If Nvidia gets its way, enterprise desktops and games could soon be served off the cloud, thanks to new cloud technologies unveiled by the graphics chip giant this week.

Based on the company’s new Kepler GPU (graphics processing unit) architecture, the new technologies — Nvidia VGX and GeForce Grid — are designed for large-scale data centres and tout virtualisation capabilities that allow GPUs to be simultaneously used by multiple users.

The Nvidia VGX platform can be used by enterprises in remote computing that allows applications to be streamed to notebooks or mobile devices through virtualised desktops, while Nvidia GeForce Grid is targeted at gaming-as-a-service (GaaS) providers for delivering rich gaming experiences.

With their streaming display capabilities, energy efficiency and parallel processing power, GPUs can lower data centre costs and speed up data crunching tasks in high-end computing applications such as seismic imaging. Nvidia’s introduction of cloud GPU technologies follows its 1999 invention of the GPU and its 2006 creation of Cuda, a parallel-processing technology.

“Kepler cloud GPU technologies shifts cloud computing into a new gear,” said Huang Jen-Hsun, Nvidia president and chief executive officer, in a media statement. “The GPU has become indispensable. It is central to the experience of gamers. It is vital to digital artists realizing their imagination. It is essential for touch devices to deliver silky smooth and beautiful graphics. And now, the cloud GPU will deliver amazing experiences to those who work remotely and gamers looking to play untethered from a PC or console.”

According to IDC, Nvidia VGX will have a “profound effect” in the centralised virtual desktop (CVD) space. Up till now, allowing multiple virtual machines to access GPUs on a server has been expensive, the analyst company said in a research note.

“In many of our conversations with customers, if the user experience of a CVD implementation is not just as good as a traditional PC, many end users end up rejecting the implementation, causing delays and large incremental costs while trying to figure out the issues,” IDC said, adding that Nvidia VGX can also spearhead CVD deployments in areas like 3-D and healthcare applications that are typically not well suited for remote computing.

In a separate research article, IDC research manager Lewis Ward said Nvidia’s GeForce Grid should allow telcos, cable providers, and hosted infrastructure providers to deliver monthly gaming subscriptions. “Any company that operates consumer-facing data centers could potentially launch a premium GaaS cloud channel, assuming GeForce Grid works as advertized,” he said.

“Interestingly, if Amazon adopted the likes of GeForce Grid technology, it could begin offering white label GaaS cloud services to game developers/publishers. Through a smart TV app and similar apps on PCs and mobile/portable devices, there’s no reason individual developers/publishers couldn’t launch their own gaming channels,” Ward added.

PayPal is offering a shopping cart plug-in that can help turn e-commerce sites meant for desktop PCs into a mobile-optimised store in less than an hour, as part of its efforts to make payment easy on the phone.

This “Mobile Commerce in a Box” concept means that potential customers who browse to the site on a smartphone will be automatically redirected to the mobile-optimised site, where they can then proceed to shop and check out with PayPal.

The company is keen to make itself the payment choice for mobile commerce, as more users start buying things on their small screens. Singapore’s mobile shopping is projected to be worth S$4.4 billion by 2015, according to a study that the company carried out in 2011.

In the same year, mobile shopping accounted for 23 per cent of all online shopping, a staggering increase from just 4 per cent in 2010.

PayPal’s new plug-in is free, and is powered by e-commerce software called ezimerchant. However, the plug-in currently supports only ZenCart and osCommerce shopping carts.

PayPal executives said in Singapore on Thursday that it has also tweaked its own payment page to offer a better experience on a mobile screen. The service will automatically detect the device users are on and serve up the mobile PayPal gateway even if the merchant they are purchasing from is not optimised for mobile phones.

Figures from its 2011 survey generally found that sites optimised for mobile phones often resulted in users transacting more and spending more time on the sites.

The study also showed that:

– 75 percent of mobile purchases in 2011 were conducted on smartphones, amounting to a total of S$244 million. Tablet-owners spent only S$82 million in total, but average spending per head was higher than smartphone users.

