Tech Talk

Spore Creatures continues the evolutionary journey by putting you on dry land instead of the primordial soup of its predecessor, Spore Origins.

Look mom, I have legs!

The game remains relatively the same with its bright colours and great audio. You control the creature you created by tilting your iPhone and moving it to consume smaller creatures, avoid bigger nasty creatures and pick up more DNA so that you can continue to evolve.

But there are more challenges here in Creatures. As you explore areas, you might need to drag a rock into a crevice to bridge two areas, or drag exploding plants to clear a path. There are also quicksands, wind tunnels, and many other hazards you want to avoid.

That doesn't look friendly...

In every new area, you will bump into boss creatures. You can choose to socialise with them or try to defeat them with force. Personally, I find diplomacy works better. These boss creatures usually want some crystals, so giving them crystals is much better than trying to defeat them.

The biggest fun lies in customising your creature. With so many body parts for you to pick and choose, you can fit defensive or offensive limbs to your creature. And don’t forget socialising traits like the mouth in order to work on diplomacy!

What to wear? What to wear?

While it certainly cannot beat the PC version of Spore, Spore Creatures will make a nice addition on your iPhone for casual gaming. Get it at $6.99 from iTunes Store!

Tags: spore, spore creatures

[Update: We covered Fusion Garage and its JooJoo tablet in greater detail in the papers today.]

(Screenshot of the JooJoo taken from its website)

We’ve covered the JooJoo tablet computer on this blog since its infancy (as the tablet formerly known as the CrunchPad). With revived interest in tablet computers thanks to Apple’s recent announcement of the iPad and new developments in the lawsuit it is currently embroiled in, the JooJoo is no stranger to the limelight.

Yesterday, we had a chance to tinker around with a pre-production unit and had a chat with Fusion Garage’s founder and chief executive, Mr Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan. Fusion Garage has just announced a deal with the CSL Group of Malaysia, a mobile device manufacturer and distribution company, which will see the JooJoo move to full production, with initial shipments reaching US customers by the end of this month. According to its chief executive, the device might land in Singapore by the middle of the year.

More on this breaking story soon enough. First, here’s a demo of the JooJoo given by Mr Chandrasekar:

Tags: Apple, Google Chrome, ipad, tablet, Webkit

As people around the world criticise or write off the newly-announced Apple iPad that they have yet to touch, I’m starting to envision how it might turn out to be the dream machine for photojournalists on the move.

Apple iPad

A photojournalist needs a memory card reader, a laptop and a 3G modem in order to transmit pictures to the newsroom. Of course, he needs software to add captions, size images and FTP them back to the office.

For a start, Apple makes it friendly for photographers. The inclusion of an optional iPad camera connector and an iPad SD card reader allows you to import your photos using the camera’s USB cable and from an SD card respectively. In fact, if you have an Eye-Fi SD card, you can even directly import the pictures via WiFi.

The iPad's camera connector and SD card reader

In the past, I have experimented using my then Palm smartphone to transmit pictures using Idruna Software’s Pocket Phojo. But the high cost of Pocket Phojo and the small screen of the phone made me dump the idea.

With the iPad, it is a different story. The big 9.7-inch multitouch screen allows the photojournalist to easily edit his pictures on his lap wherever he goes. Editing using the conventional touchpad of laptops can be strenuous for the photographer’s wrist. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the virtual keyboard on the iPad will be intuitive enough for captioning.

The iPad’s weight, at 1.5 pounds (or 680g), will certainly delight photojournalists as it significantly reduces the weight of their camera bags. Even the lightest laptop in the market, the Sony VAIO X, weighs about 780g but costs twice as much.

Plus, there are already free iPhone photo apps like Photoshop.com to allow you to crop and adjust the colour of your pictures. So, you probably can use it for the iPad to do simple cropping and file the pictures using another free app called PhotoManager (which is available in Japanese only).

I think it’s a matter of time before an iPad app, which mimics the functions of Photo Mechanic where you can crop, size, adjust colours, add captions and FTP your pictures, will be released.

If such an app is released on the iPad, I think the iPad will be the perfect machine for the photojournalist!

