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.

Manila, 25 May 2010 — More than a year ago, WD® devised the WD Caviar® Blue™, WD Caviar® Green™ and WD Caviar® Black™ hard drive series, designed to help consumers make better informed choices in selecting their digital storage solutions. Now, in the Philippines, these hard drives have faces and personalities in the forms of Brent, Gus and Blake.

Brent represents the WD Caviar Blue hard drive, which is built for everyday computing. Gus represents the WD Caviar Green hard drive, engineered to be cool, quiet and eco-friendly for reducing carbon footprint and saving our Planet Earth. Blake represents the WD Caviar Black hard drive, which is built to be fast and powerful for gaming enthusiasts and overclocker fans who want speed at their fingertips.

Brent, Gus and Blake are fast gaining popularity and teasing chuckles out of netizens as their animated episodes pick up tens of thousands of views. Following the launch of the trailer episode last Christmas, the story of Brent continues with his misadventure with his extremely spontaneous girl. In episode three, Gus consults his disk doctor about his non-nature loving girl who is driving him up the wall. And in episode four, Blake is in therapy with his disk doctor and complaining of his girlfriend who is unable to appreciate the victory that he had achieved through his passion in racing. They all have something in common. Visit WD’s The Power of Choice website here to see Brent, Gus and Blake in action.

Together with the launch of episode four, WD introduces the new WD Blue, Green and Black Photo Hunt Contest. This is the 2nd online marketing campaign following the success of the BGB Photo and Digital Art Contest which had just announced the winners last April. Contestants for the Photo Hunt Contest are required to spot all the differences between the two photos before the time runs out. Pit against the clock for a high score and stand a chance to win attractive prizes like Canon EOS 550D digital SLR camera, Apple® iPad™ 64GB with Wi-Fi + 3G, Mac mini 160GB and more. Click here for the contest mechanics.

About WD

WD, one of the storage industry’s pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users’ data accessible and secure from loss. Its advanced technologies are configured into applications for client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own consumer storage and media products.

WD was founded in 1970. The company’s storage products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital® and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company’s Web site to access a variety of financial and investor information.

[Media Release]

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo and WD Caviar are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the US and other countries; Black, Green and Blue are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks herein are property of their respective owner. As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.

It’s really cumbersome, the way I try to keep my files synchronized. There is a nifty little tool called SyncToy, which makes the task of copying files and folders between computers much easier. But it’s still not the best solution out there. And now I think I’ve found it!

One of my friends invited me to join Dropbox, and it came at just the right moment for me. I was working on a Japanese translation project, and it was such a hassle syncing the documents between my two computers. There was even a time when I forgot to copy the latest files from my home computer, and I had gone out of town!

The beauty of Dropbox is in its treatment of your synced files. You actually have local files on all your Dropbox-connected computers, and they’re all the same files. When you work on your files in one computer (files that you have dropped into your Dropbox folder), the system automatically synchronizes them to your online account. As soon as your other Dropbox-connected computers are online, they will automatically retrieve your changed files to update their local counterparts.

Neat huh? So here’s the setup. You install a desktop application that runs in the background, and Dropbox creates a folder that it will watch (normally it’s under My Documents). Whatever files and sub-folders you create in that folder will be synced to your online account.

It’s so easy for me now, switching from my laptop to my netbook, and back again. I can even view my Dropbox-synced files on my iPod touch! Here’s a screenshot of the app’s welcome screen. (There is also a version for the iPad, of course.) You can copy photos to your albums, and view files such as Microsoft® Word & Excel, as well as PDF files.

For those who use no more than one computer, Dropbox can still come in handy as an online backup facility. The only setback is, you only get 2 gigabytes worth of space. Nowadays, what’s 2GB, right? However, if you get your friends to sign up, you’ll get more space, up to a maximum of 8GB. Still not nearly enough for today’s netizen, but it’s a start.

This is not a paid post. But, if you click on the Dropbox link and sign up, you’ll help me get more storage space!

I was fortunate to have met Robert Guerra of Freedom House, an NGO that monitors (among others) press freedom in the world, in Hong Kong and then in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. In an effort to help spread the gospel of Internet Freedom of Expression, his team has compiled a set of instructional videos on how to use the technologies mentioned above. Here’s one of them:

From Mr. Guerra:

As part of our project on promoting freedom of expression through technology and circumvention tools, my team has produced a series of simple, easy to understand video tutorials on how to use some of the leading anti-censorship tools.

Our aim is to not only help facilitate the promotion of existing circumvention tools, but also encourage the development of new creative materials that will make circumvention tools cool, trendy and popular to a wider internet audience.

We would appreciate your help in sharing these videos with your friends, colleagues and networks. Our collection of videos can be found on YouTube.

For security reasons we have also created versions of the video tutorials that have had all references to Freedom House removed. The anonymous videos are available here.

