Humour Cafe

Top Ten Cell Phones

Until recently, the vast majority of mobile phones had been priced between £100 and £300, with only Vertu, a division of Nokia , manufacturing uber-premium phones. With prices starting at around £4,000 Vertu phones are only for the filthy rich, and the super famous.

However, Vertu's monopoly of the luxury phone market is coming to an end with the launch of several new luxury mobile makers, including Gresso, Mobiado and GoldVish. Other mobile phone manufacturers are also partnering with luxury brands to produce a range of premium mobile phones, such as LG and Prada , D&G and Motorola, and now Tag Heuer and Modelabs.

Finally, there are the ridiculous, super-expensive one-offs, made purely for headline grabbing, such as Goldvish's "Le million", worth a cool $1,000,000, see below for details!

A PR stunt it may be, and they surely can't be expecting to sell any, but the Goldvish "Le million" is officially the most expensive mobile phone in the world, according the Guiness Books of Records.

There's even been talk of a $1.3million phone, but this has fewer diamonds than the Goldvish so I can't see where the extra expense comes from! The "Le million" is a one off, featuring a blinding 120 carats worth of VVS-1 grade diamonds, according to designer Emmanuel Gueit.

If $1 million is out of your price range. the Geneva-based Goldvish also offer several other diamond-encrusted 18k gold models in your choice of rose, yellow, or white, starting at a much more reasonable $25,600 (£13,837).

2. Vertu Signature Cobra = $310,000 (£167,567)

Vertu is now taking orders for the Signature Cobra, designed by French jeweler Boucheron, but you had better be quick as only 8 are being made! The Cobra will feature one pear-cut diamond, one round white diamond, two emerald eyes and 439 rubies.

Vertu will also be offering a "cheaper" version, ruby free, at $115,000 (£62,162).

3. Sony Ericsson Black Diamond = $300,000 (£162,162)

Apparently the Black Diamond will be available in 2007, not from Sony Ericsson but by a company called VIPN. Initially only 5 unique numered pieces will be available for the unbelievable price of, wait for it… $300,000.

With regards to the specifications, don't expect anything remarkable for your money. It will have Quad-band with Wi-Fi, an Intel 400Mhz processor running windows mobile 5, and a touch sensitive 2? screen. It will also include internal memory of 128mb and will come with a 2Gb SD card for external storage, plus a respectable 4 Megapixel camera.

The designer Jaren Goh has used some pretty impressive materials for the build, featuring titane with polycarbonate, mirror-finish cladding and diamonds.

4. Vertu Diamond = $88,000 (£47,567)

The Diamond is Vertu's premium range of high-end mobile phones. As the name suggests the handsets in the Diamond range are diamond-encrusted handsets made from platinum.

Only 200 of the handsets are being produced, the most expensive believed to be worth an estimated £50,000.

5. Motorola V220 Special Edition = £28,000 ($51,800)

Austrian designer Peter Aloisson, has taken a standard Motorola, studded it with 1,200 diamonds and added a keyboard inlaid with 18 carat gold.

The outcome is a £28,000 handset, suitable only for footballers and film stars!

6. Gold Edition Nokia 8800 Phone = $2,700 (£1,459)

If you have $2,700 to spare, you can now buy the Nokia 8800 in 24K gold. However, be warned, if you think you'll be getting a better phone for your extra cash, you wont! The features found on the Gold Edition are the standard 8800 features, which are pretty basic.

It includes a 0.5 Mega pixel SVGA camera, 64 MB of internal memory, 64 voice polyphonic rigntones, FM Radio, Mp3 Player, video recording and 180 mins talktime. However, the Gold Edition does includes a special edition box and charging dock!

7. Mobiado Professional EM (wood) = $1,900 (£1,027)

The Mobiado Professional EM, is a wood-clad upgrade of their earlier Nokia-based phone that includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, music player, FM radio, Bluetooth, and according to Mobiado it's the first production phone with Titanium buttons.

Only 200 are being made and each one has its limited number engraved on the back. At $1,900 however, you're still paying an awfully high premium for a fairly basic phone encased in wood!

8. Bang & Olufsen (Samsung) Serene = $1,250 (£675)

Bang & Olufsen hooked up with Samsung to design the sleek but unconventional Serene. Its not a bad looking phone and it even has a built-in motor to assist you in opening and closing the phone.

It's not very practical however, requiring a special screwdriver to access the battery and the SIM card, and its circular keypad will take some getting used to.

