Play Things

Michael Jackson: A brief YouTube HIStory

2009-06-26T04:53:00Z

Michael Jackson passed away today after a career known as much for its hugely influential music as the turmoil and allegations in Jackson's private life. Jackson's music and unique persona made him one of the most successful American exports ever. For someone with such longevity in his repertoire there will be few people who have had a chance to see the entire gamut of his music. This is a brief listing of YouTube videos, mostly of his music and then some, that briefly chronicles the King's life:

1. The Jackson 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-16fDpOW948

Jackson would later recount being abused as a child by his father who regularly beat him mercilessly. Still he first arrived on the big stage as part of the Jackson Brothers who later became The Jackson 5. The video is a recording of a 1972 recording.

2. Ben: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqo17o2a1w

Michael launched his solo career through four albums launched between 1972 and 1975. All four were launched while The Jackson 5 were still huge, and an album would sometimes be delayed to let the hype of a Jackson 5 hit to die down. The link is from his second album Ben.

3. The Wiz: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A57B44E547E7713&search_query=micheal+jackson+scarecrow+wiz

In 1978, a year before his coming out success with the Off The Wall album, jackson starred in a musical called The Wiz along with Diana Ross. Jackson played the scarecrow in an adaptation of the The Wizard of Oz story. The link is to a playlist of videos related to the original musical including trailer and a clip of Jackson singing in a rare low voice.

4. Off The Wall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB1gOyvGfJk

Off The Wall was a huge hit when it came out in 1979. a power-packed album with collaborative work by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney among others. The link is a video of a rare interview that Jackson gave during the Off The Wall promotion tour.

5. Thriller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYrUQItmW4s

The best selling album of all time was released in 1982. Jackson made a fortune as his contract for this album and the highest royalties for an artist ever. (Two dollars a copy is what he took home.) The album has sold over a 100 million copies worldwide. The only album to do so ever. The video is a live performance dated sometime in 1987.

6. The moonwalk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VASYhabHkM

Michael Jackson debuted his most famous dance move, the iconic moonwalk, during a televised special to celebrate 25 years of motown. legend has it that he practised the move in his kitchen before trying it on stage. The video is a clip from Jackson's performance.

7. Jackson meets Ronald Reagan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5R3OD8J-Ws

Reagan invited Jackson to the White House in 1984 to felicitate him on his charity work. The link is from a news feed.

8. We Are The World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzw6GiqZyD0

Jackson co-wrote We Are The World with Lionel Ritchie. The song, sung by a stellar cast of artists, was produced to help famine relief in Ehtiopia. It sold three million copies.

9. Moonwalker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF89npFbn8g

In 1988 Jackson in a movie called Moonwalker, an odd mix of songs, extended music videos and a super Smooth Criminal video. The link here is to a few moments of gameplay from the video game of the same name launched an year or so later. Ubergeeks might want to check out a detailed overview of the game with many pictures here: http://www.sydlexia.com/moonwalker.htm)

10. The spectacular Super Bowl XXVIII half-time show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnvSebbIVAM

In one of his greatest live performances ever Jackson leapt on to a stage during the half-time show and performed four of his songs. The performance shot up sales of his Dangerous album.

11. The Oprah Winfrey intreview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtx6viwUWgQ

In 1993 Jackson gave his first TV interview in 14 years. Here he spoke about his childhood abuse. The link is a very brief excerpt from the interview.

12. The Scream video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNl2Pm9-7Vk&feature=fvst

It was Jackson's message to the media. And the most expensive video at the time. He recorded it in 1995 along with his sister Janet Jackson. Part of the HIStory album.

13. The baby in Berlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr0Wh17iBJA&feature=related

In 2002, while staying at a hotel in Berlin, Jackson dangled his newly born baby over the balcony draped in a cloth. Jackson later admitted that this was a mistake.

14. The Martin Bashir interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1SLgFKU2fM

In 2003 Granada Television released Living with Micheal Jackson, in which British journalist Martin Bashir interviewed Jackson over many months. Later jackson would dispute his portrayal in the film.

