Tata Teleservices strengthened their alliance with Japanese telecom major NTT DoCoMo by launching their GSM Service in Karnataka. Prior to this Tata DoCoMo launched their GSM services in Tamilnadu, Orissa and Kerala. Their much awaited GSM Mobile service has been now rolled out in Karnataka and AndhraPradesh as well. The Prepaid Starter Pack comes for Rs.49 in both circle with Life time validity. They have also introduced their post-paid plans in detail so that users can choose according to their usage. So apparently they are entering the competitive market full of biggies in GSM services like Vodafone, Airtel and others. The Japanese telecom major had acquired 26 per cent in TTSL, Tata group’s unlisted telecom company, for around $2.7 billion in November last year.
The name for new brand will incorporate brand names of both Tata and NTT DoCoMo. Tata DoCoMo announced the introduction of the pay-as-you-use advantage for many of its Value-added Services, including all its voice portals, 24-hour music, cricket commentary and voice chat. The company is offering per second billing to prepaid customers at a rate of 1 paisa per second for all phone calls across India. Other commercial operations have now begun in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The GSM service in Karnataka will have and extensive coverage of 472 towns and 2,642 villages apart from the highways, railway lines, airports and places of tourist interests. The joint venture plans to conquer more circles and become a pan-India player in a battlefield-like GSM arena. They had made a promise that this would bring to the country products and services that will redefine the telecom experience. In a market that is cluttered with many operators that throw up confusing options, they will try to offer simplicity to consumers by being the country’s most transparent, innovative and liberating telecom brand. They target have targetted the South Indian Circles going live first. This will be followed by areas in East, West and Northern region.
For those who don’t know or have never used Rapidshare - Its a file hosting and sharing service that is popular around the globe. As per alexa India figures as the second largest traffic provider to rapidshare after China. Have a look at the traffic share below:
Now Rapidshare COO Mr. Bobby Chang is in India to promote Rapidhshare’s services. He sees great potential in the Indian market and feels that the Internet penetration in India is only going to grow thereby leading to need for services like rapidshare which can host data online for free.
On the current traffic from India he stated
“Currently, we see about 2-3 million users from India every day using RapidShare everyday. We expect to see a 10-20 per cent increase in activity this year as we launch more services”
Bobby Chang was also in India for the RapidShare Lottery which was won by a 19 year old girl named Srishti A. from New Delhi. She was presented a cheque of Euros 50,000. Over 500,000 people took part in the prize draw by exchanging RapidPoints for raffle tickets.
The Dark Side Of Rapishare
Well for those who know rapidshare will also know that its notorious for hosting all kinds of files (pirated movies, music, software, adult mms clips etc). Ofcourse all of this is user uploaded and shared and if one does complain to rapidshare they do take down a particular file but when 1000’s of such files are uploaded its very difficult for a authentic content owner or even girls whose mms clips might be on the platform to report all of them. Hence rapidshare enjoys the traffic as not all illegal content is reported. One may argue that the same is the case with an UGC platform be it orkut, youtube or even facebook. While this might be true file sharing takes it to a different level as the file itself is downloaded by the user and now can be shared. Unlike youtube videos which cannot be downloaded that easily (Yes there are services for that too but not everyone knows about them).
So Rapidshare may be looking to increase its presence in India but before it does that it may want to relook at its services as many Indian publishers would not be happy with their content being shared for free and rapidshare making money out of the same. Rapidshare could be termed as the napster of the modern world only that its not P2P sharing but file hosting.
Google is developing an open-source operating system targeted at Internet-centric computers such as netbooks and will release it later this year, the company said Wednesday.
The OS, which will carry the same "Chrome" name as the company's browser, is expected to begin appearing on netbook computers in the second half of 2010, Google said in a blog post.
It is already talking to "multiple" companies about the project, it added.
The Chrome OS will be available for computers based on the x86 architecture, which is used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and the Arm architecture.
