EDDIEWONG

… after moulting like crazy for the past month. He’s so beautiful now…

Hardly surprising since the Japanese launch of the Playstation 3 is only 6 days away (November 11). Here, there are three Playstation 3 displays (each hooked up to a Sony Bravia TV): one was looping game trailers, one was running a tennis game, and the last one running Ridge Racer 7. To be honest, both the tennis game and Ridge Racer didn’t look impressive in real-time. Ridge Racer actually looked a little jaggy… hmmmmmm…

Anyway, after thinking about it, I have decided that I will not buy a PS3 on launch day (if ever). Reasons being:

1. I am not a hardcore gamer
2. there are no killer launch games
3. I don’t see the appeal of Blu-Ray just yet
4. JP¥70,000 is too steep for me
5. these are revision A units and I ain’t no guinea pig for Sony
6. the thought of having to camp outside a reseller for a night or two with a few hundred geeks… doesn’t exactly turn me on. And to make this worse, the originally promised 100,000 units for launch (nationwide) has been dropped to 80,000 units.

I finally got to watch a handful of the real-life TV drama version of the anime, Chibi Maruko-chan! And just like the anime, Maruko-chan is adorable! I love it!

Yep, the Sony PSP is finally about to come in multiple colours (well, in Japan). I really wonder why it took so long for Sony to do this. I remember seeing some pics of the PSPs in multi-colours and themes at least 6 months before the unit even became available in Japan. Well yeah, they were proto-types but still, some looked good (especially a yellow one, if I remember correctly).

Anyway, the PSP will soon get Pink, Silver and Metallic Blue to the line-up which brings the total amount of available colours in Japan to 5 (same as the DS Lite). And, quite frankly, I don’t like any of these new PSP colours. Silver?? Metallic Blue?? Man, those 2 look tacky! The special edition, Metal Gear Solid version, which arrives on December 21 is probably better, IMHO…

2006 November 22: Pink PSP-1000 PK
2006 December 14: Silver PSP-1000 SV
2006 December 21: Metallic Blue PSP-1000 MB

AU Design Project finally showed off their INFOBAR2 concepts after weeks of teasing and I’m totally digging the design!

I liked the design of the original INFOBAR when it came out about 2 years ago but even at that time, the spec was rather low which kinda put me off. Also, being the aesthetics guy that I am (and a pretty anal one at that), I was begging for answers as to why that big fat antenna had to be there sticking out of the body! But anyway, what really stopped me from getting the original INFOBAR was because it wasn’t running on AU’s high-speed WIN service, which was new and all-the-rave back then.

→ Keep reading…

Last night, I met up for dinner with 2 friends whom are visiting from Hong Kong. One of them had this BlackBerry device (supposedly very popular with business people in US?) which has to be the least ugly model I have seen. It’s a little wide but its not so thick nor long and the screen is nice. But don’t ask me which model this is, I wouldn’t know to save my life (this is the first one I’ve ever touched).

Despite all models being… well… ugly, they do seem rather convenient having the whole keyboard layed out. But I’d very much prefer not having the keyboard just thrown onto the body like that - more thought should have went into the design. This brings me to the Japanese equivilents, namely Wilcom’s W-ZERO3 and Softbank’s X01HT. Much better thought out and sexier in appearance, don’t you think? This is design…

Apparently so, according to this poster on the train. The drama version came out on DVD on October 27. I’d love to watch one…

Update: 2006 November 3
Yes, a real-life drama does exist and I can’t believe I missed it! Here is the official website. And here are the opening and closing themes. Isn’t she kawaii?

… at train stations across Tokyo.

Picture taken at Shinjuku JR station (I also spotted in Ikebukuro)