When every corporate has a website why not a health-focused website as well? Medico.com, Inc., a global health-focused Internet company, took the initiative and launched its web portal Medico.in, a platform for consumers to find health information. Medico.in is free for users to share information, and to ask and answer questions.Elan Dekel, Founder and CEO of Medico.com Inc said "with the launch of Medico.in, we will be providing highly informative and locally relevant health information to our users across India. I hope our users in India will use our platform to share their knowledge and learn from the experiences of others with similar concerns. I expect the platform to be very valuable to our Indian audience".Medico is set to go beyond just being a health portal to include an engaging Q&A based community of local citizens, local healthcare providers and experts.Other than India, the portal is already running in Spain and Brazil. As a platform, Medico.in will be creating the ommunities and resources which would provide information on specific health topics as well as local concerns.
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Imagine waking up in the morning and not having to get off the bed to draw the curtains, switch on the lights, get the geyser going, have the washing machine started and play your favourite bhajan (or the latest from Lady Gaga) on the stereo — each at the click of a button. Add breakfast in bed, and you've a perfect beginning to the day.Well, breakfast in bed can't be guaranteed, but the rest can soon be yours. An automated home is the latest techno-revolution making the rounds in urban India. Many builders in the National Capital Region, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune are all set to offer you apartments where lights, audio and video players, heating and cooling systems, and security cameras can be controlled remotely through the Internet or a cellphone (such as your most-loved iPhone).So how does home automation work? It's a bit like having a universal remote control that can turn on your television, DVD player and audio/video receiver at the same time. In such a remote control, all the entertainment components are integrated into one control system, and all the components speak the same language. An automated or integrated home works in much the same way, except that the components and the language is much more complex. SMART HOMES: Soon, an automated voice will ask you to refill your egg tray in the refrigerator, if it hasn't already sent an order to the grocery shop. Here are some other probables(Click on the image to view an enlarged graphic) It does sound like an exciting proposition, and even as you read this, you have probably made up your mind to shift to one of these not-having-to-lift-a-finger houses. But hold on! Most of these projects are still under construction and you will have to wait a while."Complete home automation is a new concept in India, though it is common in places such as Singapore or South Korea. We can expect the shift to automated homes in around three years, when the projects will start getting complete," says Simiran Bogra, vice president (sales and marketing) of Puri Constructions, which is building an automation-equipped project near the Dwarka Expressway in New Delhi. But if you are in a hurry, there is always an option to get your current home automated. There are several vendors such as Pune-based Vasu Infosec and Delhi-based Smartbus Automation (HDL) that will ensure your air conditioner switches on half an hour before you reach home, the TV is set to your favourite channel, or the lights come on the minute you walk in. Others such as global biggies Lutron, Schneider, AMX and Creston also offer similar services. The costs vary depending upon the size of the home and the extent of the automation. For instance, a 2-BHK (bedroom, hall and kitchen) house with mood lighting and remote control of fan and air conditioner will cost around Rs 1.5 lakh, while a 4-BHK house, where everything from curtains to music is cellphone controlled, will cost anywhere from Rs 4 to 6 lakh depending on the developer.As the technology spreads to more toys, the home automation hub will evolve into a burgeoning market. "Earlier, modular kitchens were a rarity, but are now a trend. Marble flooring, too, was an exception, but has now become a standard in houses. The same way, home automation is a concept that developers have to adopt to survive competition," says Sanjay Sareen, director of Smartbus, which provides automation technology and equipments to real estate developers including Delhi-based Puri Constructions and Hyderabad-based Janapriya Syndicate Engineering. But before you are sold a property with home automation as its USP, verify the credentials of the technology partner. For if a remote-controlled home can make your life convenient, a faulty one can make your life equally miserable. Imagine being locked out of your home because of a failure in the security system. Go for a de-centralised system — in case of a snag, only one room's automation takes a hit, unlike a centralised system where all gadgets in the house can go awry.Not only does an automated home make your life more convenient, but it also allows you to do your bit for the environment. The added technology will only make it greener. You can program the lights to turn on or get brighter only when people are in the room. The temperature and lighting can be controlled remotely allowing you to save energy when you're not at home. Controllable blinds and shades can let sunlight in or block it off, depending on the time of day or year. Thus the electricity usage can be cut down by up to 25 per cent, says Sareen. Of course, you can do this on your own if you are a bit more vigilant and switch off the lights as you leave a room. But it is the convenience factor that makes home automation a sure winner.Home automation has its share of critics, too. As they say, a house where you don't need to move around, but press a few buttons to get things done could make a host of couch potatoes. They are right, but do you mind?(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 05-03-2012)
