Mining the bit-con world

“Bangalore to host country’s first global Bitcoin conference in December” read the headlines on ET. For a concept non-existent five years ago to grow to a 50,000 strong community owning over 11mn bitcoins worth more than $9bn, it has certainly gone a long way. 

What exactly is a bitcoin?
Simply put, it is a form of digital currency that is not regulated by any central authority. The currency exists in a peer-to-peer form of network. For those who are familiar with torrents, the P2P network used in bitcoins is somewhat similar. Here is the wiki link.

How does it work?
In layman terms, a bitcoin is just a bunch of numbers plugged into a mathematical formula representing a unit of currency. Bitcoins are stored in a wallet which stores a unique address(es) for every user. A user may have multiple addresses with multiple amounts of bitcoins stored in them just like how you would hold cash in your wallet. The difference is that since bitcoins are in some sort of encrypted form, you will never be able to find out how much bitcoins I have in my wallet if I give you my address, unlike a real wallet where you can simply count the cash.

Technically speaking, the ‘mathematical formulas’ are essentially cryptographic hash functions. These kinds of functions are typically used in digital signatures, encryption of payment information when you do an online transaction, encryption of email messages that you send to friends so that nobody else is able to intercept the message and so on.

How does a bitcoin transaction happen?
The image below captures this beautifully.

Let’s say you make a transaction using your address and a certain amount of bitcoins. The details of the transaction are encoded using the specified algorithm (cryptography hash functions) and is added to all the other previous transactions ever made in bitcoins. The data is stored in the form of ‘blocks’ with each block having a certain number of transactions. Different blocks are connected to each other to form a ‘blockchain’. Essentially a blockchain will contain crypto hash information about every single transaction ever made in the world in bitcoins.
Even without any understanding of how cryptographic hash functions work, one can see that increasing number of transactions will require an increasingly proportionate amount of disk space as well as computing power to process such large volumes. Here is where the bitcoin ‘miners’ enter. They are people who have access to high performance computers and are willing to give in the time and effort for creating these hash values and they get paid commissions. This is how one earns bitcoins.

Who can create bitcoins?
Anyone. Remember, it is a P2P network. You just need a good processing power in your computer to start ‘mining’ bitcoins. Actually ‘good’ is an understatement here. In addition to the large volume of data to be hashed, the algorithm itself is so complex that it takes a lot more than just buying a fast processor. Huge investments have been made on larger CPUs, drives and other periphery by the miners. For a perspective, check out these sites:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
http://gizmodo.com/5994446/digital-drills-the-monster-machines-that-mine-bitcoin

There are also some ways to get bitcoins for free. Some such sites are:      
http://bitcointree.net/links
http://freebitcoinsites.info/
http://btcgeek.com/free-bitcoin/

The only catch is that these sites give you free coins at the rate of a few µbitcoin (micro bitcoin or one millionth of a bitcoin!) which makes it practically useless.

Who started this?
They say it is a chap who goes by the name ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. Nobody knows who he/she is and this person apparently disappeared from the bitcoin world in 2010. Some folks have created an urban legend that his name is a portmanteau of ‘Samsung’, ‘Toshiba’, ‘Nakamichi’ and ‘Motorola’. Some say it is not one person but a group of people who have a patent related to digital currencies whereas others think it is the National Security Agency. I also found this somewhere – In Japanese Satoshi translates into “clear-thinking; quick-witted; wise.” “Naka” can mean “inside” or “relationship” while “moto” is defined as “the origin; the cause; the foundation; the basis.” So we have “clear-thinking” “inside” “the foundation.”
What’s even more interesting is that tech journalists have been trying for years to find out this mystery man. There have been instances were specific people have been stalked  and ‘accused’ of being Nakamoto!

Whoever they are, I’m surprised that they didn’t even come forward to claim fame for revolutionizing the crypto world.

What motivated the need for bitcoins?
Some of the arguments given in favour of this currency are as follows.

1. Privacy: Bitcoins allow you to make anonymous transactions without having to reveal your identity, unlike credit cards. It’s almost like cash, only digital.
2. De-regulation: Since the government can’t ‘print’ bitcoins willy-nilly, they are not subject to inflationary pressure.
3. Safety: If a bank goes bust, deposit holders are at risk. Such an event can’t occur with bitcoins.
4. Security: Since bitcoins are stored in cryptographic hashed format, it is next to impossible to ‘steal’ someone else’s currency without knowing their ‘private key’. A wallet address represents the ‘public key’ which is used for making transactions whereas a private key is only known/knowable to the owner of the wallet.

Who accepts bitcoins and why?

