Quietly now, as Globe doesn't seem to want this spreading too much. But right now until April 22, Globe prepaid consumers can avail of a Globe All You Want promo, for just Php 300 for one month of unlimited calls and texts.
Let me say that again. Unlimited calls and text.
But the promo is just until April 22, folks, so sign up now!
All you have to do is text 300 to 2870, and that's that. Make sure you have more than Php 300 in your account when you do so.
As always, us poor postpaid subscribers are left out of the loop. Boo hoo.
CAVEAT:
Globe says that activation may take up to 24 hours, so just because you've sent your registration to 2870 doesn't mean that your next texts or calls will be unlimited ones already. They say you'll have to wait for your activation confirmation text.
Of course, since I am a hapless postpaid subscriber, I won't be able to test or verify the reliability of this text confirmation feature...
March 2005 Archives
It runs on 8 hours of lithium-ion charge. It has a relatively-okay 256MB of storage space. It lets you play MP3, ASF and WMA audio and is also Mac compatible. It weighs a pendant-light 15 grams.
I greet the MPIO Pendant MP3 Player with open arms. Available from our friends at Quadtron for around P4,xxx.00 only.
If you want an affordable MP3 player that beats the shuffle out of the iPod, then I will recommend this one for your graduation gift (Yeah yeah the shuffle is juiced with more battery life and can hold at least 2x more music but this one is too elegant to neglect).
And yes, I must quite honestly say that it looks a billion times better than the iPod shuffle. But please don't quote me on that, okay?
If you want an affordable MP3 player that beats the shuffle out of the iPod, then I will recommend this one for your graduation gift (Yeah yeah the shuffle is juiced with more battery life and can hold at least 2x more music but this one is too elegant to neglect).
And yes, I must quite honestly say that it looks a billion times better than the iPod shuffle. But please don't quote me on that, okay?
Continue reading Another stylish flash player (and its not the iPod shuffle).
Howard, Art and I had a chance to interview Mark Billington, CEO of O2 Asia in the recent appreciation launch of the XDA II mini.
Being the first to interview him (it pays to be punctual), we shared a few laughs and insights on O2's success and Mark's insights on the smartphone, the death of the PDA and *gasp* the Palm OS platform.
He recalls that there has been an immense success of O2's market penetration here in the Philippines thanks to the XDA II back in 2003 which was then the most powerful Windows Mobile Phone Edition device.
Being a brand that focuses on convergence devices, he still says that the PDA is not dead. However, in an age where you would rather forget to bring your briefcase than your cellphone, a personal digital assistant that comes with a phone equates to a very lucrative business. The XDA II sold not just because it was a phone + PDA. According to Mark, when you buy something with "O2" sprayed onto it, you are guaranteed to have something sweet and sexy. Just look at the XDA II mini - something to reach out to a broader audience which includes non-corporates, the fashion industry and women.
"Form factor always comes first" he says. "You should always look at the form factor in the initial design and then fit in the stuff that you want. You only compromise later on." The Blackberry features for instance which were supposed to be outfitted in the current line of XDA's were scrapped due to the low demand for push email in Asia since everyone here uses text messaging unlike Europe and the US.
Since we got the ball rolling, I just had to ask what he thought of the Microsoft Smartphone platform, which I considered to be an underpowered "in the middle" device. Mark did a bit of enlightening saying that indeed, Windows Mobile 2003 is still more powerful. However, there are those people who want to have a more phone-centric device unlike the XDA II which does not have a keypad. Thus, devices like the O2 XPhone will still have a solid niche.
"So do you think you will have an XDA running on the Palm OS?" asks Howard.
After giving a stern look andd glancing at Art's Palm T3 and Howard's Treo 650, he says "No." Apparently, if you talk about corporate mobile solutions and intereations, Windows Mobile 2003 is the way to go!
Eep. After three sheepish grins (and pocketing the Tungsten and Treo 650), we took a glam shot with the big boss and left for cocktails.
