Undulations

The Definition of Open

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:44:00 +0530

Note: This post has originally been made by DeWitt Clinton in Google+ - I’m not using a block-quote format since the post is too long for that.

“I believe what Android is accomplishing is truly revolutionary. Mobile is the way that billions of people will one day access the Internet. And through that access, we will soon start to narrow the massive knowledge gap that currently divides the richest from the poorest populations. That there’s now an eminently capable open source mobile operating system, one that is free to use and free to fork, means that the knowledge advantage can be better and more evenly distributed across the planet than ever before.

For some pundits, it’s all about which companies are building the fanciest and most feature-rich handheld computers. Which, if we’re being honest about it, are devices for those that already have everything. When you’re at the top, it’s great to see the tech giants going head-to-head and competing for our dollars like this. Having a few dollars, I benefit from that, too.

And yet in spite of that, I’m even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years.

We can debate endlessly about which device manufacture added what clever UI to which OS, or what carriers allowed (or banned) which hot little app, or which app store has the more sustainable revenue sharing model for up-and-coming Bay Area startups. But yet, no one is going to remember any of those trivial details in the long run.

Historians are, however, going to make note of how the open source Android platform (or its later forks and clones) played a role in facilitating everything from low-cost solar-powered devices in the remotest villages in India and Africa, to a hundred million tablets computers in the classroom each revolutionizing education for children all across Asia and the Middle East, to putting an Internet-connected smartphone in the hands of every man, woman, and child in America, even those from the perpetually overlooked majority that simply can’t afford a shiny brand-new iPhone or Galaxy Nexus every Christmas.

So ultimately I don’t give two hoots about which vendor or which carrier gets to ship which device on which network with which apps. But I’m stunned, stunned, by the audacity of releasing the Android platform as free and open source software. Not just because how it has already shaken things up at the top. But how it will go on to shake the rest of the planet upside down.”

DeWitt’s point of view perfectly folds up the concept and significance of “open”, a term that is very often misunderstood or misconceived. I randomly stumbled upon this post while reading through blogs, and thought I’d very well bring this up.

Positional Notation for Relative Goodness

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:54:14 +0530

I’ve come up with a novel way to represent the degree of goodness and badness of things, without resorting to ambiguous terminologies like “okay”, “not bad”, “great” and “awesome”; or needing to state mathematically precise percentages, a la “50% good”.

The system proposes the use of “good” and “bad” as absolute adjectives, representing “100% good” and “100% bad” – or, if you prefer, “totally awesome” and “bulls*it”.

Any chain of the words can be coded according to their positional values like the binary system.

For example, “good good bad good” equates to 1×10⁰+ 0×10¹ +1×10² + 1×10³ = 13, a goodness index of 13/15, or 86.67% goodness. (The denominator, 15, is the value of binary 1111, the goodness degree of “good good good good”. If there were five words, like “good bad bad good bad”, the denominator would have been 31. For an n-word goodness adjective, the denominator is 2ⁿ-1).

Using this system, any level of goodness can be represented precisely without resorting to rigid mathematical notations. Have fun!

Summary: It’s weekend and I’m a nerd with an awful lot of time to spare!

Crunchies 2011 - What Caught My Eye

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:17:00 +0530

The Crunchies 2011 Awards by TechCrunch has just been announced, and the results hold many an interesting tid-bit. Here’s a quick look at what caught my eye about this year’s Crunchies.