15: And for really hardcore Jackson fans here is a copy of the patent he filed in 1993 called "Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion". The document describes how did that awesome Smooth Criminal step where everyone, Jackson, included leans forward way beyond their centers of gravity. Downloadable. (There was a trick. It was in the shoes.)

At the time of writing this post all videos were working. Do drop a line if something does not. And do leave links to further interesting Jackson resources in the comments section.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

The legend of the scribblenauts: The "write" stuff

2009-06-18T11:26:00Z

So another E3 has come and gone. The yearly extravaganza of fancier explosions, prettier graphics, and sequels reaching fairly ridiculous numbers (Final Fantasy XIV, anyone?). The necessary dose of violence and guns and muscle-flexing machismo to tide over the rabid gaming press for another year. Same old, same old, yeah?

Well, wrong. See, something odd happened this year at E3. A Little known, tiny game basked in the aura of a sudden, unexpected spotlight, and buoyed by the viral power of the Internet, won accolades upon accolades, beating out the big, scary studios to win Game of the Show from a number of gaming magazines.

The little big game that could? Scribblenauts.

It's an unassuming puzzler for the Nintendo DS wrapped in a cloak of cutesy artwork, but with an intriguing central premise. The game has a dictionary, allowing you to summon ANY object you'd like to complete a level.

Example. Suppose you have to collect a star stuck on top of a tree.You could write 'boomerang' and throw it at the star to get it down. Or, if you're a bit ecologically apathetic, you could type 'axe' and cut the tree down. But that's two solutions out a possible tens of thousands. Beavers to chew through the trunk? No problem. Ladders, jetpacks, rocketships to get up the tree? All there. Complex series of levers and pulleys that pluck the star with a push of a button? Possible. Wizard buoyed by balloons? Of course. Dinosaurs? You don't even need to ask. It's a game that rewards imagination like no other.

Scribblenaut's concept is easy to dismiss as hype, or as a gimmick that will never work, or a bag of tricks not really amounting to crunchy, deep gameplay: but its passed every test thrown at it with flying colours.

Of course, there are limitations: no proper nouns, so there goes the dream of beating every level with Chacha Chaudhary.

Adjectives will have to be introduced within the game, meaning you can't summon a 'fast turtle' but you can put in a plain turtle and introduce it to a skateboard.

Even 'God' is in the game, looking like a slightly bemused Zeus. And the developers insist they're not cheating with certain objects: a 'binder' will be different from a 'book', and a 'leopard' different from a 'tiger', for instance.

Scribblenauts went from obscure cult favourite to critical darling by the end of e3, buoyed by a bonkers story about how a certain level was solved by stomping robot zombies using a dinosaur retrieved from a time machine.

The writing on the e3 wall, if you'll pardon the pun, would normally render a story like this impossible. The event, after all, is where you bring out the big guns, and drown the media in a cyclone of hype and hyberbole. That a game could charm the jaded journalists at e3 through sheer word-of-mouth and a simple hands-on demo is both wonderful and encouraging. The game arrives later this year for the Nintendo DS. A few more monhts, then, to see who wins a fight between a 'ninja' and a 'pirate', or what would happen if 'God' were pitted against 'zombies'. That you can actually type a sentence like that
previous one to describe a game is proof enough that Scribblenauts is worth waiting with bated breath for.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

How much would you pay for the iPhone 3G this August?

2009-06-15T12:56:00Z

With Apple having announced the new iPhone 3Gs and that this model will be available in India in August, the first thought on my mind was: "Why did I not study software and get a green card and go to the US and settle down and buy the iPhone for a reasonable price and feel content in life?". My second thought was: "Then what could happen to the price of the old iPhone 3G?"

My good friend Abhimanyu has already theorized that all price-cuts in all other markets notwithstanding, the iPhone 3G will not see large price cut in India when the new one comes out:

Thus the only impact of the price-cut is likely to be a Rs 4,500 to Rs 5,000 (approx $100) cut in the price of the Indian iPhone 3G.

