The plus factor

Don’t miss another soap, just get DTH with pause and record
I have come to realise that there is nothing decent on TV on your off day and there is nothing good when you are back home in the evening. But there are some wonderful programmes when you are about to leave for office, or when it is too late for you to stay up. For years I have been toying with the idea of a personal video recorder at home. But this idea had its problems—one, I can only record what I am watching; two, if I am already watching, why would I want to record it. So when Tata Sky Plus was launched, I got myself a unit. Here’s what happened.

For starters, everything had to be installed once again—the old cable ripped out, two new cables put in its place, the old dish replaced with a new one. The silver Tata Sky box and grey remote gone, I had a new black box with shiny LEDs, the same card, and a new black remote in my hands. In place of the earlier 60-cm dish, Tata Sky now uses a 65-cm one, as well as a SHARP LNP to increase your reception quality, especially when it is raining. You need two wires since there are two tuners built into the box—one each for recording and viewing.

Like any geek, my first impulse was to look behind the box. There was an S-Video Out, a Component Out, a modem, an Ethernet port and even a USB port, though the last three are not of much use now.

The unit comes with a 160GB hard disk, good enough to record about 45 hours of programming. I had the 160GB used up in the first week itself—you then have the option of overwriting the oldest viewed recordings. You can upgrade the hard disk on your own, but it’s better to just get rid of viewed programmes. I also liked the feature that protects your recordings using a PIN. The recordings also include programme info and duration. You can set the recording to start 2 to 5 minutes before the programme and end after a similar gap, just in case programmes start a bit early. However, you can’t record radio or interactive channels.

The scheduler is nice, but despite the company’s claims, listings are available only for some channels, and that too for a maximum of 24 hours. I have also not been able to use the series link function that allows you to plan and record an entire series automatically. You can switch to live TV from recording with just a click, though at times the unit goes blank for a couple of minutes after this.

The new Menu is slower than that of the old Tata Sky, since programmes are being recorded as you watch to enable pause, rewind and resume. The rewind option is limited to the point where you started watching the channel. Though pause is a wonderful feature, it ends up making the whole unit slow. But the best feature is the power to skip through the advertisements in a recorded programme—I finished a 30-minute serial slot in about half the time, that is how much content there actually is.

New users will have to pay Rs 8,999 for the Plus, but it’s still a great buy.

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on the 23rd of November 2008

A GPS navigator for my car

It’s not perfect, but the GPS device from MapMyIndia does a decent job of telling you how to reach any placeIt’s not perfect, but the GPS device from MapMyIndia does a decent job of telling you how to reach any place
I don’t like rolling down my car window to ask for directions, but, yes, I have driven in circles and made stupid excuses for reaching late and yelled at people who stick political posters on maps and road signs. Now there is a solution. Actually, it has been there for quite some time.

A typical day for me involves meetings with customers, and I have to travel extensively since Delhi is now growing into the NCR, spread over towns in adjoining Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Finding an address is often difficult, and even if you roll down the window to ask for directions, the left turns and right turns will just leave you driving in circles again.

So, I started using a GPS about seven years ago when there were no online maps for India. This was before Maps of India, MapMyIndia, Sat Guide and other companies came along. Before we realised, the market was flooded with GPS, pseudo GPS and even mobile phones promising to help you locate places quicker.

Two weeks back I bumped into Rakesh Verma, founder of mapmyindia.com. After a long chat, I asked him to send over a unit so that I could test it firsthand. A week later, I had a brand new GPS unit installed in my car.
The first day, (I had not bothered to read the manual), I could not get it right. But, I knew it had to work. Later, I took the GPS on trips in the NCR and then to Himachal. I even packed it for a trip to Mumbai and used it in the cab. And it worked. I don’t like rolling down my car window to ask for directions, but, yes, I have driven in circles and made stupid excuses for reaching late and yelled at people who stick political posters on maps and road signs. Now there is a solution. Actually, it has been there for quite some time.

A typical day for me involves meetings with customers, and I have to travel extensively since Delhi is now growing into the NCR, spread over towns in adjoining Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Finding an address is often difficult, and even if you roll down the window to ask for directions, the left turns and right turns will just leave you driving in circles again.

So, I started using a GPS about seven years ago when there were no online maps for India. This was before Maps of India, MapMyIndia, Sat Guide and other companies came along. Before we realised, the market was flooded with GPS, pseudo GPS and even mobile phones promising to help you locate places quicker.

Two weeks back I bumped into Rakesh Verma, founder of mapmyindia.com. After a long chat, I asked him to send over a unit so that I could test it firsthand. A week later, I had a brand new GPS unit installed in my car.
The first day, (I had not bothered to read the manual), I could not get it right. But, I knew it had to work. Later, I took the GPS on trips in the NCR and then to Himachal. I even packed it for a trip to Mumbai and used it in the cab. And it worked.

So, what’s the verdict?So, what’s the verdict?
There is still time before you should go out and buy it. If you are an early adopter of technology then it is great to own this GPS device, especially since mapmyindia.com updates its maps every four months.

But, I did face a few maps, some of them very funny.
*On a flyover, the GPS suddenly tells me to turn left or right. The GPS can tell if you are higher than ground level. But I don’t think this unit was programmed and it didn’t know if I was on the road under the flyover or on the flyover.
*It was not able to detect a lane 80 metres from my house it kept assuming I was on the same lane.
*It runs Windows CE which is making it slow. At times you turn left, and know it is the correct direction, but the GPS is stuck and keeps asking you to turn right.
*The built-in bluetooth hands-free is horrible.
*There is no way to see alternate routes and difference in distances.
*Time to reach a destination does not update as accurately as it should — the GPS knows the speed of your car and can calculate distance.
*Switching on takes about three minutes, the time taken to lock on to the satellite.
*The battery life is really bad, I could not get more than 30-45 minutes on a full day’s charge. That is when I realised that you have to use it with the car charger plugged. That way the moment you turn off the engine, the GPS shuts down as well.
*The touchscreen is a nice feature. However, other keys are a little hard to press and the keyboard is a bit too small. The service should know that Marg means road, for now you have to type road in place of the Hindi name.

