Mobile phones have changed our lives in more than one way. It has given a new dimension to our lives, attempting to remove the “ennui” and “dread” from our deepest chambers of hearts. This idea came recently after I saw a production of Sartre’s No Exit. His mouthpiece famously retorts in the play “Hell is other people.” While travelling back from the theatre, I realised how much effort people were making to keep away from each other. I saw a young lady completely immersed in her book, even though she could not have made a word in the bumpy ride! And most others were busy sounding “busy” on their mobile phones.

As compatriots of Existential philosophy (including me) assert that we have been dropped in this meaning less world without any essence, and that the whole responsibility of finding essence rests on us. If you have you read/seen Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot you would remember how Gogo and Didi are engaged in munching a stale carrot because they have nothing else to do. Similarly, playing with the grown up’s toy- cell phone, give us some meaning to our lives. It is definitely a way to kill the ennui in our lives.

If you are feeling out of place in a surrounding, simply take out your cell and do something on it- play a game, watch your videos or read your mails. You will get the satisfaction of utilizing you time well. Well, I am not criticising or appreciating this trend, its only an observation made. In this world bereft of any meaning, fiddling on cell phones is one of the many ways in which we try to tackle our “existential dilemma”.

Tags: · Cell phone, dread, ennui, Existential philosophy, gadget, Mobile phones, No Exit, Samuel Beckett, Sartre, Waiting for Godot

It’s raining music for ears which are always wired into an iPod or a walkman phone! Yesterday, the much awaited Walkman Series of Sony Ericsson was announced. The series includes 3 mobile phones W902, W302 and W595. The phones can play wide variety of music files and come with other multimedia functions as well- camera, internet access and connectivity options. These will be on shelves in the last lag of this year. The company’s previous model (W800) is already a hit among music fans.

Here are the features of each phone one-by-one:

Sony Ericsson W302:-
• 2 Megapixel camera with 2.5x zoom.
• 3D games, Java and Video viewing.
• Bluetooth connectivity, USB support and Memory Stick Micro.
• 20MB of internal memory.
• Available in Midnight Black and Sparkling White.

SE W902 phone:-
• 5 Megapixel auto focus camera with up to 16x digital zoom.
• Includes cool stuff like Picture blogging, Video blogging, Video recording & Photo feeds.
• Shake control and SensMe features +nt.
• Allows access to Google Maps and enables Geo tagging of photos as well!
• Available in Volcanic Black, Wine Red and Earth Green.

SE W595 (slider style) phone:-
• 3.2 Megapixel camera.
• Bluetooth stereo.
• FM radio.
• Shake control and SensMe.
• 40MB of internal memory (supports for Memory Stick Micro also +nt.)
• Available in Active Blue, Lava Black, Cosmopolitan White & Jungle Grey

All the three models are too tempting but their price will be a defining factor as well (which is yet to be announced!).

Via: techshout

The Indian mobile gaming scenario just got better with the recent announcement by
Zotac International to bring forth its latest graphic cards on Indian soil. Based on Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 graphics architecture, the nouveau arrivals include-Zotac GeForce 9800 GTX+ and GeForce 9800 GTX+ AMP Edition.

Carsten Berger, marketing director, Zotac International said, “With the latest generation of ZOTAC GeForce 9-series graphics cards, the clock speed and performance of each individual processor core has become an important performance aspect”. It doesn’t come as a surprise then that, both the graphic cards can deliver you every 3D related task from gaming to HDV (high definition video) Playback! The Clock speed of Zotac GeForce 9800 GTX+ and ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ AMP Edition are 1836 MHz and 1890 MHz respectively. Oh Baby! That’s some ultra-fast clock speed for you.

Users can also pair the GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphic card (core738 MHz) with 512MB of super-fast 2200 MHz GDDR3 memory for some action-packed high-resolution gaming. GTX+ AMP Edition takes a step beyond this with a 750 MHz core and 2300 MHz memory clock speed.

