0 Roaming charges to be abolished from next year says Sibal

Union Minister Kapil Sibal has said that mobile phones users will not need to pay roaming charges from next year. Earlier this year the government had approved the National Telecom Policy 2012, which envisages abolishing roaming charges and inter-circle mobile number portability. The government, however, then did not reveal the time-frame when the guidelines of the NTP 2012 will be implemented.

Talking to the media on the sidelines of the curtain raiser event of India Internet Governance Conference, Sibal said, "From next year. Our secretary has told you that it will be free from next year.”

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0 Aakash 2 tablet to launch in October

Indian government's ambitious ultra low-cost Aakash tablet may see the light of day by next month. DataWind, the company tasked with the first batch of Aakash 2 tablets, has said that it has started the supply of the new version to IIT Bombay, and expects it to be launched in October.

"Supplies are on to IIT Bombay. In the next few weeks, it should be launched. I do not have the exact date, but HRD Minister (Kapil Sibal) has said he wants to launch on the anniversary date which is October 5," Datawind CEO Sunit Singh Tuli is quoted as saying.

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0 Google allows developers from India to sell paid apps on Play store

App developers in India can now also sell paid apps on Google's Play Store. Google recently included India in the list of the countries that may register as Google Checkout merchants and sell paid applications. Prior to this, Indian app developers were only allowed to distribute free apps on Google's app store.

The inclusion of India comes months after Googleadded countries such as Czech Republic, Israel, Poland and Mexico in that list. With addition of India, there are now 31 countries from where developers are allowed to sell paid apps.

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0 Microsoft's Windows App Fest sets a Guinness World Record

Bengaluru, 22nd September – After an 18-hour coding session and a little over 2500 developers registered, Microsoft's App Fest at Bangalore has created a Guinness World Record.

Windows App Fest, Microsoft’s 18 hour nonstop marathon coding festival held at Karnataka Trade Promotion Organization (KTPO) in Bengaluru, registered itself into the Guinness Book of World Records for the maximum number of developers coding for a single event at a common location. The total number of coders was logged at 2567 by the Guinness officials present at the venue. The initial number of developers expected by Microsoft India at the beginning of the Windows App fest was around 3500.

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0 Idea introduces 'Aurus' 3G dual-SIM Android phone

Idea Cellular has announced the launch of a new 3G smartphone called 'Idea Aurus'. Priced at Rs. 7,190, the Idea Aurus features dual-SIM (GSM + GSM) support, and has a 3.5-inch screen. Idea Cellular is also offering data and voice calls worth up to Rs. 2,300 bundled with the new smartphone.

The Idea Aurus runs on Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread operating system and is powered by an 800 MHz processor. It has a 3.5-inch capacitive multi-touch display with 320x480 pixels resolution and sports a 5MP rear camera, aparr from a VGA camera for video calling.

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0 Skyscanner's Flight App hits 10 million downloads

Skyscanner is a travel search site providing online comparisons for flights, hotel, car hire and holidays. The site is currently available in 30 languages and is offered as a mobile site as well an app for Blackberry, Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows phones which have received over 10 million downloads to date. Skyscanner which was ranked in the top 20 in Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 (2011).

The company claims that the Skyscanner free app is downloaded every five seconds across devices and almost a third of the 30 million monthly visits to the Skyscanner site come via mobile, while in some markets in Asia, more than 50% of visits are via mobile devices.

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0 SoundHound passes 100 million users, averages 200k downloads per day

Launched for the iOS platform in 2008, music discovery app Shazam, recently announced that it has crossed 250 million users over Android and iOS devices. Just after three days of Shazam’s announcement, Vice President of SoundHound Katie McMahon announced that the app recently passed its 100 millionth download with an average of 200K downloads a day and 5 million searches a day.

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0 Micromax unveils free messaging app, Hook Up

Micromax has announced the launch of its own free messaging application called 'Hook Up'. The new messaging app is available for Android smartphones and will allow users to share images, music, videos, and the regular texting. Micromax's Hook-Up app is set to compete with other free cross platform services such as WhatsApp.

Micromax is offering the new IM services pre-loaded with its new A25 Smarty smartphone. The company says users of the A25 Smarty smartphones will be able to send messages to non-Hook-up users as well. Moreover, the company is offering up to 330 free messages per month for a year giving full return on the amount paid for the device.

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0 BSNL introduces landline phones with video calling facility

State-run telecom operator, BSNL has announced the launch of landline phones featuring video calling facility, in in collaboration with SIS Infosystems. These phones will be available for use at public Video Call Offices (VCOs), which will be set up in place of several Public Call Offices (PCOs).

