India Schedules 3G License Auction for December

India's auction of 3G and WiMax licenses is now scheduled to be held in December, according to a notice on the Web site of the country's Department of Telecommunications.

The auction was originally scheduled for January of this year, but was postponed after disagreement within the government on the minimum cost of the licenses.

Bidding for 3G licenses will start Dec 7, with the WiMax auction scheduled to start two days after the 3G auction is complete, according to the notice.

Both Indian and foreign companies are allowed to bid for the licenses, but foreign companies will have to set up joint ventures with Indian investors to run services in the country.

A group of ministers, set up to resolve the dispute over pricing the licenses, has named Indian rupees 250 billion (US$5 billion) as the minimum revenue from the auction of the 3G and WiMax licenses in the country, India's Minister of Communications, A. Raja said last month.

The Ministry of Communications will license four slots for 3G in each of India's 22 service areas, with a fifth slot reserved for two government-run telecommunications companies.

A telecommunications company bidding for 3G licenses in all 22 circles will have to pay at least Indian rupees 35 billion, according to the new minimum pricing proposed by the Indian government. By the pricing announced last year, they would have to pay about rupees 20 billion.

Two companies, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., were allotted 3G spectrum ahead of the auction, and have started offering services. The government said last year that these companies would have to pay license fees equal to the highest bid in each service area.

The final date for applications from bidders is Nov 13

50% price cut for Nokia’s N96

Price-cuts like this don’t happen often, and that’s why Univercell’s decision to shave off 50% from the Nokia N96’s price-tag is certainly an eye-catching proposition. The N96, which was priced at Rs. 35,000 is now available at Univercell at Rs. 19,231.

We stumbled across the new price while browsing through Univercell’s website. When we contacted the store, we were informed that the price is a result of a 50% off deal that the store was offering on the phone. It seems like a great deal, which leaves us wondering why Univercell hasn’t publicized it at all.

The N96, if you remember from our review (read it here), was launched February last year and sports a 2.8 inch TFT screen, a 5MP camera with LED flash, GPS and Wi-Fi and powered by a 264MHz processor. Also, before the N97, it was Nokia’s flagship model. All in all, for Rs. 19,231, this looks like a steal alright. Check it out at Univercell’s site here.

Samsung YP-S2 MP3 Player

Samsung YP-S2 MP3 Player

Product Price  :  Rs. 2,750

You won’t find a more petite portable music player than the Samsung yPS2, also christened the ‘Pebble.’ The body is glossy black and curved like a stone with an LED display. The underside has a simple control wheel with play, pause, skip, volume and equalizer controls. The player’s sole 3.5mm port is not only meant for plugging in earphones but, thanks to a USB to 3.5mm connector, also for charging the player and transferring data. 

The S2 comes with 2GB of flash memory and supports drag and drop. Samsung also bundles the Emodio software which serves as a media player and gives access to certain online features. These include firmware updates, downloadable equalizers for Samsung’s DNSE (Digital natural Sound engine) and themes. The player’s interface mirror’s other ‘shuffle’ class players by giving very simple controls. This means that the player has left out a number of control options including the important Folder Skip. another button is meant for skipping between three DNSE equalizer settings.

After listening to music, we came to the conclusion that the S2 is decent for listening to bassfriendly tracks, although it does not sound tight. Also, the player reproduced simple instrumentation or sparsely arranged tracks well but music that involved a lot of instrumentation in the mix became indistinct. Further the S2 could not reproduce stereo separation well and the mids and highs were either lost thanks to an overpowering low end, or sounded too airy and muddled overall, the S2 is okay especially for listening to songs with more bass. The Samsung VPS2 at Rs. 2,750 is a barebones player that knows what its strengths are. Its size and looks combined with its sound performance make it a good buy.  

Acer's AspireRevo Nettop Taps Ion Platform

Along with more than 20 new netbooks, notebooks, all-in-one PCs, Acer on Tuesday launched what it called the first small form factor PC to offer Nvidia's Ion platform, combining Intel's Atom chip and the Ion graphics processor.

With the AspireRevo, Acer wants to make a splash in the category of nettops -- low-cost, small-dimension PCs. Officials at an evening launch event at a science museum outside New York City played up the graphics processing power of the Ion combined with the Atom 230/330 chip, positioning it as a multimedia home PC that can be used as a gaming device.

The AspireRevo lets users watch 1080p HD video, play DirectX 10 games at high frame rates and tap the 3D capabilities of Windows Vista Premium. It will also be available in a package with a game controller with 3D motion sensors.

Though exact dimensions weren't immediately available from Acer, the company said the device takes up less than a liter of space, or about the form of a hardcover book.

The new nettop comes with either a Serial ATA hard drive or Solid State Drive (SSD) and up to 4GB of DDR2 memory. Memory can be expanded with a Mini PC Express slot.

