Adam kills Steve?! / And yes! Adam takes a bite of Apple's iPad!!

two blogs to follow! This is very stressful!

So, there's a new Adam 2 development blog with a couple of posts. I've got no opinion on them yet. Hey, if it's to chart development of a new device, fine. Just don't make statements and promises you can't keep or make outlandish claims.

Meanwhile, our literary genius is back with an updated version of his 2011 article - "India's Adam takes a bite of Apple's ipad" Yeah! I thought that was obvious, no?

This piece of brilliance first appeared in May 2011. And again, with a few modifications, re-appeared 2 days ago. Here are a few gems if you're too impatient to read the article,

"But now comes the hardware hunt led by Bangalore-based tablet computer maker Notion Ink and suddenly the likes of Apple are sitting up and taking notice." - O RLY!



"That’s because the most exciting tablet on the planet currently is not the Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab or Motorola’s Xoom but Notion Ink’s Adam" - Holy Guacamole, O RLY!!!

"have developed a tablet computer that has ruptured the fabric of the electronics universe" - WOW! O RLY!!



"The Adam also suffered at the hands of amateurish tech writers" - hahahah! Oh the irony!

"The Adam is still relatively unknown and Apple has a seemingly unbeatable lead" - uh... I thought you said something else at the beginning. Oh wait, you were too lazy to edit the article to make it appropriate for 2012. Got it.

“Right now we are into the process of scaling up and looking for more talent,” says Shravan, who managed a coup of sorts by poaching people from iTunes." - There we go again. It was supposed to be some "iTunes support people" or some such thing, we all know how that turned out.



The only thing this article did not say was that Steve died due to anxiety caused by Adam. I can almost imagine this author writing a new article

"Adam kills Steve!"

or some such thing and make a few outlandish statements all over again.

And finally - "Rakesh Krishnan Simha is a New Zealand-based writer. He has previously worked with leading Indian publications like Businessworld, India Today and Hindustan Times". I worry for the future of our news papers.

Anyway,



 

Note: Courtesy of all images/source : http://my.opera.com/o_rly/albums/show.dml?id=37656

Those who do not learn from history...Notion Ink Adam II (Adam 2)

Rohan Shravan announced the much awaited (ok, not really) Adam II (a.k.a Notion Ink Adam 2) recently. That's fine - it's time a new product was announced, I've got no problem with that. But it's how it was announced, and what the announcement contains that caught my eye.

Once again, we're back in Notion Ink dreamland - the place where much gets said and little gets done. Now we're in "Adam II will release the world’s first Modular Based Software Architecture which will further expand the scope of application development and use nearly every single hardware feature in a “user customizable” application" land. What the hell does that mean? For many, many years we've heard of similar concepts, none succeeding really well. And that's because it's incredibly complex to implement in real life. But here we go, the geniuses that gave us Adam I will now release the "world's first", whatever that is.

This is a fantastic example of what I've said repeatedly - this company and its founder do not learn from their mistakes. What I would have expected is a single post - something like this -

"All, were' happy to announce the development of Adam II. It will utilize the <platform>. We will take a different path for Adam II as compared to Adam I, and we have learned from our mistakes.

Here's x, y, z what we did wrong, here are steps a, b, c we've taken to rectify it and ensure it doesn't happen again, and here's our plan for Adam II and Adam I owners - here's what you can expect <list of things>

We want to create a high quality product and set no unrealistic expectations. We have several interesting ideas in mind and we hope to bring them to you in due time.

<conclude>"

That way you don't set yourself up for an expectation trap. Allow yourself to work unhindered. And then hopefully wow the world with some great features. Instead what we get is a big can of gas - an announcement of the next generation device with a promise so grand that it's going to setup super high expectations all over again. Not many are buying it this time, going also by the comments. Very wisely so - fool me once...

What does this augur? Well, another disappointment when it releases, hich is why I'm starting a new tab in the next day or two to record all the commitments he makes about Adam II - starting with this "World's first modular whatever whatever"

Looks like we're back to spinning stories again, boys.

And Adam I owners, you know the writing on the wall. You just got abandoned -- actually it isn't that bad, because you were pretty much abandoned since Adam I launched anyway.

In my next post I will link a literary masterpiece that has resurfaced with some modifications. Irresistible. And then let's take a look at all the "partners" he talks about, shall we?

I... I'll just leave this here...

