AsiaPacific
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Motorola targets developing markets with dirt cheap Moto C
The rumors were true: Motorola has a pair of budget smartphones up its sleeve, and they'e called the Moto C and Moto C Plus. As suspected, the electronics company is positioning these as your First Smartphone, with an eye toward developing markets. The specs Motorola has released mostly align with the leaks from last month, too.
BBM Video for Android and iPhone is now out in Asia-Pacific
Most BBM users finally have access to the app's video calling capability. BlackBerry has released the feature for Android and iOS in Asia-Pacific, which is apparently home to its biggest userbase. The company said it made cross-platform video calls available in the US and Canada first, because it wanted to be able to fix bugs before it reaches more people. Since video calling is now stable, the phonemaker can roll it out to the rest of world.
Facebook and others invest in 6,214-mile Asia-Pacific undersea internet cable, friend request lag to plummet
It's almost become a truism that internet connections from the Asia-Pacific region to the rest of the world can be slow and lag-ridden, but that assumption is about to be knocked flat if Facebook and others in a Time Dotcom-led consortium have their way. The alliance is investing a combined $450 million into the Asia Pacific Gateway, a 6,214-mile undersea cable that will run between Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. The fiber optic pipe will not only help reduce the need to route large volumes of traffic through Singapore but, in many cases, send much of that traffic straight to American shores -- a big help when Facebook and much of the web industry still hosts most of its content on the Eastern side of the ocean. Although faster speeds won't be in place until the summer of 2014, by which point the more direct connections might be absolutely necessary, it still gives hope to those of us who want to poke friends and upload photos in record time.
Huawei's LTE mobile WiFi gear coming to Europe and Asia Pacific by July, for all the use it is
Huawei's capping off the good week it had at MWC by announcing that its 4G Wireless Network Card (E3276) and Mobile WiFi (E5776) will arrive in Europe and Asia Pacific by July 2012. Of course, only Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Finland in Europe and Japan in Asia have fully working LTE networks. We're not so sure if the company's also committing to a launch window for its similarly enabled phones but it wouldn't be unreasonable to hope that we'll see those turn up around the same time. If you want more details, you should know where to go by now.
Google to build a trio of data centers in Asia, earmarks $200 million for expansion
IT specialists in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong better start polishing their resumes, because Google is rolling into town. Yesterday, Big G announced plans to build a brand new data center in each of the three Asian locales, as part of an expansion slated to cost at least $200 million. When completed, these complexes will represent the company's first fully owned and operated data centers in the burgeoning Asia-Pacific region -- where, according to Asia policy communications manager Taj Meadows, Google is "seeing large numbers of new users coming online every day". The facilities in Hong Kong and Taiwan are expected to cost around $100 million each, though the price tag for the Singapore branch remains a mystery. Big G hopes to finish construction in one to two years, though it didn't say when it would begin -- nor, for that matter, whether seawater tunnels would be involved.
Intel Core i5-580M and Core i7-640M highlight Sony's Asian laptop refresh
Sony's decided to litter its Asian portal with a smattering of blood-red "coming soon" signs, signifying an unannounced but seemingly very real wave of laptop refreshes. The F Series gets to play with NVIDIA's new 425M mobile GPU, but the real hotness is to be found in the Z Series, which get access to 2.8GHz Core i7-640M and 2.66GHz Core i5-580M CPU options from Intel. You'll recognize both as mostly roadmap fodder until now, and they're joined by the i5-560M, which makes its debut on a couple of Sony's midrange consumer lines. Basically, it's a whole lot of new silicon in what look like the same old enclosures, but that's not going to stop us from speccing out a Quad SSD-equipped VAIO Z just for the fun of it. We can probably expect these upgrades to journey westward soon as well, so why not hit the source link for a little bit of advance reconnaissance? [Thanks, Wes]
Motorola Milestone to get Android 2.2 in Europe and Korea in late Q4, Dext 2.1 upgrade looking bleak
Until now, Milestone owners could do nothing but to envy Droid users rocking the Froyo upgrade; however, according to Motorola's recently published timeline, the former device is now slated for the same dessert party in Europe and Korea in Q4 -- specifically, "beginning at the end of this year," which could well mean the majority of users won't get the update until 2011 (!). Meanwhile, said upgrade is still "under evaluation" for Canada, Latin America, Mexico and Asia-Pacific sans Korea. But here's the real heartbreaking news from the same chart: unlike their American counterparts, the Dext and Backflip will not be getting an Eclair update in Europe, Latin American and Mexico, while Canada and Asia-Pacific still have a glimpse of hope. Sure, it's not like Motorola's earlier timeline laid any concrete details for the European Dext, but there was definitely a date for the Latin America flavor. What concerns us the most is that back in January, Motorola did make a promise -- which has since been deleted but forever cached by Google -- to its European fans on Facebook: "[the] Dext will get the Android 2.1 upgrade as well." We have the full shameful statement after the break. In case you still care, other devices mentioned in the timeline include the US-only Devour (no 2.1 update), Cliq XT / Quench (2.1 in late Q3 / early Q4; under evaluation for Canada and Asia-Pacific), Droid X (Froyo upgrade in late summer, which we knew), Motoroi and Titanium (2.2 in Q4 in Korea for both). If you're still mourning over the canned update for your Dext, let us remind you that there's no stopping you from updating your Android slider manually; alternatively, there's no harm in sending Sanjay a nice postcard, either. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Update: Miraculously, the offending Facebook status link is now back online...
