BlackBerry 7 OS brings RIM to a bolder level

A week after announcing their new Music Store app for the BlackBerry Playbook, Research in Motion (RIM) took the stage in Singapore again to announce the release of the new BlackBerry 7 operating system for their smartphones. Together with the OS 7 came three spanking new phones. The best description I have seen for the phones came from Twitter user @paulmah who summarized them in a single tweet, “3 new BB models on OS7: Torch 9810 (Faster Torch 9800), 9850 (Touchscreen only Torch) & Bold 9900 (Superslim Bold w touchscreen)”.

RIM announced at the event that their thinnest BlackBerry smartphone yet, the BlackBerry Bold 9900, will be available in Singapore from all three telcos on September 1. This makes Singapore the first country in Southeast Asia to get the latest BlackBerry smartphone offering. Other then new designs, souped up hardware specifications and a new operating system, the BlackBerry smartphones will also be equipped with the latest BlackBerry browser which RIM claims to be significantly faster and provides a more fluid web browsing experience. The browser is also optimized for HTML 5.

Some of the features that we really liked was the advanced sensors in the smartphones that enabled new augmented reality applications to be used on the phones. One of such applications is Wikitude which is integrated with BlackBerry Messenger 6 and will provide users with greater interaction experience with their friends through cross-application connections. All this is in line with RIM’s focus on the community, providing the right experience and giving users the choice.

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A Dream Come True : Company Incorporation In 24-48 Hours (In India!)

Doing business in India is tough – it takes almost 2-3 months to really get the ball rolling (right from incorporation to getting business PAN card etc). But like we shared earlier, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has outlined measures to to ensure that entrepreneurs can float a company in 24 hours.

And today, MCA has simplified the company incorporation process under under MCA-21 to enable registration of a company within 24 to 48 hours where there is no difficulty about availability of name etc.

The various elements of this process are;

• Director Identification Number is allotted online on the basis of verification certificate given by the practicing Chartered Accountant or Company Secretary or Cost Accountant.
• New “Name Guidelines, 2011” have been issued whereby the name can be obtained online from the MCA 21 system if the application is certified by the practicing professionals that the proposed name is in conformity with the Name Guidelines.
• Application and payment of fees is made online.

In order to prevent the registration of companies by fake promoters, the Companies Act, 1956 mandates obtaining of Director Identification Number (DIN) by an individual before becoming a director of the company. For obtaining DIN, one has to apply in an e-form giving his full identification such as name, father’s name, address, date of birth and permanent account number (PAN) etc with copy of documentary proof.

The application has to be further certified by a professional. There are inbuilt checks in the system such as checking of given particulars with PAN database to prevent fake promoters from obtaining the DIN.
In addition to above, after allotment of DIN and name online, all such approvals are further re-checked manually by the “back office” and in case any discrepancies are found later on, the process of revocation of DIN and/or company’s name are initiated.

All incorporation e-forms are filed online but checked and approved manually by the Registrar of Companies. [source: this information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs Shri R.P.N. Singh today in the Lok Sabha in reply to a written question whether the Government proposes to introduce registration of a company within 24 hours and the steps taken to prevent the registration of fake companies under this new computerised system?].

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Automatically Change Your Android Mobile Profile Based On Your Location [Appnomy]

So you need a different profile when you are in your home, or your office and a different profile when in a pub? While you can use the default profile manager that comes with your mobile, there has to be a fun way to do that! Most importantly, there has to be an automated way to achieve the same.

Enter PinMe.

PinMe for Android is a free “location based” profile manager. The application uses maps to Pin point the locations and assign a profile. Using GPS, the application keeps track and changes your profile when you enter or exit the saved locations.

Features of the app:

• Satellite view of the map to Pin point the locations.
• Accurate Latitude/Longitude based location mapping.
• Possibility to define the location Radius.
• Profile changed by user manually is given highest priority. PinMe will not try to over write user changed profile.
• A default profile: Used when you are not within any saved locations.

PinMe is currently free but new version will be soon released with advanced features.

Download Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.aks.pinme

[More cool apps (by Indian app developers) @Appnomy]

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World’s First Brain-Controlled Smart TV Powered by NeuroSky

NeuroSky yesterday declared that Haier Group will adopt its brainwave technology in the latest Cloud smart TV.

