Mxit is betting on feature phones and social change in India

More and more people in developing nations are turning to mobile messaging apps instead of SMS. As they do so, they’ll find that there’s a huge variety of social messaging apps to choose from.
WhatsApp goes for cool simplicity; Line and WeChat try to throw as many features at people as possible; Viber and Nimbuzz have the option of phone-calls. There’s something for everyone. The African messaging app Mxit is trying another angle – placing an emphasis on feature phone users, group gatherings, and discussing social change.
Mxit already has over 10 million registered users across Africa. To be as accessible as possible, it comes with apps for Nokia, BlackBerry, and various Java-based phones, as well as for more modern platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
There’s an now an Indian office, headed by Mxit India CEO Sam Rufus, who wants to see the messaging app grow in what he calls a “previously excluded segment” in India – among feature phone users.

Over half a billion feature phones

The latests figures from IDC show that 78 percent of new phones shipped in India last year were feature phones. That means 212.3 million new sub-$100 basic phones versus a mere 44 million smartphones. Rufus adds that, in grand total, India has about half a billion 2G-equipped features phones in use – most of which are Nokias. That’s the area Mxit is aiming at.
Mxit is placing an emphasis on public group chats – called Chat Zones in the app – as it battles rival apps for new users. As a country that’s embracing mobile web usage over desktops or laptops, it could be the first destination for new internet users in India, just as BBS and forums are in many nations. Rufus adds that the social network isn’t troubled by growing uptake of smartphones: “We’re not threatened by it. We can graduate with users as they upgrade.”
Those chat zones within Mxit can bridge the gap to smartphones, he adds, so that public group discussions can take place between people on iPhones and feature phones. Groups can be about anything, as they’re created by users.

Social change

In addition to those groups, Mxit is setting itself apart from rival messaging apps with Mxit Citizens forums, which are being used by a number of NGOs to discuss social issues with ordinary people. These other forums are created and moderated by Mxit. These forums can also be used for other purposes, such as for e-learning or counseling sessions with certified experts. The Indian crew is now talking to UNICEF about starting online classes inside the app – something that has already been done in Africa on Mxit.

All those extra features, including profile pages, make Mxit into a broader social network – a bit like a mobile-only Facebook. That’s something apps like Line and WeChat are trying to do as well. Mxit also has brand and celebrity pages.
But Rufus sees Mxit co-existing with Facebook in India, and says that the app-within-the-app feature – that’s also how things like the NGOs are accessed – allows people to login to a sort of Facebook mobile site from within Mxit. So the experience is complementary.

Aiming at over 10 million Indian users next year

Mxit India CEO Sam Rufus

But Mxit faces more direct competition from other messaging apps. WhatsApp already has over 30 million monthly active users in India. Line, a much more recent entrant to the country, has over 10 million registered users. With both of those apparently growing at the rate of a few million new users per month (WhatsApp’s growth is more impressive, as it counts active users, not merely those who sign up) it’s hard to fight that kind of momentum – especially as a messaging app is only as good as the number of friends who are also on it.
Rufus (pictured above) says that Mxit is aiming at 10 to 12 million registered users in India by midway through 2015. It got off to a solid start with 350,000 new sign-ups in just the first two and a half weeks after its high-profile launch in India, with cricketer and former team India coach Gary Kirsten brought in as brand ambassador. To be more inclusive, the company hopes to have the app running with a choice of 11 Indian languages in the coming months.
While a new messaging app is a tough sell to India’s mobile users, the company has plenty of plans to make money from the service while keeping it free for regular people. Aside from making money from brands and NGOs that use the app-within-the-app feature, there are plans to sell banner ads and splashscreens as well as offering market surveys. That last idea is intriguing. Rufus says the messaging app could help brands get feedback, or help political parties to get some idea of their level of support. The app, with enough traction, could be uniquely placed to connect brands and politicians with people in India’s rural areas.
Mxit has apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phones, BlackBerry (legacy OS), and Java-based devices.

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Skype co-founder hops Singapore’s HipVan as angel investor

Singapore-based startup, HipVan today announced that Skype co-founder Toivo Annus has become one of its investors. The amount invested is undisclosed.
Besides Annus, HipVan’s investors include Singapore celebrity Jade Seah, tech entrepreneur Darius Cheung, and Singapore investment firm Silicon Straits.
“Toivo has a strong investment record in Singapore, and is committed to helping HipVan scale our business as we continue to grow. We are extremely excited to have him come on board the team!” said Danny, CEO and co-founder of HipVan.
Over the years, Annus has invested in quite a number of startups in Singapore, including Anafore, Redmart, Coda Payments and Milaap.
HipVan first launched in Singapore on April 2013. It then expanded to Malaysia just about three month after its launch. HipVan says that monthly revenue is growing rapidly but declined to reveal exact figures.

