Viber app for free international phone calls

September 10th, 2011

An overseas friend uses the Viber app on her iPhone for free VOIP international voice calls and text messages on her smartphone. I installed the free app on my Android phone and tested it. Setup was swift and quality was superb.
Viber for iPhone and Android phones

I was at the petrol station and the attendant was filling up an almost empty tank with petrol. While waiting, I whipped out my Android phone, searched the Android Market for Viber and installed it. Before the attendant had finished filling up the tank, I was already chatting with my friend in Kuala Lumpur on her iPhone – for free.

Set up was really simple on the Android phone. Once it was downloaded and installed, it gets your permission to access your contacts and sends you a 4-digit access code to activate your account. After that, you’re set to go!

Viber is free and works on the iPhone and Android phones.

Viber is free and works on the iPhone and Android phones.

The interface looks similar to the usual numeric dialpad with tabs to access recent calls, contacts, messages and more activities such as inviting friends, sharing on Facebook, tweeting etc.

Basically, Viber emulates the usual phone calling and sms usage – everything is based on your regualr phone number.

Viber dialpad on Android phone

Viber dialpad on Android phone

Your account id is your phone number. If the party you’re calling has Viber installed on her Android or iPhone, you just dial her usual number, complete with international dialing code, to get connected. Viber is currently only available on the iPhone and Android phones. A BlackBerry version is in the pipeline.

Quality was good. Voice quality was loud and clear, although there was just a split-second lag, which didn’t affect the flow of the conversation in the slightest bit.

If the other party does not have Viber installed yet, the app gives you the option to place a regular call through your carrier.

Conclusion: Fast and easy to set-up and use, call quality is fantastic. The free app is compatible with iPhone 3GS (and later) and Android phones.

BlackBerry DevCon Asia registration open now

September 9th, 2011

Registration for BlackBerry DevCon Asia in Bangkok is now open. Taking place on 7-8 December 2011, BlackBerry DevCon Asia will be held at Centara Grand at CentralWorld in Bangkok, Thailand. Rates range from $150 to $250 USD.

Discounted rates are available for attendees who book early, as well as for those who qualify for the Academic Rate:

Early Bird Rate $200 USD Expires Friday, November 4, 2011 at 11:59pm ICT
Regular Rate $250 USD Expires Thursday, December 8, 2011
Academic Rate* $150 USD Expires Thursday, December 8, 2011

*Academic passes do not qualify for the Early Bird discount/offer or the Alumni discount. Students and Faculty members must apply to devconasia@blackberryconferences.net with proof of current enrollment or employment.

BlackBerry DevCon Asia in Bangkok, Thailand from 7 to 8 December 2011Those who had attended BlackBerry DevCon Asia in January 2011, BlackBerry DevCon 2010, or BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 qualify for the $50 USD Alumni discount.

The Alumni discount will automatically be deducted from the current registration price. To be recognized as Alumni, interested registrant must use the same email alias they used when registering for the aforementioned conferences.

Each package gives participants the following:

  • Access to the BlackBerry DevCon Asia General Session
  • Access to Breakout Sessions
  • Access to Expert areas during open hours
  • Admission to the Welcome Reception
  • Admission to the BlackBerry DevCon Party
  • Admission to the Mobility Pavilion during open hours
  • Lunch, and breaks during the conference dates
  • Complimentary access to Conference Wi-Fi® internet
  • Access to BlackBerry DevCon On-Demand, the online portal for conference content and sponsor information, until the start of the next BlackBerry DevCon Asia
  • Registration gift upon check-in onsite

During the conference, each breakout session will be presented by Research In Motion (RIM) experts and developer community members.

The various sessions will explore the BlackBerry development platform, BlackBerry Platform Services, and best practices, focusing specifically on the topics below:

  • Java Development for BlackBerry 7
  • WebKit and the BlackBerry WebWorks Platform Development
  • BlackBerryPlayBook Tablet OS Development, including Native SDK, Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash, and Android Player
  • BlackBerryPlatform Services and the BBM Social Platform
  • Tips and tools for debugging and optimizing your apps
  • User interface and user experience tools and best practices
  • Developingquality enterprise applications
  • Marketing and distributing your applications

CA ARCserve r16 unifies data protection for enterprise IT

September 8th, 2011

CA Technologies today announced CA ARCserve r16, a comprehensive hybrid data protection solution that enables customers and service providers to rigorously safeguard the availability of critical data, applications and services across their increasingly diverse mix of virtual, conventional, and cloud resources.

