Just a couple of days back, PayPal had shocked a lot of Indian users by announcing that starting August 1, PayPal would not allow electronic withdrawal of funds from any PayPal account in India. The only option would be to request for a withdrawal of funds by cheque. According to PayPal, this decision had to be taken in accordance with "regulatory instructions".
However, what comes as a relief is that PayPal has restored electronic withdrawals for its India-based users. On the company's official blog, corporate communication spokesperson Dickson Seow apologized for the inconvenience caused and thanked users for their support.
Also, PayPal said it will continue to provide the $5 processing fee refund for any cheque withdrawals made from July 29 until further notice.
Micro-blog style social network service Twitter has rolled out a new feature called 'Who To Follow', which basically suggests people worth following on the website. It's very difficult to find interesting and like minded folks from millions of Twitter users who have minimal or no profile information. Now, you ll be able to see Follow Suggestions on Twitter web page just like Facebook's 'People You May Know' feature.
The new Who To Follow feature shows up two users just below the user statistics on the Twitter web page. On the official Twitter blog, Twitter communications executive Carolyn Penner noted that the algorithms in this feature, built by our user relevance team, suggest people you don t currently follow that you may find interesting. Now these algorithms are said to consider several factors that also include people they follow and people you follow.
For instance, you love food and you're following loads of users who like food and tweet about food then similar folks will show up in the Suggestions list. You can also find worth following suggestions at the Find People page on Twitter website. If you want to hide any particular user from showing up in the suggestions list, click on the Hide option below the Follow button. Choose for yourself who is worth following in order to avoid unnecessary noise in your timeline.
Ideally, you should read a couple of tweets of the user you wish to follow and not click on follow button just because that person's username keeps showing up in your timeline. Also, we don't know what factors are being considered in the algorithms devised by user relevance team. Location will play another major role in these recommendations, it seems. This feature has been rolled out to everyone and those who haven't got it yet then you ll get it soon. Also, if you visit any other Twitter user's profile, you will still see suggestions of other similar users worth following there.
This new feature is currently limited to Twitter web only but soon, the API update will enable it on desktop and mobile clients too.
HTC has finally announced the launch of the much awaited mid-range Android phone, the HTC Wildfire in India. The phone is an upgrade to HTC's current mid range offering in India, the HTC Tattoo.
The Wildfire features a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen capable of QVGA resolution. A 528 Mhz processor takes care of the number crunching bit. It has 348MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM that should translate into a decent performance. The phone has a relatively powerful 1350mAH battery that should offer decent backup time under moderate usage. The imaging bit is taken care of by a 5MP camera with LED flash. Music lovers can heave a sigh of relief thanks to the 3.5mm jack. Connectivity features are abundant too with the phone supporting USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well. Other features include support for FM radio and a digital compass. The phone has an optical joystick for navigating through the menu. As expected, it has a microSD card slot to expand its limited memory.
The phone has been priced at Rs. 16,590 and is now available at your neighbourhood HTC reseller.
HTC has tied up with Reliance GSM to offer its subscribers a plan wherein all its subscribers upgrading to Wildfire will be eligible to avail 500MB worth of free data usage every month for the first six months of usage.
Google has been silently working on spicing up the look of its web services lately. After Google Images, is it the chance of Google's mailing service Gmail to get a facelift?
In a Chrome OS bug report, Google Operating System blog spotted the new Gmail interface in a Gmail Inbox image with slew of new features. However, we believe that it might be just a version of an internal mail available only to Google employees. Nevertheless, let's go ahead and analyze what we can find.
In the Gmail screenshot, we can see three links - Mail, Contacts, Tasks clubbed together on the top left side of the page. Below them is big Compose Mail button no more a link followed by the usual options Inbox, Buzz, Sent Mail, and other options. Since Gmail allows linking two accounts in one, there's one drop down button to see the updates about the other mail account.
Just below the Chat box, there's a Call phone button which might be Google Voice integration.
These screenshots, however, don't confirm if Google will bring all these features in Gmail. Maybe, over a period of time, we'll start noticing these features on our Gmail page. There's no official word on this update as yet. So, we'll have to wait and watch.
What other feature would you like to see in your Gmail? Leave us a comment and let us know.
JailbreakMe - a new jailbreak for iPhone 4 and iOS 4.0 based devices has arrived with a bang. Developed by c0mex, the same guy who came out with first iPad jailbreak Spirit, the new JailbreakMe solution is a Mobile Safari based remote jailbreak. This means you don't need any computer or Mac to jailbreak your device. Just connect it to web, visit JailbreakMe.com and then it works like a charm. Of course, you should know that jailbreaking for fair use is an exception in DMCA and is no longer illegal.
The new JailbreakME.com is an online Mobile Safari browser based remote jailbreak that can be used for iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G devices running iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1 updates. Even the iPad running iOS 3.2.1 can be jailbroken with this solution but you might face some annoyances.
To jailbreak your device, you got to visit either of these two websites on your iOS device:
After that, you have to Slide the button to jailbreak your device. At this moment, millions of users might be visiting both websites so you might have to try a couple of times. Along with this jailbreak, you might see FaceTime and MMS issue which c0mex tweeted about. However, these have been taken care of. All you have to do is fire up Cydia and upgrade when prompted.
Do note that you'll be responsible if something goes wrong with your device. Just in case something wrong happens, don't panic. Hook up your iOS based device to iTunes and perform a clean restore (provided you have the respective .ipsw update file for the same device).
Last weekend, several Sony PlayStation 3 gamers got firmware 3.41 update for their gaming consoles. This update brought minor You May Like option in the PlayStation Store. However, this update also caused a menace amongst users who applied the update and then wanted to update their console HDDs as reported at the official PS3 Updates Forum.
Sony released firmware 3.41 update for PS 3 users and several faced HDD upgrade woes. Disgruntled PS 3 owners bombarded PlayStation 3 Forums over the issue. Apparently, it was discovered that the issue was prevalent amongst only those users who applied the 3.41 firmware update BEFORE upgrading HDDs. Several experienced console crashes.
Examiner reported that Sony's statement noted: "We apologize for any inconvenience you are experiencing with upgrading Internal Hard Disc Drive (for PlayStation3) on your PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system. The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with 3.41 update. Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) strongly supports the quality of its products and backs them with full confidence. We ask that you update the previous HDD first to see if the update will go through. Then update from the thumb drive that is formatted in FAT 32 and has the 3.41 update downloaded."
Niche phones are not a new phenomenon. There have been gaming phones, messaging phones, camera phones and other such themed phones since time immemorial now. But we never expected an Indian handset maker to launch a sports oriented phone some day. Not that it is such a bad an idea but still..
That brings us to the point of contention here. Spice Mobiles has just announced the launch of its latest mobile phone. Known as the M-6, the phone is probably the first sport themed phone made by an Indian manufacturer. True to its theme, the phone is obviously loaded with sporty content. The device comes with a dedicated Sports Zone that comes with a host of sport centric applications including Ya Sports, Tennis and Yahoo Formula 1.
As for the more phone-like features, here's what we have. The dual SIM device has a front fascia that is adorned with a 2.2 QVGA TFT screen with support for 262k colors. A very basic 1.3 megapixel camera sits at the rear. It supports expandable memory of upto 4 GB. Other features include an MP3 audio player, and support for FM radio with recording. It has also included Stereo Bluetooth, WAP and GPRS. Apart from all these, a 1000mAH battery should provide quite sufficient talktime. The M-6 also supports social networking applications including Facebook, Yahoo and Nimbuzz. Thanks to Opera's tie up with Spice Mobile, Opera Mini 4 is preinstalled on the phone.
The phone is priced at Rs 4,499 which we believe is a decent price to pay for your first sports phone. Also, paying that kinda money for a niche phone sounds preposterous, but niche this is.
Microblogging social network Twitter has surpassed 20 billion tweets a couple of hours ago. This landmark was achieved by Japanese user Passionate Pirro's tweet. Believe it or not, this 20 billionth tweet came after just less than 2 months of the 10 billionth update. So you can easily imagine the boom Twitter has seen in the last six months.
Just yesterday, Pirro sent a twitter update and it was recorded to be the 20 billionth tweet! You check it for yourself herebut you'll be greeted only with codes and not a proper page. Pirro, a graphic designer and avid baseball fan, tweeted: That means the barrage might come back later all at once.
Started in 2006, Twitter saw its 10 billionth tweet by Andrea Alexander which also got the deserved attention. However, the gap of 10 billion tweets is just astonishing especially after the Super Bowl XLIV. We can sincerely assume that FIFA World Cup 2010 and several other international, national and local events had pumped Twitter updates online.
Twitter is 140 character limit micro-blogging platform wherein several users sign in every day. As per GigaTweet'scounter, the service gets about 727 tweets per second.
Remember Samsung's Galaxy Tablet that we had first talked about back in June?
Well, the same device has made a comeback of sorts in rumorsville with Samsung's recent announcement regarding a special event scheduled for August 11.
According to initial reports, this event would be held to unveil the Galaxy Tablet which might be released in abut two weeks time. While Samsung has not confirmed the release date of the tablet, they did drop a hint of sorts by confirming that it would be on sale by the end of summer which, incidentally, is fast approaching.
The tablet, which resembles a grown up version of the just released i9000 Android smartphone, will feature a 7-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display. It is reportedly powered by an ARM processor and is likely to pack in phone features as well. The pricing details of this device have not been disclosed as yet.
In a classic case of police ingenuity, the Delhi Police has started a campaign of sorts to rein in traffic offenders in the city reports The New York Times. The original 'Delhi Police' fan page on Facebook was intended to be a forum for the police to interact with other Delhiites via the social networking platform. However, some brilliant Facebook users had a different idea.
The Delhi police, in the face of the current preparations for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, is seriously short staffed and its traffic department only has about 5,000 personnel to mange the city of 12 million. This has obviously led to a highly complex traffic problem. In the face of this, Delhi netizens started posted images of traffic offenders caught breaking the law complete with images of their vehicle and them indulging in the act. So far, the traffic police claim to have booked over 650 offenders using this technique!
While this may be a great idea to rein in traffic offenders, we wonder if the Delhi police can move this idea forward and apply it in a more secure manner. Posting registration numbers and photographs of offenders in a public forum doesn't seem to be an ideal way to go about this. What do you think?
