CE Widgetization

Interactive applications on Consumer Electronic (CE) devices is increasingly becoming the differentiating featureset. One such interactive application is widgets, which until now was restricted to desktops, mobile devices and web. Popular widget engines include:
- DashBoard from Apple
- Microsoft Gadgets
- Yahoo Widgets etc..

In the CE space, Yahoo! Widget is set to become the leading widget engine. Yahoo! and Intel have partnered to provide Yahoo! Widget Channel framework for developers, CE manufacturers and service providers. Some of the leading CE manufacturers who intend to use Yahoo! widgets include:
- SONY
- TiVo
- Samsung

The SDK is available on a limited basis to select people. Have registered myself for updates on the SDK. Hopefully I should get my hands on one soon!

The michelin kuttan

Thats my nephew when he was 5 months or so. If he had maintained the flabs... he could have been the next michelin mascot.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Looking forward to reading the new novel from Amitav Ghosh. The first in set of trilogy. Check his website http://www.amitavghosh.com/ to know more about him and his latest work. Amitav does his research and weaves a compelling storyline. It is based on opium trading/war and the dependence of East India company on opium being sold in China.

Currently reading "The Hungry Tide" by the same author. A stunning novel. "Glass House" is next on the list.

Surrogate Advertising and Mineral water

Surrogate - noun
1. One that takes the place of another; a substitute.

Since the ban on alcohol and tobacco advertisements, liquor and tobacco companies in India have resorted to a interesting way of marketing... using surrogates. This is not something new. But what I find interesting is the side effects of this, especially in mineral water segment.

Alcohol companies took to manufacturing (outsourced mostly I guess) and selling branded mineral water. KingFisher, Fosters to name a few. And thanks to this, today we consumers have a lot of choice. In the beginning, BISLERI was synonymous to mineral water. Now you ask for BISLERI and more often than not you get a mineral water sold by liquor gaints like UB. Some of the ads do not focus on the mineral water.... more on the brand, obviously since they do not intend to dilute (but pun intended) their main product.

But I wonder why they did not opt to use non-alcoholic beverages as a surrogate instead.

Am kcab

Am back to blogging after a long hiatus. Am looking at blogging on a regular basis and escape from the "short attention span" syndrome that seems to have shaped my life until now.

Ohmygaad

Have sometimes wondered what is my purpose in life. Just when i thought i had the answer to that, these guys ruin it for me.

http://snipurl.com/tiop

anytime anywhere entertainment

Two breakthrough products allow time and place shifting of entertainment. TiVo and Slingbox.

http://www.tivo.com/1.0.asp
http://www.slingmedia.com/us/

Good for people who move around a lot and dont want to miss out on their daily dose of entertainment. On the flipside, this could go a long way in further screwing up the lives of tech obsessed people by making information and entertainment more easily accesible.

steganography

An act of hiding secret messages in things. Here you can find a tool to do just that to jpeg image files.

http://linux01.gwdg.de/~alatham/stego.html

The picture above has a text file embedded in it using this tool. If you are intereseted, you can retrive it using the same tool and the password "test". There is no secret message in this case though.

Melvin on Indian Soccer

http://snipurl.com/tiot

namma wikipedia

Checked out the one in kannada. But could only search by typing english. Dont have the kannada fonts. Hopefully someone will create one in Malayalam.

http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Gaming High

Video gaming market (including mobile gaming) is growing and so are the number of addicts.And soon we will have special gaming deaddiction centres to bring them back to the real world.

http://snipurl.com/tiow

And broadband connectivity seems making things more difficult.

http://snipurl.com/tip0

broad at my apartment

Not what you are thinking... how I wish!. Finally managed to get a broad band connection. It took so bloody long to get this one. First I had to choose from a variety of options and then after that the process of getting one is the standard duration of one month (atleast). Till then I had to make do with my phone modem and that was a paltry 256 Kbps (actually only 100 Kbps at best). Now I have a 50 Mbps ADSL connection (surely I wont be getting that much). But whatever it is, its good enough to download movies. Let the fun begin!