Verizon Communication Rolls Out WIFI Calling Service

The American telecommunication giant is rolling out its new WIFI calling service on December 8, 2015.

On Friday, the American telecommunication giant, Verizon Communication Inc. announced that it will be rolling out a software update on December 8, 2015 which will allow Verizon users to make calls via WIFI. This novel feature will be available on Android smartphones at first, exclusively on Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge.

Verizon Communication Inc. has decided to roll this new feature out for its users mostly in areas where its service is not very strong yet. In the beginning it’ll be on Samsung’s flagship but by the year 2016, the company announced that it will be available on other android devices as well as the iPhone. Since other carriers are already providing the service, including AT&T, the telecom giant will need to go the extra mile to attract users and put forth a smart marketing strategy.

AT&T is the New Jersey based telecom company’s biggest competitor that rolled the same WiFI calling service earlier in October. Although the service launched by AT&T is exclusively for iPhones as the moment. These WIFI costs, at the time, are said to be cost free but it is expected that it might incur some cost on international calling.

The WIFI calling feature can be switched on, after the software update is rolled out, by activating the advanced calling option on the phone and then switching on the WIFI. Nowadays, people prefer using wireless networks and what could be better if can make calls via it now. Currently, this is a great tool for networks that do not have presence in some areas at least they can still communicate regardless of the poor network coverage.

Another positive aspect of this feature is that it could easily reduce users service spending. Calling is quite expensive due to which people prefer not to make too many calls now with the WIFI calling options they do not have to worry about the added cost they would incur without it. A number of other carriers have become interested in this as well such as Scratch Wireless and Republic Wireless.

On a separate note, Verizon stock was being traded at a share price of $45.70 which signified an increase of 2.56% in comparison to its previous price per share which was $44.56. The highest level at which the share price, during the course of the session was seen at was $45.78 with a low of $44.71. The current market capital of the telecommunication company is $185.99 billion. The earnings per share reported by the telecom company were 2.51 and a price to earnings ratio of 18.18.

Microsoft Debuts FindTime For Meetings

Microsoft's FindTime is yet another breakthrough for Microsoft users.

The Microsoft Office has published an official blog in which he has announced regarding the launch of FindTime. This is a new add on for Outlook to assist users with diverse schedules find a unanimous meeting time. Apart from finding the appointments, the company will be rolling out invites when the final verdict is achieved. The cloud computing venture of Microsoft namely Azure will be used for the email details and personal data being encrypted on FindTime.

Microsoft has made claims that FindTime can offer intelligent solutions that are dependent on the days and best timings that can be chalked out for a meeting in an organization. The add-on will allow the Microsoft users to come up with a tentative time for the meeting that will be rotated to all those who are likely to attend. The individuals are granted the right to choose their own meeting time and at the time of a consensus, the app itself will roll out a meeting invite.

Apart from the voting that will be done for the consensus, the application will keep a look on the users data on Outlook so that it makes note of free and best feature to chalk out the best possible meeting time. Any email carrier can be used to send the invites. Thus, any Outlook user can send an invite to a Gmail user. The invites can then be rolled out on several platforms. However, it is essential for the organizer to have their accounts on Office 365.

The add-on by FindTime is the product rolled out by the Microsoft Garage – the company’s research and development platform. At this point, some ideas that the company has come up with do not seem very practical. in Outlook 2013, FindTime has been made available, along with the desktop version of Outlook and Outlook 2016. The company predicts that FindTime will actually very helpful for all the Office 65 users that are suing the Outlook platform.

In today's world, it is extremely difficult to keep pace with time. This is where such apps come into play and provide the users a diverse experience. Since laptops and smartphones have become an integral component in our everyday lives, such applications help us to stay on par with the needs of the corporate world.

Hence, all Outlook users will now easily schedule meetings and carry out appointments with a lot of ease and convenience.

Apple Reveals A Bad News For Square Inc.

Apple's iPhone 7 might not have a headphone jack which is bad news for Square.

According to the Macotakara, a Japanese blog came up with an article according to which Apple Inc. has plans regarding removing the headphone jack that measures 3.5 mm from the upcoming iPhone 7. The idea is to reduce the thickness of the smartphone. As rumors suggest, the smartphone users will be able to connect their headphones with the device via a Lightning connector or simply through Bluetooth. Moreover, lightning compatible headphones are expected to be launched with the device the coming year.

The present headphones connecting port has a particular standard size, which acts as a major barrier when it comes to minimizing the thickness of the Apple iPhone. The specifications for the lightning headphones were provided to the manufacturers the previous year too through the Made for iPhone licensing initiative.

