All About the New iPad

Vidit Bhargava

Apple finally unveiled the third generation iPad on March 7th 2012. Just about an year after it had announced the iPad 2. I’d like to start with the iPad 2 today. To make it clear iPad 2 was a major design upgrade. The new Aluminum back was just about how much Apple could change the iPad’s look in one update. And hence, contrary to what others might say, iPad 2 was the design overhaul update and not a stability update. So let’s paste Apple’s upgrade trends for iOS devices now. The first update usually brings a design overhaul while the second update becomes a stability update for the first one without any significant change in design. Therefore, The Third Generation iPad had to be a similar looking, more stable version of the iPad 2. It’s just that. And goes a little further.

Let me walk through the ‘new’ iPad’s key-features one by one now:

Retina Display: The iPhone 4 was the first device to get a retina display and so everyone had hoped that it will come to the iPad 2 also. Turns out a Retina Display on the iPad 2 was not only expensive it also had technical difficulties to overcome, and so it came an year later to the iPad screen.

You’ve got to experience a retina display in person to know how it feels, it’s not the same thing as using one on an iPhone, it’s even better and brighter. Infact the 2048×1536 pixels resolution is even better than what an HD resolution would like on a tablet. The iPad with its Retina Display and IPS LCD has the best screen any mobile device (phone or Tablet) has ever had. And takes the 3rd Generation iPad miles ahead of competition in terms of graphics and display quality. Instantly all other tablets in the world, now look dull and of ancient ages. To top it all the new iPad maintains the same battery life of 10 hours which makes it all though more difficult for competitors to catch up with the father of all tablets.

5MP Camera: The back-camera which is now called an iSight Camera has got a major tech-bump in terms of image quality, the new iSight Camera, believe it or not, takes better pictures than the iPhone 4 camera. Even though both of them are 5MP. Yes, the key to great photography is not in the megapixels but the technology involved in the camera, and Apple’s idea of adding another lens and widening the camera aperture is a good one. And adds real color to the images.

There are obviously high-expectations from the camera, given that the same technology did wonders for the iPhone 4S. The initial shots look great, but I won’t comment on the quality before I actually lay hands on one.

A5X: it’s not A6 or last year’s A5. It’s the A5X processor. The A5X processor has a dual-core and quad-core graphics. Quad-Core Graphics engine now help the iPad to get better games with console-like graphics, Apple had demoed A NAMCO developed Action Game and the Infinity Blade Dungeons by Epic Games. Both of them had looked spectacular and the iPad like an equal amongst its console rivals.

So, while A5X might not bring a steep performance update in CPU, but graphics have definitely become top-notch. Hence the name A5X and not A6.

But a word about the technical specifications over here, Apple controls it’s own hardware and software and hence your new iPad is not likely to be a slow experience in any way. You are definitely going to get a blazing fast experience and by upgrading the hardware apple allows the developers to build better apps which provide a great experience to the customer.

While we can compare Android Tablets by the processor speed, RAM or any other technical specification, we cannot do the same when comparing an Android Tablet to the iPad. So, when we compare an Android Tablet to the iPad we will also have to compare the user experience of using the same apps on both the devices, moreover an overall experience is to be compared rather than a fragment of it.

4G LTE: While Indian users might not get the 4G speeds on the third Generation iPad when it launches, users in the US have a lot to be happy about, The new iPad is a 4G LTE device which comes with AT&T, Bell, Rogers and Verizon as supported 4G suppliers. Moreover 4G LTE means that the new iPad will allow for faster web-browsing and web-experience. So this is 4G, of know use in the Indian Market but of immense power in areas it is present.

Voice Dictation: Unlike the iPhone the iPad doesn’t come with Siri built in. The new iPad however has Voice Dictation. Voice dictation is a part of Siri, which takes voice input and converts it to text. We can expect Siri once it’s out of the beta stage, though.

Pricing and Availability:

16th March 2012	23rd March 2012*
United States	Belgium
Canada	Greece
United Kingdom	Ireland
France	Italy
Germany	Macau
Switzerland	Mexico
Japan	New Zealand
Hong Kong	Portugal
Singapore	Spain
Australia	Sweden

* The 3rd Generation iPad will release In 26 European countries on 23rd March 2012. Only Some of them have been listed above.

Pricing:

	16GB	32GB	64GB
iPad WiFi	$499	$599	$699
iPad WiFi + 4G	$629	$729	$829
iPad 2 WiFi	$399	-	-
iPad2 WiFi+ 3G	$529	-	-

Summing Up:

In a time where the only significant tablet in the market is the iPad, And others are only catching up, even a minor update to the tablet would mean even more to catch up for the competition. The new iPad builds on the image of the  previous two versions. And with more and more tablet buyers emerging everyday, the new iPad will gain on that front too.

A major selling point of the iPad will be the Retina Display, with the Retina Display the new iPad opens up an array of improvements that graphic based content could get. And along with the new quad-core graphics, everything on the new iPad will look brighter and wonderful, specially movies and nextgen games.

Should you Upgrade? Those who had bought the first generation iPad can upgrade now. The iPad has come a long way after its 2010 release, and with the new iPad being more of a stability upgrade, upgrading from the first generation iPad will definitely turn out to be a great idea.

For Those who had bought the iPad 2, an upgrade is not recommended. The iPad 2 is nearly as good as the new iPad but sans Retina Display.

For those wanting to buy a new iPad, it is a golden period to buy one.

The Next iPad. What to Expect.

Vidit Bhargava

This week Apple will unveil its next generation iPad at the Yerba Buena Center of Arts , the same place where the previous two models came out. This is hardly a rumor now, giving a glance to the invitation will confirm it.

Let's for a moment forget all speculations, rumors and leaks and think what would be a sensible upgrade to the most widely used tablet in the world.

