Singapore’s mapping start-up Gothere.sg launched their new iPhone application about exactly a week ago. I had the pleasure of catching up with Junhan, one of Gothere’s founders, to get both a demo of their app and a status update of what they’ve been doing.

Firstly, below are some YouTube videos that the scrappy Gothere guys have put up on the Interwebs to explain what their app is about:

Basically it’s a front end client app on iPhone that extends their already popular Gothere.sg site. I’m don’t own an iPhone (I have a HTC Desire and am on the Android platform), but in the preview session that Junhan demoed the app to me and a few other work colleagues on the iPhone 4, I found the app to be excellent.

Everything that I liked about Gothere.sg — various driving public transport suggestions + estimated costs (e.g. avoiding ERP gantrys), trip summaries, smart autocompletion of search locations, etc. — had been shrunk down into one portable app. And the best thing is that the price point of S$1.99 for the app is something that is very affordable.

Two bungling engineers and a faulty cable brought down Singapore’s biggest bank DBS — all of the ATMs, internet banking — for about 7 hours last month on 5th July.

Or so that was the narrative painted by the Straits Times two days ago on Thursday that it was all due to human error. (There’s a far lengthier version in the printed Straits Times version than the gimped version online). The big headline inside the paper on page four was this: “It was definitely a human error”.

Really? Is that the best narrative that explained why the system crashed that day? Everything was due to “human error”, and two “bungling” IBM engineers were to blame?

If Singapore’s biggest bank could so easily be brought down by “human errors”, then I find it genuinely shocking. Surely IBM’s 10-year S$1.2 billion outsourcing contract — about S$120 million per year to maintain the IT infrastructure — details a stringent process for disaster recovery?

Doesn’t DBS and IBM have SLAs that spell out how IT failures should be recovered from, with a detailed escalation process? And seriously, a single misplugged cable can bring down your entire storage system? I don’t buy this at all. You’re not talking about a start-up servicing a bank; you’re talking about a maintenance contract deal worth millions.

Thus, the main point is not about “human error” — a totally wrongheaded slant that ST took, in my opinion — but the fact that DBS’ business process screwed up along the way. Yes, human error may have started this, but the recovery process screwed up and failed to kick in.

The blow-by-blow account of how engineers triggered this failure is not interesting. What’s interesting would have been how and why DBS’s disaster recovery process failed to kick in.

Hitachi celebrates 100 years as a company this year, and I was invited to Japan to attend their annual uValue event, where they had some fanfare for this occasion. This year the event runs from the 22nd to 23rd July at the Tokyo International Forum (near Roppongi).

One thing I learnt from the uValue event is that Hitachi is a sprawling technology conglomerate that spans many divisions: from IT and telcos, to transport, to consumer devices.

Yes, I know they are a high tech company that builds computer and consumer electronics, but I didn’t know they also build train systems, elevators and nuclear power plants.

The company generates US $100 billion in annual revenues and it’s the third largest high-tech company in the world in terms of revenues, behind Samsung and HP.

There has been quite a bit of talk over the new public transport distance fare calculations that have been put in place in Singapore since July 3rd.

There have been the usual government overtures that in general people pay less and the system is fairer under the new distance fares.

From the opposite camp, irate citizen bloggers claim that this isn’t true at all.

I find the official LTA fare calculator a pain to use, so if you’re interested in how much more (or less) you’re paying, go use Gothere’s mapping and directions tool. I use Gothere often to get directions, so the extra functionality is just groovy.

Thanks to this post on DK’s blog, from which I first came across this!

Hmmm. Gothere folks, if you’re reading this, perhaps with your data collected on searches done by Singaporeans you can probably do a good estimate on the question everybody is dying to know: Are Singaporeans paying more or less for transport under the new system?

If you send this in to the various local media, I’m certain they will love to know!

In the past, when I went to one of IBM’s Smarter Planet events I found it hard to write something and distill the message for readers.

At the back of my brain was always this burning question: Just what is IBM selling here? I have difficulty connecting their really big picture green IT story to what they do as a technology company.

Let me set the context and take a short detour to explain why. I’m better known as a technology journalist-blogger hybrid, but I worked for a very brief time at the Centre for Liveable Cities in Singapore. In that short stint I gained an appreciation of the complex problems facing cities.