NI compensation to TR developers - II / My message to TR developers

See Part I here: http://jksaur.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/the-question-of-ni-compensation-tr-developers/

Also read this post http://jksaur.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/adam-2-is-finally-announced-thank-you-mr-rohan-shravan/ for context

In my last post, I said NI needs to do the right thing by compensating TR developers. One of the key developers made it clear that he wasn't being paid, but was doing it out of interest and recognition. Fair enough.

Now, look at who the whole thing is spinning. Here are the facts based on information on NI's on blog and responses in TR blog. (Note also that if you search for Notion Ink ICS then almost all media articles position it as from Notion Ink, not from a small set of TR developers toiling for free)

1. Notion Ink announced Adam II with ICS support. This is a commercial company that says it is releasing ICS - officially. Can they clarify that this is not / will not be  TR's version?

2. If it is TR's version, can we agree with what I said that a commercial company is getting its platform for free?

3. Look Rohan Shravan's own words on TR contribution "I understand your view, but the fact that ICS is not done in-house is not correct. We haven’t released the ICS build till now. There is an update button in settings, unless that gets active all ROMs are alpha ROMs. We also need to get the community up and engaged. Mr Deadlocked is not alone, and it’s not that we don’t have special relations with them, but I don’t find I fair to publish or share our relations with TR" - there are many things wrong with this.

He says "it's not done in-house is incorrect" which means we should assume ICS development is being done in-house. By NI. But we know to the extent we do that all releases so far were essentially TR's version.

He says "we need to get the community up and engaged" as if NI had a hand in engaging TR and developing them. Not that it was essentially TR's work that kept NI alive!

He also says it's not fair to publish relations with TR - that's hypocritical. On one hand he talks of community engagement, and then talks of secret arrangements.

Does it mean when ICS button becomes enabled, it will be a NI developed ICS and not TR's, Can anybody confirm that?

Having read this official announcement and Rohan's official clarification that "ICS not being done in-house is not true",

My conflict is this (links below) - NI refuses to acknowledge that TR did most/all of the work for ICS, and TR says their devs did most of the work and NI gave some "helpful" information. That's contradictory, so where's the credit where it's due?

Here's my message to the TR developers.

1. Stop development on ICS - now. If NI has a in-house work going on this shouldn't affect them, right? Seriously, time to stand up and not be taken for a ride. At least ask for explicit explanation of the relationship, and credit to developers for doing ICS for them.

2. Ask for a short term paid contract. I really mean this. They are announcing official ICS. That means it's time you do what's right in such a circumstance - ask for payment unless NI comes out and explicitly says that ICS is not from TR. A proper compensation is warranted!

3. Rohan talks of some relationship with TR, clearly doesn't acknowledge that TR is doing all the work, and TR admins aren't clear about it either - for e.g. read this thread, TR admin says their devs did all the work and NI provided some drivers and "helpful information" whatever that means. Why should an open community partnership be so murky?

I cannot believe that there people still out there behaving like this is all OK and right.

Adam 2 is finally announced. Thank you Mr. Rohan Shravan

Now I have so much more to write about. I've got much to write about that post (damn, I'm falling behind because I still haven't managed to get to his interview in TR)

But there is something that really got me going, and here is the exerpt from the Notion Ink blog,

http://notionink.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/notion-ink-partners-with-texas-instruments/#comments

This is a statement from the CEO of Notion Ink.

I understand your view, but the fact that ICS is not done in-house is not correct. We haven’t released the ICS build till now. There is an update button in settings, unless that gets active all ROMs are alpha ROMs. We also need to get the community up and engaged. Mr Deadlocked is not alone, and it’s not that we don’t have special relations with them, but I don’t find I fair to publish or share our relations with TR.

This is very, very interesting - and I think it's time to tie a few things. Post coming tomorrow, partially addressing TR developers.

(And then I'll turn my attention to Adam II)

Update: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/21/notion-ink-adam-ii-omap-4/ -engadget weighed in. I'm falling behind! No!

When will we learn...

I hadn't known about the Aakash tablet debacle until I read a comment (see previous post comments), thanks for pointing it out Nishit.

As I read it... I was like:



I mean seriously. It's a fucking $35 tablet and these geniuses in "IIT" decide that the device be tested against military grade specifications which apparently were mostly copied from a HP notebook spec!

In other news - Remember a while ago I mentioned there was a tablet called "Ave" (not the mythical Notion Ink Eve) which again was a low cost, high quality tablet designed or created by some boy genius? No news about them since then.

I really wish all these boy geniuses, prodigies etc. would just keep their mouth shut, do some quality work, and impress by releasing something that's market ready in a true sense.