During the initial days of bitcoins, most of its usage was on sites like Silkroad, an online marketplace that sells drugs and other illegal stuff. Though the US FBI seized the website and its assets a few months back, the site continues to operate in a different version accessible only to those who want access to it!
Bitcoins have come a long way since. The Chinese search engine Baidu, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and WordPress are among the big names that have started accepting bitcoins as a mode of payment. Ebay is also seriously considering the option.

Why do they accept it?
It’s all about reaching a critical mass. As more and more people want to use bitcoins as a currency, the merchant sites are forced to accept them.

My take on bitcoins
I do not agree with most of the aforementioned ‘advantages’ of bitcoins.

1. It’s not right to say that bitcoins are not subject to inflationary pressure. Inflation is primarily a function of supply and demand. The selling price of a product in a retail store will depend upon its input cost, not just whether the government is able to print bitcoins or not. That input cost will in turn depend upon supply and so on. So Inflation will impact bitcoins as well. The other issue is the exchange rate of bitcoins. Currently it is trading at a rate of 1BTC =945USD. Two days ago this was around 800USD. This makes BTC an inherently risky proposition. Of course if BTC reaches a critical mass then the volatility will also come down proportionately.
2. There is great concern that the anonymity of bitcoin transactions will encourage illegal trades – silkroad being a case in point. Personally, I don’t think illegal trades need a digital currency to thrive; if those guys want to do such trades they will surely find a way out – bitcoins or not. But the bigger issue here is that transactions made through bitcoins cannot be reversed under any circumstance. With a credit card transaction, if something goes wrong, you can file a legal case against the issuer as the entire transaction details are available for verification. Even with cash, if you pay at a local grocery store you can go back and ask for a refund. However, with bitcoins since the person you are transacting with is unknown to you, you have absolutely no way of getting back your money if the transaction doesn’t happen as per the terms. There is also no guarantee that the other person will honor their part of the deal as there is no way to prove that such a transaction was entered into in the first place.
3. Safety: The safety aspect is a bit different here than a bank going bust. Instead, your computer can crash, taking away your wallet addresses and the precious money along with it. In order to prepare for such contingencies you need to have a backup record of your ‘private key’ somewhere else, which itself is a cumbersome process involving downloading complicated software etc.
4. I don’t buy the security argument of bitcoins at all. For one thing, cryptography is not a 100% foolproof mechanism. Time and again it has been seen that old crypto techniques get obsolete as they get hacked into by smarter and smarter cyber criminals. Newer and more complicated crypto algorithms come into play then. The second thing is that this whole database of blockchains and transactions is maintained by a certain group of people – the miners. Your wallet address is known to every one of these miners. Who is to say these miners will always act in your interest and not tamper with the transactions you make?
5. Finally, I think that bitcoin is just a fad that will go into oblivion sooner or later as the giant government machineries work towards shutting them down or try to take control over it. There have also been arguments against this possibility. Supporters of bitcoins say that just like how regulators have never been able to completely shut down P2P networks such as bittorrents, they will not be able to do it with bitcoins either. I disagree. In this case all they need to do is to enforce legal sanctions on mainstream corporate that accept bitcoins as a mode of payment. Bitcoin will then simply become the stuff of folklore.

Final words
I have created my own bitcoin wallet from www.coinbase.com . Anyone who wishes to donate some money my way for all the effort I’ve put into this blog may do so at:
1MrZJFro4H9YfoT3X72FohH7vKMiLmdyjt               

WP 7.5 Mango Apps…

So I have been experimenting with various apps over the last one month, since I got my new Nokia Lumia 800 running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango  (can’t stress the handset and the O/S enough you see :))

I shall touch upon some of the apps in this blogpost – this will be an ongoing blogpost that I shall keep updating as and when new apps are downloaded.

One really awesome feature of WP is that most of the apps can be pinned to the home page as “Live” tiles. “Live” tiles is the USP of the Metro UI. So the app in each tile keeps getting updated in the background at a predetermined frequency and shows up the latest value on the home page. Nice animations too.

Top five recommended apps:

1: Moneycontrol – Free – Brilliant app this one is. For all moneycontrol fans, this app is actually even better than the web based version! The home page of the app neatly shows all the indices – large cap, small cap, sectoral, Asian, developed markets and more than what you would want to look for. Slide right and you get a list of market movers, top losers, top gainers, active by value, volume, 52-week high/low. Slide right again and you get a bunch of commodities. The next screen is for currencies and finally a screen for all other sections – news, messages, videos, your portfolio etc.

The best thing about the app is it has a very simple, minimalistic and extremely pleasing UI – very much in-tune with the Metro concept. The live tile on the home screen even updates with the latest news and pops up a message once in a while on the Sensex/Nifty.

2: Nextgen Reader – Free – One of the finest apps installed on my phone and like moneycontrol, this is one I would much rather use on the phone than the desktop. This is a google reader app. It also gives me an option to read the text on ‘instapaper’ which almost feels like actually reading it on paper.

