n305er Industries

Over the pass few months, I’ve been reading many good reviews on the Samsung Galaxy S’ screen quality. How clear and vibrant the colours of the phone is always being complimented even compared to existing AMOLED screens from HTC and Motorola. Now, this Super AMOLED screen boosts 20% brighter screen, 80% less reflective under sunlight and 20% reduced power consumption is some really big numbers in some really important points of a smartphone screen.

Being a smartphone user for over a year now, I’ve always struggle to work my phone under the sun. It’s either I’ll have to rush to a shaded area or just guess what’s on the screen based on the faint shadowy images I can see.

Today, I got the chance to actually see what an AMOLED screen looks like and I was quite impressed with the clarity and the colour vibrant. Although I must admit I can still see some pixels but it is not really something to complain about since it’s actually already much better then many existing phones. The only phone with better pixel density is the iPhone4 which I don’t fancy at all.

I went to the Maxis centre where they have the Samsung Galaxy S and played around with it a little. Although I didn’t have a chance to take any pictures, I believe that most people will already be familiar with the phone’s design. Most smartphone looks almost the same anyway.

The interface was quite fast and zippy except for some occasional loading of bigger apps such as Layar. There are many screens available to fill up with applications but with no search features. Scrolling though the apps was slow but Google’s Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) will fix that by adding a search feature.

It was my first time seeing the SWYPE feature in action and my friend gave it a shot. Not bad. Really fast typing for a first timer.

That’s all I can say now for the few minutes of exploration.

The phone is available though Maxis at a price of RM1699 with a 1 year Data contract. Which means they don’t care which call plan you’re on as long as you sign up for the data package for 1 year. It also comes with an extended 6 months warranty and RM10 rebate for data plan when you get the Samsung Galaxy S.

iPhone 4 is coming to town!

Although I do not recommend this phone, but it’s still good news isn’t it?

Also, Maxis users, it’s also coming soon to you. Not just Digi. I just didn’t post any screen shot because Maxis’ banner doesn’t even show their own logo.

As for Celcom users… Uh… Continue to enjoy your blue teddy bear.

Consumer Reports has recently just released a report which somehow “proved” that the iPhone 4 does have a signal drop issue when a person hold the phone or touch the phone at the particular (bottom left) area.

But an EMC engineer disagree with the report, saying that CR (short for Consumer Reports) didn’t used a controlled environment for the tests, thus, the results are not to be taken as valid.

While I may not be an EMC, EME, RF or an antenna engineer, I do know my way around the lab, the equipments and RF testing. Working right next to all 3 EME, EMC and RF labs does give me enough experience to comment on this.

First of all, controlled tests are always good to reproduce accurate and repeatable results to measure the performance of the device. This is important as to show that the device complies with regulations and does not interfere with other signals. For example, SAR tests performed by EME labs measures the rate at which energy is absorbed by the body when exposed to a radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic field. Too much, and it’s considered dangerous for humans. EMC tests on the other hand, will test the radiation pattern and power of the device in a controlled room where RF noise are shielded and reflections absorbed. Humans aren’t supposed to be inside and even the attached measuring instruments outside the room are shielded.

The problem with all these very expensive, accurate and exhaustive testing is, although they try to reproduce real world issues as much as possible, it’s still a controlled test up to a certain degree of acceptance. They can never be able to capture a full range of problems which can happen in real world environment. There are too many things which can happen outside the lab and there are always reasons why all these electronic devices have updated hardware revisions.

New tests are always developed to reproduce those reported issues to try to determine the cause and action needed. If the problem is hard to reproduced in the controlled environment, then it’s further escalated to R&D to capture the problem on the board level.

What Apple is doing on the other hand, is trying to blame others for their problem. Are Apple’s engineers really working on a fix is anyone’s guess but everyone should always take those Consumer reports with a pinch of salt. It’s not a controlled test. But every “Professionals” should also never ignore the public opinion even when the problem is not done through controlled environment. A problem is still a problem and an engineer’s job is to provide solutions to a problem. Not to provide excuses!

Digi has recently slashed the monthly fees for their iPhone plans. Usually, this mean that Digi is planning on releasing something new to replace the current range. Could it be the new iPhone4? Maxis has also recently added the Samsung Galaxy S to their range of Android offerings, so could Digi be planning on release a couple of Android plans as well? I really hope they bring in some more Android phones to Malaysia as we’re really lacking some real useful mobile applications in this country.

