Taipei Times – Chinese Learning Technology
It’s two in two weeks, as I am introducing the mobile section of my Chinese language review series.
I do aim to catch up with developments in my new job but I have barely had a moment to think thus far – it is making DEM seem like a holiday, so far. Enjoy.
Taipei Times – Chinese Learning Technology
It’s been a wee while, but I am back on the writing bandwagon after a ‘sabbatical’ – or rather, a break while I got my head around changing jobs and going on holiday.
But here it is – and this is something I want to make regular – a focus on learning Chinese technology for those of us not blessed by having Chinese parents.
Tune in next week for mobile products!
QR codes are big in Japan – you’ll see them everywhere, from posters, to concert tickets and even the stamp for your passports. As a kind of 2D barcode, they are doing the thing that RFID tags were supposed to a few years ago, albeit in a rather lower tech form. Just point your QR code-enabled phone at the graphic, and you can grab a hyperlink, phone number or simple text string.
And my prediction? With the imminent Google phone, they will use this as a Trojan Horse to roll out QR codes in Europe.
Make you own: QR Codes
Here’s the latest installment of my monthly technology review for the Taipei Times. This month, I take a peek at the Asus Eee PC and the HTC Touch Dual. Take a look here!
Taipei Times – Technology Review – Asus Eee PC and HTC Touch Dual
After many months of almost getting my backside in gear, I have finally got round to creating a blog in Chinese. Finally, I hope that this provides me with an easy way to enjoyably prepare written work for my Chinese teacher!
I want it to be a dynamic document, so if you are a Chinese speaker and have problems with sentences (which you will!) do let me know and I will keep it updated.
Let’s see how I do!
Link: Chinese Burn
Coldcut came to Taiwan as part of HP’s ‘Art in Motion’ tour, and totally blew me away. I was asked to provide the write-up for the Taipei Times, so rather than say the same thing again, here are my words from the newspaper:
Last night saw the Taipei instalment of the HP-sponsored ‘Art in Motion’ tour at Luxy, featuring British legends Coldcut, Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-Mark and VJ support from Berlin crew Pfadfinderei. Ostensibly a fusion of music and live visuals, early on the show seemed like an extended advert for HP’s personal computers, and with guidance from the most irritating emcee in Asia was beginning to unfold into some kind of hip-hop-themed ‘wei-ya’ end of year party.
However, things began to improve quickly when Nu-Mark took to the decks and wowed the crowds by mixing sampled beats with a selection of increasingly unlikely musical children’s’ toys. Innovative, and unlike the local beat-boxing warm up act, not a bit self-indulgent, the crowd responded with a mixture of laughter and butt-on-the-floor boogying.
With the audience now suitably warmed up, Coldcut entered stage right and took no prisoners with a ballistic delivery of hip-hop, dub and electronic beats, all synchronised with nine projectors beaming video and images around the room in an awesome display of digital showmanship. Jumping from the more obscure references of their own back-catalogue, they never allowed themselves to alienate the newcomers and regularly dropped in samples from sources as diverse as Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf”, Run DMC and AC/DC. Taipei barely knew what hit them.
With Nu-Mark resuming control, the entire room bounced the rest of the night away to the sounds of a thousand house parties, and the best music Taipei has heard in several years.
Colcut – to the limit
Nick keeps it nice and sleazy
And some other words from Tom, as featured in ‘The Vinyl Word’ last week:
Hello to the folks at Trippin TV that featured my blog in their reviews – very kind words!
Link: Trippin TV
My latest article for the Taipei Times is out, and hopefully this gives me a few weeks of relaxation – the last couple of months have been rather overloaded (in more ways than one).
One thing I hoped to do was introduce very briefly some of the changes to the Chinese input systems on both of the product – but this is potentially an entire article in itself – now there is an idea! Enjoy.
Here is my latest article for the Taipei Times.
This month I have mostly been testing … GPS
Find it here.
I have taken the plunge. I needed / wanted to give myself some more space for photos, so after weeks of deliberation (just ask Jade) I have opted to use Apple’s Web Gallery.
In many ways, I preferred Flickr, but with a potential move to China this option would be pretty inconvenient. It’s not perfect – images uploaded are not full size and show signs of compression, managing the photos is a little primitive, and sometimes it behaves a little strangely, but for a no-brainer, super fast image upload system, this has to be a great option.
Check out my pictures here:
