Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a good mashup of Fable spliced with Oblivion/Skyrim, flavored with God of War styled action.

Made by relatively unknown game studio 38 Studios, this RPG boasts an impressive pedigree.

Ken Rolston (Elder Scrolls series) designed the game, R. A. Salvatore (iconic author of many Forgotten Realms novels) created the game universe and lore, and Todd McFarlane (best known for art on Spawn comics) was in charge of art direction.

This all-star lineup alone intrigued me and based almost solely on that I got the game.

It took me some time to warm up to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning however.

Sure the game is really gorgeous eye candy wise, and on my close to three-year old PC the game runs smooth as glass, but I was halfhearted about the game in the opening few hours.

I felt like I had seen it all before. Standard stock amnesiac hero with an unknown past. Various varieties of elves (magic inclined) and human (combat inclined) races. Gnomes are techno-magical geniuses, pointy-eared dark elf-like fae are evil villains.

Worse was the linear and stilted storytelling in the beginning. Random strangers would come up to you asking you for help when it makes no sense for them to do so.

A stripped down conversation wheel (ala mass effect) which masquerades as choice, when choosing either would often lead to the same outcome.

It wasn’t bad, but I was unimpressed. I stuck it out for the next few hours, hoping that things might improve after I saw more than the initial town.

And to my surprise, it did.

It was only after I crossed the 10 hour mark that I really begin to enjoy the game.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has a deep well of lore that takes time for the attentive player to soak up.

Once you start free roaming the world you get a sense of how truly vast the game map is, and just wandering around can be a joy all by itself.

And best of all, the branching side and faction quests ceased to be solely of the run from point A to B and slay monster C variety, and the main quest lines became more interesting as you meet recurring characters that actually have some personality.

Once I stopped thinking of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning as a deep storytelling RPG where player choice drives the story (rather than a simplistic choice A or choice B variety), and more as a fast-paced action RPG, I enjoyed it far more.

In other words, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is never going to achieve the emotional depths of Witcher or Dragon Age: Origins, but plays more like Fable.

An improved Fable with great graphics, more storytelling depth, expansive game world, and best of all, great action RPG gameplay (combat wise) that plays quickly and is pretty fun.

All the various weapons that your hero can equip each have their own special attack animations.

Don’t expect real-world realism though, as the game animations are all out of this world.

Huge oversized greatswords taller than your hero that you sommersault around with. Chakras that scythe circular swathes of destruction. Bow attacks that literally rain arrows from the sky.

It’s eye candy of the Final Fantasy variety, the type that players more accustomed to Japanese RPGs are accustomed to. Over the top, but fun nonetheless.

There are a few tweaks that I do like about Fable-plus (that’s what I tell my friends who ask me to sum up the game in one or two words).

The Fate system is great, as you can respec anytime to try out the gameplay of any of the three major class trees of might, sorcery and finesse. Feeling bored with smiting your foes with a sword? Switch to conjuring storms of lightning, or creep up on enemies and stealthily assassinate them.

The game is not riddled with deep choices, and players will probably not replay — at least I won’t — to try different characters. The Fate system allows you to experiment with the action gameplay, with minimal downtime, and suits the casual action-oriented RPG player.

Beyond fighting and exploring, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has other ways to occupy you like the mini sub-games of lockpicking and dispelling. I guess they are meant to break up the monotony of just fighting mobs when delving dungeons, but I’m pretty ambivalent about them. It’s fun the first few times but get old pretty quick. Luckily there’s an auto attempt option that improves as you put in more skill points in lockpicking or dispelling.

The alchemy, blacksmithing and sagecraft crafting skills are a little more fun as there’s much more variety to this. You can create all kinds of potions, great gear, and gems to socket into your equipment.

One thing that I dislike is the inventory management. You get too little inventory space and far too many junk items whenever you explore a dungeon. Junking items is a pain, and I wish they had implemented the inventory management more cleanly.

In a nutshell, even with all its flaws, I quite like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. It grows on you — the lore, the vast maps, the action-oriented gameplay.

If you want your RPG to be a deep storytelling experience, I don’t think you’ll find it here. The game practically hand holds you and tells you exactly where to go to complete your quests.

