As consumers, we’re being inundated with more content than ever in this day and age. We’ve also become even more discerning, particularly in advertising and branding. What’s more, with the rise of over-the-top (OTT) services like iQIYI, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar, we’ve become even more selective of where we place our time when it comes to consuming media. Realising these trends, iQIYI has partnered with food delivery provider and app, foodpanda, to marry entertainment and branding with their latest series “Sorry Naik Lori”.
The new series is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between iQIYI and food panda in which the two companies worked from the bottom up to integrate foodpanda’s branding and app in the series. This process started with a collaboration between iQIYI, foodpanda and Universal McCann in developing the scripting and concept for the series. In the end, they produced a quintessentially Malaysian tale that tells the story of a husband and wife as they pursue two different versions of success.
“Sorry Naik Lori” follows the misadventures of Khairul, a young lorry driver living in Penang who is averse to Social Media and his wife, Nadia, who dreams of becoming a successful social media influencer. Nadia stumbles upon success when she becomes “ComelPasembur” when a NikNok video of her at her mother’s Pasembur restaurant goes viral. As her following grows, she is approached by a talent agency and decides to pursue her dreams against her husband’s wishes. This forces Khairul to learn to navigate the world of social media as he tries to keep his marriage alive while Nadia is forced to hide her marriage in pursuit of social media stardom.
The series also integrates a foodpanda rider, Talib, played by Tajul. The character not only plays a role in foodpanda’s brand integration into the series but also helps further the plot and misadventures in the slice-of-life rom-com.
The series is steeped in the Malay culture of Malaysia’s most popular island – Penang. Everything from the mannerisms and dialect used in “Sorry Naik Lori” is infused with typical Penangite flavours. The series stars Nizam Othman as Khairul and Ruhainies as Nadia. They are supported by a notable cast which includes local singer, Tajul, TikToker Ahmad Saffuan, Nafiz Muaz, Sheila Mambo and Asha Zainul.
“Sorry Naik Lori” premieres on 4th November 2022 on iQIYI. iQIYI’s freemium model allows you to enjoy the series for free with ads. However, if you want an uninterrupted viewing experience, you can just sign up for iQIYI’s VIP subscription for as low as MYR11.90.
The Apple iPad, in our humble opinions, is still the best type of table device out there. Well, when you consider that the iPad is no longer just one tablet, and that Apple makes all kinds of tablets to suit different types of users, it is clear why we say that the Apple iPad range is the most versatile range of tablets out there. Even just the regular iPad offers a better tablet experience than most Android tablets.
There are plenty of reasons why the Apple iPad range is so successful and sought after. The one thing that really sets Apple’s iPad apart is the operating system, the iPadOS. While it did start out as a glorified and enlarged version of the iOS, it really is in a class of its own today, especially with iPadOS 16 that is just released today. So, what is new?
New Messages Feature
Source: Apple
While the most popular messaging app in the region (Malaysia) is still WhatsApp, Apple’s Messages app has gone from strength to strength with every new iteration. In their latest iPadOS 16, you can now edit, unsend, and mark conversations as unread. That also means you get a little more control over your messages, who you send the messages to, and how you send the messages. If you made a mistake, simply retract the message instead of explaining that you made a mistake.
Via the new Messages app as well, users can invite their friends and family to SharePlay. Simply send them a SharePlay invite via Messages, and they can also join into the fun of watching a movie or TV show together, game together, or even workout together. For work, collaboration invitations can be sent via Messages, and everyone tagged on that messages thread can be automatically added to a document or spreadsheet.
Smarter Mail
Source: Apple
No more missing your emails with iPadOS 16. You now can mark an email with ‘Remind me’ feature so that you can always come back to the email later. That way, you can put emails in backburners and not forget to respond to the email or act accordingly. At the same time Mail will now alert you if you forgot to include recipients and attachments into your email just before you send it out. If you feel like you have made a mistake, you can retract or cancel delivery of the mail before it even reaches the recipients inbox. If you need to, you can even schedule your emails to be sent out at specific times.
