There is good news for e-book lovers from Amazon.
Amazon’s kindle, a wireless electronic portable reader which facilitates e-book reading has now become more capsuled, making it more convenient for people on the go. Black Berry users no longer need to carry a separate kindle to read their favorite e-books. Amazon, has now launched a Kindle app for Black Berry, enabling the readers to purchase and read e-books. (more…)
After months of anxiety and speculation Apple has finally launched their latest creation, the iPad Tablet. Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the breakthrough product in a grand meet held at San Francisco on 27th Jan 2010. Apple’s iPad is developed for people on the go to ease their online usage and other PC related tasks.The iPad is neither an iPhone nor a PC but a gadget that bridges the gap between the two. With its small size and touch screen technology, Apple’s iPad is all set to create a new era of Tablet Computing. Although the device lacks complex functionalities when compared to a PC, it is equipped with much desired functions like web browsing, delivering media, capsuling literature, video gaming etc.
The 9.7 inch device with half an inch thickness weighs just 1.5 pounds. It features a touch screen and is available in 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of flash memory storage. (more…)
Make your smartphone work even smarter!
Mophie, the powerhouse of iPhone and iPod gadgets and batteries is unveiling the hottest iPhone-centric Credit Card Reader at the 2010 International CES proposed to be held at Las Vegas from 7th to 10th Jan this year. To gear up for an even smarter shopping experience you just need to swipe your credit card into the Mophies iphone compatible credit card reader. The transaction will be processed with the help of a third party application.
The Credit Card Reader can be slipped into your iPhone just like the Mophie Juice Pack Air, the external rechargeable battery introduced in the mid 2009. The detailed information including its functioning and pricing is yet to be unveiled at the CES 2010.
Internals
The DROID runs on Arm Cortex A8 CPU 550 MHZ processor, 256MB of RAM, and 512MB of ROM. The CPU is actually 600 MHZ but it has been under-clocked at 550 MHZ. Reason for this could be battery life and over heating. There are system level applications available to clock it out at 800 MHZ but it will compromise the battery life heavily. From the initial responses it seems the Android 2.0 OS will help DROID utilize the full potential of this processor. One of the features of the DROID being hyped by Verizon is in fact its ability to switch between multiple applications at run-time – true multitasking. With this processor, there are reports that the DROID will be the fastest Android device on the market.
One important difference between the iPhone and DROID is that the iPhone comes with internal memory of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB variants with no provision of adding a SD card. The DROID has a standard internal memory but supports SD cards up to 32GB. One drawback compared to iPhone is that DROID provides only a meager 256 MB for application storage. Google does not support directly installing apps into the SD card, which largely limits the developers while deploying their products. This is a problem when it comes to graphics / game development which typically takes up a lot of space. It is also like a paradox because Google has introduced APIs for 3-D graphics and OpenGL libraries with the release of Android 2.0. Developers can however store app resources in the SD card similar to Windows Mobile development.
Touch and Feel
The screen on the DROID is a 3.7-inch capacitive touch screen (unlike the resistive iPhone / Blackberry screens) that showcases a full glass display with WVGA resolution at a handsome 480 x 854 pixels. The responsiveness on the DROID due to the capacitive touch is better than most of the other smart phone counterparts. For example gestures and flicks are registered with little to no lag. Whether that can be attributed to Moto’s screen technology, Android 2.0 improvements, or just the speedy CPU inside the DROID is anyone’s guess, but that certainly won’t let the phone down. Another advantage to having that big screen is seeing webpages how they’re meant to be viewed, and browsing on the DROID is certainly a solid experience.
The phone comes with a huge touchscreen with multi-touch but still has space for an actual hardware keyboard. It is just slightly thicker than the iPhone at 0.5 inches but manages to pack a full QWERTY keyboard, which makes it the thinnest QWERTY keyboard mobile available in the market. The only comparison that can come in its way is the Nokia N97 but it too can’t match up with its huge screen and its interface offered by Motorola and Google.
