New In The News

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

The high-end phone is expected to match many of the capabilities of Apple’s iPhone and other so-called smartphones that run software from Palm, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Nokia to access the Internet and perform computerlike functions.

The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the “dream,” will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video.

The phone’s release date depends on how soon the Federal Communications Commission certifies that the Google software and the HTC phone meet network standards. Executives at all three companies are hoping to announce the phone in September because they would benefit from holiday season sales. The people briefed on the discussions declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the project.

Apple’s iPhone has shaken the cellphone industry, partly because of its design, but mostly because AT&T and Apple have allowed owners to download any number of applications to their phones. That freedom to individualize a phone’s functions has helped increase the popularity of the iPhone.

Phones using Google’s software will do the same thing. Google is making the Android operating system software available free to an alliance of companies, including cellphone carriers and manufacturers who have agreed to provide devices which, like personal computers, allow users to decide which applications run on them.

Google thinks that many consumers will want to personalize their mobile phones with unique applications and services, including those made by Google.

Google is eager to get the Android platform on phones quickly because it thinks that the mobile Web is vital to the long-term growth of its digital advertising business.

“We can make more money on mobile than we do on the desktop, eventually,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in an interview on CNBC this week.

But carriers have their own reasons for wanting devices that are more Internet friendly. For one, they can charge more for data plans than typical voice plans. And some carriers, like AT&T, are creating their own mobile applications that they hope will also be revenue generators.

“The launch of Android is an important milestone in the industry,” said Richard Wong, a venture capitalist at Accel Partners, which invests in mobile start-ups. But, he warned, it was only one of several platforms being developed or upgraded today. He said that what he found most exciting was that Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone “forces others to innovate faster.”

Executives for T-Mobile, the nation’s No. 4 wireless carrier, declined to comment on the new phone except to say it was on track to offer it in the fourth quarter. HTC, which is based in Taiwan, also declined to comment, although executives there have said they expected to deliver their phone by the end of the year.

While other carriers and manufacturers have plans to offer phones based on Google’s software, the T-Mobile-HTC phone is expected to be the only Android phone available in the United States this year, according to a person briefed on the discussion.

Sprint, the third-largest carrier and also a member of the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, has been working closely with Google, too, but does not have a confirmed date for offering an Android phone, said Kevin Packingham, vice president for wireless product management. So far AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the two biggest carriers, have not committed to selling mobile phones sold with Google’s software.

The chip maker Qualcomm, another member of the alliance, said the company was working on Android phones with more than five phone manufacturers.

Google executives have confirmed that phones based on Android will be available this year, but have refused to reveal details. The company said it was testing the software on several devices.

“This process ensures we have an opportunity to receive feedback from users,” Google said in a statement.

Some makers of mobile software programs have complained that creating applications for Android has been difficult, as Google has continued to make changes to the operating system and has at times been too busy to provide support to developers. Some of those software makers have chosen to focus their development efforts, at least for now, on phones that are already on the market like the iPhone or the BlackBerry, made by Research in Motion.

The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news.

In a tale of sales success breeding resentment, computer companies are wary of the new breed of computers because they sell for a low price that could threaten the PC makers’ already thin profit margins.

The new devices, often called netbooks, have scant built-in memory and are intended largely for surfing Web sites and checking e-mail accounts. The companies that pioneered the category, like Asus and Everex, both of Taiwan, are small, and so is the price. Some sell for as little as $300.

Despite their wariness of these slim machines, Dell and Acer, two of the biggest PC manufacturers, are not about to let the upstarts have this market to themselves. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest PC maker, recently sidled into the market with a hybrid of a notebook and netbook that it calls the Mini-Note.

Several makers are taking the low-powered PCs one step further. In the coming months, they are expected to introduce “net-tops,” low-cost versions of desktop computers intended for Internet access. A Silicon Valley start-up called CherryPal says it will challenge the idea that high-powered machines are required to allow basic computing functions in the Internet age. It is bringing out a $300 desktop PC that is the size of a paperback and uses 2 watts of power, compared with the 100 watts of some desktops.

It wants to take advantage of “cloud computing,” in which data is managed and stored in distant servers, not on the actual machine.

Industry analysts say that the emergence of this new class of low-cost, cloud-centric machines could threaten titans like Microsoft, Intel, HP and Dell, because they have built their companies on the notion that consumers want more power and functions built into their next computer.

Some of the big computer companies put a positive spin on the low-cost machines, saying they welcome new categories. But they would just as soon this niche did not take off, given the relatively low profit margins.

“When I talk to PC vendors, the No. 1 question I get is, how do I compete with these netbooks when what we really want to do is sell PCs that cost a lot more money,” said J.P. Gownder, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Even as some PC vendors are jumping into the fray, others say they are resisting. Fujitsu, one of the world’s top 10 personal computer makers, said that it believes the low-cost netbook trend is a dangerous one for the bottom line.

“We’re sitting on the sidelines because even if this category takes off, and we get our piece of the pie, it doesn’t add up,” said Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product management for Fujitsu. “It’s a product that essentially has no margin.”

Stan Glasgow, chief executive of Sony Electronics, said, “We are not looking at competing with Asus.” But he said the company was investigating what consumers wanted in a second PC.

It is a market that caught the major computer companies - both hardware and software - by surprise after Asus brought out the $300 Eee PC. The company thought it would be used primarily in education, or as a starter laptop for adolescents, but the interest has turned out to be broader.

With an emphasis on Internet-based applications like Google Docs, the Linux-based Eee PC sold out its 350,000 global inventory. It has been in short supply ever since, said Jackie Hsu, president of the American division of Asus. Everex has sold around 20,000 of its CloudBook, which sells for about $350.

The sales are a veritable drop in the bucket compared with the 271 million desktop and laptop PCs shipped globally last year.

But IDC, a research firm, predicts that the category could grow from fewer than 500,000 in 2007 to nine million in 2012 as the market for second computers expands in developed economies.

Intel, meanwhile, is projecting that by 2011, the market for the netbooks will be 40 million units a year, which is why it is jumping in with low-powered chips for netbooks and  net-tops.

Intel’s new Atom chip is competing against upstarts including Via, a Taiwanese company that has a chip called the C7. The C7 is showing up in netbooks and is being used in the Everex models and in HP’s $500 Mini-Note.

William Calder, an Intel spokesman, said that the cost of the Atom for PC makers was around $44, compared with $100 for a state-of-the-art chip. Intel executives think the market for low-cost PCs is too big to pass up, he said, though it raised a potential threat to more powerful and more profitable computing lines.

source: International Herald Tribune

On July 23 Livescribe Inc. announced its national retail rollout for the Pulse™ smartpen, with availability at Target, Target.com, Amazon.com, and major college and university bookstores supported by The Douglas Stewart Company.

“Our partnerships with Target, Amazon, and Douglas Stewart will greatly expand the availability of Pulse smartpens and accessories to consumers across the country,” said Byron Connell, chief marketing officer at Livescribe. “At Target stores, consumers will be able to see the Pulse smartpen first hand and learn more about its capabilities through an interactive video demonstration.”

the SmartPen will be available July 1st and will sell for 1 gb/$149 US and 2 gb/$199 US.

If you want to buy the Pulse SmartPen please click here.
If you want to check the videos please visit http://www.livescribe.com/smartpen/videos.html

Pulse SmartPen Technical Specs:

With the iPhone still setting the standard for touch-screen phones, challengers to the throne all seem to be trying to out-elegance one another–witness the new Samsung Armani, for instance. Now along comes the HTC Touch Diamond, “a new benchmark for phone sophistication,” the company crows.

