“We’re unbelievably excited to be here,” co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek says in the companies press release, “Australians are massive music fans and we’ve created a service that we know they’ll love.”

Now you’re probably wondering what the big deal is with Spotify. Well, there are a few major changes, the biggest being that Spotify has a truly free version. That’s not a free-trial. That’s a free-forever ad-supported version. There are major restrictions, such as the inability to use a mobile device, but the focus still remains on giving an alternative to piracy. And no other streaming service does that for free in Australia at the moment.

Spotify’s New York-based chief marketing solutions officer Jeff Levick reinforces Spotify’s focus, for now at least, with The Australian, saying “The real competition is piracy and our belief from the get-go is the only way to be successful in this market is that you have to have a better model than piracy.” And they’re doing this with the following.

For Spotify Free, you get unlimited free music listening on your computer. You can also sync your own offline library through Spotify with your iPod and some other “mobiles”. But there is no mobile streaming and there are plenty of ads, obviously, to support the service. But it’s still a great free account. Unlimited free streaming sounds very good to me compared to everything else. Infact, it basically replaces lots of the online-only services, or services with crappy mobile apps, like Songl.

Now the paid plans start. Firstly, is Spotify Unlimited. Basically, you get all of the above, but ad-free, for $6.99 a month. You can only access your Spotify streaming music, again, through your PC or Mac but if ads annoy you, I guess this is an alright plan, if not a little too expensive for what you gain compared to free.

The second, and final paid plan is Spotify Premium. And, as before, you get unlimited streaming, but now you can stream, just like every other streaming service on your smartphones. You also get to listen to Spotify music offline. Also on offer is “enhanced sound quality,” but whether that means 320kbps or lower isn’t said. All of this is $11.99 a month, which is less than one iTunes album price a month, but not too competitive with other streaming services. Some mobile apps are not fully available in Australia yet, so we’ll have to wait while they update each mobile App Store to have the app. Cmon Windows Phone!

Overall, if you’re looking for a new competitor to Rdio, JB Hi-Fi Now, Songl, Zune Pass and any other streaming services that I’m forgetting, Spotify looks like a nice alternative. It’s still expensive if you want  to actually use it outside of the house, but for $11.99 a month, it’s a steal if your pirating ways make you feel guilty or if buying music elsewhere is too expensive.

After opening the trading bell at its headquarters at California, and a 30-minute delay pushing its expected 11:00am launch; Social networking website Facebook has officially become a publicly-traded company at 11:30am New York Time (or 1:30am Melbourne Time) at US$42.05 per share.

The delay was said to be because of an unexpected surge of retail investors – basically people, not corporations, who buy shares – trying to get their own stake in the company after initial indicators put the price at $42 or $43. In addition, reports were circulating that many were having trouble changing or even cancelling their orders ahead of the official start of the trade. According to CNBC, some 82 million shares changed hands within the first 30 seconds of trade.

Shares briefly gained at 11 percent to be at the $42 or $43 pricepoint, before quickly retreating to near the $40 mark – surprising many people. Within 20 minutes after trade, it dipped below $38 before recovering in the lunchtime hour. However, more people retreated before the close of the stock exchange – pushing the stock price down to $38.23.

That, however, is still up – ever so slightly – to the $38 asking price. Reports are also circulating that its underwriters made sure the price did not fall below $38 – which would be a very embarrassing start for Facebook.

Investors, according to CNBC and Bloomberg, are pretty much annoyed that it didn’t ‘pop’ like many other tech companies. However, it doesn’t indicate much if it didn’t ‘pop’ on the first debut – that was Wall Street trying to hype it as much as it can to get the price up so they could sell it on profit. Retail investors, however, appear to be looking to hold the shares for far longer.

Meanwhile, in the other tech stocks, it was basically seas of red. Zynga – hugely beneficial to Facebook – fell at least 13 percent during the day and was put on a trading halt. LinkedIn fell 5.65 percent to close in two digits, while Google also saw losses to close at 600.40 – 3.64% lower than yesterday’s trade. Many speculate that people were taking money from their investments and putting it on Facebook.

The financial markets were also down, due to fears of the US economy and the worsening European debt crisis that continues to plague the Eurozone.

Nokia’s Lumia 900 and Lumia 610 heading to Australia, as confirmed by Nokia. Both phones come just months after their sister phones, the Lumia 800 and 710, were launched in Australia – and surprisingly, Nokia Australia took a few months to get the Lumia 900 and Lumia 610 out the door to Australians. Both phones were only announced back in February.

The Lumia 900 is heading to Optus, and will be $0 upfront on its $60 Optus plan. This is a stark difference to the Lumia 800, which is currently available on all carriers. The phone, however, can still be purchased without a contract for $699 (still far cheaper than the iPhone 4S).

The Lumia 900, which has a large 4.3-inch display and a 1.4GHz processor, is not the LTE version that is on AT&T’s network, but rather the high-speed 3G version announced back in February. The phone also features an 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics, and a 1-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Lumia 610, labelled as the “most affordable” Windows Phone will be available via retail channels in July for a price tag of $329. It will be also available via carriers Boost Mobile in June, and Vodafone in July. No pricing details have been announced by Nokia, or the two carriers. The phone will have 8GB of storage, 5-megapixel camera, a 3.7-inch display and runs on a cheaper processor.

And I’ve said before:

But with that price tag, it’ll make a good pre-paid phone, or a phone if you simply want to try Windows Phone without signing a contract and if you have money to throw around (and if you don’t like it, you can simply return it within 14 days – win-win!)

Looks very cinematic, doesn’t it? Microsoft has unveiled the multiplayer hub for Halo 4, called Halo Infinity Multiplayer. The entire hub is based around the UNSC Infinity, and you’ll be able to create your own custom super-soldier, and progress your carrier throughout its own story.

343 Industries is taking a new approach with its Spartan Ops storyline. Released in a series of weekly installments via Xbox LIVE, it will intersect the main storyline on Halo 4 and center around the leaders of UNSC Infinity and a new team of Spartans known as “Majestic Squad”. These missions can be played with up to three friends, or by yourself, and will be available for free for all Halo 4 users.

Another new feature is ‘War Games’, which is the “competitive multiplayer modes” for Halo 4. Though Microsoft has not revealed any more details on it, we can only assume that it will still be the Red vs Blue style of combats.

Microsoft is also touting that it has a “vastly expanded suite of new multiplayer modes, weapons, vehicles, armor abilities, a new loadout and player progression system”, and you will be able to modify your armor for the first time.

Halo 4 is set to come out internationally on November 6. You can see the gallery below.

The next big OS is the internet. Here’s what Google’s doing to make sure of it.

Google’s always been known for their lack of unity, internally and externally, with their products and teams. Whether it’s ideas like Buzz and Google+, from completely different departments, mixing functionality, and both completely missing the mark, or services left to gather dust, Google has always found itself with pieces of a puzzle that just can’t find eachother. But, by the looks of things, Google’s finally found a direction, and it’s racing to the starting line.

Obviously, that direction is the cloud. Yes, that new buzzword that everyone loves to use for anything that is stored on the internet. But behind the word, there’s a new breed of computers, and Google finally seems to have found a focus, and is also having ideas actually match, instead of products just feeling like disconnected pieces.

Around the time that Google Drive was officially revealed, I started to feel my distant craving of Chrome OS return. I’m not sure if I’m alone here, but sometimes, even with the weirdest things, I get tech cravings, with an example of this being webOS, and now Chrome OS. I’m in love with it.

And there’s a reason why this craving has returned: Google is finally moulding it’s occasionally disconnected products back together again, starting with Drive. And it’s got me very interested.

The idea felt poorly thought out at the time, but now it’s looking like Google did have a plan. What I’m rambling about is Google Drive being used as local storage on Chromebooks. It’s fascinating. Truly amazing. Whether or not this was just a new idea or not doesn’t matter, but when Google says that Chromebooks are nothing but the web, they mean it. And Google is making themselves the next big OS. Apart from it’s shortcomings, the internet will be the next big OS in the next 10 years.

But Drive integration is insanely simple idea, but it’s just never been done. Right now, when you save anything from the web, it goes to your computer. If you want to save it to Dropbox, you can. But you still have to explicitly say so. Otherwise, that file just stays on your computer. But the difference with Google Drive is that you’re constantly saving to the web. Not only can you never lose a file again, unless Google loses it, but you’ll never have to worry about whether something is online or not. Because it just is.

Sure, there are privacy problems, but I just find this idea amazing. And it’s made me really think that, while I cannot replace a desktop with a Chrome OS matching, I can truly replace a laptop.

Google, obviously, still has a long way to go. Picasa is still a weird mess, and could’ve easily been integrated into Drive, but for some reason wasn’t. Google Play looks weird, but still has some nice ideas, but also terrible ones. But Google Drive is Google’s future. And as soon as it’s integrated with every Google product, then I’m sold on the cloud.

Because, up until now, the cloud has been disconnected too. But that’s about to change.

Microsoft can do this. Apple can do this. But they won’t. The difference with Google is that they don’t want OS’s to live on your computer. They want the web to live. And soon, I believe that they will get their wish.

