iPhone Vs Windows Mobile!!!!!

When an iPhone fan picks up a Windows phone, his or her first impression may go something like this: "It's difficult to find various features, it's kind of ugly, the hardware doesn't quite match the software, and it's generally user-unfriendly."

Vice-versa, when a die-hard Windows Mobile user picks up an iPhone, he or she might think, "This is a locked-up, inflexible platform designed mainly to get you to buy more stuff from Apple , like movies, music and apps."


While Microsoft's Windows Mobile division may have seemed a bit stagnant for the last couple of years, the software giant is reinvigorating its mobile phone operating system. In February, the company announced that the next generation of Windows phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5, and we can expect to see Microsoft focus less on the old "Windows Mobile" moniker with a version number. Rather, it will tend to refer to the devices the platform powers simply as "Windows phones."

Consumers vs. Enterprise Users


The iPhone's intuitive touch interface, media-friendly integration with iTunes and a simple email setup and integration combine to make a big difference between it and Windows Mobile phones in the eyes of many consumers.
Some of the other big differences, however, result from Microsoft's go-to-market strategy and the history of Windows Mobile. For instance, Microsoft doesn't build its own hardware like Apple does with its iPhone.
"Windows Mobile is licensed to other manufacturers, and it has deep back-end development options," Ken Dulaney, an analyst and vice president of mobile and wireless research for Gartner  , told MacNewsWorld. Plus, while Apple has made great strides in attracting developers to the iPhone OS platform, there are far more developers for the Windows Mobile/Windows Phone operating system.


Does that make the Windows Mobile operating systems and the actual devices more flexible than iPhone OS and the iPhone?

"That depends on how you define flexibility," Dulaney said. "Windows Mobile has many more options for just about everything, [but] from a user standpoint, Apple has many more app options."
This, of course, brings up the idea that there are certain types of users who are best suited to an iPhone, and others who are better matched with a Windows phone.

Last but Not Least: Accessories


There is one last key angle of consideration, and that's accessories. In this space, Apple wins hands-down, largely thanks to the company's successful iPod line. The popularity of the MP3 player attracted a great deal of attention from accessory makers, many of which have expanded their lines to include iPhone accessories over the past two years.
"The iPhone taps into a huge -- and growing -- market of third-party accessories and [even] docks in cars and airplanes," Greengart said. "With iPhone 3.0 software, these accessories can directly interact with iPhone apps." Accessories for Windows Mobile phones, he said, are largely limited to cases.
All in all, the differences between iPhone and Windows Mobile are huge. However, they will clearly become smaller as Microsoft becomes more consumer-friendly and Apple becomes more willing to play with businesses -- assuming, of course, that Apple doesn't blow everyone away with something that turns everything upside-down this summer.

Book with over 200 million Faces

In less than eight months, Facebook has doubled its user base by signing up 100 million people from around the world, officially hitting 200 million on Wednesday.

Its population is now higher than Brazil's and Japan's.

The ubiquitous online hangout, available only to college students when it opened in 2004, has been growing rapidly since opening up to anyone who wants to sign up.

But how long can that continue?

After a meteoric rise, News Corp.-owned MySpace has petered off and now has roughly 130 million active users, according to comScore. Facebook could ultimately plateau as well. After all, while there more than a billion people connected to the Internet, that doesn't mean they all want to be on Facebook.
Still, even if it's inevitable that Facebook's growth will slow down at some point as the site runs out of prospects to convert, Facebook continues to change what it has to offer, meaning today's holdouts might decide later to join after all.
"What's striking to me is how Facebook has become a kind of dashboard for Internet users," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
He said Facebook, along with MySpace and other social sites like Orkut from Google or Bebo from Time Warner's AOL, have clearly changed the online experience for many people.

Source : ECT News Network

The Sun Rises Again:As Always

Sun Microsystems has rejected IBM's offer to acquire it for US$7 billion, a move that took the tech industry by surprise and sent Sun stock plummeting.

Speculation is rampant as to why Sun Microsystems spurned the offer -- a move critics view as downright foolish in this economy -- as well as what the two companies may do next, and who else might have pockets deep enough to take IBM's place at the negotiating table.
The rejection also prompted comparisons to the Microhoo fiasco last summer, when Microsoft attempted to buy Yahoo and was rejected. Yahoo, of course, has survived -- but the company was clearly battered by fallout following its rejection of the Microsoft bid.
Sun's rejection could trigger additional flashbacks to the Microsoft-Yahoo drama, said Vanessa Alvarez, information, communications and technologies analyst with Frost & Sullivan , with a hostile bid mounted by someone playing the role of Carl Icahn in the Microhoo saga.
IBM, of course, had its reasons for making the offer -- and there is no certainty that it will walk away now that it has been spurned.

