INDIA – A little over a month ago we brought you word on Nokia Life Tools, a service that really struck a chord with us here on Conversations. It’s a smart tech-light solution tailored to benefit farmers and students in rural and remote communities in India and emerging markets – an information portal that uses simple SMS technology to equip locals with timely and valuable information on market prices for crops, English language learning resources, general knowledge content and more.
The Nokia Life Tools service was slated to begin as pilot scheme during the first half of 2009, debuting on the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic, but this week Nokia India has released a new sliver of mobile software called MeraNokia for the Nokia 2600 classic and the Nokia 1680 classic that offers what appears to be exactly that service.
We’re currently on the trail to connect the dots within Nokia and keen to find out more, but in the meantime read on to find out more on MeraNokia.
Putting screenshots of the Nokia Life Tools and MeraNokia side-by-side, they do look different, but the list of services as highlighted on the Nokia India site for MeraNokia are virtually identical. Is this a problem? Of course not, it’s an exciting prospect that it’s available already in another guise on other devices. Here’s the list of services that MeraNokia provides, as highlighted on the Nokia India site.
Agriculture Services A subscription-based package that gives daily updates on Market Prices for crops, Weather Information and Agri-Information & Tips.
Education Services The Education service comprises two different offerings with individual subscriptions. These are Learn English (which provides daily tips to improve English language skills) & General Knowledge.
Ringtones The Ringtones service is an On-demand service, where ringtones from two categories (Devotional & Top 10) can be downloaded for a nominal fee.
Astrology This service provides daily SMS horoscopes for the selected sun-sign, via subscription.
There’s also detailed info on how you register for the service and start using the daily SMS subscriptions to receive info on the area most relevant to you.