Now why didn't anyone think of it before?



Apple launched two products yesterday. A new version of it's iTunes software which doubles up as an online music store. I think that Apple has carried it's philosophy of simplifying everything right down to the name of it's music store which is called.. well, u guessed it right, the iTunes Music Store. No confusion there. Apple also came out with three new versions of it's iPod music player. It is not just an mp3 player anymore. For one, it brings in a new music compression format from Dolby, named AAC (for Advanced Audio Coding) developed by AT&T, Dolby, Fraunhofer and Sony which gives an audio quality that's superior to mp3 at a lower bitrate. The music that Apple sells at it's store is encoded at a modest 128kbps, but I've read reports which bear out Apple's claim that it sounds superior to mp3.

The iPod has evolved further and now sports a new look. Initially I was dismayed that the circular buttons around the touchpad were no longer there, but now I appreciate the logic in Apple's actions. The new iPod does away with any mechanical buttons altogether and supports a touch sensitive front panel. Now you can glide your fingers over the cirular touchpad and also gently touch the buttons to activate the other controls. I think that the buttons have been moved to the top to avoid accidental touching while scrolling with the touchpad. The iPod is also thinner and lighter and guess what.. it has no hard drive. Yeah baby, this one has no moving parts inside either and uses a completely solid state memory to store it's 10, 15 or 30 Gigs of data (I think I got that info wrong). Of course, this sacrifices battery life, but what the heck.. it's the new face of tecnology.

The amazing part of what Apple is bring us, is not just the iPod, but the concept of the one-click music store. Without being bogged down by monthly subscriptions and restrictive rules that online music stores have, the iTunes store allows you to buy individual songs with one click, much like Amazon.com. Anyone who has downloaded files with one click using KaZaA will surely appreciate the ability to download songs with the same ease and still be on the right side of the law. I think this is going to be the future of music: Go online, find the song you want and download it into your player (most probably an iPod) with an almost unlimited storage space. Why would anyone want to buy a CD and have to maintain a collection of dozens of CDs when they can have thousands of songs on a tiny, almost weightless device! As usual, it is after Apple launches a product that you start wondering "Now why didn't anyone think of that!"


P.S. A thought: What is apple going to do with the thousands/millions of older iPods it has? And what will guys like lofatmo who bought older iPods just before the launch do? tch..tch..

A new class of crimes.. and how strong is the Sun Dollar system?

It is getting easier every day to become a criminal without doing anything wrong in the conventional way, i.e. u don't have to hurt someone or steal anything physical to get on the wrong side of the law. Information theft is being viewed as a crime that's just as serious as any others. While hacking might have been a matter of pride ten years ago, it's the surest way to lose even the most basic privileges as the celebrated hacker Kevin Mitnick found out eight years ago when he became a guest of the state for computer fraud. He was released in 2000 but the court forbade him from accessing the Net or even sending e-mail till 2003. As a person who suffers from withdrawal symptoms when away from the Net for even a day, I can only imagine how Mitnick might have spent those three years.

Closer home, ASU has begun to enforce a strict policy against file-sharing. Students can now be expelled or even have their computing privileges suspended if they are found using university resources for downloading or sharing copyrighted content. Earlier this year, a dorm student had her privileges suspended temporarily when another student downloaded a movie from her computer over the ethernet. I tried to read the ASU Electronic policy to ensure that I would not break any law, but found it quite unreadable and gave up after a while.

Earlier this month, a court in Georgia issued a gag order against a couple of students who were planning to present information about security flaws in the Blackboard ID system used by many universities (including ASU for it's Sun Dollars system). The students had promised to reveal information (which Blackboard Inc. claims, they obtained by breaking into a switchbox in a campus laundry.. how cool is that!) which would allow anyone to bypass the ID system. At ASU it would translate into free food, free printouts and free photocopies. I wonder how effective the gag order will be since the very fact that a security flaw exists will be reason enough for smart students to try to bypass the system in the future.

The ultimate recyclable computer!

