Month: May 2007

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Business Secrecy

AppleLogo

Many people complains that Apple Inc. is not clear about their directions and secretive about their product announcements and release dates.

An example being the recent events that had transpired with Apple’s iPhone. Apple announced and demonstrated the iPhone off at MacWorld San Francisco 2007 show in January. They then inform the public of a June 2007 release date.

Now as the rumored release date of June 11 approaches, numerous companies are trying to make their own announcements to stifle the anticipated excitement surrounding the actual iPhone release.

HTC, the Taiwanese Microsoft® Windows Mobile® smartphone manufacture, is planning a major announcement in London on June 5. Their chic designed invitation copied Apple’s iPhone theme by saying, “… a new mobile experience that will change the way we use and control our phones.”.

Microsoft® released the Microsoft® Surface a few hours ago. This device is suppose to be a commercial product based on the Multitouch technology that had been in development for the past 25 years. With Fingerworks developing an Opensource software to implement this Multitouch interface initially on Windows 2000 and Mac OS X. Although, Fingerworks is now an entity of Apple and its technology had been incorporated into the iPhone.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEVYwa-vHM]
Multitouch demonstration by Perceptive Pixel, Jefferson Y. Han’s company.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LByAFrcOwJk]
Jefferson Y. Han’s Multitouch Experiment in 2006.

So these actions by the various manufactures to position their announcements just prior to Apple’s iPhone launch, further proves Apple’s point and justifications to not make their plans 100% clear to the public. While still gives their stockholders and consumers something to look forward to.

read more | digg story

Posted on

Business Secrecy

AppleLogo

Many people complains that Apple Inc. is not clear about their directions and secretive about their product announcements and release dates.
An example being the recent events that had transpired with Apple’s iPhone. Apple announced and demonstrated the iPhone off at MacWorld San Francisco 2007 show in January. They then inform the public of a June 2007 release date.

Now as the rumored release date of June 11 approaches, numerous companies are trying to make their own announcements to stifle the anticipated excitement surrounding the actual iPhone release.

HTC, the Taiwanese Microsoft® Windows Mobile® smartphone manufacture, is planning a major announcement in London on June 5. Their chic designed invitation copied Apple’s iPhone theme by saying, “… a new mobile experience that will change the way we use and control our phones.”.

Microsoft® released the Microsoft® Surface a few hours ago. This device is suppose to be a commercial product based on the Multitouch technology that had been in development for the past 25 years. With Fingerworks developing an Opensource software to implement this Multitouch interface initially on Windows 2000 and Mac OS X. Although, Fingerworks is now an entity of Apple and its technology had been incorporated into the iPhone.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEVYwa-vHM]
Multitouch demonstration by Perceptive Pixel, Jefferson Y. Han’s company.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LByAFrcOwJk]
Jefferson Y. Han’s Multitouch Experiment in 2006.

So these actions by the various manufactures to position their announcements just prior to Apple’s iPhone launch, further proves Apple’s point and justifications to not make their plans 100% clear to the public. While still gives their stockholders and consumers something to look forward to.

read more | digg story

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Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean – The World’s End

Poster

My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: The World’s End” at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay.

The last of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. It is definitely a good one, much better than the second one, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest“. Before I went to see this latest episode I decided to rewatch “Dead Man’s Chest”, but I fell asleep while doing so. I do admit that I did not have too high of an expectation for “The World’s End” before I went to see it.

Again “Johnny Depp” was at his usual best. The character he seems to unable to come out of since “The Curse of the Black Pearl“.

This episode has the usual CGI that we come to expect in Pirates of the Caribbean.

All in all this was an entertaining movie and deserves the 4 penguins that I had given it.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere
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Another One Under the Gun

Last year (October 2006) the Hong Kong online retail company, Lik-Sang, was forced to go out of business by Sony® with lawsuits in the UK regarding the retailer’s sales of PSP consoles before Sony officially release it in the UK.

Now the record companies in the UK and EU is complaining that the online retailer CD Wow is selling CDs and DVDs below the UK/EU SRP (suggested retail price). The UK courts agree with the major labels and fined CD Wow close to USD81 Millions. CD Wow is going to appeal the ruling.

Will this latest ruling shut down CD Wow? Or will this finally expose the high profit margins the major labels are enjoying for so long. Most of which do not go back to the artist.

May be along with this story and what is happening in online music, we can force the major labels to redefine their business models.

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Getting Your Own House In Order

Poster

I know I say I try not to be political but the recent events in the past 12 hours had forced me to comment on the foreign policies of George W. Bush.