While I find it hard to disagree with Abhimanyu. there is a voice in my head that still hope Apple will make a more meaningful effort to make the iPhone more affordable in India. Considering that an year's worth of unlimited mobile data can still set you back by around Rs,10000, surely Apple and it's local partners can figure out a way to make me buy it without jeopardising the "One Day A One Bedroom In Noida Fund".

But how high will you go? What price are you willing to pay, if at all, for the old iPhone 3G in August if there is a price cut. Click here to participate in our poll. Share your expectations with us and we'll try and convince the power that be!

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Faster than a speeding.. Firefox?

2009-06-10T05:49:00Z

Traveling through cyberspace is about to happen at warp speed, if one is to believe Mozilla's claims about the soon-to-be-launched Firefox 3.5. Touted as the fasted browser ever (or so far at least given the speed at which browsers seem to be one-upping each other these days), Firefox 3.5 is reportedly twice as fast as Firefox 3 and ten times as fast as Firefox 2. And for those of you worried about how fast it will remain once you load all your plug-ins, the good news is that it requires no additional plug-ins to view flash or video. The National Business Review has also declared itself satisfied in its review, so if speed is what you need, this one is probably worth downloading.

But the real reason I'm blogging about it is because of the competition Mozilla has announced to co-incide with the launch. They're looking for videos of people at their fastest - be it running, jumping or clapping (they've featured a man who currently holds the Guinness record for the most amount of claps per minute). I'm also guessing that they're open to innovative things - like how fast you can um.. i don't know... pick your nose or fry samosas, dance bhangra or fling things at unsuspecting passers by. Anyone interested in sending out speed videos can do it here - any innovative ideas?

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Susan Boyle and Reality tv: too fast, too furious?

2009-06-06T06:53:00Z

What are the chances of a frumpy, middle aged woman walking into a recording studio, wooing the Tommy Mottola type producers with her voice and making it big? In 2009 baby, non - existent. The newest entrants to the commercial music scene are generally young, hep, physically beautiful, dance well, sing tolerably and can pout with the best of them in the poster photo shoots. So that leaves no place for the frumpy - even if they do sing very very well. In fact there has been much lamenting that recording studios are no longer places that starry eyed bands and singers can freely approach with the dream of making it big. Now its more about who you know (or your family/friends know) and of course what you look like that gives you even the slightest chance of getting a toe inside their (soundproof) doors. Big recording studios have in fact been accused of completely squelching artistic creativity, given the fact that they are often the prime determiners of what "sells." And given that they can easily manipulate frequency of airplay and publicity, not many could question their wisdom on this matter.

But now we have an alternative - the reality tv show. Yes, boo, hiss, holler ... throw things at the tv, but its TRUE. Yes they do thrive on a mix of mediated voyeurism and mediated exhibitionism and they do subject contestants to humiliation and ridicule as a means of hooking audiences. However they also DO provide a chance to the literal average Joe (or Susan Boyle) to come out there and show people that they really do have talent. And that is a part of its allure. American idol gave the world Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson along with perfectly tailor made rags to riches stories. And of course the youtube video clip of Susan Boyle coming out and wooing a visibly sceptical audience with her rendition of 'I dreamed a dream" made her a global star overnight. Everyone from Oprah to Larry King wanted a piece of her on their prime-time shows, she was featured in numerous articles and Google Suggest shows over half a million results for her when you start typing in her name.

