Steve Jobs chickened out??

The reviews of the iPhone from the hand picked reporters is out a couple of days ago and the verdict is Unanimous.
Apple iPhone is a ground breaking product and is fun to use. But ATT sucks.

I can't help but wonder how similar all these reviews sounded, right from the keyboard and the testing for scratches. As if they got step by step instructions on how to test this product. In particular each of these guys said the same thing about the keyboard, that u'd get used to key less keyboard. hmmm, can't imagine if any of these reviewers would patiently test a product for 5 days to get used to in order to give a positive feedback on the keyboard. May be a call from Jobs himself helps. yes he did spoke personally to each of the reviewers. That shows the marketing genius of Steve Jobs.

But even after all these every one is disappointed with ATT service. We are told that Jobs even considered taking the MVNO route like Helio. But he seems to have chickened out.

If he wanted to give out the best ever product to the customer, he could have opted for 3G and go for an MVNO and could have controlled the entire eco system, just like he does with itunes - ipod, mac os x - ilife - .mac. As far as availability of edge in more places than the current 3G service like HSPDA/ EVDO, they are covered in the places that matter, that is most the cities across the US where the bulk of the iPod market and also the smartphone market is. And having 3G doesn't mean that the phone do not work in the non coverage area. He seems to have gone for the ATT option and EDGE for two reasons, not daring to go all alone for the afraid of losing? And for better battery life and the device size?? (Then why do you put up charts comparing the talk time and size of an EDGE phone with 3G counterparts). Also, he must be getting a lot of subsidies from ATT to control the price to $599.

I think he could have gone all alone and could have succeeded to the same extent. Who is buying iPhone for features anyways? He should probably comeup with a UMPC on the same platform with GPS and other extra features like GPS sans phone.

Apple and MS

Hmmmm.... i like apple products... but am not a great fan. I particularly don't like the smugness of the apple fanboys. I do have a Powerbook which I like very much. I have ipod shuffle which I repent buying. I don't think Mac OS X is a better OS than Windows XP or Windows Vista. Infact I like the bright colors and the ease of use of Windows and all the software that is available on windows. The only thing I miss in windows is the 'expose' which can be set up using 3rd party softwares. But there are a whole lot of features I miss when I am using a Mac. I think what makes Mac OS X seem better is the combination of Mac OS X and well designed hardware. In built webcam, well thought out placement of keys on the key board, back lighting of the keyboard, two finger scrolling on the mouse pad, the sleek power cord and the built in mike and speakers and such. Security is a non issue for me, because I know what I am doing.

I think Microsoft should work more closely with their hardware partners to bring out the best of the Windows OS. There are Sony Vaios and Lenovo thinkpads, but I don't think they are doing a good job in Marketing their products as well as Apple does.
I know how it works when you have a partner channel selling your product. Its not very easy. The image in the public is that Macs are cool, easy and fun to use and that Windows is boring. Which is completely ridiculous and false. Mac is not much just as an OS, but with the Apple hardware it has one of the best computer line up out there. And they only have one line up to market and can pump millions into that small line up for marketing.

Microsoft should partner with a partner to pitch some windows pc (say vaio) directly against the Macs and market aggressively. they cannot pretend that they are not affected by the Apple phenomenon thats happening. It may be too late if they wait longer.

Other Web Badges/ Widgets

I was trying to aggreagate all the badges from Yahoo! at one place and found other websites that let you create badges and host on your blog. A couple of them here -

A tool that can convert your blog in to a badge that can be hosted on your other sites or on your friends sites
http://docs.widgetbox.com/developers/blidget/

NBA player widgets
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/kobe_bryant/index.html#widget

Digg
http://digg.com/add-digg

Yahoo badges/ web widgets

I love Yahoo!
I have come across what they call 'badge' for some of their services. You can add them to your blog to publish what you've been upto on their services. This didn't catch up with the masses much, but I think they are pretty sleek and Yahoo should have a location where you can find all Yahoo badges.

