Nokia to start Japanese mobile phone service

According to a Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun report, Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, is planning to launch its own mobile phone service in Japan next spring.

The move, if true, will intensify the already tight competition of cell phone carriers in Japan.

Nokia is "expected to use lines owned by Japan's biggest mobile phone carrier, NTT Docomo Inc, under an arrangement called mobile virtual network operator," added the paper.

The service will first be offered with high-end models in order to "establish a strong brand."

Despite being the biggest handset maker in the world, Nokia has only a 1 percent market share in Japan.


From: www.afterdawn.com

Special offer for Thanksgiving

Aimersoft Studio is promoting their thanksgiving special offer - a free mobile video converter . This mobile video converter can convert videos perfectly, supporting formats include AVI, WMV, MPEG, MPG, FLV, DAT, RM, RMVB, MOV, ASF, etc. Fitting for all popular mobile Devices. It fully supports all kinds of cell phone of brands such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc.

This Video Converter for Mobile Devices also provides a series of video editing functions, such as video crop, movie trimming and video effect adjustment. You can set encoding parameters including resolution, bit rate, frame rate, aspect ratio, brightness, contrast, saturation to get the best video quality.


Features and System Requirement:

Operating System Windows NT4/2000/2003/XP and Windows Vista 32

Hardware Requirement Intel Pentium II 350MHz or above, or any Athlon; 64 MB RAM or above

Input Format AVI, MP4, MPG, MPEG, 3GP, WMV, ASF, RM, RMVB, DAT, MOV, FLV, MP3, WAV, M4A,WMA, etc.

Output Format MP4, MP3, WMA, etc.

Digital Devices iPod, Zune, iPhone, Apple TV, Sandisk, PSP, Xbox 360, PS3, Archos, iRiver, Creative Zen, PMP, Smart Phone, Pocket PC, PDA, Mobile Phone, MP4/MP3 Player, etc.

Free hard disk space 100 MB or more.

RAM 256 MB or above.

Free Video to Audio Converter software review

Do you want to get a great free gift for your family at Thanksgiving? Do you have iPod nano? or Creative zen? any mp3 players?
There are so many software that can convert DVD video to mp4 video players, but how can we convert video to audio free? Where can we get free mp3 audio converter to convert audio mp3 music free, so we can enjoy any audio, any music free with our friend or our family at home, bus station, any where?

The answer is Video to Audio Converter software.
Fortunately, I'm came across a powerful free Video to Audio Converter software as my 2008 Thanksgiving free gift- Daniusoft Video to Audio Converter software, which valued $25 now completely free for windows users, it can convert RM/ MPEG to MP3 or extract the audio of video files like AVI, MP4, MPEG, WMV, XviD, DAT, MOV, ASF, FLV to the most popular audio formats. So it's actually a very useful program for any of you to convert video to audio free.

As usual we start off with the Specs and Features of the program, this is just the basics grabbed from their site, if you wish to read everything they've got about Daniusoft Video to Audio Converter, you can get this free Video to Audio Converter software here, or go to the giveaway of thanksgiving to get more thanksgiving offers.

Daniusoft Video to Audio Converter

Price: Original $25.00 Now $0.00 (It's permanently free during Oct 24 - Dec 31)

Follow is my personally review of the free Video to Audio Converter...

When I first run Daniusoft Video to Audio Converter software on my XP, it starts as



Features:

1.Directly convert audio of video free for playback on all popular portable video/audio players as iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, Zune, PSP,

iPhone, iRiver, Archos, Creative Zen and some other MP4/MP3 players.

2.Supports all music format - Extract the audio from video files like AVI, RM, MP4, MPEG, WMV, XviD, DAT, MOV, ASF, FLV to MP3,

M4A, AC3, AAC, WMA, WAV, OGG, APE.

3.Free Convert video to audio mp3 formats with powerful audio editing functions including trim any segment of your Video by set the

Start time and End Time.



4.Customize video/audio quality with various video and audio settings.

5.Adjust the Volume, you can set volume of output files as you wish and convert Video to Audio free with flexible audio settings



With this powerful free Video to Audio Converter, you can enjoy any music on all popular MP4/MP3 players like iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, Zune, PSP, iPhone, iRiver, Archos, Creative Zen etc. This Convert Video to Audio free Software is so easy-to-use that whether you are an experienced user or a beginner, Convert RM to MP3, Convert MPEG to MP3, convert audio mp3 free or other supported video formats to Audio is just a breeze.