But the after-story has not been that pleasant. After she lost out to dance group Diversity in the "Britains got talen" final, she was admitted to a facility and treated for anxiety and mental exhaustion. But was this, as many point out a problem with Boyle or a problem with the genre of reality television itself? There has been a great deal of criticism about the way in which reality shows treat contestants - with this article pointing out that at least 8 reality tv contestants have ended up taking their own lives. There have also been calls for producers to take more responsibility for the contestants they feature. What producers could have done to shield Boyle from the media glare she received is uncertain, but it does highlight the explosive potential of reality tv to very quickly both make and break people. Coupled with all the usual web 2.0 suspects, (read here about the impact of the web 2.0 contribution to Boyles success) what happened to Susan Boye obviously happened much faster than she was capable of physically and mentally handling. And this is the frightening bit - web 2.0 and reality television compliment each other perhaps a little too well - potentially it has become very easy for everything people say or do to be put up on the net for the rest of us to love, revile, ridicule and comment on. But the frenetic pace at which we do it coupled with sheer volume makes for tremendous amounts of pressure on the people we elevate. And if this is indeed the next stage of evolution in how we create stars - none of them are going to last very long.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

The unbearable truthiness of Google Suggest

2009-06-05T10:19:00Z

Earlier today @rashmid sent me an image via Twitter. About Twitter:

This is a grab from a simple Google Search page. Type in a term into the box and Google automatically tries to guess what you are looking for. Mostly based on content online and previous search histories. It throws up a list with a corresponding estimate of how many results are available for each suggested search term. As you can there are a fair number of people who look upon Twitter less than favourably.

This suddenly sparked a thought in my head. Isn't Google's suggestions then something of a clandestine barometer of public sentiment on various topics? Will we get such wonderful insight into other popular topics if we did the same, i.e. type in a term followed by "is" and a space and then wait for the search engine to suggest?

PlayThings is proud to showcase the outcome of our comprehensive review of several such popular concepts using the windsock of social sentiment that is Google suggestions:

p.s. Not one of the images have been doctored. They are exactly as they appeared on my browser. Do play around with Google suggestions yourself and drop us a line if you find any hilarious ones.

p.p.s. AR Rahman IS malayalee

p.p.p.s. Gordon Brown is my shepherd as well.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

PlayStream 1: Unlock that iPod with Sharepod

2009-06-04T06:03:00Z

It gives us tremendous pleasure to announce the launch of PlayStream, the weekly tech video show on livemint.com. Completing the terrific tech trio of PlayThings (blog) and PlayCast (podcast), PlayStream will showcase short--5 minutes or less is our target--videos where we will focus primarily on freeware applications, browsers and browser extensions and browser-based apps. The idea is to highlight some of the super apps out there that make browsing the internet and handling multimedia a cinch. But of course we will be doing plenty of interesting new brower-based games as well.

In the inaugural edition we look at a wonderful little app called Sharepod. And when I say little I mean less than 3 MB, no install necessary and completely portable. Sharepod lets you hook up to any iPod, iPhone and iPod Touch and move your content without having to download or install iTunes. A boon for anyone who uses one iPod but wants to manages music across multiple computers. Enjoy the video here, and do leave your comments and feedback. If there are any apps, browsers and freeware you'd like us to take a swing at drop a line on playstream@livemint.com.

Just you enjoy the fillum!

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Gasp! News and pics leaks of a new PSP. To be shown at E3.

2009-05-30T21:19:00Z

The Guardian, Ars Technica and Eurogamer are abuzz with news of the new PSP called the PSP GO. There are pictures galore and it appears that there was even a demo video on YouTube which was later taken down. This is, of course, great news for Sony fanboys. The PSP has been overdue an overhaul for a while now and this is could mean good things for both new and old PSP owners. If indeed the leaked PSP GO images are true, and Sony does unveil the machine at the E3 trade show then there are a few things to observe with the new design:

1. In closed form the GO looks designed more as a multi-function gaming plus media player machine than the old PSP. The screen looks bigger and that little key with the PlayStation logo is worth noting. What is that? A switch to jump to gaming mode from media mode?

2. I am not entirely convinced that this model will be as good for pure gaming as the previous one. The old PSP had an excellent form factor that really let you use all the face keys and shoulder buttons without undue strain. I'd like to see how the PSP GO matches up.

3. There isn't a disc drive in sight. It will surprise noone if the PSP goes the Nintendo DS way and makes the new version run games entirely off memory cards. Also this version will have sizeable onboard memories. A little bird says 16 GB...

