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Idea Cellular launches cheap 3G smartphones

vrreddy — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:07:19 +0000

Idea Cellular launched a range of 3G smartphones to attract its 2G subscribers to its 3G services. Idea launched these smartphones in association with Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE. According to Idea Cellular executive this excercise is to create the ecosystem for its 3G penetration and they have no interest in entering the handset business.

The 3G smartphones starts from Rs 5,850, Idea users can pay as low as Rs 2,609 to get an Android based smartphone as they are giving Rs 3,500 worth of data services. With these smartphones Idea is targeting Urban and semi urban areas.

As an introductory Idea will offer rs 3,500 worth of data services with Rs 259 pack, which includes 3 months subscription to Idea TV, 3G double dhamaka benefits for 6 months, 1Gb of data download per month for 3 months and a talktime of rs 25. This offer is available for both prepaid and postpaid users.

These smartphones have 3.2MP camers, touchscreen (3.5″ and 2.8″ screen size), GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and runs on Android 2.2 OS.

Idea Cellular Press Release

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HTC Desire Z launched in India, Priced at Rs 25590

vrreddy — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:10:51 +0000

HTC has unveiled the HTC Desire Z Android smartphone with QWERTY keyboard in India; The HTC Desire Z is priced at 25590 in India.

HTC Desire Z runs on Android Froyo 2.2 and features 3.7 inch Super Clear LCD display and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. HTC touts the touch screen is ideal for browsing the web and the keyboard for quick text editing or emails. HTC Desire’s keyboard also includes keyboard shortcuts for quick access to the most commonly used functions on the phone.

According to HTC HTC Sense offers enhancements to the features available. HTCSense.com service enables the management of the mobile phone. Mobile users can remotely lock the phone incase of theft or lost, forward calls to another phone, and send a message to the phone for its return. Users can also delete all personal data remotely. Phone can be made to ring loudly even in a silent mode to locate missing phone. HTCSense.com also useful for accessing the content such as tex messages and contacts from the PC.

HTC Desire Z includes HD video recording and a 5-megapixel camera with flash, auto-focus and face recognition. The mobile phone supports 480x800pixel resolution. Desire Z has an 800Mhz Qualcomm MSM 7230 microprocessor and 512MB RAM.

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Motorola launches dual SIM Android smartphone in India

vrreddy — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:48:38 +0000

Motorola launched a dual SIM Android smartphone in India, Motorola XT800 is the first dual SIM Android handset in India. Dubbed as Motorola Milestone XT800 has one CDMA and one GSM slot.

Moto XT800 comes with 3.7 inch touch scereen (854×480), HDMI out-put, EDGE, GPRS, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 5 mega pixel camera. It is running Android 2.1.

The price of the device is steep, it retails at Rs.31999. Moto Glam has quite a lot of features may be that is the reason for the pricing.

“We have specially designed the MILESTONE XT800 to provide infotainment-on-the-go for consumers who want a device that matches the demands of an hectic lifestyle like that of a senior professional,” said Faisal Siddiqui, country head for India, Motorola Mobility.

“We believe in bringing the power of Android closer to the Indian consumer–stylish and unique form factors, innovative and compelling features and, experiences that offer greater flexibility and ease of use. MILESTONE XT800 delivers on all this and much, much more.”

Key Specifications of the MILESTONE XT800 include:

5MP camera with digital-zoom, autofocus, dual LED flash
Android 2.1 platform with pinch to zoom capacitive touch display
SMS, MMS, email (corporate email exchange , POP3/IMAP embedded, push email)
USB 2.0 high-speed data transfer2, with support for synchronization with PCs
Bluetooth1&3 2.0+EDR high-speed transmission and wireless Bluetooth stereo
Assisted GPS satellite navigation1&2 supporting Google Maps
Support for viewing and editing documents in Word/Excel/PowerPoint/PDF and Zip formats
Memory is expandable up to 32GB; 2GB SD card in-box
e-Compass1
Video capture/playback/streaming, HDMI (720p) output to high-definition devices
Supports several music formats: H.263, H.264, MPEG4
Supports multiple audio formats: AAC, ACC+, MP3, CMX, AMR NB, AMR WB, MIDI, WAV and WMA 9.

