15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

Growth of mobile banking in India has been below expectations: RBI

Internet and Media, News
The Reserve Bank has expressed its disappointment over the lower-than-expected spread of mobile banking in the country, saying the awareness levels of this tool has been wanting. "Though mobile banking channel has the potential to be one of the key tools for achieving financial inclusion, the growth and acceptance of mobile banking as a channel of accessing banking service has been below expectations," the central bank said in its half-yearly financial stability report released earlier this week. The report listed a slew of reasons for the poor show, such as low levels of awareness and acceptance, inability of banks to seed the mobile number with the account number, incompatible handsets, absence of collaboration and revenue sharing models between banks and mobile operators, and absence of USSD channels for mobile banking…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

Twitter co-founder unveils social answers app, Jelly for Android and iOS

APPS, Internet and Media, News
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on Tuesday took the wraps off a smartphone application that invites people to tap into their online social networks for answers about things they see. Jelly, available free for Apple gadgets or mobile devices powered by Google-backed Android software, let people reach out virtually to friends, or friends of friends, when interested in finding out more about where one is or what is happening around them at a given moment. "Say you're walking along and you spot something unusual," said a blog post at the Jelly website. "You want to know what it is so you launch Jelly, take a picture, circle it with your finger, and type 'What's this?' " Jelly queries are submitted to friends who also have the application, and notifications pop-up when…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

Bangalore-based Little Eye Labs is Facebook’s first Indian acquisition

Internet and Media, News
[caption id="attachment_733" align="alignnone" width="585"] Bangalore-based Little Eye Labs[/caption] Facebook's acquisition of Little Eye Labs, a Bangalore-based start-up has been rumoured for a while. The startup, which builds mobile app analysis tools for app developers and testers, announced on Wednesday that the acquisition had been completed. According to the post titled 'transition' on the website of Little Eye Labs, after the acquisition, the Little Eye Labs team will work closely with Facebook to improve their mobile development and take it to a new level. The startup also jubilantly declared: "This is Facebook's first acquisition of an Indian company, and we are happy to become part of such an incredible team." Interestingly, the entire Little Eye Labs team will move to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, from where they can "leverage Facebook's…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

Vodafone India opens its billing and messaging APIs to third-party developers

APPS, Internet and Media, News
[caption id="attachment_730" align="alignnone" width="585"] Vodafone India opens its billing and messaging APIs[/caption] Vodafone India has launched the Vodafone Developer Platform that will allow third-party developers to tap its billing and message APIs, amongst other resources. Opening up of the billing API means that developers will be able to offer in-app purchases that can be billed to a Vodafone India customer's monthly bill or account balance for postpaid and prepaid customers respectively. Speaking about the initiative, Vivek Mathur, Chief Operating Officer, Vodafone India said, "With the growth of smartphones and mobile internet, people are increasingly showing more interest in mobile apps and content services. To strengthen the ecosystem for app developers & content service providers and partner with them, we have launched the Vodafone Developer Platform. We expect the developer community…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

Google Play Services updated, adds turn-based multiplayer, new Drive API, more

Internet and Media, News
Google has updated its Play Services to version 4.1, bringing new features and updates like turn-based multiplayer support for games, a new Google Drive API, improved battery life for users with Google Location Reporting enabled, improved location-based ads and Google+ enhancements. Users can download the update from the Google Play store. Google announced the update via its Android Developers blog and said, "Once the rollout has completed, users will be able to download the SDK using the Android SDK manager and get started with the new APIs." The new turn-based multiplayer allows developers to build asynchronous games to play with friends and auto-matched players. Further, the turn-based multiplayer feature supports up to 8 players per game. The blog post notes, "When players take turns, their turn data is uploaded to…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

UC Browser 9.5 launched; improves speeds, adds Web Application Centre and more

APPS, Internet and Media, News
[caption id="attachment_725" align="alignnone" width="585"] UC Browser 9.5 launched[/caption] UC Web, a popular mobile internet software and services provider, has released its new UC Browser 9.5 for Android OS. The new UC Browser 9.5 claims to deliver the fastest download speed of any mobile browser on the market, and adds support for more number of languages and fonts, along with a Web Application Centre, UC Homescreen Widget, and an Image Viewer feature. The new version supposedly enables the user to download 15 percent faster on 3G and Wi-Fi compared with the previous version of the UC Browser. 2G performance has been also revamped for a smoother browsing experience, according to UC Web. The Web Application Centre built into the UC Browser 9.5 allows users to easily install and run HTML5 and…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

WhatsApp update for Windows Phone 8 devices fixes broadcasting feature

APPS, Internet and Media
[caption id="attachment_721" align="alignnone" width="585"] WhatsApp update for Windows Phone 8[/caption]   WhatsApp, the cross-platform instant messaging service, has updated its Windows Phone 8 app offering, which some users had reported was suffering from glitches. The new WhatsApp for Windows Phone 8 build, v2.11.356, is said to fix some issues found previously with the broadcasting feature of the application. No other additional features are included in the update. The previous version of WhatsApp for the platform included some bug fixes along with the inclusion of Hindi language. However, if the update brings the ability to share music files (a feature that is still missing from the platform), remains to be seen. Last month, the popular messaging service claimed to have crossed the milestone of having more than 400 million active users.…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

BlackBerry CEO confirms BlackBerry Enterprise Server support for Windows Phone

APPS, Internet and Media, News
[caption id="attachment_715" align="alignnone" width="585"] BlackBerry Enterprise Server support[/caption]   John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, has confirmed the arrival of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) support for the Windows Phone platform. The service currently supports on Android, iOS and BlackBerry platforms. No launch date for Windows Phone was provided however. "I could put a sales team on Wall Street. I know how to do this up and down Wall Street ... we will go in and tell them why BES is the best thing for them, and go through the road map, the offerings, and all that good stuff. We're going to protect their investment in iPhone, and Android, and everywhere else, even with Windows Phones...you could be an iPhone customer, and also a BlackBerry customer. You could be an Android customer,…
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15Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

PhotoAppLink Ties iPhone Photo Apps Together, Makes Multi-App Editing Simple

APPS, Internet and Media, News
Several iPhone app developers have teamed up to launch PhotoAppLink, a new open source initiative that aims to simplify photo editing by tying multiple photo-editing apps together. As you know, there are an incredible number of photo editing apps in iTunes today, and often, each especially excels in one particular area. For example, converting photos to black and white, cropping, compositing or writing on top of photos are all features of popular standalone apps. But what about when you want to make multiple edits using multiple apps? That’s a far more complicated process. And it’s the very problem PhotoAppLink aims to solve. Currently, in order to edit your photo in multiple apps, you have to save the edited photo to the camera roll each time as you move in between…
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13Jan 2014 by Startbit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. No Comments

Path Finally Closes That Elusive Series C

Internet and Media, News
  It’s been a bumpy road for Dave Morin’s Path, as manic rumors over the last year have pegged the “private” social network at once as the subject of lagging growth, shrinking staff and potential acquisitions, while at the same time raising a mega $50 million round at a $500 million valuation. Today, the company’s long path to a Series C appears to finally have come to an end. Having recently revealed an additional revenue stream with the launch of premium subscription plans and product additions like private sharing, over the last quarter, Path has been making moves that appear to have reassured investors of its long-term prospects. Tonight, Kara Swisher reports that Path has raised $25 million and added at least one new investor in Indonesia’s Bakrie Global Group,…
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