A Geek's Blog

Google's Project Glass and advancements in Augmented Reality devices

2012-04-18T17:52:00.000+01:00

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.", said William Gibson in 1993. In the world of technology, that is as true as it gets. For decades now, many people have longed for their flying cars, cyborg suits and dare I say, time travel. Time (not the 4th dimension but the magazine) published a list in 2010 of some 'failed' predictions. While these haven't exactly failed, they haven't arrived to the masses either.

Not all technologies need to have similar fates though. 2012 has been a breathe of fresh air for technology innovations so far. One of the most promising amongst all emerging concepts this year have been the "Augmented Reality Eyewear". If you have even a remote interest in technology, you may have already seen Google's new AR glasses called Project Glass. Here's their official video:

And here is an image of Sergey Brin wearing one of the prototypes:

While the technology is truly futuristic, there seems to be some reservation amongst the denizens of the internet about the way they will make you look. If they don't float your boat, don't despair!

Enter Oakley. They have been chasing the AR 'beast' since 1997 apparently. As the following video highlights, the thing that would distinguish their glasses from Google's is style.

When will these be available to the masses? No one really has the answer to that yet but their implementation looks very feasible. After all, Android phones have some superb augmented reality apps like Layar and Sky Map already.

At this point, I know what you are thinking. What if you don't like glasses at all? Well, there is both good news and bad news for you. The good news is that DARPA has recently ordered prototypes of Innovega's iOptik special contact lenses that allow a person to focus both on images shown on the lenses and far-away objects for augmented reality. The bad news of course is that they probably won't be available to you any time soon. Still, that's another win for Dr. Michio Kaku's prediction.

The ramifications of these devices are simply too many to mention. However, there are two that have caught my attention. The first is their use in the gaming industry. As you can see from the video below, Battlefield 5 (or 6 0r 7) will be a million times cooler with Google's AR glasses.

Investing your money in some derelict industrial complex never looked more attractive. The second area where their impact would be felt is in the advertising industry. Didn't think you could escape that did you? Here too, depending on how advanced these devices are built to be, the use of marketing concepts like geolocation, gamification and some other bizarre ones would probably go off the scale. Some people on the internet have already envisioned how these ads will be presented to you. They look very familiar don't they?

Nokia needs to be different to win

2011-11-15T18:30:00.001Z

Seems like the good old guys of the mobile industry are running on a second wind. I am of course talking about Nokia. After what seems to be nearly a decade of being in the doldrums of mediocrity, they seem to be coming out really strong, albeit with some help from Microsoft.

Unless you have been living under the proverbial rock for sometime, the new Nokia Lumia 800 and 710, both based on the Windows Mobile platform, has been receiving excellent reviews. The Lumia 800 even won the Mobile of the Year at the What Mobile Awards 2011 at London’s Whisky Mist.

So far so good, but I think this won't be enough for them to become a serious player in the smartphone market again.

To understand what I am all about, just have a look at this video.

Still doesn't make sense? Let me explain. This visually amazing event was organised by Nokia in London a few days ago.I couldn't make it in person and am glad so; firstly because it was freezing outside, and secondly, because what on earth was it all about?

Yes, it was a magnificent sight to behold, watching the Millbank Tower transform into one of the largest screens ever. But the opportunity was lost to promote the phone and what they ended up doing is promoting Deadmau5 and the technicians instead. If they could have used all the technology to highlight what the phone can do, the impact would have been much more powerful.

I stayed home to watch the live streaming and that turned out to be a disaster. As you can see from the comments, this was probably the most choppy live streaming ever.

Another avenue Nokia is using to promote the new phones is by giving them away. No, seriously! They are giving away 85000 phones to developers, bloggers and influencers. This probably is a good tactic. I have tried the Nokia Lumia 800 phone myself and am definitely going to make it my next phone (I currently own an N97). Once people actually have the phone in their hand and start using it, they will realise how good a piece of machinery it is. All said and done though, Nokia can do better.

Apple is where it is today because of the way it brought the future to the masses. Google Android has created a massive fan base because it has marketed it as the definitive open source platform and attracted masses of developers. It goes without saying that Nokia will have it's hands very full trying to emulate those two behemoths.

What it can do however, is to do something which the others haven't done on a mass scale so far. How can it do that? Well, why don't they start by being the first to bring the following into production?

Nokia Indoor Navigation

Nokia HumanForm Nanotechnology

Those are things so awesome that I don't even need to talk about them. When you see these and the half-hearted marketing attempts, you realise that this is a company with so much passion and enthusiasm for technology and innovation. There are some great ideas which are generated in their incubation centres but somehow, they never really get the execution they deserve.

Marketing gimmicks apart (and I am a digital marketer) I think it's innovation and implementation which makes a company successful. The sooner Nokia realises that the better it would be for them. So please Nokia, it's not that we don't like your marketing campaigns, it's just that we would rather have the bending phone instead. After all, isn't innovation what you have been doing for the last 25 years?

Many thanks!
A Fan.

