On his first visit to India,
Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg
met Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to discuss
expanding reach of internet including by using
alternate technology.
After an about
hour long
meeting, Prasad
told reporters
that meeting
was fruitful and
Facebook has
shown interest
in joining Digital
India program of
India. “Connecting
more than a billion people with internet is not only
going to improve lives of people in India but helping
innovation and imagination of Indian people will
help turn around the world and we are very excited in
opportunities in India,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook in India has over 100 million active users.
The company recently acquired mobile messaging
application WhatsApp which adds to its reach in the
country.
Blackberry Passport in retail stores
The latest offering from smartphone maker
BlackBerry, the Passport, is available in the retail
market at a cost of Rs 49,990. The company was
taking pre-orders on Amazon, and on its own website,
for the last ten days or so. At a product showcased
on Thursday, Blackberry’s Head of Alliances (India)
Annie Mathew unveiled more value with the device in
the form of apps from mapmygenome, a city-based
molecular diagnostics company, for those who are
proactive about their health. Another app that comes
with Passport pertains to sales force automation (SFA).
Interestingly, both mobile applications were
developed by Hyderabad-based Win Information
Technology. The mapmygenome app allows users
to buy personal genomics services, track orders and
view diagnostic reports and recommendations.
Amazon ‘Online Shopping Dhamaka’
sale gets techie
The Micromax Canvas A1 smartphone has beaten
all the rival brands, even Apple Inc’ iPhone, in
terms of getting buyers preference on Amazon.in.
The e-tailer, which is in midst of its month-long
‘Online Shopping Dhamaka’ sale, has sold more
than 1,00,000 units of the device since its launch,
making it by far the best selling phone on the
e-commerce platform.
The rush for
the Indian
branded
phone comes
even as
Amazon has
witnessed a
spurt in the
sale of old and new models of the popular Apple
In’s iPhone. According to the a company statement,
iPhone sales have witnessed a five-fold jump so far
in the month-long festivities that would run up to
Diwali.
Like previous occasions, Amazon expects consumer
electronics (including PCs), books shoes, home
and kitchen, baby and health and personal care
products to fly of its racks during the sale season.
SwiftKey gets India-friendly, releases
Diwali theme
SwiftKey has announced the release of an updated
(version 5.1) beta keyboard app for Android with support
for 11 new Indian languages – Assamese, Bengali,
Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi,
Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, as well as Nepali and Sinhala,
along with a Diwali-themed keyboard.
The company says that the official roll-out of the
updated SwiftKey app will happen later and at present
the language update will be available in beta version via
Google Play’s official beta channel only. Meanwhile, the
Diwali theme in now available for online purchase.
The SwiftKey app is a popular third-party keyboard
app that learns from usage to increase accuracy of its
predictive
text inputs
and autocorrect
suggestions.
It also has
gesturebased
typing with
SwiftKey
Flow.
