SingTel added Justin Timberlake, Jay Chou and a number of other Sony Music artistes to its AMPed mobile music download catalogue last Wednesday, boosting the number of tracks on sale to its users to over 1 million.

The 150,000 new tracks will be accessible to more than 70 different mobile devices, including the Apple iPhone and Android numbers such as the Samsung Galaxy S and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

Why I wanted to post this piece of news, despite missing out on it last week, is the fact that SingTel has pressed ahead when other music stores that employ DRM (digital rights management), such as Soundbuzz, died a long-overdue death in the past couple of years.

The SingTel store has been offering DRM-free music since last year – users can download 15 DRM-free tracks a month to own and share. Yes, share. That’s from SingTel’s press release. That’s not a big number, but it’s still a start in a continent where Western content owners consider a piracy hotspot.

Even Nokia’s ovi music store, that well-meaning but notoriously hard to use service (only works on Internet Explorer), is opening up to DRM-free tracks worldwide for its ala carte purchases. Songs downloaded through its all-you-can-eat Comes with Music service are still tied to the Nokia phone.

Kudos have to go to Apple for pushing for DRM-free music on its iTunes store, and the likes of Amazon for popularising DRM-free MP3s on their sites.

There’s a good reason for DRM to go. It’s never worked to fight piracy, instead inconveniencing users who actually want to pay for the music. That’s not to mention the bad PR record labels have bestowed on themselves when one of them – Sony BMG Music Entertainment-  inserted rootkit-type of programmes that were able to spy on users and opened their computers to hackers in 2005.

With DRM gone, here’s hoping more “free-for-fair-use” tracks will be on music stores such as SingTel’s. Of course, if there’s a big store that sells millions of tracks to every user – not just SingTel’s – that would be great for Singapore users (no, we don’t have iTunes Store here).

What all music fans would like to see also is for music to be sold across geographical boundaries. Also, for those pickier, like me, high-rez versions (at 24/96 or even better), please.

Already, high-rez downloads are available from independent stores such as Linn Records and Chesky Records, which are popular with audio geeks.

If there are many more such stores selling great-sounding high-rez tracks, I’d really be spending hundreds of dollars there instead of going to the CD shop to buy a disc, rip it onto my music server and play through my PC or hi-fi system.

But unfortunately, that’s what Singapore users face here.

Singapore will be running a S$5 million, year-long trial of 3D TV from today, just months after the first 3D TVs started going on sale here at retail stores.

The trial will be run by broadcasters SingTel, StarHub and Mediacorp, said Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Lui Tuck Yew, at the opening of the CommunicAsia show this morning.

This means some lucky trial users from the industry will be among the first here to don their stereoscopic 3D glasses to view 3D content made in Singapore.

We’re not sure how many couch potatotes will excited by it, but this year’s National Day Parade will be recorded in 3D and expected to be viewable in the more realistic viewing mode. Great news if you’re a fan of the yearly extravaganza.

More seriously, it’s a good thing Singapore is spending dollars to develop content, talent and media services for 3D programmes, since other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have already broadcast 3D programmes like football matches, in the past 12 months.

Details are still sketchy for the Singapore trial now, and it is unclear if this industry-based move will bring 3D content to actual home users, like the nationwide high-definition TV (HDTV) trial of four years ago, which enabled viewers to watch the last World Cup in HD.

For the new 3D TV trial, broadcasters “may choose to extend the trial to include consumers,” said an MDA press release.

What we do know is that TV makers such as Samsung, LG and Sony will be really happy that sales of 3D TV sets have got a nice push here.

From mobile broadband to the next big app on the small screen to augmented reality, the inaugural UNWIRED 2010 conference held on May 27, 2010 at the Singapore Management University discussed these topics and got a truly participatory attendance asking for more time for questions.

About 160 attendees, speakers and media thronged the halls on the eve of a long weekend, all eager to debate the latest issues as well as get in touch with peers from the industry.

Here’s what some attendees said:

Susanna Janonkova (via Twitter): “Went to #unwired2010 Singapore today : good investment of time, nice to meeting you all and thanks for the organisers!”

