Noise Cancelling Headphones from Logitech

Noise-canceling headphones seem to be the new bandwagon all brands are jumping on to – and why not, with the escalating levels of unwanted sound these days? External noises can be distracting, and Logitech's generically named Noise Canceling Headphones addresses this issue through battery-powered active noise cancellation technology.

"Logitech Noise Canceling Headphones help in reducing unwanted distractions with high-parametric noise canceling," said Moninder Jain, Director, India and South East Asia. These headphones may have you grinning from ear to ear while listening to your favorite music or when you're just trying to have some quiet 'me' time.

"The headphones are comfortable to wear and are compatible with any portable media player – such as your iPod as well as standard stereo equipment," he added.

The headphones come with a handy carrying case, along with a dual-plug airplane adapter, making it perfect for the business travelers. The audio cable is detachable. Priced at Rs 9995, these are available with a one-year replacement warranty.

Logitech Noise Canceling Headphones are distributed by Neoteric and Rashi Peripherals.

Thiel Launches Powerful New Speakers

in-wall loudspeaker designed to deliver the most realistic sound possible from the smallest area.

The product can be used as front, center, or rear-channel speaker for home video, music and for multi-channel systems. It can also be used alone or in pairs all through the home – in the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom – and in offices too.

Also available is a model called Higherplane (see pic) that's an in-ceiling version.

Charge Your Mobile Phone as You Exercise!

Bhaskar Ajgaonkar, a third-year information technology engineering student of Rajendra Mane College of Engineering and Technology, Ratnagiri, has developed a bicycle that when pedaled produces electricity and charges mobile phones of any brand.

This 19-year old resident of Dombivli, a distant suburb of Mumbai, was inspired by the two-seater cycle ridden by Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan in the movie Shaan. He was in Class VII then. It was his father Vijay Ajgaonkar, an electronics engineer, who encouraged him. The bicycle with mobile charging facility took nearly two years and around a thousand rupees to build.

Bhaskar describes his device: "The circuit is so flexible that you can connect a cell phone of any brand for charging. The electricity generated through a dynamo is regulated through the circuit. Therefore your riding speed will not affect the current flow."

An extra chain is attached to the rear wheel, which is connected to a micro-dynamo attached to the cycle carrier. As the cycle is pedaled, the dynamo rotates to generate electricity. The electricity is then passed towards the circuit fixed on the bell attached to the handle. The circuit has an LED that confirms reception of electricity.

A cable coming out from the circuit has a plug, which can be connected to a mobile phone to charge it. A chain is connected to the micro dynamo and cycle’s gear box. As you pedal the cycle forward, the chain rotates the gear box. The invention thus not only saves electricity but also helps the rider stay fit while he charges his mobile phone.

Bhaskar’s skills have brought him three national awards and several state awards. His most recent award is the KDMC mayor’s award. He has more than 25 innovative cycle designs to his credit. He has won a national award for presenting a prototype of this bicycle at a seminar conducted for Alternative Energy Sources at VPM Polytechnic in Thane in 2005. He took his project further by designing the micro-dynamo with the help of industry experts.

When asked why he decided to work on a cycle instead of cars, Bhaskar said, "The Wright brothers had a vision. They wanted to fly. Similarly, I felt there should be some innovation in cycles too."

By December this year, Bhaskar hopes to complete the prototype of a talking cycle, which will have photo sensors fixed on it. "The bicycle will warn cyclists about potholes ahead and will say sorry to the rider if it misses one. In addition, this talking cycle will caution riders against unnecessary jerks and accidents.

Though his father Vijay Ajgaonkar is currently undergoing medication for cancer, it hasn't deterred Bhaskar from pursuing his dream. He has written a book titled Cyclecha Zagat Mi which is due for release in December.

The budding inventor now hopes to to come up with a flying bicycle based on the airplane model created by the Wright Brothers.

Woman Sued for Registering 10000 Domains

Zheng Qingying, a Chinese woman, was recently sued by Eurid, an institution in charge of domain name registration in Europe, because she registered over 10,000 domain names with the suffix “.eu.”