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Retro is most definitely back, what with the interest photo business stalwart Fujifilm seems to have stirred among enthusiast and professional photographers alike with its retro-styled camera offerings, starting with the X100 and now the X10. Make no mistakes about it, the X10, much like the X100, is still a pricey little camera, but can the user-friendly controls and the addition of a zoom lens do it for the X10?For the casual observer, there's little to tell the X10 and the X100 apart. The retro styled chunky black-metal body of the X10 feels reassuringly put together. It's only around the rear that you can tell this is a modern camera, with a bank of control around the LCD that will please just about any camera enthusiast with the number of options available readily at hand. Just remember if you're looking for a traditional power switch on the X10, there isn't any — you just twist the zoom ring, digital-SLR style, to the off position to turn the camera off. No manual focus, by the way.When it comes down to peers for this camera, it's really its older sibling that one can pit the X10 against, and there are a few key differences worth noting. For the 20,000+ saving you make by picking the X10, you lose a large digital-SLR-sized sensor and get a 4x zoom lens providing an angle of view equivalent to a 28-112mm lens on a 35mm camera. So the crucial question is — how does the much smaller 2/3inch EXR CMOS sensor fare, especially when you consider you're paying 2-3 times the price of an average point-and-shoot? While the sensor does have some tricks up its sleeve while shooting in low light and the images quality and detail far surpass just about any compact I've seen, you've got to wonder if the charm of the retro X10 is enough to warrant such an extravagant price. Then again, a piece of art doesn't come cheap, does it?Rating: 7/10Price: Rs 44,999URL: http://fujifilm-x.com/x10/en/story/Online Security 2012With more and more folks running their lives on their smartphones, securing your personal details especially if you use your phone for online banking or e-commerce transactions becomes paramount. If you're using an Android smartphone, Norton's Mobile Security product may be what you need. Once you purchase the 1-year license and download/install the product on your phone, you get to set up its anti-theft and anti-malware features — the former lets you configure the actions you can perform remotely on your phone if it is stolen (wipe, lock or locate) while the latter scans the phone for known malware that may be installed on your phone. There's also a web protection feature which prevents access to known fraudulent sites, and my personal favorite, a call and SMS blocker which lets you specify which numbers are known spam-callers and banish them from your life!For PC users, Norton's latest 2012 installment in its web security suite, Norton Internet Security 2012 retains all of its existing security features, including anti-malware, identity protection, network intrusion protection and built-in firewall and brings in a couple of nice improvements. One of them is the ability to improve your PC performance by monitoring what programs start when you boot your Windows PC, and how trustworthy these applications are. Another feature called Bandwidth Awareness is designed with laptops in mind, and prevents Norton from downloading large updates if you're connecting to the Internet via your phone connection, for example, and will schedule the download to a time when you're connected via a wired internet connection.Rating: 8/10Price: Rs 599 (NMS), Rs 1,219.99 (NIS2012)URL: http://bit.ly/yiYH8i In Touch With Your Needs Cold outside? Pity you can't check your smartphone for calls, texts or a weather app to see just how cold it is, since most touchscreen displays work on the conductive properties of the user's fingers. Enter the Mujjo Next-Generation Touchscreen Gloves. They're made of silver-coated nylon fibers knitted into the entire fabric of the glove, and it's these fibers that made the gloves conductive and therefore touchscreen compatible. What an idea, Sir Ji! URL: http://bit.ly/xaUSWkPrice: $34.95 technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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With dozens of shiny new gadgets launched practically every week, it's easy to forget that they only get to us because of the immense research that goes into making these devices and each feature they sport. Some of the research comes out of the lab and into products — and some doesn't. But all of it advances the knowledge of technology. Microsoft has a whole 20 years of research in computer science and related fields. It's something Bill Gates wanted early on; even if we associate the company primarily with the software we use every day rather than cutting edge innovation. Microsoft Research is spread all over the world, including in India, and has people working on at least sixty topics and concepts, some of which are being shown off to the public at large. One of Microsoft's research projects