Wow - Clown Co. Got That $1 billion Valuation (still nameless though)

Is ANYONE at NBC or News Corp. embarrassed that they can’t agree on a name, even a working name (or a website), for their new Not-A-YouTube-Killer video joint venture?

It was announced in March to fanfare, and a steady stream of news has been written about it ever since. But no one has a name for it, not even the New York Times which reported today that the joint venture managed to find someone willing to throw $100 million at it for 10% (reports that they were pitching this came out in June). And so we keep referring to it as Clown Co., which is the name Google execs reportedly refer to it as behind closed doors.

But back to the news. Providence Equity Partners, a Rhode Island based private equity firm, put up the $100 million to buy 10% of a company that didn’t exist three months ago. I hope that means a launch is imminent. It would be hard to launch without a name.

Does the Nokia N93i scale up in performance over its predecessor, the N93? Find out

When you think of the amount of money that was once being asked for the older Nokia N93, the ex-flagship N-series model from Nokia, you can’t help but writhe at its look. I mean, Rs. 38,000 for that big black piece of a brick? Come on. The way it looked wasn’t the end. There were various problems with general ergonomics, side joystick and also some issues with the OS and the camera. Here today, we have the swanky new N93i, the latest, greatest and also the most expensive Nseries phone. Did Nokia consider the users' feedback in the N93i? Let’s find out. Design The first thing you can see is that the N93i is a shiny and swanky device, something the original N93 could never win with. The front of the phone is a complete mirror-finish surface, quite like the Sony Ericsson Z610i. However, it isn't 100% mirror-like, in that it still has a bit of warping, so if you look at yourself in it, your face will appear contorted. Below this display, hidden away, is another 65k color sub-display that almost looks like an OLED display found on some other clamshell phones. The original N93 was huge and heavy. With the new N93i, Nokia has addressed these issues a bit. The result is a phone that's 5mm slimmer and also around 20gms lighter. But even after this trim, the N93i is still a bulky and heavy phone by conventional standards. The display is one of the biggest improvements as well as the biggest problems in this phone. The new display is still QVGA and the same size, but it's been upgraded to show 16 million colors and believe me when I say that you need to see it to believe it. The display is glossy, but that's the problem right there. It's so reflective, you'll keep turning the phone from side to side to be able to see it. And in sunlight, well, forget it. You can't see anything. This is a huge problem if you're shooting in camcorder mode during the afternoon - like we did for the little short film we made - the display is useless !!! Specifications Nokia N93i Network : GSM 900/1800/1900, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS/3G/WCDMA Physical : 108 x 58 x 25 mm, 163g Display : 320x240 (QVGA), 16 million colors, TFT UI : Symbian OS 9.1 Series 60 3rd Edition Memory : 50mb, miniSD, hotswap Media : MP3, AAC, 3GP, MPEG4 Connectivity Bluetooth 2.0, Infrared/IrDA, WiFi 802.11b/g, USB 2.0 Battery 280 hours stand by, 3 hours 30 minutes talk Camera 3.2 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, Carl Zeiss Optics, auto-focus, VGA 30fps video, flash, secondary CIF camera Price : Rs. 35,750 What's good and bad about the Nokia N93i? Good: Better looking A bit smaller and lighter Great video quality 1GB miniSD bundled Adobe Premiere Elements bundled Bad: Too expensive to upgrade to Technically unchanged Multimedia/camera unchanged Low battery life

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SAMSUNG - SGH-E690 This 83 grams clamshell phone has a Lithium-Ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 360 minutes and stand by time of 250 hours. It has added features like 65k colour TFT internal display with resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and 65k colour external display with resolution of 96 x 96 pixels, voice dial, voice mail, call conferencing, triband, flight mode, vibration mode, predictive text input, polyphonic ringtones, music player (mp3, AAC and AAC+), fm radio, alarm clock, calendar,inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, MMS, EMS, SMS, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, USB Connector and is WAP enabled. It has a VGA camera with features like 4x digital zoom, photo effects, multi shot, self timer, mosaic shot, image quality adjuster and video recording. It also has an inbuilt memory of 16MB, microSD card slot and sales package consists of 256MB microSD card. View More Price Rs. :- 8,079 User Rating : 10.00 Perfect

SAMSUNG - SGH-P310 This 73.6 grams phone has a Lithium-Ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 240 minutes and stand by time of 242 hours. It has added features like 262k colour TFT display with resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, voice mail, call conferencing, triband, flight mode, vibration mode, predictive text input, polyphonic ringtones, music player (mp3, AAC and AAC+), alarm clock, stopwatch, calendar, document viewer, inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, MMS, EMS, SMS, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, Infrared and is WAP enabled. It has a 2MP camera with features like 4x digital zoom, flash, photo effects, multi shot, mosaic shot, image quality adjuster and video recording. It also is pda enabled and has an inbuilt memory of 80MB and a microSD card slot. It comes with a Leather Case with inbuilt secondary battery. View More Price Rs. :- 18,999 User Rating : 4.00 Mediocre

MOTOROLA - W375 This 88 grams clamshell phone has a lithium-ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 450 minutes and standby time of 250 hours. It has a 65k colour TFT internal display with resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and a mono external display. It also has features like VGA camera with 4x digital zoom, polyphonic ringtones, predictive text input, vibration mode, triband, mp3 capability, fm radio, MMS, EMS, SMS, GPRS, USB Connector, WAP, handsfree speaker, calculator, calendar, currency converter, alarm, clock and ringtone composer. View More Price Rs. :- 5,490

MOTOROLA - L7i This 96 grams phone has a Lithium-ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 315 minutes and stand by time of 345 hours. It has added features like inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, voice dial, voice mail, call conferencing, specific caller tones, vibration mode, quad band, predictive text input, bluetooth enabled, SMS messaging, picture messaging, inbuilt games, polyphonic ringtones, EDGE, GPRS, MMS and is WAP 1.2 enabled. It has a microSD card slot, inbuilt VGA camera with 4x digital zoom and video recording feature. Its sales package consists of 128 MB microSD card, USB connectivity cable and headset. Price Rs. :- 8,200

MOTOROLA - RIZR Z3 This 115 grams slider phone has a Lithium-ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 400 minutes and standby time of 350 hours. It has added features like voice dial, call conferencing, specific caller tones, quad band, 2MP camera with 8x digital zoom, photo light and video recording, email client, calendar, calculator, flight mode, inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, vibration mode, predictive text input, PTT, SMS, EMS, MMS, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, Infrared, USB Connector and is WAP enabled. It comes with 262k colour TFT display with resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and also has features like mp3 capability, polyphonic ringtones, pda enabled, inbuilt memory of 20MB and a microSD card slot. Price Rs. :- 13,138