The internet messaging has outnumbered SMS messaging for the first time in its 20-year history, the research firm Informa has found.

Thanks to BlackBerry’s flagship messaging service – BlackBerry Messenger – the users of Apple and Google Smartphones can soon send messages over an internet connection free of cost and avoid the fees charged by the telephone carriers.

Informa reports that the popularity of instant messages surpassed SMS messages for the first time last year and it is likely to be doubled by the end of 2013. The report states that 19 billion instant messages were sent in 2012 compared with 17.6 billion SMS messages.

The firm predicted that the Smartphone users will send 41 billion instant messages this year and this figure will grow to 50 billion by the end of next year. On the other hand, the phone users will send only 21 billion in 2014.

SMS service, which was first added to Nokia phones in 1993, remained the standard method for sending short text messages between the phones for two decades. However, in recent years it has met challenges from free instant message applications such as Apple IMessage and WhatsApp.

The reason for increasing popularity of these instant messaging tools is that their potential is not limited to text trade between phones and they allow the users to send group messages and share videos and photos as well.

Recently, BlackBerry has announced that it is planning to expand the BBM service to Android and iOS devices this summer, a move which may prove to eliminate SMS which has already seen significant decreases in use.

The company said BBM service currently has over 60 million monthly active users and more than 10 billion instant messages are sent every day.

For more information on the world of mobile apps head to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, scheduled to be held from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for best in quality accommodation, superior service, marketing and event management.  For further information, click here.

Samsung Electronics Galaxy S4 marked its introduction into the global market with a remarkable note as the company says they have sold more than 10 million units in less than a month.

In just the first month, sales of the new Smartphone from Samsung, has surpassed all of its predecessors.


The Galaxy S III had taken 50 days to reach the 10 million mark following its release last year. Galaxy S II reached the mark in five months while Galaxy S accomplished the milestone in seven months.

Galaxy S4 is currently available in 115 countries and will be introduced to 155 countries in cooperation with 327 partners, said Korean electronics giants, who emerged as the leader of the Smartphone market last year by selling over 400 million phones.

The Research firm IDC said that the massive success of Galaxy S4 will help Samsung to sustain its position in the Smartphone market.

Android-powered Galaxy S4 has a 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display and a dual camera function which allows the user to use both front and rear cameras simultaneously.

Currently, S4 is only available in white and black color, or as Samsung likes to say White Mist and Black Forest. But soon it will be available in more colors including Brown Autumn, Blue Arctic, Purple Mirage and Red Aurora, announced Samsung.

Apple’s iPhone 5 — the main rival of Galaxy S4 — sold about five million devices in the opening weekend of its launch, but the amount disappointed investors, who were expecting much higher sales. The market analysts had predicted nearly eight-million sales for Apple iPhone 5 on the first weekend.

For more information on the world of mobile apps head to Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, scheduled to be held from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS and Book your apartments for mobile world congress 2014.

Smartphone apps help the users to save 88 minutes of their time in a day or as much as 22 days’ worth of free time per year, a latest study has found.

The study was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Click Software and was based on the responses of 2,120 U.S adult Smartphone users.

The report states that 97% of Smartphone users access at least one application frequently on their handset every day.  On average, a user saves 88 minutes of his/her time in a day by accessing the apps from their Smartphone and thereby saves 22 days of free time a year.

According to a recent report published by BusinessNewsDaily, email apps are the most frequently used apps on the Smartphone, pursed by text and social networking applications. The other commonly used apps are games, maps, weather, calendar functions and GPS.

Though email apps dominate the overall usage of Smartphone applications, people believe that they save more time using text apps than any other kind of applications. The text apps save 53 minutes a day compared with 35 minutes a day for email applications.

The Smartphone users confessed that apart from personal use, they use their device for work as well. One in five users of GPS and email apps said they use these applications primarily for work, while one in three said they use the abovementioned apps for personal and office purposes equally.

Researchers found that despite spending too much time on the Smartphones, the majority of the users don’t think that they are getting much out of them, because they are not able to utilize their devices properly.

For more information on the world of mobile apps head to Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, scheduled to be held from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for best in high quality accommodation, marketing and event management.  For further information, click here.

Your hand will be your Smartphone soon. It sounds like a dream, but the day is not far away because the researchers in Japan are reportedly developing a world-shattering technology which will allow you to keep your mobile phone on the palm of your hand.

The Masatoshi Ishikawa and colleagues at the University of Tokyo, using a special camera that unites two rotational mirrors and high-speed vision, have discovered a way to project a display of the device on your palm, or any other surface, so one can remotely operate it at office or home.

According to Ishikawa, with this technology, the users won’t need to carry a Smartphone or depend upon computer or a keyboard to use the phone and they will be able make a calls without anything.

Ishikawa said the system will have the power to detect the movements of 3D objects every two milliseconds.

A report presented by ABC news says the program tracks the moving object with the help of high-speed vision, allowing users to walk with the image of their mobile phone on their palm.

The computer system beams ultrasonic wave emitters to create the reflection of the mobile phone on the palm and users have the sensation that the keyboard is pressing against their skin.

Ishikawa, who has developed a series of systems using high-speed vision technology, said the palm phone will be become a reality in next two to three years.

Ishikawa’s latest accomplishment was the launch of a high-speed robotic hand last year.

