N 95 which was announced in Sept 2006 is one of the most anticipated phone in market and blogs and forums have been abuzz with discussions on Nokia N 95, however post launch CNET has given it a rating of 7 on a scale of 10 which is quite lower compared to 8.3 given to Blackberry Pearl and other smart phones.

“The Nokia N95 is the ultimate multimedia computer and a fantastic example of what Nokia Nseries devices can deliver,” said Juha Putkiranta, senior vice president, Multimedia, Nokia. “It easily replaces a number of single purpose devices with a well designed package that is with you and connected. The Nokia N95 is what computers have become – personal, powerful and connected devices.”

Designed for High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) networks and with support for WLAN, EDGE and WCDMA networks, the Nokia N95 provides excellent coverage and connection speeds. Browsing the internet and subscribing to your favourite news feeds is a pleasure using the Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map.

The Nokia N95 offers a well rounded entertainment experience with a sharp color display, built-in stereo speakers, a standard 3.5 mm audio connector and support for compatible microSD memory cards. With powerful 3D graphics, the Nokia N95 has a stunning user interface that makes it intuitive to find the features and services you want.

With its integrated GPS and Nokia Maps application, finding your way just got easier. The Nokia Maps application includes maps for more than 150 countries, enabling users to explore the world, find specific routes or locate services such as restaurants and hotels and covering more than 15 million points of interest. You can also purchase additional features, such as city guides and voice guided navigation.

The innovative 2-way slide design makes it easy to switch between different modes, going from reading maps to watching a video with a simple slide. With Carl Zeiss optics on the 5 megapixel camera, you can capture print quality photos and DVD-like quality video clips.

The Nokia N95 is based on the world’s leading S60 software on Symbian OS, enabling you to personalize your device from a wide choice of compatible applications that can be downloaded to the Nokia N95, including games, navigation, entertainment, productivity and creativity.

However there was no clarity about launch of product in India and it is not clear whether India figures in key Asian markets. The expected price for N 95 is around INR 48,000 almost equal to the cost of a dual core laptop and shall drop to a reasonable INR 30,000 region over a period of time as seen in other N series phones.

“The BlackBerry 8800 smartphone offers another winning combination of superior hardware, software and service embodied by an extremely elegant industrial design,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

The quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE-enabled BlackBerry 8800 offers integrated support for voice and data applications, including phone, email, text messaging, web browser, organizer, multimedia, powered with an ultra-thin, high-capacity battery.

Through its built-in GPS, the BlackBerry 8800 can pinpoint its location and provide “out-of-the-box” support for a wide variety of location based applications and services, including BlackBerry Maps. BlackBerry Maps provides driving directions — with the ability to track the route via GPS — and integrates with other BlackBerry applications, so users can generate a map from an address in their BlackBerry Address Book and send maps via email from their BlackBerry 8800.

The BlackBerry 8800 is a world-class mobile phone with advanced and easy-to-use phone features including noise cancellation for enhanced audio performance, Speaker Independent Voice Recognition for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), intuitive call management functions such as smart dialing, conference calling, speed dialing and call forwarding, as well as dedicated “send”, “end” and “mute” keys. It also features a high quality, low-distortion speakerphone and Bluetooth® 2.0 for use with hands-free headsets, car kits and other Bluetooth peripherals. Support for polyphonic, mp3 and MIDI ringtones is included.

With the large, bright, high resolution (320 x 240) landscape display, images appear vivid and crisp for viewing emails, attachments, pictures, videos, web pages, business applications and games. Built-in light sensing technology automatically adjusts the screen, keyboard and trackball brightness for optimized visibility in various lighting environments. The vibrant display, coupled with the BlackBerry 8800’s innovative trackball navigation, delivers a user experience that is dynamic and intuitive.

The battle for smartphones seems to be picking up as more and more people are migrating towards smartphones and with Apple also jumping in the fray, competition is only expected to intensify.
Nokia has already announced the launch on N95 – its smartphone which is no longer called a mobile phone but is dubbed as mini computer while Apple Iphone will be in the market by June 2007.

