DJ Masa marks the end of the year with an annual remix tribute to all things Kpop. The “Adios” mix just started last year but he’s already got a lot of fans (including this blogger!) hyped up whenever he does a release. The song mashup includes 35 songs that have made an impact this year, so check it out and it’s a free download so go on his blog and leave him a comment or two!

The last post about the new bada ui I had some strong words about now this just makes me hate it more. If you take a look at the first pic then you see that they copied synbiam which is one of the one of the ugliest mobile operating systems ever and the second pic of the flip clock taken from sense ui is ugly they didn’t do it right it looks ugly compared to the one on sense. They are just taking things from other operating systems and making it worse but you will never know until the finished product.

On 8th of December Samsung showed the world their new smartphone operating system called Bada. At an event, held in London, the Korean company revealed the first details about the upcoming platform and gave the start to the developers challenge that should create a good application base for the future Bada users.

The new Bada OS is all touch

The Bada OS is based around on Samsung proprietary TouchWiz User Interface – in fact the design mockups they’ve presented at the event were pretty much similar to the Samsung Pixon12 UI.

Designed for use on full-touch handsets only, Bada OS should help create “a smartphone for everyone” and increase the market share of the smartphones up to 50 percent.

Being a fully-fledged smartphone platform though, Bada will allow developers to tap into the various mobile phone features and sensors – Flash UI, web control, motion sensing, vibration control, face detection, weather, proximity, and other activity sensors. Obviously developers should have no problems developing immersive and interactive applications.

Samsung have highlighted the various service-centric features as the Bada OS differentiator. Those would location-based social networking services, device synchronization, content management, location-based services, and e-commerce services – all supported by back-end Bada servers.

As you’ll see from the 4-minute presentation video below, at this point Samsung are reaching mainly towards developers, not cellphone users. Samsung are hoping that getting the developers support will get a head start for their new OS. They’ve setup a dedicated Bada developers website and have already put up the Bada SDK for download.

And the Bada Challenge is up

Today also marks the start of “The Bada Challenge”, which is what Samsung will call their developers’ contest. It gives developers a chance to win a part of a 2,700,000 US dollars prize fund by submitting an app for the new OS.

In an attempt to create a large applications database for the new Bada platform, Samsung will also have a series of Developer Days that will take place across the world during 2010. Open to all developers, the initial events will be held in Seoul, London and San Francisco, with more events following as the year progresses.

Further on, Samsung have secured the partnership of key players in the mobile software industry. EA Mobile, Capcom, Gameloft, Konami were some of the bigger names mentioned at the event. Some of them even had high-standing representatives attending the London event to attest their support to the Bada cause.

Samsung will have a Bada application store, which would allow even non-registered users to buy applications and app payments with the mobile phone bill. With the launch of the first Bada phone, the Samsung application store will be expanded to cover up to 50 countries. The second half of 2010 shouild see the store expand worldwide.

We were able to shoot a demo video of some of the applications and games Samsung Bada OS partners are developing for the new OS.

And the first Bada smartphone to come is…

The company seems pretty determined to make this new platform work. We are yet to see its implementation. Samsung are promising their first and only handset (for now) to come in the first half of 2010.

With the first Bada handset, Samsung will be focusing the high performance segment and large sale numbers to widen the user base as quickly as possible. It’s similar to what Nokia did with their Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

It will be their next Bada smartphones to cater for the lower segments of the market and reaching even further as one of the Bada slogans suggests: “Smartphones for everyone”.

And a few words for closing

Somehow we couldn’t help but notice that Samsung have been diligently taking presentation cues from Apple. Even the slides were designed matching some of those used by Apple when they first announced iPhone OS 2.0 and 3.0 back in the day. There’s certainly nothing wrong about that, Apple are among the best in business when it comes to putting up a nice presentation.

We also really hope that Samsung will match Apple’s success in promoting the new OS and developing its application and user base.

[GSMArena]

I hate writing a bad post about something but this is just asking for it. There are some leaked pics of the new Bada UI and when you see them you will see why this is a EPIC FAIL. If you look at the first few pics it stole the iphones dialer and scrub bar, Androids widgets, and for some reason Symbians icons which I don’t really know why you would want to copy symbian. I mean its not bad but its not good either. I mean don’t get me wrong it looks great and I see what they are trying to do here take some good parts of different mobile operating systems and put them together and create one good one. I guess we will just have to wait until it launches to really know.

NOTE:these pics are leaked so I am going off the leaked pics.

