Google Editions Confirmed, due Soon

Google confirmed that Google Editions is ready for launch this summer. This is a 'buy anywhere, read anywhere' eBooks service that allows users to download eBooks on mobile phones, eBook readers and PC. Announced last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Google Editions will have about half a million eBooks available for purchase and download by late June or July.
Chris Palma, Google's manager of strategic-partner development, announced the time-table for Google's plans at the publishing-industry panel in New York yesterday, reported The Wall Street Journal. Google Editions will be an Amazon-like eBook store that will offer about 5,00,000 eBooks to users. Publishers get to keep 63 percent of income from the eBooks sold while Google retains 37 percent.
Users can also buy eBooks from Amazon as well as Barnes & Nobles through Google Editions. In that case, the publisher gets just 45 percent while Google gets to retain 55 percent of income. Apart from that, even independent book retailers would be allowed to sell Google Editions at their own sites.
Just when Apple is anticipating high growth of its iBook Store, Google is getting ready to roll out Google Editions. However, Google's idea is to access Google Editions from any browser and thus create an "open ecosystem" in the eBook market. Publishers will have a greater control over how their books are being sold.
Google has chosen the right time to launch Google Editions service with variety of tablets and mobile Internet devices emerging in the market. However, with Android on its side, we're sure Google will ensure something is packed in for Android OS phone based users.
For more on Google Editions, we'll have to wait till the end of June or July.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

These days it’s not merely how speedy a mobile’s OS is or how well the handset is designed that could make or break its sale. The user interface plays a very very significant role in determining just how good a mobile handset really is for the money you have to shell out. Sony Ericsson recently introduced their Timescape and Mediascape UI’s in the Xperia X10 Android phone and here’s what my experience was with the handset.
Form Factor
Employing Sony Ericsson’s Human Curvature design the Xperia X10 in both Black and white are sleek looking handsets. It’s easy to manage and quite the contrast to Motorola’s MILESTONE, from its light weight and smooth form, to the larger 4.0-inch scratch-resistant capacitive touchscreen display. The resolution is almost the same, although at 480 x 854 pixels, the Xperia features 65k colors while the MILESTONE’s is 16 million, not that you can tell the difference at just a glance. Viewing data, messages, videos etc. in broad daylight is not a problem, the details are all clearly revealed. The three keys below the display – sub menu access, home button and previous screen key make getting around the system an easy task.

The Screen Lock/Power button is placed on the top beside the 3.5mm hands-free port and the micro USB port. Volume/Zoom keys are on one side above the 8MP (with LED flash) camera’s shutter release/activation button. Like the MILESTONE, the Xperia is devoid of a hot swap slot for the microSD card. Then again, it’s not a cause for concern as the bundled 8GB card plus 1GB of internal memory and easy USB access won’t require you to remove the card at all.

On the whole, the Xperia a funky looking handset that is designed to be comfortable to use and easy to manage, delivering on both counts. Read on to find out just how well it functions.
Features and Performance
Interface
The standard Android UI (v1.6) works out just fine and all actions work smoothly enough, thanks to the Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon 1 GHz processor. It’s quite smooth and there’s no visible lag. I could have used a few more default widgets for the multiple desktops but it’s not something all users would take an issue with. I did have one major problem with the first piece I was sent though, it refused to allow me to send text messages and there seemed to be no way to access the messages center settings to check if the right number was inserted. I had the very same problem with the second test piece I received and after almost a week of usage, it just switched on by itself rather mysteriously. If you’ve had a similar issue, do let us know. Facebook and Google integration with contacts was not as well managed as it was in the MILESTONE and all of HTC’s handsets. Multi-touch is also absent. Keeping the home key pressed pulls up the list of all running apps.

Timescape and Mediascape are very intuitive interfaces that offer quite a bit of functionality to the social networker and media lover. However, it seemed like both of these UI’s take quiet a heavy toll on the 1 GHz processor as switching screens, updating yours status etc. was a bit sluggish. If either of these UIs were running in the background, the entire handset seemed off balance. The virtual keypads became sluggish and unresponsive requiring me to type and retype all messages, e-mails, updates etc. I suggest removing the ‘periodic update’ option, as things will work out much smoother that way.

Timescape allows you to easily access and update your Facebook and Twitter accounts and also shows for your e-mails, phone’s Log, messages and recently accessed media – photos and music. Mediascape sorts out all of your media files and you can also have online albums etc. on hand for quick access. One truly unique feature that I found very handy with Mediascape was the linking and search option. With music files you can find corresponding information on the artist, song etc. with a direct YouTube link or though Google searches. Using facial recognition software Mediascape allows you to track photos with the same people and tag them as well for easier access.

