All That Matters

Right across the busy junction on my regular commute to office, a big hoarding has come up in last few days. It is about Facebook's initiative - Free Basics. A huge media campaign is under way at the moment across all channels. It is supposedly a philanthropic effort to provide free internet to people who cannot afford it. Sounds like a great idea. However it has been surrounded with controversy and criticism since when it was launched. So what's the noise all about?
Here is a closer look.

What is Free Basics?

The erstwhile internet.org, now renamed to Free Basics, is Facebook and Reliance Communication's joint effort to provide free internet to everyone. An attempt to bring the entire country of a billion+ online. However the devil is in the details. There is a difference between Free Internet and Free Basics. It's not the entire internet that is free. Only a few "registered" services (aka websites) that are on-board are free. Facebook included. And of course provided those services are accessed through Reliance SIM Card.

It is interesting to see why Facebook and Reliance are so keen to push this through. After all, why would a company run a massive media campaign for a charity initiative? Well, the truth of the matter is, it is not really charity. Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook in every hand so that his advertisement revenue increases. As regards Reliance, Facebook's own survey based on data from other countries says that once people start using the "limited" free internet, more than 50% upgrade to a paid service.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong in this.

The issue is that of Net Neutrality.

Now what's Net Neutrality? 

Since the birth of the internet, the world has been working towards the principles of Net Neutrality. What this means is every content on the internet must be treated equally. Of course subject to age restrictions for certain sensitive content. The internet service itself must not provide preferential treatment to a sub-set of services available on the internet. The biggest exception to this of course is China and Middle East. However those parts of the world are known for restrictions, on every aspect of life - Internet included.

An open, free internet service is a must of fair competition and growth. A service like Free Basics is kind of biased towards certain set of services (web sites) which are on-board with it and hence carry tremendous advantage over those that aren't. Moreover, Facebook is a commercial organization. Activist doubt the real intent of Facebook behind the service.

Free Basics has been opposed by all activists and proponent of Net Neutrality. It is obviously strongly opposed by those services that are not being offered through Free Basics. Paytm founder famously compared Facebook's tactics with those of East India Company centuries ago. While that me a far stretched comparison, there is a merit in looking at it from Net Neutrality perspective.

In summary 

It is a service that has some great advantages which include internet access to people who cannot really afford it, although in a restrictive manner. Internet access to these hands can potentially open many more opportunities for them. The flip side is that it is strictly against the principles of Net Neutrality. It can potentially encourage monopoly.

TRAI right now seeking comments on Free Basics. The dead line has been extended until January 17, 2016. It is supposed to make its recommendation by end of Jan. It will be interesting to see the outcome, as it is likely to steer the evolution of the internet in India.

How would you react if you knew your Facebook account was hacked? Worst, the hacker not only got into your account, but changed the login ID, reset all security, removed alternative emails and phone numbers and left you with absolutely no means to recover your access? Blame your not-so complex password? Not really. Its a flaw in Facebook's legacy security setting which one can exploit. You don't need to be a hacker to do it either. Read on for the step-by-step method to hack into a Facebook account and a way to shield from such an attack as well.
Facebook account of somebody close to me was hacked last early morning. What followed was a deep investigation to recover the account and to know what exactly happened. Thanks to Mr. Hacker, I now know the precise steps how this was done and figured out ways protect against such an attack. Here are the details.

The objective here is not to encourage such hacking, but to create awareness and help you secure your account from such an easy but brutal hack.

