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Showing posts from 2016

iPredict | Follow up

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The dust hasn’t settled on the Apple Special event but I’m back to review my predictions. Firstly, let me convey my condolences to the intern who posted the tweet about the iPhone 7 on Apple’s (new and till now unused) twitter account before it was even announced on stage. Also, for a company whose mysterious aura used to captivate audiences, if the only things you could hide from everyone was the Mario app and the Pokemon Go what-ever-the-hell announcement, you might want to take a step back and evaluate where it all went wrong. It’s naïve of me to expect the return of the Apple of Steve Jobs. But if you want any evidence that Apple has changed, it was all in today’s presentations. More on that in a later post! For now, let’s get straight to it! Predictions from the previous post are italicized. My reactions to my predictions are below them. If you want to read the previous post, it's here. An amazingly new iPhone. Well, amazement lies in the eyes of the beholder. The new iPhone

iPredict | Follow up

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The dust hasn’t settled on the Apple Special event but I’m back to review my predictions. Firstly, let me convey my condolences to the intern who posted the tweet about the iPhone 7 on Apple’s (new and till now unused) twitter account before it was even announced on stage. Also, for a company whose mysterious aura used to captivate audiences, if the only things you could hide from everyone was the Mario app and the Pokemon Go what-ever-the-hell announcement, you might want to take a step back and evaluate where it all went wrong. It’s naïve of me to expect the return of the Apple of Steve Jobs. But if you want any evidence that Apple has changed, it was all in today’s presentations. More on that in a later post! For now, let’s get straight to it! Predictions from the previous post are italicized. My reactions to my predictions are below them. If you want to read the previous post, it's here. An amazingly new iPhone. Well, amazement lies in the eyes of the beholder. The new

iPredict

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[Updated with one additional paragraph I forgot to include when I posted this half an hour ago] Apple’s latest special event is in less than 24 hours and as is usual before this event every year, speculation is rife about what they will announce. A new iPhone is widely expected to be launched but nobody is still quite sure what’s going to be in it. It’s been a while since I last wrote an Apple-related piece so I’m quite rusty but this post is basically my two cents about what could possibly come out of this event. More internet garbage! What’s new!  An amazingly new iPhone. Well, amazement lies in the eyes of the beholder. The new iPhone will have a faster processor and a better camera. The difference from its predecessors being that this one will have iOS 10 and as we have noticed increasingly in small yet significant features of iOS 10, there seems to be a lot of on-board machine learning happening which means that the 64-bit, rumored 3Gb RAM might finally be put to more use than jus

iPredict

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[Updated with one additional paragraph I forgot to include when I posted this half an hour ago] Apple’s latest special event is in less than 24 hours and as is usual before this event every year, speculation is rife about what they will announce. A new iPhone is widely expected to be launched but nobody is still quite sure what’s going to be in it. It’s been a while since I last wrote an Apple-related piece so I’m quite rusty but this post is basically my two cents about what could possibly come out of this event. More internet garbage! What’s new!  An amazingly new iPhone. Well, amazement lies in the eyes of the beholder. The new iPhone will have a faster processor and a better camera. The difference from its predecessors being that this one will have iOS 10 and as we have noticed increasingly in small yet significant features of iOS 10, there seems to be a lot of on-board machine learning happening which means that the 64-bit, rumored 3Gb RAM might finally be put to more us

More than just Ayes: Why India needs to look beyond harsher anti-rape laws

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16 year old raped, filmed and blackmailed for a year , India Times, August 2016. The article hyperlinked above starts with the sentence “despite the enactment of the stringent anti-rape law”. There seems to be a notion that harsher punishments will be an effective deterrent to crime despite innumerable instances where that notion fails. Harsh punishments are absolutely necessary steps to, well, punish the convicts. But what do we really want? Harsher jails or safer streets? (The former doesn’t necessarily lead to the latter). The problem with candle light vigils and week-long street protests is this: they’re consoled by paper legislation. Tell me, after Nirbhaya did anyone see increased night time patrolling? Did you see more street lights in your gully? Did you stop seeing auto drivers driving autos in which the license on display is not theirs but someone else’s? Did you hear of psychological evaluation and treatment for rowdy sheeters and eve teasers? In short, did you hear of ANY s

