HTC Hero gets reviewed

Originally announced on June 24, HTC hero has earned a special place in the hearts of smartphone lovers with its killer looks and beautiful interface. Reviews of the HTC's latest phone have started flowing in from major websites and as usual, Hero gets a mixed bag of praises and complaints. A short highlight:

Engadget.com: "If this build of Android were to be loaded atop the guts of a 3GS or Pre, the performance would likely be astounding, but fused with the two-year old architecture of previous devices, it's mostly disappointing......this build is a bit too much for a device like the Hero to handle, and that makes for an uneven, sometimes frustrating experience" -Full review.

Boygeniusreport.com: "HTC’s achievements and innovations aren’t anything to dismiss, they are what to me makes Android usable, but with the current hardware powering the HTC Hero, things become murky and frustrating" - Full review.

Slashgear.com: "It’s reassuring to know that not only is the Hero a great smartphone but that it’s only likely to get better as HTC continue their tweaks. It’s safe to say that, in the HTC Hero, Android has come of age." - Full review.

HTC has done an incredible job with their latest smartphone. With an eye-catching design and the beautiful Sense UI, the phone is arguably the best looking Android based handset available in market today. However, looks alone doesn't make a product worthy and Hero does fail to impress in other areas. HTC's Sense UI looks very promising, but the underlying hardware is simply not enough to keep everything running smooth without lagging. As pointed out by many reviewers, if HTC can combine this OS with a better hardware platform, something like Tegra or Snapdragon, we might have a true winner that could easily drive the IPhone and Palm Pre a run for their money. Who knows, HTC is aware of this and something very big is under development and Hero is a small example of what's yet to come.

Symbian enters the app store market with "Horizon"

It's a well known fact that Symbian is the worldwide leader in operating system for smart phones with more than 49.3 percent of world smart phones using their OS. But, as companies like Apple, Google, RIM, Microsoft and Palm have taken the Mobile OS market very seriously, Symbian's market share has been steadily declining for the past few years. To remain competitive in the market, the company has announced many initiatives this year. One of such initiative is the recently announced application publishing platform - "Symbian Horizon". The new service aims to simplify the task of distributing applications developed for the Symbian OS by third party developers. Unlike Apple's app store, there is no revenue model for the service, a developer has to submit the program and the company would take care of signing the app, publishing the app to the store, managing the transactions and so on, all at no cost to the developers. “Our goal is to encourage robust application development, increase revenue and application diversity in mobile stores, and improve the consumer experience – all for the greater benefit of the mobile ecosystem”, says Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. The service is expected to launch in October while developers can submit their programs right now on the official page. Hit on the read link for the official news on Symbian's blog.

Read - Scanning The Horizon

Microsoft announces Office web applications

Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 has kicked off at New Orleans and Microsoft has announced that Office 2010 has finally reached the technical preview engineering milestone. A number of new features have been announced and showcased in the event. PowerPoint is getting video and image editing capabilities, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote are getting a new feature called as co-author, using which more than one user can edit the same document simultaneously in real time, Microsoft Backstage for easy document preparation, a new feature called Sparklines for Excel are the few among the many great useful features announced in the event. Microsoft has promised that the final product will land on the second half of 2010 while the public preview is expected to arrive this year. For those who can't wait, the preview version is already available on all major torrent trackers.

While the new features of Office 2010 was nothing mind blowing, what was really interesting was the announcement of Office Web applications. Microsoft made it clear that Office Web applications will work smoothly on various browsers including Firefox and Safari, however Chrome is still not supported possibly due to the Silverlight dependency of the proposed web applications. Whats more shocking is, the entire range of Office Web applications will be available to all Live subscribers at free of cost. That's a direct competition against Google's free online Docs suite launched almost three years ago. It should be noted that the web version of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote will be light weight versions of the original software which means that there will be some limitations. Microsoft has promised that the same look and feel of the documents will be preserved regardless of the browser of choice for both PCs and mobile phones.

Though the new web based applications might affect the revenue generated by desktop version of the Office suite, analysts believe that the move is really smart from Microsoft as this means that customers will continue using Microsoft products, which might be profitable in the long run. Google announced their plans for a new OS just last week and now Microsoft has fired back with their web applications. With the same familiar user interface now on the browser, combined with a range of new features just announced, Microsoft's Office Web applications might become a serious threat to the Google's Docs. But we can't draw into any conclusion until the service is launched next year. Until then, both Microsoft and Google have plenty of time to tweak and refine their products to prove one's superiority over the other. Hit on the read link for the official page for the preview of the new versions of your tried and trusted Office applications.

Read - Introducing Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview

VLC Media Player 1.0.0 now available

If you are looking for a one stop solution to satisfy all your video playback needs, there is no doubt that VLC media player is the best choice you can opt for and nothing else even comes close. Originally started as an academic project by students in 1996 the player has evolved into the best open source media player in the planet. Supporting almost every possible video and audio formats, the player provides a wide range of features and options using which the user can play, record or even stream the content over the network. Since the project is open source, various developers across the globe have contributed and now after 13 years, the player has finally reached version 1.0. The new version has a number of new features, bug fixes and support for more media formats. The official page reports that their latest player has hit 3 million downloads within the first 3 days of launch and an estimated 8 downloads per second. That’s an amazing figure for an independent open source project. Hit on the read link for the official page to download and it's guaranteed that you will never use windows media player again!

Read - VLC media player: The cross-platform open-source multimedia framework, player and server

Silverlight 3.0 is out of beta

Microsoft Silverlight is a web application framework something very similar to Adobe Flash. When the framework was first announced way back in 2006, it provided limited functionalities, but now after years of development, the framework has evolved into a mature platform and poses a serious threat to Adobe Flash. Silverlight 3.0 was first announced at the MIX09(Web Design and Development Conference) event. Available as beta version since the announcement, Silverlight 3.0 has undergone a variety of changes and bug fixes. Now after almost 4 months, Microsoft finally decided to ship the final version of their web application framework today. The latest version is now available for download and the compatible browsers for now seems to be Windows Internet Explorer 6/7/8, Firefox 2/3, and Safari 3/4. Microsoft promises that Silverlight 3.0 would deliver "high-definition video in full-screen mode, with stutter-free live and on-demand video". Hit on the read link for the download page and test drive the latest version yourself.

