savramesh

In July 2008 Google launched Google Lively, a 3D virtual reality service, with much fanfare. Four months, and Internet giant's take on Second Life ran out of fuel. Google announced that it is discontinuing Lively by the end of the year. The shut down reflected Lively's inability to stand out from the rest of the virtual reality crowd. Lively was Web-based and allowed anyone to set up virtual spaces, such as rooms, that could be embedded onto blogs or Facebook pages. Google management concluded that it needed to sharpen its focus on its primary business of Internet search and advertising as the company's revenue growth showed signs of a deteriorating economy. "We've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritise our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business," Google wrote in a blog post. -------- The web search giant bid farewell to its Google Video service in January, a free video sharing website and also a video search engine that allows users to upload video clips. Though Google is not removing any content hosted on Google Video but users will no longer be able to upload new content to the service. The videos that are already in users account will remain hosted on Google Video. Users will have access to all the existing management tools for them. The web giant in its blog post wrote, "In a few months, we will discontinue support for uploads to Google Video. We've always maintained that Google Video's strength is in the search technology that makes it possible for people to search videos from across the web, regardless of where they may be hosted. And this move will enable us to focus on developing these technologies further to the benefit of searchers worldwide."

The troubled Internet giant Yahoo recently announced that it will close its GeoCities service that provides people a free online locale for home pages. Yahoo said, "We will be closing GeoCities later this year. As part of Yahoo's ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers and results for advertisers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others." GeoCities was a web hosting service founded in 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet and bought by Yahoo for more than $3 billion during the height of the infamous dotcom boom in Silicon Valley. GeoCities provided people with tools to build interactive websites and eventually added chat forums and other community-oriented features. A notice at GeoCities said that it is no longer accepting new accounts. Yahoo added fee premium services in an effort to make money at GeoCities, which had trouble retaining users and getting profitable. GeoCities joins a list of recently discontinued Yahoo services including Farechase, My Web, Audio Search, Pets, Live, Kickstart, Briefcase and Yahoo for Teachers, according to the Sunnyvale, California-based firm. ----------- Another Yahoo service that is shutting down is Yahoo 360. The service will finally be killed on July 13, according to a blog post written on the site. The blog says, "Over the past two years there has been a lot of discussion about the closure of Yahoo 360 and the transition to our new profiles experience that we've had in the works. Today, we're able to firmly say that on July 13, 2009 Yahoo! 360 will be closing down and you'll be asked to move into your new profile on Yahoo, by July 12, 2009." Yahoo 360 was launched in March 2005 as a social network/blogging service. However, the service could never really gain popularity. In fact, several analysts cite Yahoo 360's failure as an example of a hot Internet property that Yahoo failed to cash on. In September last year, Yahoo also shut its other social-networking site, Yahoo Mash. Late last year company launched its "universal" profile service, Yahoo Profiles, which incorporates basic social-networking functions. However, Yahoo Profiles doesn't match the features of Yahoo 360.

Business Line Thursday, Jun 18, 2009 New Delhi, June 17 In a move that could signal the end of grey market mobile phones, the Government on Wednesday banned import of all handsets without the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number. IMEI is a unique 15-digit code that identifies a mobile. It prevents the use of stolen handsets for making calls and allows security agencies to track down a specific user. However, a majority of handsets sold in the grey market do not come with the IMEI, which has is of concern for security agencies. The Government move to ban handsets without the code will hit a number of Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers that were flooding cheap handsets in the grey market. The move will have no impact on the 25 million cellular users who already have bought a handset without IMEI. The ban is applicable only on new handsets being imported into the country. The Director-General of Foreign Trade issued the notification on Wednesday imposing the ban with immediate effect. Welcoming the decision, Mr Pankaj Mohindroo, President, Indian Cellular Association, said, “This is a step in the right direction to throttle handset grey market. However, much more needs to be done to tackle this menace. We are working with the Government in this regard.” To protect consumers who have already bought handsets without the IMEI number, the Cellular Operators Association of India has tied up with Mobile Standard Alliance of India to set up 1,600 retail outlets across the country to provide the IMEI number on handsets without one. It is estimated that there are 25 million subscribers across the country using handsets without the IMEI number. Concerned over the national security, the Department of Telecom had earlier asked operators to disconnect services to handsets that do not have the IMEI number by April 15. However, the COAI, representing the GSM industry, has developed a software that will provide the unique number to instruments that do not have it. The solution is being implemented with the approval of the DoT and the security agencies. Subscribers who do not avail themselves of this facility will be disconnected by the operators after June 30.