Share Your iCloud Library
Source: Apple
Sharing is caring, and that holds true especially when it comes to your family. Via iCloud Shared Photo Library, up to six family members can share, edit, contribute, and enjoy the photos within the library. Of course, all the shared photos will appear in each user’s Memories and Featured Photos as well. Family moments, after all, is meant to be shared.
Safer Safari
Source: Apple
Apple has also included passkeys with Safari with next-generation credential encryption feature. With passkeys, you can be sure that your credentials will never fall into the wrong hands. You simply use Touch ID or Face ID for all your verification needs. This function is synced across devices with iCloud Keychain. For better collaboration, Tab Groups allows you to share groups of webpages with your family and friends. Your friends and family can even add tabs to the group, and you can see what everyone is viewing.
Even Better Collaboration with Freeform
Source: Apple
The iPad is meant to be just more than an enlarged display for entertainment purposes. The iPad is also meant to be a productivity tool that offers a larger canvas to work with compared to smartphones. With Freeform, it becomes a powerful productivity and collaborative tool that allows users to share and work on the same canvas. With full support for Apple Pencil, the iPad takes collaborative productivity to the next level. Freeform also allows you to keep track of changes made by each user.
Weather App Comes to iPad
Source: Apple
Of course, with the larger real estate of the iPad’s display, you really want to fully take advantage. The Weather app does just that complete with immersive animations, detailed maps, and forecasts. With a single tap, users can check on precipitation, air quality, and temperature of the region. If there is a severe weather alert issued in the area, users will also be notified via the Weather app.
Drag and Drop
Source: Apple
With iPadOS 16 users can also pick up objects from within images to be put into apps like messages with Visual Look Up. The feature now also recognizes birds, insects, and statues. Live Text is also better at understanding texts in videos throughout the system. Users can easily transpose videos and audio to text and quickly copy and paste the texts.
Pro Workflow
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Exclusive to the iPad Pro, iPadOS 16 makes it an even more indispensable tool for the ones working in the creative industry. Taking advantage of the highly vivid and accurate Liquid Retina XDR display on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, the OS allows users to use the iPad as a reference display for your editing workflow. This is especially useful for colour grading your work on or for visual approval work too.
Multitasking with Stage Manager
Source: Apple
Apple has teased Stage Manager for a while now and it has come to the iPadOS 16, finally. It works pretty much like custom widow groups in Windows OS. You can group apps that are open together and layer apps on top of each other and open all of them simultaneously so that you do not lose time switching from one task to another. You can even create a group of apps that can be opened together in the Dock area to save even more time on your workflows. At the same time, an update that will be brought forth to the M1 and M2 versions of the iPad Pro will allow the tablet to support external displays with up to 6K in resolution.
Availability
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Apple’s iPadOS 16 is now available for download over-the-air (OTA) for your Apple tablet. Of course, you want to make sure that you have an Apple iPad no older than the 5th generation. If you own a 5th generation iPad Mini and later, you get to enjoy iPadOS 16 too. All iPad Pro models will get iPadOS 16 update. More on Apple’s iPadOS 16 can be found on their website.
UPDATE (5:04PM 25/10/2022): It looks like WhatsApp is slowly coming online for users. However, Meta has not yet released any details on the outage.
If you’ve been trying to access WhatsApp web or send a message over the app and having issues, you’re not alone. It looks like thousands of users around the globe are experiencing yet another outage of the popular messaging app. This seems to be a recurring issue with the app having at least two outages this year alone.
While there has been little information shared about the outage this time, it looks like Meta is well aware of it. The company has issued an official acknowledgement of the incident but hasn’t shared any details. In the statement from a Meta spokesperson, the company states, “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble sending messages and we’re working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible.”. It’s worth noting that the official WhatsApp Twitter account has yet to release anything on the outage.
The issue was initially reported at about 3 pm Malaysian time with a sharp increase in reports on downdetector. The problem doesn’t seem to be isolated and has affected multiple countries across the globe including Malaysia, France and India. It’s worth noting that WhatsApp is one of the widest-used messaging apps in Malaysia and the Southeast Asian region. The outage is definitely going to be disruptive.
Google is taking steps to enhance privacy protections and personalisation when it comes to the ad experience on their platforms. Yes – it’s not everyday that you see these two things in the same sentence but Google is trying to make them go hand in hand with their new My Ads Center.
The new My Ads Center will be rolling out to users around the world today. With Google’s new My Ads Center, users will be given more control of their ads experience on Google platforms than ever before. In fact, Google is providing the option to remove ad personalisations all together. However, they note that this option will not turn off ads, it will just serve less relevant ads.
So, how does My Ads Center affect user experience moving forward? It’s pretty simple, you will see ads that are relevant to you on your terms. At least that’s what Google is working towards. You will be able to remove ad categories that are irrelevant to you or that can potentially be emotional triggers. This includes categories like child bearing, weight loss and more. This also applies to brands. You’ll be able to remove brands that you don’t want to engage with.
My Ads Center also allows you to decouple your experience on Search, YouTube and more. This allows you essentially remove a dimension of information that Google’s algorithm uses to personalise your ads. Let’s say you don’t want YouTube to feed into your ad personalisations, you will be able to simply remove your YouTube History from your personalisation. This also applies to categories like relationship status and more.
My Ads Center on mobile. (Source: Google)
Users will be able to access My Ads Center in the Ads Settings menu in their Google account. Inside, you will have multiple options to customise your experience including ad categories, brands and your recent ads. Using these, you will be able to start customising your ads across all of Google’s platforms.
Guaranteeing Privacy with Personalisation
Google is reiterating its commitment to protecting user privacy. The company is reiterating that they “follow a set of core privacy principles that guide what information we do and don’t collect. We never sell your personal information to anyone, and we never use the content you store in apps like Gmail, Photos and Drive for ads purposes. And we never use sensitive information to personalize ads — like health, race, religion or sexual orientation.”
The new My Ads Center is, according to Google, a step further in fulfilling its commitments to protecting user privacy. It is – to date – one of the most transparent experiences when it comes to showing users what data are being collected and how it is being used; at least when it comes to ads.
The invention of USB Type-C is a significant one. It brought the USB invention to the modern world. It ushered in a new era of standard connectivity. It is also a rather important aspect in the world of high wattage fast charging devices. It also allowed a single USB port to turn into so much more than just one port. It is a charging port, data port, DisplayPort, and even an HDMI port. Intel calls their own proprietary technology for a multipurpose USB Type-C the Thunderbolt technology.
Thunderbolt technically did not start out as a USB technology though. Thunderbolt needed its own proprietary port to work on its own. That never really caught on. The USB Type-C 3.1 standards brought in an entirely new possibility with Thunderbolt. In its current standard, with the latest available Intel processor, Thunderbolt is in its fourth generation; hence, Thunderbolt 4.
Thunderbolt 4 brings about DisplayPort 1.4 capabilities alongside HDMI 2.0, up to 40Gbps data transfer speeds, and even 10 Gigabit networking. You can even charge laptops that require less than 100W charge speeds. All that, and you still have USB 3.0 capabilities with a USB dongle.
Thunderbolt 4 is impressive, but to keep up with the times, it needs an update. It needs to keep up with HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 standards. Intel does one better with USB4 v2. We are guessing that the next generation Thunderbolt would be named Thunderbolt 5 and still go along with USB Type-C port, but Intel might have a different idea when the first laptops arrive with USB4 v2 standards.
Instead of keeping up to DisplayPort 2.0, the new USB4 v2 standard is capable of DisplayPort 2.1 port standards. That also means that it can transfer up to 80 Gigabits every second in either direction. One way, up to 120 Gigabits of data can be transferred every second for the best type of display experience you can find on any device.
