26

Jul

Blend it like Beckham

Blender manufacturers are resorting to all sorts of zany viral campaigns to make their products stick. One in the news these days is a series developed to make people sit up and take notice. Not so much for the visuals, but the idea of it all. Can marbles, wood, golf balls and even a McDonald’s Value Meal be crushed by a standard blender? Or will it lose its fangs in the bargain? Ofcourse, the blender’s good and therefore it holds its ground and makes you wonder if it’s a visual trick or if it’s really possible. Well, when has advertising been about saying the truth and nothing but the truth. It has always been about generating a buzz that will stick and hopefully generate sales for the advertiser in question. Take this YouTube video of golf balls being chewed to bits. According to stats, it has had over 821,389 views and counting.

Technology can bite and heal. Here is a case where it is not only cost-effective, but also has far more reach than any other medium. We are talking about the Internet. At the OnMedia NYC conference in Manhattan, the occasion was to give away 2007′s best of broadband awards. They hand-picked Web video ads that grabbed the most eyeballs on the Internet. Some that made the cut included user-generated ad contests like Frito Lay’s ‘Crash the Super Bowl’; Ray-Ban’s ‘Never Hide’; Unilever’s Dove ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’; and “Will It Blend?” What’s that, you ask? It’s the blender ads that I was talking about. Apparently, blender manufacturer BlendTec created these YouTube blender series without the help of an external agency, and achieved notoriety with its ‘iPhone in a blender’ video.

Which brings me to one such promotion that grabbed my retina. Ofcourse, diamonds could be a girl’s best friend, but they are no friend of a blender. Under pressure, they could crack up, too. The premise of the video? “Will a Diamond Engagement Ring Blend?” Ofcourse, it could. Abazias Diamonds shredded a real diamond engagement ring in a Blendtec blender! Take a look at the video HERE.

PS: ‘Blender’ is also the name of a 3D computer animation tool that runs on Linux (and other platforms) and is popular in Open Source circles.

669 days ago Short URL Comments

Business/Technology

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16

Mar

Technology top 10: Future concepts to watch out for

Nothing succeeds like excess, and future tech provides you a glimpse of that.

You take off today and arrive yesterday. That’s the power of technology. With prototypes being developed all the time, these give glimpses of a future that could well be possible. Like the wirelessly controlled beetle which could one day be used for surveillance or search-and-rescue missions. Or the creation of an entirely new type of data storage ‘racetrack memory’ device using magnetic nanowires that could replace all other forms of computer memory and lead to tiny, rugged, and inexpensive portable devices. The future is uncertain, but the promises are many. Here are a few emerging technologies that could be manna from heaven.

Bluetooth 3 & 4

By next year, two new Bluetooth versions will make their presence felt. Bluetooth 3 will introduce 802.11 for faster data transmission and Bluetooth 4 will introduce a new low-energy (LE) mode that will make you communicate with external peripherals and sensors. Ofcourse, both versions will boast of better battery life and greater security. Experts say Bluetooth 3 will help corporate and consumer functions that demand larger bandwidth, like downloading images and videos from handsets. Bluetooth LE will kick-start a new range of sensor-based business models in sectors like fitness, healthcare and environmental control. These will be used by handset and PC peripherals to enable new functions, such as PCs that auto lock when users move away from them.

3D GPS

If you are tired of the two-dimensional images being shown for navigating the roads using your phone’s GPS, cheer up. Soon, you will be able to access 3D GPS landmarks. And this is going to come sooner than you thought. Nokia Maps 3.0 is already testing this for its devices (check http://www.nokia.com/betalabs to see if your phone is compatible). The new tech will combine real-time video with turn-by-turn directions, just like Blaupunkt’s TravelPilot 500 ‘SafeDrive’ navigation. It’s also largely speculated that the iPhone could integrate Google’s Street View images with satellite data and provide a similar 3D interface for your navigation comfort. Sweet, indeed.

