BSNL in advanced talks with Jio, Vodafone over 2G spectrum sharing agreement

State-owned BSNL is in advanced talks with Reliance Jio and Vodafone for signing a 2G roaming agreement this month. “We are in advanced stages for signing 2G intra-circle roaming agreement with Reliance Jio and Vodafone. I believe agreement with them should be signed this month,” BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.

Under the agreement, customers of Reliance Jio and Vodafone will get access to BSNL network where there is a coverage gap. The state-run firm has deep presence in rural areas as other companies have invested very conservatively due to low return on investments. Once the agreement is finalised, BSNL customers will also have access to the networks of Reliance Jio and Vodafone. In terms of mobile base stations, BSNL stands second in the country.

It has around 1.14 lakh and is in process of installing another 21,000 mobile towers. “Soon, we will start signing 3G intra-circle roaming agreement with other players. We are working on rates for 3G roaming agreement. Being a government firm, we need to have uniform rate for all companies,” Shrivastava said. With the telecom ministry objecting to the 3G-ICR among the telecom operators mainly Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, these players acquired customers using each others network in telecom circles where they did not have 3G spectrum.

Smartphone encryption technologies pose challenges to law enforcement agencies: Prasad

As Apple slugs it out with FBI on privacy issues, India Friday said strong encryption technology to secure data and communications in smartphones, including those made by the US-based firm, is a challenge for law enforcement agencies.

It said however that a tool for mobile forensics has been developed to handle smartphones including Apple.

“Smart phones including phones by Apple Inc. employ strong encryption to secure the data stored and to protect the communication. Such Encryption technologies pose challenges to Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the world including India,” Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a reply to the Rajya Sabha.

He said the government has taken note of media reports about the dispute between the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple Inc.

FBI had taken Apple to court to force it to break into the encryption-protected iPhone 5c. Backed by technology giants such as Google and Facebook, Apple is opposed to assisting the agency in unlocking the iphone, saying it would have wide-reaching implications on digital security and privacy.

Prasad said that considering the challenges involved, government regularly interacts with all stakeholders to address the issues and implement solutions keeping in view security, service and developmental needs of the country.

He said that research and development activity is also being carried out on a continuous basis to upgrade tools and technologies with the emerging new devices and software, including smartphones.

“As part of this programme, a tool for Mobile forensics has been developed, which handles Smart phones including Apple phones,” Prasad said.

He, however, denied any proposal with the government to introduce backdoor or a key for smart phone encryption.

PTI

Samsung Gear IconX buds and Gear Fit 2 show up on S Health website

Samsung’s Gear IconX wireless earbuds and its refreshed Gear Fit 2 recently surfaced online, thanks to a leak. But now Samsung seems to have confirmed them, when the duo temporarily showed up on Samsung’s S Health website. First reported by DroidLife, both accessories were listed as available, supported accessories for the company’s S Health app, which is available on most of its smartphones.

What was not revealed were the availability dates nor the price tags. Still then there were plenty of high-resolution images, compared to the live images that leaked out earlier. From this we can conclude that Samsung has improved the design of the Gear Fit 2 and has come up with a rather interesting one for its wireless Bluetooth earbuds as well.

Sony jumps on to smart glass bandwagon, develops transparent lens ‘SmartEyeglass’

There’s some competition brewing for the Google Glass and Facebook’s Oculus as Sony has unveiled its all new smart glass dubbed SmartEyeglass. This smart glass is compatible with Android smartphones and the software development kit has already been made available to interested developers.This piece of eyewear comes with a transparent lens and will be compatible with Android devices running version 4.1 or later. However, Android 4.3 or later is required to use the video functionality of the camera. Besides, Sony claims that the display assures that it is 85 percent transparent, has high readability and consumes low energy.

Basically, it takes advantage of Sony’s hologram optics technology to develop a lens that achieves high transparency of 85% and thickness of mere 3.0 mm. It also eliminates the need for the use of half mirrors that obstruct the user’s vision. The technology also ensures that energy consumption is lesser than a colour display and also helps achieve high luminance up to 1,000 cd/m2.

SmartEyeglass also features a vast range of sensing technologies such as CMOS image sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, brightness sensor, and microphone. It uses these features along with GPS location information from the connected smartphone and provides information optimised to the user’s current circumstances, says the company. For instance, it can be used with Lifelog app to log in daily activities. By working with developers, Sony is also looking to accelerate the commercialization of the product for consumer use.

It is still a prototype and looks like a geeky product. The prototype hardware is likely to go on sale by the end of March 2015.

