Nitish Kumar&#039;s Blog

Have you ever written diaries

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Did you come to see the recently released movie "Kartik Calling Kartik"? A ordinary guy, bullied by everyone else around him, all of a sudden find someone telling all the right paths to him and turning miseries of his life overnight into success coming from all over to his ways. Do you know whose voice that was? His own self. Surprised?? You can’t be/ shouldn’t be, if you ever been in writing diaries.

In moments of confusions with lots of questions swinging around, sometimes it can happen to you that you open a mail sent by yourself long time back and you find that the questions which seem to confusing you now, you already had answered them long back by yourself. You open few old sent mails years back and get surprised by even your own writing style then. Human mind has so many dimensions that leave others a side, one can’t even reach all the corners of his/ her own mind.

Diary … words written by self for self (May be someone else could have defined it more simply.)

One can never be sure, but historical counts say that the oldest extent diaries come from Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures though there been existence of similar things even much before that. For me, its something as old as human history itself is, but question is "what exactly it is?"

A diary is a record (originally in handwritten format) with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. The writer may detail more personal information and normally intended to remain private or to have a limited circulation amongst friends or relatives. The writer may also describe recent events in his/her personal diary. The word "journal" may be sometimes used for "diary," but generally one writes daily in a diary, whereas journal-writing can be less frequent.

Oops.. I did it again. Went techie as many of my readers keep on complaining me, though intended to keep it simple straight from heart. Coming back again…

I remember my own days, back to 1995, when I was in 8th standard. Don’t know what prompted me start writing diaries. May be father’s old diary might have been an inspiration or I thought to share my deep self to someone I trusted most in my life; myself. Started in simple Hindi, soon it was converted to English .. may be I thought to use this ‘useless’ habit to improve my English skills then.

When you start writing diaries, then you really come to know that what privacy is and why you wish it most sometimes. While it regarded as kind of sin, but nothing could interest others more than someone’s personal diary and you soon find yourself running around to find places to hide your diary as it starts growing up with your raw thoughts and secrets, which you might not wishing someone else to know at least at that point. Same happened to me, when I ended up converting my rather simple diaries into cryptic comments or rather a cryptic language.

I took two ways then …

Mirror writing in which I was writing in way that would be plain English if seen in some mirror otherwise seeming confusing symbols.
Writing diary in numeric codes (‘0’ for ‘a’, ‘1’ for ‘b’ and placing dots above numeric after 9).

Many of people around me found the second way more fascinating and interesting than the first one as I was able to write and read that way with same ease and speed as the usual English phrases. But still it was pretty easy to guess and once scared the hell out of me, when I found my mom trying to read it through mirror (I always kept my diaries at hidden places, but you know that you cant be sure about it) and ended to join both the techniques means writing in numeric with mirror image symbols.

You might be thinking that what is it now? If wanted to keep things that personal then what purpose of even writing the same? But once you start writing then you come to know that this things is really addictive.

Purposes that a diary solves

Its true that one cant be honest even with self and the diary is second to self. It happens that you write only those things/ thoughts in your diary, which at some point of your life you think that you could admit as of own but still it collects so much of your raw thoughts that even you feel surprised that did I really thought this then?

Your restlessness about getting just a mere glimpse of someone special, your jealously even pretending like nothing happened, your moving crushes and point of interests, your grief about your loneliness, your anger over restrictions from family, your joy of winning something you think other will think stupidity of yours, your true ambitions rather than what you say in front of your parents and friends, your dreams …. possibilities are endless about what you might be writing in your diaries and over the time, it become most precious friend of yours. Someone who listens you most patiently without commenting and answering you about your confusions in a voice you understand and trust most, yours own.

A diary might be collection of some random writing of yours, thoughts might be foolish, but it starts making you mature and complete faster than otherwise you could only wonder. Interesting sights becomes the moments to see same words calming you down, which you once wrote in your most restlessness. A diary truely completes yourself.

When you leave it locked and quit writing?

Later on coping up with the time required to pen down your thoughts become more tougher considering other priorities of yours. Other people come to your life to share all the personal moments and thoughts of yours. Even you come to feel that you found the purpose that started your habit of writing diaries and the loneliness is no more in your life, so diaries ……. not required now. More of it, even there might be things in life such that one don’t wanna to share ever, not even with self.

