No Google book store for S'pore

Grace Chng notes how the absence of Google's new e-bookstore in Singapore is another blow for the country's tech reputation.

By Grace Chng
Senior Correspondent
chngkeg@sph.com.sg

 

I HAVE stopped buying books, well almost.

I’ve both the Kindle and iPad and I’ve been buying books from the Amazon Kindle Store, the iBookstore, Stanza and epub.com.

While I can buy ebooks from Stanza and epub.com, the other two online bookstores are not available to residents here. I have US-based accounts, hence I can buy these ebooks over the Web here. 

Armchair activism

Lai Han-Wei wonders how far Facebook activism can go.

By Lai Han Wei

laihw.sph@gmail.com

 

So I'm sure most of you Facebook-savvy readers out there have noticed a new trend sweeping your news feed lately.

Some want to call it activism, others would rather call it an epidemic of annoyance.

Well-known friends (and acquaintances you don't know that well, be honest) are all changing their Facebook profile pictures to cartoons or comics they loved as kids, all in the name of raising awareness 'for violence against children'.

What makes you enjoy going to work?

Hellen Tan on simple values making great workplaces

By Hellen Tan

tanykh@sph.com.sg

 

I THOUGHT and reflected about what makes work and the workplace enjoyable while working on a story in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard Singapore's 40th anniversary for The Sunday Times.

People I interviewed talked again and again about simple values like trust, respect and integrity they learnt from HP, which they took with them as life skills.

I met some very helpful ex-HP people like Mr Han Jok Kwang, who especially went out of his way to call, email or just flag down his ex-colleagues to talk to me. Among them are Mr Koh Boon Hwee,

Tedious online shopping

Jasmine Osada thinks safeguards for online shopping should be as painless as possible

By Jasmine Osada
Journalist, Digital Life
osadaj@sph.com.sg

 

I was doing some late night shopping at 2 am in the morning last weekend when I got a rude shock – my credit card was rendered unusable because of a new online security measure.

My mobile phone number was apparently not registered with my bank. As such, the website was unable to process my purchase because my bank could not send me the one-time password (OTP) that it now requires to authenticate each online transaction.

In March this year, the Association of Banks in Singapore introduced four measures to increase the security of payment card transactions.

How many apps do you have?

Grace Chng counts the number of iPad apps she has.

By Grace Chng
Senior Correspondent
chngkeg@sph.com.sg

 

I've 115 excluding the standard ones like calendar, contacts, maps, app store, settings, Safari and notes.

That surprised me because I did not think I would need so many. Admittedly when I received my iPad months ago, I bought several games such as Need for Speed and RealRacingHD just to test the gyroscope and graphics promised by the iPad. Then I downloaded Marvel for comics, Ice Age, MGSTouch etc. In that first three months, I spent an average of US$50 (S$66) a month trying out these new apps.

It's been six months – and I have upgraded my iPad from

Can Apple do any better?

Grace Chng looks forward to more Apple offerings

By Grace Chng
Senior Correspondent
chngkeg@sph.com.sg

 

ITS financial results released on Oct 18 were sparkling. They sold more Macs and iPhones but fewer iPads than estimated.

That gave them a record revenue of US$20.3 billion (S$26.5 billion) and a fourth-quarter profit of 70 per cent over the same quarter a year ago.

Initially its shares sputtered a bit. One key issue the market was unhappy about was that only 4.19 million iPads were sold compared to 4.7 million forecasted by stock analysts.

Building a digital behemoth

Chua Hian Hou hopes efforts to boost Singapore's interactive digital media sector will pay off

By Chua Hian Hou
Technology Correspondent
hianhou@sph.com.sg

 

WHY doesn’t Singapore have its Google, Facebook or World of Warcraft (WoW) yet?

And doesn’t this mean that the Government’s efforts – and the millions poured into the fledging sector - over the last five years have failed?

That’s not an unusual comment, and one my colleagues and myself have all heard many times over the last couple of years.

Business-as-usual at Nokia World

Grace Chng finds that Nokia is hitting back amid its most fundamental management shake-up in decades.

By Grace Chng
Senior Correspondent
chngkeg@sph.com.sg

 

Nokia is not to be trifled with. Although its market share has dropped, it is still the world’s largest handset maker.

Nokia’s previous CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, or OPK as he is popularly known, lost his job about two weeks ago. I knew he would not be delivering the keynote speech at Nokia World, something he had done every year as CEO.

Nokia's answer to smartphone war

Grace Chng gets her hands on Nokia's smartphone.

By Grace Chng
Senior Correspondent
chngkeg@sph.com.sg

 

A smartphone from Nokia landed on my lap recently. It’s Nokia’s answer to the raging smartphone war between the iPhone and Android. For the time being, we can ignore the Blackberry and Windows Phone 6 phones.

The phone feels comfortable in my palm. It comes with an anodised aluminium. I found the resolution good and the touchscreen sensitive. Moving from one function to another is smooth and quick. Calls are clear. The phone boasts a 12 megapixel camera and the photos look sparkling.

Accelerate-ing app development

Grace Chng on the upcoming Accelerate app developer conference.

By Grace Chng
Senior Correspondent
chngkeg@sph.com.sg

 

Anyone could make the mistake of thinking that the biggest developer event held in Singapore will be organised by Apple. After all, its App Store has 225,000 apps and it probably has as many developers worldwide.

The fact is that SingTel will host the biggest developer event here when about 1000 developers will converge on Sept 22 and 23 at Suntec City to attend Accelerate.