Was the Kitkat India contest held to clear stock of unsold Nexus 7 (2012) ?

The news of alleged cheating of Kitkat Nexus 7 contest winners by Nestle India has been circulating all over the web since Monday 9 Dec, 2013. Many prominent websites and forums reported that the Kitkat Nexus 7 contest winners of India were shortchanged with an outdated Nexus 7 (2012) tablet instead of the promised "all new exclusive" Nexus 7 (2013) device.

So was this act by Nestle India, a way to clear the unsold stock of Nexus 7 (2012) tablets in India. This original stock android tablet was not much popular in India since it did not have any microSD slots, SIM card slot or any Primary camera at all.

Well, the regular price drops that have taken place after the launch of it's successor, the latest Nexus 7 (2013) indicates that the retail stores and eCommerce bigwigs were indeed speeding up to try and clear the stock of Nexus 7 (2012). It may also includes the Google Play store India.

Following timeline would help in analyzing this controversy that may give the answer to the question line of this post's title.

CLICK HERE for the Detailed Explanatory Timeline ( Also see timeline in Text View )

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QR-Code vs NFC - Which one will die a slow death ?

If you know what the image on the left is, you may well scan it using your smartphone to be led to this website's homepage automatically.

It's called a QR code (Quick Response code). These are the modern version of the BAR codes. It can contain information in text, numbers, binary, URL, etc. 

To read the information, a scanner is focused on it. It was originally developed by Toyota in 1994 to track vehicle parts in production. Nowadays we can use QR scanner apps on phones to read such codes through the phone's camera.

Numerous applications are possible with QR codes including advertising, website log in, payments and social networking. We will now see what the future holds for QR code and whether NFC will take over?

KitKat Nexus 7 Winners in India cheated ??

Why KitKat gave away Nexus 7 "2012" instead of promised Nexus 7 "2013" ?

See the above picture. On to the left is the specification of Nexus 7 (2012) 16GB from Flipkart and to the right is the snapshot of the package shipped to Kitkat winners. Compare the part number and other details, and you know it is Nexus 7 (2012) 16GB version that is being given away to Kitkat Winners in India.

NFC - Waving it's way into the Future of Automation and Connectivity

If future is the way to go, sooner or later, you could well be making a tip at your favorite restaurant through your smartphone ! Want to know how? Yes, cash is slowly sliding into a slow death. With ever growing gadgets around us utilizing the Internet more and more, supported by popularity of e-commerce sites like ebay and Flipkart, decline of currency note seems evident.

So what technology is likely to become a de-facto standard of payments at restaurants, retails and transport and replace traditional cards?

Media Remote - Android app for Sony devices with Touch, Text, Voice and Gesture Interface

Media Remote is an android application for selected SONY devices like Blu-ray Player, Blu-ray Home Theater, BRAVIA TV and VAIO notebook. It provides multiple Interfaces on your mobile device to control such media devices. 

Since it works through WiFi, it is possible to control the media device away from line of sight, for instance to pause music on a Blu-ray player in your drawing room from your bedroom. Your Blu-ray player must be connected to a WiFi router/Access point to use the Media Remote functions. As long as your mobile device is in WiFi signal range, you can use your imagination to find many uses. It's alphanumeric text input makes it easy to browse the internet on TV through your mobile device. Use it's voice input capability to search the web or YouTube videos on TV. Your stock remote that came with the TV or Blu-ray player were never designed for browsing internet. A fancy yet sometime useful function of this remote control app is Gesture control.

Free calls to USA from India - Use Gmail to Make Free Calls to regular phone numbers in the US and Canada.

We all know about the popular Google Voice Service. It's a VoIP based service through which any person with a Google Voice account can call any regular phone number from a PC or mobile phone connected to the Internet. 

For a user residing in USA or Canada, the calls from Google Voice account are absolutely free within the country limits. For users outside North America the calls are charged according to rates specified by Google. The rates are the cheapest among any other VoIP service or Telecom service providers worldwide. Unfortunately this hugely popular service is not yet available to Google users in India.

HDMI Switch - Are cheap HDMI switches reliable ?

3x1 HDMI Switch (Passive)

If your home HDTV has ran out of HDMI Ports due to increasing HDMI compatible devices nowadays, you could well use a low cost HDMI switch to solve the problem. Also if you are having a budget or outdated HDTV with just one HDMI port and want to connect your  newly acquired HDMI enabled devices, you could well put the money into this type of switch. Using a HDMI switch makes it easy to switch between multiple HDMI capable devices like your Blu-ray Player, DVD Player, Playstation, XBOX, Notebook, Tablet, Smartphone and even Satellite/Cable TV Set-Top Box.

Katrina Kaif is on Top - A Tech Perspective with Google Insights

This post aims to gauge the hotness factor or the recall factor of five top Indian celebrity women over the past eight years. The source of data is "Google Insights for Search", a very exciting research tool created by Google to examine the volume of search of popular words on its search engine.With "Insights" we can realize the varying popularity quotient of these celebrities and how people in different regions and cities in India give attention to these attractive women. This method could also gives resourceful Information to Companies on when to market their products.

Following are the five women celebrities chosen for analysis: