The Dior App

Available on: iOS
Reviewed on: iPad
Price: Free

Introduction:

All the fashionistas rejoice, you have booked yourself a front row seat to the shows of one of the finest brands of the world, Christian Dior. Straight from the runway to your fingertips, the Dior iPhone app brings the latest and the best ranging from runway shows, make up items, perfumes, skincare products, ready to wear collection, watches and also very beautiful wallpapers. Read on to find out more about Dior on the iPhone.

Usability:

Dior welcomes us to the app first with language selection giving us the option of English and French. The app has six home screens which gives us the newest and latest information of the current season. It has a 'Discover' tab which when you click gives you a write up, video and screenshots.

More importantly the UI is divided into three panes which are News, Apps and Stores.

When we tap on the News pane, we can swipe it upwards and down and navigate through various fashion related news-pieces. Each news-piece comes with a corresponding image. These news are basically the latest campaigns from the fashion house which includes everything from the latest runway shows, make up trends, perfumes, men's collection, kids' fashion and timepieces. Once you click on particular news, for example 'The 2011-12 Autumn Winter Women Haute Couture Show', you will get a write up, a sneak peek preview video of the show and screenshots of the collection. This is the same for all the news-pieces.

This pane becomes helpful to us as in we do not really have wait for the premier of a runway show on Fashion TV or wait for the details of a new product on a magazine. We can directly get all the information in the App. Dior users will not need to wait anymore, all the information will at their finger tips.

The second is the Apps pane. We can browse through the apps in a Coverflow like User Interface which is very easy on the eye.

Out of the five Apps, the Fragrance App and the Timepiece App are downloadable apps on their own and when you click on them will redirect you to the App Store. The rest three Apps, Make Up, Skincare and Extras are in-built.

The Make-Up App gives you information about products, step by step procedure of applying them and also tutorial videos on how to achieve a particular look. So those who don't understand how to use their Dior product this app will be a handy companion.

Thanks to Dior we can get now rid of wrinkles and age spots through the skincare app. It basically offers various skincare programs involving Dior products. The core program is about the anti-aging product and it provides details of how the anti-aging product works on the skin and also gives us details of ingredients so that we actually know what we're buying and why we're buying it. Pretty handy indeed!

The Extras App has wallpapers of Dior products along with images of brand ambassadors. Share these images with everyone because no one can say no to Dior and especially when it has images of the very hot Jude Law,  Charlize Theron, Monica Belluci and Marion Cotillard,  the official faces of Christian Dior.

The last pane is the Dior Store Locator. Unfortunately it does not give any information about any Dior store in India (Though we know for a fact there is one in the DLF Emporio mall which is situated in the capital) and when clicked on Dior Store Locator option, the App crashed. It's quite an astounding oversight as we could replicate the crash each and every time we clicked on the stores option. Generally as courtesy we would prefer it if the app would say 'Sorry information not available' rather than crashing. It's kind of rude but that's just a thought.

Since it's an iPhone app rather than a universal iOS app we do not get to enjoy all the eye candy in all its glory on the larger iPad display, instead we need to suffer through some pixelated pixies. Bummer, we would have definitely preferred a universal app, hopefully Dior is listening a developing one!

On the whole the UI is beautiful and is very user-friendly making it quite addictive for fashion enthusiasts.


Verdict:

This app is definitely a visual delight. It is user friendly with very neat displays and provides all the required information. Social network integration is another nicety we appreciate especially good for a fashion buff. But the best part about this app is that it's free. Apart from the crashing issues Dior for the iPhone is full of the visual panache that the brand is known for. Right from a show to applying makeup, this app has it all.  While many fashion houses have their apps but the Dior app is one of the best in terms of usability and visual appearance.

Rating: 4
Usability: 4
Price: 5
Wow Factor: 4 

Google lawyer slams Apple, Microsoft over patents

Google's top lawyer accused Apple, Oracle, Microsoft and other companies on Wednesday of using "bogus patents" to wage a campaign against the Internet giant's Android mobile platform.

In a blog post, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond said Google's rivals were seeking to "make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices."

"Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation," Drummond said.

He said 550,000 Android devices were being activated every day and its success has resulted in a "hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents."

