Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Feb 2013 21:54

^^^Keep your feelthy SDRE bania calculations away from unsuspecting TFTA/TFPE kashtmars ready to pony up cash.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 15 Feb 2013 22:02

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/mi ... ute-331452

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Feb 2013 22:53

I want to add that when traveling in desh and EU if you have a tablet, you must remove it and have it scanned separately just like a laptop. It is only in the US where tablet devices are not required to be removed from the case according to TSA. In fact, TSA specifically mentions iPad and tablet secondarily. Fruit Co. must have given TSA execs free iPads to get that one through. I know the EU security personnel are irritated by khan flyers who say, "but this is just my iPad...."

For me, even when I travel within the US, I get the free prostrate exam treatment because I look like mujjie and carry test equipment!

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Feb 2013 22:56

Singha wrote:http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/mi ... ute-331452

Not a bad price for Rs. 14K = $260, if only GOOG would sell the Nexus 4 directly in desh.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 16 Feb 2013 02:44

Nokia reportedly dropping Samsung as component supplier amongst rumors of theft
"The 'firewall' between component sales and smartphones [at Samsung] is about as sturdy as a pile of kimchee." Noting that Samsung has "a record of getting orders for next-gen components, then canceling the orders. And then they show up in a Samsung phone. When you see a Samsung (certain specialized new design for) OLED phone as you surely will, you are looking at something that was stolen from Nokia."

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 02:55

anmol wrote:
Nokia reportedly dropping Samsung as component supplier amongst rumors of theft
"The 'firewall' between component sales and smartphones [at Samsung] is about as sturdy as a pile of kimchee." Noting that Samsung has "a record of getting orders for next-gen components, then canceling the orders. And then they show up in a Samsung phone. When you see a Samsung (certain specialized new design for) OLED phone as you surely will, you are looking at something that was stolen from Nokia."

oh, I wouldn't be surprised at Sammy doing that. They openly engage in industrial espionage in the valley and are super super aggressive - its not unique to Sammy, its a part of Korean corporate culture.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 16 Feb 2013 03:31

I thought the chinese had that market cornered. Heck, they used tunnelling microscopes and re-engineered entire microchips!

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Feb 2013 03:32

anmol wrote:Nokia reportedly dropping Samsung as component supplier amongst rumors of theft
"The 'firewall' between component sales and smartphones [at Samsung] is about as sturdy as a pile of kimchee." Noting that Samsung has "a record of getting orders for next-gen components, then canceling the orders. And then they show up in a Samsung phone. When you see a Samsung (certain specialized new design for) OLED phone as you surely will, you are looking at something that was stolen from Nokia."

The source is from a Windows Phone site which in turn cites Apple Insider. Certainly questionable intentions and this may be nothing more than FUD.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Feb 2013 03:34

In the mean time -

Samsung Shows off 14nm Test Wafer

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 05:21

I have dealt with Sammy before. I doubt the reports are entirely FUD. They do play fast and loose. Wonder who they stole the fab tech from - ChiZ??

Anyhow,

Skype accounts for 33% of global phone traffic

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 16 Feb 2013 06:15

Not quite a Sammy thing. It's more of a Korean thing. They're sandwiched between one 800lb gorilla whose culture dominated their history, and another that brutalized them. They're intensely competitive as a result.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Feb 2013 06:57

if we look back to 1950 they had no tech base and probably no higher education system at all (unlike some the bartanias setup in india). the fact they have managed to crawl out of that pit and be where they are today...exporting even defence products is a amazing feat...a turnaround story worth publishing though singapore hogs the limelight as more tfta "miracle".