The “first real Windows Phone” – that’s what Nokia’s call to the world when it announced the phone back in October. Now, we have the flagship device for Nokia and Windows Phone in our hands. However, is it all that it is hyped up to be, or will it show that Nokia made a mistake signing a pact with Microsoft? Will this show to the world that Windows Phone has some future?

Nokia is gambling its future on the success of the OS, and Terence Huynh evaluates if the Lumia 800 is worth that gamble.

Design & Hardware

The Nokia Lumia 800 features the same body as the Nokia N9 – and probably was because the fact that they had to release something, so they got together the parts of other phones to produce a new one. However, I love the Nokia N9 body, and I still love it on the Lumia 800.

The polycarbonate unibody is slim, minimalistic and looks beautiful. It’s comfortable to hold, and doesn’t use faux metal brushes to attract the eye. It simply stands out in its Finnish-ness. The body comes in a few colours – magenta, blue and the traditional black and white. Like the Nokia N9, you can change the colour by getting a skin over it. So if you felt that you wanted blue, you can buy a skin over it.

Other the traditional Windows Phone buttons, it also has a volume rocker, a camera button and a power button on its side. On the top, it has a microUSB port, headphone jack and and a microSIM slot.

The screen is a 3.7-inch display, and colours are vibrant. The screen resolution is only 480×800, but it’s not really much of a problem due to its smaller screen (and the fact it doesn’t try and fit over 200 pixels per inch on a display – unlike the iPhone). The screen is also protected by Gorilla Glass, so it won’t crack if you drop it from a desk.

While phones are now bumping their specs up – from dual core and quad core processors – the Lumia 800 has a 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm processor. Yes, this is because of Microsoft’s stringent restrictions on what you can put in your phones – one of the big problems that Microsoft needs to address for Windows Phone’s future. However, despite not having two or four cores in its CPU, it runs like a charm. There wasn’t any sluggishness or problems when running on Windows Phone 7.

The Lumia 800 basically shows that big numbers don’t necessarily mean big performance. It runs like a charm on a single core processor.

The phone also features 16GB of storage, but doesn’t have a microSD card slot for people to store additional music, files or apps on. The battery life of the phone, however, is alright. Because of Windows Phone 7′s constant need for data for live tiles, you’ll most likely see it using a bit more than half of the battery of it during an average workday.

The Camera

The Lumia 800 has a 8-megapixel camera, and the image quality is decent but not outstanding like the camera on the rival iPhone 4S. The lens is provided by, as usual, Carl Zeiss and has a fixed 28mm focal length and F/2.2 aperture – and the colours of the images do look amazing when you look on it on the screen. However, looking at through a monitor, it does have a paler look. The colours are more muted or even washed out.

So, don’t expect this to be a total replacement for an actual camera. But if you want to take a quick snap and post it on Twitter or Facebook; or you’ll be sticking them on your phone only, then it’s not much of hassle. If you want to print them out, on the other hand, then  you will have a problem – but who prints photos taken by their phone?

Also, yes I do know the picture is sort of depressing. It was raining heavily when I took it – and being Melbourne, that’s a common occurrence.

So, Windows Phone?

I was really critical of Windows Phone 7 when it came out. I gave it a 6.4 for having several key features being omitted, the lack of customisation and some confusing aspects, especially in settings. This time, however, I can safely say that most of the issues are no longer bugging me as they had when I first gotten my hands on version 7.0.

I, and everyone else on the TECHGEEK.com.au team, really do love the Metro interface. It is beautifully designed. The start screen was one of the things that I loved on Windows Phone 7, with the Live tiles (now accessible to all apps) giving you reminders or upcoming events. It wasn’t static, it was full of activity. And, if I may confess, the calendar design – while may not be all that important – is brilliantly designed and makes it easier to see what’s next.

If only they could do the same for Outlook’s calendar.

The People Hub is one of Windows Phone 7.5′s best features out there. It manages your contacts and merges their social networking profiles into their contact listings, so you’ll never miss a Facebook or Twitter update from them. You do have to connect them to each other manually, but they do offer suggestions on what to link. You can also choose to have your own links as well.

The main criticism has always been the lack of applications in its marketplace. That is a fair critique of the operating system and one that won’t be going away for a long time. It is third, and there hasn’t been much interest in developing for the platform as Microsoft would like. It does appear to change as we see some good quality applications come out – in with the thousands of crap that is present already, sadly.

Though, that said, most of the time I found the apps that I was looking for – Twitter, Facebook, public transportation for Melbourne, among others. Most of the good ones, however, will see you having to spend a bit of cash to get (though MIcrosoft does let you try the app before you fully purchase it – something that is good, so at least you know you’re not buying a dud).

Internet Explorer Mobile for Windows Phone 7.5 gets a big improvement. The browser’s bar been simplified to one bar, at the bottom of the screen and only shows the address bar and stop/refresh. You can see more options by pressing the three dots at the right-side of the screen – whee you’ll be able to add it to your favourites, share or add it to the start screen.

However, while it does now support HTML5, Javascript rendering is far from the best – and this is evident with Twitter. Twitter’s mobile website didn’t work properly and Twitter has now resorted in pushing WIndows Phone users to its feature phones versions, meaning that it won’t get the same features such as pull down to refresh.

The Nokia Touch

Nokia has packed this with some exclusive applications that you’ll most likely never see on any other rival Windows Phone device. Nokia Music is its music service and while it is basically a music store like iTunes, it does have something called Mix Radio. That service is like Pandora – a ‘radio’ service that plays songs randomly based on genre. That is free to all Nokia users – something that pushes them ahead of the game from other manufacturers.

As well, you have Nokia’s crown jewels – navigation. Since making their navigation services free, it makes your Lumia 800 the perfect GPS device. Nokia has two map applications installed – Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive. Drive is, as what it says, used for your car and the interface has been designed with big buttons and large text so you can see the information without being distracted. As well, you get turn-by-turn directions for free.

Nokia Maps is more for walking about the city – and it does offer suggestions on where to eat. Nokia doesn’t rely on having it constantly pump maps via your mobile signal, it preloads the entire map, and then uses your GPS signal as a pointer – that’s all good to avoid bill shock.

We should also point out that these services don’t replace similar services from Microsoft – Bing Maps and Zune. Interesting for Microsoft to allow them to do it, but it’s possibly a price to get Nokia to sign up to Windows Phone.

Is it worth getting?

The Lumia 800 is a pretty good phone – especially for a Windows Phone. The camera is alright, and it is really snappy despite being on a single core processor. It goes to show that size does not really matter in this race – despite what the Android manufacturers have displayed – but the experience and how it runs. It’s no point in having a dual core processor when it keeps freezing all the time.

What lets it down is predominantly the OS – however, this is not a call for Nokia to go to Android. The OS has improved tremendously when I got my hands on it for the first time, and it does have some way to go. The main problem is the apps – or lack thereof. Nokia’s future lies in the hands of Windows Phone – it’s just that Microsoft is now proving to be a hurdle with its restrictions.

However, putting that all aside, the Lumia 800 is a phone I would wholeheartedly recommend. But the phone is up to you. Not everyone wants Windows Phone, but the same can be said for Android and iOS – not everyone want’s either of them. Windows Phone, however, is a good stepping stone towards getting a smartphone.

The phone is available on all three major carriers.

Mother’s Day is approaching, and if you’re still struggling to give your mum a gift or looking for some ideas, we have given you our five choices what you should give your mum on that special day. No, we won’t be giving tips like getting her a gift certificate to a spa resort. We went down the more practical and techie route.

So here are our five suggestions on what you should give mum on Mother’s Day. If you also have any other suggestions (or questions, we love questions), do leave a comment below.

Also, heads up. Tuesday (today – the day of this post) is the final day of our giveaway to win something for mum thanks to Seagate. You’ve got until 12:01am tomorrow to enter – and it’s really, really simple to do. Go check it out.

Amazon Kindle

One of the best things out there is the Amazon Kindle – it’s an eBook reader. However, it is really lightweight and easy to use, and is a much better alternative than lugging around heavy hardback or flimsy paperback books. It is also easy to read on thanks to the eInk technology, making it look like actual printed text as opposed to pixels.

What I also love about the Kindle is the book store it offers – it has a vast collection of books from mainstream hits, classics and even the more obscure books that you might not even heard of. It does require an Amazon account, but that is also easy to set up.

I have reviewed the Amazon Kindle Touch, but the Amazon Kindle is just the same (without the touchscreen). You can get it at Amazon, or from Woolworths. We also suggest that you also give her a gift certificate from Amazon so she can start buying books.

Apple iPad

I know this is obvious, but this is a no-brainer. It is the best tablet out there in terms of style, ease to use and the large app store – and I know every Android fanboy is going to be annoyed. We’re also assuming that you haven’t given your mum an iPad for Christmas or her birthday. She can store her music, see family photos (and potentially embarrass you), and surf the web from one device.

The iPad has also some great apps for both mums and for their young children alike. There are recipe and casual gaming apps (like Angry Birds) for mum, while there are story and educational apps (like iStoryTime that James Wilson reviewed) for the kids. Basically, if there’s something you want, they’ll probably be an app on the App Store. Heck, you can even download Kindle for the iPad and read your Kindle books on it.

