Hutch has launched "mobisodes," mobile episodes of humorous clips from plays in association with "Crazy" Mohan - the popular Tamil playwright, with a view towards providing enhanced value-added services to its customers in Tamil Nadu. Hutch's mobile subscribers can now dial 123456 and listen to Crazy Mohan's mobile episodes or mobisodes as they are popularly called. This is for people who would like to have some humorous clips as caller tunes. Mohan mobisodes are of 2 to 3 minutes each. Hutch has split one of Crazy Mohan's plays "Satellite Samiyar" into 25 mobisodes. Each episode is anywhere between one minute and three minutes in duration. This value-added service comes at Rs 6 per minute for subscribers. -->According to company sources, other plays like "Aladdin and the 100 Watts bulb" are also planned to be split into similar episodes. The service will be available to both post and prepaid subscribers of Hutch. The daily contest called "Crazy Mohan question of the day" based on the previous day's mobisode is an added attraction. A set of autographed Crazy Mohan CDs awaits the winners and what's more, if you listen to Crazy Mohan everyday, you could walk away with a Loyal Listener prize. All participants of the Question of the day contest will be invited to an exclusive Crazy evening, and the winners will get a chance to perform on stage. A set of six humorous clips are available as caller tunes at a charge of Rs 30 a month for three tunes.
Group Talk Magic
Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 10:41 PM Posted by PA Jones
Idea Cellular and Kodiak Networks have announced the introduction of Group Talk - a compilation of innovative group-oriented voice applications, for customers in the Maharashtra and Goa circles. Idea intends to make Group Talk available to the company's 7.3-million odd prepaid and postpaid wireless subscribers in subsequent months.
Kodiak's Real-Time Exchange (RTX) system has been deployed by Idea for enabling the voice services applications that use SIM cards as delivery mechanism. The applications are enabled through Kodiak SIMpower - a smart thin client providing premium voice service functionality on existing GSM handsets.
The Group Talk application suite includes the following voice services: Voice Bridge, an instant group conferencing application that offers quick setting-up of full-duplex and mobile-originated conference calls, accommodating up to ten participants; Instant Availability that is similar to instant messaging applications; Walkie-Talkie that is push-to-talk calling along with other Group Talk users; Group SMS that complements existing voice services, by enabling discreet text communications in the event of unavailability of recipients; Quick Groups; and Contact and Groups Management.
Vikram Mehmi, chief executive officer, Idea Cellular, said, "We selected Kodiak Networks because they could help us address the voice services requirements for group communication of the corporate and SME customers who are predominantly on postpaid, and the youth segment who are largely on prepaid. By utilizing the SIM and the Symbian Applet as the delivery mechanism for these enhanced voice services, we have obviated the need for custom handsets, thus enabling the entire customer base to avail of the services. With Group Talk, our customers can quickly and efficiently access the best group communications experience possible."
Kris Patel, executive vice president - products and customer support, and chief technology officer, Kodiak Networks, said, "Idea Cellular is leading the industry by offering these advanced voice services to their prepaid and postpaid customer base of over 7.3 million users. As these applications are group-oriented, they require that end users can easily create communities of friends, family, and colleagues at the touch of a button. Leveraging the SIM to deploy these applications should expedite service adoption and rapidly increase usage among customers."
Google got US patent for a voice interface for search engines.
Friday, April 14, 2006 at 8:21 PM Posted by PA Jones
In a win-win for Google, co-founder Sergey Brin along with three other persons has been granted a US patent for a voice interface for search engines.
This essentially means if and when Google has a product to show for its patent, users will be able to phone an internet search query or say it aloud instead of typing it in - the way they do presently. Of course naysayers predict that not all patent applications necessarily translate into prospective product announcements for the company.
Alexander Franz and Brian Milch - authors of the patent application, had written about such an interface in their 2002 academic paper dubbed "Searching the Web by Voice". Brin and company filed the patent in 2001, post which Google did make the voice search feature available though briefly through Google Labs, its veritable hotbed for just-out-of-the-egg ideas.
The patent filing is reportedly worded, "there exists a need for a voice interface that is effective for search engines". The document suggests that Google will be utilizing the reams of its stored text and audio queries to enhance speech recognition and relevance.
Although analysts are betting upon the chances of search engines treating speech and speech-related issues as the hot new topic; for entities such as the US Department of Justice and others, this could well be reason for some more sleepless nights over concerns regarding individual privacy.
India Added 3.9 new GSM user
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at 10:20 AM Posted by PA Jones
India, the world's fastest growing mobile phone market, added a record 3.9 million new GSM users in March, an industry body said on Saturday.
A statement from the Cellular Operators' Association of India, which represents the country's nine GSM carriers, said the past month's additions boosted the total GSM customer base to about 69.1 million.
Including subscribers on the rival CDMA technology, India added a total of 5.14 million mobile customers in March, taking the total number of mobile users to 90.54 million.
March CDMA figures were released earlier this week by the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India.
India, which is Asia's third largest economy, has among the world's lowest call rates at less than 2 U.S. cents a minute, charges that have been attracting subscribers in the millions.
Competition among providers is intense with demand for mobile services growing fast and carriers have been expanding networks in rural areas where two-thirds of India's billion-plus people live.
India's top telecoms firm by sales, unlisted state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., added nearly 1.1 million subscribers in March, raising its GSM user base to 17.2 million.
India's top mobile services firm, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., also added about 1.1 million new users, propelling its customer base to 19.6 million.
UK-based mobile giant Vodafone Group Plc owns a 10 percent stake in Bharti, which is also 30.84 percent owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel).
Hutchison Essar Telecom Ltd., the Indian wireless operation of Hong Kong's Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd., added more than 0.8 million new users in March. The firm's user base now stands at about 15.4 million customers.
Rival CDMA operators include Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd., which added 784,211 users in March taking its base to 15.4 million, while the salt-to-software Tata group's unlisted Tata Teleservices Ltd. saw its user base rise by 477,136 additions to nearly 4.9 million.
Reliance Communications also has GSM operations via Reliance Telecom Ltd. which added 103,905 users in March, raising its mobile base to over 1.9 million.
