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!

Ken you beat that?

China is known for manufacturing pirated goods of all types. But this one takes the cake....ingenious!! Guess goods like cars are also ripped off there.... interesting place eh?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/27/business/nec.php

late to office

After getting a video player in my apartment and also a membership with the rental shop nearby, i am now enjoying watching movies late night.Not the usual late night pornos.Some good ones. And i sleep at 2am...get up late in the mornings and come to office in the afternoon.This has been happenning for 3 days now.Its fun...but dont know how long i can manage to pull it off without my manager knowing abt this.Maybe one more day.... plan to watch "confidence" *ing dustin hoffman and edward burns tonight. And will be late to office again tomorrow.

Mobile TV in Japan

Japan is the second country to provide dedicated digital terrestrial broadcast for mobile phones and handhelds after S.korea.

http://snipurl.com/olnp

New mobile services and technology seems to be originate here and in S.Korea. Japan is surely a great place to work on mobile technologies and i am enjoying it here. Unfortunately my vodafone handset does not support DTV.

Sobering down....

I dont like what i am seeing.. i dont think about drinking quite as often as i used to. Wonder if my internals have decided to take me on in a different way...not the usual stomach or liver problems..but kind of controlling my brain to stop me from thinking about drinking. I smell a conspiracy here....like i feel externals are conspiring against me all the time. Hmmm... lets see if i can get back to form.

--

beer communication

Kirin is a japansese (see the effect?) beer. The company has beer joints called Kirin City. The slogan is "Beer communication". Neat, i thought.Being drunk is a good for conversations and communication.

haitus

Writing after a long time....almost 2 months now. Had been on vacation for a month after finishing my first project in tokyo. It was bloody hectic.... travelling to different places to get things done.Feels like i am on a vacation now here in Tokyo.
This time i hope to blog more often than last time. Will be shifting into a new apartment soon and will get Yahoo broadband setup asap so that i can stay connected.

Media folks should loosen up!

The last couple of years has witnessed some disruptive changes in the media field. Online availability of movies, TV series, video on demand, neat ideas like slingbox. The production houses are also loosing up a bit and becoming more consumer friendly. Now that proven business models (like iTunes) exist, i guess it makes more sense to join in and rake in moolah rather than sit out and get left behind.
And it is getting better with some production houses and distribution companies (mostly independent ones, not mainstream) deciding on releasing movies simultaneously in theatre, DVD and cable (maybe with a 24 hour delay).

Surely, the mainstream folks would take time to move into this mode....but i think this is how it should eventually be. People do go to theatres to watch movies even if they could do it sitting at home in front of a good home theatre. Atleast i would (ofcourse i would since i dont have a home theatre....no DVD player also... just a small TV box). Watching a movie in a good theatre is a different experience altogether... the big screen and great sound effects and the people around.
Watching a movie in a theatre is like....watching a movie in a theatre.
Maybe if the theatre owners feel that they would lose business because of this, they could do great number of things to improve the quality and draw the crowds back into the hall. Like digital screening, superior sound effects, comfortable seatings ....make it a wholesome place with resturants, shops etc. All of them may not be able to adapt to changing times... but this is how things in general improve.... the mediocre players will have to learn to move on or adapt.

eXtreme Programming

Hearing a lot about XP nowadays. And it seems to make a lot of sense for programmers and project managers to follow this kind of programming style especially when it is a huge project with varying requirements. But i guess it takes time for people to accept change.

http://www.extremeprogramming.org/

And this is a solid case for XP. FBI's VCF fiasco...

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep05/1455