Camera
Google has made some pretty major improvements to the camera application in Android 2.0. This includes more control over white balance, focal length, flash settings, and effects. To complement this Motorola has smartly outfitted the DROID with a 5 megapixel camera coupled with an LED flash. However many initial users claim that the camera is painfully slow to focus and take a snap.
Video
The peformance of video capture and playback, on the other hand, is astounding. The DROID is capable of shooting at a 720 x 480 resolution, producing viewable if not totally shake-free video. The phone definitely proves to be better in this department than with stills. The phone also comes with a HDMI port for High Definition Video. However with a resolution of 720 x 480 pixels, the full exploitation of the HDMI support is worth questionable.
Software
Android 2.0 addresses some important changes to the smart phone scene including Google Navigator, voice improvements and more. Google is in fact taking a pro-active approach at improving the platform, along with the opportunity to sync multiple Exchange and/or Google Accounts. The DROID is the first phone to come with Google Maps Navigation, which provides free, turn-by-turn, spoken driving directions.Verizon will sell a car mount for the DROID, as well completely eliminating the need of third party navigation devices like Garmin. The combination may make the DROID the best GPS phone on the market. But what really makes the software a complete win is something completely invisible – APIs. Google has added account/contact/sync APIs that will greatly improve the platform, and inherently the phone’s capabilities over time.
Browser
Mobile internet browsing is another interesting feature of this handset. The browser is of top quality supporting Flash and HTML 5. Google has promised to support Flash 10 from 2010.
Connectivity
DROID comes with a EVDO rev A on-board card for super fast 3G connectivity on Verizon Wireless. There is support for GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a USB 2.0 port. The speed of connectivity is observed to be a notch higher than the iPhone 3GS.
Battery
The system comes with a 1400 mAh removable battery which is not bad at all but we expect that it won’t deliver the rated 270 hours standby time or 6 hrs 25 min talktime, especially comparing it to the previous CLIQ. However Motorola has managed to provide a decent talktime of around 5 hrs 30 min, thanks to the somewhat ironic under-clocked CPU!
Overall, the DROID is a nice phone and joins the ranks of one of the best smartphones that are available in the market today. However, it’s a mixed bag on whether this handset could really usurp the iPhone as the best performing smartphone on the market. Nonetheless, DROID is a formidable competitor of the current top performing smartphones on the market, and there is a serious competition just getting under way between the different supported mobile OS’s.
Who wouldn’t want to trigger their sixth sense, if it is as easy as wearing a pendant around your neck? With this ground breaking invention from Massachusetts Institute of Technology you can do just that if you are willing to spend a meager $350. Soon you will check emails on your palm or a nearby wall, show pictures to your friend standing next you in a crowded street or take snaps with your bare hands.
The project pet named “Sixthsense” is the brain child of Pranav Mistry an Indian Grad student at MIT and his project guide Pattie Maes, at MIT Media Lab. In Pranav’s words “‘SixthSense’ is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information”.
How does it work?
A miniature camera captures your hand gestures that are communicated wirelessly to your mobile phone, which in turn processes your signals and connects to the internet. A small, but powerful projector will project the results back, which are reflected by a mirror to any opaque surface. In short, the hardware consists of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera all compressed into a wearable pendant. Simple! The software mostly tracks the user’s gestures using computer-vision based algorithms.
At the recent TED India conference held in Mysore in November 4 - 7, Pranav announced his desire to open-source his project. Mistry pays tribute to his architect dad for his innovative spirit.
Read more about Mistry and his revolutionary project here and in this article that appeared yesterday (Nov 8, 2009) in The Hindu.
A variety of netbooks have been invading the market for quite a few months now. There have also been reports that consumers who bought a netbook later realized that they had actually wanted a notebook. Majority of the consumers cannot tell the difference between the two, which may be attributed partly to the similar suffixes of the two words.
So, what is the difference between the two?
A simple answer is that, compared to notebooks, netbooks are simply smaller, lighter and cheaper - approximately the size and weight of a hardback novel or diary, weighing around 1 kilogram. Screen sizes (the diagonal measurement across the screen) vary from 7-10 inches for a netbook to 12+ inches for a notebook, typically around 15.4 inches. Netbooks, powered by Intel’s Atom processor are not as powerful as notebooks, and lack the facility to play CDs or DVDs.
