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Truecaller has announced plans to set up headquarters in Nairobi,Kenya and has appointed Zakaria Hersi as Director of Partnerships for Africa. In his position, Zakaria will be spearheading Truecaller’s expansion in the region and forging partnerships with various eco-system players. The Truecaller app allows people to see who is calling and filter out spam calls and SMSes and has more than 50 million users in Africa. The company also revealed that it has more than 6 million users in Kenya alone, where the user base has grown over 35 percent over the past year. The Truecaller app is identifying more than half a billion calls monthly, blocking and filtering out more than 4.4 million, including 14 million spam SMSes, 50 percent of these SMSes being reported as spam. “Over the years, Kenya has consistently been a top market for us, with some of our highest usage globally, which is why it made sense for us to set up headquarters in Nairobi. With this positive momentum of growth, we...

Samsung announced the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, the latest entries in its flagship line of smartphones, at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress — but benchmark results are awkwardly showing the devices scoring significantly lower than many of their competitors. Benchmarks are synthetic tests that give numeric, quantifiable results. They are generally applications programmed to make the devices' systems-on-a-chip (SoC) run a series of tasks and determine how long it takes them to complete. AnandTech is a site that specialises in running rigorous tests like these, and its early findings on Samsung's latest devices are curious to say the least— particularly compared to the latest iPhones, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 — which will power most of the Android flagships this year — and even Samsung's own Galaxy S8 from last year. In a number of tests — such as web browsing, writing, data manipulation, and photo editing — the Galaxy S9's Exynos 9810 consistently deliv...

Samsung said on Monday that preorders for its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone are proving to be more popular than last year's Galaxy S7 in the United States. "The majority of consumers have been selecting the Galaxy S8+," Samsung said in an email to CNBC, noting that the larger model is more popular than the smaller Galaxy S8. Samsung added that it's already noticing "double digit growth" (at least 10 percent) over last year in the few weeks since pre-orders for the smartphone went on sale. This suggests a few things. First, there seems to be pent-up demand for a new Samsung flagship smartphone even after the Galaxy Note 7 debacle last year, in which random battery fires consumed some phones, forcing Samsung to recall the model entirely. While last year's Galaxy S7 was released without incident, the Note 7 was the last phone Samsung released in the U.S., and the Note line-up are the company's most advanced phones. Second, consumers don...

Dialog Missed Call Top Up enables customers to instantly top-up Rs 100/= to their prepaid or postpaid mobile account using Sampath Bank account. Any Dialog customer who is having a Sampath Bank account and registered with SMS Banking Service will be automatically qualified to use the Dialog Missed Call Top-Up service. All customers have to do is dial 458. Once done the call will be automatically dropped and the funds will be transferred instantly. Customers will be able to transfer up to Rs. 500/= from their Sampath Bank account to the Dialog number using this service on a daily basis.

Now, you can register to BLOCK promotional Calls and SMS from your mobile service. To Fully Block ALL PROMOTIONAL Alerts (SMS and OBD) OPTION 1 : Type PROMO OFF and SMS to 678 OPTION 2 : Call our 24 HOUR Hotline at 1777 and speak to our contact center agent For this fully blocked category, customer will NOT receive any promotional calls or SMS to the mobile number registered for this service. To Block ONLY Promotional Calls OPTION 1 : Call our 24 HOUR Hotline at 1777 & speak to our contact center agent OPTION 2 : During an automated voice call, PRESS 9 at the end of the call to STOP receiving promotional calls in future For this block only promotional call category, customer NOT receive any promotional calls to the mobile number registered for this service but will continue to receive SMS.

PT XL Axiata, the Indonesian wireless carrier, fell to the lowest in nearly a year after people with knowledge of the matter said its Malaysian parent company is planning to sell part of its stake. Shares of XL Axiata dropped as much as 4.9 percent Tuesday and were down 3.4 percent to 2,560 rupiah at 12:29 a.m. in Jakarta, headed for their lowest close since October 2015. The benchmark Jakarta Stock Exchange Composite Index fell 1.6 percent. Axiata Group Bhd., Malaysia’s biggest mobile-phone operator, is seeking to trim stakes in some of its overseas operations in deals that could raise as much as $700 million, people familiar with the matter said. Axiata, based in Kuala Lumpur, is seeking a buyer for about 11 percent of Indonesian unit XL Axiata, according to the people. It is also selling as much as 30 percent each of listed Sri Lanka unit Dialog Axiata Plc and closely held Cambodian subsidiary Smart Axiata Co., the people said, asking not to be identified because th...

JK Shin, President and Head of IT and Mobile Communications for Samsung Electronics,  presents the new Samsung Galaxy S 4 during the Samsung Unpacked event at Radio City Music Hall, Thursday,  March 14, 2013 in New York.  (AP Photo) Samsung’s first iPhone-beating smartphone will be replaced with a model that tracks your eyes and fingertips, lets you control it with the wave of a hand, reports on your exercise, and uses eight computing brains for a speed boost. The South Korean company revealed its highly anticipated Galaxy S IV in one of the world’s biggest phone launches this morning in New York, broadcasting its unveiling to Times Square and hundreds gathered at Radio City Music Hall. More than 300,000 people tuned in to watch the live stream on YouTube. The handset, which looks similar to the Galaxy S III it replaces, also features a larger and significantly crisper 5-inch screen, a slimmer body and a larger battery, and sources say it will be available in Austral...

