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Vizio Begs Consumers – Whip Me, Whip Me

 Digital Media, Tablets  2 Responses »
Aug 092011
 
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Some companies just won’t get the message, at least not until they hear the swoosh sound of the whip falling on their exposed backside.

People don’t want to buy just any tablet.

They want only the Apple iPad.

How hard can that be to understand.

But some folks just won’t listen and keep rolling cheap and not-so-cheap tablets with grandiose hopes.

Mark our words, these tablet johnnies-come-lately won’t even pick up crumbs.

The desperate discounting of all the major non-Apple tablet vendors lately, including by recent entrant to the market HP, is adequate proof that consumers are giving the cold shoulder to non-iPad tablets.

In the latest display of public masochism, cheap TV vendor Vizio has gotten into the tablet game with a $299, 8-inch cheap tablet that runs on the Android OS.

Vizio Launches $299 TabletWhip- Me, Oh Please, Whip Me

Depressing

Consumers get only internal 2GB usable storage with the Vizio tablet but they can add storage up to 32GB through the microSD card.

Like all Android tablets, the Vizio too has only a few hundred dedicated tablet apps.

Now, keep in mind that the iPad has over 90,000 dedicated apps. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 2:20 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Android Users Face Greater Malware Threat Now

 Android, Digital Media  5 Responses »
Aug 032011
 
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Android users face greater threat from malware today than they did six months back.

A new report from security services provider Lookout warns that Android users are two and a half times as likely to encounter malware today than 6 months ago.

As if that were not scary enough, Lookout adds that three out of ten Android owners are likely to encounter a web-based threat on their device each year.

It seems an estimated half million to one million people were affected by Android malware in the first half of 2011. That is a depressingly large number.

Android apps infected with malware went from 80 apps in January to over 400 apps cumulative in June 2011, says the Lookout study.

The open distributed application model for Android, where users can download Apps (that may not even be vetted by anyone) from multiple sources, is a key reason for the greater security issues on this mobile platform. In contrast, Apple exercises tighter control on its application download process with its single source plus a vetting process for each app.

Malware writers are also said to be using new distribution techniques, such as malvertising, drive-by-download and upgrade attack.

In an unsurprising conclusion, the Lookout report discloses that both web-based and app-based threats are increasing in prevalence and sophistication.

Now you know why we use Apple’s iOS mobile devices like iPhone and iPad. ;)

Related Content:
Lookout Mobile Threat Report

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 Posted by at 1:54 pm  Tagged with: ,

Can Amazon Lift the Sinking Android Tablets?

 Digital Media, Tablets  No Responses »
Aug 012011
 
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To digital media aficionados, a group that includes yours truly, one of the most anticipated events is the upcoming launch of Amazon’s tablets.

Let’s make it the supposed launch since Amazon has yet to officially announce its tablet strategy.

But the rumors are flying fast and furious.

Amazon will launch three tablets. No, there will be just one. It will be a Nook-competitor and not a full-fledged tablet. It’ll be a low-priced tablet. It will be a 9-inch tablet. And so on go the rumors.

While there’s little agreement on the details, almost all writers are unanimous that Amazon’s tablet, in whatever form factor or features it may come with, will be based on the Android OS and debut in the not too distant future.

Perhaps, as early as the current quarter.

But will yet another Android tablet make any difference to the platform’s flagging status in the tablet marketplace?

It’s no secret that the Android-based tablets have so far been laggards and not made much of an impact in the tablet arena dominated by the Apple iPad, which is now in its second generation.

Pricing of Major Tablets

Major Android tablet vendors including Acer, Asus, Motorola and Samsung just don’t seem to have the wind behind their back.

Even as overall tablet sales are surging, Android vendors have failed to gain traction. Not surprisingly, their prices are falling and we’re starting to see $100 discounts (like from Staples recently).

All the iPad competitors (Android-based, Blackberry or webOS) are not selling in large numbers because for the most part they’re found wanting when pitted against the iPad (despite its lack of Flash support). Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 7:18 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Non-iPad Tablets Should Roll Over & Die

 Digital Media, Tablets  1 Response »
Jul 292011
 
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The yawning gap between market leader Apple and the rest of the Tablet vendors (Motorola, Samsung, Acer, Asus, HP and the like) is growing wider.

A couple of days back during a visit to Staples, we found the U.S. office supplies store offering $100 instant rebate on all tablets except the Apple iPad and HP’s TouchPad.

Staples does not sell the iPad but offers a whole bunch of others including TouchPad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy, Dell Streak, Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer and Blackberry PlayBook.

Despite the $100 discount, Staples’ tablet section wore a deserted look during our visit.

By the way, Staples’ $100-off deal is valid until tomorrow.

