I wish Google+ has support for nicer URLs like what they did in Facebook for both pages and profiles URL. No freaking way anybody is going to remember the ID of your profile or page.

Without a doubt, I have jumped onto the bandwagon and created a Google+ Page for lesterchan.net!

lesterchan.net on Google+: https://plus.google.com/117234432788649963306
lesterchan.net on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesterchan.net

People + pages, better together

Google+ has always been a place for real-life sharing, and Google+ Pages is no exception. After all: behind every page (or storefront, or four-door sedan) is a passionate group of individuals, and we think you should able to connect with them too.

For you and me, this means we can now hang out live with the local bike shop, or discuss our wardrobe with a favorite clothing line, or follow a band on tour. Google+ pages give life to everything we find in the real world. And by adding them to circles, we can create lasting bonds with the pages (and people) that matter most.

For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you’ll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello.

Official Blog Post: Google+ Pages: connect with all the things you care about

Its initial partners include music collection society COMPASS, leading sports rights agency World Sport Group, music distributor Valleyarm / Music Services Asia, and production companies Interactive SG, Oak Media, and Refinery Media.

The YouTube Partner Program opens in Singapore, allowing local video creators to earn income from their work on YouTube through sharing advertising revenue.

The official YouTube account for YouTube Singapore is youtube.com/SingaporeYT!

Official: YouTube Singapore

Press release as follows:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and LIBERTYVILLE, IL – AUGUST 15, 2011 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, “This transaction offers significant value for Motorola Mobility’s stockholders and provides compelling new opportunities for our employees, customers, and partners around the world. We have shared a productive partnership with Google to advance the Android platform, and now through this combination we will be able to do even more to innovate and deliver outstanding mobility solutions across our mobile devices and home businesses.”

Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, said, “We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem. However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.

Press Release: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility
Source: Official Google Blog: Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. With a smile, a laugh, a whisper or a cheer, we connect with others every single day.

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project

+Circles: share what matters, with the people who matter most

Not all relationships are created equal. So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss. The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food – wrapping everyone in “friend” paper—and sharing really suffers

+Sparks: strike up a conversation, about pretty much anything

Healthy obsessions inspire sharing, and we’ve all got one (or two, or three…). Maybe it’s muscle cars, or comic books, or fashion, but the attraction is always the same: it comes up in conversation, we immediately jump in, and we share back and forth with other fans. Often for hours. The trick is getting things started, and getting over that initial hump. Fortunately, the web is the ultimate icebreaker.

+Hangouts: stop by and say hello, face-to-face-to-face

Whether it’s inside a pub or on a front porch, human beings have always enjoyed hanging out. And why not? It’s how we unwind, recharge, and spend unscheduled time with old and new friends alike. Hanging out is deceptively simple though, and the nuance gets lost online.

+Mobile: share what’s around, right now, without any hassle

These days a phone is the perfect sharing accessory: it’s always with you, it’s always online, and it’s how we stay close with our closest friends. We didn’t want “just” a mobile experience, however, so with Google+ we focused on things (like GPS, cameras, and messaging) to make your pocket computer even more personal.

+Huddle

Coordinating with friends and family in real-time is really hard in real life. After all, everyone’s on different schedules, in different places, and plans can change at any moment. Phone calls and text messages can work in a pinch, but they’re not quite right for getting the gang together. So Google+ includes Huddle, a group messaging experience that lets everyone inside the circle know what’s going on, right this second.

Check out the Official Blog Post: Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing, rethought for the web for more detailed information.

Engadget: Google+ invite received, we go hands-on
Official Site: Google+

Snippet

Every work day Facebook is safely updated with hundreds of changes including bug fixes, new features, and product improvements. Given hundreds of engineers, thousands of changes every week and hundreds of millions of users we have worldwide, this task seems like it should be impossible. In this tech talk, Chuck Rossi will dig into the tools and processes built by our Release Engineering team that make it possible to push daily updates to the site.

