Month: May 2015

Give your Mom the Gift of Technology This Mother’s Day

Post author By Kapil Bulsara
Post date May 7, 2015
No Comments on Give your Mom the Gift of Technology This Mother’s Day

Mother’s day is around the corner and if you’re not sure what to get your mom or grandma then I have a solutions for you. If your mom or grandmother or mother-in-all has not been keeping in touch with technology and social media, now would probably be a good time to get her on board.

Now before I continue I have to add that my mother is on Facebook, uses Whatsapp, Viber and Skype and uses an android phone and manages just fine with most of her computing needs including working with excel sheets, accounting on quickbooks etc…so this won’t apply to her as much and mom’s in similar situations. However, my grandmother is someone who might find some of this very useful, she just doesn’t know it yet.

So, why is this better than just buying her something that she likes? Learning new things can be difficult for some people after a certain age, so for someone who has not been exposed to a lot of the new technology that is currently out there, suddenly tutoring them on doing something complex that involves more than 3 to 5 steps can be overwhelming. I’m merely stating some ideas which you can use, but then you will have to judge depending on the level of exposure to technology that your mother or grandmother has.

But if you expose them to just the right amount of technology the rewards can be very fulfilling; connecting to family members and long lost friends via social media, getting entertained or educated with Youtube and mobile games, staying in touch with family and friends with messaging apps and more.

Social Media

If your mom/grandma is not already on Facebook, my number one recommendation is to get her signed up this Mother’s day. We take it for granted but Facebook really is an amazing tool. She can connect with friends and family, search for long lost friends and maybe even make new ones. Viewing photos and update on what her family is doing, reading and watching news articles and videos and even sharing her own photos can be a surprisingly pleasant experience and one that she will be very thankful for. If she is already on Facebook you can give her some tips for making her experience even better. Maybe she has just “friended” people and has no pages “liked”. You can show her that liking a page gives her updates from that page in her news feed to enrich her experience on Facebook.

If your mom is the creative type and/or is into photography , you can introduce her to Instagram or Pinterest. If you or your mom is bold enough, you can get her introduced to twitter. Just make sure that you explain to her that anything and everything she posts on twitter will be visible to everyone. I heard of a story where a person was using twitter to keep personal notes. They thought that because they don’t follow anyone and no one follows them, their tweets will remain private – yeah… don’t let your mom be that person.

Gadgets

To make full use of social media perhaps the best way to get your mom started would be to get her a smart phone or a tablet if she does not already have one. As to which smart phone or tablet you should buy for her is totally up to you. If you have an android phone, you will probably lean towards Android and if you have an iPhone then you will lean towards an iPhone. Same goes for tablets – you cannot go wrong either way.

You can also get her a Fitness Tracker if you want to encourage your mom to stay fit. Check out my review of the Misfit Flash Fitness Tracker.

If you do end up getting her a phone or tablet be sure to give her a quick tutorial, get her started with some social media accounts and show her how to work her way around the camera.

Messengers

Whatsapp is my number one messenger app recommendation – it’s very simple to use, is reliable and almost everyone is on it. She can even form groups with family, friends or the neighbourhood book club. You can share pictures of her grandkids or just use it as simple a way to say a quick hi. There are other messenger apps like Viber and Facebook Messenger which you can introduce to her.

Video Chat

For video chat, I would recommend Skype and Hangouts. If she is on IOS then Facetime will work best for her.

Youtube

Youtube has to be a category on its own because that is how big of an impact it makes on our daily life. Youtube is the best entertainment education tool out there and of course I do not need to reiterate it here because you already know, but if your mom/grandma/mother-in-law isn’t already using Youtube, you really need to get her on it ASAP. From entertainment which includes comedy, films, funny videos, to news and educations, to DIY projects – just image the world of possibilities that she can have at her finger tips. If nothing at all she could be watching cats playing the piano.