I am posting few of them here, may be others can help me find if they are other badges.

Yahoo Finance Badges
http://finance.yahoo.com/badges

Yahoo Site Explorer (not too fancy)
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/badge

Yahoo My Web, for saved pages badge or tag cloud badge.
http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/badge

Flickr Badge
http://www.flickr.com/badge.gne

Yahoo Answers badges
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/badge_selector

Yahoo Travel, Trip Planner badge
http://travel.yahoo.com/trip?action=badge

Yahoo News Photos badge
http://news.yahoo.com/badge/wizard/photo

Yahoo Babelfish to translate the webpage in to chosen language
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/free_trans_service

Yahoo Upcoming.org badge
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/badge/

It has to happen someday

A joost set top box, sitting in your living room next to your TV removing the hassle of connecting via a PC and a TV tuner. I guess there would be multiple manufacturers jumping on to the wagon, just like Skype phones. But I would love something from the Joost guys them selves with ultra sleek design and a fun controller.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/18/joost-evaluating-its-hardware-options/

Sure, there would be more devices with other online options other than Joost that would be popping up and I see a new market for set top boxes along side the xbox 360, wii, TiVo by next Christmas. And I hope one of them will hit the Bulls Eye, like Wii did, to make it to every living room and it would be from a player, who control the software and hardware. (Apple TV 2??)

Damn, they beat me to it!

Or sort of....
I've been writing about the broadband connected set top boxes taking over the living room.
There is a huge non gaming market that doesn't need all the power of PS3 or Xbox360, but need a solution to get content to the TV directly from the Internet without having to connect to another PC (like Apple TV/ Windows Media Center).

This Archos TV plus does exactly the same, a set top box connected to the TV that can download content directly and even browse the web and has a QWERTY remote controller.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/15/archos-tv-plus-details-hands-on/
Exactly what I prescribed. But the difference is where they can get the content from, just the Archos store, which would not help them gain any market.

I think, there is a Huge (with a capital H) market if they could tie up with Joost/ Opera and a couple of other big players to get more traction in the market.

Come on VJ, get the iceCUBE out of the door.

A huge WTF??

Eric Schmidt with Financial Times -

“We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation."
“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”
“We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”

Hold ON!!!

Okay!! let's assume that Google is a great company and the trio leading the Google now are the greatest philanthropists that the world has ever produced and are on a mission to make the world a better place to live in. But what if?? they are not?? What about those who succeed, what about the hordes of employees we trust our information with?? what about the future laws, patriot act anyone? what about privacy? what about the meaning and purpose of life? getting advice from some bot?? Ridiculously Ridiculous.

Let us for a second, imagine those words coming out of Steve Ballmer's mouth.
Hell's Frozen!!!!
How much should one trust a Corporation?

Approving of everything Google (or anyone who wants to get into your mind) does just based on love and trust is just like giving Bush' the mandate to go to Iraq. Only with worse results.

American Democracy

Here in America, people take pride in their democracy and freedom. I find US a great place to live in. I am single healthy guy with a decent job, with not many responsibilities and earning enough money to live well.

But when I try to look deeper, I understand there are many problems. Lack of sound education system for the kids, failing social security and health care, an economy that is going down, a foreign policy that makes more enemies every day and arrogant politicians who stick to populist politics rather than doing a reality check.

What is more appalling more than any of this is public inaction. 70% of the nation do not believe in Iraq war any more, but they are doing nothing to end it. US spends more money on defense and military than rest of the world combined. The budget on military is more than the entire economies of countries with a billion citizens. I hear politicians say, there is a cost for freedom, but how much? When security is a bigger concern than education and health care and quality of life, it is a clear indication that there is some thing is wrong. We are paying taxes through the nose around 35% of what we earn, then sales tax of 8% on everything we buy and many more.
And its a big disappointment looking at how this money is being transferred to the big companies.

