Poor man`s `BlackBerry` services in the works  

Posted by M. Talha in

Servers in Navi Mumbai to avoid potential controversies on security.

Users of entry-level handsets will soon be able to avail of push-mail services, with the Rajesh Jain-promoted Netcore Solutions close to launching the service in India.
Push-mail service providers charge between Rs 800 and Rs 1,200 a month and usually require high-end data-enabled handsets that cost Rs 12,000 and more.
The launch, expected in a couple of weeks, comes as the government has been seeking legal intrusion (monitoring of data) of BlackBerry services and demanding that Research In Motion, Canadian owners of the service, moves its servers India.
Netcore has installed its servers in Navi Mumbai, avoiding a potential BlackBerry-like situation.
The company has developed a suite that instantly forwards mails from the user's e-mails — both corporate and personal IDs — as short messages (SMSs).
Like other push-mail services, a user need not connect to the Internet to read his mails. Unlike other services that are only available on high-end data-enabled handsets, these services can be accessed on every handset that supports SMS. At present, handsets that cost as little as Rs 600 support SMS.
"We are providing mobility to e-mails and also helping it move over from the present restrictions of high-end mobile phones," Netcore Solutions CEO Abhijit Saxena told Business Standard.
According to Saxena, even though SMSs support only 160 characters, Netcore's service pushes 480 characters to the user that will be delivered as multiple SMSs. However, attachments can only be opened on high-end mobile phones.
The company had earlier launched free SMS alert systems providing information like News, Sensex, Cricket, Jokes and Bollywood content. The service has over 3.5 million subscribers.
Jain is the founder of IndiaWorld Communications, a small start-up, which become the largest collection of India-centric websites and was acquired in 1999 by Sify for around Rs 500 crore.

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Expensive Gadgets That Shouldn't Have Been Made  

Posted by M. Talha in ,



Mobile

Would you rather spend $310,000 on a brand new home, or the Vertu Signature "Cobra" phone. Yes, they actually made a gemstone encrusted "Cobra" phone. More after the jump.









Strange USB Devices
File this under: "Strange USB Devices" Not only does this USB drive cost a hefty $765, it's "stylized with crystals from Statsuma Kiriko in Japan" and snazzy gold casing. Plus, you also get 2GB of storage for all your files.


Keymat YALOS Diamond LCD
So, you thought the 103-inch Plasma from Panasonic carried a bit of heft around the price tag, eh? Well check out this $130,000 YALOS Diamond LCD TV from Keymat. Now, just forget everything you thought was important when measuring the value of a good LCD panel -- you know: brightness, contrast ratio, response, pixel resolution, and so on -- those measurements are for fools, boy. As any self-righteous heiress knows, a good TV must feature a white gold plating and at least 160 diamonds totaling to a minimum of 20 carats. Think differently and you might just end up dodging Blackberries with the rest of the help.


Ivory Cell Phone



Limited to just

handcrafted units,

ivory cell phone is

at a whopping

$23,000.

