Technology giants Hewlett Packard (HP) has announced that it plans to re-enter into the Smartphone market with a new flagship device.

Yam Su Yin, the Senior Director of Consumer PC and Media Tablets Asia Pacific, at an event in Beijing told news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) that the company is planning to cash the lucrative Smartphone market. However, he didn’t reveal when the company will come up with its new handset.

Yam said that HP is studying all the current offerings in the Smartphone market and is attempting to discover what it can offer that other players in the market don’t.

The Palo Alto-based company has dabbled in the Smartphone market in the past, when it acquired Palm and its webOS platform for $1.2 billion in 2010. By February 2011, it released the two WebOS Smartphones – the HP Veer and the Pre 3 – but the poor sales caused the company to scrap the operating system and hardware associated with it.

In the wake of the failure of WebOS, HP is likely to feature Google’s Android operating system, which accounts for the 69% of worldwide market share, in its future mobile devices. The company has already launched a number of Android-powered products, including seven-inch tablet and a Chromebook.

HP, the parent company of Plano-based HP Enterprise Services, is currently working on segments like all-in-one PCs, tablets and notebooks.

Hewlett Packard would face fierce competition by the rulers of the Smartphone market – Apple Inc. and Samsung – who together make up the majority of Smartphone market share.

According to IDC, the Smartphone shipments are expected to raise 32.7% annual attainment 958.8M units this year, increased from 722.5M units shipped in 2012.

For more information on the world head to Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, taking place from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for meet space, event venues, private parties, catering, marketing and event management. 

Intex Technologies has released its Intex Aqua I-5 Smartphone for the Indian customers. The new Smartphone runs on Android 4.2 and is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core processor.

The Smartphone will be offered in two colors –white and black – and is available at a best buy price of Rs. 11,690 (€ 150) at a wide range of retailers across the country.

Intex Aqua I-5 has a 5.0-inch qHD capacitive touch-screen.  The device comes up with a 2000mAh battery which provides a talk time of up to five hours and about seven days of standby time. The dual-SIM functionality of the phone works on both GSM + GSM technologies, the company affirmed.

The Smartphone has  4GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 32GB through a microSD card and 1 GB RAM. It also features a 2-megapixel front camera and a 12-megapixel rear auto-focus camera with flash. The connectivity options include Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, A-GPS and micro USB.

The device is also equipped with four sensors; Proximity Sensor, G sensor, Motion Sensor and Environment Light Sensor. Some other features of the handset are FM radio, Flip-mute, face screen unlock, voice screen unlock and pattern lock security.

Intex Aqua I-5 is expected to make tough competition to the other quad-core device offerings in the sub-continental country that are in the range of Rs 16,000 such as Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro, Zen Ultrafone 701 HD, Micromax A110Q Canvas 2 Plus and others.

Intex, who has released a dozen mid-range Smartphones in the Aqua range, said it is planning to unveil 20 more handsets in the next quarter. The company aspires to sell more than 2 million Aqua handsets in the fiscal year of 2013-2014, which will raise its revenue by 300 percent.

For more information on the world head to Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, taking place from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for best in quality accommodation, marketing and other special services for mobile world congress 2014.

Despite the recent economic downturn, the overseas luxury property market is growing, according to two companies in the high-end sector.

According to the analysis carried out by Luxuryestate.com, one of the biggest online sources of the high-end properties that list 50,000 homes in 50 countries, the interest in luxury properties has increased by an average of 2% during the last year.

From the individuals of countries like Italy and Greece, where the economic situation is extremely instable, peaks of 10% more sales enquires for high-end residences have been recorded.

Engel & Volkers, the 35-year-veteran high-end real estate agent, in its latest-press release has said that they have experienced their best-ever quarter year profit.

The Luxury Estate has identified the trends in demand of luxury properties through analysis of buyer activity on over 25,000 listings, spread across more than 30 countries, with UK leading the chart of countries with the largest demand from individuals.

Greece, Russia and Italy, which all have a massive number of high-net-worth individuals as residents, have emerged as countries with largest increases in demand after witnessing increase of 8%, 6%, and 5% respectively.

The data about most high-end residences for sale is quite interesting as in the economically stable countries; the number of luxury villas, castles and mansions has remained constant on the market or even dwindled.

In contrast, the less economically stable countries like France and Spain, have witnessed a whopping increase in luxury properties on the market during the last 12 months.

