Enterprises using Equinix’s data centres in Singapore and Tokyo can now connect directly to Amazon’s public cloud service.

Through Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect, Equinix customers in the Asia-Pacific region can establish private network connections with Amazon’s cloud infrastructure, paying only for the network ports used and data transferred out of AWS. Data transfer into AWS is free.

Equinix, a global data centre operator, said the connectivity option will help companies cut network costs into and out of AWS, by lowering bandwidth commitments to ISPs and taking advantage of reduced data transfer rates.

Since the initial roll out to its Virginia data centre campus last year, Equinix has been extending AWS Direct Connect to other locations such as Silicon Valley to meet growing customer demand for hybrid environments.

Carpathia Hosting, a provider of managed hosting services, is using AWS Direct Connect in Equinix data centres to allow customers such as mobile app provider Urban Airship to use a mix of Amazon cloud infrastructure, along with Carpathia’s managed hosting services.

“More and more of our enterprise customers are demanding hybrid hosting solutions that combine the benefits of both dedicated infrastructure and cloud infrastructure,” said Jon Greaves, chief technology officer at Carpathia in a media statement Friday.

“For existing AWS customers, Carpathia Hosting uses AWS Direct Connect to deliver the benefits of having their dedicated infrastructure and AWS’s cloud services managed by a single provider,” he added.

Lydia Leong, research vice president at Gartner’s technology and service providers group, said the partnership between Equinix and Amazon is good for “obvious reasons”.

“For quite some time now, I’ve been evangelising the importance of carrier-neutral co-location as a ‘cloud hub’, envisioning a future where these providers facilitate cross-connect infrastructures between cloud users and cloud providers,” she said in a blog post last year.

Leong noted that widespread adoption of this model would allow an enterprise to say, get a single rack of network equipment at Equinix, and then cross-connect directly to all of their important cloud suppliers.

“It would drive cross-connect density, differentiation and stickiness at the carrier-neutral co-location providers who succeed in being the draw for these ecosystems,” she added.

As technology users welcome 2012 everywhere, it’s clear the year that had just passed was filled with no little controversy and memorable incidents.

From Steve Jobs’ death to the delay of the much-awaited iPhone 5, from the rise of Android devices to Nokia’s return with its Windows Phone devices, and finally, with the potent mix of mobile devices and social media that  helped ignite protests in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, but also encouraged the thuggery of the London riots, 2011 was a big year in technology.

The next 12 months look to be just as interesting, as existing technologies mature and grow, while other new trends emerge. Here are five things to look out for in 2012:

1. The arrival of the “transform” device
Just a few years ago, it was unfathomable that people would junk their desktop PCs for laptops. Because the portable device had a smaller screen and usually lesser computing prowess, the portable device never matched up to the silent giant under the desk.

These days, however, with power-efficient yet advanced CPUs and graphics chips, laptops can do the job just as well, plus they can be hooked up with a monitor, keyboard and mouse easily to transform into a desktop PC in a jiffy.

The same is happening with tablets and smartphones. In 2012, there will be more devices like the Motorola Atrix, first unveiled in early 2011, that basically turns into a laptop once it is docked with a laptop dock. The Atrix taps on its dual-core chip to run Webtop, which is based on Ubuntu Linux, to give users a regular desktop OS look and feel. It runs the OS you prefer at any time, all in one device.

Essentially, you only need one smart device – your phone or tablet – to do everything you need in future. What you will have are many docks or keyboards and screens to hook up to this increasingly powerful (expect quad core gizmos in 2012, starting with the Asus Transformer Prime) yet portable device in your hands.

Desktops and laptops will definitely still be around, but the mobile gadget is set to be the central device in your life.

2.  Windows 8 brings “touch” on everyday PCs
Related to this portable device rush is Windows 8. The upcoming Microsoft OS, expected this year, is being billed as the biggest upgrade in years for one reason – it is going to unify both mobile devices and PCs with one OS.

It works with touch, and features a Windows Phone-like tile system, where users will be given a panel of information and the ability to go into the nitty gritty only if they wish to. The big icons and friendlier interface also mean that this is the first time the Start button and taskbar – at least in their present forms – will be out of the picture.

