Jio – the much hyped about network from Mukesh Ambani and his son is all set to change the structure of the telecom industry in India. At the 42nd Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani unveiled the launch dates and the tariff plans for Jio and declared a war on the current telecommunication companies in India.

Jio plans to start its services from September 5th 2016 and a commercial launch on December 31st 2016 (which means all users can enjoy their services for free until the commercial launch). Here are their tariff plans:

Some key points:

Free Voice

Mukesh Ambani believes that telcos should either charge for voice or data (not both). Based on this principle, Jio will only be charging its customers for the data. Voice calls – local, long distance and roaming to any network in India will be absolutely free. This is first of its kind tariff structure and is surely going to shake the market. Jio was originally planned to be a data only network. The VoLTE capabilities were added later and are still being fine tuned and improved. It is a scalable and future ready network capable of supporting future network standards. The idea behind this tariff plan is simple – Come for the voice, stay for the data. Even if the voice calls in the network aren’t as good now as they can potentially be, they are free – thereby eliminating customer frustration in the initial phase of the launch.

Devices

Jio already has a range of LYF branded devices tested and ready to be used on the network. They have handsets available from ? 2999 to enable almost everyone to come and join the network.

App ecosystem

Jio is building a really strong ecosystem of apps ranging from entertainment, finance, media and instant messengers. Currently, app ecosystems are owned and governed by your handset’s OS (Apple’s App store vs. Google Play). The idea behind building such a strong collection of apps is to break free from the ties with your handset platform. Jio’s apps work seamlessly on both iOS and Android.

Data

As Jio is a data first network, they have made broadband really affordable for everyone. The average data tariff on the Jio network will be ? 50 per GB as opposed to ? 250 per GB on other networks.  This is going to start a mobile broadband revolution in India. Jio leverages 4G LTE data network offering data services capable of reaching 100 Mbps.

Overall, Jio’s vision looks very promising and should help India get to the top 10 in the world for mobile internet access. It is going to be very cost effective for the customers to switch to Jio, enjoy free voice calls and get introduced to the endless possibilities of life with mobile broadband.

[via ET]

Do you lose your keys, phone or other items frequently? We know its difficult to find an item when its lost in your own house. Nonda’s iHere is a nifty little device which you can attach to any item that you tend to lose frequently. Then, when you lose it next, simply open up the iHere app on your smartphone and tap the find button. iHere will start making a noise directing you to its (and eventually the item you are looking for)’s location.

iHere works on low power bluetooth and pairs with your phone. It has a rechargeable battery which lasts several weeks on a single charge. The device can be charged using any USB charger. The main features are:

1. Item locator
2. Phone locator
3. Phone camera shutter button

Design

iHere is made of good quality materials and shows the same level of workmanship as other Nonda products. It is extremely lightweight, yet feels very robust. The material is prone to scratches, but honestly, you cannot avoid getting scratches on this thing owing to where all it will end up if its attached to your keys.

The device charges using a USB cable. Charger is the only part of the package which feels flimsy and cheaply made. Not sure why Nonda cut corners here.

Usage

iHere pairs with your phone over bluetooth. The pairing process is very simple and straightforward. If you lose your item, just open the app and tap on find. iHere will start to make noise leading you to the item. This also works the other way round if you lose your phone. Just press the button on iHere and your phone will sound the alarm, even if it is on silent – pretty neat.

In addition to finding your phone using the button on iHere, you can also choose to perform any of the following actions:

• Voice recorder – Record quick voice memos.
• Car finder – Click the button on iHere when you park your car and it will trigger the app on your phone to store your current GPS location. Later, when you return back to the parking lot, open the app to guide you to your parked car’s location.
• Take selfies – iHere can also be used to take selfies with the button acting as the camera trigger.

iHere also beeps when the phone goes out of range in order to tell you that you may have forgot your phone somewhere. Although helpful, this feature may turn annoying in large sized homes where moving from one corder to another may lead to the device beeping.

Packaging

Like its other products, Nonda has put in a lot of attention to iHere’s packaging. The packaging box feels like its built from premium quality materials and keeps the device safe and in an easy to unpack position.

