Computers at airport

Whenever I go to an airport I observe people using various technologies. Earlier I used to see a lot of Dell presumably by business users and HP by non business users with some Apple laptops (MB, MBP). Two years ago net books used to rule by non business users. And now…. You guessed it, Apple rules. I see lot of iPads, iPhones, MBP, MB air, smaller set of Dells even smaller HPs.

Surprisingly I hardly see net books.

I occasionally see Kindles as they are hard to spot. Inside airplane I see mainly iPads and kindles as reading devices. Laptops and iPads as movie watching devices.

I rarely see Xooms and galaxy tabs and others I don’t recognize.

Silk Browser Vs Opera & Hotspot issues

Amazon announced Silk browser, it seems like a good idea. I was wondering why is it any different from Opera that has been around for quite a long time?

I think Silk browser may have issues with public hotspot authentication where http request gets redirected ( hijacked) to hotspot login page.

Outsourcing: What goes around comes around

I always believed that there is  limit of outsourcing. Once money starts flowing into the place getting outsourced projects, it will improve their life and increase their cost of living causing the prices to go up.

For IT, India is no longer as attractive option as it used to be, as cost of living in India goes up so does the salaries of engineers, putting pressure on margins of big companies, now even Indian companies are looking for cheaper places to expand.

In manufacturing sector, thanks to robots, we don’t need as much manual labor as before.

This paradigm shift may bring jobs back to USA or other countries where the goods are sold to better serve the market.

Recently FoxConn (manufacturer of popular Apple iPhone/ iPad and many other electronics devices) is planning to use about 1 Million robots to do the jobs which humans used to do. Now trick with this situation is that, this defeats their biggest advantage of being in China where labor is cheap.

If you hypothetically relocate the factory to USA, it will still be more expensive for whatever labor cost is involved but you will save cost in shipping and handling.

These automation in coming years will change the business dynamics,  lets see how it plays out!

 

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/foxconn-robots/

Waiting for my Cyberbike

Just ordered my Cyberbike for Wii, it is an interesting combination of video game and biking! I will post my experience once I get it.

Cyberbike Magnetic Edition

Update: seat is horrible, it makes butt hurt. Game is okay.

Apple TV a Hobby

About a year ago, Steve Jobs mentioned Apple TV was a hobby as this segment of set top boxes lack a go to market strategy, he even predicted ask Google in few months. Boy he was right!

Logitech Revue a flagship Google TV suffered the same fate as many others have in the past, now it’s available for $99 down from $299.

http://allthingsd.com/20100601/d8-video-steve-jobs-on-why-apple-tv-is-a-hobby/

Updated: Upgrading to Lion, most important thing you need to know

If you are upgrading Mac OS to Lion, make sure all your apps will continue to work on Lion. Unfortunately there is no easy way of knowing this other than checking individually products you have installed. I googled for parallels desktop 6 and it’s officially supported. I still need to get confirmation about Microsoft Office 2011.

I was burnt by this when I upgraded vista to win7 and my Quicken stopped working with no official support planned. I don’t want to make same mistaken again.

Update: A website roaringapps.com has list of apps and their compatibility.
roaring app

Google+ on iPhone

Finally the wait is over, Google+ is available for iOS users.

So far I like what I see. I would like to see following options:
1. Re-share option.
2. Select multiple pictures when sharing.
3. Location service to stop once it has acquired current location.

What do you like/ dislike?