I have just upgraded my weblog to WordPress 3.0 and, as you can see, I have decided to use the new default theme, Twenty Ten, but with a circuit diagram as the header image to reflect the new subtitle which is “A blog on Technology Convergence.”

In parallel, I’ll continue to blog elsewhere on different topics. For instance, I blog on Knowledge7.com about Information Technology, Computer Science, Personal Development and Career Advancement because, well, this is what Knowledge Seven Ltd is all about. I also blog on Elections.mu on politics in Mauritius including the Government’s strategy for IT in the country as well as for our education system. Finally, I also write articles on Open Source on Lugm.org, the official blog of the Linux User Group of Mauritius.

To be frank, I blog less often now. But I try to make my articles more insightful and useful. So it is as demanding as before.

You will notice that I have enabled the CommentLUV plugin on Noulakaz.net in order to enhance the interaction between you who regularly leave comments on my blog and me. I also have fewer Google ads on the blog because I am not doing Noulakaz.net because of Google’s money.

In fact, and I wrote about this before, I have been blogging for more than 6 years now because this creates the opportunity for me to interact with more interesting people.

Thanks to you all.

I have just released my first ever Android application. It’s called World Cup 2010 TV Guide and is available in the Android Market (do a search for World Cup 2010 TV Guide or, better, just scan the above QR code.)

I got my Google Nexus One exactly two weeks ago (Thanks Alam and Dassen!) and I became a fan from the very first sight. The hardware is fantastic and the operating system, Android, which I upgraded to the latest 2.2 version on the same day, is excellent. It is built on Linux and provided all the features one can dream on a smartphone. Let’s just say that it easily matches whatever exists elsewhere…

Android software development

Android smartphones are programmed using Java using the Eclipse IDE. As you all know, I am somewhat of a Java buff myself and I love Eclipse and all the Java opensource ecosystem. The application itself is not very complex yet I had to spent a few days to understand how Android deals with user interface layouts (DroidDraw helped a lot) as well as with the built-in SQLite database.

Interestingly, I never felt constrained even though I was programming for a phone instead of a PC. The Nexus One is really a powerful device. And it runs Java so well that, now, I know why I spent all those years reading Java books and programming for fun up to 2am

What next?

Who knows? When I bought my Amiga 500 around 1988, it came in a box on which was written “Your Imagination is the Limit” and this really made me understand how malleable and powerful a computer can be when programmed correctly. I am really looking forward to learn how to develop more powerful Android application.

In the meantime, download “World Cup 2010 TV Guide” in the Android Market. And have fun with it!

What do you generally do with your old mobile phones?

It seems that people now change their mobile phones every 18 months in the US. And, as far as I can observed, we do the same thing here in Mauritius. This implies that most of us must have 1-2 old mobile phones in a cupboard somewhere. In many countries, there are myriads of organisations which collect old mobile phones to give them to poor people. Does anyone know if there are similar organisations in Mauritius?

As for the mobile phones which are broken (or really outdated), the solution in recycling. But, once more, living in Mauritius provides no joy: I’ve just noticed that we do not have any Nokia Care points in our island (unlike Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Tunisia.) Hey, BAI people, instead of wasting time and money on buying cars that cannot be used on our roads, build a Nokia Care point. It’s better for the environment.

[This December 2009 article is reposted from one of my other blogs which I've put in dormant mode for the time being.]

It seems to me that a lot of people in Mauritius will invest in an LCD TV this Christmas (see my recommendations.) But it also seems to me that a lot of people have not really thought about High Definition content or, rather, the lack of it in our country.

Standard television (we use PAL and/or SECAM here) displays 576 lines with an aspect ratio of 4:3. The horizontal resolution being around 720 implies that there are approximately 400,000 dots displayed on a normal TV (I’m simplifying.) This is exactly the number of dots what our local TV broadcaster, MBC, sends us through our antennas (this is true for both analog and digital TV (TNT).) Interestingly, satellite decoders and DVD players also give us 400,000 as both have been designed with standard televisions in mind.

Now, let us put an LCD TV into the equation.

