Gmail coming hard on Facebook and Twitter

With the fast growing market for Facebook and Twitter, Google is definitely feeling the heat. Google is gearing up to give serious competition to Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites. The search giant’s free email service Gmail is reportedly planning to make Gmail more social by allowing users to exchange status updates with friends and share Web content links.
According to a report in Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the change will add a module to the Gmail screen that will display a stream of updates from individuals a user chooses to connect with.

These status updates are expected to eventually include content shared by a users’ Google contacts through other Google properties, such as YouTube and Picasa.

Presently, Gmail users can only post a brief message about their status through its Chat system, which is linked to Gmail.

Last year, Yahoo too added a similar feature to its mail allowing users to see if their friends have uploaded a photo or put a new staus message.

Gmail has been trying to integrate social features in various ways. Google users can chat via Jabber or AIM, make video calls, and send SMS messages from Gmail’s web interface.

A report in Financial Times says that Google will soon be holding a press conference at its Mountain View, California, office to show off the new features.

Google is still far and away the No. 1 most-visited website, with 173 million US visitors in December, according to measurement service ComScore Media Metrix, up 16% from the previous December. But Facebook is close behind. The social network was the fourth-most-visited site in December, with 111.8 million visitors, up 105% from the prior year.

Intex iSmart Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) Mobile Phone

A dual sim phone, with a QWERTY keyboard, great form factor, dual camera at Rs.4700/-. This is no joke. Intex launched its new iSmart to shock the market. Like its predecessor, IN 6611 Ace iSmart also boast of a good QWERTY keyboard. The formfactor makes it look like BlackBerry Curve 8900 which comes at around Rs.31K.

Form Factor

At first glance it looks like the BlackBerry Curve 8900. It’s sleek with a large QWERTY keypad that’s well spaced and easy on the fingers. It even has a trackball for navigation and only seems to lack the BlackBerry menu key. The 2.2-inch TFT LCD display is bright and clear enough to read making it easy on the eyes. A 2.5mm handsfree port is located on top and volume/zoom keys, are located on the same side as the micro USB port. A microSD card slot is on the opposite side. It’s an extremely light handset and over all one would find it quite hard to dislike it until the blaring blue light of the trackball starts to glow. The absolute contrast of the blue against the glossy wine red borders ruins the iSmart’s otherwise classy demeanor.

Intex has also included a very well designed case for this Dual SIM handset that allows you to access all of the handset’s keys without any hindrance. Slots have been cut out evenly for all necessary access points, except for the charging port at the bottom.

Features and Performance

Interface
The UI’s design, from the desktop to the main menu page is a complete rip-off from RIM, complete with background colors and icons. The oddest thing is that the submenus have miniature icons of a Symbian variety. It can be a little confusing to look at if you’ve used either Nokia or BlackBerry handsets, but when it comes to actual functionality, the UI is relatively well designed. However, it’s dreadfully sluggish and this makes the trackball a major liability to use. It takes too long to move from one selection to another and can be very quirky in this respect.

However, the UI does incorporate a few features like quick replying to messages right from the desktop so you don’t actually have go into the message section at all. You can read and reply to an SMS right from the main screen. The options for accessing either SIM are clear for making calls or sending messages and even accessing the web. Even incoming calls will identify which SIM’s number the call is coming in on. It’s a very well laid out UI but the painfully slow speed is what makes it quite annoying to use.

The funny thing is that in order to make it look as much like a Blackberry menu as possible, Intex has unnecessarily duplicated icons and features. It’s also a bit confusing as the symbols of the icons aren’t associated with the features inside. The spanner icons that usually means ‘Settings’ is the ‘Organizer’, the Magnifying glass that should be the search is the Call Log and so on.

