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First Ever Twitter Jockey Selected by MTV

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Finally it was a day when a new executive post came into existence for corporate world. In a live show, Follow me, MTV has crowned its first ever Twitter Jockey (TJ) last night. Finale, held last night, was culmination of the cable network’s several month long quest to find the social media voice and face of the company.

Gabi Gregg, a 23 years old fashion blogger form Detroit, has been declared as winner for the reality show. Gabi who tweets with a name @gabifresh and now officially as @mtvtj bested four other competitors by wining the popular vote form viewers and fans in last night’s elimination round.

Excited with his new role, Gabi spend his first day with the job by tweeting to storms and addressing to media. He also posted few picture at Twitpic, inviting followers to see and speaking with people about his new role in social media industry.

MTV’s new Twitter Jockey would be moving to New York and officially starting $100,000 position next week. However, it would be interesting to see how far this new position can accelerate viewers counts to MTV. The trend of new position called Twitter Jockey is picking up with company pretty fast in last couple of months.

Since it will take some time for viewers and Twitters to have interaction with MTVTJ, you can enjoy some great moments with Gabi through the video embedded below when he crowned TJ for MTV.

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PMAA 2010 – Indian agencies bag 21 awards

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Nine Indian agencies bagged 21 awards in various categories at the Promotion Marketing Awards of Asia (PMAA) 2010 . Mudra Max, Jagran Solutions and JWT lead the pack with two golds each. The PMAA takes into account the idea, as well as the execution and the results of that idea to select an entry. The awards also give significant weight to the results of the campaign.Ambika Sharma, chief operating officer, Jagran Solutions, who was also one of the judges, says that the quality of campaigns this year surpassed those of the previous years. “In particular, the focus on result orientation was prevalent in campaigns across all countries,” she says.
JWT bagged the Dragons for the Best Campaign for Godrej’s Play Win, Live Big which was also awarded the gold in Best Brand Building category. The agency also got a silver Dragon for Kellogg’s Weight Management campaign in the Best Brand Awareness and Trial Campaign category.While JWT bagged the gold for Street to School for Maharashtra Janvikas Kendra; Jagran Solutions got it for the DeenDayal Mobile Health Units campaign created for Directorate of Health, Madhya Pradesh Government. In the same category, Jagran Solutions bagged a silver for Dabur Immune India campaign; while another one went to Encompass Events for its Red Ribbon Express campaign for the UNICEF.In the Best Use of Direct Marketing and CRM in a promotion campaign, all three metals were awarded to India. Jagran Solutions claimed gold for IE 8-Explore Your Way for Microsoft India; Solutions Digitas settled for silver for its HP Original Beats campaign and Arc Worldwide, Leo Burnett was awarded  bronze for HPCL Happy Wheels Offer.
Mudra Max five awards in all, comprising two gold, one silver and two bronze. The agency bagged the gold in Best Activity Generating Brand Volume category for 7-UP: The Lemon Army created for PepsiCo. Its second gold came in for the Best Small Budget Campaign for Aircel – History in The Making.The agency won silver in the Sponsorship or Tie-In Campaign category for This Film God Speaks on India’s Biggest Religion, created for Reliance BIG Pictures Limited. In the same category, Jagran Solutions got the bronze for Dabur Glucose Ace of Pac.The bronze award for Mudra Max came for the May I Help You campaign for the National Association for the Blind. The agency bagged its second bronze in the Best Trade Marketing, Retail Specific or Channel Specific Campaign category for Mumbai Smiles for a World Record campaign created for Wrigley India.Another gold was awarded to Hungama Digital Media in the Best Digital Communications Campaign category for Samsung Marine Digital Launch. Hungama also bagged a silver in the Best Use of The Internet, Viral or Social Marketing in ‘A Promotion Marketing Campaign category’ for Aamir’s Birthday Wall campaign for Tata Sky.

Accentiv India also bagged a silver in the Best Activity Generating Short or Long Term Brand Loyalty category for the Indian Oil Xtra Power Program.M/s Evolve Brands bagged two awards. It got silver in the Best Dealer or Sales Force Activity category for Symantec’s The Norton Champs Programme. It bagged a bronze in the Best Business to Business Campaign category for Greenply Industries’ The Architect Leadership Council.

Fifty gold, silver and bronze Dragon campaigns are now being adjudicated by the MAA Globes International judging panel, against the Best of the Best in Promotion Marketing, from award programmes run in Argentina, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Russia, UK and the USA, Winners will be announced globally and at the MAA Globes award ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel Washington DC, USA, during the Fall Conference of MAA Worldwide, on 19 October, 2010.

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Too Late for LG, Nokia to Overexceed iPhone ?

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Mobile market is blowing so the competition. All major companies are struggling to rule the market anonymously. Undoubtedly Apple has left others behind, if not beaten, with its flagship product iPhone. Dethroning Apple’s iPhone may be too big to chew for few old market leaders like LG & Nokia, who are struggling to find the pace in the market now.

Together, Nokia, Samsung & LG controls 70%, a majority stack, in the mobile handset market, but their failure to stop iPhone who is marching with big boots has clearly indicated their future presence ratio in the market. Surely Apple has reduced the number of pages in their profit books which management used to see every year. However the gap between Apple and other mobile handset makers, specially LG and Nokia, has become so big which may force companies to re-engineer their mobile market strategy.

Just three years old iPhone from Apple get sold after every 13 Nokia mobiles. However the profit from each sale Apple makes is much larger than other mobile manufacturer. Besides trouble from Apple, LG & Nokia are also penalized from other local vendors who are stamping their presence gradually. Also, the value of Nokia’s brand — one of its key assets — dropped 58 percent last year, according to a global study by market research firm Millward Brown.

“None of them will emerge quickly from the trouble and it could get only worse before getting any better maybe in another year or so,” said Greg Noh, an analyst at HMC Securities.

“As long as they fail to differentiate themselves, it’ll continue to be Apple versus others and they have more difficult times ahead as competition will get only tougher with more producers joining the fray.”

Smartphones account for around 20 percent of the broader handset market but the sector’s 56 percent growth rate well outpaces a 10 percent expansion of overall handset market, according to Goldman Sachs, a key reason why the industry is attracting major vendors and companies across industries. Last month, Hewlett-Packard Co sealed its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm Inc, while many other PC makers, such as Acer, are trying to win a share of smartphone market on their own.

LG Mobile – A Forgotten Handset Champ ?

In current scenario LG, world’s third largest mobile manufacturer, looks very uncompetitive and may pull the chairs to have new thinking toads on it as company reported it may attract another loss making quarter.

LG, which has not launched any hit smartphones so far, is pinning hopes on its Optimus One, due this quarter. But it may be coming too late to the party with a mid-priced phone that likely catches up to rivals but won’t leave them in the dust.

