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Idea announces new prepaid plans for J&K

anil-satapathy
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Idea Cellular has announced a range of new prepaid plans and value added services for the Jammu and Kashmir region.

Launching the new initiative, Anish Roy, chief operating officer (Punjab, J&K and Himachal Pradesh), Idea Cellular, said, “We are pleased to bring these prepaid offers, they are not only good value for money options but also provide many VAS benefits to our subscribers. Apart from offering affordable call rates, they also have options of free SMS’ and GPRS; thus helping us break through a large segment of users in the region”.

Among the new offers include plans for its prepaid subscribers and new customers ranging from Rs 35 to Rs 73 with validity up to a year. Through these vouchers, an Idea subscriber can make local and STD calls at 40 paisa/minute.

Also, in the ‘More Than Full Bonanza’, a customer gets Rs 99 talk time on a Rs 90 recharge and Rs 328 talk-time on Rs 298 recharge.

The teleco has also introduced new and internet packs offering up to 3GB of internet usage absolutely free. These come with a day to a month long validity, and range between Rs 5 to Rs 97.

Customers now have the option to select services like dialer tone, big radio, astro world, sports pack, comedy junction, Idea music portal and others. ISD packs with reduced call rates for making international calls have been introduced.

Buy iPhone4 from Aircel and get your money back

rahul-gupta
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Aircel, a service provider in the country, has announced that it will launch the Apple iPhone 4 in India on May 27. The iPhone 4 has a price tag of Rs 34,500 for 16 model, and Rs 40,900 for 32GB model.

Aircel postpaid customers can avail up to 100 per cent of the value of the iPhone4 as talktime and data spread over a time period of 24 months.

Under the Advantage Money Back Plan, Aircel is offering up to 50 per cent of the value of the handset to its postpaid customers. While, Premium Money Back plan offers up to 100 per cent money back over a two year period. Both these plans are available for 16 and 32 GB iPhone versions.

The money back will be given in the form of talktime package discount ranging from Rs 720 to Rs 1710 as per the plan selected. Users will get up to 1 GB free 3G data (depending on the plan) also and after consuming the free 3G data, the users will automatically be switched to 2G data for which they will be charged 10 paisa per KB. The calling plans are simple with both local and national call tariffs priced at 1paisa /second.

Along with this Aircel has also announced special offer for its prepaid customers as well. Prepaid users can enjoy similar services on iPhone with a recharge ranging from Rs 599 to Rs 799.

As of now interested users can go to the Aircel website and register their details for a call back form Aircel regarding iPhone 4 and alternatively they can also visit the local Aircel store for more details.

iPhone 4 is the latest version of Apple iPhone and comes with features like Apple’s stunning Retina display, the highest display ever built into a phone and FaceTime for video calling.

With a sleek, sharp and thinner design than its predecessor, the fourth-generation model of Apple iPhone comes with a 3.5 inch screen with 640 X 960 pixel resolution.

The phone’s operating system has also been upgraded and is now called 4, which offers features like multitasking, spell check, folders and iBooks.

The phone comes in two versions (of 16GB and 32GB memory capacity), a 5 camera, up from 3 megapixel in the earlier version. The camera has an flash. It has a second camera for video calling.

For connectivity, it has WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI and GPS. The device promises seven hours of 3G talk time, six hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 10 hours of video and 40 hours of music playback.

Swipe your palm to answer calls

nilabh-jha
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Imagine, you get a call when your hands are dirty, so would you answer it and get soil on your phones screen? Probably you won’t.

But how about if you can just swipe your finger on your palm to answer the call!
Not possible? It is possible, using technology already available with Kinect, which recognises movements as command for game play. Sean Gustafson, Patrick Baudisch and Christian Holz at the Hasso Plattner Institute at Potsdam University in Germany made it possible in a test.

They argue that for such a thing to happen, all you need is people who know precisely where the apps are on their physical phone and a technology that can sense where they are pressing on their hand so a computer can respond and send commands to your phone, wherever it is.

A report on the technology was published in New scientist.

