இந்த வாரம் திங்கட்கிழமை அன்று கலைஞர் டிவியில் காலை எட்டு மணிக்கு எனதுப் பேட்டி ஒளிபரப்பானது. போன வெள்ளியன்று விஜிபி கடற்கரை தங்கும் விடுதியில் திரு. ரமேஷ் பிரபா அவர்கள் கேள்விக் கேட்க நான் பதிலளித்தேன். கீழேயுள்ள இந்த ஒளிப்பதிவைப் பார்த்துவிட்டு உங்கள் கருத்தைச் சொல்லவும். திரு. ரமேஷ் பிரபா அவர்களுக்கு என்னை அறிமுகம் செய்த நண்பர் திரு.ஆண்டோ பீட்டர் அவர்களுக்கு என் நன்றி.

இந்தப் பேட்டியில் நான் என்னப் பேசினேன் என்று நான் இங்கே எழுதுவதை விட நண்பர் மறைமலை இலக்குவனார் எனக்கு அனுப்பிள்ள ஒரு மின்-அஞ்சலில் மிக அழகாக  சொல்லியுள்ளார். ஆகவே அதன் சுருக்கத்தை இங்கே கொடுத்துள்ளேன்.

“இணையத்தில் தமிழ் பெற்றுள்ள ஏற்றம், எழுத்துருவைச் சீரமைப்பதில் ஏற்பட்ட பல்வேறு கருத்துக்குழுக்கள், இன்று யூனிக்கோடு எவ்வகையில் உதவுகிறது என்பது குறித்த விவரம்,விசைப்பலகை என்றால் என்ன, விசைப்பலகைகள் மாறுபட்டு அமைந்தது ஏன், ஆங்கிலத்தில் விசைப்பலகையின் ஒருசீர்மை, தமிழில் அத்தகைய ஒருசீர்மைக்கு யூனிக்கோடு எங்ஙனம் உதவுகிறது என்பது பற்றிய ஆய்வு, இன்றைய இளைஞர்கள் கணினித்துறையில் எதிர்கொள்ளும் சிக்கல்கள், இணையத்தில் நிகழும் பல்வேறு மோசடிகள், அவற்றைச் சமாளிக்கும் விதம், டிஜிட்டல் கையொப்பம் என்றால் என்ன, பணவரவு செலவில் அதன் பயன்பாடு யாது, இணைய வானொலி, இணையத் தொலைக்காட்சி ஆகியவை பெற்றுள்ள தனிச்சிறப்புகள், எதிர்காலத்தில் இணையம் பெறப்போகும் வளர்ச்சிவலைப்பூக்களில் தமிழ் பெற்றுள்ள சிறப்பிடம் என்று அடுக்கிக் கொண்டே போனீர்கள்.

கணிப்பொறியாளர்கள் கைகட்டிச்சேவகம் செய்யவேண்டியதில்லை என்பதற்குத் தாங்களும் தங்களுக்கு முன்னரும் பின்னரும் வந்த தொழில் முனைவோர்கள் எடுத்துக்காட்டாக விளங்குவதைச் சுட்டிக்காட்டினீர்கள். ஒபாமாவின் வருகையால் நமக்கு எவ்வித அச்சமும் இல்லை என்பதைச்சுட்டி அமெரிக்காவைப் பூச்சாண்டி காட்டிவருவோரின் அழிம்புக்கு முற்றுப்புள்ளி வைத்தீர்கள்.தமிழக அரசு இதுவரை அளித்துவந்த ஒத்துழைப்புக்கு உத்தமத்தின் சார்பில் நன்றி தெரிவித்தீர்கள். இந்த அல்லது அடுத்த ஆண்டில் இணையமாநாடு நடத்தவேண்டிய சூழலை எடுத்துரைக்கத்தவறவில்லை.

உத்தமம் பற்றிய முறையான அறிமுகத்தை அளித்தபின்னர் தான் உங்கள் உரையைத் தொடங்கினீர்கள்.

