I’ve resisted the urge to contemplate about all the iPad 3 launch rumors all this while, but not anymore. AllThingsD’s John Paczkowksi is reporting about possible launch of iPad 3 in early March during one of Apple’s signature press events.

Paczkowksi says-

“The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.”

iPad 3 or iPad 2S?

Over the past weeks, we have seen quite a lot of rumors surrounding different parts of iPad 3, specially the ones like this and this. All these hint at one thing – the next iPad will look almost exactly like the iPad 2. The upgrade will be mostly internal and will include a faster processor (quad-core A6), more memory, and a higher resolution display (2048×1536 Retina Display or similar). Even Paczkowksi isn’t sure about the name of the next-gen iPad. Will it be iPad 3 or just iPad 2S? That shouldn’t matter much as we found out after stupendous success of iPhone 4S.

It is important to note that Apple has been pretty regular with their iPad release cycle. It was on March 2nd of 2011, that they announced iPad 2. So it gets easier to assume that the company would be working on the next gen iPad over the past year and we might as well expect iPad 3 launch within a month from here.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

After several speculations and rumors, Amazon.com has indeed started off with its Indian operations under the brand Junglee.com. The portal which is currently in beta, features more than 12 million products across 14,000 brands in 25 categories including mobile phones, cameras, toys & games, baby products, books, music, movies & TV, clothing, jewellery, kitchen & home products.

An aggregator & price comparison portal

Before anyone gets all excited, it must be noted that Junglee is simply a marketplace portal “which enables customers to find and discover products from online and offline retailers in India and from Amazon.com.” This means users cannot buy anything directly from Junglee as they’ll be redirected to the respective retailer websites. Some of the major retailers include HomeShop18, UniverCell, Snapdeal, Microsoft Store India, Reebok, FabIndia, Bata, Next and Amazon.com. For now, Junglee is an aggregator of online retailers in India and a price comparison website.

As you might know, we have seen quite a lot of startups from India specializing in price comparison of products like MySmartPrice.com, PriceBaba and others come up in the past few months. It remains to be seen how big of an impact does Junglee makes to small players like these.

Key players go missing

Anyone who has been following Indian e-commerce surge would know that online retailers like Flipkart.com, Infibeam.com & Letsbuy.com have managed to take a big pie in the Indian online shopping market. You wouldn’t find any of these key players in the Junglee marketplace. Clearly, these players are looking to build traffic to their portals without any help from Amazon.

Small players will surely get a helping hand, specially since Amazon India is not charging any listing fee to start with. Medianama notes that this might change in the future with fee ranging from 2%-20% depending upon the type of the product.

Expect Amazon to start its own operations soon

We already see Amazon.com being listed amongst retailers for some products like books. But from what I see, the cost is abnormally high for most of the items (except Kindle) considering that Amazon has to ship the products from US (or UK). But it is clear that Amazon is keen to build its own operations soon in India and the buzz is they are currently building their operational workforce & logistics to compete against biggies like Flipkart & Infibeam.

India is too big a market for a major e-commerce player like Amazon to ignore. The Indian online market is just behind US & China with spending more than $10 billion in 2011. Expect some swift moves from Jeff Bezos & Amazon in India through Junglee.com.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

Top 7 Interesting Subjects at MWC 2012

1. Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality, or AR, is the cutting edge of mobile technology at the moment. It seems everyone wants a piece of this cake, and so, if you are interested in AR, at MWC you will have plenty of opportunities to attend seminars about AR. This technology, if developed, would change the way we see and perceive the world, literally! Imagine geo-tagging, but better, used in everyday life. You take a picture of a restaurant and you’re getting information about prices, menu or reviews. Looking through your camera and seeing information about everything around you. And the uses do not stop here. The development of AR technology will be one of the greatest advances in technology we have seen in the last years. There are no less than 5 seminars on AR Monday on the 27th February, so if you are interested in this field, at MWC is the place to get up to speed.