For more information on the global property market, head to MIPIM 2014 at the Palais des Festivals, Cannes. Contact EAS for the best in high quality accommodation, marketing and event management.  EAS is also a licensed travel agency and member of ACAV and ASTA. For further information, click here.

Millions of Nokia fans have their pulses racing since company’s announcement that it is going to launch “something new” on Wednesday. Though the company hasn’t reveled anything further about the announcement, a teaser image has prompted many to believe that the product set to be launched is a new Smartphone with a physical, QWERTY keyboard.



Ian Delany, the Nokia’s chief editor of Conversations blog, on Sunday took twitter to proclaim that the company will be unveiling something new on Wednesday, April 24 in morning UK time. The tweet further stated that the product announcement will be followed by Q&A session with company’s Technology Marketing Director Neil Broadley and a “special guest”, whose name has been kept in anonymity.

The teaser included in the entry displaying two curved corners of a yellow-colored device with a polycarbonate shell resembling the designs of Nokia’s Lumia range of Windows Phone Smartphone. Two keys of the assumed Smartphone are visible, one is a Z key indicating that it is a QWERTY keypad and the other is the arrow key.

A flood of rumors have hit the internet since the announcement with majority suggesting that the device would be the highly-anticipated Lumia-inspired Asha phone 501. Asha 501 is a multitouch S40 phone with 3.5 inch display. It has 1 GHz processor, five mega pixel rear and VGA front facing camera.  Some other sources have suggested that the yellow device in the teaser could be Lumia 928.

Nokia, which sold over 9.3 million Asha handsets across the globe in the last quarter of 2012, is facing strong competition from Samsung that recently released its low-cost REX series in a bid to overpower the Finland-based company.  At this stage, raising the bar for its Asha devices has become indispensible for Nokia.

The launch of the Asha handset with enhanced features at a competitive price will not only enable the company to counter Samsung and revitalize its place in the feature phone segment in Asia, but will also help it to shore itself up before Mobile World Congress 2014.

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The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday announced its 2013 Official Selections, with Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic and Drive partnership Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding Refn’s second film Only God Forgives emerging as the frontrunners for the coveted Palme d’Or.

Other films in the running for the top-price include Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur.

The 66th annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to be run from May 15-26, with Oscar winning US director Steven Spielberg, whose latest film Lincoln has been nominated for a dozen awards at the Academy Awards ceremony recently, heading the panel of jury. Actress Tautou will host the event.

Soderbergh, who hit the jackpot in 1989 for his film Sex, Lies and Videotape, has made a stunning comeback in the competition with his hotly-anticipated movie Behind the Candelabra. The movie is starred by Michael Douglas, who will be seen as swashbuckling entertainer Liberace and veiling his homosexuality publically. His gay role in the movie, set to be aired on HBO later this month, is played by Matt Damon.

Directed by James Gray and starred by Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard. Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner,The Immigrant is also expected to take the center-stage. The story of film rotates around a young girl, who snared into the life of vaudeville and burlesque.

American auteur director Alexandra Payne will present his comedy movie Nebraska, about a son and father, rambling from the Montana to Nebraska to get some money.

Another movie nominated for Palme d’Or was The violent thriller but it was vanquished by Terence Malick’sThe Tree of Life. However, the movie helped director Refn to fall in best director category.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi – who claimed Best Foreign-Language Oscar in last year for his Persian FilmA Separation, is also in the competition with his new film, The Past while contentious Japanese director Takashi Miike’s is also in contention with his crime-thriller Straw Shield.

The only British film featuring in the event is Stephen Frears’ Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight.

Last year Michael Haneke’s Amour had won Palme d’Or while Grand Prix had went to Matteo Garrone.

