Nokia 2228 CDMA phone announced

Nokia 2228 CDMA phone announced

Nokia has announced a new CDMA mobile phone. This new model is Nokia 2228.

Nokia 2228 is a slim compact mobile phone and it comes loaded with a 1.3 megapixel camera.

The device is also capable of playing media files. It supports a variety of formats including MP4, AAC, AAC+, MP3 and MIDI.

Nokia has also loaded the device with speaker dependent voice recognition in addition to integrated handsfree speaker.

It has 20-25 MB of usable storage memory. PC connectivity is available through MicroUSB. Users can connect their headphones through the 2.5mm universal headset jack.

Nokia is going to offer this device in select markets in the last quarter of the current year.

Source : http://news.techwhack.com/

iOrbi Unveils eBook for iPhone - Offers Parents New Way to Introduce Children to Foreign Languages

 Chicago, IL, United States, 10/24/2008 - Introducing children to second language early lays a solid foundation for strong communication skills, and supports an appreciation of cultural diversity. Tech-savvy parents can now use smart phones to encourage their child’s interest in languages.
      
      

The recently released eBook, Buddy the Bus: There’s Always Tomorrow, a mobile application developed by iOrbi, LLC for the iPhone and iPod touch allows children to read and listen to the Buddy story in five languages — English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese.

“We liked the idea of offering parents a way to use their iPhone or iPod touch as a vehicle to introduce their children to different languages. While not meant in any way to replace more formal foreign language instruction, Buddy is a cute story that can be a great technique to open the door to languages for kids.” says Don Way, Managing Partner, iOrbi, LLC.

In addition to listening to the Buddy the Bus story in one of the five pre-recorded languages, parents that download the application onto their iPhone may also choose to create a customized recording of the story in their own voice. Way says, “… the record option really lets parents and kids make the story their own.”

iOrbi plans to release more stories in the Buddy series over the next several months, and will continue to offer the stories in several languages based on customer response. “We want to ensure that the languages that we offer are those that people want, and we look forward to customer feedback”, says Way.

Buddy the Bus: There’s Always Tomorrow can be downloaded on the iTune App Store. Search for Buddy the Bus.

About iOrbi, LLC
iOrbi, LLC (iOrbi.com) is a Chicago-based technology company specializing in the delivery of smartphone content and functionality to consumers within the Education, Healthcare, and Lifestyle segments. iOrbi also supports B2B partners with mobile marketing and 3rd party content distribution through its content engine, AppInHand.

Source : http://www.newswiretoday.com/

OS X versus Vista, RAM division

As I noted earlier this week, I’ve begun using a MacBook (the basic white model) and keeping a log of my experiences.

Yesterday, I received the adapter cable I needed to hook this
machine to an external monitor so that I could use it in a desktop
configuration. (A note to the thrifty: Don’t pay Apple $29 for this
mini-DVI cable. Instead, go to Monoprice.com and pick up the generic adapter for $9.96. With shipping, it was still under $12, and it works just fine.)

Now that I have this system up and running on a full-sized screen,
I’m ready to make some head-to-head comparisons with Windows. Because
this system has a mere 1GB of RAM, I was curious to get a sense of how
thrifty OS X Leopard is when it comes to memory usage. I was especially
curious to see how Leopard compares to Vista, which as been slammed by
critics as a resource hog.

To get started I opened Safari and opened a single web page, then
began playing an MP3 track in iTunes. With those tasks running, I
checked the results from Activity Monitor:

As you can see, the OS reports that 581MB is in use, with 430MB free.

Next, I launched a similar set of tasks on a system running Windows
Vista Ultimate. To make the comparison fair, I used the System
Configuration utility to disable all but 1024MB of memory in the
system, which has 4GB of RAM. This system is using the full Aero
interface (disabling it had no significant impact on the RAM
footprint). I opened Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer, began
playing the same MP3 tune and browsed to the same page that was open on
the Macbook. Here’s what Task Manager showed for memory usage:

For those keeping score, the Vista machine is using 594MB of RAM,
which is roughly 2% more than its Mac counterpart running the same set
of tasks.

Vista gets a bad rap for lots of things, including its reputedly
voracious appetite for memory. As you can see, Vista compares favorably
to OS X in this regard and doesn’t deserve that reputation.

Source : http://blogs.zdnet.com/

Microsoft’s Vista Problem, by the Numbers

 Microsoft reported a reassuringly solid quarter in tough times on Thursday, but its Windows business looked weak.