Still, overall, it is a nice product, though with some shortcomings. The problem is that MapMyIndia is a map maker and not a product maker—the unit is from Delphi. Maybe they need to use a different hardware. But the maps are done well, and you can actually search and reach the destination.

The model I tested, MapMyIndia Navigator NAV300, is priced at Rs 22,900, including unlimited updates of the maps.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on the 16th November 2008.

Phishing Lessons

No, I did not make a spelling mistake in the headline. I spelt it right: ‘phishing’, some of you might have already heard it, is something you could be on the receiving end of if you are not careful. Today, I will tell you about phishing and how you can save yourself from an attack.

What really is a phishing attack?
To put it simply a phishing attack is an e-mail, sent to you purportedly from your bank, asking you to reset your password by clicking a link in the mail. Once my uncle got a mail from his bank saying his account had been hacked. The mail asked him to visit a website and re-enter his username and password to reset his account and make sure that the hackers don’t siphon away money. After some discussion I convinced my uncle that his account had not been hacked into and he was just on the receiving end of an unsuccessful phishing attack.

By definition, phishing is a type of deception designed to steal your valuable personal data, such as credit card numbers, e-mail IDs, passwords or bank data. The mail can originate from what will appear to be an authorised sender, your social networking site or a fake website, and come even on your instant messenger or cell phone.

What does a phishing attack look like?
Regular e-mail users might have already noticed subjects or mails with messages such as:

“Verify your account”, “You have won the lottery”, “If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed”, “Security advisory”, “2008 A-category results” and the like. You could even receive an e-mail from your bank, software vendors, or an online portal asking you to update your credit card information. Never respond to such mails.

Then there is the advance fee fraud, popularly known as the lottery scam. These are mails, often attributed to companies like Yahoo and Microsoft, claiming you have won an obscene amount of money, and asking for an advance fee so that they can transfer the lottery amount in your name. Well, the world is not such a simple place.

So how do you protect yourself?
We are always in a hurry, the world demands us to be that way. It is this sense of urgency that the scamsters want to exploit, they want you to respond immediately without thinking. A phishing mail can even go to the extent of saying that if you do not take action in the next 24 hours your account will be frozen. Just stay calm. Call your bank/vendor and make sure they have asked for this information. If they say they have not sent any mail, just delete it.

But there are a few other things you should do. First get the latest version of an antivirus and Internet security suite— please don’t buy a pirated CD. Download/buy original software from www.symantec.com, for Norton Antivirus, or www.avg.com for AVG. These software have anti-phishing filters built in, and will alert you the moment it detects phishing. This is one good reason you should have a legal antivirus, a legal genuine software, and the latest patches.

If you don’t want to spend money, get yourself either the latest version of Internet Explorer from www.microsoft.com or download the latest version of Firefox from www.mozilla.com
—both have an internal anti-phishing engine built in to alert you when you are on a site that steals data. However, the most important prevention is not to take a rash decision, or answer to the e-mails in a hurry.

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 9th November 2008

Converting VHS to DVD, the easy way

As technology advances, a lot of stuff we had grown used to gets left behind. Remember film cameras, vinyl LPs and VHS tapes? They were the rage at one time, but have now become just memories.

A lot of my readers have sent me e-mails asking how to convert VHS tapes into DVDs. But I have always shied away from this topic since it involves a lot of complexity. Then, Eureka!, one morning I just woke up with a simple idea on how to do it. And here it is, the easy way to convert VHS to DVD.

This is what do you will need:
*Pinnacle Video Transfer
*USB hard disk
*PC with a DVD writer, Windows XP or Windows Vista
*The Film Machine software
*Some patience and time

I have in the past reviewed the Pinnacle Video Transfer and if you have not bought it till now, this is another reason for you to buy it. The gadget, now available easily across India at a cool price of Rs 9,000, not only records your TV/DVD to a USB hard disk but will also record any video that you have in composite or S-Video.

So how do we get started?
*Get the Pinnacle Video Transfer connected to your VCR
*Connect an External USB hard disk to the Pinnacle
*Load the tape that you wish to transfer to DVD
*Now press the centre button on your Pinnacle Video Transfer and play the tape, the contents of the tape are now digitised and stored on the hard disk in MPEG4 format
*After the playback of the movie is finished stop recording on the Pinnacle.
*Disconnect the hard disk from the Pinnacle Video Transfer and connect it to your PC, move the file you just created to your PC
*In case you just wanted to save the file, so that your rotting VHS Tapes and VHS Player can now be history, your job is done. You can double click the file and watch it on the player of your choice.

The tricky part comes if you want to convert this file into a DVD. You should have a DVD writer in your PC and a good software like The Film Machine (TFM), which you can download from http://members.home.nl/thefilmmachine. The software is about 29 MB in size. Though it is not a fancy looking piece of software, its functionality and the fact that it’s free are great reasons to have this conversion software.

Install TFM and make sure you read the manual on the site. Fire up TFM, select the file you saved, press Next and select where the output file will be saved. Select output type MPEG2 if you are creating a DVD and MPEG1 in case you are creating a VCD.

Select the AC3 Encoder you want to use, stick with 4:3 as the aspect ratio and leave other options on default. Press Next, and make sure you select “don’t burn DVD” as I don’t’ really like this part of the software. Fire up, and let it convert the file from MPEG4 to DVD format.
Now all you need to do is, fire up the DVD burner software that came with your DVD writer. In case you don’t have one, you can download a free version from http://www.deepburner.com/ and use it to burn this file into a DVD. You can now enjoy your favourite classics on DVD and relive old celluloid memories.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 2nd November 2008

Time to help the Innovators

Einstien in every House
LAST WEEK India launched Chandrayaan-I, the country’s first unmanned mission to the moon and a statement of our technological prowess. This week I am going to tell you about the unconventional way we Indians do things—the quintessential Indian jugaad and the wonderful innovations that come out of it. I will tell you about a washing machine that does not need electricity, a cellphone charger that works using a micro-windmill and a timer-based switch that cuts off a two-wheeler engine. No, I am not talking of ideas, but innovations that are being churned out at the grassroots level.

