Now it is not a secret anymore that Firefox rules the Browser pie.

And Axiis have produced an awesome flash interactive pie chart of the browser share of Firefox, Chrome, IE 6/7 and all the other browsers from Jan 2002 onwards. You just need to move over your mouse to see the respective browser share from Jan 2002 to Aug 2009. Go to the link below and have a go.

Axiis – Browser Share Pie

Chinese manufacturers Lenovo revealed their Android based Mobile – The LePhone at the current CES at Las Vegas. It is the first smartphone from the manufacturer and it definitely is dressed to impress. An AMOLED 3.7″ screen with 800X480 touchscreen and merely 12mm thick and 60mm wide. The LePhone also comes loaded with Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS support.

On the pro side, this phone has some awesome features of its own which is completely different from the Android 2.0 version it houses. The UI is absolutely different, and on-screen widgets and a very Palm Pre Web-OS-esque card view task manager. The applications menu is definitely inspired by the Apple iPhone, although the icons are all circular.

The homescreen brings forward an array of options for contacting your contacts – via. a mobile call, email, IM or text in a pretty flower design.

The accessory that houses the keyboard is a dock for charging and is ideal for making conference calls. It has dual cameras ideal for video chats, and the rear one is a 3mp.

It also has a Snapdragon Processor similar to the Google Nexus One.

On the down side, this phone does not support Android’s marketplace.

No news about the international date of launch in the US,UK or anywhere else. Currently, Lenovo plans to launch it first in China.

Have a look at the Crunchgear CES hands on video after the jump and get ready to be impressed. And also a bonus video courtesy Mobileburn. Also lots of LePhone glamour photos for your viewing pleasure.

CrunchGear Hands On Video:

Mobileburn: Lenovo LePhone demo:

Glamour Shots of the Lenovo LePhone:

I know I am being a bit nasty to say this, but for all tech lovers who have been following tech headlines for the last couple of months, we have certainly seen a loss of interest for the Apple iPhone. And why is that? Primarily because iPhone’s 3GS has not been revolutionary in terms of the differences between the 3GS and its predecessors [ of course a better processor and video camera were included]. And add to that, the surging popularity of the Android family backed by HTC’s range and Motorola’s Milestone/Droid did not help much to the iPhone camp.

2010 does not look good for iPhone either. All the focus from Cupertino seems to be static on the rumored Apple tablet -iTablet or iSlate. There has been a sort of a tradition followed at Apple, the announcement of a new version of iPhone every year: 2007 -iPhone released. 2008 -2nd Generation, and 2009-3GS. But 2010 is looking quite hazy in terms of what new can the iPhone offer.

The appstore of the iPhone has already touched the 100,000 mark. But with such huge quantity, there comes the risk of becoming static in terms of growth and expansion. The big question that faces Apple is what more can the iPhone offer?

The Android Alliance with players like HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericcson in the bandwagon certainly poses as the future of smartphones. And with consumer-friendly price tags for some of the phones [ HTC Tattoo, T-Mobile Pulse], owning a smartphone couldn’t have been easier and cheaper. The Android is also fast catching up in terms of developers community making a range of applications. And with HTC’s announcement of 2010′s range of new Android phones, iPhone could soon be facing a big challenge to sustain its domination of the smartphone market.

Here’s wishing iPhone a quick and speedy recovery.

I have been on a smartphone hunt for quite some time now. The basic feature that I am looking for in a smartphone is of a touchscreen phone with the flexibility of adding apps – 3rd party Apps. Apart from the extremely popular iPhone which happens to come in a repulsively expensive deal here in the UK, there are the other iPhone alternatives. So, in this section of Smartphone Hunt we will be analysing the iPhone alternatives one by one. And the biggest iPhone alternative in today’s mobile market is the family of Android phones.

