Technology News

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.

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.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Millions of California motorists have had to put down their cell phones or risk a ticket as a new law takes effect requiring hands-free devices for those behind the wheel.

Police in San Diego and in Oceanside were giving motorists a one-month grace period before beginning to issue citations, but the California Highway Patrol and other agencies were ready to write tickets Tuesday.

“No grace period. The law was passed a year-and-a-half ago,” said CHP Officer Heather Hoglund, a spokeswoman in suburban Glendale. “There should be no reason why somebody didn’t know that today was the day that they needed to be hands-free.”

Electronic information signs along freeways had been warning drivers for weeks.

Officers of the CHP’s Sacramento Valley Division patrolling in Auburn witnessed 47 cell phone violations between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. They issued 20 citations and let the others go with warnings so as not to further clog traffic.

CHP Officer Tammy DuTemple said some violators had hands-free devices but had not yet charged or figured our how to use them. “People know about the law, but just like everything else, they wait until the last minute,” she said.

Hoglund said she noticed a difference in motorists’ behavior Tuesday. “I did not see one person holding the phone,” she said.

Lt. Rick Handfield, a spokesman for Irvine police, said even he had to adjust to the new law. His phone rang as he was driving Tuesday and his Bluetooth headset was in his office charging.

“I had to think, ‘What am I going to do with this call?’” he said. “I think I did the right thing by sending it to voicemail, but I think there will be a learning curve. I do think it’ll be a paradigm shift.”

Motorists also were rushing to purchase hands-free devices.

Dewey Oates, who owns two Los Angeles roadside stands that sell phone accessories, said for the past week he has sold 50 to 75 Bluetooth wireless headsets a day — as many of the $40 devices as he usually sells in a year — not to mention hundreds of cheaper, plug-in devices.

“From a business point of view, yes, and from a safety point of view, we enjoy it,” Oates said.

The law requires use of a hands-free device by drivers over 18 except in a medical or traffic emergency. Text-messaging is not specifically banned for adults, but the California Highway Patrol said they can be cited for negligence under existing laws.

A second law that took effect Tuesday bars drivers under age 18 from using a wireless telephone, pager, laptop or any other electronic communication or mobile service device while driving. The ban extends to hands-free usage and text-messaging.

The laws carry a minimum fine of $20 for the first ticket and $50 for subsequent ones but with court fees tacked on, the real cost in Los Angeles County will run about $93 for the first ticket and $201 for the next, according to Superior Court calculations.

While five other states and Washington, D.C., have adopted hands-free laws, the law in California could put a dent in the state’s image as the capital of car-crazy narcissism. California has nearly 22.9 million licensed drivers, far more than any other state, according to 2005 statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.

Authorities hope it also will reduce traffic accidents. Several studies have shown that using cell phones distract drivers and may increase accidents, although there is scant evidence that using a hands-free device mitigates the problem.

New York, the first state to enact a hands-free law in 2001, reported 1,170 crashes from 2001 through 2006 where handheld cell phones were considered a factor, versus 214 involving hands-free devices, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Forcing motorists to use hands-free devices won’t eliminate the distraction of an engrossing conversation or heated argument but it might reduce fender-benders by forcing drivers to keep at least one hand on the wheel, Hoglund said.

At least with a hands-free cell phone, “when you’re drinking your coffee and on the phone and smoking a cigarette, you’re not driving with your knee any more,” she said.

Less than a year after it launched the world’s first OLED television – the XEL-1 – Sony is looking to compete with an entirely different line of next-generation displays called FEDs.

Sony affiliate Field Emission Technologies is set to begin mass-production of FED (field emission display) panels by the end of next year, according to Japanese media reports.

Pioneer takeover

This may be after acquiring Pioneer’s plasma factory in western Japan and could see FET taking over some of Pioneer’s staff

A spokesman for Sony Japan told us, “We are aware that Field Emission Technologies is in negotiation with Pioneer regarding mass-production of field emission displays, however this does not have any implications for Sony’s existing relationship with FET.”

Jumbo TVs too

Where the XEL-1 measured just 11 inches across the diagonal, FET is aiming to produce 10,000 26-inch FED panels each year at the plant in Kagoshima. These will be for medical and broadcasting use first, but 60-inch consumer televisions may follow soon after.

Sony spun the company off at the end of 2006 and currently owns just under 40 per cent of it. FEDs are more energy efficient and sharper than LCDs, and can be easily built to large sizes, making then ideal alternatives to OLEDs.

Nokia has announced a range of phones dubbed Supernova aimed at style-conscious users.

The first four devices, due across the course of the year, feature two candybar handsets, the 7210 and the 7310, the 7610 slider phone and the 7510 clamshell.

All the new handsets offer a range of personalisation through exchangeable covers.

“As we rely more heavily on mobile phones to stay connected, they increasingly know everything about us and have become a window into our worlds, ” said Jo Harlow, vice president of the Live category at Nokia.

“With the Supernova range, we set out to give people the ability to set themselves apart in the same way that they would with a traditional statement accessory.”

The 7610 features a 3.2-megapixel camera with dual Led flash and 8x digital zoom, instant messaging and TV out for image sharing.

It also includes a feature which allows users to identify and capture any colour and apply it to the phone’s key illumination and wallpaper.

The Nokia 7610 will be available in the third quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of €225 before taxes and subsidies.

The 7510 clamshell features a push-to-open side key, a hidden-until-lit display and a reminder light. It also boasts a 2-megapixel camera with Led flash, 4x digital zoom and a 512MB microSD card.

The Nokia 7510 will be available towards the end of the year with an estimated retail price of €180.

The 7310 includes a 2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and TV out for image sharing, instant messaging and playing preinstalled games on TV. An FM RDS radio and an MP3 music player complete the offering.

The Nokia 7310 is available “soon” with an estimated retail price of €155.

Lastly the 7210 comes with a gloss finish and allows to users to enjoy music sideloaded from a PC or purchased from Nokia Music Store.

Memory is expandable via an SD memory card slot and photos taken on the 2-megapixel camera can be directly uploaded to Flickr.

The Nokia 7210 Supernova will be available in the third quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of €120.

It will cut production costs in its TV business this year and make investments aimed at taking over the top spot in LCD TV sales in the next three years.

The maker of PlayStation consoles plans to offer a film download service for the PlayStation 3 starting this summer.

Sony unexpectedly made a loss of 4.7bn yen ($45m; £23m) in the first quarter.

It plans to invest about $17bn (£8.6bn) in its key businesses over the next three years.

Sony is also attempting to improve dramatically its return on equity (ROE), which is its profits divided by the total value of all its shares.

Sony’s ROE has been an average of 6% over the past three years, which is well behind its competitors, so it now aims to lift its ROE to 10%.

“That target is a sign of Sony’s sense of crisis that it could really become a takeover target if it doesn’t lift its ROE to at least over 10%,” said Mitsushige Akino from Ichiyoshi Investment Management.