Essential tech travel gadgets for Asia

I have amassed quite a few gadgets that I bring along on my travels in the region, some get quickly retired/replaced, while some make it to the "must-bring" section of my laptop bag. Beyond the regular laptop, smartphone and tablet, here are seven accessories that I recommend, particularly if you're travelling around Asia where roaming data is prohibitively expensive and power plugs can be scarce. 

1. FliteGear Travel adaptor 
I've had many travel power socket adaptors, but this was the only one I've found that has two USB ports, and juices them up to 2 amps, which means that they'll comfortably charge iPads. This is only available on SQ or Tiger Airways flights, but it is good value at SGD55.

2. Nokia Asha dual-SIM mobile phone
Yes, I still use a Nokia (!) The lower-end Asha series is great for use in emerging markets in Asia. It supports dual-SIM, with a hot-swappable second SIM. Great for countries where you need multiple SIMs to ensure you're always within network coverage. Also, has a ridiculously long standby time of up to 30 days or 7 hr talk time on one full battery charge.

3. Huawei 3G MiFi E560
A mifi hotspot device like this one lets you connect your primary smartphone, laptop and tablet to the internet with just one local SIM (see item 7 on prepaid SIM cards) instead of using roaming data.

4. Lifetrons portable 5600mAh charger
This portable charge stores 5,600mAh, enough for ~4 full charges of an iPhone. It also has dual USB ports, which makes it easier to charge two devices at one go. It provides 2 amps of current, so it can charge iPads as well. The kit comes with a full set of plugs to charge anything from Sony Ericsson, iPhones to Blackberries.

5. Multi-head USB plug
I found this while on vacation in Koh Samui. It's a USB cable with iPhone/iPad, mini-USB and micro-USB plugs all in one. I have never seen this elsewhere, but presumably you can buy this at a flea market in Bangkok.

6. Belkin USB in-car charger
This small car adaptor lets you charge your devices in case you're stuck in one of the many massive traffic jams in Asia cities (Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok come to mind). Overlaps with the function of the portable charger, but for it's size and weight, it is worth packing along as backup.

7. Prepaid SIMs
I have collected a bunch of prepaid SIMs from across different Asian countries. They're cheap (~$2-5) each, and typically let you purchase unlimited data in daily or hourly 'sachets'. Keep an eye out for SIM packs with longer expiry periods to prolong the credit value and use of each SIM.

I'm always looking out for new additions to this utility kit. Do you have other suggestions? =)

Singapore vs Malaysia - in numbers

Was searching to figure why Singapore is now reportedly the highest GDP per capita country globally*, and stumbled upon this site called IfItWereMyHome. It's a pretty nifty site that pulls stats from public databases like CIA World Factbook and WHO and uses them to compare countries head-to-head. They do this by positioning you as the 'average' person of one country and painting how your life would be like as the 'average' citizen of another country.   

Since it's midway between the independence days of the two (major) countries I've called home - Singapore and Malaysia, thought I'd post the comparison of the two. Full comparison with source data here.

Few stats that stand out for me:

Babies. Topic du jour in Singapore right now. The underlying data is basically ~9 births per 1000 population in Singapore vs 22 births per 1000 population in Malaysia. That results in 2.6X more babies per person, quite a staggering disparity. To put it in perspective, if Singapore had Malaysia's birth rates, it'd have  half a million more born and bred citizens in 10 years time. Would also mean half a million less foreigners needed in 20 odd years from now.

Income. Also quite fresh in the news that Singapore is reportedly the highest GDP per capita country globally*. This is based off PPP-adjusted GDP per capita of $14,800 for Malaysia and $50,300 for Singapore. In raw terms, the 'average' Malaysian could only afford 70% of the goods and services that the 'average' Singaporean could. Of course, if I recall correctly, the PPP basket of goods exclude property and cars... so the gulf isn't really as big as it seems.

Life expectancy. For Malaysia average life expectancy is 73.5, while in Singapore this is 82 years. Quite a big difference at over 10% longer lifespan. To again put in perspective, this is also in the range of half a million -less- citizens in 10 years if Singapore had Malaysia's average lifespan.
The existential question to pose here is - what should one do an extra 8.5 years?

Class divide. Here the comparison metric really doesn't work for me. The Gini coefficient, while a sound measure, is completely non-intuitive. Not easy to visualize in the same manner for comparing babies, income or life expectancy are. I mean, what does 4% less class divide really translate into? What's clear though, is that both Malaysia and Singapore are have unacceptably high Gini coefficients (46 and 48 respectively). This puts both countries in the same league as Kenya (48), Uganda (44) and Zimbabwe (50) !

A few tweaks I can think of that would make the site more useful, one is doing city-level comparison (i.e. KL instead of Malaysia), and another is to add some more practical livability stats like crime rates, entertainment venues/bars per population, etc. That'd really make it a proper reference site for would-be expats/foreign workers.


* So based on IMF data : Qatar is waaaay ahead of Singapore in GDP per capita, whether PPP adjusted or not. Qatar is at ~$103k , while Singapore is at ~$60k. Luxembourg also pips Singapore at $80k. The same rank order holds in other databases like CIA world factbook. The only reason why Singapore comes up tops in the Wealth Report by Citi & Knight Frank is simple, they left out Qatar and Luxembourg in the research! Singapore actually ranks third, or in Olympics framing- is a bronze medalist

Startup opportunity to disrupt the Singapore taxi industry

The Singapore taxi industry is good by most standards, but is inefficient. This much is clear from the public gripe and news coverage on the woes of taxi passengers. Two quick stats to drive this point through. The number of taxis per population is high compared to benchmarks, and increased growth in taxis on the roads in the past 5 years hasn't done anything to increase total passenger trips. In fact, taxis in Singapore served more trips in 2006 than 2011!

