BlindType for TouchScreen Phones

Posted by BA on Jul 23, 2010 in Android, Apple, iPhone 4, Mobile, Mobile Apps, Technology, User Interface | 0 comments

We’ve seen several variants of touchscreen typing mechanisms but BlindType is too good to be true. Watch this video how they use this virtual keyboard, once mastered will not require any keys shown on screen, saving valuable screen space for you. See BlindType in action in this video:

Smartphones in Battlefield

Posted by BA on Jul 22, 2010 in Android, Handsets, Mobile, Mobile Apps, Smartphones, Technology | 1 comment

Soldiers will be using smartphones in the battlefied. Here’s what this latest Reuters article says:

Raytheon, which makes the Patriot missile defense system, is developing software which could enable a soldier to find enemies in his or her surrounding terrain using a mobile phone running Google’s Android operating system.

The software could potentially be powerful enough to pick up aerial images from an unmanned aircraft or satellite and then focus in on details such as license plates on cars or a person’s facial features.

A typical soldier’s use case:

• Searching for a UAV nearby
• UAV found, Connected!
• Requesting enemy unit locations nearby
• Enemy units and buildings found at these coordinates, touch to view photos
• Incoming orders, move north, keep moving, wait for further orders
• Incoming missile, take shelter
• Your primary weapon is running low on ammo, reload!

And then there can be problems with the software or the handsets:

• Cannot retrieve orders, network not found
• UAV connection lost
• Battery low
• Uh.. the phone software stuck … urgh!
• Waiting for GPS ………………….
• … why dare you touch the phone, it’s an iPhone, remember?

Here’s the whole post.

Mobile Phones are better than Computers – Green Computing

Posted by BA on Jul 16, 2010 in Green Computing, Handsets, Internet, Mobile Apps, Nokia, Nokia OVI apps | 0 comments

Mobile Phones consume very low power

What do you use your computer for? Surfing Internet, chat, gaming, social networking, downloading, desktop computing including documents, spreadsheets or presentation making or just watching your photos and videos? Today’s mobile phones are capable of doing it all, rather sometimes more than the traditional phones. They have faster processors, more ram, faster  wireless Internet connectivity and larger memories.

Today I will start another series of posts that will tell you how to use your phones to do things that you usually do with your computers including desktops, laptops and netbooks. This series of posts will include tips, tricks and software that you can use to avoid the use of computers and just use your phone

Why are mobile phones better?

If you have not done so, you can read my earlier articles that prove that laptops are better than desktops, because they take around 60 watts of power as compared to a few hundred watts. Then we also discussed that netbooks are even better than laptops taking half the power as compared to a full sized notebook. Today we will move one step ahead.

To prove my point I used this app called Nokia Energy Profiler. The app is a free download available on Nokia OVI store for almost all Nokia devices. The application gives you exact numbers in terms of power consumption, network bandwidth utilization and a few more important things that you never come to know when using a  mobile phone. Just like any other computing device, Nokia phones consume low power when idle and take more power when performing more computation.

Here are a few screen-shots. As you can see, when the phone is idle, it takes 0.18 watts on average. When navigating the menu and viewing simple content like photos on the phone screen, its consuming 0.23 watts on average. In the third screenshot, the phone is being used for a voice+video call over a wifi network and the battery usage is at it’s top, that is around 2 watts.

Idle State

Phone Menu Use

Skype Video Call - High Power Consumption

Sudden Spike when receiving call

In the last screen shot you can see the sudden rise in battery consumption when there’s an incoming call ringing and picked up.

In any case, this particular cellphone is using less than 2 watts of power which is way less than the other computing devices we listed above.

Conclusion

Use mobile phones for your computing needs whenever and wherever possible. You’ll save power and will contribute your efforts in keeping this planet green. Happy Green Computing!

iPhone 4 vs Nokia N8 – And the winner is ..

Posted by BA on Jul 13, 2010 in Apple, iPhone 4, Nokia, Nokia N8, Smartphones, Technology, Telecommunication | 23 comments

This has been a long awaited post and a few of my readers have been requesting for it repeatedly. I’ve finally decided to write on this topic. Some of my readers will call it a redundant post as so many has been said about these two phones and then some of them will call it biased due to Nokia being my all time favorite but I will still not be reluctant writing the post as it is totally based on facts and figures and I have not been unjust.

iPhone 4 by Apple and Nokia N8 have been put into a side by side table below. Thanks to GSM Arena, I did not have to type in all this data. What I’ve done is, I’ve colored this table green wherever I found a superior feature in one of the two phones. Quite interestingly iPhone is a winner in launching the phone first, it is smaller in volume, it’s got a gyro sensor, higher resolution screen, greater internal memory, better CPU clock and a larger battery capacity.

That makes around 8 features better than Nokia’s N8. Am I praising Apple’s marvel too much? Well, let’s look at Nokia’s features where Nokia is a winner against iPhone. The list is endlessly long and Nokia has around 19 features that are significantly better than that of iPhone including a 12 megapixel stunning still camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, Micro SD Slot which will let you plug in upto 32 GB of a memory card, USB on the go that will allow you to plug in your USB flash drives and hard disks as an additional storage space to  your phone, 720p HDMI TV out, Flash support in browser, faster class 33 edge and much more. See the table below yourself, I’m not biased

Hence the winner is … Nokia N8 without any doubt.

While my favorite of all the features will be the Nokia logo on the device that looks much better to me as compared to that of a metallic apple . Where Nokia has lost it is; the delayed release that is causing additional curiosity and unrest among the fans who cannot take it anymore. Just release it Nokia!

While iPhone 4 is not available unlocked without a voice/data contract in US, we can compare UK prices of iPhone 4 and Nokia N8.Right now, the approximate price of unlocked 16GB iPhone 4 in UK is GBP 499 that is around USD 760. Same 16 GB iPhone 4 is available for Eur 629 in France for example.

On the other hand, Nokia N8 is expected to be available for around Eur 450 on launch. Even if it sells for Eur 500, its pretty economical, isn’t it?

Samsung Bada still couple of months away

Posted by BA on Apr 25, 2010 in Samsung | 2 comments

There have been rumors and gossips about Samsung’s Wave, the first phone to come on Samsung Bada platform. Samsung Bada is a smart phone platform to add to an already existing mix of a number of platforms already available like iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Pre, Nokia Ovi, Android.

Now Samsung has confirmed that Samsung Wave is not coming and it will start becoming available in June 2010. Those retailers who were taking pre-orders and were expecting the phone to be available in April will have to change their order taking page.

If you are a Samsung fan and have been waiting for Samsung Wave, you’ll have to wait for another two good months. Samsung Bada platform is also open for the developers who want to develop apps for this new upcoming platform. Samsung has been a strong platform but as a mobile apps developer, its going to be a hard question to answer: Are you ready to develop apps for a platform that will start getting into the user’s hands after a quarter?