Related Read: 30 Stunning Augmented Reality Apps for Android

2. LTE

This technology, if perfected, will bring us staggering download and upload speeds for mobile devices. It’s said that LTE could give us up to 300 Mbps download speeds and 100 Mbps for upload. These speeds will usher in a new era in mobile technology and our view of mobile. Waiting for a website to load, or a video on YouTube will be a thing of the past. But even more, almost real time information over the internet will be available to you. This will come in handy with the AR technology we’ve talked about earlier (information in real time). If this technology will be refined, all we would have to do is make the whole world a Wi-Fi hot spot. If this is what you are after, then be sure to join the 4 seminars about LTE on Tuesday, February 28.

3. Mobile Cloud and Security

Cloud computing is said to be the future of the web. And since more and more technologies are migrating towards cloud storage, it’s not that difficult to understand the risk involved, but also the benefits. First of all, you have your personal information safely locked away on a server, where you can access anytime and from anywhere. This migration is not welcomed as well as developers expected. It’s more like the introduction of banks, when people where not convinced their money was safe. In a sense, this is exactly that.

But let’s think of the benefits: less storage space on your computer, smartphone or tablet and complete access to all your files and security beyond what you can provide at home. On the other hand, is the server goes offline or is compromised, you cannot access your files or even lose them. Only time will tell is cloud computing will pick up in the future, but my bet is yes. As for security, this refers more to mobile security, which, until now hasn’t been a problem. But with mobile phones getting smarter and smarter, new solutions must be found.

4. Future of Mobile Apps

It’s a known fact that apps have come a long way in the last few years. Back in 2007, the market for mobile apps was next to nonexistent. However, nowadays apps are at the center of the mobile boom and developers find it difficult to satisfy the consumers demand for apps on different platforms. In this seminar, developers will discuss the importance of HTML5 for native platforms, as well. Other issues that will be addressed are the discovery of apps, or apps for TVs and cars. With the rise of the Android Market and more and more Android handsets, it’s obvious the mobile apps will become a huge market. Just like the good old saying “there’s an app for that!”.

5. NFC

NFC stands for Near Field Communication. This tech know-how uses RFID (Radio Frequency Communication) chips that enable devices to communicate between them. This technological breakthrough has already been implemented in Germany, Austria or China to provide a quick way for people to pay for public transportation. If perfected and implemented, this technology has the potential to make mobile devices even more “mobile”. NFC headsets and electronic wallets are just the beginning, this technology could revolutionize bluetooth technology and eliminate the need to pair devices. Yes, we know, what could really propel the use of NFC would be a NFC-enabled iPhone.

6. Mobile Advertising

One of the most powerful weapons to emerge in the last few years in advertising is the use of mobile technology to transmit information or adverts. Developers are looking towards mobile advertising as their new medium. There are two approaches when dealing with mobile advertising: the first one sees the mobile market as a separate, independent channel for advertising, the other approach sees the mobile market as a part of the marketing, but nevertheless, a crucial and central part of marketing. In either way, mobile marketing is here to stay, and it consists a powerful tool in any company’s arsenal. And who else than Google to show how profitable mobile advertising could be, as the company is expected to cash in more than $4 billion dollars this year.

7. Mobile Innovation

This is probably the center piece of MWC. At mobile innovation you will have the pleasure of listening for 90 minutes to those who have made mobile technology what it is today, and what it could become in the next 10 years. Concepts, developments and cutting edge technology will have a big impact on how we perceive mobile technology. The future looks better than ever: a world more connected, where information flows at LTE speeds, where we interact with our devices like we have never imagined.

These are just a few examples of what is in stored for those who attend the Mobile World Congress. There will be discussions and presentations of lots of gadgets, designs and topics to discussed. So keep an eye out for news about MWC.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

New tablets based on Windows 8 OS and powered by new Intel processors are going be launched by Acer and Lenovo in the third quarter of FY 2012-13. In 2011, a number of android tablets and smartphones with dual core processors were launched. 2012 is going to feature ultrabooks, quad cord smartphones and Windows 8 based tablets.

