Apple to sell 99 cent TV shows at iPad launch?

"Today's 'people familiar with the discussions' prattle carried by both the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times has Apple reducing the price of some of its US television shows to 99 cents in time for the iPad launch. A quick search through the iTunes store makes it apparent that Apple has already been experimenting with the 99 cent rate (and a few freebies) on select iTunes episodes; shows that previously ran $1.99 for standard definition quality or $2.99 in HD. Of course, this could all change by the time the iPad launches since the talks are ongoing. Unfortunately, discussions between Apple and content providers to provide a monthly TV subscriptions have stalled according to sources at the Wall Street Journal, although Apple remains open to the idea.



It's worth remembering that prior to adding video support to its iPods, Steve Jobs regularly lambasted the idea of watching video on a tiny, handheld display. The iPad, with its big 9.7-inch 1,024 x 768 pixel IPS panel, is certainly better positioned for video consumption so it's no surprise to hear rumors that Apple's trying to jump start its video business by getting back to the magical 99 cent price point it so loves

Garmin Asus Nuvifone A50 – Android based phone with turn-by-turn driving and walking Navigation

 

The Garmin Asus Nuvifone A50 was officially announced today. It’s a touchscreen Android phone which includes Garmin navigation with turn-by-turn, voice prompted directions for driving or while walking.

It carries the tagline Location is relevant to everything you do



“The A50 brings premium navigation features to the Android operating system, offering users a seamless location based experience along with access to the wealth of applications that the platform affords,” said Benson Lin, vice president and general manager of ASUS’ personal mobile devices business unit, handheld business group.

“Location is relevant to everything you do,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO. “The A50 integrates navigation and GPS functionality throughout the device, which gives customers the versatility and reliability they need as they navigate their day.”

Nuvifone A50 Features and Specs

• 3.5-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen display ( finger friendly)
• The QWERTY touchscreen keyboard
• 4GB internal storage
• expandable microSD card slot,
• Accelerometer
• Access to applications via android market
• Powerful enterprise email capability
• High-sensitivity GPS receivers with Garmin navigation
• 3 mega-pixel camera with auto-focus and geo-tagging
• multi-touch capable WebKit browser
• Integration with Google mobile services with one-click access to Google Search by voice, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, calendar, contacts and Android Market
• Street View in Google Maps and 3D landmark images.
• Preloaded, apps through Garmin-Asus’ connected services, which includes real-time, location-relevant information like weather, traffic, fuel prices, safety cameras, flight status. Connected services information varies by country.
• On-device sync with Microsoft Exchange server, with the ability to wirelessly synchronize contacts, calendar and enterprise email.
• Garmin navigation is preloaded on the A50 and maps are installed on the device and supports offline navigation.
• The phone comes with a custom Garmin car mount and vehicle power cable.

Garmin Asus nuvifone A50 Price Availability

The Garmin-Asus nüvifone A50 is expected to be available in Europe in the first half of 2010. Pricing has not yet been revealed but will be announced soon.

Nokia Siemens Networks bags 700 million USD network expansion contract from Bharti Airtel

 

Looks like Nokia Siemens Networks is on the road to recovery after making some huge losses in 2009. NSN or Nokia Siemens Networks has bagged a 700 million USD or Rs.3500 crores. Bharti Airtel aims to improve customer satisfaction with this expansion. Network capacity is going to be increased by 50% in 8 circles – Mumbai, Maharashtra & Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh, Bihar & Jharkhand, Orissa, Kolkata and West Bengal.



This move will also make Airtel’s Network 3G Ready to reduce time to market when 3G finally takes off in the future.

If you are in any of those circles and you use Airtel currently, are you happy with the call quality , signal strength ?

Press Release below:

Airtel users to enjoy an enhanced service experience due to state-of-the-art network technology equipment.

The network upgrade will enable Bharti Airtel to achieve higher customer satisfaction in a more cost effective manner.

Nokia Siemens Networks is expanding and upgrading the operator’s 2.5G network to increase network capacity by 50% in eight circles.

Nokia Siemens Networks already supplies Bharti Airtel with a wide spectrum of solutions, including device management, mobile network portability, next-generation fixed-network and an interactive voice response system.

Bharti Airtel Limited, Asia’s leading integrated telecom services provider and Nokia Siemens Networks today further strengthened their strategic partnership with a USD 700 million network expansion contract. The contract includes network planning, implementation and project management, handling of local logistics and materials, as well as system integration for the base station sites.