In more sophisticated way, we start thinking that we took diaries to recollect our thoughts, then re-evaluate the same to improve ourselves at stages and over the years, we find that now nothing remained to improve, we have already made our views and lives those are not gonna undergo some such big change that may require re-evaluation at any later stage. Ultimately, you say that you don’t wished to be writer or never wanted that someone might be writing biography over you.

Is it true? Writing diaries is fate of big people only? Can you be so certain of yourself that nothing to re-evaluate, when yourself seen so many changes over the years? Do you really think that you got the purpose that why you started writing diaries at the very first place? Do you think that over the time, it becomes impossible and even useless to keep on writing thoughts that touch your mind? Do you think that any other voice you can understand more, trust more than yourself?

Blogs, Social sites, Twitter (it suits first part of definition about time, though fails about privacy thing), SMS’s and insanely running life may make you think that Diaries are irrelevant in this era, but have a night alone awake thinking of only self. Don’t you want to write diary for self or revoke the same old habit of writing again???

Give me your thoughts over it. I’ll love it, if I find someone starting afresh again due to the conversations ..

Nitish Kumar

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Why dont people get the purpose?

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I felt very disappointed when still read many posts or article with negative sentiments for Earth Hour or things like this. Not annoyed like I was used to be in past, but even then thought to post some thoughts ….

I heard on the same day on twitter, when someone was saying something like “Who needs the earth hour, when already 8-10 hours power cuts all over in India?” and even funnier quotes like “should medieval times of history be called as The Earth Ages?” or “Can the #earthhour cause a potential babyboom 9 months later?”

Yes!! I smiled over the last quotes, but felt really bad for the purpose of the campaign. I read posts like Say No to Earth hour or people comparing it with other campaigns calling it Hippocratic or something like that.

Is getting publicity for yourself coz you are talking against the flow matters this much that even innocent campaigns can’t be left?

I would like to recall the experiences from RDB, there are many problems in this country, too many of those corrupt politicians, who love to wear currency in their neck, a system that doesn’t work for you at all… yes!!! all is here. But how much your just talking solves it? May be people are hyper about Climate change? May be you have enough money that dont wanna save some electricity bills?

But this Earth Hour is not about saving electricity. I repeat that its not for saving electricity …. do you think that one hour electricity from like some eleven-twelve hundreds of cities that too with support of not all people gonna save some electricity for some secret government project?

We blame governments for almost everything that why can’t they give us 24 hour electricity? why can’t they give us 24 hour water? why can’t they give us jobs? what the hell these moron traffic policemen have to do, if we are not wearing helmets or forgot to renew our insurance?

Ok!!! I accept all of this, but what’s point of relating this to Earth Hour? Why in India, we cannot afford Earth Hour? We can … we already did without being asked for Earth hour… wanna know???

Recession!!!!!! we cried over it for long in last months. I seen companies pushing hard over cutting extra telephone bills, extra electricity bills and all… even we did a lot at our homes. Even I seen in my company or many others in which my friend work, avoiding late night works, switching off ACs when those are not that much needed. Were they doing it for some World Earth Hour?? Don’t tell me that you didn’t do anything like that just for saving ‘your own’ pocket. Didn’t these all felt at some point that they should have been doing it since much before? What’s wrong in participating in some symbolic event like this?

Earth Hour didn’t asked anyone to switch off their light completely, if anyone took it wrong, then its their fault. It wasn’t meant to save some electricity, it was to show that we can, if we bring this habit in our daily life. Meaning was to switch off whatever you think that you can manage without for just an hour. What’s problem you felt in that? If things going wrong around you, then does that mean that you shouldn’t do anything good even so harmless like this?

Please explain to me that why anyone has problem with this Earth hour? Do anyone forcing you? Do anyone asked money from you? Will you die, if your lights in lawn and kitchen went switched off for an hour? Why can’t the whole family watch the same show on same TV for an hour just for one day? Why can’t you all sit on dinner together with all the lights of whole house except the lobby switched off? Is it that hard for you? Really????

I know someone could come up to answer me, they would again talking about power cuts, taxes, social issues, important problems etc etc… but are you doing anything about all of that? World Earth Hour was a harmless way to grab your chance. Why you wanted to miss that?

Nitish Kumar

World Earth Hour (20:30 – 21:30, March 27, 2010) and us

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I already discussed in past about some innovative effective social campaigns and ideas coming our way now days. Here I am with the updates on latest and biggest social event ever that is going to be happen tonight, World Earth Hour.

What is World Earth Hour?

