BB

I have never been a fan of the BlackBerry, or BB, as people call it and everyone who has ever received an email from me knows that perfectly well.

In a way, BlackBerry and I got off on a wrong foot. I had heard much of this miracle enterprise phone for a while and seen many visitors to Thailand type away at their emails with it, transfixed at it. Oh, well, it would blow over, I thought.

The it was at CommunicAsia that the Canadian embassy staff eagerly tried to get me to go to their stand to witness the best thing to come out of Canada since maple syrup. That did not happen as nobody at the stand was allowed to talk to the press.

Perfect thinking - go to a huge exhibition and man it with people who are not cleared to talk about it. That move was worthy of the Thai government strategy.

Then a few stars started using the BB and it became the in thing. People were getting rid of their iPhones and getting the BB because of the amazing ability to chat for free. Never mind that the cost of accessing the network was substantial to begin with. I called it a 20,000 Baht pass to an elite club.

The other day I picked up a white 8520 curve. Now to slowly learn what makes this baby tick.

Pridi and the progressive reds

Maybe I have been a bit too busy as of late with my real job, but today I only just heard of a reference to a group known as the Pridi group, named I assume after founder of Thammasat University and revolutionary leader Pridi Bhanomyong. It was a reference in passing to a group of "progressive redshirts" who stand against corruption.

The reference was made by a friend who went further to explain that the progressive reds were not dissimmilar to a group of progressive yellows that are emerging.

Yellowshirts who stand against corruption? Wow, that is such a revelation. Either you get it or you don't.

That said, I vague recall a Nation piece years ago of a group calling themselves RedMove, anti-Monarchist but at the same time not Pro-Thaksin. Nothing was heard from them since. Time will tell if the Pridi group will continue, and indeed, if the continue to complete what their namesake started back in 2475.

CAT to be first to launch 4G LTE in Thailand.

P4A of today's (21 Dec 09) paper version of the Nation has news of CAT's announcement to be first to LTE in Thailand.

Just after the annoucement that it would soon launch BlackBerry services after finishing the merger of its two CDMA networks, the piece went on to say that CAT would evolve those CDMA networks to be the first 4G network in Thailand.

One wonders if anyone has told CAT that UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband, the OFDMA evolution of CDMA EV-DO) is dead and that all roads now lead to LTE for 4G.

One also wonders the logic of talking about 4G with a network that is still mainly 2G on the ground. Even if they think of leapfrogging a generation, just how many devices will be created that are CDMA 2000 / LTE dual-mode, if any?

That news is missing from the online version. Probably readers complained and pointed out that it's not a good idea to print the views of delusional and crazy people in a national newspaper.

TrueMove launches QR Code readers... big deal.

So TrueMove launches this new-fangled thing called QR Codes amid a lot of fanfare and hoopla about how it is the next big thing. Oh, and note that the devices on display were the hi-so iPhone 3GS and the higher-so BB.

I've had a QR code reader on my phone since... well, since I was using my now broken Nokia 3250 which was at least two years ago if not more.

So now can we expect Bangkok to go QR code crazy with it appearing on ads and namecards of the, ahem, hi-so elite?

TrueMove might have the crappiest network out there, but it does by far have one of the best marketing campaigns and an image that makes up for its technical deficiencies. Only time will tell if this mix is one destined for success or not.

More streaming servers for ASTV (and P Station)

TOT3G has a streaming TV service, the links of which are accessible from a mobile WAP browser from any network, not just TOT's own. So, to watch TV over ADSL, connect your phone via Wi-Fi (of course you have Wi-Fi these days), point the browser at wap.tot3g.net, select mobile TV and go from there.

Or just open rtsp://122.155.5.210/cabletv/astv.sdp from Realplayer.

Encoding rate is quite a bit better than ASTV's official overloaded Win Media player, but I am not too convinced that this is worthy of a 128 KBPS stream. Looks great on a 320x240 screen, but it doesn't do the bitrate increase justice over the official 30-40ish WMV stream.

Yet another Nokia N95 headache

I have been trying to install Nokia Ovi from Nokia's betalabs website. The instructions clearly list my primary phone, the N95 8GB as being certified compatible and gives the instructions to download it to simply go to a certain web address.

Download version 1.09 via mobile
Download and install Ovi Contacts directly to your mobile by typing http://contacts.ovi.com/dist/app into your mobile browser.

However, when I go there, I am confronted with the message that this application is not compatible with my phone.

Yes, Nokia, I know you have lots of problems with the teething troubles of your new series 5 touchscreen phones and probably have a headache with Nokia-Siemens too, but how hard can it be to not mess things up like this? Oh, well, there's an alternate, manual installation method which does appear to work fine.

Now to install it on my E51, N78 and N97. Wish me luck!

Thailand and the North Korean Nuclear Trade

Back in 2002, news emerged that the North Koreans had tried to import parts for a nuclear centrifuge with the help of a "certain Thai telecommunications company" but the attempt was foiled by customs officers in Japan who did not think that a nuclear centrifuge should have been put in crates labelled, "Telecommunications Equipment".

The report did not name the Thai company but later it was reported to be Loxley, or to be precise, its North Korean Telco subsidary, Loxley Pacific (LoxPac).

This was much later confirmed by numerous reports such as this one:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HE26Dg02.html

It is odd, is it not that this government is now taking a hard stand on North Korea's weapons programmes in the same way that the one of that era turned a blind eye and, IMHO, helped suppress news of the event. Post Database reported it on the back page, but IIRC it was hidden from most national papers in that day.

I wonder what changed in Thai foreign policy? Oh, wait. 2002 was the first year of... you know who in power.

The pardon and the plan

So Sivarak was pardoned by the King and everyone is happy now that justice has been served. Why shouldn't such an expedient system be here in Thailand, some might wonder. After all, monarchs all over the world grant pardons, right? That is what the red-shirts will no doubt be thinking.

Never mind that Sivarak's mom is a friend of Takki's circle (or at least tries to be); never mind that she said he might die of a respiratory (or was it colonary?) disorder yet did not even bother to apply for bail; never mind that he also fired the MFA appointed solicitor just before the trial.

I would have liked to say that everyone who believes one way or the other still does so, but I am quite surprised to see how well this red game has gone down with the neutrals - a surprisingly large number of people seem to believe that what happened was real and not just a cheap chapter out of the latest Shinegra soap opera.

One wonders how people will reflect on this a year hence.

HSDPA might do 7.2 meg but... at peak times?

Just tested TOT3G and this is all I got. Signal strength was one bar short of full scale. Somehow I doubt it's congestion on the 3G network - after all, the network was just launched a week ago, but it is probably TOT being stingy on the international bandwidth.

Sigh.

It's a setup, for crying out loud.

I simply cannot understand why some stories such as this column in the Nation still try to analyse the whys and wherefores of Thai-Cambodian relations. It is a setup for crying out loud. The red-shirts wanted a mess so that Super Takki can fly in and save the day, or as it seems, maybe just super Chavalit in the run-up to the by-elections.