South Korea: Bot… and get Jailed IRL?
Botting is one of the most infamous and deplorable issues that has plagued the online gaming industry. This is one of the primary factors that brings down MMORPG’s because it takes away the essence of fair play and disrupts the natural game balance that the developers intended. This was officially recognized by the South Korean government in their recent online game development symposium. Here’s a quick excerpt from the article posted on MMOSITE:
At the symposium, Ryu In-Chun said that bot is a type of product which infringes the copyright of others, and the South Korean government will formulate relevant laws and policies to prevent bots. He also said the government is making an amendment to Game Law. Once it is approved, people can tackle the problem by legal means. In addition, he said if enterprises put forward any good methods to eliminate bots, the government will respond proactively.
More on this after the jump.
So are bots illegal? If we will take a look at how the courts decided in Blizzard’s case versus the World of Warcraft Glider Bot, then the answer would be yes. Blizzard successfully sued the creators of the bot.
That’s the best way to stop 3rd Party Programs, hit them at the source - the developers of the cheats and hacks. I know the title of my post is “Bot and Get Jailed”, but I just did that to get your attention, hehe. The real title should be “Develop Bots and Get Jailed”.
Now the real question is why is this a good thing for us and how does this relate to the Philippine Online Gaming Industry?
Unlike South Korea, we have no government body that supports and overlooks online gaming. Also note that in the Philippines there are mostly game publishers and not developers. This means that our powers to combat problems like this are very limited, and we don’t have the power or the resources to go after the developers of 3rd Party Programs. If the law in South Korea is passed, then our developers will have the legal right to sue developers of cheats for their games.
I am really looking forward to this and I hope that it’s actualized sometime soon.
Tags: MMORPG-Bot, WoW-Bot
Nokia N97: Whazzaaap iPhone and Xperia!
Oh-kaaay! Just when I thought I was going with Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1, Jerome leaves a comment pointing to Nokia’s latest smart phone unit - the Nokia N97. After going through the specs and seeing the design… it’s official. This is my new dream phone, and I no longer give a damn about the iPhone or the Xperia X1. The Nokia N97 has all the functions that I want for a phone and it looks just as nice (if not better) compared to the Xperia and the iPhone. Specs after the jump.
- Dimensions 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9-18.3 mm
- Weight 150 g
- TFT touchscreen, 16M colors 360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Full QWERTY keyboard
- Handwriting recognition
- microSD which is up to 16GB
- 32 GB internal memory
- HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
- Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
- Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5
- 5 Megapixel, Carl Zeiss optics with autofocus <— YES!!!
- video(VGA@30fps), flash; secondary videocall camera
- Built-in GPS receiver
- A-GPS support
What was my complaint with all the phones that I’ve reviewed so far? The fact that all the phones being offered by Sony Ericsson and Apple had only 2 - 3.2 MP Cameras. I’m a heavy user of the media functions of phones because of this blog so I really need a 5 MP Camera on my unit. That’s the main reason why I use a Nokia N95 right now. If you check the specs, the Nokia N97 will also have a 5 MP Camera - something that the Xperia X1 doesn’t have. This will also be one of the first Nokia phones to have a Touch Screen interface so I’m kinda curious how this will work out. By the way, the 32GB Memory is a huge,fat, and delicious bonus.
How much? According to various sites, this phone is cheaper than the Xperia. There is no confirmed Philippine price yet (if you know, please leave a comment) but various sources say that this will be sold at around P35,000 - P39,000.
iPhone 3G vs Xperia vs N97? N97 HANDS DOWN BABEH! Good job Nokia!
iPhone 3G, Nokia N97, Phones, Sony Ericsson Xperia Read more
Lenovo Laptop Theft Protection: Self Destruct Mode (LOL)
Yesterday I made a post about how laptop theft is starting to become a very lucrative crime here in the Philippines. Basically thieves smash the windows of cars and grabs whatever they can find inside the automobile. This happens almost 3 times a week in Katipunan alone. Whistler left a comment on that post pointing to another blog entry talking about the latest security feature of Lenovo (IBM Laptops). You can actually use your mobile phone to permanenty disable your stolen laptop! More details after the jump.