Read - Microsoft Silverlight: Light up the web.

Google Chrome OS - another breaking news from the search Giant!

With Google gaining market share in every web related products with their Google Apps, it was quite obvious that they would bring out an OS of their own. That's right, Google today announced their official entry into the OS market with their "Google Chrome OS". Unlike Windows, the new OS from Google will be 'an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks'. However, as the product evolves with time, it is inevitable that the new OS will find it's way to full-size desktop systems. For now, Google has announced that their new OS will work on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we'll see the OS in action sometime in 2010 on a number of netbooks from multiple OEMs. The architecture behind the OS would be a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

For those of you wondering about the overlap with Android, the company is very well aware of that and claims, "we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google". Now that Google has officially entered the OS market, neither Microsoft nor Apple would be seriously disturbed as this is just an announcement and nothing more. However, both the companies wouldn't take this so lightly since this is Google we are talking about. First it was Google Wave and now this, the engineers at Google now have some real main stream products to work on this year apart from Android and the company's dedication to Open Source really pleases many of the developers outside Google as well. We have to wait and see if Chrome OS can be a real winner or just another Linux distribution as it is really too early to conclude anything with just an announcement. Hit on the read link for the official news on Google's blog post.

Read - Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Sony VAIO W series netbooks officially announced

It's still hard to believe that it really took this long for Sony to launch their first true netbook. But after the long wait, it's finally here. Dubbed as VAIO W, the new series of netbooks features some decent spec but the design is not as impressive as someone would expect from a Sony product. The new device checks in with 10.1" screen, 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1 GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Wifi: Atheros 802.11 b/g/n and all the usual stuff we might expect from a netbook. The netbook ships with Windows XP and three colour options to choose from: pink, brown and white. The only feature which makes the new W series netbooks stand apart from the crowd is the 1368x768 resolution. However with a price tag of $499 and a chubby design, consumers have a plenty of other options to choose from. When compared with the impressive lineup of netbooks from Asus and Acer, Sony is really late to the party and their latest W series fails to impress. Hit on the read link for the official press release on Sony.ca.

Read - Sony debuts new mini notebook in cool new colours

Jailbreak for IPhone 3G S hits the web

George Hotz, the 19 year old hacker from New Jersey, has released the jailbreak tool for the recently launched IPhone 3G S. While everybody was expecting that the jailbreak tools will be released by Dev-Team, George Hotz's sudden announcement was a shock to the entire scene. It looks like George Hotz is tired of waiting for the Dev-Team, whose original plan was to delay the launch of jailbreaking tools until Apple realeases IPhone OS 3.1. He says that, "Normally I don't make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn't how the game is played. We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn't worth waiting because you might have the "last" hole in the iPhone. What last hole...this isn't golf. I'll find a new one next week". While Iphone 3G S users across the globe are thanking George Hotz for his efforts, it's quite clear that the Dev-Team is insanely angry with him right now. Hit on the read link for his blog post where you can find the download link and instructions. It should be noted that the tool is in beta stage and currently works only in Windows.

Read - I make it ra1n

Firefox 3.5 - now available

The next version of one of the best browser is finally released. Though available as beta versions and release canditates for a quite a long time, Mozilla finally decided to ship the final version yesterday. As expected, the new version ships with a number of new features and many of the existing features fine tuned. Mozilla claims that Firefox 3.5 is more than 2 times faster than Firefox 3 and more than 11 times faster than Firefox 2.0. While those figures aren't going to be true for all the websites, the new browser definitely seems to be very fast in most cases. Other notable feature include, high-performance TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, an improved Gecko layout engine, location aware browsing, support for HTML5 and many more. An important new feature worth mentioning is the "Private Browsing" mode, which when turned on, Firefox will not retain any data about which sites and pages you have visited. Hit on the read link for the official page to download and test drive the new browser.

Read - Firefox 3.5: Upgrade to a Better Browser

Google Voice - managing phone calls made easy

Many of us have different phone numbers like home phone, business phone, personal phone, etc and handling the calls to those numbers simultaneously is a difficult job. Moreover, searching for something important from those number of voicemails is a real nightmare. Google is trying to simplify all those tasks with it's new service. Dubbed as "Google Voice", the service is aimed to improve the way we use our phone. With Google Voice, you pick a new phone number from Google, when someone calls that number, you can route the call to any of your other phone number as per your requirement. For example, calls from your spouse can be routed to your personal number and official calls can be routed to your business number and so on. Even if you change any of your phone number, you just have to update the new number in your Google Voice and everyone will still be able to reach you in the same old number which you picked from Google.

Another interesting feature is voice mail transcription. Whenever you recieve a voicemail, Google Voice immediately transcripts the message as plain text and sends it as an email to the account holder. The new service offers many more cool features such as, call screening, listening before taking a call, listening to voice mails on PC or mobile, recording calls and so on. Everything can be configured right from the browser in an easy to use interface. What's very interesting is, the Google Voice will be available completely free of cost. Now if this is service is integrated and synchronized with Android and many other Google apps, we might have a killer app from Google. Unfortunately, the service is still in beta stage and currently available through invites only. General availability of the service is expected very soon. Until then, check out the official site for the full list of features and a demonstration video.

Read - Here comes Google Voice

HTC announces it's next Android handset - HTC Hero

The smartphone market has turned out very competitive this June. While Palm and Apple are busy shipping their Pre and IPhone 3G S respectively, HTC made a surprising announcement last week. Meet "Hero", the third Android based handset from the HTC corporation. Though Hero is an Android based phone, the UI is very different from the previous Android based phones from HTC. The UI looks like an upgraded version of the TouchFlo 3D with a new HTC Sense widget-based interface. While personilazation has been heavily revamped, synchronizing and combining local data with social networking sites seems to be the central focus for this device and possibly for future devices form HTC. Check out this video for more info on the OS tweaks.