The iPad is the obvious choice, but it is just a good device. I’ll leave it up to you on whether you want to give your mum the new iPad or the iPad 2 since the only main difference is the retina display.

Jawbone Jambox

A pretty unusual choice, but it is one of the best Bluetooth speakers out there. If your mum has an iPod, iPhone or any mobile device that supports Bluetooth audio, then you should at least give her this to let her play her music without the need of headphones or let her listen to it without the need to resort to the crappy little speakers on the mobile phone itself.

It is beautifully designed and has a continuous battery life of 10 hours, but it is very pricey (though, arguably, you should spend a bit more money for your mum). As Stewart Wilson said in his review: “We tested with a range of music on the Jambox and it was nothing short of fantastic. If you have sound quality in mind and need something small, compact and cheap – the Jawbone Jambox is the one.”

If she’s of a certain age, then you should help her try and set it up – though, you should probably spend a bit more time with mum on this day as well.

Choiix Power Fort OR morphie Juice Pack Air

We all hate it when a gadget runs out at a very critical time for us. Why not give your mum something that will extend her gadget’s battery life – especially a iPhone or smartphone. And I couldn’t decide on one or the other, so why not group them together in one.

You can give her the Choiix Power Fort (above), and she can charge your phone or any device via USB – Android smartphone, tablet, or even some cameras – during the day or put it in her carry bag when she doesn’t need it. And if she does, she can pull it out of the device and use it.

The other alternative is to give her a morphie Juice Pack Air – which is only available for the iPhone. However, it allows you to charge and use the device since it uses the pin connector on the bottom of your iPhone – as opposed to the Power Fort, where you have to use a USB cable. It does make the iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 a bit thicker, but it’s a good device to keep your phone from dying when you need it.

Sony Cybershot WX30 (or any good digital camera)

Buying a digital camera for your mum lets her capture any special memories that she might want to keep, or just simply use during her holidays. However, there are so many digital cameras and while there are a lot of bad ones, there are so many good ones out there. I think the Sony Cybershot WX30 would be a good compact camera for mum, mainly because the image quality is pretty good for a camera in the sub-$300 camera range.

The Cybershot WX30 also has a 3.0-inch touchscreen display, meaning that you simply have to touch to edit settings as opposed to try and maneuver around buttons which have a dual purpose. It also has 5x optical zoom and a 16.2-megapxiel lens.

However, like I said, you can have your own opinions on a good camera that you think your mum should get. One hint: don’t give your mum a pink camera – unless she really does like the colour. Just stick with the usual silver, white or black.

Also, heads up. Tuesday (today – the day of this post) is the final day of our giveaway to win something for mum thanks to Seagate. You’ve got until 12:01am tomorrow to enter – and it’s really, really simple to do. Go check it out.

Image above: Rachael Kramer (rkramer62)/Flickr (Creative Commons)

“Inspired by nature.”

That’s the tagline that the Galaxy S III will be sold on. Samsung has officially revealed version 3 of its most popular smartphone line, and will be running Ice Cream Sandwich and feature a gigantic 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display.

The screen, while 22% bigger, won’t have an impact on its size – with Samsung saying that has reduced the bezel. The phone is also 8.6mm thin, and yet manages to pack a 16GB or 32GB memory, an 8-megapixel camera with zero shutter lag, autofocus and Flash and 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera. Oh, and the already revealed 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad with 1GB of RAM.

It also promises less than 1 second loading of its camera apps, and will also have “Best Photo” feature in its burst photoshooting mode, giving you a choice of eight ‘best’ photos out of 20. Other enhancements include ‘Face Zoom’ and ‘Group tag’ – their names sort of give it away. In addition, they will feature a brand new ‘S Beam’ service that expands on Android Beam by letting you simply share without the need of Wi-Fi or mobile signals.

Then we also have ‘AllShare Cast’ and ‘All Share Play’, which will share any form of files between the phone and your tablet, PC or television – regardless of distance. The phone does include NFC support for mobile payments.

It’s skinned interface for Android – TouchWiz – gets a redesign as part of this “natural” promotion. It’s pretty much core Android with a bit of customisation by Samsung – though it promises to have live wallpaper, information lock screen and smart alarm. However, Samsung has apparently made some customisations that make it more ‘human-friendly’.

The phone will be a 3G phone, but selected markets will have a 4G version – but the specific signals it will use will be “dependent on market”. That could possibly be to avoid the problematic use of ‘LTE’ in each market – like Apple and Australia.

The Galaxy S III will feature two colours at launch – a ‘Pebble Blue’ and ‘Marble White’ at launch. It will also follow Nokia in bringing some freaking colour on its products. On May 29, it will launch in Europe before going on a “World Tour” and land in the US in June. No word on carrier availability in Australia, but we will be asking Samsung Australia for comment.

Update: We’ve asked for Samsung Australia about availability of the device, but they are being very tight-lipped. “Samsung Electronics Australia is pleased there is continued interest about our GALAXY range in Australia, but we have no plans to make any announcements at this time,” the company said in a statement.

Gallery and its full press release today below:

Samsung Introduces the GALAXY S III, the Smartphone Designed for Humans and Inspired by Nature

London, UK—May 3, 2012—Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, announced today the third generation GALAXY S, the GALAXY S III. Designed for humans and inspired by nature, the GALAXY S III is a smartphone that recognizes your voice, understands your intention, and lets you share a moment instantly and easily.

This sleek and innovative smartphone has the enhanced intelligence to make everyday life easier. With Samsung GALAXY S III, you can view the content like never before on the device’s 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display. An 8MP camera and a 1.9MP front camera offer users a variety of intelligent camera features and face recognition related options that ensure all moments are captured easily and instantly. Samsung GALAXY S III is powered by Android™ 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, with greatly enhanced usability and practicality to make life easier. Packed with intuitive technology, the GALAXY S III delivers a uniquely personalized mobile experience that refuses to be compromised.

“With the GALAXY S III, Samsung has maximized the consumer benefits by integrating superior hardware with enhanced smartphone usability,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung. “Designed to be both effortlessly smart and intuitively simple, the GALAXY S III has been created with our human needs and capabilities in mind. What makes me most proud is that it enables one of the most seamless, natural and human-centric mobile experiences, opening up a new horizon that allows you to live a life extraordinary.”

Introducing Natural Interaction

The GALAXY S III enhances the interaction experience between the device and user. Smart enough to detect your face, voice and motions, the GALAXY S III adapts to the individual user to provide a more convenient and natural experience. With the innovative ‘Smart stay’ feature, the GALAXY S III recognizes how you are using your phone – reading an e-book or browsing the web for instance – by having the front camera identify your eyes; the phone maintains a bright display for continued viewing pleasure.

The GALAXY S III features ‘S Voice,’ the advanced natural language user interface, to listen and respond to your words. In addition to allowing information search and basic device-user communication, S Voice presents powerful functions in regards to device control and commands. When your phone alarm goes off but you need a little extra rest, just tell the GALAXY S III “snooze.” You can also use S Voice to play your favorite songs, turn the volume up or down, send text messages and emails, organize your schedules, or automatically launch the camera and capture a photo.

In addition to recognizing your face and voice, the GALAXY S III understands your motions to offer maximized usability. If you are messaging someone but decide to call them instead, simply lift your phone to your ear and ‘Direct call’ will dial their number. With ‘Smart alert,’ the GALAXY S III will also save you from trouble by catching any missed messages or calls; your phone will vibrate to notify missed statuses when picked up after being idle.

Easy and Instant Sharing

The Samsung GALAXY S III is more than a personal device that can be enjoyed by one user – it wants you to share and experience smartphone benefits with family and friends, regardless of where you are. With the new ‘S Beam,’ the GALAXY S III expands upon Android™ Beam™, allowing a 1GB movie file to be shared within three minutes and a 10MB music file within two seconds by simply touching another GALAXY S III phone, even without a Wi-Fi or cellular signal. The ‘Buddy photo share’ function also allows photos to be easily and simultaneously shared with all your friends pictured in an image directly from the camera or the photo gallery.

With ‘AllShare Cast’, users can wirelessly connect their GALAXY S III to their television to immediately transfer smartphone content onto a larger display. ‘AllShare Play’ can be also used to instantly share any forms of files between GALAXY S III and your tablet, PC, and televisions regardless of the distance between the devices. Under AllShare Play is also the ‘Group Cast’ feature that allows you to share your screen among multiple friends on the same Wi-Fi network; you can make comments and draw changes at the same time with your co-workers, witnessing real-time sharing on your individual device.

Human-centric Design with Uncompromised Performance

The GALAXY S III not only presents features with enhanced usability, but also provides an ergonomic and comfortable experience through its human-centric design. Its comfortable grip, gentle curves, and organic form deliver a rich human-centric feel and design. Inspired by nature, its design concept is the flow and movement of nature. The elements of wind, water and light are all evoked in the physical construct of the GALAXY S III. In its essence, the minimal organic design identity is reflected in the smooth and non-linear lines of the device. Available in Pebble Blue and Marble White at launch, Samsung will introduce a variety of additional color options.

With a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display, the GALAXY S III offers a large and vivid viewing experience. Samsung Mobile’s heritage Super AMOLED display even enhances to HD and 16:9 wider viewing angles. To ensure faster content sharing and connectivity, the GALAXY S III offers Wi-Fi Channel Bonding which doubles the Wi-Fi bandwidth.