Acer officials made much of the company's use of SSD.

"Using SSD and not HDD saves power," said Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci.

"There were several things holding back the wider use of SSD and the main one was cost," he said. "SSD used to cost about 50 times what HDD cost for the same capacity, but now it's down to about 10 times the cost, so we're getting there. Over the next two years we expect to see much greater use of SSD."

The AspireRevo is designed to be attached to the back of any TV display or LCD with a VESA attachment.

The device also incorporates 802.11 b/g WiFi and Gigabyte Ethernet connection.

Pricing and availability were not announced though one official said the device is expect to ship in the back-to-school time frame in the U.S., with a staggered release around the world.  

Apple to Increase iPhone Storage, Says Report

Apple has ordered large amounts of Flash memory to be used in a new iPhone expected in June, according to reports. What makes this report interesting is that Apple is allegedly ordering twice as much Flash as it did last year, according to reports from DigiTimes. A large request for Flash from Apple backs the rumor of a larger capacity iPhone model, slated for early this summer.

The DigiTimes report continues claiming Apple ordered 100 million 1GB NAND Flash chips, mainly from Samsung Electronics. Apple could recombine these chips in the manufacturing process, creating 16GB and 32GB (Gigabyte) storing capabilities for new iPhone models. One hundred million 8Gb chips would be enough for 12.5 million 8GB iPhones or around 3 million 32GB devices.

Speculation around Apple's massive Flash memory order could mean that the long-rumored 32GB iPhone might be on its way and possibly a larger capacity 64GB iPod Touch. In the case of the iPod Touch, 64GB could mean a much higher price, somewhere around $500. A 32GB iPhone is feasible, especially as video-recording capabilities are expected in the new model (requiring more storage).

However, Apple uses this kind of NAND Flash chips in other of its products as well, like the iPod nano and Shuffle, so at the moment it is not very clear how the Cupertino company will use the 100 million chips. As previously reported, the new iPhone model is expected to feature a better camera (with video recording) and higher storage capacities, besides the 3.0 software improvements announced last month.

Sparkle Launches Geforce GTX285 Graphics Card

Based on the GeForce 200 Series’ second generation unified architecture, the Sparkle GTX285 is clocked at 648MHz (core) and 1476 (shader clock).  It has 240 stream processors and enables DirectX 10 gaming in ‘extreme HD’ (2560x1600) resolutions.  The press release claimed that the 2GB version is the first batch of GTX285’s with that much memory. 

The GTX285 can work in 3-way SLI mode that allows three similar / equivalent cards to work together to deliver high frame rates even at high quality settings. The Sparkle Geforce GTX285 cards are launched by Abacus Peripherals who claimed that the high performance thermal compound used in the cards ensures optimal thermal dissipation even after years of use.

Nokia Launches N-Gage Mobile Gaming Service in India

Nokia India announced the availability of its gaming service, ‘N-Gage’ in India with additional games and an expanded online offering.  Nokia N-Gage is a part of Nokia’s internet services brand Ovi and brings a made-for-mobile gaming service to consumers. N-Gage initially brings a catalogue of 30 titles developed by global as well as Indian publishers such as EA Mobile, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and India Games, in addition to Nokia Games Publishing.

With N-Gage, Nokia device owners in India can access mobile games using the N-Gage mobile application on their N-Gage compatible devices or on the online N-Gage showrooms (www.n-gage.com), accessed directly from their mobile devices. With the N-Gage application on their devices, people can connect with other e-players through the N-Gage Arena community, discuss topics via live chats and message boards, and participate in tournaments and hosted events. They can create a Friends List and send and receive private messages among other things. N-Gage Points can be earned for playing games and participating in community activities. Moreover, the experience can also take place via the N-Gage web portal on the PC, where players can interact with the N-Gage community or purchase new games and download them to their N-Gage compatible devices.

Nokia is also offering special pre-paid Oxigen e-vouchers which will be initially available at Nokia Priority Dealers (NPDs) in 9 cities across the country, including New Delhi and the National Captial Region (NCR), Chandigarh, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. N-Gage game vouchers are also available for purchase via Oxicash (www.oxicash.in/nokia) Oxigen's e-commerce portal, accessible from mobile phones and PCs alike, using the Oxicash pre-paid card.

 N-Gage also allows consumers to try games before they decide to purchase them. N-Gage games in India are priced between Rs. 49 – 299 (inclusive of taxes) depending on the type of the game and the validity.  Nokia N-Gage is today compatible with Nokia Nseries and other Nokia S60 3rd edition devices including N81, N81 8GB, N82, N79, N85, N95, N95 8GB, Nokia 5320 XpressMusic and 6210 Navigator.