Also, for some strange reason they have positioned the camera lens on the side of the device, which will make it difficult to align snapshots via the viewfinder on the display.

9. Lamborghini 8800 Sirocco from Nokia = $To be announced

The Lamborghini Nokia 8800 Sirocco is another special edition, like the previously launch Aston Martin branded Sirocco. It will ultimately be a standard 8800 Sirocco but with the addition of the famous Lamborghini logo engraved on the font and the back, plus ball bearings from the auto company to in the slider phone mechanism.

The Lamborghini phone will be a limited edition with only 500 being made. It will also feature Lamborghini graphics as wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, and even has a short documentary video about the Lamborghini.

10. Gresso Luxury Phone = £expensive

The Russia based Gresso, is a new entry into the luxury phone market. Their aptly name "Gresso Luxury Phone" is made of gold and African Blackwood. Apparently they will be releasing a collection of five models called the Black Aura collection, and the designer is a "well known" Italian designer.

Currently there are two versions of the African Blackwood phone, one with pink gold highlights named the Gresso Blackwood Gold Edition, and one made entirely of African Blackwood. In addition to the two African Blackwood phones Gresso also make a phone made entirely of pink gold named the Gresso Gold phone. Initially, the phones will be on sale only in Russia.

NASA Amazing View

One of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104) is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like majestic ships in the night. The near-collision has been caught in images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.

The Hubble Space Telescope has caught the most detailed view of the Crab Nebula, revealing the intricate epitaph of a long-dead star. The photo was released on December 1, 2005.

This image resembling Vincent van Gogh's painting, "Starry Night," is an expanding halo of light around a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon). This Hubble Telescope image was obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on February 8, 2004

For the 15th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists used the ACS, Hubble's newest camera, to record a new region of the eerie-looking Eagle Nebula, producing an image with stunning detail. The new Eagle Nebula image reveals a tall, dense tower of gas being sculpted by ultraviolet light from a group of massive, hot stars.

From ground-based telescopes, the so-called "ant nebula" (Menzel 3, or Mz 3) resembles the head and thorax of a garden-variety ant. This dramatic NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, showing 10 times more detail, reveals the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun-like star.

This new image was released to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. The new Whirlpool Galaxy image showcases the spiral galaxy's classic features, from its curving arms, where newborn stars reside, to its yellowish central core that serves as home for older stars. A feature of considerable interest is the companion galaxy located at the end of one of the spiral arms.

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, has captured a spectacular pair of galaxies engaged in a celestial dance of cat and mouse or, in this case, mouse and mouse. Located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, the colliding galaxies have been nicknamed "The Mice" because of the long tails of stars and gas emanating from each galaxy. Otherwise known as NGC 4676, the pair will eventually merge into a single giant galaxy.

Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this celestial object is actually just a pillar of gas and dust. Called the Cone Nebula (in NGC 2264) - so named because in ground-based images it has a conical shape - this monstrous pillar resides in a turbulent star-forming region. This picture, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, on May 11, 2002, shows the upper 2.5 light-years of the Cone, a height that equals 23 million roundtrips to the Moon. The entire pillar is seven light-years long.

In its first glimpse of the heavens following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a majestic view of the Eskimo Nebula, a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star.

This Hubble photograph captures a small region within Messier 17 (M17), a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation. The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars (which lie outside the picture to the upper left).

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) captured this mosaic of The Tarantula Nebula. The Tarantula is situated 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the Southern sky and is clearly visible to the naked eye as a large milky patch. Astronomers believe that this smallish irregular galaxy is currently going through a violent period in its life. It is orbiting around the Milky Way and has had several close encounters with it.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this interesting photo of the inside of an inflating, see-through space bubble. The transparent bubble is considered a nebula, and it is called N44F. The scene is about 160,000 light-years away in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the 'Keyhole Nebula, ' obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four different April 1999 telescope pointings. The picture is dominated by a large, approximately circular feature, which is part of the Keyhole Nebula, named in the 19th century by Sir John Herschel. This region is about 8000 light-years from Earth.

Undersea corral? Enchanted castles? Space serpents? On April 1, 1995, Hubble snapped this image of pillar-like structures in the Eagle nebula. These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are columns of cool, interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that serve as incubators for new stars.

Astronomers, using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope in October and November 1997 and April 1999, imaged the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) with unprecedented clarity. For the first time, they were able to understand the geometry and dynamics of this very complicated system. Earlier pictures taken of the nebula with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 1 left many issues unanswered, as the data could not be fully calibrated for scientific use. In addition, those data never imaged the enigmatic inner structure presented here.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Trifid Nebula reveals a stellar nursery being torn apart by radiation from a nearby, massive star. The picture also provides a peek at embryonic stars forming within an ill-fated cloud of dust and gas, which is destined to be eaten away by the glare from the massive neighbor.

Hubble Space Telescope continues snapping breathtaking pictures of the solar system's most photogenic planet. This view, taken on March 22, 2004, is so sharp that many individual ringlets can be seen in Saturn's ring plane.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the Cat’s Eye Nebula on September 9, 2004. The Cat's Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings."

This Hubble telescope snapshot of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula, reveals that the object has an hourglass shape with an intricate pattern of "etchings" in its walls. A planetary nebula is the glowing relic of a dying, Sun-like star.

Wall-Climbing “Spiderman” Robot

Japanese researchers have developed a four legged “Spiderman” robot — made from metal and rubber — that boasts suction cups on each leg, enabling it to climb up walls.

World-record skydiving parachute formation!

Awesome sunset video of an 81-way world-record skydiving parachute formation!

After almost a week of training a group of dedicated skydivers put together the largest parachute formation ever built. It consists of 81 ... all » skydivers in the formation and several video people flying around. It took place over Lake Wales Florida USA just before sunset and has some incredible shots by some incredible video fliers, and a picture-perfect "starburst" break-away.

Sony Ericsson W850i

The Walkman branded phones from Sony Ericsson previously were just few in numbers as in the models. Now there are so many to choose from that the expensive Walkman phones from Sony Ericsson better have something really worthwhile to extract those hard earned bucks from the pockets.


The W850i was the first Walkman phone to feature the Walkman Player v2.0 and is the first attempt by the company at the slider form-factor. So let's see how well Sony Ericsson can handle slider phones.

Bundle

The W850i is after all a Walkman phone and hence the standard walkman accessories make for a rich package. The entire package wasn't given to us and hence we don't have an image of the box contents.

Sony Ericsson W850i

Stereo Portable Handsfree (with 3 pairs of buds)

1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo

Memory Stick Pro Adaptor

Charger
CD and Manual
Build and Design

The Sony Ericsson W850i is the first attempt by the company at making a slider phone. It is a brave move by the company to make a slider of a premium Walkman branded phone. The W850i weighs just 116 grams with dimensions 98 x 47 x 21 mm. It's slightly on the bulky side and because of which one could find it heavy.


The phone has a large 256K color screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The slider has 9 buttons on the surface and a D-Pad as well. The 9 buttons are pre-defined i.e. Back, Clear, Internet, and Activity Menu.

There is a button which doesn't seem like a button but it is nevertheless. It is long orange strip under a silver separator between the screen and the button section. The button is basically the Walkman Player hotkey.

There are two buttons placed on either side above the screen; these buttons are get customized according to the task being performed. For defaults, the one on the left is for viewing the Camera Album contents in landscape and the button to the right is to view same as thumbnails.

Else when in the Camera Mode the right button is a shortcut to starting the flash light and the one to the left is to choose the Photo Mode.

In between these two buttons is the earpiece grill, which also has the secondary camera for video calls.


The center of the button section below the screen houses the D-Pad, which isn't obvious for a D-Pad (just like the orange strip for the Walkman button.) The D-Pad takes some time getting used to as the direction buttons of the D-Pad are bulbs.

The D-Pad feels like a plastic, which is hard-cushioned and hence difficult to press initially; but hopefully over time you'd get used to it considering the big bucks you're going to shell out.

There are two more buttons that are the standard dual buttons below the screen on either side and while the one to the left displays the call list, the one to the right displays the menu.

These two buttons also double as an Answer Call and Cancel/Reject Call buttons. Around the phone are just a few buttons; on the right side are the volume controls and the camera hotkey.

The camera hotkey, when kept pressed for about 2 seconds, activates the camera but for that the keypad has to be unlocked. Below the Camera hotkey is the Infra-red port.

At the top of the phone is the Power ON/OFF button, which also doubles as a Profile selector. This button glows red in the initial charge of the phone when the phone's battery has been completely drained. Beside the power button is the memory card slot, which has a dust cover. Below the phone is the pop-port as seen in most phones.

