WD® (NYSE: WDC), the world’s leader in external storage solutions, today announced that the WD TV Live HD media player, featuring network capability and Full-HD 1080p resolution, is the first network media player compatible with Windows 7. The WD TV Live HD media player makes it easy for anyone to play media stored on USB and network drives, any PC on the home network, as well as content from popular websites, on the biggest television screen in their home.

Using the Windows 7 Play To feature, users can initiate and control the streaming of video, music or photos to the WD TV Live HD media player and home entertainment systems from any Windows 7-based PC on their network. Any compatible media file accessible from the PC — located either on the PC or on the network — can be played to the WD TV Live by right clicking on the file name in the folder or directly from within Windows Media Player 12 and choosing the WD TV Live HD media player as the playback device.

Current users of the WD TV Live will need to update their media player to the latest firmware in order to use the Windows 7 Play To feature. Instructions for updating the WD TV Live HD media player can be found here.

“Microsoft is pleased that Western Digital has earned the Compatible with Windows 7 logo and is supporting the Play To feature with WD TV Live HD media player,” said Mark Relph, senior director, Windows Ecosystem Product Management at Microsoft Corp. “Now more than 100 million Windows 7 customers will have an affordable and easy way to play files to their HD TVs and other devices from their PC.”

“We regularly engage with WD TV Live enthusiasts in our online community. Many have been asking for a way to “push” media from their PCs to their TV or home theater system, especially from laptops. With the new Windows 7 Play To feature, users can select music or movies from their laptop and play it on an HD TV connected to a WD TV Live HD media player, whether the HD TV is across the living room or in a different room altogether,” said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD’s branded products group. “WD worked closely with Microsoft on this exciting new feature to ensure the seamless compatibility of the WD TV Live HD media player with Windows 7 PC’s and deliver WD TV Live users what they want.”

WD TV Live HD Media Player

Features of the Windows 7-compatible WD TV Live HD media player include:

• Full-HD 1080p video playback and navigation with the included remote control and crisp, animated navigation menus;
• Play a wide variety of file formats including support for the most popular file formats with no need to spend time transcoding;
• Play videos, music and photos from the Internet on your big screen TV and discover new music with Pandora® Internet radio or listen to thousands of radio stations via Live365 Internet radio;
• Ethernet port for wired or WiFi® connection¹ to access files anywhere on the network to play movies, music, and photos from any PC or drive on a home network;
• Turns a USB drive² into an HD media player and plays content from most popular USB drives, and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices;
• Unlimited media collection, just add more USB drives for more space;
• Two USB ports for seamless media playback from multiple USB drives and ability to access them simultaneously while a media library feature collects the content on all the drives into one list sorted by media type;
• Transfer files by copying, moving or deleting files stored on a USB drive, a network drive, a camcorder, or a camera to the attached USB drive using the on-screen menus;
• Picture Transfer Protocol support to show photos and movies directly from digital camera or video camera and/or any digital imaging device that supports Picture Transfer Protocol;
• Advanced navigation options including thumbnail and list views, media library and search;
• Photo viewing to create custom slide shows, zoom and pan and search;
• Movie viewing with fast-forward, rewind, pause, zoom and pan, view subtitles, and search;
• Music playback with fast-forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat and search;
• File copying between USB devices;
• HDMI® 1.3 port, composite video and component video output for the highest quality HDTV or home theater;
• SPDIF digital output that sends digital signals to your AV receiver for the best surround sound experience; and,
• Ultra-compact design to fit easily into a home entertainment center.

Pricing and Availability

The WD TV Live HD media player is distributed by Axis Global Technologies, Inc. and ATP Peripherals (Phils), Inc. and is available now at select retailers in Philippines. Covered by a 1-year limited warranty, the MSRP for WD TV Live HD media player is ₱7,500.

[Media Release]

Western Digital, WD, WD TV and the WD logo and My Book are registered trademarks; WD TV, World Edition and My Passport are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies. One gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. One terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.

However, when I upgraded my system to Windows 7 (64-bit) a couple of days ago, I found that the drivers bundled with the device wouldn’t install properly. I have an Acer Aspire 2930, and the Plug-It model is a ZTE HSDPA USB Modem MF627.

Windows 7 is simply superb. It installed much faster compared to my experience with earlier versions of Windows, and I had no problems with drivers at all. Some drivers didn’t install automatically — for the AuthenTec biometric device and for the multi-card reader — but Windows 7′s improved Internet driver search took care of that.