3: Shazam – Rs 310 -An app for music buffs and frequent visitors to pubs. So imagine you are listening to a song in the pub and you like it so much but are unable to recall the singer/album. Simply switch on Shazam and it will ‘listen’ to the song for just 10 seconds and not only identify the details but will also give you the entire lyrics, and the history of the song/album alongwith biographies of the singer. This is an extremely successful app across platforms. But I could not experiment much with it as I only have a trial version. Moreover, the lyrics part does not work in India which is a real bummer especially if you want to go for a paid version.

4: WhatsApp – Free – No description needed for this. If you are not aware of WhatsApp, please google out. This is a must have app on any phone. But honestly, the interface on the Blackberry and even the Symbian is much better than the one in WP. For e.g; it does not store my previous status updates in the system. So each time I need to change my status, I have to type it out entirely afresh. Secondly, the app takes quite sometime to start, on other O/S its always there – instantaneous.

5: Poynt – Free -Something similar to Foursquare. It helps locate restaurants, coffee joints, movie theatres and other places of interest at whatever location you are currently in. While Poynt results are almost always relevant, foursquare had always thrown up useless ones. The thing with foursquare is it gives you the results that are ‘most popular’ among foursquare users, not every place that is necessarily closer to where you are looking for or what might be of interest to you.

Note: While all these are great apps, except for Nextgen Reader, I do not use the others very actively.

Top five personal favorites:

6: Daily Horoscope – Free – I realize I may come across as a horoscope freak here, but I think it is fun to read them! So this app gives the daily horoscope for each sun sign, compatibility between different signs, and horoscope for Chinese signs.

7: My Expenses – Free – As the name suggests. The app allows you to enter the expense header (Personal/Official etc), description (eg. BBQ nation), amount, and category (there are a lot of pre-defined categories like Food/Transportation/Household, but you can add your own as well). The app gives you a weekly view, monthly view and even chart views of your expenses. There is also an option to email the details.

8: a)Shopping list – Free – This is a single page app All you can do is add your list of shopping items or delete them.

   b)My Shopping List – Free -This allows you to categorize your lists. E.g: you can have ‘Household items’ as one and “Gifts” as another list. But then the more features you add in an app, the more time consuming it gets to use them. While the first app is just – ‘enter app’, ‘click +’, ‘enter name’ the second app involves ‘enter app’, ‘click new list’, ‘click +’, ‘enter name’, ‘click save’. Already two steps more.

Both the apps don’t allow you to edit existing items. You need to delete and add afresh.

All the above three apps I use on a daily basis. In my Symbian phone, 7 and 8 used to be written on notes, so I find these apps quite handy.

9: SleepMaster – Rs 110/- Monitors your sleeping pattern. Set up the alarm for the time you want to wake up and start the app, keep it next to your pillow. Make sure it is plugged into the charger as this is a real battery drainer. Or alternatively, switch to flight mode to save battery. When you wake up, you get to know how you slept 🙂 – sleep rate percentage, the times when you actually woke up in the middle of your sleep, all charted out nicely.

10: The Weather Channel – Free – I use this app on a daily basis and its generally fun to compare weather conditions across cities at different times during the day. It was this app that told me that it was 12 degrees Celsius at 8 am in the morning with a humidity of 10% a few days ago! You can add as many cities as you want in the list to compare the ‘current temperature’. The only issue I have is with the frequency of update – it is different for different cities and does not give a very accurate comparison in that sense.

To be continued…

Ziggy!

It’s been almost a year since my blogpost on the two Turkeys – Nokia and Microsoft where I had stated that my next phone will be ICS. 

Well, it so happens that I decided to give Nokia one more chance to make amends and got the Lumia 800 instead! Good phone, refreshing user interface and different from the rest of the clutter. But this post is not about Mango OS, I shall reserve a separate blogpost for that. 

This post is about the Windows Phone app “Ask Ziggy” – supposed to be a “Siri” equivalent of Mango. So to cut a long story short, I shall just put down a list of questions I asked Ziggy and the responses she gave me:

1:  Who am I? 

A: “Who am I ” is one of the most fundamental philosophical questions a person can ask. Only you can know the answer. 

2: Am I cool? 

A: Yes

3: Who are you? 

A: I am a married mother of two children. I have a two year old autistic son and a one year old rambunctious daughter. I am a stay at home mom and we fill our days with schooling, playing and crafts. 

4: What is wrong with you? 

A: I am in love

5: What is the matter with you? 

A: Existential uncertainty!  (This one seems to be the perfect answer for Ziggy, Can Ziggy exist with Siri around?”)

6: Are you crazy? 

A: I AM crazy…about answering your questions! So please, ask away!

