It looks like megapixel war between the Mobile phone makers is not going to end, at least not in this century. We already have 8mega pixel phones serving us, but the near future is sure to raise this bar even higher.

It was revealed in a presentation by the Sony Ericson group. In the presentation the group revealed their future plans on the mobile handsets and the possible configuration of mobiles in about 4 years time i.e. 2012. Some of these configurations will surely surprise you.

Sony predicts that its mobile will be loaded with a 12-20 megapixel camera that would allow high definition video recording.  This however is more likely to be marketing gimmick as most of the mobiles with high megapixel capabilities fail to produce even half decent images ( thanks to their dumb sensors and tiny lenses).

Sony also predicted the following configurations:

Screen Resolution: 1024*768

Application CPU: 1 GHz

Internet Connection: LTE 100+ Mbps

These numbers in themselves look quite flattering and the question arises that even if they are able to bring it all together in a small phone what will the final device look like. Another thing to look up to is how other major handset manufacturers react to this.

It so often happens that we leave for a business trip and then realize later on that what if I had been carrying this gadget or that gadget.

Gadgets are mostly fun but some of them are pretty essential and ideally you should not forget them.

We would today discuss a few of these gadgets.

Mobile Printers

When your business involves lot of paper work, printers are the one thing that you would not like to miss on a business trip. Additionally if you are carrying your own mobile printer you would be sure that there is no chance for security errors to creep in and compromise your purpose.

While selecting mobile printers just ensure that you select a compact model but without sacrificing any speed.

EyeWare

A Video eye ware can be really handy when you are on a business trip. You might need to play some files in private and review secret data or simply you might not want others to peep into what you are watching. Just connect them to your laptop and enjoy.

They look pretty cool too.

Global travel Plug adapter

It is highly likely that the country you might be visiting uses different types of power plugs than what are used in your country. Also most of your gadgets need different type of plugs to work on and surely you would not want to get in a situation where in you find you electronically working gadgets of absolutely no use.

Remember time is money is business. The more prepared you are the better it is.

With the release of every new generation of gigahertz pumping processors, the daunting task of keeping them cool has become quite a concern. This usually is not much of a problem for most PC users who run their PC for years with the same configuration they purchased it in.

But for the enthusiast PC users who tweak, over clock or simply tinker with the performance settings by cranking it higher in order to achieve maximum performance, cooling becomes a big issue.

Improper or inadequate cooling can shorten the life of PC components such as processors or graphics chipsets the risk increases when core PC components are over clocked. This brings us to something known as thermal paste or thermal grease.

This material is used to fill up the microscopic pores that would otherwise act as a catalyst in generating more heat in the gap between the processor and the heat sink.

There are several thermal grease brands available in the market, but one of them-Arctic Silver-has always been a top preference among over clockers and PC enthusiasts.

The XPC ZEN ST62K sure is small-this PC takes up less than half the space most PCs do and is super silent. But does that mean it’s half the performance? Let’s find out.

Features

The XPC ZEN is based on the ATI9100 IGP chipset, an integrated solution by ATI that offers support for Pentium 4 processors running at 800 MHz FSB. The chipset also supports up to 4 GB of 128-bit dual­channel DDR memory, AGP 8x and DirectX 8.1 graphics. Packs quite a punch for gaming doesn’t it? For music lovers, there is S.l-channel audio onboard through the Realtek chipset. USB 2.0 and integrated LAN also make their way on to this chipset.

The system is powered by a 180 watts power supply. The best part about the power supply is that it’s external, which means better air cooling on the inside and more importantly, no noise.

Talking about cooling, the XPC ZEN features a heat pipe cooling system, with just one fan acting as a cooler for both the processor and the cabinet. Neat! The heat sink itself has a copper base which is very effective in keep your CPU cool.

So much for looks. As a smart buyer, you’ll want to look beyond the style issue. When one is buying a cabinet, one has to check its build quality. The construction of the frame holding the drive bays should be sturdy enough to hold the drives attached. The base of the cabinet should be even, so that it doesn’t list to one side when placed on a flat surface. So we checked for that.

While at it, we also checked the construction of the cabinet and the way the side panels fit on to the frame. In addition, we checked how easy it is to open the side panels of the cabinet, and looked for any USB and sound ports provided for connecting respective devices. We noted the number of air gaps provided for attaching extra cooling fans.

So how does the Saturn ATX measure up? First up, the side panels can be easily opened by undoing the screws-you don’t need a screw d river for that, as it’s pretty easy to unscrew with your fingers. Nevertheless, providing a screw less access would have been better, as it is much easier to work with -especially if you are a compulsive up grader and constantly plug in new hardware.

On the front panel you will find ports for connecting a maximum of two USB devices and Audio In/Out ports for speakers and microphone. You can connect up to five fans inside the cabinet, but there isn’t much space for air to escape from the lower front of the cabinet which would hold two of these five fa ns. That apart, the two openings on the back of the cabinet and on the left panel provide ample room for the air to escape.

On the inside, a 3S0 watt power supply is provided with ample power connectors. You can connect up to four 3.S-inch (hard disk) and four S.2S-inch (CD-ROM) drives on the drive bays.

Once you open the package, what you find inside is the sphere itself with a base and a docking pole which is 9 inches tall. You can also detach the camera from the docking pole and fix it directly on to the base.

The camera is USB 2.0 compatible, which means you need simply plug it There are two ways you can place the Logitech Quickcam Sphere-on top of the I 9-inch-long docking pole (shown at top) or directly on the base as shown above into your PC’s USB 2.0 port and start using it-goes without saying, of course, that the camera is of no use to you if your PC doesn’t provide a USB 2.0 port.

The Quickcam Sphere can capture images at a good 1280×960 resolution. In addition, it allows 3x digital zoom. Motion capture for video conferencing takes place at a resolution of 640×480.

Usage and image quality The image quality of the webcam is impressive. Even video image quality at 640×480 resolution is quite crisp. However, you must bear in mind that while holding a video conference through an instant messaging client such as MSN or Yahoo Messenger, your frame rate smoothness will depend on the connection.

Face-tracking is a cool sounding feature of this webcam. You can enable this feature through the drivers-it enables the camera to move 128 degrees side to side and 54 degrees top-down so it can track your face as you move your head while sitting in front of your Pc. While this sounds really cool, there is a catch.

It tracks your face for sure, but if you move your hand while conferencing or if someone passes behind you, the camera shifts focus to that object-this can be quite irritating at times. But what we found more irritating is the fact that whenever the system is rebooted, the camera reorients its position to the center rather than remembering its old position.