Media
The handset’s audio capabilities are just about average. Audio quality is not in question neither is the decibel level at which it’s delivered. However, other than the extras like locating extra information about the track or artist, the music player doesn’t offer much else. The UI is just slightly funkier than the native version to suit the look and feel of Mediascape. The large screen facilitates comfortable video viewing if you can find the right conversion software for the same as DivX and XviD support for the handset is still not something Sony Ericsson has adopted yet. There’s no FM radio which again, could quite a drawback for some. There is also no image editing option or voice recorder available.

Sony Ericsson was also supposed to have provided an exclusive MTV application with the X10, at least that’s what they announced at the launch. That was not available either. Sony Ericsson’s TrackID feature comes preloaded though. The PlayNow Arena still seems quite un-ready for India as a ‘No content available for your region’ error popped up every time I tried accessing it. 

Motorola Milestone

The Milestone has been one of the more anticipated handsets for our sector. In fact after poking around a bit into the gray market and other the international as well I found that the handset is selling quite well and Motorola is back! Razer be damned.  But the Milestone may be getting great ratings across the bar but it is far from being the perfect handset, take a closer look.
Form Factor
Amongst the large number of Android handsets that are available to the Indian audience, I have to say the Milestone is by far the most sophisticated, at least in the looks department. Its rugged-like metal casing gives it sense of maturity and elegance. This is in no way a handset for the average social networking, media loving mobile user although even they would get a kick out of using it. It’s designed to look and feel intimidating.

The large 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen display sports a 480 x 854 pixel resolution with 16 million colours making it one of the most comfortable and vibrant displays to stare into for whatever reason. Even in bright sunlit conditions you’ll get by without a hassle. Everything is clearly legible.

The proximity sensor and accelerometer are responsive and work flawlessly but that’s slight micro-second delay in having the display turning makes it perfect so it’s not very sensitive and won’t just seem like its change orientation on it’s own whims and fancy. The touch-sensitive keys at the bottom of the display are also designed to be just perfectly receptive. You’ll find even a hand slip won’t just change the screen. These keys won’t activate unless you really want them too, or so it seems. The volume/zoom keys are placed on the side and the gold tint given to the camera key adds just a hint of elegance to the other wise hardcore handset. The 3.5mm handsfree port (very comfy handsfree kit included) is placed on the top right next to the power/screen lock soft key and the micro USB slot for the charger and PC connectivity is located on the side. 

The rear panel has a slightly rubberized consistency that makes it easy to grip in your hand since it’s a pretty heavy handset at 165g, that’s just one more thing you’ll never let you forget. That same weight is also quite well displaced over the handset’s body making it heavy, yes, but still comfortable to use even for long periods.

Now for the stuff I didn’t like about the Milestone’s otherwise rock solid design. The QWERTY keypad takes a bit of effort to slide up and that seems a bit old fashioned to me. I didn’t like that too much, but you can get by. However I wasn’t satisfied with Motorola’s explanation of why the Milestone doesn’t have a pop sliding keypad like the rest of the handsets out there. The reason behind this older style being incorporated was to prevent it from becoming loose after awhile.

It’s true that kick sliders like the Nokia N97 just might get a little loose after constant usage and I can see that could be an issue, but only after a really really long time. Even an iPhone user will want to upgrade to the next-gen model which is usually an annual release. The keys themselves are very comfy and make for quick typing however the placement of the oversized d-pad at the side was a bad idea. If you have small fingers it’s going to be quite a stretch for your right hand. This is the chink in the Milestone’s armour. The lack of a hot swap slot for the memory card would have been an issue if the handset wasn’t bundled with an 8GB card.
Features and Performance
Interface
The Milestone runs on Android 2.1 which gives the OS a slight boost in terms of usability. Multitasking was very efficiently handled. I found that even with music playing in the background, surfing the internet, downloading emails, Social Networking and messaging there didn’t seem to be an issue with speed. Keeping the ‘Home’ key pressed pulls up a box that shows all of your running apps making multitasking even easier.

The ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor with PowerVR SGX530 graphics is a serious enhancement over some of the other handsets in its class and it manages its usage very effectively. You have a choice of choosing how many panels you’d like to have active. The minimum is three and the max is 9. The Milestone also supports Live Wallpapers similar to the Nexus One. The handset could have used more preloaded widgets though and this is where Sense UI makes a very significant difference.

