Archive for March, 2007|Monthly archive page
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Courage
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A lone woman shows incredible courage as she struggles against soldiers from the Israeli army. This incredible photograph, by Oded Balilty of the Associated Press, won the World Press Photo Awards 2007.Prashant.
Image Courtesy: digitaljournalist.org
Leave a CommentNikon Universcale: Beautiful flash animation
-Prashant.
Update
If you’ve noticed, I’ve finally moved to the new Blogger. I was using the old template until now, only because I had no time. Moving over to the new template requires you to redo all the changes you’ve made, including the little bits of Javascript you’ve added here and there… Well, I’ve now done it finally.
The new Blogger really isn’t all that great. I for one, didn’t find anything too special in it except for the new post categories. I’m now contemplating a move away from Blogger itself… to WordPress or something. I don’t really know the pros or cons of WordPress over Blogger, but all the cool bloggers seem to be on WordPress 
Prashant.
A free mobile phone carrier?!
Blyk, a Helsinki-based startup may soon become the world’s first free mobile phone carrier. Yes, you read that right! A free carrier! No more mobile phone bills!And how exactly do they plan to do that, you ask? Well, how else… Blyk, which launches in UK this summer, will be completely supported by advertising.
Now, these guys are not traditional mobile phone operators a la Starhub or Singtel… These guys are actually MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators). What this means is that they resell wireless services under their own name, using the network of another operator. This usually allows MVNOs to focus on providing other value added services. What is different about Blyk’s approach is the fact that MVNOs like Ampd Mobile have tried to position themselves in the upper end of the market by providing premium services, whereas Blyk seems to be doing exactly the opposite. Blyk will be focusing on the 16-24 year old market and they hope to provide advertisers a way to reach out to this group of people through an “innovative mobile media channel“.
According to Red Herring, Blyk has signed up some major advertisers for its service, including Coca Cola. However, I am still doubtful if this service can actually be supported completely by ads. Take me, for example. I pay a monthly bill of about S$50 to Singtel. Now, assuming that Singtel makes a tidy 40% profit on that, the cost of providing that service to me is about 30$. If ads were going to replace my bills, then companies like Coca Cola are going to have to pay at least 30$ per person per month to keep a company like Blyk alive. Now this would mean that the advertiser expected me to purchase something valued at much >30$ from that company (else the advertising would be a waste). Right?! Isn’t that a bit of a long shot?
Well, I’m not too sure if that logic up there is correct. In any case, I’m a little bit sceptic about how Blyk might pull this off. And if it does, I couldn’t be happier (no more phone bills!).
Prashant.
Google Homepage Themes
When I opened my browser this morning, I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me. I’ve been using Google personalized homepage for a while and today they finally did something about their painfully crappy UI. They’ve finally announced Themes! Right now, there are only a handful of themes, but all of them are quite nice. One little extra feature I really like is a dynamic wallpaper that actually portrays the real weather in your city! So if its raining outside, for eg., your background will show rainfall too. Nice 
There are scores of personalized homepage websites out there – Pageflakes, Netvibes, My Yahoo, Google Personalized Homepage, AOL something, MSN something, etc etc. All of them are cool in their own little ways and compete with each other on features. And among these, the Google and Yahoo one were pretty much the crappiest looking… boxy, old-fashioned, themeless… Yet, they are the market leaders in this segment. This makes sense, considering the fact that (almost) every Internet user has a Google/Yahoo account. I, for eg, had to choose Google over the rest coz that’s the only one that gave me access to all the Google services. I have my Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, weather, todo list, etc all in one place
Until now, the only thing that sucked about this service was the look. By adding themes, I guess they’ve made it perfect
Prashant.
Interactive mirrors! Now we’re talking :)
Wow, I can’t believe that no one thought of this until now!
Bloomingdale’s New York has just debuted the first interactive mirror! No, I’m not talking about a Snow white kinda mirror which talks back to you when you ask questions… This, in fact, is even better
This new mirror actually functions as a high-resolution digital display which shows images of selected clothes on it… which means… you don’t have to keep changing clothes again and again at the shop when you wanna try them on! All you have to do, is choose the outfit you like and stand in front of the mirror. It’ll show you how you would look with those clothes on. Neat!
