Posted in Environment on July 1st, 2009
Remember those tiny little lights the glowed in the dark while flitting about ? What we used to call glow-worms ? Ever seen them lately ?
Seems that firefly populations across the globe have been declining at a rapid rate. According to some reports this may be as high as 70%. The usual suspects cited are pollution , urban expansion, declining wilderness etc. A key reason for their decline might be light pollution. It seems our constantly awake and running culture may be playing spoilsport with the fireflies. Light pollution, basically excessive lighting (ever notice how you can see fewer stars in the night sky in the city than the countryside ?), interferes with the fireflies mating rituals leading to maybe smaller and smaller populations (not to mention the problems they already face with shrinking habitat, pesticides, pollution etc).
Well, I don’t know how far this is true in India, but I clearly remember seeing my last firefly sighting more than two years ago in the city. A single lone solitary firefly that left a trail of glowing light as it flew over the path in the darkness of late evening. It was magical, don’t know if I will ever get to see one again in the city.
Tags: Environment
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Posted in Ruby on June 27th, 2009
Recently, while working on a small application on Rails, I learned firsthand how easy and powerful RJS can be. I was amazed at how simple it is to save attributes to the data base using Ajax and then notify the user about successful operations or errors. Here is a small example that should show you how simple this is. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: programming, Rails, RJS, Ruby
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Posted in Technology on June 26th, 2009
Continuing on from where I left off on part 4, I’ll now look at some trends that I have noticed about the E-book Reader market.
- iPhones and other smart phones are fast becoming popular as alternatives to E-book readers. In fact Wired.com contends that the iPhone surpasses Kindle in the popularity stakes. Whether this trend will continue to hold in the future though remains to be seen.
- A limitation of the current crop of e-book readers is that they show text and images in black and white only. This is largely due to a limitation of the e-ink technology used. However we might just see color e-book readers soon. Fujitsu released it color e-book reader dubbed Flepia in March this year. In addition to this the first color e-ink displays might soon enter commercial mass production by the end of next year . So look forward to reading your favorite magazine in color on your e-book reader in the near future. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: E-Book Readers, Technology
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Posted in Economics on June 21st, 2009
Well, according to BP we’ll have enough to party with over the next four decades. As per this chart on the Economist website, BP (possibly in its Statistical Review) states that we should have enough oil to meet our needs for the next 42 years. The Economist chart isn’t very clear though as to how this magic figure was arrived at.
So I searched a bit. Seems that the estimates are based on current production rates, and assuming current consumption rates.
I think that this is rather naive. I seriously doubt that consumption is going to remain constant at today’s rates. One of the assumptions I think that has been made here, is that more fuel efficient technology will let us generate more energy, drive more cars for the same amount of fuel. However given the immediate costs of clean technology and the sorry state of the global finance and the auto industry, I don’t think we can count on this factor. Also globally oil discoveries have been declining and in some cases new discoveries have only served to replace depleted sources. I guess that effectively rules out hitting an oil jackpot (though this is still probable but not very likely). So end result - consumption is going to grow over the next 50 years and production is probably not going to keep up.
What does this mean for the mythical peak oil point ? When that will occur is anybody’s guess, but the fact that it may occur as early as 2020 should certainly make the case for going green and clean and intensifying research into alternative fuels.
Tags: Economics, Environment, Oil
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Posted in Technology on June 13th, 2009
Given the choice of E-book reader devices, it certainly is a bit confusing to select one. Well, here is a list of ten things I feel you should consider before getting yourself one.
- Own a smart phone, iPhone, iPod touch or a netbook?
If you already own the above devices and you don’t mind the smaller screen / LCD display and lower battery life, then look no further. You don’t really need an E-book reader device. You can merely use software like Lexcycle’s Stanza or MobiPocket E-book reader to convert your phone / netbook into a very capable E-book reading device. And you can spend the $200-300 you’ll save on books to read. If you still want an E-book reader though, read on. (Amazon also has a Kindle app for the iPhone)
- Build quality and weight
Since you will be carrying around your E-book reader all the time, its weight and build quality assume importance. Try and go for a device that looks and feels sturdy and is low on weight. Also another aspect to look at is the control design. This may be especially important if you are left handed. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: E-Book Readers, Technology
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Posted in Technology on June 11th, 2009
Today you can find E-book readers of all shapes and sizes and at prices to suit all wallets (almost, prices could come down a bit more). The graphic below shows a comparison of the popular models that are available on the market today.
E-Book Reader Matrix
This matrix was created from manufacturer information and from data on a more comprehensive matrix at the MobileRead Wiki. I have largely concentrated on what I feel are the most important parameters for comparison. If you want a more comprehensive view, you can see the original matrix here.
