Samsung’s Memoir comes loaded with 8 MP camera

Samsung has released a new brand of mobile called the Memoir code names the SGH-T929 that comes equipped with a 8 mega pixel camera that has a 16x mega zoom, allowing you to shoot videos and a touch sensitive mobile device that would lure the mobile freaks out there. The camera comes equipped with xenon flash and is to be released on T-Mobile’s 3G network.

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Not an iPhone beater but is feature rich that comes with a HTML browser, a virtual keyboard and toting a slew of multimedia features. The 8-MP camera is the main draw on the mobile which allows you to share your pics on online networkin g sites like Flickr, Photobucket, Snapfish or Kodak gallery.

The let down is that its a Wi-Fi null device.

The specs include:

• 8 Megapixel Camera with Xenon flash and 16X digital zoom

• microSD slot for storage capacity expansion

• A-GPS for navigation and location based services

• 240 x 400 pixels touchscreen display (262k TFT)

• Full HTML browser along with POP3 e-mail support

• TouchWiz interface with customizable widgets

• 3G/EDGE/GPRS data access speeds compatible

• Wireless Bluetooth 2.0 technology (Stereo)

Its Dell’s turn to throw its hat into the ring!

Android has so fervently become the flavor of the season that even Dell is considering to pitch in to the Mobile market with its own branded mobile. And guess what we are up for a real treat in here. Plans are in the pipe line that they ‘d in no way be disappointing Microsft’s Windows Mobile OS as they would be launching one for that too.  So, its chilling time for all the Android and Windows Mobile users as they would be finding their mobiles sporting an alienesque look.

The name though is kinda let down. MePhone not so appealing a name for this phone. Hope this will change sometime soon, and be christened to something cool as the phone itself.

A Tumultuous year, that was 2008

I don’t know whether any one would remember 2007 or will remember 2009. But, 2008 would quite inadvertently go down in to the memory drain of the man kind as one of the most happening years in our history. 2008, saw the dawn of many things. It’s been a rocking year as far as technology was concerned and a rockling year for the economy. We saw interest rate cuts, budget cuts, GDP growth rate cuts for every single country on our planet.

As bad was the economy, so at its best was the technology that emerged in 2008. We saw few of the most memorable releases that would go down to play a major role in the coming years. Well, quite naturally the best thing that happened was the release of Android, Google’s foray in to the mobile industry with its flagship open source operating system. And, whenever a giant like Google sets its foot in to such a demanding industry as the mobile industry, we expect something magnanimous and Google never disappoints its supporters. Android, the very first day it was announced created ripples in the mobile industry which slowly transformed to waves that really hit the other players so hard that they were rather found to have magnetized themselves to become open source.

We saw the competition grow to the heights with the entire industry embracing the developer and user-centric attitude. According to their recent research report, Gartner said that Symbian still commands 49.8 per cent of the global mobile OS market and was pretty skeptical in its reports over Android. The very fact that, Android is being mooted in just less than a year of its release shows its on to something real serious in terms of apps and the user experience.

The stand out players of this year have been Apple, Google and HTC. Apple overcame its own jinxed sales record by recording a massive 327.5% YoY growth in its iPhone sales. Google itself completed a decade, it released its own browser, the Chrome and Android, which changed the entire perception of a mobile OS. HTC, has surely established its brand the world over by releasing the first device to run Android along with a slew of niche hand sets.

Microsoft and Moto were largely taking too much on to them this year. After the release of Android and even Symbian being evangelized to become an open source OS, Microsoft found itself to be short on fuel, resulting in a sling-a campaign. Moto though was on the economic side of the year, with it being nailed down with a massive loss that it ‘d love soon to regurgitate. We, though see the sunny side by expecting a breath-taking design from Moto in 2009, with their brand new OS, Android.

So, as 2009 is nearing everyone from a Tech geek to a bearish-economist is expecting the best of the year 2009.

