Generation Next Gadgets

Top phone makers Nokia and Apple will seek a U.S. court hearing in a key patent battle in mid-2012, a court filing showed, raising the spectre of a prolonged legal struggle.
Handset leader Nokia sued iPhone maker Apple last October, accusing the U.S. firm of using its patented technologies without paying for them. Nokia is seeking payment of up to 1 billion euros ($1.36 billion), analysts say. Apple filed a countersuit in Delaware on Dec. 11 accusing Nokia of infringing 13 Apple patents. It later removed four patents from the list. Legal battles are increasingly common in the mobile industry as players vie for a piece of the fast-growing smartphone market. Last week Apple sued Taiwan’s HTC Corp, which makes touchscreen smartphones using Google software, accusing it of infringing 20 hardware and software patents related to the iPhone. The U.S. International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate both companies based on each other’s complaints.

Media companies longing to bring a paid-for culture to the Internet might just get what they want if they pay more attention to the smartphone revolution that is changing the way people access the Web.
Huge numbers now use mobile phones instead of desktop computers to get online - a development that has spawned whole new business models in China, the world’s biggest Internet market. Paying to read content on the Web, an outlandish idea as recently as a year ago, is slowly but surely establishing itself as the next business model in the Western media mainstream, spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. But meantime, sales of smartphones part of a telecoms economy very different from the PC Web - are set to outpace sales of desktop computers by 2012, IT research firm Gartner said this week. Some believe it could be as early as this year. And in China - which has more Internet users than any other nation - paid content is a non-starter, says Kai-Fu Lee, a former head of Microsoft’s and then Google’s China operations who recently quit to run his own company. “Chinese consumers have a stronger conviction that things should be free, so efforts to charge for premium content have basically completely failed,” Lee said at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit this week.
Traditional publishing groups like News Corp, the New York Times and Axel Springer have decided recently to take the plunge and start charging for news online, risking smaller audiences for potential gains in subscription revenues. Their decisions, taken after much agonising, are as yet largely untested on consumers, but a consensus is growing that there is no alternative because advertising revenues that were devastated in the recession will not return to previous levels. “We certainly believe there needs to be dual income-stream business models — both advertising and subscription,” said Jon Miller, head of digital media at News Corp. Publishers argue that they need consumers to rethink their presumption that Web content must be free in order to fund the creation of high-quality news and entertainment.
Lee, on the other hand, said the qualities of the Internet itself rather than the needs of media companies would drive how content was delivered and paid for. He cited in particular the Web’s ability to offer both marketing and sales at one click. Asked about the feasibility of generating subscription alongside advertising revenues, he said: “It’s not the single or multiple that really matters to me but whether the model leverages the growth of the Internet and the strengths of the Internet.” “It can have either premium subscription or advertising or app store or other kinds of business models.”
App stores - online shops for small software applications that run anything from games to dictation tools to fitness aids on phones - have proliferated since Apple launched the original App Store for the iPhone in 2008. In the 18 months to January, consumers downloaded more than 3 billion iPhone applications, most of them free and the rest typically costing less than $1 each. Despite the low price, high volumes mean the market will grow to $6.8 billion in 2010, IT research firm Gartner predicts. The software creators, whether newspaper publishers or geeks in their garage at home, get a 70 percent revenue share from Apple.
Sales of smartphones like the iPhone are forecast to grow by about 50 percent this year to 250 million units, compared with 20 percent growth to 366 million units for PCs. New mobile connected devices like Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and the soon-to-be-launched Apple iPad tablet computer, aimed at a market somewhere between laptops and smartphones, will also increase the scale of the opportunity. E-readers, still a nascent business, so far offer terms that publishers find friendlier than advertising-funded models. Hans Vestberg, chief executive of mobile equipment maker Ericsson, repeated his prediction this week that there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020. “Mobile Web adoption is growing eight times faster than the first wave of PC Internet adoption,” Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt told the conference this week. “There may be some limits, but we’re not anywhere near them.”
In China, more than half the nation’s Internet users - who totalled 384 million by the end of last year — are already accessing the Web from a mobile device, and Lee told Reuters that would grow to 800 million in five years.
China’s largest online retailer Taobao, part of leading e-commerce group Alibaba, plans to launch mobile phones preloaded with applications this year to bring more users to its online shops. And, unlike its U.S. counterpart eBay, it does not charge sellers to list items for sale, but funds operations through advertising although advertising will not be the answer to everything. Lee also gave the example of a Chinese browser, gaining in popularity, that removes all visuals and advertising from Web pages to cut the bandwidth needed by cost-conscious consumers. “These kinds of unusual aberrations will happen as a result of specific things that happen in each country, so if you want to develop your content for the whole world it’s important not to assume that the whole world is the same,” he said.

