Apple never ceases to improvise and innovate, always ready to up the ante and create new benchmarks, whenever competition is seen hotting up.

In the recent past, there has been a great deal of talk and rumors about there being a consistent decline in the ringtone craze off late, and this is mainly attributed to the fact that users are now adept at creating their own ringtones easily from song downloads.

There are sites such as makeownringtone.com that allow users to create ringtones for free. Users just need to upload songs in various formats, such as MP3 and WMA, and then select the part of the song they want to use as a ringtone, remix their selection and upload the final result to their phones. As simple as that!

CNET sources recently created a base for rumors by reporting that Apple has come up with an excellent innovative idea, that of offering ready-made ringtones for the iPhone.

Apple has concentrated a lot on the iPhone in the past and continues to do so. iPhone users have enjoyed the option of creating their own custom-made ringtones for their devices ever since 2007. Users had to look for the bell icon next to the song that indicates the song can be converted into a ringtone, and double click on the bell for the ringtone editor to open. Once the portion of the song for the ringtone is selected, the user has to click buy, for the ringtone to be created and the user charged for the purchase. It will then show up in a ringtone play list to be synced to the iPhone. The whole process takes the least amount of time and one doesn’t have to be tech savvy either to figure out how it is done. Even a child can do it with ease.

However, Apple is bent on pampering and making iPhone users lazier than ever. It is said to have struck a deal with the music industry and obtained rights for offering ready-made ringtones. (more…)

Even as people await the release of the much-speculated tablet from Apple, Freescale has come out with the Smartbook that could be a competition for the low-cost mini laptops.

Smartbook is a combined effort of Freescale Semiconductor and Arm Holdings.  The company is marketing the smartbook as a new category of computing devices that can be squeezed somewhere between the smartphone and the PC-like notebook or netbook.

Freescale Semiconductor is a leading manufacturer of embedded semiconductors for the consumer, industrial, automotive and networking markets. The company is based in Texas and has several research and development, design, manufacturing and sales outlets spread all over the world.

Rich Beyer, Freescale CEO said, “Netbooks based on Intel’s Atom processor and Microsoft Windows simply replicate the PC experience, they are just notebooks in a smaller format.  The Smartbook is a different experience, something between a small screen phone and a PC.” (more…)

The battlefield is all set and warming up for a war that promises to be quite exciting!

Not very long ago, technology giant Microsoft challenged the might of Google, with the launch of a new search engine, Bing.  Not stopping at that, it went ahead and announced Office 10, which will include free online versions of its four popular software programs – a shot at Google’s web-based office applications.  Google, not one to be left behind, surprised everyone with a talk about its new operating system, clearly hoping to overturn the dominance of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows.

This announcement by Google threw the tech world into a tizzy; some going to the extent of saying that Google’s new offering would finally mark the end of Windows’ rule and others shaking their heads at what they perceive to be a great mistake by Google.

It is certainly going to be quite a ride!  Microsoft powers almost 90 percent of the world’s computers and this gives Microsoft an inherent advantage, where operating systems are concerned.

Google’s new operating system, called the Google Chrome Operating System, is initially expected to target net books. It may be released to the world in the second half of 2010. (more…)