The competition is heating up between the 3 consumer giants in the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple. With Apple having an arsenal of gadgets that wows us, Microsoft and Google is trailing not too far away in terms of the mobile gadgets race to gain market share but apple’s ancillary army of developers and apps is definitely something no other company can rival at the moment. How long will the dominance last?

With the underdog JooJoo delaying their launch date, one wonders if the company can survive the tsunami that is inevitable and this time from top 3 IT fault lines.

We lightly touch on politician’s gripe on Open Source being the Enemy of the State. Wonder who paid them to do this…

Listen to us on streaming audio here: Download audio file (Episode_35.mp3)

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Mobile Phone Updates:
1. Nokia N900 Update by Michael and Sherwin

2. Nokia N900 will be getting MeeGo

http://mytechnews.info/b/2010/03/ooooo-nokia-n900-to-get-meego.html

Microsoft – Apple Competition Heats Up
3. Windows Phone 7 vs iPhone

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/windows-phone-7-series-demo-video-reveals-new-apps-screens/

4.Microsoft Courier vs iPad

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/

5. and JooJoo misses the boat and the gap is drawing closer

http://www.inquisitr.com/64205/joojoo-misses-promised-delivery-date-company-delivers-a-no-comment/

Google keeps expanding it’s Web Dominance
6. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/google-buys-photo-editing-site-picnik/story-e6freuyi-1225835960257

Open Source is now Enemy of the State
7. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58042

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You will hear a slew of new product announcements from Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Intel, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 and new partnerships. Some of the biggest news like Nokia Maemo and Intel Moblin to merge to a new product called MeeGo, HTC Desire – the Nexus one with Sense UI,  Mobile Windows Phone 7′s impressive new concept and other product announcement that Sherwin will share with us.

Related to the mobile world, Adobe Air announced that they will develop Air for mobile devices. I think this gave us the biggest “Sigh” in the podcast.

We dissected Google Buzz and what is really mean to us after 2 weeks of usage. Is this going to be a useful tool for gmail users or a lead in to something bigger from Google?

Somehow with all the Mobile World Congress and Google Buzz hype, the Google Speech-To-Speech translator slipped in unnoticed by most of us. So hear what we thing about another game changer that Google is developing.

We then diverted to talk about translation as a whole while expanding on the google’s speech-to-speech translator and ended up having lots of time wasting fun with Translation Party (http://translationparty.com). So if you want to know what the title of the podcast means go here – http://www.translationparty.com/#6616031 and find out what we were laughing about.

We ended with the most crucial technology contribution that Mimos (Malaysia) will bring to the community. The Aunty PC (Jen-ii, formerly known as the Mak-cik PC) A hilarious tickling of the funny bone ensues…

Enjoy!

This Week’s theITChannel Podcast is brought to you by:

Michael Foong
Court Jester and Host of theITChannel
http://twitter.com/mikefoong

Sheldon Goh
Techie Cartoonist Telco Specialist Extraordinaire Masked Super Hero
http://twitter.com/sheldongoh

Andrew Kok
Super Gamer Geek God Techmeister
http://twitter.com/andrewkjs

Sherwin Loh
Correspondent for the Digital Life, Straits Times, Singapore Rabbit Eater
http://twitter.com/angelsherwin

Listen to us on streaming audio here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/theitchannel/theITChannel_Podcast_Episode_33.mp3

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Stream it right now: Download audio file (theITChannel_Episode_32.mp3)

Stories this week:

1. A week of outages. Looks like lots of outages this week. Facebook,
Sidekick, Twitter.
a. Are we relying too much on technology?
b. What is the backup when these happens?
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10373349-36.html
- http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/twitter-warns-users-not-change-log-in-data-until-further-notice-815
- http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/oct09/10-15sidekick.mspx
- http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=4245
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10375186-56.html
- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/12/ibm_new_zealand/2. E-Readers, how useful are they? Everyone seems to be pushing it. We
talked about this last week and we are revisiting the viability of
e-book readers. Including an announcement by Google to
launch a new Bookstore/Remote Download. With Google coming in, it will
help other ebook readers compete with amazon as an alternative ebook
provider. Online Stores Rules

Google’s Announcement
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-10-15-google-editions_N.htm?csp=34
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/173749/google_online_bookstore_fuels_ereader_war.html

E-Books Avaliable/Announcements
http://gizmodo.com/5379050/ebook-craze-goes-outside
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/5-inch-bebook-mini-now-shipping-in-the-us-for-199-hands-on/
http://gizmodo.com/5378234/why-i-think-e+ink-readers-are-dumb

3. Malaysia Step up to protect Personal Data
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/10/8/technology/20091008134431&sec=technology

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Here are the topics we rambled about this week:
1. Google Wave Revisit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ&feature=autoshare
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/09/google-wave-is-easier-to-understand-than/

2. Windows Launch Party
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/10/09/unboxing-the-windows-7-launch-party-kit/
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/28/2136255/Mainstream-Press-Cringes-At-Win7-Launch-Parties?from=rs
http://lifehacker.com/5077690/get-windows-7s-best-features-right-now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ&feature=player_embedded#t=148