To find out how well people know their modern touchscreen phones, the Potsdam trio recruited 12 volunteers from among the iPhone users they spotted in their cafeteria and tested how well they knew the position of their favoured apps without their phone.

“We found 68 per cent of iPhone users can locate the majority of their home screen apps on their hand. This means that iPhone use inadvertently prepares users for the use of an imaginary version,” says Baudisch.

Having established a reasonable chance of successfully finding an app’s position on someone’s palm, they then decided to use “depth cameras”, which are similar to those at the heart of Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing gaming system to detect where someone is pressing on their palm.

In their tests, the depth camera was a clunky head mounted device. “But ultimately, we envision the camera becoming so small that it integrates into clothing, such as the button of a shirt, a brooch, or a pendant. So people would not even notice if someone carries an imaginary phone,” Baudisch told New Scientist.

“We envision that users will initially use imaginary phones as a shortcut to operate the physical phones in their pockets. As users get more experienced, it might even become possible to leave the device at home and spend the day ‘all-imaginary’.”

Answering calls on the phone would still require the physical device but it would be possible to access apps and forward calls to voicemail with the imaginary version.

Gustafson is now also working out how a TV remote control could be replaced by an imaginary zapper. The team hope to present their work at a conference on user interfaces later this year.

“For quite simple interactions this is probably going to work well,” said Nick Bryan-Kinns of Queen Mary, University of London. “But for more complicated functions it’s difficult to know how you’d do it without using audio feedback from the device, telling you which function you’ve activated.”

Four-fold increase in market share for Android in one year

nilabh-jha
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Android has taken smartphone market like storm, growing its market share from mere 9 per cent in 1st quarter of 2010 to 36 per cent in the last quarter, an increase of four times.

According to Gartners latest report on worldwide smartphone sales, is the market leader followed by fast declining Symbian. RIM is another looser which lost substantial market share to Android.

Symbian, the erstwhile market leader, is losing marketshare especially after Nokia changed track and adopted Windows Phone 7 as its preferred operating system. In 2010, Symbian had 44.2 per cent market share in smartphone segment, which has now reduced to 27.4 per cent.

On the other hand, Apple’s gained market share slightly to 16.8 per cent with its super successful iPhone4.

BlackBerry maker RIM continued its slide downhill and has now only 12.9 per cent market share, down from 19.7 per cent. While its new tablet Playbook has been received well, it has failed to attract buyers despite attempts to attract non-executive young buyers.

Microsoft, which has got a big moral boost after Nokia selected Windows Phone 7 as the choice of operating system for its smartphones, has not been able to cash in on the deal so far as it prepares for onslaught once Nokia starts shipping WP7 devices.

Microsoft has 3.6 per cent market share compared to last year’s 6.8 per cent, It has announced a massive upgrade with ‘Anna’ which will bring in more than 500 changes to WP7, and hopes to change the buyers preference.

According to the Gartner report, total smartphone sales worldwide for this quarter stands at a whopping 428 million units, which means a 19 per cent year on year growth for the industry. This also means that every player sold more smartphones this quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Even Symbian which lost 17 per cent in market share managed to sell 3 million more handsets this quarter compared to 1st quarter last year.

Idea extends 3G services in Himachal

anil-satapathy
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Idea Cellular has expanded its services to four more towns of Himachal Pradesh namely Dharamshala, Mcleodganj, Mandi and Sunder Nagar.

The teleco launched 3G services on its network in Himachal Pradesh, starting with the two major towns, Shimla and Baddi, in March this year.

“Idea subscribers in Dharamshala, Mcleodganj, Mandi and Sunder Nagar will now get an opportunity to experience high-end data services such as Video Conferencing, Idea Mall Application Store, Mobile TV, Video on Demand, and high-speed Internet Browsing with ease and convenience of use,” said Anish Roy, chief operating officer, Punjab, HP and J&K, Idea Cellular, on the launch of 3G services in the state.

IdeaMall is Idea’s Application Store which offers an entire catalogue of games and applications on Web and Mobile platforms. All of Idea’s 2G and 3G subscribers using mobile handsets that support web browsing will be able to choose from more than 30,000 applications, both free and paid.