Users will be charged Rs.3 for 45 second video call made from a VCO. The charges include 30 percent share for the franchise owner. According to SIS officials, people who want to have a franchise will have to for pay for VCO devices, starting from Rs. 25,000. VCO operator shall be at liberty to charge facilitation charges based on market dynamics not more than Rs. 10 per call for incoming/ outgoing calls. Moreover, all calls made from VCOs shall be charged as Video Calls. It's notable ISD call facility shall not be available on VCO connections.

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0 Samsung HT-E6750W 3D Blu-ray Home Theater System launches at Rs. 51,990

Samsung Electronics has launched the HT-E6750W 7.1 Channel 3D Blu-ray Home Theatre System. The HT-E6750W combines Vacuum Tube Valve Amplifier technology with glass fibre speakers, 3D Sound Plus, Samsung's Smart Hub and various connectivity options.

The Vacuum Tube in Samsung's HT-E6750W is designed to provide immersive sound you within your content. The vacuum tube produces a warm, rich and enveloping sound, while reducing ambient noise so everything you want to hear is crystal clear. Making the most of the new sound experience are the premium glass fiber speakers that help to enhance sound clarity through heat resistant and anti-vibration capabilities, and the 3D Sound Plus feature adds to the intensity of this system's hi-fi sound quality every time.

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0 iPhone 5 (16GB) available online in India, at a staggering Rs. 74,000

The iPhone 5 was revealed (officially at least) to the world on September 12, and the first batch of the new phone from the fruity company starts shipping on September 21. However, following the existing trend of rolling out devices to various countries, India is definitely not on the list of countries to get it first.

The second phase of iPhone 5 rollout, which begins on September 28, includes the following 22 countries - Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Officially, Indian fanboys will have to wait till the third phase of the roll-out, which we hope would be around Diwali.

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0 Teardown analysis reveals Apple's iPhone 5 costs just $208 to make

iSuppli has done a virtual teardown of the iPhone 5 to estimate its cost of production and the cost for the Bill of Materials (BOM) starts at $200.

The low end 16GB variant of the iPhone 5 costs $207 ($199 according to a preliminary virtual teardown + $8 manufacturing cost) to make, whereas the mid-range 32GB variant costs $217 to manufacture ($209 BOM + $8 manufacturing cost), and the high end 64GB variant of the iPhone costs $238 to make ($230 BOM + $8 manufacturing cost).

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0 Intel envisions palm reading technology to replace passwords

Intel recently unveiled a prototype biometric sensor technology that would allow users to enter passwords simply by waving their hands a tablet, or computer. The method could be used for a variety of passwords, from unlocking the tablet itself, to online services like net-banking and email.

The new software coupled with the biometric sensor is capable of recognizing the patterns of veins in a person’s hands, which are unique to each individual. Showcasing the technology at IDF 2012, Sridhar Iyengar, the director of security research at Intel Labs, said:

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0 Google Nexus 7 tablet coming to India in November

An Asus spokesperson has confirmed the Google Nexus 7 tablet will be made available in India by November, with pricing details revealed sometime in October.

So far, the much vaunted Nexus 7 tablet, manufactured for Google by Asus, is available only in the U.S., with global availability a well kept secret.

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0 Sony Xperia Miro officially launched in India

While the Sony Xperia Miro has been available online in India since last week, the Japanese giant has officially launched the device in India today, pricing it at Rs. 15,249 (MRP).

Those who had bought the device online will be happy to note they did not pay a premium for early availability, as the Xperia Miro was available for Rs. 14,499. An entry-level offering from Sony, the Xperia Miro runs on Android 4.0 ICS, and is powered by an 800MHz processor (MSM7225A chipset) and Adreno 200 GPU, coupled with 512MB of RAM.

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0 Google acquires Instagram-rival, Snapseed

Google has agreed to acquire Nik Software, the development company behind the popular photo editing app Snapseed. The search giant has picked up the German app developer for an undisclosed amount.

Nik Software’s website reads, “We are pleased to announce that Google has acquired Nik Software. For nearly 17 years, we’ve been guided by our motto, “photography first”, as we worked to build world class digital image editing tools. We’ve always aspired to share our passion for photography with everyone, and with Google’s support we hope to be able to help many millions more people create awesome pictures. We’re incredibly grateful for all of your support and hope you’ll join us on the next phase of our journey as part of Google.”

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0 Bose launches VideoWave II all-in-one entertainment system in India

Bose has launched its new VideoWave II all-in-one entertainment system in India, in two screen size variants – 117cm (46-inch) and 140cm (55-inch). They have been priced at Rs. 4,19,513 and Rs. 4,99,388 respectively.