I'm the exception of course, my upcoming jksaur MADAM tablet is totally different and worthy of all the hype. You know, "Why Adam when you can have MADAM"

the jksaur MADAM tablet

some actually searched for the "jksaur madam tablet" based on my past post. No, seriously.



It's coming, just finalizing the details of the tablet on the very computer that does this blog, so hold on to your panties.

The question of NI compensation TR developers

update: see mrdeadlocked comment at the bottom of this post

By now it is more than clear that any work on ICS for the Notion Ink Adam is coming from a couple of developers who were part of the TabletRoms community.

A commercial for-profit company is relying solely on a group of community developers for the development of its software platform. Also, given that there is no alternative to this community supported development, one could see this as essentially dedicated development for the device of a commercial company, in other words - professional services.

So how is this effort being compensated?

See this post: In essence, NI (edit: correction - see bottom of this post) provided a donation less than the value of  a laptop to a brilliant developer who is currently unemployed (at the time of the post) so he can develop software that essentially is the only source for the company's ICS future!

If this has changed since then, then ignore the rest of this post, and I applaud NI for compensating him fairly and doing the right thing. If I'm made aware of it, I will edit the rest of this post. If not, read on.

Great developers aren't cheap. I'm aware of hourly rates exceeding $150/hr for top programmers.  I am personally aware of contract rates of close to a $1000 a day. (Even on  oDesk good developers charge 30+ $/hr.) I'm sure NI cannot pay that kind of rate, I don't expect it to given its size. But there are avenues for fair compensation

- contract employment - x months @ y$ a month

- hourly payment

- equity share in the company

- committed future payment $ based on company performance

- one time sizeable bonus on completion of ICS

you know, anything! Not a little donation by the side. Unfortunately the developers set themselves up for a no escape situation. If they back out now, they become the villains. They have an unsaid obligation to continue regardless of whether NI does anything about it or not (apart from praises on the blog), and therefore I see it as the company's responsibility to make fixes.

This company is now talking of next generation products, all kinds of technology,  surely such a company has the necessary financial backing to compensate its critical developers?

To those who come crying to this blog saying the developers work is a labor of love, for the good of the community, it's open source and nonsense like that, consider this: This development is EXPLICITLY for a commercial device of a for-profit company*. I would agree if NI made a commitment to its user base that its products would be subsidized to a level of non-profit sale and would sustain itself by other means than sale of the tablet. I would also agree if there were multiple alternatives and the company was  allowing 3rd party software to be used on its platform, apart from its own stable, usable software. But that is not the case! If TR developers stopped development of ICS tomorrow, is there an alternative? One directly from the company?

There is another critical issue to consider - when a company gets pampered getting its most critical work done for next to nothing, it cheapens the importance of the skills. It also sets up a behavior that critical work can be done for commercial purposes for very little by paying lip service to "community engagement." Community engagement means little if all meetings on product roadmap were "behind closed doors" and the TR rep. couldn't get an interview from NI during CES, so much for valuing TR as a partner. 

My message is this to Notion Ink: If you have already compensated the developers to a satisfactory degree, then great - I appreciate that, and applause.

If not, then quit talking about future generation and this and that, and ensure this dev team gets its fair share along with a announcing a roadmap of what happens to Adam and support to it.

(Of course, no one wants to consider what happens if the developer finds a job, doesn't have time to support post release issues, where is formal bug tracking on NI's site and so on... but let's leave it for now)

* Kind of like saying Linus and the army of Linux kernel developers write code that's only for Oracle which in turn sells their machines with Linux and makes money off of it, while paying nothing to the developers. How "open source" is that?

-----------------------

UPDATE: mrdeadlocked - one of the key developers in question - posted this comment (see in comments)

"Sup all. Just to clarify this. Rohit sent me a donation solely from himself. I even clarified it with him that it wasn’t specifically compensation ‘for’ anything specific. At the very least it wasn’t from Notion Ink as a company.  As far as I know, none of the team has received anything besides community donations."

-----------------------

There you go. I guess they're getting it for free then. Sweet deal.

Update 2: Looks like this post needs a Part II. coming soon (not NI soon, but "jksaur soon" ;)  which is a day or two)

Notion Ink and TabletRoms -- I don't get this partnership thing

Bear with me here. Let's look at a couple of statements here,

On 24th Dec Rohan Shravan, CEO of Notion Ink, said this:

"Having said that, TR team is going to play far major role we are seeing here. I want to take the whole group past just making ROMs, and change the way tablet works. They have been very forthcoming and lot of their ideas are going into next generation products already!"

