These accusations might sound familiar and it is because Pixar, Intuit, Intel, Google, Adobe, and Apple settled with Department of Justice last year for an investigation in to the anti competitive solicitation agreements. This lawsuit says DoJ investigaton as wrongdoing evidence. A few companies including Google said that they would be ending the policies of ‘no cold call’.

There are mentions of different relationships and agreements between the companies. It is said that Lucasfilm and Pixar entered in to an agreement which was done to eliminate competition between them for the skilled labor. Pixar had originated from Lucasfilm division which Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO bought in 1986.

Vodafone 360 can be seen as a brand new range of internet services for mobiles and PC’s which can put together all the friends, communities, entertainment  of the user and can be easily synced with the PC.

This offering from Vodafone comes along with a ‘Vodafone People’ which can easily sync the user’s contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger And Google Talk. The all new 360 app store will provide its users with new apps, games, music and mapping services. Also Samsung will be launching two new handsets which will include the unique 3D display which runs on the proximity algorithm and brings the most frequently contacted people closer in the front of the screen.

The release date for the 360 would most probably be somewhere during the Christmas season.

However it is photo tagging feature which is the highlight of this version. Now the question that arises what is the benefit of this kind of photo tagging. Using name tags one can easily organize the photos according to the names of the people who are present in the photos. Once the tagging is done the user can easily use the tag to get a collection of all the photos in which the tagged individual is present. The user can also use this feature to make photo collages and then probably upload it and share it with others. Also the face recognition feature identifies similar photos and then compiles them all into an album from where the user can pick up the photo and tag it.

And well yeah, this one is absolutely free. All you have to do is go on to http://picasa.google.com/ and download it.

According to the Manhattan Court that is considering the whether the agreement abides by the laws or not and the Justice Department, the proposal should be rejected in its present form and the negotiations with different parties should be continued in order to adhere with the antitrust and the copyright laws.

According to the settlement Google will pay  $125 million into a registry which will in turn pay the authors whose books are being used and reused.

Google has already received a lot of criticism saying that it is trying to look for a crooked advantage in putting its plan into action and now to top it all the government judgement comes in as a huge blow to its super zealous plans.

However, most of the users wouldn’t even notice the change in the version because Google automatically updates the browser. Though most of us would agree that its one of the fastest browsers available today, with the Chrome 3.0 its performance has improved more with Google claiming to improve the Javascripts by about 150% since the launch of the original Beta version.

Following Microsoft, Chrome supports themes as well now. So you could change the themes everyday by selecting from one of the 28 available themes. Also continuing with the visual tweaks, the new tab section can be easily customized now and has also got a nice sleek look.

This one also supports HTML 5 video and audio tags which means that the user can now easily embed videos without having to download plugins like the Adobe flash player. With around 3505 bugfixes since the beta release it looks like Chrome is surely trying to be the best browser around or may be with this one it already is…

Well the one that has already sent most of us at Techsoft salivating is the expandable CDMA support. Which means now Android has opened its doors to Verizon, Sprint and Virgin mobile. Plus this one could support screens of resolutions all the way upto 800×480 pixels. The homescreen has an added Quicksearch box which lets you search through the web pages of your choice and the camera has been drastically improved by around 38%.

Also they have included a new battery usage system which keeps a track of how much charge is being used by a certain application. So for all those who had complains about the battery life, this one should surely help you out in getting clear view of much background processing every application needs. Finally, the Android markets have been drastically improved. What first used to look like a funeral ground with black and white ascents looks more colourful almost like a blossoming garden. Superfluous metaphors aside the look of the android market has gone through a total overhaul.

Though at the moment this a developer-only thing, Google adds that a few of the devices to be launched in October could introduce this version. Well, reading between those lines I expect the Motorola Cliq to be one of the first devices to feature this version. Till then let’s wait for the next treat. Bon Apetit!!!

The movie and music playing features of this one are as same as the Archos Media player but is based on the Google Android version of Linux which is quite commonly found in the mobile phones. Its loaded with a 5 inch touchscreen display. Also at a thickness of 1 cm this one could easily be termed ultrathin. This one goes foor sale on amazon from tomorrow and ranges between £199.99 to £369.99.

The other internet tablet being launched by Archos is the 9PCTablet and would be out in the market by 22nd October. Actually Archos is waiting for the official launch of the Windows 7 to release this one. This one is going to have a 9 inch screen touchscreen Intel Atom Z510 processor, 80GB hard disk, and built-in DVBT TV. However irrespective of when it is going to be launched this is surely going to be compared to the Apple TV and is priced at €450-€500. What this has in store is that it can double up as a portable TV set as well as entertainment TV.

I guess we ll actually have to wait for the launch to see this one in action.

Somewhere around mid-  June the buzz doing the rounds was that Google was launching its visual way to search Google news called the ‘Flipper’. Yesterday at the TechCrunch 50 conference, Marrisa Mayer launched the product officially by the name ‘Fast Flip’.

This is almost similar to flipping through newspapers at a news stand. In this case the user gets to view the pictures of the actual articles and after clicking on it the user can read the whole article. Initially the images are a bit puny but the user can easily zoom it by clicking on it.

The idea behind the name is that the user can browse through the  images and select which one he wants to read and flip over the ones he doesn’t want to view and move ahead. It hardly takes a matter of seconds and thus the name ‘Fast flip’ is apt enough.

Like on facebook, the user can like any article by clicking on the smiley icon below it and also the articles can be mailed to the others. Plus this one coming from the Google stable, it’s pretty much obvious that the search functionality has been included in it. And adding an extra sugarcoat to it is the fact that Google has decided to reward the sites and the writers who use good visuals.

This one was descried first at the IFA last week as the Etna KS360, and now it comes into the spotlight as the GW620. So in all probability this one is going to be launched in different places with different aliases. It’s probably going to be launched in the U.K somewhere during the fourth quarter of the year; however there is no buzz about its launch date in the other regions.

This one is fully equipped with a lot of messaging features, a 3-inch touchscreen, QWERTY slide out keyboard, 5 meagpixel camera, and Wi-Fi and GPS connections.

This one for sure will be a totally new experience for any first time touch screen user. Plus its just one of the many smartphones that are being launched by LG this year. The plans of the company to compete with Nokia and Samsung surely seem to taking good shape with the company also announcing the launch of a Windows mobile Phone in the near future.

The brand-new version of the Bing promises to come up with new exciting features using which you could see maps or pictures of the neighbourhood or probably the restaurant that you want to try out. Probably this one could be Microsoft’s best step to compete with Google’s high end map facilities. And possibly this one would also include the merger of the Silverlight streaming media technology with the Maps and the photos. However, most probably U.K will not see the launch of this version so soon because it is still toying around with the features of the Beta version.