Wii Fit - Boxing

A new game introduced for Wii Fit - aerobic boxing. I am not sure at this stage whether it will be pre-packaged with the board.

Cyberlife Consolidation ; I Have Sold Myself to Google

As I mentioned in my previous post, I got hooked with Google tools and apps. Now I tell you that my life online is more and more tangled to Google. Yup, I had bit the bullet and stepped in to Google world. Not that I work for the company, but by storing my virtual life in Google infrastructure.
If you ask who knows me best, I'd say Google now. Google stores my idea, my rants, my thoughts, my memory, my life. It is a scary thought at some point - I sold myself to Google for the convenience using their tools. And just like selling a soul to Satan, it's hard to break the deal.
Google has miraculously provide tools where using a Google account you can do almost what you want to do online. And I am using those tools to allow me doing what I want to do seamlessly everywhere and using any machine. As long as I have internet access, log in to google, and I am basically home. I can access my documents, spreadsheets, photos, my favorite news, and beyond. I can even synchronize the pages opened in the browser so it shows the sites I visited last.
Like signing up a deal with the devil, this looks like a very sweet deal in the beginning. But with this deal, I had given up my privacy to Google and just have to trust them to respect my privacy. If Google turned evil, I am screwed big time.
PS: I am only selling my personal life to Google. I am not sharing my current employer sensitive information in any way against my company policy. I need to say this to keep me employed :)

TidBITS iPod & iPhone: 3G Cell Data iPhone Now Feasible

TidBITS iPod & iPhone: 3G Cell Data iPhone Now Feasible

The more reason for me to wait for getting an iPhone. Q2-2008 may be too long for some people, but it fits nicely with my cashflow prediction. My concern is more on who will be the "chosen one" to carry iPhone in Australia...

New iPod... Not yet

I was looking forward in getting the new iPod Classic. I am going for a trip and the idea of carrying enough loads of music and movies would enhance my trip's experience. And most of all, I thought I could upload photos from digital camera so I won't need carrying laptop everywhere.
But no. Luckily I did some research before I click the 'Add To Cart' button and apparently iPod Camera Connector does NOT work with new iPods. I was checking Australian store and they said it worked.
I checked US site and below was on the site:



And this is what was in Australian store:



This is contradicting with the feedback that it was not the case.

Apparently Apple updated the site on 14 September, but did not replicate that update in Australian store - I don't know about other countries. This is misleading and potentially creates dissatisfaction to customer who did not spend extra effort researching. Normal people would assume that the existing accessories should work. And I did not see visible communication from Apple on these changes.

I am holding back my desire to get iPod Classic just because of this.

And I could not imagine how this impacted the current iPod users who already invested significant amount of dollars on accessories and now became useless if they wanted to upgrade to new iPod. I think Apple should find a solution or otherwise we need to hack the iPods.

ARE THESE IPOD PHOTOS REAL?!?!?! Nevermind Apple told us to take them down.................... | 9 to 5 Mac

ARE THESE IPOD PHOTOS REAL?!?!?! Nevermind Apple told us to take them down.................... | 9 to 5 Mac

Apple is undoubtedly receive the highest attention this past years. Steve Job's product launches which used to be more like cult masses now had become Vatican masses by the pope. Some people I know that I would not imagine have the level of interest to Apple surprisingly aware when is Steve's keynote going to be held and speculate what product will be launched.
I have seen the power of "keeping it secret" have a huge impact in the success of the keynote. Best keynotes I have seen always involving something new and unexpected. I watched the keynote without knowing what to expect. Now I - just like most others - are speculating. It was different experience, before, not knowing means no disappointment (or less), speculating means you have set of expectations and will create additional disappointment should the expectation not met. More to that, keynote is also the benchmark of AAPL price.
That is why Apple is trying hard to keep it a secret, and it is not an easy job. In the industry structure where you are no longer own everything end-to-end, source of leakage are everywhere. You can protect yourself with NDA (non-Disclosure Agreement), but somehow temptation is always out there.
The good thing for me as consumer is the situation forced Apple to deliver even better products, because attention is there and they can't make mistakes. Remember Safari for Windows, hacked within 3 minutes of its release time... that kind of attention.
Anyway, I can't wait what comes next from bitten Apple. iPod Touch, iPod Pixo, MacBook Mini ... bring them on!