According to the relevant rules and regulations, any individual or organization in any European Union country may register an unlimited number of domain names with the “.eu” suffix.

However, the huge number of names registered by Qingying aroused suspicion from Eurid, because no company is large enough to require that many names. All the domain names registered by Zheng are now frozen and she is presently incapable of selling or transferring any of them.

In response to these actions, Zheng filed a counter suit, requiring Eurid to release all her domain names. The lawsuit filed by Zheng is to be heard next week, while the one filed by Eurid is expected at least one year later.

The domain suffix of “.eu” was put into use in December 2005. There are currently more than 2.5 million websites using this suffix.

Woman Sued for Registering 10000 Domains

Zheng Qingying, a Chinese woman, was recently sued by Eurid, an institution in charge of domain name registration in Europe, because she registered over 10,000 domain names with the suffix “.eu.”

According to the relevant rules and regulations, any individual or organization in any European Union country may register an unlimited number of domain names with the “.eu” suffix.

However, the huge number of names registered by Qingying aroused suspicion from Eurid, because no company is large enough to require that many names. All the domain names registered by Zheng are now frozen and she is presently incapable of selling or transferring any of them.

In response to these actions, Zheng filed a counter suit, requiring Eurid to release all her domain names. The lawsuit filed by Zheng is to be heard next week, while the one filed by Eurid is expected at least one year later.

The domain suffix of “.eu” was put into use in December 2005. There are currently more than 2.5 million websites using this suffix.

Meizu miniOne Pre-order Price Announced

The so-called "Chinese iPhone" made by a company called Meizu and called the miniOne is finally ready to ship to the stores. It’s been awaited for a while now; ever since it was revealed months ago.

A look at the specs reveals that the miniOne is a GSM phone supporting EDGE and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s apparently equipped with an ARM11 533MHZ processor and has a 128MB DDR SDRAM and runs on Windows CE 6.0. It has a 3.2 inch TFT VGA Touchscreen with a resolution of 720x480 pixels and 16 million colors.

The miniOne also has a 3 megapixel autofocus camera and a 0.3 megapixel camera for video calling. It also supports MPEG4 and WMV formats for video, and even has a digital TV and GPS through DMB with downloadable maps. It's expected to have 16GB of internal memory. Also featured are a Line-In and a TV-Out, so the device can be easily hooked up to your TV for a big-screen experience.

The price of this seemingly all-in-one phone is a not-quite-modest Rs. 31,852 ($788). This is of course a pre-order price and the actual price will be revealed somewhere towards the end of the year. I feel the phone should be out sometime in January or early February of 2008. And if it’s available in China, it shouldn’t be too long before you find it here as well. Look out iPhone, the miniOne’s got your number!

Via Negri Electronics.

Motorola to Launch Three New Phones

Motorla’s new phones – MOTOROKR E8, PEBL U9 and MOTORIZR Z10 – are seemingly headed towards popularity even before their official launch.

The ROKR E8, part of Motorola’s ROKR music phone clan, is designed with a touch-sensitive keypad and has a navigation scroll wheel. It has a 2-inch TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and sports 256k colors. It supports external memory with microSD cards and comes with 2GB of internal memory.

Connectivity is handled by EDGE, USB v2.0 and Bluetooth with A2DP compatibility. The E8 also has an integrated Stereo FM radio, a 2 megapixel camera and, of course, a music player that supports MP3 and AAC playback. It has a 3.5mm earphone socket.

What really makes this phone unique is that in standby mode the keypad is virtually invisible, and when in music mode select keys that highlight music navigation are lit up. The keypad is quoted to support Haptic feedback, allowing users to actually feel every keypress. The expected release date is sometime in November and the price would be in the region of Rs. 15,700 (280 Euro).

The ROKR PEBL U9 is a clamshell phone with a reflective (fingerprint magnet!) surface. It has a 1.4 inch, 65K, OLED display with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels on the outer surface and a 1.8 inch QVGA, TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and 256K colors. The keypad is touch-sensitive.

For connectivity it’s equipped with EDGE, Bluetooth with A2DP compatibility and USB v2.0. The U9 has a 2 megapixel camera, an MP3 player, and supports external memory using microSD cards. Pricing and availability have not yet been disclosed.