That’s not the end of it. You can already do remote capture with onOne Software’s DSLR Camera Remote on your iPhone. Just transfer this to the iPad and you get an even bigger picture of what you are shooting remotely.

The iPad is also a perfect machine to view pictures when you shooting tethered if photo equipment manufacturers like Nikon, Canon, or PhaseOne, release such an app.

Finally, the iPad will be a great device to show off your portfolio to future prospective employees wherever you go!

Now, when can I lay my hands on the iPad again?

Tags: ipad, photography, photoshop.com

(This article is updated with the latest pricing of the products.)

It has been over three years since the Nike+ was introduced to the world. The Nike+ ecosystem incorporates Apple iPod Nanos, iPhones and its own SportBand along with Nike+ enabled Nike running shoes to give runners workout information like distance travelled, pace and calories burned via their headphones or screen displays. You can sync the information to the Nike+ website.

adidas, Nike’s fiercest competitor, strangely refrained from entering this blooming market for the longest time. Now, adidas has finally launched its own miCoach system.

miCoach is very much similar to Nike+, with an interactive website that provides your workout information, coaching and training goals. miCoach has two gears in its arsenal right now: the miCoach Pacer and the miCoach Zone.

The miCoach Zone is a wristband LED display that provides real-time coaching with the help of a heart rate monitor, in order to help you train at the right intensity.

adidas miCoach Zone

The miCoach Pacer consists of a stride sensor, a heart rate monitor (which Nike+ lacks) and a main control unit, which collects the workout information like pace, heart rate, stride rate and calories burned. You can sync the information to the miCoach website by connecting the main control unit to your Mac or PC.

The complete miCoach Pacer system

Sounds familiar? Not really. First, you can use miCoach Pacer with any shoes and any portable audio player (as long as it has a normal headphone jack). Yes, you don’t need an iPod or a pair of Nike+ enabled shoes. You can even use miCoach Pacer with your Asics or Brooks as the stride sensor is clipped onto your shoelaces.

miCoach Pacer Heart Rate Monitor and main control unit (strapped on arm)

The other significant difference is that the miCoach Pacer will provide you with real-time feedback to increase or decrease your intensity level at the correct interval so that your heart gets a “proper pumping”.

I gave the miCoach Heart Rate Monitor a go and felt that it’s much more comfortable than the previous one I had. The miCoach Stride Sensor also seems to be quite accurate during my initial runs with the miCoach Pacer.

For a detailed review of the adidas miCoach Pacer, stay tuned to TODAYonline.

However, if you can’t wait to grab one of these, both the miCoach Pacer system ($219) and the miCoach Zone ($119) will be available at all adidas Sports Performance Concept stores and participating outlets from this Thursday onwards.

Tags: adidas, micoach, nike, nikeplus, running

Google’s Chrome operating system (OS), which is Linux-based and optimised for web applications, is still a good eight to nine months away from being released.

However, in a media preview of the OS at Google’s local office, I was surprised to learn that the open-source Chrome OS will not be available as a free download. Instead, Google will release the OS with the latest netbooks from major computer (netbook, to be exact) manufacturers, like Dell, HP, Acer or Asus.

Google claims this allows them to give users the best computing experience with the most optimised hardware. In other words, Chrome OS is only free to computer manufacturers but not to consumers.

With the free OS, it gives Google plenty of leverage when dealing with computer manufacturers in dictating the hardware requirements it deems fit for the OS. Manufacturers can further lower the prices of netbooks without having to pay licensing fees for the OS. This, in turn, benefits the consumers. So, what am I complaining about?

Furthermore, given Chrome’s open-source nature, a full working version should be readily available for download by the open-source community once it is launched. But, I don’t think Google is going to bear any responsibility if the downloadable Chrome OS fails on your “unofficial” netbook. And no one will know if such a version will be able to auto-update itself like the official Chrome OS would.

Ultimately, this means current netbook users will not be able to enjoy the stunning seven-second boot-up time (or less) of the current version of Chrome OS, if their netbooks are using solid state drives.

