Technology has moved ahead significantly in the few years since Netflix started delivering DVDs through the mail. A few years ago they introduced the streaming service allowing users to see videos on their computers. Over time, the on-demand library has not only grown significantly but is also available on numerous devices such as the PS3, Wii and Blu-Ray DVD players. Now comes the latest device to support the streaming...the iPhone.
When the service was announced for the iPhone, I was very thrilled because it meant I could watch a movie any time, any place. This comes in useful on trips when I am sitting at the airport or for my son when we are driving. The streaming service works over 3G or Wi-Fi. I have tried it over both and the quality (depending on your 3G Service) is excellent.
The application itself is still version one and needs improvement (especially in Genres Navigation) but it still provides a lot of good functionality such as
Ability to view/add to your existing On-Demand Queue
Ability to pause and resume your movie.
Given the small resolution of the screen, the quality of the picture is very clear.
The search function is good if you know what you want but if you are browsing then its a little difficult to find something.
Regarding the Bollywood collection, while its still small (about 75 movies), they have many of the latest movies showing up within a few weeks of the official releases. Some of the popular Bollywood films available are Dostana, Rajneeti, Kaminey, Chak De India, Swades etc.
An update to my posts on Netflix vs Blockbuster. I have switched back to Netflix as I considered the service to be far better. The main reasons were
The queues were virtually never back-logged. Especially with new movies, they are always available unlike what I saw in Blockbuster
Netflix has a distribution center in Santa Ana which is very close to where I live and so I always got movies very quickly.
Netflix also has a good selection of Hindi movies or Bollywood movies which I watch very often. The movies take a little bit of time to show up on Netflix (maybe 2-4 weeks) but the choice is good. The only thing
I do not like about the Netflix Indian movie section is that one cannot sort by release date making if difficult to find the latest movies.
The new user interface in Netflix where the description of the movies shows up in a pop-up is very good.
Aug 2010 Update -
Its been a while since I wrote this article and things have drastically changed since then. Netflix has clearly dominated the battle. Its stock price is soaring and Blockbuster is facing bankruptcy and has started shutting down many of its stores. Here are some key changes
- Netflix's Streaming service has also improved significantly during the time. They have a lot more to offer through their streaming service. They also offering the streaming service on numerous devices that include not in the Roku Box but also many Blu-Ray DVD players, the PS3, Wii and now also on the iPhone.
- Their selection of Bollywood movies through the streaming service is also pretty good. I have seen many new movies such as Kaminey, Dostana and Rajneeti within a few weeks of theatrical release.
- Their searching and sorting features have also become better.
- RedBox which offers DVD for $1 at your local grocery store, 7-11 etc is planning on offering a streaming service. Lets see how that works out.
We have launched our food site, Indian Foods Guide , two years ago dedicated to the best food on the planet, Indian Food. The site was created with the idea of promoting Indian food around the world. Over the last two years we have made a lot of great progress with this site and it is now a good reference for Indian food, grocery stores and restaurants. The site has a number of sections in it but the primary ones are
Indian Recipes - We curently haveover 500 Indian recipes on the site. The recipes are categorised and easy to search based onkey ingredients, cuisine type etc. We have over 50 of the recipes in video format.
Indian Restaurants - We have over 17,000 restaurants from around the world. We are in the process of adding additional restaurants everyday. We have also added photographs of the restaurants, their menus and other information on our site. The site is growing rapidly as we add new restaurants, reviews, photographs on a regular basis.
Indian Grocery Stores - We have over 3000 Indian Grocery Stores from over 20 countries over the world and we are also constantly adding new stores on a regular basis.
We think this is one of the best restaurant and grocery guide for Indians. Please help us by telling us about new stores and also reviewing the existing stores and restaurants that you frequent.
One of my pet peeves is around the use of seat belts. The bottom line is that seat belts saves lives and I was fortunate enough to have 1st hand experience where a seat belt saved my father's life. In 1990, there was a plane crash of an Airbus A320 in Bangalore, when an Indian Airlines, crashed into a swamp just as it approached the runway. The plane caught fire and roughly 100 of the 130 people on board died. My father was in that flight and survived that crash. The seat belt saved his life, although he was bruised when he hit hit face and legs with the seat in front.