This week at TieCon2008 in New Delhi, I got to meet Vishnu Swaminathan, the Chief Innovation Officer of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF). I had a one-on-one chat with him on how we, as urban dwellers, entrepreneurs, and people with ideas can work with the NIF to take things forward. We spoke about inventions that don’t come from universities, or research labs, but from knowledge-rich poor people, who innovated because there was a need to. What they need right now is people who can make these ideas commercial.

Remya Jose’s washing machine which works when you pedal the exer-cycle might not work commercially, because those of us in the cities who need to lose weight don’t wash our clothes ourselves, and the rural poor who need to wash their clothes might not want to lose their weight along with it. But what it needs is someone who can maybe take the idea of a cycle-cranked washing machine and change it into a hand-cranked machine which, with a few spins of a handle, cleans your clothes, that too without any electricity. Similarly, N Satyanarayan’s micro-windmill may be great to generate 1Ampere current that can charge many of our devices. But I think it needs to be modified so we can use it as an all-in-one charger for all devices, with multiple tips and voltages, which can be mounted on your balcony with a cable running into your room.

As children we all had our own ways of doing jugaad. But society taught us to become doctors, engineers or lawyers, and this kept us away from innovation, took away our scientific temperament. A look at the NIF database and you get to know what you missed out on. It lists over a thousand innovations even we could have thought of. From making the cycle-rickshaw a geared machine to Tukaram Verma’s Rs 175-contraption which cuts off two-wheeler engines, these creations tell us it is time we also got thinking or at least supported the good innovators. Remya, Satyanarayan and Tukaram must get their due credit before someone steals their ideas.

This is where you have to see the NIF team’s passion and zeal to get these innovations to the masses. And the NIF does all this for free, as it is an NGO funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and run by a bunch of academicians, who are really connected to the cause.

If you think you have an idea, or know someone who has one that you think will work, you can inform the National Innovation Foundation at 1800-233-5555, an all-India toll-free number, or through its website www.nif.org.in. Soon, someone will get in touch with the innovator, and who knows it could be the next big thing to happen to us.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday October 26, 2008

Review Lacinema Premier - Your Giant Media Vault

An affordable option to store movies, photos, songs and play them on the telly

ONE OF my customers called me in the middle of the night. He had just returned from an African safari and wanted to show his pictures to family and friends on his 70" LCD television. But there was a glitch. The cable that connects his camera to the TV was missing. He wanted to know whether he could burn the pictures on a DVD and show it using his DVD player. But finding someone to convert the pictures into DVD movie format would not have been possible by brunch the next day, when he was expecting his friends. To make matters worse, his DVD player did not have a USB drive input, so the option of saving the pictures on a pen drive was out. Anyway his player did not support JPEGs. My friend had to put off his show.
Here was a problem any of us could face with the amount of media—movies, music, pictures—that we tend to acquire these days. And I think I have found a solution, though not the best.
Earlier this month, LaCie, known for its external drives, launched LaCinema Premier external media drive in India. The lightweight matt finish plastic box comes with a power adapter, remote control, manual, USB cable and a video/stereo RCA cable to connect it to the TV. My MacBook was unable to save content on the drive and I figured out that by default it was formatted using an NTFS file system, not the default on Mac. So I had to reformat the drive before I dragged about 10 GB of pictures, MP3s, downloaded YouTube videos and encoded DivX movies into it. To make sure that the media detection feature worked, I put all files in a single folder— but you can have as many folders as you want.
When I finally hooked it to my TV, it had no display. I realised that the USB was still plugged in and you couldn't play anything on the LaCie while transferring data to it. Soon, I had some songs playing through my TV speakers. But the interface was bad and the only thing I could see was a timer which showed how much of the song had played, along with a playlist.
I went back to the homescreen which has icons for movies, music, pictures, browse and settings. I selected movies and immediately it listed all Mpeg and MP4 DivX files, though the podcasts and YouTube videos didn't play. I downloaded the latest firmware from the LaCie website and updated the unit, but still no luck. I gave up on the podcasts and turned my attention to the DivX which played normally, though there was some trouble forwarding/rewinding the videos.
The picture viewing was good and the slideshow worked. But I tried out only JPG format. It also played most music formats except music bought on iTunes.
The LaCinema is available in 500 GB and 1TB capacities and ships with a 2-year warranty. The 500 GB version costs Rs 12,500 and the 1 TB version Rs 17,500. It is usually available with computer hardware retailers. Buy it if you are an early adopter of technology, but if you are seriously looking to link your digital media with the TV, this is not the ideal option.

Good
The Box is Small and Easy to Carry
The Remote is nicely laid out
Affordable

Bad
Supports only limited formats
You can't read and write to the drive at the same time
As there is no Ethernet port, you can't update/download content directly from the Internet

Ugly
There is no HDMI Port on the device, though it supports 1080 on component video out
An additional SD Card slot or a USB port would have made it easier to transfer files to the drive
They could make the USB the host port, so that it can read/copy information from digital cameras and other devices
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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 19th October 2008

Living with the acer aspire one

A month ago, I fell prey to buying what my wife calls a “mini dumb laptop”. I use a powerful Mac Book, and she uses the latest Core 2 Duo processor-based machine. Between us we have 3 GB of RAM in our laptops, and large capacity hard disks, mine is a 13.3” display and hers a 12.1”. So why on earth did we opt for a so-called small wonder.

My company installs complicated wireless networks and often I have to get my hands dirty on the field. As my white Mac could not take the beating any more, I thought of picking up a 15” laptop for my on-the-road work. But the thought of carrying a second laptop—I need both when I travel—in my bagpack made me ensure that I didn’t end up adding more weight.

My needs were simple, the machine should weigh about 1 kg, have a battery time of at least two hours, should run Linux—Yes, I am a Linux guy, but Windows, too, will do—should be decent looking, and have both a wireless and a wired network device. A webcam would be nice, and a built-in microphone so that I can chat with my team using just the laptop.

My options were limited to the HP Mini Note (brilliantly made, but costing around Rs 40,000), the Asus Eee PC (the original 4GB Flash Drive version is now available for about Rs 14,000 and comes with a 2GB SD card thrown in for free) the MSI Wind, the Dell Mini and the Acer Aspire One. A few showroom visits later, I was still mulling the Idea Pad U110 from Lenovo, though I was in no mood to spend the price of a Tata Nano on a laptop that I would rarely use.

