Mobile Spams

Already there are lots of marketing messages that comes to our mobiles but I have seen couple of messages now about winning some dollars or pounds.

High time, we need the spam folder in mobiles too.

EVM

At one end, there was a news saying that a company is demoing the vulnerability of EVM in Hyderabad. And at the other end, there was another news saying that the EVM that was used by the company is a very authentic one which was in fact stolen from some place & so, the MD of the company is in fact arrested for legal reasons:)

In fact the EC is not ready to accept the fact that EVM's can be tampered...

mChek

Ahhh... I have been facing a bit too much trouble with this mChek. I really don't understand how or why they are not making things easy.

• First of all, the SIM is not getting the mChek menu items to my mobile, after activation.
• The customer care execs are of no help. They really are worse.
• Then, I went to the internet to recharge directly.
• I have no idea to which mobile my credit card is already locked into. I tried to delete all the previous accounts on which my credit card would have been used.
• Then I tried my debit card & the response is, to use a card given by an Indian bank...Totally ridiculous.
• Then, I went ahead with another credit card & before I could completely understand if the transaction is complete or not, the recharge went thru. Got no idea, how things are said to be made customer friendly & yet, they are so bad.

Mantra Box

In my house, there is a small white color metal box which is always singing in a very low volume. In fact really a good one because it does chant different, I think around 36, Hindu Matras non-stop. Each mantra is repeated 4 times & it moves on to the next one... A good one!

Taking Kindle - Head On

Recently, I could say that I had a very close encounter to get in touch with Kindle & play with it for a long time to come. But somehow things didn't go as expected & it was more of a disappointment for me. Because, I know there is going to be such a fierce competition for Amazon's Kindle when placed against any other e-book readers which are up-coming. I was in fact very positive that Amazon will go offense - will have to add more value to the product for the money spent & at the same time get the price reduced.
But in the wake of IPAD, I just wonder what is Amazon's winning strategy.

Stolen Mobile?

Well... It seems if your mobile is stolen, you can disable it.
This is what I got to know...
First get your Mobile's serial number - To check the same, key in the following digits on your phone: *#06# A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.
When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
My opinion - Why should we rely on the service provider? I would probably want this to be handled by the mobile company themselves...

Blu Ray... Is it?

I have been waiting to hear this news story for a long time - probably from the time i started blogging - like anyone else in the world... Which format of DVD is gonna win?

Seems like Blu Ray is making its impact. What are the statistics? Sony, Fox & Disney are ardent fans of Blu Ray. Lately, Warner Bros attached themselves to Blu. With that goes all of HBO & New Line. Blockbuster has now its word for Blu Ray. The remaining majors are Universal & Paramount pictures including Dreamworks. With Universal also claiming that their exclusive commitment to Toshiba's HD DVD is ending, in no time Blu Ray will be all over.

Blu Ray better got to start working on customer friendly features on top of its heavy storage capability.

What More in a Mobile?

Yesterday I was seeing Nokia N95 and was having discussions with my friends on what more...

• To start with, N95 can be just upgraded only to 4GB. When iPod's are having 60GB we can't accept only 4GB upgrades. Cell phones should come to a level to replace external hard drives in short.
• Battery life need to be increased considerably.
• Along with GPS, it should start acting more like Satellite phone.
• We should be able to watch live television programs by directly linking it to satellites.
• Cell phones should in short replace laptops.
• They should have bio-thumb scanning, voice scanning, eye scanning to be accessed.
• An in built mirror
• Projector
• A credit card storer - initially to store those external credit cards & get back the ones which we need. But later the cell phone should itself become credit cards - Just store the codes to act as Visa, Mastercard, Amex or whatever. The customer selects what he wants to swipe/scan and that happens.
• An compact optical disc custom built for mobiles only which stores info, videos, movies...
  
• Looks like I can patent some of them:)
  

LG 'n Warner - Better DVD Choices...

What I See...: Next Gen DVDs & their Early Adopters!
What I See...: A War on DVD!!

Warner Bros & Paramount are coming up with the DVD disc format called Total Hi-Def, which can be played in HD-DVD or BluRay DVD players. That's super cool. I guess, every other production firm will eventually end up doing the same. GM, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Universal - You guys need to help the consumers, I guess!