Connectivity is the central focus for netbooks and their primary use is to surf the net. Built-in Ethernet and wi-fi is used for connecting to the internet. It is intended to be used mainly by people who want to keep connected while on the go. With its prices below $300, it is an excellent solution during the credit crunch!
Statistics prove that netbooks have succeeded in creating a new market above handheld computers, smart phones and personal digital assistants. Analysts are torn whether or not netbooks will eat into the notebook market share. Since the recession is still underway, people will be looking for cheaper products, which suggest that netbooks will be in demand.
However, netbooks are presently limited by battery size, processing power and storage space, which gives notebooks a clear edge of it.
No matter what, I do believe that there is certainly space in the world for both to function and live together in peace.
Check out the netbooks available in the market
Pocket-sized Dell Mini 10V
The Arrival of Netbooks has turned the PC market upside down as diverse models and players are coming in short span of time. This segment triggered the competition when Acer introduced its first Netbook model Acer Aspire One in to the market. Dell took further long time for foraying in to Netbooks market. They started with Dell Inspiron Mini 9 then followed by Mini 10,12 and now the advanced Mini 10V.
The hapless performance of Mini 9,10 and 12 forced Dell to come up with a robust model, which can capture some market share in this segment. The drawbacks of the former models were the lack of good memory and hard drive space. Mini 12 was expected to become a leader however; its limited memory slot and hard drive pushed them out of the competition. (Dell Inspiron Mini 12 has 1GB DDR2 memory slot and 80 GB Hard Disk)
Mini 10V Tech specifications
Processor - Intel® AtomTM N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K L2Cache)
Operating System - Microsoft Windows XP
Memory - 1GB,DDR2,533MHZ
Hard Drives - 160GB SATA HDD 2.5 inch 5400RPM
Display - 10.1″ Widescreen 1024 x 600 WSVGA (WLED)
Apart from these, Mini10V comes up with 1.3 MP webcam, Blue tooth module and for power there are 3 cell & 6 cell Li-lon batteries.
Battery Performance
With the 3-Cell battery , it gives a max of 3 hours and 6-cell battery exhaust after 6.5 hours.
Price - $375
Did you wish you were able to transfer digital pictures, video and large files between cell phones, laptops and other devices?
Then, the Bluetooth 3.0 is here to do just that.
April 21st, 2009 saw the announcement by Bluetooth SIG of its new Bluetooth 3.0 + HS specification, dubbed as Bluetooth High Speed Technology. The new Bluetooth wireless standard builds upon the previous standards and is reportedly up to 160 times as fast as Bluetooth 2.2. This is good news for manufacturers of handsets and PMPs, expanding the range of possibilities to include Bluetooth media streaming and much larger file transfers. A technology like this has the potential to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.
The standards and specification of this new technology will show makers of wireless electronics how to design these devices so that they can send and receive data using either the Bluetooth or 802.11 wireless data transfer protocols (sometimes known as Wi-Fi).
Bluetooth 3.0 also allows applications using 802.11 for connectivity, to use just a burst of 802.11 power to send data and then shut off the radio until it is required again. This ensures that it works efficiently and without draining power.
A notable achievement is that Bluetooth 3.0 is expected to deliver short-range wireless speeds of up to 480 Megabytes per second in close proximity, and 12.5 Megabytes per second at 10 meters. That makes high-quality streaming video a definite possibility. In fact the possibilities are endless - video cameras can stream video footage to Bluetooth enabled computers and televisions, a picture or movie can be transferred between your laptop and your smart phone, laptops can transfer presentations to a projector wirelessly, to name just a few.
Users will have no worries about interference from wireless networks and other devices as the high bandwidth (in the 6-9 GHz range) of Bluetooth 3.0 eliminates the possibility of interference of devices that use the 2.4 GHz range.
The new Bluetooth 3.0 standard is anticipated to remove not only wires, but all communication barriers between devices that have existed for years.