The big Windows unit reported a 2 percent rise in revenue and 4 percent decline in operating income. That is well below the norm for Microsoft’s lucrative personal operating system business — and well below the company’s stellar performers like server software, up 20 percent, and the Office unit, up 23 percent.

The Windows problem? It is not selling enough of its Windows Vista software, the operating system introduced in January 2007. In the conference call Thursday afternoon, Christopher Liddell, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said the mix of Windows sales had tipped more toward low-cost PCs in both mature and emerging markets, which come with lower-margin versions of Windows and often not Vista.

The notable new thing in low-priced PC market is the netbook category — smaller PCs with scant memory and intended mainly for surfing Web sites and handling e-mail, costing as little as $300. Mr. Liddell acknowledged that some of the growth in netbooks is “cannibalization” of sales of traditional PCs.

The netbook challenge to Microsoft is two-fold. First, if they run Windows, the machines run a slimmed-down version of Windows XP. Charles Di Bona of Sanford Bernstein estimates that Microsoft pockets $30 to $35 on a netbook. By contrast, he figures that the operating system license fee on a standard consumer PC, running Vista, is about $70. The second netbook issue for Microsoft is that many of those machines run the Linux operating system. (Mr. Di Bona’s Bernstein colleague, A.M. Sacconaghi, estimates netbooks accounted for that 4.5 to 5 percent of the 10 to 12 percent unit growth of PC sales in the September quarter.)

Corporations, Mr. Di Bona said, have not upgraded to Vista as widely or as quickly as they have tended to with past Windows operating systems. Now, with the economy troubled and corporate technology budgets squeezed, Vista’s successor stands in the wings. Microsoft has said that Windows System 7 will ship by late next year.

“You don’t have a lot of Vista left,” Mr. Di Bona observed. “Vista could become a placeholder.”

Whatever Vista’s ultimate fate, a closer look at the quarterly numbers also provides a reminder of why Microsoft will do anything corporately possible to keep the Windows franchise healthy as long as it can. The numbers behind the anemic 2 percent growth in sales and the 4 percent slip in profits: $4.22 billion and $3.27 billion, respectively. Huge quarterly numbers, and a 77 percent profit margin. Welcome to the economics of a dominant software franchise.

Source : http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/

First Impressions Of The Aluminum Macbook

If you haven't heard yet, Apple on October 14th unveiled their new
MacBook. The most touted properties of the new notebook are its
aluminum unibody enclosure and the new buttonless glass trackpad. The
rest of the specs for the notebook are relatively the same as the
previous model.



Without question, the new aluminum MacBook is solid. It's unibody
construction is both attractive and feels very durable. When you are
carrying most notebook computers, whether a Mac, Dell, Sony, etc, there
always seems to be a bit of wiggle between the lid/screen and the
computer's main body. This is not the case with the new MacBook. When
you are carrying it, it feels like it is one solid piece of aluminum.

As far as the buttonless glass trackpad goes, I don't understand why
they refer to it as glass. It looks, feels and behaves exactly like the
previous model's trackpad. I suppose that “buttonless glass trackpad”
sounds better than just “buttonless trackpad.” The bottom half of the
trackpad doubles as a button. You press on it and it will click with
tactile feedback. I was a bit concerned how it would handle dragging
and dropping. *You can press down on the trackpad to click and hold an
item, and another finger to drag it. *If you lift the drag finger, you
will still be holding the item until you release the other finger. It
works just as you would expect.



The multi-finger gestures feature for the trackpad is kind of a mixed
bag. Some are useful and others are pointless. With the gestures you
can zoom and rotate pictures, go back and forward in your browser, go
to your desktop, and more. The most pointless gesture is the 4 finger
swipe to show the application switcher. Once the application switcher
appears you must move your mouse pointer to the desired application and
click on it. Even if I became accustomed to this method, I still think
using Command+Tab on my keyboard would be easier and faster. To me, it
would make more sense to use the 4 finger swipe to move from space to
space in Leopard's Spaces feature.



Other than that, the new MacBook is pretty much the same as the
previous model. The new MacBook has a better graphics card, the next
generation of RAM, and a faster bus speed, but for the average user,
these improvements are not worth upgrading from the previous model
MacBook.



A deal breaker for some users is that the new MacBook lacks any
Firewire port. Those who have invested in FireWire peripherals will
have to go for the old generation MacBook which Apple still sells at a
$999 price tag, or they will have to spend a bit more to get the
MacBook Pro which also has FireWire.



