Posts tagged india
Kindle Fire in India
2Back to blogging after long time. Hopefully I will be more regular now.
In January (3 months ago) I bought a kindle Fire. It’s an astounding device and for it’s price it’s worth every penny!
See the specifications yourself:
Hardware
Processor:
Dual core, 1000 MHz, TI OMAP4
System memory:
512 MB RAM
Built-in storage:
8000 MB
Multimedia
Speakers:
Stereo speakers
Internet browsing
Browser:
Yes
Supports:
HTML
Connectivity
Wi-Fi:
802.11 b, g, n
USB:
USB 2.0
Connector:
microUSB
Computer sync, OTA sync
Display
Physical size:
7.00 inches
Resolution:
1024 x 600 pixels
Pixel density:
170 ppi
Technology:
IPS LCD
Touchscreen:
Capacitive, Multi-touch
Features:
Scratch-resistant glass
Design
Device type:
Tablet
OS:
Android (2.3)
Form factor:
Candybar
Dimensions:
7.48 x 4.72 x 0.45 (190 x 120 x 11.4 mm)
Weight:
14.57 oz (413 g
I would suggest buying a Kindle Fire if you need a Tablet but don’t want to splurge 20K+ rupees. It costs around 13,800/- in India from ebay. Compared to other similarly priced tablets in India like Reliance 3GTab and iBall Slide, Kindle Fire is a much better alternative. There are many reviews out there just to prove that so I’m not going to write an essay praising it.One more things: Do not compare it with an iPad. iPad has it’s own class. Kindle Fire is an eBook Reader which is also an excellent android tablet.
How to Order Kindle Fire in India?
Officially Kindle Fire is not yet available in India (and chances are it won’t be in near future). You can still purchase it through ebay and such e-commerce websites which imports it from USA. The delivery can take up-to 15 days though so you’d need to be patient. eBay.in has some pretty good deals for a brand new Kindle-Fire. And yes I also bought it from eBay.in.
How to Register Kindle Fire in India? :
Ok. It’s arrived but before you can do anything with it you will have to Register it with Amazon. Do not worry. Indian users can still register it (though using Amazon Premium service is not possible for now), all you need is a free Amazon.com account. Head to Amazon.com, Sign-up and click the link in confirmation email… yada yada yada, you know the drill. Enter the Amazon UserID and Password in Kindle Fire. Your Kindle Fire needs to be connected to a WiFi hotspot/access point. When I received my Kindle Fire, I did not have access to an WiFi Access point. If you are stuck in similar situation, don’t panic. All you need is to configure your laptop (or a Desktop with a WiFi dongle) to act as a WiFi hotspot. I used a simple application- “Connectify” for this purpose. It works on Windows7 and is free for personal use. Once you enter your UserID and Password and click Register Button it will take a few minutes to Register itself with your profile. Voila! It is done! Now you can go ahead and use it’s basic features (which is just – The Oxford English Dictionary which comes with it, the User-Manuel, and the Amazon Silk Browser).
How to install 3rd party applications in Kindle Fire?
As I said Amazon premium services is not available. So forget about installing apps from Amazon App Store. What we can do is side-load apps on it (putting the .APK files in it) and installing them from Kindle Fire itself. I preferred this as I do not have access to a WiFi hotspot and I am on a very slow gprs/edge wireless connection. We have another situation here though. To install .APK files we need a 3rd Party File Browser for our Kindle and for that we need WiFi. Connectify is still needed so we can use laptop/desktop’s connection to download a File-manager/Browser. I installed ES File-Explorer from SlideMe.org. The process is simple – Start Fire’s Browser, open the URL: http://SlideMe.org and search for ES File-Explorer. Install and Done. To install an app just browse to the location of .APK file in ES-File Explorer and tap the .APK file and tap Install.
How to Put Files on Kindle Fire?
Kindle Fire doesn’t ship with a Data Cable. Don’t fret. It comes cheap. Kindle Fire needs a MicroUSB.female-to-USB.male cable. If you have a modern high-end phone, chances are it’s data cable will work fine with Fire. I bought a Nokia MicroUSB cable from a local shop for Rs. 80/-.
All you need to do is plug cable’s both ends in appropriate ports and your Computer System will detect Fire as an external storage device with label- KINDLE.
Now you can put songs/books/music/WhateverTheHellYouWant on your Kindle Fire.
There is another advanced method where you can just transfer files via a wireless LAN. But we will discuss that in another blog-post.
Tada! You are all set to use Kindle Fire in India.
Where to get .APKs or Android Apps?
Well, one source I already mentioned – SlideMe.org. You can also try GetJar store for Android Applications if you can connect to a WiFi-Hotspot (or using Connectify). You can also root your Kindle-Fire and install Google Play client on Kindle Fire to install applications directly from Google Play app store.
What are the best apps/games for Kindle Fire?
There are hundreds of thousands really! I mostly use – QuickOffice Premium for Android for Document Editing, MX Video Player for watching videos and PowerAMP for listening to music. Angry Birds, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Where’s My Water, Plants VS Zombies and Samurai II are some of the best games you can enjoy on your Fire.