4. For people who own legacy PSP systems this could mean a fresh pipeline of games. PSP releases had slowed down somewhat of late and we'd all love it if the PSP GO got fresh games compatible on the old PSP... (err... the PSP NO GO?)

5. And finally this should mean a further price drop for the old PSP. Sony has been extremely competitive on price in India of late. With the new PSP GO to market I will be surprised if this doesn't mean an automatic drop in price for both the old hardware and software.

6. And finally we have no idea what other goodies are built into the PSP GO. Motion sensors? Touch Screen? I'm thinking both! (Which would mean you could get a fair bit done without sliding down the controls. Super.)

Of course this is assuming that the PSP GO is, in fact, unveiled at all and not another wild duck hunt. Our interactions with Sony about a new PSP has always been of the "If you don't ask we don't have to lie" variety. So this E3 will be one to look out for.

P.S. Also there is chatter of a smaller PS3. More details on the Ars Technica link.

Picture as shown on Eurogamer.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Scandal?: Blogger discovers old designs remarkably similar to Zoozoos

2009-05-27T12:13:00Z

Ok I won't go all India TV all over this, but blogger Priyank Sharma has a post on his blog that goes like this:

But yesterday, I came across an interesting link which changed my lookout on these Zoozoos completely. I stumbled upon a series of graphics on popular stock imagery website stockxpert by user Huebi (real name: Alexander Hübert from Wuppertal, Germany) which were made available in 2007. The interesting part about these graphics is that they resemble the Zoozoos to quite an extent. In fact, I first thought that these Zoozoos even made it to stock imagery sites… LOL!

Priyank then posts a composition of these images on his blog. Observe:

Now compare the above to the Zoozoo below as seen in a recent Mint news article:

The similarity between the Zoozoo above and the guy in the bottom right of Priyank's image is uncanny. Here is an embed from the Stockxpert website of the concerned image:

As per the Stockxpert website Huebi uploaded the image sometime in January 2008. According to the livemint story about the Zoozoos:

Several characters were drawn up and considered by executive creative director (South Asia) Rajiv Rao and his team at O&M India, before they settled in on Zoozoo.

“We were very close to what you see as the final version of Zoozoo. The only difference was that we had two options, one that looked more like Mr. Potato Head, a completely round body with thin limbs… the other, a thinner version with a big head and scrawny limbs. We picked the latter as it was easier to have head and body movements in that costume,” says Rao.

Coincidence? Inspiration?

Of course everyone loves the funny, original Zoozoo ads. But Priyank's post does make all this a little intriguing...

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Asking without really asking

2009-05-15T12:31:00Z

I will let master statistician Stanley L. Warner begin this blog post. From the first few paragraphs of his landmark 1965 paper "Randomized Response: A Survey Technique for Eliminating Evasive Answer Bias":

"For reasons of modesty ... or merely a reluctance to confide secrets to strangers, many individuals attempt to evade certain questions put to them by interviewers... This paper suggests an alternate method for increasing cooperation... built on the premise that cooperation should be naturally better if... the interviewee responds with answers that furnish information only on a probability basis."

What Warner is trying to explain is an interesting way of carrying out surveys. Let me explain this idea without going too much into the mathematics. Instead I'll focus on how its done, why it's useful and what happened when we ran a little Lok Sabha exit poll here in the office using Warner's Randomized Response method.

The Randomized Response Technique is used to carry out surveys when you expect respondents not to be honest. For instance:

1. Do you secretly hate the Zoozoos and want to see them shot but keep the emotion to yourself?

2. You don't really get Twitter do you?

Seriously speaking, the technique is used when you want to research the prevalence of issues that people feel uncomfortable talking about. A college would ever be able to survey its students for prevalence of drug use and cheating. A student would never risk the probability of being identified saying: "Yes. And sometimes both at the same time."