This GSM network expansion will cover the eight existing circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra & Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh, Bihar & Jharkhand, Orissa, Kolkata and West Bengal where Nokia Siemens Networks already provides equipment and managed services for Bharti Airtel. With close to 60% of Airtel’s monthly customers coming from rural regions, this contract will enable Airtel to further aggressively expand its footprint into rural India.

“Airtel continues to drive innovation and leadership in the telecom sector. This expansion will not only expand our networks deeper into the rural hinterland but will also allow us to deliver a rich end-user experience, and satisfy the increasing demand for top-quality services,” said Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer designate, Bharti Airtel. “We are delighted with Nokia Siemens Networks’ proven expertise and deep understanding of our requirements along with the assurance of network infrastructure that helps us sustain our leadership edge in India.”

“The unprecedented growth in the Indian telecommunications sector is compelling telecom operators to offer compelling solutions,” said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer at Nokia Siemens Networks. “With this upgrade, Bharti Airtel can enhance network efficiency for a better end-user experience and, just as importantly, reduce the overall cost of owning and operating its network.”

Nokia Siemens Networks will deploy its energy-efficient network solutions, including Flexi multi-radio base stations, packet core platforms and microwave solutions for new and legacy networks to boost performance at a lower total cost of ownership and reduced carbon footprint.

The project will result in improvements to network capacity and spectral efficiency by employing a full range of services comprising network planning, implementation and optimization. Nokia Siemens Networks will also provide an operations and business management platform for the effective monitoring and management of the network. In addition, the company will ensure that Bharti Airtel’s core and transport network is 3G-ready in order to reduce time to market and enable the fast rollout of 3G services at a later date.

T-Mobile announces partnership with Swype brings swipe input to myTouch 3G

 

T-Mobile USA Inc. and Swype has announced a partnership whereby T-Mobile will be including the Swype keyboard across a number of its touch-based devices starting with myTouch 3G, T-Mobile’s latest Android-powered device which has already reached the market.

Swype is an innovative text input technology which works across a variety of operating systems, supports for over 30 languages and a range of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, televisions, and GPS units among others.

Mike McSherry, CEO, Swype said, “T-Mobile has always been on the forefront of introducing new devices and ground breaking technologies and now has embraced Swype’s stunningly responsive text input for its touch screen lineup”. He further continued “Launching on the Android platform is a major milestone for Swype as we continue to expand to new touch screen devices and platforms.”

Swype can run on both the Android and Windows Mobile platforms, and it is expected that Swype will become available on more platforms, devices and network operators over the coming year. The official launch of Swype on T-Mobile with the MyTouch 1.2 and HTC HD2 is expected this Spring.

Nokia N8 to Be Announced During MWC ?

Sources say that Nokia is said to unveil the Nokia N8 during MWC (Mobile World Congress) this month. The numbering system is mostly true since N7x is fully occupied and N9x is nearly full too.

The Nokia N8 is dubbed as Nokia’s next major release. Nokia claims it to have:

• A Simpler UI
• 3 Times the Performance
• Multi-Touch with Gestures

The Nokia N8 Features are rumoured to include:

• 3.5″ Touchscreen display with Multi-Touch and Gestures
• 1st phone WITH Symbian^3 OS
• 12 Megapixel Camera
• HD Ready (720p) Vido Recording at 30 FPS
• HDMI Output, Video on Demand Through OVI Store

There is also information regarding Nokia’s Letters that relate to the series:

• C: Lower End and Voice Based
• X: Entertainment Focused for the Young
• E: Dedicated for Business and emails
• N: High-End
• S: Very Upscale and Limited Phones

The C-Series Models set to be announced this month might include:

• Nokia C5-00 – Basic business device with GPS. Expected June.
• Nokia C3-00 – A low-cost multitasking Symbian S40 Qwerty device that run emails in the background.
• Nokia C5-01 – Qwerty device that’s a direct competitor to Blackberry.

USB 3.0 and Linux

 

“Ever get tired of Windows people proclaiming how their operating system has device support for this, that, and the other thing and Linux doesn’t? Well, now you have a perfect come-back. The newest, fast interface, USB 3.0 is out and only Linux has native support for it.

