Smart Phones that operate on Windows Mobile 6.1 have begun to build their phones on top of the Microsoft software like the present LG GM 730 which has now been made available in India. It is a refreshing change that new technology is making its way to India albeit at a sluggish pace. First it was the iPhone that was announced then followed the Black Berrys. But it is the Windows Mobile that Indians will be eagerly waiting for  largely due to their familiarity with Microsoft. It helps that Apple has not hither to had any presence in India so the rivalry between Microsoft and Apple is some thing Indians are not familiar with. Android phones are yet to be announced therefore the LG GM 730 that operates on Windows Mobile OS has a head start.

Windows Mobile is likely to give the Black Berrys competition in business applications mainly due to the availability of Outlook and Exchange. The encryption that is available with the Black Berrys is mainly a concern in U.S and may not be a deciding factor with the Indians. To top it Windows Mobile 6.1 has sorted out many issues that govern interfaces and the improvements made in Office Mobile, Internet Explorer, Search and SMS give it a head lead over the others. The support for office documentation that was available with the earlier versions is another plus. With the professional version new documents can also be created.

The home screen of Windows Mobile has the usual icons that are arranged in the upper right hand corner and vertically below them are the menu icons. When the screen is scrolled the icons are magnified and highlighted. The clock and date are conveniently located at the top and sitting pretty next to them are the messaging paraphernalia. Below these is the appointment schedule and messaging menu. Multi Media options are also available on the Home Page and one need not bother to get to My Documents to gain access to multi media. The keys turn contextual depending on the menu you are in. The Task Manager can be accessed through the Control panel and it gives the details of memory etc.,

The SMS features of the Windows Mobile will no doubt be loved by Indians. It is easy to use and you do not have to move back and forth to the in box and the messages are displayed at one place with the most recent one in bold and you are also identified in the message. Deleting of messages is also easy.

Windows Mobile 6.1 does not support flash which means you may not be able to watch You Tube but if you have IE8 on your mobile then watching videos should not be difficult. Other features include Zooming of selected documents and copy paste facility, location search and compatibility with Blue Tooth devices.

Microsoft’s endeavour to endear its mobile OS to smart phone savvy users have started paying  dividends and the ease of operating is evident in Windows Mobile 6.1. At the same time its support to business applications will give it a head start over the Black Berrys in India.

Opera Software has made available Opera Mobile 9.7 beta for free down loading. Opera is an established name in browsers for mobiles. While its other offering Opera Mini is suited for mobiles that run on Java apps, Opera Mobile 9.7 beta is for Windows Mobiles and Symbian phones. Opera Mobile 9.7 has competition snapping at its heels from Skyfire 1.0 which is being distributed for free. But any dat the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta is more fun than the drab IE Mobile Browser.

While Skyfire 1.0 supports Flash and AJAX, Opera Mobile 9.7 supports OpenGL ES “Embedded Systems” which is a royalty free, cross platform API for full function 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems and is a powerful low level interface between software and graphics acceleration. OpenGL ES specifications are portably binding to native windowing systems and offers acceleration, image quality and performance.

Some of the features that have made the Opera Mini are also found on the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta like server side compression that reduces band width consumption by 80%. Opera Mobile 9.7 beta also supports Google Gears based apps including its own widgets.

The home page of the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta has only the Google Search on top with some links in the middle and is a full view with out any other bars. When the home page is clicked or tapped the address bar appears at the top and at the bottom the bar containing icons “back”, “favorite”, “tab”, “home” and “Menu” shows up. The browser is tab supporting which can be opened by clicking on “tab” and then selecting the “new Tab”. Another way is to hold the stylus to a link on which a menu appears through which the link can be opened in a new tab or the address can be “copied” or “shared”. The down loading experience is a complete one in Opera Mobile 9.7 beta where the down loads can be saved and run immediately after being saved in a folder. Book marks are also simple and easy to manage.

Privacy is a fast catching up and important issue on all browsers these days and in the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta you can “delete” your browsing history, also cookies and cache can be cleared. The Java Script and plug ins can also be disabled.

If your screen is touch responsive then an on screen key board becomes visible when the “address bar” is clicked. Pages can be flicked for scrolling. Auto fill exists for URLs. Alternatively, scrolling can be carried out by using the control pad or stylus or a joy stick.

