Jayvee Fernandez on Technology and New Media in the Philippines

Kobe Bryant coming to Manila on July 21 2009

Jayvee — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:54:59 +0000

Hey guys, Kobe’s coming to town! Although this is really a tech blog, some of my readers have requested to post new things about basketball / Nike gear when they come my way. So here you go!

BEAVERTON, Ore. (3 July, 2009) – Nike announced today that it would host 2009 NBA Champion and Finals MVP Kobe Bryant on a six-city tour of Asia. Developed as an opportunity for Kobe to meet with kids throughout Asia to inspire, energize and improve their basketball skills, Kobe’s tour will make stops in Manila, Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Chengdu, China, starting July 21, 2009.

From July 1st, Nike will launch the Nike Dream Season. Developed to meet the needs of outdoor basketball players in Asia, the Nike Dream Season was designed with insights from Kobe. The shoe will be a part of his signature collection and will be sold exclusively in Asia.

Kobe Bryant 2009 Asia Tour Schedule:
July 21: Manila
July 22: Singapore
July 23: Taipei
July 24: Hong Kong
July 25: Shanghai
July 26: Chengdu

Watch out for updates on the Kobe Bryant 2009 Asia Tour: Philippines on www.nike.com.ph or tune it to W.N.I.K.E. Radio on 89.9 DWTM Mondays from 10:00am to 10:30am.

Wii Night with the LG Scarlet

Jayvee — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:28:01 +0000

Having scheduled Wii Night, it just so happened that LG lent us their latest LCD TV, the Scarlet. We were supposed to play on my home TV but the delivery was more than welcome. Yay!

Eye popping as it is, the Scarlet boasts to be the thinnest LCD TV (so far!) accentuated by a very nice crimson color on the back. I guess if Samsung brought forth the wine glass design for their flat screens, LG goes in the direction of color. And it’s really nice. I guess this is the type of furniture you’d want to display in the middle of the room rather than pushed to a corner.

I have to mention how light it was. It could be an illusion brought forth by how thin it looks, but I could have sworn that the HDTV is one of the lighter and more portable ones in the market today. Look at us carry it to and fro:

The LG Scarlet has two RCA ports and 4 HDMI ports (2 HDMI ports for input). VGA connectivity’s all in — pretty much the staple you’d find in any system today. It also has an additional slot for inserting USB keys, network LAN for browsing and Bluetooth connectivity.

One thing I wish the Scarlet had more of were a wider selection of formats for video playback. I tried playing a few MP4 files from my USB drive but the unit was not able to detect the format. I think it really has come to that point where manufacturers should consider adding a wider range of video codecs as these televisions are no longer just screens that project images but full fledged entertainment devices, even without the Blu-ray player or gaming console.

You can use the Scarlet (among many other HDTV’s) to surf the Internet and view photos, and I especially liked how the Scarlet + Wii + Logitech wireless keyboard made surfing the Internet so much easier (a few updates back allowed you to use a USB keyboard to surf the Internet — I used a wireless receiver). Because the Scarlet is really thin, I had to reorient my Wii sensor bar to the bottom of the screen as it won’t fit on top.

Ah yes — Street Fighter II in 16×9 format.

And WoW Minis on the side.

The LG Scarlet starts at P49,999 with three sizes — 32 inches, 42 inches and 47 inches.

Google Chrome for Mac OS X Developer Beta Download

Jayvee — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:40:44 +0000

Although several of its features are still not implemented (such as importation of passwords), Google Chrome for Mac OS X is hot.

Sony DSC T700 with Marine Pack Hands On in Anilao

Jayvee — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:00:05 +0000

Photo Credits: Juned Sonido, Benj Espina, myself

Went on a weekend dive at Dive and Trek in Anilao. A friend was taking her open water course so a bunch of us tagged along. It was also good to meet up (underwater!) with Wowie, Jerome and the rest of the guys from Intel. On the side of the Internet community, Juned was able to drag Benj along. Fun times!

The full review and more underwater shots after the jump.

Apart from logging 6 dives, the guys from Sony were generous enough to lend me a Cybershot DSC T700 with a MPK-THG Marine Pack to try out! Thanks Sony, I am grateful.

Writing a review for a camera housing is a bit of a challenge given how the quality of photos taken doesn’t necessarily reflect the housing itself. There are just too many factors to consider when shooting underwater including (1) your visibility, (2) your ability to control your buoyancy, (3) the “limited” ability of a point and shoot camera in certain conditions, like white balance manipulation, and of course, (4) lighting with a strobe. Am I missing anything?

