Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

Samsung Electronics new Co. has unveiled a mobile phone that features some of the sleek design and functions of Apple Inc.’s much-hyped iPhone . Samsung’s Ultra Smart F700 will be exhibited at next week’s 3GSM World Congress, a telecommunications exhibition in Barcelona, Samsung spokeswoman Sonia Kim said on Friday. (AFP) M ? usic firm EMI Group PLC has been talking with online retailers about possibly selling its entire digital music catalogue in MP3 format without copy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing numerous people familiar with the matter. (AFP) ? A stelephones and mobile picture-taking digital movie cameras grow ubiquitous, Internet users worldwide are being recruited as citizen news reporters. In December, Yahoo launched YouWitnessNews, a website that posts offerings from users after the submissions pass muster with pro fessional editors.

UMTS Forum, an international body that promotes uptake of UMTS technology for the roll out of 3G mobile telephony is planning to write a letter to telecom department asking it to reject the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or Trai’s recommendations on the auction of 3G spectrum. Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) chairman Jean-Pierre Bienaime said that the Indian government should avoid the auction of the 3G spectrum and the high base price recommended by Trai. “Government should prevent the initial investors from being overburdened and instead of auction government should follow the path of entry price with beauty contest,” Mr Bienaime told this newspaper. Mr Bienaime said that the bad example of auction of 3G spectrum followed in the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands resulted in high price of 3G spectrum and this jeopardised the profitability of 3G telephony. “Instead government should follow the example of France where the midd

Cell phone users seeking more computing power for mobile online activities but wary of clunky laptops have a new option: the Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC). Built-in Bluetooth wireless technology makes agopc's 1.87 lb. ago7 capable of using any Bluetooth-ready, EDGE- or EV-DO-networked cell phone to make an Internet connection. “Our lightweight ago7 UMPC is ideally suited to using ‘phone as modem,’ or PAM,” says agopc president and CEO David Carroll, in a posting on the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company’s web site. agopc has posted a one-page setup guide entitled “Using Your ago7 and PAM” on their website,www.agopc.com (linked from the “Buy/Specs” page). ago7 has two USB ports, either of which could be used to communicate with a cell phone’s data network via USB cable. “Using both Bluetooth wireless and USB cables, the agopc team has extensively field-tested EDGE and EV-DO networked phones,” Mr. Carroll says. “All phone tests with the ago7 worked well and provided conveni