There is, without a doubt, much disappointment surrounding the iPad. Blooggers curb-stomped it for its shortcomings:

• No multitasking
• No Adobe Flash (yet)
• No camera or iChat capabilities
• No HDMI port
• 4:3 aspect ratio
• Still dependent on AT&T’s 3G service
• Dependence on adapters

… and the list goes on.

What I found interesting is that the “big-name” critics took a more compassionate view of the iPad. David Pogue from the New York Times outlined three phases of “the standard Apple new-category roll-out,” starting with feverish speculation and hype, then hands-off negativity, then release-date positivity. Pogue urged caution from the knee-jerk types: “it’s too early to draw any conclusions.” Furthermore, he writes, “as we enter Phase 2, remember how silly you all looked when you all predicted the iPhone’s demise in that period before it went on sale.”

Om Malik had a positive take on the iPad over atGigaom. He loved the single button, landscape and portrait modes, Web browsing experience, Maps, and the ability to “plow through” e-mails. Still, a hint of wariness came at the end of Malik’s brief first impression when he said, “If I didn’t own a Kindle or an iPod touch, the decision to buy an iPad would be an easy one. But I own both, and even if I only owned one of them, it would be a tough decision.”

Who better to weigh in on the iPad than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak? In this video, Wozniak commented on the possible future of the iPad but lamented its productivity capabilities – specifically its inability to edit movies or fiddle with music.

Tech guru Walter Mossberg approached his first impressions of the iPad evenly without making overly harsh judgments. The keyboard and the tablet’s size, in his opinion, may be the iPad’s biggest downfall. “Finally, while it’s too early for me to say without lots of testing, the size of the iPad’s virtual keyboard may be a liability. I found it almost too wide for thumb typing, and a colleague who’s a whiz at touch typing and tried it briefly found it awkward to type on. Apple is offering an auxiliary physical keyboard that docks with, and charges, the iPad. But you won’t want to lug that around.”

You might be wondering where TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington fits into this hoopla. As of this writing, Arrington hadn’t given his two cents (or two thousand dollars) to the iPad, though he’s likely writing his tome now. I’m more interested than usual about Arrington’s take given that his own tablet, the CrunchPad, went down in flames.

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times ran down the laundry list of oft-repeated iPad shortcomings, but hinted at its hopeful possibilities. “… depending on how it’s exploited, eventually it could be much more.”

The round-up of other influential tech blogs brought the same lukewarm response I believe we should expect from what looks to be a wishy-washy on-the-fence device. Gizmodo, quite simply, hated it. In a very long, multi-person take, Engadget was kinda “meh.” ZDNet, like many, urged caution. And the editors here at PC World teetered toward the negative in multiple editorialtakes.

So that’s the general take on Apple’s latest product. What’s even more appealing to me is getting the audience’s reaction. So what do you think about the iPad?

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/188073/apple_ipad_reviews_the_critics_weigh_in.html

Broadband users, for a long time, have taken for granted the ability to listen to radio stations from around the world over the internet. There are a number of standards that can be used – RealAudio, Windows Media and MP3 Streaming. Currently, Nokia Radio supports MP3 streaming (updated – it also works with AAC streams as well), and hopefully the others are on the way. This means that not all the radio stations online around the world are available – and that includes the BBC. I’ve a sneaky suspicion that getting Radio 4 into the application is at the top of the feature wish list.

Released from Nokia’s Beta Labs last week, as Nokia World 2007 opened, was Nokia’s Internet Radio. On the face of it, this is a simple application, but as with most things, sometimes the simple things are the best.

What makes Internet Radio such a great application? After all, there are already a number of Internet radio solutions kicking around the S60 catalogues. Let’s start with discovery. The application comes with a centrally managed (by Nokia) index of radio stations from around the world. You can navigate around this by country, by genre or by popularity. One click on a station and it will start playing. You can also add it to your ‘favourites’ list so you can get back to the stations as fast as possible.

Impressively, the radio continues to play when you’re navigating around the application, and also in the background while in other apps. It’s incredibly stable in terms of coding – there’s no noticeable slowdown in the other applications. One cute touch, whenever you start a new station, it does buffer (and the visible buffer bar filling up is a great UI touch) but once it starts to play it fades up from no volume – and when you switch stations, the old station fades out as the other one fades in. It’s not necessary, but it helps.

The rest of the interface stays as close as possible to the existing Music Player. It looks like it, with the central selection button for play and pause, the volume control on the side buttons, and the directory even feels very like the podcast directory. In other words, it is a consistent interface across the S60 music applications and that’s important as these devices reach the mass market.

One addition, which is specific to Internet Radio, is that the ‘down’ keypress brings up the information supplied by the radio station. It might be about the show, the technical details on the stream, how to get in touch with the host or the web site. If the station has it set up, you’ll also get a playlist of the music you’ve been listening to.

