Ankush Narula
Recent tracks
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Friend of Mine by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}6 days ago
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Baby, We'll Be Fine by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}6 days ago
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Daughters of the Soho Riots by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}6 days ago
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Looking for Astronauts by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}8 days ago
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Lit Up by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}8 days ago
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Karen by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}8 days ago
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Secret Meeting by {u'mbid': u'664c3e0e-42d8-48c1-b209-1efca19c0325', u'#text': u'The National'}8 days ago
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Diablo Rojo by {u'mbid': u'a8ed28e3-5c08-4448-b889-867483e251f5', u'#text': u'Rodrigo y Gabriela'}8 days ago
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Beginning To See The Light by {u'mbid': u'94b0fb9d-a066-4823-b2ec-af1d324bcfcf', u'#text': u'The Velvet Underground'}8 days ago
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Judy Is a Punk by {u'mbid': u'd6ed7887-a401-47a8-893c-34b967444d26', u'#text': u'Ramones'}8 days ago
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Profile
Summary
Experience
- Sept 2011 - PresentPlatform Services Manager / Binary Event Network
- 2005 - PresentVP of IT and Administration, Partner / Curtis Partition Corporation
- 2003 - PresentLead Systems Architect / Gargoyle Strategic Investments
- 2002 - PresentConsulting Developer / Parallax Fund
- 2001 - PresentCustomer Solutions Architect / Electronic Ink
- 1998 - PresentConsulting Developer/Engineer / Advanta
- 1997 - PresentPartner / Point Zero Solutions, Inc.
- 1997 - PresentConsulting Developer/Engineer / Coelocanth Corporation
- 1993 - PresentSystems Engineer/Developer / Oxford Research
Education
Posts
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not
rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for
hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid
of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” — Martin Luther
King Jr.
After reflecting on the new iOS App Store subscription model for a while, I realized that there's a simple way to deal with Apple here. Publishers and developers should limit iOS App Store subscriptions to iOS devices. In order to comply with Apple's guidelines, the same iOS-only product should also be made available from the publisher/developer web site. However, a second product - only available from the publisher/developer web site - should be available to customers that allows access from any supported device. The key is whether this can be mentioned and linked to from within the app.
Apple will eventually become a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator). iPhone customers will port their phone numbers to Apple and pay month-to-month for unlimited mobile service. Apple will introduce a true world phone that supports most frequencies and wireless technologies. They will use VoIP to allow seamless roaming across WiFi and carrier networks. Apple will handle all voicemail and SMS for the iPhone. But mainly, Apple will force the mobile carriers to compete for iPhone user bandwidth. This will allow Apple to beat the mobile carriers over the head with onerous bandwidth contracts. All the pieces are pointing in this direction. There are no big technology innovations here. These are huge business and market innovations that bring enormous value to consumers. This is Apple redefining the mobile marketplace.
Steve Kroft reports on the precarious financial conditions many states are facing and what they're doing about it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7166293n&tag=api Sent from 60 Minutes on iPadDownload 60 Minutes for the iPad here.
My non-Android friends have been asking about typing on the Nexus One. Is it better or at least equal to the iPhone? Not a frigging chance. The portrait mode is just plain awful. Landscape is better but just barely. Using after-market keyboards doesn't much improve the situation.
Accuracy is weak. Fast typing almost always leads to skipped keystrokes or worse, hitting a button or zone off of the keyboard. I find that the spacebar is the key that is skipped the most - a nuisance that leads to a lot of editing. My biggest complaint is that cursor positioning is plain awful. There is no positioning magnifier such as on the iPhone so it requires either repeated taps or using the trackball.
Overall it's a very frustrating experience coming from the iPhone. Some have suggested that its a small price to pay in order to escape Apple's ecosystem. I couldn't disagree more. Text entry is the most basic smartphone function. If that sucks, then there's almost no point to the device. As it stands, Android isnt making much of a marketshare dent in the US market. But I really think Android will dominate quickly if Google improves keyboard entry to be on par or better than the iPhone.
I've been using the V-MODA Duo in-ear headphones with microphone with my iPhone for about a year and a half. In that time, I've been mostly satisfied with these headphones. Since purchasing the iPhone 3G S I've run into a strange problem where I can't skip to the next song. Instead the iPhone 3G S thinks I'm trying to activate the Voice Control feature. This wouldn't be so bad, but when I say "play next song", nothing happens. I also have a pair of Shure E210 headphones, but the cabling is extremely thick and frustrating for mobile urban use. I keep these for home use now.
So after reading some rave reviews, I decided to purchase the Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic. The remote and microphone features are only compatible with the iPhone 3G S and the iPod Touch 2nd/3rd generation so in the past I hadn't considered these headphones. Since they're compatible with the iPhone 3G S, they suit my purpose.
