Music play a vital role in chillaxing human brain both in leisure or work and in youth its much more than that. Nokia’s recent study reveals that youth, the predominant majority of Pakistan’s total population, have expressed a high preference for music. According to it out of every 10 youth 8 prefers to have a Nokia music device. It also claims to take over the Sony Ericsson’s music device business share with its XpressMusic series.
The next in series of smartphones, Nokia E72 is in the market now. This is a device tailor-made for business and personal messaging and follows the traditions of E71 which has become quite popular because of its nifty features. To coincide with the arrival of the Nokia E72, Nokia has also released research revealing that more people rely on email than on traditional phone calls or text messaging when sending and responding to critical information. Nokia responsiveness research can be seen here.
A cross post from Basit Ali’s blog
Pakistan vs India cricket match is always a popular event to watch not only in these two countries but everywhere else cricket is played, understood and liked. I was also very excited about the match on Saturday but was also afraid of the possible power failures. It went great for the initial hours but when the match reached the climax at midnight, power company employees showed their dutifulness and switched the power off for an hour.
Now what?
Quickly I tried a few options. First of all, I tuned into a good old FM radio channel that was quick and convenient. At least I could get live score and updates. In addition, I had a few other options for live score updates, for example:
All of the above are text based cricket score tools and eventually were much slower than that of FM radio. I was still missing the TV as I knew that the power is not going to be available. Then I recalled a service that I tried several months ago. Yes, Mobilink TV. I simply directed my browser to Mobilink TV’s wap site and launched the sports channel on my phone. Within a few seconds I could watch the match live. That was the best thing that happened to me in several days :)
It was an amazing experience. I watched the match for almost 45 minutes. But I must warn and inform you about a few facts here:
In short it was fun to watch cricket without electricity. Lets see how much fun it will be to pay for it :)
Please share your experience if any.
Guest Post by Ammar Faheem
Mobile commerce, mobile payments, banking via mobiles, cell phone based financial transactions (or whatever you would like to call them) have been discussed and debated all over the world over the past few years. Basic m-commerce applications have been introduced already in several countries, including Pakistan.
It is widely anticipated that telecom operators and vendors pose a serious challenge to the banking industry as they take electronic banking or e-banking mobile.
Speaking of statistics, a total of 1.6 billion bank accounts exist worldwide. Compare this to 4 billion cell phone users. Speaking of Pakistan, the banking industry is host to close to 20 million bank accounts as compared to over 90 million cell phone subscribers. Telecom operators and vendors have good enough statistical evidence to believe they already have a head start!
Giving this notion a further boost is Nokia, one of the pioneers and trend-setters in the telecom industry. Nokia has recently acquired a minority stake in OBOPAY said to be valued at close to $70 million. OBOPAY specializes in mobile and electronic payment solutions and services.
Nokia has launched a new product venturing into mobile commerce, Nokia Money. Nokia money offers access to basic financial services to all cell phone customers and said to benefit the masses who have had no access to any financial services in the past. Is this the beginning of a new financial order for the world? May be it is too early to say but it sure sounds possible.
Nokia Money has been designed to be as simple and convenient as making a voice call or sending an SMS. It will enable consumers to send money to another person just by using the person’s mobile phone number, as well as to pay merchants for goods and services, pay their utility bills, or recharge their prepaid SIM cards (SIM top-up). The services can be accessed 24 hours a day from anywhere, meaning savings in travel costs and time. Nokia is building a wide network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money in or withdraw cash from their accounts.
“We believe mobile financial services offer a market opportunity with long term growth potential. In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage, suggesting that many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services. With more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services such as Nokia Money”, said Mary McDowell, EVP and Chief Development Officer, Nokia.
“Rural consumers will particularly benefit from money transfers and, for urban consumers used to online services, we are enabling services such as payment of utility bills, purchase of train and movie tickets, top-ups, all through their mobile phones. Nokia Money is simple to use, secure and available across different operator networks and on virtually any mobile phone. This means millions of new consumers will soon be able to manage all their financial needs from their mobile phone”, said Teppo Paavola, VP and Head of Corporate Business Development, Nokia.
