Create and design ringtones for your mobile phones

You can create your own ringtone of your favourite song by following these steps.
1. Log on to www.zedge.com and register.

2.On the 'ringtone maker' click browse and select the song of your choice from your computer.

3. Upload the track.

4. Check whether the track plays by clicking the play button.

5. Crop the track using the start and end tab. Preview your tone.

6. Download to PC and then copy to your phone.

Similar websites: makeownringtone.com
mobile17.com
mytinyphone.com
phonezoo.com
myxertones.com

Who killed the iPhone in India

Samsung Omnia i900 

It has a 3.2-inch display and being a windows mobile phone, it offers a greater variety of softwares and games. It is packed with features like a 5 mega pixel camera, 8 GB / 16 GB internal memory, multi-touch, windows mobile 6.1 Pro etc. FM radio with RDS, geotagging, 3.5 mm audio jack, TouchWiz UI, optical joystick. It has flash and video recording. The audio quality is also excellent. It is a iphone look alike.

HTC Touch Diamond
It is easily the lightest and the thinnest windows mobile phone in the market. Taiwan-based HTC was the first company in India to launch a touchscreen phone. With Touch, HTC debuted touchscreen phones in India (officially). Key features include, a 2.8 inch VGA touchscreen display, 3.2 megapixel camera with an optical auto-focus lens, video calling capability and auto sensor screen pivoting.
It runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, comes with 4GB of internal storage with 256MB flash and 192MB RAM. Other features include Bluetooth with EDR, minUSB, integrated GPS and Wi-Fi.


Asus P320
Based on the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional platform, the P320 features GPS navigation, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi for Internet access, Bluetooth and USB connectivity. It comes pre-loaded with ASUS Today suite that includes applications such as Time, Mail Box, Calendar, News, Weather and Music Player available to users via a single window.
Some other key features are a 2.6 inch TFT touchscreen with 65K color, 240 x 320 pixels resolution, OMAP 850 (Texas Instrument's Open Multimedia Application Platform) 200 MHz processor, 128MB Flash ROM + 64 MB DDR RAM and business applications. The phone boasts of 2 megapixel AF camera and microSD support.

Samsung TouchWIZ F480 
The phone, which made its India debut recently, has a 2.8-inch TFT LCD (240x320) touchscreen, integrated FM radio, multi-format video playback (MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, Real), MPEG4 video recording and editing functions.
The phone also comes with face detection technology, image stabiliser, CMOS video lens and Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) features. There are also a few customisable features like Drag `n' Drop and Auto Smile Shot coupled with full touch navigation.
TouchWIZ F480 has a 5 megapixel auto-focus-LED Flash camera, equipped with 240MB of internal memory, which can be expanded up to 8GB. Positioned in the lifestyle segment, the phone come with a host of entertainment features and is compatible with GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA (7.2mbps) networks and functions on GSM 900/1800/1900, and WCDMA 2100 bands.

LG 1000 
Here's a touchscreen option for CDMA users, LG 1000 CDMA available on Reliance network. The Nokia Communicator look-alike features a 2.8-inch external touch sensitive LCD and an internal display of the same size along with a full QWERTY keyboard.
LG 10000's key features include a media player (playback for MPEG 4 formats), a 2 megapixel camera with video recorder, expandable memory up to 8GB and Office mail applications for corporate users access (Push mail through Microsoft Server, Pull mail - IMAP and POP3).
It also features a full HTML browser. Other media features include a voice recorder and dual stereo speakers. It also supports Bluetooth and external memory via microSD cards. 

The Nokia N96 

The most awaited phone of the lot. Available through pre-Booking. Though not a touchscreen phone, has everything you could ever expect from a phone. A superb 5 MP cam with auto focus and flash, video recording - VGA at 30 FPS, 16 GB internal memory, A-GPS, a DVB - H receiver, a dual ARM 9 CPU, 128 MB RAM, a brilliant 2.8″ 16M colour screen The most popular smart phone OS ever, it features the most user friendly interface.

Tag Heuer's Vertu Killer

Tag Heuer's mobile phone in partnership with Modelabs

Nokia's TUBE to challenge Apple's Iphone

The world's largest handset maker is starting to talk about its response to Apple's iPhone, almost 10 months since the iPhone made its debut.

Nokia showed off the Nokia Tube in a presentation slide noticed by Infoworld at a software development conference in California Monday. The Tube, like the iPhone, is a touch-screen phone that can be manipulated using your fingers, and is Nokia's "first touch device," according to Tom Libretto of Forum Nokia.

It's fair to say the iPhone forced just about every handset maker to take a second look at their product development lineup. HTC and LG have shown off their iPhone-lookalikes already, and more will probably start to appear over the rest of the year.

Nokia didn't provide a time frame for the launch of the Tube.

Sony Ericsson M700 mobile platform

Ericsson recently announced its M700 mobile platform. Among its specs:

It has peak data rates of up to 100Mbps in the downlink and up to 50Mbps in the uplink.
It’s compatible with networks around the world, can support up to six bands, including the 700 MHz bands, and supporting bandwidths range between 1.4MHz and 20MHz.
Silicon will arrive in 2008 and the commercial release is set for 2009.
The first products based on the M700 will be data devices such as laptop modems, express cards and USB modems for notebooks, as well as other small-form modems suitable for consumer electronic devices.
Products based on the platform are expected in 2010.

Indian company Videocon eyes Motorola handset biz

Videocon hires top global banker to convey interest in handset biz.

