With employment opportunities that bring financial and lifestyle benefits, the philosophy that is accelerating Lalamove towards success in the city is that everyone matters. From drivers to customers, the ethos is to take care and improve the lives of all in a professional, considerate and ethical way.

Freelance interior designer, Bawornchai Woramechakanon, has been earning a minimum of Bt1,000 per day with Lalamove since becoming a driver seven months ago. Without a steady income as a freelancer, he now brings home up to Bt25,000 a month making deliveries..

“Driving with Lalamove has lifted the financial burden of paying for my house and car and I’ve actually been able to save too! The flexi-time means I can fit driving around my freelance projects and I can combine deliveries with appointments close by too so I don’t have any travel costs for meetings either. In terms of actual lifestyle, I now have more time to spend with my family, including my mother, which is really important to me. It is so refreshing to work with a company like Lalamove that believes in work freedom, is generous and takes good care of its workers.”

Tatma Suman is also working as a full-time Lalamove driver, totting up the same level of salary as Bawornchai. “When I started out with Lalamove about a year and a half ago, I have to say I wasn’t in the best situation. I had mounting debts, which was really stressful, and limited job opportunities, as well as kids to take care of. My life has really been transformed, I have nearly cleared what I owe and work in a job area that is often only given to men. Perhaps most importantly is the fact that it allows for the reality that family life isn’t always predictable by giving me the power to manage my time to fit with my any other life demands. The money is good too and what I also like is being out of an office driving for Lalamove as well as being in the driving seat of my own life, working at a job I really enjoy,” she says.

Happy drivers equal satisfied customers too and since launching in Hong Kong in 2014, Lalamove has provided a 24-hour professional door-to-door delivery service via its user-friendly app and website with a fleet of motorcycle couriers, cars and pick-up trucks. Other services include a pay-on-delivery and purchase service and practical help from drivers’ mates to move delivery items too.

Drivers are paid on a job-basis, which they can accept immediately, enabling them to plan ahead, communicate with customers and organise the delivery jobs themselves.

They’re part of the “Siam Discovery Presents Toys Station Pop Culture Fest” running at the downtown shopping mall from tomorrow until October 1.

Cartoon models and figures from Marvel, DC Comics, Disney plus lots of rare and exclusive items will be on show spread over four major themes, each running at different times.

The first theme “Cosbaby” to be held from tomorrow to August 13 presents miniature toys from Hot Toys such as super heroes from Marvel, and the latest movie “Spider-Man Homecoming”. Moreover, “Spidy” a giant spider in a special size of 1.2 metres will be available for those all-important selfies.

Game lovers will have to a change to try out “Gran Turismo Sport Pod”, racing car simulator of the latest version of GT Sport with the first PlayStation VR glasses in Thailand.

From August 14 to 27, new animated cartoon “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir” is in the spotlight. A collaborative project between Japan, France and South Korea, the event will offer rare collectibles of Ladybug.

“HeroCross Exclusive Showcase” will run from August 28 to September 14 and feature the latest figures from “Transformers” From September 15 to October 1, meanwhile, the, “Royal Selangor X Star Wars” theme will present exclusive products of Star Wars produced by Royal Selangor – the world’s foremost name in quality pewter.

For more information, call (02) 658 1000 extension 3400.

Time will tell whether Christopher G Moore has, as he believes, conceived a new literary genre, the “memory manifesto”, but his latest book, bearing that title, is certainly an extraordinary undertaking, melding memoir, science and portraiture in an entirely unprecedented form of assemblage.

The core of “A Memory Manifesto” is an examination of how Cambodia has withstood the horrors of the Khmer Rouge period. That evaluation, deeply personalised and poignant, gives Moore the basis on which to review his own life, study the power and the failings of the human memory, and consider this hi-tech world’s shifting perceptions in art, commerce and politics.

This is the promising “new genre”, placing one’s own autobiography within history’s spinning clockwork and discovering, if not its karmic rewards and retributions, then at least its interconnected validity. While steeped in psychology, the book is eminently readable and often fascinating.