While Samsung, LG’s local competitor is picking up mobile market quickly with its Android based Samsung GalaxyS phone, its time for LG to have an open door policy for its members across the world to pick up thinking caps. While Samsung is giving good fight to iPhone (among Nokia, LG & Samsung ), it will mainly depend on its service which can retain customers for long time with the company.

“Still, Samsung and LG need to develop killer mobile services featured only for Samsung or LG which have competitive and similar points with RIM’s email and Apple’s App store,” said William Lee, an analyst at Ovum.

A recent review on Samsung GalaxyS clearly indicates that company has a vision and movement towards direction where Apple wants iPhone to reach as early as possible. ( Read Samsung GalaxyS- much more iPhone wanna be ).

Helped by new Android-based top model Galaxy S, Samsung rose to the No. 5 position in the smartphone market in April-June — following Nokia, RIM, Apple and HTC — and is looking to win further share in coming months.

Nokia, who is also hunting for its Top brass replacement, is trying to retain its brand and market value by the launch of Nokia N8 which stands out among rivals with its 12 megapixel camera, but it has a slower processor than Galaxy S or the latest iPhone. It comes with a 3.5 inch touch screen.

In next coming few weeks, battle for berth in mobile industry will heat up when few new handsets would be launched by various local manufacturers which can catch an eye of people across the market.

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Skype Go for IPO

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Skype, a software company which allows people to call over Internet, has filed for IPO. Skype which was sold by eBay to private investors last year is all set to re-emerge as its own public traded company. A VoIP service provider which has filed with SEC for its first public offer is expected to raise minimum $ 100 million through IPO.

However, the share price is yet to be disclosed. Last year company had been valued $2.7 Billion when it got sold by eBay to private investors including Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board.

Skype, founded in 2003, has emerged as one of the best VoIP & chat tool over the internet. People can chat, msg and talk between Skype – Skype. Taking a step further, Skype launched its service where people can call to any mobile or phone from Skype software using Skype credits. Just few years back Skype also offered Skype phone which allows users to call other phones using Skype phone at low cost.

In 2005 eBay acquired Skype and in fall of 2009 sold a major stake to independent investors. Recently Skype got into controversy with another mobile VoIP service provider named Fring for blocking complete Skype network access to Fring. It would be interesting to see how far Skype manages to match with their current investors expectations. More to come….

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Post Effect of iPhone 4.0 Stumbles – Apple’s Top Executive Departs

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After much cry, hugs, blame games, it seems Steve is coming heavily on those who had put him on defensive mode after launch of company’s flagship product iPhone 4.0. A Sr. Executive, in-charge of iPhone, has recently departed from company after a series of stumbles with the new device as sources confirmed on Saturday.

Mark Papermaster, Apple’s Sr. Vice President of mobile device, has left the company on Saturday, an Apple spokesperson informed to WSJ with no further details. Mr. Papermaster, joined Apple from International Business Machine (IBM), has been in the company for just 15 months. After series of stumbles Apple faced for iPhone 4.0, Mr. Papermaster was a falling out with Steve Jobs CEO, Apple Inc, said by few sources.

Exactly how much the problems with the iPhone 4 played in Mr. Papermaster’s exit is unclear. The iPhone 4, a key device for Apple, has been beset by issues such as antenna reception and delayed production of a white version of the gadget. Several people familiar with Mr. Papermaster’s situation said his departure was driven by a broader cultural incompatibility.

Mr. Papermaster lost his confidence with CEO Steve jobs and was kept apart from crucial management meetings from last couple of weeks, sources said. Furthermore sources said that Mr. Papermaster was not able to in-line with company’s creative thinking ideology, where every manager keeps some crucial initiaves with himself instead of delegating to his team. Sources said Mr. Papermaster had difficulties maneuvering Apple’s internal politics.

“This guy came from IBM and he was in charge of iPhone 4 hardware, but IBM doesn’t have antenna technology,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Co. Added Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co., “It’s too coincidental not to be related to the antenna issues.”

The iPhone 4, released in late June, is a hit device that has spawned an uncharacteristic number of stumbles for Apple. Initial offer of $199, handset attracted multiple of embarrassments to Steve Jobs, CEO Apple Inc, for releasing bugged device ( Antennagate issue ) and due to delay in lunch of White iPhone 4.0 handset. Steve tried to encounter handset Signal strength issue by failed attempt of showing similar issues with other phones which had been criticized by other handset manufacturer like Nokia & Samsung.

iPhones are the largest part of Apple’s business, comprising 34% of overall revenue. In its most recently reported quarter, Apple said iPhone revenue totaled $5.3 billion. Recently Apple had announced its last quarter financial result which crossed $16 billion mark due to huge success of iPad and iPhone 4.0.

Mr. Papermaster’s departure shows how difficult it can be for an outsider to succeed at Apple. While some of the company’s top executives who came from other corporations have thrived—notably Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who was previously at Compaq Computer Corp., and retail chief Ron Johnson, who joined from Target Corp.—others haven’t fared as well. For instance, Apple has gone through general counsels that it hired from IBM and Oracle Corp. since 2006.

Mr. Papermaster’s recruitment to Apple in late 2008 was controversial. His former employer, IBM, filed a lawsuit against the executive for violating a noncompete agreement. Mr. Papermaster didn’t start at Apple until April 2009 after the dispute was resolved. He succeeded Tony Fadell, a longtime Apple executive who had a key role in launching the iPod business, which helped fuel the company’s growth.

A spokesman for Apple said Mr. Papermaster’s duties will be handled by Bob Mansfield, the company’s senior vice president of computer engineering. The spokesman said Mr. Mansfield, who was featured in the iPhone 4 promotional video released in early June, already manages some aspects of Apple’s mobile-device technologies, such as the device’s “Retina” display and A4 processing chip.

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Google Targets Facebook’s Apps. Acquires Slide Inc

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It seems Google is closing corners to launch its social networking initiative  – Google Me, a Facebook competitor. With its latest move – acquisition of Slide Inc, a social widget makes, clearly indicates the head path of the company. Slide Inc develops applications and virtual goods for Facebook, MySpace and other websites.

Sources, familiar with such acquisition, confirmed that Slide acquisition is an initiative to strengthen social media development team inside Google as prime objective besides other purpose. A Technology blog Techcrunch valued the deal size $180 million. Slide Inc has 100 developers experienced in social media industry. The San Francisco company was started in 2005 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, who will join Google.

In announcing the takeover Friday, Google Engineering Director David Glazer said the company would be “investing even more to make Google services socially aware” and expand the social-networking capabilities further across the Web, according to a post on the company’s blog.