Media
The bundled in-ear handsfree is surprisingly provisioned for comfort and pretty good audio as well. The player looks exactly like Symbian’s S60 version and audio quality, though a little on the sharp side, is not all that bad. The music player comes with EQ presets to help enhance the audio and it manages that quite well. The FM radio’s reception was not anything to write home about but was ok. There was quite a bit of static in most areas where I usually get decent reception from other devices. An FM recorder is lacking but a voice recorder is present. The range of the microphone is about 2 feet for clear recordings. Video playback was also an issue as my standard 3GP and MPEG4 files were framing throughout.

Connectivity
Forget about 3G of course, as handsets in this price range are not going to be capable of that technology – not that it matters for most mobile users in India. The iSmart is however GPRS and WAP enabled. The browser is very simplistic and may not be too fast but it gets the job done. If you prefer Intex has included Opera Mini which is quicker. The problem is that due to the slow UI and quirky trackball navigation maneuvering around the screen to access links can be a pain.

If you’ve got all the required settings for your POP or IMAP email accounts, it’s not hard to set them up and send or receive mails. Intex has also provided a shortcut to Facebook’s WAP page (don’t be confused by the icon, it’s not an application but merely a link). A link to MSN and QuickIM are also available for chatting, but only for those with MSN Messenger and AOL accounts and no other. The iSmart also supports USB 2.0 and Bluetooth with A2DP.

Features like a World Clock, Alarm, Calculator, Calendar, stopwatch etc. are all present. An Ebook reader is also available for .TXT files. It’s not very hard to read but prolonged viewing of the white lettering on a dark background can get a little difficult.

Camera
The VGA camera comes with an LED flash and features White Balance, video recording, Night Mode, Contrast adjustment, frames and a few effect settings. The weirdest thing is that image size in the handset goes up to 1280 x 1024 which is actually the resolution for a 1.3 megapixel camera, however, irrespective of choosing that resolution, images are always captured in 640 x 480 pixel resolution i.e. VGA.

Picture quality is very very average and if you don’t adjust the contrast accordingly, most images will appear quite over exposed. 

Battery Life

The average battery life of the iSmart is good. With 1450mAh it has a decent battery life.

Rating : 9.2 

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Image Searching in internet

How many times have you tried to search images in internet? How many clicks did you go before getting the actual image you are looking for? You can actually get the image with a single click, but you have to be very lucky.

Google may be the undoubtedly the best search engine, even if Microsoft doesnot like it. But when it comes to image search the landscape changes dramatically.

Truly said, images speaks more than a thousand words. But is http://images.google.com/ is your only answer? Does yahoo or bing do it better?

Microsoft is planning with Apple to be the default search engine, but is it doing enough for the images search. The new visual search bing can catch your eye. Try http://www.bing.com/visualsearch to believe.

Loaded on Silverlight, see images appear based on the categories. You can narrow down your search results and see unwanted images disappear. You can get information on the images with a mouse over. Once you get the right image you are looking for, click on to it to go the bing search results page. Microsoft is not indexing all the images, it says it will index only those images which it feels are more relevant to the zone.

You have another competitor for bing. Cooliris, is an old solution for visual pleasure of searching images, videos on the internet. It indexes on bing, yahoo, google, flicker, picassa and many other services. You can load the extensions from http://www.cooliris.com/.

The 3D wall is great and you can actually swap through the 3D wall to the picture or video of your choice. Adjust the 3D wall size as per your choice. You can get Cooliris for your IPhone and Nexus One as well.

Well, will google be quite when there is so much to offer from others? Will Google have only old image search? No, you are right. Google is doing something and doing it big. Check out http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com the new venture of Google. Based on the Google WonderWheel  technology, image swirl is really a great thought from Google.

Search for any image, then see the wheel take the control of your mind. Click on the particular image, see a sew wheel come up with more relevant images. You can go on discovering the image of your choice, and Google keeps remembering the wheel path for you to trace back. Google, unlike Bing will index on all the images for the web pages it indexes.

Post your comments on what do you think will rule the future?

