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.

Ringtones have been a hit with the users ever since they have been introduced. The music industry benefits a great deal from them too, as it has been seen that people prefer ringtones that play for a few seconds rather than full song downloads. In the past, people were even wiling to pay $3 to hear bits of their favorite song when receiving an incoming call, in MIDI format. Music labels and retailers find them more profitable when compared to full song downloads.

But now most phones use the standard file formats, such as MP3s and users who are not happy with default ringtones, use the option of creating their own. It costs just 99 cents to use the custom ringtone feature on the iPhone, and it enables them to select a 30-second segment of a song to play back as a ringtone on their iPhones.

But these music snippets are now becoming more of a convenience-based feature, what with Apple painstakingly editing these ringtone clips. Users can just select from a 30-second ready-made ringtone clip created by Apple. This alleviates the need to create ringtones of their own.

Although, the cost of these ready-to-use ringtones is not known yet, it is rumored that they could be anywhere between $0.79 and $1.29. While some people opine that these ready-made ringtones may help improve sales, others feel that since Apple charges very less for custom ringtones and makes it simple to get any clip of a song; the ready-made ringtones may not really make much of a difference.

In a scenario, where users can get cost free, easily made ringtones by just selecting clips from any song they wish, why would they want to pay for it?

It is left to be seen if these ready-made ringtones from popular songs provide the much needed shot in the arm for a dying ringtone market. If you go to the discussion boards and see youngsters talking about them with all the enthusiasm and excitement, it sure does not look like the craze for ringtones has gone down. But sales figures are what we have to go by and there is still time for the verdict to be out.

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.”

The biggest selling points for the Smartbook are said to be its instant-start feature, intuitive interface and long battery life.

The company has commissioned several prototypes by entering into a deal with a leading North American industrial design program.  These prototypes were displayed at the Computex show in Taiwan.

-         One that unfolds to offer a keyboard and mouse

-         A sleek smartbook with a touchscreen display

-         A device that enables customization

-         Smartbook with sliding keypads

-         A sleek prototype featuring vertical display

Created with an unusual design, the smartbook stands tall as it is meant for vertical displays, and unfolds into several pieces, allowing users to use a keyboard and mouse. There is the option to slide the keypad out from both sides of the smartbook.

This 409 gm lightweight product sports a 5-inch screen, which is larger than the smartphone device, has 512 MB memory and 4 GB flash storage device that can be extended.  When the smartbook was launched in Japan by Sharp Electronics recently, there have been mixed reviews.  But there is one thing everyone agrees to, and that is – it takes no more than 3 seconds to boot and the battery lasts as long as ten hours.

Freescale is also working closely with the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) on a program that explores all the requirements, such as user interfaces, ergonomic issues, form factors and also accessories for new age smartbook devices.

A marketing director of Freescale states, “As the smartbook market emerges, new form factors and product categories will evolve to support and better align with user needs, and our engagement with SCAD demonstrates Freescale’s intention to lead this evolution. This initiative has given Freescale valuable insight into how end-users prefer to interact with smartbooks, and this knowledge will be fed back into our chip design processes, ultimately resulting in future i.MX processors that enable compelling consumer experiences and entirely new classes of consumer devices.”

This product uses Freescale’s iMX processor and targets youngsters who are internet-savvy and expect instant access to the Net, visit the social networking sites, check out YouTube clips or watch movies.  It runs the Linux operating system as Windows loads slower and is not the best interface for all these activities.

A full-featured smartbook currently will be priced at $480 in Japan, but according to the CEO, it is expected to be available in the market for around $199 within a year’s time.  The manufacturers believe that it will prove to be a challenge to netbooks once it hits the lower price point, especially in countries where netbooks are not doing as well as expected solely due to the higher price.

Smartbook Network Systems has created a video conferencing application for the smartbook.  A camera has been inbuilt into the smartbook and it allows users to use the video chat feature using the Smartlink application, similar to how Skype is used.  The video quality is said to be very good and the images are expected to be even better by the time the product is perfected.  The company says that only half the power of the processor is being used currently.

Freescale is devoting a large share of its market budget to smartbooks and hopes to meet the increasing demand for handy ultra-portable devices.  Only time will tell how well they are accepted.

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.