– PayPal’s QR code campaign with SMRT from February to April this year enabled an average of 500 completed transactions per 10,000 QR scans, equivalent to a 5 percent customer conversion rate, compared to only 1.7 percent conversion rate from direct emailers.

Who would blame Opennet, the contractor laying the cables to 95 per cent of the island, if once in a while a cable or two are not patched correctly?

Certainly, with fibre broadband prices at a low and a variety of options for savvy Net users, Singapore consumers never had it so good before. Intense competition has brought a 100Mbps fibre service to under S$50 and there are now services catering to gamers and video buffs.

Yet, a number of issues with Opennet now threaten to spoil the experience for users. And if not tackled, they could put the brakes on the competition that has benefited the newly-opened up market.

Lay the cable right
First, Opennet needs to do its basic job right – that’s laying the cable.

Earlier this year, a resident complained that Opennet had damaged some StarHub cable TV wires and caused him to lose reception to cable TV programmes. StarHub accused the fibre contractor of tampering with its cables, though the case was resolved eventually.

Unfortunately, problems with Opennet’s cable fault are not isolated. I speak from first-hand experience, as I just spent three-plus hours yesterday and today waiting for engineers from M1 and Opennet to trouble-shoot a fault in a new broadband line I had signed up for.

Yesterday, hours after installing a 100Mbps “gamer” plan at my home in the morning, the M1 engineers called up and said their system had raised an alarm – my connection had high data loss. That may explain the rather inconsistent latency I had experienced while playing online games.

The M1 folks came yesterday, and again this morning with a few Opennet contractors, to check the line. After another two hours this morning, they found that a fibre optic cable at the MDF (main distribution frame) room at the foot of the building was at fault. The signal was too high (“-25″) and the Opennet folks had to reconnect the line to bring it down to more regular levels (“-16″).

All in, I wasted a good many hours waiting for the troubleshooting to be done, and the poor M1 guys had made two extra trips – each costing the company money – through no fault of theirs.

Thing is, after all the trouble caused by Opennet, its contractors happily pushed me a service form to complete and left the place without so much as an explanation.

Was it a fault that came with the original laying of the line, I had asked. It’s a “pigtail” connection, the white cable, came the cryptic, non-committal reply from the supervisor representing Opennet. After wasting all our time, the last thing he wanted to give was the reason for the cable fault. He left promptly when I tried to ask more.

Why doesn’t Opennet care? Because I don’t matter. I’m not its customer – I pay M1 my monthly fees – and it is not motivated to get things done or explain things when they don’t work.

Unfortunately, this sours the entire experience for customers. If Opennet cannot get its task of laying the cables right, splicing them and connecting them without error, the entire next-gen broadband doesn’t come to users’ homes.

Yet, it seems to get away with things because it doesn’t lose any revenue from a small cable fault. Whether the line is up or down, it still gets paid to roll out to each home by the Singapore government and collects revenue from telecom operators.

Separated or not?
The problem also calls into question the network separation that the infocomm regulator had set in place to prevent one telco from dominating the market.

Opennet is expected to deal transparently with all telcos. But it is partly owned by SingTel, and by three other companies, and it hires SingTel contractors to lay the cables to homes and offices islandwide.

Are these SingTel contractors then motivated to solve the issues of customers signing up for a rival telco’s services? They are obliged to roll out the fibre as their contracts stipulate, no doubt, but what type of customer service would they extend to consumers in need? I think I got my answer today.

To be sure, the speed with which the rank and file purple-shirted contractors have rolled out the nation’s network has been impressive. But Opennet and SingTel have to be open about this potential conflict of interest and its impact on the broadband experience.

Opennet has rejected recent offers by StarHub and M1 to lay cables to homes to speed up the process. Why does Opennet use only SingTel for this job of connecting homes?

Here is where the government regulator has to step in. If one contractor is not up to job, it should order Opennet to broaden its list of contractors. The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is paying Opennet S$750 million to roll out the network, after all.

Recently, IDA pushed the fibre contractor to increase its rollout of fibre to homes, but it should also look at the quality of the wires. It should record the number of cable faults submitted by users and ISPs and determine if SingTel/Opennet is doing a good enough job.