The GALAXY S III also sports a range of additional features that boost performance and the overall user experience in entirely new ways. It introduces ‘Pop up play,’ a feature that allows you to play a video anywhere on your screen while simultaneously running other tasks, eliminating the need to close and restart videos when checking new emails or surfing the Web. Its 8MP camera features a zero-lag shutter speed that lets you capture moving objects easily without delay – the image you see is the picture you take. With the ‘Burst shot’ function that instantly captures twenty continuous shots, and the ‘Best photo’ feature that selects the best of eight photographs for you, the GALAXY S III ensures users a more enhanced and memorable camera experience. HD video can be recorded even with the 1.9MP front-facing camera, which you can use to capture a video of yourself. Improved backside illumination further helps to eliminate blur in photos that result from shaking, even under low lights.

Mobile payment is also accessible with the device through advanced Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The gaming experience is enhanced through ‘Game Hub,’ providing access to numerous social games, while Video Hub brings users high quality TV and movies. Furthermore, Samsung Music Hub will offer a personal music streaming service. Game Hub, Video Hub and Music Hub will be introduced in select countries initially and soon rolled out to global markets.

The Samsung GALAXY S III will be available from the end of May in Europe before rolling out to other markets globally.

Image: m0php/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Well lately on Delimiter, there has been a lot of talk about the NBN and what will form this National Broadband Network. Now yes, I am a NBN supporter, for obvious reasons. We all know Australia isn’t renowned for its internet access and this can be accredited to many things, but something needs to be done about it.

Telstra’s network. Certain aspects of it have been in existence for several decades. It works, for the most part. It is used every day for everything from calling family to sharing files, with strangers, on the other side of the continent.

To liken it to something which we all have experience with, cars. They age, and as they age, they need more maintenance. This can lead to them being increasingly prone to breaking down, and because of this, becoming more expensive to run. In many ways, this is true of Telstra’s network.

Aspects of this network need to be upgraded, repaired, and expanded upon in order to accommodate Australia’s growing population and our hunger for a better connection. At the moment, Telstra are only just keeping up with everything.

I myself only have access to ADSL 1. Yet I live in one of the larger suburbs of eastern Melbourne. It was only in February of this year that Telstra upgraded the horribly congested back-haul to my exchange, allowing me to now get speeds of around 450kB/s. Pathetic for this day and age.

Distance: Because we Aussies have so much land, any infrastructure that is going to be installed here is going to be expensive and take time. That is just the nature of things. There is nothing we can do about it.

The NBN: There is quite of a lot debating/arguing in our government, as per usual. One topic of dialogue between Labor and Liberal is the NBN. They are both yet to agree on what they classify the NBN. Rudd and Gillard, with the help of that idiot, Conroy, have come up with what is known as a Fibre to the Home (FTTH) network. In this plan, the majority of houses in Australia will have a fibre optical connection to the rest of the internet. Through this connection, Australian residents will have access to speeds of 100Mbps downstream and 40Mbps upstream initially. There was talk, when details for this network were first released, of these speeds being upgradable to 1Gbps or even faster with relative ease.

Evidence time. Now Verizon have come out and stated that with FTTH networks, there will be reductions of up to 80-90% in the cost of maintaining said network compared to a copper network. Analysys Mason have also done some calculations and concluded that the on-going costs of a FTTH network will be “in the region of 30% lower than the costs of operating the current copper network”. Although there is a large discrepancy between the two estimations, they both still show that running a FTTH network will end up being cheaper in the long run.

The other plan, which Liberal are pushing, is the Fibre to the Node (FTTN) network. Effectively, this is what we already have in the majority of places, via Telstra’s network. The back-haul to the majority of exchanges in Australia is fibre. This connection is then shared across the hundreds, if not thousands of customers connected to that exchange. That is basically what a FTTN network entails.

Malcolm Turnbull said this week that the cost of maintaining Telstra’s current copper network is cheaper than alternative solutions. Sure it may be cheaper, but hell, Aussies are already behind in the internet connectivity department and by the looks of it, some who should care, really don’t.

At the moment, maintaining our current copper/cable network is all well and dandy but we don’t even know what this cost Turnbull mentioned is or what it is based on. If we want to continue to use our current network for the next decade, there will need to be some major upgrades happen.

Peter Cochrane, a well-known UK telecommunications expert and ex BT (British Telecom) CTO has expressed his thoughts on FTTN networks, saying they are a “mistake”. He outlined that they end up limiting the bandwidth available to the customer as well risking the reliability of the network.

The FTTN network which BT are currently rolling out, can achieve speeds up to 80Mbps down and 20Mbps up. We already have faster cable internet available in Australia! Yet, despite this, Turnbull is using BT’s FTTN network as an example of his version of the NBN. This type of network is little, if not, no improvement over Telstra’s current network. (What an idiot!)

We need the NBN. And not what Liberal is calling the NBN. We need the FTTH NBN. There is no denying it. If Australia wants to keep up with the times, something needs to be done and as with anything, there is always an initial cost. But it is not as if the end result is not going to match that cost, which shouldn’t be a problem once the network is fully installed.

When you play with your little app on your iPhone, or use sites like Facebook, you don’t really think about the people who developed it, or you picture them wearing thick glasses, tuck their shirts in and wear pocket protectors. Programmers aren’t like that, but one ‘sub-group’ is taking it to a whole new level.

And potentially, it could be a problem in itself for an industry that wants to change how people perceive them.

We are, of course, talking about the ‘brogrammer’. As Urban Dictionary defines it (since the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have a definition yet), they are:

A programmer who breaks the usual expectations of quiet nerdiness and opts instead for the usual trappings of a frat-boy: popped collars, bad beer, and calling everybody “bro”. Despised by everyone, especially other programmers.

In other words, they breaks the typical nerdy/geeky stereotype. But the term has pretty much split the entire programming community. Some don’t see it as a problem. Others, however, see some issue with the popularity of the ‘brogrammer’ trend – especially its sexist undertones.

We should clarify that there is two definitions of the term ‘brogrammer’. There is the internet meme, which makes fun of the stereotype with, according to Quora, “exaggerated and nonsensical rules” – which clearly are joking.The other is the corporate environment that allows for misogynistic and sexist behaviour, and objectification of women.The latter part is the one that people have issues with.

Plus, we should also make the distinction that if you happen to be a social person, or drink alcohol – that doesn’t necessarily make you a ‘brogrammer’. If you do it like some frat boy, and act like a douchebag (that’s more subjective rather than objective) – then you probably are.

One of the most recent examples of its sexist undertones include Sqoot, when it advertised its API Jam event in Boston, listing women as one of its “Great Perks”, who will give you another beer while you essentially write code. After a flurry of angry tweets, it issued an apology.

You would have noted that a similar thing happened in Melbourne, with the York Butter Factory sending out a tweet that was sexist. It, like Sqoot, issued an apology – not before its website received some unwanted attention for being down for a long time during the whole debacle (it should be noted that York Butter said that its downtime issues were not related to the misguided tweet).

Online publication Mother Jones and Bloomberg Businessweek have also written articles about the rise of the brogramming trend. The Mother Jones‘ article features Path’s Matt Van Horn, where his South by Southwest (SXSW) talk saw women walking out of the room because of his “lame” jokes. However, the Bloomberg Businessweek article pretty much summarises the problem:

We got invited to a party in Malibu where there were naked women in the hot tub… We’re the cool programmers.

But, it is all a bit of fun, right?

Sadly, no. It basically makes the IT industry appear as some sort of ‘boys club’.

Dan Shapiro, who works for Google, notes that it has been a problem for a while amongst the startup community. Shaprio recalls one team he was coaching for a startup day who believed that winning a pitch include having images of scantily clad women – even if it had nothing to do with the company. And if you have read the articles from Mother Jones and Bloomberg Businessweek – Path, Klout and Geeklist are all startups.

But it’s not just localised around the booming Web 2.0 companies out there – it’s prevalent where there isn’t much diversity. Katie Cunningham, a Python programmer with Cox Media Group, wrote in a blog posting, “As the woman, I’ve been the only person in the group asked to put together a pot luck.”

“I’ve been the only one asked to take notes in a meeting… even if I’m the one who’s presenting (because my title really should be ‘secretary who we let on the servers’). I once had a boss who wanted to turn me into a personal assistant so badly, it ended up in a meeting with HR.”

Cunningham also notes the subtle sexist comments by her co-workers, and has even pondered leaving the industry for good.

“That’s the main problem with subtle discrimination. It leaves those that it affects the most powerless against it, quietly discouraging them. If they speak up, they’re treated to eye rolls at the least, and at the worst, are called oppressors themselves. We’re accused of not wanting equal rights, but of wanting tyranny,” she writes.

Let us not forget that women have made a mark in the IT industry – Mary Lou Jepsen, for example, helped designed the One Laptop Per Child’s XO-1; while Google’s Marissa Mayer is credited in developing its user interfaces. Heck, even the first recognised computer programmer is a woman – Ada Lovelace, who created a method in calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.

