Am tired - Everyday there is an article on every techblog, speculating on the arrival of the tablet from Apple.
Give it a rest guys, iots just another couple of days, let it rest.
am not so sure i can afford to read another speculative article on that.
my daily dose of techblog reading is so damn limited to this crap now... gimme something new.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
After the iPhone, came the gPhone.
Ok. It’s the Google phone. A phone that can be spoken in the same breath as the Jesus Phone(yeah, the iPhone). Atleast, that’s the perspective. So what makes this a deal game changer?
Lets a closer look.
It has a 3.7 inch OMLED Capacitive Display. This brighter, more vibrant screen that consumes about 30% lesser power than a similar standard LCD Screen. Not something we have not seen before.
Snapdragon Processor - First on an Android device, running at 1Ghz.
Decent Camera - the standard 5MP, with a flash.
OS - Anroid 2.1: barely any substantial improvements over the previous iterations. This would anyway make its way into future devices, so that doesn't cut it.
Now, what is it that is so different about the Nexus One (N1) that makes it so "media friendly" ?
The Google Brand ? Perhaps…
The super-fast processor? Maybe.. But we have seen that before.
Android 2.1 ? Not really, there are no major improvements over the Droid's 2.0.1 (saving Voice Commands).
What is interesting is that this marks Google's entry into Retail.
Yeah, Google now is officially a online retailer - this means you can start buying "Google" gadgets from their online store. Andy Rubin claims that this is one of the many phones that you would be able to buy from the" Google Mobile Store" - where Google would collaborate with multiple Mobile Manufacturer's and Service providers - and provide the customer a single front to choose his device AND his service provider thereby essentially ushering a new business model for Cellphone sales in the United States.
In places like India, the customer walks into "Mobile Stores" buys a phone and pops in SIM. Google is merely taking this to the web - an eStore, if you may.
Essentially, my point is that the innovation that Google has announced is not the really the phone, but the nexus that Google would create in its new market place - a Global market place. The Nexus One is just the first phone to be sold from there - if it were HTC branded, it would probably not get the hype that Google can generate. After all, the HTC Passion was always in the HTC roadmap, no one was so obsessed by it until it took its new name - GooglePhone.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Watched a Wednesday on a Saturday, review on a Sunday
Now... where do i begin?
A Wednesday is perhaps the only movie that i know that has got a 5 Star rating from TOI.
Before we getting into spitting hairs about whether or not it deserved it, i must - whole heartedly, admit that it is one of the best indian movies that i have seen in a long while - since perhaps Being Cyrus ( another movie that was well made ). Well, now that you have a fair understanding of the movies that i like, let me proceed.
I am not a movie reviewer -never do that, unless i feel that urge. A wednesday urges me to - the movie is compelling, fast - does not meander, keeps the audience focused and guessing - all the while dropping little hints to throw you off track. The editing is near perfect, story telling - masterful, cast - brilliant. Nassuridin Shah is great actor. No one needs my saying to acknowledge that - but what makes him so brilliant is not just his acting - but his rendering of the script. His voice, diction and delivery is so brilliantly immpeccable that it brings back fond memories of Agent Smith and V ( both given by Hugo Weaving). His voice, so non chalant, yet profoundly emotional.
The movie's story and theme, by itself, is not something new or innovative - its something that we all talk about every other day, while in a crowded train or over dinner - frantically dismissing the situation as we project ourselves to powerlesss victims against the pawns of Terrorism.
Anyway, bottomline - watch the movie. Buy the DVD.
imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280558/
my rating: 8.5/10
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The $1000 iPhone
After much fanfare, and internet leaked secrecy, the iPhone's India launch is scheduled. The 22nd August schedule was pretty clear - that word had to come from Apple; but the tight lipped secrecy that shrouded the price was indeed the royal piss-off.
After all the ado - here we have it - INR 31,000 for the 8GB iPhone and 37,000 for the 16GB variant. Yes, that is almost $800 and $950 respectively, which jauntily brings us to the topic of this post - the $1000 iPhone !
Lets just look at this for a moment - the product in hand.