Central to the phone is the company’s TouchFlo 3D interface, which HTC says provides “animated access” to people (by calling, we presume), messaging, e-mail, photos, and more. There’s also a touch pad alongside the screen. Under the hood is the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system.

Sony’s boasting that the new Grand Theft Auto was “meant to be played” on the PS3, while Microsoft is touting the exclusive downloadable content—including, perhaps, a new city—that’s on tap for the Xbox 360 version of GTA:IV. PS3 vs. Xbox 360…fight!PS3 pros: From what the Rockstar developers are saying, the PS3 might have an ever-so-slight edge in terms of graphics, although that could me more a factor of aesthetics than anything else. “I like the way [the PS3] renders,” Rockstar founder Sam Houser told 1UP.com. “There’s a certain kind of softness without being blurry—some warmth to it—and then there’s a certain more clinical element to how the 360 looks.” That said, Houser thinks the differences are pretty subtle: “As far as I’m concerned, they’re neck and neck now.” 

There’s also talk that the PS3 will get Sixaxis “tilt” control for helicopters, boats, and motorcycles—which could be a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view. Luckily, Sixaxis control is reportedly optional.

PS3 cons: For now, at least, there’s no word of any additional downloadable content on the scale of what Xbox 360 users can expect. Then there’s the initial install time: five minutes, compared to—well, zippo for the 360—and longer load times thanks to the PS3’s Blu-ray drive.

Xbox 360 pros: Number one of the list, of course, is the promised downloadable expansion packs for later this year. Details are sketchy, but according to some rumors, we could be seeing entire new cities (although Kotaku, for one, calls the rumor “a bit tough to swallow”). Anyway, just the promise of significant new content—exclusive to the Xbox 360, for now—is a big plus for the 360 version of GTA:IV.

Then there’s the Xbox Live factor—and especially the draw of winning Xbox Achievement points, a concept that doesn’t exist in the PlayStation universe. 

Xbox 360 cons: On paper, the 360 should have a tougher time than the robust PS3 in rendering GTA:IV’s dense graphical world—but I wouldn’t take that to the bank quite yet. So far, I haven’t seen any side-by-side comparisons, and Rockstar seems to think the two consoles are “neck and neck,” at least in terms of GTA’s graphics. Still, I can imagine many 360 users wondering if they’re getting the shorter end of the visual stick.

On a different note, Rockstar has publicly complained that the Xbox 360 “create[d] limitations” because of its relative lack of storage (just a DVD drive compared to the PS3’s Blu-ray drive, and games must be built without depending on the 360’s optional hard drive). In other words, the Xbox 360’s “limitations” may have held back both the PS3 and 360 versions of the game.

OK, so who’s the big winner?: Not having played either version of GTA:IV myself yet, I can only rely on the bullet points—and on that basis, the Xbox 360 gets the edge. The promise of the 360-exclusive downloadable content alone must be making PS3 gamers green-eyed with envy.

That said, here’s my plan: As several of you have requested, I’m gonna march down to my local gaming store on Tuesday, snag both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV, and fire up my consoles for some side-by-side comparisons. (Tough life, I know.) Once I’ve had my fill, I’ll weigh in with a verdict.

Alright gamers, let’s hear it: Which version of GTA:IV—PS3 or Xbox 360—do you think will be better, and why?

Intel unveiled a new design of the Intel-powered classmate PC at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. The second-generation Intel-powered classmate PCs have wireless capability, longer battery life, water resistant keyboards and are more shock resistant if dropped. Intel is calling this category of PCs “netbooks.”

source: DigiTimes

I love anything Nano (except the ipod =P). Here is some amazing Nano-Art I’ve come across online. Take a long look and admire their beauty.

   

The wires are made of a material called silicon carbide, and researchers hope to use these wires to develop the next generation of electronic devices.