But where is the reaction, why don' t people take to streets. Why do they just leave it to the politicians to work it out. How does these opinion polls help, if the president can ignore them like its just some noise. Democracy doesn't just come into picture, when there is an election. Look at the Mexicans, in spite of having no legal ground for their cause, they are brave and strong enough to march in millions on the street and initiated this whole debate. What are the natives doing to get us out of Iraq? Get more money to health care, decrease the war spending. You spend a trillion on homeland security and have a wide open border on the south and a free for all shipping yards. US cannot even control the drugs with in its own borders.

USA is stinking rich when compared to other countries and pay more taxes to the government than any one else. Why do they need to settle for less quality in life. If US cannot afford it, no one can. What is the use of democracy, when the people cannot dictate the policies.

Bring in the JOY!!

I recently bought a camcorder for my sis, a Panasonic gs85. And it has got this joystick as one of the input devices on the camera. And I realised what an amazing input device joystick would make for many many devices. I'm not a gamer, so I didn't use a joystick or any similar input devices much before using this camcorder, so this is revealing to me. No need to use the touch screen, just use the joystick to go up and down the menus.

Take my favourite, television remotes as an example, there are separate buttons for channel up and channel down, page up and page down, volume up and volume down resulting in a device every one hates. Replacing it with joystick doesn't need any drastic technology changes, it should still be able to work with the same RF and IR technologies that remotes use now.

Or take any mobile devices, be it mp3 players or phones or pdas or GPS devices or digital cameras or UMPCs, most of the browsing we do on the menus are these same controls, that is up down, left and right and page down. How easy it would be to browse your menus with a joy stick. You don't even need to worry about technology as it is on device and you can keep what ever you want on these devices.

I know quite a few devices already have joystick. But still the percentage is very minimal, when compared to the number pad. I can think of many amazing things that you can do with out lifting your finger if you have the right interface. So, spread the joy.

Xbox 360 and TiVo

In line with my previous posts on the future of home PCs and 'set top boxes with broadband connections' being the future of the living room, looks like TiVo and Xbox 360 would be the major competitors in the near future to occupy that space. For one, they are already there in the living room and they both are connected to the Internet.

There is no stopping Xbox360, with all their live community and likely netflix, zune, iptv integration and a easy to use controller with a chatpad and of course with the MS Marketing Muscle. Once they have the foot in the door, everyone knows what they are capable of doing. Xbox 360 already has a huge 'paying' community and Xbox Live Marketplace is offering more and more content. Xbox platform could easily become the Windows of the living room. As Xbox system is a closed system with no third party software, it is more easy to control and avaoid security issues like in Windows. And for the same reason, it could emulate the success of iPod/iTunes closed environment by controlling everything in the ecosystem, but only in a larger scale. There are already 15 million Xbox 360s out there, but primarily as gaming system. I guess at some point, they should release a less expensive, non gaming xbox system with IPTV and other entertainment services.

TiVo is more conventional box in the lines of VCRs and the DVD players of the old times with familiar remote controls and a bunch of extremely useful features that integrate with the current living room eco system, i.e broadcast TV. With the new marketing push, they might capture a significant market with the non gaming crowd. But still needs more killer features to have a permanant place in the living room. And the push from the dishtvs and comcasts is always there for their 5bucks. TiVos already have this unique feature, i.e DVR which Xbox cannot do yet without a Windows Media Center PC in the network. But any feature that needs an additional hardware is as good as nothing. TiVo is low in sound and power and doesn't generate as much heat as Xbox. TiVo is already integrated with Amazon Unbox. So it has the biggest store backing the download service. TiVo is inexpensive with all the subsidies. TiVo to Go is another killer feature, get all the recorded content on to your laptops, ipod and other PMPs. You can already share your content with other TiVo users.