This type of behaviour, frankly, does an impact to gather up future talent in this industry – female programmers and entrepreneurs alienated away from what is an already male-dominated industry. A few bad, but public displays, does damage to the reputation of IT industry.

If you have been living under a rock, the industry is heading for growth – whether it is on the internet or in making new gadgets that will be in your house in the next ten, or even five years. As such, many universities – including my own, Monash University (what I have heard from inside) – are crying out for more and more people to be part of IT, especially women.

And part of the problem with this brogramming trend is simply not enough women are entering the industry.

Looking at statistics available from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, you can see there has been an overall trend in people enrolling into IT subjects for both genders. Despite this, not a lot of women are taking up IT as a subject. In 2010, those who completed an IT degree was 13,421 – and only 2,588 of those were women. Enrolling into the subject in 2010 were 50,457 people – only 9,718 of those were women.

In other words, the ‘brogrammer’ trend – with the sexist undertones – is not helping.

Yes, we should also eliminate the stereotype that you have be a total nerd to become a programmer or be within this industry – you don’t necessarily need to like or see Star Wars or Star Trek (I personally haven’t seen them).

However, making it more like some frat house, or like a Jersey Shore episode? Not a good idea.

Also disclaimer: I am a Monash University student. They haven’t paid me to simply mention their name in this post.

Image: the cover image of the Brogramming page on Facebook

Image: steakpinball/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The Federal Court has today overturned a previous decision that found Optus’ TV Now service not in breach of copyright by showing the matches on free-to-air on a short delay of two minutes. It now means that it will most likely go to the High Court for a final decision.

The three judges have noted two areas that the appeal will be looking at: first was who was the maker of the footage being recorded. The previous court decision allocated the maker to the subscriber to the Optus TV Now service – the appeal court, however, saw a different conclusion.

It said, “the maker was Optus or, in the alternative, it was Optus and the subscriber.”

“Optus could be said to be the maker in that the service it offered to, and did, supply a subscriber was to make and to make available to that person a recording of the football match he or she selected. Alternatively Optus and the subscriber could be said to be the maker for Copyright Act purposes as they acted in concert for the purpose of making a recording of the particular broadcast which the subscriber required to be made and of which he or she initiated the automated process by which copies were produced. In other words, they were jointly and severally responsible for the act of copying,” it continued.

The second point in contention was if Optus’ act constitutes as infringement, could Optus invoke the “private and domestic use” defence in the Copyright Act. The original judge did not rule due to his answer on the first question above. The appeal court found that if Optus was the maker – either alone or with the subscriber – it would not be able to use this defence.

Telstra and the AFL has welcomed the decision. A spokesman for Telstra said, “It’s vindication for Telstra and the sporting bodies who have negotiated content rights and what it means is the certainty for the content providers and sporting bodies in their incomes.”

The AFL‘s CEO Andrew Demetriou told 3AW that it is “a great win” and a sensible decision.

“Optus must now suspend offering a service they didn’t pay for,” he said. “[Telstra] charge $50 for the whole season, while Optus was trying to jump in and not pay for it.”

The landmark decision by the court – before it was overturned today – was seen by many media analysts as making multi-million (and for the AFL, billion) exclusivity rights to broadcast the games online and on television worthless. Telstra joined the lawsuit in order to protect its exclusive deal with the AFL and NRL.

The decision also saw calls for copyright reform – and with AFACT crying foul after the High Court rejected its appeal in its iiNet court case, we could potentially see the Government acting on those calls. And while copyright law should be updated to meet new technologies, it should go overboard like SOPA in the United States or force other companies to do the policing, as opposed to the judicial system.

Get ready to hear some Apple fanboy rage. CEO and founder of security vendor Kaspersky Labs, Eugene Kaspersky, has said that Apple’s security for its Mac OS X operating system is ten years behind Microsoft’s Windows.

“I think they [Apple] are ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security,” Kaspersky said in an interview with CBR. “For many years I’ve been saying that from a security point of view there is no big difference between Mac and Windows. It’s always been possible to develop Mac malware, but this one was a bit different.”

The comments come after the well-known Flashback malware outbreak, which had infected 650,000 computers at its peak. Apple was pointed out by many as, despite being a Java (owned by Oracle) exploit, it has full control of how Java is patched. It also is notorious in delaying key patches by months. When it was already released for Mac, Windows and Linux users were already patched.

He notes that Apple is entering what Microsoft previously had to go through ten years ago, when malware and virus infection became a major problem – especially with Windows XP. Now, Microsoft’s security has pretty much improved.

“They will understand very soon that they have the same problems Microsoft had ten or 12 years ago. They will have to make changes in terms of the cycle of updates and so on and will be forced to invest more into their security audits for the software,” Kaspersky said.

Kaspersky also added that he expects to see more malware targeting Mac OS X as cyber-criminals “learn from success and this [Flashback] was the first successful one”.

It looks like the idea that Macs are more safer than PCs has been utterly destroyed by the Flashback malware and the ensuing debacle on how to patch the system. Especially as since more and more malware writers are now targeting the PC, to some success.

The service, which has literally been rumoured, and then reportedly killed, over 4 years ago has finally arrived with Google Docs, Google+ and Gmail integration, a better API, 5GB of free storage and native file-syncing, basically like DropBox or SkyDrive offers.

The biggest difference is Google Drive’s ecosystem, which has gained a more acceptable API for viewing and editing your files in other applications, as well as creating files in formats made by developers. Google seriously wants to be your hard drive on the internet, with basically an open storage system that allows any app to store any files. It’s also integrated into Google+ and Gmail, meaning you can add photos to a Google+ post from Drive, and attach files in Gmail using Google Drive.

Google also now offers a range of clients for desktop and mobile (sadly leaving applications like InSync, which tried to make your Google Docs into a DropBox, out in the cold). Right now you can download Windows, Mac and Android apps, with a iOS app coming soon. Linux is not included, but I doubt it will stay that way, with Google almost always supporting the Linux community with services like Google Music.

Sadly, there is bad news. Just like Microsoft’s SkyDrive, Google has changed their prices for storage, greatly increasing prices and changing from a yearly fee to a monthly one. It shows that the two big cloud players were giving you that much storage for free or for a very low price because they knew you probably wouldn’t use it. For example, the US$20 I used to pay for 80GB would now be around US$60 for 100GB. For smaller accounts, 25GB comes in at around US$30 a year. It’s really disappointing to see Microsoft and Google increase prices when they create easier upload options. And both companies, especially Google, should really have offered more storage for free.

A little bit like SkyDrive, users who had already paid for storage will continue to pay the same price until they cancel their subscription or anything else, such as your credit card declining. In this case, your prices will switch to the new prices.

You can head over to drive.google.com right now to switch over from Google Docs, but some users may have to wait a little longer to get access.

Halo 4 will come in November 6, Microsoft has confirmed. The game will launch worldwide, and will see the return of Master Chief in a new adventure. The game, set four years of the previous Halo 3, will be the first major game developed by 343 Industries – the group tasked to continue Halo after Bungie ended ties with Microsoft.

Halo 3 launched in 2007 – and now, after five years, the game promises to answer the questions of the fates of Master Chief and Cortana, his artificial intelligence companion.

Also being recruited to help promote the game is Conan O’Brien, who will have a special segment in the show. Sadly, those in Australia, Channel Nine’s GEM airs it and for some unknown reason, is on a 36 HOUR DELAY. So, thanks Channel Nine!

Pebble, the latest Kickstarter success story, is an e-paper watch that connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android device, giving you access to music controls, fitness applications and a full watch replacement. With a 7-hour 7-day battery and scratch resistant display, it’s not that much of a surprise that the project has gained attention. The surprise is that, with a month remaining. the Pebble has raised over US$3.3 million.

Not to be confused with the Sony LiveView or the iPod nano, Pebble isn’t a touchscreen device. But it makes up for that with beautiful clock faces and great potential with an SDK for apps, as well as included apps. Out of the box it also supports caller ID, email, calendar alerts, Facebook and Twitter notifications, weather and silent vibrating alarms and timers. There are already applications in development that track jogging, cycling and other excercise using your phones GPS. Apps can be easily made with if this then that (ifttt.com) or their own web service or an SDK and an application storefront.

For now the watch will work with the iPhone 3GS and above, the iPod touch with iOS 5 (lacking GPS and other data features) and Android phones running 2.3 and above. It doesn’t work with Blackberry, Windows Phone 7 or Palm devices (personally devastating, as an owner of a Palm Pre 2 and a Windows Phone), but it’s unclear as to whether this could be included via software update or buying a new device altogether later down the line.

I really find the idea of using a phone via a wristwatch pretty exciting, especially after enjoying my iPod nano watch (more on that soon), and this really feels like something that could only have been dreamed of in the past.

If you would like to pledge some money, you can do so here at the Kickstarter page. Otherwise, here is their video featuring a fully-working prototype.

EA has revealed its first major game for 2013, confirming that there will be a Crysis 3 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Described by EA as giving gamers “the premier sandbox shooter experience of 2013″, it suggests that it could be more like the first game in the series. We’ve got screenshots, and you can see them after the jump.

Crysis 3 sees Prophet returning to New York, only to find it encased in a ‘Nanodome’ by the Cell Corporation. As well, both human and alien enemies from Crysis 2 will make an appearance in the game.

Crytek, the developers of the game, have also started pre-orders for the Crysis 3 Hunter Edition, which will give them extra goodies in multiplayer to “become the ultimate hunter”, plus early access to the new signature bow and its attachments and the Hunter Nanosuit. Some retailers will also other unlocks:

• Stalker Pack – Includes the base game, all Hunter Edition content and the following early multiplayer unlocks: for players who like to stalk their prey from the shadows the Stalker Pack provides early multiplayer access to the deadly semi-auto Jackal shotgun. This powerful, close-range shotgun comes with a unique silencer attachment, custom weapon skin and two exclusive themed in-game dog tags.
• Overkill Pack – Includes the base game, all Hunter Edition content and the following early multiplayer unlocks: the Overkill Pack features early multiplayer access to the Typhoon assault weapon and skin. Spewing 500 rounds a second, the Typhoon gives players the ability to go guns blazing to take back the Liberty Dome. Also included are two exclusive Overkill themed in-game dog tags.
• Predator Pack – Includes the base game, all the Hunter Edition content and the following early multiplayer unlocks: the Predator Pack delivers early multiplayer access to the Feline submachine gun and exclusive camo. With an extremely fast rate of fire and a 60 round magazine the Feline is highly effective and deadly, at short range.

The Hunter Edition will retail for US$59.99 from retailers or via EA’s Origin service. Crysis 3, however, won’t retail until Spring 2013.

Screenshots and box-cover images are below.

Image: Rego Korosi/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Since its initial inception, the iPad has been the poster child for the tablet market, representing the gold standard for tablet perfection on basically every facet. The iPad’s software is unrivalled; it’s hardware, exquisite; and the marriage between the two, a couple that was always meant to be.

In the face of stiff competition, the iPad is still by far the dominant force in the tablet market. Apple managed to not only detonate the entire of HP’s mobile strategy, but forced RIM and Google into a fear-fuelled frenzy, making them deliver imperfect products hurriedly in the pure fear of getting into what Apple hyped as a potentially industry-changing market far too late. The result being the absolute mess that was Honeycomb, and the incomplete hodgepodge that is Playbook OS.

Some journalists and pundits are signalling this dominance to be a repeat of the iPod situation, where more than a decade later Apple still holds the portable media player crown with a whopping 78% market share.

But, no. That won’t be the case. The iPad isn’t going to pull off an iPod, it will follow the path of the iPhone, and Google (we won’t count out RIM either) is going to gradually devour the iPad’s market share until the two reach somewhat of a parity.

There’s nothing scientific about the iPod’s sustained dominance in the MP3 player market, it simply boils down to two crucial points: competing manufacturers didn’t have the double edged sword that Apple possessed in both the content store and the actual hardware product; and secondly, back when the iPod (before the iPhone) was immensely relevant, the majority of Apple’s consumer had no consumer lock-in obligations.

The former point is fairly self-explanatory, the combined prowess of both the iPod and the iTunes store is a compelling proposition, particularly when none of Apple’s competitors could even match the hardware in the first place. And even though we like to discount iTunes for bloatware, it’s nice to have a cohesive media management and syncing platform.

The crux however is in the second point. In the pre-iPhone era, Android hardly existed and was completely non-existent on the consumer radar. The likes of Blackberry and Windows Mobile were the dominant smartphone forces of the day, but the general ‘App Store’ and ecosystem concepts were hardly engrained in the products. Cross-device integration was minimal, there was no consumer lock-in to keep consumers invested in the products of a particular company.

Had Microsoft played it smarter, Zune could have kicked off, or at least been more successful than it ended up being. But since the Zune and Windows Mobile were so sparsely contended in both their product and approach, a Windows Mobile user in the market for an MP3 player wouldn’t be at any advantage picking a Microsoft Zune over an Apple iPod.

Since competitors weren’t in a position to play the consumer lock-in card, the iPod was a pure and simple no-brainer.

But the playing field is different today, not only does Google hold a large market share in the smartphone industry with its Android operating system, like Apple, there’s an ecosystem behind it — a reason for existing citizens to never move out.

Why would you pay for the same app twice when you only need to pay for it once? If a user has invested in Google Music, they’d be out of their mind to not extend that service onto an Android tablet.

Android tablets are far from perfect, and stacked against the iPad they’re simply far too inconsistent. But Google’s ecosystem is enough of a value add to many existing Android smartphone consumers to consider an Android tablet and subsequently buy Google time – enough time before they start shipping Ice Cream Sandwich on tablets in bucket-loads. ICS, like every other tablet OS is still no iPad, but it’s certainly progressed to the point that it doesn’t seem like a joke.

Using Honeycomb for the first time it was hard deciding whether to laugh or puke. I’m sure the team at Apple was tempted to do both.

Google also has the trump card of versatility and choice under their belt. Having so many different devices congregated under a cohesive umbrella is a big plus for Google and consumers. One reason why the iPod never even came close to being dethroned was the fact that its competitors were so sparse, as if diluting one another into irrelevance.

Even though the Android manufacturers are warring against one another, collectively they are a powerful army with a level of versatility that Apple simply can’t beat, especially with one device, even two.

Google, through the exploitation of desperate OEMs has the flexibility to penetrate the low end market with budget devices, has the flexibility to deliver niche features for niche consumers that Apple can’t and has the power to give its consumers the flexibility to change devices without ever switching ecosystems.

Apple’s business model can’t compete with that.

A repeat of the iPod situation is simply an impossibility given the dynamics of the industry today. Apple won’t fail to pull off an iPhone though – losing the market share race but raking in immense profit share – the bottom line’s just as important.

On April 20, supporters of the campaign to the KONY 2012 campaign will be putting up posters supporting their cause and actively try and get their voice heard to politicians to do something. Being an awful pessimistic cynic, however, I ponder the question – what will happen in 2013? What happens if they are unsuccessful, or successful in their goals?

Let’s be hypothetical and say that in the end – Joseph Kony is arrested somewhere in 2012. Let’s say that the African Union’s plan to send 5000 international troops to the area where the LRA and Joseph Kony are supposed to be located and were able to capture him. If that happens – then Invisible Children will have started a new paradigm of social activism – where an emotive documentary (which distorts facts to suit its purpose) is able to capture the hearts of the young to be more active in politics.

However, in my opinion, this will turn out to be a negative consequence. To be well informed, you have to take all sides of a particular issue and come to some conclusion. Take for instance, the issue of globalisation – it is excellent for us in terms of rapid, instant communication but we have seen that a housing crash could result in a tremendous economic issue in both Europe and in the United States. I’ll let you make your own opinions of globalisation.

(And yes, I am a politics nerd – especially global politics.)

And sadly, not everyone will be reading up on both sides of an issue. A simple Google search, or a link posted on Twitter and Facebook will be enough to satisfy our judgement on an issue. We can look at the very KONY 2012 video highlighting this very example on how fast our judgement has already been made up. It spread quickly from friend to friend to friend – all of them trusting that as if it were gospel.

But, as Foreign Policy noted (among other discrepancies):

It would be great to get rid of Kony.  He and his forces have left a path of abductions and mass murder in their wake for over 20 years.  But let’s get two things straight: 1) Joseph Kony is not in Uganda and hasn’t been for 6 years; 2) the LRA now numbers at most in the hundreds, and while it is still causing immense suffering, it is unclear how millions of well-meaning but misinformed people are going to help deal with the more complicated reality.

That’s the beauty of slacktivism. It doesn’t require much – like a video, retweet, donate money and get a T-shirt. It is perfect for a teenager and for an organisation like Invisible Children since it literally mean that you’ll get people committing for a few weeks, just enough to get your cause out there in the media. And they’ll not check it up online, or get the full understanding of fact. Your video is just enough fact for them.

If you think a teenager will read a website like Foreign Policy (unless they are total political nerds who spend every Monday night watching Q&A religiously), then think again. They’re more interested in One Direction, The Vampire Diaries or participating in muscle worship with Jersey Shore-like bodybuilders. Also, on that note, STOP DOING IT! I do not need my Facebook wall flooded with such crap that makes me question your sexuality.

Back on topic, we’ve examined what happens if Kony 2012 succeeds – but what happens if it fails?

I could say that people would feel heartbroken, no longer trusting any charity and simply be cynical to any cause. But that would be a lie.

Most likely, Invisible Children will be pushed out of the spotlight. The Kony issue will no longer be of great importance and everyone will feel indifferent. It no longer becomes a hotbed issue for the youth, unlike same-sex marriage or climate change. This also has a consequence in that, if Joseph Kony is eventually captured, killed or pronounced dead by natural causes, Invisible Children will get little credit or a passing mention.

Invisible Children should be congratulated for making a campaign that brings an issue up in the spotlight. But their rhetoric has put high expectations on itself to deliver – and realistically will not happen within the very short time frame they are trying to push.

On April 20, we will finally see if Invisible Children and the KONY 2012 campaign is sustainable enough to pressure governments. On that day, we will see if it has enough strength it has for the rest of 2012. If not, then all of this is just a moot point – it simply failed to be memorable, unlike other viral content on YouTube.