Liquid Battery

If you want to become an entrepreneur, you go to Stanford or Harvard. But if you want to become an inventor, you go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Here is where you will find future tech you can use. Donald Sadoway is such a scientist. A materials chemistry professor, he has developed a liquid battery that could store enough electricity to allow cities to run on solar power at night. An expert on batteries, he has spent a significant part of his research on how to increase their life. And this seems to be just what the environment ordered.

Camera Trousers to Invisible Suits

Remember non-digital cameras? Well I suspect that my grandchildren will look at a digital camera in the same way: outdated. Today, a camera need not be just a camera; it can be on your phone or computer and soon maybe even in your pants. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed cables composed of photo-sensitive fibre. When arranged in two layers, it can calculate both the colour and placement of light to produce a colour image. Fused with LCD fabric, this technology could produce an invisible suit. While researchers haven’t outlined specific applications, speculators suspect that combat uniforms that document battle wounds and chemical sensing clothing are not far behind. Of course, this technology has applications far beyond the realm of clothing: ingestible cameras will certainly make gastrointestinal exams much easier and less painful.

Star Trek Teleportation

While Star Trek teleportation is not yet a reality, information can be teleported between two atoms that are a metre apart. This was demonstrated on January 22, 2009 by Christopher Monroe of the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland. While the feat has been achieved between photons (a quantum of electromagnetic radiation or unit of light) and even between photons and atoms, never before has information travelled between two atoms without the aid of a third atom. However, in the future, impossible is nothing.

Digital Bands

Imagine if your personal information — such as job title or hobbies — was transmitted to a passer-by as you walk down the street. Well, digital badge technology could do just that in the near future. By wearing a ‘digital bubble’ or badge, you will be able to ‘radiate [your] web presence’ to surrounding people and likewise choose to engage with those people whose information you find desirable. As futurologist Ian Pearson says, “It’s the next step [of social networking].” But where will this technology stop? A sensory component must be produced to stop unwanted solicitation. On another level, businesses could also tap into this technology by creating ‘dual architecture’ which could relay their information to passer-bys instead of the more conventional billboard.

Air Scooter

Everything is pretty much in place. NASA has created ‘The Highway in the Sky’ to allow millions of people to fly wherever, whenever they please in their own vehicles. One of several inventors, Woody Norris has built the AirScooter, which will be available for purchase shortly and can fly 55 mph for 2 hours. Already on the market is a personal helicopter from the Gene Corporation of Japan. So what’s the world waiting for? Let’s fly.

Space Tourism

2010, space travel could be that close. The WhiteKnightTwo is the largest all-carbon-fibre aircraft and plans to bring along the smaller SpaceShipTwo. At 48,000 feet, SpaceShipTwo will launch into suborbital space carrying paying passengers and if Virgin Galactic’s CEO Richard Branson has his way, it will also function as a low-cost way to launch satellites into orbit.

Robot Cars

Designed by Tartan Racing (a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University and General Motors), ‘Boss’ won the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge, a competition of autonomous vehicles. Cruising at 30 mph and finishing well ahead of his competitors, ‘Boss’ is guided by a computer that decides the most successful route by using 500,000 lines of code to analyse information gathered by more than a dozen lasers, cameras and radars. Its success is a strong indication that robot-driven cars are going to be a reality in our not-too-distant future.

USB 3.0

Your current USB port will shortly be upstaged by the Universal Serial Bus 3.0 port. With five more wires, the new USB port will transmit data ten times faster than its predecessor as well as deliver information more efficiently. Hi-def streaming at 1080i definition may also be possible with 5Gbit/s speed. Only 140 million units will be produced in 2011 and if all goes well, 340 million units by 2012. Rejoice.

FUTURE WISHLIST

Here is what we want technology to do for us.

Free Fuel - In whatever form as long as it keeps flowing and is portable.

Time Travel — Every scientist’s wet dream.