I really find it strange when people refuse to wear seat belts especially for situations belows
- This is such a common trend in India where many people remove their seat belts, moments after the plane touches the ground. This is one of the most dangerous
times because if the plane hits the brakes, you will get tossed. Also, where are you going? Can you not wait till the plane stops? Is the seat belt so uncomfortable?
- Another trend is to remove the seat belt the moment the "Wear Seat Belts" sign is taken off. There are cases where the plane can hit air pockets and drop several meters if if you are not wearing your belts, you can get tossed up and hit your head among other things.
- Another common practice is for people sitting in the back seat not to wear seats. I don't understand why? If there is an accident at 70 miles an hour, you will be in great danger. Why is it OK to not wear seat belts at the back? It should be the law.
- Not wearing helmets or seat belts for short distances. Many people think, "Oh, I am just going to the next street...what can happen"? .....well you never know.
If you are still not convinced, take a look at this video and do it for the ones who care for you.
Hey Now!! If you have an iPhone and are a fan of Howard Stern then you like me, would want to listen to Howard Stern on the iPhone. For quite a while that was rather difficult to do because Sirius did not have an iPhone app and when they did introduce it, they did not offer the Howard Stern Channels on the iPhone app. Now (as of Jan 2010), you have two options to get Howard Stern on your iPhone.
iPhone Pocket Tunes Radio Application
iPhone Skydock for XM Radio
Pocket Tunes Radio iPhone Application
Pocket Tunes Radio is an application available in the App Store ($6.99) that streams a large number of online stations. The application can also stream the content from the online Sirius feed which includes the Stern channels. In order to make this work, you will need to buy this application (one time 6.99 cost) and also have the online streaming ($2.99/month) and you are all set. The pro's of this method of listening to Stern are that you can virtually get access to the channels anywhere you are as long as you have Wifi or good data speeds. Also, the price is only 2.99/month or lower if you have annual subscriptions etc. The downside is that if you are in the car, you may get spotty signal and also crackling sound on your stereo.
iPhone Skydock for XM Radio
The iPhone Skydock is a new adapter that can be attached to a car (uses the standard charger output) and converts your iPhone into a Satellite radio. Unlike the Rocket Tunes option, the signal comes from the satellites so you are guaranteed of a better reception and signal. The problem with this is that the product comes from XM (not Sirius) so you have to subscribe to XM (for full price) and then get the Best of Sirius package. The total cost will work out to around $17/month. Also the Skydock works only in the car and costs about $120.
The Skydock communicates with your stereo over FM and in crowded markets such as NY, LA or Dallas, its tough to find a good frequency as well. The Skydock also plays your iPod as well. The Skydock does have an auxillary out so if your car stereo supports that you are in luck.
These are the two ways you can get Stern on your iPhone. Given my listening pattern (I spend about 40 mins in the car everyday) and also listen at work, I prefer option 1. I also have a Skydock that I uses mainly as an FM transmitter and have not activated my radio as yet. Maybe if Stern renews, I may consider doing that.
There are rumors that they will introduce new products at the CES and new options may show u or maybe Stern will allow them to broadcast on the Sirius application. Until then, seems like this is what we can do.
With the Twitter craze hitting the world for the last few months, I thought I would dig in to see what the Bollywood stars are tweeting about and who the popular Bollywood Twits (is that what they are called in Twiterminology ;-)). To begin with all of Bollywood is not yet on Twitter though it has its fair share of celebrities on it. After some digging around and following their tweets, here is my opinion of the popular Bollywood stars on Twitter as of Aug 2009.
Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) - By far the most popular Bollywood celebrity on Twitter (no surprises there), Priyanka has about 38K followers and growing rapidly. She is a frequent tweeter, posting multiple tweets during the day. She keeps a good mix of personal opinions and about her ongoing projects and appearances. When she finds time, she does respond to her fans. I like how she manages herself on Twitter. Quite the role model I would say. Hum bhi Priyanka ke Bhakt hai.
Karan Johar (@kjohar25) - With about 11K followers, Karan Johar would come a distant second. Karan too is a regular poster and also keeps a good mix about his personal opinion and his work. You can see that he is tweeting himself. He just kicked off a project with SRK and Kajol.
