After observing lower sales for the first six months of 2008,Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) lowered the price of its Xbox360 consoles and the strategy worked in their favor. The company regained the top spot in the competitive gaming console market replacing Sony Corporation’s (TYO:6758) PS3. On September 12, 2008, Microsoft cut its console price for the second time.
In August, Microsoft sold 195,200 units making it the top seller in USA. It also took the top spot in terms of game software sales. Madden ’09 which was sold with Xbox 360 was sold one million units,Soul Calibur IV sold 174,000 units and Too Human sold 168,200 units.Microsoft’s price cut ranged between $50 and $80 based on the models. Currently, the Xbox360 model cost $199. This is the cheapest next generation gaming console in the market.
Despite high inflation rate and global credit crunch, Indian industry sector observed a rise in its industrial output in July 2008. According to the data, industrial production rose by 7.1%. In a poll organized by Reuters, the July growth was predicted at 6.5%. IBN Live.com reports:
Industrial output is geared mostly to the domestic market, accounting for about a fifth of GDP, and economists were divided on whether it was strong enough to prompt another tightening by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at a rate review in October.
"Given the recent trend as far as manufacturing prices inflation is concerned there is still scope for RBI to go with that one last hike in October," says, head of Indian and ASEAN economics at Macquarie Capital Securities, Rajeev Malik.
Compared to 2007, manufacturing output increased to 7.5%, capital goods production 21.9%, consumer goods production 7.3%, and consumer durables 11.2%.
The Reserve Bank of India raised interest rates three times in June and July due to double digit inflation which resulted into a record hight 9% increase in the interest rates at which RBI lends money to the banks. The good news is that annual inflation rate, which went up by 12.6% in early August, came down to just above 12% by the end of that month which has led to considerations among economists that RBI may not increase its rates again,
Robinho scored in his premier league debut tonight, but Chelsea strolled to an easy 3-1 victory over ManchesterCity at Eastlands thanks to strikes from Ricardo Carvalho, Frank Lampard and Nicolas Anelka. Robinho opened scoring in the match as he put ManchesterCity ahead on the 13th minute, but Chelsea needed only three minutes to clinch an equalizer thanks to Ricardo Carvalho. The first half ended in 1-1 stalemate, but Chelsea took lead just eight minutes into the second half when Frank Lampard scored the second goal for Chelsea.
However, the match was still close and either side had chances too. It was Anelka who ensured three points for Chelsea scoring a 69-minute goal making the score line 3-1. However, the West London club suffered a big blow when Captain John Terry was sent off in the 77th minute- meaning the English defender will miss Chelsea’s next two premier league matches.
Arsenal appeared with impeccable form against Blackburn Rovers tonight as they thrashed the home side 4-0 thanks to a hat-trick from Arsenal’s Togo international Emmanuel Adebayor. However, Theo Walcott was instrumental in Arsenal’s superb display at EwoodPark tonight. The hero of England’s midweek victory over Croatia in world cup qualifying set up Robin van Persie the opening goal of Arsenal on the 8th minute of the match. Though he did not score any goal himself, Walcott remained a constant threat to Blackburn defense all through the match.
The Togolese striker was also in his prime to pulled off an excellent hat-trick, helping Arsenal pick up three points from the match with full of confidence. Arsenal lost to Fulham in their first away match of the season. So, ahead of the away match at Blackburn, Arsenal was a bit careful this time. Particularly, Arsenal’s midfield and front men were in superb form, but their defense was not up to the mark. Blackburn’s Roque Santa Cruz created a couple of chances following van Persie’s early strike and Blackburn looked very confident even under a goal down in the match. The home team’s Emerton also created some chances, but Blackburn Rovers failed to capitalize on the chances and thus let Arsenal create pressure on Blackburn Rovers.
Arsenal looked more dangerous in the second half and kept on attacking. With this victory, Arsenal moved up to third place with 9 points from three matches. The most important thing is that clinching a 4-0 away victory is always something special; no matter who the opponents are. Now, let us see if Arsene Wenger boys can continue their excellent form in the coming weeks as well.
As I am writing this entry, the phone is already out of stock and arrival of new stock has not been determined yet. I am talking about Xun Chi 138, the smallest camera mobile phone in the world. As days are going by, mobile phone companies are trying their level best to further squeeze the size of their mobile phones and load them with more interesting and useful features. Yes, small is the future in the mobile phone industry.