Paula Turco (over e-mail): “Thanks again for orgainizing the Unwired 2010 conference. I especially liked the presentations by the 2 Ians, Ian Koh and Ian McKee. Both brought up interesting concepts spurring further thought and lively discussion.”

Also, here’s a story on The Business Times, mostly on Dr Tan Geok Leng, IDAs CTO’s speech on wireless ecosystems in Singapore.

In any case, as the organiser for this independent wireless event, I offer my sincere apologies for the late post on UNWIRED 2010 (been away to recharge my batteries after running non-stop for a month for UNWIRED 2010). It’s a good thing Chi-loong has done a write-up on his panel last week.

Once again, thanks to all who made it a great success. To start with, the sponsors Samsung, Microsoft and Nokia Siemens Networks.

I also owe a great amount of thanks to the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), Singapore Management University and industry associations which have helped promote as well as offer all manner of help: Singapore infocomm Technology Federation, Singapore Computer Society, Mobile Monday, Mobile Alliance and Mobile Entertainment Forum.

And most importantly,  thanks to everyone who turned up – helpers and friends offering valuable advice (you know who you are!), speakers and old friends from the industry and also a great audience which had more questions than the time we had for discussion and folks who Tweeted about the event as it was ongoing.

Nothing’s perfect, of course. But I’m glad things turned out better than expected. I promise to take your feedback seriously regarding Wi-Fi access next year, and to offer more time for networking!

See you all again for UNWIRED 2011!

No, it is not SingTel and StarHub you should be angry with. Nor should you fret that the S$66 package – at about S$1-a-match – to watch the World Cup on the telly is four times more than what you had paid in 2006.

Rather, the best reason to switch off from next month’s football extravaganza is because you, the Singapore football fan, have been taken for a ride.

And unless you vote with your remote, prices for sports programming and other pay-TV offerings in future will go further north, after these World Cup deals announced last Friday.

When prices go up, there’s usually a good reason. For the World Cup 2010 broadcasts, why Singapore viewers are paying more is because FIFA believes folks here have always paid so much and thus can continue to pay more than what the rest of the world does.

Put simply, we are suckers eager to be ripped off.

Just look across the border to Malaysia, where the free-to-air RTM TV station is broadcasting a good number of the matches on the telly. Why not look at Italy, too, where there’s one match shown on free-to-air TV a day?

Okay, you say these countries are not as rich as Singapore. What about New Zealand, which is getting 22 matches on free-to-air, or Australia, where the matches are shown on free-on-air TV on SBS?

There is no other way to see it. Football fans in Singapore, in their desire for live football, have driven prices up to a point where rights owners can hold out for one of the highest per-capita premiums in the world.

In the end, Singapore broadcasters are said to have paid S$21 million for World Cup 2010 rights – more than four times the estimated S$5 million that StarHub coughed up in 2006.

What ends up now is a no-win situation for all but FIFA and its Asian representative for the World Cup 2010, Football Media Services (FMS).

Don’t hate StarHub and SingTel. Be grateful they did not rush in to pay the S$40 million FIFA had initially asked for. But now, with just weeks away to market their broadcasts to advertisers and viewers, how much of the costs can they recoup? I’d be worried as a shareholder.

And couch potatoes, long angered by the ever increasing prices demanded by sports rights owners, are boycotting the World Cup. To rally football fans here, a Facebook page started just days ago now has more than 3,000 supporters.

This sorry episode has laid bare the problems entrenched in Singapore’s pay-TV market for years. While prices spiralled out of control, the biggest loser has been the football fan.

And that is where change has to start from, for the sake of being able to watch football on the telly at reasonable prices in future. Say no to World Cup prices that have been manipulated by FIFA, and which have come about under the watch of previously hands-off government regulators.

Remind the Media Development Authority (MDA) it has a duty to Singapore viewers, by preventing the pay-TV market from being distorted, at their expense.

In Britain, where the cost of watching football on the telly has long been an issue, the government regulator Ofcom finally made key changes to the market this year to level the playing field.

