Create your face in 3D

If you're wondering why you're seeing Barak Obama's picture next to a post titled "create your face in 3D", you are not alone. I was killing my time surfing online when i came across this headline "Large Pose 3D Face Reconstruction from a Single Image via Direct Volumetric CNN Regression". Quite a boring sciency sounding title for what actually is a nifty little project. Converts a photograph of your face into a 3D model.

Check out Barak Obama

The researchers achieve this by training a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) on an appropriate dataset consisting of 2D images and 3D facial models or scans. Do you think this could be useful? Anyone think of 3D avatars? But with a little help from AI could photographing people in 3D could be that simple!

Why not try it here.

Android App Sale: Top Apps For Rs.5.13only

The Android Market just notched its ten-billionth app download, and to celebrate, Google is offering some its most popular apps for 10cents apiece. Its not often that large companies run software promotions in India. Most promotions are US & Canada only. But not Google. It offering the same deal to its India android users and an app is just Rs.5.13only. Yes, you got it right, 5 rupees 13 paisa each for the next ten days. Ten new apps will be added each day, from now until December 16.

So head down to the Google marketplace now and get apps like Soundhound Infinity for just Rs5.13. Read the official press release here.

Connecting Chromebook (Cr-48) to India GSM Networks

So you own a Chromebook and want to use your mobile GSM network to connect. I used a Cr-48 in conjunction with a BSNL and a Vodafone SIM to connect and it worked very easily.(Screenshots are for BSNL)

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+t (Ctrl, Alt and t together)(Don’t press the + key :-D). This will open the crosh shell (A black screen with crosh written).
2. Type the following command: modem_set_carrier Generic UMTS and press enter. Please ensure to type exactly as written. After a few seconds it will show you the output.
3. Now type exit and press enter to go back to the Chrome GUI.
4. Restart the Chromebook.
5. You will see BSNL/Vodafone IN in the mobile networks list.

Connect & Enjoy!
It also shows a list of other available wireless networks. So should work with AIRTEL, TATA DoCoMo, Spice/Idea and others. Do let me know in case of any issues.

Note: I work with Chome OS in developer mode. Maybe you need to get into developer mode to carry out the steps. There is a Chome OS help page for booting into developer mode which Offers a step-by-step guide here.

Saavn Music App Review

There are 1000’s of free radio’s on the internet and then there’s Saavn Music. Available in two flavors; online as well as an app for android. I took the app for a spin. Set-up was a breeze. Download saavn from the android market and you're ready to go. The application is just 605KB. It's light enough but does not have an option to ‘move to SD card’ so uses up precious memory space on my Google Nexus One.

The main screen is simple and has 3 buttons at the bottom play (for the player window), saavn (for the main screen) and search (for song search). While on the main screen the search button is useless as there is already a search bar on top. The player interface too, is uncomplicated and has buttons for previous, pause/play, next, shuffle, loop. Save playlist and delete all songs in a playlist. Just choose a standard predefined playlist and we’re good to go. But we hardly like the commonly available songs, for if we did, we would just listen to one of the thousands of internet radio stations available on shoutcast.

This is where saavn music shines. Just search for a song and saavn music will find it. Just don’t try international music. Saavn music is Bollywood music through and through. I tried ‘Ghoda – Daler Mehendi’ and it didn’t show. Keep selecting the songs by clicking on them and they will keep getting enqueued one after another.

You can save this list as a playlist in order to listen to it later, but in order to do that you need to login. Just login using your facebook credentials (everyone has facebook, right?). Well even if you’re a Cro-Magnon with no facebook login you’re in luck, they have an option to create a free login as well. I used the facebook option and was asked to give my playlist a name. While logging in with facebook the app asks for three permissions to access facebook feeds and send e-mail. Choose select none if you are paranoid about security. You don’t need to login to listen to music.

Just one serious inconvenience I faced in the app was rearranging songs in my playlist. It currently does not allow you to change the order of songs in the playlist. It simply maintains the order in which I selected them. So choose carefully. I’m sure this will be taken care of as this app evolves. Also the default mobile data streaming rate is set to 16kbps. If you’re on 2G data plan then that’s the way to go but for wi-fi or 3G go to settings and change to high quality(128kbps). If song pauses while on this setting then lower as per your internet speed.

If you’re into Bollywood music then Saavn music is a great app. Good Music, lightweight & easy to use.

Score: 3.5/5

Remove Unwanted Ads with Adblock and Google Chrome

Google search is free. So are a lot of other services on the internet. Advertising helps pay for this free stuff that we get online. But we’re living in a world driven by advertising and frankly sometimes its overkill. But if you’re using chrome then you’re in luck. Chrome has multiple free tools to help us get rid of unwanted ads.

Adblock is one of the chrome extensions that remove advertisements from web pages. To install Adblock go to the Chrome web store. You’ll find this app in the popular section or you can search for it in the search bar provided at the left side of the page. You’ll also find Adblock Plus which provides similar functionality but I’ve been using Adblock and I’ve yet to face any issues with it, so I choose that.

Click on the “add to Chrome” option, a small window will pop up to confirm the install and warn you that this data can access your data on all websites and all your tabs and browsing data.

Click on install and you’re ready to go. Once installed, it will open a new window with just one configuration option.

Just click on the “that was easy” button. It will take you to two more screens, the last one will prompt you to donate to the creator of this software extension (and you should) but for now just close the browser window and you’re all done.

Open any page and see the difference.

Enjoy the web. Ad-FREE.