Press conference on the release of Eugene’s beauty book ‘Eugene’s Beauty Secrets’

Both Bada and Shoo showed up to support Eugene along with the main cast members of Eugene’s current drama ‘인연 만들기’ (Creating Destiny/Making Fate)

The official release date of the book is December 21, 2009

You can get a copy here:
http://www.yes24.com/24/goods/3635731?scode=032&srank=1

Video credits: SESmedia

Do we need another open platform?

Bada-Bing Bada-Boom. Another OS? There Ain’t No Room. | AndroidGuys

In terms of the OS, Samsung states that Bada is an open platform, that aims to deliver an intuitive user experience through innovative visual design. According to the Bada site created by Samsung, “More and more people want the rich and connected application-experiences that are currently only available for smartphone consumers. Samsung has developed bada to make these exclusive smartphone experiences available to everyone.”

Younha’s not even in SM

“Changmin oppa who faithfully watches care of me.
The muscular cool boy, Jung-jin.
In addition, there’s no better words for the really gorgeous Hyosin oppa.
The divine/God’s voice which inspires me a lot, Junsu.
Yoochun oppa who in many ways keeps encouraging me.

Many thanks to Bada sunbae (S.E.S). The light, Eugene (S.E.S) sunbae, I will always remember you.

Thank you for your enlightment, Tony sunbae. A cool brother who always gives me many messages and constantly criticizes me.”

Cr: dbsknights

Since the launch of the first generation Apple iPhone, the mobile industry has transformed beyond recognition. However despite more mainstream users downloading content, affordable smartphones and overwhelming industry support, are there clear horizons ahead?

For developers, the answer is not really. Faced with an OS ecosystem that is no longer fragmented as much as splintered, increasingly complicated certification processes that are often unique to each store and a new flagship handset being launched on an almost weekly basis, bringing content to market is a daunting task.

The problem intensifies when you consider applications should ideally span not only phones, but MIDs, UMPCs, cars (telematics), and other embedded and wearable computing devices. Pervasive is the new mobile. A single platform that spans all “Screens of Life” is the ideal.  But how can developers truly innovate with such a wide variety of platforms for which to cater their “mainstream” application.

Even so it is unlikely that the industry will see an end to this diversity in the near future. Mobile operators and handset manufacturers both see the mobile operating system as a unique selling point and have made it clear that they do not want a repeat of the Wintel paradigm.

With new operating systems and application stores being launched on an almost weekly basis, Bada and Else Institution being two recent examples, this issue of too much choice is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. But I expect OS and application store consolidation to be a clear theme this time next year.

Since I am annoyed with all these Kpop chaotic year-end music awards shows full of controversies, I decided to make an awards show for myself ^0^ Criteria? What I think deserves praise in Kpop for the past year. All the nominees are the individuals and works that were worth my listen and the ones who win are those I like the most.

Pop Category:

Best Pop Song:

T-Ara – Lies

2PM – I Hate You

FT Island – Hope

G – Dragon – A Boy

SNSD – Gee

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance:

BADA – Mad

Ivy – Touch Me

Lee Hyori – Hey Mr. Big

Park Bom – You And I

Younha – 1,2,3

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance:

G – Dragon – Heartbreaker

Kim Jung Hoon – In Your Eyes

Kim Tae Woo – Love Rain

Tae Yang – Where You At

Best Pop Performance by a Duo/ Group:

2PM – I Hate You

2NE1 – I don’t care

Shinee – Juliette

SNSD – Tell me your wish

T-Ara – Lies

Best Pop Album

2PM – Time for Change

2NE1 – I don’t care

G – Dragon – Heartbreaker

Shinee – Romeo

T-Ara – Lies

Dance Category:

Best Dance Recording:

Brown Eyed Girls – Abracadabra

2PM – Again and Again

Baek Ji Young feat 2PM Taecyeon – My ear’s Candy

Chaeyeon – Shake

Super Junior – Sorry Sorry

Best Dance/ Electronic Album

Chaeyeon – Shake

4Minute – Muzik

Baek Ji Young – Ego

Clazziquai – Mucho Punk

G – Dragon – Heartbreaker

R&B Category:

Best Hiphop/ R&B song:

