Reminiscent TechWare

31/10/2014

Group announced the completion of its acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google Inc. on Thursday in a move aimed at making the Chinese computer maker a global smartphone brand.
The $2.9 billion purchase adds to a flurry of acquisitions and initiatives aimed at transforming Beijing-based Lenovo, the world's biggest maker of personal computers, into a major player in wireless computing.

Google bought Motorola Mobility in 2012 for $12.4 billion but appeared to decide quickly the purchase was a mistake. It sold its set-top operations to Arris Group Inc. for $2.35 billion and its smartphone assets, along with some 2,000 patents, to Lenovo.

Lenovo chairman Yang Yuanqing said when the purchase was announced in January that it would help transform Lenovo into a global competitor in smartphones.

's smartphone models include the Moto X , Moto G , Moto E and the DROID series.

The unit's headquarters are to remain in Chicago. Lenovo is taking on some 3,500 Motorola engineers, designers and other employees worldwide, including 2,800 in the United States.

29/04/2014

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09/04/2014

The most hated browser in the world is finally dead:

After the release of Windows XP in 2001 and for a few years that followed, Internet Explorer 6 was the biggest, most important browser in the world. And for longer, it has been the buggy browser that's overstayed its welcome. Microsoft announced it would support IE6 through April of this year back in 2009, and today (along with XP and Office 2003) is the last day Microsoft will provide updates. Unless you're an old user who couldn't care less or are somehow nostalgic for a broken web, it's finally time to say goodbye.

Internet Explorer 6 IS, BY NOW, A BAD JOKE

is almost universally reviled, and for good reason. Microsoft got cocky in the mid-aughts after beating down Netscape Navigator; because Internet Explorer overall held more than 90 percent of the market, it took a solid five years before IE7 debuted. Meanwhile, security issues slipped through massive cracks, with fixes coming in few and far between. (Nevermind the fact that IE6 was never fully standards compliant.) It got so bad that full-blown campaigns were launched calling for its death. User antipathy contributed directly to browsers like Firefox and Chrome being able to wrest users away from IE in general, and you can generally see a distrust for Microsoft's actually good browsers to this day. Even Redmond got in on the joke.

Unfortunately, the 12-year-old browser still commands 4.15 percent of the market, so it's not completely gone. So do your loved ones a favor and upgrade them to literally anything else. They'll thank you for it.

09/03/2014

What an advertisement for a high end computer system looked like in the 1980's

06/03/2014

Nokia X Android smartphone listed online at Rs. 8,500 with March 15 availability :

Nokia's first Android smartphone, the Nokia X, is now listed at an online retailer in India, with a price of Rs. 8,500. The retailer claims the Nokia X smartphone will be available from 15 March 2014.

The Finnish manufacturer had soon after its MWC 2014 event, listed the Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL dual-SIM variants on its India site, without pricing or availability details. At the MWC 2014 launch, the company had said the Nokia X would go on sale 'immediately' in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, and the Middle East.

The Nokia X has been listed on the Mobile Store and was first spotted by Maktech blog. The Nokia X is available in its Black, Green, Cyan, Yellow, Red, and White colour variants. Of course since this is a third-party store, one cannot be certain if this will be the official launch price, whenever the phone is unveiled in India.

24/02/2014

X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL dual-SIM Android-based smartphones launched :

Nokia has announced its first-ever smartphones based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), that can run Android apps and are powered by Microsoft and Nokia services.

Nokia X and Nokia X+ are dual-SIM phones that come with 4-inch 480x800 displays and are powered by 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor. Both have identical 4GB internal storage, with expandable support up to 32GB via microSD card, and are powered by a 1500mAh battery. While the Nokia X comes with 512MB RAM, the Nokia X+ comes with 768MB RAM. Both phones have a 3-megapixel rear camera, but no front shooter. They are powered by a 1500mAh battery.

Nokia XL comes with a 5-inch 480x800 display, a 5-megapixel camera, a 720p front camera, 768MB RAM and a 2000mAh battery, while sharing other specifications with its younger siblings.

All three phones come with 3G support and take Micro-SIMs instead of regular ones.

The Nokia X will go on sale immediately, starting at EUR 89 (approximately Rs. 7,500 not including duties and taxes) in Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. The Nokia X+ and Nokia XL are expected to roll out in these markets starting early second quarter, priced at EUR 99 (approximately Rs. 8,400 not including duties and taxes) and EUR 109 (approximately Rs. 9,300 not including duties and taxes), respectively.