The only machine that lived up to expectations was the HP Mini Note, but it was too pricey. I loved the mouse clicks—they have put one on the left and one on the right—and the silver finish. But that was when I saw the Blue Aspire One, with its orange reflective trims, plastic keyboard and mouse keys similar to HP, though a little small. I fired up the machine and it had a Tux Linux built-in (a Chinese import), which was not going to work for me. So I ended up buying the same laptop with Windows XP Home preloaded for an additional Rs 2,000I spent Rs 25,000 on the machine, got it home and asked my tech head to reformat the machine and install Ubuntu Linux and Windows on multiple partitions.

It has since become my machine of choice at home. I use it to check my emails over the weekend, do Skype video conferences with my family across the globe, update my blog, and even some research. I am a big guy, so the keyboard is a tad bit small for me. But it is nicely laid out and I love the fact that the Page Up/Down keys have been placed right next to the arrow keys.

The webcam just about works, and the microphone is good, but the speakers leave a lot to be desired. I managed to get about two-and-half hours on a Windows run, and about three hours on a Linux run (yes, Linux also consumes lesser power). Getting the wireless to work in Ubuntu was a bit of a pain. And, in case you love to install things, you should buy an external CD Drive.

The three USB Ports, a dedicated SD Card slot, and a multi-card reader make the machine versatile, the built in Ethernet port and wireless are good, though the switch for turning off the wireless is not all that nice. The mouse is not as good as the HP Mini Note, but is much better than that of the MSI Wind or the EeePC.

The biggest problem I encountered was with the 1024x600 display. Most sites today are designed for 1024x800, so Yahoo’s new interface on email and the Gmail interface won’t load up and my corporate website looked a bit skewed.

I don’t think the machine will be able to play a lot of games as the graphic speed is not very high. I managed to crash Firefox every time I had more than eight tabs open in Windows, for the machine has just 1GB RAM. Upgrading RAM is not recommended as the whole machine would have to be taken apart.

But still if you are planning to buy a laptop, mostly for web browsing and checking mail, and if mobility, and not speed, is what you are looking for, then do check out the Atom machines. The prices are going to fall soon, making them more more attractive. As of now, the cheapest Acer Aspire One model comes for Rs 19,999 + taxes.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday October 12, 2008

HOW TO CUT DOWN ON YOUR INTERNATIONAL PHONE BILL WITH SKYPE

I don’t think there are a lot of people who have not heard of Skype. But they don’t use it either because they don’t really want to switch on their computer to make a phone call or because they don’t realise how much money it can save them.
So how does a person like you save money on calls without having to keep your PC on always, then hunt for a microphone and speakers and to make sure they are all fine-tuned so that your call can go through.

Alternative 1: Get yourself a Windows smart phone with Wifi built in. Browse to www.skype.com and download the version for your smartphone, login to Skype and get the Skype ids of those you want to call. I would not suggest using Skype on GPRS, but if you have Wifi at home and a Windows Mobile, this is the best and the fastest method to go online. Remember that when you are making a Skype call, you can either use the Bluetooth hands-free or use the set of speakers and microphone built into your phone.

Alternative 2: Get yourself a Skype phone. Netgear, Linksys and Belkin sell it across India now. The cheapest is a Belkin phone priced at about Rs 8000; Linksys and Netgear retail at about Rs 12,000—in the US, these cost just half as much. Buy the wireless variety; the wired one will require you to switch on your PC. Your phone will use the wireless access point you have at home for the Wifi network, and logon to the inbuilt Skype so that you can make Skype-to-Skype calls.

So what happens in case the person you are calling does not have Skype? Skype offers two great services, Skype Out and Skype In. The Skype Out service is the cheapest and the most reliable VoIP provider I have come across. It enables you to make a call to the US for as little as 2 Cents a minute, or Re 1 per minute, if the person you are calling does not have Skype. You can call a landline or a cell phone, but do not use this to call someone in India and do read the tariff sheet on skype.com for more details. With Skype Out, you can make free Skype-to-Skype calls and call regular numbers. There are also plans that will let make unlimited calls to a specific country for a fixed monthly plan. The Skype In service allows you to take up a number in the US, the UK, Hong Kong or 18 other countries. For the person -calling from that country, your phone is a local call. So you are in effect just a local call away from your siblings or children living in the US. And it’s all legal.
Enjoy the flat world with Skype. ...

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express dated October 5th 2008

TO REFILL OR NOT

Often while talking to customers or responding to readers I am in a dilemma whether to suggest a refill or a new printer cartridge. Well, this week I will list the options and tell you how to go refill safely. But please note, these are my comments and parts of this article have been sourced from leading manufacturers of printers.

Life was simple in the days of the dot-matrix printer. The dots were printed like a typewriter using a similar ribbon. You could go to any third-party manufacturer and they would change the ribbon inside your cartridge for a tenth of the cost of a new one. Then came along laser and inkjet printers which sucked the ink out, along with a lot of money from our wallets. This was when the trouble started.

Most of us have some time or the other fallen prey to refilling gangs who charge anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 800, depending on the cartridge, but leave us with spoilt printers that no one would repair. Service centres would tell you your printer was dead because you used refilled cartridges and that the repair could not be covered under warranty.

As my friend and business acquaintance who runs a chain of cartridge refill and remanufacturing franchises across the country advises, the chemistry of inks is very different. The same ink can’t work for 600 dpi and 1200 dpi printers. Similarly, between two models of colour laser printers from the same manufacturer, the inks would differ. But the refill guys just use the same set of inks—a concoction of chemical, colour, and water—to fill your cartridges. These would eventually leak and kill the printer.

So, the next time you buy a printer, I suggest you check the manufacturer website, and not the dealer about warranty information. I found this following quote on the HP website: “For HP printer products, the use of a non-HP ink cartridge or a refilled ink cartridge does not affect either the warranty to the customer or any HP support contract with the customer. However, if printer failure or damage is attributable to the use of a non-HP or refilled ink cartridge, HP will charge its standard time and materials charges to service the printer for the particular failure or damage.”
This is what the FAQ section of the Epson website says: “Epson does not recommend refilling or using third-party ink cartridges. If these third party products cause a failure, the repair of that failure will not be covered under warranty.”