Google has been in discussions with top developers to offer their games on a new social networking initiates from company, according to people familiar with the matter. Those developers include Playdom Inc., Electronic Arts Inc.’s Playfish and Zynga Game Network Inc., these people have said.
On official notes, current acquisition is meant to make existing Google services like Gmail, Buzz, Docs etc more social media friendly and integrated. But few analyst assumes the acquisition is another move to come closer to launch of new social networking initiatives, company is working currently, named GoogleMe unofficially. Google has been under tremendous pressure to launch its social networking website to encounter Facebook popularity which recently achieved the milestone of 500 million users.
Some of Google’s earlier efforts to crack the social networking market have ended in disappointment. These included Dodgeball, a mobile social-networking service that let users share their location with friends, microblogging service Jaiku and more recently Google Buzz, a social-networking service tied to Gmail that got off to a bad start when users complained about privacy violations.
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Amazon and IBM are cloud champions !

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According to a new report, Amazon and IBM have emerged as the leaders in clouding computing. Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Red Hat and VMware are also among the list of heavyweights in this field.

All tech vendors are embracing the cloud. Even those that don’t provide public cloud services are fighting to become the top builders of infrastructures to support emerging cloud networks.

BTC Logic, an IT consulting firm, attempted to rank the top cloud players, and put them into seven broad categories: cloud foundations, infrastructure, network services, platforms, applications, security and management.

BTC Logic claims Amazon and IBM are the “cloud champions” because they rank in the top five in four of the seven categories. The companies Microsoft, Google, Red Hat, Salesforce, Symantec, VMware, Citrix, EMC, Oracle, and Cisco are deemed “cloud heavyweights,” one level below Amazon and IBM, because they rank highly in fewer categories. A third group of companies is listed merely as “cloud contenders,” and this group includes AT&T, Aylus Networks, Rackspace and SAP’s Business Objects division.

Neither Google nor Microsoft succeeded in getting top rank in any of the seven cloud categories, but Google is second behind Salesforce.com in cloud applications and Microsoft is second behind VMware in cloud foundations. Cloud foundations refer to tools and software that make it possible to build cloud infrastructure.

The entire exercise done by BTC Logic is intended to help customers sort out the confusing mass of cloud vendors.

“The Cloud Computing marketplace still has a confusing array of vendors each promoting its own solution, and a steady increase in the number of new Cloud product and services,” the firm says. BTC Logic says its research shows that “enterprises will not significantly move applications and data into the Cloud until issues related to security, privacy, and data location (trust services) are fully resolved and that enterprises want to retain more control over governance and have the ability to oversee applications and data running in a broad hybrid Cloud.”

Amazon, according to BTC Logic, is the No.1 provider of cloud infrastructure with its Elastic Compute Cloud offering, and also tops the list of cloud platforms for development and deployment of applications.

Amazon ranks second in cloud network services, defined as “the communication components that combine with Cloud foundation and infrastructure to form Cloud architecture.” Perhaps surprisingly, Cisco is third on this list, which is topped by Level 3 Computing Services.

Amazon also ranked third on the list of cloud management companies because of its S3 Simple Storage Service offering. IBM joined Amazon as a “cloud champion” by placing first in management with the IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance, third in security (behind EMC/RSA and Symantec), second in platforms, and second in infrastructure.

VMware comes out of the BTC Logic report looking pretty good, placing first in cloud foundation with vSphere, its virtualization and management platform, and vCloud, its partner program that allows some interoperability between internal data centers and cloud services.

Red Hat has made the case that only itself and Microsoft have all the tools necessary to build clouds, including operating systems and middleware, while VMware argues that its superior virtualization technology makes it the real leader. Microsoft is second in this category with Hyper-V, just ahead of Red Hat and Citrix, according to BTC Logic.

“VMware remains the clear leader in this category,” BTC Logic says.

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Finally RIM (BlackBerry) Comes on Feet

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After much of criticism, dialogs, allegations and many turning points Research in Motion (RIM), makers of BlackBerry, has cracked a deal with Saudi Arabia Regulatory Authority to ensure uninterrupted services for all Blackberry users in kingdom as report by wsj. With such agreement on Saturday RIM averted the possible ban on BlackBerry services due to accessibility issue on user’s data.

The agreement, which would involve placing a BlackBerry server inside Saudi Arabia, would allow the government to monitor users’ messages and allay official fears the service could be used for criminal purposes. Saudi Government announced the ban on BlackBerry services from Friday due to security reasons.

RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, faces growing scrutiny over its BlackBerry e-mail and messaging services in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India. Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous nation, also expressed concern about BlackBerry services. The U.S. and Canadian governments said this week they’re in talks with foreign governments to find a solution. RIM CEO, Mike Lazaridis, alleged governments of such nations of being unfair to score political points.

The deal could have wide-ranging implications for several other countries, including India and the United Arab Emirates, who have expressed similar concerns over BlackBerry services and warned to face ban if failed to oblige their requirements. RIM has faced huge losses in last few days after its stocks fell by about 4 percent on Nasdaq on Tuesday and same results on Wednesday. Company lost $2.7 billion in stocks despite the launch of new BlackBerry smartphone “Torch” due to possible market disconnect from few nations including India and Indonesia, one of the biggest mobile market across the globe.

After this deal, it would be interesting to see the next move of RIM who would be now under tremendous pressure from other nations to have local server setups to respect concerns of security.

How far do you think its fair enough to track  & monitor communications of telecoms users ? Let us know your views in comment section.

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WINK – An Indian Answer to Apple’s iPad

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Apple’s overwhelmed success of iPad has pro-activated many other players. In the last couple of weeks, market expectations have been raised as many companies announced few upcoming products like BlackPad from BlackBerry and Microsoft. Adding joy to competition, an Indian company EC Media (International) Pvt. Ltd has announced another eBook Reader keeping Indian contribution to IT intact.

WINK, as company name its eBook reader, will available in the market from 15 August 2010, as planned by the company. With a mere cost of USD 170/- for its basic model with a six-inch screen, 800×600 pixel resolution company is bullish with Indian prospective customers. Advanced model of “Wink” which has a nine-inch screen, 1080 x 768 pixel with the weight of 430 gm is available for Rs. 22,000/-.

This multifunctional e-reader will support more than 15 regional languages and tech support would be taking care by Chennai based California Software Co Ltd. The company is expecting to sell more than 25,000 readers by end of this year.

EC Media has a tie-up with Ingram, a US-based digital aggregator or warehouse, and has access to at least 100,000 titles from various publishers. It has tied up with publishers including Penguin, Roli and Oxford University Press to upload titles on Wink’s portal. It has also independently tied up with Permanent Black, a New Delhi-based publishing company, for four of its titles.

These include A Princely Impostor? The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal by Partha Chatterjee and Finding Forgotten Cities: How the Indus Civilization was Discovered by Nayanjot Lahiri. EC Media will sell the titles at a 25% discount to the market price and 50% of each sale will go to Permanent Black.