Summary

• They cut from trunk to RC on Sunday 6pm
• Tuesday 4pm is where they push it live
• They uses SVN for their central repo and git for development
• They do releases every weekday
  • Monday – Small daily pushes
  • Tuesday – Release push
  • Wednesday – Larger daily push
  • Thursday – Regular daily push
  • Friday – Careful daily push (mentioned that developers always slack on a Friday aka Friday you are most likely drunk)
• Facebook has slow traffic on Friday, but lots of traffic on Sat/Sun
• Facebook has 500 core engineers divided into 15 teams
• All users who works in Facebook does testing. When employees within the company type “http://facebook.com” they will be redirected to “http://latest.facebook.com“. Latest is defined as the merge between current Facebook production and what is going up on Tuesday
• Facebook does bug filing via email as well. If you send an email to a pre-defined address, it will be tracked by the bug tracker
• There is a Facebook Bugs Groups which all employee is a member (Similar to ours)
• Facebook.com is not a sandbox, strictly no testing on production
• Only 3 core release engineers
• 60 engineers on standby when a release takes place
• 3 phrases of pushing
  • A1: http://inyour.facebook.com aka staging, last chance to check what you are pushing. Looks good, moving on to A2
  • A2: Small % of machines, a couple of 1000 machines
  • A3: All
• Every developer, either develop against mock datasource or production database. Yes, you heard me right- Production DB. (And they have an army of DB admins to take care of that)
• Staging a.k.a. inyour.facebook.com and latest.facebook.com point to production database
• Facebook has oncall engineers for different teams with regards of different aspect of the website like Like Button, Feeds, Search, etc
• Automated infrastructure
  • IRC bots
    • They communicate via IRC about 300 to 500 people and 3 release engineers
    • They don’t talk to people, rather they ask people to talk to bots
      • Are we pushing today?
      • Can I get revision been merged?
      • When is my revision going out?
    • All this questions above can be answered by bots
      • /msg request_bot rt
  • Test automation
    • Test engineering team
    • Test console
      • Unit Test
      • Water Test
  • Shadow branch
    • Shadowing the production branch + changes that is requested
  • Error tracking
    • Per PHP error
    • Stack trace
    • SVN Blame
    • 1 button file as bug to the person and to the person who reviewed the code
    • How often the error occurs (like Google Analytics but for errors)
  • Gatekeeper
    • Console to change who can see the feature
    • Conditional statements within the code itself
    • Able to filter via Employees, US East Coast, US West Coast, Datacenter, Age, IP White/Black List. Able to bump to show only to 1% public then slowly increasing
  • Push Karma
    • General request page
    • How many files, LOC is being changed, risk ratings
    • Abstraction of discussions, call for changes are all being pulled
    • Magic Push Karma
      • Everyone starts with 4 stars
      • From there you go down
      • Private shaming
  • Perflab
    • Every SVN checkin is being plotted to a graph
      • Difference between production trunk and production+release trunk
      • Eg: A fix is make in trunk but did not get to release
  • HipHop
    • Everyone hates PHP, it is crappy and slow
    • They compiled PHP
    • Transformation Process
      • Parser -> Static Analyzer -> Pre-Optimizer -> Type Interface Engine -> Post Optimizer -> Code Generator -> G++
      • 1 GB binary is Facebook.com. Static, web resources, everything
      • Takes 8 to 10 minutes to build
      • faster by compiling PHP
  • BitTorrent
    • 1GB of binary file push to thousands and thousands of servers using torrent
    • Push 1GB of binary to all servers within 15 minutes
• Tools alone won’t save you, you need the right company, right people and right culture
• From Q&A
  • Robust backup and recovery system just in case someone did something stupid
  • Must be backward compatible, they might be a chance a few hundred machines does not have the new code in
  • While pushing to A3, automated test are still being run on A1 and A2 to detect potential problem
  • You write your test for your code
• phabricator – Phabricator is the Open Source release of Facebook’s internal tools for code review, repository browsing and change management. It contains two major applications: Differential, a code review tool, and Diffusion, a repository browser
• HipHop – HipHop for PHP transforms PHP source code into highly optimized C++. It was developed by Facebook and was released as open source in early 2010

Video: Push: Tech Talk – May 26, 2011 [HQ]
Facebook: Facebook Engineering

Worth a read =)

Much of what Elop had to say wasn’t news to his audience, but it was still distressing. In his measured telling, Apple and Google (GOOG) had changed the industry from handset-focused to software-focused. Symbian had fallen too far behind to have any hope of catching up. Worse, the company’s great hope for the future—a software platform created with chipmaker Intel (INTC), called MeeGo—wasn’t ready to pick up the slack. He tried to negotiate a deal with Google to run Android, but Google refused to give the world’s biggest phonemaker any advantages over its smaller partners, meaning Nokia’s corps of 11,600 engineers would have next to no ability to add their own innovations to Google’s software. “It just didn’t feel right,” Elop says to the crowd. “We’d be just another company distributing Android. That’s not Nokia! We need to fight!”

