An update...

Check out my newest editorials, news reports & stuff on the websites I write for.
Scribido Magazine - I'm the tech editor on this Indian "youth oriented" website.
WPSauce (Windows Phone Sauce) - Covering all things Windows Phone 7, 7.5 & 8.
BooredAtWork - Articles on what's interesting in the tech industry.

I'll be starting personal blogs on my Tumblr very soon, hopefully.

Also, follow me to keep up with my latest:
http://twitter.com/ParasValecha
http://about.me/ParasValecha

Later.

HTC Sensation–A Multimedia Superphone

HTC recently unveiled its latest smartphone – the HTC Sensation which was rumored as the HTC Pyramid but now it’s finally official as the Sensation. So, what’s this new device all about? Let’s go ahead and find out.

The HTC Sensation sports extremely high quality and great looking hardware with top notch specs.

It features a premium aluminum unibody construction which gives the device a solid feel, durability & makes it look better.

It has a 4.3 inch qHD Super LCD display with the resolution of 960 x 540 which offers 35% more pixels than a typical WVGA display with the resolution of 800 x 480.

HTC haven’t just bumped up the resolution, they have made the screen on the Sensation a true widescreen display. The device has a 16:9 aspect ratio that lets you enjoy movies in full glory without any black bands or letterboxes.

The new aspect ratio makes the phone fit more nicely in the hand because of a narrow profile. The HTC Sensation offers a contoured glass which feels great as well as protects the screen from sand, dust etc.

Also, the Sensation has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2 GHz dual core processor with 768 MB of RAM. 2 cores with a lot of program memory should be a quite awesome.

What’s new in HTC Sense 3.0?

The latest version of HTC Sense has a lot more to offer compared to its previous iterations. One of the things that have undergone a major transformation is the lockscreen. HTC Sense 3.0 features an “active lockscreen” as HTC call it. The new lockscreen lets you access much stuff without even unlocking the device. For instance, you can check weather, stocks, facebook updates etc right on the lockscreen.

Also, you can put up to 4 app shortcuts right on the lockscreen for quick & easy access. If you want to access the camera app & capture a once-in-a-lifetime moment, you don’t need to unlock your phone, find the camera app & then launch it, it’s just there on the lock screen. Everything is now “instant”.

The HTC Sensation also has instant camera capture for zero delay in capturing photo. As soon as you tap the capture key, the picture is right there without any kind of delay.

The Sensation captures videos in full 1080p at up to 30 fps with stereo sound recording.

The HTC Sensation has all the things that you might care about from DLNA to HDMI output. Pretty sweet!

The new HTC Watch service let’s you watch Hollywood movies on the go with progress downloading that let’s see you watch them without having to wait for the entire thing to download.

The device will be available in the US on T-Mobile as the HTC Sensation 4G (T-Mobile HSPA+) and in the areas like Europe and Asia pacific soon.

Full specs:

Processor	Dual core Qualcomm® Snapdragon™, 1.2 GHz
Operating System	Android™ platform (Gingerbread)
Internal Memory	768 MB RAM, 4 GB Internal Storage (1 GB user addressable)
Display	4.3” (diagonal) qHD(540×960 pixels)
Network	GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
GPS	GPS/AGPS
Camera	8 megapixel autofocus camera with Dual LED flash
Connectivity	Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi®: 802.11 b/g/n, 3.5 mm audio jack, SDHC capable microSDcard slot (8GB card inc.)
Battery	1520mAh LiIon
Dimensions	5″ (L) x 2.6″ (W) x 0.44″ (T)
Weight	5.2 ounces

The HTC Sensation looks like an extremely powerful & a fantastic multimedia smartphone to me. What do you guys think?

Chrome OS – Nothing but the web.

Google has announced the new Chromebooks running the new Chrome OS recently at Google I/O 2011. What? A “Chromebook”?

What is Chrome OS?

You probably know Google’s Chrome web browser. It’s quite good as a web browser. Has a webstore that offers extensions & web apps. So, what is Chrome OS? Google has made this Chrome web browser the complete operating system.

How does it work?

When you turn on a Chromebook, it boots up in 8 seconds and you’re on the web using Chrome. The UI is exactly like the Chrome browser, there is no desktop background, nothing. This is an extremely light weight OS designed for people who live on the web. It’s very easy to use. You just need to log in to your account and you can access your virtual desktop from any computer in the world. So, your computer follows you wherever you go. There is no need of antivirus software, all web apps update automatically and all future upgrades are completely free. This might be really good for elder folks who don’t like nagging updates & dealing with basic computer issues since this is extremely simple & easy to use. Chromebooks by Samsung and Acer are available now if you are interested.

Everything CLOUD

But, the thing is – everything is ON THE CLOUD. There is nothing on the PC. Everything is on the web. For instance, for writing documents; you’ll need Google Docs; for photos you’ll need something like Picasa; your videos have to be uploaded to YouTube. So, all your stuff will be owned by Google. This leads to privacy issues. When you upload a photo on Facebook, you accept the terms and conditions that Facebook has the copyright on all your content. Similarly, all your apps, docs & media content will be on the cloud and Google will own all of it. So, knowingly or unknowingly you are giving up your privacy. That’s a major issue. I don’t want Google to own my data and I’m not willing to give up my privacy.

Another major issue – as these Chromebooks are completely dependent on the internet, what happens when you move out of 3G or Wi-Fi coverage? Apparently, you can download some files and apps to your computer’s small internal storage drive but actually you have to “specify” that you want to download that file in the first place! Imagine you spent all night preparing your assignment on the web & you forget to save a copy of it on your local drive. You wake up the next morning getting ready to hand in your assignment that afternoon, you boot up your chrome book in the 8 advertised seconds and ready to print it out only to find out that your internet connection has died due to a fault in your local area or you simply moved out of Wi-Fi or 3G coverage. What happens then?