iMac Aluminum 2007

I went to Apple Reseller shop today. I had to see the new iMac and I did. I could feel the temptation to just swipe my card and to bring that home. It was beautiful - massively beautiful - they only had the 24 inch in stock. Played around a little bit and could feel the power - mind you, my latest Mac is 1st-gen Mac Mini.
I could not played around with iWork 08 as it was in trial mode and asked my email address. No way! That is how fresh the iMac was in the store, it was just taken out from the box and no settings from the store yet.
I spent some time with the store staffs admiring and adoring the iMac and I felt like a major Mac-Geek when I told them that in the new model there was no upgrade option for graphic card, and they did not realized that. They could tell that I am a Mac fan (if not guru, heh heh) and they took my words seriously. I told them I am waiting for MacBook Mini :P
I already put iMac in my want list as it is time for me to upgrade. I just need justification for 24 inch...

Tech world falls for Tom's foolery - Technology - smh.com.au

Tech world falls for Tom's foolery - Technology - smh.com.au

Ha ha ha! People are really buying any rumors about Apple.

Gamers get to 'execute' corrupt officials - Games - Technology - smh.com.au

Gamers get to 'execute' corrupt officials - Games - Technology - smh.com.au

The game seemed to be a bit too much - killing the sons and daughters as well? Maybe they need to 'soften' up a little bit and adjust to current relevance...

HD DVD Touts Sales Growth Over Blu-Ray's Decline

My prediction is partially formalized with cheap players driving the adoption rate...

clipped from www.engadget.com Besides moving low-priced HD DVD players, the HD DVD Promotional Group is taking advantage of Home Media Expo 2007 to announce its most recent sales data, with HD DVD going up, and Blu-ray going down. Specifically, the Nielsen Netratings mentioned show HD DVD hardware sales up 37 percent, and software sales up 20 percent from the first to the second quarter of this year.

Apple Knowledge Navigator

This is Apple's vision 20 years ago!

Microsoft Surface Comes To The Surface

It looks like an iPhone, works like an iPhone and more. I should admit that I am impressed with the product and a potential wish list if I can afford one. I just have a problem with no space under the table to put the feet under...

New from Google: Google Gears

While everyone attention is WSJ's D - Google launched beta version of Google Gear which allows web application runs locally. Below is the information I clipped from Google Gear site.

Google Gears (BETA) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using following JavaScript APIs:
Store and serve application resources locally
Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness

System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.2+
• Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+
Google Gears (BETA) is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux

This is currently for Google Reader, but I can see where it is going. Imagine you can do your Gmail, Calendar, Docs&Spreadsheet, and other Google application locally in any platform offline and online. You get yourself a full application experience! You don't need email client and office suite anymore - Microsoft, watch out.

I see a lot of potential with Gears and it will be interesting to see the transformation of computing experience because of this.

More on Intel Metro

A working prototype... Intel commented that it was not for production but to encourage manufacturers to build and this is a proof of concept. If Intel can do it, everyone can. Right, Apple?

clipped from www.engadget.com The marketing shots of Intel's 0.7-inch thin Metro laptop prototype caused quite a stir

World's Thinnest Laptop from Intel

Hmmm... This is also in the cooking for heavily rumored Mac Subnotebook - or I call it MiniBook. This gave a strong sign that the rumor may come to reality. Intel is targeting end of the year, so I guess Apple will launch it ahead. I would say September 2007 the latest?

clipped from www.macrumors.com Businessweek profiles "Metro" -- a prototype laptop designed by Intel and Ziba Design. The 0.7 inch thick laptop is the world's thinnest notebook and weighs only 2.25 pounds. To achieve its small size, the laptop uses flash memory in place of a standard hard drive. This addition also improves battery life up to 14 hours. Also included is wireless connectivity with options for cellular, Wi-Fi or WiMax networks, fingerprint reader, noise canceling technology, and more. "Price was not a concern" for the design.

