Sony Ericsson launch the Aspen business mobile

London: Sony Ericsson has announced the launch of its Aspen business mobile phone which uses Windows mobile 6.5.3 operating system and seems like a good contender to challenge blackberry business phones. The newest edition to the Sony Ericsson GreenHeart portfolio, Sony Ericsson Aspen, allows easy multi-tasking combining the touch experience and a real QWERTY keyboard. Organise and adapt panels to change during the day and use Slide View for quick access to common features.

With Sony Ericsson Aspen, users can view and edit office files easily and comfortably with one touch operation, or just access the internet in one click. The QWERTY keyboard is made for fast and easy typing. Simple email set up allows for a maximized messaging experience on the go. Secure the phone's contents through the Microsoft MyPhone service, which remotely erases phone data when the handset is lost or stolen.

"Sony Ericsson Aspen is the business phone with a conscience, perfect for any consumer or company who want to make a green choice in their daily work life," said Quentin Cordier, Global Marketing Manager, Sony Ericsson. "An affordable GreenHeart phone with the latest version of Windows Phone, the Sony Ericsson Aspen has a rich user interface and powerful productivity tools. But it's not all about work, stay in touch with the fun parts of life with Media Browser and PlayNow, with simple access to social networks and quick and easy access to media files. Find the fun with a-GPS, Google Maps and snap pictures with the 3.2megapixel camera."

Aspen has 4x digital zoom and functions like Multishot, Self timer and Smart contrast. It supports various entertainment services and platforms like 3D games, Facebook, FM radio with RDS, Java, Skype, Video streaming, Video viewing and YouTube.

In terms of utility and office related software, Aspen comes loaded with Adobe PDF Reader, Alarm clock, Calculator, Calendar, Flight mode, Microsoft Office Mobile, Notes, Outlook Mobile, Phone book, Stopwatch and Tasks. The phone screen is 2.4 inches, 240 x 320 pixels (QVGA) with 65,536 colour TFT. Its size is 117 x 60 x 12.45 mm and weighs 130 grams. The box version comes with 4Gb SanDisk microSD card which can be extended upto 16GB.

The battery life of phone is quite good. The company claims that it supports up to eight hours of talk time, 12 hours of music time and 600 hours of standby time. Sony Ericsson Aspen will be available in selected markets from Q2 in the colours Iconic Black and White Silver. The price is still not disclosed.

VIVA Communications launches internet based voice and video services

Bangalore: VIVA Communications, a venture in the converged IP communication solutions space promoted by an Indian-born serial entrepreneur, is rolling out internet based voice and video services such as HD Voice solutions, IP Centrex, IP video and audio conferencing, remote and rural broadband, IP surveillance, along with WiFi services as well.

Intel launches vPro processors for Business PCs

California: Intel has unveiled its 2010 Intel Core vPro processor family to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes for PCs with greater, more flexible performance, theft prevention and cost savings in a rapidly changing business computing environment. These and several other capabilities are at the heart of many new Intel-based business laptop and desktop computers beginning to roll out from computer manufacturers worldwide.

Astronauts finally get Internet access in space

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In a high tech first — really, really high — astronauts in space finally have Internet access.

Space station resident Timothy (TJ) Creamer had been working with flight controllers to establish Internet access from his orbital post ever since he moved in last month. He posted the first live Twitter post truly from space.

"Hello Twitterverse!" he wrote. "We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s"

Before, orbiting astronauts had to send such Twitter updates by e-mail to Mission Control in Houston. Then controllers posted the tweets.

The International Space Station crew can now use an on-board laptop to reach a desktop computer at Mission Control, and thereby browse the Web. This remote Internet access is possible whenever there is a solid high-speed communication link.

It's expected to provide a big morale boost.

"Long-duration astronauts, they commit to spending months away from family and friends. It's a pretty unique state of isolation," said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries. "We expect this to enhance morale and productivity."

The astronauts will be subject to the same Internet access guidelines as other on-the-job government employees, namely no interfering with work.

