windows-phone-7

Microsoft has launched its most awaited new mobile operating system at Mobile world congress which they have called as “Windows phone 7 series”. It is rebranded from “Windows mobile” to “Windows phone 7 series”. They are now planning to launch their own mobile phone instead of only selling their OS to other phone manufacturers like HTC. This might directly compete with Apple iphone. In the same way that the Windows 7 desktop OS was nearly everything people hoped it would be, Windows Phone 7 is almost everything anyone could’ve dreamed of in a phone, let alone a Microsoft phone. It changes everything. Why? Now that Microsoft has filled in its gaping chasm of suck with a meaningful phone effort, the three most significant companies in desktop computing—Apple, Google and Microsoft—now stand to occupy the same positions in mobile. Phones are officially computers that happen to fit in your pocket.
Not only name is different but the makeover done here is also big. New look of the OS is largely influenced by their own “Zune” player interface. The phone operating system does away with pretty much every scrap of previous mobile efforts from Microsoft, from the look and feel down to the underlying code — everything is brand new. It features completely different home screen and fully new user interface. It seems Windows has finally realized to change their traditional stylus friendly interface to finger friendly interface. Seems like heat of competition from other manufacturers specially
“Apple”.
The Home page of the new interface has big finger friendly icons aka “live tiles” which will internally call their own old applications. Home page is fully customizable and can be scrolled vertically. Old style start menu is probably gone. Home page interface with widget like icons seems to be inspired by android. they’re linked with online data sources such as Facebook or Flickr or email, grouped in “hubs” that bring together data from applications, corporate servers like Microsoft Exchange, and the Web. Text and tiles “overflow” the touch screen, but users pan quickly through arrangements that are visually consistent in each hub.
New OS is well focused in social networking. “People hub” feature is all you need here. Updates from all your friends in different social networking site facebook are directly displayed. Still it has no twitter support but should be coming soon. I find it very useful as it gets rid of opening different sites and check updates in all. if you really like someone or want to stalk them hardcore, you can make them a tile on your Start screen, which will update in realtime with whatever they’re posting, and pull down their photos from whatever service. There’s also your very own profile page, where you can scan your current social state and post updates to multiple services simultaneously. All of your contacts are automatically synced by internet to Microsoft exchange, windows live etc.
Just like Apple’s strategy of “Iphone with Ipod” will be “Windows 7 with Zune ” in new operating system. The phone will have built in zune player. This is your media hub. Also they have added FM radio in this hub.
Pictures are a little different though, and get its very own hub. That’s because it’s intensely connected—you can share photos and video with social networks straight from the hub, and via the cloud, they’re kept in sync with your PC and web galleries. The latest photos your friends post also show up here. Of course, you get around with multitouch zoom and zip-zip scrolling stuff.
There is xbox icon on the home page that means you can access xbox live directly from your mobile phone. It indicates that there might be some mobile games are in queue to be launched. What I hope is some improvement in Internet explorer as of now it sucks a big time!!

Windows phone 7 series operating system will be released to other mobile manufacturers also like HTC, Sony etc. They have to comply with strict hardware requirement like multi touch, dedicated start and search button,

Final words are “I definitely want to try it”. It combines zune, xbox etc in your mobile phone in new better organized manner. It seems there is now hope for Microsoft to survive in mobile world with its new mobile phone.

Movie is going to hit the silver screen on 18th of December that is next week. This is directed by James Cameron who also directed movies like Titanic and Terminator. This is going to be the buzz in coming days. There is lots of high end graphics and effects in this movie. This is going to be the first 3D (correct me if I am wrong) movie of James Cameron.