Motorola’s RIZR Z10 is a rather well-equipped mobile device with HSDPA, 3G and of course EDGE connectivity. It too supports Bluetooth with A2DP and USB v2.0 (mini). The 2.2 inch TFT display supports a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels with 256k colors and has a scratch-resistant surface. The 90MB of internal memory can be extended using microSD cards.

The RIZR Z10 is equipped with a TI 2420 multimedia processor, a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, and a secondary VGA camera in the front for video calling. There appears to be some confusion as to whether the Z10 will have a Xenon or LED flash. The specs aren't too clear.

This phone also has a 3.5 mm earphone socket and a music player that supports MP3 and AAC+ playback. Motorola has decided to go with a Symbian UIQ 3.1 OS in the Z10. It’s expected to be out in December for approximately Rs. 22,430 (400 Euro).

Perfect Pixel LCD Technology from Philips

Perfect Pixel HD is Philips' latest feature in LCD screens.

The HD technology contains a suite of proprietary picture quality improvement technologies, which include 100Hz ClearLCD, Digital Natural Motion, Horizontal and Vertical Luminance Transient Improvement and Colour Booster with 14-bit processing.

The Perfect Pixel HD Engine is built around a 10-bit digital processor said to be capable of handling 248 million pixels per second. As part of the image enhancement process it changes the luminance value of each individual pixel to better match the surrounding pixels in a given signal, “resulting in a much sharper and more natural picture.”

Ban Proposed on Plasma TVs in UK

This is a story that's been doing the rounds for the past few days. It sounds like pure speculation currently, and let's just hope it is. According to a report by The Sun, Conservatives in the UK are proposing a ban on plasma TVs and other energy-inefficient electronics.

Under the new proposal, a limit would be placed on electronics energy consumption and products found exceeding the limits would be banned. This is making the UK Consumer Electronics industry really worried. Needless to say, techies and geeks might have to relocate to less green climes if the unthinkable happens.

Devices that have a standby mode or that use standby lights that stay on indefinitely will also come under the screener. The Sun reports that around 2 percent of Britain’s total electricity use is currently taken up by appliances left on standby rather than being switched off.

Currently The TV industry is assumed to be gearing up to defend its products and emphasize on their green-friendly features and advancements if any. Let's hope nothing similar happens here in India, for the results could be catastrophic. Watch this space for more news...

New iPods Disappoint Some Buyers

Apple’s new iPods seem to have an odd new safety precaution in place when it comes to music transfer. They aren't very user-friendly for Linux users who generally use freeware to upload music.

A number has been added to the front of the database file, preventing the new range of iPods from syncing with any copy of iTunes other than the one it was initially synced with. What this essentially means is that it's futile to try and use your new iPod with a third-party software on your office PC for transferring music if it's already been synced to your home PC!

It may only require the skill of some software nerd to simply use reverse engineering to work around this and give us the choice to lead an iTunes-free life. Sadly though, it really does seem as if Apple is hell-bent on keeping its customers in a perpetual proprietary loop.

There also seems to be a bit of a problem with Apple’s new iPod Touch. It's been claimed that the blacks displayed are a little off. Some new owners feel they don’t seem to be consistent throughout the entire display. In faulty situations like this, we’re hoping Apple’s exchange or swap policy holds good.

On the plus side, Apple has launched a firmware update for the new iPod Classic, and this should fix a few bugs. Some say it improves the Cover Flow technology and speeds up the menus a bit.

Logitech MX Air Mouse

Over the past few years, the PC has slowly but surely begun to emerge as a primary source of digital playback and home-based media entertainment for many users. This has led to the emergence of lifestyle-segment based peripherals, from manufacturers such as Logitech.

Not only are these products designed to look exceptionally good, but they also pack in some very advanced features. We had reviewed one such product (Logitech’s DiNovo Edge Keyboard) earlier this year and had come away impressed with both its styling and its good use of current-generation technologies.

In the same vein, Logitech recently introduced its 'MX Air Mouse' which can be used in a manner similar to operating a TV remote. Does the Air mouse live up to the standards set by DiNovo? Read on to find out.

