It looks like Apple has finally decided to fight back by entering Google’s arena with the acquisition of the mobile ad company Quattro. Google had recently acquired AdMob, a four year old ad network, which had risen to be one of the most important players in the Mobile Ad industry. The deal is under scrutiny by the U.S. regulators. There were rumors that Apple also wanted to buy AdMob, but was out-bidden by Google.

The acquisition also puts Apple in direct competition with other companies like Microsoft and Yahoo.

Technical specifications of the phone can be found here. The device designed by Google and built by HTC is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and 512MB of ROM & 512MB of RAM. It includes features like GPS, accelerometer, proximity sensor, a 5 mega pix camera with LED flash and an additional microphone for noise cancellation. With a weight of 130 gms and a thickness of 11.5mm, Google boasted that the handset is no thicker than a number two pencil, and no heavier than a Swiss Army knife.

Unfortunately, the phone is not available in India. I see the following message when visiting the official webpage

Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country.

According to the sales page of the phone, Nexus One is currently available only in the U.S. The phone is available for a contract free price of $529 or a subsidized rate of $179 on a two year contract with T-Mobile. The page says that the Google phone will be available in US from Verizon wireless and in Europe from Vodafone in spring 2010.

The phone can be personalized with a two line engraving at the back of the phone.

Hopefully, after almost a month of anticipation, the wait is finally getting over. Google has called for an “Android Press Gathering” tomorrow. Everyone believe that the new phone will be announced at the press meet.

Encouraged by Google’s regular practice, I checked the page www.google.com/phone and found that the page is different from the standard Google 404 page. Which suggests that there is something going on there. So keep checking the url as it may be official page of the Google phone, once it is released.

Update: Engadget has posted a review of Nexus One.

Previously fund withdrawal had been a headache for most of the Indian Paypal users. One had to request for a check from Paypal and wait for almost a month for the check to arrive. Many people found this difficult and made use of services like Xoom for transferring money to their Indian bank account. But with the two latest withdrawal features, i.e. Direct Bank withdrawal and balance transfer to a Visa ® branded credit card, Paypal is going to be much more popular among the online Indian community.

Now the charge for transferring fund has also been reduced. Previously, while requesting a new check you had to pay $5 as processing charge. Now the  processing fee has been waived for transfers above INR 7000 and for amounts less than that you have to pay only a marginal fee of INR 50. Xoom used to charge $14.99 for transfers over $500 and $9.99 for smaller transfers.

With the new withdrawal feature the time taken for transferring money to reduced to 5-7 business days. Though the waiting period has reduced from about a month to a week, it is still long compared to the time taken by Xoom transfers to complete. With Xoom, I used to get my check within 3-4 business days.

Existing Indian Paypal users can avail this new feature by adding your bank account [1] to your Paypal account by providing your Country, Bank name, Indian Financial System Code (IFSC) and Account number. Ensure that your name in the bank record and PayPal are exactly the same or your transaction will fail and PayPal will also charge a processing fee of INR 250.

Indian Financial System Code (IFSC) is an alpha numeric code designed to uniquely identify the bank-branches in India. This is 11 digit code with first 4 characters representing the banks code, the next character reserved as control character (Presently 0 appears in the fifth position) and remaining 6 characters to identify the branch. This is different from the MICR code, which has 9 digits to identify the bank-branch. If you don’t know your branch’s IFS Code, then contact your bank’s customer care. Alternatively, you can also find the code from the list of IFS codes for Indian banks published by RBI.

You can transfer the fund to your account with any of the participating banks. The banks that are currently participating in the service are HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, ING VYSYA Bank, Axis Bank (formerly UTI Bank), Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank Of India, Bank Of India, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, HSBC and Citibank India.

When two or more of your accounts are linked together, you can switch from account to another by clicking on your Live ID on the top right corner and selecting the new account from the drop down list. Previously you had to logout of your current session and re-login to access the second account. Now you can check your different Live mail accounts without logging in to each account separately.