Films in the competition:

• Tian Zhu Ding directed by Zhangke Jia
• The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) directed by Paolo Sorrentino
  
• Like Father Like Son (Soshite Chichi Ni Naru) directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu
  
• Only God Forgives directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
  
• Borgman directed by Alex Van Warmerdam
  
• Behind the Candelabra directed by Steven Soderbergh
  
• Jimmy P (Un Indien des Plaines) directed by Arnaud Desplechin
  
• Inside Llewyn Davis directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
  
• Venus in Fur (La Venua a la Fourrure) directed by Roman Polanski
  
• Un Chateau en Italie directed by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
  
• Just 17 (Jeune & Jolie) directed by Francois Ozon
  
• Straw Shield (Wara No Tate) directed by Takashi Miike
  
• Michael Kohlhaas directed by Arnaud des Pallières
  
• The Past (Le Passé) directed by Asghar Farhadi
  
• Heli directed by Amat Escalante
  
• The Immigrant directed by James Gray
  
• Grisgris directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
  
• Nebraska directed by Alexander Payne
  
• La Vie D’Adele directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
  

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Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera, which has struggled to gain a foothold in the US cable market has bought Current TV, the left-leaning political channel owned by former US vice-president Al Gore.

Al Jazeera’s international English language channel can currently only be viewed in a few large US metropolitan areas such as New York and Washington DC, where 4.7 million homes have access to the network. The new move will give Al Jazeera greater reach boosting its penetration to around 40 million households, 40 percent of the total number with cable or satellite services.

Current TV will close to make way for a new network, Al Jazeera America, which will add five new US bureaus beyond the five it already has, as well as add a host of new journalists to its workforce. The new channel will provide national and international news for its US audience.

However, it won’t be all plane sailing for Al Jazeera, which has faced hurdles with US distributers and viewers in the past. Distributor Time Warner Cable, which would have accounted for 12 million homes, has already revealed that it will be terminating its carriage deal with Current following Al Jazeera’s purchase.

Back in 2010 the network’s managing director, Tony Burman, blamed overly aggressive hostility from the Bush administration for reluctance among cable and satellite companies to show the network.

Gore deflected criticism from many quarters about selling Current TV to an Arab buyer, saying: “Current Media was built based on a few key goals: To give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling. Al Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us.”

Founded in 2005, Current TV is expected to post $114 million in revenue in 2013, according to research firm SNL Kagan.

For more information on large network purchases such as this don’t miss out on the chance to participate in next year’s MIPCOM, held at the Palais des Festivals, Cannes, October 7-10. If you’re looking for accommodation, then book through EAS now. With our expert knowledge of Cannes we’ll find you the best hotels, rented apartments and even luxury yachts right in the heart of the city. We can also organise nightly entertainment, take care of your transportation needs and reserve you tables at the best restaurants. Click on this link to fill in our request form.

Steven Spielberg the Oscar-winning director of films such as Lincoln and Schindler’s List will be the jury president at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 15-26. The American director is no stranger to the festival first appearing there five decades ago. His first film, Sugarland Express won best screenplay at Cannes in 1974 and his international hit E.T had its world premiere at the Croisette in 1982 as the closing-night film.

Spielberg who described his selection as an “honour and a privilege,” said: “My admiration for the steadfast mission of the Festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none.”

Gilles Jacob, the festival president noted his delight that Spielberg had accepted the role saying it was not the first time the position had been offered to him. “But he’s always been shooting a film. So when this year I was told ‘E.T phone home,’ I understood and immediately replied, ‘At last!” Jacob explained.

Thierry Fremaux, the festival’s general delegate said: “Steven was able to make himself available this year to be the new jury president and when meeting him these last few weeks it has been obvious he’s excited about the job.

“Because of his many films and the many causes he holds dear, he’s year-in-year-out the equal of the very greatest Hollywood filmmakers.”

Spielberg’s latest film Lincoln was nominated for 12 awards at the Academy Awards ceremony two weeks ago. The director has previously won Oscars for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.

To experience the very best of this year’s international film releases make your way down to the Cannes Film Festival, 15-26 May. For the best in rented apartments, 5-star hotels, and even luxury yachts contact EAS, the local travel agent you can trust. We’ll make your stay as relaxing as possible, organising not only your accommodation needs, but transport and nightly entertainment too. Click on this link for more information.

European construction is not expected to grow until 2014 according to the latest figures released from Euroconstruct. The organisation made up of a group of research institutes and consulting firms also warned that the industry would not recover to 2008 levels until 2023.

As a result of continuing uncertainty in the Eurozone economy and an increasing belief that Greece will eventually be forced to leave the Euro, Euroconstruct has also had to revise down its previous forecasts. Construction forecasts were downgraded from -0.3% to -2.1% in 2012 and 1.8% to 0.4% in 2013.

