Philip Khor

Enjoy!

—> Visit my playlist

This is a technology warning for non-geeks, a common Marketing gimmick to sell you the latest and greatest phones, digital cameras and video recorders.

What is 720p, 1080p HD?

The iPhone 4 has 720p video recording. The ipad 2 and iPod touch also has 720p video recording. How do you dicern the two and decide which is better (or is there a difference, at all?)

video sizes

As you can see, 720p doesn’t say anything at all about quality. It is just a predefine set of resolution, in this case 1280 pixels wide against 720 pixels high. Most computers have been HD for almost a decade. I remember big ass 21″ CRT computer monitors boasting 1600 x 1200 pixels (4:3 ratio) which technically is HD back in pre-year 2000.
So I took the liberty to record a sample 30 sec clip of the differences of video quality of the iPad 2 rear camera (rated at 720p) and the iPhone 4 (still pictures at 5 MP, video at 720p). See the difference for yourself, comment, and let’s discuss quality .

I just did some research.

10-20 years ago, 21″ CRT tube monitors had a typical resolution of 1600 x 1200 (low end) or.. 2048 x 1536 (high end professional).

Those huge monsters easily weighs 40 pounds (~20kg). If the rumours are true, the iPad 3 in March will have a resolution of 2048 x 1536 “Retina display”. It’s amazing how far we’ve come!

Remember a post back in 2010 – http://philipkhor.com/i-dream/2010/synthesizer-galore/

Well, my dream is now a reality!

Now I have something fun to do during the weekends — living my childhood dream of making music, without the need to practice scales, and chopsticks and whatnot routines…

Footage of my New Year 2012

Rationale for Celcom’s iPhone Data allocation is quite puzzling!

celcom iphone data

I have quite shallow understanding of pricing in terms of Marketing but here are my thoughts:

For the i68 plan, why offer 800 MB of data when Digi and Maxis are offering 1GB?

Of the three comparison tables, it looks like the winner for the most CONFUSING table of information goes to Celcom!

Celcom appeals to a certain demographics, which is quite facinated when they’re presented with ALL the information. Ok, I might be overstereotyping here, but think about it. It is usually the manager and business people who love factsheets before they buy.

I’d say Maxis plans are the most cunning. Pinch penny users go for Digi naturally because of their lower numbers, but if you consider living out your entire 12 or 24 month contract with a carrier, it is neck-and-neck between Digi and Maxis. As a Digi user myself, I’d give Maxis a shot if I were to re-commit to another smartphone contract. Digi just plain suck. The network sucks — data is unavailable all the time.

Back to the original argument, why does Celcom offer 800 MB?

The answer (I speculate) is that … their demographics would think 800 MB is greater than 1 GB.

And guess what, people will ask this to their sales people when buying the phone “Eh, why Maxis one gee-bee, and Siau-com got 800 emm-bee?!” More opportunity for sales people to confuse, make a pitch and close the deal.

Smart move, Celcom. Hats off.

Links to iphone page: Celcom | Maxis | Digi

14 months 15 days — that is how long I had my iPhone 4 in Malaysia before the new one is publicly available.

Rumour has it that the 4S is being released on Friday 16 December 2011. I got my black iPhone 4 on 2 October 2010. So that’s just about right.

I reckon if you bought yours on launch day MALAYSIA, chances are the iPhone 5 will be announced July 2012 available somewhere Sept/Oct 2012 — just about time when my subsidized 2 year contract with DiGi ends.

love it!

As part of my postcrossing.com  project, I wrote a card to Italy, this guy living near AS Roma’s base about our passion for Football!!

writing to italy

I was browsing through this forum post where people were complaining of Maxis’ infamous product BillShock(tm)!!

After you finish your 500 MB monthly quota, you will be charged RM 10 per megabyte under 10 year old rates (remember GPRS?) So confirm in no time you’ll touch your maximum RM 250/month on top of what you normally pay for your phone bills.

At Digi, they just throttle you to 128kbit/s which is usable for almost everything (except YouTube) and no extra charge.

To demonstrate this phenomena, check out my bills for the past 4 months!

Cost — Billing Date

- 78.41 12-10-2010
6.46     12-11-2010
- 1.74     12-12-2010
- 3.21     12-01-2011

It has all been in the negative. I’m on the iDigi 88 plan with super duper promotion with the iPhone bundle. There’s some roll-over credit remaining on Digi!

