LG Electronics India Pvt. Ltd. (LGEIL) is all set to strike a cord with the young at heart yet again with the launch of its three new, exciting and contemporary mobile phones KS360, KM710 and KF300. The sleek QWERTY slider phone - KS360, the music phone - KM710 and a fashion phone with an external LCD display - KF300 will surely excite the next-gen.

Riding on their features, these uniquely stylish phones will enhance and enrich the music, imaging and slider experience of young Indian consumers. The handsets are packed with all elements that one might require to stay in constant touch with friends via phone calls or SMS, listen to the favourite numbers, games to play at leisure, capture lifes beautiful and unexpected moments or to make a style statement. Bundled with these impressive features, the aesthetically designed cell phones offer a perfect option for the youngsters today. Apart from being trendy cool gadgets, the features of the phones also assist in meeting with professional objectives with its web functions.

Expressing his views, Anil Arora, Business Group Marketing Head, Mobile Communication, LG Electronics Pvt Ltd said, At LG, we understand that todays mobile phones have transcended from their functional use and become a style statement. We work towards to meet the growing demand of the new world with our innovative and latest world class products at affordable prices. With the launch of these three phones, we are offering perfect options for youth. These phones are packed with dynamic features to meet the needs of todays generation. We are confident that our new offering will be well accepted and live up to the expectations of the consumers.

KS360 is packed with 2.4 touch screen dialling, a sliding keypad with QWERTY keypad and a plethora of entertainment options, an internal memory of 14 MB and an external memory of 2GB micro SD cards to create your favorite music list what more the phone comes bundled with a 1Gb card to build up images and store videos.

KS 360 offers great convenience to consumers to type SMS quickly and also has threaded message feature where SMS conversations appear as treaded messages.
KS360 offers group messaging of upto 100 contacts with supported languages of English and Hindi ensuring that you are never too away from your friends. The phone has embedded applications like Yahoo search, NDTV active, USB charging, document viewer and many more. And this wasnt enough; this perfect mobile for the next generation also has an Anti-theft Mobile Tracker that eases out tracking of the lost mobile.

KM710 is an ultimate portable music phone with music control key on visual wheel which render liveliness to the phone while playing music or using camera or other features of the phone. The handset has an interactive dual display and is also touch sensitive dynamic. With a digital zoom 4X, a 3 mega-pixel camera and video recording, the phone can capture continuous shots. LG KM710 has a vast memory package extending upto 4GB with an internal memory of 15 MB with 1 GB bundled memory. Banking on audio and animation, the phone fits well in the best buyer phone for its extensive features and added benefits.

Making it more impressive in looks, LG KF300 is presented in a laser cut design with an external LCD. The phone has 2.2 QVGA display screen with a large keypad making it convenient for typing SMS or calling. It also has a variable font size, mobile tracker and an internal memory of upto 14MB. KF300 packs in 4 hot keys for putting on an alarm, schedule, and view photo album and add anything to favourite. Only 98grams in weight, the phone has a 2 mega-pixel camera, FM, MP3, Bluetooth and talktime of upto 5 hours.Â

LG KS360 is priced at Rs 11,500/- (MRP) and comes in stylish black and grey color, KM710 is priced at Rs 12,500/- (MRP) and is available in black color and LG KF300, priced at Rs 8500/- (MRP).

Why we need 3G ?

At times, we as a nation tend to get ahead of ourselves. Or at least many of us do. Look at 3G, the new mobile phone technology that has transformed the lives of people in many other nations, starting with Japan nearly a decade ago. For about six months now, many of us have been buying 3G handsets including the iconic iPhone — the latter at prices exceeding Rs 31,000 — for a feature that is not even available, and may not be available very soon. Think of it as buying a car before a road has been built. Without the new technology and zippy downloads that allow even television to be watched on a mobile phone, such gadgets remain mere toys.