Dimension of Xun Chi 138:
Length: 2.65 inches
Breadth: 1.30 inches
Width: .76 inches
Weight: 55 g
Standard temperature: 5°-40°C
Humidity: 35%-85%
Standby time: 2-5 days
Talk time: 2-3 hours
Colors: Pink and Blue.
Xun Chi 138 features:
The Xun Chi 138 is a dual band (GSM 900 / 1800 MHz) GSM phone.It will support dual band GSM networks in Europe, Australia and some countries of Asia. However, it will not work on North American GSM networks such as Cingular/Cellular One, T-Mobile, Rogers, Fido/Microcell, SunCom, Dobson, Edge Wireless, Alltel, Petrocom, Union, Pegaso/Movistar, Radiomovil/Telcel etc.This link contains list of countries whose networks will support the Xun Chi 138.
The Xun Chi 138 will support any SIM card.
The Xun Chi 138 has 121 MB memory.
The Xun Chi 138 has video player and image editor.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with VGA camera, not mega-pixel.
The Xun Chi 138 has stopwatch with split and lap timing. The user can time four events at once.
The Xun Chi 138 has on screen keyboard.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with a small stylus attached on the backside of the phone.
The Xun Chi 138 supports English and Chinese language.
Xun Chi 138 can also be used as a hands-free speaker-phone.
The Xun Chi 138 supports speed dial.
The Xun Chi 138 can be used to menu shortcut settings.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with five user editable profile-settings including: general, indoor, outdoor, meeting, and headset.
The Xun Chi 138 non-expandable memory.
The Xun Chi 138 has 34 mm (diagonally) LCD touch screen with backlight, 128 x 160 pixel, and 260,000 colors.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with five screen backlight timeout settings: 5, 15, 30 or 45 seconds.
The Xun Chi 138 has an EV between -4 and +4.
The Xun Chi 138 has 7 color LED highlight settings.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with six white balance settings: auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, cloudy, incandescent.
The Xun Chi 138 allows the user to set video files, GIF animations, and still images as wallpaper, screen saver, and startup-shutdown banner.
The Xun Chi 138 has VGA still camera.
The Xun Chi 138 can take pictures at 640 x 480, 320 x 240, 160 x 120, or 128 x 160 resolution.
The Xun Chi 138 has 3x digital zoom/crop at lower resolution.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with three different image compression quality settings: high, normal, and low.
The VGA still camera of Xun Chi 138 has night mode and 50Hz or 60Hz banding setting.
The Xun Chi 138 can take 3-5 sequential shots (1 shot per second).
The Xun Chi 138 has a delay timer of 5, 10 or 15 seconds.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with different effect filters including: sepia, sepia green, sepia blue, color invert, gray invert, blackboard, whiteboard, copper carving, blue carving, emboss, contrast, and sketch.
With the Xun Chi 138, users can add fun photo frames such as, flowers, trees, moon, birthday, window, cloverleaf, bunny, pig, and two types of paper photo borders, while taking photos at 128 x 160 resolution.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with three different shutter sounds (silent shutter).
The Xun Chi 138 can record video at 176 x 144 resolution, 15 frames per second.
The Xun Chi 138 has three types of video compression quality settings: fine, high, normal or low.
The Xun Chi 138 camera has 4x digital zoom in 20% increments.
The Xun Chi 138 camera can record with four types of time limits: no limit, 15, 30 or 60 seconds.
The Xun Chi 138 camera has three file size settings: no limit, 95k, 195k or 295k.
User can turn off audio recording during video.
The Xun Chi 138 can encode in MP4 (mpeg-4) or H.263 formats.
The Xun Chi 138 video camera can switch between vertical or sideways orientation.
The Xun Chi 138 video camera has five playback speed settings: 1/2, 1, 2, 4 or 8x. There will be no sound in fast and slow modes.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with MP3 player and sound recorder.
The Xun Chi 138 comes with MP3 or MIDI ringtone and alarm tone setting with or without vibration.
The Xun Chi 138 has single, repeat or increase ring volume settings.
The Xun Chi 138 allows the user to set ringtone, picture and video to identify a caller.
The Xun Chi 138 media player can play MP3 files (no WMA or OGG support).
Users will listen to songs through the internal phone speaker or handsfree earbuds.