Like Thunderbolt 4, the new Thunderbolt standard can also support PCIe data throughput. That means you can plug in your GPU externally and make use of more powerful GPUs to run with your thin-and-light laptop. In this case, USB4 v2 is now capable of the lates PCIe 5.0 standards for twice the throughput from the previous Thunderbolt 4.
Intel says that the USB4 v2 standards will also be compatible with previous versions of Thunderbolt, USB, and DisplayPort. While it might simply mean that it will still be able to work with devices in the previous generation, it could also mean that Intel is sticking with USB Type-C as its main connection method. Even if they decided not to stick with USB Type-C, they might be able to get manufacturers and accessory makers play ball with their new designs.
All truly wireless (TWS) earbuds in the market today have a common problem. Most, if not all, are not made for gaming in mind. Razer is a little different though. Everything they do and have done so far has all about the gaming lifestyle. Even when their introduced their highly portable Razer Hammerhead BT, they still maintained that it is a wireless earphone made for gaming. Of course, when the world of TWS earbuds blow up, they had to jump on board, and make their own, also for gaming. Now there is a new one.
They call it the Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed, and it looks rather familiar. To be fair, the general design of a TWS today has pretty much saturated into ones with stems and ones without. This one comes with a stem a la Apple AirPods. In fact, it shares a lot of design cues from the Cupertino outfit. Even the case, in its PlayStation colours guise, looks strikingly similar to the Apple AirPods Pro’s case save for the officially licensed PlayStation Logo. The Xbox variant is basically just a blacked-out variant of the Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed.
Source: Razer
The similarities end there though. The ear tips are designed differently, shaped differently. That might not matter all that much, but it is designed in such a way to also fit Razer’s very famous Chroma RGB LED at the back of the earbuds lighting up the three-headed snake logo synonymous to the gaming lifestyle maker.
The Hyperspeed technology is Razer’s innovation to wireless technology to reduce latency and therefore response times in wireless situations. In the Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed, it comes with a 2.4GHz wireless connection option via a USB Type-C dongle. Via the dongle, connected to either your PC or gaming console, you are getting lowest in class latency for your audio, very comparable to the experience of a wired headphone. The lower latency also allows you to react to conditions and situations closer to real time, increasing your competitiveness. For your mobile gaming purposes, it packs the latest Bluetooth 5.2 for improved stability, higher fidelity, and lower latency.
Source: Razer
To keep you focused and competitive in your game, you want as little distraction as possible in your gaming sessions. For that, you want noise cancellation. The Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed packs not just one microphone for noise cancelling, it comes with two. Why is this significant? A single mic picks up only so much noise and pumps anti-noise according to that limited information. Two mics allow the device to pick up more details from its environment and compensates those noise more accurately and accordingly to allow for better noise cancelling all-around.
This is made for the gamers who are constantly on-the-go. Its 10mm driver should be powerful enough for you to also enjoy music at any given time in the outside world. To keep you entertained even on a long flight, the Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed packs up to 30 hours of battery life, provided you turn off Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and the RGB. Leave both on and you still get up to 20 hours of battery life.
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
The Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed comes in PlayStation and Xbox Licensed variants. The PlayStation Licensed variant is white in colour to match the PS5 visuals. The Xbox Licensed variant, on the other hand, comes in black and lime green colour scheme to match the Xbox Series X colour scheme. Both devices come with a colour matching USB Type-C dongle you can plug into your PC or console. The latest Razer TWS earbuds will be available November 2022 onward with a starting price of US$ 149.99 (MYR*). More information on the Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed can be found on Razer’s website.
Apple and their proprietary lightning port and cable goes way back. It is the first sort of port and cable combination that is reversible. That means that you can plug your Apple device via the Lightning port in either orientation. Technically Apple’s lightning port is the first ever reversible connector for charging and data transfer purposes.
