Google play launched as a one-stop entertainment hub (USA)
Google Play is a digital entertainment destination where users can find, enjoy and share their favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on their Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all the music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to the user, and without any worry about losing them or moving them again.
Google Play enables users to store up to 20,000 songs for free and buy millions of new tracks, download more than 450,000 Android apps and games, browse the world’s largest selection of eBooks and rent thousands of movies, including new releases and HD titles.
According to a company report, the Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore will become part of Google Play. On the Android phone or tablet, the Android Market app will be replaced by the Google Play Store app over the coming days. Further, the videos, books and music apps (in countries where they are available) will also be upgraded to Google Play Movies, Google Play Books and Google Play Music apps.
Aspiro and Telenor bring ‘WiMP’ music to Danish
Aspiro is all set to launch its ‘WiMP’ music streaming service in Denmark with Telenor by mid-April. With the launch, Aspiro will become the first music streaming service for PC, Mac and mobile of Denmark.
The Danish customers of Telenor will have access to the entire WiMP library via PC Linux and Android phones. The services will be available for 99 kroner (£12) per month for Telenor customers.
TMN unveils its very own Android phone (Portugal)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: TMN, Portugal based mobile operator has launched its very own Android mobile phone under the brand name, the ‘a1′. Besides providing a full range of Google services, access to e-mail, widgets, games, news and other mobile content are also offered by the handset on the Android Market and TMN’s Sapo portal.
The handset is available in two colors- blue and white. 3.5-inch touch screen, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and zoom, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, PC sync, a MP3 player, polyphonic ringtones and memory of up to 16GB are some of the other features of the device.
EUR 199.90 has been set as the price of the handset available at TMN shops and online. A promotional price of EUR 179.90 is also fixed by the operator until April 15.
China Unicom plans to remove Google search function from new Android phones
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The new Google’s Android operating system phones of Chinese mobile operator China Unicom might be removed of the Google search function in the near future. New search engines for the telco would be searched by the manufacturers of the Android handsets to use on their phones.
According to China Unicom president Lu Yimin, it was willing to co-operate with any firm that ‘abides by Chinese law’. The move can be represented as the first major fallout from the dispute between Google and the Chinese government over internet censorship.
The dispute has resulted in Google redirecting Chinese users of its web search engine to its site in Hong Kong.
Hearst’s announces entry into iPhone apps with LMK
Heart’s LMK launched various categories of iPhone applications covering a variety of topics including Lady Ganga, cupcakes and baseball players. These category specific applications known as LMK (Let Me Knowâ€) are priced starting at $0.99.
These applications can be easily downloaded from Apple’s App Store as well as through LMK.com and can be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch. LMK expects to expand its offering on a monthly basis.
The company has set up huge goals for itself which include expanding the aggregate service to other mobile platforms such as Google’s Android phones, or hand-held devices including the various e-Readers or Apple’s iPad. All these service are expected to reach the customers in April.
According to President of LMK, New York, Michael Gutowski, the company saw an interesting market opportunity to break through the clutter of Internet search results and build mobile products that curate, package and deliver the most authoritative content on subjects that matter to consumers.
This resulted into the introduction of LMK, a dynamic delivery platform now powering topic-specific iPhones applications, aggregating and presenting the most current and relevant facts, stories , photos related to each topic.
This platform is currently supporting over 70 iPhones apps and the company is all set to leverage it to support thousand of digital products.
Motorola CEOs continue to accept their pay cuts
Motorola is fighting for getting back its image of a giant mobile phone maker it once was. With the introduction of Android phones, the company has shown a clear sign of its way back to prominence. Also, in order to support the company one step further, co-CEO Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha have agreed to continue taking their voluntary salary cut of 25% for 2010.
Motorola is all set to make their long-awaited comeback in the mobile space with solid plans to divide the company into two separate publicly trade entities. While Sanjay Jha is expected to take his seat as the head of the Mobile devices and Home Businesses division, Greg Brown will rein the Motorola Enterprise unit.
Though the company has showed that they have the capability to be one of the formidable players in the smartphone space, the long-term success of the company will largely depend on its ability to continue to capture mindshare in the US and around the world. At present, Motorola Droid is considered to be a good step; but it won’t be enough to carry Moto through the next year.
Motorola brings Android to AT&T
With Motorola BACKFLIP hitting the market, AT&T breaks its record and plunges into the market with its first Android device. The highlight of the model as the name indicates is a MOTOBLUR skin with a full QWERTY keyboard.
The Motorola BACKFLIP is indeed a standard Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard on its back. Its features include 528MHz CPU, HVGA touchscreen, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM and a 5MP camera. The phone has a connectivity of 7.2Mbps HSDPA (and quad-band GSM/EDGE of course), WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.
This is just an example. AT&T is all set to get other Android devices beside the Motorola BLUR. The next to emerge is a Dell Phone, probably the Dell Mini 3iX and HTC phones(s).
The Motorola BACKFLIP is priced at 349 US dollars with no contract or 99 dollars after a 100 dollar mail-in rebate on a 2-year 30 dollar a month contract.
Four ZTE Android smartphones to be launched
ZTE is all set to change its low-cost handset maker image and enter into the business of higher smartphone market. Android-powered smartphones will supposedly be the next big target of this Chinese company. However, the latest venture to find its way to the market is 4ZTE phones. These phones are expected to circulate even outside China.
ZTE Smooth, the Palm Pre like device has features like Android 1.6, 2.8-inch QVGA display, QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM radio, and 3g (UMTS) connectivity. ZTE Blade is another high-end device and has features like Bluetooth, Android 1.6, WiFi, FM radio, GSM/UMTS connectivity and 3.5-inch WVGA touchscreen.
ZTE Racer another Android 1.6 phone will have 3G, WiFi, GPS, and 2.-inch QVGA while ZTE Mercury, which is a look-alike of HTC Hero comes with 3.2-inch HVGA display, GPS and EDGE data.
The only problem these Android phones are expected to come across is the distribution otherwise ZTE is super committed to Android. The ZTE Smartphones will soon be popping on every comer of Europe and US.
Motorola introduces new Android Phone
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The QUENCH- an Android based smartphone has been announced by Motorola. The handset will be available next month exclusively through T-Mobile USA under the brand name CLIQ XT in USA. 5 megapixel camera, along with voice-activated search are supported by the phone and the price is yet to be announced.
According to Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices and Home business, QUENCH with MOTOBLUR showcases Motorola’s design heritage by offering a compelling differentiation from the traditional Android experience, giving people an easier way to have more messaging, more Web and more music.
