Google Play Movies in India – First Impressions

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I have always been a great fan of streaming content – whether it is music or movies. In India, unfortunately, till recently the only form of streaming content available had been the pirated streams available on Youtube or Youku. However things have finally started falling in place and we have seen Apple opening iTunes store for India and Google introducing Play Movies to Indian residents.

Since I live in the Google universe, I decided to evaluate Play Movies and catalog my experiences. I rented Argo (standard definition) and bought Moneyball (High definition).

Here are my observations.

  1. Standard Definition content is DVD quality. It looks absolutely fine on a 46″ LED screen when played through a Google TV box. For most movies, I guess SD is good enough, especially given the internet bandwidth limits and rates prevailing in India.
  2. High definition is gorgeous! And I could play it without any buffering issues on a 10Mbps connection. (If you have a slower connection, HD streaming is not for you. You could download the HD version though and play it offline)
  3. Google Play Movies app on Google TV and on Android is pretty good.
  4. I love the convenience of watching the movie on every device I own and from the internet wherever I am.

Now, here are the groans

  1. Google Play Movies is heavily customized for a US centric audience. So while there are filters based on Genre, there is no filter for choosing the language. In India, we have five to six active regional language movie industries. Currently there is no way to looking at all “Hindi” movies for instance.
  2. The rates are atrocious. Agreed, we cannot hold Google responsible for the rates but with these rates, Play Movies will NOT be a success in India. If the content providers want to fight piracy, they should make the official versions cost effective. I would be comfortable paying 200 rupees for a HD version and around 100 rupees for an SD (buying).
  3. The current user interface does NOT tell me whether a particular movie is available for rent/purchase and in SD/HD from the browsing view. I need to click on a particular movie and then click on Buy or Rent to know the various options available. Also there is no filter where I can say “Show me only movies which are available for buying.” Or “Show me movies that are available in HD”
  4. Google should tie up with the TV manufacturers to bundle the Play movies app on their TVs so that it is available by default on all TVs.

These are all teething pains I agree. In a few more years all this would seem really ridiculous. However, Google needs to hire a better UI expert to design their app and a better lawyer to negotiate lower prices for the content on their site.

But, this is a beginning. And I am not complaining. Way to go Google Play! Give us the Play Music soon. Will ya?

 

Cloud Computing, Google Fiber and Chromebook!

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What theme can possibly tie all these three together? Two of them are consumer oriented products and one is largely enterprise centric. How can there these three be spoken about in a single sentence?

I have a theory. So bear with me. In the last few days I have received multiple notifications from Amazon Web Services talking about price reductions. The one that I have just now got talks about DynamoDB service getting cheaper by up to 85%. This has got me thinking. A pretty good 4GB instance on AWS with Ubuntu 12.10 will in due course of time drop to a level where every Tom, Dick and Harry can sign up for one for personal use.

Now, assuming this trio is located in Kansas City in a neighborhood serviced by Google Fiber, they can keep their personal data and software on an ever running Ubuntu EC2 instance (Or Google Compute Engine instance) and use a dummy machine on their premises just to initiate a remote desktop into that instance. They will not have to worry about latency problems as they are blessed with a 1Gbps synchronous connection.

Cloud Computer!

All that you need at this point is a Chromebook – 250$ and a subscription to AWS (Or GCE). Your data and your software is on the instance and is completely safe and secure. There are automatic backups happening. If there is a problem with the instance, you can take an image and shift to another instance on the fly. When you want to upgrade, you can do so in a matter of minutes.

Sounds too good to be true? Of course it is. Currently we are not there yet. There are these worrisome outages to deal with. The monthly bill for an AWS instance is still not something TDH can afford. Chromebook has a pathetic screen and Pixel is too expensive to buy! Finally, the world’s population cannot fit in Kansas City and 1Gbps synchronous connection to the internet is as real as Cinderella’s horses for most of us.

