Showing posts with label News/Announcements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News/Announcements. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Sanyo Xacti E1, World’s First Waterproof Camcorder

XactiE1

XactiE1 (2)XactiE1 (3)XactiE1 (4)XactiE1 (7)XactiE1 (8)

Sanyo’s Xacti E1, the world’s first waterproof camcorder and digital still camera, is on display at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The Xacti E1, which has a six megapixel still camera, won the 2008 CES best innovation award for digital imaging.

XactiE1 (10)

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Twitter, Facebook attack targeted one user

A Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial-of-service attack that led to the sitewide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on Thursday, according to a Facebook executive.

The blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu," (the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia) had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNET News.

"It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," Kelly said. "We're actively investigating the source of the attacks, and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them, if we can."

Cyxymu LiveJournal account on cached version of Google.

(Credit: LiveJournal)

Kelly declined to speculate on who was behind the attack, but he said: "You have to ask who would benefit the most from doing this and think about what those people are doing and the disregard for the rest of the users and the Internet."

Twitter was down for several hours beginning early Thursday morning, and it suffered periodic slowness and time-outs throughout the day.

Cyxymu's LiveJournal page wasn't accessible, but a cached version showed that it was updated on Thursday with a message about the denial-of-service, or DoS, attacks on his accounts on the United States-based sites. "Now it's obvious it's a special attack against me and Georgians," said the message, in Russian.

The site also apologized for a spam e-mail attack in which the sender was spoofed and made to look like the e-mails were sent by him. Screenshots are shown. It's unclear whether or how the spam attack is related to the DoS attacks.

In the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the sites, computers that have been compromised by viruses or other malware are instructed by the attacker's computer to visit the specific Web sites all at the same time and repeatedly. The barrage of connection requests overwhelms the target sites, making it so that legitimate Web traffic can't get through.

Such coordinated attacks require the efforts of tens of thousands or more of hijacked computers, which together form a botnet. Spammers send e-mails with malicious attachments or URLs to millions of people to create botnets. Criminals also can lease existing botnets for specific campaigns for as little as 5 cents to 10 cents per bot.

A Facebook representative dismissed a theory that the attack was triggered by a spam campaign in which e-mails had links to the sites. It's unlikely that there would be enough recipients--all clicking on the URLs at the same time--to bring a site down, he said. There was a spam campaign that directed people to Cyxymu's accounts, but it wasn't the cause of the DoS, he said.

"The people who are coordinating this attack, the criminals, are definitely determined and using a lot of resources," Kelly said. "If they're asking our infrastructure to generate hundreds of pages a second, that's a lot of pages our users can't see."

Facebook and Google were able to minimize any impact to their sites, including Blogger, YouTube, and Google Sites, a free Web site service. Facebook even managed to keep the Cyxymu account accessible to Web surfers from that region, Kelly said, though it was inaccessible to people in other geographic areas, including San Francisco.

This was the first coordinated attack on the sites, and all the companies involved were working closely on the investigation, he said. "My team and the teams that are working together at all these companies are doing a really good job very quickly, and I'm proud and happy," he said.

Twitter and LiveJournal did not immediately return e-mails and calls seeking comment.

A Google representative offered this statement: "We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by a DoS attack this morning and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack. Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services."

Political conflicts between Russia and its former republic spilled online last year with DoS attacks and Web site defacements going in both directions.

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Monday, August 10, 2009

Acer aspire 5738 laptop

Acer aspire 5738 laptop | Acer aspire 5738 laptop Price review

Acer Company released its latest laptop with new features. The New Acer aspire 5738 is a 15.6 inch display laptop backup with 7-8 hours battery. Acer aspire 5738 laptop Priced Rs.40, 000 in India. But selling price is different in the area of India. Acer Aspire has been powered by Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 processor.