What immediately comes to mind is that Apple will add this year's hardware. It will be a major hardware upgrade to start with. Having said that, this major overhaul is only going to be on the iPad's logic board, the casing will in probability remain the same. Purely going by the trends, the second 'update' to an iOS device has always involved bringing stability to the device, remember iPhone 3GS? It looked the same as 3G but was a completely different device on performance, the next generation iPad might also follow the same trend and add internal hardware changes than the superficial looks. Then there is a possibility that the iPad might just have a Retina Display this time. It is highly likely this year but if you'd have said the same for iPad 2 last year I would have been skeptical. It really wasn't feasible to fit a display of that quality in a 499 dollar price limit. Come 2012 and the situation is different, the displays industry has overcome the price hurdle, it seems. So Retina is very much on my list of the new iPad. A good camera is obviously a good idea, Apple's iPhone 4S had done some good stuff with the optics, i find no reason why they won't want the same technology to come their next most sold gadget. A similar looking iPad with a better display, camera and screen would be my pick for the 3rd generation iPad.

In terms of software, it might be iOS 5.1 which is obviously the long awaited minor update to the iOS that is in beta stages currently but who knows Apple might have iOS 6 under the wraps. Now iOS 6 also sounds plausible, after all it's not every year that they can afford to 'announce' a new OS at the WWDC, WWDC being their annual developers conference and  developers expect both hardware and software from it, not 'just' announcing software. But let's not deviate from the point. Whatever this new OS will be, what exactly will it have? The answer lies in Apple's Mountain Lion update. So first of all I'd like to highlight those features which the iOS is going to borrow from Mac OS X 10.8. First up, is the update to Notes. Notes are definitely set to have Picture embedding capabilities in them. Last month Apple showed us Notes coming for the Mac and it showed us how they synced well with the iCloud. So they definitely won't want to leave other devices behind in terms of the basic built in Capabilities. The next one is going to be Messages. Yes, Messages for the iOS is set to drop i from the name and become messages. It might also become more of a multi-purpose chat client, something that apple has envisioned to do with the OS X app of the same name. FaceTime will also get an HD update, that's something we had in the new OS X Lion but didn't in iOS5 so if iPad is going to get truly HD with all the retina display and airplay to HDTV's in HD, it should have FaceTime HD too. Safari is the next on the list. Apple had updated Safari last month, and now it sports a giant common search and address bar followed by a permanent Reader button. Frankly speaking Safari has never been better and the same will have to come on the iPad. All the above features will surely come on the iPad, but it all depends on how Apple plans to release its iOS and Mountain Lion. They may come later this year or they may be in your hands by the next week. And Now let's come to the iPad 2S (or 3) only features. Siri is highly possible. It might also drop the beta from the name. ILife and iWork are already present but Photos might get more Sharing options. If there is something new in works, I don't know it. I can only guess that it will either be an App Store App (which means it'll cost anything from $4.99 to $9.99) or an inbuilt app. But a few new apps are customary and will come for the next iPad only, this is certain. At the moment the best i can predict is Aperture and Final Cut Pro for iPad.

As for the name. I don't really think it is going to be iPad 3. iPad 2S, iPad, iPad HD are a few names I think the next generation iPad could be called.

Pricing will be the same. (Regardless of any rumor that is floating around.) the iPad might add the 4G LTE variant and they may merge it with 3G and charge a little more but it is slightly dubious at the moment. There might be more storage options too, 16GB iPads might make way for a 128GB model. The iPad might also have more accessories in store, an upgrade to the smart cover seems logical.

That's all there is to the mysterious new iPad. It will have no more or no less. Apple won't be showing off a 7 inch iPad. You won't be paying more for a retina display, though you might end up paying less if you are a student and the iPad won't be bulkier or have a small battery life, in short it won't have anything less than the iPad 2.

And One More Thing, The next iPad also will come with a heart melting video!

5 Books you Must Read [Part 1]

This is the first of the series, of my post on books that you must reads. So apart from the Harry Potters, Agatha Christie Books or Dan Brown Books which might depend on one's choice of books. These are the books that should not be missed at any cost.

1. Shantaram Price: Rs. 419 | Buy Here	2. Steve Jobs Price: Rs. 559 | Buy Here
3. H2G2 Price: Rs. 385 | Buy Here	4. The White Tiger Price: Rs. 209 | Buy Here
5. The Alchemist Price: Rs. 163 | Buy Here

How Revolutionary is Apple's foray into Education

Vidit Bhargava

An education based even was hosted by Apple, last month. The event emphasized on how the company will try to change the decaying American education system.

Phill Schiller took the stage to kick-start the education event by emphasizing that USA wasn't a leader when it came to global education. He didn't forget to mention that the iPad had been the most desired gadget amongst the teens. Phill also mentioned about iPad's contribution in helping students study.

There were three things, that Apple Launched that evening. I'd like to go through them one by one and try to give a feed-back on exactly how revolutionary they are:

1.    iBooks 2

iBooks, Apple's book-reading app for the iPad now features some really interactive content from popular textbook publishers. These are books specifically designed for the iPad. They are interactive, more colorful and much less boring than the books you might be reading today. And They have the same quality of content.

One such book is  E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth. Its a biology text book which is fully loaded with interactive content. You can pinch inside a human cell, interactively study the parts of an insect, get video lessons, visit interactive image galleries related to the topic, test yourself and get an interactive feedback there and then. Apple has redefined how a book looks like.

While these books may be great when it comes to 'reading the content' but when it comes to the books which concentrate less on the reading material and more on providing extra questions, the interactive way of learning faces a challenge. When you add more questions and less of content, you ultimately end up compromising the interactivity of the book. Which is something you won't want because the selling point of these books is interactivity, followed by other supplementary factors.

The interactive iBooks also have a task of luring the kids into studies, while this may convert a few students and make them study 'more' but not many will 'start' studying just because their new books are on a touch-screen device, have a video or are interactive. Moreover to such kids, the iPad might prove to be more of a distraction than a learning ground. This is something perhaps no-one can change and technology's intervention doesn't help.

