IFA: Sharp Unveils its Thinnest LCD TVs Yet

Sharp has developed a new range of LCD (liquid crystal display) TVs that are thinner and have larger screens than its previous thinnest televisions.

The Aquos XS1-series measures 23 millimeters at its thinnest point. In comparison, the X-series models that Sharp put on sale in Japan in March this year, which were 34 millimeters at their thinnest point. Those TVs were available in 37-, 42- and 46-inch screen sizes.

Pricing and launch plans for other markets were not announced.

Sharp managed to slim down its LCD TV by removing the tuner to a stand-alone box and by employing an LED (light emitting diode) backlight system. The panels used in the TV sets have a contrast ratio of 1 million-to-one so black areas of the video image are deep black rather than the grey they sometimes appear on other panels.

The TVs are energy efficient too and reduce power consumption by adjusting screen brightness based on the ambient light where they are being used.

They also feature a sound system that was developed in collaboration with Pioneer.

The announcement was made at the IFA electronics show in Berlin and followed similar thin-TV announcements earlier in the day from Panasonic and Sony.

At 23 millimeters the sets aren't nearly as thin as the 9.9 millimeter LCD that Sony launched at IFA. But Sony's set only comes in a 40-inch screen size while the Sharp sets will be 52-inch and 65-inch models, so they won't be directly competing in the same parts of the TV market.

Zenith Announces Sub-15K Laptop and Desktop

Zenith Computers, today announced the launch of a new laptop and desktop under the brand name 'EcoStyle'. According to the company, the Zenith EcoStyle laptop priced at Rs. 14,999, will be the lowest priced Windows OS enabled laptop in the market; while the desktop PC will be available at Rs 11,999. The EcoStyle PC and laptop will be available across India through Zenith's chain of authorized dealers and exclusive showrooms will stock these computers.

The laptop is Net enabled, and comes preloaded with the Microsoft productivity suite: an Operating System (Windows XP Home Edition), Microsoft Works (includes Word Processor, spreadsheets and PPT viewer), and Microsoft Windows Live Suite (Includes Email Client, Messenger and Family Safety from Windows Live OneCare).

 The EcoStyle PC will give the customer an option of choosing Windows Vista Starter or Microsoft Windows XP Home. The laptop weighs 2.2 kg and has dimensions of 185mm x 250 mm x 70 mm. The desktop will also come preloaded with the Microsoft productivity suite.

The company further states that in addition to the portability and the relevant content, both the computers have an added advantage of reduced power consumption and on an average, they consume 30 percent less power.

Google Map Maker Launched in India

Google announced the launch of Google Map Maker in India. A global product conceived and developed by the Indian engineering team, Google Map Maker allows users to add or edit features, such as roads, businesses, parks, schools, apartment buildings, localities and more. With Google Map Maker tools, users can add detailed information about these locations and this user- created geographical content is updated and made visible immediately to all other users.

Google Map Maker also introduces peer moderation allowing users to review the data their peers have entered to ensure map quality and accuracy.

“Google Map Maker solves an inherent need especially for countries such as ours where maps data is sparse. This product embodies our passion to empower people everywhere, to share knowledge of the places they know best by creating maps,” says Dr. Lalitesh Katragadda,  Software Engineer and Creator of Google Map Maker.

“This is a great achievement for our engineering team. India is a challenging market – but one that has inspired us to really focus on creating technology that addresses real issues around local content and usability" said Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D.

"This launch is the reinforcement of our commitment to bring more useful information to people around the world and especially in hyper-growth countries like India where maps are changing on a daily basis given the rapid pace of infrastructure development," he added.

Other than India, Google Map Maker is available in 57 countries in Asia, the Island Nations, and the Caribbean.

Viewsonic Showcases 120Hz Display

ViewSonic unveiled its first 120Hz desktop LCD technology. The 22-inch120Hz prototype delivers good video performance on traditional gaming, entertainment and graphic applications, while also delivering stereoscopic 3D.

The 22-inch 120Hz display coupled with 3ms gray-to-gray response time provides better Motion Picture Response Time (MPRT). Features, such as integrated 2Wx2 stereo speakers and Dual Link DVI digital input, combine to expand entertainment options.

The display offers front-of-screen performance, including Professional Color Certification, 1680x1050 resolution, 300 nits of brightness and 1000:1 contrast ratio.

The first displays with ViewSonic’s 120Hz technology are expected later in the year at select resellers, retailers and retailers. Pricing is not yet available.

New Webcam from Microsoft Hardware

Microsoft Hardware announced the launch of LifeCam VX-700 webcam. The LifeCam VX-700 combines compact design with a VGA camera. The package also includes a headset with a microphone.

