Gmail,Blackberry emails can not be tracked: DoT (India)
India’s telecom regulator Department of Telecom (DoT) has revealed that Google’s Gmail and email services running on BlackBerry among 15 communication services cannot be tracked. It stated that the only option for this is to build capabilities of intelligence agencies to monitor and intercept these technologies.
According to reports citing DoT, monitoring and interception in most countries is carried out by security agencies on their own and the role of mobile operators is limited to providing feedback.
The department’s stance is in contrast to that of the home ministry, which has put the onus on mobile operators to prove that all services and facilities on their networks can be tracked on a real-time basis.
It added that the ultimate solution to deal with the problem of intercepting encrypted communication, which uses internet, is that the security agencies build capabilities of decrypting the intercepted communication. The home ministry must now decide if India should ban such communications or live with them.
Among the services listed by the DoT were video chats, internet telephony calls, mails on Motorola, Nokia and handsets running Windows Mobile.
DoT further stated that mobile phones companies cannot introduce encryption on their own, nor were they supposed to know the contents of data flowing on their networks, thus throwing the ball in the home ministry’s court.
Navteq buys Traffic Camera Alerts Service
Navteq, Nokia’s digital mapping subsidiary, has confirmed that it is acquiring the traffic camera tracking service, Trapster.
The company has 9.4 million users and enables its customers to share locations of police road checks and road hazards. The Trapster application currently runs on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm devices.
Trapster can use Wi-Fi or GPS to pinpoint the user’s current location and send them audio alerts or text messages when they are approaching a ticket threat.
According to Navteq spokesperson, Navteq believes that community-generated data has a critical part to play in location content. It’s a small deal, even by Navteq standards.
Verizon Wireless Launches ‘Mobile Recovery’ Service
If reports are to be believed, the nation’s number one carrier,Verizon Wireless will be launching a mobile recovery service suitably named as ‘Mobile Recovery’.
Alike services, ‘Mobile Recovery’ will basically allow customers to track their device’s location through GPS, sound alarms, remotely lock their phone, and remotely wipe the data on their phone.
The service will be available to Total Equipment Coverage (TEC) subscribers who have a Android, Windows Mobile, webOS, or BlackBerry smartphone.
As per the reports, once registered in TEC, which is complete coverage against loss, theft, accidental damage and defects after the manufacturer’s warranty expires; customers can visit www.MyMobileRecovery.com to download the Mobile Recovery application, or SMS getmr to 6967 for download instructions.
Virgin Mobile India inks deal with GetJar to offer apps catalogue to consumers
Virgin Mobile India has joined hands with GetJar, an independent mobile phone application store , to provide applications from GetJar’s App Catalogue Express.
Through the deal, Virgin Mobile customers will have the access to applications varying from games, social networking, entertainment, food, health, lifestyle and other helpful applications.
Applications like Yahoo, Nimbuzz, Opera Mini Browser and such applications can now be downloaded in all major handsets, like Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Java and Symbian phones.
Virgin Mobile subscribers can visit m.virginin.getjar.com to get GetJar’s applications. This link is presently available on Virgin Mobile India’s WAP portal on GSM platform in sixteen circles, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Chennai, Kerala, Orissa, Mumbai and Maharashtra, Kolkata and West Bengal, Haryana, Bihar, MP&CG, Punjab, UP (E) and UP (W).
Virgin Mobile India users can download all applications free of cost. Only the data browsing charges of INR 0.01 per kb will be charged.
Microsoft senior executive Balch to retire
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that Robbie Balch, chief of the company’s Entertainment and Devices division is retiring. Both Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console business and its smartphone and mobile business had been looked after by Balch for the better part of a decade. No replacement of Balch will be appointed but the two executives who head both units will report directly to Ballmer.
For the chief of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business (MCB), Andrew Lees that clears the decks for him to take whatever steps he wants with respect to the radically redesigned Windows Phone operating system, the most visible of the company’s mobile offerings.
Longtime rivals such as Research in Motion had outclassed, out-developed and out-marketed Microsoft. Even worse, brand-new mobile platforms, first Apple’s widely successful iPhone and then Google’s Android mobile OS took a toll on Microsoft’s profits.
Microsoft’s server products were turned into a multi-billion-dollar revenue river by Lees after Ballmer shifted him to MCB to turn around a failing operation in 2008. Lees recruited a host of new marketing talent from Microsoft’s consumer businesses like the Zune music player and Windows Media Center. New engineering talent including nearly 20% of Microsoft’s elite distinguished engineers was enticed into the group from elsewhere in the company.
Microsoft developers well received the new mobile platform. Most of these developers already possessed the experience with Microsoft development tools to begin grappling with Windows Phone applications. Microsoft worked in close understanding with handset manufacturers and operators to design a hardware specification for phones running the new operating system.
According to Microsoft’s mobile chief, Robbie Bach, the company is confident that it going to see Windows Mobile 7 as something that is differentiated and sets the bar forward, not in an evolutionary way from where it is today, but something that looks, feels and acts and performs completely different.
Samsung launches first Bada phone- WAVE
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: First Bada phone has been commercially launched by Samsung Electronics under the brand name, WAVE in European countries, including Germany, France and the UK, and will be expanded to Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
The handset is priced at S8500 and is the first smartphone based on Samsung’s new, open smartphone platform, Bada.
Samsung Apps will also be made available by the company available in eighty countries while it is already available in a number of countries for Windows Mobile or Symbian based phones.
M1 launches M1 AppStore in Singapore
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An application store has been introduced by Singaporean communications provider M1 with content for multiple platforms. Free and paid content will be offered by the M1 AppStore which will be available on various operating platforms including iPhone, Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Java.
The bill of the purchased content of the postpaid users will be added to their monthly statement while prepaid customers will see the charges deducted from their balance.
M1 AppStore will also be offered to the developers as a platform to commercialize their applications and gain valuable market exposure. Cash incentives for selected developers who will have the opportunity to price their products as well as enjoy revenue share arrangements will be included as a key benefit.
Sony Ericsson improves portfolio to recover market share
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Through an improved product portfolio, maintenance of 4% share of the global handset market is expected to be maintained by mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson. Increase in the profits is on the top of the list of the company and boosting market share in terms of both value and volume is second in the list.
Value and a volume segment is increasingly divided and the company is also aiming to launch high-end phones but won’t leave the volume segment altogether.
According to Chief Executive Bert Nordberg, Sony Ericsson aims to keep Android as the main operating system in its mobile phones and the company will for now keep working with Symbian, which has proved to work well in the newly launched Vivaz smartphone, and Windows Mobile, which powers the Aspen handset.
ZTE to unveil its Windows Mobile 7 based smartphone
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile devices based on Microsoft’s latest Windows Mobile operating system will be offered by vendor ZTE along with an operator partner in the U.K. market next week. However, it is believed that the handset is a Blade device based on the Android operating system.
According to Zhang Xiaohong, vice president of ZTE’s handset product system business, the company has a good co- operation with Microsoft and will work according to Microsoft’s agenda to release its products.
Currently, the vendor is working with Android, Windows Mobile and Linux for the operating system of its smartphones. ZTE again announced its prospects of becoming one of the top three handset makers in the world by 2015. It also reiterated that its ability to work with mobile operators and customize its devices will stand it in good stead against its better-established Western and South Korean rivals.
