Samsung can’t stop gloating about Apple launching a big phone

It started with a relatively gentle jab on Twitter. Then Samsung brought in the heavy guns – six spots mocking the new iPhonefor everything from the botched event live stream, to the lack of a stylus, to the bigger screen that Samsung has had for years.

But Samsung isn’t satisfied yet. In another Note 4 ad that just hit YouTube, the Korean company reminds us again that it started the big phone trend in 2011, and that, despite the initial ridicule (“You look like you’re talking into a piece of toast” –Walt Mossberg for the WSJ, 2011), the Note has become the phone to beat.



And then there are the headlines and tweets suggesting Apple followed Samsung in releasing a “phablet.” After being mocked and maligned as a copycat for years, Samsung is finally able to boast about a trend it started, and Apple has followed.

What do you think of this new ad? Should Samsung show more class? Or does Apple deserve all the derision it gets?

Source: http://chicmob.net/

Qualcomm eyes ultra-low-cost mobile domination with Snapdragon 210 SoC

The undisputed heavyweight champion of today’s Android décor, Qualcomm, is not doing so hot in emerging markets, where low-cost smartphones are all the rage, no matter their performance compromises.

So far, the suppliers of high-end powerhouses such as the Snapdragon S4 Pro, 600, 800 and 805 have had trouble competing with budget specialists like MediaTek. But no more. Not once the Snapdragon 210 rolls out.

The quad-core chip, although a nice, healthy upgrade over old S200 units, is aimed squarely at sub-$100 Android devices. That’s free of contractual obligations, mind you, and is that much cooler as 210 is an LTE Category 4-capable processor.

It’s low power, based on 28 nm architecture, and thus not a beast raw speed-wise, but fairly frugal. So yeah, it has potentially stellar battery life going for it in addition to LTE support and a more than reasonable retail value.

What’s the catch? Guess only time will tell, namely “the first half of 2015”, but if everything works out the way Qualcomm is suggesting, it’s bye, bye, MediaTek. In the low-end space, the mid-range race, everywhere. It’s going to be Qualcomm against the world.

If you’re curious to find out more about the theoretical capabilities of the Snapdragon 210, here’s more:

• Up to 1.1 GHz clock speeds
• ARM Cortex A7 cores
• Adreno 304 GPU
• 1,080p video playback
• Screen resolution up to 720p
• Up to 8 MP camera support, Full HD video recording
• Wi-Fi 802.11 n, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC and GPS connectivity
• Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0
• LPDDR2/LPDDR3 at 533 MHz

Via [Qualcomm]

Source: Review China mobile phones. Find out which inexpensive China phones are worth buying. Reviewsinclude smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets.

HTC tweets Windows Phone 8.1 update ETA for Verizon’s 8X: ‘late October’

Oh look, Verizon is just about to pick up the Windows Phone 8.1 updating pace at last. Of course, for Big Red to “pick up the pace,” they’d need to have a tempo to begin with, which they don’t.

Thus far, although WP 8.1 is nearly two months old in general availability form, the largest wireless service provider stateside has sat idly by while rival AT&T did a tremendous job bringingvarious Nokia Lumias up to date.

And for the irony to be complete, Verizon is yet to announce timelines for a single Lumia-headed Windows Phone 8.1 goodie pack. Sorry, 928, sorry, Lumia Icon, but your time will come… eventually.

For now, the much older, far less popular and, we’re presuming, much laggier HTC Windows Phone 8X has an 8.1 deadline. A vague one, granted, but it’s clearly better than nothing. Impressively, once the 8X moves to WP 8.1 in “late October”, the 4.3-incher is going to be officially supported for two full years.

November 2012 saw the thing roll out, with pre-loaded WP 8, a 720p screen, dual-core 1.5 GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM, so manufacturers of Android-running hardware should probably take note. HTC included.

Remember the One X+? It basically launched simultaneously with the 8X and considerably raised the performance ante, yet the chances of it ever going beyond Jelly Bean are zero. Ergo, don’t be surprised if Android fans start migrating en masse to Microsoft’s camp before long. I know I’m tempted.

