Its rainy season here, and iPhone season in US. But if you are anywhere in Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Ahemdabad, Hyderabad then you will be able to lay your hands on a touch phone with commendable technology from HTC on Airtel. HTC is a Tiwanese corp, making smart phone. This phone priced at ~Rs20,ooo/- is boasting of a revolutionary Touch FLO technology which will be able to identify between stylus and finger. I dont think it would be multi touch, but would be running on Windows Mobile 6. This handset/PDA would be having one touch clicks for SMS, Email, Call, Callendar, E-Mail.
Specs are as follows

• Dimensions: 99.9mm (L) x 58mm (W) x 13.9mm (T)
• Weight: 112g with battery
• 1GB microSD storage card included / 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM
• 2.8" LCD touch screen with backlight, 240 x 320 dots resolution with 65,536 colours
• Battery Life: Rechargeable Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 1100 mAh
• Standby time: Up to 200 / Talk time: Up to 5 hours
• Camera: 2.0 mega-pixel CMOS colour camera
• Windows Mobile 6® Professional with Direct Push Email and HTML email support
• Wireless Connectivity: GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-band: 900, 1800,1900, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth® 2.0
• Choice of two colors at launch - elegant soft black or alluring wasabi green
  

If you are taking it specs by specs and compare it with iPhone then you would be pretty happy to have this.
But as rumor mill(via: Engadget) is saying that Apple would be declaring a launch date of a 3G iPhone for European market, and that too on various carriers, I would suggest you to wait for an Asian release and then invest into high end mobile, though tentatively people are hoping for an early 2008 release, but I think Christmas or Diwali release can be on cards.

Source: Airtel official release. here.

Amount of hype(for good reasons) is already bringing Facebook some new members. I now have 9 friends in Facebook and 8 are new. Pretty interestingly Facebook is also showing a revved up performance in India all over. Globally also Facebook is seeing a rise in daily traffic. Which is pretty much clear from this graph.


One very interesting thing which can be seen is that Facebook's graph is showing an increasing trend where as other two are quite static. Though F8 can not be pointed as a specific turn around point but indeed it caught my attention. What Facebook did in F8, is now being sought by MySpace, that is, they want to open up themselves.
Hey, enlighten me, didnt we had third party apps, finely integrated in Myspace profiles, adding up lots of clutter and feeding a big parallel tertiary market. MySpace is already quite open, and its openness have already been utilized by few intelligent miscreants. To mention Facebook is like orkut a closed network, where you have to login before watching any kind of profile, they are not available as web pages.
So all in all as it seems from thousand of miles away from the place where few people are burning fuel to make MySpace more open is nothing but surfing. Surfing? yes they too want to ride on the wave of openness, want to gain some media mileage by telling every one that they are more open. Though there is high scope for opening up, but as history tells me, Myspace gets irritated when there is some high traffic gainer app on the profile page of various MySpace users. Bye the way, MySpace is being thrashed all over the park, just like Sachin did yesterday in Ireland, after they created a Youtube clone.
Orkut presently enjoys 2nd position in India as most visited website and facebook is on 29th. So there is lot of catching up required for Facebooks where Indians only constitute 0.8% of visitors. and this percentage is as high as 15% on Orkut.
At present Orkut is boring me a great deal, and the social networks which needs some opening up or some major overhaul is Orkut. And till then I will be resending invites to my friends so as I get more friends on Facebook.

PS: All the data is from Alexa.com

I also feed on feeds and and Google Reader acts as my dinner table. And let me tell you that feeds are addictive, though I dont have any scientific or medical proof for it, but yes I can say that from my very own experience. And anybody else who is using some kind of reader must be feeling same. I use firefox as my browser, and there are three things which I open as soon as I get online.

• Orkut
• Google Reader
• Blogger/Wordpress

One can easily understand that there is one thing common in all the three items, and that is social connectivity. The crux is that any thing which connects you with others, and with connection if that thing provides you with infotainment then that thing is going to be addictive. And history is full of examples. And a feed reader does all these things quite handsomely.
One thing which bugs me about the reader, and in particular with google reader is that it does not have any kind of interaction facility. Often there are posts, on which I would love to comment, but I wont, as I have to click and then wait for next page to upload. By the time I decide, I am already on next post.

By the way this is an echo post, and the post which inspired me to write this is here.


And below is an interesting video of Robert Scoble telling about his reading and filtering skills.

Its a real big news for me. One can easily estimate how big this news is by knowing the fact that my exams are going on, and in the midst of heavy schedule I am taking some time out to photo blog about my new camera. It is SONY snap shot camera, DSC W-32, a 7.2 mega pixel camera, quite minimalistic in features, but nice picture quality.These photos were taken from my Nokia 5200 music phone.

Previously I had a film based snap shot camera, which was much bigger than this and presently my hands are trying to get feel of this new small baby. All in all I liked the way it is performing.

Here are few photos from the 35. These are two photos I shot while experimenting with its macro option.

If you can point out my mistakes in shots then please feel free to comment.

I am on Orkut, and at present its the only social network that keeps me busy. But there is something in Orkut which always tell me to look elsewhere. I also have an account on MySpace, but for MySpace isnt interesting enough. Recently after the F8 media hype (hyped for good reasons) I though to give Facebook another try. I had a pending friends request for months, I clicked on it and now I am on Facebook. And at present it seems it is something where I can rest of my time. I have repeatedly felt that quality of social network is not that important when compared to the number of people on it. An avalanche effect takes place when few friends of same mixed group joins a social network.
If I join a network, and so does my friend, then when we both send invitation to our common friends, then there is more initiation force on that third person. And when the number of friends cross a limit of certain value then the number of new friends joining that network increases quite rapidly. But for that to happen, the new social network has to be really interesting.
With Facebook opening their API, the innovation quotient has gone few steps up. And now onus of innovation is on whole community, and developers. Few of the new applications are interesting enough to become a social network on their own. And when such kind of things are being added on a regular basis, then it marks a question in your head, 'Whats Next?' And this is something Orkut is missing, where most of my friends resides.
Orkut and Facebook can be easily compared because both are doored networks. By 'doored', I meant that, to view any profile you have to login. This is a nice options for those who dont want their profiles to be a part of Google search.
So far I am quite impressed by Facebook, last time when I tried to join facebook, it did not had that innovation feel and was more closed. But later they opened their doors to everybody and not only to .edu based schools and colleges( that seemed idiotic to me). But this F8 phenomenon really impressed me, and latest addiitons are quite interesting.
As I have mentioned that I am on Facebook, you can check my Profile here. You have to be on Facebook to watch my profile and add me as your friend.

One thing which this post will be shouting loud is, that user media s indeed becoming more and more prominent and strong.
Those jibing Mac v/s Windows advertisements, shown by Jobs were hit of some sort among the Mac-o-holics, and they really have strong sense of humor...If they had sense of humor then what does these advertisements contain...and they are not even by NOKIA.

They are just plain facts...



Having something in the same way you gave it, can sometimes become bit difficult to swallow. But Apple can thanks almighty that its not an official campaign.



I dont think that these ads are in any way going to harm the ongoing iPhone frenzy, Jobs just create such a beautiful aura around his products that people in general never feels it essential to look elsewhere. He is a pure maverick. On any given day, or night and at any moment I can say three cheers for him.



What would be interesting to know in future is that who will leas the pack, Nokia N95 or Apple iPhone.

Special Mention : Great job by these people, who made this video. Though conceptually they copied but they took it to another level on there heels. Nice job, and a healthy way of advertising also, because many will just follow the links which they give at the end of each clip. I some how managed to stop myself.... ;)

After seeing multi million deals surrounding social network, one can marvel the fact that none of them were a technical breakthroughs. So what made them such a hit?
I am talking about, the major social networks like MySpace, video sharing site like YouTube etc. More often than not it is being at right place and at right time. Social networks were there way back before MySpace, Facebook or Orkut came. But still only few are raking moolah. The most important thing behind the success of a social network is the initial crowd which surrounds it. But why am I talking about it, when we all know about it somewhere inside our brain?
The thing which prompted me to write about this is the arrival of new phenomenon; having a social network of own. And the avalanching force behind this post; social network surrounding Mashable, a very popular blog, and probably the best when it comes to pure social network news. Mashable recently got a social network of its own and woila it got zillion members already. Now thats ok for a Mashable but that not be ok for you, cause you must have a sizable network to start with, either from good advertising or from your connections. And, from my little expireince I can tell you, when it comes to creating a social network, any publicity is not good publicity, and bad publicity is really a bad publicity. I will try to explain it in my future post. And let me tell you, My mom is asking me to leave my laptop and get into the world of my course books, as I am having my Physics examination of second semester on Monday.

One of the major movie rental giant in US, Blockbuster have decided to keep all the major titles in Blu-Ray disk rather than in HD-DVD. This is a great pro step for BR. Blu-Ray can store 50GB on double layering. And HD DVD on otherhand can stor only upto 30Gb on dual layering. So for now it seems BD is ahead than HD-DVD... But to tell you only that format will be successful which will allow people to to copy their material , and the material they bought n number of times. The format which supports porn industry. The format which will support easy piracy or to say the one which will allow easy piracy.

