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Amazing photo of the city of Budapest. Zoom in to see the minutest of details!

God–Phone Descends!

All hail the new God of all phones, including, yes, including the now dated iPhone. Google was already the God of search engines, it now has transcended into mobile operating systems. Google-God has now taken the competition to various fruity vendors of over-priced, malfunctioning, computing hardware.

Let us also take this moment to announce the demise of Microsoft’s mobile computing platform – The Windows Mobile. Even the much-awaited Windows Mobile 7 is going to look like road-kill compared to Android 2.1. Windows Mobile is now relegated to the history books. A moment of silence please, guys!

The God-Phone touts a 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen display, a 5MP camera, Android 2.1, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, active noise cancellation, voice-enabled search, 512MB RAM and a 4GB memory card apart from the usual bells and whistles. To top it all, the sweet hardware is from HTC. It is bank-robbery at $529.

The sad part is that this God-phone (Google calls it super phone) will not descend into India, at least not now. I, for one will be eagerly waiting for my rendezvous with God.

Check out these links to get acquainted with God!

Link 1 – CNET news page

Link 2 – Google Nexus One home page

Dead on Arrival!

Dedicated to the millions of hapless WinMo users.

If you have a smartphone running a version of Windows Mobile 6.5 or earlier, you already know about the 10 (give or take a few) applications that make up for the entire ecosystem. iPhone users may have access to a billion applications. Good luck trying to download them all. Hah; problem of plenty. We are, oh so happy with the 10 or so apps.

In what can only be termed as a superhuman effort, Microsoft launched its own appstore called Windows Marketplace for Mobiles with a collection of (hold your breath) 800 apps. Now we have a problem of plenty. Well you may think that it is a start, if not anything else. But there is a minor catch! Only a teeny-weeny one!

The marketplace does not work for Windows Mobile 6.1 or 6.0. I don’t know if it does for 6.5. Even though Microsoft says it does. Webshot below! Good news my posterior end!

I tried accessing the marketplace and was cheerily greeted with the message “Loading…” eternally. After which my phone hangs – much like our beloved windows desktops.

This can mean 2 things. The geniuses at Redmond haven’t heard of the term ‘testing’. Or they got this project outsourced to a national park in Congo, to a team of extremely hairy 300-pound-gentlemen and women.

Screenshot of the path-broken marketplace!

I have this incredible urge to go and break something. Ciao!

Amazing Visualizer!

For fellow geeks out there - try out this visualizer from the University of Utah, which lets you zoom down to the level of a carbon molecule, from a coffee bean!

Link here.

Global auto giant infringes on the Professor’s Patents!

Protest! I take strong exception to this blatant infringement of something that has been legally published, claimed and patented by the esteemed Professor way back in 1958. By professor Calculus in Tintin’s adventure in the Red Sea! If you are thinking “Oh him, he is not a real person!” you have got another ‘think’ coming! Blistering Barnacles!


Here (You can visit this link later) is the link to Nissan’s idea of personal transportation in the future! Note the uncanny resemblance to the Professor’s invention featured below as well!

Photo Courtesy here and here.

Legal eagles will note that what Nissan proposes is at best a crude, boxy imitation of the Professor’s sleek, aerodynamic design. They will also note the design similarities, while Nissan has an inflexible control stick; the Professor had thoughtfully included a flexible control stem to help with maneuverability and balance. Surely these design changes will be implemented in Nissan’s next prototype.

The professor will be turning in his grave to see his invention being copy-pasted like this! What has the world come to these days! I was worried about global warming for a moment there.

Google does not have a world map!

Strangely, I remember reading (somewhere) that the world was charted or mapped quite some time back. Guess I was wrong! Click on the image for a larger picture.

Terminator - Me? Cool or What?

Terminator 2 – Judgement Day. Arnold, with his steely one-liners, an attitude that was deadlier than his shot guns and biceps that could power a truck, redefined expectations of an entire movie going world.

The movie changed me. I was fascinated with the endless possibilities of technology. At the time when the movie came out, an android that could interact with humans and also thump bad guys was a joke. Today it may be still be science fiction, but we don’t hear the chuckles any more.