Prototypes of Arm-based netbooks began appearing last month at the Computex show in Taiwan and Google's support for the architecture could give it a significant boost. Microsoft's mainstream Windows operating system doesn't run on Arm chips so many manufacturers were talking about using Linux or a version of Google's Android operating system. It's not immediately clear how much the two operating systems share in common code but Google said they are aimed at very different devices.
"Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android," it said. "Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the Web."
While Google is initially looking at the netbook segment of the market it might compete with Microsoft and Apple on larger, Internet-centric machines.
Chrome OS is "being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems," said Google.
Beijing (China) – Intel used the first day of the Spring IDF in Beijing to show off its Moorestown integrated processor, which is expected to replace the current Atom CPU and chipset later this year or early 2010. The company also introduced two new Z-series Atom processors.
It was the first time that a Moorestown chip was shown live to the public. What makes this processor special is the fact that it integrates graphics and all other chipset components on-die, which will make it substantially smaller and apparently less power hungry than today’s Atom generation.
Moorestown is promised to run at ten times less idle power than the current Atom platform. Intel declined to reveal how much power the chip will actually consume and, at least for us, it is difficult to estimate that number. Today’s Atom relies on a 45 nm processor as well as an older chipset design, based on an updated i915 version, which is called System Controller Hub (SCH) as part of the Atom platform. The SCH is manufactured in 130 nm and simply too power hungry and too large to be used in small mobile devices such as smartphones.
Moorestown is expected to become Intel’s second serious attempt to make an impact in the cellphone market – the first was the Xscale processor, a technology which was acquired by Marvell in 2006. However, this time, the CPU seems to be much more focused and could turn into an interesting competitor to ARM processors.
Intel also launched two new Atom processors with Silverthorne core. The Z550 is positioned on the very high-end with a clock speed of 2.0 GHz and support for a virtual second core. Intel said that the chip consumes a maximum of less than 3 watts and about 220 mWatts on average. There was no information on how expensive the chip will be, but we would expect this model to be a low-volume device that will replace the 1.86 GHz Z540 as the flagship of the Silverthorne family. We haven’t seen the $160 (including SCH) Z540 in any significant devices so far and do not expect that this will change with the Z550. The use of a $160 CPU+Chipset does not make a lot of sense in products consumers expect to cost less than $500 and system vendors have largely passed on it.
The second new processor is the Z515, which includes the company’s new “Burst Performance Technology” and allows the processor to run at 1.2 GHz, instead of just 1.1 GHz. Don’t expect these new Atom processors to become available anytime soon in netbooks, as they are exclusive targeted at (more expensive) MID’s where less power consumption is more important than more performance.
Intel briefly touched the topic of upcoming mobile Nehalem processors, which are scheduled for a H2 2009 launch. The company said that these CPUs “will be more powerful than their predecessors by including such technologies as Intel Hyper-Threading Technology and Intel Turbo Boost Technology.”
Nokia N97 comes equipped with 434 MHz processor and 128 MB Ram while Apple iPhone 3G S comes with 600MHz processor and 256MB RAM. While comparing this hardware configuration, Apple iPhone 3G S stands ahead.
But main advantage of N97 comes when we take the operating system. N97 comes preloaded with Symbian 5th edition S60 while iphone 3G S comes with latest iPhone OS 3.0. But main advantage of N97 is that almost all applications for all purpose ia available for Symbian OS. Though the N97 has some touch gestures and the accelerometer, we have to admit that touch features on the iPhone remain iconic despite all efforts by Nokia and Windows Mobile.
Other noticable thing is battery life Nokia N97 provides more battery life than iPhone 3G S with its 1,500 mAh Li-Ion battery.
Also while we consider the storage part N97 has 32GB inbuilt memory and has a microSD card slot to expand ths storage capacity while iPhone 3G S, which has 16GB internal memory.
While coming to design part, nokia N97 has a 3.5 inch touch display and QWERTY keyboard while iPhone 3G S has touch screen display only.
