Today I hosted bloggers Claudia, DK, IZ, Nadia, Nicole, and Vanessa at Singapore's Sony VAIO media launch. It was a blast! These bloggers are just lovely. Of the three new models launched today, I dare say that Sony has done a great job this time round in building an amazing notebook with the Z Series. It's the sleekest, most powerful, and sexiest 13.1" I've ever seen. From my point of view, I believe it was also the crowd favourite at the event. Check out these specs:

• Up to 2.53GHz Intel® Core™ 2 Duo
• 13.1” LED backlit display, 3.42 lbs.
• Up to 320GB hard drive, available 128GB SSD
• Up to 4GB RAM, available Blu-ray Disc drive
• Up to 6-hour battery (realistic number)

But did you know that Sony also...

• ...redesigned the motherboard to have 12 layers on one so it can be smaller than the previous TZ series?
• ...removed the top metal cover of the optical drive to make it lighter?
• ...bored holes in the chassis of the optical drive to reduce weight?
• ...redesigned the heat sinks to be smaller and more efficient so they can use a quieter fan?
• ...and designed the keyboard with isolated keys (not a new feature) ... but it is to help girls with long manicured nails type better!
• ...VAIO stood for Video Audio Integrated Operation and now is Visual Audio Intelligent Organiser?

If I wasn't a mac user, I'd definitely get myself one of these. The failure of my MBP's battery pack is making this a tempting offer.

Just when I thought there was wisdom in Kelvin telling me that it information-based start ups should not recreate spiders to crawl the web but instead use Google as the "universe" comes a new search engine that not only claims to honour privacy but also indexes 3 times more web pages than Google! If you haven't tried it, it's called Cuil (pronounced "cool"). It's built by ex-Google engineers and works pretty well on my search attempts. Cuil seems to be doing a repeat of what Google was when it started out, clean, simple, and powerful. As a power user of Google, Cuil lacks the command line like options and advanced settings Google offers, but I can imagine Cuil appealing to the majority of casual users who simply wants the basic keyword search. I also imagine that Cuil can perform better than Google in extreme niche searching since it seems to crawl much farther and wider than Google. The other thing about Cuil is that it doesn't index search habits and thus claims to leave your privacy alone. Despite the skeptics, I think Cuil stands a chance to grow up and in the process convert a good lot of casual users and privacy freaks. Ponders: Is there really 3 time more universe than Google or are the numbers just fluff?

Meet who? Tan Chade-Meng, apparently he's the first of my countrymen to be hired by Google. I'm not the kind to go meet a successful Singaporean for nationalistic pride, and normally I'll look at a person's credentials and expertise before signing up for an event. But this time round, of all the fantastic things I've heard and read about Meng, I'm going to see the dude that leaves this out of office message!

I'm on leave until 8/15/2008.  If you can't reach me, please don't think I'm dead, especially if you're from payroll (if you're not from payroll, I don't really care what you think. Except you, boss). During my leave, I will archive most of my incoming emails without reading them.  Why?  Because being on leave, I'm likely to be frolicking on a beach or something, and reading emails is incompatible with frolicking. If your request is important, please email me again after 8/15/2008. If your request is not important, please send it to /dev/null, it will be taken care of in the most appropriate way, I promise. In case of an absolute emergency that requires my immediate attention, my teammates know how to contact me.  Bribe them.  Tell them they look beautiful.  Say they look almost as attractive as Meng. Examples of "absolute emergency": - You are the President of the United States. - You are Celine Dion. - You urgently want to give me a billion bucks. - Evil forces intent to destroy the world today (Note: not AFTER my vacation, but today) and you think I'm the only one who can save the world. - You discovered that I'm The One, but so did the Agents, and you have only 24 hours to find me to give me the "blue pill/red pill" speech. - All of the above. During my time away, I will refrain from becoming evil.  But if I do become evil, I promise I will grow a goatee and rub my hands in a sinister way when I speak.  And if I capture a superhero sent to stop me, I will painstakingly explain my evil plans in detail to him/her before handing him/her to my snickering, incompetent goons.

If you're as convinced as I am and want to know the brain behind such creativity, then come along! The details are: Date: 30th July 2008 Time: Registration starts at 6:30 pm Venue: DXO, Colours by the Bay, 8 Raffles Avenue, #01-13, Esplanade Mall And you register here: http://www.thedigitalmovement.org/meetmeng/

I think they finally got it! Singapore's Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports has put out a new TV commercial directed by renowned Malaysian film maker Yasmin Ahmad. Yasmin has a gift for creating emotive shorts and has lent her brilliance to the creation of many tear-jerking TVCs in Malaysia. Apart from having the TVC air on broadcast TV, the ministry has taken it online under the ThinkFamily.sg banner (read campaign). They have a dedicated YouTube Channel and over 12,000 views of the English version since July 11 (this is just the original, not including the re-uploaded copies). I feel that too often agencies and corporations are jumping quickly into the social media hype with "strategies" that are really just fancy methods of online activity instead of focusing on quality content. It appears that MCYS has thought through this campaign very carefully, put in good investment into creating the best TVC they can afford, run it in traditional media that's proven and safe, then extend it online... Bam! instant social media success. Here's the video, watch it for yourself then compare its quality to other Singapore government social media acts. The social media is the wild west, may the best video win. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v66VMFBPq8E]