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Techtree's Weekly News Roundup!
Samsung Corby with 3G Debuts in Korea
It's not been too long since the Samsung Corby S3650 made its debut and the Koreans seems to have had enough of it already. No, they haven't phased it off. On the contrary, they have come up with an upgrade that adds 3G and a larger, 3-inch screen to the already popular phone. The new Corby will be known as the SCH-W900 / SPH-W9000 / SPH-W9050 depending on where you live. Apart from the addition of the aforementioned features, the upgraded Corby will also feature a Haptic UI, DMB TV (standard in South Korea) and more than 100MB of internal memory. As of now, we're quite unsure if this one will ever make it to the Indian shores with the Corby name tag - since Samsung is still busy promoting the "original" Corby.
Nokia N97 Mini Arrives in India
Nokia has launched the younger sibling of the N97, the N97 Mini, in India just a few months after the bigger, better endowed Nokia N97 was announced. Positioned as the cheaper alternative to the N97, the phone comes with a slightly smaller screen and unlike the N97, this device does not have the navi-pad on the keyboard. The N97 Mini, on all other fronts, is visually similar to the N97 and is at par with its larger sibling in terms of features as well. The device will be on sale by the last week of November and will be available in Cherry Black, Garnet and White colors. The phone is priced at Rs. 30,939 - which is slightly lower than the price of the N97.
Fly Launches New Dual SIM Touch Handsets
Fly Mobile has announced the launch of two new dual SIM touchscreen handsets in India at very affordable prices. The new phones launched are the MC 160 and the E106, both of which are targeted at the youth. Fly has priced these handsets in the Rs. 5,300 to Rs. 6,000 price range, which, according to the company, is way lower than the Rs. 8,000 mark that is usually where basic touchscreen handsets are priced. Additionally, these phones also boast of dual SIM capability, which is rarely seen on most low priced touchscreen phones of today.
Google Swirl to make Image Search Easier
Searching images can be a pain at times when you're looking for a specific kind. Google has rolled out an experimental feature dubbed Image Swirl in Google Labs to ease the trouble during image search. As Google wisely puts it -- 'the underlying technology is a work in progress, no specific time could be determined when it will be available by default in Google Search'. This total eye candy feature for image search literally mocks the Bing's Visual Search function introduced in mid-September.
Microsoft Bing Increases US Market Share
According to a latest ComScore report, Microsoft's Bing has increased its Market share in the US, with the relaunched search engine grabbing a 9.9% share of the US Search market between September and October 2009. Both Google and Bing have managed to increase their share, which has apparently come at the cost of Yahoo that seems to have lost its market share slightly. Comscore's report, while being far from dramatic, does show that Bing is slowly tightening its grip in the highly competitive search department.
Sony Ericsson 'Kurara' is Super Fast
Sony Ericsson's upcoming S60 based handset, the Kurara has been in the news for a while now. In fact, the last time we heard of it, it was regarding the "HD" label that someone found the phone with. Back then, nothing much was made of the label since little was known about the kind of processing power the Kurara was likely to sport. Almost a month down the line, Eldar Murtazin from Mobile Review seems to have got hold of an early version of the Kurara. He seems to have figured out that the phone comes with an ARM Cortex A8 Processor with 256MB of RAM, which for a S60 phone translates to blazing performance. It is also likely to be equipped with a Power VR chip for dedicated Graphics processing. In fact, the hardware specs seem to match that of the Omnia HD, which is arguably the fastest S60 handset around as of now.
Yahoo Go to Go
Yahoo's mobile application Yahoo Go seems to have exhausted its shelf life almost three years after it was first introduced at the 2006 CES. Yahoo Go was an all-in-one Yahoo application with support for various widgets. It offered users a customized version of Yahoo services to the user with access to Mail, news and weather updates. Its 2.0 version had offered Yahoo Messenger support as well - a feature that was strangely withdrawn in the subsequent 3.0 upgrade. The Go Application will expire by January 2010 and it does not seem to be available anymore for download.
