Facebook Announces Video Calling, Group Chat and New Chat Design

Facebook announced a couple of new features today in a live announcement from their HQ in Palo Alto. Facebook users can now have Video conversations with their friends. This was today's biggest announcement and was much anticipated. The other two features announced today were Group Chat and a New Chat Design.

Facebook has collaborated with Skype for it's new Video Calling feature. CEO, Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement and Skype CEO Tony Bates also briefed reporters about the technology and collaboration.

Video Calling will be rolled out starting today and over the next couple of weeks worldwide.

Stay tuned for more on these announcements.

HP TouchPad: Review

This week HP unveiled it's TouchPad, the first device other than a smartphone to feature Palm's webOS. This is the first Palm powered device ever since it was taken over by HP. webOS seems to have been made for tablet use as it integrates well with the tablet interface. Although the TouchPad does suffer from the same flaws that most other tablets have, such as an impoverished app library, HP has done a pretty good job with this one.

A first look at the TouchPad might make it seem like its light and thin due to it's glossy black shell and the way the rounded edges scatter light. It's a dense and thick device that still has some tech charm.

As mentioned earlier, webOS seems more native to a tablet than to a smartphone. Multitasking is quite impressive on the TouchPad. Each open application is called a Card. They can be stacked, rearranged and closed. Palm also has a resizable keyboard which is something new that we have seen in tablets. But the keyboard lacks shortcuts for periods and punctuation (like the double-tap feature in iOS). It's still pretty fun typing on the keyboard though.

The app situation is absolutely ridiculous with only around 300 apps during launch. Another problem with the apps is that at the moment there is no way of integrating the TouchPad apps with the webOS apps. This means that if you have already downloaded an app on your Palm powered smartphone, you have to pay again for a TouchPad version of the same app.

As for the battery, with heavy usage users have been getting around 7-8 hours of battery life, which in my opinion, is not that impressive for a bulky device such as the TouchPad.

Apart from the terrible app selection on the TouchPad, apps can take ages to launch. The touch response can take a while and is not at all convenient (Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo mentioned that you could watch Transformers 3 while waiting for touch response!) The HP app to load music on to the TouchPad is also painful and can use some lessons from iTunes. The device also lacks cloud services. This is crucial as Apple's iOS 5 update coming in the fall includes this feature and much more.

All in all, I would say that the TouchPad is a no-buy. I wouldn't waste a cent on this device. I would rather stick to my five month old iPad 2 and be happy with life.

Droid X2 Announced

Motorola and Verizon have officially announced the release of the Droid X2. This comes after months of speculation and "teasing" from Motorola.

The Droid X2 is 4.3 inch Android Smartphone with a qHD screen and a dual core 1GHz processor. Other features include an 8 megapixel camera with continuous autofocus and HD video recording.

The Droid X2 will cost $200 on contract and will be available online tomorrow, May 19th. It will hit store shelves a week later on the 26th of May.

White iPhone Releases Tomororw !

Finally, the White iPhone is here !!!!!

Apple announced that it would release the white iPhone worldwide in it's stores tomorrow (April 28th).

Other than a proximity sensor, nothing else has changed on the device and will be priced the same, $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32 GB, both on contract. 

Hulu Plus On The Playbook ?

It seems that RIM wants Hulu Plus on the newly released Blackberry Playbook. And, it also wants people to know that it wants Hulu Plus on the Playbook.


Over the last few days, Playbook users have been greeted with a message telling them that Hulu Plus isn't available yet on the playbook.


Oh Blackberry, when will you ever become cool.

iPhone 5 Rumours

There have been rumors in the past few days that Apple will be announcing the fifth installment of the iPhone soon. I'm not a big fan of rumors, but these people seem to be swearing on the legitimacy of these sources.

The iPhone 5 is slated to have the same design as the iPhone 4. Word has it that it would run on the A5 processor that the iPad 2 runs on and would also have an 8-megapixel camera.

To me it seems to be just what the iPhone 3GS was to the iPhone 3G.

Also, due to the calamity in Japan, Apple is rumored to delay the release to the fall, departing from the usual June release.

Will keep you posted.

Blackberry Playbook

The Blackberry Playbook has been called a possible iPad "killer" in the recent past. But taking a look at the specs below, I really don't think it is capable of doing so. But, then again, I am a die hard Apple fan. 


The Playbook isn't coming out till later this year and boasts of "full Flash support". Take a look at it for yourself and feel free to leave your comments. 

Ultra portable, super convenient
Height 5.1" / 130mm
Width 7.6" / 194mm
Depth 0.4" / 10mm
Weight 0.9 lbs / 425g


7" LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution
Multi-touch capacitive screen


Professional grade performance
Full computing power in a tablet format
1 GHz dual-core processor
1 GB RAM
Symmetric multi-processing


Web without limits
Games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers Full Adobe, Flash 10.1 enabled
Built-in support for HTML 5
No-compromise rendering of text, graphics and video


High-speed connections
BlackBerry PlayBook tablets will offer support for network configurations as follows:
BlackBerry PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + WiMax
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + LTE
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + HSPA+
All BlackBerry PlayBook tablets support Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR


Amplified BlackBerry experience
Wirelessly connect to your BlackBerry smartphone for real time access to:
Email, calendar, address book, task list and BBM™


Best-in-class media
3 MP high-definition forward-facing camera
5 MP high-definition rear-facing camera
Codec support for superior media playback, creation and video calling
1080p HD video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
Micro USB and Micro HDMI ports


Video calling
Crystal clear high resolution display
Dual video cameras


Built for business
Out-of-the-box compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise Server
Seamless pairing for a secure window into your BlackBerry smartphone
Corporate data access
Secure and manageable 


BlackBerry Tablet OS
Powerful, user-friendly QNX technology: It’s what the World Wide Web runs on
Multi-processing for true multitasking


Rich application ecosystem
Rapid development environment
Reliable BlackBerry Tablet OS, powered by QNX technology
Supports POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry 6, WebKit, Adobe 
Flash, Java and Adobe Mobile AIR