I infer the following:

- TR is going to play a major role.

- Their input will go into the next generation products (and also has gone, already)

If you see the latest blog posts, it's more than clear that TR is a major contributor to keeping the original Adam alive, and getting to ICS. So in that sense, considering that the platforms software is coming from TR and that the CEO himself said that TR ideas are going into next generation products / and that he wants to take the whole group past making ROMs, one would think he would pay a bit more attention to TR?

Pause for a while. TR is not 1 person or a 3 persons. It's a community. It's an open community. Therefore, anyone benefiting from it, and saying explicitly that they want to take this community forward, and that the community is playing  a major role in the upcoming products, should engage this community a bit more, no?

And yet, this is what he said post CES "All meetings were private and confidential, and purely meant for business (in fact only business development team was at CES)"

Wait. There was someone from TR trying to talk to CES, and they couldn't at all. Why is everything on the next gen confidential, if an open community is providing ideas and software for them? So essentially

What do I write on?! OK, let's pick dual warranty

There's so much to write about.

1. Notion Ink's "so far" no news in CES 2012

2. My view on Notion Ink ICS development and developer compensation

3. A closer look at the Rohan Shravan recent "interview" on TR

4. And attached to (3), what is "dual warranty?"

5. Announcement of the jksaur MADAM tablet, with invitation only pre-order payments reserved for current Notion Ink fans - especially those on the NI blog.

I'll get to CES and ICS / developer compensation a bit later. For now, let's talk about dual warranty ladies and gentlemen, for this is another concept from the CEO himself.

Here is the source (post #59) in the TR interview. It's a gem of an interview, and I pointed to one of them recently

In this interview, he said something interesting -

"We intend to release 2 variants of warranties, one specially for Hackers and Geeks to ensure this is not an issue"

Now mind you, I'm more than certain he says things just to please an audience. Has he even thought what this might actually mean in the real world - i.e. if he believed his words carried any weight?

Let's ask a few fundamental questions -

How does one qualify for a hacker warranty? Do you just have to ask while buying? Is there a hacker-certification process? Why should any buyers buy a non-hacker warranty if they could buy a hacker warranty that lets them fiddle with the device and not be held accountable for it? How do you advertise 2 types of warranties on the product pages? Will there be a different website? Does that mean hackers get different, poorly functional devices they can hack into? How will the legal, operations, returns, service be setup to handle implications of 2 types of warranties? Can people switch between them?

I can bet that not one iota of thought went into the statement. For a small company it's bad enough to maintain multiple configurations of devices, now imagine dealing with 2 types of warranties to boot. I have never heard of hacker-warranties or different warranties on the same device - maybe they exist and I don't know about them. Maybe you pay differently based on warranty - a higher fee for hacker friendly ones? I have no clue. So your devices on sale would have A devices  x B variants x 2 warranty prices. It's crazy!

Oh, don't ask about this on any forums though, you'll upset people...

Next - compensation to TR developers... now that's something.

Oh, this one's going to my list of "things said", so I'll revisit this at a later date.

Quick (but useless) update on Notion Ink in CES 2012

day 2 - So some indications (see TR thread) that Rohan Shravan, CEO of Notion Ink, could not make it to CES at all due to visa issues*. Don't know who's there from NI - Varun Nand Chahal? "VP of operations". So far no announcement I see, no news, nothing on the blog. I also see no announcement so far on TR's own thread on any new interview with the CEO. Nothing on twitter either (at this time). There is someone from the TR community out there in CES but it doesn't seem like he's hit gold either.

I can tell from the traffic on my site that there's some people really hungry for news on NI in CES - and NI isn't giving them any. Come to me folks, I'll make up stuff for you. I'll even make up stuff on NI's behalf if you want, because either way, what's said ain't gonna happen  ;)

Anyway, there's still 2 more days to go. We'll find out if Eve exists if she's just a pretty figment of someone's imagination.

* Not blaming NI for this one, unless of course they did something dumb like filing for visa too late or with wrong paperwork. I know for a fact that US visa process is a darned nightmare of epic proportions and people get rejected for flimsy reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if his visa got turned down for some silly reason.

Notion Ink in CES 2012 Las Vegas

I just provided a nice heading with no information, because I don't have any. So far it's been all quiet on the western front as far as Notion Ink's announcements in CES 2012 goes. Someone should drop into Hilton Suites Booth 28-102 and check them out.