But if you want a fast-paced, graphically gorgeous action-oriented RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning definitely serves up the goods. I’ve had tons of fun to frying foes with a flaming staff.

Don’t call it a watch, even if it looks like one of those digital wonders that you wore to school in the 1980s. This new gizmo from Epson is touted as the world’s lightest GPS monitor that runners can wear on the go to track their runs.

Just 13mm thick, the device comes with a readout screen that runners would immediately recognise. On it, you’ll find your distance covered, pace and, of course, timing.

What’s surprising, considering its small frame, is that the tracker is water resistant for up to 5 bars, or 50 metres of water, which means you don’t worry about downpours. For triathlon racers, this monitor also goes with you in your swim.

Epson also claims that the battery can last 12 hours, so even the hardiest runners taking part in an ultra-marathon should be able to have the monitor working steadily on the wrist throughout the run.

If you have considered wearing a GPS watch on those runs, then this simply-named Epson Running Monitor could be your ticket to a “wear and forget” tracking device.

Unfortunately, the company only has plans to start selling it in Japan this year. The reason: it’s currently still a “technology announcement” and availability elsewhere is still to be confirmed.

If you are signing up or renewing a broadband, mobile or pay-TV service these days, the questions you face can sometimes be rather daunting, given big changes – mostly positive – that have shaken up the telecom market in the past few years.

Who has the best broadband deals in Singapore? Who has the best bundled “triple play” deals with all three services packaged nicely and billed in a single envelop? And, of course, how do I switch all my plans over to one operator?

Answer these questions well and you could be on the way to substantial savings by buying wisely and also enjoy the convenience of having fewer bills from so many operators.

About four years ago, I’d have told you, if you watch live football, the choice was simple: go for StarHub, because it had the fastest (cable modem) broadband, per-second billing for its mobile services and of course, the crown jewel – English Premier League (EPL) on its cable TV channels.

But things have changed so much in the past few years that consumers are sometimes spoilt, perhaps even confused with choice.

Fibre broadband has truly given users better deals – S$39 a month for an unheard of 100Mbps, for starters. The upcoming three seasons of the EPL could well be shown on both SingTel and StarHub, and possibly even M1, thanks to Singapore’s new pay-TV rules. And let’s not forget number portability, which lets you keep your mobile number while switching telcos.

With so many changes in the past few years and more upcoming, what should you be aware of when you next sign up for those two-year contracts? Here’s a little guide, gleaned from my own experience buying these services.

Fibre is coming and will be cheap
In the bigger scheme of things, it’s clear in Singapore that everything – voice, pay-TV and broadband – will be piped through the new fibre broadband network that will connect almost all buildings here by this year.

Already, fixed line phone services are provided by SingTel, StarHub and M1 through fibre today. SingTel has also started delivering its mio TV over fibre, while StarHub is expected to do the same with its TV programmes in future as well (it’s less eager because it has sunk cost in a pretty modern cable network that’s just 20 years old).

Should you jump on fibre? If your area is already connected, it is worth a serious look because the new services are often the better deal, thanks to intense competition.

StarHub, for example, sells its 100Mbps cable modem service for S$80, but a similar fibre offering goes for just S$68. M1 goes further, often dropping prices to a stunning S$39 a month for 100Mbps at the quarterly tech bazaars.

I had gone for a 100Mbps service early last year for S$59 a month from M1 – a good deal in the day because I was then paying almost the same amount for a StarHub 16Mbps plan (which is now S$44 a month).

Bear in mind all these prices are before the whole of Singapore has been connected up by the fibre network. When everyone has access to it, you’ll see a very fast takeup of the new services, no matter if people really “need” or use the speed. That means even fiercer competition.

In 2012, you’ll see M1, so eager to gain new customers, continue to be the bargain price leader, while new entrants like MyRepublic could test the water here by offering niche plans with packaged content.

If you are signing up for a two-year ADSL or cable modem plan now, you should know that chances are, there are going to be much better deals during the next two years that you are tied to the plan you’re signing up for. Fibre is the way forward.

Pay-TV will not be the same
Those ruinous pay-TV deals that forced SingTel and StarHub to outbid each other in the past for exclusive content meant that they pushed up their own costs and also forced subscribers to own two set-top boxes if they wanted the football on SingTel but, say, National Geographic on the more established StarHub pay-TV service.

