Xpertfeed

India handset manufacturer partners telcom to drive data growth Summary:  Micromax inks strategic partnership with Aircel to drive data growth in India, which the telco believes will showcase the benefits of 3G to smartphone buyers and drive adoption. Micromax, India's leading handset manufacturer, has entered into a strategic partnership with Aircel to drive data growth in the country. Under the new agreement, both companies will share their channel and retail networks, sales resources, and run an integrated device sales activation program. From left to right: Aircel CMO Anupam Vasudev, Micromax co-founder Vikas Jain, Micromax's vice president of marketing Sunil Kuttam With the alliance, Micromax introduced Reverse Bundling handset offers worth 12,000 rupee (US$200) per month for every new customer of Aircel. The operator has positioned itself as a data-led telecom player and aimed to make 3G affordable to the masses by launching its Pocket Internet Smart s...

India needs to manage youth access to electronic devices Summary:  A recent survey indicates nearly 82 percent of kids in India's metropolitan cities, aged 5 to 12, have electronic devices and this is leading to negative consequences like insomnia and social isolation. Who's to blame? Nearly 82 percent of kids living in India's metropolitan cities, aged 5 to 12, have electronic devices and this is leading to negative consequences such as depression, insomnia, and social isolation, indicates a survey. The study was conducted in 10 major metropolitan cities across India, polling 2,500 tech-savvy boys and girls. In addition to having access to computers, internet, and home entertainment systems at home, about 25 percent of these kids admitted their use of electronic devices was also effecting their quality of sleep, reported  The Times of India . Does a 5-year-old kid really need a mobile phone? That's an obvious conclusion, in my view. While I don't d...

Free SMS news service launched by All India Radio Summary:  On Monday, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari launched All India Radio’s free SMS news service, providing news updates, for subscribers. The service which started as a pilot project 6 months ago and has 200,000 subscribers was officially launched to the public on Monday, with plans to increase the number of subscribers to 500,000 by the end of the month, reports  The New Indian Express . Upon subscription, All India Radio will send both free news and even public utility messages, to all registered subscribers. To subscribe, all mobile users need to do is SMS ‘AIRNEWS’ ‘their name’ to 08082080820 or give a missed call to the same number. All India Radio plans to recover the costs of sending the free messages from the departments and ministries who want to use their service to send messages. A novel idea, but it appears to be more geared for Indian government messages instead, if you a...

Nokia is dead, Newkia rises from its ashes Summary:  Singapore-based Newkia was formed the day the US$7.2 billion Microsoft-Nokia deal was announced, with the sole aim of acquiring Nokia employees and know-how but focusing on the Android platform. SINGAPORE--Nokia's fate would have been a lot different today if it had taken the Android route, and this is what freshly minted company--aptly named Newkia--plans to do by acquiring as much of Nokia's know-how as possible. "Nokia, which only three years ago was the world's runaway market leader in mobile phones, is today a small and insignificant brand," he said, noting that the purchase price announced yesterday represented just 2 percent of Nokia's market cap over 10 years ago. Speaking  in an interview Thursday, Thomas Zilliacus, executive chairman and founder of Mobile FutureWorks, did not mince his words when asked about his views on Microsoft's US$7.2 billion deal to buy out Nokia's devices ...

Microsoft opens door for ValueAct to join its board Summary:  Microsoft may be getting a new board member, investment firm ValueAct's President Mason Morfit. Microsoft and San Francisco-based investment firm ValueAct Group signed a pact on August 30 that opens the door for ValueAct President Mason Morfit join Microsoft's board of directors. ValueAct had been rumored to be lobbying to join Microsoft's board for the past few months. Some said  ValueAct officials wanted to see Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer step down  -- something which Microsoft announced earlier this month would be happening some time in the next 12 months. (For what it's worth, Ballmer told The Seattle Times that  his retirement had nothing to do with ValueAct .) ValueACt owned as of late July 66,865,530 shares of Microsoft stock , representing 0.8 percent of Microsoft's issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock. According to Reuters, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEo ...

