Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 17 Feb 2014 00:58

IRL: Is the Lumia 1020 good enough to replace a standalone camera?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 06:50

^^^Thanks, nice article. Engadget typically has a Sony bias, so this was good to see.

The author mentioned a few things:
1. The 1020 is equivalent to shooting with a constant aperture lens through the focal length.
2. Color accuracy or white balance is an issue.
3. The 1520 has faster performance, or that is the lag from shot-to-shot is less, in comparison to the 1020.

I don't own the Lumia 1020 and I've not used one, but I would consider it the best or one of best cameras in a phone to date. This is a good thing since camera phones are bringing democratization to photography.

Saral · Post by **Saral** » 17 Feb 2014 07:10

My point of the thought experiment is to point out that Apple is most vulnerable. Microsoft has highest chance of doing something to strengthen their position due to their deep tentacles inside customers; not easy to let go. If Windows disappeared it would cause unimaginable takleef to many. Mac/igadgets not so much.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 09:19

^^^On the corporate side it would be a disaster if Windows disappeared. On the consumer side it would be a disaster if iOS and OS X disappeared. Now if you look at it financially, MSFT has revenue of $85 billion and AAPL of $170 billion, therefore it would be a much bigger disaster without iOS and OS X. AAPL stock isn't doing well, but everything else still looks good for some time.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 17 Feb 2014 09:23

Even on the consumer side, iOS/OS X doesn't have as much of a grip as Android/Windows.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 09:28

^^^Yes, in terms of market share, but AAPL has monetized what they do have.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 17 Feb 2014 09:51

Exactly. Impact of a company's demise on users is proportional to the marketshare of their products, not margin/monetization.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 10:04

^^^Most of AAPL's market share is the US and developed countries. The demise of a company usually doesn't happen overnight, but over a few years due to new technologies or their products have stagnated in comparison to the competition. It may happen to AAPL, but really right now most of their problems seem to be a somewhat overpriced share price.

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My younger two kids 10 & 13 were talking about a TV commercial they saw for the Surface Pro 2. My 10 year old said it looks very useful, and immediately asked if he could get one, to which I smiled and said sure. My 13 year old immediately jumps in and says "yuck" they are confusing and said she would rather have an iPad or Android tablet and a Chrome Book. The 10 year old paused at that point since he looks up to his sister from an academics PoV.

archan · Post by **archan** » 17 Feb 2014 10:33

Almost looking to replace my ageing GS2 Skyrocket. Battery life on 3G is unacceptable. Would have liked a large screen dual sim with either of the three OS. Anything due to come out in the next few months?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 10:51

There is a dual SIM Moto G. It is a very nice phone for about Rs. 14K. It has great battery life and is nearly stock Android. It comes with Android 4.4.2. At that price it may be worth getting 2. One for you and another for your SHQ.

Chandragupta · Post by **Chandragupta** » 17 Feb 2014 10:56

Any recommendations for headphones that I can wear while working out/running? Like those that go rest at the back of your head rather than being on top.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 20:12

^^^Use headphones that hang on the ear as these work the best for running and working out. The back of the neck ones fall out. Don't spend too much on headphones as the wires get pulled and break frequently and most headphones nowadays are marketing. Look for bass response. I'm using the Sony MDR-J10 for running and working out. They cost around $10-$12 and I go through a set every couple of years.

archan · Post by **archan** » 17 Feb 2014 21:41

Mort Walker wrote:There is a dual SIM Moto G. It is a very nice phone for about Rs. 14K. It has great battery life and is nearly stock Android. It comes with Android 4.4.2. At that price it may be worth getting 2. One for you and another for your SHQ.

Yes, nice phone. Wonder how poor the 5 mp primary camera is. Considering that my phone is my primary shooter, I'd spend more but want a better camera.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 17 Feb 2014 22:34

^^^You'll have to prioritize. Dual SIM? Better camera? Timely S/W updates and so on.

In Android you may want to look at the Samsung S4 or S4 mini (~Rs. 20K) in dual SIM as these have good cameras.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 17 Feb 2014 22:44

Just bot Nokia 108 for mom. She needs something very simple.. her old nokia ek hajar wala becoming worthless to even buy a battery replacement - not worth., rather buy something new.

now comes the pain.. how to transfer her old contacts?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Feb 2014 22:50

if both have bluetooth is simple. if not, you need to save as many as possible into the SIM and then read it off the SIM into internal mem of the new phone.

KrishG · Post by **KrishG** » 17 Feb 2014 22:55

Holding out for the Lumia 725. Surely think it'll be better than MotoG in terms of hardware (kamira..).

Saral · Post by **Saral** » 18 Feb 2014 11:44

Saudi Aramco's value has been estimated at $10 trillion, which is twenty times the size of Apple, the largest public company at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Feb 2014 21:24

^^^Oil & gas companies world wide are the biggest among all industries. The irony here is that these same O&G companies have R&D in IT and electronics technologies relevant to their industries.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Feb 2014 02:37

^^^The Big Oil companies can provide big Os which even Mortullah probably cannot match.

And they all run Windoze

Many moons ago I remember some talib from our CS department joined Mickey and when asked he named some obscure business unit which turned out to be one which makes custom software running in oil rigs for all the big oil companies.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 19 Feb 2014 03:25

^^^They actually use many different computing platforms. You'll surprised by the number of physicists, chemists, geologists and EEs some of these companies have on staff.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Feb 2014 03:30

I am talking about systems which run the rigs....its all Windoze.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 19 Feb 2014 22:28

^^^I'm not sure if Windows based systems are being used for all critical operations of a rig. Particularly when you need fault tolerant systems in critical applications for controlling the drilling itself, but again this depends on how the software has been developed and it may be all on Windows now. In the past it wasn't.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 20 Feb 2014 00:21

This is insane! pCell (Personal cell) technology allows you to have your own cell like personal pizza.

