Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 01:08

Anujan wrote:Lets see how many trends FruitCo under bawarchi sets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Ys4#t=256s

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Mar 2013 01:23

The only major essential standards related patent battle I know if recent times in ITvity where the patent owner won was the GB vs Fruit Co case. That was only becoz if the case went to trial GB had proof that they had offered FRAND terms to Fruit Co but Fruit Co refused.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 02:07

Raja Bose wrote:The only major essential standards related patent battle I know if recent times in ITvity where the patent owner won was the GB vs Fruit Co case. That was only becoz if the case went to trial GB had proof that they had offered FRAND terms to Fruit Co but Fruit Co refused.

Didn't RIM settle also ? Noia have probably the strongest IP portfolio... just read an article that Nokia have the 10-12 year old patent for mobile phone tethering. (that may mean that in future Android phones may lack that feature)

Also, few hours back Nokia dropped a nuke on Google's VP8... they have like ~80+ patents that cover it, and they are under no obligation to license those patents under FRAND. And they have said that they are NOT going to license those patents. So while Motorola's h.264 patents have failed to ban Xbox, Nokia's VP8 patents would definitely kill anything with with.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 02:56

Inter-webs just found this:-

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 24 Mar 2013 03:10

may be she is confused what is racism.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Mar 2013 04:28

She is not confused - she is an idiot.
-----
GB patent portfolio is traditionally been very strong (its a legacy from their telecom days) but recent years might have a detrimental effect on it. GB and Fruit Co also have strong cross licensing deals with Mickey who also has a strong portfolio though more varied. Currently the weakest in the game is Chacha despite the Motor Oil acquisition which is why periodically their main legal guy (David Drummond) bleats about outlawing software patents/royalty-free licensing ityadi. Unfortunately Chacha's ham fisted move in trying to block standards essential patents without allowing FRAND basically demonstrated that Chacha is willing to use patents as a weapon if it can (earlier it was doing so in OHA but not in the public eye) so that weakens their position as an advocate for a patents free world.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 24 Mar 2013 04:31

I have an idiot in our ah-piece, but she is most often found confused onlee. just that thought.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Mar 2013 04:50

Anujan wrote:So if you think of the PC revolution, tablets and phones are to PCs what PCs were to Mainframes!

Actually I would say that is not true....not yet. PC was what put computing into the hands of the mango consumers (same as the iPhone did for smart phones). Before that mango consumers had no access to computing since pretty much all of it was locked in universities, labs and corporations. But tablets and smartphones have not put computing into the hands of the consumers who did not have access to a PC - not yet. Currently pretty much all tablet/smartphone users own a PC(Windoze/Linux/OSX) and almost no or negligible number of folks own only a smartphone or a tablet but no PC. Till that situation changes (and it may well happen), the above statement won't hold. The whole talk about the phones being the equivalent of what PCs were to consumers in the 1980s (aka their First General Purpose Computing Device) is still in early stages despite the fact that GB has been harping about the Next Billion for a good many years and Chacha has also recently started harping on the same - it will take time and by that time it may not even be a computing device as we know it now.

Anujan wrote: For a set of enterprise/centrally administered use case. I believe that something like Chromebooks will win out. The reason are not because (a) Chromebooks are cheap (b) Chromebooks cannot run native apps (c) Other laptops cannot run browser-based apps. It is because they are easy to deploy and administer. I expect other vendors (like M$, FruitCo) to offer solutions like Chromebooks (lockdown on locally installed apps and a browser to access cloud apps only). Then the competition will become real interesting.

As I pointed out a while back, this is already happening. None of the OSs coming out (for example from Mickey) are native-only OSs - services/apps typically associated with the OS are getting pushed out into the cloud - one example is Office365. A major watershed will be in the pricing models of cloud vs native for the same app and how they leverage that to drive the consumer herds into the cloud. But its unlikely they will be web-only OSs (like ChromeOS) becoz it is too early to go all in on a web based world - infrastructure is still lagging even in the first world, forget third world and connectivity is neither pervasive nor high quality.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 24 Mar 2013 05:37

chacha fiber should fix the issues.. but att and others are in race for this fiber game too.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Mar 2013 09:21

To scale or not to scale, that is the question (for Chacha Fiber). Internets infra esp. wireless has a long long long long way to go before everything can always live on the cloud even for mango abduls operating handpump in Napier Road, Karachi.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2013 09:56

adria sounds like a professional militant ball breaker with a real chip of imagined grieviences on her shoulder.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 24 Mar 2013 20:24

^^^ a kind that is found commonly in bay area.

a reasonably thin southern femme , is you can find one, is the choicest pickings in the us and a. sf ball breaker and nyc man eaters are to be fended away.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 20:50

Anujan wrote:It is because they are easy to deploy and administer. I expect other vendors (like M$, FruitCo) to offer solutions like Chromebooks (lockdown on locally installed apps and a browser to access cloud apps only). Then the competition will become real interesting.