 

The flowers were made and photographed by Ghim Wei Ho, a graduate student at the Nanoscale Center at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

 

 Failed oxidation of a piece of silicon, which went south because not enough chromium was used

 

This image of a nanowire octapus, by Zhengwei Pan

“T4 Bacteriophage” is a virus-like robot in the living body. Made of carbon, it was fabricated by FIB-CVD on a Si surface and is about ten times as large as the real virus
Magnification: 25,000X by Reo Kometani & Shinji Matsui

Educators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have used rapid prototyping to create plaster models of nanostructures.

 

Ruptured blood vessel by Anne Weston

Red Blood Cells by Annie Cavanagh

 

Breast Cancer Cells by Annie Cavanagh

And lastly, my favourite…. 

Nano-explosions by Fanny Beron

 

This may perhaps change the way we use any objects ever again, allowing us the embed circuitry into the tinyiest of places. Check out the article below!

The stretchy circuits could be used to build advanced brain implants, health monitors or smart clothing.

The complex devices consist of concertina-like folds of ultra-thin silicon bonded to sheets of rubber.

Writing in the journal Science, the US researchers say the chip’s performance is similar to conventional electronics.

“Silicon microelectronics has been a spectacularly successful technology that has touched virtually every part of our lives,” said Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the authors of the paper.

But, he said, the rigid and fragile nature of silicon made it very unattractive for many applications, such as biomedical implants.

“In many cases you’d like to integrate electronics conformably in a variety of ways in the human body - but the human body does not have the shape of a silicon wafer.”

Read the rest of this article on BBC Technology

Art Lebedev Studio showed off its new soon-to-be-released Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard at CES 2008.

The Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard features a physical OLED screen embedded into each individual plastic key.

This keyboard is fully configurable with Art Lebedev’s Optimus Configurator software. Users will be able to drag and drop any image to use as key icons.

source: DigiTimes

Yahoo on Monday rejected a $44.6 billion takeover offer from Microsoft as too low, setting up a potential showdown with the software maker.After a 10-day review, the board decided the $31-per-share offer “substantially undervalues” Yahoo, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said in a statement.

The Yahoo chief executive, Jerry Yang, will seek to persuade shareholders that he can win a higher bid or craft a plan to reignite growth in online advertising sales. The market may double by 2011, but Yahoo has lost out to Google and social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

“Yahoo thinks they’re worth more because of the plans they’ve implemented that have yet to come to fruition,” said Daniel Taylor, an analyst at the Boston-based research firm Yankee Group. “The board is saying, ‘We think we can keep the company together and do far better with it than Microsoft ever will.’ ”

The rejection leaves Microsoft weighing whether to raise the price, give up, or take the offer straight to shareholders.

Yahoo shares have climbed above the value of the cash-and-stock bid, showing shareholders expect a higher price. Microsoft plans to let investors choose cash or stock, at a ratio that will end up being about 50-50.

Microsoft’s offer was originally worth $31 a share. Microsoft shares have declined since the bid, lowering the value of the stock portion and pushing the total value of the deal to about $29.08 a share as of last week.

A UBS analyst, Heather Bellini, the top-ranked software analyst by Institutional Investor, said last week that Microsoft may have to bid $34 to $37 a share.

Yang has resisted letting go of the company he co-founded in 1995 as a graduate student at Stanford University. He replaced Terry Semel as chief executive in June and planned to craft a strategy to revitalize Yahoo. An upgraded search engine, new mobile phone software and plans to win sales in social networking have yet to gain investor confidence.

Yahoo posted eight straight quarters of profit declines and spent years trying to catch up with Google in Web queries and the lucrative market for ads linked to search results.

Microsoft may not be ready to give up. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo would control more than a quarter of the market for animated ads and colorful display banners at the top of Web pages. Google has not made much progress there, giving the combined company a way to challenge Google and start going after emerging markets such as mobile-phone ads.

