Raven Squad Announced

For all those who can’t get enough of hybrid games, you’d be glad to know that developer Atomic Motion are planning a brand new RTS/FPS mish mash called Raven Squad for the PC and the Xbox360.

Raven Squad puts players in control of two groups of mercenary squads who crash land behind enemy lines in the Amazonian jungles. It will require tactical planning and a liberal amount of brute force to escape to safety. Each of the eight squad members possesses distinctive skills and weaponry that the player will have to use wisely to progress through the game's story-driven objectives. Raven Squad sets itself apart by allowing players to switch freely between real-time strategy and first-person shooter gameplay. Only by mastering both of these modes of play, and becoming adept at switching between the two, will players make it out of the jungle alive.

For more on the game, kindly head here.

Nokia E66 and E71 Launched

After we covered the news of E71 being available in the city, there's official word from Nokia about it. Nokia has also announced the availability of the E66. Both the phones will have support for the Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email solution as well as third party email solutions like System Seven and Visto Mobile. Both devices come with the new switch mode that allows people to switch easily between personal and work home screens.

The E71 will feature a 3.2MP, auto-focus camera, GPS with A-GPS support, Bluetooth with A2DP, Wi-Fi, 3G with HSDPA speeds, USB v2,0 support and a full QWERTY keypad

The E66 is a voice-centric slider that will enable its users with more than just Wi-fi and Bluetooth. Besides a 3.2MP auto focus camera, 2.5mm jack and IrDA, it will also offer plenty of office tools like QuickOffice, Zip Manager, PDF reader and Notes. It will also have in-built GPS.

While the E71 is available for Rs. 22,949 the price of the E66 is Rs. 23,689.

Samsung Launches New S60 Enabled Handset

Samsung has just introduced a new handset – the L870 that is an S60 embedded smartphone. It's made out of a stainless steel body with a hairline pattern and this slider phone is also just 13.5mm slim. Samsung and Series 60 OS seem to be doing quite well together with the platform complimenting Samsung's handset design.

"We are happy to compliment our product portfolio with yet another appealing S60 mobile, Samsung L870 that is fully customized with style, performance and user interface," says, Jongin Kim, the Vice President of Mobile Communication Division of Samsung Electronics. "With S60, we can successfully deliver the latest mobile technology with fully customizable applications and the intuitive user interfaces."

The L870 is equipped with a 2.4 inch QVGA TFT display with 16 million colors. Other features include an FM radio with RDS, a 3 megapixel camera that's capable of DVD quality video recording, document viewer and microSD external memory card support. It runs on a Symbian OS v9.3 (S60 3rd edition feature pack 2). The handset also supports Bluetooth v2.0, EDGE/GPRS and HSDPA speeds.

Samsung L870 will first be launched in Europe around August and will then be out in all regions where GSM is available. There doesn’t seem to be any pricing attached to the handset yet so stay tuned.

Samsung Launches U900, Slew of New Phones

Samsung Telecommunications India (STI) has announced the launch of its Flagship model - SGH-U900 - in the country along with eight new mobiles and lifestyle mobile accessories.

The U900 features Magic Touch by DaCP, that changes the navigation indicators on the keypad according to the user's needs, making navigation of the menus simple, intuitive and direct. The navigation panel's icons change according to function. For example, when in music mode, music related icons will light up on the navigation indicators. When in camera mode, camera related icons such as zoom and brightness icons will appear.

At 12.9mm thin, it is equipped with a 5 megapixel camera with features such as face detection, image stabilizer and Wide Dynamic Range (WDR). Users can enjoy Internet access through the 7.2 Mbps High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) browser and share images or video taken with the phone.

The U900 is priced at Rs. 20,585.

Sunil Dutt , Country Head, Samsung Telecommunications India , "We believe that is the answer for today's style-conscious consumers, looking for a perfect blend of outstanding quality , design and performance. We are confident that the will enhance the Samsung consumer experience in the premium phone category."

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3 Affordable Full-HD LCD Monitors

Prices of LCD monitors have been steadily crashing. Sizes such as 20" and 22" are rapidly approaching mass-market status and this has resulted in full-HD monitors (24" and above) becoming affordable. These 24" inch monitors are not only full-HD compliant but also offer significantly more working area. Another market that such monitors have found surprising success in is next-gen consoles. Full-HD monitors come at a fraction of the price of a comparable TV that would normally be required to enjoy these consoles' native resolution.