Siri beat Lytro to the “Best Technological Achievement of the Year”, which is unfortunate. Siri is indeed a countable advancement in speech recognition; but in comparison, Lytro is a revolution in imaging technology. Being able to tell your phone to text your Mom when you get home does not match up to the sheer technological achievement of being able to capture an entire light-field in an image, and refocus later at your whim.
This win probably reflects the higher impact of Siri (familiar to the millions who own an iPhone 4S) as compared to Lytro, which is in prototype stage and is relatively much lesser known.
Google+ was declared the “Best Social Application” of the year. This was my second favourite surprise of the Crunchies (the biggest surprise was the New Device category) – Google+ beat the millions of iPhone users who are proud of their Instagram profiles, the large chunk of Facebook users who’ve by now gotten their timelines, and thousands of vocal and techno-affined Twitter users. This in my opinion is conclusive evidence against the arguments that Google+ has lost its initial sheen and has few regular users.
Evernote won the “Best Mobile Application” Crunchy, which co-incidentally was also the only cross-platform application that was nominated, while all others were iOS specific apps.
I’m a bit surprised that Rovio did not make it to the win or runner-up in the “Best International Startup” category – I’m not saying that Piexie Urbano did not deserve the win, but I honestly expected Angry Birds fans to win this one.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the “Best New Device” category, where Nest won, followed by the Kindle Fire. The iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the Galaxy Nexus were all left behind - perhaps due to its stature as a new class of device and focus on content-consumption, but Amazon has proved its point that the Fire packs some serious heat.
The other categories were mostly unsurprising, with the likes of Codecadamy, DropBox (which ended up as the “Best Overall Startup”), Path and Pinterest getting the attention they deserve.

Have textbooks just been re-invented?

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:53:00 +0530

Despite not being an Apple fan, I’ve been resting curious hope around Apple’s “reinventing the textbook” and the media buzz surrounding it – however, after the press conference was over and the news was ousted, my first reaction, understandably was disappointment and an “is that it?” face. However, a closer inspection reveals a better picture; and it seems quite likely that this move from Apple can actually cause quite some change in the education and textbook scene, though an outright revolution is less likely.

The package announced is actually deceptively simple – There’s iBooks 2, the next version of the company’s already popular eBook platform; there’s iAuthor which helps you author iBooks on a Mac; and there’s content partnerships with a handful of textbook publishers – that’s it. Which, in the critic’s eye is nothing but an unimportant software launch cladded in a “reality distortion field”. Only that, this time, the field actually matters.

It’s undisputed that there had already been a lot of textbooks on all major eBook stores; and that students were actually using them in a good scale. What they lacked, however, is ubiquity. There was no ubiquitous medium or textbook chain that universities could endorse; they had to stick with physical, paperback books. With a buzzed up launch like this one, Apple might potentially convince universities that the time for reinventing the textbook is finally here (and in fact, the time is long overdue); this is why I said the RDF matters this time, more than just the naïve customer, if Apple also lures universities and colleges, it’s ultimately going to benefit the students.

The package is, however, not without its share of questions. The idea of releasing iAuthor to the public, for free particularly raises my eyebrow. A textbook is clearly not everyone’s piece to author; unless Apple puts up some very stringent scrutiny before these books are approved for their store, the bookstore will fill with “textbooks” of holidays in the beach and puppies. The second question is how good Apple is going to be at netting universities and institutions into this game.

The third and most important concern, however, is about the international roll-out. Apparently the idea of replacing your backpack with a single iPad is a very novel and appealing one; but will the idea be stuck to the US alone? None of the US giants are very good when it comes to worldwide roll-outs – iTunes took a long time before it seeped out to the rest of the world. Google Music and Google Voice are still US only. How long then, is a project of this magnitude (in the idea of getting universities in the game, that is) going go worldwide?

[Image Courtesy: Confessions of a Homeschooler]

Windows, Linux, UEFI and a lot of FUD

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:40:27 +0530

Ed bott is being spot-on here:

Windows 8 ARM systems do not yet exist. When they do ship, late this year or early next year, they will consist exclusively of tablets designed to run Metro-style apps. They will not run x86 software. They represent a close collaboration between a small number of hardware makers and Microsoft to build a secure, high-performance system that will be starting fresh in a market dominated by iPads and Android tablets.

If a PC maker decides to build an ARM-based system and install something other than Windows 8 on it, they can tell Microsoft to drop dead and design the firmware any way they want. The Secure Boot requirements apply only to OEMs who sell an ARM-based device and Windows 8 as a complete package.