Part A: The Hack

Step 1: Log off from Facebook and go to https://www.facebook.com/recover/initiate
Step 2: Enter the user name/email ID/Name of the target account. Click Search
Step3: Facebook gives you the following options to recover the target account.
You will see the Profile pick of the target account on the right. It has been blurred here.
Step 4: Click on "No Longer have access to these?" link at the bottom left.
Step 5: Facebook gives you the option to enter a new email ID to be linked to the target account. Provide your own email ID. Make sure it is not linked to any existing Facebook account. Click continue.
Step 6: Unless you have set in the right security settings, Facebook throws a security question that you would have chosen right at the time of creating the Facebook account. In most of the cases, the answer to this question is anybody's guess. See example below.
Step 7: Assuming you entered the answer correctly, you will be presented with an option to set the new password.
 Step 8: Facebook will now send a link to your email ID (the one you provided in step 5) to link the email ID to the target account. Click on that link.
Step 9: Once you activate the link that you received in your email, Facebook attaches the new email ID and  the password to the account. You still need to wait for 24 Hrs.
Step 10: Wait for 24 hrs. Bingo. You have got access to the account with the new email ID and password that you specified.

Some major concerns in this implementation. I hope Facebook fixes this sometime.

• There is no way to change the security question or the answer to it. If you made a mistake in selecting a very simple question and obvious answer while registering... too bad.
• There are no notifications to the original email ID when somebody tries to add a new email ID, at least during that 24 Hr window.
• It basically assumes everyone in the world is very honest :-)

Part B: Shielding your account from this hack

Part C:  How does this safeguard from the hack?

In my earlier blog I wrote about the recent hot trends that make a smart phone even smarter. There are enough things out there that still make your smartest phone a dumbo. Here is my take on things that still need major attention from the Apples and Samsungs of the world. Hope somebody is listening.

1. Battery Life

If there is one thing that anybody who has ever used a smart phone would want to improve in a smart phone is its battery life. There are hardly any smart phones that can last more than a fair usage of a business day. Add wifi or 3G/4G, GPS, Bluetooth, multimedia and a fully charged phone can dry up within hrs. It isn’t that the muscle power in the battery has not improved. The mAh specification of the battery (an indication of how much fuel a Li-ion battery carries) has steadily increased over a period of time. Take Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S series for example. The mAh rating has increased from 1650 for S2, to 2100 for S3 and finally 2600 mAh for S4. Ideally S4 should long 1.6 times long. However, the phones themselves have become mightier and so has their consumption. The quad-core or even eight core processors, Large HD displays and all those frills like NFC come at a cost of battery life. Every now and then I do experience the frustration of my cell phone breathing its last right in the mid of an important phone call. That’s when I miss my good old Nokia brick so much.

2. Interoperability

I wish there was more standardization. I wish there was more inter-operability. I wish all accessories of one phone would work with others. I wish the Bose Docking station for the iPhone would work with the Android Phone. I wish there was just one universal charger pin for all cell phones. Unfortunately that’s not really the case. Off course there are business reasons the manufacturers for doing so. Accessories is a big revenue stream. A more proprietary accessory is likely to lock down customers. All those Docking Stations, Chargers, car accessories made for iPhone are a major exit barrier for anybody who has invested in those accessories and looking to buy an Android phone. Apple is known for its “Closed Ecosystem”. It goes beyond chargers, docking stations and accessories. Need to print from your phone? Make sure the Printer is AirPrint compatible. Want to stream music? Get an AirPlay compatible player (aka Apple TV). Things work beautifully so long as all your devices are from the Apple eco system. “Land and Expand” strategy at its best. Android is relatively better when it comes to openness. It supports open standards like DLNA, UPnP for Media Streaming, NFC for device-to-device communication, Qi for wireless charging and so on. Apple leaves far more things to be desired when it comes to interoperability. And you know what? It’s by choice.

3. Call Quality

It has been a major debate whether a smart phone has any role to play with the call quality. The manufacturers usually blame it on the service providers for the poor call quality. While in most of the cases it might be true, the reality is that the phone itself has a lot to influence call quality. J D Power published a study a while back to measure the Cellular Call Quality measured as Problems Per 100 (PP100) calls. The study discovered that the call quality has declined over last one decade and also that the PP100 score was higher for Smart Phones than for the normal phones. A very simple and logical reason for this difference in performance is that Smart Phones pack just so much into a little slim and sleek device that there is no room to “optimize” the phone for better call quality. I can’t agree more.

4. Fragility

Remember the first Nokia Ad - “Made for India”?