World’s thinnest, Sleakest mobile unveiled

So, here it is! Neoi 906E is being bandied as the world’s thinnest and sleakest smartphone.

Few of it specs other than the QWERTY key board include:

GSM/GPRS
MP3 Player
Micro SD card slot
Camera
And a few short cut keys on its hood.

HTC S740 WinMo

This is the new offering from HTC. Very surprising to see the form factor. The guys who’ve given us the Touch Pro are reminding us that they can produce something shaggy too.

The specs include:

Procesor: Qualcomm MSM7225, 528MHz
Operating System Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard
Memory ROM: 256MB
RAM: 256MB SDRAM
Dimensions (LxWxT) 116.3 mm x 43.4 mm x 16.6 mm (4.58 in x 1.71 in x 0.65 in)
Weight 140 grams (4.94 ounces) with battery
Display 2.4 inch TFT-LCD with backlight LEDs and QVGA resolution
Network HSDPA/WCDMA:
. Europe: 900/2100 MHz
. Up to 384 kbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
. 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Device Control 4-Way navigation control with Enter button
Keyboard Slide-out 4-row QWERTY keyboard
GPS GPS and A-GPS ready
Connectivity Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for stereo wireless headsets
Wi-Fi(R): IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
Camera 3.2 megapixel color camera with fixed focus
Audio Built-in microphone, speaker and FM radio
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion polymer battery
Capacity: 1000 mAh
Talk time:
Up to 300 minutes for WCDMA
. Up to 350 minutes for GSM
Standby time:
. Up to 400 hours for WCDMA
. Up to 260 hours for GSM
Expansion Slot microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

G1 ogled as Google gives them away for devs!

Google is trying to make things simpler as it tries to woo the developers by giving away the G1′s with SIM and hardware unlocked from today. You need not now purchase the T-Mobile G1 and begin your endless countdown to have your device unlocked. Instead Google has come up with a sweet alternative.

What you need to do is just sign in as a developer on to the Android Market site by paying the nominal one-time registration fees of $ 25 and shell out the $ 399 price tagged to the G1 and Lo and Behold you have your G1 totally unlocked. According to Mobile Crunch, the bootloader this version also doesn’t restrict the device to officially signed firmware builds.

The device would be initially be available in US, UK, Germany, Japan, India, Canada, France, Taiwan, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Hungary with plans to expand to more regions.

Google though further goes on and clarifies that these are just the kinda phones for the devs and not for the general consumer. So, I don’t think one need to be a dev precisely to get his hands on to this one. Do you?

Android: The Evangelizer

So, Everyone expected this to be coming. The world’s largest mobile operating system company Symbian, is slowly moving towards becoming a completely open source. Though not wholly, but its code will be made available to the developers of the Symbian foundation, a consortium of companies comprising of Nokia, NTTDoCoMo, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, AT&T, Texas instruments, Motorola and others, a conglomeration of 64 companies promoting the soon to be open sourced mobile OS in 2009. The plans in the pipeline include the amalgamation of S60, and its followers the UIQ and NTTDoCoMo’s MOAP.

The emerging competition among the various open source operating systems is catching on as Android is growing older and older. And as Nokia, buys out the remaining part of Symbian, speculations are ripe that this could add fuel to the competition among the open source operating systems. With the existing market being ruled by the iPhone and Android making its presence felt, with critics riding on its back for being too Luddite-like, Nokia is trying to fix things up by making its flagship OS, an open source.

Nokia recently launched its new smartphone, the N97, bandied as the most advanced smartphone available.

Unboxing vid of Vodafone Black berry storm

Is this RIMs’ answer to Apples’ iPhone. If you want to know is it, then Check out this video.