Skype VP says company isn't developing software for Windows Phone 7 (Update: it's 'on the roadmap')
Consider the bombshell dropped. Skype, the godfather of VoIP apps and an increasingly ubiquitous piece of mobile as well as desktop software, has just let it be known that it's not planning on bringing its goodies to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 OS. Dan Neary, the company's Vice President for the Asia Pacific region, said that it's "not developing software for the new Windows Mobile software due later this year," but seemed reluctant to expand on the reasons why. Perhaps, like Mozilla, the Skype devs felt they weren't getting access to the right tools. Whatever the reason, this would be a major competitive disadvantage for Microsoft's great new hope on the mobile front, which is already expected to launch with a few things missing. Then again, we shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves as this isn't an official renouncement from Skype, merely a statement of the status quo -- and from a regional exec at that. All we can take away from it for now is that the road ahead looks a bit bumpier than before for WP7. Update: Looks like this quote might've been taken out of context. MobileTechWorld followed up and learned that while Dan Neary left out Windows Mobile and Windows Phone from a list of currently supported platforms (which makes sense, since one is dying and the other isn't out yet), he said Windows Phone 7 "is on the roadmap." The question seems to be more of a "when" than an "if" they'll start building it.
Sony Ericsson gets real with PlayNow Kiosk mobile entertainment service
Sony Ericsson is trying just about anything to garner revenue during these less-than-stable economic times, but we just can't imagine this one gaining any sort of traction worth gloating about. Nearly a year to the day after PlayNow Arena broke cover, SE is officially rolling out PlayNow Kiosk in the Asia Pacific region. Put as simply as possible, these kiosks will be situated in over 80 Sony Ericsson stores in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia (during the first wave of rollouts), and users wielding SE handsets can plug in to browse / download TV shows, games, ringtones and music. Details around exact content choices and pricing are still being kept under wraps, but so long as our favorite EMF tracks is on there, you'll see nothing but smiles from us.[Image courtesy of Canada]
Fujitsu Asia Pacific intros the L1010
Like your laptops available in soft, colorful tones? Looking for something a bit entry level? Fujitsu may have just the thing for you. The company has just introduced its L1010 mid-priced laptop (in Asia, at least), and it looks like just the right thing if you're not trying to break the bank or win friends and influence others. The L1010 packs a Core 2 Duo CPU atop the PM45/GM45 Express Chipset, a 1280 x 800, 14.1-inch LCD display, an NVIDIA 9300M GS graphics card with 256MB of RAM, WiFi, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, and HDMI outs. The laptops come in white and pink gold, black, turquoise blue, pink and purple color configurations, though the press release somehow fails to make mention of RAM or hard drive options. Fujitsu is mum on price and release date, but we'd say not too expensive, and fairly soon.[Via iTech News Net]
O2 reducing Asia Pacific presence, to eventually withdraw?
Though it doesn't even operate any networks of its own in the region, O2's Asia Pacific outpost has been known to release (or tease us with) some of the more lustworthy Windows Mobile devices out there. They apparently aren't lustworthy enough, though, with DigiTimes reporting that O2 is looking to reduce its footprint in that part of the world or -- horror of horrors -- withdraw altogether. The company has apparently stopped placing orders and taking delivery of existing ones from its Asian ODMs -- Quanta, Gigabyte, and Arima -- a pretty solid reversal from its recent trumpeting of four new Windows Mobile-based models for the second half of the year. O2 naturally claims that it's simply "adjusting its product strategy" and has no plans to withdraw, but with no new hardware in the pipe, what else could it possibly mean?[Via the::unwired]
