of Philosophy and Technology

We have new laptops, desktops, mp3 players, printers, A/V equipment and a lot more, but still the star of the Lab for more than two weeks now is still the iPhone.  It never failed to elicit  a “WOW”  from the people to whom I have shown it. But being the gadgets section of the newspaper, Technews should not revolve just around a phone that could not even make a phone call YET.  So whether I like it or not, the iPhone that I am using now is on its way to its original packaging and off it will go to one of our shelves beside the PS3 and Wii. The next phone that I would be using for the coming week is a prototype. It’s a gaming phone that could play gameboy and DS games.  It has a 100MB memory and supports micro SD memory card.  It is also an personal multimedia system. MB’s source abroad requested Technews to try it and give them some comments about the product.

Below are some of the latest gadgets in the Technews Lab.

Mobile TV
The Ask TV phone from China is a PDA phone with FM radio, camera, video recorder, video player, audio player and Analog TV. Like the TVs of old, it gets its signal over the air meaning you could watch your favorite tele novelas and programs for FREE.
Sony Walkman Video
The Sony NW-A800 measures 8.8 x 4.4cm, just 9mm thick and weighs 53g. The 2-inch QVGA (320×240) TFT LCD offers high resolution and high contrast - capable of playback of high quality still images and videos.

GigaJuke
Just introduced May of this year the NAS-50HDE aka Gigajuke is for music fanatics with large music collection. The GigaJuke simplifies storage of your music collection without the need for a PC.  It stores, labels, and organizes music in its 80GB internal hard drive. The device can transfer music directly to the WALKMAN or other portable audio players including the latest Sony Ericsson phones without the help of a PC.

JVC-HD GZ-HD7
Claimed by JVC to be the first consumer full High-Definition 3-CCD camcorder capable of shooting and recording full HD images (1920 x 1080i). Released on April 2007, this camcorder features a Fujinon lens used in broadcast video cameras.
Nokia 6120
“Surf the web and download quickly over the high speed 3G or HSDAP connection. Take photos with flash and panorama imaging with its 2-megapixel camera and keep on top of your busy life by sending or recieing email with attachements.”  These are the few things that the new Nokia 6120 is offering the consumers.  There is no price yet as of press time but my source abroad said that it is very affordable compared to other phones with similar features.

And many more… two more boxes of goodies to go.

So much have been said about the iPhone that Technews decided to forego the technical review and instead go around and get the opinion of the people on what they can say about this gadget.

Being one of the firsts in the Philippines to have this much coveted phone, I was both proud and frustrated when I received it from our source abroad.  Proud because Technews has done it again, we are the first media organization in the Philippines to have an iPhone, while others are talking about it, Manila Bulletin is playing with it. And, while others are quoting sources about how brilliant the screen is, here we are smudging the brilliant screen with our sweaty fingers. Only one thing has dampen my enthusiasm about the phone — I could not use it as a phone… YET.

As what I have said in my column, the iPhone looks cool, the screen is one block of touch sensitive glass and it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. What’s good about this phone is the interface that even my 10 year old son and my 68 year old mother could easily operate it. The iPhone has dented button in front that serves as a escape key that brings you back to the main menu, this means that non-techie users would never get lost while using the phone.

Connecting the iPhone to the wifi network is a easy, you can do it with just three clicks. Once you are connected, you can then check the weather, view maps, enjoy youtube and surf the web. The Web browser of the iPhone gives you a full web layout. You can scroll with your fingertip, double-tap to enlarge a portion for easier reading and viewing and flip the the screen 90 degrees, and the web page you are viewing also rotates and magnifies to fill the landscape view. Finally, you can magnify a Web page by spreading your thumb and forefinger on the glass. The image grows as if a rubber being stretched.

The iPhone is also a real iPod, I am even using the charger of my iPod Nano to charge it.  The USB cable, the power plug for the charger and the earphone remained untouch in the box of the iPhone as I am using all my iPod’s accessories for the iPhone. And like an iPod it downloads music, video and photos from your PC while charging.

After about two weeks inside my pocket and without any protection the touch sensitive screen of the iPhone remains scratchless.

Here are some of the comments about the iPhone:

Annalyn Jusay (www.annalyn.net), Technews Columnist:
“It’s ahhhhmazing! …Built-in iPod! We just have to believe Steve Jobs when he says this is “the best iPod ever made.”

Sally Caballero, Ph.D. Managing Director, Net Ship Management Inc.
“Wow, it’s so nice. It would have been better if it’s smaller”

Rosamay Daniel, Net Ship Management
“The phone looks great!”

Therese Camit, Lifestyle Writer
“Wow! Astig, malaki pala to?, kelan kaya ako magkakaron nito?”

Russel Torres, Artist
&%@#… hayop! I love it.

Menchu Ambrosio,
Galing naman, nakakatuwa pag pinipindot yong letter lumalaki sya. It’s like magic.

Anthony Gallano, Company Driver
Maganda Pu$%^@! hi-tech

Diony Dionisio, Security Guard
Ano to?

Circulation Department Staff of Manila Bulletin
Ohhhhh! Wow… (upon double tapping a photo to magnify it)

Ivy Liza Mendoza
Kakainis ang ganda.

Willie Caballes, Asst. Sports Editor
Attractive! It doesn’t look like a cellphone.  The features are very easy to use.

Robert Roque, Editor, Tempo
Can I give you a check? Pay to cash… ngayon din.  This is the total phone.

Nida, Sidewalk vendor
Ay baka makuryente ako!