The back of the phone houses the 2 MP camera. The camera of the phone doesn't have any lens cover or shutter. The camera has a flashlight and a tiny self portrait mirror on one side; while on the other side is the phone's loud-speaker.

The back of the phone has a very odd-looking matt finish; this finish adds to the phone's premium look. There is a design on the back of the phone done with clear circles (impressed.) The speaker has a Walkman logo done in silver, which makes it look all classy.

On opening the phone, you'll see the keypad of the phone, which is very comfortable and can be used with utmost ease. The sliding mechanism of the W850i is very good; there is no feel of it being delicate.

The whole build of the phone reflects the same and I must say that it is a job well done with regards to build of the phone. On sliding open the phone and turning it around you will notice a design of circles which is continued even behind the screen with the Walkman branding engraved on flashy steel.

Walkman v2.0

The most prominent thing about the W850i is the updated Walkman Player v2.0. The v2.0 player has seen a lot of controversy; as even after it has been introduced we still have Walkman phones releasing with the older version. The new version has a nice black theme rather than the stringent orange color.

The Walkman Player now supports Album Art and Visualizations along with Artist, Album, and Track information. The screen of the player shows a lot of details than in the previous version. Track No., Total number of tracks, playback status, and song length are displayed in the first half of the screen. Beside all of these is the Visualization box.

This is where the support for Album Art and Visualizations comes in, so now you can have the Album Art showing in a small box on the screen or in that very same box you can have visualizations playing. Hopefully someday we'll be able to add to the default visualizations for now you just have two options.


Then below comes the progress bar of the song and at the end immediately below the progress bar there are symbols displaying shuffle, loop, and the equalizer preset icons. Then with some space below the progress bar, the Artist name, Track Name, Album Name and then the signs of what the D-Pad has now changed into are displayed.

The W850i is the only Walkman phone which has beat detection. The beat detection helps in the unique feature of Light Effects. The lights blink according to the beat of the music. A similar feature was noticed in the Nokia 3220, which used to blink when the phone rang.

The sorting of music also is different from the standard Walkman phones. There is a Music folder on your memory card where you place your music. There is no need to place it in two levels of folders like in the previous version; so, you can transfer your music to the card even more easily without too much of a trouble.

Sound Quality

The Walkman v2.0 not only brought the cosmetic changes but even an improvement in the sound quality. The music now sounds more distilled. The Equalizer presets Normal, Bass, MegaBass, Voice, Treble Boost, and the Manual as well sound better. The MegaBass equalizer preset has also been tweaked; so, now instead of just thumping bass, it purifies the bass according to the song beat.

Now all of these improvements are only noticed when listening to high bitrate encoded MP3s. You won't be able to figure out the difference listening to low bitrate or average bitrate MP3s. So if you have a collection of low bitrate encoded MP3s, then its better you settle in for a cheaper Walkman phone or else you'll just end-up as a show-off. There is a stereo widening option, which takes effect only when the phone has been attached to a good set of speakers else the volume of the song just turns down.

The phone comes bundled with the standard stereo Walkman earplugs. I guess by now most know about the sound quality of these earplugs or must have heard about it from friends. The same earplugs are bundled with the W850i as well.

The earplugs could fall under the negatives because they cancel most of the sound from the environment and that could lead to dangerous situations; even cause death. For e.g. a person enjoying his/her music on a Walkman phone (except W710) using the provided earplugs while crossing the road could meet the gates of hell/heaven.

The speaker of the W850i is the loudest after the W550i.

The W550i is just plain loud while the W850i sounds much better.

The FM on the W850i works only with the headsets plugged in. The FM quality is really good and provides a good reception in places even with bad reception.

Camera

The W850i has a 2MP camera. This camera unfortunately isn't the auto-focus camera seen in the K750i or the W800/W810.

Instead the W850i's cam is something similar to the downgraded W800i; W700i. The camera starts by pressing the hotkey on the side for about 2 seconds, keeping in mind that the keypad has been unlocked. If not then just slide open the phone and press the camera hotkey to start the camera.

The interface of the camera is based on the K790/K800 camera interface and somehow gives you the feeling that the W850i was meant to house the same 3.2 MP camera. But then something just changed their minds and they put in a crappy non-autofocus 2 MP camera in there.

The 2 MP camera of the phone produced noisy pictures even in the bright conditions. The night mode of the camera with the help of the OLED was just about average not really worth the big bucks you pay. The camera doesn't have a macro-mode and hence it's not possible to take good portrait snaps. All it has is a night mode, Panorama mode, Burst mode, and frames to click 4 snaps in one click.

