining realtime day/night machine vision with sensor fusion to provide better road-safety.

The application eco-system of Google's mobile operating-system Android is increasing by leaps-and-bound everyday, to take advantage of this ever-increasing application base virtualization on platforms like Windows OS is already getting attention. To get things moving forward on the front, a new software application for Windows platform BlueStacks is out now enabling users to run android applications on Windows computers.

BlueStacks allows users to run Android OS apps on Windows PCs with instant switching between the two. BlueStacks helps PC manufacturers to ride the Android momentum by enabling Android apps on x86-based tablets, netbooks, notebooks, convertibles and AiO Windows PCs. With the new hybrid convertible form factors, BlueStacks completely eliminates the need to carry two devices. The end consumer benefits from getting both Android and Windows at the price of a single PC.

The Windows 8 team is working to do something rare in operating system development, maintain the same system requirements as the prior generation. In this case the Windows 8 group is designing the next version of Windows to operate on the same hardware as Windows 7, which itself was less demanding than the real requirements of Windows Vista. In other words, the user should be able to adequately run Windows 8 with a 1 gigahertz processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM for a 32-bit version and 2 gigabytes for the 64-bit version.

The reason for this change of engineering attitude is the proliferation of mobile devices; laptops and tablets. Also, from a corporate standpoint if you are running fleets of computers running for the most part twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week even marginal savings per machine can add up across the enterprise. Microsoft Program manager Bill Karagoumis indicates in a blog posting that managing memory is the key to the team’s efforts.

Reducing the memory footprint is not usually the first thing that comes to mind as a way to reduce energy costs, particularly when you are expanding the feature set of the operating system. The Windows 8 team is doing this in a variety of ways. One, is change Windows services from an “always on” to a start on demand or even a manual startup. Like not leaving ones car idling while parked saves on petrol, these changes to how the operating system services are invoked saves on the amount of system memory is in use at any given time. This leaves more memory available for multitasking and other operations.

A second technique is what is described as memory combining, the consolidation of duplicate memory blocks into a single copy. Duplication of data occurs when a program anticipates that certain data will be required and that data is initialized and allocated. Even if the data is never actually used, it remains cluttering up memory like several copies of the same book on a bookshelf. Memory combining by the Windows 8 operating system can free anywhere from tens to hundreds of megabytes of RAM according to Mr. Karagoumis.

While Google Android is eating away the Apple iOS dinner as it's already surpassed the gross usage numbers and new Android mobile-os powered devices are popping-out almost a few weeks, as not-expected Apple has let down it's fans by just releasing a not-so-major successor to company's flagship mobile phone "iPhone 4" - named "Apple iPhone 4S". As everybody was eagerly awaiting a brand new, feature rich "Apple iPhone 5" the rumors are now put to a rest as Apple's new phone (Apple iPhone 4S) is now officially unveiled and there is no iPhone 5 for the time-being.

Complete specifications of new Apple iPhone 4S with features, images, rates, availability, and videos posted after the jump.