Ritchie’s room recently did a quick review of the Asus Transformer Prime Android Tablet. The design elements are very notable as compared to previous tablets in this one. To understand what you will get for a sweet price, read on to know more.
NDTV demonstration of the Siri feature on iPhone 4S with indian accents
I have always wondered ever since the launch of the iPhone 4S as to how the voice recognition and support feature on the phone will fare against indian accents. the thought of spending $650 on an unlocked iPhone 4S just to see this feature did not obviously make sense. NDTV luckily has tested this feature with Indian accents and the results are very interesting. So does the system make mistakes? We all do, and so will systems designed by us. But for the voice feature on iPhone 3GS to now, the developers have come a long way in the accuracy.
So why not see the video for yourself and use the COMMENTS section to say what you feel about this?
Tags: bangalore, bengaluru, blog, karnataka, iphone, apple, 4s, a5 chip, processor, 1gb ram, 8mp, camera, siri, voice, recognition, indian, accent, english, software, dollars, price, unlocked
Apple India Store goes down, prices of new products being updated
The Apple India online store has been temporarily brought down in order that Apple can update its prices for the new range of Mac minis, air’s and LION operating system. Yesterday, Apple launched their new products the significant of which was a processor refresh for Macbook Airs which now sport Intel’s famed core i5 and core i7 Sandy Bridge processors. They have also bumped up the RAM to 4GB, the storage is now a Solid State Drive upto 256GB, they also have a backlit keypad for better visibility during darker lighting conditions. Added to this they have now upgraded the OS in all offerings to LION which claims to have upto 250 new improvements over the previous Snow Leopard variety.
The recent launches by Apple have better been described by Engadget and other leading tech websites. Apple also launched thunderbolt ports promising data transfer speeds of upto 10Gpbs on all their displays and macs. The LION OS has been extensively reviewed by Engadget and you can find that review here.
Blackberry Playbook to launch in Bengaluru on June 22, for 32,000 for basic WIFI version
At a time when Apple iPad2 has already upped the stakes, and close to its heels is Samsung 10.1 Galaxy Tab with Android Honeycomb 3.1 (the latest and greatest android flavour), Blackberry has announced in the Times of India regarding its Playbook launch. It has promised freebies like HDMI cable (a Rs.300 value) and a leather cover for the tablet (about a thousand bucks worth). So is this enough to lure you to buy one?

Lets in short see whats going in favour of the playbook and what’s not to help you decide.

The Pros:
- It runs QNX real time operating system which is proven, handles multitasking effectively and is known to be similar to linux in terms of capabilities
- The user interface has been thoroughly worked upon and there will be no doubt that this tablet will present a sweet user interface which will be easy to work with
- Being Blackberry it will no doubt come with many options, including advanced configuration options for the technically inclined, making it a great tablet to work with
- Its ability to run multiple applications including time and memory consuming tasks such as media playback simultaneously with other things is a good effort.
- At 425 gms this is going to be surely one easy tablet to carry around.
- Multitouch gestures make it equivalent to Apple, but this is now an expectation more than a feature release due to the standard set by Apple!
- 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB RAM is good to run many applications but the video and graphics rendering performance still waits to be proven
- Adobe Flash support is a plus one over apple which does not have it
- 3MP front facing and 5MP rear facing cameras must be enough for most jobs
- Both these cameras are 1080p compliant which is good
The Cons:
- India is a price sensitive market. When the 10″ iPad2 is available at 29,500 for the WiFi version and the 7″ Galaxy tab is available at a little lower, would a pricing of 32,500 be justified for a 7″ RIM playbook? – No, in my opinion
- They say on their website “Application rich eco system”, which is a farce. No one can beat apple on the amount of applications on their app store. Not even google for some more time. With icloud launch apple just pulled another fast one on google. RIM is left in the lurch with this kind of claim and it will be ages before they get some good apps on their store. I mean, how can the availability of Need for Speed help my productivity? Get the idea?
- This tablet is a 7″. The recommended size for good fonts and readability is 10″. Which is why even Samsung now has a 10″ and which is why even Apple has a 10″. A 7″ tablet is at best good to hold and carry across. On the usability, I have my own doubts. For media viewing anything less than 10″ is like a car DVD player. eye strain comes free with it.
- Blackberry’s promised support for using Android apps, has not taken off properly yet. Without this, RIM has no teeth left to face competition. This tablet would have sold well if it were priced between 20,000 and 25,000 rupees. Unfortunately at a whopping 32,500 bucks RIM is making the same mistake Samsung did with their 7″ Galaxy. Now that apple has plugged the pricing hole, it has set the benchmark on how people should price their products. RIM is on the way to disaster if the pricing is what it is on the playbook.
Summarizing the article, RIM is launching Blackberry playbook at a time when the market has already smelt the meat which Apple has launched at an USA-equivalent pricing with the iPad2. Samsung which has make a killing with its 7″ tablet will soon get its Android Honeycomb 3.1 10.1″ Galaxy tab which is even thinner than iPad. A failing RIM has a big task ahead with the Playbook and all its similar looking QWERTY phones which it has been famous for, until now that is. Only the true and faithful would still stick to RIM and its products. At a pricing of over thirty Gandhi notes, your guess of how many tablets RIM will be able to sell is only as good as mine.