Upon opening the packaging the first thing I noticed is the nice solid plastic case that comes with these headphones. You simply put the earbuds in the middle and wrap the cord down and around snap the clear plastic cover over the case. Simple and ergonomic design. The second thing is the nice little capsule that contains the alternate size silicon earbud covers. Most manufacturers deliver these spares/alternates in a crappy little plastic bag that invariably gets lost. In typical form, Apple's designers seemed to recognize that if you give people a simple little plastic case - a nicely designed one - the consumer is much more likely to take care of it. Nice touch.
Upon inserting the earbuds into my ears, I was really surprised at the firm fit and comfort. I gave a little tug on the cord and the earbuds stayed in place. Also quite nice is the fact that I couldn't hear much ambient sound on the street. This used to be a big problem with my V-MODA Duo headphones because they had a strange metallic texture and the wind would create a subtle whistle while walking on the street. The V-MODA Duos typically required the volume to be cranked higher to obscure ambient noise as well as the whistle. On the Apple In-Ear Headphones, the earbud is designed well. The earbud itself doesn't protrude far out of the ear, it's cable is protected by a graduated rubber casing to ease wear and tear, the cable angles straight down (instead of out or sideways), and the texture is smooth. Again, simple and elegant design. After wearing them for a few days, I forgot I was wearing headphones while listening to some baroque music on my couch.
I listen to a large variety of music and spoken word audio. So far, the audio quality of the Apple In-Ear Headphones has been very satisfying. When listening to electronica or hip-hop, the bass is solid and deep. Jazz bass and orchestral timpani both also have a clean sound without losing much texture. Vocals pop out beautifully along with mid-tone notes. And I'm most critical of headphones that can't deliver crisp textures in the high-range. I want to hear them as clearly as possible without ripping my CD's at 320kbps. I put them to the test listening to some remastered swing from the 1940's. Apple's In-Ear Headphones delivered beautifully. Listening to audiobooks and spoken podcasts I was really happy with the fullness of the sound and the lack of tinniness.
The remote control feature includes three buttons: volume up, volume down, and a center button that can be clicked quickly to pause/play, double-clicked to switch to the next track, triple-clicked to switch to the previous track, and held down to activate the Voice Control feature on the iPhone 3G S. All the buttons are crisp and responsive as expected.
Because it's an Apple product, it's also backed by a high level of customer service. If the headphones fail in any way in the next year or two, I know Apple will replace them on the spot. Certainly, there are better in-ear headphones on the market. The Shure E-series are truly majestic and second-to-none. The V-MODA Vibe 2 headphones are also quite excellent but the cabling is poorly designed and tends to flake out after minimal use. Apple's In-Ear headphones are higher-value because they deliver an excellent balance of audio quality, ergonomic design, and low price. Oh yes... they're $79.
Citing an internal Intel study that tracked kernel releases, Bottomley said Linux performance had dropped about two per centage points at every release, for a cumulative drop of about 12 per cent over the last ten releases. "Is this a problem?" he asked.via Linus calls Linux 'bloated and huge' • The Register. Linus goes onto say that kernel bloat is unacceptable but it's also probably unavoidable. Personally, I think this is one peril of a monolithic kernel. Can't really fault Linus for this even though the releases go out with his blessing. Feature inclusion is a by-product of preventing forking. We want everyone to use and contribute back to the same kernel sources. Perhaps it's time that the gentoo system is more closely examined and made more user-friendly?
This is a brilliant, albeit inevitable and wasteful, means of packaging a single cupcake.
Stairway to Heaven live (Rodrigo y Gabriela) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc5o9TU0t0]
Wonderful
All responses are in to the Federal Communications Commission's query asking why Apple put Google Voice for its iPhone on ice. But chances are that the answers that the FCC has received from Apple and AT&T will only provoke more questions.
Here's the good news, iPhone users. Never mind that New York Times story citing a Google spokesperson saying that Apple nixed the app around mid-July. "Contrary to press reports," Apple's letter insisted, the company hasn't rejected the feature. It's just continuing to "study" it.
"The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail," Apple explained.
And that's a problem, it seems, because Google Voice "replaces Apple's Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail."
more...
Indeed... It's bad news when Google looks like David and AT&T + Apple look like Goliath. AT&T and Apple's answers have raised more and more probing questions. Purely from a PR perspective, I think they are in over their heads. The tech media is feeling very scornful towards Apple's handling of App Store rejections and they already loathe the wireless carriers for innumerable reasons. The best bet here for Apple would be to concede, apologize, and show bold moves towards transparency and/or at open impartiality in the App Store review process. AT&T needs to suck it up and give their blessing to Google Voice. They should also work closely with streaming media and VoIP companies like Sling and Skype to bring these applications to their network. If they don't do this, someone else will.
Today Apple filed with the FCC the following answers to their questions.
We are pleased to respond to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s inquiry dated July 31, 2009, requesting information regarding Apple’s App Store and its application approval process. In order to give the Bureau some context for our responses, we begin with some background information about the iPhone and the App Store.
