Responding to the media reports, Google apologises for connectivity issues with the Nexus One and provides Nexus One owners in Singapore with the solution.

For Starhub and M1 customers, they will need to enter in their APN settings to connect to their 3G network. This can be done by any user in less than a minute:

1. Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names.

2. Hit Menu button, create new APN.

3. Enter new APN settings. See below for the details.

4. Hit Menu button, save settings.

5. Select the new APN name, then hit the home button. Your 3G connection will shortly appear in the top bar.

For Starhub customers:

• Name: Starhub Internet
• APN: shwapint
• Username: [leave blank]
• Password: [leave blank]

For M1 customers:

• Name: M1 Internet
• APN: sunsurf
• Username: 65
• Password: user123

For SingTel customers, the Nexus One should auto-connect to their 3G network.

However is this is not so for for SingTel customers, please use these details:

• Name: SingTel Internet
• APN: internet
• Username: 65IDEAS (or blank)
• Password: IDEAS (or blank)

If customers have further enquiries, they can look for support at www.google.com/phone which includes how-to videos, feature overviews, ordering/payment/set-up/warranty info, a user’s guide and help forum.

If users can’t find the answers they need, they can call the HTC Support line in Singapore at 1-800-238-7788 from 8am-8pm, Monday to Saturday.

HTC is providing local support and repair services for Nexus One.

source:AsiaOne, Sun, Jan 10, 2010

Apple Inc accused Nokia of anti-competitive practices and patent infringement on Friday, escalating a legal battle as they fight for market share in smartphones.

Analysts say the dispute, potentially involving hundreds of millions of dollars in annual royalties, reflects the shifting balance of power in the mobile industry as cellphones morph into handheld computers that can play video games and surf the Web.

Apple, which makes the iPhone and iPod, was responding to a suit that arch-rival Nokia filed in October. That suit accused Apple of infringing 10 Nokia patents for technologies such as wireless data, speech coding and security.

The countersuit heats up the fight between a rapidly growing Apple and the world’s largest maker of cellphones. While relative newcomer Apple trails Nokia in cellphone shipments, its iPhone has gained a lot of ground against the market leader in the smartphone segment.

Apple, which entered the industry in mid-2007, overtook Nokia last quarter as the cellphone maker generating the highest total operating profit.

“History is littered with industry incumbents being surprised by newcomers since established players often fail to deliver customer value beyond the basic utility of their initial products,” said Steven Nathasingh, chief executive of researcher Vaxa Inc.

“Apple has bedazzled Nokia and others like Sony by redefining all things mobile and making it generationally stylish. A combination that is hard to beat,” he said.

Analysts say Nokia and Apple could take years to resolve their patent dispute.

In court documents, Apple denied infringing the Nokia patents. It said the patents asserted by Nokia were not essential for technology standards used in cellphones. The countersuit was filed in the same Delaware court where Nokia brought its case, Apple said.

SHADES OF MOTOROLA

Since Motorola Inc launched a similar attack on Nokia in 1989, the Finnish company has built one of the industry’s widest patent portfolios. Only Ericsson and Qualcomm have comparable portfolios.

About 40 companies have entered into license agreements with Helsinki-based Nokia, including virtually all the leading handset vendors — except Apple.

Apple said that Nokia had engaged in anti-competitive behavior and did not live up to commitments to license its own technology at fair and reasonable terms.

According to Apple’s complaint, Nokia and Apple began licensing negotiations in late 2007 related to certain Nokia wireless communications patents.

In subsequent years, Apple said, Nokia boosted royalty rates for the patents to as much as three times higher than what was previously proposed and demanded that Apple grant Nokia a license to certain of its patents as part of the compensation.

“Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours,” Bruce Sewell, Apple’s General Counsel, said in a statement.

Jeffrey Faucette, Vice Chair of Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin’s Intellectual Property litigation department, said the two may have sharply differing views about whose technology is central to the iPhone.

