Incredible Work by Rob Whitworth.

In a roadtrip kind of mood today.

Follow the Sun by Xavier Rudd:

For starters, the health ministry’s vision is to provide 50 essential generic medicines, free of cost, from “birth to death” to all Indians across the nation.

Could be the start of something other countries might be able to follow.

50 essential meds to be given free?

StyleDiary founder Patricia Handschiegel:

A friend and I were discussing this not long ago, about business conferences and seminars. I don’t usually go to conferences or seminars about business.

The reason is, as an entrepreneur I like to do my own thing. I go by and rely on this. I don’t like to have a lot of outside influence or…

Nicely put. I find myself doing this a lot more recently.

Air India’s top officials, according to sources, met OnAir, to discuss the options of installing on board Wifi base stations on international flights.

What is hopefully Step 1 in making Air India an airline of choice again.

Air India in talks with OnAir to have Wifi on board

During the keynote last week, John Siracusa referenced The Godfather, quipping:

Today Tim settles all family business.

I’d say it’s more that Cook settled the family business back in October 2012. Last week’s keynote was when we, on the outside, finally saw the results. Apple today is firing on all cylinders. That’s a cliché but an apt one. Cook saw untapped potential in a company hampered by silos.

Great analysis.

John Oliver’s hilarious coverage of Indian Elections (and its media)

The reporting on Election 2014 is going from bad to worse.

Before you get into a bunch, I do understand the The Newsroom is an idealistic show, meant for TV. Even Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, admits the show was not written to show journalists how to cover the news. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t a few cues to be taken. I’ve spent some time in collegiate journalism — that’s not to say it was lesser than regular journalism, we were bound by the same ethics codes dictated by the Associated Press. I still use ‘em’ vs ‘en’ dashes rather than just hyphens as you will find in this blog. We were also guideline’d when it came to facts, reporting about ourselves, and authenticity of sources. And I think here the Indian media has a lot to learn.

Election season is afoot in the world’s largest democracy, and in my attempt to track it as well as understand it, I rely on the media. Off late though, I find that I spend more time reading and looking at source interviews rather watch TV or rely on a lot of media, because I find the focus is TRP rather than fact or focus, points I raise in more detail below.

Aside from the show, idealism and fanfare, for me the key to The Newsroom lies in this key phrase: ‘..nothing is more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate’.

Where are the facts?

Spend 20 minutes on any TV channel and all you will hear is ‘Rahul Gandhi said this today’ and ‘Narendra Modi said that’. Shouldn’t there be some responsibility towards actually representing the facts? Correcting them if they are wrong?

As an example, when Rahul Gandhi says tons of land was given away at ridiculous (he actually says INR1 per sq. m) to the Adani Group by the Government of Gujarat. Narendra Modi claims in return that there is no wrong doing and the Supreme Court validated their land deals. Instead of the headline ‘Gandhi family makes its strongest attack on Modi’ and ‘Modi sharpens attack on the Gandhis’, shouldn’t you perhaps spend some time to review the Supreme Court verdict that says the model by which the Govt. of Gujarat allocated this land should be replicated by other states?

Conversely, when people like Uma Bharti allege that Robert Vadra would go to prison over misdealing in land ownership, the Congress comes out to defend him. Great, but shouldn’t you rake up evidence of no-wrongdoing, or bring up public records of the Government land deals that are a matter of public record, or at least should be?

Instead the media spend time running from one party to another asking for a comment rather than doing any work.

One more example just to drive home the point. In Rahul Gandhi’s constituency of Amethi (he’s the incumbent MP), Priyanka Vadra (his sister who is campaigning for him there) and Smriti Irani (running for the same seat) are fighting that the other never visits the constituency. So get on it, visits and interviews are public record. Prove either one of them wrong!

What is equally bad are the translations and misrepresentations. I can’t even get into the examples here but I urge the media to translate and quote correctly. Enough headlining.

Where is the focus?

Sit through an evening debate and the only thing the anchors and channels want to talk about is how bad was one person’s statement over another. There’s never a discussion of facts — often, it’s a direct misquote — but moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any focus either.

Take the example of Mumbai which went to vote last week. Initial estimates say anywhere between 3 and 6 lac names were unavailable, Was there a debate (not talking just a quick newsbite) on the item? Nope. Did anything raise a fuss over the action taken by the Election Commission (they apologized and said they would fix it before the next election for the State Elections in two years)? Nope.