Cloud Smart TV is a new product which represents the development trend of Smart TV. It provides exciting “Cloud Family” experience to consumers. This means that Smart TV is stepping into cloud service, which is a milestone in lifestyle change. This new TV is scheduled to be available in October.

NeuroSky’s brainwave technology can detect human’s brainwave signal. Brainwave pattern unveils people’s mental state. MindReader can interpret people’s mental state into digital signal that machines can recognize.

Different with the traditional TV, this Smart TV can interact with TV viewers via NeuroSky’s MindReader headset. The brain-controlled TV applications can help children practice their abilities to concentrate or relax. Meanwhile, it can help adults to relax under stress and control their mental state.

Dr. Taoming Wang, Senior Director of Haier Global Strategic Cooperation and CTO of Haier Cloud Platform, says, “Thanks to NeuroSky for its advanced technology, which provides great support to Haier’s Home Cloud Solution. It enables Haier better meet the global consumers’ needs on cloud service.”

Tony Zhang, General Manager of NeuroSky Greater China says, “Haier is a well-known leader in consumer electronics. NeuroSky is very excited to cooperate with Haier, which means that our brainwave technology has made great progress in consumer electronics market. Smart TV is moving into cloud service with strong momentum. We look forward to becoming an integrated part of this new trend.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

1. By 2015, 54% of TV in China Will Be Smart TV
2. Alibaba, Tencent to Release Smart Phone
3. Kouxun, Amazing Voice-to-Text Application for Smart Phones

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Start-up Wokaishi, Helping China Get Fit and Healthy

In today’s society, young busy professionals often can’t find the time to exercise and be healthy. Beijing especially feels very fast paced with so many things to do.  However I’m always impressed by the old people who are dancing or doing tai chi in parks and public squares.

So the problem is that the young generation of Chinese either don’t care about exercising and keeping fit and healthy, or they don’t know how.  For many Chinese, gyms are new and unchartered territory, so there is a need to educate people on the proper use of gym equipment and fitness regimes. So a new start-up called Wokaishi, currently in closed beta, is aiming to make fitness available to everyone, anywhere and anytime.  The goal is to teach people how to take care of their bodies until they are comfortable enough to go to a gym or a professional health practitioner to gain maximum benefits.  Even the cute panda logo was intentionally used to relate to a normal Chinese person, rather than use a muscular man that might otherwise scare people away.

The team is founded by Josh Du and Anna Tsui. Neither have a professional fitness background but both are passionate about helping China get fit healthy. The pair met when Anna, an American Chinese, first moved to China and found Josh on TheBeijinger.com, a genuine nice guy who wanted to help people moving to China for the first time. Chatting over dim sum, the two had an idea about building a web and mobile product that would give people useful and practical information to work out and be healthy.  They reasoned that China is developing and becoming wealthier, so people will spend more time and money on prioritizing their health. After scanning the market they found existing sites were cluttered with advertising banners or were more focused on helping gym instructors to get a job. Nothing really targeted real people just wanting to exercise.

Josh and Anna on the right with the Wokaishi team

So Wokaishi, meaning ‘I Start’, set out to become the go-to source of information about health and fitness in China. The site is filled with hundreds of workout videos and health related articles, that are aimed to give people a simple but easy to follow ‘how to’ guide, for example how to use gym equipment or do yoga.  Exercises are not limited only to the gym. The site also provides simple but effective exercise techniques you can use when sitting at your office desk. To be practical, you can take your iPad to the gym or park and follow along.

Another main component is the social network function of connecting users to professional instructors who can improve their techniques and give them discipline. Users can also connect with other people via a Weibo style messaging system to organize events like running or rock climbing.   By initially selecting some preferences, Wokaishi will also give you recommendations about what to do and what to eat. They also plan to accredit gyms and instructors based on their certification.  Although not yet solidified, Wokaishi has ideas to monetize through advertising health and fitness brands and products as well as organizing events.

The site is planning to officially launch in two weeks but already they have begun marketing efforts and building a fitness community. Recently they organized a night running event from Jianguomen down to Tiananmen West, where around thirty people turned up, after only three days of Weibo marketing.

I’m happy to see Wokaishi kaishi (start) because I met them back in April during iWeekend. They committed to their idea and are now putting it into action. 

