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Opera Mobile, Opera Mini for Android gets updated

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Opera has released new updates for the Opera Mobile and Opera Mini mobile web browsers. So now both the browsers get updated to Opera Mobile 11.5. Amongst number of improvements, both mobile web browsers will now offer a data usage view for users to keep a tab on. Besides, the Opera Mobile brings inline HTML5 video support for Android 3.x Honeycomb tablets. Other common changes include better bookmarks importing system and saving bookmarks on the home screen.

Opera brings cloud-assisted mobile web browsing just like Amazon’s new Silk web browser. With the new cloud-assisted browsing, Opera promises reduce size of webpages by up to 90 percent for faster page loading experience.

The new data usage tracker built-in the web is nifty feature for those with limited data plans who need to keep a tab on their usage. Lars Boilesen, chief executive officer, Opera Software said, “Now, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile will show exactly how much data you save by using our cloud-assisted technology. Never before has it been this easy &#151 or this sexy &#151 to reduce your usage.”

New bookmarks option will let users save their favorite bookmarks right on the home screen of Android smartphone or tablets. Besides, users can import the bookmarks from other browsers to Opera Mini or Opera Mobile.

Several other changes include updated Opera Presto rendering engine, improved network performance and a more memory efficient JavaScript engine.

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile can be downloaded from the Android Market.

NFC enabled Nokia 603 smartphone coming by year-end

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Nokia has announced the launch of Nokia 603 smartphone which comes preloaded with the latest apps and capability. Alongside the Nokia 603, the Finnish handset maker has also announced the Nokia Luna headset.

The Nokia 603 offers a seamless, compact design with a 3.5 inch ClearBlack, scratch-resistant display, optimised for use in sunlight.

It comes preloaded with maps, the latest social networking games and apps, and the ability to capture, edit and share photographs, all with great graphics performance thanks to the fast graphics in the device. The Nokia 603 also makes NFC innovation accessible to more people with the ability to share content, pair with accessories like the Nokia Luna Bluetooth Headset, and unlock new experiences, such as unseen levels on Angry Birds.

“The Nokia 603 continues the renewal of our smartphone range with products that are uniquely matched to the needs of people around the world,” said Tuula Rytila, senior vice president, Nokia. “Whatever the price-point, our aim is to ensure all Nokia smartphones are crafted for use, have Nokia’s trusted quality, are better connected, and contain unexpected surprises like the ability to tap to pair and share with NFC.”

Featuring the latest Symbian Belle software, the Nokia 603 also benefits from up to six customisable homescreens and dynamic live widgets for improved personalisation and prioritisation of your favourite content.

Nokia 603 is priced at Euro 200 or at Rs 13,556 approximately.

The Nokia Luna Bluetooth headset is a uniquely designed in-ear device with NFC pairing capabilities. Available in a range of colours, the headset features a pop-out earpiece for up to eight hours of extended and easy charging with any Nokia microUSB phone charger. Nokia’s exclusive Always Ready technology enables you to answer calls simply by popping out the earpiece, and end calls by placing the earpiece back in its cradle.

It is priced at Euro 69 or Rs 4,677 approximately.

The Nokia 603 is available in black and white with a choice of back covers in six different colors: black, white, fuchsia, green, yellow and blue. The Nokia Luna Bluetooth Headset is available in black, white, fuchsia, green and cyan. Both products are expected to start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2011.

HCL brings Android tablet for Rs 10K

HCL has on Thursday unveiled its new ME tablet &#151 the X1, with operating system.

“We are excited to launch our new tablet- the X1, specially designed to cater to the demands of Indian customers. The X1 ME tablet promises to bring great value by redefining on-the-go user experience with its innovative design, display and technology,” said Harsh Chitale, chief executive officer, HCL Infosystems.

Priced at Rs 10,490, the tablet comes with Android OS 2.3, and Cortex A8 1Ghz processor. The X1 offers a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen with 800×480 pixel resolution. The tablet comes with a 2 back camera and 512 storage capacity with and of 4 which is expandable to 32 GB.

