Prices in India of New Kindles 3G+WiFi and WiFi editions

Amazon has release two new Kindles, one with 3G and WiFi (3G is free for use everywhere in the world) for $189 and one model with only WiFi for $139.

3G + WiFi model is available in Graphite and White and the Wifi Model is available only in White Graphite.

The landed cost of 3G+Wifi version is ~$284 which is approximately Rs. 13,300
The landed cost of just the Wifi version is ~$216 which is approximately Rs. 10,100

The New Kindle  has better contrast (50% better than the previous models)
21% smaller size (while keeping the same size screen)
15% lighter
20% faster page turns
Storage has doubled
one MONTH battery life

As always the Kindle DX model is available in Graphite for $379, (landed cost $540 which is approximately Rs. 25,200)

Kindle Price drop - prices in India also fall

Please Note: Prices have fallen further and new variants are not available. Please see this post. http://chirag.patnaiks.in/2010/07/prices-in-india-of-new-kindles-3gwifi.html

See below for links to some other posts on how to buy the Kindle in India

Original Post: Just eight months after the launch of Kindle International version, the price of the regular sized Kindle has been dropped by a whopping $70 (Primarily because of the drop in price of the Nook reader). The total cost of importing the Kindle is now down to $283. Which is approximately Rs. 13,000 including shipping and taxes. This is about $100 less than before. Quite cool. Makes the device much more attractive than before. If you have been waiting on the sidelines, this is a great time to buy it. Go here and get it.

PS: You may get a 2-3K customs deposit refund. In which case the price drops to a range of Rs. 10,000, bang in the price range of the Infibeam Pi.

See other posts on the subject below
http://chirag.patnaiks.in/2009/12/how-to-buy-amazon-kindle-in-india.html
http://chirag.patnaiks.in/2009/11/kindle-in-india.html

Is Lalit Modi even eligible to be IPL Commissioner?

So Mr. Modi claims "I am still chairman of IPL. Just suspended. Wait - we have just begun."

He is Chairman because he is a member of the BCCI. He is a member of the BCCI because he is representing Rajasthan Cricket Association. He got to be a member of the Rajasthan Cricket Association allegedly through some skullduggery (but let's let that pass for now). His eiligibility was established under THE RAJASTHAN SPORTS (REGISTRATION, RECOGNITION AND REGULATION OF ASSOCIATIONS) ORDINANCE, 2004. This ordinance was later passed by the state assembly in 2005.

Now if you look up the text of the ordinance here: http://www.rajasthan.gov.in/rajgovresources/others/RajSports2004Eng.pdf

Chapter III of the ordinance talks about elections and clause 15 specifies Schedule C as the eligibility criteria.
Schedule C Point 3 states as part of qualifications "He/She has not been convicted in any criminal case."

Which brings us back to Lalit Modi's indiscretions of his youth. Refer to this piece by the Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/2303250/Drugs-and-kidnap-charges-could-bring-down-Indian-Premier-League-chief-Lalit-Modi.html

(Also see: http://chirag.patnaiks.in/2010/04/curious-case-of-missing-toi-article-on.html) This piece says that Mr. Modi was convicted of false imprisonment and assault. Definitely Criminal acts.


So, Mr. Modi has been convicted in a criminal case. hence he is not eligible to contest RCA elections. hence he has not right to be in BCCI. Ergo he cannot be IPL Commissioner.

So, why so much debate. He should be chucked straight out, he doesn't even have a leg to stand on.

The curious case of the missing TOI article on Lalit Modi

Folks, some of you may remember an article that ran in TOI some days ago at the height of the Twiteroor fiasco. It was titled "When Modi was booked for robbery" filed on 16th April. It was available on the TOI website at this url http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/When-Modi-was-booked-for-robbery/articleshow/5814316.cms.

The article talked about how Modi was indicted for trafficking more than 400 grams of cocaine, second degree kidnapping, assault and conspiracy to kidnap. (In fact there is a Daily Telegraph article that says that Lalit Modi was convicted of these charges). (See related item: Is Lalit Modi even eligible to be IPL Commissioner?)

Guess what? the article is not available anymore at the above URL on the TOI website. If you search for the article on TOI you get a Google search result pointing to the article.

When you reach this URL it says "Page not found".This is the error that shows up when you delete a page from the TOI system.

Well on the internet nothing ever really goes away: So from the Google cache we have the link...
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:ZkjBJRhzW-IJ:timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/When-Modi-was-booked-for-robbery/articleshow/5814316.cms+indicted+for+robbery+lalit+modi+duke+university&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&

There was yet another URL which carried the story: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ipl/News/iplarticlelist/iplarticleshow/India/When-Modi-was-booked-for-robbery/iplarticleshow/5814316.cms You can't see it here either. Same message.

