• The Week That Was: New Orkut, HTC HD2 Arrives

    The Week That Was: New Orkut, HTC HD2 Arrives

    Techtree News Staff, Nov 08, 2009 1354 hrs IST

    Take a look at the tech news that hogged the headlines in the past week

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Time for another weekly news roundup! Lets take a look at all the news that hogged the headlines in the past week!


Orkut Gets New Version 
Google seems to have had enough of Facebook's meteoric rise and has now sprung into action with a host of new design changes to its social networking website, Orkut. The website, which has been in the decline for the past few months, will see a lot of new features and a drastic change in the looks. The "refreshing new look" of Orkut is based on the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) infrastructure and will include the ability to discover friends automatically, video chat integrated with Google Talk, ability to upload photos in bulk very quickly, add/view photos and videos in-line, and a more interactive activity stream, says Google.



Windows 7-iPhone Sync Woes 
As Microsoft's Windows 7 was released worldwide recently, global Apple Mac owners were eager to check it out. Moving to a new operating system always gives us jitters about compatibility of hardware and software. Recently, iPhone owners using Windows 7 RC or Beta or Evaluation version complained on the Apple Discussion Board that they were facing iPhone syncing issues. Several users reported iPhone syncing issues wherein Intel P55 Express chipset was common amongst the configurations mentioned. No accurate information is available on the issue as in whether it's Windows 7 (64-bit) on Intel P55 chipsets that is causing issues or vice versa.


Slim Sony VAIO X Enters India 
Sony has introduced the slim and light Sony VAIO X ultraportable laptop in India. Touted as the world's slimmest and lightest ultraportable laptop, VAIO X weighs merely 655gms and is about half an inch thin. It comes clad in lightly brushed aluminum panel covers isolation keyboard and the palm-rest area. Equipped with 'Silverthorne' Intel Atom processor, this ultraportable laptop comes with pre-loaded with Windows 7 Professional (32-bit). Sony offers VAIO X in two models VPCX113KG for Rs. 64,990 and VPCX117LG for Rs. 84,990 - both with one year international warranty.



SE Admits 'Rachael' Does Exist 
Sony Ericsson's first ever Android based handset - Rachael - has been officially announced by the company. While we knew about the existence of this phone from the company for ages now, it is nevertheless good to see Sony Ericsson going public with the announcement of the device. Known as the Xperia X3 in its earlier avatar, it seems to have got a new name X10. It was just recently that we posted a story about the video of the UI of the phone in action.  As known by most people who have been following this story for over six months now, Rachael will come with a 1Ghz snapdragon processor, a huge four-inch capacitive display and of course, the much talked about Rachael UI that seemed pretty good on the emulators videos we have seen so far.



iPhone Largely Ignored in China 
Elsewhere in the world, while people might flock whenever a new version of the Jesus phone is released, the Chinese seems to have largely ignored the device. Following the much-discussed launch of the iPhone on China's second largest mobile network, China Unicom, last week, only 5000 have been sold. This, in the country boasting of the world's largest mobile subscriber base, is nothing short of an embarrassment for Apple who has always known to cite the sales of the iPhones in millions right from the first week of its release in other parts of the world.


HTC HD2 Officially Announced 
HTC has announced its latest Windows Mobile 6.5-powered monster phone, the HD2, in markets across Europe and Asia. Earlier known as the Leo, the HD2 boasts of a high-resolution, 4.3-inch capacitive touch display, and is ultra thin as well. The phone is powered by Qualcomm's new 1 GHz Snapdragon mobile processor and will be the first Windows Mobile phone from HTC to come with the Sense UI, earlier seen on the Android based, HTC Hero. The phone will be available in the next few days at an undisclosed price in Europe and Asia. The U.S. landfall is expected to happen only by early 2010.


Apple App Store has over 100,000 Apps 
Just a few weeks after crossing the 2 billion applications download milestone, Apple's App Store has crossed yet another landmark figure when the number of approved applications, available for download at the store went past the 100,000 mark. The Apple App Store, launched just last year, has seen phenomenal growth in the period to become the largest online app store. Competing mobile OS platforms like RIM, Android and Nokia (with its Ovi Store) too have come with their own versions of app stores - but none of them really match up to the Apple App Store both, in terms of the number of downloads and availability of apps.


Nokia's New Low-end Phones Arrive 
Nokia seems to be very focused towards developing new low-end products, its traditional strong hold in most of the emerging markets of the world. The company has been, in the past, known to launch several new handsets targeted at the low-end spectrum, most of which are lapped up with immense interest in emerging markets across the globe. Continuing the same trend, Nokia has announced five new low-end handsets that are slated to go on sale very soon in these markets. The new devices announced include the Nokia 1280, 1616, 1800, 2220 slide and the Nokia 2690.

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Discussion Board
(4) Comments
jagan
,mumbai, on Nov 10, 2009 10:55 AM
good
nice
,mumbai, on Nov 10, 2009 10:54 AM
nice ones
vijay
,mumbai, on Nov 10, 2009 10:54 AM
orkut new version is good
nice
,mumbai, on Nov 10, 2009 10:53 AM
nice one

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