For IBM, the acquisition was about buying market share and aggressively competing against HP , whose acquisition of EDS was a direct jab at IBM's services business, Alvarez continued.
It was also, to some extent, a jab at Cisco , which recently entered the server business and competes with IBM in the unified communications and collaboration space as well, she pointed out.

Source : ECT News Network

Its not Coding,Its AJAXING

In the beginning, Tim Berners-Lee created HTTP and the Web. And the Web was without commerce, and void. And darkness was upon the face of retailers. And the spirit of commerce, Jeff Bezos, moved upon the face of the Web. And Bezos said, "Let there be electronic shopping carts, and one-click buying." And there were sales. And the computer gods saw the sales, and saw that it was good.

It's hard to imagine the Web without the electronic shopping cart. It was a seminal advance that transformed the Web from an information resource into a business platform. A fundamental shift is happening again, and this time, a programming technology is driving the change.
The technology is Ajax, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and it's making the Web as engaging, interactive and, most important, as responsive as native desktop applications. Better still, Ajax does this without the deployment, management, or overhead costs associated with managing desktop environments.
That's good news for businesses looking to give their customers a better, more responsive online experience. Look no further than Google Docs, Gmail, Meebo, and Outlook Web Access for popular Web apps that get their mojo from Ajax.
Better app performance means a better user experience. In the world of e-commerce, that can be the difference between a sub-par user experience that leads to shopping cart abandonment, and a spectacular one that keeps people shopping and builds word-of-mouth referrals.
For example, Ajax-powered e-commerce apps can allow shoppers to hover their mouse over a product to get a pop-up window with the product's details, including photos. There's no clicking, no data transfer, no page refreshing. The information is at customers' fingertips.
Applications with a database back end, such as inventory control, accounting or shopping carts, can respond with the same look, feel and functionality as non-Web desktop apps. Software updates are painless, requiring no effort on the part of users, desktop IT, or database administrators (a big plus).
However, while Ajax is a win for users and marketers, it has a dark side for developers. It's an entirely new way to code applications, and the learning curve is steep. Compared to other programming paradigms, many more lines of JavaScript and other code must be produced, tested, debugged and maintained for Ajax apps to function.
As with all programming languages, Ajax has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, even skilled developers have built Ajax apps that -- due to their asynchronous nature -- end up overloading servers or bogging down databases.
For database-driven apps (meaning, all e-commerce apps), many Ajax development tools pose problems when dealing with updates. Typically, developers have to refresh the entire database, pull up all affected forms (screens), update each form's logic, rewrite the layout code, and test the changes before redeployment is possible.

Ajax: The Next Generation


Using codeless Ajax, developers don't have to be JavaScript or XML gurus to create polished Ajax apps. The GUIs are created visually, and the code to manage asynchronous presentation and database operations is generated, optimized and maintained automatically.
I estimate that eliminating manual Ajax coding can cut my development time by 40 to 50 percent. Based on the pre-betas I have seen (and am providing feedback on), anyone with a modicum of development skill and experience will be able to use this tool to create online solutions that look, feel and behave with the same quality we expect of an enterprise app.
That's a game changer. Try that with ASP.Net, Flash, Ruby on Rails, Perl, PHP or pretty much any other application development environment today. Contemporary development platforms have become squarely focused on professional developers, cutting out the entrepreneur, the small business, or the penny-pinching mid-sized organization.
Codeless Ajax could be the breakthrough that, like earlier generations of RAD technology, changes this equation.

Bright or Black,Here Comes the Cloud

Does cloud computing cause a dilemma for application developers? Does it present problems that devs would not face in building software for earth-bound applications?

Developers face common problems regardless of where their program's data is stored. However, the cloud environment presents a set of drawbacks that cloud application developers sometimes ignore to the detriment of users, according to Javier Soltero, CEO of Hyperic. His company provides monitoring and management software for all types of Web applications, whether cloud-hosted or on-premise.
"While the cloud is very exciting and extremely beneficial and super helpful in helping productivity, one of the things not getting attention is that things can still happen regardless of where you are storing your data," as sid by Soltero
Cloud computing, according to Soltero, imposes two dilemmas for developers. The first is that cloud app developers become responsible for all three phases of the application: building, deploying and managing. The second dilemma is rooted in service level agreements (SLAs) that developers must consider to avoid becoming trapped between a rock (the SLA the developer provides to customers) and a hard place (the SLA that the cloud provides to the developer).