Keeping in mind that Blu-ray has now effectively won the HD war and that prices for these drives are already dropping below the 10K mark, we decided to shop around for three 24-inch monitors that can be had for a relatively low price. Here's what we found:
AOC 416V

The brand name AOC may not ring any bells for most readers, since the company is virtually unknown in our part of the world. However, in Europe and many parts of Asia, the company has decent brand recognition since it's been in the PC business for a while.

AOC's monitor range has been available in India for some time though. The 416V is the flagship 24" model, with a native resolution of 1920x1200 p, 5ms response time (gray to gray), a dynamic contrast ratio of 3000:1, and 160/160 horizontal/vertical viewing angles. Though it lacks HDMI, it does have full support for HDCP via its DVI connectors and also has a D-Sub connector.

It is available for roughly Rs 23,000 (prices vary as per regional availability, so it could be anywhere between Rs 19,500 and Rs 24,200). For a detailed specification chart, please check this link.

BenQ G2400W

BenQ is not one a newcomer to this space; its previous model (the FP241W) was one of the best in its generation with a wide variety of connectors, including HDMI/DVI/D-Sub. It recently introduced the G2400W, which differs from other monitors in this range as it is the only one that offers an HDMI connector.

As expected, the G2400W comes with a native resolution of 1920x1200, 5ms response time (gray to gray), a contrast ratio of 1000:1, and 160/160 horizontal/vertical viewing angles. It offers HDMI with full support for HDCP. It has a single DVI connector on board, and also a D-Sub connector.

The G2400W is available for Rs 24,000 + taxes. Detailed specifications can be found here.

Dell E248WFP

Widely regarded as the leader in this space, Dell continues to offer excellent VFM monitors that have established a sterling reputation for display quality and finish. The E248WFP is Dell's entry-level monitor and has a native resolution of 1920x1200, 5ms response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 160/160 viewing angles, DVI-D with HDCP support, and a D-Sub connector.

Prices start at Rs 19,100, and factoring in taxes will peg it at around Rs 23,000. This is open to a bit of bargaining, but remember that Dell only takes orders through its website and over the phone. Some discreet negotiation while placing your order just might get you significant savings of around Rs 3000.

Head here for further details.

Assassin's Creed

With the enormous success Assassin's Creed enjoyed on the Xbox360 and PS3 last year, it’s only logical that the game would make its way to the PC soon. Well, it’s finally here, but the question on everyone’s mind is: has Ubisoft developed a well-made port, or is it just another poor transition that one could live without? To be quite honest – after spending hours at stretch with the game, it seems like Ubisoft wants PC gamers to bend over so that they can shove another one of their half-assed ports where the sun don’t shine.

[Before going any further, let me point out that we won’t be reviewing the game all over again. We’ve already reviewed the Xbox360 version, and since the gameplay or storyline hasn’t really changed, we won’t be covering those parts again

I’m not saying that the game plays out terribly on the PC; it just isn’t nearly as good as it was on consoles. In fact, the DirectX9 version of the game looks so terrible that you’d gouge your eyes out and eat them up. This is totally unacceptable, considering that the minimum requirements of the game are REALLY steep, and the fact that the game ran using DX9 on the Xbox360/PS3 and looked a lot better there. Although the DirectX10 version looks much better than DX9, it still falls glaringly short of the game’s glory on its console counterpart.


Although the game supports all widely used 16:10 resolutions (most widescreen monitors use that aspect ratio) the game has black bands on the top and bottom of the screen when played in these resolutions. This means the game’s actually rendered in the 16:9 aspect ratio, and the black bands fill in the empty spaces. Ubisoft’s way of spitting the face of PC gamers who use widescreen monitors!

Fortunately the control scheme isn’t all that bad. On the Xbox360/PS3 the controls come quite naturally to you once you get the hang of the game; but while it’s a little more complicated with a mouse + keyboard (since the keys are kind of spread out), it isn’t too hard to get used to it. I tried playing the game via an Xbox360 controller after that, but I decided that it's easier to play using the previous control scheme, and reverted to it. My colleague Avinash, on the other hand, preferred the Xbox360 controller, so I guess it’s just a matter of preference. The bottomline is that although it isn’t as intuitive as the Xbox360/PS3, the control scheme isn’t too bad on the PC.