Last January in the U.S., I attended a series of conferences and meetings where the main topic was Internet freedom, and where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a policy speech on America’s stand on this basic right. Together with me were bloggers and journalists from China, Iran, Lebanon, and from them I learned first-hand how censorship — no matter how seemingly noble the apparent objective — is counterproductive and anti-development.

Yesterday, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), which is mandated to regulate digital networks in the Philippines, declared that it is requiring ISPs (as well as down-line providers of Internet connectivity) to monitor, deter, and report on child pornography occurring on the Internet. This directive is by virtue of RA 9775, which seeks to prosecute crimes of child pornography in the Philippines. By and in itself, this Republic Act is deserving of the people’s wholehearted support. Congress should be lauded for passing such a law.

However, the means by which this administration hopes to implement RA 9775 — by sanctioning State-sponsored censorship — do not inspire confidence at all. There are technical as well as moral considerations here.

It would cost an arm and a leg to implement the NTC directive. ISPs would have to spend huge sums of money and man-hours to install software that will monitor the millions of websites that Filipinos visit each day. And you can expect that the telcos and their distributors will pass on the cost burden to us, the consumers. The investment won’t only be in the software required by NTC, but also in the acquisition of larger bandwidth pipes to accommodate the expected gigantic load that running the software will definitely entail. That is, if the ISPs are so inclined.

Otherwise, we would suffer considerable Internet access slowdown, if not intermittent down times. You see, the NTC directive states that ISPs must run the monitoring and censoring of websites 24/7. Meaning, each website that you access will have to pass through the censor before you are able to view or interact with it. Imagine the overload! Let’s say one web page is 100kb, and the average number of pages accessed per day is 100; then let’s consider a sample population of 100,000 people. That’s a total of 1 million kilobytes or 1 gigabyte — and that’s a very conservative estimate.

If ISPs do not upgrade their infrastructure in order to accommodate the expected overload, they will most probably have to sort to heavy caching of websites. Simply put, what this means is, if you access Inquirer.net today, the news you read next week will probably be the same as today’s!

Now, the moral issues. Censorship is an evil. It curtails freedom of expression and it is repressive. Enough said.

What about privacy? Yes, there are also privacy issues at stake here. The NTC, in the draft of its implementing guidelines, has stated that it will require logging of what it considers illegal access (which is also resource intensive, by the way). And by logging, does this mean that personal information is to be included? Hmmm… that smacks of China’s Green Dam initiative, doesn’t it?

Think about this. How come First World countries do not impose censorship? They certainly have the resources. I hope that you, and those in our government, will take the time to read Hillary Clinton’s Internet freedom speech. You’ll see why the Americans, the British, the French (whose government also nearly tried to put Internet censors in place) respect freedom of the people.

We should be vigilant. We should not allow our rights and freedom to be trampled upon. That’s not to say that we allow pornography to run rampant. My point is, this band-aid reaction by the NTC is rubbish. It won’t solve — not even by a long shot — the problem of child pornography on the Internet. If our government is sincere in addressing this social blight, they would do well to go to the root of it and not resort to superficial measures that will prove harmful to freedom.

(Now, just to be clear, I’d like to qualify what I mean by “freedom” here: our God-given liberty of self-determination.)

The Tattoo embodies three core principles of HTC Sense: Make it Mine, Stay Close, and Discover the Unexpected

Mobile communications frontrunner HTC Corp. today introduces the HTC Tattoo™, an Android-based phone that brings high personalization to a broader market. With its distinct design and the ability to personalize programs on the phone — from its applications as well as content — people are able to express themselves and create their own individual mobile experience.

“Everyone wants their own phone to feel like it was specifically made for them. The Tattoo, with HTC Sense, represents an easy way to shape your own distinct mobile experience and really make it your own,” said Peter Chou, HTC Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer. “The HTC Tattoo ensures that you can create the most engaging and appropriate mobile experience through simple yet powerful personalization.”

HTC Tattoo is the second phone to embody a mobile experience focused on putting people at the center by making your phone work in a simpler and more natural way, otherwise known as HTC Sense™. Designed by listening to and observing how people live and communicate, HTC Sense revolves around three fundamental principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close, and Discover the Unexpected.

With HTC Tattoo, you stay close to the important people in your life by integrating your communications and applications, including voice calls, emails, texts, photos, and status updates into one consolidated view, while providing innovative and fun mobile phone experiences.

The stylish HTC Tattoo is small and compact, fitting snugly into your hand or pocket. You stay fashionably chic with its lightweight design and easy-to-navigate keys. Its touch-screen interface alongside the four-way navigation control and enter button, make browsing your phone seamlessly sophisticated.

HTC Tattoo integrates Google’s innovative mobile services including: Google Maps, search, Google Mail, and Android Market where users can download thousands of popular applications and games. It also comes complete with a broad variety of hardware features including a 3.2 mega pixel camera, 3.5mm stereo headset jack and expandable microSD™ memory.