Silence.

For a moment, Elop, 47, lays into the complacency he sees settling over the company. When he asks how many people in the crowd use an iPhone or Android device, few hands go up. “That upsets me—not because some of you are using iPhones, but because only a small number of people are using iPhones. I’d rather people have the intellectual curiosity to understand what we’re up against.”

Full Article: Stephen Elop’s Nokia Adventure

What is +1

The +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.”

Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1′s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

See +1′s

Sometimes it’s easier to find exactly what you’re looking for when someone you know already found it. Get recommendations for the things that interest you, right when you want them, in your search results.

The next time you’re trying to remember that bed and breakfast your buddy was raving about, or find a great charity to support, a +1 could help you out. Just make sure you’re signed in to your Google Account.

Show +1′s

In order to +1 things, you first need a public Google profile. This helps people see who recommended that tasty recipe or great campsite. When you create a profile, it’s visible to anyone and connections with your email address can easily find it.

Your +1′s are stored in a new tab on your Google profile. You can show your +1′s tab to the world, or keep it private and just use it to personally manage the ever-expanding record of things you love around the web.

Trying Google +1: Google Labs
Learn More: Google +1 Button

Currently receiving or replying status’ comments via SMS is in beta, hopefully it will be available for the public soon.

KPo /kay po/ is a service to bridge the existing gap that allow Facebook users to update their status via SMS. The service is not only meant for non-smartphone users, it does benefit smartphone users as it offers a very quick way to update status without having to wait for the Facebook app to launch. Not only the service will do updating from mobile to Facebook, the receiving and replying to status comment feature is soon to be released.

What’s different between KPo and many other services is that KPo’s philosophy is to keep it simple, we want to give mobile users the most intuitive experience via the primitive yet effective SMS channel. On top of that KPo runs on very low cost yet stable systems and we do have a sustainable business model in place for the long run.

This reminds me of TweetSG some time back where you can send a tweet via SMS. But unfortunately due to the high traffic (and thus high cost), they couldn’t survive as a free service and eventually they sort of become inactive. Let’s hope kaypo.me will be more successful than TweetSG.

Singapore, 16 February 2011 – Facebook today announced the launch of Facebook Places in Singapore. Already available in some countries, Facebook Places allows you to “check-in” and share with your friends where you are and who you’re with, find friends who are nearby and discover new places your friends like – all in real time.

Facebook Places is available to users in Singapore with mobile access to the Facebook application for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, HP webOS, and Windows Phone 7, or to touch.facebook.com. When you use Places, you’ll be able to see if any of your friends are currently checked in nearby and connect with them easily. You can also check into nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit together, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit.

How to use Facebook Places?

• Go to the “Places” icon within the Facebook mobile applications or touch.facebook.com, then tap the “Check In” button, which will pull up a list of places near you.
• Choose the place that matches where you are. If there isn’t one already in the list, users can search for it or create a new one.
• Tap the “Check in” button to share that you are at the place. Users can also add comments and tag friends.

With Places, users are in control of what they share and with whom they share. They choose whether or not to share their location when they check in at a place, and only friends can see when they do, unless users choose to set their privacy setting otherwise. When users check in, they can tag friends who are with them but only if their settings allow it. When they are tagged, they are always notified.

Places is currently available in the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

For more information, check out: http://www.facebook.com/places/

Today, SingTel has announced partnership with Facebook to provide free access to 0.facebook.com on your mobile phone.

Snippet

• SingTel and Facebook Launch New Mobile Site 0.facebook.com, a free way to access Facebook on Your Mobile Phone
• 0.facebook.com is lightweight, featuring only text and is optimized for speed
• Ideal for mobile users to conveniently and quickly access Facebook directly from a mobile phone
• SingTel waives standard data charges for browsing the site

Press Release

SINGAPORE and PALO ALTO, Calif. – July 20, 2010 – SingTel today announced that it is the first and only operator in Singapore to offer customers free mobile browsing on the new and lightweight 0.facebook.com site. With 0.facebook.com, SingTel is enabling their customers, especially non smartphone users to stay connected faster through this text-only version of Facebook with their friends and family from any mobile Web browser without incurring any data charges.