If that’s already the case, I don’t see why users have to fork out extra money to buy a new Chrome OS-optimised netbook just to get a few seconds shaved off for the boot-up time. Unless, of course, like TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington reported, Google decides to release its own “Google Netbook”.

Still, given its web advertisement-centric business model, Google benefits from widening the base of Chrome OS users. With only web applications available, Chrome OS users have to use the Internet all the time and this itself will translate to more revenue for Google.

As such, isn’t it a “win-win” situation for both Google and consumers to have fully supported Chrome OS free for all to download and enjoy?

Tags: Chrome, Net

I don’t know how this app managed to get past the censors into the iTunes Store. But just imagine an app that allows you to download an episode of Gossip Girl Season 2. You can even download an entire movie from its DVD database!

Yes, there is such an app and it is W.TV Mobile TV. Based on the 3G video streaming platform from China Unicom Sichuan Branch, this app carries a variety of streaming content, including TV programmes from provincial  TV stations in China.

Supporting the H.264 codec, the app is really easy to use and you can search for your favourite TV show or movie painlessly. However, you can rarely download a full clip. An episode of say, Project Runway, is split into three parts, meaning you have to download three times to watch a single episode. In a way, it makes sense as 3G download is not the most reliable currently. I was able to download one part in around 5 mins.

However, the interface and the shows’ names are in Mandarin. So if you don’t read Mandarin, it will be a tad difficult. Nonetheless, you can rely on the universal language of pictures (aka thumbnails) to help you make your choice.

Oh, did I mention this app is free? Grab it from iTunes Store now while you can!

Disclaimer: I’m not sure if this app breaches any copyright laws, but hey, it has been approved by Apple!

It seems like the longest time since Motorola released its last mobile phone in Singapore. Today, SingTel will be the first telco to bring Motorola’s first Android smartphone, Motorola DEXT, into Asia. And SingTel customers will be the first in Asia to get DEXT.

Motorola DEXT

I was lucky enough to receive a DEXT review set over the weekend. This 3.5G quad-band smartphone features a 3.1-inch display, a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with video capture, A-GPS and Bluetooth. It comes pre-installed with a 2GB MicroSD card (supports up to 32GB MicroSD card).

The DEXT runs on Google’s mobile operating system, Android. But instead of the latest version 2.0 or 2.1, it is running version 1.5 with its own interface called MOTOBLUR. Nonetheless, downloading and installing apps from Android Market is a breeze. You can mix and match your apps and widgets in no time.

Motorola DEXT

With MOTOBLUR, all your FaceBook or MySpace friends’ contacts will be automatically synced to your DEXT. In addition, all your friend’s status updates, links and photos are automatically delivered to live widgets on the home screen. Other useful widgets include Weather and Calendar.

I find the phone a tad bulky. This is probably due to the slide-out keyboard, which is good news for button lovers. Slide out the keyboard and the screen will automatically change to landscape mode. But it will not do so when you tilt the phone on the home screen. So far, I find the touchscreen not as responsive as that of the iPhone. But I have yet to fully explore the capabilities of MOTOBLUR and DEXT.

Full review to come, @TODAYonline.

The Motorola DEXT will be available from this Saturday, 23 January 2010. Price will range from $0 to $348, depending on the price plans. You can also sign up for SingTel’s newly created value-added service, mSocial, priced at $5.35 per month, to enjoy unlimited local mobile data using the MOTOBLUR platform.

Tags: Android, Motorola

The 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week was a true-blue geek fest, packed to the brim with glorious gadget goodies in all shapes, sizes, colours and smells. We ran around the ridiculously big halls like a loony baboon, snapping shots of the highlights, just for you.

The quintessential bikini-clad booth babe at CES. This one’s from Ed Hardy Icing, which displayed a dizzying raft of bling-bling crystal-studded faceplates and decals for mobile phones and laptops at its very crowded CES booth.

Intel shows off a prototype wall-sized touchscreen powered by its new 2010 Core i7 processor.

