Get under the DIE

Samsung Beat DJ

2009-05-28T02:21:00.000+05:30

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.

Samsung Star S5603

2009-05-28T02:19:00.000+05:30

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.

Samsung TouchWiz S5233

2009-05-28T02:18:00.002+05:30

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.

Microsoft Zune HD Comining Soon

2009-05-28T02:14:00.001+05:30

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.

EARTH HOUR

2009-03-11T22:35:00.003+05:30

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.

Modu's Modular Cellphone Jacket System Coming In Q2

2009-02-12T15:59:00.002+05:30

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]

Formula 1 Cars Getting Electric Hyperspeed Jumps

2009-02-12T15:54:00.002+05:30

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.

Apple iLife 2009 review

2009-02-12T15:34:00.001+05:30

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.

Apple iWork 2009 review

2009-02-12T15:21:00.004+05:30

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

JOB Portal

2009-01-03T12:16:00.001+05:30

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

Amazing Dance Video

2008-12-08T18:39:00.001+05:30

2008-12-08T18:39:00.000+05:30

Motheroards for AMD phenom 9550

2008-11-06T02:19:00.000+05:30

MSI's K9A2 Platinum
ASUS' M3A32 MVP Deluxe
DFI DK 790FX-M2RS
Gigabyte's MA790FX-DS5 or DQ6

Build a gaming PC under 35K

2008-11-06T01:50:00.003+05:30

Configurations revisited:

Config-1:
AMD Athlon 64 2800+ (Socket 754) : Rs. 5,200
Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M Motherboard : Rs. 4,000
Transcend 512 MB DDR-400 RAM : Rs. 2,800
Kunhar ATX Cabinet with 400 Watts SMPS : Rs. 2,200
Seagate Barracuda 160 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive : Rs. 4,000
Samsung SyncMaster 793S Monitor : Rs. 5,700
XFX Geforce FX 5700 LE AGP 256 MB : Rs. 5,700
LG/Lite-On/Sony 52X/32X/52X / 16X Combo Drive : Rs. 2,600
Onboard Realtek ALC655/658 5.1 channel audio : N.A.
Artis S500 Speakers : Rs. 1,300
Logitech Spill-resistant Standard Keyboard : Rs. 300
Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical : Rs. 800
56 Kbps Internal Modem : Rs. 400
LAN : Onboard
Total : Rs. 35,000/-

Config-2:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 939) : Rs. 7,800
MSI RS480-M2 Motherboard : Rs. 6,700
Transcend 2 x 256 MB DDR-400 : Rs. 3,000
Kunhar ATX Cabinet with 400 Watts SMPS : Rs. 2,200
Seagate Barracuda 160 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive : Rs. 4,000
Samsung SyncMaster 793S Monitor : Rs. 5,700
ATI X300SE PCI Express equivalent onboard : N.A.
LG/Lite-On/Sony 52X/32X/52X / 16X Combo Drive : Rs. 2,600
Onboard Realtek ALC655/658 5.1 channel audio : N.A.
Artis S500 Speakers : Rs. 1,300
Logitech Spill-resistant Standard Keyboard : Rs. 300
Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical : Rs. 800
56 Kbps Internal Modem : Rs. 400
LAN : Onboard
Total : Rs. 34,800/-

HP Unveils New Imprint Designs laptops

2008-11-01T19:19:00.001+05:30

HP Unveils New Imprint Designs Hewlett-Packard (HP), has unveiled three new inspirational HP Imprint designs – 'Intersect', 'Renewal' and 'Intensity' imprints on their HP Pavilion DV 4 and HP Pavilion DV 5 series.The imprint range boasts of an infinity glass finish, which enables edge-to-edge high glass screen for ultimate viewing pleasure, yhas an illuminated logo and color matched keyboards.The laptop is powered by Intel Centrino 2 Processor. and features the NVIDIA Ge Force 9600 M GT.The limited edition HP Pavilion DV 4 and HP Pavilion DV 5 series will be available in India from the first week of November 2008 in the range of Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 55,000.Users can add fun to video chats with special effect filters, animated avatars using advanced face tracking technology and video recorded clips with the Cyber Link YouCam 2.0. Edit clips, add sound tracks, effects and files and make their videos fun with the Cyber Link DVD suite.