And that’s what solved the problem for the ZTE modem as well. I searched the Web for solutions to the problem, because the SmartBro Plug-It wouldn’t work on Windows 7, but there were no real solutions. In one forum, someone advised that one should enable the ZTE drivers to run in Windows-2000 compatibility mode. But that won’t work for the Windows 7 Home Premium edition, because it doesn’t have compatibility mode. But that’s a rather dirty approach to the problem.

What finally made it work for me was Windows’ Device Manager. I went there, and saw the warning flags on the devices labeled ZTE. What you should do is right-click on each one and click on Install driver software (or something to that effect), and let Windows 7 do the rest! Once that’s done, you’ll see a new item under Modems: ZTE Proprietary USB Modem; and three new items under Memory technology driver (the Plug-It has a slot for a microSD card).

I’m using my SmartBro Plug-It right now to post this article!

iPod Apps Top 25

I’ve noticed that Philippine-made iPod touch / iPhone applications have been consistently featured in the Apple App Store’s list of Top 25 (paid apps) for a couple of weeks now. In fact, the #1 as of this writing is an application called Filipino iPhone Community or FiC, an app that allows FiC members “to check the latest posts in the [applei.ph] forums, as well as access the LiveChat feature of the site.”

Another one in the Top 25 is iManila, which is by the same developer of FiC, MangCode.com. iManila is an online directory for finding businesses, stores, etc., retrieving contact information and other details from EYP. (I hope they’ll come up with a directory for Davao City as well as for other Philippine cities in the near future.)

It seems that the number of iPhone / iPod touch users in the Philippines is steadily increasing, and that the downloading of apps among Filipinos is now as commonplace as using ebay or Amazon. Judging by comments and reviews on paid apps posted by Filipino users in the App Store, I think it’s safe to assume that there’s a steady stream of good business happening for Apple.

Personally, I have purchased quite a number of apps for my iPod touch, from games to productivity software, even a couple of audiobooks. I’m so glad that the App Store is open to the Philippine market, unlike iTunes, which remains closed to us.

I understand that there are copyright issues covering US-published music, hence the inaccessibility of iTunes from the Philippines. But with the healthy activity going on in the App Store, wouldn’t it be good business sense for Apple to make at least certain parts of iTunes open to us? Podcasts and audiobooks, for example.

Having the ability to download more content into my iPod would certainly increase its worth as a companion gadget. More than just a device for playing music and videos, turning the iPod touch into a content-rich ebook reader would be very welcome indeed.

The main reason why I switched themes was to keep up with WordPress technologies. Since version 2.7, new-fangled features have already been made available to WordPress bloggers (and those who use this awesome platform as a CMS). However, themes and plugins needed to be upgraded as well. Plugins are easy: when authors upgrade them, they’re readily available for deployment. Themes, on the other hand, need a bit more tweaking to make them WP2.7-ready.

So, since my blogs had already been sporting those old designs for long enough (except for Blogie Blog, but that’s beside the point), and because I was able to get my hands on a set of terrific WP themes from WooThemes.com, I decided to take the plunge.

I hope you like the new “look and feel” of my IT blog.

Users can dive into the ocean, travel back in time and visit Mars in the newest version of Google Earth

Manila, Philippines (February 3, 2009) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Ocean in Google Earth, a new feature that enables users of Google Earth to dive beneath the water surface, explore 3D underwater terrain and browse ocean-related content contributed by leaders in ocean science and advocacy. The new version of Google Earth also introduces Historical Imagery, a feature that enables users to virtually travel back in time through archival satellite and aerial imagery, Touring, which makes it simple to create a narrated tour in Google Earth and share it with the world and Mars 3D, which features hi-res imagery and terrain of the red planet.

“With this latest version of Google Earth you can not only zoom into whatever part of our planet’s surface you wish to examine in closer detail, you can now dive into the world’s ocean that covers almost three-quarters of the planet and discover new wonders that had not been accessible in previous versions of this magical experience,” said The Honorable Al Gore at the launch event in San Francisco. “Moreover, with the new historical imagery feature, you can look back in time and see for yourself the unprecedented pace of change taking place on the Earth – largely because of human influences. For example, you can watch the melting of the largest glacier in Glacier National Park–the Grinnell Glacier–image by image, for the last decade.”

