Gionee has been one of the well known Chinese smartphone brands in India and today it officially launched its newest flagship smartphone the Elife E8 for Rs. 34,999. The handset couldn’t have come at a better time as their last flagship, the E7, is now more than a year old. The company is also known to make one of the slimmest smartphones but has been out of action in the mid to high end range for sometime now.
Read More
Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System will offer standard positioning system for civilian use and encrypted services for military use. BW Online Bureau reports. The Indian Space Research Organisation said on Thursday (October 8, 2015) that all the seven satellites of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) are expected to be in orbit in next five months. IRNSS is an autonomous regional satellite navigation system under complete control of the government. The IRNSS would provide two services, with the Standard Positioning Service open for civilian use, and the Restricted Service (an encrypted one) for authorised users (including the military). The requirement of such a navigation system arose because access to foreign government-controlled global navigation satellite systems is not guaranteed in hostile situations, as happened to the Indian military depending on American GPS during the Kargil War. IRNSS would have seven satellites, out of which four are already placed in orbit. ISRO is looking to make signals of IRNSS available not only to India and surrounding countries, but also to the entire globe, ISRO Chairman Kiran Kumar said in Bangalore. “We expect by March 2016 all the seven constellation of IRNSS to be in orbit," he said. IRNSS is ISRO's initiative to build an independent satellite navigation system to provide precise position, velocity and time to the users of Indian region. With the addition of fourth spacecraft IRNSS-1D in March 2015, the minimum satellite requirement is met and independent positioning is now possible for the first time using an Indian satellite-based navigation system. ashish.sinha@businessworld.in
Read More
Microsoft made some jaw-dropping announcements yesterday which included the new range of Lumia smartphones, updates to its virtual reality system ‘Holo Lens’, a new fitness band and also upcoming plans for the Xbox gaming platform. The most anticipated product though was the new update to the Surface Pro tablet which has gained the title of the best productivity tablet in the world as it has gradually upgraded to a faster but much lighter device.
Read More
Intel on Thursday (8 October) announced that it will set up 100 Internet of Things (IoT) centers across Indian academia institutions.All the 100 Intel IoT Centres at academic institutions across India are being supported with Intel Galileo boards, which are specifically designed for makers, students, educators, and DIY electronics enthusiasts to build product prototypes. Intel® Galileo boards are equipped with the required platforms and technologies and are aimed at empowering students on latest IoT skills and encouraging them to bring their ideas to reality.Kumud Srinivasan, President, Intel India, said, “For over 15 years, Intel has been building an ecosystem in India which enables innovation, research and skill development. Intel’s India Academic Forum is a platform for fostering insights on technology trends and for triggering collaboration opportunities between academia, government and industry, thereby enabling impactful innovation and research.”Intel has been providing grants to about 20 top institutes, to help accelerate technology advancement among academia on the latest technology trends and developments. Selected colleges are being given sensor kits/ Intel Galileo boards. Intel has also been conducting regular workshops and providing curriculum content for these colleges.As part of the Intel India PhD Fellowship Program 2015, the five selected PhD students will be awarded a fellowship of up to Rs 6,00,000 per annum and up to a period of four years that includes student stipend, contingency research funds and travel expenses to attend conferences and research forums.The recipients of the Fellowship will work with their mentors at Intel to develop a deep understanding of the technological issues facing the industry and come up with breakthrough research in areas such as parallel computing, architecture, graphics, perceptual computing, sensing, power management, validation and communications.(BW Online Bureau)
Read More
