Tata Nano : Cheapest Car in the World, Specifications, Pictures

Posted by Bhaanu at 12:59 PM 24 comments

A miffed car thief was heard quoting this big daddy proverb, "It doesn't matter how much you paid for the car, they all look the same after the wreck." ha ha, those into "car-or-dismantled-car-reselling business" have every reason to sulk as Tata unveils the much awaited Nano, the within-reach car aiming at common man (No No by aiming I don't mean its gonna chase after one to mow him down) here at Auto Expo 2008, New Delhi. For once, we might get to see R.K. Laxman's proverbial Common Man smiling.

Okay

Let me put aside these lame attempts at pun in favor of something really worth a smile, check out the new kid on the block:)

Specifications: The young kid has a big heart (or belly), Tata has been assuring people that although its smaller by 8% without as compared to its closest rival Maruti 800, its 21% more spacious within as compared to the same. To be precise its 3.1 metes (10.23 feet) long, 1.5 meters wide and 1.6 meters high, can seat four people comfortably, five -conditions apply :)- while six are likely to get frowned upon, but you never know. Draws on a two cylinder 623 cc, 33 horsepower rear mounted, multi-point fuel injection, all aluminum, petrol engine. Can reach the highest speeds of 105 kilometers/hour. It had to be fuel efficient, 20 kilometers/liter is Tata's claim, can be seen as its biggest USP. It more than satisfies all Indian regulatory requirements regarding pollution and safety.

Price: Well, that's the cause célèbre... in a positive way that is, the standard model is priced at Rs 1,00,000 (2,500 dollars approx). Add VAT, transport costs etc to that, and on road price should be Rs 1,20,000 about. The two Deluxe models with AC and some other features will be only slightly costlier although there is no final word from the company as of yet in this regard.

Looks? Well, have a look yourself :)

The Standard Model

The Deluxe Model

Nano's Interiors (somewhat disemboweled :( )

Reactions
I was reading about it in paper (TOI) this morning, it appears the kid has hardly arrived and it has already ruffled a few feathers in automobile industry, some (mixed) reactions it elicited from the who's who of the industry..

"It can seat five people...if no one breathes," ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson.

"Upstart econobox.", Time.

"Automotive journalists had traveled from the four corners of the globe too see a golf cart crossed with a jelly bean.", Popular Mechanics.

"C'mon, it's practically smiling,", a Wired magazine correspondent.

"Ultimate reverse status symbol.", MotorTrends.

[ source : TNN ]

last but not the least, and although I don't quite qualify for "who's who" here is my reaction once again ;)

"For once, we might get to see R.K. Laxman's proverbial Common Man smiling.", Playfullive.com

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SecondLife convicts' verdict with Google Chart API

Posted by Bhaanu at 3:19 AM 4 comments

I read this news about possible security compromise to Linden dollar laden virtual strong rooms a few days back. I logged what I was thinking while reading the news here and also put up a poll to find out people's take on it. The poll stood something like this

A sinner in SecondLife

Option 1 : should get punished in SecondLife [ 14 ( 66% ) ]
Option 2 : should get punished in real life [ 4 ( 19% ) ]
Option 3 : should go to a virtual confessional in SecondLife [ 10 ( 47% ) ]
Option 4 : will get punished in after life [ 8 ( 38% ) ]

Long after the poll was closed I discovered much to my delight that Alexa had it listed, this means you can have a look at the poll... if you must ;). 21 people participated, not many, but then this blog is still in its infancy, plus, have a look at the poll again, I wouldn't be crazy about a poll like that, so no complaints.

The good thing here is that it gave me an opportunity to test Google Chart API. Pretty simple to use when things are simple enough like this chart was pretty easy to generate.

have a look at the code

<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:14,10,4,8&chs=250x100&chl=Option 1|Option 2|Option 3|Option 4" alt="SecondLife convicts' Verdict" />

p3 is a pie chart type ( cht ) selected from two types of pie chart supported.

To feed data to the chart is simple enough, as you can see 14,10,4,8 being assigned here as chart data ( chd ).

Pretty cooool ! I've worked on these things and I know how useful these on-the-fly-generated-charts are. I worked on something similar in ASP.NET but a service that works across the board long since have been anticipated by people like me.