Along with Windows 8′s arrival, expect computing of all types – from smartphones to laptops to desktops – to tap on the novel OS.

What to expect? Look to something like the Samsung Slate PC, which crams a powerful Intel dual-core CPU into a thin, portable tablet that can be hooked up with a keyboard and screen to become a full-fledged desktop. It runs Windows 7 now, but come next year, devices like these will sport the even more touch-friendly Windows 8.

3. Tougher times for Apple
It’s not just Steve Jobs’ passing that will affect Apple for the coming year, but also the fact that it is a company that wins big because of the very sharp innovation curve that it sets out each year.

When the iPod was commoditised, the iPhone became the next big thing; when Android smartphones managed to grab huge chunks of market share in 2010, the iPad became the market-conquering portable gizmo in a class of its own.

The question in 2012 is: what next? Surely, there’d be new versions of the iPhone (after the disappointing iPhone 4S) and iPad (which still has a good lead over all over Android rivals). But can these upgrades keep Apple at the top of the pile, or will it see its innovation and design lead cut short in 2012?

The emergence of the Windows-based Ultrabooks in 2011 from Asus, in particular, is a clear answer to how fast the competition is catching up, in this case, with the MacBook Air.

In the next 12 months, Apple will find the going even tougher. Users are often willing to accept Apple’s closed “my way or the highway” approach because of the perceived better design and innovation from the company, but it has to keep coming up with new winners to redefine the field. In 2012, it needs another big winner to pull away.

4. Say hi again to a smart TV
It’s been prophecised several times before, but 2012 could finally see the arrival of smart TVs that do more than just show your cable TV programmes or Blu-ray movies in all their 60-inch Full HD glory. These TVs could be the conduit to many services and apps that were just becoming common in 2011.

Yes, Facebook will be there, as will Twitter and other PC-based services and apps that you had seen on your 2011 Samsung or LG TV when you were free enough to venture into some of its sub menus. But what about YouTube, or rather, a YouTube-type service – on steroids?

Think of an app that is smart enough to offer the same multi-tasking you’d expect on a PC screen, say, talk to a friend on a chat window while watching a live football match, or checking out background information from Wikipedia on the JFK assassination, if you are watching a documentary on it on a National Geographic app, for example.

Not so new, I hear you say? The main difference this time is that the intelligence is built into the TV and possibly delivered straight to the screen – over the TV’s Net link – instead of via a third-party set-top box and third party broadcaster.

Sure, it’d be a leap of faith for content executives who have always preferred to work with their favoured “platform partners”, i.e. broadcasters like StarHub and SingTel.

But for indie channels and content owners looking to jumpstart their work by showing their programmes direct to viewers, they can now create their own content and app and reach out to viewers – in the same way cellphone app developers sell their apps direct to users.

Creating a smart TV programme would thus involve skills needed to develop an app for, say, the mobile phone or tablet. Will this model work for TV? Well, it’s already proven already by Apple and Google in their respective app marketplaces, and what’s there to stop you paying S$2 for a movie on a smart TV, just like you’d buy an app on your phone?

If rumours hold true and Apple decides to create its own TV set in 2012 or if Google takes YouTube to the big screen by signing up more content creators as it has done in 2011, then the next 12 months could see big changes in the way video content is created, delivered and consumed in the big screen in the living room.

5. Fibre broadband takes off in Singapore
This is a banker of a trend, because we know that 95 per cent of the city will be covered by the fibre optic network this year. Going by the long waitlist to turn on a fibre broadband service now – up to a month with M1, we are told by users – the demand for light-speed downloads is going to be even higher in 2012.

It helps, of course, that the network has finally forced open a market that once was dominated by SingTel and StarHub.

Take M1, for example. It used to have to rent the network from the two telcos, but now it can get wholesale access at the same price as its bigger rivals, and it can price its services competitively, as a result. Its S$39-a-month 100Mbps fibre plan sold at computer expos in 2011, for one, has become the benchmark to follow in 2012.