Well that’s not all. It will also upload a digital image of you ‘in’ those clothes to a website where you’re friends can comment on it and tell you whether it looks good or not… Hmmm, not bad. But then again, as Josh Spear points out – ‘Women go shopping together for a reason! What woman would want to sit behind a computer screen and give her friends fashion advice?!’ True, but I really can’t comment on that coz I don’t fit into the target demographic (I hope…).
In any case, the basic idea is cool. Not having to repeatedly change up to try clothes on at a store may just be a need that’s strong enough to propel this technology on. If this test turns out to be a success, Bloomingdale’s plans to install similar setups in its other stores across the US as well.
This kinda reminds me of TryEmAll… Wondering what that is? Well, don’t worry, you’re not supposed to know anyway
Prashant.
Image courtesy: www.joshspear.com
5000 :)
No, that’s not a new movie with 5000 Spartans fighting off 5 million Persians…
That’s the number of unique visits this little blog of mine has gotten so far!!! 5000 unique visits! Cool, right?!
Yea, 5000 doesn’t look that big, but when you consider the lengthly blog-winters I’ve subjected this blog to and the random crap that I’ve written about, it’s not too bad either…
Hmm, lets do some math here… there are 136 posts on this blog (that’s it?!) and that would mean that each post has been read close to 37 times! (I get the feeling that there’s something terribly wrong with that calculation back there )
Anyways… as always, I hope I can keep the current blogging streak alive for as long as possible… And 10,000 might not be too far away
Prashant
Photo: Screen shot from Google Analytics showing visits and page views over
Want Joost Beta invites?
Ever heard of Joost? Well, they’re the new Interactive Internet TV Startup founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (the founders of Kazaa and Skype). Joost offers a downloadable client that uses P2P technology to stream TV content to you on demand.
Notably, these guys managed to sign a deal with content providers Viacom (the guys who own MTV and Comedy Central) recently.
I’ve tried out their software and it’s pretty cool! The UI is really slick and the video quality is great! And mind you, Joost is not like the Democracy player or the Metacafe player where the videos are downloaded to your computer in the background and then play from your hard disk. Joost actually streams the content to you over P2P. I’m not talking about puny, low quality vids like Youtube. Joost gives you what looks like TV quality video.
The amount of content is not that great right now, but that’s understandable as they’re on beta. They should be adding a lot of good quality content soon.
So, any of you interested in a Beta-invite? Let me know in the comments and I’ll send you one. Hurry up, coz my invites expire by Mar 22…
Prashant.
Apple at it again!
Haha! This is a good one I found on Digital Inspiration…
I guess you must be familiar with the M$ Vista ‘Wow’ campaign. At least M$ hopes you are coz they apparently spent over $500 million on it! (if you can’t get the word around with that kind of money… you can’t get the word around, period.)
Well, just as the Marketing dudes at M$ are getting prepared to explain where they threw all that money, the folks down at Infinite Loop (aka Apple) couldn’t resist having some fun!
Check this out…
Prashant
Photo courtesy: Digital Inspiration
Huh?!
“If you have love stray dogs, you should take responsibility for ensuring that they do not bite people”
This was a ‘concerned’ Bangalore resident complaining about the fact that Animal Rights Activists all over India condemned the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of stray dogs in Bangalore.
What amuses me is the clearly flawed logic in what Mr Santosh is trying to say!
Does this mean that just because you love/like something/someone, you need to take responsibility for their actions?!
What if we were talking about tigers here? I love tigers! But does that mean that every time someone around the world gets killed by a tiger, I should be put in jail?!
I understand Santosh’s concern for the residents of Bangalore and I definitely value the safety of all of them. But going out and ill treating these animals and indiscriminately killing them is definitely not the solution.
Prashant.
Blogger troubles?
Have any of you had problems lately with Blogger.com? I’ve been finding it really hard to post anything new out here for a while! Every time I try to upload an image, it gives me a weird HTTP error… It looks like its a bit better now.
Prashant.