Tags: 10.1″, 1gb, 1ghz, 2011, 3.1, 3g, 7″, android, app, apple, bangalore, bbm, bengaluru, blackberry, blog, documents, dual core, ecosystem, galaxy, gingerbread, graphics, honeycomb, ios4, ios5, ipad2, june, karnataka, launch, media, messenger, need for speed, office, playbook, processor, qnx, ram, real time, review, rim, samsung, slate, store, tablet, wifi
The Do’s and Dont’s of a birthday party celebration
Everything comes by experience. Some details come by enquiries. Whichever way you look at it, there are still mistakes bound to happen and this blog post is a ready reckoner for those who would love to organize parties for their loved ones calling all near and dear. Particularly this post reflects on a recent birthday party I had for my son. Some important experiences I underwent while organizing this party has made me to pen them down here so that people organizing similar events would get a clue as to how to go about.
Invitation process:
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I first wrote down a list of main invitees
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I then counted how many people are totally there in each of the invitees families, which gave me a total invitee count
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I logged into www.evite.com one of the well known invitation sites and added the main invitees and prepared a detailed invitation.
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I presented/mailed the invite to everyone I added so that step one was done.
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The total invitee list stood at a little over 200 (including family members)
Getting the people to respond:
This is no doubt the worst part of all, but then the organizers have to understand that the stakes of a birthday party are high. The main costs involved in organizing the party today is that of FOOD. Hotel’s charge per head and its generally about Rs.120 upto Rs.250 or even Rs.300 for some high end resort style hotels. So even for a meagre 100 people, this works out to Rs.12000/- bucks just for good. To add the icing to the cake, the hotel charges separately for the party hall in case your guests are less than a hundred. So basically this high cost covers only the FOOD and/or the party hall itself. Absolutely nothing else.
Always plan an event in advance. This will give you enough time for you to go behind people for their responses on their availability. This may mean calling them until they respond or even daily birthday reminders by email, but so be it. It is important that we learn to estimate almost exactly on how much food is needed to be served.
Ford Figo 1.4 Titanium Diesel review
Today I happened to test drive the FORD FIGO TITATNIUM DIESEL. Initially I thought i would take the car only for a short distance, but then I decided to try this baby out on a rather empty stretch of almost a 10 to 20kms highway. This was the Electronics city toll elevated highway. Person from Ford with whom i interacted with for the fiesta promised yesterday that he would be here in my home at 10AM and he appeared about 15 mins late.
(source: http://www.theautomotiveindia.com)
I jumped into the car and without wasting time shot off on my drive. From here on some crisp points about the drive itself. Just to give you a background, I ve owned 2 800s, one palio petrol 1.2, one swift diesel 1.3 and one honda city 1.5 iVTEC. Also test driven the punto 1.4p, 1.3d, manza 1.4p and 1.3d, linea 1.4p and 1.3d. Also test driven 1.3 swift Dzire ZDI and fiesta 1.6S petrol. Today was the figo’s turn after all this.
Seating position is spot on with ample room in the footwell. While the absence of a dead pedal would be found annoying by some people, especially on highway drives, due to ample room in footwell, this is hardly a concern on the figo. Unlike the cramped footwell of punto due to dead pedal, the figo was far more spacious down there.
(source www.fordfigo.in)
The gear shift is similar in nature to fiesta. Its not exactly slotty, but kind of still precise without leaving room for errors while shifting. There is no engine roar as in swift exactly but though the figo takes some time to pick up, once it does, nothing can beat it. if used effectively this translates to a 2000 rpm + manouvre on each gear. The torqueyness isnt exactly as good as swift but it is not unbearable as the car responds the moment you accelerate on any gear.
Driver and passenger ergonomics seem spot on though a bit lower than swift. the reason i keep comparing to swift is because i owned it before this one. being lower also means better stability on the road which i will come to shortly. thankfully the one i drove had the black dashboard and not the pink one. Seats have sufficient thigh support although back support could be bolstered a bit more. Plastics and interiors look a bit cheap, but then this vehicle is about value for money with respect to function not great interiors. For that look elsewhere like the polo which is more expensive.
Clutch was pretty easy to use and with an excellent gear shift, made the driving a pleasure. The AC is an absolute chiller. Though Figo does not offer climate control one can easily still control the temperature with the manual heat adjustment to offset for the chillness. The presence of a rear defogger also means good defogging in bangalore city during rains especially in the nights. The electrically controlled side view mirror switches are of very high quality and are also of precise action without errors or doubts. Needless to say when compared to the swift, which does not provide this feature, it is definitely a plus point during those hard to negotiate reversal and parking manouvres. The 154cc compressor acts immediately putting everyone in the cabin at utmost ease quite soon.
The lower height (if not necessarily ground clearance) only means that the car stays well planted on the road. What better example can I take than the fact that I had to remind myself that I was overshooting 140kmph all along the long tollway drive. One of the superior characteristics I found about this engine was its eagerness to push beyond 140 all the way upto 160 or more without much ado. Of course I did not try this feat due to obvious reasons. Going at 140 seemed like going at 60.
