The Zone

This piece of important news might be a little late but hey, better late than never. If you didn't already hear about it, TM (formerly known as TM Net) recently announced that its ploughing US$50 million (~RM175 million) in a massive project to build a undersea fiber optic cable from SEA all the way to the US. The entire project will actually take about US$500 million (~RM1.75 billion) and quite a few SEA telecommunications companies such as from Indonesia, Thailand and India are sharing the cost.

It is said that the main reason for the cable is SEA telecommunication companies are hoping to avoid the recurrence of last year's Taiwan earthquake debacle. If you don't remember, the quake pretty much severed most SEA countries from the Internet for several weeks. The new cable expected to be ready in late 2008, will bypass the quake and volcano prone North Asia, and we should have nothing to worry about if any quake hits or volcano erupts in the future.

More importantly though, TM said that it's data capacity will go up from 60Gbps to 75Gbps when the cable is ready. Will this mean faster broadband speeds for everyone? 2Mbps speeds (or more) for the home? TM says its possible but we'll wait and see on this one. The new cable will surely create excess bandwidth and we hope that TM will deliver on that promise. At the very least, we just hope that we will be able to finally get the true speeds that we subscribed to. 

Original link here (via The Star)

It's been said many times before but those new to networking sometimes forget about it:

Secure your Wireless Network!

Wireless networking broadcasts connectivity in an area around it, and if you don't secure your wireless connection, anyone within range can connect to it, and in the least, ride off your Internet connection (if you have one), for free.  This can affect your Internet speed as bandwidth is leeched off by others.

However, it is more dangerous if you're keeping sensitive data connected to your wireless network, and anyone can connect and start downloading, modifying, or uploading to your network (and the devices connected to it).

This is exactly what happened in a real-life case scenario...

As part of our efforts to revamp the current Hardware Zone Malaysia forums, we'll be doing some major spring cleaning. In the coming weeks, several non-performing forums will be consolidated to a single forum, and really old threads will be deleted. If there's any particular thread of interest that you haven't read or saved yet, we suggest doing so now!

This is another one of those non-tech posts but this one is a good one, I promise. Just watch the video and guess how did he change the color of the cards. :P

Okay, this is another non-tech post but if this is not the funniest video you've ever watched, we will close this blog down tomorrow. Its Michael Jackson's Thriller done in Telegu, but with "English" subtitles/lyrics. Enjoi. We did.

PS: It's quite an old video but we just remembered it. Credit goes to our counterparts at www.gameaxis.com for discovering it first.     

Blasting down a go-kart track after work is fun, especially when you get to bump your bosses around *evil laugh*

Moar pictures after the jump!! 

iZZi just launched their new wireless broadband service today, and to demonstrate how effective their connections were, the media were treated to a trip to The Eye On Malaysia wheel at Tasik Titiwangsa. Needless to say, the view at the wheel was incredibly scenic, which I managed to capture a few snapshots. Click the jump to view more!

Yesterday HWM Malaysia was at the LG Electronics main office to witness the judging of the 3 finalists of the LG Young Interior Designer competition. The competition was held for art students to demonstrate their creativity in integrating living spaces with their choice of LG ArtCool air conditioners. Pictures of the judging and winners after the jump!

Not all gamers are geeks and not all geeks are gamers. If you want to add a little street cred to your "game", while maintaining your gamer credibility, here's a cool oversized lace lock for your kicks. If you have no idea what a lace lock is, this is probably not for you. Too bad about the US$48 price tag though (ouch!), but it is plated in 24 carat gold. Bling, bling baby.

Buy it here.  

Via kotaku.com.

We can probably think of a few juvenile captions to go with this screenshot but we'd rather let you do the honors instead to warm up your creative juices for the YouGamers Screenshot Caption contest; YouGamers, Futuremark's Gaming community website, is having a Screenshot Caption contest where the funniest caption will nab himself 4 PC or console games of his choice! 

To participate, just choose a screenshot from any article, review, or preview from YouGamers.com, join their forums, and simply PM the caption along with the URL to the image to the username YG_Competitions, with the subject "YouGamers Caption Competition". By the looks of it the competition is opened to all gamers worldwide so get cracking and start checking out their site! Your entry must be received by 31st August 2007 so you only have 2 more days to go! 