The Hero checks in with a Qualcomm® MSM7200A™ 528 MHz Processor, 3.2-inch screen with 320x480 resolution, 3.5 mm audio jack, 5.0 mpx camera with auto focus, Digital Compass, Quad-band GSM, 900/2100MHz HSPA, Trackball, GPS, 802.11b/g WiFi and so on. The most exciting new feature announced is the support for Adobe Flash. That's right, HTC Hero is the first Android based smartphone to support Adobe Flash out of the box. That's not all, Hero is also the first phone to get a Teflon coating to make sure the phone is always clean and shining without finger prints. With all the new features and the decent spec sheet, HTC seems to have a real hero here. The only drawback here is the under-powered Qualcomm® processor. Otherwise, this phone could have been a serious threat to both Apple and Palm. Hit on the read link for the official page on HTC.com.

Read - HTC Hero: Be Brave Be Yourself.

IPhone 3G S gets reviewed

Iphone 3G S which mad it's debut on WWDC, is now available in retail stores across various countries in the US and Europe and reviews of Apple's new device has already been posted by major web sites. As expected, the device is getting mixed impressions from all the reviewers with many pros and cons. A short highlight of the different reviews:

Engadget.com: "while it's tough to argue with the package Apple has put together (a stellar device with just enough new to make it nearly perfect), we couldn't help feeling a bit let down by the 3G S. Maybe we've been spoiled by devices like the Pre and Ion, but the additions of video recording, a compass, and a speed bump just don't seem that compelling to us", Full review.

Gizmodo.com: "as a whole, the iPhone 3GS is the best all-around smartphone available. If you're looking for a refined, augmented version of what you already know, a phone that, not for nothing, runs all the tens of thousands of apps on the App Store, choose the iPhone 3GS", Full review.

NYTimes.com: "the usual 10 rational objections to the iPhone have been whittled down to about three: no physical keyboard, no way to swap the battery yourself and no way to avoid using AT&T as your carrier. In short, the substantially improved, still elegant iPhone 3G S makes it dangerously easy for your heart and your head to agree", Full review.

WSJ.com: "Both the new iPhone and iPhone OS are packed with features that make a great product even better. But, for many users, the software may be enough of a boost to keep them from buying the new model", Full review.

It's very clear that IPhone 3G S is not a revolutionary upgrade to IPhone 3G and Apple never intended it to be. Instead, IPhone 3G S is the same phone with some fine tweaks here and there which might definitely please new customers and at the same time, will fail to impress existing IPhone 3G owners. The truth is, even with minor improvements, IPhone 3GS is one of the best smartphones available in the market today and there is absolutely no need for a harware revision at this time. Is the IPhone 3G S a must buy? Definitely yes if you are a new customer and if you are fine with AT&T's network. Otherwise, you can very well stick with your IPhone 3G and simply go for the OS 3.0 upgrade. Check out the links provided for an in deapth review by various critics.

Opera Unite - a new service from Opera, aimed to reinvent the web

Opera has announced a new service today which might possibly change the way we do a lot of things in the internet today. The new service dubbed as "Opera Unite" can change any computer or device, running the Opera browser into a web server. By doing so, users can share their data with anyone connected to the internet without the need for a third party web server. Imagine sharing your photos without having to upload them to Flickr or Picasa. "Our computers are only dumb terminals connected to other computers (meaning servers) owned by other people — such as large corporations — who we depend upon to host our words, thoughts, and images. We depend on them to do it well and with our best interests at heart" says Lawrence Eng, a product analyst for Opera Software. By using their new service, Opera believes that users no longer have to rely upon third party companies for many popular services such as, e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, photo sharing, file sharing, web hosting, etc.

The technology looks very promising and available right now for anyone who would like to give it a try. Don't expect anything mind blowing so soon as the service is still in alpha stage and will take a long time to deliver it's full potential. As expected, the technology is fully open source and as a result, tons of new features will be added throughout it's lifecycle from various developers across the globe. It's really very interesting that browser manufacturers are coming up with such innovative ideas and thereby giving a wide range options to both consumers and developers. First it was Google Wave and now it is Opera Unite, who knows what Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla are working on to prove that their browser is the best available browser in the market? Hit on the read link for more details on the official page.

Read - Opera Unite: a Web server on the Web browser

Nokia announces E72 and 5530 XpressMusic

It's good news for Nokia fans. The company has announced two new phones during the Connection 09 event in Singapore. The first phone is E72 which is the succesor to the company's popular E71 and includes an array of new features such as optical scrolling, five-megapixel camera, slim 10mm frame, 10.2Mbps HSDPA, 3.5mm audio jack, active noise cancellation for improved sound quality on calls, digital compass and many more. The device is expected to hit the retail shelves in the third quarter of 2009 with an estimated price tag of about $489. The phone definitely seems to be a solid upgrade to the E71 and the price tag also doesn't hurt when compared with similar models. Check out the video on the read link for a short glimpse on the device.

The second phone announced in the event is the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic which is a stripped down version of the popular 5800 XpressMusic. While the phone looks very similar to the 5800, some features like 3G support has been removed to bring the cost down. However the phone still packs some nice features like a large touch screen with tactile feedback, 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, WiFi, and EDGE for connectivity, 3.5mm audio jack and some minor tweaks here and there to the OS. This device is also expected to hit the retail shelves in the third quarter of 2009 with an estimated price tag of about $278. Sure, E72 is the hot announcement here, but I'm sure 5530 will definitely please the budget minded Nokia fans, for it's relatively low price tag. Hit on the read link for the official pages for both the phones.

Read - Nokia E72

Read - Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

EU vs Microsoft - The battle continues

While Microsoft is threatening the US government that the company will be forced to move jobs overseas, things arent so good for Microsoft in Europe. "The European Union Microsoft competition case," brought by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft is going on for a long time and a short recap can be found here at Wiki. While the previous case is still under investigation, EU came up with another case against Microsoft on Jan 2009 stating that, "Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice." In order to avoid any further complications with the EU, Microsoft announced that all European versions of Windows 7 will ship without Internet explorer. "Given the pending legal proceeding, we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users," said Dave Heiner, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Microsoft. While the move was really smart form Microsoft, it wasn't enough for EU.

The European Commision demands that instead of stripping Internet Explorer, Microsoft should bundle popular browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, along with Internet Explorer with it's upcoming version of Windows. By doing so, EU believes that consumers will have a genuine choice of browsers. But Microsoft is not willing to do so, as it might result in incorporating third party browsers with windows components such as windows explorer, which may lead to some serious issues related with support and security. Though this might not mean anything to the consumers, all these means a lot to the competitors and they must be very happy with EU's efforts. However, it's still a mystery that Apple is not bothered by the EC, while they still ship their OS with one browser(Safari). Do consumers really need a choice of browsers during Windows installation? You may think that it's not going to be that useful. But according to EU, "The development of new online services makes web browsers an increasingly important tool for businesses and consumers, and a lack of real consumer choice on this market would undermine innovation" - a statement which we cannot deny. Will Microsoft comply? This is the EU we are talking about, they have and they will continue to dictate Microsoft on how they would do business in the Europe. Hit on the read link for the official EU memo.

Read - Commission statement on Microsoft Internet Explorer announcement

Microsoft's CEO opposes Obama's tax plans

The entire tech industry was scocked when US President Barack Obama annouced that there will be higher taxes for US companies that send jobs overseas. The new plan proposed by Obama would generate about $190 billion USD over the next decade for the US government. Though this may be a good news for US citizens, it's definitely not a good news for everyone. The plan, if approved may lead to serious problems to many companies in the US and to many other companies outside the US. Since the major source of revenue for many companies in developing countries is through outsourcing, this plan may put a lot of such companies in jeopardy.

While the plan still remains a mystery, Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer on a recent interview has said that, “It makes U.S. jobs more expensive. We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.” The statement is a direct attack on Obama's plan and a bold move from Microsoft. However, Microsoft is not alone in this, companies like Symantec Corp, Bentley Systems, an Exton and a few more also opposed the tax proposals in the roundtable discussions held on June 3rd. While Microsoft's voice has really given hope for all those companies in fear, only time will tell if this will have any effect on the congressional approval of the plan. Hit on the read link for the actual news on Bloomberg.com.

Read - Ballmer Says Tax Would Move Microsoft Jobs Offshore

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook - The Exchange killer?

It's true that Google Apps is a huge success among the general web users across the globe. But, when it comes to enterprise users, it's undeniable that Microsoft is the worldwide leader in managing emails, calendar, contacts and tasks with it's Exchange server. Many corporate users would love to use Gmail, but they didn't because they cannot easily stop themselves from using Outlook. But Outlook can no longer be a barrier for business users who wish to use Gmail. Google has recently announced "Google Apps Synch", a plugin for Microsoft Outlook. After installing the plugin, users can connect to Google Apps and synchronize their emails, contacts, calendar, tasks, etc using Outlook. Transferring existing data from Exchange Server is also pretty simple.

Available right now, can Google Apps Synch be a real Exchange killer? With all the same features and a low cost, can Google really beat Microsoft in the corporate application space? Not so soon! Though Google's effort is really promising and poses a real threat to Microsoft's offering, it woluld take a long time for companies to migrate from Exchange server to Google Apps and it's obvious that Microsoft would come up with an equivalant or even a better solution before that might happen. Google surely has set a spark, now we have to wait and watch how the Industry and Microsoft responds. Hit on the read link for the official news.

Read - Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps for email, contacts, and calendar

WWDC 09 – Apple fails to impress

While consumers and developers were expecting a revolutionary announcement, Apple failed to impress the tech industry on the WWDC, which commenced on June 8th. Though a number of new products and services were announced in the event, nothing was revolutionary or innovative. Instead, all the announcements were updates to the existing software and hardware products from Apple. Some of the highlights of the event:

IPhone 3G S: Just a speed bump to the processor, slightly improved camera, more storage and few more additional features. Availability: June 19th. More Info.

IPhone OS 3.0: Again, just a bunch of improvements to the OS and nothing mind blowing. Availability: June 17th. More Info.

Snow Leopard: Not a huge leap from Leopard, but still a worthy upgrade for $29 instead of the usual $129. Availability: September. More Info.

MacBook Pro: A new 15 inch MacBook Pro with non removable battery and SD card reader. Speed bumps to all other MacBooks out there. More Info.

Safari 4: Apple claims this to be the fastest browser, which is not entirely true. However the browser is out of the beta stage and available right now for those who want to give it a try. More Info.

Price cuts: IPhone 8GB now available for $99 with contract. An unbelievable price cut ranging from $300 to $700 for all the MacBooks.

It’s clear that Apple is feeling the heat of the economy and the price cuts are inevitable. However, even with those huge price cuts for their MacBooks, they are still very expensive when compared with Windows based notebooks. With every other company announcing some revolutionary product or service this year, Apple really did fail to impress. Hit on the read link for the the streaming video of the entire keynote address of WWDC 09.

Read – Apple WWDC 2009 Keynote Address

Apple announces it’s next phone - IPhone 3G S

WWDC has kicked off and as expected, Apple is making a lot of announcements about upcoming products and services. One of the most awaited announcement was an update to the year old IPhone 3G. Apple calls the new phone as IPhone 3G S where the ‘S’ stands for speed. According to Apple, the phone features a faster processor and updated 3D graphics which delivers an improved performance and incredible gaming performance. The company claims that everything will be at least 2X faster when compared with IPhone 3G.

Other new features include, 3 Mpx camera with auto focus, VGA video recording, full voice control, built in digital compass, Nike + iPod support and many more. For internet usage, battery life of up to 5 hours on 3G and up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi has been promised. The 16GB and 32 GB versions are priced at $199 and $299 respectively and both are expected to hit the retail shelves on June 18th in the US and 80 more countries in August. There isn’t anything revolutionary here except the improved speed and few added features. We have to wait and see how the device holds up with the recently launched Palm Pre and many other smart phones including the Touch Diamond 2. Hit on the read link for the official page and the demonstration video.

Read – Introducing IPhone 3G S

Sony unveils its motion sensing controller

Shortly after Microsoft demonstrated it’s revolutionary Project Natal, Sony took the stage on E3 to demonstrate their own version of motion sensing controller. Unlike Microsoft, Sony feels like some experiences require a controller, especially in FPS games. The controller looked like a magic wand with a ball on the top which changes colour under different situations during game play. It should be noted that the device is in prototype stage and Sony has promised that the final version will be different.The demonstration was mind blowing as the controller features sub millimeter precision. With such precision, the possibilities are limitless and with the right pricing, Sony might have a real winner here.