“In discussions about climate change, the world’s oceans are often overlooked despite being an integral part of the issue,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt. About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere ends up in the oceans. Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30 years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can’t see it. This is why today’s launch of Google Earth 5.0 is so important – it gives us an opportunity to change everyone’s perspective.”

Ocean in Google Earth combines underwater terrain and expert content to provide users with an opportunity to explore some of the most difficult-to-reach parts of the world. Now the Philippines’ very own underwater attractions come alive via videos, images, and informative articles in Google Ocean. Filipino users can not only see vivid images of Apo Reef, the world’s second largest contiguous coral reef and the largest in the Philippines, but can also witness the archipelago’s full biodiversity with exciting visuals of sea animals in action, like a paragliding crab or rare deepwater snail that lives on a dog skull. Users in foreign countries can experience the Philippines’ beauty first-hand through Google Ocean, for example by exploring famous dive spots like Siargao’s Cloud Nine and Boracay’s Bulabog Lagoon, seeing videos about the exotic marine life of the region, reading about nearby shipwrecks like the USS Gambier Bay, and contributing photos and videos of favorite surf spots.

The Ocean feature is on by default in the newest version of Google Earth. As users zoom in on the ocean they will see a dynamic water surface, and once they dive beneath the surface they can navigate 3D sea floor terrain. The feature includes 20 content layers, containing information contributed by the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers (see the full list of partners). These include:

• An “Explore the Ocean” layer containing photos and videos about ocean hot spots around the world contributed by over 80 individuals and organizations
• A National Geographic Magazine geo-quiz and overlays from their new Atlas of the Ocean
• Videos from the archives of Jacques Cousteau, featuring never-before-seen footage of historic ocean expeditions

“What this project helped me begin to understand,” said John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps, “is the role the ocean plays in global climate change and the impact that humans are having on the oceans and the creatures that live in it. It was a serious omission on our part not to include a better treatment of the oceans when we launched Google Earth, and I’m very happy that we’ve been able to address that. We now have a good substrate for publishing and exploring data about the ‘other’ two-thirds of the planet.”

The new feature was developed in close collaboration with oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and an advisory council of leading ocean advocates and scientists.

“I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet than the new Ocean in Google Earth, ” said Sylvia Earle. “For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes. In a stroke, Google Earth brings life and character to the blue part of the planet, and makes obvious the many ways land, water, atmosphere and living systems connect. Many ‘aha!‘ moments are sure to come as people discover new patterns, new correlations, and countless personal discoveries while vicariously diving into the waters of the world.”

The announcement was made this morning at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, one of the nation’s leading institutions for scientific education and research. Following the announcement, local fourth graders participated in an interactive lesson on marine ecosystems, designed specifically by Academy educators to use the new Ocean feature. “Information technology is key to the work that Academy scientists and educators do, and Google Earth is a leading example of such technology,” said Dr. Greg Farrington, Executive Director of the Academy. “Ocean in Google Earth opens up a new world of opportunities to explore and educate the public about the least understood parts of our planet.”

Also launched today:

Historical imagery: In previous versions of Google Earth, users could only view only one set of imagery for a given location. Now users can activate a time slider to see both new and older satellite imagery from around the globe, enabling them to observe a single location’s development over time.

Touring is a simple new way for users to create narrated tours of imagery and content in Google Earth. By simply pressing the “record” button, users can fly from place to place, zoom in or out and click on content balloons, providing voiceover narration along the way. Whether creating a tour of one’s family home or an in-depth study of environmental change, the tours are easy to create and even easier to share.

Mars 3D is the latest stop on Google’s virtual tour of the galaxy. Users can travel to Mars with the click of a button and see high resolution imagery and 3D terrain. They can fly to the top of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in our solar system, read geo-located excerpts about different locations on the planet from A Traveler’s Guide to Mars, observe where various Mars Rovers and Landers have touched down and much more.

GPS Tracking – Previously only available in the Plus and Pro versions of Google Earth, now all users can upload tracks from GPS devices to Google Earth, making it easy to visualize and record running, hiking and biking routes.

Google Earth 5.0 is now available in 40 languages (previously 26), including Filipino, as well as, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Thai, Arabic, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Czech, Greek, Norwegian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Catalan, Latvian, Ukrainian, and Hindi.

