I hope you enjoy the holiday season and I wish you a happy, healthy and
prosperous new year.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
I tried Three’s new Skype phone and I liked it
Before leaving for California, I was approached by Matt from 3mobilebuzz.com to test Three’s new Skype phone. I don’t usually bother reviewing products (albeit for a few books) but I live in London and my new company is in Mountain View, California. I am on Skype daily with our partners over the world, and often with our family and friends in Singapore. A phone plan that integrates Skype sounded like a godsend to me.
Two months later, upon my return to the UK, I received as promised 2 phones for a month long trial.
The phone
The silver ring around the Skype button is borderline bling but overall the phone is sleek and elegant in its simplicity. And it has a really nice feel when you hold it. I guess Three must have spend weeks with focus groups just to get the right weight, not too heavy, not too light resulting in this smooth feeling handset that fits nicely in the hand.
The specs
Decent colour screen, 2MB camera, takes pictures, videos and many other things that I could not be possibly bothered to mention, as I am not that geeky. Specs are there if you are interested (select a phone and click on "Mobile details").
The interface
Among the phones I used, Motorola consistently ranked worst in terms of clunky, non-intuitive user interface. Nokia is doing a pretty good job but I always had a soft spot for Sony-Ericksson. I am adding to my favourites Three’s interface which is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. Good job for people like me who would rather never use a functionality than opening a user manual.
Skype
This is the crux of the matter. You can call and receive calls on Skype using Three’s network, which means you don’t rely on finding a wifi connection. Finally, I could talk to my Skype friends without being glued to my laptop. Because I am using Three’s network , voice quality was much better than my normal Skype calls. When logged-in to Skype (just press the “Skype” button), you will see your contacts and their status. To call, just select a contact and you are on. You can use Skype chat as well but the Three Skypephone does not support Skype Out or Skype In.
Live TV
The picture quality of live TV is impressive. Sharp and good streaming. On offer: BBC1, BBC3, BBC News, National Geographic, FHM, MTV…
Facebook, MSN, eBay and the likes
It has all that if you need it. There is a handy shortcut to Google Search on Three’s launcher (like a “Start menu on Windows). There is a direct link to Youtube as well so instead of spending too much money on video calls, post your clip on your Youtube channel for your friends to watch and reciprocate.
Finally, the price…
Now this is where it gets complicated, there are lots of information on rates and plans but it is a bit all over the place on Three’s website, and the small print is hard to find.
Pay As You Go (no contract)
You can buy a handset for £59.99 that includes a £10 top-up. You can use Skype for 30 days with a “fair use” policy (4,000 Skype minutes and 10,000 chat messages per month) but you need to top-up again with a minimum of £10 every 30 days.
Contract
Contracts are 18 months, which is far too long to consider for someone like me who spend months abroad. The cheapest plan is £12 a month and gives you 100 minutes or text messages. The phone comes free with the same “fair use” policy for Skype.
Live TV is £5 a month and add another £5 for unlimited web surfing. This will go on top of PAYG or contracts.
Verdict...
I showed the phone to a couple of friends and they all agreed that it is a looker with great functionality, with Skype, Live TV an mobile web among their favourite features (in order). As far as I understand, rates are competitive but my hunch is that you need to spend lots of time on Skype at time when you don't want to be at home to make it worthwhile. Otherwise you may be better off sticking to Skype on your laptop and a cheap call plan for calls/texts. The 18 months contract is a no go for me but I may look into the PAYG option after I speak to Three’s sales reps to clarify call rates for that option.
Overall, the Skype Phone is on top of my 2008 must-have list and I am glad I tried it.
Two months later, upon my return to the UK, I received as promised 2 phones for a month long trial.
The phone
The silver ring around the Skype button is borderline bling but overall the phone is sleek and elegant in its simplicity. And it has a really nice feel when you hold it. I guess Three must have spend weeks with focus groups just to get the right weight, not too heavy, not too light resulting in this smooth feeling handset that fits nicely in the hand.
The specsDecent colour screen, 2MB camera, takes pictures, videos and many other things that I could not be possibly bothered to mention, as I am not that geeky. Specs are there if you are interested (select a phone and click on "Mobile details").