Why is Google even trying to get into Microsoft’s domain?  Google sees a huge opportunity here, as it believes that Windows is an archaic system from the pre-internet era, and outdated in the current day, where all our activities are moving online.

According to Google, the point of access should now shift from the desktop to the browser, and it has invested a lot of money and time, in what it sees as the future of computing – the cloud.  Cloud computing is a global network of huge data centers, that puts all the data and applications on the internet, which can be accessed by users with a network connection anywhere and at anytime.

The new operating system is expected to work perfectly with its other software applications, such as Google Maps, Google Calendar and Gmail.  It would be fast and light weight, and users will be able to access the web within a few seconds.  It is based on open-source Linux code.

It is not going to be easy to take away Microsoft’s market share, say experts.  There have been other alternatives in the past, but nothing could dent Windows.  But they do agree that things may be different this time around, because Google has deep pockets and plenty of resources unlike the other challengers.

Pertaining one of the key areas of competition for the two, Browsers, Internet Explorer dominates 70 percent of the market and Google’s Chrome browser has a hold on only 2 percent of the browser market.

In the online search area, Google is synonymous with the term “search”, and nothing else even comes into the picture. Google delivered about 80% of search results in June for U.S. web users.  Microsoft hopes its innovative search engine would fare better than Google, but as of now it only dominates 8.2 percent of the searches.

Coming to operating systems, Microsoft has been in the business of operating systems for 28 long years.  It continued to lead 90% of this market all these years, even dominating the business world, catering to millions of users from around the world.  In contrast, Google made its entry into the OS market just a couple of years ago with its Android operating system for small devices.  Google is now working on its new operating system to compete with Windows.  It hopes to convince developers to write software that is browser based.

Microsoft and Google have locked horns over the years in several markets, from mobile software to internet search.

From the looks of it, they are in the midst of a full-blown battle, and surprisingly, the fight is over who will be considered the most important tech company in the world.

The key to success for Google in this area would be to lock-in partnerships with top PC makers, such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, which currently use Windows on most of their products.  For Microsoft, the stakes are high because Windows OS attributed to 45% of its profits last year.  If this war between the two giants results in better products and more options for us, the consumers, all this excitement would be worth it.

Credit: Bert Kommerij (via Flickr)

When I look back into my son’s childhood, there are specific images that flash in my mind – images of his tiny frame playing in his room, his first day at school, him walking into my office with blood all over from a bike accident and smilingly calling it tomato ketchup.

Some sad, some happy, but they are all precious.  But then I regret not remembering every single day of his growing up years. If only I could….

We do remember some things from our past but definitely not every single detail.  This is where Gordon Bell is trying to ring a bell.  He is part of Microsoft’s research team, a principal researcher and is working towards making sure we can remember all the special moments of our lives.  He has worked as a chief engineer and vice president of research and development at Digital Equipment Corp. for 23 long years and later founded the Computer History Museum.

Bell himself wants to capture all the moments of his life and store them on his Dell laptop. He wants to be able to pull up every single picture, every conversation, every email whenever he wants.

Credit: Deadlyllama (via Flickr)

Project MyLifeBits

This project is appropriately called, MyLifeBits, and Bell is trying to collect as much information from his past as possible and store his life on his laptop.  He wants to convert his PC into a repository, a personal memory base.  He feels it is essential for all of us to hold on to every bit of our lives – and be immortal.

He is not keen of making his life public and these memories are for him alone. According to him, “A lot of people put their lives on the Web. I’m not an advocate of that,” he says, adding that he thinks revealing too much personal information online can be dangerous. “We’re not life loggers because we’re not publicly disclosing or talking about ourselves. This was built to be entirely personal, to aid the individual. You will leave a personal legacy — a record of your life.”

How did the idea come about?

This project is almost ten-years old having started in the late 90’s.  At that time, Bell wanted to scan his books, articles and memos into a digital format, transforming all his paper records. It was at that point that he came across and read “The Road Ahead,” written by Bill Gates.  In this book, Gates wrote about his future vision of people someday being able to record and recall everything they have ever seen or heard.

That kick-started Bell’s thought process and he wondered how much information we end up with in our life. If we can have it all, what would it cost and in what way would it be useful to us. That’s what got him started and he decided on performing an experiment on himself.