Lack of support for flash means support for YouTube is lacking and that is a sore point.

You can down load the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta from

www.opera.com/mobile/download

The Olympus E620 is the new DSLR offering from Olympus. Care is taken to emphasise that it is not an upgrade of Olympus E420 and E520. It is not as costly as the Olympus E30 either. It incorporates the best of the features of the E520 and has many of the E30.

We all are painfully aware that time is relative and fleeting. But to capture beauty in its stillness and splendor – the frozen moments, the rapturous smile, enchanting colors being down right fastidious and to carefully stash them away you do need the Olympus E620.

There is still a whiff of nostalgia about the Olympus E620- it persists with the four third lens system when micro four thirds are gaining ground. At least you can use all the old lenses of the standard. For this purpose the Olympus E620 comes with a large optical view finder. The lens has 95% coverage and the magnification is 0.96. In spite of that the build is not over bearing.

To make it tick the way it does several of its features play their part. The True Pic III+ processor, the 12.3 mega pixel, Live MOS sensors, the attractive and eye catching 2.7″, 230KP, Hyper Crystal LCD that can swivel, the supersonic vibrating, sensor dust removing filters, the sensor correcting Image stabilization system that provides an effective extra 4 stops for shutter speed, the art filters, The IR focusing system that can be attached for night shooting and many more.

True Pic III+ Processor and Live MOS Sensors

The true pic III+ processor also found only in the Olympus E450, independently processes the signals generate by the Live MOS sensors for chrominance and luminance and applies the correction factor to the output of the sensors to make pale colors realistic. Individual colors are detected and evaluated and correction applied with out affecting the data of other colors. The True Pic III+ processor in Olympus E620 depicts colors in a manner that appeals to the human eye. Unlike the CCD sensors where noise reduction is carried out outside the sensors, the True Pic III+ processor successfully isolates the noise from the signal of the image and then the threshold is applied for noise reduction. It interpolates the signals coming out of the sensors and extrapolating them into image data applies two filters – one along the edges and the other perpendicular to the edges and smoothens the data so that the edges of the objects are crisp and not zig zag and no overlapping of colors happens. The Live MOS sensors also found in Panasonic and Leica have the sensitivity of the CCD sensors and consume energy like the CMOS sensors. But because noise reduction is applied at the sensor itself and not around the noise problems encountered in CCD sensors do not manifest them selves in the Olympus E620.

Auto Focus

The Olympus E620 has a 7 point AF and to the enthusiast it provides 3 option- Hybrid, Sensor and Image AF. To the experienced the E620 facilitates 20 optic calibration and flash control. Bracketing options cover exposure, flash, white balance and ISO. The metering options over the standard ones also provide “high light spot” and “shadow spot”. The focus is quicker and effective but perceptibly slower with non SWD lenses.

Image Quality

It is difficult to imagine an Olympus with out Art Filters but  the picturisation has to be RAW if you also want the unfiltered image because the effects cannot be removed in the camera.

The Olympus E620 is neutral to both high lights and shadows and both these can be extracted from RAW files. The inclination of the E620 is to under expose rather than over expose in low light but the metering of “High light spot” and “Shadow spot” can be effectively used.

The E620 has a one touch option for “white balance”. Then a reference point can be decided in the scene and then “white balance” can be applied.

Sharpening of images if required can be touched up by soft ware. The noise problems of the E620 are not akin to the CCD versions of other cameras which is IR related. Here it is the multiples of frequencies that the sensor is responsive to that find their way and are not prominent and evenat ISO 3200 levels the quality is not effected. Then the Image stabilization system provides that extra stop while controlling the shutter.

Conclusion

The Olympus E620 is  comparatively smaller in size but holds itself well in all the parameters when you see its compatriots. Then there is the micro four third standard which gives you access to the good old lenses still. But it is strikingly modern and the features advanced that lets you snap up memorable pictures.

Canon Power Shot SD 1200 IS is the new offering from Canon that is a “fancy and capture”, compact.

As compacts are going, similar to what evolving humans will be, they are getting more diminutive, their size inversely proportional to their intelligence and the only large part of their body like the human brain is the lens which can thankfully retract and is not protruding and can be  unobtrusive when not in use.

