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BlackBerry’s future course correction

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Research In Motion, the makers of the BlackBerry, is probably working on new devices, according to a report.

“RIM’s biggest product news was that several BlackBerry 7 OS products would be rolling out at a ‘rapid succession’ near the end of the quarter. That includes both HSPA and CMDA-enabled devices hovering around the high-end and mid-tier product ranges,” a posting in Zdnet said.

The sales of BlackBerry phones have gone down now, and some existing BlackBerry owners have also said they’d rather switch to other smartphones. Despite what the company says, the cynics only look at things that are visible – and that is receding popularity of BlackBerry smartphones.

Its tablet, the PlayBook has sold better than expected but the shifted focus seems to taken a toll on the BlackBerry sales. The next big news, however, is the likely release of BlackBerry 7 operating system based products, such as BlackBerry Bold 9900.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is likely to be 10.5 mm thin which means it will be slimmer and sleeker than earlier BlackBerry smartphones.

It is likely to be along the lines of Bold 9000, which has 8GB memory, enhanced browsing, a built-in compass, video recording, fluid liquid graphics, and capabilities.

The company officials said that once the devices are out in the market, users would know “the wait was worth it”. The problem for RIM, however, is that it needs its latest smartphone lineup to fire, if they don’t it would be in big trouble.

In the existing problems, apps are a significant part of the problem. Number of apps, despite what the users think, is not the problem. Whatever apps are there on the BlackBerry platform, several users say they are not intuitive or easy to use. It’s an annoying experience to just open the apps, and scroll to the particular position, let alone using them.

BlackBerry might be great for business emails, but its apps expertise leaves a lot to be desired.

Motorola to launch Xoom tablet later this month in India

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Motorola has finally announced its plans to bring Xoom tablet later this month in India. Loaded with Google 3.0 Honeycomb tablet operating system, the Motorola Xoom comes with a 10.1-inch widescreen display and houses a powerful Tegra 2 inside it. Motorola is likely to launch the Xoom tablet in Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi+3G versions for India in coming two weeks.

Users would be able to enjoy multimedia and web browsing over the 10.1-inch display touchscreen in 16:9 aspect ratio. The tablet has dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 chip that is capable of powering the tablet and also offering 1080p HD video playback.

According to the technical specifications, the device does support 1080p HD video playback and video recording at 720p HD @ 30 – thanks to the 5 megapixel camera with dual Flash at the back. It also has front facing 2 megapixel camera with fixed focus.

The Xoom tablet does support the Adobe Flash Player 10.2 and more updates would be made compatible in the near future. Packing 1GB RAM, which is good enough to run the Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Xoom offers approximately 32GB on-board storage. Though the tablet comes with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the update for the same – Android 3.1, is out already.

When it comes to sensors, the Xoom tablet has accelerometer, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, and barometer. Even location based services are covered with the eCompass, and Google Maps services.

For connectivity, the Xoom tablet offers 2.1+EDR+HID, Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n) and also option in Wi-Fi+3G models. Considering Apple iPad 2’s popularity, it would be really surprising if there is no Wi-Fi+3G version from Motorola. Physical connectivity is powered with 2.0 ports, HDMI 1.4 out and 3.5mm audio port.

Apple iPad 2 Wi-Fi+3G model sold like hot cakes in India in the initial days of its launch. Now we’ll have to wait and see what would be the pricing of Motorola Xoom models.

HTC Chacha and Flyer coming next week

nilabh-jha
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The much talked-about HTC ‘Chacha’ smartphone, which has a dedicated button for Facebook, will be launched in India next week. This will also be the first HTC bar phone with full keypad.

On the sidelines of the launch of HTC Sensation in Delhi, Lennard Hoornik, president of South Asia Pacific, HTC, said, “We will be very aggressive in the Indian market. We will be launching our HTC Chacha smartphone and Flyer tablet next week.”

The phone’s Facebook share key enables users to swiftly upload images and videos; share music; check in; and update their status on Facebook without any glitches.

The company has already launched another Facebook phone in India. The device is a full touchscreen smartphone called Salsa and it has a price tag of Rs 22,000.

The HTC Chacha is expected to be priced at around Rs 15,500 and features a 2.6 inch touchscreen display with 480 x 320 pixel screen resolution, Qwerty keypad, 5 megapixel camera with flash, VGA front camera, 512 RAM and ROM, and card slot.

HTC Chacha supports a high speed HSPDA network, WiFi, Bluetooth, connectivity, a 3.5 mm audio jack, music player, video player, G sensor, digital compass, proximity and ambient light sensor and a 1250 battery.

The device is driven by Android 2.3 operating system, an 800 processor, and the acclaimed HTC Sense user interface.