On a mobile device, your bandwidth is never guaranteed. You could be on GPRS, or a 3G connection, or a free flowing Wi-Fi connection. In ‘Preferences’ you can limit the amount of data you try to bring down during a connection – and, rather than present numbers, the simple paradigm remains here, with you choosing ’standard’, ‘high’ or ‘best’ quality.

Nokia Internet Radio is a lovely application. There are still rough edges, not least that RealAudio and Windows Media support is needed; and I’d also like to see it integrated into the Ovi launcher under the Music tab, but perhaps that’s waiting until a v1.0 release. Even now I would still strongly recommend this application for everyone, even the casual user.

Now, if only this could be linked into the alarm clock so the radio wakes me in the morning, as opposed to a beeping N81… [Now there's an idea - go for it, Beta Labs! - Ed]

Source: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_Internet_Radio.php

Voip Biz Product of the Year 2009, IPsmarx and MyGlobalTalk

According to VoIP Biz-News, the companies that consistently come up as winners are those that “continue to innovate, focus on development, and have launched some amazing products into the market.”

 VoIP Biz-News evaluates candidates for Best VoIP Product of the Year based on 3 primary criteria:

1. Innovative product solutions that deliver new and compelling functionality to the market;
2. Customer’s favorable response to the product; and
3. Overall customer satisfaction with the company.

IPsmarx’s SIP-based Calling Card Platform eliminates the need for VoIP gateways, PSTN lines, and gateway configuration. This makes it extremely easy to deploy and begin generating revenue. The all-in-one system includes the IVR, integrated billing, authentication and account balance reconciliation, call routing, as well as CDRs for reporting. The system can offer both pin-based and pin-less calling card services.

Unique to the IPsmarx solution are the marketing and payment tools that help service providers grow their business faster. Such tools include an E-store, which allows end users to go online and check their balance, call history, and recharge their accounts at any time. Other marketing features include promotional discounts, bonus points, referral program, an e-mail marketing tool and a complete set of reseller capabilities. It offers a variety of payment options including auto recharge, recharge through IVR, and gift cards. The system also has the ability to monitor usage, create grace periods, and set surcharge and maintenance fees, rounding parameters, and billing criteria.

“We are proud to be selected again for the Product of the Year award,” said Arash Vahidnia, CEO of IPsmarx. “Many SIP solutions are commoditized, so we strive to develop products that not only provide all the necessary services, but that offer unique capabilities, as well, such as our Pin-less Calling Card Solution. Information on IPsmarx and their products can be found at: http://www.IPsmarx.com

About VoIP Biz-News.com
Biz-News.com is an online media group providing consumer electronic business news to professionals worldwide. Biz-News.com reaches its global business readership in niche audience segments across medias specialized in the consumer electronic markets.

VoIP.Biz-News.com provides news on semiconductors, software, hardware, OEM, content, manufacturer’s brands, wireless operators, distributors and retailers on a global scale. We focus on worldwide consumer electronics markets.

For more information, please go to http://voip.biz-news.com/ or contact us at www.biz-news.com/en/contactus.html

About IPsmarx
Headquartered in Reston, VA, IPsmarx is a leading provider of VoIP applications and switching solutions to service providers, carriers, ISPs and calling card providers.  IPsmarx has multiple office locations in North America and the Canada, and has their solutions deployed in over 60 countries.

IPsmarx designs solutions that provide competitive service providers with a complete suite of software, hardware, management and billing tools, training and support, allowing them to market scalable, turnkey and reliable offerings to SMBs and enterprises.

For information on products and service offerings, please go to: http://www.IPsmarx.com, call in the US 1.703.779.3594, in Canada, 1.416.665.6999,or send an email to info@IPsmarx.com

 Press Contact:
Joanne Lowy
Jlowy7@gmail.com
732 600 2569

This article will attempt to show you how you would be better off buying one of the other smartphones that are currently sold at the same price as the Apple iPhone 3GS or at even lower prices than the iPhone.

Inability to Multitask: It is almost impossible to believe that the “smartphone” touted as the “hottest and best mobile device” in the world can only run one application at a time. That the iPhone 3GS cannot multitask in this age of advanced communications is ONE colossal reason why a discerning consumer – read human – should not buy it. Even the Nokia 3230, sold back in 2005 had users playing games over Bluetooth connections while playing music on their individual phones, and those users would still have a number of applications running in the background. This 3230 did not possess up to a quarter of the hardware and hype that the iPhone boasts of.

Lack of Bluetooth Compatibility with Other Devices: The iPhone 3GS lacks true Bluetooth capability as its Bluetooth can only be used with a headset on the iPhone. It cannot be used to transfer files like all other devices with Bluetooth technology are capable of. You certainly cannot use it to play games with a friend by creating a Bluetooth connection like a lot of cheaper smartphones can.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/fring-adds-skype-video-support-on-s60-threatens-to-make-front-c/

By this time you must be knowing about Xobni, if you are a user of Beta version of Microsoft Outlook 2010. Well, for those find the term unfamiliar, I want to give a brief description of Xobni. Xobni is a plugin for Outlook 2010.