Aamir Khan (@Aamir_khan) - For some reason, he does not have a great following on Twitter. Given his personal situation with the wife having a miscarriage, he is not very active on Twitter.
Riteishd (@Riteishd) - New to Twitter, Riteish (at school I was taught, i before an e, except after c..never mind) is getting a good following. Riteish too provides a regular update and replies to his fans. Generally funny too.
Genelia D'Souza - Probably the worst from the Bollywood list, she barely has any posts and anything that I have seen seems like it was to promote her appearance and not done by her.
Others who are regular are Lara Dutta, Dino Morea, Uday Chopra, Ram Gopal Varma, Ayesha Takia.
Notably missing from the Twiiter world are the Bachchan's (Amitabh, Abhishek and Aishwarya), the King (SRK).
With Twitter being on fire for the last few months and with more and more Indian celebrities, business, organizations etc tweeting, I thought it was time to add an Indian Twitter Directory to my website. This directory will contain the links of all India related Twitter pages. I have started with the following categories and there are a few entries already which will be updated over the next few weeks.
Everyone has probably heard of IT and Call Center operations being outsourced to India, but did you know that a large number of manhole covers in the United States actually get manufactured in India. A few weeks ago, I was walking in Los Angeles and saw a drain cover manufactured in India.
Apparently over 600,000 manhole covers in the city of New York are manufactured in India, specially from West Bengal. This practice is not new but has been in existence for over 4 decades. Also, it looks like India is the world leader in manhole cover manufacturing, a little known fact. So the next time you walk over a drain cover in the US, it may have come from India.
I have been a fairly early adopter of VOIP offerings in the marketplace
having signed up with Vonage back in 2002. Most of my experience with
them has been good with the occaisional echo problems. I recently moved
to a new location and was very surprised with the International calling
plan that Time Warner cable offered me if I signed up for their Digital
phone service. I was spending over $50 making calls to India and with
Reliance, I would get about 500 minutes of talk time. Time Warner was
offering 3000, yes THREE THOUSAND minutes of calling time to India for
only $20. Of course I had to pay a higher cost for the unlimited long
distance calling ($40/month) but overall it works out cheaper.
This was not a promotional offer or anything of that nature. So far the experience has been very good. I get through to Indian on the very first try. I have not head issues with echo or packet loss. There are no separate rates for land lines vs cell phones. At this point, I have nothing to complain. The cable modem/VOIP adapter has a built inbattery backup whichis great should you lose power or want to move things around.
Cancelling my service with Vonage was another challenge. They threw all kinds of freebies at my, 1 month free, 2 months free, 3 months free, 1 year unlimited at 14.95 a month.
I watch a lot of Hindi movies on DVDs and I am forced to see the commercials, trailors etc before I can watch the movie. These companies include Eros Entertainment, DEI, WEG, SPARK among others. Most of the DVDs have been programmed so that its not even possible to use the next or fast-forward button. As a consumer who has paid full-price for the DVD, it should be against the law to force us to watch these commercials. If you look at some of the channels on cable like HBO and Showtime, they do not show any commercials. Even the Hollywood DVDs only force us to see the FBI warning.
Does anyone out there know if there are specific laws against forcing us to watch these ads?
I am personally intrigued by logos and as you can see, a large part of my site is dedicated to discovering the design and history of logos. To me, logos were always a visual thing and I guess I never paid attention to the concept of sound logos (though sound branding seems more appropriate).
Looking back, my first recollection of a sound logo was the little piece of music that accompanied the Intel Logo. Whenever you see any commerical for a computer, it would always be accompanied by the Intel logo and a little sound theme at the end.
Starting November 1st, 2007, Mercedes-Benz will be introducing a new sound logo that will accompany its commercials. The Mercedes-Benz sound logo is based on an original recording of an English boys choir from the 1990s. Sound engineers extracted a choir boy’s solo vocal from the recording and adapted it for use in the sound logo. The logo was developed in cooperation with Jung von Matt, Mercedes-Benz’ lead agency.
Benz Sound Logo - You can listen to the Benz sound logo at the end of the commerical on YouTube.
Intel Sound Logo - You can listen to the Intel sound logo here on YouTube.
Sound branding is also called audio branding, sonic branding, acoustic branding or sonic mnemonics.