Carbonized Kevlar iBook

This mod from Indonesia transformed an iBook into a bulletproof laptop (upper part only) by applying kevlar skin. It cost him around USD180 to order a custom kevlar skin.

It does look cool...

Mobile Phone Took Over Computer to Access The Net in Japan

The growing improvements and enhancements in mobile technology, especially in Japan, had led to the drop of computer literacy in Japan's younger age population.



read more | digg story

My Live 2.0 and Recent Rumor on Microsoft/Yahoo Deal

This is the hottest news on Friday evening my time (GMT+10). Every hours my RSS reader (Google Reader, if you must know) flagging recent development on rumors of this potentially the biggest Internet deal of the year, if not the decade. Microsoft and Yahoo are the old players in the Internet world - well, Yahoo may be even older. I still remember that I am still using Netscape Navigator and using Yahoo to search information from the web. That is before Microsoft took over the Internet browsing game with Internet Explorer.
I can't remember whether I had Yahoo account back then - as far as I remember, I just used it for searching websites - which mostly US content and I saw it growing eventually. I got the feeling that people in Yahoo were adding the content manually non-stop back then. And it grew globally with the introduction of Yahoo locals. It was not as sophisticated as how Google started the expansion, but it really was a big milestone in Internet by going to a main site called portal. I did, back then, put Yahoo as my home page. I should admit, I grew up with Yahoo.
I don't use Yahoo as much now, especially since Google grew. Google gave me a good impression first time I used it by how simple it was, with uncluttered design, and how the results just popped up in seconds and what a result - more than Yahoo could provide at that time. Google got it right with straight give the result. Some people still stick with Yahoo as they provide news clips that related to your local before you do the search, but Google is a favorite for people who wants quick answer. And I am the latter one.
Enough about Google for now - will come back to that later.
Just right before I was 'leaving' Yahoo, I joined Yahoo Groups of my university batch. It worked with my office email and Yahoo mail is not popular, if not introduced yet. My personal email back then was ibm.com (now att.com) and msn.com (registered when I bought Windows 95). My first web mail was Hotmail, and still using it today for MSN chatting. I had my Yahoo account when I needed free personal account with pop mail capability - for my phone. This was way before Blackberry. Yes, I am always ahead of time in technology adoption. But that was as far as I used Yahoo services, other than Yahoo Messenger.
By that time, I also started to 'leave' Microsoft by switching to Linux. I kept my hotmail account and Yahoo account for GAIM (a multi-client chatting tool), and I used myrealbox (from Novell) for my email. That was the time that I was completely non-dependent on MSN/Yahoo services (other than the accounts). No, I lied. I still use my Yahoo account for my phone email. I started to use Google as my main search tool, as it is the main page of Mozilla browsers.

Then came Mac OS X. I heard the buzz that they based on Open BSD (Darwin) and it had beautiful user interface. I was in the state of enjoying my Linux setup - which was not as pretty as Windows, but I had the security and convenience I want. I am not a hardcore gamer so I am easy to pleased, not. So I switched to Mac, again - I used to use Apple ][, first Macintosh, and LC][. And how surprised, happy and excited I was that I could bring my Linux lifestyle in Mac OS X - in style.

And everybody remember when Google introduced GMail, with said unlimited storage starting from 2GB. That blew my mind as at that point my Hotmail was 2GB and my Yahoo was 1GB. And it came with Google's simplistic design and awesome search capability. And it was very fast. I arranged an invitation from a friend who bought an invitation from eBay (for USD1) as it was invitation only that time. And I fell in love once I logged in to GMail. It is my main email tool since then.
After that, my life had turned 2.0 gradually. I started using Writely (now Google Docs after Google bought it) and Google Spreadsheets. I use GCal and sync it to my iCal - and sending reminder to my phone via SMS. My phone can run Opera and I can access my GMail anywhere within network. I plan my projects using Central Desktop, my personal finance using Wesabe and I also had become a social networking junkie. I store my snaps on my flickr and Picasa Web. I read RSS feeds using Google Reader religiously, and share interesting articles to family and friends, and to my blogs.
Just recently I turned back to Yahoo. That is when I had enough having my flickr page kept on reminding me to change my ID to Yahoo ID. I still feel a bit cheated now as I still see the 'oldskool' login page in flickr. But I had merged my flickr account to my Yahoo account. Then I started trying Yahoo's newest service, MyWeb 2.0 - a web bookmarking tool and alpha, a search tool from Yahoo similar to that of Google, with added features. I like the simple design and much nicer than what I expected, so I started using it. But it is not as critical as how I depended to Google services. I've sold myself to Google, in a way. If someone knows the most about me, it's Google.
So I completely understand how Microsoft and Yahoo were worried with how Google has grown today. And they do need to do something about it. I may not be a common people that uses web services that extensive, but how I was personally dependent to most of Google's service showed that Google had done something right that lured me into their trap instead of Microsoft's or Yahoo's. And this is keep on growing. Most of my friends are using GMail and they started to use GCal. My family friends - not a power user of Internet - were thinking of checking GMail as soon as I told them my GMail address. They said that their friends starting to use GMail as well.
So what is my point? My point is Microsoft and Yahoo should do something, they should be worried. Either by combining forces, one acquires another, or do something else separately. My friend said to me that Google had become too big, it almost like Microsoft. I am afraid he could be right. In the mean time, I will still using Google services until something better comes up.

South Park Mac vs. PC Video

A skit created in South Park style as a parody of Get A Mac - Ad. I found this funny...

clipped from n0xtrum.blogspot.com

WSJ Says Microsoft/Yahoo Deal Not Happening

TechCrunch says that WSJ says that Microsoft/Yahoo deal is not happening... talk about she said/he said



read more | digg story

Microsoft aggressively courting Yahoo (again)?

The news getting hotter and hotter by the hour... If this happens, it will be the biggest deal in the internet industry this year...

clipped from www.engadget.com In what would be one of the biggest business deals to go down -- well, ever -- Microsoft is rumored to once again be in talks to buy Yahoo after being rebuffed numerous times in past years. The New York Post is citing unnamed sources in reporting that Goldman Sachs is helping Team Redmond make a play for the web's perennial "number two," and arguing that an acquisition or merger would make sense for both companies.

Ten Videos That Made YouTube Famous

YouTube has grown way beyond its humble origins. Here are ten videos that spread like a virus all over the internet and made YouTube famous.Somehow it just fascinating how these videos helps YouTube to be where it is today...



read more | digg story

Sydney BloggerZone

Sydney BloggerZone, originally uploaded by cyberlucky.

A sponsored event - bloggers were invited to have breakfast, and share experience as well as latest gossips on blogging technology during CeBIT Exhibition. This was probably my first uber-geek activities - and I was feeling out of place. People can passionately talking about a tablet PC. It's a PC for ***'s sake!
In general - CeBIT Exhibition did not give me any 'wow' feeling. Compared to the one in Shanghai, this exhibition is very low key.

Yahoo! Acquires RightMedia for $680MM

Internet convergence is coming to reality...

clipped from mashable.com Yahoo is making its power move to counter Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick: the company is acquiring RightMedia, the ad marketplace in which it already owned a 20% stake. In a New York Times article to be published Monday, the price is pegged at an awesome $680 million, equal parts of stock and cash. Google-DoubleClick was $3.1 billion in cash. RightMedia recently launched its ad marketplace RMX Direct, which is basically an ad network aggregator: they’ll fill your inventory with whichever ad network pays the best. In a New York Times article to be published Monday, the price is pegged at an awesome $680 million, equal parts of stock and cash. Google-DoubleClick was $3.1 billion in cash. RightMedia recently launched its ad marketplace RMX Direct, which is basically an ad network aggregator: they’ll fill your inventory with whichever ad network pays the best.