There wasn’t much on the Canon or Samsung websites, but industry sources say no printer manufacturer (though their service centres might) would refuse to service a printer just because you have used a third party cartridge.

Though one has to be fully aware of the bad practices in the industry, the market is gradually getting structured. Leading players like Cartridge World, Laser Tech and others are making it a better market. Some remanufactured and compatible cartridge suppliers like Inktec sell compatible cartridges for roughly half the price of the original cartridge and run the same length without damaging your printer.

On the other hand the large printer manufacturers are trying to keep you away from refilled cartridges by putting in chips that count the number of prints. These have a flipside though. Your cartridge designed for 2,000 prints would stop printing if you have printed as many pages, though covering just 2 per cent of the paper and even with ink still left inside the cartridge. Cartridge World and Laser Tech have started offering chip resets, but not for all cartridges.

Cartridge refilling, if done carefully and through proper channels, is a benefit to the environment. If you want to go for a replacement, just make sure your empty cartridge does not land in the hands of refillers.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, dated Sunday September 28, 2008

Messenger on the Move

Here is how to stay connected with Internet contacts through your GPRS phone
I recall when I got myself a BlackBerry about three years back. I kept thinking of a way to chat with my teams using the phone. Time went by and in came Google Talk. There were other third party utilities which could do the same, but all of them wanted money.

There wasn’t much you could do if you were on a general GPRS phone and still wanted to use all your messengers. Well, finally, I have the answer for you and it is called Nimbuzz. But only if you are on a Symbian Series 60 phone—not iPhone, Blackberry or Windows Mobile.
So, what is so special about Nimbuzz? After all, there are other players like IM+, Agile Messenger, E-buddy, and Fring which offer similar services. But I liked the Nimbuzz, and this is why.

I use ICQ, AOL Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Skype and Facebook, as well as an internal chat messenger that runs on a protocol called Jabber for our corporate team. At times I carry my Skype phone with me so that I can make cheap International calls—with tarrifs falling, we may not have to do that much longer. But carrying so many phones can be tough and I have always wanted to move Skype to one of my phones, so that I could skip to Skype when I wanted and stick to GSM during the rest of the time.

Facebook chat, too, is becoming more of a necessity, as most of my school/college friends don’t use messengers. Moreover, I did not want to load too many applications on the phone and wanted to stick to a single application — on my computer I use Trillian for Windows, Pidgin for Linux and Adium on Mac to give me one list of all my contacts, irrespective of the messenger.

And this is exactly what Nimbuzz does for your phone, and that too for free. Nimbuzz even has a client for the PC, so your experience on Windows is no different than the one on your cellphone.
So, is it all good? Well, not really. The Edge/GPRS services in India are far below quality and they need to be improved drastically. At times my messenger conversations went missing, and at times I could not make Skype calls because of the poor GPRS/EDGE service. On the upside,...3G will soon be available in the country. And if your phone has Wi-Fi, you can use Nimbuzz to chat or make Skype calls over the wireless network.

There is some serious competition too. Ebuddy, which offers MySpace, Google, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL and MSN, though without Skype, is also free and hence the nearest competitor to Nimbuzz. IM+ offers all that Nimbuzz has to offer, minus MySpace and facebook, but only if you pay $29.95. Fring offers Skype, MSN, Google, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL and SIP (another VoIP Provider), but no Facebook and MySpace. But Fring is still in Beta, and we should see other things added to it.

For now, Nimbuzz is the best way to stay connected while on the move. Download Nimbuzz from nimbuzz.com, and as they claim, join mobile freedom.
To know if your phone is compatible see tinyurl.com/tech2-nimbuzz

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The article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday 21st September 2008.

Two days with the iPhone

It’s a great phone, but with many flaws, so if you want to own one wait for a better price and 3G
The iPhone is finally here, and it is not making waves except in Page 3 circles. I know you want the phone, I want it too, but is it worth the money you have to dish out— as a friend used to say, “now we need to take housing loans to buy gadgets”. Anyway, I got a chance to live with the Jesus phone for two days, and this is what I felt.
Though I have never seen a better phone for business use, it has a whole lot of shortcomings. But still, if I were to buy a phone, it would be an iPhone, but only if the price was right.

The biggest complaint would be that the battery dies out too quickly. Though I was not using Wi-Fi or 3G, or any of the connectivity features, I had to recharge the phone and pray it would last. Since the phone was on loan, I did not have the car recharge kit. I could always recharge it using the USB port on a laptop, but the other end of the phone requires a proprietory connector—why can’t all companies stick to USBs so that it can be recharged anywhere? The phone has a string of features like Bluetooth, Automatic Screen Brightness, Edge, 3G and Wi-Fi; to make sure you get good battery life, turn these off, but then that would make it just another phone.

I did not try out Edge, as I think no one should buy this phone to use it on Edge, it will have to be used as a 3G phone. Luckily both my house and office, and most of the places I work out of—friends’ homes, cafes etc—have wireless. Connecting on Wi-Fi was not bad, though pulling email every time I went into a Wi-Fi zone was rather tiresome. I’d rather stick to a Blackberry for now.

the phone. I also loved the ease with which conference calls can be made. In a usual business day I end up doing about two to three conferences with my team and my customers, and it’s a painful experience with most phones. With the iPhone, all you have to do is press the Add button, call the person, and then press Join. I managed a three-party conference call, even going into private mode with one.

I also managed to crash the phone quite a few times, very unlike other Apple products. I then realised that the phone had over a 100 apps installed in it. Once I removed some of these Apps, the phone was easy to work with. I felt the typing was a bit slow, but then I am used to a regular keypad.

People have complained that it does not have a flash and can’t do picture messaging, but these were not big issues with me. Usually, I do not send MMSes and don’t really know a lot of people who do. The missing flash, though, can be a bit of a problem if you use your phone camera too much.
The interface is brilliantly done. However, getting the search in contacts took some getting used to. But the way the phone asked me each time if I would like to take the call on the speakerphone, the regular iPhone or my bluetooth headset was something I liked. Connecting to the bluetooth headset was also a breeze.

