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Two new add-ons to Google Latitude

Two more simple but useful add-ons to google maps + latitude are available now. Google latitude allows its users to share their current location from their mobile devices with his/her friends. So far, it was only possible to share your location with other latitude users. Latitude has gone beyond that point now.


Recently, Google has launched two add-ons to latitude service that allow users to:

1. Share their current location on their google talk (Google Talk Location Status (beta))
2. Share their current location with the whole world in form of an embeddable tag that users can use on blogs, discussion groups or put on their websites etc.(Google Public Location Badge)



The simple tool changes your Google talk status to your current location. For that you have to: 
1. Install and run Google Maps and Latitude on your mobile.
2. Login using your google account on latitude on your mobile
3. Go to the add-in’s site.
4. Enable sharing

That’s it, you are done.

Following video shows you exactly how to do that…




If you are already using latitude to share your location with friends, you can simply go to this Public Location Badge site and enable sharing. This will give you the embed code that you can put in your site/forum/blog and display your location to the world. Following videos shows how:


Windows 7 RC is ready!

Windows 7 beta has been available for download on Microsoft website for both 32 bit and 64 bit systems. For a beta version, it has been an amazing product with efficiency, stability, usability and compatibility being the most important features for me.

Microsoft has just announced the release candidate of Windows 7. Windows 7 RC became available for MSDN subscribers on April 30th and will be available for download for general public on 5th May. According to a newsletter Microsoft sent to its beta testers including myself, this RC will continue to be available for download till end of June. 
Visit Windows 7 website for further information or simply start your download from the Windows 7 download page.

Give your Blackberry a new look and feel – How to wash your Blackberry’s pearl?

It is very common for Blackberry users to experience trackball problems. Trackball is a common feature of several Blackberry models like Blackberry Bold, Curve 8900, Curve 8300 series, Pearl and 8800 series as well. Like a normal ball-based mouse on your computer, the pearl also needs cleaning to give you precise working. Moreover, the trackball gets so dirty that it looks ugly.
The ugly dirty trackball on curve 8310
I’ll show you today, how I cleaned my Blackberry’s pearl today to make it look new and work great. 
Step 1: use a pointed thing like a small flat screw-driver, a knife or just your nail to pull out the steel ring around the pearl. It will pop out easily.
Step 2: Gently remove the pearl along with the white casing holding the trackball. That leaves the phone look like this:
Step 3: I took the ball and washed it with water and soap along with my hands. No special washing tricks except, don’t drop it in the sink 🙂 . Make sure you wash away all the soap. Don’t keep the ball in water for too long.

Step 4: Wipe off the water and preferably use a hair dryer or blower to dry the pearl. No water should be left on it when you put it back in.
Step 5: Place the pearl back in the device like this:

Step-6: Place the metallic ring around the pearl and press it gently back to its original position.
Step 7: Enjoy the beautiful, clean and shining pearl of your Blackberry that works like a charm! Enjoy!
Note: Try it on your own risk. Dont blame me if you berak your device!

Mobile Payments made simple – Nokia and Etisalat team-up to make it happen in Middle East!

Nokia and Etisalat have announced a collaboration that will allow Nokia to provide advance Internet services to Nokia users in the region. Etisalat will provide a convenient means of payment to Nokia users willing to subscribe to paid Nokia services. As a first step, Nokia users will be able to purchase games on Nokia’s N-Gage platform and pay for Ovi-Maps services. The purchases will be made over the air and Etisalat will charge the amount to the customer’s bill. This is a very convenient and safe option as opposed to the use of Credit cards and other similar payment options. UAE will be the first country from the region to offer this service in Q2 2009.

This is very interesting to mention here that if you can use this service to pay for mobile applications, games and services, you can use it for other payments as well. For example, you can use the same mechanism for sending gifts to friends, you can use it for buying items at grocery stores or paying other utility bills, and everything is eventually charged to your monthly Etisalat bill.

In Pakistan, Etisalat is holding shares in PTCL and a similar payment model has been in place in the country for payments of PTCL DSL service and IP TV subscription. Those who subscribe to DSL or IP TV, the subscriptions are billed to the customers in their monthly phone bill. I would love to make other payments in the same way if it adds the luxury of convenience to the payment process.

Widsets no more, its Nokia Ovi store

First Mosh and now Widsets, merge and become Ovi store. Ovi store is Nokia’s application store that hosts applications, games, themes, content and more for Nokia S60 and S40 devices. Widsets has been an application that allows users to download and add widgets that eventually run inside widsets application. Widsets has no doubt been very popular at least as an rss reader and content delivery platform for mobile users. This move of merging Widsets into Ovi store will definitely give Ovi-store a head start and alot of users will migrate from widsets to Ovi-store. Following apple store’s success story, a big number of mobile app stores have sprung up including Ovi and Blackberry store. The transition from widsets to ovi-store will take a month or so to complete and from 1st June, widsets users will lose their current accounts and they will have to sign-up for ovi accounts.

Nokia Sales down by more than 25% in Q1 2009


Nokia is one of the most popular brands in the world. I have read so many articles saying that cell-phones sales will not be affected by the current economic condition but I continued to differ. Here comes the proof. The cell phone giants overall sales have been adversely affected.

Nokia’s Q1 results show significant reduction in sales not only compared to Q4 2008, but even compared to Q1 2008 as well. You can find the details in this press release.

Your necklace pendant is your sixth sense!

The day is not far when we all will have an option of wearing this small gadget that will truly change our lives forever by adding this sixth sense. Sixth Sense is basically a computing system, just like our personal computers but its very different in the way you use it. Its a combination of a camera, mini-projector and a cell-phone in your pocket. The system can observe whatever you come across, processes the information over the Internet and can present you with results, suggesting and helping you in making day to day decisions.

Basic computers take input from input devices like keyboard, process it and give output onto a screen. Sixth sense takes input from a camera hanging to your neck band, that looks at things around you and takes commands from your hand-gestures. This information captured via camera is processed in the cell-phone and can be sent to the internet for further processing/information extraction and the results are eventually projected out using the projector, may be on the nearby wall or on something that you hold.

This is more than a month old video but if you have’nt heard about sixth sense as yet, it is bound to drop your jaw instantly!!

Nokia Photo Browser is available for non-touchscreen versions


Nokia Photo Browser is a fun photo viewer more commonly known to be associated with Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It allows you to fly over a plethora of 3d arrangement of photos in your phone, that are mostly taken by you, yourself. Its a product of Nokia beta labs and they’re not sure what to do with it as yet but I’m sure it can easily replace the basic gallery of upcoming S60 nokias. You can view photos, fly over to browse thumbnails, open them up and the photo rotation is very quick when you rotate your phone (obviously utilizing accelerometer) and most interesting of all, it has face detection too. You can detect faces within a group photo and auto-jump face to face. Well, it works pretty well on my N82.

Limitations as discussed on Darla’s blog , it was initially targeted only for Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic edition, but now its a good news for me. It is available for several other S60 phones. Obviously the touch-zoom functionality is not available with non-touchscreen phones. So simply go to Nokia beta labs site and download it on your Nokia. (Compatibility list is available on the same linke.)