Is NASA worried the astronauts might spend too much time online, more than 200 miles up?

"These are highly driven individuals," Humphries said with a chuckle, "so they're going to get their work done first."

The astronauts already had an Internet Protocol phone for private calls to family and friends.

Creamer is one month into a five-month mission. He is sharing the space station with another American, one Japanese and two Russians.

Google uses mobile Web to bypass Apple's app block

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. is trying to make its Voice application easier to use on the iPhone, whether Apple Inc. likes it or not.

In an upgrade announced Tuesday, Google revised the mobile Web site for Voice so that it's easier to display the service's most popular features on the iPhone's latest operating system.

Among other things, Voice offers an alternative dialing pad, voice mail and international calling discounts.

Apple has refused to allow the Voice program to be distributed through the iPhone's applications store since last summer on grounds that it would duplicate or alter important iPhone features. To get around that roadblock, Google is trying to entice iPhone users to rely on a mobile Web browser to access Voice.

Google says the overhaul will make the Web browser experience more like what users would get if Google were allowed to offer a downloadable app that could be installed on the iPhone.

Google already offers downloadable Voice apps for Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry phones and devices running on Android, an operating system developed by Google. The upgrade to the mobile Web site also makes Voice simpler to use on devices that run on Palm Inc.'s operating system.

The jousting over the Voice application underscores the rising tensions between Google and Apple, the two most valuable companies in Silicon Valley.

Apple's rebuff of Google's Voice application triggered a Federal Communications Commission inquiry into whether Apple and AT&T Inc., the iPhone's exclusive U.S. service provider, were trying to stifle potential competition.

Apple told the FCC that it hasn't rejected the Voice application outright, but Google says it still hasn't heard anything further on its attempts to make the program available for iPhone downloading. AT&T says it didn't take part in Apple's review of the Voice application.

Google's Voice service had 1.4 million users as of October, according to a company disclosure to the FCC.

Google releases new Google Voice for iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc unveiled a new version of its Internet phone service on Tuesday in its latest effort to bypass Apple Inc's gatekeepers and make Google Voice a popular service on the iPhone.

The new version of Google Voice can only be accessed through a smartphone's Web browser, unlike the so-called native apps that can be downloaded directly onto an iPhone.

In July, Google said that Apple had turned down its application to offer Google Voice as a native iPhone app. The rare public spat underscored the growing competition between the two tech giants and prompted the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to request more information from the companies on the matter.

Apple responded at the time that the Google Voice app had not been rejected, but that it was under review.

Google Voice allows users to make cheap long-distance calls and to forward calls from a single phone number to multiple phones, among other things.

The disagreement over Google Voice comes as Google, the world's No. 1 search engine, and Apple are increasingly encroaching into each other's markets. Earlier this month, Google began selling the Nexus One smartphone directly to consumers, and Google is developing an operating system for PCs that could compete with Apple's line of Mac PCs.

In August, Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board of directors.

Google already had a version of Google Voice available through mobile Web browsers.

But Google described the new version of Google Voice as a "Web app," noting that it is much more interactive than the previous browser-based version of the service, with the ability to listen to voice mails directly from within the browser and to dial phone numbers on an interactive on-screen keypad.

Google said the new version of Google Voice is designed for iPhone 3.0 and higher and Palm Inc Web OS smartphones.

A Google spokeswoman said the company had not received any updates from Apple regarding offering a native app version of Google Voice on the iPhone. 

Apple tablet could stir up video game business

 NEW YORK – When Apple introduced the iPhone, it shook up the cell phone business but it also changed the way people play video games. About a quarter of the 100,000 applications that you can download to the iPhone are games, ranging from the simple "Doodle Jump" to a version of "Grand Theft Auto."

Now, with the looming launch of a tablet-style computer — already nicknamed the "iPhone on steroids," with a bigger screen that might have a place in the living room — Apple could pose an even tougher challenge to established players in the video game business.

