HWM Singapore July 2010 cover

HWM Philippines July 2010 cover

VIEWPOINT: The July 2010 issue of HWM should be out in your respective countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines & Thailand) this week.

Some of the editions would be carrying our latest feature stories on Microsoft Office 2010, which was recently launched across different countries.

The July 2010 covers for HWM Singapore and HWM Philippines are attached here as well.

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, was in Singapore recently as part of the build-up to the launch.

As a bonus to the feature story which you’ll probably find in your country editions, here’s a ViewPoint video with Ballmer done by the team for your enjoyment.

VIEWPOINT: Olympus dropped by the Singapore office recently to showcase their latest PEN E-PL1 Micro Four Thirds camera.

This release follows three months after the launch of the EP-2, and the EP-1, which was made available in June 2009.

One of the major difference that sets the E-PL1 from the E-P series is its price point, which will costs an estimated “less than S$1000 (USD707)” with a 14-42mm kit lens. Olympus has also launched several other digital camera models for its mju series of cameras.

For a coverage of what went on, our sister site HardwareZone.com has this coverage.

Check out our HWM ViewPoint video as we catch up with Olympus on what the new cameras are all about:

VIEWPOINT: As a follow-up to the announcements Research in Motion (RIM) made, which we reported here, here’s a ViewPoint video of the General Session keynote announcements made yesterday.

The session itself was 3 hours long, so this video is a summary of the new services, features and initiatives announced by various RIM executives to some 1,000 developers, partners and the media. We will be adding a second video soon, where we speak to a Singapore-based BlackBerry developer, show you some highlights of winning BlackBerry apps and reveal some features of the new BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Storm 2 smartphones. Stay tuned.

As promised, here’s the second video from the BlackBerry Developers Conference, where we interviewed two executives in RIM on some of the announcements made during the General Session.

VIEWPOINT: With the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system yesterday, we thought it apt to unveil an interview and demo sessions we did with executives from both Microsoft and Apple (which released the Mac OS X Snow Leopard update in August).

Basically the objective of this interview is to understand what are the new directions and features each operating software has in the areas of security, functionality, aesthetics and user needs.

If you want a comprehensive breakdown of both operating systems, refer to the Windows 7 review and Mac OS X Snow Leopard summary by the HardwareZone Singapore team. Alternatively, you can refer to your past issues of HWM for our comprehensive coverage of both operating systems.

Here’s the ViewPoint video of the interview with both executives:

This video comes with English captions. To change caption language, click on Translate in the bottom corner option of the video.

Hit the jump to watch actual demo sessions on both Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. For the Windows 7 demos, we had the pleasure of having Mr. Matthew Hardman, Group Manager, Business & Marketing Organization, Microsoft show us its features.

Navin Danapal, Technical Editor, HWM Malaysia

Navin (HWM Malaysia): Apple lost a good chance to position their latest Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard, as an idol in the land of the Otaku (geeks) of Japan, when Microsoft Japan beat the Cupertino company in coolness by coming out with an official OS-Tan (OS personification), Nanami Madobe, voiced by Nana Mizuki, a Japanese anime voice actress, to represent Windows 7.

Limited to only the first 7777 copies of Windows 7 Ultimate in Japan, the unique Windows 7 theme was quickly leaked out and distributed to other Windows 7 users.

While OS-Tans have long been invented by devoted Japanese fans for previous versions of Windows, Microsoft coming out with an official character showed their commitment to making Windows 7 become really appealing to all levels of their target markets.

If this link is anything to go by, Apple should have done the same instead of resorting to tactics like hijacking Google search results for Windows 7 and directing people to consider a Mac instead.

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VIEWPOINT: HWM Singapore editor David Chieng, caught up with Mr. David Hall, Regional Consumer Product Marketing Manager for Symantec Asia Pacific recently when they launched Norton 2010 products — namely Internet Security 2010 and AntiVirus 2010.

The two products leverage on a new model of security, codenamed Quorum, basically to detect new malware and advance beyond traditional signature- and behavior-based detection.

Anyway, here’s the ViewPoint video:

This video comes with English captions. To change caption language, click on Translate in the bottom corner option of the video.