Get dual SIM Android mobile phone by Spice

With an aim to expand its footprint in the growing mobile-internet market, S Mobility launched its latest dual SIM Android phone, the Mi-350.

"We see the future of telephony in what we have termed as 'Mobile Internet'," the company's Associate Vice President (Operations) Zulfi Ali Bhutto told reporters after the launch of Mi-350, which he claims, is India's first 3G and 2G dual SIM Android phone by spice mobile.

He said the trend of using internet facilities on mobile is increasing everyday and substantiated his claim by detailing out figures of growing Facebook and Twitter users in the country. The Android platform based smart phone gives a battery back-up of seven days.

World's cheapest tablet launched

India's finally got its much hyped ultra-low-cost tablet, Aakash. The tablet runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and comes with a 7 inch resistive touch screen with 800x480 reolution and weighs 350 gm.

Aakash is a collaboration between the government and a British-based company DataWind. The tablet has a 256 MB of RAM, a 32 GB expandable memory slot and two USB ports.

The tablet comes with a 12-month replacement warranty and supports formats like DOC, DOCX, PDF and PPTX etc. Aakash has standard 3.5 mm headphones jack.

The tablet will be commercially available from November for Rs. 2999. The commercial version of the tablet would have no duty waivers or subsidy, as in the government's version and come with added features like an inbuilt cellular modem and SIM to access internet.

The government will be acquiring the tablet for Rs 2250 from DataWind which will be supplied to the students across the country. The device will initially be made available to post-secondary students.

New iPhone, iPods launched by Apple

Apple has announced the all new iPhone 4S model at an event held at its headquarters in Cupertino, USA. The new iPhone 4S looks almost like iPhone 4 but has faster processor, better camera and all new voice control feature called Siri. Apple plans to make the new iPhone 4S available in 70 countries by the end of December and unfortunately India did not make it to the list. So we presume that iPhone 4S will come in early January next year.


Apple will make the iPhone 4S available for pre-orders on October 7 and the smartphone will be available in stores of several countries from October 14 this year. Apple will offer iPhone 4S in Black and White colours where 16 GB version costs $199, 32 GB version costs $299 and 64 GB version for $399 — all with three year contracts. In the USA, three cellular providers — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint will be offering the iPhone 4S. Apple will offer iPhone 4S in Black as well as White colour.

The all new iPhone 4S has the same physical features as found in the iPhone 4. iPhone 4S comes with same 3.7 inch Retina display that supports 960x640 screen resolution support. The Retina display offers 800:1 contrast ratio and comes with oleophobic coating on front as well as back to prevent finger smudges.     

However, the major improvements are found in the hardware used inside the chassis. The apple iPhone will come with a dual-core Apple A5 processor that will be coupled with dual-core PowerVR SGX540MP2 graphics chip. That means this iPhone 4S has two times more computer power and seven times faster than the iPhone 4.

Next major feature is the 8 megapixel camera at the back that comes with a custom lens that offers f/2.4 aperture. Apple has added an improved backside illumination sensor along with improved auto white balance, advanced colour accuracy, face detection and reduced motion blur. The 8 megapixel image sensor is capable of recording 1080p HD video and can also be edited on the phone itself.

The front facing camera remains the same with VGA quality and capable of FaceTime video chat. The iPhone 4S supports AirPlay Mirroring to Apple TV at 720p HD video resolution while it can support full 1080p HD via Apple Digital AV adapter and Apple VGA adapters.

Oddly, Apple did not talk about the Bluetooth 4.0 presence in the iPhone 4S that brings high speed data transfer and low energy operations.

The new iPhone 4S will come pre-loaded with the iOS 5 and bunch of fresh native applications like News stand, Reminders and Cards. The Cards app is usable to create e-Greetings and sent out to loved ones. Apart from that, a new app Family and Friends will allow the users to locate the near and dear ones. Meanwhile, the News stand app will help collate, purchase and manage the newspaper as well as magazine subscriptions.

One novel feature of the iPhone 4S is the voice control and dictation feature dubbed as Siri, the intelligent assistant. Previously, the Siri app was available in the App Store but now the Siri website redirects to Siri page for iPhone 4S. Meant for the iPhone 4S only, the Siri assistant feature is currently in Beta and supports speech to text dictation with support for English, French and German at its launch.

