Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson is available for sale now. If you want to start reading right now, you should buy the kindle version.

It’s already the Top seller in Books.

Reading right now…

When would you get Android 4.0 os update on your smartphone? It depends.

Google just announced the Android 4.0 OS update(Ice Cream Sandwich – yummy!!!). Now you must be wondering when are you getting to get it on your Android phone. Well, it depends…

To start with, it’s going to be only available on the newly announced Galaxy Nexus smartphone, starting in Nov.
Post that, old Google Nexus models would be the 1st to get it, like Nexus S. Why? Because here the update will come directly from Google.
And if you have some other models from Samsung, HTC, etc, which have customized Android on them from the manufacture, that might take more time.
And if you have one of the lesser known name phones, like some chinese/Indian brands, you may never get it.

And if the OS updates on your phone matters to you, then maybe next time you would have to keep that in mind, when you buy a new smartphone.

Want Virtualized OS on your Android smartphone? Done.

VMware is brining virtualization on smartphones. What this means is that you can run another OS inside the host on your phone. They are starting with Android but hope to have support for other OSs also soon.

( Via
Ars Technica)

The man with the reality distortion field

I was fortunate enough to watch him in person, delivering the keynote in 2005. This was the keynote where Intel transition was announced. I was pretty far back in the big room on 1st floor of Moscone where the WWDC keynotes are held. I have seen plenty of videos of him before that and since then also. However, actually to be the in the same room is actually a totally different experience.  The energy right before he enters the stage and the silence. The sudden applause. And the ususal disarming smile on his face.

This is one moment I am really proud of that I am one of the people who actually saw him in person.

And I am really sad that it will never happen again.

2 Technologies which can change this world

I am taking Seth Godin’s writing advice on face value by actually posting some of the entries which has been sitting in my draft queue from years…Here’s something I jotted down before iPhone, iPad, Kindle  times.

Right now we are on the verge of having 2 technologies coming to maturity level, which can have a major impact on millions of people. They are – Global Wireless Internet access and the more efficient Fuel cell technologies. Imagine a world where you have a mobile device (a Notebook computer or any other mobile device) where there is no limit to where you can go. There are 2 reasons that stop people from being truly mobile workers – The power lines and the network connections. These 2 technologies can really free people from the shackles. And the possibilities are limit less. You can be roaming around Himalayas and still can be in touch with your work and whole world. These 2 technologies together can make the developing communities leap frog to the new world.
One can have information kiosks in the most remote villages where there is no electricity yet. And there are plenty of these places, especially in countries like India. A mobile computing device, that makes use of these 2 technologies, if put in the hands of every child, can bring millions of new ideas to life.

We might be already half-way on this goal. A kindle can last more then 2 weeks on one battery charge. iPad last whole day on heavy use. Good times.

 

My newborn daughter taught me how to drive.

I was reading this post http://dashes.com/anil/2011/06/infant-as-boot-camp.html by Anil Dash and it brought me my similar experience when my daughter was born.

I am 34 and a father to a beautiful daughter. And I was extremely bad at driving(or I didn’t how to drive) till last year. This might be hard for somebody from western world to understand but people from developing countries like India will relate to it. Unlike US or Europe, very few kids have access to cars in their teenage years as very few parents own them. Same for myself. So no access to car, means no access to  a opportunity to learn to drive. So I ended up never knowing how to actually drive a car till I was 33. And then  we have our daughter born last year and she was in the hospital for first weeks and I was visiting her every day morning and evening. This was extremely hard for me. even with a car at home(which I bought couple of years back), I never managed to learn to drive properly. I even went through driving school 2 times but to no use. I couldn’t get the fear of the crazy bangalore traffic out of my mind. My car will stop whenever I took it out, in the middle of the traffic. People honking around me. I will panic and the car keep stopping in the 1st gear – it was a nightmare.

However, while I was making daily trips to the hospital everyday through public transport, I started having this feeling that, for the sake of my daughter, I really need to learn how to drive. Otherwise, if suddenly we need to go to hospital, it’s going to be extremely tough. So I started taking the car out. With my mind totally engrossed in my daughter’s well-being, who was still in the hospital, my attention to the crazy bangalore traffic shifted from my conscious mind to the unconscious mind. I no longer was concerned about the traffic -  at least not as much as for my daughter’s well-being. And that’s how I got the enough practice on driving and thus came out of my fear of driving.

Now whenever I am driving, I still wonder how actually this happened.

Android 2.3.4 update – Now I have it, now I don't

I have been using a Google Nexus S since over a month (well actually out of that time, my phone been in the Samsung service center but that’s another).

So today I get the notification for the Gingerbread 2.3.4 update(My phone came with 2.3.3 installed). So I say, yes, I want to update and after a few minutes the phone starts showing a error icon with a sad Droid logo(cute!). tried restarting but to no avail. So I restart by taking out the battery and putting it back. The phone boots back. I was expecting OS to be 2.3.4 now. I check in the About and it still 2.3.3. I click on System update but it says 2.3.3 is latest. What’s going on Google? Where is my 2.3.4 update?

Hire for Unity

Shawn Blanc on what to look for when hiring:

Our culture is borderline obsessed with the focus on productivity and getting things done. And while I am certainly an advocate for those, at my office, and on my team, unity is far more valuable than productivity. Where there’s unity there’s people who love their job. And a lover will always out-work a worker.

One of the best hiring advice I have come across.

Kindle and Social

I am a big fan of Amazon Kindle. I don’t own a Kindle, the device, yet. But I have the KIndle Apps installed everything I (or my wife) have. There is just something magical about starting a book on adevice, continuing on another and then finishing it on a 3rd. And all this without trying to remember which page/para I was reading last time.

Amazon has done an amazing job with releasing apps almost every PC/Mac or Mobile platform out there. However, recently, I have been thinking there is something missing in the whole KIndle ecosystem. I have always considered books as a very social thing. People are proud to display their prized (dead Trees) books for the visitors to see. However, right now, there is no good way to do this with the books I for example own in Kindle. Remember, here I am not talking about actually renting the books to my friends for reading; although that would be a amazing feature too. There is a social opportunity around the Kindle or other digital books everybody owns. And since Amazon already has a great e-commerce model, this will be a great addition to let people share what books they own, what books their friends have bought. Lot of the Books are referred and bought by word of mouth between friends and co-workers and people you know. Maybe, there is a opportunity for a startup here.

Anyway, here is what I have in Kindle as of today(lot of them are samples though; I have bought only 5-6 books so far)…

What do you have in your Kindle?

My WWDC10 predictions

I know you can probably must have read thousands of versions of this list, but here is what I think might show up.

• 4G iPhone ( to be available for sale from 3rd week of June)
• A new Apple TV (with main focus on streaming)
• OS 4.0 announced to be released along with new iPhone

I see a OS 4.0 a very compelling upgrade. And given the specs revealed so far on the new iPhone, that seems like a no-brainer buy too.