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Facebook acquires app developer Snaptu

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Facebook is set to acquire Snaptu, a feature phone development company based in UK and Israel. The company specialises in making popular social networks, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, available on feature phones.

With the completion of the deal, people with low end phones across the world may expect better and bigger apps on their own feature phones, without the need to spend huge sums on smartphones.

Notably feature phones make up a large majority of all the phones in the world. About 80 per cent of all the handsets sold in 2010 are feature phone, according to a study.
The feature phone apps developed by Snaptu are Java-based and these apps currently work on close to 2500 feature phones across the world.

Snaptu, a four year old company, said in the blog post that the deal was expected to be completed within next few weeks.

The deal is estimated to be worth $70 million.

Facebook already has about 500 million members and the company is now planning to expand its presence among the mobile users also.

This is the fourth acquisition by Facebook this year with other acquisitions being Pursuit (social recruiting service), Rel8tion and Beluga.

Snaptu has already built the feature phone app for Facebook, and the step appears to be very important for Facebook to move beyond its current base of users.

Amazon launching app store today

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Amazon launching app store today

Amazon is all set to launch its store for the devices on March 22, according to reports.

GetJar is one model on which the Amazon app store may operate. In this method, people may go to the website through the browser.

On the website, they would find the app they need. After filling out a form with their phone number, they get a text message with a link, which gets them the app.

Users may also buy the apps through the Amazon website, or get the phones preloaded with the apps if they are bought from the Amazon app store. It may also feature some exclusive add ons, to keep people hooked to its service.

The Amazon app store had made a brief appearance on the Internet once, though it was not fully functional so users could not buy any app there. But it gave a good idea of things to come on the upcoming app store.

Amazon has an advantage over Google, its payment service is spread over more countries compared to Google Checkout.

There are speculations from TechCrunch that Amazon may also come out with an Android based tablet. At this point, however, we can just wait and watch and see how the events unfold.

Vodafone gains most from MNP

The Mobile Indian Network
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A majority of Indian consumers, who opted for mobile number portability (MNP), have preferred Vodafone Essar, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

MNP, which allow people to retain their number while switching there telecom operators, was launched nationwide on January 20.

Of the total customers who had opted to switch carriers, a net 192,761 customers switched to India’s third-largest mobile carrier Vodafone Essar.

However the total number of consumers who opted for MNP services is still less at five million which is less than one per cent of the country’s total subscribers.

Idea Cellular gained 150,789 customers, second to Vodafone. While Bharti airtel gained 148,215 customers, Reliance Communications has lost 306,417 customers. Currently India has 771 million mobile subscribers as of January.

Check into games with HeyZap

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Check into games with HeyZap

HeyZap, a social game platform, is coming out with a Foursquare like service for gamers. Users can use the service to tell their friends which game they are playing at that moment and share the fun.

The check in craze, already popularised by Foursquare and Gowalla in location based games, is now moving on to the regular mobile games space. In this, all that HeyZap does is add a social layer to the existing gaming platforms.

With the surfeit of mobile games on the Internet, it has always been difficult for users to find out which games to play. HeyZap believes it has cracked that problem with this as users themselves will tell their friends what they are playing and whether they liked it or not.

Since the friends will now be able to know which games their friends have played or what level they managed to cross, they would now be able to start a conversation based on this information, just the way they do with Cricket or Soccer or baseball. The interaction takes place only between people who know each other well, just the way users interact with each other on Facebook.

The new free Android app of the HeyZap was undergoing alpha testing for sometime and the check-ins have already hit 250,000 mark for 3000 games where this service is being offered now.

HeyZap for Android also has a tip tab where users can access the tips shared by their friends about various games or simply whether it’s enjoyable or not. An iPhone version of the same app is also in the works.

This is the first time that HeyZap is moving into the mobile space. The company started its operations by monetizing Flash games on the Internet. The social gaming platform of HeyZap on the web already has 1.6 million users. Once user has checked into any game, he or she can spread the message through Twitter, Facebook and the company’s own network.

The app has been made available for free because the company first wants it to be adapted as quickly as possible by the market. HeyZap can also give away free app because its web business is monetizing well which allows it to experiment well with the new app formats.