IPhone 3G, the second generation iPhone from Apple thats touted to run on the much faster 3G network. " Twice the Speed and half the Price" - that was the USP that Apple ( and AT&T) used for the iPhone. Fast Forward to India-> The iPhone 3G is pretty much as good as the iPhone 2G because the 3G network is prety much non-existant in India. we are still debating on HOW to sell the spectrum, let alone actually sell it. These operators who do not have ANY 3G spectrum are selling a premium 3G phone to potential buyers dangling the 3G carrot ( which even they do not have). Am not so much suggesting that they are trying to sell a service that they do not have, but yeah... that close enough. To add insult to injury, this prohibitive price is for a phone that is carrier locked with a contract.
AT&T sells the iPhone for $200 to select customers and $500 to some others. Now this is a CONTRACT locked phone - you subscribe to a $30 voice plan with a $40 DataPlan - so you spend $70 on your subscription. What you get in return is unlimited Data transfer ( at 3G speeds) and access to all AT&T WiFi hotspots, excluding some free minutes or talktime and some various text messages etc. So, for a cheap iPhone, you get tied to a decent plan, which lets you use the phone reasonably. O2 (UK) also has pretty similar plans, some cheaper.
What do we get here in India ? The Service providers decide to mark up their price to $800 ( 4 TIMES ) and sell it. What about a plan? Since they cannot provide any 3G, what plan? What Data? the EDGE network, where available is horrendous , simply cannot do justice to any portable internet browsing device. But still, our operators decide to lock to phone to themselves, and to force a contract to poor customer ( who is never of any concern) to choose any of the available 2G plans to suffer with. Never mind that the customer( read LOSER) decides to pay close to $1000 for a phone (whose NON contract version is pegged at $600 by AT&T), he still has to shell out a few hundred rupees more to google, and some more few hundred if he intends to use half the features on the phone because half of them dont have an unlimited data plan !
Where does that leave us - the HTC Dream ( based on google's amazing Anderoid) or the Nokia N96 ( exhorbitantly priced but justified - a 5mp cam, stereo bluetooth etc etc) ? Or to get the very same iphone from my distant cousin in the US who'd gladly get me one and have it unloacked and jailbroken? There are options.
I, for one, was a self confessed Apple Fan boy who had refused to buy the phone because i wanted to buy it legally, with the waruntee etc. But if they ( Apple, Airtel and Vodaphone) do not want me to buy it from them, i am not left with much of a choice.
After all the ado - here we have it - INR 31,000 for the 8GB iPhone and 37,000 for the 16GB variant. Yes, that is almost $800 and $950 respectively, which jauntily brings us to the topic of this post - the $1000 iPhone !
Lets just look at this for a moment - the product in hand.
IPhone 3G, the second generation iPhone from Apple thats touted to run on the much faster 3G network. " Twice the Speed and half the Price" - that was the USP that Apple ( and AT&T) used for the iPhone. Fast Forward to India-> The iPhone 3G is pretty much as good as the iPhone 2G because the 3G network is prety much non-existant in India. we are still debating on HOW to sell the spectrum, let alone actually sell it. These operators who do not have ANY 3G spectrum are selling a premium 3G phone to potential buyers dangling the 3G carrot ( which even they do not have). Am not so much suggesting that they are trying to sell a service that they do not have, but yeah... that close enough. To add insult to injury, this prohibitive price is for a phone that is carrier locked with a contract.
AT&T sells the iPhone for $200 to select customers and $500 to some others. Now this is a CONTRACT locked phone - you subscribe to a $30 voice plan with a $40 DataPlan - so you spend $70 on your subscription. What you get in return is unlimited Data transfer ( at 3G speeds) and access to all AT&T WiFi hotspots, excluding some free minutes or talktime and some various text messages etc. So, for a cheap iPhone, you get tied to a decent plan, which lets you use the phone reasonably. O2 (UK) also has pretty similar plans, some cheaper.
What do we get here in India ? The Service providers decide to mark up their price to $800 ( 4 TIMES ) and sell it. What about a plan? Since they cannot provide any 3G, what plan? What Data? the EDGE network, where available is horrendous , simply cannot do justice to any portable internet browsing device. But still, our operators decide to lock to phone to themselves, and to force a contract to poor customer ( who is never of any concern) to choose any of the available 2G plans to suffer with. Never mind that the customer( read LOSER) decides to pay close to $1000 for a phone (whose NON contract version is pegged at $600 by AT&T), he still has to shell out a few hundred rupees more to google, and some more few hundred if he intends to use half the features on the phone because half of them dont have an unlimited data plan !