The one-on-one chat options allows two smartphones within a 100 meter radius to bypass all telecom networks and pair directlyIndian instant messaging platform Hike launched a new feature Hike Direct on Thursday (8 October). Touted as the country's first non-data platform, this feature allows users to chat, exchange stickers, transfer photos and heavy files using a smartphone's Wi-Fi Direct feature. This one-on-one chat options allows two smartphones within a 100 meter radius to bypass all telecom networks and pair directly. The company's planning to launch Hike Web by next year. It is also considering connecting up to 10 people. Speaking at the launch, Kavin Mittal, Founder and CEO of Hike said, "Hike Direct will add a new dimension to messaging. One can get speeds up to 40 Mbit/sec when sharing files." When asked about monetization Kavin says they'll consider it after they reach the 100 million users mark. The new feature would be available on Hike 4.0.6 and above on Android. The iOS and Windows launch will follow next year. Hike has 70 million users as of September 2015. The company is seeing 100 per cent YoY growth and is India's 2nd biggest messaging app.(BW Online Bureau)
Read More
Huawei introduced its ‘Honor’ smartphone brand in India exactly one year ago and today the company launched its second flagship smartphone for the country, the Honor 7. An update to the Honor 6, the new smartphone comes with a new sleek design incorporating a light aluminum alloy finish and a fingerprint scanner that does a lot more than just unlocking the smartphone.The handset feels very light, even with the full metal back,and the overall finish is exquisite. The smartphone features a pleasant looking 5.2-inch full-HD (1920x1080) display and the company has yet again gone for their home brewed Kirin 935 64-bit octa-core processor instead of relying on a third party manufacturer. The processor is paired with 3GB of RAM which certainly helps in providing a smooth lag-free multitasking experience.Huawei has used a 20MP primary camera on the Honor 7 along with phase detection auto-focus technology which is said to offer focusing speeds of 0.1 seconds. To add some protection, a sapphire glass piece has been fitted over the camera lens. On the front there is an 8MP camera with a 26-mm wide angle lens for selfie lovers which is aided by a soft flash to light up your face. The camera will be offering modes like time-lapse, slow shutter and light painting, all of which are seen or are making their way onto most of the new-gen smartphones.Rest of the features include a microSD card slot, NFC, 4G LTE support, a 3,100mAh battery and quick charge support which helps in charging the battery from zero to 50 percent in just 30 minutes. The fingerprint scanner has been placed at the back, underneath the camera lens, and is probably the most productive fingerprint scanner on any smartphone today. It can not only unlock the smartphone, but can also be used to take pictures as well as scroll through your menus. Taking things further, Huawei has added an extra hardware key on the left edge which can be programmed to launch your most frequent apps when you single press, double press or long press this key.The Honor 7 will run on Android Lollipop out of the box with Emotion UI 3.1 and is expected to get the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow update in the near future. The updated Emotion UI has been customised for the Indian market through a special R&D team in Bangalore and Huawei has also partnered with a number of apps and services which will be providing free gifts with the handset. The Honor 7 will comes in Mystery Gray and Fantasy Silver colour variants and has been priced at Rs. 22,990 for the 16GB variant. The higher 32GB and 64GB capacity models are not confirmed as of yet.
Read More
360 Security, free global mobile app which protect Android devices from viruses and malware, has launched its Lite version in India. 360 Security Lite is one-fourth the size of the original app and now available for free download in the Google Play store.The 360 Security Lite app (4MB) is specially designed for phones with 1 gigabyte of memory or less.Kevin Jones, CEO, 360 Security – India, said, “Among emerging markets, India occupies pride of place due to its large and growing market for mobile phones, which is still not fully penetrated in some regions. As mobile usage soars, there will be a concomitant rise in demand for robust software security products, which is what 360 Security will be offering all its customers across India.”The 360 Security app is the only all-in-one mobile solution app. With just one click, users can speed up their devices by terminating useless background process, clearing junk files for more memory space and longer battery life, while simultaneously protecting devices from viruses, malware, adware, ransomware or Trojans. It’s also an intelligent power saver, it analyzes tens of thousands of apps in source code level to identify and shut down power-hungry apps and extend the battery life by more than 40%. It also has a WhatsApp Small Video Cache Cleaner, whereby cached files from WhatsApp small videos that pile up over time can be cleaned with just one tap.(BW Online Bureau)
Read More
Government initiatives like Digital India, Smart Cities project, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna and UID have created valuable opportunities for the networking market, according to IDC.
Read More