5G Service On Your 4G Phone?

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tele ... r-4g-phone

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2014 01:25

Mort Walker wrote:^^^I'm not sure if Windows based systems are being used for all critical operations of a rig. Particularly when you need fault tolerant systems in critical applications for controlling the drilling itself, but again this depends on how the software has been developed and it may be all on Windows now. In the past it wasn't.

They are pretty much all Windoze afaik. And a lot of it developed in-house by Mickey though all these Big O companies have huge IT teams. Pretty much all their software is custom whether its for ops or exploration. Given most people's perception of Windoze, they would probably freak out to learn that a lot of critical systems including nuclear power plants run on Windoze.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 02:23

There are many critical systems in aerospace and defense that do not run on consumer or business OSes - and they never will. Such as military ships, aircraft, missiles, radar and navigation. Silicon Graphics & SUN was big into this through the 1990s.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 02:32

gandharva wrote:This is insane! pCell (Personal cell) technology allows you to have your own cell like personal pizza.

5G Service On Your 4G Phone?

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tele ... r-4g-phone

Pretty impressive. Using 10 MHz of LTE spectrum, the demo showed 1920x1080p video on at least 6 displays simultaneously.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2014 02:33

Mort Walker wrote:There are many critical systems in aerospace and defense that do not run on consumer or business OSes - and they never will. Such as military ships, aircraft, missiles, radar and navigation.

er...who told you Windoze is a consumer/biziness-onlee OS?

That is the major misconception when anal-e-cysts start comparing it with FruitCo's droppings. FruitCo's droppings are exclusively consumer, Mickey's are not. Will Android be like that - perhaps. It already shows some of the same trends as Windoze but in a more ad-hoc manner of adoption. Do you know what Northrop Grumman uses in its warez?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 02:54

^^^Android is a Hodge-podge in current form (for use in commercial systems) and the only thing which may help it for commercial use is being forked by a specific big player in a particular industry.

Some years ago, the USN attempted propulsion control using Windows NT. It was a non-starter and the project was abandoned.
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NG is a huge company in terms of having its tentacles in everything. Anything which needs real-time interrupts is probably not running on Windows or if it is, god help them.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2014 03:03

Actually Northrop Grumman shipbuilding (or HII now after the spin-off) uses NT on all their ships' systems - my BIL directly worked on those.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 03:07

^^^I can see ship system management, but propulsion and reactor control of a CVN is asking for trouble.

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 20 Feb 2014 04:40

Mort Walker wrote:^^^I can see ship system management, but propulsion and reactor control of a CVN is asking for trouble.

Mission critical Combat Management Systems also run on Windoze NT.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2014 04:47

Mort Walker wrote:^^^I can see ship system management, but propulsion and reactor control of a CVN is asking for trouble.

Actually all the propulsion systems whether nuke, gas turbine, codag or diesel on those ships and the warfare systems run on Windoze. Now you know why I go

when you complain about Windoze's lack of reliability. Welcome to reality

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 06:39

I don't know about ship systems, but I'm not inclinded to entirely accept what you're saying at face value. I do know when you have hardware interrupts, the computing needs in terms of hardware and OS are different from standard consumer or commercial systems.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Feb 2014 07:25

this is one of heavily used ship control systems from L3 CAE incl in our latest ships. wonder what OS is running under hood
http://www.naval-technology.com/contrac ... -3-mapps2/

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2014 10:47

Mort Walker wrote:I don't know about ship systems, but I'm not inclinded to entirely accept what you're saying at face value. I do know when you have hardware interrupts, the computing needs in terms of hardware and OS are different from standard consumer or commercial systems.

You do realize Windoze comes in many flavors - what makes you think it only runs on desktop systems?

kmkraoind · Post by **kmkraoind** » 20 Feb 2014 11:19

Tweets from Whatsapp founder.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 15:58

Raja Bose wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:I don't know about ship systems, but I'm not inclined to entirely accept what you're saying at face value. I do know when you have hardware interrupts, the computing needs in terms of hardware and OS are different from standard consumer or commercial systems.
You do realize Windoze comes in many flavors - what makes you think it only runs on desktop systems?

I do know that and it has for a number of years now. What I'm talking about is a computing system not necessarily RTOS, but one that can easily handle interrupts that happen roughly every 10us. Think of it this way - radio signals travel at the speed of light and 6us = 1 nautical mile, a round trip for this signal is 12us.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Feb 2014 16:06

Singha wrote:this is one of heavily used ship control systems from L3 CAE incl in our latest ships. wonder what OS is running under hood
http://www.naval-technology.com/contrac ... -3-mapps2/

I suspect it is some version of embedded UNIX. It could be Windows, but I'm not sure. The application of course is entirely custom by L3.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Feb 2014 22:56

Mort Walker wrote:
Raja Bose wrote: You do realize Windoze comes in many flavors - what makes you think it only runs on desktop systems?
I do know that and it has for a number of years now. What I'm talking about is a computing system not necessarily RTOS, but one that can easily handle interrupts that happen roughly every 10us. Think of it this way - radio signals travel at the speed of light and 6us = 1 nautical mile, a round trip for this signal is 12us.

Now that's qualifies as a Rahul Gandhi answer

So to draw you back into specifics....how does that translate into 'God help Northtrop Grumman if their ships propulsion and warfare systems run Windoze'?