But, in the not so distant future, all this can and will become the reality. At that juncture, what I have proposed will not sound so ludicrous. In fact, I predict that this is how personal computing would be in future. A dummy machine, a great persistent internet connection and a subscription computing service.

Till we get there, we are stuck with our three year old laptops. Can someone hand me over the latest graphics card please?

Next on Google Death Watch – Android!

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This statement is not as blasphemous as you think it is. Google, under Larry’s able guidance, is gradually cutting down 90% of its services that do not make much sense for the company from a long term point of view. Quite a few of the incredibly useful but sparsely used services have been axed already or on the deathbed.

Looking at the direction the company is heading, I am sure the following services will soon be put on that list.

  • Blogger
  • Google TV
  • Feedburner
  • Google Groups
  • Google Earth and Mars
  • Google Moderator
  • Google Newsandroid-ondeathwatch

You just have to look at the services offered in the “Even More” menu that you see burried in their “More” menu in the Google navigation bar. Can you find any of the aforementioned services in there? News, maybe. But the rest are nowhere to be seen. In fact, I am quite sure a few of you do not even know what Google Moderator does.

However, I sense that Google’s flagship mobile OS is also getting prepped up to join this list.

Why do I think so? Here are some reasons.

1. Andy Ruben’s departure from Android team.
2. Grouping Android with ChromeOS division.
3. Android is no longer a Google brand! – If you don’t believe me, ask any of your friends holding a Samsung phone a very simple question. “Who owns Android?”

A resounding majority of the answers would be “Samsung”. In some cases it would be “HTC”. Very few people can actually tie Android back to Google. Google’s pure Android experience devices (Nexus 4,7,10) are not exactly setting the market on fire, though we, in the tech industry, can’t seem to stop singing praises about them. (I love my Nexus 7 and my Nexus S – Yeah! I still use that three year old phone and still love it. Don’t judge me now.)

The problem with Android is it is Open Source! So every Tom, Dick and Harry can take the source code and fork it into the direction they want. Amazon changed Android into something totally unrecognizable for its Kindle Fire. Samsung, though based on Google’s version of Android, skins it so comprehensively that it is almost an entirely new user experience compared to navigating the pure Android flavor on a Nexus device.

And sometimes, that Samsung experience is better too.

Setting aside the subjective argument of which flavor is better, it is clear that Android is not doing anything really positive to the Google brand. Given the fact that Google spends a considerable portion of its bandwidth into developing this platform, Google would want a better ROI.

It all boils down making money. Google is into Android for the purpose of making money. However, the revenue from Android is not as significant as Google would like it to be. The desperation is evident from Google’s purging of Ad blocker programs from its Play store.

(http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/03/13/breaking-google-has-begun-purging-ad-blocking-apps-from-the-play-store )

Moving the man who lent his nickname to this platform out of Android division kind of ratifies this understanding. Android is no longer Google’s baby. It is Samsung’s baby. It is HTC’s. It is Amazon’s. But for Google, it is as no longer a focus area.

Android - On Death Watch?

Android – On Death Watch?

There is another angle to this thought. Google now competes with Apple and Microsoft at various levels. Both Apple and Microsoft have pretty good operating system offerings on all types of devices. Microsoft’s Windows 8 works on all form factors. Apple has the Mac OS for desktops and iOS for mobile devices. Apple is bringing the Mac OS slowly into the realm of iOS to offer an integrated seamless experience for its users across all types of devices. In contrast, Google just has a mobile OS – Android and its desktop OS – Chrome OS is not at all in the same boat. Also Chrome OS is not a popular OS and it has its share of limitations. You need an always-on internet connection to do any meaningful work on the device.

It is in Google’s interest to come up with an OS offering that extends the mobile experience onto the desktop/laptop category. Clearly, Chrome OS – in its present avatar – is woefully inadequate for this purpose. However, by having both Chrome OS and Android under the same leadership team, Google can now focus on creating a hybrid OS that has the best features of both platforms and offers a unmistakable “Google Experience” to its users.