There are no praises in store for the video either. The video of the W850i is the outdated QCIF (176x144) format. It's about time Sony Ericsson get their act together and bring out some phones with CIF video recording capabilities.

Interface

The W850i has the same interface seen in most of the newly released Sony Ericsson handsets. These phones have a smart interface and even support multitasking. The presence of Java MIDP 2.0 helps in the multitasking abilities of these phones. Today's non-Symbian phones are able to provide almost similar functionality.

At the same time, they are able to maintain the smoothness of the interface while Symbian proves laggy. The W850i holds 16 MB of internal memory and is quite sufficient to keep all smooth unless you completely utilize all of it.

The phone is mostly based on the same interface used in the K790i/K800, except for the newer Walkman player. Talking about the Walkman player I miss the Play/Pause button located on the side of most Walkman phones.


That means now you have to unlock the keypad to Play/Pause the music. While the keypad is locked, all you can do is increase/decrease volume and go to previous/next song. The phone has a flight mode; so, you have to disconnect yourself from work to enjoy your music.


Back to the normal stuff, the phone has a capacity of 1000 contacts with 4 numbers each and a wide array of details such as under "New Contact " you can add in a lot of details apart from the name and the contact's contact (number :P).

You can add the email address, picture, ringtone, voice commands. You can even have the details to the address of the contact's Workplance/Home as per the following: title, company, street, city, state, zip code, and country. Finally you can add the Birthdate and some personal info that helps you remember that contact (Wife: The biggest mistake of my life.) The phone stores 30 received, dialed, and missed calls each.

Connectivity

The W850i has a list of connectivity options, but it doesn't provide for all that one would expect in a phone. The W850i is the 3G version of this Walkman phone; this phone skips EDGE and HSCSD for 3G. You can make video calls and connect to 3G networks. But in a country like India, I think, it would have been better to only launch the W830i that has EDGE and no 3G.

The W850i has GPRS Class 10 for browsing the internet and no EDGE connection, which is much faster than GPRS. It has Bluetooth v2.0, infrared, and USB v2.0 for faster transfers between phones and PC. The Bluetooth 2.0 also supports A2DP profile, which is the stereo Bluetooth capability.


So you can tune into your music/FM and even answer calls. The W850i supports one of the best A2DP headsets of Sony Ericsson, which displays song list, name of the caller, etc, and even has the best quality of music with good amount of battery life.

The W850i connects to your PC through the similar pop-port fashion. The USB connection is USB v2.0; so transfers are pretty quick. When connected to the PC, the phone goes into an offline mode; so, it's not possible to dial or receive calls or even listen to music.

The phone doesn't require drivers to work when connected to the PC. It works like a mass storage device and shows up as two Removable drives in Windows Explorer. But the fact that you'd have to carry the cable around with you does hinder its mass-storage abilities.

Battery

The W850i has a Li-Po 950 mAh battery, which is really good. According to claims the phone has 350 hours of standby time and 7 hours of talktime. In reality the phone worked comfortably for 4 days with loads of music hours and about an hour of talktime each day.


The battery life always seemed to amaze me; the last 10% of the battery seemed like never ending. It just used to keep going on and on. Switching the phone to Flight Mode or using it as just a music player provided even more comfort to the battery.

I never even faced a battery low warning in 4 days of continuous usage and no charging at all. The phone even charges through USB, but during those 4 days I used a memory card reader to transfer files.

Conclusion

The W850i sells for around Rs. 20,000 with a one-year warranty. It is too expensive even considering the newer Walkman player and the 1GB Pro Duo card provided. If it featured M2 memory, the high price tag was justifiable.

Even the newer player requires you to hold a rich collection of music (as in high bitrate encoded MP3s to enjoy the difference.) At that price, it would have been ideal to house a 3.2 MP camera instead we have a 2 MP non-autofocus camera.

All these points could be taken out of the equation if you are looking for a Walkman slider else it's not really worth the money you'd invest. But nevertheless not my pick.

Amazing sight in the South Pacific

August 2006, the yacht 'Maiken' is traveling in the south Pacific when they came across a weird sight ...
It was sand in the water, and floating ON TOP of the waves ...

The trail left by the yacht ...

And then this was spotted... ash and steam rising from the ocean ...

And, while they were watching ...

A brand new island formed ...

A plume of black ash ...