Wii is also an interesting contender with the Opera web browser integrated and allow you to browse internet unlike XBox360 and TiVo. Apple TV, doesn't seem to have much applications and is not good enough to be a mass market phenomenon. PS3 is too expensive and is overrun with Xbox Marketplace. Slingbox is a feature in the future settop boxes rather than a separate gadget. I really dread to see an application like Yahoo! Go on the TV.

And then there is my ICECUBE ;)

Future of Television?

Like I mentioned in an earlier post here, I think the days of home PC are numbered. And they are going to live the life of secondary citizens. And the set top boxes are going to rule the home.
I see the evolution of the set top boxes, just like mobile phones.

There are a number of device manufacturers like nokia and motorola, a number of service providers like Verizon, AT and T and Sprint, a number of platforms like Linux, Windows, Symbian etc.. there are device/OS combo like Palm with its own Palm OS, Nokia with Internet tablet OS, iPhone with Mac OS and Blackberry etc... But the technology is either CDMA or GSM.

So the delivery of content to the living rooms would be cable technology, satellite and in addition to that would be delivery over Internet. I am not familiar with the technology behind satellite and regular cable technology like comcast and the flexibility those platforms have, but content delivery that offers interactivity like Internet would be the future.

It's not a one way traffic anymore. Broadcasting and even on demand can only be a part of the equation. The future would be about incorporating the interactivity that Internet brings to the PCs to the content on TVs. No more browsing for the content being broadcast, not even scheduling the TiVo to record the programming to watch it later, Not even a catalog of movies and shows available on demand.
This will simply not do.

Its about making the Content available anytime. Want to watch the episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, where Rachels finds out that Ross loves her. No waiting for the network or cable channels to broadcast, no searching the DVD collection from the closet, No rushing to the DVD store to rent or buy the entire DVD collection. You should be able o do a simple search on the TV and play it. Nothing else will do. All content everywhere. No waiting for the downloading.

Want to watch the show with an old friend from school, no need to get on the aeroplane. Just kick up the messenger widget on the TV and buzz him. Synchronize your show and chat over the web cam while watching your favourite episode. From your couch.

Are you watching the Television alone and are excited about the impression Jon Stewart made on Bush and want to share your feelings with every one, just rate it 5 stars by sitting back on the couch and write up your feelings to the blog or a discussion board. Is it not enough, just select the start and end of the 2 min part of the 20 minute show and send it over to your friend in the east coast. From your couch.

Wait! I've just got an email to my Yahoo Mail, open it up and read it through. From your couch!

Just saw the advertisement about the new Bimmer in the middle of the episode and want to see the specs of the ultimate driving machine? Boom, push a button and go right on the product page of the new BMW Z8. Right from your couch.

You get the idea, the power of the Internet over the TV. Ability to read yesterdays news today. Ability to read the search over the Internet for an article you read a few months ago. Bookmarking your favorite websites and vi sting them again everyday. Getting alerts when some one update a blog. Get this power on to the TV content.

No Windows Media Center extensions like in XBox360 and No Apple TV that can just play the content from your other PC. No TiVo that can only play the content you recorded yesterday.

The future is for the set top boxes with 'innovative' and 'light weight' and 'ridiculously easy to use interface' and 'silent' platforms with simple and more powerful controllers (remotes are so last century) that deliver HD content with Internet interactivity. (and access to the user activity for googles and yahoos to sell ads on;) There will be competing hardware devices, with competing OS, with competing services, mix and matched.

Who is going to be the Microsoft, Nokia and Verizon of the TV.

Defining India

What characterizes India? How do you define India?
India is an epitome of 'Unity in diversity!!!'
It is amazing to see India as one, when you look at the politics across the worlds and struggle carried over by billions.
Look at the middle east and Africa, how disarrayed they and struggle with problems plagues by religion and for land smaller than a single major city in India.
India does have problems, but the strength and unity we show as Indians is amazing for a land that cannot be more diverse. I think this strength come from the culture that respects others opinion and beliefs. This strength comes from attitude to live and let live. This strength comes from the understanding that it okay to be different from each other. To agree to disagree. It is a nation that has democracy in its DNA and not something that is imposed.

