Here is a very clever idea on how to stream Spotify music from your Mac to Apple TV2. I tried it and it works perfectly. You will even get album art on Apple TV! Cool.
GigaOM: How to stream Spotify music to your Apple TV
Pricing economics
August 3rd, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink
You have someone as big as Google as your partner. Your product is promoted as the best thing since sliced bread. You then launch your product for $299 with a lot of fanfare. Unfortunately no one buys your product. The early adopters who bought it also returned it promptly. You wait for sometime, but then, there is no sign of the product picking up and so you drop the price to $199. People now feel that it is a good value buy, but still hesitate to buy it. Your inventory is growing. You want to clear it and so you drop your price to $99. Result? Magic happens. Every single retail store in the country sells out the product in minutes. Your product raises to number 1 best seller in Amazon, a remarkable feat in itself. It is backordered everywhere with an estimated delivery of two weeks.
The product in question is Logitech Revue with Google TV. Nothing but a internet media streamer. If you look at it, it seems like pricing was the only thing that kept people away from the product – despite all the complaints of a half-baked Google TV software. By dropping the price to $99, Logitech has matched the price of the Revue with its primary competitors – Roku and Apple TV. Roku offers much more than what Google TV offers at a fraction of Revue’s original price. Apple TV offers less, but it is polished and works nicely within the iTunes ecosystem. The market automatically reacted when the pricing matched what they were ready to pay. Sometimes, the correct understanding of your product’s worth can make a huge impact on the initial succes of the product. Had Logitech priced the Revue at $99 during its initial launch, not only it would have sold well, it would have also given the much needed initial push for the Google TV. Eventhough it may sell well now, the market will still see the Revue as a failed product which could be sold only after a massive price cut. It is also a big negative press for Google TV. Many publications have already written an obituary for GTV after this price drop.
When I tried my hands on the first batches of Sony’s Google TVs, I had a mild shock. The software wasn’t intuitive, the remote was a mess and many things simply didn’t work. This is the classic mistake Google keeps making with other products – like Chrome OS. Rushing an alpha product into the market can have the adverse impact of killing the product early. Consumers are OK with seeing a beta tag on a website or software, but they will never accept a beta tag on a hardware (cars being a classic example). Sure you can have plenty of firmware updates to follow – but the initial impression is what matters for most hardware products.
10 things I hate about Windows Phone
June 24th, 2011 § 3 comments § permalink
Many friends think I am a Windows Phone fanboy. I would rather describe myself as a happy and enthusiastic user than a fanboy. This post is an attempt to capture some of my annoyances with the platform. I haven’t included any of the features which we know are being addressed in Mango. So no whining on lack of multitasking and stuff.
Over to the list.
HTC HD7
1. No navigation application. Its the mid of 2011 and the dust has already settled down on smartphone wars. But no signs of a usable navigation application on WP7 yet. No TomTom, No Garmin. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Need I say more? (There is a T-Mobile navigator or something in the Marketplace, but it is subscription based. Who wants to pay $10 every month for using a navigation app, considering it is available for free on a competing platform?)
Update 13-July-2011: Garmin Street Pilot now available in Marketplace.
2. Application categorization. Sure, Ballmer hates the app-in app-out paradigm of other platforms, but that doesn’t mean the OS should not have app categories. Vertically growing app list becomes tiring to navigate after a while. And the only way they are sorted is alphabetic – which, needless to say, makes things even more difficult. Now even if you don’t want to have categories, why not sort apps automatically based on their usage? I mean, atleast sort the top 10 and the rest can go in alphabetical order.
Or bring in the same groups concept of People app which we see in the Mango builds into the app list. Will work beautifully.
Update 13-July-2011: People-like alphabetical categorization as well as search now available in the latest Mango builds!
3. Cost of third party applications. Now, what is MS thinking? Games which cost only $0.99 are $2.99 or more on Windows Phone Marketplace. If you think it is the developers who are pricing it high, you are wrong. Seems like MS has a low price sealing of $2.99 when it applies the “XBOX Live” stamp on these games. Now, who needs these superfluous tags? Just give me these apps at the same god damn same price as other platforms and I will be happy.
4. Can’t take a screenshot. I really wish I could post plenty of screenshots of what I am talking about through out this post. Unfortunately, there is no way I can take a screenshot of an application on the WP7 phone unless I resort to some low tech, like using a camera. It is too easy to do on the iPhone and not so difficult with Android. Developers badly miss this feature. Taking a screenshot of the emulator and then cropping it is what most developers do today.
