With Android smartphones capturing a majority share we all carry them.

Internet Packs of 2g are cheap but 3g is quite expensive  except govt. providers with poor service.

We all turn to free Wi-Fi networks for app updates and downloads.

But do you know WIFIs are unsecure to share password and personal usage is freely available .

DROIDVPN is a solution.

What is the internet of things?

Wiki : The Internet of Things refers to uniquely identifiable objects (things) and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure.

Today, the internet is basically a network of computers, and mobile devices. But, we are now at a tipping point. Soon, there will be more devices connecting to the Internet than there are humans on earth. Everything from your appliances at home to your car will be connected to the Internet, uploading different kinds of data. There will be more and more sensors in everything, recording your movements, and uploading it to the cloud. Then, the software in the cloud will crunch the data to make meaning from the large amount of data collected, and will make something happen as a result. Say, your car will heat up in the winters, before you get there. And the car will know when you woke up, and when you will be in the car. In the meanwhile, your bath water will be optimally heated et cetera. This upcoming wave of data is the reason Big Data startups are hot right now. Because, there is an enormous need to crunch this data, to mine valuable information from it.

If you have been wondering what ever happened to IBM, and what is with their ads on TV, talking about streams of data, this is what they are exactly preparing themselves for. This video should help you understand more -

Soon, there are going to be a lot of hardware companies getting into home automation, warehouse automation, and many other areas where automation can save large amounts of energy. Today, home automation services that turn off your lights as you leave a room, or let you control everything via your mobile are considered a luxury. But soon, they will be a necessity. All of this information processing will not be necessarily centralised though. It will not be a magical realm that connects everything with each other, like in Pandora in James Cameron’s Avatar. It will be distributed, but you could connect it to a central service, such as Facebook.

That sounds cool. I want this now!

Try IFTTT. It’s a tool that lets you define actions based on different sensors like your phone, or anything else. You can set up IFTTT such that you receive a message every time you get an email, and also hook up actual hardware with it.

And if you need more, try WOVYN. They sell sensors that you can program to trigger different actions. They have a lot of these, including, water, temperature, and presence, So you can program your lights to turn off, when nobody’s home.

What are your thought on the future of Internet? Let us know in the comments. Also, the future of tech gets you excited, and you want to write similar articles, drop a line at editor@thetechiris.com.

So, you have probably heard about the spoof PMO accounts on twitter being banned. If not, then you have now.

To begin with, there is absolutely nothing wrong with spoof accounts, especially when they mention in their bio that they are spoof accounts. In fact, these spoof accounts almost always make more sense than real politicians. But then again, a lamp-post in the street makes more sense than most of our politicians. Well, except one, Rajeev Chandrashekar. I don’t know how this guy came into existence, and became an MP. And I am not making this up, but this is what he thinks about internet freedom -

Any attempt to expand the government’s power over the internet – however incremental, seemingly innocuous or pretending to advance democracy – should be turned back

This is from his editorial piece in the Times Of India.

He finally got the government to review his suggestion,and talk to the public before taking a decision. He tweeted -

The Govt has accepted my repeated position to review it’s May 2012 position & is now finally initiating my suggestion for an open public consultation on the subject ! PM supports my position !

Apart from the obvious problem of him not knowing his its from it’s, he seems, overall, pretty awesome, just because of his stance on the Internet. But he can easily get outvoted by a number of idiots MPs.

Which brings us back to reality. So, the retards, masked as the Indian government, got the ISPs to block a few twitter accounts, including @PM0India. The account is now accessible, but all the previous tweets have been deleted.

Other retarded stuff that happened in the past week on the Internet involved real people, and not only politicians. The result was SMSes being limited to 5 per day, and a number of sites being blocked, in order to curb the non-existent violence against north-east Indians. I might not be qualified enough to comment on this, but I think imagining a full-blown religious riot are symptoms of serious schizophrenia. Which means that most Indians with access to social media networks or mobile phones are schizophrenics. Or just fond of sharing shit. The only thing being shared in my feeds was content made to help de-bunk the rumor, not feed into it. Which makes me happy as that means that all of the filtering I did in my Facebook feed ( subscribing / unsubscribing ) was not in vain. BTW, most of the sites blocked, reportedly had nothing to do with the event. But who cares? Something had to be done, right? Read the detailed analysis of Prakash Prasanna, a programme manager at CIS ( Centre for Internet and Societ ), which explains what all was blocked and did it make sense ( short answer : no ).

As you can see, it’s not only the government that’s retarded, it’s also we, the people. And it’s not only about the Internet. It’s about us. Maybe we just are a bunch of retarded monkeys, frustrated with our mediocre lifestyles, looking for some kind of amusement. Maybe we are all just pieces of a mob waiting to happen, waiting to wreak havoc, as soon as the gears are set in motion.

Or, maybe, there’s hope.

Via CNET

Not much is known about Steve Jobs and his “India connection”. What brought him to India , no facts listed , is it karmic connection many people come India for? We know very little about that. A college dropout who earned money by returning empty Coke bottles and had his weekly free meal at a local Hare Krishna Temple.

We don’t know whether the free meals or the karmic connect was the factor bringing him to Local krishna temple. He shaved his head , got Indian clothes and lived in India , and after this his every action was a path breaking success. Leaving behind the world’s most valuable tech firm , his Indian love could not get iPhones in India early and cheap, though he loved India but not as a “business market”. Maybe he was good to let Indian mobile companies grab 10-12% share. We always were late to get iPad and iPhones, even after the fact that he actually loved India.

Here is a timeline for few Apple products

It took almost 360 days for Apple iPad to reach India after launch for iPad 2. U.S. got the Ipad version 1 on April 3, 2010. On May 28, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Japan and Switzerland got their hands on it and China got it in September 2010. Wait, where is the world’s 2nd largest mobile device market (which is virtually inexistent for apple)? India
Official debut in India on January 28, 2011.

And do they still love India?

Single branded smartphones -they have a huge market. samsung sells loads of phone models. Apple keeps it simple, one phone and one tablet. Only storage space and connectivity ( wifi/3g/4g ) matters, and not any other specs.

After Steve Jobs death, a new CEO, Tim Cook, comes and here is what he says in a Apple confrence -

I love India, …

Hey, don’t get excited wait there is a “but”

… but I believe Apple has some higher potential in the intermediate term in some other countries.
This doesn’t mean we’re not putting emphasis in India. We have a business there and it’s growing but my own perspective is that in the intermediate term there will be larger opportunities outside (the country)

Now before you get angry lets analyze the reason before we call them sick americans who just consider India a third world nation of call centers and serpents and all, just like Oprah Winfrey, who comes to India like a boss, enjoys it all , praises India and its culture and then in her show she “experiences India” as if it is an alien mystery land. Let’s move on to topic, get into the business shit, an area Apple is famous for actually, making 12 Bn$ as profit in 3 months , which Tatas and Ambanis don’t make combined.

I hope you remeber Indian media covering the iPad and iPhones at the stores with long lines, do you? ( If not, you are not at right place, you are not tech savvy, stop reading TechIRIS. Just kidding. But seriously. )

And you do know , those are apple stores and long lines are of fans who come 10 hours before the stores open.

Now do you see such stores in India? NO!

You will ask why?

Reason #1

The manufacturers compete with others in India for a market which has small margins but is volume driven. The reason why Apple, which prefers to own and control its supply chain is not more successful here, and I will tell you why, because Indian government rules on single brand FDI are strict. 51-49% should be held by an Indian player. Who will not want a 49% share of Apple India? Everyone would , but which Indian company deserves 49% of the would be Apple India? Lava, or the new Karbon? Micromax?

None. Also distribution channels in India suck. He added

The multi-layered distribution (In India) really adds to the cost of getting products to market.

Now is the time to get angry. He compares us to China and rates them as an opportunity and India as an intermediate skip.
A confident Cook said

We’ve been very focused on China, because we see it as an enormous opportunity for us.

Thanks to the Indian govt. we won’t get Indian apple stores , with glass stairs and the huge apple on the front.

Reaon #2

How does Apple drive profit and volume in other areas? It sells Apple products for 200$ i.e. 12,000 INR, which is an amount many will spend happily. Now the thing is, it has a two year contract , with locked to AT&T network (many in US hate it)
so , for two years Apple earns on every MB you use , every minute you call ( US has billing per minute not per second like in India) and every SMS you send.

FYI: AT&T also has no unlimited usage plans.

So this is part 2 for apple , India, a nation with per second billing , very less 3G usage or any data usage for that matter, and so many network operators like Airtel, Idea, Vodafone in tariff wars with each other, and hence with low earnings ( not to forget the 3G auctions, 2 billion$ loans on reliance and airtel ) are not something that excites Apple. How will they share revenue with apple , they cannot give subsidised devices and hope to make money later. So, no bulk sales and no profits. In other words they lose the bulk volume of India.

Reason #3

Apple earns by selling apps , games and songs. Who in India actually buys apps! Honestly, it will be not more than an optimistic 2-3% (according to hungama.com). Everyone will just get them jailbreaked. Frankly, who has never used a cracked version of Windows, PhotoShop or MS Office?

Conclusion – No revenue from content.

So here is the equation for Apple, in India -

No volume
No control/apple stores
No revenue sharing
No content revenue

This leaves Apple with no other option but “bye, India see you later”. Don’t know what we can work on to improve, but we need to blame it on something for a conclusion! We respect software sharing and freeware and are against 200$ software. Let’s blame it on government and networks. Bring FDI thing govt of India, and networks share your profit , you will get more volume for sure , apple fans exist and grow in India exponentially if it’s not priced at a whopping 43,000 INR.

Things do change and Aircel just changed it. iPhone 3GS available for free (*on a contract) in US, so by cost of ownership Aircel is offering probably the cheapest iPhone 3GS anywhere in the world.

Aircel is offering the black 8GB iPhone 3GS for an upfront payment of 9,999 INR in India (US $180) and an “advance rental” of Rs. 3,000 (US $55). This advance rental gets you 2GB of 3G data per month for an year or 1000 minutes and 2500 text messages per month for 6 months. BTW the phone is unlocked, so you can put any SIM.

In US you can pick-up an iPhone 3GS 8GB for free but with a two-year $39.99 a month contract. That’s a whooping $960 over the 24 months, and the device is locked to AT&T ( a network that sucks!) for 2 years. Or an unlocked iPhone for an up-front $375 in the US, £319.00 ($498) in the UK, HKD 2,888 ( 372USD ) in Hong Kong, A$449 (465 USD ) in Australia or Euro 349 ($424) in Spain.

Hurray! Aircel iPhone 3GS is the cheapest by a wide-margin – $137 or around Rs. 7,500. So let’s be optimistic and hope for a change!

Let us know your thought about this is the comments below. Looking forward to a lively discussion!

Part 1. What is the Higgs Boson?

Part 2. What is mass?

Part 3. How to Discover a Particle

Did watching these make you understand the Higgs boson better?

Being Batman costs 682 million $

whereas, being Ironman costs 1.6 billion $.

And this is the very problem with superheroes. The one’s that you can be, are very rich, and that one’s that you can’t be, well, what’s the point in talking about those.

Which was your favorite superhero movie, this summer?

Some random dude named Ruslan Enikeev, took 350,000 websites on the internet, and arranged them in a vast map, organised by visits and location. One websites proximity to another also depends on where people normally go from a site. If more people go to Facebook, than Wikipedia, from Google, than, Facebook will be closer. The exact algorithm used to arrange these sites is not available, but there’s some useful ingo in the about section.

Check out the map of the internet here.

Google+ in Gmail

You can also load hidden comments to the post -

Meaning that there is AJAX involved. The comments also get posted via AJAX, from within the email, so you don’t have to leave GMail.

All this functionality is cool, apart from one major flaw. Email clients including GMail don’t support JavaScript, apparently due to security issues. If that is the case, then why does Google+ get special treatment, Saying that they only trust themselves with JavaScript is exactly like Microsoft saying they only trust internet with IE. Verifying browsers for security is a lot easier than verifying a lot of emails. But they can at least allow other top social networks to use the feature. Top meaning every network, that is more frequented than Google+. Which includes

Google+ in search results

Hover over a result, to see the share link. Sharing links in search results are good, because they let you share content in your preferred network.

Which sadly is not the case here. This one only lets you share with your two friends on Google+.

It’s like Internet Explorer and Microsoft in the 1998 era. Google clearly has a monopoly of content distribution, as the two most visited search engines are both owned by Google ( Google search and YouTube ), and they are clearly misusing their position by allowing people to share easily to Google+, but not on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn. It can easily be argued that you can still take a link and manually share it on other networks, but you could also install Netscape manually, on your copy of Windows. The only problem was that IE did not go away. Neither does the Google+ share button.

What do you think? Has Google really crossed a line, or promoting their own product is fair game?