The universal attachment base allows the webcam to work with any desktop PC or a Laptop. Also, video calling can be done with its plug and play feature facilitates compatible with Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft office communicator and other popular messaging services.

“Technology and design are two factors that have always been paramount to Microsoft Hardware. With the launch of VX-700 we once again have a product that will excite our customers,” said Geetha KB, Product Marketing Manager, Entertainment and Devices Division – Microsoft Hardware.


Priced at Rs. 999 plus taxes, the LifeCam VX-700 will be available in computer hardware retail store across India from August 27, 2008.

Dell Launches New Laptops and Desktops

Dell has launched two new desktops and two new Vostro laptops aimed at users in South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

The two new laptops are the Vostro A860 and the A840. The former has a 15.1 inch anti-glare wide-screen while the latter has a 14.1 inch screen. Among the desktops, the A180 comes with the choice of either Intel Celeron or Core 2 Duo processors and the A100 uses the Intel Atom processor.

Dell has mentioned in its press release that these computers have been launched especially for education and small business users in countries which Dell classifies as “emerging economies.” However, apart from the “affordable” tag, the pricing is still a mystery. It does sound like Dell might finally be getting into the low-budget business PC's market in India which already has a couple of big names. This space needs watching.

Abacus Brings GeForce 9400 GT Graphic Card

Close on the heels of other vendors, Sparkle has introduced its Geforce 94000GT video card, aimed at budget users who still seek modest gaming performance as well as the ability to play HD video. The card is available in 512MB and 1GB video RAM versions as well as in ‘Passive’ version that does not have a fan, in order to cut out noise. Instead the Passive versions have a large heat sink to dissipate the heat. This makes it ideal for HTPC use.

The Geforce 9400 GT is based on the advanced 55nm process which produces less heat and consumes less power as well. Its core clock runs at 550MHz and memory at 1600MHz and has 16 stream processes. Outputs include VGA, DVI, TV and has HDCP support. According to Sparkle, compared with the previous generation GeForce 8500 graphics cards, the Sparkle GeForce 9400 GT graphics cards lead 55 percent in 3DMark Vantage Performance test, 75 percent in 3DMark Vantage High Test.

The Sparkle Geforce 94000GT is distributed by Abacus Peripherals across its 16 branches of all over India.
Abacus. It comes with a 3 years warranty support  with sealed pack and a free gift inside.

Creative Unveils New Media Player

Creative Technology today announced the launch of Creative ZENR X-FiR digital media player for music, video and photos, featuring Xtreme FidelityT X-Fi audio technology. The ZEN X-Fi uses X-Fi CrystalizerR audio technology that improves music quality. It does this by restoring the highs and lows that were lost during ripping to MP3, WMA or AAC formats. Creative is including a set of premium EP-830 in-ear earphones with every Creative ZEN X-Fi. "We're very excited to achieve this breakthrough of adding our X-Fi audio technology to a ZEN player, setting the highest standard in audio quality for portable music players," said Leonard Yap, Associate Marketing Manager for India, Creative Labs Asia. "Some of the top recording artists in the music industry are very outspoken about the poor quality of digital music. We addressed the issue of the poor quality of digital music by inventing X-Fi technology, which restores the quality of music that is lost during the digital ripping process, and now for the first time ever we've been able to implement this technology in a ZEN." Other features include built-in speaker, X-Fi Expand to move and expand the sound forward, SD card slot , 2.5-inch TFT display,  FM radio,  built-in microphone and Creative Centrale application for organizing, CD and playlist creation, and transfer of a wide variety of video formats, including WMV, AVI, MJPEG, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD. A range of accessories will also be available, including docking speaker system, leather case, silicon skin to protect the player, armband and a three-pack of screen protectors. The Creative ZEN X-Fi (8GB) is priced at Rs.13,599.

Upgrade MP3 and MP4 player firmware, how to

s1fwx (s1 firmware extractor) is a free commandline tool (public domain) which lets you extract the original firmware from your s1 mp3 player device plus additional futures support operations on the firmware files like decrypt, extract and archive. this way you could investigate all the files included in any fw file, change their content and put them back together.

There are two known archive formats:

AFI: this archives include files needed to flash the device, a minimal set may consist of an BRECFxxx.BIN (the bootloader) and a FWIMAGE.FW file (as below)

FW/FWI: firmware image files include all firmware files needed during runtime

Commandline usage:

  usage:     s1fwx {i|x|s|a|l|f|r} {filename{:[afi|fw|enc]}}    examples:     display file info                s1fwx i fname.ext     extract firmware file            s1fwx x fname.ext     generate script from file        s1fwx s fname.ext > new.script     create firmware file by script   s1fwx a new.fw:fw < def_fw.script     create afi file by script        s1fwx a new.bin:afi < def_afi.script     list entire content of any file  s1fwx l *.bin     extract firmware from player     s1fwx f dump.bin     repair dumped firmware files     s1fwx r dump.bin 

You may need admin-rights to extract firmware from your player.