5. Default social applications are of low quality. When compared to the FB app on iOS, the one on WP7 is a shame. True, the OS has some deep facebook integration in itself, but for a true FB experience, you need notifications, chat and status updates. This one looks and behaves like a glorified web page and nothing more. Needs a serious revamp or redesign. Same goes true for the Twitter app. Both need working Live Tiles too.
Incidentally, it must be noted that both the apps are developed by MS and not the respective services. So the update cycle do not follow that of the other platforms for these apps.
Update 13-July-2011: The Facebook integration in Mango makes the default application almost redundant.
6. No VPN Client. One another missing feature in WP7, which was available in WM OS since the beginning. A smartphone cannot be marketed to businesses unless it has a VPN client on it. Hope Mango brings it back.
7.Zune Player. A large music library is almost unusable if it does not have search. Bring in search, star based rating system and on-device playlist creation to complete the most gorgeous music player on the planet.
Update 13-July-2011: On device playlist creation/updation now available in latest Mango builds.
8. Internet Explorer. While everyone loves to hate IE on the desktop, the mobile version on WP is not bad when it comes to rendering web pages. Where it seriously lags is the lack of web fonts (iOS is the one to beat in this aspect) and wasted screen real estate when in portrait mode. All they need to do is to shamelessly copy iOS in these two shortcomings and you have a winner here.
And Flash and Silverlight(!) please.
Update 13 July-2011: Webfonts now available. Screen real-estate is very optimal. Better than iOS now!
9. Volume Control. There is no separate volume setting for the ringer and Music player! Go figure.
If you reduce the volume of music player, the ringer volume too reduces. If you bring it down to zero, the phone itself goes into vibrate mode. Crazy.
10. No call duration info in Call History. While this may sound like a minor annoyance, this is a very important feature for many of us. Present in almost all smartphone platforms, it isn’t rocket science to implement, so WP team should be upto it in the next release.
Keeping fingers crossed to see the goodness Mango is going to bring.
Playing VEVO music videos on Roku
June 13th, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink
Bruno Mars and his lazy gang
If you own an Apple TV or a Roku box, you would have noticed that the VEVO music videos do not appear on YouTube search results. Since most official music videos are available only through the artist’s respective VEVO channels, it is almost impossible to view them on your large screen. The solution, which I pretty much discovered by accident, seems to nicely work on Roku. Here’s what you need to do:
- Go to the Roku Channel Store and add the RateRix channel. You will find it under “Photos and Videos” category. This is actually a wrapper channel for YouTube (Shhhhhhhhh…).
- Now go to RateRix.com on your browser on PC and create an account. Then link your Roku Box and Youtube account to this one. All this is pretty much easy to figure once you create an account. Launch RateRix on Roku and login to your RateRix account.
- Login to your Youtube account on your browser on your PC and add all your favorite VEVO videos to a new or an existing playlist.
- Exit the RateRix application and launch it again on Roku. Go to My Videos. Navigate to your playlist and voila – all your music videos waiting there!
Since the VEVO videos are of high quality, they look decent on your large screen. Enjoy.
(I am now trying to figure out how to pull in the HD versions of the same to the playlist by default.) Edit: By default, it pulls the HD version of the video. So enjoy!
10 Google Chrome extensions I cannot live without
June 10th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink
Google Chrome
It seems like ages since I made Chrome as the default browser in all my PCs and Mac. The factors that drew me to Chrome from Firefox are its ability to sync almost every setting and preference -including the extensions- across all my machines, tight Google service integration, Speed, Simplicity and a good looking icon.
(OK, I made up the last one).
Over a period of time, I have discovered and installed several extensions which simplify the daily browsing chores. Here is a quick run down. You may find some of them interesting, if you aren’t yet using them.
Readability Redux: A click on the Readability icon transforms a cluttered web page into a highly readable thesis-like document. Helps you focus only on the content and finish your reading without any distractions. Wish the whole web is presented in the Readability format (I am ready to pay for a browser which presents all the web content in this format). Readability even has themes to choose how you want your pages to be displayed! One negative is that it does not display all the images if your article has too many of them. You may end up switching between garbage view and Readability view. (If your primary use of the browser is to navigate to sites with plenty of “X” in them, this plugin may not be of much use).
