Broader technology news and trends, from telco price plans to the services worth noting.
Circles.Life is a Singapore consumer brand of Liberty Wireless, founded by three entrepreneurs with backgrounds at Temasek, McKinsey, and StarHub. As a mobile virtual network operator, it's sometimes called Singapore's fourth telco. This covers its price plans.
GlobalWebIndex, a market research firm specialising in online consumer behaviour, recently surveyed mobile messaging. The study found WeChat now has the youngest demographic of all messaging apps, with a third of its global active users aged 16 to 24.
Microsoft will pay €3.79 billion for substantially all of Nokia's Devices & Services business, plus €1.65 billion to license Nokia's patents, bringing the total to €5.44 billion, around US$7.17 billion, in cash. It's a landmark deal reshaping both companies' futures.
Google Reader was created in early 2005 by Google engineer Chris Wetherell and launched on 7th October 2005 through Google Labs. I can't recall when I started using it, but probably around 2006. Ever since, I've relied on it daily.
From today, with Indoor Google Maps for Android in Singapore, you can pinpoint where you are, which floor you're on, and where shops sit relative to you inside a mall. Detailed floor plans appear as you zoom into a building.
The SingTel Experience Centre is a tech playground letting you manipulate multimedia images with Minority Report-style body gestures, spanning Paris, Shanghai, and Rio de Janeiro across a giant 14-metre, 180-degree circular screen. It's open to the public inside SingTel Shop.
Facebook passed one billion monthly active users at 3.45am on Saturday, 15th September 2012. Since its February 2009 launch, the platform has racked up over 1.13 trillion likes, 140.3 billion friend connections, and 219 billion photos uploaded.
I've been waiting for this. Right now, the NFC on my Galaxy Nexus is useless, only reading EZ-Link cards. But soon we'll be able to take public transport and pay with our phones, thanks to a Gemalto-led consortium going live.
Google has launched Google+ Pages, its take on Facebook Pages, which you can create at plus.google.com/pages/create. I do wish Google+ offered nicer URLs, as Facebook does for pages and profiles, since nobody will remember the long numeric ID.
YouTube Singapore is now official, marking YouTube's debut here. It aims to help Singaporeans find their favourite content and to spread Singaporean content across the globe. Initial partners include the music collection society COMPASS, the sports agency World Sport Group.
Wow, Google is acquiring Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion, which took me completely by surprise. It seems future Nexus phones may be made by Motorola. I half expect Microsoft to acquire Nokia next, for US$27 billion or less.
Google+ is an intriguing project that reminds me of Facebook with its friend lists, though I won't know how different it really is until I try it. I do love the Circle UI, a fresh and interesting take.
If you're into computer engineering, this Facebook tech talk is for you, and the full 52-minute video is well worth your time. Every workday, Facebook safely ships hundreds of changes, from bug fixes to new features, across hundreds of engineers.
A good Business Week article profiles Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, on how he's trying to lead the company past its 'epic fail' amid dwindling market share, a cratering stock, and persistent takeover talk. Much wasn't news to his audience.
Google +1 reminds me of HardwareZone forums, where people post '+1' just to bump their post count. The button is shorthand for approval, helping friends and contacts surface the best stuff when they search the web.
kaypo.me, an interesting service from fellow NUS School of Computing graduate Kent Nguyen, lets you update your Facebook status by SMS. Since not everyone has a data plan but almost everyone gets free SMSes, even feature phones work.
Didn't realise Edelman handles PR for Facebook Singapore. Facebook today launched Places here, already live in some countries, letting you check in and share where you are and who you're with. Personally I prefer Facebook check-in to Foursquare.
Back in May 2010 Facebook launched free mobile access via 0.facebook.com by partnering operators, but Singapore wasn't on the list then. Today SingTel has announced its own partnership with Facebook to offer free 0.facebook.com access on your mobile phone.
I verified it on BizFile, paying S$5 to extract details. Facebook Singapore Pte Ltd, registration 201004959C, is a limited private company doing advertising sales at Millenia Tower, 1 Temasek Avenue. Its paid-up capital? A grand total of one Singapore dollar.
Couldn't make this event since it's during office hours, but I'm keen to see how LTE advances mobile networks. With smartphone numbers rising, demand for faster mobile bandwidth grows too, so I hope SingTel and Ericsson trial LTE soon.
Conducted across eight Asia-Pacific markets including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India and Taiwan, the second quarterly Digital Brand Index (DBI 2.0) keeps surfacing insights on the most discussed brands online and the subjects sparking the liveliest debate.
City of Dreams is HP's Digital Festival, running 7th to 13th August 2009 at Ion Orchard Basement 4. I attended yesterday with Li Xiang, thanks to Amelia from Waggener Edstrom. It was short and sweet.