* iBooks 2 is a free update from Apple's App Store.

2. iBooks Author

This is a tool for the publishers. The iBooks Author lets you create interactive textbooks and test them on your device. It provides the Author with an opportunity to put content or add interactive media. This can be in the form of an interactive HTML5 widget, a 3D figure, a video or even a simple quiz. Publishers have a choice on what they can put.

iBooks Author is just like Instant food. It can create a new book in a matter of minutes. All you need is, the content to fit in and a suitable collection of pictures and video. iBooks Author manages almost everything. Also you can test your book on your iPad before publishing it to the iBookstore. Authors can choose their own price.

However, iBooks Author has a large scope of improvement. Not only do authors have limited control to how their book can look, many of the services are only linked to Apple's ecosystem. For Example if you wish to add an HTML5 widget you just can't embed an HTML file. You will need to create a widget using Apple's proprietary dashcode and then embed it into the iBook. There is also little modification you can do with a set template. You don't have much say when it comes to changing the look and feel of the book. This might lead to a set pattern of stenciled textbooks on the iPad, in the future.

Apple Likes having a full control in all its products and iBooks Author is no exception. Its dead closed and all you can do is, play around with the Apple software. Its like a Garden with many swings, but it is closed on all sides. No where to escape. No room to expand.

On the whole the iBooks Author is a good desktop publishing tool but there is a lot left to desire over here.

3. iTunes U

iTunes U has enjoyed a good 4 and a half years of existence. It has been helpful to all kind of students and provides a good variety of courses from the world's best universities. Apple decides to expand it now, with an iOS App.

The new iTunes U iOS App features courses. What are courses? Well, Courses are just like the courses you might attend at your college. They involve Video Lectures, Mini Quizzes, Assignments, Study Material and Tests. They are a digital replica of a college course. Not only does iTunes U help you get all the content, It also helps you maintain notes, and allows you to search through the study material and keep a track of your tests.

The iTunes U App is a nice addition. It is also the most effective way of learning and grasping content amongst the three announced by Apple.

The App has a good, clean and sensible UI which allows the users to concentrate on studying and lets them build a good understanding of whatever they are learning. Also the Tests, Quizzes and Assignments are very helpful.

--

Summary:

While Apple may like to portray how revolutionary these new iBooks and this Digital Content is, It remains to be seen how well it performs. The Book business might turn out to be as good as the iTunes Music Store or might end up being one of the few failures Apple has faced in the past decade. Completely changing a country's education system is a big task, This is just a small step in one direction. Only time will tell if it is the right direction.

UltraBooks or UltraClones?

Vidit Bhargava

Sometime back, Intel introduced this term called 'Ultrabook'. It defines it as 'a higher-end type of subnotebook'. The definition itself is so complex, that you can imagine what kind of weirdly boiled mockery the Ultrabooks will turn out to be.

The CES this year was paraded by Ultrabooks from Asus, Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo. Almost every computer manufacture wants to wet its hands in the supposed Ultrabook Revolution.

Two give you a clearer picture of what an ultrabook looks like Here are a few details about this 'Revolutionary' product that comes once in a while: The Ultrabooks are thin, lightweight, come in Unibody Enclosures and with limited ports. They also have a long-battery life. And almost all of them use 'Flash Based SSDs'. The display size is 11.6" to 13.3" or 14" at most. None of them features a CD-DRIVE.

And Now you may have a clear picture of what the Ultrabook will look like:

Looks familiar? Isn't it? Its the MacBook Air that was launched in 2010. The Ultrabook thing came in mid-2011. The Ultrabooks not only shamelessly rip off the design of a macbook air. They also boast of similar specifications.

Many people right now will be planning to press that 'x' button on their devices, since they fear this is going to go the fan boy way. As a matter of fact it is not. It is for the truth that I write this post.

Write from the design ergonomics to the keyboard color. Everything is being cloned in the name of Ultrabook. The only thin wall between an ultrabook and a macbook air is the CULV processor by Intel. The MacBook Air has the same processor as that in their MacBook Pro.

CULV (Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage) is a low power Intel Processor with Integrated Graphics. It is designed specifically for the Ultrabooks platform.

Intel plans to release these low-voltage processors in three phases. (For their three micro-architectures). Hence, dividing the Ultrabook launch in three phases also. The first phase is going to be ruled by the Sandy Bridge. Second will have Ivy Bridge and the third will have Haswell. When you 'know' that Intel has Ivy Bridge and Haswell in works, which are better processors based on relatively newer technology (one of them is that of 3D Tri Gate Transistors), then why will you settle for a Sandy Bridge Processor which looks like Yesterday's discarded waste when compared to the glorious tomorrow Intel Promises.

Having said all that about the Ultraclones, I will like to add that not all is so-clone like about the Ultrabook genre. While 'most' of the ultrabooks may look like Chinese fakes of the macbook air. There are a few that are promising and aren't that abominable. Lets get back to CES to see whether the Ultrabooks have something 'different' to offer than the image of an Ultraclone.

At CES 2012: There wasn't any interesting news this time. Motorola and Intel got into a deal, Android revealed 'design standards for Ice Cream Sandwich', Qualcomm rolled out a new Snapdragon processor and Corning came out with Gorilla Glass 2. And Then there were Ultrabooks, more Ultrabooks, and an almost uncontrollable flood of them. Most of them were clones, and are not even worthy of being covered in this post, but some of them were notable and deserve a little mention.

According to Joanna Stern of The Verge, The HP Envy Spectre, XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga were the best Ultrabooks at this year's CES.

