Gmail

These are few of the fundamental questions the team has kept in mind and developed this version of Gmail for mobile which works better under these circumstances. The application supports J2ME and BlackBerry phones.

I just downloaded and used the latest version and I loved it. One of the best and more visible among other features is the ability of switching between different Gmail or Google App hosted accounts. It is absolutely effortless, just set the login information of different accounts under the "Accounts" tab.

The new version goes on to add features like an option of adding an automated footer "Sent from my mobile device" to the messages sent from mobile, see total data usage (KB) per session, receive notifications for every mail received in inbox. The compose screen has a new function called "Finish Later" which will saved unfinished e-mails in your "Mobile Drafts" folder.

Now that you no longer have to see the "Sending" screen after every time you send an e-mail as it does it in the background you will also see a new lable called "Outbox" under your "Go to" options.

Other features like composing off-line, etc.. work only with selected models of Nokia, Sony and Balckberry.

The app not only comes loaded with new features but with this release it also supports 35 different languages. The language is automatically selected by the application based on the language mobile phone is set to use. This only goes to show that the Gmail team is not leaving with any excues of not using Gmail for mobile.

Visit http://m.google.com/mail to download this application from your phones.

This service is called as YourBillBuddy and helps you know what is the best plan and which service provider is going to provide you with such a plan. As the site says and rightly so, there’s no one best plan for all the people. The best plan however depends on various parameters like:

1) Which provider are you on ?
2) Which providers do you call the most ?
3) Are the voice calls you make STD or Local ?
4) What time of day do you call ?
5) Are there some numbers you call most often ?
6) Are the calls you are making roaming ?
7) Are the calls being made to landlines or Mobiles ?

Same parameters apply on your SMS usage as well.

Now that I have managed to open your eyes to the parameters that affect your mobile bill, I am sure you are curious to know what plan will best suit your needs. Based on all the above information (which of course you have to share with the service YourBillBuddy) you’ll be given a best plan for the kind of usage you have.

This is calculated:

from the whole variety of plans available in your circle. With an average 6 Providers, 10 plans each, with around 8 Service packs available to go as a addon to the plan leaving you with a choice of almost 480 (6*10*8) plan + service pack combinations !! Of these roughly 500 plan combinations only ONE is best for you based on your usage.

You’ll have to submit your ebills of your current plan and service provider for the site to pick the heuristics and calculate for you the best plan available. Following is how the site promises to calculate your mobile usage pattern and come up with a plan for you which is the best plan available.

From your E-Bill we extract call details of each and every single call you make. For each call you make we determine the attributes of the call that effect the billing rate. The attributes we consider in our calculations are the service provider of the number called, units of call, your pulse rate in the current plan, type of call (STD/ISD/Local), Time of call, is the call made while Roaming, is the called number a landline or a mobile. Same extraction process is followed for every SMS you make. In short summary all the hundreds of calls and SMSs that appear in your E-Bill are extracted and the relevant details that will impact your bill are pulled up. This extraction is supported for hundreds of E-Bill formats available across Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata Indicom and Idea.

The company says that after they’ve had your ebills and they have given you the best plan they also would give you free sms worth rupees 700 to be sent to your contacts. If you are concerned about the privacy, you might want to read their privacy policy here. Personally, I use a prepaid mobile and hence haven’t tested this service (for the lack of ebills for prepaid). However, if any of our reader would like to share their experience about the service, it’ll be great for us to rate it and for our other users to try it.

Also, I am delightfully surprised to see such a useful service being launched in India.

Samsung

Pixon M8800 offers a 3.2 inches touch screen which complements its 8 megapixel camera and makes it an idle companion for clicking pictures and watching movies on the go. The phone is expected to come in 8 and 16 GB storage space and an additional space of 8 GB can be added using a microSD card.

The camera has auto focus, image stabilization and face recognition which has blink and smile detection. M8800 has an inbuilt GPS which geo-tags the pictures and videos taken using the phone camera.

Samsungs Pixon also offers HSDPA option which lets you play media content on HSDPA compatible TV’s, Computers and any other HSDPA compatible appliances. That’s not all, this phone also offers 3G for hi-speed internet connectivity which lets you stay connected with your e-mail and other online services at all times.

Price of the phone is expected to be around $US 800 and will be available at stores by 2nd of October. If only this phone had a sliding QWERTY keyboard like the one on G1 and a WiFi support, it would have been one of the top 3 phones available in the market.

Here is a quick run-down of the features offered by the phone.

• Built-in GPS receiver
• Quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA
• 107.9×54.6×14.9mm, 110 g
• 3.2-inch touch screen display (240 x 400 pixels)
• 8 megapixel camera, auto focus, face recognition with smile detection and blink detection, WDR (wide dynamic range), ASR (advanced shake reduction), GPS geotagging, ISO 1600, WVGA (720×480 pixels) and VGA (640 x 480 pixels) @30fps video recording
• Accelerometer
• DivX playback
• FM radio with RDS
• microSD card slot
• Bluetooth
• Landscape virtual QWERTY keyboard
• Handwriting recognition
• ShoZu integration – direct image and video upload
• Office document viewer

Watch the video to see its functionalities in action.

This software is capable of sending you encrypted information about the phones location, you can also retrieve your phone contacts and disable to the phone remotely. Once the application is installed, it starts working in invisible mode and can be used only using predefined keys+password. After the installation the user needs to add a secondary number which receives all the reports in case the device is stolen.