I used to find it quite annoying when checking my site stats with Google Analytics, since my Analytics account is tied with a Google Account different from my primary email address. On logging in my gmail account, I get logged out from my Analytic account and on logging in to Analytic my gmail inbox also switches. Adsense, Gmail and Orkut allows you to login to multiple accounts at the same time, but not Analytics or Webmaster Tools. Fortunately, after starting this blog, I moved my primary email address to this domain and is powered by Google Apps for Domain. Hence I strongly feel that this new feature is going to be a great time saver for many of the Windows Live account holders.

But there is a small downside to this great new option. If you are not careful with each account, someone may access all your accounts as all your linked accounts are equally important now. Suppose somebody hacks into one of your account (or steals the password from your system), then the person has all your accounts at his disposal. So make sure that each account is secured with a strong password. Also never link your personal accounts with shared or group accounts.

You may visit LiveSide, if you wish to know more about the recent update.

I have been using Kestrel for the last one month and I find it better than Opera 9, though still there are many unfixed bugs. Opera is world’s fastest browser and the latest 9.5 release is a complete rewrite of the original code. Hence the performance of Opera has improved unbelievably. You may check the results of some performance tests carried out on the latest versions of the popular browsers.

I will be updating my Opera+Tor+Privoxy bundle TorPlus, once the beta version is released.

You can download Opera 9.5 alpha from Opera.com and latest snapshot of Kestrel from the desktop team’s blog.

Yesterday (07-07-07), The new seven wonders of the world was announced by the swiss non profit group, New 7 Wonders Foundation. In a spectacular ceremony held at lisbon portugal, the new members were announced by a group of celebrities around the world. The ancient wonder, Piramid of Giza, was given a honorary status and was directly selected without any voting as it was the only still standing site from the ancient seven wonders. According to the organization that conducted the polls, about 100 million votes were cast by the people through the new 7 wonders website and sms messages. Half of the profit from the poll will be provided for the renovation of world heritage sites, especially the bamian statute of Afghanisthan.

The new seven wonders of the world are :-

1. Great Wall of China – The Great Wall of China, is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. The Great Wall is the world’s longest human made structure and is the only human made structure that is visible to naked human eye from the moon.
2. Taj Mahal, India – The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned it as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Construction began in 1632 and was completed in approximately 1648. The Taj Mahal is the finest example of Mughal architechture. It is represented as a symbol of love.
3. Chichen Itza, Mexico – Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in Mexico. Archaeological data, such as evidence of burning at a number of important structures and architectural complexes, suggest that Chichen Itza’s collapse was violent.
4. Christ the Redeemer, Brazil – Christ the Redeemer is a large Art Deco-style statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The statue stands 32 m (105 feet) tall, weighs 1000 tons and is located at the peak of the 710-m (2330-foot) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park, overlooking the city. As well as being a potent symbol of Christianity, the statue has become an icon of the city.
5. The Colosseum, Italy – The Colosseum or Coliseum, is a giant amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. Originally capable of seating around 50,000 spectators, it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles. The Colosseum has long been seen as an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome and is one of the finest surviving examples of Roman architecture.
6. Petra (Jordan) – Petra is an archaeological site in Jordan, lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is famous for having many stone structures carved into the rock. The long-hidden site was revealed to the Western world by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.
7. Machu Picchu (Peru) – Machu Picchu, often referred to as “The Lost City of the Incas”, is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian city created by the Inca Empire. It was brought to international attention by archaeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911.

Click here for a nice slideshow of the new 7 wonders.

The other finalists of the election, that did not get through the final list are, the Acropolis, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the stone statues on Chile’s Easter Island, Australia’s Sydney Opera House, Cambodia’s Angkor, Spain’s Alhambra, Turkey’s Hagia Sophia, Japan’s Kiyomizu Temple, Russia’s Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral, Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle, Britain’s Stonehenge and Mali’s Timbuktu.

The foundation claims the election to be the first Global election. The election did not go without controversy. UNESCO, the UN’s world heritage body, issued a press release distancing itself from the election and condemning the foundations practises. Since the new results do not have the UN’s approval, there is surely going to be clashes on it. But the foundation is not finished with it. They have announced another global election to find the NEW 7 WONDERS OF NATURE. Well, with 50% of the total money all to themselves, I can understand their interest. What will be next? The new seven wonders of the universe?

Courtesy: Some of the data and pictures for the slideshow were taken from Wikipedia.