Samsung Omnia Review

No longer does Windows Mobile alone a capable smartphone make. The platform's core is as relevant, powerful, and well-supported as ever, but that's not the problem -- the real issue is that it's just plain hard to look at. The days of WinMo looking even remotely modern in its stock form are long gone, and top-tier manufacturers clearly recognize that; everyone from ASUS to HTC has taken matters into their own hands to craft custom skins that kill off as many of the ancient visuals as possible while still holding onto everything that makes Windows Mobile great.

Enter the Samsung i900 Omnia, a phone that submits to design direction forced upon the industry largely by the iPhone -- full touchscreen, no keyboard, you know the drill by now -- and does pretty much everything in its power to overcome WinMo's limitations to make it competitive in the year 2008. Did Sammy succeed? Read on.

Thanks to the good folks at Wireless Imports for the hookup!

On paper, the Omnia sounds like a smartphone dream: 7.2Mbps HSDPA 2100, quadband EDGE, 5 megapixel autofocus camera, 3.2-inch capacitive WQVGA touchscreen, GPS, Windows Mobile 6.1, WiFi, and 8 or 16GB of Flash with microSD expansion, all wrapped in a tight little brushed metal case. One glance at the carbon fiber-look case tells you that Samsung is trying to position this thing as a premium product, and there's no question it has the specs to back up the claim.

Unfortunately, the phone has to get slapped with the usual word of warning that you won't be able to latch onto any 3G in North America, because Samsung (in its infinite wisdom) saw fit to forgo a triband 3G chipset. These days, we're not buying any justification for this, particularly in a phone that sits this far up into the high end. Want to sell this only to your European customer base? That's fine, Samsung, but many of those folks are going to be traveling stateside on occasion, and they're going to want fast data when they do. Radio gripes aside, we had no problem latching onto our relic of an EDGE network and going about our slow-ass business.

Spec-wise, the phone wins by a neck over its nemesis, the Touch Diamond -- but the big difference, and the thing you're going to be affected by more than any other day in and day out, is the user interface. HTC's TouchFLO 3D is already pretty legendary in the WinMo world, solidifying itself as the skin to beat. Samsung comes to the table with TouchWiz, a name that drills home the fact that Sammy wants you touching this screen, not tapping it with a stylus. Not loud and clear enough? How about this, then: the Omnia has no place to stow a stylus. None. Insane, we know, because even as WinMo licensees are trying to wean themselves off stylus dependence, they still come in handy from time to time. Alas, Samsung says you're fingertippin' it with the Omnia whether you like it or not -- so the interface had better be built to match, and it had better be deep.

So is it? For starters, the screen is plenty bright and crisp, and the display has a nice feel with no give -- perfect for touching. Like TouchFLO 3D, we found that TouchWiz let us spend our average day without really seeing a native Windows Mobile screen, and that's a good -- nay, a great thing. It doesn't have the bedazzling spit and polish of TouchFLO 3D, but what it lacks in sparkle, it arguably makes up for in raw usability and functionality. Flick gestures work great where they're implemented; unfortunately, they don't seem to be prevasive throughout the software, and it's pretty much a gussing game figuring out where they're going work and where they aren't. We'd like to see Samsung take the bull by the horns there and finish what they've started.

The shortcut menu and program list are perfect for fiddling through with fat fingers; no complaints there. Not the prettiest by default, that's for sure, but they can be reskinned to your liking.

Where TouchWiz really shines, though, is with the Today screen's widget bar. It's brilliant, it's useful, and we're going to miss it on any phone that doesn't have it or something like it. The concept is simple enough: a collapsible bar on the left side of the display presents you with a pretty wide selection of information and / or control widgets that can be dragged onto the background and placed however you choose. There's a pretty good variety of widgets available from the get-go, but we'd love to see Samsung release new ones or market an API very, very hard to developers to get them to create widgets of their own.

Oh, notice that mouse pointer up there? Yep, the Omnia borrows the optical d-pad concept from the i780, which can be used in a traditional four-way mode or turned into a desktop-style mouse. We were skeptical of the whole thing -- and maybe we're crazy, but we ended up loving it in mouse mode. We got used to it quickly, we didn't really think that it was slowing us down much, and it essentially negates the need for a stylus for those times when a finger just won't do (like those pesky "X" and "ok" buttons in the upper right of apps, for example).

We wish we had the same love for the soft keyboards. Samsung provides its own input methods to override Windows Mobile's own, a QWERTY and a SureType-style deal. No complaints there -- the default ones have to go. Sadly, we ended up hating both; of course, your mileage may vary. The keys on the QWERTY were too narrow to be reliably and consistently pressed accurately and there was no pop-up to indicate what key was actually being pressed until we'd already pressed it. The auto-correction is annoying, overbearing, frequently wrong, and implemented in stupid places like Opera Mobile's address bar (try typing "engadget.com" -- we dare you). SureType, on the other hand... well, it's SureType, which we've always found challenging to use. Pearl owners may disagree.

In the final analysis, despite its faults, the Omnia's strengths vault it to the head of the WinMo class for the moment, particularly in this form factor. We think that a slide-out QWERTY version would do very well for Samsung as well -- as would a true world 3G model, of course.

Ways to recover damaged data

Bad things can happen to good data. Hard drives can crash. Memory cards can be formatted accidentally. CDs or DVDs on which important files are stored can become scratched and unreadable. But there are steps you can take to try to retrieve damaged data. The course you take will depend upon the type of media on which the data is stored as well as how severe the damage is.