If you disable Secure Boot on a Windows 8 ARM tablet, you have effectively bricked it. No other currently available operating systems, including any version of Windows, will run on it. No currently shipping version of Linux or Android will run on it.

"The problem is Twitter is designing the metaphorical equivalent of a Toyota Prius. A car for the..."

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:58:15 +0530

“The problem is Twitter is designing the metaphorical equivalent of a Toyota Prius. A car for the masses. While I want a Formula One race car. So, if I answer for myself, it’s a misstep because it didn’t improve my life. On the other hand they’ve doubled the number of tweets in less than a year, so they are doing something right. If I were Jack Dorsey I’d probably change Twitter to serve the new user too. It’s a tough spot to be in for a product designer.”

- Robert Scoble about the Twitter redesign.

About the Metro design language

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 01:30:44 +0530

Metro is the new user-interface paradigm pioneered by Microsoft first in it’s Zune range of media-players, and now being rolled out across it’s range of platforms, viz. Windows Phone, XBox, and Windows 8. Metro rethinks the traditional UI based on icons and windows, and simplifies it to a highly minimalistic UI characterized by bold colours, prominent lines and large, striking typography. Is Metro really the revolution it stands to be? Or is it rather a mere UI redesign that will have to be rethought a couple of years from now?

Before we begin, a little bit of context - here’s an excellent article about the design philosophies of Apple and Microsoft I came across The Verge Forums, a highly recommended read. Much of the following article was originally presented as a comment on the same post. That being said, let’s get on with Metro.

Metro is much more a “design language”, in the “language” sense, and much more of a radical re-invention than Luna or Aero – as such, it more likely for Metro to stand the test of time a little longer than these interfaces did, unless people start to feel Microsoft has done something terribly wrong with it.

I’ll elaborate.
Firstly, Metro is nothing like the interfaces like we’ve seen so far. The current generation of interfaces is known by the self-explanatory name WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers). Be it Apple, Microsoft, or the dozen Linux varations (the most prominent of them being GNOME3 and Unity), the fundamental principle is the same – there are icons which lauch programs and programs lauch in windows. These windows, ubiquitously, can be minimized, maximized, resized and closed. There are menus, buttons and toolbars which performs various actions.

Little of this has changed over the years, and little is different across platforms. All desktop interfaces (and to an extend, mobile interfaces) are variations of the same theme, different only in the mechanism and degree of visual polish.

Metro is different in the sense that it rethinks this design pattern altogether – perhaps not entirely, but considerably. Icons have evolved into tiles – active blocks which can display real-time information. There are no windows in the conventional sense – applications are one large scrollable workspace with minimal pop-up windows or distractions. The entire notion about typography is rethought too, where the hitherto compact text in Windows (a vestige of the early design concept of designing for information density over readability to make best possible use of the small screen area available then) is eschewed for large, bold typography that literally pops out.

And finally, Metro puts minimalism upfront, and goes in the exact opposite direction of what user interfaces have come so far – by eschewing all sorts of visual embellishments for a plain, pure, matter-of-fact look.

It’s worth noting that Metro has already been inspiring design renovations in the industry, the most prominent being the redesign of Android 4.0. Android 4.0 takes a definite bold step in the direction that Metro is going, clearly drawing inspiration from many trends that Metro has set.

To sum up, I believe Metro is an interface revolution unlike Aqua, Luna and Aero, and hence will stand the test of time for maybe a decade to come - there will definitely be updates and minor redesign, but the foundation set in Metro is here to stay. And let me not hide the fact, as you may have probably noticed by now, I’m a big fan of what Microsoft is doing with Metro, and I really hope it indeed does (stand the test of time).

Do reviews need a bias?

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:00:40 +0530

MG Siegler writes:

I don’t know about you, but when I read my favorite technology writers, I want an opinion. Is the iPhone 4S the best smartphone, or is it the Galaxy Nexus? I need to buy one, I can’t buy both. Topolsky never gives us that. Instead, he pussyfoots around it. One is great at some things, the other is great at others. Barf.

Fucking pick one. I bet that even now he won’t.

This is the problem I have with most technology reviews these days. Everyone seems so afraid to say how they really feel about the device. And more often than not, that’s exactly what readers want.

You’re wrong Siegler - that’s not what a review is fundamentally meant to be. Maybe you are looking for relative opinions and head-on comparisons, but most readers, and more importantly, prospective buyers don’t think that way.

What a reviewer should essentially do is analyze the product, analyze how good or bad each feature is and try not to miss any key points (like you obviously did in your “review”). And when one passes comments or makes opinion, it should me made clear that that’s all it is - an opinion. The end-verdict should always be in the hands of buyer. An excessively opinionated review is perhaps an interesting read, but is much less useful when it comes to knowing what the product actually is.

Or, long story short: when you read a review intending to by the gadget, you only care what the gadget is actually capable of, not what a high-gloss blogger thinks about it.

About Android, iOS and Horse-poop.

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:32:17 +0530

The Android vs. iPhone wars have always been colourful.

Now more than ever, the launch of Galaxy Nexus pitted things a lot more even - what Android lacked so much in terms of UI polish and fluidity, Android 4.0 covers up in huge bounds. In many ways, Android seem to excel iOS while in many other, iOS rules champ. Obviously, loyal fans of either platform will disagree, arguing why the factor they think is important makes their platform a huge winner and the other platform a joke.

Disclosure: In this game, I have a pro-Android stance. I hold that the customization and inter-app interoperability is more important than fluid UI and visual polish.

That, however, doesn’t stop me from reading and evaluating comments from people from the other side, trying to find out what they are passionate about, and not trying not to get enraged when they sometimes obviously miss the point (or, like I see on under-dog blogs that are extremely pro-Apple, ignore it altogether) - which is why the blogs of MG Siegler (parislemon) and John Gruber (Daring Fireball) are on my daily reading list.

So, as part of usual thoroughfare associated with a new Nexus/iPhone launch, MG Siegler yesterday wrote this post, his review of the acclaimed Galaxy Nexus from an iPhone-lover’s perspective. This review, was far from thorough or complete, but was certainly from a biased perspective and there was quite a bit of nit-picking - but that was understandable. Being used to Siegler’s attitude, I think the article credifies that the Galaxy Nexus is actually a great phone. So I commented this, as saying anything else would fire up a meaningless Fanboi-war:

What I was trying to say is, I’ve never been reading these blogs with a pro-Android perspective - that would be meaningless, as nearly every post will deal with some sort of nit-picking, and my response/opinion will again be nit-picking on the post. That’s not saying that I always approve what these guys write - no. As I said earlier, I had gotten used to it, the criticisms no longer enraged me, they often made me laugh, rather.

All that, until, this morning Joshua Topolsky tweeted this:

This was unusual from a man like Joshua - but here, he clearly seemed to have a point. Joshua voiced the concern that most readers out there (excluding heavily Apple-biased people) had in mind - both these bloggers (with due respect), unfortunately have lately turned to too much pointless nit-picking - which was, truth to be told, affecting the overall quality of their blogs. The concern, which has been long there, has finally been raised by an authoritive voice. (Joshua Topolsky has promised a follow-up on his comment, which will certainly be worth looking out to.)

Will this make Siegler or Gruber rethink their attitude? Unlikely. But I hope they (and everybody else) finally notice that the people who actually criticize their blogs needn’t necessarily be blind Android fanatics.

Promo done right - Nokia Lumia's Indian lauch

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:47:48 +0530

Yesterday, I did a post about a promo that possibly went wrong - but there was simultaneously another promo going on on another side of the world; and by the looks of it, one that’s doing a very good job.

The promo in question - the launch of Nokia Lumia 800 in the Indian subcontinent. Clearly, Nokia was placing all their bets on a Windows-fuelled-refresh; and they had no intention of hiding the fact - in a previously unseen kind of lauch; Nokia India organized huge launch events at shopping-malls across the nation.

