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Spice launches Mi270: Cheapest Android phone in the market

nilabh-jha
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Spice Mi 270 is the latest phone available in the market and it’s also the cheapest priced at Rs 5700, it is also the first Android phone to support Dual slot (dual standby, single talking).

The specification of the include a 2.8 inch resistive touch screen with 240 x 320 Pixels resolution, a 2 mega camera, extendable memory up to 16 GB. While the phone includes WiFi and Bluetooth, it only comes with network (No 3G).

GPS support is provided, the battery is a 1000 one with claimed talk time of 3 hour and 320 hour standby, given that the phone comes with a 600 and smaller screen this is very feasible.

While the device is no powerhouse, at this price it is definitely a value for money preposition. We will talk about build quality and user experience when we get to lay our hands on the device sometime this week.

BSNL to offer complete mobile coverage during Amarnath Yatra

nilabh-jha
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Public sector mobile service provider, BSNL will provide complete mobile coverage throughout the journey during the Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage, which will enable nearly three lakh devotees to stay connected.

The Amarnath Yatra is organised every year by the Jammu and Kashmir government in the months of July and August.

However, users visiting from outside the state need to keep in mind that only post paid is allowed in the state, so they should have BSNL prepaid connection converted to post paid, before under taking the pilgrimage.

“We have made BSNL GSM coverage available on the entire Amarnath Yatra route. Pilgrims may like to carry BSNL mobiles to avail uninterrupted coverage,” said RK Updhyaya, chairman and managing director, BSNL.

Every year, around three lakh pilgrims visit Amarnath Yatra, for which the devotees have to trek to a height of 14,500 feet. This year, over 2.25 lakh pilgrims have registered themselves for the Amarnath pilgrimage.

As many as 2,25,076 lakh pilgrims have been registered at various counters and online centres across the country for Amarnath yatra.

Of the total 2.25 lakh registered pilgrims, 45,495 have registered themselves through the internet from various places across the country.

The Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) began the registration process for the yatra, which will commence on June 29 and culminate on August 13, on May 10.

The app “LinkedIn Today” launched for Android

prasoon-kumar
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LinkedIn has announced the launch of its application known as “LinkedIn Today”. Before this, LinkedIn Today was available only to the desktop and the iPhone users.

The popularity of LinkedIn, which is a social network for business professionals, has increased steadily since the time when it was launched in 2003, and now it has about 100 million users across the world.

The Android application is a unique content service which delivers a list of articles every day to its users, who can then share those with his LinkedIn connects.

The main idea behind the app is to make relevant stories easily accessible to the users. Users can also choose additional categories and unfollow certain categories as per their choice.

“By choosing other categories to follow, you’ll get more relevant news targeted to what you care about most professionally,” says Chad Whitney of LinkedIn.
He added, “LinkedIn Today is unique because it gives you three social views of professional news that don’t exist together in one place anywhere else on the web. We can deliver news that matters to your connections, your industry peers, and the wider professional community on LinkedIn.”

The app LinkedIn Today enables the users to read what others are interested in, and thus they stay updated with real time news – necessary for professional information. There is a section called “Read News by Category” in which users can pick additional news categories and even follow newsgroups. Just one tap on the headline gives users access to a short summary of the news and another tap opens the whole news story.

Huawei Glory won’t come to India

nilabh-jha
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Huawei, which recently announced its Ideos series of smartphones and tablets in India, and claimed that India is one of the most important markets for it, has no plans to launch one of the best devices in its portfolio&#151the Huawei Glory&#151here.

A Huawei spokesperson said to ‘The Mobile Indian’, “We will be launching Huawei Glory in USA by November, but this device is not meant for the Indian market.”

Glory runs on a 1.4 GHz MSM8655T Snapdragon dual core with Adreno 205 (for graphics). It supports dual mode (GSM/CDMA) for world roaming, has a 4 inch 854 x 480 pixel TFT display, and an 8 megapixel AF camera with flash.

The phone will feature a beefy 1900 battery, EV-DO Rev A technology (a CDMA technology that gives speeds of up to 3.2 Mbps), WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and 2 of storage with expandable memory. There is no HDMI slot but Huawei says that it will include a “surprising” multimedia solution that compensates for the lack of HDMI.

The phone will ship in November with 2.3 Gingerbread (followed by an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich OS), and is expected to retail for approximately $300 in the USA, which is barely Rs 14,000 &#151 a mouth watering price for a phone with these specs.

Tech magazines that had the opportunity to use the device have rated it highly in terms of performance and build quality.

It is sad that a company that claims to give priority to India is not bringing its best product to the Indian market. Although the device launched in the USA will use CDMA networks, it is not hard for the company to bring a GSM device to India since the Glory’s processor supports GSM as well. And even a CDMA Glory would be successful in India because it is a powerful device at an attractive price.

RIM inadvertently reveals three new smartphones

samir-makwana
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Research In Motion (RIM) has accidentally revealed its three new smartphone models – BlackBerry 9360 (Curve), 9810 (Torch 2) and 9850 (Torch Monaco).