Tablets are versatile computing devices. These are being adopted by more and more business communities and student communities around the world. Tablets are easy to operate devices which will take input through touch screens or pen-enabled devices. Tablet PCs are used in classroom environment and to maintain purchase lists by retailers, etc. Tablets come with traditional desktop based operating systems or mobile based operating system.

Reports are coming that plenty of windows based tablets are in the development stage and they are likely to hit the market in 2012 Q3. Intel Clover Trail – W processors are going to change the game plan in the personal computer market. As the market is fully saturated with iPads from Apple and Android based smartphones there is much anticipation on windows 8 based tablets. There are many expectations both from the technical communities and consumers. It is going to give a new life to windows based ecosystems spread across the world. Microsoft has successful business model that makes it keep going in spite of stiff competition from its competitors. It is a great opportunity for the coming new tablets to attract customers by introducing new features and removing unfamiliar features from the current leading tablets.

On the other hand, Microsoft and Nokia are going to sport slates of their own brands. Of course, these slates are targeted at enterprise customers. With all these new happenings, 2012 is going to witnesses a new set of devices powered by Intel’s new processor and Microsoft’s Windows 8 Operating System. Both Acer and Lenovo have presence in Tablet market. However, the current tablets are packed with Android OS only. Microsoft seems to have optimized Windows 8 operating system both for mobile computing devices like tablets and traditional computing devices such as desktops and laptops. Other major brands such as HP and Dell had already announced their intentions to launch Windows 8 tablets. Clover Trail processors are expected to consume less power. It is to be noted that battery backup is going to play a key role in deciding the success of coming generation of tablets. The tablets present in the market have this drawback. If the same is rectified by the combined efforts of a new processor and a new smart operating system, windows 8 based tablets will become a huge success.

Power consumption should be optimized at various levels including various operating system processes and network systems. Power is consumed for connecting to other devices through wire or wireless mode, search for available networking devices and to transfer the data. If all these factors are properly addressed by OS manufacturers and processor manufacturers, power consumption can be brought to the minimum levels. With the launch of Windows 8 adapted for mobile phones, a new wave of tablets will entertain customers in the coming years offering enhanced facilities.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

IFI Claims Patent Services has just published the list of Top 50 US Patent assignees which throws up some interesting stats and facts. While IBM has retained its top position for nineteenth year in a row, Microsoft has dropped from third position to sixth position in the list. These two are the only US companies amongst the top 10 Patent assignees.

Samsung vs Apple

The Korean consumer giant, Samsung Electronics stands second in the list of top US patent assignees with 4,894 patents received in 2011. And guess how many patents their staunch rivals who had dragged them to courts the most in 2011 have managed? 676.

Yes, Apple has managed to get assigned a mere 676 patents and stands No.39 in the top 50 list. Of course what matters more is the quality and impact of the patents assigned, but many would be surprised to see the gap in terms of sheer numbers.

As a matter of fact, Samsung had stood No.2 in 2010 as well, while Apple was No.46. So, the 2011 list should not come as a big surprise for those who keep a keen interest on patent claims and assignments. but for the rest like me, this was indeed an eye-opener.

Other interesting facts

• USPTO issued 224,505 utility patents in 2011.
• Asian firms account for 25 of the top 50 patent grant recipients, and US firms captured 17 slots.
• 8 out of the top 10 slots are occupied by Asian firms.
• HP (1,308) and Intel (1,244) fell out of the top 10 and landed 14th and 16th, respectively.

Below is the complete list of Top 50 US Patent Assignees in 2011.

Source: IFI Claims

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

The cheapest android tablet from India, Aakash, more popularly known as the $35 tablet was launched with much fanfare by the Indian government in December 2011. Sadly, one month down the line, there are some reports that the entire project might be shelved very soon.

The Indian government’s HRD ministry had teamed up with Canada based Datawind Technologies to manufacture 1 million units of Aakash tablets priced at Rs.2250 ($43). During the pilot run, Datawind was supposed to provide the HRD ministry with 1 lakh Aakash units, out of which they had delivered just 30,000 units. Though the tablet specs looked good on paper, with Android 2.2 OS, 366 MHz processor, 2100mAh battery & two USB ports, in reality the tablet was met with a lot of criticisms concerning its poor build quality and user experience.

