Samsung to launch 10-inch tablet, UHD TV in India

Betting big on premium products to boost sales during the upcoming festival season in India, Samsung is planning to launch over half a dozen products including a 10-inch tablet.

BERLIN: Betting big on premium products to boost sales during the upcoming festival season in India, consumer electronics major Samsung is planning to launch over half a dozen products including a 10-inch tablet and a spacious refrigerator in the next three months.
Focusing on increasing consumer base in the home appliance segment, Samsung will launch its new 'side by side' refrigerator by the end of 2013 in India. The fridge would cut down power consumption by 40 per cent with a 10 year warranty, a top company official said. "Ultra high definition TV is the next big thing in India as demand for large screen TV is growing there. In the home appliance segment, we see the big demand in the refrigerator segment and that is why we are focusing on better looking ones as it would be a long term investment for customers," Samsung senior VP (CE division) Atul Jain told.

The side-by-side refrigerator would help customers due to its innovative design as there would be a show case for instant access of frequently used items and an inner case for longer storage ingredients. Elaborating on the UHD TV market, Jain said there is a lot of demand for large screen TVs in India which are 40 inch and above. "We have come out with a new technology called Evolution Kit using which customers can update their TV sets at par with the new technology devised by Samsung from time to time," Jain said.

Apart from the Note 3 and Galaxy Gear which the company would launch on September 25, Samsung will come up with Note 10.1 in the last week of October, just before Diwali. "The Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) would have features including a 10-inch display, 1.9 GHZ Octa Core processor (for 3G/WiFi only version) and 3GB RAM.

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Facebook hones 'skills' to rival LinkedIn

After launching Twitter-like real-time feeds, Facebook now seems to have set eyes on professional networking website LinkedIn's turf.

After launching Twitter-like real-time feeds, Facebook now seems to have set eyes on professional networking website LinkedIn's turf. The company is testing a LinkedIn-like 'Professional Skills' section on user profiles.

In a statement to thenextweb.com, a Facebook spokesperson said, "We are currently testing a new option where you can add your professional skills to the work and education section of your timeline."

The feature, now in a rollout phase, allows users to add skills to their profile. The feature seems to be aimed at job seekers, with users being asked to add their professional skills on their account. The new 'Professional Skills' option will appear under 'Work and Education' head in the profile. Users will have the option to add multiple abilities to their profile.

Incidentally, this is not the first LinkedIn-type feature introduced by Facebook. Last year, the company had announced a "Social Jobs Partnership" with the US Department of Labor and other government agencies. The interactive job board aggregates openings from recruiting companies like Work4 Labs, BranchOut, Jobvite, DirectEmployers and Monster.com.

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Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch: First impressions

The Galaxy Gear, a wearable computing device from Samsung that looks like a digital wristwatch, is certain to pique much curiosity when it starts being worn in public. The intensely black rectangular screen and orange strap on the wrist of a Samsung executive immediately caught my eye as she entered a corporate meeting room to give a preview of the gadget.

Samsung will start shipping the $299 Gear smartwatch in September, ahead of a similar product expected from Apple. I had a chance to play with a pre-production unit for about 10 minutes and briefly with the version that Samsung announced Wednesday in Berlin on the eve of the annual IFA consumer electronics show.

Like similar products already being sold, the Gear is not an independent device. For useful functionality, the Gear needs to be linked with a specific Samsung smartphone or tablet computer. The pairing is done wirelessly over a Bluetooth connection built-in to both sides.

The Gear's display is a touch screen measuring 1.63 inches diagonally. Its strap has an embedded camera. The Gear supports apps such as Facebook and lets the wearer answer incoming calls or check email without picking up the smartphone that's paired with it. The Gear is not the smartwatch disclosed in recent Samsung patent filings with a flexible display.

With smartphones and tablets now ubiquitous, the mobile phone industry is creating a new category of products to wow consumers. Many believe the next big step for consumer electronics is advanced computing technology in everyday objects such as wristwatches and glasses.

