Use Facebook on your mobile for free without GPRS

Yes. This might be surprising. But it is true. Airtel recently silently launched this service in India.

In a country where smartphone phone penetration is lower than other countries, this service may help many people who have low-end phones to overcome their facebook “fetish”. This service was developed as Fonetwish by U2opia mobile, a Singapore based mobile services provider headed by an Indian. This service runs on USSD or  Unstructured Supplementary Service Data. This that very same technology used by telecom service providers to send the balance details after ending a call. This technology is much faster than SMS (text mode)  and it run can on any type cellphone from  Nokia 1100 to iPhone4. This doesn’t require any special towers too! It can work in any area where you have network coverage.

Airtel has introduced this service in India for an exciting price!! Updating status remains free but for other services you’ll have to pay just Rs 1 per day!! Airtel had recently introduced 0.facebook.com which is a free service for GPRS enabled phones only.

But with this service Airtel has taken up the task of popularizing Facebook to the masses who still use basic cellphones and majority of them are in rural areas where GPRS connectivity is still a future.

To activate this service *325# and a menu appears. Just follow the instructions and voila you’ll be using for facebook free!!

[SOURCE: Deccan Herald, The Hindu and the “OPEN WEB”]

The Roast of Facebook- CollegeHumor(Funny, must watch)

Tap Your Phone To Pay

Square has a serious rival and is backed by the  internet giant Google . Google has a very catchy phrase

“In the past few thousand years, the way we pay has changed just three times—from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards.

Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift.”

Well the next change is here and was unveiled yesterday . Google will be teaming up with partners like the Citi Bank and the likes to create this new technology .Google Wallet as it is being called will enable a user with a Google Wallet app to just tap on a reader to make payments . This make use of the NFC chips .

Check the announcement made on their blog :
Today in our New York City office, along with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint, we gave a demo ofGoogle Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.

Google Wallet is a key part of our ongoing effort to improve shopping for both businesses and consumers. It’s aimed at making it easier for you to pay for and save on the goods you want, while giving merchants more ways to offer coupons and loyalty programs to customers, as well as bridging the gap between online and offline commerce. 

Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You’ll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.
Source : ( Official Google Blog )

Google I/O History

Ok, I maybe late with this topic. But it is better late than never.

Google I/O is a two-day developer-centered global conference held by the tech giant Google in San Francisco, California. Google I/O features highly technical, in-depth sessions focused on building web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android,Chrome, Chrome OS, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine and more.The “I” and “O” stand for “Innovation in the Open”, and input/output.

Lets just go back through time to 2008 when Google I/O took birth. It was completely different technical world then. This was the year when Google showed clear intents of dominating the tech world with entering into many new fields and showed that they are much more than search engine giants.These were highlights of Google I/O 2008:

• AOL and Google announced that AOL was adding support for OpenSocial. Google had the right inception the web will be more social in the near future.
• Google Web Toolkit version 1.5 release candidate was released. It contains a ton of new features including Java 1.5 language support and increased performance. Simply recompiling existing applications will result in a 20-200% performance boost.
• Google App Engine is now open for anyone to sign up and use immediately. This was another big thing that Google put their money on and won. This was the Google’s grand entry into cloud computing market. But the free version had some restrictions,so by Google announced App Engine’s PRO version which eliminated the limitations of the free version.
• MySpace demonstrated a new version which uses Google Gears to provide local storage, sorting, and searching of messages from your MySpace contacts. Ok I agree Myspace might have failed, but Google’s idea didn’t.
• Google released the Google maps API. This enabled developers to integrate Google maps in websites. Initially it was  only a JavaScript API, the Maps API has since expanded to include an API for Adobe Flash applications.

Google I/O 2009 was a very special and an important one for the tech world. Let us see the highlights:

• Android. Even though Google had acquired Android Inc. way back in 2005, android was not much in news because of absence not so “smart” phones and “smart” people. But iPhone started gaining momentum and people became “smart”.  HTC Dream  with T-Mobile USA  became the first Android phone. And rest is history.
• Next (or equally) big thing thing was Chrome browser. Google highly publicized  their Chrome browser (under their Chromium project) and boasted the HTML5, which has had major contributions from the Google development team.
•  App Engine saw some developments with introduction of  JAVA.
• Cloud computing had gained some momentum. And Google was not going to watch it idly, so Google introduced Google Wave. Google Wave is a web-based computing platform and communications protocol, designed to merge key features of media like e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. At first it was released only to the developers and later that year 100,000 users were added on invitation only basis (I was lucky to get invitation).
• Google AJAX APIs were released.

Google I/O 2010 In 2010 , Google wasn’t just another IT company. They had now evolved into a the largest valued company. Google made their presence felt in almost all the emerging fields. These were the highlights of 2010:

• Android had gained momentum and had 10% of market share in  the smartphone area.  Markets trends had changed and people started to opt Android because of the various options available to buy. Smartphones were smarter now. Thanks to the thousands app developers, phones weren’t phones now. Google released the highly anticipated Android Market.
• Again App Engines saw some more development.
• Chrome browser gave Microsoft’s Internet Explorer a run for their money. Chrome had gained a noticeable market share. Chrome now had 6 week update cycles which made it one one of the highly developed browsers.
• Google also showed clear intents of developing a web-centered Google Chrome OS.
• Google TV was announced much to the delight of Google lovers. Web wasn’t just restricted to Computers and mobile phone now. Google partnered with Intel, Sony and Logitech and integrated Android operating system and the Linux version of Google Chrome browser to create an interactive television overlay on top of existing internet television and WebTV sites.
• Google Wave hadn’t grown as expected. But oogle released API to the developers. But later that year Google washed its hands off this project and handed it to Apache.
• Enterprise, Geo, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, Social Web also saw developments.

Next post will be a detailed analysis of Google I/O 2011.

Here are videos to check out.

Google TV(MUST WATCH)

What is Google Chrome OS (MUST WATCH)

Google Wave overview

Google I/O 2008 watch the videos here

Google I/O 2009 click here

Google I/O 2010:

Keynote day1

Keynote Day2

Source:Wikipedia and the “OPEN WEB”.

Microsoft Buys Off Skype !

Yes and when we all thought that Google or Facebook were gonna bag in Skype , Microsoft has surprisingly bought Skype for a whooping $8.5 billion .!!

. Supposedly integration of Skype and Xbox are being talked about with Kinect support . And obviously Windows Phone integration . This deal has come at a time were windows phone has been faring poorly in the market .

Check Out The Press Release :

Microsoft to Acquire Skype

Combined companies will benefit consumers, businesses and increase market opportunity.

REDMOND, Wash., and LUXEMBOURG – May 10, 2011 – Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) and Skype Global S.à r.l today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype, the leading Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion