Reliance Communications and TELibrahma, a mobile solutions provider, have partnered to deliver video updates and replays from the ICC World Cup cricket matches.

TELiBrahma would deploy BluFi in stadiums and enable consumers to receive video highlights when they are watching the match in stadium. With the World Cup being played in different countries, this becomes the world’s first and biggest in-stadia deployment.

BluFi convert locations into BluFi Zones (Bluetooth-zones) enabling consumers to receive rich media contextual engagements on mobile for free. BluFi has been deployed across the country in leading locations like CCD, Barista, Shoppers stop and leading malls.

Consumers in BluFi locations across the country and those using intARact augmented reality Browser can view highlights and action replays of cricket matches for free. This solution is supported on more than 80% of the mobile phones in India and works across phone models, operators and geographies.

Announcing the video updates service, Mahesh Prasad, president wireless business, Reliance Communications, said, “The innovation and advanced technology that RCOM incorporates is ideal for today’s consumer who is always on the move. This time our customers will enjoy cricket with our new service video updates from ICC World Cup.”

Commenting on the tie up, PR Satheesh, president, TELiBrahma, said, “TELiBrahma is pleased to be associated with Reliance Communications and do next big thing on mobile. We believe it would help consumers to catch the missing action and advertisers to achieve better ROI from their investment in cricket.”

Zomato.com, an online food guide and restaurant directory, which recently launched its Android application, has now launched a mobile application for Blackberry phones.

The search application allows users to search for nearby restaurants based on the user’s location. Available for free on https://www.zomato.com/blackberry, the application lets the user look at the menus, contact details, reviews, photographs, location and discounts for restaurants on the phone itself.

The application has already recorded over a 1000 downloads within the first six hours of its launch. Zomato.com, the website gets 300,000 visitors every month, is looking to further strengthen its reach in this growing restaurant search market by targeting corporates with this application.

The website is around two years old and is present in six cities across India &#151 Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata.

Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and chief operating officer, Zomato said, “We are the first restaurant portal in the country to develop an Android application and we have now launched it for Blackberry users too. Users will be able to enjoy all the functionalities of our website on the Zomato application.”

Zomato.com is an online food guide and a restaurant directory with listings for 12,000 restaurants across 6 cities in the country.

Idea cellular and handygo, a telecom value added service company, have launched ‘Behtar Zindagi’, a bouquet of VAS offerings for customers in rural areas of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, UP West and Andhra Pradesh.

The service will provide day-to-day information regarding health, education, finance, weather updates, mandi rates, livestocks, agriculture and fisheries to Idea’s rural subscribers.

The service is available in Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu along with Hindi and English. The service is provided through interactive voice response (IVR) where a consumer can call to a code and get the desired info.

The service will be handled by handygo, which has partnered with various organizations such as Care India, Aviva Life Insurance, Indian Metrological Department, INCOIS, Hariyali Kisan Bazaar, Network for Fish Quality Management and Sustainable Fishing, Transparency International India, Sonalika, EKO India Financial Services and plethora of other organisations for updates.

Talking about the tie-up, Praveen Rajpal, chief operating officer of handygo said, “We are contented to partner with one of India’s leading mobile operator -IDEA Cellular. We envisage great potential in the untapped rural market and are bullish about the stupendous feedback from the end consumers. We have partnered with various large associations for ensuring the latest and authentic information to the mobile subscribers using the service. Our IVR based rural product is available in all the regional languages along with Hindi and English.”

With devices such as smartphones and tablets making their way to every hand, mobile learning has also begun to spread its wings.

Conveying educational content through mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) is known as mobile learning.

It is slightly different from e-learning, which aims to do the same but through the medium of laptops and computers. Hence, e-learning is location bound; while mobile learning allows one to attend lectures, read, and ask teachers questions from any where and at any time.

Today, students research and study online a lot. Thanks to the internet, they can study from multiple sources at the same time, such as from blogs and Twitter.

Duke University was probably the first to use mobile devices for educational purposes by allowing students to access class material and symposia through iTunes. Other institutions which use iTunes are MIT, Stanford and University of California. In 2008, Abilene Christian University (Texas, USA) also used iPhones and iPads to experiment with mobile learning.

M-learning in India

There are several m-learning initiatives in India.

The Biju Patnaik University of Technology started a service in collaboration with SMSGupShup called the BPUTALERT, which distributes information, academic notices and calendars through SMS to students.

Voicetap is another service using which people can send their queries through SMS, and the company messages back names of experts on the subject, and then users can connect to the right expert.

Another initiative, mGurujee, allows users to download questions and take tests to evaluate themselves. The service also allows people to receive reference content even if they are outside and away from their books. Users just need to register at the mGurujee portal to access free content. The site mGurujee has reinvented itself as a learning mobile App store and several leading mobile service operators, app stores and handset manufacturers are working with the company.

But for mobile learning to become successful, learners need to have access to the technology.

The field of mobile learning is in its infancy, and developers are still fumbling with products.

Android is fast closing up with the Apple in terms of the number of applications, according to a research by Business Insider.

Android is still behind the Apple’s marketplace by about 100,000 apps and is growing fast.

Business Insider further predicted that Android would overtake Apple in terms of apps very soon in the near future.

In related news, the Windows Phone 7 marketplace crossed the milestone of 10,000 apps quicker than others have done.

In the face of 350,000 apps in Apple marketplace and 250,000 apps in Android marketplace, the Windows Phone 7 numbers are still small but the growth has been steady.