CA Technologies is an IT management software and solutions company.The comprehensive solution and simplified licensing enable customers to reduce costs and better mitigate risk.

The CA ARCserve r16 unifies data protection across virtual, conventional and cloud resources to ease management of diverse IT Infrastructures.

CA ARCserve r16 delivers this high-value capability with:

  • A modular architecture that unifies diverse data management functions and facilitates integration with third-party management tools and services
  • A simplified single license based on total amount of data being protected
  • Standby replication of virtual machine images
  • A new cloud connection layer that eases management of access to multiple public and private cloud storage resources

It unifies data management functions through a scalable, modular architecture that also facilitates integration with third-party software such as remote monitoring tools, “Today’s IT organizations are spending inordinate time and money to protect critical services—often relying on a mix of ‘point’ backup solutions for conventional servers, virtual infrastructure and cloud resources that leave them exposed to the risk of a highly damaging outage,” James Forbes-May, Vice President of Data Management, APAC at CA Technologies.management platforms, and solutions from service providers, like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, N-able and LabTech.

CA ARCserve r16 further simplifies management of heterogeneous IT environments by allowing customers to purchase multiple data protection functionalities with a single license based on the total amount of data they need to protect.

This licensing model also makes it easy for service providers to price and package complete data protection and management solutions to their customers. CA ARCserve r16 is also available through traditional licensing models.

Comprehensive Protection for Virtualized Infrastructure

A new offering, CA ARCserve r16 Central Host-Based VM Backup, empowers organizations to protect their virtual infrastructure with image-based host-level protection for VMware vSphere, “Downtime is not an option in today’s highly competitive world, where businesses must be more agile than ever despite finite resources,” said Eric Rockwell, president of centrexIT, a San Diego-based provider of technology management services. “We’re migrating our customers from Symantec to CA ARCserve for a variety of reasons—including its overhead-slashing infinite incrementals functionality, its ready-to-go virtualization support, its reliability and its unbeatable replication capabilities.”as well as full system replication and high availability supporting Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer.

By providing both full bare-metal recovery and full system failover of complete VMs, it enables organizations to meet their increasingly stringent restore SLAs. Recovery of individual applications and granular recovery of targeted files and folders can be accomplished within minutes.

With the new CA ARCserve r16 Central Virtual Standby, customers can schedule the automatic conversion of image-based recovery points to VMware Virtual Disk or Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk formats. By making these backup images available as standby virtual machines, customers can further speed the recovery of data and services.

Powerful Support for the Cloud

CA ARCserve r16 introduces a common cloud connection layer across all data protection components— including traditional file backup, disk imaging, replication and high availability. “The banks that rely on our data protection services are subject to strict regulatory scrutiny,” said Terry Oehring, founder and CEO of Solis Security, an MSP specializing in providing information security for financial institutions. “By leveraging CA ARCserve, we can reliably and cost-effectively enable our customers to meet this key challenge by accurately targeting the data that they need to protect and securely replicating it offsite in the cloud.”This provides integrated access to hybrid cloud storage, enabling customers to more readily take advantage of public and private cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure and Eucalyptus, for purposes such as remote, off-site data protection, archiving and failover.

CA ARCserve r16 also allows customers to use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as their disaster recovery infrastructure helping to ensuring they can be up and running quickly in the event of a problem with their on-premises infrastructure. This cold standby technology can eliminate the significant costs associated with the purchase of redundant hardware and cloud computing charges as part of a business continuity plan.

CA ARCserve r16 also enables service providers and their customers to protect systems and data both locally (for fast, simple end-user or administrator recovery), and in the cloud (to protect critical data files offsite for disaster recovery).

Additional Enhancements across Entire Solution Set

“Since implementing CA ARCserve as the primary disaster recovery solution to help ensure the availability of key business systems in our highly virtualized environment, we’ve reduced our recovery time from more than three days to less than four hours,” said Prashanth Thirumlai, IT infrastructure manager at The Haskell Company, a $500 million integrated design-build firm based in Jacksonville, Florida. All major components of CA ARCserve r16—including ARCserve Backup, ARCserve D2D and ARCserve Replication and High Availability—have been updated with significant enhancements, including new AES encryption to secure data in transfer and at rest, as well as tighter integration between traditional and image-based backup.

In addition, CA ARCserve continues to offer integrated backup to disk, tape or cloud, storage resource management, infrastructure visualization and data deduplication.