The new service will be available at Singapore’s central financial district at launch, along with other high traffic areas like Orchard, City Hall, Marina Bay and Novena. By end 2012, SingTel expects to provide coverage for 80 per cent of users, and 95 per cent by end 2013.

Rival telco M1 had launched a limited LTE service earlier this year, but it offered this only to business customers. SingTel’s service is open to consumers as well.

The “red” telco predicts typical day-to-day speeds of between 3.4Mbps to 21Mbps, which will be good enough for video conferencing, whether users are at home or on the go.

For now, the limited service will only be available first on USB dongles that plug into laptops, though LTE phones and tablets have already been available in the US for close to a year now, and Samsung is said to be among the first to unveil an LTE version of the popular Galaxy S II here in Singapore in Q1, 2012.

The big problem for the telco would be the price. At S$69.90 a month, the LTE service can seem expensive to most users of its current 3.5G services, which cost from S$29.90 (up to 3.6Mbps) to S$59.90 (up to 21Mbps). M1′s service, by the way, costs S$59.40.

SingTel’s price is strangely structured as well. For S$69.90, users get 50GB of regular 3G data (up to 21Mbps) and 10GB of LTE data, according to the new Mobile Prestige 75 plan.

But do users know when they are using 3G and when they hop over to LTE? Fortunately, there is a cap of S$94.16 in terms of cost, so at least you won’t get a bill shock of a few thousand dollars.

Also to SingTel’s credit, it’s not calling the LTE service “4G”, as many American telcos have. 4G is defined, at least by the folks who work out wireless standards at the International Telecommunications Union, as a technology that offers 100Mbps downloads. LTE is what many would call pre-4G.

Here are SingTel’s prices, if you are thinking of hooking up to LTE:

Google started the building of a new data centre in Singapore on Thursday, a US$120 million facility which represents the Internet giant’s expansion of operations in the region.

“More users are coming online in Asia than anywhere else in the world,” said Julian Persaud, head of Google Southeast Asia at a launch event. Projected to go online in 2013, the new data centre promises to serve this growing demand by delivering fast and reliable access to Google services.

In addition, the data centre will boost the local job market in a small way, as Google is hiring a small team of full-time staff as well as a number of contractors in a variety of roles, including computer technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, and catering and security staff.

Google will also be launching a community grants programme here in Singapore, which will provide annual grants ranging from US$5,000 to US$50,000 to organizations that focus on four specific topics: technology literacy and innovation, renewable energy innovation, access to high speed internet, and new economy entrepreneurship.

For a start, IAB Singapore will be receiving US$50,000 to conduct digital career training programmes for final-year undergraduates to equip them with the necessary digital skills and knowledge so that they will have an easier time landing jobs in the Internet economy.

Every once in a while, a technology emerges that makes you wonder why you haven’t thought about it before. The Singapore-made Orastream app is one such example.

It enables music players to stream the songs at as high a quality as possible, depending on the network that is delivering the songs. This means you always enjoy the highest quality music, without worrying about the dreaded break in transmission – a boon to future music services on the go.

Let’s take your phone, for example. When you are at a cafe and you can receive a good 3G signal, it can stream at a high bit rate of, say, 800Kbps, but if you step into an underground mall, you may only get a slower 2G network link, which means the songs will then be streamed at a much lower bit rate, say, as low as 24Kbps.

Either way, the music continues playing, because the technology adapts automatically to the network conditions. There are not breaks in songs even if you switch from, say, 3G to 2G, as the folks behind Orastream showed in a demo to Techgoondu last week.

First developed at Singapore’s government-funded A*Star labs several years ago, Orastream is the brand name for an adaptive streaming music format called MPEG4SLS. This, incidentally, is also the name for the company spun off from A*Star that now develops Orastream.

The uses for the technology are numerous. For starters, the company is looking to offer a Dropbox-like service where musicians can upload their songs – at the highest lossless quality – to potential record company partners. Instead of sending various demo tapes or CDs or storing different formats of the same song, they can continually update the catalog of songs easily.

To do this, the Singapore firm has even developed simple tools for the musicians to create an app that plays back the music automatically from this library.

