S'pore first to get Samsung Galaxy S

05:55 AM May 28, 2010

Singapore will be the first country to get Samsung's new Android 2.1 smartphone Galaxy S.

The handset sports a four-inch capacitative touchscreen in a slim 9.9mm candy bar shell. The display uses Samsung's Super AMOLED technology - it's the second phone to have this, after Samsung Wave - which makes it brighter, less reflective and less power-hungry than older AMOLEDs. Its 5-megapixel autofocus camera can capture high-definition 720p videos at 30 frames per second. Powered by a 1GHz processor, the Galaxy S comes with 16GB of internal memory, and 8GB of storage (the external memory slot supports up to 32GB).

The phone also sports features like Swype, a text input service that helps you type more quickly by gliding your fingers across the onscreen keyboard. It comes with apps to view and edit Microsoft Office 2007 documents.

The Samsung Galaxy S will be available exclusively from SingTel, from $0 to $768 with contract (depending on the type of plan) or $1,098 without. SingTel customers can buy the phone online now at www.singtelshop.com, or at SingTel retail shops from June 4. The exclusivity period ends July 15. May Chua

http://www.todayonline.com/Tech/EDC100528-0000053/Spore-first-to-get-Samsung-Galaxy-S

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Try out StarCraft II at Licence2Play

BY KENNY CHEE

CAN’T wait to get your hands on the highly anticipated StarCraft II: Wings Of Liberty game from
Blizzard Entertainment, the company that gave us World Of Warcraft?

Then head down to the Licence2Play gaming event this weekend.

You can not only learn more about the game from a Blizzard representative, but also try out the game and pre-order it at the booth of its distributor, IAHGames, ahead of its July release.

Licence2Play is being held from tomorrow to Sunday at Singapore Expo Hall 6B, where 250,000 visitors are expected.

Blizzard’s global manager for community development, Mr Kevin Yu, will speak to the public about StarCraft II at 3pm and 7pm tomorrow, as well as at 2pm and 7pm on Saturday.


Returning for a second year, Licence2Play  organised by Singapore Press Holdings subsidiary Sphere Exhibits – is a bigger event than last year’s.


For the first time, it is hosting the Singapore legs of two global gaming competitions, one which is part of the established home-grown The New Paper Cyber Challenge.


Singapore’s Cybersports & Online Gaming Association is holding a Heroes Of Newerth tournament to select Singapore representatives for a gaming event at the Shanghai World Expo in August.


The winners will also represent the country for the the Digital Youth Award competition at
Sweden’s DreamHack, dubbed the digital Woodstock, in November.


Football fans are also kicking off at IAHGames’ Singapore qualifiers for the Hyundai Motor Cup EA Sports Fifa Online 2 Championships, which will take place in South Korea in July.


New games will be launched at Licence2Play, too, such as online horror game Requiem: Alive from AsiaSoft Online. Besides games, visitors can look out for electronic products and even collectible toys – a first
for Licence2Play.

Seagate will have a Power Zone, where visitors can test its Barracuda XT 2TB hard drive that can access stored data rapidly, which is a boon to gamers. And, from tomorrow, the public can participate in the Digital
Life – Seagate PC Challenge to win a high-performance computer- gaming system that packs the Barracuda XT.

Bargain hunters can expect deals, such as a $499 42-inch high-definition TV set from Audio House that comes with a free video camera worth $399. kennyc@sph.com.sg Licence2Play is on from tomorrow till Sunday at Singapore Expo Hall 6B, from 11am to 9pm daily. Admission is free. For more details, check out
www.licence2play.com.sg

Source: www.mypaper.com.sg

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SONY CONFIRMS KILLZONE 3, FEATURING 3-D OPTION

SONY has confirmed it will release a third entry in Guerrilla Games’ Killzone series, which will include a stereoscopic 3-D rendering option. But the publisher declined to give a projected release timeframe, Gamasutra reported.

Killzone 3 is in development for PlayStation 3 by the Netherlands- based, Sony-owned studio, Guerrilla Games.

Source: www.mypaper.com.sg

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China’s Hanvon takes on Apple

CHINA’S leading electronics manufacturer Hanvon has beaten Apple in launching a portable tablet PC
for the Chinese market, ntdtv.com reported.

At the launch last week, an apple-shaped ice sculpture was smashed to signal a challenge to its competitor: The Chinese manufacturer wants its own TouchPad to beat its rival on time, price and consumer appeal.

The unveiling had more theatrics than a usual product unveiling, with techno music, the new Hanvon TouchPad B10 rising from the ground, and models walking the tablets up and down a runway.

Back to the tablet itself, it actually doesn’t look that bad.
Here are the official specs:
Intel ULV743 at 1.3GHz
2GB RAM
Intel GMA integrated graphics
10-inch multi-touch display
Windows 7 Home Premium
250GB HDD
Webcam, Bluetooth, HDMI,
VGA, USB

At first glance, the tablet looks attractive, as it looks to be of a different screen ratio than that of the iPad, reported Nexus404.com.