ME X1 tablet has a 3500 battery and comes with option of data connectivity through dongles. Also, there will be Flash support through Adobe 10.3.

HCL ME X1 will be power-packed with Indian content, said the company in a release. It will be integrated with HCL Touch, a 24×7 one touch service facility. X1 users will have the option to make use of the featured applications like booking discounted tickets on Cleartrip.com. Another from Hungama offers discounted music downloads. Book lovers can avail of sizeable discounts on books through the Wink ebookstore app.

X1 will also come with “ME Connect” feature which facilitates transfer of content to the tablet from any another computing device. Naukri.com and Linkedin are two other useful apps in the tablet. There are a host of other application to access a complete office suite, Fring video chat, Moneycontrol.com, ESPNcricinfo.com and Zomato local restaurant search. However, only selected apps of Android Market are available and users cannot access the Android store through the tablet.

The tablet will be available in stores in Delhi and across the country from 13 th October.

New stylus for iPads launched

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Wacom, which makes accessories for tablets, today announced the launch of an innovative for Apple iPads under its brand name Bamboo. The new Bamboo stylus comes in a new range of colours to match Apple’s iPad covers.

Available in white, blue, green, orange and pink, the coloured Bamboo styluses will help users in taking notes, annotation, drawing, sketching and visual thinking.

Wacom now also offers exchangeable nibs to suit the usage needs of iPad owners. Beside the soft standard nib, alternatives, such as more solid, robust nibs will soon be available on the market.

Complementing the stylus perfectly is Wacom’s popular Bamboo Paper app. The app, which is free of charge, received more than a million downloads within 11 days of launch earlier this year. It is ideal for realistic and intuitive note-taking and sketching. With the launch of Bamboo Paper’s free version, all Paper notes can now be shared between iPad and Mac or PC to offer a complete user experience.

Available from 13 th October, Bamboo coloured Styluses are priced at Rs 1,750 each.

How to add a signature to Gmail on Android

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Many times, our dedicated signatures for Gmail are not added to the emails we send from our device. This is primarily because when the email is sent from an Android device, it is sent directly to the recipient through the Gmail servers dedicated for Android. You will have to have a dedicated signature on your Android device as well if you want your emails to have a signature on them.

Here’s how you can set this up:

Step 1

On your Android device locate the Applications home key and press it. The applications home key is generally in the lower middle portion of the screen

Step 2

Once the applications homescreen opens, locate the Gmail application icon and press it.

Step 3

The application will then open your linked Gmail account and show you the emails in your account. If not then it might take some time to synchronise your email account with the Android device’s account.

Step 4

Press the options key on the device to open the Options menu of the Gmail application. From that select Settings.

Step 5

The next screen will display the settings of the Gmail app. Here you can see a number of options. Select Signature.

Step 6

The following screen will open in the form of a prompt with a text box. Now enter the desired text or numbers as your signature and press OK.

Step 7

Once done, exit from the signature and the settings menu and once again press the options key to open the Options menu. From the options menu select Compose to open a new mail.

Step 8

Now you can see the entered signature automatically appear on each mail that you compose and send from the device. You can also modify the signature easily by repeating steps 4 through 7.

App Review: FizWoz

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If you are a photography enthusiast, who also wants to earn some cash selling the clicked pictures, this is a near perfect one. The reason why I am calling it a near perfect is because though it has a section for contest participation, there was no contest listed when I visited the section.

Similarly, it comes with an Assignment section where there was only one assignment that too from the US, and I presume that there is lack of awareness about the app in the media world (typically journalists would buy these images and videos) and therefore not much action is listed here and might be that not much buyer will also come.

However, it is worth trying. Moreover, as more and more people start trying the service, it will be compelling for image buyers to go looking for it on Fizwoz. The app works on all the major platforms including Android, iOS, Symbian, and Blackberry.