Sony introduced its latest SmartWatch in June and unveiled an update Wednesday. Google is working on Google Glass - a device designed to work like a smartphone and worn like a pair of glasses. Apple is seeking an iWatch trademark. Meanwhile, the response to projects such as Pebble, a smartwatch that received more than $10 million in investment pledges through funding website Kickstarter, also attests to the public interest in this trend.

It didn't take me long to see what Samsung is trying to achieve. It wants to attract not only tech addicts who must have the latest gadget but also young, design-conscious consumers. The Gear's design flair and ease of use are its sweetest attributes, but it may not entirely please either group. Although powered by the Android operating system, like many phones and tablets, it will work only with Samsung devices - and only with newer models.

At about twice the price of the Sony SmartWatch and the Pebble, Gear boasts a camera, a speakerphone and plenty of apps - about six dozen, according to Samsung. Apps include Twitter and sports services such as RunKeeper, which tracks runs and other workouts. These are all great features, but the 1.9 megapixel camera is of poorer quality than a typical smartphone camera. In addition, moderate use of the device will require a daily battery top-up with yet another charger to keep track of.

I can imagine wearing the Gear with a casual dress or a formal outfit. It is sleek, with a thin metallic bezel surrounding the display. The strap comes in six different colors. But the screen, which is pitch black in idle mode, probably draws more attention than a tasteful accessory should. The dark recess in the strap where the camera's lens is embedded will also elicit questions from the curious.

In terms of what the Gear can do, the three features I tested worked efficiently. It was easy to activate the camera and quick to shoot a photo. It left both hands free while placing and answering calls. The Gear alerted me with a nice soft buzz and showed a preview of a newly arrived email. The full message can also be read.

Taking photos felt natural except at very high or low angles, which forced the wrist into an awkward position.

I found easy navigation of the touch screen one of the device's biggest pluses. Samsung has dispensed with buttons on the screen, so there's no home or back button. There is a button on the top right edge of the smartwatch face. Pressing it turns the display into a clock. One tap anywhere on the screen takes and saves a photo in Gear and the smartphone that's paired with it. In clock mode, one swipe from bottom to top pulls up a numeric keypad.

Swiping from left or right shows a list of icons, including the S Voice, Samsung's equivalent of Apple's Siri digital assistant that responds to voice commands. You also get a list of emails and notifications from social networking apps. At any time, tapping the screen twice with two fingers conjures a pop-up window that shows the time, the weather and the amount of battery left.

With the combination of S Voice and the speakerphone in the strap, placing and answering calls was much easier than a smartphone. I tested it in a noisy setting and I had to speak to the Gear more than once to set an alarm in my smartphone or to look up a contact to place a call. But it did work without too much effort. I didn't have the device for long enough to test how well it worked when not very close to the smartphone.

One downside is that the Gear doesn't support a wireless earpiece, so both sides of any conversation can be overheard.

The big disappointment for Samsung gadget owners is that Gear does not work with most of its phones and tablets. The Gear needs the Galaxy Note III, a smartphone with a giant 5.7-inch screen and a digital pen, and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer. Both will go on sale later this month. At a later date, it will be compatible with the Galaxy S4, released earlier this year, and the Galaxy Note II, which came out late last year.

In some countries, mobile carriers will bundle the Gear with the Note III on a two-year contract. In other places, consumers will be able to buy the Gear without a phone contract.

Overall, the Gear gives us more ways to imagine what wearable computing gadgets might do for us in the future. Gear is smart but in a limited way, as it's essentially a slave to the smartphone it's paired to.

After my brief hands-on experience, I decided the first generation of the Gear was cool but not compelling enough to convince me to ditch my current device, an iPhone.

Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch in pictures

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Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S III getting Android 4.3 in October

It appears that the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy S III, the company's current and previous generation flagship phones are all set to receive the Android 4.3 software update.

Samsung's Galaxy Gear smart watch, which was launched on Wednesday by the Korean giant at IFA in Berlin, is currently compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Note III smartphone and the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) tablet. However, the company mentioned during the announcement that the compatibility would be extended to the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy S III with a software update that would be seeded to consumers in October. The update will up the current version of Android on both the devices to Android 4.3 as it's the only version of Android that supports Bluetooth Smart.