Is it better than Wii? Definitely! Is it better than Natal? Not really! Sony has tried to strike a balance between both Wii and project natal, by addressing the limitations of both the technologies. It’s true that Microsoft’s Natal and Sony’s new controller, has set a new trend in the gaming industry and now it’s the developer's job to bring out the true potential out of these new technologies. With the technical capabilities of both the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, it’s clear that Nintendo Wii may get into serious trouble next year when actual playable games start to show up. Until then, hit on the read link for the demonstration video.

Read - Sony demos its own motion controller

Palm Pre finally goes on sale with mixed reviews from critics

After months of announcements, sneak peaks, hands on and more, Palm Pre is finally available for sale in the US. As expected, the device has been taken for a spin and has been getting mixed reviews from critics across the web.

Engadget.com: “Some of the ideas and concepts at play in webOS are truly revolutionary for the mobile space…..The Pre is a great phone, and we don't feel any hesitation saying that.”

Gizmodo.com: “The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability……..The Pre may have hardware that's worse than the G1/G2, but the whole package, the software and the hardware isn't bad. It's good. It's different.”

It’s quite clear that the webOS is the real innovation in the device and manages to beat both the iphone and android phones in the software front. Though the hardware design is pretty impressive to look at, it doesn’t seem to live up to the expectations with a few design flaws and cheap build quality. Moreover, while there is a huge potential for the webOS platform, it’s disappointing that Palm hasn’t released the public SDK yet. All said and done, Palm Pre is a great phone with a lot of room for improvement. Highly recommended! Hit on the read links for the entire review.

Read – The Engadget Palm Pre review

Read – Gizmodo.com’s Palm Pre review

PSP Go officially announced by Sony

We knew this was coming and as expected, Sony officially announced it's PSP Go on E3 2009. The new design looks very next gen and is 50 percent smaller and 40 percent lighter than the original PSP when it was released on Dec 2004. Such a reduction in size and weight was the direct result of the removal of UMD drive from the device. Instead, users can now load and play games directly from their memory stick or through Playstation Network using the 16 GB of internal storage built in. Other specs include, a 3.8-inch display (480 x 272 resolution), built-in stereo speakers and microphone, 802.11b WiFi, bluetooth 2.0+EDR, analog video out, etc.

With all said and done, do you think that the days of UMDs are about to end? Definitely not! Sony has confirmed that games will be released simultaneously on both UMDs and as online downloads throughout the life cycle of PSP. The new device is expected to launch on October 1 in th US with an asking price of $250. Now this is the worst part of the entire announcement. Even with such a sleek design and a few added features, $250 for a 5 year old console is really very disappointing. Only time will tell if this device can be succesful with such a steep price. Hit on the read link for the official press release.

Read - Everything you need to know about PSPgo.

Another big announcement from Microsoft – “Project Natal”

E3 kicked off yesterday and one of the biggest announcement so far is Microsoft’s Project Natal. The entire gaming industry was stunned when Microsoft unveiled this upcoming product on it’s press conference held on Monday morning. Natal is a small black device which the user places under the TV and once connected to the Xbox 360, the device can capture and recognize your full body motion, using a group of sensors built in. That’s right, full body motion sensing without any wires or strings attached. The technology looks like a major upgrade to the Nintendo Wii. Apart from gaming capabilities, the device also features advanced facial recognition, voice identification and more.

By announcing Project Natal, Microsoft has really unleashed a new trend in the gaming industry, the same way Nintendo did a few years ago. But, even with the revolutionary new technology, will Microsoft finally be able to beat Nintendo Wii? I feel that, it’s too early to draw any conclusion with just an announcement. We have to wait and watch how Microsoft has planned to bring this amazing product to the retail market. No info on pricing and availability yet from Microsoft. SDKs have already reached the developers and hopefully we’ll see a working game title on next year’s E3. Until then, hit on the read link for the official demonstration video.

Read – Project Natal announcement trailer

Sony Ericsson announces two new Handsets

It’s good news for Sony Ericsson fans. Two new handsets has been announced with an expected availability from Q4 2009. The handset on the left is dubbed as “Yari” which seems to be a Wii like gesture based gaming device. “Yari is the industry’s first mobile phone with gesture gaming outside of the Japanese market,” said Catherine Cherry, Market Business Manager at Sony Ericsson. I think we will soon see a lot of people swinging and moving their arms weirdly with this device in their hands. Other usual specs include, 2.4 inch screen with 262K colours and 240x320 pixels resolution, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, built in GPS and all the usual stuff.

The Handset on the right is dubbed as “Aino”, which includes both numeric slider and a touch screen. However, the touch screen is activated only on the media mode. The device looks cool and features a 3 inch screen with 16M colours, 8.1 megapixel camera with autofocus, etc. Additional features include, support for Media Go and Remote Play for use with Playstation 3. What I really don’t understand is, why is the touch functionality limited to be used only on the media mode for such a beautiful handset? Hit on the read link for the official press release.

Read - Gesture gaming is here with the Sony Ericsson

Microsoft is finally ready to take on Google Search

Google search has been the king of search engines for quite a long time. If you ever thought that no other company would dare to replace Google Search, you were wrong. Meet Bling, Microsoft’s attempt to “deliver the best results, presented in a more organized way to simplify key tasks and help you make important decisions faster”. Microsoft has been testing Bing for some time under the code name "Kumo". Though Bing might yield the same results which Google search might yield, it’s the presentation of the results where Bing outshines Google. Bing tries to add as much information as possible related with our search query and displays them as a neatly organized search result. This is pretty useful when our search is related with shopping, travel, health, whether, news, etc.

Microsoft has added a number of features to Bling to make it look different and better than Google Search. However, Bing is not always superior than Google Search. There are times when Google Search might yield better results than Bing and vice versa. With all the bells and whistles, will Bing replace Google Search? Definitely not. But, Bing will remain as a very good alternative with some added features which are most of the time useful. Maybe Microsoft is aware of this and that is why they call Bing as a decision engine and not a search engine. Microsoft Bling is set to launch worldwide on June 3rd. Until then, click on the read link for the demonstration video on the official page.