Happy 40th birthday Email

2011-11-10T12:38:00.000Z

I just found out that email is 40 years old! That's a staggering number for me. As a marketer, I love emails, even though people have been composing requiems for it for quite sometime now. Thankfully, some people in the same industry are not so sure as the infographic below would reveal:

I know which side I am on. Here are some interesting facts that I found on the internet about emails which I wanted to share with you:

1971 - The first email was sent out on this month 40 years ago. It was sent by Ray Tomlinson who strangely doesn't remember what the message really was!

1978 - Gary Thuerk, a marketer for Digital Equipment Corporation, started one of the most hateful acts in the history of mankind by sending out the first spam to 500 addresses.

1982 - The word 'email' was used for the first time. No, I don't know what they used to call it earlier either.

1997 - Microsoft acquired Hotmail for $400. Like most of their major products, its doing well even today.

1998 - With some regret, the word spam was added to the Oxford dictionary.

2003 - CAN-SPAM Act gets translated as the "You-Can-Spam" act for a lot of spam opposers.

2007 - Gmail went public. I never looked back after that.

2009 - Gmail suffered an outage. Thankfully Cloud computing carried on unscathed.

2011 - Hotmail starts attacking 'graymails' - unwanted emails received legitimately

One thing I am quite clear about now is that email is here to stay for some more time. So, the question is, what's coming up next?

11th Nov Update: Econsultancy comes to the defense of email yet again. Apparently, it has grown by as much as 200% year on year!

Ferrari 4 - 0 Mclaren

2011-07-09T16:48:00.000+01:00

As a car enthusiast for the last 16 years, I cannot recall a more talked about launch about a new car than the McLaren MP4-12C. This is the only car McLaren is making after the legendary McLaren F1 and only its 2^nd ever. Despite not being the biggest McLaren fan, I have no hesitation in saying that the F1 was probably the greatest car ever made and had no rival cars from Ferrari or anyone else, mostly because it cost £540,000... in 1997.

The MP4-12C however costs only £165,800, and that brings it head-to-head with the current supercar king - The Ferrari 458 Italia. This is easily the biggest and most important car showdown of the 21^st century so far.

But why?

One of the reason's is because the pride of Great Britain is involved. Having lost most of their iconic brands to the Germans, Chinese and Indians, McLaren is their last resort to claim a world beating product. Secondly, the McLaren F1 was way ahead of its time when it was launched in the early 90's. The expectation from the MP4-12C is similar and besides, people want to know what's better than Ferrari.

So has it done it then? Is it the new king?

Sadly, especially if you hate Ferrari, the answer is 'no'

If you look at this 'basic' spec sheet that I created, on paper, the McLaren is the clear winner. But performance cars are not just about absolute figures. Figures don't tell anything about how they handle, how confident they make the drivers feel and most importantly, how much fun they can provide. And on those fronts, the Ferrari emerges as the clear winner.

Here are 4 reviews by 'British' magazines and TV shows which highlight the point:

Ferrari 1 - 0 McLaren

The 458 stuns the McLaren in a review by Car Magazine at the Rockingham circuit.
Ferrari 2 - 0 McLaren

2^nd blood goes to the Ferrari, this time during a test by Evo magazine. The driver here is Ben Collins, the former Stig!
Ferrari 3 - 0 Mclaren

The verdict from Tiff and Jason of 5^th Gear is clear - the McLaren is a disappointment.
Ferrari 4 - 0 Mclaren

And now for the biggest verdict - Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear prefers the Ferrari as well. In his inimitable style, he sums up the verdict with a few words.

"The Ferrari is a pair of stockings. The McLaren is a pair of tights. Scientifically and mathematically and practically, the McLaren is better. And yet somehow, it isn't."

The upcoming review on the Top Gear TV show should be very interesting as well, although I don't think we will come across anything new.

For now, Ferrari still reigns supreme. Better luck next time McLaren. Or maybe, the Union Jack will be held high by the upcoming Lotus Esprit...

Update 10th July: The Mclaren blitzed the power lap at the Top Gear track clocking 1.16.2, nearly 3 seconds faster than the Ferrari. Clarkson's conclusion was a bit ambiguous; he didn't say which one he will buy.

So what does this mean? How can the McLaren be so fast around the Top Gear track when its slower everywhere else? The answer probably was on Top Gear itself. They said that the car was tested on their track which is probably the main reason why its so fast there. A car developed at one track may not be fast on other tracks.

Which test would I say is a more accurate gauge?

I will go with the one's where the driver of both the cars was the same man. In case of Top Gear, the 458 was driven by old Stig making comparison a bit difficult. Also, I kind of am inclined towards what Tiff Needell has to say about cars...

What's next?

Of course, the Nurburgring. But we will have to wait for that because McLaren apparently crashed their car there while attempting to set a new record. Any guesstimates?

Update 14th July: It's 5 - 0 now. Tom Ford gave his verdict on Topgear.com. Reason? Same as all the others.

