Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s complete do-over of its mobile operating system, is off to a promising start with the Samsung Focus. Despite a few imperfections with usability and web browsing, the big M has polished a gem with this OS, and it truly shines through this iPhone lookalike’s beautiful display.
The Focus feels slick and smooth the first time you pick it up. It’s a teensy bit longer, wider and thicker than the iPhone 4 (4.84 x 2.56 x 0.39 inches compared with the iPhone 4’s 4.5 x 2.31 x 0.37 inches). And the Focus is lighter at 4.07 ounces, versus the iPhone 4’s 4.8 ounces. Holding it in your hand, you can tell the Samsung phone’s plastic parts are a bit cheaper than Apple’s luxury glass-and-metal components.
That’s not to say the Focus isn’t a sweet device, though: The vivid Super AMOLED display makes Windows Phone 7’s colorful tile-based interface a visual treat. Selecting a tile brings you into a “hub” containing integrated experiences for different features. For example, the Marketplace hub displays the four different software stores where you can purchase media: third-party apps, games, music and Samsung Zone, a separate app store serving software made by Samsung.
You can move tiles around on the home screen to suit your preferences just by holding your finger over them and dragging.

For a general download on the Windows Phone 7 interface, see our previous recap of the OS in Gadget Lab.

The tile interface is plenty intuitive, so you probably won’t need an instruction manual when you’re setting up the phone. The People tile is pretty fun: It blends your contacts list with your Facebook account. When you dial a friend’s number, his or her Facebook mug appears next to the call. Selecting a contact brings up the person’s phone number, e-mail address and Facebook profile all in one screen. Pretty neat.
The Mail hub is especially impressive. You select your service (Hotmail, Google Mail, Yahoo! and others), enter your login info and boom — the inbox is a tile on your home screen. The e-mail app in general looks great: Facebook integration comes into play here, too, so when you load an e-mail it’s accompanied with the sender’s Facebook portrait as well. To me, this visual experience makes e-mail far less boring.
For transferring music, photos and video you can sync media from your computer to the Focus with a USB cable. I tested syncing on a Mac. The official syncing program for Mac users isn’t available yet, but I had a chance to try the beta version, and it was surprisingly smooth at syncing music from my iTunes library and photos and video from iPhoto.
(Don’t get your hopes up, though: This is a feature that Apple is most likely going to break with future iTunes updates, just like it did with the Palm Pre’s iTunes sync feature.)

As for snapping photos, there’s a dedicated shutter button on the right side of the phone to load the camera app and to take a picture. In the Photo hub, you can also enable pictures to automatically sync to a free SkyDrive folder stored online in your Hotmail account, sparing you the need to manually upload them.
Overall, this entire camera experience is a lot snappier than photo features on the iPhone and Android devices. However, the pictures shot with the Focus’s 5-megapixel camera are only passable, and are a little blurry even in good lighting conditions.
With all that said, there were a few minor gripes that drove me a bit crazy. To wake up the phone, you have to press the physical power button on the right side. It feels unnatural to have to grip the phone and push a button on the side whenever you want to quickly check an e-mail or send a text message. I wish you could power on the device just by pressing the main menu button, which is centered under the screen — similar to how you can press the iPhone’s Home button to turn it on.
And then there’s the mobile version of Internet Explorer. It’s not as bad as Microsoft’s desktop browser, but it’s not much better. The mobile browser doesn’t seem to load text properly on some websites, such as Reddit and Digg. Small text doesn’t render smoothly, which is evident even when loading Wired.com. Also, photos on some websites appear over-sharpened, making rough pixels become visible. Long story short, two thumbs down for Internet Explorer.
Oh, yeah—and just like the iPhone, there’s no support for Adobe Flash on Windows Phone 7 (yet), so Hulu junkies won’t be thrilled.
The phone seemed more reliable at holding a call than the iPhone 4, but it wasn’t any better at pulling in a signal in areas where AT&T’s coverage is weak (like San Francisco’s Mission District). My testing was hardly scientific, though.
Texting is surprisingly fast on the Focus. Hitting Send shoots out a text almost instantly. There’s no progress bar or anything. Why can’t the iPhone do that?
Overall, the Samsung Focus is a solid all-around device, and the pros heavily outweigh the cons. Most of the listed problems will probably be fixed in software updates. And with Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has largely redeemed itself after putting that bloated carcass known as Windows Mobile to rest. Rest in peace — and good riddance — WinMo.
Hub Ups-Gorgeous tile-based UI laced with large, smooth text doesn’t rip off the iPhone’s app interface. Provides a rich dose of social savvy thanks to tight Facebook integration. Physical camera shutter button is a nice shortcut for shooting quick photos.
Hub Downs- Internet Explorer lives up to its super-lame reputation. Camera shots too blurry to be taken seriously.