Drummond pointed to last year's $450 million acquisition of 882 patents from software maker Novell by a consortium made up Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle and the more recent purchase by a group led by Apple and Microsoft of 6,000 patents held by bankrupt Canadian firm Nortel.

Google was a bidder for the Nortel patent portfolio but it lost out to a $4.5 billion bid from the consortium made up of iPhone maker Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Blackberry maker Research in Motion and Japan's Sony.

The huge sum spent on the patents and the involvement of many of the world's top tech companies reflected the fierce battle for intellectual property in the tech industry, where firms are often hit with patent-infringement lawsuits.

Google is currently being sued by software giant Oracle over technology used in its Android smartphone operating system.

Drummond said Google's rivals were "banding together" and were seeking a $15 licensing fee for every Android device.

He said they were also "attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android," which Google provides for free to handset makers.

"Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it," Drummond said.

"A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a 'tax' for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers.

"Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means -- which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop," he continued.

Drummond said Google was encouraged that the US Justice Department is looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for "anti-competitive means."

"We're also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio," he said. "We're determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it."

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith responded to the Google accusations with a message on his Twitter feed.

"Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no," Smith said.

Apple or Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Is India's elusive $35 laptop at hand?

The Indian government promised the world a $35 laptop a year ago. In a few weeks it will deliver, said Kapil Sibal, minister for human resource development.

"All the naysayers will be unpleasantly surprised," Mr. Sibal said during an interview in his New Delhi office. He said he already has a version of the dirt-cheap laptop.

What's it look like?

Well, unfortunately, it was at home, not in the office, he said. "I must be able to work on it."

Unveiling the prototype of the laptop a year ago, Mr. Sibal flaunted the gadget as his answer to Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (O.L.P.C.) project, which aspires to develop a $100 laptop. Currently there are three million children across 41 countries using the XO laptop developed by O.L.P.C., said Satish Jha, the India head of the project. But the current price of each laptop hovers around $200, he said.

Mr. Sibal said last year that more than a million of the $35 laptops would be mass-produced, though he didn't specify a time frame or disclose the manufacturer. The laptops, when they do arrive, will be sold to colleges and universities in India.

India is facing an education crisis, in part because there are not enough skilled teachers to meet the rising number of students. Development professionals and government officials hope online learning using the computers will bridge that gap.

Mr. Sibal's office declined to divulge details of the laptop's manufacturers or whether production had begun. When pressed for specifics, Mamta Varma, the spokeswoman for the ministry, had the same answer: "You will get to know in six weeks."

Despite India's prowess in information technology, technology experts have long been skeptical about this project because of the laptop's exceptionally low price.

And this is not the first time that India's human resource ministry has promised a low-cost computer device. Two years ago the ministry announced a plan to develop a $10 laptop and unveiled a prototype, but many outsiders were unimpressed, calling it a "hand-held device, rather than a laptop."

Mr. Jha coined the term "laplet" last year to describe that device. The "laplet has been much announced and its arrival much awaited," he said.

In May last year Mr. Negroponte had announced that his organization may produce a laptop for as little as $75. Last month, he said an under-$100 laptop could be ready next year or perhaps sooner.

In India there are about 2,000 children who are participating in the One Laptop Per Child program.

New touch-screen BlackBerrys being launched

Research In Motion Ltd. on Wednesday unveiled five new BlackBerry phones with touch screens, as it hopes to revive the line's dwindling appeal in the face of competition from the iPhone and Android smartphones.

The new phones had been expected earlier this year, but were delayed. Though the company is profitable and seeing growing sales, it is increasingly seen as a has-been that missed the chance to parlay the BlackBerry's popularity as a corporate email device into mass-market dominance.

RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, is updating its high-end Bold models to include touch screens. It's also launching two Torch models with big screens but no physical keyboards, mimicking the basic design of the iPhone.

RIM launched a keyboard-less touch-screen phone called the Storm in 2008, more than a year after the first iPhone, but the Storm's quirky design and poor software made it a flop.

"The `all-touchscreen' Torch has been a while coming as a natural successor to the disappointing Storm, particularly when the smartphone market has gone touchscreen mad over the past 18 months," said Malik Saadi, an analyst at Informa.

The phones run a new version of the BlackBerry operating system, which RIM says is much faster, particularly for Web browsing.

AT&T Inc. said it would launch a Torch model with a physical keyboard this month, and the all-touch Torch and a Bold model later this year. It didn't announce prices.

