Nokia Lumia 710 Review

It's not a standout device, but it's not a bad one — and its price is just right.

The first of Nokia's new generation of smartphones isn't flashy and certainly isn't an iPhone killer. But it's a nice device, and at Rs 15,500 it's a bargain.

Nokia and Microsoft, erstwhile big players in the mobile market, have joined forces to get back in the game.

A little more than a year ago, Microsoft launched a new mobile operating system called Windows Phone 7 to replace its aging Windows Mobile software. Then last February, the world's largest phone manufacturer announced that it would abandon Symbian, its longtime smartphone-operating system, and adopt Windows Phone 7 in its place.

Windows Phone 7 devices have drawn little interest from consumers to date, but Microsoft hopes Nokia can help change that. The first Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices started hitting store shelves around the globe last fall and hit American shores earlier this month when T-Mobile began selling the Lumia 710.

I got an early glimpse at the Lumia 710 in October and wasn't impressed. But after getting to play with it over the past several weeks, I've warmed up to it. It's an easy-to-use, quick and light smartphone.

The first thing you'll notice about the Lumia 710 is that, in an age of jumbo-sized screens and elegant designs, it's a modest device. It's about the same size and shape as Apple's 2-year-old iPhone 3GS, with a similarly curved back and a plastic case.

I'm a big fan of phones of this size. They're easy to fit in a pocket or hold in your hand. While the Lumia 710's plastic case feels a bit cheap, it makes the device lighter.

At first glance, the Lumia's 710 technical specs don't match up well with the latest and greatest phones from Apple or Google's Android partners. It only has a single-core processor, with 512 megabytes of memory, just 8 gigabytes of storage and no memory card slot that would allow users to supplement its storage. By comparison, the latest Android smartphones have dual and even quad-core processors and the iPhone 4S has as much as 64-gigabytes of storage.

But this nominal difference means much less in practice. The Lumia 710 is fast and responsive. In my informal tests, it seemed to launch and switch between apps more quickly than many of the dual-core Android devices I've used. It also has stamina — I typically could use it a full day without it needing an extra charge.

The storage capacity limits the amount of music, movies, documents and apps you can keep on the device. But this limitation is mitigated by the additional 25 gigabytes of storage Microsoft offers Windows Phone 7 users on its servers in the cloud. Users can automatically store Office documents on the so-called SkyDrive and have their pictures and videos automatically uploaded to it.

One of the stronger points of the Lumia 710 is the Windows Phone 7 software. Compared with Android, Windows Phone 7 is generally a much more visually appealing and intuitive operating system. While I hesitate to recommend Android devices to those new to smartphones because of the operating system's complexity, I don't have the same reservations about Windows Phone 7. One exceptional feature of the software is its built-in Bing search application, which allows users to scan bar codes, identify music, find local events and search the Web and local business at the same time.

Unfortunately, other than Windows Phone 7, there's nothing terribly exciting about the Lumia 710. It doesn't have a front-facing camera or a speech-recognition system as sophisticated as the iPhone's Siri. It does have a rear-facing camera, but it's slow, does a poor job in low light and has a 5-megapixel resolution that is pedestrian and grainy by today's standards.

While I generally liked the Lumia's 710 physical design, I didn't like its buttons. I often had to press its power button several times to wake it up. Conversely, its camera button seemed overly sensitive; I frequently found myself in the camera app without wanting to be there.

But the biggest shortcoming of the Lumia 710 is, ironically enough, the same thing that is best about it — Windows Phone 7. While the software is easier and more fun to use than Android, it's lacking in apps and some capabilities.

Microsoft says there are now 50,000 apps available for Windows Phone 7, and you can find many of the most popular mobile programs for it. But you'll find 10 times as many apps for the iPhone and eight times as many for Android devices. Among the applications you can't get for Windows Phone 7 are Pandora, Instagram, the game "Infinity Blade" and, amazingly enough, Skype, which is also owned by Microsoft. But then again, looks like Microsoft has bigger plans of Skype with Windows Phone 8 Apollo.