Sure enough the Google cache has it:
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:_OJuTJ1FqXoJ:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ipl/News/iplarticlelist/iplarticleshow/India/When-Modi-was-booked-for-robbery/iplarticleshow/5814316.cms

Here is the article on the TOI epaper http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArchiveView.asp?Daily=CAP&AppName=1&login=default&pub=TOI&Skin=TOINEW&Enter=true&GZ=T&BaseHref=CAP%2F2010%2F04%2F16&AW=1272349830500&Page=14

Weird!

Folks, something is rotten in Denmark.

Watching the IPL at home? Get ready for Domestic Display Tax

In an unnoticed announcement and what will probably be his last executive decision before being asked to leave IPL over the Twitteroor controversy, Lalit Modi has decreed that anyone watching IPL matches at home on a TV screen size of more than 21” or with a crowd of 4 or more will have to pay “Domestic Display Tax” aka DDT. Modeled after Music industry’s similar fees for playing music in public, this seeks to boost the revenues for IPL and the franchisees.

This move came after IPL Franchise owners complained of declining attendance at stadiums and consequently reduced incomes from ticket and allied sales. A Liquor baron who owns a team complained “I have spent crores of rupees and hundreds of hours to personally select cheerleaders, so that I can draw in more people to the stadium and fleece them with overpriced lousy seats, lousier food and fizzless fizzy drinks”.

Sick of this fleecing, some people have decided to take matters in to their own hands and throw IPL parties at home. Reasoned Ramesh Kalra who throws and attends 3-4 IPL parties a week “I get to watch the match in the air-conditioned comfort of my or a friend’s home on a 52” flatscreen TV.” He also complained about the price of food “I can get a plate of Chilli Chicken for 70 bucks from my neighbourhood thela wala and a 2L bottle of Coke for 50 bucks while the prices at a IPL match are 4 times this.’

A member of the hoi polloi (of Jessica Lal murder venue fame), said "For the outrageous price of the box seats filled with bureaucrats and politicians I can buy a 42in flatscreen TV. And if I were to go with Family, I could through in a 3D TV along with a Bose home theater and it would still be cheaper to watch it at home"

To halt this loss of revenue DDT has been imposed. DDT mandates that anyone with a qualifying TV size or gathering size will have to pay a DDT of Rs. 100 per person per match. There is a discounted rate of Rs. 90 for Senior Citizens over the age of 85 and children below the age to 2. Justifying the DDT, IPL commissioner said “We have been very generous with the exemptions. Everyone knows that you can enjoy a match on a 15in TV screen. So we have been generous and exempted screen sizes upto 21in”. Added his assistant (step-daughter of the aforementioned liquor baron), “In India the family size in cities is around 3. Any more number of people than this means that people are enjoying the match in too large a number than that is permitted.”

Keeping up with emerging technology trends DDT is also applicable on the estimated 36 HD projectors that people have installed at their home at a site license of Rs. 5,000 per match.

On being questioned on how will DDT be enforced. Mr. Modi said he expects people to be honest and pay up on their own. But he also boasted of political connections in the agriculture and civil aviation ministries along with a chief minister, and claimed that the state law and order machinery will be pressed into service. “We will have informers around liquor vends and food joints that do home delivery who will tell us about people who are ordering large quantities of food and liquor. We will follow these people home and listen for noises of the match.” he added gleefully.

We will also have incentives for people to rat on their friends and colleagues and IPL will pay such people a bounty of 20% of all recoveries.

On reading this news, people like Ramesh Athavale from Mumbai were found grumbling at some news and blog sites and vowed not to watch the IPL finals this year.

With inputs from Agencies

PS: In case you folks didn't get it. This is a piece of satire.

MP3 player > Noida - Rohini - Noida + Taxes?

Just came back from the E4M Quiz competition just now. I won a MP3 player and a t-shirt. The question was what are DVB-H, OneSeg etc. The answer. They are all Mobile TV protocols.


Anyway, that's not the last of it. I didn't actually get an MP3 player. I got a letter which says I can collect the MP3 player from Rohini (imagine driving from Noida to Rohini) and after I pay the applicable taxes.

So will the cost of travel + the taxes be less than the cheapo MP3 player they are going to give?

Irony?

Do you see it?

Also, no more no-smoking signs. (Though there was an announcement to the effect)

Hindi and other Indian languages on the Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle currently does not support Hindi and other Indian languages. So I was experimenting and messing around with the Kindle, till I discovered that we can actually display Devanagari (and Bengali) text as well. Here are a couple of samples. More instructions coming soon.

Infibeam Pi

At my workplace are doing some work with Infibeam for their new ereader Pi.