RIM's stock rose 82 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $24.97 in morning trading Wednesday, bouncing off a five-year low of $24.10 hit Tuesday.

The Bold models will be the first BlackBerrys to include so-called Near-Field Communications chips, so they can be used in place of credit cards by swiping them across properly equipped payment terminals. Many companies, including cellphone carriers like AT&T and Web companies like Google Inc. are promoting the idea of using phones as digital "wallets."

Review : Nokia E6

Introduction :

Nokia has had a long legacy of business-centric smartphones, the latest avatar of which is the E6. Armed with the new Symbian Anna OS, the E6 could be a prospective BlackBerry killer. Could be - but will it? Read on for details.

Packaging and Content:

Nokia has pulled its regular stellar job with packaging and content. We get a pair of decent headphones, a charger, USB cables and a very plush leather case apart from the phone itself. Nokia usually does a solid job with packaging and the same holds true for the E6.


Hardware and Styling :

Nokia is making no bones about how they see the E6 - as the heir to the iconic E71's throne. While this job was supposed to be handled by the E72, the device faced disappointing sales due to its dated hardware.

At first glance the E6 reminds us of the iconic E-series of smartphones, but don't be fooled this device may boast of all the iconic E-series features but it also has a 2.7-Inch AMOLED touch display which has an impressive pixel density of 327 Pixels Per Inch (PPI).

For Video Chat aficionados, Nokia has armed the E6 with a front facing camera which is placed right above the display.

The QWERTY keyboard is on similar lines to the ones we have seen before on the E71 and the E72. It even feels a tad more comfortable than a BlackBerry QWERTY, which is noteworthy.

On the top of the device Nokia has employed a standard power button, a 3.5mm headphone port and a memory card slot which has a plastic flip-out cover.

On the right hand side we get the volume rockers and a screen lock slider.

The bottom end of the device houses the small-pin Nokia charger point.

Besides this Nokia has added metallic chrome like finish, which adds to the design aesthetic.

As usual the 8-Megapixel Extended Depth of Field (Edof) camera is housed in the rear along with LED flash.  The loudspeaker is also placed in the rear. Nokia has provided a very solid looking plastic finish which may not have a lot of aesthetic appeal but it sure does feel solid.

Overall, the device may not be a looker but it feels very rugged and will outlast most devices currently available in the market.
                                        

Interface :

Nokia has long been at the forefront of smartphone user-interface design. Unfortunately, those glorious days are now way in the past, which has struggled to innovate in this space ever since the inception of Apple's all conquering iPhone.

Some would even argue Nokia's beloved Symbian OS has been on a respirator for some time as the company's two flagships, the N8 and the E7, both failed to attract the fancy of a Nokia loving smartphone market.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop realized that in a hurry when he came in from Microsoft and swiftly entered a licensing agreement for Microsoft's Windows Phone Platform.

While the fruits of the Microsoft deal are yet to materialize Nokia keeps updating it's aging Symbian platform, the latest being Anna.

For starters, we get a set of redesigned icons, which are pretty. They are very easy on the eyes and are decidedly larger making them more touch friendly. While all this might look good on a large touch screen, on the E6's meager 2.7 inch display it does not look very user friendly. But wait, all is not lost as one can control the device the old fashioned way, with the track buttons.

While the touch interface is definitely welcome it still needs some work.

Another notable thing about Symbian Anna is that the OS has Kinetic scrolling built in. So, unlike the E7 or N8, while scrolling through the home-screens, widgets transition into the next home-screen rather than magically popping out of nowhere which frankly felt very annoying as it provided a detached experience unlike the iPhone's immersive experience.

Apart from this, Symbian Anna adds a faster redesigned web browser, more widgets, a portrait mode QWERTY keyboard (not applicable to E6), performance tweaks and a more refined OVI Maps.

While these updates are welcome, we believe Nokia need to do more work on the OS, as one has to go through steps through each and every task.

Nokia has already announced the next update will be called 'Belle' and has stated Android users will love it. Lets hope for the best.

On a curious note Nokia has decided to alphabetically name its Symbian updates similar to Android, which follows a policy of naming new Android version after deserts in alphabetical order. In Nokia's defense, they are rooting for something more feminine rather than naming their OS after a desert.