Other General Knowledge

Google Search – Here are some Google Search tips that you can teach your mom. I bet you even you didn’t know about some of them.
Flipboard – Even if your mom is not into reading for pleasure, I bet she might just get into it because this app is just so beautifully designed that she would just want to use it only to admire it.
#Hastag – teach her how hastags work.
Shortcuts – You will be surprised how many people don’t know about Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y and so on for Windows and Cmd instead of Ctrl for MacOSX. Here are keyboard shortcuts for Windows and keyboard shortcuts for Mac OSX.

So these are my recommendations, enjoy your weekend and A very Happy Mother’s day to all moms.

Tags facebook, instagram, Mother's Day, pinterest

Business Philosophy Self Development

The Car-free Life

A little over 6 months ago I was forced to let go of my car because I was involved in an accident and the car was a write off. Instead of getting a new car, I decided that I would not get a new car until I was certain I actually needed one. The car free life might not work for everyone, but it does work for a surprising number of people if they are willing to make some adjustments in their life.

In my case, it was a very easy decision to make and one that I do not regret at all. In fact my life probably has gotten better because of not having a car. But that can also be because my life is as such. I have deliberately designed my life in such a way that I do not have to commute to work, I choose my work hours, I choose whom to work with, what to work on and how much to work on it. Of course all that freedom can be the ultimate boon, but if not handled with care, it can also be a curse. After all with great power comes great responsibility, and in this case the power is total freedom. But what does all that have to do with living a car-free life?

Not having a car meant there were some constraints in my life. I could not travel when I wanted to, I could not be spontaneous with my travel plans, even grabbing a cup of coffee or breakfast became something that needed some planning. Of course there is also the status symbol to battle with, but thankfully I was not victimized by my mind in this respect because I almost always live by the saying

Those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter.

Challenging The Status Symbol

If nothing at all, it has been a great social experiment. For example, I was with a group of friends when the topic of cars came up and a particular car brand was mentioned(I can’t remember which car it was) but I casually said, “Nah, I don’t like that car”, to which my friend mockingly replied,

“That’s coz you can’t afford one” letting out a laugh and an insulting look on his face before realizing that his remarks may have come off as being insensitive, yet not enough to warrant a genuine apology. As I write this, I wonder how they would react if I drove my new Tesla S to their driveway. If there is any car that I actually want to own in the near future despite of my car free philosophy that I’m experimenting with, it as to be the Tesla S – you know because it’s an electric car and it’s good for the environment and all. ;-).

There are numerous other situations like these that tested my commitment to go car free for as long as I could. It has been 6 months now and things just keep getting better.

Increased Savings

Not owning a car saves quite a bit of money and yes you might know this logically or mathematically but when you actually see how much you’re saving, it may just surprise you a little bit. You don’t have to pay for auto insurance and if you live in my city, you know that that can be a big deal! Cost of fuel and maintenance is another thing that is out of the list of bills. There will of course be times when you do need a car because public transportation might not cut it. In those situations you can take a taxi or rent a car, and even then, at least for me the savings are very visible. For that to work, I had to develop another skill.

More Organized, Better Time Management

You cannot keep hiring a taxi or renting a car every time you need to go somewhere. I scheduled my meetings in such a way that I could get away with renting one car for the day and getting all my work done on the same day. Out of necessity I had to get efficient at my work and get better at scheduling meetings. I was always accustomed to steering clients towards having phone or Skype meetings when possible, but with the added constraint of not owning a car, I became better at managing my time. Scheduling back to back meetings means you have to learn to squeeze your preparation time and doing it enough number of times means you can get very good at it.

Health Benefits

When I owned a car, I would sometimes drive in the middle of the night around 3AM to Denny’s or McDonalds to have a big meal while working on some project. Things like these of course causes your health to deteriorate slowly over time if you do it frequently. But if you remove the flexibility of having a car, the temptation of driving to a fast food place is removed(at least partially).

I started walking as part of my exercise routine, I then increased my frequency of walking and the distance I travelled every time I went out of a walk. I can now confidently walk for an hour and I use walking to get things done. Things like going to the bank, getting stationary or getting groceries are now tasks that I feel are quite easy even without a car. Not only am I staying active, I’m also noticing a lot more of my surroundings than I would if I were to travel the same route by car. It’s an amazing experience every time.