The iPhone 4S will be a world phone thanks to the dual-mode chip that supports both GSM and CDMA networks. For the GSM networks, it supports up to 14.4 Mbps data speeds on 3G networks.

Apple will start rolling out the iOS 5 updates with the new iMessage, instant messaging service across the iOS platform on the October 12. On the same day, the iCloud service that comes with 5 GB free virtual storage for storing contacts, documents, calendars, and Photos for iOS devices as well as Macs.

To get low end smartphones, Nokia working on new Linux OS

Nokia is coming out with a Linux based operating system which will be used on smartphones costing less than $100 (about Rs 4,500). The new operating system from Nokia, has been codenamed "Meltemi" and the project leader for the company will be Mary McDowell, Nokia's executive vice president, mobile phones.

Nokia has been planning to refresh its low end smartphones segment for quite some time, and it has been looking for a replacement for the S40 phones as the users are leaving the S40 platform in favour of other smartphones. One analyst says it is good for the company to spread the risk.

                               
By going for the Windows Phone platform, Nokia has put itself in a difficult spot as far as low end phone segment is concerned. Android, the main competitor, is anyway pushing the smartphone prices way down than Windows Phone makers are comfortable with.

There is a gap in the product portfolio of Nokia. To address the situation, Nokia either needs to improve the S40 platform or come out with another operating system altogether and that's precisely what the company is doing with its new Linux based operating system for low end phones. The low end smartphone opportunity is so big even Apple is toying with the idea of bringing one low end Apple iPhone for the segment.

Japan's NEC corp plans to make mobile network equipments in India

Japan's NEC Corp plans to start manufacturing mobile phone network devices in India to meet growing demand in emerging nations. They are palnning to build a new plant in Chennai by the end of fiscal 2011.

NEC is one of the leading makers of microwave radio link devices, which are used to wirelessly connect mobile phone base stations. To guard its strong position in the market amid the soaring yen, NEC has decided to create a low-cost production base overseas. However, production at the company's Fukushima plant will be maintained at the current level even after the Indian operations kick off.

Demand for devices has been growing in emerging countries as they allow for the quick construction of mobile phone networks.

Initially, the entire output will be sold in India, the biggest market for the products. Exports will be gradually increased over time to other markets like Africa.

RIM to bring CDMA Curve 9350, 9370 phones to India

Research In Motion (RIM) plans to launch the BlackBerry Curve 9350 and 9370 smartphones in India in conjunction with CDMA carriers. Currently, the company is in talks with Tata Teleservices (TTSL), RCom and MTS to offer these handsets bundled with their services.

"We are hopeful that by year end we will be able to announce the details of tariff plans and the name of the selected operator for launching Curve smartphones," Krishnadeep Baruah, director of marketing at RIM India, told The Mobile Indian.

                              
In blackberry mobile phones, BlackBerry Curve 9350 and 9370 smartphones come with 2.44 inch touchscreens but do not feature touchscreen based displays like the older Curve smartphones did and the company has made both phones slim.
Both the phones are powered by BlackBerry 7 OS. Curve 9350 and 9370 come with 512 MB and 1 GB on-board memories, respectively. Both the phones have an option to expand memory up to 32 GB via a microSD card.

                                              

Curve 9250 and 9370 have 5 megapixel cameras with flash, but can only record in VGA mode. They also have Near Field Communication chips which allow transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in close proximity to each other.

The new OS also enables the smartphone to have voice-activated universal search, and with speech-to-text translation one can search for files, email, contacts, music and even search the web — without typing a thing.

Now get Kisan credit card facilities in mobile phones

Banks are in constant endeavor to implement advancements in technology to the utmost level in banking operations. As a step to implement mobile banking technology in terms of Kisan credit card, regional rural lender, Pallavan Grama Bank has intiated the process on a pilot basis.

The project is receiving funds worth Rs 44.66 lakh from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).  According to CMD of Indian Bank, Mr TM Bhasin, this pilot project is aimed to initiate the concept of doorstep and paperless banking amenities amongst the farming class.