Source: Daily Mobile
It is expected that the service will be rolled out to selected markets in the first quarter of 2010.
Let us recall the partnership agreement reached between VISA and Nokia to deliver Visa payment and payment-related services – including contactless payments, remote payments, money transfer, alerts and notifications.
Nokia seems to be taking m-commerce very, very seriously. In the long run, and if statistics are to be believed, mobile banking is truly going to give the banking industry a run for its money.
It is yet to be seen how banks manage to overcome this challenge and how they enter into partnerships and programs with mobile operators locally and internationally to introduce mobile banking services to not only retain existing customers but also attracts those who have cell phones but no bank accounts.
Ammar is a Business Development Executive at a leading technology company which focuses on e-Banking.
Realizing that the future belongs to touch screens, Nokia is coming up with models which combine touch screens with entertainment. The newly introduced 5530 XpressMusic reflects this approach. Xpress 5530 is a compact music device that uses a touch interface for accessing people and content on the homescreen. However it is still an S60 based phone. As you read below, you will see that Nokia has tried really hard to make this handset appealing to youngsters. Users like to hop on to the Wireless LAN or WiFi to use the services available at no cost. We at TelecomPk.net think that Nokia needs to find ways to make data access easier for its target users.
The ‘scrolling’ Contacts Bar provides direct access to 20 people and their latest conversations and media updates. The Homescreen also features one touch shortcuts to content and popular social networks, like Facebook and MySpace. The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic follows in the footsteps of the top-rated Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, expanding the touch XpressMusic phone range with a youthful device that has a solid stainless steel frame finish and comes in five vivid colors.
Nokia touch phones started off with the extremely popular device 5800 Xpress Music and now with NOKIA’s 5530 XpressMusic we have brought the touch technology to lower price point. We believe that Touch phones are the future for youth and XpressMusic being the most popular brand is a natural fit. With the new Nokia 5530 consumers can enjoy their media on 2.9 inch widescreen which brings to life sharp picture quality at a touch. Sporting a sleek design, Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is available in vibrant colors.
Afzal Shahabuddin
Head of Marketing, Nokia Pakistan
At the core of the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is the music and entertainment experience. It is an ideal device for those who wish to quickly and easily access, share and mix a huge selection of media. In true XpressMusic form, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is a great music player with 27 hours of playback time, excellent audio quality and a 4 GB memory card for storing music and other media. Videos, either self made or from social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook can be enjoyed on the brilliantly clear 2.9 inch widescreen display. New music can be purchased through the Nokia Music Store, either directly on the phone or through a PC. The music collection is easily managed and can be synchronized with the PC using the Nokia Music for PC application. Calls and music can be conveniently managed and listened to with the Nokia Stereo Headset WH-205 with tangle-free cable.
The phone features a ‘people carousel’ feature which shows thumbnail images of up to 20 close friends and provides easy access to them and their communications history including emails, phone calls, photos or other social media updates. The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic also features the pop-up Media Bar so music, photos, videos, Internet and on-line sharing applications such as Ovi Share, Flickr and VOX are just a touch away.
Via Nokia Press Release
We did talk earlier on the possibility of Nokia entering into Netbooks. So today Nokia has unveiled its netbook “Booklet 3G”.
Specs and features of Booklet 3G known so far are:
The detailed specifications and price details are being held so far and will be announce at Nokia World to be held on Sep 2, 2009.
The highly anticipated Nokia N86 will soon be available to Pakistani consumers. Nokia N86 is the most advanced mobile phone camera ever. It comes with a powerful combination of wide-angle Carl Zeiss optics and an 8 megapixel sensor, resulting in performance comparable to a stand alone digital camera. The Nokia N86 8MP is designed to excel in both bright and low light conditions; and it’s optimized for both video and still imaging. Its high-speed connectivity ensures easy and convenient sharing. In essence, it let’s you capture more, capture quality and capture to share.