They already have that,it is called Windows RT.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2013 20:52

mahadevbhu wrote:^^^ a kind that is found commonly in bay area.

a reasonably thin southern femme , is you can find one, is the choicest pickings in the us and a. sf ball breaker and nyc man eaters are to be fended away.

you mean should she be from rural/small town area or urban areas in the south like miami,atlanta,austin...all the way to the nevada border?
also where does the south start in state borders?

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 24 Mar 2013 21:03

^^^ singhaji yeh phone tablet gizmo thread hai.

Now if we start watching pr0n fliks on the latest phone tablet gizmo then any more chatter is on topic.

southern belle saar. samajh bhi jao. the kind that smile a lot etc etc .

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 24 Mar 2013 21:05

^^^ singhaji yeh phone tablet gizmo thread hai.

Now if we start watching pr0n fliks on the latest phone tablet gizmo then any more chatter is on topic.

southern belle saar. samajh bhi jao. the kind that smile a lot.....you want to grab them and shield them from the rest of the world etc etc .

Koi lauta dey mere beetey hue din ......

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 21:28

Windows 8 Blue(this obviously isn't final):

Following are few things I have noticed :-
Installation is different. Express settings includes option to automatically install windows and app updates.
Default includes option which allows apps to personalize on the basis of PC's location,name and account picture.
It shows DNT option twice (both times it is enabled).
Bar on the right (Charms bar) is LOT more powerful. One can do personalization from bar itself.
IE11 tabs would sync with IE11 on WP
Skydrive is built-in, data-apps-settings can be synced with it. Also RT would not need the Skydrive Desktop app. It can also save backup to skydrive.
It look more Metro-ey. Like WP's metro. More polished.
Lock screen can act as picture frame.
Camera can be accessed from lock screen, just like WP. No need to log in to take pictures
Power, Display, Touch, User Account,Update settings can be changed from Metro Settings app.. no need to use Control panel.
More privacy related settings.

Paul Thurrot have written a nice article on Windows 8 Blue changes:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-blue-leaks

Things mentioned in article above:
Tiles can be re-sized to small and larger than current options.
Individual tile colors can be changed,
Snap view is no more going to be as useless as it is now, as with Blue two Metro apps can each share 50% of screen. here is how it looks:

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Mar 2013 22:16

I wonder what happens to services like DropBox or Box when SkyDrive/Google Drive really get deeply integrated. Would they go

to anti-trust authorities?

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Mar 2013 22:56

The best thing that has worked for me is a nexus 7 3g tablet and a dumb phone. I get days of battery life on the phone, don't get battery anxiety while BRF ing on the tablet and the tablet had fantastic battery life (when compared to a smartphone). The big screen really is much better for net related tasks (explains the popularity of the F ugly galaxy note) This might be the reason why it is better to carry two bricks instead of one.

The only reason aam abduls won't do it is because of the complicated wireless carrier fees.

Strangely buying data on one sim and calls on the other much more costly than buying calls and data on the same Sim.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Mar 2013 23:02

Raja Bose wrote:I wonder what happens to services like DropBox or Box when SkyDrive/Google Drive really get deeply integrated. Would they go to anti-trust authorities?

Box is focused on the enterprise. Dropbox is pretty innovative and they will find a way out. Google drive will succeed due to other reasons. All the anti-trust

is becoming more and more complex to explain and justify, so not sure if they will go that route.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 23:30

Verge is reporting that with Blue, Snapview would allow 3 apps to be used at same time..

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 23:34

Mind=

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 24 Mar 2013 23:35

anmol wrote:Verge is reporting that with Blue, Snapview would allow 3 apps to be used at same time..

I really liked the snap view though I still don't know how to make screen 50-50. When my three year old doesn't sit quite when conversing over Skype, I use snap view with her songs in one and Skype on the other. The music from her songs is not heard by the other side Skype. Pretty cool.

If I can make 50-50, I can use her songs one and BRF on other.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 24 Mar 2013 23:46

Muppalla wrote:
anmol wrote:Verge is reporting that with Blue, Snapview would allow 3 apps to be used at same time..
I really liked the snap view though I still don't know how to make screen 50-50. When my three year old doesn't sit quite when conversing over Skype, I use snap view with her songs in one and Skype on the other. The music from her songs is not heard by the other side Skype. Pretty cool.