To fend off Microsoft, Yahoo might seek help from rivals, soliciting other bids or seeking partnerships with News Corp., owner of MySpace, or Google, according to analysts including Clayton Moran of Stanford Group.

source: Herald Tribune

This configuration of the Dell Latitude D830 is a 6-pound, general-purpose notebook computer. Compared to other mainstream consumer notebooks on the market, it is very inexpensive at around $940. Has Wi-Fi (wireless connectivity) built-in.

specs:

• Platform Technology: Intel Centrino Duo

• Built-in Devices: Stereo speakers, Wireless LAN antenna
• Embedded Security: Trusted Platform Module (TPM 1.2) Security Chip , Fingerprint reader

• Width: 14.2 in Depth: 10.4 in Height: 1.4 in Weight: 6 lbs
• Screen type: Wide-screen Wireless capabilities: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 / 2.00 GHz Data bus speed: 800 MHz
• Chipset type: Mobile Intel GM965 Express
• Cache Memory: Type L2 cache Cache size: 2 MB

• RAM: Installed Size 512 MB / 4 GB (max) Technology: DDR2 SDRAM - 667 MHz
• Storage controller type: Serial ATA/IDE Hard Drive: 80 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 7200
• Optical Storage: CD-RW/DVD - Plug-in module | CD / DVD read speed | 24X CD / DVD write speed | 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD±R) | CD / DVD rewrite speed | 10x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW)

• Display Type: 15.4 TFT active matrix Max Resolution: 1920 x 1200 ( WUXGA )
• Graphics Processor / Vendor: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
• Video Memory: Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0 Max Allocated RAM Size: 256 MB
  High Definition Audio | Multimedia Functionality

• Input Devices: Input device type | Keyboard, Touchpad | Keyboard localization and layout | Modem | Fax / modem
• Wireless NIC: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
• Data link protocol: Ethernet, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet
• Networking standards: IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g

Expansion Slots Total (Free) | 2 ( 0 ) x Memory, 1 ( 1 ) x PC Card - Type I/II, 1 ( 1 ) x ExpressCard/54

• Interfaces: 1 x Display / video - S-video output, 1 x Display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15), 1 x Audio - Line-out/headphones - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 4 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 pin USB Type A, 1 x Serial - RS-232 - 9 pin D-Sub (DB-9), 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire), 1 x Modem - Phone line - RJ-11, 1 x Network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T - RJ-45, 1 x Docking / port replicator

• Battery: 6-cell Lithium ion Battery capacity: 53 Wh

• OS Provided: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, SP2, with media

• Software: Cyberlink PowerDVD, Drivers & Utilities, McAfee SecurityCenter (15 months subscription)

Asustek Computer has announced the P5E3 Premium WiFi-AP @n motherboard equipped Asustek Rampage Formuth the latest Intel X48 chipset. The motherboard features EPU technology to combine performance with energy efficiency.

Additionally, the motherboard supports DDR3 2000MHz dual-channel memory, dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 lanes, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Express Gate technology.

source: DigiTimes

Asustek Computer has announced the P5E3 Premium WiFi-AP @n motherboard equipped with the latest Intel X48 chipset. The motherboard features EPU technology to combine performance with energy efficiency.

Additionally, the motherboard supports DDR3 2000MHz dual-channel memory, dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 lanes, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Express Gate technology.

source: DigiTimes

Large-scale digital music distribution is bringing about a profound revolution in the way we ‘consume’ music. The market is still in flux, but it is very clear that the hi-fi systems of the future will be significantly different to what we see today, say European researchers.

With the advent of compressed music files (MP3) and easily accessible internet file exchange and download services, consumers are increasingly turning to personal mini-databases of music files (iPod, MP3 players) for their musical enjoyment. The CD market has already taken a hard knock and many predict its imminent demise. The hi-fi market is also suffering with sales decreasing steadily every year.

In the future, the boundaries between the stereo system, computer and the television will become more and more blurred, but how the various functions will combine, and what new ones will emerge, is still ‘a work in progress’.