Logitech has to be commended for the attention it pays to the styling of its products. The MX Air mouse is a stunning device. The top of the device is a beautiful polished black. In direct contrast, the bottom, edge, and underside are done up in a nice chrome-colored finish that one might see on a muscle car.

This subtle use of color and finish gives the mouse an elegant but somewhat retro look. It's oddly reminiscent of a famous TV series that involved a talking '84 model Trans-AM.

Ergonomically, however, the mouse is both successful and disastrous. In case you think I have lost my beans, allow me to explain. As you can see from the images, the mouse is oddly long and has a rather pointy shape. This causes an immediate problem for use as a desktop mouse.

The end of the mouse is a little too long and causes grip problems. I tried using it over a normal work day and was forced to change back to a normal desktop mouse. This was simply due to the fact that my hands had cramped up. While the mouse is a laser mouse and its response time is fine, its design will not make power users happy. Any kind of strenuous use will cause problems for people with medium-sized hands.

Another problem that the long shape causes is the rather absurd amount of wasted physical space. The mouse could easily have been smaller and still as functional. This is of course a rather YMMV situation. If your use does not exceed the normal web surfing, office document use and other sundry PC-related activities, the mouse is fine.

For its buttons the mouse uses an orange backlit electronic touchpad system that works quite well. It registers presses quite easily and caused no problems. Apart from the rather obvious left/right click buttons the mouse also sports a finger-based scroll pad, and four dedicated buttons (for volume, back/forward, selection, and play).

Wacom Releases Two New Tablets

Famed tablet maker Wacom has released two new products which it calls Bamboo and Bamboo fun. The first is targeted at digital photography fans; the latter is being positioned for normal home users. Both products come with four hotkeys for quick access to user-defined shortcuts, finger-sensitive Touch Ring and battery-free pen with programmable buttons.

The two tablets also come with a mouse , software packages such as as Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials, and Nik Color Efex Pro. They are available in black, silver, white and blue for $100 and $200 depending on size.

AMD to Introduce 3-Core Processors

In what can only be called a bizarre move, AMD has added a new range of 3-core processors to its upcoming Phenom line of multi-core processors. This new range will fit in the slot between the highly competitive dual-core market and the currently evolving quad-core market. The new range will feature three processing cores on a single die, and will be developed on the Barcelona architecture.

As Dailytech has reported here:

"The new triple-core processors will feature similar specifications as its upcoming Phenom X2 and X4 brethren. The Socket AM2+ processors feature 512KB of L2 cache for each core and a shared pool of L3 cache. Essentially, the Phenom triple-core processors are quad-core variants with one core disabled.”

The introduction of this new lineup could open up a new price war. AMD has been not doing so well against Intel in the dual-core market and is trailing in the quad-core market. Intel recently slashed its entry level quad-core prices to $266. If AMD can price itself right, it could introduce these processors for around $200 and give the Intel dual-cores a run for their money.

BenQ Launches FM Transmitter Phone

BenQ launched its EF71 mobile phone in the Indian market recently. It has a 2.2 inch TFT screen with 262K colors that provides a clear view even in sunlight. The EF71's FM receiver is paired with an exclusive built-in FM transmitter that helps you to broadcast the phone's MP3 music on your home or car stereo.

Talking on the launch of the new handset, Ish Bawa, Marcom Head, BenQ India, said, "There's a huge demand in the market for stylish and feature-rich phones. People want their mobile phones to do everything – play music, video clips, games; click pictures, record videos, support the latest mobile software and also look stunning. Therefore, the new BenQ EF71 fits the bill perfectly."

The compact EF71’s music player is loaded with features like multiple audio playback support (MP3/AAC/AAC+/WMA), 10-band equalizer and 3D-surround sound. You can perform all playback functions like play, skip, pause or stop without having to flip open the phone. You can view the relevant details about the song playing on the external OLED screen.

The phone even has a 2.0 megapixel camera. It records video at 30 frames per second and has a 3x digital zoom. It uses a USB port for PC connectivity and can also be used as a webcam.

The BenQ EF71 mobile phone is available in India and is priced at Rs 12,955.