Photos are in my mobile blog at http:// artsamaniego.blogspot.com
 

I have heard a lot about Mark Jimenez in the past thru TV, radio and newspaper. Just recently, I had come face to face with the man when I bumped into a friend in the lobby of one of the hotels in Makati.  I was there for an event, and Mr. Jimenez was with my friend for a meeting.  We were introduce and I admit I was really uncomfortable because we have nothing in common to break the ice.  Expecting just a “HI”, “HELLO” and “GOODBYE” I respectfully smiled and was about to excuse myself out when my friend said that Mr. Jimenez is into the computer business. To cut the conversation short without being obviously blunt, I asked Mr. Jimenez his insight about the IT business in the Philippines and his idea on how to succeed in this cut-throat industry. I did not expect to get a significant answer but I was dead wrong, with a smile as if he knows that I was testing him he said: “In the technology business, price of hardware is always decreasing while the capacity and features are always increasing.  Everything in the middle does not matter. Having good insight on the market dynamics helps you make the right decision.  Time to market, sweet spot pricing, effective channel and constant innovation are some of the key ingredients of success.” It felt like a punch on my face. My impression about the man was totally wrong.

Later I learned from my friend that as a young boy, Mr. Jimenez would pilfer some goods from his parents’ stockroom to give to the needy children in the area.  There was even a time when he was nabbed by law enforcers, because he had a bag of food which the cop thought that he had stolen, when the cop checked  his story the maids promptly identified him as the child of their employer haha.

I have learned two important lessons with the accidental meeting with Mark Jimenez, never again would I judge a man based on what I read or heard from other people and never again would I think that I am better than anybody else.  And I was also wrong, we have indeed something in common, we were both ex-seminarians :).

Just launched yesterday in the Philippines, the Nokia E90 is a premium business mobile device with high speed mobile broadband and integrated mobile office.  It could browse the Internet and transfer media rich file via HSDPA — that’s up to 3.6 Megabits per second.  It’s a quadband GSM meaning users could go virtually anywhere in the Globe and still use this phone.

I can now say goodbye to my old but reliable Nokia E61 :).

You can post online anything that you’ve taken with your mobile phone instantly. Using the latest mobile phone with mobile blogging capability, posting pictures in the Internet has become very easy.

A mobile blog, is an online record of anything you would like to post online, contents that you would like to share with the rest of the world. The difference between mobile blogging and regular blogging is that you use your phone to post text and/or pictures. You don’t need to have a PC to mobile blog. Whenever and wherever you feel like posting a picture, all you need to do is shoot and send.

My phone has the capability to mobile blog, it has an editor that allows me to take pictures and put some texts, it’s like creating an MMS message. With a phone like this, you too can start your own mobile blog, after taking a picture, just choose “Blog this” from the MORE option of your phone. You can then post your photos for the rest of the world to see.

My mobile blog is at http://artsamaniego.blogspot.com

Thanks for the emails and phone calls…

1) I got the iPhone from our source in HK, it was sitting on my desk since July 3 but I only got the chance to open it last Saturday July 7. 

2) What I have is the 8G model and I got it for less than the published rate.

3) Everything has been activated except for the phone functionality.  The iTunes is quite impressive.  I am still waiting for my postpaid AT&T account to be activated and will see if it could roam.

4) Technews was informed that PowerMac center would bring into the country the iPhone this month.

5)  Aside from the iPhone, Technews Lab has now the wrist phone, the newest version of the phone with analog TV, latest Samsung, Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones, mp3 and mp4 players, HTC and Dopod phones and loads of goodies from China ;).

6) The SIM Card of the iPhone could be removed using a paper clip.

Impressive! This was my first word when I got hold of my iPhone direct from our source abroad. It looks cool, the screen is one block of touch sensitive glass and it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. What’s good about this phone is the interface that even my 10 year old son and my 68 year old mother could easily operate it. The iPhone has dented button in front that serves as a escape key that brings you back to the main menu, this means that non-techie users would never get lost while using the phone.

  Connecting the iPhone to my wifi network is a breeze and the Web browser that goes with it is a real browser where you get your full web layout plus scrolling by just flicking your finger is more convenient than using the scroll bars.  

As of now, what I have is an overpriced iPod and mini web browser as I could not use its phone functionality yet.  Hackers are now racing whoever gets to crack the iPhone first.  Just last week it was reported that hackers have already cracked the master root password of the phone.  I guess I would not wait long before I could use my Globe SIM card for my iPhone.

 An extensive review of the product minus the phone functionality will be published in the Technews Section of the Manila Bulletin.

I love this job!

Lesley Ang, Marketing Director of Power MAC Center introduced me to Myrabelle Tan, also of Power MAC, at the M Cafe during the launch of Seagate just recently. Myrabelle voiced her concern about the problem of intellectual property rights violations. She said that fake iPods are everywhere and there are times that even the consumers do not know that they have bought fake units. She narrated that there were customers who went to a Power MAC center to ask them to repair the units that they have bought, only to be surprised when they were informed that their units could not be repaired because Power MAC center does not repair counterfeit iPods. What’s surprising she said is that the receipt of these units bought in the Philippines have stamps saying that Power MAC Center will repair these units. They politely decline requests for repairs of customers with fake units. This is the reason why I always recommend to my friends to buy from authorized dealers and distributors ONLY. You might save a few hundred or even a few thousand of pesos if you buy from unauthorized dealers but most of the time the units that they have are refurbished, cannibalized from other units or are even fake units.