Follow-Up: It is official! The war is over - Blue Team wins...

Blu-ray vs HD-DVD - a hard-fought war of over two years and we finally have a winner. The Blue team (Blu-ray) will be the High Definition movie format for the future.

So what tilted the scales?
Well, the war was on since the studio giants were split between the two sides. First Warner switched camps to Blu-Ray, closely followed by Paramount and Dreamworks. The doom was then imminent. Was only a matter of time for Toshiba, the founding father of HD DVD, to accept
defeat.

So what happens to the millions of HD DVD players in the market?
Firstly it will take time for the umpteen manufacturers of HD DVD players to absorb the loss and shelve their products. Luckily the players are now being sold as Upscaling DVD players which provide better resolution/clarity with normal DVDs. So if you've already bought one at an exorbitant price, just bite your tongue and use it as upscaling/normal DVD player.

Now that the battle is over, should I just run over to the nearest CircuitCity store and pick up a Blu-Ray player?
Well - no! The battle being over is far from Blu-Ray becoming an accepted industrial standard.
- The players are still extremely expensive (300-400$) and you can do well to wait for the price to drop.
- Unlike HD-DVD, the Blu-Ray standard is still evolving and far from being complete.
- Tons of Blu-Ray players currently in the market are 1.0 standard players which do not even support an upgradable feature. So what you buy now may become an obsolete device in a year!

Techno Corner : My fiddlings with my Wand

Technology has always fascinated me. So has the increasing dependence of mankind on the world of technology. Though I must admit that I am scared that one day technology will be so advanced as to belittle and take over mankind. Hmm... letz not get into that.

Amongst those mini, micro gadgets is the CELLPHONE - a device which keeps the time-based distance between any two points on earth to less than 5 seconds!! They have evolved from those hard-rock, brick-like communication devices to sleek smart all-pervasive gadgets where the name 'cellphone' is nothing but a misnomer.

The world of integration is the key to the future. Mobiles are not just used for communication anymore. Put in a high-end digital camera, chip in a classy music player, and add in outlook and other web tools, and also throw in a few gigs of storage. Well thatz what the phone of today look like - incredible!

But, besides all these, the one thing that fascinated me the most is the idea of plugging in an Operating System. BOOM! Now you've bridged the gap between the phone and the computer. And out come the Smart Phones - the truly smart ones - with tons of softwares and tools. Well, other than the huge display and the keyboard, now I can't see a reason why the mobiles can't obliviate the computers in the future.

And the wizard has met his wand - my first fiddlings with my smartphone sparked out the great magic that I can perform. And SO IT ALL BEGAN. Herez a glimse of my wand and itz encompassing world. Bringing magic to your fingertips - thatz what this is all about.


As I set down to spin my web of magic, I started to ponder over the enormous list of applications that I can create. The key is simple - itz not to just develop an app, well, you gotto build a killer app. Skilled workmanship by itself is deadly. But that powered by artful innovation is the ultimate solution.

The key idea is that, despite the limited capabilities of mobile devices, one can develop killer apps which can leverage on their strengths. Today mobile phones are an inherent item in one's arsenal and go almost everywhere with the person. And any application which leverages this feature will be a killer app. And so I came up with two ideas which can kick off well.

1) Expense Manager
How many of us would love to keep track of each and every expense that we make. How many of us would want to know our monthly expenses on food, rent, transportation, groceries, etc. A desktop software is painful as I need to remember all my expenses and key it in when I get access to a computer. However a mobile software can alleviate all these issues - whenever you spend on anything, anywhere, just pull out your mobile and key in the expense. Darn simple!!!

2) Mileage Calculator
Almost everyone of us have a car at home. And we've always wanted to keep track of its fuel mileage and find out how fuel-efficient our cars are. Herez finally a solution - just plug in a few details every time you fuel up and it does the rest for you.