I was lately planning to start penning some sort of autobiography. And the name which came to my mind was "Books and Roses", only those who are quite near to me can understand why I will name my autobiography this way. But for those who are not that near and are still finding themselves reading this post, I have only one thing to say, 'name is quite easy to understand'. Whenever it comes to posting on this blog, the first question which strike me is why the number of posts on this blog are so less, or in other words why I post so irregularly on this blog. This is no excuse, but most of my thinking time is consumed by my books and the life related to my engineering studies. So, I can not just be a full time blogger.
Currently its examination season going on in my college, out of phase from rest of the universities in India. So as it should be, I should be spending more time with my course books rather than on web, and the person who thinks, I have improved with my language, and style thinks, I should shun blogging for few days to come. And that person is none other than My father. He does not visit this blog, its the email feed which I got him subscribed, and which is for most of the time nothing more than a spam make him read my posts. The other reader whom I think is most important to me is My sister, who some how manages to drop on my blog, and post a comment or two, or tell her views over phone. So for now they are the person whom I would like to thanks most, to encourage me to write more and more.
Lately I have been associated with few group blogging projects. One for my college, named interestingly, Friday Colours, and other is Balshree blog this one is from group of students from all over India who won President's award from their creativity in respective fields. So somehow these two projects also took time from my blogging time. Then there is my personal blog, Kattak, where I write my rumblings. All these blogs are taking the limited time which I have got to blog. But still I have few brilliant visions for this blog, and would soon work on them and get them materialized. But for now you have to wait, for few more days for posts on webosphere to come regularly.

The date is June 29. Wherever you move, you are reading and listening about iPhone...
Wait a sec, which place am I talking about? I am talking about the blogs from land beyond the seven seas, US. iPhone will be in stores on June 29, yes in US only, but still it is said to be the most coveted device of this year. Apple did not wanted to miss launch in July, or else they would have gone much closer to the Microsoft standards of being late in launches.
There is no doubt what so ever that iPhone is a marvelous device and can be touted as a must have gadget by many. But when I open my mouth to speak about iPhone it only meets the dumb faces of my friends, and its not their fault. They know nothing of iPhone, besides that it is a touch screen phone with iTunes and music capabilities, and probably a good internet device. Thats it at the most, I haven't heard of any thing more than this about iPhone from my peers. This is grossly the state of whole India, a country which is showing highest growth in terms of increase in mobile devices. Mobile making companies from world over are launching their products simultaneously in India, and there are few good reasons for that.
I always feel that apple does not consider India as a big market, for reasons unknown. Their products are all under advertised. India is a country with a developing and an increasing market base, and capturing market at such an stage can always prove fruit full. They did same with iPod, leading to late craze. Their iTunes is still not ready for Bollywood hyms, when the market for bollywood music can be considered as big as that of American music. Mac is not a popular brand in here, and not many know about it, and far less people have actually worked upon it. Mr Steve Jobs may consider his products far better than that of Microsoft's, but is unknown in this part of world.
Let us focus back on iPhone, the latest device probably in same price range, in Nokia N95 which is getting some rave reviews, though it is not a touch screen phone, but it have nearly same functionality as that of iPhone and with a much powerful camera, i.e. a 5MP camera comparing to a 2MP camera on iPhone, and that too probably without flash. There is one more thing, which will make iPhone much costlier, the great Indian desire of freedom, Indians dont like their mobiles locked, and the concept of locked mobile which came with the launch of CDMA phones took some time to go down through many throats. iPhone will be launched in at&t network only, in US. This will certainly bring down its price but still it would be locked. So whenever they will be launching it in India, this will be a big point to consider.
It would be interesting to see that how Indian media takes the launch of iPhone and how much is it covered in here. And if you have some one in US then dont rush to get iPhone for some time to come, because iPhone might not bring a warranty cover in India, and as it happened with Nano, there might be some screen troubles with iPhone.

This is not at all a post to reckon with, and this site might not be listed by any of the A list bloggers, for a very simple reason that this is not a out of the world web application. This has been done by many others and would be done by many more. Wiredness is a simple image manipulator, but what strikes is its utter simplicity. You go on site and you know that you have to upload image, only one at a time, and do some manipulation, save it, take your image and go away. Written using Prototype.

All this is fine at its own place, but this is not more than a project for the guy who made it. One can be sure after seeing the simplicity that there is no big organization behind it. Only big site which is as simple as this is, is Google.

There is still one thing which is itching my brain, what kind of money making model can be there behind any image manipulator over the web. With Picasa from Google which is not a very big application and having some kind of roots in webosphere is more than enough for minor editing. Then why would some one go to such image manipulator. The only possible situation when I will go to online image editor is when I would be with my bags, i.e; traveling. And whole world is not packing its bag. Not talking about Wierdness in particular, any image editing option available online does not excite me more than being a good piece of code. There are already big players with some editing tools, and there are few with experience. Even the person behind wierdness would be knowing that he wont be getting any thing VC funding from what he did, and the max he would be getting will be some highly valuable experience, and a good thing to put in his CV.

Only thing which I can say to every one, and to self is, keep creating.