Leading VC firm opens in China

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, has opened operations in China with offices in Beijing and Shanghai and formed a $360 million fund to invest in Chinese startup companies.

clipped from www.my-esm.com Leading VC firm opens in China Joe Zhou, formerly with Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), and TDF Capital partners Tina Ju, David Su and Forrest Zhong are leading the KPCB China team. KPCB said its China team plans to invest its $360 million China Fund to assist Chinese entrepreneurs and to promote innovation in high-growth industries, including technology, Internet, media and wireless communications. The Fund will also invest in new consumer areas, healthcare and green technology.

Vudu - Apple TV's New Competitor

I don't like the design, but I can only give better comment until I know what this thing can do. But I always welcome competition...

clipped from gizmodo.com The box is about the size of a hardcover book and delivers video streamed in MPEG-4, which is upscaled to HD. It has HDMI, composite, and S-Video ports. Vudu goes online via an ethernet cable, and the media stream is managed through a load-sharing distributed network, which should guarantee instant access to the movies without stutters. The remote control has a scroll wheel (nice touch) and appears to have just five buttons. There are plenty of open questions about Vudu—like the size of the hard drive—which won't get answered until closer to the launch this summer. The price is going to be competitive with Apple TV, but probably a bit more expensive. Vudu [Teaser Page]

I Am Going to CeBit Australia

I just secured my ticket. I got my boss' approval to attend and I am going. This will be my second CeBit I attended. The first one was in Shanghai, which was huge.
Watch out this space as I will definitely try to cover it real time. And maybe even do the BloggerZone thing, where my feed will contribute overall CeBit newsfeed. That'd be awesome.
I am thinking to go for the dinner, but maybe next year. I am going to get the feeling first.

Tribute to Bill Gates

A clip from David Letterman's Show

A Day with Bill & Steve

Supermarket 2.0

A funny parody on Web 2.0 applications. I like the cookie joke...

Painting Monalisa using MS Paint

My sister can draw good pictures using Microsoft Paint, but this is absolutely amazing. I could not believe MS Paint could make a painting this complex. But I guessed I was wrong. Simply Amazing

Apple Ad Spoof - Wii and PS3

Wii is the way to go!

Testing ecto

Qumana did not work with Blogger2.0, so I am trying ecto to see whether this can be my solution.

iBook as a Wireless Router in a Hotel

This may not new and some of you probably already know it, but I tell you anyway. In mac OS X, there is a function call Internet Sharing, which - pretty straightforward - shares your internet connection on your Mac. My buddy visited me in my hotel room to find I brought my iBook and my office laptop (a Thinkpad). He brought his MacBook and wanted to connect to the net, and he turned the sharing in my iBook that was connected to the hotel network. And he found the performance was acceptable. I was excited, so I opened up my Thinkpad and I saw my iBook as one of available network. I managed to connect and yes, the performance is acceptable.
Now I had my iBook always connected in my room and also use it as my personal wireless router. Very cool!

OpenMoko - alternative to iPhone

OpenMoko, originally uploaded by smstextnews.

Launched in February 2007, OpenMoko offers linux-based phone solution - and hopefully backed by open source community to the market. The phone has touch screen that accepts both stylus pen and finger and sports GPS. Some concerns occured when Apple said that iPhone is a closed system - especially from geek community. For these guys, OpenMoko may be a better deal. It will work under SyncML so someone will create the iSync plug-in, undoubtfully.
Current UI may be too linux-like and not as fancy as iPhone, but I am positive there will be solution like iPhony available soon.

iPod Mobile

IMG_1977, originally uploaded by Olivas2005.

Forget iPhone, get iPod Mobile. iPod integration is the new hype in automobile industry and Citroen took it too seriously. But it's marketing. And they put quite significant size of Apple logo - instead of Citroen.

