2008

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending part of December in his homeland of Vietnam and is filing occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam--It took me a few minutes to realize how crowded Ho Chi Minh City is, and a few hours to experience the first power outage. Welcome to the dry season of the South.

The season lasts from November until April. It's when this part of the country experiences its most severe energy shortage, with rolling blackouts taking place in HCM several times a week, if not daily.

(Unlike the four-season North of the country, the South of Vietnam has only two seasons--dry and rainy. Nonetheless, it's generally sunny all year around in Ho Chi Minh City. It's hot, too, with the exception of a few weeks around Christmas when it gets a little chilly, around 60 degrees F. However, it's always humid here and you'd probably want to shower a few times a day.)

Most businesses, and even some households here, have a backup power generator. Drive around the city at any given time, and chances are you'll see some of these in operation.

With the sharp population increase, Ho Chi Minh City, now home to about 10 million, is facing an apparent energy crisis. According to HCM City Power Company, the city's power demand is now in excess of 1,000 to 2,500 megawatts every day.

To battle this, the city has turned to a source of energy that it has a lot of: the sun. Since July, it has been developing a program to support businesses that produce and sell solar-powered appliances, including water heater and lighting systems. … Read more

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending part of December in his homeland of Vietnam and is filing occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam--I visited Ho Chi Minh City for the first time in 1998 with no laptop, no cell phone, and no idea what the Internet really was. Ten years later, I am here in HCM again, accompanied by an unlocked iPhone 3G, a Dell XPS 1330 laptop, and a Nikon D80 camera.

I thought it might seem like a little much to carry all my gadgets around in my backpack at all times. Very soon, however, I found out that young people in Vietnam's biggest city are a lot more aware of technology--and to some extent even more obsessed with it--than I am. Most interesting of all, they can afford tech better than I expected.

The first moment of truth came when my new friend, Xuan Nguyen, a 23-year-old student, told me what she considered to be a deal breaker in my iPhone 3G: it doesn't have a front-facing camera. "It can't do video calling," Xuan said, "and if I pay that much for a phone, I would want to be able to do all that 3G has to offer."

(Xuan, by the way, graciously spent much of her school break showing me around the city, which I really appreciated.)

Like most people my age, I started out with MS DOS and typewriters and mobile phones as big and heavy as bricks. But over time, people like me grow to overappreciate technology, becoming so enamored with it that we sometimes overlook its mediocrity.

This is probably why we are OK with Apple's deliberately crippling the iPhone and iPhone 3G so it can gain control over their usage, and why cell phone carriers in the United States can get away with charging for incoming calls and text messages. (Little does Xuan know, I would be very happy if I could just use my phone's 3G mode at all times in the States. Most of the time, I have to turn it off to have stable voice connections.)

Anyway, her comment about a front-facing camera made me realize just how demanding the new generation in this country is, when it comes to technology. This is probably because its young people grew up as cell phones, laptops, and the Internet became commodities. And yet they live with parents who don't know or care much about e-mail or instant messaging.

Tech users here look at technology with the eyes of owners who want to get the most out of their devices, rather than just conform with what is given to them from the vendor or carrier. They also spend a lot of time with their gadgets--possibly too much.… Read more

Tom and Rafe name their favorite technology of 2008 and pass along some faves of the listeners as well.

Listen now: Download today's podcast… Read more

Perhaps your ears have, like those of some of my married friends, recently been assaulted with the words "Hey, have you heard the new Jonas Brothers album?"

Perhaps you, too, are concerned about the future of the world, especially with the current confusion as to whether President-elect Obama prefers the iPod or the Zune.

It is time, therefore, for action. And the action should surely begin with iTunes. This most influential of services can and should be more than just an ingenious convenience. It should be our little musical helper. You know, the tuneful shrink that whispers in … Read more

The world of plug-in hybrids is about to get a whole lot sexier when the production Fisker Karma debuts at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show.

Fisker has released early photos of the production version of the Karma, which isn't that much different from the concept revealed earlier this year at the 2008 Detroit Show.