Multi-touch is also incorporated into the Milestone however the fluidity and spread of the feature through out the handset is limited. It wasn’t as smooth or responsive as the Legend’s. Motorola’s Crystal Talk technology is definitely evident in the Milestone as calls from the handsfree, speakerphone or earpiece were always ‘crystal’ clear. The same function also comes with four settings. The virtual keypads are well spaced out and you’ll find yourself using the onscreen QWERTY rather than the slide out option which is far less of an effort and as responsive. The predictive text remembers your frequently used spellings and offers them up for speedier typing.

Media
At last there’s an Android handset that has the capability to actually take Android’s native music player up a notch. Motorola has included an Audio effect feature that allows you a limited yet useful option of customizing the way you listen to audio. There’s a separate setting for the handsfree and the speaker phone each with EQ presets but with the addition of a surround sound setting available only for the handsfree kit. Music quality is brilliant. Tones are very well balanced and there is a resounding thump in the bass that will undoubtedly have you tapping your feet and swaying your head irrespective of where you are. The Android player is also designed to easily create playlists on the go.

The lack of an FM radio and proper codec support for videos is a harsh reality to face. But if you find the right converter for your video files the large display and great audio still makes it overall, a really good video experience. An image editor is available to make a few adjustments to your pictures, color corrections etc.

*pics from tech2

Nokia N8: Something Innately Good About It

Amidst all the news about the iPhone and Android phones, people seem to have forgotten about Nokia, the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, as far as sales are concerned. But there is a reason for that. While all the other manufacturers were bringing innovative new products to the market; with great design, user friendly interface and rich features and functionality, Nokia didn't quite seem to keep up and so slowly began to escape the news.
None of their recent phone launches made people sit up and take notice. However, their recent announcement of the N8 seems to be doing that. Armed with a bevy of features, the new Nokia N8 comes with an enviable specifications list. But its not just the specifications that make the N8 an important product. The phone also brings several new never seen before features for a Nokia phone, such as a 12 megapixel camera with xenon flash, 720p/25fps video recording, multi-touch capacitive OLED touchscreen, HDMI-out, anodized aluminum body, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth v3.0, among others. But perhaps one of the most important features is the operating system - Symbian^3 - which makes the Nokia N8 the first device to flaunt this OS. Today we take a look at some of these features in detail of what is perhaps the most important device for Nokia in years.

The Design

The Nokia N8 has a mono-block design, but for the first time Nokia has used anodized aluminum in its design. So far they had restricted themselves to using steel when it came to embellishing their phones with metal, but for the N8 their metal of choice was a bit more up market. The aluminum will give the phone a rich feel and along with making it sturdy, also reduce the weight, which for a phone with so many features, is bound to be on the higher side.
The design of the phone is fairly simple but still quite good looking and definitely better than what Nokia usually comes up with. The phone looks sleek and sturdy, with curved sides and top and bottom, which gradually become narrow towards the edges. The top and bottom sides are completely flat and house all sorts of buttons and ports, from the 3.5mm headphone jack to the all important HDMI-out. The design of the N8 reminded me of the Sony Ericsson Aino though.

The Display

The Nokia N8 has a 3.5", 640 x 360 pixel, AMOLED display. The touchscreen employs the capacitive technology. Nokia has so far used a capacitive display only on the X6 but what they haven't used so far is multi-touch technology, a feat made possible by the new Symbian^3 OS that the phone sports. The display is capable of displaying up to 16.7 million colors and has a proximity sensor for automatically turning off when you bring it close to your face during a call. An ambient light sensor is also available for automatically adjusting the brightness level. Nokia phones usually come with excellent displays and we expect the N8 to be just as good, if not better. Also, despite the fact that it is capacitive, Nokia will be supplying a special stylus for certain markets such as China, where handwriting recognition is used a lot.

Camera

The camera is one of the biggest attractions of the Nokia N8. It is the first phone from Nokia to feature a 12 megapixel autofocus camera. Also, while other manufacturers often leave their cameras at impressive sounding resolution figures, Nokia has also equipped the camera with a xenon flash, a rarity these days on phones but at the same time a boon when it comes to photographing in the dark. Also, a first for Nokia is the ability of the N8 to record HD videos, 1280 x 720 to be precise, at 25 frames per second. If you think those are just fancy sounding numbers then you should take a look at the images and videos released by Nokia taken on the N8. One look at them and you'll realize that the Nokia N8 has all the makings of an excellent camera phone, perhaps the best yet.