Shelling out my Calc.exe , if you assume it’s rm 88 for phone bill (+5% tax), my iPhone purchasing cost would be RM 1450 in zero installment plan.

I think I got an awesome deal. Back in my Sony Ericsson k850 days, I paid RM 88 for Data on top of a RM 50 commitment plan. And the iPhone experience has been quite awesome (sans the reception issues in certain areas)!

My Data usage for December was 2GB. Oct / Nov was just tipped over 1+GB. No BillShock for me!

On a sidenote, I am happy and overjoyed to have contributed to this statistic:

Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached a record 16.24 million, up 86 percent from the year-ago quarter

I’m looking through the sales video pitch by Apple for their iPhone models through time. The genius in this respect is Steve Jobs himself. Yes, there are great engineers and designers working for him, but the final product decisions ultimately gets decided by Steve.

It started in 2007 with the first one. It was new, it was the only “one of the kind” out there. 3 devices in 1 was the marketing pitch. “Phone, iPod, Internet Browser”. 3 things that a gadget person would like. No non-sense product specs on Bluetooth, SD Card slot or technical jargons. Just plain English. Phone, Music Player, Internet browser, no buttons, touch screen, fun.

2008 – iPhone 3G. Started with a major software update for iOS. Steve shows a demo downloading an e-mail attachment. EDGE (18 sec), 3G (5 sec), WiFi (3 sec). Instant sale with words like “up to 3.6 X faster”. Thinner at the edge, dramatically improved Audio, feels better in your hands, better battery life and added GPS capability and a super cheap price of US$199 (RM 650!) Released in 22 countries, so that is amazing. More buzz in more parts of the world.

2009 – iPhone 3GS. Steve was on a sick leave. Phil Shiller presented. Boring. Emphasis on “Fast, Speed”. Run SunSpider benchmark, 2-3 x faster in opening common Apps. Added 3G HSDPA, so.. theoretically faster. Camera is nicer 3mpx autofocus, high emphasized. Video recording.

2010 – iPhone 4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1edQuxclUs I think it’s Steve Job’s best “show”. He is an entertainer!

I am convinced the next update will be forth-coming, and will be in some ways… minimal. iPad 2 is the one to look out for.

** 7 pm update, liigghtbullb! **

Kevin Rose said: “The reason why Facebook want to keep to under 500 share holders and don’t wanna go IPO yet… they don’t have to disclose financial information. They don’t want YOU to know how much money they’re making from Zynya (Farmville, Poker, social games).

Their latest investment Goldman Sachs of US$ 500 mln buffs up their valuation to the region of US$ 50 bln, and Zuckerberg to net US $ 7 bln in stock. Amazed? Well if people know that Zynga / social games are making over 60% of Facebook’s revenue (and not Advertisements as many people assume), then people will go “OMG” and poof, all the virtual billions in the world will evaporate.

Watch this week’s diggnation”

Today I took the traditional intercity train from BM to Ipoh, 3+ hours. It was painful.

Big images after the break
Read the rest of this entry »

Pip’s Theory of the Day:

“Blackberry and Android phone users spend more time on their devices than iPhone users”

Reasons:

1. BB/Android users are figuring it out how their device works. With so much publicity for the iPhone, everyone just knows how to access all the advanced features it offers. Good job with the promotion / advertising efforts!

BB users may be slightly “at ease”, after all, there are tonnes lying around in the business world, so I’m guessing the interface is pretty organised. Android pride themselves for being “open”, which also means there are 100 variants of the Android Operating system on 200 over devices! On the other side of the coin, there are only 4 models of iPhones (barring capacity and colour differences) and 3 of them have the same screen resolution!

Of course, I’m borrowing Steve Job’s widely publicised arguments of “Open vs Closed systems” and reading off Apple’s brochures trumpeting “ease of use, user friendliness, easy to learn, fun to use, etc.” Hey, but it’s true!

2. Showing it off. This might be a negative for the iPhone users.

I think the glamour for iPhones have died down somewhat in Malaysia. Elsewhere, it’s still pretty hip. I personally feel Android / BB users are more proud of their devices, and for good reason. Being the “rebel against the mainstream” has traditionally been hip. Say, 10 years ago if you used a Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.0 you’re the rebel. Windows XP was the standard, gold standard to many.