In the next couple months Lenovo will be rolling out a BIOS update for its Montevina laptop users which enables remote shutdown and subsequent encryption via text message. The tech relies on the laptop having a WWAN connection and activates when a custom string, defined by the user and sent from a single, paired phone, is received. In other words, you can choose whatever you want as the shutdown signal, from a cool “Kill” or “Self-Destruct” to a long, patronizing multi-part message about the thieving youth of today.
Constant Secure Remote Disable, as it’s called, isn’t being touted as a first line of defense. In fact, quite the opposite: “This is kind of like a morning-after pill, I guess” said Stacy Cannady, Lenovo’s product manager for security and apparently the only person at Lenovo to miss the company-wide memo about not using awkward reproductive metaphors in PR. The update will be available as a free download for compatible laptops in the next few months. [Crave]
Source: Gizmodo
Reminds me of Mission Impossible. “This blah will self destruct in 15 seconds.”
Tags: Laptop-Theft, Gadgets
Sony Ericsson Xperia: I want.
I’ve been wanting the iPhone for several months now but my craving finally died down when I saw the latest phone being offered by Sony Ericsson. The SE Xperia X1 is a mix of both style and function and while it doesn’t have Nokia N95’s 5 Mega Pixel camera, it’s definitely 300% more sezzier. Product specs and my initial impressions on this gadget after the jump.
Here are the specs and price as published on the Pinoy Tech Blog:
# Nine customisable desktop panels
# A stylish arc slider design and premium metal casing
# Intuitive touch screen interface
# DVD-quality video playback
# Full QWERTY keyboard
# 3” Wide VGA display
# Integrated 3.2 megapixel camera
# Push Email
# 3G and WiFi Connectivity
# Windows Mobile 6.1 inside
The unit will sell for P42,500. Yawza. Kinda expensive! It actually costs more than Apple’s iPhone 3G. Personally… I find this to be my new dream phone. It has better features than the iPhone and it actually looks better! This is just my personal opinon though - I know a lot of people here are Apple fanatics, haha!
Anyway, Yuga wrote a full length review on this phone. You might want to go to his blog and read it.
Tags: Sony-Ericsson, Xperia-X1
Internet the New Mainstream Entertainment?
According to a study conducted in the United States by Magid Associates, consumers under 35 years old are shifting from TV to the internet for their leisure time and entertainment. In the study, 92% of all internet users use the internet at least once weekly for entertainment purposes. This is a mix of surfing, online gaming, e-mail, and other activities on the web. Because of this, around 35% of them end up watching less TV. This is the scenario in the United States, how about the Philippines? My thoughts after the jump. By the way, feel free to leave a comment and discuss.
“Many consumers are reporting that new media is cannibalizing their viewing of TV. This self-reported reduction of TV viewing is across a broad range of Internet users, including those who watch online video, use social networks, and otherwise use their PCs for entertainment,” according to the analyst. Online gaming is another entertainment favorite, he suggested.
I will agree that the internet is grabbing a lot of time from existing internet users. I myself rarely watch TV anymore since I would rather download stuff and watch them on my own time or just surf Youtube for random videos. I also still play a lot of online games like Grand Chase so that also takes up a significant amount of time that I would have normally used in watching TV. In fact, one habit I have is I like to have multiple episodes to stack first so I can just watch them all in one sitting as opposed to watching one episode per week.
However, I don’t think it’s one the same level or scale as the US. The internet infrastructure here in the Philippines still needs a lot of improvement. While the quality is something that is up for debate, it’s good to note that SMART, PLDT, and all the other telcos have been pushing aggressively to give affordable and convenient internet access to the Filipino consumer.
How about you guys? Has internet usage taken time away from TV?
Advergaming, Internet Marketing Read more
Nokia E63: Affordable Executive Phone?