Lets start with HP's Spectre. Its a comparatively thicker solution to the Ultrabook. and that's probably because of the Gorilla Glass it sports. So while the Gorilla Glass is a neat-trick, those obsessed with extremely slim solutions for a laptop won't be very happy about it. It does have a good display and does sport the high-end ultrabook specs, which include a 128GB mSATA SSD, and 4GB of RAM with a Core i5 CULV processor and NFC capabilities. The only thing that HP seems to have copied from Apple's Macbook is the the color scheme. The black-keyboard on on a grey body. HP's Spectre is better than the rest of Ultrabooks and is priced at $13,999.

XPS13 by Dell is Dell's first dive into the Ultrabook market. When closed, the XPS13 can easily be mistaken to be a chinese clone of the Macbook Air. However it has a completely different feel to it when opened. The Interiors are all black. The Specifications of the laptop are also good. They are nearly the same as that of Spectre except the XPS has a Core i3 CULV processor and a lesser screen-resolution of 1366X768. XPS13 also has the gorilla glass. No NFC over here though. The laptop is priced at $999. XPS13 is good but I won't seriously consider buying it, when i can get better at $999.


The last one on this list is Lenovo Yoga. It was the most uniquely designed ultrabook at CES and it has nothing similar to the MacBook Air in terms of design. The laptop turn into a touch screen tablet, and runs Windows 8. I am not sure if this qualifies an ultrabook (We still don't know if it has that CULV processor or whether a laptop needs CULV to be officially called an ultrabook*) but it has most of the qualities of an ultrabook. It has a Flash SSD, a large 'quoted' battery life, it is thin and its ultraportable. The hinge-design of which i am not a fan of, is a neatly done, but 'Yoga' might just prove to be very bulky to play the role of a Tablet. Also, the hinge may not be very comfortable for both Laptop and Tablet users. The Lenovo Yoga (An Ideapad) will hit the stores only after Windows 8 makes a debut.


Final Words:
While the Ultrabook platform is flooded with clones, there are a few which do stand-out and perform better than others. However, Even they sport similar designs and uninspired technology. So Ultrabook is largely an exaggerated and mass cloned platform. The herd might just survive, or may turn out to be Netbooks 2.0. doomed to die.

* Ultrabook is a trademark owned by Intel and this post has no-intention of demeaning the sales of the Ultrabooks.

Rockstar (2011) - Review

Movie: Rockstar

Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Kumud Mishra, Shammi Kapoor, others are negligible.

Director: Imtiaz Ali

A week after the release, the frenzy is over, promotion campaigns have come to a peaceful halt, everyone has seen the film once, the film is a hit and moreover has been praised by critics. I was one of those few who went to watch the film on the first day. I decided to hold back my opinion this time, for reviewing Rockstar just after watching the film would produce inaccurate results.

In the first few scenes of the film, you can see the crowd going crazy over a Rockstar called Jordan. As it turns out Jordan is our protagonist who is currently Acting crazy with the police and running across the streets of a country to get to his concert. The visuals are stunning. The message is clear, "Hold it! Not yet, We've got this great stuff coming up in the climax, but first listen to a boring love story." You expect what is coming next. That pretty much sums up the plot.

For a film titled Rockstar it is quite essential for the makers to weave a powerful character, mine a great voice and hunt for the best most unique rock music you can aptly associate with the character. Ranbir Kapoor, Mohit Chauhan and A.R. Rahman are the Best solution for this cubic-equation. And so when either of them are in action Rockstar rocks. 

Ranbir Kapoor gives his career best by playing Jordan. He lives the character too well, its because of him that the crowd doesn't leave the theatre half-way through. Kumud Mishra (plays Mr. Khatana) does a fine job too. He is tailor stitched into the role of the canteen owner and mentor to his most frequent visitor (Ranbir Kapoor). Infact Kumud Mishra's acting is so realistic that you mistake him as an actual canteen owner.

A.R. Rahman's music is the life and soul of this movie. 14 Tracks with 6 musical set pieces from the god of music is enough to make any movie watchable. Add to that Imtiaz Ali intelligently fits them in the movie. All 14 Tracks are quite remarkable and singling out anyone as the best will mean disregarding other 13. It's surely the best of Rahman we've heard in a few years, it's a memorable masterpiece and it surely is the best music composed this year.

A special note about Sadda Haq here: It is indeed the best shot rock song taking all the 3 Hindi Rock films into consideration. The song captures the audience, it makes them shout out the lyrics. It has the best guitar composition heard in years and Sadda Haq alone is worth the price of the ticket. Amazingly shot, breathtaking and crowd capturing. Again, I'm not saying that it is the best song of the album (all our equally good) but it is surely the best shot song. Naadan Parindey is also similarly great and is a Climax Feast.

The Cinematography is also good. The film looks beautiful, (something you'd credit to Yash Raj Films, and Sanjay Leela Bansali films from 1990s). The scenes in Prague have been beautifully shot. Jordan's performances have been shot well, Infact they are the high-points in the movie. Anil Mehta has done the hard work and it pays off.

Coming to what is bad in the film: To start with, Nargis Fakhri's acting and her dubbing is a big let down. Her voice is flatter and more unemotional than Virtual Voice Assistants. Along with Nargis Fakhri all the side-kicks that are related to her in the film also show similar intentions to act bad or act mechanically. There is a lot Imtiaz Ali could have gained by selecting a better actress for this role and there isn't much that he has achieved by choosing her.

Apart from Fakhri's acting, Imtiaz Ali's writing also disappoints. While the major portion of the first hour is interesting and has some really memorable instances, the next hour and half is incoherent, sluggish and gradually looses the grip. However the situation is not deadly bad here, Imtiaz Ali is to be awarded for some innovative and intelligent writing.

The editing too is a bit rough. Patches are visible everywhere and it is clear that the ever increasing length of the film was cropped unevenly. Also with the huge bag of censor cuts under it's name, Rockstar struggles at conjuring a neat trick.

One of the biggest flaws of the film is that it takes a lot of time to fly (I.e. kick start its engine of progress). And when it does take off, it's a very short take off and the film is back to bore you.

