Nokia introduces Music+ service for Lumia devices

Nokia has announced Music+ Lumia-only music streaming service. The app is available as a paid upgrade.

Nokia takes on music streaming services such as Spotify and Last.fm as the company rolls out an extension to its Mix Radio app called, Nokia Music+. The new Nokia Music+ app is available as a premium upgrade for the Lumia users.

Nokia Music+ features unlimited downloads and unlimited music discovery. It also has unlimited skips, allowing users to skip from track to track. The app promises to deliver high quality streaming music. Even over a 2.5G connection, Nokia Music+ allows you to download music at ‘eight times’ the standard quality. Moreover, there’s option to access lyrics as well as a web-app for desktop users.

“It’s the only smartphone music service out there offering access to millions of songs out of the box without the need to sign up, sign in, or suffer adverts in between enjoying the music. When you add in the ability to skip songs and save playlists for offline uses like the tube, you have something unique,” says Jyrki Rosenberg, VP Entertainment at Nokia in a blog post.

“Nokia Music is great for discovering new music, and we’ve found that there’s a core of users that want even more of it. This is how Nokia Music+ came about. By introducing features like infinite skips and unlimited downloads, we’re opening the doors for unlimited music discovery at only €3.99 per month.”

Nokia Music+ will be rolled out in the next few weeks. The app will be available at around $4 in the U.S., however Nokia says the price will vary according to territory.

Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Apps/Nokia-introduces-Music-service-for-Lumia-devices_13226.html

Mozilla Unveils Firefox OS Smartphones – A Threat To Android?

Bangalore: Mozilla made a major foray into the Smartphone segment with the launch of first devices to run Mozilla’s HTML 5-based Firefox OS,”Keon” and the “Peak”, reports ZDNet.

These two Smartphones, rather than currying up for retailers, are aimed at developers who want to try this new platform for developing and testing apps. The retail versions will be made available in February.

“Developer preview phones will help make the mobile web more accessible to more people. Developers are critical to the web, and to Mozilla’s mission to make the web accessible to everyone,” Stormy Peters, director of developer engagement at Mozilla, said in a blog post on Tuesday. “Now we are working on bringing the power of the web to mobile through Firefox OS, along with all the power of open standards and an open community, and once again, we’d like to invite web developers to join us.”

The Two preview phones are developed by GeeksPhone in partnership with the Spanish carrier Telefonica.

Of two, the lower specced Keon will come with Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 1GHz processor, 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen display, 3MP camera, and 4GB of internal storage,  microSD support, Wi-Fi (N), and GPS, but has no secondary camera.

The Peak is slightly higher specced—dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 4.3-inch qHD display, 8 MP primary and 2MP secondary camera, 4GB of internal storage and higher capacity battery.

“If you’re a developer interested in web technologies and mobile, now is the time to try out Firefox OS,” Peters said. And she added that the new OS is aimed at “keep the Web open” and “help make sure the power of the web is available to everyone — even on mobile devices.”

The offering from the Mozilla is an open source mobile OS, about which Peters said “you’re not locked in to a vendor-controlled ecosystem. You can distribute your app through the Firefox Marketplace, your own website, or any other store based on Mozilla’s open app store technology.”

This non-profit group’s OS project names as Boot to Gecko will go after Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS, to offer Smartphones that are less expensive than an iPhone while offering similar experiences to those running on other platforms.

On January 26, Mozilla will be hosting a set of “hack days” to give developers around the world the chance to “learn, hack, share, and celebrate Firefox OS”, Peters said.