Implementation

Bell started scanning in 1999 and in 2001; a colleague and friend at Microsoft made him see that he needed a bigger database to access information.  Bell began storing more information about himself; all the CDs, all the videos of lecture he had given and all the photos he had ever taken or had with him.  He then proceeded to collect images of all the web pages and television shows he has watched.  He recorded phone conversations, audio and video conferences, instant messages and his emails.

He even started wearing a SenseCam digital camera around his neck that takes pictures automatically every 30 seconds or whenever someone approaches, and has been created by scientists at Microsoft Research Lab in England.

MyLifeBits software is developed by Microsoft Research team and it has the ability to record web pages along with radio and television programs.

This mountain of data is worth more than 350 gigabytes, without including the streaming audio and video, and it is a replica of his biological memory.  Bell says it is better because this e-memory never forgets.

Since the project is very personal in nature, all the good and bad things about Bell’s life are recorded and Bell hasn’t felt the need to delete anything.  He wants every bit of his life to stay – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Future of memories

According to bell, digitizing our memories will be standard in about 20 years.  Smartphones with location awareness and inexpensive digital memory storage in the “cloud” will make this transition inevitable. Your memory may fade but your memories will not.

Bell says this will “change what it means to be human.”  He talks about this in a new book authored by himself and researcher Jim Gemmell, called “Total Recall.”  Even if we don’t go to the extent Gordon Bell has, we can start storing all our special memories and immortalize them.

Apple is facing unexpected problems with its iPhone application store, which contains more than 50,000 applications and is one of the most popular entertainment and information tools for mobile phones.

BeautyMeter is one of the applications at the iPhone app store.  This photo sharing application is meant for 17 and over, where users have the ability to upload images and rate them on the basis of “hotness.”  The application has a built-in safety mechanism as it requires users to enter their iPhone IDs.  Apple kept this check to ensure no illegal material is uploaded and for ease of tracking if anyone posts anything untoward.

However, in spite of this check, the problem started when kids started uploading images of themselves in the nude and there have been potentially objectionable materials showing up in the past few weeks.  The  latest example that caught the public eye, is that of a 15-year-old girl who uploaded her own nude photo, which stayed up for long enough for 5000 users to rate it.  It was only then brought to Apple’s notice and pulled down.

This was not the sole incident of its kind.  About a week earlier, there was another mobile phone application called “Hottest Girl,” that also showed a photo of a topless woman and was removed from the iPhone app store.

Apple is attracting unnecessary attention due to these happenings.  This has raised several questions about Apple’s ability to control iPhone content and keep its app store clean, which prompted Apple to remove BeautyMeter app from its store.

Apple always had a sterling image of a family-friendly company and in no way would it want to jeopardize that. An Apple company spokesman said, “Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography.”

While explicit content such as this has the potential to tarnish this image; Apple, like any other website that allows user-submitted content, is doing its best to keep all offensive material at bay.  While some iPhone apps are developed by Apple, many are submitted by third-party developers and take their place in the app store after they are approved by Apple.

Experts who know how these things work understand that Apple or the app developers cannot be help responsible for illegal content that shows up in iPhone apps, because there is no way for them to know the type of content that was going to be uploaded by users. This makes it an almost impossible task to keep all such material out of the app store. It becomes even more difficult as the number of new apps keeps increasing.

According to the editor in chief of Engadget, Joshua Topolsky, “It’s completely out of Apple’s control that someone uploaded a nude photo, and to some extent, it’s out of the app developer’s hands as well.”

However, some are of the opinion that Apple can become more stringent with its policies on the type of appllications it approves.  Apple is said to approve almost 96% of the app submitted for approval by developers.

However, an approval does not necessarily mean the app will stay up forever.  There have been several apps that have been pulled from the store because they were offensive.  One such app was pulled because it streamed a song with offensive lyrics.  Another iPhone app where users could shake a digital crying baby to death was removed as Apple found it deeply offensive.  It even apologized for approving it in the first place.

Recently, in an update to the iPhone software, Apple began providing users with the right to choose the type of content they would want to block from their phones.  They have also asked developers to submit age appropriate lables.  A new parental-control system that allows iPhone owners to decide what apps they want to buy has been incorporated.