Washington: If the scratches aren't deep, it's likely that you can at least improve the playability of the disks simply by cleaning them. Just mix up a solution of water and window cleaner or other gentle detergent, such as baby shampoo. Then use the solution to dampen a soft, lint-free cloth.

Use the dampened cloth to wipe the data side of the CD. Sometimes what appear to be scratches are actually just smudges, and these can often be removed in this fashion.

For more stubborn smudges and superficial scratches, another homemade remedy can work wonders. First, locate the scratches on the disk by looking at the data side at an angle under a bright light. Then place a small bit of toothpaste, which contains a gentle abrasive, on a cotton swab. Use the cotton swab to gently scrub the disk in the area where it's scratched.
After a few seconds of scrubbing, rinse the disk off with water and then dry it with a soft cloth. You might want to perform this entire operation in the bathroom, where you'll usually have all the supplies - and light - that you need.

At a computer store, you'll find plenty of CD and DVD cleaning kits. Some of these can be quite effective for stubborn scratches. Generally these kits consist of one or more cleaning solutions along with a micro-fibre cloth. Some even automate the cleaning process for you. Don't expect miracles, however: it's possible to scratch a disk beyond any means of repair.

Sometimes you can't. Hard drives occasionally just go bad, refusing to start up one day, either emitting a clicking sound or no sound at all.

Other times, though, there are warning signs. If your hard drive starts making noticeable clicking noises or you begin to experience random data loss or have very slow drive performance, a drive failure may be imminent. It's best to begin copying all-important data off of the drive immediately.

Sometimes shutting down your PC for a while or rebooting the computer may eliminate the problem. But don't assume it won't return. Take any opportunity to safeguard your data as a gift, and start preparing to replace the drive.

Most drive manufacturers have drive diagnostic software tools that are freely downloaded from the manufacturer's Web site. These can run exhaustive diagnostic tests to determine the health of a hard drive.

You can also try the free HDD Health utility, which should work with all recent-vintage hard drives, regardless of manufacturer. HDD Health uses the self-monitoring and reporting technology (S.M.A.R.T) built in to all recent-vintage hard drives - those made within the past few years - to predict hard drive failure.

PhotoRescue has been around a long time now and has a good reputation. It can recover photos that have become damaged on flash cards, and it will even recover photographs from a flash card that has been formatted. There are versions available for Windows and Mac, and you can try it before you buy it. A license is a reasonable $29.

Motorola QA30 Specs Leaked

Of late we have been seeing a lot of horizontal sliding QWERTY phones. Now Motorola is about to change the trend (or be the only one) with a vertical sliding QWERTY keypad in the form of Moto QA30.

The rumored specs are CDMA support with 2.5-inch screen, thread messaging support, 2 mega pixel camera, HTML browser, Email, Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0 and microSD/microSDHC card support up to 32GB.

The release is expected to be in December on U.S. Cellular.

New holographic technology

Current methods of holographic photography might turn redundant in a few years time if the researchers at a Tokyo institute manage to fine tune their latest holographic image creation technique.
Current technology warrants the use of lasers and darkrooms for the production of holographic images because it is required to shoot the subject separately with red, green and blue laser beams before all the images can be "superimposed" to give that holographic effect.

The new technology is based on integral photography. This procedure in creating the hologram includes taking pictures of the subjects in normal lighting conditions. A video camera is used for this purpose. This camera has a "fly-eye" lens composed of a number of micro lenses. The same fly-eye lens is used to display 3D images.

A computer decodes the images shot by the camera and processes them into a 3D image with separate processing units for RGB colors. Each of these units can be processed separately and then merged together again and synthesized. The result is a real-time live holographic video.

The technique is limited only to small images right now - however, it is expected that the technology will evolve over the next couple of years to display larger holographic images.

Are Passwords Safe?

They may soon be, with other ways of authentication and identity protection making their presence felt.
The fact that passwords are not the securest of authentication techniques is well known. Most of us use passwords that are easy to remember, and therefore, easy to crack. Phishing threats and a lot of malware are focused on stealing your online identity—your usernames and passwords.

Security experts think that protecting your online identity is far easier if the ‘human’ element in remembering that identity is minimized. The time, it seems, has come for moving beyond passwords to other authentication techniques that are easier to use and provide adequate protection against identity theft.

Two initiatives here are gaining importance—the OpenID initiative and Information Cards. Some experts state that both can work in tandem, while others are of the opinion that they represent two distinct approaches to authentication.

OpenID
OpenID satisfies the condition of being easy to use. It involves creating a single ID for a user, which can be used to log on to different sites. Thus, you can use the same ID, for instance, for your email account, blog site, and social networking site. Several service providers, such as Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Google, IBM, MySpace and others, support OpenID logins. This means that if you use any of their services, you already have an OpenID.

OpenID works as follows. The OpenID identity provider (OP) is the entity that provides you with an OpenID, in the form of a URL. Services like AOL, Yahoo, or Google enable you to use your account details as your OpenID. Independent providers like myOpenID (http://www.myopenid.com/) and myID.net (http://www.myid.net/) also provide a similar service. Other OPs, such as VeriSign provide an OpenID along with stronger authentication than passwords, such as security tokens.

When you go to a site that supports OpenID logins (you can make that out from the OpenID logo near the login form), you can use your OpenID instead of creating a fresh username and password. However, not all sites support OpenIDs from all OPs. You may, therefore, require a set of OpenIDs, each of which works on a group of websites.