The highlight of the three devices of course is the highly customised version of Android, with its Metro-inspired UI and access to Nokia's own store. While there's no access to Google's Play Store, users can side-load Android apps from any third-party source. Nokia has used AOSP corresponding to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as the baseline for its operating system.

All devices come with free access to Here Maps, with offline maps and integrated turn-by-turn navigation, and Nokia MixRadio for free music streaming and downloadable playlists. All devices are also pre-loaded with a variety of third-party apps and games.

Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL come with free cloud storage from Microsoft's OneDrive (earlier called SkyDrive). With the purchase of any Nokia X family smartphone in select markets, people will get one month of Skype's Unlimited World Subscription for a limited time.

Both the Nokia X and Nokia X+ will be available in bright green, bright red, cyan, yellow, black and white. The Nokia XL will be available in bright green, orange, cyan, yellow, black and white. Colour availability may vary across regions.

Nokia also unveiled Nokia 220 and Asha 230 feature phones at MWC 2014.

23/02/2014

Ex-Nokia staff led Jolla’s phones to be sold in India online :

Finnish handset maker Jolla, founded by some ex-Nokia employees, is in talks with partners to sell its smartphones in India, initially by tapping the popular e-commerce route.

“Jolla is now rapidly entering into new markets, and is negotiating with partners in several countries, including Russia, India and Hong Kong where Jolla will open online sales in the near future,” the company today said in a statement.

The company has built its own operating system Sailfish which will provide users alternative to Android, Windows, Blackberry and Apple’s iOS.

In an interview to PTI earlier, Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimaki had said the company already had orders from India when it started taking pre-bookings for smartphones.

Currently, Jolla smartphones are available for orders online at its web shop at the price of 399 Euros to all European Union countries, Switzerland and Norway.

According to CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Q3 Market Review, India registered 62.9 million mobile handset shipments for the period July-September, 2013. During the same period, 11.1 million smartphones were shipped in the country.

Launching its first handset in India after a nearly two-year hiatus, Motorola earlier this month made its Moto G available exclusively through e-commerce player Flipkart.

Jolla founders moved out of Nokia after the company, then led by Stephen Elop, decided to dump ‘Meego’ operating system and instead adopt the Windows platform.

Nokia in mid-2011 had unveiled only one phone, Nokia N9 on Meego, in partnership with computer chip giant Intel. Microsoft has now acquired Nokia’s mobile devices business.

Currently, Jolla is a team of over 90 people and has offices in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland and Hong Kong, SAR of China. Jolla unveiled its first smartphone for about Rs 34,000 in November and is now expanding globally.

Its Sailfish OS is compatible with devices on which Android OS works. Jolla has started providing Sailfish OS through Android playstore on select devices like Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus and Sony Xperia, for people to experience this new platform.

Soon, the company will provide Sailfish OS downloads from its website as well. The company has tied up with Tieto Corporation for providing Sailfish OS to handset manufacturers.

In a first, Jolla has announced agreement with F-Secure for mobile security on Sailfish OS. Jolla and F-Secure are working on an upcoming solution that will provide Jolla smartphone customers gigabytes of cloud storage.

“Jolla and F-Secure want to make sure Jolla phone users have a secure choice to back-up and share their on-device content. We are both very passionate about privacy and security, which is why our cooperation is natural and fruitful,” Pienimaki said.

Jolla customers will be able to access stored content from other devices such as tablets, Macs or PCs.

20/02/2014

Facebook to buy messaging startup WhatsApp in $16 billion deal :

Facebook said Wednesday that it would acquire WhatsApp, a messaging startup, for $16 billion in cash and stock.

The eye-popping price is Facebook's largest acquisition by far and represents a new height in the frenzy to acquire popular technology startups.

Facebook will pay $4 billion in cash and $12 billion worth of Facebook shares for WhatsApp. An additional $3 billion in restricted stock units will be granted to WhatsApp employees and founders. These units will vest over the next four years.

By any measure, Facebook is paying a steep price for a mobile application that is widely used internationally but less known in the United States. Including the restricted stock units, the acquisition total amounts to $345 million for every one of the company's 55 employees.