Different cities face different problems, depending on how developed a city is. A developed megalopolis like New York or Tokyo will face vastly different challenges than say, Hanoi, Vietnam or Sao Paulo, Brazil. And this is only one one aspect of a city. Culturally, economically, politically, every city is different and will have different issues.

Often we tech journalists play with high-end mobile phones for developed markets like the US, Japan or Singapore, and sometimes we forget that there are many, many phones designed for emerging markets.

The Boss2000, a dual GSM/EDGE phone by Indonesian mobile phone maker SPC Mobile, is one such phone designed specifically for South East Asian markets. SPC just got into the mobile game recently a few months back, and prior to this was an Indonesian monitor manufacturer that was better known in Indonesia than anywhere else.

Launched last week at Communic Asia 2010, the Boss2000 has a built-in analog TV tuner that allows you to catch any free-to-air TV shows (anything running PAL or NTSC). It has a 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera for self-portraits, and a typical 1.3 megapixel camera on the flip side for other photos.

Every function of this phone is designed with emerging markets in mind, making it a very different animal than the higher-end sleek 3G phones that we usually see.

Hitatchi Data Systems (HDS) has just started operations on their one-month old spanking new S$4.6 million Asia Pacific distribution facility in Singapore.

The centre will serve Asia Pacific (excluding Japan), and will serve to bring down shipment times by an average of two business days for customers in the region, said HDS’ Frans van Rijn, senior VP and chief logistics officer at a press conference today.

If you’re a customer in Singapore, it is even better news — shipments can now be delivered in hours. Prior to having this Asia Pacific distribution facility, HDS had to ship their products from US to Japan and then to the rest of Asia Pacific. This Asia Pacific HDS distribution facility is the third to be built globally and joins HDS’ existing distribution facilities in Indianopolis, US and in Waardenburg, Netherlands.

Green IT is one really hot meme.

At a press conference held by Panasonic yesterday at Marina Sands in Singapore, Panasonic declared their ambition to be the top number one green innovation company in consumer electronics by 2018.

This means continually innovating and developing consumer products that “save energy, save water, and are long-lasting”, said Ikuo Miyamoto-san, managing director of Panasonic Asia. Panasonic makes consumer products like plasma and LCD TVs, washing machines, and air conditioning systems.

How does Panasonic benchmark their products to be environmentally friendly? The company will work with authorities in countries to ensure that these products pass or exceed local green standards. For example, in Singapore, the National Environmental Agency (NEA) runs a mandatory energy labelling scheme for electronic products.

It’s no surprise for anybody who went down to last weekend’s Licence2Play that Starcraft 2 was the biggest thing there.

Blizzard and IAHGames had a big booth showcasing Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty at the gaming fair, which was held this year from 28th to 30th May at the Singapore Expo. Besides this, not much else has changed compared to last year’s event, except that it is not held at Suntec anymore.

There were some events being run by the Singapore Cybersports and Online Gaming Association (SCOGA), but this paled in comparison to the big draw: A chance to play Starcraft 2 beta and pre-order the game.

I was tempted to get it, but the S$109 pre-order price for the game and beta key was a little steep. The dog-tag souvenir was not enticing enough for me to pay upwards of S$100+, so without more shiny stuff, I passed. Hopefully, when the game comes out on July 27th, it will be more reasonably priced.

Firstly, a big thank you to all the fans and supporters of our scrappy little blog here.

Thanks to all the attendees who took the time and effort to come down to Techgoondu’s first indepedent and wireless event UNWIRED last Thursday 27 May at the Singapore Management University.

Time for a little shameless plug here.

Organised by chief goondu Alfred Siew, the event was a success due to the excellent crowd and overall quality of speakers. Registered attendees numbered over a hundred-odd, and there were lots of friends from both media and PR in attendance. For a first-time event that no one had heard of a month and a half back, it certainly met and exceeded some of our attendees’ expectations.

Said Daniel Goh, PR and media manager at Samsung Asia, and owner of the excellent start-up blog YoungUpstarts: “I’m quite surprised with the crowd. They actually asked a lot of questions!”

There were so many questions being asked that time overran on many of the sessions on that day.

Alf will probably add on a blog post on this baby of his, but I thought I would do a quick wrap-up of the “Mobile applications: the future driver of wireless technologies?” panel that I moderated.