Pricing:

The Android 2.1-powered Motorola MILESTONE XT800 is exclusively distributed by AirTyme Communications in India at a MRP of Rs 31,999. It comes with an HDMI cable for TV output and a 2GB micro SD card in-box.

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Airtel debuts 3G services in India

vrreddy — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:10:03 +0000

Bharti Airtel launched 3G mobile services today in Karnataka to begin with. Airtel was supposed to launch 3G services in 2010 itself but got delayed. Airtel said it plans to launch 3G services across 13 circles by the end of March.

3G services allows multimedia capabilities on mobile networks, including high-speed mobile broadband, internet access and ability to make video calls with a 3G device. Other capabilities include live TV and live streaming.

Airtel is the third operator to launch 3G services after Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications. Airtel obtained licenses for 3G radio spectrum in 13 circles last year.

Airtel 3G tariffs are not yet clear, but they will introduce flexible plans based on usage.

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Nokia launches dual SIM handset C1 in India

vrreddy — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:50:37 +0000

Nokia launched it’s first dual handset, Nokia C1 in India. The dual handset market has a big potential in India, currently some local and Chinese companies are offering these handsets. Nokia C1 will cater to the low end of the market with a retail price of Rs 1,999. In future we may see more models with higher price tag and features to attract the high end customers.

Nokia C1 comes with a 1.8 inch 65000 colors screen, FM radio and runs on S30 platform. The device is available in two colors, red and medium blue. The sual SIM cards can be switched seamlessly with a shortcut button.

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Nokia X2 is available in India

vrreddy — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:24:09 +0000

Nokia X2 is now available in India, at a price point that is neither expensive nor value for money. Nokia X2 is priced at Rs 6579/-. Nokia boasts that X2 is built for music lovers, the phone is equipped with FM Radio, music player and powerful speakers.

Nokia X2 comes with 2.2″ screen, with a resolution of 320×240 pixels. The X2 is available in two color themes, Silver/Blue or Red/Black. Home screen can be customized using widgets, themes, icons, shortcuts etc. The handset supports GPRS and EGPRS data connections, and is able to serve as a data modem. X2 comes with 48MB of internal memory and can be extended upto 16GB using a microSD card.

X2 supports Adobe FlashLite 3.0, Java MIDP 2.1, and can be used to browse the internet. Apart from the music capabilities it also comes with a 5 megapixel camers with 4x digital zoom and supports JPEG and RAW image formats.

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Rediff SongBuzz: Music Streaming Service

vrreddy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:15:50 +0000

Rediff.com, one of the popular Indian portal has launched a music streaming service called Rediff SongBuzz quietly. The service allows users to stream the music online, although Rediff’s primary audience are Indians it is not restricted to Indian music, you can also find international artists as well.

The music catalog is limited right now, as many songs are not available. You can find the songs by searching with the search box. The results are displayed in drop down list with the song title, and the option to stream or preview. Preview option will play the song on the player at the bottom of the page. Using stream option will stream the song and also will popup, posting on this will go to the worldstream.

Worldstream is a kind of real-time stream of what others are streaming right now. In worldstream you can discover what others are playing and of you like you can follow them. There are not many other social elements in the site, may be in future they will add more.

SongBuzz is not very well polished design wise, site design feels like an outdated social network. But this is in a testing phase so don’t expect much.

All the music available on the site doesn’t look like licensed content, some of the song titles suggest that way. It could be possible they have a licensed catalog and also using their search engine to stream the content available on the net.

SongBuzz is currently in testing and requires registration to stream the songs. With out registration you can use preview links to listen to the songs for testing. So far the sound quality is good. Give it a try.

Via Medianama

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Yahoo home page redesign is working

vrreddy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:45:27 +0000

Yahoo home page redesign is working for Yahoo after all. Some people didn’t like it so much and preferred old Yahoo home page over the new one, switching to old Yahoo home page is not so difficult either.

