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Singapore has this new initiative with an objective of bridging the digital divide. In a cose parallel to the free-Wifi initiative in Mountain View, Singapore will launch a nationwide Wifi network that provides wireless online access for free over a two-year period. For more, read this GigaOm post or this..

This post was supposed to be a review of my first usage of this service. It was first launched on December 1st but well, I have wireless at home and free wireless in my NUS campus, so I didn’t caretill now.

So i tried signing up for it today, under the iCell network cos I heard icell and QMax have simpler signup procedures than Singtel based on media reports. So i tried doing what anyone else will do for a newbie.

I search for “icell singapore” with Google. No relevant result. Strange..

So i tried “wireless@sg singapore” instead, half-expecting it to direct me to a main site that will offer me direct access to all three providers and a list of locations where I can find the limited locations offering this service. No relevant result too. I reached an IDA web page, which was broken, and referred me to another site before i had to click on another button to reach the proper-signup page i was looking for.

Its not easy so far, I thought.. I didn’t imagine that the providers and the man Wireless@SG program had no dedicated Google presence in our world today. Just how will someone who is less web-savvy than me use this service? And I am not even a computer science student.. I wonder how my dad, mum, or uncle will use this. They will probably start off with a search engine too..

But its fine, I found the highly embedded Wireless@SG site, i thought, so i can finally sign up for my freebies.. But heck no..

Icell requires you to provide compuksory information such as your NRIC no, a personal identification number and your full name, your cell phone number and that totally put me off signing up. Last thing I want is icell spamming my cell phone with SMSes when Singtel, a proper telco, already does so. And why the hell do they always want NRICs? I hate giving that info out and it seems all Singapore websites love doing that. Dun they realise that is a conscious mental barrier for web users when we dun have to provide our NRICs when we sign up for foreign-based services like email, blog account, etc? It makes me ever more conscious that some governmetn agency will track my personal information and tracking habits. This “walled-garden”aproach of differentiating Singapore-based internet services from foreign ones is a needless hassle.

I went over to Singtel’s wireless@SG site. Since I was a Singtel customer, i could sign up easily by just text-messaging them. But i remembered all the personal privacy concerns and red flags from my icell experience and decided not to support this initiative that seemed to be founded on the wrong service development premises. I was also miffed that you cannot find the locations easily that provide the limited version of Wireless@SG services now.

Granted that its only been two weeks since the limited launch, these teething problems may come to pass, but as an early adopter, I am rather put off by my experience thus far. And i hear from my friends that you have to download a program before you can use the Wireless@SG service, that is dumb. I rather use the plug and play free wireless from McDonalds’ anytime over this.

This is another poor example of customer service in Singapore that threatens to derail this wonderful initiative at first. I would think you need to be rather savvy with the computer to use Wireless@SG services, so isn’t this service widening the digital divide ever more?

This Wired Magazine article puts the case forward for Helium-3, an isotope that could have commercial applications in the energy industry. The mining of Helium-3, in abundance on the Moon but scarce on Earth, was on of the many objectives for the proposal of a permanent lunar colony. It was estimated that a space shuttle load of Helium-3 can power the United States for a full year.

Looks like the United States face competition too from other space-faring nations like Russia, China and India who are mulling more moon exploration missions too. Space Race II anyone? This race might prove to have more economic benefits than ideological ones.

The Major Reward: Leadership of the post-hydrocarbon industry 50 years from now..

I get really irritated when mainstream media misinterpret internet media for lack of knowledge or lack of consideration in fair and unbiased explanation of this new form of media to their readers whom they have a responsibility to educate and inform.

The focus of my ire now is David Pogue, a blogger under the NYT blog portfolio that is prominently featured under the New York Times Technology section. The full link is here. The root of his argument was his moaning of the lack of civility on the internet, especially how other responders on Digg, blogs lack “respect for adults” and “how hostile *ordinary* people are to each other online these days..”. He also mentions the ‘kneejerk “everyone else is an idiot” tenor (that) is poisoning the potential the Internet once had.‘ Read the rest of this entry »

Pissed off by crappy cell phone connectivity or your monthly cell phone bills?

Help is on the horizon - in the form of Wifi phones. This vision is already real, if you live in Seattle and are a T-Mobile subscriber.