Image: Aih./Flickr (Creative Commons)

April 1. April Fools Day – a day where the internet comes together and confuse the heck out of you with fake news stories. But did you also know that April 1 is the site’s birthday? And today, we’re five. Yes, we’ve reached a milestone that many – even I – never thought we would see.

Suffice to say, the site has pretty much grown from being a simple linkblog to a site where we embrace opinion, write original content and delve in the world of gadgets and gaming. Nibbling at the edges of technology, I am proud of the work that the team – Stewart, Tom, Chris, Adrian, Ashton, Nicholas, Shane and Gabriel (plus our past and present contributors) – has done, and I do hope that we would celebrate the next five years.

Remembering The Past

Started on April 1 2007, the site was hosted on a hosting service called ScoreRight Services (they are closed now). A couple of months later, we soon moved to our present hosting provider HostMonster – and while it has been a stable relationship, it does have problems. And for those watching, we used to joke about the constant database failings – until it became no longer a joke and after much complaining, we soon moved to another server that wasn’t riddled with competing heavy-resource sites.

And after years with HostMonster, we plan to move again, but when is another question in the air. But thanks for being such a great host for these past five years.

I can remember the constant theme revisions, and the little in-fights the team and I have had during the past five years. I can also remember the great and not-so-great ideas that were offered back in the day – such as our podcast. Oh, what fun that was.

On the constant theme revisions – yeah, apologies if you woke up one day and found that the site became radically different in a short amount of time. I can remember in one year, TECHGEEK.com.au had about four different redesigns. I don’t know why, but it was because every blog I was introduced to, I began designing a new theme based on elements mixed in together from Engadget, CNET, CNN, The Age, etc.

Though now, hopefully, everything is now stable and this theme will last a lot longer than what other themes. What I like about this theme is that its slightly more flexible – meaning that I can create a post like What is SOPA/PIPA without any limitations on content. Each post theoretically can have their own styling – with a bit of CSS trickery – but doing that for every post would be weird.

Looking back on our previous themes – they were bad. Really bad. As a web designer – and the previous designer of all those themes – I am largely embarrassed that people had to see that. And now all of those themes are now going to the recycling bin.

And our expansion beyond the text?

We had our first dabble in podcasting back in 2008, but that lasted one episode because we never got around in restarting the show again. I initially suggested we do a podcast, but we never soon talked about it ever again. Until CES 2010, where Stewart had a great idea of starting a monthly podcast called The TECHGEEK Podcast. Again, that was left in the backburner after one episode (and you can see a worrying trend here) before we decided to restart it again in July. Again promised to be monthly, it quickly became weekly and then we added Chris, James and Tom onto the podcast. It has now been a weekly feature of our site – recorded Saturday, published Sunday as the podcast of irrelevance, tech commentary and arguments.

A nice way to round off the week in tech, eh?

Proving Them Wrong

When I launched the site, my friends – admittedly, they were right to do so – laughed at the fact that I had a website. If you didn’t noticed, I ran this site – content and all – during my secondary schooling. Our editors wrote this during their secondary schooling. In fact, it soon became common knowledge that I would wake up in ungodly hours, listen to a press conference from Apple (or Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo during E3), wait a bit for press shots and then write a quick report.

Yes, a high-school student running a tech blog.

I think they thought it wouldn’t last, it would become just a pet project that would soon collapse. Looking at today, that didn’t happen.

But for me, it was for me to prove myself wrong. I didn’t even think this site would last this long. I thought I would leave it and forget about it, abandon the site altogether. It didn’t help when I was constantly reminded by other students that I was the person running a website. The person who happened to decided to call their site “tech geek”. The person that happens to be a bit in too deep about technology and geek culture. But I persevered, laughed off their criticism and moved on. Continued writing, continued exploring the latest tech from around the world, and continued writing tips on how to use today’s technology.

It soon became that those very same students who then asked me questions like “When is the next iPod/iPhone/iPad/insert-any-gadget-here coming out?”.

I’m just happy that all the hard effort paid off.

Would I suggest another person, especially still in high school?

No. Focus on your schoolwork. Because I can tell you, it takes a lot of hard work – something that should probably not be balanced with academics (and, if you were like me, did Maths Methods and Specialists Maths for your VCE)

So don’t do it.

Don’t.

You’re going to do it, aren’t you?

Well, all I’ll say is good luck and hope to see you at a press event.

The Future

Of course, the future is video. I really envy those at LiveTech Australia since they manage to do some great stuff with video (we do some great stuff too, but we feel more comfortable between text and audio since its quick and simple). I also do envy sites like The Verge, Engadget and CNET for the amount they push out. And with recent conversations, I do know for a fact that Tom and Chris really, really love The Verge’s video – including On The Verge with all of its glitzy production values.

And while we love to have the same glitzy values – we obviously don’t have that size of budget.

As well, I do see TECHGEEK.com.au as a place for analysis and opinion more than simple reporting of the tech news. I think based on the previous articles, I like the analysis pieces about SOPA/PIPA, or the Chris’ little rants on Windows Phone 7. So, expect to see more of that content in the near future – and you can usually find them under the “Newsroom” tab.

But other than that, our future is up in the air. That’s not a bad thing – it’s not like we are shutting down. The future of TECHGEEK.com.au can change at any moment, and I’ll be ready for any challenges along the way.

Being Thankful

There are a few people that I have to thank.

Our partnership with AlfaHosts (Disclosure: Stewart owns) has been a fruitful one. Without them, we couldn’t have done the podcast. They host our files for the podcast (and handle the little complaining during our CDN crash in January 2012), and we are thankful for them.

I’ve also got to thank the many bloggers, journalists and other tech commentators that I have met – directly or indirectly – for being such an inspiration for me starting this site. I enjoy what you guys do, and always aspire to propel my own work to a level of quality like yours.

I am also thankful to the many writers, contributors and guests on the TECHGEEK Weekly Podcast. Without them, we wouldn’t have any content – and have an insight to some of their opinions. I especially thank Stewart Wilson for being a great friend and helping push TECHGEEK.com.au beyond text, despite me being a bit skeptical.

Finally, I have to thank you – the reader. Without you guys, we wouldn’t know our rights and wrongs nor we wouldn’t have an audience. So, again, thank you very much.

Oh, and this was written on SkyDrive. Take that Chris.

Apple has today claimed that Australia’s 3G networks are actually 4G networks if compared to international standards, and that our carriers have simply mislabelled them. And while we may ponder what was in their lawyer’s head when he made that statement, the 4G issue is, well, really complicated.

First, let’s explore what each carrier uses. At a base level, all carriers support UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) as their 3G standard. That standard is not deemed by the International Telecommunications Union – the peak international body – to be a 4G standard.

Telstra has also implemented the HSPA+ standard in some of its towers – and here is where we get to the tricky part.

HSPA+ is not officially recognised by the ITU as a 4G standard – so, win for the ACCC.

However, the ITU has pretty much opened up the definition of what 4G (all for the ‘sake of the consumer’) which allows carriers to promote it as a 4G network – like AT&T.

Saying in a statement:

As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as “4G”, although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed.

Translation: HSPA+, LTE and WiMax are allowed to be promoted as ’4G’ despite the fact that the ITU will not recognise them as such.

But, wait? LTE and WiMax? Aren’t they 4G standards?

Well, no. The official definition of 4G, as set out by the ITU themselves, basically ruled out LTE and WiMax as ‘official’ 4G standards. This was because they did not meet the peak speed requirements of 1 gigabit/second speeds for “low mobility communication” (or, in other words, the speed you get if you were standing on the sidewalk and sending a simple Twitter message).

And the ITU was pretty strict on its definition on what should be called 4G, until it realised that every mobile operator – especially with Verizon, AT&T and Sprint – and every mobile phone manufacturer was going to ignore it for ‘marketing’. And hence, the much looser definition – meaning that the mobile operators can market LTE, HSPA+ and WiMax as a 4G network, despite the fact that the ITU will simply ignore it.

This also means that Telstra has essentially lied. Their 4G network running on LTE is not in fact a 4G network. Under the original ITU definition, this would simply be an addition to its 3G network. Thanks to the ITU’s looser definition, it can market LTE as a 4G network.

But what is a 4G standard under the ITU? Well, there are two standards that have been recognised as an official standard: LTE Advanced and IEEE 802.16m. These are basically more compliant versions of LTE and WiMax; but neither standard is expected to be commercially deployed for several more years.

Until true 4G is deployed, we’re stuck with this marketing fallacy.

Image: Droid Life

Firefox on Android - and it'll soon come with H.264 support (Image: Mozilla EU/Flickr (Creative Commons))

In recent days, the tech community has been buzzing around about the fact that Mozilla has decided to relent on its open web stance and will implement H.264 on mobile devices and – although unconfirmed – speculation hints that it will soon be included in the desktop version. But why is this such a big deal? It’s just some stupid technical thing.

Oh, how wrong you are. But, let us get some background information of the issue.

What is <video> and <audio>?

Put simply, they are just normal HTML elements like <div>, <strong>, <object> and <iframe> (the latter two more commonly known as adding YouTube videos onto, let’s say, a blog post). However, they would allow a video or an audio file to play without the need of some Flash or plug-in. You would be able to control the video or audio via the browser’s default player, or – if you were competent – make your own player using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Essentially, they make it easier to place audio or video onto a page without downloading some Flash player from the web, or making one from scratch.