Interface

The user interface of the app is fairly straight forward: you have a section to participate in the contest, and as there were no contest listed at the time we checked the app we do not know what follows. However as is the case with the ‘sell’ section, it would (we presume) ask you to upload images, which will open your phones gallery, select the image. Select the relevant section (celebrity, Fun, Sports, Environment, breaking news etc) and then finally put in the desired caption to describe the picture.

The app also needs you to create an account for which one just need an email id which is necessary for the app to send you emails and also to identify you. The financial details will be needed when you have to receive the payments which is done through Paypal.

There is a My Fizwoz section where you can see your upload images, its price, bids so far etc. In a nutshell, it is your account on Fizwoz. You can also change your details or the photographs details like its caption.

Verdict

Though the app does not have any contests and just one assignment, but it is worth trying as it is free. It is very easy to use and to upload pictures and since it gives even amateurs an opportunity to sell their work that too very easily. We will have to tell you later how many people actual buy images through this app. Meanwhile, to reiterate again there is no harm in trying.

App Review: Dictionary.com

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As is clear from the name itself, it is the official of the famous website, Dictionary.com. The website is already very well known on the web for its dictionary application, and the mobile app also does the same thing &#151 it helps the users know the correct spellings of words and their meanings.

The mobile app, which is available in Android, also comes loaded with host of additional features which is just the right kind of reference app for the word hungry users.

This free app is known for its short and accurate description for words and voice recognition look up. It also comes with Word of the Day widget, customisable backgrounds and thesaurus.

Dictionary.com for is a comprehensive full featured word app which performs numerous word related tasks for the users. So many times users know how a word sounds but don’t know its spelling. The Dictionary.com app for Android is just the tailor made product for the occasion since users can simply speak the word into the phone microphone, and the app searches the right word for the users.

Users can also search for a word they don’t know how to pronounce. The word definitions are very precise and to the point, contrary to other dictionary websites which give detailed word definitions. “The Hot Word” feature in the app provides well researched explanation about words and its origins every day.

Overall, this is a good app for everyone because most of us need some help with the language every now and then. The Dictionary.com app is extremely easy to use, and the controls are intuitive and the voice recognition feature is handy for those who don’t want to type while looking up the meaning of a word in the app. Last but not the least, the in app advertising is not distracting at all and users won’t feel any hindrance while working with the app.

App Review: Go Launcher EX

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Go Launcher EX is an for home screen replacement, which replaces the native launcher of the phone including the original Froyo, Gingerbread Android launchers, HTC’s Sense and Motoblur. The app is available free of cost and is meant to provide lots of customisation options and themes for the home screen of the Android smartphones. Users also have the option to download GoWidgets, including Message GOWidget, Contacts GOWidget and Calendar GOWidget.

The only problem with the Go Launcher EX is the widgets themselves are not themeable. So even if the users have their favourite theme installed, chances are the colour scheme of the widgets (such as clocks or calendar on the home screen) may not work with it since they look exactly the same. At the same time, the look of icons can be changed as per the users’ need. There are some phones which have some limit on the number of home screens they can have, but the installation of Go Launcher EX removes that limitation.

There also comes a dock on-the-screen feature which can be scrolled by the users to access the shortcuts of up to 15 apps. There are other aspects of the app which can be customised as well including the status bar, hiding icon labels, increasing the grid size etc.

The app Go Launcher EX gives the users the feeling of being in control of their Android experience &#151 a big reason why such apps are popular among the Android smartphone users.

The app allows the users to back up their configurations which make them feel free to tinker with the home screen, and if they don’t like it, they can always go back to the earlier backed up home screen. In the beginning, the app started with a small collection of themes which has grown big now and there is a virtual flood in the market with numerous themes, of course of different qualities and many cost you some bucks as well.

MP, Chhattisgarh’s new year to begin with 4G services

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Consumers in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh after experiencing are one step closer to experience the fourth generation of mobile telecommunications through TD-LTE technology, which will enhance the user’s experience of wireless including web, online gaming, video streaming and social networking even while on the move.

Augere Wireless Broadband India, a wireless broadband company which had bagged BWA spectrum in and Chhattisgarh, will offer broadband services under the ZOOSH brand to residential and business customers in Bhopal in January and by April it will offer the services in 14 cities of the two states.