Thailand’s finest expatriate crime-fiction novelist, who’s often displayed his other talent as an essayist on topics all too real and immediate, has stitched together a quilt of episodic memory (personal recollections) and semantic memory (what’s learned from others).

He ponders who we were before books, who we are now as “every whorl of our digital fingerprints” is tracked and shared, and who we’ll become once artificial intelligence gives us the ability to remember everything.

Setting aside for the moment his popular fictional Bangkok-based detective Vincent Calvino (whose most recent adventure, “Jumpers”, was reviewed on this page in May), Moore has here answered memory’s siren call and returned to Phnom Penh for another of many visits.

He was there in 2011, accredited to cover the opening of the Khmer Rouge war-crimes tribunal now slowly drawing to its inevitably dissatisfying conclusion. Earlier visits produced the Calvino thriller “Zero Hour in Phnom Penh” and the short-story anthology “Phnom Penh Noir”.

In January this year, Moore, older and pensive, returned once again to confront time, the “brutal editor of memory”.

“My personal mandala contains a space called Cambodia,” he begins, immediately invoking that most sublime aid to meditation, with all its mystical signifiers forming a map of time and space.

In “a memory-recovery adventure” spanning 25 years and 35 chapters of lyrically intertwined recollections, Moore still holds true to the definition of “noir” that guides his dark crime novels, as “throwing light on the power of sinister forces”.

“The Cambodian Year Zero was the starting point of a memory reset,” he writes. That was 1975, when the Khmer Rouge triumphed in the civil war and set about waging a different kind of war “against the knowledge warehoused in the minds of Cambodians …

“They sought to blow up the drainpipe where information flowed from the past to the present, lay down a new pipe and restart the flow; it was a historical drainpipe project that almost succeeded.”

By the time of Moore’s first trip there in 1993, the KR had been chased into remote strongholds and UN peacekeeping troops were in charge of the capital. Already the forgetting had begun. When he went back for the war-crimes tribunal, young students told him they had no knowledge of what had happened.

Among a multitude of engaging episodes recounted, Moore accompanies a landmine-extraction team composed of former battlefield foes who’d actually laid the mines in the first place. Each night they compare memories of where they’d put the devices and then the next day test those memories, “as fragile as fireflies”.

Having by now explained the intricacies involved in the brain’s capacity to recollect events accurately – and its abject failure to do so with any consistency – Moore returns to the collective amnesia of the populace and to those students who know nothing.

“If I’d survived the killing fields, the likelihood is great that I would have done to my memories what they did. I’d have buried them, and like the de-miners I would have forgotten where I buried them.”

Does Cambodia really want to dig up its terrible past? Prime Minister Hun Sen insists no, that to dig any deeper would only revive old hatreds. And Moore believes there still exists a large number of KR sympathisers, still attuned to the traditional ways, the same Old People who from 1975 to 1979 ran roughshod over the modern New People.

But “Memory Manifesto” goes far beyond the KR years and their aftermath.

As a memoir, it’s revelatory and often amusing, covering not just Moore’s literary endeavours (and Hollywood hopes), but also some of his personal quirks, as when he takes a bar girl back to his Phnom Penh hotel room.

In what begins as muted comedy, amorousness is distracted as he watches a live telecast of the US Congress voting to impeach Bill Clinton. It was December 19, 1998, and he still remembers it vividly – yet he has no recollection whatsoever of the Senate vote to acquit that followed in February. The reason? “I had sex on 19 December 1998,” Moore admits, braver than the former president.

“I was enjoying sex while watching an official vote to dislodge the most powerful man in the world from office for lying about sex.” (The irony that links the Clinton and Trump presidencies isn’t lost on him – “What has changed is a cultural shift. Over time we’ve become accustomed …”)

Looking deeper, Moore is haunted. He realises that the bar where he’d hired that young Cambodian lover was “another kind of refugee camp processing women who had been children in the Khmer Rouge Guernica. She’d gone with me as she’d witnessed others going in silence to their executioners.”

In his hotel room, “My attention was on Bill Clinton as I lived that moment detached from the history of the person next to me in bed.”