Recently I took out my old bicycle from my garage. It had collected some dust and rust because of all the neglect of so many years. I cleaned it and applied some needed fixes and started cycling. Now sometimes instead of walking to my destination I cycle to it and it takes me half the time. Not only is cycling healthy, it is also a lot of fun. I was an avid cyclist when I was in high school but as time went by, I went from an avid cyclist to the guy who says “I had a bicycle once”. Cycling has brought back so much joy and fun that I had all forgotten about.

I also bought a Misfit Flash fitness tracker so that I can hit my daily activity goals. Please be sure to check out my thought on the Misfit Flash.

All these are benefits to me, but living a car free life is not all a selfish act. I am helping the environment by doing my part in reducing greenhouse gas emission. Living a car-free life also means you’re doing your part in easing traffic congestion.

As you can see living a car free life is a win-win for all. This is my take on living a car free life.

If you liked this article and want to read more like these in the future, please leave a comment below and please share!

Tags cars, cycling, environment, health, money, savings, Self Development, Self Improvement, status symbol, time management

Technology

Wireless Charging Wizardry

Post author By Kapil Bulsara
Post date May 6, 2015
No Comments on Wireless Charging Wizardry

Every single day I come across new technology that amazes me. Some seem futuristic or even alien-like. Even common technology that we have today, that we so often fail to appreciate amazes me. Smart phones and tablets and laptops and cloud storage, biometric security scanners, search algorithms that give you exactly what you want, cameras, electric cars, planes, heart rate monitors, MRIS and just a whole lot more. What we enjoy today and even take for granted are things that even Kings of olden days could neither afford nor imagine.

Nowadays everyone has a smartphone or some kind of phone, a laptop and probably a tablet and possibly a fitness tracker or a smart watch. They all have batteries that need to be charged with wires that need to be plugged into the device and into the electric outlet on a wall. These cords are annoying, get tangled easily and some eventually get damaged and become unusable. One technology that will save us from this annoyance is wireless charging or inductive charging, which uses an electromagnetic field to transfer energy from one object to another.

android_logs Currently the fastest area of growth of wireless charging is in the mobile phones industry. Phones like the Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 820 launched in 2012, the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, Droid 3 and Droid 4, the Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6edge all have builtin wireless charging.

WirelessCharging_table This is just the beginning. Growth in this area of technology is not only rapid, but is also a necessity . Almost everyone has a touchscreen smart phone and they consume a lot of energy. Most phones do not have removable batteries( and now not even Samsung’s flagship phones). It is not practical to be carrying around a charger with you in fear of having your phone battery die on you.

Some coffee shops and restaurants have already started to offer wireless charing. Customers can simple place their phones on the table and start charing their phones. Soon furniture makers will have built-in wireless chargers. Ikea has already started this.

Phones are not the only devices that will have wireless charing. Laptops and tables are the obvious devices to follow suit. Dining tables, coffee tables, arm chairs, bed frames with small shelfs on either sides are also good candidates for builtin wireless chargers. Kitchen counters will also have wireless charging as phones will not be the only devices that will need charging.

Places where wireless charging could become common are of course airports so passengers can charge their devices while having a quick bites before hopping onto their flight, gym lockers where customers can simple place their phones in their lockers, jump in the shower, freshen up and come back to a charged device. One of the places where I am most excited to get a wireless charger is my car. Cars will surely start to get wireless chargers buitin. It gets frustrating when you are driving, the music is playing from your phone and suddenly the battery dies and to make matters worse you realize you did not bring your charger with you. Wireless charging will solve this problem.

As for the devices that will have wireless charging, the list will be too long for this article. All mobile devices will have wireless charging – phones, laptops and tablets. Game controllers, watches, electric shavers, and small kitchen appliances are some of the electronic devices that will have wireless charging.

