Technobabble

Too many of the core team members found themselves unavailable over the last few weekends, so there hasn’t been an episode in a while. We will be back shortly.

Our first guests on the podcast this week!

Kiran and Anshul talk with Shwetank, from Opera, who tells us all about HTML5 and how Opera’s “web openers” go about making the web more open (other than publishing wonderful docs like the Web Standards Curriculum). Ravi gives us an insight into the wonderful world of exploring technology for teaching and creativity at Jaaga, and points us to some wonderful talks by Sugata Mitra.

We also discussed the apparent blocking of various websites by the Department of Telecom in India.

Do let us know what you thought of the podcast, and give us topic suggestions for upcoming shows in the comments!

Do you have any suggestions for the Technobabble Podcast? We’ve received these:

1. One-hour episodes are too long. They should to be shorter.
2. The recording could do with more production effort. Audio could be better edited.
3. An introduction to the topics within the audio segment would be nice. This would require the hosts to summarize the topics after each show and then insert that back at the beginning.
4. Web listeners could get a richer experience if the post was tagged with topics, with each tag leading directly to a point in the audio.
5. The content of each episode should be a mix of war stories and discussion of the news.

Please tell us what you would like to see and hear in the podcast.

PS: We made a Facebook page.

Balaji and Kiran make a last ditch effort to get episode 5 recorded, in a half length session with guest member Sameer Panchangam. Topics:

• Balaji raves about how his Blackberry lasts four days on a single charge. A typical Android can barely manage a day.
• Sameer pitches in to rave about the Thunderbolt port on the new MacBook Pro line-up.
• Kiran rants for the rest of the session on how long it took to get HasGeek registered as a business.

The regular crew are all unavailable this weekend. We are scrambling to put together a guest crew for a delayed episode. Leave a comment here if you would like to be a part of it.

The show hosts continue to surprise themselves by bringing out yet another episode of the technobabble podcast with Kiran, Deepak, Hitesh and Anshul.

In this show:

• More war stories from Kiran, starring over-enthusiastic font-destroying printer folks and unreasonably reasonable autorickshaw drivers as doctypehtml5 goes to vibrant Ahmedabad
• The HTML5 hype
• Likes and dislikes for the Honeycomb UI
• The new Apple Tax on ebook apps on the iOS platforms and why Apple seems uninterested in India
• Google calling out bing: the Larry Page effect? Also Google, Bing and Blekko try different tactics to combat web spam

[Download podcast MP3]

“The Conferences, Communication & Collaboration Edition”

Defying all expectations, Balaji, Kiran, Deepak & Hitesh  reassemble on schedule for another podcast! Show topics this time include:

- Hasgeek (un)conferences and the state of tech conferences in India
- What would it take to get people from Indian Software consultancies & In-house Development teams to attend tech conferences?
- Is IRC finally fashionable again?
- Google’s recent mis-steps
- Where do you get your tech-news from?

Comments welcome at this blog or at technobabble -dot- podcast [at] gmail. Thanks to HasGeek for providing hosting & support!

[ Download podcast MP3 ]

(Episode Running Time – 41:15, 22.5 MB)

In this episode, our first in the “rebooted” format – Anshul, Deepak, Kiran & Balaji rant & rave (well mostly rant) about the technology news & happenings that affected them the most in 2010. Show topics include:

- The Gawker Hack
- Yahoo killing Delicious
- OpenID

- Programming Jargon (like the Yoda condition)
- Cross Platform Apps we love (including Whatsapp,Beluga & Kindle)

Comments welcome at this blog or at technobabble -dot- podcast [at] gmail.

[ Download podcast MP3 ]

(Episode Running Time – 1:02:18, 41.9 MB)

[ Download podcast MP3 ]

In our second podcast, Ashwin Kumar, Balaji Dutt, Deepak Jois, Deepak Sarda and Hitesh Sarda get all chatty about their backup strategies. Each one of us has his own unique action plan for that unfortunate day when our disks might fail. Later, we also discuss the stupendous success of the iPhone Appstore and contrast with the app space for Google Android cellphones.

For the second time in a row, we apologize for the poor sound quality of the podcast. You can be sure the minions are getting a talking to.

Send feedback to technobabble -dot- podcast [at] gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Show Notes

• Hitesh on what would his ultimate backup utility look like
• Mark Pilgrim on the challenges of long-term backups
• The Woot Shirt

[ Download podcast MP3 ]

In our maiden podcast, we get together and talk about Google Wave.

Is it a brave new step to boldly go where no web giant has gone before, or merely a mashup of pre-existing tools? An attempt to capture some enterprise market share or to fundamentally change the way the Internet works? Will we see massive gains in worker productivity or the advent of real-time spam from Nigeria? We discuss!

Hosts: Deepak Sarda, Ashwin Nanjappa, Anshul Nigham, Hitesh Sarda and Amit Jain.

Get the MP3 recording of this episode here. Forgive our (lack of) editing skills, we really do hope to do better next time.

Comments welcome at this blog or at technobabble -dot- podcast [at] gmail.

Thanks for listening!

Show Notes

Google Wave Demo
Does Google Wave threaten other collaborative tools?