China market: Mobile phone users total 786.5 million in April Tweet

There were 786.50 million subscribers of mobile communication services in China as of the end of April 2010, growing by 1.24% on month and by 15.87% on year, according to statistics published by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The number of subscribers accounted for 56.3% of the country's population (user density).

At the end of April 2010 there were 307.55 million subscribers of fixed telecommunication networks in China, translating into a user density of 23.6%.

In April, mobile phone subscribers in China sent 64.56 billion short messages, averaging 2.75 short messages per phone number a day.

MIIT: China's Internet-access user base, April 2010

Internet-access mode


Number of subscribers

Dial-up (narrow band)


7.13 million

Broadband


xDSL


90.58 million (Y/Y 23.62%)

Aggregate


111.02 million (Y/Y 23.60%)

source

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Blogging and social media in Latin America Tweet

Miami, USA – Yesterday’s launch of Nokia Conversaciones – the Spanish version of this blog – was also the occasion of the #NokiaTalk conference in Miami, which drew together 50 leading social media, mobile and technology bloggers from the region. For much of the day, the conference proved to be the top trending topic on Twitter for many of the countries involved and provided an interesting mix of information about mobile and social networking.

One thing that became clear very quickly was that whatever differences there are between social media in the English and Spanish speaking worlds, the similarities are very easy to see.

Reading and writing blogs is enormously popular. There are currently over 200,000 active blogs in the region. According to Eduardo Arcos, speaking at the event, there’s the view that bloggers (’blogueros’) are beginning to pose a serious challenge to mainstream media providers, one that will be likely to lead in turn to social change.

If blogging is big, then social networking is bigger. Around 95 per cent of internet users have an account on at least one social network, making this group the most active in the world. That said, extremes of wealth mean that they are not exactly representative of their countries as a whole. In Mexico, for example, just 7.5 million of the country’s 27.5 million population are connected.

Facebook is the largest social network and interestingly, users in the region have the largest average number of friends, at 360 – presumably, someone moderately popular might be expected to have hundreds more than that. They are also the most likely to leave you, with 81% having ‘un-friended’ someone on the network. You might have heard that the Google-owned social network Orkut is big in South America, but according to participants here, that is only the case in Brazil.

Twitter is also enormously popular. In fact, 13 per cent of all Tweets are written in Spanish, with fast-growth expected to continue for some time to come. Portuguese-speaking Brazil is one of the countries of the world producing the highest number of new twitter users, for example, with other countries in the region coming close behind.

On the mobile front, one of the most significant statistics to emerge was the number of mobile developers in the area. Around 50,000 programmers in the region focus on mobile development, said Dilip Kenchammana, Product Manager, Nokia USA, and there are 250,000 Latin American subscribers to the Forum Nokia technical forums. These latter statistics are of especial interest, we think. If you were looking for the next likely hotbed of great innovation and new ideas in mobile, then this region would not be an unreasonable place to start looking.

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MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks open for business Tweet

ESPOO, Finland – The MeeGo community is already looking swell, and it’s about to get even bigger with the launch of MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks. MeeGo’s initial code release saw a raft of developers jump at the chance to get going and this latest announcement should get even more itching to stretch the legs of the new OS. It’s an exciting time for MeeGo as this is the first time we’ve seen an example of the cross-platform capabilities of the new OS. Interested in what it looks like? Is it what you predicted? Read on after the jump to find out what’s in store.

The MeeGo netbook user experience is the first of its kind for the flexible cross-platform OS, allowing everyone to get a taster for what’s in store when a device is launched in the near future. Building on the latest open source technologies the MeeGo netbook experience boasts instant access to synchronised calendars, tasks and files, along with real-time social networking updates on your homescreen. It doesn’t end there, the OS also provides aggregation of your social networking happenings, allowing you to see all your feeds on one screen and keep all your buddies informed with what you had for breakfast.

When it comes to browsing the MeeGo netbook user experience integrates Google Chrome or a fully open source browser solution plus Google Chromium is also on board.

The OS also includes easy to use applications for email, calendar and there’s also a brand new media player offering. There’s also support for a myriad of languages including Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, English and British English.

For those technically-apt developers amongst us there’s more than enough fodder for you to get to grips with. The release of MeeGo API includes Qt 4.6, the MeeGo SDK with an integrated application development environment, and various other operating system tools. Currently, the MeeGo SDK is focused on netbooks, but the next version of the MeeGo SDK, an early developer release in June, will support touch-based devices, such as handsets and tablets.

