Samsung Launches New 8MP Camera TouchScreen Phone

Samsung India today announced the launch of the Samsung UltraTouch, a slider touch-screen phone, for the Indian market. According to a press release, the phone is the world’s first 8MP camera phone with AMOLED screen. The phone sports a 7.1 cm AMOLED anti-scratch full touch screen, and has a slim 12.7mm body. The phone also has a 3x4 keypad slider and a brushed metal frame.

The phone’s embedded 8 mega pixel camera comes with dual power LED flash and smile shot mode. The phone also features 3G capability (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps), and a DivX video player. The phone uses Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, and has mobile widgets that can be dragged from the menu bar and placed anywhere on the screen for one-click access.

The Samsung UltraTouch is priced at Rs 27,500.

Apple Launches New-Look iPod Shuffle

Apple has launched a new version of the iPod shuffle - its smallest digital audio player.

The iPod shuffle, which was first introduced in 2005, now sports a VoiceOver feature that 'speaks' the titles, artists and playlist names of the music playing. An ideal feature if you can't remember the name of a song or an artist.

It's bilingual too - offering 14 different languages - and will even 'speak' the battery level to you. The new shuffle is also the first to benefit from a 'Playlists' feature.

Apple claims the digital audio player is "significantly smaller than an AA battery" and with a 4GB memory is capable of holding up to 1,000 tracks. The new iPod shuffle also features a smooth aluminium casing, with all the controls now located on the earphone cord. It also features a built-in stainless steel clip, so it can be easily attached to your clothes.

"Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod and iPhone product marketing.

"The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists."

Bundled with earphones and a USB cable, the iPod shuffle comes in silver or black, and is expected to be priced at £59(Rs.4,300).

Flickr Takes Its Place in Getty Images Archive

Digital photos posted by amateur and professional photographers to Flickr have been recognised by internationally renowned image library Getty Images.

Known as the Flickr Collection, images from the online photo gallery that have been identified as having particular artistic merit or visual interest are for the first time being offered for sale. Getty Images' digital licensing staff select images for inclusion in the Flickr Collection and both royalty-free and rights management-protected images are offered.

"We are thrilled to provide our customers with this ground-breaking collection," said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and chief executive officer of Getty Images. "We are impressed with the talent from the Flickr community, and are proud to once again lead our industry in this exciting new direction.

Getty is keen to keep adding to the Flickr Collection and will invite select Flickr contributors to submit suitable images for sale via its site.

Image libraries are big business, with other big names including Shutterstock, Reflex and the innovative iStock Photo, which also allows amateur and professional photographers to submit photos for approval and sale.

Gigabyte Motherboards to Now Feature Creative X-Fi Sound

Gigabyte today announced that the Gigabyte X58/P45/P43/P41 series of motherboards will now support Creative’s latest Sound Blaster X-Fi technologies. According to a press release, X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity is the new audio standard from Creative that affects music and movies. The X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity features three technologies; X-Fi CMSS-3D Virtual, X-Fi Crystalizer and EAX Advanced HD 4.0.

The release explains that X-Fi CMSS-3D Virtual technology expands stereo MP3s and digital movies into surround sound over multi-channel speakers, stereo speakers or headphones. X-Fi Crystalizer technology restores the detail and vibrancy to compressed music and movies by digitally re-mastering all the highs and lows, while leaving the mid range (vocals) untouched. EAX Advanced HD 4.0, with its Multi-Environment rendering and reverb modeling, delivers a more realistic 3D gaming experience. The release adds that apart from the entire X58/P45/P43/P41 motherboard lineup, motherboards featuring ALC889A or ALC888 audio codecs will also support the Sound Blaster X-Fi Technology.

The Aging of Facebook

If you got your own Facebook page last month, there's a good chance you're closer to getting your first copy of AARP than to finally hitting the legal drinking age.

Seems Facebook Inc.'s social network just isn't for the young whippersnappers who dominated its user base at first.

Last month, the social network's audience of people over the ripe old age of 35 increased by 23% compared to February 2008, according to a report released today by Hitwise, which measures online traffic. While Facebook was launched to serve college students only, the network over the past year or so has broadly expanded to include many middle-aged folks.

At the same time, Hitwise said that Facebook rival MySpace has been unable to expand its base beyond teenagers. In fact, the number of MySpace users over the age of 35 dropped 2% from February 2008 to last month, Hitwise noted.

Hitwise anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of some 25 million Internet users.

The report also said that overall Facebook use increased by 149% from February 2008 to last month.

Facebook, which celebrated its fifth anniversary last month, also overshadowed MySpace in December, bringing in almost double the number of worldwide visitors, according to online researcher comScore Inc. Facebook, once thought of as the up-and-coming social network, had almost 222 million unique visitors in December, while MySpace came in at 125 million, comScore said. The race for unique visitors was a near dead heat in April 2008.

Indian Opposition Party Backs Open Source Software

India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Saturday ahead of parliamentary elections in the country that the national government will standardize on open standards and open source software if the party is elected to power.

The BJP is a leading opposition party in India's parliament, and is using online advertising and its own Web site as key elements of its campaign strategy for the elections that start next month.

The party's promise to standardize on open source is a departure from the party's earlier policy not to take sides with either open source or proprietary software, leaving these decisions to individual government agencies.

The party ruled the country from October 1999 to May 2004. The subsequent United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government also continued with the hands-off policy on selection of open source or proprietary software.

Some state governments, however, have programs around open-source software.

An "IT Vision Document" released by the BJP on Saturday also proposes a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) with a unique Citizen Identification Number (CIN) for every Indian citizen in three years. The cards will replace all other identification systems, the party said.

BJP also plans to distribute laptop computers at Indian Rupees 10,000 to 10 million students, with interest-free loans offered to students who can't afford a one-time payment.

It has also promised to create 12 million call center and business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs in India's rural areas. The outsourcing boom in India has not reached India's rural areas, prompting large scale migration of people from villages to cities.

New Version of Safari Web Browser is Available

Apple today announced the public beta of Safari® 4 for Mac and Windows PCs. The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3. Innovative new features that make browsing more intuitive and enjoyable include Top Sites, a stunning visual preview of frequently visited pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks; and Tabs on Top, to make tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive.

Apple claims that the new Nitro JavaScript engine executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. Safari loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.

Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection, and is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks. The browser passes the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.

Features in Safari 4 include

• Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;

• Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before;

• Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes.

• Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones.

• Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history.

• Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches.

• Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text.

• built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility.

• A new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.

Safari 4 is currently a public beta for both Mac OS X and Windows and is available immediately as a free download at safari.