Monday 6 August 2012

Huawei Bloggers Meetup in Lahore

Huawei Bloggers Meetup in Lahore:

Huawei held a bloggers meetup cum Iftar-Dinner at Lahore on Thursday to brief bloggers about the features present in the 5 devices launched earlier by Huawei.
A detailed presentation was given by Mr. Salman Muazzam which started from some stats about smartphone and Android market and then slowly started focusing on Pakistan and ultimately described the detailed specification of  the devices. Salman was courteous enough to answer various questions put forward by bloggers and at times the presentation turned into a positive discussion where all the participants shared their thoughts. The bloggers were given various models of Huawei’s current device lineup to have a first hand experience of the performance and build of the devices.
Mr. Bruce Fanhong, Director, Terminal Services Department , Huawei was present to shed light on the strategy adopted by the Chinese manufacturer and was eager to listen to the feedback of bloggers specializing in the smartphone niche. It was revealed that Huawei was the 4th largest Android smartphone manufacturer in the world and the Chinese giant is keen to flex its muscle to secure more growth in the global marketplace.
Mr. Bruce announced that Huawei is introducing phones in various phases and will be launching feature phones and expanding its smartphone lineup in 2013. He also revealed that Huawei is in the Pakistani market for the long run and is focusing on establishing its brand and spending millions of Dollars in R&D to become one of the major brands in the country.
Some concerns were raised by myself about the user interface and some features in the devices, Bruce assured that all these will be accounted for in Emotion UI (1.5) which will be launched in September and will be available as OTA update to all current Huawei users.  I’m eagerly waiting for the update to finalize my view about the Huawei device lineup as the devices have a nice build and are priced reasonably but fall short of quality as far as UI is concerned.
While briefing about the signal strength of Huawei devices, Bruce said:
We have more depth and study in the telecom sector due to our end-to-end solutions, so we are confident that our devices have the best signal strength.
The official distributor of Huawei products in Pakistan is Airlink Communication. Mr. Muzaffar Hayat, the Managing Director of the distributor observed the proceedings keenly and said:
We are looking forward to you (bloggers) for feedback on our devices. You must provide us with your comments, whether positive or negative to enable us to improve our products.
He further added:
We are counting on you (bloggers) to utilize social media and show the consumers how our devices actually are. 
Keep visiting TelecomPk as we will be reviewing Huawei’s devices soon.

" The Roving Giraffe News Report " provided by #Ace Media News

Apple's Siri nailed with patent suit over voice-to-text

Apple's Siri nailed with patent suit over voice-to-text:
(Credit:
Apple)
Apple's virtual personal assistant Siri has been smacked with yet another lawsuit.
This time around, Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University filed a lawsuit against Apple on Friday, charging the company with violating patents it holds related to voice-to-text technology. The university says that it acquired two patents in 2007 and 2010 in the U.S., and believes that Siri violates those.
Apple is certainly no stranger to Siri lawsuits. Over the last year, the company has been hit with everything from class-action suits complaining of the service's performance to infringement. Earlier this month, Shanghai-based voice application developer Zhizhen Network Technology sued Apple for allegedly infringing a patent it holds related to "a type of instant messaging chat bot system" it calls Xiaoi Bot.

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Spoilsports rejoice: Olwimpics wipes Olympics from your browser

Spoilsports rejoice: Olwimpics wipes Olympics from your browser:
What, there's something happening in London right now?
(Credit:
Screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET)
Ah, the Olympics. We get three weeks of athletic prowess, medal counts, moving personal stories, and slow-motion replay of swimmers touching the side of the pool. If you can't stand yet another headline about sporting glory, turn to the Olwimpics browser extension for relief.
Olwimpics' sole purpose in life is to expunge the Olympics from your browsing experience. It's available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. It thoughtfully covers up keywords with Olympics-color blocks, though it doesn't make the accompanying images disappear.

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Spotify brings Pandora-like free streaming to Android

Spotify brings Pandora-like free streaming to Android:
Spotify running on Android.
(Credit:
Spotify)

Spotify is bringing Android users into its Pandora-like free streaming service.
The company announced this morning that Android-based Spotify users can now create stations through its application and listen to "millions of songs" from the program. After creating stations and listening to tracks, users can customize what plays by giving a track a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. In addition, users can save songs they like.
If this sounds familiar, it's because Pandora offers about the same functionality through its own service. And like Pandora, Spotify will play ads to nonpaying subscribers. Those who are Spotify Premium users will be able to listen to songs ad-free.
Spotify's free music service was brought to iOS last month. That application delivers the same functionality as the new Android app.
Spotify's app is available now in the Google Play store, for free.
[Read more]

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Samsung's mSpot Music Hub looks clean, falls flat

Samsung's mSpot Music Hub looks clean, falls flat:
(L) Samsung's Music Hub start screen looks clean and organized. (R) Choose from a gamut of genres and recommendations, or create your own station.
(Credit:
Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)
Samsung's Music Hub app launched on the Samsung Galaxy S3 in Europe back in May, but it's taken until now for the subscription music service to hit our shores. CNET got an eyeful (and an earful) of the Music Hub app on several GS3 devices ahead of launch. Since the software was preproduction, there may be some slight differences between what we saw and the final product.
What it is
The most important thing to know is that even if it comes preloaded on your phone, the Music Hub isn't free. Fueled by Samsung-owned mSpot, the mobile app costs $9.99 per month to use.
There technically is a free version, but it only lets you purchase songs through a storefront. That storefront, by the way, is managed and fed by 7digital and its 19 million licensed tracks. mSpot long ago partnered with 7digital to run the backend for mSpot's own front-end service.

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Social Protection app DRM's your Facebook photos

Social Protection app DRM's your Facebook photos:
McAfee Social Protection will block people who don't have the plug-in from seeing your photos.
(Credit:
McAfee)
Intel and McAfee have collaborated on a new browser plug-in and Facebook app called Social Protection that throws a thicker wall of privacy around your photos, while still allowing you to share them with friends.

Brian Foster, senior vice president of consumer product management for McAfee, said the combo is intended to protect the digital content you own so that only your friends can see it. "The focus is on everyday use of Facebook, and how your digital content has ended up in the wrong places unintentionally," he said this morning in a phone conversation with CNET.

It sounds great for the privacy-minded, but it won't be available until the end of August, and then only in public beta. It will work with Internet Explorer 8 and above, and Firefox 8 and above.

Foster explained it as DRM for the photos you upload to Facebook. It requires a browser restart after installation, and then it pixelates photos you post to Facebook, and requires your friends to install it to restore them to normal. In final form, it will exist for free for people who just want to view photos. Foster said that McAfee hasn't decided whether it will charge for Social Protection or if it will become part of another, already-existing product.

McAfee is opening the product to the public as a... [Read more]

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Olympics turns to gold for Expat Shield

Olympics turns to gold for Expat Shield:
Expat Shield's status box.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
As the Summer Olympics kicks into high gear, complaints about television coverage from outside Britain appear to be driving people watching the games online to Expat Shield (download for Windows only) to get real-time BBC streaming.

Anchor Free's ad-supported Expat Shield masks your actual IP address and sends your Internet traffic through its servers in England. Like its software sibling HotSpot Shield, it's a VPN service that encrypts your traffic as it reroutes it. The primary differences between them are that HotSpot Shield (Windows | Mac | iOS | Android) offers an ad-free Elite version, and that HotSpot Shield's VPN servers are based in the United States.

Nick Shepherd, a representative for AnchorFree, told CNET over e-mail that the company saw enormous tr... [Read more]

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