Update from the warzone: Its cyberwar

2011-06-19T20:42:00.000+01:00

Do you remember that scene from the movie Independence Day where Jeff Goldblum plants a virus in the alien mothership's computer system? It was very sci-fi, especially if you consider how something designed for our systems could work with an alien one. Here's what I am taking about -

All very futuristic but hacking and cyber warfare is nothing new. In fact, I came across this article published a long time back in April 2001 expressing paranoia about attacks from China.

So what's the big deal now?

Since then, things have moved, to absolutely terrifying proportions. To give you an idea about where we are now, the video below demonstrates how the virus 'Stuxnet' is able to shut down nuclear power plants and electrical grids while hoodwinking security layers.

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo

While the video does not reveal the instigators behind Stuxnet, further reports have shown possible American and Israeli military links to the project. Clearly, warfare has truly gone beyond ballistics and explosives to the arcane realms of the digital world. There has never been a better time to be a white hat hacker.

If that looks bad, the problems facing corporates and organizations are far worse. The two main hacking groups terrorizing companies worldwide are Anonymous and Lulzsec. They are called grey hat hackers, whose activities fall somewhere between white and black hacking. These activities are commonly termed as 'Hactivism'. Between them, they have hacked major organizations and institutions like PBS, Sony, Nintendo, the CIA, NATO, Visa, MasterCard, Amazon, Gmail and loads more.

So what exactly is going on? Why are they doing this?

Anonymous' attacks seem to be politically motivated. After hacking NATO's systems, they left the following message -

"This is no longer your world. It is our world - the people's world." Read their entire message here. Clearly, this is a rage against the machine!

Lulzsec seems to have no political agenda and is probably just having a ball of a time. This excellent article breaks down their activities and shows us that they just want to brandish their skills while metaphorically giggling at the trouble they are causing to giant organizations.

Recently, computer security firm Black & Berg challenged hackers to hack into their website and modify the image on their homepage. The reward was a $10,000 prize and a job to anyone able to do so. LulzSec did it in no time, but refused the reward. This was the message they left -

“DONE, THAT WAS EASY. KEEP YOUR MONEY WE DO IT FOR THE LULZ.”

They are also passionate about what they love. After some unknown hackers tried to break into Sega's systems, Lulzsec have declared war against these perpetrators and offered to track down and 'destroy' them. Their motivation?

"We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down."

Despite the various motivations behind cyberwar and hactivism, the message is very clear. This is war! The new war. So much so that the Obama administration has asserted "that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force."

The biggest problem I can see here is; who are the enemies exactly and where are they? Anonymous consists of nearly 4000 hackers distributed across the world. And if you do track them down, how complicated will the legal prosecutions be?

All this can lead to a lots of possibilities; from massive changes to international criminal laws or frighteningly, limiting freedom on the internet itself.

In the long sprawling stand-off between the good and the bad guys, there has never been a phase as complex and sophisticated as this. The trouble is, none of the sides believe they are on the bad side.

Update (20/06/2011): Today, Anonymous and Lulzsec declared war on the world's corrupt governments and corporates (#antisec). Wow! Is this the moment in history that we the common people had been waiting for? The time when the people have enough power to try and set things right?

Or will it lead to strict controls and censorships on the internet instead?

I do hope things go down well; but I am pretty sure they wont. On one side I do want them to set things right, especially considering how bad things are in India. But at the same time, the collateral damage may be way to high to justify all the hactivism.

Time to ditch that wallet

2011-06-14T01:23:00.000+01:00

Payment so far has mostly assumed three forms – coins, paper money and payment cards. Using phones and near-field-communications (NFC) technology, Google wants you to forget all that by popularizing a fourth way with its Google Wallet app.

What is it?

Google Wallet is an, so far, Android only app that stores a users payment, gift and loyalty card details on a phone and uses NFC for payments at a MasterCard PayPass-enabled terminals.

So far Google is partnering with a few banks and mobile carriers in the United States but there are plans of worldwide expansion. For users without a partnering card, 'virtual' prepaid credit cards are available.

Payment using NFC is not new. Trials using NFC are being conducted in nearly 100 countries. In the UK, Barclaycard recently introduced 'Quick Tap' which allows NFC mobile payment using Samsung's Tocco smartphone.

So why should consumers, banks and retailers suddenly take notice?

Apart from the fact that its Google's project, the NFC payment scenario is on the brim of exploding as can be seen below:

According to a research by multichannel marketing specialist Acxiom, one in 5 UK consumers is willing to pay via NFC.
Juniper Research found that the adoption of NFC mobile payments will reach 300 million devices worldwide, with one-fifth of all smartphone devices having NFC capability.
The worldwide mobile payment market is estimated to be at $618 billion by 2016, according to Edgar, Dunn & Co.

But how will it commercially benefit the consumers, merchants and banks?

To begin with, Google Wallet has been designed as an 'open commerce ecosystem'. This allows the development of features to store not only payment card information but also loyalty cards, gift cards, receipts, boarding passes, tickets etc. This offers banks and retailers the flexibility to create solutions relevant to their businesses and consumers choices in terms of how they benefit from the system.