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Feb 2013 07:24

the micromax hw is no different from what will soon come via karbonn, xolo, lava, andi, yuyu or whatever but the difference is positioning and ad spend. last month they spent as much as samsung on tv ads here and if you check their fbook page they are sponsoring some DJ night in symbiosis, or some heavy metal concert featuring foreign bands ... trying to attract the urban hipster crowd who will buy the canvas, talk about it and drive sales by worth of mouth using network effect.
the others have a few print ads and nothing on TV. they are leaving the entire space clear for mmx to dominate and already they are #3 in India. this yr would not be surprised to see them grab 20% of indian market up from 6% if they can procure enough product to satisfy demand.
http://cdn.ndtv.com/tech/images/india_t ... endors.png

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 08:19

micromax, karbonn etc are the same MediaTek ARM kit onlee but what about XOLO/Lava? Who makes the boards for them since its ChipZ stuff?

Suraj wrote:Not quite a Sammy thing. It's more of a Korean thing. They're sandwiched between one 800lb gorilla whose culture dominated their history, and another that brutalized them. They're intensely competitive as a result.

That is like saying Pakis act like well,...Pakis becoz they got molested by abbu-jaan in their younger years.

Yes it is a Korean thing (rather than a Sammy onlee thing) and I remember when I was first exposed to its full fury as a talib when collaborating with KAIST on robots.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 16 Feb 2013 08:31

That's not a particularly bad characterization really - they just had different directions to display their respective issues - one being hugely positive from a socio-economic perspective, and the other just the opposite. The pakis demonstrate their feelings through explosive expressions of love. Koreans on the other hand, have their own 'issues'. There's a huge amount of personal insecurity among their womenfolk in the looks department, and they're the world leaders in eyelid surgery and other 'caucasian-izing' surgeries. They've an intense issue with Japan and the need to equal or outdo them. They use Chinese characters (Hanja) but resent Chinese cultural domination through history, and there are regular online batties between PRC and ROK on the topic.

However, I still admire them. They're one of those very few nations where they have an entire generation of parents who grew up in penury and children grew up in near first world standard of living. It takes a neurotically driven person to pull one country up that far, that fast, and Park Chung Hee was all that - he grew up ashamed of his own penurious upbringing and that of his country, and was bloodyminded about fixing it, even at the cost of steamrolling anyone who disagreed with his methods.

Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew are a great story too, but they're a tiny city state; Korea is a country of 50m people. Singapore gets a lot of praise in the English speaking world because LKY is Bartania educated and is close to Bartania establishment. A hard core pragmatist, and he accomplished a lot, but I personally find the SoKo story far more inspiring.

Anyway this is OT, so I'll stop here.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 08:33

South Korea is the new Japan.

manish · Post by **manish** » 16 Feb 2013 08:50

Raja Bose wrote:micromax, karbonn etc are the same MediaTek ARM kit onlee but what about XOLO/Lava? Who makes the boards for them since its ChipZ stuff?

Dunno about the ChipZ-derived Xolo X Series stuff hakim saab, but the Lava Xolo A Series are all MediaTek onlee I guess...

And right on cue, they have launched the Xolo A1000, a wannabe competitor to the MMX Canvas HD, with rather similar specs i.e 720p 5" display, a dual core MediaTek SoC (MMX HD IIRC is a quad), 1GB RAM, Jelly Bean onboard etc...all for Rs. 13,999/- and available for ready delivery unlike MMX HD.

More here...

The XOLO A1000 has a 5.0-inch, 1280 x 720 resolution IPS display with what Lava calls the One Glass Solution (OGS) that incorporates the display, the touch sensor and the glass in one layer, making the phone thinner and improving the image quality. The A1000 runs on a MediaTek MT6577 chipset with a dual-core 1GHz CPU and PowerVR SGX531 GPU.

Wow, that was fast - Bose babu is my understanding wrong or is this 'OGS' really something like the In-cell displays that came out recently on the likes of iPhone etc? If that is the case, the Chipanda cloning biz seems to be moving up the chain really fast!!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 08:58

The claim above is its in-cell, whether it really is or just lamination is hard to tell without teardown and measurements. Who knows maybe the tech got leaked from Fruit Co.'s assembly lines or Fruit Co.'s exclusivity ran out with the OEM

.....though Foxconn (thru Chimei-Innolux), Sammy, GB and Yell-Jee have the tech too.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Feb 2013 09:25

These xolo mmx types seems to share the same shipping containers back to desh or the same fedex dhl flights.

