So, we have finally come to this: the final week of voting (as well as nomination) for the 2013 DiGi WWWoW Internet For All Awards. As mentioned last month, there are more than RM 165,000 worth of prizes to be won across 15 categories including a special trip to the HQ of Telenor (DiGi’s parent company) in Oslo, Norway.

Of course, the most important category of them all *AHEM* is the Fave Tech Head by Lowyat.NET whereby the winner will receive a personal hunting shopping trip at Plaza Low Yat accompanied by our fearless editor, Lucas Lau together with a budget of RM 5,000. Not to forget, the shopping trip will also be documented and published on our site. In short, fame, glory and a brand new PC.

So once again, it is now the final week to submit and vote for the entries of this year’s DiGi WWWoW Awards before the judging phase takes place from 24 June onwards. Head on to the DiGi WWWoW Awards’ official website at www.wwwow.my to make your votes count.

Last week, Nokia Malaysia launched its latest budget smartphone, the Asha 501. Powered by the new Asha Platform operating system, the Asha 501 further blurs the definition of a smartphone, bringing smartphone-like features to ever lower price points. At RM299, this phone may very well be one of this year’s success stories of the industry.

Part of the reason behind the elevated interest in this budget device is in the user interface Nokia has furnished the Asha 501 with. Boldly going away with the bland UI on the Series 40 OS, the Asha 501 sports a very, very similar UI to Swipe, the much-lauded interface only seen in the company’s forgotten child, the Nokia N9. Nokia themselves has mentioned that the Asha Platform’s UI takes after that of the “much-loved” N9, but beyond that, the company has tried hard to mention the N9 as little as possible in their marketing of the Asha device.

And why should they? The Asha 501 looks very much to be yet another proof of what might have been for the Finnish company, of a perfect synergy between its smartphone and smart feature phone lineup of MeeGo and the Asha Platform – or should we even call it Meltemi, the scrapped “MeeGo lite” project meant to power the Asha lineup?

Article continues after the jump.

The wait nears its end. While the actual race of the third round of the AUTOBACS Super GT will be held on Sunday evening, the off-track activities will start tomorrow morning, and there is plenty to see and do at the Sepang International Circuit this weekend. While the Lowyat.NET team will not be covering the events and the race, the teams over at our sister sites, Hype Malaysia and Lipstiq.com will be on site for the weekend.

Check out Hype Malaysia via its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for the latest updates at the events happening this weekend. Lipstiq will also be on hand to provide updates via their social network pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You’ll also be able to find interesting posts and videos of the build-up to the Japan Super GT race, with Lipstiq’s exclusive videos featuring the candidates of the 2013 Malaysian SUPER GT Queen Search Pageant a particular highlight. Speaking of which, the lifestyle team’s Editor-in-Chief, Elfie Jane will be one of the judges of the pageant too!

Finally, the forum mods have pinned a Japan Super GT thread on the Fast and Furious subforum, where forum members can share and discuss anything and everything about this weekend’s race and events.

Haven’t gotten your tickets yet? Head on to the official Super GT website here to find out more!

See you this weekend!

Lowyat.NET, Hype Malaysia & Lipstiq.com are the official online media partners for the third round of the 2013 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Series.

Apple’s decision to completely redesign its aging user interface for the latest iteration of its mobile operating system, called iOS 7, has naturally sparked many a debate. From the fanboys of other platforms raging on iOS 7 “ripping off” elements of their venerable operating systems, to iOS fans lamenting the drastic changes on iOS 7, there are enough unpleasantries being bandied about online to render Internet trolling absolutely unnecessary for the next few days.

I was never a fan of iOS. I championed open-sourced platforms such as MeeGo, Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS to stimulate innovation in an increasingly stagnating industry. With iOS 7, however, I think Apple deserves a genuine pat on the back for bravely moving away from its comfort zone in its attempt to revitalize its platform – even if it meant “ripping off” from other platforms.

Three years in the marking, the Alienware 14 is one of the three new gaming laptops that Dell (the parent company of Alienware) have introduced at E3 few days ago. Interestingly, it only takes few days for the Alienware 14 to be available in Malaysia alongside its bigger brother, the equally new Alienware 17.