Well, at the other end LG is opening up a DVD player which can play both the HDDVD & Blu Ray formats. Now, that truly is a great business strategy. I'm just hoping LG will find better market than Sony, Hitachi, Philips or Toshiba. Instead of a consumer buying one format or the other DVD Player, the major group will feel to be on the safer side by buying LG's new upcoming model. So, does this LG's model play Total Hi-Def format?:)

Shuffle

An email at my inbox. That is yet another gadget from Apple called iPod Shuffle. If I compare mine with that, mine is too bulky:)

I should really appreciate Apple's strategy. The right time to introduce this product into the market for the upcoming holiday season, the same 1GB, the same shuffle features, the smallness and the price tag - USD79/-. Check it out.

Playful Holidays...

The long awaited holiday season for this year is almost here. Two months down the line, we'll have the new set of gadgets and the big ones expected are the Zune & PS3.

PS3 had been on the pipe line for a long time. And the advantage is its 60GB version being compatible with that of Blu-Ray DVDs. PS3 is already one year behind XBox 360 and has already lost a good percentage of the market. Now, the question is can it make a great entrance as their PS2?

Blu-Ray has been in the market more time than its competitor HD-DVD. People who would have bought Blu-Ray DVD players won't really wait for PS3's advantage on the same. Also, if people who have bought HD-DVD may probably go for XBox360 foreseeing some future compatibility.

And now, Microsoft has made the announcement of XBox360's compatibility with HD-DVD discs. This add-on drive for USD 200/- is also coming by mid-november right for the time of holidays. And the conference with Peter Jackson would sure have its own positive impact on HD-DVD & XBox360's new add-on drive.

So, probably HD-DVD will have better chances this holiday & that would probably put down the sales for PS3!! What say, Sony?

Burning Recall

Well, the recalls from most of the companies have been painful. What else, the notebook recall. Dell's notebooks started burning. Then last week, Lenova's too. Most of the companies have joined in the recall of their units. Even Apple, Toshiba & Fujitsu adding up the total to around like 7 million books... And I guess HP's recall has nothing to do with this.

And the culprit is Sony! Sony batteries have got all the bad names because of the short circuits, burns & explosions. So, is it time for a transition from Sony to Sanyo or Panasonic? Can the competitors promise a better product? Will it be a fast transition? What'll happen to all the losses which the whole industry has been experiencing? Or can Sony retain these businesses with a much better, reliable & quality battery?

Even otherwise, will these bad quality have effect on other Sony's products? May be this'll have some effect on PS3 sales!!!

In Comes A Third Party...

Let's put the previous topic on roll. Not from WalMart's perspective but from China & WalMart's influence over the area! A related news article reads,

"A few days ago 11,000 factory workers employed by a Metron toy manufacturing plant in Dongguan, Guangdong, with sales to US companies like Disney, McDonald’s, Mattel and Hasbro, went on strike. Many of them threw stones and clashed with police—riot vehicles were sent in to control the situation and dozens of workers were arrested."
-- AsiaNews

The reason behind being, exploiting laborers with low pay and inhuman working conditions! And WalMart have always been on the similar kind of talk for long time - Why just in Asian countries, but in Americas too where the regular complaints are that the employees work without proper lunch timings and with improper health insurance benefits.

What has changed now is, a section of WalMart's employees in China are part of a Union! All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), a government backed trade union has come into terms with the retailer to make their employees part of their union! Is it good for WalMart or for any foreign-funded company? If things work productive enough, this is sure good in terms of humanitarian basis.

At the same time, is WalMart hinting employees in Americas & Canada to get into Union too? BTW, what happened to the labor charges of the China's iPod factory?

More Burns...

Some 'Anonymous' had asked me a question on buying a Dell Notebook! Well, we already know the incident of Dell Notebook burning. So, whoever you are, you better learn the latest facts about the Dell notebooks. All you need to do is visit these two links...

• The Inquirer (With the relevant photos!!)&
• CRN

Doesn't look like a good sign for Dell, the largest seller of Notebooks... May be Google is still reconsidering its Deloogle deal:)

Bigger & Leaner..

