Archive for May 15th, 2012

New mobile music player: Sony Walkman Z Series

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Sony has launched its new mobile entertainment player. The Walkman NWZ-Z1050 series is powered by Android, and is targeted at audiophiles looking for exceptional sound quality in their music.

The Sony Walkman Z1050 Mobile Entertainment Player has a 16GB capacity and will be available for S$429 from this month.

Sony Walkman NWZ-Z1050 Music Player, 16 GB, Black, S$429.

Sony Walkman NWZ-Z1050 Music Player, 16 GB, Black, S$429.

The Walkman Z1050 is the Android equivalent of the iPod Touch, but with a bigger anti-reflective 4.3” multi-touch LCD screen. It is powered by a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor.

With the form factor of a smartphone, this Walkman allows you to enjoy great music, watch videos, play games, use Android apps and surf the Web using WiFi.

I was at the launch of the new Walkman in Singapore, and got to play with the device and listen to the music quality. It did not disappoint. Audio was crisp and clear despite the loud background music inside the Helipad, and MP3 music sounded almost as good as CD-quality tracks.

There’s no 3G connection so you can only make calls through VOIP when there’s a WiFi connection. There’s no camera but you can upload, edit, view and share photos on the gadget.

From the makers of the original Walkman

Available in May 2012

Available in May 2012

But true to its tradition, it’s a music player made for music lovers by music lovers.

The new S-Master MX digital amplifier greatly reduces noise and distortion level in your music, even if you’re listening to MP3 quality audio files.

This is one of 5 Clear Audio Technologies – S-Master MX, Clear Bass, Clear Stereo, DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine), and EX headphones – which promises quality audio on-the-move.

A new W.BUTTON launches the W.Control app, which allows you to explore your music collection by flicking through the cover art viewing on-screen visualisations while the music plays.

SensMe sorts your music collection into 14 mood-themed channels to suit the time of day or the way you feel.

4.3-inch display, Android 2.3 OS.

4.3-inch display, Android 2.3 OS.

The xLOUD speaker system of the Z1050 to offers a high level of clear sound reproduction from its built-in speaker – you can now listen in to your favourite tunes with friends and loved ones without a speaker dock.

The Walkman Z Series allows you to share your content at home and on the move wirelessly via Wi-Fi and connects to other DLNA-enabled devices.

Simply ‘throw’ your music, pictures and videos from your Walkman screen by ‘flicking’ them directly to compatible TVs, PCs, or home audio system to stream your media.

Connect the Walkman directly to your TV via the micro HDMI to enjoy your videos, photos and games on big screen.

Or connect via Bluetooth to compatible speakers, headphones, hi-fi systems or car stereos effortlessly with no wire clutter.

Below are the main technical specifications of the new Sony Walkman NWZ-Z1050.

(more…)

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Posted in Android, App, Audio, Events, Gadgets, Gaming, Launch, Operating Systems, Prices, Software, Sony, Specifications | 3 Comments »

Affordable cloud backup for small and medium businesses

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Kronicles has launched, in Singapore, a new Backup-as-a-Service solution for small and medium businesses (SMB).

The solution includes both on-site and off-site backup and promises enterprise-class reliability and fast recovery at affordable subscription-based pricing starting from S$5,000 per month (before government subsidy).

Kronicles BaaS includes both on-site and off-site backup.

Kronicles BaaS includes both on-site and off-site backup.

Only last week, I wrote about EMC’s “Disaster Recovery Survey 2012” which found that “81% of businesses in the Asia Pacific and Japan might NOT be able to recover lost data and systems in the event of a disaster”.

“71% of all organizations had lost data or suffered systems downtime in the last 12 months” – Vanson Bourne interview of 2,500 IT decision-makers.The results point to outdated backup and recovery infrastructure in businesses in Japan and the Asia Pacific.

Kronicles has come to the rescue with their new “Backup-as-a-Service” (BaaS), powered by technology from Quantum.

In the customer’s office, a POD (Periphery Onsite Device) backs up 30-days worth of data from a customer’s email and application servers.

The POD provides on-site backup for quick recovery.

The POD provides on-site backup for quick recovery.

The POD provides quick recovery of files over the local network, which is typically faster than an Internet connection.

Every day, during off-peak hours, data is copied over a dedicated link to Kronicles’ secure data facility for off-site protection.

In Singapore the data resides in-country within Starhub’s Tier 3 data center.

At the end of each month, Kronicles provides a copy of the data on an LTO tape, which can either be returned to the user or stored at a secure third=party location that can be returned on demand.

At any one time, there is a local copy of data for everyday operations, one stored on Kronicles’ cloud for business continuity, and one copy on tape for long-term archival.

Following today’s launch in Singapore, the service will be launched next in The Philippines and Malaysia.

Pricing

Three price packages are available. The basic Gold package – at S$5,000 per month – includes 200GB to 1TB of data backup, support for three to 10 Windows servers, up to 30-day history.

The Platinum package – at S$8,000 per month – includes 1TB to 2TB of data, three to 10 Windows servers, and up to 60-day history.

Customers with even more stringent requirements can discuss the Platinum Plus package with Kronicles.

Is the data secured? “Yes, data is encrypted with up to 256bit encryption when the data is ‘in flight’. At the data center itself, the data is not encrypted but protected,” says Pramotedham. The data on the back-up tapes are also not encrypted.A War Room for DR and BCP

Piti Pramotedham, Group CEO of Kronicles, described something that caught my attention during his presentation.

He described how a “War Room” can be set up in StarHub’s Media Centre should a customer’s premises be gutted by, say, a fire.

The customer, together with its partners, can set up shop in the War Room while their IT servers are re-constituted from the backup servers.

Is the data of one customer physically compartmentalised from that of another customer? “Yes, at the data center, it’s like a bank vault – so you see a whole wall of storage dedicated to one customer, separate from that of other customers,” say Piti.This can be completed in a matter of hours, after which, the customer and its partners can resume “business as usual”.

The aim is to suffer minimal disruption in times of disaster.

Pramotedham says that Kronicles insists that customers practise this once a year to ensure everything is well-rehearsed.

For SMBs that doesn’t yet have any Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Plans (BCP), this is like having DR and BCP thrown in together with the BaaS.

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Posted in Cloud, Enterprise IT, Events, Launch, Prices, Specifications, storage drive, Technology | 1 Comment »