Knight-Batten Awards for Journalism

Knight-Batten has announced its awards for innovations in journalism. This year the $10,000 Grand Prize winner is TechPresident.com, a data-rich, nonpartisan group blog that covers realtime, online activity of the 2008 presidential candidates and archives online content from voters who will elect them.

TechPresident.com invites everyday people to help break campaign news and tracks voter-generated videos on YouTube, candidate 'friends' on MySpace and Facebook, blog mentions on Technorati, voter demands for appearances on Eventful, and voter-generated photos on Flickr.

"The site not only reports but also encourages citizens to participate more directly in the political process," said the panel of judges. "It’s an amazing source of information from a non-traditional news outlet." The site is published by the Personal Democracy Forum.

The $2,000 First Prize was won by the Council on Foreign Relations (CRF.org). CFR.org’s 'Crisis Guides' present compelling, in-depth news about the world's crisis zones. "This is an institution stepping up and honouring the best of journalism. It’s filling an absolutely articulated need," the judges said.

"This year’s winners gave the judges another way to think about innovations in journalism," said Jan Schaffer, director of J-Lab, which administers the awards.

The $1,000 Wild Card Award was won by Reuters' Second Life Virtual News Bureau. This virtual news bureau in the online 3D world applies Reuters’ journalistic techniques to social networking, e-commerce and user-generated content for more than 7 million users. "It’s a place for the audience that newspapers don’t have to gather," the judges said.

The winners were selected from 133 entries submitted by print, television and online news organizations, and educational and non-profit institutions.

The Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism honour the late James K. Batten, former CEO of Knight Ridder newspapers and a pioneer in exploring ways journalism could better connect with audiences. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers.

Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression.

IBM to Offer Free Word Processing

IBM on Monday said it would start offering free word processing and other office software, joining a growing group of companies with free applications challenging a core Microsoft Corp product.

IBM said it would offer document, spreadsheet and presentation software in a group of tools called Lotus Symphony.

Microsoft's Office suite of products already faces some competition from Google Inc's online tools, called Google Apps.

iPhone to Launch in UK on November 9

Apple Inc.'s iPhone will go on sale in Britain on Nov. 9 have the O2 network as its exclusive carrier, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Tuesday.

The 8-gigabyte model will sell for $536 (269 pounds), Jobs said at a news conference in London.

"We can't wait to let people here get their hands on it and see if they love it as much as we do," Jobs said.

Apple cut the price of the 8-gigabyte iPhone in the U.S. from $599 to $399 and discontinued the $499 (360 euros) 4-gigabyte version. It apologized to those who had paid full price and offered $100 credits to early buyers.

Apple's announcement in London was bound to spur speculation about further launches in Europe, though Jobs declined comment.

"We're announcing the U.K. today. We've said we'll be in a few countries in Europe next quarter. As we roll those out, I'm sure you'll hear about it," he said.

For months, rumors have circulated that Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG has been in talks to carry the iPhone in Germany through its T-Mobile wireless unit, while Spain's Telefonica - the parent of O2 - and France's Orange have been touted as likely candidates to offer the device in Spain and France.

None of those companies has confirmed if they have even been in talks with Apple.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple announced last week that it had sold one million iPhones in the United States in 74 days after the combination cell phone-iPod went on sale there - and less than a week after its price was cut by a third.

Jobs said the iPhone was scoring higher on customer satisfaction than any previous Apple product, with more than 90 percent of buyers saying they were "very happy" and 85 percent saying they would enthusiastically recommend the phone to a friend.

He said Apple chose to team with O2 "because they were the best culture fit with Apple in the U.K."

Asked about media reports that some British phone companies felt Apple had played them against each other, Jobs said, "You want to go on a few dates before you get married."

"Yes, we dated a few people but we didn't get married," he said. "But we found one we wanted to get married to, and we did. So there's a few upset girlfriends out there."

Google Expands Online Software Suite

Google Inc. has expanded its online suite of office software to include a business presentation tool similar to Microsoft Corp.'s popular PowerPoint, adding the latest twist in a high-stakes rivalry.