People demand mobile cameras that take excellent pictures in all light conditions. That’s why the aperture of the Nokia N86 8MP is comparable to that of a high-quality, stand-alone digital camera. Whether it’s capturing majestic hieghts of Himalayas or the panoramic beauty of a sunset at Clifton beach, the Nokia N86 8MP will take brilliantly clear, wide-angle images that are instantly geo-tagged to be uploaded onto sites like Ovi Share or Flickr.
Imran Khalid Mahmood
Country General Manager, Nokia Pakistan
Easy to use, the Nokia N86 8MP is capable of giving picture results that can impress any experienced photographer. This includes a wide-angle Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for capturing more of a beautiful scene in pictures, shorter latencies and variable aperture for super sharp photos in challenging bright and low light conditions. The fast mechanical shutter ensures pictures with less motion blur while the dual LED camera flash is powerful enough for excellent photography and video capture.
“When it comes to taking the best digital photos, it’s the quality of the lens and the sensor that count, not just the quantity of pixels. The Nokia N86 8MP is the first mobile device with variable aperture, adding to the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for excellent results. It has never been easier to capture special moments in such a great quality,” says Helmut Heier of Carl Zeiss.
Every detail of the metal-framed Nokia N86 8MP is thoughtfully designed with photography in mind, including 8 GB of internal memory for up to 4,000 images. Like any high-end digital camera, the memory can be increased with an exchangeable 16 GB microSD card. The device also offers a bright OLED screen with scratch resistant hardened glass, easy photo management, full sync capability with a PC and TV-out support for slide shows.
Preloaded with the latest version of Nokia Maps and full Ovi integration, the Nokia N86 8MP gives a personal dimension to photos and videos. People can share their location with personal content like geo-tagged photos. The Nokia N86 8MP comes with a built-in compass, along with a trial navigation license for driving. It also includes pedestrian navigation so that you don’t lose your way when capturing life through the camera lens. Navigation service is not currently available in Pakistan.
The Nokia N86 8MP, with its integrated kick stand, is ideal for watching videos and playing games. Each Nokia N86 8MP can play up to 25 hours of music on one charge which can be enjoyed with the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-214. People can build a personal music collection from the millions of tracks and playlists available from the Nokia Music Store, where available.
[via Nokia Press Release]
A cross post from Basit’s Blog
Nokia life tools have been running as a pilot in Indian state of Maharashtra. Nokia has announced the commercial launch of these tools in Maharashtra today. This service will run in this state for now and will spread further to the other parts of the country later. Life-tools is a combination of entertainment, information, education and agriculture services in the emerging markets.
The idea is to have applications running on common, low cost phones that is owned by the greater number of users in small towns and remote areas and the focus of the applications is to make the life of the users easier one way or another.
Here are a few shots from the agriculture related application. You can have more information about these applications here.
The biggest challenge in such cases is to bring information and updates to the users from the very local market and the changes should reflect the happenings around them, for example market prices, weather, irrigation related details etc.
That is why the service has been launched in a limited area, and will grow over time. Nokia has recently been concentrating on these so-called emerging markets like India and Pakistan where the telecom market has been growing exponentially resulting in very high sales of handsets.
A while back we took a sneak peak at Nokia’s latest offering, N97. The set was officially launched on 12th June at a grand launch ceremony held at Marriott Karachi. Along with a tilting 3.5″ touch display, QWERTY keyboard and a fully customizable home screen, the Nokia N97 promises to offer instant access to the full range of Ovi services. The N97 is expected to be sold in Pakistan at a retail price of PKR 58,000 only.
The device was announced at a glamorous press event where two European models brought the phone at the venue and the Finnish First Secretary, Deputy Head of Mission H.E Miia Rainne handed over the phone to the GM Nokia Pakistan Imran Khalid Mahmood. Also present at the ceremony was Henri Mattila, Head of Category Marketing, Nseries Middle East and Africa.
Delivering on Nokia’s vision and thought leadership based on mobile convergence, Nokia Nseries has aimed to present the best in class mobile computers to its internet savvy consumers. Today, we take great pride in introducing the newest addition to Nokia Nseries – Nokia N97. We have combined the most-advanced smartphone capabilities in this device to enhance the internet entertainment for our consumers and at the same time ease-of use with one-touch access to their favourite online content.
Imran Khalid Mahmood
GM Nokia Pakistan
The Nokia N97 is Nokia’s first device to feature a personalizable home screen, which can be customized with a range of widgets which bring live information directly to the device. These widgets include key social networking destinations like Facebook and Hi5, news services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as shopping and weather information.
The Nokia N97 is the first device to ship with the Ovi Store, which offers easy access to applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services, and much more. Ovi Store has paid and free content from a range of global and local content providers and developers, including Paramount Pictures, Facebook and Qik, as well as a selection of Twitter applications.
The Nokia N97 is an important step towards our vision of delivering a highly personalized Internet experience. Fuelled by a multitude of music, maps, games, media and applications via Ovi, the Nokia N97 transforms the Internet into an experience that’s completely tailored to the tastes and interests of its owner.
Henri Mattila
Head of Category Marketing
Nseries Middle East and Africa
Entertainment Ensured
The Nokia N97 also has direct access to the huge catalogue of music in the Nokia Music Store. With multiple high-speed connectivity options and 32GB of storage (up to 48GB using a microSD card) it is possible to directly download and store tens of thousands of songs on the handset. And you can listen to your favourite music on the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-905, which Nokia also launched today. This headset brings crystal clear sound, eliminates background noise, and is the ideal accessory for listening to music and making calls on the Nokia N97, as well as being compatible with a diverse range of other mobile and music devices.
High-quality images and video clips at 30 frames per second (fps) can be captured using the 5 megapixel camera with integrated Carl Zeiss optics. Images can also be geo-tagged to specific locations and shared instantly with friends or uploaded online via Ovi Share, Twitter or Flickr.
Like I had mentioned in my previous post, the Nokia Bloggers Meet-up was held on 22nd May at The Sports Bar – Karachi. The event wasn’t just a bloggers meet-up but also a sneak-peak of N97.
N97- The new entrant in the Nokia’s flagship N-series is due to launch in Pakistan in first week of June. This time Nokia came different and thus was this pre-launch meet-up with the bloggers.
Mr. Adeel Hashmi, Communication Manager – Nokia Pakistan, started off the event giving an introduction to the idea of meeting the bloggers for the pre-launch and promised more of such meet-ups. The keynote speakers of the evening were Mr. Khurram Pradhan, Product and Portfolio Manager and Ms. Shabana Shahzad, Program Manager.
Khurram Pradhan gave his presentation on the main theme of N97 – Personal Internet. In his presentation he also focused on what’s driving the transformation of converged devices. He discussed that Nokia has been working on converging mobile phone with internet from last decade to enhance the personal internet experience.
At present out of the 1.3 billion internet users 520 million use it on mobile device and research has indicated this figure will go up to 1.5 billion by the year 2012. Nokia being consumer centric is on the move to make the mobile broadband dream a reality.
Not only this Nokia also plans to attract the market where we have 93 million users using the social network services like facebook, my space and twitter on their mobile devices, 82 million downloading maps on their devices, 22.3 million access the internet on devices daily for news and information and where we also have 184 million blogs among which 77% are actively read and commented. In efforts of enriching the networking experience, the N97 comes with third party widgets, which are standalone programs on your mobile home screen.
Nokia’s customer care is a two dimensional strategy, one, devices for connecting people and second devices for connecting places which it achieves along with Ovi Maps.
Foreseeing the future in application development Nokia has acquired all of the rights to the Symbian operating system (OS) and open sourced it under the Eclipse license.
Khurram’s part ended with a Q and A session and then came the most interesting and most awaited SNEAK PEAK at the N97. Ms. Shabana Shahzad conducted it. Bloggers were also given the feel-it experience of N97.