Apple is doing its bit to keep illegal and offensive material, such as pornography away from their app store as they are proud of their image and would do everything possible to keep it intact.

This move will benefit both corporate and smaller customers.  While corporate customers will be able to get in on the paid subscriptions and tap into the online services, others can sign up for a service, where their online files will be stored and get help with data backup and security.

The best thing about this is that, everyone will be allowed to use the online versions of different applications, such as Word and PowerPoint without it being necessary to buy the desktop versions.  All they need to do is sign up for the free Windows Live account.

The technical preview engineering milestone for Office 2010 has been announced, and this allows thousands of people, mostly software engineering partners, to test drive the software by downloading it.  The beta version of the software is expected to be released by the year-end and the final version may be shipped in the first half of 2010.

Results of several technical previews reveal that improvements have been made to the office suite, such as the Ribbon being the default interface OneNote, Outlook and all other Office applications.  Not only is Ribbon made default but it has also been tweaked a bit.

The new features added include better mail handling in Outlook and video editing in PowerPoint.  Among the other changes that enhance productivity are the photo-editing tools and an improved paste operation.

Let’s take a look at the most important Outlook.  The new version adds a wide variety of new features that solve the major issue of e-mail overload. With the use of a full-blown Ribbon, most functions are within easy reach.  Quick Steps is a new feature that is said to speed up mail handling.   As we all know, one of the main problems of Outlook has always been the confusion with following threads of messages.  This version eradicates this problem and is sure to increase productivity.  Now, a conversation can be “cleaned up” by deleting all the unwanted previous mail text and quoted text, which brings down the clutter by keeping only the unduplicated versions.

For all of you social networking fans, this version of Outlook may prove to be a disappointment as it does not have integration with Facebook and other social networking sites.

According to Microsoft, an estimated 400 million people have a Windows Live account with using services like Messenger and Hotmail, and 90 million corporate customers already have Office subscriptions.

There have been comments floating around that Microsoft is a bit too late to enter this arena and it may be difficult to catch up with the competition.  In response, Microsoft says, “Lots of competitors are doing nothing beyond copying what we have done in our product for years.  They have weekly releases to add things like bold and italics and more than four fonts.  We have to redefine what productivity means to 500 million people.”

Redefining productivity means offering tools that allow people to work simultaneously on presentations, documents and other things on the internet.  Applications such as PowerPoint have also been pepped up, making it easier to add high-definition video into their projects.

There is not much of a change in Word; although, “search” now comes with some new features that allows users to search tables and charts as well as some other things too.  Documents can be prettied up with the use of special effects to text, such as reflect, shadow and glow.  Document sharing has been given new life and allows more than one person to work simultaneously on a document online.  Overall, you may find that this version of Word is not much different from Word 2007.

Although, there are no major changes in Excel, there is the addition of “Sparklines,” which is the option to embed small charts into a worksheet next to data.  Another feature that could prove to be useful is the improvement in “Conditional formatting,” which allows the formatting to change based on the formula or value of the cell.  For corporate users, Microsoft is planning on shipping with the final version, “Project Gemini” add-on for Excel 2010, with the capacity to handle data in large amounts, and worksheets containing millions of rows.

PowerPoint’s video features are one of the most used and this version sees many new features, such as a set of basic video editing tools that are now built into PowerPoint.  They may not be as powerful as a high-end video editing software but they do their job efficiently.  There is also a great improvement in animations in PowerPoint, with a wide choice of animations that can be easily edited using the custom animation feature.

While the above are the most known features of Microsoft Office, there are other important ones too, such as Microsoft Publisher and OneNote, which have been improved.

The new Office is available in 64-bit version too.  The most important change to Office 2010 is the Web-based access and access for mobile phones and other mobile clients is expected to be introduced in the final version.  There will also be mobile versions that allow viewing of documents on a smartphone or other mobile devices, as well as copy and paste between applications.  Outlook is said to work even on mobile devices.

Although, it may not be completely different from the 2007 version, there are many solid improvements in Office 2010, which certainly makes it worth checking it out.

Image: Aileen (via Flickr)

We have to accept the fact that our lives revolve around gadgets and we cannot live without them. These gadgets are power hungry and unless we keep feeding them, they close down, shutting everything and bringing life to a still. Our reliance on gadgets can be scary, if we are not prepared.