Other Sexy Features are:
• HybridPower compatible and Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ architecture available
• Nvidia PhysX ready as also, Nvidia PhysX and Nvidia CUDA ready
• DirectX 10 with Shader Model 4.0 compatible
• PCI Express 2.0 interface (Compatible with 1.1)
• PureVideo HD technology
• Dual dual-link DVI – up to 2560×1600
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible
• High-definition hardware decoding acceleration and 3-way SLI ready
• XIII Century game bundle

Now, the most important detail which, I’m sure all your gaming fans and mobile freaks are waiting to know- THE PRICE ofcourse!
So grab Zotac 9800GTX+ for Rs. 14,300 and shell out Rs. 15,500 for Zotac 9800GTX+ AMP Edition and needless to mention, get the maximum out of your latest multimedia phone!

Source: techshout

Multitasking is the order of the day and burning bright on the Internet scene these days is “Cloud Computing”. Computing what? Well this is something we all do it these days without even being aware of it (however, the term will not surprise the techno-freaks.

Cloud computing is actually a computing paradigm wherein tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services accessed over a network. It is this network of servers and connections, which is collectively called “the cloud”. And when we work with our Internet files, or other softwares outside our company on some access point like an iPhone, BlackBerry or laptop we cloud compute. Through this cloud we can access a vast ocean of resources as and when we need to. Some technophiles thus love to call cloud computing by the name of “on-demand computing” as well. For corporate sector the term is not new because of the frequent use of Blackberry phones in higher echelons of business world.

The latest piece of news regarding it is that the company which gave iPhone 3G to the world is now providing cloud computing as well. Yes, I’m referring to Apple, which has now announced its new MobileMe service (in a typically clumsy manner). The service available at $100 per year is an overhaul of Mac’s Internet features. MobileMe is a panacea for your organizational headaches! It is aimed at simplifying your cluttered life by keeping emails, calendars, address books, Web bookmarks etc. on all your Windows PC’s and laptops, Macs, iPod Touches and iPhones- well synchronized in real time. The beauty of MobileMe service is that it stores the master copy of all this cornucopia of information in ‘the cloud’ so that whenever you edit an address on your iPhone, MobileMe will update your Address Book (on your Mac) and Outlook (on your PC)! This service can be a boon for those families which are always on a run and hard-pressed for time to remember all the contacts, update the details and the likes. Apple’s tag line for MobileMe is “Exchange for the rest of us” (although, the company needs to clarify this to a target audience which probably is unaware about the Exchange as a matter of fact!)

The service takes a while to get started, as there are many instructions and stuff to be downloaded before you reap the fruits of MobileMe. But once set you can see the real-time magic in front of your eyes, once you set up your email program to recognize your new MobileMe e-mail address. The latter ends with a cute me.com! So, once you are done with the set up just change an appointment in iCal on your kitchen Mac and your traveling spouse will get to know it within seconds on his/her iPhone! What’s more? If you made a change simultaneously on two machines, you get to choose one version from both of them. And this is not all, at Me.com, Apple has built attractive, ad-free, online versions of your calendar, e-mail program, photo-organizing programs and your address book. You can enjoy a good deal of flexibility while using MobileMe on web but you need the latest version of Apple’s Safari Web browser / Firefox as you cannot exploit the complete range of features with IE. Besides synchronizing your vast amounts of info. MobileMe service also retains most of the features of the old .Mac service. So, upload pictures and movies, download your photo files at full resolution for printing and greet your visitors with stunning slide shows. All of it for $100 and with just one service at your end! Not a bad deal I must say especially when I know that with this MobileMe I can always backup my sync personalized information in an iDisk (hard drive) and forget about data theft. I’m sure this attractive nouveau service from Apple will quickly catch up despite a shabby start.

Via NYTimes

American wireless service provider giant Verizon Wireless is all set to offer the LG Chocolate 3 phone, July 13th onwards. While there are a handful of models available in the Chocolate range, Verizon will offer the clamshell styled LG phone. The latter is a music destination in itself. This particular model will support Verizon Wireless’ V CAST Music with Rhapsody subscription music service. Music lovers just keep your ears dewaxed for this one comes with a long list of cool features!

