Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 21:59

Anujan wrote: Dont know if enough money is b~~[e]~~ing spent on it.

There, corrected.

Mickey's strat-e-jee with Bing may be like Chacha's strat-e-jee with G+.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Feb 2013 22:40

^^^Yeah. There are so few of us using Google+. I don't do f|_|ckbook.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 23:49

I don't do social networks, period. They are a time sink bar none.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Feb 2013 23:53

^^^What about the BRF network? Hain ji?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 23:55

That's a forum saar, not a social network. That is allowed to be a time sink.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 19 Feb 2013 21:57

HTC has put out a phunwa. Looks TFTA from its initial specs and photos. Will wait for reviews.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Feb 2013 23:33

^^^Hehe I remember in some forum in 2012, Peter Chou gassing on and on about some 16Mpix camera they had in one of their phones and how it was soup-e-rear to GB's Lumia 920 Pureview camera which had only 8Mpix. Looks like HTC did an about-turn and copied GB's notes, just like they copied the colours.

However 4Mpix seems too low for removing noise and still have a decent resolution in the end result.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 20 Feb 2013 10:01

Never understood the "my mijjile is bigger than yours" megapixel race. I have a very SDRE 6 year old DSLR with 8 megapixels and it can blow all smartphones all (except maybe one or two) P&S out of the water.

Optics, stabilization, pixel surface area are all important for low noise, sharp image.

Making optics is quite painful. The design is a tradeoff between aperture, focal length, number of elements, chromatic aberration, vignetting, barrel distortion ityadi. On top of it, machining optics is difficult. Optics coating is black art. It is quite easy I presume OTOH to increase pixel count on an already teeny sensor. No wonder they choose to increase its number!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2013 11:18

Megapixel is BS beyond a certain size (8Mpix typically) - rest is an attempt at Mahdi-esque numbers game. Same with display resolution - there are many characteristics of displays which make or break UX much more significantly than display resolution yet all the reviewers/journos/anal-e-cysts/fanboys seem obsessed with Retina.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 20 Feb 2013 11:32

Megapixels are useful when you need them. Not for d1ck-waving. Birding and wildlife photographers need as many pixels on target as possible since they shoot from longer distances and canon only makes an 800mm bazooka not a lightweight pichkari

Also, to make large prints having more megapickles helps. For yuppieman and youppigirl to take pictures of themselves in yosemite with one hand or their strawberry margarita glass in a dimlit restaurant you don't need a 22mp canon 5d3 to tote around

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2013 12:16

^^^I was talking in context of mobile device cameras onlee (& P+S cameras I guess) - TFTA cameras with lens looking like Hatf mijjile is something I don't know much about.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 20 Feb 2013 12:28

Yeah mobile vs pns wonly saar. Same d1ck measuring contest only everywhere

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2013 13:02

3Doodler: 3D "printing" pen

Reminds of the fun we used to have with certain glue gun mods to melt plastic tubes to create standing "sculptures".

These guys made a Kickstarter project out of it!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2013 19:23

Chacha reveals it's Glass UI video: http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels/

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 20 Feb 2013 23:31

Anujan wrote:Never understood the "my mijjile is bigger than yours" megapixel race. I have a very SDRE 6 year old DSLR with 8 megapixels and it can blow all smartphones all (except maybe one or two) P&S out of the water.

Optics, stabilization, pixel surface area are all important for low noise, sharp image.

Making optics is quite painful. The design is a tradeoff between aperture, focal length, number of elements, chromatic aberration, vignetting, barrel distortion ityadi. On top of it, machining optics is difficult. Optics coating is black art. It is quite easy I presume OTOH to increase pixel count on an already teeny sensor. No wonder they choose to increase its number!

True that. Optics coating is quite a black art.

And look at the French Damocles pods and how this guy Vishnu Som could see the number on a car 60 km away from the Rafale. The Euros do optics pretty well. Carl Zeiss and company.