Bluetooth Smart, earlier called Bluetooth Low Energy or Bluetooth LE, is intended for communication between low-energy devices like smart watches.

It's worth pointing out that the Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with Android 4.2, the previous version of Android, while the Galaxy S III is still stuck on Android 4.1, lacking features like lock-screen widgets, Daydream and wireless screen mirroring which were introduced with Android 4.2.

Android 4.3 includes features such as restricted profiles for limiting access to apps and content for different users of a device, dial-pad autocomplete, enhanced access to notifications, and a new camera app, among other user facing features. However, it brings many major changes, under the hood, including Open GL ES 3.0 high quality graphics in games and other apps and making Android devices Bluetooth Smart ready enabling support for low-energy Bluetooth Smart accessories like smart watches, heart rate monitors, pedometers, thermometers and many others.

 

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Asus Transformer Book T300 laptop with detachable tablet display unveiled

Asus has launched the Transformer Book T300 laptop that features a detachable tablet display at the IFA 2013. The keyboard of the Transformer Book T300 comes with a magnetic dock connector that attaches the tablet to turn into a display for the laptop and also includes backlit keys.

The Asus Transformer Book T300 comes with a 13.3-inch full-HD (1920x1080) display which can be detached from the laptop and used as a tablet. It is powered by a fourth-generation Intel Core processor with Intel HD 4000 graphics and 8GB of RAM. It runs Windows 8. The Transformer T300 includes a 256GB of SSD (Solid State Drive). The company claims that the laptop can deliver up to eight hours of battery life.

Connectivity options on the tablet include USB 3.0, Micro-HDMI, and Wi-Fi.

The tablet features a front-facing 720p HD camera and a 1080p Full HD rear camera, however, the company has not shared details about the resolution of both the cameras. It also comes with stereo speakers powered by ASUS SonicMaster audio technology.

Asus has not announced pricing and availability details of the Asus Transformer Book T300, yet.

Earlier, Asus launched the X102BA laptop targeting students. The Asus X102BA laptop comes with a 10.1-inch (1366x768) display with support for 10-point multi-touch. The laptop is backed by the AMD A-Series APU and includes 2GB of RAM with a 320GB hard drive. It comes with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 with full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that comes bundled with the system. The Asus X102BA runs Windows 8.

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Sony Reader PRS-T3 e-reader launched

Sony has unveiled its newest e-reader, the Reader PRS-T3 at the IFA 2013.

The Sony Reader PRS-T3 comes with a 6-inch E-Ink Pearl anti-glare display with a resolution of 1024x758 pixels and sports 16 levels of grayscale. It measures 109x160x11.3mm and weighs 200 grams including the weight of the snap cover, which comes bundled with the e-reader.

The new e-reader supports Wi-Fi. It comes with 2GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card. The e-reader can be connected and charged to a computer via a micro-USB. Sony claims that the advanced page refresh technology, can offer users 4 hours of flicker-free page turns and a three minute quick charge can give users enough battery power to read a good 600-page novel, under suitable conditions. Supported ebook formats include Epub, PDF, FB2 and TXT.

The Sony Reader PRS-T3 comes in three colour options - Black, White and Red. The device is expected to hit the European markets in September. However, Sony has not announced the pricing yet.

Other products launched by Sony include the Walkman F886 portable music player which supports 192KHz/ 24bit high-resolution audio formats which the company claims can deliver around six times more audio quality than music recorded on a standard CD. It comes with S-Master HX digital amplifier that can reduce distortion and noise at all frequency ranges. The Sony Walkman F886 portable music player runs the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS with access to Google Play Store apps and the device is compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems.

The company also introduced two lens-style cameras, the Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 and the DSC-QX10, which can be attached to smartphones and tablets for an enhanced imaging experience or used independently.

The company also unveiled the flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z1 at the IFA.

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Google kicks off YouTube comedy week in India

Search engine giant Google is focusing on further strengthening the content pipeline of its video service YouTube to make it a 'daily habit', a company official said Thursday.

YouTube has 55 million unique visitors every month Mumbai, and 40 percent of them use the service on mobile phones.