I was impressed with Shashi Tharoor's (former UN under secretary) book "From Midnight to Millennium" about the journey of the Nation from 1947 into the 21st century. The book showed me the India I didn't see, the book made me understand about the very environment I live in but didn't care to learn about it. I have not ready many books about the India, but this book has to a great objective analysis on the country, its culture, its people and its politics without any political or ideological bias.

He is making another effort to define the country. In his column in Times of India, he is writing a glossary of Indianness. He is already into his 2nd column, and I am looking forward to the series he is coming up with.

Don't miss this -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/Shashi_Tharoor/articlelist/1568338.cms

Coming Soon!!

ICECUBE
Just Chill!!!!

Forget PCs

The clock on home personal computers as we know them is ticking, especially with emergence of the newer markets like India, China. The future is with mobile phones/PMPs with larger screens, that you can hold in your palm and large HD televisions. There majority would have mobile phones in a few years with most of them having seen or used a PC.

What do you your PCs for at your home? To communicate using emails, messenger and to get entertained with your music, videos and to get information on weather, tv shows, movies. It's about ICE, Information, Communication and Entertainment.

• Gaming is moving to hard core consoles with fancy controllers,
• Digital Music moved to high capacity ipods and PMPs ,
• watching digital movies and browsing multi megapixel photographs are moving to High def Television,
• emailing and messaging and social networking is moving to mobiles and smartphones
• Browsing news and getting weather and traffic information would move to the 3G mobiles with RSS feeds and easy to use search apps (yahoo onesearch) and TV sets with IPTV/TiVo/Xbox/Wii/AppleTV connections and qwerty remotes.
• With more applications moving to web based solutions, ofcourse to a host of enterprise solutions that are moving to hosted models, the browser is going to be the only software that you need. Thanks to google, you now don't need to download docs, pics, mp3s when you get them in email. (eventually videos).

All this is pointing to the decline of the time share for a Home PC. And the functionality would move away to TVs and Mobiles and possibly UMPCs. They might be only used to serve content, (Windows Home Server?? anyone).

At work? You are struck with PCs for your life time. Corporates cannot move and adapt as fast as consumers do.

Google's Future??

Going by the way things are moving, I feel that google would become basically an 'Ad-Selling' company, with all these Orkut, Youtube, Maps, Gmail, Maps and even docs would become less critical and non core.
google would become the destination to buy and sell ad spots in all media, TV, internet, radio, mobile, gps, publshing or where ever the content is. Thats a lot of money.
All these internet web sites would become a small channel to host their ads, would become less profitable as google would go on to host ads on other major portals like aol, myspace, mapquest or any new killer web portal that may come by. And it would not make sens developing and hosting all the data and applications, it can just get money from the others doing the job for them and happily share the revenues.

Einstein and God

When asked directly if he believed in God, he always insisted he did, and explained it once this way: “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Do not miss the article in TIME on Einstein -
http://www.time.com/time/2007/einstein/1.html

To all the Losers ;)

My last post on Indian debacle at the Cricket World Cup. I have the same question that always come to mind looking at the people who comment on the Cricket team. People who talk about the field placement or the batting order, never even played at the school level. They do not know the pressure in the game, even when playing for a small team. Analyzing is not bad, blaming is. And people who complain about the others failures are not even great achievers in what they do. Forget about achievements or success. They should just ask themselves if they are doing justice to the work they do for which they are getting paid for. These are the same people who watch 'Cricket', by skipping the work. There is nothing wrong in 'failure', but it is criminal to bad mouth the failed, when you are not honest to your duties. Panchjanya editor seems to have conveyed the same in a better way.