So that's it Rockstar is half a job done, while Ranbir Kapoor, A.R. Rahman, Imtiaz Ali and Anil Mehta have given their heart and soul in the film, others fail miserably.

There is one more thing, Rockstar grows on you. (And that's why you cannot review the film just after watching the film. This effect takes time to grow.)

Rating: *** (Extra marks for good music)

Meet Siri iPhone 4S

Vidit Bhargava
Going by the trend Apple follows with it’s new devices, Apple generally introduces a new design one year, and then stabilizes it the next year (iPhone 3G – iPhone 3GS), so it wasn’t really a surprise when Apple introduced the iPhone 4S with the same design and a few necessary tweaks.

The iPhone has gone through a few very necessary updates, which were sort of expected after the launch of iPad 2. The first one is the A5 Chip. Single Cores are stale talk now, even though the iPhone 4 was blazingly fast, Apple had to throw in their A5 Chip, just to keep pace with others. The 1Ghz Dual Core Chip, with a dedicated Graphics Engine has already proved its strength in the iPad 2, and it’ll be real fun to see how it does in the iPhone 4S. Early reports however suggest that the iPhone chip has been under-clocked to 800Mhz, which doesn’t look like doing bad either.

The camera in the iPhone 4S has gone for a major upgrade, along with a new 8 Megapixel camera, Apple has also played with optics, the new camera now features a CMOS Sensor and 5 lenses instead of four and 1080p recording is now supported. Also the Aperture has widened. Long Story Short: Your new iPhone is capable of clicking photos much like they’ll be shot by a good digital camera.

But it’s a Phone update isn’t it? Just upgrading the camera and the Processor won’t do the trick, it doesn’t impress me! Not to worry, the iPhone 4S comes with a completely new antenna system, which not only corrects its older problems but also makes it a GSM + CDMA Phone, and promises a faster reception and great speeds. Apple also claims it’s the worlds first World Phone. Now that is what I call a Phonely update! There is finally something to upgrade.

Their not done yet, there is also a nice little voice assistant built in the phone. They call it Siri. It’s always that one more feature which makes or breaks the product. Siri is the replacement to Apple’s old aging and pathetic voice assistant which is not even capable of playing a song for me. So it really needs to do well to make this meek update roar in the market.

Originally Siri was an iOS app (which I did not know about until very recently), based on intelligent voice recognition. It was created by Dan Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, Tom Gruber And Norman Winarsky. Apple bought Siri in April 2010.

When Scott Forstall came on stage to do a live demo of the voice assistant, it was quite a daredevil task, looking back at the history of voice assistant. Things worked out incredibly smooth however. And Siri was the party popper.

Siri, (the iPhone assistant) is a completely different tool from what you may have seen in some iOS apps. Here you can talk to the phone casually, while it tries to produce an appropriate solution, just like an efficient secretary. So if you tell the Phone that you are hungry, it will bring up a list of restaurants near you. Tell her that your car is broken down, and it well get give you a list of nearest car repairs.

Siri at a mere glance looks magical, nearly intelligent and straight from Science Fiction. However Siri comes with it’s own restrictions. One such example is limited language compatibility. Theoretically English is a very widely used language and many people on Earth can speak it. But on the practical side of it, when you are in trouble or desperately need help, you are bound to speak in native language which Siri in all probability, doesn’t understand. Also, Initial Reports suggest that outside US, Siri cannot even look up places or understand your location.

Siri is also efficient at producing Witty remarks, “Siri, can you murder someone for me?” it replies “I found 3 mental health agencies fairly close to you!” . You can find many such remarks at : http://goo.gl/r002M & http://goo.gl/mWWGS .

Summing it up: iPhone 4S is the most stable iPhone to date, and it’s bound to stay for a long time (Just like the 3GS), it’s selling point however lies in Siri, which will have to do incredibly well to save it from a sans-Steve failure. But that looks like a far fetched idea, because initially sales have already shattered servers and records.

Steve Jobs

Vidit Bhargava
The other day, I was trying to frame my report on the New iPhone 4S. It just wouldn't take off. It was never a problem with Steve's Keynotes, usually his punchlines and comments would form the major portion of my article. So whenever I felt I couldn't start an article, i'd quote his words, and then start with my comments.

Today, when I woke up, I knew I was a little late, my brother had woken up and was on the mac, gaping at the screen. I wondered what was the matter. The picture became clear slowly, He was gaping at the image of Steve Jobs, left of which was written, "Steve Jobs: 1955-2011". Shock was my first response, and it still remains to be like that. There won't be any one in black turtleneck, and blue Levis delivering breakthrough keynotes. There won't be any "One More thing", and there will be a fewer people who think differently. The Yerba Buena Center of Arts won't be the same again. Just months back he was alive, happy and delivering his last keynote, selling the world another brilliant idea. He was alive then, dead now. (It still passes as a new wave of shock as I write this.)

Many people have been praised for their work, Very few of them have been praised by their competitors, and only a handful have been able to experience the whole world bow down to their creations. Steve Jobs, is just a notch above those handful of people. He is the inventor of the modern day computing world. Had Jobs not done what he did in his life, the world would still be seeing computers in offices or in huge military strategies.

He drove a company from the verge of bankruptcy to the most valuable tech-company in the world. He lived Apple. His ideology was his company's ideology. At Apple Steve Jobs created the products of a millennium, he bought personal computers to home, He tought the world how to point and click, Without him, the computer screens would have been lifeless black boxes with green text, He reinvented the term Music and Without him TouchScreens would just have been restricted to hit Science Fiction Movies. If God created Universe, Jobs created the Computer-verse.

People say different thing about Jobs. They say, he is s great marketer, He is a great speaker, He is a visionary, a mentor, an inventor. Above all What I think is, That he is the only one in the millions who dared to. Think differently. He dared to change the world. And he was successful in achieving that seemingly impossible dream.