1366 x 768 pixel high resolution supports 15.6" LCD Cinecrystal wide screen display watching films. The Latest Acer aspire 5738 provide many facilities and Extra features. It's weight is only 2.8kg. We can get the sure ticket to high different cinematic fun and powerful mobile performance. The Aspire 5738 exciting action, realistic audio and rich visuals play like a true theater.

Acer aspire 5738 laptop Price review

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iPhone


3G iphone

3G iphone

3G iPhone

3G iPhone

3G iPhone

3G iPhone

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New Google G2 GPS Cell Phone

New Google G2 GPS Cell Phone: HTC Touch HD will be the second paragraph of the Google Android phone may be called G2. Before HTC designed G1 Although the use of large-size touch-screen design, but it can not be compared with the iPhone.

google android-001

Insiders say, Google G2 will be a number of indicators and functions beyond the iPhone. Touch HD size 115 × 62.8 × 12 mm. Volume of 86 cubic centimeters, 3.8 inches screen. Resolution of up to 480 × 800. Built-in 5,000,000 pixels CMOS sensor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and the use of the G1 network towers to locate the way into a GPS positioning. let us look forward to the arrival of the era of mobile google!

google G2
Google G2 Picture

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Sunday, August 9, 2009

New Samsung Reclaim Eco-Friendly Cell Phone

New Samsung Reclaim Eco-Friendly Cell Phone: It is reported that Samsung and Sprint together launched a eco-friendly cell phone: Samsung Reclaim, the plastic part of this cell phone is produced from corn, and non-PVC component.
New Samsung Phones – Samsung Reclaim Eco-Friendly Phone Picture
Samsung Reclaim picture

Samsung Reclaim use of the slider QWERTY keyboard design, built-in 2 megapixels camera, support for Bluetooth 2.0, GPS and 32GB of memory card expansion. This cell phone has two color choices, Sprint plans to official sell this cell phone in August 16, after signed two years contract that the price of 50 U.S. dollars.

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Samsung i7500

New Samsung Galaxy Has Passed FCC Testing: Samsung i7500 is a Android system smartphones, this cell phone is already listed in Germany, and recently there is news that this code-named “Galaxy” cell phone has already passed U.S. FCC testing.
New Samsung Phones - New Samsung Galaxy Cell Phone Pictures
new Samsung Galaxy picture

new Samsung Galaxy picture

Samsung Galaxy (i7500) using a straight design and body thickness of only 11.9mm, this cell phone is equipped with a 3.2 inches HVGA touch screen, built-in 5 megapixels AF camera, multimedia player and the Android 1.5 OS, support for quad-band GSM and UMTS / HSPA networks, support MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV video formats and MP3, AAC, AAC +, e-AAC +, WMA, RA audio formats.

Samsung Galaxy (i7500) is equipped with a Qualcomm 528MHz MSM7200A CPU, built-in 8GB memory, support for 32GB microSD expansion, support for 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi as well as Google services.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Sony Ericsson C905 Cybershot: the mobile with 8 megapixels

the mobile with 8 megapixelsMobile phones are moving into digital cameras. Or vice versa. The Sony Ericsson is a splendid mobile phone. But as the name Cyber-shot suggest, it is also a splendid digital camera.

At one time some photographers went around saying four megapixels was enough. Perhaps that is true for someone who always frames the shot to within a small percent. But not true for most amateurs who shoot and then improve the shot in editing. For that you need all the resolution you can get and eight megapixels is very handy. If you crop a picture by half, what you have is the same resolution as a shot on a four megapixel camera.

The Sony Ericsson C905 has been around for a few months and although it is not inexpensive — something under, but not a lot under, $600 — you can look at it as a seriously good camera and a good mobile phone.

Yes, it is a little heavy at 136 grams but paste a mobile to a digital camera and you will probably come in something close to that.

The mobile — which we should get out of the way early for this is about digital cameras — is good for texting as it has a slide-out keyboard. It is a question of taste. There are those who are very comfortable with the iPhone on-screen keyboard. And there are those who prefer a keyboard, no matter how minute, with real keys.

