Skype hits a century... a million times over

There was a time when no one knew what Skype was (in India, many still don't know), but it is now on the forefront of the revival of the Web. So, it is not too surprising when you hear that Skype now has 100 million customers.

For me, Skype is more than just a dotcom, wanting to make it big. Many ask what is the big difference between the 1999 boom and the current boom. For one, the current boom is for real. It is real because the Internet is finally being used for what it was meant for -- services that touch the human heart. No technology will ever be used just for its esoteric nature -- it is only how tech influences everyday life that will determine the Web's success.

Here is what I predict the Web will be most used for (in order of usage) soon:
1) Communication
2) Entertainment - downloads and broadcasting
3) Information gathering
4) E-commerce
5) Banking

As you notice, Skype is at the top of the category rated No 1. Entertainment already has iTunes as No 1, while Google is No 1 for information gathering. Amazon and Ebay (which owns Skype) are No 1s in the e-commerce business. Banking may not have a No 1, but it is a category that cannot be ignored.

Agree? Disagree? Write back!

Google chugs along on track to world domination

I wait for the week when there is no news involving Google. After changing the world (well, almost) by its text, now we hear that Google has patented even voice search. As the Chinese say, "May we live in interesting times."

The 100 Most Popular Laptops

I have an Acer Travelmate, so I was happy that it was placed at No 13 in Cnet's 100 Most Popular Notebooks list. The List is a list of the usual suspects -- Dell, Lenovo (formerly IBM), Sony, HP Compaq, Toshiba and Fujitsu. Of course, this is a US-centric list.

Conspicuous by its absence in the top 50 is Apple's Macbook Pro 2.0, which comes in at 59. The 1.83 version is almost out of the list at 96.

The winner, not surprisingly, is Dell Inspiron E1705.

Is your laptop in the list? Find out...

A Bluetooth iPod?

How cool wil that be -- a Bluetooth iPod! Expensive, for sure, at least in India, but cool nevertheless. Stuff Magazine has the rumour details.

Saturday Sermon
- The Weekend Blah on the .XXX top-level domain

It was in an issue of Mad magazine that I first read about the idea of legalising marijuana. It was revolutionary, even anti-establishment and rebellious, but logical. The moment you legalise drugs, they are no longer "forbidden fruit". For all you know, it might even lose its allure. Prostitution is something like that. If you legalise it, the market will take care of rules, regulations, laws will forbid unprotected sex, and even incidence of HIV may come down. In an illegal market, anything goes, and that is dangerous since the authorities adopt an ostrich-like sand-in-the-head attitude.

Just like prohibition achieves nothing -- in fact, it has a negative impact on society and the state -- talking of banning pornography is all bullshit. The notion is foolhardy, and implementation impossible. Which is why, I was a bit saddened by ICANN's decision not to create an .XXX domain for pornographic sites. It was the best opportunity for the world to cut down on paedophilia on the Web. And since politics makes for strange bedfellows, it was the US, Australia and Iran which negated the move.

A .xxx top-level domain would have meant better and tighter parental control, making kids safer, if not totally immune, from Web pornography. Tracking becomes easier in case of any legal trespass, and the market would corrected itself by becoming more disciplined. Alas, we have lost that chance. At least for the time being.

A .xxx extension also gives corporates a better chance to monitor employee usage of bandwidth, and therefore, at least theoretically, increase productivity. Nobody admits, but some time or the other, we have all accessed porn in the office.

Somehow, though, I get the feeling that corporates and parents (and horror of horrors, the media), are indifferent towards Net porn. For them, it is always something that happens to someone else's organisation or the neighbour's kids. Truth is, the danger is closer than we all think. And the sooner we realise it the better.

iPod Nano? What's that?

When my wife gifted me an iPod 2 years back, I must admit I was honoured. Even the CEO of the place where I worked (he goes to San Francisco the same way we take the weekend off to a nearby beach) envied me. Today, there are more iPods in the office (and with my friends) I can think of. A 50-year-old female cousin of mine, who does not know the difference between a RAM and Ram the male sheep, is buying an iPod Nano tomorrow. In other words, the iPod rocks.

It is, no doubt, as much a mass phenomenon as Rubik's Cube was in the '70s and the '80s even though I seriously doubt it will go the Cube's way. But Cnet's story on iPod Nano alternatives makes for interesting reading. Jasmine France feels (and rightly so) that the iPod Nano, though easy to use, lacks an FM tuner, is prone to scratching (many iPod Nanos were recalled after it was discovered that their screens were brittle), and most importantly, is damn expensive. At least in India.

Before you buy that iPod Nano, I suggest you read the piece. Truly enlightening.

