Studies in Media

Source: http://m.techrepublic.com/blog/tablets/microsoft-may-still-win-the-tablet-war/2709?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101 Microsoft may still win the tablet war By Patrick Gray | January 9, 2013, 10:34 AM PSTAfter spending time with Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet, I was left with more questions than answers. The further I considered Microsoft’s tablet strategy, the more I wondered if it were genius or madness driving its recent moves. Depending on what we see in the next few months, it just might be the former. Leaving the home court Surface was most perplexing in that Microsoft aced the hardware of the device — an area most pundits, myself included, expected it to miss completely. The device was sleek and well-assembled, and it brought unique and noteworthy features to the table rather than simply trying to copy market leaders. If only the software were on par with the hardware, I’d gladly slip the Surface into my bag and leave the laptop at home for the majority of my work and person

The Balance of Payment crisis in the 80's forced the Indian government to introduce several reforms opening up the economy and placing the country on the 'globalization' map. The 'Licence Raj' partly ended and several industries got a boost. The Information Technology and the Communication Technology got a further boost with the appointment of Mr. Sam Pitroda. The yellow coloured STD PCO's that dot every corner of the roadside around the country are because of Mr. Pitroda's vision. Apart from the parallel evolution of technologies in computers, Internet, cameras and mobile phones which converted the audiences into producers, three major 'events' are also responsible for the way we distribute digital content and communicate with each other in India. The first one was in 1990-91 when Gulshan Kumar, through his T-Series produced and sold audio cassettes at a fraction of the price at which they were generally sold. If I remember right, music cassettes

This is in continuation with my earlier post on new and emerging media technologies. New and emerging technologies have changed the way we consume and produce content. The technology has become advanced, cheaper and accesible to us, the common public. This has to be looked at from several angles.   I bought my first computer in 1992 for Rs.35000/-. Many will be surprised by the configuration. It was a 40386 processor, meaning it had a processing power of 386 MHz, much lesser than many mobile phones available today. The computer had a whopping 120MB (Yes, no typo here. Its MB and not GB) and 4 MB of RAM! On that computer I could easily use CorelDraw and PageMaker for my DTP work. It was the best PC in the neighbourhood.   I also remember making my first video using a PC with a 533 MHz processor and 512 MB RAM. I can vouch for the fact that the video can hold its own against any video I have made recently. The only real difference is that it took very long to render the video the. It

Is 'New Media' always digital? Is it really 'social'? Well, in contemporary times, probably yes. But then, wasn't print a new medium when it was invented?  And radio, and then television? With every 'new' medium, there have been social, political and economic changes, because we have been exposed to different thoughts, ideas and challenges with each of them. With every new medium, there have been changes in how we receive, use and disseminate information. The difference between the 'older' new media and the newer ones is that the content is now stored in a binary form. It is now digital, rather than analogue. Instead of storing data on tapes and records, we now store data in microchips. Instead of data being 'fixed' it is now in a state of flux. This enables content to be converted from one form to another easily and equally easily distributed allowing trans-mediality. Apart from the way content is stored, even the way in which it is p

Came across an interesting post. This is a must for anyone wanting to survive in the media industry of the future. How News Organizations Can Create a Mobile-First Strategy by Steve Buttry Published Dec. 10, 2009 3:43 pm Updated Mar. 4, 2011 9:00 am I used to watch the crowds in airport lounges when I traveled, studying how people read newspapers. Even with circulation declining, you could see people reading newspapers intently. Especially after 9/11, people would have plenty of time to read while waiting for flights, and newsstands stocked a variety of papers to choose from. Look around an airport lounge now. You’ll see more people looking at their phones than holding newspapers. When I see people in the airport lounge, I know time is only accelerating with each tap of their thumbs. My concern over this acceleration pushed me last month to call for news companies to pursue a mobile-first strategy. New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen asked me to “describe wha

For the uninitiated, Google (Google Earth) has a feature called the Streetview. The Google Streetview car roams around the streets, clicking pictures as it drives by. These pictures are then stitched together to give you a virtual walkthrough. It's an amazing application, but now seems to be creating a lot of controversy, raising privacy concerns. Citizens are demanding that their street, houses should not be photographed by the car. Pic source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217775/Google_Street_View_blocked_in_Bangalore The other issue is security. After 26/11 in Mumbai, there is generally a lot of concern over security issues. The Karnataka Government has refused to allow the Google Streetview car to photograph sections of Bengaluru. This is going to spark off a debate on technology, government, privacy concerns, freedom of speech, etc. Click here for an article that has appeared on the rediff.com com home page tonight. 

An interesting development. Click --->  Microsoft puts Office 365 in the cloud, confronts Google Recently Nokia chose Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS over Google's Android. Though I personally feel that they are a bit late, because Google is not going to sit idle till the new Windows powered Nokia phones come out (In 2012!). And now this development is going to generate a lot a heat. Let's enjoy the war, because whatever the outcome I am sure the consumers/users will benefit. Probably at a little extra cost, though.