RealityEquation

On Facebook (or Not) & Hypersocieties

For quite a while now I’ve managed to actively stay away from Facebook and the idea of “social networks” in general. The reason — besides the obvious sense of resentment that it was someone else and not me who invented the thing — is because I never quite warmed to the idea of networking for, well, the sake of it.

Even in real life — this phrase is becoming increasingly relevant, with such alternative …

MacBook Air Appreciation

Sometime back, I wrote why Apple’s newest portable machine MacBook Air won’t quite take flight yet. A lot of people told me that, especially for someone who is usually ridiculously enthusiastic about anything remotely related to Macs, I was being too harsh on Apple. They said that all my criticisms weren’t merited. Nate even commented on that article telling me that I might have …

Writing for Rev2.org

Here’s something you (probably) didn’t know about me: I’m an Associate Analyst at Rev2.org.

Rev2 is “a weblog dedicated to profiling the best web apps/services and tracking new emerging trends in this space”, founded and run by editor and Web 2.0 buff Sid Yadav, with help from other associate contributers like myself.

I started last year — I did an in-depth …

Michael Crichton’s ‘Prey’: A Reviewette

I just finished reading Michael Crichton’s 2002 technothriller Prey and loved it so much I wrote a quick review. Unlike 2006’s Next (about commericalized genetics), which I couldn’t bother finishing, Prey is up there with 2004’s State of Fear (about …

Why the MacBook Air won’t Take Flight. Yet.

Steve Jobs drew this year’s MacWorld keynote address to a close by pulling Apple’s latest portable offering out of a standard letter envelope: the MacBook Air. But whispers around the Mac community seem to cast doubt on whether the ultra-portable will be ably to fly at all.

Mac pundits had predicted an ultra-portable would be introduced to fill the gap between the highly popular consumer-level MacBook and the pro-level MacBook Pro. …

MacWorld 2008 Roundup (Posted Live)

Macworld San Francisco, the Christmas of all Mac and Apple fans, will begin in one minute! Steve Jobs (aka Santa) is due to kick it off with his Stevenote, starting the year (it’s just only beginning) with details, upgrades and, most of all, new products!

Here are live updates (all times PST, according to timeanddate.com):

8:59am: Abhishek and I have gotten cozy at MacRumorsLive and at MacObserver’s Live Coverage. Rumor has a new 3G iPhone and …

Jive (verb): Design and Conquer

In yesterday’s article about the upcoming organic web revolution, I mentioned that Apple “jived” the iPod:
Apple didn’t invent digital audio players; they ‘jived’ it (as in gave it the Jonathan Ive treatment). The concept of widgets didn’t come from Apple, but it wasn’t until the release of Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ that it really took off. Microsoft followed, then Yahoo! and now even Google lets you create little self-contained apps …

Organic Web Revolution: iPod touch and $399 iPhones

 
Apple, in yesterday’s event, announced two very interesting things: one, new and updated iPods and two, a $200 price cut on the 8GB iPhone. The 4GB iPhone is no more, but will be available till stocks last for just $299. Some are very bitter at Apple for pulling an iMacG5EOL on them, some are insanely happy that they can now afford the ‘coolest’ phone ever created and Apple itself, I suppose, is happiest …

Microsoft Photosynth: An Early Review

Microsoft (MSFT) is planning to pull off a Charlie Eppes on us. That’s right; Redmond is developing Photosynth, a tool that takes a bunch of photographs, analyses them (and although that’s just two words, there’s really a lot going on at the back; there, better), and — get this — reconstructs them in 3D. Yes, it’s …

On Google and HostingRails

This website is now being hosted on a new, shiny HostingRails’ shared hosting plan. Which means I’ve learned my lesson the hard way: don’t rely on free hosts. Here’s the story.

I’d previously hosted Reality Equation of Infinite Variables on a shared hosting account generously provided to me for free by a host called WebSoln. I’m not linking to their homepage not because I don’t think they deserve more traffic, but because they simply …