World Earth hour was first conceived by The Sydney Morning Herald and World Wide Fund for Nature on March 31, 2007 in Sydney, Australia at 7:30 pm, local time. The reception was mixed as many columnists and bloggers mentioned it as a Hippocratic move. Many statistics were shown that there wasn’t that significant drop in CO2 emission or electricity savings and the move was comparable to taking out 6-7 cars from road for an year only.

Statistics aside, the campaign became very significant for awareness towards saving nature and kept on getting worldwide support for the same. The next year only added 35 countries from all seven continents and 400 major cities, when the event was celebrated on March 28, 2008 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time.

The official website for the event, earthhour.org, received over 6.7 million unique visitors in the week leading up to Earth Hour. Other websites took part in the event, with Google’s homepage going "dark" on the day Earth Hour took place.

Much detailed statistics related to this event could be found on the Official site or on the wiki link.

What’s your excuse for not participating?

Are you aware that in moments of wars, countries including India had asked from its countrymen to contribute by giving their one young member of family to forces? People were always been asked for donating some part of their income in form of taxes in such situations. Are you waiting for something such to happen?

Yes!! its a war, not between countries, not for mere some piece of land, but for our own existence. Doesn’t sound something bigger and serious?

I know many of you feel that the fears about environment shown in movies/ documentaries much exaggerated and also think that its not going to “collapse” in near future if you have left some bulb on in your lawn.

You feel that there are many marriages happening out there with thousands of bulbs and electricity equipments emitting loads of harmful gases. You talk about highly decorated with electrical equipments monuments by Government Officials only. You feel grieve about millions of AC running around the globe sucking environment badly.

I understand that you feel that a small contribution doesn’t matter. Earth Hour and its statistics growing over years (increase in number of people participating per year) are the biggest example that how such small contributions could matter a lot, if spread well.

What will you loose?

If someone says you to do less showoff in your functions, then you feel that you’ll loose the fun of the moment and it will look dull and bore. If someone asks you use public transport rather than using your own Car, then you give him weird look that do you know anything about rush there? If someone asks you to mere share your car with people heading in same direction than using separate cars, then you think about inconvenience in waiting for others when you might get late due to that. If some campaign tells you that you should switch off your engine on red lights, then you think that do someone knows a bit about traffic in India?

Yes!! its been about inconvenience, whenever such a campaign rise on air. But tell me what are you loosing? Few bucks less from electricity and a pride to participate in the biggest event of history??? That shouldn’t be heavy on you, I guess.

Are we supposed to stop our work and businesses in that one hour?

No!!! Earth hour is asking you for only switching off what you find redundant for you and you can manage without for one hour. If you are running businesses, then you could switch off few central ACs for that while, could switch off heavy decorations outside. If you are normal family, then you could all gather in your dining tables with lights off and a moody candle light dinner or even if wish then all watching your favorite shows on Cables or TVs with all lights off. You can enjoy your rare moments on roof of your house/ flat with your family. Its nothing like that you can’t think of a way.

So, who is joining me tonight to celebrate World Earth Hour 2010?

Nitish Kumar

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Nokia N97 Mini

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A nice video presenting Nokia N97 Mini. Its a quite old and official one, but I thought to share it here.

Nokia N97 Mini Review Part 2-Whatever you can expect for

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Call it affection to Nokia N900, says it mess at personal front now days, may be my a bit illness on health front; I really feel that I was unable to give sufficient time to my latest trial device Nokia N97 Mini. Though I written comments about Un-boxing, wrote about Hardware Specifications and a few posts are there on small Ovi Maps adventures with it. But still this amazing device deserves a review about its functioning. Trying to cover a few this time…

Usually when you talk about Nokia N97 Mini, then common opinion is “its made for youngsters”; thanks to its bright, responsive, big 3.2” touch screen, QWERTY Keypad opening in slightly tilt mode to make it a Mini Netbook, always on connection for status updates from various social networks, fast processor and increased RAM/ Application memory, strong multimedia skills due to amazing 5 Megapixel camera & FM receiver and smooth video experiences (local and web) and huge storage options with 8GB internal memory and support for 16 GB MicroSD card to increase it more.

But sometimes I really think that except the comparatively lesser battery (though that’s also enough decent) why not to call it a Business Device? QWERTY keypad operating in long landscape aiding to fast typing like on some 13” Netbooks, big display to support viewing web pages comfortably without much compromise, almost all connectivity options (3G, wi-fi), all time synced contacts, photos, calendar, even files with Ovi, so that if you are using multiple devices then you get the same experience (I can’t help myself not to think about, if some corporate start using synced contacts, calendar and files through one account ), 5MP Camera capable to take snaps of documents like scan images, support for TV-Out for presentations, number of applications out there for suiting your needs and huge space for keeping your mails and files ready on the go. What else are your expectations from a Business device?

For me, its been kind of full entertainment device by which, I could keep on checking my updates, my blog, snapping here and there, sharing anything over web on the go, watching movies when travelling to somewhere and getting bored. If we want to go green, then we should really promote such device at our best.

Ok!! enough talking. Lets talk about how it looks like, when we operate on it means Screen Shots, lots of them….

At first, when I was looking for how to take screenshots, then it reminded me that how easily I was taking them in N900 by pressing Ctrl+Shift+P … but anyway, I found a free app in Ovi Store itself by name of Best Screensnap and then started taking snapshots after setting HotKey (it made me confused that if Camera key would be set for taking screenshots then how to take snaps, anyway, I changed the hotkey on long press camera key). Added the same app to my beloved Nokia N82 as well.

Here are some screen shots and notes about them:

Home Screen (Portrait Mode)

Home Screen (Landscape Mode)

Addition of Home Screen widgets was the greatest thing that started with N97 classic and obviously continued with Nokia N97 Mini. Users of Nokia 5800 and other Smartphone in lower cost range still crave of the same feature on their screens, but probably this feature is kind of too much for their low RAM or application memory.

If you go through options, then you can see that there are options to hide the contents and go back to plain home screen without any widget on it. There are also option to hide/ show content by swapping your finger left/ right side on screen. Moreover, options are here to keep the content Offline as well (Handy if you want to save the data usages or battery for a while).

Default contained Facebook widget, which I replaced first with Accuweather and later on with favourite contacts. Though I tried to add Gravity later on, but didn’t found quick way to add something already installed in your Phone, it was directing to Ovi Store.

Calling and Dial Pad (Landscape Mode):

Dial Pad look similar as of other touch screen phones from Nokia and USSD numbers obviously work out of the box unlike Nokia N900. Provided the sleek looks, one can never be needing the H/W keypad to dial some number, even if one requires then he could directly type numeric keys of the keypad (no necessity of pressing shift key in that case).

Signal Reception of Nokia is legendary as always and surprising I found the sound louder than Nokia N900 and others. Kind of a good thing for Indian Users. 😉

Messaging:

The Keypad is awesome to type on. I already said that I just loved the similar keypad in Nokia 900, so bound to love it. Although it still lacks of auto-complete feature in Nokia N900 (may be some third party apps out there for the same), but it support long press keys to get symbols etc.

The touch screen keypad lacks of mini qwerty that is quite disappointing as it was there even in Nokia 5800. True that one should use H/W keypad for the same, but there may be scenarios that you can’t operate with two hands. I really recommend Nokia to add the same in next firmware update.

Rest two format are available in the same way as on other phones and good that they have retained handwriting mode, though I didn’t used it that much, but sure a good thing for occasions.

Various Menus inside:

First screen shot is about Menu screen and then I am following the calendar app.

A nice view and then full fledge options for meetings, notes etc. These are all the same options as we find in other leading Smartphone’s from Nokia.

In next, as you can see above, is Contacts. As you already heard that Nokia N97 Mini come with kinetic scrolling out of the box, true with Contacts and other menu items. Addition in Nokia N97 Mini is appearance of first letter as you scroll down (D and C in pictures). Definitely Symbian getting polished day by day, device by device. Expectations are higher for Symbian^3.

Another and kind of most important app is Web. Interesting here is Auto Full Screen feature, even if not like full fledged on Nokia N900, still it was better than other phones. Experience was amazingly richer due to embedded Youtube support (same as available in Nokia N82 or others, don’t remember it was same in Nokia 5800 or not)

As I always recommend, I installed Opera 10 Mobile in it as well and interesting was to note that appearance of my blog was more or less same on both the browsers, though there are more options in Opera for sure. Look at the screenshots as given below.

A lovely app is Nokia Messaging with HTML mails support, though on trial for few days, but I will love it when Nokia will made it free like its Ovi Maps. This is something that made me checking mails somewhere else than Gmail’s app. Definitely different than any other thing, though I wish it was having more formatting options inside, may be native HTML Coding itself.

This thing not only supports Push Mails, but the white face make it look much elegant than other email apps. For the detailed descriptions, one could head toward a detailed article from Zomgitscj.

