Super Comp

Back when iPhone 1.0 came out, my friend asked if I would buy it. We had previously discussed features we would look for in a phone, and the iPhone had easily surpassed our wish list. However, the moment it hit the market and I had a chance to play with it in the store, the bar for base expectations went straight up. Call it greed, or utopic condescention, but I felt it wasteful to shell out hundreds on a device that didn't offer all of these features:

• A great phone with bluetooth connectivity as well as excellent speaker and microphone for handsfree operation
• Top notch email and calendar capabilities
• Music player applications
• A minimum of 32 Gigs of disk space
• GPS with voice navigation
• Internet browsing capabilities
• Chat application
• Easy to use keyboard
• Optionally, a built in radio

The advent of Android has brought about a nice little war between the platforms, with apps popping up all over that have significantly challenged the iPhone and iPad. 

While the phone landscape has seen quantum innovation, the laptop and personal computing space has remained relatively stagnant. While manufacturers have experimented with screen size and processing power quite a bit, there hasn't been very much innovation in the realm of usability and 'smarts'. While the tablet brings a fresh avenue of thinking to computing, especially with gesture and touch support, the fact remains that those devices fall short when it comes to replacing the laptop, mainly due to poor text input support and disk sizes. 

It is time for the PC to take the next big leap, inherit the plusses of the tablet, but take it beyond that to provide a complete set of tools that will allow consumers to invest in a single device that covers business and personal needs. As in the case of the phone, my wishes seem to have a tendency to become reality, so here's hoping that this wish list for a PC device has the same fate:

• Hardware:
• Needless to say, a 64 bit quad core or better processor with a minimum of 4 Gigs of memory
• Minimum of a terabyte of disk space
• HDMI interface capabilities to hook up to home theater systems
• 15-17 inch high def antiglare screen (I feel like a giant peering into 13 inch screens)
• Pro-grade sound card for music making on the go
• Top wireless, bluetooth connectivity
• Full size back lit hideaway qwerty keyboard
• HD webcam
• Thunderbolt support
• 4G connectivity support
• Accident proof sturdy kevlar and/or aluminum construction
• GPS!
• Day-long battery, under full use!
• Tablet or macbook air/ultrabook weight range
• Usability:
• Facial and voice recognition for security
• Touchscreen and multi-touch trackpad with gesture support
• Think positioning multiple windows around simultaneously with finger gestures
• Motion/direction/proximity sensing capabilities for auto on/off, behind the scenes email sync, screen orientation etc
• Seamless connectivity with media on the cloud or network disk
• Seamless work sync across devices (local hard disk size negotiable depending on robustness of this functionality)
• Sleep-time app updates and data backup (cloud/network disk)
• Browsing history based intelligent RSS for morning and evening news
• Single sign-on for computer login, social media, and other accounts, with 'auto open' feature for app and browser links that need sign on
• In-built productivity suite (notes, reminders etc)
• NFC capabilities to perform data transfer and live work interaction with collaborating peers during meetings
• Think Banner and Stark in the Avengers
• NFC media transfer with cameras, phones, etc
• Oh, many more, but let's start with this, shall we?

And so the search continues. Maybe once I have this device, I won't need a heavyweight phone. Maybe a simple old-school numpad cellphone without the data features would suffice, with the featherweight 'super comp' doing the heavy lifting for me.

Dry Erase Television

I've always been irked by the fact that watching sport on TV didn't provide the life size entertainment that it deserved. Back in 2007, with the cricket world cup looming, I decided to finally get a big screen TV.

The LCDs were just about flooding the market then, and the rear projection CRT mammoth was beginning to feel the ice melt from under it. As with any new technology entering the consumer space, manufacturers were looking to make up innovation expenditure as early as possible, with prices that may have as well bought me a second hand car.

Furthermore, the largest of those was still a mere 52 inches! Frustrated, I started shopping for projectors, with the hope of using a wall to watch Sachin and his boys romp to the cup. As it turned out, the wall was a bad idea, and with the projector already having arrived, a projection screen was going to run up a total bill higher than the most expensive LCD, albeit for a larger screen size. 

After mucking around with projection paints without a satisfactory result, attributable largely to poor painting skills, and still adamant not to throw money at a piece of cloth posing as a screen, I decided to try out a dry erase board for a screen. The custom cut white dry erase board now sits in my basement in all its glory, giving me 72 inches worth of live entertainment whenever the mood hits me.

If you were to do this, keep in mind that dry erase boards are glossy, and will reflect the projector light right back at it, giving Paramount's peak an unwanted glaring glow! Fret not, for you can simply use an inexpensive heavy duty picture hanging kit from your local hardware store to mount the board at a slight angle to the wall, to deflect the glare to the ground. Of course, you will also need to adjust the keystone setting on the projector to avoid making your screen look like a trapezium.

The board cost less than $100. Try getting a fixed frame screen for that much (maybe doable in 2012, but not back then, by a long shot). End result? Nirvana!

Happy home theater experiences to all!

Pillayar Suzhi

Well, here goes... My very first blog post! Blogging, especially about technology, cricket and food is something I've wanted to do for years. Better late than never I guess...