Apple's latest iPhone has gone down very well with Indian consumers. The Economic Times reports that the company is setting a sales goal of Rs.1000 crore in Q3. This goal if fulfilled will make it one of the most successful smartphone launches in the country. The goal is double the sales of the iPhone 5 in the same quarter last year.

Apple's iPhone 5S has been doing really well since its launch worldwide. The iPhone features the new and redesigned iOS 7. The price of the new iPhones is high and yet consumers in the country are not paying attention to that, inspite of India being a price conscious market. The current prices for the iPhone 5S are Rs. 53,500 for the 16GB model, Rs. 62,500 for the 32GB model and Rs. 71,500 for the 64GB model.

The company has also been pushing for the iPhone 5C, which is a colorful and customizable version of the smartphone and has a plastic outer body. Even though there has been a strong marketing and advertising push, estimated to be around Rs.25 crore for both the phones, the iPhone 5C doesn't yet have the same demand as the iPhone 5S. This is similar to the global situation where the iPhone 5S is performing better than the iPhone 5C.

India is definitely an Android market in terms of volume and the price consciousness. However, there are many consumers who are willing to spend more for the Apple's sleek designed products. Apple has not paid India much attention since the launch of the original iPhone. This will be the first time that the company is looking to focus in a substantial way on Indian sales.

Vendor partnerships with Aircel, Reliance and Airtel are also helping the phone reach more awareness. Contract deals being offered by network operators such as Reliance actually have the potential to work when it comes to the latest iPhone. However, contract deals did not succeeded as a concept in India. This is probably because these deals did not offer much value to the customer. The newer deals such as the Reliance one are much better.

With Apple increasing its attention towards the country, erstwhile leader Samsung and other companies will have to prepare for a new battle towards smartphone supremacy.

Source | ET

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Youth oriented music and lifestyle television network MTV, has launched Web–Only Series consisting for short–duration episodes, or as they are sometimes referred to as webisodes.

Christened 'Saturday Night, Alright!', these exclusive web-only series will be an online show targeting youngsters. MTV has partnered with McDowell's No. 1 soda and the duo will jointly promote, as well as air the episodes on their respective online digital platforms and social media properties.

MTV, who is the creative engine behind the endeavor, has planned only 12 such episodes and each will have a run–time of mere 10–12 minutes. Such a short duration will ensure the content manages to hold on the youth audience and keep the audience’s interest levels intact, clarified a Press Release from MTV. Coincidentally, MTV claims its digital platform and web properties currently manage to reach out and engage over 20 Million people.

MTV's attempt appears to go in the opposite direction as to how the content is presently flowing. Televised Content is being recycled via online as well as mobile applications. Though it is quite evident that television still controls the highest amount of viewer–time, the scales are shifting. Today's mobile population is eagerly switching over to the portable screen; or as it is technically referred to as Second–Screen Phenomenon.

Under such dynamically altering conditions, it is perhaps a very wise move for MTV to launch a web–only series that is bound to further enhance value of its web–properties, reasoned Ekalavya Bhattacharya, Head – MTV Digital, "We mapped that the video content consumption patterns of the urban, digitally active audience has increased substantially over the past few years and we wanted to tap this trend by serving content that this specially tailored for this group. Mix this with some drinks over the flavour of friendship and we hope to be serving you some really cool content. With SNA we foray into the world of web-fiction."

MTV is not alien to the concept of using online and social media metrics to shape and steer televised content. It's Reality TV based series 'Roadies' relied heavily on Sentiment Analysis of the Social Conversations regarding the contestants and the ones with the maximum social conversations / engagement were ensured additional air time!

Churning out web–exclusive content, could suggest that the content generators may be considering having two separate streams of content. But close observation indicates that such gimmicks are deployed to augment online properties and ensure more virtual footfall, accompanied by organic traction on the Social Media. What do you think?

Image Source: medianama

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Gmail's quick action buttons, which the company announced this May, are designed to speed up tasks while you are checking your mail. The problem with email is that while it is a necessity, tonnes of mails end up obscuring the links, documents and other things that users want to do. For example, if a mail has a link to a video, you have to open the mail, click the link and then watch the video in another tab. This takes a lot of time, if you do this all the time and also distracts you from your tasks.

Quick actions buttons are about taking the action straight from your inbox. Special mails like flight check-ins, videos, invitations etc, can have buttons right in the inbox which allow you to take action. Today, Gmail has announced that they have added quick action buttons for Youtube, Drive, Dropbox and other US services like Seamless and Opentable. With these buttons you can directly take an action from your inbox in the least possible time.

Here's an example of the quick action buttons in your mail.

While this is good, we can definitely make do with more such buttons, especially those of the Indian online services that we use. Google has said that developers can add customized buttons to their mails. Details are given on their developer page (linked to below). If Indian companies like BookMyShow, Zomato, Flipkart etc. build quick action buttons for their mails, it would be a stronger call to action. Many people avoid mails from companies, thinking them to be promotional. If the mail is titled appropriately and combined with a quick action button, it would make more of an impact on the user while saving them time.

Link | Gmail Developers

Source | Official Gmail Blog

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Google Glass is about to get musical. Google’s prestigious Google Glass project is all set to get features that will let users interact with music. According to reports, users will be able to search for songs, scan through saved playlists and listen to music, all by issuing vocal commands to Google Glass.

The search engine giant plans to add a new voice command, “OK Glass…listen to,” which will let users listen to tunes from Google’s online music services, Google Play Music and All Access. Commands such as “take a picture” or “send a message to..” are already present on the Glass. The report also says that Google will be introducing a set of earbud headphones for Glass, which will go on sale by the end of this month for $85.

Music play integration is expected to be added over the next two weeks. The wearer simply says the name of an artist or song and results will be streamed from the Play store. Users can also link Glass to their Play account, giving them access to playlists and song recommendations based on what they have listened to in the past. While only Google’s music service will initially be available on Glass, eventually third party apps are expected to offer competing music products.

“With these new features, we’re now building a great music experience on Glass, whether you’re a classical music professor, an acclaimed sound engineer and hip-hop producer, or someone who wants to listen to their favourite tunes anytime, anywhere”, said Ed Sanders, Director of Marketing for Google Glass in a statement.

Glass is one of the products that have emerged from Google X, the company’s research division that works on long-term, potentially risky projects including self-driving cars and providing Internet Wi-Fi to remote locations from high-altitude balloons. In August, Google announced that Google Glass public release will be delayed till 2014. However, last month, Google opened its doors to the developers for the Google glass project.

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In a rather surprising turn of events, Social Networking leader Facebook, is feeling the pinch from relatively newer internet based instant messaging platforms, led by WhatsApp.

Facebook has acknowledged a decrease in its daily users; especially youngsters aged 14-19, who have started preferring mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat, over the social networking giant. Interestingly, these young users aren't leaving the site, but the engagement factor seems to have reduced significantly as these kids continue to interact over these instant messaging apps.

What do Apps like WhatsApp offer that Facebook can't?
Facebook is certainly a whole ecosystem of communication & interaction. However, there is a certain level of uncertainty surrounding the platform, since there have been instances of accounts being hacked & personal information stolen. However, with messaging platforms offered by WhatsApp simply cannot suffer such a fate. This is because, one gets to connect with people who already exist in their phone book.

Essentially, with apps like WhatsApp, there is an additional level of pre-verification to the incoming as well as outgoing messages. If you have saved a person's mobile phone number, it is implied that you are aware of that person & in turn, the identity's authenticity.

One other major reason for the rapid adoption of apps like WhatsApp is that these offer an ultra-simplistic method of communication. While Facebook launched its mobile endeavors in phases, WhatsApp offered a purely mobile driven communication experience that required no sign-up pre-requisites. A smartphone capable of installing & running WhatsApp app & a working GSM Connection was all that is required (initially) to start using these instant messaging apps. If that's not all, apps like WhatsApp, WeChat offer a pure, advertising-free environment, whereas Facebook is eagerly minting money from its mobile centric activities.

WhatsApp's growth is truly remarkable, but as with all such platforms, will it start witnessing user fatigue?

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Google has finally launched its App Translation service for app developers. Announced at its Google I/O conference in May this year, the service enables app developers to hire professional translators through Google who would then translate their app into however many languages they needed.

“We were happy to see that many developers expressed interest in the App Translation Service pilot program, and it has been well received by those who have participated so far, with many repeat customers”, Google wrote in Android Developers’ Blog. Developers can sign up to have their app translated through the Google Play Developer Console. From there, you must include the project name, the source language and which languages you want your app localized for. In case of new developers, Google will even provide some metrics to help you find which languages similar apps have found success in.

Prior to the service, app developers had to find translation firms on their own which resulted in loss of time and money. However, with the App Translation Service which is now open to all developers, they only need to supply a list of strings they want translated and they will receive the translated text right in the console, hassle-free.