Facebook’s 0.facebook.com site is optimized for speed – it is a new faster, lightweight version of Facebook’s mobile site m.facebook.com. The text-only site does not have graphics or photos and 0.facebook.com’s pages have been designed for high-speed performance on SingTel’s network. Photos posted on Facebook are only one click away from 0.facebook.com. To view a photo, a user only needs to click on a link to the photo and they will be prompted that they are leaving 0.facebook.com. Standard data charges will apply when a person leaves 0.facebook.com to view photos.

Ms Sarah Chua, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, SingTel said: “With 0.facebook.com, SingTel offers mobile customers a faster and more affordable way to use Facebook. Non smartphone users will find the text-only site an excellent alternative to quickly access and update their Facebook accounts from their phones, without worrying about data charges. Coupled with SingTel’s high-speed mobile network, the site offers users peace-of-mind to stay in touch with their wide community of Facebook contacts 24/7, anywhere.

We are always looking to work with innovative companies to provide simple and fast mobile access to Facebook across the world,” said Mr Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook. “Thanks to our collaboration with SingTel, people will now be able to access Facebook faster and for free through 0.facebook.com.”

SingTel Mobile customers can access the service through their mobile phone browser by keying in 0.facebook.com.

Registration Number: 201004959C
Company Name: FACEBOOK SINGAPORE PTE. LTD.
Type: LIMITED PRIVATE COMPANY
Description: ADVERTISING SALE
Address: 1 TEMASEK AVENUE, #27-01, MILLENIA TOWER, SINGAPORE (039192)
Paid Up Capital: SGD$1 (WTF?)

If you google “1 TEMASEK AVENUE, #27-01″, you will notice other companies with the same address as well, so I am guessing this is just a shell and they have yet to set up a proper office in Singapore. With a paid up capital of SGD$1 from a multi-billion dollar company is also pretty ridiculous.

ACRA Information: Facebook Singapore Pte Ltd

Original Source: Yes, confirmed, Facebook sets up office in Singapore

Press Release:

First showcase in the region of concurrent next-generation multimedia applications over a single LTE device, SingTel’s 42Mbps network ready from second half of this year

Singapore, 16 March 2010 – Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today unveiled their LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology trial showcase at SingTel’s headquarters, Comcentre. The showcase in Singapore is the first among SingTel Group’s regional LTE trials that aims to better understand the field experience of LTE.

SingTel is also the first in the region to successfully power on air the 42Mbps mobile broadband network at the showcase. Even though the 42Mbps network will be available in the second half of the year, SingTel, together with Ericsson, is already featuring even higher speed technology with LTE – supporting very high speed mobile download and upload on the move. Powered by the latest LTE technology, mobile devices can even support multiple high-bandwidth mobile applications. This is not possible with current mobile broadband speeds.

The objective of the LTE trial is to demonstrate the network capability to industry players like application developers, content providers and game producers so that they can start thinking of breakthrough products and services.
SingTel and Ericsson are showcasing a myriad of next-generation, interactive multimedia applications on the move, such as 3D virtual mapping, voice over LTE, high definition (HD) multiplayer online gaming as well as ‘live’ images with augmented reality, which is an engaging way of superimposing digital information or objects onto ‘live’ images.

Mr Yuen Kuan Moon, Executive Vice President of Consumer, SingTel, said: “This trial gives a glimpse into what the future can offer our customers in the mobile broadband space. We are excited by the breakthrough applications that will be supported on an ultra high-speed and robust mobile network that is able to satisfy consumers’ growing appetite for bandwidth.
“LTE technology will further enrich our customers’ multimedia mobile lifestyle and experience, offering them access to a wide range of 3D and HD services concurrently. SingTel is working closely with our pool of mobile applications developers to turn ideas that work on the latest technology into reality.”

Mr Fadi Pharaon, President and Country Manager, Ericsson Singapore & Brunei, said: “Today’s demonstration is one clear example of how LTE enables richer lifestyle for consumers and businesses alike. Ericsson is proud to be part of this exciting showcase and we will continue to use our leading technology and services to support SingTel in offering even higher quality services and more extensive applications to their customers.”
SingTel’s mobile broadband network will be upgraded progressively over the next 12 – 24 months to be LTE-ready. Commercial deployment is slated to take place in phases, subject to the availability of frequency spectrum and commercial LTE mobile devices.

Business users can also look forward to machine-to-machine (M2M) applications and rich multimedia applications in the cloud. With cloud computing, businesses can use LTE and central remote servers to store rich multimedia data and applications, giving individual users on-the-move constant access to their data as well as business applications without installing them on their devices. Businesses will achieve more efficiencies and cost savings by centralising storage, processing and bandwidth.