 

Related posts:

1. Matrix Partners China Gives Investment Tips to Start-ups
2. Helping the next generation of Entrepreneurs in China, Peng Ong of GSR Ventures
3. 3 Cool Start-Ups from Korean Incubator – Seoul Space

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Serial Entrepreneur Once Baidu CTO Li Yinan Joins GSR Ventures To Serve Local Startups

GSR Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm in China, announced today that Li Yinan, the former head of China Mobile subsidiary UMessage, joined GSR Ventures as a venture partner.

Graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1993 with a master degree  in optical engineering,  Li joined Huawei as engineer and then made a big hop to become the lead engineer and VP of Huawei at age 27, the youngest VP in the history of Huawei. Later on he left Huawei and founded his own telecommunications-equipment maker Harbour Networks  in late 2000. Huawei acquired Harbour Networks in 2006, and Li went back to Huawei for nearly 2 years before he was lured away by Baidu as Chief Technology Officer led the research and development of its next-generation search engine.

Li left Baidu in early Jan last year for UMessage, also known as Beijing Wuxian Xungi Information Technology where he served as CEO. UMessage is a subsidiary of China Mobile that operates the latter’s 12580 services.

According to Li, he was offered opportunities in other premier venture firms, eventually he chose GSR for its focus on early-stage technology startups and its ambition to help entrepreneurs build world class technology companies in China.

 

Related posts:

1. The Founder Institute Expands To Singapore To Boost Local Startups Ecosystem
2. Releasing Startups Watch Report, a Must-Read to Explore the Local Web
3. Helping the next generation of Entrepreneurs in China, Peng Ong of GSR Ventures

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Pluggd.in Is Hiring –Content Writers, Sales Position [Apply Now]

Pluggd.in is growing at a rapid pace and we are expanding the team to augment our growth.

Open Positions at Pluggd.in:

Position: Content Writer

Location: Bangalore/Anywhere

We are hiring full-time writers in following segments:

• Startups/Entrepreneurship/Investment.
• Gadgets/Tech toys.
• Telecom/VAS/Mobile/Internet world.
• Enterprise Software/SAAS/Cloud etc.

Qualification:

Well, nothing beats a curious and dedicated soul. So we aren’t so hung-up on your qualification. At a minimum, you need to be actively following atleast 2 of the above mentioned areas in order to be a part of Pluggd.in team.

Ground Rules:

1. Bring passion/insights to the table. You should be the curious soul, hungry to prove yourself (again and again).
2. You can write and can write regularly. In the past, we have received more than 100 applications, out of which very few individuals were actually interested in writing regularly [you can always contribute as guest authors].
3. Location is no big-deal. You can be in any part of the world as long as you have Internet connectivity.
4. These are paid positions and will be driven by commitment. As far as compensation is concerned, it will be a mix of fixed component+ performance based variable component (if you want to start part-time, we can surely explore). In fact, you are free to decide your own salary! (as long as you know what you can deliver!).
5. You need not be from journalism background. But point number 2 still holds. And if you are from journalism background, we would surely like to talk to you and understand your areas of interest.

In order to apply, send us an email (along with a sample article, interest areas) to join @ pluggd.in email id.

Position: Sales

 

Location: Mumbai/NCR.

You would be expected to market / sell real estate on the various properties of Pluggd.in. You would also be selling sponsorships for events that Pluggd.in conducts. You would also be required to represent and pitch Pluggd.in events wherever required.

Qualification:

If you know how to sell without getting into the trap of CPM/CPC and know how to sell inventory for a niche site like us, let’s talk (email: join @ pluggd.in).

Your payment would be very highly skewed towards the sales that you get (percentage of sales converted). We aim to start part-time (on commission basis) and move full-time later.

–

Contact ID: join @ pluggd.in.

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Videos: Startups That Demoed At UnPluggd Event

Better late than never? Well, here are the videos of startups that demoed at UnPluggd3, India’s largest startup event.
In no particular order, here are the rock star finalists @UnPluggd.

Exotel.in

Exotel is a unified voice/SMS Pay-on-the-go cloud solution for your business with no wires, capex, instruments or installations. It is a virtual business phone system with features like extensions, voicemail, conference, dialer, SMS keyword responder etc.

Exotel scales dramatically with no human intervention starting from a single cell phone line to dynamic capacity addition during peak hours. It clicks especially well for businesses that have customer or partner/vendor interactions on the phone regularly, and turns calls/SMSes into metrics and business intelligence [more here].