“In the old perspective, you’d say the piece that lets you make calls is the most valuable, so you’d get a license fee that’s commensurate with that,” Faucette said.

“Now you look at the iPhone, it’s hard to say specifically what that device is for. It changes daily and hourly depending on what the newest app is that people are crazy about.”

The 13 patents Apple cited in its countersuit involve various computing technologies including graphical interfaces, teleconferencing, power conservation and touch screen technologies — features popularized by its iPhone.

Apple cited Nokia’s E71, sold by AT&T Inc, and its new top-end N900 model as products that infringe its patents.

In response, Nokia said the countersuit does not change anything fundamental in the original case, but noted that it would take time to study the suit.

“They have infringed our patents since the iPhone launch in 2007,” a Nokia spokesman said.

Apple shares were down 1 percent at $194.67 on Nasdaq. Nokia’s US shares were up 1.4 percent at $12.73.

While the battle may drag on, analysts see the companies eventually coming to a licensing agreement.

“We can now look forward to a lengthy tit-for-tat exchange between Apple and Nokia as they grind out a deal,” said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight.

source : Reuters – Saturday, December 12

Its seem very positive to that price will drop for iPhones in Singapore after M1 and Starhub announced that they are  joining the competition of offering iPhones.

Cheaper iPhones on the way

Tue, Nov 10, 2009
my paper

WITH the last homegrown telco StarHub now on the iPhone bandwagon – it will launch the gadget by year-end – consumers will get to enjoy even more competitive prices.

Industry experts whom my paper spoke to yesterday agreed that all three home-grown telcos would be spurred on to roll out promotions to draw customers, which would probably translate into cheaper deals.

Market-research firm Gfk’s regional senior account manager, Mr Kevin Huang, said: “With the (wider) availability of the iPhone…it is inevitable that there will be a downward pressure on the final retail price of the handset.”

Each telco will not be able to “rest on its laurels and will need to concoct packages to hold consumers’ attention”, he added.

This could mean more creative options in terms of price plans and bundled packages, experts said. For example, exclusive and purpose-driven customised applications could be preloaded on the phone.

This, however, may not bode well for non-iPhone supporters shopping for other brands.

Mr Aloysius Choong, research manager at technologyanalyst firm IDC Asia-Pacific, explained: “StarHub and M1 now have a lower need to subsidise rival products to compete against the iPhone.

“Not so good news, perhaps, if you’re looking for a Nokia, HTC or Samsung smartphone.”

But joining the market this late in the game will probably not do StarHub or M1 any favours, said industry experts.

Said Mr Marc Einstein, an industry manager at market-analysis firm Frost & Sullivan: “Sing-Tel has a significant headstart in the market, so most of the early adopters would have already been locked into a contract with them.

“I don’t think StarHub and M1 will get too much of a windfall.”

Still, giving subscribers the option of owning the iPhone will save telcos from potentially losing existing ones.

Mr Foong King Yew, research director of market-research firm Gartner, said: “The strategic aim is not one of attracting a large base of new customers from their competitor.

Those who truly desire an iPhone would have got one already.”

Apple is reportedly already working on the next version of the smartphone, which will be usable anywhere in the world, to be released in the third quarter of next year.

Info-communications company and mobile service provider StarHub has announced it will be offering the iPhone to customers in Singapore.

In a press statement released on Monday, the company said it has reached an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone and a range of tailored service plans to customers in Singapore later this year.

Further information on pricing, tariffs and availability dates will be released at a later date.

It is the third and final telco here to ink an agreement with Apple.

SingTel had been the sole distributor of the iPhone in Singapore until October, when rival M1 made the announcement that it would sell the popular mobile.

M1 had also stated that it will release the iPhone later this year.
source : AsiaOne, Mon, Nov 09, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO : A Microsoft security report released Monday warns that cyber crooks are digging into computers for weak spots to penetrate with worms – malicious software that steals control or data.

