January 16, 2005
Digital Happiness
To get over the temporary gloom in my life, I decided to bring in some digital happiness. I replaced my CRT monitor with a Samsung Syncmaster 17-inch LCD. Given its performance, I didn't bother to look at the BenQs and LGs making rounds at the local computer hardware shops. Supposedly Umax also has good performance LCDs. But nothing beats a Samsung when you club features, quality and price together (atleast here in India). There's one negative about this particular model, though. It does not have a DVI input. But that hardly matters. Plus having a DVI input shoots up the price of an LCD. So unless you are an imaging professional (they have better LCDs available to them) or a crazy geek, you are better off with an analog input. Oh and if you have never heard words like sub-pixel death, contrast ratios and ghosting, you should definitely take a look at Anandtech's LCD primer.
May 30, 2004
Nintendo DS
Like countless others feel, the Nintendo DS reminds me of the Donkey Kong Game&Watch video games of the 1980s. Although I never owned one, I used to play and envy one that belonged to my friend. Atleast now, I can download an emulator for DK. Oh, it feels like childhood again.:)
November 29, 2003
iTunes to go
With a month and a half of using, I am convinced iTunes for Windows is the Music Jukebox app I was always looking for. A combination of simplicity and rich features is what iTunes is all about. After using and dumping Musicmatch, Creative Playcenter and a host of Music and Tag management software, iTunes is here to stay on my Windows desktop for a long time. Read ahead for my detailed opinion on iTunes.
Read More (938 words) »»
May 08, 2003
The Zen of MP3
One of the great desires of a music buff who is also a technogeek is to own
an mp3 player which can store his whole music collection in a single place.
Well,
I have
realised it sooner than I expected it to happen. The Creative
Nomad Jukebox Zen 20GB is a perfect balance between affordability, quality,
storage and features when it comes to handling MP3s. If you wish
to put yourself in
misery for not owning one, here's my biased review of this techno toy.
Read More (1264 words) »»
February 26, 2003
PS2 Rules
I would be one of the last gamers on the earth who have yet not laid their hands on the Sony PS2. Yesterday I did get to play Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2 and to tell you, I was stunned by the sound & exceptionally detailed graphics. This game beats NFS 3/4/5 hands down in closeness to reality. Not to mention the force feedback gamepad which really got me into the action. But the ultimate games I would like to play on a PS2 would be GTA:VC, LOTR:TTT and the yet unreleased new version of GTA previewed on Gamer.tv.
December 26, 2002
BSODs on the move
This mobile phone boasts of a 132Mhz processor, 16MB RAM, 32MB Flash ROM, 65k colours, 
optional digicam, tri-band, MMS, serial/usb ports and an integrated Multimedia and SD memory card - better specs than my neighbour's PC. All this for what? For running PocketPC 2002. Hope they haven't designed BSODs for the OS. Compare this eye candy with the simplicity of the PalmOS and you will start wondering whether you really need all that power and palm burning for being on the move. Laptops, palmtops and mobile phones have well-segregated roles to play.
November 28, 2002
Of old things and Tablet PC
Wired going ga ga over Tablet PC may seem silly, when one finds out that Apple already had a similar killer product out in the market long ago, to be accurate, 1993. Apple Newton Message Pad was one of the first PDAs coming out. Although it was bulky and expensive, its owners were `sentimentally' attached to it. So much that the Newton is still used today by them. And there are even WiFi/GSM/GPRS/GPS apps written by Newton hackers (1)(2)(3). 
Isn't that surprising? Apple's another first, down the drain only because of poor marketing. Flash forward to the Tablet PC's campaign - All glitter and glamour. And even I have fallen into the trap. A few days ago, I would have been among the few privileged in India to actually touch and use a Tablet PC. Unfortunately I wasn't in office at that time. Some say it is of the size of a Sony Viao and isn't quite interesting, for all the hype. Some say the handwriting recognition is great(It was decent enough in PocketPC 2002). I heard that at this moment there are only 2 pieces in India. And one of them is destined to go to the Ambani home.
November 13, 2002
Utility Robots
When Aibos start appreciating the beauty of nature, what you get is artful dissonance, says Cory Doctorow. And cats, as always, will never understand it.
Then you have some perfectly dumb robots, like Banryu, who have neither a personality nor utility. Even if they were meant to be ``guard-dragons''...
November 01, 2002
Simputer Rollout
The Register reports that the Simputer has at last found a manufacturer and will probably roll out next February. After all the good responses and the bad ones, it is finally getting a position in the tech stores, albeit a bit late.
September 24, 2002
Digital Divide Or Not?
If you know about the Simputer, you will feel really sad, reading this article at WorldTechTribune. Scott McCollum hasn't even tried to understand the purpose of the creation of the simputer. He is indeed behaving like the "dirty, rotten, filthy, stinkin' rich" as he himself has mentioned(albeit for a different reason) in the article. Vinay Deshpande from the Simputer Trust has given a fitting reply to the article. Read the mail thread on the India GII list ahead.
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September 22, 2002
Humble Mouse
Have you ever thought about the ubiquitous device that we use everyday with our computer? The mouse had its humble beginnings in 1968. Yes you read right. And It was created for a purpose - a quick way to run common commands without resorting to the keyboard.
Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him gave a 90-minute demostration of the system which was then called NLS. If you want to see the videos of the demonstration, click here - Doug Engelbart 1968 Demo
September 12, 2002
OptiMouse Hack
Some people have the knack of using common things for uncommon work. Like this guy at Robogeeks. He used a cheap optical mouse as a blazingly fast motion detector sensor! We all know that optical mice have an optical component for detecting motion below the mouse. He used this property, attached an IsoPod SBC and created a 256 pixel, 64 gray-level motion detector digicam! And the detection rate is 2300 fps. That's pretty amazing!
June 22, 2002
Digi pan
;)
Having a digicam has made life so easy. You can create a pan image just out of anything.
June 12, 2002
Fossilized PDA
PDA on a wrist watch is not a new thing. But when you get that watch from Fossil, hmmmm....
The Wrist PDA has 8-bit EPSON CPU, 190 Kbytes mem, Address, Date Book, To Do List, Memo Pad Customizable Watch Time / Date Display, Palm-like Alarm Reminder Windows, Built-in configuration software for PALM OS handhelds, Receive personal data from PALM OS handhelds, Send / receive business card info from PALM OS handhelds or other WRIST PDA watches, Store up to 20 received business cards, Compatible Handhelds - Palm IIIe, IIIc, V, Vx, VII, M100, M105, M505, Handspring Visor,and Edge, Sony Clie models.
April 30, 2002
Skinny Mouse
"Amazing what staring at this thing for hours will do to your appetite.
I wanted to push my mouse-making further than normal mice. trying to evoke a gut reaction in viewers, plus comment a little about awareness of how used some of the things we touch are; and how nearly intimate our connection to our computers can be... either that, or i just wanted to create something freaky and disturbing.".Click Here.
I would say real freaky!!!.
April 28, 2002
Cubik
Cubik Digital Camera - The World's Smallest Digital Camera. And it really is!!!
March 26, 2002
Tux got PS2
I always wished I had a Sony PS2. Now I feel stronger than ever. Linux on Playstation2 looks interesting. Sony has released a linux kit for developing for the PS2. They say "This kit will include a Linux distribution on DVD that runs on the PS2 hardware, additional software, documentation, a 40GB hard drive, an Ethernet adapter, a USB mouse, a USB keyboard, and a computer monitor cable. ...". The distribution is based on Kondara Linux and the PS2 libraries will be released under LGPL. They also have a community website for Linux PS2 developers
July 18, 2001
Bed Potatoes
Square Eye Co has a weird product (not to mention a very sad web design) that allows you to watch TV lying on your back. Hmmm wonder what else I could use this for. Hey Nilesh get back online. What remote village are you in that you can't blog from?
June 17, 2001
Riocar
Here's Riocar, an mp3 player specially for the car. It's based on Linux and sports a 10GB laptop harddrive which one can fill in thru USB. The drive can be upgraded to 60GB making it 1020 hours of non-stop music in the car!! Enough for a tour across the country. ;-) The indication that it is based on Linux is the sole Tux logo on the main product page. There is no mention anywhere on the site about the underlying OS. :-( Why, are they afraid Linux haters will not buy their product??
May 30, 2001
Paqing the future
WoW!! Look at these futuristic desktops from Compaq!! These are a hybrid of a desktop and a laptop and can completely replace the desktop PC with all features of a desktop PC. It would be cool to run Linux on these machines!!!
May 26, 2001
Yopy
Grrr...this PDA stuff is driving me mad.....another Linux PDA. But this one's different (nah!, everybody says that). It comes with bash, sed, awk, perl and all the command line stuff you want in life. geee! :-) . Yopy is what you want!
Simple Computer
These guys at the Indian Institute of Science have designed a cheap Linux PDA . Its called the Simputer (Guess, they should do something about the name) and runs on a 32-bit 200Mhz Strong Arm processor. It has 32MB RAM, 16MB flash, supports USB, Smartcards IrDA and has a built-in modem. The software has text-to-speech capabilities, financial applications, microbanking, mp3 player. It supports tcp/ip, http, ftp, telnet and ppp. The icing on cake is it is based on linux and the hardware itself is open source under the GPL license. Check out the snapshots here. Hmm, this sure can give the Palm some competition!
May 25, 2001
Linux PDAs
More on PDAs and stuff - MacOSX on a Visor Agenda PDA with Linux pre-installed A whole array of Linux PDAs/devices
May 23, 2001
Jap Gizs
Like watching movies on your PDA? Take a look at a whole range of these Japanese gizmos displayed recently at the Business Show 2001 in Tokyo.
May 22, 2001
Qi
Once upon a time, when 386s were the hottest thing on the block, there was a machine called the Qi (not to sure about the name) which had a keyboard, joystick & phone combo!
Mouse-board
Look at this amazing Mouse-keyboard combo. It looks cool but I doubt I would enjoy typing on it. But one advantage is it uses less desktop space.
May 17, 2001
PalmWac
Haaahaaa, I am blazing my way thru posts!!! Palm or a Tablet??? Get both by getting Palm. Use your Palm as a tablet in X11 PalmWac. Dont ask what is a Palm. ;o)