LCD TVs come in two families: Not Full HD (720p) and Full HD (1080p). The difference is the number of dots being displayed onscreen (the resolution.) A Not Full HD TV (which we tend to call HD Ready here in Mauritius even though, technically, a Full HD TV is also HD Ready) has a resolution of 1280 x 720. This is about 900,000 dots and is more than twice the number of dots found on our existing standard televisions. If we climb the ladder to Full HD, we get a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which is more than 2,000,000 dots on screen, which is five times more dots than an standard television.

So this is what we have up to now:

• Standard TV: 400,000 dots
• 720p TV: 900,000 dots (2 x)
• 1080p TV: 2,000,000 dots (5 x)

The point I’m making is that MBC, TNT, Satellite and DVDs only have 400,000 dots and displaying them on LCD TVs full screen requires the television to upscale the image. In simple words, upscaling means creating the missing dots. For example, playing a DVD on a 1080p LCD TV will require the TV to create the missing 2,000,000 – 400,000 = 1,600,000 dots for each image displayed.

Another thing is the refresh rate. Televisions normally display 25 images per second (I’m simplifying.) This means that the above calculation of missing dots will need to be done at the same frequency.

Now, think about it. Can you see how much processing power is needed to calculate the missing 1,600,000 dots 25 times a second from what is coming from the DVD player? Can you see how complex this calculation is? And do you understand why the price in LCD TV sets vary so much? Yes, it’s because of the quality and precision of the upscaler. For instance, Sony and Samsung LCD TVs both have a complete PC inside with a powerful processor and which runs the Linux operating system!

In essence, the more you pay for a LCD TV, the better the image will be especially when viewing standard television content (MBC, TNT, Satellite and DVD.)

Note that I’m talking of original DVDs here. The pirated Rs 25 ones have pathetic image quality most of the time. The reason is that originals are generally double layers DVDs and pirated ones single layer i.e. half of the original content is thrown away on pirated copies. Upscalers only work adequately with original DVDs.

A better way to do it

LCD TV are high definition devices and therefore are designed to display high definition content. For instance, let us suppose that we have a device that can send 1920 x 1080 images to the TV directly i.e. the whole 2,000,000 dots. This would make the upscaler useless because the image is already scaled properly. This implies that most LCD TVs, if properly setup, will have similar picture quality (of course, I’m not talking of ultra-cheap gimmicks here.)

But for this to be true we need to have this elusive device that can send Full HD content to the LCD TV. Why elusive? Because, simply speaking, there is not such a thing here. Or, more precisely, the hardware is available but the content is not.

Here are our options here in Mauritius for obtaining High Definition content for our brand new LCD TVs:

• Blu-Ray – The DVD was designed ten years ago for standard televisions and now has been superseded by Blu-Ray. A Blu-Ray disk has movies encoded at Full HD resolutions i.e. the full 2,000,000 dots 25 times a second. Connecting a Blu-Ray player to the LCD TV using a quality connection (HDMI) means that we can get superb quality images. The major problem in Mauritius is that Blu-Ray disks are not easily available! Shops do not generally sell them and the few I’ve seen are priced out of reach for most of us (like more than Rs 2,000 for one movie.) Blu-Ray disks cannot be copied yet and maybe, ceci explique cela.
• High Definition Satellite – Canal Satellite offers two channels (Canal+ and TF1) in HD quality in Mauritius (an update: Parabole Maurice has TF1 in HD and DSTV has announced HD channels too.) Or so they say. First of all, the signal is 720p/1080i and not 1080p. So it’s at most 900,000 dots and not the 2,000,000 dots needed on Full HD screens. Secondly, it seems to me that the image quality is poor compared to Blu-Ray. Maybe the reason is that we are only getting low bitrate signals (I not done any scientific tests myself.) Bitrate is a measure of the amount of information being sent per second, Blu-Ray is about 2.5 megabyte per second (5 mbps max!) In France, Canal+ has an average bitrate of 1 megabyte per second (see this) and I would not be surprised if we are getting half of that bitrate in Mauritius for keeping costs down. In other words, Canal+ HD and TF1 HD are not really HD. At least, not here in Mauritius.
• Downloadable content – Everyone I know (except for the very young or the very old) download films in DivX format which play fine on standard televisions. Downloading High Definition movies is something else. A  one and a half hour movie is 5400 seconds and therefore holds on 5400 megabytes (at the acceptable but not Blu-Ray quality of 1 megabyte per second.) This is more than 5 gigabytes for one film! If one has a steady 512kbit/s Internet connection, 24 hours are needed to download this movie. If one wants to have Blu-Ray quality, then two and a half days are needed! So, even though it is technically possible to download HD content, it will take ages. (an update: I’ve tested a few movies at lower bitrates and they are watchable but you need to count, at least, 3.5-4 Gb for a good picture.)
• High definition game consoles – Both the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 are HD. Games run in HD but are priced out of reach for most of us (more than Rs 2000 for a game.) The PlayStation 3 is a Blu-Ray player too. But once more, Blu-Ray disks are not readily available in Mauritius.