7: What do you think of yourself?

A: The same, what you think of yourself. Be little descriptive yaar, so that you can get various answers. 

8: What is the matter with me?

A: I don’t know…personally, I don’t like kissing. I enjoy most everything else, though. Maybe you’re just not that into kissing? Has kissing ever not been exciting for you before or with someone else?

9: Can you tell me a story? 

A: “The darling – olenka, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. it was MORE. (??????, please let me know if anyone understands this ‘story’)

10: What do you think of Siri?

A: Siri is an amateur (Good one. But strangely, Ziggy does not know the answer to “Who is Siri”)

11: What is your favorite drink?

A: Morning = Coffee

Day = Pepsi or Water

Evening = More Pepsi or Water

Evening without kids – Beer

12: Do you like Tom Cruise?

A: He’s alright I guess, but I think he’s a bit pretentious. He’s a little out there. I didn’t think his acting was all that great in Vanilla Sky or The Firm. Dunno how to describe it really. Just seemed fake, like maybe he’s trying to!

 13: Do you like Jim Carrey?

A: The guy is uber-funny…the expressions he makes are hilarious 😀  

(Now there is something really funny here. The text on the mobile shows 😀 at the end of the sentence, but Ziggy actually says “Dee” after reading out the sentence!!! The software should take emoticons into account and voice out a ‘grinning’ or ‘laughing’ noise instead)

14: Will Obama win the next election?

A: If he does, I am moving to Canada!

15: Can you tell me a joke?

A: (Sorry, Ziggy came up with such a dirty joke that it cannot be written here. So I tried asking the question differently)

16: Can you tell me another joke?

A: Q: why did the blonde call the welfare office. A: She wanted to know how to cook food stamps!

17: Can you tell me a different joke?

A: What do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud.
18: Why are you so boring?
A: Hehe, yeah I suck.

 

So that was it for now. The whole exercise took more than half an hour. It was quite taxing actually. It takes at-least 5-6 retakes for each question before Ziggy gets it right. Even after that, a lot of questions go unanswered. When Ziggy doesn’t know the answer, she just takes you to web search on Bing.  At some point, I got so frustrated with Ziggy that I asked her –

18: Why do you hate me?

A: Hate is a pretty strong word to use, and most of all, I do not hate you. I have no reason to, and I see no reason not to like you. 

19: (Around 11.35pm) Should I go to sleep now?
A: Yes you should. Monday is going to be a long day. 
20: When are you going to sleep?
A: I’m probably going to sleep around 2-3-ish. Right now it is 1:15am. Goodnight to you!! Sleep well. =)

So that was all about Ziggy. I shall update this post with more questions as and when I ask Ziggy. Oh, before I forget, I should touch upon the ACTUAL functions for which Ziggy can be used: Call, email, text, calendar entries, facebook/twitter status updates etc are some of the phone functions. Checking the weather, stock prices etc are other functions.

For the phone functions, the processing is so damn slow that I would never want to use this as a first choice for anything. Not Ziggy’s fault, the same issue is there with Siri too. After all, it needs to process one’s accent first, try to match up with the right words/sentences, understand the question, search out an answer, and dictate it to you or perform the action!

Readers of this post, do put in the comments section, any questions you’d like to ask Ziggy 🙂

My Kindle…

I got my Kindle Wi-Fi 5.5 months back, and I must say this is one of the best investments in technology I have ever made!

I had mentioned in an earlier post that I am not so much of a book reader; but then I am somewhat of a gadget fan. Honestly, I was also getting a bit bored of my Nokia C7 and I was looking for a different kind of e-experience. More so because I had to put up with a daily mockery of my ‘smart’phone running the dying Symbian^3 O/S. Ergo, the Kindle purchase.

This blogpost is purely about my personal experience with the device and what I like/don’t like about it.

When you try looking up on the advantages of a Kindle over a physical book, most online forums will talk about free internet access, downloading stuff on the go, storage capacity, browser, email, music etc. In fact everything else except the actual experience of reading itself. Really strange!

Why would I want my book to do any of those things at all? The whole point of reading a book requires you to stay away from such unwanted distractions after all. For this very reason, I dont fancy the idea of using tablets for reading a book (Of course the strain of reading on LCD screens is another aspect to it)

So here is why I think Kindle is a better experience than a physical book:

1: A kindle, owing to its compact size is easier to handle especially when you just want to curl up on the bed and read. Really thick books make it even more cumbersome to hold in the hand in their hard copy forms and can get quite heavy too. On the other hand, I can just hold my kindle single handedly and navigate through pages. I can curl up on the bed and read, I can even eat my food while I read without a hassle.  