What is the Actual Problem?
The problem predates cloud technology, according to Soltero, but it is an evolving conundrum.

"The idea that you are relying on services provided by a giant data center provider, whether it's Google or Amazon or some other large supplier, doesn't implicitly remove the need for some level of operation by the person providing the service," he argued.
The problem, as he sees it, is that developers like the cloud since it lets them bypass operations or control agents and serve their environment needs quickly. In contrast, the cloud lets developers build and launch applications themselves without waiting for hardware to be purchased, racked and stacked. The red flag is that few developers have an operations background, leaving application users to go it alone.
"The simplest mundane application to some critical business application is at risk if some IT team hasn't responded properly," Soltero explained.

The War is on again:Numeric Vs QWERTY

Goodbye, numeric cell phone keypads. You're going the way of the rotary dial. Touchscreens and QWERTY keyboards will take over from here, thank you.

At North America's largest cell phone trade show, held last week in Las Vegas, there were few new phones for the U.S. market that had a numerical keypad instead of an alphabetic keyboard. Touchscreens also were out in force.
These changes are a recognition of the popularity of text messaging and wireless Internet use. Industry organization CTIA Wireless, which hosts the show, said U.S. subscribers sent 1 trillion text messages last year, three times the 2007 volume. Meanwhile, the same people used 2.2 trillion minutes of voice calls, an increase of less than 5 percent.
This shift in how people use their mobile devices has overturned cell phone design. According to NPD Group, 31 percent of phones sold in U.S. stores in the fourth quarter of 2008 had full-alphabet keyboards, up from 5 percent two years earlier.
Retaining Overseas Appeal

Old-fashioned numeric keypads still will have a prominent place -- but largely overseas. In a twist of market dynamics, the demand for QWERTY phones is mainly a North American phenomenon, said Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD.
Although touchscreens are gaining in popularity all over the world, people in other countries got into text messaging much earlier and "became acclimated to texting with a keypad," Rubin said. Meanwhile, the U.S. market has been influenced by high-end smartphones like the Treo and the BlackBerry that pioneered small versions of typewriter-style keyboards.
As a result, numeric keypads were still dominant at the CTIA booth of Nokia  , the world's largest maker of cell phones, which has a relatively minor presence in the U.S. The same was the case at the booth of Japanese-Swedish manufacturer Sony Ericsson.

IE8:The Future or Just Keeping up with the Past

I procrastinated for nearly two weeks before installing Microsoft's new Web browser.

I'd been happy using rival products like Firefox and Chrome at work and Flock at home, and habits are hard to break, even though version eight of Internet Explorer, or IE8, has several promising features.
In essence, all browsers have gotten so good at delivering the basics that I find little reason to change. The frills are what set each browser apart, but getting unique offerings in one means giving up features in another. However thrilling IE8's new offerings may be, I'm not ready to give up Flock, Firefox or Chrome just yet.


Still, Microsoft should be applauded for trying.

Hit the Accelerator

Most notable in Microsoft's free, Windows-only browser are tools called "Accelerators," which are designed to better mirror how people use the Web these days. Accelerators help you share content and blend services from various sites.
You can install Accelerators written by Microsoft, Yahoo , Google , Facebook or any developer that wants to participate -- no one needs permission from Microsoft.
With a mapping Accelerator, I simply right-click on an address to launch an online map from Microsoft, Yahoo or Google. With a dictionary Accelerator, I right-click on a word to get the definition from Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary or Microsoft's search engine.
There are Accelerators for email, news stories, currency conversions, eBay auctions, searching through Facebook friends, and more. This week, I counted more than 110 available through Microsoft's "Add-ons Gallery."
I can save a lot of time by not having to constantly copy and paste text from online stories into Gmail when I want to email the tidbits to friends. I simply highlight a few paragraphs and right-click on the Gmail Accelerator. Those paragraphs and a link to the full story automatically get added to the message. Accelerators are also available for email services from Microsoft and Time Warner's AOL.

