Mobile phones in India were launched in late 1997 or early 1998 if my memory serves me right. For the first time mobile users, the choices were very limited. The “brick” like Nokia 5100 with the antenna and the crazy packages that came along with the deals that charged as high as Rs.14 for incoming calls and a higher amount for outgoing calls. Very few people had them and the ones who had them were obviously the rich and famous. I was in college then and recall how owning a laptop in those days was a big deal.

I still remember how a friend of mine was going back to Kerala on a train and had a few interesting companions – a laptop user who started to pull up the laptop and according to my friend “show off” and another, who went a step further to pull out his laptop and plug in his mobile phone to browse the internet. These were days when telephony in India was prohibitively expensive and this left my friend flummoxed!

Turn back the time and in just over 10 years, the face of mobile telephony has changed. With the devices getting smaller by the day and features increasing by the day, the mobile phone is pretty much the be all and end all of any modern Indian man – pardon me for sounding a bit biased here, I still believe the women don’t get it with gadgets and start a lot later than men here!

The in-thing is the new touch screen phone and this seems to be the next big thing in the mobile world! I don’t know who came first between HTC and the iPhone, but these two together have effectively changed the way the world sees mobile phones. I recall the hype the iPhone created in the US when they were being launched in 2007. Crowds braved bad weather and wanted to make history and waited overnight at stores to get phones as they were launched. For the connoisseur of the mobile, the iPhone was dubbed the Idiot Phone.

Why?

Simple – It does everything that a phone is not intended to do, what with an integrated bipod and a fancy camera and auto tilt screens. The iPhone has evolved over the last 2 years and there are newer and better versions out in the market. When India got its chance to get the iPhone officially, the hype was no different.

The iPhone has done to the market what no other phone over the last few years did – touch screen phones are the rage in town today. The last time I remotely remember anything like this being a rage was when we had the season of phones with a stylus. One may argue that this was the mother of the touch screen in a manner of speaking. But that said, the styles fever wasn’t as hot or anywhere as close to the touch screen fever.

In a matter of a few months, the competition has reacted and reacted strongly. Nokia’s 5880 is huge hit. It brings the traditional “durability” factor along with the touch screen phone that most people think lacks in the iPhone. With its provision for expandable memory and the market wining strategy of half the price of the iPhone, it’s a hot deal in town today.

The eye brow rising, WOW change for me comes from Blackberry. Who on earth thought that Blackberry with its huge office email using base will go touch screen. They were so renowned for their QWERTY keyboard and they changed, releasing the Blackberry Storm very close on the heels of their release of the Bold. I was reading an article where they shamelessly accepted that they had to make this change to keep pace with iPhone for the fear of being left far behind.

One thing is certain though. Technology being technology, things will change and change fast.

Any guess on what will take over from the touch screens?

Image Credit: powerbooktrance

Popularity: 33%

Ovi, which means door in Finnish, is the new service from Nokia for all its users.

Ovi, helps you manage your phone by providing a host of features. This service signs that Nokia clearly wants to keep its hold on the mobile market and realizes that it will be in competition with likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple.

Nokia recently conducted a survey and mentioned that Indian population is now fast becoming top in mobile internet usage therefore needless to say that this service is open to India as well.

Ovi provides the following features which for any users would be very handy:

• Calendar, Contacts, Notes Sync: This will help backup all entries of Contact, Calendar and notes on your Nokia phone to the Ovi website. What this means is even if you lose your phone, you still have all your important details safe. The experience to sync is seamless and easy. The website provides good features to edit the contacts and calendar entries. One thing I wish this site has was ability to import calendars from say Outlook, Hotmail or Gmail. I am sure they will add it as the time passes. Overall this takes away the worry about keeping your contacts in sync.
• Photos and Videos: One of the best feature. This site provides unlimited storage and sharing options for Photos and Videos. You can upload as many of videos and photos as you want, either from your computer or from your mobile directly. There is integration with Flickr available to share you pictures directly to Flickr. Overall a very nice service.
• Files: This service is similar to Mobile Me service from Apple. This one is not free, but has some good features to give it a try. This enables you to access files on your computer through your mobile. Microsoft already is ready to launch My Phone service which is specifically for Windows Mobile Phone.

Other services include, the Nokia Maps, N-Gage and Nokia Music store. It looks like the rumoured Nokia App Store will be an addition to this site.

Overall Ovi is a very good service and sure will set some good competition for Apple Mobile Me and upcoming My Phone.

