Alisa's blog

While blogosphere is full of debates and discussions on what the users liked and disliked in the new iPhone 3G, British security agencies are worried about the possible security threat that the iPhones may pose. Criminals can use devices like the iPhone 3G to remotely destroy incriminating evidence says the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office Digital Forensics unit.

Since the iPhone 3G is a new gadget, it is difficult to track the device. Just like the Blackberry, the iPhone 3G may also be used to carry out remote deletion according to the Digital Forensics unit. The unit has already begun measures to make sure that the remote deletion feature is not being exploited

Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon then. In the case of the now popular new girl, it is the third condition.? After a British buyer of the new iPhone posted three pictures of the girl in a website stating that those came as default pictures with his new iPhone. The pictures are believed to be sample photos shot at the Chinese factory of Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone for Apple. The message sparked off a spate of discussions that saw participation from all corners of the globe.

The debates ranged from the age of the girl, who appeared too young to work, reinforcing the idea of Chinese sweatshops to whether the girl was fired for the goofup that happened, to rating the girl?s cuteness quotient. Foxconn jumped to clarify that it was a ?beautiful mistake? (don?t know what that means) and also that the girl will not be fired for what happened. Last heard, the girl was pleading for some privacy.

The coolest gadgets this week are some new cameras, console games, and an update on the much anticipated laser-based rear projection TV from Mitsubishi. There’s lot’s more coming up on gadgets; check out what’s new for this week.

Ultra Mobile Laptop from Fujitsu
Fujitsu announced a UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) called the Lifebook U2010. It runs on an Intel Atom Z530 (1.6 GHz) processor, has a 5.6 inch 1024 x 768 screen, and claims an 8 hour battery life. It comes in many colors and includes a built-in webcam. The reported price of $1300 is quite a bit more expensive than the comparable $500 Asus Eee PC 901
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Two Cool New Nikons
The Nikon Coolpix S560 is expected to go on sale at the end of August and will sell for around $250. It’s a 10 MP compact camera with 5X optical zoom, ISO up to 3200, advanced face detection features and optical image stabilization. It will record 640 x 480 video at 30 fps.

The Nikon Coolpix P6000 is even cooler than the S560 (and twice as expensive at $500). It’s a 13.5 MP compact camera with 4X optical zoom and optical image stabilization. One feature you’re paying extra for is a built-in GPS that “geo-tags” your pictures. This camera could be the closest thing to an SLR that fits in your pocket.

Another Game for NVIDIA’s PhysX Engine
NVIDIA announced that CAPCOM’s upcoming Bionic Commando video game will use GPU-accelerated NVIDIA PhysX technology to enhance the game’s debris, smoke, dust, and weapon effects. Bionic Commando, which will be released by GRIN in early 2009 should offer super realistic images generated by the CUDA general-purpose parallel computing processor.

Batman Game Coming in 2009
A new videogame from Eidos Interactive called Batman: Arkham Asylum will be made available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Games for Windows in 2009. The game is being developed by Rocksteady Studios and puts players in the role of Batman as he delivers the Joker to Arkham Asylum.

New Thinkpad for Digital Artists
The Lenovo ThinkPad W700 has a big bright 17-inch screen but only weighs just 8.4 pounds. The Quad-core Extreme chip should provide lots of horsepower. The W700 is the first laptop with an integrated color-calibration system using a set of built-in color sensors along with an onboard Wacom graphics tablet. This laptop won’t be cheap, costing $3,000 before adding the extras and may go for as much as $7500 fully loaded. It’s due to go on sale in September.

News on the Much Anticipated Laser RPTV
The hype is for a projection TV with an extensive range of colors and the best depth of field of any display technology. Add to that a claimed 75% reduction in power over an LCD TV along with a 50,000-hour life span. Sound impressive? A handful of reporters were given a sneak peak at this TV at the 2008 CES and they were impressed by what they saw. Mitsubishi says they will offer a 65” Laser DLP set called LaserVue in September. The price could be less than $2,000.

