SearchIndia.com

Gimmickry – Sony Xperia ZR Smartphone

Android, Digital Media, iPhone 5 Responses »

May 132013

Smartphones are entering the irritating terrain of gimmickry with features that most of us don’t care about, will not use or that just don’t work.

In a desperate attempt at boosting sales, most of the major smartphone vendors including Apple, Samsung and LG are lately guilty of trumpeting features that are completely irrelevant to 95% of the device’s users.

Sony is the latest smartphone vendor to jump on the gimmickry bandwagon with a new device Xperia ZR that is supposedly great for underwater HD photography in fresh water.

Oh, yeah, I can see a million smartphone users around the world quitting their day-jobs and jumping into neighborhood swimming pools and lakes to become underwater photographers!

Underwater Photography with Sony Xperia ZR – Really Useful!!!

Sony’s Waterproof Xperia ZR

Following in the footsteps of the gimmickry-laden Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone, Sony today launched a new Android smartphone whose main selling point is its “highest level of water-resistance for capturing photos and Full HD videos underwater.”

Now how many of you buy a mobile phone with the intention of capturing photos or taking full HD pictures underwater? Continue reading »

Go Goa Gone Review – Macabre Comedy

Bollywood 6 Responses »

May 102013

By Naveen

I am not a fan of Zombie movies and I don’t recall having seen one in recent times.

For me to watch the Saif Ali Khan produced Go Goa Gone, Bollywood’s first Zombie movie, was an odd choice.

But I don’t regret the decision as the movie was not so bad after all!

Story

Go Goa Gone stars Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, Vir Das, Puja Gupta and Anand Tiwari.

Luv (Vir Das), Hardik (Kunal Khemu) and Bunny (Anand Tiwari) are friends and room-mates. Bunny is the nerdy and hard-working one while the other two are happy go lucky guys.

Hardik loses his job when he is caught trying to f#ck a co-worker in the office. Luv breaks up with his girlfriend. The two join Bunny on his official visit to Goa.

Luv meets his unknown Facebook friend Luna (Puja Gupta) in Goa and learns about a Rave party she is going to on a desolate island. Luv and Hardik also go to the party and drag Bunny along.

Boris (Saif Ali Khan), a drug racketeer, is organizing the party to launch a new, highly potent drug. Whoever has that drug becomes a Zombie and now the Island is full of Zombies trying to eat whoever is left and turn them into zombies.

The rest of the movie is about how Luv, Hardik, Puja, Bunny and Boris deal with the Zombies and whether they escape the Island.

Now, since this is a Zombie movie I will not make a big deal out of illogical things like those mentioned below. What more can one expect from a Zombie movie but morbid stupidity?

* Why does a Hindu Hardik wear a Cross?

* Why does Saif Ali Khan speak in a fake Russian accent only when talking in English?

* Why are almost all the Zombies non-Indians?

* Why is Puja Gupta given a ridiculous name like Luna?

What Worked for Me?

The biggest factor that works in favor of the movie is the newness of the concept in an Indian movie. Continue reading »

Great Gatsby Review – Underwhelming Movie Based on an Overrated Book

Hollywood 4 Responses »

May 102013

They’re a rotten crowd…You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.
- Nick Carraway’s parting words to Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby

If you have not read F.Scott Fitzgerald’s so-called masterpiece The Great Gatsby, you’re not likely to be able to make much sense of this movie.

The wild, overflowing parties, the music, the huge mansions, the flashy fast cars and the repeated “old sport” are bound to throw you off and leave you bewildered.

Not Worth It

Considering its exalted position in the pantheon of American literature, I read The Great Gatsby about a year back when news broke of Amitabh Bachchan snagging a bit role in the film.

The 1925 novel has some appeal.

Admittedly, the prose is decent and there’s a certain style that might find favor with some readers . But I found there was not much by way of a plot or character development and concluded the 180-page book was a triumph of exaggerated style over substance.

And the story of Great Gatsby, as the noted essayist and critic H.L.Mencken rightly put it in 1925, is “somewhat trivial.”

In my not so humble opinion, the book does not deserve its current status as a classic. In Fitzgerald’s time, the book was not the success it is today.

This week, I picked up the book again to see if I’d missed something in my first reading. No, my opinion of the book did not change.

Vladimir Nabokov may have exaggerated when he pronounced the book ‘terrible” but the novel is certainly not worth making into a movie five times (four times on the big screen and once on TV).

Disappointment

Given my unfulfilled expectations in Fitzgerald’s novel, I went to the movie with low hopes.

Alas, the movie failed to come up even to the level of the book.

The latest film version of Great Gatsby features Leonardo DiCaprio, Amitabh Bachchan, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton et al.

With the novel, you, at least, have a clear sense of the events, the principal characters and the few oddballs that liven up things a bit.

The movie, on the other hand, is all a chaotic whirl marked by pedestrian performances. Continue reading »

Not Dead! Not Dying! In Brilliant Move, Nokia Launches $99 Smartphone for Indians

Digital Media 7 Responses »

May 092013

To millions awaiting news of Nokia’s obituary, the Finnish company decisively proved today that it was neither dead nor dying with the launch of Asha 501, a cheap smartphone for the Indian market.

Asha 501 is built not on Google’s Android nor on Windows, but on Nokia’s proprietary Asha software platform. Good move!

At first glance, Asha 501 looks like a decent device that will fulfill the desire of millions of poor Indians for a cheap but a quality smartphone from a leading brand.

Although the sheen of the Nokia brand has dimmed elsewhere, it’s still shining in India.

Asha 501 Smartphone

Validates Sub $100 Market

Cheap smartphones are not a new phenomenon.

A few years back, an Indian friend in NYC proudly brandished an iPhone knockoff he’d picked up in China for $99.

Even in India, Chinese and Indian vendors are peddling smartphones for as low as $65. Samsung is said to offer a smartphone for $110.

Nokia’s entry into the sub-$100 segment validates that there’s a strong unfulfilled market for cheap and good quality smartphones.

Plus, the move is a big gamble for Nokia which is tottering against the onslaught of iPhone and Android devices in North America and presumably in Europe too.

Unlike a no-name Chinese $50 or $60 smartphone, Nokia cannot afford to put out a shoddy product.

Still, we will wait for the first reliable reviews of Asha 501 before singing halleluiah to Nokia’s new smartphone.

Asha 501 is slated to be on the market in June in India and several other countries.

Great Potential

India is a dirt poor country where countless people live on the margins of existence.

But even poor people aspire for the good things of life when they see the fortunate others playing with fancy toys that can play music, video, games and also make “missed” calls.

To these millions, an iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S4 costing an obscene $650 or higher (Rs 35,000 plus) is not the answer.

Asha 501 (costing $99, about Rs-5,500), from a leading brand like Nokia, is the right solution.

Smartphone penetration in India is pitiful, a mere 3%.

So India is ripe for a vendor willing to offer a smartphone at a low and affordable price to the teeming masses.

Smartphone Penetration in india

Specifications

Let’s be clear at the outset that Asha 501 is not going to come with any of the fancy features of the Samsung Galaxy S4 or iPhone 5 like a 13-megapixel camera, iTunes integration, Smart Scroll etc.

But Asha 501 offers enough nice features to get millions of India to jettison their old feature phones for touchscreen smartphones.

Weighing 98 grams, Asha 501 is a 3-inch touchscreen device with a 3.2 megapixel rear camera that supports both still and video. The glass and plastic phone is 12.1mm thick and comes with 4GB of storage (expandable to 32GB), Bluetooth, USB 2 and Nokia’s Xpress Browser. It supports single or dual microSIM cards, 2G connectivity and has a talk-time of 17-hours.

To pander to the Indian craze for garish colors, Asha 501 is available in Bright Red, Bright Green, Cyan, Yellow besides the sedate Black and White.

Asha platform is built on the mobile operating system technology that Nokia acquired in 2012 by buying the Norwegian firm Smarterphone.

Asha Smartphones Colors

Decent Apps

Just because a smartphone costs $99 does not mean that users have to be deprived of the popular apps.

CNN, eBuddy, ESPN, Facebook, Foursquare, Line, LinkedIn, Nimbuzz, Pictelligent, The Weather Channel, Twitter, WeChat, World of Red Bull and games from Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Indiagames, Namco-Bandai and Reliance Games are said to be some of the apps that are already available for Asha 501 or in development.

Plus, as the phone moves into people’s hands and gains popularity app developers are bound to follow.

In the Box

Here’s what you can expect in the box when you fork out $99:

Asha 501 smartphone Nokia Charger AC-11, Removable Battery BL-4U 1200 mAh, Stereo Headset WH-108 and 4 GB microSD Card

Big Dreams

Nokia has grand ambitions for the Asha smartphones.

It expects to sell 100 million of them over the coming years, beginning with the Nokia Asha 501.

Disaster! Facebook Home Phone HTC First Now Going for 99-Cents at AT&T

Android, Digital Media 4 Responses »

May 082013

Remember the massive hype about Facebook Home and its initial launch on the HTC First Android mobile phone less than a month ago.

Mark Zuckerberg and his minions breathlessly declared at the Facebook Home unveiling on April 9 that mobile phones ought to be designed around people first instead of apps blah blah blah.

And bringing the supposed wonders of Facebook Home to the masses first was HTC First costing $99 (with a two-year contract) at U.S. mobile carrier AT&T.

HTC First is a 4.3-inch touch screen, mid-range smartphone running Android 4.1 JellyBean software with 16GB storage, a 5MP rear camera and a 1.6MP front camera.