The information about the models was posted by RIM in its blog post where it provided details about BlackBerry OS 7 screen resolutions, and about new simulators for platform developers.

Notably, RIM had announced BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 handsets, featuring touchscreens and BlackBerry OS 7 last month at BlackBerry World 2011.

BlackBerry Curve 9360, codenamed Apollo, is to feature a 2.44 inch screen with 480 x 360 pixel resolution. It will have an 800 Tavor MG-1 processor, 512 of RAM and 512 MB eMMC storage space. With a thickness of 11 mm, this touchscreen handset will also feature WiFi, GPS, 2.1, and Near Field Communication chip.

Second is the BlackBerry Torch 2 9810, which would be a faster version of the Torch handset with a 1.2 GHz processor and 768 MB of RAM.

Featuring a 3.2 inch display, the smartphone will have 8 of onboard storage and an 8 camera. Like the others, this handset too will have WiFi, Bluetooth and an chip.

However, there is scarce information about the new BlackBerry Torch 9850 model, which is expected to have a 3.7 inch screen.

The hardware details and the touch interface for BlackBerry handsets might entice you to lay your hands on one, but there are no details on when these new handsets will be released.

Sony Ericsson announces Xperia Active and Xperia Ray

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Sony Ericsson announces Xperia Active and Xperia Ray

Sony Ericsson has added two new mobile phones to its Xperia series. Both the phones, which were announced during CommunicAsia 2011 in Singapore, feature the latest 2.3 operating system along with a 1 GHz processor.

But that is where the similarity ends.

Xperia Active comes with a 3 inch reality display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine (Sony’s display technology), and a 5 camera with video functionality. It is a dust proof and water resistant phone, and incorporates wet finger tracking to ensure the phone works perfectly when either the screen or the user’s fingers are wet.

Xperia Active is for health conscious people. The phone comes pre-loaded with sports apps that enable consumers to easily track their fitness levels. Users can set their ideal training route using the built-in GPS, barometer and compass. On-screen heart rate and pulse can be monitored in realtime (enabled by wireless networking technology), while the iMapMyFitness can monitor day to day performance. In addition, Facebook inside Xperia allows consumers to share their progress and experiences with friends.

The phone also comes with one extra, changeable soft-touch back cover, detachable ear hooks for the portable handsfree active headset that ensures the earpieces remain in place while you are running; a wrist strap and an arm case for use during a workout.

The phone is not the lightest &#151 it weighs 110.8 grams. The battery is a measly 1200 (measly as it is a smartphone); we hope that Sony Ericsson has some tricks up its sleeve to make the battery last a full day.

The other Sony phone, announced today, is called Xperia Ray. Aimed more at style conscious consumers the phone comes with a sleek aluminium frame, reality display, Mobile BRAVIA Engine, and 3.3 inch screen.

Besides, it has an 8.1 megapixel camera with Exmor R technology (Sony’s camera technology) and HD video functionality, which means that the camera will be one of the best, if not the best, in its class.

Xperia Ray runs on the latest Android platform for smartphones (Gingerbread 2.3), and is powered by a 1 GHz processor. The phone is quite sleek with 9.4 mm thickness and the design certainly is gorgeous.

The phone incorporates a front facing camera and a scratch resistant screen with excellent and brightness, and integrated touch keys. The phone is light weight at just 100 grams. All the other bells and whistles of the smartphone, such as WiFi, 3G, and DLNA are all present.

Sony Ericsson has not announced the prices of these devices but we think they would cost somewhere between Rs 15,000-20,000.

There is a high probability of these phones making it to India at the time of their launch. Sony Ericsson India has already said it will be very aggressive in the Indian market and will launch several products in the next three months, and we expect these to be included in that list.

Apps more used than mobile web browsers

prasoon-kumar
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Apps more used than mobile web browsers

Mobile phone users are spending more time using applications than surfing the internet on their handheld devices, Flurry, a mobile ad company, says in a new study.

At the time when smartphones had just arrived the main activity on these devices was browsing the web. People used to check their email, go to social networking sites and browse webpages on their smartphones.

However, mobile apps have evolved with time and are more handy now than they were before. Many apps, mostly games, allow users offline access as well, which is not possible with a webpage.

Charles Newark-French of Flurry said in a blog post, “It took less than three years for native mobile apps to achieve this level of usage, driven primarily by the popularity of and platforms.”

The study, which covered smartphone users in the USA, found them spending on average 74 minutes per day browsing the internet and 81 minutes per day on mobile apps. Users are spending about nine per cent more time using mobile apps says the Flurry blog post.

App usage has doubled within just one year (it was 43 minutes per day in 2010,) whereas it grew at a comparatively slower rate, from 64 minutes per day in 2010 to 74 minutes per day in 2011.

“Consumers spend nearly half their time playing games, and a third in social networking. Combined, these two categories control a whopping 79 per cent of consumers’ total app time. Further, as we drill down into the data, consumers use these two categories more frequently, and for longer average session lengths compared to other categories,” the study added.

