Tiles:: The tile function of the screen replaces the icon displays seen on the iPhone and the Android with living breathing tiles. Just picking up the phone you can see what is going on in your world without opening any app. To add I may say that this is sometimes better than push notifications.

Hub Strategy:: The HUB concept works really well. You can have a music hub in the shape of the Zune app. But this app is not restricted to content I have uploaded to, or bought in Zune, but all the music content on my ‘phone. Take the hub strategy across to other content, like business documents and Office becomes the business hub. This strategy gives me the best of both worlds, I can use my preferred app or I can find it in the main hub. Smart.

Games::  So what so special. Consider full on XBOX action on your phone? The graphics look up to it and the game levels, credits and achievements will be recorded against your Live profile.

Though I feel that Window 7 from microsoft is still an amateur but then like all babies this will also grow. I hope this creates even stiffer competition in market

Version2.3 Gingerbread refined the user interface, improved the soft keyboard and copy/paste features, improved gaming performance, added SIP support (VoIP calls), and added support for Near Field Communication.

Version3.0 Honeycomb was a tablet-oriented[42][43][44] release which supports larger screen devices and introduces many new user interface features, and supports multi-core processors and hardware acceleration for graphics.The first device featuring this version, the Motorola Xoom tablet.

Version3.1 Honeycomb, released in May 2011, added support for extra input devices, USB host mode for transferring information directly from cameras and other devices, and the Google Movies and Books apps.

Version3.2 Honeycomb, released in July 2011, added optimization for a broader range of screen sizes, new “zoom-to-fill” screen compatibility mode, loading media files directly from SD card, and an extended screen support API. Huawei MediaPad is the first 7 inch tablet to use this version.

Version4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, announced on October 19, 2011, brought Honeycomb features to smartphones and added new features including facial recognition unlock, network data usage monitoring and control, unified social networking contacts, photography enhancements, offline email searching, app folders, and information sharing using NFC. Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich is the latest Android version that is available to phones. The source code of Android 4.0.1 was released on November 14, 2011.

Carry on……. I love android for both its features and its version names..

O yes, technology is bending the rules again and I, I am lovin’ it. Bendy phones sound like science fiction – but the far-out gadgets could be on sale in just a few months’ time.Can’t really comment on who actually pioneered the same but nokia and samsung both are woking on it.

In nokia the new concept phone is part of an online display presented in conjunction with the “Design and the Elastic Mind” . Nokia unveiled a basic prototype of the Nokia Kinetic – a bendable smartphone – at Nokia World. Kinetic allowed users to bend the screen to control functions such as music and video.

Samsung shown off OLED screens which can be folded over. The company demonstrated ‘bendable’ AMOLED screens 4.5 inches across and just 0.3mm thick in January this year.

The Acer Liquid E Special Edition Smartphone has a 3.5 inch WVGA touch screen with 3G HSDPA support and 65k colour support. These smartphones are powered by Android. The Acer Ferrari allows easy access to all the popular social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

The 135 gm Acer smartphone has a variety of connectivity options like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and A-GPS. It also offers a Ferrari brand Bluetooth. The Acer Web Player and Acer Media Player are in-built in these smartphones. The phone has an 5MP camera that has auto focus, geo tagging and accelerometer that enables enhanced picture quality.

You can call any phone right from Gmail.
Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan and many more countries for as little as $0.02 per minute.
Wanna learn more.. click here

Push email utilizes a mail delivery system with real-time capability to push email through to the client as soon as it arrives, rather than requiring the client to poll and collect or pull mail manually. With a push email smartphone, for example, the client’s mailbox is constantly updated with arriving email without user intervention. Smartphones announce new mail arrival with an alert.

Push email differs from conventional email systems that are pull oriented. Usually, when email is sent, it arrives at the recipient’s Internet Service Provider’s (ISP’s) mail server, where it is held for collection. It might instead arrive at a website server, if the email is Web-based. Either way, email remains on the mail server until the recipient uses an email program to poll the mail server. If new mail is present, the email client pulls the mail to the client’s computer. The difference between this scheme and push email is that, with push email, the mail is pushed through to the client without waiting for polling.

Push email can be somewhat simulated using an email client set to frequently poll for new mail. However, this requires the email client to be open and running and is less efficient. Polling involves handshaking between the client software and the mail server. If the server is busy, the delay in completing the handshake can lengthen, causing the client to time out.

Therefore, polling should not be set so frequently as to cause premature time out errors. To prevent this, one must increase the delay between polling times. In many cases, a minute or two delay between pull email and push email schemes may not matter, but in some cases, a minute can make all the difference. Push email can be especially crucial to field reporters, stock market businessmen and other professionals for whom time is of the essence. A one-minute delay can make all the difference in breaking a story, losing money, or making a crucial sale.