DIGIC 4 Processor

The most dazzling thing of all new Canons is the DIGIC 4 processor which apart from processing the image data from the CCD sensors, comprises the Ai AF and iSAPS. It is the combination of detecting the scene mode by comparing it to the data base in iSaps, Canon arrives at the optimum settings of Focus, ISO, shutter speed, white balance and metering.

The Canon Power Shot Sd 1200 can automatically detect faces and apply settings to them although at this stage the intelligence can be slightly enhanced to apply for not so straight faces as well. It can recognize even moving faces alternatively if there is only one face the auto focus can be changed to center focus. The SD 1200 also has a timer facility that patiently waits till the face appears in the view. The acquiring of Auto Focus is hastened while capturing kids and pet animals. You can also lighten the dark areas of a subject with out brightening the surroundings when photographing a dark subject. The Auto Focus mode is also applicable to 18 situations which include an aquarium mode and an under water mode with the proper shielding.

Image Stabilisation

In the Canon Power Shot SD 1200 IS, image stabilization is applied to the lens unlike the Olympus cameras where it is applied to the sensor by moving it physically. For any pitch and roll displacement of the camera the correction is applied to the lens by stabilizing it. But this stabilization depends on the settings. For example in “continuous” the process of stabilization is an on going process, especially useful for videos and in “Shoot only” it is applied when the shutter is half pressed meaning for still photographs and then it is applied for “Horizontal” when the camera is panned. If you are confident of your grip it can be turned off.

Performance

The speed at which the Power Shot SD 1200 captures an image is commendable, being only 0.37 seconds inclusive of the shutter lag. With a continuous shooting speed of 1.5 fps it does not impose any restriction on the number of images that it can capture. Its video mode is capable of recording video up to 1hour or 4 GB of memory and can record 640 x 480 in VGA and 320 x 240 in QVGA. The output can be viewed on any computer or TV.

Other Features

The SD 1200 IS comes with a 4 x digital zoom and a lens that has 3 x optical zoom and a 35-105 mm, 35 mm camera and Tele Photo, equivalence. The sensors are 10 mega pixel, effective CCD and the LCD is 2.5″ with an aspect ratio of 16:9. The controls are minimal with out any fuss, although the optical view finder is anachronistic, and the displays and menus intuitive.

The SD 1200 comes with an in built flash that has 3 settings. In “Auto”, the algorithm evaluates if the flash is required. “Slow Synchro” is used at night and the third is “off”.

The SD 1200 IS comes with a 3.7 V, 1000 mAh, Lithium-ion battery that works for 260 images with the LCD on.

Image Quality

Although Fujifilm seems to be the only one opting out of the mega pixel race, it should become the trend of the future because of the noise problems in CCD sensors at ISO beyond 400. Thankfully in the SD 1200 ISO setting provisions exist and it can be auto or 80-1600 and 3200. The SD 1200 IS, “my colors” offers you a “vivid” and “neutral” colors where in vivid the colors are saturated and adds attraction to the image if you want to accentuate a color or you can revert to neutral and default. The other option is “custom” where the contrast, saturation and sharpness of an image can be altered. The other two options are sepia and Black and white. The SD 1200 has extensive algorithms for white balance that are  displayed after application and can also be set by you.

Conclusion

The Canon Power Shot SD 1200 IS is a diminutive “fancy and capture” compact that is your intelligent companion for recording moments that you do not want to be bygones.

The mobile firms discover new ways to enable you to stay wired, informed and keep-in-touch with family and friends. The Nokia 6303 classic is the newest candy bar for mid-level users in Nokia’s cell phone lineup. The Nokia 6303 Classic mobile phone is equipped with 2.2-inch 240 x 320 pixels TFT color display capable of 16 Million colors and comes with 64-MB internal shared memory allowing 2000 number phonebook and up to 20 received, 20 dialed and 20 missed calls records. 

The Nokia 6303 classic users can enjoy their music collection on the go or tune into their favorite disc jockey with its FM radio tuner. The 6303 classic’s 3.2 mega pixel camera features 8x digital zoom, Auto focus and a dual LED flash to capture perfect snapshots. There is an essential addition for video capture and playback with an onboard microSD card slot with support for memory cards up to 4GB. The 6303 also comes with Nokia Maps preloaded on a 1GB microSD card to help you navigate around the globe.