Motorola’s latest offering in the Android phone section is the Motorola Droid known as Motorola Milestone in Europe. But throughout this review we’ll be referring to it as Droid [ coz it's easy]. While it is still to be seen where the Droid lands up with which carrier in the UK [ No one has confirmed it yet - though O2, 3 and T-mobile have backed out. Possible carriers could be either of Vodafone or Orange]. Here is a quick review of the different features that the Droid offers and we’ll finally decide if it is worth buying it or not.

To begin with, let’s have a close look at the aesthetic side of the model. It is black and well-built. The finish on the back and the body overall seems top notch. However, I am NOT looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard. Because it is a touchscreen phone, I believe it only adds to the weight of the model. Also, the huge D-pad on the right of the keyboard is just unnecessary. It is a touchscreen for Christ sake. If I wanted to navigate, I would use the touchscreen. Why add a humongous D-pad and instead cramp up the key spacing in the keyboard. Bad choice of design.

The screensize is 3.7 inches, which is greater than that of the iPhone and at 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the display is for sure one of the strong points of the Droid. So it will be a breeze when it comes to viewing websites [ even those only suitable for viewing on a PC monitor] or DVD quality movies. And like other touchscreen surfaces, it is a fingerprint magnet. I want someone to come up with an innovative solution to this.

One of the other strong points that comes with the Droid is that it releases with the latest Android release 2.0 – Eclair. From the early look of the Eclair, the UI is snazzy and easy to navigate. While the US version lacks multi-touch, the Europe version – Milestone has multi-touch. As for other smartphone features like multi-tasking [ you know like searching while on call etc], or voice-recognition and even the most essential feature of making calls, the Droid scores well on all these grounds.

And now for the cream. Motorola Droid is the only phone right now to feature Android 2.0. And with it, it offers Google Maps Navigation which offers 3D street view. As for the camera, it’s a 5MP camera offering a maximum of 2592 x 1936 pixels of resolution and clubbed with 16GB of extensible memory [Micro SD card], you have a digital camera ready to take quite good snaps. It has 4X digital zoom with image stabilization and also a flash. Video capturing is done at 720X480 resolution at 24fps. And of course, since Android offers facilities to upload on YouTube or Facebook etc, media sharing is going to be a breeze.

Most importantly, it has 3.5 mm headphone jack and so it can fit your favourite set of earphones or headphones to enjoy music. And the best thing about media syncing is that there is no iTunes with this one.

On the hardware end – the battery life that the Droid offers is 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby. This should be more than enough for normal users like me who use Wi-Fi, a few apps – like the media player and maybe maps sometime. And I am not one of those who are on the phone 24/7. With a processor speed od 550 MHz, the Droid is certainly a powerful piece of machinery. The question is however, how much will all of this cost.

There are no answers of who is going to be the carrier of the Droid in the UK yet.

My only problem with the Droid is the keyboard and the large D-pad. But given the many features that the Droid provides, it surely can justify to be a good buy. Unless it sports a ridiculous price tag, I guess, this is the Android phone to beat, as of now. Until maybe, the Acer Liquid takes off. More on the Acer Liquid later. For now, let me know in the comments what do you think about the Droid/ Milestone. Cheerio!

The announcement of a new operating System from Google called the Google ChromeOS came as no surprise to me as an OS from Google had been long expected. The rumors had been doing the rounds – remember the gOS which was mistaken for the Google OS. Well, it never really took off. Wonder if any single PC right now is running the gOS. And then, Google launched the mobile OS – Android. And for a long time, people believed that it was the Google OS which people expected. And now, in the recent announcement [ Read: Introducing the Google Chrome OS ], GOOG has made it official, that come next year[ a vague dateline of second half, next year] Google’s new OS – Chrome will be released for users. And yes, it will be opensource, free, lightweight and is initially going to be targeted at netbooks.

