Archive for the ‘Launch’ Category

Wu Bai’s first photography exhibition in Singapore

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011
The Leica store at Raffles Hotel is hosting the first photography exhibition in Singapore by Taiwanese rockstar Wu Bai (伍佰). 14 black-and-white photos taken in Taiwan are on display for the 42-day exhibition based on the theme “More Earth”.
Wu Bai launching his first photo exhibition in Singapore from Oct 22 - Dec 2, 2011

Wu Bai launching his first photo exhibition in Singapore from Oct 22 - Dec 2.

Wu Bai (吳俊霖 Wu Jun Ling) is best known for his powerful live shows and rock ballads, Wu Bai composes and writes his own tunes, mostly inspired from his own life experiences. Some of the hits written by the multi award-winning musician include 浪人情歌 (Wanderer’s Love Song) and 挪威的森林 (Norwegian Woods).

Wu Bai says he enjoys hitting the streets of the countries he visits to get the feel of real life.

Wu Bai says he enjoys hitting the streets of the countries he visits to get the feel of real life.

Another avenue of expression for the talented Mandarin rock artiste is his photography. He has published two photo books in 2007 and 2009.

“More Earth” will be open to the public from today until December 2, 2011. Open daily from 10 am till 8 pm, admission is free.

Wu Bai personally launched the exhibition yesterday and spoke in depth for more than half an hour about his passion for photography, despite a bad throat.

He shared that black-and-white photography is his style of choice, even though he started out with colour photography. He had discovered the sensuous touch of black-and-white photography after he viewed some photos of snow scenes that he had taken, and was taken with the almost black-and-white look of those photos.

Wu Bai shares some of the photos he took in Singapore on his iPad.

Wu Bai shares some of the photos he took in Singapore on his iPad.

The photos for “More Earth” were selected based on his concern with how human development and construction is rapidly encroaching on nature, with greens and natural waterways superseded by concrete and steel structures, many of which were not even really necessary.

Date 22 Oct – 2 Dec, 2011
Time 10 am to 8 pm
Venue Leica store,
Raffles Hotel
Address Raffles Hotel Arcade
#01-18

The photos for the exhibition were taken using his Leica M6 and M7 with the 28mm f/2 M Summicron lens.

Plans to bring the exhibition to other countries in South East Asia are underway.

Singapore Leica store celebrates first anniversary

Friday, October 21st, 2011
The Leica store at Raffles Hotel in Singapore celebrated its first anniversary today with the a new compact camera and a photo exhibition.
The Leica store at Raffles Hotel Arcade in Singapore celebrates its first anniversary.

The Leica store at Raffles Hotel Arcade in Singapore celebrates its first anniversary.

The Leica store in the Raffles Hotel Arcade (#01-18) first opened its doors on October 10th last year.

Special edition Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium compact digital camera.

Special edition Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium compact digital camera.

As part of its first anniversary celebrations, it has launched the Special Edition of hte Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium compact digital camera.

It also launched the first photography exhibition in Singapore by Taiwanese rock singer Wu Bai (伍佰).

The compact camera has an elegant silver-grey Titanium look, and sports a 10.1-megapixel, 1/1.63” CCD sensor that records 720 pixel HD video.

Wu Bai talks about his passion for photography.

Wu Bai talks about his passion for photography.

Focal range is from 24 to 90 mm (35mm equivalent).

Priced at SS$1,595, the camera comes bundled with the full version of Photoshop Lightroom, which is worth some S$400 on its own.

The standard Leica D-Lux 5 retails at S$1,200.

Wu Bai’s exhibition of 14 black-and-white photos is themed “More Earth” and features photos of the environment that he took in Taiwan.

The exhibition will begin tomorrow and last till December 2, 2011.

It will be open daily from 10 am to 8 pm, admission free.

The9 establishes Red 5 Singapore to operate Firefall

Friday, October 21st, 2011
NASDAQ-listed The9, an online game developer and operator in China, announced today that it has established “Red 5 Singapore” for conducting online game operations and R&D activities.
Firefall is a team-based MMORPG 3D Sci-Fi action shooter game from Red 5.

Firefall is a team-based MMORPG 3D Sci-Fi action shooter game from Red 5.

In early 2010, The9 announced its acquisition of majority stake in Red 5 Studios Inc, an online game developer located in California, formed in 2006 “The market share and revenue in Asia has a huge impact on the Firefall global operation. This was one of the reasons why we have decided to set up an Asia headquarters for Firefall,” said Mr Zhu Jun, CEO of Red 5 Singapore. “Singapore is strategically-located, demonstrates a thirst for global talent, latest technology and has strong support from the government. The rich resources of talent, friendly government policy and efficiency here have won us over.”by former executives and developers from Blizzard Entertainment.