They were introduced as part of an overall refresh of the HTML specification. Known as HTML5, it will be the fifth time that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has updated the language. It should be pointed out that HTML5 is still a draft with many people adding their voices to what should be added and removed. And to this day, features are constantly changing

But, if it is a draft, why is this now being implemented?

Well, you have to thank Steve Jobs.

Because the fact the iPhone did not support Flash, the most popular (and much hyped) smartphone couldn’t play video from many sources except via YouTube. In response to much criticism, Jobs offered the alternative – HTML5. And just like that, the <audio> and <video> tags were quickly used to let users play such content.

“Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash),” Jobs wrote in an open letter in 2010.

“HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.”

The file format question

Well originally, the HTML5 specifications called on the use of the open-source Ogg file formats (Theora for video and Vorbis for audio). They were chosen because they were royalty-free, open and not affected by the complex mishmash of patent law. However, Apple had an issue with it, claiming that there could be unknown patents that might affect its implementation.

This actually has happened before – with the GIF file format. Widely used because CompuServe released it as a free and open format, the technique to compress the images was actually patented – but no one, even those from CompuServe, was aware of it. The company who held it, Unisys, decided to get royalties from it. And they were successful, with a deal signed that saw developers being charged a fee to use GIF.

Yes, you were going to be charged a royalty to use a stupid GIF image. The patents have now since expired; though, without this fiasco, we wouldn’t have the much more open PNG image standard.

Back to the file format question, after constant bickering between the major browsers, the W3C basically gave up.

“After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for <video> and <audio> in HTML5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship,” Ian Hickson, the author of the HTML5 specification, wrote in a newsgroup.

“I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined, as has in the past been done with other features like <img> and image formats, <embed> and plugin APIs, or Web fonts and font formats.”

In other words, you can embed whatever video and audio file you want – like you can embed a JPG or even a TIFF image (the latter depending on the browser) to a web page.

Problem? What problem?

The browsers have split in terms of their support. In terms of <video>: Google, Mozilla and Opera are backing WebM; while Internet Explorer and Safari are backing H.264. It should also be noted that Google owns WebM and after acquiring the company who held the patents decided to make it royalty-free. They have also publicly stated that they will drop H.264.

That, however, was made in January 2011 – and now we’re in March 2012. It appears that Google will never dump it.

H.264 will most likely be the victor in this format war – and Firefox has already conceded that point. Not because of quality – both are arguably the same – but because of market support. H.264 is used everywhere. If you watch a video on services such as Vimeo or YouTube, the video is encoded into H.264. If you record footage using a camera – even on a camera phone – then the footage is in encoded into H.264.

But why are Mozilla and Opera refusing to support H.264? Well, it is mainly the patents. Basically, they cannot afford to pay for such licenses since they don’t have the same amount of money as Microsoft, Apple and Google.

Then we have the <audio> file formats problem – not all browsers support the same file format. IE, Chrome and Safari all support MP3 and AAC. And again, we have the same issues presented in <video>. Since AAC and MP3 are patented, Mozilla and Opera have opted to use the royalty-free alternative – Ogg Theora.

MP3, in particular, has a really complicated patent licensing arrangement – mainly because there are so many bodies who claim ownership. One case in particular – the Alcatel-Lucent vs Microsoft case – highlighted the mess with Microsoft saying it already has paid royalties to Fraunhofer IIS to use the MP3 patents. It eventually lost the battle, after Microsoft appealed a decision to award US$1.52 billion to Acatel-Lucent.

Firefox relents?

Image: Adriano Gasparri/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Mozilla has always advocated for a more standardised, and more open web. But by supporting H.264 goes against all of its principles. It hasn’t made the move lightly, but in a pragmatic sense, it is understandable.

Apple has basically transformed H.264 as the semi-official standard for video on the web in the mobile realm. Even Android has been forced to support H.264 in 3.0 Honeycomb (it implemented WebM in Gingerbread). And for Firefox, it is embarrassing for a browser to not support the most dominant standard out there – with new figures highlight that 80% of all video coming through HTML5 are encoded using H.264.

Image by: MeFeedia

“What I do know for certain is this: H.264 is absolutely required right now to compete on mobile. I do not believe that we can reject H.264 content in Firefox on Android or in B2G and survive the shift to mobile,” Mozilla’s CTO Brendan Eich wrote in a blog post.

And Eich is right. With people moving to mobile to consume more and more online content, it is impossible for a browser to not support a format that has become a de-facto web standard. Of course, Firefox has made this clear that for now it is absolutely necessary for mobile devices – especially since of one thing.

Adobe is no longer developing Flash for mobile devices.

Flash has always been Mozilla’s get-out clause to stream AAC, MP3 and H.264 video without downloading the file. Even HTML5-built websites cannot ignore Flash, because of cross-browser support. For example, JB Hi Fi Now supports HTML5 audio playback – but not for me on a Firefox browser, because it streams MP3 files via the <audio> element. Instead, a Flash Player is doing what Firefox can’t.

Flash, as much as it pains people in the open web to hear, is Firefox’s saviour in this huge debacle of file formats.

Another question that should be asked is that, if H.264 is supported (even if its just mobile) is there some expectation that Mozilla also support MP3 and AAC? They, like H.264, are heavily supported in the market unlike Ogg Theora. As mentioned before, they are patented – and MP3 itself is entrenched with licensing issues.

Should Mozilla suck it up and implement it, despite its commitment for an open web?

That’s a question that its developers, contributors and supporters will have to ask themselves. They can either choose to stick to their principles, or make the web more usable for web developers and users by having formats that have both market support and a majority of its rivals (sans Opera) support.

WebM has been a nice distraction, but it is time for Mozilla to choose.

Image: Shaun Greiner/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The House of Representatives have passed the R18+ classification amendment for video games, meaning that the law reaches its final hurdle – passing the Senate. However, as seen by the support in the House, then it will most likely pass without any hitches.

All political parities – including the Coalition – voted in favour for the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Ammendment (R18+ Computer Games) Bill 2012 this evening, after the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs unanimously supported the bill. A Senate Committee is due to publish its report on Wednesday on whether it will also support the bill.

Currently, video game classification is limited to MA15+ – so anything above that automatically gets a “RC” rating, or Refused Classification. Any form of media, such as video games and DVDs, that receive that rating cannot be legally sold in Australia. Australia is the only country in the Western world that does not have an adults-only classification for video games, and the bill’s passage to law will rectify that.

If passed in the Senate, then Australians will have to wait until the start of 2013 for it to become active. It is unknown whether games previously banned will be released in Australia, such as Mortal Kombat and Syndicate – despite it already being passed.

The full bill can be found below.

CEO Tim Cook has announced today there will be a brand new iPad at its press conference today. The new product will have the long awaited 264ppi Retina Display and 4G LTE support – so pretty much, the big things everyone wanted.

It’s actually called ‘the new iPad’. No fancy names, no numbers and no HD suffix. It’s just called ‘the new iPad’. Let’s call it the iPad 3.

In addition, the new version will include a new A5X processor that is meant to handle the Retina Display, and will support quad-core graphics. The tablet will also feature a 5-megapixel rear camera and will have the same features as what you see on the iPhone 4S; and voice dictation – just no confirmation on Siri.

LTE will give the iPad 3 a theoretical download speed of 73Mbps, meaning it’s really really fast. No word on whether Australians will support the 4G feature on Telstra or Optus (after their buyout of Vividwireless), but everyone will be keeping an eye on it despite not being listed as a partner. In North America, there will be two versions – one to support the LTE implementation on AT&T and the other with Verizon.

The iPad 3 is still 3G capable, and will support DC-HSDPA and HSPA+ – all faster than typical 3G speeds. This will mean that a worldwide audience is not left out of this announcement. It will also have 10 hours of battery life – in comparsion, the LTE version will have 9 hours.

It will come out on March 16 – so, next Friday (quick turnaround time) – in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia; with more on March 23. Pricing points will be the same – with US$499 for 16GB, US$599 for 32GB and US$699 for 64GB with Wi-Fi only; and a bit more for 3G or 4G support.

In Australia – the pricing plans are: $539 for 16GB, $649 for 32GB and $759 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi+4G model will cost $679 for 16GB, $789 for 32GB and $899 for 64GB.

Pre-orders are being accepted today – if you can get to the site.

The Apple TV is getting a bit of an upgrade with support for full 1080p High Definition support and a brand new user interface that makes it easier – apparently, according to Apple – to access purchased content and stuff from iCloud and iTunes Match from the small device.

The push for 1080p will mean that all iTunes movies and TV shows, Netflix streaming (only in the US) and Vimeo content can be viewed in this resolution. So, if you have a sufficient-enough internet connection, then feel free.

The new Apple TV with 1080p will be sold at the same price as before on March 16. Those already owning the 720p version – the one on sale as of now – will be able to upgrade to the new user interface for free today. If you have a much older version, then you are out of luck and it should be time to upgrade.

Original Post – by Chris Southcott

A new Apple TV with 1080p, a new UI and iOS-style looks? Very shiny. More details as they come.

Read the liveblog and we’ll update this post later!