If you own a Nokia phone, then this is a service that you must use. Give it a spin @ http://ovi.com

Popularity: 17%

In my earlier posts I talked about impromptu photography, Geo tagging and applications for Nokia. Today I want to write about all of them together.

Yes I am referring to Location Mapper, an application for Nokia (Symbian) GPS enabled phone like N95, which will help Geo tag the images and videos taken on the phone. Get the Location Mapper from Nokia Betalabs. Install it on your device and follow the following steps:

1. Go to Applications and run the application
2. Open the camera
3. Wait for the Location Mapper to lock the location.
4. Click you picture or video.

As simple as that.

So for now all those pictures from your phone are going to be Geo tagged and for the rest we have GeoSetter any way. Good thing to try over weekend, don’t you think?

Popularity: 10%

Blogosphere is full of news about Nokia planning to launch an application store on the lines of Apple. As a Nokia user I was happy to hear  this. I have been using Nokia N95 for over a year and am very happy with it. Needless to say my next phone would be Nokia.

On hearing this news, I decided to take a look around and see what apps are available for Nokia. I then reached for Nokia Beta Labs and took a look around.

While I evaluate rest of stuff that I wanted to share one of the app I found interesting.

Step Counter

An interesting application, while counts steps (pedometer) that you take in a day. The following are the features that this application offers:

• Step counter to track number of steps taken
• Time and distance spent walking
• Track of day wise steps
• Set a daily step limit etc.

After looking at the features I was keen to understand how it worked. I was surprised to know that Nokia N95 has an embedded accelerometer, a device which helps identify the orientation. The same helps iPhone to switch view when turned sideways.

I can only imagine how many more applications will developers write to use this feature. While I evaluate a few more and come back. Take a look at the step counter and start getting fit.

Don’t you think it is time for Nokia user can rejoice again?

Popularity: 8%

My friends are very afraid of me as I carry something in my pocket all the time. Yes, my mobile phone, which is a very decent aim and shoot camera too.

While many of my friends are averse to the idea of impromptu photography. I personally take pride in it. Here’s why:

In the world we live, there are so many instances that happen around us, which are so very unique. Forget taking pictures of yourself or your friends, but if you look around there are so many things that you might just see once.

Now you don’t have to be an avid photographer or an enthusiastic traveller to think this way, but just have an open eye to what happens around.

Sometimes nature throws something at you that you would love to see and cherish over and over again.

If you have kids I don’t have to tell you how important this becomes. Unpredictable kids, provide umpteen opportunities to click those magic moments. Manier times, many of us just wish there were more memories of our childhood. It was difficult perhaps at that time to have so many pictures taken.

Thanks to technology advancement, we are having this at our disposal and I think we should make enough effort to save all those memories.

Here I present a fantastic view, when I witnessed a full double rainbow on River Thames, London. I saw a rainbow in full for the first time in my life. If it was not for my Nokia N95, it would have only been in my memory.

Recommended Aim and Shoot Cameras/Phones:
Nokia N73,N95,N96
Sony K700i, Xperia
Samsung Tocco, Pixon, Omnia
LG Viewty
Sony DSC – W120, W130, W170 (fantastic picture quality even in night)

Popularity: 15%

India may have the fastest growing telecom market. It most certainly has the jazziest mobile phone users. It’s not unusual to see a rickshaw-puller pull out a snappy flip phone or to hear the latest ring tone or caller tune. Love it or hate it - mobile technology is here to stay.

As this market comes of age, India wakes up to another reality. The ever growing devices that need to be disposed. Electronic devices including mobile phones and computers use several metals, some of which are very harmful if not disposed off properly. It would not be an understatement to say that over 50% of our mobile users were completely ignorant about this and an even higher percentage unaware of recycling.

In this much needed era of awareness, Nokia announced their recycling campaign for the Indian region. The program encourages mobile phone users to dispose of their used handsets and accessories (irrespective of the brand) at any of the green recycling bins, which will be put up across Nokia priority dealers and Nokia care centers. What’s more, Nokia will also plant a tree for every handset received!

Its about time we started to think about our future! If the industrialized nations polluted the earth in the last century, let’s not take that credit for the 21st century. After all, small steps make a humble beginning… and there is a lot we have to achieve. Thank you for leading the way Nokia! I hope the others come up with such innovative ideas too. And yes, don’t forget the real rural India – that’s where the awareness is most needed!

Popularity: 13%

Hope is what drives man. If there is no hope there is no life.  But when it comes to stock market it is the greed that drives investors. Though this doesn’t apply to all investors majority of them expect to earn 100 rupees by investing 10 rupees in a short period.  Stock market has become a synonym for greed and off late has become a new bungee rope.