I loved the fact that Apple has given a standard headphone jack on...the phone. I also loved the ease with which conference calls can be made. In a usual business day I end up doing about two to three conferences with my team and my customers, and it’s a painful experience with most phones. With the iPhone, all you have to do is press the Add button, call the person, and then press Join. I managed a three-party conference call, even going into private mode with one.

I also managed to crash the phone quite a few times, very unlike other Apple products. I then realised that the phone had over a 100 apps installed in it. Once I removed some of these Apps, the phone was easy to work with. I felt the typing was a bit slow, but then I am used to a regular keypad.

People have complained that it does not have a flash and can’t do picture messaging, but these were not big issues with me. Usually, I do not send MMSes and don’t really know a lot of people who do. The missing flash, though, can be a bit of a problem if you use your phone camera too much.

Another little problem is that you need a pin which comes with the phone to take the SIM card out. Though no one needs to swap SIMs regularly, if you lose the pin, you are in trouble.

The capability of the iPhone to sync with my Mac or Windows PC is great. The way contacts are stored is also awesome, but sadly I could not search the contacts by first name, maybe I was doing something wrong. The switch to turn the phone from ring mode to vibrate is reminiscent of the Palm. The volume keys felt sturdy, and added to the solid feel Apple has built into the product.

So, do I want one? Yes. Why don’t I have one right now? One the cost is too high, and 3G is still not here. But there is no other phone that offers the same experience, and no one, yes no one, beats the touch interface.

For now, I am going to buy the new iPod Touch, as it can do email on Wi-Fi, along with music, video and even the apps, only the phone is missing.

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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 14th September 2008

A BAG FULL OF GADGETS

I hate to travel, but I have to travel. My work involves travelling extensively across india, and I hate it. No, not because the roads are bad, the public transportation drags and people are uncouth, but from a technologist’s point of view carrying all your gadgets, making sure you are connected, toys charged and mails answered, is a challenge.
So, what do I do, other than write articles on my trusted Blackberry? Well, a few things that I have learnt, other than making sure there is plenty of diet colas in my car and mineral water bottles, is to carry the following with me:
Recharger and rechargable batteries. It is tough when you get dependent on someone to buy batteries for you. These days there are manufacturers like Uniross that keep you going, always.
Anchor power strip with universal connectors and indicators. This is my favourite gadget and something I have stashed away in every corner. The led lights on it tell me if its safe to connect my gadgets in case the earthing is not proper or the phase and neutral have been reversed. It also does away with having to carry multiple convertors. Charging my camera, Blackberry, laptop and mobile phone becomes easy even if the hotel, like most in India, provides just a single power outlet in the room.
On this particular trip we came across a lovely bottle of wine that we all wanted to enjoy. But in this small hamlet, a corkscrew was too much to ask for. So in came my handy old travel companion, the Victorinox 25-in-one Swiss Army knife. Though I love the model with a torch and pen drive in it, I am still old fashioned and use the one with just the tools.
Torchlights and flashlights always seem to have run out of charge or a bulb when you need them. So a chargeable torchlight is a must-have. Though this is still not easily available across India, you can find it at most Chinese gadget shops. Or carry a crank-operated light that uses light emitting diodes (LEDs) for the light source and has a crank mechanism which means you can just crank it up any time, anywhere to turn it into a flashlight.
Now, I need to get back to enjoying the cool winds of the Himalayas.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 31st of August, 2008

Touched by Beauty

HP’s touch screen PC is a beauty, but slow and pricey
REMEMBER Minority Report? It had a sequence where Tom Cruise could solve a crime by flying through records, all using his hands to move things around on a virtual screen, on a virtual computer. Well some geeks at HP got inspired by the movie to build the world’s first all-in-one touch home PC, and it’s called the HP Touch Smart. This is HP’s second attempt—the earlier one was not very successful—but this one is much smarter, and looks more like the iMac or the Dell XPS.
The touch screen
At 22’’, this is the largest touch screen there is. Though the touch screen is good, the HP touch interface, the program that lets you play your music, videos, leave an audio or a text note, play around with your pictures, touch or crop them, is literally an overkill. It is good for my two-and-half-year-old nephew, who can now touch the computer and do things, as he does not know how to properly use a keyboard or mouse, but I am not going to trust a Rs 90,000 machine in the hands of a toddler.
There are a few things that are missing in the touch interface; the voice note function is good, but there are flaws. I was taking this phone note, repeating everything I heard on the phone. After the call I played the note, but forgot to save it. In a few minutes I took another note, and the machine overwrote the first one. This is a machine for people with dumb computer skills, and that’s really sad.
The webcam performance in daylight conditions is good, but at night it is very bad, it can barely see anything. If fact, you get spooky images as the screen light fills in.
Since the HP Smart Touch ships with Windows Vista Home Premium, the Windows Media Center is built-in and has a much better response to touch. Though the PC comes with a huge remote control, I did not bother to use it. After all, I am not replacing my television, at least not yet.
Where HP Touch Smart scores over the iMac is the TV Tuner, an IR Blaster which lets you change DTH channels using a software, Audio Out and Audio In.
Like the iMac, and other new generation machines, it features a slot DVD drive where you slide in the disc. What is good is that HP has given an eject button next to the drive. Apple does not have this function. However, it’s not easy inserting a DVD while sitting in front of the machine, you have to get up and do it.
A small clip at the back of the machine helps you tidy up all the cables that are coming in/out of the machine. The only wire that comes into the machine is the power cable. The size of the screen and the great emphasis on the design of the machine allow you to slide in the keyboard under the PC.
VERDICT: HP deserves a lot of credit for what it has done. If you are looking for an allout entertainer, and don’t mind spending money on a very, very slow machine, just because it’s the latest in technology, this is a must-buy. But for this much money, you can actually buy one of the fastest desktops on the market now.
For videos and pictures from the review, please visit: gsapra.blogspot.com
WHAT I LIKE
The wireless keyboard mouse is a standard accessory
The ambient light—reminiscent of an IBM thinkpad called the Think Light, or inspired by the light on the Philips Ambi Light TVs—with three brightness levels
The black shiny mirror piano finish, ideal for a country which prefers black over a white machine
The built-in SD card reader
The side USB ports
The brilliant microphone
WHAT I HATE
Synchronising the keyboard mouse the first time was a pain, it took me over half-an-hour to figure it out
Taking the dongle out from the back of a 22” screen, is not such an easy job, especially when you have spent a lot of money to buy the machine and turning over means risking a break
Windows Vista: The machine that came from HP for the review had a 4GB RAM and the Core 2 Duo 2.17 gave it a score of 3.8 on Vista, a tad too slow for me
Power adapter: Yes, the machine uses a bulky power adapter. Why not build an integrated supply into the PC?