Further the report onserved that there has been significant increase in the .in domain defacement in comparison to previous years. In year 2005 total 373 .in domains were defaced but 278 .in websites were defaced only in first half of the year 2006. Further some 39 .gov.in domains were defaced in first six months.

One of the interesting point in survey is that majority of sites defaced were operating on Windows server.Of all sites defaced only 137 sites were on Linux OS and remaining were on Windows 2003 server probably highlighting the security issues faced by Microsoft.

Zune, which is going to be available this holiday season in US, includes a 30GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music. The Zune device features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a bright, 3-inch screen that allows users to not only show off music, pictures and video, but also to customize the experience with personal pictures or themes to truly make the device their own. Zune comes in three colors: black, brown and white.

Zune has features like wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices and also allows uses to sample a music where they can hear a song upto three times over three days and then can decide to buy.

Further Zune device is preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music’s Astralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.

However whether Zune will give iPod a run for its money is yet to be seen as lot many details including its pricing and also price of every track is little unclear and very tight licensing might slow its adoption in students community which thrive on sharing content.

The launch of Live services from beta shows significant commitment from Microsoft towards web business and its increasing resolve to fight back. Microsoft which acquired hotmail in hey days of dotcom era did not do much with it and left it without any significant improvement which resulted hotmail loosing market share to later entrants like Yahoo and Gmail from Google. Gmail from Google though still in beta is one of the fasted growing email services and revolutionized email services world by having a very simple interface with compelling features backed by an ever increasing email box of 2 GB and counting.

Moreover despite repetitive claims by Microsoft, its flagship msn brand has been losing market share in search business, where msn search share dropped to 11% from 14% while Google & Yahoo grew 41% and 47%. (See MSN Lags Behind in War of Search While Google & Yahoo Outpace the Search Industry Growth (http://news.coolavenues.com/0604251.php)

However with the launch of Windows Live, attention is bound to go back to Microsoft and Google where both seems to be attacking others’ turf with increasing intensity ( latest from Google was a web based spreadsheet available at spreadsheet.google.com, which aimed ad Ms Excel). However it is important to note that in its history Microsoft has never lost a single corporate battle, be it desktop, Operating systems, browser war or servers despite a growing tribe of Open source advocate or Microsoft haters. Despite great hype over latest browser war, Internet Explorer despite its security flaws, lack of multi tab browsing and all other ills, still commands more than 86% of the market and wide deployment of linux desktop still remains a pipe dream. Hence it will be interesting to see the developing scenario and see how Google responds to the latest challenge by a seasoned warlord who has waged many such wars and have always emerged as a winner.

Shares of Google at NASDAQ were up 1.5% while Microsoft was down by 0.35%.

Further Apple has decided to cut prices of its iMac models with iMac prices starting at just USD 999. Every new iMac includes a built-in iSight™ video camera for video conferencing out-of-the-box; iLife® ‘06, the next generation of Apple’s suite of digital lifestyle applications.

The new iMac lineup includes four models: a 1.83 GHz and a 2.0 GHz 17-inch, a 2.16 GHz 20-inch and the all-new 2.16 GHz 24-inch iMac, and features the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor which delivers up to 50 percent faster performance than the previous 20-inch iMac running industry standard benchmarks.

A new 24-inch iMac with a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and 128MB NVidia GeForce 7300 GT graphics card will cost USD 1,999.

Ideal for both consumers and professionals, the 24-inch iMac features a 24-inch widescreen LCD display with a 1920-by-1200 pixel resolution that offers 30 percent more screen real estate than the 20-inch model and a brighter display to make reading text and viewing images even easier. The all-new 24-inch iMac packs professional performance into the convenience of an all-in-one design and includes a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB of shared L2 cache, 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory, a 250GB Serial ATA hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 128MB of GDDR3 memory and a SuperDrive™ for burning professional-quality DVDs. Delivering greater customization for performance and expansion needs, users can configure the new 24-inch iMac with a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up to 3GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory, a 500GB Serial ATA hard drive and the NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory for outstanding graphics performance.