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China’s Xiaomi is working on phone launches in India, Indonesia, and other Asian markets

Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi held an event in Singapore this morning. Aside from launching the Redmi and Mi3 phones in Singapore, Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra and Lin Bin talked a lot about Xiaomi’s ambitions around the world.
Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra explained to the event’s Singapore audience that the company will use the same customer-focused tactics in Singapore as it does in China – such as listening to users and making small changes to the product throughout its lifecycle based on what they say. Xiaomi will have a service store in Singapore that’s only for repairs, just as it does in China. Sales will be conducted online or via partner telcos, but telcos may set their own prices.

No plans yet for US and Europe

Barra also explained why the startup chose Singapore as its first stop in Southeast Asia – indeed, as its international HQ – by saying that it was tempted by the small but very sophisticated market, which would allow them to iterate fast. Xiaomi can then use those lessons in neighboring markets like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Xiaomi is also looking closely at India, Barra says, where it’s actively looking for partners. Those four, mentioned specifically by the company at today’s event, look to be the next markets for launch.
However, Barra described the US and European markets as far too difficult at the moment. And so the disruptive Chinese phone-maker looks set to focus on Asia for growth of its brand.
Xiaomi isn’t actually the first Chinese smartphone brand to look to Asia for expansion, as Oppo, Meizu, and Coolpad have been doing the same thing with their Android-based phones in the past year.

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Samsung Plans To Launch Multiple New Smart Watches At MWC 2014

Samsung plans to launch at least two new versions of its Galaxy Gear smart watch next week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona according to reports from USA Today and The Verge. One of the watches will run Tizen, an open source operating system Samsung is helping develop. The current Galaxy Gear runs Google's Android mobile operating system. The Tizen watch would theoretically allow the new Galaxy Gear to sync with a bunch of different devices, not just Android phones.
The original Galaxy Gear launched last fall to poor reviews. Critics panned the device for its limited capabilities, bulky design, and poor battery life.
Samsung has already said it plans to release a new Galaxy Gear along with its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S5. Those devices will officially debut on February 24 at the company's press conference at MWC.

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How to make your iPhone work faster

Just like a computer, your iPhone can slow down over time. Here are some tips to help get it running as good as new.
Is your iPhone running slower than it used to? While iPhones seem to hold up fairly well over the length of a standard two-year contract (at least in my experience), there are plenty of factors that can contribute to some slight or significant slowdown. So if you’re looking to make your iPhone faster, these tips should help bring it back to feeling brand new.

What’s taking up the most space?

A bloated phone is a slower phone, so you want to make sure your iPhone has a little room to breathe. But before you do anything drastic, you should get a sense of what’s actually taking up the most space.
Luckily, checking out your iPhone’s usage is a very simple process. Simply tap on Settings > General > Usage. (Note that it might take a while for this list to populate, especially if your phone is really loaded up.)

This will show you a list of what’s taking up all that space, starting with the biggest data hogs and moving down to the smallest. To start, I’d play closer attention to the top of the list, since that’s where there’s the most work to be done.
Note: Before you delete anything, it’s a good idea to make sure your phone is backed up, just in case. You can find information on backing up your iPhone here.

Delete unused apps

Now that you know just how much space those apps take up, it’s time to clear some of them out. You can do this from the home screen — by holding down an app until it wiggles, then pressing the X icon in the upper left corner — but it’s easier to do it from the Usage menu, where you’ll be reminded of how big an app is before you delete it.
To delete an app from here, simply tap on it, then hit Delete App on the next page it brings up.

Delete some music, photos and (lots of) video

When you look at your phone’s usage, you’ll probably find that music, photos and video are taking up a ton of space — especially video files, which are huge. You’ll want to delete as much as possible, but it’s up to you to decide what stays and what goes. That said, there are multiple ways you can go about deleting these files.
If you want to delete all of your music in one fell swoop, you can do so from the Usage menu. Simply tap on Music, then hit Edit at the top of the next screen. This will bring up a red circle with a Minus sign next to All Music. Tap the circle and you’ll be given an option to delete everything.

Chances are you don’t want to start from scratch, however. In that case, whenever you find a song you want to delete from your Music app, simply swipe across the name of the song to the left (like you’re deleting an email) to bring up the option to delete it.

Note: Unless you’re an audiophile with a great pair of headphones, you probably don’t need to store super-high-quality audio files on your iPhone. iTunes offers the option to automatically convert higher bit rate songs to 128kbps AAC files before placing them on your phone (you can also choose 192 or 256kbps). For most people, even 128kbps will sound good enough and can save you a ton of space.

