The name “The New iPad” for the Apple’s version 3 latest flagship tablet. As I own an iPad and has seen iPhone 4′s retina display, I can imagine how gorgeous the “The New iPad” will look with its 2048-by-1536-pixel resolution.

With Quad core A5X processor and 1 GB of RAM this device’s performance should be good! Again the price starts at $500 and the iPad 2 price has been brought down by 100$. But I don’t see any reason for new buyer to go for iPad2 just for saving $100.

Again a great product from Apple. I don’t see an Android tablet meeting the iPad quality. With Apple keeping the price as low as $400( iPad 2 16Gb Wifi only), it’s going to be very difficult for the competition to do the catch up game as they could do for the Smartphone( remember Samsung Galaxy SII)

Not just 2011, even 2012 is going to be the year of iPad!

Lytro

Lytro lets you take pictures like never before. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space.

Based on the reviews, it may not have the best picture clarity as of now. For the focus effect the foreground subject and background should be at a good distance. This is not for anyone. This is an impressive first step. It opens up several possibilities when they add the 3D support as well.

Others might just ask, why not shoot the picture at a lower higher F-number(narrow aperture) and get entire scene in focus. This would be interesting for the photographers who enjoys shooting images with e “Depth of Filed” effect, where only the subject is in focus and other parts are blurred. This camera  helps in getting the focus in the the clicked location.

Can you spot the Red Ladybug below?

Robert Scoble has shared interesting gallery

What lies in future?

1) Better clarity photos even in low light
2) Able get nice “Depth of Filed” effect even subjects which are closer to each other
3) 3D capabilities

They are targeting the prime slot of 8:00pm to 10pm. This is where the TRP topping Sun TV serials are aired: Thirumathi Selvam, Thangam, Thendral & Chellamey. The last 10-15 years of Cable Television in Tamilnadu, Sun TV has rooted out the competition in each stage and still accounts for >70% of viewership. We just can’t say, it was due to their political power: they have survived AIADMK rule for >10 years.We should credit them for their business acumen ‘deep’ understanding of Tamil TV audience. Remember how they crushed the grand launch of “Star Vijay” when the Star group took over with KTV . With low viewership on the soaps, Vijay took different path with programs like Jodi No1, Kalakkapovathu Yaaru, Super Singer, Neeya Naana and has gathered decent viewership in the A-segment. But they still has not penetrated the viewers towns & villages. Interestingly Sun TV bought the complete team of “Kalakkapovathu Yaaru” to answer Vijay TV and renamed the program as “Asathapovathu Yaru” and aired it in Sun TV.

Read more details about Sun TV dominance

What will be the answer to Orukodi from Sun TV?

Orukodi has well proven success formula and it has always remained the No1 program in TRP when it was aired in Star TV/Sony TV. With Surya presenting the Orukodi,we may think it can top the charts or at least get some decent viewership that can be compared to lower ranking Sun TV programs. But, Sun TV has already started giving teaser ads for their version of Orukodi. They will see the initial responses for Vijay’s Orukodi and then plan on how to ‘kill‘ it. They will use all possible ammunition to keep viewers stay away from other Tamil Televisions which they have succeeded every time. Only very few non Sun TV programs found a plan in top 100 Indian TV programs( that too at the tail end of it, but, Sun TV has consistently  has 20 to 30 in top 100). On the other hand, Vijay has other advantes at this time:

• Sun TV has no new Tamil films rights as most of them are with Kalaignar TV/Jeya and even Vijay TV. We can see they are already struggling during weekends. Now the serials are more important than ever.
• Many places in TN where Arasu cable has taken over does not show KTV, Sun News, Sun Music. It will be little difficult to use KTV for hosting their version of Orukodi.
• They will use the prime slot 8 to 10 pm only as the ;last resort to air their Orukodi at the soaps telecasted now are their chart toppers. That will be a big gamble.

In spite of all these, I am sure SUN TV will find a way to work out an strategy to keep viewers hooked to Sun Network channels. or, is there a hope that significant Tamil TV viewers will keep away from their favorite soul-sucking Mega soaps?

We will know the answer in few days.

• ~75kms from Koyambedu and took 2hours by car. Used Google Navigation for the route but there should not be any confusion if you correctly spot the sigh that asks you to take right turn from the Chennai-Trichy NH ( ~ 60kms before Thindivanam )
• This place is safe and well maintained with Toilet facilities. You have place to sit in the 1km stretch.

If you want to take photos of birds you need camera with good zoom. Here are some of the pics taken with my Sony HX100V which has 30X Zoom.

Sony HX100V Macro Mode is fantastic!

What I like:
1) It’s my first Android phone. I was able to use most of the features setting without going to Google
2) Still pictures are very good : comparable to standalone digital cameras. This is when we have enough external light source.
3) Love the HD video recording. I use the 720p mode. Don’t use 1080p mode as it drains battery and requires more storage.
4) The earplug provided is good.

What I dislike:
Very difficult to find fault with SGSII. Following are some items that I wish could have been done better.
1) The speaker volume is very feeble. Most of the time the speaker phone option is useless because of this.
2) The default Music player is not so good. I bought Power Amp full version

I am completely satisfied with this phone. Never had a moment to regret the high price tag of Rs30000/-. It’s worth it!
I could not say the same thing with my previous phone: Nokia N95 8GB.

Recently upgraded my Wifi router to Asus RT-N16. The tech specs are follows:

wireless N, throughput of 300Mbps , 3 x external antenna , 2.4~2.5 GHz
Output power

n mode: 15.8~19.5dBm
* g mode: 15.5~16.5dBm
* b mode: 15.8~19.5dBm
4 x giga port ethernet , WAN x 1, LAN x 4 RJ-45 for 10/100/1000 Base-T, Supports Ethernet and 802.3 with max. bit rate 10/100/1000 Mbps and auto cross-over function (MDI-X)

2 x usb ports ( hdd / mem stick / print server )

CPU: Broadcom BCM4718 533MHZ
RAM: 128MB (2x 64MB)
ROM: 32MB
ETH: 4x GIGABIT (LAN) 1x GIGABIT (WAN)
USB Ports: 2
Wireless N 2.4 gig

Updates the Router firmware to TomatoUSB.

http://tomatousb.org/tut:installing-on-asus-rt-n16

Now I have complete control over the router. Have access to root shell and several popular Linux packages( Perl,Ruby,Python,curl…name anything ) is available via Optware

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware

What is that I gain from it right away:

1.  Running Transmission Bittorrent Client. It’s a simple and lightweight Bittorrent client that has a Web interface. Now the torrent can be downloaded and scheduled from any machine on the network. The router downloads it to the connected USB drive without a need for PC to running 24×7 !
2. Second advantage is auto login to Reliance broadband. Reliance BB has an annoying Web based authentication even on a unlimited connections. We can not use the net unless the form is submitted with username and password. This makes connecting to the Wifi router via mobile phones / or use a non browser based apps roundabout process. With libcurl installed( thanks to optware) this is automated with router startup and scheduling every 12 hours( as they have 24 hours session limit)

Find a sample ssh screenshot to the router:

As requested following is the script that I use for reliance auto login. Optware libcurl needs  to be installed first.

curl -A "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091201 Firefox/3.5.6 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)" --referer "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do" --cookie-jar /tmp/mnt/FLASH/tomato/reliance/relcookie "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do" --connect-timeout 15 --max-time 20 --retry 2 --retry-delay 5
curl -A "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091201 Firefox/3.5.6 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)" --referer "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do" --cookie /tmp/mnt/FLASH/tomato/reliance/relcookie --data "userId=3432432444&password=paswd" "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do?action=doLoginSubmit" --connect-timeout 15 --max-time 20 --retry 2 --retry-delay 5

1. Rekindles my reading habit: Read 4 books after getting Kindle(4 months back). Didn’t complete a full books in the previous two years!
2. Fist best thing: Battery life. I need to charge it only every 3-4 weeks time!
3. Second best thing about Kindle is : Font setting. Set the size which is more comfortable.
4. Looks like paper. Yes!
5. Light weight ~250gms
6. Delivery of books  and magazines are very good via the Wifi.( Whipernet)

What would have made it better:

1. During page turn it goes to full black before showing the next page. Initially it was annoying. But, now i don’t notice it at all
2. Wish the books were lot cheaper. Average price is is ~10$. So have to look for other means to get cheaper book

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/tell-me-what-should-i-tell-them

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinions/6984715.cms

In Tamil:

http://idlyvadai.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post_9755.html

BarkhaGate:

http://swathipradeepworld.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/barkha-dutt-exposed/

Waiting for it to reach Chennai