Engineers at Motorola Mobility are hard at work on a sophisticated handset—known internally as the “X phone”—but the Google Inc. unit is running into some obstacles in its effort to provide more potent competition for Apple Inc., said people familiar with the matter. Seven months after being acquired by Google for $12.5 billion, Motorola is designing its marquee handset with cutting-edge features to stand apart from existing phones when it is released next year, these people said. But while Google is known for swift execution on the Web, its new hardware unit has run into hurdles associated with manufacturing and supply-chain management that have caused the company to rethink some initial plans for the X phone, such as using a bendable screen, these people added. The previously undisclosed development effort is a key facet of Google’s strategy for boosting the minuscule market position of the cellphone pioneer, based partly on bolstering quality while reducing the quantity of M...

For the first time in Sri Lanka, the National Mobile Service Provider – Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel, launched a Mobile 4G/LTE network to provide enhanced services to the public.  Mobitel’s latest addition to the technology portfolio is the natural successor of the telecommunication evolution of the world. With the latest addition, Mobitel will be one of the most decorated and equipped operators in the world in the technology front which includes FD LTE, HSPA+ DC, HSPA, UMTS and 2G services. This will enable Mobitel to provide an enhanced and diversified service to its customer base. Mobitel carried out a successful trial of 4G/LTE with a downlink speed exceeding 96Mbps for the first time in the South Asian Region in May 2011. Mobitel established its dominance of the mobile technology industry by being one of the first ten mobile service providers in the world to launch a 3.5G HSPA network in 2007. Mobitel was also the first company with a Super 3.5G network in South Asia. ...

Sri Lanka’s first Communications Satellite SupremeSAT – 1 was launched today (November 27) on board China’s Long March 3B/E Launch Vehicle from the Xi-chang Satellite Launch Centre.  SupremeSAT – 1 was launched successfully at 15:43hrs (Sri Lankan time) from the Space Center in China, Vijith Peiris Group CEO of SupremeSAT said. “This is a proud moment for us as citizens of Sri Lanka,” he told Ada Derana. Sri Lanka becomes the 45th country to own a Communication Satellite and becomes the third South Asian country to have launched a satellite after India and Pakistan. The Satellite will be positioned above Sri Lanka in the Geo-Stationary orbit at 87.5 degree east approximately 36000 km above the surface of the earth. Built by Thales Alenia Space of France, SupremeSAT – I will operational for commercial purposes and has a design life of 15 years. Its design is based on SB 4000 series satellite bus which comes under the medium class telecommunications satellite category with its lau...

Google Inc. said there are about 700,000 applications available for downloading onto mobile devices that run the Android operating system, challenging Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s lead in the race for software tools. That means Google has matched Apple in the number of games, productivity tools and other programs that are usable on handheld electronics, including tablets and smartphones. Apple said last week that its App Store has more than 700,000 apps. By luring software developers to its Android platform, Google is attempting to eliminate a key selling point Apple has used for the iPhone and iPad. Applications have become a battleground as the two companies look for an edge in the $219.1 billion smartphone market, akin to how Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) dominated the personal-computer business by getting other companies to write programs for its Windows operating system. The rivalry extends beyond smartphones. Google today unveiled a tablet with a 10-inch screen and costing $399 ...

Microsoft Corp put its Surface tablet center stage at its Windows 8 launch event, hoping the sleek new device will spark a fightback against Apple Inc and Google Inc in the exploding mobile computing market. With interest in traditional computers waning, the world's largest software company is attempting to reinvent the Windows PC in a new format and directly challenge Apple's all-conquering iPad. "One person called it historic, unique," said Steven Sinofsky, head of Microsoft's Windows unit and the driving force behind Windows 8, who opened the launch event in New York in front about 1,000 media and PC industry partners. "It's twice the amount of storage as a competing tablet for the same price," Sinofsky said, comparing the entry level 32 GB Surface with the cheapest 16 GB model of Apple's latest full-sized iPad, which both cost $499. Sinofsky and his team showed off a range of devices running Windows 8 from PC makers such as Lenov...

China's top telecoms gear makers should be shut out of the U.S. market as potential Chinese state influence on them poses a security threat, the U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee said in a draft of a report to be released on Monday. U.S. intelligence must stay focused on efforts by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp to expand in the United States, and tell the private sector as much as possible about the purported espionage threat, the panel leaders said, based on their 11-month investigation of the two firms. Employee-owned and unlisted Huawei is the world's second-biggest maker of routers, switches and telecoms equipment by revenue after Sweden's Ericsson. ZTE ranks fifth. In the global mobile phone sector, ZTE is fourth and Huawei sixth. Huawei generated around 4 percent of its group sales from the United States, while ZTE's U.S. revenues made up 2-3 percent of its overall figure. The bulk of both companies' U.S. sales come...

Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs when it comes to leading Apple Inc. As the debut of the new iPhone 5 just proved, that may not be a bad thing. The taller, thinner and lighter phone prompted a rush on Wall Street to raise price targets for Apple stock, but the optimism was not because of a big technological advance or design breakthrough; the "wow" factor that was the trademark of the late Apple co-founder Jobs was decidedly absent. Rather, it was the speed of the global launch that astounded, validating the new CEO's much-touted wizardry at the essential but unglamorous task of managing a supply chain. "We are positively surprised regarding the pace of the rollout, since we had expected a bigger impact from component constraints," Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes said. By next Friday, the iPhone 5 will be in 31 countries, and will be in 100 by the end of the calendar year. That would be 30 more than the rollout of the predecessor phone, the 4S, over a similar...

SLT’s Next Generation Network is already serving major Government institutes and key enterprise customers on  IPv6  ready platform Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the nation’s number one integrated communications service provider and the leading broadband and backbone infrastructure services provider in the country, proudly announced the successful deployment of IPv6, the world’s latest Internet Protocol (IP) version in its Internet Service Provider (ISP) arm, SLTnet on the world’s IPv6 launch day. As a dominant player in the internet market, this is part of the company’s commitment to take the country to greater heights and broader dimensions in the ICT arena by bringing home the latest futuristic and cutting-edge technologies. SLT has IPv6-enabled its corporate web site, http://www.slt.lk, to celebrate the theme of this year’s Global IPv6 day – “This time it is for real” – which was on 6 June. SLT has been operating a separate IPv6-enabled web site, http://www.ipv6.s...

Ad -  Sinhala Version  Mobitel Introduced Special Off Peak Broadband Plans (between 12 midnight and 6 am) for Mobitel BroadBand users. Current Mobitel Postpaid broadband users can now add on this plan to their existing Mobitel broadband packages namely all Postpaid Zoom Packages (Zoom 475/590/890/1290,BB240) and Upahara Broadband connections.

Mr. Manjot Singh Mann, Mr. Dennis Lui and Mr.Anand Prakash Hutch Telecom Lanka announces the launching yesterday of its 3G services.  Initially covering the Western province, Hutch plans island wide 3G coverage with a total of 1000 BTS by July this year. The addition of the 3G towers together with Hutch’s existing 2G towers means that Hutch’s coverage will be as good as the best of the other operators.  Hutch’s rollout of 3G services follows its entry into the post-paid market a few months ago. “With only around 10 percent of the Sri Lankan population having access to the Internet we see great opportunity for the growth of our 3G network” says Anand Prakash, COO of Hutchison Telecom Lanka.  Although there has been a strong growth in both fixed line and mobile telephony in Sri Lanka, the development of the Internet still remains slow, accessibility remains limited and available services generally very basic.

Dialog Enterprise, the corporate solutions arm of Dialog Axiata PLC successfully commissioned an integrated communication solution to enable Road Development Authority (RDA) to start operations of Sri Lanka’s first expressway with a very high note. The solution provided by Dialog Enterprise enabled real time ticket transactions at all entry/exit points in the highway with secure and faster connectivity being provided using a mobile access point network solution (APN) branded as Dialog BizConnect. With this solution all Point of Sales (POS) machines are interconnected to the central server system hosted at the Dialog data centre. The state of the art solution provided by Dialog Enterprise would allow officials at RDA to get real time updates on information such as number of vehicles entered, revenue generated from each exit points and the registration numbers of vehicles that have entered or exited the newly opened Southern Expressway. Dialog enterprise partnered with Access Teleco...

China on Friday dismissed a U.S. report on online spying as "irresponsible," rejecting the charge that China uses cyber espionage to steal lucrative U.S. trade and technology secrets. The U.S. intelligence report said on Thursday China and Russia are using cyber espionage to steal U.S. trade and technology secrets to bolster their own economic development, which poses a threat to U.S. prosperity and security. So much sensitive information sits on computer networks that foreign intruders can net massive amounts of valuable data with scant risk of detection, said the report to Congress. Foreign intelligence services, corporations and individuals stepped up their efforts to steal information about U.S. technology that cost many millions of dollars to develop, according to the report by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a U.S. government agency. But the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei rejected the report, and repeated Be...

Nokia unveiled two sleek new Microsoft Windows phones on Wednesday in time for Christmas, a first step in the ailing cellphone maker's fightback against Apple and Google. Chief Executive Stephen Elop presented the two new smartphones, the first fruits of his big bet on Microsoft software, to a 3,000-strong audience in London, saying they represented the beginning of a new era for the Finnish giant. "It's a new dawn for Nokia," Elop said as he unveiled the high-end Lumia 800 and mid-range Lumia 710, which will go on sale in key European markets next month. In an interview with Reuters, Elop said the world's biggest cellphone maker had transformed itself during his 13-month tenure, which has seen a shake-up of senior management and thousands of lay-offs. "It is a different company operating on a different clock speed," he said. "The amount of effort and passion and work that's been accomplished that we were able to show off ...