DoT Receives Legal Notice on Zero-Rating Plans of Telcos
[Indian Netizens and Internet Entrepreneurs Welfare Association (INIEWA)], created last month, has said in the notice that zero-rating plans are violating the licence condition under which telecom operators must give customers unrestricted access to the Internet.
Cleartrip Redesigns its Mobile Website
Three principles guided the mobile web redesign for us:
– Move from the dated yellow colour palette to the white and blue theme of Tuxedo.
– Ensure consistency of experience across desktop and mobile web.
– Steal the best concepts from our app designs, without trying to mimic the apps on mobile web.
Cleartrip proves yet again why they’re one of my favorite companies in India with a focus on design.
There is a trend of brands shutting down their mobile sites in favor of mobile apps — they claim it is due to the overwhelming effort required to maintain all products across multiple platforms. We think that’s a terribly weak argument coming from companies that have no dearth of resources at their disposal. We’re committed to keeping Cleartrip accessible so our customers can use the channels they prefer. The web is one of the fastest and easiest platforms to develop and maintain (as compared to other front end platforms), and testimony to that, this entire project took us just 2 months to complete.
Bravo!
Xiaomi Launches Mi 4i in India at ₹ 12,999
The Mi 4i sports a 5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) fully laminated OGS Corning Concore IPS display, which is said to provide the same protection as the Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It has a pixel density of 441ppi, and a Sunlight Display feature that optimises the display for visibility under bright light.
The smartphone runs MIUI 6 based on Android 5.0 Lollipop, and supports 6 Indian languages – Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Tamil. It is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor coupled an Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB of RAM.
Those are some insane specs for that price.
Cleatrip Adds Support for the Apple Watch
Cleartrip today released an update to its iOS app that adds support for the Apple Watch, which will be making its way to users starting April 24th. If you’re a Cleartrip user and end up getting an Apple Watch, you’ll be able to enjoy some pretty nifty features like:
I have always loved what Cleartrip has been doing with the design of their website and their iOS app. You can download Cleatrip for iOS Free on the App Store.
Cleartrip Pulls Out of Facebook’s Internet.org Initiative
Cleartrip today announced that it was “standing up for #NetNeutrality” and pulling out of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative.
[…] the recent debate around #NetNeutrality gave us pause to rethink our approach to Internet.org and the idea of large corporations getting involved with picking and choosing who gets access to what and how fast. What started off with providing a simple search service has us now concerned with influencing customer decision-making by forcing options on them, something that is against our core DNA.
So while our original intent was noble, it is impossible to pretend there is no conflict of interest (both real and perceived) in our decision to be a participant in Internet.org. In light of this, Cleartrip has withdrawn our association with and participation in Internet.org entirely.
We believe that the Internet is a great leveller and that freedom of the Internet is critical for innovation. Cleartrip is and always will be a fully committed supporter of #NetNeutrality.
Props to Cleartrip for this announcement.
This past Sunday, I attended a special screening of the India vs. South Africa match from the ongoing Cricket World Cup 2015 in glorious 4K. The screening was arranged by Tata Sky for the Media to showcase their UHD 4K set-top-boxes that the company recently started offering its customers. The screening was held at Olive Bar & Kitchen and I accompanied Prasad to this event. India did end up winning the game and it was a lot of fun to watch the game in 4K. Here are some thoughts about the whole experience.
Before I begin, I should mention that I have been a Tata Sky customer for about nine years now. At home, I currently have a Tata Sky+ HD set-top-box as my primary connection and a regular Tata Sky HD STB as the secondary “multi-tv” connection. I was looking forward to experiencing their 4K offering not just as a early-adopter geek, but also as a regular customer of theirs.
At the screening, there were two Sony Bravia 79” 4K TVs set up for the viewers (KD-79X9000B), one indoor and one outside. Unfortunately, both the TVs had only a single speaker connected to them, which I thought was an odd choice considering the 5.1 sound is part of the whole experience.
The picture quality of the broadcast was just about how I’d expected it to be. The picture was crisp and you could easily tell the difference between a 1080p 1080i broadcast and the 4K broadcast. The latter is also completely ad-free. Just like when HD channels were introduced by DTH operators, the Star Sports 4K channel does not have any ads at all and during the ad-breaks for SD/HD channels, there are replays shown here instead. It’s interesting to see what goes on on the field during the drinks break or even the Innings break.
Star Sports 4K is the only 4K channel currently active, so the rest of your channels are all displaying 1080i content on a 4K display.
Tata Sky has priced their UHD 4K set-top-box, officially called “Tata Sky 4K” at Rs. 6400 for new customers or Rs. 5900 for existing customers. I was disappointed with this box for a few reasons. First, if you’re upgrading from a Tata Sky+ HD connection, you lose all the “plus” features. For example, on the UHD 4K box, you cannot record, rewind, pause, schedule at all. Not just the 4K channels, but any channel. You can get the UHD 4K STB as an addon (Multi TV connection) and continue using these features on your existing Tata Sky+ HD STB, but it’ll unnecessarily cost you an additional INR 200/month.
Additionally, it was also disappointing to see that Tata Sky haven’t updated their On Screen Display (OSD) on the UHD 4K STB. So the text for the menu, program guide and channel info is all blurry and jagged on your grandiose 4K television.
The sound on the 4K channel was also very low compared to the other channels, so whenever you change channels, god bless your ears.
For the India vs. South Africa game, ICC’s official broadcaster is Star Sports and they have 4K cameras on the field to record the action live. Star Sports also have a dedicated 4K channel for this broadcast, available on Channel No. 400 on Tata Sky. This channel will telecast seven matches from the World Cup, 4 of which will be India’s matches and the remaining 3 will be Semi-Finals and the Final. Apart from this, a consumer can enjoy content from the Discovery channel in 4K and I was told that additional content was coming soon.
Overall, it really doesn’t make sense to jump onto the 4K bandwagon just yet. There’s almost no content for you to enjoy right now. Of course, if you’re super rich and/or have already invested in a 4K television for some reason, then spending 6k more on a service that does give you a 4K stream is a no-brainer. If you have a HD TV, I do recommend a Tata Sky+ HD connection though.
Apple’s Hiring a Volume Recruiter, based in Delhi
Apple India is hiring a “Volume Recruiter” for its offices in New Delhi.
This role will be responsible for recruiting high volume positions across Apple’s Field Sales organisation across India.
There’s also an interesting open position for a QA Engineer for iOS based in Mumbai.
New 2014 Mac Mini Has Soldered RAM, Not User Replaceable
Juli Clover writing on Mac Rumors:
Many have speculated that the Mac mini also includes soldered RAM, which has now been confirmed by Macminicolo’s Brian Stucki. According to Stucki, the RAM in the Mac mini is “not user accessible,” which means those who purchase Mac minis are limited to 16GB of RAM that must be upgraded when purchasing the machine from Apple.
All three Mac mini models can be upgraded to a maximum of 16GB of RAM, with the upgrade priced at $300 for the base model and $200 for the mid and high-end models.
The Mac mini was not only an excellent choice as an entry-level desktop Mac, but it also worked as a great upgrade-later machine. I’ve recommended the Mac mini to many of my friends who bought it as their first Mac and went on to upgrade the RAM & HDD after purchase.
Now, not only can you not do any upgrades after purchase, but you can’t even order configurable options in India, so you’re stuck with the three standard models as your choices.