Consumers:

Google Wallet will offer users a single source to store all their payment details, loyalty cards, gift cards, receipts and deal offers. Combining it with Google Offers, which automatically syncs with Wallet, consumers will have a convenient way of purchasing products while availing the offer with a single tap at the NFC terminal.
Using transaction history and geo-location, finding the best offers and discounts will be easier.

Retailers: The benefits to retailers and banks will be influenced by how the behaviour of the consumer will change.

Google Offers requires users to have a Google account. By having all the information of users on their device, retailers and Google can track almost all their buying behaviour and possibly connect their phone number to their profile.
A poll by Steria showed that 65% of UK residents want more personalised loyalty schemes services and real-time offers on their mobile devices while shopping.
According to a research by the Atlanta and Boston Federal Reserve Banks, merchants can reduce the cost and risks of storing sensitive data as magnetic-stripe data exposure is eliminated.

Banks:

An Accenture research has found that banks which provide mobile device support can achieve returns on investment (ROI) as high as 300%.
According to a research by the Atlanta and Boston Federal Reserve Banks, NFC payment will improve fraud reduction capabilities. Currently, credit card fraud costs the UK economy about £610m every year.

The primary factor promoting Google Wallet amongst retailers and banks will be the fear of becoming a late adaptor. Of course, there are going to be issues like cost of deployment and revenue uncertainties but according to a white paper by SBJ Research, following some best practice guidelines can create profitable possibilities.

But what about security?

To prevent abuse, purchasing with Google Wallet requires a PIN. Beyond that, encrypted payment card credentials are stored on a separate computer chip called the Secure Element, which runs separately from the operating system.

But according to McAfee security researcher Jimmy Shah. an attack is still possible by fooling the chip to reveal user credentials. However, Lookout Mobile Security CTO Kevin Mahaffey believes that the combination of the PIN and the chip will create a secure environment.

On balance, it does appear that Google Wallet is turning out to be the NFC payment dream that both businesses and technophiles had been dreaming of. If anything is to support that point, it would be that the NFC forum promoting this technology, of which Google is a part of, comprises of almost every major mobile and semiconductor OEM, platform provider and financial institution.

I am totally up for this. What about you?

The Inevitable Unity

2011-06-05T00:36:00.000+01:00

This is a post I wrote nearly 2 years ago. I may have become wiser by now, but the essence of the post still persists.

Is there anything as a 'Spirit of Humanity'? Frankly, I find the mere suggestion of such an entity ridiculous. Even if it does prevail in a realm, it must be a serious victim of BPD. While on one side it talks about peace and unity, it has an insatiable self destructive nature to itself. By peace here, i mean the absence of human bloodshed and wars and the like.

The point therefore is, peace cannot be obtained in the way we normally assume, in the way we isolate it as complete absence of chaos. Throughout history, man has killed man and I cannot recall any phase where there has been the persistence of a utopia.

I always maintain observing things based on how they are and how they have been earlier rather than on how anyone thinks they 'should' be. Our minds aren't omniscient and therefore we always prone to committing errors. And based on how things are and have been, utopia is an impossibility. In fact it almost appears as though peace is an irritating entity which never emerges dominant, never offsets violence significantly and never ever dies.

As a ferverent fan of astronomy, I have been zealously studying about our universe as we know it. And this is where I had this revelation - the Sun will actually be responsible for uniting the world. I am not talking about some extraordinary use of solar energy although that is basically the reason here. Still baffled? Let me explain -

The sun is a star and that means it is growing and becoming hotter continuously. Life as we know it is dependent on how much energy we obtain from the sun. Our earth is in a comfort zone in terms of its distance from the the sun; it's neither too far to freeze and neither too close to melt. But as the sun becomes more intense and bigger, the comfort zone will shift further away from it. With that gone, the earth will literally melt and finally perish, consumed into the innards of the sun.

I do not see an instinct more intense in every human being than the one to sustain its well being, to survive. In the future, humanity will have a common enemy and one from which there won't be any escape unless the world stands united in tackling it.

Think about it; the wars, the altercations and the like; all seem insignificant juxtaposed against this impending cataclysm. We have to leave planet earth and such an endeavor would possibly require the cooperation of the collective intelligence of the world.

Better still, all dissidents would have to be terminated. By dissidents, I mean the usual selfish odd one out unconcerned about the status of their subsequent generations. As far as I know, there are lesser of such people on earth. Instinctively, the world will attain a sense of togetherness on being threatened by a common enemy.

Of course, my speculation is subject to many other constraints. For example, since this event isn't going to manifest anywhere in the near future, many nations might already discover means of mass inter planetary transportation and hospitalizing other planets to replicate the environment of the earth. This would make leaving our world much easier and the sun would no longer be a threat. So much for unity in such a scenario then.

But for giving the opportunity for peace to offset violence completely just for a moment in the infinity of time, I really do hope we find ourselves one day looking at the sun more as a bringer of death than a giver of life. Till then, all we can do is hope that the shattered limbs of humanity are held together miraculously and it still breathes.

