Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Sony Ericsson launch camera phone marketing campaign

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Collecting - 27-10-08
C902


Iris Digital is behind the latest Sony Ericsson global digital campaign timed to coincide with the release of new James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

Sony Ericsson's C902 Titanium Silver Cyber-shot phone is used by James Bond in the film and the campaign allows users to download mobile applications such as a wireless spy cam and fingerprint scanner.

Users can unlock the code to download mobile applications by participating in an interactive movie Directive C902 via microsite www.sonyericsson.com/bond. All players can also enter a competition to win a VIP trip to Monte Carlo.

"This is a great opportunity for Sony Ericsson to leverage its ongoing relationship with the most eagerly anticipated release of the year," said Sony Ericsson director of global marketing communications Cathy Davies.

"As well as enabling our customers to actually own the James Bond phone we're able to offer them unique experiences online, in-store and through partner marketing as well as through the phones themselves."

Monday, November 10, 2008

GIZ Explain

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giz

The phrase "64-bit" has been tossed around lately, the most it's been since the Nintendo 64. If you haven't heard it, pay attention. One of the most important steps forward in computer power is happening right under your nose, but most people don't know thanks to the sneaky efforts of Microsoft and Apple. Though fully 64-bit operating systems are the OSes of tomorrow, you can taste some of that power today with 64-bit versions of Windows and OS X. Here's why 64-bit computing is so awesome:

In a word, memory. We're not going to get super nerdy on you here (Wikipedia will gladly go there). To keep it simple, the whole bit thing (16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit) refers to how much data the computer can keep track of, or talk to, at once, and that's what determines how much memory it can handle. A processor with 32-bit memory addresses can basically roll with 4GB of RAM. A 64-bit system can rock, on the other hand, 16 exabytes of RAM. That's 16.8 bmillion terabytes. Of RAM. You're not going to get that kind of memory, not anytime soon; for now, from a user standpoint, this means there's simply no ceiling to memory expansion.

So while 32-bit hardware and software—the current norm in PC-land—limited you to 4GB of RAM (Physical Address Extension will let you have more, but 32-bit software will still only use 4GB), with 64-bit hardware and software, you can use vast amounts of RAM, which enables a whole new world of possibilities for applications, since they'll have a massive amounts of memory to work with.

The road to 64-bit rather conveniently dovetails with the multi-core processor arms race, using graphics cards for processing and growth of parallel processing in mainstream computing. In other words, in just a short generation, applications will be able to harness an exponential increase in power over what they can use today—a crapload of processors working together with a smorgasbord of memory at their disposal. With 64-bit, computers can also crunch bigass numbers way faster, so it's excellent for science-y things. So get ready for some cool stuff.

You're probably asking: Why not now? I've heard of this 64-bit stuff before. Well, the hardware has been around for a while—64-bit super computers go back decades, and AMD brought 64-bit processors to the mainstream a few years ago with the Athlon 64, for instance. The PowerPC G5 for Macs was also 64-bit. And if you buy a Core 2 Duo today, it's 64-bit. But the operating systems regular people use have essentially been slow to adopt 64-bit until recently, and won't plunge excluslively into 64-bit for another generation, Windows guru Ed Bott explained to us. Windows Vista ships with separate 32-bit and 64-bit editions, with Vista 64-bit being the first consumer-usable 64-bit version of Windows. Apple has been moving more and more of OS X over to a 64-bit architecture with every new version. Bott told us that while Windows 7 will have 32-bit and 64-bit versions, its eventual successor, Windows 8 (or whatever it's called) will likely be the first Windows that's exclusively 64-bit. Reportedly, next year's Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be 64-bit down to the kernel.

The reason 64-bit is the future and not the present is that 64-bit is a whole different architecture from the 32-bit status quo—different kernel means different drivers, application compatibility issues, that kind of stuff. A swift, clean break means lots of headaches, especially for the corporate world, which, as Bott told us, is as big of a concern for Microsoft as the consumer space. That's why Apple has been transitioning OS X to total 64-bit over time, and why Microsoft will still ship a 32-bit version of Windows 7. And likely, Bott says, an exclusively 64-bit Windows 8 would have a virtualization setup to run 32-bit apps. "Fortuitously," he told us, "an x64 system with lots of memory should scream at virtualization."

Another hitch on the path to true 64-bit glory that Bott raised is the question of "When will people outside of the specialized work software" like Adobe (Photoshop CS4 will be a native 64-bit application in Windows, though not in OS X) write 64-bit apps? With the coming wave of many-core parallel processing and ridiculous amounts of memory to take advantage of, programmers have a lot to play (and deal) with. Applications have to be re-written to take advantage of the multiple cores and huge amounts of memory at their disposable, and that transition is going to take some time. The other slight downside 64-bit Bott mentioned—and it is slight—is that hibernation will be slower, since all that memory means more to write to the hibernation file, and more to read when it wakes up.

While that awesomeness sounds like it's too be good to be the norm anytime soon, it's not. Leopard already does quite a bit of 64-bit voodoo, like having a 64-bit GUI and Vista 64-bit is supplanting 32-bit on computer maker's systems, now that the driver situation isn't so abysmal. And while four totally usable gigs of RAM in a Vista machine is a thing of beauty, 6GB and 12GB will quickly become the standard for performance machines with the launch of Intel's Core i7, since it uses triple-channel memory—three delicious sticks of RAM—so 64-bit couldn't come soon enough.



UPGRADE YOUR SMART PHONE

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HTC has always known their biggest weakness: Windows Mobile. They've done their best to hide the aged interface in glossy costumes and bolster performance, but they can only do so much—the OS is slow, buggy and can drain battery life on certain hardware. Luckily, Windows Mobile responds well to per-device modification. A dedicated community of hackers called XDA has built a collection of streamlined, debugged, turbocharged OS builds (or ROMs) to resuscitate your flagging HTC phone, along with some less daunting smartphone tweaks for the weaker stomached.

Now, it bears mentioning that HTC is pretty diligent about updating their phones, releasing driver and software updates to improve performance when necessary. Problem is, these updates don't usually trickle down through the cellular providers, leaving most users stuck with the first (and only) generation of the phone's branded—and sometimes crippled— software. Thanks to XDA, most users can switch to an up-to-date OS, with a variety of extra tweaks added at the discretion of the community.

What do you stand to gain from upgrading your ROM?


  • Better battery life
  • Faster performance, especially in TouchFLO 3D
  • Stronger reception
  • Quicker, less laggy GPS locking and tracking
  • Bundles of useful software, included updated, faster Opera browser
  • Reenabling carrier-chopped features such as tethering, HDSPA

Popular phones best suited for upgrade:

The prospect of upgrading your phone's entire OS might sound intimidating, but the XDA community has provided GUI tools for each step. The procedure is not risk-free, but the success rate polls highly among people who follow the directions closely. I flashed T-Mobile's branded Diamond, the MDA Compact IV, without incident.

Ready to give this a shot? XDA's detailed guides are available here:

If ROMs and bootloaders and radios all sound too scary (and I wouldn't blame you), XDA also has a hefty collection of simpler tweaks and mods for your HTC phones, including themes, games and apps that you might not find elsewhere.

Expect to hear a lot more about these guys in the coming months—they'll probably be the first ones to port Android to older HTC handsets. As of the 4th, they've got a severely gimped version of Android 0.8 (the G1 launched with 1.0) running on the Diamond, so an "Install Android on Your HTC Phone" Dealzmodo Hack is inevitable, if still pretty far off. [XDA Developers and ModMyDiamond]