iPhone coming soon???

Softbank Mobile Corp., a mobile phone provider in Japan has announced the they have reached an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Japan later on this year. Softbank is a 3G only provider thus strengthening the rumors of the release of a 3G capable iPhone at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicking of in San Francisco this Monday.

On the home front there was news last year that KTF will be bringing in the iPhone to South Korea but things have been quite since. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Surprise gift

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and my kids surprised me with a gift today. After arriving home from watching Indiana Jones today I proceeded straight to my desk and there I found a gift wrapped box. The funny thing is that I called my kids about noon telling them to meet me at the COEX where we would watch Indiana Jones 4. What I didn’t know at the time was that my son was already at the COEX buying me the gift, so he rush back home to pick his younger brother up to return to the COEX to meet me. 

When my kids arrived here about a month ago they noticed that I was using my mobile phone as an alarm clock and that there were no clocks at home so they both decided to get me an iPod speaker alarm clock. The Ozaki iMini functions as an FM radio, iPod speaker and charger, and alarm clock. You can set the alarm to trigger a bell, FM radio or your play your iPod at a preset time. Sound quality from its two speakers on both sides of the cube are decent but don’t expect any chest thumping bass from it. The best thing I like about this speaker is that I don’t have to take my iPod out of its case to hook it up.

Wii on sale

Over a year and a half late the Nintendo Wii finally hit Korean shores yesterday. The Wii is a gaming console just like Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s XBOX 360  but Nintendo chose not to compete directly with those consoles. Instead they made their games more gesture oriented which rely on its innovative controller which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can sense acceleration in three axes.This means you can have golf club, a baseball bat, boxing glove, steering wheel controller and actually swing it, steer it or move it in the air as opposed to just pressing buttons on traditional gaming platforms. The Wii is also backwards compatible with the older Nintendo Game cube.

Before you rush out and buy one there is one caveat, the Korean Wii is region locked to Korea. Only Korean titles will be playable on it. If you’re on a short term stint here and plan on bringing the Wii out of the country you can toss that thought out the window. Also titles sold in Korea will not have English as an option.

Cost of staying in touch

A friend and I were chatting on Skype just a few days ago, we couldn’t help but talk about how much we spent on our phone bills ten years ago. I spent at least USD 500 a month to call my wife everyday with our conversations averaging around 15 to 20 minutes. Fast forward to today, I can chat for hours (and to answer your question, yes I yak a lot) and all I pay for is my monthy broadband connection.  Nowadays Filipino expats are very lucky to have the internet to be able to keep in touch with relatives. This kind of connectivity was unthinkable 15 years ago. I remember our neighbors, whose fathers were mostly working in the middle east recording voice tapes to send to their loved ones. Over the years the internet improved, and we had email, then instant messaging and now Voice Over Internet Protocol or VOIP.

I personally use Skype and so do most of my friends and relatives. I run Skype on my Samung Q1 UMPC and use KT Wibro for my internet connection, you can probably tell that  I am a sucker for wireless connections that why I use a bluetooth headset so that there are no wires that get in the way.  I buy Skype Out credits for calling landlines and I have Skype In number that my contacts can call using a regular telephone. As of this time Skype In numbers are not available for the Philipines, which means you cannot have a Skype In number with a Philippine country and city code (ex. +632 xxx-xxxx). So the only solution for calling the Philippines would be to have your contact be a Skype member. Remember you don’t get charged for calling Skype to Skype, you only get charged when you call landlines.

What if you are technically challenged or you don’t want to use a PC for Skype? A Skype Wifi Phone allows you to make calls over a wifi network, you can be at home, at the airport, the office or sipping your mocha latte in a coffee shop making call over a broadband wifi connection for next to nothing. There are dozens of Skype Wifi phones out there but for those living in South Korea the Belkin Skype Wifi Phone seems to be popular choice.

Also available are cordless phones that have Skype built into them, which means they function like a normal cordless phone when plugged into your phone line and at the same time as a Skype phone when it’s plugged into your internet (broadband) router.

The Skype WiFi phone will put you back around USD 150, so buying two, one for yourself and the other for your relatives might seem a bit costly, but if you think about it, you can talk to them anytime and until your jaw hurts from yakkin’, then it doesn’t seem so expensive anymore does it?  Just keep in mind that if you’re planning to send and install one in the Philippines, they need to have a broadband internet connection and a wireless router installed.

Who needs DMB?

Digital Mobile Broadcasting (DMB) allow South Koreans to watch or listen to their favorite TV or radio shows on mobile phones, PMP’s, GPS receivers or Laptops. Unfortunately all the programs are in Korean .

For the rest of us there’s the Slingbox,  its a gadget that streams (transmits) any video source to the internet. Plug in the cable TV and internet cable at the back of the unit, run the configuration software (you only do this once) and install the Slingplayer on your PC, Laptop or mobile phone.Thats it! I personally watch TV on my UMPC with Wibro, this allows me to watch TV  vitually anywhere.

How does the Slingplayer find your Slingbox over the internet? You enter your Slingbox ID which is a unique number into the Slingplayer, then you enter the password you provided and click watch. The best thing about the Slingbox is that you have a virtual remote on your computer screen which allows you to control the remote device allowing you to change channels.

Now you can get your daily fix of your favorite Philippine TV shows for free! Well almost….

The Slingbox is available in Korea, click on this for their homepage. I’ve also seen it for sale at Bandi and Luni bookstore at the COEX. For those who have relatives in the U.S. and want to watch U.S. programs, it’s available online or at Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry’s. For more information in English visit Slingmedia.