As I mentioned in my previous post Notion Ink has entered Adam and Eve (when they say Adam I assume Adam 2) into CES showcase. However, we've heard of Eve only in passing references in the past in the the forums and little directly from Notion Ink.

As far as I can tell, there's no coverage of NI in CES - I haven't seen (as of this writing, or perhaps I missed it somewhere) anything about NI in Engadget (oh look, Transformer has Ice Cream Sandwich ICS), CNET, Gizmodo, techcrunch. Of course, today is day-0 so it's possible NI will come out with guns blazing in the next 2 days, amazing everyone with Adam 2 and Eve.

There is also no mention of CES in Notion Ink's blog, am not railing on it - just sayin'. Perhaps this time they prefer to be quiet about it than make a big noise, and that's fine by me. Better do than talk.

My guess? Perhaps an updated spec of Adam, and I doubt Eve. If there's an Eve maybe it's a OEM phone running some stock software, but maybe they'll prove me wrong ;)

Lot of effort into something you don't believe in...

From the TR interview "Msg2me - How does your company attract talent?
RS: Serendipity actually. I have never believed in interviewing people and then hiring them. Interviews are useless, you just can't learn about anyone in an interview. Generally we'd like to talk to their friends, facebook profile, their past work and most importantly talk to their partners who were engaged with them in a project"

Fine. I don't quite agree with that approach but to each his own. But... he said he "has never believed" which seems to indicate that this belief was held forever, not changed recently.

and yet just a few months ago...

"Had some 100+ interviews in last 2 weeks..." July 26th 2011.

"Design, UI and animation team has also been expanded. (In fact in last 3 weeks, we have had around 80+ interview (I attend all))" March 3, 2011

(so just from the 2 above sentences I gather there were > 180 interviews...)

Err... why attend so many interviews if... you know... never believed in...? Or perhaps it's necessary to attend 180 interviews to, you know, confirm that they're useless...?

Boo!

So much for my resolution, but I'm open to come back and say I killed myself prematurely. Or rather, my announcement of my death was premature.



I just can't resist...

So. I'm back.



BTW here's an interesting link about fusion garage, which at one point seemed promising.

And I'm giddy with glee on some of Notion Ink Responses to questions posed on the TR CES 2012 thread



animated cat images - source

I just realized...

[edited/removed. Blah blah blah something about me moving on, good bye and other tear dropping sentimental stuff, loud crying and so on. turns out I ain't goin' nowhere]

CES 2012 is around the corner (Jan 10 - 13)

CES 2012 is here and here's Notion Ink's entry

Interesting - they've mentioned 2 brands, Adam and Eve.

Pleasant surprises?

Good bye to TabletRoms (TR)

I was a participant on TabletRoms (TR) for a while - even before it became TR. And all throughout, I've admired how this community grew, and how its developers have helped the Notion Ink Adam owners (and increasingly others too) and have, more than once, praised them on this blog and on their forums.

However, I recently decided to logoff for one final time when a post became personal, and it  was made more than clear that I wasn't wanted. It wasn't that opinions challenging a NI favoured view were countered, argued or debated - it's just that they could not be said at all.  Such posts were viewed as "negative" / "not constructive." - more like "don't say it because we don't like to hear it"

To me, asking questions, keeping a company to its word, checking if they're following up on what they say, repeating when necessary, they're all constructive actions. You can see that I link NI's words from their own blog and interviews as evidence. But it seems all we can do is praise, provide technical solutions, or be able to code like gods which unfortunately I cannot. The way I see it, it would have been right to tell me I'm wrong, correct me, point me to the right facts, ignore me, debate with me, find faults in my arguments -- but the path taken was essentially to silence the voice because it doesn't sing the same tune.

As much as I continue to admire their work, this is a gentle caution. Non-tolerance to contrary views (when not abusive / personal) and remarks is a slippery slope. If you  cannot criticize the company, cannot criticize the product, cannot criticize the admins, cannot criticize developers, cannot even ask probing questions without being told to shut up, it will slowly choke discussion and debate. Recently I've seen more than one example (not involving me) where even innocent, gentle questions were attacked.

I see the quandary some of the TR folks find themselves in - it's their forum they built, a lot of hard work went into it, and now NI is paying some "bounty" (reward money I guess) for some work, some of the TR devs are benefiting for contributions from NI. This creates a conflict of interest - and reduces the ability to step back and not step-in unless comments are abusive or personal (which in most cases were not).

