Apple iPhone and multi-language support

Apple iPhone

Now that the Apple iPhone is announced for June release, three questions still need to be answered before I am ready to plunk down $499 or more:

• First, how well does iPhone support the various character encodings? This being an Apple product, my guess is that it will at least support Unicode (UTF-8), with several basic typefaces such as Lucinda Grande that offer glyphs for many different languages. A little murkier is whether the limited memory footprint of iPhone would support the display of non-Unicode encodings which are quite popular in many languages: just take a look at your PC browser’s character encoding menu to see what I mean. (For example, Japanese characters in many websites and email clients are usually encoded in the following but Unicode: SJIS, EUC or ISO-2022-JP.) It would seem unlikely that Apple can fit most of the encodings used by most languages into iPhone. The best solution would be for Apple to let iPhone users download and install the character encodings they need.
• Second is the usability of the software keyboard; the demo on Apple’s website shows it to be thumb-based like a Blackberry. With no tactile feedback I still have reservations about the keyboard’s actual usability and efficiency, and wonder how stressful it would be to type fairly long emails and notes on the device.
• Third, how would the software keyboard to be modified to support text-input for Asian and other languages that cannot be easily input using latin alphabet such as Traditional Chinese or Thai? Would it be some sort of finger-recognition software, or something else? I am eager to see how Apple would solve these problems for such users.

The language support is the biggest gripe I have with these so-called smart phones at the moment. For example my Nokia E70, bought in HK, only supports the display and text-input of Chinese and English. But it does not allow me to install other language fonts such as Japanese for proper display of non-Unicode email and web pages, not to mention text-input as well. If the Apple iPhone can provide better multi-language support for users, I will be the first one to bite!

God Bless America

Just a few hours ago I managed to get myself intoxicated with lots of red wine, so I am now extremely motivated to speak my mind on Katrina.

To begin with, I have not seen much of the tragedy on TV. All the info I have gotten came from websites or newspapers. I trust that my sources did not mislead me.

So I can now see clearly that, even in my intoxicated state, that the White House and its policies have failed to protect the US of A. They are too damn obsessed with terrorism, Iraq, and tax cuts for the rich. George Bush’s creation of the so-called Homeland Security department in which the FEMA got folded into is a big cosmic joke. I have been told that the head of the FEMA, this Michael Brown dude, used to toil with Arabian horses before his current job and did not have much experience in emergency planning and response. Even if he did, the reduced powers of FEMA - as it is now a footnote within the Homeland Security department - would be impotent to the effects of Katrina thanks to extra fatty layers of bureaucratic crap. And how did Brown get the job in the first place? Bush nominated him for the job because Brown was a friend of a friend. Democracy at work.

I have also learnt that the White House had bulked at the price tag the past couple years for rebuilding the Louisiana wetlands coastal area, which would have buffered some of the deadly effects of the waves on New Orleans driven by category 4 and over tornados such as Katrina.

And to see that vice prez Cheney’s old company Halliburton was hired to do some rebuilding efforts in New Orleans? I just don’t know what to say anymore… God bless America? Opps, I meant Intelligent Design bless America.

Hey Europe: Say No to Software Patents

The U.S. has already converted to the dark side of software patents. Soon, it will be Europe’s turn to decide whether to allow this silly practice pending a vote on the issue next month.

I have always thought that software patents are absurd and taken as a whole, very counterproductive to the software industry. A quick example: European Patent Office has issued a patent for the progress bar, which is a UI gimmick that can show the progress of a task such as the size of a file being downloaded. With the patent, now whoever writes a program with a progress bar element can get sued by the patent holder.

To rally Europeans against this silly vote, Richard Stallman of Free Software Foundation fame has written a really nice piece called “Patent absurdity”, which I urge all of you to read.

My friend survives the tsunami

Last night, I received a email from my friend who was vacationing around Phuket, Thailand. She is OK, and she gives a horrifying tale of her ordeal with the tsunami. Susanna writes:

“Hey Dear Friends!
I am alive Thank God but it was very, very close…. I was staying in a bungalow on the beach and on Sunday We all went down to watch the strange wave out there after breakfast and we saw a sailingboat loosing it’s mast and also stayed when the first wave swept in on the beach sideways…then I realized I had to run. I was chased from behind with all the chairs from the Restaurang and I ran in to the kitchen and the icecream box almost knocked me down the water was so strong.!! The scenario was terrible.. kaos and people where screaming and crying. Still I can hear the angry water from screaming and scared people. I decided to jump out the back door because I was afraid the house was going to crack and I had to swim with the strong water, chairs and tables were all around me, gas tubes, branches and many, many things! After a while I stopped and walked back I was barefoot of course and cut my feet on glass. I went to my bungalow that was totally damaged. My bags with my wallet, passport and mobilephone was all there. Dry and safe on the shelf also all my clothes in the closet!!! I decide to take out my camera and take some pictures of the disaster. My friend Malte came walking with a chair slowly and I took some pictures around the place. Then somebody screamed again….Another Wave is coming….. RUUUUUUNN…I ran again in the water. I almost started to panic because everything seemed to be in slowmotion. I didn’t look back met my friend B-L and we ran together up on the road people drow like maniacs and a girl from the Diving center picked us up and we went straight up in the mountains…NOW wave came and I was exhausted. Later that day I went with my friend and picked up the rest of my things. My Mobilephone was gone and so my cashmoney and my CD player…It was already people stealing our things but I am o.k that’s the most important thing. I haven’t taking any pictures again of all this distroyed Resorts it doesn’t feel right and I pay respect to all the dead people and families. My feelings goes to them. Tomorrow I will go back to Bangkok with my friend!! Don’t know if I ever will return. Thanks for your concern and hope you didn’t worry to much.“

