Saturday, June 30, 2007

A Closer Look At The iPhone



Apple Inc's Phil Schiller shows John Blackstone the many features of the iPhone.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Apple iPhone in India


The much anticipated iPhone from Apple will finally be launched in the US on June 29. It will pack a phone, audio/video player, a 2 megapixel camera, internet capabilities and intelligent touch screen operation onto a single device. It will cost approximately $599 for the 8 GB version and $499 for the 4 GB sibling.
While US consumers will get their hands on the iPhone this June, Europe will have to wait till the end of the year. The rumoured launch date for Asia is early next year. As for the Indian launch date, on contacting Apple India, all we received was silence. So if you plan to buy an iPhone during your next trip to the US or order it from there, there could be a problem.
Phone is a revolutionary new mobile phone that allows you to make a call by simply tapping a name or number in your address book, a favorites list, or a call log. It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service. And it lets you select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want — just like email.
Apple plans to launch the product with specific service providers in mind. For example, it has tied up with AT&T in the US and might tie up with Vodafone in Europe, though there is no confirmation on the latter.
It's all in the details: It has a 3.5-inch 'multi-touch' screen, that lets you operate the device with just your fingers. The software that works in the background ensures that inputs from more than one finger are understood and acted on effortlessly. How it would actually behave in a real-world scenario remains to be seen.

The iPhone also features a predictive QWERTY touch keyboard, where you type by tapping at the screen with your fingers. Again, while this enables the iPhone to have a larger screen, how comfortable it will be to use remains to be seen.

Power talk: The battery has enough juice for five hours of talk, video or browsing. Apple promises up to 16 hours of audio playback, which is on par with the top MP3 players. Videos will look good, thanks to the 320x480 screen resolution.
It also supports IMAP, POP3 email and Yahoo Push email. With POP3 you can download mail and contacts from the server on to your device, while IMAP will allow you to access your email directly from the server without having to download it. Via push mail service, you will be updated about your emails as you receive them.You can even use the on-screen display to make three-way conference calls or manage calls from two different sources.
To browse the web, the iPhone will make use of Safari browser. Hold on to your wallet: On the negative side, it is rumoured that the iPhone won't support MMS messaging for pictures or videos. Plus there is one thing that has always bugged even iPod users: not being able to play say a DivX or any other video file other than what iTunes supports.
The iPhone too will support content that is compatible only with iTunes. Then, for Indian users, the biggest limiting factor as of now is that the phone function will work only with the service provider Apple has tied up with. So hold on till the India launch.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Adobe Premier Express, a flash-based video remixing tool extents its service to use YouTube & MTV.com


If you YouTube, then you might want to check out the latest video-editing-cum-remixing software from Adobe that is available (free) for YouTube and MTV.com users. The nifty app, called YouTube Remixer aka Adobe Premiere Express, allows you to create (and edit) your own videos online by combining video clips, music, photos, effects, transitions and titles.

So when you're in the mood to create some mischief, you could dish out your own video with all the appropriate effects by simply using the Remixer's easy-to-use drag-drop interface. And if you manage to catch some wows doing that, your video could be played out on MTV!

The software is available on YouTube's TestTube site. You'll need Flash 9 installed on your PC to get started.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Whats New in Adobe® Illustrator® CS3 !!

Live Color is new in Illustrator CS3 and a large step towards helping you find "good" colors, experiment with colors right on your artwork, and manage your colors as a group. Live color is composed of 3 major parts:
1. The Color Guide panel, which is a lightweight interface to find compelling color groups. 2. Changes to the Swatches panel, which include the ability to save a set of colors as a group, view grouping structure from within the Swatches panel, and extract all used colors from specific selected artwork. 3. The Live Color dialog box, which allows you to find compelling color groups right on an interactive color wheel and to define custom color groups. It also gives you the ability to constrain color group selection to specific Color Panels/Color Spaces (for instance WebSafe or Pantone®).