Plot:

In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture. (Source : IMDB)

Detailed Plot :

The storys protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. Jake is selected to participate in the Avatar program, which will enable him to walk. Jake travels to Pandora, a lush jungle-covered extraterrestrial moon filled with incredible life forms, some beautiful, many terrifying. Pandora is also home to the Navi, a sentient humanoid race that are more physically capable than humans, although considered primitive. Standing three meters tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Navi live in harmony with their unspoiled world. As humans encroach deeper into Pandora’s forests in search of valuable minerals, the Navi unleash their formidable warrior abilities to defend their threatened existence. Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Navi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies that are controlled by a human “driver” through a technology that links the driver’s mind to their Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Sent deep into Pandora’s jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora’s beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Navi female, Neytiri, whose beauty is only matched by her ferocity in battle. Over time, Jake integrates himself into Neytiri’s clan, and begins to fall in love with her. As a result, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Navi, forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world. [D-Man2010]

Avatar is set during the 22nd century on a small moon called Pandora, which orbits a gas giant, and is inhabited by the tribal Na’vi, ten foot blue humanoids that are peaceful unless attacked. Humans cannot breathe Pandoran air, so they genetically engineer human/Na’vi hybrids known as Avatars that can be controlled via a mental link. A paralyzed Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) volunteers to exist as an Avatar on Pandora, falling in love with a Na’vi princess and becoming caught up in the conflict between her people and the human military that is consuming their world. (Source : IMDB)

Review:

Avatar movie is the story of an ex-Marine who finds thrust into hostilities on an alien planet inhabitated with exotic life forms. As an Avatar, a human mind in an alien body, he finds himself torn between two worlds, in a desperate fight for his own survival and that of the indigenous people. More than ten years in the making, Avatar proves Cameron’s return to feature directing since helming 1997’s Titanic, the highest grossing film of all time and winner of eleven Oscars including Best Picture. WETA Digital, renowned for its work in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and King Kong, will incorporate new intuitive CGI technologies to transform the environments and characters into photorealistic 3D imagery that will transport the audience into the alien world rich with imaginative vistas, creatures and characters. (Source : GV)
Review to be updated as movie is released next week…

Trailer:

Youtube

Photos:

Recently I found that Opera Mini 5 beta is released!! I tried Opera mini 5 beta and here are the main features of Opera Mini 5. Download it from here.

Opera mini 5 is, same as its predecessors, J2ME based web browser. It relays the user request to backend server and all processing and computation is done on this backend. Then response page is compressed and sent to user mobile. This is why it is very quick and takes less bandwidth and

Main changes compare to previous version are,
Tabbed browsing
Password manager
Keyboard
Enhanced new user interface
Speed dial page
Auto completion of URL

One of the most significant change is introduction to tabbed browsing. A button is provided on bottom side of the screen to select or open new tabs. These tabs are very touch friendly. Menu opened for tab selection has nice animation and visuals. On press and hold on any link in webpage opens a popup menu. This menu contains a option to open the link in new tab. This is just like desktop browsing !! Also there is no limitation in number of tabs created as compared to opera mobile in which max number of tabs allowed are 3. Opera Mini 5 allows the user to open as many tabs as they want, but it will remove open tabs from memory as needed. When a tab has been removed from memory, it still appears in the tab switcher and the user just has to reload it when they switch back.

Another enhancement is built in password manager to save your usernames and passwords. This feature is very helpful to me . Whenever you enter a username and password in any website, opera mini 5 asks you to save it in password manager or not. If you say yes then next time when you visit this site they are automatically filled. If you change the password for a site for which there is already entry in password manager then opera mini 5 asks you to update the current entry or not.

Opera mini 5 has built in QWERTY keyboard which pops up whenever you select any textbox. Keyboard is nice and touch friendly but there is no option to select mobile keyboard instead of that. It is little annoying as I like my windows mobile keyboard then opera mini keyboard. I hope this will be fixed in final release.

User interface of opera mini 5 beta is very improved over previous version. Fonts and buttons are bigger and icons are touch friendly. Animation and visuals are also enhanced to give splendid view. Scrolling of the page is also improved to browse the page seamlessly.

Next enhancement in Opera mini 5 is special speed dial page. Here you can set your mostly visited websites and open that website. Quick dial page also shows thumbnails of the site you set on that button. Here again buttons are big and very touch friendly.

When you type the name of webpage in address bar then it is automatically completed by adding .com to it. I don’t find it helpful

Overall the opera mini 5 beta is big step from opera mini 4 with so many good features. These all makes web browsing convenient and fast.

Please do post your comments.