Note that this Sony Ericsson also has GPS built in so it is possible, with the right geo-tag software, to have a place as well as a date and technical details stamp on any picture you take. Finally, on the phone side this is available not just in the United States but also in Australia and the UK — probably other places as well — and the price seems to be settled as something just under $600.

Now to the camera part.

This dual machine takes better pictures than any other mobile phone/digital camera combination currently on the market. Being number one in a sector is never easy and it is London to a brick that many others will be trying to knock the Sony Ericsson out of that spot. No sign of anyone doing so up until now.

The Sony-Ericsson has a built-in flash which is probably a must-have feature for some users. More importantly it has built-in features which will improve the shot even thought this requires some adjustment in thinking on the part of the user.

Take the feature that is called BestPic. It give you seven chances to capture the magic moment. It takes three images as you press the button, plus the image you think your are getting and there another three afterwards. Keep the pictures you want, bin the rest.

It has auto focus which homes in on the subject in the center of the screen which may not be approved by purists but works very well for most shots.

Instead of waiting until you are working with the picture in, say, PhotoShop on your computer you can use a built-in program called Photofix to improve pictures by adjusting brightness, light and contrast.

There is anti-blur software built in and Sony Ericsson claims you can leave your tripod at home. In fact, this is not the sort of device you would be using with a tripod so that addition will probably prove very useful.

It comes equipped with a 2GB memory stick which might, to advantage, be considerably larger capacity. Which is not a great problem.

There are probably other features which could not be accessed in the time it was available. But this is a very complete digital camera and will handle most situations.

In a sense this device shows us one of the ways of the future. Whereas the iPhone concentrates on the phone part and bungs in a fairly low resolution camera to round it out. The Sony Ericsson C905 Cybershot concentrates on both.

It is truly a superior mobile phone in that it has a keyboard and handles every kind of connectivity. And it is a most wonderful digital camera working at a resolution that currently leaves its competition for dead.

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Airtel launches new BlackBerry

Airtel and Research In Motion (RIM) today announced the launch of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone in India. Priced at Rs.21990 the smartphone is now available at Airtel authorized channels nationally.

In addition to the power Blackberry platform offers, the new phone packs a wide range of features including spacious keyboard into a sleek flip design, a company press release said.


“The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is a powerful, compact smartphone equipped to deliver a wide range of applications,” said Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Services, Airtel. "This continues to reinforce our commitment to enhance and deliver the best communication experience to our users with the latest BlackBerry smartphones from Airtel.”
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AMD to Intro 45nm Desktop CPUs in Q3

AMD to Intro 45nm Desktop CPUs in Q3

AMD to Intro 45nm Desktop CPUs in Q3

Techtree News Staff, Jan 06, 2009 1259 hrs IST

The six new additions to AMD's business and consumer class lineup comprises dual-core, triple-core and quad-core processors

AMD will add six 45nm process desktop processors in Q3 this year, Digitimes reported, citing sources at motherboard manufacturers. These processors will join AMD's business and consumer class lineup.

The new 45nm business class processors will include dual-core, triple-core and quad-core processors. The dual-core processors have Athlon X2 B23 running at 2.9GHz clock-speed with 2MB cache and X2 B21 running at 2.7GHz with 2MB cache.

The triple-core processors will add Phenom II X3 B71 running at 2.6GHz clock-speed with 7.5MB cache and Phenom II X3 B73 running at 2.8GHz clock-speed with 7.5MB cache.

While the quad-core series will add Phenom II X4 B91 running at 2.6GHz clock-speed with 8MB cache and Phenom II X4 B93 running at 2.8GHz clock-speed with 8MB cache.

Last month we got AMD's 45nm desktop CPU compilation, which is expected to be launched at CES 2009.

No official word is available since AMD refuses to comment on unannounced products.