Dell Launches Windows Phone 7-Powered Venue Pro (in US)

Dell on Wednesday announced its first handset running Microsoft’s new mobile operating system Windows Phone 7, the Venue Pro.
Available for T-Mobile subscribers, the Venue Pro features a 4.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera and a vertical slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
Inside, the Venue Pro includes a Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, 1 GB of flash storage, 802.11 b/g wireless, a capacitive touchscreen and five sensors (A-GPS, accelerometer, compass, proximity and light).
Computer-maker Dell entered the smartphone business in 2009 with the Mini 3, which has since been renamed the Aero.
Though today marks the Venue Pro’s official launch day, Dell already began shipping small handfuls of this device to some Microsoft stores last month. That head start didn’t work so well, as some customers who bought the device reported Wi-Fi bugs and mislabeled batteries. Dell confirmed these early issues and said they were addressed.
The phone starts at $100 with an 8-GB data contract. It begins shipping Dec. 9 in US.

Levitation Station Charges Phone as it Floats

Charging cables, and even charging pads, are so last year. What you really want is a way to make your phone float while it re-juices its batteries, and that’s exactly what In-Oh Yoo and Sun-woong Oh want to give you. Their (concept) combo phone and charging-station use magnets to keep the phone floating, and use magic (or some other unspecified tech) to fill the battery.
So far, so boring – it’s not much more than a Sky Mall executive toy, right? Things get interesting when the phone rings (or an alarm goes off):the handset starts to spin, and the after-image effect creates a 3D illusion showing the caller ID.
Annoyingly, the designers saw fit to make the charger glow at night, a “feature” that serves only to annoy you as you try to get to sleep. But otherwise this is pretty damn cool. If you’re going to have a charging station, why not have one which levitates your phone?

 

 

For more Read HERE

Flash on iPhone, But Not the One You Think

The iFlash not a battery-sucking, CPU-choking browser plugin. Instead, it’s an LED lamp that plugs into the dock-connector of any iPhone or iPod and provides a “flash” for your photos.
It’s self-powered, so you won’t drain your battery, and you’ll have to switch it on and off manually, making the dock-connector little more than a mounting point for the light. And that’s not the only hole it will fill on the iPhone: a little plastic jack-plug will let you dangle the dongle from the iPhone’s headphone socket when not in use.
I’d probably avoid this particular gadget, though. If you’re going to add light to your photos, why go to all the bother of buying an expensive light and then just stick the thing right near the lens, where it will give you the same harsh shadows you get from any light so close to the lens. It’s like buying an SB900 strobe for your Nikon and then sitting it in the camera’s hot-shoe. No, better to just take the $40 this widget will cost you and buy a decent LED flashlight.
iFlash Product Page

Things to know Before Buying a Gaming Console

Holiday time equals game time. And if you or your loved ones haven’t made the leap to a current-generation game console yet, now’s a great time to do it.

Game consoles traditionally have a five-to-10-year shelf life, and we’re right in the middle of that span now. That means the current generation of game boxes from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have all been out awhile, and you shouldn’t expect major upgrades any time soon.

Instead of rolling out brand-new hardware, each company has incrementally tweaked and improved its existing systems in 2010. Here’s a breakdown of today’s landscape.

Playstation 3

Sony’s console is the most powerful of the lot, making for fast performance and fantastic-looking games. The integrated Blu-ray drive also makes it a perfect fit for the living room.

What’s new: Motion-based control via Playstation Move (see below).
Exclusive titles: Gran Turismo 5, Heavy Rain, God of War III.
Hidden perk: 3-D gaming and 3-D Blu-ray support, thanks to a recent firmware upgrade.
Price: $300 (120-GB model), $350 (320-GB model).

Xbox 360

As a hardcore gamer’s console, the 360 delivers solid visuals and a fantastic back catalog of games. A recent chassis refresh lends it quieter operation, and its online matchmaking and community are highly polished and well-developed.