Idea’s 3G services are now available in nine circles in the country including MP, Gujarat, HP, UP West, UP East, AP, Kerala, Haryana and Maharashtra & Goa.

3G services offer the best mobile experience in downloading songs, streaming videos on YouTube, streaming audio, photo updates on Facebook, mail and other online media, movie downloads, watching mobile TV, e-mailing with attachments, blog postings, viewing photos, and Flash & Gaming.

Idea 3G users will experience speed upto 21 on 3G handsets, and higher speed on other devices depending on the device capability, the teleco has claimed.

To know more about Idea’s 3G services, and to check handset compatibility, customers can log onto www.ideacellular.com or 3G to Toll Free number 54777.

New version of MeeGo OS unveiled

rahul-gupta
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A new version of the MeeGo operating system, which was ditched by Nokia in favour of Windows Phone 7, has been released. The new version 1.2, which was launched during the MeeGo conference in San Francisco (May 23-25), is available for Nokia N900 devices and provides advanced functionality to the users or developers to get creative.

Just few days ago, Nokia has accidentally revealed its new smartphone based on the operating system.

The developer edition is not a full version upgrade for devices running on MeeGo but it will unlock the developmental mode of the Open source operating system for the developers to make changes to.

With this, experts hoping that developers will make some changes with the MeeGo in order to boost its speed. The update also may help in bringing minor but needed changes in the dialler and other basic functionalities like camera, , WiFi and GPS.

Intel’s Oak Trail tablets to be unveiled

prasoon-kumar
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Tablet PCs based on Intel’s Oak Trail are likely to be displayed next week in the Computex Trade Show in Taipei.

The name of the processor, Oak Trail, is actually a code name for the Intel Atom Z670 processor designed for tablets. The ARM based processors have grabbed large market share among mobile devices.

The processor has a video decoder and graphics core, apart from the CPU. The Oak Trail processors are likely to offer longer battery life compared to earlier Atom chips.

Fujitsu was one of the earliest companies which adopted this processor and the company is now taking pre-orders for its Oak Trail tablets. The other important vendors that are coming up with Oak Trail tablets are Acer and Asus, but they do not intend to show their tablets at this event.

Acer’s Oak Trail tablet is likely to run on 3.0 and could hit the market by July. Apart from tablets running on Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Acer is also exploring alternatives like MeeGo. Another Oak Trail tablet, from Micro-Star International (better known as MSI,) is expected to arrive by the end of 2011.

Intel has been extremely supportive of the vendors launching tablets based on Oak Trail and is also generous with technical support and subsidies as well. Since the Oak Trail tablets will support Windows 7, the tablets built on this platform may be more readily adopted in the security conscious environments of the enterprise segment.

Most of the tablets on display at Computex in Taipei, however, are likely to come from lesser-known Chinese companies, and many of them will look like the iPad but the sophistication within will be missing. However, people will still be able to watch movies and browse the web &#151 which suffices for most entry level users.

ASUS may unveil tablet-smartphone hybrid device

rahul-gupta
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Taiwan-based ASUS technologies may soon launch a device that would bridge the gap between the non pocket friendly bigger tablets and smaller sized smartphones.

The company recently started a teaser campaign for the launch of the device during Computex 2011,which will start on May 31 and continue till June 4. The device has not yet been categorised in the advertisement, which asks “Is it a pad or a phone?”

After the Transformer, which is a 10.1 inch tablet, ASUS will probably not come out with another similar sized tablet. Rather, it may release a 7 inch, or smaller tablet.

The hardware configuration of this smaller tablet-smartphone is expected to be on the higher side with a 1GHz + and more RAM.

The biggest mystery is its screen size, which should be more than 4.5 inches, especially considering the fact that there are smartphones like Acer Iconia and HTC Sensation that come with displays of 4 inches.

And last but not least, it is expected to feature the latest Gingerbread 2.3.4 operating system.

The ASUS device will have features of both a smartphone and a tablet PC, while being of a size that makes it very comfortable to carry.

Apart from the advertisement, there is no official word about the device, which will be revealed during Computex 2011.

