Soft Digets - Software Reviews: June 2011

Monday, June 27, 2011

A better Xbox Live to help Microsoft Windows Phone 7

By Kevin C. Tofel Jun. 24, 2011, 11:45am PT 4 Comments

With the third major mobile platform up for grabs, Microsoft continues to improve its Windows Phone 7 platform, which has seen a lukewarm response so far against Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android systems. Microsoft is betting on something it has and rivals don’t however: a thriving Xbox Live game community that boasts 35 million members who average 60 hours per month each on the service. In the upcoming Mango software update, Microsoft is expanding and improving the Xbox Live gaming integration in an effort to attract more consumers to its mobile handset platform.

Once Mango arrives on Windows Phone 7 handsets later this year, the Games hub will bring to mobiles more of the richness found on the Xbox Live console:

Get gaming faster. Instead of having to memorize or sort though a list of large game icons, the new collection of games is alphabetized and uses smaller icons. The game tiles appear on the left with titles on the right, which is consistent with the Applications list on the phone. Once 20 games are installed on the phone, Mango will create a new sub-list of the three most recent games that users play often.

Interactive avatars for all. One of the most fun optional features on Xbox Live for Windows Phone 7 becomes a default function with Mango. Current handsets running Microsoft’s software show a static 2-D version of a user’s personalized avatar. Installing the free Xbox Live Extras app from Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace adds an interactive avatar. Tapping your digital persona makes the avatar jump around, gesture or dance around, for example. This feature becomes standard in Mango, with no additional download needed.

Kevin's avatar

Unified communications. Mango will enable more communications between Xbox Live members regardless if they’re on an Xbox console, the web or a Windows Phone 7 handset. Windows Live messages can be replied to on the handset, complete with emoticon support. And those emoticons will interact with your avatar: Enter a smiley face, and the avatar will reflect a happy emotion.

Find your friends. After the Mango update, Windows Phone 7 owners can see if their Xbox Live friends are online in the network. Friend requests can be managed directly from the phone as well.

Who’s the better gamer? My favorite feature on the Xbox Live console is comparing my gamer score and game-specific achievements against my friend’s scores. Being an amateur gamer, I don’t often have the higher score, but when I do, it’s a small celebration. This comparison comes to the handset in Mango and also shows the recent games friends have played.

Alone, none of these new game-centric features will help make or break the Windows Phone 7 platform. Together, however, they bring a console-like experience to the handset, which is something no other mobile platform yet brings. Sony Ericsson is trying it with the Xperia Play Android handset and support for PlayStation Portable games, but that’s just one phone, not a phone platform. Apple, too, is trying to win gamers with its Game Center functionality , but it lacks the console side of the equation for now. That could eventually change with iPad mirroring to HDTVs, offering a two-screen gaming experience.

Microsoft has plenty of other gaps to address in Windows Phone 7, and Mango will hit some of them. While the upcoming improvements to Xbox Live features may be underrated in Mango as a whole, Microsoft knows that it has a massive user-base outside of mobiles that it can leverage for its smartphone platform, and it’s wise not to forget that key differentiator.

The storage vs bandwidth debate

By Om Malik Jun. 24, 2011, 1:00pm PT 9 Comments

Cloud computing, if anything, depends on the idea that we will have ample and cheap bandwidth that will allow us to access various types of information and services on any kind of device, anywhere. The rapid growth of cloud as outlined by Amazon CTO Werner Vogels at our Structure 2011 conference only underscores the need for more bandwidth.

This need only goes up as we start living in an on-demand world, streaming instead of storing information locally. Folks at online storage-as-a-service provider Backblaze decided to compare the decline in bandwidth prices and the local storage costs and found out that local drives are still more efficient. (I am assuming that they are looking exclusively at data from the US, because things might be different in some other parts of the world where they sell really cheap super-broadband.) While that is true on pure cost basis, but as I have argued before, the value for hardware lies in services because they increase engagement with the hardware.

So perhaps if we are going to debate about bandwidth and storage, maybe we should also factor the falling prices of in-house bandwidth — because in the end, those 2 terabyte drives are not of much use unless they are on the network and streaming some music or serving up some documents.

Google pulls the plug on PowerMeter energy tool

By Katie Fehrenbacher Jun. 24, 2011, 12:55pm PT 6 Comments

Google has officially pulled the plug on its web energy management tool PowerMeter. The project, which Google launched two years ago, just “didn’t catch on the way we would have hoped,” says Google in a blog post, and the tool will be shut down Sept. 16, 2011 (giving users enough time to download their data before the end of the service).

PowerMeter has seemed to have been on life support for much of the time it’s been in existence, and last I heard, it had brought in just 11,000 users. Turns out it’s difficult for a large Internet company to convince utilities to partner with it, and it’s also hard to get consumers to care about energy consumption. At the same time, PowerMeter was closely tied to smart meter data when it was first launched, and smart meter installations were still in an early stage back in 2009 (and still are).

PowerMeter enabled its users to monitor and manage their energy consumption online via an iGoogle widget, if the utility had agreed to connect their smart meter data with Google. Utility San Diego Gas & Electric and smart meter maker Itron became Google PowerMeter partners. Later, Google opened up the PowerMeter API and connected with gadget makers to make it more of a direct-to-consumer tool.

PowerMeter stemmed out of Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org, and Google long said it didn’t plan to make any money off of the tool. Well, that turned out to be true. Other companies that have launched services and gadgets in the home energy management space have changed course or folded. Microsoft launched a similar tool to PowerMeter called Hohm, which it later evolved.

Still, Google’s moves are often influential, even if they aren’t profitable. Google’s launch of PowerMeter worried startup competitors and entrepreneurs at the time, and scared some utilities who didn’t want Google owning the relationship with its power customers. PowerMeter also brought a lot of attention to a space that, for the most part, can be less-than-sexy.

Google shutting down PowerMeter will also draw attention. Startup Wattvision, which makes a low-cost energy home energy management tool, wrote on its blog yesterday that it’s offering a $50-off coupon for this weekend only — use the coupon code: “byepowermeter”.

Skype is coming to the iPad

By Darrell Etherington Jun. 24, 2011, 1:52pm PT 7 Comments

After a leaked video accidentally spoiled the surprise, Skype has confirmed that it is preparing an iPad app for release. No firm date is yet known for when it will arrive, but according to TUAW, which spoke to Skype VP of consumer and product design Rick Osterloh, it is expected to be approved soon by Apple for the App Store.

The video of Skype that leaked (embedded below) shows what looks to be a fairly impressive finished product. It takes full advantage of the iPad’s larger screen size, allowing users to make audio and video calls, and use text-based chat, as well as allowing users to chat via text while on a video call. The iPad 2′s camera is the primary driving force behind the company’s decision to release an iPad-specific version of its iOS app, Osterloh said.

Skype for iPad can make use of both of the iPad 2′s cameras, and also appears to support calling out to landlines and mobile phones, just like other mobile and desktop clients. File sharing isn’t included in the iPad version, but that’s because of the iPad’s lack of a user-accessible file system, and it’s not yet clear whether group video chat will be included in this iPad release.

The Skype app’s contact browser appears to work similar to the iPad’s music player app, with big square contact photos appearing in a grid configuration. Judging by the video, I’m tempted to say it actually looks like it could be a joy to use, unlike the most recent Skype release for Mac.

Having a native iPad client will be great for both video and voice communications on the iPad. FaceTime is nice, but it obviously has a much more limited reach because it only works with Apple hardware. Skype has the advantage of being multi-platform, and its VoIP capabilities are nothing to sneeze at, either. Look for it in the App Store in the near future.

Foursquare checks in to $50M in fresh funding

By Colleen Taylor Jun. 24, 2011, 3:06pm PT No Comments

Foursquare has raised $50 million in a new funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, the company announced Friday. This latest batch of funding brings Foursquare’s total venture capital investment to just over $70 million.

The New York City-based startup, which provides a service that allows users to share their current location with friends, plans to put the money toward hiring more engineers, developing more offerings for merchants, and expanding internationally, co-founders Dennis Crowley (pictured here) and Naveen Selvadurai wrote in a company blog post announcing the new funding. The blog post reads: “The opportunity to build something meaningful in the location space is HUGE [emphasis theirs], and we feel well-positioned to capitalize on it.”

Foursquare has grown by leaps and bounds since its launch in March 2009. The company, which is set to open a new San Francisco office this month, says it currently has more than 10 million users and more than 70 employees. With a growing list of solid competitors in the location-based social networking space — think Facebook and Google, as well as an ever-expanding list of smaller apps such as Trover — the new backing will certainly come in handy as Foursquare works to keep its edge.

The road to antitrust is paved with good intentions

By Mathew Ingram Jun. 24, 2011, 3:30pm PT 21 Comments

Google said Friday it has received a formal letter from the Federal Trade Commission notifying the company that an investigation of its business practices is under way, confirming rumors of an impending investigation that surfaced on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. In a blog post responding to the FTC’s letter, a Google executive maintained the search giant simply does its best to provide the best results for users, and that it doesn’t know what the FTC is after. But will this kind of gee-whiz, Little Orphan Annie act fly with the feds? Unlikely.

The blog post, by Google Fellow Amit Singhal — the head of Google’s core ranking team — seems designed to play up the innocence of the company as much as possible. It even has an almost aggressively inoffensive headline: “Supporting choice, ensuring economic opportunity.” It sounds like it was automatically generated using a selection of favorable keywords designed to promote positive feelings about Google’s mission (which for all we know it might have been). There’s more along those lines here.