According to the reports by India Today, for the remaining 70,000 units, the Indian government insisted to get an upgraded version of Aakash (with 700MHz Cortex A8 processor, 3200mAh battery, Android 2.3 OS) at the original price of Rs.2250 ($43). But Datawind, which had already opened the pre-orders for the upgraded version for Rs.750 more (at $60) refused to oblige. This might result in non-renewal of LC (letter of credit) to Datawind by the Indian government.

Reliance 4G Tablets to be blamed?

The reports also cites that the low cost tablet idea – conceptualized by HRD minister Kapil Sibal has now been hijacked by Reliance honcho Mukesh Ambani. Reliance had recently paid Rs.13000 crores ($2.5 billion) to get pan-India license for 4G LTE technology. And now they are planning to launch a 4G tablet for as low as Rs.3500 ($70) for which they might choose to partner with the same Datawind technologies. Yet another reason for the grouse of the Indian government.

The LC to Datawind will end on January 31st 2012 and if at all they fail to get it renewed, the rest of Aakash units will be supplied by some other agency. Datawind though, has managed to get over 20 lakh bookings for their upgraded Ubislate 7 tablet, but the lack of government backing isn’t something they were hoping for.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

Even as android fans in India wait with bated breath for the launch of Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the country, Google India has just gifted the very same phone to all its employees. No wonder many of the Google India employees are over the moon and pouring in their joyous updates on Twitter & Facebook.

What more? While gifting the Galaxy Nexus to its employees, Google made sure the employees get to taste the Ice-Cream Sandwich, literally! Trust Google to do things in style! And, if you are surprised to see this post on Technically Personal, don’t be! I just hope other employers learn from Google on how to keep their employees happy! This isn’t the first time they are gifting a Nexus smartphone to their employees. Back in June 2010, Google had gifted a Nexus One to all their Indian employees!

Here it is!My galaxy nexus with ice cream sandwich!Trust google to do things in style. twitter.com/maniacalsnob/s…

— Crack the Anagram (@maniacalsnob) January 12, 2012

I’m not sure if employees outside India have gotten their hands on the latest Google phone, neither do I know (as yet) the exact reason for the surprise gift. New year, you say? I guess that as well!

Update: Some older reports talk about Google employees in London & Zurich receiving Galaxy Nexus phones for Christmas!

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

Rediff RealTime News is currently in beta and is in invite-only mode. I was given a special invite to preview the service and there are lot of good stuff to talk about it. And yeah, I have some invites to give away, more about it later. First, let us take a look at the RealTime news page.

Instant News Search

Rediff RealTime News is much like Google News when considering the concept, but provides a much better experience. Rediff RealTime News search implements the much acclaimed Instant search which provides latest & relevant results “as you type“. It also comes with predictive search technology, which I’ll explain a little later. Though the basic Google search comes with predictive & instant search features, the Google News section is devoid of both these features.

Indian & Global News

Rediff has always targeted Indian web users. The Rediff RealTime News service is no different. The tagline “India as it happens” makes it crystal clear. But then, it does work well for globally relevant search terms. Kalpana Banerjee, the Director, Search Program in Rediff clarifies that the focus is to provide search results pertaining to India as much as possible, but not by sacrificing the relevancy & real-time aspects.

There are around 35,000 Indian and global news websites which are being crawled by Rediff and also includes all Rediff news articles published since 2002. Unlike Google News, Rediff has very few blogs included in their sources list. By keeping the list small, Rediff is able to restrict spam to a great extent.

Interface

The homepage of Rediff RealTime News contains a search box along with the Trending news events happening now. This gives a preview of the results that you’ll get to see when you click through to the queries.

If you decide to type your own query using the search box, the predictive search kicks in and you’ll see the possible queries you are interested in. At the same time, it will retrieve and display the results of the query as shown below.

