nanoomi

Last night I sat down (virtually speaking) with Jeff Lebow of Koreabridge.net and freelance web designer Mattew Weingard, and discussed the state of the Internet here in Korea.

On the table, Google’s most recent run in with the Dongdaemun Police Station Cyber Crimes unit, a surge towards responsible web design, a merging of the way Korea and Koreans use The Internet with the way the rest of the world uses The Internet, The Galaxy Tab 10.1 and my new watch.

Of particular interest, aside from the topics discussed, is the voodoo that Jeff has put together to allow him to record interviews etc on Google+ using Hangouts, Live Stream, some chewing gum and Gaffer Tape, the results of which you can see below:

With one click, QR codes offer smart phone users contact information, websites, and more.

You may have noticed them cropping up in advertising, on the sides of buses and even street signs—strange black-and-white pixelated boxes that look like some madman’s attempt at a crossword. What are they? QR Codes.

Originally an alternative for tracking car parts and other inventory, the QR (standing for “quick response”) code is akin to the more recognizable bar code but can provide much more information. With a scanner and the right software, you can obtain phone numbers, web addresses and text from the little black and white boxes.

The most recent and growing use for QR codes is “mobile tagging,” which allows smartphone users to take a picture of the code with their phone’s camera and then access the information. Apple, Android, Nokia and Blackberry all support QR codes and have a number of apps available to decipher them.

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These five Korean bloggers offer the latest on the Korean tech scene, if you’re bold enough to brave a different language environment.

I like to think that I am reasonably up to date when it comes to technology. I am an early adopter of new technology, often going to long (and expensive) extremes to acquire new gadgets and other tech goodies.

But my efforts pale in comparison to a hardcore cadre of Korean bloggers who get their hands (and cameras) on the latest and hottest technologies, sometimes before the general public does. And while these blogs are written in Korean, they’re still worth the effort, even if it is through the filter of Google Translate. Many of them link to English-language sites, their basic information is generally easy to discern, and the care they take in presenting their finds and accompanying them with high-resolution images makes them worth reading.

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This week COEX hosted the 2011 Seoul Photo show. On hand were the world’s leading manufacturers of cameras and lenses, Nikon, Canon, Sigma and Tamron as well as Olympus and Panasonic. Also in attendance: local favourite, Samsung.

One notable exception was Sony, who were conspicuous by their absence (notwithstanding the fact that they actually have a full blown store right next to the convention hall, not more than 20 meters from the front door!).

The Olympus booth (booths) had two dominant themes – their mirrorless four-thirds camera system “Pen” and the seemingly indestructible “Tough” line of water- and shock-proof point-and-shoots.

Ubiquitous to any such show in Korea (motor show, photo show, food retailer’s show I’m going to this week) are the scantly clad models – “booth babes” – that hundreds of people crowd around and take photos of. And while this might be an appropriate forum (taking photos of models at a photo show actually makes sense) I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be a certain kind of infantilizing going on here that was… simply put… a bit odd. But I’ll let you make your mind up as the photos below show my exploration of the Seoul International Photo and Imaging Industry Show 2011.

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If 2010 was the year of the iPad, 2011 is going to be the year of the other tablets.

Overseas, if you are willing to pony up £600 in the UK or upwards of $539 in The States you can get a Motorola Xoom – the first Honeycomb / Android 3.0 tablet (Plus the cost of a data connection). As Google’s flagship Honeycomb tablet it’s pretty slick. Other manufacterers have their own iterations in the works as well, The HP slate, running Palm’s old OS and Windows among them.

Here in Korea it’s a two horse race between iPad and Samsung’s 7 inch Galaxy Tab, with a 10.1 inch already shown at The Consumer Electronics Show in January and nowrumours of an 8.9 inch version coming as early as the end of the month.

Beginning late February the Galaxy Tab was introduced by LG U+ (LG Telecom) at various rates including essentially for free if you sign up for a data / voice plan over W55000 a month. The data plans are by no means generous with 2 and 4GB monthly free or with unlimited use if you go for the W55000/mnth plan.

The LG U+ model with models

However according to this ETNews article the plans (with 2 or 3 year options) compare favourably to those offered by SK Telecom.

I’m not entirely sure, but comparing Samsung’s micro sites for the product it looks like The LG version runs CDMA 3G, which after all makes sense considering it only has a CDMA network.

The big news is KT’s offering. It seems KT and Samsung have gotten over their tiff over KT selling iPhone. (Indeed SK Telecom will start selling iPhone 4 and iPads from March 16th)  KT will be offering a Wi-Bro / Wifi version of the Galaxy Tab. Rather than having to carry around a Wi-Bro modem (Like KT’s Egg) the Wi-Bro (Mobile WIMAX) radio is built in. And although from that article it is hard to discern, (My Korean is not that good OK?) it looks like the 3G radio is dispatched altogether in favour of the Wi-Bro, meaning voice calls will be VoIP. Confirmed via Yonhap.

The KT Model with a Model.