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Thursday, December 25, 2008

It pays to steal a phone in India

The ban on mobile phones that have no identification number, also called International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI number, is too little, too late. Even now, anyone in India can steal a phone, or buy and use a stolen mobile.

Slideshow of the day: Cute X-Mas gifts

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), in a directive, has blocked phones that do not have an IMEI number. The 15-digit IMEI number is unique to every mobile handset, and even some satellite phones. You can usually see it by typing *#06# on most branded phones.

This would mean that 25 million users of cheap Chinese knock-offs - that don't have IMEI numbers - might get disconnected on January 6, or March 31 if that gets extended. (If this directive had come two years ago, we wouldn't have to worry about millions of affected users.)

Chinese mobiles used as terror tools

First, about 26/11. Maybe the terrorists did use Chinese phones. It makes little difference. The bigger issue was that they used legitimate SIM cards, bought with fake identity papers.

Second, some irony. While 25 million users of cheap Chinese handsets, most having bought them in good faith and without knowledge of IMEI numbers, will get disconnected, millions of cellphone thieves and their customers will continue with phones without fear of persecution by police or service provider.

The industry has developed software that can be uploaded to a phone, giving it a unique IMEI number, if it doesn't already have one. The software is being tested.

‘IT spend in logistics may touch Rs 1,000 cr’

But at some point, perhaps March 31, the IMEI-less users would have to be blocked. Still, they would have got advance warning, and time to act. Telcos can SMS them reminders: it's easy to pick out the ones without IMEI numbers from caller data records.

A second idea: Let the government use this opportunity to come up with a citizen ID. Use Rs 300 crore from the money collected for the Universal Service Obligation fund from all telcos for this.

The problem is the very few organisations that can drive such citizen projects, like the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), do not have the time. So government agencies like the Election Commission, the ITO and food and civil supplies will continue with a dozen different citizen identities, wasting billions.

But the IMEI-less phone is not the only or even the main issue. As long as regular branded phones (with IMEI numbers) get stolen and re-used without trouble, terrorists can buy them much cheaper than the IMEI-free clone phones.

Because service providers are so reluctant to go after a thief, or a customer who bought a stolen phone, it's really quite safe to steal a phone in India.

Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) members' track record in tracking IMEI is poor.

Google staff get G1 phone instead of cash bonus

A Wikipedia entry says this of the IMEI number: "It's used by the GSM network to identify valid devices and therefore can be used to stop a stolen phone from accessing the network. The owner whose phone is stolen can call his network provider and instruct it to block the phone using its IMEI number."

That is, if you lose your phone, you could call your network provider and it could block that IMEI number so it cannot be used with any other SIM card, or flag it as "hot".

'Could' is the operative word. Actually, the provider won't. Its stance is: "We do not want to harass a customer who has bought a second-hand phone in good faith". Even if that phone is stolen.

Can you imagine that applying to cars? You buy a stolen car, and the authorities say, oh, poor fellow, let him keep it, he bought it in good faith?

Now, telcos might say the phone could be used on any other network, but in this day of roaming interconnect and settlement, tackling that is no big deal. A credit card company does not tell you that a lost card will be blocked only if the thief uses it on 'their network'.

Oh, and an Airtel or a Vodafone will not block a stolen phone even on their own network, unless they're pressured by the police.

If you thought things would be easier with CDMA (code division multiple access) providers, where there are no SIM cards to change, it's actually worse. Tata Indicom refused to block a very poor painter's phone, which was stolen; he finally had to change the number he had got printed on his card. He went through a police report, but no luck. I tried to help him, but couldn't budge Tata Indicom.

This, then, is the bigger danger, but the one that is easier to tackle.

IT giants look at Bhutan for investment

The good news is that the police have begun to act on FIRs (first information reports) filed on stolen handsets. I know of a case in Delhi where a handset was recovered in a few days through the IMEI number. The bad news is that less than one in 10 phone thefts gets even reported, let alone an FIR registered.

So if directed by the police to track a stolen handset, the telecom companies can do it.