NTT DoCoMo to use fuel cells at base stations Summary:  The Japanese mobile carrier plans to use fuel cells at its cellphone base stations as emergency power sources in the event of a disaster, and will select other base stations by the end of 2013. NTT DoCoMo will use fuel cells at cellphone base stations across the country as emergency power sources in the event of a disaster. Company officials from Japan's largest mobile carrier said on Friday at the moment, only one in Tokyo has fuel cells,  The Japan Times  reported. Fuel cells generate power by combining hydrogen with oxygen in a chemical reaction and do not emit carbon dioxide. However, Japan's largest mobile carrier will select other base stations by the end of this year for the introduction starting 2014, the officials noted. The telco is also installing solar power systems at selected base stations and is planning to use solar power on a routine basis to reduce power consumption at the base ...

Five alternative futures for BlackBerry Summary:  BlackBerry is exploring options ranging from joint ventures through to the sale of the company: we take a look at how each of these could shape up. BlackBerry was for a long time was the undisputed leader in enterprise smartphones, and enjoyed considerable success for a time in the consumer space too. Since then, it's faded dramatically: across five of Europe's biggest markets — Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany – BlackBerry now has a  mere 2.2 percent market share , while its new BlackBerry 10-based handsets haven't been the breakthrough hits the company had hoped. In the enterprise, BlackBerry has been undermined by the growth of the bring your own device culture — which has resulted in a huge influx of iPhones and Android devices into the business — while its attempt to break into the tablet market with the PlayBook had met with little success.  Now BlackBerry has revealed it...

Facebook engineers explain News Feed ranking algorithms; more changes soon Summary:  Curious about how the Facebook News Feed really works? Facebook engineers shed light on some of the magic underneath the stream. It's populated with content from a user's friends and favorite things running the gamut from sports teams to musicians to restaurants. MENLO PARK --  The  Facebook  News Feed is a curious place. But the way things are ordered and the reasons why certain pieces of information are displayed more prominently than others aren't always clear to everyday users. Without revealing all of the magic underneath the stream, Facebook engineers explained some of the ranking algorithms that determine which stories appear at the top of one's feed. Chris Cox, vice president of product at Facebook, explained that the engineering team "wanted to demystify" News Feed rankings to both the media and the user base of more than one billion people worldwide a...

Facebook invents a PHP virtual machine Summary:Facebook abandoned the work of translating PHP into C++ in favor of delivering dynamically generated bytecode to the server   Social networking giant Facebook has taken another step at making the PHP Web programming language run more quickly. The company has developed a PHP Virtual Machine that it says can execute the language as much as nine times as quickly as running PHP natively on large systems. "Our goal is to make PHP run really, really quickly," said Joel Pobar, a Facebook engineering manager. Facebook has been using the virtual machine, called the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), across all of its servers since earlier this year. Pobar discussed the virtual machine at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) being held this week in Portland, Oregon. HHVM is not Facebook's first foray into customizing PHP for faster use. PHP is an interpreted language , meaning that...

Ubuntu: One OS, one interface, all devices Summary:  Canonical believes that Ubuntu can be one operating system and Unity the one interface you need for your PC, your smartphone, and your tablet. Here's how they'll do it. For years,  Ubuntu  and its parent company  Canonical  has been pursuing a single dream: One operating system and one interface,  Unity , for PCs, tablets, and smartphones. That dream is now becoming a reality. Say hello to Canonical's Unity interface vision for PCs, smartphones, and tablets. The recent headlines have been about Canonical's crowd-sourcing of its hybrid smartphone/PC, Ubuntu Edge, but Canonical's plan of one integrated operating system and interface for all platforms predates it by years. While Unity is known better as an easy-to-use Linux desktop interface for beginners, Canonical has been aiming  Unity at the smartphone and tablet market since it was introduced in October 2010 . It's on...