Beyond the app gap, Windows Phone 7 also comes up short on Web browsing. A growing number of websites now use HTML5, the latest version of the code used to design Web pages and applications. Unfortunately, Windows Phone 7's Internet Explorer browser does a poor job of supporting HTML5 compared to the browsers in the iPhone and Android devices.

As a result, some buttons and pages won't work right, some videos won't play and some mobile-oriented sites won't load at all. The problems don't affect all sites but are frustrating when you encounter them.

Despite such issues, the Lumia 710 is well worth considering. It's not a standout device, but it's not a bad one — and its price is just right.

-HT

Your deleted facebook pics remain accessible

It may come as a rude shock, but Facebook users should not feel surprised if tomorrow they come across their photos existing in the web world despite having deleted them personally long ago.

The photos do not disappear even after they are deleted but can still be accessed by anyone with a link to the images themselves. The company admits that its systems "do not always delete images in a reasonable period of time", the Daily Mail reported.

Deleted images vanish from 'normal' views of the site, meaning if you log in to Facebook and look on somebody's photo page, they won't be visible. But they would still remain visible to anyone with a direct URL link to the picture.

That means that if, for instance, a picture has been circulated by email, the image will still be there for anyone who clicks the link.

-IANS

Pedestrian detector to make roads safer

A new system using two cameras and a processing unit can detect pedestrians in less than 200 milliseconds, allowing it to quickly respond to unsafe situations in real time

A team of German researchers, with the help of a lecturer at the University of Alcala (Spain), has developed a system that locates pedestrians in front of the vehicle using artificial vision.

Soon to be integrated into the top-of-the-range Mercedes vehicles, the device includes two cameras and a unit that process information supplied in real time.

“The new system can detect pedestrians from within vehicles using visible spectrum cameras and can do so even at night”, tells David Fernandez Llorca, of the University of Alcala.

Along with other scientists from the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the researcher was involved in the new development for the prototypes of the company Daimler.

The study has been published in the IEEE journal Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

Watching the road

The device uses of a dense stereo system. The term ‘stereo’ refers to the use of two cameras, which are 30 cm apart in a structure below the rear-view mirror. “Human beings are able to make out the distance and depth of objects thanks to our two eyes - the same occurs with artificial vision,” states the researcher.

“The system is called ‘dense’ because it collects this information from all the points making up each one of the images that the cameras capture,” said Fernández Llorca. When information is collected from just some points, whether they may be very characteristic (like the edges or corners of an object), the term ‘non-dense’ is used.

Dense stereo vision allows for a much more precise real time recognition of the surroundings in front of the vehicle (the shape of the road, the presence of pot holes and variations in contact between the vehicle and the road). Pedestrian recognition is improved compared to non-dense systems included animate objects can be detected in less that 200 milliseconds, like a child who suddenly runs across the road.

How it Works

The two cameras are connected to a processing unit that executes the artificial vision algorithm. The complex hardware has taken years to develop. Images can be seen live on a screen with ‘heads-up displays’ (front transparent screen) or through projections on the inner side of the windscreen. 

Different response elements can also be added to warn or assist the driver. These include alarms that warn of the presence of a pedestrian, break activation systems and even devices that take control of the wheel to avoid knocking someone down.

“It is possible that we will see this pedestrian recognition system very shortly in the new, top-of-the-range Mercedes models,” says Fernandez Llorca.

Other manufacturers like Toyota have also announced that they will soon launch pedestrian detection stereo systems onto the market.

-Mumbai Mirror

Hungry kya? Tweet online!

Are you hungry yet too lazy to go out, or have no one to go out with? Just enter Twitter, find your favourite outlet and tweet your order! Yes,Mumbaikars have got another opportunity to rejoice as ordering food has become even more easier.