That assumes, however, that potential buyers aren't scared off by a price that might be more than the cost of a Wii, a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox 360 combined. Apple isn't commenting on its unveiling Wednesday.

Apple's iPhone and the similar iPod Touch brought a new look to games because they have an accelerometer inside that lets people control the action by turning or tilting the device. With a touch screen and the computing horsepower for high-quality graphics, the iPhone lends itself to pared-down versions of console games like "Assassin's Creed" and "The Sims 3." Its size, meanwhile, makes it easy to consume addictive puzzles in 5-minute increments while waiting for the dentist or riding the subway.

Now the iPhone, which costs $99, $199 or $299 plus a monthly service plan, rivals gadgets such as the Nintendo DS ($130-$170) or PlayStation Portable ($170-$250), known as the PSP, which were created solely for playing games on the go. It's unclear whether Apple has taken substantial market share away, but the iPhone likely introduced people to mobile games who wouldn't have played otherwise.

"We've seen the iPhone and iPod Touch as kind of a starter kit for video games," says John Koller, director of hardware marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America. "When those customers are ready to graduate into a deeper experience, the PSP is there for them."

Soon a tablet may be there for them, too. A touch-screen gadget that is bigger than an iPhone could provide a larger playing field for gamers and give game developers a new way to push the limits of their creativity.

"Any game where there are multiple moving objects on the screen, or a map to explore, will especially be a better experience," says Ian Lynch Smith, the president of Freeverse, a developer of iPhone and Mac games. "Also the more high end, cinematic games will benefit directly from the more immersive screen size."

Apple profits from games because it takes a cut of apps that are sold on the iPhone, where games generally cost between 99 cents and $9.99. Last year the company hired Graeme Devine, a developer with 25 years of experience and games such as "Halo Wars" and "Quake 3" under his belt, to work on "iPhone gaming technologies."

Of course, the tablet is likely to be about much more than gaming, but the same increasingly can be said about video game consoles. Makers of home video game systems are trying to sell their products as all-in-one entertainment devices.

Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 (starting at $200) and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 (starting at $300) both offer streaming movies from Netflix, for example, and Nintendo Co.'s Wii ($200) is set to start in the spring. Sony markets the PS3 as the "most fully loaded console," one that "only does everything," including Blu-ray movies, Facebook updates or Web browsing.

Given that Apple will have to persuade people they need another gadget in their lives, the company is also likely to bill the tablet as a do-everything device, a way for people to manage music, video, games, communication and Web browsing. And while it will be portable in a way game consoles are not, "it makes sense that it would be connected to the TV eventually," says Peter Relan, chairman of Aurora Feint, the developer of a large social game network for the iPhone.

Smith thinks hard-core gamers will still own a console and use it as the primary gaming platform at home "for some years to come."

"But I can see the tablet taking almost all of the casual to moderate gamer market," he says.

The challenge for console makers will be to respond with innovation. One avenue could be in increasingly sophisticated motion controls, such as Microsoft's upcoming "Project Natal," which lets people manipulate on-screen avatars using their bodies. Natal is set to debut on the Xbox this holiday season.

"Games have become the killer pursuit on all new devices," says Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga, the company behind popular Facebook games such as "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars." "They are the reason people buy major new hardware from the Xbox to the iPhone."

Motorola offers Baidu search on China smartphones

SAN FRANCISCO – Motorola said that China buyers of its Android-driven smartphones can opt for local search engine Baidu instead of Google, the Internet giant behind the mobile software platform.

"Users will be able to select their search experience from a number of providers, including Baidu and others, with whom Motorola has signed strategic agreements," Motorola said in a release.

Google has vowed to stop filtering search results as required by law in China and may be forced to pull out of that country as a result.

Motorola announced the "new feature" on Android handsets along with the launch of a China smartphone application store called Zhi-Jian-Yuan, translated to "Place for Apps Wisdom" in English.