BlackBerry was the first personal digital assistant (PDA) to offer push email and gained near-instant success as a result. Today, many devices have incorporated push email, and its popularity continues to grow. Some of the products that have incorporated push email include Chatteremail for Treo, Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email, Roadsync, and Sony Ericsson phones.

Keep learning…..

Location-based services (LBS) are wireless “mobile content” services which are to provide location-specific information to mobile users moving from location to location.

Typical Location Based Services applications fall under following categories:

1) B2B (Business to Business) : e.g. resource tracking (fleet management, courier tracking etc)
2) C2B (Consumer to Business) , i.e. Proximity-based actuation services like searching for a business/restaurant etc.
3) B2C (Business to Consumer), i.e. Proximity based notifications (push/pull) : Receive targeted ads, location based billing/discounted ads etc
4) C2C (Consumer to Consumer): Share your location/status with friends, Track your friends etc.
LBS players in India

BSNL has launched it”s Location Based service in East Zone and is currently offering enterprise services as well as consumer services:

Enterprises can locate, monitor and manage their mobile assets and employees in a secure way using a simple Web browser named “Real time fleet and asset management”.

“Friend finder” which alerts subscribers when one of their friends in their buddy list is in close proximity to their location or vice versa.

“Location-based advertisement”, broadcasts advertisement/promotion information to subscribers.

“Location-based chatting service” that enables users to communicate and/or meet someone with same interests within the same vicinity.

Read more here about how all these factors may compel google to do what it has not done yet.

Hmmmm,, seems a huge contradiction. Well life is like that only and we all love contradictions, Isn’t it. Actually last week I was sitting with some of my relatives and all the techies of my family were sharing their thought on GOOGLE and its power. Suddenly out of no where a question came from a teen “How does google make money?” After some silence I broke the ice and tried to make that teen understand how google makes money. So here is all who have similar question marks on their minds:

Advertisement: Yes that’s how Google is making its money. Every time you do a search on Google, you’ve probably noticed that there is a section called Sponsored Links. Every time you click on one of those links, Google charge a certain amount of money to the website for the click. Also when you go on a website you’ll notice advertising from Google too. Same thing happens here, when you click, Google charge a certain amount of money to the website you clicked on and part of that money is given to the webmaster publishing the ads. This is called AdSense and is an enormous source of income for Google.

How much does Google charge for a click?
The price advertisers pay for a click depends on a lot of factors and this is where Google is playing smart. They use a sort of bidding system. When you want to advertise with Google, you select keywords you are targeting. Let’s say I own an online mobile store and I want to bring potential customers to my website. I’m going to bid on the keywords mobile and buy mobile online for example. The price I’m going to pay will depend if there is other companies bidding for that keyword. The more companies are fighting for a keyword, the more I’m going to pay for a single click to my website. The price can vary from 0.01$ to 100$ and more. You can imagine that for highly competitive keywords like finance and health it can cost quite a lot of money for a company to advertise with Google. This program of Google is called Adwords.

No production cost
The beauty of google business is that Google doesn’t sell any tangible product. They sell something that doesn’t really exist. They really sell traffic. It mostly comes down to this: They get paid for sending traffic to other websites. That’s why Google seems to be everywhere now: They have to show substantial growth to their stakeholders and to do that they have to drive more and more traffic to provide more and more advertisement.

Hope that clears out atleast some of the mysterious business of Google. Keep questioning, Keep knowing more……..

This is my last in the three part series to present the common mobile related terms. Hope you have read the first two series. If not the click here for Part1 and Part2. I have tried my best to keep the things simple.  Read on….

3G

Third generation (3G) is the latest phone technology and allows high speed data content transfer. This can mean up to 50 times more data transmitted per minute than with ordinary phones. Video and pictures can be viewed quickly with this technology.

Bluetooth

A type of wireless transmission with relatively short range at present (10 – 100 metres). This can be a wireless connection between your telephone, computer, printer or other compatible device.

Bluetooth Headset

A device that sits on or around the ear and allows you to wirelessly connect to your mobile phone with handsfree receiving of calls.

Card Slot

Expand the memory of the phone by slotting in a memory card.

Carkit

Carkits enable you to use your phone in the car safely and legally, and usually enable handsfree operation and charging of your phone’s battery.

Coverage 

The strength of radio signals.

Digital zoom Each pixel is enlarged to increase the size of the subject, but picture quality is very much reduced.

Dual-band 

Refers to the capability of handsets to operate across two frequency bands. Dual-band technology enables a network operator with spectrum at both 900 MHz and 1800 MHz to support the seamless use of dual-band handsets across both frequencies.

