Few months ago Indian Railways started offering railway inquiry and PNR status updates via SMS, now India Post has also jumped onto the tech-bandwagon offering Speed Post and eMoneyOrder status tracking from mobile phones using SMS.
To track the current status of your speed-post or eMoneyOrder all you need to do is to use the following short-codes and send them to 55352.
For Speed Post:
SP[space]Speed Post Tracking Number
OR
EMS[space]Speed Post Tracking Number
For eMO:
MO[space]eMO PNR No
OR
EMO[space]eMO PNR No
The service is not case-sensitive so no messing with capitalization on your mobile, applicable SMS rates will be charged by your mobile service provider for sending text-messages.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
BlackBerry watch to be released
CrackBerry.com reports the rumours regarding a Bluetooth BlackBerry Watch accessory have finally come to fruition.
Named the inPulse, the watch is not being made by RIM, and instead by a company specializing in BlackBerry accessories. According to CrackBerry an official annoucement is just around the corner.
Crackberry reports the watch features an OLED screen making the screen bright and easily readable. The OLED display also increases battery life over the more traditional LCD displays used in other mobile devices. The watch is designed to show notifications, incoming calls, and previews of messages arriving on your BlackBerry.
The inPulse clearly was designed for a specific demographic in mind, a user on the go. It is not designed to replace the BlackBerry entirely. Instead, it can be used for occasions where the BlackBerry is tucked away - driving, meetings, or perhaps wherever else it is not appropriate to use your phone. Instead of having to stop and check their BlackBerry, one can quickly glance over at the inPulse and decide whether the call or message is important enough to pick up.
Crackberry also suggests that eventually API's may become available, enough to where app developers can ultlize the watch to display notifications from third party apps.
Image credit: Crackberry.com
Named the inPulse, the watch is not being made by RIM, and instead by a company specializing in BlackBerry accessories. According to CrackBerry an official annoucement is just around the corner.
Crackberry reports the watch features an OLED screen making the screen bright and easily readable. The OLED display also increases battery life over the more traditional LCD displays used in other mobile devices. The watch is designed to show notifications, incoming calls, and previews of messages arriving on your BlackBerry.
The inPulse clearly was designed for a specific demographic in mind, a user on the go. It is not designed to replace the BlackBerry entirely. Instead, it can be used for occasions where the BlackBerry is tucked away - driving, meetings, or perhaps wherever else it is not appropriate to use your phone. Instead of having to stop and check their BlackBerry, one can quickly glance over at the inPulse and decide whether the call or message is important enough to pick up.
Crackberry also suggests that eventually API's may become available, enough to where app developers can ultlize the watch to display notifications from third party apps.
Image credit: Crackberry.com
DoubleTwist supports both Windows and MAC platforms letting users choose and sync pictures, videos, music or iTunes playlists with hundreds of devices like Apple iPhone, iPod, Palm Pre, Android phones, BlackBerry, Sony PSP, Archos 605, Sony Ericsson Walkman & Cybershot phones, Nokia N & E Series phones, Windows Mobile 5.0/6.0 platform devices, LG's Viewty and Shine, Motorola (V9 and V3xx)/most Razr phones, Amazon Kindle, Nintendo DSi, most digital cameras and flash-memory-based camcorders.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Will the Pre Bask in a Verizon Ad Blitz?
The Pre’s momentum has dissipated since its June launch on Sprint’s network, and Palm last month had to raise roughly $313 million for working capital and general corporate purposes with a public offering of 20 million common shares of its stock. But while the company could get a boost from the Pixi — an affordable webOS handset aimed at younger users and scheduled to hit the market in time for the holidays — Verizon could play the role of Palm’s redeemer. The nation’s largest carrier operates arguably the best network around, and Verizon has consistently demonstrated its acumen at marketing smartphones.
But it’s that latest factor — marketing — that’s a concern. Verizon is already promoting the Droid with an impressive ad blitz, and it’s likely to back the upcoming Storm 2 with some serious marketing muscle as well. It’s possible the Pre could get lost in Verizon’s suddenly impressive smartphone portfolio. If Verizon chooses to invest heavily to promote the Pre, the handset could be a huge hit. If not, Palm’s days may be numbered.
