Facebook is looking at mobile to boost usage

Facebook with more than a billion monthly active users worldwide, is looking at India to scale up its already dominant position. It plans to ramp up mobile access functionalities and partnerships with carriers. 

In India, there are 71 million monthly active users as of December 31, 2012, an increase of 54% compared to the same period in 2011. 

Brazil is the other country that has shown a similar spike: 67 million monthly active users as of December 31, 2012, up 81%. As many as 82% of Facebook's monthly active users are outside the US and Canada. 

Other internet giants too have similar strategies. Yahoo under Marissa Mayer as CEO has been acquiring startups working on portable devices. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt during his recent visit to Delhi spoke of how mobiles and Android platform will be the game changer. 

Facebook had launched the "mobile first" initiative a couple of years back, and now it has been modified to "mobile best". Kevin D'Souza, country growth manager, Facebook India, outlined the company's strategy: 

How big is Facebook on mobile? 

There has been a 57% increase in number of monthly average users of FB mobile products from 432 million in December 2011 to 680 million in December 2012. The number of active users checking the site on mobile devices has surpassed the number of people checking the site on desktops. 

It's not surprising since mobile is the most social and engaging device. It's always on, it's always with you, it has great networking features, it talks to you by way of notifications. 

We have also seen that someone who uses only the desktop platform has only a 40% likelihood of using Facebook on a given day. But someone who uses mobile has a 70% likelihood of using Facebook. We have also seen many people logging in with their phone number rather than email ID. 

What is driving the growth? 

We have seen great traction in Facebook Messenger. It scores over traditional SMS in many ways. You can send a photo, either by choosing one from the gallery or after taking one with the camera. You can send a recorded voice message, a boon for people not comfortable with English. Unlike SMS, you can know if the receiver has read your message. 

How are you overcoming infrastructure issues? 

For low-bandwidth situations, and feature phones with small screens, Facebook has optimized apps and user experience. It works in such a way that all the data lies in the server and transmission is faster, saving on data cost. 

What about people who don't have a data plan? 

There is Facebook SMS that allows them to update status and get notification and reply to messages via text. The USSD app is very popular with pre-paid users for checking balance. They can access FB via that as well. 

But data plans are not very cheap... 

To overcome pricing issues, Facebook has tied up with telecom companies like Airtel and Reliance to make access free or at a concessional rate for a limited time, so that consumers are able to get a feel of the functionality at very less cost.

Galaxy S4 vs iPhone 5 vs HTC One

Galaxy S4, the new flagship smartphone of the South Korean tech giant is almost the same as its predecessor Galaxy S3 in terms of form factor. Altohugh the South Korean giant has made it a point to bring some changes in the mighty successor. For instance, it is slightly thinner than S3 despite of packing a powerful 2,600 mAh battery.

It is for sure that Galaxy S4 has some impressive specifications including the full HD 1080p display, octa core processor and a many others, but, at the end of the day, consumers need solid battery backup, which is very important to perform all the operations without any hassle.

Keeping the importance of the battery in mind, GSMArena has come up with an extensive battery testing of Galaxy S4 and has come up with impressive results.

When compared with the competitors, Galaxy S4 has scored better and has managed to come at the top of all three tests conducted including talk time, web browsing and video playback. Out of the two variants of Galaxy S4 including Snapdragon 600 processor and not the Exynos 5 Octa based model, the report noted that only the former variant for involved in the test.

Galaxy S4 vs iPhone 5 vs HTC One: Battery Test

While, Galaxy S4 battery life was compared to the potential of more than 20 different mobile phones, but only few in the market match up with the heavyweight in terms of specs. Especially iPhone 5 and HTC One are the direct rivals to the S3 successor. Hence, when the Galaxy S4 was tested in terms of battery - based on talktime, video playback and web browsing categories - HTC One and iPhone 5 were the nearest contenders as compared to other smartphone models.

However, Samsung new flagship beat them all with a score of 63 hours endurance rating, which means, how long the battery will last between charges on average usage of one hour calling, web browsing and video playback every day.

According to the report, in the talk time test, Galaxy S4 battery offered 13 hours 53 minutes of talk time, which was on par with the talk time offered by the battery in HTC One and better than that in iPhone 5. Wheres, HTC One managed 13 hours 38 minutes of talk time, while iPhone 5 was wavering at the bottom with 8 hours 42 minutes of talk time.

In the web browsing test, the results were completely opposite, as HTC One came out to be a winner in this category with 9 hours 58 minutes of browsing time, followed by iPhone 5 falling short by few minutes scoring 9 hours 56 minutes. However, Galaxy S4 lagged behind by an hours time, scoring only 8 hours 42 minutes of battery life, when it came to web browsing.

In terms of video playback, S4 scored marginally better numbers than its stiff competitors with a longevity of 10 hours and 16 minutes of life. While, iPhone 5 and HTC One were just few minutes behind.

Hence, in terms of battery it can be said that Galaxy S4 is a good performer in individual categories with all the credits going to its efficient standby. But not to forget, that HTC One and iPhone 5 have proved to be sturdy rivals to the Samsung flagship, especially after this battery test.