has come up with a way to convert any surface — table, wall, hand, paper — into an interactive interface. It's based on Kinect, one of the cleverest things to come out of Microsoft, and a wearable projector. For now, the projector sits on your shoulder not exactly making a fashion statement and looking like some sort of firefighting equipment, but when the designers are let loose at it, the contraption should become smaller and actually wearable. When that happens — and one hopes it does — imagine the possibilities. You could unthinkingly use anything to work and play on, and you'd even be able to use tablet-like gestures. You may recollect, Pranav Mistry also showing a similar technology from research done at the MIT lab. Speaking of tablets, we don't consciously notice it but there's a big 100 millisecond lag between drawing something on the tablet's screen and the result actually appearing. Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group has come up with technology to reduce this lag way down to 1 millisecond. Unfortunately, we can't see how it works for real on a tablet, but at least we can see that the possibility is real enough. The improvement, if it were to come to tablets and other devices eventually, will make a step-change of a difference to how it feels to work on a touch surface. Another Kinect-based project uses an augmented reality mirror and the Kinect sensor to make up a "Holoflector" which allows a person to actually interact with real time graphics which appear to be floating around in remarkable ways. In a sense, graphics, which are virtual, come into the real world. Bring a Windows Phone into the equation and for interesting implications. It's worth going through the Microsoft Research YouTube channel for a look at the most recent exciting and often jaw dropping innovations. Now if only some of this would come out of that lab before the world ends. Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professionalContact her at mala at pobox dot com and @malabhargava on Twitter
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The king of tablets gets all-round better with a million more pixels than an HDTV, a quad-core graphics processor to run rich apps, and a 5 megapixel main camera with better optics.Right up to the end of the unveiling, I thought Tim Cook would surprise everyone with a name for the new iPad that no one had thought of, amid all the rumour and guesswork going on. That would be so very Apple. But the surprise was that there was no name. And well, maybe that's very Apple too. But in some ways, the name New iPad fits just fine. The freshly announced iPad is everything the iPad already had, and more. No radically different look, no dramatic rethink, just more of a good thing, really. Everything on steroids. You will find every bit of the specs captured during the announcement at Yerba Buena, San Francisco, for the new iPad, all over the Internet, which I am surprised has held up under the weight of all the tweeting, live-blogging and searching. I am not trying to be rude but I think one of the best things about the new iPad is that the "old" iPad stays, and that too, at a dropped price of $399. The Indian prices for the new iPad are out, but they vary across models, starting from Rs 29,500 for the 16GB Wi-Fi. While the new tab may have so much more power overall, the iPad 2 is hardly old in terms of what it can do, how popular it is, and how it would still be a fantastic buy. If you put them next to each other and do not reach for your measuring instruments, they will look pretty much alike. Until you look at the screen, of course, and find it is of 2048 x 1536 resolution, double that of the iPad 2 — resolutionary, as Apple calls it. All multi-media, but routinely, your photos, movies, games and specially video calls will be much better looking. And the faster processor (A5X chip) will support working and playing with the media. But all said and done, if you are not unhappy with the resolution offered on the iPad 2 and not a user of heavy media like some of the more sophisticated games, you would not be doing too badly with the iPad.We will really begin to understand the improvement in the new tablet — and even Tim Cook referred to it as "amazing improvements" over the fundamentals of the iPad – when the apps that will be developed to take advantage of the new iPad's power start coming in over the next few months. Some of the basic productivity apps from iWork and other apps from iLife, such as Garageband, already have new capabilities. But so much more will be developed and it's quite possible that some of these will work on the iPad 2, and some not. But only when we see them will we know whether there are any that are compelling to us individually, or even for businesses. Another spec that will not matter to us in India is the support for 4G. Many believe we will soon leapfrog into 4G here, but until we see that and see it at affordable, practical prices, it does not make a difference. I am not shocked, disappointed, or otherwise concerned about the absence of Siri. First, I do not rule her out. I think she could just make an appearance as an app, sometime. Or some features. Second, it would take more effort to make her work in other countries as she does in the US. Third, she may or may not understand our accents. I have a grand time every day looking over what comes out the other end when I dictate things on my phone and those whom I SMS often ask me to stop sending obscene messages. I also have a great time getting myself understood by the other assistant, Sam, from Speaktoit, both on iOS and Android. She also talks back