The Videocon group has expressed interest in buying telecom giant Motorola’s struggling mobile handset business, which is being split into a separate company.

“We have hired one of the world’s top three investment bankers who will convey our interest to buy out the mobile handset business of the US company,” Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot told Business Standard.

Explaining why he was bidding for Motorola’s handset business, Dhoot said his group was ready launch its pan-Indian GSM mobile operations at an investment of Rs 6,000 crore.

Also, it has a consumer durables retail chain under the brand name “Next” with over 1,000 stores across the country that stock mobile phones too.

“The Indian market for mobile phones is around 120 million units a year and we have our own retail chain stories that we can leverage. Also, we can transfer the manufacturing plant to India to leverage cheap labour in the country,” added Dhoot.

Motorola has a handset manufacturing facility in Chennai that makes both CDMA and GSM mobile phones.

Dhoot said the deal will be financed through a combination of around Rs 1,800 crore of cash reserves and long-term loans raised in the global market.

Motorola’s mobile business will be valued at between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. Last year, the company sold over 159 million mobile phones globally.

When contacted, a Motorola India spokesperson said that the company would not be able to comment on speculation.

If Dhoot is able to pull through the deal, he will become the world’s third largest mobile player with around 14.3 per cent market share - just behind Nokia and Samsung.

However, in the fourth quarter of 2007, Motorola registered a 12.3 per cent global share down sharply from 22.4 per cent in Q4 2006.

The failure to replace the popular Razr model has been the main cause of decline.

Motorola’s Indian market share is not available, even though industry experts say it is behind Nokia and Samsung.

On March 26, Motorola decided to split the troubled mobile device business into a separate company due to sustained pressure from one of its key investors Carl Icahn, who wants the business to be sold. The Mobile Devices business will focus on mobile handsets, accessories and software.

Dhoot’s record of global acquisitions has been mixed. It recently failed to acquire Daewoo Electronics, for which it bid $711 million. However, it has successfully bought Thomson SA’s television glass tube business and Electrolux’s Indian operations.

The Videocon Industries scrip rose 2.48 per cent on BSE, closing at Rs 314.55 per share against the previous close of Rs 306.95 per share.

Google Android Phone to be Released By Summer?

According to CNET, during a conference call about Google’s plans for using “white space spectrum”, Whitt accidentally mentioned that the Android phones could be on the market in either summer or fall 2008. Oops. Quickly after the conference call ended, Google knew about the slip and went into damage control mode, restating their original claim that it would be released in the second half of 2008. They also claimed that they had absolutely nothing to do with the release dates of Android phones, as that decision was actually left to the manufacturers themselves.

In other Android news, there have been reports both last week and this week that High Tech Computers (HTC) would be developing the first Android phone known as the “Dream”. This rumor indicated that it would be out near the end of 2008.

Google wins by losing wireless-auction

Google's losing bid for coveted wireless airwaves may prove a victory for the Web search leader as it still stands to get access to mobile networks without spending tens of billions of dollars to build one, analysts said.
Wall Street analysts said the Silicon Valley Internet search and advertising giant has succeeded in forcing open network requirements upon winning bidder Verizon Communications via Google's apparent strategy of "bidding to lose."

Verizon will control the open network but will be required to allow devices and applications from other companies to use it.

Google and rivals Yahoo and Microsoft have stepped up moves over the past year to help ensure that consumers will one day be able to use the Internet services on mobile phones in the way they now use computers.

Google believes making the Internet easier to use for billions of mobile phone users will translate into increased demand for its Web search and advertising services.

What remains up for debate is the degree to which Google can make Verizon live up to auction rules that protect independent Internet services such as Google from being kept off phones and other devices by network owner Verizon.

What At&t and other american wireless services must expect from India

At&t and other wireless service providers are trying to get in the exploding market of India. And why not? India added 83 million new connection last year and is set to overtake US as the second largest wireless country after China. But India has always been low cost consumer. The call rate here are at the lowest in the world and most people just ignore value added services like call-back tune,games,etc. For many mobile phone is just an instrument for communication. And with the Telecom Minister Raja predicting Re.0.10 and Re.0.20 local and national calling charges respectively, in near future the the cellular companies can only profit from the volume of subscribers. And with such low rates the subscribers are just going to increase by manifold. With the subscriber base standing at 237 million which will be tripled by 2012, it is the hottest wireless market.

Mobile's day out

The first mobile phones to be loaded with Google's Android software for mobile phones have gone on show.

About a dozen companies such as ARM, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm showed off prototype handsets at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The free software system was launched in November 2007 and is being developed by an alliance of more than 30 companies including Google.

The first Android-enabled phone is expected to go on sale later this year.

Nokia has launched navigation tools designed to make the paper street map obsolete for pedestrians.

The firm's next generation of digital maps gives real-time walking directions on the mobile phone screen, just like sat-nav systems which guide drivers.

"Nokia is taking navigation services out of the car so it can always be with you," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of the firm.

"Struggling with oversized paper maps will become a thing of the past."

Google To Launch New Handset 2H08

Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp. (2498.TW) said Tuesday it is developing a new handset with Google Inc. (GOOG) for a planned launch in the second half of 2008.

The phone will run a newly developed open-standards software platform for mobile devices, called Android, the Taiwanese phone maker's Chief Executive Peter Chou said.

An alliance of 34 telecommunications and technology companies including Google and Taipei-based HTC developed the Android platform, said HTC in a statement. The platform includes an operating system, a user interface and applications for mobile phones.