Most of us carry at least two of these energy monsters; laptops, phones, iPods and digital cameras, which make sure they run out on us just when we need them the most. How many times have you had your laptop give up when you are about to send an important email? Didn’t your digicam die when you spotted something you wanted to capture? It happens to all of us all the time.

But you can be smart and get the better of your gadgets. There are a few tricks that will help you squeeze more juice out of the batteries in these gadgets, to ensure they keep ticking for longer.

Keep them cool at all times

We all love the fact that our gadgets have fancy covers and cases to keep them safe. We even buy a good looking case when we see one. What we fail to understand is that these cases are the number one enemies of your devices. As if battling the heat outside and the warmth of your pocket or bag is not bad enough, your devices are tortured and stand no chance in these hell holes.

Batteries die faster due to heat. The power in batteries comes from a chemical reaction and extreme temperatures make batteries work harder to generate the same amount of power, using up the battery life in huge chunks. So, you will have to keep your devices cool if you want your battery to last longer.

Stay away from features you do not use

Today’s devices come with numerous features, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, backlights etc. In the excitement of having all these features, you never bothered to learn that these features hog batteries.

The first thing to do is to turn off all the features you are not currently using, in order save power. Secondly, your iPods and phones have lights that enable you to see the screen more clearly, and these lights can be detrimental to your battery health. It is good to either completely turn off the lights or lower the intensity to save power. With laptops, apart from taking care of the backlight, you can also remove all the devices, such as a USB flash drive etc. that you are not using. Turn off the LCD on your digicam and look through the view finder.

If you are in the midst of a photo shoot and your camera beeps indicating low battery, you can make it go longer by turning off the flash. Get into the habit of switching off flash whenever possible as this will give a long lease of life to your batteries.

Refrain from turning devices on and off

Image: Thruhike98 (via Flickr)

Most of us are guilty of making the mistake of turning off and restarting our devices often, because common thinking is that turning off devices when not in use saves power. The fact is that devices consume maximum battery when they are starting up, so switching off should be done only as a last resort. If you phone has an “airplane” mode, use that instead of switching it off. In that mode, you can save a lot of battery life as it will not catch cell signals and is better than turning it off completely.

For laptops, you can use the “hibernate” mode, especially if you are going to be using it soon. Similarly, you must ensure not to switch off your camera often between snaps. Instead, turn off the LCD screen and leave the camera on, if you know you’re going to be taking pictures within the next few hours.

These precautions may seem simple but are guaranteed to keep your battery kicking for long. You will not have to face disasters of your devices dying on you. Conserving battery power not only gives a longer battery life but also keeps the devices in good condition for longer.

Credit: Nicholaschan (via Flickr)

We’ve been talking about Windows Mobile 6.5 for months and finally you can get your hands on one.  It has been launched on Oct 6, 2009. WM6.5 is being backed by most major players.  In Europe, mobile operators Orange, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom AG (T-Mobile); and Samsung, Acer, Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics, HTC and Toshiba.

AT&T has announced two phones based on Windows Mobile 6.5: The HTC Tilt 2 and the Pure.  Microsoft expects to have a huge variety of phones running the OS by the end of the year, which includes touch screen phones with slide-out keyboards, compact flip phones as well as sleek full-keyboard smartphones.

With this version, Microsoft seems to get its mobile platform in order.  Here are some improvements in 6.5 compared to the previous version.

New Today screen – Although, the classic Today screen is still there, 6.5 comes in a new version that gives this mobile a fresh look.  Unfortunately, the users may not be able to experience this screen as some manufacturers replace it with their customization, such as HTC.

Honeycomb Start screen – The old screen with all those boring old icons is gone and in its place is a beautifully themed list of modern images for default apps.  The Start menu does not exist and users can go to the new Start screen by pressing the Windows icon in the upper left of the screen.

Credit: Techfever (via Flickr)

New lock screen – This one needs to be appreciated.  Instead of just having one way to get back into the mobile, the lock screen in 6.5 gives users various points of entry depending on the status. For example, if there is a new text message, users can go directly to that through a separate unlock route.

MSN Widget – Allows users to get real-time information on stocks, sport scores, weather and others.

