Sony Ericsson has launched two new smartphones in India under its Xperia brand. Both phones – Xperia Active and Xperia Ray – were announced in June during the CommunicAsia 2011 event in Singapore and feature the latest Android 2.3 operating system along with a 1 GHz processor. With this, the Xperia brand will include nine phones and there are more to come.

Xperia Ray will be available in the second week of September while Xperia Active may hit the markets in the 4th week of the month. Both the handsets are expected to be priced between Rs 17,000-Rs 20,000.

Xperia Active has a 3 inch reality display with Sony’s Mobile Bravia display technology, and a 5 Megapixel camera with HD video functionality. It is a dust and water resistant phone, and incorporates wet finger tracking which means that the phone works perfectly even when the screen or the user’s fingers are wet.

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Active is for health conscious people and comes pre-loaded with sports apps that enable consumers to easily track their fitness levels. Users can set their ideal training route using the built-in GPS, barometer and compass. The on-screen heart rate and pulse can be monitored in real time (enabled by ANT+ wireless networking technology), while the iMapMyFitness App can monitor day to day performance. In addition, Facebook inside Xperia allows consumers to share their progress and experiences with friends.

The phone comes with a changeable soft-touch back cover, and detachable ear hooks for the portable handsfree that ensure the earpieces remain in place while you are running. It is packed with a wrist strap and arm case for use during workouts as well.

The phone is not the lightest – it weighs about 110.8 grams. Besides, the battery has a capacity of 1,200 mAh, which is measly for smartphones. We hope that Sony Ericsson has some tricks up its sleeve to make the battery last a full day.

The other new Sony phone is called Xperia Ray. Aimed more at style conscious consumers the phone comes with a sleek aluminium frame, reality display, mobile Bravia engine, and a 3.3 inch screen.

Xperia Ray, which also runs on the latest Android platform for smartphones (Gingerbread 2.3), is powered by a 1 GHz processor. The phone is quite sleek, with a thickness of 9.4 mm, and it looks gorgeous.

Besides, it has an 8.1 megapixel camera with Exmor R Sony camera technology and HD video functionality, which means that the camera will be one of the best, if not the best, in its class.

Xperia Ray incorporates a front facing camera and a scratch resistant screen with excellent Resolution and brightness, and integrated touch keys. The phone is light at just 100 grams. All the other bells and whistles of the smartphone such as WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth and DLNA are all present.

Following closely in the footsteps of LG, HTC might very soon unveil its latest 3D Android smartphone &#151 the EVO 3D in India. As reported by The Mobile Indian earlier, HTC devices usually come to India a couple of months after their international launch.

LG announced its first 3D device in India a couple of days ago, and since the 3D market is still very niche, HTC wouldn’t want to lose the initial customers.

HTC Evo 3D, as the name signifies, is a 3D smartphone based on Google’s Android Gingerbread 2.3 operating system, with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon system on a chip &#151 MSM 8660 &#151 running at 1.2 GHz with an Adreno 220 graphics engine, 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of onboard storage. In contrast with its sole competition in India &#151 the LG Optimus 3D &#151 Evo 3D definitely seems faster in terms of specifications.

The device features a 4.3 inch 3D display with native Resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, which is slightly better than the screen of Optimus 3D at 480 x 800 pixels. Both phones have screens of the same size.

Evo 3D features two 5 Megapixel cameras at the back, capable of capturing 3D visuals at 2 megapixel resolution and 720p 3D video at 30 frames per second. Apart from 3D video, the camera is capable of recording full 1080p high definition video at 24 frames per second along with 5 megapixel 2D still images.

The device is expected to be launched at the annual Qualcomm event that is scheduled to take place on 30 August in Delhi. Although there has been no official confirmation or news pertaining to the launch, all evidence points to it.

HTC Evo 3D is expected to be priced above Rs 35,000 in India.

Skype, the voice over IP service, has launched its own third-party applications offering App directory. All third-party applications listed in the app directory will consist of Skype calling and Messaging services integration. Even though a number of such third-party apps have been available previously, Skype has decided to host an official list of apps for different platforms that integrate Skype service. These third-party applications are listed at Skype under the app directory.

Skype’s new app directory is basically a list of applications that offers Skype integration for different platforms &#151 Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Both paid and free apps are listed for different platforms. Unlike the other third party app stores, the app directory offers full access to the developers for selling their apps.

Skype currently does support any sort of payment system like PayPal and users can’t purchase apps using credit card.

Users, who intend to purchase an app, are redirected to the developer’s individual website and hence the developers get full access to the user as well as billing information.

At this moment, Skype’s app directory has listed about 23 apps but the number is expected to grow over a period of time. Users can search, browse and download the third-party apps that have Skype telephony integration coded inside it.

The carousal box on the app directory page shows the list of Top Free Apps, Top Paid Apps, New Apps and Top Rated Apps. You can search for apps that will let you send free fax, share the desktop, Outlook integration or the usual voice and Video call recorders.

The new HTC Sense 3.5 user interface, which is expected to come preinstalled on HTC Bliss smartphone, is expected to bring better backup and restore options for the Android Apps and the data on the devices with the HTCSense.com website.

XDA.cn has grabbed some images that provides as a sneak peak to the HTC Sense 3.5 user interface.

As of now, there is no word on when the new HTC Sense 3.5 will be rolled out to the recently released devices. Also there is no confirmation whether the same would be available to all Android running HTC devices. We will have to wait till HTC officially announces the new HTC Sense 3.5 update.

Just after some years, the iPhone is all set to become more magical – the iPhone would be able to recognise its owner by voice alone! This will, however, come to fruition only if Apple’s current plans succeed. Apple has filed a patent application in the US Patent and Trademark office, which has been made public by the agency.

The new feature would be separate from the usual Voice commands in the phone, and here the iPhone would be able to recognise its owners by the voice, thus removing the need for a Password in the phone. The main benefit for the users might be the custom settings that would appear on the phone the moment it hears the owner’s voice. It may also open personal contents for the users.

The patent describes the new process as “User Profiling for Voice Input Processing”, in which the phones would be able to recognise their owners when they speak aloud into it.
Currently there are several devices which have voice controls in one form or the other, but these systems use word libraries to implement the voice commands. The problem is, with time these voice libraries grow very large and the system gets bogged down when implementing voice commands.

Apple probably aims to overcome this problem by identifying the voice of the users itself, instead of building word library, which puts more pressure on the phone.

A latest version of Adobe Flash Player has been released for the Android devices.
The earlier Flash 10.3 has some flaws and compatibility issues that Adobe has tried to address with the latest update – Flash Player 10.3.186.6. It brings compatibility fixes that could resolve any unexplained issues that were being faced while viewing Flash enabled content on Android devices.

Two of the main updates to the Flash player include enhanced compatibility across domains allowing content on various Flash formats to be played on Android devices and along with that the security of the Flash player has also been juiced up.

Some device specific enhancements and compatibility notes have also been addressed with this update that bring more compatibility to playback Flash content on some Samsung, HTC and Motorola devices. Overall this update looks like a compatibility upgrade to the application.

Flash Player 10.3.186.6 is available for devices with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above. The new update can be manually upgraded by the users or can be updated automatically through the Android marketplace. Users who do not have Flash 10.3 installed on their devices can update the same via this link too.