The current EPL contract for SingTel expires after this season. Hopefully, as the bidding gets underway again later this year, the new rules pushed through by the Singapore regulators would mean less costly deals for the telcos and better options for users.

Under the new regulations, if SingTel wins the rights, for example, StarHub customers can still request to have the EPL matches shown on their pay-TV set-top boxes (and pay SingTel directly for the content). This means just one set-top box for StarHub users, and hopefully also puts an end to the crazy bidding that benefits nobody except the greedy rights owners.

How does this affect how you buy your “triple play” services? If things go as they are meant to, it means you should no longer be stuck with the operator which has exclusive rights to show the EPL matches. If all three operators manage to get EPL on their pay-TV channels, then you, the consumer, will really be spoilt for choice as to who to sign up to.

If you are not a diehard football fan, you might also be happy to see other options like pay-per-view on the Net as well. SingTel has already been showing some matches on its miostadium.com video site, for S$8 a night, for example, and you can expect the next winner of the rights to offer alternatives to the traditional pay-TV set-top box option as well.

To be honest, I’ve surprised myself by “surviving” on a slimmer diet of football on the telly in the past three years. Some weekends, I head over to my friends’ to watch, others I just pay the S$8 to view  Manchester United on my laptop. Yet other evenings, I get my friends over and we both share a small screen for S$8!

Try to stick with one operator
Everyone’s got his favourite telco. Personally, I like M1′s customer service, having been with them since the 1990s and now back in the “orange” camp. I also hear good things about SingTel’s fixed and mobile networks, which some users say are relatively fast and consistent.

Whoever you prefer, keep as many of your services as possible with the same operator for everyone at home. The savings and convenience of a single bill are worth the effort.

StarHub certainly won many fans over a few years ago with its Hubbing deals. Today, if you got mobile, broadband and TV on StarHub, you still get discounts of up to 30 per cent on your mobile subscriptions, plus 10 per cent off TV and 5 per cent off broadband.

If that’s too complicated to understand, StarHub also has nifty Hubbing packs, which include cable modem/fibre broadband, home phone and TV services. My pick from StarHub is the S$75 a month plan that comes with a 50Mbps fibre service, free local phone calls and up to 21 TV channels.

In fact, this is what I’d be upgrading my parents’ old cable modem-based Hubbing pack from. It’s certainly something I’d recommend if your parents are still paying SingTel almost $30 a quarter to simply “rent” a home phone line and then paying extra for making any calls. You shouldn’t be paying for local fixed line calls any more!

Indeed, all the Big Three telcos have free home phone calls now, as part of their broadband packages.

SingTel has similar deals which bundle mio TV and fibre broadband offers and these are the ones I’d recommend if you must sign up for the last three months of this EPL season. Otherwise, it might be smarter to wait and see what’s going to happen with the EPL bids in the middle of this year.

Personally, I’m on M1 now for broadband and my own mobile line and I intend to switch over two more mobile lines – my wife’s and father’s – to M1, so I enjoy its multi-line discount. This offers up to 30 per cent off your mobile subscriptions if you got four lines, and 25 per cent for three lines.

I did the calculations. I’m paying about S$55 a month now for my mobile plan now, but will pay only about S$38 when I switch those two lines over.

Switching over is hard to do
But that’s only if you are not prepared for it.

I started by switching over the one service that I was really unhappy about – my cable modem service – last year. After more than a decade using it, I finally got fed up with some network issues (another long story about that) and switched to an M1 100Mbps fibre service, which only cost a few dollars more but was several times faster.

After that, I switched my mobile line over as well, again because of performance issues. Now, as the last two lines are going to be moved over because they are out of contract, I’ve realised you really don’t have to go to the crowded telco stores, contrary to what the customer service chaps may tell you.

Over at the online stores for both SingTel and M1 (StarHub’s current store is still in beta), you can specify that you are porting over a mobile line from another telco and choose the phone and plan you prefer and have the phone delivered to you without any of the fuss at the busy stores.

Switching over your fixed line phone line, say, from SingTel to a free phone service with one of these fibre broadband services should be just as easy. I, for one, switched my parents’ phone line to a free one that came with a broadband plan and kept their decades-old number still used by elderly relatives.