What I’m saying here is that, if you have the kind of system requirements (which includes a 2.8 GHz dual-core processor) needed to play it, this isn’t such a bad game to buy. Bear in mind that the substandard visuals in the DX9 version suck; the game's only playable in DX10. So if you don't have Windows Vista (which is needed for DX10), don't bother with this game.

If you own an Xbox360 or PS3 and can get your hands on the console version of the game at retail price, you’d rather do that since the game’s a whole lot better there. Unfortunately, the game's not available for those platforms in India, so even if you get your hands on them they'd be priced exorbitantly. This makes the Rs 999 price tag of the PC version a lot more appealing.

Orkut launches its Mobile Version and Low Bandwidth Site

Orkut has silently released a low bandwidth version of their site for users with dialup or GPRS.

If you have a slow internet connection or a Pay-Per-MB internet plan you should definitely use the lo-fi version of Orkut. To this this:
Navigate to General Settings
Choose “show the low bandwidth version of orkut” option button.
Hit Save Changes.
Enjoy a faster and low data usage Orkut!

Selecting this option switches your account to a low bandwidth version where images in scrapbook, profile pages and the user’s orkut homepage are disabled.

Orkut also has a mobile version of its site for people who have GPRS enabled on their handsets. The mobile version can be found at m.orkut.com - this mobile version lets you read scraps, receive recent updates from friends and you can also approve or decline new friend requests.

Happy Orkutting!

Wyclef Jean Launches ROKR U9 in India

Motorola has launched the MOTOROKR U9 in India. The ROKR U9 was unveiled by Motorola's brand ambassador and international rocker and musician Wyclef Jean who presented the first ROKR U9 to Miss India World 2008 Parvathy Omanakuttan.

The ROKR U9, part of Motorola's music range of handsets is the upgrade to the PEBL and comes equipped with Motorola's CrystalTalk Technology, Bluetooth with an A2DP profile, an external touch semi-sensitive display (only for controlling audio) and a 2 megapixel camera. What makes this phone stand out from being just another Motorola handset is the external display that gives users the feeling that it's floating just under the surface of the handset. It supports animated screensavers as well.

The U9 comes with Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 and supports Windows WMAv10 plus Janus DRM, MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC+ enhanced file formats. For PC connectivity it supports USB 2.0. It has 25MB internal memory and supports external memory via microSD cards (up to 4GB). Motorola Setup, Backup and Text allow easy setup of the device for Internet browsing, phonebook and text message backup over the air on to secure servers as a free service to users.

The price of the ROKR U9 has not yet been revealed so stay tuned.

Google Fights Porn With Copyright-ID Tech

The fight against child pornography is getting an assist from technology designed by Google Inc. to help identify copyright-protected clips on its YouTube video-sharing site.

Four Google employees used their "20 percent time" - during which the company encourages them to pursue unofficial, out-of-the-box projects - to customize the copyright software for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's program for identifying children in sexually explicit photos and video.

Software already has been used to match known images, but when new ones are submitted by law enforcement and service providers, analysts generally make identifications manually, often based on recollections. The center has recently employed facial-recognition technology to make those IDs easier, but with limited success.

With the new Google tools, analysts can also seek matches based on other attributes, such as the color and shape of a couch or the wallpaper pattern in the background of a photo.

Ernie Allen, the center's president, appreciates the new tool.

The center used to be "dependent on the memory of the analyst who was already overwhelmed by the sheer number of content we were receiving," he said, adding that its 11 analysts processed 5 million child-pornography images last year.

Allen said the center's work helps prosecutors build evidence and police locate children who have been forced to engage in sexual acts.

Google's contribution grew out of an existing partnership between the center and leading technology companies, including Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and Microsoft Corp.

"The keys here were organization, scalability and search," Google research scientist Shumeet Baluja wrote about the project on a company blog. "In particular, the tools we provided will aid in organizing and indexing NCMEC's information so that analysts can both deal with new images and videos more efficiently and also reference historical material more effectively."