In recent months, it has forced BSkyB to cut the price that it wholesales its premium content to rivals by more than 20 per cent. This translates directly to discounts for viewers, including football fans following the Barclays Premier League.

Sure enough, powerful broadcasters and their content partners will challenge Ofcom’s rulings. But the move is a sign that people, and finally, government regulators who represent them, have had enough of pay TV prices set by greed, not real cost.

This has to be the model for MDA, as it fulfills its role as a regulator acting in the interest of Singapore viewers. The banning of exclusive pay-TV content in March, which finally put an end to costly bidding exercises, is a start.

Sadly, by that stage, content owners have long got used to Singapore paying high prices, and FIFA was not ready to change in an instant for World Cup 2010.

Ultimately, change has to come from the viewer. And that is why I am saying no to the World Cup on my telly at home. There’s no other way if I want prices to be more reasonable in future.

Singapore football fans are finally getting all the live matches for World Cup 2010, after the country almost ended up as one of a handful that could not reach a deal with FIFA to broadcast the world’s biggest football show.

In the end, StarHub and StarHub are said to have ironed out a deal that will cost them about US$15 million (S$21 million), which is half the S$40 million asking price that had been reported earlier.

Should football fans rejoice? Let’s do the sums.

For the 2006 World Cup, StarHub is said to have paid US$5 million for the rights for the month-long event. Its asking price to subscribers then: S$15 for early-bird sign-ons and S$25 subsequently.

This time round, would viewers have to pay more? It looks certain, though StarHub will probably not heap the entire 3x increase in its costs directly on viewers.

By most measures, S$60 to S$100 to watch 64 matches in a World Cup where Singapore is not even part of is a bit rich for most fans, bar of course, the very rich ones.

That’s also considering that the final few matches – the semi-finals, third-place play-off and final – should be shown on Mediacorp’s free-to-air channels, if FIFA lives up to its promise of bringing football to the masses.

Should this be hailed as a triumph for content sharing in Singapore? I’d say a qualified “yes”.

If StarHub and SingTel had gone in with competitive bids, instead of a joint one, then surely, we’d be looking at even higher fees to be paid to Football Media Services (FMS), the Asian representatives of FIFA for World Cup 2010.

Singapore telcos were being asked to pay more – at the highest dollar per capita – simply because the earlier SingTel-StarHub bidding war for Barclays Premier League rights had yielded such fat profits for the rights owners.

The Singapore market suddenly looked like a succulent chunk of meat to content owners – they believed they could ask for crazy prices because of the distorted and unhealthy type of competition going on here.

Now, none of this would have happened had the pay-TV market been regulated with a more enlightened approach. Up until last month, the authorities had simply shrugged shoulders and said the market would correct itself.

Well, it had not. Indeed, it had become worse, until urgent action from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts to reverse course and start ruling out exclusive pay-TV deals here.

So there is good news for football fans and indeed pay-TV users in Singapore.

This lower World Cup bid, though still high by many measures, has at least shown that the Singapore market, and by extension, its viewers, are not absolute suckers for content owners to rip off.

Google has done it, so why not Microsoft? Just hours ago, the software giant unveiled two self-branded phones aimed at getting the non-techy crowd on social networking services on the go.

Called Kin One and Kin Two, they look a little like a miniaturised Nokia N97 mini and a Blackberry with a slide-out keyboard. But hey, why change a proven design if rivals have made it work?

Both phones feature a Windows Phone OS that reminds one of the Zune HD interface, and will hook up to the music service seamlessly. But the OS – not Windows Phone 7 – looks like a hugely simplified affair, going by images and reports out so far.

Large icons of contacts and  their social media postings dominate the main screen, which seems a smart thing to get the non-techy crowd onboard. After all, they must first be able to see what the fuss is about Twitter or Facebook to be convinced, right?

Both phones sport handy slide-out keyboards – a pre-requisite, I believe, for winning over a group of users who are probably still toting candy-bar phones with traditional dialpads and are not familiar with a touch-screen (even though the Kins do support a touch-screen as well).

What I don’t like, going by what is known about the phones now, is a lack of a native instant messaging client. It also doesn’t sync with Outlook and doesn’t have an app store to hook up to.

Another piece of bad news for those of you reading this in Asia: I’ve just been told the Kins will not make it to the region. They will only hit the shelves in the United States and Europe next month.

From April 30, all you couch potatoes will be punching in different numbers on your StarHub remote to access the channels you have grown so accustomed to over the more than 10 years that cable TV has been on the telly in Singapore.

Following other pay-TV operators like Astro in Malaysia, StarHub is changing all its channel numbers into three-digit numbers, themed along the genres they belong to.

So, your favourite Football Channel would be changed from Ch 27 to Ch 222 (Ch 200+ is for sports), while HBO would change from Ch60 to Ch601 (Ch 600+ for movies), for example.

StarHub says this will let users easily locate their more than 100 channels, to which they added four more at today’s announcement and demo.

But the real reason for doing this, I’d imagine, is to prepare for a market without exclusive pay-TV deals. Remember the long-overdue ruling against exclusive pay-TV content?

It means StarHub and its chief rival SingTel can no longer keep the good stuff – be it Discovery or HBO or Barclays Premier League – to themselves, after the current contracts expire in the next one to three years.

That means something of a free-for-all, especially when it comes to StarHub’s large stable of currently exclusive programmes. I can imagine SingTel would like HBO or Discovery or even CBeeBees, which StarHub wrested from the “red” operator last year, in the mio TV lineup.

With a big number of channels tied up for now, StarHub must be thinking which ones SingTel will attempt to grab a share of when their contracts end. It could also try to grab some from SingTel as well.

How will a change in its channel numbers help StarHub? The new system could very well prepare for new channels that are incoming – possibly ones which StarHub would like from SingTel’s current lineup.

The most attractive would be the video-on-demand programmes straight from the United States, which mio TV customers enjoy, as a perceptive journo pal of mine told me today at the StarHub event.

StarHub’s head of content, Kathleen Syron, says it has readied an entire 900 series of numbers to cater to channels showing “must-carry” programmes from its rival. You can imagine these could easily include channels it wants from SingTel too.

Of course, the StarHub folks were mum when asked which channels they were eyeing, or how many they expect to bring over or share with SingTel. They say they do not expect any change in channels this year (no surprise, given that the contracts usually tie up for three years, and the ruling only applies to contracts signed from this month).

Interestingly, StarHub chief operating officer Tan Tong Hai said there is a lot more to be discussed with the authorities, when it comes to the new ruling to kick out exclusive TV deals.

You get a sense that it is still being tweaked as we go. But I, for one, can’t wait for the day when all the barn doors are open, and exclusive pay-TV deals are consigned to the past.

Think about it – change comes not just to the pay-TV landscape, but also the market for this whole triple-play bundle of services that also includes mobile and broadband.

Without exclusive content to anchor a triple-play offering, operators will have to work harder to package their deals. And that’s a good thing for consumers.

After all these years, and facing the wrath of football fans deprived of live World Cup matches, Singapore’s media regulators finally decided a fortnight ago to rule out exclusive pay-TV content henceforth and bring an end to one of their most costly mistakes of late.

As Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), Lui Tuck Yew, told Parliament two weeks ago, the authorities will now force pay-TV operators – mainly StarHub and SingTel now – to share their content.

This brings an end to costly bidding exercises that have made it expensive for football fans to watch exclusive programmes like live Barclays Premier League (BPL) matches.

While a positive move, the question remains if this has come too late, and if the authorities, mainly the Media Development Authority (MDA), an agency within MICA, had allowed such a distorted market to develop over the years.

For more than seven years, the MDA had simply washed its hands of the market, choosing in 2006, and later in 2007, to say that there were no problems with the market, even when SingTel and Starhub were paying hundreds of millions of Singapore dollars for exclusive BPL content, making the country one of the costliest markets in terms of dollars per capita.

The final straw came in the past two months, when it was revealed that Fifa, the rights holders for the World Cup 2010 in June, had demanded a ridiculously high fee that StarHub and SingTel simply refused to pay.

To think it had taken the farce of Singapore being one of a handful of countries to miss out on live World Cup matches to get the Government to act.