Since the introduction of USB Type-C though, most modern devices adopted the technology with no issue. It has become the most universal type of port there is today. It also looks like USB Type-C is here to stay, since they have been updating the USB Type-C cable and port for even more power delivery and data transfer capabilities. That is usually enough for organisations to sway into the USB Type-C ecosystem, except for Apple.
Apple has been reluctant to shift to the USB Type-C platform. They technically do have USB Type-C equipped devices like the Apple iPad Pro and iPad Air, but that was about it. Today, they add another device to the USB Type-C collection, the brand new 2022 iPad.
Source: Apple
The USB Type-C is not the only new thing on the Apple iPad for 2022 though. It looks different too compared to the ones that came before. The tenth-generation Apple iPad now shares a similar design language with the Apple iPad Air and Apple iPad Pro. The unibody back and sides have a more rounded edge over the other two USB Type-C devices in Apple’s stables though.
Alongside the new body design, comes a new display layout with a thinner overall bezel. It is still a 10.9-inch tablet with Liquid Retina display. They have also updated the processor to Apple’s A14 Bionic chip that is supposed to be more powerful than the A13 Bionic before while remaining more power efficient. You still get a 12-Megapixel ultra-wide angle camera up front, which makes for excellent video calls. Out the back is a new 12-Megapixel camera though. This new camera comes with 4K video recording capabilities.
On top of the added flexibility of USB Type-C port and connection, the Apple iPad also packs Wi-Fi 6 for an even faster and more stable connection to the web. If you want to, you can also opt for the 5G capable variant for all sorts of work on-the-go. For an added versatility, you can also opt for a Magic Keyboard Folio designed specifically for the Apple iPad.
The Apple iPad also now comes in four vibrant and unique colours. You can get your hands on a blue, pink, yellow, and sliver shades. Yes, you noticed, there is no space grey option this time. There is also no home button. Your Touch ID is now moved to the power button on top of the device, near the camera.
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
The new Apple iPad with USB Type-C and the A14 Bionic chip is now available for pre-order in the US and select regions. It will ship out and hit stores 26th October 2022 onward in these select regions too. Malaysia’s Apple website has also started teasing the Apple iPad alongside the newly launched iPad Pro. We are expecting the device to arrive in Malaysia sometime in November 2022. The new Apple iPad will set you back at least US$ 449 (MRY 2,099*). As usual, it is only available in 64GB and 256GB storage configurations. For more information on the Apple iPad for 2022, you can visit Apple’s website.
When Apple launched their first M1 silicon to the market, we immediately saw the potential of it powering an iPad Pro. Last year, they made it a reality and finally shoehorned an M2 chip to an iPad Pro. It brought untold powers into an iPad Pro and made the tablet the most versatile work companion you can find in the market. With the Apple Pencil, the iPad Pro is a formidable tablet with the powers of a full-fledged laptop.
Then comes this one, the M2 powered iPad Pro.
Source: Apple
On the surface, it is the same device all around compared to the older generation iPad Pro from 2021. Everything from the glass panel out front and aluminium backing did not change from the previous Apple iPad Pro. The only difference then, in terms of hardware, is the fact that this iPad Pro now contains Apple’s most powerful chip so far, the M2.
The 2022 powerhouse of a tablet will also ship with Apple’s latest iPadOS 16 to fully take advantage of the beast that is the M2 chip. There is stage manager that takes your multitasking to entirely new levels, you can connect to external displays with the iPad Pro and get two working displays effectively out of it, You can turn the iPad Pro’s highly accurate display into a reference display too or all your colour grading needs, and the best part about iPadOS 16 is that now you can run desktop class apps on the iPad Pro.
The camera on the iPad Pro for 2022 can also now capture ProRes videos. Combined with up to three folds speed in transcoding ProRes footages, this iPad Pro is a video production beast in a thin and lightweight package. You might not even need to carry other devices in this case to get a quick video footage out of it.
Apple did not introduce a new Apple Pencil with the iPad Pro this time. They did not have to with iPadOS 16. With a detection from up to 12mm away from the display, the Apple Pencil is more versatile and accurate than ever. Hovering above the display allows users to see where the Pencil will touch the display before they even make a mark. At the same time, when the Pencil gets near to the display, text boxes automatically expand to make way for handwriting recognition.