I see the situation to be somewhat similar here.

3. iPhones get the same things done in a Shorter time. This will be controversial and debatable. Mind you, my previous phone was a Sony Ericsson k850i (the 5 megapixel shooter) so you have to understand my perspective.

I feel the iOS 4 and the Software interfaces for Facebook, Tweetdeck, FourSquare, Safari, iTunes, Notes, Camera, Video Camera, Phonebook and SMS… everything is so simplified and minimalistic. The powerful functions are all easily accessible. Apple has a tradition of locking the user out of the geeky “under the hood” toys. You can’t dig deep into the system to modify wireless syncing, Tethering, more icons in home screen, etc (unless you jailbreak). Therefore you can argue iOS 4 is “locked & closed”.

Here’s a tweet from @saadkamal

this is awesome…my android phone’s Quadrant benchmark rating is now 2066.. which is 2.5 times higher than the stock!

If you have Android, chances are you’re a computer IT professional who lived in the days of Basic, COBOL or Manage a Unix system. Nothing wrong, just that it tends to be a smaller crowd of hardcore enthusiasts who spend more time with their gadgets.

In retrospect, I remember running 3D Mark 2005 to test out my graphic card performance against people posting on the internet forums. During my obsessive teenage years, I upgraded from a nVidia 6800 GS to a nVidia 7600 GS because it gave me 5 more frames per second in my need for speed game (that’s barely noticeable to almost everyone). AND I’M NOT A FREAKING GAMER sans Need For Speed!!!! Thinking back, how foolish I was with my money!

Android on the other hand, prides itself similar to Linux. You (or the handset manufacturers) can hack the shit out of the device to perform exactly the way you want. Google will not make the decision for you. They leave it up to your digression. You can customise the experience to suit your needs.

Unknown to the average user (I suspect, 90% of you…) hacking an Android phone requires skill, some technical know-hows. Chances are, you won’t have time, or be bothered to “exploit” all the open-ness Google is giving you. So with that, the argument that Androids are more “open” isn’t really a strong one. Most of the noise comes from the App Store approval process. Apple has to approve the apps and charge a 30% commission for putting it up on their site. Android marketplaces is a mess. Tonnes of clones, scattered all over the interwebs.

On the other hand, Apple makes the critical decisions about usability, so you don’t have to. Why earlier iPhones didn’t have 3G? A: Because the chips sucked too much battery. Why wasn’t there a front camera until now? A: Because the experience of video chat is terrible and would ruin the phone’s reputation. Why only 3 megapixel in the 3G / 3GS phones when everyone is already at 8 megapixels (*cough Samsung?) A: Well, it’s all about sensor size. Megapixel is as useful as Megahertz as a measure of performance.

Let the professionals determine what we need and what we don’t need! That’s what they’re paid for, right? Hahaha…

[geek alert] Is Pentium 4 3.4 GHz faster than a Core 2 Duo 1.83Ghz (dual core laptop part)? Or more recently, is a Core i7 1.6GHz (4 cores laptop part) better than a Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz (more Gigahertz?) or the Desktop parts? Or if you’re familiar with the AMD rivalry, is the Athlon 2500+ Barton (1.8 GHz) faster than the Pentium 4 3.4GHz? [/geek alert]

Things to get out of this rant:

1. Get an iPhone if you’re undecided.

2. If you already have a BB / Android, swallow your pride and bow down to the almighty iPhone! mwahahaha….

3. In the next 6-12 months, we’ll see a huge explosion of iPhone users. I predict it to be SO HUGE that you’ll  grinch everytime that Marimba ringtone beeps.

Any comments or views you’d like to add?

Thanks for visiting my blog :)

What the fuss is HDR photography all about?

(from wiki)
high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight

In Queen’s English, that means your photos will look more realistic, especially the contrast and richness of the colours.

Here are some shots (after updating to iOS 4.1)

The light is not too bright, while darker areas can be seen

With steady hands, this would be the best use of HDR

Bad luck that the car was moving. The background billboard can be “seen”

Overall, I’m quite contented ;)

Gonna read some iBooks, listen to the French podcast, learning the language…

Brand new week!

Help me stay cheerful & optimistic!

*UPDATE: for more, check out this Facebook Album of pics that I took!*