Food outlets like Faasos have triggered off a new trend in the food industry with order on Twitter initiative — which means a customer can place their order on the social networking site and have their food delivered in no time with an update and confirmation tweet. This concept helps both the parties. The food joint gets feedback in terms of suggestions and criticisms. It also gets to do a survey of the customers on their overall experience. A customer, on the other hand, can directly tweet complaints and expect instant response from the management.

Faasos is a fast food outlet serving wraps and tikkas, with an aim to combine Indian taste and western customer service. Says JaydeepBarman, co-owner of of the outlet, “This concept of ordering your food via Twitter is a great way to connect with the younger and busier Mumbaikars, by tapping into the potential of social media.”

Another food joint following the trend is Mad Orders, late night food caterers. They provide food from burgers, rolls, pav bhajis to pizzas. If you yearn for simple home-cooked food then Western Mumbai has got Green Veggies, the tiffin service provider, who also swear by the social networking site. One can also add Rush Hrs, another fast food joint, that follows the same concept.

Social networking sites are now the trendiest places to be amid youngsters, so it doesn’t come as a surprise as the concept has picked up so fast especially among the young generation.

-DNA

Now, new app tells who 'unfriended' you on Facebook

A new tool on Facebook now allows users to see if someone on their friends list has 'unfriended' them, or has ignored their friend request.

The software 'Unfriend Finder', which can be installed in almost any Internet browser, has been a huge hit worldwide and has been downloaded nearly 44 million times.

After dowloding this new tool, users see a red counter in their menu bar which comes up '-1' the second someone unfriends them, a dig at Facebook's logo for adding friends, which is a '+1'.

Till now, Facebook itself did not alert people when somebody clicked to 'unfriend' someone.

According to The Daily Mail, Unfriend Finder's page said, 'Unfriends are people who were previously your friend but have either deactivated their account or have removed you from their friend list.'

'Unfriend Finder makes identifying unfriends easy by displaying a red counter in the menubar with the amount of unfriends you have. Unfriend Finder will also tell you people you have requested friendship with and who has declined your friend request," the site said.

"Unfriend Finder makes identifying unfriends easy by displaying a red counter in the menubar with the amount of unfriends you have," it added.

The script works in browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, and can be downloaded for free from the official site.

-ANI

Social media harder to resist than alcohol and cigarettes

Checking email and social media is more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol, a new study has confirmed.

A team from Chicago University’s Booth Business School conducted an experiment using BlackBerry devices to test the will power of 205 people between the ages of 18 and 85 in the German city of Wurtzburg.

Participants were asked seven times a day over the course of a week to identify desires they were experiencing and the strength of said desires.

The team sifted through thousands of responses and came up with some telling results.

Though the need for sleep and leisure topped the list of “self-control failure rates”, checking in with social media, email and work came ahead of the urge to have a Camel Light, while sipping on that glass of 12-year single malt scotch.

“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” the Discovery News quoted lead researcher Wilhelm Hofmann as telling the Guardian.

“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs -- long-term as well as monetary -- and the opportunity may not always be the right one.

“So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time,” Hofmann added.

-ANI

Summon a cab from your mobile

The Hailo app lets you summon a cab from your mobile

Free; Android and iOS

Kabbee and Hailo are both excellent new mobile apps that let you summon a taxi from your phone, and mini-cab firm Addison Lee also offer an good rival too.

The idea is simple: rather than stand on the street and wait for a passing taxi, summon one from a map showing how far away registered drivers are from you.

Of course, the best use is to ‘hail’ your cab before your actually standing on the street, because that means you’re not faced with the dilemma of waiting for the one you’ve hailed electronically or grab the one you can see in front of you as it happens to drive past.

The real genius of Hailo (and Kabbee) however, is that you can pay by card for all cab journeys, which means running to a cash point should be a thing of the past. Perhaps most surprisingly, however, the cabs you summon electronically really do turn up, presumably because driving to a guaranteed job is more attractive than crusing the streets of central London looking for business.

Unfortunately, not all cabs are registered with a single service, but that is something that’s likely to sort itself out in time. What will remain unanswered, however, is why more drivers weren't already taking card payments.

-Telegraph