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