KT is offering the Galaxy Tab at various rates with various plans and discounts etc.

It comes at an interesting time when this week KT announced that all the metropolitan areas in Korea now have Wi-Bro coverage (previously it had only been Seoul and the part of Gyeonggi down to Suwon) and that you will also have Wi-Bro coverage Along most of Korea’s main highways.

But the bigger big news is that FINALLY Samsung will reease a WiFi only version of the Galaxy Tab for those of who don’t need yet another contract with one (or more) of the Telcos listed above. And unlike the SK Telecom, KT or LG versions won’t set you back W995,000!

Instead the wifi version is set to retail at just over a third less at W600,000.

Wihch is interesting.

Considering that the 10 inch WiFi version of the current and next iPad versions will sell at W500,000.

But I do so want one. The form factor is great, my iPad is starting to really bug me when I am reading on it for long periods, and in the subway it is near unusable unless I am sitting down, holding it any other way becomes quite tiresome after about 3 or 4 stops. The Galaxy Pad is much more hand friendly and as I said in my iPad2 post the iPad is becomeing more and more content creation friendly while reading on the Galaxy Tab’s 7″ TFT display will still be a pleasant enough experience.

Add in support for Gingerbread (it’s coming, Samsung seems to have turned it’s ire towards Google after suc a promising start) and probably HoneyComb (or at least a pairded down version thereof) and the Galaxy tab makes for a better proposition. I doubt my iPad will see more than two more software updates before becoming obsolete anyway.

Samsung has promised the WiFi version by the end of 2011 Q1 (i.e. by the end of March) and preorders are being taken on it’s website (although I can’t find where) and through it’s retail stores (though the shop clerks at Samsung Digital Plaza seldom know what you are talking about and will point you towards SK Teecom if you go asking about a Galaxy Tab.

From Yonhap.

Samsung Electronics started to receive pre-orders for the WiFi-only Galaxy Tab at the price of 600,000 won (US$536) this week through its online Web site and retail shops in South Korea. It did not disclose the launch date.

So expect a review of the Galaxy Tab WiFi version sometime this month, But I can’t disclose the review date.

Portable Gaming. If only I had a commute, I would make more use of my PSP. My old, old PSP. I bought my Playstation Portable while in Japan in March 2005, before it was available in North America, a fact I was pretty proud of at the time even though all I had in terms of games was Namco Museum, Ridge Racer and some weird-ass robot with a gun in his head game, all of which were in Japanese.

Six years on the unit itself is holding up pretty well. The left shoulder button is a bit sticky, there’s dust behind the screen – there’s at least one pixel dead and the battery life is variable, but none of that distracted from a recent foray into Metal Gear Peace Walker and a reprise of the original Grand Theft Auto release.

The PSP

But six years is a long time in any area of technology, let alone gaming. The PSP has seen three iterational upgrades while attempting to supplant the industry leader, Nintendo, and it’s DS, DS Lite and DSi handheld gaming platforms.

The worst kept secret of the last couple of months has been the much anticipate, long awaited  and so-called PSP phone, known now as the Xperia Play, a collaboration between PSP and Sony Ericsson. Essentially an Android Mobile phone with the aesthetic of the latter day PSP Go, the Xperia will be the first phone to truly meld hand-held gaming with the mobile phone.

The Xperia Play

PSP Go!

The Xperia Play is a significant development because of the combination of the Playstation Game platform with Android. While initially seeming difficult, it will be possible, no doubt, to port the Xperia’s operating system or “ROM” between Android handsets, just as it is possible now to put Vanilla Froyo on a Galaxy S, or HTC’s Android improvements on a stock NEXUS One. Obviously hardware limitations will come into play – My NEXUS One doesn’t have a D-Pad or Triangle, Square, Circle and X buttons. But the possibility is there.

Moreover the possibility (though unlikely) that Sony would license its gaming platform to other Handset makers isn’t totally out of the question. Imagine a future Galaxy PSP from Samsung, incorporating Samsung hardware (For which Sammy has been doing well lately) with Sony Ericsson’s take on Android. (Something Sammy has been having issues with lately)

The Xperia Play will run Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” and will receive it’s official unveiling at Mobile World Congress later this month. But in the meantime enjoy this teaser advertisement for the device. It wouldn’t be a Sony release without some creepy sort of marketing, here the dodgy world of back-street Bangkok surgery rears it’s creepy head:

See Engadget for more coverage.

In addition to the phone (which isn’t technically “official” yet) Sony has seen fit to tease us with the latest iteration of the original portable whic incorporates elements of the original, the PSP Go! and the Xperia Play. Code named the NGP or “Next Generation Portable” adds a touch screen on the front and a touch control surface on the back in addition to the usual face buttons dual analogue controllers (a feature left out of the original and its iterations and much lamented by gamers) and directional-pad.

Playstation NGP

Despite this it retains much of the aesthetic of the original, although it does away with games on UMD format once and for all, leaving gamers like me out in the cold with our vast libraries of games on the Universal Media Disc format. (Not so “Universal” were they!)