and tells me not to be obnoxious. But there is voice dictation, and if it is threaded through most functions, we should have some fun. One thing I would really miss if I did not opt for the new iPad is its improved camera, with its 5 megapixel sensor, advanced optics and photo-taking, editing and enhancing, organising and sharing features. Photography, of a kind, has really gone mainstream thanks to powerful cameras on phones, specially the iPhone, and online sharing like Facebook and Instagram, so it has finally got centerstage on the new iPad. However, if you have a good camera on your phone or a standalone, it may not be absolutely imperative for you to pay the higher price for the new iPad. What I definitely did not like is the Apple India site giving no sign that a new iPad had just been launched. For India, it's as if nothing happened on the 7th of March. While that may change in the near future — and we hope it does — it isn't a good feeling to not even merit a hint or two about whether we are on Apple's iPad map or not. mala at pobox dot com, @malabhargava on Twitter (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 19-03-2012)
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Every February, the GSM Association pulls together a big bash for anyone under the cellphone sun in an event we've come to know as Mobile World Congress. Hosted across eight different halls at the Fira de Barcelona — not to mention countless off-site locations — MWC plays host to the biggest phone announcements of the year. I take stock of the recently concluded MWC 2012 to bring you the key trends I've noticed coming out of this event.Camera's Are Back, Baby: Jaws dropped when Nokia unveiled the new 808 PureView, a phone with a 41-megapixel camera. Yes, no misprint there — the star of the show was a forty-unbelievable-one megapixel shooter from Nokia that allows you to never need optical zoom on a phone again — you simply zoom into the image since it's that detailed! Oddly enough, this may be the innovation that noone's going to buy, since the 808 is based on the older Symbian operating software that is rapidly falling out of favor even within Nokia. How about a PureView for your Windows Mobile devices, Nokia?Big, Bigger, Biggest: While Apple still pushes a 3.5-inch display in its devices, you'd be hard pressed at MWC to find a phone manufacturer who's not pushing displays that are at least an inch bigger, if not more. Forget the 5-inch Galaxy Note, Samsung launched a 10.1-inch version of the Note. Add that to LG's giant Optimus 4X HD and the Sony Xperia P's 4-inch screen, and it quickly becomes clear that smaller displays are so 2011. The effect isn't just to make the phone bigger — screens now stretch all the way to the edge, and the one phone launch conspicuous by its absence — the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy SIII — is set to do away with a border altogether. Time to stitch bigger pockets?Horsepower Is Everything: Remember how dual-cores processors dominated phones in 2011? If you want to be a contender in the smartphone game, it appears the bar has just been raised — it's either quad-core or nothing! MWC saw LG launching the Optimus 4X HD, which was followed in close succession by HTC's One X and ZTE's Era devices — all three share the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor in common. With quad-cores high on the spec list for 2012 phones, consumers can expect to see better performance in computing-intensive tasks such as full-motion video games. And finally, these processors also ship with low power modes to increase battery life – a common complaint on these monsterphones. The Tegra 3 for example packs an extra processor that can be used for simple everyday tasks such as phone calls, emails and music playback without sacrificing battery life. Genuine question to all phone makers though: with your phones packing quad-core chips, where are the entertainment apps meant to stress even today's dual-core phones?Android Is Everywhere: You can't throw a stone at Fira de Barcelona without it hitting a vendor with an Android offering. Google is everywhere and every major vendor, including LG, Samsung, Sony and Motorola, is offering Android-based handsets and tablets. Also interesting was that at CES 2012 just over a month prior, there was a near total lack of devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. MWC saw Android 4.0 everywhere, with every brand flaunting the newest software on board. Expect other operating systems like Windows Phone 7 to see more love next year.NFC: For a technology that's been around for a while now, NFC really hasn't had much of a showing in the cellphone segment, with Nokia and RIM making some noise about it every now and then. At Mobile World Congress, Acer, Huawei, LG, Nokia, Orange, Samsung and ZTE all announced smartphones that can come with NFC. Hopefully this will drive the consumer apps that can change consumer reception about NFC. Asus Padfone Cheaper Smartphones: While the big guns did get the lion's share of attention, there were also some interesting announcements in the "non-quad-core-5-inch-screen" category, i.e. the category for the rest of us who don't crave the latest and greatest (or simply cant afford to!). Nokia announced the Windows Phone-based Lumia 610, which at about $250 will give users the one of the lowest entry points to buy into the Windows Phone platform. Intel's also announced the 1GHz Z2000 processor which should drive cheaper smartphones in the next 12 months – having missed the bus on the mobile space, Intel would be more than eager to make up for lost ground, so expect interesting