What I am most excited about is cars equipped with wireless charging. Let’s face it: in the very near future almost all cars will be electric. When you come home from work and park your car in the garage, special panels under the body of your car and the floor of your garage will make wirelessly charging your car a reality.

I have had my first experience of wireless charing with the new bold Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. It’s like seeing magic happen.

This is my take on the future of wireless charging – what’s yours? Please leave a comment below, like and share this post if you like what you see here.

Tags future, Technology, wireless charging

Business Mobile Technology

The Stylus is Making a Comeback

Post author By Kapil Bulsara
Post date May 5, 2015
No Comments on The Stylus is Making a Comeback

‘If you see a stylus, they BLEW it’

-Steve Jobs

If anyone had asked me a week ago, “When was the last time you wrote something with your hand?”, it would have taken me a long time to think of a time when I was actually writing with my hands. I recently got into handwriting for a few minutes a day and I also started sketching designs on my whiteboard which I had not used in many years instead of doing it directly in Photoshop. I have heard many times that the act of writing something with your hand connects different portions of your brain and in doing so you retain more information and are more likely to follow through on what you write about.

However, now I am beginning to fall in love with handwriting again. So much that I am actually contemplating on cancelling my order for the Galaxy S6 and getting myself a Note 4.

As you may already know the Note 4 uses a stylus with many interesting and productivity boosting features. You can easily write a note with S memo. You can do cool things like smart select to select text freely with the Stylus. Write on a screenshot or existing picture and do some doodling. A stylus mostly is thinner and more precise than your fingers and that gives finer control over what kind of strokes are applied to the image or document that you are working on. It acts as a cursor on the screen so you can do things more accurately. Taking out the S pen from its docked state fire up the Air Command to allow you to quickly start doing some work with your pen.

Microsoft Surface, the tablet/laptop hybrid also uses a stylus.

The Surface Stylus takes things up a notch with the ways in which you can use it. You can click the top button to open OneNote. Double-click to capture a screenshot. The right click button acts like the right-click button on a mouse. Click it once in apps like OneNote to open a menu, to choose pen color, thickness, and other options. Microsoft on Friday confirmed it bought the stylus and display interface technology for the Surface Pro 3 from the company that made it. This signifies a big win for the stylus.

Other tablets that use a stylus are the Lenovo ThinkPad 10, Asus VivoTab Note 8, Toshiba Encore 2 Write, Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Note 12.2, HP Slate 7 Extreme.

Not only that, it is rumoured that Apple’s new iPad will also use a stylus. Steve Jobs was strongly against the use of a stylus and even said

“if you see a stylus they blew it.”

“Who wants a stylus? You have to get ’em, put ’em away, you lose ’em. Yuch! Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus.” – Jobs said while introducing the iPhone

“God gave us 10 styluses. Let’s not invent another” Jobs said about the stylus, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography.

So if the rumours of the iPad getting a stylus is true, it is definitely a big deal! The stylus is really making a come back!

Tags Apple, desktop, Galaxy Note, ipad, laptop, microsoft, Samsung, stylus, tablet, windows

Philosophy Psychology Technology

5 Ways You Can Capture Moments In Your Life

Post author By Kapil Bulsara
Post date May 4, 2015
No Comments on 5 Ways You Can Capture Moments In Your Life

Have you ever felt that your life is moving too fast? Or perhaps you are at the other side of the spectrum where you feel that life is moving too slow. Have you had those moments in life that you wish to remember over and over again? Are there moments in life that you could have forgotten, but you didn’t because there was a picture that captured that moment, or perhaps you wrote something on a piece of paper, kept a receipt or a souvenir that takes you back in time to experience some memorable part of that your life.

We live in a world of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram, Four Squares and much more that allows us to share every moment and every aspect of your lives, not to mention Twitter’s new app called Periscope which allows you to live-streaming video directly from your phone.

But I’m not going to be talking about sharing your moments. I want to give you some tools to help your record moments in life, you may of course chose to share them.