The Microsoft empire strikes back - part 1

2011-06-04T01:52:00.000+01:00

The thing about Star Wars is that it has pretty much taken over the geek domains, especially Digg.com. It has been 4 months now and I have not had one day so far where I haven't come across a Star Wars reference there. The brand will live on, and as it turns out apparently, so will Microsoft.

Just when the once dominant empire looked beleaguered, it seems to be clawing back. Eric Schmidt of Google may claim that the 'Gang of Four' most influential technology companies consists of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple; but Microsoft does have a few trump cards.

XBOX 360 and Kinect: Nothing else in the market can provide the same controller free experience like the Kinect does. We live in a world where a lot of factors have prevented the implementation of achievable sci-fi technologies. Amidst that, the Kinect really is a revelation.

In all the years of human evolution, we haven't come across an age until now where our fingers have undergone so much stress by the act of typing. We are not designed for typing; no wonder so many of us end up with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Kinect will be our liberator; it will bring to life the gesture based computing that the movie Minority Report popularized.

The march to that day has already begun. Microsoft is soon releasing a software development kit that will enable researchers and enthusiasts easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect device connected to computers running Windows 7. The possibilities from that are pretty much endless. In fact, the Kinect SDK has already been used for things like virtual fitting rooms in Moscow, armchair controls and for even bringing Google's Gmail Motion April Fool joke come to life.

Now you weren't ready for that were you? And at the same time, its rivals are quite literally taking a beating. The PSN hack has dealt a serious blow to Sony and Nintendo admits that Wii sales have been dropping. Things are looking on the up and up then...
Windows Phone 7: Ok, so iPhone and Android devices rule the roost here but that said, the WP7 operating system isn't bad at all. In fact, Engadget wrote that -

'...the company has created an incredibly promising base set of features to build off of. With terrific Zune and Xbox Live integration, a fast and smart method of getting around the OS, great Office and email experiences, and a genuinely beautiful and useful user interface, Microsoft has definitely laid the foundation for the next several years of its mobile play.'

Their partnership with Nokia also gives them some serious hardware firepower to play with, something Nokia never really did well. With the iPhone facing privacy issues and a staggering 99% of Android phones found to be insecure, the empire can truly strike back.

Thanks for reading part 1. I am sure you may have lots of things to argue or discuss about and I would be really happy to hear them.

Update: This morning I found that Forza 4 will use Kinect to allow drivers to look into corners while racing. This is something I always wanted to do and I can't wait for this!

What ailment faces video-on-demand?

2011-05-25T16:31:00.000+01:00

Let me tell you straight on; its broadband cap.

As this article from GigaOM shows, the recent cap by AT&T will limit users to 150GB per month. Additional 50GB would attract another $10! The problem is that if people decide to skip the big screen for a home experience, they will prefer to watch it in HD. As the article shows, a normal 2 hour movie at 720p is about 3.7 GB. Obviously, we aren’t even talking about 1080p which would almost double the impact.

This looks fine; except that watching movies is not the only activity people carry out on the Internet. Here's a handy chart for 10GB usage which should help with the calculations. With picture quality becoming a competing factor, things like higher frame rate and bitrate would increase the size of the movie files even more. Clearly, this would affect movie aficionados if they wish to abandon the movie theaters. And its not just the United States which is facing such issues; usage-based-billing in Canada is charging people for the bandwidth they use as opposed to providing a fixed usage limit.

Unless broadband becomes even cheaper or the caps are removed, going to the movies will still remain an alternative as people will simply run out of their allowance at home. Also, the sheer experience of watching movies on a big screen will keep cinemas alive.

However, the whole idea of a big screen may change in the future as I wrote earlier...

Me 'do the' Dew!

2011-05-14T11:35:00.000+01:00

Hello world!

Have you heard of Future Lions? No? Well, its a competition organized by the creative agency AKQA where they invite students from around the world every year to submit new ideas.

This years's brief was:

"Advertise a product from a global brand in a way that

couldn’t have been done five years ago, to an audience of

your choosing."

Here is the entry that Kate, my classmate and me have submitted for this year. Hope you like it!

The most comprehensive collection of Clarkson's quotes - Part 3

2011-05-13T23:28:00.000+01:00

And its back!

Part 1

Part 2

Traffic jams

Don't use it (motorways). Don't use it. Stay at work, be productive and buy yourself a helicopter.

Driving across the Okavango Delta

Men in camouflage trousers in Wales who like murdering people at weekends would say this was tough going.

Toyota Prius

The only thing that drinks more is the English cricket team.

Porsche Cayman

There are many things I’d rather be doing than driving it, including waiting for Bernard Manning to come off stage in a sweaty nightclub, and then licking his back clean.

Pagani Zonda

Really! It’s like a lion in orange dungarees. Kind of fierce, but ridiculous all at the same time.

Mercedes CLS 55 AMG

Braking in this car is so brutal, it would be less painful to actually hit the tree you were trying to miss.

Rolls Royce Phantom

I imagined that driving this car through a village would be a bit like trying to thread an oil rig through someone’s letterbox.

BMW Z3

And if you are clinically insane, by which I mean you wake up in the morning and think you are an onion, here’s your car.