Press Trust of India New Delhi, June 16 (PTI) India today announced a slew of restrictions on imports of certain mobile phones, dairy products and toys which will mainly hit China. Concerns were raised over usage of phones without IMER, after the terrorist attacks like the one in Mumbai in November last year and they are seen as a serious threat to security. In a separate notification, DGFT, the nodal agency which frames India's export and import polices, said shipments of toys that do not meet international safety standards and norms from countries across the world is banned till January 2010. Earlier in January, India had prohibited import of toys from China on health grounds. The restriction was, however, eased later. Today's widening of curbs assumes significance as Beijing had questioned India for not implementing safety standard norms on toys being imported from other countries. DGFT also said imports of toys accompanied by a certificate from laboratories accredited to the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) would be allowed. PTI

TN gears up for mobile turf war Times of India 18 Jun 2009, 0142 hrs IST CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has always been a very high penetration market for mobile companies in the country. Already, Chennai has the highest teledensity at 111% (111 mobile phone connections per 100 people) in the country and the state is set for another round of turf war among mobile companies with two more operators launching services in the next one month. Tata Docomo, a joint venture between CDMA major Tata Indicom and NTT Docomo of Japan, will launch its GSM services in the state by June-end, while Idea Cellular, an Aditya Birla company with services in 17 of the 28 circles, is all set for a commercial launch in the southern metropolis. The state already has seven service providers, including BSNL. More over, Reliance Communications, which rolled out its GSM services in Tamil Nadu in April with a soft launch, will soon start full-fledged services across the state. With mobile number portability (MNP) also set to roll out in Chennai from September, the focus will now shift from pricing to quality of service. MNP, a facility where a subscriber can choose his service provider without changing his number, will compel operators to ensure quality of service, a marketing official with an existing player said. "We have services across 17 circles in India and have over 45 million subscribers. Of this, 25% subscribers are from our operations in the three southern states -- Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Tamil Nadu is the important piece to be filled up in the southern market," Rajat Mukarji, chief corporate affairs officer, Idea Cellular, told The Times of India. Tamil Nadu with its high penetration rate is an important market for telecom companies. According to recent statistics released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the state had a total subscriber base of 28,601,906 mobile customers at the end of April 2009 compared to 27,778,512 in March 2009 (3% growth month-on-month). Interestingly, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited (SSTL), a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and Shyam Group of India, which rolled out its telecom brand MTS' in Tamil Nadu recently, has clocked 55,000 subscribers within a month. "We have got 6% market share of new subscribers in a month. There is still a huge market of customers looking for good value, quality network and services," Srinivasa Rao, CEO (TN & Kerala), MTS, said.

Mobile phones trigger a ‘young revolution’ in consumer courts of Chandigarh Indian Express Thursday , Jun 18, 2009 at 0033 hrs IST Chandigarh: Long considered the favourite hangouts of the elderly and the retired, consumer courts would witness them pacing up and down with their grievances. But that view is changing. These days, young people make a beeline for these courts. Besides increased awareness and speedy disposal of cases, the telecom revolution has drawn these youth to consumer courts. After the advent of mobile phones, complaints related to the telecom sector jumped from 88 in 2006 to 634 so far in 2009. Majority of complainants in these cases are youngsters. An official at the consumer forum said more than 50 per cent of the telecom-related complaints are filed by youngsters. These complaints range from overcharging, change in the SMS package without notice, defective mobile sets and non-functional games, among others. “Initially, young advocates dragged telecom and mobile companies to consumer forums. Soon, senior citizens, who otherwise also constitute 90 per cent of our litigants, started trickling in. And gradually, youngsters started coming in with their mobile-related complaints,” Major General (retd) S P Kapoor, presiding member, UT State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, said. “Now, the scenario is such that telecom complaints are mostly filed by the youth.”