I would think the US and Japan do this much less skilfully.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 21 Feb 2013 00:19

Prasad wrote:Yeah mobile vs pns wonly saar. Same d1ck measuring contest only everywhere

Actually, P&S are getting quite good, like the Sony RX100 with the EXMOR 1" CMOS sensor. Yes, some phones are getting better sensors, but they still lack the manual control we want.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Feb 2013 06:05

Raja Bose wrote:Chacha reveals it's Glass UI video: http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels/

how to turn the volume down? I am on chrome 25 odd beta on FC12. the video comes up full screen no volume control dial - par for the course for an AD company I guess but quite annoying in the way of AOL or the stupid AT&T "you will" commercials or the current Win8 metro.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 21 Feb 2013 06:47

matrimc wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:Chacha reveals it's Glass UI video: http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels/
how to turn the volume down? I am on chrome 25 odd beta on FC12. the video comes up full screen no volume control dial - par for the course for an AD company I guess but quite annoying in the way of AOL or the stupid AT&T "you will" commercials or the current Win8 metro.

Try alsamixer from terminal. (esc to quit)

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Feb 2013 07:13

command aslamixer not found. Looks like I do not have aslamixer installed (or not in path). Got up and physically turned the volume down at the speaker. Looks like this is going to be the new normal in a chacha dominated world - reminiscent of pumped up volumefor for TV ADs from despo companies. They need to get theor $40 billion revenue

.

At the end of the video, how was the view shared? There was no voice command. Have they invented "mind-reading"? Very reminiscent of M$ tooting their APIs for all kinds of back-ends without of course the bac-ends themselves.

My bad - I did aslamixer for alsamixer. That said, alsamixer is a terribly messed up curses program.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 21 Feb 2013 10:05

matrimc wrote:command aslamixer not found. Looks like I do not have aslamixer installed (or not in path). Got up and physically turned the volume down at the speaker. Looks like this is going to be the new normal in a chacha dominated world - reminiscent of pumped up volumefor for TV ADs from despo companies. They need to get theor $40 billion revenue .

At the end of the video, how was the view shared? There was no voice command. Have they invented "mind-reading"? Very reminiscent of M$ tooting their APIs for all kinds of back-ends without of course the bac-ends themselves.

My bad - I did aslamixer for alsamixer. That said, alsamixer is a terribly messed up curses program.

This is the reality of Audio on Linux.... which BTW is lot better right now. There was a time that audio didn't work for my "Intel HDA ____".. there were no drivers for that, so had to rely on an old yamaha PCI soundcard from 1999. And the worst thing ever: for very long time there was no audio over HDMI with free ati drivers for 5xxx series card(evergreen) and catalyst didn't works well with almost any DE...

p.s.: Why are you using FC12, isn't that VERY old ?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Feb 2013 15:49

If alsamixer is missing, install alsa-utils (for debian based systems apt-get install alsa-utils).

anmol wrote: This is the reality of Audio on Linux.... which BTW is lot better right now. There was a time that audio didn't work for my "Intel HDA ____".. there were no drivers for that, so had to rely on an old yamaha PCI soundcard from 1999. And the worst thing ever: for very long time there was no audio over HDMI with free ati drivers for 5xxx series card(evergreen) and catalyst didn't works well with almost any DE...

That's the reality of open source - audio doesn't work, graphics drivers suck, till date they don't have proper OpenGL support which works without problems. Everything requires a hack/rooting and other messy stuff

That is why actual open source and commercially successful software don't mix despite the wet dreams of the OSF/Loonix crowd. Commercial software cannot be left to the whims of hobbyists and pill-o-soppy types and open source is useless in critical applications unless you have the muscle to maintain it yourself (in which case usually it stops following the open source model of software development especially when changes are not pushed upstream or they get veto'ed becoz it violates some bozo's sense of software pill-o-soppy). Creating a dependency on the community to do the right thing is like expecting a Paki to tell the truth.

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Ubuntu for Tablets Hands-on

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 21 Feb 2013 16:34

Raja Bose wrote:I don't do social networks, period. They are a time sink bar none.

i was thinking about this raja dada.

and i was wondering about the social network like quotient of brf

and then i realized that even brf is a pretty social website for me......