The Xun Chi 138 media player comes with 7 equalizer settings: bass, dance, classical, treble, party, pop, rock.
The Xun Chi 138 media player has repeat mode (one song or all) and shuffle modes.
The Xun Chi 138 media player supports background play mode.
The Xun Chi 138 media player has auto-search playlist generator.
The Xun Chi 138 has sound recorder that saves mono audio files in WAV or AMR format.
The Xun Chi 138 personal organizer includes: calendar and multiple alarms, calculator, unit converter (converts length and weight between various metric & english units), currency converter (stores 1 currency rate only), health (body mass index and menstrual cycle calculators), and animated screen saver.
Price:
I could not find any price quotation. However, the Xun Chi 138 comes with six months warranty. Buyers will also get:
Two batteries each 3.7V, 480mAh
Stylus.
Handsfree earbuds with microphone and mute button.
USB cable.
100-240V AC charger with adapter as per country requirement.
You can also download the manual in either Chinese or English.
Liverpool pulled off an excellent victory 2-1 over Manchester United and reached top of the table with ten points. Chelsea might replace them within few hours following their evening showdown at ManchesterCity. However, when Carlos Tevez opened scoring in the third minute of the match to put United ahead in the match, it seemed to be another story of ‘impressive-but-losing’ Liverpool. However, the All reds remained focused throughout the match and clinched two goals to pick up three points from the match.
Liverpool fans always blamed luck as it hardly comes in their favor. However, in today’s match, Liverpool needed a bit of luck to win the match as their equalizing goal came through an own goal by Wes Brown in the first half. Ryan Babel then scored the winning goal for Liverpool just 13 minutes off the time after coming off the bench in the second half. Manchester Uniteds received the last dent in their coffin when Nemanja Vidic was shown red card in stoppage time after being booked for the second time in the match.
This has been Liverpool’s first premier league victory against Manchester United in seven years since November 2001 and Liverpool got their first goal against Manchester United in the match after going through a goal draught for four matches. With this defeat, Manchester United was left with four points from three matches, while Liverpool stands atop the table with 10 points from four matches.
Famous South Korean electronics company, LG Electronics Inc. (SEO:066575) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) developed LG Invision/ LG CB 630, the smallest phone in the USA offering AT&T’s television service. Earlier, I wrote about the LG LX 600/LG Lotus, the clamshell message phone, which was showcased at the New York Fashion show.
LG Invision /LG CB 630 was soft launched by AT&T on August 20, 2008. LG CB630/ LG Invision is one of the three latest handsets released by AT&T that supports MediaFLO, which enables the user to enjoy the AT&T Mobile Television service. The other two models are: LG Vu/LG CU920 and Samsung Access/ Samsung SGH-A827. Currently, AT&T is offering its television services in 58 markets in USA. The monthly charge of MobileTV service ranges from $13 to $30.
One of the most prominent features of LG Invision/ LG CB 630 is its keypad. In a traditional mobile phone keypad, the *0& # keys remain at the bottom. In LG CB 630/ LG Invision, these three keys are put on the right side. This made the phone smaller.
Dimension:
Length: 4 inches
Breadth: 2 inches
Width: 0.5 inches
Weight: 3.2 lbs
Features:
Currently, the LG CB630/ LG Invision is the smallest MediaFLO phone in the United States.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision comes with a screen of 2.2 inches.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision has dedicated TV buttons, navigation keys, and four way toggle button.
The back of the LG CB630/ LG Invision has a rubber like texture.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision has a 1.3 mega-pixel camera.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision comes with HSDPA.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision supports AT&T Mobile Music service. It enables the user to download songs from eMusic, access Napster To Go and any other “unrestricted MP3 audio files.”The user can also stream digital radio by XM Radio Mobile.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision comes with a media player.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision has stereo Bluetooth.
With the LG CB630/ LG Invision, users can enjoy various TV channels like: CBS Mobile, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile and NBC2GO.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision runs on AT&T’s 3G Network.
The screen of LG CB630/ LG Invision offers 240 x 400 pixel resolution and has 262,000 colours.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision comes with pre-loaded Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional Edition Operating System.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision contains Qualcomm MSM7200 processor.
The LG CB630/ LG Invision supports Java for loading application.
Price:
The LG CB630/LG Invision will cost $99.99 with two year service agreement and “$50 mail-in rebate.” The phone will be available later this year.
