It is Friday, 11th July 2008 in Singapore (GMT+8). The iPhone 3G has been released in New Zealand as well as Australia and more countries are coming up next due to different time zone.

While in Singapore, there are rumors that the iPhone 3G will be released later instead of in September 2008. I highly doubt this rumor is true. If you read the whole thread, there is also another rumor saying that iPhone 3G will be released on 11th August 2008, exactly 1 month after the iPhone 3G is released in the US.

There is now an iTunes store in Singapore but there are only apps for you to purchase, no music or videos are seen in the store. You can choose Singapore under “My Country” which is located right at the bottom of the iTunes Store page. I have just created my iTunes Singapore account, you need a credit card and a Singapore address.

Now I am waiting for the iPod Touch Firmware 2.0 which I have to pay USD$9.90 for it. Apple seriously always screws early adopters and a perfect example of it is those iPod Touch users who paid USD$19.90 for the January 2008 App Pack and now they will have to pay USD$9.90 for the 2.0 firmware. And to make matter worst, the January 2008 App Pack is included in the firmware 2.0.

This article is dated 4 days ago and posted on Nokia Conversations.

Here is an excerpt of it:

ESPOO, Finland - There is no doubt, now that the product has been launched officially, that the Nokia E71 takes the crown as the most leaked product I have ever known at Nokia. And, with such distinction in mind, now is a good time to discuss product leaks, their impact, and hopefully get a discussion going that benefits all of us.

I don’t want to turn this article into a whining-fest, nor point blame at someone. The whole history of some product leaks in the past few months is a mixture of dumb moves, broken NDAs, maybe some thievery, and possibly someone with best wishes.

I’ve written about this on my internal company site, and it generated lots of comments. It was interesting to see that the comments I got pretty much reflected my own feelings about the subject. Indeed, I give Nokia the benefit of the doubt and stick to the company line: we do not discuss products that are not officially launched publicly.

Read the full article: Product leaks just lead to trouble & headaches for all

It looks EXACTLY the same as the old iPhone. But it is MUCH CHEAPER. USD$199 for 8GB and USD299 for 16GB, which translate to SGD$271.81 for the 8GB and SGD$408.19 for the 16GB one. BUT the prices stated comes with a 2 years contract.

The only difference between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone is the additional of 3G support (duh), GPS (Assisted GPS), the back is now in black or white, flushed headphone jack and better audio quality.

I am so disappointed with this year WWDC. I was hoping they announced a better iPhone successor.

Now lets wait and see how much Singtel is going to charge for a 2 year plan for the iPhone 3G.

100% the iPhone 3G will be coming to Singapore. Check out Apple Singapore Store: iPhone 3G. But when is still a question mark.

The irony is that it is CHEAPER than a iPod Touch and with additional Phone, GPS and Bluetooth capability! Looks like Apple just killed the iPod Touch.

*UPDATE* The iPhone 3G link is up in Apple Singapore, http://www.apple.com/sg/iphone/, and Singtel is the only telecom so far to bring it, http://www.apple.com/sg/iphone/buy/.

Got hold of the Samsung VP-MX10 last month but did not have a chance to review it as I was rushing for assignments and preparing for exams.

Here is the brief specifications of the MX10:
Signal Type

• Signal Type: PAL

Storage Media

• Storage Media: Memory

Image Sensor

• Sensor Type: CCD
• No. of pixels: 800K

Lens

• Lens Lens: F Value 1.6-4.3
• Optical Zoom: 34x
• Digital zoom: 1200x
• Filter Diameter: 30.0mm

Display

• Size: 2.7″ wide
• No. of pixels: 112K

Dimension & Weight

• Dimension: 60 x 62.5 x 121 (mm)
• Weight: 280 grams
• Full Specifications

Here are some pictures of beautiful camcorder to keep you all occupied while I played around with it.

Box

Contents In The Box

Front View

Side View

View Finder

Back View

Holding Strap

In the review that I will be doing, I will shoot 2 one minute videos (one in the day and one in the night) and I will upload the video (uncompressed) to let my readers have a look at the quality of the video.

As you may or may not know, “Tube” is the codename for the next S60 touch screen aka iPhone killer from Nokia. The OS behind it is the 5th generation of the S60.

Of course, it has a pretty respectable list of features, starting with a great high resolution (16:9) touch screen, larger than 3" but still smaller than 3,5". Yes it has a camera, a decent auto focus one that is way better than the one that we can find on an iPhone but still not as good as on the latest Nseries devices!

It is a quad band phone that also has a wide range of connectivity options: Bluetooth, uPnP , GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and WLAN. Furthermore it has built in GPS and will support geottaging. All of this is even more impressive considering that all of these features are packed into relatively small and compact body with size of “_ _ _ _”. I’ll only say that it is similar in size to the Nokia N73 but it is maybe a little bit wider. One more thing, NO, there is no multi touch and YES there is tactility feedback!

Check out the source for the video and more information.

Source: Symbian Freak: latest update on the hotly anticipated Nokia Tube
Source: Symbian Freak: “Tube” is the code name of upcoming Nokia’s iPhone killer

Whats up with the Internet today? So many major news floating around the Internet.