If I can make 50-50, I can use her songs one and BRF on other.

In desktop or metro ? In case of desktop, drag a window in one corner, drag another window in another corner... In Blue this or something like this would be possible in Metro/Modern also.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 25 Mar 2013 00:50

How many M$ ads should we watch per day Anmol ji?

Bill G used to give such demos all the time. Even demoed and talked about tablets. That was when I was half my age now.

The problem with M$ is not mind blowing demos. They will demo a table top surface computer, announce a radical new file system and 4 years later .... announce that you can now choose the color of live tiles

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 25 Mar 2013 01:06

Anujan wrote:How many M$ ads should we watch per day Anmol ji?

Bill G used to give such demos all the time. Even demoed and talked about tablets. That was when I was half my age now.

The problem with M$ is not mind blowing demos. They will demo a table top surface computer, announce a radical new file system and 4 years later .... announce that you can now choose the color of live tiles

I think that natural language thingie will be a BIG deal. Imagine a CEO shouting at a Perceptive Pixel screen.. "kinect tell me which one these, in branch a with title b I can fire today." This will be pretty useful... probably more than Siri. Also, considering that this is built on top of Smart Fill feature, this can come with Office's Blue update.

So I think this isn't at all like old Surface.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 25 Mar 2013 01:13

anmol wrote: I think that natural language thingie will be a BIG deal. Imagine a CEO shouting at a Perceptive Pixel screen.. "kinect tell me which one these, in branch a with title b I can fire today." This will be pretty useful

Welcome to the 1980's.

Let me elaborate on my latest hate speech. Anyone who has dabbled even a bit in programming languages knows about natural language programming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-gene ... g_language

The point is not that you can program in natural language (you could do that in the 80's) but people who repeatedly go down that path make the same mistake. Let me give you a clue. Go to google.com type "when is the sunset in new delhi" Look at the answer and marvel. The issue with natural language programming (natural language information retrieval is a subset of that) is the problem that it is not verifiable. You can say "take salary column, increase it by 15% and send out checks", the program might take the employee id, increase it by 15% and give out random salaries to people.

In programming it is called semantic binding. The relationship between the words you type on the screen and the actual operations that are performed. Semantic binding which is clear to the person reading (and writing it) and to the software that processes it, is critical for effective programming. For example you can write if (x > 0) z = y/x and you know exactly what will happen and the software knows exactly what to do. Most bugs happen because the intention of the programmer was not translated correctly to code. Faith and readability of the program also goes down if you cannot understand the intention from the code.

If you make semantic binding flaky, it turns out that the complexity or programs you can write reliably goes way way down. So smart minds have actually done the opposite thing -- derive natural language explanation from programs (rather than programs from natural language comments) to form comments! (refer to Knuth's CWEB). This is useful in "nudging" novices to write code they want and to document the code. Turns out that the number of non-programmers that flaky semantic binding can enable (say for example allowing you to program using sentences that might mean different things based on different contexts and different data you have) is not worth the trouble of flaky behavior it enables. That is why even in normal programming languages, people go to the direction of being orthogonal and context free*. And that is why programing languages are still cryptic to the layman after so many years.

There are a subset of applications (where you dont care much about the precision of answers) where this type of natural language programming is effective. To me the most exciting is facebook graph search. If you want to apply to companies that do databases, you can say "Companies my friends work for" or events you want to attend, you can say "events in april liked by people who are engineers who also like operating systems". And see a bunch of results. That is the kind of querying (where the advantage is that you can now retrieve information which was "locked in", you dont care that you retrieved all information or even the correct information!) where natural language programming proves most useful for.

I am sure M$ will find a way to put it into excel, I am also sure they will advertise it. I am also sure 0 people will use it. This is the same rabbit hole 5GPL went down, started the whole field of formal methods and verification, and later found that the pain of veryfying 5GPL was as hard if not harder than writing a program in procedural, declarative or functional way!
Long story short, it is cheaper, effective and more reliable for a CEO to give that sheet to a programmer and ask him who to fire.
But what the hell? Post more M$ videos for us to see.