Another note, the 2 USB ports in the new MacBook are very close
together. I was unable to have a USB mouse and USB thumb drive
connected simultaneously.

Source : http://www.nillabyte.com/

Windows 7 to reach down to Netbooks

Microsoft has been growing its share of the Netbook segment in recent
months, but it's largely on the back of the company's older Windows XP
product, rather than Windows Vista.

The trend toward the small, cheap notebooks has not been lost
on the software maker, however. When the topic turns to Windows 7 at
the Professional Developers Conference next week, I would expect the
software maker to talk about an operating system that can run well on
all manner of laptops, including the ultra-low-end.

It's just one of many topics expected to come up at the
conference, which takes place in downtown Los Angeles next week. CNET
News will be there in force with live blogs, analysis, and some really
high-level executive interviews. You can find all our PDC coverage both
now and during the show from our PDC special coverage page.

Most of the Windows talk at next week's show will come Tuesday, on day
two of the event, while the first day's keynote speech is expected to
focus on "Windows Cloud," or "Windows Strata,"
or whatever the company has decided to call its cloud-based operating
system. Steve Ballmer mentioned Microsoft might have a trademark by the
time of PDC, but my search Friday didn't turn up anything for Windows
Cloud or Windows Strata.

Day two will also feature talk of Office 14,
the next version of Office, with sources saying that the company will
show off some features, including its ability to run inside a Web
browser.

As for the Netbooks, it's a critical segment for Microsoft to
be competitive in, growing far faster than the market as a whole. It's
also the first slice of the desktop market where Microsoft has seen a
significant level of competition from Linux.

After many of the initial models were Linux only, Microsoft has
hustled back with versions of XP that can run on flash-based memory. As
some of the Netbooks have started to come with traditional hard drives,
some Vista models, such as HP's 2133, have also cropped up.

Microsoft has declined to comment on Windows 7 ahead of the
conference. The company has said that it will outline the product in
detail and give attendees a pre-beta version of the operating system.

Source : http://news.cnet.com/

Microsoft Still Has a Vista Problem

Microsoft's earnings were surprisingly solid—another reassurance the
world isn't quite melting to the core—with a revenue of $15.1 billion
(beating Wall Street's expecations) and profits of $4.37 billion.
Notably, however, it's still not selling enough Windows Vista.

Sure, more people might be PCs lately,
but they're other, less profitable versions. Microsoft makes about $70
per Vista PC, but less than half of that on a netbook Windows license,
which now makes up more of the Windows mix than ever. So the Windows
division actually saw a 4 percent drop in operating income for the
quarter. And it's likely not going to get better with Windows 7 looming so conspicously on the horizon. [Bits]

Source : http://gizmodo.com/

Linux incognito part two: Windows XP

For an awful lot of people their first encounter with a computer will invariably be Microsoft Windows. This straight away creates a barrier against considering alternate operating systems because they look different to what the user has been accustomed to. Here's how to paint a Windows facade over Linux and remove that obstacle.

This month the theme is “I didn’t know you could do that in Linux.” Earlier this week I spoke about pimping Linux to look and act like Apple’s MacOS X Leopard operating system. Today and next time we’ll do the same thing for Microsoft Windows, both XP and Vista.

One feature of Linux that sets it apart from other operating systems is the ease in which its graphical user interface can be replaced with something quite different. In this case, we’ll work to mimic Microsoft Windows.

There are a couple of reasons you may be interested in doing this. Not least is to produce a familiar and welcoming environment for your family and friends who are hesitant about switching to Linux due to concerns about knowing how to operate it.

Of course, you ought to be concerned about precedent: if people see your Linux system sporting Windows Vista looks you might be surprised when they go buy Vista themself and it is much less stable than what you showed them!

Beginning with Windows XP, there are two separate but equally capable packages for Linux which will bring about the appearance of Microsoft’s last successful desktop operating system.

One is XPde, whose name simply means “XP Desktop Environment, and the second is LXP for “Look WinXP.”

Both projects state their design goals are, as we’ve anticipated, to make it easier for Windows XP users to use a Linux box.

Perhaps if MSI had adopted one of these they wouldn’t have experienced such a high return rate on their Linux based Wind netbooks.

Please read on for pictorial evidence as well as the details on how to pimp your Linux setup to match.

Source : http://www.itwire.com/