Showing posts with label Gadgets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gadgets. Show all posts

Sunday, July 01, 2007

It's out...!!!

iPhone is out to market on Friday 29-Jun-07.

In US iPhone is available in two models prices $499 & $599. Anyone who bought the phone or planning to buy the phone please comment on the product.

Apple is still evaluating the Indian market to bring out the iPhone. Looks like it would take another 6 months for Indian market to get the iPhone. India is a great market for low (to medium) priced cell phones. My gut feel is iPhone should come out with 10K to 15K INR to win Indian market.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Flying Alarm Clock

Flying alarm clock is a new technological invention.

In this digital clock if you set the alarm & when the alarm goes on, a rotor starts from the base (clock) and flies around the room, making a really annoying noise like a mosquito.

One must have to catch the rotor and keep it on the base again to switch off or to snooze the alarm. So there is no escaping from it by simply by pressing a button like in the conventional alarm clocks. There is a danger that you might lose the rotor if you keep the window open and if the rotor finds the way out.

It costs around $36. Check some more details here.

My friend Arasan had a very annoying habit during college days. He would keep his alarm on for 06:00 am almost everyday before he sleeps. When alarm goes on until someone else from adjacent rooms goes and switches off alarm would keep on making an annoying noise. Whereas he would be sleeping peacefully as if there is nothing happening around. I am not sure if this flying alarm clock would wake him up. I am sure that it would help people like me to get up.

What do you think about this gadget? Would it succeed in the market?

Monday, February 05, 2007

Missed Calls

After almost 21 months of my stay in Minneapolis-US, I was just back home at that time. I did not have a cell phone. I had a landline, so I did not feel the real need for a cell phone. This was just before my engagement. People talked about me as if I am a very strange person because I did not have a cell phone. Only then I realized how cell phone had become an integral part of our lives with-in a span of less than 2 years (while I was not in the country...!). Cell phone is okay; a feature in cell phone has become very important in many people's day-to-day lives.

It's been a month now since Apple announced about its product iPhone. While the debates of whether this product will succeed or fail in the market have almost faded away, I had a doubt about a feature in this product. The feature, which has become very important in many people's day-to-day lives. That’s gonna be the deciding factor for many people whether to buy or not.

Apple's portal states that iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone. ...Blah...blah...blah....

All these are okay;

Can I make missed calls using iPhone?

What if iPhone does not have that feature? Say, you dial a number, you can't terminate the call, it has to be answered or rings to the fullest or gets to the voice mail. Would you buy a phone with such feature?

No kidding. I enabled international dialling feature in my phone just to make missed calls. I would leave a missed call to my friends' phone, they would call back (well, most of the time). (You must ask my friend Arasan how much he is spending on phone bill after I enabled ISD in my phone).

This article in Hidustan Times says that Indians are (in)famous for missed calls - communicating without answering the calls. Article lists some points that we Indians communicate effectively through "missed calls".
Points from the article are:
"I'm thinking about you"
"Call me back."
"To let the other person know that someone has reached some place safely"

The article missed out an important point..."To annoy someone" (or read it "To tease your close ones"). Have you ever done that? Are you using 'missed calls' for anything other than this? Please share it, I am sure it would be very helpful to lot of souls.

Article also states that mobile companies are losing money because of 'missed calls' (obviously!). What if mobile companies & phone manufacturers decide to somehow stop this great feature? That's my main worry.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Steno-Rita

Technological innovations help humans improve their productivity. (That’s so obvious, I know. I thought that’s the better way to start this blog). Lately I dreamt of some technological innovations that would aid me to improve my productivity. And my firm belief is that these innovations would definitely help many persons’ lives happy & easy. Well, I admit that they are just ‘nice-to-have’ ones. One such is here and the rest will follow:

Executives and senior management persons would require reading & responding a hundred to thousand mails everyday. Some, who can afford, has personal assistants and stenographers to help them to get this done fast. But many are struggling, slogging and juggling themselves. Whereas they could spend their valuable time in other more productive activities. Steno-Rita, the ultimate software, is dedicated to such people.

Commercial for Steno-Rita goes something like this:
Are you still in the bed, are you eating breakfast, are you travelling long hours to/fro work doesn’t matter where you are. Just call the number assigned to you. Sharp & sweet voice of Steno-Rita will read you the mails in your inbox and takes appropriate actions immediately. Want to reply? Just speak out what do you want send as reply. Steno-Rita converts your voice to letters and drafts the reply and reads back to you for you to proof-read. Literally whatever a steno can do, Steno-Rita can do. Or should I say, whatever a steno is supposed to do, Steno-Rita can do?
Just think of the amount of time you save and the productivity improvement.
Oh yeah, you don’t have to pay compensation every month and don’t have to provide healthcare for this Steno-Rita.

Should I patent Steno-Rita before anyone plagiarizes my idea?