Nokia Samsung make fun of samsung galaxy s5 launch

Nokia and HTC have mocked Samsung's Galaxy S5 launch at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The two rivals took to Twitter to mock and disrupt the launch in a 'not-so-funny' manner.

According to CNET, HTC, a company with some nice phones but not without its own problems, tweeted: "Buyer's remorse: Coming soon to S5 owners. March 25."

The Taiwanese manufacturer went a step further by suggesting that a person would be an idiot to buy the Galaxy S5, akin to what Samsung tells iPhone buyers.

HTC has scheduled an event for March 25, where it is expected to launch the successor of its top smartphone One.

Nokia tweeted with an image of its own not-yet-legendary phones: "Stand out from the crowd!



The 'unamusing' responses from the two companies failed to ruffle the South Korean giant's anticipated mobile and wearables launch at the event.

Samsung has, in the past, poked fun at Apple's iPhone launches, mocking the long lines of buyers and new iPhone features that its own Galaxy phones have had for several months.

LG Smartwatch coming in 2014: CEO

LG will launch its first smartwatch in 2014, the head of its mobile unit said on Monday, tapping into the nascent market for wearable devices seen as the mobile industry's new source of growth.

The announcement from the South Korean smartphone maker came after industry leader Samsung on Sunday launched the second generation of its own internet-enabled smartwatch, Galaxy Gear 2.

"We are working on the development of wearable device... more specifically in the form of a watch," Park Jong-Seok, the CEO of LG Electronics' mobile unit, told reporters.

"(It) will come out this year," he said, adding the watch would be remotely linked to smartphones.

"We're working hard to put on the table something that other companies have not offered yet," Park said, without elaborating further.

LG - the world's fourth-largest smartphone maker - has not entered yet the market for wearable devices currently dominated by firms like Samsung, Sony and Pebble.

A typical smartwatch allows users to make calls, receive texts and emails, take photos and access apps.

So far, few companies have managed to generate large consumer excitement or sales in the market, also eyed by firms like Apple and Google.

Apple is believed to be set to launch its own smartwatch soon, while Google is moving towards a wider consumer launch of its internet-enabled Glass later this year.

The much-anticipated Galaxy Gear smartwatch launched by Samsung last September, however, was received coldly by consumers, who viewed it unfashionable and unwieldy.

Now Samsung - the world's top maker of smartphones and mobile phones - seeks to lure more consumers with an array of new features on the Galaxy Gear 2, including sport tracking software, a heart rate monitor and remote control for devices such as TVs.

Many handset makers are banking on smart devices to boost revenue as sales of smartphones slow in the mature, and most profitable markets.

Though smartphone sales surged 42.4% to 968 million units last year, according to Gartner, the growth came from developing markets like Latin America, India and China, while mature markets such as western Europe and the United States hit the brakes.

Meanwhile, global smartwatch sales are expected grow this year by more than 500% from 1.9 million units in 2013, and to expand further in coming years, according to the market researcher Strategic Analytics.

Advanced markets including the US and Western Europe will drive the market, it said

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the New Mobile King

Billionaire 29-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stars in Mobile World Congress (MWC), the mobile industry's biggest fair on Monday, fresh from his $19 billion (14-billion-euro) takeover of smartphone messenger WhatsApp.The keynote speaker on the opening day of the February 24-27 MWC in Barcelona, Zuckerberg has come a long way in the mobile world in a short time.

When Facebook sold its shares to the public in an initial public offering in May 2012, "it literally had no mobile advertising revenues," said Eden Zoller, analyst at the research house Ovum.

"It did actually have a pretty strong mobile user base at IPO but what it had failed to do at that time was actually monetise those mobile users," she said.

At the time of the float, worries over the lack of money coming in from the mobile business sent Facebook's shares sliding.

But the social network - boasting more than 1.2 billion members - quickly repaired its strategy.

By the end of 2013, mobile devices accounted for 53% of Facebook's advertising revenue, bringing in $1.2 billion in the last quarter and more than $3 billion over the whole year.

However mobile advertising can be "highly intrusive," Zoller cautioned, especially if it interrupts a user's engagement with an application.

"You have to be very careful." Nevertheless, the social network needs to keep up the momentum, the analyst said.

"It can't be complacent. On the mobile front it is particularly important. Consumers have an increasing number of social media and social messaging alternatives to Facebook."

The company still has a weak point, however, she added: its failure to carve out a strong position in mobile payment systems, which are expected to show strong growth in the next few years.

Nonetheless, Facebook is clearly building a base for further revenue growth.

On Wednesday, the social network announced its takeover of WhatsApp, which followed last year's smaller purchase of online photograph-sharing site Instagram.

"Facebook is paying for one of the fastest growing audiences in history - WhatsApp is now nearing half a billion users globally - and the monetisation potential that that brings," said Guillermo Escofet of research house Informa.

Facebook has captured 18.4% of the mobile publicity market, making it the number two force after Google, according to digital media analyst eMarketer.

"They performed a remarkable turnaround from about two years ago," said Escofet, recalling the social network's early reluctance to push advertising to mobile devices.