How To Extract and Repair Firmware?

Extracting your players firmware is a very good idea just to create a backup of the original firmware files. It's no promise that you could always backup your player after some bad firmare update, but at least you have some more possibilities.

First download newest version of s1fwx from the link provided at the last of this post and extract the archive.

Then connect your mp3 player device to your computers USB port and wait until it gets detected.

Now double click the extracted file "extract.bat" or run "s1fwx f dump.bin" from the windows commandline console. Skip the disclaimer by pressing space and select the drive your player gets mounted to. (eg. if detected drives displays "<x>" then choose drive "x:" by pressing x)

Now s1fwx should start extracting your firmware, this may take arround 10 seconds.

If everything went well and no error gets displayed it will display the content of the extracted firmware file as it was redden from your player.

Before you could update your player with this firmware file using the original "Mp3 Player Update Tool" you will first have to repair it.

Start "repair.bat" or type "s1fwx r dump.bin". A backup will be saved at "dump.bi$" automatically and the repaired file is now available as "dump.bin".

Notice that its not possible to do a firmware recovery with this file (only regular firmware updates) since there are missing files needed by the "Mp3 Player Update Tool" recovery mode. Since this files couldn't be found on your player you will need to get them from some official firmware file which is known to work with your players hardware.

Either you first could recover to this firmware before updateing to "dump.bin", or you could insert the needed files from the original AFI file into "dump.bin" using s1fwx. The original firmware has to support your flash chip(s). It doesn't matters if its just using different backlight or key-mapping. 

Extracting Firmware

Here some example how to extract the whole content of the AFI file "firmware.bin". Place firmware and s1fwx in one folder, open commandline console (run "cmd") and go to the folder containing the files. To extract the AFI type "s1fwx x firmware.bin". Then make a sub- folder "md fw", change "cd fw" and extract the firmware files using "../s1fwx x ../fwimage.fw". Now you should have extracted all the files usually included in some general firmware file. 

Details @ http://blog.ekendraonline.com/2008/01/upgrading-mp3-player-firmware.html

Momail Arrives in India, plans for service to all Indians before Christmas

Momail has today launched its entry into the Indian market with its popular mobile email product. The site for Momail India is now open for up to 100 000 beta testers; they can sign up at www.momail.in using the password momailrox.

Momail’s service includes a full e-mail offering. Momail is easy to start and use, and there is no need for special client software or downloads. All email and data settings are automatically configured by Momail. All emails can be collected and read from one inbox on the mobile phone (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.).

Momail supports over 1100 different models, covering most of mobiles delivered.  A full featured webmail is included and the beta testers will have the service for free during the test period (data charges from the users’ operator may apply).  The public Momail mobile email service will have a small monthly fee when officially launched.

 "We have had a lot of interest from India and now we are happy to offer Momail for free for a number of beta testers. Our plan is to open Momail for all Indians before Christmas, so soon all users with an email capable mobile will be able to enjoy the world’s smallest, smartest and most cost-effective mobile email,” says Roger Grönberg, CEO of Momail. 

HCL Launches Gaming and Multimedia Desktops

A line of new gaming and multimedia desktops, christened 'Infiniti Orbital K Series', has been launched by the India-based HCL Infosystems Limited. The desktops are based on the Triple Core AMD Phenom X3 8000 processor and will cost from Rs. 33,000 onwards.

HCL has begun shipping the desktops and they will be available through HCL's distribution network as well as their Digilife chain of stores.

Although HCL claims that the desktops will provide “unparalleled performance for a wide variety of demanding applications”, the absence of an Intel Core 2 Duo (the Penryn comes to mind) and the price tag really makes one wonder as to the performance levels that these desktops will be able to provide. If HCL however does manage to pack in solid performance at that price-tag, it will be great news. However, instinct tells us that gamers should wait before they head over to the HCL stores with their checkbooks in hand.

This news will need careful watching over.  

MSI Launches "P45-8D Memory Lover" Motherboard

MSI unveiled its latest "P45-D8 Memory Lover" motherboard which is equipped with eight memory slots. The motherboard supports, both the current and established DDR2 as well as the newer DDR3 memory types. This allows enthusiasts to now use their existing DDR2 memory and when prices of DDR3 memory declines, they can upgrade to increase the performance.

