By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

SINGAPORE–I took a 30-minute break on the first day of this year’s CommunicAsia 2008 summit to look around. I quickly noticed old and new names dotting the spacious venue here in Singapore Expo, a large exhibition and meeting area close to the airport.

Spanning 47,000 square meter of space, the exhibition area alone is overwhelming. There are also a host of talks on different topics. I found familiar and new brands among the 1,500 exhibitors from overseas. According to the organizers, there are 22 countries, including the Philippines, participating in this year’s exhibit and conference. And just to complete the experience, queues during lunch time are long. Finding a seat proved a challenge everyday.

Here’s a video I took to give you a walkthrough.

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By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

IT may have come late in the mobile music player business, but Philips intends to break into the market in the Philippines and set a trend. So confident and aggressive is the company that they aim to take second place after the dominant Apple iPod series.

Philips launched six models under in its GoGear line, ranging from the basic 1 Gigabyte SA1916 to the top-of-the-line 4Gb SA3445. The company did not mention that it also carried the SA6185, a passport-size multimedia device launched sometime last year overseas and is the predecessor of the SA3445. All of the new GoGear devices have the Philips design signature: they come in a matte black finish (except for the SA1916, which can come in blue-green), curved corners and buttons that are smoothened into the body of the device. Of course, it’s expected that when Philips makes audio devices, the sound should be of the highest quality (their headsets and earphones challenge even those from Sony).

Testing out the first three products, the 1Gb SA1916, the 2Gb SA2625 and the 2Gb SA2825, their audio is nothing spectacular, particularly because they use the more basic Philips earphone sets. The base is not as audible and the treble is a pitch too high. Perhaps a better sounding earphone should make the sound from the devices stand out. I did, however, test out the SA2825 with one of Philip’s clip-on earphones and the sound was better improved that it were with the stock earphones. Take note that only the SA2825 has the Philips proprietary audio function FullSound, which greatly improves its sound quality.

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THE HTC Touch Diamond is the latest touch-screen device from the Taiwanese handset maker, competing against Apple’s iPhone. The device features 64MB on-board graphics memory and 640 by 480 VGA resolution. No official launch date yet in the Philippines but INQUIRER.net technology reporter Lawrence Casiraya got his hands on the Touch Diamond.

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By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

IF you’re tired of using Twitter (because of the annoying downtime mainly), you might consider flocking to Plurk.

After discovering this on Mashable, I took the plunge and created a profile. A service almost like Twitter, Plurk looks, er, cuter. Its interface shows a timeline of messages posted by users. You can respond quickly to any user using a pulldown menu.

As in Gmail, you can see the threads of discussions among users. No need to put @(name of twitter friend) You just click on a friend, and send your message. It’s that easy. You can also send private messages, post cute emoticons (which one user suspects is similar to Yahoo! emoticons), and choose one of Plurk’s colorful verbs. By colorful verbs I mean literally verbs in different colors. The word “says” is in orange, “loves” in red, and so on.

I started plurking today, and I found a lot of people/friends starting to move to Plurk. So because I’ve gained more friends, I have earned some karma points. Yes, you earn more karma points by being an active user (completing your profile, adding friends, etc.). If you get more points, you’ll be given access to some special emoticons, among others. Let’s see how this new micro-blogging sensation will last when it becomes as popular as Twitter.

Plurk me.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

THE BATTLE for the sub-notebook market is heating up as HP enters the fray. It may not be the first to introduce a laptop in the below-12″ inch segment but it is the first branded, non-Taiwanese vendor to do so in the Philippines.

The HP 2133 Mini-Note PC has the unmistakable HP design all over it: curved corners and tapering edges and a semi-shiny aluminum finish. It could be mistaken for a metal folder if its top half isn’t pulled up.

When it is opened up, the very first thing you notice is the keyboard; unlike most notebooks with the same form factor, the Mini-Note’s key buttons are full-size. Instead of being extended, the keyboard takes up the entire length of the unit’s lower portion, leaving barely 5 millimeters of space between the edge of the keys and the edge of the lower portion of the Mini-Note. It is also the first one to have a full-size Shift key, the most undersized key among sub-notebooks and even full-size laptops. An aluminum track pad is in the middle, just below the keyboard. It is quite small, barely 50 millimeters across. The left and right mouse buttons are literally on its left and right sides.

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