MS Office 2010 Public Beta now Available
After releasing to it to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers, Microsoft has made the Office 2010 beta available for public download. At the Professional Developer's Conference 2009, Microsoft announced the availability of the public beta of Office 2010 along with SharePoint Server, Visio, Project and Office Web Apps. The new Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta productivity suite has the same ribbon interface and is available in 32-bit as well as 64-bit versions. Apart from new icons, the Office 2010 suite features new Office Communicator 2007 R2 integrated in Outlook 2010. Communicator will allow users to sync their Windows Live and other social networking site feeds in Outlook. Early next year, LinkedIn Feed could be added to Outlook 2010.
Ban Cellphones with Cloned IMEI's: ICA
The IMEI-less Chinese phone saga took a new turn yesterday when the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) asked the government to impose a ban on all devices with cloned IMEI numbers. As most of you might be aware, the 15-digit IMEI number is a legal requirement on all GSM cellphones. Unbranded Chinese handsets, however, do not come with IMEI numbers and in some cases, come with spoofed IMEIs that actually belong to other phones. The ICA is calling for the ban of all such phones, as they possess a serious security threat. The long saga regarding the ban of Chinese cellphones, the unbranded ones has been going on for well over a year now with no resolution in sight The ICA, on November 19, asked the government to ban cell phones with cloned International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number -- a 15-digit code that identifies a mobile phone.
No WinMo 6.5 Update for Xperia X1
Sony Ericsson's once flagship handset is well on its course to doom now that the handset maker has confirmed that the device won't be getting a fresh lease of life with Windows Mobile 6.5. The company has confirmed that it will not be offering an OS update to the handset quashing rumors of the same. This would be undoubtedly be a big blow to the users of this device which until a few months was the one of the most expensive Sony Ericsson handsets one could buy. While the update to WinMo 6.5 wouldn't have made it anymore spectacular than it is now, it certainly would have been given the handset a fresh lease of life.
Samsung Corby with 3G Debuts in Korea
It's not been too long since the Samsung Corby S3650 made its debut and the Koreans seems to have had enough of it already. No, they haven't phased it off. On the contrary, they have come up with an upgrade that adds 3G and a larger, 3-inch screen to the already popular phone. The new Corby will be known as the SCH-W900 / SPH-W9000 / SPH-W9050 depending on where you live. Apart from the addition of the aforementioned features, the upgraded Corby will also feature a Haptic UI, DMB TV (standard in South Korea) and more than 100MB of internal memory. As of now, we're quite unsure if this one will ever make it to the Indian shores with the Corby name tag - since Samsung is still busy promoting the "original" Corby.
Nokia N97 Mini Arrives in India
Nokia has launched the younger sibling of the N97, the N97 Mini, in India just a few months after the bigger, better endowed Nokia N97 was announced. Positioned as the cheaper alternative to the N97, the phone comes with a slightly smaller screen and unlike the N97, this device does not have the navi-pad on the keyboard. The N97 Mini, on all other fronts, is visually similar to the N97 and is at par with its larger sibling in terms of features as well. The device will be on sale by the last week of November and will be available in Cherry Black, Garnet and White colors. The phone is priced at Rs. 30,939 - which is slightly lower than the price of the N97.
Fly Launches New Dual SIM Touch Handsets
Fly Mobile has announced the launch of two new dual SIM touchscreen handsets in India at very affordable prices. The new phones launched are the MC 160 and the E106, both of which are targeted at the youth. Fly has priced these handsets in the Rs. 5,300 to Rs. 6,000 price range, which, according to the company, is way lower than the Rs. 8,000 mark that is usually where basic touchscreen handsets are priced. Additionally, these phones also boast of dual SIM capability, which is rarely seen on most low priced touchscreen phones of today.