எடுப்பான தோற்றம், எழுச்சி வாய்ந்த குரல், சிறப்பான கருத்துகள் என்னும் மூன்றும் ஒருங்கிணைந்து உங்கள் நேர்காணலைச் சுவையுடன் விளங்கச் செய்தது.நன்றி.வாழ்க”

One of the advantages of Direct To Home (Satellite / DTH ) TV is the promise of uninterrupted service and being free from cable cuts, etc. Unfortunately DTH too doesn't guarantee reception at all times as I realized today. In my house I have a Tata Sky DTH service in one room and Sun Direct DTH in another room.

It has been raining Cats & Dogs for the last two days in Chennai City due to Cyclone Nisha. There has been very little mobility within the city as most of the areas have been inundated. For me, I managed to return home in the evening now in my car with several feet of water in many places in T.Nagar, West Mambalam & Kodambakkam. After coming home I switched on TV wanting to catch what's happening with the horrific Mumbai Terror attacks in Taj & Trident Hotels. Due to heavy rains and the thick clouds in the sky above Chennai, both Tata Sky and Sun Direct had reception problems - both at various times kept breaking due to no signal. Though both services kept breaking, Sun Direct seems to be the most affected - even when it got signal, the pictures kept getting corrupted and the set-top box rebooting often. Though on normal days there was little problem with either of the services.

Early this month I travelled to Hong Kong while returning from USA. When I converted my money to Hong Kong Dollars to spend locally, I noticed they had a difference. Unlike currency notes of other countries say India, US or UK which are issued by Central Banks of those countries, the Hong Kong currency notes seems to be issued by authorized private banks like Standard Chartered, Bank of China, HSBC and others. All these are legal tenders in Hong Kong.

Today Prof.A.G. Ramakrishnan from IISc, Bangalore posted an announcement in INFITT discussion group announcing openings for BE Graduates for Research Positions at Mile Lab, IISc, Bangalore. This caught my eye as the project described was exciting one involving software applications for visually challenged.  I am giving a link in this post to the announcement for the benefit of graduates inclined towards research who will find this position interesting.

MILE Laboratory at Indian Institute of Science is actively involved in developing an automated book reader for the visually challenged. This research involves image mosaicing, page layout analysis, script recognition, speech synthesis and natural language processing. You can read the announcement from the IISc page here or in PDF format here

Like everyone else I get unsolicited unsolicited calls on my mobile phone. What is more irritating is when you are already a customer with the bank that is calling - they don't even check whether someone is their customer or not, instead they randomly call numbers. To communicate our displeasure with this, if we decide to switch banks, it is not so easy to do. And almost all private banks and insurance companies in India seems to be doing this, so you will not be able to find a company that doesn't. I bank mostly with Public Sector banks but for some convenience like Web Banking, Credit Cards and ATM I bank with a private bank. As consumers we need a remedy to this problem.

About a year or so back, TRAI introduced the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC Registry). Telemarketers are needed by law to check with the NDNC database before making a call or face a penalty. You can register in NDNC by sending a SMS with text "START DND" to 1909 or register in your Mobile Service Provider's website (for me it will be Vodafone). Apart from TRAI's NDNC Registry, RBI recommended about 3 years for all Banks under it to have an individual DNC registry with them, you can register in each of them by going to their respective websites. I have registered myself in all of these sites, after registering the number of calls I get have certainly come down. If you still get calls you can complain to the callers that they are violating law by calling a DNC number.

Last week on a single day I got two marketing calls from ICICI Bank and one call from ABN Amro. Irritated I was looking for a remedy, I found a page in ICICI website to complain if you keep getting calls even after registering. I emailed to the id donotcall at icicibank.com that was in the page quoting the time, my mobile number and the phone numbers from which I got the call. I added in the email that if I continued to get calls I will seek remedy by lodging a complaint to RBI Ombudsman and TRAI consumer cell. I was not hopeful of any reply, but I was pleasantly surprised to get a reply within 2 days from ICICI stating that they have taken note of my complaint, apologized and assured that I will not get any further calls. I was certainly impressed by this service from ICICI and I hope other banks will follow this good practice.

