Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 29 Nov 2013 00:18

Mort Walker wrote:+1 and thanks for posting.

I saw that last week on The Verge and was wondering when our admin mullah was going to post it.

He is busy fitting Wind8 into 2 GB of memory with another 16GB for apps. It is all XML you know. Very very high entropy zanab with all the things that randomly can go wrong.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 29 Nov 2013 02:17

matrimc wrote:
nachiket wrote:Mortullah, why do you need atomic clocks with nanosecond precision anyway? I've always found cellphone clocks more than adequate for daily needs.
He/she could be a physicist at NIST

He is but in BED.

member_23651 · Post by **member_23651** » 29 Nov 2013 10:53

pandyan wrote:saar -are you using fruit provided adapter or non-fruit adapter?

I realized something...yoga is offered in non-secular colours too! Jai Hind!

Its 100% secular fruit provided adapter onlee

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 29 Nov 2013 12:08

suddenly i thought, to visit black friday shopping.. best buy and walmart, so that i can buy that 178 bucks laptop.. and what was i thinking.. each store gets about 10-15 laptops, and it disappears in 5 seconds flat.

anyway, i wanted to buy a couple of them so that i can donate to indic kids back in desh.

--
saw the sammy 4k uhd 55" $2.9k simply amazing resolution.. but then 4k broadcast and up conversion quality can suffer.

played around sammy gear - mmm not very impressive.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Nov 2013 13:49

cos probably outsource their power adapters to third parties as its supposed to be well understood area with no room for differentiation. as usual none of my nokia pwr adapter starting from 1110 to lumia ever had an issue while two of my samsung chargers have died suddenly last couple yrs. the apple one for ipad also looks like a durable piece of hw.

I am not ever going to buy anything from samsung. my next TV whenever that is , will be either LG or panasonic. current have LG 42" led and no issues in 2 yrs of heavy usage by my bratkats. in between they broke the tata sky remote (daughter slammed it in a fit of rage on the tiled floor) but raising a case with tatasky saw them send someone to give a replacement remote within 4 hrs, with lots of followup calls, emails and SMS to report the whole process moving from call logged to work order to closure.

samsung is good for rich countries only. they put their best hw and people on expensive side of the product line 50 products, while the rest work on 10,000 products for the turd world on a butt scratching best effort basis.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 29 Nov 2013 14:05

Presenting the Jolla smartphone (pronounced Yol-la).

This is a phone made by ex-Nokia guys, running on the MeeGo platform. Supposedly, it can run most apps that are designed to run on Android. Who knows how this is going to play out...

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 30 Nov 2013 23:32

ArmenT wrote:Presenting the Jolla smartphone (pronounced Yol-la).

This is a phone made by ex-Nokia guys, running on the MeeGo platform. Supposedly, it can run most apps that are designed to run on Android. Who knows how this is going to play out...

Hands-on with Jolla, the Nokia that could have been

All I can say is Nokia took the right decision otherwise it would be dead today.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 01 Dec 2013 00:58

boy, the noise cancelling/isolating headphones are pretty expensive.. i was looking for some bang for the buck deal during this week, and none came across the web.

needs: 6 hours a day use replacing my KB wala plantronics wired crap, should not have the hum noise i get with anything other than plantronics - ex: i get that when i plug in the iphone-wa headphones.

stereo - is nice to have, 10hz-20khz - great.
have the mics - clarity especially for webex sessions cancelling noise like those squeaks you get when your home alarm needs battery change.

wireless is great to have, especially when you want to hit the facility on mute.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 01 Dec 2013 02:06

also looking for a pa system for shq, and her kids.
i did view the yamaha 400i, and rolland ba330. any inputs?

this video is in german: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mnDeVgwvck
anyone has any info on a good pa system, stereo, mobile device inputs, should be able device in external wireless mics where available. portable - should be able to be audible enough in desi temple halls.

and not bad on the hype and masala : http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/sho ... /index.jsp, but the cost is over the roof!