Here’s another. On the same day, half of Bollywood decided to honor their yearly commitments to IIFA and attend the IIFA Awards in Florida rather than vote. Except a passing mention on the channels, who chose instead to highlight and interrupt coverage with ‘Breaking News’ when they spotted a new celebrity coming to vote, there was not a single debate. I only found IndiaTV take the coverage a little further, and spend time asking actors at IIFA in the US about the fact that they did not vote. Most of the response revolved around contractual obligations. Anupam Kher even went so far as to say, and I quote, ‘for me India is first’, but we have contractual obligations. Let’s not forget here that there was a large and vocal outreach on voting made by Bollywood to vote for a secular government.

Where is the bias?

In the early episodes of The Newsroom, the editorial team insist anchor Will McAvoy make clear he is a Republican, something he has shied away from declaring prior to the start of the show’s timeline. This was interesting. The journalism I’m attuned to needs to be as neutral as possible, but I understand in this day and age, and in political discourse, it is a different story.

Let’s be clear that there is nothing wrong with having one. Journalists are voters too, and have every right to view their choice. But declaring this choice helps unskew their reporting. Knowing McAvoy is a republican makes it that much more credible when he then takes on a Republican candidate on fact. Simultaneously, he can no longer just hardline at the Democrats because his bias would make his interviews less credible. His responsibility increases as a result to stay closer to, and argue on facts, since anything else would make him less relevant.

The same must apply to the Indian media. I’m not saying everyone needs to come out and say whom they are voting for, just that it needs to be less biased and more factual. When you are held so closely to your bias, you automatically need to stay on facts to be relevant.

Make of this what you will. Recently, in an interview by ABPNews, an interviewer asked PM candidate Narendra Modi if the media should fear him if he comes to power. Barring the sadness of this thought process, the answer is impressive indeed. Slightly paraphrased, Modi said ‘If you’re scared of a political leader, you shouldn’t be in the media. For a democracy to function, the media needs to be strong.’ The interview is here for verification.

Criticism by the media, holding our public figures accountable is paramount. It’s not about being scared of a political party or a leader; but it’s also not about sensationalism. Everything is not breaking news. You have a responsibility to present the factual truth, and in this regard and my opinion, you’re failing miserably.

Video: Seth Meyer rips the White House, Congress and Trump.

The 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

“I’ve never said this to anyone before but maybe you should start smoking again.”

© QTAB.com. Full technical specs are here.

Souq.com launched their QTAB tablet last year. Shaped much like the iPad mini — so much so that a couple of people mistook it for one while it sat on my desk — the QTAB is a barebones Android device that arrives with a couple of hardware quirks.

A closer look of the device and the differences from the standard comparison devices are apparent. For starters, the QTAB has both its hardware buttons at the top — power on the top left, home on the top right. While change is sometimes good, I can’t say this was an easy transition. I often found myself hitting the home button to sleep/wake the device. Similarly the volume buttons are soft touch at the bottom of the screen — something easily forgotten when you want to quickly turn up and down the volume.

Experienced tablet users would be easily annoyed by these changes; however, first time users — and I believe this is where the QTAB is looking to target the market — should just use this as a baseline instead without too much fuss.

The other area where I believe the QTAB has some work to do is boot up. Restarting the device takes some time (and I found myself restarting it fairly often to clear out the wifi connection, for example) — I timed it at 41s during one restart. This is particularly interesting since there didn’t seem to be any bloatware installed on the device. Normally this wouldn’t be a bother; but when the device stayed idle for a few hours, it would refuse to connect to the wifi unless rebooted.

So let’s talk about the market. The official statement is that the QTAB is targeted for the Arab region, and particularly for education. I’m not sure what is special about the QTAB for the market (other than price, but they’re not the only one playing in that range), but I can see the value for education. Souq.com’s backing would mean institutions would be able to setup good warranties compared to some of the other players. The QTAB serves as a basic device that would meet the needs of browsing and reading. There is also a large market in this region for first time, basic tablet users who want to be able to read email, view Facebook and maybe make a Skype call or two — and give them away as gifts to others and kids. From what I’ve seen in that space, if they put the right resources behind it and iron out the quirks, the QTAB should do just fine.

When robbing a bank, remember:

• Don’t drop the cash
• Check your tyres
• Wear slip-proof shoes

Clumsy bank thief’s bad day gets worse

Lots of entrepreneurs struggle with pricing. How much to charge? It’s clear that the right price can make all the difference — too low and you miss out on profit; too high and you miss out on sales. Don’t ask, can’t tell Asking people what they’d pay f…

Good read (with sub-reads linking to studies & experiments) on pricing and how it works on the mind.

Pricing Experiments You Might Not Know, But Can Learn From

Video: What conf calls would be like in real life

Hilarious video.

Now Listening to ‘Attaboy’ from The Goat Rodeo Sessions.

Music by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile.

[embed]www.youtube.com/watch

Thought for the day:

Wish I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes

Could we be looking at the future of hearing devices?

At first glance, the Zik headphones give you the impression that Parrot’s onto something. The build quality is very good. You know, the kind built for very long hours of use. The kind that make you want to stroke them with your fingers...well, you get the idea. Indeed, this is some fashionable design done in collaboration with French designer Philippe Starck.

The highlight feature on the Parrot Zik is the touch/gesture controls on the ear piece. I was a bit apprehensive at first but there is a simplicity in its use, and the gestures will come naturally to the current smartphone generation — tap to answer (if paired with a phone), slide to switch song (tried with iTunes) , slide up and down for volume— all of which work without any additional setup. Dropping the phones to your shoulder pauses music play; lifting it back to your ears resumed music. No fuss at all.

The gesture controls actually bring a fun element to the Zik. I do hope that there isn’t a lag in these controls over prolonged use. There’s also a nice soft click noise to give you feedback during the gestures.

The headphones also feature two microphones with a jawbone sensor to help pick up vibrations in addition to the sound. Any skepticism of it being a marketing gimmick were washed away with a few calls — no one I spoke to even commented that I was using headphones until I asked them for an opinion — quite a seamless experience. The voice quality transmitted is very good, considering microphones that don’t make you feel like you’re about to command an Airbus (seen in the cover picture).

Noise cancellation works well — there is a slightly unnerving suction-type action at its start — something they could probably improve on — but otherwise effective.

Battery life is good and lasted a full day for me with ‘normal’ use — some music, switching between my phone for calls on the go, and the laptop for music and a couple of Skype calls at my desk. What’s interesting to note is you can use the Zik as regular headphones when the battery runs out too, albeit without any of the geek snazz that makes the Zik what it really is.

Parrot also has an iOS app available that allows additional fun tuning with a quick pairing, that should make advanced users happy as well.

There’s a large market for quality headphones, and considering this is their first offering, Parrot packs a forward-thinking punch with the Zik. The innovative use of touch controls and easy set up means my mother could start using it intuitively with her iPad and wouldn’t let go thereafter.

Could we be looking at the future of hearing devices? I think so.

Cross posted on my blog.

#hashtagcity

#lolololololol

A marker, breaking the silence since my last post.
Normalcy resumes, but the effects remain.
Every day I try to do a little better.
Each day, a little bit better.

Your voice has played in my head non stop over the last two weeks. When I would call, invariably disturbing your studying, I’d ask if I was interrupting. Your response was always “No, no. I was just about to take a break anyway.” You didn’t fool me Rubeen, my timing can’t have been that spectacular every time.

That time in January, when we all ate the chocolatiest chocolate cake while you played the guitar for us.

Or my birthday last October. (pictured above)

Or yours this year, as we watched our friend obliterate a baked potato.

Or Adopt-a-Camp, when we were exhausted from waiting and packing, you wouldn’t leave and continued to help.

Or the first day of Ramadan last year, when you got lost (as usual) and demanded I sit in the passenger seat and just show you how to get to the parking near Hard Rock. That morning and the next, I shared something significant in my life with you.

On the first day of Ramadan this year, how things changed.

There was a sincerity in your conversations that made it very easy to talk to you. Your struggles through your research, visits up and down Abu Dhabi, your canceling of plans to go out so that you could attend to the health of a stray cat and crazy entrepreneurial ideas. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve learnt that your stories are exponentially larger in volume.

I hope you didn’t suffer too much, because you didn’t deserve to. You’ve left your mom and dad in your brother’s capable hands, and we’re all here for them. I know you fought hard, and you are now at peace.