Tweet This: Though I am not a heavy Twitter user any more, I use this extension to send those occassional Tweets with shortened URLs embedded. Wish there is an option which allows me to tweet without the URL of the current page since not all my Tweets have links in them.
Facebook: No comments on this one.
Google Translate: Instantly transforms web pages in any language (OK, most) to English, or your favorite language. Must have plugin. Wish I had this when I was working for all those Japanese customers.
Adblock: The world’s favorite extension. Except may be Google’s. (It nukes the ubiquitous Google AdSense ads too). You must be joking if you say you don’t have this.
Chrome To Windows Phone: I am one among the 8 people in the world who uses a WP7 phone. This one allows me to send short clippings and URLs to my phone in an instant. Very very useful. If you are an Android or iPhone user, you will find equivalent apps in whatever respective store you find your apps from. Not as powerful as Evernote, but quick and simple. (In case you are wondering, the other 7 are working for Microsoft. Steve Ballmer uses a Kin, so he is not counted).
ESPN Cricinfo: Nothing more to say here. I was born in India.
Mail Checker Plus for Google Mail: Apart from winning the award for the “extension with the longest name”, this is a great plugin to get notified, read and quickly compose a mail from your Gmail account. Beats the crap out of the official Gmail plugin with its loaded feature set.
RSS Subscription Extension: Surprisingly, RSS indicator is not yet part of Google Chrome. I think that is probably going to be the major feature of Chrome 18. Till then, you can use this plugin which lights up that tiny orange icon wherever it finds an RSS or Atom feed.
Google Dictionary: Helps me improve my bad English. Select a word with your mouse and the defintion pops up like magic.
goo.gl URL shortener: I use this whenever I need to share a URL via email. Quick and easy.
There you have it. My favorite plugins for Chrome. If you have any interesting one to share, please do so in the comments.
(If you haven’t noticed, I cheated on the title. There are actually 11 plugins listed here).
High Resolution Netbooks – A Round up
September 4th, 2009 § 9 comments § permalink
If you are like me, you won’t like the 1024×600 resolution found in most netbooks. While the 10″ netbooks are a great compromise when compared to last year’s 9 inch counterparts, they still are a little unfriendly while using applications designed for a slightly higher vertical resolution. Here are some choices if you are looking for an alternative.
Dell Mini 10
DELL Mini 10
You may not be aware that the Dell Mini 1o is available in 1366×768 resolution! Visit the DELL site and you can customize the screen size to 1366×768 which only costs an additional $35. As the screen size is only 10 inch, this may not be a very good choice if your eye sight is not that great.
HP Mini 110
HP Mini 110
Similar to the Dell Mini, the HP Mini can also be ordered with a 10″ panel of 1366×768 resolution for an additional $30. While you are at it, you can also order the netbook to include the Broadcom HD Video accelerator, which will offload HD video decoding from the CPU, turning your netbook into a multimedia powerhouse. Beware of the awkward touchpad.
Acer Aspire One 751
Acer Aspire One 751
Acer Aspire One 751 is a netbook based on the Intel GMA 500 (Poulsbo) chipset, same as the one found on many Sony Vaio P models. The 751 comes with a 11.6 inch screen which is ideal for the enhanced 1366×768 resolution. Interestingly, the Atom processor found on 751 runs only at 1.2 GHz, so you may not like the performance. The poulsbo chipset is also not supported well in Linux. Many users report that this 11.6″ netbook works very well with Windows 7 and the latest set of GMA 500 drivers. Note that the GMA 500 has built in HD decoding, so you will get smoother 720p playback on this device with the right set of drivers. This netbook also looks great with the chiclet keyboard and a thin bezel.
Samsung NC20
Samsung NC20
The Samsung NC20 is a 12″ netbook sporting 1280×800 resolution. It is one of the few other netbooks that does not use the Intel Atom processor. Running at 1.3GHz speed, the VIA Nano processor is known to give similar processing power as the 1.6 GHz Atom. The NC20 is not small and looks more like a traditional laptop. As of today, it is not yet widely available in the US of A. Comes with a full size keyboard.
HP DV2z
HP Pavilion dv2
This is my favorite ultra portable model. While not as cheap as others, the HP DV2z sports a 12″ screen with 1280×800 resolution, an AMD Neo 64 processor running at 1.6GHz, 4GB RAM, 320 GB hard disk and a discrete ATI graphics processor. Other bells and whistles include a HDMI port and a full size keyboard. When compared to the Atom, the AMD Neo is known to be a better performer in terms of every day chores. The proof is that this tiny beast runs Windows Vista 64 bit!