At Yahoo’s annual analyst day, senior vice president Tapan Bhat had an update on Yahoo home page redesign. After the redesign of the Yahoo home page, page views increased 9% and the time spent by users on the page increased 20%. The reason for this increase seems to be the ability to add applications to the home page from around the web.

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Google sites dominate India and Brazil

vrreddy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:26:39 +0000

According to a report from ComScore, Google sites account for nearly 30% of the online time spent in India and Brazil. Worldwide time spent online on Google sites accounts for only 9.4%.

July stats from ComScore shows that “29.8 percent of total time spent online in Brazil was spent on Google sites, with India slightly lower at 28.9 percent”. The next highest market was Ireland at 15.9 percent.

Top Ten Global Internet Markets by Google Sites’ Share of Time Spent
July 2009
Age 15+, Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore
	Total Minutes (MM)	Google Sites	Google Sites’ Share of Total Minutes Spent Online
Worldwide	1,541,617	145,473	9.4%
Brazil	46,352	13,808	29.8%
India	21,799	6,294	28.9%
Ireland	1,717	273	15.9%
Singapore	3,326	475	14.3%
Portugal	4,430	590	13.3%
South Africa	2,764	358	12.9%
Mexico	23,035	2,950	12.8%
Italy	21,776	2,699	12.4%
Austria	3,435	417	12.1%
Denmark	3,458	417	12.1%

In India and Brazil Orkut is the most popular social network, Orkut is a fail or unknown in the rest of the world. This could well be one of the reason for such a high time spent on Google sites in these countries, being social network users may be spending lot of time on Orkut.

ComScore explains another reason

“It’s interesting that the dynamics of Google usage would be so similar in Brazil and India given that the two markets are on opposite sides of the world and quite different culturally from one another,” said Alex Banks, managing director of comScore Latin America. “As it turns out, there are interesting similarities between Brazil and India as emerging Internet markets. Google’s prevalence in these markets can perhaps best be explained by the fact that the time at which these markets really began to develop and flourish was around the same time that Google was becoming a major player in the search landscape. As a result, Google became the dominant Internet brand in these markets and its success appears to have bled from search into other areas of the web like social networking.”

In India Google takes a gigantic share of 88.4 percent for all searches conducted, and time spent on Orkut is 68.2 in social networking and Google maps with 63.9 percent share, and Youtube with 82.8 percent share. Blogger and Gmail account for 47.6 percent and 46.8 percent share.

Google-Owned Sites Across Selected Site Categories in
Brazil and India July 2009
Total Brazil and India, Age 15+, Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore World Metrix and comScore qSearch
Site Category	Google Site	Category Rank by Unique Visitors	Google’s Share of Time Spent in Category
Brazil
Search*	Google Sites	1	89.5%
Social Networking	Orkut	1	96.0%
Maps	Google Maps	1	70.9%
Photos	Picasa Network	2	8.9%
Blogs	Blogger	1	43.7%
Multimedia	YouTube	1	91.6%
Email	Gmail	2	9.7%
India
Search*	Google Sites	1	88.4%
Social Networking	Orkut	1	68.2%
Maps	Google Maps	1	63.9%
Photos	Picasa Network	1	16.2%
Blogs	Blogger	1	47.6%
Multimedia	YouTube	1	82.8%
Email	Gmail	2	46.8%

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Doodle 4 Google Contest for School Children in India

vrreddy — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:07:43 +0000

Google announced a Doodle 4 Google contest for school children in India. School children in between 1st and 10th standards can participate in the contest, these children have to design a doodle for Google which Google will put on it’s home page on Children’s day (Nov 14th).

The theme of the contest is “My India”, “We’d love to see what your country means to you when represented in a doodle. Whether it’s music or dance, famous Indian art, Mahatma Gandhi, the Taj Mahal, cricket, our scientific achievements or the Indian people as a community- we’re interested in seeing these representations of what India means to you and how you represent it using images.” Google posted on it’s site.

School students between 1 and 10 standards can participate, all the students who want to participate can register at Doodle 4 Google site.

The winner of the contest will get a Laptop and a technology grant of Rs.1,00,000

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