Continue reading A breath of fresh air: a moment with O2's Mark Billington.
I was at the Microwarehouse sale early morning last Friday, where I fought tooth and nail for a Palm wireless keyboard (sale price: PhP 1,000).
And then I noticed something.
The vast majority of the people at the sale were women. Oh sure there were quite a few men, but... emphasis on few. The gender ratio was genuinely skewed here!
For the longest time, we have always assumed that electronic gadgets are men's territory, and that, when we talk gizmos, only males will be interested. That's partially true, but only to the point that men tend to gush about tech specs and tech trivia.
But when it comes to actually buying these darn tech toys, women are a huge market. Perhaps (gosh) even potentially bigger than the male market!
And they do buy pretty sophisticated stuff. They buy Sony Ericsson P910's, O2 XDA II's, smart phones, high-end cell phones, iPod minis and top of the line PDAs. While older women seem to be perfectly happy with mobile devices that are easy to use, easy to read, and basically look decent enough to carry around, it's the younger women with high disposable incomes that is a burgeoning market. And they're eager for top of the line mobile tech.
If you're female and you're reading this, this is old news to you. But it's a bit of a revelation for guys like us who grew up with the stereotype that girls hate gadgets.
The vast majority of the people at the sale were women. Oh sure there were quite a few men, but... emphasis on few. The gender ratio was genuinely skewed here!
For the longest time, we have always assumed that electronic gadgets are men's territory, and that, when we talk gizmos, only males will be interested. That's partially true, but only to the point that men tend to gush about tech specs and tech trivia.
But when it comes to actually buying these darn tech toys, women are a huge market. Perhaps (gosh) even potentially bigger than the male market!
And they do buy pretty sophisticated stuff. They buy Sony Ericsson P910's, O2 XDA II's, smart phones, high-end cell phones, iPod minis and top of the line PDAs. While older women seem to be perfectly happy with mobile devices that are easy to use, easy to read, and basically look decent enough to carry around, it's the younger women with high disposable incomes that is a burgeoning market. And they're eager for top of the line mobile tech.
If you're female and you're reading this, this is old news to you. But it's a bit of a revelation for guys like us who grew up with the stereotype that girls hate gadgets.
Once upon a time, IBM reigned as the big, bad tech bully, crushing any competitor that tried to wrestle even just a little bit of its once-huge market share.
And then came Microsoft. And it steamrolled over any company, even its own software developers, that came up with a good idea by absorbing their functionalities into its operating system along the way.
Now it's... Apple? An article in Forbes Magazine calls Apple "the New Microsoft," citing the way that it is using its new round of fame and fortune to file lawsuits against bloggers who leaked details of up and coming products and to crushing attempts by other companies to bring out products that use iTunes services.
Not a nice picture for an underdog to have. Particularly for one that, once upon a time, commissioned a highly ambitious "1984" ad showing a lone, feisty Apple athlete destroying the mighty machinery of a bullying Big Brother (a reference to IBM in its heydays). Then again, perhaps it's because Apple is no longer an underdog. Co-founder and populist-idealist Steve Wozniak might even think that Apple has already sold out.
But that's all I'm a-gonna say about that, lest Apple hands me a gag order...
It's big, it's beautiful, and it has Kitchie Nadal on the cover!
The March 2005 issue of m|ph is in your friendly news stands now, and it's one big treat for the eyes. As Ed in Chief Jason de Villa notes, we've done a lot of tweaking in order to improve readability and reduce visual clutter.
We review quite a mouthful of mouth-watering, spanking-new devices, from the Treo 650 and the Motorola MPx to the O2 XDA II mini. Get to know the Creative Zen Micro up close, the GPS-laden Mitac Mio 168, and more!
You'll get to know the BIRD phones, learn how to give your laptop a thorough cleaning, and feast your eyes on the stars of the 3GSM Congress!
You'll also meet five terrific iPod-loving personalities... and get another installment of Mobile Man!