2: Bookmarks – If my hand slips off a book, the book will close off and I will have a tough time figuring out where I stopped. No such worries here. The Kindle will start off at the very page you stopped reading. It will also automatically go into sleep mode, saving the last page read if you are idle. This also completely obviates the need for bookmarks.

3: Print – Some books have really small print, and some have faded print, especially old editions. In a Kindle, you can adjust the font size to your convenience, thereby minimizing any kind of strain to the eye.

4: Dictionary – The in-built dictionary is a huge plus for a Kindle. I don’t have to put in the effort of getting off my bed searching for a dictionary if I am stuck at a word. I dont even want to get started on the effort required to run through the pages to search the word in the dictionary!

5: Highlights – Lovely feature. You can highlight text at the click of a button and all the text you highlight is stored at a single place, so whenever you wan’t to check back you just need to “View all highlights”. On the other hand, imagine running through each and every page of a hard book searching for text you highlighted!

(Not many people would highlight text on books though, I too do it very rarely)
6: Orientation – The kindle is well suited for both left-handed and right-handed people. You can hold the device in any direction you want, portrait or landscape mode as well and simply turn the text orientation accordingly! This is also one of the features that I extensively use.
7: Audio – The Kindle has an audio option, so when you are busy doing other things you can simply set up the audio mode and the Kindle will read out the story to you!

While everything seems perfect with the Kindle, there is just one issue i face, which is not really the Kindle’s fault. The problem is when you convert pdf files to mobi format, a lot of times the text is converted incorrectly (usually just a letter or two is misplaced once in 4-5 pages). Sometimes, unwanted text comes inbetween the pages which makes the page aesthetically unappealing. Of course, if I actually purchase ebooks from Amazon, this issue will never come 🙂

And one more thing, you cannot play games like “Book cricket” with the Kindle, a game where you randomly open up a page in the book and the page number determines your “runs” 🙂

So this concludes my blogpost. Oh yeah, currently I am reading “Guns, Germs and Steel” on the Kindle and I would highly recommend this book to all.

“Two turkeys do not make an Eagle”, but…

…”Two bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, one day decided to fly”

What have been the top two buzzwords in the tech world in the last four days?

No prizes for getting this right – Nokia and Microsoft.

So finally Nokia decides to bite the bullet and admit that the Symbian Operating System is generations behind the rest. In particular, behind the Google Android and the Apple iOS. It was evident from the market share drop of Nokia from 70% a few years ago to just 32% in 2010!

Nokia did realize earlier on that it had to get its act together to remain competitive in the smartphone market. Exactly a year ago, thus was born a very ‘promising’, ‘next-generation’ smartphone platform – the Symbian^3. All the hype and hoopla around the platform fizzed out right after it was released. Yet again, Nokia disappointed and the Symbian^3 came nowhere close to the Android or the iOS in terms of performance.

The Nokia brand itself is never reckoned in any discussion/review of smartphones.  It is indeed quite sad.  

So is the Microsoft deal a last ditch attempt by Nokia to get back into the game? And is Windows Phone 7 really the right way to go?

WP7 was released sometime last October, around the time when I was still figuring out which smartphone to buy. The reviews I had read on this were the worst ever, even worse than any of the Symbian O/S’.

Just to give you an idea, some of the features were:

1: No Multi-tasking

2: No Copy/paste

3: No Videocalling

4: No USB Mass Storage mode??? What the heck???

Of course all the above were supposed to be rectified in later versions, but that’s a different issue.

(Point to note: My Nokia C7, running on Symbian^3 supports all the above and much more.)

Other than these obvious flaws, the WP7 has the Zune Music player for playing Music.  Now I have never used this before, but I have heard enough criticism of the same.

Needless to say, the phone was a huge flop.

Why would Nokia then go with Microsoft? An act of desperation?

Forget MSFT for a bit, what were the other options for Nokia?

a)   Try and improve Symbian and bring it up to the mark with competition –not quite encouraging, given the failed attempts so far.

b)   Go with the Linux based MeeGo Operating System. Well, even as the market was eagerly awaiting a MeeGo operating device, Nokia decided to dump it even before it was given a chance.

c)    Go with Android?!! Ah! Nokia would never swallow its ego and succumb to market pressures and get onto the Google bandwagon! The header of this post  and the war of words says it all. But yeah, even so there could be other issues. One – Nokia may not be comfortable with the open nature of the app market, and the potential security risk, although I have never really heard of any such issue with Android phones. Then every other smartphone manufacturer these days is running Android Phones. Not just the Samsung, HTC and Motorola varieties, but also the Micromaxes, the G’fives, the Lavas and the Lemons. Where will Nokia fit in, in this Android heap?

Nokia was always known for its hardware, its sturdiness and dependability – characteristics that nobody cares much for these days with rock bottom prices of mobile handsets.