Phone Camera

Virtually every phone has a camera. Some of them take pictures better than some DSLR of yesteryears. You have your phone with you at all times so if something happens that you would want to remember just take your phone out and take a snap or take a video. We’re in such a photo snapping epidemic that Samsung has put a quick launch feature in their latest smart phone the Galaxy S6 – All you need to do is double press the home button and bam!

I know I really shouldn’t even be talking about all this since it is such a basic way of life now. But remember you don’t need record moments only for the purpose of sharing. When you start recording videos and photos to capture moments in life for yourself you will start to deviate from fluff and random acts of “importance” to moments that mean something to you, and sometimes only to you.

Action Camera

The action camera market has seen an astonishing boom mainly thanks to the GoPro brand. These camera’s(GoPro, Sony’s Action Cam and others) are small, light weight, most of them are waterproof and with a wide angle lens. You can mount these cameras on your chest, on your bike, hand, car, your head and the possibilities are endless. You might be thinking that this is just another camera. How is this different phone a phone camera? Phone cameras are mostly classed as point and shoot cameras where as action cameras are mostly POV(point of view cameras).

Evernote

Evernote is a tool designed for note taking and archiving. A “note” can be a piece of formatted text, full webpage or webpage excerpt, photograph, voice memo, or a handwritten “ink” note. You can organize those notes into sets of notes called notebooks and organize them in different categories called tags. Once a note is saved, it is synced to the Evernote cloud and from there it is synced to all other devices that have Evernote installed. There are other tools out there that let you record notes the way Evernote does, however Evernote’s ease of use and search functionality is something that is yet to be beaten.

Voice Recorder

If you are one of those types that retain memory better with audio instead of visually or kinaesthetically then you can carry with you a voice recorder. I know that some of you may be wondering: “…but does my phone not have a voice recorder?” . Yes phones do have voice recorder apps, but none of them so far are as good as an actual portable voice recorder machines. Dedicated voice recorders are faster with better quality and you can easily play back your recorder voice.

Old School Notebook

Sometimes all the high tech gizmos just does not quite cut it. Some may feel that all these gadgets lack the feeling of authenticity. If you are one of those, you can carry a small notebook and pen with you. The feeling of hand written notes sometimes says more than a picture which is believed to speak a 1000 words, especially now that hand written notes are simply considered archaic by most.

If you are someone who cannot or don’t want to keep a physical notebook and want to avoid the use of paper, not to mention the finite number of pages a notebook has to offer, but at the same time want the joy of keeping hand written notes, then the Samsung Galaxy Note is for you. Note 4 is by far the bsst phone with a stylus. In fact as far as gadgets go the Galaxy Note is the best single device you will need to record almost every moment of your life. It has a camera, Evernote and a pen that is surprisingly accurate(on the Note 4 at the time of this writing) to jot down notes.

In spite of what I have said in this article, I leave you with something that left me in awe when I first heard it. There is a scene where Sean O-Connell who has been waiting patiently to capture a photograph of the illusive “ghost cat”, the snow leopard has a conversation with Walter MItty in a scene from the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Walter Mitty: When are you going to take it?
Sean O’Connell: Sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.
Walter Mitty: Stay in it?
Sean O’Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.

— The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Tags camera, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S6, GoPro, phone, Samsung, social science

Uncategorized

Follow Your Bliss

Every time I drive on Rutherford Road in Vaughan I pass a small parking lot made of gravel and I see a narrow and steep gravel road that leads upwards and then at one point just disappears into the hill behind, and every time I pass that spot I wonder what it is, and every time I tell myself that I will check it out the next time I am there.

A week ago on Sunday, I woke up in the morning and decided that I will go to this place and reveal to my senses the mystery behind the hill. I was almost certain that it was a trail – there was no other explanation, but I needed to see for myself and this was the day. It is about a 10 to 15 minute drive from where I live to this spot. When I reached there, the small parking lot was filled up so I made a turn and decided to return home and come back some other time, but as I was existing the parking lot I told myself

“NO, not anymore, this happens today. I must find a way.”

