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Archive for June, 2008

Bangalore – Live traffic

Monday, June 30, 2008 3 comments

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The next time you think of going somewhere, check out the live traffic before you actually take your step out 🙂 . Yeah this is true now in Bangalore where the traffic chaos still continues irrespective of the changing governments and the false promises of infrastructure development.

Leaving the political scenario behind if we come to the point of discussion, recently BTIS [Bangalore Transport Information System] has come up with a new technological advancement in association with the Traffic police where live traffic is monitored at major important junctions with the use of live traffic cameras. These cameras provide the live traffic to a centralized unit called as the ‘Traffic Monitoring Cell/Unit‘. BTIS has put up these information on the website for general public where in you can check the live traffic situation before you actually move out.

A sample image of the main page showing the traffic status is as shown below:

btis

The traffic situation at most of the places are displayed based on their intensity in and around Bangalore with selected live camera locations.

You can also select a live camera to view the live images getting delivered to your desktop.

Sample images of one of my favorite locations which I’m most interested is as shown below (Check the time difference and the impact 😦 )

livetraffic

These are the locations where the live traffic information is currently available on the website:

Also recently CNBC TV18 in its show called ‘Up South‘ featured about IT Professionals lending their helping hands acting as traffic cops during their free time in weekends. They say that it is a very small step towards a traffic jam free Bangalore roads.

So hit BTIS first before you actually hit out on the roads. Have a trouble free ride the next time 🙂

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Clipmarks, del.icio.us upgrades for Firefox 3

Thursday, June 19, 2008 Leave a comment

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I was very much interested in trying out the new Firefox 3. The installation went well and I was ok with my normal operations until when I came to know that some of my add-ons like Clipmarks and del.icio.us which I added to my previous installations didn’t show up. When I went to (Tools->Add-ons->Extensions) Firefox and verified, all these add-ons are not compatible with Firefox 3.

When I searched through Firefox add-ons website, I found out these links.

Clipmarks upgrade for Firefox 3

del.icio.us upgrade for Firefox 3

So the upgrades for most of the add-ons are being developed and released from time to time. So don’t forget to visit this section.

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Sony Ericsson C905 a.k.a Shiho revealed today

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 3 comments

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There is one more addition to the long list of best quality mobile phones from Sony Ericsson.

Today it revealed its Cyber-shot slider mobile phone model C905 a.k.a Shiho (the codename which was used to address this phone prior naming it as C905) today. This is an advanced camera phone with a 8.1 mega pixel camera with xenon flash and photo flash for photos and videos.

Features:

  • 8.1 mega pixel camera
  • Auto focus
  • Face recognition
  • A new feature called Smart Contrast
  • Image stabilization
  • BestPic
  • Red-eye reduction
  • 2GB Memory Stick micro
  • 2.4-inch QVGA display (made of scratch-resistant mineral glass)
  • In built Wi-Fi
  • Latest Bluetooth connections
  • USB 2.0 data transfers
  • Sync with Exchange ActiveSync
  • Built-in GPS receiver
  • A-GPS (to enhance performance) function
  • Camera images Geo-tagging
  • TV Out to share your photos on a TV set.
  • Battery life – 380 hours of standby or 9 hours of talk time on GSM networks, or 360 hours of standby or 4 hours of talk time on 3G networks.
  • Support for EDGE 850/900/1800/1900/GPRS/GSM/HSDPA 2100/UMTS.
  • Colors available – Copper Gold, Ice Silver & Night Black.

The availability of phone is likely in October 2008. Unfortunately no details about the price has yet been released 😦

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Apple 3G iPhone – Launching soon…

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2 comments

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There was this very active rumor and speculation about Apple‘s new 3G iPhone being released in Mid 2008. Now it has come true 🙂 .

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new iPhone at the Worldwide Developers Conference at San Francisco on 9th June, 2008 that includes features designed to make the device more business-friendly.

Apple claims it to be twice as fast but at half the price of its original version of the iPhone. The new 3G iPhone is priced @ $199 for an 8GB version and $299 for a 16GB version.

 

 

 

 

Features:

Display
  • 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
  • 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi
  • Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
Color
  • 8GB model: Black
  • 16GB model: Black or white
Size and weight
  • Height: 4.5 inches (115.5 mm)
  • Width: 2.4 inches (62.1 mm)
  • Depth: 0.48 inch (12.3 mm)
  • Weight: 4.7 ounces (133 grams)
 

Feature & Image Courtesy: Apple.com

3G iPhone might be available in the US around mid July.

Also 3G iPhone may be launched in India by and (previously known as Hutch) in and around January 2009.

 

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RedBus – Discount for Visa card holders

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 1 comment

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redBus one of the prominent online bus ticket booking service has launched an exciting offer in collaboration with Visa for their credit and debit cards.

On offer is a:

  • 10% discount on Visa Platinum / Signature cards, and
  • 5% discount on Visa Gold / Silver cards, only on transactions of Rs. 1000 or more

This discount is applicable on tickets booked online and is valid till September 30, 2008! There is no limit to the number of times you can avail this discount either!

Availing this offer is hassle-free. When you enter your card details on the payment page, you will be charged the discounted ticket amount.

redBus Advantage

  • Home delivery service of bus tickets @ Rs. 25 in major cities
  • Book bus tickets online, over the phone or over the mobile
  • Book bus tickets online with over 250 bus travel operators
  • Book bus tickets online for over 3600 routes across India
  • Return bus tickets reservation
  • Cancel your bus tickets online

So make good use of the discount in this skyrocketing bus fares from the private bus booking services 🙂 .

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Oil is boiling – Petrol and Diesel prices hiked

Wednesday, June 4, 2008 Leave a comment

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From tomorrow, our travel expenses would creep up. I guess people should start bike-pooling similar to car-pooling to reduce expenses. This would also reduce the traffic on roads 🙂 .

Finally the long wait is over, today the cabinet has approved the price hike in petrol and diesel.

From midnight today the prices of petrol and diesel would be hiked by Rs. 5 and Rs. 3 respectively from its current price accordingly throughout India. Also the price of LPG gas cylinder has been hiked by Rs. 50 per cylinder. I doubt if common man can go for a gas cylinder with these prices 😦 .

 

Also customs duty on crude will be made nil from 5%. Customs duty on HSD and petrol will be reduced from 7.5% to 2.5%. Customs duty on other petroleum products will be reduced from 10% to 5%. Finally, excise duty on HSD and petrol will be reduced by Re 1 per litre each. So, Re 1 on petrol and Re 1 on diesel. I guess this has curbed the present hike to such levels. If not otherwise, the expectations were around a price hike of Rs. 10 per litre for petrol and Rs. 5 per litre for diesel which would be even more worse.

 

May be its right time to invest on hybrid vehicles or hybrid electric vehicles which should be made affordable through immense research and development. This not only reduces our dependency on global oil prices, but also do some good to our environment keeping it green.

 

For people who are interested in hybrid cars here are some links which you can go through for more information.

Hybrid Cars

Hybrid Car Blog

How hybrid cars work?

 

Hope in the future, Green and Clean environment is affordable.

 

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