We have already written about ISRO Bhuvan, but were not able to give our reviews as we could not download the application yesterday. But, the site is up today and we were able to get our hands on ISRO Bhuvan.
Here is the complete review of much-hyped, much-talked-about ISRO Bhuvan:
As soon as I went to the site, the first thing I tried to look for was the download link, unfortunately, you cannot get your hands on Bhuvan so easily, you got to first fill up a registration form and create your username & password. Once you log-in you will be able to get the download link.
The download link mentions it as a plugin, which is surprisingly close to 11mb (a plugin that too 11mb!). Anyways, I downloaded and installed it.
It installs something called TerraExplorer, which I really did not know what it was – No mention of Bhuvan anywhere.
If you click on the link in TerraExplorer, it takes you to skyline site and asks you whether you want to browse any of the sites in USA or France. No Sign of India or Bhuvan – Completely confused at this point of time.
I tried opening Bhuvan website, thinking that the plugin might kick in, but unfortunately the application does not seem to support either Chrome or Firefox. The message on the website says:
First off, the site is extremely slow, does not load most of the times and is visible only in I.E 6 or above.
To top that, following are the system requirements for you to get Bhuvan working:
Minimum System Requirements: (check the spelling of minimum on Bhuvan site :))
- Operating System: Windows XP/Vista;CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+ ;System Memory (RAM): 512MB ; Hard Disk: 2GB free space ;Network Speed: 768 Kbits/sec; Graphics Card: 3D-capable with 32MB of VRAM; Screen: 1280×1024,32-bit True Color
- To browse Bhuvan, you require the Bhuvan Plug-in which can be downloaded from this website, after registration and you will also need DirectX 9.0 or higher version (www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/) and MS .NET framework 2.0 or above for installing the plug-in. Please note that the Bhuvan Plug-in can be installed with administrative privileges only.
I think with these system requirements, 80% of Indians are already eliminated.. who the hell has 768kb/s network speed at home?, along with host of other requirements.
Okay, after getting my way through everything else, I presume that if I load the Bhuvan site in Internet Explorer 8, I will finally have something to see… But thats not to be.
I wait for Bhuvan application (or plugin) to kick in for more than 15 mins and absolutely nothing happens.
Conclusion of ISRO Bhuvan: Forget competing with Google Earth, Bhuvan is a big farce !!!. They really need to get their act together. I am not sure what I was thinking when I said that Bhuvan could be a Google beater – Thats crap !!!!!
Note: I’d be happy if I am proven wrong. If a user like me could not use Bhuvan after struggling for 1 hour, I am not sure how many people can !