Smartphone Sales In Asia On The Rise, Android Tops Symbian

According to market research company Gfk, smartphones are getting increasing popular in Asia, with Android now being the region’s most popular OS for this type of handsets. Cell phones with the Google software on board have reportedly enjoyed brisk sales in that region in the second and third quarters of 2010. 

Gfk says that Android has dethroned Symbian in Asia in Q3 this year, both in terms of value and actual handset sales. Android seems to be especially going strong in Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea and Taiwan. In Southeast Asia (i.e. Indonesia or Malaysia), Symbian is still dominant – even though the OS is gradually losing ground to the iPhone, Blackberry and Android. Hit the read more link for details.

MAHINDRA INKS DEAL TO PURCHASE SSANGYONG

India's corporations flush with cash reserves are increasingly exreting their dominance on the world stage. Following in the foot steps of Tata Corporation's purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motors India’s Mahindra & Mahindra has officially been named the new owner of South Korea-based Ssangyong. Mahindra was named the leading bidder for Ssangyong earlier this year.

CHINESE, SAUDIS ACQUIRE 2 PERCENT OF General Motors (GM) - Kingdom Holding

Saudi Arabian Investment
While SAIC’s investment was rumored for months, a similar acquisition of $500 million in shares by Saudi investment firm Kingdom Holding run by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Alwaleed (or Al-Waleed), considered by investors to be Saudi Arabia’s Warren Buffett, is an American-educated investor with a wide variety of holdings in various industries across the globe.

Nokia C2-01 and X2-01 announced!

Both handsets run the Serios 40 OS. The C2-01 (pictured left) is claimed to be the cheapest 3G handset in Espoo's lineup, featuring a 3.2 megapixel camera, FM radio, Bluetooth, and memory expansion up to 16GB atop a 2-inch display; it'll be available in the first quarter of 2011. the X2-01 certainly looks like a Symbian device from a distance -- but don't be fooled, it's still straight-up Series 40 with a full QWERTY portrait keyboard. It's got a dedicated music button (Nokia's quick to point out that the Xseries' focus is music, after all) along with a 2.4-inch QVGA display, VGA camera on back, and memory expansion to a relatively meager 8GB. Neither WiFi nor 3G are included.

Acer reveals 4.8-inch Android smartphone with 1024x480 screen resolution!

This newly announced ACER phone is absolutely drool worthy! It has an enormous 4.8 inch touchscreen with an atypical 21:9 aspect ratio in use here as well as a"full metal body."Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11n WiFi, HSDPA support, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and an HDMI output. Delicious, all the way around. Now if ACER would just come up with a nice UI skin like HTC's Sense.

What is a QR code and What are its uses?

If you point your phone camera at the image above even if some sent this image to you by email or it was on TV, your phone will automatically take you to this webpage. This image is the QR code for this webpage. Imagine a future in which you just point your phone camera at a code on a advertisement billboard or a website and all the information regarding the product is automatically shown on your phone! The code we are talking about is the QR code and it has a huge potential for real life applications. They come to us from Japan where they are very common. Hit the read more link for the full article.

Google URL shortener/QR code service goes public

Although I'm sure most of you know this by now. This is a handy free service that was launched by Google through which you can shorten any URL that you have to send to someone and send the shorter version. For example instead of the complete link for this post (which is  http://hbtechguru.blogspot.com/2010/11/google-url-shortenerqr-code-service.html) , you just go to Google and type this link in the box and Google generates a shorter link ( this is the short link to this post http://goo.gl/e3HtQ). This makes sharing URLs easy especially if you have to SMS them. Do check it out and let me know about your impressions in the comments section. Hit the source link to go to the page.

iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak is released

Engadget has announced that the much awaited  Apple iPhone 4 jail break is finally out. Don't start syncing your iPhones just yet. This is a tethered released, meaning owners of the iPhone 4, iPad, and newer iPhone 3GS and iPod touch models will have to reattach to a PC or Mac to boot into a jailbroken state each time your device loses power or needs a reboot. If your device shuts down, it will have to be jailbroken again.

Video : Angry birds peace treaty!

Check out this hilarious video of our favorite game!

Defective Flagships. The Nokia N8 and Nokia C7 Dying around the Globe in large quantities

Now here is one interesting finding. Nokia really is having a streak of bad luck here. A detailed post by Eldar Murtazin a senior industry insider from Russia has proven how he found out about problems that are happening in Nokia's brand new devices and how Nokia in the end has accepted it but has not yet implemented a strategy to fix the problem. The editor goes on to warn everyone from buying said devices until Mark 2011 as that will be the only time when Nokia would have been able to implement a solution to the issue as the problem is in the motherboard that the two phones share.