CORP TALK: Malaysia-based MOL Global Pte. Ltd. will be buying US social network company Friendster Inc., which operates Friendster.com, according to a PRNewsWire report.

MOL Global is an affiliate of online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad, whose principal shareholder is Tan Sri Vincent Tan, the Chairman and CEO of Berjaya Corporation Berhad.

According to the release, following the acquisition, the operations of MOL and Friendster will be combined to create Asia’s largest end-to-end network for content, distribution and commerce. This will pair MOL’s offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s online network and user base in Asia.

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: Finally, Friendster will be able to monetize its social network platform through the additional layer from MOL.

A social media network alone will not generate any revenue, let alone a very regionalized social media network like Friendster.

A helping hand from a strong regional player with its retail channel distribution will add value to Friendster and complete the whole solution.

Navin Danapal, Editor, HWM Malaysia

Navin (HWM Malaysia): Berjaya’s (which owns MOL) news about buying Friendster comes at a time when Facebook (probably Friendster’s greatest rival) recently announced forced public exposure (by default) for its public members posts to compete with Google’s real-time search with Twitter.

It would seem privacy is the Web’s next killer app - not protecting it, but exploiting it for the sake of search coverage.

Facebook’s comment that “this is the way the world is moving” conflicts with the fact Facebook is itself the determiner of world privacy when it’s the biggest social networking site.

With the current bad rep Facebook is getting for its new policy, one might wonder what Berjaya’s direction would be for its newly-acquired Friendster with its massive database of users. (more…)

CORP TALK: The New York Times online has news that Universal Music Company, Sony Music Entertainment and the Abu Dhabi Media Company have formed a music video website called Vevo.

Similar to Hulu.com, which is an online network TV syndication service co-owned by NBC, Fox and ABC TV networks, Vevo.com is a syndicated online music video service and Google’s YouTube will be one of its syndicated partners. It was also reported that EMI Music is onboard, and talks with Warner Music (the last of the big four music companies) are currently pending.

Note that both Hulu and Vevo are only available in the United States (and Canada in Vevo’s case).

Seagate has thrown its gauntlet into the SSD fray with Pulsar, but only for the enterprise market, for now.

CORP TALK: The corps are talking, and hard drive manufacturer Seagate is finally throwing its gauntlet into the Solid State Drive (SSD) fray.

Called the Pulsar, the SSD is part of Seagate’s enterprise family, offering up to 200GB capacity in a 2.5-inch SATA-interfacing form factor.

It’s also based on single-level cell (SLC) flash memory technology, where one bit of data occupies a single cell of flash memory for optimum performance (as opposed to multi-level cell, MLC, where four bits of data occupies one cell). With SLC, the drive is marked with a low 0.44% AFR (annualized failure rate) rating and comes with a 5-year limited warranty.

Performance peaks at up to 30,000 read IOPS (input/output ops per second) and 25,000 write IOPS, and the Pulsar gives 240MB/s sequential read and 200 MB/s sequential write speeds on paper.  The Pulsar was shipped to select OEM customers in September 2009. For more information, check here.

Navin Danapal, Editor, HWM Malaysia

Navin (HWM Malaysia): Seagate may be the latest to join the foray of the SSD market, as the shift from hard drives move to flash drives, but aside from the high cost of SSD versus HDD, there is also another issue that hasn’t been solved by SSD makers which is only apparent upon usage.

This is the rapid deterioration of SSD performance which is highly noticeable over the course of time.

This drop in performance can quickly make a speeding netbook, notebook or even desktop start crawling to its knees when in the beginning it was zipping faster than its hard drive counterparts.

With rival Western Digital soon to release their SSDs, the hard drive market will have to battle it out not only with evolving hard drive brands, but existing flash drive and even memory players, who are beginning to etch their mark in the SSD territory. (more…)

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…)