On March 31, 2009, they should block not only the IMEI-free handsets but also stolen handsets, after reporting theft (when a handset reported stolen turns up with another SIM card number, they can report that, before blocking it.)

And the COAI should create a database for stolen handsets that would get blocked, at least in India.

Self-regulation? I must be dreaming. So I hope the DoT issues the diktat to block stolen handsets along with IMEI-free handsets. This will put the squeeze on the grey market, on thieves, and, in a small way, on terror.

More India business stories

And the next time you lose a phone, take the trouble to report it to the police. You might just get it back, and deprive the grey market. Or a terrorist.

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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Apple launches new iPod series for festive season in India

Apple has announced that it has introduced a new range of iPods in India to coincide with the festive season. The new range varies from the 1GB iPod Shuffle starting at Rs2,300 to a 32GB iPod Touch at Rs21,100.

THe iPod Nano is now available in eight colours such as silver, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, pink, and black, it also sports a curved aluminum enclosure.

It comes wit the option of an 8GB or 16GB flash drive and holds up to 2,000 or 4,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format.

When fully charged, music playback time is up to 24 hours and video playback time up to 4 hours.

The second generation iPod Touch is smaller and lighter and features a thin contoured metal design, a 3.5-inch widescreen glass display, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi wireless networking, integrated volume control buttons, built-in speaker and accelerometer and other advanced sensors.

It has options of 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB flash drive and can hold up to 1,750, 3,500, or 7,000 songs respectively in 128-Kbps AAC format and hold up to 10 hours, 20 hours, or 40 hours of video and when fully charged.

The Touch has a music playback time up to 36 hours and video playback up to 6 hours.

The 120GB iPod Classic, with up to 36 hours of audio playback time and a 2.5-inch color displaycan store up to 30,000 songs, 150 hours of video, 25000 photos, or any in combination.

It has a music playback time up to 36 hours when fully charged and video playback time of up to 6 hours.

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ISRO all set for Chandrayan II in 2012, Mars mission in 2013

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set for its second moon mission `Chandrayaan II' and space scientists plan to send a robot to moon in 2012, followed by a spacecraft to Mars in 2013.

ISRO will also sent a man to space astride a Russian spaceship the same year, its chairman G Madhavan Nair said.

Besides, ISRO has lined up a slew of missions, which also include landing a spacecraft on an asteroid and sending a probe to fly past a comet, the ISRO chief told reporters at a function organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to felicitate the members of the Chandrayaan I team.

''Chandrayaan II, the design is complete, we hope by 2012, we will be ready for the launch,'' Madhavan Nair said.

The launch of Chandrayaan-II, approved by the government will include a rover that will land on the moon. It will map a three-dimensional atlas of the moon, and analyse the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface.

India hopes to send an astronaut into space by 2013 and a manned mission to the moon by 2020.

India, which started its space programme in 1963, now account for around 16 satellites currently in earth orbit

India also has the world's largest constellation of seven earth-observation satellites, which is being used for telecommunications, TV broadcasting, earth observation, weather forecasting, remote education and healthcare.

Nair, however, said the mission to Mars is still at a conceptual stage and ISRO expects to finalise plans by next year, with take-off in 2013.b He said the same Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) will be used to launch the probe to Mars.

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Samsung Launches MPower Series of CDMA Handsets

Samsung has introduced its MPower series of CDMA phones - MPower 569 and MPower 309.

The MPower series has the capability to interoperate on Reliance Mobile, Tata Indicom and Virgin Mobile. The MPower phones adapt to the network settings of the respective service provider on change of the SIM card, says the company.

Both the new phones support high-speed wireless data of up to 153kbps. The phones also perform the function of data cards on connection to laptops through Bluetooth or data cable, thereby eliminating the need for purchase of separate data cards by the consumers.

The M569 is a multimedia-enabled phone with 2 megapixel camera, FM Recording on Micro SD Card, has expandable memory up to 4GB, Bluetooth with stereo headset function, equalizer and surround sound, video recording and MMS support, 2.1-inch color LCD screen and document viewer.