Its mustachioed face has survived the jump to production essentially intact, although the lower grill opening has been enlarged a bit, to make it more practical for cooling we'd assume. Amber reflectors have been added to the leading edge of the wheel well and … Read more

Updated at 1:14 p.m. PST Friday, December 5 with comment from Lenovo.

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending the month of December in his homeland of Vietnam and plans to file occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--Regardless of what some people seem to think, we Asians do not all look the same. But according to the current face recognition algorithm used in laptops, our faces are all about as flat as a piece of paper.

That's according to BKIS, the Vietnamese Internetwork Security Center that makes the antivirus software I mentioned in a blog post Monday. At a press conference here Tuesday, the company demonstrated vulnerabilities in laptops' face recognition-based authentication mechanisms that let anyone log in to a computer easily with a "special" photo of the legit owner, even at the highest authentication level.

Using your face as the password to log in to a computer--an alternative to the fingerprint method or the traditional username and password--marks a new trend found in laptops from Lenovo, Asus, and Toshiba. As far as I know, only these three vendors currently offer this technology in their laptops. These computers come with a built-in Webcam that's used to capture and analyze faces.

I've been impressed by this new way to log in and have found it to be so much more convenient than the fingerprint reader of my Dell XPS 1330. The finger scanner is a pain when my finger is wet or dirty. Unfortunately, on Tuesday I discovered that this new and exciting technology may not be such an effective security measure.

I participated in a demonstration on a Lenovo Y430, running Windows Vista, and here's how it panned out:… Read more

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending the month of December in his homeland of Vietnam and plans to file occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--Love, or the lack thereof, is an ongoing global issue. I offer no solution, but if you want to look for the one here in Vietnam, a word of advice: learn to text and know your emoticons.

While online dating services are rampant in the States (personally, I believe many young Americans aren't really sure what to look for in a partner and being impatient as usual, think spending money somehow helps solve this), things are a little different in Vietnam--in the big cities that is.

Here, there are no dating services (at least none that my friends and I can spot), and young people still mostly meet the traditional way--through friends, school, family, work, and so on. Those who do meet online most often become friends through blogging, forums, or online social activities.

(In small villages like the one in Ha Nam where I was born, dating hasn't changed much in the past 50 years. Kids are sort of matched up at an early age, oftentimes jokingly, by relatives or friends. When they grow up, if neither goes away to find a job elsewhere, chances are they will marry each other.)

But it doesn't matter how a relationship here starts; it seems all of them go through something I'd call the "@ phase of love," in which the courtship continues via cell phone texts and Yahoo instant messaging. Unlike in the States, where couples tend to move in together, people in Vietnam generally only live together once married. In between, they rely on cell phones and the Internet to stay close.… Read more

The Semiconductor Industry Association said Monday that global sales of semiconductors declined by 2.4 percent in October as memory products saw the steepest declines.

This follows an SIA report last month that said chip sales in the fourth quarter, historically a strong time period for the microelectronics industry, are expected to decline by 5.9 percent from the previous quarter.

Monday's report said that global sales of semiconductors declined by 2.4 percent in October to $22.5 billion against sales of $23.0 billion in October 2007. October sales were off by 2.1 percent compared to … Read more

Editors note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending the next month in his homeland of Vietnam and plans to file occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--If you use any Internet-connected computer in Vietnam--and there are lots of them, with Internet cafes and Wi-Fi spots abounding in any city--chances are you'll find a little red plus sign at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

That's the icon of the most popular antivirus software here. It's called BKAV.

(A bit of background: if you've recently read reviews of Internet security products by our security editor Rob Vamosi, know that I am the one who designed the methodology involved in testing these applications. It's therefore natural for me to be curious about how people in various parts of the world are protected against malicious software.)

BKAV is short for Bach Khoa AntiVirus, with "Bach Khoa" being the Vietnamese name for the Hanoi University of Technology. The software was originally developed as a hobby by Quang Tu Nguyen, a student-turned-lecturer at the school. It's currently the flagship product of Bach Khoa Internetwork Security center (BKIS), of which Quang, now 33, is director.

Quang still lectures once in awhile, but he's primarily known as the man who has changed the landscape of network and computer security in Vietnam. His creation, BKAV, is in many ways just about the best security software you can find.… Read more