I don't know if they are more like distractions, but sure they are good way of advertising. What I'm talking about is, all those colorful video projections as bill boards advertising auto centers near the freeways! My goodness, they are really huge. And Matsushita announced that it is getting business orders for the largest Plasma TV, it is planning to deliver in early 2007.

The specs are like Panasonic 103 Inch (much more than their present 65 inches I guess) with a whooping 413Lbs.... Definitely not for consumer use or may be we need some designer tables to hold that weight alone:). Well ofcourse, consumers may have to surround the TV with an Air Cooler set:)...

So, as we know, the usual concerns on a Plasma TV will be more than doubled - The heat the TV is going to generate and the static images that may get burnt on the screen. A major concern with be life span. Because, what we are talking about is bill boards and probably projections in public transportation depots, where the TV may be running for almost 24 hours!

Being, the leader of this Plasma TV market I guess Matsushita could afford to get those big ones out before anyone else! Well, at the same time they are also proving that they are yet another Japanese company with cutting edge advancements in the cost cutting processes in their factories. They are doing the max like layout changes, reduce cycle time & change over time, inventory reduction and such changes are consistently showing increase in productivity!

" It used to be 2 1/2 days into a production run before we had our first finished product. But now the first is done in 40 minutes"
-- Quotiting Hitoshi Hirata, Plant Manager from BizWeek!

They just added one more term into Lean Technology - Quick In & Out! BusinessWeek reports!

Unknown 'T'...

Have you ever read the book called 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins? Really a good one. Even otherwise, this book introduces the Hedgehog concept which basically gives an idea on how a company should invest and progress in the field of its expertise. So, here are the three circles on which a company should analyze itself.

• What you are deeply Passionate About?
• What you can Be the best in the world at?
• What drives your Economic Engine?

Such a good idea to think about and put into theory! Because, on a day to day basis when we think about the current day companies things don't work much in that fashion. We can take ofcourse Google for example, a comparatively newer company, is rocking and expanding its tentacles on all directions where its core business has nothing to do!

Alright, atleast Google is experimenting and is understandable. But what surprises me is the big leader in the auto industry - Toyota have a set of businesses which have nothing to do with its auto business. Kind of weird too - Housing, Roof Gardens.... Check out these set of slides!

"Toyota controls dozens of businesses that have virtually nothing to do with automaking, ranging in size from resort developer Nagasaki Sunset Marina (77% owned by Toyota), with just five employees, to Toyota Financial Services Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary with 8,000 workers and $1.7 billion in operating profits in fiscal 2005."
-- BusinessWeek

Well, all the relevant businesses are making profits. And the technology & processes from one business is being used for another. Like as stated at the BizWeek article - The Sweetpotatoes are used for making bio-degradable plastics to be used in car. The house building process uses the famous Toyota Production System - Pull System!

Likewise, the auto's remote controlled opening is used for opening houses! I guess, this may have to be seen carefully. Once I had been to my friend's house and my car was parked in front of house. One of the small kids was playing with my keys! If you can guess it - My car doors got unlocked and the worst case scneario is, my car key has the functionality to open windows remotely:)

When I was browsing through more of such slides, ran into one more. I did write about the Nokia N-Gadget N93 series phone. And now, Nokia is coming up with too many cool Designer Phones!

Gadgets...

As I was travelling around to different places over the weekend, I came across a variety of cool gadgets. They actually meet different sectors of customers. Once again, they are all 'want' based and for me, they are all sophistication taken to heights.

DigiMemo 692 - For persons, who would prefer to write on papers but still want to transfer the details to computer. So, its a notepad with built in memory. I should say, this is almost like a tablet PC except that the writing is done in paper with the specialized pen and the contents are digitized as they are written down. Check out more details!

iCuiti's iWear - With all the video uploads going on around and iTunes making too many deals with the TV show & movie producers, more & more videos are making their way into the customer's world in different digital forms. With iTunes video downloads, Video iPod has been gaining momentum, but don't you feel the screen is too small to watch them. Here comes the solution. The iWear shows the videos as personal 36" home theatre screen! Available in Skymall! But is this worthy to carry? Probably for flight travel alone I guess...