Even though it took Dell such a long time to conceive it, the Alienware 14 is still quite bulky as per its predecessor, the Alienware M14x. In fact, the Alienware 14 is actually thicker than M14x at 41.70mm as compared to M14x’s height that is listed at 37.8mm. Surprising, huh?

Despite the thickness, the Alienware 14 is slightly lighter though at around 2.77kg while the M14x weights at around 2.92kg. Also, the new Alienware 14 does come with a completely new exterior design that was claimed to be inspired by jet engines and stealth bombers together with the use of anodized aluminium shell and magnesium alloy body. The keyboard on Alienware 14 is now fortified with a reinforced plate for more solid typing experience with its key travel and responsiveness have been tweaked to suit gamers.

Article continues after the jump; click on the Read More link below to read further.

At WWDC 2013, amongst other things, Apple showed off their next iteration of the iOS mobile OS, iOS 7. There has been a whole lot of discussion on the topic both for and against it. At Lowyat.NET HQ, we are pretty excited about the complete overhaul of an OS that has been ageing quite ungraciously. We decided it would be cool to put iOS 7 on our devices and give it a go for ourselves while recording a video for you.

In the video we go through most of the features of the new OS and give a sort of Hands On with the developers copy of the OS.

Now a disclaimer, the copy of iOS 7 we have is a beta version and is definitely not stable. The experience is definitely not representative of what it should be in the end.

If you have any questions about iOS 7 and want us to test something out for you, go ahead and Tweet us @LowyatNET or leave a comment in the post or on Facebook and we’ll do another video once we get enough responses!

I guess I was a tad too slow to post the previous post, it looks like Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S4 Zoom! Another day, another official Samsung device announced by the manufacturer themself. Just minutes ago, Samsung finally took the curtains off its Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, the camera-oriented smartphone from Samsung that gives you the “best of both worlds” and no, it’s not the Galaxy Camera.

So, what does the device pack that sets it apart from the Galaxy? First up, it has a 16MP CMOS Sensor on board, 10x Optical Zoom and of course, Optical Image Stabilizer, and Xenon Flash all built with the latest Galaxy S4 technologies on board. It is, according to Samsung, the “ultimate smartphone and camera experience in one, and the only device you’ll ever need”; and just so you know, it also has a front camera on board – 1.9MP – for all your smartphone needs like video calls, Skype and such.

Drilling down into the specs, it has a 4.3” qHD sAMOLED (960 x 540) display, is powered by a 1.5GHz Dual-Core processor has 1.5GB of RAM, and runs on Android 4.2. As mentioned in the previous post, the review by a Russian website, it has 8GB of internal storage on board (user memory approximately 5GB) that is expandable to 64GB via microSD slot.

Software wise, Samsung is also introducing a new Photo Suggest feature that connects you to huge libraries of images taken by fellow photographers. It can even direct you to the ideal nearby location which will give you the vantage point you need for that perfect photo; sounds like Google Now’s “Photo spots nearby”.

As for the design, the Galaxy S4 Zoom has a “revolutionary” new Zoom Ring that allows you to do more than just zooming in and out of an image. Just twist the ring when you’re in the middle of a call, the In-Call Photo Share feature will be activated, allowing you to share images even when you are on the phone. Zoom Ring also activates Quick Launch and Shortcut features, giving you instant access to several apps.

Hit the break for the press release and of course, more images. So, all the rumors so far have been spot on, all the latest devices like Galaxy S4 mini, Galaxy S4 Active, Galaxy Ace 3 and Galaxy S4 Zoom are all scheduled to make an appearance together at Samsung’s upcoming event in London this 20 June 2013, which is your pick?

(Source: Samsung)

At the launch of the Nokia Asha 501 yesterday, we managed to get a hold of Steve Chan, Product Marketing Manager at Nokia Malaysia, to give us a quick insight into the new Asha platform powering the Asha 501. Among others, the new Fastlane home screen is explained, as well as the new UI features that is found on Nokia’s latest Asha smartphone.

Find out more about the new Nokia Asha 501 announcement here.