BlackBerry App World 3.0 out of beta and available now

September 7th, 2011

BlackBerry App World 3.0 is now out of beta and available for all BlackBerry smartphone users.

BlackBerry App World is free and works on BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry® 5 OS (Device Software) or higher.

BlackBerry App World is free and works on BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry 5 OS or higher.

BlackBerry App World is free and works on BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry 5 OS or higher.

The BlackBerry App World 3.0 storefront makes discovering and downloading apps, games, and themes easier than before. Users can personalize their BlackBerry smartphone, find the hottest games and entertainment and get apps to stay connected with the people who matter.

New features include:

  • Sleek New Design – The BlackBerry App World experience has been enhanced to help users discover the latest and greatest apps and content, starting right on the BlackBerry App World home screen where rotating spotlight banners show off all that’s new and exciting.
  • New Channels – Apps, Games, and Themes now have their own channels so users can get to what they want even faster.
  • Introduction of My Account – My Account makes managing BlackBerry ID and payment options easy with direct access to all account information from the home screen.
  • New My World Features – My World gives users a streamlined view of their apps and status, and now at a glance, in addition to seeing which apps are installed and uninstalled, users can manage subscription content and services.  When new updates or subscription renewals are available for apps, users will be notified using push technology.
  • App Social Sharing – when a user finds an app they can’t live without, they can share it directly from the app details screen through BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger), Facebook®, Twitter™, email and SMS
  • Evolved App Details Screen – At a glance, users can get a quick summary, check out reviews and star ratings, take a look at screen shots, and more
  • More Search Options – Quickly find apps with a Search Bar now appearing on the storefront home screen and search results are presented across Channels as well as My World.  Search Bars are also within each Channel and users have the ability to filter by App Name, Price, Rating, Newest, Best Match, or Popular

Company byte: Akamai Technologies Inc

September 6th, 2011

Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) provides cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure e-commerce.

Combining highly-distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai’s global platform aims to transform the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate.

Akamai has deployed a pervasive, highly distributed cloud optimisation platform with nearly 100,000 servers located in more than 650 cities, in 72 countries and within many of the key networks that make up the internet.

With more than 2,100 employees, annual revenue in 2010 was $1,023.6 million, up 19 percent from the previous year. Follow postings related to Akamai Technologies on tech4tea.com.

Akamai’s product portfolio includes:

Digital Asset Solutions – to manage, store and deliver exceptional digital media experiences across a wide range of platforms/devices around the world. These include Akaimai HD Network, Akamai Media Delivery and Electronic Software Delivery.

Dynamic Site Solutions – to spped up rich interactive content and accelerate all customer-driven transactions. These include Dynamic Site Accelerator and Dynamic Site Accelerator Enterprise.

Application Performance Solutions – enables the public Internet to be the platform for accelerating any critical enterprise application to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Akamai is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online.These include Web Application Accelerator and IP Application Accelerator.

Advertising Decision Solutions – to enable more relevant online advertising, using Predictive Segments.

PlayStation games that are “Made-in-Singapore”

September 5th, 2011

Come 2012, the game that you play on your Sony Playstation could be made-in-Singapore. That is the vision for the Memorandum of Understanding signed today between Nanyang Polytechnic and Sony Computer Entertainment Asia.

The 5-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will renew the partnership between Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) and Sony Computer Entertainment Asia (SCE Asia) a year ahead of the existing agreement signed in December 2009.

Mr. Tetsuhiko Yasuda, President, Sony Computer Entertainment Asia and Mr. Chan Lee Mun, Principal & CEO, Nanyang Polytechnic at the MOU signing ceremony.

Mr. Tetsuhiko Yasuda, President, Sony Computer Entertainment Asia and Mr. Chan Lee Mun, Principal & CEO, Nanyang Polytechnic at the MOU signing ceremony.

Both parties will be nurturing the first ever student-initiated Sony PlayStation Minis game, developed by 21-year-old NYP graduand Hoong Boon Wai. They will also continue their partnership in the NYP Games Resource Centre, the only Sony PlayStation games development and training centre in Southeast Asia.

Mr Hoong Boon Wai (right), Nanyang Polytechnic graduate and Founder of Dark Potato Studios, demonstrating his game to Mr. Tetsuhiko Yasuda.

Mr Hoong Boon Wai (right), Nanyang Polytechnic graduate and Founder of Dark Potato Studios, demonstrating his game to Mr. Tetsuhiko Yasuda.