Of course Android as an open source mobile OS will always be there but Google will not be actively developing it. Instead Google will most likely fork out Android and actively start developing that fork while letting the main tree be handled by the open source community – (Perhaps gift it to Apache foundation?)

Is that good or bad for us? We will have more choice in the desktop OS market – definitely a welcome thing. However, it will spell trouble for Android as an open source operating system. The moment Google forks it, it loses its sheen and probably will die a natural death unless someone like Apache Foundation meticulously takes it forward.

Samsung will continue to innovate in that area, probably aided by Google. It will also throw its weight behind Tizen, the OS Samsung hopes will prevent it from becoming overly dependent on Android.

Google will transform into a radically different company with two business units – One that handles the bread and butter of the company – Its search and related functions; the other handles the devices – The Google PC, the Google Tab, the Google Phone and the Google Camera – not to mention the Glass, the Watch, the This and the That – all powered by a sleek operating system that builds on the best features of both Android and Chrome OS.

Well, it may not come to this – but Google forking out Android seems to be a real possibility whether or not it develops an integrated OS.

So, here I am – calling it first – Android, On Google’s Death Watch!

What do you think is the next service to be wound down? My bet is on Google TV!

-With inputs from Prasoon Gupta.

New Traffic Rules at Lakdi Ka Pul (Hyderabad)–Boon or Bane

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Last Friday’s traffic in this sleepy Nawabi city was thrown completely out of gear, thanks to the sudden awakening of the government machinery to accommodate the opening of the brand new bridge across the railway lines at Lakdi Ka Pul. After lying dormant for quite a number of days, partly due to the ever busy calendar of the person (Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister of AP) who would dedicate it to the people of Hyderabad and partly, to the unenviable task of reworking in the incredibly complex traffic pattern around this area, the bridge finally saw the light of the day.

Today, the 9th of February was actually when traffic was allowed to flow on the new bridge. I had the audacity to drive through this junction this morning and drive back home in the evening. I know it is too soon to call but I think this traffic reorganization is a huge miscalculation.

©Image Courtesy: TheHindu.com

Granted the flow was fairly smooth near the Lakdi Ka Pul bus stop for vehicles coming from Ravindra Bharathi junction and proceeding towards Masab Tank. However, commuters coming from Global hospital and intending to go to Masab Tank had to go all the way to Ravindra Bharathi junction and take a U-turn. This considerably increased the already chaotic traffic at Ravindra Bharathi.

To facilitate people from Lakdi Ka Pul who want to go to Khairatabad, a new turn has now been introduced somewhere between Lakdi Ka Pul petrol bunk and the Vijayanagar Colony road junction. This U-turn effectively derailed the flow of the oncoming traffic from Masab Tank flyover going towards Lakdi Ka Pul at Mehdi function hall, a place where the road is already incredibly congested. Thanks to the U-turn, one lane is now dedicated to those vehicles turning around. Also there is another U-turn for the vehicles on the other side of the road right at the Petrol bunk. That’s two U’s in a very short span of road.

Result? Vehicles at 7pm today were backed all the way up to half of Masab Tank flyover. Such traffic patterns have never been witnessed outside the monsoon season in Hyderabad.

Before the new bridge was opened, traffic was slow at Lakdi Ka Pul but it moved steadily and offered no great delays to the commuters. Once that stretch was conquered, traffic flowed quite smoothly with minor jams here and there till Mehidpatnam.

Thanks to the new alignment, we have hopeless jams at Mehdi function hall (both sides of the road), at Masab Tank flyover and also at Ravindra Bharti junction.

What could have been done instead? The new U-turn near Mehdi function hall is a very bad idea. I know Masab Tank flyover is a little too distant but it would have been the ideal U-turn option. For smooth flow of traffic, it would have been a good compromise.

Now, I don’t see any improvement. In fact the situation is much worse.