The Ad beautifully emphasized the ruggedness of the Nokia phones. I don’t intend to hang the phone outside the truck. But I do want the phone to survive occasional drops, occasional exposure to water, scratches and a bit rough use. My phone already has a cracked back cover. It looks so ugly. Smart phones are known for their fragility. They cant beat those old Nokia phones for sure. However, this is an area where a lot of improvement is expected to happen. Sony already claims its Xperia Z is water proof. The screens made out of Sapphire were demoed in Consumer Electronics Show this yr. The material is expected to make the mobile screens Concrete proof. See for yourself

5. Far Away from True Office Productivity

No matter how smart the phones become, they are still far away from replacing your bulky old school laptop. You may buy highly rated, fancy Office Apps from app stores. But nothing can replace the Office Suite on a laptop. Its not only about Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Even writing an important longish email is bit cumbersome on a phone. I still prefer a laptop for such a use case.  But I would love to use just one device that does it all. I am not sure if it is even possible ever. May be I am asking too much.

I can live without the last one. But the phones of the future better address these fundamental rights of a cell phone users. NFCs, Wire Less Chargins and Finger Hovers can wait.

Posted by Amol Mategaonkar
22nd April 2013
Originally Posted at http://digitalden.tumblr.com/

The completion for the Numero Uno slot in Smart Phones has ner been so hot. Cutting edge technology backed by engineering muscles of the giants is ensuring that your smart phone gets even more smarter. Here is the top-10 list of new trends and features that we have seen in new smart phones

1. Killer Cameras

Just when we thought Camera in a cellphone was more of a commodity, the Samsungs, Nokia and Apples of the world bumped it up with killer specs – hardware as well as software. Samsung’s latest kid on the block – Galaxy S4 – boasts of a giant 13 Megapixel camera. Nokia went further with its PureView technology and introduced Nokia PureView 808 that has a 41 Mega Pixel Sensor.
The war of cameras goes beyond Megapixels. Check out LG Optimus 3D with abilities to shoot and play 3D photos and videos. See here. And yes, did I tell you that you don’t need those annoying 3D glasses for watching 3D content. Super cool.
Then there are all these frills around cool features like video shooting with both cameras at the same time in S4, Sweep Panorama, Low Light Shooting Sensors of Sony’s Experia Z, Filters, Face Detection. This list can go on.

2.    Stunning Displays

iPhone 4 revolutionized the display of Cell Phones with its “Retina Display Technology” in 2010 with 330 ppi (Pixel Per Inch) density. Steve Jobs claimed that it is beyond the abilities of a human eye to recognize the difference beyond this resolution of 330 ppi. While Apple is till sticking with a ppi around the same number, the completion has moved on with 400+ppi territory. S4 has 441 ppi. With 1080P full HD support, the displays of today’s smart phones is stunning with clear and crisp texts and sharp images. Wonder what effect has on battery consumption though.

3. Wireless Charging

The new Wireless Charging Technology found in Nokia Lumia phones allows for charging your cellphone without wires. You still need to “put” the phone on a compatible Wireless Charging device, typically a Charging Pad. Imagine just dumping your phone on a Charging Pad while you are driving a car or when you sleep at night and the phone gets charged. The new Qi wireless standard is being adopted by the industry with lead from Nokia. Check out Nokia Lumia 920.This means that a Nokia Wireless charger can potentially charge compatible Samsung Galaxy phone.

4. NFC (Near Field Communication)

Near Field Communication is the latest buzz in phone-to-phone and phone-to-accessories communication. Bring two NFC Compliant devices next to each other and share the content seamlessly. Simply touch your Nokia Lumia 920 with the compliant Headset accessory and bingo! Bluetooth is such a passé.

5. Processing Prowess

The CPUs of smart phones have become increasingly powerful. Galaxy S4 has an Eight Core processors with 2 GB RAM.  These Specs beat the laptop that I had few years back hands down. The rich graphics, heavy games and ever increasing need for a snappy and fluid touch screen demands heavy muscles bundled in a thin package of a smart phone.

