By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

UPDATE: Editor’s note: Corrected typo in battery life of Asus Eee PC 900, and error in screen resolution of Asus Eee PC 701. Thanks to our readers for the heads up.

THEIR product may sound like a cross between a shriek and a car screech but Taiwanese firm Asustek shook up the ultra mobile PC (UMPC) business last year by launching the Asus Eee PC 701. While it is technically not a UMPC, the Eee PC proved to be a most convenient and marketable device in this market segment.

Barely a year after the launch, Asus wants to take on the UMPC market again by launching the Eee PC 900, which only has a few differences from the previous model except for bigger RAM (1 gigabyte on the 900 series compared to 512 megabytes for the Eee PC 700 series) and a higher-capacity solid-state drive (SSD), a feature that makes the device even more appealing as it lengthens battery life compared to regular hard disks with moving parts. Both the 900 and 700 series still use 900-megahertz Intel Celeron-M processors. The first Eee PC models have 2GB and 4 GB SSDs while the new Eee PC 900 has 12GB and 20GB models.

Here’s a video of Vivian Hung, Eee PC product manager for Asustek Asia Pacific, showing the new Asus Eee PC 900.

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By Relly Carpio
INQUIRER.net

SONY ERICSSON recently launched three new Walkman phones which incorporate the Walkman On Top concept: the Sony Ericsson W350i, W380i, and W890i

“It’s having the Walkman interface easily accessible to the user with it being on top of the phone,” explained Vincent De la Cruz, product group marketing manager of Sony Ericsson Philippines.

“We believe there is a market that wants to put music first and foremost over the phone. Particularly a phone with the basic features, but allows people who want to enjoy their music access it easily. Always putting their music experience first,” he added.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MEDIA agency MindShare Philippines has recently launched new digital advertising and marketing services, in a bid to promote wider use of the Internet and mobile technology as advertising and marketing tools in the Philippines. Its new services will cover online media planning, buying and optimization expertise; digital strategies; community management; and search and mobile advertising.

In an interview with INQUIRER.net, MindShare director for Digital Practice Crisela Magpayo said the use of digital media has not been successful in the Philippines despite huge gains being enjoyed by advertisers and marketing companies in other countries.

In fact, even online advertising is still small in the Philippines whereas companies abroad are investing heavily on online campaigns.

“There is still a huge potential in the Philippines when using the Internet for marketing and advertising campaigns. All that is needed is that they are informed with the methods and tools that can be used by local advertisers and marketers,” Magpayo said.

Among the new digital services that MindShare is promoting is its MindTrack tracking software, which is installed in Internet cafes to tracks the sites visited by users per computer.

The company also gave a preview of its mobile phone service called MobiTMS.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

CANON has recently introduced a new line of camcorders aimed at spurring video enthusiasts to go high-definition. T

Canon’s new HD camcorders are the mid-level HF100 and the higher model HF10. Both feature AVCHD (advanced video codec high definition) recording at 1920×1080 pixels (2 megapixels) and record sound in 2-channel Dolby Digital. The two also have a solid-state drive of up to 16 gigabytes, one of the first camcorders to use internal flash-based memory storage. Likewise, the to also have separate SD card or MMC card slots that could accommodate high-capacity flash cards.

Here’s a video interview I conducted with Canon Southeast Asia assistant systems manager for Consumer Imaging Mohamad Yazid Bin Ali, who gave a demo of the HF10.

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By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

WHILE COVERING the Microsoft Imagine Cup annual software design competition, I got to meet several teams of college students from different top local universities. Their objective: design a software application that would help promote a sustainable environment.

One idea from Team Prairie Watch of the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde involved tagging endangered animals with a little webcam and streaming the
video that this little gadget captures on the web. They had a working prototype that looked promising. Another idea developed by Team Tala was a computer game that would teach kids about the environment. Team Tala was a mixed team of students from the University of the Philippines, Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the Philippine Christian University.

Here’s my video interview with Team Prairie Watch.

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