The Mountain View-based company planned to unveil the presentation software late Monday, about five months after Chief Executive Eric Schmidt announced Google would add the application to its software arsenal.

The new program will be included in Google's free software bundle, called ''Docs,'' which users must be online to employ. And the company will sell a souped-up version to businesses, universities and government agencies for $50 a year per user.

As PowerPoint does, Google's presentation software enables users to create a series of slides with a mixture of text and graphics on each. PowerPoint is widely used in business meetings.

Google's software suite already included word processing, spreadsheet and calendar management programs. Microsoft has been reaping huge profits from similar applications for years.

Unlike Google's applications, Microsoft's programs are usually installed directly on the hard drives of computers.

Google executives have consistently depicted the company's software applications as counterparts to Microsoft's products.

Biometrics no Guarantee of Data Security

Police are not the only ones taking fingerprints these days. Starting November 1, fingerprint data will even be stored in the passports issued by many countries.

As fingerprints are unique, they have also drawn attention from manufacturers of equipment designed to limit access to computers. After all, pressing your fingertip against a reading device is simpler than learning and inputting a password.

But are fingerprint sensors really secure? The bad news is that practically every fingerprint system currently on the market can be circumvented. "There are many instructions on the internet about how to create fakes," says Christoph Busch from the Fraunhofer Institute for Graphics Data Processing in Darmstadt, Germany.

It's a "relatively simply exercise", he says, to successfully masquerade as another identity in front of the sensors. You just need to get your hands on a fingerprint taken from a glass, CD case, or disc. Together with a bit of technical know-how, an artificial mould can be created using superglue, a digital camera or scanner, image editing software, a negative form, silicon, latex, or wood glue as a base.

Consumers usually run across fingerprint systems in daily life as accessories on laptops, keyboards, or external USB devices. There are now a few cell phone models with this type of sensor too.

Verification occurs when the entire fingertip is laid on the sensor. But there are also systems where the user drags a fingertip across a strip. The first of these options is more intuitive to use but carries the risk that an impression of the fingerprint - known as a latent impression - will remain on the sensor after use.

For this reason, special systems that do not require the finger to be pressed on the sensor are often deployed in high security areas. The systems scan the grooves of the fingerprint either optically, electrically or using electromagnetic fields. As manufacturers of the sensors know that forgeries represent a genuine threat, they also integrate additional sensors for bio detection.

The fact remains, however, that a gossamer-thin dummy glued to the finger is enough to trick the bio-detection. Graphite applied on the dummy can imitate the skin's conductivity, for example. And breathing on the artificial fingertip can temporarily bring it up to body temperature and manufacture some of the body's natural moisture.

New tactics have been implemented to measure things like movements in the fingertip caused by the pulse, says Busch. Another approach does not examine the dead uppermost layer of skin, but rather uses an ultrasound to measure beneath it.

An important point is also to use a finger for the checks that otherwise is rarely used and hence leaves few valuable traces behind - such as a finger on the left hand for right-handers.

A Sneak Peek at Halo 3!

Microsoft unveiled its first party system seller Halo 3 to journalists and gamers alike at the Taj Land’s End Hotel in Mumbai yesterday. Our Delhi counterparts had already had a taste of the action last week.

People all over Mumbai had the chance to come in and try out the game’s single player campaign (the very first level) as well as the multiplayer component for themselves.

The cool part about this event was that it wasn’t for invitees only, so you had tons of ecstatic gamers rubbing shoulders with journalists, all vying to try the game out for themselves. Throw in some drinks to the whole equation and you have one hellova (geeky) partee!

While we can’t talk about the game because of a most aggravating NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) that we signed, I can confidently say that the game’s MP aspect was tons of fun and the game’s looking much better than it did in previous builds. Nikhil would also love to share his thoughts on the game’s single player campaign but like I said, we’re going to have to keep our mouths shut till September 24th.

As of now all we can say is that the game will be launching in India on the 25th of September itself and both the Standard (Rs. 1895) and the Limited (Rs. 2510) editions will be available in stores. Till then you can head over to 360indians.com for more on the game as well the party (pics included) and come back tomorrow which is when we kick off our Halo week here at Tech2.