Tata Docomo has launched a service called Tutor on Mobile (TOM), which is a knowledge marketplace packed with premium educational content, and easy learning mechanisms.

The service gives content on educational and career related topics, and provides tutor content to Class X, XII, IIT and Engineering students, enabling students to learn on the move. Students can also take mock tests through this service.

The service has been launched in association with Voicetap Technologies (a 2 year old technology start-up founded by INSEAD and IIT alumni), and enables subject experts to broadcast their knowledge to the world by hosting Knowledge Conference Calls and make money doing so.

Tutor on Mobile (TOM) uses Voicetap’s Proprietary oneTAP platform to aggregate and deliver content across various mediums including IVR(interactive voice response), IVVR (interactive voice and video response), Web, WAP and SMS, so depending on users handset capability the service will be delivered according to the choice of the user.

The content provided is in the form of videos, text, images, live interactions, pod casts (voice broadcast) or even knowledge conferences, where one can join an experts session (virtual class room, both voice and video).

Talking about Voicetap’s first major launch in India, Mrigank Tripathi, founder and chief executive officer, said, “With college admissions season on the brink, Voicetap team has already hosted series of Knowledge Conference Calls on Delhi University Admissions, Engineering College Admissions and Career Counseling Sessions and has a whole series planned on admissions, career and other such topics”.

Gurinder Singh Sandhu, head corporate marketing, Tata Teleservices Limited, said, “The service liberates from a classroom session to a complete mobile way of learning a language and we hope our subscribers will reap the benefits of the application in the days to come.”

Voicetap currently has over 60 expert partners, who have signed up for TOM to reach out to new customers. TOM will let users search for various topics on which they want to acquire knowledge.

The knowledge will be provided to users through SMS, WAP, Web, IVR and IVVR. Customers can subscribe the service by three different ways, first by sending a free SMS to ‘TOM’ to 5333300, secondly through SMS link for free and thirdly, through website tom.tatadocomo.com (to be used for only previews and uploading user videos).

Currently the service gives menu options through the WAP site mentioned above. And soon the service will also be available through application which will give better menu options.

The service is free for the first month as promotional plan. From the second month onwards, users have to pay Rs 15 per month for all the content including podcasts. There will be no data charges as the browsing is free. However, if one needs expert advice then that will be charged separately based on the expert he/she chooses.

Nintendo is bringing its pocket monsters, Pok&#233mon, to both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. A Japanese website reported that this is the first time a first party app from Nintendo will be arriving on hardware not made by it.
Nintendo and Game Freak will be working together to create the original Pokemon title for both iOS AppStore and Android Market.

The new app is basically an on-screen card game based on timing which uses music as well. Users can download it for free though there is a possibility the company would charge for additional cards or music.

The news of Nintendo’s Pok&#233mon app has come when Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play smartphone is already out in the market, on which users can play PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games as well.

It was just a matter of time before something related to Nintendo also reached smartphones, and luckily for users it is not from some unknown developer.

Some users might be surprised by the arrival of a Nintendo title on iOS devices, which are directly competing with Nintendo for users. Nintendo was earlier trying to sell its titles at high prices, directly taking on the iOS games.

Google Plus App for iOS device will soon be released once Apple approves it for its devices. Erica Joy, executive support technician at Google, said this in a blog posting posted on her Google+ social network account.

We already reported that Google is working on the iPhone following its freshly launched Google+ App for Android devices.

Last month, we reported that popular social network Facebook is working on a Facebook app for iPad and touted it to be a major announcement.

Dubbed as Project Spartan, the Facebook App for iPad will offer full screen photo and video resolutions for the tablet. Besides, Facebook is also reportedly working with third-party developers over the app and its chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg himself is said to be “heavily investing” in the app. Obviously Facebook is looking to lure all the iPad owners with its new app.

In order to gain the lead in social network app competition, Google has already submitted the Google Plus iOS app that could be for both iPhone and iPad.

Joy didn’t confirm which app it would be but, based on her follow up, it is expected that the app is likely to hit iPad and iPhone together.

The Google+ App for Android is quite sleek, neat and quick in terms of function. Its instant upload feature allows publishing photos in matter of few seconds. However, its group chat option, Huddle, appears as separate app once the users have synced their Google accounts to the Google+ App.

Similar approach is likely to be taken for the Apple iPad 2 that comes with camera at the back as well as the front. That way the users would be able to quickly share the images through Google Plus.

An interesting part is that both Facebook and Google are counting heavily on Apple’s iOS platform for gaining popularity of their respective social network. It is no secret that Apple iPad has started contributing to larger audience that browses web on the tablet.

Facebook is planning to launch “something big” later this month and it is said to be the party spoiler for Google. At this moment, both sides are working on their projects diligently. It is just matter of weeks till Apple approves Google+ app and the new Facebook App for iPad.

Microsoft has rolled out a new version of its Bing application for iPad. Named as Lasso, the new version allows the users to draw a circle around one word or a group of words with their finger to make a new search on Bing.

The usual iPad method involves nine steps compared to only two required by the new version of Bing App for iPad. Those who are comfortable typing on iPad, however, do not need this update.

The Bing team says on the official blog, “From our research, we know that many searches are inspired by things people see on the web. Today, it can be somewhat painful to search on a tablet when you’re engaged in reading something; just copying and pasting pieces of text from a webpage to a search box can take up to nine steps on the iPad. With Lasso you can circle and search in just two steps.”

The new version will also allow the users to go back by up to one week old Bing home page images. Earlier, whenever users had to search for a word on a webpage, they had to select just the right amount of words to select it through a search engine, which was tedious.

The new Bing app takes the hard work out of the process, so the users just have to move their fingers around the words, and once the selection is made, the Bing app automatically conducts the relevant search.

Bing has become popular due to its ability to utilize the iPad features better than others.