"We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die." I beg to differ Sir Jobs, "Real Artists never die." May you always be with people who dare to think differently.

Laws of Motions (Leges Motus)

Here's an extract from Newton's Principia Mathematica (Written in Latin). Newton's Laws exactly as they had been written:

Law 1: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.

Translates to English as:
Every body perseveres in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as that state is compelled to change by forces impressed.

Law 2: Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressæ, & fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.

Translated in English as:
The alteration of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed, and is made in a straight line in which that force is impressed.

Law 3: Actioni contrariam semper & æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales & in partes contrarias dirigi.

Translated in English as:
Every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

Pottermore beta review

Vidit Bhargava

A week into the newly created Potterverse by JK Rowling and you are already seeing magical messengers. Pottermore, JK Rowling's new project is actually a new website which provides interactive content and exclusive insight into the Harry Potter Universe. Also, Fellow members can interact and duel to win points for their respective House Competing for the house-cup.

The Journey began with the Magical Quill Competition which commenced on 31st July 2011, where a trivial question was asked on the website, and giving the right answer redirected you to the registration page, where your name would be registered for your admission in Hogwarts.





Pottermore follows strict security measures for kids to remain safe in this new-social network, one of these security measure shielding the identity of the user. So when you register into pottermore, you are given a choice to choose from 3 randomly generated user-names. Like Mine is CastleSnitch43.

Once I got through to the registration, It was only a matter of waiting. Pottermore is currently staggering entry to its Beta website. So I had to wait for about 14 days to get into the website.

When you enter pottermore gateway, you are left speechless, Pottermore couldn't have been created more beautifully. From then on, you experience Harry Potter through a completely new-chapter. The website displays three-scenes from each-chapter, every scene has something to collect. The Collectables can either be read or stored in your trunk to gift to friends. This can never replace books but it does provide some really beautiful illustrations and is fun to go through if you have already read the book.





One of the best part of Pottermore is the insights Rowling gives about various places and characters. It's sort of an authorized wiki on Harry Potter. However, currently not much is available on the website,and sometimes you end up reading just a line or two. Rowling needs to write more frequently.

One of the most intuitive and brilliantly done feature on Pottermore is "Potions". You can buy stuff from the diagon alley and brew interesting potions to earn house points. Potions is by far the most intuitive and interesting feature on the Pottermore website.





Another feature that is there in Pottermore is the wizard duel. From whatever I got to see of the wizard duelling, (It got shut down for a while for some reason.), I could make out that it won't require fancy handwork, which is good because precision of Hand movement is scarce on a casual mouse.

My visit on Pottermore has been limited partially because i am busy, partially because Pottermore currently in it's beta stages lacks the socially addictive factor but most importantly Pottermore is down many times a day, which is clearly not a good sign.





Another thing about Pottermore that I will like to talk about is, it's decision to use flash instead of more modern and compatible technologies. Flash being a virtually dead technology is only favorable to laptops and PCs. IPads are left behind which I feel is a sham because using Pottermore on iPad would have been real great fun. They should soon launch an iOS app.

Wrap Up: Pottermore is a great idea from a wise lady, and is going in the right social direction. However, it needs to correct some major technical challenges and become slightly more interactive, if Rowling wants it to be as viral as the potter saga itself.

Google+ - Review

Vidit Bhargava
Two days back, there wasn't anything known as Google+. There were, what I love saying, remains of social networking disasters. Orkut and Buzz. While Orkut had achieved its purpose and peacefully become dormant, buzz didn't even manage to create a buzz amongst the nerdiest of people. And Tuesday evening, the invite crazy company called Google launched, its yet another social networking service called Google+, in a desperate attempt to make it big in the social network.

By Wednesday night, my "facebook" feed was flooded with aspirants and early birds. Rejoicing at the Google+ invites. And every such post was flooded with comments, which in general were this: "Can I have an Invite?". " The demand was so high, that Vic Gundotra, the guy leading this project stepped in and closed all the invite mechanisms. However with this big a craze about Google Plus, Loop-holes didn't take much time to surface, and the people flood started to flow again. Even i got a chance to enter, through one of these loop-holes.

Coming to the brass tacks, What Good is Google+? To Start with, What is Google+?
Google+ is facebook in Google Colors. You have the same way of sharing things, you have a very similar interface and you are still socializing.

The Video Below Demonstrates how Google Plus Works:

Here is a much simple explanation:

Circles: All content is not shared with everyone. You can create various groups and then share, and read content with that particular group. This is something Facebook has failed to do well. People you know (those who are in your gmail contact list) can be added to various Circles. And then you can share your posts with the group you want to share, and not everyone reads what you are posting. There is also the option to share with everyone.

Hangout: Hangout is just Skype from Google. You can video chat with your friends.

Sparks: This is Google Search where you can share stuff with your circles. For Instance i search for a movie review, it will show me all the popular google search results, which i can share with my group. Google+ also allows users to save these searches, as "interests" for any furthur reference.

My views on Google+ :

Google Plus has a lot to improve on:

There seems no-option to integrate my buzz account to the live-stream. And this is not so good when you are operating on 3 social networks already, and planning to join the fourth. We need some-kind of connectivity between the three. Google's neat addition to share stuff from any google website is a handy tool but the interface itself is very-buggy. Even the basics of html, like fitting the display area to the screen size are not achieved when not using maximized window. Also Google Apps users are left out again, with a word from google saying that they will soon be able to have their profiles. (This hasn't happened for the past one year, when google said they will allow profiles for apps users willing to come on buzz). The +1 Button is also very vague. A thumbs-up symbol, a love button, anything would have made sense, but +1? Well, its hard to convey the motive to the users.