Trip Chowdhry, the renowned analyst is of the believe that there are numerous benefits for AAPL if it actually gives up on the headphone jack. First and foremost, it will make the device thinner making it different from all the other models that have been launched to date. This will motivate the Apple users to upgrade to the new device. Moreover, he also pointed out that the transactions that were made via Square Inc. and Intuit card charging devices will not be possible anymore since the port would change. So the only options for the users to make transactions will be to make use of Apple pay with an iPhone in a format that is peer to peer. Moreover, the above mentioned companies, if they want to continue their association with the service will have to pay royalties to Apple or assign a share of their earnings to them to sustain.

According to the rumors, the upcoming Apple product will have several amazing features that will be completely different from the current iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. Moreover, it is also assumed that the sales of iPhone 6S were not really as exciting as the company expected since a lot of consumers are still waiting for iPhone 7 launch.

According to a popular site, “As markets across the world increasingly become saturated, and competition intensifies, upgrade cycles will help Apple in maintaining revenue growth. The success of newer upgrade cycles will also increase the number of Android switchers to iOS, and raise replacement rates.”

Hence now the company has a lot of scope to grow however companies like Intuit and Square need to worry and come up with alternate solutions. 

Microsoft To Release Surface Phone In FY16

Microsoft expected to launch the Surface Phone during 2QFY16

So weeks pass and rumors regarding the Surface Phone by Microsoft Corporation continue to surface. It was recently reported by Windows Central that the company has plans to come up with a premium smartphone that will be unveiled during the second quarter of the fiscal year of 2016. This is that phone with Surface lovers had been waiting for since a relatively long span of time now. The tech giant wishes to achieve a sound ecosystem platform in the times to come and with this launch the company has come a step closer to its dream.

As per reports, the steam for Surface Phone that is has other milestones like the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 has given up on the thought of using Windows 10 that is powered by Intel. So the company has geared up to reveal the Surface Phone in the coming year.  This smartphone is said to be the first flagship smartphone and the person who is considered to be the brains behind this venture is Mr. Panos Panay. Mr. Panay is the man who has contributed drastically to the well-being of Surface tablet. A premium smartphone will be launched by the company but it now seems unclear if this smartphone will be the Surface Phone.

The first few rumors that penetrated on the Internet regarding the Surface phone was given a codename as “Project Juggernaut Alpha”. The screen resolution for the upcoming device is 1440 x 2560p which is likely to boast of a 5.5 inch AMOLED display. Previously rumors were also observed that the device was expected to be powered using Intel Atom X3 chipset. Moreover a DDR5 RAM that has a storage space of 4GB was also sported. This is actually amazing for the company feature Continuum on Windows 10 Mobile.

Most analysts believe that the new device by the company will be launched at the hardware event next year scheduled for October but the company has also launched two Lumia smartphones in October FY15. This led to the speculations that the company has put a halt to Surface Phone.

At this point of time the company has a lot of hopes associated to this product since the company now hopes by the launch of the Surface Phone they will be actually successful in competing with the likes of smartphone giants like Apple, Samsung etc. moreover, the company also believes that they might be successful in engaging the enterprise sector since Surface products are quite popular amongst them.

Intel Corporation Is Not Leaving Mobile Market Any Time Soon

The largest semiconductor maker in the industry is planning on generating profits or break even levels but not leaving the business any time soon.

Intel Corporation has been fairly successful in entering and gaining the tablet market but when it comes to the smartphone market, for years the company has tried and failed but it is not willing to back off any point in time. After gaining the market share for the tablet market the tech giant is now focusing on maintaining the market share whilst working on the cost structure of the company.

Ever since the American multinational tech giant has been trying to get in the mobile business it has incurred many losses and if it succeeds in meeting its goals for the year 2015, it total loss incurred would be as much as $10.56 billion, in a time span of three years. Despite of all these losses, the chief executive officer of the tech company has assured that the company is here to stay and does not, any time soon, plan to leave the business, Brian Krzanich stated at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference. This new was surprising for many people including the investors of the company.

The presentations conducted at the Intel’s August Data Center Day, it was mentioned that the total addressable market that has been served by Intel so far in terms of networking is of $18 billion as of year 2015. In the current the tech company is predicting that it will be able to capture as much as 9.5% share of the addressable market and furthermore is also expecting that it will outgrow the market with more share gains in the upcoming years.