LG Creates Limited Edition Iron Man Phone

Iron Man is the next Superhero movie getting ready to hit the big screen on May 2 but where would his alter ego, Tony Stark be without his trusty cell phone? Like any big shot business man it's a necessity and why can’t Iron Man have a separate phone too I ask? LG decided to do just that by partnering with Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures designing a limited edition LG Shine handset for the jet boot propelled Superhero's movie.



This handset is set in 18 karat gold plating and red and only a 100 pieces have been made. The problem is though, is that the phone is available only via entering a marketing contest. The specs include a 2.2 inch TFT display, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth with A2DP, EDGE and microSD card support. Hardly something a Tony Stark or Iron Man would use, personally speaking of course.

The estimated price of the handset is somewhere around Rs. 72,000 ($1,800). Check out the cool contest page here. Unfortunately it seems to be only for people residing in the USA.

burrp.com Launches Online TV Guide

burrp.com has launched burrp!TV, an online television guide that offers a comprehensive view of what is playing across TV channels in India. burrp!TV will be an extension to the portal's existing offering that currently comprises of local lifestyle listings.

burrp!TV will have features like Search, Time Travel, SMS Alerts, Movie Explorer and will be WAP enabled.

Search is the ability to search television listings for show names, character names, channel or genre, while Time Travel will allow users to view channel schedules 14 days ahead of time. Users can set SMS reminders before a show is about to commence with SMS Alerts and can use the Movie Explorer browser for movies playing across all television channels. Users will also be able to access burrp!TV on their mobile phones through GPRS.

Deap Ubhi, co-founder and CEO, burrp.com said, "Television is an exploding medium in India but surprisingly there are not enough structured offerings in this space. As the Indian audiences grow wider and more diverse, the TV space will respond with more expansive content, creating a greater need to structure information and filter out the noise. That's where burrp!TV comes in the picture, continually helping users to make informed decisions."

The company has roped in media networks such as Star, Sony, Zee and Discovery as well as other independent channels such as Zoom to support the platform with schedules and content.

Currently the portal displays schedules of 14 television channels. The company is in talks with all major national as well as regional channels and aims to tie-up all major Indian television channels by this year.

Verizon XV6900 Smartphone Available Online in the US

Verizon Wireless has released its newest smartphone called XV6900, online. Based on Windows Mobile 6, the handset offers a QWERTY keyboard, 2 megapixel camera and Bluetooth 2.0 to mobile business professionals.

The XV6900 smartphone has been developed to provide access to Microsoft’s Office application suite, Microsoft Outlook Mobile and Microsoft Exchange Server support as well as instant messaging, Web and email capabilities.

It bundles a five way enter/navigation button, built-in speakerphone, 256MB of user memory, a 2.8-inch touchscreen with 320×240 pixel, Windows Media Player 10 support for up to 8GB of microSD card and Verizon’s EV-DO wireless broadband network.

Ridge Racer 7

Army of Two

A year and a half ago, while EA was busy promoting Army of Two, Alain Tascan, General Manager for EA Montreal, had said that he wasn’t too impressed with Gears of War since it wasn’t innovative enough, nor did it bring anything new to the table. Now when you make such a powerful statement you better make sure your game delivers or you’re going to end up looking extremely foolish.

Looking back at that news article I can’t help but feel bad in a way for Alain (who I’m sure is hiding under a rock right now) since Army of Two is nowhere as awesome as Gears of War; in fact it’s as generic as it gets. To make matters worse, it’s shipped with virtually half the features that were announced during earlier previews. Enter one mediocre shooter.

Besides the whole co-op element, the only other "trick" this game has going for itself is the concept of AGGRO. For the uninitiated, AGGRO basically boils down to either you or your teammate firing at the enemy to draw their attention so that the other person can flank them and kill them. Now this works well while playing with a human partner but things can get pretty disastrous in the single player campaign. It’s not that controlling your partner is an elaborate process or anything; in fact, guiding him around the place is a very simple process; you can order him to follow you (passively or aggressively) or stay put to cover you (once again passively or aggressively) while you flank the enemy.

