Nintendo Makes Its Presence Official In Southeast Asia With Singaporean Website

While there are plenty of ways to get your hands on a Nintendo Switch here in Malaysia, the company doesn’t actually have an official presence. Never mind in the country, the company doesn’t even have an official presence in Southeast Asia. But it looks like this are changing, as the company now has an official Singaporean website.

The website itself is pretty bare bones, and you would be forgiven to go as far as to say that it’s still incomplete. One of the few things that give the impression are the URL for the games. None of them are referred to by name, instead they get a serial number equivalent that’s made up of four letters – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is just “aaaa” for example.

And then there’s the fact that there’s no mention of price pretty much anywhere. Not for the games, nor for the hardware. This may have something to do with the fact that Nintendo also has official stores on Shopee and Lazada, also only for Singapore.

This is quite the change for Nintendo, which has generally left the supply of its hardware to the regional distributor Maxsoft, or M.M.Soft in Malaysia. That being said, it remains to be seen if this will actually change anything for customers, especially when it comes to the prices of hardware.

As for the website itself, it may be a might-as-well move for the company. After all, Universal Studios Singapore is also getting a Super Nintendo World theme expansion which, according to Geek Culture, is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

Singaporean Decks Out Hotel Room With RM31000 Custom Gaming PC For 14-Day Quarantine

While the world gradually gets a grip on the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Singapore are still making it mandatory for visitors and citizens entering the country to undergo a 14-day quarantine in a hotel. In the case of one returning citizen and gamer, he made doubly sure his quarantine period wouldn’t be so boring by having his room equipped with a fully decked out gaming PC. Yes, really.

Aftershock, the Singaporean PC gaming brand, was contacted by the Singaporean gamer and tasked with kitting out the hotel room that he would be quarantining himself in with a powerful desktop gaming PC, complete with all the necessary peripherals.

In regards to the PC, the custom-built rig contains high-end components and on top of that, are entirely watercooled with custom loops and waterblocks. Naturally, such a display of power clearly doesn’t come cheap; the whole package costs SG$10000 (~RM31000) which, going by the current pricing for components these days, isn’t too far off for a PC featuring top-of-the-line components.

All in all, the only thing that could’ve made the gaming experience that little more comfortable would have been a gaming chair, but given the size of the hotel room, we’re guessing that may be a step too far.

Singaporean Bank Implements Facial Recognition For ATM Transactions

You may have previously heard KL International Airport may soon allow you to use facial recognition in lieu of a boarding pass. Moscow Metro system is also set to enable fare payment via facial recognition but in Singapore, the system is now in use for ATM transactions as well.

One of the country’s most well-known bank, OCBC will soon allow its customers to use facial recognition for ATM transactions. Claimed to be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, the system makes use of the Singaporean government’s national biometric database.

From Friday onwards, OCBC customers can check their account balances using facial recognition at selected ATMs in Singapore. Eventually – that is, progressively from June – the feature will allow cash withdrawals at all of OCBC’s Singapore ATMs, with more transactions (like cash deposits and credit card bill payments) added on later.

Customers will still have to enter their NRIC number before the scan takes place though. Then a web-enabled camera does its magic and verifies their image in real-time against the national biometric database.

OCBC said facial recognition would eliminate the need to carry an ATM card, which is vulnerable to theft and skimming. The bank’s face-scanning process is apparently loaded with anti-fraud security features, like liveness-detection technology which prevents the use of photographs, videos, or masks.

Sounds cool? Creepy? We may be fast approaching a point where facial recognition goes beyond unlocking our phones to become an indispensable facet of our everyday life but of course, there are always questions of privacy.

Who stores our biometric data and can we trust them? And are we willing to sacrifice privacy for convenience? The verdict is still out there.