3. Kindle to go worldwide
http://www.pcworld.com/article/173392/amazon_already_taking_international_kindle_orders.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/09/amazon-confirms-international-kindle-dx-is-on-the-way-too/

4. HTC Touch 2 and HTC Leo
http://mytechnews.info/b/2009/10/and-the-htc-leo-is-official.html
http://mytechnews.info/b/2009/10/some-pictures-from-the-htc-touch2-offer.html

Listen to us on streaming audio here: Download audio file (theITChannel_Podcast_Episode_22_1.mp3)

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Here are the topics we rambled about this week:

1. Google wave preview launches
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/30/missed-the-google-wave-beta-weve-got-hands-on/
http://lifehacker.com/5370738/google-wave-first-look

2. Chrome OS Launching next month?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/01/chrome-os-coming-to-netbooks-as-early-as-next-month/
3. Apple buys MapMaker ditches Google Map
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/apple-gets-a-mapmaker-where-does-that-leave-google/

4. Microsoft Essentials Free, A Threat and Down Play – Andrew
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/first-look-microsoft-security-essentials-impresses.ars
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/kaspersky-pragmatic-about-microsoft-s-free-security-639336
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/interviews/352018/microsoft-free-security-essentials-is-a-threat-to-symantec
http://mytechnews.info/b/2009/10/microsoft-security-essentials-impresses.html

5. Maxis Brand Refresh – Toh
http://mytechnews.info/b/2009/09/maxis-launches-hotlink-brand-refresh.html

Listen to us on streaming audio here: Download audio file (theITChannel_Podcast_Episode_21_1.mp3)

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Here is what we talked about. Have a listen to what we have to say about these topics:

1. Google Sidewiki
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-and-learn-from-other-as-you.html

2. Microsoft Courier
http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet
http://mashable.com/2009/09/22/microsoft-courier/

Additional Information:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/inkseine/index.html
http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2008/10/01/microsoft-research-codex.aspx

3. Google Push Email
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/push-gmail-for-iphone-and-windows.html

4. Celcom’s Downtime
http://nst.com.my/articles/4svc-2-2a/Article/index_html
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/9/25/nation/4782983&sec=nation
http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/celcom-users-face-major-service-disruption-4.html

5. Ruumz
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/9/8/technology/20090908150057&sec=technology

7. Beware Illegal Dowloaders or they will pull the internet rug from
under your feet
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/9/25/technology/20090925094503&sec=technology
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/9/16/technology/20090916134824&sec=technology

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Topics we talked about today

1. Happy Internernational Talk Like a Pirate day
- Pirate Pickup Lines:
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html#pickup

2. Microsoft Visual Seach – Bing
http://mashable.com/2009/09/14/bing-visual-search/
3. Microsoft Zune HD – Does it have it to challenge the iPod?
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/18/review-zune-hd/

4. Palm Abandons Windows Mobile
http://www.precentral.net/palm-abandons-windows-mobile

5. Twitter readies the new ReTweet API – Facebook – Twitter Wars Heat Up
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/closing-in-on-launch-twitter-tweaks-its-retweet-api-and-a-picture-of-how-it-will-look/

6. Twitter Change Terms of Service ala Facebook
http://thenextweb.com/2009/09/11/twitter-changes-terms-service-learns-facebook-wording/

7. Tech Crunch 50
http://www.techcrunch50.com/

8. Top 10 Google Searches in Malaysia – The Sad state of Malaysia Tech News
http://technu.nst.com.my/Current_News/techNu/Monday/Notebook/20090914104527/Article/index_html

Listen to us on streaming audio here: Download audio file (theITChannel_Podcast_Episode_19_-_Aye_Ye_Podcast_with_No_Rum.mp3)

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We came back with a bang with Toh of http://www.mytechnews.info/ Sheldon Goh – http://sheldongoh.deviantart.com and Andrew Kok – http://www.twitter.com/andrewkjs/

We took a look at the “Its only Rock and Roll” Apple event and didn’t think it was that eye opening, jaw dropping as its usually is. We ended up talking more about Norah Jones than the event itself. How weird is that?

http://gizmodo.com/5356723/apple-roundup-ipod-nano-video-cam-itunes-9-jobs-gets-healthier
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/09/steve-jobs-says-ipod-touch-didnt-get-a-camera-because-its-a-g/

We also talked about the premium content and how google is helping newspapers to use micropayments to charge for their premium paid content.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/09/google-developing-a-micropayment-platform-and-pitching-newspapers-open-need-not-mean-free/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/google-plans-tools-to-help-news-media-charge-for-content/

Pixi wasn’t that impressive and yes the Palm Pre is not even in our shores, yet we urge Palm to reconsider the markets beyond the US and how asia can help them sell more.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/09/the-palm-pixi-is-official-headed-to-sprint-this-holiday-season/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/08/source-palm-to-unveil-pixie-phone-this-week/

We took a swing at the unnecessary statement from Symantec urging users to think twice when using freeware. No advice was really given and there were no compelling reason as to why we should not be considering a freeware program when it comes to security or any other software that Symantec meant to say.

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/9/9/technology/20090909164516&sec=technology

Listen here: Download audio file (theITChannel_Podcast_Episode_18_-_The_Crew_is_back_and_refreshed.mp3)

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