Visiball - Check out what purpose this product serves! Do people really buy/need this glass to search Golf balls in the turf? I guess the customers for this product can be counted in hundreds:)

9625CG/G - May be people will prefer to have this. This is nothing but a cell phone signal booster if you have low signals in & around your house/office. This sure addresses the day to day issue for many customers, because we always hear people complaining about low signal, dropped calls and calls ending in direct voice mails. But, the problem is the price! Unless, we do big time business, it's not worthy to invest like USD 250 to 300 for this equipment. Don't you agree?

V-Phone - And here is an alternative to landline & cell phone. Well, we need computer & internet connection though! Vonage's VOIP business model is built on the basics of replacing land lines. And this new product (yet to be released into the market) is kind of more than a stand alone landline replacement. Because, this USB device key chain product can be carried with us. All we need to do is plug into any computer & talk. It is a long term cost trade off - Is it worth to replace a cell phone (including handset, activation, monthly/minute fee) and a landline phone (equipment, monthly charges) with V-Phone (Computer, internet connection charges, V Phone Stick, activation etc). May be not! ABC has more details on the same.

Are NoteBooks Too Hot?

Noone knows what has happened exactly and Dell is trying to investigate the incident. But if you see the article in The Inquirer, you'll know this ain't good!

What can the possible reasons? May be the fan at the bottom with too much of dust? Or the batteries, which always get over heated. We did see HP pulling off some of the batteries from the market!

Whatever it is, Dell has to act fast. Because, market shouldn't feel that they are getting really very poor quality products for all the discounted sales from Dell. The business model can be great for cost cutting, but the quality matters. No sales means No Business!

Well, may be Google have to reconsider their deal with Dell:)!

Car With 'Brains'

How does it sound if we get a car which 007 gets? Hmm... Probably, it's a over call:)! Alright, not needed to that extent, but certain things are not a distant future & yet not reachable!

For me, this has been going on for quite sometime, when I see different ads from different biggies! Like the latest one from Toyota Yaris, which puts its tongue out to catch some iPod, chews it and spits it out - Representing that it is MP3 players compatible! Well, how about just putting all the songs in the car itself! I mean, why not a hard drive inside the car so that I can load all the songs I have into it! I don't need to have a CD, Mp3 player, Cassette player or for that matter some car adapters!

All Nissan cars do lots of calculations and keeps giving information to the drivers like the Mileage, how many more miles can the car go with the available gas and much more. So, why not the car do much more anaysis & probably advice the driver on how his driving is and where he can improve! Well, may be even the car itself can make some inner mechanism changes for optimum use of gas!

And we know that cars change their inner temperatures based on the climatic change outside! Even the use of coolant & battery can be optimized! And probably go ahead and advice the driver & passengers seperately to maintain their individual seat temperatures for best performance of the engine!

When the GPS systems are used to find directions and drive around, they also do make some decisions now a days - Based on the currently available 'Live Traffic' information, they do make some alternate routes. May be, this should also be advanced enough to make a trade off decision if it is worth to make that alternate route considering the gas usage - in the traffic jam or the extra miles of free traffic!

Well! Is that it? Consider the OnStar facility at a GM car! I mean, this is cool because I saw the live demo of my car being opened by some person remotely located in some other city! And added to that, ofcourse my car will transmit information to the service department if something goes wrong! Well, the car can sure give the driver such kind of information and provide the probability of things going wrong, so that the driver has the discretion to make the decision!

What more! Well, imagine you are in a long drive! You are thinking about making a stop over in an hour for food! How about some in built computer where we have online access, look for Pizza Hut at our stopover and place an online order itself!

I ain't asking a lot! These are all already there, but not everything is in the affordable ones! Or Are they?

Beyond Need :)

At one end of the world, there are always starvations & deaths! At another end, people create things, innovate & invent based on needs. And then, there are some products which people want to have. Well for this day, probably Apple's iPod is a want- It can be seen as one best entertainer for an average New York Subway commuter!

The product release I saw today is much more than those! Guess, people can't answer the questions of "Do we need it? Or atleast, do we want it?" I guess such kind of products go to those people who don't know how to spend their money! Check out the picture. Still wondering what it is? Check out it's complete specs here!

Haha! I don't know which way to define it - An iPod docking station with a Loo Roll Dispenser with moisture-resistant speakers? - For peaceful/mind blasting/soothing music Shittttting!??