May 13, 2010 13:56 pm by Jal
After releasing the brew-based Smart and HTC Legend (with Android 2.1), HTC released the HD Mini for the Indian ‘junta’. HTC HD Mini is, as the name suggests, a subset of the big brother HD2 which was launched by Tata DoCoMo back in Dec. 2009.
Full Specifications:
- Sense UI
- OS: Windows Mobile 6.5.3
- Display: 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen
- Camera: 5 megapixels autofocus
- 384MB RAM
- 512MB ROM
- Processor: Qualcomm 7227 600 MHz
- microSD support
- Wi-Fi
- GPS
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Stereo FM with RDS
- Facebook and Twitter integration
Price: Rs. 23,490/- (~ $519). Kind of expensive for a phone that will never be upgraded to Windows Phone 7.
April 28, 2010 14:14 pm by Jal
[India] Bollywood movie ‘
Housefull’ is releasing worldwide this friday and the director, Sajid Khan wants to make sure you watch it in theatres only. The producer-director team has set up an anti-piracy software called ‘Republique’ to prevent any illegal downloads of the film.
Sajid said,
If anyone tries downloading it, not only will the files get corrupted but their IP address too will pop up and they will be prosecuted with all charges against them as per the anti-piracy law. We even have a call centre in Mumbai with 35 people on board monitoring the illegal downloading of the film. We’ve tested the process too and it worked wonders in five seconds.
Sajid Khan is one funny man and anyone fairly acquainted with Bollywood knows that. But I don’t think you’d want to mess with the advocates of anti-piracy just to save a hundred buck. [via]
April 21, 2010 5:01 am by Jal
Since years, Google has been bearing privacy related blows from every nook and corner of the world. This time we talk about ‘blows’ that are data requests and removal requests. Till today Google has kept everything under wraps but now it has
decided to expose those countries which continually send them such requests.
Google released a new ‘Government Requests’ tool that shows the number of data requests and removal requests done by each country. Surprisingly, India is among the top 3 for annoying Google with removal requests and takes a close position 4 for data requests. The tool shows that India sent 142 removal requests between July 2009 and December 2009, out of which, 22.5% were simply not acceptable to Google.
Google calls it being transparent; to let a common user know what the world’s governments are up to. On it’s official blog, Google states that,
We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users. The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction.
Seeing Google’s obsession to transparency on web, we might as well see the list of government bodies restricting Google’s services too.
April 16, 2010 12:37 pm by Jal
Samsung brings in two new mobile phones, Samsung Corby TV and Samsung Metro TV to Indian markets following the huge response to the original Corby series and also the Corby CDMA series mobile phone released a few months ago.
Samsung Corby TV and Metro TV has mobile TV application called MimobiTV that enables access to over 40 television channels.
Samsung Corby TV specifications & price
Samsung Corby TV resembles the CDMA Corby Speed and has-
- 2.8” touchscreen display
- 2MP camera
- Bluetooth
- OHM support
- FM radio
- MicroSD card support
Samsung Corby TV is priced at Rs. 9,699/- ($218).
Samsung Metro TV specifications and price
- 2” display
- 2MP camera
- Bluetooth
- Candybar form factor
- FM radio
- Mobile tracking software
- MicroSD card slot
- Support for 9 Indian languages
Samsung Metro TV is priced at Rs. 6,999/- ($158).
April 16, 2010 11:10 am by Jal
In a rare case that you don’t know, 160by2 is a hugely popular web service that lets you send free SMS within India, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines. As the name justifies, until now there was a character limit of 80 to every SMS being sent through the service. The rest of the character space was being used for advertisement. But not anymore.
160by2 has recently extended their free SMS character limit to 145. You can either use the service through web or by using their mobile application. Phones running Symbian S60 3rd edition or higher are supported for their mobile app.
To download the 160by2 mobile app, go to this link from your mobile browser: http://m.160by2.com/app
Limitations:
Citing security issues, 160by2 allows a registered user to send only 50 free SMS per day and maximum 10 to one particular contact number in a day. [src]
April 15, 2010 12:52 pm by Jal
While the Indian government has managed to rake in 350 billion Rupees ($8 Billion) from the 3G sell-off, the Communications Minister, A. Raja is keen to start early preparations for 4G spectrum. The auction for the 4G spectrum will start immediately after the operators spread out their 3G networks this year.
Mr. A. Raja said,
I do not want any delay in 4G services. We should be with the rest of the world in 4G. The sale process for 4G, which will provide high-speed Internet connections, will begin as soon as operators roll out their 3G networks this year. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has already started the pre-consultation process for the sale of 4G spectrum. Once TRAI submits its recommendations, the government will work on it.
Needless to say, 4G will be a grand superset of 3G, up to 10 times faster. 4G is expected to bring in broadband experience to mobile phones enabling smooth streaming of high quality audio and video on mobile devices. Just for your information, Germany has already started Europe’s first 4G auction on 12th April.
India is the world’s fastest growing mobile market and 3G has already turned out to be a massive hit. With 22 rounds of auctions and bids touching 45.8 Billion Rupees (a whopping 31% more than the reserve price fixed by the government), it shouldn’t come as a surprise if government unleashes 4G frequencies next year. India is surely at the threshold of an Internet revolution.
April 15, 2010 11:09 am by Jal
Chip Magazine India division has come up with a contest to find out the biggest fan of Opera and the winners are to get Nintendo Wii and Micromax mobile.
To enter the contest, all you need to do is to give answers just 5 question listed here. Be quick though because, if you are among the first 100 to give all correct answers you could win Opera Goodies.
The questions are rather no-so-easy. But if you are a hardcore Opera fan, you might know all the answers. So click the below link and fill out the answers.
Enter the Opera contest