As soon as I asked myself that question, I remembered that there is a public library nearby so I drove to the library, parked my car and then walked to this mystery spot. That in itself was quite a hike. Feeling positive and happy with my choice to finally do this, I marched forward climbing up the steep hill. Before I could reach the top, I started to doubt whether this was really going to be something worth doing, but I marched on forward. I had finally decided that I was going to commit to myself to walking 10,000 steps a day and I was determined and excited to find out what this trail had to offer.

I was pleasantly surprised as I strolled up and down mini peaks and valleys on the windy pathway meeting people who greeted me with delightful smiles and “Good Mornings”.

I stopped on my way and took some pictures:

I thought to myself that this is such a great way to start my morning and asked myself how it is that I was missing out on this for the past 5 years. There were a couple of times when I thought, “okay let me turn back and go back home now, but I kept walking determined to see where the trail ends.

The best was definitely saved for the last. In the final stretch there was a bridge which I had to cross from under it and there on one side of the wall was this:

Follow your bliss and the Universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

What a treat this was – desert for the soul after a hearty breakfast for the senses.

They say no good thing comes easy, but in life it is hard to get what is desired for those who are not following their bliss. When you follow your bliss, not what your mind wants, not what your parents, your spouse, your friends want, not your bank account, but your bliss that there is something magical that happens that is hard to describe in words.

Aren’t all things of true beauty hard to describe? Some things can only be experienced.

Walls of the universe are the barriers and obstacles that show up when you finally decide to follow your bliss, follow your true calling, and if then you decide that there are other things that need your attention, things of less value to your heart’s content, something that isn’t your Bliss, but is something that is of less importance to the ultimate experience of life because someone once told you it was more important, or because “that is how society works” or because someone once told you that you cannot get what you want, or that you are less than what you are worth, or you are not good enough, or you were afraid of disappointing yourself, or did not have faith in yourself or the mechanics of the Universe, then the walls will remain as wall and you will curse the Universe, blame the people around you, make excuses of circumstances surrounding you all the while ignore that you stopped walking on the path that was your bliss and turned away only to go to a comfortable spot. The kind of comfort that is merely an illusion of a safe cave while the beauty of the world of possibilities awaits you.

Just like my trail that had ups and downs, twist and turns, had sun and shade, with dry dead trees that bared no fruit, and trees there were rejuvenating in welcome of a new seasons with flowers blooming with signs that can only mean that there is hope, so is life unfolding in this way.

When you decide to turn back from your bliss, you are closing doors, but when you follow your bliss the Universe opens doors for you where there were only walls.

Business Philosophy

Power to Shape the Future

Post author By Kapil Bulsara
Post date May 2, 2015
No Comments on Power to Shape the Future

Believe it or not you and I and everyone else has the power to shape the future. Not everyone is an inventor, a creator, the CEO of a leading tech firm, or the designer of the next big thing, but collectively we have the strength in numbers. We are consumers and with our purchasing power we can shape the future the way we want it to be. One person alone cannot shape the future, but collectively we can, by choosing what we buy, by voicing our opinions, by making sure our voices are heard.

Every time you purchase a product or service you are telling business what you want and what you do not want. Ultimately businesses will only create and maintain products and services that lead to a profit and to be fair that is the purpose of a business – to make profit. You might not have direct influence on how a business operates but you do have power to make businesses succumb to your will. Businesses need to make profit, profit comes from sales, sales come from consumers, you are a consumer, therefore businesses need you.

I’m not going to tell you what you should purchase and from whom, neither will I suggest how we should shape the future. That is not my job, at least that is not my job in this post. All I want to do is give you a chance to examine what you are purchasing, where the product or service is coming from, whether you agree or disagree with the product making process, whether or not the company’s operations, where the product is being made and by whom the product is being made and the product itself is in alignment with your own values and beliefs.

Every time you pay for a product or service, you are creating a demand for it. An increase in demand will inevitably lead to either an increase in price or an increase in supply. Ask yourself whether you would want the increase of this product in the market. Is the increase in supply good for the economy, the general public, your government and yourself.