Yesterday, after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports to the UN Security Council that not only had Iran not stop the production of nuclear fuel they had increased production. The United States as a result asked the international members to put pressure on Iran to comply with the UN resolution. Either intentional or coincident, according to American authorities, the United States had sent two aircraft carriers along with supporting battle ships, amounting to a force of over 100 thousand members of the US arm forces, to join the US carrier group that is already in the Baltic sea for a, so called, military exercise.

In another story the US government is about to approve a 90 Billion dollars military fund to support the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Why are the Americans playing the role of world police? Will this world of ours go to “hell” if they do not?

Sometimes I wonder what our society will be like if what is imagined in Star Trek is true. In which the human culture had given up on any forms of monetary denominations. Instead placing values on knowledge, science and arts.

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My 3 Minutes of Fame

Today, while walking through a local Fortress store (appliance store), I noticed something very familiar on a promotion television for a DeLonghi Espresso coffee maker display. They were replaying continuously the video that I had posted on YouTube, which thus far viewed by 270 thousand people.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDZs__m5iAI
Two weeks ago it even made it onto the site BestOfYouTube.Com.

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Make Over

PlasticSurgery

I was sitting at Starbucks enjoying my English Breakfast tea. Next to me was two ladies speaking of plastic surgery as if they are choosing the latest pair of shoes.

Pouring over plastic surgery before and after photos as excited as little boys looking over the latest edition of a comic book.

Are these ladies exceptions in the our female populations? Are there just as many young women contemplating the same surgical procedures as these middle age ladies?

My opinion is that people should be satisfy with their looks as they are born with. There are various cosmetic surgery that are justified for recovery of accidents, but other reasons for cosmetic procedures should be considered very carefully.

Posted on

Make Over

PlasticSurgery

I was sitting at Starbucks enjoying my English Breakfast tea. Next to me was two ladies speaking of plastic surgery as if they are choosing the latest pair of shoes.

Pouring over plastic surgery before and after photos as excited as little boys looking over the latest edition of a comic book.

Are these ladies exceptions in the our female populations? Are there just as many young women contemplating the same surgical procedures as these middle age ladies?

My opinion is that people should be satisfy with their looks as they are born with. There are various cosmetic surgery that are justified for recovery of accidents, but other reasons for cosmetic procedures should be considered very carefully.

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Public Facilities

Broadwalk

Recently, with the help of The Community Chest and HSBC, they built a brand new wide broadwalk in Stanley to replace the crowded sidewalks and roadway that were occupied by the restaurants which lined the main street at Stanley.

Restaurant

I assume this facility is for the enjoyment of the general public. But upon closer inspection I realized not every member of the general public are allow to enjoy these facilities.

Signage

I found numerous copies of this sign posted every few feet along the broadwalk.

Has our society come to a point where we must live with so many explicit restrictions for the majority to be able to enjoy a public facility?

NoLaundry

By the way, only in Hong Kong will you see this sign.

Unfortunately, if this sign was not posted there would be people who will hang their laundry along the broadwalk. This occurrence in Hong Kong is something I really do not understand.

Are the people of Hong Kong that selfish? I still try to convince myself that is not the case.

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New Gestures

Do you live in one of the many countries around the world where the Nintendo DS-Lite had taken the populations by storm? Well I do and Hong Kong is one of those countries.

People playing games on these consoles have developed a set of very interesting gestures. I will attempt to describe them to you here:

  1. Blowing in the Wind

    The players would blow into the microphone of the device. When they do this the game would recognize their action and react accordingly. For example, there is a game where the player is the owner of a virtual pet, they can cause soap bubbles to scatter round the pet by blowing into the microphone, which will make the pet happy.

  2. Scribble Scribble

    The player would rapidly scribble on the screen of the NDS. The purpose of this action is normally when the player is playing the cooking game. They would need to toss the dishes they are cooking in the wok of cutting vegetables.

Unfortunately, I do not have photos of these gestures, but one can now see these gestures around Hong Kong, in MTR (subway), Starbucks and streets.

Another console that had introduced new gestures is the Wii, another console also from Nintendo.

These gestures are:

  1. Pump Pump Pump

    This is where the player holds the controls in both hands and rapidly moves them up and down in opposite positions. In one of the game that requires this gesture is in a game where the player has to control the on screen character’s arms while it run through the course of the game.

  2. Twist & Shake

    This is where the player takes the control to pick up a container in the game and shake it rapidly to shake the creatures out of the containers

The Internet and the services found there had brought us new words; fit for the Webster dictionary, like:

  • goo·gle – ‘gü-g&l, transitive verb
    to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web

Now it is changing the way behaviours.