Lars Stork, chief executive officer, Augere Wireless Broandband India, said to The Mobile Indian, “Consumers in MP and Chhattisgarh can expect our services to be priced nearby what they pay for 3G data services.”

It will be interesting to see what Reliance Industries, the only player that bagged a pan India BWA spectrum licence, will offer in terms of data plans because that will be the trend setter in this space. Other winners of BWA spectrum include Aircel (8 circles), Tikona Wireless (5 circles), Airtel (4 circles) and Qualcomm (4 circles).

Regarding data plans, Stork said, “We will not be offering unlimited data plans as we have seen instances where it has been misused, which leads to loss of revenue.”

Stork further said, “We are excited by the development happening in the tablet space in India, especially the recently launched affordable Aakash tablet. We are in talks with tablet manufactures to offer our services bundled with their devices along with stand-alone services through dongles.”

Vijay Jain, chief technical officer, Augere, said, “For bundled services, we are looking at devices from multinational as well as Indian players. If we get a good response, we would prefer Indian players simply for the price point they offer.”

To kick start its 4G services on Tuesday, Augere Wireless contracted Swedish telecom company Ericsson for three years to supply and maintain telecom equipment for its proposed 4G services. .

To ensure optimal network performance Ericsson will also be responsible for providing managed services and network operations for three years. Ericsson will plan, design, build, operate, maintain and provide spare-parts management for the 4G network for Augere.

Augere is already offering WiMax services under the Qubee brand in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Indian, Chinese handset brands to increase prices by 10%

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In the past one month, the price of the Dollar has gone up against the Indian Rupee by as much as 10 per cent. While earlier every Dollar used to cost Rs 45 (approximately), now it costs close to Rs 50. This means that buying in China (which almost all Indian brands do) has become costlier by 10 percent. Hence, Indian brands are forced to increase the price of their products.

“Despite the continuous fall of Indian Rupee against US Dollar in the past few months, Karbonn has absorbed the burden but now it is increasingly becoming difficult to retain same price levels. In addition different states across India are levying different VAT rates for mobile phones, which is also eventually a price burden on the consumer. Karbonn will be increasing the prices in the range of 7-10 per cent basis for the competitive positioning of various models,” said Shashin Devsare, executive director, Karbonn Mobiles to The Mobile Indian.

Even Chinese players are facing the heat. One of the major Chinese players, which has big plans for India, recently deferred its launch plans for a tablet. After confirming the price of the tablet to be launched, the company’s spokesperson asked us to make a correction in the launch announcement, and he attributed the change of plan to the fall of the Rupee against the Dollar.

Meanwhile, some other players are tweaking their products by reducing the specification of their devices to absorb the price difference. Beetel reduced the specification of its recently launched Beetel Magiq tablet. It will now come with a 768 processor compared to the 1 GHz processor in the earlier version. The company also ditched in favour of external memory. This in fact helped them reduce the overall cost by Rs 200; whereas it could have been a much greater reduction had it not been for the Rupee’s fall.

MNC brands like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola are also facing the heat as even they import most of their products. However, they have the ability to absorb this fall in the Rupee’s value as they work with higher value products which anyway become cheaper as they grow old.

However, the reduction in price will not be as much as it used to be. Typically a smartphone launched for Rs 30,000 usually costs Rs 24,000 after six months. But, in today’s condition the same smartphone’s price would only come down to Rs 27,000. This happened in the case of Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Arc, Samsung Galaxy SII etc.

In case of low end products, the cost of technology is negligible so there is little space to absorb this hike in procurement costs. Players like Nokia, Samsung and LG have manufacturing bases in India itself where they primarily manufacture basic mobile phones and therefore are less affected by the Rupee’s valuation even though they import most of the components that go into the phones being manufactured here.

This situation is in fact leading to an increase in focus on Indian manufacturing and the new telecom policy, which has stressed on Indian manufacturing, we might well see a spurt in manufacturing in the country.