The Nokia 6303 Classic phone also allows images or videos sharing via online social network sites / communities, such as Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook. A standard battery which provides up to 7 hours of talking and up to 425 hours of standby time on full charge.

Main disadvantages:

• No 3G
• Memory card slot under the back cover
• No dedicated shutter key
• Below par image quality
• No smart dialing
• No multi-tasking
• No office document viewer

Price:

135 EUR

US$178

Rs. 9,000

All the above prices are excluding taxes and subsidies.

Sony has rightly gauged the drift in the flow towards net books and has come out with Sony Vaio W net book in the high end.

The results of the integration of the 802.11 g standard (that is compatible with 802.11 a and 802.11 b) , which is meant for creation of WLAN, “Wireless Local Area Network”, with the DLNA, “Digital Living Network Alliance”, which is a collaboration of consumer electronics giants, has begun to yield stunning results and the Sony Vaio W is a dazzling, enticing example of that. The Vaio also has A2DP Stereo Bluetooth and 2 USB ports.

What distinguishes the Vaio W from others of its ilk is the resolution of its LCD screen that is 10.1″ and 1366 x 768 p. It is also Wi Fi enabled which is a standard requirement for the above standards. The resolution enables you to view 2 web pages with out having to scroll side ways.

The integration of these standards enable you to network your PC with your Vaio and also the inbuilt web cam and microphone make video chatting permissible. It comes with “VAIO Media plus Multimedia Streaming software” that lets you share and stream your multimedia applications both ways between your DLNA enabled devices like digital cameras , MP3 player and HDTV that include videos, pictures and music when you are at home. For this the Vaio W uses the ubiqutous Intel Atom n280 processor and a 160 GB hard disk and a 1 GB RAM. The Vaio W is operated by Windows XP “Home Edition Operating System”.

I cannot help but mention the environment consciousness of Sony Vaio W which has a EPEAT Gold which means it conforms to all the requisite environmentally friendly standards laid down and the Vaio W net book also complies with “ENERGY STAR 5.0″. Apart from the stringent measures that need to be incorporated Sony will also assist in recycling your old PC for a fee of course.

The Sony Vaio W net book is an indication of the exciting strides of technology which is endearing itself to consumers all over the world.

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 has held its head high in the face of stiff competition in the browser wars. As this news goes on air more than 6 million people have downloaded Firefox 3.5 and the download number is still a healthy average of 25 downloads per second.. Most of the features of Firefox have been covered by us but here is a fresh look at the features of Mozilla Firefox 3.5.

Private Browsing

That the speed of Firefox 3.5 has been greatly enhanced is now common knowledge. The welcome inclusion has been Private Browsing that has at last become c common feature of all the browsers. Unlike the visual indication of other browsers Firefox 3.5 gives you only a crisp message and you can get on with the business of  Firefox 3.5 conveniently forgetting everything when you are in the private Browsing mode. Though applicable when you are not in Private browsing is the feature where you can ask Firefox 3.5 to forget the subdomain of a site in history. This feature in private mode does not make sense anyway as the browser does not remember all the things anyway. To enable this you have to go to “History”, select the site, “Right Click” on it and choose “Forget this site”. A convenient way of removing sites that you don’t fancy any more.

Geo Location Awareness

Many a time application you may be using would want information of your physical location. Firefox 3.5 finds this out by triangulating your position from the surrounding Wi Fi networks and “Google Location Services” using your IP address. To use this facility you should have a WWAN card. The important thing is Firefox 3.5 takes your permission before sending the information. This feature will come in handy when you are at a new place and any information that you seek is location specific for your search engine.

Tabs

You can now drag and drop your tabs to another window, rearrange them and even on to your desktop. A + sign has been provided on the tab bar that makes creation of tabs intuitive. As you drag your mouse .Firefox 3.5 indicates the future location of the tab if you would release the mouse

Restore Previous Session

The restore previous session not only remembers the history but also any text that you may have typed automatically gets saved. You should be conscious of this facility not to let sensitive information fall into wrong hand and it must be used in conjunction with private Browsing if you use facilities outside for your work.

The Vizi Sense web site launched by Komli is an ‘audience measurement tool‘ that ranks a website according to the amount of traffic received by it daily. Let us say, you want to advertise on one of the several websites including, yahoo, rediff, gmail, etc. Thus, prior to this you must know which website is logging heavy traffic so that your input will give you the desired remuneration and popularity.