Where does that leave us - the HTC Dream ( based on google's amazing Anderoid) or the Nokia N96 ( exhorbitantly priced but justified - a 5mp cam, stereo bluetooth etc etc) ? Or to get the very same iphone from my distant cousin in the US who'd gladly get me one and have it unloacked and jailbroken? There are options.
I, for one, was a self confessed Apple Fan boy who had refused to buy the phone because i wanted to buy it legally, with the waruntee etc. But if they ( Apple, Airtel and Vodaphone) do not want me to buy it from them, i am not left with much of a choice.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
cyberWars, economic wars, shooting wars
Russia attacked Georgia.
Though it did not exactly make the same kind of startling headlines material as the Coalition Forces in Iraq ( read: American invasion of Eye-rak ), it was indeed surprising. Anyway, my primary point of interest is not the war itself ( not much of a war, i must add) but the modus operandi.
According to one NYT Article ( link i am unable to find), the Georgia was under a cyber attack - an allout cyber attack against a nation. This is the first time that a war has been raged simultaneously - in both virtual and real worlds. Internet sources claim that the attacks on Georgia's internet infrastructure was staged and planned - starting as early as july 20th. Targets included government sites ( like President Mikheil Saakashvili's website, which was hacked and pictures comparing him to Hitler posted) which became victims to the now popular DOS and DDOS ( Denial of Service & Distributed Denial of Service): where the servers are bombared with millions of useless data and overloaded to shutdown.
Although the Russian Government claim that they have nothing to do with this - rumors generally point fingers to the RBN - the Russian Business Network, a St.Petersberg based gang known for such activites.
Whats interesting here is lets look at it from a different perspective. Lets say another country, a tech saavy nation, like Israel, India or Japan, was attacked by say the United States or the UK. The war would naturally take a two pronged approach - economic sanctions coupled with carpet bombs. thats the standard routine in modern warfare. But if the reverse were to happen? if Israel, india or japan wanted to wage a war against the USA or the UK, economic sanctions would be meaningless unless these countries provided something vital ( like back gold). An ideal approach would be to hack into their networks ( like the hollywood coined "Firesail" for Die Hard 4). with the internet not working, and the rest of the networks open to an attack - nations like UK, USA would cripple. utilities like power, banking, communications are inseparable coupled to the internet. The second wave of actual warefare can follow this.
Is this what Georgia was supposed to be? to see the impact of crippling a nation's internet services? for georgia, it did not amount to much, except for some lack of access to some government sites (Georgia ranks 74th out of 234 nations in terms of Internet addresses) . But for a nation more dependant on the Internet, it would indeed be a crippling blow.
A simple cost effective solution to wreck havoc.
Your thoughts?
Though it did not exactly make the same kind of startling headlines material as the Coalition Forces in Iraq ( read: American invasion of Eye-rak ), it was indeed surprising. Anyway, my primary point of interest is not the war itself ( not much of a war, i must add) but the modus operandi.
According to one NYT Article ( link i am unable to find), the Georgia was under a cyber attack - an allout cyber attack against a nation. This is the first time that a war has been raged simultaneously - in both virtual and real worlds. Internet sources claim that the attacks on Georgia's internet infrastructure was staged and planned - starting as early as july 20th. Targets included government sites ( like President Mikheil Saakashvili's website, which was hacked and pictures comparing him to Hitler posted) which became victims to the now popular DOS and DDOS ( Denial of Service & Distributed Denial of Service): where the servers are bombared with millions of useless data and overloaded to shutdown.
Although the Russian Government claim that they have nothing to do with this - rumors generally point fingers to the RBN - the Russian Business Network, a St.Petersberg based gang known for such activites.
Whats interesting here is lets look at it from a different perspective. Lets say another country, a tech saavy nation, like Israel, India or Japan, was attacked by say the United States or the UK. The war would naturally take a two pronged approach - economic sanctions coupled with carpet bombs. thats the standard routine in modern warfare. But if the reverse were to happen? if Israel, india or japan wanted to wage a war against the USA or the UK, economic sanctions would be meaningless unless these countries provided something vital ( like back gold). An ideal approach would be to hack into their networks ( like the hollywood coined "Firesail" for Die Hard 4). with the internet not working, and the rest of the networks open to an attack - nations like UK, USA would cripple. utilities like power, banking, communications are inseparable coupled to the internet. The second wave of actual warefare can follow this.