According to the blog post, the service ranges from about $75 to $150 depending upon the size of  the app. We think that the service is an easy and relatively inexpensive way for app developers to rech to a broader market. Google says that 1.5 million Android devices are activated every day and the vast majority of those smartphones and tablets go to countries where English is not the first language.

Source: tnw

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A new artificial intelligence software is about to hit the AI scene. It is already creating waves because this time it is not a robot that understands and responds, or a machine that automates some procedure, or a device that could guide you; this time, it is a servant, a butler that hears your voice and obeys you. It is the aspect of artificial intelligence that has captured the imagination of the masses, a machine aid. Michael Ghandour is the developer and producer of the program that is in light and the developer is looking for funding.

The project is called "mako" and it understands what its maker says in the introductory video. AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication and ability to move objects but this project concentrates primarily on the first few mentioned.

Artificial intelligence has been talked about a lot in science fiction. Robots that think on their own is a distant thought but right now, efforts are being made to achieve human to machine or human to software interaction that is meaningful. There are a lot of breakthroughs that happened in the last decade. Kismet is the MIT developed robot that could display emotions. It has a face and could receive the voice signal from a user or human and respond with an appropriate expression that suits the situation. A similar project is the MDS robot that also displays expressions. These machines are termed as social machines and are considered to be the foundation of I-robot like futuristic robot possibilities.

Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity (A.L.I.C.E.), an award-winning natural language processing chatterbot is an example of language manipulation and recognition, the science of inputting voice commands. Apple's Siri was developed by Nuance and it created waves. It was hailed as a near perfect aid for smartphones. This is just one developer releasing an introductory video of what could possibly be a revolutionary algorithm, an approach to artificial intelligence. Imagine Honda's Asimov fitted with this technology. The result would be a humanoid no-complaint servant that would obey and deliver. What do you think?

Source: techtree

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One rarely expects Wikipedia to launch new features for their product. It is extremely functional and minimal but the website does look a bit dated. However, since it is a non-profit and a free resource for the world to consumer, one can understand how they would not give much attention to user facing features. However, the Wikimedia, the organization that runs Wikipedia has announced that they will be launching some beta features which users can test before they are deployed on a massive scale.

Wikimedia wants this beta features section to be a digital lab in the spirit of Google Labs for Gmail. The most important aspect of this is the organization can get responses to new ideas and tailor the experience accordingly. Users will have to sign up for the beta program.

Here are some of the first few features in the beta program,

1. Modern media viewer:

Images on Wikipedia open up on a new page by default. This is a dated way of displaying images and can break the concentration of person who is in the middle of an article. The new media viewer which is being planned, will open the image on the same page in an overlay of the article page. This will be easier, faster and less distracting than the previous implementation.

2. Visual Editor:

Editing Wikipedia is not easy. While it is true that it is easily accessible, learning the wiki code may put off many people. If you want a large number of people to contribute then you have to remove the barriers to access. Thus, Wikipedia has a new visual editor which doesn't require users to know the code. Those of you who use wordpress can liken it to the visual editor that it ships with.

3. Formula Editing On Visual Editor:

With this feature, you can add mathematical formula and notations through the visual editor. This is very useful for educational articles in Science, Mathematics etc.

4. Typography:

The organization is paying more attention to the typography being used on the web. This beta feature brings a change in the font and type to make content more readable. This new change puts Serif fonts in section headings  and san serif in the body copy.

All of these features are opt-in and will be available soon for early testers who have an account.

Link | Wikipedia Beta Features

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TV18 and Viacom18′s content asset monetization joint venture IndiaCast, has tied–up with online video streaming service Spuul. The association will enable online streaming of selective content from IndiaCasts's Colors and MTV Channels via Spuul's Streaming Platform.

Spuul had signed a deal with IndiaCast earlier this year, to secure streaming rights for over 60 current and upcoming Hindi and regional movie titles along with content of 20 Indian Channels. However, the company confirms that the current deal is independent of the previous one and is certainly not an extension.

What will Spuul feature?
Subscribers to Spuul's network will not be getting the privilege of enjoying shows merely 30 minutes post their broadcasts. This is worth a mention since Spuul already has a tie–up with Star TV India with exactly the same arrangement.

