New GT200 Android App released

Cyberspace's most famous social critic @Sugree Phatanapherom has released an Android version of the GT200 magic wand bomb detector.

Unlike the million-Baht version used by the authorities in the land of smiles, this one comes for free and has a number of substance cards that are much more advanced than Global Technical's own version of the GT200. For instance, not only can it detect bombs, but it can detect bombers too with the addition of artificial intelligence algorithms that read psionic waves, all with the exact same level of certainty that we have learned to expect from a physical GT200.


The new GT200 app is now available in the Android Market

Unlike the overpriced physical UK-made version, this version is made 100% in Thailand, thus allowing all of the kickback, estimated to be at 99.995%, to remain within the local economy (or by extension, the Cambodian and Dubai economies) rather than the 94% of the official version.

Speaking at the official launch, Army Commander General Anupong said that he was delighted that Made in Thailand now means something again and sources confirm that he has dispatched his tree-skimming blimps with the purchasing committee to Mr Sugree to negotiate the military licensing of the Android GT200.

"This device is too powerful for us to allow it to fall into the hands of the elite who might understand it," he said.

Analysts expect the Army to buy tens of thousands of licenses of the new Android GT200 app, which are to be shipped via airship through a secret path taking the procurement officers through London, Paris, Tokyo and New York so they can evade detection and do some shopping en route.

However, a leading primary school quantum mechanic, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that she expects that the number of Android devices available to run it in the army will be in the single digits. "The words smart and army cannot exist in the same sentence without triggering a quantum cascade in the GT200 pixel shader units that if left unchecked, could lead to a new big bang and the end of planet earth," she said, before noting that perhaps the cascade might be lessened by the fact that we were talking about "smartphones" and not "smart soldiers".

Meanwhile, the developer is reported to be adding a number of new substance cards to the device, the first one for @thaksinlive, guaranteed to work with the same level of certainty that everyone in the Deep South is now used to. When finished and launched on the Android Market, this card will allow the likes of @pm_Abhisit and @KornDemocrat to sleep soundly at night with the same level of confidence the Global Technical GT200 has bought to Yala, Pattani and Narathiwas.

Stuck in Thailand, having a foot massage

I was in an interview today with a spokesperson of a certain big (red) company whose identity is totally beside the point when news filtered in of the internal security act on 11-23 filtered in. What took me by surprise was the response from the spokesperson, who obviously had no idea of the dynamics of Thai politics.

He said that he was stuck at the airport when the protesters were there for what felt like a peaceful sit-in and didn't feel scared at all. He ended up waiting to fly out of the country at Koh Samui (or was it another island resort) and had to tell his colleagues that he was having a foot massage by the beach when everyone kept calling to check if he was alright.

I did not tell him that this upcoming set of protesters were a bit different from the previous set. He was flying out on Wednesday so better let him enjoy his stay in Bangkok blissfully unaware of the brewing storm.

Sugar rationing

As if we needed more proof that the country is spiraling towards a tough landing, the ministry of commerce has imposed sugar rationing. People cannot buy more than 2kg of sugar at a time and anyone with more than 2kg caught stockpiling sugar without ministerial approval will find themselves in trouble.

No matter.

An interviewee on ASTV, a sweet vendor buying ingredients, said, "It's not a big problem. I just have to queue up twice to buy the sugar I need."

Sometimes I wonder why we need this big ministerial announcement when all that is needed to circumvent them is getting in the queue twice instead of once.

Cosplay at Erawan is back

I went to a Qualcomm event today at the Erawan's Campus business / function centre and I am glad to report that the cosplay girls are back.

Themed business centres have been all the rage in recent years to make business meetings, and in my own case, press conferences, all the more interesting. The Sheraton has the Library. The Erawan had (since a while back) the Residence - a kitchen / living room style set of function rooms, to name but a few.

But late last year, the Erawan opened the Campus in a renovated B1 level. It was, as its name suggested, modelled after a 70's US high school and all the hotel staff were dressed in schoolgirl costumes complete with blazers (with a big E logo for the Erawan) and the rooms being classrooms. Oh, and refreshment was US style too to reflect the 70's (or was it 60's). However, soon after that, the Campus' staff reverted to their original hotel uniforms. Probably some thought it was improper to have grown women (and men) dress up as schoolgirls.

