Windows Live gets upgrade
Microsoft is beta testing two new features of Windows Live - its effort at delivering software as a service over the web. It has added a photo-sharing application, Live Photo Gallery, and 500MB of online storage space called Windows Live Folders. Windows Live Photo Gallery is available to testers in nine countries and is described as an upgrade to Vista's Windows Photo Gallery - "it's as easy as sending an email", the release promises. Live Folders' 500MB of free storage is something Microsoft describes as "just a starting point for us". The company is promising new features in the next few months and a new installer that will allow an "all-in-one" download of Windows Live services. The photo service offered the "benefits of a rich client, plus the online services benefits.

Microsoft starts selling low cost PC
Microsoft is selling PC hardware in India at a cost of RS21,000 (~$500) and using Zenith and Wipro to build machines which use AMD chips. The PC is aimed at the educational market and Microsoft is aiming at growing the market in the long term. The scheme is called Unlimited Potential and the machine is called the IQ PC with machines initially being introduced in early July in Bangalore and Pune, with the scheme getting all India roll out in November. PC penetration in India is around 2% of the total billion plus population and these Microsoft machines include educational software that marries the local curriculum. Microsoft gave no further details of the configuration of its PC. What local vendors and the channel think about this one can only imagine. But the phrase "bhar me jae" probably springs to mind at the idea of the Vole nibbling at this particular patch.

LinkedIn marks progress to IPO
Armed with a bevy of new managers from top Silicon Valley firms and explosively growing revenues, business networking site LinkedIn is gearing up to become one of the first big post-dotcom Internet IPOs. LinkedIn, a buttoned-down sort of MySpace or Facebook for the corporate professional set, has seen its membership double to nearly 12 million users over the past nine months. It makes money from subscriptions, advertising and fees from job recruiters. Projections somewhere in the $100 million range next year. Four-year-old LinkedIn turned profitable last year. But, as a privately held company, it declines to disclose more specific figures. The company, which has $30 million in backing from venture firms including Sequoia Capital, Greylock and Bessemer, is gearing up for an initial public offering, perhaps as early as next year. LinkedIn users create online resumes of their work history, then invite business associates to connect to them by signing up to join their network of contacts.

Global mobile phone use to pass record 3 billion
By the end of July, global mobile phone use will for the first time pass the 3 billion mark--equivalent to half the world's population--as cell phone demand booms in China, India and Africa, a survey said on Wednesday. From African farmers to Chinese factory workers, mobile operators will have notched up more than 3.25 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide by the end of the year. Along with the Internet, the mobile phone has revolutionized communication. The mobile phone has spread from city whiz kids to Brazilian slum dwellers. More than 1,000 new customers are effectively signing up for mobile phones every minute around the world, the survey showed. Analysts have forecast that 65% of all handsets made this year will be sold in emerging markets as manufacturers, such as Nokia of Finland and Motorola of the United States, push out low-cost phones and mobile phone operators cut call charges. The figures cited in the survey take account of multiple mobile subscriptions by customers. Penetration in Europe has topped 100% of the population, with 666 million mobile connections. A record 240 million handsets were sold and 135 million new customers signed up to mobile phone networks in the quarter to the end of March, the report said. In terms of connections, the last quarter was the third strongest in the industry's history after the fourth quarters of 2004 and 2006, when 142 million and 163 million, respectively, signed up.

T-Mobile Phones Ride Your Wi-Fi Router
Wouldn't it be great to have your own cellular tower at home? You'd always have a strong signal on your mobile phone, and you wouldn't be paying to use the carrier's network. It sounds like a pie-in-the-sky idea, but it's actually the gist of what T-Mobile USA is rolling out Wednesday: the option to use your Wi-Fi router instead of the cellular network on two new T-Mobile phones. For those who have poor reception in their homes and would like to drop their landline, T-Mobile HotSpot AtHome appears be a good choice. T-Mobile's phones automatically connect to the company's 8,500 commercial hotspots in the U.S., including many Starbucks locations. The technology behind the service is known as UMA, or Unlicensed Mobile Access, and has broad support among cell-phone manufacturers. European carriers are already using it. T-Mobile is the first major U.S. carrier to get on board, after trying it out in the Seattle area since October. Cincinnati Bell launched a similar service last month. UMA is clearly quite different from standard Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. The new phones, the Nokia 6086 and Samsung t409, cost $50 with a two-year contract and a calling plan that costs at least $40 month (but remember that taxes and other fees bring the actual cost closer to $50). They're unremarkable camera phones. Unlimited free calling on Wi-Fi then costs an extra $10 a month for a single line, or $20 for a family plan with up to five lines.

