Shanghai, July 21 (IANS) The following are some briefs from the Mobile World Congress featuring MyKronoz of Switzerland, Gionee Elife E8 of China, Visa of the US, Soundbrenner of Germany and JD Sound of Korea:
MyKronoz to come to India soon via Flipkart
Swiss watch-maker MyKronoz, which has made a shift from making conventional to smart watches, is exploring a partnership with Flipkart to sell its devices in India, a senior official of the company revealed at the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Shanghai.
“India is a big market for us and we are in talks with e-commerce platform Flipkart to sell in India,” the senior official said on the condition of anonymity. According to the company, the MyKronoz brand wants to expand and facilitate the mobile-user experience with stylish, intuitive and functional technology accessories.
“Our goal is to offer a complete range of connected watches, catering to the needs and tastes of the world’s various user types. To release new wearable models every quarter, our team is developing innovative technologies and creative designs.”
Gionee Elife E8 to debut in India with more features
Chinese handset maker Gionee, which had already launched the Elife E8 in its home market, will soon launch its products in India with enhanced features. Currently, the Elife E8 has an impressive 24 megapixel rear camera.
According to the company, the E8’s new feature is that it will maintain image quality even if the user keeps the zoom at 3X. The front camera will be a premium shooter of 8 megapixels. The device will also come with a fingerprint scanner.
The smartphone, with a 64GB ROM, using the Android 5.1 platform, sports a 6-inch 2,560×1,440 pixels resolution. It will also have a 3GB RAM unit. The device will draw its power from a 3,500 mAH battery.
Visa showcases NFC-powered payments technology
Payment services company Visa has tied up with Apple Pay and Samsung Pay to make payments easier via the use of a mobile app and the NFC technology. The new technology replaces sensitive information found on plastic cards. India is also on its radar, sources said.
Near field communication (NFC) is the set of protocols that enables smartphones and other devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching the devices together or bringing them into proximity to a distance of typically 10 cm (3.9 in) or less.
Visa, which showcased the services at Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, had announced the technology at the Barcelona event in March allowing consumers from US to pay using the new technology. India is also on its radar.
Soundbrenner brings wearable metronome for musicians
Germany’s Soundbrenner, which is also a part of the Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign, has launched a new wearable device that can act double up as a metronome — an instrument that keeps rythym for musicians.
A metronome produces regular, metrical ticks that can be set in beats per minute and is needed by most musicians during practice. Prices at $149, Soundbrenner also helps the musician feel the beats on the arm or leg.
“Most of the time the analogue metronome is inefficient as the musician is not able to hear it over his instrument’s sound or has to strain his ears to follow the rhythm,” said Bas Kakebeeke, director of marketing and sales at Soundbrenner.
Korean company brings hand-held mini DJ console
JD Sound of Korea, which focuses on sound, showcased its Monster GoDJ, which is handheld console for DJs that is small enough to fit in a pocket. The device features dual touch panels, hardware controls and both internal and external memory to store and edit music tracks.
The device runs on its own application. “We have one single application managing all the operations including boot sequences through music playback. There are many advantages to running your system without the need for an OS,” a company spokesperson said.
Monster GO DJ, which has multi-language support, is sold in more than 15 countries, including Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Dubai, US, Mexico and Germany. It can support a host of languages — English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew.
(Anirban Ghoshal was in Shanghai at the invitation from Intex. He can be reached at anirban.g@ians.in)