Airtel ‘Call-me-back’ Service’ for Sending Free Toll Free SMS

Airtel announced the ‘Call-me-back’ service for prepaid subscribers in collaboration with mCarbon.  This service will allow the users who have less than Rs. 1 balance to request their family or friends to call them back.

Call-me-back service offered by Airtel does not charge anything from the user.  If the user has less than Rs. 1 balance in his account, he can send an SMS using the ‘Call-me-back’ service.  The user can send a toll-free SMS with the message ‘Call and the message ‘Pls call me back’ to this friends and family members.  The user will not be charged for sending this message but eh people who call back on the user’s number will be charged according to their plan rate.  The user can send toll free SMS to either Airtel prepaid plan users or postpaid users including those who are in roaming.  This service is only available for prepaid account users who have less than Rs. 1 balance in their account and the service can be utilized for three times in a day.

Airtel also introduced Wi-Fi Hangout, which is a prepaid hotspot service in the beginning of this week.  Prepaid users can access broadband internet experience on Wi-Fi supported device laptops, mobiles and tablets.  This service is presently available in only few cities such as Bangalore, Mumbai etc.  Wi-Fi Hangout is available in different packages such as Rs. 20 for 30 minutes, Rs. 30 for 60 minutes and Rs. 50 for 120 minutes.

Data Share Plan is another service offered by Airtel.  Users of this plan will be allowed to access 3G data on three devices by paying Rs. 1,000.  After the usage of 5GB the speed will be reduced to 80DB per second and the user can use unlimited data.

mCarbon Tech Innovation Co-founder and director said that the they are happy to launch ‘Call-me-back’ service in partnership with Airtel.  He said the service is part of customer experience management.  He said they are positive to add more and more applications for the convenience of customers.

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Facebook in talks to buy Whatsapp: Report

Social networking Facebook Inc is in talks to acquire popular messaging app Whatsapp, a move that will beef-up its mobile services business, says a media report.

“Whatsapp, the multiplatform mobile messaging app that has been one of the runaway success stories for ad-free, paid services, has been in talks to be acquired by Facebook, ” technology blog Techcrunch said citing sources close to the matter.

“We are still digging around on potential price and other details…,” the report said citing sources.

Whatsapp, which was founded in 2009, has 1,000 million daily active users globally and delivers about one billion messages per day.

The social networking firm, which was founded eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students, at present has around one billion users across the world.

Facebook has been making efforts to improve its mobile service business and made buyouts including the purchase of photo-sharing mobile app Instagram.

Earlier in July, Facebook acquired the team behind start-up firm Spool, in an aim to beef up its mobile business. Besides, the social networking firrm also purchased Israeli facial recognition firm Face.com in June.

Google launches free SMS service on Gmail in India

Google has extended its free SMS chat service to Indian users. The Gmail SMS feature is now accessible to Indian users along with 51 other countries Asia, Africa and North America. Google had made this feature available to its users some African countries in 2011.

Using the free Gmail SMS service users can send text messages to mobile phones using Gmail Chat. Responses to the SMSs will appear as replies in Gmail Chat and conversations will be stored in users’ Chat history, like regular chats. This feature was activated for Indian users on October 10 and is available for regular Gmail users as well as those on Google Apps.

In India the free Gmail SMS service is available on eight major mobile service operators: Aircel, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTS, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, Tata indicom and Vodafone (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal & Andaman and Nicobar, Assam, North East).

This feature is not yet available on the Google Talk app, also referred to as GTalk, installed on computers.

Users are initially given a credit of fifty messages and for every message sent the credit decreases by one and for each message received in response to a text message sent via Gmail Chat, the user’s credit increases by five, up to a maximum of 50. When the SMS credit goes down to zero, one credit is added after 24 hours. Google has built in the credit limit to prevent misuse of its free SMS service for marketing/spamming.

Users can also ‘buy’ SMS credit, when they’ve run out of them, my sending a text message to their own phone and then by replying to that message.

People who do not wish to receive SMSs sent from Gmail Chat can block future messages from the sender by replying to the message with the word ‘BLOCK’ and later if they wish to continue receiving messages they can reply to the message with ‘UNBLOCK’.

If Gmail Chat SMS recipients in India do not wish to receive any messages on SMS from any Gmail user, they can stop the service from sending them messages by texting ‘STOP’ to +918082801060. To reactivate the service they can SMS ‘START’ to the same number.

To send an SMS from Gmail, on the Gmail Chat interface type the phone number you want to send an SMS to and click Send SMS and then add the recipient’s name and country, then click Save. Then write in the message in the chat window and press Enter.

While sending SMS from Gmail Chat to phones is free, responding to Gmail SMSs from the phone may incur standard SMS charges.

Does the Media deliberately divide People?

Is the Media misusing the freedom of press? Should it be made more accountable? The careless behavior by some of our television news channels has necessitated some kind of a control by a regulatory body. Poor quality journalism is something this country has been facing since the advent of electronic media. Any exaggeration without verifications and proper investigations seem to become news that gives a wrong picture or partial facts. In other words, media has become the creator of a false world that the people of this country seem to be living in. Media has also been dividing the people of this country through careless reporting. This view was shared by none other than the newly appointed Chairman of Press Council of India, Markandey Katju. In a Democracy, everybody is accountable, and it is high time media is also made more responsible, he felt.

Off late, some of the deliberate blunders by the media are aimed at dividing people on communal lines. Speaking to CNN IBN, Justice Katju said, “Whenever a bomb blast takes place, in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, within a few hours almost every channels starts showing that an e-mail or an SMS has come that Indian Mujahideen have claimed responsibility or Jaish-e-Mohammad or Harkat-ul-Jihad, some Muslim name.” This has created an impression that every Muslim is a terrorist, when 99 percent of the religious community is good people.

Another mistake that our media frequently makes is targeting the majority community in the name of secularism and provoking them against the minority. Secularism includes all communities, including the majority community. Some of the dirty political games seem to have crept into media as well. In short, there seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the media to divide people on religious lines, which is contrary to national interests.

Markandey Katju feels the only solution to the problem is to bring Electronic News Media also under Press Council of India.

Apart from this, the media has created a false image in the minds of people. In a country where 80 percent of the people live in chronic poverty, facing inflation and other serious issues like unemployment, media has been portraying a different India, the “Shining India”, which is only a partial reality. Instead of focusing on developmental issues, the media is seen to be increasingly projecting film stars, cricketers and fashion parades.
In lines of the slogan of Roman emperors, “If you cannot give them bread, give them circuses,” in India, cricket seems to have replaced circuses, as many of the leading channels have caught the IPL cricket fever, and people are getting the same illness, which is hardly going to solve the problems of this country.