This application reminds me of the movie “Home Alone 3” in which the miscreants are similarly tortured and harassed. Well this application certainly does not go to the extent of punching them in the face but does pretty odd things.

The moment it detects an unauthorized SIM change it locks/encrypts all the data on the phone which includes SMS, Photos, PhoneBook, etc.. It not only sends information such as new phone number, device id, country code, operator name and location to the secondary number but it also starts sending information about the incoming/outgoing calls, SMS’s received/sent along with the text or any new contacts added to the phone.

That’s not all; I’ve saved the best for last. These two features are my favorite. The phone offers something called “SPY Call”. In case the phone is stolen the owner of the phone can call using the secondary number which will be termed as a SPY Call, in case of spy call the loudspeaker and the MIC will be automatically activated, the incoming call will be received without any notification so that the owner can listen to the conversations happening around the phone. Even if the thief comes to know that the SPY Call is activated, he/she will not be able to terminate the call. Wicked Cool, Right?

Another thing it does is Raises and Alarm and Disables the phone. Just send a preformatted SMS from the reporting/secondary number and it will automatically start making loud sounds and will also flash a customized message with the Owners Name, Address, Alternate Number and Award price.

It is also known that the company has tied up with Nokia to offer this application pre-installed on selectd Nokia phones.

The site has a “Buy” option but is currently inactive. We tried contacting the Maverick Mobile on their official address however according to Gmail, it does not exist.

The application certinly offers greta security and data backup featues, its just a matter of time before we start using it on our phones.

Japanese have always come up with the most innovative and distinctive product designs. I have  not only been great fan of Japanese technology and product but I find their culture equally fascinating.

The phone we are discussing in this article is designed by KDDI and which is a multifunctional to the extent we have never seen before.

This phone has everything from a Projector to a Game Controller to Printer. Yes, you heard that right, the phone is capable of printing pictures, etc..

Phone is called PLY, name and design of the phone is based on Plywood. The phone has a layered design just like a Plywood, each layer has its own functionality. If one layer opens up to project an image, the other opens up to print a picture or become a game controller.

The phone is still in the concept stage but going by the gadgets that have come out of Japanese designs, I don’t see a problem with this concept being transformed into a fully functional product.

Visit to see PLY in action.

Scroll down to see what the phone looks like.

For the benefit of the readers, iPhone is a popular mobile phone from Apple inc. There have been iPhone being sold in India in the black market with cracked software. However, with Bharti Airtel being the first one to launch the iphone in India, flood gates will soon open with other service providers getting into act soon.

So how can it be done? I usually expect such things form Japanese but this time its Isreal who’s done it. One of the Israeli companies have introduced an ultra mobile projector which can be instated in small devices like Phones, PDA’s, etc…

Click on the following links to visit the Nano Projection Site. Explay – Nano Projector

Watch the following video to know see what I am really talking about. I couldn’t make much sense out of the language in the video but I am sure he says that we should expect to see this feature on mobile phones soon.

One of the sites owned by Network18 is BookMyShow. Its and online ticket booking system which started with movie tickets only but now it offers more, it offers tickets for concerts and theatre.

The only option to book tickets so far was on the internet. Now you can download a mobile application from http://m.bookmyshow.com and book movie tickets on mobile phone. I have used this application and I found it to be really simple and easy to use. I encountered a few server errors; I think they must have been because of the slow GPRS speed.

This application is worth a try and comes really handy when you want to book tickets on the fly.

This kind of usage of mobile phone has accelerated the development in mobile technologies. Most of the businesses on the internet have mobile versions of their sites. However as smart phones get smarter, the site which runs on your PC browser can also be viewed on your phone, however to achieve the best performance customised mobile application is required.

In case you are developing a wap (Wireless Application Protocol) site following is the list of sites and softwares which will help you test your application on the computer instead of a mobile phone. These softwares act as mobile platform which helps you see the mobile version right away.

1. Emulator | dotMobi (mtld.mobi/emulator.php) (Free Web based emulator)
• MTLD is the official registrar of .mobi sites and it also offers the emulator.
2. WapTiger (http://www.waptiger.com/waptiger/) (Free Web based emulator)
3. M3Gate 0.6 (http://www.m3gate.com/m3gate/download/m3stp06.exe) (Free Software)
4. AU-System Demo WAP Browser for Palm OS 1.61 (http://www.wapguide.com/wapguide/browser.html) (Free Software)
5. Deck-it WAP Browser (http://www.pyweb.com/deck-it) (Free Software)
6. Yospace SmartPhone Emulator Developer Edition (http://www.yospace.com/cgi-bin/login.pl) (Shareware)

These softwares can be categorised under follwoing categories: Wap Browsers, Wap Emulators, Mobile Browser, Windows Mobile Emulator, Wap Simulator. Do leave comments if your favourite mobile emulator is missing from the list

According to Przoom, Doordarshan has completed its test trials on this technology and had plans to release this service from Jan-2007 onwards however the service was not released to common man due to changes in plan. However Mobile TV will soon hit the market and not only the service providers but the mobile companies such as Nokia which released N77 last week are trying attract users by releasing mobile phones which support DVB-H(Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld) technology.

Click here to read more about TV on Mobile