Protective Force Field — Because sticks and stones do hurt.

Battery Operated Butler — If only we didn’t have so much housework, we might even have time to save the world.

Universal Communicator – That lets us talk and see anyone, anywhere and anytime – all for the price of the device.

801 days ago Short URL Comments

Business/Technology

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15

Mar

Apple apps: Got the app-titude?

Tracking the finest apps from the house of Steve Jobs isn’t easy.

Finding gems among the three lakh-plus Apple apps can be quite a daunting task. Which is why, I am doing it for you. Some are free, and some are paid. But they are fun all the same. Have a good time making the most of them!

NearestWiki
Some people like to hire tour guides when they travel. Others like to walk through galleries and museums to explore on their own. NearestWiki allows you to get all your cultural information in an augmented reality view. Say for example that you are in a beautiful temple in Rajasthan. You can hold up your iPhone or iPod Touch vertically to give you an AR view. Then you can tap into all its information through Wikipedia from its history to the beliefs surrounding it. You no longer need tour guides or a guide book. It will also show you the point of interests around you, so you can skip from temple to statue to monument. You’ll find out how far away they are from you in miles as well as a picture and a blurb, so you can visit what most interests you. Costs $1.99.

CurrencyMap
Money plays a key role when you are travelling to a new place. You want to go to the best place, so your rupees will get you far. And you also want to ensure that you don’t go overboard with your travel budget. Here is where CurrencyMap is just the app for you. It provides exchange rates in real time on an electronic board. It will also give you current and historical trends in charts for that particular currency fluctuation. You can even click on a particular day and year to find out what the going rate was. This easy-to-use interface allows you to get over 160 currencies from around the world. You just select the currency to convert and tap in the amount. You can sort through your favourite currencies, so that you don’t have too much clutter on your screen. It will actually help save you tons of money, so that you know you’re getting the most for your currency. The basic version is free, but the Gold version costs $0.99.

eBuddy
If you get home sick on long bouts of travel, this app could be just for you. eBuddy helps you keep in touch with friends wherever you are. You can get the most popular instant messengers to your mobile such as Yahoo, MSN, Facebook Chat, AIM, ICQ, and Google Talk. Nothing new, you think? Well, it is because all these messengers appear on one single buddy list and the program is robust, so there are no frequent downtimes. The app also allows you to send any image from your phone to your friends. And that can be either through your camera or your phone’s memory. The whole process is so quick that your buddies won’t even realise, you are chatting from the phone. You are able to type directly into your chat, so it goes through pronto. The basic version is free, and the pro version costs $ 2.99.

Postman
Everyone back at home loves receiving post cards. We are used to going to the local kitschy travel shop and picking up generic photos of over-touristy places. Many people would be happier receiving more personalised images of your adventures. That’s why with the Postman app, you can create your own professional virtual postcard from your own photos. Environmentalists can embrace this as well since your waste of paper is down to nil. Eco-friendly and more personal, these can be spiced up in various ways. You can pick a photo from your library or use a Google Maps shot of your current location. You’ll get to add a greeting on the top of your photo and pick your own colour theme to go with it. Friends that use Facebook, Twitter, Email, and Tumblr will get instant access. You don’t have to worry about the post card not arriving at home or finding a post office in the busy streets of India.  Costs $2.99.

BackToMyCar
If you are in a new city and have hired your own car, this app comes in handy. We have all had that experience when we park our cars in some unknown garage or remote location and then forget where it is, once we come back out. This application will guide you with turn-by-turn walking directions to your car. The compass is great for rural areas so that you do not get lost. Some of the best locations that this can be useful for are airports, stadiums, and shopping malls. Once you load the application, it will pull up a map with your location. The buttons that appear will enable you to lock in your car’s location, zoom in and out, and eventually locate your car. You must be outside for it to actually work. It also has a parking timer so that you can avoid any parking tickets. And it works even when the app is closed. But the best part? It’s free.