Bootup Time


HP's Touch Interface


Skype on HP


Windows Media Centre

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 24th August 2008

iPhone 3G Finally Here / STEEP Price

Vodafone beat Airtel to send it's first round of announcements, the iPhone3G is finally here, and will be available from Vodafone as promised on the 22nd August. So what does it cost

Rs. 31,000 for the 8GB Version
Rs. 36,100 for the 16 GB Version
No Contracts
Advance Payment Rs. 10,000 to confirm Booking

Below is the Mail from Sanjay Sawhney, AVP - customer service, Vodafone for confirm of launch

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Hello Gagandeep,

Thank you for registering for your Apple iPhone 3GTM with us.

We are delighted to announce that the iPhone 3G will be available in India from August 22, 2008
It will be available in 8GB & 16GB models, priced at Rs 31,000 and Rs 36,100 respectively.

Be the first to get the iPhone

We have received a large number of registrations. As there are limited stocks, make sure that you get yours first, by paying an advance of Rs 10,000 to confirm your booking.

Where can you make this advance payment?

The iPhone 3G will be available at select Vodafone Stores. All you need to do is drop in at any select Vodafone Store between August 20 and 21 and make the advance payment by cash or credit card. Don´t forget to show the iPhone booking SMS, which you would have received from us, when you visit the Vodafone Store to pay the advance. To find a Vodafone Store near you, click here

Get an appointment now. No queues for you.

Once you pay the advance, we will immediately give you an appointment date and time, starting
August 22 when you can come and experience a full demonstration and collect your iPhone, all ready to use with your contacts and settings, by paying the balance amount.

Hurry! Limited stocks.

Remember, the sooner you confirm your booking, the earlier you´ll get your iPhone. We have limited stocks and it will be on first come, first serve basis.

Buy a Vodafone connection now!

As you are not a Vodafone customer, you will need a Vodafone connection for your iPhone 3G.
We recommend that when you come to confirm your booking, please do get yourself a Vodafone connection too. Remember to carry a passport sized picture, photo ID proof and address proof as these are required for activating your Vodafone SIM card.

Happy to help

If you have any queries, log on to www.vodafone.in/iphone or call us on 9811098110 and we´ll be happy to help.

Hurry and be one of the first to make the iPhone 3G your own.

Regards

Sanjay Sawhney
AVP - Customer Service
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Do I want one ? YES
Will I take it ? NO
Why ? Have you seen the Cost, 3G not here, no contract, long term support available


So, Do you want one ? Yes
Will you Take it ?

G

Desktop Video Conference a Reality in India

Video conference has been a thing of the future, the thing, that science fiction books spoke of ever since we were kids. Desktop Video conference has been happening for sometime, and you could always fire up your desktop, with a web cam, and do a video conference, but the Digital Divide, of people who did not know the PC, or how it operated, was a big issue. Dlink, one of the pioneer Networking companies in India, announced the availability of the GVC 3000 in India, made in India.

I have requested Yogesh Sharma, their Branch head in Delhi, for some review units, and should soon do a review, if I get the units. Though the details of the GVC 3000 are as follows:

* SIP Standards compliant, Interoperable with the SIP servers’ world wide
* Multi Codec Support H.264, H.263, H.263+ and MPEG-4
* Video Telephony at a bandwidth as low as 128kbps
* Excellent Audio and Video Lip Synchronization
* Tiltable LCD and Camera
* Excellent Video and Voice Quality on TV for group participants
* E.164 Dialing
* Audio and Video Privacy Options

Waiting for the review units.

GS

Beauty with brains, Mac style

It’s time to take the iMac more seriously

Well, I may sound like a bore with my newly-found love for Apple machines, but trust me, I have never actually felt this way about technology before. Problems with Windows Vista have had a lot of people look at Linux and Mac, and the Mac adoption rate in India is at a high now. Though the iMAC has been available for quite some time, i thought this is the best time to review iMac as a desktop for your home or office.
The first thing that strikes you is the clean lines and the lack of a tangle of cables — the machine just has one power cable, a cable to your keyboard, and one from the keyboard to the mouse. The other thing that hits you is that there is no CPU box, and wow, isn’t that screen big.

Setting the standards for elegance and simplicity, the all-in-one iMac packs all its components — from processor to video camera — into a thin anodized aluminum frame. Though this makes the machine heavy, its 20” / 24” display sizes make it an awesome experience to work on. The glossy widescreen delivers incredibly rich and vivid colour. The sound quality is wonderful—if you listen to music on this machine, you can make sense of what Surround Sound actually is. The screen is bright, and graphics responsive.

The built-in webcam is great, but night picture quality is not all that good. But, why would you want to do a video conference from a dark room. The performance of the machine meets all expectations. With the fast Core 2 Duo processors, and the Agile Mac OS X, the machine works beautifully. However, you will have to take the machine to the store to upgrade the RAM.

The built-in wireless is great, and very receptive to the signals. It was able to connect to all five wireless devices in my home. I have a large compound and my other laptops/desktops can find only two in any room. The bundled Apple Remote lets you remotely play music, movies, forward, rewind, almost everything you’d like to do with a home entertainment system. Like most of the other devices from Apple, it’s so sleek you can’t even see the screws.

But did I like everything? Well, not really.

I hate the material that Apple uses for its keyboards on the iMac and the Mac Book, the keys tend to get dirty too fast, and you can’t really clean them. The mouse is very nice, but getting used to its interface maybe a problem for some people. If you can, spend an additional Rs 6,000 to buy the S530 Logitech Desktop Wireless Set for the Mac—the mouse and keyboard are nicely built, it also helps clean up two more wires, leaving you with just a power cord.