"By providing them a choice in their applications and services, Motorola is letting consumers in China customize the way they experience the power of the mobile Internet," China Telecom said in a release.

The "SHOP4APPS" service and the search capabilities through Baidu will be available pre-loaded on Android handsets or as "over-the-air" updates by China's New Year's Day in mid February, according to Motorola.

"We want phones to reflect our lifestyle and our choices," China Unicom said in a release.

"The ability to pick our own search sites, our own chat services, our own games, and to craft our own mobile experience is helping China Unicom deliver on the promise of 3G."

Motorola is working closely with carriers in China and "ecosystem partners" such as Baidu to provide a suite of smartphone services including email, maps and search, according to Motorola Mobile Devices vice president Christy Wyatt.

Solar system 'on fire' burned up Earth's carbon

FIRE sweeping through the inner solar system may have scorched away much of the carbon from Earth and the other inner planets.

Though our planet supports carbon-based life, it has a mysterious carbon deficit. The element is thousands of times more abundant in comets in the outer solar system than on Earth, relative to the amount of silicon each body contains. The sun is similarly rich in carbon. "There really wasn't that much carbon that made it onto Earth compared to what was available," says Edwin Bergin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

The conventional explanation for the deficit argues that in the inner region of the dust disc where Earth formed, temperatures soared above 1800 kelvin, enough for carbon to boil away. But observations of developing solar systems suggest that at Earth's distance from the sun the temperature would be too cool to vaporise carbon dust.

Now a team of astronomers says that fire is to blame. Hot oxygen atoms in the dusty disc would have readily combined with carbon, burning it to produce carbon dioxide and other gases, say Jeong-Eun Lee of Sejong University in Seoul, South Korea, and colleagues, including Bergin, in a paper to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (arxiv.org/abs/1001.0818). Any solid carbon in the inner solar system would have been destroyed within a few years, they calculate.

Fire would have destroyed any solid carbon in the early inner solar system within a few years

Supporting the theory is the fact that carbon abundance in the asteroid belt surrounding the inner planets increases the farther away you get from the sun.

The carbon that Earth now contains must have been delivered later by asteroids and comets that formed beyond the reach of the early fire, the researchers say. This may have had a hidden benefit: chemical reactions in the outer solar system could have transformed simple carbon compounds into more complex molecules such as amino acids, which are key ingredients of life, Bergin says.

Google to sell Nexus One, a 'super' mobile phone

Google Inc. began selling its own mobile phone Tuesday, a much-anticipated move aimed at protecting its online advertising empire as people increasingly surf the Web on handsets instead of personal computers.

The Nexus One joins about 20 other mobile devices that already run on Android, the mobile operating system that Google introduced in 2007 to make it easier to connect to its services and other Web sites away from home or the office.

Google designed the touch-screen phone in partnership with Taiwan's HTC Corp., which made the first Android-powered phone and will manufacture this one, too. Google will handle all sales online and has no plans to let consumers check out the Nexus One in retail stores.

The Nexus One has been in the hands of Google employees for the past three weeks, triggering media speculation and anticipation for the company's first attempt to peddle a consumer electronics device.

Given the hype, the Nexus One could be a bit of a letdown because it only takes a few incremental steps beyond what's already possible on handheld devices. And the Nexus One's standard sales price of $529 may lessen its appeal in a still-shaky economy.

The move does escalate the budding rivalry between Silicon Valley's two most valuable companies — Google and Apple Inc., which has sold more than 30 million iPhones in the past 2 1/2 years. Apple announced a deal Tuesday to buy mobile advertising service Quattro Wireless to counter Google's planned $750 million acquisition of Quattro rival AdMob. Both announcements came ahead of this week's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Most of the more than $20 billion in ads that Google sells annually are tied to Internet searches, a market that it dominates. But a proliferation of programs that create more direct routes to mobile applications may lessen the need to conduct searches on wireless phones. In designing and selling its own phone, Google gets yet another way to ensure its services remain within easy reach of people on the go.

