Microsoft's marriage to surface computing: Risking redundancy?

U.S. Patent No. 7,479,950 was awarded to Microsoft for a application which tracks position of gadgets and applications on the screen of a computer.

Incidentally, this patent was Microsoft's 10000th. So far, so good. However, it increasingly begins to look like Microsoft is obtaining and getting patents in a territories which will not find much takers. Surface computing. With the trend moving to the clouds, OSs diminishing, Browsers and web apps getting more potent , Microsoft is increasingly finding its users vacating their seats. Even if nothing, the browsers are migrating to "available for free" instead of a Microsoft License. The Web 2.0 with its freetardonomics principles is something that Microsoft will have to figure out!

So long for Patents!

Interestingly, earlier patents were used a legal aids with which a corporation would defend its turf. Lately however, the trend has changed and Patents are being used as bridges to collaborate with others in developmental stages of new products/technologies! Microsoft has been at this. However, the cloud and the web 2.0 seem to make the software gaint redundant faster than Microsoft would like it!

E 75: Doing the honours till N97 hits grounds!

The mercurial N series line up has not churned some great ones after the N 95. Instead it was E 71 which turnedthe heat for Nokia last summer. Then came the E 63, essentially a colour refresh for E 71. The latest in the Nokia armoury in E 75! the first of its kind, this will be a complete departure from Nokia's hardware architecture. It is an ultra-slim dual-keypad slider with a standard 0-9 pad beneath the display and a landscape QWERTY exposed by the slide. Chrome accents, sleek rounded lines, a nice wide full keyboard - it’s all good.

A 2.4 Inch, 240*320 display with a 3.2 MP Camera, HSPDA and Wi Fi is how it packs its punch. This would hold the place before the N 97 comes in this summer.

Pity, Nokia doesnot have significant representation in operators in NA.

Samsung Memoir: The camera and the mobile fuse!

Equipped with an 8-megapixel camera with a Xenon Flash, the Memoir should be a camera-phone fanboy's dream. The 8 megapixel camera, which includes a 16x (digital) zoom, will also shoot video. SGH t929 will also feature a full HTML browser, a virtual QWERTY keyboard, and a whole lot of other multimedia features. No Aps store, No Wifi and a loose interface ruin what could otherwise have been a state of the art device in here!

LG Versa: Sucessor to the LG Voyager

The LG VX9600, or the LG Versa, can be either a touch-screen phone or one with a QWERTY keyboard. Yes, apparently the touch-screen handset comes with a detachable QWERTY keyboard. There are also plans for other detachable modules, like a game controller pad, speakers, and maybe even a Wi-Fi module. In this pic is featured the versa prominently showing a soft key board.

Toshiba Timeline: iPhone in its sights?

Many believe the Toshiba TG01 will be handful for the iPhone. Making its launch in MWC, this eye catcher has a 4.1 inch, 800*480 pixel touchscreen! The quirk here is that the phone uses its accelerometers to answer -– so you shake the phone to pick up or hang up a call. It comes with the 1GHz Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset running along with Windows 6 with Flash support! Watch for this one at MWC this year!

S743: HTC's next Android Phone

The G1 was 10th in the best smart phones list for US in 2008. So then, HTC is looking to do an encore with Android + HTC S743 . Though it isnt a touch screen device, it takes design cues from the HTC diamond! It comes with a 3.2 MP camera, 2.4 inch QVGA, a second VGA for video calls, a numeric key pad and a slide out QWERTY key board!

Ultraslim smart phone at 4.6 * 1.7 * 0.6 inches and 4.9 ounces, this phone will come unbundled which makes it steeply price at $743! However it provides other consumers to buy it and use it on other networks as well!

Sony Ericsson's smart phone line up : This Spring!

Sony Ericsson launches its Cyber Shot Keitai W 816, which they are hailing as the world's first full change phone customizable both inside and out! It doesnot look great and is probably jaded in features as well! With a 5 MP camera, wireless music output, 2.8 inch wVGA LCD screen (usingthe reality Max technology used in Bravia) and 750 MB data folder, there is nothing to write home about in this one. It is being released with the Japaneese carrier KDDI!