We'd like to know how the issue hits you! So do get your copy now!
So now Smart has launched its 25/8 promo to counter Sun’s 24/7 unlimited calls and texts program. And Globe has its “Todo
I do not know what to say, Samsung. Really ...
... so I will just summarize into these three bullet points:
- removable lenses
- dSLR-like features
- 7MP with flash
Who cares about the phone? Wait for it's Asian release in June 2005. Discuss! Discuss!
... so I will just summarize into these three bullet points:
- removable lenses
- dSLR-like features
- 7MP with flash
Who cares about the phone? Wait for it's Asian release in June 2005. Discuss! Discuss!
Continue reading Beware digital SLR!!.
Nokia gave us a preview of their up and coming phones for 2005. Take a sneak peak at what they are and what they look like!
The Nokia 6030 is Nokia’s new low-cost, full service Series 40 phone. It features large fonts, hands-free talking, and an FM radio. With its ease of use and large fonts, it’s a pretty good choice for young moms who simply want to have a decent phone to bring along.
The Nokia 6101 is the smallest fold phone to come from Nokia. This Series 40 phone has a camera and dual displays. It offers 16MB of onboard memory, EDGE and Push-to-Talk support, infrared and Pop-Port, and can record videos. The price is bound to be competitive, with an SRP that would probably be at the 12 to 13 thousand range. You won’t be seeing this phone on the shelves until May though.
The Nokia 6230i manages to improve even further on the 6230, which to me is already the current king of value engineering. What makes the 6230i even better is a 1.3 megapixel camera, a bigger high-res screen, the ability to play not just MP3s but also AAC and MP4 media files, EDGE and Push-to-Talk support, MMS 1.2 support for larger MMS sends, infrared, Bluetooth and a Pop-Port. What’s more, not only does it have 32MB of onboard memory, but it will also come bundled with a 64MB MMC card as well!
And here’s Nokia’s up and coming crown jewel, the Nokia 6680. This 3G-ready phone can actually run on WCDMA and GSM environments, allowing it to automatically adjust to just about any telecom infrastructure in up to five continents!
But what makes this really interesting is that it is Nokia’s first dual-camera phone: It has a 1.3 megapixel camera with 6x variable zoom and flash on one side, plus a VGA cam on the inside, which is good for video calls and the like. What’s more, it is PictBridge compliant, allowing you to print to any PictBridge printer just by connecting to it via USB cable. It has an MS Office and PDF file viewer, as well as RealOne that allows it to run as an MP3 player. It uses RS-MMC cards for extra memory.
And there you have it, Nokia’s new offerings over the next few months. Expect them to hit the shelves around April and May.
The report on Studio 23's Morning News was enough to terrify the toughest of tech troubadours: a new cellphone virus named CommWarrior that spreads by both Bluetooth and MMS. Worse, once infected, it burns itself into your Series 60's system and makes your phone totally useless.
The horror of hype.
The CommWarrior is indeed the first MMS virus. It scans your address book and sends MMS messages with a viral payload to your contacts. And it can indeed spread by Bluetooth as well.
But first of all, you won't be infected unless you're [a. naive; b. ditzy; c. insert other adjective here] enough to actually say Yes to an attachment that promises "3DGame for me. it is FREE!"
What's more, getting rid of this pest is simply a matter of looking for the CommWarrior application on your phone and clearing it and its files in a process similar to that of eliminating a Cabir virus. In fact, CommWarrior isn't even considered as a serious threat. And it certainly won't destroy your Series 60's precious system. If ever you get hit by CommWarrior, sites like Symantec offer easy to follow instructions on how to get rid of it.
So what's with the tabloid reporting? The news story featured an interview with a cellphone service technician. Couple the phone service sector's need to make a new round of quick 500 bucks for "virus removal services" with the local media's need to spread fear among the public and you get a potential for Cabir Part II.
Don't fall for the hype. Your Series 60 is still safe. And so long as you're not [a. naive; b. ditzy; c. insert other adjective here] enough to actually say Yes to an attachment that promises "3DGame for me. it is FREE!", you shouldn't have any real problems for the long haul.
Is your old notebook making you feel antsy due to its lack of WiFi capabilities? Are you craving for Bluetooth connectivity? Then how about killing two birds with one bee?
Suncore Tech's BlueWiFly Combo USB Dongle puts both Bluetooth and WiFi abilities in just one single USB 2.0 dongle. It can connect to both 802.11b and 802.11g WiFi networks, and gives you Bluetooth to boot.
Suncore Tech claims to have solved the potential radio interference problem that can be caused by operating both Bluetooth and WiFi radio signals with just one antenna, allowing you to use both radio-based transmissions at the same time and thus providing you with what Suncore Tech describes as "the most idealists and flexible wireless USB solution." Okay.
Haven't seen this unit in local stores yet. But if we lay our hands on it, we'll definitely let you know how this idealists unit fares.
Suncore Tech's BlueWiFly Combo USB Dongle puts both Bluetooth and WiFi abilities in just one single USB 2.0 dongle. It can connect to both 802.11b and 802.11g WiFi networks, and gives you Bluetooth to boot.
Suncore Tech claims to have solved the potential radio interference problem that can be caused by operating both Bluetooth and WiFi radio signals with just one antenna, allowing you to use both radio-based transmissions at the same time and thus providing you with what Suncore Tech describes as "the most idealists and flexible wireless USB solution." Okay.
Haven't seen this unit in local stores yet. But if we lay our hands on it, we'll definitely let you know how this idealists unit fares.
I just don't get it. There's nothing really great about this phone!!
But I can't help but take it out of my pocket every five minutes, flip it open and watch the sun blind my eyes. Or look for a broom closet, turn off the lights and admire the Nokia 6170's blue backlight.
Maybe it's the stainless steel finish. Maybe it's the clamshell design. Maybe it's a straightforward phone with no extenders save the 0.3MP VGA camera. Or maybe it just sooo resembles the beautiful Motorola V3 Razr, with that more than familiar Nokia interface.
I don't know about you, but when I took this baby out for a spin, it had more appeal than your stainless steel owner jeep. Watch out for the full review in upcoming issues of m|ph.
Maybe it's the stainless steel finish. Maybe it's the clamshell design. Maybe it's a straightforward phone with no extenders save the 0.3MP VGA camera. Or maybe it just sooo resembles the beautiful Motorola V3 Razr, with that more than familiar Nokia interface.
I don't know about you, but when I took this baby out for a spin, it had more appeal than your stainless steel owner jeep. Watch out for the full review in upcoming issues of m|ph.
Continue reading 6170: Your owner jeep, your phone.
Last night as a marketing lecture I was delivering finally came to an end, the students approached me for the usual mingling and trading of contact information. Since I didn't have calling cards available and the students were fairly mobile creatures, we decided to swap data electronically instead.
"Bluetooth?," one asked as he pulled out his Sony Ericsson P900. I said why not, and everybody ooh'ed and aah'ed around this high tech exchange.
Except that it wasn't all that simple. My Tungsten T3 was detecting his device, but the P900 simply didn't detect anything at all. He fiddled with his controls, puzzled.
Frustrated, I pointed my T3 to someone else's Sony Clie PDA and beamed via infrared. And, just like that, my contact info was in his hands.
"That was fast!," the guy said, genuinely surprised.
I then pointed at the P900 and beamed via infrared as well. And, just like that, he got my info in a split second.
Compared to Bluetooth, infrared may seem like an archaic technology. But it still beats Bluetooth in one respect: it's as simple as point and shoot. No settings required, no device IDs, no security protocols, and no laborious search processes.
Sometimes, something as simple as point and shoot is all we need. Especially if all you really want to do is to beam your contact info to a waiting device. So personally I am hoping that, despite Bluetooth's increasing presence, IrDA will still be here to stay.