Sangh asks those who frown at them to introspect on whether they themselves have won every match in their life. An editorial in the latest issue of the weekly Panchjanya has ridiculed the “childish” and obsessive way people in the country make cricket a life-and-death issue, dragging the 11 players of the team from heroes to zeroes in a trice and even committing suicide over losing a game. “Is losing so bad...Is the country hanging on the performance of a team of 11?” the RSS has asked, exhorting those who “expect them to always win to look within and see whether they themselves have always been successful”. Also, to ask themselves whether every time they failed, was it willfully to aid some kind of betting scheme, as the cricket team is accused of doing in the wake of every loss.

Out of the World Cup

How much ever I tried to ignore cricket and India's loss, I can't help feeling depressed when I see this picture of the ball crashing into the greatest batsman's wickets. He might not play another world cup match again. All the hard work put by these players and the hopes of one billion cricket lovers are blown away along with those 3 sticks. :(

Cricket and India

I pray to god that India lose the match tomorrow with SL. May be that would make cricket crazy India less crazy about cricket and balance the sport equation.
I think Cricket is Killing Indian Sport. You cannot grow other trees under a Banyan Tree. (jai bolo sdmbbs ki)

From Wiki,
The global media rights for international cricket to be held in India between March 2006 and March 2010 were awarded to production house Nimbus for a mind-boggling sum of US$612 Million. [1]. The rights to being the official kit sponsor for the duration of 5 years(1st January 2006 to 31st December,2010) were awarded to Nike for US$43 Million [2]. While Air Sahara earned the privilege of being the official Indian cricket team sponsor for a period of 4 years by shelling out US$70 Million [3]. The media rights for 25 neutral venue one-day matches to be played over the next 5 years were awarded to Zee Telefilms for US$219.15 Million [4]. Business Standard [5] reports that it will get another Rs 2,000 crore ($450 million) from the sale of other rights, including hotel, travel and ground sponsorship.

This is the money generated by the Indian cricket team (16 people)for BCCI (Imagine the worth of economy surrounding Indian Cricket). SO much money is being spent on so few people. It's unfair. I'd rather like more money to be pumped into the domestic cricket to make them interesting, high quality and passionate like all the American sports. BCCI should learn from NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. Investing billions on 11 players fortune without any kind of accountability is ridiculous

National team is important. But what is the ultimate goal? what is the measure for the success of a sport? Why should winning at international venues and tournaments matter? The 20Th best player of the most watched sport with crores of rupees in a 1 billion country is a poor no name.

That is only one part of the story.
India cricket is not only eclipsing all other sports, but in effect making the indian youth lazy and lacking in fitness. The nature of the game is that, you can play the game for hours with out getting tired and much physical activity. compare that with the fitness required by soccer or basket ball or tennis, you got to be really fit and strong. We had players at the international level with pot bellies. India Media is so strong now, they can make anything happen. Look at the music industry now. They can build Indian sports from ground up. But they resort for easy money by sensationalizing what 11 players do. Take the money away from the unaccountable unprofessional BCCI and spread it across to the other sports and players.

It's chicken and egg problem. Indian Team should be out of the world cup and people spend money on other sports. Why would the sponsors spend money on something else, because people wouldn't sit idle. They watch something else if cricket is not interesting.

Other sports need players like Sania Mirza, who makes a better role model for she broke into the extremely competitive professionals sports arena, with no support from the system and continues to believe in herself with a go get it attitude. What Anand did to chess for India, she will probably do it for Tennis if she breaks into top10.

Hope the situation changes in the future and India have a great future in many more sports.

Income vs Expenditure in AP

Very Very Interesting chart.. It'll be interesting to see district wise split up.
Rayalaseema is getting more than their fair share and I bet it is all getting into the pockets of the contracters cum factionists with little benefit to the people. These are 2006 figures.


All figures in CRORES :

area	income	expenditure	summary
rayalaseema	3588	10126	6500 loss
Telangana (without HYD)	22318	23802	1500 loss
andhra	13682	15668	1900 loss
Hyderabad	32433	3257	29000 profit