announcements in this space in the months to come.Convergence Or Oddity: Is the Galaxy Note 10.1 an oversized phone or a tablet with an identity-crisis? Whichever way you look at it, converged devices made a strong showing at MWC. The most interesting was the Asus Padfone, which is an Android smartphone that docks into a tablet (the Padfone Station). At Mobile World Congress Asus announced that the Padfone Station will also be able to dock into a keyboard just like the Eee Pad Transformer Prime. The keyboard dock essentially turns the phone into an ultraportable laptop and provides 9 times the original phone's battery. Think of the benefits — you carry essentially one device at all times, all your data is always synced (it's still one device powering the whole experience) and the form factor changes to meet your needs. Impressive, to say the least.iPad 3: Of course, Apple wasn't there at MWC, but the next iPad's shadow loomed over MWC, with just about every tablet maker trying to second-guess what Apple would do with the iPad, and beat them at that game. Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 10.1, a 10.1-inch tablet with a stylus that can be used to draw or write on the screen, while Asus had their Padfone. And just as Google's Eric Schmidt took the stage for the keynote, Apple dropped the bomb and announced the iPad launch event. Classic show-stealing tactic that had many industry watchers chuckling at the timing.technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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Six years. It's been that long since Sony first launched the PlayStation Portable that delivered console style gaming with a vast library of mini-disc format games that you could carry with you on the move. Cut to 2012, and portable gaming has changed, and how! With casual gaming ruling smartphone charts and tablets and phones pushing out enough pixels to be mean gaming machines themselves, just how much space is left for the seemingly anachronistic PlayStation Vita?Think of how much gaming firepower a premium smartphone packs in, and you realise the Vita isn't hugely portable by any modern standard. But it is sleek, I'll give it that, and the build of the device is sturdy enough to let the kids have a go at the new toy. You did buy it for them, didn't you? The curvy oval shape of the PSP returns, and this baby measures over 7 inches from end to end! It's a device that certainly won't go unnoticed – the massive 5-inch OLED display has seen to that. This is the kind of screen that elicits superlatives – not only is the touchscreen extremely responsive, but it pops with rich colors and gorgeous in-game details as well. Just as well, since the touchscreen is the primary method of input outside of games. Flanking the screen are the two analogue sticks, a camera plus the familiar D-pad and the traditional PlayStation buttons. Two analogue sticks are plenty fun during games, allowing far more accurate control, but they also stick out of the Vita's surface in a somewhat ungainly fashion. What's interesting is that Sony's kitted the Vita with a rear touchpad to allow you to interact with the console without crowding the screen with your fingers. It doesn't see too much use, but it has definite potential.Under the hood beats hardware that rival the best in the business, with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU and the PowerVR Series5XT SGXMP+ chip providing the processing and graphical chops to handle all of the Vita's launch titles with consummate ease. Pity that I didn't really take to the Vita's new menu system – while the large circular icons are easy to use, it just isn't fitting for a device packing such power. It almost comes across as…kiddish.But let's face it, the gaming is real reason you've read so far, isn't it? Among the 20+ launch titles, Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the clear star of the lineup, and playing it on the Vita feels very natural and involving, almost at a level comparable to the console version of this game. Some others are hit-and-miss, but you have to give it to the Vita for bringing a console-level experience to a handheld. Sure, the iPhone and iPad fare well, but their size — too small or too ungainly – becomes an issue for extended gameplay. The Vita nails it on this front. The pricing is a letdown though – at nearly Rs 20,000 for the base model and with games starting at Rs 2,199, not to mention pricey proprietary memory cards to extend memory, the Vita is a downright pricey proposition. Rating: 8/10Price: Rs 19,990 (Wi-Fi), Rs 24,990 (Wi-Fi + 3G)URL: http://bit.ly/wAHaYm Rectified And Reinvented If you're one of the many who snagged a PlayBook during its recent price drops, you're in luck. With the release of PlayBook OS 2.0, RIM has plugged a number of gaping holes in the PlayBook's portfolio and added some features that will breathe new life into the otherwise well-specced tablet. With 2.0, the PlayBook finally gets a calendar and email client integrated with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and the Bridge App that earlier let you sync up with your Blackberry contacts and email now adds remote control functionality, so you can control your tablet via Bluetooth from your Blackberry smartphone. Social integration with the new Calendar and Contacts apps is pretty neat as well. Perhaps the most vaunted feature in 2.0 is the inclusion of the integrated Android App Player for running ported apps from Android on the PlayBook. You get these apps from the App World just like other PlayBook apps, but for now, one can't really see too many well known Android apps. A