The $18 billion market is quite a big deal for the world’s largest tech company, if these are the future plans of the largest semiconductor company, then the future seems rather bright for Intel. Currently the company is in talks and discussions with wireless carriers, service providers and telecom giants with cellular modem capabilities. In the networking chip market it is essential to have these contacts in order to grow. The chief executive officer, Brain added to his statement that it is highly essential to have both ends of the network in order to be considered even remotely relevant.

Additionally, during the call Brian emphasized on the fact that he does not want to lose more money than it already has in the past couple of years on mobile chip market. He said that even if the company cannot generate profits with this business, it will not end as the company is willing to work at break-even levels as well, because that would show positive implications for the networking chip business.

Blackberry Goes On An Expansion Spree: Next Stop Africa

BlackBerry Ltd’s next market to capture with its mobile payments services will be Africa. It has announced that it will be introducing its mobile payment option in the African market now. This year the Canadian tech company has fairly done well, with the new Priv rolled out. Lately, it has been trying its best to expand and find as many avenues to get back in the game as it can.

In order to revive its smartphone market, the tech company has adopted Alphabet’s android operating system but now it is looking forward to grow its revenue stream from other sources. It will not be introducing its mobile payment services in Africa. Earlier this week, according to learnbonds.com, the Canadian tech giant is planning to simplify its payment service for BBM users for the African customer.

This time, the company is aiming to make money transfer as simple as sending photos and files, according to Blackberry news. Now it wants to grow its stake in the mobile payment market as well. Matthew Talbot, the Vice President of Emerging solutions of the tech company, stated that the management is quite excited to announce the expansion of mobile payments initiative, which will commence in Nigeria. To go forth with this plan, the organization has collaborated with Interswitch Ltd, which will allow any BBM users to transfer cash or airtime.

According to research, Africa in time has grown in terms of mobile transfers and payment solutions due to which Blackberry has decided to expand its services there. It is ready to take full advantage of this growing market, and predicts that the two top most countries, South Africa and Nigeria, are likely to see as many as half a million BBM installations every month. Presently, the customers to Blackberry BBM shops do over 10 million visits monthly.

According to the reports, both South Africa and Nigeria are emerging markets, which currently represents biggest global opportunities along with being the markets with the most income. Blackberry stated that it is also expanding the BBM shop payment options. In order to bring safe payments to the BBM shop, it has collaborated with Mobile Media Info Tech, a Nigerian tech company.

The tech giant is expecting that this business will take off without a problem in the emerging market in the specific continent. The reason for this is mainly that the company does hosts and makes several network markets. Most of the developing Asian countries have over 250 million customers out of which a number of them were faithful BBM users.

Tesla Executive Bids Farewell For Alphabet

Robert Rose bids farewell to the company to take charge of Google.

Alphabet Inc. recently appointed Robert Rose the former automobile engineer at Tesla Motors Inc. as per Business Insider, the executive is not likely to work on the the Google Self Driving Car (SDC) project. At this point of time, it remains vague to figure out what project he will actually work on but he was known as one of the close ones of Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of the electric car giant. Mr. Rose has a lot of expertise that makes him distinct from his rivals and an asset for Alphabet. Considering his credentials, it is estimated that he will now be leading the robotics division at Google. Mr. Rose is the recent recruitment for Google Robotics who initially worked for SpaceX for a time span of six years. He was also associated for a small span of time at Tesla Motors Inc. this annum. His task at TSLA was to serve and improve the Autopilot V7.0 feature. This has further ignited the speculation which claims that Google will use his expertise it to develop the autonomous driving technology at the search engine giant. The autonomous car technology makes use of robotics technology. The quality of Mr. Rose is a perfect fit for the company’s car division but as of now his focus remains on something else. At this point of time it is speculated that Mr. Rose will not just serve as an engineer but has the expertise to head Google Robotics. Since the departure of Andy Rubin- the former head, this segment has not gotten any serous leadership. Larry page, the CEO of Alphabet is looking for potential candidates that can fill the vacuum and take over the position. It needs to be noted that the efforts to woo Carl Bass the CEO of Autodesk in order to manage the tangled groups at Google has actually proved to be extremely fruitful. On of the core reasons that might have resulted in the failure of the appointment can be the level of control Mr. Bass will be allowed to deploy on the robotics segment. So now the appointment of Mr. rose seems to be the best possible choice. He has not served as a CEO initially so there are minimal chances that he would to get access to the level of freedom Mr. Bass demanded. It is likely that Rose will prefer to work in collaboration with the senior level management at Google to remain on track.