The instant search experience is truly praise-worthy. I never saw a lag during the course of my testing and wondered if it is because the service is still in beta with few hundred users right now. But Kalpana insists that they have load-tested the service, and experience will be same even with thousands of concurrent users.

Image Results

For each and every query, Rediff displays images from news events associated with the query within an image unit. Hovering over the image thumbnails opens up the image in a larger mode which also displays the additional meta data such as the source, time and title. This is another cool feature missing on Google News.

Thanks to Rediff’s very own photographers, you’ll be able to enjoy the realtime feed of photographs of bollywood events and sports celebrity events which might not be available on online news websites.

We can expect Rediff to add a video section very soon.

Related Queries

On the right sidebar of the news search results page, you will be shown some of the related queries that are in news. This will surely help the users to explore additional news topics with just a click. I found the related queries to be pretty accurate and useful.

The interface is optimized for smartphones like iPhone & android with certain features being disabled as they believe that the small screens of mobile phones aren’t optimal for features like instant search. But on tablets like the iPad, the user experience is very similar to that on desktops. It has to be noted that Instant search will be automatically disabled on slower connections.

Invites for Rediff RealTime News

As I mentioned in the beginning, Rediff RealTime News is currently in beta and requires an invite from an existing user. I have some invites left and would love to give them away to those who are interested to try out this impressive service. Leave a comment below if you like and I’ll send out an invite to your email address.

Update: Looks like it is now open for all and you won’t need an invite to try it out.

Update 2: Rediff has officially confirmed that RealTime News is open for public but will remain in beta.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

The Korean company has just announced two new Android handsets – Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus & Samsung Galaxy M Style. Keeping aside the crazy naming styles, it is pretty interesting to note the design of the two handsets announced back-to-back.

Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus vs Apple iPhone 3GS

When I first saw the leaked pictures of Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus yesterday, I felt like having seen them somewhere. And Rajat Agrawal helped me sort out the confusion. Indeed, it looks similar to Apple’s iPhone 3G/S. Though we are yet to see the actual device, the photographs released for the press do look very similar to the iPhone.

And what about Galaxy M Style? Well, have a look below!

Samsung Galaxy M Style vs Apple iPhone 4

Ouch! Pretty close yet again. Isn’t it? To be fair, the back panel of Samsung Galaxy M Style looks not as similar to the iPhone 4/4S, but the front panel does look very similar. Apart from the rectangular home button and a different placement of the camera, the two devices look exactly the same.

It is true that many people (including me) complain that most android devices look alike, but is that the reason for Samsung to come out with handsets so similar to the iPhones, specially considering all the lawsuits the two companies are fighting around the Galaxy Tablets? I can’t help, but to feel that there is more to it. Just a couple of days back, they dared to steal the model from iPhone 4S ad for their new tablet in Korea, and now they release two handsets back-to-back with questionable design similarities.

Over to you, Apple.

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

Despite all the speculations, Nokia Lumia 900/Ace will come with Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) and not Tango, at-least during the launch. The above image is a mockup comparing Nokia Lumia 900 and Lumia 800, based on the details which have been leaked.

Nokia Lumia 900 / Ace – Specifications

• ~4.3-inch WVGA display
• 512MB of RAM
• 8 MP camera with Carl-Zeiss lens
• 1830mAh battery
• Weighs 160 grams
• LTE radio

Many Nokia fans were expecting a N8-like 12 megapixel camera. Sadly, they should adjust with the 8 megapixel cam. Fortunately, Nokia Lumia 900/Ace is rumored to come with a front facing cam (unlike its predecessor, Lumia 800).

Nokia Lumia 900/Ace is expected to be launched in March 2012 and is touted to be the flagship Nokia device globally during the first half of 2012. Nokia Ace will be a big opportunity for Nokia to re-enter US market with a bang. With Lumia 710 landing on T-Mobile & Lumia 900/Ace on AT&T, Nokia will be hoping for a turn-around of fortunes in the US.

If only this was 2011…

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |