Femtocell- ur personal network tower!

Recently, a news article i came across somewhere caught my attention, and boy oh boy, it sure looks exciting. Imagine having your own network tower with you so that you wont have to search for network coverage. Ever heard of femtocell? I bet you didn't!

A femtocell is the world's worst name for a very exciting technology. It's a box (about the size of a router) that you connect to your broadband router; it essentially gives you your very own cell phone tower, right in your home.
Who wants a cell phone tower at home? Anyone who's ever had to stand immobile to keep their connection, or hang their head out the window to get another bar on their phone, or--heaven forbid--to walk up a hill.
Femtocell-outfitted homes will have crystal-clear phone coverage. And just imagine driving up to your house and having your phone know that it's time to switch over to your femtocell to keep up your coverage without missing a beat. Heck, you can even make a call from the basement.

The talk is that femtocells will be low cost, low power, and compact. They work on the same frequency as a cell site and share some similar technology. Instead of searching for a cell tower to connect to, the femtocell base station picks up the mobile phone signal and sends it out via the Internet via your broadband connection. Initially, femtocells will predominantly be used to get clear reception, but ultimately they could also be used for accessing data and Internet connectivity (similar to how EV-DO is used by the cellular carriers today). Down the road, this could mean some competition for 802.11 Wi-Fi as the home wireless standard.

There should be a number of femtocell announcements at CES and products should begin to appear on the market by late 2008. Now, about that word? According to a recent BusinessWeek article, "femto" means "one-quadrillionth the size of a given unit." What can we deduce from the name? Cell phone towers are gargantuan, and engineers, not marketers, named this breakthrough technology.

Thanks to Reuters for the image. I really hope this wonderful technology is made available in countries, esp India where network coverage is deteriorating day by day!

Symbian's reaction to Google Android

Symbian dismisses Google Android

Symbian powers more than 165 million phonesGoogle's dominance of the web will not translate to the mobile phone market, a senior executive at Symbian has said.
John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian, the platform that powers many of the world's phones, said Google lacked experience.
Google has formed an alliance with 33 firms to develop an open platform for mobile phones, called Android.
Meanwhile, the head of Nokia in the UK said the firm was in discussions with Google about using the platform.
Simon Ainslie, Nokia UK's managing director, said: "We are always open to discussion and debate on that. We were not ready to make any commitment to it or discuss it at the time."
"We are having ongoing discussions with Google."
'Very happy'
Mr Ainslie said the time was not right to make any announcement as to "how we can work with them".
He also said that Nokia was very happy with its partnership with Symbian.
He said: "It's the world's most used platform. It's not a simple solution to make a platform work on a mobile."
It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business
John Forsyth, Symbian, on the Open Handset Alliance
Mr Forsyth said Google had to be aware that making a "mobile OS is a very specialised form of rocket science.
"It's not search rocket science."
He said the alliance was yet another attempt to launch a Linux-based operating system to drive mobile phones.
"About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched.
"It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business. We don't participate in these full stop. We make our own platform and we are focused on driving that into the mobile phone market at large ever more aggressively."
Symbian's recent financial results show it sold 20.4m smartphone software licenses in the last quarter of 2007 and since the company was launched nine years ago more than 165 million phones have been shipped using its platform.
'Deeply unsexy'
Mr Forsyth said there was nothing to indicate that Google's dominance of the web would make it successful as a mobile phone platform provider.
"Search and a mobile phone platform are completely different things.
"It's costly, arduous and at times a deeply unsexy job of supporting customers day by day in launching phones. That's something there's very little experience of in Google's environment.
"if you are a serious phone maker and you are asked to bet your handsets on somebody, you would want to bet on someone with a track record of delivery and support."
Mr Forsyth also questioned whether developers would flock to the system.
"It's very clear what developers want - volume and a stable platform that doesn't keep breaking. You have to have a lot of zeroes in your sales figures before a developer gets out of bed.
"They are talking about having a phone by the end of next year. It's not one that is going to ignite developers."
SOURCE: BBC News

Del those Moblie games!

Many of us who own respectable enough mobiles have atleast 2-3 games installed on our cell. Btw have you ever removed them from your mobile?..
I was a mobile phone gamer till now nd still am..but as i found out what harm it was doing to me..i quickly removed them all.
I had around 30 good games installed which i used to play all the time...durin free time..study time..and coaching.!
Some games like Real Soccer,Tomb Raider,Asphalt 3,tennis are really addictive and keep you glued till you either finish the game or die of hunger!
On a more serious note, these games have the ability to do things which even girls cant do--bring down nerds!..
I seriously went down in studies and was so engrossed in games that i even skipped my meals trying to finish a level!..Then one day, fortunately i had the feeling that sumthin was not goin good and as my exams were approaching, i realized that what was really my enemy were those games!..n bein a sensible guy, i immediately deleted all those games except soccer and chess..[which i still play...;)]
So hope you all play well, play safe, and enjoy life in a better way!