Apart from Marina beach, the popular hangouts in Chennai are Spencer's Mall and Chennai Citi Centre. I am a regular visitor to these malls with my family few times every month. This Thursday when I went to Spencer's around 6PM in the evening, I was told in the parking that due to TNEB power cuts - the ACs and Escalators will not work. We still decided to get in and brave it out. It turned out to be a complete wash-out. Many of the shops including Westside, Music world were closed down and remaining once like Landmark were nearly deserted. Since the interiors of these malls were made for an Air Conditioned environment, they have no natural air or light inlets - so it was unbearable to spend more than few minutes there.

I enquired with the check-out assistants in the shop and they confirmed that the power-cut is on all days including weekends. I purchased few books hurriedly and rushed out of the shop. We went to our favourite Fastfood snack shop in Second floor or Phase 2, it was also deserted.  This left me thinking on the impact of the power cut on the livelihood of the people in these shops. The bigger shops like Landmark and Westside will slash their staffs or their compensation. Apart from them, Spencer's has lot of small shops (like our favourite fast food  shop) owned by individuals whose only livelihood is the daily sales, which is severely being affected due to the falling footfalls.

When globally the world is suffering from a slow-down or recession, power-cut in Tamilnadu is adding an extra unbearable burden to businesses. And to think of it this could have been easily avoided by proper planning by authorities over the last few years. One of the main reasons for power shortage in India has been reluctance of all state governments to privatise power generation and power distribution which is strongly controlled by state owned power boards. Due to this, there is heavy inefficiency in both generation and distribution, with some reports claiming the power theft to be over several tens of percentages.

I read in today's Economic Times paper's Corporate Dossier supplement "Smartest subordinates toe the line between being proactive and being over-zealous". I liked the article, especially the conversation style in which it was written. It subtly puts across on how important being pro-active is for career progress. I have seen many people you wait for their managers to tell them before they do something, while it is important not to overstep on decisions, doing just what you are told will never expose your talents to your manager. Check out the article.

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. How true is this statement!. When you thought the Music Industry is doomed because of piracy from free MP3 downloads, someone out there comes with a new model. 

In the above chart from Economist you can see that the falling sales of physical (Audio CD) media is not being compensated by the rise in Digital sales. The Digital sales comes predominantly from iTunes (and other similar pay per download services) and from subscription services (like Rhapsody) which offer a flat fee per month for unlimited songs. Both the models have produced mixed results and are expected to continue with no clear winner as the choice depends on individual preferences. One clear trend that emerged in the last one year was the death of "DRM" with Apple leading the way and Amazon following it. As Nicholas Negroponte wrote in his classic book "Being Digital", you can never categorize an individual "bit" (Binary 1 or 0) to be of a particular character (Porn, Politics, News, Sports and so on), so policing the Internet for Piracy can never be fool-proof. I believe policing is certainly not the fix for increasing music revenues, instead a new business model that ensures ubiquitous DRM free music to listeners world over and fair-price/compensation to content producers will assure more success. World over many models are being experimented including Ad funding - which I feel will be of limited success, will not be a failure but also not a block-buster. In this connection, a new business model tried out by Nokia in its "Comes with Music" (CWM) looks very promising. 

CWM simply reverses the economics of Music Industry. Instead of paying for each song or track, your music cost is loaded on to the listening device. You buy the Nokia handset for around $230 and you get unlimited songs for one year, after which you can buy a subscription or buy a new device. Of course, Nokia wants you to buy a new device every year and that's the attraction for them to try this model. This bundling of content cost on to the device is in a way similar to TV License fee in UK, where a tax that is collected to watch TV in UK helps government to subsidize BBC content production costs. This is the reason why many of the content in BBC websites are restricted by IP to permit UK viewers only. 

For me, I hope someone in India (may be Reliance Big or Hungama or Airtel or Times) brings out this model for India. Unfortunately, till date there is no comprehensive subscription based sites in India offering Indian Film and Classical music. You are left with buying physical media then ripping it yourself (which is what I do) or paying blatantly expensive price for each track to legal sites or simply pirate.