And for two market rivals – SingTel and StarHub – to put aside differences to table a joint bid for the World Cup, which was rejected by a greedy Fifa keen to exploit Singapore’s willingness to pay for exclusive content, to move this impossibly bad situation for Singapore’s pay-TV viewers.

Might things have been different had the authorities acted all these years, instead of telling people nothing can be done, and that rights holders will just “leave Singapore” if the authorities had forced the sharing of content?

Well, the answer is clear now. That official line, held for years by MDA, is now officially rubbish, after Minister Lui finally admitted two weeks ago that the current situation is a “market failure that is evident”. Yet, as he delivered the changes, he must have also wondered if they have come too late.

Firstly, if he had ruled on this just months before the current BPL bids were accepted, SingTel would not have paid excessive amounts for the upcoming three seasons. Users would not have to worry about getting a second set-top box to watch different programmes on the telly.

Secondly, the ruling, which only applies now, may or may not be enough to bring the World Cup to Singapore. Fifa is well prepared to play hardball and stick to its asking price, which has been said to be above a stratospheric S$40 million.

To this, I say football fans will just have to treat this entire episode as a harsh lesson in pay-TV economics.

That the authorities have so dramatically reacted to a potential loss of World Cup rights will not bring instant results when it comes to the screening of content that is in hot demand.

Sports rights owners, say, the Football Association Premier League (FA PL) in Britain, have always played hardball when it comes to exclusive rights. And they might well say “forget Singapore” if the authorities here insist on sharing content.

To which, I say, you, the football fan, just have to start voting with your wallet. So far, you have said no to the damaging exclusive content deals that have made everything expensive and inconvenient for pay-TV viewers. And finally, the authorities have acted in response.

Should content owners, in the form of Fifa or FA PL or anyone else, try to force the issue in future, couch potatoes would just have to learn to say no, offering a big thumbs-down to bad deals.

I’m prepared not to watch the World Cup. If I have to watch the final, I might just drive to Malaysia to watch it. Football fans here, I imagine, would find this tough at first, but realise that it’s the only way forward in the long term.

From here, let’s see where this new ruling brings us.

If done right, with the next-gen broadband network up in Singapore from this year, the new content-sharing rules could mean that content is piped through one network, over one set-top box, and viewers will be able to choose – at their convenience – what pay-TV programmes they want, at a time they choose.

That will be progress indeed.

If you’re a repeat visitor to Techgoondu, you’ll no doubt have noticed the look and feel of the site has changed. Try it out and let us know what you think!

It’s the third incarnation of Techgoondu since our inception more than 18 months ago, but you’ll notice that our tagline remains the same: The revolution has begun.

That tagline has a special relevance to us (more on this later!), but most importantly the site wouldn’t exist if not for you, our readers.

What started out as an experiment in blogging and social media — as this old post by Boon Kiat aptly put when Techgoondu turned one — has taken a life of its own.

From various contests, to threads that have surprising life, to YouTube Techgoondu interviews, to Christmas wishlists, to our meet the techgoondu event, to Hong Kong flavoured posts, the site has evolved step by teething step.

Not all ideas worked and we had to drop some. But it has been a journey that has been — for the most part — a joyous thrill ride, and we’re grateful for the chance to be read.

Thank you for being part of our journey.

What will the future of Techgoondu hold? I don’t know how the site will look, but we’ll keep experimenting. We’ll keep trying to build a great content site that is useful and relevant to readers. Watch this space.

We started the site out of a fervent belief that traditional media platforms in Singapore do not reflect the way people access information and services nowadays. We desperately wanted a platform and voice to tell good tech stories that sometimes the media doesn’t tell. Put the two together and you have Techgoondu.

This isn’t just our site. We hope to build something that is also your site. Have a tech story to tell? Let us know. Hate the new interface or something bugs you? Let us know! Are you a vendor or PR that wants to try something crazy with social media? As long as it is good content that serves the community, you’ll find that we’re a flexible bunch to work with. Are you a small local SME or start-up that wants to be heard but don’t know how? Talk to us!

Drop us a note at contact@techgoondu.com, or check out our about pages for individual email contacts.