Asian Quake

I am still trying to grapple with this immense human tragedy in the Indian Ocean region in South East Asia, but it is impossible to make sense of it all.

I have a friend who is supposed to be vacationing around Phuket when the tsunami hit. During the past 24 hours I have made repeated phone calls and SMS to her mobile but to no avail. We await her safe return.

Racist Sports Fans

Lately a disturbing trend has resurfaced loudly in football (soccer) stadiums in Europe. In Spain and England, black football players have been taunted by monkey chants from fans of the opposing teams (despite the fact and irony that some of the opposing teams field black players).

Surely racism has always existed in stadiums but rarely in this magnitude. During England and Spain’s national team match at Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium it was reported hundreds - not just the usual handful - of Spanish fans started the monkey chant whenever some English black players touched the ball. Not exactly what I would call a friendly.

After the game, certain English ministers (sports and prime included) all complained to their Spanish counterparts, as well as to FIFA, the football governing body. And it only ironic that shortly after in one of England’s domestic Premier League games featuring Blackburn vs. Birmingham, Birmingham’s Trinidad-born black striker Dwight Yorke was racially abused by a two Blackburn fans. However, unlike the Spanish authorities who did nothing in Madrid, the English quickly arrested those two problematic fans and one of them was handed down stiff fines as well as a five-year ban from attending football games.

This sickening situation might just escalate all across football stadiums in Europe after the England-Spain match. In another big Spanish League game hosted by Barcelona against Real Madrid last week, the game announcers reported that monkey chants were heard in the stadium whenever Real’s black Brazilian defender Roberto Carlos touched the ball. The same racist Barca fans, however, were much more civilized when Barcelona’s black Brazilian forward Ronaldinho kicked the ball around.

UEFA, FIFA and other national football governing bodies should work together with local governments to rid racism in their stadiums. It’s time they think about the future of the sport not in terms of financial numbers but moral values as well.

2004: America’s last chance?

Hal Crowther writes in “With Trembling Fingers“:
I don’t think it’s accurate to describe America as polarized between Democrats and Republicans, or between liberals and conservatives. It’s polarized between the people who believe George Bush and the people who do not. Thanks to some contested ballots in a state governed by the president’s brother, a once-proud country has been delivered into the hands of liars, thugs, bullies, fanatics and thieves. The world pities or despises us, even as it fears us. What this election will test is the power of money and media to fool us, to obscure the truth and alter the obvious, to hide a great crime against the public trust under a blood-soaked flag. The most lavishly funded, most cynical, most sophisticated political campaign in human history will be out trolling for fools. I pray to God it doesn’t catch you.

Bush: the most inarticulate president ever?

After watching parts of the 2nd Bush/Kerry debate, I can’t help but wonder, how did Americans - probably one of the most verbal people on this planet - elect this guy in the first place?

I don’t expect every president to mesmerize its citizens with lines such as “Ask not what your country to do for you; ask what you can do for your country”, however, Bush is just pushing the other extreme of the envelope a bit too far. In the last debate, he uttered a couple notable gems that show off his dire lack of speech cells:

“I am not telling” - first response when asked whom he will choose to be Supreme Court Judges

“…heard the rumor on the internets” - now America’s no. 1 favorite Bushie line

I think the war president should start declaring war on his speaking ability first. He will certainly need some weapons of mass diction for the upcoming debate.

Oh no!

We’ve got an armchair pilot running the country?
(Wondering what kind of landing the country will get…)

Renewed focus on Bush time in military
Ex-official says he helped politician’s son avoid Vietnam [SF Chronicle]
Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard [NYTimes]
Stung! A swarm of new media stories on young George W. Bush’s dereliction of duty pops his heroic-leadership bubble.[Salon]

Japanese P2P program creator arrested

Winny P2P Software Creator Arrested[Slashdot]

This brings me back to a conversation with my friend Kuri last year when he said “Yes, Japanese govt. is always learning from the U.S., but only the bad stuff.” Chalk up one more.