The advantage with OpenID, of course, is that it is less time-consuming than registering yourself with each site you visit, and creating a username or password each time. It also saves you the trouble of remembering so many passwords. The loophole is that if your OpenID is stolen, it would give access to that much more confidential data about you. And OpenID is as vulnerable to phishing attacks as the passwords themselves.

However, OpenID is in its nascent stages yet, and a lot of development is still going on. Further development could result in a scenario where a few trusted OPs generate OpenIDs with stronger authentication mechanisms than passwords, and websites support OpenIDs from one or more of such OPs. That stage, if it comes about, is definitely some years away.

Information Cards
Information Cards, supported by the Information Card Foundation (ICF), rely on cryptography for authentication and do away with usernames and passwords altogether. There has been a lot of conceptual development and discussion about information cards, and practical applications have now begun.

An identity provider would issue you an Information Card, which would reside on your PC as a desktop icon. To authenticate yourself to a site, you will need to click the desktop icon. This works as a digital identity for you; your authentication works by exchanging cryptographic information with the site that would need to support Information Cards. It is possible to envisage a set of Information Cards, each of which can be used for authentication on several websites.

The advantage here is that in a single stroke, authentication moves beyond usernames and passwords, thus negating any threats of password theft. You also don’t need to remember anything, so that the days of not being able to login because you’ve forgotten your password can be left behind. Since authentication is based on encryption, it is difficult to hack.

On the other hand, this system could take years to be implemented, because websites have to begin to use it instead of the current login process. Also, the process of generating encryption keys for creating Information Cards will be carried out by computers; and many computers today don’t have the requisite software to do this on a large scale.

Moreover, one issue with the Information Card is that since the information is stored on your desktop, you will not be able to authenticate yourself from any other machine. Remote logins to certain websites will not be possible, unless you store your Information Card on every machine that you use, which, again, undermines security.

Some security experts also suggest that Information Cards should be used for authentication along with OpenIDs. Since both authentication technologies are fairly new and still under development; the future of their adoption and implementation is quite fluid. In the near future, it seems, a strong, tough-to-crack password is the best bet.

Nokia Launches Bruce Lee Mobile Phones

If you are a Bruce Lee fan this is of interest to you. Nokia released the Nokia N96 Bruce Lee limited edition phone.

The specs though remain the same but this new Nokia N96 avtar will feature Bruce Lee s face, signature on the back case and is also packed with rare photos of the legendary actor. Futher, the phone comes bundled with several accessories including a Bruce Lee doll and a nunchaku.

The Bruce Lee Nokia N96 costs 8,788 Chinese yuan (approx Rs 64,000) -- which frankly is insane amount to pay for a phone that already costs a whooping Rs. 35,000!

The phone is available online through Nokia, but you need to know Chinese for that (Google translate will not come to your rescue for this one).

This market would grow further with the advent of 3G (third generation) service phones opening newer avenues of possible intellectual property theft by way of Caller Ring Back Caller Service (CRBT), Embedded tones, background music, full track downloads, mobile radio and streaming and downloading of music, which bring joy and listening pleasure to the consumers, Lazarus said.

IMI, which issues licenses through its wings Indian Phonographic Ltd (PPL) and Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS), has tied up with all telecom operators for legitimate use of music, he said.

Licenses have been issued to radio stations, television broadcasters (including those showing some new-age music-based reality shows) and big portals allowing streaming and downloading of music on the internet, IMI General Secretary Savio D’Souza said.

IMI’s internet anti-piracy team, while closely working with International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), has managed to close 500 sites, mostly based on servers in the USA, he said.

Software problems bug Apple's launch of new iPhone

The launch of Apple Inc.'s much-anticipated new iPhone turned into an information-technology meltdown on Friday, as customers were unable to get their phones working.

"It's such grief and aggravation," said Frederick Smalls, an insurance broker in Whitman, Mass., after spending two hours on the phone with Apple and AT&T Inc., trying to get his new iPhone to work.

In stores, people waited at counters to get the phones activated, as lines built behind them. Many of the customers had already camped out for several hours in line to become among the first with the new phone, which updates the one launched a year ago by speeding up Internet access and adding a navigation chip.

A spokesman for AT&T, the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., said there was a global problem with Apple's iTunes servers that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store, as had been planned.

Instead, employees are telling buyers to go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their own computers, spokesman Michael Coe said.

However, the iTunes servers were equally hard to reach from home, leaving the phones unusable except for emergency calls.

The problem extended to owners of the previous iPhone model. A software update released for that phone on Friday morning required the phone to be reactivated through iTunes.

"It's a mess," said freelance photographer Giovanni Cipriano, who updated his first-generation iPhone only to find it unusable.

Apple shares fell $4.05, or 2.3 per cent, to close Friday at $172.58 amid a general decline in U.S. stocks.

When the first iPhone went on sale a year ago, customers performed the whole activation procedure at home, freeing store employees to focus on sales. But the new model is subsidized by carriers, and Apple and AT&T therefore planned to activate all phones in-store to get customers on a contract.

The new phone went on sale in 21 countries on Friday, creating a global burden on the iTunes servers.

The iPhone has been widely lauded for its ease of use and rich features, but Apple is a newcomer to the cell-phone business, and it's made some missteps. When it launched the first phone in the U.S. a year ago, it initially priced the phones high, at $499 and $599, then cut the price by $200 just 10 weeks later, throwing early buyers for a loop.