Multimedia :

We all know Nokia is quite adept at making multimedia powerhouses. After all, they are still the leading smartphone brand in the world and do not disappoint with the Nokia E6.

While Nokia does not boast of any multimedia flamboyance with the E6, it does boast of the usual multimedia niceties.

The inbuilt 8-Megapixel Camera is not the spectacular performer we saw on the N8 but it the rather timid EDOF one we saw on the E7.  Seriously Nokia, you make some of the best mobile sensors, can you please stop presenting these irritating EDOF sensors? One of the major problems with EDOF sensors is that one struggles to get a tight focus from a close range, but other than that the camera performs quite admirably. It has a powerful flash, decent white balancing (not the best though) and decent macro-mode capabilities. But clearly, it is no match for the sensors found on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc or theSamsung Galaxy S2 leave alone the N8, which is in a league of its own.

The E6 also manages to shoot 720p video without any hitches. The videos were smooth and crisp though not of the standard set by the 1080p shooting handsets.

As far as music goes, the E6 does a pretty good job. The new Symbian Anna gets a refurbished Music app, which has an Apple-esque cover flow style interface. The kinetic scrolling as always kicks in and gives the Music player the fluidity of an Apple interface.

Even the on-board loud speaker was loud and clear. We did not come across any noticeable distortions in sound quality, but please don't get us wrong the loudspeaker is not meant to be used like a portable boom box, it is supposed to be loud and clear. Period.

Another place where the E6 scores highly is the fact that it comes with a 8GB memory card and be expanded up-to 32GB. This should be a more than enough for media gobbler.

PC Sync and Market

Android has Google Contacts, iOS has iTunes and Windows Phone has Microsoft ActiveSync, but the oldest player in this synchronization game has been Nokia with their evergreen PC Suite software.

While PC suite is not perfect which often forces users in to get stuck in tangles, PC Suite gets the job done. It is quite simple but when in comparison to Google Contacts it can be a tad intimidating.  It even has support for Google Contacts, checking all boxes.

As a side note, we would like to mention Nokia's PC suite over the years has become a bloated piece of software constantly being prone to hangs, often slowing down older Windows based PCs. This Nokia should quickly change in their upcoming handsets as Google has shown that PC sync can be a quick and painless process eliminating the need for utterly complex and useless softwares.

Nokia's OVI Store is the defacto haven for Symbian or QT applications. While the OVI store has been around for quite a long time it has failed to amass a library of applications on the lines of Apple's app store. In-spite of this being true one can find most of the popular cross-platform applications.


Essential Apps :

The E-series of smartphones have always been a hotbed for a plethora of business applications and the nothing changes with the E6.

Nokia provides us with a copy of Quick Office, which includes a Word, Excel and PowerPoint like applications. Quick Office is the premier office suite on the Symbian platform and is among the best so one should have no worries utilizing it as it is tuned to be used a by power user.

While Quick Office handles all Microsoft Office content Adobe Reader handles PDF based content.

The E6 inherit the Nokia Communicator heritage with Microsoft Outlook Communicator functionality, which will add to its enterprise functionality.

Nokia also provides us a Zip file opener giving the E6 ability open compressed file may it be an e-mail attachment or a file stored in the memory card.

Performance :

Performance is an area where recent Nokia smartphones have struggled. Nokia hopes that the Symbian Anna update will mitigate this anomaly but its just not the software but also weak hardware that contributes to Nokia's woes. 

In the E6's case Nokia continues its habit of packing in a sub GHz processor with the device packing in a 600 MHz processor. While it is a well know fact that the Symbian OS is boasts of superior process delegation abilities a 600 MHZ processor in this day and age feels a tad old.

This being true, the E6 definitely feels smoother and more responsive than the shambolic hanging experiences we have faced before on the E7 and the N8. Nokia has done a lot of work on the OS which is now finally not far behind Android in terms of responsiveness.

Like the N8 and the E7 Nokia has packed a dedicated Broadcomm GPU which handles 3D rendering tasks very efficiently. Games like Angry Birds and Need for Speed Shift flew like eagles and we never faced any slowdowns or hangs.

Call quality as always with Nokia was stellar. It is safe to say that Nokia provides best in class call quality. Only the likes of the BlackBerry Bolds could even imagine competing with the E6.

Battery life again was supremely impressive with device holding charge a good two-days with Wi-Fi being active through combined with intermitted calls and 3G uses.