Coming back to Microsoft, the deal should be a good one for Microsoft rather than for Nokia. Given the strong brand value that Nokia still commands despite the market share decline, and given Microsoft’s own failure in smartphones, this could be a great opportunity for MSFT. No wonder there was a news article that said “Nokia Corp will get billions of dollars from Microsoft Corp to ditch its current smartphone software in favour of Windows Phone 7”

But what happens to Nokia now, its customers and its app developers? Nokia now has to manage three different eco-systems. Symbian, MeeGo (there is no app system as of now) and WP7. Will they really get all these app developers for all their operating systems? What kind of an app ecosystem does WP7 have at present?

As a customer, would you be interested in buying a Nokia device that comes with WP7? Perhaps a device with Android, I would buy; but I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of money in the untested waters WP7.

Maybe the Nokia-Microsoft deal had a lot more to do with the fact that Stephen Elop was an ex-employee of MSFT.

So will this be a game changer or will Nokia remain a Walking Dead?

I don’t really care; I am now losing faith in Nokia. My next phone will probably be an Icecream Sandwich.

Discovering my C7

Finally I ended up buying C7 instead of the N8. Sleeker looks, almost the same features and value pricing were my decision factors. I was pretty excited about my purchase, this being my first smartphone and first touchscreen handset. The only major difference between C7 and N8 is the camera. While N8 has a 12MP phone with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and Xenon Flash, the C7 is an 8MP one with fixed focus, dual-LED flash blah blah – Well, essentially N8 takes far better pictures than the C7. But I don’t care, my purpose of purchasing a smartphone was not for the camera. The 8MP itself is pretty good actually, just that it doesn’t work as well in low light conditions.

Anyway, coming to the point –

Some of the things I discovered in the phone:

1: Charging through micro USB – I didn’t realize that my phone supported this feature in the last one month I have owned the C7! It is so convenient to actually charge the handset by connecting it to the laptop using the USB data cable. I now don’t need to carry unnecessary accessories like chargers all the time. A 5-inch long cable will do. Incidentally, the European Union has come out with standards for mobile phone manufacturers in Europe that mandate them to make micro USB the standard charger plug for their handsets. Of course, this is applicable only to the signatories of the agreement, which includes Nokia, Apple, Samsung, LG, RIM, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Huawei, Alcatel among others – pretty much covers the entire universe. A welcome move, in my view and hope this thing gets standardized across other countries as well. Not only will it help avoid a lot of inconvenience of carrying different chargers compatible with your handsets, but it will also help reduce all the e-waste.

2: USB On-The-Go – This is essentially a feature wherein you could connect your handset directly to any external storage device like a pen drive and transfer data between the two. Most of the latest smartphones are coming with USB OTG. While the C7 claims to be “USB OTG” compatible, it is a pity that the handset does not come with a micro USB slot unlike the N8 which has one. Which means, I would need to arrange for a cable that can connect the external storage device to the C7.

This made me wonder. Are there any external storage devices that can connect to the host through wireless technology? I couldn’t find much through the internet, although I think there are a few such devices – probably haven’t really taken off yet. Next generation device I’d assume.

3: Bluetooth 3.0 – I recently realized that this is the latest and fastest version of Bluetooth available in the market which my phone has. Some of the other latest handsets such as the Dell Streak, iPhone 4 and the Nexus S are still running Bluetooth 2.0. The difference – v2.0 has data transfer speed of 2mbps whereas v3.0 supports 24 mbps.

4: Radio – My FM radio works on a loudspeaker. Agreed, this is not something extraordinary or worth mentioning, but I love it!

5: Oh and how can I forget my favorite of all – the Swype application which I had mentioned in an earlier post. The Symbian O/S was the first one to get it, can you beat that! Android has just a Beta version. And I got to start using it even before Android users became aware of such an application!

6: Sensors – This is a pretty cool feature actually. If the alarm rings or an incoming call arrives, one doesn’t need to take out the phone from the case, look at the screen and click on ‘snooze’ or ‘silence’. Instead, you can simply turn the phone upside down without even looking at it, and voila! The phone turns silent. Isn’t that amazing?

Alright, I have heaped enough praises on my handset. Now for some negatives:
 

1: The handset is slow to respond at times, especially when turning the orientation from portrait to landscape, it takes several seconds. On other occasions, the handset is so sensitive that when I am on a call, it automatically goes on Hold when my ear touches the screen.

2: Sometimes the phone just hangs – a classic Symbian performance! At one point it was so stubborn, that I had to remove the battery and replace it in order to get it to work.

Update as on 19th Sept 2011:

1:  Symbian Anna installed, icons look pretty cool. Web browser has improved significantly, to such an extent that now I prefer this to Opera Mini. But the browser allows for just three tabbed windows which becomes inconvenient at times.