Yoga Trainer Pro
There are plenty of Yoga apps out there, but with over 2.5 lakh downloads and counting, Yoga Trainer Pro figures right on top. Perhaps the secret is keeping things simple. Yoga Trainer Pro has over 50 different poses with clear photographs and instructions for each and you are able to programme in your own custom sequence or follow lots of preloaded courses. Unfortunately, a surprising letdown for the app is that you won’t find audio instructions guiding you through the steps. This can be frustrating for beginners who will need to interrupt their poses to check the text for more information. Perhaps we can look forward to this in the next version, and Yoga Trainer Pro will be everything you need. Costs $1.99.

801 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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15

Mar

BlackBerry: The Swiss Army Knife of smartphones

Welcome to the BlackBerry Planet that keeps you connected to work, life and everything in between.

Blackberry is regarded as one of the worst weeds in Australia because of its invasiveness, potential for spread, and economic and environmental impacts. In the tech domain, the BlackBerry is a stylish way to get things done and keep you connected to work, life and everything in between. BlackBerry is a small device that connects the big Earth. Ofcourse, there’s the odd virus attack that threatens to take over your smartphone, but most of these threats are momentary. So don’t let that get you. And no, this is no sponsored post. Just my profile on the company that has slowly and surely made it to the top of the smartphone industry. Knowing how they work might make you good at your job,  whatever that is.

The BlackBerry monopolises the world of work – nobody else comes close. An astounding 85 percent of public corporations are supplying staff with the devices, and more than 175,000 BlackBerry Enterprise Servers installed worldwide. The US Congress was RIM’s first big client, and Uncle Sam is still the biggest consumer of BlackBerrys. Today, more than 500,000 devices are installed in every department of the U.S. government and throughout the US Senate and House of Representatives.

The beginning
Big things come in small packages. When Steve Jobs first brought out the Apple Macintosh in 1984, Research In Motion (RIM) began life in Waterloo, Ontario, as a two-person tech start-up in a one-room office. The founders were 20-year-old college dropout Mike Lazaridis and friend Doug Fregin. Financed by family funds and a $15,000 government loan, RIM’s first big job was a $600,000 contract making networked LCD display screens for the General Motors Canada assembly line. Ten years later, Lazaridis received an Oscar for RIM’s Digisync Film Barcode Reader, a device that revolutionised Hollywood.

In the late 1980s, RIM aligned with AT&T, Rogers and Ericsson to build miniature radios and modems to let PCs send data and messages over mobile networks. In 1996, RIM came up with the Inter@ctive Pager 900, the world’s first pocket-sized, two-way pager. Two years later, it built its first BlackBerry, the 950, a wireless wonder that synchronised with a user’s desktop computer and corporate email. Since 1992, Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie have been driving the RIM story.

And it shows. Statistics reveal that 85% of the Fortune 500 companies use BlackBerry. The Queen has a BlackBerry and US President Barack Obama’s struggles to keep his device in the White House gained him enormous sympathy. The super secure email device and web browser is today packed with applications and features that can do everything from online banking to opening your garage door. There are studies that tell us that BB use can boost employee productivity by more than 30%. The BlackBerry Prayer Position is something you will see wherever you go – in planes, trains, buses, boardrooms, parks and playgrounds. From the ground and up.

With such a loyal fan following, RIM has become a global technology powerhouse and one of the top three NASDAQ tech favourites, only behind Apple and Google. Says Mike Lazaridis of the continuing legacy of the BlackBerry to turn a vision of the future into reality: “When they go to work, people expect a phone, a desk, a chair, a light. And a BB has really taken on that status.”

Users love the ability to freeze or wipe data from a lost or stolen BB. What’s more, BB messaging is compressed, sometimes twenty times more than competing systems, so both companies and individuals save a bundle in bandwidth costs. What began as a way to wire thousands of employees in various companies has become a handy tool for every consumer. Today, more than 60% of them are outside the Enterprise platform, buying their services from telecom providers.