Overall the performance would be comparable to mid to lower end Android smartphones and we would not over stating the fact that the E6 is no spring chicken!


Verdict :


For those looking for a powerful QWERTY keyboard smartphone south of Rs 20K, the E6 is definitely a good option. Obviously in-spite of the new Symbian update the E6 is no rock star, it neither has the customization options of Android nor does it have the intuitiveness of Apple's iOS, but as a standalone QWERTY smartphone it does just fine, in-fact better than most BlackBerries. The keyboard is among the best we have ever seen and its feature set is up there with more expensive smartphones, which makes this device a very tempting option for modern day messaging addicts!

Price - Rs 17,500

Pros

Impressive Keyboard
Feature Set
Touch and Type
Price
Build Quality

Cons

Symbian OS
EDOF Camera
Sluggish performance

Ratings
         Performance: 3
         Price: 4
         Ease of Setup: 3
         Ergonomics: 4
         Wow Factor: 3

Tata Sky launches app for iPhone

Tata Sky, has launched a Mobile Access app for the Apple's iOS platform covering the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The 'Tata Sky Mobile Access' app enables iOS device users to access 4-day programming listings from their devices its self. Apart from this the app offers extended synopsis, which are more detailed than the ones seen on Tata Sky itself. The app willalso allow 'Tata Sky Plus' users to remotely record their Tata Sky content on the fly subject to their set-top box being switched on.

Besides these core features the iOS app includes a social element with deep Facebook and Twitter integration. Users will now be able to view programs their Facebook or Twitter friends are viewing.

Tata Sky has also introduced universal remote control functionality on iDevces through the app. To enable this feature, users will need to purchase an Infrared MP3 mobile accessory, which will plug into the audio jack of the iDevice (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), which will facilitate signal exchange between multipledevices. Consumers will be able to map their own custom remote on the basis of the product they are using, as the app would map the remote control configuration.

Speaking on the launch, Mr. Vikram Mehra, Chief Marketing Officer, Tata Sky, said, "Over the last one year, India has witnessed an explosion of tablets and smart phones combined with an unprecedented popularity of social platforms like Facebook and Twitter across all age groups. The Tata Sky Mobile Access App is a natural integration of TV entertainment with these smart devices allowing subscribers to not only control their TV and set-top boxes with their smart devices, but also make their content choice based on what their friends and family are viewing. This is the first-of-its-kind functionality offered by any DTH service provider in India."

As of now the app is available as a free download on the iTunes app store, but an Android iteration is expected soon.

AT&T to throttle data speeds for 'unlimited' hogs

AT&T Inc. said Friday that it's going to start limiting speeds for the 5 percent of its customers with "unlimited" data smartphone plans who clog the airwaves the most.

The measure will take effect Oct. 1, AT&T said, and is intended to alleviate congestion on the network.

T-Mobile USA already throttles users who go over certain limits for data consumption.

AT&T stopped signing up new customers for "unlimited" plans last year. Instead, it now lets heavy users pay extra when they go over a certain data allotment.

Verizon Wireless also recently stopped signing up new customers for unlimited service.

AT&T says it will warn users when they are approaching joining the top 5 percent, and anyone subject to the speed limits will experience them until the next billing cycle starts.

The Dallas-based phone company says that what puts someone in the top 5 percent is usually streaming video or playing some online games.

AT&T won't count data use over Wi-Fi, just usage over the cellular network.

$8-mn iPad 2 features dinosaur bone

Stuart Hughes, British designer of exclusive gadgets, encrusted an iPad 2 with diamonds, gold and shards of real dinosaur bone and has put it up for sale on his website for five million pounds ($8 million).

The gadget's rear section features two kilograms of 24-carat gold and the front frame is made from Ammolite, the oldest rock in the world (over 75 million years old).

To make the gadget even more individual, sections of a 65-million-year-old T-Rex dinosaur thigh bone were splintered and shaved into the Ammolite.

The Apple logo is encrusted with 53 flawless diamonds and a single 8.5-carat diamond decorates the "home" button.

The gadget dubbed the "Gold History Edition" is of a limited edition of only two units to be made.

Hughes, and his wife Katherine, create and sell exclusive iPhones, laptops, plasma TVs and other gadgets with mind-blowing price tags.