So, switching can be made easier if you do some of the work online and over the phone instead of heading to the stores without knowing what you really want.

Of course, do your homework by browsing the offerings online – after all, once you’ve committed to a two-year contract, you don’t want to pay any early termination penalties or go through the switching process again for a couple of years, at least.

Got a question or a tip on switching operators or going on fibre broadband? Share with us in the comments here. 

Consumers signing up for fibre broadband services in Singapore got one more alternative to the big three of SingTel, StarHub and M1 earlier this week, with the entry of MyRepublic, an upstart that promises to sell services based on what users do online, instead of  simply promising top speeds.

A S$69-a-month package, for example, will target gamers and offer a “low latency experience” for those who connect frequently to, say, the World of Warcraft servers worldwide to get their role-playing game fix.

The new service provider also offers online tutorials and exam preparation tools for Primary 1 to 6 as part of its S$89“Tutor” fibre broadband package, to attract parents who want their kids to go beyond the standard curriculum in school. 

Finally, for those who just want the plain vanilla version, a 100Mbps plan will go for S$59 a month. Nothing to go nuts about, some users may say, considering M1 often offers 100Mbps plans for S$39 a month at quarterly tech bazaars.

But to sweeten the deal, MyRepublic is promising no contracts for the first 100,000 subscribers. This means they can drop the subscription any time they feel that the service is not up to standard.

Certainly, co-founder and CEO Malcolm Rodrigues is talking the talk, and taking on the incumbents with gusto. “The government has built the best broadband network in the world, and the incumbents are not doing anything with it,” he said at a media event on Thursday.

“They took the NGNBN and put it right inside their walled garden,” charged the the former vice-president of sales, marketing and customer operations at Nucleus Connect, as he accused his established rivals of “putting a horse carriage on an eight-lane highway”.

He is not alone in having experience in the local telecom scene. Co-founder and chief commercial officer KC Lai had previously served as senior vice-president for consumer sales at StarHub. He told reporters on Thursday that the company offers flexibility. “If we fail you, you’re free to leave.”

But MyRepublic is certain of maintaining standards and keeping its subscribers happy. The company promises a 4Mbps connection regardless of the time of day, and claims that it has engineers monitoring its network proactively to sort out problems before it affects users.

The new service provider is also confident of avoiding last year’s brouhaha over severe lag spikes on StarHub’s network, which rendered thousands of StarHub subscribers unable to play World of Warcraft.

MyRepublic also says it will not throttle downloads, and promises smooth video streaming for if/when online movie services such as Netflix come to Singapore. So far, lots of promises – the big question for the new challenger is: will it deliver?

Are you signing up for fibre broadband? Let us know what you think of the new services?

Singapore is the most facebooked nation in the world.

So says web analytics company Experian Hitwise, who samples global web traffic data for marketing insights.

In a recently released 2011 report by them that detailed Singaporean’s social habits, it was found that Singaporeans spend a heck of a lot of time on Facebook. According to them, we are the top Facebook users in the world in terms of time spent per session.

Although Facebook was by far the most popular social tool (32 percent by website traffic to social networking sites), it was by no means the only one Singaporeans used.

YouTube took second place (21 percent share of web traffic) and Google+ third place (16 percent web traffic).

As for Twitter, the platform and our local Hardwarezone forums have a combined web traffic of about 6.67 percent.

Here are some additional stats by Hitwise:

Fashion and shopping
– UK fashion brand ASOS was the top fashion website Singaporeans went to (at 13.22 percent web traffic in this category), followed by Forever 21 (4.03 percent).

– Top luxury apparel was China-based website Chinese-luxury (formerly BaoTime), at 7.05 percent web traffic in this category.

– Top discount coupon sites in Singapore are Groupon Singapore and Deal.com.sg, with a combined share of 35.25 percent web traffic in this category.

Computers and electronics
– Apple was top of recall for Singaporeans, with 13.24 percent web traffic for the Computers category. This was closely followed by Lenovo at 11 percent.

– The top five search terms for electronics and computers are: Apple, Samsung, Apple Singapore, Samsung Singapore, and Canon.

Entertainment, multimedia and music
– Channel NewsAsia, ESPN and Bloomberg.com take the top three spots in the television entertainment category accounting for a total of 50.24 percent share of visits.

