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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Notion Ink

Have you heard this name before, I guess not many. Its an Indian Tech start-up competing in most competitive market of andriod cell phones and tablets. Well as the story goes, this company is located in Bangalore founded by an IIT'ian, Rohan Surana. Fresh out of college and not much corporate experience to boast about, bunch of guys plunged into their pockets and started this company before any VC's even looked into their profile.

After 2 years into market even today this company didn't make much of a name in terms of profitability and product success, but they got an amazing design and lots of accolades to be proud off. Notion Ink Adam is the first tablet to get Pixel-Qi screen on it, that means the screen is transflective. You can use this tablet to read even in bright sunlight when other tablets become a mirror. This is the first tablet which got Tegra2 Processor, full HDMI port, USB2.0, Mini USB, Micros SD slot .. you name it, Adam got an interface. It also got the best stereo speakers you can ever think off on a tablet and the most striking feature, a swivel camera. Can you imagine a camera which rotates on a swivel for 185 degrees to capture front and rear videos. An amazing design from CPDM professor ( IISc product design school ).

What is so unique about this tablet is that, it has the largest developer following. Adam's customized code is open for developers through a forum Notion Ink Conclave. When Apple launched ipod, iphone and ipad app developers made lots of money. Same way when this product hits the peak, it will make lots of people and companies who make accessories rich. Notion Ink took android 2.2 and customized it for Adam, added lots of cool features to make it unique. As the vision goes they want this tablet to be replacing books and the design is made in a way that you can hold this tablet like a book with its 'curve'. It looks bulky but check dimensions its not too far.

What this company lacks are the same for any new startup. Poor marketing, poor customer support, not available in stores, shipping and handling, payment gateway and more importantly delayed at FCC approval because of poor electronic standards followed. But by all means they got a killer design, great support from fans and pretty good feedback from CES 2011. They need to be fast, accurate and careful they are rubbing shoulders with Motorola, Samsung, Apple, Acer, Toshiba & Asus. Notion Ink is still standing didn't weather like Joo-Joo. Wish luck for Adam !!



Friday, February 10, 2012

David's Learning Curve !!!

David, my eldest son went to India for a short break. So I decided to sent him to a play school there so that he can wind up little bit from this apartment life in New Jersey. Honestly saying because of David getting active almost all the time, we don't have a good reputation with our neighbors as their sleeps are disturbed and babies are disturbed from their sleep.

Anyways here are some videos Ben shot for me and I was surprised the change I see in him. Pretty funny videos.





Friday, February 3, 2012

Unknowingly Made Millions

David Choe was unknown until last thursday. Suddenly he's all over media and fame. So what happened here ??  Here's the story. Mr.Choe is a graffiti artist from San Jose, California who was invited to paint art in the walls of FACEBOOK's first office. So ???. After work, then CEO Sean Parker offered Mr. Choe stock options or he can take his couple of thousand dollars payment and leave. At that time Mr.Choe thought FACEBOOK itself is a stupid idea.

Its way back in 2005, at that time even Mark Zuckerberg himself wouldn't be sure what FACEBOOK will turn into. Somehow Mr.Choe agreed to pick the stock options of 0.25% shares of FACEBOOK. He kept that with himself and never sold that, probably forgot about it. Today with the lauch of FACEBOOK IPO in stock market, he's worth roughly 200 Million Dollars. Same thing happened when Infosys got listed, it made many overnight millionaires in India.

It doesn't matter Mr.Choe is a millionaire or not, here's his wonderful art of President Obama. Enjoy !!