The new MSI P45-8D Memory Lover motherboard is powered by the latest Intel P45 Express chipset. It supports the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme / Quad and other multi-core processors with an FSB up to 1600MHz. The eight memory slots consist of four slots each for DDR2 and DDR3. The maximum capacity is 16GB by using four DDR2 memory and 8GB by using four DDR3 memory.

P45-8D Memory Lover is also equipped with PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics card slot, in audio processing, P45-8D Memory Lover comes with 8-channel high-definition audio codec which can handle multiple sources. Users can enjoy high-definition 3D games and high-quality sound. P45-8D Memory Lover comes with the cooling heat-pipe design with high thermal efficiency to dissipate the heat of the North Bridge and South Bridge quickly, ensuring better stability than other same level products. In addition, P45-8D Memory Lover also comes with the "Memory Identifier" and "Memory Runner" design.

The Memory Identifier is function for digital switch, which provide the best memory transmission signals also upgrade the memory compatibility and performance. The Memory Runner is function for memory voltage switch. It enhances the ease of overclocking process and ensures the memory can boot successfully on overclocking and over-voltage.

Dual SIM Mobile Phone from Intex

Intex, a company known better for computer peripherals like keyboards, mice, PC cabinets, webcams, etc, has recently entered the hot mobile phone market. The company recently launched a dual SIM card phone, the IN 5050. Phones that can take two SIM cards, hence allow you to be on two numbers simultaneously with one phone have slowly gained notice thanks to a slew of models crudely referred to as 'China Phones' in the grey market. The new model from Intex, however, combines CDMA as well as GSM. Thus, you can benefit from lower tariffs of CMDA and at the same time, have a GSM connection as well. The screen has a modest 176x220 pixel resolution and measures 2.2 inches diagonal.

It works with GSM 900/1800 and CDMA 800 networks. The rated talk time is upto 160 minutes and standby time is rated at upto 130 hours. Other features include a 1.3MP camera, Bluetooth connectivity, FM, and playback of MP3 and MP4. The phone is priced around Rs. 7,500

Sony Ericsson Launches New Cell Phone

Sony Ericsson today announced the launch of its first made in India mobile phone, the R300 Radio phone. R300 is targeted at the rapidly growing entry level segment. This new handset comes with a radio-inspired design with volume boosters for clarity of sound in noisy environment.

Along with the FM frequency channels, Sony Ericsson R300 also comes with AM frequencies. Available in two colors - Antique Copper and Steel Black, the R300 Radio will be available at a price of Rs. 4,395.

“We are witnessing unprecedented growth in smaller towns and cities and plan to increase our geographic presence in such places with launch of the Radio phone R300.  The growing popularity of the radio in the tier two and tier three cities has created a tremendous opportunity for penetrating such markets and we are confident that our new offering will be well received by our consumers” said Sudhin Mathur, General Manager, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, India.

Other features include radio speakers, 3D sound enhancement, alarm clock, recording facility, play back option and built-in VGA camera. The R300 Radio is a GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 phone.

Vodafone Announces iPhone Price

For a couple of months now, media sites have been speculating on the price of the iPhone in India. The launch by Airtel and Vodafone is just a couple of days away and, finally, we have an official announcement by Vodafone about the price.

In an SMS and e-mail sent by Vodafone to people who had registered for the device, the company said the 8GB version of the iPhone will cost Rs. 31,000 and the 16GB version will be available for Rs.36,000. To make advance booking, buyers will have to visit select Vodafone outlets and pay an advance of Rs.10,000.

It may be recalled that a few websites had earlier speculated that the iPhone would be priced around the Rs.20,000 mark. But this pricing places the iPhone as a niche product, rather than being a mass product. As on the time of publishing this report on our site, there was no indication from Airtel regarding the pricing of iPhone that it will sell. However, the pricing is very likely to be competitive between Airtel and Vodafone, so don't expect a huge price differential.

For the official announcement by Vodafone, visit http://www.vodafone.in/iphone/Pages/iPhone_details.aspx?cid=kar

Bharti Airtel to Bring iPhone 3G to India on August 22

Bharti Airtel Wednesday announced that it will launch the iPhone 3G in India on August 22. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone plus 3G networking that is twice as fast, built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs hundreds of third party applications available through the new App Store.
"iPhone has been the iconic technology revelation of this year, "said Sanjay Kapoor, president of Mobile Services at Bharti Airtel. "Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and customer delight in the Indian telecom sector. Introducing iPhone 3G to India further underscores our commitment to enrich the communication experience of all Airtel users."

Customers will be able to purchase iPhone 3G at Airtel Relationship Centers. Details of pricing will be announced at a later date. Airtel customers who wish to receive more information on iPhone 3G can log on to http://www.airtel.in/iphone3g/

Read @ Bharti Airtel to Bring iPhone 3G to India on August 22