Wii on sale
Written by admin on April 27, 2008 – 11:12 am -
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.
Tags: Nintendo, Wii
Posted in Gaming, South Korea, Tech | 3 Comments »
Cost of staying in touch
Written by admin on April 24, 2008 – 6:33 pm -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.
Tags: Skype, VOIP
Posted in Seoul, Tech | 1 Comment »
Who needs DMB?
Written by admin on April 12, 2008 – 6:25 pm -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.
Tags: Mobile TV, Slingbox, Streaming TV
Posted in Tech | No Comments »
Seoul Photo and Imaging Show 2008
Written by admin on April 12, 2008 – 3:26 pm -All you shutterbugs and digital imaging enthusiasts better scoot off to the Seoul International Photo and Imaging show which is going on at the COEX. The show which kicked off Thursday (10.04.2008) ends this Sunday (13.04.2008). Admission is free to the public, at least I think it is since I just signed up by presenting my business card. I’ve also seen whole families including children getting in.
Most of the major players are represented in the show such as Nikon, Canon, Sony, Sigma, Olympus etc.
The COEX is accessible by car and there is ample parking available but can be expensive, W2,000 (US$2) for the first 30 mins. and W1,000 (US$1) every 15 mins. A cheaper alternative would be to take the Subway and get off at Samseong Station (Green Line).
Tags: COEX, Photography, Trade Show
Posted in Seoul, South Korea, Tech | No Comments »
Unwired
Written by admin on April 10, 2008 – 4:23 pm -Today is my day off and I’m posting this wirelessly from a coffee shop. I could be using any of the numerous free WiFi hotspots that litter Seoul but this time I’m connected to the net by Korea Telecom’s Wibro network.
South Korea is one of the first countries to commercially launch Wibro or WiMax as it is officially called. So what the heck is Wibro anyway and why do I need it? In a nutshell Wibro is a wireless data service which allows you to connect to internet with more bandwidth than current 3G, in theory this will provide clearer voip, video streaming, surfing which I will take up in a future post.
With the help of my Korean colleague I signed up online and received my uicc or sim card in 3 days. There are various devices that are Wibro capable such as Laptops, USB Wibro modems, UMPC’s, Smartphones and PMP (Personal Media Player), my device is the Samsung Q1-Ultra , it’s basically an Ultra Micro PC that runs Windows XP.
The install was virtually painless for me, I downloaded the KT Wibro Connection Manager for my device from the KT website and installed it, after the install I shutdown the UMPC. I then inserted the sim card into its slot on the UMPC and powered up.
Upon rebooting the KT CM (Connection Manager) started up automatically and indicated that it was connected to the Wibro Network.
Now that I was online, first order of business was to check my new connection speed by firing up the browser and going to my favorite speedtest site.
I got almost 3Mbps on the upload and 1Mbps on the download with a latency of 195 ms. Not bad at all considering most wired broadband connections in South East Asia max out at 2Mbps with the exception of Singapore and Hongkong. Comparatively you get about 300 kbps - 700 kbps on 3G, HSDPA or CDMA EVDO.
Nuff of this geeky stuff, the only reason I posted this is because a Wibro connection allows for a truly wireless broadband experience and will be the foundation of all the other cool stuff I’ll be posting later on.
Tags: Korea Telecom, Wibro, Wimax
Posted in Seoul, Tech | No Comments »