bulknews.typepad.com

b-mobile now revealed their IDEOS, too, with new VOIP service

Following up my Japanese mobile plan hackery post, e-mobile just announced that they will release the new Android device dubbed "Pocket WiFi S".

via bulknews.typepad.com

Looks like Huawei's cheap unlocked Android phone IDEOS is to open the pandora's box of Japanese smartphone market.

Now the popular prepaid SIM carrier b-mobile also sells the IDEOS. Of course it's unlocked, runs 2.2 and allows tethering like e-mobile will do with their Pocket WiFi S.

The only difference with e-mobile is that b-mobile doesn't require contract, and because it doesn't provide voice service by default (unless you get the "tallkng SIM") you don't need to even sign nor provide your personal information at all. That's great for travelers too.

The other surprising news is that they will ship IDEOS with the SIP client (which I guess is based on sipdroid from the look of it), and they will start 050- based VOIP service in January, and it costs 480 JPY/mo with 10 minutes call, and then 10 JPY / 30 secs for more calls. I believe the service could be used with any unlocked phones when you put a b-mobile SIM card on it, like iPhone 4, Galaxy S or Nexus S. This is a huge deal.

It'd be awesome if it allows forwarding to Skype or GV/Gizmo for really cheap... Let's wait for the details from them.

Running Eugene's Ginger clone on Vibrant

via yfrog.com

I've been using Samsung's Galaxy S from T-Mobile aka Vibrant since July. Overall I'm happy with this phone except its GPS is crap and the software is laggy. But now that Nexus S is out with Gingerbread, still running 2.1 (Eclair) and waiting for T-Mobile/Samsung to update to Froyo sounds ridiculous, and i decided to take on the root thing.

It turns out, as mostly expected, that the rooting and installation process is very painless and the result is pleasant. You can just go to XDA to root the phone, install ClockworkMod recovery, backup the current stock ROM (JI6 for me) and install Eugene_373's Ginger Clone R2. Took me like half an hour and now I'm on Android 2.2, without Samsung bloatware, with 2.3 based UI and keyboard. This ROM runs really snappy, the battery life is greatly improved and it has Wi-Fi tethering and I have an unlock code so I could use this phone with b-mobile SIM next time I visit Japan. 

Oh, you might ask why not CyanogenMod. It's just not ready for Galaxy S Family yet.

I'm not envious for Nexus S anymore, except the front-facing camera that i don't have :)

Re: Percent-encoding URIs in Perl - Mark Stosberg

utf8::encode $_[0] if utf8::is_utf8 $_[0];

via mark.stosberg.com

`utf8::encode if utf8::is_utf8` is a bug. Don't do it.

There are reasons URI::Escape provides two functions, uri_escape and uri_escape_utf8. The former handles arbitrary byte strings, whether it's utf-8 or not, and the latter handles given strings as (possibly wide) characters.

Doing utf8::encode based on the utf8 flag is so wrong. It just tells the internal representation of a scalar and some latin-1 range characters might be encoded in a bogus way unless you explicitly call utf8::ugprade on it before passing to the function.

Nothing's wrong with URI::Escape providing the uri_escape that handles arbitrary encodings. While I agree most web pages should just use UTF-8 for everything in 2010, using other text encodings such as EUC-JP, or even arbitrary binary data (such as JPEG data) in URL is not invalid either.

Mark's quote from RFC3986 is done without its context. It says "When a new URI scheme defines a component that represents textual data consisting of characters from [UCS] ..." which doesn't apply when we encode parameters for the web URLs. It's not a new URI scheme, it shouldn't necessarily represent "textual data" either.

Don't rely on utf8 flags of the strings. See perlunitut and perlunifaq for more details.

Emobile to Release Pocket Wifi S

Dubbed “S” for Simple and Smart, the new Pocket Wifi is not just a portable wireless router, but is also a fully functional smartphone running Android 2.2.

via mobileinjapan.com

Following up my Japanese mobile plan hackery post, e-mobile just announced that they will release the new Android device dubbed "Pocket WiFi S".

I'd call whoever decided to name this device "Pocket WiFi S" a marketing genius. This phone is just an unlocked Android 2.2 device from the Chinese manufacturer Huawei. It is unique that it's totally unlocked and speaks 1700MHz that's compatible to e-mobile HPSA band, but otherwise this is just an Android phone.

E-mobile, unlike other evil carriers, instead of deleting the WiFi tethering option, fully enables it and embraces it by installing the one-click toggle widget in the home screen, and calls the device like a mobile wi-fi router that has voice capabilities.

They sell it for 19800 JPY for the full retail, and with the Smartphone Lite plan it's as low as 280 JPY to keep it while you don't use. I might consider switching to this one once my current Touch Diamond 2 year contract is up in April. I don't use the TD anymore. The phone is crap and it only does USB/BT tethering and WiFi hotspot feature is a paid option and is fleaky anyway.

Whenever i visit Japan, I insert their SIM card into NTT's portable router and use it as a data sim rather than voice.

Home audio stuff (Does HDMI/3D surround matter?)

lazyweb high-def audio geeks,

I just sold my current YAMAHA receiver RX-V659BL from 2006 today, because its depth is way beyond the new TV rack's depth I bought at IKEA (how lame reason is that!), and am now thinking of buying a new receiver to replace that.

My only requirement for the receiver is that its depth should be less than 15 inches and should have more than 5.1 channels.

So far I've been looking at: Sony's STR-DN1010, Pioneer's VSX-1020-K and Onkyo's HT-RC260. They are mostly the same: priced around $300-400, 7.1 channel surround systems and have multiple HDMI inputs and supports HDMI 1.4 for 3D audio. Out of three, Sony looks the best to me since my new TV will also be Sony's.

However, my question is simple: Do I need these fancy HDMI/3D things in the new setup?

My TV display will be Sony's BRAVIA HX800 that is 3D ready apparently, and has multiple HDMI inputs and optical/toslink outputs. The devices I play on TV will be: Mac mini (2009, no HDMI out), Apple TV (HDMI) and Xbox 360 (HDMI). So far, no real plan for the 3D sources like PS3 or standalone BD players. And I have 5.1 Yamaha speakers set.

In this simple setup, I think I can just connect all devices to the TV with HDMI rather than to the receiver, and then connect TV's toslink output back to the receiver. My understanding is that the setup won't do high-end surround stuff like HDMI 1.4 3D or Dolby TrueHD, but so far as I don't have 3D sources nor 7 speakers yet it doesn't seem to matter.

Am I missing something?