Prakash Advani's Blog

From my interview in Hindu Business Line:

“I have been using the latest Ubuntu 11.04 on a laptop that’s almost three years now and I don’t see any degradation of performance,” says Prakash.

The Nikon Coolpix S9100 is a Super Zoom in a compact body. The advantage of a Super Zoom is you can take wildlife photos without getting too close to your subject such that you get extinct.

The problem with existing Super Zoom were that they were big and bulky which people had to carry around hoping to get their moment. Or they carried a compact and wished they had carried the big one! With S910 you no longer need to carry big fat cameras to get High Zoom. Its compact enough to fit in your pocket and you can use the 18X zoom when you need it.

Here is what’s cool about the Coolpix.

• 18x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom
• 12.1-megapixel
• Full HD 1080p Videos
• 3-inch Display
• Continuous mode can shoot 5 shots per second at full resolution
• 5-way VR Image Stabilization System

What was no so cool:

• If it had a varied angle LCD, it would have been more flexibility
• Its small enough fit into a bag, but not exactly pocket size.
• The battery is charged by connecting the camera to the USB, while this is good as you have to carry less stuff around.. but a separate charge would be more convenient. The separate charger is available at additional cost.

Forbes has this interesting article on why USA is second after India for Innovation.

USA is a clear second to India and that the USA’s innovation interests tended to veer towards incremental change and efficiencies (Six Sigma) rather than the more open, greenfield area of creativity and ideation.

Read more.

Do you envy when your Blackberry friends talk about BBM, short for Blackberry Messenger. Time to show them Whatsapp.

What is Whatsapp?

Its a cross platform instant messenger, think SMS/BBM.

It works on iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Nokia. Currently BBM is restricted to Blackberries only.

It offer messages, videos, photos, audios and more.

No cost of sending messages because it uses your data connection. You can use WiFi or 3G. A world of caution: if you have a limited data plan or on roaming, you may be paying for sending messages.

Sounds too good to be true? Now the fine print Its a paid app, on no! For iPhone its $.099 and for Android its free for first year after that its $2.

Its still worth it. Enjoy Whatsapp.

Earlier Microsoft sued Android phone makers, now Oracle is suing Google for Android. Patents were to protect innovators instead its being used to stop innovation.

The big old daddies of the IT industry are going after the new companies.

The old ones have nothing new to innovate. Thy are too comfortable in their zone to make the big bold moves. These companies are eventually going to get extinct and are only resting on their past laurels. They are utilising their patent portfolios to make money and stop other companies from innovating.

HTC is paying $5 for every Android phone to Google Microsoft , yes Microsoft! Microsoft makes more money than Google on every Android phone for patents! The business models is similar to the Mafias asking for protection money. The patents hoarders are the new age Mafia.

If you don’t believe me they are going to be extinct? Do your maths. If you bought Microsoft stock 10 years back for $60, today it would be worth US$28. You would have lost more than 50 percent of your value in 10 years. This is for a company that controls the software on 90 percent of the computers.

Now Google is buying patents, not because they need them. But to have a defensive patent portfolio. You see in the tech industry the big 800 pound gorillas never get sued by other gorillas because they have a patent portfolio.

From Google’s Blog:

The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation. Some of these lawsuits have been filed by people or companies that have never actually created anything; others are motivated by a desire to block competing products or profit from the success of a rival’s new technology. The patent system should reward those who create the most useful innovations for society, not those who stake bogus claims or file dubious lawsuits. It’s for these reasons that Google has long argued in favor of real patent reform, which we believe will benefit users and the U.S. economy as a whole.

Google wants to purchase patents from Nortel Network, a company now gone bankrupt (you cant live on patents for too long you see). Microsoft has a license from Nortel Network and fears Google may cancel their license.

Reuters:

Microsoft, which claims a “worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to all of Nortel’s patents” following a 2006 deal, said in a filing with a Delaware bankruptcy court that existing agreements should be transferred to any new owner of the intellectual property, which spans many fields.

Google has bid $900 million to buy more than 6,000 patents and patents applications belonging to Nortel, a once mighty Canadian network equipment maker that filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009.

Glyn Moody says:

I mean, let’s be consistent here: if you want to abuse the patent system, expect to be on the receiving end of similar abuse. On the other hand, rather more laudably, why not stop abusing, in which case you can take the moral high ground when others start abusing the system to attack you?

Its high time we replace the patent system with open source and let the innovation happen again.

I have been quotes in this article.

Apple released a feature of its Mac OS named LaunchPad. LaunchPad is a development, bug tracking platform of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. Canonical doesn’t seem to have deep pockets to sue Apple over the usage of name LaunchPad. Canonical’s Prakash Advani told our editor that “We are glad Apple likes our brand name! The purpose of Canonical’s Launchpad.net and Apple’s Launch pad are different, hence non-competing.” No surprises two years from now Apple sues Canonical over LaunchPad.

Read More.

Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited is offering high speed 1Gbps Internet at Rs 900 only! at that price I get a 4 Mbps connection. What if we had such a high speed?