BMW M3 CSL

This is the car bought by the type of man who lies awake at night thinking about his gear shift aggression strategy for the drive to work the next morning.

Cyclists

The cyclist is ‘a guest on roads that are paid for by motorists’

The most comprehensive collection of Clarkson's quotes - Part 2

2011-05-07T03:25:00.000+01:00

Part I

And the most epic collection continues!

Ariel Atom

This is driving Nirvana! You can forget anything you've ever driven, anything. There is no car, nothing on four wheels, that is as fast as this.

Bentley Arnage

It's like Blenheim Palace on wheels!

Aston Martin Vantage

I would rather be in this than in Keira Knightley.

Toyota Yaris Verso

This car is for the men whose lives are completely empty... and they are looking forward to the day they will die because it will give them something to do.

Nissan Almera

Telling people at a dinner party you drive a Nissan Almera is like telling them you've got the ebola virus and you're about to sneeze.

Proton Savvy

No, no, no. There's no such thing as cheap and cheerful. It's cheap and nasty & expensive and cheerful.

Ford Galaxy

I'd rather go to work on my hands and knees than drive there in a Ford Galaxy; Whoever designed the Ford Galaxy upholstery had a cauliflower fixation; I would rather have a vasectomy than buy a Ford Galaxy.

Suzuki Wagon R

You do not just avoid the Suzuki Wagon R. You avoid it like you would avoid unprotected sex with an Ethiopian transvestite.

Toyota Camry

Whenever I'm suffering from Insomnia, I just look at a picture of a Toyota Camry and I'm straight off.

McLaren MP4-12C

Let me put it this way. The Ferrari is a pair of stockings. The McLaren is a pair of tights. Scientifically and mathematically and practically, the McLaren is better. And yet somehow, it isn't.

Can social media revive a dead car?

2011-05-06T20:26:00.000+01:00

Here is the story so far.

Joel Ewanick, the CMO Global Marketing at General Motors, recently joined Twitter. A Twitter user called @chevalanche tweeted Joel with a simple request, "I want an El Camino. Badly. Please!". To this, Joel replied, "well, we need you and 100000 of your best friends".

What they are talking about here is Chevrolet's El Camino, a half coupé half pickup truck. It has been dead since 1987 and the closest thing to that design that exists today is the Holden Ute Series II. It is indeed sad that such an extroverted design is so rare today. Can anything persuade GM to bring it back?

Maybe, Social Media?

Popular automobile cult website Jalopnik picked up the conversation and appealed to all its followers, through Facebook and Twitter, to comment on a post which talks about the development so far. If the number of comments surpasses 100000, GM will, if they have any pride and honour, bring back a design that is pretty much dead in the automobile world.

So far they have registered 1800 comments in 2 days. It will be interesting to see where Joel's slightly careless comment leads. I am not a personal fan of the El Camino but it is such an irrational design that the world would definitely be a livelier place with it around. GM can also earn itself a 'cool' badge if they make this happen!

Why you should add Facebook Comments Box to each Blogger post

2011-04-20T10:31:00.000+01:00

If you are not aware yet, Facebook Comments Box is a social plug-in by Facebook that allows people to comment on a website. With what I had read, the comments are linked to the user's Facebook profile and anything that' posted on the comment box appears on the user's profile. Replying to the update on the user's profile updates the comment on the comment section as well and vice-versa.

Ok. I will try to avoid the word 'comment' from now on.

To cut to the chase, I am not a programmer and do not understand complex coding. That's why, when I tried to add a umm... comment box to my blog. I came across a strange problem. I found out that there are two versions of it and each with a critical shortcoming for Blogger.

First version:

Following the instructions laid our here, I successfully managed to integrate the box. However, when I tested it out, there was a major problem as can be seen below -

Yup! There is no option to 'like' or 'reply' to any comment posted there which sort of defeats the whole purpose of trying to reach out the Facebook audience. However, the advantage here is that each post has its own unique mention on a persons Facebook feed.

2nd version:

Since the previous version didn't meet my need to engage people on Facebook, I tried to integrate the box which can be seen on TechCrunch. For the actual implementation, I found help here.

Great! So now I can reply and like other users comments but then... there was another problem. Using this method displayed the box not only on each post, but also the blog homepage. Moreover, the post made on Facebook leads the users to the blog home page and not the post itself.

Solution:

Simple. Add the following code at the end of each blog post's HTML.

Don't for to place your post's URL instead of 'URL of post goes here'. So there you go! Good day...

A few reasons why ET isn't here yet

2011-04-18T15:42:00.002+01:00

Think about ET and chances are you will recall something from Hollywood - big round eyes, slithering fingers and even Keanu Reeves; who by the way has a 'massive sad' (sorry just had to say that). Not bad but what are the possibilities that they will actually look like that? More importantly, will we even come across any of them?

Sorry to disappoint you but I think the chances are quite low. Here's why -

Intelligence:

As Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it - 'when is the last time you stopped and had a conversation with a worm'? Chimps share 95-98% of our DNA and yet we cannot really understand their ways and to be honest, most of us don't really care.