As almost everyone knows by now, a big part of Google’s mission is “Don’t be evil,” and the blog post sticks tightly to this theme. Singhal argues that Google is focused on “putting the user first,” and it simply wants to provide relevant answers as quickly as possible, in a world where “the competition is only one click away” — a phrase that seems designed to respond to any potential questions about market dominance or monopoly, which are likely to be the core of any federal antitrust case.

It’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are, but we’re clear about where we stand. Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow. No matter what you’re looking for — buying a movie ticket, finding the best burger nearby, or watching a royal wedding — we want to get you the information you want as quickly as possible.

In the post, Singhal reiterates several times that “using Google is a choice,” and says the company tries hard to be as competitive as possible by doing a number of things (the obvious implication being that some competitors don’t), including:

Provide the most relevant answers as quickly as possible. Singhal says Google is “always trying to figure out new ways to answer even more complicated questions” and advertisements “offer useful information, too.”

Label advertisements clearly. Google “always distinguishes advertisements from our organic search results,” the blog post says, and will “continue to be transparent about what is an ad and what isn’t.”

Be transparent. Singhal says Google shares “more information about how our rankings work than any other search engine.”

Loyalty, not lock-in. The Google post says the company believes “you control your data, so we have a team of engineers whose only goal is to help you take your information with you.” (This one is probably aimed at Facebook and its refusal to let you download your contact info.)

Despite all the warm feelings Google is trying to encourage, however, the reality is that by opening a formal investigation, the FTC is effectively saying that Google is being evil, even if only a little bit. And there’s one big issue Singhal doesn’t mention in his description of what Google does, which could become a crucial point in the federal government’s investigation, if it becomes an actual antitrust case: namely, that Google directs users to its own properties at the expense of competitors.

This kind of behavior may be implied when Singhal mentions that advertisements “are always labelled clearly,” since the links to the company’s own services (when you search for maps, for example, and get a link to Google Maps) are highlighted in yellow at the top of the page. But regardless, the company pointing people toward its own offerings — maps, image-hosting, and so on — has been a key part of many of the legal attacks and antitrust claims aimed at Google.

There may continue to be plenty of debate about whether “search neutrality” should even exist as a concept in the same way “net neutrality” does, but Google’s ability to effectively subsidize its own offerings at the expense of others is likely to be a central question for the FTC as it looks at the substance of competitors’ complaints. To pretend it’s not an issue probably isn’t the best strategy. And while the angel-with-a-halo act might be a great public relations move, it’s probably not going to win over anyone in Washington.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Alexander Boden and Mark Strozier

Skype mess: How far will this go?

By Om Malik Jun. 24, 2011, 4:20pm PT 30 Comments

Wow…. the ugliness around Skype keeps getting bigger and bigger. The Internet telephony company which is in the process of being sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion is fast becoming a poster child of investor greed and corporate mistreatment of it employees.

Earlier this month, Skype cut many key executives, a move that is said to have been inspired by investors who were looking to extract the maximum value from the deal. Investors in Skype include Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canadian Pension Board.

A company spokesperson absolved the investors of any misdoing and said that the executive cuts were part of a long drawn-out decision-making process under the aegis of CEO Tony Bates. An investor in the company argued that the money saved would be negligible and not worth the trouble.

Well, that doesn’t appear to be the case and this morning Business Week reported that things are not as sanguine as the company makes it seem.

Normally options give employees the right to buy shares at the price on the grant date, once they have worked at the company for a time. After a month of back-and-forth with Skype’s human resources department, [former Skype employee Yee] Lee learned that even his “vested” options were worthless. It turns out the investor group, led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners that bought Skype from EBay (EBAY) in 2009, had secured a so-called repurchase right that gave them authority to buy back the shares at the grant price.

Today, Yee Lee, a former employee shared his side of the story on his personal blog, giving more details on his predicament.

The most important lesson I learned from Skype was that compensation and stock policies in PE-owned firms can be very heavily tilted in the owners’ favor and against the employees. Skype employees have 5-year vesting of stock options, for example, not the usual 4 year schedule that most Valley firms have. Even worse, Skype’s stock option agreement had special clauses that the Board had slipped in that gives them the right to “repurchase” any vested shares for anyone who leaves the company voluntarily or is terminated with cause — effectively taking “vested” shares and making them worthless. Here’s a nice letter I got from the Associate General Counsel of Skype that points out exactly how my stock options have “no financial value.”

Skype obviously feels otherwise. Fortune’s Dan Primack points out

But for U.S.-based employees who joined after Silver Lake and crew took over, you had to “be in it to win it.” In other words, these particular Skype employees wouldn’t get paid until the private equity firms also got paid. It’s kind of like a stock appreciation agreement in option form. Skype and Silver Lake clearly see this as an alignment of interest issue, and two corporate lawyers I spoke with said that such structures are not uncommon in PE-backed employee contracts.

So the problem here is not that Lee was treated differently than other employees at private equity-backed companies. It’s that such treatment exists at all. But it looks to me as if he was almost intentionally tricked. Just read over that contract language again. Skype must know the commonly-understood meaning of option vesting in Silicon Valley, so it should have explicitly said that its arrangement was different. As I said before, Lee had experience leaving companies. His shock indicates just how opaque this particular agreement was.

Lee’s allegations and a prior Bloomberg story points to what might have been a systematic issue. The key thing here is that Microsoft is going to be the company that is left holding the bag. Scott Rafer, a veteran entrepreneur with deep roots in Silicon Valley had this to say on his blog, which kind of makes Microsoft responsible.

It’s hearsay (though very intimate hearsay), but the executive cuts were definitely made in order to save on bonuses and put incrementally more cash in the PE investors’ pockets. However, it’s going to backfire.

In all these transactions, there’s an allowance for a ‘basket’ of liabilities in which the Seller (i.e. Skype shareholders) take economic responsibility for unknown liabilities that come up after the deal closes. It is FREE for Microsoft to pay out the amount of money in the basket to whoever sues them on a Skype-specific issue. If the people who were fired have a decent attorney, they’ll sue the successor entity to Skype (i.e. Microsoft) after the deal closes. Microsoft’s attorneys won’t care about whether they win or lose up to the amount of the basket.

The drumbeat of bad news around the deal masks a bigger problem. At the time that Skype was spun out of eBay, I pointed out that with nearly 15 board members — all of them with strong personalities — it would become a problem. Well that is precisely what has been happening. Lee blames Silver Lake for many of the issues.

The firm inserted itself into every level of the company. At one point in my tenure at Skype, Silver Lake had representatives or consultants on the Board, in C-level executive roles, in technical leadership and operating roles, and all the way on thru the organization to the person actually running our software deployment schedule… So Silver Lake put its fingers really deeply into Skype’s pie and they started rearranging things.

You can agree or disagree with the practice of re-organization, but I personally had never been part of a restructuring that ran so deep in a company. During the year I was at Skype, the company:

lost a CEO

hired and fired a CTO

hired and fired a CFO

gained a CEO, CMO, CIO, and CDO

created an entirely new product development org structure

eliminated every Project Manager role

fired, re-interviewed, and re-hired Product Managers

created two new business units

combined two business units into one

dissolved one business unit

opened a new office and hired several hundred people

the list goes on…

Nevertheless, the question here is — if Silver Lake was acting a certain way, what was rest of the board doing? Some former employees I spoke to said that there has been a wholesale interference from the board members, each one having some issue with some employee or the other. From hiring decisions to product directions and platform support, the pressure from the board was described as unusual and sometimes without rationale.

Don’t be surprised to see more details leak out.

Forget cool, OpenFlow and networking is now hot!

By Alex Benik Jun. 25, 2011, 8:00am PT 3 Comments

Over a year ago on this blog, I posed the question, Can Networking Be Made Cool Again? A lot has changed since then. The pendulum has swung back, and now networking is hot. In the past year Cisco hit a major speed bump, the OpenFlow networking protocol has burst into the popular consciousness and the first new wave of startups has emerged to meet the changing requirements of the large-scale, highly virtualized data center network.

Many have been waiting for it, but this year, the cracks in Cisco’s dam finally burst open for all to see. The networking giant has lost $60 billion in market cap in the past year, hammered by Wall Street for its flirtations with consumer, collaboration and other noncore businesses. Simultaneously, Cisco flubbed the emergence of the web-scale data center customer. Its UCS servers and Nexus switches are out of touch with these customers’ performance requirements — laden with features they will never use yet must pay handsomely for.

The emergence of OpenFlow

In the same time period, OpenFlow has emerged from the Stanford labs and exploded on the scene. OpenFlow is a protocol that defines how external controllers communicate with switches to program their forwarding tables. The reaction of the networking industry reminds me a lot of what happens when I put a shiny new toy in front of my six-month-old daughter. First she stares at the toy intently, then bats at it a few times, ultimately succeeding in grabbing hold. Then she jams it straight into her mouth. We are currently still in the frantically swatting stage. You’ll know the industry has jammed OpenFlow into its mouth when you see Cisco supporting third-party controllers programming their switches.

Despite the purported revolutionary nature of OpenFlow, the concept of separating the control plane from forwarding is nothing new. One example of this architectural practice is the use of a parallel signaling network for call setup and teardown in the plain old telephone system. An OpenFlow control serves a conceptually similar function for packet switches. It’s ironic to see this decades-old voice concept now wreaking havoc in the data world.