The M309 comes with 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth enabled with stereo headset function, supports MicroSD card up to 4GB, offers video recording and MMS support and 1.9-inch TFT screen.

Both M569 and M309 phones have the Mobile tracker feature to ensure that the phones can be traced in case of theft.

M569 is priced at Rs 9,900, while M309 is priced at Rs. 6,300.
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Audi announces special pricing, offers for India

Audi announces special pricing, offers for India

Audi, the German luxury car manufacturer, today announced a special offer for its customers – a zero percent financing rate and an extended four years warranty for the Audi A6 range in India. The Audi A6 range includes four variants - 2.8 FSI, 3.2 FSI quattro, 2.7 TDI and 3.0 TDI quattro.

The Audi A6 package includes providing finance on a rate of 0% for Audi customers and an extended warranty of two years in addition to the normal two years warranty. This means a 4 year warranty for the customers of the Audi A6 model range. The extended warranty will include all items which are covered in the initial two-year manufacturer warranty.

Commenting on the special package Mr. Benoit Tiers, Managing Director
Audi India said: “We like to provide our customers with maximum benefits and ensure that they get the best value and service from us. The Audi A6 is one of Audi's most successful exclusive models in India and this initiative will enhance the customer value of the car.”

Audi India also announced recently a price reduction for its homologated models available in India fully passing the revision of excise duty and central value added tax (Cenvat) to the customers. The price of the Audi A6 saw a reduction of INR 1,51,000.

The entire Audi model range in India consisting of the Audi A8, Audi Q7, Audi A6, the new Audi A4, Audi TT and the recently launched super sports car Audi R8 is available at twelve dealerships across the country: in Ahmedabad, Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Chennai, Kochi and Kolkata.

AUDI AG develops and produces cars for the luxury car segment worldwide. The company achieved its twelfth consecutive record year in 2007, with 964,151 cars sold and a revenue of 33,617 million Euros and profit before tax of 2,915 million Euros, the company attained its best figures ever. Audi produces vehicles in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm (Germany), Gyor (Hungary), Changchun (China) and Brussels (Belgium). At the end of 2007, production of Audi A6 started in Aurangabad, India. The company is active in more that 100 markets worldwide. AUDI AG’s wholly owned subsidiaries include Lamborghini S.p.A in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, and quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm. Audi employs more than 54,000 people worldwide, including 45,000 in Germany. The brand with the four rings invests more than €2 billion each year in order to sustain the company’s technological lead embodied in its “Vorsprung durch Technik” slogan.

Authorized Dealer Showrooms:

Audi Ahmedabad - Rudra-Path, S.G. Road, Ahmedabad
Audi Bangalore - Survey No. 6/1, Beratana Agrahara, 15th KM, Hosur Main Road
Audi Chandigarh - Plot No. 171, Industrial Area, Phase I
Audi Delhi - F 85, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase I
Audi Gurgaon - Orchid Centre, Sector – 54, Golf Course Road
Audi Hyderabad - 8-2-684/A, Road No.12, Banjara Hills
Audi Pune - Pro1 Business Centre, Plot No. 395 + 396, Senapati Bapat Road, Shivajinagar
Audi Mumbai - 81, Dr. Annie Besant Road

Authorized Dealer Sales Office:
Audi Chennai, Audi Kochi, Audi Kolkata, Audi Ludhiana

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Monday, December 22, 2008

See-Through' Touchscreen A Relief For Fat Fingers

Does your fat finger obstruct you to use touchscreen system? NanoTouch is the solution
Most of us love to flaunt electronic devices that has shrinked well in size. But, how do you handle its operation with your over sized fingers. Patrick Baudisch and his student Gerry Chu from the University of Toronto have come to the rescue of customers who love touchscreen devices and are gifted with fat fingers.

A "see-through" prototype device called NanoTouch is the solution to the "fat finger" problem, which makes it hard to hit small targets on a touchscreen device because the finger hides what the user aims for.

Patrick Baudisch and Gerry Chu have revealed that their prototype has a six-centimetre screen and a touch pad of the same size on the back, which can detect the touch or press of a finger, allowing the user to move a tiny cursor around and click and drag with it.

The researchers say that when the user touches the interface on the back, an image of a finger appears behind the icons on the screen and moves around in sync with the user''s finger, almost as if the device were transparent. According to them, a small active spot marked on the finger''s end is used to interact with buttons onscreen.

With a view to completing the illusion, the team have made the device in such a manner that the fingertip turns white as if pressed against a sheet of glass when the user presses on the touchpad. The researchers have revealed that targets just 1.8 millimetres across appeared to be easy to hit in user tests on NanoTouch.

Targets on conventional touch-screen devices such as the iPhone are at least twice that size, they add. Baudisch says that the precision achieved by his team paves the way for truly tiny devices with screens as small as a centimetre across.

This precision paves way for tiny devices, with screens as small as a centimetre across that are still easy to use. Further user tests with NanoTouch simulated those smaller devices by reducing the active area of the screen. Even a screen just 8 mm across will be easy to use. However, displaying information on such small screens will need some new approaches, the researcher said.

"We are particularly excited about rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) as a means for compressing data into small spaces," New Scientist magazine quoted him as saying.

Stephen Brewster, a computer interface expert at the University of Glasgow in the UK, said that the NanoTouch prototype was "compelling".

"Touch screens are the interaction surface of the moment, but they do have their drawbacks. Occlusion by the finger is a real problem. Patrick has a nice approach to solving it. (Now) we can start to design really small devices such as interactive watches that have really good interactions," he said.

The NanoTouch prototype will be presented at the Computer and Human Interaction conference in Boston, Massachusetts, in April 2009.
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Japanese Group Asks Google to Stop Map Service

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Private operators cry foul over BSNL WiMax services

WiMax operators in India have cried foul over the allotment of broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum to state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

WiMax Forum, the representative body of WiMax operators, alleged that BSNL had deployed its WiMax services on the frequency division duplex (FDD)-based spectrum band, which does not conform to international standards for WiMax technology. This renders it obsolete and prevents other operators from deploying superior technologies like time division duplex (TDD) on the same band, it has said.

“Both technologies cannot co-exist, therefore if BSNL deploys its services in the FDD mode, it will not be possible for other operators to operate on superior technology,” said CS Rao, chairman, WiMax Forum. He added that this might prove detrimental to the business interests of BSNL as well since its network would not be able to co-exist with that of other operators.

“The interesting point is that the vendor (US-based Soma Networks) which is providing equipment to BSNL for its WiMax network in the three states has registration for TDD as well. Therefore, it can be upgraded,” he added. The forum has asked the government to look into the issue to prevent any monopoly and “ensure a level-playing field”.

BSNL officials declined to comment on the issue.

The forum also asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to treat BWA services on a par with 3G. The industry body urged the government to increase the validity of the BWA licence for 20 years, the same as in the case of 3G, instead of 15 years.

The forum also sought easier rollout obligations for the successful bidders of BWA spectrum.

While the licensee to whom 3G spectrum is allocated has to cover at least 50 per cent of the district headquarters within five years of the effective date — of which at least 15 per cent should be rural short distance charging areas (SDCA) — BWA operators have to cover at least 50 per cent of the rural SDCAs within five years of the effective date.

Interestingly, telecom operators had raised the issue of a level playing field with the DoT opposing the difference in the reserve price for BWA against 3G spectrum. The reserve price of BWA spectrum stands at Rs 1,010 crore, which is half that of 3G spectrum.