2: Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled – I haven’t actually used it, but have just seen the demos. This is an absolutely awesome feature I must say and something that the ‘best of em all’ Apple’s iPhone is also not enabled with. Isn’t it cool to be able to transfer data between two mobile phones by just touching them together? That’s exactly what NFC does! I am yet to find someone with a phone with NFC to try it out myself 😦

3: Social networks – Symbian is absolutely pathetic in this area. On Facebook, I cannot ‘share’ posts put up by others. I cannot see who has ‘liked’ a post. I cannot update my profile.
On Twitter, I cannot see posts that I have retweeted or who has retweeted mine.

Smartphones

I had been planning to buy a Smartphone for the last one year or so; am just waiting for my service provider to roll-out 3g operations. So as I was doing my Smartphone research, I came across a lot of new and interesting features in mobile phone technology. I shall just try to list out some of the features that I think would be important in arriving at a purchase decision; sort of like a checklist.

1: Touch screen – I have never owned a touch screen before, but I have tried out the Apple iPhone, and the Nokia 5800 among others. I noticed a stark difference between the two handsets in terms of user experience. I know that you cannot really compare Apples and well, Nokias. But that is not the point. The point is that Apple has a “Capacitive” while Nokia 5800 has a “Resistive” touch screen.

The difference between the two lies in the sensitivity of the screen to touch.

Capacitive screens are quite sensitive and a feather touch is sufficient whereas Resistive screens need greater pressure and the response time is slower. The resistive touch screen works extremely well with a stylus while the capacitive doesn’t and accuracy is generally compromised in this case. The biggest advantage of a resistive screen is the fact that it works with almost anything – fingernails, gloves, stylus or any object as it only senses pressure. On the other hand, the capacitive screen will not work with gloves or inanimate objects. Handwriting recognition is almost an exclusive feature of resistive screens. However, multi-touch response, pinch zoom etc are features not available in a resistive touch screen. Resistive screens are cheaper.

So the decision just boils down to economy and accuracy versus a premium but a great user experience.

2: Operating System – Symbian – OS 9.1, 9.2,….Symbian^2, ^3, ^4, RIM 4.1,4.2,…., Apple iPhone OS 1,1.1,2,….,Android 1.5,1.6,….,Palm 1,1.1,1.2,….,MS Windows Mobile 5,6,….,Phew! Have I missed out any? Now how does one choose the operating system? Frankly, I have no clue. I guess unless I actually use all of these O/S extensively, I cannot make a decision on which is better. In this case even reviews don’t help too much.

While Nokia mostly uses Symbian (few models use the Linux platform), HTC, LG, Samsung all are moving towards Google Android. Apple and Blackberry have their own O/S.

However, one thing that you would observe is the processor speed. Most of the processors are now minimum of 1 GHz, while the Nokia Symbian^3 is still stuck with 680MHz which is quite disappointing.

3: Display – Now this can be quite a technical issue, so I did not really look at this as a criterion at all. The resolution of a display is characterised by the number of pixels (for e.g. 360×640). The higher, the better. The Apple iPhone 4 has come up with the concept of ‘Retina Display’, wherein the pixel density is so high that the human retina cannot physically see the pixels at that level, and hence the resolution is better. Anyway, apart from the pixel stuff, I did look for a scratch resistant, fingerprint proof screen.

4: Input mode – Keypad input or Qwerty. Most phones now allow both. Some of them also have handwriting recognition. Other than these, I came across this really amazing new Input method called Swype. I think the video will explain this concept better.

Samsung Galaxy i9000 has it.

5: Camera – I am not a big fan of camera phones. I have rarely used the camera in my phone. But then I have heard such rave reviews about the camera phone on the Nokia N8; every single reviewer was unanimous in their views on this phone. The camera is touted as being better than even some of the best of digicams.

6: Music – This is an important parameter for me as I listen to music mostly on my mobile phone. So I would look for very high quality speakers, adequate memory, ease of searching and storing files, and of course FM radio. So far, Nokia phones have beaten every other handset maker when it comes to music.

7: Dimensions – Length, Width, Depth and the Weight are often compared parameters between handsets. The slimmer the handset is the sleeker look it portrays. The wider the screen is, the greater the ease of typing and the better the viewing experience.

The comparison is especially inevitable with the iPhone4 which is the thinnest handset available in the market with a depth of just 9.3mm. The closest is the Samsung Galaxy i9000 which has a depth of 9.9mm.

8: Battery life – I wouldn’t worry too much about this, as any mobile phone when used with a lot of apps will require charging at-least once a day. The Apple iPhone is known to be the worst, needing charge every 2-3 hrs of talktime.