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
To bring the tablet up to speed when remote working, Apple has outfitted the iPad Pro with Wi-Fi 6E capabilities to ensure that you can download and upload large files at any time of the day with little interruption to your workflow. If there is no reliable Wi-Fi umbrella around, there is the cellular capabilities that gives you 5G networking (sub-6GHz and mmWave standards) wherever you are (subject to network availability as per locations).
The Apple iPad Pro is now available for pre-order in 28 countries and regions. That obviously includes the United States. You can expect to start seeing the iPad Pro in stores in those select regions from the 26th of October 2022 onward. There are no mentions or confirmations on the latest iPad Pro’s availability date in Malaysia just yet. With the Malaysian website already teasing the device though, we expect the device to arrive sometime in November of 2022. The 11-inch variant starts at US$ 799 (MYR 3,899*) while the 12.9-inch variant starts at US$ 1,099 (MYR 5,399*). More information on the Apple iPad Pro can be found from Apple’s website.
*Official local (Malaysia) pricing as per Apple.com
The biggest thing that has happened to gaming for the past few years is not really the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X. They are great, they are revolutionary, but they are rather regular and expected. You still need to be sat in one location and get it plugged to a display to fully enjoy them. The most important thing that has happened in gaming over the past few years is portable gaming, or mobile gaming.
What really started this handheld gaming phenomena is not really the smartphone. It is more to do with Nintendo’s Switch. Later, Steamdeck revolutionized the handheld gaming space again bringing the entire strength of Steam’s gaming library for PC games to a handheld device no bigger than a hard cover Harry Potter book.
Then Razer comes along with the Razer Edge. The Razer Edge is unique, not really a Nintendo Switch with exclusive titles. It is not exactly a Steamdeck competitor in the hardware space as well.
Source: Razer
Where the Steamdeck is powered by a swatch of PC like parts, AMD’s Zen 3 CPU with integrated GPU, for example, the Edge is made more like a smartphone. It is powered by Qualcomm’s snapdragon G3x Gen 1 platform. That is also an exclusive for Razer, the most powerful integrated processing chip that Qualcomm can produce at this time clocking up to 3GHz on it eight-core Kryo design.
It makes plenty of sense though the Razer Edge is not made to be a smartphone. It is made purely for gaming on the go and to be the best at it. But since it is Qualcomm, there is some smartphone qualities about the handheld device. You get to opt for 5G connectivity for example, so you can technically game anywhere you want to game. You also get WiFi 6E, which is technically still a brand-new technology even for the PC space.
If display quality is what you are looking for, the Steamdeck and Nintendo Switch has nothing on this handheld. It packs a 6.8-inch AMOLED display that refreshes at 144Hz boasting Full HD+ (2400 x 1080). It is technically the most advance display you can find on any handheld device in its class.
Source: Razer
So, what can a handheld device that is built purely for gaming with smartphone class hardware can do? It can run on Android, obviously. In that case, you can play Android games like PUBG Mobile and Mobile Legends Bang Bang. It also comes with Epic Games Launcher app out-of-the-box which also means that it will run games like Fortnite and Rocket League Sideswipe with no issue.
It is not just made for mobile games though. It is designed with cloud gaming in mind too. So, if you have and active subscription on Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming and you want to take them out to the world, you can.
That is not all though. While you will not be able to install PC games directly on your Razer Edge, you still can play them. The Razer Edge is the only handheld gaming device out there that comes with the ability to play Steam games at 144Hz via Steam Link remote play. You also get access to Moonlight, and Parsec. We are guessing that Razer might get PlayStation remote play available on the Razer Edge soon too. Sure, you want to be constantly connected to the internet, that is why you might want to get yourselves the 5G variant.