Those below 18 years of age will not be able to purchase cellphone cards under the new rules being enforced by the Bangladesh government.
“Over 200,000 mobile phone connections have so far been cancelled following allegations of various criminal offences, including extortion, issuance of threats, and other forms of harassment,” Home Minister Sahara Khatun told reporters Wednesday.
Over 1.2 million unregistered SIM (subscriber identity module) and RUIM (removable user identity module) cards have so far been blocked.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her nephew and lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh are among those who recently received threatening SMS messages, The Daily Star reported.
Those who are over 18 must put their national identity numbers on registration forms to become subscribers.
Restrictions were also slapped on getting authority certificates for selling the cards. Applicants for the certificates from service providers must have secondary school certificates and go through police verification.
Bangladesh’s total telephone users stood at around 56 million at the end of January 2010.

Motorola Inc has reached a deal with Microsoft Corp that will put Bing search and mapping services on its phones that use Google’s Android operating system.
Motorola said the partnership with Microsoft means that a Bing bookmark and search widget will be loaded on cell phones, starting in the coming weeks with phones in China. The move follows shortly after Motorola struck a similar deal to let consumers in China use Baidu Inc, among others, as the default Web search instead of Google on Android based phones. The partnerships come against a backdrop of Google’s dispute with China over censorship, which, if it leads to Google withdrawing from the country, could cause big headaches for Motorola. That’s because Motorola is banking on its ties to Google’s Android and its sales in China to help in a big turnaround effort. Having search alternatives on the Android phones should lessen Motorola’s dependence on Google, in China or elsewhere, analysts have said.

Samsung has expanded its line-up of Dual SIM handsets in India with the launch of two new dual SIM phones.Samsung has launched a new Dual SIM (CDMA+GSM) phone, Duos 256, in India. Samsung Duos 256 is an over market handset which supports all the CDMA and GSM mobile networks. Samsung Duos 256 is a bar styled phone equipped with 1.3 mega pixels camera, games, Bluetooth, video recording and supports up to 8GB expandable memory.
As the name suggests, the Samsung Duos Touch is a touchscreen device with Dual SIM (GSM+CDMA) capability. The Duos Touch boasts of features like Bluetooth, 4GB expandable memory card support and 2MP camera. It also has a 1140 mAh battery and can be used on Tata Indicom, Reliance and Virgin Mobile CDMA Networks and all GSM networks in the country.
Next in line is the Samsung Duos 259, which is an Open Market Handset (OMH) and supports all CDMA and GSM mobile networks. The Duos 259 comes with a very basic 1.3MP coamera and full support for GPRS, Motion Games and Bluetooth. The phone supports microSD cards for memory expansion and like the Duos Touch, has a 1140 mAh battery.If you happen to be a Tata Indicom user, you can avail the 1,000 free minutes offer till the end of this month after changing to one of these handsets from your existing phones.

TATA Indicom announced to launch Micromax C112 CDMA handset. Micromax C112 is a color FM handset is available with Tata Indicom Pay Per Second.Micromax Mobile has launched its latest handset, the C112 in India. Along with the launch, it was also announced that the C112 will come bundled with an offer that would enable customers to get a new Tata Indicom connection free along with the phone.
Micromax is India third largest handset player,Micromax C112 comes with a Hindi keypad, mobile tracker and a calendar. It also has stereo FM radio with 20 channels and an exclusive feature of Schedule FM Record wherein one can schedule the radio to power on and record his or her favorite programs.
Micromax C112 comes equipped with 1.44 inch CSTN display with 128×128 pixels resolution, 5-way navigation key and Micro SD card slot. Micromax C112 candy bar measures 107 x47×12.57 mm and weighs 70 grams. It has a Li-ion 800mAh battery which provides a talk time of up to 3 hours and stand-by time of up to 5 days. Micromax C112 comes with a Hindi keypad, mobile tracker and a calendar, stereo FM radio and Schedule FM Recorder.
With the Micromax C112 prepaid customers can get a new Tata Indicom connection free along with 200 minutes talktime with per second billing option. Subscribers also have the option of recharging with a RCV of Rs 38/- as many times they want till 31st May, 2010 and avail free local talktime of 200 minutes. The validity for each installment of promotional talk-time is 30 days.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro,announced today, adds a QWERTY keyboard to the touch screen offering, delivering a user experience optimised for messaging and entertainment. The full QWERTY keyboard allows consumers to communicate quickly and efficiently via email, SMS or social networking updates.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro allows consumers to produce and broadcast their best experiences in HD video. The open platform also allows users to personalise their entertainment experience by downloading great applications through PlayNow and the Symbian Developer Community.
Having announced Sony Ericsson Vivaz in January we are now adding a sister phone that includes a QWERTY keyboard along with the touch screen for a superior messaging and entertainment experience, said Daniel Sandblom Marketing Business Manager, Sony Ericsson. Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro meets the increased consumer demand for QWERTY devices without compromising on any entertainment features.
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz includes the new design philosophy human curvature. Social Network frequents can easily check their accounts on Twitter and Facebook. The phone also boasts of an 8.1 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, Auto focus, Continuous auto focus and Face detection. There is also Geo tagging, Image stabilizer, Smile detection, Touch capture and Video recording in 720p HD.
User-generated content, especially video, is exploding on the web. With Sony Ericsson Vivaz, we have created a mobile phone that makes it easy to catch life in high quality video and upload that self expression onto the web to share with the world. Sony Ericsson Vivaz offers beauty inside and out with an open and intuitive user experience allowing consumers to capture, view and share their lives and spontaneity in HD quality,commented Lennard Hoornik, Head of Marketing, Sony Ericsson.
The handset is also great for music enthusiasts as it comprises of many Music-centric features like Bluetooth stereo, PlayNow, FM Radio and Media player. The Vivaz sports a 16.9 nHD wide touch screen and measures 107 x 52 x 12.5 mm while weighing just 97 grams. The handset comes preloaded with many applications like Water Level tool app, Wisepilot navigation, World Mate, SSX Snowboarding and Rally Master Pro.