Get discounts with Foursquare app

prasoon-kumar
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Groupon, which delivers deals and coupons to its users through emails, is mulling its options to offer daily deals to Foursquare users.

Foursquare is a mobile application that helps its users explore new hangouts and other interesting places. Participating merchants usually offer deals to first-time visitors or Foursquare groups visiting their businesses.

It has about 10 million registered users worldwide, of which three million check in to various locations on the every day.

People can either be befriended on Foursquare or they can import their Facebook friends. In version 1.3 of the iPhone app of Foursquare, push notifications are also enabled, so whenever a friend checks in somewhere exciting, users will know about it right away.

Daily deals and discount coupons promise to be an important part of our lives and Foursquare aims to exploit just that. Foursquare does not have many users in India as of now though some big names such as Cafe Coffee Day and Blue Frog have started rewarding customers who come through Foursquare.

When the location based app started, other than for games, there seemed not much point in it. Now that user numbers are rising, businesses realise that Foursquare users spend more time in their stores , and spend more money. And so companies try to garner more customer attention. With Foursquare, businesses can also find out which of their stores is doing well.

With 85 million users and numerous business associations, Groupon may turn out to be just the right kind of ally for Foursquare to grow into a bigger business entity.

Five best free audio players on Android

rahul-gupta
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Five best free audio players on Android

The stock media player in your smartphone offers basic functionality, which is good for a basic music listener but it will never satisfy a music enthusiast. Today smartphone manufacturers are trying to add better and better audio related hardware in their smartphones in order to turn them into perfect all in one devices.

Smartphones offer much more functionality compared to feature phones, and with networks spreading across India at a faster pace, data accessibility using smartphones has increased multi fold: 3G networks have given way to extremely fast data transfer speeds for video and audio streaming etc.

In terms of multimedia and entertainment, smartphones are preferred to media players because they offer more functionality than the average media player does, but as mentioned earlier, the stock players on Android are good enough for a basic job. For more fussy listeners there are better apps available from the Android store. Here we have the five best free audio player applications available on Android Market that will definitely amplify your music listening experience:

Double Twist player

Ever wonder how much time an average person spends syncing his playlists and songs on his PC, phone and other devices? Double Twist helps save that time by allowing users to sync their mobile phones or Android devices with the music stored on their computer over the air without any wires.

This application recognizes the audio files on your computer, from among which the user can select the sync list for the device and once the application is started on the smartphone, all data is synced using wireless connections or WiFi. The application also allows Mac users to sync Android devices using iTunes.

TuneWiki

It often happens that we do not understand the lyrics of a song while listening to it, especially when the song is not in our mother tongue. There are also times when we want to quote from a song we like. Here’s where TuneWiki comes to the rescue. Apart from being just a media player TuneWiki also displays live lyrics with the song being played.

With lyrics translated in over 40 languages, the TuneWiki player can search for lyrics to over 2.5 million songs. All the user needs is an active internet connection along with an updated song library. Now just go ahead and listen to your tune and sing along with it.

Mort Player

What is the use of putting songs in different folders when your audio player cannot understand the way you have segregated the music and still plays it on the basis of the artist or album? If you are also suffering from the same problem then shift to Mort Player, which remembers folders and displays songs based on their location regardless of the artist tag.

Now there’s no need to struggle through the playlist for finding that favourite song, which you forgot and are now unable to locate. Just go to the folder you saved it in and start jamming.

Mood Agent

The Mood Agent application is a smart audio player that identifies different types of music and recommends songs based on the listener’s mood. Users do not need to tag music to any particular mood. This the does automatically. The user does need to choose his mood from among a list of options though.

Users are free to use this application to play selected tracks if they do not want to use the song suggestion feature. First-time users will need to have both patience and an active internet connection as Mood Agent will catalog the music library and will share info with its online servers, which in turn tag the songs for different moods.

btunes

The btunes application is unique due to its simple design, which is based on the iTunes player on iPhone with bigger, easy to access buttons for almost every function.

So if you also love the way this app looks, or want to jazz up your audio player iTunes style, look no further.

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