Palringo has launched its free multi-service IM application on the Android Market. Using Palringo, Android users can chat to their friends on Google Talk, MSN, Facebook, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, iChat, QQ and other popular messaging services and social networks. Palringo also enables Android owners to send photo messages to their friends in just two clicks (check out the video below).
Android users can share their location with friends on Palringo: buddies can see each others’ location and proximity (distance away) alongside their status in the Palringo contact list. Users may also view a map showing the whereabouts of all of their contacts who have chosen to share their location. Using Palringo’s Group capability, people can chat with all of their friends at the same time. Groups also offer the opportunity to meet new people who share similar interests.
ZumoDrive is a free app just recently released on the App Store which works in tandem with a downloadable desktop client (Mac OS X or Windows) to let you easily move and use files between your desktop, your laptop, and your iPhone. Unlike other apps on the App Store such as Air Sharing (which isn’t free), ZumoDrive does require you to install a lightweight free software on to your computer and requires that both your computer and your iPhone have access to the internet either via 3G, WiFi or EDGE in order for you to upload files (photos and music as well) onto the ZumoDrive server. But this isn’t too difficult, the free iPhone client supports both Windows and Mac OS X, you just need to choose the appropriate one. I suppose the major difficulty here is you’re also having to rely on ZumoDrive’s cloud for storage instead of storing files locally, but there are always good and bad views on this.
In terms of the user interface, once connected, your ZumoDrive will show up like another hard drive where you can easily drag files that show up almost immediately on other devices. What makes ZumoDrive unique is that it automatically understands not to store larger files on your iPhone, but gives you access to those files from the cloud. However, it’s important to note that the free version only allows you 1GB of space to work with, which was quite surprising to me as I would expect at least 5GB with so many large files that we need to deal with nowadays. Nevertheless the money will need to come from somewhere I suppose! Upgrading the plan on ZumoDrive to 10GB will cost $2.99 per month and so on. For most users who deal with just simple word or PDF documents, 1GB should be enough.
Check out ZumoDrive on the App Store here, or check out the ZumoDrive web.
Lenovo IdeaCentre 600 is believed to be the world’s thinnest all-in-one desktop PC, with it’s 21.5 inch frameless screen. It’s a powerful desktop PC supporting most of the high specifications that you can think of, which could be an alternative choice for those who don’t like the Apple iMac. One of the cool feature not to miss is the 4-in-1 optional remote controller, which functions as an airmouse, Skype VOIP handset, media centre/TV remote and accelerometer controller for games, quite different from a typical iMac’s volume / play / pause Frontrow remote. It’s fantastic news for entertainment and gaming enthusiants. The standard price is to start at $999.