"The way people consume content has changed dramatically. We are building a platform for the next set of subscribers. We have partnerships with various broadcasters and content providers for movies and TV shows (both new and archived). Gautam Anand, YouTube Asia Pacific director for content partnerships, told PTI Mumbai.

"We want to make YouTube a daily habit and want them (subscribers) to consume content online," he further said.

After the US and Britain, YouTube is now launching 'Comedy Week' Mumbai.

"This is a part of our marketing strategy. Starting Thursday until September 12, we will play over 400 hours of comedy content sourced from our channel Mumbai. This will include content from Bollywood, TV shows like Great Indian Laughter Challenge, MTV Bakra and Kahani Comedy Circus Ki," Anand said.

There will also be regional language comedy content in Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, Malayalam, Gujarati and Kannada, he added.

"Comedy shows contribute to over 30 percent of the total watch hours within TV shows category. On our platform too, comedy show viewership is one of the fastest growth areas. Through this initiative, we are bringing more Indian comedy content onto YouTube," he said.

Comedy week will feature content from broadcasters and production houses like Rajshri, Eros, T-series, Shemaroo, Disney, Star, Colors and Sri Adhikari Brothers.

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 ‘Leaders and teachers have to inspire by example’

Dr. Viswanathan Raghunathan, CEO, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation

Having worked on both the sides, Dr. Viswanathan Raghunathan knows the common threads between a good leader and a good teacher. He talks to TimesJobs.com about where the two roles unite…

1. How will you define the role of leaders as teachers/mentors in today’s complex and uncertain business environment?

A good leader, whether a teacher or a mentor, always regards his or her role as that of a role model in all aspects of conduct. The expected conduct could be simple or complex depending on the context. In today’s complex reality of business environment, where there are many stakeholders and each pressure group applies its own pulls and pressures on leaders, it becomes all the more important for leaders to place a premium on uprightness of conduct. This includes maintaining equidistance from such pressure groups, from a relatively constant set of values which do not change with time and circumstances. Though, the temptation to take short cuts is very high during difficult times, I suppose a real leader is one who resists that temptation in such times.

2. What do leaders need to do to become good teachers?

A good teacher is an excellent communicator of prevailing extant knowledge (teaching); contributes to the development of the knowledge (research) and finally, applies the knowledge gained to real-life problems (consulting). And this is what a good leader needs to do at the very least. They should be able adhere to established norms and codes of conduct and push the boundaries of norms and conduct to a more enlightened plane for the overall improvement of the organization, institution or society. Finally, they should be able to apply the norms of high conduct to their everyday functions. And, both the leaders and teachers have to inspire by example.

3. What is the biggest advantage of having your leader as your teacher/mentor?

Feel lucky if you find a leader who is good enough to be your teacher/mentor. It is like having found a Guru. More often than not, leadership attributes are like a menu card. No one person may necessarily have all the attributes on the card. So, often one needs to go a la carte, having one leader as a teacher for one set of attributes and another for another set. It is only in a kindergarten that one has a single teacher for all subjects. As you go up, you have a different teacher for different subjects. The same logic applies with leadership also.

4. Do you think all leaders are good teachers? Give supporting reasons.

In general, an outstanding leader is almost invariably a good teacher. A Gandhi, a Patel, a Vivekananda, a Rajagopalachari – they are all examples of outstanding leaders who would have been outstanding teachers as well. This is because a true leader and a true teacher are both transparent beings and both roles involves leading by example. Also, true leaders are powerful communicators. Because of these overlapping aspects of their roles, I would imagine a good leader would also be a good teacher. But the reverse need not always be true, if you take a teacher in a very literal sense. This is because a leader is usually charged with inspiring a lot more number of people at a time than a teacher.

5. Which is the role you enjoy the most – a leader or a teacher?

As I see it, there are times when a teacher has to be a leader and there are times when a leader has to be a teacher. To be honest, I enjoy both roles, especially because more often than not, they merge into each other.