The coolest aspect of the movie was Arnold could see these cool numbers and this flashing red text in his field of vision telling him his battery was running low. Quite like my laptop these days. Ever since then I wondered how cool would it be to have a heads-up display that could be just like that.

There is nothing like being able to access irrelevant data while walking down a park. A heads up display like that hooked up to the internet through your mobile device would need plastic wraps to protect it from drool.

Immediate applications could be:

1. The moment you meet someone, face recognition could pull up details from your online photo album or LinkedIn.
2. You could watch your favorite movie while jogging on a treadmill. (A big upgrade from your iPod).
3. You could browse the internet or check email while taking a bubble bath.
4. It could be hooked up to your mobile phone or car and throw up all sorts of information on traffic, maps, directions, sales at local stores, news and warnings, all the while you are driving. (In an unobtrusive kind of a way!)

Shivering Cool! Guess what, today I found the exact same device on Time magazine “best inventions of the year”! Check it out!

Remember drooling on your keyboard will not look good on your office security cameras!

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1852747_1854195_1854152,00.html

New killers on the prowl!

In one of my earlier posts, I had talked about the Nokia 5800, being a possible iPhone killer. 

The Nokia 5800 was launched recently, though it is not a stunner and comes with the oh-so-common Nokia chunky design; it has a good feature set, which is better than what the iPhone packs in. In the looks department, it’s more like the beauty (iPhone) and beast! 

The only way this phone can be an iPhone killer is if it is priced judiciously. Early reports say that it should be priced around $391 (~ Rs. 20,000). But then again the speculative prices rarely become reality. Going by what the N95 was priced at, I am guessing prices would be close to the un-judicious Rs. 30,000 mark. 

Check out the pictures of the Nokia 5800 on these links

http://reviews.cnet.com/2300-6454_7-6638904-1.html?tag=mncol;page

http://www.nokia.co.in/5800xpressmusic

Another possible iPhone killer on the horizon is the HTC Touch HD. Now this phone is both stunning and feature-rich. The price is what remains to be seen. But till then drool over the pictures on this link. 

http://www.htc.com/www/product/touchhd/overview.html

Those planning to buy mobile phones will do well to hold on till Christmas. All of these new models are slated to be released around that time. Watch this space! Over and out!

iPhone 3G - The Bad!

The much awaited iPhone finally arrives in India.

Haha. But the prices dashed it all. Prices in the US, for an 8GB iPhone are around $199. Add to that 3G subscription charges of $10 per month for a 2 year period. It comes to $439. Add to that subscription to MobileMe for $99 a year (This is optional). The total comes to $637. And given the fact that iPhone 2Gs are available in the market for around 20,000 Rupees, I was expecting the iPhone to be priced at around the 25,000 Rupees mark.

But the handset prices in India are Rs. 31000 and Rs. 36100 for 8GB and the 16GB models. And that is not the most surprising part. Airtel and Vodafone have formed a cartel to dupe users collectively. Both their prices are exactly the same. I wonder if that qualifies for some legal action under trade restrictive practices.

For the price, iPhone 3G in India just does not make sense. At a price tag like this its drawbacks become that much more glaring.

• The iPhone 3G has a plastic back – Unlike the sleek brushed aluminium back on the 2G – I am guessing it would be prone to smudges and scratches
  
• The back is rounded so you can’t keep it on a table and use it – It keeps rocking
  
• No multimedia messaging – You have to purchase 3G services and send emails instead
  
• No video recording
  
• 2 MP camera without a flash
  
• No landscape keyboard
  
• No voice dialing
  

So is there an alternative? Yes. For all those Nokia lovers out there, Nokia is coming out with a full touchscreen model. If the price is right, it would be the best iPhone killer on the market. And it should be out by the year end. Look out for it.

Here is some more info on the Nokia 5800. Check it out. I think it would be worth the wait.

Link: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=X7swGAs6Ad8

Link: http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2008/04/21/new-nokia-5800-tube-xpressmedia-hands-on-video-review-specifications/

Link: http://technokia.com/nokia-tube-5800-specifications/11/04/2008/