Another HTC device which will make its debut in India next week is the 7 inch Android tablet Flyer. It will be one of the first devices in India to feature Android 2.4 Gingerbread and a capacitive touchscreen (pen-like device for writing on the touchscreen). ‘The Mobile Indian’ did a story a couple of days ago about the possible introduction of this device in India, and its launch has now been confirmed.

The tablet is already available online at Letsbuy.com for a price of Rs 37,500. Although it is more expensive than other tablets in the market, it has the features to justify its price. The only negative aspect of this tablet is the absence of Android 3.0.

The tablet has a 1.5 GHz and 1 of RAM (very good for a tablet,) along with a 5 megapixel camera at the rear and a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front, as well as A- support for maps. The battery has 4000 mAh capacity and delivers up to 4 hours of continuous video playback.

HTC also announced HTC Watch Service, a new connected video service that will debut with Flyer, and which enables on-demand progressive downloading of hundreds of high definition movies from major studios.

Angry Birds’ summer special games coming soon

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If you are done playing the last installments of the Angry Birds and are craving for more then don’t worry as Rovio Mobile, the developers of the game, has unveiled its next installment.

The company is yet to officially announce the name but has opened up a discussion on its official Facebook page asking all the Angry Birds’ fans to guess the name of this new variant.

This would not be an update to the existing games, rather it will be available for download as a stand alone game, which will be available across all platforms including Android, iOS, Symbian and so on.

The information about the new variant coincides with another great news from the developer, who said that Angry Birds has completed 250 million downloads across various platforms. Till now, the Angry Birds has broken all records previously set by any game in terms of number of downloads across various mobile platforms.

The official announcement will shed some more light on the pricing details and the launch date of the new variant of Angry Birds. Till then, we are on the lookout and will be updating you as and when more information is received from the developers.

Develop SMS apps to win internship

nilabh-jha
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txtWeb, which offers a unique based application service, has launched a developer challenge called App2Fame, in which developers, including students and professionals, can win big prizes. The contest is free to enter.

The developer contest is aimed at developing more mobile apps. The winning entry will win a travel voucher worth Rs 100,000; and the second and third entries will win travel vouchers worth Rs 50,000. Student developers will also, get a chance to win internships with txtWeb’s partners and the sponsors of the competition.

There are several other prizes to be won as well. Developing for txtWeb is easy and free, and participants will be provided with kits containing training manuals.

This is the second edition of this contest and some startups who will participate in the contest will also get a chance to present their idea to a panel of experts to get investments.

The txtWeb service allows users to send their queries and get answers through SMSes. It is a kind of internet based on SMS.

There are almost 800 applications on txtWeb, which include one wherein a user can search for a word on Wikipedia simply by sending an SMS “@Wiki” (the word) to 9243342000.

The user will then receive an SMS with the Wikipedia entry for that word.

There are other applications that allow users to look for restaurants around them, or look for movie timings, or find exam results, or PNR status and so many more applications.

Users can send an SMS with a keyword related to anything they are looking for to 9243342000, and can get the results immediately through SMS. The service is free but you need to pay SMS charges depending on your plan. You could also opt for an SMS pack to make the service completely free.

Nokia to announce its Windows smartphone on June 21

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Nokia is likely to showcase its much anticipated Windows Phone 7 based smartphone, which may also boast a new operating system, during the Communic Asia 2011, the annual telecom event, in Singapore.

Although Nokia has not divulged anything about it officially, but speculations are rife after the handset maker sent invitations to journalists, saying “Join Nokia Connection to experience First-hand the new Ecosystem that will be introduced to the world”, for Nokia Connection 2011 scheduled for 21 June along sides Communic Asia 2011 in Singapore.

Stephen Elop, the chief executive officer of Nokia, will be present to officially unveil the Windows based devices along with Marko Ahtisaari, senior vice president design at Nokia, who will be talking about the design aspect of the new smartphones.

Nokia has made it clear that it is a demonstration only event and nothing other than the products’ technical specification will be discussed. Hence, even though the devices will be unveiled, Nokia will not say the actual date of its availability in the market.

Whatever the case might be, the good news is that Nokia will finally be unveiling the Windows Phone 7 based devices before the world for the first time putting an end to all the speculations and rumours that are presently flooding the market pertaining to the launch of these smartphones.

Yahoo AppSpot search service will fetch the right apps

samir-makwana
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Internet giant Yahoo has released a new application that will help iPhone and users find the right apps for them. Named AppSpot, it supports only and Android platforms for the time being but Yahoo plans to extend its support to Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry devices as well.