Examples of new high-speed mobile broadband applications

1) 3D content and HD video viewing
With the increased mobile bandwidth and connection speeds, users can make use of real-time services such as traffic monitoring applications to view ‘live’ street, traffic or weather conditions of Singapore roads in HD on LTE-enabled devices. Drivers can use such tools to plan their next destination or simply navigate their way around town using a 3D Location Based Services (LBS) map.

Students can also learn on the move by accessing HD videos and sharing information like real-time recording of lectures through video hyper linking.

2) Augmented Reality
By combining ultra high-speed mobile broadband, users can make use of ‘Augmented Reality’ to view additional information on places and things of interest. For instance, users can simply point at a landmark with any mobile device, and information, digital images or links will be displayed on the mobile gadget.

Researched during the last three months of 2009, DBI 2.0 found almost 1.5 million online technology brand mentions – double the level tracked in DBI 1.0, conducted July to September 2009. Other key findings from DBI 2.0 include:

• Mentions of large technology brands online doubled in the last quarter of 2009, reaching 1.5 million across Asia Pacific’s top 300 large technology brands, covering almost 3,800 channels and online sites.
• Twitter’s massive growth trajectory has seen it become the dominant channel for sharing news about technology brands across Asia, except in China where it is banned. For example, in India, Twitter represents over three-quarters of all online conversations tracked.
• Despite massive online buzz generated by Microsoft around Windows 7, Google continued to be the most discussed brand across the region, generating significant mentions in areas such as its Chrome and Android operating systems, and the Nexus One smart phone.

Developed by Edelman and derived from Brandtology data, the second quarterly Digital Brand Index (DBI 2.0) for Singapore found:

• Google (over 20,600) and SingTel (over 13,700) topped the rankings by way of volume of conversations, with increases of 245 per cent and 50 per cent in the last quarter respectively
• StarHub closed the gap on SingTel, enjoying a 137.3 per cent increase in online buzz
• Canon (4.3) once again topped the Average Engagement scoreboard, ahead of LG (3.3)
• The centre of gravity for online conversation regarding technology brands in Singapore was once again dominated Hardwarezone Forum, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (37,043 mentions) and Twitter Singapore (20,643). The channels combined accounted for over one third (37.2 per cent) of all chatter
• StarHub knocked SingTel from the top spot in the Channel Index, which reveals the number of unique channels discussing a brand

Source: Twitter Leapfrogs Established Digital News Sources finds the Asia Pacific Quarterly Digital Brand Index

View From Basement 3

I attended the event with Li Xiang yesterday, thanks to Amelia from Waggener Edstrom for the invite. The event was a short and sweet event, these days I kinda like short event where it will not last more than 2 hours. I think I am getting old here. Talk to a few bloggers there and we realized we grew to a point that we are sick of typing so much stuff and instead post more pictures and let it do the talking.

Our Tags

There are 3 parts to this event, the first part was the prize presentation to the winners of the Lightropolis‘s design contest. Lightropolis is actually what you call the LED walls located at Ion Ochard near the Orchard MRT station. I thought it is some wall with some LED bulbs changing color and that is all. Didn’t know there there is actually a program which you can use to design the wall. Cool stuff.

Lightropolis Display

The main highlight of the event was the mini designing competition where you have to design a wallpaper of what you visioned your City of Dreams will be. We are split into 3 teams (Li Xiang and I are on separate teams). We need to include the HP logo, the text “City of Dreams” and “The Computer Is Personal Again” into the wallpaper.

Our team chooses the best computer in the house! The HP Z800 Workstation! It is running on 12GB of DDR3 ram but it can support up to 192GB of ram! The monitor is a 30″ one, the HP LP3065 30-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor. I would like to have a 30″ monitor someday!

Li Xiang team is using the HP Z600 Workstation and the other team is using the HP Z400 Workstation. There is one computer workstation which nobody uses which is the HP xw4600 Workstation. I guess when we have the choice, we all settled for the best!

HP Z800 Workstation

My Team Final “Art Piece”

Li Xiang’s Team WIP

While waiting for the judges to tally the results from the designing competition, we are brought to the photo taking area to take photos with Ben 10. Seriously Ben 10 is so not my era, in fact I have no idea who is he and what he do. My era was Tom & Jerry!

