Top luxury mobile phones

Luxury goods companies seems to be realising the potential of Geek fashion. The companies which realised long ago their brands could be extended to more than clothes and bags, have been rushing to embrace the gadgets. And on the top of their attention are mobiles, which has been a status symbol and part of fashion accessories for some time now. International fashion labels Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and Armani are rushing in to release fashionista mobiles. French fashion house Christian Dior, while rumours are rife that luxury crystal specialist Swarovski is all set to follow suit. Here's a look into these Designer Mobiles.

The limited edition Porsche Design phone has been made by French company Sagem. The original model name of the Porsche phone is P9521 that comes integrated 2 mega pixel digital camera. The phone which was released in December last year is made of aluminum. P9521 is designed with a double hinge system, which allows users to open and rotate the phone 360 degrees. The touch-screen phone sports mineral glass on the screen and has a built-in fingerprint scanning device to protect personal data.
Other will be displayed tomorrow.......

Latest Kalashnikovs to be made in India

NEW DELHI: With the 61st anniversary of the famed Kalashnikov AK-47 series around the corner, the Russian manufacturer of the world's best-known assault rifle announced that the latest AK-100 series will be manufactured in India. The Russian arms company, Izhmash, will shortly issue a licence to an Indian private arms manufacturer with whom negotiations are at an advanced stage. Company spokesperson Alexander Xavarzin said assembling of the AK-103 will begin in a year's time and full-scale manufacturing would start once the technology transfer takes place. The company hopes to sell the gun to various police and paramilitary forces in the country as well as the army. It will not be exported. The popularity of the assault rifle can be gauged from the fact that originals account for only 8-12% of the total world sales of the Kalashnikov series - the rest are all Kalashnikov clones being manufactured in several countries, according to the Izhmash spokesperson. Unlike the AK-47 rifle which has a wooden base, the new generation AK-100 series is much lighter and has a body made of plastic. Xavarzin said the plastic component makes it an all-weather rifle, well suited to Indian conditions where soldiers have to trek at high altitudes for a number of days at a stretch.

Tata 'Nano' Motors to make air-car

LONDON: Tata Motors has confirmed that it is collaborating to develop an air-powered car with French inventors, a newspaper reported. Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant told the Financial Times newspaper that his group last year signed an agreement with MDI, a private French company developing cars driven by compressed air. "It's a very exciting concept, this way of running a car. We hope something will come out of it," Kant said. He confirmed Tata Motors had the technology rights for India and was "studying whether it can be used". Tata was looking at applying the technology for both mobile and stationary uses, he said in an interview published Sunday. Reports last week said Tata was looking at the feasibility of applying the technology to power generation. According to MDI, which is based near Nice, compressed air technology can be applied to emergency generators. Guy Negre, the French engineer who is working on the invention, was quoted saying last week his five-seater OneCat, with zero emissions in cities, will be marketed within a year. "The first buyers [of the air car will be people who care about the environment," Negre said, adding: "It also has to be economical." However, Kant said the group had "not yet announced when we will have a car". A representative of the French company said Tata had bought rights to its engine, but not its car concept. The paper said the car would be run by compressed air tanks at speeds below 50 km per hour, and by petrol, diesel or another fuel at high speeds.

China wants its own Bangalore, invites Indian IT firms

Mumbai: China has invited Indian IT and business process outsourcing companies to set up more units in its IT parks and build them up at par with those in cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.
A delegation from Wuxi, an emerging economic zone in the Yangtze river delta, met representatives of software industries here and expressed a desire to convert their district into a "Bangalore of China".
Yang Weize, secretary of Wuxi Municipal Communist Party of China Committee, said: "If China is the factory of the world, India has become the 'office of the world'. This is what we want to do for ourselves. That is why we are here."
Weize pointed out that currently Wuxi has 50 Indian companies. "We are now very keen that more of them should explore the benefits and sops we are providing."
Janet Zhang, director of Wuxi City Investment Promotion Office, told IANS that in fiscal 2006-07 the total imports and exports by Indian companies in Wuxi was set to touch $1 billion -- a growth of 50 percent.

Microsoft bringing ads to shopping carts

SEATTLE, Washington -- Microsoft Corp. is bringing digital advertising to the grocery cart.
The software maker spent four years working with Plano, Texas-based MediaCart Holdings Inc. on a grocery cart-mounted console that helps shoppers find products in the store, then scan and pay for their items without waiting in the checkout line. Microsoft's acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, last year for $6 billion shored up the company's capacity to serve video ads onto these grocery cart screens.
Starting in the second half of 2008, the companies plan to test MediaCart in Wakefern Food Corp.'s ShopRite supermarkets on the East Coast. Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list.
The system also uses radio-frequency identification to sense where the shopper's cart is in the store. The RFID data can help ShopRite and food makers understand shopping patterns, and the technology can also be used to send certain advertisements to people at certain points -- an ad for 50 cents off Oreos, for example, when a shopper enters the cookie aisle. Microsoft said it is still working on how it will present commercials and coupons.
Microsoft is also working with MediaCart and ShopRite to help advertisers reach potential consumers based on past grocery purchases, which are logged when they swipe their loyalty cards.
"This is not all necessarily about bombarding consumers, about targeting advertising," said Scott Ferris, general manager of Microsoft's Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group. "It's about also making the shopping experience better for the consumer."
Advertisers will get more feedback about which commercials or coupon offers are effective, because customers either buy the products or accept the offers on the spot, or they don't. But Ferris said neither Microsoft nor any advertisers will have access to the personal information consumers provide when they join the supermarket's loyalty card program.