One of my favorites: Nimbuzz. Basically, it’s a chat program that consolidates your accounts on Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM/ICQ, and a few others into one interface. When you login to Nimbuzz on your mobile, you actually go online on all of the IMs that you specify in this app’s community settings. (Thanks to my buddy, Winston, for letting me know about Nimbuzz last year.)

Nimbuzz also lets you do voice via Skype; but I haven’t tried that yet, only the chatting part. It would really be cool if I could use Nimbuzz’s internet calling facility, and not get charged toll fees for international calls!

Another one that I find very useful and one that gives my mobile phone value-added goodness is Gmail for Mobile. Point your phone’s browser to m.google.com and click on the link for Gmail. On the next screen, you will find a link to “Faster Gmail” — this is the download link for the phone app.

What’s great about Gmail for Mobile is that it’s fast and navigates easily with keypad shortcuts. Reading and writing emails is as effortless as it can get on a mobile phone. Attachments are also handled pretty well by this mobile app. But you will have to have the right 3rd-party apps for accessing downloaded files (MS Word, .pdf files, etc).

Also, Gmail for Mobile now lets you add Google Apps email accounts. For example, I have a couple of email accounts powered by Gmail (thanks to Google Apps), and I’ve included those in my phone as well. So, when I access Gmail for Mobile, it’s easy to switch from my Gmail account to the other email accounts.

Nokia has Nokia Maps. But I’ve also installed Google Maps (which is also available for download from m.google.com). Just like with the regular PC-based application, you can add landmarks and other geo-info on the mobile version. Cool feature: it updates your position while you’re moving. Of course, that’ll only work for GPS-enabled cell phones.

The landmarks you embed via Google Maps are also utilized by Nokia Maps, by the way.

The web browser I use on the N82 is Opera Mini (currently at version 4.2). It’s much more intuitive than the S60 browser, supports tabbing, and has keypad shortcuts enabled. Now, if only I could remap the “0″ key to access Opera Mini instead of the default browser…

Compared to the old versions of the Mini, 4.2 now is much more powerful. Zooming is more seamless than before, and it’s much easier to navigate web pages than before. Also, the user interface looks much better now.

Facebook also has a mobile edition, but it’s really just a fancy bookmark — it simply makes use of the S60 browser engine. But it’s still a cool way of keeping your Facebook account up-to-date. Another online community that I access via mobile is Plurk. On your mobile browser, just go to http://www.plurk.com/m.

What about you? What Internet-capable mobile applications do you have on your phone?

But there is a need: a need to preserve our heritage, which can only be properly illustrated in our native tongue. (Let’s not go into the linguistic rivalries between the major language groups of our country, however. When I speak of ‘native tongue’ and refer to it as Filipino or Tagalog, that’s only because that’s what the powers that be have designated it to be.)

In this age of the Internet, one way to ensure the preservation and propagation of our heritage is to make our language be pervasive online. Or, at the very least, available.It’s a very welcome development, therefore, that Google is now offering machine translation of Filipino to several other languages besides English (and vice-versa).

Aside from this online tool being of great use to Filipinos, you’d be surprised at the number of foreigners who’re studying Tagalog (not to mention Cebuano).

I gave Google Translate™ a test drive, converting sentences to/from English and Filipino, but I’m afraid it was rather disappointing. The quality of the results wasn’t yet approaching the level of, say, English-to-Japanese machine translation. Even simple sentences came out strangely worded. But that’s OK, I’m sure it will improve in the foreseeable future.

Here’s a statement from Google, during the launch of the service yesterday:

“At Google we believe that the Internet is about enabling access to the world’s information—all the world’s information, regardless of language,” said Derek Callow, Marketing Manager, Google Southeast Asia. “Today’s launch of Google Translate in Filipino language makes it easier for millions of Filipino-speaking Internet users all over the world to search and access much more web content in their own local language.”

“Google Translate also allows Internet users to contribute to the improvement of translations to and from the Filipino language. When users come across an inaccurate translation, the tool allows them to suggest a better translation than the machine translation,” Callow said

I wonder when we’d start seeing machine translators for Cebuano, Ilocano, Dinabaw…?

Suffice it to say that we are now in an era of heightened mobility. We now demand — nay, expect — to have our desired information readily available via our handheld gadgets. Therefore, as a publisher, I thought it important to get my blogs’ content onto other platforms other than the Web browser.