The reason this simple process becomes such a chore is because the game’s PAI (Partner Artificial Intelligence) suffers from extreme mental retardation. As and when you do require him to draw AGGRO, he finds it funny to just sit there and stare at the wall while mocking you with dialogues like "I got your back soldier"… when he clearly doesn’t. As expected you end up drawing all the AGGRO and he just sits put not even bothering to flank them. And then there are times when your partner will actually expose himself and attract thousands of bullets… even after you’ve ordered him to stay put. Hurray for stupidity!

As and when your partner starts taking a whole lot of damage he’ll get pretty vocal about the whole deal and if you still ignore his pleas he’ll go down like a sack of potatoes. Now it’s up to you drag him to safety and revive him by keeping the A button pressed for a couple of seconds (its Game Over if he dies). When it’s your time to get revived he manages to get the job done but there were times when he actually dragged me from cover into the line of fire only to get us both killed in a matter of seconds.


Once you get past the toolish AI, the game can actually get a bit enjoyable in bits and pieces since it does have the makings of a solid shooter. As in most action games today, it also boasts of a cover system that may not be as awesome as the one from Gears or Vegas but it’s a whole lot better than the one from Kane and Lynch (that one still gives me nightmares). Run up to a solid surface and you can manually stick behind it after which you can either pop out to shoot people or blind-fire as in the above mentioned titles. Running from cover to cover has also been simplified using a sliding mechanic, (just like in GRAW) and it works well. The same button designated for sliding also helps your character roll and climb over obstacles but for some reason there’s no sprinting in this game.

Besides all the running you’ll also indulge in a whole lot of gunning and in Army of Two you have a wide arsenal of weapons that allows you to do just that. Initially you’ll only have access to stock weapons, but the more money you make, the better you can customize them – by increasing the size of the barrel/cartridge, attaching silencers, grenade launchers, shotguns and shields, or just pimping them out with severe amounts of bling; it’s all possible in this game. As and when you do get bored of your weapon you can exchange it with your partner, but for some absurd reason you cannot pick up the weapons dead foes leave behind... WTF?

Once you’re done playing the single player campaign by yourself, you can head over to Xbox Live to play that very same campaign with a friend (although I seriously suggest you do so in the first place). Props to EA for making the co-op component absolutely lag-free even while playing with people from different countries (and I mean PAL countries only, since this game’s MP is region-locked). Besides co-op you have a bunch of mediocre PvP (player vs player) modes like Versus, Warzone, Extraction and Bounties that are nothing to shout about and you’ll find yourself heading back to CoD 4/TF2 ASAP.

Visually the game’s not bad-looking – but it’s nothing to drool over either. Certain levels (e.g. Miami) look pretty awesome while others like Somalia and Afghanistan are as generic as they come. One thing I do appreciate is the fact that frame rates are rock solid throughout the game, and both the lead characters (Rios and Salem) are extremely well-detailed.

As far as voice acting goes you have two "frat bros" constantly dropping the F bomb every few minutes while indulging in tons of juvenile jokes. While some of their banter was a bit funny, some was just plain annoying and seemed solely geared towards pleasing testosterone-charged fifteen-year-olds. But then again, this game is supposed to be a brainless shooter so it's no use expecting BioShock-esque writing in the first place, eh?

At the end of the day Army of Two is a game with tons of wasted potential. What irritates me further is that even though EA delayed this title significantly, it’s shipped with tons of problems, broken AI, and only half of the stuff we were promised initially, as a result of which it dives head-first into mediocrity. It could have rewritten the whole co-op tactical shooter genre as we know it but EA decided to rush out a dumbed-down shooter that’s painful to play alone thanks to stupid AI. Play it with a friend offline or online and you’ll enjoy the single player campaign to an extent. But after that’s over, there’s absolutely no reason to revisit the game!

LG Reveals KF300 Slim Fashion Phone

Fashion phones seem to be the in thing these days. 'If it ain't flashy it's trashy' – seems to be the sort of thing making waves in the mobile phone circuit these days. With Samsung's G600 Belle that recently debuted, LG has one to show off as well, their new KF300.