With these phones, you can call for free or much lower cost over Wifi access hotspots. Read the rest of this entry »

Check out this series of videos depicting the history of menstruation in men starting from the cavemen era based on analysis of hieroglyphics to historical evidence that even include the Greek gods, Shakespeare, Napoleon and even the moon race.. Really makes you wonder..

The Cavemen Evidence
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgeO2BPFdh4] Read the rest of this entry »

The boffins of MIT have brought us a new creation, inspired by social networking success of the MySpace/ Facebook/ yadayada crowd.

Its what I call a back-to-basics approach, making social networking return to its offline roots.

A location-based application for “friendspotting”, iFind wants to help you find your friends anywhere, using data from WiFi access points to determine your location. Carlo Ratti, the director of the MIT lab that developed this, said he hopes this technology can help people “make serendipitous connections” Read the rest of this entry »

The Internet has already changed the way we relate to other members of society. For those of you who have Friendster/ MySpace/ Facebook, you already have at least 10-100, maybe more, “friends”, that you never met face to face and wouldn’t have been your “friends” if the internet was non-existent. Face-to-face interaction used to be the dominant form of communication and was the medium for what I call “connection” too, which is what I consider the definitive stage of friendship where an acquaintance becomes a friend. Other alternative forms of communication, pre-internet, included snail mail or “penpals” in the past where communication was through text and maybe the occasional photograph for closer penpals.

Obviously, all that has changed with the Internet. When a single click of the mouse brings you into contact with another person’s individual universe of photos in social networking sites like MySpace/ FB, textual expressions of their thoughts on blogs, and other media like videos, you feel like you knew this person for ages. Read the rest of this entry »

Sean Parker’s resume has come through his founding or early management experience at startups like Napster, Plaxo and Facebook. He now takes the spotlight courtesy of his new position as VC at the Founders’ Fund, at the age of 27 years old (Source: VentureBeat).

This blog by Numair Faraz lauds Sean Parker as the new Jim Clark of our 2nd dotcom boom. Premature, I say, to slap that tag. Jim Clark created a lot of value from his creations such as Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon. Sean, on the other hand, Read the rest of this entry »

I want to make this link between two things I read today.

1. Yahoo stock prices makes a rare rise of 2% ++ in mid-day trading after their freefall in July this year.
2. Techcrunch leaks financial snippets of the Yahoo-Facebook non-deal

Yahoo stocks are rising primarily due to the expanded rollout of their latest advertising platform, Panama (Source: Marketwatch). Now, everyone across America can buy ads though their platform, which is a good thing. It surely helps to bolster their bottomline since their last stock dip last quarter was due to their delay in the Panama launch.

But I strongly believe a company’s value lies in its employees, Read the rest of this entry »

Get the full 50 tips here from the Business 2.0 Magazine article: “How to Succeed in 2007. I have only read through haf but here are 3 excerpts I found really useful.

I remember when I was a 15-year-old asking Vanessa Redgrave or James Baldwin for an interview, and the fact that they took the time to respond meant an enormous amount to me. It inspired me. So it’s extremely important to respond to people, and to give them encouragement if you’re a leader. And if you’re actually turning people down, if you must say no, whether it’s for a job or a promotion or an idea they’re proposing to you, take the time to do it yourself. — Richard Branson, Virgin Group

Stage a Great Second Act

For me, the past 20 years have been practice for tomorrow. Someone who’s successful in any area has figured out at least two things: how to get the most out of themselves, and that attention to detail matters. Having a career that lasted that long in my sport explains the sort of personality that you have to have. You have to treat it as a marathon. You have to treat it as building blocks… You have to understand who you are and figure out a way to communicate it. It might be in a different industry, but it’s about what pumps the blood through your veins, what makes you excited, what pushes your buttons. And then discovering the best way to communicate that, no matter how big or small; it’s what you stand for, what you believe in, and what reflects who you are.

– Andre Agassi

Obsess About Solutions, Not Problems

There’s a lot to the credo that success breeds success. It puts you on a high that makes more success like a magnet. I’m a positive thinker who does frequent reality checks. Negatives turn into positives, problems can be solved, things can turn around. The image of success is important, but even more important is the ability to focus on solutions instead of on problems. That way, you’ll never be thinking like a loser, and you probably won’t look like one either.– Donald Trump