It seemed to us that even with lower prices the Apple rivals are finding it hard to compete with the iPad 2.

Currently, non-Apple tablets are priced around the same level as the iPad 2 but trending down. For a WiFi only model, iPad 2 tablet pricing ranges from $499 for a 16GB model to $699 for a 64GB version.

Motorola Xoom Tablets – Pitiful

In more distressing news, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha disclosed today that the company shipped (not the same as sold) 440,000 Xoom Android tablets in its fiscal second quarter ended July 2, 2011.

Besides the U.S., Motorola offers the Xoom in Latin America, Europe, China, Korea and Japan.

During almost the same period (the three months ended June 25), Apple sold 9.2 million iPad 2 tablets.

Motorola’s move to cut pricing of its 32GB Xoom from $599 to $499 is unlike to help either. Apple owns the market.

All the tablet vendors riding the Android train will have little but huge losses to show in the coming quarters.

For the full-year, Motorola expect tablet shipments will range from 1.3 million to 1.5 million.

How long before most of the non-iPad tablet vendors kiss the dust?

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 Posted by at 12:53 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Amazon Instant Video Movie Collection Still Piffling

 Digital Media  No Responses »
Jul 282011
 
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Even after today’s announcement about a streaming deal with Universal Pictures, Amazon’s instant movie collection is still an anemic 2,100.

Including TV shows, Amazon has some 9,000 titles in its Instant Video collection.

That’s nothing compared to the tens of thousands of titles Instant Video leader Netflix has amassed.

For the benefit of the schmucks, Instant Video in the U.S. lets users stream movies to a PC or TV (through a compatible box like Roku) for a fee.

Bottom line, movie buffs are better off with Netflix.

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 Posted by at 11:21 pm  Tagged with:

Most Indians Still on Slow Train to Internet

 Digital Media, General, IT Industry  6 Responses »
Jul 262011
 
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The majority of Indians are still riding the slow, shuttle train as far as the Internet is concerned.

Average Internet connection speed is one of the lowest for a fast-growing, high-profile nation like India, if you go by the numbers for Q1, 2011 from a recent study by Akamai.

The study shows that average Internet speed in India is a mere 0.8 Mbps compared to 14.4Mbps in South Korea, 5.3Mbps in USA, 1Mbps in China and 4.6Mbps in the UK.

Worse, 35% of Indians connect to the Internet at speeds less than 256Kbps.

Just wondering, will YouTube load at 256Kbps?

Bet you can complete jerking off or even make a baby and the page still wouldn’t have loaded. :(

By the way, India is among the Top-10 countries for origin of cyber-attacks. No surprise, eh?

Internet Connection Speeds Slow in India

Say, if Internet connection speeds are so slow in India how then do these Chutias illegally download all the Bollywood, Kollywood and Hollywood films. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 1:48 pm  Tagged with:

Singham Rocks at Box Office – $30m on Day One

 Digital Media  9 Responses »
Jul 222011
 
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Singham has gotten off to a solid start.

$30 million on Day One.

No typo there. It’s T H I R T Y Million Dollars on the opening day.

Folks, it’s one of the greatest openings we’ve ever seen.

Really amazing.

We can’t control our excitement.

It seems like people are almost trampling each other to get a piece of Singham.

Have you schmucks ever come across such a great opening?

It’s got Blockbuster Hit written all over.

SearchIndia.com is giving Singham 5-stars.

Great Direction

Singham has everything going for it.

It’s got top-class stars, a solid story, powerful muscles, pretty looks, a superb director, a great prequel and 100% sequel potential.

And the action scenes rock.

Unbelievable.

We haven’t seen such a superb director in a long time.

Not in our lifetime.

After all, how many directors can rightly boast that the Hardware and Software are made for each other.

How sweet!

Rarely, do we get to see matching Hardware and Software.

Oftentimes, in life if the Hardware is powerful, the Software is weak, worn-out or has too many holes.

Or if the Software is smooth and pretty, the Hardware is not powerful enough to take advantage of it.

But with Singham, if you believe the director, the Hardware and Software are made for each other.

Remember those old Wills Filter ad with the pretty couple and the tag line Filter and tobacco perfectly matched. Kinda like that.

Singham – Stunning Visuals

Man, the action scenes rock, the visuals are stunning and, hey, it’s got Multi-Touch too.

Multi-Touch, isn’t that awesome?

We mean you can just ‘pinch, swipe, and tap your way around most’ on top.

But Singham director left out one thing – Sadly, you can’t squeeze on top.

Oh well, we’ll settle for pinching and sweeping the software, if you get our drift.

Expensive Tickets

Mind you, Singham does not not come cheap.

To see Singham, be prepared to fork out $29.95.

But few fanboys are complaining. One million purchased Singham tickets on Day One.