Google’s voice based search Live demo

HTC shifts to fast gears with its MAX 4G

HTC, launches the worlds’ first ever 4G mobile device. HTC has successfully incorporated the feartures of WiMAX in to the MAX 4G, a device which is said to be a Touch HD look alike. This makes Windows Mobile 6.1 the first mobile OS to be running on the 4G.What does that mean for us? The data speeds would be pretty fast. Yeah, about 70Mbps. And guess what it is slated for a late November release in Russia on their Yota network,  which is soon turning out to be HTC’s favorite destination. The new WiMAX technology is said to be introducing some thing better in the Wi-Fi/Radio/Network standard, which enables two users with WiMAX enabled devices to communicate at these enhanced data rates, provided they are relatively nearer to each other.

The specs include:

Processor: Qualcomm ESM7206A 528 MHz
Platform: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Memory: ROM: 256MB / RAM: 288MB / Flash: 8 GB
Dimensions: 113.5mm X 63.1mm X 13.9mm
Weight: 151 grams (with battery)
Display: 3.8-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 480 x 800 WVGA resolution
Network: Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:900/1800/1900 MHz, Yota Mobile WiMAX 2.5-2.7 GHz
Device Control: TouchFL 3D
GPS: Inbuilt GPS
Connections: VoIP,

Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g ,Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, HTC ExtUSB
Main camera: High-resolution with autofocus
Second: VGA-camera
Additional: Motion G-sensor (automatically rotating picture), Proximity sensor (saving energy while talking due to the switching the display off), FM-radio
Audio: Ring tone formats: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, 40 polyphonic and standard MIDI format 0 and 1 (SMF)/SP MIDI
Battery: Li-Pol, 1500 mAh
Talk time: GSM: up to 420 minutes, VoIP: up to 230 minutes
Standby time: GSM: up to 350 hours, VoIP: up to 50 hours

WiMAX, though not entirely a 4G technology, but is sure a step towards 4G. What picques me is that HTC off late is getting tagged with many firsts to its oeuvre. G1, MAX 4G and What Next!

SMS in GMail

Yahoo! has this from quite come time and Google is soon to follow suit. Gmail, soon is going to be incorporated a new feature that lets us send SMS through our Gmail. Well, this is good news for us avid Gmail users, and gives a big thumbs up for why we ‘d we be using the Gmail. Guess, this was one of the features that was on their missing list.

But the news is that just before it was to be shipped to the GLabs, they found quite a few bugs which made their experience a bit un pleasant. So, they had to put away the plans by another 2 weeks.

It really intrigues me about how these things work and Garett Rogers  of ZDNet.com gives a good account of How this stuff really works?

Google has reserved 1000 phone numbers especially for this purpose. So, what happens is when we send an SMS, the GMail assigns us a number to communicate with that single person. So, SMS n people n unique numbers are asigned to you, where n < 1000, assuming a condition that you might not be communicating with that many in a single session.

Interesting, it seems though, it surely does rejuvinate our experience and give us a way to reach out to friends from any where to everywhere.

HTC Touch 3G Jinxed

The specs include GPS, Opera browser, Touch FLO interface and et al. The videos provide us with a good perspective of the handset.

Moto Aura Unleashed!

Everyone is pretty baffled over the Moto’s decision to postpone the Android based handset launch to Late 2009. But till then they are trying to comprehend with their latest release, The Aura which is pretty much inspired from the luxury brand of watches and handcrafted design. The form factor is brilliant which might literally give the Vertus and Mobiados, a pale look.

The specs for this amazing hand set are:

• Messaging – MMS,  SMS, Email (POP3/IMAP embedded)1, Open Source
• Audio – AAC, AAC+,  AAC+ Enhanced, MIDI, MP3, WAV, WMA v10, WMA v9
• Video – Capture/Playback, Capture/Playback/Streaming1, H.263, H.264, MPEG4
• Camera – 2 MP, Fixed Focus
• On Board Memory – 2GB user available memory2
• Connectivity – Stereo Bluetooth3 Class 1, Version 2.0 plus EDR and A2DP, USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
• Browser – Open Source
• Bands/Modes – GSM 850/900/1800/1900, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12
• Weight – 141.00 g
• Dimensions – 47.60 x 96.87 x 18.55mm
• Display – 1.55” in diameter, 480 pixel diameter, LCD round
• Battery – 810 mAh typical, 780 mAH minimum
• Standby Time – Up to approximately 400 hours
• Talk Time – Up to approximately 7.3 hours

Scott, rightly pointed out that the mobile ain’t a smart phone though looks pretty smart from the design point of view. No 3G, Wi-Fi and the ubiquitous GPS also found to be missing. So, Moto has really got it to its head.

