Flash (Gordon) and (poison) Apple

This is humorous. Apparently from a graphic of a T-shirt of a site called shirt.woot.

Flexible OLED screen

This is something I found truely amazing -- flexible OLED screen from Sony. So flexible that it can wrap around almost anything. Will we see a pencil or pen wrapped with this flexible OLED screen, hooking up to the Internet to retrieve answers during exams? High-tech cheaters!

Virtual goods => real goods

Ever think of getting your virtual robots into the real world? That may be a bit too far. But wait, how about a virtual ice-cream? That is somewhat probable.

It's not just probable. But it already happened. You can buy Farmville ice-cream at 7-11! See here for more details.

iPhone 3GS @ US$97

Ha, this one is certainly something. Walmart just officially announced that it'll be selling the 16GB iPhone 3GS for $97 starting Tuesday, a full $100 off the regular price. This is a logical step and it must point to the release of a new iPhone.

I wonder when operator in Hong Kong will slash the price of current 3GS models. Heard that the new iPhone also got video chat capability. For those who got onto the bandwagon of the last batch of 3GS, it would be some money not well spent.

Sony NEX-3, NEX-5

There is no shortage of innovative cameras these days. The latest one entering the ring is the Sony EVIL (Electronic View-finder Interchangeable Lens) NEX-3 and NEX-5. It is very compact and very attractive. The full spec is as follows:

• 14.20 Megapixels
• 3.00x zoom, 18-55mm, (27-83mm eq.) kit lens
• 3.0 inch LCD Viewfinder
• ISO 200-12800
• Shutter: 30-1/4000
• Max Aperture: 3.5
• Mem Type: MS PRO Duo / SD / SDHC / SDXC
• Battery: Custom Li Ion
• Dimensions: 4.4 x 2.4 x 1.6 in. (111 x 60 x 40 mm)
• Weight: 17.7 oz (502 g) includes batteries, kit lens
• MSRP: $700
• Availability: 07/2010

The notable thing is that the price is very competitive and it also accepts SD (a rare inclusion from a Sony perspective).

The full review can be found here.

Street fighter short movie -- from a fan!

Sometimes it is amazing that the work from an amateur is so professional. For those familiar with Street fighter, this is a movie on a shoe-string budget, shot with a Canon 7D with aftereffects done on Final Cut Pro. Amazing.

Face-off iPhone

This is really fun stuff. An iPhone running Android.



Sometimes I wonder, will there be a day we see Acer NeoTouch or HTC running iPhone OS?

Did you notice the author used another iPhone to film the face-offed iPhone?

iPad go International

The long wait outside US for the iPad is over, officially. (Hey, forget all those parallel imports)

Apple said the iPad will be in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on May 28 and then Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore in July. Those who can't wait (well, you define for yourself) can pre-order starting May 10. Sounds great.

Here is the official statement.

Tegra, AIR, Flash

Bloodshed of the tablet battlefield is just beginning. Here is a new contestant, in a prototype form, running Android.

The biggest selling point for this yet-another-tablet is that it runs fully functional Adobe AIR and Flash, the centrepiece of a warzone. I guess it is faster than those cheapy netbooks. See how it goes if it can ever hit the shelves.

Tegra Prototype

iPhone OS 4

iPhone OS 4 is a major upgrade to the iPhone OS. Again, a bunch of new features, whether or not you will be using it. Some features worth mentioning such as the Apple's way of multitasking. Bad thing is that iPhones older than 3GS will not be able to take advantage of some of the new features.

Notable new features for users include the following:


•Multitasking.
•Spell check.
•Bluetooth keyboard support.
•User-defined wallpaper.
•Tap to focus when recording video, just like with photos, and a 5x digital zoom for the camera.
•Playlist creation and nested playlists.
•App folders for sorting apps! You can even put an app folder in the dock.
•Enhanced Mail with threaded messaging and in-app attachment viewing.
•iBooks, a smaller one.
•And others.
•Game Center for iPhone games like Xbox live.
For multitasking, the following background services are available:
•Background audio.
•Background VoIP.
•Background GPS location data
•Local notifications. (Hmm.... are we getting more annoying ad messages when we are walking around and playing games in the streets? No wonder Apple also launched iAd mobile advertising service)

Some other features for developers to play with:
•Fast app switching.
•iAd. (Apple also want a cut from advertising. Less money flowing to Google AdSense)
•In-app SMS.
•Map overlays
•Quick look for previewing documents.
•Photo Library access.
•Calendar access.
•Full access to the camera.
•Video playback and capture.
•Date and address "data detectors."
•Automated testing and performance / power analysis.
 
Hands-on video available here.

Smartq R7

Of all the ebook readers, the Smartq R7 comes one from China. The spec seems ok. 

• 
  
  7-in TFT LCD with backlighting
• 
  
  800 * 600 pixels
• 
  
  Resistive touch screen
• 
  
  Built-in accelerometer
• 
  
  Support PDF, ePub, TXT, CHM, etc.
• 
  
  Battery up to 8 hours usage
• 
  
  Support SD card
• 
  
  Support 802.11 b/g

The price is not know yet. But it should not be expensive, judging from its other siblings that are priced somewhere around the RMB 1,000 to 1,500 mark as an MID.

Looks quite neat. The good thing is that it has a backlit LCD screen, support SD card and WIFI. It is yet to see the build quality.

The ebook market is just too crowded. I will jump in when there are some clear winners who survived the race.