Nokia Launches Custom Dictionary for Predictive Text

Have you ever wanted to change the words the S60 Predictive Dictionary had? Then, Nokia Custom Dictionary is the app you must have!

The new Nokia Custom Dictionary app from Nokia Beta Labs, allows you edit the list of words used by the phone for text prediction and also transfer it between phones.

You can also create specific word lists which can then be shared among a like minded community viz Tech Writers, Medical Doctors etc using this app.

Other Features of this app include:

• View all the words in your custom dictionary.
• Add new words to it.
• Edit and Delete existing words.
• Export the dictionary as xml file.
• Import words from an xml file.
• Scan text files to import all the words.
• Transfer your dictionary to another phone.

The application is fully functional on many S60 3rd and 5th Edition Phones like Nokia E71, Nokia E63, Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic, and Nokia X6.

However the application only has limited functionality on devices like Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N82, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, and other older phones.

Here is a Video Demo of Nokia Custom Dictionary App in Action. Check it out!

Download via http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-custom-dictionary

Twitter blocked in China?

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams today said he had been told that his microblogging service has been partially blocked in China but had no confirmation.

“That’s what I’ve been told,” he said, adding that he had “heard reports on that” but that the company did not have direct confirmation.

Williams said that China can use a firewall to block access to the service.

“There are ways for users to get around it, but I’m not an expert on that,” he said, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

When asked about media reports that Twitter was developing ways to get around the firewall, Williams said he had been “misquoted.”

“We’re not actively developing any way to get around it,” he said, although he stressed that “we’re for the free exchange of information.”

Asked if his company had noticed any cyber attacks, such as those launched against search engine giant Google from China, he said that no such moves had been detected.

A good iPAD killer from Dell

Dell has its own answer to Apple’s iPAD. Steve you have competition. iPad can be sleek but this is more powerful. Running on Android, supports SIM, so can actually call. A wifi, 3G data service. 5MP autofocus camera, front video calling camera, multitasking, in browser flash support. HDMI output. I think Dell got it right where Apple went wrong, and you can actually take it out from your court pocket.

9 iPad misses

After three years Apple is back to what it is known to be best at — launch new product. The computing giant launched iPad, a sleek table that aims to revolutionise the publishing business the same way as Apple iPod transformed the music industry and iPhone transformed the telecom industry.

But can iPad really do what iPod and iPhone could in their respective domains? While there are many who are going gaga over Apple’s new launch and see it as a disruptive technology. There are others who are cautious and apprehensive.

The critics are lamenting the absence of some features which they feel are basic for any product of iPad’s category. So what is it that is missing from Apple’s big launch?

1. One big miss in Apple iPad is camera. Lack of camera seems disappointing especially since the device is said to be somewhere between a smart phone and laptop. And in today’s smart phones presence of camera seems almost default.

Lack of camera means there is no option to video chat or even do video-conferencing.

2. With iPad coming in 16, 32 and 64 GB versions, storage seems big. But still extra storage is always welcome. And with no SD card support that option is not available.

3. Another big miss is absence of Flash support. With a screen as big as 9.7 inches, Flash support is surely to be missed.

As surfing the Web without Flash is not same. The `big, empty video boxes in the middle of a page’ that will appear are sure to disappoint. People won’t be able to access miniclip, play farmville, watch ESPN or Hulu.

In iPhone 3GS too when users browse through Web pages with Adobe Flash, it displays empty spaces with missing icons.

4. Multitasking seems to be becoming a computing norm, with even mobile OSes offering it. However, there is no multitasking option in iPad’s OS. This means for example users can’t listen to FM while they surf the Web, or switch back and forth between Facebook at Twitter, or write an email while talking on a VOIP call.

5. Analysts feel that a 4:3 aspect ratio may be just perfect for using iPhone apps in full screen mode. However, a similar aspect ratio may not be as good for media. Especially since the digital world is rapidly moving to widescreen formats.