Deleting photos isn’t quite as simple. The only way to delete them all at once in iOS 7 is to connect your phone to your computer and choose Select All from the File menu before deleting the images through iPhoto (you can read more about quickly deleting photos from your iPhone here).
But if you only want to delete certain images and videos directly from your phone, you can do it right from the Photos app. Just open the app up, make sure you’re in the Photos view at the bottom of the screen, then tap Select in the top right corner. This will allow you to select all of the photos you wish to delete, which you can do by tapping the trash can icon in the bottom right corner.

Don’t forget to get rid of old messages (especially photos and video)

Messages take up a lot of space too. Not necessarily text messages, but all those picture messages you send and receive take up a ton of space.
If you don’t mind losing your entire message history with someone, you can delete an entire series of messages by swiping left across the most recent message in your Messages app. But if you want only want to delete pictures and video you can do that too, though it’s going to take a little more work.
Open a message. Find a picture or video you want to delete and hold your finger down on it. When a dialogue box appears choose More. This will allow you to select individual messages to delete by checking off the boxes to the left of each message. You can then delete them by tapping on the trash can icon in the bottom left corner.

Clear out your cache

Safari caches data to speed up page load times, but too much data can also slow down your phone overall. To clear it out, tap on Settings > Safari > Clear History. Then do the same but choose Clear Cookies and Data.

And if you make to make sure Safari is squeaky clean, tap on Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, tap Remove All Website Data, confirm that you wish to remove it, and there it goes. Note that doing this will also remove any saved login information you have unless you store it in iCloud Keychain.

Update your software

Yes, sometimes upgrading to a big, new iOS on an older iPhone can actually slow down your device. But if you’re already running iOS 7, make sure you have the latest version installed. New releases often bring tiny speed and performance bumps. You can make sure you’re up to date by tapping Settings > General > Software Update.

Some other software fixes

If you’re running iOS 7, there are a couple of other things you can try. First, you can turn off some of the new visual features introduced in the OS, like parallax motion, which are taxing on your CPU. To do this, tap Settings > General > Accessibility, and set Reduce Motion to On.

You should also turn off background processes, which use up a lot of available processing resources. Your best bet is to keep background apps from automatically refreshing. This means apps like Twitter won’t continue to update even when not in use. To do this tap Settings > General > Background App Refresh, then switch the toggle to off.

Reset your settings

Sometimes making your phone feel like new again requires you to switch some settings back to when your phone actually was new. Your best bet for this is to reset all of your phone’s settings.
To do this, tap on Settings > General > Rest > Reset All Settings. This won’t delete any of your apps, music, photos or other data, but it will reset all of your configurations, including email and network settings.

And if you truly want to start off fresh, you can choose to erase all of your iPhone’s content and settings. This will delete all of the data and settings on your phone, restoring it back to its original out-of-box state. You can read more on how to reset your iPhone here.

Get a new phone

This might seem obvious. But then again maybe not. If you’re still using an iPhone 3GS, there really isn’t much else you can do at this point to make it run any faster. Most of the tips above should help, but the only way to get your phone feeling brand new is to get a brand new phone

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Smartphone with Highest Google Searches in 2013

Every once in a lifetime, comes a phone that alters the world of technology with permanence and panache. This time this super gadget is the Samsung S4 unveiled on 13th March, 2013. It has created quite a frenzy in the international market of technology. The device is a successor to the Galaxy S III which maintains a similar design, but with upgraded hardware and an increased focus on software features that take advantage of its hardware capabilities—such as the ability to detect when a finger is hovered over the screen, and expanded eye tracking functionality (which includes scrolling). Upon its release, it became the fastest selling smart phone in Samsung's history; the company sold 20 million  S4 units worldwide in the two months following the device's launch. Obviously it has also become the most searched mobile phone on the internet.
Check out here some of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Features Back-illuminated sensor (BSI), CMOS image sensor, auto focus, touch to focus, digital image stabilization, face detection, smile detection, exposure compensation, white balance presets, digital zoom, geo tagging, high dynamic range mode (HDR), panorama, scenes, effects, self-timer, voice activation are some of the key features that make this phone a coveted gadget. It is a traveller, student and a business man’s dream come true, for it has a plethora of features in it. With so much packed in, it challenges and beats all smart phones in the market today. The Galaxy S3 Mini is also Good interms of Features and price.
It’s not just the most searched phone, but also the fastest selling gadget. At Rediff Shopping find Samsung Galaxy S4 at a much cheaper rates then other shopping sites.