GPRS

General Packet Radio System for Mobile Communications. This is the mobile phone system network for Europe and most of Asia.

GPS

Global Positioning Satellite. This technology needs a GPS receiver to calculate from the orbiting satellites your exact location on Earth.

GSM 

Global system for mobile communications. Second generation network delivering high quality and secure mobile voice and data service with full roaming capabilities across the world. Data connection rate is up to 9.6 Kbps.

Infrared 

Wireless data transfer via an infrared port. For example, between two mobile phones or via other devices such as PC with IrDa port.

Integral Cameras

Allow you to take, send (in the form MMS) and store digital pictures.

J2ME 

A technology to implement java support for various devices such as mobile phone, PDA and digital television.

Java™ 

This technology allows you to download games, applications, ring tones and logos from web sites

MMS

Multimedia Messaging Service. A messaging format that allows the transmission of images, sound, video clips and text.

Mobile TV

This technology is seen as the future of the phone and is becoming the complete multimedia gadget. Sky has launched TV which is beamed to your phone for a monthly fee/subscrition. The service includes Sky News,Sports, factual programs and Sky Music and Entertainment.

MP3 

Digital music files.

MP3 Player

Listen to MP3 encoded tracks at near CD quality. An MP3 track can also be used as a ringtone on some phones.

Optical zoom

The image is enlarged by the use of lenses, unlike digital zoom which reduces the picture quality.

PDA 

Personal digital assistant is a handheld device that works like a mini personal computer. Some especially modern PDAs contain some mobile phone features.

Pixels/Megapixels

The larger the quoted number of pixels the better the quality of the images taken by the camera.

Polyphonic

Very high quality full-range sound.

PTT

Push-to-Talk this is a technology that connects you to work groups and friends with supreme ease.

Quad Band

Allows you to make and receive calls Worldwide, with some exceptions.

QWERTY keyboard

A keyboard with the same letter layout as a computer keyboard.

Refresh Rate

The ability of the screen to keep up, ensuring smooth playback. 15 frames (fps) per second at least is recommended.

Satellite Navigation

Turn-by-turn instructions and on-screen directions on your phone. Can be linked to your phone via Bluetooth or the GPS receiver and navigational software already integrated into your phone.

Screen Resolution

The higher the quoted number of pixels the better the screen. A screen with high resolution will display your pictures and video more clearly.

SD Slot

A secure digital memory card can be inserted to store images and data from your phone.

Service Provider

This is the company that handles your mobile calls. 

Smartphone

A phone that can organize your life as well as make and receive calls. Smartphones can make and send e-mails, maintain a diary, to do lists and are able to store lots of data. Smartphones can also be used as an internet dongle (for your computer), and can connect to a computer, so that you can edit or show a document on-the-go or, download it to another computer. Smartphone OS’s consist of: UiQ (Symbian-based), Symbian, Palm OS, webOS (coming soon to the Palm Pre), Windows Mobile.

SMS

Short Messaging Service. Commonly known as ‘Text messaging’.

Tri-band

Different mobile phone networks operate at different frequencies, which means that if you wish to use your mobile phone outside your home country, you generally need a handset that supports multiple frequency bands. A tri-band phone operates on three frequency bands, GSM900, GSM1800 and GSM1900, allowing you to use it in Europe, Africa, Asia, nearly all of North America and Australia. 

T9

T9 stands for “Text on 9 keys”, one of predictive text input’s algorithms. Visit http://www.t9.com/ for more information.

VGA/QVGA/SVGA

VGA (stands for Video Graphics Array) is a default video format for mobile phones (for example, the LG Renoir) but is also the standard for cameras as well. This format uses very little space on the card/disk, and is relatively poor quality, and has small screen space (640×480), so that you can record more video quickly and easily (only recommended for simple videos). Also, Windows uses a system called SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array), which, only can display in poor quality modes, and, is unable to support a big display (SVGA supports 800×600 up to 1680×1050). QVGA (stands for Quarter Video Graphics Array) is the same as VGA, but smaller (320×240)

Video capture

This is the ability to film moving video footage, in the form of video clips. These can either be stored on the phone or sent in the form of MMS.

Virtual Wallet 

Storing credit card details in your mobile phone for m-commerce use. Voice dial – Allows you to call someone in your phonebook by saying his or her name. You will need to store a previous recording of yourself saying the name, for it to work. Voicemail – A mobile phone’s answerphone system.

WAP

Wireless Application Protocol. Special Web pages made for small screens on mobiles and PDA’s.

WiFi

Wireless transmission of data and images with a good range.

WML Wireless markup language is used to produce WAP content. It makes optimum use of the limited size of the displays on handheld devices.

Hope this article gives some insight to the mobile world. Do write in your comments and suggestions.