Wacom launches Intuos5 Pen Tablet in India

Today, Wacom launches its next generation of graphics tablet for professional artists and designers in India. This newest addition dubbed Intuos5 brings in enhanced features compared to its predecessor, the Intuos4. Taking digital content creation to the next level, it has a pretty decent multi-touch gesture, a soft-touch finish, an Express View display and wireless capabilities, while maintaining the same pen technology found in previous model. Ensuring comfort and convenience, it blends in the renowned pen pressure and tilt sensitive pen, Express keys and the touch ring, preferred by artists. The company will put forth five models Intuos5 Touch small priced at Rs.17,200, medium priced at Rs.25,100, large at Rs.32,350, and also pen-only Small for Rs.15,200 and medium for Rs.21,500.

Shigeki Komiyama, Director and Executive Director, Japan-Asia Pacific Region, Wacom

Mr. Shigeki Komiyama, Director and Executive Director, Japan-Asia Pacific Region at Wacom Co. Ltd strongly believes that touch and pen could replace mouse and keyboard in future. He clearly points out the success of Samsung’s Galaxy Note. With touch functionality being adopted in all fields, the multi-touch capabilities of the Intuos5 support gestures, like zooming, scrolling, panning and rotating the image. It offers compatibility with Windows and Macs. He maintains that the tablet is for professional artists and look forward to further tie-ups with art institutions in India. 

The customizable ExpressKeys has six buttons on small size and eight on both medium and large sizes and one Touch Ring, with four-function toggle.  It shows the Express View, a new Heads-Up Display (HUD) feature. We quite liked the heads-up display, which ensures that you can stay focused and don’t have to turn back to the device. A single button press and you can view the heads-up display, ensuring easy navigation with the pen that also serves as the mouse.

Expresskeys

The pen registers 2048 levels of pen pressure with up to 60 degrees of pen tilt, just flip it and it turns into an eraser. Wacom’s proprietary Tip sensor technology allows pressure-sensitive effects allowing effect to start with slight touch, and the intensity can be increased, just like using mechanicals tools like brushes and so on. The two buttons on the pen are customizable, too. 

The Intuos5 also adheres to wireless connectivity; this optional function can enable one to convert Intuos5 into a wireless tablet by installing the Wireless Accessory kit that is sold separately. This kit is inclusive of rechargeable battery that charges through USB, a RF module that plugs into the tablet and a receiver that plugs into a USB port on the computer.  

Mr. Komiyama points out that while considering the overall sales figures of Asia, India doesn’t deliver great numbers, but it has been growing over the years and shown growth by 50 percent in recent times. The company also has its touch technology tie-up in the medical field with the Apollo hospital in Chennai.

India features in the 'Enemies of the Internet' list

Freedom to speech and expression is one of democracy's biggest boons, and India being a democracy (the world's largest, at that) featuring on Reporters with Borders' list of 'Enemies of the Internet', alongside countries, like Australia, France, Egypt and South Korea comes in quite as a shocker. The list, essentially features countries, where the citizens' freedom of expression on the Internet is restricted, and not absolute. India featuring on this list has a lot to do with the ongoing objectionable lawsuit, which has several social networking sites, like Facebook, Google, YouTube, among others facing the heat over the nature of the content posted on these websites. The Indian government, over the course of this lawsuit came out quite firmly on grounds of not hosting content, which could harm the peace and sanity of the nation, and promote disharmony. These websites, have since been asked to sanitize their content, ripping off all sorts of content that could prove difficult to deal with later. 

Enemies of the Internet. India, too?

India, as such, along with Kazakhstan is a new entrant to the list and currently features on the report's 'Under Surveillance" category. Countries like Bahrain and Belarus, though have newly joined the list of the Enemies of the Internet. The list of the countries featuring on the Under Surveillance list, alongside India, include - Australia, Egypt, Eritrea, France, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and UAE. While those already on the Enemies of the Internet list, include - Bahrain, Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

About India's inclusion in the list, the report says, "Since the Mumbai bombings of 2008, the Indian authorities have stepped up Internet surveillance and pressure on technical service providers, while publicly rejecting accusations of censorship. The national security policy of the world’s biggest 

 emocracy is undermining freedom of expression and the protection of Internet users’ personal data."

China, the other nation to have been included in this list, too has been known for coming down very heavily on the websites operational in the country. In fact, in China some websites aren't even accessible, which include - Google+, YouTube, Facebook that are freely accessible, elsewhere in the world. The report states that all the countries featuring in this list have put some sort of censorship on a certain kind of content, and have also come down heavily on individuals who downloaded illegal content off the Internet. The report further states that, "It also said the Arab Spring was changing the face of Internet freedom, noting countries like Bahrain that have successfully caused an information blackout with "an impressive arsenal of repressive measures" in order to curtail protest."

NEWS / SMARTPHONES More details about Lumia 900 revealed

We’ve heard a lot about the brilliant user interface of Nokia’s Lumia phones, with obvious credit to Windows Phone 7. Now, in an interview documented on Nokia Connects, more details about Nokia’s upcoming flagship, the Lumia 900 have been unearthed. Let’s quickly have a look at what’s changed, and what’s not. The Lumia 900 will have no ‘3D’ design in its Gorilla Glass, like the 800 had, and won’t have a pentaband radio, either. The 900 will mostly launch in Q2 of 2012, with worldwide distribution. The polycarbonate design from the 800 hasn’t been changed. Tethering will finally be supported for the 900, including the 610 as well. Also, the Lumia 710 and 800 will get it via software updates. With the bigger display, it will also have a bigger battery and better audio tuning, as compared to the Lumia 800. However, the drivers have unchanged. More accessories are soon going to be made available after the launch for this smartphone.

Nokia raises the curtains on the Lumia 900

The Lumia 900 doesn’t have a full screen viewfinder and there are chances it could be incorporated once the product launches. GLONASS will not be there on the 900, either. Coming back to the audio department, if any software changes are made to the 900, the 800 will get them, too, so there’s no love lost between users of both the phones. When asked about the exclusion of Pentaband support, the reply was that, “We’re using a Qualcomm engine in Lumia products and no other OEM using the same chipset supports pentaband either.” With the Lumia 900, custom ringtones for specific people will be possible, however, for alarms, SMS and other audio supported alerts, much customization won’t be made available. Music controlled headsets are in the pipeline as well.

All other questions regarding support for the Apollo update, 41 mp camera phones coming to the Lumia series were dodged, so we may have to wait to get all our answers from Nokia. As of now, though, they have been pretty honest about the Lumia 900 and its features and limitations. What do you guys make of that now?