* x = y means the same thing in all contexts in C++ -- it is assignment operation. take value y, assign it to x -- even if you say if (x = y). It woud simply assign y to x and say true. you might think "which idiot designed this language? Can you see I said a "if". Why do you think I want to assign? I want to compare!". There is a good reason for that -- the reason is because if you start enabling context-specific meaning -- for example if (x = y) means is x equal to y? and x = y is assignment otherwise, you will have complicated set of rules about what each "phrase" means in the programming language depending on other words, sentences and phrases that surround it. Making operations contest sensitive is tempting because "sounds" intuitive and easy at first, but quickly goes down the pakistan when you write larger and larger programs. Suddenly you are not sure what it does anymore. Same thing with natural language programming, where each "phrase" could have a meaning in different "context" where the context is the data it is handling or the phrases it is surrounded by.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 25 Mar 2013 02:39

Arrey Bhai I understand the challenges with that, why it works and doesn't work. This isn't the same thing as "What is temperature Delhi" in Siri,Google,WolframAlpha etc... as the result with the kind of data that MS's enterprise apps deal with is 1000x more useful(to those who use that app everyday).

There are a subset of applications (where you dont care much about the precision of answers) where this type of natural language programming is effective. To me the most exciting is facebook graph search.

Agreed, and excel is that app. Demo shows just that. Millions use excel everyday and they do those simple operations manually. That involves too much hassle... this thing OTOH make job lot simpler. Also, IMVHO this would be lot more accurate(compared to Siri etc) as Excel is working with very limited data.

Long story short, it is cheaper, effective and more reliable for a CEO to give that sheet to a programmer and ask him who to fire.

*facepalm*, that was an example. Most people don't have their personal programmer to do these things.

Lastly, neither are these ads (these are being leaked by Microsoft Kitchen site)... and basically show what will come in Blue version of Windows, Windows Phone, Office, Outlook.com etc.

And considering that Blue would be released in few months.. and would come with gadgets, tablets etc, I think these videos are pretty relevant to this thread.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 25 Mar 2013 02:43

well if natural language itself is less semantically and contextually driven, and more structured, then it could aid it better. all languages have abstract words and multi-meaning words that would get contextual semantic sense. higher the structured language, the probability of compiling it is easier. sanskrit could come close, but i have not seen a compiler yet and perhaps OT here.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Mar 2013 06:58

Anujan wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:I wonder what happens to services like DropBox or Box when SkyDrive/Google Drive really get deeply integrated. Would they go to anti-trust authorities?
Box is focused on the enterprise.

Then they will be the most vulnerable. Problem with being only technologically innovative is that once the innovation is out and it is not some radical game changer which catches Goliath totally offguard, the innovator is screwed. An example is G+.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 25 Mar 2013 07:12

Just a heads up for our US based BRF members. T-Mobile USA is offering some very attractive new rate plans. I am looking at getting 5 lines with unlimited talk+text+2.5 GB/mo data = $130 USD before taxes.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Mar 2013 07:40

Is it 2.5Gb shared across 5 lines (like phamilee plan) or 2.5Gb/line?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Mar 2013 08:03

Then its an excellent deal. Too bad TMO coverage sux in my area.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Mar 2013 10:36

Is there still hope for Google's Disappeared Android@Home and Nexus Q?

Looks like the ChromeBook Pixel will join the Q in short order - whoever did those two products need to be administered a 1000 stribes to bring them back to reality (to me it suspiciously looks like the same bunch of paws were responsible for messing both).

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 25 Mar 2013 11:54

you mean the Sith Lord in goog?

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 25 Mar 2013 14:03

Got the Android 4.2 update on my Galaxy Nexus a few days back. The Swype(?) typing feature is scarily good at recognizing the words you mean to type. It's still not second nature to me but I can see it being a massive leap beyond pecking on the tiny keyboard and hoping you hit the right keys.

What I want are foldable LCD screens. Imagine a 10" iPad sized device that you can fold to 5" and put in your pocket. That will get rid of the tiny keyboard problem with only slight reduction in portability. I imagine people are working on something like this.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 25 Mar 2013 19:58

Raja Bose wrote:Then its an excellent deal. Too bad TMO coverage sux in my area.

You need to keep checking periodically (every 6 months) as mobile telephone networks are always evolving.
Kali-fornia bay area may have restrictions on new towers coming up, so you may be screwed as VZW or its partners own existing towers dating back to the 1970s.
See: http://www.rootmetrics.com/check-coverage/

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Mar 2013 20:12

Singha wrote:you mean the Sith Lord in goog?

Nah its probably the ex-kin folks who went from mickey to chacha - they are all Rubin's chaddi buddies.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Mar 2013 20:19

That coverage map is scary for the everything-on-the-cloud bandwagon. Even chi-chi bay area doesn't qualify.

Right now I can upgrade to a $50/month unlimited data plan on vzw thru KB discounts - probably will when lumia928 is publicly available. Unlimited call/text is not that important for me since my calls usually go thru VoIP.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 25 Mar 2013 20:26

How do these cloud services provide data storage secured? is that viewed like your own private drive somewhere remote or totally controlled by apples and droids?