I’m currently using a Nokia N95 8GB phone. The unit is really functional and I use it a lot since I take a lot of videos and pictures with it. This is evident with my Flickr photo gallery and my own Youtube channel. When Nokia released the E71, I was really tempted to get one but it was too pricey. It’s not really a media phone but it really looked nice and the features were more for businessmen and working people. It was a mini-PDA turned phone and I’ve been itching to get something like that for sometime now. However, it was too expensive. It’s a good thing though that Nokia noticed this and did something about it! The new Nokia E63 is very much like that E71 but it’s more affordable at only P13,000-P15,000. Phone features after the jump.
* HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
* 2.36 inches screen (320×240 pixels)
* 110 MB internal memory
* 128 MB SDRAM Memory
* ~2MP camera
* ARM 11 369 MHz processor
* WiFi 802.11 b/g
* Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP
* Full QWERTY keyboard
Not bad if you ask me. The memory needs some upgrading but then again you won’t really use this phone for pictures and video captures. I hope that this unit lives up to the Nokia brand and it won’t hang every now and then like the units being offered by Samsung.
New iPod Touch and the 4th Generation iPod Nano
Apple unveiled the new iPod Touch and the 4th Generation iPod Nano in their latest Keynote speech this September. This makes you wonder how frequent we’ll see changes for the iPod. Owners of the 3rd Generation iPod Nano will definitely feel bad with the release of the 4th Generation iPod Nano so soon. The same can probably be said for all the iPod Touch owners out there. This is the same problem with mobile phones - Nokia, Sony, and other mobile phone developers keep releasing new versions almost every quarter, rendering the previous version er… “old”. Anyway, I’m not planning on buying any of the new iPods since the old one is still working… and I can’t afford to keep on splurging on all of these gadgets quarterly.
More information on the new Nano and iTouch after the jump!
The new iPod Nano’s design is no longer similar to the 3rd Generation model. It’s actually reminicient of the 2nd Generation model but definitely slimmer and packed with more features. The most noticeable feature here is the Genius function wherein the iPod will get all songs similar to the one you’re listening to and put them in one playlist. It’s like a personal DJ of sorts. The song selection is probably based on beat counting.
Other than that, there’s nothing really extraordinary that can blow you away… well there’s games but I really don’t think it will be a major thing.
Apple has announced the new iPod Touch. The new iPod looks like a thinner version of the iPhone and has the same user interface. It boasts the same design as the iPhone, the same interface, and Wi-Fi support, but with a a reduced price tag and increased storage capacity. For $299, the cheapest iPod touch packs 8GB of flash memory, while the pricier $399 model delivers 16GB. Both models are on track to ship this month, and they’ll offer one perk not yet available to iPhone users: the ability to purchase music from iTunes via Wi-Fi straight from the device.
Next up is the new video iPod, which Apple has dubbed the iPod classic. This model sports a look similar to that of its fifth-generation predecessor, but it offers storage capacities of 80GB and 160GB for the same $249 and $349 price tags as the previous 30GB and 60GB variants. Better yet is the classic’s battery life, which clocks in at 40 hours for audio and seven hours for video, according to Steve Jobs. Last, but not least, is the new iPod nano. The new nano sports a wider enclosure to make room for a 2″ 320×240 screen, and its capacity has gone up to 4GB for the $149 model and 8GB for the $199 one. Like the iPod classic, the new nano also boasts a redesigned user interface with the same “cover flow” feature as the iPhone.
Along with introducing new iPods, Apple has slashed the price of its flagship 8GB iPhone from $599 to a much more reasonable $399. The company is also doing away with the 4GB iPhone model, which previously sold for $499
Hmmm… things keep getting better and more expensive. Hopefully I can resist the temptation to blow my salary on stuff like this, hahaha!
4th gen iPod nano, new iTouch Read more
Blaze Multimedia Converter Software
One of my frustrations in blogging is getting and converting multimedia content like videos and audio tracks. One of Waukster Online’s sponsors, Blaze Multimedia Software, offers that service and I decided to accept the review since it’s actually something that I know most of us here can appreciate. Blade Media Pro is basically a multimedia software application that can do almost anything for video and audio. It’s a video encoder, audio converter, and MOV converter all rolled into one product.
More information after the jump!