Sony Viao W series
Sony Vaio W Series
Sony’s second fray into the netbook market with the W series makes a lot more sense than the amazingly useless P series. With a chiclet keyboard (Was not as comfortable as the Toshiba NB205 when I tried) and a 10″ 1366×768 display, the Sony Vaio looks like a winner. Available also in pink, if you are interested. Being a Sony, it is expensive at $500 for an Atom based netbook. Wish it included a HD accelerator for this price.
Gateway LT3103u
Gateway LT3103u
Gateway’s new netbook sports an AMD Athlon 64 bit processor running at 1.2GHz. While sharing some components like the screen and the excellent keyboard from Acer Aspire One 751, this netbook is the best compromise in terms of price, screen size and processing power. The AMD processor performs as well as an 1.6 Atom. The netbook also comes with a discrete ATI X1200 discrete graphics card. There is no HD acceleration though. You cannot go wrong at $379 – available at a best buy near you.
Summary
Those are some of the options you have if you are looking at a netbook or a cheap ultra portable with a better resolution than the default 1024×600. My current recommendation is the Gateway LT3103u, as it is much cheaper and arguably more powerful than some of the other netbooks. Also, it comes with Vista Basic, which runs very well on this computer.
Samsung i8910 now available
September 4th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
Arguably, the best S60 5th Edition phone is neither the Nokia N97 or its poorer cousin, the 5800 XpressMusic. Samsung is poised to take on the S60 touch world with its i8910, once called the Omnia HD. With a 3.7″ AMOLED display, 8 MP camera and HD playback and record capability, the i8910 is a multimedia power house in your palm.
Samsung i8910
Surprisingly, this cool smartphone is now available at Indian retailers for only INR 27k, which is about US$ 575, much cheaper than the US price of about $700. If you are looking for a keyboardless alternative for the N97, this is the phone you need.
Sorry state of Indian Tech Blogs
August 21st, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
There are a bunch of technology blogs from India which I read regularly. Not because I like the editorial content – which is almost always rehashed from foreign tech blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo – but because they are the easiest way to find press releases from consumer electronics and computer companies which helps me in finding new products in the local market and information about any new deals.
The two popular tech blogs are tech2 and techtree. Most of the time the content on these sites are rehashed 2 day old stories from Engadget. Original content, if any, are always poorly researched and badly written. Here is a sample of the standards of blogging:
Engadget recently published a story about Macbook Micro – a student hobby project where someone created a tiny Macbook out of salvaged parts. Here is the original Engadget post. Read the Tech2 rehash here. Yes folks, that’s the state of current tech journalism in this country. These people also run a TV show on a popular news channel.
10 reasons why you will love the Zune HD
August 12th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
When you say media player, the first thing that comes to mind is the Apple iPod. Earlier versions of Zune did not make much of an impact in the mp3 player world. But the Zune HD could potentially change the equation. Here are some reasons why you will love this product over any other PMPs.
Zune HD
- OLED Screen. Instead of an LCD display, the Zune HD uses OLED. OLED displays are superior to LCDs in that they exhibit better brightness & contrast and draw less power, which results in longer battery life. OLEDs also have much lesser response times which results in smoother video playback.
- NVIDIA Tegra Processor. The Zune HD is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra processor – an SoC (System-On-Chip) which integrates the CPU, GPU and memory controllers into one unit. The Tegra is capable of decoding HD video at 720p and supports advanced graphics, which can make the Zune HD a potentially powerful portable gaming machine too.
- 16:9 Screen aspect ratio. Most movies are encoded in this aspect ratio, so your movies will occupy the full screen without any annoying borders on the small display. In comparison, the iPod Touch comes with an odd 3:2 aspect ratio.
- Zune Pass Music Service. If you purchase a lot of music every month, you will love the Zune Pass. For about the price of an album ($14.99 per month), you can download unlimited music from the Zune Marketplace. Though you have to continue the subscription forever to keep the music you download, for avid music fans this will work out to be a much cheaper option than outright purchase.
- Multi-touch. Everyone loves multi-touch. First made popular by Apple on its iPhone, the multi-touch ability provides a great browsing and gaming experience. The browser on Zune supports multi-touch on its capacitive touchscreen.