Coming with a dual core S4/1 GB of RAM, we can say this is a huge performance boost. However you will still have to close down apps from time to time, though that’s mostly for battery saving purposes. No matter how many apps you use, the phone just doesn’t seem to hang. The antennas in this device are great as well. Most users complain about the lag that Android comes with but this phone solves the problem of most android processors. So now you get a comparatively cheap android phone that works at lightening fast speed! What more could one ask for?

The biggest advantage of this phone is its Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery that offers crazy back up for a smart phone. You can hear songs on that long road trip of yours without any qualms about the battery, as it offers marked improvement in the battery life than S3.

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Kickstarter gets hacked, tells users to change passwords

Summary: Kickstarter was hacked earlier this week, the crowdfunding site informed users on Saturday. While the company says the hackers didn’t gain access to credit card numbers and only two users were affected, it advised all users to change their passwords.

Kickstarter was hacked Wednesday night and the crowdfunding site advised users to change their passwords late Saturday afternoon.
The hack appeared limited to just two users’ accounts, Kickstarter said. While the company says that “No credit card data of any kind was accessed by hackers. There is no evidence of unauthorized activity of any kind on all but two Kickstarter user accounts,” the hackers did gain access to other types of information — including “usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords.”
In a blog post, Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler offered a Q&A:

“How were passwords encrypted?
Older passwords were uniquely salted and digested with SHA-1 multiple times. More recent passwords are hashed with bcrypt.
Does Kickstarter store credit card data?
Kickstarter does not store full credit card numbers. For pledges to projects outside of the US, we store the last four digits and expiration dates for credit cards. None of this data was in any way accessed.
If Kickstarter was notified Wednesday night, why were people notified on Saturday?
We immediately closed the breach and notified everyone as soon we had thoroughly investigated the situation.
Will Kickstarter work with the two people whose accounts were compromised?
Yes. We have reached out to them and have secured their accounts.
I use Facebook to log in to Kickstarter. Is my login compromised?
No. As a precaution we reset all Facebook login credentials. Facebook users can simply reconnect when they come to Kickstarter.”

Kickstarter said it’s improved its security measures and will continue to do so in coming weeks.

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Where's My Phone?!? Google to Roll Out Find My Android Service

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We've all misplaced our phones for a period of time. Maybe it only took a few frightened glances next to the couch or a quick look back at the restaurant table to retrieve it. For some of us, however, the loss was permanent, as our little black and grey finger candies were snapped up by the first person who wandered by. And we spent the rest of the day oscillating between fear and anger.
If you've got an iPhone, you've been covered for years now simply by activating Find My iPhone, a service that lets you locate, down to a fairly small circle, where your device is awaiting your rescue (or remote data-wiping if unobtainable). For Android users, however, you've had to rely on third party apps with limited capability to lead you back to your errant device. That is, until now.
The Official Google Blog, has announced that devices running the Android 2.2 Operating System will soon receive a new service, called the Android Device Manager. The upgrade, due out later this month, will include a number of features that will put it on par with Apple's lost phone security system.

If you discover you've lost your phone, you can go to any computer and log into the Android Device Manager, which will be part of the Google Play Store. All that is required is your Google account login, the same one you used to activate your Android phone.
Choose your registered phone and push out a signal to ring at full volume, even if your lost phone was last put on vibrate or silent mode. If this doesn't do the trick, find the phone as a blip a Google Map.
If you discover that your lost Android phone is on the move and you don't feel safe going into full-on vigilante mode (or are worried it will get turned off soon), delete all data on the device using a special built-in wipe mode, to keep your data safe from prying eyes.
If, like many, you've jailbroken and modified your Android phone, the Google blog says they're also introducing an Android Device Manager app, so you should be covered no matter

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The Luci Inflatable Solar Lantern Gets a Colorful Follow-Up

 

What was originally conceived as a cheap rechargeable LED light for parts of the world where the power grid wasn't reliable, turned out to be a huge hit with consumers all over the world after it was unveiled at CES last year. So this year MPOWERD is introducing a slightly more extravagant model of its inflatable lantern called the Luci Aura that features color-changing LED lights and a new frosted plastic giving it a softer glow.

Where as the original Luci was all about maximizing brightness, the Aura is more about setting a mood and is designed to be a fun camping accessory, or the perfect way to decorate a dorm room. It's got the same solar panel on the underside as the Luci, as well as the original's rechargeable battery that promises up to 12 hours of illumination after eight hours under a light source.

But besides the snazzy colors, and a $25 price tag that's about $10 more than the original, the Aura is actually made from a new environmentally-friendly plastic that's actually biodegradable. There's no word on how long it will take for the Aura to disintegrate, but it will certainly give you many years of loyal service long before it starts to rot away.

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