So if there really are aliens who have discovered us, they must be much more intelligent than what we are. In that case, why would they even bother to communicate with us? We are nothing but what worms are to us. Probably, all they might be doing now is studying us.
The 11 dimensions:

We as humans can see only 3 dimensions and are woven into a 4th one - time. However, M-theory suggests that there are 11 dimensions in all! So it is highly probable that these life forms we are seeking maybe existing in a dimension we cannot sense.

If you have a lot of time in hand, check out this long series which explains everything.
What is a life form anyway?

The general view about a life form is that it needs nutrition, water and air. Now we know nutrition can be different things for different creatures. Moreover, scientists have now discovered that there are creatures on Earth itself that don't need oxygen to survive.

In that case, how do we define what an organism is? In a possible scenario, we may have already come across living organisms made up of chemical compositions in outer space which we have plainly dismissed as galactic clouds or something. Sam Neill wants you to think like that too :)

In the light of those arguments, common sense would dictate that we will probably never be contacted. However, we do know that life does exist somewhere in some form out there and that it is up to us to contact them instead.

The most comprehensive collection of Clarkson's quotes - Part 1

2011-04-17T03:27:00.000+01:00

There are car show presenters, and then there is Jeremy Clarkson. If you are not a 'petrolhead', here's a good place to start knowing him. The most epic things about Clarkson are his quotes; mostly about cars but limited to almost nothing.

With this post, I am trying to compile some of the most hilarious, controversial, shocking, complex and rhetorical quotes that we have heard from JC on Top Gear ever since the new format took off in 2002. I also promise to come up with more posts on this so that you can eventually find all his quotes on my blog!

Porsche Cayenne

'I have seen more attractive gangrenous wounds than this. It is a monkfish among cars. It has the sex appeal of a camel with gingivitis and frankly i would rather walk back to the studio than drive another yard in it.'

'0-60 takes 5 and a half seconds and about 17 gallons of fuel.'

Fiat Panda

'People who bought the Fiat Panda said that it wasn't as bad as they were expecting it would be. That's like buying a ton of manure and saying "It doesn't smell that bad actually"

Alfa Romeo Brera

'Think of it as Angelina Jolie. You’ve heard she’s mad and eats nothing but wallpaper paste. But you would, wouldn’t you?'

'It's like Cameron Diaz. You know she's a vegetarian, you know she's a commited eco-mentalist... would you say no? That car is like Cameron Diaz, with wheels.''

Porsche Carrera GT

'Supercars are supposed to run over Arthur Scargill and then run over him again for good measure. They are designed to melt ice caps, kill the poor, poison the water table, destroy the ozone layer, decimate indigenous wildlife, recapture the Falkland Islands and turn the entire third world into a huge uninhabitable desert, all that before they nicked all the oil in the world. This does't feel like it will do any of those.'

Land Rover LR3

'As a result, it weighs 2.7 tonnnes - and that makes it heavier than a Rolls-Royce Phantom. It's so heavy, that if you were to load it up with stuff, and then hitch up a trailor to the back; technically, you need an LGV licence.'

Bentley Continental GT

'It's (adjustable suspension) really as useful, as a snooze button on a smoke alarm.'

Audi R8

'Driving most supercars is like trying to manhandle a cow up a back staircase, but this is like smearing honey onto Keira Knightley.'

Ferrari 355

'The Ferrari 355 is like a quail's egg dipped in celery salt and served in Julia Roberts' belly button.'

Porsche Boxster

'It couldn't pull a greased stick out of a pig’s bottom.'

Mercedes Benz CLS55 AMG

'It sounds like Barry White eating wasps.'

Aston Marting DB9

'That's not really a racing car, that's just pornography.'

'I’m sorry, but having an Aston Martin DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you’ve got even half a scrotum it’s not going to happen.'

Living with my Nokia N97

2011-04-16T21:46:00.000+01:00

For anyone who knows even a reasonable amount about phones, Nokia's ads for their smartphones look rather optimistic.

'Over the competition I am towering'? I don't think so, not with an aging Symbian platform, resistive touch screen, not so class leading hardware and so on. I bought one because Android was still an infant at that time, and the iPhone wasn't available in India. Even if it was, I think the closed Apple environment would have put me off anyway.

Having survived (both me and the phone) for over 2 years, I think its a good time to talk about what made sense and what didn't.
The good:

32 GB internal storage. Yes! 32 GB! Will you ever need another portable storage device?
The tilt slide design which makes it extremely comfortable to watch videos or just browse around
Ovi online and Ovi Suite which I think is a great triumph in organizing smartphone data from multiple sources
A home screen that never feels cluttered

As you may have noticed, those features are rather unique to the N97 or at least Nokia phones.

The bad:

A 'resistive' touch screen with no multi touch.
Hardware which runs out of breathe when you don't want it to
Extreme flash flooding while using the camera. I had to fix this manually by lining up the camera glass covering with a permanent marker!
An Ovi store for apps with not so many apps in comparison to the Apple and Android market
A default email manager which feels like a slightly modified text messaging system
And now the worst sin of them all - a mere 75 MB memory out of 32 GB devoted to the main phone memory! That's as bad as being given wings to fly but permanently confined to some underwater city.