This was obviously appended with a “#SmallAmazings“ campaign on Nokia India’s Twitter page, and other fanfare all around. The idea was simple - Nokia can’t afford to go wrong with this one, and they were making sure that everyone get’s the word - in a country where Nokia still has a good amount of ground-support, this could actually be a promising move.

The bigger question is, will it pay off? On the buzz-side of things, it indeed did - #SmallAmazings was trending on Twitter India within an hour; and the launch indeed got enough coverage from newspapers and blogs of the country. Sales? That remains to be seen, but the fact is undeniable that the Lumia seem to hold a lot of promise.

Promo went wrong? The other side of Google's 10ct Promo

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:30:58 +0530

If you are an Android user, you probably already know about Google’s ‘Ten Days of Offers’ promo; where they are giving away 10 premium apps for 10 cents, each day for 10 days. Though a great opportunity for the consumers to get hold of some really great premium apps that they otherwise could not afford; it seems not all developers are finding the deal exactly sweet.

The developers selected for the promo would certainly be at advantage as they will apparently receive a sizable boost in terms of rankings - the unfortunate developers, especially the ones who have their competitors selected, are the ones at loss.

Take Beansoft, the developers of the acclaimed keyboard alternative, Thumb Keyboard, who didn’t make it to Google’s short-list for the promo. To make things worse, one of their competitors did - and that cost the company dear.

The company was clearly at rage and was starting to organize a twit-storm, which is how I caught the gist of the whole issue. I had a short Twitter conversation with Beansoft, and here’s what they told me:

we’re loosing 30% of our sales each day during the 10B promo, plus are loosing 10 places a day in the ranking.

When I further tried to argue that this effect could well be temporary, and that the ratings would renormalize once the promo gets over; their reply was:

It is a big bet. We hope to survive. But this insecurity will force us to look to other platforms and Android markets.

Ouch. This would certainly be not what el-Goog had in mind. If more developers feel the same way (certainly there are more developers - even counting only top-dogs - who are left out than who are counted in for the 10ct promo), Google could have a problem. The whole idea was to lure even more developers heading into the ICS-push: will it actually go astray and backfire?

Apocalypse: Rise of the Smartphones

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:56:33 +0530

The past week has been a burning week for smartphones - quite literally.

Smartphones have been catching fire and burning in pockets all around the globe - first was the iPhone that caught fire aboard a plane in Australia - later, almost wickedly ironically, a couple of Samsungs followed suit.

This could mean only one thing, right; that smartphones have grown too intelligent; and were hatching their sinister plan to eradicate humanity and take over Earth?! Why else would an incredibly rare incident of a smartphone battery combusting itself repeat thrice (if not more) during the same week?

My point: Over a week ago, an iPhone 4S catches fire and almost injures a man. Obviously, the internet goes crazy about the incident - no major blog or news source missed the news; and there were Apple fans going “FAKE!!!” and haters going “Poor engineering, Apple sucks.” Just a couple of days later, the Samsung errupted - Apple fans recoiled, “Hah!”, haters went “Meh.”. How could the latter two incidents be so impeccably timed? Two possibilities arise:- One: “burning smartphones” are a rather common phenomenon, that on an average, 2-3 phones burn per week.
Or, Two: something’s fishy, and I don’t mean a phonocalypse.

The Aging Book of Faces

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:19:00 +0530

Facebook has been in an increasingly lethargic slumber for the one year.

While it’s true that the past couple of months saw a large number of updates - all kinds of tickers, lists and timelines were being thrown in our way - how many of these were original work? Let’s face it, for the most part, everything was shamelessly ripped of it’s new-found competition, Google+ - the latest update, which extended the word-limit to 63000 characters, was outright blatant: a feeble and despicable attempt to lure back writers who seem to be flocking at Google+.