The new iPhone 3G launched by Apple last month has some super cool features that are sure to be a hit with the users. The new iPhone with 3G speeds will enable faster email exchanges and downloads. The GPS mapping facility in the new iPhone with its location and direction guide will ensure that you will never lose your way. The much appreciated features of the original iPhones like the iPod music player, excellent internet tools and the rich visuals have all been retained in iPod 3G as well.

High speed connectivity over iPhone will be a reality now with 3G services that will allow you to enable voice and data operations simultaneously. So you can check emails or find directions as you speak to your friend over the phone. Now isn’t that really cool.

The long wait by the gadget savvy folks is finally over with the launch of the new iPhone 3G by Apple. The new iPhone 3G is available in two models that are priced quite attractively too. The basic 8GB model comes at $199, while the 16GB model comes with a price tag of $299.

The iPhones are designed to work only with AT&T service. The phones can be bought either in Apple retail stores or in AT&T outlets. So if you are planning to purchase a new iPhone and flaunt it, make sure you compare cell phone plans offered by AT&T. Check the rate comparison and iPhone plansans to find the one that suits you the best.

We’re all now part of the ‘global village’ that Marshall McLuhan foresaw decades ago. The fact that we’re able to virtually witness and experience events from around the world has proved this beyond doubt. Internet has further shrunk distances. We’re now able to communicate across the globe at the wink of an eye. This apart, internet has also opened up new avenues for marketing which have given businesses a global reach.

Online marketing has widened its scope in the past years. Sales or advertising messages reach people around the world, faster than ever. Viral marketing methods have created an opportunity for marketers to reach potential consumers through the worldwide web. Each of these consumers can in turn tell a friend about the product or service using online tools, within a matter of seconds- after all, we dwell in a global village, then why not?

The Canon EOS 5D is a high-end digital camera from Canon, aptly suited for advanced photographers. The light weight, robust SLR is equipped with the Canon’s outstanding EF lenses without a conversion factor. It is a 12.8 megapixel camera with CMOS sensor, Canon’s DIGIC II image processor, high precision 9-point AF system with 6 assist points and ‘Picture Style’ color control. The superior quality images possess enough resolution to suit any application.

Equipped with wide angle capabilities, a 2.5 inch LCD display and a magnesium alloy body, it is a great addition to the Digital EOS line.

The minimum and maximum shutter speeds are 30 sec and 1/8000 sec respectively. Image formats available are JPEG, RAW and RAW + JPEG. Other features include a fixed eye-level pentaprism view finder with a 96% view finder field of view and a self-timer with a 10 sec timer delay. The camera has a continuous shooting speed of 3fps.

Trying to convince people that your service or product is better than the competitor’s is an extremely challenging task. And that’s why the expertise of marketing and sales professionals is essential to every business. Yet, not all marketing efforts succeed. Why is it so? For one, today’s consumers make smart choices, and secondly they have an ocean of products and services to choose from.

In such a market scenario, what would be the best marketing strategy for a business? Word of mouth marketing is the most reliable option. It takes your message to a potential consumer through his/her known source, thus making it more credible. Give it a thought. Wouldn’t you believe what your friend says about a product more than what a TV ad tells you? With the internet opening up several avenues for this kind of marketing, businesses are sure to benefit from it.

The Nokia N73, even though being a mid range cell phone, comes with a host of exciting features. The versatile 3.2 megapixel camera is equipped with a Carl Zeiss lens. The mechanical shutter and advanced auto focus diminish movement distortion, rendering photos that have even been shot in low light conditions sharper. The camera is equipped with a 20X digital zoom.

The photos, which are of print quality, can be viewed on a 2.4 inch screen. The display resolution is 240 X 320 pixels. One can get excellent print quality photos up to 10” x 8”. Organizing and sharing of photos is simplified by an intelligent photo gallery. Memories are well organized and quickly accessible.

‘Life Blog’ helps to keep track of where and when one spent one’s memorable events. The N73 comes with a digital music player equipped with stereo speakers. The player is mp3 compatible. Music listeners can also tune in to FM Radio. Transferring tracks to the device is made very easy through the Nokia Music Manager in the Nokia PC Suite. Videos and games can be directly downloaded and streamed to the device. These can be stored on the device or with mini SD cards.

MS Outlook Express, MS Outlook, Lotus Organizer 5.0 & 6.0 and Lotus Notes 5.0 are other important features of the N73.

The N73 enables one to combine both work and play, made possible by its latest applications and services. The N73 can be connected to a PC or other wireless device through Bluetooth/infrared/USB. The device possesses anti-virus protection. The N73 is available in both the GSM and WCDMA category.

New types of phones are continuously being added to the cell phone market, that too with new features. The options range from sliders like T-Mobile's Sidekick that offer big keyboards that slide out from under big displays. There are Smartphones with QWERTY keyboards and high resolution displays, and now a new generation of phones is offering many of the features found on smartphones along with cameras with lots of mega pixels, video recording, and editing tools.

Sony Ericsson C905
Although the Sony Ericsson C905 has many high end features found in smartphones it is being categorized as a camera phone. It has an 8.1 MP camera along with some cool photo features like face detection, Smart Contrast that balances light and dark areas, image stabilization, BestPic that takes seven pictures in fast succession(you keep the best), and a Xenon flash. It has a built in accelerometer so photos change to landscape mode when you turn the camera and A-GPS so photos can be “geotagged.”

You get all the latest connectivity options like 3G, GSM, A2DP Bluetooth (stereo), WiFi (with DLNA for home media sharing), USB 2.0, and Exchange ActiveSync. It has a 2.4 inch QVGA (320 x 240) display, a TV-out port for watching pictures on your TV, an FM radio with RDS (Radio Data System for station ID and track/artist info) and a megabass audio equalizer preset for better audio.

Samsung INNOV8 i8510
The Samsung INNOV8 i8510 is a camera phone with an 8 MP autofocus camera that includes image stabilization and face, smile, and blink detection. It will record QVGA (320 x 240) video at 120 fps or VGA at 30fps with a full editing suite on the phone which makes this device more like a camcorder phone than a camera phone. It supports WiFi, 3G Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and dual-band WCDMA (900/2100MHz) and runs Symbian 9.3 S60 3rd Edition FP2. It has a big 2.8 inch display, built-in A-GPS, accelerometer and has 16 GB internal storage with microSD card slot for more storage.

Motorola Motozine
Motorola is about to launch the Motorola Motozine ZN5 in China with a 5 MP camera “powered by” Kodak. It will have all the standard smartphone features minus a QWERTY keyboard and 3G connectivity. This phone is expected to be followed by the, rumored, Motorola Motozine ZN12 which could hit the stores around October 2008. It is also rumored to have an 8 MP Kodak camera, a big 2.8 640x480 display and uses an NVidia chip to help with video & 3D graphics. Some say this is a make or break cell phone for Motorola who needs another hit product in this market.

LG KU990 Viewty
The LG KU990 Viewty is an old timer by today's standards having been out for almost a year. It only has a measly 5.1 MP camera but some very impressive features. The camera uses a high quality Schneider-Kreuznach lens with autofocus, a Xenon flash, and a SmartLight feature that improves pictures taken in low light. It also includes a secondary front facing video camera for video conferencing.

The video camera takes QVGA (320 x 240) video at 120 fps which can be played back at 15 fps for slo-motion and also takes VGA resolution clips at 30 fps. A second front-facing camera can be used for video calls. It uses Haptic technology which has been used in game controllers to simulate resistance and motion, to provide added sensory feedback for some operations. The list goes on including a 240 X 400 pixels, 3 inch touch screen, FM radio and 3G connectivity. Missing is WiFi, GPS, and an accelerometer.