Sharp makes a blunt entry into Indian mobile market with four youth-centric phones.................!!!

Sharp is marking its entry into the rather attractive Indian ‘mobility market’ with the launch of four colourful mobile phone handsets that are aimed at the youth segment, all priced under Rs. 20,000. The models being introduced have been popular in many other markets including Japan (where Sharp happens to be mobility market leader), and Sharp feels the features they offer will suit the Indian consumers.

A global consumer electronics giant, Sharp has a large retail and extraordinary manufacturing presence in numerous countries all over the world. For now though, it has decided not to manufacture mobiles in India, though it does have plans to bring in many more models. We were curious whether Sharp intended to offer higher-end smartphones to the Indian market, such as Android devices, and learned that Sharp is planning on bringing them to the country within the next four or five months. For now, Sharp will be concentrating on mobile phone sales and marketing through various retail channels.

All the four phones offer integrated social networking services, bright high-res LCD screens, and cameras. Three (Blink, Cyborg, and Tango) are of clamshell design, with the fourth (Alice) a full touch device.

Tango

Alice

Cyborg

Blink

• Blink is a dual SIM clamshell phone with LED illumination, and a 2MP camera – available in pink, blue and silver, it’s priced at Rs. 6,500
• Alice is a responsive full touch phone with front stereo speakers, 3MP camera, and G-sensor – available in red and black, it’s priced at Rs. 8,500
• Cyborg is a clamshell phone with a rotating (‘Cycloid’) high-res display and a 3.2MP camera – available in green, blue and white, it’s priced at Rs. 17,000
• Tango is a clamshell 180 degree swivel touchscreen with a G sensor, pedometer and 5MP camera – available in gold, white and pink, it’s priced at Rs. 18,000.We don’t really see Cyborg and Tango doing very well with their feature set at their prices, though Blink and Alice might just offer an attractive combination of features for the Indian consumer. While Sharp did speak about their expertise in 3G, none of these phones are 3G-enabled. The innovation here is mostly geared around the form-factor, with trendy colours, swivel screens, and Sharp’s industry leading LCD screens. Perhaps not the best first foot forward into the competition heavy Indian market that has recently seen tremendous increase in popularity for Indian mobile manufacturers and brands who offer feature-rich handsets at staggeringly low prices. We think Sharp should have brought in some higher-end devices as well, for while they don’t usually translate into sales, they do manage to turn the public eye towards the brand. In the meanwhile, stay tuned for our reviews to know just how well these four stand up.

A Lesson In Love ..........!!! { Must Read }

I watched intently as my little brother was caught in the act. He sat in the corner of the living room, a pen in one hand and my father's brand-new hymnbook in the other.
As my father walked into the room, my brother cowered slightly; he sensed that he had done something wrong. From a distance I could see that he had opened my father's new hymnal and scribbled in it the length and breadth of the first page with a pen. Now, staring at my father fearfully, he and I both waited for his punishment. And as we waited, there was no way we could have known that our father was about to teach us deep and lasting lessons about life and family, lessons that continue to become even clearer through the years.
My father picked up his prized hymnal, looked at it carefully, and then sat down, without saying a word. Books were precious to him; he was a clergyman and the holder of several degrees. For him, books were knowledge, and yet he loved his children. What he did next was remarkable. Instead of punishing my brother, instead of scolding or yelling or reprimanding, he sat down, took the pen from my brother's hand, and then wrote in the book himself, alongside the scribbles John had made: John's work, 1959, age 2. How many times have I looked into your beautiful face and into your warm, alert eyes looking up at me and thanked God for the one who has now scribbled in my new hymnal. You have made the book sacred, as have your brothers and sister to so much of my life.
"Wow," I thought. "This is punishment?"
The years and the books came and went. Our family experienced what all families go through and perhaps a little bit more: triumph and tragedy, prosperity and loss, laughter and tears. We gained grandchildren, we lost a son. We always knew our parents loved us and that one of the proofs of their love was the hymnal by the piano. From time to time we would open it, look at the scribbles, read my father's expression of love, and feel uplifted.
Now I know that through this simple act my father taught us how every event in life has a positive side - if we are prepared to look at it from another angle - and how precious it is when our lives are touched by little hands. But he also taught us about what really matters in life: people, not objects; tolerance, not judgment; love, not anger. Now I, too, am a father, and, like my dad, a clergyman and holder of degrees. But unlike my father, I do not wait for my daughters to secretly take books from my bookshelf and scribble in them. From time to time I take one down - not just a cheap paperback but a book that I know I will have for many years to come, and I give it to one of my children to scribble or write their names in. And as I look at their artwork, I think about my father, the lessons he taught me, the love he has for us and which I have for my children - love that is at the very heart of a family.
I think about these things and I smile. Then I whisper, "Thank you, Dad."

Samsung shows off its 70-inch Ultra Definition 240Hz 3DTV.............!!!

LG holds the crown for the largest production 3D television at 72-inches, but as you might remember, that was 72-inches at 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. It did also showcase a 82-inch Ultra Definition plasma-driven 3DTV (3,840 x 2,160 resolution), but didn’t release it into to the market. Now it looks like Samsung, LG’s biggest LCD display rival, has managed to wrest that record away from LG, by announcing a 70-inch Ultra Definition 3DTV.
So while it might not be the largest 3DTV in production, or the largest (single) 3DTV ever, the as yet unnamed Samsung television is definitely the largest UD LCD 3DTV to be announced, and might even be the largest 240Hz screen to hit the market. You might be wondering what sort of technology enabled Samsung to create such a high resolution screen, one which can refresh at 240Hz. Samsung claims it is all because of the company’s new “Oxide TFT Semiconductor”, which allows for “8 million pixels high-definition at ultra speed.” No word on exactly when this will hit markets, or the expected price. You can be sure it will cost a pretty penny though, no matter how many free 3D glasses they ship with it.

Opera 10.1 for Android [Review]

Opera Mobile, one of the best browsers for smartphones yet, has just reached another platform, Android. While currently in beta, the browser exhibits remarkable stability, and brings all of the great features that most people have come to associate with the Opera browser.
Unlike the iPhone version, which was Opera Mini, the version released for Android is Opera Mobile, which unlike its Mini counterpart includes a full-fledged rendering engine and supports JavaScript. In Opera Mini, the browser content is rendered, compressed and sent to the mobile browser where it is simply displayed, hence it is not suitable for displaying highly interactive JavaScript-based content. In the Opera Mobile version on the other hand, your content is rendered on the mobile browser itself, and thus it can run complex JavaScript based websites such as GMail (even the desktop version).
As we mentioned before, Opera includes all the features that you have come to like in its browsers. It supports Opera Link, that allows you to synchronize your bookmarks, Speed Dial entries, and a few other settings to your Opera Link account. Since sync is available in all Opera versions, this can be used to keep your desktop / laptop copy of Opera Link in sync with your desktop. While Firefox and Chrome too have syncing features now, Opera had them significantly earlier than either. Additionally, while Firefox allows one to sync their data between the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox, Google hasn't released any such means to sync between Chrome and the Android browser.
Another feature of Opera which finds extensive use here in India, Opera Turbo, is also included in the version. With Opera Turbo, page loads are snappy even on mobile, as pages are compressed and images resized at Opera's servers before being sent to your mobile. Not only it is faster, but also cheaper to access the net with Opera. At least one other browser, SkyFire includes this functionality. While Opera Turbo on desktop can potentially hamper the quality of the webpages you visit, as it compresses images to the point that they become pixellated, on the mobile at least the compression artifacts are barely visible due to the small size of the screen. Even so it would be nice, for the sake of the desktop browser at lest if Opera would include some means to turn off re-compression of images.

Opera has not changes the looks of the browser much in the Android version. A Speed Dial screen with 9 entries in a 3x3 square greet you when you open the browser. These can be linked to your favourite websites, so that they are accessible with a single touch on the home screen. As we mentioned before, these will be synced to your Opera Link account, so you can access the same homescreen from all your devices.

Opera Mobile for Android has the familiar multi-tab interface, which displays tab thumbnails in a tray at the bottom. This tab-tray  can be accessed by tapping a button on the toolbar at the bottom. The multi-tab experience is quite pleasant, and switching tabs is quite fast. However, when too many tabs are open — how many will depend on your screen size and orientation — the tabs gets squished together to the point that it is difficult to distinguish between them. To make it simpler to switch tabs there is one clever little way to browse your open tabs. You can slide your finger across the stacked list of tabs; doing so will move them slide them across each other one by one, letting you see them in full as you move from one end to another. This works quite well, however you need to be careful to stop on the right tab.

Other elements in the tool-bar at the bottom include, back and forward buttons and a tools menu which exposes yet more functionality of Opera Mobile. When you zoom into the page, the back button also becomes the zoom-out button, to take you back to the full-page view. From the tool menu you can access bookmarks, history, downloads, the Opera help, and Opera settings. You can also use this menu to search for text in the current page.

Opera allows you to configure whether to use features such as Opera Link and Opera Turbo in its settings list. By default Opera Turbo comes switched off, however you can turn it on to save bandwidth, you can also opt to  turn off displaying images entirely, or turn on mobile view for more performance benefits. To make optimum use of your large screen, you can turn on Fullscreen mode, which will hide all UI elements when the page is in focus, that way the entire screen can be dedicated to the content, and the UI elements can be accessed by clicking on the menu button on your device.
The settings menu also allows you to control the text zoom, text wrapping, and privacy settings. Through the privacy menu you can turn on or off cookies, and the password manager feature of Opera. You can also clear any sensitive data such as cookies, cache, saved passwords etc.

The text wrapping feature needs a special mention as it is incredibly useful. When you load any page, Opera presents it in its full glory, as it would look on a PC browser. However this is obviously not the best way to read the content on page, especially if the site is not designed for mobiles. So when you tap on a block of text in Opera, it zooms in onto the text, and reflows it so that it no more than the width of the screen. This eliminates any need to to scroll horizontally. As with mobile browsers there days, Opera Mobile support pinching to zoom, however it seems to be the only gesture supported. It will however need support from your mobile.
Opera Mobile 10.1 beta for Android is a great browser, and is a welcome addition to the Android platform. If you have a Android handset which has Android 1.6 or newer, it is a must add to your smartphone, and can be acquired from the Android Market. Opera has labelled this version as beta, however we found it quite reliable as a browser, and while there may be something missing to justify the beta tag, overall the browser seems quite ready for daily use.

Opera Mobile 10.1 beta for Android is a great browser, and is a welcome addition to the Android platform.

Pros

• Fast and light on bandwidth
• Full JavaScript support with a 100/100 in ACID3
• Multiple tab support
• Automatic text-wrap works very well
• Inbuilt Sync support with Opera Link

Cons

• Currently in beta so there may be unknown bugs
• Limited gesture support
• Handling too many tabs can be cumbersome