6. Being touted as a ‘Kindle killer’ by many, Apple iPad is not exactly that. For, Apple iPad lacks the advantages of a digital ink and paper which are considered to be integral parts of an e-reader.

7. There is no facility for HDMI output in iPad. This means users will not be able to view HD videos on a large TV screen even if they have downloaded the same from iTunes.

8. The design may seem just seamless. But, you may find it too seamless when you will figure out the number of adapters you would require with it. Apple iPad has no USB ports reportedly. So, whatever you want to use with it camera, printer or even a USB, you would need an adapter for it.

9. If you are among those who loves trying new applications, iPad is surely not for you. As in ipad you can download applications only from Apple’s AppStore. iPad doesn’t allow users to download any apps other than from the App Store!

So, iPad with the huge buzz is not upto the expectation of the users? Steve, you got many thing right but some how missed out so many things, it’s surprising!!

Hands on and video: Lenovo’s Lephone

Hands on Lephone at CES2010

Free Turn-by-Turn Voice Guided Navigation with Ovi Maps

We were hoping something like this would happen but we would be lying to you if we claim to have smelled this before Nokia left this cat out a couple of days ago.  Yeah, we are talking about the new avatar of Ovi Maps offering  free turn-by-tun voice guided navigation across 74 countries in 46 languages.

The latest move by Nokia is taking the navigation tools competition to a new level, a level very few services can sustain. Google started the trend with its similar free service in the US with its android app but Nokia beat them hands down, by offering a similar service across the globe and going by the present market penetration of Nokia devices, it’s anybody’s guess which is going to shape the navigation industry in the long-run.

As you can see from the screenshots, Ovi Maps has got a new makeover. Not only are the navigation options free but some there are some third-party add-ons as well. Lonely Planet is one notable addition and so is Hungry-Go-Where.Before we go gaga over the killer features of this app, take a look at this introductory video on the new version of Ovi Maps

Now, that’s what we call a “Complete Navigation App“. Ovi Maps also offers real-time search for points of interest and weather forecast, just in case you are too lazy to pop your head out of the window to see what the sky looks like!

We tried the navigation app extensively here and found the voice instructions pretty lucid and easy to follow. Further local street names were pronounced correctly and not with an European accent as you would expect from a “Made in Europe” app. Once you select your starting and end points, you can select what language and voice (male/female) you would like to have for your instructions and the itinerary is downloaded in real time, updating on traffic info as seen from the video above. Pedestrian navigation is handy as well, especially when you find yourself lost in the wrong lane.

The bottom line is the new Ovi Maps is one killer app and waste no further time and head to www.nokia.mobi/maps/dl to get the latest version of Ovi Maps on your 5800s.

Apple ditching Google Search for Microsoft Bing on iPhone

According to reports , Apple and Microsoft are in talks to replace Google Search with MS Bing as the Default search engine for the iPhone.

BusinessWeek is reporting that Apple is in talks with Microsoft for few weeks regarding the default search engine iPhone . The move comes as a result of the growing rivalry and competetion between Apple and Google.

Now the Nexus One from Google is taking on the Apple iPhone 3GS directly and its obvious that Apple does not want to use a competitor’s product – Google Search

A significant amount of Mobile Search traffic is from Apple iPhone and iPod touch and Google’s income from Mobile Ads might be impacted by the outcome.

CNBC is reporting  that the Microsoft Bing App for iPhone is very successful from the Mobile Search point of view.  It drives more traffic  than from all of Verizon Wireless’s phones.

Microsoft is willing to pay more money to Apple compared to Google for the search ads.

Steve Jobs wants a  Bing Search API where he can integrate search results so deep in the product that user will never have to see the Bing web page and UI

These talks have been going on since October / November 09 .

Apple never saw Google as a Competitor until the rise of Android , Chrome and most recently the Nexus One. Now the relationship has turned bitter . Now we are hearing about the Search but Apple was even considering ditching Google Maps

This is going to be an interesting space to track as Mobile Search volumes are expected to boom in the coming years.