iPhone for the iGeneration July 2, 2007
Posted by moinul in Technology.Tags: iPhone, mobile
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Finally Apple Inc. has entered the so called gizmo cellphone market where companies decide a consumer’s demand, taste and preferences. The highly anticipated Apple’s iPhone is the latest supplement to the cellphone industry. The initial market response seems success because the crazy mobile lovers had been queuing for several hours in front of the retail stores. I wonder what is going to be the answer to iPhone by other cellphone manufacturers like Blackberry and Nokia. If they do not respond well, Apple will be looking for a sizeable market share and that would be quite interesting to see.
Considering all the features and usability, iPhone is a forward looking smartphone which includes loads of features that are yet to be provided by other companies. Though I am not an iFan, but iLiked the way Apple approached this cellphone iMarket. The iPhone includes iCandy features such as touchscreen, ipod & itunes capability, video capability (including youtube), and mostly all the common cellphone features like camera, calender, e-mail, organiser, wifi, etc. However, I feel there would be mixed reactions because iPhone does not look like a corporate device and looks more like a gagdet. The high anticipation people had from the iPhone can be negative and there are already news about the downsides of iPhone. If anybody still asks for my preference of a cellphone brand, I would still say yes to Nokia.
The interesting part is, the long serving Blackberry and Nokia seemed to have identified a real competitor now and that is Steve Jobs. It would be nice to see their response to iPhone. But you never know, what’s coming next. Maybe some other gizmo giant is coming with a Kill’em All technology and will take control of the market. The cellphone industry that once looked somewhat mature, is now getting back to the growth stages of the life cycle. Quite exciting, ain’t it?
Nigerian scam and General Abacha June 13, 2007
Posted by moinul in Ethics, Technology.Tags: 419 Scam, Abacha, Advance fee fraud, Scam
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Most of us who have an email address has confronted with at least one Nigerian scam (419 scam or Advanced fee fraud) letter in their life. When I was a rookie internet user, I used to get plenty of scams which were mostly from a Nigerian oil tycoon, or a retired general or a diamond businessman. These emails would come in the form of a tragic story where a millionaire/oil tycoon/general died and his wife wants to get out of Nigeria and she will share the money if we agree. If we agree, there awaits a great f#@k for us and for our bank accounts. The process is quite lengthy and detailed but once you are a potential victim, these suckers will somehow get your money. Generally, these suckers gets our email addresses from the internet mailing lists. To target a newbie on the internet, the Nigerian story is quite a fascinating theory to suck money.
I wonder why Nigeria was choosen for a scam. Recently I did a search on Google with “Abacha” where most of the results relate with the Nigerian money stealing scandal done by General Sani Abacha. So it is pretty clear that the suckers who scams millions of internet users with a promise to transfer millions of dollars have identified a great story to develop this scam. General Abacha or Maryam Abacha are the widely used names for these sort of scam letters. However, these 419 letters have reduced during the last couple of years probably because nobody’s buying these stories. But it’s better to be aware about them and educate new internet users about the traditional theories of internet scamming. If you haven’t read any of these Nigerian stories yet, you would find interesting to read some typical scam scenerios posted on popsubculture. There is also an interesting discussion board dedicated to the versatility of these amazing stories.
Wikipedia: The web of knowledge April 23, 2007
Posted by moinul in Technology.add a comment
Wikipedia is the fastest growing internet encyclopedia and probably it is considered as the number one encylopedia on web. The mastermind behind this formula was the internet guru Jimmy Wales who in 2001, dreamt of starting an encyclopedia for the internet age. He started it by himself and it took 18 months to complete just 12 entries. Lucky for him that he found that it is not helping him to finish this encyclopedia in a million years all by himself. He then planned to make it free so that everyone can contribute to this encyclopedia. In fact most people considered it as a noble cause which led his strategy go well enough. Now in 2007, wikipedia is the world’s largest free encyclopedia. Just three words “Edit this page” made it happen.
The thing I like about wikipedia is the instant access of suddenly required information which might have taken ages to find if wiki was not here. For example, if I do not know who is Alfred Nobel, it will take just 3 to 5 minutes to find and gather the general information about him. So i think it is a great knowledge base for quick information. On the contrary there are thousands of critics who feel that the information on wikipedia has no validity at all. I agree with the validity concerns of scholars and critiques but at least it is saving my day. Maybe in future, Jimmy will have to employ thousands of editors to ensure it’s validity or maybe we will be happy with the way it is growing. With keeping in mind that wikipedia still need to achieve trust and reliability among scholars, we can still embrace it and do less criticism of this great invention. At least you don’t have to pay money to read it.