In India adoption of the eBook trend is picking up slowly but surely it’s going to stay here for long. However, Unlike many other countries i.e. U.S. & U.K., Indians never were fond of reading in mass. Technology diversion and mobility has driven the market towards acceptance of eBooks in the last couple of years which made companies to focus on such mobile devices which stand middle of mobile & laptops.

WINK – What’s in it?

  • Touch Screen with full QWERTY keyboard
  • 16 level gray scale with six and nine inches screen
  • 800 x 600 resolution for basic model & 1024 x 768 pixel resolution for advanced model
  • 185mm (L) x 124.6 mm (W) x 10.9 mm (H) and weighs 260 grams with battery for basic model & 262mm(L)×170mm(W)×11.9mm(H) and weighs 430 grams with battery for advance model
  • Both Readers can run for 8000 pages and take approximately 6 hours with USB charging from powered Computer or 3 hours when using optional AC charger.

With not-so-open Indian market for eBook, it would be interesting to see the strategy; company adopts to ensure smooth sailing further. Do you think it’s a right move and right time for eReader manufacturing companies to set up shop in India now? Do let us know your views in comment section.

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HDTV Buying Guide – Myths and Assumptions Demystified

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Article by Rama:

When choosing an HDTV, you need not consider resolution, plasma burn-in and LCD motion blur as factors affecting your buying decision. Even picture quality is not something to worry too much about. The factors that you should consider are your viewing conditions and the features you want in your TV.

If you’re a first time HDTV buyer, make sure you read through the summary and the gists first. Consider this a starting point to your HDTV research. You won’t find information about specific models here but you’ll get a broad perspective on what to look for when buying a HDTV.

WHAT’S NOT IMPORTANT

1. HDTV Resolution

Gist: Irrespective of TV size, 1080p resolution will give negligible improvement over 720p. Even cinema screenings have a resolution of ‘only’ 750p. The only reason to choose 1080p over 720p is when the 1080p TV in question has better specs (contrast ratio etc.) than the 720p TV in question.

Before analyzing why resolution isn’t important, here’s an interesting fact – the resolution of movies we see in movie theatres is around 750p (ie. 750 horizontal lines of resolution). It’s surprising but it’s true. Films are usually reprinted at 2K resolution (2048×1080) because that’s more cost effective than reprinting at higher resolutions and because higher resolutions than 2K don’t give noticeable improvement even on cinema screens. Because projector lens optics are not perfect, the 2K resolution when magnified on screen further degrades and comes down to around 750p. Here’s a paper detailing how this figure was obtained – http://www.cst.fr/IMG/pdf/35mm_resolution_english.pdf

Now, you might think Full HD TVs will give you a picture that’s even better than cinema theatres. That’s not true. Full HD TVs claim a resolution of 1920×1080 but this is true only for still images. The video resolution or moving picture resolution for many LCDs and plasmas come down to 800p or sometimes even down to 300p. This is because of the inherent technological shortcomings found in LCDs and plasmas. Also note that though some TV specs quote a moving picture resolution of 1080 lines, the actual measured resolution will be much less. (Refer CNET HDTV reviews to cross-check a TV’s moving picture resolution as they usually provide moving picture resolution measurements in their reviews.)

Comparing HD ready and full HD TVs, people usually find that full HD TVs are sharper for bluray material. This observation is not necessarily because 1080p has more pixels and therefore more detail; the true reason for improved sharpness is the lack of scaling in full HD TVs. Full HD TVs and bluray material have the same resolution (1920×1080). So the pixel mapping is one-to-one and scaling is not required. HD ready TVs have either 1024×768 (plasma) or 1336×768(LCD) resolution, so bluray material is shrunk to fit the screen’s native resolution. This shrinkage causes some blurring. Even if one sits right in front of the TV, he’ll have a hard time making out what extra visual detail 1080p gives over 720p. Here’s a very good image comparing video resolutions – http://blog.isnoop.net/wp-content/up…view_large.png In reality, the difference will be even less apparent than what this pic shows.

For games, resolution differences might be apparent but then all mainstream console games have a native resolution of 720p or less (so these games will look razor-sharp even on HD ready TVs). That said, bigger resolutions do make a difference when viewing static content like test charts and when browsing webpages. Unless you want to use your TV to browse the internet and have multiple webpages tiled side by side in full size, you absolutely need not worry about HDTV resolution irrespective of the TV’s size.

2. Plasma Burn-in

Gist: Burn-in is not a myth but it certainly is an easily preventable problem. A little precaution during the ‘run-in’ period is all that is needed to avoid burn-in forever.Burn-in is no myth. You can leave permanent burn-in marks at will on any plasma TV (even on a top end Pioneer Kuro). But to create burn-in even in a budget plasma, you’ll need to keep brightness and contrast at scorching levels and before you damage your TV you’ll certainly damage your eyesight.

I can tell you this from personal experience with my budget plasma. The budget plasma I used to own was found to be a demo piece and it came home with brightness/contrast set at a scorching 80/90 and had burn-in marks. But after that I had used it for 2.5 months (before it was returned for full refund; that’s a different story.), gaming and watching letterboxed movies (no TV channels tho) with brightness/contrast set at a fairly high 50,85 and I’ve never managed to create additional burn-in. But the original burn-in marks remained to be seen on the screen till the last day the set was at my home.

Generally, people mistake temporary image retention for burn-in. Image retention and burn-in are used as umbrella terms for a number of different issues –

1 – Phosphorescence – There is a long afterglow component of phosphors that can be seen even when the display is off. It is very faint however and eventually dissipates.

2 – Residual charge – Plasma displays use dielectric charges to control the on or off states of the pixel. If there is a slight residual charge left when the pixel is turned off the next time it turns on the pixel will be slightly brighter than normal. This will show up as a ghost image on a dark screen. You can tell it is residual charge because the ghost image is slightly brighter than the dark background. This ghost image is transient and easily removed by either a full white screen or watching full screen material for a few hours.

3 – MgO Sputtering – High energy discharge in Plasma displays causes Magnesium Oxide to sputter and deposit onto the phosphor and adjacent pixels. The result is a long lasting ghost image that can take many days to remove. It can be seen as a slightly darker image on a full white screen. Ironically, a full white screen for many hours is the best course of action to resolve this issue as it normalizes the deposition of MgO to all pixels (evens it out).

4 – Phosphor aging – Permanent aging of the phosphor material that causes a slightly darker ghost image that is irreversible.