But the good news is that as of today, they are back.

Sign me up for every press conference at the Campus from now on, dear PR horde. Piccies next time - this time I was running late and had to deal with the prospect of a 50 year old PR manager hugging me as per his client's request due to a certain interview I had with his big, big boss. Sigh. Make that a 50 year old male PR too.

On a side note, the annoying security searches of one's bags were also removed. Guess someone finally came to their senses that it makes no sense from a security stnadpoint rummaging through purses if you allow visitors in with suitcases. The only thing that achieves is annoying legitimate visitors.

To appeal or not appeal, that is the question.

One problem that our old friend Thickskin Shinybutt (read that out loud, fast) is facing that nobody seems to be talking about is the dilemma he is in whether he should appeal the recent supreme court judgement seizing his assets or not. It is not just a case of whether lodging an appeal would be accepting the court's jurisdiction, but one of the Redshirt's core values (apart from money) regarding the constitutions.

If I recall correctly, the 2540 constitution introduced this special court to try politicians, a one-shot court with investigative (Italian-style) powers to speed up trials of politicians. However, the 2550 constitution felt that a one-shot court was not very nice and allowed for appeal. It made appeal possible, albeit to the same court (which some reds argue is a distinction without a distinction) so that if new evidence could be put forward, the same court (with a different mix of judges) could hear out the appeal.

The issue then is that if Takki is to stick to his demand for a 2540, he must not appeal. But of course he wants to appeal to drag things out as long as he can and hope that the next government will do something to get him back into power.

Ah, the dilemma.

Nexus One spotted running HTC Desire's ROM.

The HTC Desire and the Google Nexus One are basically the same phone with a few minor difference here and there, so running the Desire's HTC Sense enabled ROM on the Nexus One should be very possible, right? Right.

Earlier today, a Modaco forum member who goes by the name of Paul posted shots of a Nexus One with Sense UI. According to the poster, the ROM 'works well', with Flash 10.1 included.

Loading the ROM, however, wasn't without any issues. Apparently, the HTC 'system.img' file is too large for the N1 and so some 'things' has to be taken off the system partition, whough he did not mention which.Other issues include the FM radio loading but not playing any sounds or finding radio stations, and the ROM is watermarked.

Due to those issues, Paul won't be sharing his ROM with the public just yet, but promises to release something when he can acquire a release without a watermark.

source | modaco

G-Shock to go solar powered, might make me want to start wearing one again.

The Casio G-Shock, heralded as one of the most durable wristwatches for its price, has decided to get itself a little green creds.

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the company is releasing three new sun-powered g-shock wristwatches. The watches will feature a solar panel in the front, presumably hidden under the display. To top off the 'green' move, the packaging for these new G-shocks will be made out of 100% recycled paper. The watches will be available in three colour and will be available soon.

Nectec, the GT200 and the fall of reason

picture from link

One one level it is nice to see that the government has put perhaps the only branch of government with a modicum of common sense on the job. Nectec was told to hold an inquiry.

But does anyone remember that other inquiry that Nectec did a few years back into the 888 million Baht procurement project of the smart ID cards? The MICT severely restricted Nectec's access to the card, giving them mere minutes to test a few key areas as per an agreed list, not even the entire list they should have been able to test as per their role as an independent third party.

Not only did Nectec find that the cards were not compliant, but in their brief testing, they found an EMV module (europay-Mastercard-Visa) for e-Cash and a couple of unidentified programs in it, none of which were in the terms of reference.

But despite that overwhelming evidence and the independent report saying that the cards were non-compliant, the ICT Ministry chose to vote them as compliant. In a democracy, only votes count, not the laws of mathematics.

I often ask key MICT people what 32-4 equals. The card came with 64 kb of memory, of which only 32 was avaialble and of that 4 was used for bug fixes. The TOR says that the card needs 32 kb of available memory for the javacard apps. The answer is that "the committee voted them as compliant".

Score one for democracy.