Via [Twitter]

Source: Review China mobile phones. Find out which inexpensive China phones are worth buying. Reviewsinclude smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets.

Samsung Gear Blink rumored to launch in March

Samsung has made its mark in the wearable industry, with efforts to make sure it doesn’t have to rely completely on Google for the operating system on its devices. The company has launched a number of wearable devices, but the last few are powered by their in-house Tizen OS (except the Gear Live).

Several reports hint that Samsung is preparing a Google Glass competitor, expected to hit the market under the Samsung Gear Blink moniker. The wearable device is yet to make an unofficial appearance at the rumor mill, but we’ve seen some drawings of the alleged device in patent and trademark filings.

A new report, citing industrial sources, says Samsung may showcase the alleged Gear Blink in March 2015 — around the same time as the Samsung Galaxy S6 launch.

One feature that could make its way to the wearable is the ability to project a virtual keyboard on the user’s hand, giving them the ability to simply type in the air. Interestingly, Samsung already has a trademark related to this feature with the Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service, number 4020140033123.

Previous rumors hinted that Samsung may showcase a Google Glass competitor at the IFA 2014 event, which didn’t happen — although it did introduce the amazing Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

Let’s take this rumor with a proverbial amount of salt, as there’s no official word from Samsung about its existence. Additionally, the image you see above is just a drawing found in the patent filings.

Source: SamMobile

http://chicmob.net/

HTC Nexus 9 expected to launch in Q3

HTC has long been rumored to be working on a new tablet under the Nexus brand, and it’s expected to arrive with top-notch hardware later this year. We’ve yet to hear officially from Google or HTC about its existence, but the rumor mill keeps on revealing more and more information about the alleged tablet as the time draws closer.

Recently, in a legal document related to a patent lawsuit against Qualcomm and Samsung, it was revealed that Tegra K1 SoC is being used by several manufacturers, not just in smartphones, but in a wide rage of products, including the HTC Nexus 9. The document clears up a few things. First, the Nexus 9 will be made by HTC, with Tegra K1 SoC for processing power. Second, it mentioned that HTC Nexus 9 is expected to see the light of the day in the third quarter, which as we know is about to end in the next few weeks.

HTC has scheduled an event on October 8th in New York City captioned “Double Exposure.” It’s unclear what we’re going to see at there, but let’s just keep the purported HTC Nexus 9 on the charts since there’s a possibly it may see daylight then.

The alleged HTC Nexus 9 is said to come with a 8.9-inch 2048-by-1440 display, 4GB of RAM, 16/32GB internal storage, 8MP rear camera for photos and videos, and Android KitKat.

We’ll update you as soon as we get any other information. Stay tuned.

Source: BSN, Android Community

http://chicmob.net/

How quitting my corporate job for my startup dream f*cked up my life

Finally the SMS arrived:

“Tomorrow morning 5am, flight number AZ610 from Rome to NewYork.”
​

An SMS hitting my BlackBerry on Sunday evenings used to decide my destination and client for the coming week.

I was working for one of the top three global strategy consulting firms.

A life packed in a suitcase. A consulting life where you miss out on everything and everyone in life, except Excel spreadsheets. A fancy business life we are taught to be ideal slaves of, at top business schools whose degrees we are proud to hold.

After few hours of sleep, the private driver was taking me to the Rome Fuimicino airport so I could take my fancy business-class flight to NYC. Upon arrival, I was checking in to a fancy five-star hotel and heading to my client’s office afterwards.

The salary? It was fancy, too. The company was proud to be among the top payers of the industry.

Parents


There was something wrong with this consulting life, though. I couldn’t stand this fancy bullshit any longer and one day I called my parents:

Dad, mom, I just quit my job. I want to start my own startup.
​

My mom almost had a heart attack. It wasn’t the first thing a perfectionist mother wanted to hear after encouraging me to graduate from the world’s top business schools with top grades.

I tried to ease her distress. No chance.