Scientists are creating a way of storing data in the DNA of bacteria to create an organic storage that would survive even a nuclear attack. The idea is to encode data in the genome of the bacteria and then allow the bacteria to replicate, so that you have the ultimate backup system in place. Bacteria die fast, but they reproduce fast too, and they produce near perfect copies of themselves, so you could have automatic data backups every minute. Of course, mutation of bacteria would be a headache, but scientists are confident about being able to retrieve data using cood encoding and decoding methods. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to pass on your business card using the bacteria on your hands with just a handshake.. or maybe a kiss would be a better way to share personal data.. The possibilities are endless!

Occam's Razor

The very well known KISS philosophy (Keep It Simple, Stupid) has a more formal version known as Occam's Razor (attributed to William of Occam, a 14th century logician and Franciscan friar in England) which states (ironically, in a complicated way) that "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything". It is an important philosophy in engineering today (where it essentially tells you to fit a straight line between two points, instead of the infinite number of curves possible).

It is also called the Principle of Parsimony and it says that when you have multiple theories making the same predictions, the one that makes the fewest assumptions (and is hence simpler) is the better one. So when you are faced with a choice between multiple explanations or models to explain the same phenomenon, use the Occam's Razor to shave off (I guess that's why it's called a razor) the unnecessary assumptions.

How far can you go while choosing simpler theories? Here's what the venerable guru Einstein says : "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

Perils of the trade

Being a techie can cause more than carpal tunnel syndrome, if you go by the research conducted by doctors in the city of techies, Bangalore.

To Patent or Not To Patent...

So you have a great idea that you are sure no one has ever used before. How do you decide if it is worth all the expense and trouble to patent it? Remember, patenting requires plenty of time and money and at the end of it all, you may find that you do not have sufficient grounds for a patent. Also, it may not be worth getting a patent, if there is absolutely no way that you can find out if someone is using your idea or not (barring of course, the personal satisfaction involved). Go through this article in IEEE Spectrum if you are considering a patent, or if you think you will ever have a great patentable idea.

Best Pictures of the 20th Century

I got this one by email today. It is supposed to be one of the best pictures of the 20th century.It's certainly amazing enough and I wonder how it felt to be really there! It shows singers performing on a giant stage on Lake Constance(on the border of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) during a rehearsal of Giuseppe Verdi's opera 'Ein Maskenball'. The stage shows death reading the book of life. Check out the rest of the images here.

San Diego.. and a take on Yahoo!

Pheww! Back in action after more than two weeks. It's been a long week with midterms, project submissions and a great trip to San Diego, courtesy IEEE at USD. SD was a welcome change from the dull landscape of Phoenix where the only vegetation is the omnipresent cactus and a few trees transplanted from California. The green hills and cool weather in SD reminded me of Ooty in India where I had some of my most memorable college trips. The houses in Old Town in SD are almost colonial and each house is distinctive, unlike the cookie cutter houses you find in newer cities. If California was a litle less expensive, it would be the best place on earth to live in!

Yahoo! has upgraded it's search engine to catch up with it's main rival and partner, Google. It has taken a page out of Google's book and reduced the graphics on the search results page. Also, a search for any item returns images of those items at the top of the page like this.(compare with Google.) Also, search results now display maps and stock information within the search results which eliminates one level of clicks for many users. However,with all it's improvements, Yahoo! now looks more like Google instead of looking any different, so it's not clear how Yahoo! hopes to regain the converts. What Yahoo! should really learn from Google is it's ease of navigation and apparent reliability. For example, Google puts it's sponsored results with a distinct background on two tiny rows on the top, while the rest of the sponsored links appear in colored boxes on the right. Yahoo! on the other hand puts sponsored results in multiple rows on the top in a way which makes it difficult to distinguish it from the actual search results. To me, it looks like an attempt to confuse visitors into clicking on the sponsored results since the actual results are not visible unless you scroll down the page.

Also, Yahoo!'s product search will have a tough time competing with a killer app that is still being tested by Google labs, named Froogle(a cross between the words google and frugal) which scans sites for products on sale and displays the results in a (yeah, here we go again..) easily navigable manner. Try the same product search on Froogle here.

P.S. The only thing on my mind right now, is how to catch up on all the lost sleep. Will get back to my usual ramblings after I wake up.