The Razer Edge is technically just an integrated handheld device that works like a smartphone. You can detach it from the new Razer Kishi V2 Pro that it will come with. That also means that you can even use the controllers with your smartphone, if you like. But then again, you would want to be using your Razer Edge for all your games.
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
The Razer Edge will be available only in the United States for now January 2023 onward. It will only be available in stores and Razer.com in its WiFi only variant at launch. Yes, there will also be a 5G variant as we mentioned, but it will only be available later and exclusively from Verizon. The WiFi variant of the Razer Edge will retail for US$ 399.99 (MYR 1,885*) at launch. Unfortunately, there are no mentions on its availability and official pricing in other regions currently. More information on the Razer Edge can be found on their website.
*Approximately based on exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.71 as of 18/10/2022 on xe.com
LEVEL UP KL has been a hallmark event for the Malaysian Gaming Industry since the conference ballooned into a regional event almost a decade ago. The regional conference brings together gamers, developers and publishers under one roof for a week on a yearly basis. This year, the conference returns to form with its first physical conference held from the 4th until the 7th of October 2022.
[Source: MDEC] Tan Sri Mahadhir Aziz, CEO of MDEC, delivering his welcoming speech at LEVEL UP KL 2022
This year’s edition of LEVEL UP KL saw over 1,500 participants, 80 speakers and over 100 exhibitors from all around the world. The conference also saw the participation of developers such as Streamline Studios, Metronomik, Larian Studios, Bandai Namco and PlayStation Studios. The conference saw these studios, among others, sharing their approaches to developing industry-leading games and the techniques they used behind the scenes.
Additionally, LEVEL UP KL was, once again, ground zero for the SEA Game Jam and SEA Game Awards. The former saw young, aspiring gamers put their mettle to the test in an arduous competition to build a game in a mere 48 hours. These aspiring developers had their hard work shown off at the exhibition in LEVEL UP KL 2022 among the many industry leaders present there.
The SEA Games Awards also crowned winners in multiple categories highlighting the talent and capabilities of developers in the region. This year’s nominees and winners raised the bar in each category with many of them achieving commercial game standards. The winners are listed below:
Amidst the furore and celebration of LEVEL UP KL 2022, the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) also announced the forging of new partnerships which are geared toward positioning Malaysia as the regional game development hub. These partnerships not only forge open markets between Malaysia and other game development industries worldwide but also mark MDEC’s first steps into exploring the viability of the Metaverse in the Malaysian Gaming Industry.
[Source: MDEC] MDEC launches LEVEL UP KL 2022 to empower Malaysia’s digital video game industry towards becoming the regional gaming hub.
MDEC signed a partnership memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nine66, a gaming company based in Saudi Arabia to explore and promote collaboration between the gaming industry in both countries. The MoU covers areas such as talent development and co-development.
Aside from Nine66, MDEC also signed an MoU with SEA Gamer Mall (SEAGM) to launch the Malaysia Game Fest (MGF). The Malaysia Game Fest will span a period of three months starting in October 2022 until December 2022. During this period, MDEC will be driving efforts with SEAGM to promote local game products and increase the commercialisation of Intellectual Properties (IPs) across Southeast Asian platform partners.
[Source: MDEC] (From L-R) Datuk Fadzli Abdul Wahit, Head/Senior Vice President, Transformation of MDEC; Gopi Ganesalingam, Senior Vice President, Ecosystem Development, MDEC; Mohan Low, Director of Digital Creative Content, MDEC; Ts Mahadhir Aziz, CEO, MDEC; Raymond Foo, Senior Marketing Manager, SEA Gamer Mall; DC Gan, Managing Director Magnus Games Studio; Kadri Harma, CEO of Nine66
Finally, MDEC signed an MoU with Magnus Games Studio, a home-grown game studio to promote initiatives and projects involving the “Metaverse”. In this agreement, MDEC will be leveraging Magnus Games’ Metaverse to market and promote the upcoming Malaysia Digital Content Festival 2022 which will be happening on the 17th and 18th of December 2022 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
