The Zone

One thing I really love about this job is the opportunity of traveling overseas for events and media familiarisation trips. Case in point, last week electrical goods giant Haier brought a bunch of us IT journalists and writers to check out their headquarters in China.

To be honest, most of the members of the media (including yours truly) on the trip never really thought much of the Haier brand until we saw the scale of their operations in China and worldwide did we realize the magnitude of their corporations; fly-by-night factory they aren’t. You will read more about them in next month's HWM special feature. In the mean time, check out the pics I took of the Canton Fair after the jump!

Are you a Xbox 360 gamer? If you are, we want you. Consoul 2007 is Malaysia's first and largest "Bring Your Own Xbox 360" LAN Party ever and its gonna be one hell of a party! 

Organized by Gamer's Hideout and GameAxis, it's going to take place on the 26th and 27th May 2007 at the Lower Ground Floor of Cineleisure Damansara. The event is all about getting to play with your like minded fellow 360 gamers in the flesh and having a good time. But wait, that's not all. There will be a Gears of War and Command & Conquer 3 tournament as well, with cool prizes obviously for grabs. If that's not enough, there will be a crazy Lucky Draw with tons of great prizes on offer too. So, what are you waiting for?

Details of the event can be obtained from www.gamershideout.com.my

I'm now at the HP Mobility Summit in Shanghai, where HP is now showing off their latest lineup of notebooks, iPAQs, and mobile video solutions. One of the main stars of the show were their new HP Pavilion HDX notebook, aka "The Dragon". More pics after the jump!

Well, I'm finally back from Shanghai and not surprisingly I find myself surrounded with work that has piled up since I was away. First on my agenda is the 2nd part of the Haier media trip that took place last month. Check out more photos (17 of them, to be exact) of the Haier showroom and surroundings after the jump. 

In celebrations to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie, which is NOT episode 1 to you generation z-ers, someone made a cool diorama of the Tatooine spaceport where the Millenium Falcon and the gang had a close shave with Imperial Stormtroopers - in LEGO!. Undoubtedly the coolest thing since LEGO Star Wars!

 More pictures after the break!

Maxis Hotlink just launched their latest mass multiplayer mobile card trading game, Master of Maya! Hotlink and Maxis customers will be one of the first consumers worldwide to enjoy the game and it's already available! The card game is steeped in Mayan culture, which explains why the lovely ladies above are dressed in such garb. :3 Click the jump for more pictures of the event.  

We're sure that the internet-savvy demographic would have heard about the K810i a while ago, both in prototype forms and in the online previews that we had. Today, Sony Ericsson Malaysia officially announced the mobile phone, which is distributed by Thorus Technology at MidValley Megamall. The announcment was accompanied by a showcase on Sony Ericsson's products as well as the launch of a new campaign where user-contributed cameraphone pictures are eligible to win up to RM8000 in cash and prizes.

More pictures after the break

I shudder to think what the Computex 2007 mascots actually are, especially with the giant arrows pointing to their crotches. Click the jump for more pics.

Proton moving out of the car business and into displays instead? Nah. Just a HD  TVs manufacturing company sharing the same name...though the logo design looks suspiciously similar to the older Malaysian Proton logo. 

(And for anyone thinking that they're a new company ripping off Proton's name, they claim they were established in 1982)

Click the jump for more pics!

HTC has formally introduced themselves this morning at the luanch of their latest device (which would be called a Dopod if they had not reabsorbed the brand) simply named the HTC Touch. Surprisingly, we did not anticipate the Touch to be launched on the same date as the iPhone introduction (-6 GMT) and it does resemble Apple's first foray. Both are based on the GSM/GPRS/EDGE circuit with wireless connectivity, eschewing 3G and GPS navigation, both have media capabilities, and both have touch-senstitive input capabilities, with the iPhone giving it all on the multi-touch screen and the Touch, well, gives you the added accuracy of a stylus which the iPhone doesn't have.

We would take this ofer the iPhone, though, and the reasoning is simple - you can't send your iPhone back for warranty if it breaks as you'll only get it with that 2-year Cingular plan. So much for the grey imports. The Touch retails for RM2099 and will be released to the public tomorrow! More pics after the break!

Pretec's novelty USB flash drives engineering samples look yummy enough to gobble up. More pictures of the 3rd and final day of our trip to Computex 2007 after the jump.

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow will see the start of Transformers RobotCon 2007. What's Transformers RobotCon 2007? Well if you love  the Transformers toys, cartoon, games and (soon-to-be-released) movie, you can't afford to miss out on this mega Transformer event at Cineleisure Damansara tomorrow. Autobots, roll out!

Ahoy thar ye landlubbers! I've been trollin' t' waters off Sao Feng's hideout t' garner ye an insight into t' sights at CommunicAsia 2007, t' gatherin' for all thin's that power your mobile life, from broadcast stations and antennas t' mobile phones and their accessories. We brin' you t' first part o' this two-post special which brin's you t' phones from NTT DoCoMo, LG, Samsung and Eten.

Pics after t' break!"

(and in plain, proper, prim, legal English),

Ahoy there ye landlubbers!  I've been trolling the waters off Singapore to garner you an insight into the sights at CommunicAsia 2007, the gathering for all things that power your mobile life, from broadcast stations and antennas to mobile phones and their accessories. We bring you the first part of this two-post special which brings you the phones from NTT DoCoMo, LG, Samsung and Eten.

Pics after the break!

Now, returning to the regular CommunicAsia schedule, we bring you the phones from Sony Ericsson and other cool stuff sighted at the fair which ended last weekend.

More pics after the break!