Chromebook (Cr-48) First Review India

Samsung plans to start selling chromebooks in India in 2012. I got my hands on a Cr-48 Google test machine almost a year later than it became available in the US. I’ve used Acer and Samsung netbooks running windows 7 before and was expecting a similar experience. I couldn't be more wrong. At 1.63Kg the 12.1” the chromebook felt light. It comes with a rubberised black coating, which incidentally is a fingerprint magnet. This is a test machine and won’t be available in  the open market therefore you won’t find this finish on Samsung chromebooks.

The chromebook itself is pretty barebones with one USB 2.0 port, one SD card reader, earphone jack, an on screen camera and a vga output. Networking options include wi-fi & 3G. The sim card slot is below the battery. The screen offers a resolution of 1280X800. All pretty standard stuff.

The most visible change is the keyboard. Google has done away with the function keys and has instead replaced them with keys for volume, brightness etc. Also there is no caps lock & delete keys, which I miss a lot, instead the caps lock is replaced by a search button. The second big visible difference is the mouse or touch pad. The standard touchpad has been replaced by one large Apple like touchpad with no buttons to click and takes some getting used to. There is no button to right click. instead you need to touch with 2 fingers for right click. Also to click you need to press the touchpad to click, a simple tap won’t work. However you can change this behavior in settings.

The right hand corner has 2 icons for wi-fi & battery. Connecting to my local wi-fi (BSNL) network was a breeze. It is essentially a NETBOOK so don’t expect it to have any serious offline capability. The OS is a chrome browser. It does includes a file manager but do not expect windows file explorer functionality. The open default chrome tab offers access to gmail, docs, file manager, calender, talk & scratchpad which is a notes application. If you’re thinking of using iTunes, MS Office, Win rar zipped files etc go get a windows 7 netbook. I started tasks on my Cr-48 but frequently found myself switching to my laptop to complete the same.

Performance was top notch. A cold boot of less than 15 secs and a shutdown of less than 3 seconds was impressive. Resuming from standby is a snap and almost feels instantaneous. I tried watching Singham on youtube’s boxoffice channel and video content played fine, even in full screen mode. I have read some review that say flash performance was choppy but I didn’t see it. Battery life was indeed a fantastic 8 hours. The specs say 8 days of standby, I however was unable to test this.

Chrome is essentially work-in-progress. I had higher hopes of it. Maybe I was comparing it to android which does a fantastic job (I own a Google Nexus One) or maybe to the alternative Windows 7. It does the internet stuff well enough but anything else and it falters. Even for internet stuff I found it almost impossible working with images and videos (so not images or videos for this blog, since I do it from my Cr-48).

While Samsung would offer better harware that this Cr-48, one year old model it’s still the Chrome OS that falls short. If you’re planning to wait till 2012 to get your hands on a chromebook, wait some more till the platform matures or go but yourself a windows 7 netbook. For almost the same price these netbooks offer a lot more value than chromebooks.

Score: 2/5

Google Music: How it Stacks up against Apple iTunes & Audiogalaxy?

The only reason I would use Google Music is because I want my library to be available on multiple devices. There are a lot of services that provide this functionality today. So it’s time to take Google Music for a spin and pit it against the giant- iTunes and Audiogalaxy – for streaming content to multiple devices.

Availability: I am not comparing it to iTunes match as it is not available in India. Well, officially neither is Google Music, but you know how to bypass this restriction. ;-) In case you don't, read my earlier blog "Google Music First Impressions" for details or do a Google search. Audiogalaxy is available everywhere, no regional limits here.

Features: I'll compare what I consider a few important features here with a focus on streaming.

Cloud: Apple iTunes has no cloud support (iTunes match does; but not available in India), Google Music offers space for 20000 songs on its cloud and Audiogalaxy imposes a limit of 200000 songs does not offer any cloud storage. Audiogalaxy simply saves your song information on its servers so if you want to listen to a song in your library in Audiogalaxy you computer must be switched on and running the Audiogalaxy helper software. Apple iTunes, Google Music and Audiogalaxy are all free.

Streaming: Apple iTunes can stream content from your computer to apple TV or your iPhone/iPad connected to the same network. Google Music & Audiogalaxy can stream your library to any computer, phone or device with a browser. The devices need not be on the same network, the only difference being Google Music will stream content from the cloud and Audiogalaxy will stream music from your computer.

Interface: Apple iTumes plays your music, manages your library including finding song information, Album art etc from the internet, rips music off CD’s and provides access to the VERY, VERY limited India App Store. It provides a unified consistent interface for all these functions. Google Music offers a music manager which uploads songs to the Google cloud.Audiogalaxy offers an Audiogalaxy helper application that scans your library and uploads song information to Audiogalaxy servers. Both do not play music, manage the library, find song information or rip music. Both offer an app for Android devices. All three will help you create playlists.

Offline: Apple iTunes can stream songs on the same network and Audiogalaxy must be online to stream at all. Google Music android app can make your music available to you offline on your phone or tablet. Just open the app and pin the music you want available offline.

Verdict: Google Music is a great Cloud Music Storage service. It needs to work on being a complete music application or maybe it wants to be only the online store/storage for 3rd party music applications. In that case it should release its Music API. Having said that, this comparison was for primary their network streaming capability and Google Music really shines.
Apple iTunes needs to get its act together and start the full fledged app store in India instead of a piecemeal mash up cobbled from random content. If you only want streaning within your network and own an iPhone/IPad or other apple products then Apple iTunes is your best best.
Audiogalaxy is a a pure streaming service and if you’re ok for your computer always on, acting as a server, then its available, free & legal. Network usage is highest here as content will be streamed from your computer. Get an unlimited plan internet, the fastest you can find.

I am looking for a complete music app which helps me rip, store, stream & manage my music. Sadly all three fall woefully short. Maybe an opportunity for Microsoft here  :-)