Rogue security software remained the top hacker threat to computers during the first half of this year, but the number of infections was dropping while penetrations by worms doubled, according to the Security Intelligence Report.

“We still see rogue security software in high volume but not on the rise,” Microsoft Malware Protection Center principal architect Jeff Williams told AFP. “What is on the rise is resurgence of worm activity, particularly Conficker and Taterf.”

Worms are programmed to replicate themselves, wriggling from machine to machine by hiding in legitimate applications or piggy-backing on USB drives or other portable data storage devices.

Rogue security software, or “scareware,” typically spreads by tricking people with pop-up boxes bearing bogus alerts that their machines are infected.

Spooked computer users are then enticed to pay for applications to fix the supposed computer problems. People that fall for the scam wind up paying hackers; providing them credit card information, and installing malware.

Automated scareware blocking in Web browsers and efforts by law enforcement agencies to crack down on companies peddling rogue security software has helped curb the threat.

“When selecting an anti-virus product, do it from a proven provider, not someone you never heard of who just pops up on your screen,” Williams said.

Improving defences of computers was seen as a reason hackers are reverting to worms, which were a top bane about a decade ago.

“We see a rise again in worms as profit-motivated criminals are digging deeper, finding more arcane vulnerabilities to execute remotely,” Williams said.

A Conficker worm that plagued the Internet at the start of the year was so pernicious that a task force to combat it was formed by computer software and security firms.

Conficker and Taterf worms have reportedly wriggled into millions of machines.

One of the troublesome ways both worms spread is by stowing away on thumb drives, which are becoming increasingly popular vehicles for people to move music, videos, games, files or other data between computers.

“Think about how and where people play online games,” Williams said. “What you tend to see is people remove a drive from home or an Internet kiosk and take it back into the enterprise (workplace).”

A memory stick carried in by a worker tends to bypass computer security systems designed to guard against hackers breaking in from outside the walls of a business, according to Williams.

Businesses should establish security protocols for removable media drives, and have new arrivals automatically scanned for malware, Microsoft recommends.

“The criminals out there are becoming more overt, more malicious and more direct in their attacks,” Williams said.

“That emphasises the need for multi-layer protections. It is great we have anti-virus software to remove the threats, but clearly it is better to prevent the threat from getting in.”

Cyber criminals are moving with increasing speed when it comes to reverse engineering patches released to fix vulnerabilities in software programmes or operating systems, according to Microsoft.

Hackers dissect patches to identify weakness being repaired, then craft malicious code to take advantage of flaws in machines with software that isn’t kept up-to-date.

“A patch is released and that is what starts these days of risk” Williams said.

“There is a window of vulnerability, so we need to close that window more quickly” he said. “Making sure you are up-to-date on security updates is one strong method of protecting yourself against attack.”

Microsoft’s security report is based on data from “billions of scans a day” in more than 200 regions of the world.

- AFP/il

source :CNA

Window 7 is here now! Today – 22 OCT 2009.  I still not in the mood to upgrade it yet! Just hang on till I buy my new notebook …

Not much buzz over Windows 7

Four shops which decided to take pre-orders said they had not received a single one.

Thu, Oct 22, 2009
my paper

MICROSOFT’S new operating system, Windows 7 – which will be launched here today – appears to be facing lacklustre response.

Four shops which decided to take pre-orders told my paper yesterday that they had not received a single one.

These four shops and four others that my paper spoke to yesterday also saw much fewer enquiries – 20 to 50 in the past week – compared to the hundreds they received before the launch of an earlier Microsoft operating system, Windows XP.

Customers are probably taking a wait-and-see approach because of bad experiences with Windows 7’s predecessor, Vista, the shops said.

However, senior director of Microsoft Singapore’s business and marketing organisation, Mr Haresh Khoobchandani, said he is confident that Windows 7 will appeal to consumers because it “has already received very positive reviews from users who have tried it”.