WhatsApp has more than 450 million monthly users, with 70 percent of those active on a given day. By that measure, Facebook is paying about $40 per user.

"WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, said in a statement. "I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected," he added, referring to Jan Koum, WhatsApp's chief executive.

Koum and Brian Acton, two former Yahoo executives, founded WhatsApp in 2009.

Unlike traditional business leaders, the two founders spent most of their time throughout the day keeping the service running smoothly. Acton focused on the servers, while Koum looked at the overall product and made sure it looked and acted the same consistently across different devices.

Koum and Acton have said they want to make messaging accessible to anyone, regardless of what phone they own, where they live or how much money they make. They have also been adamant about refusing to sell advertising - they say that ads detract from intimate conversations.

WhatsApp received about $10 million in funding two years after the company was founded. It quickly became profitable.

Facebook, meanwhile, has struggled to gain traction in messaging.

Zuckerberg tried to acquire SnapChat

last year for a reported $3 billion, but SnapChat turned down the offer.

While Facebook Messenger, the company's chat platform, is popular with users, recent attempts to create its own direct messaging service have failed.

Facebook Poke, which was developed to try to compete with SnapChat, the ephemeral messaging platform where messages vanish after being viewed for up to 10 seconds, has seen little attention after users didn't engage with the app.

Another new feature added to Instagram last year, called Instagram Direct, allows people to message each other on the service, but this seems to have gained little traction with users, too.

With WhatsApp, that Facebook will now own a huge platform.

The two companies have been in talks for two years. In the spring of 2012, Zuckerberg first reached out to Koum. The two men met at a coffee shop in Los Altos, Calif., and spoke for an hour, then took a walk for another hour and a half, said people briefed on the matter.

Later that year, they began a series of dinners, and continued to discuss messaging and communication services during meals and walks in the rolling hills of Silicon Valley, these people said.

On Feb. 9, Zuckerberg asked Koum over to dinner at his home, where he formally proposed a deal. Koum thought about it for a few days, and the two men met again last Friday.

Koum came over to Zuckerberg's home, crashing the dinner Zuckerberg was sharing with his wife, Priscilla Chan. The two men entered into negotiations, eating a plate of chocolate covered strawberries intended for Chan, the people briefed on the matter said.

By last weekend's end, the two men had struck a deal.

Corporate advisers played some role as well. Michael Grimes, the Morgan Stanley banker who orchestrated Facebook's flawed initial public offering in 2012, was this time on the other side of the table, advising WhatsApp on its sale.

Facebook was advised by Allen & Co. and received legal advice from Weil Gotshal & Manges, while WhatsApp was advised by Morgan Stanley and received legal advice from Fenwick & West.

If the merger is not completed, Facebook will pay WhatsApp $1 billion in cash and $1 billion in shares. In after-hours trading, shares of Facebook were down more than 4 percent.

15/02/2014

'India's first on mobile' launched in Bangalore, India

12/02/2014

Stylish Lenovo Vibe Z to cost Rs 35,999 :

Lenovo is gradually shifting its focus to smartphones. Its latest, the Vibe Z, is a 5.5-inch device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at 2.2 GHz.

Equipped with high-speed LTE (4G) connectivity, the phone will also have a 13 MP rear camera with BSI sensor and dual LED flash. Lenovo has fitted the Vibe Z camera with a large f/1.8 aperture lens. The 5MP front camera has a 84° degree wide viewing angle.

The phone won the ‘CRN 10 Show-Stopping Smartphones category’ at the recently-concluded CES 2014. That is because the phone has a thickness of 7.9 mm and weighing just 147 grams, despite its 5.5 inch display.

The Android phone will be powered by an integrated 3000 mAh battery and lets you access data from a pen drive.

The Vibe Z smartphone is priced at Rs 35,999.

Infobay Technologies

30/01/2014

Google sells Motorola Mobility unit to Lenovo for $3bn :

Google has sold struggling US mobile phone company Motorola Mobility to Chinese computer maker Lenovo for $2.91bn (£1.8bn), in a surprise move.

Google had paid $12.5bn for the company less than two years ago.

Lenovo plans to build up its smartphone unit through the Motorola purchase, which may help offset its slowing personal computer business.

However, Google will keep the majority of Motorola's lucrative patents, which include one for Android software.

In a statement, Google said the smartphone market was "super competitive" and that Motorola would "be better served by Lenovo".