Internet connectivity in India likely to stay affected for two weeks

Internet connectivity is likely to stay affected for the next two weeks in India as three undersea cables have suffered multilple cuts, according to a report by Livemint. The report quotes a Bharti Airtel spokesperson who informed that there have been multiple fibre cuts on SMW4, IMEWE and EIG cable systems, disrupting communication traffic between India and Europe. The spokesperson added that Bharti Airtel was working with the cable consortium for restoring services and that data traffic would be routed on alternate routes, while voice traffic had been already normalised. 

It also quotes a Tata Communications spokesperson who confirmed that the SMW4 cable system suffered a cut but mentioned that the company has taken other measures to reroute customers minimising service disruption and that the restoration of the cable is under way. Bharti Airtel is part of the consortium that manages all the three cables while Tata Communications looks after SMW4 and IMEWE cables. 

The SMW4(South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4) cable connects Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France, while the IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) cable goes through Mumbai, Karachi, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Italy and France.The EIG(Europe India Gateway) connects Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman and the UAE. 

The Livemint report also clarifies that services offered by Reliance Communications and BSNL have not been affected.

As we reported earlier the Internet has been majorly affected since the last two days with cable cuts, outages and a cyber war going on between two Internet companies. 

While the cause of the cuts is still not clear reports indicate that three divers were caught by Egypt's coastguard trying to cut through an undersea Internet cable. 

One of the other major reasons for the slowdown was a tiff between Spamhaus, a group fighting spam and Cyberbunker, a Dutch company that hosts Web sites said to be sending spam that led to one of the largest computer attacks on the Internet, causing widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world. 

Sony Xperia TX gets Android Jelly Bean update

         Sony has begun updating its Xperia TX Android smartphones to Jelly Bean, but anyone hoping to see the very latest 4.2 release appear on their handsets will be disappointed to learn that they are only getting Android 4.1.2.

While not the Android 4.2 release that adds features such as the PhotoSphere panorama camera mode, the update is still a version of Google's Jelly Bean OS and includes a raft of improvements over the device's previous Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich version, including performance boosts and a better notification system.

The update is believed to be the same as the one that rolled out for the Xperia T, including updates to Sony's own-brand Walkman, Album and Movies packages that improve the user interface and make them easier to use. The move to Jelly Bean also brings improved home screen features, extra resizable widgets and up to seven desktop panes, along with improvements to how apps can be organised in the App Drawer and into trays of linked applications.

While the Xperia T's update also brought with it improvements to the functionality of the rear-facing camera, including an improved viewfinder with auto-scene setting and the option to switch between front and back camera with a single touch, it is not yet known whether those improvements have made it across to the Xperia TX - although given the similarity between the two handsets, it's almost certain that they have.

For Xperia TX owners that want to upgrade their handsets to the new software release, the update can be downloaded and installed using Sony's PC Companion software now, with an over-the-air update likely to appear in the near future for those who would prefer to wait to be prompted.

Ericsson reportedly in talks to buy Microsoft's TV software unit

Ericsson is in talks to buy Microsoft Corp's IPTV business, which makes software used by phone companies such as AT&T to deliver television over the Internet, Bloomberg reported, quoting people with knowledge of the matter.

Bloomberg said the transaction could be announced as soon as the coming few weeks.

Both Microsoft and Ericsson declined to comment on the report.

Internet protocol television (IPTV) uses the same technology that powers the Internet to transmit multimedia content over telecom and cable networks.

Ericsson, the largest maker of wireless networks, wants to cater to phone companies that are competing with cable, satellite and web-based media providers.

Microsoft, the biggest software maker, intends to focus on delivering TV through its Xbox games console, a person familiar with the plans told Bloomberg.

Microsoft's website says its Mediaroom IPTV platform is offered by more than 40 of the world's leading operators, delivering services to more than eleven million households.

Aakash makers Datawind launch new UbiSlate tablet for Rs 5,999

Datawind, the manufacturers of the low cost Aakash tablet, have just launched a new tablet called the UbiSlate 7C+Edge which is available online for Rs 5,999

The tab which is an upgrade of the companies Ubislate range, comes with 512 MB of Ram, as well as 4GB flash memory and a processor speed of 1Ghz. It runs on Android 4.0.3 which is Ice Cream Sandwich, and features an in house browser called Ubisurfer, which the company claims is based on 18 international patents.

Official Datawind image of the Ubislate tab

The device also comes with a front VGA camera, supports micro-SD and Mini-USB ports and can be used to make calls. The internal storage can be expanded to 32GB via Micro SD slot.

While there are many other Android based tablets in the market which offer much better features and specifications, the new Datawind tab is significant, because according to Think Digit, it is likely that the next iteration of the Aakash tablet is going to look very similar to this device.

The specifications of the Aakash 2 which was launched recently are also very similar to this latest tablet.

ThinkDigit reported that online retailer SnapDeal was selling the device online. However Datawind says the tablet is out of stock – which is quite similar to the fate of the Aakash 2, which is well behind its contractual obligation to supply one lakh Aakash tablets to IIT Bombay by 31 March.