Amazon Kindle clones from China – half the price, wi-fi and no DRM!

Kindle clone. Even better than the real thing... child (apologies to U2)

I’ve been holding back. I told you about the Apple Tablet clone a couple of days ago, but now I’ll come clean with the whole story. Boeye doesn’t just do Apple Tablet clones… they also do Amazon Kindle clones! Both the DX and the Kindle 2. I tried both of them at GITEX in Dubai, and not unlike my reaction when I played with their Apple Tablet clone, I was pretty impressed.

The screen is exactly the same as a regular Kindle with an e-paper display. No reflections, no backlight and very easy on the eyes. The build quality, once again, was stellar. The controls are pretty much laid out as they are with the Kindle. Boeye does both the larger form factor DX clone and the smaller Kindle 2.

So, why would anyone want the clone in stead of the real thing, you might ask. Well, for one, the Boeye device is supposedly available for $190. Secondly, there is no DRM (Digital Rights Management) or copy protection on this device. After all, on such a true-to-life clone, DRM would be sort of ironic!

China’s Boeye releases “Apple tablet” before Apple can – TechLahore@GITEX

The Boeye in TechLahore's hands. Apple Tablet clone or worthy rival?

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been able to post much here. One of the reasons why – perhaps even the most pleasant one – was that I was away at GITEX in Dubai. GITEX has grown to be one of the largest tech shows on the planet, with attendees and exhibitors from all corners of the earth turning up to showcase their wares. Some of it is mundane, much as with any large tech show. For example, the 5,437 different kinds of USB disk-on-keys. But much of it is quite eye-opening. I’ll be focusing mostly on the latter with a series of GITEX updates.

I’ve been talking about the Apple Tablet with some anticipation. I think it could potentially extinguish the Kindle and un-hook the nook. With a colour screen, a broad range of applications, excellent e-reader support and integration with iTunes – soon to be tranformed into a bookstore too - it would be a worthy challenger and an excellent device to carry around on short trips.

Pakistan’s Mindstorm Studios launches world’s most sophisticated Cricket game (PC)

Awesome graphics and an unprecedented level of sophistication are hallmarks of Mindstorm Studios Cricket Revolution

Lahore-based Mindstorm Studios have been working on this project for a while now… but the wait is finally over! Mindstorm Cricket Revolution is OUT (no pun intended). As will be amply evident from all the screenshots I’m posting here, the game looks absolutely amazing. There is great attention to detail, a rich team selection, multi-player mode, realistic action and a variety of controls to make gameplay incredibly interesting.

The potential for this game is massive… Cricket is the world’s second most popular sport with over 2 billion fans and watchers internationally. And the numbers are growing. In fact, China is becoming increasingly serious about developing an international quality cricket team and has been seeking Pakistan’s assistance to train its local talent. None other than Pakistan’s legendary batsman, the indomitable Javed Miandad, has been appointed as the Chinese governments’ advisor for Cricket. With China’s inclusion in the world’s cricketing nations, Cricket would rival Soccer as the most loved sport on earth. So, with that sort of market, Mindstorm Studios really have a behemoth of an opportunity looking them square in the eye. We certainly hope they are able to capitalize on it.

The Apple Tablet is one Apple product I *will* buy… if it’s real, of course.

The Apple Tablet - I'll buy it! (Image courtesy Gizmodo.com)

Generally speaking, I don’t like Apple. I’ve made that pretty clear. That said, there is one Apple product I am interested in. And yes, if they come out with it soon enough, I’ll buy it. If you haven’t guessed already, that product is the yet-unnamed Apple Tablet.

True, the Apple Tablet has been a famed beast of legend for over a year now. Much has been written about it, but little has been seen. Stories emerged recently that Apple may have actually built prototypes of tablets as far back as 2003, only to kill the project when it became clear the alphas didn’t work well. It was around this time that Steve Jobs’ gave us his, “We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk”, spiel.

PASHA’s Jehanara doing a great job by developing video resources on entrepreneurship in Pakistan

PASHA's Jehanara deserves a lot of praise for her efforts

Jehanara is not unknown to anyone familiar with the Pakistani IT scene. She has laboured and toiled for years to promote IT in Pakistan, in both her official capacity as the President of the Pakistan Association of Software Houses (P@SHA) as well as in her individual capacity as blogger, journalist and interviewer.

One of her most recent endeavours, the ITLoW project, or “In the Line of Wire”, is fast becoming a wonderful resource for entrepreneurs, students and technologists in Pakistan. I particularly enjoy her interviews focused on promoting entrepreneurship in Pakistan. Here’s a selection of some interesting interviews:

As muslim countries progress, why do so many in the west react with anger and jealousy?

A futuristic classroom at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. KAUST is becoming a jealousy magnet.