HDMI-Out

What's the point of having such a good camera if you cannot watch your photos and videos on your TV? Well, Nokia has taken care of that and provided the N8 with HDMI-Out connectivity. Simply connect the N8 to your HDTV with the supplied HDMI cable and you can view all your photos and videos in their full high definition glory. The N8 also supports Dolby Digital Plus surround sound output through the HDMI.
Connectivity

The Nokia N8 is the first phone in the world to support five GSM frequencies. That is 850/900/1700/1900/2100! This means no matter wherever in the world you go, you can be sure that your N8 is equipped to support the service providers available there. It also supports HSDPA up to 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA up to 2.0 Mbps. Also, the Nokia N8 is one of the few phones announced so far to have Wi-Fi 802.11n support. If that was not enough, the Nokia also comes with Bluetooth v3.0, making it the second device after the Samsung Wave to have this feature. A-GPS is on board along with FM radio and transmitter.
Hardware

The Nokia N8 runs on a ARM 11 680 MHz processor and also has 3D Graphics HW accelerator. There was a time when Nokia smartphones used to have hardware graphics acceleration (remember Nokia N93, N95, N82?) but later they abandoned it for a faster CPU. Now the Nokia N8 has the bests of both worlds. With a dedicated graphics accelerator, the N8 will be able to display better quality graphics while gaming or image and video playback and it will also facilitate the high quality image and video recording that the phone is capable of, without stressing the processor which would be free to do other tasks.
The N8 also comes with 256 MB of RAM for all your applications, which should come in handy knowing how good Symbian is with multi-tasking. Also, the phone will have 16GB of built-in memory for all your files and furthermore it also supports a microSD card slot so you can expand it up to 32GB, taking the total memory to a whopping 48GB.

Software

Nokia N8 is the first device in the world to run on the new Symbian^3 operating system. An update over the previous S60 5th Edition, Symbian S^3 is supposed to focus on enhanced usability and better integration with social networking services. It now features a new home screen that you can populate with multiple widgets. Actually, there are now three homescreens, so you can keep even more widgets on your phone. The interface is now designed with touchscreen devices in mind, unlike the previous S60 5th Edition. You only tap once everywhere in the UI instead of the single tap-double tap nuisance of the previous OS. Most of the apps have undergone slight change in the design as well.
Many have said that the OS is not much different from the previous version and although features like enhanced usability, multiple homescreens and multi-touch technology are all good, it's too little too late now. We think Nokia should have done much more than add a few features that actually should have been there long time back. The competition has moved far ahead in terms of software development and if Nokia needs to keep up, it will take more than a spit and shine job. They should instead do with Symbian what Microsoft did with the Windows Mobile. Dump it completely and start anew with something like Windows Phone 7.

As we mentioned, the N8 is an important product for Nokia. It's how N95 was four years ago. It comes packed with a boatload of features with many of them not just being the first on a Nokia phone but first on any phone. But these days it takes more than just impressive hardware to sell phones; the success of the iPhone is testimony to that fact. Despite having what can be best described as mediocre hardware in todays day and age, the iPhone continues to sell in impressive numbers. It's all because of the software that the phone has, which works double time to ensure that it makes even mediocre hardware work great.

While it's a good thing that Nokia updated the Symbian OS, what they need to do right now is work even harder and come up with something even more impressive that is at least comparable to the current batch of smartphone OSes in terms of look and feel, if not better. Just imagine, if they manage to do that and then put it on something like the N8, how good the overall combination will be. We know we shouldn't be bashing something that we haven't used yet but from whatever we have seen so far through pictures and videos, the Symbian^3 hasn't really got us excited as, say, the iPhone OS 4.
That doesn't mean we aren't excited about the phone itself though and we really can't wait to get our hands on it. What makes the phone even more exciting is that despite the laundry list of features that it has, Nokia is planning to price it very competitively. When the Nokia N97 was launched it was selling for 550 Euros. In comparison Nokia has quoted only 370 Euros for the N8, which when converted to Indian currency, turns out to be around Rs. 22,000, which is just incredible. Although we know the price won't exactly be that when it launches here in the third quarter of this year, even if it is something around Rs. 28,000, it will still be pretty decent value for money.
So what's our final thoughts on the Nokia N8? Awesome hardware and superb pricing but we believe software might be the weak link here.