Smart Phones are Changing Lives

Smart Phones are here to redefine every aspect of your life.
You can play music on it.
You can see Youtube and movies.
You can play sophisticated games on it.
Browse, read emails, send emails, twitter, talk. text, interface with face book, check out weather, plan your journey, get news alerts, share photographs and video, ... you can also pay your bills at the supermarket counter ... the list goes on.

Soon personal navigation will come packaged with Smart Phones. Google has cast the first stone. Its voice-assisted turn-by-turn navigation is already available on smart phones with Android OS. And Garmin and TomTom are already shaking in their boots.

Let's try and speculate what else could be done using a smart phone ...

1) Step-by-step Cooking Instructions: imagine being guided through a delicious Chicken Butter Masala. Yummy!

2) Language Translation: Oh! I am not talking just about Google Translate or Google Dictionary. Imagine if you could speak into the smart phone in English and it the translates the sentence into Spanish, German, French, etc., loud enough for the native to hear. You then hold up the phone to record the response and there! you have the response translated into English.

3) How about a scanner? You like the camera but are not sure if this is the nest deal you can get. Scan the bar code and get instant comparison of the prices listed in all stores in your vicinity.

4) Another one on shopping. You come across a photograph of an absolutely fabulous flower vase as you wait for your turn at the barber (ok! hair stylist). You click the photograph using your smart phone and you instantlyget the location of all the places you can buy that vase. And the price, of course.

5) Say goodbye to passports and visas. Smart phone is here.

I could think up a dozen more applications.
What would you like your smart phone to do?

Time For New Year Resolutions; Already?

New Year Resolutions?
Now?
There is time yet I am sure!
Sadly no.

Most New Year Resolutions fail within the first few weeks.
Why?
Perhaps, we make such resolutions at the spur of the moment without giving it proper thought or planning.

Merely promising yourself that you are committed to something is not sufficient.
So, if you are serious about resolutions, you may wish to pick up tips from Chris Guillebeau.

Here's another tip: Since an important part of new resolutions is to look back at what has been, a great place to start is your emails. If you are the type who does not regularly delete emails from your "Sent Items", it might be worthwhile browsing from Jan 2009. You will be amazed by what you discover.

Biusiness Model For Wikipedia

I believe Wikipedia has a flawed business model. It depends primarily on donation.

I am sure many donate; but not that many.
Businesses cannot work on donations.
Only NGOs can.
And Wikipedia is clearly not an NGO.

Paid subscription seems to be an obvious way. This is the Encyclopedia Britannica model. I am not sure this is going to be hugely successful. The Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, so I cannot see a contributor ready to pay for using the wiki. In fact, it is more likely that a contributor will demand payment.

On the other hand, a collaboration with Google could actually rake in moolah. Google can place context-based advertisements in the wiki and share the revenue with Wikipedia and the contributors. This might actually reverse the loss in the number of contributors reported recently in the news (see here)

Shaming Into Positive Action

It is unlikely that any of you would have come across this advertisement. It is very industry specific and relates to the aerospace industry.
The advertisement shows a DAC International's Gen-X Electronic Flight Bag in a fish tank with this wonderful catch phrase ... NOT THAT YOU WOULD BUT YOU COULD.

Now this can be used in a variety of scenario. Here goes ...

To the world leaders meeting at Copenhagen from today: Not that you would but you could [make the world a better place]

To the environmental scientists: Not that you would but you could [stop squabbling and do some real scientific work]

To Mukesh and Anil Ambani: No that you would but you could [stop converting your sibling rivalry into corporate war]

To the terrorists: Not that you would but you could [start behaving like decent human beings for a change]

You get the idea. The use is almost universal.
An extremely brilliant, use-in-all-situations kind of phrase, don't you agree?

And finally to myself: Not that you would but you could [stop publishing such crap in the name of serendipity on this blog]

How would you like to use it?

Cricket? Yeah! Hockey? What?

India is Team No. 1 in cricket. It has been a long, hard journey and the end result is certainly sweet. We all rejoice. I really hope we maintain this position for a long, long time to come. And we are the team that all other countries look to beat.

But spare a thought for Hockey too, which was once the pride of India.
How many of us knew that the Champions Trophy is being played right now, as I type?
We did not even qualify for the Champions Trophy being played in Australia.

We will play in the 2010 Hockey World Cup though.
By virtue of being the host nation. Not because we won any qualifying tournaments (see here)
But this is a chance. If India wins the World Cup, hockey will regain it position in India.
I hope the Indian Hockey team is hard at work.
They do not have much time.
The World Cup Hockey will be played in N. Delhi from 28th Feb to 13th March, 2010.

Ok one more question: how many of you knew that the World Cup Hockey will be played in India in 2010?

The Tour of Nilgiris 2010

A few days ago, a colleague of mine asked if I was participating in the Tour of Nilgiris. Since I am not, I replied with a no without giving much thought to it.
However, it must have stuck in my mind somewhere.
For I cannot think of any reason why the first thing that came to my mind this morning was I should participate.
So here I am committing to myself that I will take on the Nilgiris within the next two years.
Ideally, I would like to go for it in 2010; I have a year with me.
But since this year there were 300 applicants and only 70 are allowed to participate I give myself one more year.

The Tour of Nilgiris is a 8-day 900km bicycle tour.
It takes the rider through Bangalore, Mysore, Hassan, Madkari, and Ooty.
It is non-competitive. Sure it is no Tour de France, but at the age of (almost) 45, this is what I look forward to.

More that the tour, it is likely to be a discovery of self. Will keep posted - most probably will launch a new blog to track my progress as I go from a occasional-cycling enthusiast to a full-blast tour cyclist.

Nilgiris, here I come.

India-Unfriendly Amazon Kindle

I repeat Amazon Kindle is not very India-friendly.
Reason?
I have two.

First, all those e-books that were free on kindle before the launch of Kindle International are now priced at at least $2.00. Funny! I so no reason why this should be so. Unless Amazon thinks this is an easy way of making some quick money.

Second, there are several books, that can be sole to India but the Kindle version is not available for Indian Readers. Case in point: The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald.