I want my iPhone

As you all had known by now - I’ve got my Wii already. Weehee.. And just a small info, I’m now carrying some sports injury in the baseball game (Wii Sports) console. We’ve all heard what a smashing success (and life-saving too) Wii has been for Nintendo and I can personally vouch that it’s not just a gimmick.

Now… my dearie… I want my iPhone 3G!

It was reported that Apple managed to sell 1 million units of iPhone 3G in its first weekend of sales all round the globe. That was incredible. Not as much as the 8 million download a day for Firefox 3 but Firefox is free. In this case, people has to queue for hours just to get their hands on that darn shiny sexy units. And then has to endure frustrating activation failure some more. It would be a riot but for those irate-customer-friendly staff at AT&T.

After all those dreadful rumors we’ve been getting via SMS, the best rumor must be that Maxis will soon be bringing in those iPhone 3G. Even better, it was rumored that it will be selling for less than RM1,000.

Happy Birthday WWW

Funny huh… nobody called ‘It’ the World Wide Web anymore. It’s so prevalent that we just call it the Web or plain Net. Sixteen years and 48 hours ago, in a short post to the alt.hypertext newsgroup, Tim Berners-Lee revealed the first public web pages summarizing his World Wide Web project and thus the Web was born.

….The WWW browsers can access many existing data systems via existing protocols (FTP, NNTP) or via HTTP and a gateway. In this way, the critical mass of data
is quickly exceeded, and the increasing use of the system by readers and information suppliers encourage each other.

Making a web is as simple as writing a few SGML files which point to your existing data. Making it public involves running the FTP or HTTP daemon, and making at least one link into your web from another. In fact, any file available by anonymous FTP can be immediately linked into a web. The very small start-up effort is designed to allow small contributions. At the other end of
the scale, large information providers may provide an HTTP server with full text or keyword indexing.

That was clearly a scientist speaking. Steve Job or Bill Gates would have added a few more hyperboles into the description and would not have thought of giving it away for free.

Can you still remember the days when you discover the Web?

The Winner is.. Sony

It’s official. BluRay, championed by Sony, has won the high definition DVD format war against key rival HD DVD, championed by Toshiba. Today, Toshiba gave up the fight and declared that the company is shutting down the HD DVD business. Less than 12 months ago, HD DVD appeared to be the winning horse when Microsoft’s XBOX 360 pledged alliance to HD DVD and Toshiba slashed the price of its HD DVD price.

However, Sony who lost the VHS vs Beta war twenty years ago apparently has learnt its lessons. “Content, content, content” must be the mantra playing in the head of Chubachi San (Sony President). True enough, the defection of Time Warner’s Warner Bros to the Blu-Ray camp last month proved to be the clincher and followed by US key retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Best Buy Co Inc and online video rental company Netflix Inc.

I suspect Malaysian users have not gotten their fingers burnt as there is little HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray players and discs can be found in the stores. Except of course, the I-must-be-the-first geeks that have forked out thousands to buy HD DVD kits will curse at the obsolete equipments. Very much like I myself who’s scratching my head for what to do with my double-sided-laserdisc player and collection of LDs. Oh yeah… does that mean HD DVD equipped Xbox 360s will be pretty much useless soon? Ouch…
javascript:void(0)

Chrome worthy contender for the browser crown?

Ahh… another web browser is being launched. We’ve seen so many that entered the war zone and so far the incumbent IE still stands tall at 80% of the market (largely because it’s shipped pre-installed for most new PCs) followed by the pundits’ favourite son, Mozilla Firefox at close to 20% and balance of spoil shared by Opera and Safari. (It will add to > 100% because many people had more than one browser on their computer)

This one however must be given notice because it came from Google - the Internet’s undisputed giant that is trying to find ways to venture outside of search engine. Will it be successful? It’s Gmail offering is wildly popular and has now unseat Yahoo and Hotmail off the free-webmail throne. Google’s online apps however has not been anywhere successful.

I’ve downloaded and installed the beta version of Chrome after watching the impressive yet easy to understand comic style Chrome technology guide. That was the second time this week that I have enjoyed serious stuff explained using the comic medium; the first one being the recently launched Dr M’s biography.

I’ve yet to play with it but the first impression is nice. Quickly checked my favorite sites and all of them rendered properly (the close relationship with Mozilla helps I suppose).

* It launched quickly and I love the minimalist design - all the screen-space
reclaimed.
* Can’t comment much on websites’ rendering speed - our Streamyx line not
exactly a reliable indicator.. sigh.
* Arckk.. where’s the bookmark link?
* There’s the ‘Incognito Window’ for privacy browsing. That’s cool
* What about Firefox add-ons? Can’t live without them… have to watch out for the
portability news
* Got built in text area zoom in. Nice, though I don’t use it much
* Somebody commented that “Anyone bother reading the EULA? Congratulations to
our commenters commenting using Chrome. While you still own your comment,
google owns the right to use it.” Go to clause 11.1 to 11.3 of the License
Agreement - yuckk.

