Blog which highlights the latest happenings in the Tech World from computers to mobile phones.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

LGs G1800 - Mobile with USB drive

The new LG G1800 GSM handset is a new entrant into the market. With exciting features and benefits, this cell phone seems to gain the attraction of the geeks.

G1800 has a built-in USB Disk with 60 MB memory, which can be connected to a PC for data storage. Also G1800 supports MP3 playback and MP3 ring-tones. It also features a 128 x 128 pixel, 262K color screen display.

Some other standard features are continuous call conversation recording, 250 SMS memory, 64 polyphonic sounds, embedded JAVA games, GPRS and multi-alarms. Weighing about 78g G1800 has a standby time of up to 300 hrs and a talk of 2.5hrs.

The G1800 is priced at Rs 7995/-.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Welcome 2K, Mobiles for Rs.2000.

Imagine a no frills cell phone with a long battery life -- over eight and a half hours of talk time, nearly three times more than most other handsets. Also support for multi-language, downloadable ringtones, logos etc.

Moreover this GSM handset costs a meagre Rs.2000/-. This phone is made by Motorola, and will be launched in India in April. Three entry level models - C 115, 116 and 117, the GSMA expects the US telecom company to hawk 2 million to 3 million sets in India in the first six months of the launch.

Virtually now every indian can have a cell in his pockets. Although there are cell phones available less than this, Sagem with Orange connection @ Rs.1799(apprx), but the downside in these type of schemes is that you have to switch over a new operator or buy a new SIM.

Motorola's phone will be the first of several inexpensive phones that are expected to hit India this year and make phones affordable to the masses. Mobile phone makers expect that their initiative will expand the Indian market considerably and take mobile telephony to rural India.

Motorola is also planning to introduce phones as low as Rs.900 to Rs.1200.

While Motorola may be the first enterant in the low cost segment in the Indian market, the Finese mobile phone giant, Nokia is also gearing to cut the costs. Nokias
current lowest mobile is priced at Rs.2900/-, to make mobiles more cheap it has tied up with Texas instruments to manufacture a chipset that will incorporate the major necessities of a cellphone.

India being the second most populated country, many biggies and new cell phone companies are eyeing India as a major market for low cost handsets.

A day will come when there would be cellphones with each individual and our good old fixed line would be a dinosaur. (wake up MTNL)

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Yahoo! I got 1 GB space!

The GB wars are on by the free email service providers. Started by Google, its catching up those who were not offering it. Yahoo! has increased the email storage limit to 1 GB, competing with Gmail and others.

From 1st April,2005 Yahoo! will upgrade the 250 MB account to 1 GB. This process would take around 10 to 15 days.

The other indian portal Rediff.com managed to catch up the GB wars by offering 1 GB email accounts in June last year. Although Gmail of Google still requires users to invite others to use its service. Gmail still in beta form, may come out in full service after it started offering new accounts randomly.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Engage with the best gaming mobile device -Ngage 2

In 2003 Nokia entered the portable gaming arena with the N-Gage. They were widely criticized for a bad design and a lack of video game knowledge, but they persisted. Releasing the N-Gage QD to address concerns with their first system shows that the platform is technically one that can last a good few years. Now as time rolls on the Gameboy Dual Screen and Playstation Portable are reaching the marketplace, and the Gizmondo is on its ways. One must wonder what Nokia will do next? They have long stated they are committed to the mobile gaming market and the N-Gage line till some point in early 2006... but where do they go from here?

My answer is the obvious one, the Zen-Gage. You could call it N-Gage 2, O-Gage, Next-Gage, the N-2, or even the name I prefer, N-Gage MkII (but Ewan thinks Zen-Gage reads better!), but it must happen and any video game historian will tell you the same: if a system fails to gain significant market share within a few years the only solution is to move to newer tech and try to grab market share with a head start on the next generation's hardware battle. To that end I've tried to explore what I think the Zen-Gage, should and could be.

Perhaps the most important change here is the move to a Communicator style foldable body and the options this allows. Some of the biggest general use complaints against the current N-Gage designs are the vertically oriented screen and two-handed use as a cell phone. Switching to a Communicator style body allows the unit to be a phone when a phone is wanted (ie the unit is closed) and stunning when it's game time.