Here is who Ben 10 is from Wikipedia:

Ben Tennyson, his cousin Gwen, and their grandfather Maxwell start their summer camping trip. Ben goes stomping off into the woods after another fight with Gwen, whom he is not happy to have along on the trip, and finds an alien pod on the ground. When he examines it, he finds a mysterious, watch-like device, called the Omnitrix, stored inside. The device attaches permanently to his wrist and gives him the ability to transform into a variety of alien life-forms, each with their own unique powers, quite similar to DC Comics’ Dial H for Hero comic. Although Ben realizes that he has a responsibility to help others with these new abilities at his disposal, he is not above a little superpowered mischief now and then. Along with Gwen and Max, Ben embarks on an adventure to fight evil, both extraterrestrial and earthly.

After the photo taking session, the results are out, unfortunately both of our teams did not win. Maybe they should have a second and third prize as well and then we will all win lol.

Maybe we should have a programming competition next =D

Links:

• Ion Orchard
• Lightropolis by HP
• City of Dreams by HP
• Facebook Gallery: HP’s City Of Dreams

Offering a mobile broadband service since 2006, M1 will become a full fledged broadband player when it introduces M1 Fixed Broadband from tomorrow.

M1 Fixed Broadband is available to all homes with cable access points or which are cable ready. The service is capable of achieving download speeds of up to 100 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 2 Mbps.

“M1 is repositioning itself for the future as it develops new businesses anchored on our core competencies. The launch of M1 Fixed Broadband is an important step in our planned transformation from a single-play mobile operator to a dynamic multi-play operator with interests in both the mobile and fixed sectors. The proliferation of the Internet and the increasing demand for Internet bandwidth also make this an opportune entry into the fixed broadband market,” said Neil Montefiore, Chief Executive Officer of M1.

M1 will launch its fixed broadband service with four unlimited data plans based on varying Internet access speeds. Providing customers faster speeds for less, the monthly subscription fee starts from as low as $40.60 for existing M1 customers*. Customers will also be offered a plug-and-play cable modem as part of the launch promotion when they sign up for the service.

Promotional Price

• 10 Mbps $43.50/month
• 15 Mbps $58.50/month
• 30 Mbps $73.50/month
• 100 Mbps $88.50/month

Promotional Price for existing M1 customers

• 10 Mbps $40.60/month
• 15 Mbps $50.70/month
• 30 Mbps $63.70/month
• 100 Mbps $76.70/month

Usual Price

• 10 Mbps $58/month
• 15 Mbps $78/month
• 30 Mbps $98/month
• 100 Mbps $118/month

Those who wish to sign up for the M1 Fixed Broadband service can call at any M1 shop or visit www.m1.com.sg/broadband for more information.

* Existing M1 customers eligible for the additional discounts refers to existing postpaid customers on selected M1 Mobile Plans and Mobile Broadband plans

Source: Hardware Zone Forums

• Microsoft releases the long awaited Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows Update
• Apple releases Safari 3.1
• Intel officially announced new 6-core processor codenamed “Dunnington” and new Itanium processor codenamed “Tukwila”
• NVIDIA officially launched GeForce 9 – 9800 GX2
• Nokia officially announced N82 in Black
• Engadget played with iPhone Firmware 2.0
• WordPress releases the long awaited WordPress 2.5 Release Candidate 1

Did I missed out any technological news?

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Source: Engadget

Ten years ago, Microsoft was the company everyone loved to hate.

The most vociferous Microsoft haters slammed the company for being a greedy industry bully that used its monopolistic, clunky, copycat operating system to force software on users and coerce partners into unfair licensing deals.

Don’t look now, but the role of the industry’s biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft. Here’s a look at how Apple has shoved Microsoft aside as the company with the worst reputation as a monopolist, copycat and a bully.

Apple the monopolist

The core complaint about Microsoft in the 1990s was that its Windows market share gave it monopoly power, which it abused in multiple ways. Attorneys General and others zeroed in on the “bundling” of the Internet Explorer Web browser, which they claimed was forced on users because Microsoft offered it as part of Windows.

People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years). But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes. Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls. Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? ITunes.

Apple not only “bundles” iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE.

Not fair, you might say. Any hardware device that syncs data with a PC as part of its core functionality has software to facilitate that syncing. True enough. But operating systems have browsers as part of core functionality, too. Doesn’t Mac OS X come with Safari? Doesn’t the iPhone?