I’d like to share what I’ve found for doing exactly that: Feedm8.com.

Feedm8 is a service that lets you republish your blog’s RSS or Atom feed for mobile consumption. Now that 3G and HSDPA have become prevalent, coupled with the relatively affordable airtime rates, it would be a very good idea to offer up your content to people on the go.

And in Davao City and other parts of the country with widespread free Wifi access, mobile information on hand is becoming more and more commonplace.

For example: my food blog. Modesty aside, quite a number of people refer to Davao Delicious when they’re thinking of dining out in Davao City. What if you wanted to check it out but didn’t have a laptop with you? Go mobile! Instead of accessing www.davaodeli.com, you can go online via your cell phone and access m.davaodeli.com. Neat huh? Here’s a sample screen shot:

That URL, by the way, is just a redirector that I’ve created. You’ll notice that you’ll be taken to a feedm8.com address. This is only possible if you have control of your own domain name.

However, the Feedm8 service works for all types of blog platforms, including Blogger.com. For as long as your blog or website generates an RSS feed, you can avail of this free-of-charge service.

Over and beyond the seamless content portability that Feedm8 offers, you can also make money from getting your RSS appear on mobile devices. I haven’t really explored that part yet, but it involves advertising (which is the biggest business model on the Internet anyway).

Another cool feature: Feedm8 also generates QR codes for you. If you have a cell phone that can read 2-dimensional barcodes (such as the Nokia N82), scan the barcode I have on my sidebar. You can then save the embedded URL, or click through to my blog right away.

(This is not a paid post.)

Microsoft Corp.

It wasn’t mentioned in the official announcement, but this generous offer could most certainly be a response to SMEs’ clamor for more affordable business software applications.

Software has never been a priority among SMEs, most of whom consider such expense non-essential and even frivolous (and so resort to piracy). This new financing deal from Microsoft, whose programs are used by more than 90% of businesses, should therefore be a very welcome development.

Included in the deal are MS Windows, MS Office, and other applications that fall under Open License, Open License with Software Assurance, and Get Genuine Windows Advantage SMO. In short, most of the software needs of virtually all SME companies are covered.

In this financing program, Filipino companies need only make a down payment of 30% of the total purchase. The balance will then be payable across 9 months at 0% interest. To give you an idea, let’s say your company purchases software licenses valued at P250,000. The payment up front will be P75,000. For the next 9 months, you will be paying only a little over P19,000 per month.

Such a package could include several licenses for MS Windows Vista Business, and those for the Office suite (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

This financing program is available to registered businesses only. The Microsoft Philippines website lists SEC registration papers as one of the requirements; however, according to Lane Systems’ Rodney Jao, DTI-registered companies may also apply for it. Lane Systems Inc is one of the accredited ISV Partners of Microsoft in the Philippines.

The Microsoft Financing Program runs from 1 October 2008 to 31 March 2009.

Ever since Macromedia rolled out their awesome vector-based animation platform, Flash has provided the Web designer with a way to wow their clients. Web sites that contained Flash movies became some of the best-looking online presences. But the problem was, Web sites built entirely with Flash — no matter how beautifully-crafted it was — were not searchable. For a huge number of Internet users, if a site is not indexed by Google or Yahoo!, it doesn’t exist.

So, for Web developers, it has always been a balancing act between content and design. But this might soon change.

With the improvements to its core technology introduced by Adobe, Flash content is now visible to search engines. Web site owners can now expect to see their Flash sites appearing on SERPs. This is probably one of the best news I’ve heard coming out this year (to you, too, if you were a Web developer).

So far, only Google has implemented SWF searchability. Yahoo!, on the other hand, seems to be saying that they still have to work out some kinks before they can index Flash content… Here’s the FAQ from Adobe.

The question is:  When will Adobe implement search-engine friendly URLs for Flash content?

Search engine indexing is one thing, but that’s not all of it. For a Flash-heavy Web site to be properly ranked by Google, for instance, incoming links to deeper content will have to be made possible. Let’s say I have a site created and deployed entirely in Flash. Let’s assume that the site has sections and sub-sections, and sub-sections contained articles. What if one of my avid readers wanted to link directly to a particular article?

Linking to the top-level address is all well and good, but deeper links are also valuable to enhancing a site’s search engine ranking. So, I hope Adobe is working on this as well.