Even if a predicted forecast of 1.7% growth returns in 2014, construction output across the 19 Eurozone countries will still be down 12% on 2008 levels. On average growth rates of 1.5% a year the sector will not return to 2008 levels until 2023 according to Euroconstruct. The civil engineering sector will be the biggest drag on construction activity over the next three years declining at a rate of 1.4% annually.

Looking at the construction industry’s predicted performance for the period 2012 to 2014 there is now a clear north/south divide across the European continent. Countries from the north are performing substantially better than countries in the south. Top performing Denmark and Norway are expected to see growth in excess of 2% per annum, while the weakest performers Portugal and Spain will see construction activity in deep recession of more than -3% a year.

To see if these predictions are correct and for all other real estate and construction news from around the world check out MIPIM 2013 held at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, March 12-15. For all your accommodation, transportation and entertainment needs look no further than EAS, the local travel agents you can trust. Whether you’re after rooms in some of the most centrally located hotels, your own private apartment or villa, or are looking to charter a luxury yacht for upscale entertaining, we have the answers you are looking for. Click on this link to fill in our request form.

The world’s property markets are becoming more transparent according Jones Lang LaSalle’s latest Transparency Index.

The global real estate services firm reported that almost 90 percent of the countries surveyed revealed greater transparency within their property sector over the last two years.

The index, which rates the ease and safety of buying properties across the globe, named the United States as the most transparent market. The top of the list is made up of traditional established markets with the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand making up the rest of the top five. Canada, France, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden are also named “highly transparent” markets.

But emerging markets are catching up fast with a number, including Romania, Croatia and Indonesia, placing much higher than in recent years. Mexico and Brazil were singled out as locations that have improved their performance significantly over the past two years, while Turkey was named as the country that has made the greatest strides in improving the transparency of its real estate sector.

According to the report more still needs to be done within the real estate markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Although Craig Plumb, head of Jones Lang LaSalle Middle East and North Africa, believes that big changes will be seen in the Middle East in the near future. He claimed that policymakers in the region are starting to take note that greater transparency leads to greater overseas investment and a larger number of multinational companies moving into the market. Watch this space to see how the Middle East real estate market changes over the coming year.

For more information on the transparency of the world’s real estate markets make sure you don’t miss out on the chance to mix with the movers and shakers of the global property and construction industries atMIPIM 2014. If you’re after the best hotel rooms, rented apartments and even luxury, private yachts in Cannes look to EAS for all your accommodation needs. We can also help you with restaurant bookings, nightly entertainment and will organise all your transportation requirements. Click on this link to fill in our request form.

The sale of existing homes in the US rose slightly in July, as did house prices, showing that the worst of the housing crisis may be coming to an end in the world’s largest economy.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that existing home sales rose by 2.3% from June to July, meaning that 4.47 million units were sold over the last year. The average house price nationwide was $187,300 in July, up 9.4% on prices from the same month last year.

Job creation, low borrowing costs and a small supply of properties for sale have been providing the foundations for price gains within the market. Regionally, existing home sales rose in the Northeast by 7.4%, in the Midwest by 2% and in the South by 2.3%, while sales in the West remained unchanged during July.

The length of time houses are on the market is also decreasing as NAR president Moe Veissi explained. “Correctly priced homes, regardless of price range, are selling quickly these days. A third of homes purchased in July were on the market for less than a month, and only 21% were on the market for six months or longer.” According to the NAR, house sales in 2013 are likely to reach five million.

Meanwhile rents increased nationally in July also, with 70% of the metropolitan areas surveyed experiencing rental increases from June to July. Chicago, Providence in Rhode Island and Baltimore experienced the highest increases posting double digit rises of around 12%. This is mainly as a result of continuing high foreclosure levels in these areas, which has boosted rental demand.

Nationally the number of foreclosures continued to decline, however, with 5.7 out of every 10,000 homes in the country being foreclosed. That was down from 6.5 out of every 10,000 homes in June.

For more information on the recovering US housing and property market head to MIPIM 2014 at the Palais de Festivals, Cannes. For the city’s best hotels, rented apartments and villas look no further than EAS, the local travel agent you can rely on. We have rooms in the most centrally located hotels, beach apartments with sea views, penthouses and even luxury loft apartments. We also offer yacht charters for those after something a little bit different and can organise all your transportation, dining and entertainment needs.Click on this link to fill in our request form.