To begin with the phone has an in-built FM transmitter, a dedicated music key, preset sound effect equalizer and a music player that supports a wide range of music files like .mp3, .wma, .aac and .aac+ files. Wonderful! My doubts about playing unprotected sound files on my phone get washed away with this LG Chocolate 3 phone. I’m sure music maniacs around the world are sure going to love it. The phone comes in blue & black colors.

Besides, for the normal chaps, there are other routine features:
· An expandable memory up to 8 GB with microSD card.
· Bluetooth connectivity, Mobile Email- access MSN Hotmail, America Online and Yahoo! Accounts for active emailing.
· VZ Navigator – allows you to get audio-visual directions to plethora of destinations, get maps, share directions, locate your points of interest like theatres/art workshops, business locales etc.
· 2.0 megapixel cameras with 2x zoom for the photographer in you. Image editor also present – now zoom, crop or rotate your pics as per your likings.
· A media center- stay connected to latest happenings around the world plus download games, ringtones and wallpapers. Also, mobile IM capabilities present.

God, the list seems to be a long one! But the best feature is that LG Chocolate 3 allows to have its location shared with family members; courtesy- the Chaperone Web site. And hey, the Chaperone Parent application or Child Zone SMS alerts are also pretty handy! J Now, my dear friends this hottie can be picked from the shelves by shelling out 129.99 (includes $50 mail-in rebate & a new two-year customer agreement).

Via TechShout

Catching on with Indian youth and Indian companies is the marketing strategy of Advergaming. For those who are new to this term, advergaming is also known as in game advertising in simple terms. However, according to eMarketer.com, advergaming can be defined as an immersive mixture of advertising and entertainment that takes the form of video games. These games being made available online and in one’s mobile phones by gaming companies now a days. In the western world, the beginnings of advergaming can be traced back to as early as 1980s when Atari 2600 games were developed by Kool-Aid and Pepsi. The 2 companies smartly featured their products in these games. In India, ofcourse the trend of advergaming has become popular only after the commencement of IT & telecomm. Revolution. Currently the scenario is hot for mobile phone’s market.

Advergaming in India is now getting established with advertisers considering it to be a powerful medium to improve marketing strategies like brand recalling and revenue generation aswell. This non-intrusive advertising and marketing mix also bears potent properties of effective market research and demographic assessment. One can see that Indian gaming companies are now looking into it. The CEO of Kreeda Games, Quentin Staes-Polet vouches for the freshness of advergaming as a new concept in Indian markets and he also feels that, this strategy is an apt one for youngsters who like to chuck TV & other traditional media for Internet and mobile gaming. Last year, Kreeda Games launched and online game Dance Mela that allows adverts as a part of the game structure. So that, the realistic appeal of this virtual world created within the game makes the user feel comfortable about the ads displayed rather than finding them irritatingly obtrusive. Dance Mela is one of a kind Bollywood-based massive multiplayer online game, which is freely available at www.dancemela.com. Those interested can also buy CD’s from retail stores. The popularity of such games is luring advertisers to specially design games for mobile phones aswell. A lot of mobile phones with gaming features already come with games that have well placed in- game ads like a branded energy drink for the hero/heroine of a game to revitalize the batteries of the avatar.

Others in the Indian mobile industry also feel positive for advergaming. Like, Salil Bhargava, CEO, Jump Games (part of Reliance Big Entertainment) who confirms that the biggest entertainer in India, Bollywood is also opening up to advergames now! Jump Games has devised a smart approach to turn mobile phones from a necessary gadget into an avenue for promotion of Hindi films. Their advergame Jurm was the first one in the country to usher the concept of promoting films via mobile games!

Needless to say that with the fast development of mobile marketing in India and the recent introduction of Oxicash (mobile wallet), the future seems bright for mobile games and advergaming.

Via BusinessStandard