Spice launches M900 mobile with video projection capability

The Mobile Indian Network
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In a bid to woo more people with its innovative handsets, Spice Mobiles has now launched a phone with a video projector. The Spice Popkorn Projector M9000comes with an inbuilt projector.

You can project presentations, movies, and pictures on a large screen. It has also an TV chip inside it that can receive terrestrially broadcast TV channels. One can even project these live TV on a large screen.

Besides, the M9000 has a Document Viewer, which lets you view various office document formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF on the handset. The mobile also sports a laser pointer, which is very useful while making presentations. The 1200 battery seems okay for video projections albeit a more powerful battery would have been better.

The dual GSM handset has a 2.36 inch 262K color display and has quad capability. The candy bar style phone has dimensions of 119.2 mm x 50.3 mm x 17.35 mm, and weighs just 123 grams.

Other features include WAP, GPRS, EDGE, JAVA and 2.1. With its 3.2 camera, users can record videos. The camera also supports multi-Shot, night vision and widescreen video recording.

It has also support to play various video formats including 3GP, mp4, AVI, FLv, RM and RMVB, player with FM radio and stereo.

The phone has a meagre 87 in built memory but can be expanded up to 16 GB.

The Spice Popkorn M9000 is priced aggressively at just Rs 6,999.

-1200 mAh Battery for longer standby time.

The M900 is only available in black colour.

Wynncom’s new mobile with wireless speaker

The Mobile Indian Network
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Targeting the music lovers, Wynncom on Monday launched the Y36 mobile phone.
The phone comes with a dynamic wireless speaker, which can work with a range of 3-5 meters. It also supports 3GP, MP4/RMVB formats.

And with an expandable memory, up to 16 GB, provides ample space for the music junkies to store songs they love.

Speaking on the launch occasion, Naveen Kapoor, assistant vice president, sales operations, Wynn Telecom said, “This feature packed Y36 is designed with all qualities to make it a best seller. These days music is one of the main attraction and with wireless speaker we have tried to make this phone trendy and highly user friendly for the youth.”

To start with, the dual (GSM + GSM) handset has some utility features such as Torch, language support of Hindi that may appeal to lot many potential buyers.

Its two camera, with a flash, gives a 25-30 (Frames per Second) rate for video playback. The phone is tracked with security functional technology of Mobile tracking to its users.

The TFT type Y36 mobile weighs only 95 grams. The internet service of the phone is supported with a Class 10 and EDGE. This handset also has A2DP/AVRCP, USB Port, and JAVA Enabled support.

The phone has inbuilt features such as Opera mini, Yahoo/MSN/Skype chat, Facebook, FM with recording, Phone and SMS Blacklist, Auto Call Record, Smart Phonebook search and Smart dialing, PC sync, Webcam, Java Enable, and Inbuilt NES Emulator.

With a 1000mAh battery power, the phone is capable of five hrs of and 240 hrs of standby. It is available in two colour options &#151 Black and Red, Grey and Black.

The Y36 will cost you around Rs 3,095 and is available across India.

Smartphones of the future

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Smartphones make our lives a lot simpler as they offer various features that are usually found in mainstream computers. Though only a fraction of mobile phone users have a smartphone the picture will likely change soon.

Technology is changing at a fast pace and so are smartphones. Here we have listed new technologies that will change smartphones forever.

Quad core processors

At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, two mobile chip makers, Qualcomm and Nvidia, showcased quad core processors for smartphones. With these processors, smartphones are expected to become faster and more power efficient.

Quad core processors are likely to feature a dedicated graphics engine. With a 12 core graphics engine, smartphones will be able to render 3D games and visuals at a much better quality.

Wifi standard n

The latest and fastest standard of Wifi is able to transfer data at speeds of up to 150 (mega bits per second). It is available in laptops and PCs but not in smartphones.

With its adoption not only do data transfer speeds improve dramatically, the range of operations also improves multifold.

Wifi n standard will operate at four times the present operational range of 200 meters.

With many operators working on wireless wide area networks, this will help reduce the cost of operations while improving speed as well.

Bluetooth 3.0

It is a faster, more secure wireless data transfer protocol capable of transfering data at up to 24 Mbps between smaller devices by creating a personal network among them.

