Tech Spice

Well, its amazing to know, what future has installed for us. I mean, playing and having fun with holographic computers, or simply swiping our fingers all over the place to navigate from one net page to another, it may sound too unrealistic right now. But there are some awesome prototype products happening out there. To start with, Touchscreens are one big thing, where we can wave our hand in front of our computer screen and the magic begins. Obviously, no body wants to shell out any extra bucks for it too. So, here is what will excite the world.. Toshiba lands with a brilliant concept- AirSwing, that is a dream come true.

Toshiba has sprouted with an overwhelming user interface of their own, called as the AirSwing, which features a semi-transparent image of the user on the display, from there it will display a menu system and some content that you can manipulate. After that, user will be able to move his transparent self around the screen, where he can further be able to interact with what’s there just by simple gestures, for instance- flipping through pictures in a photo gallery. But, Toshiba plans to hit AirSwing to digital signage folks to ensure far more interactive “commercial” experience and not to the rest of the world. There are some kinks which they have to sought out. Like, the software is claimed only run on 4 percent of the processing power on a 400MHz ARM 11 CPU which translates to a processing unit available to you, which is perfect if a user is interested in doing some heavy number crunching.

Pooja Vij

Perhaps, when Amazon got its Kindle for iPad app in place at the right time of the launch of the iPad, Barnes & Noble purposely took its sweet time to release its BN eReader for iPad. Well, Barnes & Noble, world's largest book-seller has now finally launched its BN eReader which is available as a free download in Apple's App Store.

Like Amazon, Barnes & Noble is also trying to leverage by giving customers access to its e-book store via all popular mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and next month, Android smartphones. Users can easily store content in one single master digital library and swap content between devices.

BN eReader is touted to be the most easily used and customizable of all such software on the tablet. Although, the iPad version doesn’t allow in-app buyings at this stage, but users can use LendMe to share some of the titles with others for stipulated time.

If we talk about the customization, B&N offer virtually millions of colors to opt from, which can be further individually be applied to text, pages, highlights and links.  At the same time, there are also eight typefaces and five text sizes available and users can also adjust margins and spacing. And once the choices start to get overwhelming then they’ve a few presets to offer.

Readers can also add notes which can be synchronized along with provision to highlight and bookmark pages. There’s a built in dictionary for definitions of words.  But for sure, markets are getting rosy for iBooks, Kindle and now BN eReader the iPad ebook, though user would definitely go for platform they’ve already bought into.

Pooja Vij

Twitter, Micro-blogging social networking site has announced that they will not allow any third-party advertising platforms on Twitter. According to Twitter COO Dick Costolo, the company will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. This primarily means that developers will be left with only one choice and that is to use Twitter's recently announced Promoted Tweets platform.

Twitter has put a tabboo on the usage of third-party ad networks to ensure better user experience and encourage innovation, keeping aside 'near-term' monetization.  Twitter always continued without any revenue model till now and has Promoted Tweets is its revenue model. So, Twitter can go to any extent to protect it by providing better user experiences.

Twitter has also updated its API Terms of Service which developers can go through and make changes in their apps and use Twitter's Promoted Tweets ad platform.

Users might be devoid of several ads that could be promoted via Twitter. But with the official advertising platform to be put to use, users will have to explore promotional tweets. To sum up in the end, all third-party advertisers get sidelined and only Promoted Tweets can be used with Twitter API by developers.

Pooja Vij

Nokia-Yahoo will be joining hands to bring search, email and other applications pre-installed on select Nokia devices. This new joint-venture has been codenamed as Project Nike.Yahoo is inviting media publications for selections, as this is a part of a joint announcement with Nokia on May 24

A couple of Nokia S40 phones are already installed with Yahoo Ready and Yahoo Go. Awhile ago Yahoo had partnered with Samsung to integrate its mobile services on Samsung's Android and bada OS based devices.

These series of initiatives by Yahoo suggests that it is making all the efforts to compete aggressively with Google and Microsoft. Google already enjoys a gigantic eco system on Android based devices and several other phones. Whereas, Microsoft dominates the market with Windows Mobile 6.5 and upcoming Windows Phone 7 platforms.

Pooja Vij

The Google TV Project that includes Intel, Sony and Logitech will come up next month , equipped with custom Android operating system named as Dragonpoint. It has emerged that Sony will soon announce home-entertainment devices supporting Intel chips and will be loaded with Google software.

Recently, Google had announced a partnership with Sony, Intel and Logitech for introducing Android interface to TV screen. With this project, the companies that participate will be allowed easy browsing of web applications on the TV screen, through an interactive software interface. Sony's Set-top boxes will have Intel Atom chips inside. Moreover, Logitech will create a keyboard packing remote control.

Google would be developing custom interactive interface dubbed Dragonpoint based on Android which would serve like an operating system within itself. Apart from focusing at the home-entertainment segment, Sony also plans to bring 3D gaming and 3D movies experience with 3D BRAVIA televisions.

Pooja Vij