In multimedia features also , N97 makes a step ahead of Apple iPhone 3G S. The main features is camera- N97 comes equipped with a 5 megapixel camera while iPhone 3G S has a 3.2 megapixel camera.
N97 also comes with the best speakers than the Apple iPhone 3G S and while on ear phones also Nokia n97 is able to compete with Apple iPhone 3G S.
Features such as handwriting recognition, Bluetooth file transfers, FM radio and video recording on the N97 clearly makes it a head over iPhone 3G S.
The Nokia N97 is expected to available at a price of Rs 36,119 in India while the 8GB iPhone 3G S is expected for about Rs 29,000. As per all the features are considered, the Nokia N97 is better than Apple iPhone 3G S .
iPhone fever was hot in May, at least based on the number of people who frequented Apple's Web site.
The Mac maker's Apple.com last month hosted 55.7 million unique visitors, more than the site of any other computer hardware manufacturer, according to a report released on Monday by Nielsen Online. The number of visitors was more than double that of second-ranked Hewlett-Packard, which drew in 21.9 million people.
May visitors to Apple's Web site spent an average of an hour and 14 minutes on it, perhaps in anticipation of the pending release of the new iPhone 3GS, Nielsen said.
Traffic to Dell's site came in third place, with 16.8 million unique visits in May. Overall, Web site visits to hardware manufacturers followed by Nielsen grew 22 percent year over year, from 57.3 million in May 2008 to 70.1 million last month.
Buzz about Apple was also in full swing among bloggers in May. Blog mentions of the iPhone 3GS shot up 1,226 percent on June 8, the day the new phone was announced, from the prior week. Blog talk dipped after that but then doubled on June 19, when the 3GS hit the shelves.
Mozilla's much awaited Firefox 3.5 is slated for release on Tuesday, a company representative has said. The updated version is being touted as a browser that will feature high speed.
Other key features include TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which boosts performance and stability, as well as a Private Browsing Model for control of private data. The Private Browsing Model does not retain visited pages, form and search bar entries, passwords, cookies, temporary or cached Internet files and so forth. Firefox 3.5 has similar features as that of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).
Firefox 3.5 also has a Location Aware Browsing or geolocation facility, where it takes the IP address of the user, information about nearby wireless access points and a temporary cookie-like identifier, and gives the information to Google so that searching in Google retrieves results that relate to the users location. A downloadable release candidate for version 3.5 is already available on the web.
http://www.getfirefox.net/download.html
Around a week back we blogged that HTC will soon launch Google Android based phones in India and here they are, HTC is launching HTC magic in India today in strategic partnership with Airtel. HTC magic will be priced between 26,000 and 28,000 and will not be locked to any operator unlike Apple Iphone thus making it a go-go for users with any operator.
HTC Magic have a huge list of features making it a compelling buy for the users opting for a smart phones, giving stiff competition to Nokia N97, Blackberry and Iphones.
All Google services like Gmail, Google Search, Street view etc comes inbuilt with G2.
Smart Dialer with on screen touch keyboard making it easy to type.
Microsoft exchange server integration making it lucrative even for business users.
Wifi Connectivity so that one can use WiFi connection while in office,home. G2 also provides easy network switching capability, so that users can switch from Operator provided network to office/home WIFI in a click of a button giving them better speed and saving some pennies .
Though the price tag may look little bit on the heavier side but it may be able to pick up cashing on the Googlemania . Users will be happier with their Gmail, Calendar, contacts all syncing up regularly.
SPECIFICATIONS:-
Processor:Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Operating System:Android
Memory ROM:512 MB
RAM:288 MB
Display:3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution
Network:HSDPA/WCDMA:900/2100 MHz
Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Device Control Trackball with Enter button
GPS:Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity:Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB™:(11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
Camera:3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Talk time:
Up to 400 minutes for WCDMA
Up to 450 minutes for GSM
Standby time:
Up to 660 hours for WCDMA
Up to 420 hours for GSM
Expansion Slot microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter:Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 47/63 Hz
DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features:
G-sensor
Digital Compass
