Why JJ Abrams’ Star Trek alternate reality is brilliant
Spoiler Alert!
When JJ Abrams decided to reboot Star Trek he had three options. Either to move forward and take the timeline beyond the Next Generation period, or to reboot the original trilogy or create something entirely new. He did neither. He sort of picked option two, but he manipulated Star Trek canon in such an ingenious way which allowed him to create a new Kirk/Spock/McCoy era experience, but also he could keep the story as part of Star Trek canon, by way of an alternate reality which happened the moment Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) was sent back in time through the black hole created by the Red Matter. So, essentially, we have the same characters with similar traits, but their history is totally different and Abrams has the latitude to manipulate the script to his will. This brings me to Star Trek Into Darkness.
You don’t know what he is up to and then there is the sub-plot of Admiral Marcus and his daughter who turns out to be Carol Marcus. It’s now that slowly one realises that JJ Abrams has taken Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and whisked it into something that retains a lot of Trek canon, but is something entirely new. John Harrison is revealed to be Khan and for those who have seen The Wrath of Khan, Carol Marcus is introduced who was a former flame of Kirk, so this hints at a possible love affair in the future.
The alternate reality allows the new plot but for us Trekkies, we know the characters, so there is an insight to their persona that’s quite recognisable. Especially with Khan in the new movie. He is cold, calculating, ruthless and yet human. The dynamic between Kirk and Spock is the same. They are brothers, they would break all the rules (even the prime directive) to save each other even if that means dragging the Enterprise crew along. McCoy retains his role of being the moral centre for Kirk and Spock.
So far in my book it’s better than Iron Man 3 and is the best action Sc-Fi flick of the year, which does not need someone to know Star Trek canon to understand unlike many previous Star Trek movies. But if one knows his/her Star Trek, the experience is very different. Actually, its enthralling because you know the characters and you know how they will react, you just don’t know the story and the eventuality.
And when one tops it off with cutting edge CGI effects, intimidating Klingons, a new enemy ship that smokes the daylights out of the Enterprise and the best passive 3D experience I’ve ever seen, Star Trek Into Darkness becomes a no brainer.
The keyboard is perhaps the most underrated part of a PC. When someone is assembling a computer, the keyboard is perhaps the first thing the user decides to compromise on, but for a person like me, a writer, a keyboard is one of the most important parts of the PC. I normally use my MacBook Pro Retina Display, for my writing, but due to an unfortunate freak accident, my notebook is indisposed for the time being. This situation forced me to invest in a very ergonomic keyboard, but I needed something that would play nice with my Windows 8 desktop, my iPad and also my phone when needed. I ended up buying the Logitech K810 wireless Bluetooth keyboard, and I have compiled some thoughts on the keyboard. Read on for more.
When I decided to invest in a keyboard, I realised that I needed something thin, light and extremely durable. My last PC keyboard was none of the above. The Logitech K810, on the other hand, is exactly what I was looking for and then some more. It's aluminium frame is light, but yet it's stunningly premium and feels really sturdy. It's incredibly thin, maybe a little too thin for my tastes, but that's a fair compromise. This also means that it is very compact. Because of its form factor, I think my using it all the time. In fact, this is the first keyboard I have used extensively with my iPhone and iPad. I have used the standard issue Apple keyboard quite a bit, the final build and form of thee K810 is more attractive for mobile usage.
Design
One of the prerequisites for my keyboard purchase was an island style key configuration. I have grown used to such a configuration, and in fact I have always done heavy duty writing on such keyboards, so using an old school keyboard was out of the question. As I did not want a dedicated number pad, I was also able to opt for something smaller, and the K810 fit the bill perfectly.
The keys on the K810 are spaced out lavishly, especially for a portable keyboard. The keys are springy and have a good throw to them, and they do not feel too shallow or springy, they are just perfect and they hit a sweet spot for a heavy typist like me. Additionally, the keyboard is LED backlit, which means, it's incredibly useful when I am burning the midnight oil.
Overall, the design was very pleasing to me, and while I don't have my MacBook Pro as a comparative reference for my typing efficiency, the Logitech K810 is doing a bloody good job of it, something which is very admirable.
Besides this, the keys have are sculpted in such a way that one never ends up always hitting the central point of the key bang on for an even more reassuring typing experience.
Performance
It's not very easy to evaluate the performance of a keyboard. But there are always metrics like typing speed or words per minute that can be considered. While I am taking into account the above mentioned metrics, I am also focusing on the ease of use and setup, and the battery life considering it's a Bluetooth keyboard.
From the beginning, setting up the keyboard was a breeze. Totally painless, absolutely, not friction. One just taps the Bluetooth button on the keyboard and do a search for keyboard in your device's Bluetooth list and voila, setup is complete. I could also use it via UB and Logitech had added a micro-UB cable in the package.