As about Camera, then I already said that it compares to Nokia N82’s Camera, which has been my best so far in such a way (credit goes to Xeon Flash) that even I didn’t found Nokia N900’s Camera preferable over the same (even if was technically better), but Nokia N97 Mini even with Dual Led flashes changes your opinion. It is really good one about snapping and really removes my disappointment as was with Nokia 5800 about Led Flashes.

You would be surprised to know that I already have snapped more than 5000 snaps from my Nokia N82, so could understand that having such a good camera could increase your photo collection in your camera. Options for tags come much handy for such situations.

I also tried Nokia Photo Browser that is a Beta Lab app and sure impresses in view. Not have tried but came across one awesome article about arranging your snaps on Nokia N97 Mini. Definitely a powerful device as far as Photos are concerned.

Digging more deeper takes various menus and submenus, which most of you must be already familiar with, so not going into details. Though will mention to look at the last screen shot, it provides the control over Notification lights in a new way, which is a cool thing.

So, here we come to discuss about the most interesting and important feature of this amazing device, Ovi Maps. Though content is older in this article, but could worth taking a look for exploration of Ovi Maps.

I also have wrote a couple of articles over Ovi Maps and even got a tweet from @ovibynokia that I have became entitled for some cool ovi goodies. Don’t know what would be that …. Surprise.

Waiting for that. Till then check other screenshots.

Rest remains is the world of applications. Many comes out of the box with shortcuts to install them means a huge applications folder with full of icons, took at least 4 screens to cover them all. There is an amazing message reader as well to read loud your messages for you.

What I installed in addition were Fring, Gmail, Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, Skype, Periodic, Compass, Flashlight, Orkut, Best ScreenSnap and the almighty Gavity (I have fallen in love with it). Just added Nokia Here and Now via Software Updates. Amazing thing again.

So, this was the app world about Nokia N97. I addition I checked Videos over the same. I still miss the 3.5” screen of Nokia N900 that was extra large without any buttons on the screen. May be some people like me will wish that if Nokia could have retained the same 3.5” Screen as was in original Nokia N97 and would have added the same battery as was in Nokia 5800.

I should say that in symbian league, it was the best from Nokia till now. Unfortunately when someone like Nokia N900 appears on the screen, then its bound to steal the show and we started skipping others. But if you talk about features, then you will be surprised that how much effect Nokia N97 Mini will have on your crave for some Laptop/ Netbook always with you. Most of the things, like social media, mails and web access are following you now with its home screen widgets and you find yourself not missing even if you travel a lot.

I really wonder that where Black Berry Phones are getting their places even after their buggy scroll ball (I got all of them go bad after one year or two in my office, not one but half a dozen consistently)?

Yes!! there are some complaints/ suggestions for Nokia Team about Nokia N97 Mini ….

Why to leave the same messaging innovation as we seen in Series 40 devices like Nokia 5130, where we had option to send messages to people we last messaged, people we called recently and setting favourites for messaging? It was too cool in even those low end devices and I thought good things to be continued in higher end devices. I don’t find any additional requirement or issue in porting the same feature, when you already made it once.
Why still we are left with some trial Quick Office and Adobe Acrobat? I had it in full with Nokia N82 at least for reading and expected it to be available in read version at least with Nokia N97 Mini like device.
I have really no idea what suggested Nokia people to remove the Mini QWERTY keypad from touch screen, but its a real must have. Please give it back in next firmware update or whatever…
I can understand Nokia’s requirement about making a device low on price and high on features that made them compromising the battery and FM Transmitter. But don’t you think that battery is as essential as Network coverage itself? Think about it.

Nitish Kumar

Ovi Maps-How it work

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Have you ever woke up dreaming that you are alone in some desert? You go right, you go left, run forward, come backward, just to find sand everywhere. May be you are just half a mile from the way out, but which way?

Similar has been theme of many horror flicks, where a group get lost in desert or sea and then bad things happen … Have you noticed that such movies started loosing their effect now days? Because when we might be watching them in full ‘tension’, then some kid of our family jumps in to shout on screen “Don’t any of you all have Nokia with you?”

Sometimes enabling the invention to reach the masses becomes much bigger than the invention itself, same is with Nokia/ Ovi Maps otherwise we were hearing only stories about Jack’s compass 😉

How this all started?