Mom, I hate it. All these consultants are pretending to be happy and they are taking happiness pills. I get to sleep only 3–4 hours a day. All those benefits the company promised don’t exist. Remember the fancy five-star hotel? I am working almost 20 hours a day and I don’t even enjoy it. Fancy breakfast? We never have time to have that. Fancy lunch, dinner? It’s just a sandwich in front of our Excel spreadsheets.

Oh, by the way, instead of enjoying a champagne, I stare at spreadsheets during my entire business class flights, too. The fancy salary? I never have time to spend a single penny of it.

I hate my life, Mom, it’s such a loser life. I don’t even see my girlfriend. I can’t fake it anymore. I want to start my own business.”
​

My parents had retired after years of a 9–5 working routine at their secure and boring government jobs.

I knew that coming from a family with no entrepreneurial background, it would be difficult to explain my situation to them, but I didn’t expect the call next morning.

It was my mom on the phone:

“Sooooooooo, how is your business doing?! Is it growing?!”


No matter what I said, I couldn’t explain to her that a business needs more than one day to grow.

Girlfriend, friends, and social circle


Having had the most supportive girlfriend ever, it was now time I shared the news with my friends who were busy climbing the fancy career steps in the fancy corporate world.

I told everyone that I just quit my job to follow my startup dream. Some of my friends gradually stopped seeing me, probably because they thought there was something wrong with me since it was the second “fancy” job I had quit in a short period of time.

While the rest of my friends were supportive, there was, however, still something wrong with my relationship with them:

I soon realized I was starting to pull myself away from social gatherings.


Every time I met with those friends, I didn’t have many updates to give them in response to their repeated questions, such as, “So, how is your startup going? You are going to be the next Zuckerberg, right?” “Oh man, we are so proud of you and we are so sure you will soon receive a huge round of investment.”

Doing a startup was a long journey and I was putting myself under so much pressure by giving such a fuck about what other people think.

Day by day, I was getting lonelier and more depressive as I avoided social occasions. My startup progress was not as fast as my social circle imagined it to be and I was fed up with telling people it took years for startups like Facebook and Twitter to arrive at where they are now.

The only comfortable place was next to my few entrepreneur friends. It was true, only an entrepreneur could understand an entrepreneur.

Cash, cash, cash.


As if the social pressure and loneliness were not enough, I was meeting the mother of all stresses: running out of cash much faster than I had imagined.

This was killing my productivity and ability to make proper decisions. I was panicking and rushing to be successful and to make money.

One day, I even found myself asking my girlfriend for a few cents because I had no money to buy bottled water. I didn’t know it was just the beginning of such a difficult life full of ups and downs…

Today.


Enough with the drama: more than two years have passed since those days. I am now writing this blog post in a beautiful resort in Phuket, Thailand, while enjoying my mojito.


Wait, I am not selling a dream. No, I haven’t become a millionaire startup founder.

However, my business has a constant stream of cash that allows me to travel the world and to work from wherever there is WiFi.

There are, however, five things I wish I had asked myself before starting this painful journey. Five questions I believe every future entrepreneur should ask himself before taking the first step to entrepreneurship:

1. Are you ready for the social pressure?


If you have friends and family who are not entrepreneurs, they won’t truly understand what you are trying to achieve and the public pressure will be even higher.

I cared so much about what other people think of me– so much that it ruined my life.

I was so hard on myself and punished myself with even more work so I could announce my success as soon as possible. That is, until the day I realized no one gave a fuck about me, so why would I?

You are no more than a few seconds of attention other people give to a Facebook status. In 2014, no one has time to care about others in such a crowded, noisy world.

If you care so much about what others think, you will waste your time trying to prove that you are successful instead of focusing on your startup.

Get a life. I got mine quite late.

2. Are you single or do you have an extremely supportive partner?


As we grow up, we share more of our life with our partners than with our friends or family. While I was lucky to have such an amazing girl, it was so sad to see many of my entrepreneur friends breaking up with their girlfriends along the way.

Doing your own business is tough – way tougher than I could have ever imagined. Your mind is constantly fucked up with a million things going on inside and no other person, including your girlfriend, has a single clue what is going on in there.

