Nokia, Microsoft pump $24m into Windows Phone app development

Last week, Rovio Mobile made a statement with Angry Birds Space that could have potentially left Nokia and Microsoft shuddering in their shoes. Rovio's Chief Marketing Officer, Peter Vesterbacka said that the company had no plans on releasing Angry Birds Space for the Windows Phone platform. He said that they want to be on all screens, but Windows Phone takes a lot of work to technically support the platform. While Mikael Hed, the CEO of Rovio later contradicted Vesterbacka's statement by saying that Angry Birds Space will indeed come to Windows Phones, Nokia and Microsoft want to encourage application development for their new platform.

Needs more developers

According to TechCrunch, the two companies are now pushing 9 million Euros, which amounts to about $12 million into a mobile applications development program at Aalto University in Finland. The program will be called AppCampus and will focus specifically on funding application development for the Windows Phone platform. The program will also develop apps for some Nokia specific platforms, like Symbian and Series 40. Aalto University will also provide significant funding towards the program, which will begin on the 12th of May. Windows Phone currently has 70,000 apps and about 5 percent of the smartphone platform market share. It competes, of course, with Android and iOS which have about half a million apps each and have been around for a lot longer.

Digital Storm Unveils Monster Aventum PC Range

If you are in the market for a new PC and are ready to pull out all the stops on specifications. You might be interested in the new Aventum PC range which has been announced by Digital Storm this week.
Specifications include options to pack in dual six-core Xeon processors, 32GB of RAM, a trio of GTX 680s, and a 180GB SSD/1TB HDD.

All combined in a chassis which is fitted with Aventum software that is capable of monitoring 5 thermal zones and controls 13 fans to keep your gear as cool as possible when pushing ti to its max.
“Designed by Digital Storm engineers from the inside out, Aventum’s chassis boasts a proprietary thermal exhaust chamber, intelligent 5 thermal zone regulation and exclusive Aventum software that controls 13 customizable fans to effectively dissipate performance inhibiting heat. Together with the Cryo-TEC liquid cooling system that chills liquid below 0ºC, Digital Storm has designed the industry’s first truly custom high-performance PC.”
Rajeev Kuruppu, Digital Storm’s Director of Product Development explains:
“Unlike any other chassis, Aventum’s intelligent design enables it to exceed the demands of the most power hungry enthusiasts, gamers and creative professionals,” - “We’ve spent months analyzing every conceivable way to effectively eliminate heat from Aventum and as a result, our engineers devised new systems that have never been attempted. Every integral component and every zone is constantly being monitored so our customers can ensure their dream machine is always delivering optimal performance.”

Logitech's business webcam is an eye on a stalk, and it's pointin' at you

Resembling a surveillance unit from a sinister dystopia, Logitech's newest webcam is strictly for the corporate environment only. The BCC950 Conference Cam holds a Carl Zeiss-lensed HD webcam atop a motorized stalk that can pan across 180 degrees. The camera itself has a 78 degree field of view, ending the era of huddling around a laptop. Its full-duplex speakerphone has a range of eight feet and will also happily let you Skype from the middle of a crowded bullpen. It'll be exclusively available to suited-and-booted customers at a cost of $250 (£200 in the UK) from May -- perhaps a tad too expensive to wheel around your office trying to catch someone napping at their desk.

Watch The Future, Smartphone Wrist Control Concept

A new watch concept has been created by F.Bertrand called the “Watch The Future”, which has been designed to enable you to link to application on your smartphone. Enabling you to control and receive updates directly on your wrist.
The “Watch The Future” concept wrist watch can display the weather, your contacts, stock exchange information, SMS messages, Facebook updates, your GPS location and more. As well as keeping you update-to-date with the current time.

The innovative watch concept would keep the application you use most at easy access, and would even change the icons location on the strap according to the position of your wrist.
Other options that would be available to add to the watch include the possibility to track your pulse and even your emotions. It even enables you to keep track of your phone by ring it when you can’t quite remember where you put it.
Unfortunately due to the watch being just a concept don’t expect it to arrive in stores soon. But do expect the technology to start to making its way to wrist style devices over the coming years, allowing you to interact with your smartphone in new and exiting ways.