6.    Smart Touch or Not

All smart phones have Capacitive Touch Screens these days. However, the capacitive touch requires you to touch the screen with your fingers. Try using it while walking in a chilly and windy weather of Chicago and I bet you will wish you had that old school phone with buttons. Capacitive Touch does not work with gloves on. Not anymore though. Nokia Lumia 920 allows you to operate your phone with gloves on.
Galaxy S4 goes further. It has this cool feature of “Finger Hover”.  Want to peek into the email before you open it? Just hover your finger over the email (without actually touching it) and the Email App shows you two line summary of the email. There are many other Apps that support the “Finger Hover”. This is similar to a “Mouse Hover” in the good old PCs.

7. Eye to Eye

The front cameras of the phones are no longer only for Video Chats etc. Check out Galaxy S4s cool new features. The Front Camera of Samsung has the ability to watch your eye movements and make the phone behave accordingly. For example, the phone switches off the display if it senses no one is looking at it, saving some battery. It can also stop and start videos depending on whether someone is looking at the screen. The video will automatically pause if you glance away from screen and it will restart when the eyes refocus on the screen. Pretty cool.

8. Size Matters

The size of the smart phones is trending to increase. It all started with 3.5inch Apple iPhone. Samsung raised the bar with 4.3 Inch S2. S3 was bigger 4.8 inch. S4 is even bigger – 5 inch. The Note II is even bigger with 5.5 inch screen. LG, HTC, Sony have similar size phones. And that seems to be the trend. Apple is falling in line, slowly.

9. Water Resistance

I wish we had this few years back. I would have saved one phone at least. Sony’s Xperia Z boasts off to be water resistant. Pour water on it. Dip it completely into water. The company guarantees your machine will be safe. Wow ! Great boon during the Mumbai rains.

10. And all those Frills

a. Virtual Personal Assistant – Hello Siri.
The voice assisted virtual assistant on your phone is new frill, lead by Appl’s Siri. I have doubts how useful it is though. Samsung has SVoice
b. Infrared Booster – Double up as TV Remote
This may be quite useful. Double up your Phone as a Universal Remote with its Infrared capabilities. Check out Galaxy S4 and HTC OneX
c. Tilt to Scroll
No need to touch. Tilt the phone up and down to scroll.
d. Fitness Tracker
More of an app. But quite useful. Galaxy S4

Still to Come

Then there is buzz around what’s in Store.

• Unbreakable Glass
• Flexible Phones – Prototype has been on display during last CES Event in the US
• Good Battery Life. This is my fantasy though. Its not going to be a reality soon

• Quad Core Processor

• 1280 x 800 HD Resolution. This is awesome for 7" size

• Android Jelly Bean

• Thin and light - 344 gms and 0.4 inches

• Although it can't beat the form factor of iPad mini, it is still very convenient to hold and carry around

It has some limitations though

• No expandable memory

• No front camera

This is a Google branded Android tablet. This does not mean it is manufactured by Google. It is in fact manufactured by Asus. The Google Nexus branding implies that Google played an active role in its design and is expected to have perfected it.
The Nexus 7 is now available on Google Play market for Rs. 15,999. I think its a great value proposition for a table with these specs, given that other 7" tabs like Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 sell at around Rs. 19,000. You can order the Nexus 7 on Google Play store here.Posted By: Amol Mategaonkar29th March 2013Originally posted at http://digitalden.tumblr.com/

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.”