The S$4 million Games Resource Centre will provide the resources and facilities for lecturers of NYP’s Diploma in Digital Entertainment Technology (Games) and Diploma in Digital Media Design (Games) to guide and mentor students from these courses. By 2015, NYP expects to train at least another 800 students and games development professionals through its two diploma programmes and Specialist Diploma Games Development.

Companies such as Red Hare Studios can also use the development tools in the centre for games development. Dr Koh Wee Lit from Red Hare Studios has developed a game – Spell Caster – in the centre that is planned for release in 2012.

Hoong’s 2D arcade shooter game, called PhaseShift, may also be launched in 2012 by his startup – Dark Potatoes Studios.

Two other local startups setting up taking advantage of the partnership include SBA Mobile Solutions and Gamma Games.

My little haul from COMEX 2011

September 4th, 2011

Once a quarter, half of Singapore converges on Suntec City or Singapore Expo to “shop till you drop”. I visited COMEX 2011 on its second of four days to take advantage of promotional prices and to stock up on IT gadgets and peripherals.

Visiting COMEX 2011 on Friday afternoon, the hope was to go in after the initial opening day rush crowd had petered out and before the working folks – who knock off work for the week at five – set in.

View from Level 6 of COMEX 2011. Combined panorama from 3 photos.

View from Level 6 of COMEX 2011. Combined panorama from 3 photos.

I like to think the ploy worked, though the marketplace was still plenty crowded.

I managed to park the car at Basement 2 of Suntec City itself and dived into the crowd on Level 6 at around half-past-three – shopping list in hand. By 5 pm, people knocking off early from work were streaming into COMEX 2011.I’d listed down beforehand the booth numbers of the vendors selling the stuff I wanted and studied the floor plans to work out an optimal route through the madhouse.

First stop was the Prolink booth where I bought the Prolink PKM-3810B bluetooth keyboard for my BlackBerry PlayBook. The guys at the booth wasn’t sure if it would be compatible with the PlayBook’s OS since it was built for Windows and they’d tested earlier that the keyboard did not play with Android. (Update: I’ve since tested the keyboard with an Android Tab and both worked together without a hitch!)

So I fished out the tablet and tested the display keyboard set. Amazingly both got connected without a hitch, so I became S$48 dollars poorer. And thanks to a cut-out coupon from the Straits Times, I saved S$8 from the original COMEX price of S$56.

Seagate 2TB 3.5-inch external hard disk, iRobot Roomba, Prolink Bluetooth keyboard and 3.5 G USB modem.

My little haul from COMEX 2011

Since I was at Prolink, I bought a 3.5G USB HSDPA Modem for S$69. I was going to renew my home broadband subscription with SingTel. They’d offered a “free” modem for the mobile 1.5 Mbps on condition that I pay S$4 extra per month (if you use your own modem, you get the 1.5 Mbps and data SIM card for free).

Since that worked out to S$96 over the course of two years for the “free” modem, I figured I might as well purchase my own modem for less. Not a lot of savings, but I didn’t like the idea of being suckered into swallowing SingTel’s “free” modem offer.

Next stop was for an external 3.5” hard disk drive. The sweet spot for such storage disks is at 2 TB, and the cheapest 2 TB disk advertised was the Buffalo Drivestation.

“It’s sold out but we have other models that you may want to consider” – sounds all too familiar?

But it’s no darn good if it’s sold out – the “it’s sold out but we have other models that you may want to consider” sounded all too familiar.

So I headed for Seagate and got myself a 2 TB expansion external 3.5” hard disk for S$120. Basic USB 2.0 with no frills.

Last stop was for a robotic maid. The golden retriever at home was driving us nuts with its beautiful golden fur – strewn all over the floor – and the cleaners only come in once a week.

So I checked out the two booths at COMEX selling robotic vacuum cleaners – iClebo and iRobot. I ended up carting home the latter after parting with S$898 for the Pet series iRobot.

“If looks could kill, we’d both have been dead a million times through”.

On the way out of the lift lobby at the B2 carpark, I got waylaid by this guy who saw me lugging the iRobot box and wanted to know where I’d bought it from – while keeping the people in the lift waiting for him.

If looks could kill, we’d both have been dead a million times through.

TomTom introduces in-car fast charger for up to three devices

September 3rd, 2011

Available today at S$45 (with GST), the TomTom High Speed Multi-Charger can charge up to three devices at once – and at a rate up to four times faster than a normal USB charger.