Rollouts to other countries were slow, as Apple tried to get carriers on board with its unusual pricing scheme, which included monthly fees to Apple. The business model of the new phone follows industry norms, and the price is lower: $199 or $299 in the U.S.

On Thursday, Apple had problems with the launch of a new data service, MobileMe. The service is designed to synchronize a users personal data across devices, including the iPhone, but many users were denied access to their accounts.

More tips on Word, Excel

Quick Graphs in Excel 2007

If you have data in an Excel spreadsheet which you want to represent in a graph, just select any cell containing the data and press the F11 key. Right-click on the graph border to change the graph type, location or data.

Format Painter functions using keystrokes

The Format Painter tool is frequently used when consistent formatting is need in a document. You can perform this function using key combinations too. Just select the format required, press Ctrl + Shift + C. Then press Ctrl+ Shift+ V to copy the formatting to the desired location.

Fast find-next in Word

The Find function is commonly used in Word to look for just about anything in a document and Find Next takes you to multiple locations of the search item. But, in this method, the Find dialog box obscures a part of the document view. To avoid this, press Esc at the first occurrence and use Shift + F4 repeatedly to move to next occurrences. Get rid of the annoying Find dialog box and look at a clear page!

Deleting words in a jiffy

Are you tired of pressing the Delete or Backspace key for deleting every character? Just hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key to speed up the process. Ctrl + Del deletes word by word from the right of cursor point, while Ctrl + Backspace deletes word by word from the left. So if you want to delete three words from the right, press Ctrl + Del thrice!

On screen Word Count

If you want to keep a count of things while working, you can use the Word Count toolbar. This is available in Word 2002 and 2003. Instead of going to the Word Count command each time, check Show Toolbar in the Word Count dialog box to view the count of words, lines and pages you want to count. Click Recount whenever you want the latest score!

Calculations in Word

Have you ever thought that you could calculate in Word? Well, there is a neat trick to make Word calculate simple expressions like 28*12-6 =?For this go to Customize in Tools and click on the Command tab. Then select Tools from the list of Categories and choose Tools, and then Tools Calculate in the Commands: list box on the right. Now drag and drop the Tools Calculate command from the dialog box to any place in the toolbar space. Click on close to dismiss the Customize dialog box. The tool will appear grayed out till you select an expression to calculate. To see the result of an expression as above, highlight it, and click on Tools Calculate and voila! The answer is in the status bar.

Write Equations in Word

Writing the symbols to denote sigmas, deltas, gammas, greater than or equal to, and other mathematical signs, you can use the Equation Editor in Word, provided it has been installed with Word. To bring the Equation Editor toolbar in Word, click on Customize in the Tools menu. Click on the Command Tab. Select Insert from the left hand side list, and pick Equation Editor from the right-hand one. This puts the Equation Editor icon in the toolbar. Click on it to start writing equations.

RCom Unveils Motorola W362

At an event in Chennai on Wednesday, Reliance Communications (RCom) unveiled Motorola's new CDMA handset, the W362. Initially, the handset will be made available in 12 southern cities, including Chennai.

The highlight of this handset is that it is to be made entirely in India, at the Motorola plant in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, RCom claims.

Features-wise, the W362 comes with a 4x zoom VGA camera, a 1,000-entry phone book, expandable memory, voice recorder, MP3, and FM radio with recording and integrated speakers. The phone can be connected with the PC sync via USB for Internet access. The phone is priced at Rs 4,199.

RCom has a subscriber base of nearly 4-million in Tamil Nadu and 2-million in Kerala. Tamil Nadu is a major market for the company, contributing around 9 percent of the company's overall revenues

Samsung i900 Omnia

Taking on the iPhone, Samsung i900 Omnia is slated to sizzle this summer.

Samsung has unveiled its touch-screen phone called Omnia. It is claimed to be the iPhone rival and the rumours are further sparked by the time of unveiling which coincide with the launch of Apple 3G iPhone’s second version.

The new Omnia incorporates Samsung’s TouchWhiz user interface as well as Windows Mobile 6.1. Besides the TFT touch-screen, the Omnia has a 3.2-inch 400 x 240 resolution display screen, which is marginally smaller than the iPhone 3.5-inch display. But the major draw is going to be its 5-megapixel camera that has smile detection, image stabilizer and geo-tagging features. Picture quality is enhanced with its 65k colours module. The iPhone, in comparison, has a 2-megapixel camera which was one of the biggest grouse against it.

Omnia also features WiFi module, Bluetooth, USB port, TV Out, voice memo, handwriting recognition, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, built-in hands free and a built-in accelerometer. The two versions on offer will be 8GB and 16GB internal storage models. In addition, it has SD card support for up to 16GB.

Omnia means ‘everything’ in Latin and ‘wish’ in Arabic. Samsung is positioning this phone as a cell that has everything one could wish for which seems to be true going by the phone’s specifications. It’s touted to come to a store in your neighbourhood in July. Samsung has not announced the price for Omnia as yet. You’ll have to wait to find out how much you are expected to shell out for this all-inclusive cellphone.

Spammers to pay MySpace $6 million

Spammers to pay MySpace $6 million
In a significant win for the popular social networking Web site, an Internet marketer who'd been accused of spamming MySpace users is now in the dock and liable to pay the Web site a whopping $6 million in damages and other charges.

