Vodafone surges ahead of Airtel – To launch the iPhone 3G first in India on August 18

Iphone has finally released their pricing details via their exclusive indian carrier Vodafone. The 8GB model would cost around Rs.15960 and the 16GB model would cost around Rs.19960, both available only on exclusive 2 year contract with Vodafone. The launch date is expected to be the 18th of August for Vodafone, and 20th -21st August for Airtel. So it seems, Vodafone has taken the lead this time.

However, the exact pricing details for their data plans are still unknown. Till then .. keep guessing !

Update: Airtel will launch the iPhone 3G on August 22.

Google Wake Up Kit

“I could never wake up on time to get to our team meetings. But thanks to the new Google Wake Up Kit, I’m always on time now!”
Pedro C.

Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? The guys at Google do have, too. In fact this problem became so serious at times that it sometimes resulted in lacklustre attendance at team meetings. To help solve the problem they have created an innovative solution called the Google Wake Up Kit.

In combination with the kit, you can receive a new type of notification from Google Calendar, called the “wake up” notification. This notification is relentless in ensuring your timely awakening from restful slumber.

The “wake up” notification uses several progressively more annoying alerts to wake you up. First it will send an SMS message to your phone. If that fails, more coercive means will be used. The kit includes an industrial-sized bucket and is designed to be connected to your water main for automatic filling. In addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters. Learn more

Is the Apple Macbook Touch a Realistic Possibility ?

Some Apple fan mixed the real iMac-like dock patent and the fabled MacBook touch, getting a very nice rendition of how both concepts may look together. There is minimalist dock station too, with an optical drive, extra hard-drive, charging and wireless connectivity but without the screen, which looks like a more realistic proposition. The whole thing is just a figment of a wet fanboy imagination, but could this really happen? And would you buy an Apple tablet, an ultra-Slim MacBook or none of them?

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MacBook Touch with Screen Dock Mock-Up

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According to the author of this fantasy, “the Keyboard Wireless Dock connects to the dock using Wireless USB. It also has a bigger hard drive, some sort of DVD player/burner, inputs for your USB and Firewire devices. The whole keyboard part itself is used as a large multitouch track pad. Since the keys need to be depressed when hit, you can do lighter touches as you move across the whole thing.”

Hokai. It also probably dices potatoes, synthesizes Strawberry Daiquiris and teleports you to other planets full of wonderful civilizations with sculptural Monica-Belucci-style oiled amazons or George-Clooney-style oiled warriors (depending on your preference), that will name you their King or Queen. In other words, it doesn’t make much sense.

The black Powerbook-Titanium-style is quite nice, though. The concept may be feasible too: I like the idea of having an on-the-go tablet with touch keyboard for surfing, video, music and photography using a touch-optimized iLife suite. But one thing is some people finding the idea attractive, and the other is people buying it: unfortunately, the market for this kind of device could be quite limited as other keyboard-less Tablet PCs have demonstrated in the past. Even if we assume that Apple’s implementation may make a difference, as it did in the case of the key-less iPhone, the market will still be very limited. One thing is a device like the iPhone, for short SMS/mails, and a very different thing is this kind of device.

Furthermore, looking at Apple’s recent history, the company is not one that likes to create new markets, but improve on ones that may have true mass-market potential (like the iPod in the music market, or the iPhone in the cellphone market.) That’s why a ultra-slim laptop idea, not a tablet, with Flash storage at a cheap price point sounds like a more realistic (and equally as sexy) as this tablet. Down the line, such product may get a touch-screen. At this point, a device like the one pictured here still looks like a risky proposition.

The mini-dock concept, on the other hand, seems like a real possibility for the rumored ultra-slim MacBook. If Apple finally decided to release such a machine without an optical drive, the dock seems like a reasonable combo. At least, a more elegant and more practical solution than their iMac-dock patent (and quite cheaper.) With a real keyboard. Apple did this in the past too with the PowerBook Duo. It was a good machine at the time, but limited. Perhaps like with the case of the Newton and the iPhone, now is the right time to implement all these technologies at the right price.

We will have to wait and see if all these wishes get granted by the Wizard of Cupertino.  [Flickr via MacRumors Forums]

Hackers, Welcome! What This Gadget Can Do Is Up to You …

“HACKERS, welcome! Here are detailed circuit diagrams of our products — modify them as you wish.”

That’s not an announcement you’ll find on the Web sites of most consumer electronics manufacturers, who tend to keep information on the innards of their machines as private as possible.

But Neuros Technology International, creator of a new video recorder, has decided to go in a different direction. The company, based in Chicago, is providing full documentation of the hardware platform for its recorder, the Neuros OSD (for open source device), so that skilled users can customize or “hack” the device — and then pass along the improvements to others.

The OSD is a versatile recorder. Using a memory card or a U.S.B. storage device, it saves copies of DVDs, VHS tapes and television programs from satellite receivers, cable boxes, TVs and any other device with standard video output.

Because the OSD saves the recordings in the popular compressed video format MPEG-4 (pronounced EM-peg), the programs can be watched on a host of devices, including iPods and smartphones. The OSD is for sale at Fry’s, Micro Center, J&R Electronics and other locations for about $230.

The OSD’s capabilities will grow to suit changing times, said Joe Born, founder and chief executive of the company. “Digital video is a fast-moving space,” he said, and many consumers don’t want to buy a new piece of hardware every time a media company comes out with a new way to watch its shows. “The best way to address this problem was to make the product open source, allowing our smartest developers and users to modify it.”

The OSD has not only open hardware, but also open software: it is based on the Linux operating system. Neuros Technology encourages hacking of the device; it has contests with cash rewards for new applications for the OSD. One winner, for instance, designed a program that lets people use it to watch YouTube on their televisions.

Using the OSD for daily video recording demands no special technical background, and no PC is required. Setup is easy: Plug a U.S.B. hard drive or other memory device into one side of this lightweight unit, and plug the TV and, for example, the DVD player into the other side.

I recorded a show from a DVD this way and, to my delight, I was soon watching it on my iPod. Thank you, hackers!

The OSD does not have a display screen. Its menu is viewed on the television screen and navigated by using the remote control that comes with it. The device can also be connected to a computer or to a home network of computers.

People who are tired of stacks of DVDs and VHS tapes in the living room may find the Neuros an inexpensive way to tidy up: an entire library can be archived on a U.S.B. hard drive. Then you can stroll through your own personal video shop from the living room couch or, when traveling, plug the drive into a laptop to watch programs recorded from satellite or cable service at home.

But these are just the daily functions, designed for duffers like me. Gamers at their consoles can record their online contests, edit the videos and share them with friends. Brett Manners, a mechanical engineer and wind-surfing instructor in Perth, Australia, had another innovative use for the device. He rigged up a combination of the OSD and a video camera and used it to record his wind-surfing adventures directly to MPEG-4 format. (To watch some excerpts, see “Windsurfing With the Neuros OSD” on YouTube.)

Products like the OSD are a good example of a small but growing trend toward openness, said Jimmy Guterman, editor of Release 2.0, a technology and business newsletter published by O’Reilly Media of Sebastopol, Calif.

“The open source hardware movement parallels the earlier open source software movement that started off as a renegade thing 15 years ago,” he said. “Now it’s the center of I.T. at many major Web sites like Google.”

He hopes for the same openness in hardware, although he said that the issue was more complicated. “Companies may keep some aspects of their hardware closed, while opening others,” he said.

Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster, said openness was likely to apply to new products like the OSD, rather than to existing proprietary products. “It’s a lot easier to design future products with openness built into them,” he said, “than to open a closed product.”