Every iMac includes a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing out-of-the-box using Apple’s award-winning iChat AV, or recording a video podcast or iMovie® using iLife ‘06, and the breakthrough media experience of Front Row for a simple, intuitive and powerful way for consumers to enjoy their content. Providing the latest in high-performance connectivity options, the iMac includes built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, built-in AirPort Extreme®, a total of five USB ports (three USB 2.0) and two FireWire® ports (including one FireWire 800 port on the 24-inch model).

The new 24-inch 2.16 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

• 24-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 3GB;
• 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• PCI Express-based NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• 250GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• the infrared Apple Remote, Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

The new 20-inch 2.16 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:

• 20-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 3GB;
• 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• PCI Express-based ATI Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• 250GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• the infrared Apple Remote, Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

The new 17-inch 2.0 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:

• 17-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 3GB;
• 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• PCI Express-based ATI Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• 160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• the infrared Apple Remote, Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

The 17-inch 1.83 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $999 (US), includes:

• 17-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
• 512MB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 2GB;
• 24x Combo drive;
• Intel GMA 950 graphics;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking;
• 160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and

The BlackBerry Pearl comes complete with digital camera, multimedia capabilities and an expandable memory slot for the first time, while maintaining BlackBerry experience for its users.

The BlackBerry Pearl is a quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE-enabled mobile application with dimensions 4.2″ x 1.97″ x .57″ and weighs only 3.1 ounces, The built-in 64MB flash memory is now expandable with a MicroSD card, giving users plenty more storage for music, pictures, videos, and data files.  

The other features are Speaker Independent Voice Recognition for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), support for polyphonic, mp3 and MIDI ring tones, and intuitive call management features such as smart dialing, conference calling, speed dialing and call forwarding.  It also features a speakerphone and Bluetooth® 2.0 for use with hands-free headsets, car kits and other Bluetooth peripherals such as a GPS receiver. BlackBerry Desktop Software synchronization via Bluetooth is also supported.

Blackberry has 1.3 megapixel camera with built-in flash and 5x digital zoom and has also a map application which enables users to send maps via email and launch maps from other applications including contacts in their address book.  BlackBerry Maps is currently available in North America only.

The BlackBerry Pearl comes with a media player and stereo headset jack and supports MP3 and ACC music files and MPEG4 and H.263 video.

The BlackBerry Pearl will be available from T-Mobile USA in the United States beginning September 12. It will also be available in October from Rogers Wireless in Canada and a variety of carriers in Europe. Availability in Asia-Pacific and Latin America is expected later this year.

“We are broadening our reach to mass consumers by offering them the opportunity to communicate via Skype without having to be tied to the computer,” said Stefan Öberg, general manager, desktop and hardware at Skype. “Skype has already introduced Wi-Fi phones and Skype for PocketPC wireless. Now Skype is taking the next step and working together with Philips and NETGEAR to introduce PC-free cordless phones. The cordless phones for Skype launched today, give Skype users the flexibility to enjoy free Skype to Skype calls and inexpensive calls to ordinary and mobile phones anywhere in the house, at any time without a running computer.”

Cordless phones offer increased mobility throughout the home or office, giving consumers the freedom and flexibility of not being tethered to their computer. Also, consumers with multiple cordless phone handsets in their home have the ability to hold separate conversations simultaneously – one on Skype, the second on the traditional line – each from a different handset. Both the Philips and NETGEAR cordless phones have Skype running on them out of the box, and they can act as a replacement for an ordinary cordless phone, because they can make and receive traditional telephone calls through the landline line connection. Skype itself is not a replacement for an ordinary phone and it can not be used for emergency calling. Existing Skype users can sign into their account, conveniently downloading all their contacts to the cordless phone. Users also have the ability to search for Skype contacts directly on the phone, and add them to an integrated contact list for both Skype contacts and traditional phone numbers.

The cordless phones for Skype are acccompanied by a remote DECT base station that plugs into both the broadband connection and the traditional phone line. The system handles both Skype and ordinary calls in one phone, presented through an easy-to-use, user interface. Both the Philips and NETGEAR cordless phones boast a full color graphic display, simplified calling features with an integrated contact list, and an enhanced speakerphone with great voice clarity.

The Skype Certified Philips VoIP841 cordless phone will be available for the 2006 holiday season.