TechCrunch just published a piece about the inauguration of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology(KAUST). This institution is absolutely marvelous by all accounts. Not only does it have a $10BN endowment, one of the largest of any institution in the Islamic world,  it also has state of the art facilities, ranging from the world’s 15th most powerful supercomputer (Shaheen), to a nano tech fabrication lab  and the world’s highest resolution immersive visualization display. And these wonders are just the beginning. A lot more lies in wait for students and researchers. Shaheen, for example, will continue to be upgraded and will climb the world supercomputer rankings rapidly. Last but not least, the campus itself, built on 30 sq km, is beautiful.

So, when TechCrunch sent a correspondent to cover the launch of the University and King Abdullah’s inaugural address, I expected that the event would attract the right sort of attention; folks interested in education, and happy to see progress and development. Unfortunately, the reactions on TechCrunch have been largely ugly, to say the least.

Microsoft Office will run on your browser… and take half your screen to show you its humongous menu

Wanna use Microsoft Office on the web? Ok. But you can only use half your screen to see the stuff you care about. The other half will be eaten up by our GINORMOUS new menu.

Microsoft’s been talking about their plans to release a web version of Office for a while now. They obviously weren’t too hot on the concept of browser enabling one of their core revenue earners because it could potentially de-link Office from Windows on stock x86 machines. But, ultimately, it became clear that the only choice they had was either to cede the web based productivity app market to the likes of Zoho and Google, or to wet their toes and see how things shape out.

Of course, they still aren’t quite web enabling Office in earnest; there are enough serious limitations that, frankly, you would want to continue using the desktop version for pretty much everything other than viewing documents. But that’s to be expected. Microsoft is taking the position that Cloud based offerings are extensions to the desktop app, not a replacement for it. Something to be said for that…

But here’s the thing that gets to me. And yes, I will confess it may sound like wee little trifling of an issue in contrast to all the Cloud “strategery” we just walked through. Yet, it’s bugging me enough to want to point it out. So here I go…

Pakistan develops new cruise missile – NYT can’t bring themselves to believing it

Pakistan's Indigenously developed Babar Cruise Missile. This is now being integrated with Pakistan's Naval Ships.

This really got my goat! A friend just pointed out that the NYT has published a highly accusatory article about Pakistan’s latest ship launched cruise missile tests. The basic thrust of the story is that Pakistan has developed a new missile which was recently tested, but not officially announced. US officials ”leaked” the news to the New York Times (gotta love those leaks!!), stating that what was tested was most likely an “unauthorized” modification of a Harpoon missile. These are the very same Harpoons President Reagan had delivered to his comrade, that staunchest of staunch allies, President Zia of Pakistan, in the early 1980s.

Of course, in typical NYT style when it comes to articles about Pakistan, the accusation is not justified with even a shred of evidence beyond the “leak”. But why do they need proof, I ask? I mean it’s not like those brown skinned idiotic Pakistanis are capable of inventing anything? Right? I mean it’s not like they’ve developed nuclear weapons, IRBMs, fighter aircraft, UAVs, tanks or other sophisticated military gear?!

So, though I want very much to tell the NYT where they can stuff their nonsense, instead, let me attempt to reason through this.

The Age of “Good Enough”: When cheap beats premium every time

Wired magazine carries a very important story this month. The article talks about evolving business models and a level of development in the technology industry that – excuse the pun – puts a premium on cheap. The piece is titled, “The Good Enough Revolution” and has received wide pickup from other sites and blogs, including the very popular LifeHacker.

The observation that we are now at a point in the evolution of most consumer technology (and increasingly, enterprise tech too) that “good enough” at a low price is what wins most of the time, is crucial for entrepreneurs and companies to truly understand. Unless you have a really killer niche application that solves an otherwise incurable pain point for a very rich set of customers, you have no hope in succeding against cheaper competitors who are “good enough”, even if your products are significantly better.

Ufone launches UConnect… possibly the most innovative mobile application developed in Pakistan

Ufone's UConnect service sets a new standard for innovation in Pakistan's mobile application market

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the newly launched Ufone UConnect service, so I figured I’d share my perspective too. First off, the service is AWESOME. Truly. The breadth of capabilities that it brings to an inexpensive mobile phone is incredibly impressive to say the least. The problem with sophisticated applications like this, though, is that you don’t know where to start describing them since they do so much! So, here’s a short synopsis:

1) UConnect transforms any inexpensive phone into a BlackBerry-like device. Yeah. Really. Since UConnect supports direct integration with all popular email services (Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange Server, POP3 etc.) you can add up to FIVE email accounts and then… voila! Any emails you receive show up on your phone as SMS messages. You can read the entire contents of the email and then respond to the sender of the email simply by replying to the SMS. That’s super neat!