There’s also more to come from MeeGo. MeeGo v1.1 will be released in October and will include support for touch-based devices such as mobile phones, tablets and in-car systems.

We’ve got an idea about what your ideal handset would look like after Design by Community, but what about netbooks? One of the may perks of MeeGo, as we’ve mentioned, is that it’s cross-platform and opens the OS’ doors to many devices, but what would you like to see happen in each device? Got to grips with the new OS? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Ovi Maps makes summer travel easier and more fun Tweet

New content from Qype with community based recommendations helps everyone make the most of their time.

Espoo, Finland - Ovi Maps, the free walk and drive navigation service from Nokia, announced new partnerships that deliver more relevant information on more points of interest making travelling easier than ever. With summer holidays fast approaching, the updated Ovi Maps gives travelers and locals alike the ability to find the most interesting places and sites in the area making traveling less about getting from A to B and more about enjoying everything in between.

Ovi delivers unique mobile experiences that mix content with the best location, social networking and connectivity services and is the go to-place for discovering, sharing and enjoying lifestyle content and entertainment, all from a Nokia smartphone.

New partnership with Qype delivers community based recommendations
Ovi Maps now includes Qype, Europe's biggest portal for local community-based reviews, helping people find new places wherever they are, leaving nothing overlooked.

Initially offering information on more than 20,000 cities, the Qype community enriches Ovi Maps with hundreds of thousands of reviews and recommendations from locals and travelers on many European hotspots like cafés, shops, spas and hotels, giving the inside track before arriving. And, with a new post added to Qype every 40 seconds, people are assured to have the latest information to help them make the best choices no matter what they are looking for.

More tailored and personal trips
In total,Ovi Maps now offers Nokia smartphone users access to more than 25 million points of interest worldwide. Whether people are looking for a souvenir shop or a youth hostel, trips can be personalized and planned right down to the last detail with map data from NAVTEQ and city guides from Lonely Planet, WCities and Michelin. Agreements with leading directory companies such as telegate in Germany, Turkey Yellow Pages and Yell Publicidad-Páginas Amarillas in Spain make it even easier than before to find the closest pharmacy, cash machine, shop or service. Hotel booking services such as HRS and Expedia make it easy to find a place to stay.

In-car navigation made easier
For people planning a road trip, Nokia has started to include car kits with new smartphones in-the-box* at no extra cost which makes finding new places and navigating whilst driving safe and easy. And, with the added convenience of pedestrian routes for exploring cities on foot, swapping the phone from car to pocket makes navigating around new places easier, no matter how people choose to do it.

Holidaymakers can plan routes before leaving the house, on a computer or laptop and simply upload them onto a Nokia device to use when abroad. This saves time searching for routes when out and about and enables people to use maps in offline mode, reducing roaming costs when traveling in foreign countries.

The latest version of Ovi Maps (3.04) is available to download for free from www.nokia.com/maps

* Nokia now supplies car kits in-the-box with nine of its smartphones. A car holder and car charger are included with the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 6710 Navigator, and the Nokia X6. A car holder is now included with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia E52, Nokia E72 and Nokia 5230.

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Verizon CEO: Component shortages hampering supply of HTC Incredible Tweet

At a Barclays Capital Global Communications, Media & Technology conference in New York today, Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) CEO Lowell McAdam said that demand for the HTC Droid Incredible has been better than expected, and that the company is having a difficult time keeping the smartphone in stock. The phone made its debut April 29 and within hours it was sold out via the company's Web store. Customers that order the Incredible today can have it by the middle of June.

Verizon Wireless’ website lists the HTC Droid Incredible as shipping June 16.McAdam said the delay is due to HTC's component shortages, specifically with the phone's seven-panel home screen made by Samsung. He added that Samsung has ramped up production, and Verizon expects to be able to meet demand for the smartphone within the next 30 to 60 days. "The Incredible has done very well for us. We could sell twice the number I have at this point," McAdam said.

The Droid Incredible features Android 2.1 and the newest version of the HTC Sense user interface. It uses Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon processor and is the first phone from Verizon Wireless with an 8-megapixel camera. The phone is priced at $199 with a two-year contract.

