The Mobile Navigator

The Google maps app for mobile leaves you with no excuses for getting lost.

 
Stuck in a train which just refused to reach Delhi, I started fiddling with the apps on my Nokia E63. Curious to know where I was, I switched on the Google Maps app which I had downloaded recently. My phone doesn’t have GPS and I was definitely not near a city from what I saw through the blue glass windows, yet the app plotted my exact location on the map — I was 20 km from Aligarh. As my fellow passengers tried to figure out where we had been stuck for the past two hours, I chipped in with my gyan, much to their surprise.
But the Google Maps app for mobile phones can get you far more than some brownie points on a forgotten Indian Railways express train. For instance, users in Delhi can get the app to show them how to get from Point A to Point B by the Metro. Along with telling you how much the journey will cost and how long it will take, the app also uses your location to direct you to the nearest Metro station. Sadly, I could not get the app to work in Kolkata, the other Indian city with a Metro network, or Mumbai which prides itself on its local train system. 
The app will, however, tell you road directions for anywhere in India. It plots the route on a map and gives you directions for the entire journey, telling you where to turn or which overbridge to take. In the big cities, it automatically factors in the traffic delays and tells you how long it will take to reach the destination—the accuracy of this feature is debatable though. It can also plot alternative routes, in case you are stuck in a traffic jam. As a third option, you also get to know the shortest walking route with detailed directions.
In phones with built-in GPS, the Google app can give other navigation devices a run for their money, with its voice output that reads out directions. As default the app shows locations on a map, you also have the option of switching to satellite view.
But the best feature of the app for me was its ‘My Location’ technology which shows where you are on a map using the nearest cell phone towers. This was correct to a few metres every time I checked, even in interior Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
The app lets you use keys on your phone to zoom in on the map and find businesses that have been tagged, but there are not many tagged in Indian cities for now. In the US, the app can plot all the nearby restaurants and even pop up their contact details. In India, you can use the ‘Layers’ feature to see important marking on the map like airports, transit lines and so on.
Google Latitude, which lets you log in to your Google account and tell the world where you are at any given point of time, is also a part of the app. However, it is best left switched off in order to avoid embarrassing situations.
While the features available depend on the phone OS and your location, most basics are available on all phones. The good thing about this app, which is free like other apps from Google, is that you don’t actually need a smart phone to get it going. It works like a dream on cheaper phones too, provided you have a GPRS or WAP connection.
So, you don’t have an excuse for getting lost any more.

Fluid pleasure

Nothing compares to the pleasure of using a Mac, if you can afford it
THERE are times when even writers find themselves at a loss for words. For me, one of those moments came when I was fiddling around with the new upgraded 17” MacBook Pro. If there is one word that can summarise a Mac, it has to be fluid – from the unibody design to the lightning fast OS X Snow Leopard, everything about the MacBook has a liquid quality to it.
But before I go more gaga over this aluminum dream box, let me alert you that buying one of these is like getting yourself a yacht. It’s great to ride and show off, but you need to have serious moolah to even get to the wharf where it is anchored. Plus, if you are really attached to your Windows PC, an Apple might actually land you up in front of a doctor. The OS is very different from Windows, and despite its ease-of-use, takes some getting used to. But this is also the sort of thing you would want to get used to once you get a feel of it. 
The MacBook Pro might not be the thing for regular PC users, but if you are a photographer, graphic artist, musician or painter, this is as close to the Holy Grail as you can be. With the 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache and Apple’s new automatic graphics switching technology that toggles seamlessly between powerful NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and energy efficient Intel HD Graphics processors, this one renders pictures and graphics like no others. Pictures from my Digital SLR, which take half a minute to load on regular PCs, were zipping through in the iPhoto slideshow and clearer than I have ever seen them before. In fact, Mac claims its new Pro 15” and 17” are “50 per cent faster than the previous systems” – it sure feels so, especially during start-up and shut down.  
Push a DVD into the slot drive and you get another feel of this fluidity. While running a movie, push the cursor to the top of the screen to make a filmstrip of the chapters appear. You can just click the screenshots to jump to the part of the movie you want to see, with not even a second’s lag.
Then this also has the best pair of speakers I have ever encountered on a laptop. Even the constant drone of the vuvuzelas from the TV behind could not drown out the dialogues of the movie playing on the Mac.
If that doesn’t impress you, there is the glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard, nestled in the midst of some serious wrist space, to give you second thoughts. The 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200 glossy display means there is also extra large real estate facing it. Then there is the built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; which Apple promises can deliver “up to 10 hours of wireless productivity on a single charge and up to 1,000 recharges”. 

The 17” version features a 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB, 500GB serial ATA hard drive with Sudden Motion Sensor, AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking, Gigabit Ethernet port, a state-of-the art iSight video camera and three USB 2.0 ports for connectivity options. All you have to do now is apply for a bank loan so that you can pay Rs 1.36 lakh to get hold of this wonder machine. 

The case of the lost iPhone and a sour Apple

Apple has been crowned the third strongest global brand in the world and Steve Jobs seems to be already flexing his new-found extra muscle.
Last Friday, armed with a search warrant, California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team searched the home and car of Jason Chen, editor of the popular tech blog Gizmodo, in Fremont and seized computers, digital cameras, a cellphone and other items.
Jason’s fault: last week he posted pictures and dissected details of an iPhone prototype found in a bar in Redwood City in San Mateo County. The new iPhone, which Gizmodo reportedly acquired for $5,000 from an undisclosed person, had been disguised to look like an iPhone3GS. After the scoop, Apple acknowledged the device belonged to the company, and the Gizmodo returned it.
But Apple was clearly not going to let the matter end. The search warrant issued by a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County said Chen’s computers and other devices may have been used to commit a felony. In the raid that followed, members of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team took away several computers, hard drives, digital cameras, cellphones and other gadgets, plus Chen’s American Express bill and copies of his cheques. 
Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, claimed the warrant was invalid as California’s shield law, which protects journalists from having to turn over anonymous sources or unpublished material to law enforcement during a search, should apply to Chen’s property too. Reports said the company is seriously contemplating a case against the sheriff’s office in San Mateo County, California for conducting the raid.
Among those backing Gizmodo is Jon Stewart of the The Daily Show who went on to term Jobs & Co “appholes” in his popular talk show on Comedy Central. He didn’t stop there and followed it up with a direct message for Jobs. “Look in the mirror, man! ... It wasn’t supposed to be this way — Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one!”
An official response from Apple is awaited, but rest assured this is not the last you have heard of the matter.