And “bundling” works. Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has distributed 600 million copies of iTunes to date. The overwhelming majority of those copies were iTunes for Windows. And iTunes for Windows’ popularity isn’t driven by software product quality. ITunes is the slowest, clunkiest, most nonintuitive application on my system. But I need it because I love my iPods.

At least with Windows, you could reformat your PC and install Linux or any number of other PC-compatible operating systems. Can I reformat my iPod and install something else? Can I uninstall iTunes but keep using the iTunes store and my iPods? Apple strongly discourages all that, claiming that the iPod, the iPod software and iTunes are three components of the same product. But that’s what Microsoft said about Windows and IE.

Source: PC World – Is Apple the New Microsoft?

Very many people have read and heard these stories, but let us see what happened to the passwords that people use.

10. ‘thomas’ (0.099%)
In the tenth place we see a name Thomas as a password. It was the most popular name in UK in the year 2000 maybe that is what made this password so popular. Anyway 1 person of 1000 picks this word as their password. Or could it be Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Edison? Their fans could use this password too.

9. ‘arsenal’ (0.111%)
The other popular choice for a password is the name of a soccer team. For example Arsenal is in 6th place in soccer related passwords. And it made it to the top 10 most common passwords.

8. ‘monkey’ (0.133%)
Why monkey? I dont understand it too. Maybe people think that no one would think of this password if they wanted to brake into your account. Usual there is a 6 minimum letter passwords and monkey is a 6 letter word, besides it is memorable so maybe this is what played its role.

7. ‘charlie’ (0.139%)
We have got one more name in our top list. Maybe such famous persons like Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Sheen or the Charlie from the Chocolate Factory persuaded people to choose that password. Or maybe people just use its Slang Meaning which means cocaine and that’s not a very good thing.

6. ‘qwerty’ (0.141%)
QWERTY is the word that is the easiest to type. Our keyboard set is called like that and this is what comes first to mind for those who use a 10 finger fast typing technique. It made 1 person out of 700 pick this word as their password or maybe not.

5. ’123456′ (0.176%)
Another easy combination that is even easier for the users ’123456′ it meet the requirements of minimum 6 letter password and this password contains numbers in it which is another requirement on some web sites. Just count to six and you get a password.

4. ‘letmein’ (0.176%)
A good desire when you want to check out your account or see if you received any money there. It is a modern equivalent of ‘open sesame’ which is longer and takes one second more to type. It is something like ‘trustno1′ password from X-Files series.

3. ‘liverpool’ (0.182%)
Liverpool is one of the most popular soccer teams in the world and here is the result: one person out of 550 picks this word as their password. So many people trust their team and their password.
By the way ‘liverpool’ is ranked 3rd in the most common soccer related passwords leaving Manchester United and Newcastle United far behind. Well maybe those names are too long and hard to type.

2. ‘password’ (0.378%)
Here we come; we have got to the 2nd place with password ‘password’. Well, when it says “Type Password” you start typing a password. And 1 person in 250 is doing that.

1. ’123′ (0.3784%)
It has not gone too far from ‘password’ but it is even easier to count to 3 then to count to 6. Apparently not that many websites require users to have a minimum 6 letter passwords. And it brings us to 4 people out of 1,000 that type the simplest combination possible ’123′. It is a good thing they dont type something like ’111′ or ’222′ etc. Maybe most of us know that it would be ridiculous to have such a simple password.

If you add up all those percentages you will get that 1.8 % of people worldwide use one of the passwords from the top 10 list. As a matter of fact 6.5 % of people use passwords from the top 100 list. We are glad that the remaining 91.7 % has nothing in common when they pick a password. It is up to you to decide whether to use a longer and stronger password or to use a more memorable one.

Source: LunaSouL of Hardware Zone Forums

This decision follows Cisco’s move last April to make it easier for Linksys resellers to add Cisco products to their offerings and vice versa. Also, just a few weeks ago, Cisco created a new division solely focused on the SMB market and headed by Rick Moran, formerly marketing chief of several Cisco communications applications like the unified communications portfolio, Cisco IPICS, Cisco Small Business Systems (Linksys One), TelePresence, Business Video and Physical security.

“It will all come overtime into a Cisco brand. The reason we kept Linksys’ brand because it was better known in the US than even Cisco was for the consumer. As you go globally there’s very little advantage in that”, said Cisco’s CEO.

Source: Cisco kills Linksys brand, plans agressive move into consumer markets (video)