Archive for the ‘Mobile’ Category
- In: Business | Mobile
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Once life starts picking up the biggest problem for me seems to be managing time, and most of all trying to avoid the moments when I end up cross booking the time slot for two people – yep, that isnt an easy situation to get out of.
When I am at home, and during weekends, I manage my Calendar on my Nokia Handset with an hour reminder. When I am in Office, I use Outlook’s calendar to manage schedules. The biggest issue is the first few meetings on Monday mornings – there are times when something comes up and there is no way for me to check my schedule.
So here’s the solution I’ve gone with.
Using Google calendar exclusively to manage my entire data. I found to my pleasant surprise that Google has a small app that can syncronize your outlook calendars with Gcalendar.
Secondly, after trying a host of free, opensource and cant-seem-to-get-it-to-work apps, I found CalSyncS60 which works like a charm with my Nokia Phone to do a two-way sync with my schedule in Google Calendar.
As of now, life seems to be in order. The fine line between, work and personal line is blurred forever, but it should atleast save me from breaking people’s hearts by forgetting scheduled meets and keep me on time. That’s a fair tradeoff.
3G. WiMAX. There is an inevitable showdown waiting on that camp. That’s probably also the reason why the deployments of WiMAX hasnt picked up by much. If you ask me, there is credit to deploying the 3G – or a network that is based on the telecom network. Why? Reliability. Ever picked up a landline and missed the dialtone? Thats what I am talking about.
With the economy slowing down a little, I guess the 3G talk is going to be dampened a bit here in India. But I dont think it should be. The consumerist trend hasnt slowed down and Indians have woken up to enjoying the usage of digital media, devices and services, that 3G as a service could very much consolidate and bank on. This post is partly written with the knowledge I’ve gathered being on both sides of the camp, as part of the Telecom group (and the plans that they are making with IMS – IP Multimedia Subsystem) and where the web, and industry have evolved.
Lets start with a Picture.
Ubiquitous Computing, will not be just a term anymore. Centralized, easily accessible, and convergence. I think that’s the three keywords which are almost mantras in the new lifestyle that is emerging.
Trends:
Follow the numbers on the diagram with the explanations below.
1. Your mobile phone is not just a phone. Ask Nokia and they will tell you that. If we start with the way of 3G, its also the means to a broadband pipe, and 3G is just the beginning. HSDPA, LTE, and all the planned roadmap of the GSM Data Network, seems to be only getting faster and faster. Now, why would I advocate relying on my mobile’s data network as the crucial pipe for everything?
If You are a Mobile Developer.
Posted on: May 8, 2008
- In: India | Mobile | Open Source Innovation | Technology
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I mean someone who develops for the Mobile Platform, not a developer who is always on the move 🙂
Well, there are a few platforms that you might be interested to play around with, if you have an interest for embedded systems, and especially the mobile platform. Here it goes:
MobiSy: Rich Applications for your Mobile.
OpenMoko: An open development kit – Imagine having a phone with everything unlocked, and nothing beyond the realm of control by code. That’s what OpenMoko grants you. It’s a fabulous kit for folks who want to go beyond developing apps for Java or Symbian, or Windows Mobile.
Android: Well known. Enough said.
Bug Labs: Custom-build your pieces. I found this a few days ago, and am absolutely floored. The beauty about this kit is that its not restricted to mobile handsets. Its almost the lego of the electronics world.
Mango Technologies: Mobile Application Framework. A Bangalore based company. Related note: Check out Mophun, a mobile gaming application Framework.
Flashlite: When this thing gets mainstream from adobe, we better watch out for some deadly applications.
QTopia from Trolltech, an application platform and User Interface Layer for Linux powered devices – handhelds, and the likes.
So why am I mentioning all this? If a Luxury handset manufacturer in Bangalore has gotten funded $2Million, what are the next set of pieces which will have to fall in place?
- In: Business | Entrepreneurship | Ideas to Toss | India | Mobile | Open Source Innovation | Technology
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Lately there is this thought running into my head, that in most circumstances I am starting to count and make a mental note of all the “computing” devices around me. As of now, I have my mobile phone which is in arms reach, my laptop that i am working on and my server which is quietly buzzing from the corner. All of them have varying levels of computational power, starting with the server on high and ending with the mobile phone.
Virtualization is a term that started ages ago and the term has been ubiquitously been used in many things. The way virtual processing happens inside an operating system, to How a virtual software layer within an OS to run an instance of another OS – which is what VMware does, and does quite beautifully. Lately virtualization has found its new use in grid computing and in clubbing together of resources without the differentiation of physical attributes. It’s quite a steaming industry as of now, and does have some very positive implications for remote management and so on.
What I am talking about is hardware resource virtualization. I wish i could come up with a new term for it, and as the thinking deepens, I perhaps might write a longer post about it. The idea is simple. Going back to the fact that there are quite a few computational resources and some more powerful than the rest, is it possible that the resources could be shared so that “on-demand” the one that needs it could make use of it?
I know that laptops in order to consume less power have also been built with a little bit of stupider chips which dont provide as high throughput as server machines, or even desktops do. The convenience of a laptop is great, but if possible, could i link this laptop to the server so that i could make use of those extra cycles to perhaps compile the new kernel, or launch the photoshop application faster, and maybe even manage to do something in Illustrator, if required? (Illustrator as of now, hogs my machine to a standstill).