Philip K. Dick

Yesterday Google announced that the current CEO, Eric Schmidt, who ran the company for more than 10 years will step down. The co-founder of Google, Larry Page will take over from him. It is interesting to see a giant like Google shaking it’s leadership even after consistent stellar performance on the balance sheet. At the face of it, it might look as if all this was uncalled for, especially when the company is doing so well on the stock market, on its revenues as well as net profits.
That’s where new age technology companies like Google differ. Balance sheets are the last thing to worry for them.
Google is at a stage where Microsoft was at one point in time. It had demonstrated phenomenal growth and leadership in technology innovation and a mass reach that seemed to be unparalleled in the history of computing. The king of Desktop software (Windows and Office) was on a dream run for almost decade with more than 90% share of whatever market it entered. However, things changed with the fast changing winds of early 2000s and it could not keep pace with the rapid innovation driven by the internet. In spite of an early advantage that it had with the acquisition of Hotmail, Microsoft has been by and large a laggard in bringing in internet based innovations. A small start-up from California like Google went on to become giant and has already started challenging Microsoft on its own turf of Operating Systems and Office Applications. While MS still continues to enjoy market leadership position in Desktop software, it is no more perceived as a Technology Innovation Leader.
Google has potentially similar problem in-front of it.
The way MS missed the internet innovation bus, Google is threatened by the Social Media trend. While the Social Media has reached billions across the world, Google has been rather unsuccessful in creating a space for itself here. Orkut was once popular in India and Brazil, but failed to have a global reach. Buzz was a disaster. Google Wave started with much fan fare but had to be shut down within 18 months for very low adoption. On the other hand, the world saw the rise and rise of Twitter and Facebook. Facebook, with an estimated revenue of 1 Billion USD last year, already has a valuation of 50 Billion USD. With a user base of more than 500 million and growing, it is the most popular internet app in the world. Two months back the overall time spent on Facebook surpassed the total time spent on all Google properties put together. It has already become a household name, just like Google.
Google can not just sit and watch this happen.
With the size and complexity of its business, Google has somewhere hit the Big Company Syndrome, making it slow and less friendly to innovation. The change at the top, is precisely to address this problem. Under Page’s leadership, Google hopes to bring back the pace, speed and nimbleness of the young companies like Facebook while still being a large financial giant.
The Adult Supervision that Eric Schmidt brought to the then young and budding Google, seems to have become a bottleneck, just 10 yrs down the line. Google has been proactive to fix this. Unlike Microsoft.

It has been quite some time that I wrote on this blog. However, I wanted to write about something that I am really excited about . Adam - soon to launch Tablet Computer from NotionInk. The innovative design of this Tablet has already created lot of excitement since when it was first shown in the Mobile World Congress 2010. What is more exciting about this is that it is completely Desi at heart. It's designed and built by an Indian company in Bangalore - NotionInk under the leadership of the young innovator - Roshan Shravan. http://www.notionink.in/ The super cool innovations in this product, coupled with a lucrative price makes it a potential iPad killer. Here is why.

I am not sure if you have observed this, but recently Google added a small new feature to the legendary http://www.google.com/ page. The change might look very subtle, but it indicates a major shift from the very fundamental principle of UI Design that google is known for - minimalistic design. I have no clue why google has done this. Let me explain.

Facebook has been the punching bag of the security and privacy advocates for ever. No wonder the movie on facebook, "The Social Effect" has the tag line "When you make 500 million friends, you are bound to make enemies". The biggest criticism for facebook has been that it knows too much about us and there are concerns about security and privacy of this data. Usual response to this criticism is that this is social media and if you are so concerned about privacy, don't share it. I was convinced with this argument until recently when I figured out, there are things which you don't explicitly share, but eventually reach facebook. Here is an example where you need to be aware that facebook is watching you. Many, won't know. I didn't.

Background
Recently, facebook introduced Social Plugins. These are facebook components that any website in the world could embed in their own webpage to provide social networking features through facebook. Examples are - "share on facebook", "like" button, friend list, comments, etc. This requires that the visitor has logged-in to facebook, may be through another browser window or tab. If a website ebmbeds the facebook "like" button on its webpage, the visitors of the website will be able click on "like" button (very similar to you like videos, photos, status messages etc on facebook itslef). This will result into an update on your Wall that you liked that link. This is good. I have no problems with this.
I have a problem with what it does next. Read on.

The Use Case
Follow the steps below.

1. Login to facebook.
2. Go to any article on Times Of India. Say this one.
3. Look at the bottom. You will see this facebook plugin - "Recommend".
   