Bluetooth 3.0, apart from being faster, is more secure as compared to the present version (Bluetooth 2.1).

It is also the most energy efficient version of Bluetooth.

USB 3.0

Since is the most common mode of connection for smartphones smartphone manufacturers across the globe are adopting a single format of USB as the standard mode for charging and connectivity for data transfers.

Though USB 2.0 can transfer big loads of data such as movies and song libraries, it takes a lot of time to do so. With the adoption of USB 3.0 speeds are likely to go up to 5 Gbps, which is much faster than what is currently available.

Advanced touchscreens

During the recently concluded Cebit 2011, a renowned technology exhibition in Germany, a new touchscreen technology was unveiled.

The touchscreen not only works with touch, it also recognises gestures (without touch). It can read the intensity of touch by calculating the pressure that is applied to the screen.

So it will be interesting to see how these technologies evolve in future smartphones.

One in two mobile users in India are victims of mobile theft

The Mobile Indian Network
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One in two mobile phone users in India have been victims of mobile theft, a survey of an e security company has revealed.

According to the Norton Mobile Survey 2011, 53 per cent of adults in India have been victims of mobile phone loss or theft, but only two in five have a protecting their devices.

Interestingly, the survey finds that more than half the victims were willing to pay a ransom (an average of Rs 3,692) to get their mobile phone back, but they ended up paying three times the amount (Rs 9,957) to resolve the situation.

The Norton survey says that mobile theft victims were concerned about exposure or loss of private information, and that 74 per cent of the victims were unable to lock or wipe the phone’s memory after it was lost or stolen.

The survey also found that 60 per cent users are comfortable with online banking, connecting through Wifi, and having their location identified by software on their mobiles, while 50 per cent access email and shop online.

The survey was conducted in January this year across eight major cities – New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad.

Of the five hundred people it polled, 77 per cent owned standard mobile phones while 23 per cent had smartphones.

For half of Indians, mobile the only way to access internet

The Mobile Indian Network
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About half of mobile internet users in India have either or infrequently, use the desktop Internet, according to a survey.

The survey, conducted by Opera in February this year and released recently, puts India at the 2nd largest base of mobile only Internet generation after South Africa.

“41 per cent Indians, mobile phone is the only possible way to access Internet. Apart from being a cheaper and easier alternative, mobile device is the most convenient access method for using Internet while they are away from the computer,” said the survey.

While 95.2 per cent of the mobile internet users are male, female comprise only 5 per cent of the total users. Mobile Internet users are also dominated by young people with 94 per cent aged between 13 and 34, added the survey.

The survey only confirms the phenomenal rise of mobile connections in India, which is now at above 700 million compared to the very slow wired connection in the country.

Intel inside your phone: coming soon

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In a renewed bid to enter the mobile space, Intel has bought a mobile chip manufacturer called Silicon Hive. Intel has been trying to enter the mobile computing space for quite some time now but has failed to make a mark.

Netherlands based Silicon Hive specialises in parallel processors for system on a chip (SOC) designs. The company develops products for use in mobile devices and handset systems.

Originally a part of Philips Research Laboratories, Silicon Hive was spun off as a separate entity in 2007. Along with New Venture Partners, the company said that it received backing from Intel Capital.

“They’ve been with us from the early stages, and have been strategic advisors on our product and business development along the way,” Silicon Hive chief executive Atul Sinha said.

“We now target phenomenal successes inside Intel in the delivery of differentiated multimedia experiences in Atom-processor based SoCs,” he added.

Silicon Hive said that it will work with Intel primarily on its portable device and embedded computing operations. Possible applications include netbooks, automobiles and smartphones.
Intel is trying to develop its Atom family of processor for use in smartphones and tablets. With this acquisition it will have better capabilities to develop this platform.

Intel has not been able to make a mark in the mobile space where players such as Qualcomm, Nvidia and Samsung are the current market leaders. It earlier partnered with Nokia to develop a mobile operating system called Meego, which would be designed to use Intel processor architecture better. The partnership is not going well as Nokia has now decided to use Windows Phone as its default smartphone OS.

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