- See more at: http://content.timesjobs.com/interview-of-the-day-leaders-and-teachers-have-to-inspire-by-example/?fromsite=toi&utm_source=toi&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=toi-tj-whitelabel#sthash.qxZM3Jxr.dpuf



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Weight loss food: Benefits of garlic

Weight loss food: Benefits of garlic (Thinkstock photos/Getty Images)

Garlic is a key part of the Indian diet and many cuisines around the world. Remember your grandma asking you to eat a piece of garliceveryday? Well she was right! This natural medicine helps in lowering cholesterol as well as fighting cancer, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, the common cold and even aids weight loss. 

Garlic for weight loss 

Garlic contains interesting compounds that have been linked to many proposed health benefits. One is allicin, a sulfur compound formed in raw garlic after a clove is cut or crushed. Allicin is a major source of garlic's taste and smell. But not all scientists agree that allicin is the key ingredient, since it breaks down quickly into other compounds. And the enzyme that forms allicin can be destroyed if the whole clove is cooked before being cut (that's why cooked cloves taste less garlicky). In fact, no one knows which, if any, component is most important. 

According to health.am: "Garlic acts as an appetite suppressant as it gives the brain signals of satiety when it is eaten. Hence, a person would be less inclined to eat. Garlic also increases the body's metabolism. Garlic is supposed to stimulate the nervous system to release the adrenalin hormone - thereby increasing the metabolism. High metabolism can in turn help you to burn calories and lose weight." 

A well know research by the researchers at the Weizmann Institute in Israel found that allicin (present in garlic) is an effective appetite suppressant. The research team, led by Dr. David Mirelman, originally sought to uncover the benefits of garlic in lowering cholesterol, preventingdiabetes and promoting cardiovascular health. Results showed that not only did garlic manage cholesterol and lower the risk of diabetes, but also rats given allicin gained no weight, unlike rats in the control group that received no allicin. 

Other benefits of garlic 

While some studies have found that garlic reduces LDL cholesterol i.e bad cholestrol, others have shown little or no effect. Regardless of its effect on cholesterol, there's no evidence that garlic prevents heart attacks. 

Garlic keeps blood platelets from sticking together, which reduces the risk of clots, and may have anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and cholesterol-lowering effects. 

Small, short-term studies have found that garlic can lower blood pressure slightly in people with hypertension. 

Some population studies have found that people who eat a lot of garlic have a lower risk of certain cancers, notably stomach, colon and prostate. 

For other conditions, such as upper respiratory infections, diabetes and arthritis, there's no good evidence of benefit
.

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Google says has right to read your emails

Google's attorneys say their long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts to help sell ads is legal, and are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to stop the practice.

SAN JOSE: Google's attorneys say their long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts to help sell ads is legal, and are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to stop the practice.

In court records filed in advance of a federal hearing scheduled for Thursday in San Jose,Google argues that "all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing."

The class action lawsuit, filed in May, says Google "unlawfully opens up, reads, and acquires the content of people's private email messages" in violation of California's privacy laws and federal wiretapping statutes. The lawsuit notes that the company even scans messages sent to any of the 425 million active Gmail users from non-Gmail users who never agreed to the company's terms.

Google has repeatedly described how it targets its advertising based on words that show up in Gmail messages. For example, the company says if someone has received a lot of messages about photography or cameras then it might display an advertisement from a local camera store. Google says the process is fully automated, "and no humans read your email..."

"This case involves Plaintiffs' effort to criminalize ordinary business practices that have been part of Google's free Gmail service since it was introduced nearly a decade ago," argue company attorneys in their motion to dismiss the case.

Privacy advocates have long questioned the practice.

"People believe, for better or worse, that their email is private correspondence, not subject to the eyes of a $180 billion corporation and its whims," said Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court
.

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Microsoft's emerging market dilemma

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has said he sees such phones - of which Nokia shipped more than 50 million last quarter - as an entree to more expensive fare.

SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI: Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset business gives the software behemoth control of its main Windows smartphone partner, but leaves a question mark over the bigger business it has bought: Nokia's cheap and basic phones that still dominate emerging markets like India. 

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has said he sees such phones - of which Nokia shipped more than 50 million last quarter - as an entree to more expensive fare. 