After we test with the free audio converter program, this is just the function simply converter software from their site, if you wish to convert DVD/Video movie, copy DVD in one step on computer and more popular players, stop and go to here.

Here's some stats for you:
Time to convert: 25:19
Output Size: 3.5MB
CPU Usage:
Average: 25%
Peak: 31%

The software estimated the output size at 4.0MB, and the actual output size is 3.5Mb, so it's smaller which is nicer, you'll be able to fit more music on your player.

The time to convert is pretty good as well, coming in under 3 minutes to convert a video that's over 20 mins long, that's about the average time for most conversion software packages out there today. Yes some are quicker, and of course so do take longer, but 3 minutes isn't bad really.

And I threw the converted Stargate over to my phone, quality was very good.

If I had to rate this software I would give it a 4.8 out of 5 score, and I think I could recommend it as well to anyone looking for a free

Thanksgiving gift for your girl friend/boy friend, etc. that's very useful, but does offer the ability to customize your output files and convert video to audio free.


free Video to Audio Converter, Convert Video to Audio free, free mp3 audio converter

Sixx A.M.'s Heroin Diaries To Get Deluxe Treatment

Sixx A.M. is set to release a "Deluxe Edition" of the trio's debut disc, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack.

Comprised of drummer James Michael, guitarist DJ Ashba and Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, Sixx A.M. recorded the original disc in conjunction with Sixx's book-length account of his descent into heroin addiction. Titled The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, the book spent several weeks on the New York Times Non-Fiction Best-Seller List. Sixx has since indicated he views the book as more of a commentary on the record business than as a portrait of a debauched rock lifestyle.

Available exclusively at Best Buy on Nov. 25, the deluxe set will include an 8-song EP titled Live Is Beautiful, in addition to the original CD. The EP, which was compiled from several performances on this summer's Crüe Fest, will be sold separately as well.

To read an in-depth interview with band leader Sixx, click here.

Additionally, to celebrate Mötley Crüe’s Saints of Los Angeles tour, Gibson USA and the Crüe are giving you a chance to win a brand new NIKKI SIXX Signature Thunderbird IV Bass, just like the one Sixx plays. But that’s not all … the winner will also receive a complete Mötley Crüe catalog signed by the entire band! All you have to do is fill out the entry form here and you could win big!

The complete track listing for the Deluxe Edition is as follows:

The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack:

1. X-Mas In Hell

2. Van Nuys

3. Life Is Beautiful

4. Pray For Me

5. Tomorrow

6. Accidents Can Happen

7. Intermission

8. Dead Man's Ballet

9. Heart Failure

10. Girl With Golden Eyes

11. Courtesy Call

12. Permission

13. Life After Death



Live Is Beautiful Bonus EP:

1. X-Mas In Hell (Live)

2. Pray For Me (Live)

3. Heart Failure (Live)

4. Intermission (Live)

5. Dead Man's Ballet (Live)

6. Tomorrow (Live)

7. Accidents Can Happen (Live)

8. Life Is Beautiful (Live)


From: http://www.gibson.com

70 percent of Finnish youth are 'criminal' pirates

A new survey published by the The National Research Institute of Legal Policy shows that about 70 percent of teenage Finns have used or currently use file-sharing applications to download copyrighted material.

Online piracy was far and away the largest form of ‘criminal behavior’ among the Finnish youth. 6 percent smoke marijuana or has, 11 percent have participated in a fight, and 15 percent have stolen something from their school or someone else.

29 percent of those who reported downloading unauthorized content also admitted they download movies or music every single day from file sharing services.

Finnish pro-piracy group Piraattiliitto said, “There is an almost unanimous call from the readers to legalize private filesharing. The overwhelming change in the national opinion from anti-piracy to pro-piracy is somewhat surprising, even for us at Piraattiliitto.”

The Finnish copyright lobby however said the results of the survey were "alarming" and they are looking to pass new laws that will "allow copyright holders to force ISPs to pass their threatening emails to the alleged filesharing customers."