By hiding the game screen inside and giving it much more physical real estate it can be easily grown to the new gorgeous wide screen dimensions mentioned above and when that new screen is powered by a jacked-up version of the new NVidia GoForce 3D 4500 mobile graphics chip could easily deliver gaming comparable to the latest in console gaming (I'm talking PS2 and GameCube here, no joke). Backward compatibilty can be retained with a 176x208 screen window easily accomdated. Nokia's version 3 of Series 60 promises support for different screen sizes, so compatibility will not be a problem. Making sure the Zen-Gage can run the original N-gage games is of paramount importance - even the new Gameboy can still run the original Tetris cartridge.


Now some are likely criticizing my belief that the original 104 Mhz ARM processor is still enough for the next generation, but think about it like this. What challenges the N-Gages processor in this generation is primarily the software 3D rendering and the real-time decoding of in game music. With both of those tasks moved to hardware specifically for these tasks, the bottleneck on performance has been removed and the CPU can scream like it's supposed to. Equally important, reusing the original 104 Mhz ARM processor assures backward compatible with legacy titles and keeps costs down.

Beyond the obvious performance bumps, this new model also ups the ante by adding touch screen capability (via Series 60 version 3 again) and voice recognition as a counter to their addition in Nintendo's new DS and with the dual MMC/SD cards (both standards to be supported) allows the possibility of multi-card games or the use of one as a hard drive for storing downloaded content and MP3s with which to enhance your in game and smartphone experience. Using the internal card like the XBOX uses it's hard drive to do custom game soundtracks is very cool, but with the added bonus that these could be accessed for ringtones or MP3 listening outside of a game. Over time this becomes a significant feature.

The Zen-Gage, if it was delivered in October of 2005 with a solid line-up of titles, at a contract free price of under £20 (including perhaps agorgeous Ashen sequel and one or two nice big original titles) would make huge waves and easily stand against the PSP when it debuts... so long as the 6-10 hour play time of the QD could be matched with this unit. If Nokia wanted to really push technology they could build in 3G support and allow real-time broadband style Arena gameplay, but this is more a question of world's networks being ready and would probably not be cost effective - why not go the Wi-Fi route while we're waiting? The Nokia 9500 Communicator has this on board already. And if we're talking about out and about in the world, can we think about a GPS reciever? OR at least allow the external card slot to accept SD I/O hardware so we can add our own?

So is this the Next-Gage? Is this what it will be? Only time will tell but the technology is there and Nokia has the finances, so hold on to your butts because the pillars of gaming heaven may yet get the shaking Sony's PSP was unable to deliver.

(source: allaboutsymbian.com)

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Hong-kong firm eats 12% of Apple

A Hong-Kong based company wants 12 percent of all profits from iTunes and iPod sales, claiming it holds the patents to the DRM technology that governs the use of downloads through Apple Computer's online music service.

According to a post on the Pat-rights company Web site, the patent governs the verification of a single user before permitting the user to download tracks.

iTunes' "computer registration involves a process of identity verification in which a user is required to key into the computer the correct Apple ID and password he used to purchase the song....This is certainly a patentable technology. If iTunes does not patent it, there must be a very good reason for them not to do so--someone else has patented this," the post says.

Though Apple declined to comment, the company has been in negotiations with Pat-rights for some time, according to Joseph J. Zito, the patent lawyer representing Pat-rights.

"We expect to be successful in licensing negotiations with Apple. They're a good company that understands intellectual-property rights, and we think they'll be reasonable," he said. "My client was first in touch with Apple during the months of December and January, so Apple has been aware of the issue for a couple of months."

Zito declined to comment on whether the patent is a working implementation or purely a design. "That's going to be an important issue in this case, as it is in all such cases. This case will hinge on a lot of things, so I'd rather not comment on what our plan is," he said.

Zito said that the patent may be applicable to a variety of DRM schemes but said he isn't aware of any plans to take action against other companies.

Currently, Pat-rights is gunning for 12 percent of Apple iPod and iTunes profits, but if the matter comes to court, the payoff could be equally lucrative for the patent holder. If Apple is found to have willfully infringed the patent, damages could be tripled.

If the issue is not settled by March 21 March, Pat-rights intends to file suit.
Apple is currently involved in another patent battle, with Advanced Audio Devices, which claims iTunes violates its patent, filed in 2003, on a "music jukebox which is configured for storing a music library therein."

source:cnet.com