The Bose VideoWave II all-in-one entertainment system is meant to replace your entire home theatre setup, and features an HDTV, a 7.1 channel home theatre, and a music system. It is completed by an iPhone/iPod dock. It also features click-pad remote with RF technology, which can control all connected sources.

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0 Datawind launches four budget Android 4.0 ICS tablets

Datawind has rolled out a new line of budget Android tablets in India, in its Ubislate range. The 7-inch devices run on Google’s Android 4.0.3 ICS operating system, and are all powered by 1GHz Cortex A8 processors, coupled with 512MB of RAM.

The UbiSlate 7Ri, UbiSlate 7R+, UbiSlate 7Ci, UbiSlate 7C+ models will be all available at MRPs ranging from Rs. 2,999 to Rs. 4,499. More details about the budget ICS tablets' specifications are available in the table below.

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0 ICS-based Samsung Galaxy Chat available in India

The Samsung Galaxy Chat is now available in India for Rs. 8,499. The smartphone was spotted on Saholic.com, where the MRP is stated as Rs. 9,750, but the device is available for Rs. 8,499.

Announced back in July, the Samsung Galaxy Chat B5330 has a 3-inch display with a resolution of 240x320 pixels, and comes with a physical QWERTY keypad. The phone runs on Android 4.0 ICS and under the hood, an 850 MHz processor with 512MB of RAM powers it. It has 4GB built-in storage expandable up to 32GB via microSD card. It has a 2MP rear camera and boasts of Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 3G and FM Radio with RDS. It is powered by a 1,200-mAh battery and comes in two colours – black and white.

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0 India guns for the fastest supercomputer title by 2017

It seems like India isn’t happy having its home-grown supercomputer ranked at number 58 (out of 500) globally. To correct that, Sibal has put in motion plans to develop another completely indigenous supercomputer, one that would uproot IBM’s Sequoia as the world’s fastest supercomputer. Of course, the government hopes to have this achieved dream only by 2017.

A supercomputer’s performance is measured in FLOPS or Floating Point Operations Per Second. IBM’s Sequoia pushes itself up to the 16.3 petaflops mark, and is currently being employed by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to run simulations of nuclear weapons testing. India’s supercomputer is geared at beating the current champ, but what it’ll be used for is not yet very clear.

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0 Canon EOS 6D finally announced, with 20MP full frame sensor

The rumour mill can be a wondrous thing. Many years ago, before the 7D was announced, rumour had it that Canon was going to announce a “6D”. What we got then was a crop sensor 7D, but the name has been around for years, cropping up every now and then around major events like CES.

The mills can finally stop turning now, as Canonhas officially announced the EOS 6D, the third full frame camera from the Japanese camera giant. The last few days have seen postulation of what the specs will be and Canon has put them all to rest.

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0 Epson launches innovative Android-based see-through mobile viewer

Epson has announced the launch in India of its wearable display device – the Epson Moverio BT-100 see-through mobile viewer, which operates on the Google Android 2.2 Froyo platform. According to Epson, the “revolutionary mobile entertainment viewer lets you experience larger than life movies, images and more with crystal clarity.”

Unlike conventional opaque viewers, the Android powered BT-100 features advanced see-through lenses to keep you connected with your surroundings and online activities at the same time. While other personal viewing devices limit users to indoor power and bulky playback devices, BT-100 was designed from the ground up to move with you.

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0 Transcend introduces its first 128GB SD Class 10 card

Transcend, one of the leading makers of memory cards has announced their fast 128GB Class 10 SDXC card. The card is designed around the need of photographers and film makers who require high-speed and high-capacity cards for storage of large files. Towards that end, the new cards use the exFAT standard, which allows for file sizes larger than 4GB.

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0 Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone and others found in violation of radiation norms

A random check conducted by officials at a location in Mumbai revealed that Reliance Communications, TTML, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Loop Telecom were found violating radiation norms laid down by the government.

In an official statement, the department of Telecomm said, “11 BTSs (Base Tower Stations) of Reliance Communications, TTML, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Loop Telecom were found radiating beyond permissible limits of the new radiation norms when measurements were carried out in some houses facing the nearby BTS antenna. Orders were issued to the 7 operators to stop radiating from these BTSs with immediate effect.”

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0 Samsung Galaxy S III to get Jelly Bean update starting next month

Samsung's flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, will be receiving the latest Android v4.1 Jelly Bean update in October.

The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update brings a host of new improvements, including a better user interface, expandable notifications, better camera and voice search and improved accessibility among other updates. The company has confirmed the update will be available for S III users in October but did not disclose an exact date.