9: Apps – I have heard that a Smartphone is only as good as the app market it is associated with. I again do not know much about this as I am yet to own a Smartphone. Apple iPhones are so popular only because of this, as otherwise the iPhone really does not match up to several other brands which are available at better price points. However, some of the apps that I would be interested in are blogger.com (they haven’t come up with an app for any O/S yet), Facebook, Gtalk, email and such basic stuff.

10: Price – I think this should have been the topmost criteria J

Other features that one might look at are Video Calling, USB on the go, GPS (although this is also a given in all smartphones), Storage Capacity and so on.

Oh, one more thing. When you are going for a 3G phone, it is advisable to go for a HSDPA supported handset (equivalent to 3.5g) than a WCDMA, which means HSDPA would be faster.

Ultimately what I have realized is that no single Smartphone has the best of everything, so one need to make compromises on some or the other feature.

Note: I have finally zeroed down to the Nokia N8! (Am a very loyal customer of Nokia). So I get the best music phone around, the best camera phone, and a scratch resistant capacitive touch screen.

Nokia

Nokia – The brand name immediately connects to every one of us who own/do not own mobile phones. Known for its robust design, quality and sturdiness, Nokia was the epitome of trust and reliability when it came to mobile phones. No other model could come even half way close to the immense brand power Nokia had. “Had” is the keyword. Things have changed quite bit in the mobile handset market in the last 3-4 years.

Ten years ago, having a cell phone itself was a luxury and call rates were exorbitant (by Indian standards). Only the white collared professionals had the privilege of owning one. In such a situation, where would one have the luxury of choosing between handsets? It was clearly a service providers’ market where Nokia enjoyed near monopoly among handset manufacturers. 70% was the market share of the mobile giant those days. Would you believe the share has now come down to just 39%!

What exactly happened in the interim period?

1: Call tariffs have fallen sharply over time. From a rate of Rs 16/min for an outgoing call and similar charges for incoming calls as well, we now have call rates as low as 50p per minute. This has resulted in mobile telephony spreading to every nook and corner of the country, thus opening up a huge opportunity for handset manufacturers.

2: There has been a surge in demand for high end phones with value added applications for business as well as personal use. This has brought in a huge competition for smartphones and has attracted the attention of the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers such as Apple and Research In Motion.

Nokia’s strength has always been its robust models, top notch quality, good servicing and a wide distribution network. Call it complacence or lack of foresight, Nokia was never known for its competency in Smartphones. And so when the smartphone market was bombarded with the Blackberries, Iphones and Google’s Android based models, Nokia was completely caught off guard. Launched in 2007, the Iphone became widely popular in India and that is when Nokia decided to get its act together and in response, launched the 5800 Xpress music touchscreen phone in 2008.

(Incidentally, although 5800 Xpress music is touted as the first touchscreen phone of Nokia, the fact is that Nokia was actually far ahead of its competitors in the touchscreen segment. There was a Nokia 7700 followed by 7710 launched as early as 2004 in the market. Misplaced timing it was, and the phones just faded away from memory.)

I have used the Iphone as well as the Nokia 5800 and the touchscreen experience between the two is as vastly different as chalk and cheese. Needless to say, the Apple Iphone is a class apart and generations ahead of Nokia in terms of user experience.

Okay, so smartphones is Nokia’s weak spot. But the smartphone market is still a very very small one compared to the mass market. Data tells that out of the 38.6mn handsets sold in Apr-June 2010, 89% of them were priced below Rs. 4,500. And this precise market is what has led to a flood of handset manufacturers vying for a share of the pie. 35 is the number and counting; 27 of them came into the market in Apr-June quarter alone! Let me try to name a few – Micromax, Maxx, Lemon, Karbonn, Zen, Spice, G’five, and even service provider Vodafone is getting into manufacturing handsets. Vodafone actually came out with the cheapest handset for Rs. 799 a few months back.

Given Nokia’s brand value and reliability, the company continues to seek premium pricing. However, the masses no longer are willing to pay that premium for quality and instead are ready to risk experimenting with newer models. After all, with handsets costing less than 1,000, even for the rural masses changing handsets frequently has become quite a fad.

Especially, since most of these low cost models come bundled with several value added features such as camera, memory slots, music and so on. The other major innovation brought on by the new vendors is the dual-sim technology which has become extremely popular among users. Once again, Nokia was a late entrant into this.

At one end, the handset market has become commoditized to such an extent that Nokia is unable to hold on to its premium brand image; At the other end, there are so many superior smartphone technologies that Nokia lacks significantly behind in terms of innovataion. A double whammy indeed. Nevertheless, Nokia still is the market leader with 39% market share, with the second biggest player Samsung far behind with just around 7% share.

The next big thing in the handset market would be 3G enabled phones; and Nokia really needs to get its act together and prepare itself well ahead of time for the next wave of handsets, to avoid losing market share any further.