Unlike the iPad, it has a x86 processor and a full-desktop operating system. Following Hanvon’s usual
business model, the TouchPad will probably be sold in China  under the Hanvon name, and it will be offered to Western manufacturers, who may sell the device in North America and Europe under their own name.
(So it could end up as the Dell Edge or HP Titan).

Hanvon said the B10 will be priced in the 500-euro (S$880) range. No release date was announced.
AGENCIES

Source: www.mypaper.com.sg

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NTT DoCoMo

Style, form and function

JAPANESE telco NTT DoCoMo unveiled its P-05B mobile phone last week in Tokyo. The gadget was made in collaboration with American fashion label Kate Spade and manufactured by Panasonic. Pictured on the phone’s screen is a floral-print design from the label. NTT DoCoMo is Japan’s largest mobile-phone company. (PHOTO: BLOOMBERG)

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Creative Zen X-Fi Style & Zen Style series of portable media players

Surprise return to small-screen portable media players

Creative Zen X-Fi Style & Zen Style series of portable media players PORTABLE media players (PMPs) have come a long way in the last two years.

Not only have prices come down, but screen sizes have also increased (to as large as 7 inches) and most PMPs can play all the popular video formats available
(avi, mkv, rmvb, and so on). So it’s surprising that Creative’s new PMP offerings, the X-Fi Style and the Zen Style series, come with tiny screens (1.8 inch to 2.4 inch) and do not support some versions of avi files.

What has happened to Singapore’s most famous IT company? Surely, it must be aware that people will not buy PMPs with screens so small that they are hardly viewable.

To be sure, Creative’s skills in harnessing the best of audio technologies remain undiminished, as shown by the good sound quality of its players.

But if Creative is to remain a serious player, its PMPs need to be in tune with market trends and have bigger, sharper screens, faster processing chips as well
as the ability to play all types of video formats.

How much: Zen X-Fi Style (8GB: $159; 16GB: $199; 32GB: $249). Zen Style series prices range from $79 to $179.

Source: www.mypaper.com.sg

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HTC Desire smartphone

A feature-packed phone named Desire

BY YEONG AH SENG

HTC Desire smartphone FROYO, the latest version (2.2) of the Android operating system for mobile phones, was in the news last week.

Its many new features fuelled talk that the iPhone was finally on the ropes. But we all know that an OS is only as good as the phone running it: If the superior features of the OS are clearly evident on a good phone, there will be no shortage of adopters.

In HTC, Android may have found a perfect match. HTC made the first commercially
available Android phone, the Dream.

It has also come up with a number of successors – the Magic, Hero and Legend.

The latest, Desire, is a better version of the Google Nexus One Android phone, with optical tracking instead of a trackball.

Although it is loaded with Version 2.1 (Eclair) of the Android OS, it nonetheless demonstrates the best of what the system has to offer.

The fast (1GHz) Snapdragon CPU, the crisp and sharp 3.7- inch Amoled screen, HTC’s
Sense (a proprietary user interface) and the 5-megapixel camera all add up to a very fast and feature-filled phone that is in many ways superior to the iPhone.

One wonders what an HTC Desire, when loaded with Froyo, would be like. For Apple, it is perhaps time to perform a reality check. How much: $898, without plan

Source: www.mypaper.com.sg

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AUSSIE SCIENTISTS MAKE ATOM-SIZED SWITCH

AUSTRALIAN scientists yesterday unveiled the world’s smallest electronic switch, measuring just a few atoms, which will shrink microchips
and revolutionise computing speeds.

The seven-atom transistor, measuring four-billionths of a metre and embedded in a single silicone crystal, is the first step in a “quantum computer” which will make calculations millions of times faster than those
possible with existing devices.
AFP

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SAMSUNG RELEASES SMARTPHONE WITH OWN OS

SAMSUNG Electronics, South Korea’s largest mobile-handset
maker, said yesterday that it will release the first smartphone based on its Bada operating system in Europe this week, Xinhua reported.

The smartphone, named Wave, will first debut in European countries such as Britain, France and Germany, as Samsung plans to also expand its application store Samsung
Apps to more than 80 countries worldwide, the South Korean company said in a statement.

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ENCRYPTED GOOGLE SEARCH READY FOR USERS

GOOGLE has begun rolling out an encrypted version of its search engine in an effort to protect Internet users from having their searches sniffed by others on their network, Ars Technica reported. The new version of Google is SSL-encrypted and located at www.google.com Like many of Google’s other changes, it is being rolled out slowly to all users who choose to search securely.

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KINDLE FOR PC TO BE ON ASUS NETBOOKS

ASUS and Amazon have just announced a partnership that will see the Kindle for PC software pre-installed on a number of Asus netbooks and laptops, Zdnet.com reported.
Apparently, only Asus portable computers sold through Amazon will be lucky enough to come with yet another pre-loaded program.

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