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0 GoDaddy apologises for outage, offers customers free one-month credit

DNS services and web hosting company GoDaddy has tendered an apology to its customers for the recent massive service outage that crippled a number of sites across the world. GoDaddy is compensating its affected users by providing one month of free service.

GoDaddy CEO Scott Wagner in his email to impacted customers assured that the sensitive customer information such as passwords, contact details and credit card data were not compromised. Wagner, however, maintained that the outage was due to a “series of internal events that corrupted router data cables” and not the a result of cyber attack.

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0 Bharti Airtel announces voice-based navigation service

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of its navigation service called SmartDrive. The navigation service, only available for Airtel customers, features voice-based turn by turn navigation, real time information update on traffic, and also lets users see their location on the map and plan the journey accordingly.

Airtel's SmartDrive app features information about restaurants, theatres and shopping malls. Along with turn by turn voice navigation, SmartDrive also gives an approximate time of the travel, on the basis of the traffic situation on the various routes.Airtel says its app calculates the traffic on the basis of the number of GPS devices used on a particular road, their average speed, as well as historical trends of traffic on that route.

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0 LinkedIn redesigns Company Pages

LinkedIn recently started rolling out a new design for its Company Pages in a bid to simplify its core products, and increase engagement between job seekers and employers on the professional networking website.

LinkedIn in a blog post said that the redesigned Company Pages have better visuals and less stuffed with widgets. There is also a large cover photo on the top, which is quite similar to Facebook's cover photo format. Moreover, the new layout enables the companies to have more prominent display for their announcements, and job openings.

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0 Apple announces the iPhone 5, along with all-new iPod Nano and iPod Touch

There was a lot of hype behind Apple’s September 12 event and all the rumours have finally been put to rest. Apple has finally officially announced the iPhone 5.

The sixth generation iPhone is much the same as what we have seen in the numerous rumours surrounding the device, and that has left us a tad disappointed.

At the iPhone 5 event, Apple also announced updates to iTunes, refreshes for iPod Touch and Nano, as well as iO6’s release date.

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0 Next-gen Intel Ultrabooks to get voice, gesture recognition in 2013

A "massive, massive amount of innovation is coming" in the next generation of thin-and-light ultrabooks, Intel executive Kirk Skaugen said at the Intel Developer Conference here on Tuesday.

The chip giant is preparing its fourth-generation Core chips, code-named Haswell, for a new rush of ultrabooks in 2013 that will feature smartphone-like voice recognition, touch, finger tracking, augmented reality, and gesture-based interfaces courtesy of clip-on sensors that will eventually be integrated into laptops, and more.

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0 Intel Haswell unveiled: More powerful

SAN FRANCISCO - It's the goal of almost every new technological innovation, at least on the component level, to deliver more performance for less of a power cost than previous-generation products. At the Intel Developer Forum here on Tuesday, Intel committed itself to pursuing exactly that goal with its upcoming fourth-generation Core microarchitecture, code-named Haswell.

Intel senior fellow Tom Piazza joined Intel fellows Hong Jiang and Per Hammarlund, and senior principal engineer Ronak Singhal in a Technology Insight session to provide a detailed examination of the new 22nm technology at IDF, which is expected to replace Intel's current third-generation Core ("Ivy Bridge") processors in desktops and laptops in the first half of 2013. Their talk focused on a number of Haswell's innovations, but placed a special emphasis on power usage, which will help Haswell function equally well in servers, tablets, and every form factor of system in between.

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0 Twitter lets users upload images from its mobile website

Even as Twitter cracks down on third party apps and developers, the micro-blogging website has quietly updated its mobile website, enabling users to upload an image for use in a tweet from their mobile devices. Earlier, users could upload photos through mobile site via third party clients.

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0 India suffered $8bn loss to cybercrime in 2011Report by Norton Cyber Crime

Norton in its latest cybercrime report says India suffered a whopping $8 billion loss due to cybercrimes in 2011. The report estimates a global loss of $110 billion due to cybercrime over the past twelve months.

According to the Norton Cyber Crime Report 2012, about 66 percent of Internet-connected Indian adults have fallen prey to cybercrime once in their lifetime. Globally, the figures say over 1,15,000 people are victims of cybercrime every day, which is about 80 cases per minute.

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0 Times Internet announces the launch of BoxTV.com

Times Internet Limited (TIL) has announced the launch of BoxTV.com, a premium video service that aims to offer a bouquet of video entertainment options, from blockbuster movies to TV shows, short films and more. Users will be able to watch the content on their web browsers, or via internet connected devices, such as media players, smartphones, TVs and tablets.