Though not real–time (almost), both the free as well as paid subscribers will now have access to popular broadcasts like Comedy Nights with Kapil, Balika Vadhu, Uttaran, Sanskaar, Bani, Madhubala and Sasural Simar Ka and MTV India shows like Timeout with Imam and Webbed on the web and Spuul's mobile apps across iOS and Android. However, only old episodes of the broadcasts will be made available. Under such restrictions, it could turn out to be a mundane offering since Colors and MTV India already offer full-length episodes for free on its respective websites and YouTube channels.

Though there is content repetition and in fact, competition too, between the content provider's own online channels and Spuul, both the parties have something to gain, shared Anuj Gandhi, group CEO, IndiaCast Media Distribution, "IndiaCast gets an opportunity to expand the channels’ distribution to other digital platforms. On the other hand, Spuul gets vibrant content."

Spuul is competing with global players like Google's YouTube, which now features a huge amount of Indian Content, Zee's Ditto TV, Multi Screen Media's Sony LIV, among others. Against such a line–up of rivals, Spuul will have to lay its hands on whatever content, to enhance and augment its offering, whether it is found elsewhere on the internet or not. What do you think?

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While selective regions in the vast Indian sub–continent may boast of high number of internet and broadband subscribers, the overall scenario is a big cause of concern, lamented Department of Telecom (DoT) in its latest pan-India teledensity report.

Owing to the exceptionally poor growth in rural teledensity, India is bound to miss its target of 175 Million broadband subscribers by 2017, cautioned DoT. With just 16 Million Broadband users till date, the target seems fairly unattainable, and the situation is getting scarier. The major part of India, i.e. the rural areas, is home to an astonishing 70% of the population, whereas the rest is scattered unevenly in Tier I and II urban cities and towns.

However, as far as Broadband usage is concerned, majority of the same is densely clustered only in the urban areas, whereas the rural regions do not even have basic internet connectivity. As per DoT's July 2013 report, rural teledensity was at a modest 41.64% compared to 146% in urban areas. But what is even more disturbing is the fact that the growth appears stagnated as teledensity registered a growth rate of barely 3% since last year when it was 39%.

Why such a skewed scenario?
Traditionally, telecom companies have been focusing most of their resources to garner customers and market share in urban areas. Additionally, even high number of wired broadband service providers, are found in these cities, whereas, the rural regions were neglected.

Now that the urban markets have become saturated, telecom companies are trying to spread their operations in the rural regions in the hopes of enhancing their revenue streams. But it is certainly an uphill task since rural regions have acute problems of basic infrastructural facilities like roads, power and transport, lamented DoT. All the hurdles combined result in "higher telecom infrastructure rollout costs in rural markets, low-Average Revenue Per User [ARPU], limited optical fibre network reach and wide income disparities" shared the apex body.

What can be done?
Thankfully, Govt. itself is trying hard to bring broadband connectivity to rural regions via multiple projects, in which BSNL is playing a crucial role. However, the Govt. needs to be more liberal with funds allocation to the company, in order to expedite the multitude of projects. What do you think?

Image Source: ib

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Flipboard is embracing e-commerce by launching a new shoppable catalog feature. The social magazine app for iOS and Android is enabling people to create catalogs. “Now you can discover, collect and buy products via Flipboard and create your own catalogs”, announced Flipboard in a company blog post. Prior to this update, magazine creators could only curate editorial content.

In order to create your own catalouge a user will have to install ‘Flip it’ browser button which lets you pull web content into a Flipboard magazine that can be viewed in the app or on the web. The new tool will allow individual users and brands to display their gift wish lists and highlight their favorite products in a catalog-like format. The digital catalogs include links so the products can be purchased by anyone browsing through the selections on Flipboard’s application on iOS and Android.

"User studies show that people want to shop on Flipboard, and since the introduction of magazine curation, one of the most received requests is to add products to a magazine," Flipboard chief executive Mike McCue said in a statement. The 90 million user social magazine app touted that brands like Banana Republic, Fab, BirchBox and eBay will be able to create their own shoppable catalogs to promote their products. These catalogs, along with those curated by the Flipboard staff, will be featured in a new shopping category on the platform. The company has also teamed with celebrities including fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, singer Sara Evans, chef Daniel Boulud and actress Alyssa Milano.

Flipboard, which raised $50 million in a Series C funding round in September, does not earn revenue off the sales of products from the catalogs. The new social catalouge feature brings Flipboard in competition with fashion-oriented aggregator Pinterest. However, it remains to be seen how much Flipboard will benefit from this update as it will become something more than a mere place to browse for magazines.