Needless to say, this can be applied to consumers as well, as a sort of cloud-based music locker service. You can essentially upload your entire library – at a cost, of course – to the cloud and have the Orastream technology stream the music to your PC, MP3 player and even hi-fi (if someone develops a Squeezebox plug-in, for example).

This means you don’t have to keep separate copies of your library, like MP3s for your portable players and FLAC lossless tracks for your hi-fi or PC. You can just stream them all in one format using Orastream. In countries with well-connected mobile and fibre broadband networks, this is an ideal solution, and better than the other cloud-based music offerings out there which usually only support the “lo-fi” but common MP3 format.

To be fair, there is still a lot more to be done for Orastream before this becomes reality. But the technology is out there and the business model is already proven, so the potential is clear.

And compared to rival technologies from, say, Microsoft, Orastream is truly dynamic, as in, it does not have to be set with a few pre-determined bit-rates, but is fine-tunes the bit rate or quality according to the network quality. If a network offers 300Kbps, the stream will be as close to 300Kbps as possible, perhaps at 290Kbps.

One more thing: Orastream can stream songs at up to 24 bits/192kHz, which is higher than a regular CD’s 16/44.1kHz. This will be a boon for audiophiles looking to stream their songs both over Wi-Fi at home (at high quality) and over the Net to their portable players.

Do check out the Orastream app available for the Mac, iOS and Android. Still very much like demos, these simple players show the potential of a technology that could change the way you enjoy music in future.

If you’ve always wanted to visit Nepal but never got on the plane for some reason, here’s a way to visit one of the most beautiful places on earth – virtually in 3D.

A Singapore company has come up with an online tour, called 3rd Planet, that takes a user on a visit to places like Nepal’s Patan Durbar Square. Here, you can get a virtual fly-through or walk-through in a high-resolution 3D world complete with temples and other places of interest like in a game.

There are sights and sounds of crowds – recorded from the place itself – which come alive once you visit the website with your Web browser.

That’s right, you don’t need to install any application, other than a browser plug-in, which admittedly takes a bit of time to download and which, fortunately, only needs to be downloaded once.

Like a tourist guide, 3rd Planet offers virtual travellers snippets of information and pictures of the place itself. Right now in beta stage, it offers only the brief tour in Nepal and other snippets of data on other places on the planet, like Singapore and India, for example.

To be sure, what the company is doing here is not all new. Microsoft, for example, offered photographic fly-throughs for several cities in the past, while Google Streetview now lets you explore neighbourhoods as if you were walking through a street.

The main difference is that 3rd Planet comes with interactive sights and sounds. For example, the birds really “fly” in the sky, as opposed to a static photo in Google Streetview.

Why not try it yourself by heading to www.3rdplanet.com

If you subscribe to StarHub’s fibre broadband service and are stuck with the Huawei HG256s gateway that seems to be plagued by poor wireless coverage, a range extender might help.

Cisco’s Linksys RE1000 is a S$109 range extender that takes an existing wireless signal and repeats it throughout the home. It also serves as a wireless bridge to connect a wired printer, Internet enabled TV or game console to the wireless network through its integrated Ethernet port.

The RE1000 is a handsome gadget like its siblings in Linksys’ E series portfolio of network equipment. You can plug it straight into the power socket with the three-pin plug adaptor. Or, use the bundled power cable if you intend to use a power strip with limited space to accomodate the device.

Setting up the RE1000 is as easy. The bundled software, available for Mac and Windows computers, will take you through the set-up process. The software will attempt to detect the RE1000 and prompt you to enter your wireless network credentials. Once that’s done, you are ready to go.

Note that the Mac version of the software may not be able to detect the RE1000 in some cases. After a couple of tries, I gave up and used the Windows version of the application on a PC to set up the device.

So how does the RE1000 fare in real-world tests?

My main workroom is roughly two rooms away from the Huawei HG256s router, and I usually get speeds of up to 26Mbps from my connection based on Speedtest.net tests. With the RE1000 plugged into a wall socket in my workroom, the bandwidth speed increased to about 30Mbps.