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0 Google Handwrite now available for Indian users

Searching on Google has greatly evolved over the years, starting from normal query typing to voice search, to instant results and search by images as well. Google recently took the one step further in making Google search easier for its mobile users by adding handwriting recognition. Known as Google Handwrite, the feature supports over 20 different languages, and is now also available for Indian users.

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0 Domino's India website hacked

Details of about 37,000 accounts including names, contacts, passwords and other information of Domino's customers were leaked online after the official Indian website of the popular pizza retailer was hacked by a Turkish team that calls itself Ajan Hacker Group.

According to reports, hackers used the SQL injection method and remote file inclusion to attackDomino's website. It's notable that the remote file inclusion is one of the most common methods used by hackers to breach web databases. With this method, database of a website is tricked into disclosing data that should have been hidden by ‘injecting’ certain commands.

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0 Google updates Google Drive for iOS and Android

Google on Monday rolled out quite a few updates to its Google Drive app for iOS and Android platforms. Google added editing and collaboration features for iOS devices, already available on the Android version of the application. And for the Android platform, Drive app added improved commenting system.

The updated iOS app is available in Apple's App Store, while the latest version of Google Drive for Android can be downloaded via Google's Play store.

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0 4G coverage grows in India; expected to reach 5 million users by 2013

While 3G gradually expands its coverage in India, the latest fourth-generation mobile services (4G) has seen a rapid growth since its launch in April this year. Bharti Airtel has so far added 3,180 TD-LTE subscribers through its 4G network in Kolkata and Bangalore, while state-run BSNL has provided 50,077 connections through 4G/WiMAX. The revelation was made by communications and information technology Milind Deora.

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0 Google+ now supports SMS notifications

Google has been consistently updating its social networking venture, Google+, to make it as popular as rival Facebook. Both Facebook and Google have given special emphasis on mobile phone users. While Facebook is already a popular app across different mobile platforms, Google+ is also simplifying things for its mobile users.

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0 Microsoft launches Windows Server 2012

While it is in just a few more weeks that Windows 8 will hit store shelves, the Redmond Company has already released its enterprise solution to the market. Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows Server 2012, which it has dubbed as the cloud OS. Microsoft says that the new server OS maximizes the utility of cloud computing.

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0 Google Maps for Android gets voice-guided navigation feature

Google's voice-guided GPS navigation service is now available in India. The new feature enables travelers to get turn-by-turn GPS navigation to a destination on Google Maps through voice commands. So far, Google Maps only had passive navigation service. The feature is available as part of Google Maps for Android for free.

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0 Idea launches cloud-based 3G dongle at Rs. 1,799

Idea Cellular has launched a new 'cloud-based' 3G dongle in India. According to Idea's official statement, the new 3G dongle offers Internet access, storage up to 2GB on the cloud, and Cloud Messenger - a cloud-based messenger service allowing free and unlimited communication between cloud users.

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0 Rovio to launch 'Bad Piggies' on September 27

Riding high on the success of its Angry Birds games, Rovio has announced they will be launching a new game called 'Bad Piggies' on September 27. Rovio has already begun promotion of the new game, featuring the company's green pigs, on the social networking websites. Bad Piggies will be launching on iOS, Android and Mac initially, while the PC version will come soon after.

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0 Nokia Lumia 920 PureView to feature 8MP camera and wireless charging

While all will probably be revealed at the Nokia World event tomorrow, a lot of reports about the rumoured Lumia 920 with PureView handset are doing the rounds of the internet.

According to a report by The Verge, the Windows Phone 8-based Nokia Lumia 920 with PureView will come with only an 8MP camera. The details are scarce – the Lumia 920 might very well have a large sensor like the original Nokia 808 PureView(41MP), and produce an effective 8MP image, withPureView technology (condensing adjacent pixels into one to make a smaller, ultra-sharp image).

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0 My Airtel app lets customers pay bills, manage services on the go

Bharti Airtel has introduced a mobile app called 'My Airtel' for mobile phone users across the country. The new My Airtel app allows subscribers of any service provider to keep a tab on outstanding bills, lodge complaints, activate/deactivate services, raise requests/complaints, and also make payment for Airtel services.

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0 Samsung unveils Series 9 prototype

Samsung has shown off a Series 9 ultrabook prototype at IFA 2012, one with a Retina Display of sorts – a high resolution 13-inch 2,560x1,440 pixel display.

In comparison with the 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina Display, which has a resolution of 2,880x1,800 pixels, the 13-inch Samsung Series 9 display has roughly the same pixel density, 226ppi, compared to Apple’s 221ppi offering.

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