Nokia mobile wallet service to go pan-India by 2012

Nokia mobile wallet service to go pan-India by 2012

JOINING THE fray of introducing the mobile wallet service after popular mobile service provider Airtel, is Nokia. The mobile handset manufacturing company, which in terms of saleability, is the largest in India, is now contemplating to extend its services throughout the sub-continent by early next year.
 
Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of Nokia X1-01 and Nokia C 2-00 in the Andhra Pradesh market, officials said that by 2012, it (Nokia mobile wallet) will become a pan-India product. The focused market is semi-urban and rural markets and also below-average income urban markets.
 
Currently, the Nokia mobile wallet facility is available in Delhi NCR, Chennai and Pune and has forged an alliance with the Union Bank of India and Yes Bank. However, the company is in process to get in talks with other major banks, which have got a pan-India presence.
 
The Nokia mobile wallet features come embedded with the Nokia X1-01 and the C 2-00 mobile phones, and interestingly is the only brand in the market that provides this facility with its partner banks. So far, it is just mobile service provider companies such as Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance that has initiated this service.
 
However, the service will be categorised into two categories. Customers who do not have sufficient identity proof will be categorised under the no-frill account in, which the daily transaction limit will be specified apart from having maximum cash limit. Under the no-frills account, in compliance with the RBI guidelines, the customer will get a limit of Rs. 50,000 maximum, and daily transaction limit of Rs. 5,000.


Currently, the Nokia mobile wallet facility is available in Delhi NCR, Chennai and Pune and has forged an alliance with the Union Bank of India and Yes Bank. However, the company is in the process of having talks with other major banks.

Google search engine goes vocal

Google search engine goes vocal

GOOGLE ANNOUNCED on 14th june its plan to soon launch a new technology that will allow its users to speak their search requests instead of typing them on screen. The service is similar to the one available on smart phones with Google's Android software. All one needs to do is click the microphone icon inside the Google search box and speak the search request. This in not all, the company has also announced a digital image search feature. Drag a digital image into the search box and press enter. The two features will be available for use within the next few days.
 
This is not the first time that the company had introduced a new technology; such services have also been unveiled in the past and aim at making search easier and quicker for its users. The vocal search engine will especially be useful in case of longer enquiries and words that are hard to spell.
 
Although, the technology seems quite perfect and user-friendly, it does have a few shortcomings. The first being that it is not fit to be used in offices. Making search request vocally could be quite disturbing to others sharing the same cubicle or those in the neighbouring cubicles. Since the engine responds to voice conversations going on between people nearby could also find their way into the search box. Same problems could arise at other public places such as coffee shops, and restaurants, etc. This would limit the use of the voice search engine to homes only.
 
There could be other limitations too, for instance, if a word is not pronounced properly that could create confusion for the search engine. Besides, initially, it will only be available for English language users and limited to Google's Chrome browser.