Toshiba is first off the HD DVD block

OK, the first shot has been fired in the high definition DVD battle. Toshiba, which leads the HD DVD alliance, launched its high definition DVD player on March 31. Good news? Perhaps. Because, as we had mentioned in a previous post, this is only the beginning of a long-drawn out war. And since on both sides of the battlefield you have companies which have some of the deepest pockets anyone could ever dream of, it is not going to be a quick one either.

So, dear reader, brace yourself for one of the most confusing times of your lives.

Saturday (oops, Tuesday) Sermon
- The Weekend (mid-week) Blah

Ok, so I clearly goofed by not adding a reminder on my scheduler. Trouble is that with so much stuff happening around us, remembering things is surely not an easy task. Call your parents, take your dog out, leave instructions for the cook, wash clothes, take them to the laundry, fill petrol, air for your tyres, watch the match, remember who scored the last 170-plus individual score before Gibss did in that match, get the anti-dandruff shampoo on the way home, and yes, what was that boss' deadline? There we go. Forgot. Again. Our brains, it would seem, has just too many things to take care of.

So, perhaps, we should forgive Microsoft for putting in 50 million lines of code for Windows Vista even if it forgot to go faster. Windows XP had 35 million lines of code, Win 98 had 18 and Win 95 had just 15. Admittedly, Vista will have all the things that you wanted -- parental control, search, better graphics, better networking capabilities, tabbed browsing, better data management, and surely better security, well, the works. So what gives?

The problem is that it will be slow. Damn, boring slow. And equally irritating, if not more, as Win XP with Service Pack 2. As a user, why should I be forced to buy a new machine with a new OS that will force me to buy more memory and a faster-than-ever chip, all of which which would mean more cooling, and shorter battery life. Not to mention the prohibitive price.

And that's a bummer. Logically, the more advanced a product gets, you would expect it to get more steamlined. Take cellphones. They are 10 times slimmer than a phone launched in 1996, but have at least 100 more features. And yes, they are 10 times cheaper too. Cellphones, by the way, demand as much hardware and software capabilities from engineers as an operating system.

But software giants have gone exactly the other way -- their products are heavier making them slower than ever before, and have features that most people just don't use. I'd rather have two versions - a "slim" or a "diet" version of any software for quick usage, and a "power" version for those wanting to use a software professionally. This way, I could go faster with better software, and professionals would have that edge anyway since, presumably, they will invest more in hardware, too.

I don't know a single person (and I mean it) who uses even 40 per cent of Microsoft Word's capabilities. So why should that person buy a full blown version as, say, a scriptwriter or an advertising pro? Since a home user (except gamers and telecommuters) typically use the machine for surfing or watching movies or listening to music, heavy, unusable software just does not make sense. Nor is it financially viable.

I would also like to believe that with such "diet" software, piracy rates would come down dramatically. People will be ready to pay for a stripped down "Office", rather than a bloated one. It is a win-win situation for both companies and users.

Fujitsu breaks 200 GB barrier for laptops

Five years back, the IT administrator at the place I worked refused to increase my hard disk capacity from 512 MB to 1 GB because he felt:
a) All my data could fit in to the current hard disk; and
b) The management would never approve such wasteful expense on things just because they hold someone's fancy

It would have been okay if I was some floozie on the newsdesk, but I was the Content Head of one of India's most visited news websites, and part of my responsibilities included storing masses of data, including video and audio files.

I did not know whether to laugh at the administrator or at the management (in any case I laughed at both, and sent the administrator's email to Scott Adams who collects the world's funniest corporate emails to write books and earn millions. I later sent another funny corporate email to Adams, which you may find at the end of this post).

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that the world, thankfully, has progressed enough. Fujitsu, which along with rival Hitachi, has belied physics to such an extent that it regularly breaks its own records, has plans to introduce the 200 GB laptop hard drive by the end of Q3. Good going.

Last year, Hitachi had introduced the Deskstar series of which the 500 GB model was the largest. With data consumption rising by the day, my guess is that those days of 30 GB laptops and 120 GB desktops will soon be history. Next stop? Quantum Computing? Reversible Computing?

And as promised here is the email I once received from the finance head of the place I worked. Laughter is a guaranteed side-effect.

"Dear Colleagues,
It has come to our notice that our Internet usage is eating into precious bandwidth. To prevent further misuse, I propose to ban all websites that belong to the following categories:
1) Pornography
2) Gambling, and
3) Games

However, we also appreciate that some of you may need such sites for business purposes. If that is indeed the case, the colleague in question should approach me or the IT head to ask for exemption from the ban."

I swear I am not making this up.

Encyclopaedia Britannica versus Wikipedia

Without comment, I present to you this bit of news.