There is certain class of consumers known as fanboys/fangirls who would purchase anything that a company makes just because they are loyal to that particular brand name without considering the possibility of other products or services at their disposal. I’m not telling or asking you to change this behaviour. All I am suggesting is to ask yourself this question:”Would it not be better to stay loyal to yourself, to your values, to your beliefs, to your vision of the future then to stay loyal to an identity that you have formed as the user of product X or the user of services Y”.

Does it really server anyone if you remain loyal to a brand and not the technology, the quality or the essence of that product or service? And if so who does it really serve?

Are there industries that you are part of simply by being a consumer creating demand by purchasing a product or services, but those industries do not conform with your own values? Are there products that you consume on a regular basis that cause more harm than good to you and others around you.

I urge you to examine the consequence of the act of purchasing.

Remember you have the power,…we have the power to shape our future. This idea is not a break through idea, it is a simple idea that we are all a part of on daily basis, but more often than not we tend to forget about it because we are living inside of it instead of looking into it.

Tags Business, consumer

Software Technology Web Web Development

The Microsoft Edge

Microsoft seems to be using a lot of Halo game elements in Windows desktop and mobile phones. For e.g. after the end of Internet Explorer the new Internet Browser was codenamed “Spartan”. Then there is Cortana which is the name for the intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator, much like Siri for IOS, but for Windows Phone 8.1 and now Windows 10. Cortana is also the name of an Artificial Intelligence character in Halo games.

It was finally revealed this week that the official name for Project Spartan is Microsoft Edge. It seems like the “edge” is getting prevalent with underdogs trying to get an edge over their competitors. Samsung’s new smartphone code named “Project Zero” has an ‘edge’ in it’s name and it also literally has an edge… or two in this case. Microsoft’s “Edge” on the other hand is the absence of edge in the browsing experience.

Microsoft desperately and amazing enough, confidently wants to rebrand its Internet Browser as can be seen from this Microsoft Edge Promotional Video.

The browser has always been a window into the world. We all looked out and saw amazing things. It’s time to open that window and blur the edge between consumption and creation between the universal and the personal, between standing still and moving forward. Introducing the browser that defines the edge of today and turns browsing into doing. ..

If someone told me last year or even a week ago that I would be getting excited about Microsofts’ Internet Browser, I would have kick them in appropriate places. But quite honestly, Edge and Windows 10 and everything that Microsoft is doing has really got me excited, something that I have not said in many years. The logo itself seems to be re-born from the ghost of the Internet Explorer past but with a cooler edgier look.

Microsoft Edge will be the default browser on Windows 10. It will be heavily integrated with Cortana. As you can see in the screenshot below, it shows you the top sites visited, featured apps from the Windows store, weather details, and sports updates and other news article links that are of importance to the user all on the default home page .

It picks all of this information up from Cortana which is heavily integrated with Windows 10 on the desktop and phone (Dedicated post on Windows 10 coming soon.) From the keynote, it seems that Cortana will truly act as AI Personal Assistant and give suggestions by learning your desktop and phone and browsing habits and help you search what you are looking for by taking voice commands.

Microsoft Edge will also allow developers to create extension for Edge much like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. According to the keynote developers will be able to import extensions from Chrome and Firefox that use standard HTML and javascript “with just a few minor modifications”.

Now that is all the good promises that Microsoft is giving. What about the actual user and developer experience? One thing that I have learnt is that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually quite positively excited about this new direction that Microsoft is taking, however from experience and this is not just my experience this is the experience of every web developer that has ever utterly painfully laid their fingers on coding specifically for Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s Internet Browser provides nothing but a reason to hate the very core of it’s browser – each and every iteration of Internet browser.

I can only hope that this time it is going to be different and I have a feeling that this time it will be different – different for the better.

Only time will tell whether this is good news for web developers or not and if developers are happy so will the end user be happy.

That is my take on Microsoft’s new Internet browser, Edge. Of course I have not had a first hand experience with Edge, but when I do, I will be posting my thoughts on it. I will soon be writing on the key elements of Windows 10 and a in-depth review of the Samsung galaxy S6 Edge.