2007 - I Welcome Superdrive....

Yay! My order of DVD Writer Dual Layer arrived this morning. I went straight home and installed it in my first generation Mac Mini. I bought this Mac Mini on day one Apple sold it - and I was the last one who managed to get this baby. The person after me had to wait for three weeks for next delivery. So it is something for me. And now it has Superdrive! Yay (again)!

Apple Welcomes 2007

This is what is showing in the start page of www.apple.com today - still 1 January in the US. Apple must be up to something big early this year. Could it be Leopard comes out sooner? I can't wait for the Keynote on Macworld 2007. One more week, baby, bring it on!

New Year, New Toys

I had a low key new year's eve. Just went to a friend's house, ordered Thai food, beers, and watch NFL, Redskins v. Giants. No I am not a fan of NFL. In fact that was the first game I watched fully. Giants won, I think, and Tiki Barber had an awesome touchdown. I brought my iBook with me, so I also browsed the internet and play Raiden.
My buddies then went of for a cruise, and I went back home straight. I could not spent big money this time, although I was really tempted. I am back to my daily routine at home, turned on TV and back on the net. That is how I spent the last of 2006.
Now is 2007. What am I looking forward to? Macworld - especially the Keynote. I want to see my option of toys this year. I am giving up my iBook this year, I am planning to give it to my special someone, and I want to see what is (will be) available for me this year.
Macbook? Hmmm...looks nice. Macs are so popular nowadays (which is good for Apple) and I can see people carrying Macbooks everywhere. I'm going to miss the uniqueness of my iBook (clamshell Indigo, 576MB memory, airport, Tiger - how cool is that). I bet it is going to be a looker when I gave it to special someone. Anyway, Macbook will be my realistic option for my next laptop.
Unless they come up with 12" lines - MacBook or MacBook Pro. Or maybe 13" now - widescreen. I am not a fan of big screen laptops anymore. I used to have one for work - 17" - and it was impractical. I did not need the real estate all the time. Now I am carrying 12" Thinkpad for my work, with 19" screen monitor on my office workstation. That is my best setup. When I am travelling, I can manage working in 12" display as I mostly do emails and some office documents. If I need multiple windows with multiple applications, I try to do it in the office. So definitely I am going for petite laptops. Bring on MB Lite...
I am also looking forward for Leopard (Mac OS 10.5) to arrive. And it's better be soon, because a lot of people are holding their next purchase to come with the new OS. Mac users need to show it off to Vista users, right? And with no free upgrade option like that of Vista, we prefer to wait.
And iPod. I still have my dependable 4th generation iPod always in my backpack. I had no good justification to get iPod Video. iTunes Store in Australia don't sell movies, and I cannot see myself watching 2-hours movie in such a small screen. And I also don't see why I need to carry my movies everywhere. iPod is a personal entertainment system by nature. Range of accessories extended it to be enjoyable by friends and peers, like speakers and car connection kits. But it still hard to share a small screens for movies. Well it is still possible to have video solution for cars, but I don't have a car. iPod Video never went to my shopping list until I decided to pre-ordered Tubular. With Tubular, I can browse, view, and download YouTubes clips and export them to iPod Video. Now that is cool. iPod Video, you are on my list.
iTV or whatever the new name is. Nah. This should wait. I have my mac mini to do the job. It is now my entertainment centre running equinux' Media Central. Although I may be in the market for Elgato's EyeTV USB tuner combo DTT and Analog and a widescreen monitor. That'll bump up my media ecstacy, for sure. Oh, superdrive is on the way so I can burn some of my movies to DVD. My hard drives are almost full.
And Nintendo Wii. I missed the first batch of release because I was so indecisive. Now the next shipment is around mid-January. I will still be indecisive then, but it is on the list.
ADSL 2+ modem should be on the way to replace my old modem and giving me the maximum speed that I want to see.
This should be an exciting year..... Happy New Year 2007