And of course here is some Sony Propaganda:

Interesting that last part – “The Power is in Your Hands” (That and interesting that the whole scene seems to be taking place in East Timor if the zoom out from the globe is to be believed), for the NGP is definitely powerful. With a Quad-core A( processor, it is about 4 times as powerful as your iPhone and demos from the release event showed the thing playing PS3 games near perfectly. In addition it comes with WiFi, GPS, front and back facing cameras AND a 3G connection, which, apart from loosing the UMD, is my only real issue with the thing (and one I have raised before in regards to the Samsung Galaxy Tab). I already have a phone and so don’t want to have to pony up more money to a Telco!

The NGP, or whatever it ends up being called is supposedly going to be available in at least one market (I’m guessing Japan) in time for the Christmas holiday season / late 2011. No word on pricing – but as with all things Sony expect it to be pricey – at least to begin with.

Between now and then I will need to find a commute to justify buying one.

[Images CC unless otherwise noted]

It’s been just over a year since the iPhone heralded Year Zero in Korea’s smartphone market, and two recent surveys offer some interesting snippets on where it stands now.

First off, Bloter reports on a survey in which ROA Consulting asked almost 12,000 Koreans what their favourite and  least favourite smartphones were in 2010.

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First up the big news that I have been personally waiting for – a Wi-Fi only version of the Galaxy Tab coming (to America at any rate) in Q1 – so sometime in the next 10 weeks.

Apparently the people at Samsung America haven’t quite figured out the “cute model handling your product” play just yet, instead we have Trevor giving us the details:

Of course no word on price or exactly when before the end of March this thing will be out in The States – let alone Korea, but if the first model is anything to go by then the 2 launches should be closely loinked.

As to whether a wi-fi only version of the Galaxy Tab will do well in Korea is another question entirely, with some noting that, if it weren’t for the phone capability the Galaxy Tab really has little else going for it. (Someone mentioned it works well for reading comics).

Note to the Android 3.0 “Hummingbird” was also previewed at CES and is supposed to be a Tablet only version of Android – will the Galaxy Tab have the chops to upgrade later in the year…?

Sticking to tablets – but with more of the Windows & variety Sammy has done something very interesting with its new PC 7 sliding series:

Again no models.

There was some talk of this a couple of months ago on Engadget with a render showing the keyboard directly below the bezel of the screen – no one cottoned on to the fact that the screen also tilts up creating a more traditional notebook form factor.

Questions I would have and one comes to mind immediately – is how sturdy is the sliding-tilting mechanism. We have all had the “Floppy Nintendo DS” syndrome where the top screen looses it’s staying power and flops all over the place. But then in saying that Samsung is known for its sturdy, if not rock solid aluminum (ala Apple) construction.

The second question is of course what’s under the hood? No word in the video of course – but I’m guessing some sort of high end Atom for mobility and battery – is it a touch screen? Has to be right – especially when in tablet mode, but there’s a distinct lack of a track pad in front of the keys when the slider is out…? Surely Samsung doesn’t want us to be reaching up and touching the screen all the time…?

Already predicted a long time ago here at The Chosun BImbo – Samsung’s answer to the iPod Touch – The Galaxy Player.

Unfortunately no official Sammy USA video for this one – instead some right geeza from the UK innit:

Two interesting things from that minute of footage – the fact Samsung is touting it as an INternet connected device – as opposed to an MP3 player, and secondly that it is supposedly optimized for VOIP - can you see the ear speaker at the top of the device – VERY Galaxy S-like.

The guvna’ in the video says it’s already available here in Korea – might have to have a look around again and find out exactly how much it gores for. Like the Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi only version this, with a lack of a cellular radio in it, should actually be quite cheap comparative to their cellular connected predecessors

And still on the Android / Froyo Buzz it’s the successor to the Nexus One (My recently purchased phone) The Nexus S. Here’s Trevor again:

Samsung and The Google have struck up something of an interesting partnership considering only a year a go Samsung was calling Android rubbish and touting it’s own Bada operating System – now the two are so close (10,000,000 Galaxy S phones later) that Samsung has the pleasure of putting out the first Android 2.3 phone, and the second official development platform for Android as well.

Gadgets aside CES always gives Samsung a chance to shake it’s real money maker – TVs This time Trev is replaced by….a young Forest Whitaker:

Cool. But can I stream a torrent to it?

As always all of this gadget goodness may or may not make it to Korea (which is odd) or in various different iterations over the next year.

Have a look around Engadget for more coverage of Samsung and CES in general

As an ever increasingly connected world, and as one that now relies on Google more than our own brains (mostly) as a receptacle for knowledge, looking back on the year’s most searched-for terms is always a good way to get the pulse of the people, as well as start pondering what will happen next year as we find ourselves in those odd few days between Christmas and The New Year.

For your reading pleasure, I’ll look at Google International results, then focus on what Koreans have been searching for on the increasingly ever-popular (in Korea) Google.

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