India has squandered several years of tearaway growth of its mobile market and now finds itself a laggard in the rollout of 3G, or third generation, technology. It might seem like poor consolation, but India is not the only major nation that has stood still while the rest of the world marched along. China, too. This, ironically, means the world’s two largest cellphone markets don’t have access to the newest technology. China is paying the price for a critical mis-step — choosing a home-grown technology. India rolled out 3G in Delhi at the turn of this year but it is only symbolic. Only small pockets of the Indian capital enjoy the ser-vice, minus the bells and whistles that would accompany a total rollout. Meanwhile, it is not just the advanced economies that lead India. Several smaller countries, and emerging markets, have. In fact, the shining star in the Asian region is Indonesia, which has eclipsed front-runners such as Korea. Why do we really need 3G? We need it not only to satisfy our craving for instant gratification, whether to download the latest music, watch videos or live cricket, or Internet surfing. “There is a pent-up demand for richer (mobile) experience, even for voice, spectrum is choc-a-block” resulting in poor quality services, says Nareshchandra Singh, an analyst at IT research group Gartner.

We need the new technology also to fulfil, and create new, business. A remarkable finding in recent years is the positive correlation between GDP growth and penetration of mobile phones. According to research by the consulting firm McKinsey, developing countries can raise their gross domestic product by 0.5% if they can increase mobile use by 10 percentage points. The gains each year for India, already a trillion-dollar economy, could be as high as $50 billion — the equivalent of creating two Infosys.

The benefits to India have been demonstrated in recent years. Rapid use of the mobile phone helped India overcome decades of negligible telecom growth. As Singh points out, “India took 50 years to achieve two per cent teledensity” with landline phones, but in only five years, cellular growth pushed teledensity to 20 per cent.

“Cellphone technology is cost-effective and can make things happen faster,” Singh says, whereas “wiring the country takes a long time”.

The rapid adoption of 3G can make up for reverses India has suffered in its bid to expand wired broadband and in its historical inability to quickly raise PC penetration. India has miserably failed in meeting its broadband targets, notably because of the so-called last-mile problem — stretching that cable into homes and offices. India has about 4.1 million broadband lines, compared with China’s 75 million. Similarly, PC penetration has been slow. Consequently, we have only three PCs and one broadband line for every 200 people. Compare this with a cellphone in the hands of every fourth person in the country. New 3G technology has the potential to put a virtual PC with a broadband connection in the hands of over 300 million, the current mobile user base, at one stroke resolving the inadequacies of PC and broadband penetration. Aman Kapoor, who heads a US-based telecom think tank Packetology and has studied the markets in India and other emerging nations, believes it is still not too late for India to seize the opportunity. “I believe if 3G service is priced at Rs. 400 per month — India could have 50 million 3G subscribers,” he says. Most providers have 3G plans in place and could roll out services in six months, Kapoor adds.

For years, progress on 3G has been stalled by political machinations and policy para­lysis, not to mention controversy over the way spectrum was given away to 2G, or second generation, service providers. Unless the spectrum auction takes place, it is hard to tell when 3G will become reality in India. With Lok Sabha elections around the corner, things don't look good and delays may be inevitable. The bottom line: many of us might be left twiddling with that expensive 3G phone we may have bought and might even need to upgrade before 3G rolls out.

Spice Mobiles launches India’s most affordable video-camera phone Spice S-590

Spice S-590

Also unveils Popat, an unbelievable VAS application which transforms your handset into a talking phone!

Spice Mobiles, India’s leading mobile handset company known for path breaking innovations today announced their first launch of 2009, Spice S-590, the most affordable video-camera phone. Along with an unbelievable price, this video camera phone comes fully loaded with rich features like music, FM, torch, expandable memory upto 2 GB, GPRS, interesting VAS features and applications like Voice prompts, Mobile tracker, call blacklist, SMS scheduler along with the 3D user interface with 13 options to choose et al. Spice S-590 is the common man’s dream handset and is available at an affordable price of Rs. 2,499 (MRP). The phone promises a new-age experience with its great features and applications.

With the new Spice S-590, Spice Mobiles has also launched an interesting voice prompt application which makes it a “Talking Phone”. The voice prompt feature christened POPAT transforms the phone into a talking parrot which speaks out the number of an incoming call, phonebook and keys pressed on keypad. POPAT can benefit the common masses that cannot read or write, prove to be a utility for the blind and disabled or an interesting fun feature for the youth.

Spice S-590 is an impeccable blend of fun, features and entertainment. A must buy for all; the phone is a surprise gadget empowered with an impressive combination of Video camera phone, FM record & MP3 player, Expandable memory upto 2 GB, SMS scheduler, Mobile tracker, Call blacklist et al to make your journey much more exciting and an entirely thrilling experience. This phone brings to its users, best in class mobile technology, multimedia and VAS innovations.