Conclusion

iHere is a great addition to your keyring. Although it is pegged as a key finder, I used it more to find my phone rather than the keys. But either way, its an inexpensive yet very useful device which will help you save a lot of time in situations of distress. Because of the simple design and overall ease of use, we rate iHere at 5 out of 5 stars. We really could not find any issues with this nifty little device.

iHere retails for about $15.99 on amazon and $19.99 on nonda.

There are many in-car USB charges available to juice up your devices while on the move. While you may not have paid attention to the modest little charger plugged in your car’s 12V accessory socket, there are a plethora of innovations going on in the segment to make you consider upgrading the device.

First came dual USB chargers. Followed by high powered ones (the ones which can charge your device faster – really useful when using GPS). Then came smart ones which would identify the plugged in device and deliver the charging power to best suit the device. Nonda’s ZUS is a few steps ahead of the curve.

Lets go through the specs first:

• 2 smart USB charging ports
• Up to 4.8A output, fully charges 2 iPads in 3.75 Hours
• Smart Car Finder
• US Military MIL-STD-810G Grade High Temperature Standard. German Bayer PC + Titanium to withstand temperatures up to 100°C/212°F.
• In built cooling system to keep the charger at a lower temperature.

 

Apart from being “smart” in a traditional way of detecting the best charging power for the plugged in device, ZUS is also a car finder. Here is how it works:

1. ZUS has a bluetooth chip built in.
2. You download the app and pair your phone with ZUS.
   
3. ZUS detects when you have parked your car and tells your phone to record your current location. You don’t need to do anything – the app notifies you that it has recorded the parking location.  You can even set a parking timer if you are parked in a metered zone.
   
4. When returning to your car, you open the app and it leads you in the direction of your car. You can switch between compass and map views.
     

The whole process works flawlessly. Every time. Why would you need a car charger to record your car’s parking location on your phone you ask? You don’t. But you need a way to tell your phone that you have parked and that its time to record the location. Traditionally, car finder apps have relied on the premise that humans beings are diligent/attentive/careful/patient enough to open the app when they park their car and tell the app to record the location. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. Recording the car’s location is not the part of the problem to solve, telling the app is. The folks at Nonda made ZUS to solve the right part of the problem. It sits humbly in your car’s accessory socket to serve the regular purpose of charging your phone in the car and as soon as you park it, it tells the app to record the location. No human intervention is required. How does ZUS know you have parked your car? Simple:

• In most vehicles, when you switch off ignition, the accessory socket is turned off. ZUS uses this event to derive that you are parking the car.
• In the vehicles where the accessory socket is not turned off when the ignition is switched off, ZUS relies on Bluetooth to determine if your phone is nearby. If you are heading away from your car, it derives that you have parked your car and tells the app to record the location. This feature will also work in the scenarios where you might be making a quick trip to a store and leave the car’s engine turned on because someone is sitting in the car. Pretty neat.

 

Conclusion

If you live in an area with huge parking lots, this thing is going to save you a lot of time and effort finding your car. If you live in a city and park on metered slots, this thing will also help you avoid getting your car towed. The only place where it will not work reliably is underground parking lots because there is no way for your phone to find the current location. But that is a reasonable limitation to have with all that it has to offer.

As of today, ZUS retails for $33.99 on nonda.co. If you have multiple cars, Nonda offers discounts if you buy 2 or 5 units together. ZUS is also available on amazon for $35.99.  According to us, the price is reasonable given the value the products adds to your everyday life. With a beautiful and robust design, coupled with super useful & cool features, we rate the ZUS at 4.5 out of 5 stars. The half star is taken away because of the missing home geofencing option I mentioned earlier.

BTW, the 24k Gold Limited Edition is currently available, if you have $499.99 to spare (and really want to increase the chances of your car being broken into).

TataSky has launched a new DVR Set Top Box which enables customers to transfer recorded content to their devices and to watch later anywhere. This technology is similar to what Comcast offers its customers in the US. Here is how it works:

• Record the content you want to watch later.
• Transfer the recorded content to your device via the TataSky mobile app.
• Watch the content anywhere, anytime you want.
• You can also stream the recorded content to your device over WiFi in your home. This is useful in scenarios when someone else is watching something live on the TV.

Note that you will have to subscribe to a Transfer Pack to avail this feature. The transfer pack can be added to a maximum of two devices per subscriber ID.

The new set top box with connection costs INR 9300 which is very steep in our opinion. TataSky should introduce contact based pricing plans to reduce this entry price.