All i can say is samsung galaxy grand is so dead in the water notwithstanding their full page ad in toi today. Cost eqn is 14k vs 21.2k which is huge 50%

Grand needs to drop to 17k to stand any chance here.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Feb 2013 09:40

Something called a wickedleak wammy titan launched in india.
Going by name one would think its a new model 9" dildo, but no its just 5.5" phablet

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 10:43

Fruit Co is a scary place to work

It mentions the famous lockdown I might have mentioned on this dhaaga many moons ago.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Feb 2013 12:56

this lockdown thing happened in the indian offices of a french co best known for making planes but in other areas as well. employees are forbidden from bringing in or using any portable media device that could be used to copy and steal information. but one had forgotten and plugged in some usb stick (maybe to play some music). we anyway a periodic scan/audit found it after employee leaves and next morning the whole cube was found roped off like a crime scene, the login was locked and a note to report to the big boss's cabin.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Feb 2013 13:01

^^^Hehe no such thing at Fruit Co. In Fruit Co lockdown happens when you are in the office and the entire area is sealed off. They take away all your devices and go thru personal devices as well - zero privacy and you stay in your seat till they are done for the whole area (I guess you can pee in a bottle or wear a diaper to work if you are a wimmens

).

Devices rules are applied at many places. For example, design studios for cars, CE devices ityadi. Many design studios have multiple doors to prevent tail gating, airlocks, armed guards - the whole works. Whenever I enter a design studio (KB's or someone else's), I have to leave any device capable of snapping a picture including my dumbphone and sometimes be subject to a search-e-groperi. In some companies such as Audi they will let you retain the device if you allow them to smash the camera mechanism and lens.

habal · Post by **habal** » 16 Feb 2013 13:47

One major difference between major league players like Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Apple and also rans like Micromax, Lava, Karbonn etc are the number of sensors that the mainstream phones from the major leaguers carry and the number of sensors the latter carries.

Most budget phones do not carry gyroscopes, proximity sensors etc. ambient light sensor, compass, barometer etc. I feel this is the crucial difference why they can undercut prices so much.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 17 Feb 2013 02:39

BhairavP wrote:Austin - nope, only a SIM card directly will work. It is an iPad 2 model, can be upgraded to iOS 6.

Thanks Bhairav , That helped

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Feb 2013 06:04

Raja Bose wrote:^^^Hehe no such thing at Fruit Co. In Fruit Co lockdown happens when you are in the office and the entire area is sealed off. They take away all your devices and go thru personal devices as well - zero privacy and you stay in your seat till they are done for the whole area (I guess you can pee in a bottle or wear a diaper to work if you are a wimmens ).

Devices rules are applied at many places. For example, design studios for cars, CE devices ityadi. Many design studios have multiple doors to prevent tail gating, airlocks, armed guards - the whole works. Whenever I enter a design studio (KB's or someone else's), I have to leave any device capable of snapping a picture including my dumbphone and sometimes be subject to a search-e-groperi. In some companies such as Audi they will let you retain the device if you allow them to smash the camera mechanism and lens.

Defense contractors are quite strict as well. No camera enabled phones or recording devices of any kind as you are subject to random searches as you leave or enter the building. Most times on classified systems, you don't have admin rights to the machine you are working on, so no USB stick will work. You can mount the drive but can't read or write from it. Notes taken on classified systems are to be left in the office and placed in a burn bag and properly marked. If you leave your workstation area, then you must secure classified materials under lock and key. TEMPEST (emissions security) facilities and SCI (Specialized Compartmental Information) is handled even more carefully. It is more often than not a real pain and slows productivity, especially when idiot coworkers put an SCI cordon around a group of cubicles and then discuss baseball for an hour and half. People like Bradley Manning are rare who had admin rights to machines and classified systems, then left alone for long periods of time since his unit was short staffed in Iraq. His supervisors in Iraq must have gotten a real good kick in the ass and seen demotions if lucky. More likely court martial.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 08:30

Its expected at Defense contractors. Typically there, they will log the amount of time you spend on Pakistan while at work since the time is billed to Uncle sam. And nowadays ofcourse a good source of income for ex-SEAL, Blackwater types are also the huge data centers than Chacha, Takla, Fruit Co and Mickey build in rural places.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 18 Feb 2013 09:21

so have they fixed ios 6.1 for iphone-4. i was told here, don't update/cause chacha map will disappear.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Feb 2013 09:22

FruitCo 6.1 didnt come pre-sprinkled with pixie dust making it most advanced mobile OS in the world?

