CIA bomber video calls for attacks on US

The suicide bomber who killed CIA agents in Afghanistan had made a video calling on militants to avenge the death of the Pakistani Taliban leader by carrying out attacks in and outside the United States, al Jazeera said.

A pilotless US drone aircraft strike killed Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud last year.

Al Jazeera reported on its website that the video was left as a message to the United States and its Arab ally Jordan by the bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. Mr Balawi blew himself up on December 30 inside Forward Operating Base Chapman, a well-fortified US compound in Khost province in southeast Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. It was the second-most deadly attack in CIA history.

If the video is verified, it will point to big intelligence failures by the United States and Jordan, one of its most important Middle East allies. Mr Balawi appeared in the video wearing a camouflage jacket and a traditional flat Afghan hat.

From Financial Times

Tharoor Troubles: Brit MP criticises Nehru as Tharoor agrees

Shashi Tharoor, the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs is under the Congress' scanner. Tharoor has said he agrees with criticism that the foreign policy of Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first Prime Minister and the Congress’ biggest icon, was a “moralistic running commentary”.

Tharoor criticised Nehru at a lecture by British MP Lord Bhikhu Parekh in New Delhi recently. Parekh, in his lecture, said Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi’s policies presented India in a light of “moral self-righteousness”. Tharoor backed his views.

Tharoor, a former international diplomat, created a huge controversy in September when he posted a message on Twitter that he would travel “cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!”. The Congress was set to take action against him but the row ended when he apologized and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called his ‘Tweet’ a joke.

From IBNLive

Skynet...err!...Google Nexus One

The mass hype around the Google phone is huge and Google must live up to the expectation. The iPhone has a massive user base and Nexus One needs more than just tech specs to woo away the iPhone users. HTC is the phone's manufacturer. Microsoft says that the phone will fail. What do you think?

Tech Crunch Review

The phone looks more like the iPhone than any other phone on the market. There is no physical keyboard like the Android-powered Motorola Droid, and the tradeoff is a much slimmer design. The phone is 11.5 mm deep, slightly thinner than the iPhone 3GS at 12.3 mm. It is also slightly lighter than the iPhone 130 grams v. 135 grams). The package comes with the phone, a removable battery, 4 GB Micro SD storage card (expandable to 32 GB), USB charger and microphone headset.

The Nexus one has four functional touch buttons at the bottom of the screen (back, menu, home, search) and a navigation trackball pointing device. It also has physical power and volume controls. But most of your interaction with the phone will be through the gorgeous 3.7 inch 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen. This is the best mobile phone display on the market today, blowing away the iPhone’s 480 x 320 display. The screen is bright and alive, and an absolute pleasure to use.

This phone is also powered by the Snapdragon 1 GHz core processor, which is more than able to handle the Nexus One’s 3D graphics, multiple applications running in the background and heavy browser use simultaneously. Unlike previous Android phones, there is no slowdown or lag when you push the phone’s performance, and less of a need to kill applications to keep the device humming.

On the downside: all this hardware bling is an energy hog. The screen will self adjust brightness and Google is smart about turning down the processor when it’s not being used. But I’ve found battery life to be woefully brief, even by iPhone standards. Officially the phone has up to 7 hours talk time, 250 hours standby, 5 hours of 3G Internet use, 7 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback. Unofficially, I was able to kill the fully charged battery with 1.5 hours of continuous gameplay (Robo Defense) on the full-brightness screen. Be prepared to keep this phone near a charger at all times. You can easily view what’s using the battery, though (the screen is 71% of my current usage), and then adjust the hardware or software usage to maximize battery life.

Overall the Android is a superior mobile device, particularly when paired with Google Voice. Google is calling this the first of the Super Phones. And they may not be exaggerating all that much.

Specifications

GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 1700 / 2100 / 900
	Announced	2010, January
	Status	Available. Released 2010, January

SIZE	Dimensions	119 x 59.8 x 11.5 mm
	Weight	130 g

DISPLAY	Type	AMOLED capacitive touchscreen
	Size	480 x 800 pixels, 3.7 inches
		- Accelerometer sensor - Touch-sensitive controls - Trackball navigation - Proximity sensor for auto turn-off

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration, MP3 ringtones
	Speakerphone	Yes
		- 3.5 mm audio jack

MEMORY	Phonebook	Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
	Call records	Practically unlimited
	Internal	512MB RAM, 512MB ROM
	Card slot	microSD up to 32GB, 4GB included, buy memory

DATA	GPRS	Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
	EDGE	Class 10, 236.8 kbps
	3G	HSDPA 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
	Bluetooth	Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
	Infrared port	No
	USB	Yes, microUSB v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	5 MP, 2560х1920 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
	Features	Smile detection, geo-tagging
	Video	Yes, D1 (720x480 pixels)@min. 20fps
	Secondary	No

FEATURES	OS	Android OS, v2.1
	CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	HTML
	Radio	No
	Games	Yes + downloadable
	Colors	Brown (teflon coating)
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support
	Java	Yes, MIDP 2.0
		- Active noise cancellation with dedicated microphone - Digital compass - Dedicated search key - Google Search, Maps, Gmail - YouTube, Google Talk, Picasa integration - MP3/eAAC+/WAV music player - MP4/H.263/H.264 video player - Voice memo

BATTERY		Standard battery, Li-Ion 1400 mAh
	Stand-by	Up to 290 h (2G) / Up to 250 h (3G)
	Talk time	Up to 10 hours (2G) / Up to 7 hours (3G)
	Music play	Up to 20 hours