The phenomenal rise of the BB happened post 9/11. The only people trapped in the World Trade Center’s twin towers who were able to contact their loved ones after cell service failed were those with BlackBerrys. Police, fire-fighters, ambulance drivers and then US vice president Dick Cheney used their BlackBerry devices during the crisis. Today, Alaska governor Sarah Palin governs by her two BlackBerrys and says she feels “naked without them”.

We are increasingly wearing our brains outside our skulls. Take the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution. It spans over 95 wireless carriers across 40 countries. With RIM, form is function. As Lazaridis says, when anyone has a good idea, RIM patents it right away. Lazaridis is funding an institute of quantum physics in Canada for years. He is interested in marrying quantum physics with mobile devices. You could also call it techno-telepathy; technology that allows people to stay in such close touch, it’s almost like telepathy.

The recent Blackberry 9000 series works on the Intel Xscale 624MHz CPU. The earlier version of Blackberry cell phones worked with an 80MHz processor and were hence comparatively slower in downloading 3G web pages. Blackberry uses an IPD file for its data storage. A single IPD is used for the database handling, which makes the performance even faster. What also makes Blackberry different from the conventional cell phones are the Blackberry APIs that are available for writing programs by any individual. You can use these APIs and write your own software. There are various other softwares that are compatible to the Blackberry technology. Blackberry Internet Service, Blackberry Desktop Redirector and Blackberry Messenger are a few of them. Various third party softwares are available, for free download over the Internet, which makes the use of these PDAs even more fun.

In January 2010, BlackBerry showcased a Presenter device, about the size of a mints container, that is plugged into a projector and then controlled wirelessly by a BlackBerry. Which means, if you do PowerPoint presentations, you can leave the laptop behind. Slides, graphs or other information assembled using Microsoft’s PowerPoint program are routed to a projector and displayed in high resolution. The presentation streams securely over Bluetooth. You can walk around while doing your presentation; read notes on the handset and freeze or jump around the slides.

BlackBerry Alliance program of partners work under contract with Research In Motion to create new BlackBerry applications. Typical applications include digital dictation, GPS tracking, CRM and expense management. On October 6, 2009, BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 was officially released, adding a completely new set of features, including bar code scanning to add contacts, profiles, sharing your location via GPS, and creating groups.
RIM maintains their lead in the Enterprise business because they are they have end-to-end encryption, something that Apple doesn’t offer. While that might not be important to smaller business, it is extremely important to the larger customers that make up the bulk of RIM’s business. The Apple’s battery life, error rate with the typing, inability to work off line (while flying for instance) have all reduced productivity enormously. No wonder, large marketing companies in the UK have stopped their staff from having iPhone because of the enormous bills accumulated when outside the UK. The data compression used by RIM results in a much lower data charge than the iPhone. Lazaridis has stated that three BlackBerry handsets can operate for every one of their competitors. That’s a cost savings that will allow RIM to maintain their leadership in this space.

Agreed, Apple has made a brilliant UI for their smartphone, but in the technical aspects, they are still behind. Even the upcoming OS 4 doesn’t match what RIM has had for years as maintaining the balance between functionality and battery life is still a problem for Apple. BlackBerrys, however, especially the Bold 9700, use batteries that will continue to allow you to surf the internet, make calls and send and receive emails for several days. The removable battery also means a spare can be carried and put to use if needed. The BlackBerry can handle anything that you would normally do from Outlook on your Exchange server, and it is a perfect desktop extension. No wonder, the BlackBerry is the most secure device in the world for business use.
So how is the BlackBerry looking these days? For starters, the BlackBerry OS 6.0 boasts of an improved Web Kit-based browser, a customisable homescreen, a revamped media player and a more intuitive user experience. And this extends to both trackpad and touchscreen devices. Not to mention, an assortment of new apps and a free version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express that will greatly reduce the cost for small businesses.