After all, what’s the point of “reaching” a home with fibre, only to spend hours of troubleshooting afterwards on a cable fault? More importantly, what more can IDA do to get Opennet to make sure its cables are laid perfectly the first time?

The problem is not just for new fibre users. Thousands of homes already connected face the same scenario, including the 133,000 active fibre subscribers here now.

That’s because each home actually has two fibre links – the wall socket has two ports – and if you subscribe to a new fibre provider, chances are Opennet has to come again to connect up the second link at your building’s riser and MDF room downstairs. In doing this, it can introduce new cable faults.

Now, what can IDA do to make sure this doesn’t spoil the experience for users? With its mission of hooking up Singapore complete in the next few months, it will have to examine the quality of the rollout. Look hard enough, and it’ll find problems needing urgent action.

It doesn’t work out of the box. Troubleshooting required.

Not cool.

And this was a huge surprise to me. Given the past quality of Blizzard’s games, and the extremely long wait fans had for Diablo 3, you’d expect it to be extremely polished and launched without a hitch.

After all, they run the world’s most massive and profitable MMORPG World of Warcraft, so you would think they know a thing or two about server loads and whatnot.

That didn’t happen on May 15th, which was the worldwide launch of Diablo 3. Three days later, gamers are still plagued with problems. I can attest to that, being one of Blizzard’s fanboys who pre-ordered the game and played the beta.

Had to install the darn thing twice as the updater patch didn’t work the first time.

Then kept getting error 3007 and booted out of the game. Was incredibly irate and about to throw a shoe at the screen after three hours of debugging error 3007.

I decided that it was probably not my computer’s problems even though Blizzard’s forum claimed it was a client side issue because:
– all of my other online games seem to play fine
– if thousands of folks around the world are having problems, I can’t be the only one

I had originally wanted to write up my first impressions of Diablo 3 this weekend, but I couldn’t even get the game running.

Al least Blizzard has issued a formal apology to all its fans, but this didn’t stop it from getting caustic reviews on metacritic, many who thrashed it for forcing online persistence for a single-player game.

Fanboys might be irrationally passionate about certain titles, but they often have legitimate grouses, and game publishers in the industry had better take notice.

After all, with the advent of crowdfunded games — Wasteland 2 and Double Fine Advertures are two great examples — traditional games publishing might give way to more hybrid, flexible game publishing models.

Oh well, I’ll probably try Diablo 3 a few hours later or tomorrow. The network issues will probably be solved by then. Hopefully.

The Nokia Lumia 900, the Windows Phone camp’s best smartphone to date, is coming to Singapore on May 26 and will go for a rather attractive S$849 at retailers as well as via all three mobile operators here.

Launched in the United States last month, the update to the Lumia 800 comes with a bigger 4.3-inch display (over a 3.7-incher) and sports the same “pillow” of a screen that sits quite sexily on the one-piece polycarbonate body.

The bigger screen, of course, comes with slightly more heft. The new phone weighs 160g, compared to the previous 142g, though you’ll really have to have sensitive hands to be able to feel the difference.

Other than that, the Nokia Lumia 900 has some of the features that have worked for the Lumia 800 before, like a 8-meg camera with a Carl-Zeiss lens and a useful f2.2 aperture for getting in more light, for example, in dim settings.

The new phone will come in black, white and cyan, though it’s likely white will be the standout colour here, considering how popular white versions have been for other phones here.

The big question, though, is whether the Lumia 900 will bring Microsoft and Nokia back into the game. The hardware has all the attributes of a good phone, that is clear, and the new Lumia will stand toe to toe with other Android phones or the iPhone 4 S.

The price is attractive too, considering that rivals from Samsung and HTC usually cost S$900 or more. No, it’s not likely that the telcos here will drop prices to S$126 (US$99) with a subscription, as was the case in the US. But priced right, the Lumia 900 is surely a good alternative to Android or iOS devices.

The issue for Microsoft and Nokia is whether they can rally enough developers to come up with the apps for Windows Phone.

