Apple’s 2nd Store in Hong Kong Set to Open September 29th

Apple Store Hong Kong @ Festival Walk

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has confirmed that its second official store in Hong Kong will open on September 29th, which is a Saturday. It comes exactly a year and five days after the opening of Hong Kong’s first.

The new Apple Store is located in the Festival Walk mall, Kowloon district, across the harbor from the other and flashier store at the iconic IFC mall. As spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple has a page up (here) that confirms the date and helps locals locate it.

The opening comes during a public holiday in both Hong Kong and China, so the new Festival Walk store should be packed – unless everyone going to it uses Apple’s new maps app for directions and ends up swimming in the harbor [1].

The new store will also be great news for the scalpers who are said to be buying up 70 percent of all new iPhone 5 models sold in Hong Kong so as to resell them for a juicy profit to keen early-adopters in mainland China.

[Source: 9to5Mac]

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1. Ziiiiiiiiiiing!  ↩

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Telecom Roundup: ‘One nation-free roaming’ – Finance Ministry asks DoT to submit roadmap

The Finance Ministry has asked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to submit a roadmap and timeline for implementation of ‘one nation-free roaming’, which allows mobile phone subscribers to use same number across country without having to pay extra charges. “DoT has been requested to indicate the roadmap and timeline for implementation of the decision regarding ‘one nation-free roaming’ to this department at the earliest,” [source]

Mobile telephone, Internet services snapped in Kashmir
Mobile telephone and Internet services were snapped in Kashmir (on Sep 21st) as authorities apprehended an escalation in protests over the anti-Islam video made in the US. The mobile telephone and Internet services were snapped an hour before Friday prayers [source]

Telecom Department may ask Airtel, Vodafone & Idea to stop 3G roaming pacts

The DoT is looking at separate notices after studying the response of the law ministry which said the government was ‘well within its rights to claim the amounts earned by companies by providing 3G services for which they did not have any authorisation, permission or licence from the DoT’. “It will be based on the doctrine of unjust enrichment and this would be distinct from the termination of licences. [source]

R-Com raises call prices, shares rise

Reliance Communications Ltd, India’s third-biggest mobile phone carrier, raised call prices by a quarter in four service zones and said it will extend the hike to all zones in the next 30 days, sending its shares to a two-month high. [source]

45 cos to face action for not surrendering call tapping equipment

Government will crack down on 45 companies, including telecom operators and a Chinese telecom equipment provider, which are yet to surrender their “off the air” monitoring system, an equipment used to tap phone calls, as it could have a bearing on national security.[source]

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Moodsee: A Social Way to Share Your Mood, Location and Weather

Happy because the weather is bad? Sad because the sun is too hot? We don’t all feel the same way about the weather. And most of the time we certainly don’t feel like the weather.

Moodsee is a location-based social weather posting application — but with a twist. You can check-in with your emotions.

It is an Android app which was a product of Startup Weekend Manila last May. It was developed by the team comprised of Nico Nicomedes, Daryl Locsin, MJ Garrovillas and Noel Acosta, and the latter continued working on the app after SW. According to Moodsee’s website:

The Alpha version is the proof of concept (prototype) of Moodsee, intended for presentation, field testing, app data seeding and feedback. Eventually, after establishment of initial user base and with enough feedback, a beta will be available from Google Play.

The group is currently looking for collaborators, investors, and business partners to fully realize the potential of Moodsee, which the developer said to be a “concept derived from the initial idea of Quality of Service.”

This is not the first time we have seen an app from Asia focused on sharing emotions. Japan’s FeelPress launched about a month ago, giving users the ability to share feelings while posting photos, notes, or locations.

These apps can get pretty handy to track your emotions and check the patterns of your moods. I think I need to try these apps soon, just to see when I’d feel ‘WTHee’.

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Sparxup 2012 highlights Indonesia’s growing technology market

Sparxup's 2012 tech conference in Indonesia will highlight the opportunities arising from the growing technology market in the country.

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Sparxup 2012 highlights Indonesia’s growing technology market

Sparxup's 2012 tech conference in Indonesia will highlight the opportunities arising from the growing technology market in the country.

The post Sparxup 2012 highlights Indonesia’s growing technology market appeared first on e27.

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Telkomsel Officially Lodges Appeal; 3G Tender Plans in Disarray

More stories have arrived regarding the Telkomsel bankruptcy saga. The Indonesian telco giant officially lodged an appeal on Friday regarding the court’s controversial decision last week about the relatively small sum of money involved. But the worst may be still to come as Telkomsel’s bid to join and win the remaining two blocks for its 3G expansion plan has now come into doubt following its legal dispute.

According to the ICT ministry regulation draft regarding companies eligible for the 3G tender, bankrupt companies or companies that are under the court’s scrutiny are not allowed to join the race. At the moment, according to IndoTelko, the ICT ministry plans to delay the 3G tender to give Telkomsel a fighting chance. That and because the ICT ministry regulations regarding the 3G tender are still not ready yet. The Jakarta Post reported that liquidators have entered Telkomsel’s premises to settle the debt in accordance with the court’s orders.