Blaze Media Pro does conversion, ripping, editing, recording, burning, playback, and tons more of other stuff. It supports VCD, SVCD, and DVD burning - Blue Ray not yet included (LOL). One of the cool features is that it also does video capture, creation, combining, extraction and take note of this - VIDEO EDITING. The UI is actually very user friendly and I’m sure people can get the hang of it in a few minutes. Another advanced feature is lyrics search and audio tag editing - which is already very high tech if you ask me. That’s something that’s rarely heard of.
The following formats are supported for audio conversion:
CD, MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, MPEG-4, AIFF, M4A, AAC, AC3, FLAC, and ALAC, and two-way conversions among MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, WMV, ASF, Flash (SWF and FLV), iPod, PSP, 3GP, and MOV are available for video. MPEG options are available for VCD, SVCD, and DVD compliant output. DVD ripping, and audio compression functionality are also present. When converting from audio CD, track information can be dynamically downloaded from the CDDB and used to automatically name saved files.
Options for video editing are as follows:
Video editing is available for AVI (uncompressed), AVI (compressed using any available codec), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV, and ASF. Comprehensive video editing operations are provided (delete frame, delete selection, crop, resize, rotate, mirror, flip, trim, text overlay, adjust audio volume, etc.). In addition, an extensive list of over 30 effects and color adjustment operations allow for powerful video enhancement and alternation. WAV, WMA, and MP3 audio files can be inserted into the video or extracted from the video; and BMP, GIF, JPG, PCX, PNG, RAS, PPM, TGA, and TIF are the supported image formats that can be inserted or extracted.
Anyway, just visit their site for more information on their product. Cheers and have a nice weekend guys!
Audio Converter, MOV Converter, Video Encoder Read more
Toyota Limited Edition VIOS
Several months ago, I was torn between the Toyota VIOS and the Honda City. In the end, I chose the Honda City and I’ve never looked back since. However, this version of the Toyota VIOS caught my attention during the recently concluded Philippine International Motor Show last weekend. The new Toyota VIOS XX Edition is a special version of the best selling car of Toyota. There are only 800 units that will produced and they’ll only be sold until December 2008.
What separates the Limited Edition to the ones that are out in the market now? Find out after the jump.
The introduction of the Vios LE model this month will not only mark the Vios’ sales achievements, but also Toyota’s 20-year heritage of leadership. The Vios LE, available in 1.5 Automatic and Manual transmissions, shall have a sportier, more youthful design and specifications. Enhanced exterior features include HID headlamps, 17 inch alloy wheels and rear spoiler marked with the 20th Anniversary XX limited edition badge. Interior entertainment is intensified with upgraded premium 6-speaker audio with amplifier and Ipod interface.
-Source: Manila Bulletin
The Automatic Transmission Model will be sold at P785,000 while the Manual version will be sold at P750,000.
Toyota Vios Limited Edition Read more
2nd Philippine International Motor Show Pictures
The 2nd Philippine International Motor Show was held last week at the World Trade Center. The main theme was promoting cars with alternative energy sources, especially Hybrid Cars. I took a lot of photos of the cars that I found interesting like this Audi R8 which probably costs millions of pesos. I think this is the closest I will get to a car like this - hahaha! There are several pictures of other luxury cars as well - especially the new models of BMW. If there’s one thing common about the new cars, they’re all modern looking and kinda… pricey. ^^;
AUDI R8
Check out selected pictures of the event after the jump.
Here are several pictures of the new BMW models:
BMW Z4 COUPE
BMW 120i
BMW X6 xDrive30d
Here’s something new from General Motors:
OPTRA CNG
General Motors also introduced a new version of the OPTRA using CNG as fuel. It’s supposedly safer than LPG but it also costs the same. I was able to get a quick video interview of the manager on standby and he was kind enough to answer all of my questions as well as show me the new tank which is fitted at the back of the OPTRA. Here’s the interview:
INTERVIEW OF GENERAL MOTORS MANAGER ON ALTERNATIVE FUEL CARS
I won’t bother posting about Honda because I already made a separate post for the new Jazz and I’m coming up with one more post about Toyota’s new limited edition VIOS. Cheers everyone!