There’s always debate among people if this particular phone is better then an iPhone or not. It’s also very hard to figure out who’s actually an iPhone ‘fanboy’ or genuinely comparing the new phones to Apple’s handheld.

I just want to keep this short. Here’s my opinion:

There should be 3 different categories for phones. Smartphone, Multimedia Phones and entertainment phones.

Smartphones are supposed to be superior in handling tasks related to everyday life and work. Good sync-ability and very powerful contacts management together with tools for communication, connectivity and social.

Entertainment phones are fun phones. Despite the lousy array of connectivity, bad battery life, poor camera features… It’s still fun to use. You know what I’m talking about don’t you?

Multimedia phones are phones with extremely good camera, video, lots of memory, great music playback, etc. etc. and not so great when it comes to actually using it for work purposes although it still works.

Let me give you an example:

I’ll consider an iPhone an entertainment phone. I just don’t see what’s so special about it besides the multi-touch features. It has poor battery life, takes poor quality pictures, doesn’t even have led flash, can’t connect to any TV or PC properly, but it still generate the biggest amount of fans out there! That’s entertainment! Just like what TV did in the past.

For work purposes, it’s always Windows or Blackberry. Android is also one but works better in the cloud. Which I expect is the way the future is going to be but just not now as broadband services is still very limited worldwide if you live outside of countries such as US, Korea, Japan or Hong Kong.

Multimedia phones, just like my 5800, it plays music well, plays movies well. Has good battery life (compared to another more popular phone), connects to the TV and has a great PC suite to handle almost anything you need to manage in the phone. I’m voting for the N8 when it comes out though.

Many of my relatives and friends has been asking me about the iPhone’s price and features since it’s availability in Malaysia. Many has bought the iPhone the instant it hit our shores.

To be fair, it isn’t a bad phone at all. There’s lots of cool innovations involved in the phone and very planned out way for the user to have a good experience with the phone.

However, ever wondered why Apple has been standing on top of the sales charts for the 2 years and why no company has come out with phones as good as iPhone yet? It sure isn’t because there isn’t any better programmers or engineers out there compared to Apple. But it’s because of patents. (You can check out the list here). Just look at Patent No. 7,657,849, “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image”. Yes, they can sue you if your design use any part of your touch screen to unlock your phone, forcing you to use other method, usually a switch.

Almost anything good or creative has been patented by Apple or can be argued as an Apple’s patent. Which seriously handicapped the wold of technology and give our mobile development a big speed bump. Just look at how little the smartphone has improved over these years since iPhone came out. Almost all phones are the same.

If you want to do something creative using multi-touch, do it on the iPhone and not any other phones! Any good new battery savings ideas are patented by Apple!

So no, Apple isn’t on top of the list because they are just too good. They are on top because they monopolized the market with patents.

It just doesn’t make any moral sense in what Steve Jobs Said about Adobe since they are doing just the same thing in a different form.

Now, if you’re one of the users who keeps on drooling over Apple products, you’re contributing to the slowdown of technological development. It’s a crime in my books since you’re giving Apple the money to tell us things we can not do in future.

Google has challenged the market with its Android OS which keeps on adding cool features with every update. It’s also open source and free for the phone manufacturer to use. Now that’ll help contribute to the technological world. Just take a look at the web now since Google started developing tools such as Chrome, Gmail, Calendar and Google Apps. All free, all ideas which are not patented, and all ready for more upgrades. It has strongly brought out the development of HTML 5 today.

Just a few moths ago, I borrowed a Microprocessor Startup Kit from my lecturer so that I can study it, learn how to use it and perhaps, implement it in my Final Year Project.

Just a few weeks ago, I took the kit to class and told my lecturer that I have no idea how to use the kit as I’ve never been thought how to program a microprocessor or micro controller before. Although the students are all very well thought about the internal workings of the microprocessor, we were never though about the external workings of it. We don’t know how it actually interacts with other devices and we do not know how to build a circuit for it if we don’t have a startup kit. We were only given rough ideas on how it should work and expected to know how to use it to the fullest a few months later.

The college didn’t care if we really understood the process of programming a microprocessor or not, they just keep track of who passes the programming subject and who fails.

Just a few days ago, I received my shipment of 2 Micro Controller and another startup kit. I just realized that I also have no idea how to program the darn thing. The circuit and idea for the rest of the circuit was all done but the most important part was this micro controller.

How do I write programs into it? How do I make it interact with other Micro Controllers? How do I make it communicate with the PC so that the PC can give commands to the Micro Controller? How do I send and receive signals on a single input/output pin with a string of data instead of just 1 bit of data?