Scott Richter and his Web marketing company, Colorado-based Media Breakaway, will have to pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages plus $1.2 million in attorney fees for allegedly having bombarded MySpace users with unsolicited advertisements. The arbitrator has also ruled that Media Breakaway and its employees be banned from MySpace hereon.

While MySpace had alleged that some of the messages were sent out from accounts hijacked by phishing, Richter and company countered that these were sent by rogue business affiliates and independent contractors posing for Media Breakaway. In fact, Richter and company went a step further in celebrating the fact that the arbitrator had awarded MySpace 95 per cent less than the amount originally demanded by the company.

The latest ruling might look pale in comparison to the one last month wherein MySpace was awarded $230 million in damages, payable by the accused -- two Internet marketers named Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines but MySpace is banking on it in its fight against spammers. As Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer of MySpace says, "MySpace has essentially declared a war on spam and phishing on our site".

Sony Ericsson unveils the W960i

Weighing around 119 grams, the W960i sports a slender 16mm frame, and allows you experience music with either the touch of a finger or a stylus. With 8GB of built-in flash memory, the phone is claimed to store up to 700 albums or 8,000 songs.

While the phone's been on the market since about a month, Sony Ericsson has now officially launched its W960i Walkman phone that flaunts a touch-screen display, 8GB memory, and Walkman media player among others.

The touch-sensitive 2.6-inches 262K color TFT (240 x 320 pixels) display serves as a super screen for watching videos or browsing the Web using 3G network or Wi-Fi connectivity. It doubles as viewfinder for the built-in 3.2 mega pixels camera with auto-focus. The W960i allows picture messaging and email/picture blogging, and supports TV-quality video playback at 30 frames per second (fps).

Significantly, the phone sports 160MB phone memory with 8GB built-in flash memory, and promises up to 25 hours of music listening time. Tracks can be managed using Media Manager while you can build your music collection in three simple steps with PlayNow. In keeping with the tradition of Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, the W960i packs a Walkman Media Player with support for MP3, AAC, and eAAC+ music file formats.

While the W960i incorporates Sony Ericsson's TrackID feature just like other Walkman phones, in this iteration of phone, the TrackID feature has been taken to the next level, where it is possible to get detailed information about a particular song identified. Also, newer ways to search have been added.

The UMTS 2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 Sony Ericsson W960i is available in Vinyl Black color for Rs 28,995 across India. The phone package comes with an included stereo portable hands-free.

Meet the tech savvy stars of tinsel town

Be it Hrithik Roshan endorsing Acer laptops or Shah Rukh Khan appearing in the advertisements of Compaq products, we have seen Bollywood stars in the technology world as well. They endorse gadgets, they are the brand ambassadors and their presence during launch of any gizmo is quite a common phenomenon. Let's check out if these stars have their fetish for gizmos behind the camera too. Meet some of the gadget-friendly guys in showbiz.

Bobby Deol A gizmo freak. He knows the working of a mobile phone even without going through its instructions manuals. He sends e-mails from his phone. He spends hours on his laptop surfing or chatting.

He makes his own family movies with his digital camera. He loves downloading TV serials and music from the net. He records music for his friends’ iPods. Addicted to video games and play stations.

Sunny Deol If he had not been an actor, he would have been an electronics engineer. He repairs everything at home right from the light switch to his TV and music systems. Actor Aamir Khan is an internet buff and was one of the first to go comp-savvy. He has his own webcam and blog... loves to chat with friends and fans. Foes not allowed.

He subscribes to techie-international magazines. Since he’s computer and internet savvy, he doesn’t have to watch TV for the newsbreaks. During long-haul trips he watches movies on his laptop.

Riteish Deshmukh “I’m not a boy-with-toys kind of a guy,” he states but he has a thing about cell phones. He changes the handset frequently. A big votary of Blackberry. If Shah Rukh is not buying toys for his children then he’s buying gizmos for himself. He’s net savvy. Can have video conference conversations with his kids.

Net-savvy, he also keeps himself updated about high-definition technology, both in the realms of DVD watching and in filmmaking.

Arjun Rampal “I’m a gizmo man,” he states and is know to edit little movies on his laptop. Also a proficient photographer, he stores the images he likes – particularly of his family and those shot on the sets – on the laptop.

At home his computer is always connected to the net. His music system is another weakness. He’s constantly burning CDs for friends. And his Porsche car is equipped with gadgets galore.

Shah Rukh Khan If he is not buying toys for his children then he’s buying gizmos for himself. He’s net savvy. Can have video conference conversations with his kids. He has all the video games and is perhaps the only actor to have a retro juke-box with super-sound in his home. He owns a communicator and is amongst the few actors who is very sms friendly.

Rahul Khanna His laptop is his best friend. He reads the newspapers on the net and replies to e-mails at lighting speed. He has his own blog and is very tech savvy. His cell phone is used to reply to messages and mails and yes sometimes, he clicks pictures too. He plays video games because “it’s therapeutic for the soul.”

Aamir Khan He’s an internet buff and was one of the first to go comp-savvy. He has his own webcam and blog...loves to chat with friends and fans. Foes not allowed.

Experts see huge advertising potential in mobile phones

Only a few months have passed since India overtook the US to become the number-two wireless network in the world.

But already, this has opened up a huge potential for mobile telephony to be tapped as an advertising medium, experts at the "Mobile Conversation" conference, held in the capital on Friday, said.