The Semantic Hi-Fi project explored the possibilities opened up by the digital revolution and paved the way for the next wave of hi-fi, including a number of new features likely to change fundamentally the way we listen to and interact with music.

“Music is no longer limited by a fixed format. Network-based distribution has freed music from the limits imposed by these formats and opened a whole new range of possibilities which will encourage greater interaction with musical pieces,” says Hugues Vinet of the French music and acoustics research centre, IRCAM, which coordinated the project.

Introducing the active listener

The working prototype of this next-generation hi-fi, produced by the EU-funded Semantic Hi-Fi, incorporates a number of new functionalities to help promote a more interactive listening experience.

Using either a hand-held, touch screen remote, or the touch screen display on the central unit, the user will, for example, be able to visualise the structure of a piece through a graphic display which will enable them to navigate smoothly within a piece and even to modify elements of the musical composition: slow the tempo down, speed it up, modify the relative weight of different instruments in the piece, or remove them altogether…

Some of the results of the project have already been incorporated into new products. Project partner, Native Instruments, used many of Semantic Hi-Fi’s features for its ‘Traktor DJ Studio 3’ DJ software solution, hailed as one of the market leaders in its field. The prototype developed by the project also incorporated many of these ‘professional’ tools into a home system accessible to all music lovers.

“The hi-fi of the future will make sophisticated software tools for professional musicians available to a wider public,” notes Vinet. “Owners of next-generation hi-fi will be able to do more than just passively listen, they will have a tool which also allows them to manipulate music and to create new pieces themselves.”

Hi-fis of the future will be linked up to the internet, and it will be possible to share personal works with others through peer-to-peer (P2P) systems. The project has not overlooked the issue of copyright, either.

“The P2P systems envisaged will respect the songs’ copyrights by only transmitting the information necessary for editing and modifying them,” stresses Vinet.

The ability to extract and display a whole range of information – tempo, key, lyrics, musical score – on a musical piece should also deepen the listeners musical knowledge and appreciation.

Managing your music

One of the challenges of the digital hi-fi will be managing extensive databases of music. It will no longer be a matter of simply grabbing a favourite CD from the shelf but of trawling through a database of perhaps tens of thousands of pieces. Semantic Hi-Fi, which concluded in November 2006, continued the work of Cuidado, an earlier EU-funded project, developing search engines capable of extracting information on musical content and providing tools for the effective management of musical ‘libraries’.

As a result of this work, users of future hi-fi can expect to be able to navigate easily through their collections using search criteria, such as tempo, genre, instrumentation, in addition to the traditional search criteria of artist and title. If you have a particular tune running through your head, but no information on it, you can simply hum the tune into the system’s microphone and it will find it for you!

You can also start from a reference piece and search for those similar to it according to selected musical criteria. You can classify and retrieve your songs by defining your own musical categories from a set of track examples that will be automatically generalised to your whole database. Last but not least, the system computes ‘musical summaries’ that give a global idea, within a few tens of seconds, of the main changes occurring in the pieces (intro, chorus, verses, solos, etc.), thus enabling rapid ‘auditory browsing’.

Many of the results of the project are now available for licensing and several are being developed further within the context on new research projects. Targeted applications include multimedia search engines, music portals, and automatic play-list generation.

Adapted from materials provided by ICT Results.

source: Science Daily

Sony Ericsson recently announced the launch of its T270 and T280 handsets.

The T270 and T280 are less than 13mm slim and built using brushed light metal with a glass finish. The T280 features a 1.3-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom.

The two GSM-based phones will be available in the same colors, silver on black and copper on silver. They will be available in selected markets from the first quarter of 2008.

This is whipper!!! i could easily recommend this beauty to any one working in a TPO or BPO related job environment …as its a phone thats has MP3 ringtones,BT,Limited Mem,NO CAM(preffered)& BEST RADIO RECEPTION with RDS …who needs more than the…

source: DigiTimes