How about a service that gets you the directions and list of places in an SMS? Does that interest you? Then LatLong would be the ideal choice.

LatLong is a Indian-based startup that basically offers you routes and directions on the map of the city. So how is it different from the other big alternatives such as Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps? LatLong is not just a map service, it can list out restaurants, petrol bunks, and shops (amongst many others) in any particular area (that’s right, not ‘city’, they’re narrowing it down to the area). You can then choose to lookup the route to these places, or send them an SMS asking them to send the list of places and the directions to them.

As an example, I asked LatLong to find me a petrol bunk in the area that I live. As you can see from the screenshot below, it correctly displayed all of the petrol bunks available in my area.

LatLong also works as a stand-alone SMS based service. Users can send an SMS “help” to 9008890088 to start using the service. The best part is, unlike most of the SMS services that require you to send SMS to a 5-digit premium number, LatLong’s number is local. So those of us with free SMS plans can conveniently message them and get back answers, FREE. You can try out a demo here.

Unfortunately, since the startup is still small, LatLong is currently operating only in Bangalore and Chennai, with plans to include Mumbai by next month. Another drawback is that their website is quite slow in responding to queries, and the SMS service takes at least an hour or more to send out replies. We love the service, and we’re sure that it will be a hit in the upcoming weeks.

Check out LatLong on the web or send “help” to 9008890088 to get started.

Windows 7 comes with a few “ringtones” that are actually used to indicate an incoming call on VoIP, but these can still be used on your mobile phone.

The istartedsomething blog has the entire collection of ringtones uploaded and ready for download. You can get them here. The ringtones are available in convenient formats such as MP3 and even for the iPhone.

Google just launched a stand-alone Java app for mobile phones that now enables you to quickly use Orkut on your Internet-enabled mobile phones.

Some of the features of the mobile app are:

• Upload photos to orkut on-the-go, directly from your phone.
• View scraps, friends’ updates, and photo albums while you’re offline.
• Share your orkut albums with all of your friends whether they use orkut or not (via SMS).
• Easily call or SMS your orkut friends and address book contacts from within the app.
• Get automatic updates when your friends change their contact information or orkut profiles.

Below are some of the screenshots of the app from the Official Orkut Blog. The app should work for almost all the new phones out there with support for Java ME (J2ME), MIDP 2.0. Hope we can see an iPhone version come out soon. =)

To install the Orkut mobile app (available in English and Portuguese), head over to m.google.com/orkut on your phone browser.

BlackBerry Storm: First Look