- HD Radio. The Zune HD is the first PMP to support HD Radio. HD Radio is a new technology which allows local radio stations to broadcast their programs in digital format, thus dramatically improving the reception quality. FM stations will be indistinguishable from CDs. You will be pleased to know that there are hundreds of stations which have already started broadcasting in HD. Even if your Zune is empty, you will have plenty of music to listen to!
- HD capable Zune dock. The Zune dock (which unfortunately has to be bought separately), comes with a HDMI port which allows you to play 720p media content on your HDTV. HD content can be purchased from the Zune Marketplace.
- Better Sound Quality. If you have used the earlier versions of Zune, you will appreciate the sound quality over other PMPs, thanks to the Wolfson chip. Zune HD uses the same audio processor too.
- Zune Software & XBOX Live integration. Contrary to the popular belief of anything-from-microsoft-is-useless, the Zune Marketplace indeed has a great interface than some of the well known jukebox applications. Use it for yourself and then judge. As an added bonus, XBOX 360 users can get XBOX live on their Zune HD.
- Price. I saved the best reason for the last point. According to this Amazon pre-order page, the Zune HD 16GB will be available for $219 while the 32GB version will be available for $299. These are significantly cheaper than equivalent capacity iPod Touch players.
So finally, the iPod Touch got an worthy competitor in the Zune HD. This holiday season will show us how much the Zune HD can eat into the iPod Touch’s huge market share.
Also read my other post: Zune HD vs iPod Touch
Zune HD vs iPod Touch
August 9th, 2009 § 3 comments § permalink
Zune HD or iPod Touch, which one to buy?
Zune HD
While iPod Touch (and its big brother, the iPhone) remain the Kings of the portable media player world, there is a big challenge coming from Microsoft in the form of the Zune HD. Even though the original Zune went almost unnoticed as a rival to the iPods, things are set to change with the introduction of HD. Purely from the hardware point of view, the Zune HD is miles ahead of the current generation of the iPod Touch. What about the software, services and other aspects? Here is a table of comparison of these two portable media power houses.
iPod Touch
Zune HD vs iPod Touch: Comparison of specifications
| Feature | Zune HD | iPod Touch |
| Capacity | 16/32 GB | 8/16/32 GB |
| Display Size | 3.3 inches | 3.5 inches |
| Display Type | OLED | LCD |
| Screen Aspect Ratio | 16:9 | 3:2 |
| Resolution | 480×272 | 480×320 |
| Processor Type/Speed | NVIDIA Tegra. Speed not known | 620 MHz capable ARM11 running at 520 MHz |
| RAM | Not Known | 128 MB |
| Format Support | WMA, WMV, MP3, H.264 | AAC, H.264, MP3 |
| Adobe Flash? | No | No |
| GPS | No | Wi-Fi triangulation provides approximate location identification |
| Input Interface | Multi-touch, Virtual QWERTY | Multi-touch, Virtual QWERTY Keypad |
| Radio | HD Radio | Only internet radio (through third party apps) |
| Integrated Speakers? | Yes | Yes |
| Connectivity | USB, Wi-Fi, HDMI | USB, Wi-Fi |
| Operating System | Windows CE based | Mac OS X based |
| Multi-touch? | Yes | Yes |
| Mic? | No | Yes |
| Accelerometer? | Yes | Yes |
| Integrated Camera? | No | No |
| TV Out | HD 720p, HDMI through Zune Dock | SD, through Apple Composite Cable |
| Third Party Apps? | Yes | Yes |
| Music Store | Zune Marketplace with subscription service | iTunes (No subscription Model) |
| Wi-Fi Sync? | Yes | No |
| Bluetooth | No | Yes |
| Product Page | Zune HD | iPod Touch |
Note: As of now, Zune HD specifications are not completely published by Microsoft. The above specifications are based on protoype models. There may be slight differences to the final product. The post will be updated once the device is out in the market.
As you can see, the Tegra processor, HD Capability, OLED screen, HD Radio and HDMI interface make the Zune HD a superior device in terms of hardware, while the iPod Touch shines with the associated services – iTunes, extensive third party app support and the integrated MobileMe. Choose the iPod Touch if you have plenty of iTunes purchased content already. If not, get the Zune HD and use it with a better DRM-Free music service like Amazon MP3.
Update- New Post: 10 reasons why you will love the Zune HD
Also read: Nokia N810 vs iPod Touch vs Sony Mylo