If customers cannot reach Store, the Store reaches customers

Virtual Mobile Grocery Store

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGaVFRzTTP4

Online shopping may not be an unique idea. But if it can utilize your (the most boring) waiting time to shop for your convenience then it is superb. You can shop while waiting for your transport simply by using your smartphone. By the time you reach home the items arrive at your doorstep.

Hopefully the infrastructure and most importantly the public sense of people reaches to this stage very soon in India.

Modern Projectors for Multiplex Cinema

Had a chance to visit the projector room of a latest multiplex theater in one of the new malls at Bengaluru South. It is a really amazing technology. Gone are those days where people have to continuously attend to the projector to adjust precise distance between two carbon rods, or keep track of the discs and lights on/off etc.

Now with the latest projectors one can program the entire movie to play (MPEG4) from starting slides, lights on/off, ads, movie, interval, slides, end card without any intervention except pushing a start button. One Hard disk caries around 7 to 8 movies. All that the operator does is to insert the correct Hard disk into the projector and push a button. The movie can also be loaded on to the server so that they don’t need to handle the hard disks. They keep an additional lens kit for screening 3D movies in front of this projector. This projector can play the sound in Dolby, DTS as well as simple stereo or mono.

In future, the distributor will have a server, which serves, to all the theaters without any intervention and for a number of prescribed shows. The theater management just has to ensure that there is an uninterrupted Power supply with powerful AC and a high bandwidth network. Forgot one important thing, a direct high power AC vent into the projector through its head.

If you want to know more about the projector, follow this URL: http://www.barco.com/en/product/2180

Next time when you step into a cinema you know how it is being screened.

Galaxy S II is a real success to Samsung

Samsung Galaxy

Also fastest selling smartphone after topping 3 million units in 55 days.

My first Android Phone is Samsung Galaxy 3 i5801 (sister version of Galaxy S). Very exciting phone under Rs.12K. However the excitement did not last longer as the phone started hanging now and then. Had to do a lot of technological circus to connect to (then version of) Kies software on PC. Landed up formatting the phone twice after trying to jailbreak with custom firmware from xda-developers. Installed task manager app and forcibly started killing unwanted apps. But still the phone did not leave its hanging habits. With the latest update of Kies software it became bit easy to connect to the PC. Had trouble in connecting to my office email which forced me to switch over to iPhone 4. My wife took it after her iPhone 2G lost its touch on the screen. Now with the latest firmware (android firmware 2.2 FroYo) the hanging became built in feature.

Samsung Galaxy S II has solved all the above issues. In addition, it has beautiful hi-tech hardware and thinnest to date in the market. Intelligent display technology. Excellent camera (8MP). Except that there are few areas where it can improve such as hubs other than Reader Hub (I like the integration of Kobo Reader). Could have been better with metal than plastics (no complaints though). Few of my friends still use laptops less powered than 1.2 GHz dual core, 1GB RAM of SII.

Since Android doesn't impose stringent rules on the apps (as apple does), the onus is on the users to install the apps at their own discretion.

Dont forget to properly protect your beauty with screen guards and skins/covers etc. It may affect the outlook but will protect it for a long time. Keep updating your phone with official firmware (current 2.3.3).

For indepth review :

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/28/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-review/


If you can wait for a while you may also consider HTC Sensation (I love HTC Sense than Samsung TouchWiz). If you don't have budget for S II watch out for Galaxy Z (younger brother of S II).

Kindle - I love it

Recently during my visit to USA, I bought Kindle 3G+WiFi 6". I must say it is a great device one must have. Thanks to Arvind to prime me to buy one.

Advice: Create an account on Amazon website (you need your credit card details to be entered) before buying Kindle. Go through the books available on Kindle bookstore. See if they are useful to you. One of my friends (CA) could not find the book he wanted on taxation (the basic motive to buy Kindle). I would also suggest using Kindle apps on your PC, MAC or mobile and experiencing it before investing on Kindle device. There are thousands of free books you can get from Kindle bookstore. Just sort them by "Price: Low to High".

There are a lot of eBook readers in the market. What makes kindle so special is:
1. The Free 3G connectivity to buy books wherever you are in the world (as long as you have GSM network in that area) under 60 Sec.
2. The "Buy once and Read on many" approach of Amazon (up to 6 devices)
3. One need not be disappointed by the Grey scale (B/W) eBooks on Kindle, as there are apps that can be installed on PC, MAC, IPhone, Android and Blackberry to read the same in Color.
4. Excellent support & service.
To elaborate on this: My Kindle gave up after 70 days. It was not connecting to my account. Wi-Fi works but only on the browser and 3G is not at all working. I called up the support and asked them what to do. They asked me to perform few basic things on the device to revive it. After it failed, they sent a fresh device configured to my account and the new Kindle reached my home in less than 96 hours (from Cincinnati, USA to Bangalore, India). All this without a single Rupee spent by me except an international call to their support center.

The Device:
I liked the package of Kindle, as it is hassle free unpacking. When I held the device for the first time in my hand, there were instructions on the screen, tried peeling that paper off to see the screen. To my surprise the instructions were on the screen. This is superb. This is as good as reading any book holding in hand. If you have ordered through your Amazon account, & if you already have books in your account, they are pre-loaded into your device and you are ready to go. There are more you can do here:
1. Change the font size or orientation of the screen to suite your reading comfort.
2. Highlight the sentences or words, just like we do in the normal book
3. If you come across any tough word, just move the cursor onto it to see the meaning in the dictionary.
4. Read highlights done by others
5. Bookmark a page as you fold your page in the normal book
6. Let your friends on Facebook or twitter know that you have completed this book and give your recommendations or share your notes or highlights with them.
7. It also has a built in browser (the most basic) provided on experimental basis. (a free 3G browser wherever you are ;-))
8. You can play MP3 songs (to be uploaded through your PC or MAC by connecting the device) Not a great idea but not a bad one too.
9. If you are traveling in a bus and cannot read it as your eyes may get strained, just press (shift+sym) it reads it for you. You can use standard headphones to isolate the sound only to you. I think some of the books don’t support this feature please check the Kindle store.
10. If you have read a book on other devices using Kindle app, when you connect Kindle device to network it synchronizes pages where you stopped on the other devices.
11. You can also subscribe to magazines, news papers etc.
12. Up to 2 months battery charge.

You can go through a huge list of shortcuts and tricks at http://blog.diannegorman.net/2010/09/kindle-3-keyboard-shortcuts-et-al/

Please remember to buy a good cover for your Kindle. I bought the one that has light in the cover (uses Kindle battery) to read in the dark. Kindle does not emanate light.

Now talking about the new trends in the competition: Barnes and Noble has recently launched new Nook (touch). This seems to be a great device with complete touch. Also faster than Kindle 3 and very intuitive. However only WiFi.
It also has the color nook (readers tablet). Actually you can hack and installed Android OS on it. I found a lot of readers preferring a b/w device than a color one.

A lot of others are also in the market Sony, Samsung, Kobo and a dozen of them. I am interested in watching how Kobo does as they seems to be fast catchers of technology.

What Amazon is doing: Amazon 'may' come up with color + touch Kindle very soon. Going by Jeff's words "it will complement the existing Kindle readers stay tuned". The e-Ink technology is growing faster. No surprise if you see a complete tablet with e-Ink technology (except that you may need a table lamp to read them in dark).