Tech Talk

There is just too much bad news these days: The credit crisis, imminent recession, salary cuts, impending retrenchments. The list goes on.

As everyone starts to curb his spending to tide over the tough economic situation ahead, I can’t help but wonder if the electronic gaming industry will become victims of the financial tsunami, too.

I don’t have any statistics offhand, but as far as I can remember, since I started playing computer games seriously as a teenager, computer and console games sales have never been affected to a great extent by dire economic situations. In fact, there is anecdotal evidence that computer/console games sales go up during times of financial hardship! I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true. Or rather, I want to believe it is true.

With more companies implementing four-day work weeks or enforcing leave to save operational costs, consumers are going to find themselves with more and more free time. With more time to kill but less money to spend, I say – at the expense of looking like a total nerd – that the best way to beat the recession blues is to game!

If you go out shopping on your days off, window shopping might ultimately translate into credit card sliding operations. Even if you go out for just a movie, it will cost at least $15 (throw in the popcorn and drinks) for just two hours of your time – and you might walk out from the theatre disappointed. Let’s not even talk about clubbing, which will make you spend way more than you should.

If you buy a game, say, Fallout 3 (my favorite), this $70 game will give you at least 60 hours of gripping entertaining! Now, that’s value for money, don’t you agree?

Of course, I’m not recommending anyone to cut off contact with the outside world and sit in front of the monitor to play for 60 hours straight. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t be strolling in the gardens with your family, or going for a workout (actually, there’s the Wii for that), or attending some skills upgrading lessons.

I’m simply recommending a nice and cheap alternative to spend your free time at home while stimulating the economy with a little purchase. Or, if you want it totally free, there are always plenty of free MMO (massive multiplayer online) games, iPhone games and Facebook games.

The ultimate aim, I hope, is to shelve your worries aside for that period of time when you are immersed in your game, while maintaining your mental and financial health.

So … want to play a game?

Earlier this week, Michael Arrington from major tech blog TechCrunch revealed a prototype of an Internet tablet his team was working on. The 12-inch touchscreen Internet device runs on minimal hardware and Linux but comes with WiFi and a webcam and is supposedly affordable – they were initially aiming for a price tag of US$200 (S$300), but it seems US$299 is a more realistic estimate. By comparison, the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet costs $768.

What piqued my interest though, is that Fusion Garage, a little known startup from Singapore, has been working on the software for the device. A visit to their site revealed little of what the startup is about. But I managed to get in touch with Fusion Garage’s founder and chief executive, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, to find out more on what they’re working on.

Fusion Garage has been working on a browser-based operating system (OS) for close to a year. It will run on Linux and use Webkit as the rendering engine for its browser.

(Note: Webkit is the rendering engine that runs on the web browsers of the iPhone, Nokia’s smartphones, the Android G1 and Palm’s upcoming Pre.)

They can’t reveal much about the collaboration with TechCrunch apart from what’s been made public.

All I can say now is that it does look very promising and quite polished, from the video that TechCrunch has on their site, even though the software’s still very early in development. And I think the Fusion Garage OS, for lack of a better name, might have a market in netbooks, kiosks, appliances and simple Internet-based devices.

I find the small screen sizes for netbooks impractical and manufacturers have responded somewhat – if you’ve been looking at the new crop of netbooks, you’ll notice that screen sizes are a lot more generous.

To me, an affordable and minimal web tablet certainly seems a lot more desirable than a netbook with a smallish screen. Maybe that’s why circulating rumours about an Apple tablet seemed to get a bit of traction.

In other words, I want one.

UPDATE: I thought it was worth adding my reply to Benjamin’s comment. Here it is:

For me, a dedicated hardware-based web browser lowers the entry barrier for accessing the Internet drastically because one doesn’t necessarily need to fiddle with the complexities that come with learning how to use a computer or a mobile phone to access the Web.

I’ve seen old folks, children and the less fortunate in third world countries give up learning to use the Internet because of the learning curve associated with a computer – interfacing with the web directly via a touchscreen tablet would mean one less obstacle for them too.

Also, I’ve yet to see a device on the market that simplifies web access as much as possible either. It could very well turn out to be a blue ocean that’s waiting to be tapped.

Tags: Fusion Garage, Singapore, startup, TechCrunch

As the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009 in Las Vegas drew to a close on Sunday, tons and tons of new electronic products, from the latest LED TVs to the eyebrow-raising watch phone, have been announced and introduced to geeks around the world.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be in the Sin City to get my hands on all these new gizmos. But if I were to pick one gadget that caught my attention among the avalanche of products, my vote would go to Razer Mamba.

Of course, there is the symbol of Palm’s probable resurgence, the Palm Pre, or Sony’s tiny but very expensive netbook VAIO P, which are pretty eye-catching in their own right.

So why the Mamba? The reason is simply because Razer Mamba is a wireless gaming mouse!

The term “wireless gaming mouse” is an oxymoron to most gamers. They will never use a wireless mouse even if they are paid to do so. In fact, no first person shooter (FPS) gamers will even think of using a wireless mouse, especially when they are on Counterstrike servers where the slightest of lag decides who wins.

Wireless mice, whether using Bluetooth or 2.4GHz Radio Frequency, have the knack of suffering from lag or battery problems. No one wants to suffer the agony of defeat simply due to the fact you can’t move milliseconds faster or if your mouse runs out of batteries suddenly.

Thus, I can’t comprehend why Razer, the maker of arguably the best gaming rodents in the market, would defy convention and come up with a wireless gaming mouse.

Well, according to Razer, Mamba is a lag-free gaming mouse with 2.4GHz gaming grade wireless technology (whatever that means), 5600DPI 3.5G laser sensor, 1000Hz ultra polling, 1 millisecond response rate, and up to 200 inches per second.