In this case, the deepest we went was at 91 feet (Batcave) but most of the time I had the camera, we were around 60 feet maximum depth. The best visibility was around lunch time during our second dive and a lot of the colors really stood out, especially the reds and yellows. According to Juned, knowing this bit of knowledge and the limitations of your camera should make you focus on looking for particular subjects like Clown Fish (Nemo) and saltwater angels as the reds, oranges and yellows really stand out. This was the limitation of the camera and it really isn’t a reflection of how “bad” or “good” it was. Get me? Taking photos underwater is as different as the experience of diving.

According to the text written on the box, the housing can achieve a maximum depth of 40 meters or 132 feet. If you’ve seen other types of underwater housing in the past, you’ll see how this particular model shines in terms of its size and efficiency. It is extremely compact and simple to use with only 4 function buttons, the review button, the power button and the trigger. The Marine Pack houses a DSC T700, which is a full touch screen camera which means that the four buttons on the casing press down on the touch screen and do not attach to any specific knobs or gears. Again, ease of use!

Preparing the camera and casing for shooting wasn’t too hard. The T700 comes with a built in underwater mode which allows you to customize your white balance according to three preset settings. This is good for amateurs and makes things a whole lot simple, but the ability to custom your WB underwater manually should be a MUST for more advanced shooting. Again, this is a FUN underwater P&S camera. I learned that the best photos are achieved by always shooting with flash (duh!) and adjusting your macro mode to close focus as it’s really useless to shoot far into the deep with low visibility.

The underwater mode also moves around the touch screen function buttons to the right side of the camera so that the 4 buttons can touch all the functions — which means that you will really need to shoot using this setting and no other when the housing surrounds the T700.

So, the day I got to Dive and Trek, Wowie and Marie helped me prepare the T700 for proper underwater shooting. I had to open the Marine Pack and remove all the dirt from the sides. After doing that, I removed the O-Ring and greased it (the packaging comes with a tube of grease and one extra O-Ring). I dumped the casing without the camera into fresh water for 3 seconds, 30 seconds, and then 3 minutes each time checking for leaks into the housing. None. Perfect! In our first dive, I brought the case in without the camera for safety and then placed the camera inside on the succeeding dives.

Battery life was a bitch so I had to recharge the camera after every other dive which meant opening the UW case and repeating the process of cleaning and greasing.

The UW case comes with a hood which you can attach to the back so you can avoid the glare when near the surface but I took it off after the first dive as we were going rather deep anyway.

The Marine Pack’s product text in front also glows in the dark so that it is easy to find when diving at night.

Bottomline, if you already own a Sony DSC T700 or a T77, this is a no brainer. The casing only costs P10,999.00 which is rather cheap for a sturdy case that allows you to reach advanced course diving limits. After buying this case you may want to invest in purchasing a strobe light. The only negative thing I can say about the camera pack is that battery runs out rather fast. After two hours of shooting underwater, I’m already low on battery, but that is mainly because I make videos and always have the flash turned on for photos.

Why Did YouTube Ban Podline6?

Jayvee — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:05:03 +0000

A little bit of old news, but I still can’t get over the fact that YouTube had to remove podline6’s entire channel from their site. podline6 has been humbly covering old hits on piano and guitar for quite some time now, getting it spot on — and more — when he does covers by America and Bread. His version of “Hot Rod Hearts” on piano is even better than Robee Dupree’s. Above is my favorite America cover on guitar, “Are You There?”

Above: An emotional podline6 talks about copyright infringement

I’ve been a fan of Larry’s covers for more than a year but his account was suspended by YouTube for copyright infringement. Since when was it illegal to cover songs? It’s not like he was making any money out of it. Yeah, we know it isn’t YouTube’s fault, but record labels need to protect artists. Do artists really need all this protecting? If I were a musician and someone did a cover of my song, I’d be honored. But the record label won’t. And it’s not like he’s covering new songs … but that’s besides the point. In hindsight, why is it OK for other people to cover songs on YouTube and not be banned? And why was his entire channel banned?

So when I grab my guitar and cover songs by James Taylor, am I violating copyright law??

Larry has created a new account, under podline66 to continue to make people happy. He never did it for the money. Check his covers. He’s amazing.

Celine Lopez on our June Cover

Jayvee — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:54:34 +0000

A late post for me, but better this than never. Celine is on our front cover for June. And if you’re interested in seeing what was behind it, we uploaded the shoot below.

If you’ve seen the issue up front, you’ll notice the cover lines that don’t appear on the online version. It’s almost like a hologram. With David Bowie references all over.

Y’know, the guy from Labyrinth.

