A must-read for everyone.

Written by an ex-MS employee, this guy shares why Microsoft has become what he calls a “clumsy innovator” and why non of the “wow” gadgets coming out these last few years – Kindle, iPhone, Android, Facebook – is from the computing giant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?pagewanted=1

NETS, the Singapore electronic payment vendor, just launched their iNETS mobile service, in which you can pay your bills via your mobile phone in Singapore.

The story was covered by quite a few of the main papers in Singapore, like the Straits Times, Today, and My Paper, as this story broke yesterday.

What struck me when I read the story in the Straits Times is that the iNETS mobile payment platform supports “all mobile phones save the iPhone and the Android platform”.

When I read this, I almost fell out of my chair thinking: Errr, aren’t these some of the more popular platforms? And Android phones will definitely be set to grow in the market this year, with the Google Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy Spica, and Motorola Dext already out since February with more to come.

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One of the questions I often get from friends coming up to Hong Kong is if stuff is cheaper here or in Singapore. In many cases, the answer is “not really” or “just a little” – but in the case of the Synology DS210j that I bought for my bro recently, it was a helluva lot cheaper!

At HK$1530 (which is about S$278 at 1S$:5.5HK$), you’d be paying almost 50% more if you bought one from Synology’s dealer in Singapore (Memory World) which has priced it at S$408. Plus according to the Synology forum (post dates back to 2007 though), Synology does provide international warranty.

So why the DS210j? Only the Qnap TS210J II comes close to the DS210j’s transfer rates, but is more expensive. The rest of the 2-bay NAS competition, like the D-Link DNS-323 are generally slower. Oh, and its DLNA compliant too, so fits in with the plan of adding those ‘media extender’ devices to stream video and audio later.

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The folks at HTC just sent out a press release today on lower revised prices for their HTC smart phones in Singapore, starting from 1st Feb 2010.

All of this in a bid to entice customers for the upcoming Chinese New Year season. The Nexus One might also be a cause. In any case, that’s good news for consumers.

For those who are interested in shopping for HTC phones, here’s a list below, with prices and links to TechGoondu reviews for phones we’ve played with. All prices are in Singapore dollars.

Android phones

Phone	Pix	Price
HTC Magic (hands-on)		$648
HTC Hero (review)		$698
HTC Tattoo		$468

What’s notably missing is the Nexus One, which is not available in Singapore yet unless you buy direct from Google. Which means no subsidized telco plan as yet, but some of the Techgoondu folks are such techheads they bought the phone already.

Both Alf and Gin wrote stories on getting the Nexus One to work, Alf on MMS, and Gin on the 3G issues.

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