But just because the concept isn’t new doesn’t mean this isn’t an important development. However, OpenFlow itself is just an interface protocol. As Nicira CTO Martin Casado put it, “OpenFlow is about as exciting as USB.” What matters is the value you can deliver in the controllers leveraging it and the potential change in industry structure enabled by the standardization of this interface. Standardization and abstractions allow the emergence of third-party controller vendors who don’t make switches. This is the truly exciting development and the one that scares the incumbent switch vendors, no matter how much lip service they pay to embracing OpenFlow.

Don’t look for the VMware of networking

In most of the discussion around OpenFlow the market seems infatuated with trying to identify the VMware of networking. This makes for splashy headlines but is a flawed analogy. What is really needed before that concept can take hold is the Linux of networking. I am sure that that won’t be the network operating systems from the major vendors, including Cisco’s NX-OS, Juniper’s JUNOS, or Arista’s EOS.

All of this virtualized software is great, but let’s show some respect to the physical layer. Web-scale data centers still need switches — big, dense switches to connect servers. Interop was the coming-out party for OpenFlow, and the number of vendors that showed up for the OpenFlow Lab at Interop this year was impressive. Cisco and Arista were conspicuously absent. Not surprising, since the whole concept behind OpenFlow — taking the control plane and routing computation physically out of the router — is a scary thought for them.

I suspect the next shoe to drop is that the networking industry gets Open Computed. It is inevitable that an open-source hardware architecture for the large chassis switch gets released, likely driven by a consortium of large customers. When combined with the external software control enabled by OpenFlow, this will really shake things up. Once this happens, it will be akin to the shift that took place in the server and database layers in the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Early large-scale websites were built with Sun servers and Oracle databases, while today commodity servers and open-source databases are the norm in many environments.

Hurry up and wait

While the disruptions coming to the networking industry are real, it is important not to overhype the speed at which they will take place. These transitions take time, lots of time; Cisco and Juniper are amazing companies, full of world-class technologists and with massive installed bases of customers. They are not going out of business tomorrow because of OpenFlow, nor are they going to sit idly on the sidelines. This isn’t the first time a new technology emerged that purported to be a major threat to Cisco’s dominance. MPLS is a good example of a technology that was supposed to do serious damage to Cisco but that it ultimately embraced and came to lead.

It has been exciting to see networking back in the spotlight again, and I suspect the next year will be even more exciting and dynamic. Two promising startups, Big Switch and Vcider, launched this week at Structure 2011, and a number of others are still percolating in stealth mode.

Perhaps the most exciting promise of the software-defined networking movement is simply that it will increase the velocity of innovation in the industry. As the promise of these new technologies is delivered in the next 12–24 months, they will find use cases that are not restricted to the largest web properties but reach into other applications, including network security and potentially all the way down into the enterprise wiring closet. It has the potential to disrupt and reshape the industry. This means networking is cool again.

Alex Benik is a principal at Battery Ventures.

Mobile virtualization finds its home in the enterprise

By Steve Subar Jun. 25, 2011, 11:00am PT 4 Comments

Mobile virtualization boasts an array of use cases — from cost savings for mobile device manufacturers to security for “Obamaberries” and other superphones. It also can give mobile devices dual personas. A hot topic today is the use case that’s also of greatest interest to smartphone and tablet users — enterprise mobility – using virtualization in the enterprise to support secure corporate connectivity and productivity on-the-go.

Most discussions of enterprise mobility focus exclusively on the benefits of giving mobile workers access to corporate data, networks and applications. In theory, that means making workers more productive while saving on capital equipment costs. In practice, enterprise mobility often forces a choice between corporate security, or worker productivity and personal freedom.

Mobile workers around the world increasingly prefer to use their own smartphones, tablets, and other wireless devices for both professional and personal communications and computing. This consumerization of enterprise IT, a natural consequence of smartphone and mobile applications growth, puts new pressures on companies to accommodate and secure employee-owned mobile devices.

Historically, IT security concerns have resulted in employee mobile devices running the RIM (BlackBerry) operating system or Microsoft Windows variants as the primary “supported” mobile devices in corporate environments. However, the overwhelming popularity of new devices including the iPhone, iPad and a wide range of Android smartphones has resulted in employees increasingly sneaking their own personal devices into the workplace.

A number of technical and process-based approaches are commercially available to address requirements for enterprise mobility security. Currently, enterprise IT looks to Mobile Device Management (MDM) and endpoint security technologies such as encryption and anti-virus software, to bolster enterprise mobility. These technologies are necessary and powerful, but leave critical requirements unmet. In particular, MDM and endpoint security rely on the integrity of the underlying smartphone operating system (OS) and software stack, which are still vulnerable to exploits. Even the security software that protects the device may be susceptible, threatening both the integrity of the mobile device and any information that passes through it.

Many of these company-imposed restrictions also make mobile devices too cumbersome for personal use, limiting productivity and increasing corporate vulnerability as users ditch the proper procedures. Implementing enterprise security policy usually entails restrictions on freedom to fully use the capabilities of the device (e.g., blacklisting online destinations, curtailing application download and use). The unfortunate result is that employees continue to carry a second, personal device, leaving many benefits of enterprise mobility unrealized.

Enter mobile virtualization

In data centers, virtualization separates the hardware from the software running on it, allowing for consolidation of separate, disparate physical systems into multiple virtual machines on one server. Mobile virtualization effects a similar consolidation by merging multiple dedicated embedded processors onto a single CPU.

Mobile virtualization provides a secure, isolated and robust run-time environment for programs (including operating systems), which is indistinguishable from actual “bare metal” hardware. This environment is called a virtual machine (VM). The virtual machines can become a container for guest software, imitating computer hardware and isolating guests from one another. Providing the virtual machine environment and managing VM resources is a software layer called a hypervisor.

Enterprise desktop virtualization programs are typically application-level (Type II) hypervisors: They let users run additional OSes and applications, such as Windows on MacOS, or Linux on Windows. But, to be effective and truly secure, mobile virtualization should employ Type I hypervisors, “bare metal” technology comparable to blade and server virtualization in the enterprise data center.

Not all Type I hypervisors are created equal. Some mobile virtualization platforms offer superior performance and finer granularity than others. A smaller trusted compute base and stricter hardware-enforced separation among virtual machines assures a more secure mobile virtualization solution. The fine-grained “capabilities” available with some hypervisors make it easier for integrators and architects to configure and control communication among virtual machines, without compromising performance or security.

Such fine-grained control allows mobile system designers to expose select characteristics of a shared devices (e.g., a sound chip or wireless interface) giving one trusted guest OS full read/write permissions to it, but more restricted access to a second untrusted guest, either directly or through a virtual device driver. Access controls like these are fast and hardware-enforced using processor-based memory management, and impose little or no power consumption or response-time overhead.

Mobile virtualization software itself (a microvisor), also imposes minimal cost in the software bill of materials of a smartphone or other mobile device, and, in fact, can substantially reduce those costs in three ways. First, consolidating multiple CPUs onto a single chipset saves on silicon. Second, systems with fewer hardware components cost less to test and are inherently more reliable, improving manufacturing yields and margins. Third, fewer components draw less power, allowing use of smaller, cheaper batteries or letting users squeeze more life and talk time.

These savings are more than just “cost shavings.” – Tear-downs from OK Labs and industry analysts show that mobile hardware consolidation can yield savings of upwards of $65 on total device expenses of $150-$250. Such steep cost reduction improves margins, makes smart devices more accessible, and even opens new segments for affordable “mass market” smartphones.

Dump the dual-phone lifestyle

Effective enterprise mobility rests on three pillars: security, privacy, and freedom to fully use the capabilities of the device. Of the various options for implementing enterprise mobility securely while preserving end-user privacy and freedom, only mobile virtualization consistently balances all three pillars. Other solutions attempt to implement the form of dual persona functionality, but miss the substance of underlying security, and of preserving privacy and freedom.

Mobile virtualization lets enterprise IT secure access to enterprise assets and services, while ensuring user privacy and preserving intact smartphone user experience. All on a single off-the-shelf smartphone or tablet! And, mobile virtualization lets users adopt the mobile device of their choice, while allowing corporate IT departments to manage sensitive data on those devices with enterprise-level security and compliance.

Steve Subar is founder and CEO of Open Kernel Labs.

Turntable.fm is off-limits to non-US music fans

By Om Malik Jun. 25, 2011, 11:32am PT 17 Comments

Let’s just face it — anytime some new start-up comes along and tries to innovate around the idea of music, it is hit by some roadblocks. Latest one to realize that – Turntable.fm. The social music discovery service is now unavailable to International visitors and is now restricted to just the US residents. In a tweet this morning, the company shared the news with its followers.

It is a shame considering Turntable.fm was just beginning to blow up and ushering in a new era of music consumption. In a few weeks, Turntable.fm (formerly Stickybits) had attracted 140,000 members and was being actively pursued by investors. Many were skeptical of the legality of the service and the current actions are only going to increase investor skepticism.

Being supremely addicted to Turntable.fm, I hope this little startup finds a way to first survive and then thrive, because it has a lot of potential. Olga Nunes, a San Francisco-based musician used Turntable.fm to get traction and push sales of her music. I think this is the read potential of Turntable.fm — artists and fans, all in one room, driving sales. Say what Lady Gaga???

What is Turntable.fm? Here is what I wrote in a previous post.

Turntable.fm is a New York City-based social music listening and discovery service that is spreading on the web like wildfire. The idea behind the service is pretty simple: You sign-up by using your Facebook credentials, create a music listening room and invite people to come join you in the room. You can create a playlist by selecting songs from the service or upload your tracks. Others can join, and become co-deejays.

