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The new smart phone, Nexus One, may be unveiled Jan 5 when the internet search engine giant holds a media briefing about its smart phone business at its Mountainview headquarters in California.

The Google-branded device will use its latest Android operating system called Anrdoid 2.1.

Apple's iPhones will have a big competition on their hands as Google is set to launch its much discussed smart phone next week.

Android is already being used in more than a dozen smart phones by many vendors, including Motorola and Samsung.

The Google smart phone will compete directly with Apple's popular iPhones in Internet browsing as well as playing video games.

Though the world's second biggest company, valued at more than $196 billion, has mentioned the upcoming briefing as "an Android press gathering," it has not confirmed whether the rumoured smart phone will actually be unveiled that day.

The Nexus One is likely to have a 3.7-inch AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) touch screen. AMOLED, which is a bright display technology, needs no backlighting for the device to function. Since there is no backlight, touch screen looks brighter.

The Google GSM smart phone will also have a 5-megapixel camera and Wi-Fi connectivity. According to mobile industry bloggers, Google may sell the smart phone unlocked, thus not locking buyers in long-term contracts with carriers.

The Google briefing is being held just two days ahead of the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas where global giants like Sony and Microsoft unveil their products for the next year.

A jubilant Indian stand-in captain Virender Sehwag on Thursday night praised Virat Kohli and other youngsters in the team and said he was happy to finish the series in Kolkata.

 "This team has lot of bench-strength. We did not have Yuvraj Singh and M.S. Dhoni in the team. It's a good sign for India that the youngsters are playing well. Virat Kohli proved his worth," he said after India successfully chased an imposing Sri Lankan total of 315/6 to win with seven wickets and 11 balls in hand at the Eden Gardens.

"We wanted to finish the game in Kolkata because here we had a good wicket to bat on. We don't know what kind of wicket we will get in Delhi," Sehwag said after clinching the five match series against Sri lanka.

Sehwag, who led the team at Cuttack and Kolkata following the two match ban slapped on regular captain M.S. Dhoni for slow over rate, said now the team will not be under any pressure in the fifth and last match in Delhi.

He added that faced with such a huge total, the Indian did not want to lose wickets.

"Our thinking was we should not lose wickets in the first ten overs. We had beaten Pakistan earlier at the Eden after putting up a big total. We knew the dew factor becomes important as the evening progresses. Them bowlers cannot spin or swing the ball. They have problems in gripping also".

"So we thought if we do not lose early wickets, we can finish off the game. We lost two, but then Kohli and Gambhir finished it off".

Kohli and Gambhir added 224 runs for the thrid wicket, a record at the Eden, to lead India to victory after the side got an initial jolt with the cheap dismissals of Sehwag and Gambhir.

Lavishing praise on Kohli, he said: "He is a very talented player. Now he is performing well".

Sehwag said the flowering of players like Kohli, Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jdeja augured well for India ahead of the 2011 World Cup in India. "if we play at full strength we can win also in 2011".

Sehwag did not think his side had a problem bowling at the death. "Sri Lanka batted very well. But our bowlers also put up a good performance".

On the Delhi batsmen like him, Gambhir and Kohli doing well for India, Sehwag said that the players of his state were earlier doing well in domestic competitions, but have now carried their good show to the international stage. "Delhi players are very hungry for runs.  When hey get the chance they try to perform. Earlier Gambhir did, now Virat is also doing that".

3 Idiots
Director: Raju Hirani
Actors: Aamir Khan, Sharman Joshi, Madhavan

Sharman Joshi’s character Raju represents the lonely hope for lower income group India. His family can barely meet three meals a day. The father is old and ill; sister unmarried; mother in poor shape. A professional degree, preferably engineering, is the only route for Raju to rise above this. On his young shoulders rest his family’s dreams. It’s not a happy situation.

While portraying this in the film, however, the filmmakers turn the screen into black and white. A melancholic tune on the shehnai plays in the background. The family’s state is neatly ascribed to ’50s realist, darker cinema. The comedy around this grimness is complete. You empathise for sure. Still, you laugh along.

Opinions are like blogs. Everybody has them. What Hirani also has is a peculiar sense of humour. This makes connection with an audience easy.

Self-seriousness in the times of Rakhee Sawant won’t fetch you even an art-house seat. Hirani and his co-writer Abhijat Joshi realise this.

They make significant points through the picture. Yet, they retain the lightness of being another ‘Munnabhai’ film throughout. Even if it means digging into Internet or memory, a joke, that cheers up the purpose better. I won’t give out the jokes; you’d rather watch them on screen first.

Young Raju may be overburdened by his family’s expectations. He has but two friends in his engineering school for a support system. One of them, Rannchhod Chachar, or Rancho (Aamir Khan, 44 plays 22, but all’s well), is a natural tech-whiz, and a guiding light of sorts -- not just for his friends, but also for the film itself. The other, Farhan (Madhavan), could’ve been a wildlife photographer. An admission into Imperial College of Engineering, or IIT, to be more precise, is for him, like countless others in this country, a ticket to neighbour’s envy, and parent’s pride.

He must endure unhappiness for the sake of both.

As Rancho suggests, he’ll have to spend an entire life somehow liking what he does, over doing what he likes. Engineering and medicine have been, for years, potential suicide notes for those growing up in this country. These may be less now the concern of metropolitan youth. But little has changed elsewhere, as in this film.

The campus here could be any Indian college. Usually a dreaded professor, referred to by his initials or acronym, walks around to dry you out of any interest in learning. I had someone called KRC. These boys have Virus (Boman Irani, with Atal Behari Vajpayee’s lisp, and Vito Corleone’s pout).

Rancho evaluates through him a cruel, classist examination system that passes off as an education system. Not surprising, this rote-learning, even from India’s best institutions, produces more a bureaucracy to serve the corporate and banking sector, than any original thinkers.

Rancho is the sort of genius this classroom cannot fathom. He plays the fool, but still tops. His friends remain flunkeys. As we all realise later in this film (and in our lives): everyone turns out fine eventually. The skits around the buddies deliver comedy with an urgent message. At some point, Rancho disappears.

The friends, including the love-interest (Kareena Kapoor), set out to figure who Rancho really was. This is the part where this doesn’t remain a ‘campus flick’ it started out as: with its own rituals of ragging and the cult ‘sutta’ song (one that’s still called for in our cinema).

The director admits, 3 Idiots is at best 5 per cent of Chetan Bhagat’s pulp-read 5 Point Someone. Thankfully. This is a film that never undermines ‘Bollywood’ for its authenticity: it has its alternating emotional highs and lows, a catch-point (‘aal ij well’ for ‘jaadu ki jhappi’), an invincible hero, and perfect knowledge of when to break into chiffon, song, or the interval. That smart art-form with its own suspensions of disbelief is getting scarcer by generational loss.

Before 3 Idiots on screen, you still don’t feel like the fourth idiot in the theatre. That’s a non-Bollywood relief. This is the sort of movie you’ll take home with a smile and a song on your lips, unless the hype has entirely messed up with your expectations.