Xiaomi Redmi 1S review: At Rs 5,999 Xiaomi has another big winner on its hands

Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S comes with great expectations and it represents a big moment for the company’s India plans. The super affordable mid-range phone goes on sale tomorrow and isexpected to outpace the Mi 3 in terms of selling out on Flipkart. With a price tag of Rs 5,999, it also promises to shake up this market segment which is reserved for the very basic smartphones. The Moto E changed that to a certain extent, but Xiaomi takes it a step beyond. Is it successful?

Design and build

The Redmi 1S is no lightweight in terms of specs or in terms of its weight. The smartphone feels a little too chunky in the hand and the heft is quite palpable. In comparison, the Mi 3 is much lighter and also is a better fit in the hands.

We got the dark grey version of the phone and the plastic on the back is only slightly glossy, but it picks up fingerprints easily. Fingerprint smudges were also a problem when it came to the front of the phone, which features three red capacitive buttons and the LED notification light placed under the home button.The back of the phone is removable and underneath a flashy orange battery grabs your eye. Above it are the two SIM slots and the microSD card slot. These can’t be properly accessed unless you pop the cover off. The power button and volume rocker are affixed to the case, so you will be changing them if you decide to pop another cover on.

The rear camera sits bang in the middle, with a flash underneath, while the single slit for the speaker grille is closer to the right edge. This position doesn’t really help as much of the time we found our hands muffling the sound.

We are not entirely happy with the type of plastic used on the Redmi 1S, but it does feel better than the Moto E’s material. In comparison to the Motorola phone, the Redmi 1S feels a little too chunky, but it does have an edge in terms of performance.This is the biggest disappointment when it comes to the Redmi 1S. Performance is sorely behind what we expected with that chipset on board. The Moto E with a dual-core processor feels a lot snappier in comparison to the Redmi 1S even though the latter is packing a quad-core 1.6GHz CPU.

Unlike on the Mi 3, MIUI on the Redmi 1S feels a lot more sluggish. It booted very fast and for the most part operation is trouble free, but the Redmi 1S is a terrible choice for those juggling too many apps. MIUI on this one just doesn’t feel fleet-footed enough to handle multi-tasking well. It must be noted that the drop in performance only happens when there are too many apps running. I found myself using MIUI’s kill-all-apps button more often than I wanted to; it was a bit like going back to Gingerbread.Of course it must be considered that most buyers of the Redmi 1S will not be pulling down too many apps. It is after all priced for the first-time buyers.

When it comes to the display too the phone is a let-down. At full brightness colours are perky, but turn it lower and the image turns insipid very quickly. It was quite finicky when used in sunlight too, jumping up and down in brightness quite erratically.Camera

You will not find a better camera than this one at this price range and it really is spoiling users as earlier they would have had to shell out a lot more for such a camera. It’s not as fast as the Mi 3 camera, but more than adequate for casual shooting. Let’s face it you are not going to be doing any serious photography on the Redmi 1S. For other use cases such as Instagram and social networks, it’s more than enough. Here are some sample shots.

MIUI

Xiaomi has added a new Lite Mode to the Redmi 1S which makes things even more simpler than the standard MIUI interface. Lite Mode gives users access to large buttons on the home screen, with the most basic apps added as default and others packed away. Users can choose the ones to be displayed on the home screen. It doesn’t seem to have a notification drawer, which makes things very complicated if you have experienced Android, and it’s really very plain to look at. But we imagine it would be just what someone moving from a basic feature phone would want to see at first before exploring the world of smartphone apps and customisation.

Apple iPhone 6 is almost here, but what will happen to the iPhone 5c?

Last year, when the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c were all set to launch, the buzz was that Apple would finally launch an affordable smartphone. The jokes said, the C in the iPhone 5c would stand for cheap. But when the iPhone 5c was revealed, it was anything but cheap. Sure the phone was colourful and had a plastic polycarbonate back cover, the Rs 41,900 price tag with which it was launched in India made it anything but affordable.

As we had noted at the launch of the iPhone 5c, it was essentially the iPhone 5 in a polycarbonate body. The iPhone 5c had the same 4-inch screen, A6 chip as the iPhone 5, a slightly bigger battery than the iPhone 5, and the same 8 megapixel rear camera and 1.2 megapixel camera on the front. In essence, Apple hadn’t really compromised on the build quality as many tech experts had noted that it felt like a premium product with Apple’s design essence remaining intact.

One year on, it’s pretty clear that a new version of the iPhone 5c is not happening. Apple is expected to launch two new versions, one with a 4.7-inch screen, another with a 5.5-inch screen and these are both premium level devices. As this video by Russian Youtube user, Rozetked had shown the iPhone 6 doesn’t look like a bulky device and is in fact thinner than the iPhone 5s. Also it’s an all metal-body. Not plastic body this time.

So how did the iPhone 5c do as device in terms of sales? As far as numbers are concerned, it’s quite a conflicting story. What is clear is that Apple sold more iPhone 5s premium devices than the iPhone 5c.

