Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

This short clip pretty much summarizes the development and implications of Web 2.0. Great work, a must see for those who are interested in internet.

Read a recent article by HK consumer council saying that a lot of broadband ISP are not delivering the promised access speed.  I always have this doubt and it turned out to be true.  This is a website www.numion.net that allows user to test the speed of the ISP.  I tried last night and it turned out that the download speed is only 1.6M.

Probably night time is the peak time and the performance may not be as good.  What make it worse is that if I keep the LAN cable that connects to my NOW TV set top box, the download speed dropped to about 800k!  That was when I did not even turn on my Now TV.

Haven’t been updating my blog the past week or so as I took a break during the Chinese New Year holidays.  During the holidays, I had my first experience with Nintendo Wii game console at my brother-in-law’s place.

I’ve heard so much about the wii but being a casual gamer, I still have doubt on whether I should make that investment.  Furthermore, there are only parallel imports from Japan and US at the moment so not sure if they are that reliable.

Nevertheless, my first experience with wii did not disappoint.  I only tried wii sports which comes with five games including tennis, bowling, baseball, boxing and my favorite golf.

The game control is quite sensitive and it does reflect on your motion on the screen.  For that I had a new term: WYDIWYG - What You Do Is What You Get.  Most of the games are quite easy to pick up except for baseball which I find rather difficult in timing for a nice hit or a home run. 

Tennis is nice as I can now rip a textbook style one-handed backhand down the line instead of using two hands in reality.  Golf is also nice as it allows me to practice my swing indoors.  However, there par 3 holes are very difficult as it does not provide a lot of landing space and you will keep getting OB shots.

Despite a much later release, the wii console has already outsold Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft X360 in the US by almost double at over 400,000 units.  Looks like Nintendo has hit a homerun on this.

One of six Samsung handsets unveiled at the 3GSM World Congress, the F700 features a QWERTY keypad, touch screen interface, 5-megapixel camera and large screen.

This may be the phone that I have been looking for (at least before iPhone is available). I’ve been thinking about the O2 Zinc and Dopod 838 Pro but they still seem a bit bulky. This one is really stylish and with a 5 Megapixel camera and a keypad, I could easily blog as I go. Wonder how much will be the price tag?

read more | digg story

Most of the recent talks on MS is about Vista. But without much fanfare, they also announced WM 6.0 during the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. It’s really an improvement of its way in handling email and that it suppose to sync better with Vista. I don’t see major breakthroughs here. Just hope that the new version will be more stable than before.

read more | digg story

You saw the first photos right here on Engadget. Now, Nokia brings the official specs on their S60-series E90 Communicator…

Looks like this gadget got all the right specs that any mobile warrior would like. But at a price of Euro 800? It’s going to be a challenge on how many units it will sell.

read more | digg story

4 Feb 2007.  Hole 16 @ Muang Kaew Golf Club in Bangkok.  It was a fair day at about 25 C light winds.  I was playing with a Korean couple.

It was a short par 4 with white tee moved back making the hole at about 310 yards. 

My tee shot sailed towards a bit left, leaving about 110 yards to the green.

Took out my pitching wedge and aimed towards the flag.  The ball flew high and it bounced twice before reaching the green and there it was, sliding towards the hole … then it disappeared into the hole!

There was my first eagle!  It was definitely more luck than skills but I was a happy golfer that day.