Gesture support – This new feature allows users to scroll through web pages, contacts and other screens using just simple drags, clicks and taps.

Windows Marketplace – The Windows Marketplace takes WM6.5 into the world of managed mobile app stores.  Users will be able to download the latest apps for the phone.  It will be made available to 6 and 6.1 versions also.  Answer to the iPhone?

Windows Media Player Mobile – Users can view the video on full-screen and the song or video can be paused to receive a call.

Designer themes – Microsoft entered into deals with many international well-known fashion designers and artists to provide exclusive themes that are shipped free of charge.  Users are given the option to create their own themes on a PC and transfer them to the phone.

Restyled Internet Explorer – Finally, we come to the most important feature of Windows Mobile 6.5, which is the Internet Explorer Mobile 6.  It enriches web viewing by bringing the desktop browsing experience to the mobile.  It is easy to use with just a swipe of the finger and uses the latest technologies to make viewing all sorts of pages extremely easy.  The company has also added a good looking UI, better HTML support, new JavaScript engine and a zoom slider.  Overall, this feature is something users are going to enjoy immensely.

Apart from the above mentioned changes, everything else remains almost the same.  Microsoft wants this 6.5 version to concentrate on touch, by replacing the old stylus with the finger-friendly menu.  Another major thing with this mobile is the on-list scrolling with which users can avoid touching the thin scrollbar.  This is great for users who spend their time messaging and emailing.

Another good service to note is “Find My Phone” which is a service used to locate a missing phone, make it ring even if it is set to vibrate or even lock or wipe the device remotely.  This service costs $5 per use only, unlike Apple’s iPhone-finding service that requires a yearly subscription of $99/year.

We have to see if all these changes and improvements in Windows Mobile 6.5 will see Microsoft coming back into the smartphone market, what with the rising competition from free alternatives like the Android.  While 6.5 is said to be released as a placeholder to Windows Mobile, a larger overhaul is expected in Windows Mobile 7 (codename “Photon”), which will debut sometime next year.

The pressure on the major internet retailers like Amazon.com is forcing them to scale down their operations in states where they are being demanded to collect taxes from buyers.

Online business is growing rapidly and is expected to reach almost $160 billion this year, according to Forrester Research.

Online Retailers With A Physical Presence In A State

But most online sales do not have to collect sales tax, unless they have a physical presence in the state. If an online retailer has some sort of a physical presence in any state, such as a business office, warehouse or a store, then it must collect sales tax from customers of that particular state.

To better understand, let’s take an example: If you have a store in California and you sell online who is also from California, you will need to collect sales tax from that person, even if the item is being shipped from a warehouse located elsewhere.

Currently, there is no need of collecting sales tax from customers who are located in a state where there is no such physical presence.

This rule comes from a decision by the Supreme Court in 1992, where it was said that mail-order merchants did not have to collect sales taxes for sales into states where they did not have any physical presence. This ruling includes all remote sellers, including online retailers.

Independent Partners Selling Through Major Online Retailers

While many online retailers may not have presence in many states, they are still responsible for collecting taxes if they have independent partners in states. For example, Amazon and Overstock permit independent companies with physical presence in different states to sell their goods through their sites and charge them a fee. These major retailers will have to collect taxes even in states where these independent companies exist, as they are selling indirectly through them.

This rule came into effect last year in New York. If you have been following the internet sales tax drama, you would remember that it was even challenged in court. Now, Hawaii, Rhode Island and North Carolina also have passed similar laws. As a response to this law, both the internet giants have cancelled all their associate programs in these states.

Amazon will not really be affected even if all their associate partners are cancelled, as it constitutes only 10% of their total sales. In fact, the margins from these indirect sales are lower than their direct sales.

Local Stores Creating Legal Subsidiaries Online

There are exceptions to this rule. Local stores sell products online tax free by establishing separate legal subsidiaries to handle the business online. Since the online business does not have a physical presence in the state, they do not have to collect sales tax on online purchases. This practice of getting around the rules to avoid sales tax is not appreciated by the “solely” brick-and-mortar retailers who still have to collect taxes from their customers.

Why Local Retailers Feel At A Disadvantage

With so much of the business being done online, the brick-and-mortar retailers feel at a disadvantage and insist that the government makes online retailers collect taxes too. They fear that because of the cheaper rates being offered online, consumers will soon buy only online instead of buying from them. Since most of the states are in need of revenue, they are more than willing to do this.

