asia

Updated at 7:24 a.m. PT on Tuesday with comment from Richard Kimber.

Brush off your Monty Python and the Holy Grail references: although long forgotten by social-media junkies in the United States, Friendster is not dead yet. The pioneering social network announced on Tuesday that it has raked in $20 million in venture funding led by IDG Ventures and has hired Richard Kimber as its new CEO.

Kimber was hired from Google, of all places, where he served as the regional managing director in Southeast Asia. That's key for Friendster, which has seen most of its recent … Read more

The game development platform du jour might be the iPhone 2.0 software, but News Corp.'s MySpace hopes to make a splash with a new contest in its Asian market: TheGame08, which pits developers against one another in an attempt to create a hit social game that runs on MySpace's platform. It all leads up to the legendary Tokyo Game Show this October.

Starting Thursday, developers who are at least 18 years old and legal residents of either China, Japan, Korea, or India can enter the contest in groups of no more than three; regional semi-finalists from each … Read more

Unisys apparently wants someone to become its open source expert for Asia-Pacific, and is willing to pay a handsome price for it. $250,000 Australian dollars, which works out to roughly $240,000 US dollars.

Not bad for telling people how to give and use free software.

While Unisys won't confirm that it placed the advertisement, the odds of it being Accenture or another large consulting firm are somewhat remote. But then, so is the location. Imagine getting paid $250,000 to do a great job in a great location.

You know where to apply.... :-)

NHK has developed a prototype system capable of displaying 32 megapixels, or 16 times more details than any consumer panel.

The theater on demonstration at CommunicAsia comprises two LCoS projectors with a combined 8,000 lumens brightness and a towering 6.6 x 3.7 meter 300-inch projection screen. If you think that's impressive, wait till you have a go at its triple-tier 22.2-channel cinema sound system. We're talking dual subwoofers and speakers at the bottom, screen level, and overhead.

To reproduce the brilliant image clarity, the Japanese broadcaster has also developed a matching 8K studio camera, … Read more

Having sold 161 million handsets worldwide last year, the Korean phone maker certainly has its sights set on consolidating its number two position with a strong lineup of handsets for the second half of 2008. Among the new handsets showcased at CommunicAsia this year are the recently announced Omnia (or i900) PDA-phone, a candy-bar version of the Soul slider called Soulb, as well as the new bar-type L700 handset.

Samsung has also added two new entries to its Connected phone series, the 3G-enabled J800 slider and entry-level M150 candybar, and beefed up its Essential category lineup with the Samsung Impact, … Read more

Editor's note: Though Samsung has not announced U.S. availability of the Omnia, rumors indicate that it may come to AT&T. For a full Samsung Omnia review please see CNET Asia.

At a regional press event held in Singapore Monday, Korean handset maker Samsung showed off its latest touchscreen mobile, the Omnia (also known as the i900).

Omnia, which means "everything" in Latin and "wish" in Arabic, will be the flagship model in Samsung's Infotainment handset lineup. (The other five key categories Samsung will be focusing on include Style, Multimedia, Connected, Essential … Read more

So soon after the madness that was PC Show 2008 last week, it's now time for the annual CommunicAsia technology fair held at the Singapore Expo. Unlike the PC Show, CommunicAsia is a bona fide tradeshow meant for companies to show off their new products and technologies. Though many things like network and enterprise equipment won't really appeal to ordinary consumers, these are the things that eventually determine what kinds of services you will see from your operators in the near future. Short of showing you pictures of servers and network antennae, here's a brief preview of … Read more

A steady stream of bad news over the past year has brought China's environmental woes into clearer focus.

To point out the country's run-away energy demand, speakers at clean-tech conferences often say that China is building one coal-fired power plant a week.

Air and water quality are health issues. And China's skyrocketing energy consumption raises greenhouse gas levels, a matter of concern for everyone.

Even in the supposedly clean industry of solar power, there has been trouble. A recent Washington Post investigation unearthed toxic chemical dumping at a Chinese solar cell manufacturing plant.

The picture has been … Read more

Microsoft is ratcheting up the battle against rivals Sony and Nintendo in the hotly contested Asian market, cutting the price of its Xbox 360 between 5 percent and nearly 20 percent in four areas throughout the region.

The price of the 20GB model was cut 17 percent in Taiwan, 10.7 percent in Hong Kong, and 5 percent in South Korea. The steepest reduction was made in Singapore, where that version of the gaming console dropped 19.5 percent and the company cut the price of two other models: The 120GB Elite was reduced 12.5 percent and the Arcade, … Read more