"We look at that as an excellent feeder system into the smartphone world and a way to touch people with our services even on much lower-end devices in many parts of the world," he said in a conference call to analysts on Tuesday. 

But analysts warn that's easier said than done. 

The problem, said Jayanth Kolla, partner at Convergence Catalyst, an India-based telecom research and advisory firm, is that Microsoft simply lacks Nokia's retail and supply chain experience in the Finnish company's most important markets. 

"The devices business, especially the non-smartphones business in emerging markets, is a completely different dynamic," he said. 

Kolla pointed to the need to manage tight supply chains, distribution, and building brands through word-of-mouth. "Microsoft doesn't have it in its DNA to run operations at this level," he said. 

India is a case in point. Nokia has been there since the mid 1990s and the country accounted for 7 percent of its 2012 revenue while the United States generated just 6%, according to Thomson Reuters data. Its India roots run deep: it has a presence in 200,000 outlets, 70,000 of which sell only its devices. One of its biggest plants in the world is in the southern city of Chennai. 

For sure, Nokia has slipped in India as elsewhere: After nearly two decades as the market leader it was unseated by Samsung Electronics in overall sales last quarter. 

But it still sold more of its more basic feature phones. 

As recently as last October, market research company Nielsen ranked it the top handset brand. The Economic Times ranked it the country's third most trusted brand. 

Loyalty runs deep
In a land of frequent power cuts and rugged roads, the sturdiness and longer battery life of Nokia's phones have won it a loyal fan base - some of whom have stayed loyal when trading up. 

Take Sunil Sachdeva, a Delhi-based executive, who has stuck with Nokia since his first phone. He has just bought his fifth: an upgrade to the Nokia Lumia smartphone running Microsoft's mobile operating system. 

"Technology-wise they are still the best," he said of Nokia. 

But Microsoft can't take such loyalty for granted. Challenging it and Samsung are local players such as Karbonn and Micromax, which are churning out smartphones running Google's Android operating system for as little as $50. 

Such players are also denting Nokia's efforts to build its Asha brand, touchscreen devices perched somewhere between a feature phone and a smartphone. 

Nokia shipped 4.3 million Asha phones globally in the second quarter of this year, down from 5.0 million the previous quarter. 

"The sales performance of the Asha line has been quite poor," said Sameer Singh, Hyderabad-based analyst at BitChemy Ventures, an investor in local startups. "With increasing competition from the low-end smartphone vendors, I'm unsure how long that business will last." 

That leaves the cheap seats. Singh estimates that the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa accounted for two-thirds of Nokia's feature phone volumes in the last quarter, at an average selling price of between 25 to 30 euros ($32.99 to $39.59). 

"I don't see how Microsoft can really leverage this volume," he said. "The market is extremely price sensitive and margins are racing into negative territory." 

Too big to ignore
The quandary for Microsoft is that while the basic phone market may be declining, it may simply be too big to ignore. 

"If you look at markets like India and Indonesia, more than 70% of the volume comes from the feature phone business," Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner said. "It's still a significant part of the overall market." 

That means that if Microsoft wants to herd this market up the value chain to its Windows phones, it needs to keep the Nokia and Asha brands afloat - while also narrowing the price gap between its smartphones and the feature phones and cheap smartphones. 

Microsoft has hinted that lowering prices of smartphones would be a priority. The Windows Phone series includes the top-end Lumia 1020, which comes with a 41-megapixel camera, while it also sells simpler models such as the Lumia 610 and 620 aimed at first-time smartphone buyers.

"The lower price phone is a strategic initiative for the next Windows Phone release," Terry Myerson, vice president of operating systems said on the same conference call, while declining to provide details. 

An option for Microsoft, analysts said, would be to shoe-horn services like Bing search, Outlook webmail and Skype, the Internet telephony and messaging application, into the lower-end phones as a way to drive traffic to those services and make the devices more appealing. 

"So you can bundle services with these low-end products and that way you can reach a wider audience," said Finland-based Nordea Markets analyst Sami Sarkamies. 