– YouTube is the big leader with 61.69 percent website traffic in the multimedia channels category.

– Singaporeans are big K-Pop fans. In the music bands and artistes category, K-Pop websites like ALLKPOP.com, Wonderful Generation, Big Bang Updates and SONEms drew a combined 65.49 percent of web traffic.

Whilst the statistics are really interesting, I would voice caution in believing that these statistics tell the entire picture.

Nobody knows for certain how the above web statistics are calculated except for the web analytics company themselves.

Companies like Hitwise, Alexa, Quantcast, and ComScore keep their analytics algorithms secret, which means it is almost impossible to compare methodologies between two such companies. So these statistics are purely from Hitwise’s perspective, and another vendor might give you different answers.

When the going gets tough, business will often cast their eyes on the next big thing to boost the bottomline.

The current hype in IT happens to be cloud computing, with nearly every player — telcos, data centre providers, software makers and IT consultants — jostling for a slice of the pie.

It almost seems like a gold rush, except we’re dealing with services powered by electrons that traverse fibre cables at the speed of light.

This week, web hosting companies, a segment of the IT industry whose margins are known to be razor-thin, gathered in Florida to hear about Parallel’s delivery platforms that promise to help them different themselves from the pack.

While demand for web hosting is healthy, hosting companies have been looking at ways to grow revenue and subscriber numbers while reducing churn in a highly competitive market.

Most are “cross-selling” and “up-selling” add-on features, with some dipping their toes into managed services, an area traditionally dominated by telcos and IT powerhouses with the infrastructure and expertise to manage various aspects of a company’s IT operations.

The main aim, obviously, is to create “stickiness” among customers. After all, it’s much harder to pull away and turn to another vendor if you’ve bestowed the management of your company’s networks and security to an anointed service provider that has been doing a good job.

Cloud computing is turning out to be the other cash cow. By delivering cloud-based applications such as accounting and other business apps as a subscription, hosting companies can be assured of more revenue trickling in every month.

Parallels’ Automation for Cloud Marketplace aims to help service providers do just that. At the summit, company executives extolled the benefits of the software which aggregates and readies apps for consumption on the cloud.

And because Parallels has negotiated the pricing terms with each app vendor, service providers can offer cloud-based applications to customers within weeks rather than months.

But that’s only half the story. While the technology pieces are in place, at least one web hosting company I know has encountered problems selling a bunch of cloud-based security apps to new and existing customers.

It could be an issue of poor marketing – and indeed Parallels had lined up some sessions on online marketing and a customer engagement keynote by Guy Kawasaki – but the bigger challenge lies in addressing the looming concerns such as security that companies may have over the cloud.

As the web hosting company acknowledged, “more user education is needed”, and this may well be the case for selling cloud services to SMBs regardless of how big a market they command. Cloud computing is not going to be magic bullet that will bolster the fortunes of web hosting companies overnight.

If Parallel’s founder Serguei Beloussov gets his way, the technology landscape in 2022 will be dominated by mobile and social technologies, big data and the cloud.

People would interact through social networks in new ways, with 80 percent of Internet transactions taking place on ubiquitous smartphones. Mobile operators such as China Mobile may also drop per minute billing for voice calls, in favour of mobile data plans.

“It’s not clear how things will evolve,” Serguei said during a Thursday keynote at the Parallels Summit in Orlando. “But mobile is clearly the way forward.”

Besides a future that’s more mobile and social, Serguei also predicted a world where Internet TV would finally take off, and that social network games such as Farmville would be highly profitable.

Beloussov also expects an explosive growth in personal cloud storage, which is expected to balloon to 130TB per person by 2022.

The cloud, of course, would become pervasive. By 2022, Beloussov said, all software will be sold as cloud subscriptions. Intuit’s Quickbooks accounting software, for example, could be entirely hosted online.

“It will also be a matter of time before advanced hosting service providers like GoDaddy start to offer credit cards that could be used to purchase small business infrastructure [on the cloud],” he added.

On the enterprise technology front, Serguei noted that MariaDB, a database server that offers drop-in replacement functionality for MySQL, could eventually eclipse MySQL.

Cloud giant Amazon Web Services would also use five times more virtual containers than virtual machines in its infrastructure.