My nephew, who is used to the glowing Apple logo on my Apple laptops, wanted me to light up the logo on the iMac, but sadly this one does not glow. The slimline DVD drive built into the monitor is placed high up, making inserting and taking out discs easy. Only if Apple had built in a video-in / TV-in option, I could replace my TV with this entertainment centre.

So if you need a new PC at home, or are thinking of changing your PC, it’s time you looked at iMAC. The Mac, is not about learning something new, it’s about unlearning, forgeting how you worked with PCs all these years. Give it a shot, and trust me, you will be surprised, and shocked that you did not switch over earlier.

PS: If you don’t want to change to a Mac, and are happy using Windows, watch this space for a review of HP Smart Touch PC next week.

Specifications
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 to Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8
RAM: 1 GB to 2 GB
Hard disk: 250 GB to 320 GB
Screen size: 20” to 24”
Warranty: 1 year, extendable to 3 years at extra cost
Price bracket: Rs 56,600-83,500
Ports: Mic-in / headphones out / DVI-out / Ethernet / 2 Fireware and 3 USBs (all behind the monitor)
In the package: Keyboard, mouse, Apple remote, DVDs and documentation

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday August 17th, 2008

MTNL Makes Public Announcement of TV on Phone

Though this service has been available for quite some time, but today was the first public announcement of TV on Mobile Phones. This is the first service provider to launch Live Television (Actually about 4 to 5 minutes delayed, as we are still on GPRS and not 3G) on your Mobile Phone. Powered by Apalya, a service provider based out of Hyderabad, this has put MTNL on a lead advantage with other major cell phone providers.

The service is right now available on Nokia and Sony Ericsson Handsets, details atMTNL compatible Handsets, but the price announcement is very interesting, at Rs. 99 per month for a Set of 15 channels (Aaj Tak, BBC World, Bindaas, Cartoon Network, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC TV18, CNN IBN, CNN Mobile, IBN7, INDIA TV, NDTV 24x7, NDTV India, NDTV Profit, Times Now & Zoom). Channels Such as Fashion TV, and some Spritiual Channels (Iskcon Temple, Haji-Ali Dargh, Mumbai, Siddhi Vinayaka Darshan, Shiridi Sai Baba Darshan) are also available, but no details about Tariff of these is available.

From the looks of it, even the Babu's at MTNL don't like Doordarshan, I thought that needs to be compulsarily built into any kind of Cable / CAS / TV / IPTV / DTH Etc etc..

G

MTNL Slashes Broadband Pricing

Though personally speaking, I would want to stay as far away from MTNL as I can, as of today, it's been over 2 months, my telephone line is lying dead, and they can't do anything about it, my experience with MTNL owned services is nothing short of pathetic, but the above ad from the Hindustan Times, today, on the eve of the Independence Day, shows that the price war is just about to begin.

Indian Broadband is ruled majorly by Airtel / VSNL - TATA (ex-dishnet) / and MTNL / BSNL, though most of the customers looking for reliable connectivity choose Airtel, but in Area's where Reliance has launched services (Speed is a concern with reliance), people have looked at Reliance as an option.



Currentlyunlimited Data Transfer from Various Vendors costs
256 kbps
Airtel: 799 pm
VSNL - TATA: 1,000 pm
MTNL (From Today) 599 pm (Earlier 799 pm)
Reliance: 999 pm (300 kbps)

1 mbps
Airtel - Bharti: 2,222 pm
VSNL - Tata:3,600 pm
MTNL (From Today):3,999 pm (Earlier 4,999 pm)
Reliance: 2,999 pm

Though new revised tariff's are not published on MTNL's website. | All plans are for Delhi prices, and prices taken from individual websites.

Though the Ad makes them look cheaper, they really aren't, except in the 256k fight.

G

Acer Aspire One / Finally Here in India

Last Week, in My Indian Express, My Editor cut out the name of Acer Aspire one, but well, it's finally here. Just got the Press Release, and should soon get my hands dirty with one. The Market is hotting up and we should see a pretty big price war soon.

Acer Aspire One is available in 4 cool colours, Seashell White, Sapphire Blue, Coral Pink, and Golden Brown. Keeping Acer's past in mind, I am sure, they will launch all 4 colors at the same time (remember Asus EeePC was avilable only in White or Black, and MSI did not launch Pink in India).

W S Mukund, Managing Director, Acer India said, “In phase 1, the netbook is available through Croma and 250 odd retail stores across India. These retail stores include Acer malls and franchisee stores by partners.”Acer feels the initial push of Aspire One needs to be through the retail channels as it is basically a touch and feel product for people. By next month, we will decide about pitching the product across our traditional channels of distributors and resellers, Mukund said. The Aspire one (with 3 batteries), launched in five colors, is priced at approximately Rs 20,000 plus taxes for Linpus Linux Lite and Rs 22,000 plus taxes for Windows XP Home.
The Aspire One is available through Acer’s five distributors including Ingram Micro, Redington, Salora and Esys.

More Details coming up soon.

G

The HP Smart Touch is Launched in India

It's Finally Here, the HP SMART TOUCH
Our Fingers are the best pointing devices in the world, the most sensitive to feeling, and a wonderful tool to work with, HP has taken the iPod Touch, and the iMAC, and blown it up to build the HP Smart Touch. After exactly 2 months of it's first launch in Berlin, the Smart Touch was launched with fanfare at a press event last night (12th August 2008), at the Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi.
"We will have this in stores in the next 2 weeks, though primarily starting with the Class A cities in India, down the road we would have it available in all our 200 odd HP World stores across India. The price point is expected to be Sub 90K", commented Rajiev Grover, Director Consumer Products - PSG for HP. He also mentioned "I will send you some papers on how we have made sure that the screen is actually screen resistant". Mr. Walker from HP, said that this is the first time a touch screen this size has been launched, doing a touch screen on a small screen is easy, but this big (20") is a little difficult.

Though on my trials, the PC hanged twice, but hey, it's Windows Vista, Rajiev also commented that they have tested it out and have ironed out all the bugs. I should get the test unit in a day or so from Burson Marsteller the PR Agency for HP, and should run a review, both here and in the Indian Express, so look out.

HP Smart Touch Ad:


HP Smart Touch Experience:

G
PS: the best part of the release last night, was the Laser Show, with a Dancer, amazing stuff.