^^^ in my nokia 6265 cdma handset the network search mode is automatic, so as said above it will keep searching network at weak areas and eats battery back up.. a 'manual search mode' is required for cdma, is this technically possible ?

BSNL evdo internet tariff seems to interesting unlimited @ 550 per month Offer valid till 30-6-2009 Check BSNL webpage for more details will this works on roaming ? i wonder bsnl evdo unlimited upto 2Mbps [550] is cheaper than broadband unlimited 256kbps [750]

^^^ Instead of expanding smart gsm all over india, why did they started cdma and again went to gsm.. any comments ?

place your mouse over the name, you will then see a small popup with option like Email, Chat, Video & More.. click video and more option then you can see 'show in chat list - Always, Never Show, Blocked' etc..

IDEA to roll out GSM service in Chennai soon Economic Times 16 Jun 2009, 2059 hrs IST, PTI CHENNAI: Telecom operator IDEA Cellular, part of the Aditya Birla Group, would soon roll out its GSM service in the metro, a company official said here on Tuesday. "It (GSM service) should be rolled out in Chennai very soon," IDEA Cellular Chief Corporate Affairs Office Rajat Mukarji told reporters. The company has already launched its service in Coimbatore, Madurai and other cities apart from the metro, he said. To a query, he said they have received a 'good' response from the cities in Tamil Nadu where the services has been launched. However he declined to specify the number of mobile phone connections they had provided. The company has operations in four southern states. In Karnataka it acquired telecom operator Spice while it has rolled out services in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, he said. He said the Southern region ranked 'fourth' in the company's overall subscriber base. "Out of the 40 million customers (in the country), 25 per cent is from Southern region", he said.

Economic Times 16 Jun 2009, 2220 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: Mobile services company Vodafone Essar has applied for internet service provider and national long distance licences and has approached the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for approval. The company officials confirmed that the operator has applied for these two licences and aims to become a full-fledged communication services provider in the country. FIPB, on June 19, may take up the proposal, sources said. If Vodafone Essar, in which the UK-based mobile firm Vodafone holds majority stake, gets the national long distance licence (NLD) it will help the company save operating expenses for carrying STD traffic, instead of hiring other mobile company's network for the purpose. All the top mobile operators like Reliance Communications, Bharti, BSNL and MTNL have their own NLD infrastructure. The company is also planning to enter the internet service segment in which all other major mobile operators like BSNL, Reliance Communications and MTNL has a presence.

this hrithick call will also become famous like sachin tendulkar call by idea. there we made a call to sachin, here hrithick is call us

Business Standard Mumbai June 16, 2009, 0:42 IST Apple has authorised Bharti Airtel to ‘unlock’ its 3G iPhones, launched earlier, enabling the Indian company to sell it through their stores to any user, not necessarily only an Airtel subscriber. This is in contrast to the existing practice of Apple in offering the iPhones — launched in two versions, 8 GB and 16 GB — bundled with the services of only two operators, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Essar. According to Apple’s global support site, Bharti Airtel has been authorised to legally unlock the iconic handsets in the country. Vodafone in Australia, Orange in Austria and Movistar in Argentina are among the 40 global carriers (Airtel is the only one in India) authorised to unlock the handsets. The companies may also charge an additional fee for the unlocking, the website said. When asked, a Bharti Airtel spokesperson declined to comment. Apple’s spokesperson could not be spoken to. According to sources, this means Bharti Airtel will continue to sell the handsets in the country, but it necessarily would not be exclusive to its user. A user can walk into Airtel’s retail showrooms and buy an iPhone and use it with his or her existing connection. Airtel had a signed an agreement with Apple in May 2008 and was the second provider of the service in the country. Meanwhile, bloggers said that unlocked iPhones were available in India at certain select retail outlets, and the phones were being sold at the prices at which Airtel and Vodafone were selling the locked ones. However, this could not be confirmed. In India, the 8 GB model costs around Rs 31,000, while the 16 GB is priced at Rs 36,000. Apple will also launch the latest version, iPhone 3GS, billed as the “fastest, most powerful iPhone yet”, on August 9.