The Outlook plugin makes searching your inbox and finding information about your contacts fast and easy. Two types of Xobni — Xobni Basic and Xobni Plus are there. While, Xobni Basic is a free product, you have to afford $29.95 for Xobni Plus. Xobni Plus helps in advance search, filtering, indexing in Microsoft Outlook. It’s main feature is to clear up the cluttered Microsoft Outlook Inboxes.

There are two tab on Xobni. On this tab you get a graphical representation of when you exchange email with the emailer, other people who exchange email with the emailer, conversations being held with the emailer, and files that have been exchanged with the emailer. This tab really helps see what is going on with the person. The Organize Tab in Xobni is like a small dashboard. You will see on this tab section, your Upcoming Appointments, and Tasks. There is also a section at the bottom of the tab showing people that you haven’t emailed recently so that you can “stay connected”.

Key Features

1. Advanced Search

The most striking feature I found in Xobni Plus is advance search. Xobni provides user a way to find e-mail by typing keywords or person’s name. But what happens if the e-mail contains a single word or name? It needs user to go through a lot of e-mails. Here lies the importance of advanced search.

The Advanced button in Xobni Plus appears under the search bar as soon as the user begins typing in a query. If you click on ‘Advanced’ , the options to search From, To and Has Attachments will be shown. Clicking the + button next to the Has Attachments option added search filters for CC’d, All, With, Date, Body, Subject. This is an efficient tool for easing your tedious job for e-mail searching.

For example, when I searched for the word “Twitter” and typed my colleague’s name “Partho” in the From header, all 20 mails that Partho wrote to me referencing Twitter popped up, without giving me the chance to press the Enter. Then I felt curious to see those “Twitter” related documents I’d sent to Partho. So, I copied his name and paste it to the “To” filter, then clicked “yes” for Has Attachments. I was taken aback for a while to find out all those stuffs.

2. Indexing e-mails

Another important feature of Xobni is indexing. Xobni Plus indexes appointments after indexing e-mails from user’s Outlook calendars. The idea behind is to do searches on top of searches to find that proverbial e-mail needle in the inbox haystack.

3. Autosuggest feature

The autosuggest feature in Xobni, shows users all those contact that have ever appeared in any e-mail in the Inbox. You can access them in the compose window, right below the original contacts Outlook suggests. This is more advantageous than Outlook’s autocomplete feature, which provides only those contacts a user directly e-mails. The other point is, when you type first letter of a contact, the autosuggest feature presents you with a few e-mail contacts.

I want to share my personal experience here. When I typed “S” for my friend Soumitra, a few e-mail contacts starting with “S” appeared. Furthermore, the Xobni Rank System provides me the frequency at which we have been exchanging the e-mails.

4. Filtering Conversations

Xobni Plus includes option for filtering conversations bar, letting users to view e-mails only from those they have direct conversations with. It’s a great thing for corporate people, who need to weed out hundreds of annoying e-mails. Most importantly, Xobni gives you space to improve your search session and provides a better way to handle junk e-mails.

5. Social Connector

Xobni plays an amazing role in building up social network. Now you can get information from social web into your Inbox, thanks to Xobni. Xobni connects to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce and more to give you a full picture of your Outlook contacts.

Xobni to pull Facebook info

After installing Xobni, you will see Facebook profile pictures for many of the people who send you email. Xobni will also display your contacts’ Facebook status and recent photos. Xobni makes it easy to add a new friend or jump directly to their Facebook page.

Xobni gives access to Twitter

Now it’s easy to follow Twitter from your Outlook. Using Xobni you can view Twitter updates of your contacts, right next to their emails. You’ll also be able to update your Twitter status staying within Outlook. Want to tweet? You can retweet a message, you see in your contacts’ Twitter stream by clicking Xobni sidebar.

Xobni boosts LinkedIn communications

If you are a business professional, then you must be using LinkedIn. Xobni empowers LinkedIn with some unique communication features of Outlook. Once you start using Xobni, you’ll be able to see LinkedIn profile data at the time of sending or receiving e-mails.

Xobni automatically pulls the sender’s employer, job title, and photo into their Xobni profile. You’ll have a direct access to their complete LinkedIn profile and can add them as a LinkedIn connection, without leaving Outlook.

Pros and Cons of Xobni

Pros

Xobni is most powerful in e-mail management. The search functionality, that allows viewing of most recent e-mail exchanged is great. The speed at which it shut out thousands of less useful e-mails from my Outlook Inbox is just amazing. All other features that I’ve covered above are the good things you can expect from Xobni.

Cons

While, I haven’t found any noticeable cons in Xobni, some reviews reported slight slowdown in Outlook performance due to use of Xobni. I hope, it would not be a big issue for Xobni users.

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/fast-and-easy-email-management-xonbi-review/

Source: http://www.appappeal.com/app/mailbigfile/