RIM's long-awaited first touchscreen iPhone rival, Blackberry Storm

RIM's long-awaited first touchscreen iPhone rival, Blackberry Storm, is finally here in India. BlackBerry Storm 9530' most striking feature is its nifty SurePress touchscreen, which combines the flexibility of software-based input with the tactile response of physical buttons.

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With Strom, RIM enters the now crowded touchscreen smartphone market. In the past few months, all mobile manufacturers seem to have got into an uphill battle for touchscreen supremacy, with all of them launching one or more touchscreen model.

In India, the Canadian company launched its BlackBerry Bold in October, which packs a host of multimedia capabilities including a 2 megapixel camera with video recording and an advanced media player.

Here's looking into the stormy offering from BlackBerry.

Measuring 4.43 X 2.45 X 0.55 inches, the new BlackBerry weighs 1.55 kgs. The phone's look is quite similar in size to larger BlackBerry models but trades a standard QWERTY keyboard for a high-resolution 3.25-inch touchscreen. The phone's display supports 480x360 pixel resolution and 65,000 colours.

BlackBerry Storm packs a ClickThrough feature, which means its touchscreen is not just touchable but clickable. To select a specific area of a web page, users can press down, so the entire screen clicks down. This means that the Storm has two levels of input (touch and click) which has been used to advance the interface. In simple words, when a user selects or enters a text, he can push the screen down.

Priced at Rs 27,990, the smartphone will be available across select Vodafone stores from January 15, 2009.

Its closest competitor Apple iPhone retails at Rs 31,000 for 8GB and Rs 36,000 for 16GB in India.

The phone packs a host of multimedia capabilities including Bluetooth 2.0 with support for stereo Bluetooth headsets, dial-up networking and GPS. The phone comes with Media Player with support for music and video formats including MP3, AAC, WMA, WMV, MPEG4 and H.264.

Storm is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording, auto focus and flash. The phone also comes preloaded with instant messengers like Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL, and ICQ and social networking apps like Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. The phone has BlackBerry Maps for text-based turn-by-turn directions.

The company claims Storm supports battery life of up to 15 days (standby time) and up to 5.5 hours (talk time).

The phone comes with 128MB of flash memory and 1GB of onboard memory. The phone offers support for microSD/SDHC expansion slot up to 16GB cards.

BlackBerry Bold too packs 128MB flash memory, 1GB on-board storage memory and has support for microSD/SDHC memory card slot for memory expansion of up to 16GB.

BlackBerry Storm will run on the latest BlackBerry operating system (version 4.7). The phone will support multiple email accounts: BlackBerry Enterprise, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, POP3, IMAP4 and more.

BlackBerry Storm, however, lacks WiFi. The phone's carrier in US, Verizon says that WiFi would have added to the smartphone's size and cost. Also, a few third-party BlackBerry apps are not yet available for the touchscreen.

Unlike the 3G iPhone that doesn't have copy and paste feature, BlackBerry Storm supports this functionality. Also, the smartphone offers support for MMS (Multimedia messaging), video recording and voice dialing features that are missing in the Apple iPhone.

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A R Rahman first Indian to win Golden Globe

Music maestro A R Rahman, who became the first Indian to win the prestigious Golden Globe Award, dedicated it to the "billion people of India," as British Director Danny Boyle's Mumbai-based saga 'Slumdog Millionaire,' bagged four prizes at the ceremony on Monday.

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A Mumbai underdog's rags-to-riches story, 'Slumdog Millionaire', swept all the four categories it was nominated for, winning the best director award for Boyle, the best music score for Rahman, best screenplay for Simon Beaufoy and also in the category of best drama.

Rahman, who won the coveted prize for his music score 'Jai Ho' in the film, thanked the director and his fellow musicians in Mumbai and Chennai, besides the "billion people from India".

"Unbelievable..! I thought, I would not win, so anyways thanks to the almighty God for bringing me here... Danny Boyle, Fox pictures, all my musicians in Chennai, Mumbai,... and the billion people from India," he said while accepting the award.

Director Danny Boyle bagged the best director award, while Simon Beaufoy won the best screenplay award for the film that starred Bollywood actors Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan and British Indian Dev Patel.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who was at the ceremony to represent India, introduced the film to the foreign audience with 'Slumdog' actress Frieda Pinto.

It is also the first Golden Globe for 52-year-old Boyle, who is expected to be among the favourites at next month's Oscars following the phenomenal success of the film at award circuits.

Dedicates win to India

Music maestro A R Rahman has dedicated his achievement to the country.

Vijay Singh, CEO of Star Fox Studios, which is all set to release the film in India on January 23 said he spoke to Rahman soon after winning the Best Original Music score award for 'Jai Ho', penned by lyricist Gulzar.

"He (Rahman) told me that this is a gift for India," Singh said.

Last week on his birthday (January 6) before leaving for Los Angeles, Rahman told reporters via video conferencing from Chennai that he wanted to win the award for India.

"Personally for me, it would be surprising if I win. But, I want to win it for India," Rahman had said.

"It is a proud moment for all Indians. The film has won four awards--Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Original Music score. The story touches the hearts of Indian film watchers. It is about hope, overcoming all odds and believing in your love," Singh said.

Bollywood singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan said, "Rahman is truly the king, the leader. He is one of the finest composers of this country. He has carried India's name on the global map and has achieved something which no one from this country could do. He deserves every award that exists."

Music director Pritam said he was overjoyed to hear the news about Rahman's success. "Rahman is the best. He has made India proud," he added.

Actor Jackie Shroff, expressing happiness after the film won the awards, said, "Rahman's win is special. India deserves to be on the top. Such an honour is never too late."
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Watch Chandni Chowk to China Movie Online Free | Download Chandni Chowk to China Videos | Bollywood Wallpapers

Chandni Chowk to China, the first ever Bollywood Kung fu comedy takes you on a madcap journey from the by-lanes of Chandni Chowk in Delhi, to Shanghai, the Great Wall and rural China, marrying in its wake hilarious gags, breathtaking action, spectacular locations and heart stirring emotions.

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Our protagonist Sidhu (Akshay Kumar) is the lowest on the totem pole, cutting vegetables at a road side food stall in Chandni Chowk in Delhi. He longs to escape his dreary existence and looks for shortcuts- with astrologers, tarot readers, & fake fakirs- basically believing anything except himself, despite his father figure Kaka's (Mithun Chakraborty) best efforts. His redeeming moment arrives when two strangers from China claim him as a reincarnation of a war hero in the past and take him to China. Sidhu now dreams of wine, women and a princely existence in foreign lands. Thanks to the devious translator, a conman by the name Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), little does he know that he is being taken to the promised Land to rid the Chinese village of the vicious smuggler Hojo (Gordon Liu)!

So Sidhu blissfully sets forth to China with Chopstick who instigates dreams of a delicious future and forgets to reveal the perils which await him.

Along the way he meets Sakhi (Deepika Padukone), Ms. Tele Shoppers Media (Ms TSM) who has embarked on a journey to pay homage to the land of her birth and her dead father and twin. Sidhu has the fire of revenge in his belly and finds the one man who will make him a Kung fu expert and set the village free. Armed with his Sifu(master), faith in himself and the love of the fair Sakhi Sidhu sets forth to conquer all!

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