Did u try between morning 9 AM and night 9 PM ? @ saket_kewate i tried calling using my number today, but it says duplicate number. so thats means only one call one minute from a number, no daily one minute call..

Prasad Naik, Techtree, Jun 14, 2009 1000 hrs IST Find out which one is better Opera has had a field day with its Java based mobile browser the Opera Mini. With over 20 million users world wide, Opera Mini is now the world's most popular mobile browser. However, there is now a competitor vying for the crown the Mini has held so far. But is it really worth it? I took it for a spin and compared it with the reigning champion to see who emerges as the winner and the one that deserves the space on your phone's memory. First things first Bolt is a Java based browser similar to Opera Mini. Since almost all phones these days have Java support you can install Bolt on a wide range of phones without having to worry about compatibility. It is created by Bitstream based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and uses their ThunderHawk technology for browsing and rendering web pages. Just like Opera Mini, the actual page rendering is done at the server side of Bolt and the browser then merely downloads that data, which not only saves time but is also light on the data usage, something that people using limited data plans on their phones would appreciate. To download Bolt, you have to go to Bolt's website and enter your name and email address after which you get the link to download the jad file. This process only exists because Bolt is still in beta phase. You then have to transfer the jad file to your phone and then click on it to initiate the download of the actual application, which then gets installed. The jad file is 74 kb and the main application is a 171 kb download after you click on the jad file. Compared to this, downloading Opera Mini is much easier. Just point your mobile browser to mini.opera.com and the site automatically recognises your phone and then provides you with the right version for your phone. The Opera Mini download is 124 kb in size. On starting up both of them, I noticed Bolt started faster on my Nokia 5700 XpressMusic than Opera Mini. The home screen layout is slightly similar to Opera Mini. You see the URL field at the top. Below you see tabs for your favorites, history and feeds. Clicking on either of these tabs display their contents below. The left soft key is for options and the right soft key is for going back. At the top is where you see the page title and the progress bar for when the page loads. Unlike Opera Mini wherein it shows you the progress in kilobytes, Bolt shows you the less informative percentage meter. Going in preferences you see that you can control the page magnification level, the image quality in three steps and the video quality. You can enable HTTPS, split screen mode, mobile layout and landscape mode. You can also clear the cookies from here. Performance I tried loading the Techtree home page on both Bolt as well as Opera Mini. At the time of using it I had Airtel EDGE connection activated on my EDGE Class 32 enabled Nokia 5700 phone. While Bolt took 40 seconds to load the site Opera Mini took only 30. This was with all the graphics settings set at high quality on both the browsers. When I set them to low, Opera Mini did it in 15 seconds, however, for some strange reason, Bolt still took 30 seconds. The browsing speed depended but mostly Opera Mini was still slightly faster than Bolt every time. You can use the 2, 4, 6 and 8 keys to navigate within the web page. When you press 5 the browser goes into split screen mode. In this mode the browser zooms out like in Opera Mini but at the bottom you see a small window where the page is displayed at 100% zoom level and as you move your mouse around in the above screen you can see the zoomed in view of the current position of the pointer. Other shortcuts include 0 for favorites, 1 for the home page, 3 to enter URL, 7 to search within the page and 9 to go forward one page. * shows history and # shows you your feeds.

^^^ it shows connecting in the website, but u will get a call from mumbai number and it will connect to your friend number.. please note it will work only from 9 AM to 9 PM

^^^ will try and update tomorrow..

^^^ go to the website, then from the drop down [available in top left] select the city, then goto icontrol menu and u can find tariff plan.