Price: 40,000 to 55,000 INR

Sony VGN-CR353/s

2008-11-01T19:09:00.000+05:30

Display
14.1 (35.8 cm) wide(WXGA:1280x800) TFT Colour display (Clear Bright LCD Lite)
Chipset
Mobile Intel PM965 Express Chipse
Battery
VGP-BPS9/S Lithium-ion battery: up to 4 hours of use
Hard Disk Drive
250 GB*5(Serial ATA, 5400rpm)
Optical Drive
DVDÂ±RW/Â±R DL/RAM Drive
Dimension WDH mm
335.1 mm x 21-38.3 mm x 249 mm
Bluetooth.
Bluetooth standard Ver. 2.0+EDR
Modem
V.92 and V.90 Compliant x 1
Operating System:
Genuine Windows VistaÂ® Home Premium (English Version) with Traditional Chinese Language Pack
USB.
High Speed USB 2.0 x 3
PC Card Slot
ExpressCard/34 x1
Speakers and microphone
Built-in stereo speakers / Built-in monaural microphone
AC Adapter.
AC Adaptor(VGP-AC19V26)
Keyboard.
approx. 18 mm key pitch/2 mm keystroke , 82 keys
Wireless LAN
5 GHz (802.11a/Draft n), 2.4 GHz (802.11b/g/Draft n)
Web Camera
Effective Pixels: 1280x1024
Processor
Intel Core2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.10 GHz)*1*2
Weight (Kgs)
2.5 kg (including the supplied battery)
Battery Life (Hrs)
Lithium-ion battery(VGP-BPS9/S) *14

price: 58,490 INR

Sony VGN-CR37GN/B

2008-11-01T19:03:00.000+05:30

Key Features :-
Cache Memory
3MB
Processor Technology
Intel Centrino Processor Technology
Wireless LAN
Integrated Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/Draft n *8
PC Card Slots
ExpressCard/34 x1
AC Adapter.
AC Adaptor(VGP-AC19V26)
Weight
2.5kg (including the supplied battery)
Processor System Bus
800MHz
USB.
High Speed USB 2.0 x 3
Processor Name.
Intel Core2 Duo Processor T8100(2.10GHz)*1*2
Operating System:
Genuine Windows Vista Business with Traditional Chinese Language Pack
Modem
V.92 and V.90 Compliant x 1
Bluetooth.
Bluetooth standard Ver. 2.0+EDR
Dimension WDH mm
335.1 mm x 21-38.3 mm x 249 mm
Optical Drive
DVDÂ±RW/Â±R DL/RAM Drive
Graphics Accelerator
ATI Mobility Radeon X2300
Hard Disk Drive
250GB*5(Serial ATA, 5400rpm)
Chipset
Mobile Intel PM965 Express Chipset
Display
14.1 (35.8 cm) Wide(WXGA:1280x800) TFT Colour display (Clear Bright LCD Lite)
Web Camera
Effective Pixels: 1280x1024
Battery Life (Hrs)
VGP-BPL9 Lithium-ion battery: up to 6.5 hours of use

price: Rs.65,000

Hp Pavilion V3702TU Notebook PC

2008-11-01T18:52:00.000+05:30

Key Features :-
Display
14.1WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
Fax/Modem
High speed 56K modem
Video graphics
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Network Card
Ethernet 10/100BT integrated network interface
Dimension WDH mm
33.4 cm (L) x 23.7 cm (W) x 2.6 cm (min H) / 3.9 cm (max H)
Sound
Altec Lansing speakers
Wireless connectivity
802.11b/g WLAN / Bluetooth wireless networking
Pointing Device.
Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical and horizontal Scroll Up/Down pad
Weight
2.50 kg
Video memory
Up to 251 MB
Multimedia Drive
SuperMulti 8X DVDÂ±R/RW with Double Layer Support
PC Card Slots
One ExpressCard/54 slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)
Keyboard.
101 key compatible keyboard with 1 Quick Launch Button
Microprocessor
1.60 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor T2330
Power
65 W AC Power Adapter / 6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery
Microprocessor Cache
1 MB L2 Cache
Memory
1024 MB (1 x 1024 MB)
Hard Drive
160 GB (5400 rpm)

price: Rs. 37,500

Fast n Furious 4 Theatrical trailer

2008-11-01T15:21:00.000+05:30

Fast n Furious 4 Theatrical trailer

Casio announces EX-Z300 - EXZ250 and EZ-Z85 cameras

2008-11-01T15:19:00.000+05:30

Both these cameras run on the Exilim Engine 3.0 which offers high noise reduction, good quality images. Face detection to an extent and shake reduction as well. The Z300 and the Z250 both have movie modes which can record video with H.264 codec which is same as MP4 and can be played on your iPods or Zunes.

The Casio EZ-Z85 is also a 9.1 megapixel camera with similar features except the 2.6 LCD screen instead of the 3inch screen.

The EZ-Z300 will cost you around $300, EZ-Z250 around $250 and the best bet for value money buy is the EZ-Z85 for less than $180

War - Nokia N96 vs Apple iPhone

2008-11-01T15:16:00.000+05:30

We realise that we have been going on and on about the iPhone and the Nokia N96, but thats all what we can do since this is our job and specially when the two iconic phones launched together in the same week in India.

Price Comparision:
The Nokia N96 will cost you around Rs. 36,000 while the Apple iPhone 3G with 8GB memory will cost Rs. 31000 and 16GB about Rs. 36,100. On price points even though they are hugely expensive we give them equal rank.

