Sunday, April 10, 2011

Orange Expo 2011

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This year, Orange built the Expo around the theme learn.


 

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And under this big cube, they show you how future classrooms will look like. The interactive whiteboard previously seen at Infotech used to explain the lecture and education software on the laptops/tablets synced wirelessly with the lecture.

 

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iPad and Connoi convertible. Nothing innovative in here. If the government wasn’t "broke" and had actually given away those much hyped laptops, that could have been a scene in today’s classroom (without the iPad i.e.). And by the way, can’t believe tomorrow’s classroom will still have those wooden desks and chairs!

 

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At the back of the Learn cube, there was another cube where they were doing short presentations. Here, an intro to Windows Phone 7 by @LinleyMeslier.

 

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Moving around, there was this usual “Intelligent Home” section where Orange shows you more useless products.

Larger size – 4MB

 

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Like this Livebox 2.0.
100mbps connection coming next year. Seriously.

 

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Touchscreen display on acrylic/perspex.

 

Uses FTIR sensing HoloMirage transparent display, capacitive touch screen film (like this) and a projector at the back to give a cheap Surface-like experience.

 

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New channels to be available on My.T. Not that I care. Sadly my N900 IR remote app didn’t work on those LED TVs.

 

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Orange were showcasing a large number of phones and smartphones available at their Orange shops. As most people found out, there was something wrong with all these phones…

 

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Dummies.

 

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Fortunately, their partners Nokia, Apple & HTC brought working devices. Like the N8. Nokia/Rawat have pulled out all the stops to promote the different Symbian^3 devices (no E7 though). I doubt many people realise that Symbian is a dead OS…

 

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Kinect demo by Microsoft.

 

It is amazing! I would love to tinker with one!

 

The Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter controlled by iPad. Nice toy.

 

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There was a tablet demo area where the iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7” and Viewsonic Viewpad were on display.

Larger size – 3.8MB

 

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The iPad One… everyone knows pretty much everything about it. iPad 2? No idea.

 

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While the interface was very pretty, I missed real multitasking. For the iPhone, the multitask bar makes sense, but for the iPad, all running apps should be shown as windows with thumbnails.

 

Demo time.

 

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The Galaxy Tab 7”. Sorry, but this is nowhere near an iPad competitor. With Android Froyo on it, the Galaxy Tab remains a blown-up smartphone. You’ll have to wait for Honeycomb for competitive tablets.

 

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The HTC 7 Mozart running on WP7. Aha, Windows Phone 7. Yes, I’m impressed with the visuals, the animations and the UI, but what I don’t like is the philosophy behind this OS. It’s all iPhoney.

 

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The device I’m actually holding doesn’t multitask, has no copy-paste, can’t even support microSD cards properly and as shown above, the GPS clearly doesn’t work. It’s mind boggling that Nokia moved from an OS with a near complete feature set to one that is missing so many basic functionalities.

 

The iPhone has a large jailbreaking community that works hard to fix all its shortcomings. With Windows Phone 7, the homebrew community is still at the infancy sperm stage… Granted it’s only been released for 6 months now, but there is a massive amount of work to be done (by Nokia) to make this OS usable (to power users).

 

To sum up, Orange Expo 2011 is so 2010. Seriously, look at the old technology being paraded around - convertible laptops in classrooms, touchscreen displays, Kinect, iPad 1, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S, HTC 7 Mozart, Nokia N8. An utter bore-fest for the geeks.

As you might have guessed, I was quickly bored by this expo and set about improving my camera-owning skills. Which didn’t work out well either, because of the low-light environment and Orange. I swear, I have seen enough of the colour orange to last for a week. So instead, I made some short grainy videos. Here's one more...

 

 

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11 comments

Anonymous

Great post...I owned a 3Gs and will wait until the iPhone 5 came out to buy one...also I want the iPad 2.Overall the expo was boring as usual with demonstrators not attentive to the general public!And finally when will Orange start to increase its internet broadband connection speed!!

ashfaqblog

Nice picture and all .. also blogged on that :) http://ashfaqblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/mo-ti-laba-twa-si-comment-lors-la.html and added your video inside .. if u don't mind ! lolzz..

Chaya

I've been to Orange Expo through your blog, thanks you :D
I very much loved this touch of sarcasm "And by the way, can’t believe tomorrow’s classroom will still have those wooden desks and chairs!"
Seriously :P

Yashvin

Chaya, thank you for remaining at home, and as you witnessed, you did not miss anything that might change your life.

As for me, I am waiting for the *satisfaction* and success Orange will demonstrate while announcing the official number of visitors.

Anonymous

100mbps next year? comier/?? Rs 100000 par moi/? xD

Mike

Nice visual report, thanks. Glad I did not go, nothing missed.

Inf

Sighhh! Wish MY pics were that good! :)

Interesting review... I'll be writing my Day 2 there. Different view on 2nd day.

Amolvin Stewart

Hey idiot ! tu crois tout savoir ? c'est moi qui ait monter cet ecran transparent . le plexi c'es juste pour eviter que des gens ne rayent le systeme. j'ai utilise 3 technologies bien distinctes pour monter cet ecran mais aucune ne fut du FTIR ! on ne peut utiliser tu FTIR dans un espace ouvert ! et ou t'a vu une camera tracker ? si tu sait pas enfoire : demande !

Amolvin Stewart

et si tu veux savoir : la surface de projection est le HOLOMIRAGE de HOLODISPLAYS . direct des U.S.A !

reena.dkl

great post...

what's the use of going if it's to see a "re-polished" version of last year?

carrotmadman6

@Amolvin Stewart
Merçi pour les précisions. Intéressant.

HoloMirage + capacitive touchscreen film + ?

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