Samsung Beat DJ

Lastly, we have the Beat DJ, which runs Samsung's DISC User Interface incorporates Bang & Olufsen audio technology. The Beat DJ has 50MB of on-board memory - expandable to 8GB with micro SD cards. On the imaging front, this one sports a decent 3.0 megapixel camera. The speakers too are B&O branded and and are powered by their ICEpower amplifier.

The Beat DJ will retail at around the Rs. 18,990 mark.

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Samsung Star S5603

As for the Samsung Star S5603, it has a similar 3.2 megapixel camera as seen on the S5233 and is capable of video recording in QVGA resolution at 15 fps. This one too has a 50MB internal memory chip

, which can of course be expanded to 8GB. Rest of the features are similar to the S5233. And yes, this one gets you 3G connectivity as its name suggests. It is priced at Rs. 14,499.

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Samsung TouchWiz S5233

Korean electronics giant Samsung has unleashed three new touch screen handsets in the Indian market with the announcement of the Samsung Star S5233, Star S5603 and the Samsung Beat DJ.

The new launches come weeks after Samsung introduced its premium touchscreen handset, the S8300 UltraTouch, in the country. Additionally, this also takes Samsung's touchscreen handset tally to a respectable figure of seven.

Lets talk bout each phones individually now. The S5233 is quite slim at just 11.9mm. This one features a 3.0-inch WQVGA full-touch screen and Samsung TouchWiz User Interface with Mobile Widgets and an accelerometer sensor. It sports a 3.2 megapixel camera with smile recognition, multi-format playback and Samsung's DNSe sound engine along with recognition using Shazam's "Find Music". There is 50MB of Internal memory, which is expandable up to 8GB via microSD cards

. The phone also comes bundled with Google applications like Google Search, Gmail, Google maps. The S5233 will retail for Rs. 11,100.

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Microsoft Zune HD Comining Soon

After a whirlwind of speculations, Microsoft has finally announced Zune HD portable media player's arrival. At last, Apple's iPod Touch rival gets launched officially with a multitouch screen, HDMI port and is expected to be available in U.S. by fall. Last month, Zune HD's images and specifications were leaked out on the web. Microsoft hasn't announced the pricing and world wide availability of Zune HD as yet.

Apple iPod Touch's rival Microsoft Zune HD will sport a 3.6-inch OLED touchscreen, giving 16:9 aspect ratio with 480x272 resolution. The company has clarified that 720p HD video files will be downscaled to fit the 480x272 resolution screen and won't exactly be HD videos. Multimedia content in HD format (songs or videos) can be streamed to HD display via HDMI interface provided on Zune HD.

Also, Zune HD boasts of a built-in HD Radio Receiver that brings radio content with better sound quality as compared with the traditional radio output. However, for listening to HD quality radio content, local radio stations (especially in India) need to offer their content via HD channels.

Based on Windows CE, Zune HD will use touchscreen customized Internet Explorer version for web browsing. The WiFi support will allow downloading music tracks from Zune PressPass subscription service.

For more details, check the official Zune HD page.

At the upcoming E3 conference at Los Angeles in June, Microsoft will announce the new Zune video service for Xbox to replace the existing Xbox Live Marketplace for TV and movies. Additional details like whether Zune will have gaming support or not, are expected to be announced at the same time.

Microsoft, in its press release, mentions that Zune HD will be made available in fall and Paul Thurrott of Winsupersite stated that it will arrive on Sept. 5 this year.

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EARTH HOUR

Earth Hour is an annual international event created by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), held on the last Saturday of March, that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. It was pioneered by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007,[1] and achieved worldwide participation in 2008.

Earth Hour will next take place on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm, local time.

The event was interpreted as tokenism,[33] and some focused on the reduction of carbon emissions, whether the significant reduction in electricity consumption reported occurred at all, and questionable coverage of the event by the media conglomerate that sponsored it. It should be noted that the Earth Hour is very similar to the grassroots Earth Day Energy Fast, which from 1991 to 2007 proposed going completely without man-made energy each Earth Day. Earth Day Energy Fast was folded in 2007 since the campaign's founder claimed it was "too late" for such a campaign to have meaningful impact.

The United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali [34] made clear that signatories to the Kyoto Protocol accept that greenhouse gas emissions reductions of from 25 to 40% are necessary by 2020 to reduce the impact of global warming which is causing sea level rise and numerous other problems. In that context Earth Hour is at worst tokenism or at best creating awareness to lead to further steps like switching to green power from sources such as wind power or solar power and away from electricity produced by burning fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and petroleum.

[edit]
Measurement of reduction in electricity use

According to figures from EnergyAustralia, a local utility, mains electricity consumption for the 2007 event in Sydney was 2% lower during the Hour than would be expected given the time, weather conditions and past four years' consumption patterns. The Herald Sun equated this with "taking 48,613 cars off the road for 1 hour."[35] Critics, most notably Columnist Andrew Bolt, labelled this as "A cut so tiny is trivial - equal to taking six cars off the road for a year".[36] In context, the six cars equates to there being six fewer cars on the road at any given point of time in the day or night. In response to this criticism, the organisers of Earth Hour counter that "If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year."[37] and they also note that the main goal of Earth Hour is to create awareness around climate change issues and "to express that individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better."[37] and not about the specific energy reductions made during the hour being all that's required.