W61S includes a Sony "Exmor" CMOS image sensor for high-resolution, low-noise photos. It also includes the "Smile Shutter Lite" and "Kaokime Lite" functions found in Sony "Cyber-shot™" digital cameras that click when the subject is smiling!!

Furthering the walkman series in mobile devices, This stunner is called Premier 3, and has the ability to rip music directly from the CD! The 3 inch 3 MP phone is wasted on its limitation of 2GB memory (50 MB internal memory)!

Nothing ground beraking in either of them!

Hitachi Wooo: The battle of LCD displays on mobile

The Gadget manufacturers dont stop. They have been constantly fusing technology forms from various devices to mobile phones! So now, Move over Samsung, as the (arguably) the best phone screens. Enter Hitachi! After producing the slimmest LCD screens at 3.5 cm, they extand that to phones with the Hitachi Wooo featured by Japaneese operator KDDI!

The Wooo features a 3.1 inch 3D WVGA OLED screen (854*480 Pixels) powered bythe same engine that powers the Hitachi Wooo TVs! It also features a 5 MegaPix CMOS Camera and 600 MB internal data folder. The Wooo is a clampshell with the ability to swivel into clampshell and portrait modes! It has music and video modes and a Navigation system thats aids in Disaster evacuation (???).

Watch this space!

Smartphone debut: Dell's MePhone

Given the recessionary times, Dell faces pressure on its mainstay computer business. However, the smart kid, Dell had already foreseeen tough times and had adequately prepared for its foray into the smart phone segment. The Round Rock, Texas based company have produced prototypes of its smartphones based on Android and Windows 6.5 platforms.

What makes this piece of news interesting is the "Zing" application which is a system for music streaming synchronization across devices. Dell will make most of its appeal based on personalization of the device (its Computer business USP). Thus the name MePhone >> a phone that is me! Dell will unviel the Mephone in the world mobile congress in some time and the sales start is September 2009.

Interesting times ahead?

Lenovo: A promising smart Phone Debut?

Lenovo and Dell are the latest kids in the smartphone block. Its getting a bit crowded out there these days! However featured in the pic is the first sneak peak of the Ophone. For its part it looks pretty much and sounds as much the obvious, iPhone. oPhone is based on China mobile's OMS (Open Mobile system), which after all is Android, and TD SCDMA which is China's 3G vehicle!

Word goes that China Mobile was initailly goingthe rounds with iPhone but the partnership broke on the issue of sharing margins!

A well placed source said, "Given these(iPhone, Android, Symbian) developments, it is becoming very clear that developing a proprietary handset operating system is essential for dominance of the mobile Internet market in China. At the moment, China Mobile is in a comparatively weak position without its own operating system. With its own operating system, China Mobile will be able to commission customized phones from handset makers and keep its hand strong in negotiations over profit sharing. There is even the possibility that China Mobile may move into manufacturing handsets itself."

So long, Welcome Lenovo to the world of smart phones

Even "invincible" and "Infallible" Microsofts and Googles are HUMAN after all

On 31st December 2008, as the clocked turned in the new year, Microsoft 30 GB Zunes all over the world started hanging and disfunctioning. A month later, Google serach reported a peculiar bug that marked every search result to be potentially harmful and capable of harming the user's machine! Users were baffled at these seizures and failure! Afterall, we are talking of the two biggest corporations in the world: The Redmond based Microsoft which introduced computing to the world and Mountain View's Google, which is synonomous to "search" on the internet.

It brought in a lot of unwanted attention to these companies! Both these bugs were attributed to a human programing error. http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detail/

Essentially, the programme code had defined a leap year to >366 days (instead of "="). So the programme code was stuck on identifying 2008 since it had 366 days. (It could identify years with 365 days and it was looking for aleap year with 367 or more days!)

So far as Google is concerned, It appears that someone added the forward slash to the list of bad URLs. The forward slash of course is part of most URLs. So the search engine dutifully blacklisted most of the Internet.

Small programming errors that cascaded into a world wide crisis. Nothing that the two big corporations could not handle...but all the same, it does prove, even "invincible" and "Infallible" Microsofts and Googles are HUMAN after all.....