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 01 Dec 2013 04:37

I think you guys will get a kick out of this. So, I just changed internet providers at home yesterday, after my old cable provider had upped their prices severely (I also had other issues with them and was glad to get rid of them anyway) and my new provider was supposed to be giving me 15 Mbs download speeds. However, after I hooked everything up, I was only getting 5 Mbs downloads. I was on the point of calling them up to enquire about this, but luckily I got caught up with something else, which led me to the true cause. First, here's an overview of my network:

Code: Select all

                               =============================
                               |        I N T E R N E T    |
                               =============================
                                              |
                                              |
                                              V
                                     -------------------
                                     |    Cable Modem  |
                                     -------------------
                                              |
                                              v
                                      -------------------
                                      | Gateway Router  |
                                      -------------------
                                              |
                                              v
                                      -------------------
                                      |  8 port Switch  |
                                      -------------------
                                              |
                          +--------+------+---+-----+-------+---------+
                          |        |      |         |       |         |
                          v        v      v         v       v         v
                       Windows    Laser Linux    IOMega   DLink     Phone
                          PC     Printer  PC     Backup  Wireless  Microcell
                                                            |
                                                            |
                                               +------+-----+----+------+
                                               |      |          |      |
                                               v      v          v      v
                                              Dell MacBook    iPhones iPad

Now if you look at the diagram, you may note that I have a router gateway, followed by an 8 port switch. The reason for this is because my router is really old (from 1999/2000 era. It is made in Taiwan, not China!) and does not have a built in switch, which is why I have to use an external one. And this was the key to the mystery. Turns out that while my router can talk 10/100 Mbs on LAN, the WAN side can only do 10 Mbs and it was connecting to my cable modem in half-duplex mode too. This explained why I was only getting 5 Mbs. I figured this out when I happened to glance at the router's status page, while I was debugging a connection issue with the Dlink.

By bypassing the router and connecting the cable modem to my Windows PC, I confirmed got 16 Mbs download speed, which is better than what my ISP said I should get. Now that I figured out the cause, how do I fix the rest? As it turns out, the DLink Wireless is a router and has a 5 port switch as well, so I disconnected the old router entirely and rewired like this:

Code: Select all

                               =============================
                               |        I N T E R N E T    |
                               =============================
                                              |
                                              |
                                              V
                                     -------------------
                                     |    Cable Modem  |
                                     -------------------
                                              |
                                              v
                                      -------------------
                          +---------- | DLink Wireless  |-------------+---> Phones & Laptops (wireless)
                          |           -------------------             |
                          |                   |                       |
                          |                   v                       |
                          |           -------------------             |
                          |           |  8 port Switch  |             |
                          |           -------------------             |
                          |                   |                       |
                          +        +------+---+-----+                 |
                          |        |      |         |                 |
                          v        v      v         v                 v
                       Windows    Laser Linux    IOMega             Phone
                          PC     Printer  PC     Backup           Microcell

Since the DLink has a built in 5-port switch of its own, I hooked the Windows PC and the Phone Microcell directly to it (could have left them on the 8 port switch, but heck why not) and left the rest of the devices connected to the 8-port switch as before. Then I configured the DLink's DHCP server to hand out 192.168.0.* addresses instead of 192.168.1.* (earlier, my old gateway router was configured to hand out 192.168.* via DHCP and DLink was handing out 192.168.1.*) and configured its WAN side correctly and presto, everything is seeing 16 Mbs download speeds!

Moral of the story: Sometimes it is time to pension off old networking gear.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 01 Dec 2013 04:51

Armentullah, maybe it is a good idea to benchmark by directly connecting PC to internet and checking speed. Then comparing after all the other crap is added.
But good diagrams and idea!

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 01 Dec 2013 04:53

KJoishy wrote:Armentullah, maybe it is a good idea to benchmark by directly connecting PC to internet and checking speed. Then comparing after all the other crap is added.
But good diagrams and idea!

Yep, that's what I did. I was getting 16 Mbs when connecting the Windows PC directly to the cable modem. I'm still getting 16 Mbs after wiring in the rest of the stuff.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 01 Dec 2013 06:31

ArmenT wrote:Moral of the story: Sometimes it is time to pension off old networking gear.

Good story. The DLink Wireless should be a router and not simply a switch since you can configure the DHCP server. Another thing to look out for is that your cable modem should be a bit newer that is DOCSIS 3 compatible. Although manufacturers will quote all sorts of speeds, these are typically max speed, and not average speed. I found that the cable modem should also have a gigabit switch in it as well for utilizing best performance of your broadband.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 01 Dec 2013 07:43

ArmenT[ullah], onlee one "Linux PC"?