Lastly, here’s a gallery of some of our previous Techgoondu designs and sites one and two.

The Internet has been abuzz with Google’s announcement of Buzz, their new social networking platform that they just announced about a day ago.

Of course, Facebook is the king of the hill in the social networking space that Google is going after.

Reams of commentaries and news analysis has been written about this — here are some excellent ones by PC Mag and TechCrunch — so I’m not going to delve into the history and just go straight to the point with my comments.

With Buzz bundled in Gmail natively, my gut feel is that it has a good chance of taking off, especially with the huge Gmail install base. Went to the Buzz website to find out more, but apparently it’s not available for Singapore yet.

Here’s their statement on the site:

We’re still rolling out Buzz to everyone, so if you don’t see it in your Gmail account yet, check back soon.

*Update*: It’s now up for me. That was fast!

That’s about it for the newspoint. The story I really want to write, however, is how Google has been taking over all the tools I’ve been using.

My seduction by Google

I’ve been happily seduced by Google’s great applications thus far — I couldn’t survive without Google search and Gmail as a freelance journalist — but I can’t help but feel a little perturbed that Google has become so pervasive in my life.

I’m on an Android mobile phone. Now Android is the open-source mobile platform by Google, and it’s being supported by many phone manufacturers. It’s great for its integration with Gmail, which I use as my primary email. My copy editor IMs me on Google Chat, which pings me on my phone immediately.

I’m a huge fan of Gothere.sg, a local Singaporean map provider, but Google has too much integration to their cloud for me to fight, and unfortunately their apps are good. Google maps is easy to use on Android. There’s Latitude, where I can see where my friends are at.

Alf was just showing me his use of Google calendar, which is useful if you have to add in a friend’s calendar to coordinate meetings. Both Microsoft Outlook and Apple’s iCal calendaring apps predate Google’s calendar by years, but Google’s cloud version really makes it easy to share.

I’m mainly a Firefox user. Tried Chrome when it first came out, felt it wasn’t polished enough, so quit and went back to Firefox. A tech friend of mine persuaded me to try it again recently when I got my new PC, and the experience has been pretty good. So now I use Chrome and Firefox interchangeably. Sigh. Again, seduced by Google.

This website wouldn’t get half its hits if we weren’t aggregated by Google News. We’re also pretty reliant on Google Analytics to get stats on our site, and I’ve played with the Web Optimizer. All good products.

I use Google Reader to browse my favourite RSS feeds. I don’t really use much of Google Docs except to read the occasional attached document in Gmail and I want nice formatting.

However, when I needed to collaborate with friends on a spreadsheet — a mundane project on estimated costs for our US road trip this May — my friend went with Google Docs to sync up our thoughts across two continents. Again, it’s nothing new, and Microsoft has been doing this for years in a business environment, but it drives home the power of the cloud and the install base of Google.

YouTube. Google Voice. Piccasa. Google Earth. It’s an endless list of apps that I’ve used or tried.

It is unlikely that you’ve not been touched by Google in some way. “Just Google it” has been etched into our everyday lexicon, and is an extremely powerful meme for search: Find that song lyrics, cool movie trailer, or latest news.

Google is everywhere it seems. Except China, where there are Chinese analogues like Baidu (Google Search), TuDou (YouTube), and Kai Xin Wang and Ren Ren Wang (Facebook). I’ve not done a thorough Google search(!), but I’m sure there are other language-specific analogues that tackle their home markets as well.

And that’s probably not such a bad thing. It’s good to have alternatives to the tech giant even if those are smaller and more niche. Google is a listed corporation after all, despite their “Do No Evil” motto.

…And back to the newspoint

If you’re still with me after that long personal rambling story, that is why I think with Buzz bundled into Gmail’s install base, FaceBook is in for a fight.

Now I’m a user of FB. I think it’s a great product for social chitchat and games, and I love it for its ability to organize events.

But as a journalist I would often end my tech stories by saying never discount Microsoft / IBM / Cisco / Oracle / HP, and now especially Google. Because these companies have tons of money that they can bleed oponents dry, even if you have the better product.