Is this what Georgia was supposed to be? to see the impact of crippling a nation's internet services? for georgia, it did not amount to much, except for some lack of access to some government sites (Georgia ranks 74th out of 234 nations in terms of Internet addresses) . But for a nation more dependant on the Internet, it would indeed be a crippling blow.
A simple cost effective solution to wreck havoc.
Your thoughts?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
India's First Olympic Gold since 1980
i was born in 1984.
http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/sports/headlines/shooting/n214528114.shtml
This marks India's first Olympic Gold in 28 years. Thanks to Abhinav Bindra. For a nation of over ONE BILLION people, we have churned out far less olympians than a country with a fraction of our "resources", like say Australia. But like Chetan Bagat had spoken of the "Bradbury Principle" ( Bindra's gold was not like this though ); we need a wake up call to bring something like sports to national attention, we need to understand that sports means more than just Cricket. its more than just Hockey too.
but more on that later... @ work now.
PS : see the video on YouTube
http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/sports/headlines/shooting/n214528114.shtml
This marks India's first Olympic Gold in 28 years. Thanks to Abhinav Bindra. For a nation of over ONE BILLION people, we have churned out far less olympians than a country with a fraction of our "resources", like say Australia. But like Chetan Bagat had spoken of the "Bradbury Principle" ( Bindra's gold was not like this though ); we need a wake up call to bring something like sports to national attention, we need to understand that sports means more than just Cricket. its more than just Hockey too.
but more on that later... @ work now.
PS : see the video on YouTube
Friday, August 8, 2008
Even if God can, will God Want to?
L & G,
I came across two news articles that made me smile - not because its funny, but its sense of irony did amuse me. Even god cannot save this country: SC and SC directs flak at errant cops, babus both appeared on the same day on MSN. Independence day is around the corner and spirits of Nationalism ( with a Capital N) and PATRIOTISM ( all CAPS) is pretty high and doing the rounds on email, straw flags will soon be around too.
now, the first article - Even god cannot save this country: SC really did crack me up. let me quote -
The second article is something that i can relate to - and almost every other denizen can. The sheer feeling of the fact that there is no one to help you when you are in trouble; in the world's largest democracy, the very government you elected is not there to stand by you; the system that you are presented with is so convoluted that fixing it would mean getting rid of it.
Right from a simple stolen cell Phone to some gang rape, the Indian Policeman has an image - of harrassing the people.
Am not gonna vent on corruption and its tentacles, but thats another story.
I came across two news articles that made me smile - not because its funny, but its sense of irony did amuse me. Even god cannot save this country: SC and SC directs flak at errant cops, babus both appeared on the same day on MSN. Independence day is around the corner and spirits of Nationalism ( with a Capital N) and PATRIOTISM ( all CAPS) is pretty high and doing the rounds on email, straw flags will soon be around too.
now, the first article - Even god cannot save this country: SC really did crack me up. let me quote -
"You complain about judicial activism when you are in power. When you are not in power you come to us for remedy," the bench remarked.now, what do you say when a nation comes down to this plight ? with the apex court fuming that even god cannot save this country, i think it has come to the point where we have to enforce a severe law that prevents people with any criminial record, ANY, from holding any position in the government. Now, this would have been a difficult proposition in the early years of post independence, considering that most of our freedom fighters spent a major chunk of their time in prison. Today, most of our politicians NEED to spend a considerable amount of their remaining wretched lifes in prison ! Like someone had said, there is a dearth for good Statemen in India; all we have are politicians. Dont take this personally, am not very politically inclined ( just Nationally) but its about time the Judicial powers were truely isolated from the legislative and not just in theory.
The second article is something that i can relate to - and almost every other denizen can. The sheer feeling of the fact that there is no one to help you when you are in trouble; in the world's largest democracy, the very government you elected is not there to stand by you; the system that you are presented with is so convoluted that fixing it would mean getting rid of it.
Right from a simple stolen cell Phone to some gang rape, the Indian Policeman has an image - of harrassing the people.
Am not gonna vent on corruption and its tentacles, but thats another story.
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