There were  3 roads they could take, given their unique position and influence with Notion Ink.

a) Active role  - often reaching into NI and getting them to answer difficult questions & owning up to responsibilities while supporting them and their community, even if benefiting from NI for certain aspects. Play a strong mutual give-and-take role.

b) Be an independent / hands-off party - take no sides, and take no benefit from the company so as to maintain a neutral stance

c) Benefit from NI / stand behind them - maintain a positive spin for the company and its product even in the forums and keep contrary opinions limited / discouraged

I'm sad that they chose (c). With their influence, having NI's ear, they could have played an interesting role in bringing an incompetent company to a higher level. But by tolerating such poor performance they've only reinforced what NI has always been able to get away with - sloppy performance, vague answers, all the while benefiting from the good work of the developers on a community forum.

There is also another way, which is, instead of lip service to posting freedom, simply make it very clear that members must (a) contribute via code, beta testing etc. or (b) post something nice. Nothing else is permitted - that way it can be a close knit community of all like minded people.

Unlike NI, I have no doubts that TR will continue to grow and serve its community well. Just that I'm not the right type of member.

Come along for the ride, once again - Kivy and Notion Ink

I have much to write, from NI's "compensation" to its TR ICS developers to my sad "divorce" from TR, but first let's turn our attention to Notion Ink's latest blockbuster post.

This is what I inferred from the posts, and you can comment on the merits of these statements. The text in "italics" is the original text from the blog post

1. "Notion Ink is an active contributor for this project" All I could gather from the reading & looking at Kivy's own site, is that Notion Ink is giving an year-old ADAM as the 1st prize in the contest (sorry, winners). I also checked the Kivy github AUTHORS file and it's not clear to me what NI is contributing to code or design. From Kivy's own blog, all they say is "The contest is sponsored by NotionInk, an indian company that designs tablets PCs" - which would be an odd way to phrase it if Notion Ink was actively contributing to the project. Are they giving development money? Code? Design inputs? I think I'll ask Kivy.

2. What does this have to do with Adam development? I mean I can get onto github or sourceforge and find tons of interesting projects. What does this directly have to do with Adam or its future? He says mentions Eden/Genesis again, but we've heard about that several times in the past.  So, once again, mumbo-jumbo nonsense of some other interesting project with no clue on what this means to Adam - considering that they can't seem to even build their own IC. And let me bring your attention to the fact that in the past he's talked about BLISS, YAGO, Genesis etc. none which have gotten anywhere. Here is a past para from the April 16 2011 post "We’re be working on the fascinating fields of the natural language processing, relationship extractions, algorithms like YAGO and snow-ball, and the dream behind all our efforts, the BLISS system."  What happened to all that? Who cares. Kivy is the latest. Fans too timid to ask.

3. "This is going to be a very impressive year, specially because it will let me explain what are we doing, finally!" - so for the last 3 years...?!

4. "We have been rather quiet on what’s happening at our end on future products and developments, but today I want to share a rather unique project called Kivy" - I still don't understand what this post has to do with future products or developments. The sentence seems to infer that somehow Kivy was linked to Notion Ink but it absolutely does not seem so. It's a "flash like" equivalent UI framework for multi-touch devices. Perhaps NI wants to use it in the mythical Genesis but nothing in the post has anything to do, as far as I can see, with Notion Ink. Happy to be corrected.

5. "Remember the earlier reference to Python?" Actually I do. Here's what he said (Sep 17 2011) - "For reasons which will soon be obvious, our love for a parsentongue, python has grown exponentially" OK first of all that sentence makes little sense - it's not parsentoungue, it's actually parseltongue and I can see no connection between parseltongue and kivy. So no, reasons weren't obvious at all. Maybe he meant love for python has grown.

Finally, I could not but resist this. Read the 2 sponsor blurbs from the Kivy site:

Notion Ink is the rebellion in you! It's your firm doing what you wanted to do. It is dissolving the emptiness which otherwise fills up our lives. It is the guilt in you which says, let's realize our dreams. Technically an upcoming OEM, but philosophically, we are designers who hack engineering, just like you!

Github is a web-based hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system. Github offers both commercial plans and free accounts for open source projects.

See the difference? I spoke of this once before back in May! When you read github's blurb - simple, easy to understand, you know what they do. Read Notion Ink's - it's utter bombastic nonsense.  Dissolving emptiness in our lives? I can tell you what - they're doing that mightily well with their customers who are spending good portions of their lives ROMing, flashing, formatting and what not to get their device to work. Hehe.