Read – Introducing Bing

Google tries to redefine web communication

Google I/O developer conference kicked off 2 days back and there has been tons of discussions about upcoming technologies and innovations from developers across the globe. With too many things going on, the biggest announcement seems to be the “Google Wave”. The master minds behind Google Wave are, Lars and Yen Rasmussen, the same guys behind Google Maps. After almost 2 years of research, they have come up with a new technology which can possibly change the way we all communicate in the web. The major breakthrough here is, users can send and receive richly formatted text in real time. This means that, we no longer have to wait with messages like, “typing a message” or “entered text” anymore. Google calls this as concurrent rich-text editing. Every key pressed by one user is reflected immediately on the screen of the other user in real time.

Now, by applying this technology to email, productivity tools, social networks, blogging and many other similar services, Google Wave may revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate in the web today. Many of the possibilities demonstrated were simply mind blowing. The most interesting part of the demo was the software's ability to translate each and every word in the preferred language, again in real time. However, since the technology relies heavily on HTML 5, it’s still far from release. As expected, Google Wave is open source, which means that more and more features will be added by a wide variety of developer communities, as the product evolves. Hit on the read link for the news on the official Google blog and the ultra cool demonstration video.

Read - Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

Microsoft announces Zune HD

After a month of speculations and rumors, Microsoft finally decided to officially announce it’s next generation portable media players. What you see above is Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s IPod touch. Dubbed as Zune HD, the device features a 3.3" 16:9 OLED display with a resolution of 480 x 272, capacitive multi touch screen display, a built-in HD Radio receiver, HD-compatible output, full-screen Internet browser, Wi-Fi support and possibly more. Microsoft is still mum about CPU power, storage capacity, battery performance and few others. The device already looks ultra cool and impressive on spec, it seems that Microsoft has a real winner here. With Microsoft’s upcoming Windows marketplace and Xbox live integration, I believe Zune HD poses a real threat to Apple’s IPod Touch. Now, if Microsoft can add a phone support to this device, the entire mobile industry will be stunned. Hopefully we’ll have more info during E3 next week. Until then, hit on the read link for the official press release.

Read - ZUNE SPOTLIGH

Nokia Ovi Store - now available worldwide

It's a happy day for all Nokia smartphone owners. Nokia has finally made the Ovi Store available for it's worldwide audience. For those who are unaware, Ovi store is Nokia's version of online marketplace where users can download tons of useful applications, games, etc and use many services like maps, photo sharing, music download, online storage, etc for their smartphones. It's quite clear that the company is following the footsteps of Apple. Apple has opened a new world of possibilities for both devolopers and consumers with it's hugely successful AppStore. The unexpected success of AppStore has resulted in every major company coming up with their own version of mobile marketplace including, Windows Marketplace by Microsoft, Android Market by Google, Blackberry App World by RIM and App Catalog by Palm. Only time will tell if Nokia can really match up with AppStore and many other similar services. Hit on the read link for the official Ovi Store page.

Read - Nokia Ovi Store

Lenova IdeaCentre all-in-one A600 desktop computer gets reviewed

Lenova first announced A600 around January. Now after 5 months, the company is finally shipping the product to customers and as expected, reviews have started appearing everywhere. Initial reviews seems to be positive on many aspects with a only a few disappointments due to the presence of an external power brick, oddly placed optical drive, poor gaming performance, etc. Other than that, the PC seems to be the best choice for anyone who wants a decent all-in-one desktop computer with a 1920x1080 21.5" display, great looks, tv tuner(optional) and a reasonable price. The price of A600 starts from $679 and $1,149 for the high end version which includes additional features like a blueray recordable drive, 1 TB HDD, etc. The all-in-one desktop computer market is heating up with the big players in the industry like Dell, Asus, Acer and Lenova manufacturing their own models. Hit on the read link for the official page on Lenova.com

Read - IdeaCentre A Series all-in ones

Google Chrome 2.0 now available

Disappointed with IE? Bored with Firefox? PC users rejoice! Google has finally announced the stable version of it's popular browser, Chrome 2.0. Google chrome has been available for almost 8 months and was under extensive testing by the Google team. After numerous improvements and bug fixes, the team has decided to move the browser from beta version to a stable channel. As expected, the latest version sports number of cool new features and performance improvements. Some noticable improvements include, Improved New Tab Page, Full Screen Mode, Form Autofill, etc. The team claims that they have fixed more than 300 bugs since it's initial release. Hit on the read link for the official blog page for Google Chrome.

Read - A Speedier Google Chrome for all users

Mozilla announces Alpha version of Fennec

Everybody loves Mozilla Firefox now a days. Firefox is slowly gaining it's marketshare in the desktop browser war. It beats IE in many aspects and proves to be a clear winner for windows based PCs. But how about the cell phone market? While the mobile browsers are currently dominated by Safari, IE and Opera, you really thought Mozilla would just sit and watch? Definitely not! Meet "Fennec", a codename for the Mozilla's mobile version of Firefox. They are hoping to provide the same open source browser engine, optimized for mobile use. Looks like both touch screen version and non-touch screen version are under development. If Mozilla gets it right, mobile browser war would turn out very interseting. To get things started, Mozilla has just announced the availability of Alpha version of Fennec. It should be noted that this release is intended only for developers and is very far from the final version. But still, if you really want to try and test it, you can very well go ahead and download the latest build for your Windows Mobile 6 based device by following the instructions on the read link below.

Read - Installing Fennec on Windows Mobile

"Touchstone" - the next generation of mobile chargers?

While the entire mobile industry is quite excited about the launch of Palm Pre (the next generation mobile phone from Palm) next month, it's not only about the phone, but also about the wireless charger which the company is expected to launch alongside. You read it right, a charger which has no wires at all. The basic principle behind such a device is that, current passes through a coil embedded in to the charging pad, generating a magnetic field which in turn generates a charge in the Palm Pre’s magnetic coil, powering the battery. Palm is the first company in the mobile industry to announce such a product. The picture you see above is what Palm calls as "Touchstone", which can be used as a docking station for your Palm Pre. All you have to do is place your phone on the dock and it will automatically align your phone in the proper position and immediately charges your phone. The company claims that this cool device, charges your device in same amount of time as a wall charger would do, but I would say that we should wait for the final product to hit the stores before getting our hopes high. Palm has really made a bold move here by introducing this technology into the cell phone market. It's really hard to believe that this was not realized by any other companies all these days. However, a new wave of chargers are born and I believe all other manufacturer will soon follow the same trend. Hit on the read link for the official page.

Read - Palm Touchstone

Microsoft releases Service Pack 2 for Vista

Microsoft has been pretty busy these days. Just a few days back they announced the availability of Windows 7 RC1 and now they have annonced the availability of Service Pack 2 of it's much disaoppointed operating system, "Windows Vista" and Windows Server 2008 , available for download to the members of MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) and Microsoft TechNet. Public availability of this latest update is expectd to hit around the first week of June. Service Pack 2 has a number of new features including the ability to natively record in Blu-ray format, Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity, faster Wi-Fi resume after hibernation, ability to configure the maximum number of TCP connections and many more. Releasing SP2 now is a smart move from Microsoft, to boost sales of Vista until Windows 7 hits the market hopefully around October this year. For those who can't wait till June for the public availaility, SP2 is already available on torrent for immediate download. Hit on the read link for the full list updates and fixes.

Read - Notable Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista SP2

Amazon launches next version of it's e-reader - Kindle DX

For those of you who are unaware, Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform for reading electronic books (e-books), developed by Amazon.com and was first released in the United States on November 19, 2007. Upon it's initial launch, this cool device had 88,000 digital titles and now after almost 18 months there are 275,000 titles available for download. After the initial success, Amazon released Kindle 2 on February 9, 2009 which had a bigger display, longer battery life, slimmer and faster than the original Kindle. And now after 15 months, Amazon finally announce it's next version of it's popular e-reader, Kindle DX. The latest version has a 9.7-inch display and can display 16 shades of grey, with a 1200x824 pixel resolution. Other features include an auto-rotating screen, built-in PDF Reader, 3G wireless, long Battery Life and more. According to the site, Kindle DX will be released this summer and is now available for pre-order. The new device looks incredibly sleek and very promising with a lot of new features. The only downside seems to be the $489 price tag it carries. Hit on the read link for the official page on Amazon.com for more details.

Read - Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7" Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

GE promises 500 GB of data on a DVD-Size Disc

Can you imagine 500 GB of storage on a DVD sized disc? Well, General Electronics has made that dream a possibility. The researchers at GE have developed a new recording technique called as - "micro-holographic storage", which is believed to revolutionize the next generation of optical storage. GE has been working on holographic storage for six years and the 500GB capacity is a milestone in its research. GE's Bill Kernick said, "GE’s holographic storage program has turned the corner, and with this milestone we can now intensify our efforts in commercialization opportunities. We’ll continue to engage with a variety of strategic partners to create the best route from product development to introduction into the marketplace". They are also trying to achieve 1000 GB on a single disc. However, all these are in experimental stages right now and might take some time to be available for commercial use. Until then, Blue Ray is the choice storage media for a few more years to come. Hit on the read link for the full article on Informationweek.com

Read - GE Develops 500 GB DVD-Size Disc

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 previewed by Engadget

As promised by Microsoft, Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 has been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers today and hopefully be available to the general public on 5th of May. Immediately upon it's availability, the guys at Engadget.com managed to post impressions, insights, and expectations of the most eagerly anticipated OS from Microsoft. They seem pretty impressed with the latest build and hope the new OS will address all the shortcomings and disappointments of Vista. According to Engadget, "this is a valiant effort from Microsoft and it shows that the company does understand it's burned some bridges throughout the last three years -- this is a big step for them both in technique and tone, and that's certainly not lost on us". Hit on the read link for the full preview and more pictures on Engadget.

Read - Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 impressions, insights, and expectations

Sixteen months of recession coming to an end?

OK, this is not tech related, but I thought I should share it with everybody. President Barack Obama's economic adviser Lawrence Summers , in a recent interview has stated that, "The sense of "unremitting freefall" in the U.S. economy has ended and the picture is no longer completely negative, but rather mixed". He has also stated that several banks in the U.S are well capitalized and the negotiations between Chrysler and Italian car maker Fiat would hopefully work out. "There are some negative indicators, to be sure. There are also some positive indicators. And no one knows what the next turn will be, but I think that sense of unremitting freefall that we had a month or two ago is not present today. And that's something we can take some encouragement from", he said. However he doesn't wants us to get our hopes too high by stating that, "We've got a long way to go. There are still serious problems in this economy". What does this all means to us? I agree that one man's thought cannot guarantee anything, but however it does provides a little "hope" for those who are badly in need of it! Hit on the read link for the full article from Reuters.com.

Read - Summers says U.S. economy's freefall has ended

Microsoft profits decline for the first time

In the battle between the Economy and the Tech Industries, looks like even the biggest warrior like Microsoft could not avoid the inevitable. With the sales of PCs steadily declining, it's very clear that Microsoft's profit should have also declined. What's shocking is that Microsoft has never seen a decline in profit for the past 23 years since it's establishment. That's right, for the first time in 23 years, Microsoft has posted a drop in sales and revenue. According to the press release, "Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $13.65 billion for the third quarter ended March 31, 2009, a 6% decline from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $4.44 billion, $2.98 billion and $0.33 per share, which represented an increase of 3% and declines of 32% and 30%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period". But Microsoft was aware of this result and several initiatives were carried out to handle the situation which includes a plan to reduce up to 5,000 positions. However, with it's upcoming products like Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Mobile 7, Surface, etc, Microsoft is looking very strong to compete and gain in the industry. Hit on the read link for the official press release.

Read - Microsoft Reports Third-Quarter Results

Orcale acquires Sun Microsystems

It's a well known fact that IBM was trying to acquire Sun Microsystems and the negotiation failed due to resistance by Sun's board. Initially I was disappointed when IBM walked off on the SUN offer. I had a feeling that SUN's situation is going to end up like Yahoo. But after this news, I believe everyone in the tech industry should be shocked. If IBM really did acquire SUN, it would have only made an already strong company much more stronger. But now that Oracle has acquired SUN, things are going to be pretty interesting with a new competitor in the Server market. And the future of Java, Solaris and MySQL? Now that's going to be really interesting! According to the press release, "They have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt". Oracle has promised continued innovation and investment in both Java and Solaris, but the future of MySQL is still uncertain. Hit on the read link for the full official press release.