With a sales record of more than 50 million BlackBerrys by the year 2009, the annual profits of Research In Motion stands at more than $11 million. The time is not far when RIM will come up with a new device that can take on the Droid, iPhone, the Palm Pre and the host of new smartphones cropping up. It could be a device targeted at consumers, that would integrate with the company’s app store and put the BlackBerry on equal footing with its rivals.

PHONES DOWN THE YEARS
    * Early Pager Models: 850, 857, 950, 957
    * Monochrome Java-based Models: 5000-series and 6000-series
    * First Colour Models: 7200-series, 7500-series and 7700-series
    * First SureType Phone Models: 7100-series
    * Modern BlackBerry Models (2006–2008): 8000-8830-series including: BlackBerry 8800, BlackBerry Pearl, Pearl Flip and BlackBerry Curve
    * Latest BlackBerry Models (2008–2009): 8900+ GPS Wi-Fi Series: BlackBerry Bold (9000), BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Tour (9630), BlackBerry Storm (9500/9530)
    * BlackBerry Storm 2 (9520/9550) (2009): BlackBerry Storm2
    * BlackBerry Bold Series (2009): BlackBerry Bold 9700 (9700)
    * BlackBerry Bold Series (2010): BlackBerry Bold 9650 (9650)
    * BlackBerry Pearl Series (2010): BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100/9105 (9100/9105)

801 days ago Short URL Comments

Business/Technology

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26

Oct

Why E71 is a near perfect smartphone

I have been using E71 for over two months now, after having used iPhone previously. Here is why I like E71. To begin with, it’s not a touchscreen. Adept at typing away till eternity, I find this to be my single biggest reason for using E71. Not that Iphone isn’t good. But then, I find iPhone to be doubly expensive. Two, the volume isn’t really a lot in an iphone. On the other hand, E71 can be too loud, too.

But first, the BIGGEST MINUS…

A very logic-heavy user interface. It will take you a good part of a week to get used to all its functions and how to enable and disable them. This is also because the most obvious applications are in the most un-obvious title folders. Goes to show that the guys at Nokia definitely need to undergo English language courses.

And now, the PLUSES…

1. The Nokia Ovi store has scores of funky applications just like the Apple store is for the iPhone. Besides, there are many more third party application stores like getjar that offer thousands of Nokia E71 applications, be it education, utility or entertainment.

2. The full QWERTY keypad is the most comfortable for me. Though people with bigger hands find it difficult, it’s perfect for skinny types like me. Works like a charm.

3. Looks business class with that shiny stainless steel case.

4. Nokia Email enables HTML push emails and looks real good and easy on the eye. And it’s functionally convenient and fast, too.

5. Some applications make E71 a true winner and deserve a special mention. Skyfire for its fantastic web browsing ability that is better than the preloaded web utility of the E71. Mobipocket ereader allows you to read ebooks and 10,000 English books are free to download and read (I have about 50 so far). You can download over 2000 ebooks with a 2GB card that comes with the E71. Nimbuzz messenger rocks like no other – you can simultaneously log in to facebook, gtalk, yahoo, skype, msn, twitter and other social networking groups. There is no lag time or bugs that keep you worried.  Google Maps are way better than Nokia maps, so I suggest you download Google and stop wasting time on Nokia. To begin with, Nokia maps can’t spell the names right. RaceChrono and Sportstracker are great to use GPS and track the number of kilometres you’ve jogged and walked every day.  Total Recall offers beep-free recording for $10. If you can’t pay, you can even download an ad-sponsored version of it, too. If the absence of a torch is bugging you, S60SpotOn makes your E71 light up like no other, and for free. Lastly, if you want a funky colour interface with all facilities and social networks in one place, nothing like Snaptu. And if  you want to download the entire Quran in its original form (Arabic), you can do that with uQuran. And the best part? Most of these applications are available on Nokia Ovi.

Enjoy!

1307 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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