"Mobile as a medium instigates immediate response and should be a part of any multi-channel advertising campaign," said Manoj Dawne, chief executive of Mauj - a mobile entertainment and advertising company.

"It holds the potential to not just complement but enhance the impact of any promotion," Dawne added.

Gopala Krishnan, co-founder and head of corporate development of Mobile2win, identified SMS, voice, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), native applications and gaming as some of the key platforms employed by marketers.

“These can be utilised in a stand-alone format or integrated, depending on the need of the client (advertiser) and the profile of the target audience,” Krishnan said.

Ajay Gupte from OnMobile and Sujai Srivastava, deputy general manager of Reliance Communication, stressed on SMS and WAP as advertising mediums, while Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games, highlighted the advertising avenues on mobile games.

Srinivas Murthy of Coca-Cola presented the case study of the recent Sprite “Kholega Toh Bolega” campaign, which extensively utilised mobile advertising space.

“The response to the campaign was enormous. We have got about 1.7 million SMSs from our customers till date, which is by far the largest response for any consumer product initiative on the mobile till now,” Murthy said.

Are traditional phone manners dying?

In today's fast-paced world, telephone communication is more important than ever. But, it seems teenagers are least bothered, for a study has found they ditch the traditional greeting of "hello" while taking a call.

Researchers have based their finding on a survey of 2,000 phone users in Britain -- a third of young people aged 18 to 24 admitted to answering their cellphones with greetings such as "hi", "yo" or "what's up" instead of "hello".

According to the researchers, the greeting "hello" has been around nearly as long as the telephone itself.
When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 he answered it with the greeting "Ahoy-hoy" that was used as a greeting on ship radios at the time. However, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison did not like the maritime term and invented "hello" which was recorded in the dictionary in 1883.

But, nearly a third of the respondents, including adults, said their phone answering habits had become less formal and more casual over the past decade, with only one in 20 adopting a more formal phone answering style.
Many of those who use a less formal greeting said it was due to the increase in ways they can communicate, with text messages, mobile phones and emails, British newspaper 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

The survey also found that nearly seven per cent of British adults admitted to screening all their landline calls with either a voicemail or answerphone, rather than picking up the receiver, the survey found.
Scottish people are most likely to greet callers by name when answering their mobile phone, with 28 per cent checking who is calling them in order to personalise their greeting, it revealed.

Stewart Fox-Mills, the Head of Telephony at the Post Office, which commissioned the survey, said: "It's fascinating to see how the public's relationship with the telephone has changed and how despite range of communication technologies available, it still has such a pivotal role."

Take better candids with your digital camera

Most people start out in digital photography taking 'candids' - pictures of people in their environment when they are not posing.

Unfortunately, most of those pictures end up being rejects - unflattering or just plain uninteresting.

The good news about digital photography, though, is that there's no penalty for trying. It costs nothing to download the pictures on to your PC and view your results, and you don't feel compelled to print out anything that's not worthy.

The trick, though, is to come to the practice of shooting candids with a bit of knowledge about what techniques give you a better chance at getting a higher percentage of keepers.

With your digital camera in hand, you'll no doubt be tempted before long to take pictures of people while they're eating. Casual get-togethers, company events, sporting events, and other situations in which candids are commonly shot often involve food - and new photographers are tempted to snap those pictures when their subjects are chomping down on something tasty.

Avoid that temptation. The reason is simple: people are often in unflattering positions when they're eating, and they're generally not in a mood to be photographed then.

They'll be concerned that they have food on their chin or hanging out of their mouths - and in the worst cases, they actually will. Unless you're photographing a bride and groom sharing a ceremonial piece of wedding cake, let people eat without the flash bulbs going off.

When you're shooting people in unposed situations, it's easy to get tunnel vision, concentrating solely on your subject. But an interesting picture consists of more than just your subject.

It's a combination of subject and context - and that context includes what's behind and around your subject. If in your photograph you unintentionally capture distracting or unattractive poles, concrete, or people engaged in distracting activities, the impact of your photo will be diminished.

Try for uncluttered, natural backgrounds, if possible, or make sure that any people behind or around your subject are part of the story that your picture is telling.

Sure, posing goes altogether against the idea of candids. But the fact is that getting people in the mood to be photographed and in the right environment for a compelling shot often results in photographs that we end up keeping around - and that, after all, is usually the point of taking pictures in the first place.

Saying something like, "hey, would you mind moving over here so that I can take your picture" is not that hard, and people often respond favourably, giving you the type of shot that you want.

To make any candid pictures of people more interesting, try shooting them from unusual angles. Instead of shooting people always at eye level, see what happens in your viewfinder when you move to the left or right, crouch down, or stand on a stool.

Try to get your subjects looking up at you a bit rather than straight on. This is especially effective for older people. With children, on the other hand, get down on their level rather than shooting them from above.

Taking a picture of a toddler amid a sea of adult legs can be effective - and draw out an expression from the toddler that's special.

Even if you're a very experienced photographer, you won't gain any friends if you show them candids of themselves that aren't flattering. So don't spare the delete key.

Lighting is critical to any good photograph, and that includes candids. Try to get your subjects in light that is flattering to them. Harsh sunlight that makes your subjects squint isn't the best, nor is taking a picture of someone when the sun is at that person's back, since your camera will be overwhelmed by the light from the back and your subject will end up looking dark.

To compensate for difficult lighting situations, consider using your camera's built in flash - or an accessory flash - even when you're outdoors. Flash will fill in any shadows in an unevenly lit scene, and it will enable your camera to better adjust the colours in a scene, which will result in more pleasing skin tones.