What Warner suggests is using a technique where merely using the math of probabilities, especially conditional probabilities, you make estimations. The survey works in two stages: first you ask the respondent to roll a dice, pick a card and so on. Depending on the result you ask them to answer one of two questions without yourself knowing which question is being asked. (Hold on.) The respondent merely says if they agree or disagree with the question before them. Then you survey the next respondent. And so on.

Then the math comes in. Using a few formulas which look at the chance of a question being picked and the regularity with which an answer was given, you could approximate what the whole selection of respondents felt. Obviously bigger the sample, better the accuracy. (More clear math in the second paper linked below.)

But let me tell you what we tried in the office. We took 16 identical pieces of paper and on 12 we wrote the statement "I did not vote for the UPA: Congress or allies" and on the remaining four we wrote "I did vote for the UPA: Congress or allies". Testy questions indeed. Then we shuffled the cards statement-side down and asked employees to pick one each. (The card was returned and the deck shuffled after each employee. Only people who actually voted were allowed to pick.)

Each employee picked a card at random, looked at the statement and then merely said if they agreed with it or not. As a surveyor all I am noting down is the number of agrees and don't agrees. Nothing more. I have no idea which question they got, and so what their response implied. Everyone is happy being honest.

Then I ran the math. Using a sample size of 34 voters (very small, but good enough to blog about) and the 16 cards we were able to approximate that 32.53% of the office voted for the UPA and the rest did not vote for the UPA. (So we really can't say who they voted for. That wasn't the question see.)

Of course it should be wildly inaccurate given the sample size. But it's a fun, mildly magical way to do exit polls no? Why not try one in the office right now, process the results and then look like a genius tomorrow?And unlike some of those TV channels, you have the math to prove it.

Warner's paper here.

A more easier to understand one here.

p.s. In a similar survey done in college many years ago, over a sample of some 90 people, we discovered that 73% of the student population would cheat on their spouse, significant other if they knew they could get away with it.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

CSI Dwarka: What WAS Rahul Gandhi reading?

2009-05-11T11:00:00Z

Merely moments ago my dear friend and colleague Samanth Subramaniam blogged about the reading habits of politicians, Indian and otherwise. His post is plenty fun to read. So please do. (You must understand that more web traffic to the livemint blogs leads to happier bosses, leads to pleasanter top-level meetings, leads to bonuses. I am just saying.)

At the end of that post Samanth threw open a web search challenge which I decided to enthusiastically pick up.

He posted a picture of Rahul Gandhi and wondered what book the young Congressman was reading.

(Photo courtesy: AP)

Later, in an update, Samanth announced that a perusal of the photo in high magnification yielded two fragments of prose from the page:

I received a hugely enlarged version of the Rahul Gandhi image a couple of minutes ago, detailed enough to spot a few phrases on the right-hand page of the book he is reading. It seems to be about the origins of the kibbutz culture in Israel, and the text -- "Jews from Caesarea" and "a kibbutz was set up in 1942" -- proves unGoogleable. Guesses, anyone?

This, of course, is exactly the sort of challenge readers of Play Things relish. First we didn't Google just like that. Oh no. We searched within Google Books for matches. A search for the phrase "Jew from Caesarea" yielded 26 results. This was a little surprising. I had expected that, of the two phrases, this one to be obscure. No matter. Next we searched Google Books for "a kibbutz was set up in 1942".

Et voila!. We got exactly one result. Martin Gilbert's 1998 book: "Israel: A history".

But wait. Did the book have the other phrase as well. We searched again but this time with the keywords chosen carefully: "Jews from Caesarea" and "Martin Gilbert".

Ka-boom!. We got exactly one result again. MARTIN GILBERT'S 1998 BOOK: "ISRAEL: A HISTORY"!

But wait again. We needed to check exactly one more thing. Samanth clearly indicates that both phrases appear on the same side of the book. Only one way to prove that. Search books with both phrases in quotes. And KA-POW we discover that both phrases appear on page 113 of Martin Gilbert's book. Thus Play Things, using just a few sessions on Book Search, had cracked the secret of Rahul Gandhi's mysterious book.