“Red 5” in this report refers to Red 5 Studios Inc as opposed to “Red 5 Singapore”.

Since the acquisition, The9 has provided support to Red 5 for the game development and preparation work for launch of Firefall – the first team-based action shooter game from Red 5.

Firefall has already attracted interestfrom gamers, media and industry peers across the world.

It is also part of The9’s ‘Global Game for Global Market’ strategy.

Red 5 Singapore will be responsible for the operation of Firefall in all the countries around the globe“We are delighted that The9 Limited has chosen Singapore as its base to spearhead its global strategy. Red 5’s Asian operation in Singapore will create an opportunity for local talent to work with some of the most respected veterans in the games industry,” said Jayson Goh, Executive Director, Infocomms & Media Division of EDB, Singapore. other than North American and European markets, and will first focus on the Asian markets.

The9 and Red 5 will support Red 5 Singapore with talent recruitment, capital investment, technology, as well as other necessary resources.

Red 5 Singapore will develop localized versions of Firefall according to the progress of the game in each country in the Asia region, and will become the Asian operation and development center for Firefall.

New BlackBerry Curve 9360 arrives in Singapore

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Unveiled some two months ago, the Curve 9360 has now been launched in Singapore. The sleek, fast and easy-to-use smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM) promises to deliver smooth social experiences wherever you go.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 was first unveiled in late August 2011.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 was first unveiled in late August 2011.

The BlackBerry 9360 features the new BlackBerry 7 operating system and is now available in Singapore from authorised BlackBerry partners and carriers. The main specs can be found here.

The new BlackBerry Curve smartphone retains the iconic QWERTY keyboard and an optical trackpad for easy, one-handed navigation. GPS and Wi-Fi support are also included, as well as a 5MP camera with flash and video recording that can be shared instantly on social networks. The microSD/SDHC slot supports up to 32 GB memory cards for additional media storage.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphone features an upgraded processor and display, more memory, and built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communication) – a new technology that enables the ability to pair accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the smartphone.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 focuses on providing a smooth social experience.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 focuses on providing a smooth social experience.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 promises to provide the world’s “best mobile communications and social experiences” with a highly refined and integrated suite of phone, email, messaging and social apps to keep users connected and productive throughout the day.

The latest release of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) is pre-loaded, and users can interact with other ‘BBM connected’ apps. The social experience includes an updated Social Feeds (2.0) app, Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones (2.0) app, and Twitter for BlackBerry.

New Mac portable hard drives: My Passport Studio and My Passport for Mac

Sunday, October 16th, 2011

Western Digital has launched two new portable hard drives designed for use with Mac computers and Apple Time Machine, with capacities of 500GB, 750GB and 1 TB.

Western Digital My Passport for Mac

Western Digital My Passport for Mac

The Mac-inspired designs of the compact portable hard drives feature matches the external designs of Mac computers.

Powered through the USB 2.0 or Firewire connection, these portable drives allow convenient quick connect external storage without the hassle of lugging additional power adaptors and cables.

My Passport for Mac features a USB 2.0 interface and is an easy way to increase the minimal local storage on MacBook and MacBook Air notebooks.

Western Digital My Passport Studio

Western Digital My Passport Studio

My Passport Studio sports an all-metal design, with two FireWire 800 ports and a USB 2.0 interface. The FireWire ports provide fast upload and transfer speeds and can be used to daisy chain up to five additional drives or peripherals such as HD camcorders.

“The speed of the fifth device at the end of the daisy chain is only slower by less than 10% of the first device on the chain,” according to Sheraine Chua, Regional Sales Manager of Branded Products at Western Digital.

Capacity My Passport Studio My Passport for MAC
500 GB S$169 S$119
750 GB S$189 S$129
1 TB S$219 S$159

My Passport Studio also features encryption and password protection software.

New wireless streaming media player: WD TV Live

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

The S$189 WD TV Live is an easy to use Wi-Fi enabled media player that can stream media either from a network attached storage drive in the local network, or directly from the Internet – via an Ethernet connection or the high performance 802.11n wireless connectivity.

Western Digital WD TV Live wireless streaming media player

Western Digital WD TV Live wireless streaming media player

If you don’t already own an Apple TV or Google TV, check out WD TV Live from Western Digital.

Western Digital WD TV Live streaming media playerThe Wi-Fi enabled media player comes with its own apps to stream media from Internet video, radio and social networking sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Facebook, Picassa Web Albums, and TuneIn Radio directly to your TV in Full-HD 1080p resolution. Dailymotion video service is now included to offer video

WD TV Live also includes Fun Spot Games, a casual gaming service that offers arcade, strategy, and card games, puzzles, and quizzes. Some of these games include Sudoku, Black Jack and Poker.

WD TV Live allows users to enjoy personal media such as photos, video and music on their home entertainment systems.