So grab your dream phone, Spice S-590 today and experience multimedia and VAS features like never before!

iPhone Application Watch: VelaClock 1.4

Vela Design Group has announced the latest version of its VelaClock world clock application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Easy to configure, users can display sunrise, sunset, dawn and dusk times for civil, nautical or astronomical times, moon phase and tilt.

VelaClock divides the screen into two panes, the upper pane which contains a list of cities and a lower detail pane. Each row in the city list displays the country flag, city name, local time, day of week and a daylight bar (which can optionally be hidden).

The daylight bar gives the user a picture of 24 hours of natural light (bright daylight, three kinds of twilight, and night). It may be centered at noon or the current time. A thin white bar indicates when the moon is visible.

Next gen mobiles to identify faces of people you click

The next time you click a picture using your mobile phone, your gadget may identify the faces of all those you clicked. The new face-recognition application which Nokia is working on in collaboration with Korean developers is the latest innovative feature Genext phones are likely to have.

“The modus operandi is simple. You have to identify the face in your album just once. The gadget does a search and identifies all similar looking faces,” explains Kenny Mathers, head, Developers and Channels, Forum Nokia, Asia Pacific.

This is in addition to the time and the location details (tracked on GPS-enabled devcies) that the mobile will throw up. “All you need is a simply S60 Nokia phone with a 3 megapixel camera,” he adds.

If this is not all, there is the new snapdragon format brought out by Qualcomm which combines all the features of a laptop and mobile phone. “While you can watch high definition video, play games and even browse the net, it also has all the voice-features of a mobile phone,” explains Parag Kar, senior director, government affairs, Qualcomm India and South Asia.

“This is almost like the latest notebooks, just that you have additional voice features here,” he says. With the sales of handsets dropping, mobile set-makers are trying to keep their bottomlines intact with exciting features and innovative adaptations. They are penetrating rural markets, customising many applications to suit the semi-literate crowds as well.

Here’s what Santosh Hiralal Ostwal, CEO, Osian Agro Automation, Pune, has developed to help farmers in the parched border areas of Karnataka and Maharashtra.

“Farmers often have their pump sets situated quite far from their houses. We connect a modem and mobile phone to the electrical starter of the water pump. A farmer sitting at home can activate the application. If he dials a number, the pumps start working. You can even know whether water is actually pumped up or not or whether the power supply is on,” explains Santosh. “This can be done with any low-end mobile phone,” says Santosh.

Srinivasan R, CEO, OneViewSystems, Trivandrum, who discovered that the calendar features of mobile phones was what was extensively used, innovated a technology whereby users can record their messages in their own voice.

“At present, we have to key in the text message. Instead of this, you can record the message in your own voice, in whichever language you choose. The recorded voice message comes up at the prescribed time,” says Srinivasan. “Since this is language independent, this application can be of great help to the visually-challenged and the illiterate,” he says. “In US and UK, service-providers extend this facility on the payment of $10. In India this will be around $6,” he says.

Applications like these, which once used to be limited to smart phones which can store enormous amounts of data, is now available even in ordinary phones like the S40 Nokia phones.

Google phone is here, in grey

The much-awaited HTC G1, the first mobile phone based on Android, Google’s mobile operating system set to make smartphones affordable, is yet to get officially launched in India but popular online shopping sites are already selling the handset unlocked to any operator, complete with easy installment options and warranty.

Leading online shopping sites like eBay India (www.ebay.in) and Indiaplaza (www.indiaplaza.in) are selling the HTC G1. At eBay India, the unlocked 8GB handset was sold for Rs 24,900 through an auction on Wednesday.

US-based www.indiaplaza is selling the handset for Rs 29,899 and buyers can also through instalments. Other sites too are selling the same with a one-year dealer’s warranty at Rs 49,995.

Manufactured by Taiwanese handset company Hi-Tech Computer Corporation (HTC), the G1 was launched in the US in September last year and was locked to operator T-Mobile’s two-year service contract.

The handset, which Time magazine called the ‘Gadget of the Year’ for 2008, is seen as competition for both the Blackberry and the iPhone.

It was expected to launch in India by December 2008 but got delayed by currency fluctuations and economic conditions that made service providers reluctant to bundle services to sell the handset that will cost anywhere between Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 when launched.