What’s new: Full-body control and speech recognition via Kinect (see below).
Exclusive titles: Halo: Reach, Fable III, Crackdown 2.
Hidden perk: Has a full-fledged movie-rental-and-purchase service baked into Xbox Live.
Price: $200 (4-GB model), $300 (250-GB model), $400 (250-GB model with Kinect).

Nintendo Wii

This tiny console dominates the market with its focus on casual gaming, motion controls and cherished Nintendo properties. Though somewhat underpowered, it has modest video chops and bare-bones online-gaming capabilities.

What’s new: Disc-less Netflix.
Exclusive titles: Metroid: Other M, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Red Steel 2.
Hidden perk: Lets you purchase and download vintage Nintendo games.
Price: $200.

Multimedia Features

The ins and outs of gaming are pretty self-explanatory (Shoot > Kill > Gloat > Repeat). Let’s take a look at some less-obvious multimedia experiences crammed into today’s systems.

Dashboard services: The days of booting up and going straight to fragging are gone. Modern systems feature dashboards, which serve as central hubs for additional services and features. All sorts of things are accessible and displayable: from news, weather (Nintendo Wii), Facebook and Twitter (Xbox 360) to sports scores (Playstation 3).

Music: Rockin’ a boomin’ sound system? Then turnin’ your console into a streamin’ jukebox is a no-brainer.  Though the feature isn’t baked into the Wii, there are plenty of third-party software options out there. As a DLNA-ready device, the PS3 is also designed to shoot your music onto the big screen and sound system from the get-go. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 offers the most vertical integration when it comes to music. Music purchases from Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace app also scale for use on PCs, Zunes and even Windows Phone 7–enabled smartphones.

Media streaming: Using game consoles to play a cache of computer-stored video files has never been easier. The Xbox 360 works surprisingly well with Windows’ Media Center, letting you shoot your PC or Mac-stored content to the big screen. The PS3 is similarly capable and equally powerful, allowing you to stream network-accessible video files with minimal setup and requiring easily accessible software. Nintendo’s Wii can also manage this task with third-party software, though the video quality is significantly less polished compared to its much more powerful competitors.

Motion Gaming

Thanks to the success of the Wii’s innovative motion-based control scheme, every console is getting some gesture love this holiday season. Although the concept is largely the same across all systems (flailing around wildly = moving an on-screen avatar)  the underlying tech and game libraries are drastically different. On top of this, the PS3 and Xbox 360 require additional peripherals to unlock these capabilities. Here’s the skinny on the differences and the equipment needed.

PlayStation Move

Sony’s answer to the Wii utilizes a wireless wand-style controller packed with inertial sensors and accelerometers. Paired with the PlayStation Eye (a tiny webcam peripheral), the Move can track the controller in three dimensions.

Equipment needed: PS3 + PlayStation Eye + Wand Controller.
Price: $100.
Must-have motion title: Sports Champions.

Xbox 360 Kinect

Microsoft ditched the controller entirely, instead relying on a high-tech, webcam-like sensor array. On top of sensing players’ motions (and the characteristics of the room itself), Kinect also sports speech recognition.

Equipment needed: Xbox 360 + Kinect Sensor.
Price: $150.
Must-have motion title: Dance Central.

Nintendo Wii Motion Plus

How do you remind people you were first with motion-controlling? You improve on the platform you already have by giving it a boost in sensitivity and accuracy. You don’t need it for basic Wii games, of course, which use the stock Wiimote. But the Wii MotionPlus fits over the existing Wiimote and gives added sensitivity and accuracy to your movements. Best part? Earlier this year Nintendo announced it would be offering MotionPlus controllers with new consoles — gratis.

Equipment needed: Wii + MotionPlus Controller.
Price: $20.
Must-have motion title: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, GoldenEye 007.

TRAI To Fine Telemarketers Rs. 2.5 Lakhs for Unwanted SMS and Calls

Looks like the unwanted calls from telemarketers is finally going to end soon. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has published the new guidelines for telemarketing companies who call you for anything from a house loan to sell a credit card.
According to the new guidelines published by TRAI, telemarketers will be provided with a new set of numbers which start with "70". This will make it easier for users to identify telemarketing calls before they even pick the phone up.
Also telemarketers will have compulsorily register for the new numbers or else they will be fined anywhere between Rs 25000 and Rs 2.5 lakhs. Also you will not have to worry more about late night calls, since the new TRAI regulations state that there should be no telemarketing calls between 9PM and 9AM.
Overall the new TRAI guidelines will definitely provide relief to consumers who are subjected to unwanted calls. The new guidelines will go into effect start January 2011.
If you do not want to receive any calls at all you can register yourself for the Do Not Call service with your mobile operator.

Track Santa Claus With Help from NORAD and Google

Google today announced the kick-off of this years Christmas countdown at noradsanta.org, a partnership between North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Google.

If you have been following the tradition of tracking Santa Claus, you can do it this year too by visiting http://www.noradsanta.org/. According to Google kids can play holiday-themed games with a new one is released each day and get updates from the North Pole as Santa prepares for his big sleigh ride.
So go ahead and have fun this year tracking Santa. You’ll find more info on this at the Official Google blogs. By the way watch a video of NORAD tracking Santa in 2009 embedded below.

Apple iPad Comes To India, Officially!

Apple has quietly started shipping it’s most celebrated tablet device – iPad to India. And if you still thought Apple iPad is yet to be available officially in India, better check again! Many Apple’s franchisees in India have just started selling iPads. However there is a catch to it – you have to buy the iPads in bulk.

The Economic Times did it’s own follow ups and found out that an Apple reseller at Delhi’s Connaught Place has already supplied bulk orders to corporates like HCL, IndiaBulls, Protiviti and Bajaj Hindustan.  The price currently quoted is Rs 33,000 for a 16GB model and Rs 54,000 for a 64GB 3G model. This includes with warranty and the pay invoice. The dealer also said that they supplied 25 pieces to IndiaBulls. In order to place the bulk order, you have to give the dealer a two days notice period and an advance payment.

The fact that Apple resellers in India are currently selling the iPads to corporate customers and that too in bulk became more  concrete when The Economic Times got in touch with another store at Noida’s Sector 18 which initially  said that iPads haven’t been launched in India. But when the same store was approached later as a corporate customer  the store said they will source the iPads from Hong Kong through an importer.

Micromax Andro A60 previewed in India

Micromax to unveil its first Android phone - Andro. Now concrete details about Micromax Andro smartphone running Google Android 2.1 Eclair update come from Micromax Delhi Bloggers Meet. Micromax Andro A60 is a full touch-screen smartphone that will feature 2.8-inch touch screen. Sporting a 600MHz CPU this Android smartphone will be available in India starting next month for a price of less than Rs. 8000. We'll try to get the exact figure but it s certainly will be less that that figure. 

Coming from India s third largest mobile phone vendor, Micromax Andro takes a leap into Android phones under Rs. 10,000 bracket. Andro has 2.8-inch touchscreen supporting 320x240 pixel resolution which might not please the mobile fanatics but average joe might be happy with it. With dual-band GSM support this smartphone will be 3G ready and promises up to 7.2Mbps speeds via HSUPA and up to 5.76 speeds via HSDPA. Micromax has added even Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity but there was no mention of Bluetooth.  

Micromax s Android debut Andro comes with GPS which is quite interesting for an Android handset priced for less than 8K.With measly 150MB internal memory one can add up to 32GB memory card. The phone offers 3.2 megapixel camera with Auto-focus. You can also record video but don t expect amazing quality. Andro A60 will also sport Accelerometer and gravity sensor for users to enjoy the light weight Android-platform based games

Most worrisome part of Andro A60 is the 1280 mAh Lithium-Ion battery that promises just 4 hours of talk time. Now I am not sure if this is going to be a Dual-SIM phone. But it may get some attraction from users to check out the new operating system - Android. Only after getting our hands on to Andro A60 we can say whether it would be a worth competitor to Samsung Galaxy 5 GT-i5503. Slowly, Android is tapping the entry-level mobile phone segment. At the bloggers meet, Micromax also talked about launching 3.5-inch touchscreen bearing Android handset and also a 7-inch tablet. The price of both these devices would be comparatively affordable.

Try your Luck and You could get this Free-

http://myfirstandroid.com/

Mobile Number Portability: Things to Know

Soon mobile number portability (MNP) will be implemented in India, but there are several things about MNP that are not known to the public. Let us take a look at what it is all about.

What is MNP all about?

MNP is the facility that lets a mobile phone subscriber retain his/her original mobile number even after moving from one service provider to another. This is implemented in two different ways around the world. Some countries have the subscriber wanting to port his/her number to contact the new provider, also called the Recipient first. The Recipient then has to work with the old provider known as the Donor to arrange for the smooth transfer of the number. This method is known as Recipient-led porting.