The purchase is set to make Lenovo the world's third-largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple.

Market research firm Strategy Analytics said in a blog post that Lenovo had made "a good move" and would benefit from economies of scale.

"The Chinese vendor gets access to the valuable US smartphone market and the fast-growing Latin America region. This complements its existing global PC business.

"For Motorola, it gains access to an ambitious sugar daddy that has a strong presence in the huge China market. For Google, it divests a loss-making hardware division," it said.
Chinese deal-maker

This is the second major acquisition for Lenovo in the same number of weeks.

Last Thursday, the Thinkpad-maker announced it had acquired IBM's low-end server business for $2.3bn, in what was then China's biggest technology deal.

Shares of Lenovo being traded in Hong Kong fell by more than 8% following the announcement, which came after the US market had closed.

"Whether Lenovo can turn around the long-struggling Motorola business, and what happens to the Motorola brand long-term, remain key questions that will need to be answered in the coming months," Strategy Analytics said.

On a conference call following the deal's announcement, Lenovo chief financial officer Wong Waiming said they were not concerned that they may have overpaid for Motorola.

"Market prices go up and down and I would not take a one-day or half-day performance as a reflection of the market viewing it negatively," he said.

Mr Wong also said there was "no urgent need" for the company to tap the capital markets for money to fund the Motorola purchase given it had more than $3bn in cash available.
Acquisition spree

The purchase of Motorola was Google's largest acquisition and it signalled a growing effort by the search giant to enter the hardware business.

Motorola Mobility created the Moto X and Moto G phones.

Despite the sale, Google chief executive Larry Page insisted in a blog post: "This does not signal a larger shift for our other hardware efforts."

The deal with Lenovo comes on the heels of an acquisition spree for Google.

In January, it snapped up DeepMind, a UK firm focused on artificial intelligence, and bought military robot-maker Boston Dynamics in December.
Global ambitions

In announcing Wednesday's purchase, Lenovo cited the strength of Motorola's brand, which has been revived in recent years with Google's help.

"The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones," said Yang Yuanqing, chief executive of Lenovo, in a statement.

"We will immediately have the opportunity to become a strong global player in the fast-growing mobile space," he added.

He also noted the acquisition gives Lenovo an entry into the North American and Latin American markets, as well as a toehold in Western Europe.

The transaction must still be approved by US and Chinese regulators.

Courtesy : BBC News

17/01/2014

Microsoft paying Samsung Mobile, Sony and others to make Windows Phone devices: Report

Microsoft seems desperate to have more OEMs to help its cause in increasing its Windows Phone ecosystem; at if a new rumour is to be believed, which claims the Redmond giant is offering incentives to some major handset manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, and Huawei among others.

Mobile Review's Eldar Murtazin made the statement, saying Microsoft is offering Samsung $1.2 billion, Sony $0.5 billion; Huawei $0.6 billion and others $0.3 billion in incentives to make a Windows Phone device in 2014.

The tweet said, "Windows phone 8 in 2014 - Samsung 1.2 bln USD, Sony 0.5 bln, Huawei Device 0.6 bln, others - 0.3 bln. Thats "support" from MS to develop one (1!)hs."

Another tweet by Murtazin claims that the company is offering the alleged amount of money to these companies to make at least one Windows Phone model. The tweet reads, "Microsoft going to pay to each company for creating one wp8 model. No matter how they call this money, it's not a real business for MS."

Further, Murtazin suggests that Sony is already doing well in terms on revenue this year, thanks to Microsoft's incentive and writes, "For instance, Sony with 0.5 bln from Microsoft already profitable in 2014, will meet internal goals in terms of money around September." The tweet was first spotted by Unwired View.

Notably, Murtazin was the first to claim that the Redmond giant had been offering Samsung a whopping $1 billion incentive to continue working on Windows Phone devices back in December last year.

A report on Wednesday suggested that Samsung might be soon joining the Windows Phone 8 smartphone league. A Samsung device dubbed SM-W750V was spotted in a Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) listing, and also on the UA profile, which has been accessible at company's mobile official site.

Sony is also reportedly considering launching a Windows Phone device, in an attempt to move away from being a single operating system handset maker. Pierre Perron, head of Sony Mobile Europe, confirmed that the company was in talks with Microsoft.