Read - Oracle Buys Sun

Ubuntu 9.04 now ready for download

For those who are unaware, Ubuntu is a Debian derived operating system based on GNU/Linux which provides an up-to-date, stable operating system for the average user, with a strong focus on usability and ease of installation. Ubuntu has been rated as the most popular Linux distribution for the desktop. Since the product is Open Source, Ubuntu costs nothing to download or update. And now, the latest version of this famous OS is now ready and waiting for you to be downloaded. According to the press release, Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition delivers a range of feature enhancements such as boot speeds, some as short as 25 seconds, ensure faster access to a full computing environment, suspend-and-resume features also give users more time between charges along with immediate access after hibernation, intelligent switching between Wi-Fi and 3G environments and so on. Ubuntu 9.04 also features OpenOffice 3.0 which gives users a complete office suite that is entirely compatible with Microsoft Office. Hit on the download link to download and test drive the greatest Linux based OS ever built.

Read - Official Ubuntu download page

Bluetooth 3.0 +HS specification officially announced

Bluetooth should have been very irritating for most of us with it's slow transfer speeds for the past 9 years since its introduction. Have you ever wished why can't files be transferred at blazing speeds similar to USB? Well, after almost a decade, Bluetooth is finally getting the upgrade what we always hoped for. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) on it's All Hands Meeting held on Tokyo this week, announced the Bluetooth Core Specification Version 3.0 High Speed (HS), or Bluetooth 3.0. According to the press release, "The inclusion of the 802.11 Protocol Adaptation Layer (PAL) provides increased throughput of data transfers at the approximate rate of 24 Mbps". Now that's a huge leap over the first generation and even the preceding 2.1 + EDR version. But don't get your hopes too high, according to the press release, "The Bluetooth SIG’s formal adoption of the specification is only the first step in the product lifecycle.........End products for consumers are expected to be in the market in 9 to 12 months" . Hit on the read link for the full press release.

Read - Bluetooth technology gets faster with Bluetooth 3.0

Google announces two new features

Looks like the engineers at the Google Labs never rest. Yesterday, they announced two new experimental features: Similar Images and Google News Timeline. Similar Images is an additional feature to the Google Image search, using which the user can now find images that look like an existing result simply by clicking on a link. Using visual similarity, you don't have to refine the text of your search, instead, you can just click the "Similar images" link to see more like it. This feature should be very useful to find the right image if you can't describe it in words.

The other new feature is called Google News Timeline. This feature simply organizes many different types of search results on a zoomable, graphical timeline. Though this may sound simple, it is very useful when you have to view your search results based on a timeline. Results from many caegories can be combined together such as, Google News, including headlines, quotes, photos from our Hosted News partners, YouTube partner videos, thousands of archival newspapers and magazines from Google News Archive Search and Google Book Search, blog search results, sports scores, information about books, music, movies, tv shows, video games, and even artists, to see how they've appeared over time. Hit on the read link for the post on "The Official Google Blog".

Read - Hard at play in Google Labs

LG's Viewty Smart, officially announced

LG's Viewty Smart is the successor to LG's most successful smartphone of all time, the Viewty. Measuring only 12.4 mm deep, Viewty smart is improved in every major area when compared with the original Viewty. The phone packs in an 8 megapixel sensor with sensitivity up to ISO 1600, 3-inch WVGA touch screen with 800 x 480 resolution, a more intelligent image processor and LG’s easy-to-use S-Class User Interface (UI). Viewty Smart adds several new camera features including Multi-Face Detection and DVD-quality D1 video recording. Other features include 7.2 Mbps HSDPA network and Wi-Fi compatibility, A-GPS based geotagging, 1.5 GB of internal memory or MicroSD cards support up to 32 GB. Both the design and specs seems to be pretty impressive. Looks like LG has created a worthy successor to the original Viewty. Check out the links below for the official press release and the demonstration video.

Read - LG's Viewty is Back and Better than Ever (Press Release)
View - LG's Viewty Smart demonstration video (YouTube.com)

Nokia E75 gets reviewed

GSMArena has posted a review of Nokia's latest E-series QWERTY slider, the E75. Design wise, the reviewers did not like the glossy plastic but i personally feel it makes the device look attractive. The slide-sliding QWERTY keypad seems to be comfortable and secure to use. Apart from the QWERTY slide out design, the reviewers feel that E75 is in no way different than the stunning Nokia E71. Though the pone features a few additional features like VGA video recording at 30FPS and 3.5mm standard audio jack, the phone could not convince the reviewers to recommend it as an upgrade to E75 but they did conclude it as the best alternative to consider. The only other phone compared in the review was HTC S740 which runs Windows Mobile which is identical to E75 in many ways except the OS. So which one is it going to be? E71 or E75 or HTC S740? Hit on the link for the full review and decide for yourself.

Read - Nokia E75 review (GSMArena.com)
Read - Nokia E75 Official Page (Nokia.com)

Surprising Q1 Results from various companies

It's April and therefore all those big players in the Tech industry are posting their Q1 results. Surprisingly, even despite the weak economy, many companies have posted a not so bad result and this recent data have provided faint hope of a comeback. That is some relieving news for Tech professionals across the globe, however economists say a recovery is probably still months away and high unemployment would stretch well into 2010. No matter what those economists say, I believe we all should be optimistic and hope all these will be over very soon. A small highlight of the Q1 results of a few companies:

• Sony Ericsson posted a pretax loss of 358 million euros in the first quarter, excluding restructuring charges, on Friday and said it would slash a further 2,000 jobs this year.

• Google reported revenues of $5.51 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, an increase of 6% compared to the first quarter of 2008 and a decrease of 3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.

• Nokia posted revenues in sales was 9.27 billion for the first quarter when compared with 12.66 billion euros in 2008.

• Intel has reported that it's revenue was $7.1 billion, down 26% from 2008. Its net profit for the quarter was $647 million, down 55% from last year.

• LG posted a net loss of 255 billion won ($191.1 million) for the first quarter ended March 31, from a net profit of 717 billion won a year earlier.