I just noticed that Opera Mini it has become the most downloaded free app in the iTunes app store just about everywhere.

This is very interesting and goes to show that people want variety and a choice. Imposing on them a solution without offering choice just goes contrary to nature. It is great to see that Apple approved Opera Mini for the iPhone in the first place and I must say I for one was surprised. Will be interesting to see if they allow other browsers like Chrome, Skyfire and others to enter.

Microsoft has announced their phone the KIN 1 and KIN 2. Formerly know as Project Pink this is a device that is specifically designed to “navigate your social life”.

“My phone is my lifeline. My social glue. My next of kin.”

Microsoft explains why the KIN is special in that “it is a socially aware phone, based on Windows Phone 7, and cloud service. This combination not only makes it effortless for you to capture and share your social moments, but also have them backed up for safe keeping and easy retrieval.”

Also this device connects to Microsoft’s music store Zune and shares many of the Zune’s features such as the browser. Another up side are the 5 and 8 megapixel cameras that come with the KIN 1 and KIN 2 respectively.

Up to this point it seems that finally Microsoft has gotten some features right to make the KIN a success.

Now lets talk about what the KIN can’t do. Flash isn’t supported though which is a bit of a deception. What is quite surprising and  the real clincher though is that it can’t download apps ??!! It seems that this option is blocked. Probably because in the near future Zune music store will want to be doing that. Still this is a feeble… very feeble attempt to do what Apple has done so well namely to make a closed circuit eco-system.

News is coming out that Palm has put itself on the market. According to Bloomberg, Palm enlisted the help of Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners in the quest to find a buyer. According to Reuter, Palm’s retaining of the two banks (Qatalyst focuses on technology investments) is not just to arrange a sale. Palm is apparently exploring all options, which would be things such as seeking additional capital investments or licensing the webOS operating system.

As far as licensing.. the question is who would want to license a new OS when there is Android, Symbian and WindowsMobile already out there ? Not that WebOS isn’t maybe better than those OSs but still that is a pretty crowded market place.

Apparently there are already offers from Lenovo, HTC and Cisco.

Lets wait and see…

India has emerged as the second-biggest consumer of mobile Internet after the US, according to data from 15,000 mobile websites monitored by Google. However, it accounted for only 5.9% of the 14 billion web pages seen on mobile phones in February. More than half the web pages were seen on mobile phones in the US, Google said in a report on Monday.

The numbers represent statistics of only those countries where Google has a strong mobile advertising network, and may not have captured the full extent of the Chinese market, where Google continues to be weak.
In a separate briefing, Google’s India product head, Vinay Goel, said the number of mobile internet users has grown nearly five times in the last five years. “In fact the number of new data connections added globally this year will be higher on the mobile than on the PC,” he added.

According to him, around 25 million of the 500 million or so mobile users in India have paid data accounts and another 55-65 million use operator-provided data services. Goel said the number of Internet users on PCs in India is growing at around 50% a year and will reach 100 million by the end of 2010.

The numbers also revealed that the iPhone was losing Internet share to the Android in a big way in its home market, the US. The share of iPhone’s internet traffic dropped from 55% in November to 44% in February. During the period, the share of Android phones rose from 27% to 42%.

The last four months have seen the increasing popularity of Android phones such as Motorola’s Droid, which followed the iPhone on the popularity charts in the US.