Onkyo Announces TX-NR 717 and TX-NR 818 Mid-range Receivers

Onkyo has unveiled the 7.2 Channel network AV receivers that offer all kinds of advanced technology inside. The new receivers include the Onkyo TX-NR717 and TX-NR818 and they share many of the same features. The 818 has Audyssey MultiEQ XT32 three-dimensional sound processing inside.


The tech allows the receiver to calibrate the speakers to the room. This receiver also has DTS Neo:X sound mode and uses the Onkyo dual core video engine. That video engine uses a HQV Vida VHD 1900 video processor for 1080p upscaling and a Marvel Qdeo processor. The 717 offers the Qdeo processor alone. Both of the receivers use InstaPrevue that allows users to view screen with full thumbnails of content that are showing on each available input.
Both receivers have multiple sound modes and multiple room zones. The receivers have eight HDMI inputs and two HDMI outputs and support 3-D video. The 717 will sell for $999 with 818 selling for $1199 with both set to be available in May.

HTC partners with Intertrust, buys 20 percent of SyncTV

It's been a while since we've heard the name SyncTV 'round these parts, but perhaps we'll be seeing a bit more of it now that HTC has a stake in the streaming video company. As part of a deal with Intertrust, HTC has purchased 20 percent of its new partner's subsidiary. In addition, the Taiwanese manufacturer has licensed a broad portfolio of patents from the Sunnyvale firm, primarily dealing with DRM. Unfortunately we have no specifics about how HTC plans to leverage its new media property, but hopefully they're working on some fun surprises even as we speak. (Though, most likely, we're just looking at one more piece of manufacturer-installed bloatware.) Check out the brief, and ultimately not very informative, PR after the break.

Nandamuri Balakrishna has completed dubbing for the film ‘Adhinayakudu’ today at Prasad labs and the movie is on track for an April 1st week release. The film ran into some issues since the last couple of months but sources say things have been sorted now. Saloni and Lakshmi Rai are the main female leads in this movie Balakrishna will be seen in three unique looks. Paruchuri Murali has directed the film and M.L.Kumar Chowdhary is the producer. Kalyani Malik has scored the music for this movie.

Sony’s newest Walkman phone has received a pretty hefty price cut on eBay.in and a couple of reputed distributors are already selling this Android smartphone for Rs. 11,150. Though other online sites like Flipkart and Letsbuy haven’t deviated from the Rs. 14k price tag, a lot of buzz has already been generated about this latest price cut on eBay. 

In case you have forgotten, here’s a look at the specs of the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman:

• 3.2-inch TFT Capacitive Touchscreen with a 320 x 480 pixel resolution
• 1GHz Scorpion processor, 512 MB of RAM
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread
• 320MB internal storage
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi ‘n’
• GPS with A-GPS support
• Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, USB 2.0
• 5MP auto-focus camera with LED flash, 720p video recording
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Memory expandable up to 32GB via microSD
• 3.5 mm handsfree socket
• 1200 mAh Li-ion battery

Wanna buy?

Impressive, isn't it? If you’ve not already read our review on the Live with Walkman, here’s a brief note on what you can expect from the phone. It’s lightning quick and though the screen may be a little small for some people, with time you’ll definitely get used to it. The Walkman media player brings Sony’s A game to the table and guess what, this is included in Sony’s Xperia line-up of phones that is going to receive Ice Cream Sandwich goodness. This is one of the few phones in that price bracket to have 720p video recording and though a 1200 mAh battery isn’t the strongest of them all, it’s pretty much good for your everyday usage. Like the other Walkman phones (like the W700i, the W800i), Sony has retained the orange ring that lights up while playing music. Overall, it was a fantastic phone at 14k and this price cut only makes the deal even sweeter. Though not many people may trust third party sellers on eBay, it’s the top rated distributors that are selling it at this price tag and not a handful, so reason to worry is virtually non-existent. 

Future proofing. Done. Price cut. Done. Would that make you buy the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman? Let us know in the comments section below.