More on the it at Google Chart API

All very well. Well, not quite!. Not for me. These are not the stats to be depicted by a pie chart, its a case well suited for a Venn Diagram as there are overlaps of voters who opted for more than one option. I don't know if its me or if its Google Chart API being in a provisional phase, I have values to feed to the Venn diagram but the order in which to feed them is beyond me. May be some reader would point me in the right direction, or may be I would have my epiphany when I'll look at it the second time around.

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Aren't you planning to buy iPhone ?

Posted by Bhaanu at 3:20 PM 2 comments

Here's another service written around the handset madness following Apple's foray into this field which had hitherto been Nokia's backyard. Well, one can understand it. Such is the state of affairs in handset market and you would know it as most of us are stalling our plans to get rid of our old ones while grabbing on every opportunity to justify drooling over iPhone.

By show of hands, who here is not planning to buy iPhone (planning!). No hands??

http://www.tryphone.com/ has come up with a unique way of testing your favorite mobile handsets without having to pay for anything and more importantly without leaving your computer. I wouldn't really make or break my opinion based on the simulated experience, but it was fun checking iPhone's simulation on this site.

But like I said, there is not much to play with as most of the features that Steve Jobs raved about in his presentation towards the beginning of this year, can only be felt when you have the device in your hands. Actually its user experience, its feel, that they have been able to dispense with stylus and such features constitute heavily the USPs of iPhone. Currently iPhone is being sold exclusively by AT&T and Apple, otherwise I would have suggested you to go straight to Amazon for company write ups etc. on the device that are usually very well rounded for you with costumer reviews.

But good old GsmArena has always been there to give an old fashion but exhaustive coverage on the device, with toppings of their cool 360° spin view. I'm not a big fan of their voting thingy, but that some of us are always kind enough to leave a few words of wisdom for others of us, land some weight to their overall customer review process.

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For Madmen Only! A Write up on Steppenwolf - Part 2

Posted by Bhaanu at 12:11 AM 0 comments

Caught between two ages, this man's lost all his bearings, his values don’t stand for much in this time and era. This miffed being is far too given up that he should ever be understood, even by himself. Magic begins when he finds how easy a young girl finds it not only to understand him, but to foretell and forestall him. In between he magically comes across a book titled “Treatise on the Steppenwolf”, which is more or less his own story and mentality put into perspective for him. It enkindles his realizations that there may be more than just two extremes (the wolf and the man), but countless number of souls in every individual and that how Asiatics with their meditation techniques were able to get rid of the very illusion of personality, and in their sagely ways attained ultimate freedom, the Nirvana.

The book talks about a magic theater. Purified with much suffering gained from everything that surrounds him and detached with his surroundings as a result –an alien- subconsciously pushed to find timeless and purest forms of happiness, he shall find it in loosing his two selves, his all selves, all that he stands for, learning to laugh at what he cries about, and above all in love. He’s always had visions of this pure happiness but could never really hold on to them. He finds it with the help of the magic theater, admittance to which is allowed only to the madmen.

Thru with the book and not without a few hiccups he finally gains admittance to the magic theater. Having gotten entrance, in tranced settings, he finds in the labyrinths of the theater numerous doors variedly titled like “Marvelous taming of the Steppenwolf”, “All girls are yours”, “How one kills for love”, and “Harry’s Execution”, each making him encounter a bit of himself to burry hatches with and move on freed from that part, that self. In the exploits of the Steppenwolf the book stretches your own imagination to an extent that border on straining it, it amplifies echo of your sufferings in those of the Steppenwolf and it finds his and your redemption in corridors of the magic theater which you yourself would gleefully enter even though its gate says entry “only for the madman”, it is a masterpiece from the Noble laureate writer Hermann Hesse, and a must read for all who believe in taking a pause once in while to reflect upon 'it all'.