The better-than-expected demand for the Incredible may be an issue for Verizon. The company had hoped to have the Incredible in customers' hands in time for Apple's rumored unveiling of its latest iPhone. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs is expected to reveal the latest iPhone when he takes the stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference June 7.

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Micro HDMI dock for Sprint EVO coming to Best Buy Tweet

Micro HDMI cables are virtually impossible to find for purchase right now, but Best Buy will be selling a special dock for the Sprint EVO 4G coming soon. The new HDMI 1.4 standard (which established the micro connector Type D) was recently introduced and the EVO is one of the first smartphones to include it.

Devices based on the HDMI 1.4 standard are supposed to be fully backwards-compatible with existing HDMI devices, but users could run into some issues. Early testing done by PCMag revealed mix results and they were “quite disappointed with the HDMI experience on the Sprint EVO 4G.” Select TVs would only recognize the signal as 480p (instead of 1080p) and certain apps like Sprint TV refused to play.

At this point it is unclear if the issues were being caused by software problems, the HDMI cable, or the TV set. Older HDMI (v.1.0 – 1.3) devices cannot be firmware-upgraded to take advantage of the new features introduced in HDMI 1.4 because most require a new HDMI chip to enable them. We do not believe the Sprint EVO includes any new HDMI features (other than the micro connector) so it should work with most existing TVs.

For now we will just have to wait and see. I expect Best Buy will eventually sell the cables, but it could be awhile before we get to try out one of the coolest features of the EVO.

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enTourage eDGe™ Tweet

MCLEAN, Va.–enTourage Systems, Inc., creator of the world’s first dualbook™ – the enTourage eDGe™ – announced that it has partnered with The Douglas Stewart Company, a leading distributor and marketer of computer products, consumer electronics and school supplies, to exclusively serve the education market and boost interactive learning for school systems’ students, faculty and staff.

“We strongly feel that students can excel in their learning by using a device like this that puts an endless amount of information at their fingertips.”
The enTourage eDGe is the first device to merge an e-paper and LCD screen to create a dual-screen device that combines the functionality of an e-reader, tablet netbook, notepad and audio/video recorder and player in one inclusive device. These two displays work together to allow students to access and enrich information in a way that they previously couldn’t. Students can access their textbooks and make notes in the margins or highlight text while they simultaneously look up further information on the subject via the Web on the LCD side. Last year, The Douglas Stewart Company began including hardware in its distribution, and this is the first time the company has partnered with a manufacturer of an e-reading device to offer retailers the most current technology that students need.

“Our partnership with The Douglas Stewart Company strengthens our mission to bring the enTourage eDGe directly to students and educational institutions and allows us to reach the right resellers and end users,” said Asghar Mostafa, CEO of enTourage Systems, Inc. “The enTourage eDGe was built with the student in mind, to give them a multi-purpose platform that lets them access e-textbooks, surf the Web, annotate and take notes, correspond with classmates and customize content digitally and easily.”

“We are continually on the lookout for the best technology to aid the education sector, such as the enTourage eDGe,” Jack Bahlman, vice president of sales and marketing at The Douglas Stewart Company. “We strongly feel that students can excel in their learning by using a device like this that puts an endless amount of information at their fingertips.”

The two screens of the enTourage eDGe interact so that users can open hyperlinks that are included in an e-book text and view the content on the LCD screen, or ‘attach’ Web pages to passages in an e-book to be referenced at a later point. Additionally, as the enTourage eDGe uses E-Ink technology for easy digital reading, images will appear in gray-scale on the e-paper side of the device; however, users can load these in color on the LCD side, ideal for viewing colored charts and graphs from course materials. A built-in camera and microphone captures audio and video content that users can store and play back later. Included Documents To Go software makes Microsoft Office documents available for creating, viewing and editing for notes or school papers. The enTourage eDGe runs on the Google Android operating system and backs up all content on enTourage Systems’ servers for safe keeping. The device folds a full 360 degrees and orients its displays horizontally or vertically, to view as a book, single screen, or prop up laptop style.

enTourage Systems’ e-book store includes over 200,000 trade titles, e-textbooks, major magazines, newspapers and periodicals, as well as over one million free public domain books digitized by Google. The e-book store is a key component to the enTourage Systems eco-system, providing a controlled user experience that also includes document back-up and sharing between devices.

The enTourage eDGe will be on display at booth #2327 at Book Expo America May 26-27 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York.

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