Dynamic Duo – Guilty

2PM – I Hate You

Drunken Tiger – Monster

Epik High – Wannabe

Leessang – Girl who can’t break up, boy who can’t leave

Supreme Team – Magic

Tae Yang – Wedding Dress

Best Hiphop/ R&B performance

Drunken Tiger – Monster

2NE1 – Fire

2PM – I Hate You

Epik High – Wannabe

G – Dragon – A Boy

Supreme Team – Magic

Tae Yang – Where U At

Best Ballad

Park Ji Yoon – In my fading memory

2AM – Lost

8eight – Without a Heart

Baek Ji Young – Please don’t forget

Kwill – Tears falling

Lee Soo Young – Don’t call my name

Best Male Group

2PM

Dynamic Duo

Epik High

Leessang

Super Junior

Supreme Team

Best Female Group:

Brown Eyed Girls

2NE1

Kara

SNSD

T-Ara

Best Male Solo

G – Dragon

Chunglim

Kim Jung Hoon

KWill

Tae Yang

Best Female Solo

Lee Soo Young

Baek Ji Young

IU

Park Ji Yoon

Younha

Best Newcomer

Supreme Team

2NE1

4Minute

Chunglim

T-Ara

Recording of the Year

Dynamic Duo – Guilty

2PM – Again and Again

2NE1 – I don’t care

Brown Eyed Girls – Abracadabra

Leessang – Girl who can’t break up, boy who can’t leave

SNSD – Tell me your wish

Super Junior – Sorry Sorry

T-Ara – Lies

Song of the year

Brown Eyed Girls – Abracadabra

2PM – Again and Again

2NE1 – I don’t care

G- Dragon – A boy

SNSD – Gee

Super Junior – Sorry Sorry

Album of the year

2PM – Time for change

2NE1 – I don’t care

G – Dragon – Heartbreaker

Lee Soo Young – Dazzle

Super Junior – Sorry Sorry

• Samsung Enters Smartphone Wars With Interactive OS – HotHardware — so nice to see yet another operating system designed for smartphones. It’s probably linux-based (even better: it’s probably Enlightenment-based!), it’s supposedly easy to develop applications for it, and it has a big chance of getting popular, since Samsung’s share in mobile phone market is quite significant. It’s a pity, though, that Samsung did not decide to support either Android or Maemo, which are both already quite mature and both have significant free/open-source components. Personally, I’d like to see Nokia’s Maemo as a “smartphone wars” winner, since Android doesn’t support that many standard GNU libraries, and hence makes reusing existing linux applications or libraries more difficult if not impossible.
• Slashdot | Malware Found Hidden in Screensaver On Gnome-Look — yes! Finally! Malware starts spreading in the linux world, which means that linux starts gaining a significant market share. Looks like linux users will need to become more careful when it comes to downloading and installing binary packages from untrusted sources…
• IBM’s newest mainframe is all Linux — looks like Linux is spreading in the mainframe world, too, but I don’t believe it will ever get through to highest-end enterprise machines.
• Linux Photography — a great blog by Joel Cornuz, with lots of fantastic tips on developing, editing and organizing photographs using software available for linux.

Samsung has officially unveiled bada, its next mobile platform. This huge announcement was made by the South Korean electronics company in an event held in London. The new platform represents Samsung’s vision of smartphone for everyone. The platform which replaces Symbian, targets not only consumers and mobile phone makers but also developers. It offers interesting features such as 3G, multitouch support and more.

Bada features
Bada which is the Korean word for ocean brings the following features:
TouchWiz Interface
3G
GPS
WVGA based multi-touch screens
Flash control
Web control
Motion sensing
Fine-tuned vibration control
Face recognition
Supports sensor based and context aware applications
Wi-Fi
Samsung’s cool TouchWiz Interface will be ported to bada. Yes it is the same interface which is visible on Omnia and Behold.
As far as the arrival of bada powered handsets is concerned, they are destined to arrive in the first half of 2010. These feature rich phones will be hitting Europe and Asia first. Interestingly Samsung will be launching bada applications in its application. Samsung plans to expands its application store to 30 countries which includes France, UK and Italy.
Samsung’s bada is already gathering attention as a potential gaming platform, with gaming industry leaders such as EA and Gameloft already signed up to develop games for this exciting platform.

It was announced last month by Samsung that they would be dropping Symbian OS from its handsets and replaces it with its own brand new mobile platform Bada. This news was not taken seriously and considered more of rumor or some temporary phase by Samsung. Forgotten by many, this news resurfaced again, there’s lot of talk about Bada as Samsung from time to time has been giving some details about it on its website and at a press event. This now surely is sign that it was not a rumor or news to be taken lightly. Samsung seriously is to shift its OS. Bada is set to have full touch screen UI with multi-touch support, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS and support for WVGA displays. It would also have Samsung love-it or hate-it Touch Wiz interface. The best part is there is a Bada developer’s challenge where one can win up to $300,000. The first phone would launch in the first half of 2010.

Just as promised, today Samsung showed the world their new smartphone operating system called Bada. At an event, held in London, the Korean company revealed the first details about the upcoming platform and gave the start to the developers challenge that should create a good application base for the future Bada users.

The new Bada OS is all touch

The Bada OS is based around on Samsung proprietary TouchWiz User Interface – in fact the design mockups they’ve presented at the event were pretty much similar to the Samsung Pixon12 UI.

Designed for use on full-touch handsets only, Bada OS should help create “a smartphone for everyone” and increase the market share of the smartphones up to 50 percent.

Being a fully-fledged smartphone platform though, Bada will allow developers to tap into the various mobile phone features and sensors – Flash UI, web control, motion sensing, vibration control, face detection, weather, proximity, and other activity sensors. Obviously developers should have no problems developing immersive and interactive applications.

Samsung Bada OS presentation

Samsung have highlighted the various service-centric features as the Bada OS differentiator. Those would location-based social networking services, device synchronization, content management, location-based services, and e-commerce services – all supported by back-end Bada servers.

Samsung Bada OS presentation

And the Bada Challenge is up

Today also marks the start of “The Bada Challenge”, which is what Samsung will call their developers’ contest. It gives developers a chance to win a part of a 2,700,000 US dollars prize fund by submitting an app for the new OS.

In an attempt to create a large applications database for the new Bada platform, Samsung will also have a series of Developer Days that will take place across the world during 2010. Open to all developers, the initial events will be held in Seoul, London and San Francisco, with more events following as the year progresses.

Further on, Samsung have secured the partnership of key players in the mobile software industry. EA Mobile, Capcom, Gameloft, Konami were some of the bigger names mentioned at the event. Some of them even had high-standing representatives attending the London event to attest their support to the Bada cause.

Samsung have secured the partnership of some serious companies

Samsung will have a Bada application store, which would allow even non-registered users to buy applications and app payments with the mobile phone bill. With the launch of the first Bada phone, the Samsung application store will be expanded to cover up to 50 countries. The second half of 2010 shouild see the store expand worldwide.

And the first Bada smartphone to come is…

The company seems pretty determined to make this new platform work. We are yet to see its implementation. Samsung are promising their first and only handset (for now) to come in the first half of 2010.

With the first Bada handset, Samsung will be focusing the high performance segment and large sale numbers to widen the user base as quickly as possible. It’s similar to what Nokia did with their Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

It will be their next Bada smartphones to cater for the lower segments of the market and reaching even further as one of the Bada slogans suggests: “Smartphones for everyone”.

And a few words for closing

Somehow we couldn’t help but notice that Samsung have been diligently taking presentation cues from Apple. Even the slides were designed matching some of those used by Apple when they first announced iPhone OS 2.0 and 3.0 back in the day. There’s certainly nothing wrong about that, Apple are among the best in business when it comes to putting up a nice presentation.

We also really hope that Samsung will match Apple’s success in promoting the new OS and developing its application and user base.

RIMM had a great quarter – a time after which companies usually forget to do the right things. On the contrary this is really the best time for RIMM to react now before it is too late. So here goes my thinking on what they should do and soon…

It is very clear that RIMM’s unique advantage of Blackberry push email is not sufficient for it to retain the market leadership. First Apple’s iPhone, then PALM Pre and now Verizon’s Droid are eating at its market share slowly and RIMM has to respond to stay relevant. One thing is clear that current OS of Blackberry has reached its limit and that is one area RIMM has to find an alternative while retaining its unique advantages. It needs developer community and a great web experience to compete – getting to new customer segments will be a nice bonus.

It has four possible choices

• Build a new OS
• Buy PALM
• Google surrender strategy
• Google enhancement strategy

Build a new OS

Building a new OS will not bring developers easily to Blackberry and so that choice seems impractical. Yes I know Samsung went against the common wisdom and introduced Bada its new OS but got a big yawn from the market so far.

Buy Palm Inc.

Buy PALM which is currently at a market cap of $1.65B and would probably cost close to $2B. What would RIMM gain is WebOS, a great Web experience but not necessarily developers. Yes it will get access to a younger market segment that PALM manage to penetrate but RIMM could put the $2B elsewhere for a better return.