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Intel's Skulltrail  

Posted by M. Talha in

Skulltrail. If you hang around these parts, you've been hearing that codename bandied about for the better part of a year now. Not only does it have the distinction of being, quite probably, the single coolest codename known to all of geekdom, but it's also attached to the sort of hardware required to back up the copious bravado it implies. You see, Skulltrail is a high-end desktop PC platform based on workstation-class chips taken from Intel's Xeon parts shelf. We're talking about some wicked numbers here, such as dual sockets, eight cores, four graphics card slots, and dual 1600MHz front-side buses with a total of 25.6GB/s of bandwidth.
Gulp.
Of course, Xeon-based workstations have long sported impressive stats, but they've rarely set PC hobbyists' hearts aflutter for various reasons. Chief among them: buttoned-down motherboards with very little tweakability, foreign expansion options, and limited feature sets. We ran into these problems when we reviewed Intel's powerful-yet-frustrating V8 "media creation platform" last May. When your mobo's BIOS seemingly equates changing the CAS latency with opening up a liquor store in Riyadh, you know you're in the wrong neighborhood. Miraculously, though, some folks inside of Intel managed to wrangle approval to do something about that problem, and Skulltrail is the result: a truly tweakable motherboard coupled with unlocked Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors clocked at 3.2GHz, primed for use with both SLI and CrossFire.
Beautimous, isn't it?
We probably have AMD to thank for Skulltrail's existence. When it couldn't keep up with Intel by delivering four cores per socket, the firm hatched its Quad FX scheme and pledged to make enthusiast-class dual-socket motherboards a part of its long-term technology direction. That direction was to include an upgrade to dual quad-core Phenom processors as soon as they became available. Of course, AMD has since canceled Quad FX and failed to provide the promised upgrade path for owners of Quad FX systems, but Skulltrail was already deep into development by the time AMD peed down its leg. End result: Intel makes good on its answer to AMD's promises. I can live with that.
The D5400XS motherboard
Indeed, Skulltrail is very easy to live with thanks to a motherboard expressly tailored for this purpose. The technology's workstation heritage is clear—it's based on the Stoakley platform and 45nm Harpertown Xeons we reviewed last fall—but the motherboard is utterly devoid of PCI-X slots and the like. Instead, the Intel D5400XS bristles with the sort of amenities a desktop rig might need. Here's a quick look at the key specs.
CPU support Dual LGA771-based Core 2 Extreme and Xeon processors North bridge Intel 5400 MCH South bridge Intel 6321ESB ICH Interconnect PCIe x4 + DMI x4 Expansion slots 4 PCI Express x16 (PCIe 1.1) via dual Nvidia nForce 100 switches2 32-bit PCI Memory 4 240-pin FB-DIMM socketsMaximum of 16GB of DDR2-667/800 FB-DIMM memory Storage I/O 1 ATA/100 port6 Serial ATA 3Gbps ports with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support Audio 8-channel HD audio via 6321ESB and SigmaTel STAC9274D5 codec Ports and Headers 2 eSATA with RAID 0,1 support via Marvell 88SE61216 USB 2.0 with headers for 4 more1 RJ45 Ethernet 10/100/1000 via Intel 82573L1 IEEE1394 (FireWire) with header for 1 more via TI TSB43AB22A
1 analog front out1 analog center/LFE out1 analog rear out1 analog surround out/line in1 analog mic in1 TOS-Link digital S/PDIF out 1 HD Audio front-panel header for analog headphone out and mic in1 HD Audio Link header1 3-pin S/PDIF out header
1 Consumer Infrared front-panel receiver header1 Consumer Infrared transmitter header Form factor EATX (13" x 12") with LGA775-style mounting holes for cooling
In a nutshell, this thing is loaded. Intel has backed up the specs with additional goodness where possible, too. For instance, the D5400XS's eight-channel audio is Dolby Home Theater capable, which means it supports both Pro Logic II and Dolby Digital Live encoding.
In some ways, of course, the D5400XS's workstation-class foundation is inescapable, but Intel has made accommodations where possible. Although it uses Xeon-style LGA771 processor sockets, the mounting holes around those sockets use LGA775-style spacing, so they should be compatible with desktop-class coolers, including the more exotic varieties involving liquid cooling or phase-change. Similarly, cramming all of the D5400XS's features onto a standard ATX-sized board would be nearly impossible, but the 13" x 12" board is small enough to fit into an EATX-ready enclosure like the Cooler Master Cosmos.
One place where Skulltrail can't escape its workstation heritage is in its use of fully buffered DIMMs. FB-DIMMs are typically more expensive than standard DDR2 memory, and they consume more power than standard DIMMs. FB-DIMMs also tend to have higher latency than DDR2 memory. They somewhat make up for these drawbacks in server and workstation settings by allowing tremendous amounts of bandwidth and lots and lots of DIMM slots with fewer traces on the motherboard.
The D5400XS has only four FB-DIMM slots, but each one of those slots is connected to a memory channel in the Intel 5400 north bridge. This north bridge has two separate memory "branches" with two channels each. Fully populated with 800MHz memory modules, this board can sustain a peak throughput of 25.6GB/s to main memory—enough to saturate its dual 1600MHz front-side buses. Our Skulltrail sample came from Intel with a pair of 800MHz FB-DIMMs, and that's how we tested it. Adding two more memory modules would have increased the system's peak bandwidth, but at the cost of additional memory access latency and power consumption.

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Upcoming Xbox 360 RPGs Previewed in Tokyo  

Posted by M. Talha in ,

Microsoft previewed several upcoming role-playing games (RPG) for its Xbox 360 in Tokyo on Tuesday. The games included three titles from Square Enix, one from Bandai Namco and two from Microsoft's game studios.

Bandai Namco's "Tales of Vesperia" will launch in Japan on Aug. 7 and cost ¥7,800 (US$73). It will go on sale in North America in August, during the summer in Asia but won't be available in Europe until 2009.
Using a trick it's employed with other high-profile games, the title will also be bundled in a pack with an Xbox 360 console. Sales of the console have been low in Japan compared with the rest of the world so all-in-one sets might be more attractive to Japanese gamers, many of whom might be interested in the game but don't already own the Microsoft console. The set will include custom face-plates and the game and will cost ¥37,800. Among the three games from Square Enix, "Star Ocean 4" was previewed and will be available in 2009.