More E72 and E71 Comparison Photos and Review

Jayvee — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:25:34 +0000

In the Philippines, the Nokia E72 will ship for around P22,000.00

Hi guys, thanks for all the link backs and comments with regards to the E72 launch I covered. A lot of you were asking about the enhanced Navi key so over lunch I borrowed the E72 of one of the regional comms from Nokia and the product is the video you see above. I’m showing off how well the Navi key works in conjunction to the user interface. As you can see, it is very fast (who needs a touch screen anyway??). The Navi key really shines with the new multimedia menu especially when browsing through photos.

Ready for my photo barrage? It’s all after the jump.

I’ve also meticulously included more comparison shots of the E72 with my E71. Some small differences that I did not include in my previous comparison include are the (1) switching of the Bluetooth and memory card slots, (2) the location of the 3.5mm head phone jack was moved to the top of the device, with the new power button prominently placed on the center. There are also (2) new shortcut keys in the QWERTY thumb pad for the flashlight (we’ve seen this in the E63), instand on Bluetooth and silent mode. A convenient and well thought of addition. Looks like the speaker was also (3) moved behind, beside the camera.

Enjoy the rest of the photos

Oh I decided to add the N97 to the photo comparison over lunch. They’re all more or less the same size!

Hope you enjoyed the photos! Will be flying back to Manila tomorrow. Tonight, we drink!

Get Fabulous with DANCE FABULOUS!

Jayvee — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:44:04 +0000

There’s no other way to demo this game for the N Gage than to show it. It’s basically a combination of Boogie for the Nintendo Wii and Dance Dance Revolution, all put together on your mobile phone. What makes this game challenging is that there’s no rhythm bar, unlike in the Wii’s Boogie.

There is no multiplayer component so you can’t play with friends but since you’re logged on to the N Gage Arena, you can compare top scores per region and even globally.

Universal’s Cindy Gomez (up and coming artist) is also inside the game as an avatar which you can play. Five of her songs are included as tracks but you can use any music track within your device.

The game uses an achievements-based system to unlock items so leveling up allows you to see more items and use them as apparel for your avatar.

Dance Fabulous is available on free trial for the N Gage which you can buy later on.

UPDATED Hands On: Nokia XpressMusic 5530 retails for 200 Euros (PHP 13,000)

Jayvee — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:39:13 +0000

UPDATE: Hey thanks for visiting. If you love these early hands on features and phone reviews, please support me by subscribing to my blog’s email feed:

Subscribe to A Bugged Life [ the pseudo personal blog about blogging, technology and stuff ] by Email

Hands On

I’d feel bad for you if you recently bought a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. Today, Nokia launched the 5530 XpressMusic phone, the cheapest touch screen music phone in their entire roster, which retails for about 200 EU. Holy cow, that’s just about, or less than, P13,000 if I’m not mistaken.

The complete hands on after the break.

What makes it so cheap? Well for one thing, though it retains WLAN connectivity, the 5530 did forgo the 3G chip and goes by 2G connectivity. And we’re fine with that. During the panel interview, Nokia did admit that they still see 3G as emerging in some countries, and it isn’t as big of a deal than other neat features like music, a touch screen and all out style.

Some of you (hello ladies!) might want to take note that although it isn’t a limited edition color, the pink version of the 5530 XpressMusic comes with a special design on the back plate that is not available with the other colors. The photo above shows it all. This isn’t a limited edition offering. It is really part of the line up.

Above are the 5530 and 5800 respectively. Here are more photo comparisons (special thanks to my hand model, Mr. William Hamilton-Whyte, Nokia Philippines Country Manager):

The 5530 comes with 4GB of memory expansion, which can be bumped up to 16GB. it has a 2.9 inch screen with a resolution of 640 x 360 and works fine on direct sunlight. Unlike the 5800 that still had front face hardware buttons, the 5530 did leave this out for a total virtual keypad experience. There are still dedicated buttons for calls and the main menu, but like I said, they are virtual keys, allowing for a full touch screen experience.

Another big difference is the addition of 20 contacts which you can follow in the Context Bar. The old 5800 allowed for 4 contacts which you can monitor via SMS, calls, feeds, etc. The same applies here, but it has been bumped up to 20 contacts, allowing you to keep track of calls made, received, SMS, as well as RSS feeds of their blogs and social networks. Cool beans!

All in all, the 5530 is going to be a sure hit in the Philippines because of its price point.it is slightly smaller than the 5800, and that is in fact, a good thing. How much lighter can you make it?? Just like the E71 and E72 upgrade, the 5530 brings forth similar portent to its predecessor by making the experience more affordable towards tech enthusiasts, style leaders and “young explorers.”

