digitalnirvana

Creative ZiiO Android tablets launched in India, starting from Rs. 17,999 Along with a new range of wireless audio products, Creative launched two new Android tablets. They are based on Android 2.2 Froyo skinned with Creative's own UI which includes a few extra widgets and applications. These Android tablets will be available in a 7-inch and a 10-inch form-factor, and would be the first tablet devices to include apt-X technology. They are fully capable of pairing with Creative’s wide range of wireless audio equipment. Specifications wise, the tablets include Bluetooth 2.1 EDR with apt-X and A2DP, Wi-Fi b/g, HDMI output and a front facing camera. It also supports a wide range of audio formats and includes X-Fi Crystallizer and X-Fi Expand audio enhancements. It seems like a mid-level Android tablet, with a lot of scope for improvement in its disappointing touchscreen response. What pleases is that the company has put some effort and used its very own media player app, notepad and a few others. The tablet seems to lack some power, but the audio playback features on both the devices are quite impressive. The 10-inch model will be available in black and is priced at Rs. 21,999 and the 7-inch model will be available in white, priced at Rs. 17,999. Both the devices will have 8GB and 16GB variants. Source: thinkdigit.com here.

I think this is a good idea to tap users and devs.

Agree with CM and Dkaile that Toshiba is very good rugged product though underrated in India, in UK Toshiba is quite popular after HP, so is Fujitsu in low cost category.

Definitely required move, for far too long the NE has been treated as stepchild with disastrous consequences, alienating the NE has only increased security issues instead of solving them.

ChromiumPC will be the first desktop to run Google’s Chrome OS The creator of the Modular computer, Xi3 is going to be the first company to bring the Chrome OS to the desktop realm, using a revamped version of it, called ChromiumPC. The Xi3 Modular computer can easily fit in your hand as it’s really small and houses three interconnected modules – one for the processor as well as primary and secondary I/O modules. The whole thing is encased in an aluminum body, which might to us bears slight resemblance to a toaster, but is certainly among the world’s smallest desktop PC. Source: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110520006214/en/Xi3-Corporation-Announces-ChromiumPC-Modular-Computer-%E2%80%93 http://blog.gsmarena.com/chromiumpc-will-be-the-first-desktop-to-run-google%E2%80%99s-chrome-os/ This does not make any sense to me, why would anyone build a desktop with an OS that is only for cloud?

Apple is readying a TD-LTE capable iPhone for China Mobile http://en.21cbh.com/HTML/2011-5-20/wOMjUyXzIxMDIwOA.html China Mobile still doesn’t offer the iPhone officially, but this will change soon. China Mobile’s president announced a deal with Apple for a TD-LTE capable iPhone. And while the fact that the carrier will be getting the Apple smartphone interests mostly its subscribers the fact that it will pack TD-LTE radio is pretty major news for everyone. You see LTE and the Chinese home-grown TD-LTE are two different standards, but they use essentially the same technology. Basically the chip inside the China Mobile’s iPhone could be used with any LTE network without the need to change anything about the production process. So while early reports suggested that the next iPhone won't have LTE support, this suggests that the feature shouldn't be written off just yet. If another of the numerous iPhone 4S (or 5) rumors is to be believed we will have to wait until September (when the handset will be released) to have all our questions answered. Source: gsmarena.com

Good article thanks.

Samsung has just introduced a new Android device (I997) into the American market, a monster of a phone called the Samsung Infuse 4G. GENERAL 2G Network --- GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 3G Network --- HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 Announced 2011, January Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2011, 15th May SIZE Dimensions --- 132 x 71 x 9 mm Weight --- 139 g DISPLAY Type --- Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size --- 480 x 800 pixels, 4.5 inches - Gorilla Glass display - TouchWiz 3.0 UI - Multi-touch input method - Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate - Touch-sensitive controls - Proximity sensor for auto turn-off SOUND Alert types --- Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker --- Yes 3.5mm jack --- Yes MEMORY Phonebook --- Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall Call records --- Practically unlimited Internal --- 16 GB storage Card slot --- microSD, up to 32GB, 2GB included DATA GPRS --- Yes EDGE --- Yes 3G --- HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 3.6 Mbps WLAN --- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; DLNA Bluetooth --- Yes, v3.0 with A2DP Infrared port --- No USB --- Yes, v2.0 microUSB CAMERA Primary --- 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash Features --- Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection Video --- Yes, 1080p Secondary --- Yes, 1.3 MP FEATURES OS --- Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo) CPU --- ARM Cortex A8 1.2 GHz processor Messaging --- SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS Browser --- HTML Radio --- No Games --- Yes Colors --- Caviar Black GPS --- Yes, with A-GPS support Java --- Yes, via Java MIDP emulator - Social networking integration - Digital compass - MP4/DivX/WMV/H.264/H.263 player - MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player - Organizer - Image/video editor - Google Search, Maps, Gmail,YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration - Flash support - Voice memo/dial/commands - Predictive text input (Swype) BATTERY Standard battery, Li-Ion 1750 mAh Stand-by --- Up to 400 h Talk time --- Up to 8 h Source.