If you don’t want to deejay, you can skip from one room to another based on musical interests. You can chat with others and share your playlists. You even get your own avatar that bobs to music. The whole experience is not just about music. It’s about finding others who enjoy music and forming relationships with them — albeit transient ones.

Android This Week: Hulu Plus lands; Falling market share; TV tech on phones

By Kevin C. Tofel Jun. 25, 2011, 6:00am PT 8 Comments

A handful of Android devices this week became the first to gain access to Hulu Plus, a subscription-based service for online movies and television programs. The software is free, but most content on Hulu Plus is only accessible by paying a $7.99 monthly fee. Similar to Netflix, Hulu Plus is only available for small subset of Android phones during the initial rollout; likely due to testing each individual Android phone model to ensure it meets the appropriate Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements.

For now, Hulu Plus is only supported on the Nexus One, Nexus S, HTC Inspire 4G, and three Motorola phones: the Droid 2, Droid X, and Atrix 4G. In a blog post announcing the new software, the folks at Hulu Plus said it “expects to add to the number of Android smartphones and will be making additional device announcements throughout the year.”

I have both a Nexus One and a trial subscription to Hulu Plus, so I gave the software a try earlier this week. I found it to work quite well, even over a 3G connection. The menus are intuitive and the video quality is on par with other high-quality video streaming services.

In other Android news related to video quality, Sony Ericsson announced two new smartphones that borrow from Sony’s high definition television technology. The Xperia Active and Xperia Ray both use the Bravia Mobile Engine to enhance video playback on their “Reality Displays”, bringing improved contrast, color management and noise reduction. Although I haven’t seen either of these phones yet — they aren’t due to arrive until the third quarter of 2011 — the video demonstration shows promise:

Aside from the display technology, Sony Ericsson is trying to differentiate the Active by ruggedizing it for exercise. The capacitive touch screen works even with water or sweat on the screen and can survive up to one meter in water for 30 minutes. Various sports tracking software applications are also pre-installed.

These models may help Sony Ericsson’s market share, but Android’s as a whole is showing some slowness; at least in the U.S. Earlier this week, Charlie Wolf, an analyst from Needham & Co., suggested that out that Android’s market share in the U.S. fell to 49.5 percent from 52.4 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

This marks the first decline for Android in any region of the world and is largely due to the Verizon iPhone, thinks Wolf. If true, it’s likely that Android’s market share will continue to be challenged this year as a new iPhone is expected for both Verizon and AT&T in September. In addition to new hardware, the iPhone’s software looks good too; even from an Android owner’s point of view.

Telcos could be the key to Twitter’s revenue model

By Sam Ramji Jun. 26, 2011, 8:00am PT 5 Comments

At WWDC this year Apple and Twitter announced a new partnership to bring Twitter to iOS devices. While this is impressive, the total number of new iOS users is dwarfed by the number of people who use feature phones worldwide. So how will services like Twitter bridge this opportunity gap?

The answer may be found in BlueVia, a prime example of the next generation of developer-friendly telco platforms. BlueVia is a spin out from Telefonica, itself a large telecommunication provider. The BlueVia platform exposes a simple set of REST APIs that enable developers to use SMS, MMS, location, and other services previously obscured with telco-only technologies like IMS and ParlayX. Perhaps more importantly, it is based on an attractive business model: pay developers for using telco APIs.

Unlike prior telco approaches that required developers to pay thousands of dollars in advance for blocks of text messages they may never use, BlueVia offers developers a revenue share for sending messages on behalf of Telefonica customers.

Twitter will be launching a phone-based photo service based on MMS, and the word is out that BlueVia APIs will be used as a key part of this launch. This could help solve Twitter’s business model problem by generating cash payments to Twitter from the operators for each MMS message sent. I sat down with the architects of BlueVia, Jose Valles and Ruben Mellardo, to get a better understanding of why a web company like Twitter would be interested in using telco APIs. The result is a heavily edited Q&A below:

What is BlueVia?
Valles: BlueVia is a business proposition to developers to take the core assets of an operator and release that power into the hands of developers. It’s about giving them functionality that can be used in their software, offering them the chance to easily earn money from our customers and helping them to get in front of as many of our customers as possible.

Why did you launch it?
Valles: Telefonica had been working for several years with developers with little success. We weren’t focusing in our core assets. We were doing scattered things in innovation labs. We were missing the real scale of Telefonica that means giving developers a chance to work with more than 270 million customers. We weren’t using the right technologies. And probably the most painful thing was the business approach to developers. The old model is to charge the developer up front – before the developer sees any revenue from their app. We turned that model around and said, “Let’s share our revenue with developers.” I’m proud to say we’re the first operator to do this.

What are the most important assets to open up to developers?
Mellardo: We want developers to be able to innovate on classical enablers like SMS and MMS, faster than we can, and with new ideas. SMS is universally available but there are many more applications that could be invented. This increases SMS usage, bringing new revenues to Telefonica and we share this revenue with the app developer.

What other enablers are important?
Mellardo: The Payment API is crucial. We’ll expose others over time like Call Management and Voice. I think it’s important for them because they can do business with us beyond the classical “application downloads” business model. If you are going to use APIs, this is recurring revenue for the developer. This is a moral issue where we can be equable and share with developers.

What kinds of things can now be done that couldn’t be done before?
Valles: As the APIs are cloud based APIs, you can embed Telco capacities in any connected device, no matter if it’s a smartphone, a PC, a tablet, a connected car, or a TV. For example, Otter uses our APIs in an Android app to get paid whenever a customer sends an SMS. This has enabled Otter to change its pricing model. You can find it in the Android Market Place in US for $4.99 but it can be found in Telefonica Movistar Argentina for free. Another example is TextDeck, a Mac app that allows you to send SMS to your Google contacts straight from the Dashboard. The developer gets 20 percent of each SMS sent.

Mellardo: In terms of Telefonica, it’s very easy for a developer to start working with SMS and MMS. You can just sign up on the web, and developers with web skills can work with us, instead of having to know a lot about telecommunications infrastructure. The developer can now receive SMS and MMS in their applications directly, and simply. The Payment API for developers will allow them to charge customers using the phone bill. This is very simple and straightforward. They can solve the HTML5 in-app billing and charging problem.

How does this fit with the evolution of telcos/operators over the next few years?
Valles: One of our main struggles has been being able to address growing demand of customers: more and more specialized services. We are good at doing big things – deploying fiber, 3G, and LTE – but not about addressing the demand for customized services.

Mellardo: But in the internet world you have a lot of services with lots of personalization for a few users. That’s the new model and that’s not something we can do. In a year, we can launch 10 or 20 services, but not 1,000 services. So we need the community to have a lot of services, and the only way we can get there is by having third parties innovate and build. And we need to grow financially, and this is the only way to do that sustainably in the long term.

What’s the biggest surprise?
Mellardo: When we launched BlueVia, I expected a lot of criticism and cynicism from the community. But then I saw the community of developers say “Hey, these guys are changing; these guys want to do business with us; they want to give us a revenue share from their core assets; maybe these guys are going to be fair with us.” This was a really pleasant surprise.

Sam Ramji is Vice President of Strategy at Apigee, a company that manages APIs. Prior to Apigee, Ramji led open source strategy across Microsoft.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini And The HTC Wildfire S-A Comparison

As the size and specification of the modern mobile handset increases the costs of the phone inevitably spiral. Some of the top end smartphones will now cost the consumer around 500 without a contract and if you are signing up with a network provider it is easy to spend upward of 40 a month. There are alternatives however, phones that do not cost the earth yet still offer the day to day smartphone functionality that you require. An added bonus is that they also look great and you could be forgiven for thinking the models we are about to discuss were in fact top end phones. The HTC Wildfire S and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini are both compact phones that will not break the bank but how do they compare to one another?

Nowadays a lower priced phone does not mean you have to compromise too much in terms of the hardware you are getting for your money. Internally these two handset are both impressive. The Xperia Mini features a powerful 1Ghz processor together with 512MB of RAM. Add to this an Adreno 205 graphics processing unit and you have a chipset that ensures that this little phone operates at quite a speed. The HTC Wildfire S cannot quite live up to the high early standards laid down by Sony. The phone sports a 600Mhz processor and matches the Xperia Mini for RAM making it no slouch but also not in the same league as the Xperia for speed. A feature that more and more consumers are utilising on their mobile handset is the camera. This increase in popularity is partly do to the improved quality on modern camera resulting in crystal clear images rather than the dull and blurred shots we expected a few years ago. Add to this the ability to capture video and the modern phone really is a truly multimedia device. Sony Ericsson also come out on top in this department thanks to a combination of a great 5 mega pixel camera as well as HD video capture. The Wildfire S matches this in the terms of photographs but unfortunately its VGA video capture is no rival for HD.

Things are a little bit more evenly matched when we take a look at the screens on the two phones. The Sony Ericsson Xpera Miniand the HTC Wildfire S both offer the same resolution displays at 320 x 480 but the Sony screen is slightly smaller at just 3 inches resulting in a slightly sharper image. Another contributing factor to this extra clarity is the incorporation of Sonys "Bravia Mobile" engine which boosts the picture quality. At 3.2 inches the HTC screen is only slightly larger and in fairness does offer a great image for a budget phone but the extra technology on the Xperia Mini means that once again it comes out on top. Where HTC may claw back some ground is when it comes to the physical design of the phone. Size will not be a problem with either model as they both weigh in at roughly 100 grammes and are incredibly compact. The Wildfire S is just like a mini version of the brands more premium offerings in that it feels well made and is very pleasing on the eye. This is in contrast to the Xperia Mini which although is not a bad looking model does suffer slightly from the over use of plastic which does make the handset feel a little on the cheap side.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini and the Wildfire S from HTC go a long way to prove you do not need to spend a fortune to get a high quality smartphone. Both of these models impress but overall the Xperia edges it thanks to a great screen and brilliant multimedia features.