Google is billing the Nexus One as the first "super" phone in an effort to position the device as a cut above the iPhone and other smart phones such as Research In Motion Ltd.'s more utilitarian BlackBerry.

It appears to be sleeker than other phones, as thin as a pencil at 11.5 millimeters and as light as a keychain-sized Swiss army knife at just 130 grams. Among other things, the Nexus One will offer more ways to customize the phone's home page and use voice recognition technology to perform more tasks, including composing e-mails and navigating Google's mobile mapping products.

"This phone, from a performance perspective, looks a little like your laptop did four or five years ago," said Andy Rubin, a Google executive who oversees Android.

But most of the features on the Nexus One are already on other Android-powered phones, and it probably will be a long time before it can offer as many different tools as the iPhone, which boasts more than 100,000 applications compared with Android's 18,000.

Blackberrys, Motorola phones high on radiation emission

Blackberry and Motorola mobile phones emit higher levels of radiations compared to other handsets, a new study has revealed.

The online report by The Environmental Working Group has ranked 1,200 mobile phones on the basis of their radiation emissions, measured as specific absorbtion rate (SAR), in a bid to draw attention to the risks of using cell phones.

Motorola’s Moto VU204 has aced the list of high radiation emitting phones, while Motorola phones featured in the top bracket.

Blackberrys and Apple iPhone 3G S were placed at the top of the smartphone category.

The Samsung Impression and the Motorola RAZR V8 were found to be the safest phones.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the EWG has called upon the mobile phone manufacturers to provide information on the SAR levels of phones to potential customers ” . . .because cell phones have become a virtual necessity, we’re convinced that it’s smart to buy devices with lower emissions, until the public health research catches up with these amazing products.”

The EWG has linked brain tumours and other health disorders to the constant use of mobile phones, however, handset manufactures like Motorola have rubbished all links between heath risks and the use of cell phones.

The company has said: “All Motorola mobile phones comply with national and international safety guidelines for radio-frequency energy exposure. These standards provide wide margins of protection for users and the general public.

“Although SAR values for products vary, all SAR values for Motorola products are within safe exposure limits, and all products are considered equally safe.”

Sony VAIO FW560F/T: A Capable Multimedia Laptop That Can Handle Gaming

Sony’s VAIO range of laptops is usually associated with elite and niche category of users and they come at a premium, too. However, the VAIO lineup also has some performance oriented models that offer more than eye candy and flaunt value. One such instance is the VAIO FW560F/T. The laptop offers great multimedia performance and also runs most of the modern PC games at mid resolutions without much fuss. At $999 it is definitely not affordable for the majority of users but offers a good balance between price andperformance when pitted against typical gaming laptops. It offers Windows 7 instead of its resource hungry predecessor Vista and Blu- Ray playback, a blessing formultimedia freaks.

This VAIO model is powered by a Core 2 Duo P7450 CPU that runs at 2.1 GHz and tackles image editing or media encoding related tasks with aplomb. The 6GB DDR2 RAM complements the fast CPU and the buyers would not need to upgrade the memory in near future. However, a model belonging to high end category should have been equipped with newer DDR3 RAM. Its elegant and sleek looks may remind you of the Apple Macbooks and Sony has used a matte exterior finish in it.

The keyboard has large keys that are a joy to use but Sony could put in a numeric keypad in the model. Its touchpad is also responsive though somewhat smaller in size. The 500 GB hard disk is enough for storing your movie and MP3 collection. While the laptop has some dedicated media control buttons they are not backlit. The speakers used in this model sound good and would suffice for occasional 3D gaming and music playback. The integrated VAIOMultimedia suite offers decent image and media management and editing features. Its 16.4-inch “ultra-widescreen” display offers a 1,600×900 native resolution that is better than HD Ready 720p displays but falls short of 1080p Full HD category. The inbuilt HDMI port is ideal for connecting to larger external displays. The VAIO FW560F/T has USB and Mini Firewire port but lacks an eSATA port. It packs in a dual format memory card reader slot nevertheless.