The KF300, to be brutally honest, while it looks slim and sleek does give off a bit of a girls-only type vibe. And that’s not a bad thing ladies. It’s a flip phone with a 2.2-inch QVGA display on the inside and a 1.3-inch TFT screen on the outside. The external screen has a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and the inside has a 240 x 320 pixel resolution with 256K colors. It’s quite the feature rich phone with a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus to boot, Bluetooth, microSD card support, an FM radio as well as a media player. The KF300 will also support EDGE / GPRS. From the images you’ll also see that there are also a few shortcut keys located right under the screen. It also has a five way nav-pad and rather large keys which is surely a good thing.

The LG KF300 will be available in black and pink. Unfortunately there seems to be no price tag associated with the handset yet. Stay Tuned.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Announced

Remember 50 Cent: Bulletproof? Remember how much that game sucked? Yeah well apparently it sold really well so Vivendi Universal are back with a sequel called 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

By Blood on the Sand they don’t mean the sand of a beach resort cos that would be way too mellow for Fiddy and his band of badass thugs AKA Gggggg G unit. This time around these player haters actually find themselves stuck in a war torn unnamed Middle Eastern country after one of their concerts gets fudged. As expected tons of F Bombs, rapping, bling and terrorist killing ensue.

The game is being developed by Swordfish Studios (Cold Winter) using the Unreal 3 engine and will include a bullet time mechanic called Gangster Fire that as the name suggests will allow Fiddy to blast fools in glorious slow motion. Also expect a cover system a la Gears of War and context sensitive games a la God of War. More details to be revealed soon.

AMD Ships Tri-Core Processors

AMD has announced the availability of its triple-core processors, a first for the PC market. The company also updated the quad-core Phenom lineup by resolving the famous "errata bug" that plagued it earlier this year and has confirmed that the quad-core Opteron chips for servers will be available later in the second quarter.

The AMD Phenom X3 processors delivers significant enhancements in gaming and high-definition experiences for mainstream PC customers. It provides a full HD experience with support for the latest and most demanding formats, including VC-1, MPEG-2 and H.264 on a mainstream PC. With the AMD Unified Video Decoder (UVD), the solution can process HD playback on the better-suited GPU rather than the CPU so consumers may enjoy a smooth HD viewing experience - less lag, stalling and dropped scenes - in the latest Blu-ray titles.

"In 2007, AMD committed to delivering AMD Phenom triple-core processors in Q1 2008 and today the company makes good on that promise," said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president, strategic marketing, AMD. "AMD understands that today's PC applications are best accelerated with a range of multi-core products from quad- to triple- to dual-core processors, and that’s why we now deliver the broadest multi-core desktop lineup in the industry."

Dell Unveils Sub-$1000 Blu-ray Laptop

Dell is offering a Blu-ray laptop, the Inspiron 1525, for under $1000.

Available from today on dell.com, movie buffs can pick up the laptop with optional Blu-ray disc playback starting at $879.

The Inspiron 1525 laptop features a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display with 720p resolution. It also includes an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays and HDTVs.

The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. Consumers can also choose a Blu-ray burner drive for backing up and storing important files like digital photos, videos, financial records, etc. A Blu-ray disc can hold up to 50 GB of data, vs. 8.5 GB available on the typical DVD disc.

The Inspiron 1525 offers designs like Chill, Blossom and Commotion, in colors like Sunshine Yellow, Midnight Blue and Ruby Red.

Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops with Blu-ray disc drives incorporate Broadcom Media PC technology that allows PCs with integrated graphics to play high definition video. The high-definition video playback is enabled through a built-in dedicated accelerator located in a mini-card slot.

The Inspiron 1525 features Dell MediaDirect technology, which provides one button instant access to media files, even if the system is powered off or in hibernation mode. Optional accessories include a slim travel power adapter ($80), Dell travel remote control that slips into the ExpressCard slot ($22), and Creative noise-isolation earphones ($25).

As of now the Inspiron 1525 laptop with Blu-ray is in the U.S., Canada and Europe, but let's hope with the tie-up with Croma we get to see this laptop here pretty soon.

Mobile Voip on Nokia Wi-fi Mobiles LaunchedMobile Voip on Nokia Wi-fi Mobiles Launched

Tpad has announced the availability of a free SMS text service that will automatically setup a WiFi enabled mass-market mobile phone that will bring free or ultra low cost mobile VoIP calls to millions.

The SMS text service is currently configured for Nokia's latest E and N series phones and will be updated when mobile phone producers such as Samsung and Motorola release their brand new WiFi phones later this year.