I've not had a lot of time to estimate battery life of the keyboard, but I have been using it for three days continuously using Bluetooth, but till it totally dies on me, I cannot gauge battery life properly.
As far as typing speed was concerned, I used a Chrome extension to determine my typing speed, and I was consistently clocking in excess of 50 words per minute, and I'd imagine this would be pretty close to what I accomplish on my MacBook Pro, if not faster.
Apart from this, for those who feel latency might be an issue, I'd say, don't worry. In my experience, I faced zero lag, in terms of keystroke response, but that could change if I use it for gaming purposes. I fully intend to explore this out in great detail, when I receive my copy of Bioshock Infinite.
Overall, I have had a very impressive first few days with the Logitech K810. I also managed to get a very sweet deal on the keyboard which was the icing on the cake and now that the experience goes well beyond of what I had imagined, I look forward to great times with this keyboard.
PS: Written on the Logitech K810, using DraftIn, a web based text editor, which everyone should try.
Sony, the Japanese technology giant, has been going through a tough period. Its iconic television business is in the doldrums, its iconic Walkman line of products is a no go in front of an iPod and in the smartphone market it’s pretty much irrelevant. Even in gaming it is number three behind Microsoft and Nintendo. But there are signs of the old legendary company Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs admired.
But then many may argue that Sony never really had a crisis of design, they always came up with unique hardware designs at times even outlandish ones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. But they trailed in terms of pure spec-sheet gloat-power. The Xperia Z is even ahead of the curve in this regard with its 5-inch 1080p display, 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 2GB of RAM and its new 13-megapixel camera that can do HDR on the fly for both video and stills. It is even waterproof and dustproof. So what’s the problem?
Well, Sony has ticked many corners with the Xperia Z. For once the design is not ‘SO’ outlandish that it becomes a difficult dish to swallow for some, it’s simple, elegant and beautiful. It has all the right ingredients so that it can compete well with the upcoming offerings that Samsung, HTC and Nokia have in store and it is even running a relatively new build of Android – Jelly Bean.
But there is always a but. Sony has a frosty history with its consumers with regards to Android updates. It’s camera sensors are used in mobile phones all around the world, including the iPhone 5, but on Sony hardware the same sensors never perform as well as they have done so on hardware made by its rivals. And battery life of some the Sony smartphones has been downright horrendous.
That said, under Kaz Hirai’s leadership we definitely are seeing a return to a more nimble Sony, the legendary consumer electronic company everyone wanted to be like. The Xperia Z is only the tip of the ice-berg. If one takes a look at its imaging business then one knows for a fact that Sony is doing something very special in that space, so there is no reason why the company cannot repeat the same success in the smartphone, gaming and TV space.
The Xperia Z also has the first mover’s advantage. At least that’s what I hope, so if Sony is able to get the battery life, the camera and software updates bang on, the Xperia Z could turn into a deadly pre-emptive nuke in the smartphone wars.
Running Windows 8 RP and OS X Mountain Lion simultaneously is easy as pie
A couple of days ago, I finally upgraded to a MacBook Pro with the Retina Display. One of the first things I decided to do was install Windows 8 RP, in a virtualized environment via Parallels Desktop 7. The main intention of this was to have access to a lot of software that I already owned for Windows. This of course included a truck load of games like Mass Effect 2 and also this gave me a proper opportunity to try out the Microsoft Office 2013 Consumer Preview which is not available for OS X. Since the version of Office in OS X is not expected to get updated for the Retina Display and it is yet to support features like ‘full screen’ apps introduced in OS X Lion, I thought it was worth a shot. Plus, I really liked the new Windows 8 inspired design that Microsoft has introduced.
The biggest surprise, to me, came in the form of real world performance, because I have been running Windows 8 RP on a desktop. The performance, if anything is much better and very stable.
I ran into a hitch while installing the Office preview, because I was unable to download it from Microsoft’s website as it probably detected the computer as Mac. I got around that by downloading a torrent of the same.
Overall, I was mighty impressed with the experience and I am now able to take advantage of two operating systems at once in a slick and seamless way.
Why the Galaxy Nexus is still the best Android smartphone in the market
A couple of weeks ago, bit the bullet and finally bought myself a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Ever since the announcement of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, I was increasingly eager to get my hands on the OS and my dissatisfaction with the performance of my Samsung Galaxy S II which was still stuck on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, further fuelled my desire. Now, that I have spent a few weeks with the Galaxy Nexus as my primary smartphone, I can clearly state that, it is not only the best performing Android smartphone in the market, but also one of the better built ones in the market and overall projects the best value a smartphone can hope to do so, the iPhone included. Here is why.
Android remains a very power user centric OS, but now Google has made it easier to make prettier applications and the general UI smoothness reaches new level which albeit is a notch below the competition, however I now believe Jelly Bean, further reduces the gulf between the end user experience.