From: http://www.afterdawn.com

Convert DVD to MKV HD video to keep the high quality

Many people complain that when they convert DVD to video and watch it on laptop or PC the quality get bad. Why this happens?
An ordinary DVD movie is often 7-8 GB in size, if we convert them to ordinary video formats the size would be hundreds of MB, so We have to face this problem that the code compress process would destroy most of unimportant data and the video quality get bad. How do we resolve this issue?
We can decrease the damage by converting DVD to MKV and other HD video formats. These HD videos are often bigger than standard video and keep high quality.

OK, let’s discuss it in details:
1. What’s MKV HD video?
2. How to convert DVD to MKV to keep the high quality?
(You can also learn how to convert MKV to AVI and other videos from this guide.)
3. How to play MKV HD video on Windows media player?

Part 1: What’s MKV HD video?

An MKV HD video file is a Matroska file, the Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free Container format . It is similar in conception to other containers like AVI, MP4 or ASF, but is entirely open in specification, And the size is often much more bigger than common video for the HD code methods.


Part 2: How to convert DVD to MKV HD video to keep the high quaity?

Here I listed a few good DVD to MKV converters I found on google, They all have good output quality, can input DVD disk, DVD folder, IFO, ISO and support MKV HD video, but you can select a better one with special feature for your needs.

Aimersoft DVD ripper

This DVD to MKV converter has been upgrade recently and added MT2S, TS, TP, TRP and MKV HD video formats into its output formats.



Important features:
1. Convert DVD to MKV, MP4, WMV, AVI, FLV, MOV, 3GP, 3GPP, MPG, RMVB, Xvid, ASF, WMA, M4A, MP3, AAC, OGG, MKA, AC3, WAV. ( Available for iPod, iPhone, PSP, Zune, etc)
2. Editing function: video cropping, trimming and effect adjusting;
3. Subtitle and Audio track select.
4. Chapters and Clips selecting, so you can choose any part of the DVD to convert and “merge into on file”.
5. Conversion speed: 58 minutes. (DVD: Kungfu Panda).


HQ DVD To MKV Converter

This is a specialized DVD to MKV converter, the output format includes only MKV, a DVD to MKV converter for the people who have owned other DVD converters but not include MKV video in their outputs and the price is cheaper than other comprehensive DVD rippers.



Important features:
1. Convert DVD to MKV only.
2. Subtitle and Audio track select.
3. Conversion speed: 1 hour 18 minutes (DVD: Kungfu Panda)

Avaide dvd ripper



Important features:
1. Convert DVD to MKV, AVI, WMV, MP4, FLV, MOV, MPG, 3GP, MP3, AAC, OGG, WMA for iPod, PSP, Zune, etc.
2. Chapters selecting; Time trimming to select any part of the DVD.
3. Conversion speed: 1 hour 37 minutes. (DVD: Kungfu Panda)


In summarize, if you already got one comprehensive DVD converter but doesn’t support MKV format, HQ DVD to MKV converter ($19.95) can help you save more $; Aimersoft DVD ripper ($35) has the fastest conversion speed and more editing function for users; Of cause, if you don’t care too much about these two features and want to spend less dollars Avaide dvd ripper ($29.95) is also a good choice for the same good output quality.
OK, choose one to convert DVD to MKV HD video, then I will tell you how to play MKV in Windows Media Player.

Part 3: How to play MKV on Windows media player?

Many people who download a HD video file with the extension MKV will often try to play it back with video player software they have installed on their systems. Most of the time this doesn't work.
As it is based on DirectShow Windows Media Player will play back MKV HD video files perfectly if you have the proper codecs and filters installed. A great help here is the Matroska Pack. This pack is an ideal solution for new users as it installs pretty much all you will need to play MKV HD video files.

You can get more details and download the Matraoka Pack from its official site:
http://www.matroska.org/

Finally, I’m not a expert in digital area, so some resources in this article were collected from other professional site such as Wikipedia.com and afterdawn.com.
Any valuable advices would be great. Enjoy ;)

iPhone comes to top this winter

According marketing report from NPD, iPhone becomes the most popular mobile phone in America, replace Moto Razr which have been on the top for three years. and the list by order is iPhone, Moto Razr, Rim blackberry, LG Rumor and LG enV2.

Ross Rubin from NPD said: The iPhone 3G makes iPhone win the competetion, and other Mobile company also optimized their products in the aspect of message and net support function.

NPD also claimed that Qwerty keyboard phone took 30% sell in the marketing, 83% mobile phone have bluetooth function and 70% phone support the music playback.The sample is from 15000 online vote.