However, Google Plus still manages to pull of some really cool things, and one of them is sparks. With Sparks sharing content becomes much more fun. And it is also easy to get the news through that. Also eliminating the friends factor helps a great deal, people can follow you, they can read your updates but it is completely up to you to add them in your circle (Similar to twitter's following system). Google Plus is closed field and less prone to population contamination, which makes it niche and more fun to use, for now at least.

Currently Google Plus is in Development stages. It is not the final cut of what the exact thing will so, but it might give facebook some real tough competition.

Here's What my Friends have to say about it:

Vivek Nair : The direct and rather intuitive implementation of circles into the interface is a big (plus) over Facebook, where lists are hidden under a layer. Chat is obviously a big improvement over anything Facebook ever offered and yes, chat logs are also maintained via GTalk, which is good. Group chats are welcome as are hangouts, which is something good and browser integrated. Lack of apps is OK for now, but since this thing is still budding, dunno about how things will turn out.

Ankur Banerjee : Things about Google Plus so far..

+1: You Can mute notifications for particular posts, unlike Facebook. Any time a post/status gets out of hand, it gets so annoying on facebook.

0: Facebook has made me lazy, i don't wnat to click a button to post. I expect it to post on hittting Enter.

-1: Item with most recent Activity Gets pushed to top; makes it harder to see newer content in stream.

Anunay Kulshrestha : Another social network. Pssh.

My Rating: 6.6/10

To Biz or not to Biz!

Vidit Bhargava

"When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - This is knowledge"

The book opens with this beautiful quote by Confucius. The book being written by my friends Ravi Handa and Avinash Maurya.

To start with Biz World would easily have been mistaken to be another question set for those trying to enter the world of quizzing. But Fortunately they don't market their book as a quiz book, they call it a business awareness guide. (And the book is selling nicely!)

Biz World is a completely different take on the classical quiz books, which usually come from the pen of the BQC legend, Derek O'Brien. It doesn't open with a question bank straight away. In fact They don't even have questions for the major part of the book. Which i feel is very good. The book has information virtually about every brand in the market. But you will find this information a little vague sometimes, you may even ask, "what do i do with this sort of stuff". However this series of vague information is just what is required to make good questions in a quiz. No-one asks a direct question these days. Having said that, however large the circle of information may be, it seems to be less.

My real concern, however, is with the type of questions this book has, the quality is just quite basic to say the least. There are some good questions though but this book doesn't even take you as far as qualifying the prelims of quiz. However, the fact file in the beginning of the book helps a lot.

The Authors have taken the responsibility of rolling out Question of the Day placards on the internet. They are also very helpful.

The good thing about the book is that you don't have to read all at once. You may take reference from it, from time to time, it is just like a brand encyclopedia at your hands.

After all is said and done we reach to the debatable part. Are Quiz Books even necessary? If you read these books for preparing a quiz, then I shall call them a piece of junk. Who doesn't have access to books? Everyone has. If you prepare for a quiz from these books, you will end up having out-dated and common knowledge most of the time.

However on the other side of the coin, if we take these books as a fact file or a box of knowledge. They may be very beneficial for us. This implies even if you are not a quizzer. For there is nothing better than a well-informed man.

Summing it up: The Biz World trumps all other business awareness/quiz books. For Biz World is written by two quizzers who are "currently" quizzing and know today's trends. The Books by O'Briens and Basus are only helpful when it comes to their quizzing and not when it comes to a total awareness of our environment.

However, Biz World has a long way to go. Even with this much in the bag, readers will have to read a lot more. All I can say is, it is not the perfect but the only rational choice in the market for aspiring business quizzers and knowledge enthusiasts.

Rating: ***

I have attached some fundas and questions below, hope you like them, you can even answer them in the comments box.

You can find more questions and fundas, on this link: Click Here

Music Locker

Vidit Bhargava

How many of you own a cloud? Well, as far as I know, many of you own a cloud or two, without even knowing about it! Cloud Computing is the buzz-word these days. Everyone wants to jump into the cloud business. The People are also willing to put their documents on the cloud, rather than carrying them in a pen-drive or a CD. Well Naturally People also want their Music Collection to go everywhere with them and not with an extra-burden of carrying a CD Case or an external hard-disk everywhere. Music Lockers they are called. And Currently two large companies are giving them this facility for free.:

1. Amazon CloudPlayer

Launched in March 2011, Amazon CloudPlayer is one of the few online music lockers, which one can 'use' outside USA. The Amazon Cloud Player, to its U.S. users offers a service to download the tracks from their online store to their cloud Drive and an option to use their Cloud Drive to upload their own songs. So you can listen to the tracks you've already downloaded. You can use your Amazon CloudPlayer ID to play the tracks anywhere in the world.

The Option to Buy the tracks and store directly to the cloud drive, eliminates the computer hard-disk in the process of listening the music. This is a really good thing because it saves the user from the hassle of downloading a song and uploading it back again.

Connectivity: The cloudplayer can be opened from any Web Enabled Device. You just need a good browser and a decent screen size to peacefully play tracks. However you'll find a dedicated application for Android Mobiles (Only in US) also.

2. Google Music Beta

Google Music Beta was announced at the Google I/O held this month. While Google's Music is very much 'similar' to Amazon's cloudPlayer it is not exactly the same. Google Music provides the users with an online storage for their songs, A Dedicated application for the management and uploading of music, An Android App and a Website that allows you to listen music anywhere. Also Google Music has a feature to work offline on all devices, so if you are out of internet coverage it can play the recently played tracks.

While Amazon does provide users with an option to download the music straight from an online MP3 store. Google has no such option. So basically what you'll have to do is this: Download a song from the internet and then put it back up. And that is a tiresome job.

Connectivity: Google Music is currently in Beta Stages and available by invitation only and the service is only for the US Residents while it is still in the beta stages. As far as Mobile Devices are concerned, Android users are getting an app and others can use the website to play music, which innocently touts a flash interface, blocking the iOS Users from using it.