Tata Tele counts churn benefits The Telegraph, Calcutta New Delhi, June 13: Tata Teleservices, which will launch its GSM services later this month, is betting big on number portability to wean away subscribers from existing operators. “Mobile number portability will definitely assist in attracting subscribers from existing GSM players,” Anil Sardana, managing director of Tata Teleservices, told The Telegraph. “There is a 50 per cent churn in the GSM market every year. Therefore, there is a large market segment for us to address,” he said. The government plans to introduce MNP service by October this year. According to an IDC survey, “30 per cent of the mobile subscribers are likely to shift to an operator offering better service, if given an option.” “In a market having many operators and confusing options, customers will move — given the opportunity — to a brand that offers relevant new applications and services that make everyday life simpler and more enjoyable,” said Deepak Gulati, president of GSM business, Tata Teleservices. The company, in which Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has a 26 per cent stake, said it would invest $2 billion (Rs 9,450 crore) till March 2010 for a pan-India rollout of GSM services. “The $2-billion investment is towards network capacity expansion,” said Sardana. Operations will be commercially launched in south India by the end of June. By the end of fiscal 2009, the company will roll out services across the country.

Times of India 4 Jun 2009, 1513 hrs IST First it was the risk of repetitive strain injury from texting, then came the ‘recall impairment’ from ringtones followed by brain damage. And now, the latest menace of the wired age is being described as “mobile phone elbow”. According to health experts, mobile users who hold the phone to their ear for prolonged periods are at risk of developing the painful condition in their arm. By bending their elbow too tightly, and for too long, they could overextend the ulnar nerve, which runs from the elbow to control our ring and little fingers, reports The Daily Express. As well as being painful, this can lead to tingling or numbness from the elbow to the fingers. Sufferers of the condition can find it difficult to perform tasks, such as opening jars, and may need anti-inflammatory injections or even surgery. Orthopaedic specialists in the US say they are seeing increasing numbers of patients with the condition. As for advice to fight the “elbow”, experts suggest mobile users to switch the handset from hand to hand every often. Dr Peter Evans, director of a hand clinic in ­Cleveland, US, said: “Women tend to get it more, not because they talk longer but because of hormonal fluctuations in their body.”

How your mobile phone can hurt you Indiatimes Infotech 14 Jun, 2009, 1134 hrs IST,ANI Welcome to the world of mobile phones and health perils. The newest affliction of wired age -- mobile phone elbow. First it was the risk of repetitive strain injury from texting, then came the ‘recall impairment’ from ringtones followed by brain damage. And now, the latest menace of the wired age is being described as “mobile phone elbow”. According to health experts, mobile users who hold the phone to their ear for prolonged periods are at risk of developing the painful condition in their arm. By bending their elbow too tightly, and for too long, they could overextend the ulnar nerve, which runs from the elbow to control our ring and little fingers, reports The Daily Express. As well as being painful, this can lead to tingling or numbness from the elbow to the fingers. Sufferers of the condition can find it difficult to perform tasks, such as opening jars, and may need anti-inflammatory injections or even surgery. Orthopaedic specialists in the US say they are seeing increasing numbers of patients with the condition. As for advice to fight the “elbow”, experts suggest mobile users to switch the handset from hand to hand every often. Dr Peter Evans, director of a hand clinic in Cleveland, US, said: “Women tend to get it more, not because they talk longer but because of hormonal fluctuations in their body.”