In places like Singapore, where everyone is used to the way Android or iOS works, it would take more than a solid Lumia 900 to chip away at the two main rivals’ lead.

In other countries like Indonesia, however, Nokia and Microsoft may find more joy. There are still many users, many toting Blackberrys, who are not so used to the two dominant OSes and are probably more open to a different experience on Windows Phone.

Either way, the Lumia 900 has come at a critical time for Microsoft and Nokia. Slow sales will make things even tougher for the two challengers to the Google-Apple dominance. Do well with the Lumia 900, and they may have a chance to turn around their fortunes and rally more developers to their side.

When the first iPod Touch was released to market, I wasted no time in getting one. I was attracted to its novel (at that time) touch screen interface and generally liked to buy into tech earlier than others.

Then Android happened, and the one question which has plagued me since was this: how come nobody is trying to eat into the iPod Touch’s market share? Apple is still selling them by the truckloads, carefully making each model obsolete year-on-year.

Samsung tried to do something about that with its Galaxy Players, but seemed understandably more focused on its mobile phones.

Sony has now stepped in to take up that mantle with its Walkman Z1050, a neat-looking device with decent hardware.

The Android 2.3 media player runs on a 1GHz Tegra 2 dual-core processor, and keeps the whole device quick and snappy. Sony has slapped its own skip over the OS, which looks very similar to the Tablet S’ interface.

The hardware is attractive, too. The Z1050’s back curves inward, and it’s very comfortable to hold in the landscape orientation. The plastic doesn’t feel cheap, and its size and weight make it fit nicely in my palm.

The 4.3-inch (800 x 480) screen looks sharp and “contrasty”, a natural must-have for a media consumption device. DLNA compatibility makes sharing media with your bigger screens a cinch.

And of course, it comes with Google Play and lots of apps ready for download over Wi-Fi.

Sony is also touting the Z1050’s superior audio technology, which features built-in software audio enhancements. After all, it’s Walkman-branded, and playing music is what the Walkman is best at doing.

There is, however, one glaring omissions on the Z1050, especially when placed next to an iPod Touch. Apple’s device packs both a front-facing cam for video chats over Wi-Fi and has a rear camera for taking casual shots, while Sony’s new player has none of these at all.

There’s also no word as to whether the Walkman Z1050 will get the Ice Cream Sandwich update.

At S$429 for the 16GB version (no micro SD slot, sadly), the Z1050 will be a very hard sell to many users, considering that you can get a 32GB iPod Touch for almost the same price. But for those who prefer something different, its strong audio capabilities, attractive hardware and the fact that it’s running Android makes it a very solid alternative to the iPod touch.

Singaporeans, it seems, are chronic queuers, and it’s not just iPhones commanding snaking lines.

Even in the age of convenient online pre-orders, hundreds, if not thousands still preferred to get their hands on Blizzard’s latest game Diablo 3 the old-fashioned way – by queuing at the Funan mall launch event yesterday. Some queued for three hours or more for a copy of the long-awaited game.

The highly-anticipated game was offered online for pre-order by various merchants, including Amazon and Qisahn.

I asked everyone I know who are about to swear off communication for the next few weeks how they got their copy of the game. All of my friends pre-ordered online and simply sat at home waiting for it to arrive!

Buyers apparently wasted no time in getting to work, too. Screenshots of the game in action are already surfacing on my Facebook feed.

But it was not all a bed of roses for Diablo 3, as the age-old debate for/against always-online games begins anew.

How are you enjoying the game so far? Share your experience in the comments!

If you ask the towkays of many small and medium enterprises in Singapore if they had some of their most important data backed up, chances are they would give a blank look (“what’s backup?”) or say they have a network drive that they save everything in.

The reason why they haven’t put their customer contacts, invoices and blueprints – the very lifeblood of their businesses – in more secure places is often cost, or the lack of know-how. In particular, small companies often don’t have the manpower to plan for business continuity, should a fire or flood hit the office, or even if a user accidentally erases data on a server.