IT retail chain Challenger Technologies expects “stellar first-day sales”, said chief executive Loo Leong Thye.

At a midnight launch yesterday, it offered the home premium upgrade version to 177 members at $77 each, instead of $219.

“We expect Windows 7 to sell faster than Windows XP or Windows Vista during the first three months,” Mr Loo said.

SINGAPORE : MobileOne (M1) has broken SingTel’s monopoly of the Apple iPhone market in Singapore.

M1 on Tuesday said it has secured a deal with the US computer giant Apple to sell the iPhone in the city. But details on pricing and when the handsets will be released will come later.

If one wants to buy an Apple iPhone now, one can only choose SingTel. But that will change when M1 starts selling its own iPhone handsets.

Analysts said the iPhone could help M1 reduce its customer churn, or the rate at which it loses customers over a specific time period.

Ng Kian Teck, research associate, SIAS Research, said: “M1 is taking on the younger crowd, and the iPhone is something that the crowd is looking forward to. And this will lower its churn rate.

“At least for the last one year, quite a substantial portion of customers are being lost to SingTel because of the lack of the iPhone service.”

He added that M1’s current churn rate is about 1.5, compared to 1.2 for the other two mobile operators.

Meanwhile, some consumers have welcomed the news.

Business development engineer Jaycee Lim, an M1 subscriber, said: “Since there is no more monopoly on the iPhone, the telcos may try to compete on the prices of their mobile phones as well as data plans. I will definitely be considering getting the iPhone when it is available, providing the price is reasonable.”

The question now is how much the M1 iPhone will cost and its data plans.

Analysts said M1 has much to do to catch up to SingTel’s 14-month lead – so this might result in cheaper rates. This will sit well with its mainly youth customer base, who are likely to have limited spending power. M1 is also likely to roll out a range of plans to allow for some flexibility.

When contacted, SingTel said it will continue to collaborate with Apple to introduce the latest products to Singapore.

A SingTel spokesman said: “SingTel is pleased to have been the first operator to bring both the iPhone and iPhone 3GS to Singapore. Coupled with our unrivalled 3G mobile network coverage and our innovative services like Live TV, our customers are enjoying a superior iPhone 3GS experience.

“We will continue to collaborate with Apple in introducing the latest products to Singapore. To date, we have put tens of thousands of iPhone 3GS in the hands of our customers. We review our price plans regularly to ensure that they offer the best value to our customers and remain competitive in the market.”

Both M1 and StarHub have been vying for the rights to sell the iPhone in Singapore. Analysts said the chances of StarHub getting its own deal now appear slim.

Mr Ng said: “The likelihood is not that high – because Apple is looking for a significant proportion of sales. So it is not possible to have too many players selling iPhones together. For example, if you want to sign a contract, you may have had to sell at least 100,000 phones.”

StarHub told Channel NewsAsia that it is still interested in bringing the iPhone to its customers.

“We are interested to bring the iPhone to StarHub customers. After all, we offer the highest mobile data network speeds and the best smart phone plans in town,” said Michael Sim, senior manager, Corporate Communications, StarHub.

Student Peggy Chang, a StarHub subscriber, said: “Of course, I am not happy that StarHub is now the only one who does not sell iPhones. When my contract expires in one year’s time, I will definitely switch providers.

“But the best scenario would be for StarHub to get the rights too, so consumers can compare prices among the telcos. I assume they will each try to offer competitive deals then.”

Some market watchers see M1’s iPhone deal as a double whammy for StarHub, which earlier this month lost its broadcast rights for the English Premier League, from the 2010 season, to SingTel.

source : CNA

Visually rich and with a stunning user interface, dubbed Sense, it is arguably one of the most intuitive and powerful smartphones in the market.

Wed, Oct 07, 2009
The Business Times

HTC Corp’s Hero, the Taiwan phone maker’s third device to run on Google’s budding phone operating system Android, is the device many seeking an iPhone alternative have been waiting for.