The 10.2% figure was itself challenged in a detailed analysis by David Solomon, a finance student at the University of Chicago. Solomon used eight years of electricity usage data to conclude that the Earth Hour-inspired drop was 6.33%, and that after other potential factors were taken into account, 2.10%, "statistically indistinguishable from zero."[35] In some areas in the Northern Hemisphere, it will be twilight at 8 p.m., removing some of the advantages of the event.[38]

David Soloman claims that 2007 Earth Hour cut Sydney's mains electricity consumption by 2.1%. [35] Earth Hour 2008 was held internationally on 29 March 2008 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time, marking the first anniversary of the event with many partner cities and individuals around the world participating.

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Modu's Modular Cellphone Jacket System Coming In Q2

Last year, Modu teased us with their plans for a cellphone that could be inserted into other gadgets ("jackets") in order to change and personalize its function. Today those plans have been fully unveiled.


At the heart of the modu ecosystem is a tiny, modular and sleek mobile phone. In addition to complete mobile functionality, the modu phone is a music player and a mass storage device containing 2 GB of internal memory. The innovative modu phone presents a bold graphical user interface and a unique seven-key keypad to perform basic functions even without a modu jacket. For added functionality and style, users can easily slip the modu phone into a range of modu jackets. This modu ecosystem offers boundless – and affordable – possibilities.

The new modu jacket lineup includes:

• modu™ night jacket: inspired by the nightlife scene, this jacket includes futuristic styling with an edgy keypad, flashing lights, night mode imaging and a unique graphical user interface
• modu™ street-art jacket: capturing the expressive and vibrant street art scene, this jacket fea-tures stereo speakers and dedicated music keys for a powerful music experience
• modu™ classic jacket: designed to fit the everyday needs of a modern lifestyle, this jacket carries all essential mobile communication features with an air of elegance and fine taste
• modu™ express jacket: this jacket transforms the modu phone and user interface with a rain-bow of fun, playful flavors

"modu is turning the notion of a ‘one-size-fits-all' mobile phone experience on its ear," said Dov Moran, founder and chief executive officer of modu. "Consumers want a mobile phone that can keep up with their dynamic lifestyles. The combination of the eye-catching modu phone with the new modu jackets offers not only personalized style but affordable updates without the costly expense of buying a new phone."

At its heart, the Modu phone is a simple cellphone (the lightest on the planet according to Guinness), but adding these jackets can completely change the functionality and aesthetic of the device—allowing the user to customize the device to his/her tastes. Modu expects to have these jackets on the market by Q2 of 2009, with several other jackets to roll out by the end of the year. If the previous info holds up, the phone plus two jackets will be available for only $200, with additional jackets running from $20 to $60—an agressive low price that could be key to its success. What do you think? Does Modu have a chance? [Modu via TechCrunch]

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Formula 1 Cars Getting Electric Hyperspeed Jumps

Apart from being one of the most amazing 3D animations I've seen in a while, this Formula 1 2009 video shows how the new KERS works, a kinetic-to-electric-energy system that allows for speed jumps.
KERS is short for Kinetic Energy Recovery System, an ingenious mechanical device that recovers wasted kinetic energy generated while braking. It converts that energy into electric power, which gets stored in a battery in the car's front. And then the really cool part comes: Once every lap, the battery reaches its full capacity and the F1 car driver can click a button to obtain a 6.5 seconds turbo boost, adding an extra 82 horsepower to the nominal capacity of the engine. Turbo boost, KITT, turbo boost!
Next, Mario Kart-style power boosters floating on the road.

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Apple iLife 2009 review

Apple iLife 2009 review
Upgrade your iLife
Perhaps the biggest news of the last Macworld Expo was the unveiling of the two new updates for iLife and iWork. Both applications get around 90 major changes but the main show-stopper was iLife's iPhoto, with handy new features such as face recognition and the ability to plot your snaps on a Google map and send them directly to your Facebook pals. As it all sounds terribly exciting, does it really work? Read on...

iPhoto
iPhoto has become the champion application for iLife ’09, in acknowledgment of the fact that everyone and their dog now has a digital camera. It gets the biggest push this time with heaps of really quite impressive new tricks.

Faces joins Events as a new way of sorting your library, but it’s much cleverer. Using face detection technology, Faces automatically scans your photo collection to identify the same person throughout your library, so that you can label that person in one hit. When you label one person, Faces suggests other pictures of people that look similar.

It’s not perfect and sometimes you might find iPhoto asking you if this is your nephew, when it’s actually a slightly blurry picture of your nan, and sadly it doesn’t work at all with profiles of animals. You can of course label your pets manually. Now, when you make a new smart album, iPhoto can find and group your friends for you and suggest pictures you might have forgotten about.