When browsing I noticed that unlike Opera Mini, even when you set the image size as low quality, it does not shrink the size of the images. The images are of the same size with the page dimensions and layout maintained but you can see the compression artefacts which are not so clear on Opera Mini. Bolt also does not have the smooth sliding animations of the Opera Mini. This will be a boon for those who do not have a phone with a powerful processor to generate those animations, but I would have preferred if it had an option like Opera Mini to disable them instead of not having them at all. Bolt also underlines the numbers on the web page in green which can then be clicked to dial them on your phone and better yet, it gives you the option to send an SMS to that number as well, something that Mini does not do. It also supports saving of entire pages on to the phone memory, which can then be used for viewing offline. Images on the page can also be saved. Unfortunately, when it comes to downloading files, Bolt does not have a download manager of its own and instead relies on the built-in web browser of the phone it is installed on. So when you click on a download link the main web browser opens and the download starts from there. If you are using a phone that supports minimised Java application then Bolt goes into background while the download continues. However you run into problems if you download something that the built-in browser does not support. Like for example the S60 browser only supports downloading those files that it supports natively, which means it cannot download .exe files. So if you are using Bolt on an S60 phone then you won't be able to download any .exe files, which, however, you can using Opera Mini. Bolt also claims to support flash videos. However it is not what you might think it is. Unlike the SkyFire, videos don't exactly load in the browser window itself. The browser finds a low quality 3GP version of the video and then opens it in the built-in browser of the phone. This only works for YouTube by the way and not for all sites with flash videos. The fonts on the Bolt don't look all that great. Firstly they are all small. Secondly they all look the same, whether it is in bold or in italics or of a bigger size. Opera Mini displays fonts far better and maintains the original style. Another thing I noticed is that if you click a link and then you click another one, the browser ignores the second one, even if you want to go to that particular one. In Mini you would go to the second link instead. Page layout is another thing that is good on the Bolt. I did not notice any content overlapping on Bolt, whereas it is common to see it on Opera Mini. The browser also manages text layout very well on the pages. Pages look very similar to the way they look on the PC screen. Final words Bolt is still in its beta phase and it already shows a lot of promise. When compared to Opera Mini it beats it in certain areas such as page layout and arrangement of text, etc. But apart from that I did not find many reasons to switch over to Bolt from Mini. Mini still has a smaller download size, faster page loading and a built-in download manager that does not rely on the built-in browser. Pages, especially fonts, look better on the Mini. As of now, I think Mini is the better of the two and Bolt will need a lot more than what it offers right now to beat the best in the business.

^^^ i just tried, how it works we need to give our number and friends number in the website form, then a call from mumbai [with hrithick recorded voice] will come and connects the caller and receiver for one minute.. both caller and receiver number can be of any network. this is not an offer but just to give awarness about their gsm network clarity to everyone..

Techtree News Staff, Jun 10, 2009 1859 hrs IST Solar Guru will help you save electricity Samsung India has launched the world's first solar powered mobile phone, the "Solar Guru" (Guru E1107) in the Indian market. The handset enables its users dual charging; it allows users to charge the battery anywhere the sun is shining, so that users are not inconvenienced when the phone battery is running out of normal charge. However, the main source of charging would be electricity Do keep in mind that the solar power charging would not be the main source of charging as the phone has the capacity to provide around 5~10 minutes of talk time with one hour of solar charging (*Measured when the phone is turned-off under the sun light of 80,000 Lux. Results can be different depending on circumstances). The phone will be beneficial for far flung areas where electricity is unstable, says the company. Moreover, the solar panel charging will allow its users to save some money and energy consumption on traditional electrical charging. Samsung has another, more powerful solar-powered phone in the pipeline that goes by the name of Blue Earth. Apart from the conventional charging method, a full solar charge of around 10 to 14 hours for this phone is said to provide enough power for around four hours of talk time. Features: The Samsung Solar Guru comes in a compact design with basic mobile phone features such as FM radio, MP3 ring tones, embedded games and a torch light. It measures 105.2 x 44.15 x 16.4mm, has a 1.52-inch screen with a resolution of 65K CSTN (128x128), comes with 1 MB of user memory. The phone offers Mobile Tracker, a standard feature in many Samsung phones which automatically alerts when the SIM card is changed or sends out an SOS message in an emergency. Apart from the above, the Solar Guru also offers the very Indianized feature called "Mobile prayer". This comprises of various religious prayers and wall papers. Price: The Samsung Solar Guru (Samsung Guru 1107) is priced at Rs. 2799. Following its introduction in India, the Solar Guru is being launched in various markets including Europe, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and Latin America in June 2009.