My Two Cents

The XDA Atom is out!

The much anticipated XDA Atom (which I often referred to in these pages), is finally out. O2 Malaysia released it yesterday amidst much fanfare. It has great multimedia capabilities.

The original HTC Magician had a remarkable sound quality. (If you own an iPod, you will be surprised to know that the sound quality of MP3s are much better on a Magician.) The XDA Atom, which O2 has released as an upgrade to the Magician, needs to have similar sound qualities if O2 wants enthusiasts to embrace this as a pocket multimedia center.

I wish O2 releases this in India as soon as possible. [O2 has this poor history of pricing their products extremely high in India. For example, the O2 Mini retails for INR 32000 whereas the KROME Spy retails for INR 28000. O2 Mini and KROME Spy are one and the same - the HTC Magician.]

Read more about it here.

Computer Warehouse Online

Computer Warehouse Online – Buy Computers, Computer Parts, Computer Accessories, Laptops and Electronics

Apart from Ebay.in, there are very places where you can buy computers/accessories online in India. This makes it very difficult to do a price comparision with a dealer/reseller.

Came across this website (A bangalore based dealer whose shop is in MG Road.) and is quite comprehensive. The pricelist spreadsheet is very useful and informative. (Look for the price list button on the right hand side on top).

The items do not have specifications listed, which I see is the biggest shortcoming on this website. Hope they will improve the site soon.

The Stinking Guy’s best friend

Perfume phone – spread fragrance in the air as you talk – Phoneyworld.com

Are you a stinking rotten guy? If so, Hyundai can come to your rescue. Hyundai introduces the World’s first perfume-enabled mobile phone (After hearing a lot about WAP-enabled, Wi-Fi enabled and EDGE enabled phones, a perfume-enabled phone is a rather refreshing change. Isn’t it?). If you run out of the perfume in the phone, you can buy a refill from the nearest Hutch outlet . A Rs 10 recharge card offers full perfume time.

[Interestingly, you need to use a syringe to refill the perfume. If you get calls often, you may want to carry the syringe all the time with you, with the risk of being identified as a drug addict.]

The perfume phone costs a whopping US $1200, which seems totally unjustified for this otherwise ordinary phone.

Acknowledgements: Phoneyworld.com for Photo and Story

The RAZR fake emerges

Keepin’ it real fake: Part III – The Non-RAZR – Engadget – www.engadget.com

When we were kids, there used to be a class of fountain pens called “Hero” (Oh! How I miss those fountain pens!). Hero pens were made in Japan and it was considered a privilege to use a Hero pen. Kids who had their parents working abroad brought Hero pens of different colors to School and boasted the whole day about how many Hero pens they had. The less forunate ones bought the fake Hero pens. (Fakes are popularly called as ‘Duplicates’ in Indian English). Those fakes were invariably made in China and will start leaking ink within a few days of use. The color of the cap of a fake Hero pen also used to fade away very quickly.

That’s how I was introduced to the world of Chinese fakes. It was often told that given a product, the Chinese could setup machinery to produce the ‘duplicate’ of it within a day’s time. But the fake machinery has become technologically so much advanced that today, Chinese have started making cars which are similar to GM’s and Ford’s.

Coming to the point – I was surprised to see the Motorola V3 being faked by a Chinese company. See the link above for more details. Seemslike the price of the fake is only 1/3rd of the original!! (The original, when introduced in India was priced at INR 36000, apprx US$820. Today, the same V3 is retailing for about INR 12000, apprx US$ 275 !!)

Wired News: History’s Worst Software Bugs

Wired News: History’s Worst Software Bugs

Got this forwarded by a friend. Really an intersting read on the worst bugs in computer history. Surprisingly, the author has not included the mother-of-all-bugs, the Y2K! (Which was also a stepping stone for many Indian IT companies into the Software Business).

Pull time job!

Saw this small job ad in a BMTC bus in Bangalore. Can’t resist posting it here. I liked the ‘Unemployers’, ‘Pull time’ and the ‘serious’ parts of it. Shot with a camera phone from a very difficult angle. So click on the image to enlarge it.