But knowing the anxiety of gamers, Razer has thus included the ability to switch from wired to wireless play in Mamba.

This is a really fast rodent, even when compared to normal gaming mice, but all these specifications and features mean nothing if it cannot handle the practical test.

So, where is my review unit, Razer?

Tags: Razer

If you’re really into Apple, you know there’s something special about staying up late for the Macworld keynote, anticipating new products and software that might just raise the benchmark for technology (cue the iMac, iPod and the iPhone). It feels like opening presents on your birthday, or Christmas. This year’s keynote is noteworthy because it’s Apple’s last. If you plan to follow it via sites live-blogging the event, it’s happening on Jan 7 at (correct me if I’m wrong) 1am, Singapore time.

Now, I’m not one to speculate too much on rumours (because no one likes to look like a fool when they’re wrong. Hah!) but it’s fun reading them and trying to make educated guesses, seeing whether Apple will announce anything as impressive as what the rumour mills churn out. What would I like to see? An Apple home media server (crucial when you have to manage multiple Macs at home), a much-improved iMovie, a Mac mini I can easily hook up to the HDTV, maybe a cheaper MacBook with FireWire (or even USB 3.0 – wishful thinking either way), and a live demo of Snow Leopard.

Hungry for more info? Here’s a selection of my favourite sites for Apple-related news and their rumour round-ups for the Macworld keynote. You can also follow them as they live-blog the event:

• MacRumors.com
• Daring Fireball
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Gizmodo
• Ars Technica

Ah, a new spiffy-looking all-in-one desktop from Lenovo (and some laptops). Very sexy. Wonder if they were planning to steal a bit of thunder from Apple’s (last) announcements at the Macworld keynote address later this week. No word yet from the Lenovo folks on whether it’ll be out here in our neck of the woods. [via Gizmodo]

Tags: All-in-one, Computers, Desktop

Apart from monitoring news and blogs, the daily commute serves as field research for my work, giving me a peek of popular mobile gadgets and more importantly, the different (and sometimes unintended) ways people use them. Too often those on the forefront of technology (i.e. me) get too caught up in the flashy new features of the latest devices, which might sometimes be irrelevant to what consumes might crave. So, observing consumer behaviour brings a refreshing and accurate perspective of what would make or break a gadget and could serve as a precursor for the next big mobile trends.

Here’s a selection of the more interesting things I’ve seen (disclaimer: apologies about the low-res pictures, they were taken with an iPhone). And if you’ve got any pictures of your own, drop a link to it in the comments.

Gaming on the go

Except for the garish (to me, anyway) pink seats, you could easily mistake the local scene above for a ride on the Tokyo train line. We’ve come a long way haven’t we? These girls weren’t just happily thumbing their way on the Nintendo DS. What fascinated me was that they were effortlessly playing and collaborating on the same game wirelessly – on a moving train. Multiplayer and collaborative gameplay’s already a mainstay on the console and PC platforms and it’s only a matter of time that portable gaming devices adopt more advanced wireless technologies to enable us to play while we’re on the move.

Actually, the likelier candidates that might bring multiplayer gaming on the go to a tipping point are smartphones (the iPhone and Nokia’s N-gage comes to mind), since they already have pretty robust wireless capabilities.

Mobile broadband

A handful of my friends have stopped subscribing to a fixed broadband service at home, opting instead for a 3G modem that they can plug into a laptop so they could get connected while they’re on the move or at home. Sure, we might have Wireless@SG hotspots abundantly littered across the country but using a WiFi hotspot requires you to stay put – not so useful when you want to telecommute while you’re on the move. On the other hand, 3G offers remote internet connectivity, reasonably snappy download speeds and a sizeable chunk of data – largely enough for average users.

My only complaint? There’s no 3G coverage in some underground sections of the train lines (I’m checking with the telcos and will update this post when they get back to me). Oh, and I can’t tether my iPhone’s 3G connection to my laptop either (more on that in an upcoming blog post). If I can’t get a seat on the train, I’ll clear my email and task lists on the iPhone or make do with some reading. But if I do get a seat, I’ll be busy drafting a story on my laptop (say hi if you happen to spot me) or clearing the perpetual digital mess residing on my hard drive. I would love to be able to surf so I could do some online research or well, get on Facebook but half of my journey’s underground. =(

UPDATE: According to the telcos, work to enable the North-East MRT line with 3G coverage was completed last December. I can confirm that it works without a hitch. I managed to get a pretty good signal to stream audio from Last.fm and chatted on Windows Live Messenger without any drop in connection.

Work is still ongoing for the East-West and North-South lines and the telcos hope to get it done by this year. New ones like the Circle and Downtown lines will have 3G coverage when they start operations.

Mobile content services

Taxis now sport interactive touchscreen displays that feature content. Looks snazzy, doesn’t it? It was a nice surprise to finally get to try one out but that initial feeling of amazement dwindled away rather quickly. The user interface for the display isn’t quite intuitive (ok, as you can see, it’s just a column of colourful bars) and the content – largely movie trailers and the latest happenings in town – didn’t seem compelling enough. Worst of all? It gave me motion sickness. Luckily there was an option to shut it off. Which I did. Thank goodness.

You know what could actually be useful? Plot my journey on a (Google) map, so I could choose which expressway to use (taxi drivers, thanks for asking for my opinion but honestly, I haven’t a clue half of the time), find out which roads are congested or simply illustrate the shortest and fastest route I could take. Better still, partner with the folks at gothere, who are already doing a great job at it.

Taxi companies could go one step further and collect the data on our routes. And imagine what they could do with all that data: they can show you the best route to your destination, figure out where the passenger hotspots are so taxis can be dispatched accordingly or where taxi stands are most needed.

Tags: Broadband, Gaming, Mobile, Transport, Wireless