   
4. If you observe closely, it also tells you if any of your friends have recommended this. In my case it says "Be the first of your friends to recommend this."

What happens in the background?
If you imagine the logic of this, the code snippet from facebook that TOI would have embedded in this page would have sent this info to facebook that amol has visited so and so URL, and in-return asked if anybody from amol's friends recommended this URL? In my case facebook returned none.
The Issue
This is scary. I just happened to be logged in to facebook in some another browser window and without even checking with me, the plugin sent the info to facebook that I visited Times of India - this article. I hate this. I didn't choose to add/enable this plugin to TOI. It did not check with me and peacefully sent the info to facebook that I visited this page. If you don't observe carefully, you would not even see the facebook plugin amidst the clutter on the site. Thankfully facebook didn't put it on my wall , but mind well... it knows that you visited it.
I do share a lot of info on facebook.com through my wall.... my status, photos, videos, links, etc. However, there I do it conciously.... by choice. Here, I never chose to do it. I don'thave option to turn it off either. Forget it, I didn't even know it did all this.
Simple Advise
Log off from facebook after you are done. Don't keep yourself logged in through out the day. Be aware that you are being watched.

Recently I was reading the book - "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick. Its the amazing story of Facebook - the phenomenon that has caught up the entire world since last few years and its effect the world over. I believe, especially in the Indian context, the impact of facebooks and orkuts of the world can be much more significant... I worry... to the extent of being cultural.

About facebook
With 500 million active users and growing at an approx pace of 100 million per 150 days, it the third most populous country in the world, next to China and India, if it was a country. Founded by a (then) 19 yr old Mark Zuckerberg at Harward, it has taken over all of its contemporaries Myspace, Orkut and bunch of others. It is the second most visited website on the Internet, next to Google.com. Its the most talked about Internet company today, loved as well as hated at the same time. It has also inspired a Hollywood Movie, "The Social Network", scheduled to release in Sept 2010.

facebook in India
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in India. It has surpassed Orkut's over last one year. The growth has been phenomenal. One significant observation is that it has been able to reach out to all age groups. Social media (at least India) was always perceived to be for young generation or IT savvies. However, people of all ages, professions, even those who have just learnt to boot a computer, all of them are hoping on to facebook. While its a good sign of IT penetration to the Indian common man, there are some strange observations.

• You can see colleagues sitting next to each other putting stuff on each others walls on facebook. What is so great about the wall that you can not directly talk ?
• Son/Daughters putting comments on their parents wall and vice-versa. This is extreme.
• I get friend requests from people whom I have never seen/met. What does that mean? I know nothing about them. The entire notion of "friend request" is at times misinterpreted.
• There are people who spend 2-3 hrs on facebook every day.
• People tend to use facebook as a medium of chatting.

These are indications of some fundamental changes the facebooks and Orkuts of the world are bringing to our society. They have given a fresh, new and lucrative channel of communication. As a result, instead of picking up the phone and talking to friends, we log on to facebook and write something on their wall. Instead of planning to meet a friend/relative on Sunday evening, people would spend time in reading useless comments others have put on their stuff and even contribute to it.
The Undesired Effect
This is an undesired side effect of the social media. Don't get me wrong. I am a heavy user of facebook. It is a very powerful tool to express yourself to your buddies, share your ideas, your thoughts, happenings in your life, your joys & sorrows. It is a great channel to find those old school friends you never met in last 20 yrs since you completed SSC. It has a potential to influence and move large groups towards a common goal. E.g. Facefook has helped large scale national movements like the one in Colombia a few yrs back. However, it can never substitute the charm and warmth of talking to your friend over a phone or more so, meeting them in person.
Especially in our society, which has traditionally given very high importance to family and social values, a facebook cannot replace the chaukats and nukkads of our bastees. If it does, its a major cultural shift.
So, go to the Profile info of your old friends in Facebook, pickup the contact number and give them a call. You will realize, it is much more satisfying than writing "wats up buddy?" on his/her wall.