A rule of thumb in all people photography is always to focus on the subject's eyes, since that is the natural focal point of the viewer. If your subject's eyes are out of focus, the entire photograph will be perceived as "off".

So use the focus point selector on your digital camera to ensure that the main subject's eyes are where you focus. The only exception to this rule would be if you're intentionally trying to achieve a special effect through a less conventional method of focus.

Poor man`s `BlackBerry` services in the works

Users of entry-level handsets will soon be able to avail of push-mail services, with the Rajesh Jain-promoted Netcore Solutions close to launching the service in India.

Push-mail service providers charge between Rs 800 and Rs 1,200 a month and usually require high-end data-enabled handsets that cost Rs 12,000 and more.

The launch, expected in a couple of weeks, comes as the government has been seeking legal intrusion (monitoring of data) of BlackBerry services and demanding that Research In Motion, Canadian owners of the service, moves its servers India.

Netcore has installed its servers in Navi Mumbai, avoiding a potential BlackBerry-like situation.

The company has developed a suite that instantly forwards mails from the user's e-mails — both corporate and personal IDs — as short messages (SMSs).

Like other push-mail services, a user need not connect to the Internet to read his mails. Unlike other services that are only available on high-end data-enabled handsets, these services can be accessed on every handset that supports SMS. At present, handsets that cost as little as Rs 600 support SMS.

"We are providing mobility to e-mails and also helping it move over from the present restrictions of high-end mobile phones," Netcore Solutions CEO Abhijit Saxena told Business Standard.

According to Saxena, even though SMSs support only 160 characters, Netcore's service pushes 480 characters to the user that will be delivered as multiple SMSs. However, attachments can only be opened on high-end mobile phones.

The company had earlier launched free SMS alert systems providing information like News, Sensex, Cricket, Jokes and Bollywood content. The service has over 3.5 million subscribers.

Jain is the founder of IndiaWorld Communications, a small start-up, which become the largest collection of India-centric websites and was acquired in 1999 by Sify for around Rs 500 crore.

Mid range Nokia phones

Nokia has announced three new cell phones for the mid-priced market to be available by the third quarter of this year; the Nokia 6600 fold, the 6600 slide, and the 3600 slide.
The Nokia 6600 fold is equipped with a 2 mega pixels camera with double LED flash; a 2.13-inches OLED screen displaying up to 16 million colors; and 3G technology. The phone has a double tap feature to display time, incoming messages, missed calls, etc, or reject incoming calls. Nokia 6600 fold will retail for around $430 (Rs 17,254 approx).

The Nokia 6600 slide comes with glossy, high-quality steel covers and an aluminium center key. The phone sports a 3.2 mega pixels camera and a large 2.2-inches QVGA display with 16 million colors. Tapping the 6600 slide twice yields time, snoozes, alerts, and so on.
The 6600 slide will be priced at $390 (Rs 15,649 approx).

The Nokia 3600 slide is fitted with a 3.2 mega pixels camera with auto-focus and a double LED flash. The phone has a TV-out feature ensuring quick and easy sharing of pictures and videos. Nokia claims it is their first phone to feature background noise cancellation. The phone comes with a built-in music player capable of playing up to 3,000 songs, stored on an optional microSD card. The 3600 slide also has Nokia maps, showing over 15 million points of interest, the company claims. This phone will retail for around $274(Rs 10,994 approx).

Microblogging – small but beautiful

Microblogging is catching the fancy of all, with its power of immediacy.

Bloggers, move over. The age of microblogging has arrived. Fast scoring over traditional blogging, microblogging is keeping the hip and tech-savvy busy while travelling, shopping or digging into pizzas at their favourite food joint.

For those not in the know, microblogging is the practice of shooting micro posts to a personal blog on a microblogging web site. Once you microblog, you have the option of either making your post public on a microblogging website or distribute them to a group of subscribers. You can microblog using text, audio or even video. Your pals find your posts online, receive instant updates messages on their desktops or read them as text messages on their cell.

So be it your take on the recent vegetarianism wave, your fab haircut-went-wrong agony or the latest from the workplace gossip machine, you instantly get your friend’s feedback. And brevity being the soul of wit, the posts are kept short, crisp and juicy (between 140-200 characters). Can blogging get any smarter?

What has made microblogging popular hit is its immediacy and high portability. Also the pressure of blogging often is not even there!

The content is brief. You can quickly update your microblog, read what others have to say and leave a comment in response. And if you have a cellphone, you can blog on the go. Many social networking websites are promoting microblogging as a great way to connect.

Microblogging platforms have developed their own set of terms to differentiate microblogging from traditional blogging. Here’s a quick lowdown of a microblogger’s jargon: Twitter (a leading microblogging service) users call posts "tweets", the community is called "twitosphere", posts that are regretted are called "mistweets" and "Twitterrhea" means sending too many messages.
Micrblogging is not only limited to going gaga over the flick you watched last weekend or your latest Gucci catch. It means serious business too. Media organizations in the west, including The New York Times and the BBC are sending headlines and links in microblog posts. Presidential candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama have Twitter profiles, checked out by friends and fans.

Now, find Knight Riders in online games

Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders, basking in the glory of their back-to-back wins in the DLF Indian Premier League, are ready to take on the online world as well.
They have signed on Zapak Digital Entertainment, a Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) venture, to develop online games for them.