Some of the N97 features are:
- Easy and fast connections to internet services
- Easy text input with QWERTY keyboard and touch screen
- 3.5 inch sliding tilt display
- Live personalized home screen with widgets
- Up-to-date information via RSS feed
- Fully compatible with Oviservices
- Browse real web pages
- Take pictures and videos and share them immediately
- Watch high-quality video on the large 3.5 inch 16:9 widescreen
- Video playback at 30 fps, for a wide array of formats
- Play videos, music and pictures on TV using TV-out
- Access internet video feeds through Nokia Video Center
- Enjoy great audio through standard 3.5 mm jack headphones, built-in stereo speakers or Bluetooth technology
- Digital music player with support for play list editing, equalizer and categorized access to your music collection
- Search, browse and purchase songs online in Nokia Music Store (for availability, please visit www.music.nokia.com)
- Nokia Maps with integrated compass and A-GPS receiver
- Multimedia city guides and navigation services. Drive: voice guided car navigation, or Walk: pedestrian-optimized turn-by-turn guidance. (Navigation may need to be purchased separately.)
- World-class game titles with N-Gage
- Make you home-screen private any time you want
N97 Tech Profile:
System: WCDMA 900/1900/2100 (HSDPA), EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
User Interface: S60 5th Edition
Dimensions: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm*mm (L x W x H) *18.25 mm at camera area
Weight: Approx. 150 g
Display: 3.5 inch TFT with up to 16 million colorsnHD16:9 widescreen (640×360 pixels)
Battery: Nokia Battery BP-4L, 1500 mAh
Memory: Up to 48GB (32 GB on-board memory, plus 16GB expansion via micro SD memory card slot)
Video playback: MPEG-4 / SP and MPEG-4 AVC/H.264,up to 30 fps, up to VGA resolution Real Video up to QCIF @ 30 fps Windows Media (WMV9) up to CIF @ 30 fps Flash Lite 3.0 / Flash Video in internet browser
Music playback: MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA
Lens: Carl Zeiss Tessar™
Image capture: Up to 5 mega pixels (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7 million/24-bit color)
Video capture: MPEG-4 VGA (640 x 480) at up to 30 fps
Aperture: F2.8
Focal length: 5.4 mm
Flash: Dual LED camera flash and video light
Talk time: Up to 320 min (3G), 400 min (GSM)
Standby time: Up to 400 hrs (3G), 430 hrs (GSM)
Video playback: Up to 4,5 hours (offline mode)
Music playback: Up to 37 hours (offline mode)
The device shall be availabe here in second week of june at an expected retail price of Rs. 60,000.
At the Nokia Blogger Meet-Up yesterday, Mr. Khurram Pradhan, Portfolio and Product Manager (Nokia Pakistan) shared this video in his presentation.
This video shows the transformation from the silver screen to the FOURTH SCREEN as he says is all about the paradigm shift. Soon cell phones will no longer be ‘cell phones’. Personal computing is transforming to mobile computing which will make your internet personal.
The device from Nokia that does it all -the N97- will launch in Pakistan next month. Stay tuned to get its sneak peak before its actual launch.
The story behind the making of the Nokia N97 is a fascinating one that gives a real insight of what goes into to forging a flagship device from scratch.
The team behind the creation of the Nokia N97 is a global one with a shared vision that’s highlighted in this video. The project is based in Tokyo, with the industrial designer in Finland, the mechanics team in Tokyo, and software teams around the globe, straddling Boston, Dallas, India, China, Singapore. Many of the key players at Nokia behind the product step in front of the lens in this rare video to tell their piece of the story puzzle that fits together to make the N97, including Tomi Kuparinen, Product Program Manager and designer Shunjiro Eguchi.
Watch the video below for the making of Nokia N97. The device launch in Pakistan shall be in the 3rd week of June. We shall get more on it to you soon.
[Via Nokia]
Posting tweet...
TelecomPk.Net is a leading source of information and analysis about Pakistan Telecom industry. More here.
Jobs by Zumbeel Pk Telecom News