Clearly, what's needed isn't more taxis, but higher efficiency. While there are 7 competitive licensed taxi operators in Singapore, there's been very little impact beyond keeping prices relatively low and introducing some marginal innovations with new booking channels (SMS, apps). There's very little incentive for taxi companies to boost utilization since they all generate revenue through leasing out taxis to individual taxi drivers. They maximize revenues by making sure as many taxis are rented out daily, not by ensuring taxis are fetching as many passengers as possible. 

With such inefficiency, slack incumbents and smartphone penetration at 90%, I believe Singapore is a unique market where a startup could disrupt this space and improve the industry's efficiency.  The general idea would be something like a Lyft or SideCar: a platform to link drivers with passengers in real-time, except for Singapore this would be initially focused on actual taxi-drivers instead of regular car-owners.

Here are some features of this hypothetical "Singapore Sidecar" system and how it could make a difference.

Rating and choosing driver quality 
Currently the LTA tries to enforce service quality through QoS ratings and satisfaction surveys across the taxi companies. This really is not particularly useful. Ratings need to be determined for drivers, not taxi  companies.

The "Singapore Sidecar" application would allow passengers to rate the specific booked drivers at the end of each trip. Over time, passengers can then filter for drivers based on historical ratings and feedback.
This also means an opportunity for drivers to rate passengers, allowing them to turn down poorly rated passengers too.

Dynamic pricing
Taxi drivers optimize their driving schedules around most profitable times and regions of Singapore. This leaves 'black-holes', areas in Singapore at which point getting a taxi is like trying to find a unicorn.

A "Singapore Sidecar" app could allow for passenger determined booking fee and provide suggested booking fees for the given time and location. So if the app figures you're in a 'black-hole' zone, it could suggest a higher booking fee to incentivize taxi drivers to serve the area.

Truly centralized dispatch system across taxi companies
Each taxi operator runs their own booking and dispatch systems. This results in inefficient overall use of taxis. Instead of dispatching the best available taxi across the 27,000 taxis across Singapore, at best you get one optimized from the pool of 15,000+  from Comfort DelGro, the largest operator.

A "Singapore SideCar" system could integrate across a larger pool of taxi drivers over time, and should then be able to optimize much better. In practice, this means that instead of sending a Comfort cab 10 mins away, the system could send an SMRT one that's 3 mins away, and assign the Comfort cab to a subsequent, nearer passenger.


Size of the prize : SGD$20Mn annually
ComfortDelGro reported 2.4Mn bookings a month in 2011. Extending that to the full industry, and assuming a notional SGD$0.50 per booking puts this opportunity at around SGD$20Mn annually. So, the question is, who's best placed to try capture this opportunity? LTA setting it up? a couple of undergrads from NUS? Rocket Internet?

Outlook.com - GMail faces real competition

Microsoft released Outlook.com today to replace Hotmail, and I think Microsoft has something here that Google should be worried about. While GMail leads now on number of users right now (see chart above), I think Outlook.com is good enough for Microsoft to regain its crown within a year, while Yahoo will probably slowly bleed users.

The first thing that users will notice is the slick interface, but it's more than that. Here are five distinctive features where Outlook.com stands out:

1. Skype integration
Microsoft is making the most of its $8.5Bn Skype acquisition here. The web-enabled Skype instantly levels the playing field on in-browser video chat. Thousands of enterprise users globally would cheer this, as this now enables Skype access on enterprise devices (Skype application is typically prohibited on enterprise laptops for security reasons). Google still has the Hangout ace here to play, but I'd say Outlook wins on video just because of the larger Skype base it can now access.

2. Skydrive and Office Web Apps
Outlook.com comes with Skydrive (7Gb) and Office Web Apps. Google Drive is great even with slightly less space at 5Gb, and Google pioneered Google Docs. But Office Web Apps is a much more powerful, and more familiar web app implementation of the MS Office suite, with presumably much less compatibility problems importing/exporting between local and cloud.

3. Attachment size - 300Mb!
The maximum size for attachments is 300Mb if transferred using Skydrive. This leaves Gmail and Yahoo Mail's 25 Mb limit in the dust. How many times have you seen someone asking someone else to create a Gmail account for large file transfer in the past? Well, Microsoft might benefit from this now. I see Google and Yahoo increasing their file limits very soon.

4. Facebook, Twitter feeds into inbox
Without its own social network, Microsoft has opened up Outlook.com to integrate with Facebook and Twitter. So friends' posts and tweets go right into a centralized inbox. I'm not big on this feature though - not clear to me I want to be mixing all different message types in one inbox, but for the hyper-connected, this may make a difference.

5. User interface
Microsoft beating Google at usability? No way!? But it looks like they've learnt a lot since their Windows XP days. The Windows 8 Metro-style interface is super slick and snappy. Microsoft really took a page out the Google/Apple design book, went even more minimalist and nailed the UI.

So what next? It'd be interesting to see how Google and Yahoo respond to this over the next months. They can't afford to sit still, especially for the easy wins like mail attachment size. 

Meanwhile, I'd recommend that you head over to outlook.com now and migrate your old Hotmail account or set up an Outlook account before your choice username is taken!