TheAppKiosk

TheAppKiosk is your friendly neighbourhood Kiosk; home to best Apps/ Games/ Music for your all favorite mobile phone. It will bridge the last mile between developers & end users.

“At TAK we know that people hate going through the tons of apps that they don’t care about. Therefore TAK team carefully selects the apps and offer only the ones that are safe, better than the others in its category and those that offer best value for money. Just like an understanding friend, Kiosk buddy would listen to you and suggest only the coolest apps and music for your phone.” [more here].

InterviewStreet

Developers spend a lot of time interviewing candidates based on just resume which we all know is just a blob of text. Interviewstreet helps companies create programming challenges and evaluate the actual coding skills of the candidates before interviewing them [more here].
Latest Update: Has been selected for YCombinator batch.

FreshDesk

FreshDesk is a on demand customer support software offering multi-channel and social customer support. Freshdesk combines a robust help desk, a knowledge base and a community engagement platform in an easy to use and affordable SAAS solution [more here].

99tests

99Tests is a crowd-sourcing platform to get software products tested in the cloud by top notch testing professionals. Testing in the cloud gives software product owners the ability to scale their testing effort and get on-demand access to a quality team. The benefit is that a higher quality product can be released in a shorter time frame [more here].

Mojostreet

Mojostreet is a location based mobile game with real world benefits. Now go ahead and Check-in, Play, Share and get rewarded.  As of now, mojostreet is available as an application on Nokia and Blackberry smart phones and will be available for Android and Iphone by end of July 2011 [more here].

UnBxd

Unbxd Search is an intelligent search engine which can be ‘plugged’ into websites such as eCommerce sites and provides the search functionality such sites. Apart from being highly customizable and platform/architecture agnostic, it provides for a lightning fast accurate search. More features include automatic spelling check and correct, synonym match and suggest, autocompletion in the search box and dynamic navigation using facets. Unbxd Search has helped customers on eCommerce sites find the right products and increase transactions (buys) which boosts revenues upto 12-15% [more here].

recruiterBox

Recruiterbox is a web-based application that helps startups and small companies manage their hiring process. It allows a company to create openings on its platform, publish them to social media and search engines, and then receive all applications organized by openings [more here].

nextLeap

nextLeap is a recommendation engine which acts as a virtual career counselor to help students make smarter career decisions. It involves a suite of applications, which use psychometric evaluations and math models on past admission patterns, to give out personalized suggestions [more here].
Latest Update: Raised Series A round.

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Wasting Too Much Time On Twitter/Facebook? Try StayFocusd

Confess it or not we all have been spending just too much time on social networking and other random sites regularly. Most of us go only once a day but stay there too long. And others simply refresh pages with the excuse of business networking and social media marketing.

Here’s a great app that lets you do this as long as you decided to and makes you feel guilty at the same time. Stayfocusd is a chrome extension that keeps record of time spent on such sites and blocks it after a pre-defined time. The app lets you define sites that you think you spend too much time on. You then setup amount time you want to spent on the all those sites. After the time elapses, the sites are blocked. You cannot reset the time until next day. The timer ticks like a time bomb and makes you feel guilty of every second you spend. You will want to quickly shut the site to save time for later. It works as good as when working on a laptop without plugging in or from a cybercafe. Every minute starts to matter.

The most intelligent part of the tool is the Reddigglicious Option. When switched on, the option not only accounts for the blocked site but also links that you opened through those blocked sites. So no wondering on random articles through twitter.

There is only one problem with the app, it accounts for time with all sites combined. No grouping of sites or individual account zones.

Product managers should observe every option and each line of copy in the app. You will notice how the app is actually more about psychology then about a piece of code. Great products know the customers and their problems very well.

Leechblock is a similar addon for Firefox.

Ending Note (from the app’s challenge): The procrastinator is often remarkably optimistic about his ability to complete a task on a tight deadline; this is usually accompanied by expressions of reassurance that everything is under control. (Therefore, there is no need to start.) Lulled by a false sense of security, time passes. At some point, he crosses over an imaginary starting time and suddenly realizes, “Oh no! I am not in control! There isn’t enough time!”

Try StayFocusd to block time wasting sites and let us know if it really helps.

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