Concluding note

A lot of people I know are considering to get an LCD TV. But buying a TV to use it suboptimally is not a great idea. The problem is that we do not have access to High Definition content in Mauritius.

Who has a solution?

I have a PS3 and, based on glorious reviews in magazines and websites like Gamespot and IGN, I bought Grand Theft Auto IV from Amazon in the UK a few months ago. It’s the PAL version obviously and is in pristine condition.

As I only play football management games and flight simulators, I don’t relate at all to GTA IV. Even more so, the video sequences, violence and language are too, ahem, crude for my small kids. In fact, since getting the game, we “played” it only twice and for only 30 minutes each time. (As a matter of fact, I would readily exchange it for Little Big Planet if I had the opportunity…)

I’m selling the PAL version of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Playstation 3 at Rs 1000.

I am also selling Coraline, a 2009 movie which earned 7.8 on IMDB. I bought the Blu-Ray from Amazon in the USA but I was too stupid to realise that it was a Region 1 Blu-Ray which means it does not play on my Region 2 (PAL) Playstation 3.

Naturally it will play in any Region 1 Playstation 3 as well as standalone Blu-Ray players if they are compatible with Region 1. It will also play in Blu-Ray players found on computers, once more if they are compatible with Region 1.

Coraline is a “wonderfully imaginative animation — a visual masterpiece” (as seen on IMDB) and I have the 3D version which comes with four pairs of 3D glasses. In fact, those are the reasons I bought Coraline in the first place.

I am selling the Region 1 Blu-Ray of Coraline at Rs 600.

If you are interested in any of them, just send me an email at avinash AT noulakaz DOT net or give me a ring on 493-9394.

In two weeks, all adults of Mauritius will have to go and vote for those who will have the responsibility to run our country for the next five years. Over the years, many bloggers (including Christina and myself) have written posts on politics but we didn’t really have a political blog in Mauritius where anyone (if serious enough) might become a contributor in the spirit of citizen journalism.

This is why I am very happy to launch Elections.mu today: the first political blog in Mauritius. Visit

http://www.elections.mu/

and spread the word. If you want to become a contributor, just send me an email at avinash AT noulakaz DOT net. Thank you!

When I was an adolescent circa end of the 80′s / beginning of the 90′s, I owned the best computer available at that time: the mighty Commodore Amiga 500.

It was powered by a 16/32 bits processor (the Motorola 68000) at 7.14MHz and four coprocessors (Gary, Agnus, Paula, Denise), had 1Mb of RAM, had 4096 colours on screen at once, had stereo sound, ran a powerful operating system featuring a graphical windowing environment and was very well technically documented. As a result, I spent many nights learning programming (BASIC, C and 68000 Assembly) on my Amiga 500.

My new Amiga

Twenty years later and I still like using the Amiga. But now it’s in software form. I run E-UAE which is a Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator. I run it on my Linux Mint PC and performance is fine (the PC is only 1000 times quicker…) I even love getting a Guru Meditation from time to time. This brings back a lot of memories.

Last December, Father Christmas gave me a Sony PlayStation 3.

Today, 1st April 2010, I am starting to regret that he did this.

You see, I am not a gamer. I use my PS3 mostly to watch movies and to browse the Web. The built-in Web browser is fine and supports Flash so I indulge in YouTube pleasure from time to time with it. The media playing capabilities of the PS3 are also very good and the PS3 supports a lot of video formats out of the box e.g. MPEG1, MPEG2 (VOB), MPEG4 (DivX and H264) and WMV. I routinely connect my PS3 to my DNS-323 NAS to enjoy the latest series and movies.