More than just Ayes: Why India needs to look beyond harsher anti-rape laws

Image
16 year old raped, filmed and blackmailed for a year , India Times, August 2016. The article hyperlinked above starts with the sentence “despite the enactment of the stringent anti-rape law”. There seems to be a notion that harsher punishments will be an effective deterrent to crime despite innumerable instances where that notion fails. Harsh punishments are absolutely necessary steps to, well, punish the convicts. But what do we really want? Harsher jails or safer streets? (The former doesn’t necessarily lead to the latter). The problem with candle light vigils and week-long street protests is this: they’re consoled by paper legislation. Tell me, after Nirbhaya did anyone see increased night time patrolling? Did you see more street lights in your gully? Did you stop seeing auto drivers driving autos in which the license on display is not theirs but someone else’s? Did you hear of psychological evaluation and treatment for rowdy sheeters and eve teasers? In short, did you hear o

My Dear Guru

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  "Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo, Maheshwarah, Guru Saakshaat, Para brahma,Tasmai Shri, Guruveh Namaha, Tasmai Shri, Guruveh Namaha" This post is meant for a selected few. So most others will find this irrelevant. It's meant for the people who took the trouble to write flattering remarks in my progress reports even though I'd only deserved a knock on the head and a good telling off. It's meant for the people who actually did tell me off when I'd gone too far in childish exuberance. It's meant for those I remember dearly with fond memories and others whose memory still sends a chill down my spine (but I still remember dearly). Gurus, they say, are dispellers of darkness. This post is meant for every guru I have ever had- both inside a classroom and outside it. When I was still too young to remember names and associate them with faces, I had a group of teachers at TVS Academy in Hosur. My mother, I'm sure, knows all their names but I shamelessly ad

My Dear Guru

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  "Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo, Maheshwarah, Guru Saakshaat, Para brahma,Tasmai Shri, Guruveh Namaha, Tasmai Shri, Guruveh Namaha" This post is meant for a selected few. So most others will find this irrelevant. It's meant for the people who took the trouble to write flattering remarks in my progress reports even though I'd only deserved a knock on the head and a good telling off. It's meant for the people who actually did tell me off when I'd gone too far in childish exuberance. It's meant for those I remember dearly with fond memories and others whose memory still sends a chill down my spine (but I still remember dearly). Gurus, they say, are dispellers of darkness. This post is meant for every guru I have ever had- both inside a classroom and outside it. When I was still too young to remember names and associate them with faces, I had a group of teachers at TVS Academy in Hosur. My mother, I'm sure, knows all their names but I shameless

Net Neutrality: What's the problem?

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Earlier this week, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) published a set of regulations titled “ Prohibition of discriminatory tariffs for data services regulations-2016 ”. The result of a consultation process that was initiated in December 2015, the regulations are aimed at curbing the growing trend among service providers to charge customers content-based tariffs for their data services- a practice in deep disagreement with the idea that all data bytes are equal and must be viewed and charged as such. The regulation has drawn praise from the all quarters for being as powerful as it is and India certainly deserves a pat on the back. The guys at savetheinternet.in deserve special mention for their relentless efforts but as they’ll tell you only too happily, that this was the result of a mass movement of an unprecedented scale. In fact, as Nikhil Pahwa narrated, even their own submission to TRAI was almost crowdsourced in the sense that there was an open google doc in w

Net Neutrality: What's the problem?

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Earlier this week, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) published a set of regulations titled “ Prohibition of discriminatory tariffs for data services regulations-2016 ”. The result of a consultation process that was initiated in December 2015, the regulations are aimed at curbing the growing trend among service providers to charge customers content-based tariffs for their data services- a practice in deep disagreement with the idea that all data bytes are equal and must be viewed and charged as such. The regulation has drawn praise from the all quarters for being as powerful as it is and India certainly deserves a pat on the back. The guys at savetheinternet.in deserve special mention for their relentless efforts but as they’ll tell you only too happily, that this was the result of a mass movement of an unprecedented scale. In fact, as Nikhil Pahwa narrated, even their own submission to TRAI was almost crowdsourced in the sense that there was an open google doc