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Game reviewers are bashing Lair for the PS3 for its poor implementation of the motion controls while gamers who bought the game thinks the critics are full of bull, accusing them of not going through the tutorial stages or playing past the 3rd level. There are even theories that the reviewers received an early buggy review build, or that they were paid out by Microsoft. It's a full-out counterattack by PS3 fanboys, one that they're not willing to let it fade away without some resistance.

Usually most people read game reviews for two main reasons: one, they want to know if the game is worth a rental or buying. The other reason is to reaffirm one's preconceived idea of the game. It's a bit like self-wankery - you think the game is a good or bad game but you aren't really sure until you hear it from an authoritive voice. "I thought the game was pretty good and Mr. Game Reviewer also said it was good. See? I wasn't wrong after all", or "He said the game was pretty bad and I thought it was sucky too. I'm glad to see we had the same opinion". A higher authority's opinion that agrees with one's opinion feels good because it feels like both you and the reviewer are on the same wavelength.

Sony's initial decision to remove the dual shock controls from the Sixaxis controller in favor for motion controls had been an unpopular one among its fanbase and it took quite awhile for them to finally grudgingly accept Sony's argument that it was more 'next-gen'. Sony fanboys had also weathered much ridicule from game critics and rival fanboys that the PS3 controller was copying the Nintendo Wiimote motion controls and that it was hastily implemented. So if a killer PS3 title could come out with good motion controls, then they would have been able to recover some of the pride lost during the E3 2006 Warhawk demo fiasco.

Since its conception, Lair had been touted as the system seller for the PS3 due to its primary use of the Sixaxis motion controls which no other PS3 title had done. But game reviewers were frustrated by the game's implementation of the motion controls and promptly panned the game. The low scores that the game received were like a giant backhand slap to the fanboys faces, standing against everything they stood for the beleagued console's efforts for its acceptance of motion controls in the Sixaxis controller.

Hence the fanboy backlash.

But fanboys can't have it both ways. They can't say "Both IGN and Gamespot say Warhawk is good so it's proof that the game is awesome!" but then turn around 180° the next day and cry "IGN and Gamespot reviewers don't know jack shit what they're talking about!" when Lair receives a poor score. Game reviews take a lot of time, dedication, and most importantly, discipline. Game reviewers don't needlessly bash a game unless for good reason. And with the majority of game reviewers and websites complaining about the motion controls, fanboys will need to look past Lair's pretty bloom effects and see why the game's controls aren't all what they make out to be.

SUN (Microsystems) must be really desperate to make their Java programming language known that they've now even decided to change their stock ticker symbol from SUNW (for SUN Workstations) to JAVA!

The Stanford University Network (SUN) wants people to connect Java with SUN so the idea is that when you think of Java, you think of SUN, or in other words, SUN is Java (or vice versa). If this trend keeps up, will Microsoft be known as Windows? Hmm...

Source : Jonathan Schwartz (SUN President & CEO) Blog

I just recently came back from the MSI Media Tour 2007 in Shanghai, China so I apologise for the lack of updates on my side. While it isn't my first time visiting an assembly factory, it was for me for a notebook and motherboard assembly plant so watching its production unfolds was a terribly interesting endeavour. It's a pity we couldn't take any shots of our own, so all of the factory production shots that you'll see in the upcoming report for this trip are basically stock photos approved by MSI.

What I was surpised most of all was how much of the assembly work is still done manually by hand instead of by machine, judging by the hundreds of assembly workers at the factory. I had always thought that notebooks were always churned out by the dime by machines. 

Our office has been inundated with mooncakes boxes now that it's the mooncake festival. Favorite flavor so far? Still the classic lotus with single yolk. The most interesting flavor we got so far was a green tea mooncake with a milk core.

When we received this box from AMD recently with the Opteron Processor image on it, we thought a quad core processor lay inside. Instead 4 mini mooncakes greeted our eyes. Oh well, they're still equally sweet. *munch*

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought that the new Wii Remote Jacket that will come free with all new Nintendo Wiis, remotes, and Wii Play on October 15 looks extremely...phallic. Never mind the name and design of the Wii remote is already bad enough but when you throw in a ribbed protective silicon sleeve? We are getting the equivalent of a condom for the Wii.

So remember to always put on protection before using your Wii! And don't forget, just because you have protection doesn't mean it's 100% safe to swing your Wii around. ;)

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