SMS Forwarding, FM Radio:
These two features are the darling of any mobile phone user in India. Since Texting messaging is really cheap in this part of the world forwarding SMSes is a very normal thing for all users. FM Radio is the life of people whilst traveling this is your one source of entertainment on the roads of the Indian metro cities. The lack of both these features on the iPhone is a big minus as far as its Indian market is concerned.

Battery Life:
Nokia N96 wins on this hands down. There have been lots of problems with the battery drainage of the Apple iPhone and these don't seem to stop. You will have to charge your phone everyday or twice a day for that matter if you are a heavy user.

GPS:
This is not a huge factor for the Indian market, but still a talking point. On the GPS front Nokia again wins this pretty easily.

Video Calling:
Video calling is not possible on the iPhone and the Nokia N96 is pretty good at it.

Data Transfer and Bluetooth usage:
A major , major talking point regarding the iPhone. The bluetooth on the iPhone can only be used for hands-free calling. No data transfer allowed between handsets or even with a computer with bluetooth enabled.

Storage:
You thought the storage factor will play in for the iPhone ? That isn't true. The Nokia N96 comes with 16GB of internal storage plus you have the luxury of adding a 8GB memory card giving you a whopping storage of 24GB. The iPhone again loses here.

Design:
There is no beating the iPhone, as simple as that!

All in all, if you are looking for more bang for the buck, go for the Nokia N96. Lookwise and as a fashion symbol, we still say there is no beating the iPhone!

BenQ launches E2200HD in India

2008-11-01T15:14:00.000+05:30

BenQ corp has launched the first 22 inch or so to say 21.5 inch 1080p Full HD LCD monitor. The monitor is equipped with a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution with 300 cd/m2 brightness. It comes with VGA and HDMI inputs with a headphone jack.

The LCD has a 16:9 aspect ratio and has a 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

The E2200HD comes with integrated speakers and can render content from STBs, camcorders and DVD players. The LCD Monitor will be available for only Rs. 13,500 which is a pretty neat price for what you are getting.

Encore Promo

2008-11-01T15:09:00.000+05:30

Encore Promotional Video

ENCORE-08

Third Chrome beta another notch faster

2008-11-01T14:57:00.000+05:30

Google began updating Chrome users with the new beta version, and my performance tests show the company has ratcheted the browser's speed up another notch.

Google Chrome's latest version, 0.3.154.9, shows a 37 percent JavaScript performance improvement over the initial beta released two months ago.

JavaScript is a programming language used to add some pizazz to innumerable Web pages, but more importantly from Google's perspective, to power sophisticated Web applications such as Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail. JavaScript is also up against Adobe Systems' Flash and Flex, Microsoft's Silverlight, and HTML 5, in the competition for what's the best foundation for Web applications.

Google has begun automatically updating all Chrome users to the new 0.3.154.9 beta version.

Google has begun automatically updating all Chrome users to the new 0.3.154.9 beta version.
(Credit: CNET News)

Using Google's JavaScript benchmark I pitted the newest Chrome beta, version 0.3.154.9, against both the initial beta from September and the more raw 0.3.154.3 developer release from mid-October. A higher number is better on this test, and the first beta scored 1,851, the 0.3.154.3 developer release 2,265, and the new 0.3.154.9 beta 2,546.

Google's tests aren't the only game in town; many use the SunSpider test. Here, too, the new Chrome got a notch faster, getting the test done in 2,546 milliseconds compared with 2,904 milliseconds for 0.3.154.3. (We couldn't test the first version because the testing site was down at the time.)

The new Chrome score catches closer to the 2,250 millisecond score of Firefox 3.1 beta 1 with its new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine enabled. (Tech-Recipes has useful instructions on how to enable TraceMonkey.)

On blogger Matt Asay's advice, I tested Minefield, the cutting-edge version of Firefox that's updated daily. (Minefield is downloadable from Mozilla's FTP site for those willing to use very untested software).

It had the best SunSpider score so far on my machine, 2,147 milliseconds. However, Firefox still lags on Google's speed test. Chrome's latest score of 2,546 is miles ahead of the 215 score from Minefield.

Google stalls its Oklahoma data center construction

2008-11-01T14:54:00.000+05:30

Google says that it is delaying its long-awaited Oklahoma $600 million data center construction because of the current global economic slump. The stalling will push the project opening back from its original date early in 2009 to mid-2010.

Encore Promo

2008-11-01T13:26:00.000+05:30

Encore Promo

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0_jZOzJVA

iphone in india

2008-06-26T00:31:00.000+05:30

Apple is goin to launch its latest innovation the iPhone 3G probably on JULY 11 in INDIA.

it is to be in partnership with vodafone which would serve as the official service providr of iphone in india.

the price for 8gb model is US $199 and you'll have to pay $299 for a 16 gb.

but in india it is expected to be around 20,000 bucks. pretty high isn't it...

but the booking has already started..