Only phosphor aging is considered burn-in and it can be easily prevented by taking a simple precaution during the initial ‘run-in’ period of 100-150 hours – just keep contrast low. After the ‘run-in’ period, burning-in a plasma is impossible as long as brightness and contrast are not kept at eye-scorching levels or a still image is not left on the TV for hundreds of hours together. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find even in online forums cases where people have actually reported burn-in. But remember, if you’re planning to use your TV as a computer monitor, then plasma is most certainly NOT the way to go because still areas like Windows ‘start bar’ and ‘title bar’ are left on the same place almost indefinitely and will probably create burn-in after a few months. But for normal TV usage, there should be no worries about burn-in when using plasmas – with budget plasmas you need to keep contrast low during the first 100-150 hours and for expensive plasmas you need not worry about burn-in at all because these sets are highly resistant to even temporary image retention, leave alone burn-in. Lastly, keep in mind that burn-in can occur even in LCDs because of permanently stuck pixels.

3. LCD/LED Motion Blur

Gist: LCD motion blur simply can’t be noticed in movies. Only when playing games or watching sports, motion blur can be noticed but even that can be eliminated.

 

Here’s another startling fact – the motion blur noticed in LCDs is not caused due to some drawback in LCD technology; it’s caused due to a weakness of the human eye – in the human eye bright images will persist for a fraction of a second. The blur noticed in LCD TVs is technically called sample-and-hold blur (or S&H blur). Unlike CRTs, LCDs do not light up pixels one at a time. Each frame of the video is displayed as a whole for a small period of time i.e. each frame is sampled and held on screen for a fraction of time and hence the name, sample and hold. Because of this method, each frame is seen by the eye fully for a long time and the eye takes some time to ‘un-see’ the old frame and see the new one. Thus, the persistent part of the old frame will be perceived as a blur. This doesn’t happen in CRTs because each pixel remains lit for a very small fraction of time and will be off before the eye tries to stamp the pixel’s image on itself. This doesn’t happen in plasmas too because, in plasmas, the pixels will be strobed (flickered on and off) a number of times for each frame. 600Hz subfield drive means that each 100Hz frame (or field) is strobed 6 times. This, in turn, reduces motion blur.

LCDs try to combat this problem by simulating what plasmas do. Pixel strobing is simulated by inserting a black frame in between every frame. If an LCD TV is strobed at 600Hz it will handle motion just as beautifully as a plasma. But then, LCDs have a problem where pixels will take some time to change colour (this is called response time). So, 600Hz strobing isn’t practically possible on today’s LCDs. However, some LCDs with advanced motion processing capabilities get creative and will insert an intermediate morphed frame between frames. This kind of motion processing usually gives a documentary look to movies and should not be turned on when watching movies. But, for movies, you need not turn on any kind of motion processing even on slow LCDs.

It’s impossible to notice motion blur in movies even on the slowest of LCDs. Why? Because of the nature of film capture, movies themselves will have more motion blur than what an LCD can introduce. Films, for logical reasons, are captured at a slow rate of 24 frames per second. The human eye can detect up to 72 fps when stationary and up to 300 fps when following moving objects on screen. So, 24 fps is, by its nature, quite blurry. This blurry motion is considered an inherent characteristic of movies and it is what makes movies look different from documentaries and TV programs.

That said, when playing movies, almost every HDTV owner will notice shaky motion on fast pan scenes. This artifact is called judder and it is not the same as motion blur. (Telecine)Judder is caused because of framerate difference between film material and PAL/NTSC standard refresh rate. In movies, frames change at 24Hz (or 24 frames per second) and TVs refresh natively at multiples of 50Hz (PAL) or 60Hz (NTSC). Most of the TVs sold in India have a native refresh rate of 100Hz. To convert 24Hz to 50Hz (or 100Hz), an approximation process called 2:3 pulldown is used. This process works really well for most scenes but rears its ugly head during fast pan scenes, where you’ll notice shaky motion. Only the most expensive TVs will be able to downplay judder. Specifically, TVs that have support for 96Hz playback or better will be able to play movies just as they were intended to be played. (TVs refreshing at 24Hz or 48Hz will show noticeable flicker.) But even on these expensive TVs you’ll notice some judder. Why? It’s because, just like motion blur, judder is also an inherent quality of cinema, owing to the low framerate of 24 fps. This is why handheld camera shots look very shaky and disorienting in movies but we don’t feel the same shakiness when we really walk or even play any recent FPS game. 24fps is the culprit but people have come to love it for its utility and aesthetics. So, the bottom line is that when watching movies, you need not worry a bit about motion blur even on the slowest of LCDs. But, sometimes motion blur will be noticeable when watching sports, especially when tracking moving objects like a tennis ball or a football or when playing games. When motion processing is turned on, these effects will be greatly reduced. So it’s a good idea to turn on motion processing when watching sports. Even if an LCD TV doesn’t have extra motion processing, motion blur won’t be a problem for the majority of the population. Only those with sensitive eyes will easily notice motion blur and these people will also notice phosphor trails and flickering on plasmas. So things get pretty even in the end.

4. Picture quality and the hundreds of parameters that try to define it

Gist: Under ideal conditions, no matter what HDTV you buy, it will give you very satisfactory picture quality for its price.

There’s a huge list of subjective and objective parameters that people use to define picture quality – black levels, color accuracy, color depth, contrast ratio, true contrast ratio, on-off contrast, checkboard contrast, image pop, natural look, 3d-ish picture and the list goes on and on to the depths of a videophile’s heart. Equally exhaustive is the list of picture defects – phosphor trails, edge halos, PWM noise, screen non-uniformity, dithering, slow response time, ABL, stuck pixels and this list goes on to the depths of a cynic’s heart.

It’s fun to understand what these terms mean but it’s very hard to correctly, objectively evaluate a TV’s picture quality without comparing the TV to a reference monitor. To most of us, showrooms are the only place where we can compare TVs but showrooms don’t have a reference monitor to benchmark picture quality nor do we take the pain to properly calibrate a display piece before judging it nor are showroom conditions similar to home conditions. It’s a good idea not to worry too much about picture quality parameters because finally, after understanding all these parameters our realization will be that these parameters don’t really make much practical sense. The funny truth about picture quality is, reference picture quality will be considered by most people to be very dull and boring. If you don’t believe this, just look around and see how dull and washed out real life looks compared to what you see on your TV!

The only thing to understand about picture quality is, no matter what HDTV you buy, be it the most expensive Pioneer Kuro plasma or a cheap 720p 26” LCD, it will give you very satisfactory picture quality for its price, under ideal conditions. Unless one knows what reference quality is and plans to use the TV exclusively for original blurays, one need not bother much about picture quality. The extravagant customer who spends in lakhs for a TV will enjoy thinking how his super-awesome TV beats the living crap out of any budget TV’s performance. The value-conscious customer will enjoy thinking how awesome a deal he got by not paying for useless features.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT

The most important thing to consider when choosing a TV is how badly the TV’s performance will degrade in non-ideal conditions and how probable it is to have such non-ideal conditions in your home. The most impactful factors that create non-ideal conditions are ambient light and viewing angle.