Telkomsel has also hit back at the company’s voucher top-up distributor Prima Jaya, saying that the reason behind its decision to stop the Prima voucher distribution was because the voucher company didn’t achieve its sales targets. Telkomsel says it was confused as to how Prima Jaya recorded a loss of IDR 5.2 billion ($545,000) when there had been no transactions after the voucher cooperation had been halted. Furthermore, Telkomsel claims that Prima Jaya also breached its contract by selling top-up vouchers outside its target community, which was meant to be limited to the athletic community. For those reasons, Telkomsel believes that the company has the right to cancel its agreement with Prima Jaya – which would mean no money is owed, and this ‘bankrupt’ drama would be over.

[Sources: Okezone and Detik]

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1. The figures are differently reported, but it is understood that Prima Jaya claimed to have lost between IDR 5.2 billion ($545,000) and IDR 5.3 billion ($560,000).  ↩

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Axis Launches SMS Translation Service for Indonesia

Indonesian telco Axis announced its new SMS language translation service on Friday. The service enables users to translate 160 character SMS messages into 12 different languages, including English, Chinese, Korean, and French. Users will also receive an URL where they can hear how the words are pronounced. An Axis operator told me that they use a translation program to do the job, so I assume that the results would be similar to Google Translate – ie: not perfect.

During the promotional period from September 15 to October 31, the translation service is charged at IDR 100 (USD 1 cent) per SMS. The normal tariff is IDR 200 (USD 2 cents) per SMS. To use this service, Axis users can send an SMS with the format “[language code]: [text to be translated]” to 9855. You can see the language code list here. The service is available for Indonesia only.

[Via IndoTelko]

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Sina Weibo Rolls Out Social QR Codes For All Users

Scan and join us on weibo!

This morning Sina Weibo launched a QR code feature which allows every user to have their own QR code. Once someone scans it, they will be brought to the owner’s profile page.

To scan or create your own QR code, you can log on to your Sina Weibo account within the Android or iPhone app (version 3.1.0 only) and hit the “contacts” button. Click on “Find a contact” and the QR code feature can be found at the top. For folks who are on Sina Weibo already, you can scan the QR code on the right to follow us (or just go here).

This QR code usage resembles the method that was kickstarted by WeChat where everyone can create and customize their own QR code within the app, and then share that any way you fancy. WeChat, with its 200 million users, is a different beast to the Twitter-esque Sina Weibo, but there’s still a rivalry between the two as some social overlap occurs. Clearly Sina decided to copy the social QR codes as a way for having users connect with each other.

If you fancy making your own without going into the app, you can test out the brand-new Sina Weibo’s QR code generator (pictured below) over at m.weibo.com/web/qrcode.

Sina's new page for users to create - and slightly customize - their social QR codes.

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Great Timing: As Apple Maps Suck Hard, Baidu Maps App Gets a Major Update

Just as everyone is talking about maps apps – to be precise, the ghost town nature of Apple’s lousy new offering – China’s top search engine Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) has rolled out a major update to its own smartphone maps. This nudges Baidu Maps to version 4.0 on iOS and Android, bringing with it new things like built-in discount vouchers for some stores and restaurants, a totally revamped voice navigation system, indoor guides for malls, and real-time traffic plus public transport info.

With this update, Baidu is bringing in an initial 4,000 vouchers and deals at venues across the country. Battling the traffic is another key area, with voice navigation no longer requiring an add-on, and real-time traffic flow (shown with color-coded lines; pictured below) shown as an optional layer. But the real-time bus arrival information is currently in testing in only one city, and will come to other areas later in the year.

Indoor maps first came to Baidu’s web app in December of last year, and now they make their debut on mobile. This covers only a small selection of malls and department stores in Beijing right now, but this’ll also see a broader roll-out in due course. The indoor maps within the app will serve as a guide to what’s on each floor and also help you find specific brand stores. Eventually, this will likely become incorporated with the afore-mentioned vouchers, but it’s all at quite an early stage.

Real-time traffic flow in Baidu Maps app. Click to enlarge.

Those new features in v4.0 come on top of others – I like the AR function for finding stores nearby using your camera, a lot like in the Layar app – that can easily blow Apple Maps out of the water. The app can challenge Google Maps too. Indeed, the last time we looked at market share data in this sector in China, the Google Maps app was holding on to second place by a mere dumpling skin (17.5 percent share versus Baidu Maps’ 17.3 percent), while Autonavi was out front with 25.7 percent.

Get v4.0 of Baidu Maps for Android and iPhone from its homepage. There are other versions for Symbian and Windows Phone, but they’ve not yet had these new features.

[Source: 36kr - article in Chinese]

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