The results are better in another bedroom furthest away from the router, where the bandwidth speed increased from 12 to just under 25Mbps.

Bottomline: The RE1000 is a nifty gadget that will boost your Wi-Fi signal in network blind spots. Where you place the RE1000 matters, too. Placing it too far away from your router may not achieve the best results, as the device will be working with a weaker source signal.

Heading down to SITEX this weekend? Here are some deals we spotted to whet your appetite!

Huawei Sonic (S$248, no contract)
The Huawei Sonic is an Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone with an unbelievably low price. And yet, the phone doesn’t feel that cheap, and it actually quite sturdy. Specs-wise, the phone does feel like it came out of the era of the first iPhone: a low-res screen, 600MHz processor and 256MB of RAM all add up to a phone which pales in comparison to the powerhouses out there today. But if you can look past all that and won’t use it to play intensive games, the Sonic is a decent low-end Android phone.

M1 Fibre Broadband (S$39/month)
M1’s fibre broadband promotion just keeps going! Introduced at COMEX earlier this year, the 100Mbps can be yours for just S$39 per month. M1 says “it’s a steal”, and we couldn’t agree more. The only catch: if you’re too invested in other telco packages – such as StarHub’s cable TV – it will be difficult to decide whether you should switch.

Lenovo IdeaPad Z470 ($799)
The Z470 offers a great bang for your buck: a Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 640GB of storage space and 1GB of dedicated graphics for only S$799. Sure, the laptop isn’t the sexiest of beasts, but the specs let you pull in some HD entertainment and even play games at decent FPS rates. This would make a great laptop for those who use their computers as an entertainment device, with the occasional work thrown in, of course.

Acer Iconia Tab A100 (S$599)

If you recall, this was on our list of great gadget gifts under S$500, so what’s with the S$599 price tag? Folks, the 3G version of the A100 is here! For one hundred more dollars, you’ll be able to tot the A100 around, and it’s small enough to fit into a big purse. Again, it’s not a particularly premium device, and there’s a close competitor in Huawei’s MediaPad, but the A100 has more port options and even a micro SD card slot for expandable storage.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer
This might be a relatively older model, but ASUS’s has a winning form factor here. Its specs are vanilla Android tablet – Tegra 2 chip, 1GB RAM, etc. – but ASUS baked in other features to sweeten the deal. A full-sized QWERTY keyboard accessory that provides additional battery life means this could probably replace your netbook. What’s more the full package even includes two USB ports and SD and micro SD card readers, and the audio is enhanced with SRS.

(This story first appeared on Techtalk, our technology content partners at Yahoo! News Singapore. Photos courtesy of Yahoo! News Singapore)

Malaysian cellphone maker CSL is targeting business travelers with the Spice Mi350 dual-SIM smartphone that lets you pop in two SIM cards into a single device. That means you could, say, receive calls on your personal and business phone numbers without lugging two phones around. Folks with a dedicated mobile broadband service could also use the Android device as a broadband modem through Wi-Fi tethering.

To be sure, the Mi350 is not for everyone. If you are a smartphone junkie who can’t wait to update your devices to the latest flavor of the Android OS, the Mi350, which ships with Android 2.2 Froyo, will seem rather dated. While most Android handsets today are running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, using a Froyo device, which is just a generation behind Gingerbread, is an unfamiliar experience. For better or worse, that’s how fast things are moving in the Android world.

Design
Despite its plasticky frame, the Mi350 is a well-built gadget. Though it doesn’t feel like a premium device — and it isn’t meant to be one either — the Mi350 has a solid frame and will not creak when you try exert more pressure around the edges. The battery cover snaps perfectly into the back of the phone with no signs of coming off. The rounded edges softens the phone’s business-like profile and offers a comfortable grip. In the age of ultra-slim phone designs, however, the Mi350 has a hefty 14.7mm thick body. There’s a lid-protected USB port along the left edge of the phone and a five-megapixel rear camera.