(source www.fordfigo.in)
A few times I had to negotiate slow moving traffic ahead of me in a zig zag fashion and the braking was near perfect with ABS and EBD at play. Considering atleast people at front have seat belts on, braking is a no nonsense affair and the car exhibits extreme maturity doing this. Needless to say its also confidence inspiring for the driver. The steering is a bit heavy I thought and did not really check if its tiltable. Neither did I confirm whether seats had height adjust. In a relative context, I did not quite appreciate the open 12V socket and the bonnet latch on passenger side. This was pretty lousy in my opinion as kids in front on passenger side can be easily fiddling with this latch.
The door latches themselves are pretty cheap looking and cheap in function too. In the sense that children in the front can easily pull the door latch when least expected. This is quite dangerous to even think of and I wish Ford had heeded this possible issue during design. Instead they seem to have copied fiesta functionality as is causing some heartburns. Atleast when the car picks up a certain speed, the door latches should not be openable. Neither is there a complete shut possible from drivers side for windows or doors. To add to the glory only front two windows are power windows. While Ford says due to the way the Figo is designed, rear windows have not only had to be mechanical, but also they open only to the tune of 70-80%. Perhaps while in one way this is okay, the rear windows not being powered is a shame and only speaks of some serious cost cutting in some sense. Whatever it is this doesnt seem quite great.
(source www.fordfigo.in)
Flaws aside, the stereo is great to use. While FM radio was a bit cracked to listen to, CDs would sound much better on this system as compared to say Manza or the DZire. I also could pair my iPhone to the music system via bluetooth and the sound quality of songs from my iPhone to the Figo stereo was astounding without the real need for an amp/subwoofer. That said I am not yet clear whether Figo supports 4 channel amp + subwoofer. Also in the midst of listening to a song, when I accelerated the song cut off for a fraction of a second before resuming. Just some signal interference and nothing to think beyond that I feel. As a bonus I also made one call and received another call on the stereo and the caller’s voice was very clear and they could also hear me clearly. I am not sure where the mike is placed for this purpose. Bluetooth is one of the most important aspects of the figo at this price w.r.t swift, and these days its an indispensable feature to stay put on concentrating on the road while still enjoying a call or two.
The horn of the Figo is somewhat hard to press but provides the necessary sound externally to deter any annoyances displayed by other vehicles on the road. My personal choice would however be to put in a windtone horn (like what the skoda laura would have) as its more pronounced though it needs to be used maturely. I did not get a chance to test the headlights as it was daylight driving but I assume it would be good enough without warranting a change to Philips 100/120W.
(source www.fordfigo.in)
The rear space of the figo is an interesting aspect to talk about. I initially had the opinion that it would not provide me anything more than a swift. But to my surprise I found that with me being 5’10" and my driver’s seat pulled back to my comfort level, I could still sit in the Figo’s rear seat without feeling cramped. This is a marked departure from the swift days honestly and this could be a deal breaker for me other than price vs features. The third person (the guy in the middle) is always an unwanted guest and it so remains even in the Figo case. We should start treating all cars as strictly four seaters from now on and should not accept an additional guest simply because its our culture!
The only thing then left to talk about is the boot. By and large the boot is much much larger than say swift. Additionally one can also perfectly (100%) tilt the rear seat to make for much larger space to even carry a bicycle if need be. With this kind of versatality one does not really need a sedan for these purposes. The external design of the Figo looks somewhat oldish, but if one can just excuse that for the features it provides and a price its coming at, its perfectly drool maal. The tyres are not alloys but for a mere 15k more, one can add ford made alloys to the car.
The suspension itself is a bit soft which means if the car is fully loaded, one has to drive carefully on speed breakers. I scraped once with four people in the car at a certain high speed. so take note of this.
Finally, the pricing is the icing on the cake. with some cost cutting by Ford, they are today the only car in the category of diesels with so many modern features and a reasonably responsible engine and handling characteristics. The 1.4 engine isnt exactly a gem at 69bhp and 160NM torque at 2000 rpm but then it isnt a laggard either. The only thing then that will make Figo a winner or loser is the long term complaints about the car and service issues considering whether the strategy of Ford works or not as the case maybe.
The fuel efficiency must be in the range of 16 to 20 easily between city and highway driving which is what one can expect from most diesel hatches cut out for this kind of performance.
So what are you waiting for? Take your own test drive today and enjoy sheer bliss.
The Madikeri Sipayi is no more. Vishnuvardhan 1950-2009

Today morning, it was a shock to understand that our very own Kannada Superstar Vishnuvardhan was no more. He had died of a cardiac arrest in Mysore at an early age of 59 years. His movies are still etched in my memory right from my childhood and has brought cheer to many a fan in the state. No wonder then that his demise has brought about sudden shock to the state. With him, two superstars including Rajkumar are no more. Hopefully we will be able to educate our children about our great heroes of yesteryears!
You can read all about Vishnu here. Do listen to the song above, I really liked it as its not only great sounding, but also shows Vishnu in traditionality of Coorg in terms of dressing and choreography.
May his soul rest in peace.