The mobile scene is much more worse. While the mobile HTML5 website itself does a good job, the mobile apps are mediocre on both the major platforms: On Android, Facebook has a buggy, laggy, mediocre app that hasn’t recieved an interface refresh since its inception; on iOS, it’s for the most part a mere wrapper on the HTML5 website. Compare this to the official Twitter app, or the underdog called Path, and you see how far behind we’re stuck with Facebook.

Of course, Facebook will not be at significant loss being behind in the game - even if it continues uninventive as now for another year, it will not lose significant traction in the game, it’s already too deep in business for that. Who are at loss? We, the users - switching is not an option for the average Facebooker.

Tweaking To Perfection

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:12:55 +0530

Tweaking To Perfection:

parislemon:

Fascinating take on Jobs by Malcolm Gladwell.

His main argument: there are people who truly invent, and then there are people who tweak those inventions to unlock the true potential. Jobs, in Gladwell’s view, was the latter — but it’s important to note that he views the role as just as important as the former.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

Terra Firma

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:40:57 +0530

After about 5 months of using Ubuntu almost exclusively as my daily OS; I’ve finally made the decision and switched back to windows - why? And how does it feel?

Ubuntu had become surprisingly usable and polished in it’s last two iterations, perhaps the main incentives that made me try it as a primary OS - and it was a good experience, on an overall view - the Ubuntu Software Center were catering to most of my software needs; UMPlayer took good care of my videos; and I didn’t really mind the occasional tinkering that was required to get, for instance, the mic working.

The problem, a non-trivial one, that is - was the bugs. There were simply too many of them, and most of them non-trivial.
The PC will altogether refuse to boot. The Mutter GUI engine will fail for days sometimes. There were constant errors and bugs with the routine operations like file-management. Once, I made a backup of my important documents and program-source-code onto an NTFS drive and formatted my Ubuntu partition - once I reinstalled and checked the backup folder, it was empty - nothing had been copied in the first place.

I’m not denouncing Linux or Ubuntu as a totally unusable platform, in fact, it was fairly superior in many aspects - however, the way I see it, there is a missing, a tangible one. A concern about uncertainty - the feel Linux gave over Windows is exactly like what the “wobbly”, rubbery windows of the former feels against the rigid, matted glass windows of the latter.

In the end, it’s all about preference -
Using Linux, maybe, is like the thrill of riding a motorcycle; while Windows gives you a feeling of comfort like that of a car. Above all, it’s all about choice.

Wow, that is quite simply the best “Advertise Here”...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:34:00 +0530

Wow, that is quite simply the best “Advertise Here” ad that I’ve ever seen!

Nokia's 'Dawn' of 'Lumious' 'Hope'

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:26:16 +0530

Above the Windows Phone hype and the galore of high-end devices announced at the Nokia World keynote today at London, what appealed to me the most was two rather less profound yet significant factors:

The Asha Line: Bringing premium desigh, a 1GHz processor, Angry Birds, and quite probably, the Swipe interface to S40 was something truly commendable. If Nokia succeeds in bringing Qt development platform too to these devices, S40 can instantly warp into a true smartphone platform - a true smartphone platform for the masses.
Nokia’s Answer to launch delays: This was phenomenal - when it came the time to furnish the lauch details of all the announced devices, it was not the usual “later this year” this time - in an absolutely brilliant move, Nokia showed a live feed from the factory, where 800’s were being packed and stacked, ready to ship - this was an outright awesome way to say - “no more later, we’re now all about right now, right here”!

emergentfutures: Faster-than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:21:19 +0530

emergentfutures:

Faster-than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity

The relativistic motion of clocks on board GPS satellites exactly accounts for the superluminal effect, says physicist.

Full Story: Technology Review

In life, there are very few things that you can blindly count on...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:39:34 +0530

In life, there are very few things that you can blindly count on - here’s one.

The Design Language of Android 4.0

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:44:00 +0530

The Design Language of Android 4.0:

An excellent interview with Matias Duarte, UX head at the Android team; where he talks about what he likes about present-day UI’s and what he doesn’t; and how he arrived at the perfect balance for Ice Cream Sandwich - a highly recommended read.