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Feb 2013 09:31

I think fruitco should let go of some of that obsessive secrecy. I mean, it makes sense for new products. A secret followed by a massive reveal is great advertising. Plus most people who enjoy good food, dont like to see it being made. They remember the dirty ingredients, messy stirring, sweat and fumes. That is a huge turn off.

But OTOH, OS refreshes, etc could be rolled out to a subset of population who can be "testers" and then their issues resolved before being rolled out to the wider world. When fruitco's products were used under well defined circumstances (a sliver of US population for example), gotchas were rare.

Now that they run on 5000 carriers in 1000 countries, this concept of no testing at all for incremental updates is actually harmful to them.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 10:06

^^^That's their culture. The problem is they treat their employees like dirt as an excuse for that secrecy. Chacha, Mickey, ChipZ, Takla Co all have secrecy when it comes to erecting barriers between inside and outside worlds. Chacha became quite famous for demanding NDAs even from its interviewees to 'protect' interview questions!

But nobody uses that as an excuse with eff up employees without reason.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Feb 2013 10:36

I mean, how many f'ed up updates till their brand takes a beating?

Take maps for example. "Most advanced maps ever" presentation didnt do nary a thing when kashtmars actually started using them. They could have rolled it out to a subset as a beta, asked them to report issues. And then rolled it out to everyone. People who volunteer to test would have been prepared for some F-up in the beta and would have been good ambassadors to set expectations.

I have no doubt that with enough error reporting and fix, FruitCo maps will be top notch. It is hard to get UX right in map and FruitCo is well positioned to solve that problem. Instead we have stories of people trapped in australian bush and leaked news of Bawarchi having a "stern conversation" with Tom Tom

Reminded me of Mush-AQ Khan "stern conversation" broadcast on tv.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Feb 2013 10:50

Mush AQ very apt. Jobs magic of unicorns sh...ing rainbows is yet to wear off of the gullible fan smurfs

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 10:53

Fruit Co is like Paki here - echandee is everything!

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Feb 2013 11:40

Did you mujs follow the Elon Musk, new york times tesla review jeeehaaarrrdd?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 11:41

Yeah Musk has Mahdi-like characteristics.

Anyhow Chacha is getting close to going vertical: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/15/39934 ... -this-year

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Feb 2013 11:47

if you want to scare co-workers buy one of these
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-575 ... -detailed/

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Feb 2013 11:51

Chinese government throws the book at ex-Google exec at whom Ballmer threw a chair

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Feb 2013 17:08

I guess we missed this one:

Yandex Just Passed Bing to Become 4th Largest Global Search Engine

One interesting comment:

Yandex beating Bing in global search engine market share is certainly a face palm moment for Bing and Microsoft. If the Redmond based software giants are taking search and Bing seriously, and if they want to be the only competitor to Google on a global scale then they must consider promoting their search engine in non-US countries as well. Most of the Bing's algorithm updates or addition of new features happens only in the US and will never happen in non-US countries.

Off-topic comment: Why the hell does M$ insist on XboX Gold Membership to enable features? It is an additional $40/year cost.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Feb 2013 20:49

Well Bing is very good. Good enough to compete with Google.

I am sure M$ will concentrate hard on distribution. In windows phunwa and their tablets. They can win a percentage of the market that way.

Basically the problem with Bing is that they dont seem to have any features that set them apart from chacha. Then why would people switch from Chacha?

Dont know if enough money is being spent on it.