So what does this mean to me and you? What does it mean to Microsoft/Windows XP-Vista-7 users, Apple/MacOSX users and Linux users? Is all the buzz and hoopla worth it? Let’s deal with them one by one.

a) Google Chrome OS is Chrome extended :

It has worked for the browser- which is clean, clutter free, simple, fast, instant start-up, reliable and lightweight. Going by the name, ChromeOS is aimed at replicating all of these features. From what we get from Google’s release post, it is indicated that the user interface will be kept extremely simple, and most of the user experience will take place on the web.Now that raises certain eyebrows and questions about the user experience in an offline environment. We have yet to see any demos and exact feel of how the OS is going to look like, so its a bit early to comment further on this.

Also – Chrome OS is not Android + :
Android is for mobiles. ChromeOS is for Netbooks. Chrome OS is designed to cater to people who spend a lot of their time online, and hence the obvious choice of Netbooks. However, Chrome OS will aslo be able to run on desktop systems as well.

b) So what is new with this Chrome thing?

For people who just can’t wait for PCs to boot up, browsers to open and get ready in a total of almost 2 minutes;
For people who are just way too careless to not backup their important files;
For people who do not want constant software updates or struggle with compatibility issues – there comes the Chrome to save the day. Or does it? We’ll get to know it next year. The vision is to accomplish all of the above mentioned things, and also redesign the security architecture of the OS to fight back malwares and viruses more efficiently.

c) Should Microsoft be worried?

11 million netbooks were sold last year. By 2013 this figure would reach 39 million. The PCs and Laptops market will be 400 million – which is almost 10 times the size. So, if Chrome OS is just aimed at the Netbook segment , there is just way too much room for Windows and Linux and Mac OS.
Also, if Chrome OS is aimed at Netbook users, will the UI be appealing enough? We have to accept the fact that with time, we have all kinda got accustomed to the whole taskbar with a start button, thanks to Windows. We have seen that in different shapes and sizes – Finder and Dock on the Mac, and similar stuff on the Linux flavours. One of my major concerns is how the UI going to be? If it is going to be entirely web based – in a form which is going to resemble the browser, will user adaptability be considered? And hence, I don’t see Google Chrome OS posing any form of threat to Windows or Microsoft.

d) I know its just aimed at being Anti-Microsoft, but how?

Its opensource, its free, and its aimed at the next – rising market of computer users. Windows don’t seem to be offering any free OS in recent future. Windows XP running on Netbooks, was originally designed for Pentium IIIs and above. But the Chrome OS is designed to run on even x86 and ARM chips. The way to go for Chrome OS to get this done by next year is that they are going full on with the project, releasing it to the open source developers community. The source code will be released by the end of this year.

Quoting from Techcrunch’s post [ Read: Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome.]

Google says the software architecture will basically be the current Chrome browser running inside “a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.” So in other words, it basically is the web as an OS. And applications developers will develop for it just as they would on the web. This is similar to the approach Palm has taken with its new webOS for the Palm Pre, but Google notes that any app developed for Google Chrome OS will work in any standards-compliant browser on any OS.What Google is doing is not recreating a new kind of OS, they’re creating the best way to not need one at all.

e) The big difference between Chrome OS and others:

This will be evident more when we get other technologies worked up alongside to truly reveal all the details. I am talking about HTML5, OpenVideo and most importantly Google Wave. All these clubbed with the Chrome OS could be something to watch out. The web-apps section is what Chrome OS will be aiming at to hit it big. So, Google Docs, Calendar, GMail, GTalk, ZOHO, Chrome, Labs, Google Wave, HTML 5 – is that what Google Chrome OS will look like?
What remains is a media player. But if we are talking of having everything online, then possibly a YouTube feature makes more sense, given that it is owned by Google as well. And not to forget Twitter, Facebook and other Social Networking apps. So, will that please us? We at Techkeyla will keep a close watch.

Also Read:

Google Chrome: Redefining The Operating System

Why Chrome OS Now? Because Microsoft Office In The Cloud Comes Monday.