E-book readers are a red-hot item at CES this year. We like the QUE from Plastic Logic, an ultra-sleek, pro-looking number the size of a pad of paper. It touts a 10.7-inch, shatter-proof plastic touchscreen and comes in 4GB and 8GB versions.

Samsung unveiled four e-book readers at CES, with screen sizes ranging from five to 10 inches.

Another e-book reader option, this time from France-based Bookeen. The 150g Cybook Opus has a 200-dpi ePaper five-inch screen and an accelerometer for automatic screen orientation. It can store more than 1,000 books and you can read up to 20 books on one battery charge.

Colourful e-book reader jackets from M-Edge.

TVs, and people galore, at the mega LG booth.

A CES visitor having a go at 3D gaming on LG’s 3D W2363D full HD (1920×1080) gaming monitor equipped with a dual HDMI interface, 3ms response time and contrast ratio of 70,000:1.

LG’s splash-resistant, portable and lightweight OLED screen will be launched in the first half of the year.

Lenovo’s smartphone-netbook hybrid, Skylight, is an ultra-portable powered by the Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon chipset platform. It weighs less than 0.91kg and boasts a 10.1-inch high-definition screen, 20GB of flash memory, 2GB of cloud storage and a 10-hour battery life.

Eco-friendly, foldable speakers from OrigAudio can be used with any device with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Batteries are not required, as these speakers run off audio devices.

Sony’s digital noise-cancelling headphones, the MDR-MC500D, claims to reduce up to 99% of ambient noise.

No hands to hold your iPhone/iPod? Phubby the Wrist Cubby promises to hold your device securely, and you can still view and control the touchscreen through the fabric.

Candles at CES? Only these aren’t real. Beautiful, super-realistic digital candles from Candella, based on its patented Artificial Flame Technology.

Meet Paro, an intelligent robot that resembles a baby harp seal. This eighth-generation therapeutic robot has five types of sensors – tactile, light, audition, temperature and posture – and dual processors that control proprietary software for behaviour generation and voice recognition systems. The lady at the Paro Robots booth told us it’s especially useful for dementia patients and residents at elder care centres and nursing homes.

And we sign off with this picture of a panda mascot from ChangHong. Who’s ChangHong, you ask? Just one of the largest consumer electronics providers in China. Bye bye!

Tags: 3D, CES, e-book readers, Gadgets, Intel, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, Plastic Logic, Que, Samsung, Skylight

How fast does your computer take to boot-up before you can login to Facebook or your web-based email account? Google’s Chrome operating system (OS) aims to get you online in as fast as 7 seconds (or less).

If Chrome OS sounds familiar, it’s because Google has a web browser that bears the same namesake. Google’s operating system extends the idea further by making the browser the focus of all your activity on a computer. As Google’s product management director Caesar Sengupta puts it, “Chrome OS is for people who live primarily on the web”.

Just how quickly can Chrome OS get you on the Internet? During a demonstration that Caesar gave to us in Google Singapore’s cool office, a prototype netbook that ran the OS off a conventional hard drive booted in about 14 seconds. However, do note that Chrome OS can already boot up in 7 seconds on netbooks with solid state drives (SSDs) that can perform much faster. The commercial netbooks that will run Chrome OS when it’s out will only sport SSDs for optimum performance. The good news is that Google aims to shave off a few more seconds by the time it launches – in eight to nine months.

To picture Google’s operating system at work (screenshot, below), you have to imagine each software you use – say, Microsoft Word – as a tab in an Internet browser. For the user interface, the idea is to create one that’s familiar to anyone who knows how to use a browser. Especially (surprise, surprise) an existing browser like Google Chrome.

A screenshot of Chrome OS: The applications menu on the left gives easy access to a list of web applications.

More screenshots here.

You won’t be installing software on computers that are preloaded with Chrome OS – all your tools will reside on the Internet as web applications (or web apps, for short) instead. It’s not entirely a new idea. If you’re used to creating text documents in Microsoft Word on your computer, you can also draft them up using web applications like Google Docs, Zoho or Microsoft’s upcoming online productivity tools. There are a plenty of web apps out there, even those that can handle image or video editing.

