Macworld 2007

I attended Macworld 2007 held at the Moscone Center, San Francisco. I know people who lined up all night to catch Steve Jobs speak in flesh. And what a scene he showed.

I used to like Apple; I'm a fan now. Apple demoed the Apple TV and some exciting new features from Leapord, the next version of Mac OS X. But the most exciting thing was iPhone, and it literally had the audience sitting on the edge of their chairs, leaning forward.

A music player, a phone and a kinda computer -- all in one. If all the promised things comeout as wonderfully on the ground
as it looked in the demo, iPhone will be a must-have thing. And if
Apple's track record is anything to go by, it most-probably would. The multi-touch screen is exciting -- not a new concept -- but I'm sure it'll work like a charm, the ipod way. Who can imagine a phone with just one physical button? And a touch screen without the stupidity of a stylus. And 802.11 n wifi, 2 MP cam and Bluetooth 2.0.

So excited.

From USA

I'm on my first trip to the US. I reached Mountain View, San Francisco on 4th Jan and have kept my eyes open since then. There are a lot of new things to see, and I'm just getting started.


The Journey

There's a finite limit to the number of times a plane journey is exciting before it gets monotonous and dull. How many hours can one spend looking out of the window to see the white clouds below and sky-blue sky above, and nothing else! Things get uneasy when the flight is long. Mine was about 23 hours on Singapore Airlines. Tired of watching movies and sleeping, I spent some time teaching myself the art of classifying chinki airhostesses into more than one class.

There sure was one thing funny about the flight, though. I woke up the morning of 4th Jan two times -- once in Singapore and again in San Francisco. The journey began at 0030 hrs and ended at 1100 hrs local time. Essentially, therefore my 4th Jan was 37.5 hours long. I was forced to compare this to time dilation, a phenomenon which occurs when you (or someone else for that matter) travels at speeds comparable to that of light. No, they're not the same. Contact Albert Einstein for details. I'm sure that the return journey will be even more fun, when time will shrink!


The place

You must have already heard the rhetoric of the place being neat and clean, so I'll not repeat the illustration. From where I stay, I can see lots of trees and the day is good today coz there's sunlight. It's cold out there nevertheless. Swanky cars and SUVs flaunt the place. Driving a rented car is cheaper than keeping a chauffeur. People are costly.

As I said, I've only been 2 days here, and I am still exploring the place. First impression is freakishly awesome. I passed by Orkut yesterday; yes, the guy himself. Later, I saw Sergey and Eric Schmidt too.


The Asians

There are a lot of Indians. Chinese too (or are they Japanese? Taiwanese? argh!!). On a small stroll yesterday night, I could locate as many as 3 Indian restaurants (a couple of Chinese too). So, yes, all the fear about Asians taking over the world is kinda true. I had been reading the newspapers today and on an average almost every page has a news about India and/or China. Funny, they remember about the ongoing Kumbh festival back there in India. I'm sure I wouldn't have known about it had I been in India this time. Naked sadhus dancing around? Not that interesting, I'd say. Newspapers have a lot of word about the "Incredible India" campaign. This explains the foreigners you find everytime you go on a trip in India these days.