The interface
Among the phones I used, Motorola consistently ranked worst in terms of clunky, non-intuitive user interface. Nokia is doing a pretty good job but I always had a soft spot for Sony-Ericksson. I am adding to my favourites Three’s interface which is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. Good job for people like me who would rather never use a functionality than opening a user manual.
Skype
This is the crux of the matter. You can call and receive calls on Skype using Three’s network, which means you don’t rely on finding a wifi connection. Finally, I could talk to my Skype friends without being glued to my laptop. Because I am using Three’s network , voice quality was much better than my normal Skype calls. When logged-in to Skype (just press the “Skype” button), you will see your contacts and their status. To call, just select a contact and you are on. You can use Skype chat as well but the Three Skypephone does not support Skype Out or Skype In.
Live TV
The picture quality of live TV is impressive. Sharp and good streaming. On offer: BBC1, BBC3, BBC News, National Geographic, FHM, MTV…
Facebook, MSN, eBay and the likes
It has all that if you need it. There is a handy shortcut to Google Search on Three’s launcher (like a “Start menu on Windows). There is a direct link to Youtube as well so instead of spending too much money on video calls, post your clip on your Youtube channel for your friends to watch and reciprocate.
Finally, the price…
Now this is where it gets complicated, there are lots of information on rates and plans but it is a bit all over the place on Three’s website, and the small print is hard to find.
Pay As You Go (no contract)
You can buy a handset for £59.99 that includes a £10 top-up. You can use Skype for 30 days with a “fair use” policy (4,000 Skype minutes and 10,000 chat messages per month) but you need to top-up again with a minimum of £10 every 30 days.
Contract
Contracts are 18 months, which is far too long to consider for someone like me who spend months abroad. The cheapest plan is £12 a month and gives you 100 minutes or text messages. The phone comes free with the same “fair use” policy for Skype.
Live TV is £5 a month and add another £5 for unlimited web surfing. This will go on top of PAYG or contracts.
Verdict...
I showed the phone to a couple of friends and they all agreed that it is a looker with great functionality, with Skype, Live TV an mobile web among their favourite features (in order). As far as I understand, rates are competitive but my hunch is that you need to spend lots of time on Skype at time when you don't want to be at home to make it worthwhile. Otherwise you may be better off sticking to Skype on your laptop and a cheap call plan for calls/texts. The 18 months contract is a no go for me but I may look into the PAYG option after I speak to Three’s sales reps to clarify call rates for that option.
Overall, the Skype Phone is on top of my 2008 must-have list and I am glad I tried it.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The story of stuff: how the real world works
A must-watch movie. Help spread the word and change a system that has turned you into a shopping zombie.
"The Story of Stuff:
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. (...) It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."
"The Story of Stuff:
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. (...) It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."
Friday, December 14, 2007
BlogNation to shut down amidst much mud-throwing 2.0
I read Blognation and TechCrunch from time to time. I found the whole Arrington / Sethi saga entertaining at first then slightly pathetic (story well summarized by Patrick de Laive). The bottom line is that some bloggers have too large an ego and a nefarious tendency to air their dirty laundry in public (PR execs... beware!). I can only sympathize with Blognation’s writers and readers who lost a decent outlet for global news.
Back to how much Facebook has replaced blogging now...
Back to how much Facebook has replaced blogging now...
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Facebook to license platform methods and tags to counter Google's OpenSocial
Extract from Facebook's announcement:
"Now we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins -- users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications."
Bebo already announced that it will focus its efforts on applications compatibility with Facebook (while continuing to support Open Social).
Are we heading towards a format war between Google and Facebook?
"Now we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins -- users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications."
Bebo already announced that it will focus its efforts on applications compatibility with Facebook (while continuing to support Open Social).
Are we heading towards a format war between Google and Facebook?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Adobe and Yahoo put online ads into documents
"Yahoo! has partnered with Adobe Systems to make contextual text ads appear alongside PDF documents in a format similar to a search engine."
Will your Dell laptop PDF brochures have HP ads all over?
Big Tech blog
Will your Dell laptop PDF brochures have HP ads all over?
Big Tech blog
Monday, December 10, 2007
You Will Control 25% of Entertainment by 2012
Nokia's latest study,"Glimpse of the Next Episode" predicts that within five years a quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited and shared within peer groups rather than coming out of traditional media groups.