Linux Prospects, Post-Windows 7
With the release of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system slated for tomorrow, several Linux releases and announcements are arriving. Paula Rooney at ZDNet suggests that the Linux flurry may represent wave-making in reaction to the release of the much discussed new version of Windows. Does Windows 7 threaten to stifle Linux, and what are the prospects for Linux as Windows 7 rolls out?
As Rooney notes, this week IBM and Canonical announced the launch of the IBM Cliet for Smart Work package. It allows cloud- and Linux-based online work via Ubuntu and IBM's Lotus Symphony suite of productivity applications. Novell has also introduced SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 Service Pack 3, which brings many software upgrades and more support for hardware. Meanwhile, Red Hat is out with a new beta release of its Fedora Linux dubbed "Constantine." Is the timing of all of this meant to make waves as Windows 7 approaches?
As we noted here, Microsoft was very shrewd to open its beta and release candidate testing for its new operating system to anyone, and the company got a slew of pre-orders for Windows 7 through the effort, as well as good early reviews. The company has also already delivered the new OS to Microsoft's volume licensees. The actual Windows 7 rollout has been a multi-step process and doesn't just consist of fanfare to take place tomorrow.
Microsoft has stated that it is aiming Windows 7 squarely at the hot netbook market, and it's there that I'm hoping Linux and Linux-based platforms can maintain some entrenchment. Large computer makers such as Acer and Dell have continued with efforts to keep Linux and Linux-based operating systems alive on netbooks. Acer is even going to offer a dual-boot version of its Aspire One netbook that runs Windows as well as Android.
The netbook market has largely been driven by rock-bottom pricing, and open source operating systems and applications can continue to usher in impressive prices. That's the stated goal with netbooks that will run the Moblin operating system, for example.
But Windows 7 is also likely to gain strong market share as a desktop operating system, partly because there hasn't been a completely trustworthy version of Windows for businesses to bank on in many years. Microsoft hopes to reverse that trend with Windows 7. Large players on the Linux front continue to fail to market Linux with the same fervor that Microsoft markets Windows, and the marketing blitz that will surround Windows 7 could be a blow to desktop Linux. We'll see how this all plays out soon, but I'm especially watching the prospects for Linux and variants on mobile devices. There, where cost and choice have been so important, Linux has a chance to make a difference.
Microsoft Said to Ink Twitter, Facebook Data Mining Deal
Financial terms of the deals are unknown. And the implications will be different for Twitter than for Facebook. While most status updates on Twitter are publicly searchable, updates on Facebook are primarily kept private between users and their friends. Not all of Facebook’s status updates will be searchable in Bing’s real-time feed, according to Swisher.
So what, exactly, is Google planning to do with On2 Technologies' video software? The search giant isn't saying. The planned $106.5 million transactio
So what, exactly, is Google planning to do with On2 Technologies' video software?
The search giant isn't saying. The planned $106.5 million transaction isn't going to make too much of a dent in Google's coffers, but the transaction comes during a hot debate about which future technologies will power Web video. CNET News' Stephen Shankland and Tom Krazit pondered the implications of the deal, and here's what they thought:
Shankland: When I heard about the acquisition, I immediately wondered if the move could tidy up the mess that is that Web video or clutter it up even more.
On2 offers video compression technology that's used, among other notable places, in Adobe's Flash software and the Hulu video site. The company licenses various "codecs"--the software used to encode video so it's compact enough to squeeze down a narrow Internet pipe, then to expand it at the other end. It's a major technical challenge--one that's getting more important people to spend more time watching online video and more companies to attempt to profit from that.
Krazit: Well, it all depends on what they do with it, right? Google's being coy about this particular acquisition, but there really are only two reasons to do this: open-source the codec and throw a third wrench into the HTML 5 video tag standards debate, or bake it into existing technologies like YouTube--in hopes of getting that business to start making money--or mobile software.
At the moment, my bet is on the YouTube-mobile option: does Google really want to risk holding up HTML 5 adoption any further, regardless of the hint they dropped in the press release that "video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform"?
Shankland: Those alternatives aren't mutually exclusive. Google might just be buying trying to lower its costs by sidestepping YouTube's current streaming technology, which uses Adobe Systems' Flash software. Dan Rayburn, executive vice president at StreamingMedia.com, says Google doesn't have to pay Adobe fees to use Flash at YouTube. But Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics, believes that using On2 technology could trim YouTube's network bandwidth costs.