• 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?

First things first, your Nokia Phone must be 802.11 enabled, be it a Nseries or an Eseries phone. I am using S60 3rd edition Symbian OS 9.2 as an example. But in theory it should work with other editions of S60 Symbian OS as well.

We will be using NUS WLAN SSID “NUS” instead of “NUSOPEN”, as “NUS” is protected by PEAP.

Lets begin:
Part 1 - Defining NUS SSID

1. Go to Menu > Tools > Settings > Connection > Access points
2. Click on Options, then New access point
3. Under Connection name, key in NUS
4. Under Data bearer, select Wireless LAN
5. Under WLAN netw. name, key in NUS
6. Under Network status, leave it as Public
7. Under WLAN netw. mode, leave it as Infrastructure
8. Under WLAN security mode, select 802.1x
9. Click on WLAN security settings, and you will get into a new page
10. Under The WPA/WPA2 , leave it as EAP
11. Click on EAP plugin-settings, and you will get into a new page
12. Ensure ONLY EAP-PEAP is ENABLED (check mark will only appear beside EAP-PEAP). You can disable the remaining EAP types by going to Options > Disable
13. Click on EAP-PEAP, and you will get into a new page

Part 2 - Configuring EAP-PEAP

14. Under Personal certificate, leave it as Not defined
15. Under Authority certificate, select Thawte Premium Server
16. Under User name in use, select User defined
17. Under User name, key in your NUSNET UserID (EXCLUDING the domain (NUSSTU, NUSSTF or GUEST) portion)
18. Under Realm in use, select User defined
19. Under Realm, leave it as BLANK
20. Under Allow PEAPv0, select Yes
21. Under Allow PEAPv1, select No
22. Under Allow PEAPv2, select No
23. Move to EAPs tab, by pressing your right arrow key

Part 3 - Configuring EAP-MSCHAPv2

24. Ensure ONLY EAP-MSCHAPv2 is ENABLED (check mark will only appear beside EAP-MSCHAPv2). You can disable the remaining EAP types by going to Options > Disable
25. Click on EAP-MSCHAPv2, and you will get into a new page
26. Under User name, key in your NUSNET UserID (EXCLUDING the domain portion)
27. Under Prompt password, select No
28. Under Password, key in your NUSNET Password
29. Click Back about 10 times or enough times to reach the standby screen

Part 4 - Scanning For NUS SSID

30. Turn On your WLAN scanning and you should be able to detect and connect to NUS wireless network

No screenshots are included as I think it is pretty straightforward.

FULL CREDITS goes to Zit Seng’s Configuring N95 WLAN for NUS Wireless

Nokia is bringing Microsoft Silverlight to S60 on Symbian OS later this year. Now we just need Adobe Flash Lite 3 to be delivered to our mobile phones through a firmware update. You can get the Adobe Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition if you can’t wait.

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced plans to make Microsoft Silverlight available for S60 on Symbian OS, the world’s leading smartphone software(1), as well as for Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets. Adding support for Silverlight will extend opportunities for developers to create rich, interactive applications that run on multiple platforms in a consistent and reliable way.

…

Microsoft will demonstrate Silverlight on S60 during the opening keyote at Microsoft’s MIX08 conference on March 5 in Las Vegas. Silverlight is intended to be available to S60 developers later this year with initial service delivery anticipated shortly thereafter for all S60 licensees. This will allow S60 application developers to use an even wider range of development environments for S60 on Symbian OS than today. Today S60 developers can use: C++ (using native Symbian OS APIs and Open C providing subset of standard POSIX libraries), S60 Web Run-time (supporting standards-based web technologies such as Ajax, JavaScript, CSS and HTML), the Java(TM) language, Flash Lite from Adobe, and Python.

Microsoft Silverlight availability for Nokia Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets will be confirmed later.

Source: Nokia Press Release

Nokia N78

Website: Official Nokia N78 Site
Gallery: Official Nokia N78 Press Photos
Specification: Official Nokia N78 Specifications
Press Release: Nokia N78 Press Release
Source: The Nokia N78, in European and North American flavors

Nokia N96

Website: Official Nokia N96 Site
Gallery: Official Nokia N96 Press Photos
Specification: Official Nokia N96 Specifications
Press Release: Nokia N96 Press Release
Source: The Nokia N96 redefines “high-end”

• HSDPA 2100/850, GSM Quadband, EDGE
• Length/Width/Depth: 103mm x 55mm x 18-20mm
• Volume: 92cm³ (Similar to N95 8GB)
• Weight: 125g
• WLAN with UPnP/DLNA support
• 16 GB internal flash memory AND memory expansion via hot-swappable microSD memory cards
• 256MB system memory
• 128MB RAM
• QVGA TFT 2.8 inches display (240 x 320 pixels) with 16.7 million colours
• S60 v3 FP2
• TV-Out in SDTV resolutions
• DVB-H-based mobile TV with integrated antenna (Class C, 470-750 MHz)
• 5MP camera with Carl-Zeiss optics with dual LEDs that can act as video lights
• GPS with AGPS support
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• microUSB connectivity
• Battery: BF-5L (950mAh)

Source: Mobile Review Forums