Steppenwolf
A masterpiece from Noble laureate writer Hermann Hesse.
Look Hesse up in Wikipedia.
His Autobiography at Nobelprize.org

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For Madmen Only! A Write up on Steppenwolf - Part 1

Posted by Bhaanu at 1:27 PM 6 comments

This story of a man on the wrong side of 40 living more or less off the grid begins with a narrative that serves as a primer on protagonist’s personality and as an effort to put it in perspective from a bourgeois standpoint. It is in order as point of view of the Steppenwolf -as the man calls him-, which the rest of the book is all about, is not always on the lines of ‘normal’ and might not have found favor with readers had it been foisted upon them straight, something that’s reflected with the narrator’s confession that but for his acquaintance with the protagonist he should have spurned the story himself, in disgust.

The narrator however doesn’t linger after ingratiation and leaves you to freely feel your plights heightened in those of the protagonist.

As you go along you can’t but pity the protagonist- Harry Heller, the Steppenwolf. The wolf in him could never stand whatever that’s bourgeois, or pretty much every thing mundane and worldly, for its “insipid lukewarm airs sickened him”, reflects the narrator. He whished for solitude and was granted. He holds all popular ideas of happiness as gravely flawed, far too much to look over. All happiness is ignorance for him, as they say knowledge is the original sin; “he has developed ingenious boundless capacity for pain”, the narrator observes.

Amidst, however, these bourgeois dwellings of modest means only, the man in him makes his sojourns as plush mansions and overwrought dwellings to the wolf are but totems of culture and age of spiritual blindness, no wonder he is restive and leads a shiftless life.

During his sojourns ‘the man’ is often seen watching over the simple pleasures of bourgeois life, the clean floors, the early rising and all, to which he pays reverence as something that must ever remain unattainable to him. For him happiness was only in the purest of pures like in the music of the great Mozart of his time, who and likes are nowhere to be seen now and thus dejected he lives a slovenly life in his rented rooms. Reposed among anarchic settings and Novalis, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Goethe, all bristled with notes, he is bend on drinking their and his pain “to the dregs”, a way of living that’s but a precursor to dying by means of suicide.

Steppenwolf
A masterpiece from Noble laureate writer Hermann Hesse.
....more on Steppenwolf in second and last part.
Look Hesse up in Wikipedia.
His Autobiography at Nobelprize.org

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Online video coversion for mobiles and all.

Posted by Bhaanu at 4:28 AM 6 comments

Just read this post at Lifehacker about an 'all online' way of converting a video to formats like 3gp and others for mobiles and all. I've been using Total Video Converter for video and audio format conversions, and been more than happy. I've hardly had to look for any other solution as it covers conversions between more or less every prevalent media format plus provides seldom used but interesting features like creating movies from pictures and all. But Movavi wins over it as it does it all online. I dont have to download movies from, say, Metacafe to convert them. Just provide Movavi with the link to the video and download it from Movavi converted to the desired format - COOL ! But wait.

As it is a free service, be patient and dont expect them to be all at your service.

You give them the link to the video file and then you wait for them to send you an email when they have converted the video for you to download. They are basically promoting their downloadable software version that works like Total Video Coverter, and you can download it "If you dont wanna wait.", they say ;). Not always quick enough, this free is service is gud enough to have a look at, nevertheless.
Gud workMovavi!!

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Yahoo Messanger Preiview Version for Vista now available

Posted by Bhaanu at 4:45 AM 0 comments

Yahoo Messenger Preview (pre-beta) version is now available. Although its loaded with some rather interesting features, like adjustable content size and support for sending files as large as 2 GB, some of the regular features might not work in it as it has been made available for feedback purpose only.

Have a look at this iPhonesque-if thats a word, but doesn't it look like iPhone?-interface here at yahoo.
Help yahoo by registering your feedback.

Its developed using WPF, why is it then that Yahoo didnt think about tweaking it a little and making it XP ready as well?

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Big Deal, Service Pack 3 Outperformed Service Pack 1 !!

Posted by Bhaanu at 12:57 PM 0 comments

Well, Windows XP Service Pack 3 boosted XP's current version's performance by 10 percent, as found by tests performed by Devil Mountain Software, a Florida-based software development firm.
The firm also gave a thumbs down to Vista's SP 1 saying that performance gains were negligible. I personally find it rather relieving as it serves as one more reason not to start a new learning curve with Vista just as yet.
Read the complete story here.

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