Things like this are possible, mostly cause what I am talking about is essentially cluster computing. Sharing of processes and memory space so that the one in need could use it. But I am also talking about hot-plugging this as a resource, so that i could technically walk out of the room with my laptop, or shut it down and the server would not go berserk losing a resource. Imagine, if mobile phones could have an extra shot of computing power… we wouldn’t even know what to do with it.
I am assuming that the general trend as we move on into the future would be that, computing power is going to remain pretty much the same. I think we’ve already hit a plateau and the only way we could enhance more clock cycles is if we start looking at going 3 dimensional and that is going to take a lot of power. Considering that we still haven’t come up with more efficient fuel cells yet, we do have a problem.
But imagine walking into a coffee shop and just like how you share Wifi access, you could “plug” into their server and use some computational power, and get your work done faster, wouldn’t that be amazing?
Free + Free + Free = ?
Posted on: January 29, 2008
- In: Business | Entrepreneurship | humor | India | Mobile | Review | Technology
- 6 Comments
“Build the traction and let’s think about the revenue stream later”, they say. Another variant of the same thought is the often heard “Get as many eyeballs as possible and then you can figure out the business model”.
How, I ask?
Most of the folks who do know me personally will tell you that I shudder everytime I hear “Web 2.0”. It might as well be pronounced as the “thing that sinks in money and gives back nothing” as far as I am concerned. I am not totally going against everything in that category. Some are just great businesses which are cursed under that category, but the usual trend seems to be that, if you can whip up some snazzy thing, you can float it up as a venture. Not too sure about that one.
So why am I writing this post, when I’ve said this countless times before? I got an email which goes something like this in the part where it describes the company and what it does:
“The xyz software and the xyz IM and Text Message Service are completely free. PC calls from xyz are also free. Mobile calls from xyz, however, are charged at local fixed line calling rates (or deducted as part of your monthly local minutes package). This will change soon, when we release our Mobile VOIP solution – and all calls will also be free.”
I read a Free, another Free, another one and yet another Free. There was this minute little scope for revenue which was also washed out by the following Free. So, if I were an investor, when would I see my money back?
PS: I’m going to categorize this under “humor” 🙂
Is FlashLite the New Java?
Posted on: January 2, 2008
- In: Business | Mobile | Review | Technology
- 3 Comments
I am starting to see quite a bit of devices and platforms that are starting to provide more and more, of-the-box support for Flashlite. Flashlite, Adobe’s Runtime library for Flash Animation for devices on low resources is a very good alternative for devices that have a need for interative interfaces. It’s seen quite a steady adoption in the Mobile Platform as well, as more and more interactive applications are starting to surface.
I wonder if this is a new trend in the making…
- In: Chennai | I Fix | India | Mobile
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Life goes on. But imagine making a repository of life around, a snapshot in time, through the eyes and lenses of a multitude people on a certain instant of the flow of time itself.
On November 3rd, at 3:11pm, whereever you are (within the boundaries of Chennai), reach for the closest thing that can click (Mobile Cam, SLR whatever would do it for you), aim and shoot at a frame that captures the essence of where you are – what you are doing and life around. Post it at the website that is up for 311pm (http://www.311pm.com). The collation of all the images will serve to be interesting in the perspective of looking at a snapshot of time in the city of chennai, through the eyes of the people.
Pretty cool Project, I’d say. I am heading out on a two week vacation and would probably be somewhere in Jaipur during that time, but if you are in Chennai, you should certainly be part of this.
- In: Business | Mobile
- 2 Comments
So, The Iphone came, and is kinda sinking into oblivion – atleast with their current generation. I am sure they will plan out a better release and market capture strategy with their next version, but I doubt they will be able to play the hype-game all over again. But then,We are talking about Steve Jobs here, so it very well might be the case in him succeeding with that as well.
The user-interface of the Iphone was nothing short of a leap-forward. Get rid of the keyboard, and use touch as the primary interaction mechanism. It’s really the consummation of most people’s wizardry desires, put into the palm of their hand.
I am not sure as to how things could have been better. Well, they should have kept the basics in a phone that people are used to – such as the java run-time platform, enabled bluetooth properly and allow users to change their ringtones as they saw fit. Somewhere in between all those decisions of not adding those, I see a decision to find the “baseline” in a product. At somepoint during the evolution of a product, one has to make the hard decision to figure out what people “really” need and then work out the evolution from that point. It seems that they guessed the baseline wrong, and took it too easily that everyone will develop applications on the web and channel it through their mobile phones (though thats how we’ll move forward).
As much as I try to cover what has happened to the I-phone, I can’t see anyone willingly saying that they’d like a phone anymore. “I came, I saw, I was Not-Conquered”, seems to be the common theme running these days.
It also puts us to think of something. The Iphone was different. The Gphone will be different. All the other handset manufacturers who have made some imitations of iphones aren’t rocking in sales numbers either. The question is, is everybody guessing the baseline for the mobile handset wrong, and ending up disappointing the masses? I sure do hope that this experimentation to figure out the baseline and evolve, wont take too long and surely not too many attempts.
- In: Business | Entrepreneurship | India | Mobile | Technology
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I am running out of cards and I am looking at putting together a new design for it, and also revalidating all the information that is on it.
I do have my skype ID on my previous cards. I barely even login into skype anymore – not sure if it is even going to serve any purpose to put that piece of info on my next set of cards.
I am also a bit perplexed, cause we seem to have moved one step forward and one and a half step backwards – All I am left with is mobile numbers, my email Id and.. that’s about it. I am looking for my skype replacement. I do notice that most of my instant-conversations and web-calls are made through GoogleTalk. Perhaps, its time for it to get my card?
Vijay Anand | The Startup Guy. 