"The reason for that is because they did not want to compromise the user experience on mobile and they did not want to cram the small mobile screen with ads," he said.

Facebook's solution was to integrate advertising into its users' news stream, where members read the latest events in their "friends"' lives.

It has proven an efficient strategy. Of Facebook's 1.23 billion users who are active at least once a month, three-quarters access the site from their smartphones.

Today, it is a "mobile company," declared Sephi Shapira, chief executive of advertising platform MassiveImpact, a Facebook partner.

"We are very happy with them," he said. MassiveImpact's clients publicize on Facebook, but only pay when users click on the advertisement and then actually buy the product.

For products such as insurance, the percentage of users who make a purchase after clicking on a web advertisement is often in single digits, but for mobile apps that figure can rise to 20% or 30%.

"For app promotion, I think they're definitely the best," Shapira said. Many advertisers now devote all their publicity to mobile devices, not even spending on internet advertising, he said.

But "I think we should not get too excited," Shapira cautioned. "You have to run just to stay alive. So in this market, you have to constantly be innovating and developing new technologies just to survive, if you don't, you disappear."

Nexus 8 runing Android 4.5 to launch in July : Report

Google is reportedly working on an 8-inch Nexus tablet that will run Android 4.5, the next iteration of Google's mobile operating system.

According to a report by Android Geeks that cites a Google Dublin employee as source, Android 4.5 will be introduced in July along with a new tablet, the Nexus 8. The source said that Google's I/O event which is scheduled to take place on June 25-26, will only focus on services.

It also added that Google will stop making a 7-inch Nexus tablet, due to increased competition in the segment.

Earlier, a DigiTimes report that cited a Taiwan based source had said that Google will launch an 8-inch Nexus tablet at the end of April with "initial shipments of two million units." The same report had also suggested that the tablet would be made by Asus, the OEM which makes the Nexus 7 tablet for Google.

The Nexus 8 tablet would compete with Apple's iPad mini, Samsung's 8-inch Galaxy Tab and LG G Pad.

Facebook losing its cool Quotient : Report

With the social networking giant, Facebook, recently turning a decade old, its need to work harder to

retain as well as engage more audience has become all the more crucial.
Co-author of "The New Killer Apps: How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Start-Ups," Paul Carroll warned that Facebook would struggle to expand its brief beyond what it's currently doing.
According to the New York Post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's brainchild needs to prove that it could continue to grow despite the possibility that it has already begun to saturate its most fertile marketplaces while facing stiff competition in key foreign centers.
However, Facebook's early dominance on the Internet's social networking zone is clearly diminishing with rivals like Twitter and LinkedIn fast taking charge.
An analyst for Janney Capital Markets, Tony Wible said that Facebook's biggest challenge is to keep its users engaged, adding that the company has set a high bar, and it has to think up new ways to hook people.
As more and more 'adults' are signing up for the social networking site, its teen audience is slowly turning its back and adopting fresher and more 'young' sites like Twitter.
Caroll stated that Facebook is losing its cool factor, which is evident from the declining interest among teens, the report added.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo's Launch Date, Price Revealed

Within a month of announcing it globally, Samsung is set to launch Galaxy Grand Neo smartphone in the Indian market. The device is likely to be priced at approximately Rs 19,000 in the country and

It will compete against the likes of LG Optimus G Pro Lite Dual, Sony Xperia C, Micromax Canvas Turbo and Xolo Q3000 at this price point.

In terms of specifications, the Galaxy Grand Neo is quite similar to the original Galaxy Grand smartphone. Both handsets offer dual-sim functionality and have 5-inch screens with 800x480p resolution. The two also have 2,100mAh battery, Android 4.2 operating system and 1GB RAM.

The Galaxy Grand Neo comes with 8 and 16GB storage options, while the original Grand only offered 8GB internal storage.

There are two downgrades in the Galaxy Grand Neo - camera and processor. While Samsung has used a quad-core chip in Grand Neo, it has used the A7 CPU architecture. However, the dual-core processor of Galaxy Grand was designed on the more efficient A9 CPU architecture.

The new model has a 5MP rear camera and VGA front camera, compared to the 8MP rear camera and 1.2MP front camera of the original Grand.
will hit the market next week.

Sony Xperia G specifications, Photos Leaked

Sony is widely expected to launch its next top-end smartphone, Sirius, at Mobile World Congress later in February. Now the tech community is abuzz with speculation that the company will also showcase a mid-range smartphone, named Xperia G, at the event.

Twitter user ViziLeaks has posted two photos and key specifications of the upcoming Xperia G. As per the photos posted by ViziLeaks, the device will sport the same look as other models in the Japanese manufacturer's portfolio, but will not have water- and dust-resistant certification unlike most of its siblings.
Xperia G is said to have a 4.8-inch screen, though the resolution is not yet known. Other key specifications leaked online include 8GB internal storage, 4G connectivity, 1GB RAM and 8MP camera.

Sony recently moved out of the laptop market, after selling its Vaio unit to a Japanese investment group. The beleaguered manufacturer has said that it will refocus on its TV business and cut 5,000 jobs.