The company says the payoff for using its router is threefold:

* It gives calls higher priority, so if you have a computer download going at the same time, your call won't be affected. I'm not sure how great this benefit is. I used the Nokia phone on my own router while using the computer and didn't notice a problem. The phone's bandwidth demand is quite small.

* It has a button that will allow the phone to connect to an encrypted router without typing in the Wi-Fi password. This is a great feature. Strangely, I couldn't find any documentation, and had to call the company to learn how to use it, but T-Mobile will no doubt straighten this out and update its manual.

* It quadruples the phone's battery life. I wasn't able to stringently test this claim, but it's clear that even without the T-Mobile router, the Nokia phone did quite well. Wi-Fi is much more power-intensive than cellular, and I've tested phones before that used only Wi-Fi and generally went dead after 24 hours on standby. The Nokia phone ran for about two days in mixed cellular and Wi-Fi use with my own router, and three days with the T-Mobile router.

EU chooses mobile TV standard
The European Commission has drafted a document recommending the adoption of Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H) as a pan-European, mobile-broadcasting standard to avoid market fragmentation. The document is intended for publication mid-July. DVB-H is one of three standards competing to provide broadcast video to mobile phones, the others being Digital Media Broadcasting (DMB) and MediaFLO. Nokia has been a fierce proponent of DVB-H, a technology in which it holds considerable patent rights, to the point of building handsets before any service existed and contributing financially to network-operator-led trials. Samsung has, meanwhile, been doing much the same thing with DMB. Having convinced the South Korean Government to mandate DMB, the company has since been financing large-scale trails in Europe and elsewhere. First-class trips to Korea might play better than hops to Finland, at least with the network-operator management, but the fact that Nokia is in Europe could be seen to carry more weight with the EU. Qualcomm's MediaFLO is not only American, but, according to the document, a "proprietary solution" that is at the start of the testing phase. All three technologies are capable of providing a decent broadcast video experience, and can be slotted into the TDD frequencies currently lying idle in many countries, so this argument is becoming less about technology and more about patent rights and politics. What seems most remarkable is the amount of money companies are prepared to spend on the assumption that punters really want broadcast TV on their mobile phones. While the home-viewing experience rapidly moves towards video-on-demand and unicast, it seems perverse for mobile phones to be heading in the opposite direction.

Thailand gets Youtube back
Thai Minister for Information and Communications Technology, Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, said he would restore the country's access to Youtube. Indeed, such was Mr Sitthichai's horror at finding he had the power to cut off access to websites willy-nilly, he not only unblocked the 'Tube, he also sought to relinquish all his Internet powers. According to the Bangkok Post, the Minister acquired far-reaching powers following a coup to oust new owner of Manchester City FC, and former Thai premier, Thaksin Shinawatra. Mr Sitthichai blocked access to Youtube after it ran a video the Thai regime deemed was critical of the King of Thailand and his feet. Youtube eventually downed the offending clip. Sitthichai said it was far too much power for one man: "I don't want the ICT minister to have too much decision-making power, especially when we'll soon have a new government," he opined. Under a new law governing electronic transactions any future attempt to close a website needs to go through the courts, he said. Sitthichai said he had closed only about 200 websites, most of them pornographic. He claimed the previous regime had closed down at least 10,000.

Selling Chile to the Valley
If you're a Silicon Valley executive looking for another country where you can expand or relocate your business, here are a few things the folks from Chile want you to know about their country: It's stable. It's got low tariffs. It's almost in the same time zone (as the East Coast). There are lots of free-trade agreements with a variety of countries. And it boasts several good engineering schools. In many ways, presentations like these are the sincerest form of flattery for a region that loves to be loved. Even as a number of countries around the world rise to challenge Silicon Valley's role as technology leader, visits like the one from Chile are a reminder that so many places still hunger for a piece of what this region has. But as a relative newcomer, Chile faces a tough challenge as it tries to shoulder its way into the mix of countries where Silicon Valley chieftains consider doing business. The program aims to promote Chile's assets while also offering some basic tax credits and research grants. And in 2004, a free-trade agreement between the United States and Chile went into effect. To build on those efforts, about a dozen Chilean economic development officials arrived as part of a promotional tour that would later include stops at various undisclosed valley companies. Their pitch tried to convey things that made Chile different. Rather than just promote the region as another low-cost place to do business, Chilean officials focused more on things like its location in the East Coast time zone, something that might be a good complement for companies that have call centers in India.

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