For more information on the use of mobile internet worldwide head down to the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2014. For the best hotels, Serviced apartments for upcoming MWC14 in Barcelona and other accommodation choices contact EAS, your local travel agents. With our expert knowledge and experience we’ll make sure you have an unforgettable stay. And we’ll even organise your transportation and nightly entertainment too. 

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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This year’s Mobile World Congress proved to be a huge success for both HTC and Samsung who went home with two of the event’s top awards.

The HTC One picked up the Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at the 18th Annual Global Mobile Awards held last week at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona.

The Taiwanese smartphone maker beat off competition from the likes of the Sony Xperia Z, LG Optimus G Pro, Nokia 105 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0. Benjamin Ho, chief marketing officer for HTC, said: “We are delighted by the reactions from both consumers and the industry to the new HTC One. It is a device that has been years in the making and is one of which we are incredibly proud.”

Meanwhile the Galaxy S III was named the best smartphone of 2012 beating its main rival the iPhone 5 along with others including Nokia’s Lumia 920 and HTC’s Droid DNA.

It was a disappointing award ceremony for Apple as the American firm also lost out in the Best Tablet category to Google’s Nexus 7.

Other winners on the day included Samsung’s Galaxy Camera, which won Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device, Facebook, which took home Best Mobile App for Consumers, and Evernote, which picked up the award for Best Mobile App for Enterprise.

Samsung also picked up the coveted Device Manufacturer of the Year award in addition to winning the Best Mobile Infrastructure and Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology.

To see first hand who wins at next year’s Mobile World Congress book your accommodation for 2014’s event now with EAS. We’ll find you the best hotels and rented apartments right in the heart of the city. Or if you prefer, why not try one of our luxury yachts – the choice is yours. Just click on this link to fill in our request form.

Mobile owners are increasingly using their smartphones to access the internet in preference of traditional PCs and laptops according to a new survey carried out by Prosper Mobile Insights.

The company, which looked into the internet habits of adults from across the world, found that seven out of ten smartphone users complete at least one web-based activity on their phone in favour of a PC or laptop, regardless of whether they are on the move or at home.

More than half of respondents (51.1%) admitted to checking their emails using only a mobile device, while 45.3% completed mobile-only web searches and 42.3% used only their phone to connect to Facebook.

All this means that today’s leading brands have an increasing need to embrace mobile advertising. But as the survey shows, they need to be aware of which ads their customers will be most receptive to. Around 1 in 10 people said they pay regular attention to sponsored stories or links, ads that play before or during a video, and video ads in general.

Video ads are the most popular with 42.9% of respondents saying they are more likely to grab their attention than other forms of advertising. The most successful video ads are ones you cannot click away from, with 30.4% of people confirming that they pay more attention to this video format.

The survey made clear that marketers should make sure that ads are delivered to the right audience. 33.5% of people said they are more likely to pay attention if the ad is relevant, 24.2% claimed they are looking for informative ads and 23.9% are more likely to be responsive to eye-catching advertising.

The world of mobile advertising is still in its infancy and there are limitless opportunities for marketers to promote their brands to a global audience. For all the latest news on how to benefit from mobile marketing head down to the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona’s Fira Gran Via, 25-28 February. If you’re after accommodation then look no further than EAS, your friendly local travel agents. We’ll find you the best hotels and rented apartments right in the heart of Barcelona. Or if you prefer, why not try one of our luxury yachts – the choice is yours. We’ll also organise all your transportation needs and book you into the city’s best restaurants. Just click on this link to fill in our request form.

The UK is now the world leader when it comes to mobile web use according to a new report by the country’s media regulator Ofcom. Brits now watch more television online, spend more on internet shopping and use tablets to access the web more than any other population.

The report, which compared data from 17 of the world’s leading economies, showed the UK leapfrogging Japan at the top of the list thanks to an obsession with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online music services. The amount of data Brits download per month on tablets and mobiles now stands at 424 megabytes, more than 60 percent up on a year ago. In total, 16 percent of all website traffic in the UK comes from mobile devices.

“Our research reveals that the UK leads the way in using the internet on the move. Increasingly, it’s mobile devices like smartphones and tablets that are driving this growing demand for data – and in the UK it seems to be social networking sites that are behind this in particular,” stated Ofcom’s director of research James Thickett.

British 18-24-year-olds are the world’s top mobile social networkers with 62 percent accessing their profiles from smartphones and tablets, a larger proportion than any other country surveyed.

Internet shopping in the UK also topped the charts with consumers now spending an average of £1,083 online, almost £250 more per person than second placed Australia. A total of 23 percent of Brits have visited a retail website on their mobile phones, the highest percentage in Europe.

According to Ofcom a cultural habit of catalogue shopping, high credit card take-up and the early arrival in the UK of internet giants such as Amazon and eBay are reasons behind the high level of internet shopping in the country.

The Ofcom report, known as the International Communications Market Report, is an annual survey, which compares data across 17 countries including the UK, France, Germany, Spain, USA, Italy, Australia, Japan, Brazil and China.

For more information on the use of mobile internet worldwide head down to the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2013, February 25-28 at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona. For the best hotels, rented apartments and other accommodation choices contact EAS, your local travel agents. With our expert knowledge and experience we’ll make sure you have an unforgettable stay. And we’ll even organise your transportation and nightly entertainment too. Click on this link to fill in our request form.