Apple’s goal is to provide our customers with the best possible user experience. We have been able to do this by designing the hardware and software in our products to work together seamlessly. The iPhone is a great example of this. It has established a new standard for what a mobile device can be—an integrated device with a phone, a full web browser, HTML email, an iPod, and more, all delivered with Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface.
Apple then introduced something altogether new—the App Store—to give consumers additional functionality and benefits from the iPhone’s revolutionary technology. The App Store has been more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, just over a year since opening, the App Store offers over 65,000 iPhone applications, and customers have downloaded over 1.5 billion applications.
The FCC's questions were replied to with unsurprising answers from Apple. The reply to the Google Voice question answers the issues around Apple and AT&T's possible collusion to block Google Voice. Apple indemnifies AT&T and claims responsibility for solely blocking GV applications. Apple claims that they are "continuing" to review the impact of native iPhone Google Voice applications. They also encourage Google to develop and deliver a Google Voice Web Application for the iPhone. This last statement explains how Apple wants to prevent these applications from access native functionality: (1) block access to Push Notification Services and more critically (2) block access to the native Contact database. My experience tells me that Google is clever - and that they will continue to fight Apple about native iPhone approval but they will also create a first-class iPhone Web Application. If I were the product manager at Google, I would develop an iPhone portal site that helps iPhone users (1) sync their contacts to their Google Address Book and then (b) installs an iPhone Web Application with full offline capabilities.
One great advantage of the social web has been that it allows us to connect to people who enjoy music that's similar to what we enjoy - people we know and people we don't know. There's so many genres of music, so many timelines within those genres, so many convergences and divergences, so many countries, so many influences across these vectors, and thus so many variations. It often seems infinite but still it brings me an immense amount of joy to discover and listen. So I share with you the websites that I find indispensable now... use them well... Last.FM - A veteran website, perhaps the first, in social music websites. Here's how it works... I run a little program from Last.FM on all of my computers called an audioscrobbler. This program is notified when I listen to a song. It then notifies the Last.FM website of the time/date and artist/song that I'm listening to. The Last.FM app also picks up this information from my iPhone and my iPod Shuffle when I dock them. So in essence - Last.FM keeps an ongoing historical listening log of songs, albums, and artists that you listen to. Along the way, it does quite a few things. When someone visits my profile, they can listen to my "Radio Station" - a list of songs that I've "Loved" or I listen to frequently. It also lets me know who my neighbors are - users with similar tastes - and allows the user to add them as friends and/or listen to their radio stations. Of course, you can also type in the name of any user, artist, album and navigate to that profile page to discover more music. (My Profile: http://www.last.fm/user/narula) Pandora - a commercial venture that emerged from the Music Genome Project which began in 2000 Blip.FM Grooveshark Lala
Security researchers unearth evidence leading to a massive spy ring called 'GhostNet' on His Holiness's office computer A 10-month investigation has led to the discovery of the world’s largest alleged cyber espionage network, dubbed ‘GhostNet’.I can't say any of this is a surprise. Conventional open warfare and covert operations have a relatively low ROI compared to distributed covert operations and attacks. China and Russia have both been linked to such operations. I'm certain that the NSA, CIA, and DoD are ahead of the game. However, to borrow Thomas Friedman's metaphor - the flattening of the world indicates that the network battlefield is a level one. Anyone can have an advantage. via Investigators find Chinese botnet on Dalai Lama's PC.
What I find most fascinating about Conficker is that its real legacy may well turn out to be beneficent. To date, there really hasn't been a threat that has given countries on opposite ends of the globe a unifying, urgent reason to work against a single Internet menace. Yet, due to the work of the Conficker Cabal and affected parties, that is starting to change. "We're literally relying on people in Latvia to protect computer networks in Brazil, and the other way around, too, so each country has some capability and some responsibility once they understand the role they can play here," Wesson said. "No matter what happens with Conficker, it's created something here....a beautiful opportunity to bring cyber security to the kitchen table."via Conficker: Doomsday, or the World's Longest Rickroll? - Security Fix.
Krebs details how a group, dubbed the Conficker Cabal, has managed to engage all of the countries whose country codes will be used by the worm authors to create domains the worm will try to contact to get those instructions. According to Krebs' reporting: the Conficker Cabal has managed to get the co-operation of all of the 110 nations to block the registration of Conficker-related domains. That's all of the countries except for one: the Republic of Congo. That kind of massive response is no joke either. And shows how the globe can pull together in the face of a pressing threat and unknown. Hopefully, that's the legacy left by Conficker.C.via Conficker: Loathing the FUD and Misunderstanding - Security Blog - InformationWeek.
"I think it's just the Storm guys trying to build a bullet-proof botnet," said Roger Thompson, the chief research officer of AVG Technologies, in an instant-message conversation. "I always thought it was a corp/gov/edu problem."via 'Conficker' Worm Wakes Up Overseas, But It's Quiet - News and Analysis by PC Magazine.