Flurry, which monitors major smartphone platforms such as Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone and J2ME, said that 47 per cent time of users’ app time goes into playing games; whereas social networking apps consume 32 per cent.

News and entertainment activities were next on the list, but came at a distance, which is surprising since many people seem to spend a lot of their time watching videos on smartphones as well as on their desktops and laptops.

The analysis from Flurry underlines one important point: a strong mobile app ecosystem is extremely important for the success of any device.

Apple to dominate mobile gaming business: ex-head of Sony

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Apple, the maker of iPhone, could dominate the mobile gaming industry ahead of the likes of Sony, which has made a name for itself in the gaming industry with products like Playstation and Xperia Play smartphone, says former Sony head Phil Harrison.

“At this trajectory, if you extrapolate the market-share gains that they are making, forward for ten years – if they carry on unrestrained in their growth, then there’s a pretty good chance that Apple will be the games industry,” Phil said in an interview given to Edge.

The former head of Sony seems to be more impressed with the sheer diversity of devices provided by Apple. He says, “You’ve got iPhones, iPads, iPods, which are all part of the same ecosystem; the speed at which Apple sold 15 million iPads is phenomenal. And the number one activity on an iPad, according to some reports, is games, and I think that will only continue.”

He thinks the role of consoles in gaming will grow less intense. Gaming, he believes, will shift to browsers. He doesn’t think the Xbox or PlayStation brand will continue to live on. He says, “It could be that the game and of the future is powered by PlayStation, or powered by Xbox Live or Nintendo. I think that that’s where you’ll see the battleground: not necessarily putting boxes full of chips and hard drives into your living room but giving you a storefront, navigation, discovery, a business model and user-interface. There is undoubtedly a generation of kids alive on the planet today who will never purchase a physical media package for any of their digital entertainment.”

His vision for the future becomes more important in the light of rumours that Apple may be considering acquiring Nintendo. The move, if it happens, will give Apple a stronger foothold in the video games market. Currently, the top mobile gaming options for users include LG Optimus 2X, Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Xperia Play and Micromax Gameolution G4.

It’s not just the ability to play the game on different devices from Apple, it’s also about the way Apple is seamlessly connecting every electronic item users interact with, including television.

For example, AirPlay Mirroring connects the television with the iPad screen so whatever appears on the iPad screen appears on the TV screen also. If the trend continues, Apple will indeed be on every possible device leaving very little room for others to get in.

More smartphones used on Wi-Fi than computers

The Mobile Indian Network
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Contrary to the popular perception that networks are primarily used by computer and laptop users, a study has now found that it is instead the smartphone users who were using the facility more than the former.

The WiFi usage data of the USA has been gathered by Meraki, a cloud management company for businesses, and was first reported by Gigaom.

In the first six months of 2010, Windows and Mac computers made up 64 per cent of the devices connected with the Wi-Fi networks in the USA monitored by Meraki. In the same period in 2011, computers made up just 36 per cent of devices connected with the WiFi networks.

Though it’s not expected that Meraki data would be applicable across the world, but the trend of increasing smartphone popularity cannot be missed.

Apple’s devices counted for 36 per cent of all the devices connected to WiFi last year and its share increased to 47 per cent in the first half of 2011. devices came out of almost nowhere at 11 per cent Wi-Fi connectivity. The Meraki data monitored about 100,000 devices connected to Wi-Fi networks across US.

The dividing line between computers and mobile devices is getting thinner with the day, which shouldn’t come as a surprise when smartphones and tablets are getting increasingly popular. Almost everybody seems to own a Wi-Fi connected smartphone and the tablets are anyway seen more as an alternative to netbook or even the regular laptop.

Since Wi-Fi networks are available at public places as well, it makes sense for the users to use their smartphones there, as using laptops would be a cumbersome process. It’s not that the number of laptops accessing the Wi-Fi networks is not growing, it’s just that the number of smartphones is growing at a bigger rate.

Even in India, apart from regular smartphones, there are many feature phones which connect to Wi-Fi and even come for as little as Rs 6,000. These include Lava B8, Samsung Chat 355, Akai Connect Book, Micromax X560 and Spice QT 68.

It won’t be much of a surprise if we see a repeat of the same trend in India as well.

Micromax introduces first push mail phone

anil-satapathy
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Micromax today announced the launch of their first push email powered phone, the Q80, which is a and Wi &#151 Fi enabled phone with an optical track pad. The push email service allows the users to receive their mails instantly. Q80 is a dual phone which is designed to run both 3G and 2G enabled SIMs.

It is packed with a 3.0 camera with the face and smile detection ability, and a VGA front camera for video calls. The phone has a music player with built in Yamaha amplifier for better music quality. The Q80 boasts a 2.4 inch TFT screen (320 X 240) with an optical trackpad and preloaded applications including Opera Mini, Snaptu, Bloomberg UTV, ngpay, Burnout, Newshunt, Facebook and Nimbuzz.

The Q80 comes with an in-built memory of 68 which is expandable upto 8 GB. Micromax claims that the 1200mAh battery of the phone provides a of up to 130 hours and of upto 5 hours. It is priced at Rs 4,999.

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