Another, though a less popular way, is to have the subscriber to contact the Donor to obtain a Porting Authorization Code (PAC), which he/she has to provide to the Recipient. The Recipient then has to contact the Donor to complete the porting process. This is known as Donor-led method, but is not popular because there is a chance that the Donor may lure a subscriber to retain his subscription, leading to distortion of competition.

In India, MNP has been elusive so far. It has been implemented the world over and we are one of the last countries left to implement MNP - even our neighbor Pakistan implemented MNP way back in March 2007.

But the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made clear that there won't be any further delays and it will surely be implemented on November 1, 2010. To use MNP facility, the subscriber will have to pay a non-refundable fixed charge of Rs.19, while the dipping charge is left to mutual negotiation between the telecom service providers and the MNP service providers. The porting charge shall not exceed the per port transaction charge of Rs.19, according to TRAI directive.

In India, the Recipient-led porting procedure will be used. The porting process would involve a break in service when a number is detached from the donor and added to the recipient, which should not take more than two hours during which no mobile service will be available. After this, the recipient operator has to carry out subscriber verification according to guidelines for acquiring a new user, within five days of receiving a written request. Once verified, the request is forwarded to the donor, seeking its clearance. The donor then has to verify and get back to the recipient with details within two days. MNP is then implemented.

To be able to cope up with the enormous logistics involved, mobile number portability will be carried out by dividing the country into two zones for the purpose of security and reliability. The zones are as shown in the map.

 

Implications of MNP

The general opinion is that this is a good initiative, but is it really so? We need to consider a few things MNP will impact.

The first and foremost thing to note about MNP is that it will promote healthy competition. Mobile subscribers will no longer be faced with the dilemma whether they should shift to a better operator and lose their mobile number, or to stay dissatisfied with the current one and retain their number. They will now be empowered to go to any operator who they think will serve them better. Effectively, this will stimulate mobile operators to better their services to retain their subscriber base and prevent subscribers from looking towards greener pastures .

This is also like a double-edged sword. It can actually push established mobile operators towards the edge if people start moving towards a newer operator who has nothing to lose and is able to lure subscribers just because of good advertising, and no actual track record.

Postpaid mobile subscribers must have no outstanding bills on the date of application of porting. Prepaid users will lose their balance amount after number porting. Thus, you essentially start off with a clean slate, with the original number.

Though most do not know, the rule is that MNP is available within a telecom circle. This usually means a state. Therefore, you cannot retain your number if you shift from one state to another for change of residence due to your job. (Of course, you can retain your number the old way with expensive national roaming).

It will be impossible to easily ascertain the location of a number. Currently, the first few digits of a mobile number are enough to give you the location of the mobile number as well as its mobile operator. But with MNP in place, the number is not bound to any region or operator, making it very difficult to identify the physical location and telecom operator. Again, as noted in the last point, you can't port number between circles, so as of now at least it would be possible to identify the circle to which a number belongs.

From experiences of mobile subscribers abroad, especially in the UK and New Zealand, the process of changing your mobile number may not exactly be a pleasant ride. Subscribers in these countries have had to endure a lot of hardships owing to MNP. They have had to run between Recipient and Donor operators, re-submitting applications and documents again and again, having to wait for a much longer period for the porting to take place even though it should happen within a stipulated number of days (due to the enormous logistics involved in the process), and also facing with an interim period of uncertainty when you are actually a customer of both operators, thus having to pay monthly rentals to each one of them.

Once having changed your operator retaining the same mobile number, the TRAI directive states that the subscriber has to remain with the new provider for a minimum lock-in period of 90 days before shifting to another provider using MNP. While this sounds fair enough from the operator's point of view so that he gets a fair chance to prove himself , it may be a nightmare for the subscriber if this new operator is even worse than the previous one. However, if you have a quick second thought, you are given the liberty of withdrawing your porting request within 24 hours of the submission of the application. The porting charges will not be refunded.

If you use an iPhone locked to a certain network, then the chances are that you will not be able to use it with another network even though you can technically change your operator keeping the same number. In a similar manner, if you want to move from one technology to another, such as CDMA to GSM or vice versa, the handset won't work due to incompatibility.

To summarize, considering all the pros and cons, mobile number portability is a good thing that is happening and is something that should have been implemented many years ago. As is the usual case with all new technological implementations, there will be hiccups with MNP too. But we surmise that the end result will be good, or at least let us hope for the best.