According to this Apple Insider report in the US, the iPhone 5s was the top selling smartphone for almost all US carriers and even though the iPhone 5c did terribly compared to the 5s, it did actually outsell a lot of other devices in the US. The report points to data collected by blogger JM Manness who said that the iPhone 5c sales numbers were 12.8 million in the winter quarter of 2013.

However a BusinessInsider report points out that according to data from Localytics the iPhone 5c makes only 8 percent of iPhones, falling behind even the iPhone 4.

So is the iPhone 5c going to come to an end? According to TechCrunch, simply because “it’s a ‘lower end’ device that packs older innards and Apple could easily drop it from the lineup to make room for a new ‘low end’ unit.”

Currently the low-end unit in the iPhone series is the iPhone 4S. And as the Localytics data also shows, it is the iPhone 5 which is still the most popular iPhone device in the market, just two percentage points ahead of the iPhone 5s. Now when Apple launched the iPhone 5s, it had discontinued the iPhone 5. If one were to go purely by the numbers, Apple could retain either the 5s or bring back the iPhone 5 as the new mid-tier device. In addition it could keep the 4S as the low-end device when the two new iPhones are launched. But let’s remember the iPhone 5 was a premium device and it’s unlikely that Apple would bring this back, not when the iPhone 5s is an option.

The iPhone 5c in such a scenario is the best bet for being the new low-end device. Currently it’s retailing at Rs 37,000 in India for the 16 GB version, while the iPhone 4S is available at close to Rs 20,000. If Apple starts selling the iPhone 5c at the price for the iPhone 4S, that would be quite a killer deal, since essentially it has all the same specs as the iPhone 5, but not the build. This is what makes it the perfect replacement for the iPhone 4S.

Either way, the end of the iPhone 5c also shows that for Apple the plastic and cheap experiment is never going to work. Apple devices have always had an exclusivity around them, and clearly with the assumption that the iPhone 5c was the ‘cheaper’ solution to the iPhone 5, fans weren’t interested in upgrading. Instead they just stuck to their iPhone 5.

Apple to launch iPhone 6 today: All you need to know

Apple’s iPhone 6 launch event is today and it will mark one of the biggest changes in tech giant’s smartphone strategy. Whether two big screen devices will help Apple regain control of the smartphone market remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that expectations are high from today’s event. After all it’s not just the iPhone 6 that is expected, the world is likely to get a first glimpse at the iWatch as well.

In the past couple of months, rumours around the next generation Apple iPhone–which the press has named iPhone 6– are gaining more pace than ever. A lot more videos and images of the device are getting leaked. In fact, just a day ahead of the video we saw some live shots and four videos showing the Settings, Camera and Health apps.  It also believed that Apple will include NFC-based payments system in upcoming iPhone 6. 

A report by Feld & Volk also gave us a clear look of the device by putting together the iPhone 6 using parts and components and the completely assembled device that looked absolutely stunning, and in line with the leaks.

  

Another leak suggests that the iPhone 6 may feature haptic technology and some other talks about long-time rumoured sapphire glass display protection for the iPhone 6. With mere 24 hours for the event, let’s take a quick look at all we know about the iPhone 6.

Design
Leaks have suggested that Apple will be going for a more rounded body and the iPhone 6 will be even slimmer than the current-generation iPhone 5s flagship. Another leak that placed the iPhone 6 next to the Galaxy S5 hinted that the iPhone 6 could come with an iPad-like design. The picture also hints at rounded edges and the smooth brushed aluminium back of the iPhone. Apple has scratched out the capsule design of the current flash and has gone with a more traditional circular cutout.

The new leaked image, and the clearest so far, shows the iPhone 6 looks like the current generation of iPads, thanks to its rounded corners and edges. The image also shows iPad-like volume buttons and completely redesigned speaker holes at the bottom.

Another leak shows the front glass panels of the alleged 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model with thinner bezels and compares it to the iPhone 5s that has slightly broad bezels. The video also compares the single-hand experience with the iPhone 5s and the alleged 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model. It shows the models come with a curved display. Citing some sources related to the matter, the report further claims that the iPhone 6 models will feature a full-metal body.

Image: weibo.com/dreamerjimmy

Earlier this month, Taiwanese celebrity Jimmy Lin – who showed a pre-release iPhone 5 –   revealed supposed images of the iPhone 6, and now yet another picture of the iPhone 6. He was soon followed by Sonny Dickson tweeting out the image showing both models. It was the first time we got a glimpse of the 5.5-inch variant. We also got a sneak peek into the leaked rear shells in multiple angles. Moreover, prolific apple tipster Sonny Dickson has also given a sneak peek of both models.