HPCC Systems promises Big Data as a Service

By Derrick Harris Jun. 26, 2011, 12:00pm PT 1 Comment

Being able to crunch terabytes of data is great, but having someone else do it for you is even better. HPCC Systems, the LexisNexis Risk Solutions spinoff that launched last week to challenge Hadoop’s big data dominance, is planning to do just that with a cloud service for big data processing.

During a video interview at our Structure conference this week, LexisNexis CTO Armando Escalante said the company is contemplating offering customers cloud-based access to a system running the company’s HPCC data-processing software. Additionally, he suggested that LexisNexis might even offer up its own massive data sets — which span the financial, legal and intelligence sectors, among others — to be processed by customers’ applications.

The prospect of providing data processing and even data as a service is very promising, and LexisNexis’ service might well catch on with certain breeds of companies for whom the LexisNexis data itself is particularly relevant. There are a few services available right now, including Amazon Elastic MapReduce and Opera Solutions’ managed analytics offering, but there’s certainly room for more options.

What’s not so certain is that HPCC Systems, which will be open sourcing its code, can actually dislodge Hadoop as the big-data development platform of choice. Hadoop currently has all the momentum and a thriving ecosystem of products set to grow even larger at next week’s Hadoop Summit. Getting technology vendors and customers to give up their Hadoop efforts at this stage won’t be easy.

But HPCC Systems is saying all the right things, and perhaps it can establish a customer and developer ecosystem of its own by delivering on its promises.

An Introduction To iOS5 For The iPhone 4 White And Windows 7 Mango

This summer has seen the announcement of several changes to most of the operating systems currently present in the mobile phone marketplace. The best known of all of these is Apple iOS which is used on their iPhone handsets. The latest version of this platform is iOS5 which will be available for existing phones such as the White iPhone 4 in coming months. The newest operating system available is Windows 7 and over the past year we have seen a number of handsets released that operate on this exciting new platform. Microsoft have unveiled Windows 7 Mango, the very latest update to this OS which all Windows 7 users will be able to upgrade to. So how do the big names of Apple and Microsoft measure up in this battle of the operating systems?

Unlike Android which offers animated icons and overlays on its homescreen the interfaces on Mango and iOS5 are relatively static. There is limited customisation you can perform on the Windows homescreen with a selection of additional tiles that may be added. The one downside to the Apple interface is that there are no live feeds linked to your homescreen so whilst you are presented with status updates and news headlines on the Windows phone the White iPhone 4 homescreen displays just a grid of applications. Having said that however the options of what you can add to this grid are pretty much limitless. Another area where this update sees an improvement from Apple is the notifications system. A downward swipe on the screen now unveils a notifications centre which lists all notices in one place rather than relying upon you noticing the alert that previously appeared besides the program icon. This is a big improvement from Apple but in general the user interface that Microsoft presents us with is more packed with information and easier to navigate.

Social Networking is an area that both of these platforms have focused heavily upon. Users of the White iPhone 4will soon be able to benefit from new Twitter integration embedded in the OS. This new facility enables users to tweet directly from the browser or the photo appliction as well as from Youtube and the maps facility. This is a vast improvement over needing to log into a separate Twitter client in order to perform such tasks. Mango does offer some improved Twitter features so the site can now be directly linked to the People Hub and present you with real time updates on your homescreen however the platform still has some way to go to match Apples advancements in this area. The lock screens on both of these platforms have been revamped but once again its Apples efforts that come out on top thanks to new instant camera access from the lock screen as well as access directly to your notifications centre.

Both of these platform updates are indeed impressive but the Apple system seems to have undergone more of a change. Owner of handsets such as the HTC 7 Mozart will love what Mango offers them but iPhone 3GS and White iPhone 4 owners will benefit more from the massive changes Apple have made.

Mobile Phones- Valuable Devices For Users

Handsets are the valuable devices which enable the users to fulfill their communication and multimedia needs at fast speed. Mobile phones of this era are blessed with several outlandish features such as a quality camera, touch screen, Bluetooth, MP3 player, powerful battery and lots more. These features are the specialties of the latest devices of renowned brands like Samsung, Blackberry, LG, Nokia etc. These merchants have launched their billions of the stupendous handsets in the gadget world at the affordable prices. Let us know more about the specialties of the devices of popular brands as follows:

Nokia mobile phones

Most of the handset uses are crazy about the latest Nokia mobile phones. This brand has launched billions of the quality Nokia phones in varied handset's series like X-series, N-series, XpressMusic, Classic, E-series etc. Under these mobile phone series, users can find several outlandish handsets which are blessed with varied interactive features. Plenty of the highly sailed Nokia phones are like Nokia E7, 6300, X6, 5530 XpressMusic, 2370 Classic and many more. All these devices are blessed with several high tech features and also have made able to support the latest technologies as well.

Samsung Mobile phones

Handsets of Samsung brand have also designed very elegantly and also come loaded with several fascinating features. The numbers of quality Samsung mobile phones are Samsung B7300 Omnia Lite, Tocco Lite, Galaxy 5, Genio PRO, Chat 322 and lots more. These devices are loaded with quality features and their ability to support exclusive technologies is also commendable.

Blackberry Mobile phones

Big sized Blackberry Mobile Phoneshave become first choice for several handset users these days. Blackberry phones are also available in variety of handset's series like Blackberry Curve, Bold, Style, Torch, Pearl and many more. Gadgets lie under such series are like Blackberry Bold 9650, 9800 White, Storm 3, Pearl 8120 O2 and many more. All these devices are blessed with useful features and also have made effective to support the modern era's technologies as well.

LG Mobile phones

Handset users are crazy about the latest LG Mobile Phonesas well. Plenty of the quality LG phones are like LG Optimus Chat, GW300, KP-100, GR500 Xenon, KP170, Town C300 and lots more. These LG handsets are also blessed with several high end features and their power to support exclusive technologies is also admirable. LG handsets are also available at the reasonable charges.

Thus, the mobile phone merchants have made their devices valuable by introducing lots of fascinating features and their capacity to hold the latest technologies is also commendable.

A Closer Look At The Stunning New HTC Sensation

The HTC Sensation is the manufacturer's flagship smartphone, and really showcases how far smartphones have evolved in recent months. Whilst HTC are constantly releasing new models with admittedly similar specifications, the HTC Sensation cuts no corners in a bid to offer consumers the ultimate smartphone experience.

In this article I will give my review of the HTC Sensation by looking at some of its key features, so you can decide whether this is the smartphone for you.

Dimensions and Design

The HTC Sensation packs a large 4.3 inch screen, so it was never going to be the smallest handset in the world. Its measurements stand at 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3 mm, so it is similar to the majority of smartphones with such a sizable screen. The design of the phone is very good all round. It does look a little similar to many of its stablemates, but it is attractive nonetheless. HTC has made sure the Sensation stands out as the flagship with an attractive curved design of the back of the unibody handset.

Operating System, User Interface and Processor

As you would expect from a flagship HTC smartphone, the latest version of Android, in this case version 2.3 is installed. The advantages of this are numerous and well known, thanks to the software's popularity. The interface though, is far from the stock Android UI. HTC Sense, arguably the most innovative user interface available for mobile phones, makes an appearance in its third incarnation. This is highly customisable, and offers a great user experience as you may expect, but builds on the features from previous versions. One of the notable additions is the Active LockScreen. This feature enables users to access their most commonly used apps without the hassle of having to unlock the screen. Of course, the apps in question can be customised, and this feature really solidifies HTC's ethos of designing everything so users can carry out tasks in the least steps possible. One of the most heavily advertised features of the HTC Sensation is its dual-core processor. As mentioned, this is the first dual-core smartphone from HTC, and one of only a small number of handsets to sport this technology. There are numerous advantages of this technology when used in smartphones; improved graphics and touchscreen response times, more efficient multitasking, improved web browsing speeds and the ability to handle resource-demanding apps are just some of the reasons users will love this phone.

Digital Camera

Of course, the HTC Sensation features a built in digital camera. In this case, an 8 megapixel unit offers all the technology and features to take superb looking photos and videos. A dual LED flash is on hand to overcome low lighting conditions, whilst mage stabilization and face recognition keep things simple, whilst producing pleasing results. The HTC Sensation is also one of the few handsets to shoot HD video in not just 720p, but in 1080p full HD. There is also a front facing VGA camera which is handy for self portrait photos and video calls.

This review only covers what I feel are the most relevant features of the handset. Obviously there is a lot more to the handset than what I have covered, but one thing is for sure; the HTC Sensation cuts no corners, and it is very difficult to find anything bad to say about this phone.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play And The New Iphone 4 White-a Closer Look At The Two

For a while now anybody looking for the best mobile gaming experience has generally opted for an iPhone 4. Apple themselves offer the widest range of downloads available whilst the specification of the latest model handset makes it perfectly suited to the demands of modern gaming. This was until Sony Ericsson came along with the impressive Xperia Play which takes Sonys best selling PSP gaming device and integrates it into a top quality handset. So if you are looking for a high quality mobile phone with good gaming capabilities which of these two models should be tempting you the most?

A vital aspect of any handset that advertises itself as a gaming phone is the processor that it uses. A low speed chip simply would not be able to handle the demands placed on it my modern games. It is well known that the White iPhone 4 is a very fast phone. Apple have lifted their own A4 chipset straight from the original iPad and fitted it inside this model which is what gives the phones its lightning fast properties. Part of the set up is a powerful 1Ghz processor which despite not being dual core offers a faultless user experience. An integral part of this system is also the PowerVR SGX535 GPU that is used to enhance graphics and give the best visuals possible. Being a phone designed for gaming the Xperia Play is also pretty impressive in this area yet it can not quite match up with the iPhones impressive performance. Despite using the same size processor at 1Ghz the unit performs slightly slower than Apples device, but both phones are amongst the very fastest that are available. The only down side to these two models is that neither offer the dual core processors that are found in a few of the newer models that are filtering into the marketplace.

Another area vital to not only a great gaming experience but also for all aspects of multi media work is the quality of the screen. The White iPhone 4comes fitted with what is regarded as the best display currently available, the Retina Display. This name has been given to the screen as the amount of dots per inch it displays is beyond what the human eye can detect at 326. The reason this figure is so high is thanks to the 640 x 960 resolution that can be shown. The Xperia Play was alway going to have its work cut out competing with this screen but it makes a valiant effort with its 4 inch affair complete with a total resolution of 480 x 854. This display is a very good effort but at 244 DPI it is evident just how far behind the Apple screen it actually is. An area where the Sony does offer more functionality is when it comes to gaming controls thanks to the slide out pad that reveals a set of buttons almost identical to a Playstation controller. Although this adds bulk to the phones dimensions it does prove more pratical than relying upon the screen like the iPhone does.

As a mobile handset the White iPhone 4 undoubtedly come out on top here, but serious gamers may be attracted by the slide out pad that the Xperia Play boasts.

More Aspects OF iOS5 For The iPhone 4 White Announced

Every year Apples annual software update has users eagerly waiting to update their iPhone so it can take advantage of the very latest features and functionality. Recently at the Annual Developers Congress news of the new iOS5 were released and quickly the web was full of information on exactly what this latest incarnation would mean to the customer. There are some features of the latest update however that have not been well publicised and some of them look like they could be very useful to the customer. This will be of special interest to owner of the White iPhone 4 who will be able to update their phones to iOS5 upon its release.

Facetime is a feature that much fuss was made over when the iPhone 4 was first released back in 2010. This was Apples reinvention of video calling but where it differed from other systems is that it took advantage of a faster WiFi data connection to deliver unparalleled picture and audio. The current rumour is that the latest operating system update will now enable Facetime calls to be conducted over the 3G network meaning you make the calls whilst on the move rather than being limited to when you are connected to a WiFi network. The improved speeds that can now be delivered via 3G together with the technological advancements of Facetime mean that this method can be used and great quality can still be achieved. With many customers restricted to a monthly data allowance Facetime has the potential to eat into huge chunks of this so there will also be the option to disable the facility if you want.

An area that has often been overlooked is the use of your White iPhone 4as part of an in car entertainment system. Using the Bluetooth on the phone has often resulted in limited functionality but this is set to change along with iOS5. The handset can now transfer much more information via this method including album names, track names and the performing artist so this can all be displayed on the screen of your in car entertainment unit. Transfer of material is an area that plays a very big part in iOS5. There is the ability to transfer full high definition 1080P between any two iOS5 devices such as an iPhone and an iPad which has also fuelled speculation about the next generation of iPhone being able to display 1080P footage. Airplay mirroring is also said to be available on the system but only when used with an iPad 2. This enables users to play video content from the tablet device directly on a HD television via Apple TV.

These features are all in addition to the more well known ones which are currently being reported and it is safe to say they all contribute towards what is looking like a very comprehensive package. Owners of handsets such as the White iPhone 4 will be able to update to this software as soon as it is available.

7 tips for getting more done in fewer hours

By Jessica Stillman Jun. 27, 2011, 5:01am PT 1 Comment

With the ability to work whenever we wish, web workers face ever-increasing work hours as we slip in “just one email” after dinner or fail to resist the pull of our smartphone before our morning workouts. But one blogger is arguing that longer hours actually usually mean less productivity.

Writing on Freelance Folder, Lexi Rodrigo cites Parkinson’s Law as the underlying rationale for her argument. The principle, first recognized in a regards to the ever-expanding British civil service in the 1950s, declares that, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

For web workers, the principle means that however many hours we allot ourselves to work, we will find activities to fill then. And the opposite, Rodrigo contends, is equally true. Limit your hours, and the time it takes you to complete tasks will shrink to accommodate the new boundaries. Set yourself a deadline and you’ll feel more urgency, more adrenaline and less perfectionism.

Rodrigo backs up her ideas with arguments that would be true for a baker or cobbler, but there’s evidence that quantity does not necessarily translate to quality, especially for knowledge workers. Happiness as work expert Alexander Kjerulf, for instance, has rounded up research that shows that knowledge workers “are the most productive when they work 35 hours a week” and “productivity decreased by half after the eighth hour of work.”

So how can we shorten our work days? Rodrigo offers several suggestions, many of which are classic time management techniques that we’ve covered before. But three of her ideas are particularly pertinent.

Keep your deadlines challenging but realistic. A too-generous deadline won’t make you more productive. On the other hand, a deadline that’s impossible to meet is counter-productive as well. When you feel you’re too late for something, it can de-motivate you from working faster and more efficiently. So you want a deadline that puts pressure on you, but is still humanly manageable.

Reward yourself for meeting deadlines. Imagine all the other things you could do, if you had a shorter work day. You could go to the gym, hang out with friends, play video games, work on your novel. What would you do if you didn’t have to work? Plan to do some of that after your work is completed every day. And I mean put it in your schedule… Type it into your Google calendar. That’s the only way it will get done.

Stick to your deadlines — but remain flexible. Of course, deadlines only work if you actually stick to them. Yet at the same time, you need to have some flexibility. Unexpected things come up, often through no fault of yours… If it’s necessary, adjust your deadline.

These tips merge well with some that we’ve talked about before:

Select work hours that are the most efficient for you.

Schedule breaks and time off.

Avoid going online before breakfast.

Mark the end of the day, and finish on time.

How do you manage your work schedule?

Image courtesy of Flickr user matsuyuki

A Review Of The Location Based Applications On The Superb New HTC Sensation

The HTC Sensation is the manufacturer's new flagship smartphone, and has the specifications to put many of its rivals to shame. One of the increasingly popular aspects of smartphones s their location based services, such as maps and applications which give you turn by turn directions.

In this article I will take a look at the location based services included with the HTC Sensation.

HTC Places

Many smartphone manufacturers offer their own versions of maps software, such as Google Maps which comes as standard on many devices such as Android handsets and Apple iPhone handsets. HTC Places offers something different, and arguably much better than the competition. Developed in cooperation with TomTom (providing the software) and Route 66 (providing the maps), HTC Places allows users to carry out many of the function you can on Google Maps, but with one major advantage; you do not have to be connected to the internet to use the maps. When the device is connected to a network it automatically updates its location behind the scenes, and saved a cached copy of its immediate vicinity, able to save the map of a whole country at a time. This is extremely useful, after all, what good is a map service if you are lost, and don't have access to a data network to actually download a map? Alternatively, you can choose to download maps of entire countries at any time, free of charge. This can be useful for planning trips or holidays, especially when you are unsure of that particular location's network coverage. Once you have downloaded a country map, you can zoom in by pinching the touchscreen, and view the map at street level, in either 2D or 3D modes.

Navigation

Another useful feature of the HTC Sensation is its ability to provide turn by turn navigation. This is especially useful if you are trying to get to one particular location, and keeps you updated on your progress. Although the application does not provide audio instructions (like services such as Ovi Maps), it is still a nice addition to a great package of location based services.

Whilst services such as Google Maps are still useful, HTC Places offers an evolution to location based services on smartphones. In fact, HTC Places really reflects the manufacturer's ethos of providing innovative products and services which remain easy to use. The HTC Sensation is a great device to showcase features like this, thanks to its powerful hardware.

Obviously, HTC Places is just one of the attractive features of the HTC Sensation. It cuts no corners in the quest to provide the ultimate smartphone experience, and is worth a closer look if you are looking for a new smartphone.

A Review Of The Internet Browsing Features Of The Awesome HTC Sensation

In this article I will give an overview of how the HTC Sensation fares as a web browsing device. As HTC's new flagship Android smartphone, big thing are expected, but is it as good as expected? Obviously web browsing is one of the important aspects of smartphone use, so I will look at the features which allow the handset to browse the web.

Connectivity

Without a decent connection to 3G or wireless network, the handset simply wouldn't be able to connect to the internet. 3G provides the initial means of connecting to the internet, via an HSDPA connection. This provides download speeds of up to 14.4 megabytes per second. This is among the highest rates of data download available on a smartphone, only beaten by a small number of handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 which provides whopping download speeds of up to 21 Mbps. Wi-Fi makes for a faster, more secure and more reliable means of connecting to the internet. Whether you are at home, in the office, at an airport or anywhere else you are able to access a wireless network you can be assured of a great browsing experience.

Web Browser Software

Part of the renowned HTC Sense user interface is its impressive web browser. The HTC Sensation sports version 3.0 of the manufacturer's custom Android skin. The browser features many innovative touches you would expect from HTC Sense. For example, a problem many users have when browsing on other phones, is that when they pinch to zoom in on a block of text on a website, they then have to scroll sideways to read it as it is zoomed to a dimension bigger than the screen. Users of the HTC Sensation do not have to worry about this though; as the text is automatically resized to fit the screen. Flash content is also supported, something which cannot be said for a surprisingly large number of smartphones. It allows users to enjoy websites to their full potential, as they are able to view embedded multimedia content such as games and videos. Tabbed browsing is another nice feature of the browser on the HTC Sensation. It allows users to have multiple websites open and running simultaneously, and seamlessly switch between tabs. This is on of the advantages of having a dual-core processor.

Browsing the web is just one of the advantages of smartphone use, but a very important one for countless users. The HTC Sensation makes a great choice, as you can see it offers some of the finest features for this particular task. Take a closer look at the HTC Sensation if you are in the market for a new smartphone; is one of the most technologically advanced, yet easy to use smartphones available, hence the reason it is the new flagship HTC smartphone.

A Comparison Of The Innovative Blackberry 9800 Torch And The Superb HTC Sensation

As two of the major players in the smartphone industry, Blackberry and HTC produce some of the most popular and feature packed smartphones available today. The Blackberry Torch and the HTC Sensation are the flagship models for the manufacturers. In this article, I will provide an overview of each handset, so you can decide which is the best. To do this I will look at some of the main features.

Operating System

The Blackberry Torch utilises the BB 6.0 operating system, whereas the HTC Sensation relies on the increasingly popular Android OS, in the latest version, 2.3 (aka Gingerbread). To compare the two directly and say one is better than the other would be unfair, as each is very different, and designed to do different things. The BB 6.0 OS is great for the business user, as it allows users a very efficient means of keeping files and contacts organised, and easy to find thanks to the Smart Search feature. The Android OS on the HTC Sensation however offers a chance for users to customise their handset to a high level. Up to 7 homescreens can be assigned in the HTC Sense UI, meaning that a different homescreen can be assigned for say work, entertainment, travel, nights out etc, by assigning the appropriate apps for these situations. There is obviously much more to each operating system, but I have outlined some of the main advantages of each. As you can see, it is likely that this aspect of each phone is likely to be down to personal preference when deciding which is best.

Camera

Each handset, as with just about every other smartphone comes with a built in digital camera. The HTC Sensation comes out on top, on paper at least in this department. Boasting 8 megapixels, and the ability to shoot HD video footage (either 720p or 1080p) along with numerous image enhancing features, it is both easy to use and produces pleasing results. The camera on the Blackberry Torch is by no means bad, at 5 megapixels it takes high quality still images as well as video footage. If the camera is an important factor when choosing a smartphone, the HTC Sensation beats the Blackberry Torch, but should not be a deciding factor if you rarely use the camera on your phone.

Processor

This is another area where the Sensation beats the Blackberry Torch. Due to the applications on offer, and to run the powerful software, the HTC Sensation has a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, a feature only a small number of handsets can currently claim. This makes it great for multitasking (running 2 or more apps simultaneously), browsing the web with faster loading speeds, and providing quick response times from the touchscreen. The Blackberry Torch still has a good processor to handle demanding applications, and carry out a number of tasks efficiently. Until the arrival of dual-core processors, 1GHz seemed to be the industry standard for smartphones for some time, and still provides the power to get the job done.

On paper, the HTC Sensation is the better phone, but let's not forget it was only recently released and offers more up to date hardware as well as software. The Blackberry Torch is still a great phone, but not quite up to the standard of the Sensation.

Choosing between the two is largely down to personal preference for the features on offer, or maybe you prefer one brand over the other. Both phones should be on the shortlist of anyone looking or a new smartphone, and both are available on some great deals on UK networks.

Official HTC Docking Station To Be Released For The HTC Evo 3D

The HTC Evo 3D is the very latest high end smatphone due to hit UK stores very soon. Not only does this model benefit from a wealth of features that compare favourably with the very best phones available but it also boasts a party trick of its own in the shape of 3D screen technology which give users a truly impressive mobile experience. In preparation for the release of this phone HTC have announced an exciting new accessory in the form of a docking station for this new model adding extra functionality to what was already a superb model.

As its name suggests this new desktop accessory enables you to position the phone on a flat surface for the easy viewing of all manner of media. The phones is positioned at a slight angle in order to offer the best viewing experience possible. This is especially important for 3D footage when the stereoscopic screen requires quite precise positioning in order to maximise the 3D effect. A new feature on this accessory is a MHL adaptor. MHL is a new technology that combines the functionality of both a micro USB and a micro HDMI port. This means rather than needing both of these sockets present the station needs just this new format. MHL stands for Micro High Definition Link and means that the docking station can be easily linked to either a high definition television or a computer for simple synchronisation. One of the major breakthroughs with this technology is that it enables the charging of the phone via HDMI, something that only used to be possible via USB. The new socket is backwards compatible and has the ability to detect whether there is data that needs to be transferred or audio/video signals. The transfer of video is vitally important should you want to view movie footage on a large screen and the new standard supports both 1080P resolution as well as 8 channel surround sound.

It is easy to get sidetracked by the excellent technology that is incorporated in the HTC Evo 3D but sometimes it subtle changes such as the MHL connectivity that can make all the difference to users. Having said that there is some pretty amazing specification on offer which will no doubt grab your attention in the first place. Screen wise the Evo 3D offers a huge 4.3inch display. Not only is a display of this size perfect for multi media usage but it also helps to enhance the overall 3D experience on the phone. If you want to view your own footage on this display then the handsets 1080P video capture offers unrivalled picture quality. If you want to utilise the 3D screen then the standard drops a little but you still can achieve very satisfying 720P resolution.

The HTC Evo 3D was a very exciting handset when it was first announced. If you add this excellent new docking station into the equation however it further enhances the phones appeal by adding a stylish and functional device to help boost the overall experience.

How The Blackberry Bold 9900 Compares With The Blackberry Torch

Blackberry is undoubtedly one of the most powerful brand names in the mobile world. Their range of handsets have progressed from the companion of choice of the modern business person to the latest must have fashion statement. Research In Motion, the company behind the Blackberry name show no sign of letting their grip on the market slip in 2011 and have released two superb handsets that cover all areas of the market. The Blackberry Bold 9900 takes the traditional Blackberry route of offering a device which comprises of both a touch sensitive screen and a full Qwerty keypad whilst the Blackberry Torch pitches itself at the youth orientated market by offering a large touch display with the keys hidden on a slider mechanism.

Because the keypad is hidden behind the screen this means the Blackberry Torch can not only incorporate a bigger display but also slightly reduce the overall width and height measurements of the phone. At 111 x 62 x 14.6mm the handset is very compact but inevitably it does measure up 4mm thicker than the Bold 9900 thanks to the slider mechanism. The screen on this model measures 3.2inches and offers a great quality 320 x 480 resolution together with an ability to display up to 16 million colours. The Bold offers a slightly smaller screen than this at 2.8 inches but one that is even more impressive. Despite its small size it manages to pack a huge 640 x 480 resolution which results in stunning image quality and crystal clear graphics. Despite offering the full keypad beneath the screen the display is still touch sensitive which makes navigating web pages and applications a breeze. It really comes down to a matter of style over quality with these two models, the compact Torch with minimal buttons undoubtedly looks great but it is the Bold 9900 that will remain the favourite with business users.

Multi media facilities have become a vital aspect of modern phones and it is an area where traditionally Blackberry handsets have not excelled. Times change however and both the Blackberry Bold 9900 and the Torch offer a comprehensive set of features. There is very little to choose between the two camera facilities as they both offer 5 mega pixel resolution together with a wealth of other features to assist you in taking the perfect photograph. Image stabilisation helps reduces blurred snapshots whilst the autofocus means your pictures should always appear clear. Once again however the Bold 9900 has another trick up its sleeve in the form of HD video capture. This means the phone can record video at a resolution of 720p which is far superior to the Torchs VGA capture at a frame rate of 24 per second.

Blackberry continue to impress with their range and these two models are no exception. Whilst the Torch will no doubt have a younger market desperate to lay their hands on it the Bold 9900 remains the good old fashioned Blackberry device that we know and love, all be it one that has been brought bang up to date with some great features.

The New HTC Evo 3D And The Google Nexus S- A Comparison

Hot on the heels of the highly anticipated HTC Sensation handset comes the HTC Evo 3D, a handset that looks to push the boundaries of what we expect from a modern smartphone. This great model sits proudly at the top of HTCs range and looks to become the most advanced mobile phone currently available. Is there a device on the market that could possibly halt the rise of this newcomer? Google would like to think that there is in the shape of their Nexus S handset which has also been developed with Samsung. So can this new phone outshine the impressive Evo 3D in any department?

Thanks to a wordwide shortage in Super AMOLED displays HTC have turned to Sony and their hugely impressive 4.3 inch Super LCD display for this model. This type of technology offers vast improvements over traditional TFT displays by offering better viewing angles together with improved clarity. This type of screen together with the high 540 x 960 resolution on offer result in an image that even gives Apples renowned Retina display a run for its money. Samsung have opted to use their own Super AMOLED panel in the Nexus S which also features quite a unique element in that the screen is curved. This contour display is designed to sit more comfortably against your face during a call and it also makes the handset stand out from many of its competitors. The resolution of 480 x 800 is perfectly matched to the smaller display on this model. When all is said and done there is little to choose between these two screens but the extra size together with its 3D capabilities put the Evo 3D out in front in this department.