As part of the exclusive one-year tie-up, Zapak will create a cricket gaming zone on the official website of the Knight Riders and is said to make an investment of Rs 1 crore in the deal. The exact value of the deal is not known.

The portal has already gone live with two games. Zapak will release 4-5 games in the next two weeks’ time. They will launch a total of 10 games.

Confirming the deal, Rohit Sharma, chief operating officer, Zapak, said, "The idea is to create a community feature on the portal. So we will not only provide games for the Knight Riders but also run contests and other content about the players and the game."

Sharma said that while the games are free for download, the gaming portal would earn money from advertisements.

Zapak will develop flash-based games on the team as well as individual players. Cricket is the most popular genre on the Zapak portal. Of the 4.5 million registered gamers on the site, 3 million access cricket-based games.

Online content seems to be extremely valuable for IPL. For instance, Vancouver-based Live Current Media bagged a $50 million contract to host the IPL’s online"content.

Sony XEL-1: Our first impressions of OLED TV

The first OLED TV to hit the stores is stunning but expensive

Remember the first time you saw a plasma TV, the first television without a big caboose behind the screen? You were probably wondering, "Where's the rest of the set?" You might have the same reaction when you see the new Sony XEL-1.



This 11-inch widescreen television is wafer-thin, just 1/8th of an inch deep, a fraction of the depth of even the slimmest LCD or plasma sets. The XEL-1 uses a new panel technology called OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode), which offers stunning picture quality. The catch is the steep price: $2,500 for this small screen, which is half the size of some computer displays.



If the slim, stylish display panel, which comes mounted to a sleek-looking stand, isn't enough to get your attention, its picture quality surely will. This TV gets high marks on all fronts, with picture quality that is simply amazing. It displays the deepest blacks we've seen, better than even the best plasma or CRT sets we've tested. At the same time, images are bright, with high contrast, yielding a picture that looks great in both a bright or darkened room. On dark scenes containing black areas, no light is visible from this panel, even when viewed in a dark room. Colors look accurate and are richly saturated.



While the display's native resolution maxes out at 960x540 (about one-quarter the resolution of 1080p HD, but better than DVD resolution), we saw very impressive detail from typical HD programming. That's because the screen is so small that there are still enough pixels per square inch to render satisfying detail. DVDs also looked terrific.
This TV can accept image format resolutions from 480i up to 1080p. The less-than-HD resolution will not leave you wanting for detail in this screen size, and if you have a high-quality HD video source, this little TV will deliver.
In addition, it has a virtually unlimited viewing angle, so there's no problem with off-center viewing, as there is with most LCD sets. Sound is also quite good, better than you might expect given the small size of the set.



It's not perfect, though. The $2,500 price tag is extremely steep, considering the tiny screen size. But prices for OLED screens should drop over time as they did for LCD and plasma TVs, which were far more costly a few years back than they are today.



Also, given its smallish 11-inch screen, this TV is not suitable as a primary set; it's best used for very up-close viewing, say on a kitchen counter while you're preparing dinner or on a desk as you're working (though you need to take care not to scratch the specially coated screen). Models with larger screens are in the works; at CES, Sony showed a prototype of a 27-inch model, and Samsung had a 31-inch prototype, but didn't have information about when they might be available, or for how much.



The lack of analog inputs could also be an issue. Although this TV has two HDMI inputs and an antenna jack (and NTSC, QAM and ATSC tuners that will allow it to receive free over-the-air analog and digital broadcasts, plus analog and digital cable signals), it has no component-video, S-video or composite-video inputs, which you'll still find on many DVD players and cable and satellite receivers). That could limit the use of the TV with some older components.
Please visit our Video Hub on ConsumerReports.org to find the link to our free online video report on the XEL-1 OLED TV.



But if you're in the market for a top-performing, small widescreen TV, be sure to put this Sony at the top of your list-provided, of course, that money is no object. With its steep price of $2,500, this little 11-incher costs more than many of our top-rated big-screen plasma and LCD sets. All things considered, if Sony's new OLED TV is any example of what this new technology can deliver, we can't wait to see more.

'The Sims' becomes world's top selling computer game

There are no scary monsters to slay, no enemies to shoot and no cars to hijack. But with more than 100 million units sold since its launch in 2000, "The Sims' is the world's best-selling computer game.

The game's publisher, Electronic Arts Inc, announced on that the franchise had hit the 100 million mark. Including all gaming platforms, it is second only to Nintendo's Mario franchise, which has sold 201 million units.

In "The Sims," which can be played online or not, players create homes and businesses for and guide the day-to-day lives of "Sims" characters. It has been published in 60 countries and 22 languages. Its creator, Will Wright, is one of the video game industry's best regarded brains, though he's no longer involved with the title.

Following the game's launch eight years ago, it quickly crossed over from core gamers to a wide audience. Today 60 per cent of the game's players are women, still a rarity among video games, which are dominated by first-person shooters and titles aimed at 20-something men and teenage boys.

"It's appealing to a large market that core video games have traditionally ignored," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

Nancy Smith, who leads EA's Sims Label, said players find a welcome release in creating a world for their characters. She called it a "very creative sandbox" with a quirky humour that shines through when players can't always make their characters do what they should.

Fans have uploaded more than 100,000 "Sims" movies to YouTube, which Smith said is another testament to the players' creativity. Videos include a "Sims" version of Michael Jckson's "Thriller" and the Broadway musical "Rent.