Sony Ericsson Naite is the cheapest of their new environment-friendly range of handsets called GreenHeart.The J105 is all about the environment from the packaging to the materials used in the construction. Here’s a closer look at one of the county limited eco friendly handsets.
The handset itself is built from recycled, recyclable materials and uses lead-free paint. It looks classy and well cut. The 2.2-inch TFT LCD is clear and easy for viewing and the buttons and navigation set up are very conveniently designed for comfortable use. What SE could have done is go with an AMOLED display that uses lesser energy which would mean an increase in battery life and less charging. The Naite is still an extremely slim and light weight handset so carrying it around is not going to be an issue at all. A set of volume/zoom keys are located on one side and SE’s proprietary all-in one port is located on the other.
Sony Ericsson has also been using microSD cards with all their new handsets. The M2 card seems to have gone the way of the Dodo. I doubt there will be any complaints. The Naite’s hot swap slot for the same is located under the rear panel. The Naite also has two cameras a 2MP fixed focus shooter at the rear and a VGA video call camera just above the display.
The music player is nothing to write home about. It is not too loud but the music quality is still quite good. Stereo Widening, EQ presets including Sony Mega Bass setting and a five band customizable EQ option allow you to make a few adjustments to the overall audio output. The FM radio was a non issue as reception was quite good on an average. The Naite also has a voice recorder of course, but don’t count it being able to provide clarity of speech from over 2 feet from your mouth. Sony PhotoDJ, MusicDJ and VideoDJ apps are all present to help you pass the time tweaking your media.

LG Electronics Inc, the world’s No. 3 mobile phone maker, on Wednesday launched a smartphone based on Google’s Android operating system in South Korea, as it seeks to boost its relatively weak smartphone line-ups.
LG, which is fighting an uphill battle against leaders Nokia, Blackberry maker RIM and Apple, plans to boost smartphone offerings with some 20 models this year, half the offerings based on the most popular Android. The South Korean firm wants to claim a double-digit share of the global smartphone market by 2012. Currently the top three players control three quarters of the booming and lucrative smartphone market. The model LG-KH5200, which will be sold by the country’s second-largest mobile carrier KT, will compete against Motorola’s Android-based smartphone Motoroi launched earlier this year through top carrier SK Telecom. Samsung Electronics, the world’s No.2 mobile phone maker, is also set to unveil Android phones this month.
LG’s smartphone with 3-inch full touch screen, 5 megapixel camera, and slider qwerty keyboard will cost around 650,000 won ($573). LG hopes to defend sliding phone margins with premium smartphone offerings after it saw phone business profit margins falling close to zero in the December quarter as it had to spend heavily on marketing of its simpler models. LG and its home rival Samsung together corner more than 30 percent of the global cellphone market, but they have struggled to muscle into the booming and lucrative smartphone market. Samsung said last month it plans to treble smartphone shipments in 2010. LG aims to sell 140 million mobile phones this year, versus 117 million sold last year to claim about 10 percent of the global market.

Good
Neat design, lightweight
UI handles triple SIM functions well
FM radio reception was ok
Decent battery life

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