1. Ambient Light

The picture quality of plasmas degrades as ambient light increases. Specifically, black levels fall when ambient light increases because plasma displays (and some LCD TVs too) have reflective glass fronts. This is true for every plasma, even the might Kuro. But the degree of black level degradation will be high for budget plasmas and very little for ultra-expensive ones because the expensive ones will have better anti-reflective coating on the screen. When black levels degrade, they degrade contrast, color range and thus picture quality consequentially. In fact, in bright rooms with direct light sources, less expensive LCDs will overtake higher priced plasmas in picture quality. So, a plasma should not be considered if you have a bright room and don’t wish to control the light and make the room dimmer. The main reason why LCDs outsell plasmas is that most customers watch TV only in bright conditions.

2. Viewing Angle

The picture quality of LCDs degrades as viewing angle increases. Contrast and colours start taking a hit when viewing angle is increased. Expensive LED backlit LCDs with IPS panels may advertise 179 degree viewing angles but if you read reviews you’ll note that even the most expensive LED backlit LCDs with IPS panels are known to noticeably degrade in picture quality when viewing from even one seat away from dead centre. In the case of budget LCD’s, the degradation in picture quality will be even more pronounced. If you like to watch TV from up close (say, 5-7 feet for a 40-42 inch TV) and more than three people will be watching TV together most of the time, then LCDs will not be the right choice.

3. Features vs Price

Every TV offers good value for its price but you have to be sure if what it offers is what you want. Typical features to look for are on board sound quality (if you don’t plan to use external speakers), USB playback (if you don’t plan to use a DVD player), reference picture quality (if you’re a budding videophile who is willing to spend a lot on a TV), TV’s external design (if you’re décor conscious). Do understand that LED edge-lit LCDs don’t offer dramatic improvements in picture quality compared to normal LCDs but they look attractive with slim design and that is what commands the premium in price. Same is the case with many ‘stylish’ TVs. If you’re a budding videophile, you have to understand the law of diminishing returns – as the prices increase, the betterment in picture quality becomes smaller. Finally, a general buying tip – avoid big brand stores if you want good deals. By buying at a small store you don’t lose out on anything, as after sales service is taken care of by the manufacturer and not the dealer but you can be sure that you get the best price.

WHAT MAY BE IMPORTANT

Screen size: If you watch TV from far away (say >10 feet) then you will be inclined to get a bigger TV. (The THX recommended screen size for 10 feet distance is 90 inches!) In that case, you might consider plasmas because plasmas are usually cheaper for larger sizes. Remember, it’s a good idea to have two seating points – one for SD and one for HD because it’s simply impossible to get both SD and HD to look good from the same distance without compromising on one. Also, it’s a no-brainer that LCD is the only choice for smaller sizes because plasmas don’t come in smaller sizes. Know your recommended viewing distance/screen size here – Viewing Distance Calculator

Power Consumption: LCDs win hands down when it comes to power consumption. But do consider that even when comparing an efficient LCD to a power guzzling plasma by watching TV 10 hours a day, your yearly savings will be about Rs.2000. In practice your savings might be even less. So, plot your break-even graph before considering power consumption a criterion affecting your HDTV purchase. Compare HDTV power consumptions here – The chart: HDTV power consumption compared – CNET Reviews

SD processing: See how well or (how poorly) the TV processes SD content if you plan to watch lots of SD broadcasts and don’t wish to connect an external upscaler.

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Investments in Cloud Computing to Rise

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Investments in Cloud computing is set to head north as indicated by market analyst IDC. According to analysts, companies spending on server hardware (for cloud computing) will grow in next few years.

A new survey by the firm predicted that there will be an investment of around $6 billion in the cloud computing technology between now and 2014 to take maximum advantage of data storage concept.

Hardware revenue for public cloud computing is set to grow from $582 million to $718 million in the five years between 2009 and 2014, while the private market is also set to see a rise from $2.6 billion to $5.7 billion in the same period, the report said.

Katherine Broderick, research analyst at Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends, commented: “Many IT decision makers are seriously considering cloud computing as a way to dramatically simply their sprawling virtual and physical infrastructure.”

According to a recent survey carried out by CWJobs, there could be more roles for IT Professionals thanks to the growth of cloud computing. 40 percent of IT staff believes that there will be more roles as the infrastructure option’s popularity rises.

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6Waves Ventures into Indian Gaming Industry with Zapak.com

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6Waves, a leading international publisher and developer of gaming applications on the Facebook platform, has announced their tie up with Zapak.com to promote their Gaming portal in India. Indian Gaming portal Zapak.com would act as a marketing and payment solution partner in India for 6waves. According to Zapak, the company will bring all 6waves’ games, including Mall World which has attracted over 5 million users globally, to the Indian users.

As per the deal, Zapak will create a Zapak Social channel on Zapak.com where 6Waves’ game will be promoted. Hong Kong based gaming publisher & developer; 6waves currently have payment option available only through International credit cards. After huge success of Social Networking and Games, especially after Facebook, India has become one of the huge potential market for Game Developers & Publishers.

Through Zapak Social, Indian customers can buy games online, available through 6waves, using Indian credit cards, Debit Cards and Net banking. Zapak will facilitate item purchases for 6waves by integrating Zapak pins besides other payment solutions in India.

Rohit Sharma, CEO, Zapak Digital Entertainment, has said, “This association marks Zapak’s foray into mainstream social gaming post the launch of Zapak application on Facebook. Many of our users visit Facebook frequently and this association with 6waves will offer them with an array of new entertaining and engaging games.”

“International markets have always been a prime focus for 6waves. Working with Zapak, the leading gaming company in India, we aim to bring the best social gaming experience to our Indian users,” Rex Ng, CEO, 6waves, has said. 6waves has developed and published more than 20 social games on Facebook. The company claims to have over 10 million users who play its social games worldwide.

6Waves currently drives less than 1% of their traffic from India. After strategic tie up with Zapak, traffic will surge in next 10 -12 months as expected by company. Zapak launched its first social game through Facebook on June 29, which currently fetching 40,000 users and expected to grow by 200,000 in next 45 days.

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“BlackBerry Torch” – RIM Answers to Apple’s iPhone & Samsung’s GalaxyS

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azOn Tuesday, Research in Motion (RIM) has officially launched its first ever smartphone “BlackBerry Torch”. As expected, the company has presented the new smartphone as an answer  to Apple’s iPhone and Samsumg’s GalaxyS, lunched just few weeks back. The BlackBerry Torch is loaded with OS 6.0, RIM’s new mobile platform, which competes with Google’s Android.

The new BlackBerry OS has been widely anticipated as the North American smartphone leader tries to catch up with the innovations that Apple and Google have brought to the smartphone market in the past three years.

New BlackBerry OS 6.0 looks and feels lot more like an iPhone & the Android based touch smartphones but the first BlackBerry 6 device  features a slide-down version of the traditional BlackBerry keyboard, somewhat like a Palm Pre.  Here are some more details on the new device and the OS upgrade.