It seems fans are buying Singham tickets faster than any other……Operating System release in Apple’s history.

Directed by Steve Jobs, Singham oops Mac OS X Lion is Apple’s eighth major release of its operating system. It’s available for purchase at the Mac App Store for $29.99.

Unrelated Posts:
Singam Review – Sin to Watch Such Trash

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 Posted by at 12:08 pm  Tagged with: ,

Singham Roars 1m Times on Day One

 Digital Media, IT Industry  1 Response »
Jul 222011
 
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Apple is tooting the horn that its new Mac OS X Singam oops Lion has been downloaded more than a million times on Day One.

Apple's Mac OS Singham Debuts

Singham oops Lion is Apple’s eight major release of its Mac OS X.

Apple executives say that Lion offers 250 new features to the Mac, including:

* Multi-Touch gestures

* System-wide support for full screen apps

* Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac

* Easy access to the Mac App Store

* Launchpad, a new home for all your apps

* A redesigned Mail app

SearchIndia.com is a great fan of Singham’s smaller sibling, the iOS, Apple’s operating system for its mobile products like the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Unrelated Posts:
Singam Review – Sin to Watch Such Trash

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 Posted by at 11:30 am  Tagged with: , ,

Holy Moley Me, Oh My, the Apple of My Eye Peddles 9.25m iPads in 3rd Quarter

 Digital Media, Tablets  5 Responses »
Jul 192011
 
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Apple iPad 2

Ever since we got it, the baby has always been held close to our bosom.

Of all the digital media gadgets we’ve accumulated in a long life time, none has afforded us as much pleasure as the iPad 2.

Watching live Indian TV, music, playing YouTube videos, streaming Netflix movies, reading books and newspapers, playing chess, we can do all of this and more with our iPad 2.

Well, word must have spread because in its latest fiscal quarter, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads despite a widespread shortage of the second generation tablets.

Apple’s iPad unit sales in the third quarter represented a 183% jump increase over the year-ago quarter.

In revenue terms, iPad sales rose 179% to $6.05 billion.

These are ominous times for all the other tablet vendors in the world.

Samsung, Motorola, HP, Blackberry, Acer, Asus, Sony (coming), Vizio (coming), are you reading this?

Apple Sales by Product Fiscal 3Q, 2011Image Source: MacWorld

Related Stories:
iPad 2 Review – SI Buys the Only Tablet Worth Buying
Some Nice iPad Apps for Indians

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 Posted by at 7:01 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Some Nice iPad Apps for Indians

 Digital Media, General, Tablets  7 Responses »
Jul 182011
 
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Indians have been slow to climb on the bandwagon of the iPad or other tablets, presumably because of the price and the absence of WiFi in most homes in India.

Not surprisingly, Indian developers have been slow to build applications for the iPad or for its successor, the iPad 2.

But in the U.S., the iPad is making strong inroads with consumers and to some extent among corporates as well.

Anecdotal evidence suggests Indians in the U.S. have slowly started hopping on the tablet train.

Since the iPad is by far the largest selling tablet in the U.S., we’ll assume desis are mostly buying the iPad rather than the Samsung Galaxy, HP TouchPad, the Blackberry PlayBook, Acer, Asus or any of the other tablets.

Here are a bunch of apps for the iPad that Indians are likely to find useful:

* Yupp TV – One of the best apps for the iPad.

Yupp TV provides Live TV access to NDTV (English and Hindi), Times Now, ET Now, Raj Music (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam), Zoom (Hindi), Jaya Max (Tamil) and more. There’s also a separate NDTV iPad app but we prefer the Yupp TV version of NDTV since there’s no buffering and it starts quickly.

And did we tell you Yupp TV is free. ;)

Yupp TV for iPad Offers Live Indian TV Channels

* Times of India – An excellent free application for India’s most read English newspaper. This one is perhaps the only Indian newspaper built specifically for the iPad. We’ve looked a couple of times but couldn’t find any other Indian newspaper app built expressly for the iPad.

Times of India for iPad

Times of India for iPad

* Galatta Cinema – Indian movie fans will love this free app with its strong focus on South Indian cinema. Unfortunately, the Galatta app works only in portrait mode but not in landscape mode.

Galatta for iPad

* Desi Radio – If Indian music be your addiction, then Desi Radio is a must-have app.

With tons of Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam and English radio stations, there’s a cornucopia of music here.

* Netflix – No, Netflix is not just for Hollywood DVDs anymore. There are quite a few Bollywood movies in Netflix’ Instant Play including recent trash like Tees Maar Khan.

Besides our above favorites, there are several Indian language dictionaries and some cricket apps. We skimmed through a bunch of them but didn’t find them alluring enough to download.

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 Posted by at 10:57 pm  Tagged with: ,
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