And, if I want to browse using a better browser than the built-in one or I want to watch something stored in a more esoteric format, I just reboot my PS3 and, voilà, I have a Ubuntu Linux computer in my living room! Yes, the PS3 allows installing third-party operating system and this makes the device more desirable (at least for me.) Interestingly, this is why the US Department of Defense and the US Air Force bought myriads of PS3 in the past: they used them in clusters to build supercomputers as the PS3 has a very powerful Cell processor inside.

Fools in April

Today, Sony released a new firmware update for the PS3 which essentially make Linux inoperative on it. As quoted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website, Sony is stealing features from my PS3. Here is a quote from the EFF:

In short, Sony is effectively downgrading PS3s already sold and in the hands of consumers — when you bought it, it could play games, play Blu-ray discs, and run GNU/Linux. After April 1, it’s an inferior product.

To be fair, it seems Sony did that because a guy called George Hotz managed to

use the [Linux] feature [on the PS3] along with a bit of soldering in a manner that gave him more control over the PS3 hardware than Sony had intended.

So, today, Sony responded and killed Linux on the PS3. Sure, the upgrade is optional (meaning that my Ubuntu Linux is still perfectly functional as I do not intend to upgrade) but here is what I lose as a result of not upgrading:

(1) The ability to sign in to PlayStation Network

(2) The ability to use online features that require you to sign in to PlayStation Network, such as chat.

(3) The ability to use the online features of PlayStation 3 format software (like network play and software updates.)

(4) Playback of PlayStation 3 format software or Blu-ray Disc videos that require PS3 system software version 3.21 or later

(5) Playback of copyright-protected videos that are stored on a media server

I am going to lose a lot of capabilities but I’ll keep my Linux. The one thing that bothers me a lot is that I won’t be able to upgrade software (i.e. games) online so, as more and more of them are just being released full of bugs (and I won’t be able to patch the game), I’ll think at least twice or even thrice before buying a game for my kids (as I’m not a gamer myself.)

Why this is a stupid move

Sony should have patched the PS3 so that the hack by George Hotz stops working. Of course, another George Hotz would have come later with a new hack and Sony would have had to patch the PS3 again. But this is normal when you sell a product with DRM in it… because DRM is, well, a stupid idea.

DRM is about making people buy hardware and software controlled by a third-party. And, of course, people naturally want to be free. George Hotz is not a bad guy. He is just a guy like you and me who became fed up with the idea of owning a fantastically powerful device over which he had no full control: Sony allowed Linux to run (until yesterday) but, in parallel, disabled most of processing power of the Cell processor as well as the graphical processing unit just before booting the Linux kernel. So, in essence, Linux was running on a very crippled PS3.

My prediction

A lot of people (who had no earlier interest in the PS3) will now try to hack the new PS3 firmware. And I guess they’ll succeed in a more or less near future (ask the Nintendo people what they think of Wiibrew for instance.) Maybe we’ll see a PS3brew community emerge really soon now.

Thanks Sony for being stupid.

Since launching my noulakaz.net blog in 2005, I’ve written a lot of posts, received countless comments and responded to most of them. As a matter of fact, I love blogging but I’m doing it less now for reasons I already mentioned.

As I’m sure you already know, a lot of people (including most youngsters) prefer being on Facebook rather than reading blogs.

Consequently, and as a social experiment, I have decided to blog less on noulakaz.net but be more present on Facebook. This will allow me to discuss and form relationships with new people who do not normally read blogs as well as continue to communicate with you (as I’m sure you have a Facebook profile too.)

My personal Facebook profile is:

http://www.facebook.com/avinashmeetoo

My company’s, Knowledge Seven Ltd, page is at:

Knowledge Seven Ltd on Facebook

I have two profiles because, well, I have two personas:

• My personal profile is where I discuss with members of the family, friends and acquaintances of all sorts of things trivial or not.
• On the other hand, I intend to use the Knowledge Seven Ltd page to engage in more serious (and, surely, more interesting) discussions on open source software, Web 2.0 and the convergence of technology which is happening all over the world.

My company, Knowledge Seven Ltd, will be running two courses in the following weeks:

• Web Development with PHP & MySQL will run on 8, 15, 22 February and 1, 8 March
• Linux System Administration will run on 5, 19, 26 February and 5, 11 March

Both courses are MQA-approved and places are still available. Call us on 464-7446 or visit http://www.knowledge7.com/ for more information.