Display
If you have been lapping up on soap dramas on a 4.3-inch screen, the Mi350′s 3.5-inch display will seem rather small. With a 480-by-320 pixels resolution, onscreen text is readable but you shouldn’t expect things to look super sharp. Colours also look a little washed out, with obvious colour gradations in photos and images. That said, the phone’s display is responsive to taps and swipes, making it a cinch to navigate menus and apps.

Software
The Mi350 offers a stock Android experience. That means the phone is devoid of bells and whistles that some smartphone makers have slapped on to differentiate their devices from the pack. While there’s no custom app launcher, CSL has thrown in some of its own apps, such as Blueberry Messenger and CSL Fan Club, along with notable third-party offerings such as the Muvee video editor and Nero backup software.

Performance
Powered by a Qualcomm MSM7227-1 600Mbps processor, the Mi350 is not in the league of high-end smartphones that sport dual-core chips. Notwithstanding, it has enough computing juice for Web browsing and running a handful of apps in the background, but be warned that the phone will start to slow down once you try to do too much. Installing a task and storage manager such as Norton Mobile Utilities will help to free up resources hogged by idle apps.

Managing two phone lines on the device was easier than expected. There’s a dedicated dual-SIM settings menu that you can delve into to enable or disable SIMs, set the default data network, and configure mobile data settings. The phone was able to configure both carriers’ Access Point Names automatically, including that of my T-Mobile prepaid service, which I still use on my trips to the U.S. And with Wi-Fi tethering, you can effectively use the Mi350 as a broadband dongle by assigning the default data network to your mobile broadband SIM card.

The Mi350′s battery life is nothing to shout about. We’ve come to expect smartphones to last not more than a day without plugging in the charger in between meetings, and the Mi350 is no exception.

Bottomline: While the Mi350 does not offer a premium smartphone experience, it gets the job done and will save business travelers one less gadget to put through airport security checks. However, it is likely to gain more traction in prepaid markets where users are more likely to take advantage of different price plans offered by different telcos.

Lovers of e-books in Singapore are getting their own local e-book fix, after SingTel said on Tuesday that it was offering Singapore’s first e-book service. This service, named skoob, will allow Singaporeans to peruse and purchase e-books for their smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

Offering more than 39,000 local and international bestsellers at launch, it is the first e-book service to accept payment in Singapore dollars. E-books also tend to be cheaper than hard copy of books – SingTel highlights how a hard copy of John Grisham’s The Confession costs S$9 for an e-book rather than the S$17 offered at bookstores.

Local publishers that will have their works available through skoob include Popular, Marshall Cavendish, Cengage Learning, Asiapac, Flame of the Forest, McGraw Hill, Sunbear, Monsoon, Singapore Asia Publishers (SAP) and Janus Education, while works by international publishers such as Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Simon and Schuster and Macmillan are also available.

Classics that are past copyright and in the public domain, such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, are also made free through skoob.

Skoob is available on Apple and Android tablets and smartphones via a free app.  It can also be run on PCs and Macs using standard browsers.  Customers have the flexibility to download books on up to five devices. Payment is either through Singapore credit cards, though SingTel customers can also have the purchases charged to their monthly bills.

At launch, skoob will offer only English books, but SingTel says that Chinese language books are “to be available soon”.

In a statement, Goh Seow Eng, SingTel’s chief of digital home, said: “The Singapore market has long been overlooked by e-book services from abroad.  With the launch of skoob, Singapore readers finally have a service that offers local books and caters specifically to their tastes and needs.  It also provides local publishers and writers with a powerful digital platform that allows them to reach a wider audience.”

So how does skoob stack up to services like iBooks for the iPad or even Amazon’s e-book service if one has a Kindle? The local content, such as study guides or educational textbooks for primary and secondary school students, will be beneficial for those looking for cheaper content in electronic form.

Readers who are also looking for local literature will also find it easier to obtain through skoob. However, prices may fluctuate between content generators, so it is always a good idea to compare skoob’s prices with other providers for one’s device to ensure you get a good bargain. Since skoob offers e-books in the .epud format, books you buy from it are also compatible with e-readers like the Amazon Kindle or the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Hit up www.skoob.com.sg to see the site for yourself.