They used to tell us, when we were younger, as kids, when we asked about all this … that when God loved someone a lot, He would take them away young. I don’t think I ever fully believed that. But it does seem to be the case here. You are remembered a lot down here, but it is clear He loved you just a little more up there.

The jokes about my 3-women limit will never be the same again. But you’ll always be one of the original and only Hard rock team.

…

Ameen.

Take a minute and remember, life is fragile.

I received the call June 27. A close friend had suffered a brain hemorrhage the previous day.

The shock has still not left me. Her voice still rings in my ears from our last call, making plans to meet. Her family stands around her, praying for the miracle. Her brother, also a close friend, has not left her side as she fights.

It took three days before I would break under the weight of the situation, and will take many more before I will come to terms with the shock.

I think the fragility of life is something we all deal with. Whether it comes because of our own experiences or others, we are often jolted into reality by instances like these.

What if.

I remember a poem called Leisure from my childhood rather distinctly; its words still stuck in my head all these years:

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

I think we are mostly aware that we take life for granted from time to time. Things are set, there is a routine, and we forget that it takes one thing to change it all.

I suddenly feel very conscious of everything around me, the activities, the people. This all still feels a little surreal, like I’m going to wake up in the morning and everything will be as it was June 26.

Realizing life can be fragile is not fun. Millions wonder what happens to us after we pass; but I think what has stood out for me over the last few weeks is watching the impact we have on people around us while we’re here. The pain caused cannot be described in words ofcourse, but it is remarkable to hear the stories, the smiles shared among friends and family, the sorrow of maybe an unpleasant conversation, the longing for that one last meeting to happen, the impact of a lovely person.

I learnt.

I learnt to stop and stare.

I learnt, even more, to tell people I care.

At D8, one of the last major appearances of Steve Jobs, he was asked if he would add anything to his famous Standford Commencement Speech of 2005. He responded:

…probably I would just turn up the volume on it, because the last few years have reminded me that life is fragile.

To RN, we are all right by your side. You’ve had a profound impact on the lives of people who met you, and on a lot of people who didn’t. Over the last couple of weeks, we have admired and shared stories of things you did, day in and day out, admiring and valuing life — people and animals alike.

I pray for you every day.

I’ve been trying to understand the reason behind my current fascination with all things iOS 7. It marks the first time I’ve actually installed the beta ahead of the public release (although there are other reasons for that as well). It also — as we all know — marks the biggest shift in iOS since iPhone OS, as it was then known, was launched in 2007.

Perhaps it’s the fact that Apple stopped being just incremental with the iOS UI and decided to burn it all and start over. Just about everything looks dated against the home screen and core apps.

Perhaps it’s the fact that iOS 6 was just about done. Could they have improved on it? Probably, but everyone agrees it would only have been incremental. In fact, one of the biggest testaments to iOS 7 is it makes you realize just how dated iOS 6 is.

Perhaps it’s the potential. For the first time in years, apps will need to be re-imagined and possibly re-designed. There is tremendous growth potential for UI and UX. Let’s face it, a lot of apps were just starting to look alike. I’ve raised Marco Arment’s post on this topic earlier and think it’s extremely relevant:

Apple has set fire to iOS. Everything’s in flux. Those with the least to lose have the most to gain, because this fall, hundreds of millions of people will start demanding apps for a platform with thousands of old, stale players and not many new, nimble alternatives.

Perhaps it’s how Apple is showing their investment in hardware paying off with software. iOS 7 takes advantage of GPUs to render parallax and animations, and developers (and Apple) will find ways to enhance interfaces far beyond what was traditionally done in say, a level or compass app.

Perhaps it’s the fact that the redesign is garnering the kind of reactions it is. From the oh-my-god’s to the what-the-hell’s to the traditional screw-you-Apple, iOS 7 is indeed polarizing. The sheer number of re-designs on Dribble are testament to how much the change has affected developers, maybe a bit too personally.

Perhaps it’s all of these.

The bottomline is that iOS 7 — as a concept, as an OS and UI, and as Apple’s next phase for mobile — is fascinating in many ways. I’ve used iOS 7 for about 2 weeks now and I can see the big picture and am enjoying the fresh feel of the interface.

To the point that I can’t really go back.