Mobile calls between Tpad users are free worldwide if the calls are routed over their WiFi Connection. All other PSTN calls from the user's WiFi mobile to any other landline or mobile in the world will be charged at the usual low Tpad VoIP rates.

This SMS text service has been designed to remove the need for complicated set up procedures. Customers need to create a mobile account that is free of cost and they will then automatically receive a free SMS text that will configure their phone's SIP settings with Tpad.

Tpad integrates seamlessly with the phone using the existing address book, so there's no need to retype your contacts. Once set up to use a WiFi hotspot, the mobile connects automatically next time the phone is in range.

No special software is needed, as it uses the inbuilt software that Nokia already has pre-installed. This ensures that there will be full compatibility with trouble free usage.

Chris Morris, Tpad's General Manager, said, "Tpad is at the forefront of the natural evolution of VoIP. First people began talking via a PC and headset, then they were tied to a fixed line IP device and now the next exciting step is Tpad mobile VoIP. Free calling has finally arrived on mass market mobiles. We are giving all new users who sign up for a free Tpad mobile account a free test call to the value of $0.50 for a limited period. This will give users the chance to experience the call quality of next generation mobile VoIP."

"For example, with this free credit you can make a 10 minute call to any mobile in Pakistan using our ultra low VoIP call rates. Of course calls between Tpad users are 100% free all the time.

If you combine this with our policy of no connection fees and per second billing we are at the forefront of the new wave of mobile VoIP companies".

Macbook Air Hacked in Under 2 Minutes

One of the things that Apple has always prided itself over and promoted in no uncertain terms, has been the so-called 'robust security' offered by its OSX operating system. However this supposition of Apple's took a huge beating on Thursday when a team of researchers from Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) managed to hack a MacBook Air in just two minutes using a previously unknown security vulnerability in Apple’s own safari browser.

The people who did the 'hack' were ISE security researchers - Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel – who were participating in the "PWN to OWN" competition at the CanSecWest security conference, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In this competition there were 3 laptops, with different OS’s offered for being hacked into. These included an Apple Macbook Air running OS X 10.5.2, a Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10 and a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1. Anyone who could successfully hack or exploit these machines would win a $10,000 price from famous security company Tipping Point.

The first to go was of course the Macbook, followed by Windows Vista. Ubuntu stood strong despite repeated attempts.

For further details on this hack, check out this post here on Tipping Point.

Nvidia Responsible for 29% of Vista Crashes

In a recent revelation that should come to no surprise to anyone, Microsoft has released documents that show drivers for Nvidia PC graphics cards were the cause of roughly 29% of logged crashes in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.

This story which was reported by Ars Technica, goes on to say that Nvidia drivers caused 479,000 crashes out of a total of 1,663,748 logged by Microsoft in 2007. This was closely followed by Microsoft's own drivers followed at 18% while ATI clocked in at fourth with 9.3%, and Intel was at fifth with 8.8%.
This information came to light, when 158 pages of internal emails was made public as part of a lawsuit that is currently under-way against Microsoft. The suit contends that Microsoft was partially responsible for the rise of prices of computer hardware during the important Christmas/New year buying season of 2006.

Given the fact that Nvidia is today’s easily the world’s largest manufacturer of discrete external graphical display solutions, their figure of 29 percent should come as no surprise. I personally was a victim of this as an Nvidia user.

Crysis

3 Great Laptops Under Rs 40,000

Laptops today are universally becoming the first choice for anyone looking to upgrade. Rapidly falling prices, increased performance levels, and almost complete packages of multimedia and smooth multitasking are some of the reasons for this. Keeping these factors in mind, we decided to look around and shortlist three models that we think represent great VFM within the very price-sensitive market segment of under Rs 40,000. Here are our choices.

Compaq Presario C740TU
HP has to be commended for maintaining a clear differentiation in its product range. While the HP brand of laptops caters to the value and performance markets, the Compaq brand has been used to address the needs of the budget and ultra-value markets.

The Compaq Presario C740TU that we have chosen is currently one of the best VFM models available. It offers an Intel C2D T5450 processor which is clocked at 1.67 GHz, 512 MB RAM (upgradeable to 1 GB for an additional cost of Rs 1,450), a 15.4 inch LCD panel, 160 GB of HDD space and 3 USB slots. Its current street price is around Rs 34,000.

