Technology News

The Philips has exposed its latest GoGear SA5245 video and digital audio player in Korea market. Its sound is most noticeable feature, digital audio algorithm patented by Philips which refines its output by 10 million operation performance in one second to analyze and re-compute audio signal before it sent to the speaker. It means this is the best music system and it provides more life to music.

It supports 2.8-inch QVGA LCD display screen and gives up to 5 hours playing time for video, Bluetooth and powerful sound without any wire. It cost is between 100,000(KRW) and 110,000(KRW).

Sahara Computers has expanded its Book Series laptops with the entry-level 8-inches model S-NB522434-EB00.

All of 1.1kg, the notebook, according to Sahara, qualifies as one of the smallest in its class. Significant features include a 60GB hard drive and an 8-inches TFT LCD display. The S-NB522434-EB00 is a Linux-based, Wi-Fi enabled notebook targeted at entry-level users, students, and frequent travelers. It comes with an AMD Geode LX 800 processor, a PCMCIA slot, and an extended battery life of 4-and-a-half hours.

Speaking at the launch, George Van Der Merwe, chief operating officer of Sahara Computers, expressed the view that unlike other notebooks in the same segment, this one comes with a hard drive and offers more features.

The S-NB522434-EB00 is immediately available through Sahara’s authorized channel partners as well as ITJ stores for a MRP of Rs 14,999 plus taxes. It comes encased in a leather carry bag, and enjoys a one-year carry-in warranty.

The price rise, ranging between Rs 250 and Rs 500, is applicable across Samsung’s range of LCD monitors, including Myst, Hayden, and Touch e series models. These monitors sport screen sizes including 15-inches, 17-inches, 19-inches, 20-inches, and 22-inches. Particularly, the Touch e series LCD monitors come with a contrast ratio of 800:1 for finer video and pictures, 16.7 million color support, wide viewing angle, and MagicClear anti-reflection technology. At present, Samsung’s range of LCD monitors is priced between Rs 7,500 and Rs 14,000.

Commenting on the price rise, Sanjay Sharma, vice president (Sales) of IT Business, Samsung, said, “The depreciating rupee and the rising inputs costs have compelled us to effect this price increase.”

As part of its strategy to consolidate its position in convergence field, mobile handset maker Nokia India on Wednesday announced the launch of new mobile phone ‘Nokia 6220 classic’ with 5 mega pixel camera in Chandigarh.

“The new handset is designed as per the changing requirements of the mobile handset users,” Nokia India, Head GTM, Program Portfoilo, Raghuvesh Sarup said.

Priced at Rs. 19,959, the new set is fitted with Xenon flash, autofocus, Carl Zesis optics and is A-GPS enabled which would allow sharing of photographs.

In addition to it, it has Nokia Maps 2.0 which would allow users to see the detailed image of a particular place of a city.

“Presently, we are offering navigation maps of nine cities including Delhi, Jaipur, Ahemdabad, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata,” he said.

The mobile phone also has HSDPA data connection for fast web browsing and downloading and Adaptive multi rate speech coding technology.

Nokia 6220 is also equipped with Nokia Mblog application, which allows maintaining a blog directly from handset.

Sharing the details regarding growing use of mobile camera phones, he said the size of camera phones in global market would grow to one billion by 2011.

However, he did not have any data relating to the growth of mobile camera users in Indian market.

He further said that Nokia had adopted a three pronged strategy for mobile imaging and the first strategy was that collaboration was required among companies which were in the field of mobile imaging.

“Second strategy is to launch superior kind of camera solutions and finally offer better consumer experience,” he said.

It’s the computer that almost wasn’t. Microsoft’s Surface—a touch-sensitive table that could redefine the way people interact with machines—got its start in company research labs five years ago, though backers considered putting the project on ice several times.

Engineers wanted to build technology that would let users tell a computer what to do by moving everyday objects, such as a digital camera or a game piece, around the screen’s surface. Yet some managers viewed the system as an unmanufacturable toy. “Probably every year I thought about killing it,” said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices group, picking over dinner at a San Francisco restaurant recently as he recalled budget meetings. “We struggled with the business model.”

Microsoft (MSFT) has overcome many of those initial challenges. And the company intends to bring Surface, initially intended for niche markets including stores, casinos, and hotels, to consumers. Research into tactile, or tangible, computing is one of the most fertile areas of electronic-product design. The systems incorporate familiar objects such as toys, game tokens, cell phones, or wine glasses—and even substances like sand and clay—into the computing experience. By taking advantage of people’s natural sense of touch and spatial orientation, the systems can offer more precise control over what’s happening on the screen than pointing and clicking with a mouse.

Done right, tactile computing could help users design products, play games, and complete business tasks. Microsoft is working on a giant, 6-ft. by 4-ft. version of Surface that lets groups of four or six people gather around it to collaborate. Hiroshi Ishii, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, has designed systems that let architects shape landscapes and buildings using sand and clay, then see the results of their models on a computer screen. His Tangible Bits group has also devised a system that lets users move magnetic pucks to design cell-phone networks, and computerized animals that remember and replay the shapes they’re twisted into. “Tangible Bits is an attempt to defy the gravity of the pixels,” Ishii says.

Touch Pioneers
Apple (AAPL) has brought “multitouch” technology from its music-playing iPhone into its ultra-slim MacBook Air, and could in the future adapt it to specialized desktop computers. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Mitsubishi Electric, and IBM (IBM) have also done work in the field of tangible user interfaces. Anchors on CNN (TWX) manipulate maps, charts, and photos with their hands on the network’s computerized “Magic Wall.” And touchscreen technology for PCs is already showing up in products including Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart PC (BusinessWeek, 6/25/08), which can recognize gestures like the flick of a finger for choosing albums to play or selecting photos to view.