There’s quite a lot to talk about in the new BlackBerry . Its latest OS 6.0 has numerous advanced features which can lights up the “Torch”, it’s codename. Besides incorporating a  traditional Blackberry design, the touch screen with sliding keypad makes its much more user-friendly.  Sleek design curves are inspired  from the Palm Pre but provides a uniquely different experience when  compared to other smartphones running on the “Touch” bandwagon.

Besides the physical specifications, RIM (The Company behind BlackBerry) has burned the midnight oil while bundling out its new OS6.0 with “Torch”. However the overall combination of Hardware & Software specifications comes with a few disappointments.  RIM has done a great job by providinga 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi support for 802.11n and more memory than their  earlier devices, but the processor is still slow in comparison to the competition and the screen size and resolution seem downright laughable by 2010 standards.

On the other hand, the BlackBerry never did innately follow the flashy trends, set by companies such as Apple or Microsoft, and has targeted the torch, much like what it has done with all its mail centric phones,  to business users. For them, Functionality will precede form  and if the device strikes a good balance between the OS requirements and the hardware processing power, then the specs don’treally  matter.

With a launch date of 12 August in U.S. blackberry carries a price tag of just $199.  Some official specs of Torch are :

  • BlackBerry 6 operating system
  • Hardware qwerty keyboard (slide-down)
  • 3.2 inch 480 x 360 screen
  • 512 MB SDRAM
  • 4 GB eMMC + 4 GB media card (expandable to 32 GB)
  • 5 MP camera, autofocus, flash, video recording
  • 1300 mAh battery
  • Weight: 161g
  • Dimensions: 111(h) x 62(w) x 14.6(d) mm

Can the BlackBerry Torch stem the users exodus?

The last couple of months  were not good for RIM.  The launch of the iPhone 4.0 and Samsung GalaxyS allured many users to flee from the Blackberry platform.  What was this happening ? The answer was obvious ;  RIM couldn’t match or came close to what the other players  were offering. The e-mail and text experience might still be the best in the business, but increasingly mobile usage is taking place in the browser, not the inbox. Fortunately, BlackBerry OS 6 includes a new WebKit-based web browser, a much-needed improvement.

Charles Golvin, a mobile analyst for Forrester Research, commented on the new device, “the Torch and OS6 put Research In Motion on firm competitive ground against Apple’s iPhone and the Android devices, with a touch screen plus the BlackBerry keyboard.”

There are millions of featurephone users who are patiently monitoring the samrtphone  industry  in the midst of a major upheaval in terms of technology, plunging prices  & consumer adoption, before they take the plunge themselves in the smartphone era. These groups can play a significant role in the success of BlackBerry Torch,  if their needs and requirements would be addressed by the company.

Need to Frame Developers

Blackberry has always been the preferred choice for corporate houses and CIO’s . This is due to the tight levels on integration which Blackberry devices have with Corporate Mailing  and authentication systems, such as Microsoft Exchange. RIM has always leveraged on its close bindings with professional & corporates, and the company largely ignored the consumer market. Microsoft made teh same mistake with Windows Mobile, but are making ammends now.

Over the last year, RIM has significantly  improved its developer outreach, making it easier for developers to get started, making more iterations to the platform and making improvements to the BlackBerry App World. Perhaps more than OS 6 itself, the new developer announcements that RIM made at today’s event hold the most potential and throws some light on the future of the platform.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tuAVpEXFg

Credit: CrackBerry.com

The key question is how far RIM can convince developers to focus on their development platform and shift from iOs, Android etc. This challenge is not meant only for RIM. Windows 7 is also going to face the same issues as the latest Windows 7 mobile platform is much different from earlier 6.5, which was more business centric like the blackberries. . This is not going to be an easy adoption for developers. However to bear the competition RIM need to far better & larger App store loaded with technically and functionally superior applications for its users.

Anyhow, despite of late entry, launch of Torch is on positive move on success path for the company. It would be interesting to see how other companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft encounters the current user-base  Blackberry loyalists and make sure to keep their own customers inside the box.

If you are a  BlackBerry user, and swear by the platform, we would like to hear your opinions about the  “Torch”, and whether you’d be willing to upgrade.

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The Death Of Google Wave

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On Wednesday, 4 August, Google has announced trough its official blog that company is no way going to continue once appreciated product – Google Wave – An in-browser communication and collaboration tool. Launched a year back, Google Wave created much anticipated hype when ‘invitation to join’ was getting sold on ebay for $70/-

Developed by two of the guys behind Google maps with a small team in Sydney, Google was betting to nurture the concept to unify communication over the web. It was a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. It used to feature the ability to replay conversations because it records the entire sequence of communication, character by character. Because of this, discussions were also live in Google Wave: you could see your friends type character-by-character.

It was not all. Google also tried to wash out traditional file attachment process. In Google wave, an amazing feature, people can just drag and drop any file from their desktop to Google wave. It loads the file and sends anyone in the conversation without any eddo. It’s also embeddable, so you can embed Google Wave conversations on any blog. Compare to any other email client, gmail, hotmail, rediff, Google wave was more focused on contact management and presentation.

Decision to rip off Google Wave isn’t much of a surprise; adoption never seemed to materialize for Google Wave — even after it dropped its invite-only status — as users struggled to find meaningful use cases for the service. The Up and Downs of Google wave was also an interesting factor to see. The way it was launched and got hyped in 2009, almost disappeared in similar fashion after few months.

In any event, Wave represents another disappointment in Google’s long line of attempts at social, an area in which the company is now reportedly eyeing a completely new approach. Shutting down Wave, it would seem, is a logical step in moving on.

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The Samsung Galaxy S – Much more than an iPhone wannabe

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Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock would probably hear about the iPhone, Apple’s now legendary phone offering that spawned an entire blue ocean ecosystem of handsets, music and applications. They say the sincerest form of flattery is imitation and Google’s Android attempted to do just that by providing an iPhone-like OS for 3rd party manufacturers in order to curb Apple’s influence and market share in the touchscreen smartphone market. Unlike the iOS, Apple’s mobile OS, Android is much more versatile and can run on various devices of various specifications, built by various manufacturers. The user experience, is there not consistent, unlike Apple’s and the hardware that the OS runs on can either delight or disappoint the user. The iPhone has a consistent OS look and feel, but the android version can be tweaked with proprietary interfaces which are usually bundled in the phones by their manufacturers and often sport screen enhancements that are not present in the stock versions.

Coming back to the main article, a slew of very capable smartphones have flooded the market, some of the notable ones being the Motorola Droid, Sony Ericsson Xperia and HTC Evo. Joining the ranks of the SmartPhone elitists comes along Samsung with their flagship Android phone,  the Galaxy S. It comes with a glorious 4” Super AMOLED screen and has a WVGA (480×800 pixels) resolution with 16million colours. This isn’t quite as high as the Apple iPhone 4’s 960 x 640 resolution, but you’d be hard put to tell the difference, at least with human eyes. The contrast of this screen is excellent and is unprecedented on the colour saturation and black levels departments. Oh! And it does multi-touch too for pinch and zoom.