Like the other titles in the series the game takes place in the aftermath of a nuclear war at a time when humans take to the stars to flee the dying Earth. The fourth installment takes place several hundred years before the original titles, around 2074-- just a decade or two after the war when space travel is just becoming possible.

The only one of the Square Enix titles to get a launch date was the Xbox 360-exclusive "Infinite Undiscovery," which will hit store shelves on Sept. 11 in Japan and Asia. Square Enix didn't name launch dates but shipping dates-- when the packaged software leaves the warehouse for shops-- for North America and Europe. They are Sept. 2 and Sept. 5 respectively.

In front of the largely Japanese crowd, Producer Hajime Kojima tried to spin the earlier shipping dates as meaning it will get into the hands of gamers around the world at "almost the same time" but foreign gamers can likely look forward to getting it several days earlier than those in Square Enix's home market.

The final game on show was "Last Remnant." Square Enix promises the title in the winter with a simultaneous release in Japan, North America, Europe and Asia. The maker declined to give a more precise date but provided good news for Xbox 360 gamers by promising it will hit the platform before the PlayStation 3 version is launched.

From Microsoft will come "Fable 2," an action RPG that is due out by the end of this year.
The company also said it will bring "Mass Effect," which has already been launched in other markets, to Japan.

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NVIDIA® GeForce 9600 GSO  

Posted by M. Talha

The NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800 GX2 is a über-powered, dual GPU-based graphics card that powers extreme HD gaming and provides a complete, high def entertainment experience for the PC.

With two on-board GPUs, a GeForce® 9800 GX2-based graphics solution is bar-none the fastest graphics card available, and when paired with a 7 Series NVIDIA nForce® motherboard, creates the latest in a line of powerful NVIDIA gaming platforms. Be blown away by scorching frame rates, true-to-life extreme HD gaming, and picture-perfect Blu-ray and HD DVD movies.


Lightning speed graphics performanceThe dual-GPU engine has 256 screaming fast stream processors and a 1GB framebuffer, allowing it to perform 30 to 50% faster across games than the previous performance leading GeForce 8800 Ultra GPU.



Picture-Perfect HDExtreme HD game play, unsurpassed movie picture quality, and elegant design are at your fingertips with the GeForce 9800 GX2-based graphics card. Now you can be right in the middle of the action – whether you’re fragging the enemy or watching an HD movie, your experience will be ultra-realistic.
Features to up the anteCombine a pair of these multi GPU graphics cards with an nForce® 790i motherboard for Quad NVIDIA SLI® technology and get the world’s fastest gaming PC. Plus, an ESA-enabled control panel provides a state-of-the-art interface and HybridPower™ technology* gives you optimal power savings.

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Q1-Tablet from Samsung  

Posted by M. Talha

Slim, sleek and shinning through with features, the Samsung Q1 is designed to match the all the demands for high performance mobile computing with multimedia and the desire for a bold personal statement. Samsung's new concept Q1 places emphasis on perfectly balancing connectivity, entertainment and computing performance with ultra mobility. The Q1 offers you the freedom and flexibility to go anywhere and do everything.

Model No. NP-Q1Product Description Samsung Q1 Celeron M 900 MHz - 7" TFT Dimensions (WxDxH) 22.8 cm x 14 cm x 2.7 cm Weight 0.8 kg Localisation United Kingdom Platform Technology Ultra Mobile PC System Type Ultra portable PC Built-in Devices Stereo speakers, wireless LAN aerial, Bluetooth aerial Processor Intel Celeron M 900 MHz ULV Cache Memory L2 Cache RAM 512 MB DDR II SDRAM - 400 MHz - PC2-3200 Card Reader Yes Hard Drive 40 GB - 4200 rpm Display 7" TFT active matrix 800 x 480 ( WVGA ) Graphics Controller Intel GMA 900 Networking Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR Input Device Touch-screen, 8-way stick, 3 button pad Run Time (Up To) 3 hour(s) Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

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12GB Maxell's USB Drive  

Posted by M. Talha

Specifications: 12GB HDD Holds:Up to 3400 digital photosUp to 3000 songs (MP3)Up to 300 songs (uncompressed CD quality)Up to 1 hour of Digital Video (DV)Up to 5 hours of DVD quality videoUp to 1.5 hours of HD videoInterface: USB2.0Speed: 480Mbps

Description: This is perfect for storing pictures, music, videos and data. It features an extra high transfer speed and its pre-loaded Ceedo software enables you to immediately use your working PC environment from any computer, giving the user access to their favourite programs and settings.

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