CORP TALK: It has been in talks for months but it’s finally here. The two remaining telecom companies in Singapore - M1 & StarHub - will be joining SingTel when they launch the Apple iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS this Wednesday, 9 December 2009.

SingTel was the exclusive distributor of the iPhone 3G when it was first launched last year. It then brought in the iPhone 3GS on July 10 this year.

The Singapore team at HardwareZone.com has compiled a chart comparing the plans of all three telcos in the run-up to their impending launches.

Hit the link to check out the chart (prices are in Singapore dollars). (more…)

Kiyoshi Shikano (second left) Senior Vice President Sony Corporation during a press conference of Sony at the Cape Town International Convention Center (CTICC) on December 3, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images for Sony)

CORP TALK: The world’s first World Cup with a 3D broadcast and it’ll beam live from South Africa next year by Sony.

According to this announcement from the electronics giant, football governing body FIFA and Sony have struck a deal to film up to 25 matches in next year’s World Cup 2010 with 3D cameras.

Sony advertisement boards at the International Airport on December 3, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images for Sony)

These will then broadcast at demo booths at “International FIFA Fan Fest” events in 7 cities in June and July next year.

The 7 cities are Berlin, London, Mexico City, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Sydney.

Press members watching a 3D demo at the Sony press conference at the Cape Town International Convention Center (CTICC) on December 3, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images for Sony)

For those in other countries, 3D aficionados will probably have to wait for Sony to release the official 3D film of the World Cup 2010 after the event.

Additional reports indicate that 3D-TVs will be the next big thing to hit the living room as early as next year (or 2013 as others predict).

With 3D Blu-ray Discs being not that far-fetched a reality (Sony says next year) and James Cameron’s AVATAR set to hit 3D cinemas next week, expect 3D to be the next buzzword among the tech community before the year is out.

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: Sony is unraveling a new dimension to viewing experiences and by bringing it to the masses (7 cities for a start), it’s setting the bar pretty high.

This is a new kind of entertainment (eventually for the home) which was only previously available on the big cinema screen.

This is a precursor of more big things to come visually from Sony as well as from the 3D entertainment world. The opportunities are limitless!

Vijay Anand, Editor, HardwareZone.com

Vijay (HardwareZone.com): It’s great to know that Sony is betting high stakes on probably the next biggest change in consumer experience for entertainment.

Aside from the porn industry which is inevitably the media consumption standard trend setter (whether we like it or not), focusing on sports, especially on a major event like the FIFA World Cup is really a smart and calculated move on Sony’s part.

It’s just too bad that not all countries can enjoy the live 3D broadcast, which would have been really swell if theaters around the globe had the right equipment to decode a 3D broadcast and enable a big screen 3D experience to devoted followers. (more…)

CORP TALK: Washington Post online has a report on Time Inc.’s ‘Manhattan Project’ - which is a tablet-based magazine with a touch-based interface that allows readers to flip through colorful pages with ease.

While several other similar ventures are in the works (including the super-hyped Apple iTablet), we already have e-mags on the iPhone, and monochromatic eBook readers from Amazon, Sony, iRiver and Barnes & Noble.

What this particular tablet mag does is simulate an actual magazine reading experience in an actual size, allowing readers to touch, swipe and customize the page flow of their reads to their liking. They can also scroll on a timeline to jump across pages with ease.

A wheel also allows them to share content with friends (Facebook, Twitter, you know the drill) and watch value-added, interactive content like audio, photo slideshows and videos.

The idea behind the tablet mag is to compete against reading the same magazine articles off the Web, be it on a mobile phone, notebook or desktop. No word yet on when this concept will see the light of day but here’s a video to demonstrate its functions.

Paolo Manzano, Managing Editor, HWM Philippines

Paolo (HWM Philippines): The ‘Manhattan Project’, as pointed out in the article, is not the first attempt at creating a platform for interactive and next generation content.

While it is a really exciting frontier for consuming media, especially new media, just like the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD and many other ’standards’ battles in the past, a universally accepted and widely distributed platform is needed for creators to start producing massive content and for the market to actually adopt this in a big way. (more…)

Google Street View comes to Singapore.

CORP TALK: Google has announced the launch of Street View in Singapore, where users can view and navigate in 360 degrees street-level imagery of the city, including its neighborhoods.

Taken by Street View cars along all public roads earlier this year, the imagery includes major locations like Orchard Road, Marina Bay and Clarke Quay, Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam and heartland areas like Tampines, Jurong and Woodlands.

The best part about this is that Street View can be accessed on the mobile phone, giving users a virtual photo-based street guide when they need to find a specific building or location.

Street View for Google Maps was launched in May 2007 and is now available in more than 100 metropolitan areas worldwide. Singapore is the first in Southeast Asia and the fourth in APAC, after Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The technology in Street View blurs faces and license plates, and users can easily flag images for removal if they’re deemed inappropriate.

Creative-owned ZiiLABS's Trinity Smart/Media Phone platform is a 3.5/4G 3.1" OLED multi-touch screen solution with the ZMS-05 StemCell CPU, support for Plaszma/Android OS & OpenGL ES 3D graphics.

CORP TALK: Creative and its subsidiary Zii, have unveiled what it call the ZiiLife suite of software, services and content to support its Zii Ecosystem at its first Zii Summit in Shenzhen, China.

The ZiiLife Services Platform consists of services like ZiiMeet, ZiiVue and ZiiApps, with the aim to support devices utilizing its ZMS-05 and ZMS-08 media processors, equipped with its own Plaszma OS and/or Google’s Android OS.

Probably the highlight of the summit was the Zii Trinity Dual OS concept phone platform. The 3.5G/4G smart/media phone solution supports both Android and Plaszma operating systems, and harness processing technology called Stemcell Computing Technology seen in the Zii processors.

The concept smart/media phone platform outputs 1080p HD video and ZiiLABS’s aim is to enable high-tech ODM and OEM manufacturers in China to go-to-market with these Zii-powered solutions quickly and cost-efficiently.

The specification list for the Trinity Smart/Media phone solution itself is impressive.

There’s 3.5/4G support, a 3.1″ Active Matrix OLED multi-touch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, mini-HDMI output for 1080p HD video playback, Xtreme Fidelity X-Fi audio support, a secondary VGA front camera for video conferencing, microUSB 2.0, MicroSD and SIM card slots, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, and a 1130mAH lithium-polymer battery.

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: Doing a mobile phone is definitely a new thing for Creative. There will be a lot of challenges, not to mention a new mobile OS platform.

However, joining the Android wagon will speed up the penetration into the market. A back-end approach through OEM and ODM markets will save a lot of headache in the currently competitive mobile phone hardware market.

The adoption of the technology, if played right with attractive pricing and through good OEM/ODM partners, would be apparent in the next 2-3 years.

In addition, beefing up developers to create useful applications for the Zii platform is a good ground work to prepare for the adoption.

Paolo Manzano, Managing Editor, HWM Philippines

Paolo (HWM Philippines): While the Trinity Smart/Media Phone platform does look good and powerful on paper and in theory, the ultimate deciding factor here would be an actual working production unit that shows off the capabilities of such a platform and device.

In the end, it may take several attempts, hence several years (read: 2-3 years) before the platform gains acceptance and manufacturers jump on the bandwagon, bringing such devices into the mass market. (more…)