A quick rundown on the specs
(from the Infibeam site)

Height     188 mm
Width     118 mm
Thickness     9.5 mm
Weight     180 gm
Screen / Display

    * 6" E Ink® Vizplex
    * 600x800 pixels
    * No backlight. Daylight readable.

Battery Life     7 days

File Formats Supported
Books / Text     PDF, EPUB, HTML, TXT, MOBI, DOC
Images     JPG, BMP, PNG
Audio     MP3

Control & Connectors

    * 3 mm Audio Earphone Connector
    * SD Card Slot
    * Mini USB Slot
    * Button for 4-Way Navigation & Selection.
    * Buttons back, home, plus / minus for size changes etc.

Internal Memory     512 MB
SD Card Slot upto 4GB

    * Screen Rotate for landscape / portrait views
    * Search inside a book or document
    * Game Play by Function Key & Navigation for Soduku

How does it feel
It is light. Much lighter than the Kindle. However, somehow you don't get the same intuitive feel as when you hold the Kindle. The Kindle UI can be used either handed, especially when you hold it for long periods and one hand gets tired

The first iteration of putting our India Today on it shows that the Infibeam team has put in a lot more thought into the presenting the magazine.

In the Kindle edition of India Today, the magazine runs like one solid block of text, without any formatting, indentation, tables etc. as if it were a book.

The Infibeam guys on the other hand have put in some effort in making the content presentable. It actually nicer to read, because of all the formatting elements introduced.

So to answer the eternal question. Is it worth it? At 10K a pop it is definitely worth a look as an alternative to the Kindle whose landed cost in India is Rs 18000 (Rs. 16000 is you got a customs refund).

This coupled with the fact that the Kindle does not do Indian languages and the Pi does, is a huge leg up for the Pi. Those reading books in Indian languages should definitely be looking at the Pi. Find out more about the Pi here.

The Kindle remains an attractive option for whoever is travelling and finds it necessary use the Internet to get his books. Also if you are subscribing to a few magazines and newspapers and rely on automatic wireless delivery. Then the Kindle is currently unbeatable. You can read about or get your Kindle here.

For a detailed thoughts on using the Kindle in India, see the post "Kindle in India" and a mini-faq on Kindle see this post "Kindle on the Delhi Metro"

Stop motion Jigsaw assembly

This is a stop motion video of a Jigsaw puzzle my mother and brother put together.

I took 300 time delayed photos with my Canon PowerShot Series S5 ISslaved to my laptop and knitted everything together in Windows Movie Maker and this is the end result.

Kindle in HT Brunch

About 10 days ago, a journo from HT Brunch followed the ever popular Kindle in India post and left a comment saying he would like to speak to me regarding my experience using the Kindle. So he called up and asked his questions. He then called back asking if they could photograph the Kindle (amusingly HT, which publishes a Kindle edition did not have a Kindle handy to shoot) which he did against the backdrop of my wife's Agatha Christie collection. (in case you are curious, the book open in the Kindle is one from the Star Wars series).

I was quoted some. You can read the story here.

Does it have a Kindle Edition?

We recently got a bookshelf made for our house and all the books that had been jammed into clothes cupboards and  were lying around the house came together into it. I found (re-discovered) a a book titled The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, a book I bought almost a couple of years ago at a BN store in Baltimore. Anyway so I finally decided to start reading it. A few dozen pages into the book I was wishing to myself. Does it have a Kindle edition? (It does.)
In a few short weeks I have become addicted to reading on the Kindle. I don’t think I will ever be comfortable reading long form text on a computer screen as it exists today. Even reading physical books  seems to be a bit old fashioned. I will admit that there is there are lots of merits in a physical book. No battery. You can toss it anywhere with almost anything without anything happening to it. You can stamp on it etc. etc. But still.
The only reason one would want books is for beautiful production and presentation (differing very politely with Mr. Simon Cogley from Star Trek TOS episode Court Martial). Something like the severaltomesthat masqueradeas comicbooks.
How does a Kindle compare with the Infibeam Pi? or the Apple iPad? That is a story for another post.

Kindle in India - Now Cheaper

A big part of the cost of the Kindle was the Import fee deposit $98 or so. This along with shipping costs brings the total landed cost of the Kindle in India to $378. If you have read about my experience ordering the Kindle in India, I mentioned there that the Customs officer said that consignment carried a duty of around Rs. 3000. I wondered then as to what happened to the remaining Rs. 2000 or so.

This morning I was in for a pleasant surprise. Over the weekend I got a  mail from Amazon.com telling me that I was entitled a refund of $37.35. 

This immediately brings down the cost of the Kindle in India to $341 or so. Which is about Rs. 16,000. My Kindle purchase is looking more and more attractive. :). If there ever was an example of great customer service. This is it.

The only catch is that I got this money back after nearly two months. 

What are you waiting  for? Get your Kindle from Amazon.