Google has officially announced on the Play Store that its “pure Android” experience tablet Nexus 7 is coming to India soon at an attractive price of Rs. 15,999. Made by Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Asus, the Nexus 7 tablet comes loaded with Android Jelly Bean, easily the most customisable mobile operating system there is, and bookings are open through the Google Play store — you can reach this on your web browser.
The pricing is Rs. 3,000 lower than the retail price of the device that hit popular electronics stores some months earlier, when Asus India imported the device from Singapore. The WiFi-only device is reasonably well-priced to compete with the likes of the iPad mini. The other big advantage is that Google Play seems to offer more local Apps than any other mobile operating system — be it iOS or Windows 8. Besides the Jelly Bean device comes loaded with Google’s innovative Google Play App that seems to be attracting as much wows as it is raising privacy concerns.
Without a doubt, Nexus 7 seems to be the best Android tablet around.
TED talks come to radio
In what they claim is a first of its kind initiative in India, Chennai’s English FM station Chennai Live 104.8 will bring to listeners from April the popular TED Radio Hour, a series curated by National Public Radio (NPR).
The radio station will air a new episode on Mondays from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and the repeat broadcast will be on Wednesdays (11 a.m. to noon). The schedule will run through the year with a new episode presented every week. One of the highlights of the presentation — as insisted upon by the TED Committee — will be that no music or ad would be played during the course of the talks that run to a duration of 52 minutes. So listeners can soak in the brilliance of world famous talks on topics ranging from “The Future of Cities,” “Building a Better Classroom,” and “Do We Need Humans?”
Prem Kumar, COO of Chennai Live, commenting on bringing TED talks to FM, said, “As India’s first talk radio station targeted at an intelligent audience, we have always believed that Radio as a medium can deliver much more than being the juke box it has become today. To that extent, TED Radio Hour will present some of the world’s best ideas by people who are redefining the future.”
TED is a non-profit organisation founded in 1984 committed to “ideas worth spreading”. The TED Talk videos are among the most viral videos online.
Chennai’s tryst with TED talks in recent times has not been all that great, especially with the licence for TEDx — the independently organised TED conferences — getting cancelled over various complaints. Hopefully, the new TED experience on radio will be a good comeback.