Access Internet media content using WD TV Live in Full-HD 1080p resolution.

Access Internet media content using WD TV Live in Full-HD 1080p resolution.

It supports a wide range of file formats for streaming content from any connected USB drive, digital camcorder or camera, network drive such as the My Book Live personal cloud storage, and any networked PC or Mac computer in the home.

Personal cloud from Western Digital

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Western Digital offers an easy way to set up a personal private cloud to share documents and media – using the WD My Book Live network drive and mobile apps for Android and iOS smart phones and tablets.

The drives comes in 1TB (S$209), 2TB (S$239), and 3TB (S$299) capacities and are priced roughly US$50 more than non-network external drives with the same capacity.

Western Digital CorporationI’d posted not long ago about setting up a home shared network hard drive in order to share documents and media – photos, music and video – in a private personal cloud in the comfort of the home.

That was followed with a case study of setting up and using the Seagate GoFlex Home storage system – a similar network attached storage (NAS) drive.

My Book Live is a network attached storage drive from Western Digital

My Book Live is a network attached storage drive from Western Digital

The WD My Book Live network drive from Western Digital is also connected directly to the wireless router to plug into the home wireless network. Both Macs and PCs can store, access and share documents, as well as stream media from the drive.

With all the buzz about consumer public clouds and enterprise private and hybrid (private/public) clouds, the WD My Book Live makes it simple to set up your personal private cloud with the hard-disk and data physically sitting in the security of your home.

Access to this personal cloud can be extended beyond the home to the Internet. Any computer given the access rights can access the shared documents and media on the WD My Book Live through www.WD2go.com.

My Book Live comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and 3TB

My Book Live comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and 3TB

In addition, Android and iOS mobile devices (both smart phones and tablets) can get mobile access to the files stored on the drive via the WD2go apps from Western Digital. The WD Photos and basic WD2go app are free and allows viewing files and streaming media from the WD My Book Live.

For US$2.99, the WD2g Pro app adds the ability to “clip” files – basically download a local copy of files and media to the mobile device; and allow users to share files by emailing either a copy of the files or a link to the WD My Book Live.

Note that once the link is sent out, anybody with the link will have access to that file. There is no expiry date for the sharing, like in Seagate’s GoFlex Home. The only way to stop sharing that file is to either remove that file or rename it – but that affects everybody to whom you’ve sent that link to.

Naturally, both the network drive and the router must be connected and powered up for access. And access from mobile devices is only via the apps over the Internet – instead of direct access over the local home wireless network.

That means that even if you’re at home, the app in your smart phone or tablet will still have to go to the Internet (via wireless or 3G) and come back into the home wireless network to access the files on the WD My Book Live. This is similar to the GoFlex Home.

But Western Digital does not limit the number of users or computers that can share the WD My Book Live. The GoFlex Home limits the number of users/computers that can be set up to connect with it to just 5. GoFlex Home customers need to subscribe to pay to enjoy unlimited connections.

Capacity WD
My Book Live
Seagate
GoFlex Home
1 TB S$209 S$179
2 TB S$239 S$239
3 TB S$299 S$339

WD My Book Live features a built-in media server that streams music, photos and movies to any DLNA-certified multimedia device such as a WD TV Live network media player, Blu-ray Disc player, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and connected TV.

My Book Live comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and 3TB and is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS, as well as DLNA/UPnP enabled devices.

Western Digital envisages a connected lifestyle

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Western Digital launches a slew of media storage, networking and playback products for the connected lifestyle.

Western Digital My Book Live personal cloud storage

Western Digital My Book Live personal cloud storage

The premise of the Connected Life solution from Western Digital is the simple set-up of a private personal cloud where media can be accessed and shared from any computer at home.

This personal cloud can also be extended into the Internet so that mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers can also access data and media in the cloud using apps, while computers can use a browser interface.

The centrepiece of the Connected Life solution from Western Digital is the My Book Live network attached storage. With capacities ranging from 1TB to 3TB, these network capable external hard drives are connected directly to the wireless router at home so that any computer – be it a Mac or a PC – can store and access the media in the drive.

Western Digital WD TV Live streaming media player

Western Digital WD TV Live streaming media player

The WD TV Live media player that is connected to the wireless network can then stream media from My Book Live and play photos, music and videos on a large TV screen. It can also stream media directly from Internet services such as YouTube.

Outside home, data and media on My Book Live can be accessed on mobile devices using WD apps WD 2go (free), WD 2go Pro (US$2.99), and WD Photos (free).