We just saw two different cloud music lockers. Both of them work on your input. You need to download a song first, and then you need to upload it to the cloud again, just for the sake of using it everywhere. And you are doing this for every song you download, and if this service at all gets popular, the same process will be done by millions of people making millions of duplicates of a single song on the internet, contributing to a lot of Digital Garbage. This is different when you use your iDisks and Dropboxes to put files on the internet, those are unique files you won't find elsewhere. And it is wise to store it on a single location rather than making multiple-copies of the same file on every computer.

Let the Music be on one Single Cloud And let users take the music from there. This way, more and more people can listen to music through one source. Also The Music Locker should directly be connected to the Music Application we currently have on our computers, and Mobile Devices. And if possible we can make it available to everyone in the world and not just the United States (Where every cloudplayer seems confined today).

Wrap Up: Currently Cloud Music is Very Amateurishly implemented. Companies want a lot of input from their users, who are unwilling to take the pains. Cloud-Services need to be tackled differently for every different utility. While the current approach may be good for Text and Picture content, it is naive to think it will be the same for Music and Movies. However, if you are too despirate to use Cloud Music Players, I'd suggest the Amazon Cloud Player, which requires the least effort from your side.

Shor In the City Review

Vidit Bhargava

I've almost forgotten how to write movie reviews, the last one was month's back! So I watched Shor In the City sometime back, and here is my take on the movie

The Movie Starts with Noise, A lot Of Noise, Too-Much Noise, and an aptly fitted music track for the high-decibels produced in the first seconds of the film. The Movie is set amidst the Ganpati Festival and revolves around the lives, of a few people. (Every movie does that? Ain't It?). Among these few people you can find an amateurish cricketer, who aspires to be selected in the State team. An NRI who is starting a small-business and A bunch of small-time crooks, doing nothing, yet being the most interesting of the lot. All three of them have ample of reasons to be bad enough to make a dark comedy.

Let's start with the NRI lad, Abhay, played by Sendhil Ramamurthy (whom you most famously have seen in the NBC Science Fiction Series, Heroes, and most non-famously seen in The Wonderful Afterlife, by Gurinder Chadda). Abhay wants to set a "Small Business" and Mysteriously enough we never come to know what that "Small Business" was about. So, the NRI Guy, has a lovely [just being sarcastic] encounter with the city Ransomers. What they want is the regular hafta, which the NRI cannot possibly understand, he approaches the police and things get wild, The Ransomers, show their true colors. Now, Abhay must do-something to save the day.

Sendhil Ramamurthy does a good job here, he plays the perfect NRI, and is well fit in the character of Abhay. Preeti Desai has a small-role too. But that is mainly to be his girlfriend. She has practically no influence in the story.

--

Jumping to another one, The Cricketer chap. Young Cricketer Sawan (played by Sundeep Kishan) who is quite disastrous at his work. Doesn't bat well at all! (Or is it just the pressure?). What can he do? He can bribe the selectors. But for that he needs money. Here comes the interesting part, this boy tries practically everything to get money, all equally funny! Education Loan, Getting into the Dharna Business, and other Ideas for which watching the movie is a must.

Sundeep Kishan as Sawan does a fair job in his first Hindi Movie. Good Acting, but Sundeep's story is loosely written and does not probably share an equal screen-space, for which the director tries to fix things in the climax.

Coming to the Shor's Shor. The Three Crooks, Tilak, played by Tushar Kapoor, is a Pirated Book Publisher, Ramesh (Nikhil Dwivedi) and Mandook (The Legendary Pitobash Tripathy) are his friends. Now these people, are fun. They steal a prominent writer's script to publish it first and sell on streets! They pick-up a bag from the local-train, full of Arms and Ammunation and a bomb! (AK-47 hai ya 56? The point is they don't know themselves!), and try to blast it, on the outskirts of the city! And they keep on doing such amazingly fun work that you are chained to your seats as you are force-fed with a perfect dose of Laughter and a Black Plot.

The Best Actor of the three is Pitobash. He is witty, fun to watch on the screen, and has a screen-presence like no other. Tushar Kapoor's acting is good for a change, his obsession with the Alchemist, or Pitobash's witty humor and love for his AK-47 (or 56?), or Ramesh's instrumental role without which the trio-wouldn't have had the effect. Everything is well placed and witty. Its neither too little nor too much. Just in the right proportions.

Amongst the others, Amit Mistry and Zakir Hussain have acted really well, and the actresses have done their job too. One is not left with any complaints on the acting front.

The question that lurks in everyone's mind is,"Is this a good "Black" Comedy? Is it Black Enough? Most Black Comedies fail to be good movies, just because they have too much of slapstick humor and fail to have a shade dark enough. Krishna DK showed his skills with a Black Comedy in 2009, it was called 99. He strikes again with Shor In the City. The movie knows when to be serious and thrilling and when to push the audience into unstoppable laughter. Shor in The City couldn't be a better example for Indian Black Comedies. (of course Pushpak is still rated the best, but Shor is really very good stuff).

The New Trend in Films these days is trying to connect, utterly unconnected life-forms in to one plot. This is just like solving a quiz connect. You've got to make a connection out of nothing. and you either get it right, or are completely lost. We have seen many attempts at these interconnected stories, some of the notable ones being Dobhi Ghat, Valentine's Day, Life in a Metro, New York, I love you and many more which were probably failed attempts. It is really hard to make these type of movies. You need to focus clearly on all the sub-scripts and balance between n-different scripts, and some how make it look like it is one movie you are watching, by the end. This gets although more difficult with Hindi Films, given the reputation they have with handling a single story let alone three or four stories together. Well! Shor In the City is certainly one the better attempts at this. It does everything almost perfectly. And is quite successful at the Herculean Task these kind of movies need to perform.

Summing it up, : Watch Shor in the City if you haven't already. This should not be left at any cost!

Rating: ****