E@zyVG’s Vichar::World Connected

Yesterday I launched the version 2 of Linux and Open Source Blog, completely with new design with a switch from wordpress.com to personal hosting.

Last year, the TouchFLO interface proved to be the most prominent feature of all found in the Touch handset by HTC. Being quite ordinary on the hardware side, the model offers a totally revamped application launcher serving as a perfect compromise between the complexity of the Microsoft platform and the simplicity of those who don’t want go too far in exploring its capabilities, as well as serving as an easy introduction to Windows Mobile to the users who have previously had no clear notion about the peculiarities of the Microsoft interface at all. As a result of the innovative approach, mass users ready to embrace WM 6.1 emerge in thousands, no longer confused by the complexity of the default interface. Moreover, the TouchFLO bears the ‘3D’ label, standing for an extremely easy-to-use and friendly user interface only requiring a few taps of the finger to reach the goal.

HTC’s TouchFLO 3D features a new Start-screen which includes a clock, information about missed calls and about the next appointments. Furthermore it includes a smart-dial list which is customizable and where you can add you favorite contacts. Next is a SMS and MMS overview followed by an E-Mail overview. Photos and Videos is the next screen and finally, TouchFLO 3D is also able to play videos without opening Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. Next to it is the Music screen which shows all your available tracks with cover-art followed by a shortcut to the Internet which either starts Opera Mobile or predefined favorites. Next is the Weather information which now shows a forecast of up to 10 selectable cities, followed by Settings and the Programs menu which is also partly customizable as well as gives a direct link to all available applications without using the Pocket PC typical Windows Mobile flag anymore.

Horace Luke, Chief Innovation Officer for HTC, presents their new Touch Flow 3D User Interface:

And here is a complete walk through of the UI on HTC Diamond by pocketnow.com:

This is definitely a killer UI for Windows Mobile phones, and I find it better than that of on iPhone (I consider iPhone the best multimedia phone on market). Most will appreciate the TouchFLO’s user friendliness compared to the default Win Mobile, as it is much better than looking at a Windows desktop on your cell phone, and even more productive.

I’d really like to own the HTC Touch Pro “Raphael”, as it will be a major update from my HTC Artemis (running WM 6.1 Pro ROM), skipping the Kaiser, which I found expensive and very bulky for me.

HTC Touch Pro comes packed with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, 512 MB flash, 288 MB RAM memory, SD 2.0 compatible microSD memory card expansion slot, and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g which provides HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA wireless connectivity. Like any other modern handset, the PRO includes Bluetooth connectivity (2.0 with EDR) and an interface with HTC ExtUSB (audio jack, 11-pin mini-USB 2.0, and TV out in-one.) When it comes to business productivity, power users can find HTC Touch Pro built-in TV-out functionality useful to deliver PowerPoint presentations directly from their handset.

I hope that the pricing will be good on this device, as paying $1000 for phone is just too much.

Here are the figues:

Even though the above cartoon is a true statement in a way, this doesn’t seem to apply to me … I still manage to stay skinny and active :-p

Jodhaa Akbar (Hindi: जोधा-अकबर, Urdu: جودھا اکبر) is a 16th century love story of a Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great and a Rajput (Hindu) princess Jodhaa. It is about a great Emperor who is tolerant towards a religion and culture which is not just alien to him, but is also the religion of the land he rules. Of course, how much of this is actually true is anybody’s guess. Apparently, the director of the movie, Ashutosh Gowarikar (the same director who made the Oscar nominated Lagaan) has admitted that 70 percent of the movie is fiction, which means it is very loosely based on history. What seems to be true is that Akbar married a Rajput princess… beyond that historians don’t seem to agree on anything much. They don’t even agree that it was princess Jodha who married Akbar. However what is true is that Akbar the Great had a tolerant attitude towards religion and encouraged religious debate. This has been well documented.

In any case, the love story doesn’t ring true, not if one thinks of it in a historical perspective. Akbar married a Rajput princess to form a political alliance, and therefore one wonders whether there was true love between the two. There probably wasn’t, knowing he had more than 300 other wives - it is believed though that more than one of these wives was Hindu. Interestingly, Akbar’s son Jehangir, who succeeded him, was the son of a Hindu mother, and while some say it was Jodha Bai, some say it was another Hindu princess.

The movie itself is amazing in scope…and manages to switch between the battlefield and court politics to the love scenes very smoothly. It casts thousands of characters…soldiers and ordinary people…and everyone in authentic costumes. The battlefield scenes, with elephants and costumes are impressive, although I wish they had been less gory.

This movie is a must-see, not because it is great cinema, but because it’s good, path breaking Indian cinema. I really enjoy watching historical films, even if they are mostly fiction based. We don’t get too many many good historical films. The other Indian-made historical epic I have liked was Mangal Pandey and it was excellent. This film falls somewhere in between, as Ashoka was mostly not enjoyable.

Historical films are important…they bring our past to life, and Jodha Akbar has done it with panache and style. True, the film could have done with tighter editing, and some more believability…but the music was also good. And I am not sure why all the fuss about this movie that went down in India, especially with initially release of the movie being banned by the States of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand (by the time you read this maybe the ban will be lifted) … they have to understand that this is movie only, and no is not being preached as a true part of Indian history.

The movie was around 3 hours and 20 minutes long and I enjoyed most of it.

All we hear round the clock is how motion picture industry keeps on complaining about the piracy hurting their revenues. Now look at the latest figures from Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA):

The confusing part is the link in the “Latest News” section of MPAA that claims an all-time high in domestic and global box office sales. The global market grew 4.9% to $26.6 billion, claims the MPAA, and the U.S. domestic market grew roughly 5.4%, passing the $9.6 billion mark.

It is surprising to see the MPAA claim that the motion picture industry is taking a beating from piracy when their own data shows that the market is producing better than before. This is not to say, however, that piracy doesn’t have an effect on the film industry.

So please stop complaining as you yourself just proved that even though the film industry is taking some large hits from piracy, the industry is still raking in quite a sum of cash. And btw, with getting rid of DRM agenda I am quite sure that there is even more money to be made.

This has got to be the absolute best of “tech” videos I have ever seen. It was not only amazing but enough to get the juices flowing to want to get one ASAP!!

What is it all about? It is a video of a 3D head tracking system that Johnny Lee put together using a Wii system and trust me, it is SO amazingly cool!

Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space.

Check out his site for more information and software, as well as several other Wii based projects he is on: johnnylee.net

Don’t we always say that picture says a thousand words, and usually the truth. I know that UN and other States from around the world are involved in African continent, but from what I see and read, there has to be much more willingness and commitment to resolve the issues that are there - people, especially the children, politics and economics. We, as human society, cannot simply ignore our brothers and sisters living on the second biggest continent of our planet.

Based on the true story of how Charlie Wilson, an alcoholic womanizer and Texas congressman, persuaded the CIA to train and arm resistance fighters in Afghanistan to fend off the Soviet Union. With the help of rogue CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, the two men supplied money, training and a team of military experts that turned the ill-equipped Afghan freedom-fighters into a force that brought the Red Army to a stalemate and set the stage for conflicts in the Middle East that still rage to this day.

Despite the victory, Avrakotos warns that unless there is a serious effort to help Afghanistan rebuild back into a stable society, there could be dire and unpredictable repercussions for both that nation and the U.S. Unfortunately, Wilson finds exceptionally little enthusiasm in the government for even the modest measures he proposes to heed this warning. As usual, things are left as it is after Soviet withdrawal. The implied warning involves both the rise of the extremist Taliban regime and probably even the September 11th terrorist attacks.