Features wise, HTC First is not a bad phone but definitely not in the class of the far superior HTC One.

AT&T pitched the HTC First to potential customers above all as a Facebook Home phone providing a “mobile experience that puts your friends at the heart of your phone.”

HTC First Now Going for 99-Cents

But you can only fool the sheep so much about the need to be constantly connected with your friends.

So less than a month after Facebook Home debuted on the $99 HTC First phone, AT&T has slashed the price of the device to, hold your breath now, 99-cents.

The unmistakable conclusion is that the appeal of Facebook Home was not compelling enough to persuade customers to buy the HTC First phone.

Facebook Home – Nonsense

Even as I watched Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation last month and his spiel about mobile phones being designed around people first, I knew this Facebook Home user interface that layers on top of the Android device was not going anywhere.

People are not going to sacrifice the home screen to Facebook just to receive endless streams about their friends each time they look at their phones.

Remember, greater minds than Zuckerberg like Plato, Socrates, Galileo, Newton and Shakespeare were not “connected” all the time to their friends.

Facebook Home is basically a portmanteau of Facebook apps including Cover Feed (News Feed or the important stuff), Chat Heads (messaging or the supposedly critical stuff), notifications and an app launcher for your existing apps.

Besides the ho-hum reception to Facebook Home and HTC First device, HTC and its carrier partner AT&T were also hit by the greater appeal of the HTC One phone that has come out around the same time. HTC One does not have Facebook Home installed on it.

Here’s the big challenge for Facebook now – if HTC First with Facebook Home is such a dud that it’s being given away for 99-cents why would any other mobile phone vendor or carrier jump on the Facebook Home interface.

Sexy Indian American Professor Manjari Blasts “India’s Feeble Foreign Policy”

General 9 Responses »

May 082013

Manjari Chatterjee Miller These days, Mera Bharat Mahaan has become a favorite whipping boy for all and sundry.

The latest to deliver a stinging slap on India’s face is cute looking Indian-American Manjari Chatterjee Miller, an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University and alumnus of Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Harvard University.

In an article titled India’s Feeble Foreign Policy published in the latest issue (May/June 2013) of the respected journal Foreign Affairs, Manjari slams the mechanism by which the nation’s foreign policy is made.

Manjari argues that India will not be a great power without a stronger foreign policy making apparatus.

Manjari writes that India’s foreign policy is “highly individualistic” (essentially made by “overburdened” Indian Foreign Service officers) and marked by “absence of grand strategic thinking.”

One reason Manjari cites for the absence of strategic/long-term planning – there are not enough Indian Foreign Service officers and the available few are preoccupied with mundane, day-to-day matters or “putting out fires” from crises.

She also faults absence of influential think tanks in India that can provide strategic guidance to foreign policy makers. To Manjari, even respected think tanks Centre for Policy Research and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses lack clout.

Here’s the essence of Manjari’s criticism on India’s foreign policy:

Countries that aspire to great power status usually look beyond tactical challenges, imagine a world that best suits their interests, and work to make that vision a reality. The problem for New Delhi is that its foreign policy apparatus is not yet designed to do that. India’s inability to develop top-down, long-term strategies means that it cannot systematically consider the implications of its growing power. So long as this remains the case, the country will not lay the role in global affairs that many expect.

Weaknesses

* To lay readers, one of the glaring weakness of Manjari’s article is the absence of examples to prove how the absence of strategic thinking or long-term planning (assuming she is right on the absence) in foreign policy formulation has adversely impacted the country’s standing in the international arena. Without examples, Manjari’s argument fail to convince readers that India is at a disadvantage or that the country has no strategic planning. Interviews with a few anonymous Indian foreign ministry officials are not enough.

* Second, she summarily dismisses the two units in India’s foreign ministry that specifically deal with strategic planning, the Policy, Planning, Research Division and the Public Diplomacy Division as effete divisions “lacking clout” without offering any details. Nor does her article provide any suggestions to improve the influence of these divisions.

* Third, Manjari overplays the importance and benefits of think tanks in foreign policy formulation. The presence of countless think tanks in the U.S. has not prevented American foreign policy from being a disaster in the Middle East, Central Asia, South America and parts of Europe and South Asia (despite billions in aid to Pakistan, polls show majority of Pakis hate America). Since U.S. foreign policy is often held hostage by the military industrial complex, the pro-Israel lobby, desperate need for cheap oil and crackpot dickheads like Dick Cheney or empty-heads like George W.Bush, think tanks have not proven to be a great advantage to American foreign policy-makers. Given that India is a lot more corrupt than the U.S., the presence of think tanks with greater influence with the country’s External Affairs ministry could easily turn them into handmaids of vested interests (foreign powers).

Page 2 of 544«123 4 5 6 7...20 30 40...»Last »

SearchIndia.com Blog