Though most users will today balk at the sparse amount of RAM being offered, please note that the laptop can be easily upgraded, inexpensively. The OS offered is Windows Visa Basic. A 1-year warranty is offered through Compaq's service centers.

Watch out for a review of this laptop, which will come up pretty soon. In the meantime you can check out a detailed specification list here.

Acer Aspire 2920N



It should come as no surprise to anyone that Acer has appeared on this lineup. Acer's last few releases have been driving this segment very hard, with products like its 4520 model, which did exceedingly well and was well appreciated.

This time around too the company had some of the best options available in this price bracket. One of these models is the Acer 2920N. It is perhaps one of the cheapest 12.1 inch laptops available now. It offers an Intel C2D T5450 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB storage and 3 USB slots. These are healthy specifications, and a price tag of just Rs 37,000 makes it a great portable choice for anyone who is looking for crunching power and portability .
Acer Aspire 5920N


It's Acer once again, this time with the 5920N. This is a 15.4-inch job with features similar to the 2920. It has the same specifications (Intel C2D T5450 processor, and 160GB of storage) but improves on the 2920 by offering 4 USB slots, a 4-in-1 Dolby Digital capable surround system, a DVD-RW writer, Firewire, and Bluetooth support.

Sanyo Xacti CG65

Holding a Sanyo Xacti CG65 is a pleasant experience that comes from a pistol-grip form factor; unique but functional. When everything is shrinking in size, Sanyo has made it a point to make the Xacti series a no-bull business, getting rid of hard drives or miniDVs to store information. And if you thought the trade-off meant reduction in quality, think again. But let me show you!

The digicam is light and compact enough to be easily shoved in your pocket with only a small bulge. The screen swivels and can be drawn out at various angles to keep you from straining your hands unnecessarily. It’s a 2.5-inch LCD display with 110,000 pixels. All the important buttons are placed within easy reach of your thumb.

The on/off button is hidden underneath the screen when shut, while the battery compartment at the bottom houses the memory card as well. That’s pretty much all that went into designing this baby, so let’s now look at its features.



Features
Offering a 6MP image sensor with 5x optical zoom, the CG65 features the all new high-precision large-scale integration engine III. All this is fine, but what you should know is that the digicam uses SD or SHDC cards to store information, allowing it to shed some weight. It uses the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format to save videos, while the sound is compressed in 16-bit AAC format.

Obviously, you can also shoot still images. It has a 6MP CCD (1/2.5-inch) sensor. However, the camera uses a pixel-interpolation filter to convert images from 6MP to a recorded equivalent of 10MP. Yet, saturation in pictures weren’t that evident. Of course, you would pick this one up for video recording, so it hardly matters.

Video recording is fun, especially because of its form factor. This makes it very easy to carry around; I had it in my pocket at all times. You may also find comfort in the fact that shooting with the CG65 means less strain on your wrist.


The quality of the video is decent; not extraordinary, but not bad at all. The videos I shot had a lot of mosaic compression, but the colors were good (mind you, I didn’t say vibrant). The camera can shoot at a maximum resolution of 640x480 pixels. The lens takes some time to focus; only a fraction of a second, but it's noticeable.

Performance

Shooting in the night translates into grainy videos, especially in night mode. But then the camera has a lamp mode. In this mode, I think the camera drops the frame rate to get long exposure, making everything around you more exposed. Yet I wouldn’t recommend night shooting unless you have adequate lighting.

The camera won't disappoint you in ample light. So if you are going to shoot birthday parties and suchlike, then you will love the sharpness – but only in good lighting conditions. What I don’t like is that where there details it can’t capture, the camera will end up smoothening it.

The camera is fast – startup takes about a second, and shooting starts instantly. The camera uses one rechargeable Lithium battery that for some reason isn’t power hungry. I shot comfortably for more than two hours, and the battery still didn't die on me. About 3 minutes of video will consume roughly about 71MB, so with a 2GB card you should be able to get about 43 minutes.

The device costs Rs 23,990, which I think is the right price considering the form factor and its features. You could consider this, now that you know what it can do – and if fits the bill.