You might be thinking tablets are equally dependent on the internet as these new Chromebooks. That’s true to a certain extent. The primary purpose of a tablet is to be a web surfing device to be honest. But, the apps still live on the iPad for example. You can still watch movies, listen to music, view and edit photos & videos and play games in offline mode. All in, the major point of concern is privacy. Who is seriously willing to give up their privacy just so that they can boot up their computers a bit faster? Boot up times on conventional computers are going to increase anyway. Machines like the Samsung Series 9 and the MacBook Air boot up in around 12 seconds. What’s wrong with a 10 to 15 second boot up or even a 20 second boot up?

One more question. Why are these Chromebooks around the same price as every other notebook of the same specs? Considering the OS is free, shouldn’t these machines be a little bit cheaper?

Cloud computing services are necessary. True. But, cloud based operating systems? No, thank you.

So, what do you think? Are Chromebooks the future?

Windows Phone - Mango FTW! ;)

Everything I know about the upcoming "Mango" update for Windows Phone is listed below.

1. App list improvements
2. App search
3. Marketplace search improvements
4. Podcasts support
5. New application install with progress bar
6. Full third party Multitasking
7. Search extras
8. Third party ringtone support
9. Pin live app tiles
10. Pin multiple live tiles & app alarms
11. Turn-by-turn directions
12. Skydrive/Office 365 integration
13. Internet Explorer 9 Mobile
14. Kinect Windows Phone integration
15. Outlook conversation view
16. Lync Messaging client
17. Pin Outlook folders
18. Information Right Management
19. Camera shutter sound option
20. Zune Smart DJ mix
21. Windows Live Messenger/Facebook chat
22. Xbox Sync option
23. Group Messaging
24. Album art on lock screen
25. Bing Audio/Vision
26. Bing Maps settings enchancements
27. SMS dictation
28. Twitter integration
29. Network awareness NCSI support
30. Fast application resume
31. Complex (alpha-numeric) password support
32. Background Audio
33. File Download Service
34. Wi-Fi improvements
35. SkyDrive Integration
36. Visual voicemail support
37. Unified Mailbox, Linked inbox

That's a LOT of stuff I guess :)

On May 24th Microsoft will be previewing the next version of Windows Phone (It will be called Windows Phone 7.5)

Looking forward to the event :)

Internet Explorer 9

 

Microsoft is really pushing it’s every product very hard nowadays which is great for the company as well as for the end users. One such impact has been on the age old browser – Internet Explorer (aka IE). IE has always been one of the most widely used browsers globally. It still has the no. 1 market share in web browser usage all over. But, the fact is after IE6, Microsoft kind of neglected the browser. Did not innovate or improve it. That’s why people began to switch from IE to other alternatives like Firefox and Chrome. But, now Microsoft is back with the latest incarnation of IE i.e. IE9.

Key factors :

1. It’s clean.

2. It’s fast.

3. It seamlessly integrates with Windows 7.

4. It is beautiful.

So, let’s dive deep onto what Microsoft has to offer with Internet Explorer 9.

IE9 is a completely new browser. New look, better support. It has the best in class HTML5 support. Also, one of the features that has been emphasized is “hardware acceleration”. Hardware acceleration means that the browser takes advantage of the full power of your PC to make the web faster and sites shine. In my opinion, it does that. I did notice very significant performance improvements compared to some other browsers.

HTML5 is the future and it’s great to see that IE9 has great support for that.

Windows 7 integration. One of the best features of IE9 is that it allows users to “pin” websites to the Windows 7 taskbar. Most of the popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, Hotmail, Bing have been formatted for it and provide jumplists and notifications right on the taskbar. Pretty awesome feature. This makes the website seem kind of like a native app.

Here are some pictures of website pinning in IE9.

 

 

The site pinning feature is helping a lot. Users that pin read 34% more and stay 57% longer.

Jump lists support is pretty good for faster access to what users need.

Another sweet addition was the download manager. Pretty basic but works pretty well and looks nice. Finally!

In addition, Microsoft has also bundled many elements like SmartScreen technology etc for a better and more secure web experience.

IE9 got downloaded over 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours. That means over 27 downloads every second. That’s a pretty impressive figure considering the fact that IE9 is only available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users unlike Chrome & Firefox which are available on all platforms including Windows XP, Mac OS X, Chrome OS and Linux.

9 reasons why IE9 is the best browser for business according to Microsoft

1. Built for Performance.

2. Hardware acceleration.

3. Site-centric design.

4. Native to Windows.

5. More secure by default.

6. Easy to deploy.

7. Comprehensive management tools.

8. Compatibility and Migration support.

9. Support for modern standards. 

IE9 now has reached 3.6% usage share on Windows 7. Pretty impressive since it’s a fairly new browser.

With great support for modern standards, extremely elegant looks and functionality with a completely clean UI for a more immersive web experience, the ability to pin websites for quicker access with jumplists and notifications support, I think this is a pretty awesome browser. Give it a try folks, Tell us what you think about it. I guess Microsoft has done a pretty stellar job now.

Here’s a short video you might want to watch.

Welcome to a more beautiful web–Internet Explorer 9

Also, you can check out how IE9 offers a better web experience than other browsers out there by going to the link down below. Give us your feedback folks.

Click here to Unleash the "Beauty of the web" with Windows Internet Explorer 9