The first mobile phones to be loaded with Google’s Android software for mobile phones have gone on show.
About a dozen companies such as ARM, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm showed off prototype handsets at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The free software system was launched in November 2007 and is being developed by an alliance of more than 30 companies including Google.

The first Android-enabled phone is expected to go on sale later this year.

One firm showing off a prototype phone was the UK processor designer ARM.

“It’s really a demonstration vehicle rather than a full phone,” Ian Drew of ARM told BBC News.

However, he said the wireless phone did show off several applications.

“What we are demonstrating on the Android platform is maps, browser, camera applications, multimedia, e-mail, and calendar - basically everything you’d expect on a mobile phone.”

Open world

The Google Android platform is based on open source Linux software that allows developers access to the underlying code.

Q&A: Google’s Android

This allows programmers much greater flexibility to build applications and features tailored to individual phones.

Other companies also showed off Android prototypes such as Marvell, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics.

Korean handset manufacturer Samsung has also said it hopes to have a phone based on Android by early next year.

Android was not the only Linux platform making waves in Barcelona.

The Mobile Linux foundation said that 18 phones from seven different firms would be demonstrated at 3GSM using its Limo software.

LG and Samsung were amongst handset manufacturers showing off Limo devices.

A formal antitrust investigation into a deal struck between Yahoo and Google over search advertising is set to be launched by the US Justice Department.

The Washington Post said investigators will also demand documents from other large internet and media companies.

Together Google and Yahoo claim nearly 80% of the web search market and agreed to give antitrust authorities 100 days to look at the deal before going ahead.

Yahoo had called it an $800 million (£400m) annual revenue opportunity.

It’s now thought that a formal investigation could signal that the Justice Department may have found some cause for concern with the partnership which would allow Google to provide some search advertising for Yahoo.

Lawyers familiar with similar investigations told the Washington Post that the kind of legal requests being issued by the Justice department - “civil investigative demands”- are not used for routine matters.

“It doesn’t mean they have drawn any conclusions,” Peter Guryan told the Post. He is a partner with law firm Fried Frank and formerly an antitrust lawyer in the Justice Department. But “it is a significant step beyond a request for voluntary information”?

“It demonstrates that the DOJ clearly has questions.”

There has been no comment from either Google or Yahoo.

We all suffer

There has been concern by critics that a Google and Yahoo pairing could result in a monopoly in internet advertising if the agreement is given the go ahead.

Recently a coalition of 16 American civil rights and rural advocacy bodies called on regulators to investigate any online advertising and search partnership between the two companies.

Gary Flowers of the Black Leadership Forum told the BBC at the time “We all suffer in such mega mergers.”

In a letter to the Justice Department he and the rest of the coalition argued that Yahoo and Google combined would result in “a possible future in which no content could be seamlessly accessed without Google’s permission.”

Politicians were also wary of the pact and heads of key sub committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate reiterated their intentions to look into the arrangement.

Last month Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang visited Washington to allay fears that the partnership would impact competition within the online search advertising industry.

The Google Yahoo collaboration does not need up front approval from the US antitrust authorities as the two companies are not merging.

However, the government could challenge the deal in court if it came to the conclusion that it would restrain competition between them.

The LG Flatron M228WD was spotted recently on many sites so why not we take a look at it ourselves too. The LCD TV is a 22 inch one very similar to the LG M228WA with just a letter difference. The good thing about this one is that it comes with the HDMI port instead of the DVI one with an integrated digital TV tuner.

The LG Flatron M228WD has a resolution of 1680 x 1050, with 300 cd/m2 brightness with 5ms response time. The TV does have a slightly low contrast ratio of 3000:1.

Price is rumored to be around $400 so its not that pricey.

Nowadays, HD camcorder is a buzz word. And if the handycam is from Sony it appeals more to us. Yes, I am talking about diminutive and compact Sony HDR-TG1 camcorder, which records video in full HD resolution (in 1080i video mode). This high-definition capability influences the choice of vacationers, who don’t want to “travel heavy.” Another advantage for any traveler is the hanycam’s durable titanium body, which makes it highly resistant to scratches.

The hanycam is embedded with advanced video and audio technologies with simple and intuitive operations. Sony HDR-TG1 is equipped with a high-quality Carl Zeiss10x optical zoom lens and 2-megapixel CMOS sensor, engineered to minimize picture noise. Audio signals are captured in Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound. And the in-built zoom microphone feature senses signal for clear recordings along with the video.

NASA scientists yesterday announced that their initial analysis found that Martian soil could support life. The Phoenix Mars Lander, which is using a robotic arm to dig a shallow trench and then scoop up and analyze soil samples on the northern pole of the planet has found both “ice and soil” that can support life on Mars.

According to the first test results from the wet chemistry laboratory on the Mars Lander, the Martian soil is very much capable of supporting life. Reinforcing this is the fact that the mineral rich soil and water are both right on the surface and are very much accessible.

Samuel Kounaves, a professor at Tufts University and a research affiliate with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, “We were all very flabbergasted at the data we got back [from the wet chemistry tests. We basically have found what appears to be the requirement to support life, whether in the past, present or future. We have elements that you might find in your backyard.”

The Martian soil is alkaline in nature with pH level of about 8. The minerals found in the soil include potassium, chloride, sodium, and magnesium. Scientists are still waiting for the results of the tests that would prove the presence of sulfate in the soil.

In a test when the soil was heated to about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, small amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor were released. This shows that there had been water there in the past.

Kounaves said, “Some kinds of Earth life would be happy to live in these soils; Asparagus, green beans and turnips love alkaline soils.”