By schedule, my group have until May to complete and present our project. That’s 2 and half months left. By estimation, we only actually have less then one month left since we’re also required to write reports, documentations, calculate the theories behind the technology and in between, go to work! We also have 3 Finals coming in May, 5 more assessment papers and office projects to complete in that short period of time.

If we pass all of this, we’ll get our diploma. A diploma where our projects requires more knowledge that even some of my Degree holder friends couldn’t help with. And this diploma, is going to be quite useless when I bring it with me for my interviews because it’s just a diploma and not a degree. Masters are getting quire common these days and all I’ll have is this diploma which I have worked really hard to get these 4 years and gone crazy trying to meet the requirements in the last 6 months of the course.

Like Steve Jobs would say: “I don’t see the value in this. But we can never connect the dots to the future, we can only connect the dots looking to the past.”

To me, I saw the dots connecting to the future when I took the course. I saw myself learning about things which I could use in my everyday life and in my work. True enough, looking back, the dots connected seems to let me be able to create some simple circuits and stuff. But the whole picture connected by the dots looks ugly. It looks as if education just wasted 4 years of my life. It looks like we could have learned twice as much if we were not rushed into exams and deadlines all the time.

My group has finally decided what to do for our Final Year Project. Actually, it should be named, final 4 months project because that’s all the time we have for planning, design, building it, documentation and preparation for presentation. Notice I didn’t even mention time for testing and debugging?

Anyway, we have decided to build a wireless switch which enables us to control a 3-pin plug remotely using a computer. The computer program can later be upgraded to run through the internet for further improvements.

The basic idea is to let users switch on and off their basic appliance without the need to physically be there. This will ease the burden of older or handicapped people which find reaching for switches a difficult task.

While we have an idea what components we need to use for this project, we do not even know how to start~! Stupid PSDC for having the requirements for a Microcontroller in our FYP when they don’t even have a course or fast track to teach anyone how to use it!

Anyway, that only mean we need to learn how to use the micro controller our self. I wonder if there’s anyone who can teach us if there’s any differences between microcontrollers for different interface? Or are they all the same? I am not sure if all microcontrollers can be used by the same programming and starter kit or not.

And I really hope the wireless module which I’m going to order will handle all modulations/demodulations by itself without the need for me to figure out how to do it. <_<

That girls actually have to handwash their own undergarments… Until I saw this product…

 

Keeps things looking pretty

No After-Wash Spin Function

The Firenzzi Hygienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer was built specifically with No After-Wash Spin function to prevent your precious personal wear from going out of shape. Most bras and panties, negligee, and even swimwear are made of delicate material, and cannot withstand the after-wash spin cycle in conventional washing machines, some going as fast as 800 rpm. 

With the Firenzzi Hygienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer, you don’t have to worry about your underwear getting stretched and spoilt. This mini washing machine comes with a laundry bag to provide extra protection during the gentle wash, keeping your lingerie looking lovely! And the best part is, they’ll last much longer, too. 

Keep things feeling fresh

Bacteria Killing & Disinfection Function *

When it comes to washing underwear, it’s important to be really clean. That’s why Firenzzi Hygienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer comes with a built-in Ozone Generator that kills bacteria 600 folds faster than chlorine does. It ionizes the air, creating O₂, that combines with water to form a strong sterilization function, so it doesn’t just wash, it disinfects! 

And because this process gets rid of germs, bacteria and bad odour, you can be sure that your bras and panties will come out of the wash really clean and comfortable, protecting your health and giving you confidence with every wear. 

For simple solutions

Easy to use

The Firenzzi Hygienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer is extremely user-friendly, with 3 soft touch controls to run this fully automated mini washing machine. Micro-computer operated with auto water input, auto wash, auto rise, auto drainage and auto sterilization, it comes with an electric drain pump that gives you an up-drain option. 

For the perfect fit

Good size

The Firenzzi Hygienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer fits perfectly into your lifestyle, with a 1kg washing capacity and wash cycle that only takes 45 minutes to complete. 

For the fashion conscious

Chic & cute

Our beautiful egg-inspired oval design is a symbol of life and fortune, and is available in two attractive colour options to suit your personality. 

For anywhere and everywhere

Mobile & modern

Small and stylish, the Firenzzi Hugienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer is easy to carry around making it highly portable. 

For long, lasting care

Satisfaction guaranteed

Every Firenzzi Hygienic Ladies Personal Wear Washer comes with a Full One Year Warranty, which includes all parts and services.

At least you guys should have another idea what to get for mothers day this year right?