Google Swirl to make Image Search Easier
Searching images can be a pain at times when you're looking for a specific kind. Google has rolled out an experimental feature dubbed Image Swirl in Google Labs to ease the trouble during image search. As Google wisely puts it -- 'the underlying technology is a work in progress, no specific time could be determined when it will be available by default in Google Search'. This total eye candy feature for image search literally mocks the Bing's Visual Search function introduced in mid-September.
Microsoft Bing Increases US Market Share
According to a latest ComScore report, Microsoft's Bing has increased its Market share in the US, with the relaunched search engine grabbing a 9.9% share of the US Search market between September and October 2009. Both Google and Bing have managed to increase their share, which has apparently come at the cost of Yahoo that seems to have lost its market share slightly. Comscore's report, while being far from dramatic, does show that Bing is slowly tightening its grip in the highly competitive search department.
Sony Ericsson 'Kurara' is Super Fast
Sony Ericsson's upcoming S60 based handset, the Kurara has been in the news for a while now. In fact, the last time we heard of it, it was regarding the "HD" label that someone found the phone with. Back then, nothing much was made of the label since little was known about the kind of processing power the Kurara was likely to sport. Almost a month down the line, Eldar Murtazin from Mobile Review seems to have got hold of an early version of the Kurara. He seems to have figured out that the phone comes with an ARM Cortex A8 Processor with 256MB of RAM, which for a S60 phone translates to blazing performance. It is also likely to be equipped with a Power VR chip for dedicated Graphics processing. In fact, the hardware specs seem to match that of the Omnia HD, which is arguably the fastest S60 handset around as of now.
Yahoo Go to Go
Yahoo's mobile application Yahoo Go seems to have exhausted its shelf life almost three years after it was first introduced at the 2006 CES. Yahoo Go was an all-in-one Yahoo application with support for various widgets. It offered users a customized version of Yahoo services to the user with access to Mail, news and weather updates. Its 2.0 version had offered Yahoo Messenger support as well - a feature that was strangely withdrawn in the subsequent 3.0 upgrade. The Go Application will expire by January 2010 and it does not seem to be available anymore for download.
MS Office 2010 Public Beta now Available
After releasing to it to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers, Microsoft has made the Office 2010 beta available for public download. At the Professional Developer's Conference 2009, Microsoft announced the availability of the public beta of Office 2010 along with SharePoint Server, Visio, Project and Office Web Apps. The new Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta productivity suite has the same ribbon interface and is available in 32-bit as well as 64-bit versions. Apart from new icons, the Office 2010 suite features new Office Communicator 2007 R2 integrated in Outlook 2010. Communicator will allow users to sync their Windows Live and other social networking site feeds in Outlook. Early next year, LinkedIn Feed could be added to Outlook 2010.
Ban Cellphones with Cloned IMEI's: ICA
The IMEI-less Chinese phone saga took a new turn yesterday when the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) asked the government to impose a ban on all devices with cloned IMEI numbers. As most of you might be aware, the 15-digit IMEI number is a legal requirement on all GSM cellphones. Unbranded Chinese handsets, however, do not come with IMEI numbers and in some cases, come with spoofed IMEIs that actually belong to other phones. The ICA is calling for the ban of all such phones, as they possess a serious security threat. The long saga regarding the ban of Chinese cellphones, the unbranded ones has been going on for well over a year now with no resolution in sight The ICA, on November 19, asked the government to ban cell phones with cloned International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number -- a 15-digit code that identifies a mobile phone.
No WinMo 6.5 Update for Xperia X1
Sony Ericsson's once flagship handset is well on its course to doom now that the handset maker has confirmed that the device won't be getting a fresh lease of life with Windows Mobile 6.5. The company has confirmed that it will not be offering an OS update to the handset quashing rumors of the same. This would be undoubtedly be a big blow to the users of this device which until a few months was the one of the most expensive Sony Ericsson handsets one could buy. While the update to WinMo 6.5 wouldn't have made it anymore spectacular than it is now, it certainly would have been given the handset a fresh lease of life.
