Author Archive
Bill Maher Piles On The Foxconn Shame-Fest
By Hong Kiat at 7 February, 2012, 10:45 am
Bill Maher interviewed Mike Daisey last week on Real Time , adding to the scourge of recent negative publicity surrounding the conditions at Apple supplier Foxconn. Daisey is the actor who wrote and performed the one-man show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs , a musing that faces the labour issue head-on. He actually went to China and talked to workers outside the infamous Foxco …
Read More >>Brazil Is Suing Twitter For Tweeting DUI Checkpoints
By Hong Kiat at 7 February, 2012, 9:15 am
Twitter has caught some flack in other countries for giving accounts free reign on what they can tweet. Twitter responded that it’ll adjust its policy to include the ability to censor tweets if a country demands it to. We just might see Twitter’s first high profile case sooner than later because Brazil just sued Twitter for allowing accounts to tweet where DUI checkpoints are. The rami …
Read More >>Firefighter Rescues Man From Stuck Lift, Both Get Trapped In Another Lift
By Hong Kiat at 7 February, 2012, 8:00 am
Getting stuck in a lift is rare, but you assume the experience would fall somewhere between the opening of Speed and a late-night Cinemax flick. A Chicago man turned it into Groundhog Day when, after being rescued from one lift, he promptly got stuck in another on the way back down to safety. Firefighters initially rescued a man between the 21st and 22nd floors of his 49-storey a …
Read More >>Russian Power Station Goes Haywire
By Hong Kiat at 7 February, 2012, 7:45 am
You’re driving south of St Petersburg, listening to some John Lennon. The traffic is a little heavy. God, this song is so great — and now, let us pause for an enormous electrical explosion that dominates the entire horizon. The video comes along with this article from Fontanka.ru, so poorly Google-translated that I’m only able to ascertain that the fire department showed …
Read More >>Did You Know Earth Is Getting Lighter Every Day?
By Hong Kiat at 6 February, 2012, 2:00 pm
Earth is getting 50,000 tonnes lighter every year, even while 40,000 tonnes of space dust fall onto our planet’s surface during the same period. So, why are we losing so much weight? You will be surprised. At least, I never considered this and I was surprised to hear the reasoning in More or Less , a BBC Radio 4 program about statistics and numbers. According to Dr Chris Sm …
Read More >>Rumourmodo: Telstra To Launch 4G Galaxy Tab 8.9 In March?
By Hong Kiat at 6 February, 2012, 1:00 pm
The rumours are flying thick and fast regarding Telstra’s next step in 4G after USB modems and the HTC Velocity 4G. The latest suggestion is that we’ll see an LTE-enabled version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 sometime in March. Once again it’s over to Ausdroid — who were also suggesting over the weekend that Telstra would release a 4G Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note — wh …
Read More >>Mobile Monday: 4G Or Not 4G?
By Hong Kiat at 6 February, 2012, 8:00 am
That is, as the bard said, the question. Or he would have done if he was a mobile broadband consumer living right now. But why are we so concerned with whether or not a certain implementation of 4G is actually “4G”? It’s not just a matter of being pedantic — it’s a matter of not confusing people. Quick question: When did high definition TV broadcasts start? No sneaky …
Read More >>Firefox To Adopt Google’s ‘Speedy’ Web Protocol
By Hong Kiat at 5 February, 2012, 10:30 am
It’s been in Google Chrome for some time, but it’s only recently the SPDY (pronounced “Speedy”) protocol has blazed a path onto another browser — in this case Firefox. Come version 11, Mozilla’s popular open-source internet window will be able to communicate with SPDY-compatible servers, delivering improved browsing performance compared to the ancient, but funct …
Read More >>Galaxy S II 4G, Galaxy Note Soon From Telstra?
By Hong Kiat at 5 February, 2012, 9:30 am
Your Sunday smartphone rumour is courtesy of Telstra which, according to a source “in-the-know” speaking to Ausdroid, has revealed that the Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy S II 4G have popped up in the telco’s “internal systems” and could be out and about in the “near future”. The source didn’t reveal pricing or launch dates, so all we have at …
Read More >>Free Wi-Fi Coming To Flinders Street Station
By Hong Kiat at 5 February, 2012, 8:30 am
From March, free, albeit ad-supported, Wi-Fi will be available at Melbourne’s Flinders St Station, the start of a three-month trial that could see the service extended to other inner city stops. The initiative is a joint effort by Metro, Melbourne railway operator, GoConnect, a provider of “video infotainment and interactive advertisement” and Netbay, an ISP I can’t say I&# …
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