iPhone's voice assistant app swears at 12-year-old boy. (Screengrab from YouTube)

Apple's voice assistant app Siri gave the parents of 12-year-old Briton Charlie Le Quesne a shock after it blurted out obscenities when the boy asked how many people there were in the world.

Charlie picked up a demo handset of the iPhone 4S at a Tesco store in the UK, and asked Siri: "How many people are there in the world?". The personal assistant app, which uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, said in response: "I'm not sure what you said there, Shut The F**k Up, You Ugly T***."

Charlie's horrified mum Kim told The Sun: "The phone was a demo version and was low enough on the shelf for Charlie to have a go with it. He asked it a simple question and we couldn't believe the filth it came out with.

"I thought I must be hearing things. So we asked again and the same four-letter stuff blared out."

It seems pranksters had tampered with the phone's settings, and added the foul-mouthed tirade as the name of the owner. Siri would read it out regardless of the question,

Samsung launches a series of new smartphones and tablets. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 (Photo by Xavier Lur)

Samsung on Wednesday unveiled new smartphone and tablet devices soon to be available in Singapore, among which include the much-awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet.

Galaxy Nexus ($948 without line contract, Feb 2012)

Labelled as the "world's first smartphone running on the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich", the Galaxy Nexus sports a sleek 8.94mm thick body and features a massive 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display at 720p resolution. Weighing just 135g, it has a computing power of a 1.2GHz dual core processor.

The new Ice Cream Sandwich mobile operating system introduces innovations such as Face Unlock, which uses facial recognition to unlock the phone. Using NFC technology, Android Beam allows the sharing of web pages, apps, and YouTube videos with friends by simply tapping the phones together.

Unlike the one rolled out in the U.S, the Galaxy Nexus that is made available for the Singapore market is not LTE-enabled, though two out of three telcos here

SingTel users will be able to enjoy fast 4G services in the near future. (Yahoo! file photo)

SingTel on Tuesday announced the launch of their commercial Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband, which is touted as the successor to the current 3G networks.

It allows customers to surf webpages and stream high-definition videos at theoretical speeds of up to 75Mbps, about three times faster than the current 21Mbps speeds on 3G networks. As for typical speeds, the 4G network can hit up to 12Mbps. The new LTE technology is also reportedly able to handle more users.

This is believed to be the first LTE service in Singapore to be made available for consumer and business customers. In June this year, M1 launched a 4G service based on the LTE technology, but it is only made available for corporate users.

Yuen Kuan Moon, SingTel's executive vice president of digital consumer, said, "Our LTE service will deliver consistent speeds and performance to allow customers to go beyond web surfing and enjoy a wider range of bandwidth-intensive multimedia content on the move like never before."

Will using QR codes to shop catch on? (Photo courtesy of Xavier Lur)

Want to do some quick on-the-go Christmas shopping of your favorite roast turkey or honey baked ham, as you wait for your friends at the train station foyer? You can do so now without having to step into a shop, queue, send a text message or make a phone call.

In collaboration with Singapore's leading supermarket chain Cold Storage, SMRT on Wednesday launched the company's first quick-response (QR) code shopping wall, which allows train commuters to do some snappy shopping with their mobile phones while passing through stations on their way to, or from, work.

Available at Bugis and Boon Lay stations from today, these specially-designed posters feature Cold Storage's popular Christmas goodies like roast turkey, honey baked ham, champagne bone-in ham, and baby back ribs.

Simply whip out your mobile phone, scan at the QR code with it, and the product will automatically land in your online shopping cart. Users can use a QR code reader like the i-nigma app, which can be downloaded from the

Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts, cites the government's efforts to engage citizens online. (Photo courtesy of Xavier Lur)

In today's digital age, citizen engagement online has become a paramount issue, and the Singapore government over the years has been trying to forge closer relationships and enhance collaboration between the government and citizens.

Speaking on Friday at the GovCamp forum organised by Microsoft Singapore, Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts, said that the government is working hard to reach out to citizens online.

She cited the establishment of the REACH online feedback channel, which allows citizens to air their views and make suggestions on public policies and national issues, and its expansion online with the set up of Twitter and Facebook accounts to engage citizens. Facebook has even been used to hold discussions with the public.

Ideas coming from the public

James Kang, assistant chief executive of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), thinks that Singapore's new generation is demanding more -- to be involved, to be engaged, and to

stevejobs

Creative Technology chairman and chief executive Sim Wong Hoo on Tuesday published a full-page newspaper advertisement paying tribute to the passing away of Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs, despite the conflict between the two companies in the past.

The simple yet meaningful ad, which features a silhouette of Steve Jobs and three lines of thankful words expressing the Singapore entrepreneur's gratitude, is said to cost the 56-year-old local executive about $18,000, based on the current advertising rates of The Straits Times, where the ad appeared.

It reads: "Thank you for the great lessons. Thank you for the great products. Thank you for bringing a bit of us to the whole world."

The ad ended with a simple signature, "Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman & CEO, Creative Technology Ltd".

Computer engineer Andy Tan told Yahoo! Singapore that the ad highlights the respect Sim Wong Hoo still commands for Steve Jobs, regardless of past dissensions.

Some observers, however, believed the ad could have been

Music store for Playbook comes to Singapore. (Screenshot)

By Raymond Lau

Bought a new iPod, iPhone or iPad and looking forward to buying music for your new device? Local users have always been out of luck in that respect, as despite being the market leader for years, Apple has failed to bring its music download service to Singapore.

Now, a new software update to Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will likely be discord to Apple's ears. The former has struck a partnership with online music store 7digital to bring more than 9 million high quality MP3 tracks for Singapore residents to purchase.

The new Music Store app will allow users to search for songs, albums and artists, as well as receive recommendations through a music discovery feature. Not sure whether a particular artist suits your tastes? The music store lets you preview tracks before plunking down the cash.

The cost of full albums on this music store will range from S$8 to S$12, although users can also download just one or a few tracks if they don't want a  whole

Summon Auntie.

By Raymond Lau

What's the first thing you should do when you buy a new iPhone? Pack it with applications, of course! According to Apple's website,  there are currently more than 425,000 apps in the iTunes Store, all ready to take your smartphone experience to the next level.

Out of the 425,000, some well-known ones need no introduction. For example, there's a particular fruit slicing game or one where you fling brightly coloured birds at little green pigs.

Singapore, too, has also produced some great local apps to entertain and simplify our lives on this red dot. However, these apps sometimes have a hard time standing out. Yahoo! Singapore takes you through five iPhone apps that we found quite useful.

Summon Auntie (free)

Imagine this: you want to pop out of your car to grab a cup of kopi-O. You figure there's no reason to display a parking coupon, since you're going to be gone for only five, maybe ten minutes if the kopi uncle is moving particularly slow.

But when you get back to