If you are not single, make sure your partner understands it’s sometimes normal not to have a mindset even for a simple kiss. Yes, for a simple proper French kiss.

3. Do you have enough cash to last at least a year?


Good, then multiply that amount at least by three because you will be running out of your savings way faster than you ever imagined. Along the way, there will be so many hidden costs, accountant fees, lawyer needs, broken iPhones or PCs, etc.

Get ready for a smaller apartment, smaller food portions, or counting your cents, which you never cared about in your life previously.

The last few months before you totally run out of your cash will be especially difficult and the pressure will grow so exponentially that you won’t be able to sleep properly.

Success will come slowly, and cash will burn fast. Be smart – plan from day one.

4. Are you ready to sleep only few hours a day?


Having escaped from the corporate consulting world, I was thinking I was finally going to live the dream by working whenever I wanted to work – until I read Lori Greiner’s following quote:

Entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week.
​

It all started by little wake-ups in the middle of the night. At the beginning, it was because I was too excited about my ideas and I had so many of them. I simply couldn’t wait for the morning to arrive so that I could start working again.

Then came the exaggeration phase. I was working too much because I never had enough of working for my idea and I wanted to do more. However, the more I worked and the later I went to bed, the more difficult it was to fall asleep and the lower the quality of my sleep became.

As a result, at least two or three days of every week I was having days with almost no productivity.

Don’t be fooled by my fancy Instagram picture above. Don’t be fooled by over-hyped funding news about startup founders becoming millionaires.

The stories behind the scenes have so many painful days, sleepless nights, and continuous rejections and failures.

The journey to success is long. Very long. Very often, too long.

5. How do you define success?


Each of us has a different priority list in life. For most people, money is the number one priority on the list, while work-life balance ranks higher for others. Consequently, people define success differently.

Depending on your definition of success, the difficulty of your entrepreneurial journey will differ, too. If money and public success are what matters to you the most, you are likely to have a hard time along your journey.

Remember Hemingway’s wise words:

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
​

Successful entrepreneurs are not necessarily those who raise millions of investment rounds. Don’t forget, they are one in a million.

There are, however, thousands of dreamers out there who manage to bootstrap their startups or live so well off on their own, but even they do not make it to the top of tech news.

No matter how much your journey fucks up your life or how difficult it will be, enjoy the ride and keep following your passion. As Tony Gaskin puts it perfectly:

If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.
​

See more: Dealing with entrepreneur depression the Asian way​

This article was first published on Medium.

Lien: http://chicmob.net/

World Bank shines a light on Pakistan’s startup opportunities

 
“As a result of heightened social media usage and increased access to technology, Pakistanis are more connected to global entrepreneurial and technology trends as well as higher quality learning than before,” says a new report commissioned by the World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP).

The report, released today, details Pakistan’s startup ecosystem and the key players to whom entrepreneurs can turn for things like mentorship, workshops, incubation, and funding.

“In the past several years, Pakistan’s volatile political and security environment has negatively affected the investor and entrepreneurship climate,” the report notes. However, it ultimately paints a picture of a nation adopting new technology while at the same time “adapting Western-style entrepreneurship and innovation for a Pakistan context.”

The paper was released by Invest2Innovate, a local startup accelerator, in partnership with CGAP. Kalsoom Lakhani, the founder and CEO of Invest2Innovate, tells Tech in Asia that the information might help highlight “the gaps and challenges that currently persist” in Pakistan’s startup scene. “Our hope with this report […] is that stakeholders, investors, and entrepreneurs can use this study as a resource to understand the nuances of this complex environment and better navigate this space,” she adds.

See: Pakistan startup Flashcall ready to mobilize the power of the missed call phenomenon

It comes two months after the launch of the crowdsourced Pakistan Startup Wiki, for which 10 local experts and more than 20 startup geeks put their heads together to build a dynamic site that explains the nuts and bolts of the Pakistani startup landscape.

Lien: http://chicmob.net/

Perhaps the most useful section of the new report is the chart (below) showing the nodes in the startup network, from university incubators right up to growth-stage funding sources.