Samsung Infuse 4G Video Review: PROS Super-sized & beautiful Super AMOLED Plus display Razor thin construction Peppy performance CONS Slow “4G” data speeds Unable to handle sites with heavy Flash content Source: phonearena.com here.

Samsung Droid Charge vs HTC ThunderBolt Video Comparison: Source: phonearena.com here.

Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices to feature dual-core 1.2GHz CPU and Mali 400 GPU Some interesting details about the upcoming Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices have leaked – ST-Ericsson’s CEO, Carlo Bozotti has revealed the WP7 phones will be sporting his company’s U8500 dual-core mobile processor. While he didn’t mention the clock speed, the same processor has been seen running at 1.2GHz before, so it definitely seems possible. If true, this puts the upcoming Nokia WP7 phones in the same league as the Samsung Galaxy S II, at least in terms of processing power, as the chipset also contains the same Mali 400 GPU as Samsung dual-core 1.2GHz Exynos chipset. The new Nokia WP7 phones will be shipping with the yet-to-be-released Mango update onboard, or Windows Phone 7.5. More information about Nokia’s WP7 roadmap was revealed by Bozotti, with the Finnish phone maker supposed to deliver 12 WP7 devices over the course of 2012. ST-Ericsson will also be providing mobile chipsets for Windows Phone 8. Source: thinkdigit.com here.

Hi Arun could you please change mine to DL or ~DL~. Thanks.

Airtel has launched the world’s first USSD-based Facebook access service in India, a way to access the everyone’s favourite social network without an internet connection. Airtel users will be able to update their Facebook status for free, and, for Rs. 1 a day, view/comment/Like news feeds, post on walls, confirm friend requests, find and add friends, and view notifications. Because USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a session-based communication, unlike SMS, which is transaction-based, it has significantly faster response times, and is more suited for content-based and interactive applications. It functions somewhat like a menu-based browser. The technology is unique to GSM, and is a built-in way to transmit data over signal channels. Airtel’s USSD solution is based on Fonetwish, developed by U2opia Mobile. Commenting on the service, Mr. Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook said: “At Facebook, we are always exploring ways to enable people to easily connect and share with friends on Facebook wherever they are, whenever they want...This innovative USSD-based Facebook access service that will be offered by Airtel is another affordable and easy way for people to stay connected with their friends and family through Facebook.” Source: thinkdigit.com here.

The low battery prompt shows Hero GSM did anyone note? Strange that Samsung did not check this. HTC must be smirking.

MTS is taking the right steps to take Indian market forward. Bigger players should take note.

^ Correct and this is why I think it is not going be successful but it is a pathbreaking initiative nonetheless and as the cloud evolves more such devices could appear where all data is in cloud and the user device is nothing but thin client. I vociferously oppose such devices for privacy concerns.

Seagate's GoFlex Satellite HDD streams content over the air Seagate's GoFlex Satellite is part storage device, part wireless media streamer, and it manages to wear both hats with little compromise on either end. For all intents and purposes, this is a standard 500GB GoFlex HDD with a bit of extra girth, an AC input, an 802.11b/g/n WiFi module and a built-in web server. The reason for those extras? A simple depression of the on / off button starts the streamer up, and it's ready for a connection in around 30 to 40 seconds. Once fired up you can stream data to just about anything -- even iOS devices. The unit is shipped with a GoFlex USB 3.0 adapter and a car charger. Installation is a cinch; just fire up a media sync application that resides on the drive (for OS X users, anyway), and you're ready to drag and drop files as if it's any 'ole HDD. No media management software or anything of the sort, thankfully. The purpose of having your media onboard is to stream videos, photos, documents and music to your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or any other tablet, phone or laptop with WiFi. You heard right -- while there's only a dedicated app for the iOS family, any WiFi-enabled device with a web browser can tap into this. Source: thinkdigit.com here.