(Photo courtesy: Amazon)

From Wikipedia:

Martin Gilbert, (born 1936)[1] is a British historian and the author of over eighty books, including works on the Holocaust and Jewish history. He has been a pioneer of historical atlases, and is best known as the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill.

Also can we point out that Mr. Gandhi is probably using a Blackberry Curve by the looks of things? (On the sill to his left.) Most probably a 8310 Curve with GPS. Going by the silver casing and the little rectangular power button.

Now comes the key question. Why is Mr. Gandhi reading a book on Israel? Leave your conspiracy theories in the comments below.

Note to right-wing hawks: This blog is impartial. We will try to figure what any leader from any party is reading. Just you email me the pictures on sidin.v@livemint.com.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

The new Amazon Kindle is bigger and better. Pictured leaked.

2009-05-05T07:26:00Z

Normal 0

Nobody really thought that Amazon would make people want to drool over a boring old e-book reader when the first Kindle was unveiled in November 2007. But like other quirky successes such as the Flip video recorder and the original series of Asus netbooks, the Kindle has been a success sales wise and geek-craving wise.

Tomorrow’s unveiling of a Kindle with a bigger screen—the new one will be 9.7 inches of awesome, against the six inches of coolness the reader has currently—is worth watching for a number of reasons. First of all the new Kindle DX will be more newspaper friendly than the old one which was better for books and magazines. Which could be a ray of hope for struggling newspaper companies. Engadget, who also reported the leaked hidden camera pictures last night, say that the New York Times might offer subscriptions from around ten dollars a month.

Most pundits however agree that the big Kindle alone won’t save the newspaper industry in the US.

Om Malik said this last night:

Indeed, Amazon would have to sell millions of these devices to even come close to racking up enough subscriptions to make up for the loss of advertising revenues.

More details in this Wall Street Journal story.

Secondly, it sounds like Amazon will make a push for the device in universities and colleges as the new screen can, I presume, handle textbooks better. Engagdet quotes the Journal:

Chief information officer for Cleveland-based Case Western Reserve University—the college whose president will be taking the stage with Jeff Bezos—Lev Gonick said select students are being issued the new, larger screen Kindles (doesn't specify DX) in the fall semester with pre-installed textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar.

An interesting, and quite environment-friendly, idea. And one that helps Amazon lock in long-term customers for the Kindle right from college. Once you’ve read through a textbook of metallurgical thermodynamics on an e-book reader, then you’re pretty much set for the New York Times, Ulysses and even War and Peace. (The device uses a Sprint mobile connection to download new issues and e-books. Currently the connection is free.)

One little thought playing on my mind is the potential a cheaper, less feature-intense Kindle could have as a more useful One Laptop Per Child. Assuming that the idea of the OLPC is to give children access to information—including textbooks and perhaps Wikipedia—the Kindle essentially just focuses on these things. Perhaps a stripped down Kindle Version One could be just the thing?

And if you are too impatient to wait for the official launch tomorrow, check out the grainy images Engadget procured yesterday. It looks bigger for sure. Which is always a good thing no?

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Vodafone Zoozoos on Facebook!

2009-04-30T13:17:00Z

Zoozoos these days it seems are everywhere. The antics of these egg headed strange white humanoids have been entertaining millions of IPL viewers during commercial breaks for some weeks now. And now, these new Vodafone ambassadors have their own facebook fanpage, which is growing (even by facebook standards) at amazing speed. At around 11 am, the page had roughly over 26,000 fans. Barely five hours later, that number was over 30,000.

The page creators are clearly facebook savvy. They have uploaded albums, shared links and even created innovative zoozoo type products based on popular trends on facebook. That ludicrous “tag your friends into this sheet of cartoons depicting personality stereotypes” craze for instance.

They have created two (admittedly very cute) pictures various zoozoos depicting personality stereotypes for people to tag. Hats off. Not only are the page managers homing in on a popular trend on the social networking site, they are also pulling off a clever piece of viral marketing.