There’s probably the reason that it can be dismissed as an iPhone clone, owing to its dimensions of a sizeable 64 x 122 x 10mm. Curved sides offset the bulk a little and it’s a surprisingly lightweight at 119g – a trade-off with the plastic back, which feels a little cheap. The default OS is Android 2.1 (Eclair) and is expected to be updated with the latest version 2.2 (Froyo). As mentioned before, the galaxy has Samsung’s TouchWiz interface which can also be found in their Bada based smartphones like the Samsung Wave. The interface has been gradually improving, but still hasn’t reached a level of finessee and refinement like HTC’s TouchFlo. It’s not bad, however. There’s a nice daily briefing widget, for instance, which shows top line weather, finance and general news. The customizations features start on the home screen where you have up to seven panes to populate with widgets. You can, however, choose the number of panes in line with your usage.  As a standard Android feature, it includes Live wallpapers,  with which the user can interact with, such as inducing ripples on a pond, via touch. Here’s a video from GSMARena highlighting the UI of this wonderful phone :

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHXuPHztISQ&feature=player_embedded

On the widgets’ front, in addition to the common Android ones, Samsung has 8 widgets of their own which deal with a myraid of common functions such as Times, Calendar, Weather and stocks to name a few, and update their contents when online. The Galaxy does multitasking particularly well, thanks to it’s speedy 1 Ghz Hummingbird cpu awhich has comparable performance to other 1 Ghz Snapdragon equipped phones like the NexusOne and Xperia. The 512 Mb of RAM is more than adequate, but the user can use one of the free android task manage to keep better tabs on the memory uasage. The phonebook is excellent with great social networking integration and its a common platform it shares with it’s Bada brethren. Android 2.1 gives it multiple account support for email and contact synchronization, including Exchange accounts. It also has some bada originated niceties such as the swipe feature. In the main contact list, a swipe to the right on a name will dial the contact’s default number, while a swipe to the left will start the New message interface. The side-sweep thing works in other lists too where you have names or numbers. A more intensive usage of this technology is implemented in the Swype typing capability. This is like T9 for the 21st century. The way it works is that you can type faster by dragging your fingers over the keys of the Qwerty keyboard, like ‘joining the dots’ with letters to make a word. For example the motion trail shown in the pic spells pit “quick :

There’s a little bit of a learning curve to train your finger to remain on the screen. You can capitalize letters by dragging your finger off the keyboard and insert double letters by tracing a small circle on them. After some practise, its intuitive, easy, and  fast.The multimedia functions as expected of a phone of this caliber is terrific. It has 5 Mp camera which takes rather good pictures and capable of shooting HD video at 1280×720. at 30fps. The gallery is amusing with smooth 3D transitions and effects reminiscent of the custom phone-book of SE Xperia,. You could also choose to view your gallery in  grid or timeline view. The gallery supports finger scrolling or panning so you can skip images without having to return to the default view. Just swipe to the left or right when viewing a photo in fullscreen mode and the previous/next image will appear.

Like the iphone, you can use pinch zooming. Watching videos on this phone is joyous indeed and boasts one of the best video quality in 720p, uncommon for phones in the Google fraternity. There’s no TV-Out but there is DLNA support with which you can  stream videos and photos to your DLNA-enabled TV or media player (any PC with Wi-Fi and DLNA software would do as well). Watching videos outdoors is not as bad as other phones, if you use the outfoor visibility setting which boosts the brightness and contrast of the already bright Super AMOLED for better daytime visibility. The music players gives itunes for iphones some serious competition. It has a completely customizable screen views with tabbed sorting options for Artists, playlists, albums etc. In the album view, it offers the user with slick slick 3D inteface featuring CD covers in a carousal style. The interface has options to look up Atrtist and song info and even youtube search results can be directly loded into the flash-lite based YouTube client.  A DJ sort of a controller can be used to control cue/review and volume and it looks cool.

The FM radio features RDS.  Just like the video the audio capabilities of this phone are superb and delivers impressive signal-to-noise ratios and flawless dynamic range and frequency response. The browser is quick and efficient with high-speed Wi-Fi (b/g/n) access or HSDPA network access. It doesn’t have full Flash but flash lite which takes care of youtube and other sources. The browser automatically adjusts to landscape or portrait based on the orientation of the phone and the mutitouch screen makes it really easy to navigate. Owing to the snappy processor, it also renders pages quickly and beautifully. On the Office side; hell we all have to get back to work, the ThinkFree Office pre-installed – which is both a document viewer and an editor. It works like a charm and is capable of pinch zooming. Both panning and zooming are fast and the overall performance of the Office package is excellent.

The calendar as is to be expected comes with all the bells and whistles of a modern-day smartphone and has extensive sync options. Another noteworthy enhancement is the My Files app – a simple to use but functional file manager, which also doubles as an image gallery. It can move, copy, lock and rename files in bulk, even send multiple files over Bluetooth. Smartphone nowadays are all about Apps and the Samsung scores on that front with the Aldiko eBook App, a nice substitute of Apple iBooks with pretty much the same functionality (pinch, zoom, bookmarks etc). Other useful apps include Daily Briefing, Memo, Minidiary, Sketch and Video Editor. There are pretty self explanatory. On the Social integration front, which is the hot thing these days, the Galaxy comes bundled with SocialHub, a nice Social N/W aggregation app which works with the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc. Ogf course the Galaxy S supports standard Google apps such as Google Voice which works rather well. On the Navigation front, it comes with Google Maps and supports the Street view mode as well. If the Street View is available in the area you’re interested in, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the surroundings. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like making a virtual tour of the location! Another interesting app in this context is the Layar Reality browser. It’s a search app enhanced by augmented reality. Your search results for various POIs – gas stations, hotels, parking, restaurants, shops, etc – are returned and displayed in an augmented reality environment using the handset’s GPS and camera. Finally you have the Android store, which has thousands of apps ranging from the ludicrous to being excellent. Do I sense Apple breaking into a cold sweat.

Final Words: There can be little doubt that the Samsung galaxy S provides enough compelling reasons to buy it. Heck! the glorious AMOLED screen is enough to tilt the scales towards a buy recommendation. I would recommend avid business user to probably skip this and go for a phone with a full fledged QWERTY keypad like the Droid, but for every one else you possibly couldn’t go wrong with the Galaxy. It just might be worth the while to wait for the next version with Android 2.2 (Froyo) but then considering that we’re currently facing a global shortage of AMOLED screens, picking up one while it’s still available might make eminent sense.

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