It was path breaking move, when for the first time time Nokia started giving Smart2Go for free in February 2007, after acquiring German Route Planning Software Company Gate5 in August 2006. That time, it really made the statement that soon high charging navigation companies & gadgets will be out of market and normal users, who might have heard of it in flight navigation like big things only, will have their piece of cake right into their hands. Being the largest cellfone manufacturer of world and known for longer life batteries, it was expected to be a real life thing and it became the same.

With Smart2Go, Nokia was using Tele Atlas NV, but later, the rival full time navigation giant TomTom acquired the same and before it could hurt Nokia, Nokia acquired Navteq (which earlier was powering Google Maps) to keep this lovely child within their own hands (it still operates independently under Nokia) and Smart2Go became a core part of Nokia Product line with the name, we been familiar from long Nokia Maps, which later on after association with Ovi Services and Ovi Suit renamed to Ovi Maps by public beta on August 28, 2008. So, this was the story behind Ovi Maps as we see it today.

Why Ovi?

“Ovi” is a Finnish word that stands for “Door” and it really opened the door for so many possibilities. Ovi Sync, Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, Ovi Mails, Ovi Share, Ovi Files, Ovi Player etc. It really changed the way, a normal user was using the Smartphone. Personally myself loved the way, I kept my contacts synced on all my Smartphones.

How Navigation devices work for mobiles?

This all started due to regulation encouragement for mobile phone tracking that was associated with E911 then (Enhanced-911) and lots of mobile phones started having built-in receivers with varying degrees of coverage and user accessibility.

There been one class of mobile devices, who works on A-GPS means wont work once out of range of their carrier’s cell towers and the another class that works worldwide on satellite GPS signals like dedicated GPS devices. Even the third class has been introduced as hybrid positioning system, which usages other signals like wi-fi spots etc.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is actually a constellation of 27 Earth-orbiting satellites (24 in operation and three extras in case one fails, though I am not sure about the numbers actually). The U.S. military developed and implemented this satellite network as a military navigation system, but soon opened it up to everybody else. Later many others joined the same like China, like Google with its own Satelites and its became an open world, when GPS tracking is concerned.

Each of these 3,000- to 4,000-pound solar-powered satellites circles the globe at about 12,000 miles (19,300 km), making two complete rotations every day. The orbits are arranged so that at any time, anywhere on Earth, there are at least four satellites "visible" in the sky.

A GPS receiver’s job is to locate four or more of these satellites, figure out the distance to each, and use this information to deduce its own location. This operation is based on a simple mathematical principle called trilateration. Trilateration in three-dimensional space can be a little tricky, for those interested in details, can check always amazing HowStuffWorks link or also the other link to know that how at least 8 satellites are always in line of sight or each position on earth still due to a number of factors, its always mentioned that the accuracy should be taken up to 15 m to 20 m .

What makes Nokia’s Ovi Maps different and better?

Nokia made it possible to reach this technology right into hands of common people, not only that but Nokia used Free Hybrid Vector design specially made of mobile usage and provides offline Maps (No Network coverage required, though if available then will assist in locking the location fast). Moreover, the coverage of over 180 countries make it best maps with best global coverage that even go up to street level navigation for 74 countries in 46 different languages (must be more by now).

When I am talking about Languages, then yes!! not only text, but Nokia started providing Voice based turn by turn navigation for many of its devices. I have used it several times (regularly you say) and always been fascinated by its accuracy. I really wonder sometimes that it knows my city and even street much better than any person living here from years. Yeah!! though these maps get updated only twice a year (might be the frequency increased by now), so there are limitation about quick and shot-lived changes, but even then you must give them credit for devising such a great system that much available to you.

I personally praised Google Maps a lot like Google’s other services, but still I must accept that Google stands behind when the actual usability for mass is concerned. Yes!! Google is excellent about coverage, about searching addresses and about other innovations like Street View and so clear satellite view, but what are you paying? Google’s Maps are always rendered online means they are of no use once you out of coverage (leave the data charges aside and draining of battery aside), moreover, still Voice based turn by turn navigation reached to only Android 2.0 devices (none of them below 25k I guess), while Nokia is providing you turn by turn voice guidance for life time free on devices costing around 10k.

Google might be great about Route Planning before start your travel and it would be quite handy to keep a route instruction generated by Google Maps including local landmarks etc, but you never know what network reception will you get while on the way, so Ovi Maps does matter a lot.

High Data Charges, Inability to serve without Network coverage and Non-availability of Voice based turn-by-turn navigation for low cost devices, there are the three points, which keeps Google still behind when it comes to actual mass and keep you fascinated that how Nokia actually does it?

Nitish Kumar