Pricing and Availability

The new HTC Tattoo is now available in thoughtful silver at all authorized resellers at a suggested retail price of ₱14,990 and is available with Globe Telecom through Plan 1,800, which comes with one month free subscription of Super Surf. The standard retail HTC Tattoo package comes with a 2GB microSD™ card.

HTC Tattoo™ At A Glance

HTC Hero Awarded Mobile Phone of the Year at Mobile World Congress 2010

HTC also ranked World’s Most Innovative Company and second in Consumer Electronic category by FAST COMPANY magazine

HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, launched HTC Hero in June 2009 in London, and has since won the recognition of several international awards. The phone beat four other nominees in the recent Global Mobile Awards held at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona to clinch the Best Mobile Handset or Device of the Year.

Since October 2009, HTC Hero has been awarded three major international awards, including Stuff Magazine’s Gadget of the Year, Mobile Choice’s Phone of the Year, and T3 Magazine’s Phone of the Year. With the lineup of awards under HTC’s belt, various telecommunication providers around the world have been aggressively promoting HTC’s products in their retail shops.

HTC was also included in the internationally recognized magazine FAST COMPANY’s list of “World’s Most Innovative Companies,” and was ranked second in the Consumer Electronic category. Adding to the accolades for the HTC Hero, the mobile powerhouse also won several awards in the region in 2009, like the Editor’s Choice Award by Hardware Zone and the Silver Award by Hardware Magazine.

“‘Quietly Brilliant’ reflects our corporate culture. We listen attentively to and observe consumers’ demands. HTC strongly believe in the concept of ‘YOU’ — making mobile phones consumer-centric through the combination of software and hardware, with each mobile phone specially tailored for the user. We hope that consumers share the same sentiments and have confidence in HTC products,” elaborates Cher Wang, Chairman, HTC Corporation.

HTC’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Chou, commented, “We are glad to be conferred with these awards and are pleased to share the prestige with our end users.”

HTC Hero is all about enhancing the mobile experience for the user. Its superior capabilities complemented by its thoughtful design elements have proven it a winner. Keeping users ahead of technology, HTC Hero will be upgradable to Android 2.1 from May 2010.

About HTC

Founded in 1997, HTC Corporation (HTC) is a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design. Since its establishment, HTC has developed strong R&D capabilities, pioneered many new designs and product innovations and launched state-of-the-art mobile phones for mobile operators and distributors in Europe, the US, Asia and around the world. HTC is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile device market. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

GoDaddy iPhone App

It was pure delight to find out that GoDaddy — arguably the #1 domain registrar in the world — has an app for the iPhone / iPod touch. According to the App Store, it was posted late last year. Sometimes I get an inspiration for a domain name, and it’s now so much easier and more convenient for me to just whip out my trustee mobile device and access GoDaddy.com via mobile.

It’s a great little app: you can do pretty much all the basic domain-name registration stuff, plus a little more. Purchasing domain names, of course, is the main feature. But aside from that, you can also manage your domains, including updating nameservers and other DNS-specific records, domain ownership details, auto-renew settings, etc.

Here are a few screen shots of the GoDaddy iPod app in action, taken when I was acquiring yet another piece of Web real estate.

Domain Registration

Domain Administration

Whois service

There’s even a way for you to check who beat you to that domain name you’d wanted to get. An online whois service right on the palm of your hand. Actually, you can also do a whois on the domain name search results screen.

I have 60+ domain names registered, and as heavy user of mobile platforms, this GoDaddy app is now one of the most indispensable tools in my iPod touch. There are still some glitches, but I’m fairly certain GoDaddy’s going to be updating this application faithfully. Also, there’s only one way to pay: credit card; no PayPal payments accepted via this app yet. But other than that, it’s awesome!

Problem is, it might cause even more domain-buying sprees…

The Tattoo conveniently connects via USB and installed without a hitch on my Windows7-powered laptop. When I plugged it in the first time, the modem’s connectivity software installed itself (after my approval, of course) and was up and running in no time at all. Connecting to the network is a cinch, too!

Speaking of which, the Tattoo will be able to detect signal strength as well as the availability of WCDMA or HSDPA in your area. For best download/upload speeds, make sure you’re in an area where either WCDMA or HSDPA is present. (Where neither is available, chances are, you’ll be glad you had Internet connectivity at all.)

I’m happy with the broadband access I get in various places in Mindanao: Davao City, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Zamboanga City. When I go and visit more cities in the Philippine South, I’ll surely bring the Tattoo with me.

The Tattoo is available as a pre-paid and as a post-paid service. I use the former, and I am charged on the basis of duration. I remember when Internet service providers used to charge on a per-kilobyte basis, which was OK back then because connections were still very slow. But now that we have broadband access, it’s very advantageous for users of Globe Tattoo to be charged on a time-connected basis. We can download (and upload) much more in a short span of time and get charged only for the duration of connectivity.

If you don’t have yours yet, check out the Globe Tattoo broadband gallery of products.

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!