I told you so.
Mobile Crunch.
I told you so.
Mobile Crunch.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Facebook's Beacon More Intrusive Than Previously Thought
"Stefan Berteau, a Computer Associates security researcher found that Facebook's Beacon goes much further than anyone has imagined in tracking people's Web activities outside the popular social networking site: Beacon will report back to Facebook on members' activities on third-party sites that participate in Beacon even if the users are logged off from Facebook and have declined having their activities broadcast to their Facebook friends."
Full article on Washington Post
Full article on Washington Post
Friday, November 30, 2007
Victory! Facebook stopped invading my privacy.
More than 50,000 users (that’s 49,999 and me) have forced Facebook to change the way controversial ad system Beacon worked.
Story on BBC.
Facebook’s official reaction:
Facebook Update on Changes to Beacon
No stories will be published without users proactively consenting
We appreciate feedback from all Facebook users and made some changes to Beacon in the past day. Users now have more control over the stories that get published to their Mini-Feed and potentially to their friends' News Feeds.
Here's how the Beacon changes work:
- Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.
- Users must click on "OK" in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.
- If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click "OK" to publish or click "remove" to not publish.
- Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.
- Clicking the "Help" link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.
These changes are in addition to those made earlier to improve the notifications on partner sites as follows
- Users were sometimes moving away from a page before a notification could be fully displayed. We changed the process so that we confirm the full display of the notification before any information can be sent back to a user's Facebook account.
- The notification appears more rapidly and is more clearly displayed.
There has been misinformation in the market about some key aspects of how Beacon works:
- Participation in Beacon is free for all partner sites.
- Beacon only allows for the sharing of specific actions on the specific sites participating in Beacon.
- Beacon only has the potential to display actions to a selection of a user's friends through News Feed and on a user's Mini-Feed.
- Facebook is not sharing user information with participating sites and never sells user information.
As with all its products, Facebook will continue to iterate quickly and listen to feedback from its users
Story on BBC.
Facebook’s official reaction:
Facebook Update on Changes to Beacon
No stories will be published without users proactively consenting
We appreciate feedback from all Facebook users and made some changes to Beacon in the past day. Users now have more control over the stories that get published to their Mini-Feed and potentially to their friends' News Feeds.
Here's how the Beacon changes work:
- Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.
- Users must click on "OK" in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.
- If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click "OK" to publish or click "remove" to not publish.
- Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.
- Clicking the "Help" link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.
These changes are in addition to those made earlier to improve the notifications on partner sites as follows
- Users were sometimes moving away from a page before a notification could be fully displayed. We changed the process so that we confirm the full display of the notification before any information can be sent back to a user's Facebook account.
- The notification appears more rapidly and is more clearly displayed.
There has been misinformation in the market about some key aspects of how Beacon works:
- Participation in Beacon is free for all partner sites.
- Beacon only allows for the sharing of specific actions on the specific sites participating in Beacon.
- Beacon only has the potential to display actions to a selection of a user's friends through News Feed and on a user's Mini-Feed.
- Facebook is not sharing user information with participating sites and never sells user information.
As with all its products, Facebook will continue to iterate quickly and listen to feedback from its users
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Innocent advertising on Facebook
Here we are, the beginning of the Myspace-ization of Facebook:
Whenever you befriend an innocent fruit juice, be it honeyed mango or crushed strawberry, your Facebook "friends" will be automatically notified:
Note that Facebook added two icons on the right of each mini-feed story. Whenever you are privy to such privileged information, click on the little cross. That should stop the pain, at least temporarily.
Whenever you befriend an innocent fruit juice, be it honeyed mango or crushed strawberry, your Facebook "friends" will be automatically notified:
Note that Facebook added two icons on the right of each mini-feed story. Whenever you are privy to such privileged information, click on the little cross. That should stop the pain, at least temporarily.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The 20 Worst Venture Capital Investments of All Time
Thursday, November 15, 2007
France is on strike!
The train network is paralyzed with heavy cancellations and delays as French get a taste of the daily life of British commuters.
The Economist for a more serious take on the issue.
The Economist for a more serious take on the issue.
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