Apple Introduces the iPhone

Steve Jobs was on stage at Macworld 2007 just some time ago and he officially introduced the iPhone that everyone has been yearning for for years.



The iPhone is being described as a widescreen, touch-controlled iPod, a mobile phone and an ‘internet communicator’, all rolled into one device.

The iPhone runs a version of OS X, allowing for full fledged apps to be created for the phone, rather than the limited versions of other mobile phone applications.



The iPhone is a fully touch screen device with no keys at all or even a stylus. The screen is a large, 3.5cm one with a high resolution. It uses Apple’s new, patented ‘multi-touch’ input method that supposedly prevents any accidental touches or presses, boasting of a new level of accuracy with touch input.



When required, a full QWERTY keypad is displayed on the screen, similar to Windows Mobile or Symbian UIQ phones, but this one supposedly is easier to type on, automatically eliminating any mistakes you may make from typing.



The iPhone has interesting features such as iTunes’ CoverFlow running on the phone in widescreen mode. It can play not only music, but also videos and photos. Photos can be zoomed in or out by using finger gestures such as moving them closer together or away from each other.

The device seems a little large in the hands, but it’s ultra slim at just 11.6mm, which is thinner than the RAZR. It comes with a standard 3.5mm stereo headphones jack and a built-in speaker. It has the iPod connector to sync with iTunes on the PC or Mac. It will come with a wired, stereo headset and also a Bluetooth headset.

The iPhone also has a 2 megapixel digital camera built into the device.

There’s a choice of 4GB or 8GB of space available on the iPhone to use. There is no option of adding any extra memory via memory card slots.

The iPhone is a quad-band GSM device with EDGE support. Unfortunately, there is no 3G/WCDMA support, which would have been expected of a device being touted as ‘revolutionary’. It also runs Safari, the web browser, for full HTML support. The phone comes with Google Maps built-in.

Email is covered by a POP3/IMAP client. They’ve mentioned support for Microsoft Exchange as well, but that may just be over IMAP. Yahoo will be providing free push-IMAP email to iPhone customers, giving them BlackBerry-like features.

Personal and local connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi support.

The device is expected to offer around 5 hours of talk time and 16 hours of music playback time.

The iPhone will be available this June, exclusively on Cingular in the US. The 4GB version will cost $499 (Rs. 22,500) and the 8GB version will cost $599 (Rs. 26,700).

Google, Indian Police Combat Orkut Offenders

The recent controversy surrounding social networking site, Orkut has prompted parent company, Google, to work towards making it safer and friendlier for Indian users. Google has assigned a team from its headquarters, to work closely with the Delhi Cyber crime investigation cell. A Google spokesperson has confirmed the initiative and revealed that the team will be meeting the police from various Indian states, to develop a special 'reporting tool' for Indian authorities.

The spokesperson said, “We take the misuse of Orkut very seriously and are reaching out to the appropriate authorities in India to address this." The initiative is directed towards supporting the law enforcement authorities in their investigation against Orkut and Gmail abusers.

This reporting tool will enable the police to have a direct line of contact with Google, to remove objectionable material or aid in investigation and prosecution. The spokesperson elaborated that this new reporting tool will not affect the way Google treats users' data. Authorities will be required to follow the standard legal process in order to get user-identifying information from Google, but the tool will offer a faster, direct communication between Google and Indian authorities.

The spokesperson said, "Orkut is a community website, so we take the obligations set forth in the Community Standards seriously. We want to foster an environment in which users feel safe, as well as free to speak and interact. Criminals cannot hide behind privacy and use the service for illegal purposes. We will balance all requests with the interests of our users. When we learn about violations, we review and take the necessary actions, which can include removal of the inappropriate content. We have done in many cases, and will continue to do so. That said, we believe that the Internet should be a place that allows and encourages free expression, including controversial and unpopular ideas and opinions."

In response to the recent controversy regarding the Shivaji Community, which caused an uproar in Maharashtra, the Google spokesperson said, "We reviewed the community and have removed it, as it violated our community standards. The case for 'We hate India' community is sub-judice and we cannot provide any comments on the case or the proceedings of the case. We respect the authorities in India and are committed to working with them."

When asked if Google is working on any special filter to weed out objectionable content from the site, Google says it has implemented numerous tools to receive, handle and respond to complaints about content on Orkut. "At the same time, we put a certain amount of trust in our users to notify us of violations; the energy and attention of the Orkut community has proven to be very effective in identifying and reporting inappropriate activity. Orkut users can report content to our reviewers by clicking the 'report as bogus' button. There are also tools for community owners to delete posts or topics, ban users and delete anonymous posts."

YouTube Back in Brazil, Sans Steamy Video

Brazil has lifted the ban on video sharing site, YouTube.com, after a Brazilian court reversed its decision to block the site in the country. The Brazilian court had previously asked all internet service providers to block YouTube, after famous Brazilian model Daniela Cicarelli's sex video was posted on the site . The judge had demanded that the site be blocked off until the objectionable video was pulled down.

Judge Enio Santarelli Zulianio has now revised his ruling and allow internet service providers to reestablish access to the site, but only on the condition that YouTube permanently removes the particular sex video, which was the most viewed video in Brazil for days last year. However, technology experts say that getting rid of the video entirely, is difficult because users can repost it under different titles, which may be tough to track down.

Cicarelli and boyfriend Renato Malzoni, had filed a lawsuit last year, to force YouTube to take the video down and demanded $116,000 in damages for each day the video remained. The case dragged on for several months so Malzoni filed a third suit in December requesting that YouTube be shut down as long as the video is available to users.