Let’s talk iPhone: Executive Summary

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Tim Cook delivered his first major product launch since taking over from Steve Jobs as the CEO. The main anticipation for an iPhone 5 did not come through. Instead an iPhone 4S with changed out innards was offered. By the way, Steve Jobs was absent from the event

Let's talk iPhone launches iPhone 4S instead of iPhone 5

"Let's talk iPhone" launches iPhone 4S instead of iPhone 5

The headline for the launch was the iPhone 4S. Identical to the iPhone 4 in terms of external design and appearances, the innards have been completed changed out with much better components. These include a more powerful A5 dual-core CPU promising 2x the previous computing speed and 7x graphics performance, new 8 megapixel camera, full HD video, and iOS 5.

Other highlights inlcude Siri, the voice-activated intelligent assistant and iCloud, a set of cloud services that works and syncs with all the Apple devices a user owns.

New apps and iPod Touch and nano devices were also presented.

Here’s a quick executive summary of the various products launched, their prices (in the US and in Singapore), as well as when they would be available.

Product / Availability Prices

iPhone 4S

(black & white)

Oct 14:
US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan & UK
Oct 28:
22 countries including Singapore
Dec 2011:
Rest of the world

US prices (w 2 yrs contract):
16GB: US$199
32GB: US$299
64GB: US$399 

Singapore prices (incl GST):
iPhone 4S: TBA
iPhone 4: S$788
iPhone 3GS: S$548

Siri voice-activated intelligent assistant

Comes as Beta on iPhone 4S

Free

iOS 5

Available on Oct 12

Free software update via iTunes 10.5

Cards App

Available on Oct 12

US: US$2.99
Elsewhere: US$4.99

iCloud

Available on Oct 12

5GB: free
10GB: US$20/yr
20GB: US$40/yr
50GB: US$100/yr

iPod nano

(black & white)

Available today

US prices:
8GB: US$129
16GB: US$149  

Singapore prices (incl GST):
8GB: S$180
16GB: S$208

iPad Touch

(black & white)

Available on Oct 12

US prices:
8GB: US$199
32GB: US$299
64GB: US$399  

Singapore prices (incl GST):
8GB: S$288
32GB: S$428
64GB: S$588

Adobe Touch Apps

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Adobe announced its slate of six new apps for Apple iPads and Android tablets during the MAX 2011 conference in Los Angeles. Here’s a brief description of what each of the apps does.

Each of the six apps has an introductory price-tag of US$9.99. The Android version is will be available in November 2010 while the iOS version will only be available in 2012.

Adobe Touch App Description of App

Adobe Photoshop Touch
 

Adobe Photoshop Touch

Adobe Photoshop Touch

Adobe Photoshop Touch

Transform images with core Photoshop features in an app custom-built for tablets. With simple finger gestures, users can combine multiple photos into layered images, make popular edits and apply professional effects. The tablet-exclusive Scribble Selection Tool allows users to easily extract objects in an image by simply scribbling on what to keep and then what to remove.

With Refine Edge technology from Adobe Photoshop, even hard-to-select areas with soft edges, such as hair, are easily captured when making selections. Additionally, the app helps users quickly find images, share creations, and view comments through integration with Facebook and Google Search. Using the syncing capabilities that are a component of Adobe Creative Cloud, files can be opened in Adobe Photoshop.


Adobe Collage
 

Adobe Collage

Adobe Collage

Capture and refine ideas and concepts by combining inspirational images, drawings, text and Creative Suite files into modern, conceptual mood boards.

Features include importing of images, four customizable pen types for drawing, adding text, and applying color themes. A virtually unconstrained canvas grows as needed to accommodate more assets. Files can be shared or transferred for access in Adobe Photoshop.


Adobe Debut
 

Adobe Debut

Present designs to clients and stakeholders virtually anywhere. Adobe Debut quickly opens tablet-compatible versions of Creative Suite files for convenient and beautiful viewing on the tablet, including Photoshop layers and Illustrator art boards. Feedback is gathered using a markup pen tool to add notes and drawings on top of the work.

Adobe Ideas
 

Adobe Debut

Easy-to-master, vector-based tool for drawing. By using a stylus or finger, strokes appear smooth at any zoom level. Starting with a blank canvas, users can choose color themes, and pull in tablet-compatible image files that can be controlled as separate layers. Finished results are easily accessed in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

Adobe Kuler
 

Adobe Kuler

Generate color themes easily to inspire design projects. Color can be explored and discovered, with hundreds of thousands of Kuler themes already available via the creative community. Social engagement in the community is enhanced by rating and commenting on themes, which can be exported as color swatches for Adobe Creative Suite projects.

Adobe Proto
 

Adobe Proto

Adobe Proto

Develop interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps on a tablet. Ideas are communicated and shared with teams and clients using a touch-based interface.

Gestures quickly express a design concept, explain website structure or demonstrate interactivity. The wireframe or prototype then can be exported as industry standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and shared in popular browsers for immediate review and approval.