“Linux started supporting USB 3.0 in the September 2009 release of the 2.6.31 Linux kernel. Neither Windows 7 nor Snow Leopard currently supports USB 3. Windows support? That will have to wait for Windows 7 SP1 —whenever that shows up.

“Long before then, many USB 3.0 devices will have arrived. Some will doubtlessly have Windows drivers, but only Linux is USB 3.0 ready. USB 3.0, aka SuperSpeed USB, reaches new highs in PC peripheral speeds. USB 2.0 has a maximum throughput of 480Mbps (Megabits per second), which is fast — but these days, when you might want to move gigabytes of movies from one your PC to an external hard drive, it’s not fast enough. USB 3.0, by comparison, has a maximum throughput of 5 Gbps (Gigabits per second) .”

Apple IPad Tablet Launched

 

Apple Inc.will sell the newly unveiled tablet-style iPad starting at $499, a price tag far below the $1,000 that some analysts were expecting.
The iPad, which is larger in size but similar in design to Apple’s popular iPhone, was billed by CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday as “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone.”
Jobs, 54, a pancreatic cancer survivor who got a liver transplant during a 5 1/2-month medical leave last year, looked thin as he introduced the highly anticipated gadget, though he seemed to have more energy than he did at Apple’s last event in September.
The iPad has a 9.7-inch touch screen, is a half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and comes with 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of flash memory storage. It comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity built in. Jobs said the device has a battery that lasts 10 hours and can sit for a month on standby without needing a charge.
The basic iPad models will cost $499, $599 and $699, depending on the storage size, when it comes out worldwide in March.
Apple will also sell a version with data plans from AT&T Inc. in the U.S.: $14.99 per month for 250 megabytes of data, or $29.99 for unlimited usage. Neither will require a long-term service contract.
Those 3G iPad models will cost more — $629, $729 and $829, depending on the amount of memory — and will be out in April. International cellular data details have not yet been announced.


Apple had kept its “latest creation” tightly under wraps until Wednesday’s unveiling, though many analysts had correctly speculated that it would be a one-piece tablet computer with a big touch screen, larger than an iPhone but smaller than a laptop.
Raven Zachary, a contributing analyst with mobile researchers The 451 Group, considered the iPad a laptop replacement, especially because Apple is also selling a dock with a built-in keyboard.
Sitting on stage in a cozy leather chair, Jobs demonstrated how the iPad is used for surfing the Web with Apple’s Safari browser. The CEO typed an e-mail using an on-screen keyboard and flipped through photo albums by flicking his finger across the screen. He also showed off a new electronic book store and a book-reading interface that emulates the look of a paper book, putting the iPad in competition with Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle and other e-book readers.
Like iPods and the iPhone, the iPad can sync with Apple’s Macintosh and Microsoft’s Windows computers. Jobs said the iPad will also be better for playing games and watching video than either a laptop or a smart phone. Software coming with the iPad includes a calendar, maps, a video player and iPod software for playing music. All seem to have been slightly redesigned to take advantage of the iPad’s bigger screen.
Tablet computers have existed for a decade, with little success. Jobs acknowledged Apple will have to work to convince consumers who already have smart phones and laptops that they need this gadget.
“In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks,” Jobs said. “We think we’ve got the goods. We think we’ve done it.”
Specifications
Apat from the content backing news, an industry analyst has previosuly reported to Apple Tablet the possible specification sheet for the Apple Tablet to be launched very soon:

• Display:
  • 9.6? widescreen multi-touch display (by WinTek)
  • 1440-by-1050-pixel resolution at 489 ppi
  • Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.13GHz
• Memory: DDR2 2 GB @ 667 MHz
• Video: nVidia GeForce 9400M
• Storage: 64 GB flash drive
• Optical drive: Apple SuperDrive with DVD±RW and CD-RW
• Wireless:
  • Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
  • 3G: HSDPA (through AT&T)
  • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Location tools:
  • Assisted GPS (aGPS)
  • Digital compass
• Battery: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery (by DynaPak)
• Usage time:
  • Internet: up to 6 hours on 3G
  • Internet: up to 12 hours on Wi-Fi
  • Video playback: up to 12 hours
• Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
• Colors:
  • black with silver or
  • white with silver
• Software:
  • Mac OS X 10.6 with touch-enabled interface
• Price level:
  • $899  USD, 799 EUR