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Legal Struggle: Chinese Phones in India

Legal Struggle: Chinese Phones in India

Legal Struggle: Chinese Phones in India


Techtree News Staff, Dec 22, 2008 1321 hrs IST

The IMEI is an identification number that is unique to each GSM handset, which it is legally bound to have

Over 25 million Chinese handset users can heave a sigh of relief as the government mulls over a plan to legalize these IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number lacking handsets being used all over India.

Unbranded Chinese handsets, which have become a rage among the lower middle class, have found themselves on the wrong side of the law following reports that these handsets were being used in terrorist activities. The handsets used by terrorists usually do not have IMEI numbers that every GSM cell phone is legally bound to have. The IMEI is an identification number that is unique to each GSM handset -- in most countries a legal prerequisite for handsets to operate.

In India, in recent years, we have seen an explosive growth in the mobile telephony sector. Apart from handsets from mainstream manufacturers, Chinese phones - many of them spurious, with little or no R&D going into their production - started flooding the market. While most Chinese handsets have IMEI numbers, many do not, and it is these handsets that the government has targeted. In a recent directive, the Government had asked all telcom companies to cut off services to all handsets that lack an IMEI number. The last date to implement this directive is January 6, 2009.

However, according to a recent Economic Times the Government is planning to extend the deadline until March 31, 2009, as the industry has developed a software that can assign an IMEI number to these phones with the help of a software update. In October, the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) had asked companies to store IMEI numbers in their Equipment Identity Register (EIR) databases. EIR is used to ensure that calls made from a stolen handset having a unique IMEI can be traced and blocked - rendering it useless. The same technology can be used to identify cell phones that lack an IMEI or just have a couple of zeroes for the IMEI number to effectively bar calls from such handsets. Post the diktat, the COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) is planning to approach the government to seek an extension until the the IMEI assigning software can be added into phones via the update.

The issues under consideration are the large user base for these phones and the fact that the handsets would be rendered useless after implementation of the directive, resulting in a loss to its innocent owners. The COAI is planning a drive to make people aware about the dangers of using a non-IMEI handset and about the software update that is expected to cost Rs. 100 per phone, which is a nominal amount considering it can save a phone from becoming useless.

The telcom companies also claim that they need some more time to install the software since the EIR equipment has to be imported. They have also asked the government to direct the customs authorities to ban the import of such handsets into the country.

What do you think? Do we need to ban Chinese phones completely or do we need to legalize these handsets as they claim to offer great value for money for the budget conscious user?
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Monday, November 17, 2008

Nokia E71 tailored for business movers

It fits perfectly well into your palm and comes across as a smart, trendy mobile phone. But that’s not its only claim to fame. Nokia E71 is a
smartphone from the E-series range, a Series 60 third edition, second generation Feature Pack 1, device with a QWERTY keyboard targeting business users
worldwide.


One look, and I found the phone — trim and fitted with a full keyboard — a tad crammed, with so many tiny buttons (read keys) jostling for space. But the impression ends the moment you start pressing the keys. The buttons come full-on your fingers and offer a great typing speed — re-stating the obvious: Nokia E71 is impeccably tailored for business movers, with fast and easy access to messaging
, including your business and personal mail, without the complexity.

The build quality of the phone, with steel frames, is solid and is well equipped. It also has a decent a 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera and LED flash that is probably comparable to one that we can find on E90 which means it is not the best camera out there but still it is a pretty good deal for a business-related phone. Of course, there is an also Wi-Fi and the built-in GPS feature.

What’s more interesting, the phone has two home screens, meaning thereby that the two home screens let you choose between work and leisure modes. You can also choose application shortcuts to suit your schedule with message notifications on or off. One thing that’d strike you the moment you use the phone is the great application speed. In fact, switching between applications seems real easy if you have such a high-performing phone as Nokia E71. The other pluses include integrated and assisted GPS, and FM radio 87.5-108 MHz with visual radio.

But what’s definitely missing in this smartphone is a good resolution screen. The 2.4 inch QVGA display leaves much to be desired Rs 22,949.
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