Business News Holding

Tag: hardware-and-technology

  • Mobile World Congress 2014: HTC Keeps Its Pace


    HTC didn't bring anything significantly new on the table at the year's Mobile World Congress. If you ignore the fact that one of its phones can actually drive a huge screen in real time, as seen below.

  • MWC 2014: More Variety is Better – Firefox OS, Tizen and Ubuntu


    "Bare" Android is no longer trendy. We have choices now: Tizen (from the Linux Foundation,) Firefox OS (I guess you know where it is coming from) and Ubuntu OS. Below you can see videos of Firefox OS and Tizen. After playing with more than 20 different devices, I wasn't able to unlock the Ubuntu OS device. There goes great usability.

  • MWC 2014: Nokia Doesn't Put All Eggs in One Basket – Android Handheld Launched


    Nokia astonished the mobile world (well, more or less since news of this had already been leaked) with its Nokia X1, an Android phone that makes Nokia probably the first mobile manufacturer to have 3 operating systems under control. X1 is a relatively heavy UI change on Android, but as a phone it felt relatively vulgar, indistinguishable from any other Android phone. Below you'll see a few pictures and a video.

    We also took some time to check the Nokia Asha, its low end mobile for kind-of developing markets, using the S40 operating system. It's not a full-fledged "smartphone," but it looks like a decent device. See a short video below:

    Finally, we played for a few minutes with a Nokia Windows tablet. The Metro UI actually looks very good in high definition screens, as you can see below. 

  • Mobile World Congress 2014: Jolla and Sailfish OS Bring a Breath of Fresh Air


    We've had the pleasure of checking out the fresh-from-the-oven Sailfish OS 1.0, living inside the new Jolla handset. Sailfish is a new mobile operating system, cross-compatible with Android (so you'll be getting Angry Birds, don't worry.) Sailfish feels snappy and fast, and its swipe around menu system is surprisingly smooth. You can see a few pictures and a video below.

    Sailfish for Android will be available "very soon," so you'll be able to install it on your own Android device. We've seen it live on several Samsung and HTC devices, and it works very, very well. Sailfish 1.0 will still be "beta" for Android, and probably require around 1GB RAM on your device (likely to go down in the future.)


    At the Jolla booth at the Mobile World Congress they were also giving away Angry Birds soda. Angry Birds branded Jolla phone is said to be available before summer. 

  • Why the Apple TV Sequel, Expected In 2014, May Now Face a Tricky Debut


    We know for sure that Apple is developing a new Apple TV. We are curious as to what new features the new tiny black box will have and when exactly it's set to be launched.

    There was the possibility that apple might have been creating its own Internet TV service as a solution to its Apple TV limited content. Bloomberg News reported that it was less probable for Apple to by-pass cable operators and gets programming rights licenses from the media companies after failed negotiations with programmers and cable operators. Apple may be looking at the next alternative which would be having cable operators like Times Warner Cable and others get the programming rights on their behalf.

    When news later came of the acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Comsat in a $45 billion deal, it seems that Apple may find a hard time getting a good deal with Comcast since Comcast has a set top box of its own. The X1 set top box may make Comsat reluctant to give up its internet TV to a market rival.

    People following Apple’s activities and new innovations have been waiting on the company to cause a storm in the TV market just like what it did with the iPod player and iTunes in the music industry. The 2007 Apple TV was last updated in 2013 and there have been news of a new AppleTV with the iOS 7 mobile software which is indicative of a new device this year.

    13 million AppleTVs have been sold according to Apple CEO even with rumors of the company reducing its plans to venture into the TV industry. They are now focusing on getting programming rights from media companies though cable providers so that they do not seem like they are competing with the companies. So for now, all eyes are on the outcome of these deals. Mostly, we look forward to what will happen with the Time Warner Cable as it seems to be the first company that Apple has approached.

  • Bolt VoIP app with support for regular calls launches at the Play Store


    One may find VoIP a bit troublesome because using it requires a user to sign up to the service and in order to share the experience of using it with friends and family, one has to sort of market the service or maybe put in some effort to get them on board. That is not all; using VoIP across different services may also be an up-hill task but Bolt intends to make life on VoIP easier and maybe something to look more forward to.

    Bolt uniqueness comes in the aspect that, unlike services like Skype where users can only use it to call fellow Skype members, bolt does not obligate its users to such a choice. Calls made by Bolt users to other Bolt members will be channeled through their service and calls to other services are channeled normally. This makes Bolt a one-stop VoIP significantly reducing all the work one gets into once you sign up to each new service.

    Their main target may be to rally up users for their system or just make it a service to want. The Bolt VoIP keeps a record of the most frequent calls and lists them first and at the center just like the stock calling service. People who like simple easy to use applications should really look forward to Bolt VoIP, especially those that find the new Android launcher troublesome. It is a wonderful service for people out to make just simple calls and you never know; some of the calls may be free of charge.

    The new application is available in the Playstore and interested users with android 4.0 should feel free to download it. Still new at the store, it has a rating of 3.4 but you can be rest assured that it is as good as we say it is. Using it is quite simple and when you are not using it to call other Bolt users, it is still a good enough calling application.