The 5530 XpressMusic phone does not have GPS. It does not have 3G. It comes with a stylus. It comes with a 3.2Mp camera with LED flash. In fact, here is a sample of camera quality, below. It will cost about 200 EU and will be shipping this July worldwide. Watch for it!

The full specs are here on PDF format:

Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Data Sheet Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Data Sheet Jayvee

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

UPDATED III: Nokia E72 vs E71 Comparison Photos and Review

Jayvee — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:30:34 +0000

UPDATE II: A ton more photo comparisons here as I was able to borrow an E72 over lunch from the comms people of Nokia SG. The E72 will retail in the Philippines for about P22,000.00

UPDATE: Hey thanks for visiting. If you love these early hands on features and phone reviews, please support me by subscribing to my blog’s email feed:

Subscribe to A Bugged Life [ the pseudo personal blog about blogging, technology and stuff ] by Email

Lo and behold, the brand new Nokia E72 was accidentally unveiled yesterday via a leaked video over the Internet. No scandals here of that sort: according to some Nokia execs who were at Nokia Connections ‘09, one of the tech guys accidentally classified one top secret video as “public” instead of “private” thus leaking one of four videos for the new phone launches today. Oh well, it’s probably a good thing anyway – think of the Internet coverage on the leak!

Soooo … yay! It is thus of no surprise to have the Nokia E72 launched today at Nokia Connections, alongside the ultra affordable 5530 XpressMusic and mid range 3710 Fold. This post is dedicated to the latest enterprise device, the E72. Hands down, the E72 is an amazing phone that borrows from everything that made the E71 great and the hardworking engineers over at Nokia were quick to add a few interesting touches.

The E71 was announced today as Nokia’s best selling E series device as it combined elegance, form factor and function into a really great business phone. I had my E71 with me at the time so here is a side by side comparison of the two units.

On the left is the Nokia E72 and on the right is my Nokia E71. In jest, I was telling the guys from Nokia how disappointed I was after realizing that my E71 is now “obsolete.” The E71 was launched last year during Nokia Connection 2008. The main differences between the E71 and the E72 are:

The E72 has slightly bigger keys and a smaller space bar within the QWERTY keypad. It actually resembles the Nokia E63, the E71’s more affordable younger brother, albeit with a more classy finish. Holding both the E71 and E72 in my hands, I would say that the latter is slightly bigger and of greater weight, but not by much. This is mainly due to the very nice metal finish, thus making it slightly heavier. If you look closely onto the keypad, the texture of the menu buttons are rougher, almost like a decadent wood varnish in terms of style. This is a nice accent.

There are several UI differences with the E72, but the overall theme, if I were to summarize, is that of speed and eye candy. The interface is faster and pops in more interesting transition effects when navigating through the phone. There are also subtle differences with certain details: the old E71 labeled email according to the name you gave it (i.e “personal mail” or “work email”). The E72 contextualizes your mail server by adding icons as to which service you’re actually using. Notice the GMail symbol for the IMAP client. I would assume the corresponding corporate logos would be applied were it Yahoo! or MSN.

On to the navigation key. The middle button of the E72 is the special Navi key that was introduced before in previous Nokia devices (the N79 if I am not mistaken). The middle button is touch sensitive, allowing you to slide your thumb through it to browse your content and make selections. The multimedia menu has been revamped into an “iPhone like” UI where you can also browse your content using the special Navi key.

The biggest and most notable difference which I personally enjoy is the addition for HTML enabled email into your mail folders, thus allowing the E72 to display text wrapped images, colors and fonts when you download your mail to your device. The E71 did not allow this (downloaded mail was basically just text) and no firmware upgrade will allow you to do this in the future. I guess this is their way of differentiating the next generation E series email features from their new product — Mail on Ovi which is targeted more for S40 based phones, and hence, “more low end” in appearance. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that Mail on Ovi doesn’t deliver. It’s just that with the rise of the S40 based email features on Mail on Ovi, you’d need to upgrade the email services for the E series to make it more desirable and competent.

Lastly, the E72 has a battery with 20% more efficiency although the Nokia E71 and E72 share the same battery type, but not the same back panel casing. Overall, the E72 is a welcome upgrade from the previous year. The E71 was already a kick ass device when it was launched, and it still is to this very day. The most tempting features that may force you to get the E72 would be the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack, which made debut with the E63 and the HTML email downloads, allowing you to receive more colorful and formatted email.

The E72 will be out in the Philippines come third quarter of the year. Wait for it!

Here is the complete specs sheet for the Nokia E72:

Nokia E72 Data Sheet Nokia E72 Data Sheet Jayvee

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Enjoy!

Jayvee Fernandez on Technology and New Media in the Philippines

Kobe Bryant coming to Manila on July 21 2009

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Hands On

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