But in the meantime Microsoft needs to brace for assault on all fronts as emerging market rivals see an opportunity to eat further into Nokia's market share. In India, said Convergent Catalyst's Kolla, cheap local Android brands have been held back by Nokia's strong promotion of its mid-tier Asha brand. 

"Now, I expect them to pounce," he said. ($1 = 0.7577 euros
)

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200th Test venue to depend on Sachin Tendulkar's future plans

Tendulkar is open to playing his 200th Test anywhere in the country. 

NEW DELHI: With speculation rife over whether Sachin Tendulkar will retire from Test cricket after playing his 200th Test and even the cricket board (BCCI) not sure about the batsman's plans, the issue of which venue is going to host the landmark Test is getting interesting. 

According to BCCI insiders, the board may talk to Tendulkar before deciding on the venue for the important Test. 

Sources said if Tendulkar is thinking of retiring after playing his 200th Test, Mumbai will probably get to host the game against the West Indies. 

"It began there and it should end there if he is retiring," a top BCCI official told TOI. But if Tendulkar plans to keep on playing beyond the series against West Indies, then Kolkata could land the tie. 

Interestingly, Tendulkar himself is open to playing this Test anywhere in the country. "He has no qualms about playing at any centre," a source said. 

Bangalore, it was learnt, is another venue which is in the BCCI short-list. Tendulkar is looking forward to the momentous occasion, he would like to have some first class games under his best before he plays the two-Test series against the Caribbeans. A source said Tendulkar is likely to play some Ranji matches for Mumbai to get some match practice before the Tests. 

"The West Indies team will be in India between October 31 and November 27, during which it will play two Tests and three ODIs. The itinerary and venues for the matches will be announced shortly," BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said in a statement. 

Mumbai should host Test on emotional grounds, says Sourav Ganguly 

KOLKATA: Amid the pitched battle over hosting Sachin Tendulkar's 200th Test, former India captain Sourav Ganguly said it would be a fitting tribute if the Mumbai batsman could play the milestone match at his home ground. 

"It will be the biggest thing if Tendulkar gets to play the 200th Test in Mumbai, purely on emotional grounds. He has all his friends and family members there," Ganguly said. "At this moment, it seems it will be impossible for anybody to break the record of playing 200 Tests. It will be a fulfilling moment for Tendulkar," Ganguly added
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Microsoft awarded $14.5M in Motorola patent licensing suit

In second phase of closely-watched patent trial, federal jury finds the Google handset maker in breach of contract for failing to license standard essential patents at a reasonable rate.

Microsoft on Wednesday won another key courtroom victory in the second phase of a closely-watched battle with Motorola Mobility over patent licensing fees.

A federal jury in Seattle ordered the Google-owned handset maker to pay the software giant $14.5 million in damages for breach of contract for failing to license at reasonable terms standard essential patents covering wireless and video technology used in the Xbox game console. However, the award is half the $29 million in damages Microsoft had sought.

The case began in 2010 when Microsoft sued Motorola, claiming that Motorola was charging excessive royalties for licensing on the patents. Motorola had demanded Microsoft pay annual royalties of up to $4 billion for use of patents that are part of the H.264 video and 802.11 wireless standards, which are baked into Windows and the Xbox video game console. Microsoft said it was willing to pay royalties but not at the 2.25 percent of the product price that Motorola sought.

"This is a landmark win for all who want products that are affordable and work well together," Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard said in a statement. "The jury's verdict is the latest in a growing list of decisions by regulators and courts telling Google to stop abusing patents."

Motorola promised to appeal the decision.

Microsoft's first victory in the case came in April when a federal judge determined thatMicrosoft should pay Motorola Mobility unit $1.8 million a year in royalties for use of the patents instead of the billions of dollars the Google unit had sought."We're disappointed in this outcome but look forward to an appeal of the new legal issues raised in this case," a Motorola spokesperson said in a statement.

The case is expected to have broad ramifications for patent law. The two companies had argued over what constitutes fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms -- known to patent lawyers as FRAND -- that patent holders can charge for standard-essential patents. This case could help establish a framework for what patent holders can reasonably charge for use of their essential technology.

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