The HTC Evo 3D incorporates a Qualcomm 1.2Ghz processor which is wise given the extra strain that 3D will place on the chip. Not only is this processor ultra fast but it is also one of the few available that boast dual core properties meaning that it handles multi tasking effortlessly. At 1Ghz the chip in the Nexus S is slightly smaller and is only a single core affair. Googles choice of chip here is very wise given that they have opted for an ARM Cortex A8, a renowned processor that helps the Nexus S punch well above its weight. Unfortunately it simply cannot match up to the excellent Evo 3D in this area, with the extra size and dual cores giving the HTC device a better all round performance.

Google have produced a valiant effort with the Nexus S, a phone that looks great and incorporates some really cutting edge features. Unfortunately HTC have taken things a step further with the superb Evo 3D and prove just to much competition for them in this instance.

The Stunning HTC Sensation And The HTC Evo 3D Are Packed With Advanced Specifications

It seems that with every smartphone release, we are seeing bigger and bigger screens. Not only is the technology used to display in screen imagery improving, but also the touchscreen capabilities arte improving as well, largely thanks to features such as dual-core processors.

HTC is one of the more prolific manufacturers in the smartphone arena, and the trend of larger screens is evident in their latest releases. The HTC Evo 3D sports a 4.3 inch screen, as does its new flagship smartphone, the HTC Sensation. In this article, I will compare the screens of these two devices and offer a brief overview of their other key features.

HTC Evo 3D

The HTC Evo 3D packs an impressive spec list from start to finish. Everything about the handset is premium, especially the screen. At 4.3 inches, it offers a pixel resolution of 540x 960, among the highest on the market. Obviously, this produces superb display quality, but the real treat here is the 3D display capabilities. Pictures and videos can be displayed in 3D, thanks to the built in 3D S-LCD capacitive technology. There are only a small number of handsets to offer this technology, the HTC Evo 3D being one of the first. And in case you were wondering, you do not need to wear a pair of 3D glasses to enjoy 3D content on the HTC Evo 3D.

HTC Sensation

The HTC Sensation is the manufacturer's flagship Android smartphone, recently replacing the HTC Desire HD which previously held the title. As with the HTC Evo 3D, the HTC Sensation boasts a 4.3 inch screen, the main difference being that it does not display true 3D. With a pixel resolution of 540x 960, it produces very pleasing results in terms of display quality. Despite the large screen, the resolution is high enough to keep the levels of detail and clarity on par with, and indeed better than many of its rival handsets. As an added bonus, the screen on the HTC Sensation is made from Gorilla glass, which is touch and hardwearing, so you don't have to worry about occasionally dropping the phone.

Now we have taken a look at the screens, what else do these phones offer? Aside from the 3D capabilities of the HTC Evo 3D, the spec lists of the pair read largely the same. 1.2 GHz dual-core processors are on hand to benefit not only the response times of the screen, but also the performance of the web browser, multitasking and better performance form the operating system and apps. The OS of choice is Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), the latest version of the software, and both run HTC Sense 3.0 UI over the top. One of the main differences though is the camera. The HTC Sensation beats the HTC Evo 3D in terms of its pixels (8 megapixels compared to the Evo 3D's 5 megapixels), but the Evo 3D does offer the ability to shoot 3D video footage.

As you can see, both handsets are great, and if you are looking to choose between the two, it would seem the main deciding factor would be whether you are looking for a phone with 3D capabilities. Either way, each makes a great choice, with the HTC Sensation available now on several UK networks, with many deals offering the handset for free. The HTC Evo 3D will be released soon, with similar deals available.

Bad Credit Cell Phone Record - Dealing With it and Exploring Your Options

Type of mobile phones for people with bad credit usually comes in the form of pay-as-you-go mobile-telephony devices or otherwise known as prepaid mobile phones. Although this type of phone really prevalent in European countries these types of phones have really gained much popularity in the United States. This is basically because we as a country have hit really hard economic times, so some of us simply can not afford telephones and telephone services, as well as some of us came from, or partly acquired a very bad credit and need a way is still speaking with people and stay in touch. So it is important that you know that simply do not have the best credit or no credit at all should not have to stop what is generally considered one of the most important and communication facilities, we now have, which is a mobile phone.

You are an individual dealing with very high bills for mobile telephony in the past? Is the inability to be able to pay these bills on time affect your credit history, and it resulted that in the trap of debt and bad credit? This is the case for as much as the total deterioration in the credit situation facing the world did the mobile phone owner to avoid signing the contract month because of all of our loans is either wrong, or fear that our credit really bad. But these facts only really should not prevent us from using the phone in general. There is always another way and the most common way that people with bad credit cellular phone service to go with pay-as-you-go phones and prepaid phones as otherwise known.

One of the best places to go to find cell phones that are available for people with bad credit is on the Internet. It really does not matter in today's day and can be obtained by phone or by individual trade or retail, as many mobile phone website to sell models stored in the other And although you can get all the quality of prepaid phones in general excellent prices. So be sure to do a lot of comparison shopping and to find out which phone models will be appropriate for you. You pay for the number of minutes that you want in advance, so do not worry that the overpayments and you can always set up several minutes later.

4 Android 2.3 Smartphones Recommendation And Transfer iTunes to Android

Recommendation 1 - HTC Sensation

Recommendation reasons: The Sensation uses a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU,with a same size display as the HTC Desire HD's - 4.3 inches. Underneath Sense sits Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the latest version of Google's operating system for smart phones. It's packed with features, including Google Maps and good email support. Unsurprisingly, Google's apps are some of the best, but there's also the option to install zillions more from the Android Market. The phone also features HTC's new video store, Watch, a competitor to Apple's iTunes. But it doesn't include music. The HTC Sensation swaggers with smart-phone confidence. Its beefy metal case, huge screen, powerful dual-core processor and glossy user interface make it feel like the alpha phone in the mobile pack.

If you wanna to play iTunes songs on this phone, you can refer to this iTunes m4p converter to convert iTunes songs to Android phone below.

Recommendation 2 - Sony Ericsson MT 15i

Recommendation reasons: This smart phone running on google android v 2.3 (gingerbeard) and Qualqomm MSM8255 Snapdragon in CPU and equipped with capacitive touch screen. This phone designed with classic style with 3.7 (1.8 - 3.2) Inches X-Large and can 16,777,216 Colors High. Similar as another Sony Ericsson Xperia, SE Neo MT151 also designed with great features in camera to produce quality photo. In camera this phone 8 Mega Pixels or 3264 - 2448 very high resolutions in primary and 0,3 MP camera in secondary. Great feature in this camera is Auto Focus, touch focus, geotagging, face Detection, smile detection, continuous Autofocus, Image Stabilizer, Video Stabilizer, Face Recognition,Red Eye Reduction, Exmor R Sensor, Macro Shot, Self Timer.

If you are very interested in playing iTunes movies on this perfect smartphone, I guess you need this DRM removal software which can remove the DRM and then convert m4v movies to android smartphone.

Recommendation 3 - Samsung i9000 Galaxy S II

Recommendation reasons: Samsung i9100 Galaxy S II is the first phone that has support for Wi-Fi Direct, does not require special software to work with any computer and synchronize data, the phone can send files via Wi-Fi, has a number of additional programs that are not familiar to other Android-phones. Besides, this phone applied the unique AMOLED Plus screen, making it brighter and less reflective.

Recommendation 4 - HTC Desire S

Recommendation reasons: The HTC Desire S is the latest smartphone in the company's Desire series of devices. Its 3.7-inch screen and lack of a physical keypad make it a direct successor to the original HTC Desire. Though its specifications are very similar to the Desire, this new model comes with a very solid unibody design and a reasonable price of S$688 (US$535.58).

The Impressive Nokia N9 Boasts The MeeGo Operating System

With the recent release of preliminary specifications of the new Nokia N9, there is a lot of attention on the newest Nokia smartphone. After the relative success of the N8, the manufacturer has but no corners with the N9. An improved processor, and all new operating system and to top it all off, aesthetic styling which is largely unmatched by the competition are some of the delights awaiting the lucky users of this new flagship smartphone.

As mentioned, the aesthetics are likely to be a major factor in the success of this handset. Its styling is superb; sharp angular corners meet smooth curves to give an ultra modern, somewhat minimalistic feeling. The front of the handset is dominated by a sizeable 3.9 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen.

The operating system is an area where Nokia have been far from consistent in recent times. The Nokia N8 was officially announced as the last Symbian powered device, and the manufacturer also recently announced its intentions to discontinue development of its Ovi products. There are still rumours that Nokia will team up with Microsoft for future smartphone projects, but in the meantime, the Nokia N9 is running the MeeGo platform. This is something of a newcomer to mainstream smartphones, although the company does have interests in net books, SatNav and other similar products. Little is known about the actual functionality of the software on the Nokia N9 at present, but from the leaked photos it certainly looks the business. The interface appears similar to the popular iOS platform which is used by Apple's iPhone franchise, in terms of how the applications are laid out.

To provide the handset's computing power, a 1 GHz processor is called upon, a welcome upgrade from the 680 MHz offering on the N8, which was arguably its biggest let down. Camera wise, the N9 is packing an 8 megapixel offering, which is a lower pixel count than the N8, but features all the bells and whistles to keep it up to date with the competition. For example, 720p HD video capture and Carl Zeiss optics assure users of quality results.

A long list of features which is pretty much standard fare within the smartphone world is all available at the user's fingertips; Wi-Fi internet browsing, built in games (the ever popular Angry Birds is included), comprehensive multimedia support and MS Office document compatibility.

More detailed specifications will be available soon, but from those currently on offer, the Nokia N9 looks like a breath of fresh air, and it looks like Nokia are heading in the right direction.

Soft Digets - Software Reviews

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