  • Duracell Ventures into the Lucrative Cloud Storage Market

    Duracell, the battery maker and a subsidiary of Gillette is now offering cloud storage services. The service is offered at an intriguing monthly rate of $US199 for 2TB storage. There is a vast difference between batteries and cloud storage batteries and many people are wondering why Duracell has taken up this venture.

    A dig through the cloud storage service by Duracell indicates that it is not entirely in the business. It mentions Condre, a value added reseller as well as cloud facilitators offering the backup as a service. The facilitators of Condre also offer NAS/cloud storage functions.

    It has not been established whether Duracell is fronting Condre or whether Condre is using the name of Duracell. However, pundits are of the view that Duracell is poised to deliver on its claims of being 250-1000 times quicker than its rivals in the cloud storage service. The cloud storage service also includes the share n sync functions for shuttling data amongst mobile devices and PCs. This is done through the cloud backup as well as a web portal to enable access of data.

    The Duracell’s suite indicates collaboration with StorZon, which is a trademark that is held by Condre. It is said to offer cloud storage services that are Geodiverse including two data centers. Duracell indicates that the data will be stored twice on the premises and twice on the cloud. For now, the service looks to be US only.

  • Nokia new Android smartphone to cost $110


    Word is out on price of the the eagerly awaited Nokia low-cost smart phone whose alias is Normandy. The phone was scheduled to launch in late February but a retail website in Vietnam already seems to have its price listed on its website.

    Very little is known about the expected price of the ‘Normandy’ but Nokia was said to be planning a launch of the affordable smart phone in late February. Nokia have not yet shared the official price of the device but the according to rumored leaks, the price seems to be $110 as WMPoweruser puts it.

    WMPoweruser is said to have spotted the Nokia X A110’s price on a Vietnamese online retail website which had indicated $110 as the price of the Nokia Normandy which also has Nokia X as its other alias. The website also put a $160 price on its Nokia Lumia 525.

    There have been many speculations on the price of this long awaited Android device on the internet for several months now. The Nokia smart phone which shall be using the open source Android OS is said to be mainly targeted for developing markets.

    Rumor has it that Google Play app store will be one feature absent in the Nokia Android device and the alternative for the app store will be Nokia and Microsoft operated services like Mix radio and here maps. That is not to say that users will not have an app store. The app store on the phone will be Nokia’s, providing popular applications like facebook and twitter to the phone’s users.

    We will all be looking forward to February 24th, which is the anticipated phone launch date, to listen to Nokia’s press conference at the MWC trade show, Barcelona, Catalonia. Maybe the rumored price may not be far from the truth.

  • Tintri Zero Management Storage sets eye on Australia


    For the establishment of its Melbourne Headquarters that will be its technical APAC center, Tintri Zero Management Storage, a Californian based company, has decided to set up office in Australia as it acts on its intention to get into the Australian market. It has chosen Melbourne as the most strategic place to set up its office as it strengthens its operations in the Asia – Pacific (APAC) region.

    As the technical hub for the region, the office will run the channel management, marketing, sales and pre sales engineering sections of the company in the area.

    Peter Molloy, Tintri’s vice president stated that the strategic choice of Melbourne as the location for their local office was based on the city’s good history of hosting beginner IT business enterprises.

    He said that the good number of big organizations based in the city had a chance of gaining from disruptive technology that comes from strong innovation and adoption of new technologies which thrive in Melbourne city.According to him, transportation of product in the city will be easy and simple due to the effective and efficient freight and distribution system the city.

    The 30 high – value ICT jobs that Tintri will be creating by the move to set up office in the state of Victoria will go a play an appreciated part of growing and developing the industry in the state.

    The Victoria Coalition Government is in full support of the move and Gordon Rich-Phillips, the Minister for Technology commended Tintri’s move into the state of Victoria which has a diverse ICT environment, stating that Tintri’s storage platforms would be beneficial to the various big organizations in the state.

    Tintri has created a unique storage model known as the VM store which it claims maximizes storage for virtualized and cloud environments. This chief product is made with their innovative VM-Aware Storage architecture which is said to have the intelligence to maximize storage though understanding virtual machines.

    The company is said to have doubled its customer base worldwide having concluded the year 2013 with a 115% growth. Tintri intends to raise capital through an IPO in 2015 to increase their global investment.

  • C3 VoIP-150 Announced By Cambium Networks


    Cambium Networks, a worldwide broadband provider released the C3 VoIP-150 – a new analog telephone adaptor (ATA) that connects analogue telephones to digital VoIP telephone system.

    Any service provider that is currently using the PMP 450 and ePMP is able to integrate the new hardware seamlessly on their network. They are able to offer their subscribers new VoIP services as well as create new revenue streams. 

    Kevin Grace, co-founder and CTO of Nextlink Broadband indicated that the company, which is a long term client of the Cambium Network, is thrilled to offer their users high quality services through the C3 VoIP-150 technology. This is poised to improve the customer’s experience and allow clients to continue using their phones to offer the advanced services.

    Kevin also indicated that the company is pleased to invest in Cambium Networks since this will help them to reach more customers as well as grow the business organically. The C3 VoIP-150 is Cambium Network’s first ATA. The broadband solution’s specifications assure clients of superior end user experience that is field proven.