There are a few alternatives to using a dedicated E-book reader device. If you already own an iPhone or an iPod touch, you can read e-books on your device by installing third party applications. Lexcycle’s Stanza is a popular free e-book reader solution for the iPhone or iPod. Stanza supports ePUB, MS LIT, AZW (Kindle’s format), MobiPocket, PalmDoc, HTML, PDF, TXT, DOC and RTF, which means you are pretty much covered as far as content is concerned. The only drawback I feel, is that you have to put up with the iPhone’s much smaller 3.5” screen.
Another alternative is to use your netbook as an e-book reader by using software like Stanza Desktop. With netbooks costing as much as the entry level E-book reader (in the $250-$400 range), I think they present a great alternative to the e-book reader. However, their LCD screens may cause eye strain in the long run and the battery life definitely won’t reach that of e-book readers. Still considering that your average netbook can still do a lot more than even the most sophisticated e-book reader, I’d say they are a good alternative.
In the next article, I’ll look at the various factors to consider when deciding on an e-book reader.
Tags: E-Book Readers, Technology
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Posted in Technology on June 10th, 2009
In this part of the series on E-book readers, I’ll take a peek behind the screen and try and show what makes an E-book reader tick. I’ll also look at the common specifications that most e-book readers have. I’ll be concentrating on E-ink based e-book readers, because these seem to be the most dominant form of e-book reader devices today.
The Screen
Most E-book readers today use an e-ink display screen. Sounds really high tech right? Well, it is. I’ll try and explain how e-ink works.
An e-ink display basically consists of material called “electronic ink” which is printed onto a thin sheet of plastic. “Electronic ink” or e-ink consists of millions of micro capsules which have colored chips that may be black or white in color. Each color responds to electricity in a different manner. Let’s assume that the white chips respond to a positive charge and the black chips respond to a negative charge. Now when an positive charge is applied to a micro capsule this causes the white chips to rise up to the top of the capsule, while the black chips sink to the bottom. This makes the capsule appear white. When a negative charge is applied, the capsule appears black through a similar process.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: E-Book Readers, Technology
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Posted in Technology on June 7th, 2009
I’ve been fascinated by e-book reader devices, ever since I first saw a review for one of these devices, way back in 1998. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be presenting a look at the wonderful world of e-book readers in a 5 part series of articles.
What is an E-book reader?
The term e-book reader can refer to both software used to read electronic books or e-books to dedicated hardware devices for reading e-books. I will be largely focusing on the dedicated hardware devices for reading e-books and not on the software used. The evolution of the software and file formats used for e-books is in itself equally interesting and deserves much more attention.
In its simplest form an e-book reader had a screen for displaying the text of the e-book, buttons to move forward, backward in the book and to access device functions. To a large extent this basic design is still seen in most e-books today, though gradually touch screens where gestures achieve the same function as buttons, seem to be catching on.
I will touch on the specific technology that goes into making e-books a bit later. For now, let’s look at the interesting history of e-book reader devices.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: E-Book Readers, Technology
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Posted in Technology on June 6th, 2009
I have been following this new e-book reader called COOL-ER which released a few weeks earlier. The device sports a cool design inspired by the iPod and Apple’s design sense and has been developed by the British firm Interead. The device supports a variety of file formats, has the standard e-Ink display. While it has received quite a lot of favorable coverage, its also got a fair share of negative comments as well. Some of these, like a huge lapse in designing button functionality and poor build quality are deserved. However a lot of the comments on various blogs, reviews etc. as well as the reviews themselves compare this device very unfairly with the Kindle. Interestingly, most of the complaints were to do with a lack of wireless delivery of content to the e-book and the lack of a broad range of books. In my opinion, these aren’t the deal breakers they are made out to be (though the second one may be, but more on that later). This got me thinking of reasons on why I’d prefer the Cool-er over the Kindle. Here’s my list of top 5 reasons to go with the Cool-er instead of the Kindle:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Cool-er, E-Book Readers, Technology
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Posted in Rants on June 5th, 2009
I’ve just upgraded this blog to the latest version of Wordpress. I’ve also created a nice new theme for the blog. There are still some unresolved issues that cropped up during the upgrade, but they should be cleared in a few hours. Hopefully I’ll be back to blogging as usual soon :).
Tags: Rants
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I'm Elroy Serrao, a technologist, photographer, and part time blogger from India.
I love to design web sites, program in php and rails in my free time and of course go trekking and clicking pictures in the great outdoors.
I'm from Mumbai, and am an alumnus of Mumbai University and NMIMS.