Asus to release its own Android powered handset in early 2009?

The sub-note book or the netbook computer maker the Asus, is planning to launch an Android powered mobile in the Q1 ’09. For starters though, Asus plans to launch the mobile powered by the Android using its own brand value in its home country, Taiwan. Guess this is the first non-OHA member to announce its plans to launch a handset, on the Android platform, though many are to follow suit sooner or later. As for now, what really fascinates me is that HTC, launched its Dream (T-Mobile’s G1) in the US first, admitted by Mr. Chou to be a ploy to associate HTC with the much popular brand of T-Mobile. So, by the time G1 gets to Taiwan, Asus plans to cash in on the lucrative Android market by releasing the phone first in Taiwan, and then hopefully may be in the other Asian countries too. Tell you what, guess this ‘d suit me fine as I expect to have my hands on the Android, hopefully courtesy to Asus.

PS: According to AndroidGuys, its Openmoko which is busy working overtime in their garage to get the handset, with Android under its hood as soon as in November. Ugh guess that ‘ll show its impact on the big guys.

Mike Nash Talks Windows 7

Mike Nash the Windows VP talks about the Windows 7 and the UI.

Its out: The Windows Azure

At the PDC, Ray Ozzie, the man behind the Microsoft’s web based innovation and its chief software architect announced their new product, the Windows Azure formerly known as WIndows Cloud. The Azure, that is microsoft’s cloud computing OS marks its first step in to the space of cloud computing, which is being ruled by the Amazon Inc, Google Inc and Co. Though we must admit that Amazon Inc. is way ahead in this space owing to its EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). With Google offering its docs virtually at no cost, Microsoft was desperate to come with a strategy that ‘d keep its best selling product the MS Word alive and kicking. The developers are given the access to the code which starts out with the .Net code and is based on the Visual Studio. The OS released was said to be a CTP (Commmunity Technology Preview) and more features ‘d eventually be added. The Azure would entirely be running on the MS’s data centers but is not a server OS as put by Ozzie. So, at last the news is out. It is based on various services like the Live services, .Net services, SQL server services, Share point services and Dynamic CRM services.

Google’ Spectrum plan questioned?

Long back, that is not that long back too, but some time around early March Google was found talking about Wi-Fi 2.0 and about taking advantage the so called white spaces that ‘d be created in the TV spectrum when the leap towards the “digital Television” is made. Big guns like Google, Microsoft and Motorola are vying for this space that would open up new horizons in the field of wireless communications. The FCC chairman Kevin Martin is though on the “aye” side of the plan while several other big corporations including sports leagues like Nascar and Major League Baseball have their own repercussions on the plan saying that there might be such issues like interference coming up which might degrade the transmission quality. The unused white space that falls in to the range of 700 MHZ, might open up the flood gates for new innovations and for the unlicensed technologies which might exploit the space for efficient wireless communication. With many of the broadcasters crying out foul the Chairman scheduled a vote out on Nov 4 to come with a much vivid picture on the ongoing furore. As for us, the Wi-Fi 2.0 will surely open up new vistas in the area of wireless communications that is prognosticated to extend its reach to more rural communities where it is virtually impossible to set up the wires. And with giants like Google and Microsoft behind the plan and being backed by several consumer groups, no second guesses on who is going to win this battle.

Moto i9 gets a shot

Pretty used to the design factor from the stable of Moto. This looks pretty refreshing though, the RAZR i9 that somehow could not escape the camera glare.