Adopt Google’s Android

RIMM can finally eat its pride and make the right business decision by adopting Google’s Android. There are two ways to adopt this strategy

• Follow Motorola’s Lead or Google surrender strategy wherein the handset vendor just builds the hardware and adopt Android as is  – kind of like what Motorola did with Droid for Verizon Wireless ( In all fairness, Motorola did some work on its Cliq for T-Mobile)
• Follow Apple’s Lead or Google enhancement strategy wherein the handset vendor not only builds hardware but adds its unique values and controls the end to end user experience. This is similar to what Apple did with BSD UNIX and created Mac OS X.

Conclusion

RIMM should adopt Google Android and add its unique push email, sync, security and other goodies while continuing to control end to end user experience.  This will give RIMM a better OS, developers and continue to maintain its unique advantages.

What do you think RIMM should do? Share your opinions here.

R. Paul Singh

Last week we did a post titled The Top 10 k-Pop Songs Of ‘09 which proved to be very popular as people do like Top Ten lists this time of the year. That post was based around the popularity of the artists and the amount of records they sold.

Since then we have had a few requests to do a similar list but with OUR FAVOURITE K-Pop songs of ‘09. So here it is!

#10- Chae Yeon – Shake

NL2T Rating: Song: 3.5/5

Video: 3/5

#9- Super Junior – It’s You

NL2T Rating: Song: 3.5/5

Video: 3.5/5

#8- 2NE1 – Fire

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

Video: 3.5/5

#7- T-ara – Like The Beginning

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

Video: 3.5/5

#6- 4MINUTE – Muzik

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

Video: 4/5

#5- IVY – Touch Me

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

Video: 4/5

#4- Bada – Mad

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

Video: 4/5

#3- Girls Generation – Tell Me Your Wish

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

Video: 4/5

#2- Brown Eyed Girls – Abracadabra

NL2T Rating: Song: 4.5/5

Video: 4.5/5

#1- Girls Generation – Gee

NL2T Rating: Song: 4.5/5

Video: 4.5/5

Samsung is finding that increased demand for its touchscreen phones doesn’t necessarily lead to increased profitability — which is why investors will be keeping a close eye on next week’s unveiling of bada, an open mobile platform designed to sit atop the company’s proprietary operating system.

Samsung will offer details about the platform and deliver the SDK at a media event in London. If the company can attract developers to the platform, bada could be a key differentiator for Samsung, boosting overall phone sales and helping to shore up diminishing margins. So the platform could play a huge role as the smartphone space increasingly becomes centered on software — not hardware.

The world’s No. 2 manufacturer said Monday it is on track to exceed its 2009 sales target of 200 million phones, with touchscreen models accounting for roughly 20 percent of sales. Its global market share rose 20 percent in the third quarter, Samsung said, with a profit margin holding strong at 10 percent. That margin is likely to shrink, though, as the smartphone space continues to heat up and vendors lower prices to boost market share. Deutsche Bank recently reported a 1 percent drop in the average selling price of handsets worldwide, and the price-cutting probably will continue as vendors try to deplete their inventories and new models come to market. And Samsung is bracing for a fight on its home turf of Korea, where the iPhone came to market this week.

Samsung has gained substantial traction thanks primarily to its hardware — not its software or mobile Internet services. But the company hopes to address those shortcomings with bada. While little is known about bada, it appears to be an attempt to bridge the gap between smartphones and feature phones, enabling developers to create full-blown apps for handsets that might not run a traditional OS. Bada seems to be designed to help developers address a broad base of handsets simply by making a few small tweaks to existing smartphone apps. And, as GetJar has proven, there’s a substantial demand for apps by users who don’t own high-end smartphones. If Samsung can find a way to bring higher quality apps to a wide swath of devices — and if it can lure developers to bada — it will continue to thrive.

Samsung, after unveiling its open mobile platform for touch screen-based mobile phones, bada, earlier this month, and launching a related web site, has confirmed the date of its December launch event to deliver the SDK: Dec. 8th. According to Samsung’s invitation, the event will take place at Vinopolis in London, and Dr. Hosco Lee, EVP and head of the Media Solution Center (MSC) at Samsung Electronics, will preside. An event in San Francisco is slated to follow the London launch.

Samsung’s bada will add to what is becoming heated competition among open mobile platforms, especially with Android gaining momentum. One big question surrounding bada is how ready developers will be to get behind it. It’s said to be a software layer, not a fully realized operating system, that would sit on top of Samsung’s proprietary operating system. That could raise questions among developers about how truly open it is. We’ll know more Dec. 8th (invitation below.)