My Kindle Experience:
Kindle Fire is a device which I absolutely needed. As a media consumption device, it rocks. Reading Books, Magazines and Comics on it is very pleasant. While it doesn’t fit in pocket, it’s much easier to carry than a Laptop. As a tablet there are some major features missing. Lack of a memory-expansion slot is one. It doesn’t have an inbuilt microphone/camera so Skype calling is not possible either. After installing basic apps, 5GBs is all you have for your eBooks and Videos (which works for me actually). But even after it’s various shortcomings, it’s a great Value-For-Money device.
Google Music Launched but not for India, yet!
1 Google, the search behemoth has finally launched Google Music yesterday. It is an online music store like iTunes of Apple, that allows users to find, buy, share and enjoy digital music. Google has also added a new music store in the Android Market that is fully integrated with Google Music. Google had earlier launched Music Beta by Google (along with the latest Android OS Ice Cream Sandwich) at Google’s I/O 2011 conference in May, 2011.
Currently Google Music is open in the US at market.android.com and over the next few days it will be rolled out to the Android Market on devices running Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above. Google faces stiff competition from Apple Inc, Amazon and Spotify in this arena and google has lot of catching up to do.
Just like iTunes purchase store and Apple Online Store, Google Music is not yet available for Indian users. It shows the following error when we try to access Google Music service in India:
But google does provide its users with a free Hindi music listening experience in partnership with its partners Saavn, In.com and Saregama. So I think when the Google Music service is finally launched in India, we can expect India specific Bollywood content to be made available by the Google for purchase.
I think Google Music will be a huge success in India when launched. India already has a large number of Android users. Indians will enjoy features offered by Google Music. Maybe the upcoming artists in the country can use the artist hub as a medium to connect with fans, promote their songs, get exposure and even make some money by selling their albums on GOOGLE MUSIC.
It’s time for east to rule
1In last century the USA and a century before that the United Kingdom bestrode the world like a behemoth, the small group of nations around the Northern Atlantic, ‘The West’ literally ruled the world. For two centuries The Westerners have invaded the East (Africa and Asia) but Africans or Asians have not sent armies to invade Europe. We communicate in their language, we wear their cloths, we study their culture and we believe today is whatever date it is because they said so.
The World View
In 17th century many Westerners visited India and China and they were overawed by the wealth and sophistication of societies in Asia. But in 18th century many Europeans started to believe the Westerners were simply superior to rest of the world. According to French social commentator Baron de Montesquieu Europeans had “- a certain vigor of Body and Mind which renders them patient and intrepid and qualifies them for arduous exercises.”.
When asked why Europeans are superior to everyone else they often concluded that it was their ‘CULTURE’. Just look, they argued, at the doctrines of Socrates, the wisdom of the bible, or the works of Leonardo da Vinci.
In my opinion they couldn’t be more wrong. For example Socrates wasn’t the only philosopher in 5th Century BC. The years when he was active were also the age of Buddha and early Jainism in India and Confucius and first Daoists in China. They answered the same questions Socrates dealt with – The Meaning of reality, the way of good life and creation of
perfect society. Socrates was just the local version of a broader trend.
Buddha - Not Laughing!
Christianity was also a local version of a broader trend than something that set the West apart from the rest. As the roman empire fell in mid-first millennium, new questions arose – ” Is there anything beyond life? Can I be saved from the aftermath?” The Christianity provided the answers (let’s not get into the validity of those answers) and gained over 40 million followers. But in the same years in the wake of Han Dynasty’s fall in China, Mahayana and Buddhism were offering
their own answers to same questions. Soon enough Islam reached to Africa, the middle east and southern Asia. Leonardo da Vinci refined wisdom of ancient west to revolutionize everything from aeronautics to arts but 400 years before Vinci China has produced it’s own Renaissance men who refined ancient wisdom to revolutionize everything. Shen Kua
(1031-1095) published groundbreaking work in field of agriculture science, archeology and geology etc. Da Vinci would no doubt have been impressed. The triumphs of western culture were impressive but they were just local version of a broader trend and not lonely beacons in general darkness.
So if culture wasn’t the factor than what made Europeans superior? Answer is simple : ‘GEOGRAPHY‘.
Geography is unfair – societies evolve with the same sequence of cultural development. Geography dictates the speed at which different parts of World develop but the development can redefine geography too. 5000 years ago Europe was at a disadvantage geographically. It was far from centers of action Mesopotamia and Egypt so at the very beginning of recorded history geography made western Europe backward. Fast-forward to 500 years ago same geography gave western Europe wealth and power. Geography was the reason that it was Europeans and not Indians or Chinese who first discovered, colonized and plundered the Americas. India and China were as developed as Europe but geography placed them twice as far from American Continent as Europe, so Europeans got there first. But the western dominance will not last forever. History teaches that. The back-and-forth between Geography and Social development keeps on working. By 1900, the vast resources of USA made it the ‘top nation’. In late 20th century the human resources of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and eventually China and India made them newer global cores. If the process of change continues with the same pace in 21st century we can expect the East to overtake West by 2050.