This is where Singapore backup firm Kronicles is proposing to come in with its backup service, which offers both local and remote backup of customers’ most important data.

Unveiled today, this “backup as a service” is offered from S$5,000 a month (down to under S$2,000 after Singapore government tax rebates for using innovation) and uses Quantum tapes to keep up to three copies of the most recent data.

What’s unique about the Kronicles offering is that it offers both on-site and off-site backup. For the remote link, it does not use your regular broadband line but taps on a dedicated StarHub link – yes, that’s included in the price as well.

The first line of backup is a tape-based device it calls the POD, which is installed at the customer offices and keeps a copy of the files that a customer uses for a month. Using the local network, it holds data that is fast to back up, and should the need arises, fast to recover as well.

At the end of each day, the files are then copied – securely – to a remote site over the cloud to a StarHub facility in Yishun, Singapore (for customers here). If there is a fire or a flood, and the POD is damaged, the data can be restored remotely.

The reason why this is possible is because the next-gen broadband network here offers extremely fast upload speeds, compared to previous broadband options that offer very little in the way of uploads, so companies can transfer their backups quickly in the evening.

At the end of each month, a copy of the tape is saved and given to the customer for his own safekeeping. Alternatively, this can be stored at a Certis Cisco site. This is usually for regulatory purposes, such as if the taxman decides to check on accounts, for example.

The key here, as with many new cloud-based services, is the subscription model. There are no upfront equipment costs or worries about maintenance, which will delight SMEs too lean to hire an entire IT department.

Put another way, this is enterprise-grade backup sold at SME-friendly prices. Kronicles (Singapore) CEO Piti Pramotedham told reporters today it has so far signed up three customers pre-launch, and there’s also been a lot of interest from “mid-market” players eager to outsource their backup functions.

It hopes to expand to Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines later this year. It also plans to roll out its service with local telcos and keep the backup data in-country for faster backup and recovery.

More details at the Kronicles site.

The Internet Society has opened an office in Singapore to promote the adoption of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in the region, among other key initiatives.

While Asia-Pacific became the first region in the world to run out of IPv4 addresses last April, many businesses have not warmed up to IPv6 as existing addresses are expected to be in use for a long time. Moreover, without consumers hooking up to IPv6 through Internet service providers (ISPs), there is little incentive for companies to jump on the bandwagon.

For now, early adopters of IPv6 tend to be network service providers, which have seen demand for IPv6 services from large corporate customers looking to future-proof their networks, or take advantage of IPv6′s inherent features such as peer-to-peer networking.

To promote greater awareness of IPv6, the Internet Society will be organising a World IPv6 Launch event on June 6, when major ISPs, home networking equipment manufacturers and Web companies around the world will permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services.

Apart from promoting IPv6, the new outfit also hopes to improve Internet access across the region, said Rajnesh Singh, regional director of the Internet Society’s Asia-Pacific bureau in a media briefing Monday. The bureau would also work with organisations such as the OECD on Internet-related policy matters such as privacy, broadband access for rural communities and security.

The Internet Society has over 16,000 active members in the Asia-Pacific region, according to its president and CEO Lynn St. Amour. It has also established other regional bureaus in North America, Africa and Middle East, Europe, plus Latin America and the Caribbean.

Unzipping the hard case to check out Audio Technica’s new ATH-ANC9 QuietPoint headphones, you expect no less bang for buck performance and value from the Japanese audio company’s latest version of its excellent noise cancelling cans.

It has been almost five years since the impressive ATH-ANC7 arrived on scene to spoil the party for more expensive rivals (Bose, take note) and Audio-Technica followed it up a couple of years later with a slightly updated ATH-ANC7b.

The ATH-ANC9 that has just been released doesn’t rock the boat as far as the looks or sound go, but it comes with a number of enhancements like better noise cancellation. Oh, there’s also the obligatory microphone for the iPhone crowd to make their calls.

Yet, the most impressive part of the package, surely, is still the sound. Hearing this and comparing it with other noise cancelling headphones, you remember why you are buying headphones for – the music, not the fancy features.