TomTom High Speed Multi-Charger at S$45

TomTom High Speed Multi-Charger at S$45 (w GST)

The compact charger ensures that the GPS unit receives the right amount of power and that all devices receive full power charging simultaneously as there are two dedicated USB ports to provide full-power at all times. Most comparable products charge up to 2.1 amps, split between ports.

“It’s the first TomTom accessory that enables users to charge their TomTom device and other mobile devices like a smart phone, tablet or power-hungry DVD player at the same time,” says Nick Saisanas, Marketing Communications Manager, TomTom Asia Pacific.

As well as a 1.2 amp USB charging port suitable for mobile phones or MP3 players, there is a 2.1 amp port to speed-charge high power USB devices such as tablets or smart phones. The TomTom High Speed Multi-Charger will re-charge up to four times faster than a normal USB charger without impacting the other port’s charging capability.

There’s also a dedicated port for powering 12V in-car devices. This multi-port full power functionality means that drivers who are always on the road can charge and use all their electronic devices during their trip.

Those planning an upcoming weekend get-away with the family will also be able to keep children happy with on-the-go charging of items such as tablets and mobile phones – all while navigating.

Singapore loves Google+ most in Asia Pacific

September 2nd, 2011

In the Asia Pacific region, Google+ is most popular in Singapore, followed by India, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

Singapore is also the only country in which Google+ has enjoyed a continued rate of adoption – other countries have seen its popularity decline after a peak in mid-July, following its initial beta-launch in end June.

Google+ popularity in APAC: Singapore, India, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Google+ popularity in APAC: Singapore, India, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Experian Hitwise is an online competitive intelligence service that operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Globally, Singapore’s usage of Google+ was ranked sixth in the Social Networking and Forums category.

Google+’s popularity in Singapore was attributed to the dominance of the Google’s search engine in Singapore, with over 34.48 per cent of upsteam traffic to Google+ originating from the Google Singapore search engine.

Experian HitwiseAmong the countries, Hong Kong secured the lowest rate of Google+ adoption despite being the heaviest users of social networks – almost 60 per cent of visits are to platforms like Facebook and YouTube, while 40 per cent of the visits are to local Chinese forums and social media including Discuss, Uwants and Sina Weibo etc. Globally, it was ranked 90th.

Google+ also performed strongly in India achieving 14th place at its peak. This could be attributed to the rapid growth of India’s mobile and Internet community, its growing economy, as well as the increasing popularity of social media.

Despite minimal impact seen on Facebook visits so far after the launch in all markets except Hong Kong, Google+ sees key reliance on other Google properties such as Google Search, YouTube and Gmail to direct and refer visitors to the new Social platform.

COMEX 2011 promotions: Olympus cameras and accessories

September 1st, 2011

Olympus will be at Booth 8205 on Level 4 in Hall 404  during COMEX 2011. Head for promotional discounts and bundles especially limited sets of the Pen E-PL1, which has been reduced from S$998 to S$498 plus free gifts worth S$320.

The star promotion from Olympus for COMEX 2011 is the PEN E-PL1. Launched in February 2010, OLYMPUS E-PL1 is an entry-level model, equipped with a new Live Guide interface which makes it easy for users to get the results they want even if they have little previous experience with photography.

Olympus promotional price list for cameras and accessories during COMEX 2011 Olympus promotional price list for cameras and accessories during COMEX 2011

Key features include the Live Guide user interface for easy, intuitive adjustment of brightness, hue, background defocusing, and other image parameters; dedicated Movie mode button for seamless access to movie shooting at any time; go-anywhere portability in a light, compact body with built-in flash and image stabilization; offered in white, champagne gold, and black; and six Art Filters, including new Gentle Sepia, for enhanced photographic creativity.

Olympus promotional price list for cameras and accessories during COMEX 2011 Olympus promotional price list for cameras and accessories during COMEX 2011

The normal pricing for the E-PL1 14-42mm Lens Kit is at S$998 (with GST), which includes the body (in White, Champagne Gold, and Black), an M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14–42mm F3.5–5.6 lens (Silver) and an 8 GB SD card.

Olympus promotional price list for cameras and accessories during COMEX 2011 Olympus promotional price list for cameras and accessories during COMEX 2011

The COMEX 2011 offer at S$498 includes an additional 8 GB SD Card, an E-PL1 Skin, a camera bag, a screen protector, a card reader, 3 months local extended warranty and free E-Workshop.