Previews of the Hero on various blog sites, which highlighted its raft of new applications and bespoke user interface (UI) have teased gadget lovers for months. After testing the phone over the past two weeks, it is easy to see what the buzz is all about.

A relatively compact (112 by 56 by 14mm) but stout (135g) quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) candy bar phone, the Hero impresses with its good looks straight out of the box.

It sheds the plasticky feel and curves of older siblings Dream and Magic for a more metallic look and cleaner lines. The grey-brown model comes with a suede-like surface which coats the back and sides of the phone, making it comfortable to hold and banishing greasy fingerprints. The white model has Teflon coating to help keep dirt away. It is altogether very chic.

The only downer in the looks department is the angled-up bottom of the phone. While its older siblings sport the same design quirk, the ‘lip’ on the Hero is more pronounced. To me, it unnecessarily makes the phone feel more clumsy in the pocket.

The much-vaunted new UI from HTC, dubbed Sense, is an absolute stunner. Visually rich and intuitive, it improved on the already excellent Android UI and added many new useful functionalities to boot.

The changes are subtle – for instance, the tiny toolbar at the bottom of the desktop for easy access to applications, widgets and the call functions. But this makeover significantly enhanced the Android platform’s look and feel.

An especially nice touch is a slider icon that shows users which desktop, out of the seven, they are at.

The Sense also includes Scene, which lets users configure and save their own different desktop configurations. A rolling menu, ala HTC’s Windows Mobile-based TouchFLO UI, now appears on some applications. And multi-touch has been added, meaning you can pinch and flick on pictures and webpages to zoom in and out, like the iPhone.

Like the Magic, flicking on Hero’s screen to scroll long lists and webpages is a joy – serving up a free-spinning and responsive experience.

One of Android’s best feature is its support for widgets, which are applications that can be docked on the phone’s desktop. HTC has included a bag of well-crafted ones. Among them: widgets for calendar, email, SMS, contact, music, twitter, photo gallery and settings.The music widget, along with the improved music application, deserve special mention for their simplicity and uncanny ability to display album art. The settings widgets, which lets users easily switch on or off connectivity features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Global Positioning System (GPS), are terrific conveniences.

Another useful refinement is the contacts application, which now consolidates your friends’ Facebook status updates, Flickr photos, text messages, emails and call history in a single place. Very neat.

On the hardware front, the Hero comes with a 3.2-inch HVGA (320 by 480 pixels) touchscreen that is among the best I’ve seen. It supports High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and is no Web surfing slouch. The one-two punch of excellent display and good mobile broadband performance begets stunning results when playing high-definition YouTube video clips.

The 5-megapixel camera is surprisingly good – producing sharp and natural-looking photos. The video-camera is so-so. A 3.5mm headphone jack will be welcomed by music lovers.

Up to this point, the Hero has been a near-perfect experience. But there are several foibles that could dissuade potential buyers.

Perhaps the most serious among them is the phone’s laggard performance when pushed hard. To be fair, the Hero, which sports what appears to be the same class of processor as its older brother Magic – a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU – is generally nifty on bread-and-butter chores such as making phone calls, sending text messages and Web surfing. But performance slows when widgets are added. Playing music also drags down other functions.

Being right-handed, I also quibble at the placement of the front control buttons, more suited for left-hand operations given two of the most important buttons – back and search – are located at the extreme right bottom.

The soft keyboard can be frustrating, and my chat sessions have been typo-ridden. Battery life could be better. On my regular diet of music listening, email checking, chatting and Web browsing, I often find myself starring at a battery alert towards the end of the day.

The bottomline: foibles aside, the Hero is a breakthrough phone. If HTC’s Dream and Magic hinted at the potential of the budding Android platform, the Hero has fulfilled its early hype. It is arguably one of the most intuitive and powerful smartphones in the market.

The HTC Hero has a list price of $898, which includes a 2GB microSD memory card.

GOOD things come in big packages. And it’s even better if it weighs less than it looks.