The ugly and the beautiful:

It has the same element for phones as Alfa Romeo's have for cars - a personality. I cannot recall the number of times it decided to do things on its own or plainly refused to do them. The GPS especially loves to update the location at a leisurely pace and sometimes, forgets to update it altogether.

Sometimes I get the impression that Nokia has accidentally built a phone with artificial intelligence and should reverse engineer its own product to unearth this stroke of ingenuity.

But most of all, just like Alfa Romeo's, you will develop a love-hate relationship for this phone. It will drive you to madness with its shenanigans. Every other time though, you will be so amazed that it is actually working well that you will be overcome with a great sense of joy and amazement. Now I don't know how many other phones can give you that experience.

Battle of the 700+ bhp

2011-04-15T16:36:00.000+01:00

First there was Ferrari, then Lamborghini and then there was Pagani. Pagani shamed the might of the established supercar manufacturers with the Zonda and its countless iteration (about 18) of them! For a manufacturer which has made ummm... only 1 car, that was quite an epic achievement.

Now there is a new Pagani - the Huayra. Difficult-to-pronounce-names aside, it takes the manufacturer forward in terms of performance, but also 'backward' in terms of styling. I really don't think it has the same 'shock and awe' effect as the Zonda had. Look for yourself and decide.

Here's the Zonda:

And now the Huayra:

Not exactly a looker is it? Regardless, the vital number here is 730 bhp which should take the Huayra to 233 mph or a point where you would be making 'huayra' noises from your mouth. However, the Huayra is not the only predator in the automobile jungle.

Let me introduce you to another 700 bhp monster - the Gumpert Tornante. Its predecessor, the Apollo, whipped all other supercars (including the Zonda) around the Top Gear test track. The Tornante should be faster and far more pleasing on the eyes at the same time. This car should be able to take Gumpert from being a 'neither here nor there' manufacturer to a serious contender. Or will it?

Not to be outdone, the biggest bad boy in history isn't lying around waiting to be dethroned. Lamborghini is all set to join this 700 bhp battle with its Aventador! Easily the best looking of the trio, it will hit 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds and reach an estimated 217 mph. While those figures may be top trumped by the Pagani and the Gumpert, the Lamborghini would cost 'only' $370000 compared to the Huayra's $1.5 million and the Tornante's $800000.

The supercar scene is move alive and kicking that it ever was! Which side are you on? Me? Well until the replacement for the Ferrari Enzo is launched, I will side with the current supercar king - Pagani.

There's just one thing about Firefox 4...

2011-04-04T18:11:00.000+01:00

I love Firefox; prefer it over Chrome most of the time. I love it because I prefer the add-ons and the flexibility it provides with options like 'View Page Source'. With Firefox, I feel invincible :)

But if it continues to reinforce its status as the undisputed champion of resource hogging, my laptop will surely not be able to cope up. It turns out that the new version goes on guzzling mode while displaying Javascript. The only solution would be to turn it off but that isn't the solution I am looking for.

Is there an add-on or tweak I can apply to crawl on till the next patch?

Why Blogger?

2011-04-04T15:25:00.000+01:00

Finally, I decided to choose Blogger as my platform. I tried Tumblr and WordPress and contemplated TypePad for the last few days but they had to go. Here's why -

My requirements were simple - it had to be free, it had to be SEO friendly and it had to allow easy integration of Google Analytics.

Now, TypePad wasn't free, Tumblr wasn't easy on SEO and HTML changes cannot be carried out in wordpress.com (So no Google Analytics).

With that, I come back to the place where I started my first blog a few years ago.

Marketing: PC vc Mobile

2011-04-04T14:52:00.000+01:00

I had a classroom discussion today about the future of Digital Marketing - Will mobile prevail over PC marketing? Despite mobiles becoming as powerful as PCs and tablets (take the Atrix for example), they are still limited by their screen size.

Do we really need multiple devices depending on their screen size? One of the ways we can end that discussion is by removing the display from its physical entity, which would automatically free us from carrying around two or three devices. Here are three examples of a future free of a display screen -

Augmented reality contact lenses and glasses as predicted by Dr. Michio Kaku. (skip to 14.20)

MIT Media Lab's Pranav Mistry with his Sixth Sense Technology

Glass display using corning

What do you think the future holds?

Hello world!

2011-04-04T14:50:00.000+01:00

The beginning as in my first post with my Blogger account. For now I have no idea what this is going to be about or what I will be posting here but it will eventually emerge.

With this, I want to understand how I can offer people something to read about which they will not find anywhere else on the internet. A tall order but then there wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.

My Blogger experience will see me talk about my understanding of all things close to my heart, viz. automobiles, astronomy, technology, gadgets and pretty much everything under the sun and around it towards infinity.

Also as a passionate digital marketer, it would be interesting where the blog leads and where I lead it in return. :)