Chrome OS Partners: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments

Why Google’s Chrome OS Bomb Has Minimal Fallout On Apple

Why we need to chill about ChromeOS

For all the Bloggers blogging across multiple platforms viz. WordPress, Movable, Blogger etc. it’s gonna be very easy now to switch their data from one platform to another. Thanks to the new OpenSource project from Google known as the Google Blog Converter, bloggers can use it to move their posts from platform to platform.

Here is the official post announcement of the arrival of the Google Blog Converter 1.0 on the Google OpenSource Blog. Supported platforms are LiveJournal, Movable, Blogger and WordPress. The project will still continue to support more platforms. Google has also released templates for hosting the conversions on the Google App Engine. 

Here are a few examples hosted on the Google App Engine. 

Blogger to WordPress

WordPress to Blogger

LiveJournal to Blogger

However, there is a catch. 

There is a limit to the size of a downloaded file on appspot.com of 1 MB of data. Thus, these hosted applications should only be used for reference or for the conversion of small blog export files. The source code is available . Cheers Bloggers and WordPress Bloggers and the others !

The Finnish Mobile Giant is inviting innovators from all over the world to take part in the Innovators Contest 2008. Visit the Official Website here, to enter and apply for the contest.

The contest is looking for innovators to develop mobile applications which solve or tackle problems in three major areas. They are:-

Eco-Challenge: This is a challenge for innovators to develop mobile applications which have direct or indirect connection with keeping the environment safe and working towards a greener earth. So be it from from reminding of battery charging, or energy conservation applications or recycling tips, this section of applications will be something to look forward to.

Emerging Markets: This set of applications are supposed to be aimed at the next billion mobile users. The mobile phone is never the same old black and white screened thing which used to make just calls on the go. It is a PMP, a Camera, a Personal Organizer, a Calculator and so much more. And with emerging competition (read Apple and other smartphones) what would/should the Mobile Giant’s next generation of Billion phones possess to carry on the legacy of being the world leader. This section will definitely see the peak of innovation explored and exploited.

Technology Showcase: The name says it all. The criteria here would be-How Cool you could get! That’s it.

Check out the official rules and regulations here on the Nokia Page. And Happy innovating.

Firefox is what I say is D-Best browser around, and it is my weapon of choice to surf through the Internet. GMail is my preferred (read only visited) mail service. And just when I thought things couldn’t be better, these guys have proved me wrong, yet again. Imagine a world where GMail and Firefox are a perfectly wed couple. Imagine no more. With the following Firefox extensions, not only your GMail experience will be enhanced by leaps and bounds, but also your entire Googling experience.This list is topped by Better Gmail ( Read the Lifehacker post on it).

What it does? All that the original designers couldn’t think of, and even much more. The addons are so functional and useful, makes me think , why weren’t they included in the official release of the New Version of GMail. For a brief preview: attachment icons, label colors, saved searches, keyboard macros and a whole lotta bunch. Here’s where you can download it.

P.S. This download is Better GMail 2 and is for the new version of GMail. For users who still prefer the older version, you can download the previous version here.

No.2 on the list is : Better GReader. (Lifehacker post here).

We all have our choices of RSS Readers. I personally prefer Bloglines because of it’s rather minimalistic sidebar which leaves out a huge reading-space and ease of navigation. Google Reader on the other hand has the same skin as that of GMail. Might be fancy to some, but I need something else. Seriously, I don’t like the idea of reading posts as if someone mailed them to me. Behold! Here comes the Better GReader.
What it does? Maximize the viewing area, edit the default Google subscriptions and add keyboard shortcuts as well. Woo Hoo! We all are winners now.

No. 3:  Ok, this one’s a Greasemonkey script. But it’s simply worth it. This one’s called Gmail Conversation Preview.

What it does? This shows a preview bubble( you need Javascript to be enabled on your browsers) of your conversations on GMail on the click of the right-click. Here’s where you can download it from.

Hope you found my post useful. Comments are welcome.

Pic Courtesy: Sparrow*