Lockitron - Keyless entry for your house Lockitron takes security to a whole new level. It takes the world to a place without keys. Lockitron by Apigy aims to replace physical keys entirely by letting you control your door lock with your phone. The Lockitron web app and hardware package are as of today available for general users, for a one-time fees of $295 to $500. The technology uses a plug server and an Ethernet cable tied to a lock. Your phone controls the lock by talking to the server using an internet connection. It also features NFC option (Near Field Communication) that makes it even more desirable once NFC is finally floated. The main advantage is not the absence of traditional keys but the data being encrypted and stored on the cloud. This makes it all the more tempting to the geeks as you can mail the keys around to your friends and do not need to worry about being waited for at the door. Co-Founder Paul Gerhardt says, “I wanted to be able to email a key or text a key to somebody else, the technology was there, it just needed a good experience on top of it.” Apigy doesn’t want to be seen as a security company but has a lot on its mind other than locks. “At the end of the day we just want to make sure that there’s one less thing in your pocket,” Gerhardt said. Source: thinkdigit.com here.

Android handsets 'leak' personal data More than 99% of Android phones are potentially leaking data that, if stolen, could be used to get the information they store online. The data being leaked is typically used to get at web-based services such as Google Calendar. The discovery was made by German security researchers looking at how Android phones handle identification information. Google has yet to comment on the loophole uncovered by the team. ID attack University of Ulm researchers Bastian Konings, Jens Nickels, and Florian Schaub made their discovery while watching how Android phones handle login credentials for web-based services. Many applications installed on Android phones interact with Google services by asking for an authentication token - essentially a digital ID card for that app. Once issued the token removes the need to keep logging in to a service for a given length of time. Sometimes, the study says, these tokens are sent in plain text over wireless networks. This makes the tokens easy to spot so criminals eavesdropping on the wi-fi traffic would be able to find and steal them, suggest the researchers. Armed with the token, criminals would be able to pose as a particular user and get at their personal information. Even worse, found the researchers, tokens are not bound to particular phones or time of use so they can be used to impersonate a handset almost anywhere. "[T]he adversary can gain full access to the calendar, contacts information, or private web albums of the respective Google user," the researchers wrote in a blog post explaining their findings. Abuse of the loophole might mean some people lose data but other changes may be harder to spot. "...an adversary could change the stored e-mail address of the victim's boss or business partners hoping to receive sensitive or confidential material pertaining to their business," the team speculated. There is no suggestion that attackers are exploiting the Android loophole at the moment. Almost all versions of the Android operating system were passing round unencrypted authentication tokens, found the researchers. It was fixed in version 2.3.4 but, suggest Google figures, only 0.3% of Android phones are running this software. Some Google services, such as image sharing site Picasa, are still using unencrypted authentication tokens that can be stolen, found the team. They urged Android phone owners to update their device to avoid falling victim to attacks via the loophole. Google is also known to be working with operators and handset makers to get updates to people faster than at present. Source: bb.co.uk here.

Nokia should not stick with Ovi store as WinMo has app store already.

^ What I meant was that the nexus one banked heavily on convergence between offline and online, more so than any other phone till date it was pushing the cloud experience. Chromebook is also doing the same but at the next level where offline OS is no longer required. The nexus one or similar should also have failed in India because not many users even of smartphones are continuously connected to data here. But the nexus one succeeded as it blurred the boundary between user and cloud with it's seamless Google centric experience. It is a massive mindset change for computer users to be asked to do everything from word processing to playing games on the cloud with nothing private from Google's prying eyes. If Google can change computer users in the same way it did for mobile users chromebook will work else fail.

Same here.

^ Could not have said it better myself. But Google obviously has other ideas of making the noncloud OS redundant. I would have jumped the gun and said this would be a big failure, but I have noted the uncanny similarity of the advertisements for nexus one and chromebook. The nexus one advertisement said “Web Meets Phone” and the chromebook advertisement says "Chromebook: Nothing but the web." Looking at the success of the nexus one, one can no doubt deny Google has the capability to pull it off. I still feel chromebook would be failure because it is a half baked product and privacy nightmare.

Quite true I suggest you try lookout it is not resource intensive and scans new applications after installation also sends summary report, you can uninstall if it slows the phone.

Thanks Rajan bhai.