Alongside Mobile Me, Facebook and Flickr buttons have been added to the iPhoto main screen. Anyone who's addicted to Facebook knows what a chore it is, tagging photos of all your chums - Faces makes the process a lot easier. Once you've tagged everyone on Faces, it will sync with your Facebook profile, so photos are not only uploaded straight to your photo album on the social networking site, but the tags will match Facebook tags. Also, when your Facebook friend labels someone you didn’t know, their profile name is added to your photo.

Places is powered by Google and shows you a world map. When you use your cursor to drop a pin in it, you’ll be shown a list of all the photos you have from that location. If your camera has geo-tagging, then iPhoto will do all of this for you, otherwise, you’ll need to label each photo first. A bit of a hassle but well worth it. Apple has enhanced the Google map to recognize actual addresses or landmarks too.

You can also add maps to your photo book too. When you label a photo, a small picture of the world map, showing that location will appear on the page if you so choose. And for the inside cover, you could plot lines on the Google map to show where all the photos were taken.

Another update is that red-eye removal is now automatic, like the face recognition feature, and the retouch function has inherited some features from Apple’s professional Apperture software. Now it is much more effective at airbrushing and brightening your blurrier snaps - we had great fun playing around with this on the slightly less favourable photos.

Once you’re done airbrushing you can export your slideshows in a resolution to suit your iPhone or iPod Nano or any other fruit flavoured companion you may own. To spice up the slide shows you can add Apple licensed slide shows and even movies.
iMovie
iMovie gets around 40 new tricks including an impressive stabilization feature that turns a shaky handheld camcorder clip into a steady movie-like shot. After you’ve imported your clip iMovie analyses the footage frame by frame first and then smoothes out the wobbles to a degree that you select yourself.

A brilliant Spielberg-esque feature is you can add an animation that presents, as a line on a globe, where your film was shot. Just think about the in-between bits in the Indian Jones films when Indy boards a plane that flies to the next scene.

Another cool animation starts your home made film as a camera zoom into the cover of a photo album which becomes the opening scene.
Editing photos with the Ken Burns effect to the beat of a tune is particularly satisfying. Just press edit on the beat while you listen to the music and then drag photos, or video clips, to each change.
GarageBand
The best new feature in GarageBand is a guitar lesson that shows you an instruction video along with a fret board graphic that shows you where to put your fingers. For $4.99, you can download a Sting tutorial, for example, from the iTunes store, or Nora Jones if it’s the Piano that you want to learn.

We're no guitarist, but after a lesson with Sting, we were feeling more confident about our guitar prowess, although we'd like to see some more well-known musicians featured in the Artist Lessons.

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Apple iWork 2009 review

Apple's answer to Microsoft Office gets a Winter revival


iWork has always had a reputation of being the 'dull' software, compared with Apple’s lighter side of software, iLife. The 2009 updates for iWork may not be as showy as its fun counterpart, but the changes to Keynote, Numbers and Pages are well worth the extra cash.


Keynote
Here's where the biggest changes for 2009's software update are. Previously watching a Keynote presentation would feel similar to watching beige paint dry, but now your slides can be animated rather than just plain dissolves.



Magic Move basically animates them from one slide to another. If the item on one slide is the same as the one before, but in a different position, Magic Move will recognize this and make it seemingly dance over to its new spot. Updates are done in real time, so the preview window is always up to date.



Another change is to the object transitions, it's now a more straight-forward zoom. With this you can apply a sparkle effect as the object, or word changes from one to another on the next slide. Alternatively you can animate the common letters in a sentence from one slide to the next with text transition. Again, the program knows which items are the same and moves them from one position to the next.



Bar Charts can now rotate as they grow from zero. You can fill them in with some new textures like concrete or etched metal and make them cylinders rather than blocks. Even end of financial year reports manage to look pretty.



Pie Charts meanwhile get subtly beveled edges and you can now animate the appearance of the slices. You can also add annotations that look like chalk lines on a blackboard. These appear in all of the iWork apps.



Shapes is a new animation tool that can make images move around the edge of whatever shape you drawer.



iPhone and iPod Touch owners have another real bonus. For 59p you can buy the Keynote ‘09 app from the iTunes store and use your mobile to control your presentation wirelessly - a fantastic app that has made us all the more proud of our iPhone.



Numbers
Numbers gets dozens of new features to make it much more flexible than Excel spreadsheets. Grouping data for example is as simple as dragging and dropping and pop-up windows help you calculate totals and currency conversions.



Another nifty feature that makes working out this month’s shopping budget much easier is the new calculations window. Click and choose the calculations function you would like to use, and the onboard Carol Voderman will get it done.



Pages
The word processing and page layout application now works in full screen with either one, or side-by-side page views. This makes it easy to blow up onto a display to show a group of people rather than printing out dozens of copies.



You can now save it as a Word or PDF doc for example, or choose to email your doc as soon as you’ve finished. The recipient, incidentally, gets to choose to download the Word, PDF or iWork formatted document. Apple seems to want to share the workload…





Buy one here: Apple PC World Amazon

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JOB Portal

Job portal has been launched to provide all the fresher's with job related STUFF.

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