With more businesses turning to the cloud, 50 per cent of the IT workforce will be employed by web hosting companies and cloud service providers.

The world will also see an increased rate of globalisation in 10 years. Large IT companies are expected to expand into global markets faster than before, creating competition for local businesses.

Serguei likened the state of IT companies in 2022 to the cities of Siena, Paris, Singapore and Machu Picchu, a 15th century Inca site.

In particular, Serguei singled out Singapore as the leading city in 2022 that’s associated with companies such as Facebook, Amazon Web Services and Apple that have led others in the social, mobile and cloud computing bandwagons.

Companies like Digital, for example, have been left in the dust like Machu Picchu, while the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Google and Oracle will be “lasting” – like Paris.

According to Parallels’ SMB Cloud Insights report, SMBs will continue to lead the cloud computing wave, with small businesses three times more likely than large enterprises to choose cloud services over on-premise software.

SMBs surveyed in the study also plan to double the number of cloud applications they purchase over the next three years.

The new study, which details hosting, cloud services and applications that appeal to SMBs, follows similar surveys conducted in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Japan and Australia.

For example, smaller companies are likely to buy applications such as back-up, file sharing, accounting and e-mail archiving, while medium-sized ones are keen on phone conferencing services.

SMBs are jumping on the social media bandwagon, too, with 45 per cent of SMBs in the United States reportedly using Facebook to promote their business.

“Parallels SMB Cloud Insights research continues to confirm that SMBs are at the forefront of cloud adoption,” said company CEO Birger Steen during the annual Parallels Summit in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday.

The three-day event is attended by 1,500 hosting partners, software vendors, analysts and media.

Besides releasing its latest SMB Cloud Insights report, Parallels showed off a slew of enhancements to its Plesk web hosting control panel. It also showcased a communications package that lets hosted and cloud service providers offer telephony services.

Parallels Plesk
Designed for next-generation hosting and cloud environments, Parallels Plesk Panel 11 includes advanced features such as mobile management client for hosting service providers, whose customers who can now access the Plesk panel through BlackBerry, Android and iPhone apps.

The software is expected to help hosting companies maximise revenue through built-in business intelligence and active monitoring, as well as suggest upsell paths for end users.

It will also integrate Microsoft Web Matrix, business metrics, WebStat and SEO indicators to help SMBs maximise their web presence and social media effectiveness.

According to IDC, Parallels Plesk currently commands 50 per cent of the web hosting control panel market.

In addition, Parallels also introduced Parallels Plesk Automation Preview, a multi-server automation software for hosting companies that are using Parallels Plesk Panel. With the software, web hosting companies can centrally manage their customers and servers, and seamlessly launch a wide range of new services.

Parallels Automation for Hosted PBX
With Parallels Automation for Hosted PBX, service providers can now provide SMBs with enterprise communications services,  whether they are replacing legacy PBX systems or moving to their first PBX service.

Partners can integrate with their own BroadSoft Broadworks telephony application, or use wholesale services provided by Apptix, Alteva and Sipcom.

Parallels Automation partners can also choose to base their hosted PBX services on APS (Application Packaging Standard)-certified software from Infratel, 4PSA.com and Solgari.

APS is an open format that lets hosting companies package software as services that can be delivered over the cloud, complete with billing and support services.  Other APS certified applications include Google Apps, WordPress and Joomla.

Bose makes some good, if expensive, active noise-cancelling headphones in its Quiet Comfort series, so when I tried out its more affordable OE2i headphones last week, I had high expectations.

The “i” in OE2i refers to the additional microphone and inline remote control that you can use with Apple devices such as iPhones and Macbooks. If you don’t need these features on the S$269 headphones, then there is the S$219 OE2 – without the “i” – which works like a typical pair of headphones.

First off, like all things Bose, the OE2i impresses with its petite design. It is not that much bigger than most small headphones that you’d bring on an everyday train ride, and it gets even smaller when you manage to fold up the headphones.

The earpieces themselves can be folded in, along with two other joints on the head band, making the OE2i a really nifty pair of headphones to carry around. The cable attaching the main unit to your MP3 player, smartphone or computer is also removable, so there’s no excuse for ugly tangled wires either.