By Comparison

IE8 also offers "Web Slices" to quickly alert users to updates on their eBay auctions, stock quotes, sports scores and other frequently viewed services. They appear on your favorites bar just like other bookmarks, but instead of static pages or text headlines, you get the latest photos and other goodies as well.
The new Microsoft browser also makes it easier to switch between search engines from the search box. It offers a "private" mode during which IE8 doesn't store the addresses of sites you visit or keep the small advertising data files called "cookies."
However, to use any of that, I'd have to give up one of my favorite things about Flock: the way it helps people share content and blend services.
On Flock, a Web clipboard lets me quickly drag and drop frequently used images and text, such as the Web coding I regularly add to my photo site to create links. A people sidebar lets me instantly see friends' Facebook updates, even when I'm surfing other sites.
Both Firefox and Flock let me quickly find information with an "Awesome Bar" that offers suggestions as I type, based not only on previously visited Web addresses but also the Web page's title, bookmarks and the descriptive tags I've added. Microsoft's new address bar is an improvement from previous versions but doesn't go as far.
Google's Chrome, which has a private browsing mode similar to IE8's, lets me enter search queries and Web addresses from a single box, so I don't have to pause before typing to remind myself which one to use.

Clash of the Titans!!!

I realise that we have been going on and on about the iPhone and the Nokia N96, but thats all what I can do since this is my job and specially when the two iconic phones launched together in the same week in India.

Price Comparision:

The Nokia N96 will cost you around Rs. 36,000 while the Apple iPhone 3G with 8GB memory will cost Rs. 31000 and 16GB about Rs. 36,100. On price points even though they are hugely expensive we give them equal rank.

SMS Forwarding, FM Radio:
These two features are the darling of any mobile phone user in India. Since Texting messaging is really cheap in this part of the world forwarding SMSes is a very normal thing for all users. FM Radio is the life of people whilst traveling this is your one source of entertainment on the roads of the Indian metro cities. The lack of both these features on the iPhone is a big minus as far as its Indian market is concerned.

Battery Life:
Nokia N96 wins on this hands down. There have been lots of problems with the battery drainage of the Apple iPhone and these don't seem to stop. You will have to charge your phone everyday or twice a day for that matter if you are a heavy user.

GPS:

This is not a huge factor for the Indian market, but still a talking point. On the GPS front Nokia again wins this pretty easily.

Video Calling:
Video calling is not possible on the iPhone and the Nokia N96 is pretty good at it.

Data Transfer and Bluetooth usage:

A major , major talking point regarding the iPhone. The bluetooth on the iPhone can only be used for hands-free calling. No data transfer allowed between handsets or even with a computer with bluetooth enabled.

Storage:

You thought the storage factor will play in for the iPhone ? That isn't true. The Nokia N96 comes with 16GB of internal storage plus you have the luxury of adding a 8GB memory card giving you a whopping storage of 24GB. The iPhone again loses here.

Design:

There is no beating the iPhone, as simple as that!

All in all, if you are looking for more bang for the buck, go for the Nokia N96. Lookwise and as a fashion symbol, we still say there is no beating the iPhone!

Google Here,Google There,Google Google Everywhere

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Is Google  close to making a bid for Twitter ? Yes, according to a report from TechCrunch, though neither company has made an official announcement.

Google declined to discuss the issue. "We don't comment on rumor or speculation," Google spokesperson Rachel Nearnberg told the E-Commerce Times.
Twitter cofounder Biz Stone ducked the issue, telling the E-Commerce Times that he'd already addressed it on the company blog. "Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we're just getting started," he says in a post.
Though it's managed to kick up a lot of publicity and attract many users, Twitter has yet to make money. Still, it's growing rapidly, and there has long been speculation that its backers are pressing it to turn a buck or two.

Hungry Eyes

Two people close to the situation said Google is in late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter and that the price will be more than the US$250 million valuation Twitter saw in its latest round of funding in February, according to the TechCrunch report.
That's not going to happen, Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, told the E-Commerce Times. "On 'The Colbert Report,' Biz Stone talked about expanding Twitter and growing it to a global network," Sterling said. "He also said he wants Twitter to be a strong, independent company."
For example, YouTube has more searches than Yahoo  does, Sterling said. "That kind of thing is what Google would look to pre-empt."
On Thursday, Twitter announced new features and adjustments it's making to its search capabilities.

Researchers Trace International Cyber-Spy Network to China

A cyber spy network based mainly in China hacked into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles, Canadian researchers said  Saturday.
The work of the Information Warfare Monitor initially focused on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community in exile, and eventually led to a much wider network of compromised machines, the Internet-based research group said.
"We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama," investigator Greg Walton said.