Superior Build Quality: That’s not to say the Galaxy Nexus is the most sturdy or beautiful phone in the market. Nothing, is further from the truth. Nokia has pushed the envelope with its industrial design on the Lumia 800, Lumia 900 and the N9, and Apple’s iPhone 4 design always remains the one to beat. But in the world of Android, the Galaxy Nexus is one of the better built ones. The hyper mesh back on the Galaxy Nexus, not only feels more solid than either the SGS II and the SGS III, it is also better to grip to. Of course, the HTC One X has better build quality, but for once a Samsung phone does not feel cheap and that’s a big deal.
General looks wise, the Galaxy Nexus is not an ugly phone. Rather for me it’s quite a handsome phone. The button-less design of the Galaxy Nexus just lends it a futuristic quality and when the 720p Super AMOLED HD display comes alive, it’s a sight to behold.
The Spec is dead: As king Apple fanboy MG Seigler puts it, the spec is dead. The Galaxy Nexus is no leader in hardware specifications. It is decidedly a mid-range device. It runs a rather old dual-core Texas Instruments chip clocked at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera and a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display. It is because of the stock Android experience, hardware optimisations and the fastest access to updates, the Galaxy Nexus becomes a leader. New devices like the SGS III may boast quad-core chips, and overall better specs, but because the OS and the applications are yet to support this extra firepower, in general usage there is no disconcernable difference in the user experience.
In fact, the general usability is more predictable and smoother, with only the odd app showing a massive gulf in performance. Again, I reiterate, this opinion piece is on the basis of my experience with Ice Cream Sandwich and things supposedly get much better in Jelly Bean, because of ‘Project Butter’.
Value for money: With a very good design, best in class battery life, a stock Android experience, access to updates first and also perhaps the smoothest Android experience one would expect to pay premium for the Galaxy Nexus. But no, it’s not the most expensive phone in the market. Not by a long shot. At around Rs 25,000 it is not only the best Android phone in the sub-30K bracket, it is the best one out there. Period.
Having said this, the one area I wish, the device was better is the camera. The camera is not a bad one, but if Samsung had just outfitted the Galaxy Nexus with the same sensor as the SGS II, then things would have been PERFECT. However, that was not to be and hence the Galaxy Nexus has an underwhelming camera. If one is patient with it the it is certainly possible to get some very good snaps, however expecting iPhone 4S like images will be fool-hardy.
As I am embedded in Web publishing industry I tend use few software tools to get my work done as efficiently as possible. So let me break it down for each and every device.
Samsung Galaxy SII - For my mobile needs my platform of choice is Android and with its inherited synergy with Google services, I tend to use the native GMAIL and Gtalk apps a lot. Besides these I use the brilliant SwiftKey keyboard, which I am also using for this post and also an app called Spell check Pro. For some hard core editing, I use the preloaded Polaris Office application. To track stories I use Google Currents, Pulse and TweetCaster Pro for Twitter. The Dolphin Browser is my favorite browser on Android, but once I purchase the galaxy SIII, I am sure I'll shift to Chrome.
For recreational photography Instagram is my go to app, however I have also started using Aviary Photo editor.
iPad - Believe it or not, I hardly use the iPad for work. For those extreme situations for writing I use iAWriter or Pages. And to track stories I Google Currents, Zite and TweetBot.
Nokia has definitely cooked up a new UI which borrows a lot from the legacy of the MeeGo Harmattan UI
Adding to the benefits of the UI, Nokia with its usual marketing muscle is able to offer 40 EA games for free on these devices and also a version of Angry Birds that comes with 15 levels.
If Nokia can further push down the price points and arm the more devices with capacitive displays at the price points of the 305 and 306, then Nokia will surely have a winner at its hands.
And mind you, we can expect some of these UI innovations to trickle down to the higher end Windows Phone devices. Weather we will see these innovations boil down to the whole Windows Phone ecosystem is another story (Which is highly probable as Nokia may not want to fragment the ecosystem), but if Nokia plans to cater a custom Windows Phone experience then this could be a direction it could take.
we can expect some of these UI innovations to trickle down to the higher end Windows Phone devices
Of course, I have not used the device, so this whole theory of mine is based on the fact that these devices will offer compelling intuitive user experiences to the consumer at the low end of the market.
The compromise of iPhone 5 and its supposed 4-inch display
Today the Wall Street Journal posted a story regarding a 4-inch display coming to the iPhone 5. I have seen may Apple fan boys scoff at the thought of a 4-Inch display as it would compromise one handed use of the device, which the thumb not being able to reach all corners of the display with ease. I find this argument to be quite flawed.
I say this because a larger display has obvious advantages such as better legibility of text of reading on the web or an ebook, a better video experience, a larger battery and more space for innovation in app UIs.
And in my opinion this is an equatable compromise if Apple has to increase the display by just half an inch. This also allows Apple to not compromise on the overall form factor of the device, and not reach ludicrous form factors that companies like Samsung, HTC and LG are gunning for.
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