In the long run, though, getting On2's technology accepted as a built-in Web video standard could help both YouTube and Google's grander ambitions for the Web.
Google controls Chrome, of course, but getting the other 97 percent of the browser world to move will be harder. When it comes to building support for Web video straight into the Web, rather than using a plug-in such as Flash or Microsoft's Silverlight, Apple's Safari uses H.264 while Mozilla and Opera use a license-free alternative called Ogg Theora. Chrome will support both, but Internet Explorer doesn't have any support at all.
Right now, that video variety has been a thorny issue for the effort to hammer out HTML 5, the next incarnation of the Hypertext Markup Language that's used to describe Web pages. Even though the video tag looks like a big part of HTML 5, specification author (and Google employee) Ian Hickson so far isn't naming a codec.
Krazit: "Thorny issue" seems like an understatement. Why would injecting a third standard (that not everyone believes is necessarily a superior option) make sense, at this point? I suppose that there's a Clintonian "third way" argument to be applied here, in that if Apple and Mozilla are lining up on opposite sides of the debate over H.264 versus Ogg Theora, a freely available version that has clear patent ownership collected in one place might solve some of the sticking points on either side. Still, we'd be once again dependent on Google's "Dude, you can totally trust us. We're Google!" argument that it won't later subvert the standard with patent claims.
Not to mention the fact that Microsoft and its Internet Explorer are still unlikely to play ball, no matter what Google proposes.
Shankland: Well, one way Google could win over Mozilla at least is by releasing the codec as open-source software. That may or may not be possible, depending on what On2 has had to license, but Google apparently isn't happy enough with Ogg Theora's quality to bring it to YouTube, according to Hickson.
But I wouldn't rule out Microsoft quite so fast, even though I'm sure that it would like to get as much royalty revenue as possible through Silverlight video streaming and its own video codecs. Google has an affinity for open-source licenses such as Apache that permit use of code in proprietary software. That could reduce the philosophical barriers to Microsoft. And if Google can offer a high-quality codec in the HTML 5 standardization effort, maybe making On2's codec into open-source software could help coax the Internet Explorer team on board.
Let's not forget that HTML 5 is under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and they don't like standards encumbered by royalty constraints.
Also, if I were writing standards, I'd favor codecs such as On2's that also work on mobile devices. The iPhonedoesn't support Flash, and I'm sure that Google wants YouTube on as many handsets as possible.
Krazit: Google's trying to pull off a lot these days, when it comes to making the Web the future platform for developers. It's a huge proponent of the HTML 5 push, devoting an entire day of Google I/O in May to explaining why this move is so important, and preaching to developers about how open standards and browser-based development are the wave of the future.
But you'd think that at some point, the company would start thinking of ways to differentiate its own products against the rest. Chrome and the forthcoming Chrome OS are ostensibly being developed with the hope that they will gain traction in the market. How will they do that, however, if they are just cookie-cutter versions of the same standards-based technologies on which everybody else jumps?
One way would be through offering excellent video performance that isn't widely available to the rest of the world, i.e., keeping VP8 and future On2 codec derivatives either in-house or available for a fee. Is Google going to open-source everything it ever develops under the strategy that anything that gets people on the Web ultimately comes back to its bottom line? Surely, that can't scale.
Shankland: No, Google won't open-source everything--and stop calling me Shirley. The company loves improving the Web as a foundation for applications, an effort that needles companies such as Microsoft or Apple that have their own developer ecosystems to nuture. But when it comes to the applications themselves--Gmail and Google Docs, for example--Google isn't so into sharing.
So I guess that some of this On2 situation comes down to the extent to which the video codec work is an end or merely a means to an end, like Chrome.
Krazit: Google isn't saying, at least for now. There's little doubt that online video is a crucial component of the future Web (CBS' David Poltrack is telling television critics this week that big money is coming to online video), and something will need to assume a role as the future technology enabler of Web video.
In the end, however, it must be nice to be able to make $100 million bets with relative ease. Nothing could come of On2's technology, and Google would hardly be worse off than it was a day ago.
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