The Vizi Sense web site is the first of its kind to introduce in India an audience measurement tool. Vizi Sense is using three levels of data sources:

• Panel: they are tracking the Internet usage of over 10,000 users
• Analytics: statistics from the websites which install the analytics
• Census Data: from the Indian census, in order to help triangulate findings.

Now this data can be mutually exclusive, since not all publishers may be using Komli’s Vizi Sense data tracker. But, they can still make valuable conclusions about websites based on consumer behavior – for example, “Lets’s say you go to a site that is 90% male and another site which is 90% male…we can conclude with some probability that you are male.”

What’s really interesting is the fact that Komli has decided to make Vizisense available for free.

Vizi Sense is thus providing publishers with key demographic data like Gender, Age, Income, Education level and Marital Status. It is planning to expand the sample base to 100,000 within a few weeks.

This is an iterative process by Vizi Sense and the data will improve with time. They are doing the maximum to ensure more accuracy:

1. Bigger sample – Planning to expand the panel size to 100,000 in a few weeks
2. Targeting varied audiences for the panel signups for a well diversified sample
3. Removing the self selection bias, by triangulation of information from the panel data, actual publisher data
4. Using advanced techniques like Monte Carlo simulation, for multiple randomly picked up test samples.

The hurdles are will Rediff accept being ranked Number 5 in India, when Comscore ranks them as Number 1. ? Not likely, since Vizi Sense is not positioned to be a ratings system. In that context, the key to the acceptance of Vizi Sense then lies with smaller publishers and the media planners who will probably use Vizi Sense for demographic inputs on sites.

Korean vendor Samsung’s new solar powered phone is a very less investment if you are looking for a backup handset with unlimited power source. The firm launched the Samsung E 1107 unit, in India. Solar-powered handsets have long been in development, but this is the first to launch commercially.

An hour’s solar charge will only give enough power for a five- to ten-minute phone call. Still, that will almost certainly improve with time and the Samsung deserves a big green pat on the back for an important first step. An hour of solar charging, gives approximately 5 to 10 minutes of talk time, which means that in order to get 2 hours of talk time you need to keep this handset for a full day in the hot sun. The handset costs you just 60USD[2800INR]. There is no battery charger for mobile phones till now that has any other way to increase the battery levels. The Samsung mobile phone a better product which charges using the freely available solar energy.

The salient features of the handset include FM radio, MP3 ring tones, embedded games and a powerful torch light. The best part is that it comes with mobile tracker system which means your lost handset can be retraced and restored to you.

The disadvantage with this handset is that it could get corrupted and useless soon because the harmful rays can either burn up the screen, along with the internal parts also getting problematic, unless the hardware is real solid and made of something like aluminum or steel. However, the budget price offering cannot give anything other than a fiber or plastic mobile phone.

This exciting technology could lead to huge reductions in energy demand if every cell phone could pull a charge of juice out of thin air. Basically, in theory, two circuits would be capable of receiving and then converting the free energy to an electrical current to charge the battery of a cell phone. This would be enough energy to keep the phone charged in standby mode which is approximately 20 milliwatts; although at first it won’t be enough to charge the phone while in use, or to full battery capacity. The real trick here is to ensure that these circuits use less power than is being received by the phone.

The Sigma DP1 hit the market in 2008 after much anticipation and even a formal announcement to explain the delay. What sets the Sigma DP1 apart from the band of compacts is the sensor that is used in DP1, the Foveon X3 sensor and its lens system.

The present generation and wave of digital cameras seem to be focusing more on the zoom capability, face detection etc., which seem to have become a common feature. But the Foveon X3 sensor uses three sensors for color depiction for each pixel instead of the traditional one sensor for each pixel. A photo detector in traditional compacts one sensor per pixel location and then interpolates the algorithm for neighbouring pixels to arrive at the color pattern of the image.

But the several layers of photo detectors of the Foveon sensors per pixel themselves interpolate the color pattern of individual pixel for depiction of the image.

Other features of the Sigma DP1 include a 2.5 inch screen with 2300000 pixels. Its camera functions with a speed of 30 frames per second and the video screen has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Its lens has a wide angle of 28 mm equivalent of a 35 mm camera. It has 4. 69 million x 3 Foveon X3 sensors. It also has the ability of RAW capture and full manual control.