GolbloG

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Confrimed: Nokia Exits Phone Manufacturing Business, Now Makes Videos Of Concepts

Gone are those days where you could expect phones like Nokia 3310 with which you could play foot ball, and still expect it to work.

Nokia has been pummeled by the iPhones and the Androids in the smart phone market quite some time back. And after losing the remaining market share in the developing countries to Micromax/Karbonn (in India) and to other low end cell phone makers, Nokia fired its engineers and has got down to the business of making some really awesome videos of concepts (and forget about manufacturing good phones).

Here are two of the latest Nokia concepts:

Thursday, July 28, 2011

360 TeliportME - Worlds best Panorama app for Android!

If you an Android user, wanted to make/share some awesome panoramic images like this view of a mountain range, or like this awesome pano of the Grand Canyon, you can do it (for FREE), with the awesome Android app 360 TeliportME that runs on most devices running Android 2.2 or later!

All you have to do is launch the app, go to the 360/Pano tab, and press start. Slowly pan from left to right, and the stitching happens in the background. After panning (or once you hit the stop button), the phone/app takes some time (depends a lot on the device type) to stitch it up.

The best part of the app is that it is coupled with an awesome web portal that shows the latest panos uploaded. It has some of the best panos from the awesomest parts of the world, real nice ones! The app and the website also also have the usual twitter, facebook, likes and comments stuff. It feels really nice to see people from around the world liking/commenting on your panos!

The panos are geo-tagged, which also helps you to have a loot at Panos around your location!

Of all the Pano apps I have tried on Android, the 360 TeliportME by VTCreator has been the best capture and share experience I have had! I must say that this is one of the best photo sharing options for Android (yes you can capture and share regular photos too!).

PS: I am an iOS fanatic, and I love Panorama360 (paid) by Occipital and Photosynth (Free) by Microsoft. Even then, the TeliportME (Free) experience has been much much better in terms of sharing and discovering new panos because of a nice social element attached to it

EDIT: I just had to add this awesome panorama from Germany. Its a fine example of having the right phone + app at the right time at the right place!

Friday, July 22, 2011

This Fall, the iPod Touch will die

This is the boldest prediction I am making.

This fall, when the next generation iPhone (5 or 4S whatever) is announced, the iPod touch will die.

Why?

I am basing my prediction purely based on the "cheaper version of the iPhone" rumors and a change in the back to school offer for Apple products.

The usual back to school offer would include a free $199 worth of iPod touch with any mac purchase. With rumors of a cheaper iPhone to be announced this fall, it'd probably make sense to give away that $199 iPhone instead of iPod touch. This would ensure that the students get sucked into the walled garden (I love the garden even though its walled =) of Apple early on, cutting the growth of any iPhone competitor!

As with most of my iPredictions (which didn't come true), this is purely based on the iRumors I have heard!

Update (September 21, 2011)
Fast Company is thinking on the lines of this post! http://www.fastcompany.com/1781750/apple-should-kill-the-ipod