good dose of Android apps could change the game for the PlayBook, and finally give this little power-packed tablet its due. URL: http://bit.ly/AzLZJl technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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The Best Camera Is The One That's With You"Most professional photographers know this maxim from ace photographer Chase Jarvis to be true, despite the several thousand dollar camera that's hanging off their shoulders. What good is a fancy digital SLR that's just too bulky to be around when you need it? More often than not, the camera most folks have most at hand isn't a point-and-shoot or a dSLR, but a smartphone, and with the likes of the Nokia N8 and the iPhone 4S, that's a pretty good camera to have at hand, if you ask me! Here are some tips that can help you make the most of the images you shoot from your smartphone camera.Light Is Right: The biggest downside of shooting with a smartphone is the teeny image sensor it packs in, and while some handle low light better, any smartphone could do with more light streaming in. When outdoors, shoot with the sun behind you as far as possible, and while indoors, keep the lights on and you're back to the windows (if open).Know Your (phone) Camera: Each smartphone behaves and responds differently when you click the shutter, and you should know your phone's shutter lag and account for it. Hold the camera steady until the picture has been captured, and if there's a dedicated camera button on your phone, use it – jabbing at the touchscreen will only shake your phone and blur your photo.Start Me Up: If your phone doesn't have a dedicated camera button that lets you start up your camera really quick, you're going to end up missing a whole number of Kodak moments. At the very least, ensure that the camera icon is right on your phone home screen so you're not digging around in app folders looking for the camera icon.Clean Your Lens: Phones spend their lives in grubby pockets, so give your lens a wipe before you start shooting. Obvious but rather easily forgotten advice.Ready, Steady…: Camera phones are especially prone to shake and blur. Try and keep a good, steady grip on your phone while shooting, or use a nearby wall or table as a makeshift brace. If you shoot often, you may want to consider a dedicated cell phone tripod such as the Gorilla mobile from Joby. Also check if your camera app comes with a stable shot setting – which uses your phone's accelerometer to measure how much you're shaking the camera, and won't snap the picture until your hand has been steady for a certain amount of time. Very handy!Follow The Rules: It may be a small camera, but common photography rules apply here as well. For example, the rule of thirds — dividing the frame into a 3x3 grid and placing the subject along one of the lines, rather than dead center — applies to shooting with cell phones too. See the difference it can make.Keep It Uncluttered: Your cell phone camera is easily overwhelmed with unnecessary detail that crops into a picture, a complicated background for example. Try to keep the background uncluttered so that the focus can remain on your subject. And since the phone is so compact, you can exploit its size by trying interesting angles that you couldn't possibly try with a dSLR. Give it a shot!Flash Is Your Friend: Most folks think of using the flash only in the evening, and it goes against conventional wisdom to use the flash in broad daylight. Not entirely. If your phone has a fill-flash function, you can use it in bright daylight to provide even lighting on your subjects, useful in cases when there is very harsh sunlight falling directly on your subject.Say No To Digital Zoom: I can't stress this enough. If you care about the details in your photos, don't use digital zoom. Instead, walk closer to the subject or use an image editor on your PC to zoom in later. Zoom with your feet, as they say.Find Your (soul)App: There are literally scores of apps you can install on most platforms that can enhance the final results of your photos, but you will have to experiment a bit (or a lot!) to find the app (or three) best suited for your taste. Apps like Photoshop, FxCamera and Instagram are great to start of with, though.Dig Into Settings: Most new phones allow you to tweak settings like white balance, ISO (sensitivity to light) or High Dynamic Range — try these out and remember to change them when you're taking the next shot. The improvement in detail and colors alone will be worth the planning!And finally, shoot, shoot and shoot — take tons of pictures. The more pictures you take, the better you'll get to know the strengths and weaknesses of your phone's camera. On The Steep Side The Xtreme in its name is about right, what with the radical X-shaped design that the JBL OnBeat Xtreme sports, not to mention a particularly heavy price-tag. So what do you get in an iPod/iPhone/iPad dock that costs almost as much as an entry-level iPad? A well-built dock that looks and plays the part with your Apple devices, and excellent audio performance, possibly the best I've heard from a dock when it comes to mid-ranges and the bass output. It also packs in Bluetooth music streaming capabilities and USB, aux in/out and video connectivity options. Though it has basic controls on the speaker itself, there's a remote that comes with the dock, but it's far too laggy for my liking. All in all, a comprehensive but pricey sound solution for your iDevices. Rating: 7/10Price: Rs 25,000URL: http://bit.ly/A89RjQ technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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