It looks promising but I’m not sure that I’m ready to ditch Firefox yet and make this the default browser. Please let me know what you think of this new development?

Bye-bye Windows!

It appears that the software that managed to put a PC on every desk will soon be retired. Very hard to imagine the ubiquitous Windows no longer running our lives. Yet this is what a new report has suggested.

Apparently this is Microsoft’s strategy for survival in the future. Prompted by the steamrolling usage of OS-independent Internet and failure of Windows Vista, internal documents of Microsoft have described a project codenamed Midori that seemed to be a marked departure from Windows OS.

Midori is centred on the internet and does away with the dependencies that tie Windows to a single PC. It is seen as Microsoft’s answer to rivals’ use of “virtualisation” as a way to solve many of the problems of modern-day computing.

It is also supposed to be a cut-down version of the humongous size of Vista. Yeah right… I’ll believe it when I see it. And judging from Microsoft’s recent track record, the clean final version will probably arrive sometime like 2015.

Welcome Back EPL

It’s been a boring summer without the English Premier League on Astro. Okay… we don’t actually have summer in Malaysia, it’s sama all year long here. But honestly, how can we have over a hundred satellite channels and sometimes, none of them is watchable? Beijing Olympics filled up the void last week, but before that TV is not so exciting.

So, when EPL started its 2008/09 season this week, yours truly is happy at last. And so far, it seemed that the new season is promising. Scolari, whom I admired, managed to start Chelsea with aplomb. ManUtd fumbled in the opening game against Newcastle. Torress recued his team yet again and newboy, Hull City, managed to whip old-wheezer Fulham. Ahh…. football bliss.

Beside the game and the goals, one thing that managed to capture my interest is AirAsia. I believe that they had managed another coup by being the shirt sponsor for the EPL game officials i.e the men in black. Many times, when the ball went out and the camera zoomed on the line official, you can’t help but noticing the toned-down red AirAsia.com logo at the back of the shirt (or in the case of the referee as pictured above, at the sleeve) contrasting against the black shirt.

I’m sure it cost them less than being a ManUtd official airline (yet the team came to Malaysia on MAS) or to advertise on ground stands. Yet, these shirts will be worn on all matches and shown at all teams. Cameras also will zoom on these officials when the game paused - so eyes of the viewers are focused. Great bang for bucks they say.

I’ve yet to see any bragging articles from AirAsia in the media but I believe, once again they have shown shrewdness, thinking outside the box, in their brand promotion. Well done and this is something that all Malaysian companies (especially ahemm… the big brother airline) should take note and learn.

The new Smart Gadget!! Ipod Touch

With its groundbreaking technologies, iPod touch puts an amazing gaming experience in the palm of your hand.

Far more powerful and lighter than PSP,capabilities such as WiFi enable and games,music, videos and considerably "more than pc"..

Top 20 Richest Company around the Globe! Aug08

Rank	Company	Country	Industry	Sales ($bil)	Profits ($bil)	Assets ($bil)	Market Value ($bil)
1	HSBC Holdings	United Kingdom	Banking	146.50	19.13	2,348.98	180.81
2	General Electric	United States	Conglomerates	172.74	22.21	795.34	330.93
3	Bank of America	United States	Banking	119.19	14.98	1,715.75	176.53
4	JPMorgan Chase	United States	Banking	116.35	15.37	1,562.15	136.88
5	ExxonMobil	United States	Oil & Gas Operations	358.60	40.61	242.08	465.51
6	Royal Dutch Shell	Netherlands	Oil & Gas Operations	355.78	31.33	266.22	221.09
7	BP	United Kingdom	Oil & Gas Operations	281.03	20.60	236.08	204.94
8	Toyota Motor	Japan	Consumer Durables	203.80	13.99	276.38	175.08
9	ING Group	Netherlands	Insurance	197.93	12.65	1,932.15	75.78
10	Berkshire Hathaway	United States	Diversified Financials	118.25	13.21	273.16	216.65
10	Royal Bank of Scotland	United Kingdom	Banking	108.45	14.62	3,807.51	76.64
12	AT&T	United States	Telecommunications Services	118.93	11.95	275.64	210.22
13	BNP Paribas	France	Banking	116.16	10.71	2,494.41	81.90
14	Allianz	Germany	Insurance	139.12	10.90	1,547.48	80.30
15	Total	France	Oil & Gas Operations	199.74	19.24	165.75	181.80
16	Wal-Mart Stores	United States	Retailing	378.80	12.73	163.38	198.60
17	Chevron	United States	Oil & Gas Operations	203.97	18.69	148.79	179.97
18	American Intl Group	United States	Insurance	110.06	6.20	1,060.51	118.20
19	Gazprom	Russia	Oil & Gas Operations	81.76	23.30	201.72	306.79
20	AXA Group	France	Insurance	151.70	7.75	1,064.67	70.33