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 21 Feb 2013 17:00

^^It is also a time sink. Much more so than FB for me, even though I do browse FB once a day.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 21 Feb 2013 20:55

I don't do FB for another reason. Let's assume you have 55 friends. All of them post smiling pictures vacationing in Hawaii holding a vodka in hand once a week. In reality, each one of them is taking one vacation a year for a week. But what you see is vacation picture every week for a year. And then you start wondering "why does my life suck so much when others seem to have fun of their lives " and get depressed.

Good practice of avoiding facekitab started in my talib days when yours truly was broke.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Feb 2013 22:28

^^^ This social network business is inherently a sleazy business. FB keeps sending "Do you know XYZ" emails - the best is I have no effing clue who this 'XYZ' is yet FB faithfully spams me every week 1-2 times asking if I know him. Now Chacha is trying every which way to get people into G+. In fact I opened a new Chacha account and I am not sure if it didn't just go ahead and create a G+ profile for me (permission is probably buried in reams of license text somewhere). But I would not be surprised and anyways cannot expect anything more from sleazy car dealer Vic G. so that he can quote some dodgy stats as a mark of his success.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Feb 2013 23:56

anmol wrote:p.s.: Why are you using FC12, isn't that VERY old ?

Yes. But that is what I setup on then brand new machine and I have got all my Emacs packages setup the way I want them. Too much of an inertia to move up as all I want are emacs, git, scp, ssh, and gcc. I use gnus in emacs for usenet groups, chrome for BRF and rest, thunderbird for emails, OOorg for the occasional word/spreadsheet docs. That's it.

RB

I did find alsamixer (I typed wrong command with transposed letters). What you say is true except that for large simulations in VLSI, people use predominantly Intel x86_64 with Linux. Almost all the biggies I know used use gcc as their compiler of choice on Linux platform. But now that icc has taken over in optimized code generation along with cheap LAPACK/BLAS and parallelizing tools and profilers, they seem to be the compiler of choice as icc can also be integrated into MSVS front-end. My main problem with MSVS is the utter menial drudgery involved in operating GUI of the developmental tools.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 01:24

Social networks are very valuable. Many if not most activities are inherently social. We ask our friends where they stayed in a city. If anyone has used a product and what they think. Inform people of births, deaths marriages. Want recommendation for an auto mechanic.

Using computers to solve this is a worthwhile pursuit. I think that is why Facebook is a compelling and useful product. On the other hand, monetization of the platform, in its current avatar has the potential to screw people more than help them.

The trick I think is to find the right amount of incentives. For the user to benefit and for the company to benefit.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 02:39

That sleazy aspect of social networks is largely driven by the need to show monetization and quick results which will satisfy Wall Street, in case of FB. For Chacha right now its more about getting their numbers up rather than explict monetization from that. Currently social networks are too in-your-face in terms of UX and also how they try to attract/retain users.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 02:59

Chacha announces ChromeBook Pixel with 2560x1700 12.9" touchscreen display, Intel i5, 5 hours battery life and 32/64GB SSD

Here's the deal-breaker: It costs $1300.-

Now the Surface PRO 128GB feels reasonably priced!

I wonder who built it or is this a pure Chacha manufactured device? The design cues on the housing curiously look very "ODM-ish" (every similar to certain Foxconn templates).

Added later: I guess Mickey started a trend here (for a change) of touch-screen enabled ultra-books/laptops. I bet Bawarchi is now bellowing for a touch-screen enabled Retina MacBook Air.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 22 Feb 2013 03:55

That is a bait to invite OEMs to enter that segment. Some are already falling for it.

or

to create attraction effect...put a product out there with high price that non-touch chromebooks begin to look viable or good deal.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 04:46

That is too much for an internet terminal. Why not the MBP then?

Oh it is touch - well, gorilla arm anybody?