Thousands of applications are listed on the iOS App Store and on Android Market, but it is difficult to locate and narrow down on one app that will suit your needs. AppSpot locates the matching titles and related keywords using Yahoo search technology. Once you get the app of your choice the interface offers other details of that application, such as description, price, rating, screenshots and reviews.

Yahoo announced AppSpot via a blog post and stated, “Searching for the right app out of the tens of thousands of possibilities requires multiple searches, downloads, and (there is) general uncertainty about the quality of app you download. Yahoo AppSpot offers a new way to take the guesswork out of finding relevant and interesting apps for mobile users.”

Users will also get to see the related apps that match or are similar to the ones they have searched for. Basically, Yahoo AppSpot aims to provide a seamless and user friendly app search-discovery experience to iOS and Android users.

A similar service was recently launched by Microsoft’s Bing, using which people can search for specific applications.

Facebook photo sharing app for iOS revealed

prasoon-kumar
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Facebook is planning to launch a new photo sharing that will allow users to upload, share and tag photos via the social networking website, according to TechCrunch. Initially, the app will be available to iPhone users only.

According to the report, the application is likely to be a combination of existing photo-sharing apps such as Path, Instagram and Color. There will be a camera button, a photo notifications icon, and a menu at the bottom left.

The interface revolves completely around photos, compared to the photos section of the current Facebook app, which only shows thumbnails of images on the interface. The editing features which are there in Instagram are not likely to be present in this app, which is therefore not likely to be a threat to Instagram yet.

TechCrunch called the app ‘awesome’, though users would definitely like to reserve their judgment until they actually take a look at the app. The project has been internally codenamed “Hovertown” or possibly “WithPeople”, and it seems to be a stand-alone app at the moment though in future it may go on to become a part of the Facebook app and probably of the Facebook website as well.

There is no reason for users to be surprised by the development since Facebook has already become a huge repository for photos uploaded by its users. Mobile users have, however, quickly adopted apps from other developers such as Instagram and Color, which had the first mover advantage in the mobile space. Facebook probably felt concerned by it since it would like to have as much control over the sharing and social networking space as possible.

Google Sync updated for the iOS users

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A lot of users often make use of Google Sync on their devices to synchronise with their data on Gmail and Google Calendar. To enhance their user experience, Google has given some tweaks to the Sync service.

Google Sync service now comes up with an improvised email search facility. Users can now search not only the mails residing on the phone itself in the iOS app, but even mails residing on Google servers. In simpler terms, users will now be able to search their full email history.

Another improvement in the email is for those users who have more than one email accounts. Those who send mails from other addresses than Gmail through their Gmail account, can ensure that their iOS allows them the same facility.

Explaining the improvements, Google in a blog post said, “Send email from the address you want. We recognise that some of you manage multiple email addresses from a single Gmail account. Gmail’s “Send Mail as” feature lets you send messages with another email address listed as the sender instead of your Gmail address, e.g. joe@altostrat.com instead of joe@gmail.com. Now the iOS mail app will respect these settings.”

Other users who are more interested in the Google calendar, would be glad to know they can accept or decline event invitations from the iOS calendar app directly.

Steve Hardt, software engineer, Google, adds, “Workforce is increasingly mobile, and workers on the go expect to be fully productive on email and calendar from their mobile devices. But we do want to tell you that we have a few new features for Google Sync users that will help employees work efficiently from anywhere on their iPhones and iPads.”

Facebook working on web app to circumvent Apple App Store

samir-makwana
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Popular social network, Facebook is said to be working on HTML5 based web app, currently codenamed as Project Spartan. MG Siegler, an author with TechCrunch, claims to have seen the web and states that Facebook has roped in 80 developers to create the mobile web version of Facebook.

In a way, Facebook is creating a custom wrapper around the other web applications so that the service can circumvent the Apple’s App Store.

Facebook has an eco-system of its own where in developers and advertisers make the best of the platform offered. With the Apple App Store, Facebook has to sacrifice certain privileges and also adhere to the policies laid down by Apple for its application (Facebook App). Since the Apple platform doesn’t support Adobe Flash, several developers have to submit their apps to Apple.

Now the social network is working on a secret project that will bring a Facebook web app platform based on HTML5. With this HTML5 based web app platform, the Facebook wrapper will further integrate the micropayments and purchases system – Credits.

One must not forget that mobile version for iPad, iPhone and iPad will never run Adobe Flash. Instead the game developers will take route of HTML5 and re-code their games to work in mobile Safari. That sounds like a good option.

With this, users would be free from installing a Facebook app on their iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Also avid Facebook users may be able to purchase and spend their “Credits” on other Apps or games. That’s one plausible option and we will have to wait for the official word from Facebook.

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