Can't Pinpoint Source

The research group said that while it's analysis points to China as the main source of the network, it has not conclusively been able to detect the identity or motivation of the hackers.
Calls to China's Foreign Ministry and Industry and Information Ministry rang unanswered Sunday. The Chinese Embassy in Toronto did not immediately return calls for comment Saturday.
Students For a Free Tibet activist Bhutila Karpoche said her organization's computers have been hacked into numerous times over the past four or five years, and particularly in the past year. She said she often gets e-mails that contain viruses that crash the group's computers.
The IWM is composed of researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. The group's initial findings led to a 10-month investigation summarized in the report to be released online Sunday.

No Stopping Android

HP  has confirmed it is considering Google's Android operating system for use in upcoming netbook computers.

However, the company has not set a time line for deciding whether to offer Android exclusively or as one of several OS options for its products, if at all, according to Marlene Somsak, an HP spokesperson.
"We are studying Android. We want to assess its capabilities," she told LinuxInsider.
If HP decides in favor of using Android, it could well become the first major PC vendor to use Google's OS, currently deployed in smartphones.

Microsoft Waiting

Microsoft's  Windows operating system has had steady competition from various Linux distributions in the netbook line. Because Windows Vista is usually too bulky for the limited memory and storage capacity of many netbook models, Microsoft XP has been the designated OS for non-Linux netbooks.
However, Microsoft has said that it is preparing a version of Windows 7 to be compatible with netbook configurations. Windows 7 is expected to be released later this year after a strong showing in its beta release.
Microsoft suggested to LinuxInsider that it did not view HP's consideration of the Android OS as a threat to the Windows OS on netbooks.
"This has long been a competitive space," Ben Rudolph, senior manager of Microsoft Windows, told LinuxInsider. "We've seen Windows on these PCs in the U.S. go from under 10 percent in unit sales during the first half of 2008 to 96 percent as of February 2009, according to the latest NPD Retail Tracking Service data,"
Microsoft remains confident that Windows' out-of-the-box functionality will ensure its continuing popularity in netbooks, he said.
"The return rates for Linux machines are up to four times higher than Windows return rates. This is a significant additional cost for consumers and retailers," Rudolph explai

RIM Cuts Ribbon on BlackBerry App Store

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion  has launched an app store for its iconic device. BlackBerry App World went live Wednesday morning with some 1,000 applications available.
The site gives developers the option of setting up their own stores -- an interesting differentiator from other carriers' app stores, noted ABI Research Senior Analyst Jeff Orr.
A storefront application, App Center, lets developers pull content from App World to add alongside their own content, he told the E-Commerce Times.
Among the applications currently available are Salesforce CRM , AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MySpace, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Bloomberg, ICQ, HRS Hotel Organizer, chat group VH1 Watch and Discuss, Lonely Planet French Phrasebook, Livestrong, Worldmate Live, Brain Challenge 2, and a few news and media applications such as a Web shortcut to the New York Times.
BlackBerry App World works with compatible BlackBerry smartphones running OS version 4.2.0 or higher, including the Bold 9000; the Storm; both the Pearl Series and Pearl Flip Series; the Curve 8300 Series; Curve 8900; and the 8800 Series. Trackwheel devices are not supported.

Yahoo Launches New Mobile User-App

Yahoo on Wednesday rolled out its new Yahoo Mobile service for smartphones. The company also announced Yahoo Messenger for the iPhone, which will be launched soon. Yahoo Mobile for the Web is available as a service on the mobile Web, accessible by cell phones with Web browsers. It's also available at Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) App Store for the iPhone and the iPod touch, Yahoo spokesperson Kate Sternberg told TechNewsWorld. The mobile service can be accessed on more than 300 devices equipped with mobile browsers, Yahoo said. These include smartphones from Nokia, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, as well as Windows Mobile devices. Users of Yahoo Mobile for the Web will have access to mobile search; news; oneConnect to stay in touch with contacts; email services from Yahoo, Google, AOL and Microsoft; social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook; and Yahoo's address book, calendar and instant messaging service. The Java smartphone version of Yahoo Mobile for the Web has additional features. These include voice-controlled search capabilities; access to maps; widgets for services from Yahoo and other brands that can be browsed, added or removed at any time; and an integrated version of the Opera Mini 4.2 browser.