Another POV but the comments are quite scathing of goog

In defense of the Chromebook Pixel

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 05:49

The problem with critics of touchscreen ultrabooks or laptops is that they assume you are forced to use touch only. Instead when combined with a keyboard+touchpad (not mouse) it proves quite intuitive - when the user reaches out to touch, it works and when the user feels its more intuitive to use the keyboard or the touchpad, it works. So rather than shoehorning a single input modality to fit all scenarios ("make the best of the worst") the key here is to ensure transition between the modalities without requiring the user to think about it and designing UI flows around that concept.
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The article looks like 500% spin onlee - if anything the pricing of this ChromeBook has got people thinking that a Surface PRO 128 GB may not be a bad deal after all

. Not clear what Chacha is looking to do here with the Pixel - right now its looking like another Nexus Q misadventure. And it underlines what I sometimes say (in a more oblique way than say, the Atrix Dock or Celio RedFly), that making a device crippled doesn't save any costs becoz the BOM is dominated by things like displays, touchscreens etc. rather than the CPU.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 05:51

Question for gurus -

I am looking at refurbished Kindle DX Pearl on EBay for about $185. It says that it is unlocked. Does it mean I cannot connect to Amazon unless I have a data plan from some carrier? As of now I have a kindle 6" 3G/wifi and have some material on Amazon cloud which I would like to access from the DX if I buy it. Would that be possible?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 05:58

Raja Bose wrote:So rather than shoehorning the input modalities to fit all scenarios the key is to ensure transition between the modalities without requiring the user to think about it.

What I want is a detachable screen that would become a tablet and with extra cores/hard drives in the keyboard and/or a docking station with the OS in the tablet part. voila laptop, tablet, home and office work station. chromebook would not fly where the Internet is spotty or low-bandwidth. Former is the case in most of Asia (excluding Japan and soko) and the latter in US (excluding the coasts).

kenop · Post by **kenop** » 22 Feb 2013 06:18

So much talk of social networks and time sink on gizmo thread.
I am desperately trying to get out of time sinks too (reading twitter, news sites, brf). Please provide your strategies/experiences with attempts at improving the situation.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 06:29

Forget twitter, news sites and just concentrate on BRF.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 22 Feb 2013 07:24

Raja Bose wrote:Chacha announces ChromeBook Pixel with 2560x1700 12.9" touchscreen display, Intel i5, 5 hours battery life and 32/64GB SSD

Here's the deal-breaker: It costs $1300.- Now the Surface PRO 128GB feels reasonably priced!

I wonder who built it or is this a pure Chacha manufactured device? The design cues on the housing curiously look very "ODM-ish" (every similar to certain Foxconn templates).

Added later: I guess Mickey started a trend here (for a change) of touch-screen enabled ultra-books/laptops. I bet Bawarchi is now bellowing for a touch-screen enabled Retina MacBook Air.

At that price it's DoA. That said, it does have 12.9" (4:3) screen vs. the Surface 10.6" (16:9) screen giving the Surface far less surface area (pun intended).

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 22 Feb 2013 08:00

matrimc wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:So rather than shoehorning the input modalities to fit all scenarios the key is to ensure transition between the modalities without requiring the user to think about it.
What I want is a detachable screen that would become a tablet and with extra cores/hard drives in the keyboard and/or a docking station with the OS in the tablet part. voila laptop, tablet, home and office work station. chromebook would not fly where the Internet is spotty or low-bandwidth. Former is the case in most of Asia (excluding Japan and soko) and the latter in US (excluding the coasts).

Hehe http://www.pcworld.com/article/2024196/ ... ds-on.html

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 08:21

I bought a samsung chromebook for my parents. Its great. It was cheap, light, good battery life and thin. They cant break it, I stopped giving customer support and it works well for what they do. Net, video chat, email ityadi.

I think chromebook is suitable for a specific subset of the population. Corporate employees maybe? Prevents them from f'ing up the machine and simplifies IT.

Depending on features / Price certain models might be a hit, certain models might miss. But multiple models in multiple price points is a good choice for everyone.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 22 Feb 2013 08:36

If cloud vendors offer a VM with office and productivity apps then chromebook can be a viable option for both consumer and commercial use cases. Better yet, a good vision to have is to have a phonua connected to bigger display and access your VM over cloud.

Once done with work, you can simply disconnect the display and walk out with phonua in pocket.

Due to ill management of canabalization, companies tend to make a mince meat of their company strategy and company altogether.