iPhone 4S Adding Maximum Subscribers To Verizon

Although all the three U.S. carriers are benefiting from the launch of iPhone 4S, Verizon has so far proven to be the biggest beneficiary, as per a new report from J.P. Morgan.

Due to the launch of iPhone 4S, 1.2 million postpaid subscribers are believed to be added to Verizon during the fourth quarter, slightly higher than the figure of 1 million that J.P. Morgan earlier projected.
Second to Verizon is AT&T which is probable to add some 450,000 subscribers for the quarter, Sprint comes at the third spot with around 250,000 subscribers. On the contrary, a loss of around 400,000 postpaid subscribers for the year’s final quarter has been projected for T-Mobile, the only U.S. carrier without iPhone.
In general, iPhone 4S sales remain high across all the carriers despite shortage of supply.

HTC revenue dives 30% as phones fail to impress

HTC saw device sales revenue dive 30-percent in November 2011, with the company’s struggling to maintain consumer interest as it heads into the all-important holiday sales period. HTC’s figures [pdf link] indicate revenue in November dropped to NT$ 30.942bn ($1.03bn) from NT$44,114 ($1.46bn) in the previous month. Although the company has not given a reason for the slumping demand, it’s likely that an increasing number of me-too devices like the various Sensation iterations have failed to find traction in the market.


It’s not just November being a patchy month, either. Compared to November 2010, which saw revenues of NT$38.48bn ($1.27bn), HTC’s numbers are down almost 20-percent.
As we wrote last month, HTC needs to rethink the elements that differentiate it from market rivals if it wants to maintain or improve its position in the smartphone and tablet market. The company lacks the devoted following of Apple or the solid manufacturing base of Samsung, and has made vague attempts to distinguish itself with custom software and services.
However, those attempts have been half-hearted at best, and the value of the Sense UI grows less relevant as Google improves Android’s native interface. HTC has warned of flat Q4 performance, and said it intends to “focus on the product” in 2012 to turn its fortunes around.

Genius launches budget-friendly SW-2.1 360 PC speakers

Genius has something new for the cash strapped PC buyer, a new set of 2.1 speaker system, called the SW-2.1 360. Priced at Rs.1,200 and armed with a year's worth of warranty, it’s perfect for someone on a tight budget.

Sound on a budget

The SW - 2.1 360 is a 3-piece speaker system. Its wooden subwoofer has a 4-inch unit driver with a reflex port for deep bass performance. The stylish design of the satellite speakers have a 2.75-inch colour-coated driver for clear and detailed mid and high range frequency. And there is a volume and bass control in front of the subwoofer for easy control. SW-2.1 360 is ideal to listen to music or play games on your desktop or laptop.

With speaker dimensions of 155 x 222 x 209mm (WxHxD) and satellite dimensions of 85 x 130 x 86mm (WxHxD), this products weighs 1.8kg. The package contains one subwoofer, two satellite speakers and a multi-language user's manual.

India asks Facebook and Google to monitor user content

The latest move by the government in their apparent communications fear (Skype and BBM threats anyone?) ,now targets the social networks. Don't forget though, that they wanted to monitor social networks, back in August. But now, they want online services like Facebook and Google to literally hire people to censor out posts that might be defamatory or inflammatory. According to the New York Times officials from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook met with Kapil Sibal, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology yesterday afternoon to discuss the matter.

Sibal had met with these executives about six weeks ago and showed them a Facebook page on which there were negative views on Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party's president. He told them in another meeting in late November that human beings should be filtering content that is defamatory. Of course, the officials from the companies have stated their concerns at how impossible a task this is for human beings to discern whether a comment is inflammatory, defamatory or otherwise disparaging given the volume of content that is generated from this country.

This is clearly an example of how laws to moderate the web space have not been thought through and by setting up a 'task force' of humans to filter content, or even if algorithms were set up to monitor content, if Sibal is successful in his mission, it could infringe upon our right to freedom of speech and expression. The reluctance of the companies themselves is a good sign, but hopefully the Indian government does not threaten to ban these online services, if they do not comply.

Press image of the Nozomi leaks online, looks as stunning as ever

It appears that the news about the Sony Ericsson Nozomi is not going to end, anytime soon. In the beginning of November, we saw the handset captured in the wild and in the picture we saw the handset’s system information as well as an LED strip at the back. After that, a few days back we saw an official image of the handset, but unfortunately it was a bit low res. Xperia Blog have received what appears to be the first press shot of the Sony Ericsson LT26i aka Nozomi and it certainly does look classy.

The stylish Nozomi that will launch next year

This image appears to match the same handset that was spotted a couple of time before, but nothing impresses us as much as a good quality press shot. As far as specifications are concerned, details are pretty slim, but we can see to the top right of the smartphone there is a front facing camera and it features three capacitive buttons at the bottom. The buttons lined up are the back, menu and home button and is placed just above the Xperia branding. Here are some of the rumoured specifications of the Sony Ericsson Nozomi:

• Android Ice Cream Sandwich
• 4.3-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720
• 1.5GHz dual core processor
• 1GB RAM
• 32GB ROM
• No MicroSD card support
• 1750 mAh battery

Prior to this, there was no information on the capacity of the battery or even how much internal memory it supported. Hopefully, in the coming days more information of this stylish handset will be revealed, as it would definitely give other stylish handset in a the market a run for their money.

Google+ for iOS gets updated with new features

While Facebook for iOS is fixing glitches, Google+ for iOS has been updated to add more features. They've introduced two new features with the latest update, which they're calling version 1.0.7.2940, including a search function and the ability to upload full-sized photos. The update works on all iOS devices running iOS 4.0 and higher. The search function allows you to refine your search by selecting results from either People or Posts.

Google+ for iOS gets some changes

The higher resolution photos do not work as well as one might hope, though. When uploaded, the photos still cannot be seen in their full resolution. Also, Google+ photos on a mobile device cannot be zoomed into. Additionally, they've added the ability to +1 photos. In your stream, there is now a +1 in the upper right hand corner when you view a picture. Tapping on it will allow you to +1 the picture. The update
to the app also brings a few bug fixes and makes the app run a little smoother.

Xbox Companion to be Released December 6th[Today]

The Xbox 360 is expected to see a new upgrade to the dashboard interface on December 6th tomorrow, but along with that Windows Phone users will also be able to download an Xbox Companion app which will let you control certain aspects of the new Xbox 360 interface. You'll be able to use your phone to search the Xbox catalog for movies, TV shows, music, games and apps using Bing. You'll also be able to see recently played games and apps as well as browse the Zune video catalog and view detailed information about the content you're watching. Of course, you can choose to play any of the content that you find on the phone's Xbox companion on your Xbox 360 and you'll have remote controls for pausing, fast forwarding, etc. You can even set beacons for Xbox games that you want to play with your friends. If you've got an Xbox and a Windows Phone, this certainly looks like a must-have app.