Implementation Of Use Tax

Many states have now implemented the “use” tax. Use tax is different from sales tax. It is called “use tax” when the customer pays it and “sales tax” when the seller pays it to the state.

Customers, who buy online and live in a state that collects sales tax, are required to pay the tax to the state, even if the online retailers do not collect it. Use tax is a way of making sure that the state collects revenue on every taxable purchase made within its territory. But because collecting use tax even on smaller items means a lot of trouble, states have only implemented this on big items. Things are changing and several states, including Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, Connecticut and North Carolina are inclined to collect use taxes on all purchases online. However, the complicated rules and lack of enough resources have made it difficult to follow through with this.

In fact, this is the general opinion of most people, who feel that there is no reason why online retailers should not collect taxes from their customers just like any other business.

Initially, online retailers and others argued that collecting taxes for purchases online may restrict the growth of online businesses. More and more states are coming up with stringent methods of collecting taxes. Most states now feel that they are losing out millions of dollars of tax revenue and offline retailers feel their online competitors are being given an unfair advantage. Going by this, it seems more likely that the tax advantage of buying and selling online may come to an end soon.

The Netbook, typically weighing 2-3 pounds could be your latest personal navigation device that shows you the way around.

Dell has introduced a GPS and Wi-Fi card in their netbooks, and turned them into gizmos that can offer turn-by-turn directions as perfectly and as efficiently as any other good standalone navigation device.

Alan Sicher, a senior wireless product manager at Dell said, “Smartphones already have GPS capabilities. We are now bringing it to netbooks so the devices know where you are and can help you where you want to go.”

Now that the traditional standalone GPS gadget has been around for a while and taken for granted, navigation device makers are looking to create something innovative and are looking to offer their software on other devices too.

TomTom, one of the top Dutch manufacturers of automotive navigation systems recently announced that it would be offering turn-by-turn directions apps on the iPhone. It will also be offering accessories such as a car mounting dock and a power charger.

Dell on the other hand is looking at making the most of the netbook sales by incorporating this feature into its notebooks, specifically the Dell Mini 10 netbook.

The Mini 10 is one of Dell’s main creations in the category of netbooks that typically run Windows XP (not Vista) and have less memory and processing power than the regular laptops. But they also cost less than $500.

Customers can choose the Wireless 700 card for $69 when ordering their netbook. This card combines Broadcom’s GPS technology and Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi positioning solutions, which can determine a device’s location through satellite signals, the IDs of Wi-Fi networks nearby or both.

This is the first time Dell has licensed Skyhook’s software for use in any of its products. This “Loki” software integrates with browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox to help users retrieve information from the web, based on their location.

With the integration of GPS cards into netbooks, they will function almost like a personal navigation device, and may help netbooks impinge on the market for standalone GPS devices. Users can just open their netbook and get directions as well as make their netbook location aware. The navigation software called “CoPilot” is said to offer 2D and 3D map views, allow users to save addresses for a trip, provide route optimization and give turn-by-turn directions to drivers. It offers all the features and is as efficient as any standalone GPS device.

In spite of the efficiency with which they work, one cannot help but wonder how these netbooks with GPS devices will fare with the customers. Is it actually feasible to use a netbook as a GPS device; in spite of netbooks being small? Some people feel that carrying it around or using it in the car to find routes may not be all that easy, especially when a cellphone can make the same job much easier.

However, these GPS enabled netbooks may prove to be helpful for international travelers. According to Sicher, “If you are traveling to Europe roaming costs can be pretty pricey for your cellphone. The GPS netbooks could also be handy in areas where cellphone coverage is weak.”

Another point that has to be noted is that although the turn-by-turn directions navigation software on the netbook will be free for people who buy the card and the netbook, the maps are expected to be updated on a yearly basis and customers may be charged for these updates.

Dell is going all out to make this a success and like TomTom, is also offering accessories, such as a dock for the netbooks and a car charger. Dell says it will make the Wireless 700 option available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 computers, as well as for other Dell systems and not just the Mini 10.

With the inclusion of GPS, the netbook now provides much more value for money and this may take off with the customers just the way Dell hopes it would.