For starters, there is none of that upmixed and bloated bass you’d expect from lesser headphones promising to “enhance” your music. The 40mm drivers in these cans push out the bass nice and tight, and punch quite above their weight.

Fire up something bass heavy from John Legend’s Evolver album, for example, and you’d find there’s nothing overplayed. Even some of New Order’s old tracks will have you tapping your feet – or fingers – because none of the beat is forced and muddled.

Sure, the bass extension can be better, but these are after all portable headphones you’d bring on a plane or train, not pure audiophile cans you’d drive with an external amplifier, so I certainly don’t expect low, low rumbling bass.

I’m also impressed with the way the ATH-ANC9 presents vocals. In jazz and bossa nova pieces, say, in Stacey Kent’s albums, the female vocals are front and centre, without any added colour. There is no added shine, only what’s already there. Indeed, there is a fullness that has just enough warmth, but not too much.

Even more captivating is Tanya Chua’s live acoustic album My Space. The detail is uncanny here, and you clearly hear the Singapore singer drawing breath quickly each time as she delivers on the slower ballads to the accompaniment of the unplugged set.

The good news is the ATH-ANC9 has retained a lot of the sound characteristics of its predecessors, and that is enough reason to check out these S$358 cans, which are no more expensive than previous QuietPoint models. This means, as before, the ATH-ANC9 sounds better than many rivals costing a lot more.

The one thing that users might have a problem with is the sound leakage. It was an issue previously with the ATH-ANC7b, and with the new ATH-ANC9, you may also be telling others what you’re listening to if you turn up the volume a little.

It’s not as loud as teenagers playing their music on their phone speakers on the train, but if you sit close enough, say, on a plane, you can hear what the next guy wearing the Audio Technica is listening to.

That’s probably not an issue for everyone, since open-back headphones are so common these days, but if you are concerned, you might want to check out exactly how loud the leakage can be before buying the headphones.

What I do like, though, is that the Audio Technica headphones’ sound is not trapped in each ear. Instead, there is an imaginary sound stage somewhere between your ears, well, in your head. In many ways, that helps prevent fatigue even after hours of listening, as much as the comfortable all-round cushions on the headphones.

The memory foam used by Audio Technica is one of the best I’ve used and after hours of listening, I don’t feel my ears or head sweating or being numb, despite putting them on in hot and humid Singapore.

That would be a nice thing to know for travellers, who will also find the 220-gram unit easily portable, thanks to the original QuietPoint foldable design. This lets you quickly pack away the headphones along with accessories, like the assorted audio adapters, that are included in the package.

What of the touted new features, like the 30dB or 95 per cent noise cancellation that promises to be an improvement over the previous 85 per cent? I can say the noise cancellation is really useful because it takes out most of the noise when the music is playing. I can’t even hear myself typing when I turn on the music and have the noise cancellation on.

What I’m not so sure about is the three noise cancelling modes that Audio Technica touts here. A button on the left ear cup lets you change from each mode, which promises to work well 1) in noisy planes and trains 2) in offices and indoors 3) in relatively quiet places like libraries. To be honest, I can’t hear that much difference while switching between each mode.

Not that that’s bad, because generally, the active noise cancelling does work very well, together with the ear cups which on their own keep out a lot of the ambient noise.

If there’s one thing to note, it’s that the sound is muffled once you turn off the active noise cancelling. That was the same experience I had with the previous ATH-ANC7b and the same can be said here. Sure, Audio Technica says that that the headphones will still work if you run out juice on the AAA-sized battery, but you will notice that the clarity is degraded.

Fortunately, that’s not a deal breaker, because each battery will last you hours. What impresses the most, besides the added bells and whistles, is that Audio Technica has retained the same audio quality that you’ve come to like about its QuietPoint headphones.

The microphone and added iPhone controls will delight Apple users, as will the more highly-rated active noise cancelling. But all the original attributes – the great sound, the portability and solid build – will help make the ATH-ANC9 another firm favourite for travellers looking for a pair of well-made cans. It helps that the price has remained roughly the same at S$358 in Singapore.