Surprisingly, for a pair of headphones this small, they sound much bigger than you’d think. The top-end is not harsh, thin or overly bright, as you might expect of many small headphones. Instead, you get a roundedness and body in the sound that is a little unexpected.

To be sure, there are limitations. The separation of, say, the different instruments at play, will be nowhere as precise as headphones which feature much bigger drivers. But yet another thing I was quite happy to discover with the OE2i was that there was an absence of a muddy bass or headache-inducing over-emphasis on the low-end of the sound spectrum.

Playing Massive Attack, for example, let me know that the OE2i were actually quite careful with the delivery of the bass. Actually, at times, I feel Bose is being a little too polite with the bass, but I’m not complaining since I play jazz vocals and bossa nova tracks more often.

Generally, when I tried the OE2i with both my Apple iPod Nano (playing MP3s) and Samsung Galaxy S II phone (playing lossless FLAC files), I can have few complaints about the headphones, if my preference was indeed for a compact unit.

Sure, compared to much bigger headphones or active noise-cancelling cans, the OE2i does not cut out external noise as successfully. But again, for its size, it does a pretty good job of it. Certainly, the quiet hum of air-conditioners and fans are generally not an issue – perhaps loud chatter on a busy MRT train might be more of a challenge.

What also impressed me about the OE2i is the comfort it offers. Again, this belies the small size of the headphones and the padding included. The ”memory foam” on the ear pieces helps make sure that your ears are never pressed too tightly despite a snug fit, while the padding on top of the head band softens the grip of the headphones effectively.

Like all Bose gear, the OE2i is not cheap. But if you like a really compact pair of headphones that offers above average audio, they are well worth checking out. And if your budget is a little tight, the OE2 which costs S$50 less without the extras may be a more attractive bet.

Just this week was the launch of Angel’s Gate, Asia’s first business reality TV series. The first episode debuted on Singapore prime time television last Monday, and will run for two months.

Comprising eight episodes, Angel’s Gate features 24 aspiring entrepreneurs elevator pitching four of the region’s top investors.

The investors and judges are Patrick Grove, Co-founder and CEO of Catcha Group, William Klippgen, Founder and Managing Director of Tigris Capital, Ken Mandel, Managing Director of Buddy Media Asia Pacific, and Karan Singh Thakral, Executive Director of the Thakral Group of Companies.

At stake is of course potential funding, a top-line connection to moneyed and experienced business mentors, and visibility to the general public. All in all worth fighting for if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur.

Angel’s Gate episode 1, available on YouTube

I won’t dwell much on the show itself, which is similar to other reality shows like Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank, as this has been covered by local entrepreneurship blogs YoungUpstarts and SgEntrepreneurs.

But I do want to talk about what intrigued me about the project: The crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and social ideas behind Angel’s Gate.

Beyond the TV show itself, Angel’s Gate uses crowdsourcing to find and distill the best and most popular entrepreneurship ideas. What a brilliant idea to get new content. This, alone, makes it a little different from being a straight up clone of other reality shows in this vein.

Besides the crowdsourcing aspect, the public can also fund the projects if they so wish.

I’m not entirely sold on the crowdfunding aspect — I think the numbers are a little high for micro-payments from the public to make a difference. Other successful crowdfunding sites like KickStarter, RocketHub and IndieGoGo tend to be good for smaller indie projects, which unfortunately might not make for good business reality TV.

Angel’s Gate’s website: Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and start-up social community in one

That aside though, I’ve saved what I like best about the Angel’s Gate site for last: The social aspect of it.

Need volunteers for beta-testing? Have positions open for hiring? Want to spread the work to the community and to your friends? You can do all of this on the site.

Whilst the TV show is what actually makes money for Angel’s Gate, I feel the site has potential if it is not just a marketing vehicle for the show and a one-off marketing campaign.

If it is run with a longer view to things, and there is actually some community work behind the site, it can serve those in the start-up space well: Entrepreneurs, job-seekers, and investors. And this will be a different, albeit related, business model to the TV show.

In my day job I get to see a wide variety of digital campaigns that are less than sterling. Angel’s Gate seems interesting, and not a me-too exercise. Plus it serves to promote the start-up space, which we need more of here in Singapore.

So two thumbs up from me.