When you use a web app and store your files online, you can access them on any computer with a browser (and a connection to the Internet, of course) and won’t need to worry about losing your data if your computer crashes or your hard drive fails. According to Google, Chrome OS will be able to update itself automatically too and you won’t need to fork out moolah for new versions of it.

Here’s a short video of Caesar giving us a demo of Chrome OS:

When Caesar demoed it to us, operating Chrome OS seemed like a cinch. When the system boots, you enter your username and password for your Google account. Once you’re logged in, there will already be an open browser window.

One nifty feature of Chrome OS is that users can continue what they were doing on another Chrome OS computer – much like accessing an email inbox. Simply log onto the other machine with your account and everything would be right where you left it, browser tabs and all.

However, there might be one drawback, I find. Web applications that run in Chrome OS seem very dependent on an Internet connection. So when there’s no Internet access (when you’re on holiday on some remote island, perhaps), you can do little with them, unless the applications come with offline capabilities baked in. The launch is still months away, though, and I’m sure the whizzes at Google are well aware of this, having developed offline capabilities for Gmail and Google Calendar.

According to Google, consumers will not be able to download Chrome OS and install it on their own. Netbooks from the likes of HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer and Asus will come preloaded with the OS instead.

Still clueless about Chrome OS? Find out more from this rather quirky video:

Screenshot of the applications menu and a tab on the Google webpage

More screenshots here.

Tags: browsers, Chrome, Microsoft, netbooks

UPDATE: I’ve updated the story with more details and pictures. If you were having trouble ordering the phone from Singapore because the country isn’t listed in the order form online, you might want to check a possible solution in the comments section (comment #7) below apparently it was listed as the “Republic of Singapore”. Google has just informed us that they’ve fixed it. Also, the Nexus One will come with a 1-year warranty and repair and support in Singapore will be provided by HTC (www.htc.com/www/support/nexusone).

Google has just unveiled its own smartphone (which also happens to be its very first consumer device), the Nexus One, upping the stakes once again in the smartphone arena. Unveiled at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California earlier this morning, the Nexus One is powered by a new version of Android (Google’s operating system for smartphones) and the hardware has been designed by Taiwanese handset maker HTC.

Earlier online leaks were pretty accurate on the phone’s form factor, technical specifications and pricing details. You can pore over the technical specifications here. There’s plenty of features that will make geeks happy. Like its fast 1GHz processory, roomy 3.7-inch LED-based touchscreen display and 5-megapixel camera. The updated Android OS looks very slick with its animated and interactive background wallpapers and 3D-like user interface.

The smartphone’s ubiquitous speech recognition feature is a surprise feature addition, allowing you to do a Google search or enter text, whether it’s for an e-mail or a note, simply by speaking into the phone. The double-microphone feature that cancels out background noise for clearer calls sounds promising too. Thanks to its cutting-edge software and hardware, Google has even dubbed it a “superphone”.

Here’s an official Google video that demonstrates what the Nexus One can do:

According to Google, the phone will initially be sold in the United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore. But the good news is that you can order one online now (www.google.com/phone) and it will be shipped to Singapore from the US. It will be sold to consumers here without a contract or subscription plan from any of the local telcos for now. Including shipping costs (US$28.32) and its power adaptor (US$19.99) accessory, the Nexus One will cost a total of US$577.31 (S$805.70) for Singaporeans.

How does it compare to the latest iPhone? In terms of performance, the Nexus One is instantly responsive (lag was a major bugbear with earlier Android-based handsets). Its customisation options, animated user interface and interactive backgrounds provide a wow-factor for users.

However, multi-touch gestures that let  you interact more naturally with the device, are not supported on the Nexus One – however, according to Google, this can enabled through a software update. The Android platform also lags behind when it comes to the breadth of applications available for Apple’s smartphone. Hopefully, the number of Android apps will grow astronomically with the Nexus One gaining mass popularity as it takes on the role of Google’s flagship smartphone. And, of course, you don’t need to be tied to any telco to get a Nexus One – you can order it straight from Google. The price of freedom is, after all, just S$805.70.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Nexus One, Zune