As more and more people get tagged on these photos, they tag others in return, ensuring visibility of that particular photograph across thousands and thousands of profile pages. Now assuming that each of those profiles have at least 200 friends, that is a LOT of eyeballs for the zoozoos and vodafone.

The page itself is bustling with activity. The “wall” is full of fan comments ranging from “They are cho chweeet” to “what would happen if I boiled one?” Fans have also quickly come together to give each other (and the world at large) more information about zoozoos. They have posted links to interviews, put up any information that they may have read or heard and have even posted fan photos and discussion topics. Page admins (presumably) also keep jumping in, to either corroborate or contradict information and do a good job of keeping discussion going.

The one source of frustration for them seems to be however, the fact that some fans are trying to leave the “official fan page” nest and build other fan sites. There have been several attempts to dissuade, either by trying to discredit these sites by stating that they are not “official” or entreating people to stay within one page and not dilute the community. And this could be their undoing. In a community hypersensitive to anything they see as “protectionism” or “propriety behaviour”, the zoozoo creators might well be setting themselves up for an Internet backlash.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Use the Delhi metro to overcome writer's block

2009-04-29T11:21:00Z

Ever since moving to Delhi late last year I'd made a solemn pledge to use my two hours worth of daily commute from Dwarka to Connaught Place to catch up with my reading. With a reasonable chance of getting a seat at least on the return journey I figured that I'd get at least a printed out New Yorker story or two out of the way daily. Alas I am cursed with magnanity and most days I give up my seat to a worthy old man or have it squeezed out from under me by scheming Delhi aunties.

And now this news in the New York Daily News makes me feel terribly inefficient:

Brooklyn author Peter Brett's first novel is a dark, demonic fantasy - he wrote it on the F train. Brett, 36, tapped out most of "The Warded Man," which hit U.S. bookshelves last month, on his smartphone on daily trips from the Fort Hamilton Parkway stop near his Kensington home to his job in Times Square. "I started out just trying to take notes. I'd sit on the subway, I'd get a good idea and I'd jot something down," said Brett, who works in medical publishing. "I got very fast at writing with my thumbs. I found myself writing more and more." Soon, he was averaging 400 words each morning and evening.

Brett managed to thumb out a grand total of 100,000 or so words using only a smartphone. So if you are one of those budding authors who just can't find the perfect setting to compose your prose why not try the comforts of the Delhi Metro. The air conditioning is working splendidly, trains are mostly clean and comfy and fares are most reasonable. A BlackBerry should do nicely and you get signals over most of the Delhi Metro even in some of the underground bits.

Just watch out for those pickpocketers who "have been spotted in the very train you are traveling in". And if gallantry makes you give up your seat remember Brett's words:

"There's no way to write with your thumbs when you're standing up," he said."I was raised to give up my seat to just about everyone. [Now] unless you're really old or pregnant, I'm getting that seat."

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Gmail, जीमेल, ಜಿಮೇಲ್, ജിമെയില്‍, ஜிமெயில், జిమెయిల్, now in five Indian languages too!

2009-03-31T07:58:00Z

Splendid news for all those looking to add a little ethnic spice to their emails. Gmail has just announced that:

When you compose a new mail in Gmail, you should now see an icon with an Indian character, as the screenshot below shows. This feature is enabled by default for Gmail users in India. If you do not see this function enabled by default, you will need to go the "Settings" page and enable this option in the "Language" section

When you click the Indian languages icon, you can type words the way they sound in English and Gmail will automatically convert the word to its Indian local language equivalent. For example, if a Hindi speaker types "namaste" we will transliterate this to "नमस्ते." Similarly, "vanakkam" in Tamil will become "வணக்கம்." We currently support five Indian languages -- Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam -- and you can select the language of your choice from the drop-down list next to the icon.

Not only that you can even use the application to create text in these languages and then cut and paste them in other places. Like blog headlines.

Much merriment to be had in all this no doubt.

P.S. No doubt that Gmail has done this because of Slumdog Millionaire's gritty, authentic, brass tacks Indian impact.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!