Even if you are cautious while investing, in an integrated world, events in one part of the word  will influence the whole world.  Few clever people turned their shares into cash as soon as the meltdown started and others are now hanging on to some worthy and some useless electronic share certificates.

This decline is not limited to stock market alone but has spread everywhere.  Be it real estate, increasing prices, inflation, liquidity crisis, decreasing jobs…  There is darkness everywhere.

Common man might be thinking that terms like economic slowdown or credit crisis will not affect him. Losses in stock market will not only affect the investors. It will affect the whole economy. If markets are down, capital raising will slow down which in turn effects production of goods and services and standard of living will stay where it is. For example:  Metro Rail project in Hyderabad is not able to raise funds in the market. Economists are predicting a depression similar to that of 1929 ‘Great America Depression’.

But the difference is, in those days economies weren’t integrated and countries weren’t dependent on each other.  But today we can’t look at any countries economy in isolation.  Nokia based in Finland sells more than 50% of it’s mobiles in India and China.  If there is a slowdown in India and China and Nokia exports decline, it will have a major impact on Finland.  Infact , in the current crisis it’s the export oriented nations that are hurt most.  In a way India is protected as most of the goods and services produced are for self consumption.  It’s only the software market which exports services to other countries that has suffered most in terms of loss of business profits and jobs.

One thing that Government, regulators should keep in mind is that we are rapidly opening our economy to outsides increasing the risk of external events affecting us. In 2002, Inida received foreign investment to the tune of 1200 crore dollars while it has gone up to 11,000 crore dollars in 2007. With so much investment coming in, share markets went up and up, real estate boomed. After that we know what happened. 

America sneezed and the rest of the world caught cold.

When markets fall FII’s are the first ones to withdraw money. In the last 2 days alone Europe based funds have sold more than 12,000 crores worth of securities due to the redemption pressures they are facing. How can you explain a decline in SBI stock price when it has announced an increase of 40% in its profits?  FIIs are selling in crores and taking back their investments.  That’s the reason for weakening rupee.  It has almost touched Rs 50 and I will not be surprised if it touches 54-55 in another 6 months.

What should be done?

Government should have foresight.  Our Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Central Bank officials are all economic experts. They should decide on how much foreign investment should be allowed and what should be the level of disclosure or transparency for the money that is coming from outside?

If they had done this earlier today Indian stock markets would not have fallen so much.  Again, I am not against foreign money coming in.  All what I am saying is that there should be a mechanism to avoid hot money that just flows out at the outset of a crisis deepening the crisis further.  I agree that growth rate will slowdown bit but  slow progress is better than a rapid progress and equally or even faster decline.

There should be growth in any economy.  But it should be gradual and not at lightning pace. If the market hasn’t grown so rapidly, common man would not have put his money in it in haste and would have avoided the current blow.

 Government should focus mainly on

1. Inducing some confidence in the system, reducing inflation and strengthing rupee.

2. Strengthing the banking system further so that it will not collapse like the other foreign banks.

3. Growth rate has slipped to 6.5 % from 8.5%. Demand is already reducing. Since private consumption won’t be much, government should spend heavily on infrastructure projects which will propel demand.

4. Should reduce government expenditure wherever possible.

While the pundits have opined that US economic slowdown will continue for another 2 months, it will be a real test for Indian regulators and Government to keep the economy on growth track.

On this occasion of holy Diwali I pray the almighty to lead us from darkness to light

Popularity: 13%

Nokia N79 & N85

Nokia has unveiled two new high-end phone models, the N85 and the N79, and declared its battle against increasing competition in the market. The news lifted share price of Nokia by more than two percent as it signalled the investors that the company was on track of giving tough competition to its business rivals Apple and Samsung.

The N79 and N85 models will go on sale in India in late October. The N79 has a 2.4-inch screen, a 5- megapixel camera and comes with a 4GB Micr, o SD card and the N85 has a 2.6-inch LED screen, a 5-megapixel cam and 8GB Micro SD card.

Both these phone also have 10 pre-loaded N-gage games and have FM transmitters for streaming your music over a nearby radio.

Nokia currently holds 40 per cent of the global cellphone market and approximately 60% of the Indian market. It has even higher market share among the expensive phones, helped by the success of its flagship N95.

The company is expecting higher profit margins from these new phones but with the release of iPhone in India, I have my doubts on Nokia being able to skim the Indian market.

Popularity: 70%