While the Core 2Duo processor included in this laptop lags behind the latest Core i7 CPUs in resource intensive applications and multitasking, it still offers acceptable performance for most of the users. While the onboard ATI Radeon Mobility GPU is not the most powerful graphics chip in the market it still allows you to play most of the present generation games with some visual effects enabled. You will get much betterperformance from it compared to the laptops that are offer with onboard Intel GMA graphics solution. While the laptop gets overshadowed by the performance of rival models like the HP Envy 15, at $999 it packs in enough punch.

The VAIO FW560F/T offers decent battery life but there are many laptops that offer much better performance in this aspect. Sony offers a standard one year warranty with this laptop and the users can avail of the required drivers and updates from Sony’s official website.

Cell Phone Radiation Might Improve Memory

surprised us to find that cell phone exposure, begun in early adulthood, protects the memory of mice otherwise destined to develop Alzheimer's symptoms," Gary Arendash, lead author of the study and researcher at Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, said in a statement.

The researchers showed that exposing old Alzheimer's mice to the electromagnetic waves generated by cell phones erased brain deposits of beta-amyloid, a protein strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease. Clumps of beta-amyloid form so-called brain plaques that are a hallmark of the disease. The scientists speculate the cell phone radiation increases brain temperature, causing brain cells to release the nasty plaques.

They suspect a similar effect would show up in humans, and so cell phone radiation might be used to prevent and treat the debilitating disease for us, they say.

However, studies done on rodents do not always translate to useful human therapies, so more research would be needed.

Mice on cell phones

The study involved 96 mice, most of which were genetically altered to develop beta-amyloid plaques and memory problems mimicking Alzheimer's disease as they aged. Some mice were left as-is, so researchers could test the effects of the radiation on normal memory as well.

Both the Alzheimer's and normal mice were exposed to the electromagnetic field generated by standard cell phone use for two 1-hour periods each day for seven to nine months.

The mice were not actually chatting on cell phone or even packing the devices. Rather, they were housed in cages arranged around a centrally-located antenna that generated a cell-phone signal. The cages were arranged at the same distance from the antenna and exposed to the radiation typically emitted by a cell phone pressed up against a human head.

Radiation and memory

Results showed if cell phone exposure was started when the Alzheimer's mice were young adults - before signs of memory impairment were apparent - their cognitive ability was protected. In fact, the Alzheimer's mice performed as well on tests measuring memory and thinking skills as aged mice without dementia.

If older Alzheimer's mice already exhibiting memory problems were exposed to the cell phone radiation, their memory impairment disappeared. The researchers suggest this reversal may be due to the slight increase in brain temperature that they observed in the Alzheimer's mice after months of exposure to cell phones. The higher temperature may have helped the Alzheimer's brain to remove newly-formed beta-amyloid by causing brain cells to release it.

The cell phone exposure even boosted the memories of normal mice to above-normal levels.

The memory benefits took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years. The researchers suspect the main reason for this improvement involves the ability of electromagnetic radiation to increase brain activity, promoting greater blood flow and increased energy metabolism in the brain.

How humans could benefit

The memory test used on the mice was designed from a test used to determine if Alzheimer's disease, or its very early signs (mild cognitive impairment), are present in humans.

"Since we selected electromagnetic parameters that were identical to human cell phone use and tested mice in a task closely analogous to a human memory test, we believe our findings could have considerable relevance to humans," Arendash said.

Arendash and his colleagues concluded that electromagnetic field exposure could help to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease in humans. They are currently evaluating whether different sets of electromagnetic frequencies and strengths will produce more rapid and even greater cognitive benefits than those found in their current study.

There has been recent controversy about whether electromagnetic waves from cell phones cause brain cancer. While many studies have found no risk, a review article last October concluded that some of the "higher quality" studies did show an associated risk. The World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health are still conducting research on the topic, and some countries have issued guidelines for cell phone use, such as limiting use for children.