By the way, found something interesting on /. and going to post in the Food and Wine thread for your (and others') pleasure.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 01 Dec 2013 08:42

Mort Walker wrote: Good story. The DLink Wireless should be a router and not simply a switch since you can configure the DHCP server. Another thing to look out for is that your cable modem should be a bit newer that is DOCSIS 3 compatible. Although manufacturers will quote all sorts of speeds, these are typically max speed, and not average speed. I found that the cable modem should also have a gigabit switch in it as well for utilizing best performance of your broadband.

The DLink is a wireless router, sorry didn't clarify earlier. It has a built in switch in it as well (as do most routers these days, but the original router that I had didn't, as it dates back from 1999 or so, when they weren't built in to the router commonly, which is why I used a separate hub originally and later upgraded that to a switch). Oh, I forgot to mention, the old gateway router in question is a Netgear RT-311 (with a Bay Networks logo stamped on it too!), in case anyone is wondering

.

matrimc wrote:ArmenT[ullah], onlee one "Linux PC"?

Actually, the dell laptop in the diagram runs linux too. And, I do have some other machines that will get hooked to that switch shortly after (I moved them out of the way while I was rearranging things. There's a Sun UltraSPARC V (OpenBSD), a Sunfire X1 (OpenBSD), one 1U dell server (OpenBSD), one 2U VALinux server (FreeBSD) and another desktop that I run Linux on which I used to host pictures with and I have another cheap desktop with an older version of NetBSD lying around somewhere).

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 01 Dec 2013 08:59

Oh MGawd. u r still using Sun UltraSparc? Just yesterday my cuz's spouse was saying "please don't say Suns are going out of use - I have worked as a sysadm on these for several years". She/he would be pleased

Why so many Suns, jee (pleasantly curious - not a chow-llenge). We had a Parrot we bought as our company's first m/c for $25K - not a bad m/c - lasted a decade and would have lasted for more number of years but for the RAM.

One of our kast-mArs is threatening that they might need a Sun binary in the near foochaar. dhOtI shivering onlee.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 01 Dec 2013 09:40

matrimc wrote:Oh MGawd. u r still using Sun UltraSparc? Just yesterday my cuz's spouse was saying "please don't say Suns are going out of use - I have worked as a sysadm on these for several years". She/he would be pleased

Why so many Suns, jee (pleasantly curious - not a chow-llenge). We had a Parrot we bought as our company's first m/c for $25K - not a bad m/c - lasted a decade and would have lasted for more number of years but for the RAM.

One of our kast-mArs is threatening that they might need a Sun binary in the near foochaar. dhOtI shivering onlee.

All my sun hardware are rescues that were being thrown away by the company I work for. I hate to see good hardware being discarded, so I volunteer to give them a good home -- that's how I got the 1U and 2U servers as well. I used to use the UltraSPARC V for testing if my personal C code would work on a 64-bit platform correctly (back when I got it, 64-bit PC based machines weren't so common, but you could see where the trend was going). I also had an UltraSPARC I that a friend gave me, but I got rid of it when I rescued the UltraSPARC V.

Basically, I test my code on multiple OSs to make sure it is correctly written and can run on all of them. Matter of fact, one of the first platforms I tested after I wrote the BRF Archiver was on that UltraSPARC (the code was originally developed on a Macbook and it was tested on Windows much later!)

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 01 Dec 2013 11:02

Yeah, I love your Archiver.

I hope ramana garu got what he wanted. I am planning to send him the arXiv in a couple of days.

a_bharat · Post by **a_bharat** » 01 Dec 2013 11:50

Raja Bose wrote: All I can say is Nokia took the right decision otherwise it would be dead today.

Could've been in Samsung's place (in terms of smartphone market share) had it gone with Android.

saip · Post by **saip** » 01 Dec 2013 12:08

What is the difference between Iphone and Surface screens in terms of touch? The pen that came with surface does not work with the phone.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 01 Dec 2013 15:46

Simple.. The iphone screen doesn't have a digitiser.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 01 Dec 2013 20:40

saip wrote:What is the difference between Iphone and Surface screens in terms of touch? The pen that came with surface does not work with the phone.

The surface has a Wacom digitizer behind the display which is what senses the pen's coordinates, the pressure on its tip ityadi. Samsung Note has the same digitizer but the pens may not be interchangeable.
If you want a pen which works with both get a capacitive stylus or whoever makes the Synaptics ActivePen.

a_bharat wrote:
Raja Bose wrote: All I can say is Nokia took the right decision otherwise it would be dead today.
Could've been in Samsung's place (in terms of smartphone market share) had it gone with Android.

....and Samsung would just meekly roll over and allowed it to happen?

Samsung remembers what happened to it when it joined Symbian foundation late....it was not going to repeat that mistake again.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Dec 2013 08:15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 8BIu9dpwHU
amazon is testing (for the future) 30 min delivery using small autonomous copters.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 02 Dec 2013 08:40

^^^A bit too prone to theft methinks...

partha · Post by **partha** » 02 Dec 2013 08:42

Invest in real estate close to Amazon fulfillment centers

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 02 Dec 2013 12:19

Okay :

I am in the market for a new smartphone after using a Sammy Glxy S1 for 3 years.

1. I like large batteries, preferably replaceable, which will give me a long backup.
2. I like tinkering with my phone.
3. I like smooth UIs. I do not need the SG Note 3 type amazing fancy schmancy UI and multi- windows....in fact, I am trying to reduce the amount of useless and addictive IT products in my life.
4. I like having control over my phone and what can be done with it.

So far, I have had a good experience with Android and have enjoyed the tinkering with the SGS1. Loaded Cyanogen Mod, unlocked it from US to India, done Android dev....etc. etc. etc.

But, the Android is laggy. I find Nokia Lumia Win 8 to be smoother, and Apple too.

I do not like Apple's straightjacketing of phones and restricting what can be done with them. I am aware of jailbreaking and have done that earlier....however the native Apple iOS leaves much Android functionality, which I like having.

I do not like spending more than 20K Rs on a phone. Some people like buying half a lakh rupee phones; I don't .

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 02 Dec 2013 12:20

^^^

What do you suggest as a good phone to buy in India?

A Nexus 5 ? HTC ? Nokia ?

Thanks for your suggestions.

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 02 Dec 2013 18:28

Considering a purchase of Windows Tablet, not sure about whether to go with Windows RT or Pro. Also, any gyaan about app availability in Windows store for tablets (for RT & Pro)? Any first hand feedback about any Windows 8/8.1 RT/Pro tablets would be very helpful in deciding the options. The first two that come to mind are Surface 2/Pro2, Lumia 2520, any other options? Thanks.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 02 Dec 2013 19:32

Dell Venue PRO 8,11, HP OMNI 10...

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 02 Dec 2013 19:53

50 USD off of kindle fire hdx 7. Mortullah can get another one.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 02 Dec 2013 20:44

Singha wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 8BIu9dpwHU
amazon is testing (for the future) 30 min delivery using small autonomous copters.

I wonder what will happen if some "good ol' boy" decides that he needs some target practice. There's already people arguing about the legality of government-owned drones spying on Americans and at least one town in Colorado was getting ready to issue drone hunting licenses to people. I wonder if the Amazon drones will stand a chance.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Dec 2013 22:09

Current FAA rules don't permit the commercial use of drones, as far as I'm aware.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Dec 2013 22:13

Raja,
I thought you would say "One has a digitizer and the other uses digits!"

Digits=fingers!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Dec 2013 22:32

ramana wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:^^^I don't see enough info or interest in it to warrant a thread.

---

......

RB, All the more reason to start a trend and pioneer the way forward. 3D printing will commodotize the small lot mfg just as the IBM PC commodotized the whole IT business.

RB, Look slike BRF techies are losing the edge.

Ind Express article on 3-D printing in India!!!!

From making jewellery to saving lives:3D printing is changing the way we live

3D printing is one of the most exciting technologies in the world, with limitless applications ranging from jewellery casts to vehicle parts. What if you could make a 3D design, upload it online, have it printed and delivered to your home in India? With i.materialise, you can do just that.
In India 3D printing is being used by jewellers, especially those based in Mumbai, says Wim Michiels, executive vice-president of Materialise, a Belgium-based 3D printing company. "We have worked with researchers from institutions such as the IITs and they mostly seek prototypes. However, jewellery is one exception. Many people in Mumbai use 3D printing in jewellery, whether directly or indirectly by printing wax casts. I'm not saying all of them use our software for it, but 3D printing is definitely being used in Mumbai," he adds.

The applications of 3D printing are vast, but the most critical of these is its role in saving lives. The New England Journal of Medicine published one such case. American couple April and Bryan Gionfriddo's son Kaiba used to stop breathing every day as his collapsed bronchus blocked the flow of air to his lungs. "That was a unique case. An implant that could help the child was under development in the University of Michigan. It was built using 3D printing and placed in the child's wind pipe to prevent collapse and to give the skeleton room for growth," Michiels says.

The device was created from a CT scan of Kaiba's trachea, "integrating an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint". Kaiba's breathing troubles ended after he was taken off ventilator support three weeks from the day of surgery in February 2012.

Wim Michiels says the technology is capable of 3D printing organs too. "Will we see it in our lives? I hope so. There are several ethical questions to be addressed regarding organ printing. It can be used to prolong lives, yes," Michiels says.

Like all revolutionary technologies, 3D printing can also be used for negative purposes such as making plastic weapons to beat metal detectors. But Michiels insists that the positive uses far outweigh the negative. A Reuters report cites an example of 3D printing being used to make a prosthesis for Leon McCarthy (12) from Massachusetts, who was born without fingers. The child's prosthesis cost around $5, while those available in the market cost thousands of dollars, according to the report.

With an office in Malaysia, Materialise is targeting the nascent 3D printing market in India. Michiels says the company has been active in the country for over 10 years. "Business in the Asia-Pacific region is handled by our Malaysia office. A large part of our business in India is about providing the software. Our software works with many 3D printers, unlike that of other companies, which needs their own hardware. We've provided software to customers in India for fields (as varied as) medical engineering and additive manufacturing," Michiels says, shying away naming the company's clients in these fields.

The company has made it easy for designers to get their work 3D printed through i.materialise. Artists can even hire a designer to convert their 2D sketches into 3D and get the models built on the website. The company has partnered with Autodesk 123D, which directs designers to the Materialise website to get their 3D models printed.

As part of its plans to ramp up operations in India, Materialise plans to hold a 3D printing conference in New Delhi in February 2014. "We will open an office in India. It's just a question of when," Michiels says. "Most companies are focussing too much on 3D printers. We don't make those. We firmly believe that machines are just packaging – they solidify the product. The process and the software are very important for 3D printing as that is where products are created," Michiels says.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 03 Dec 2013 00:22

ramana wrote:Raja,
I thought you would say "One has a digitizer and the other uses digits!"

Digits=fingers!

Good one!

---

What the article says is pretty old hat. 3D printing has been used for a long time for custom components or low volume stuff like molds, models etc. (ask your dentist and they probably have been using it for a while). Heck, we print models of human body parts (head, neck) including complex shapes like the ear canal for proper ergonomic design, testing for various types of audio drivers etc.

But like I said before, the current 3D printing technology (and it hasn't changed in 20 years) is not going to revolutionize manufacturing in the way most people think - it does not scale well for large scale production in cost terms. We won't have huge lines of 3D printers magically printing devices like currency notes any time soon.

The necessary counterpart to a 3D printer is a good 3D scanner. The best one I have seen now is from a rooskie company called Artec - they have an office/showroom in Palo Alto right at the intersection of High St and University Ave. Its run by this super sharp business savvy female who can probably sell you the Bay Bridge in a minute.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 03 Dec 2013 00:34

Who all were lucky(here) to get Surface at $199 at BBY? I would have got one at that price but was travelling and could not shop.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 03 Dec 2013 04:30

AWMTA

Stress monitoring bra

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 03 Dec 2013 04:56

was thinking even more wise.. something that helps red mull sensors pick up like some NFC device or bluetooth to share and read vibes... very helpful for him to either make a sandwich or two or head for a soup.

btw, did they copy the idea from nike fuel?

partha · Post by **partha** » 03 Dec 2013 07:12

pandyan wrote:
partha wrote:Invest in real estate close to Amazon fulfillment centers
whats the laagic saar?

I was just thinking that homes close to Amazon warehouses could be in demand because of advanced delivery options

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 03 Dec 2013 07:21

memory speeds question: i know MHz, but what is MT/z or MT/s ?
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-10600 ... B0036VO632
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... u=C19-0101