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Google has released an exciting new way for people to tell stories to anyone around the world by using Google Earth. The new product is called Tour Builder and lets you use Google Earth and related services to give you the ability to build rich, visual and experiential presentations.

Creating a tour is very simple. You are dropped into a tool resembling a presentation builder. You have to then search the map and fix placemarks. You can add rich media such as photos, videos, Street Views and 3D views depending on your choice. You can also describe each every stop, picture, video etc. to give out as much information as possible.

The tool is super easy to use and has great potential in visual communication mediums like interactive teaching, presentations, journalism etc. The best part is that since it is user generated content, you could use it pretty much in any way that you would want.

Tour Builder requires the installation of the Google Earth Plugin and works only on Windows and Mac OS X.

Here is a video which shows how Tour Builder can be used for teaching,

There are many other tours that are available in their Gallery. Check them out here.

Source | Google LatLong Blog

Via | The Next Web

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Another mobile browser has begun paying attention to India. Dolphin Browser is a very popular browser which introduced some very innovative features before Chrome for Mobile came out. It even had web app support on the mobile desktop before Chrome for Android launched this feature. Even though Chrome may be all the rage right now, Dolphin has been very efficient in our experience. It works well on mid-end and low-end hardware compared to Chrome. It also has quite a bit of helpful plugins and features such as gestures which provides a fast and personalized browsing experience.

The company has recently announced their foray into Indian market by rolling out a customized version of the browser. Avenues for localization may include language localization, India focused web app support on its web app store, sports data and other search partnerships. The company has forged many partnerships abroad with many prominent companies. While the company has not said much about who it will be partnering with, it does face some serious competition from existing browsers like Opera, UC Web, One Browser etc.

Edith Yeung, VP of Business Development at Dolphin said,

"India is the third largest smartphone market in the world, with an estimated 67 million subscribers and is growing four times faster than the global average. We are very excited to be here and definitely want to better tailored Dolphin for the Indian market."

Dolphin might also push for the enterprise version of its browser called Dolphin Business. This version of the browser supports secure browsing, desktop sync, collaboration, gestures and all its other features.

The company says that it has surpassed 80 million installations and is looking to grow in new emerging markets, especially India, given the potential of the mobile internet scenario over here.

If you haven't heard of Dolphin before, do check out their website which lists its features.

Website | Dolphin Browser

Via | Yourstory

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Tata Docomo has reportedly tied up with Hungama Mobile and is going to provide its pre-paid users with access to unlimited music. This new VAS service is being called Endless Music and will let users listen to music for a set period of time depending on the recharge done. Customer will have to visit a Tata Docomo retail store to get this service activated.

Here is the breakdown,

1. 300 minutes of music with a validity of 30 days on a RC 46 recharge.

2. 600 minutes of music with a validity of 30 days on a RC 92 recharge.

3. 1000 minutes of music  with a validity of 60 days on a RC 131 recharge.

The recharges can be only done via Electronic Voucher Distribution (EVD). The service is available for all phones – both basic ones and smartphones. Once the service is activated, users will have to dial 59090, which is a toll free number, to listen to the music. The service will expire once the validity or the minutes are over and will not be renewed automatically. This seems to be a smart of way getting people with basic phones to access new and favorite music. Users can also set a track they come across as their caller tune by paying additional charges. It seems that the service is particularly targeted at people who live outside major cities so that they can access the latest music in an easy and affordable way.

Rishimohan Malhotra, Head of VAS Marketing at Tata Docomo spoke about the new service,

"We have been investing in developing alternate channels of discovery to deliver content and offerings across all available physical, virtual and digital resources. The launch of Endless Music service via EVD is in keeping with Tata Docomo's tradition of transparent transactions and customer satisfaction which shall meet the individual needs and requirements of our consumers. Through this service which is NON auto renewable, Tata Docomo aims at changing the way music is sold & consumed thus reinventing the way our customers experience music. With the launch of this service, our customers can now access the best of the Bollywood & regional music content with thousands of songs to choose from."

It seems carriers are now paying a lot of attention to music services as part of their offerings. Just yesterday, we wrote about how Idea Cellular has tied up with Dhingana to provide its Android users with unlimited music downloads. Music consumption has been very high here in India due to the rise of mobile internet and streaming services like Gaana, Dhingana, Saavn and Hungama. A few years back, accessibility to new and diverse music was very poor and many resorted to illegal means to get their fix. It is nice to know that the Indian music industry and carriers are making it more accessible to people so that one does not have to break the law to listen to music that one likes.

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