That’s the Samsung Omnia II.

Although it measures 118mm by 60mm and is 11.9mm thick, this device weighs just 129g. This is slightly lighter than the iPhone.

Except to keep it light, the phone has a plastic glossy finish. The plastic look and feel cheapens the Omnia II somewhat.

The phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, but most of the time, you can’t really tell. That’s because the Samsung user interface hides most of the traditional Windows look.

As with most smartphones, you can customise the homescreen and add widgets for your most commonly used applications.

A widget menu sits on the side of the screen, and you can add or replace widget apps by clicking and dragging it.

Alternatively, when you press the hexagon button at the bottom centre of the handset, you’ll get to a programme launcher listed by icons.

The four main categories are productivity, multimedia, Internet and office.

A variety of applications are housed here, and you can also customise the screens.

Cube

At the bottom of the programme launcher screen, hit on ‘Cube’ and a 3D cube appears on screen with each side being a shortcut to an application.

But I don’t really see the need for it, especially since the cube doesn’t always respond accurately to the touch. (Although, this could be peculiar to the review unit.)

Which brings me to the touchscreen factor of the Omnia II.

I felt that the screen responded more to the fingertips than to the touch.

Perhaps that why the handset comes with a stylus, but you’ll have to carry that separately as there’s no place to store the stylus on the handset.

Despite a respectable 800mhz processor, I found the Omnia II a tad slow to start up when you turned the screen on. Running applications was fine for the most part.

All in, the Samsung Omnia II is a respectable smartphone. It comes ‘fully-loaded’, giving users all the functions expected of a smartphone in this class, plus many customisation options for accessing these functions, which is important in a market that demands instant gratification.

The Samsung Omnia II comes with a price tag of S$898.

source :The New Paper – Fri, Sep 25, 2009

It may be lighter than an iPhone, but the Samsung Omnia II is a heavyweight when it comes to functionality & customisation.

But the Samsung Omnia II is a heavyweight when it comes to functionality & customisation
GOOD things come in big packages. And it’s even better if it weighs less than it looks.
By Tan Mae Lynn
24 September 2009

GOOD things come in big packages. And it’s even better if it weighs less than it looks.

That’s the Samsung Omnia II.

Although it measures 118mm by 60mm and is 11.9mm thick, this device weighs just 129g. This is slightly lighter than the iPhone.

Except to keep it light, the phone has a plastic glossy finish. The plastic look and feel cheapens the Omnia II somewhat.

The phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, but most of the time, you can’t really tell. That’s because the Samsung user interface hides most of the traditional Windows look.

As with most smartphones, you can customise the homescreen and add widgets for your most commonly used applications.

A widget menu sits on the side of the screen, and you can add or replace widget apps by clicking and dragging it.

Alternatively, when you press the hexagon button at the bottom centre of the handset, you’ll get to a programme launcher listed by icons.

The four main categories are productivity, multimedia, Internet and office.

A variety of applications are housed here, and you can also customise the screens.

Cube

At the bottom of the programme launcher screen, hit on ‘Cube’ and a 3D cube appears on screen with each side being a shortcut to an application.

But I don’t really see the need for it, especially since the cube doesn’t always respond accurately to the touch. (Although, this could be peculiar to the review unit.)

Which brings me to the touchscreen factor of the Omnia II.

I felt that the screen responded more to the fingertips than to the touch.

Perhaps that why the handset comes with a stylus, but you’ll have to carry that separately as there’s no place to store the stylus on the handset.

Despite a respectable 800mhz processor, I found the Omnia II a tad slow to start up when you turned the screen on. Running applications was fine for the most part.

All in, the Samsung Omnia II is a respectable smartphone. It comes ‘fully-loaded’, giving users all the functions expected of a smartphone in this class, plus many customisation options for accessing these functions, which is important in a market that demands instant gratification.

The Samsung Omnia II comes with a price tag of $898.