At another time in a different Phnom Penh hotel room, Moore discovers a Beverly Hills Polo Club shirt flung and forgotten behind the bedside table. He considers writing a story around it – only to discover that what he’d assumed was some rich American’s polo shirt was in fact just a cheap knock-off that anyone could buy online.

“Capitalism had made everyone a spinner of fictional world. We shouldn’t be surprised to hear today’s shout-outs about ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ as we live in a world of objects and events whose names and labels only fit our reality with a flight of the imagination.”

But the shirt also triggers another memory, of the time his passport suddenly went missing at the Rangoon airport check-in. He noticed a gap in the desk. When pried open it revealed a treasure trove of other passengers’ lost items, “a history of travellers who like me hadn’t been present at a significant moment. Their mind, like mine, had been someplace else just then, as they entered a time and space where things went missing.”

How memory functions or fails in such instances is the adhesive theme binding “Memory Manifesto”, but it’s the heart, not the brain, that gives the book its emotional power.

Many foreign friends make appearances – the painters Chris Coles and Peter Klashorst, “midwife at the birth of Vincent Calvino” John Stevens, humanitarian and musician Chris Minko, “The Killing Fields” director Roland Joffe, and Dave Walker, the writer killed in Siem Reap in 2014, probably for “asking the ‘why’ type of question”.

But the Cambodians profiled provide the most moving stories. Genocide survivor Sam Sotha, in charge of landmine clearance, has a map that suggests he’ll be busy for the next 300 years. Moore offers to help writer Bopha Phorn in a crisis, only to learn a lesson about boasting of “big-league connections”.

Kosal Khiev, born in a refugee camp, taken to the US, jailed for gang violence and then deported to a country he’d never known, has built a new life as a street rapper.

In “chasing after the memory of the ghosts of Cambodia”, Christopher Moore has written a memoir for each of us. And he’s done all the heavy lifting on our behalf.

A Memory Manifesto: A Walking Meditation through Cambodia

By Christopher G Moore

Published by Heaven Lake Press, 2017

Available at Amazon.com, Kobo.com, Smashwords

IT’S not quite E=mc2, but scientists unveiled Monday a simple, powerful formula that explains why some animals run, fly and swim faster than all others.

Call it the “speed rule”: strength alone does not determine top velocity because land mammals, birds and fish can only accelerate for as long as they can draw from available energy stored in muscle tissue.

An intermediate body size – think cheetah, falcon or marlin – is optimal for hitting that sweet spot between brawn and energy burst, the researchers discovered.

Too small, and there’s not enough musculature; too big, and there’s too much mass.

Knowing only an animal’s weight and the medium it moves in – water, air or across land – is enough to calculate its maximum speed with 90 per cent accuracy, they found.

The axiom even works retroactively for dinosaurs, they reported in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution”.

Despite their long limbs, giraffes can hit 60 kph. / Photos: Wikipedia

“Scientists have long struggled with the fact that the largest animals are not the fastest,” said lead author Myriam Hirt, a biologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig.

If muscles were all that mattered “elephants would reach maximum speeds of about 600 kph,” she said.

Instead, tuskers peak at about 34 kph.

Big beasts, in other words, run out of so-called anaerobic energy, supplied by the muscles, before being able to reach their theoretically maximum speed.

Among birds, falcons and hawks are the fleetest, clocking speeds well in excess of 140 kph. Nearly as fast, the rock dove, wandering albatross and Ascension frigate could fly in their slipstream.

Cheetahs hold the land record, comfortably topping 100 kph.

Not coincidentally, one of the their preferred prey – the springbok – can run almost as fast, along with other antelope, such as the blackbuck, historically hunted by big cats.

That’s evolution at work, explained Hirt.

“Species that gain the most selective advantage – predators and prey with few places to hide, for example – will approach the predicted maximum speeds,” she said.

Humans, by contrast, have not evolved over millions of years to outrun fast prey (or predators), even if they fall within the intermediate weight class corresponding to extreme speed.

Homo sapiens, it seems, invested in outsmarting other animals instead.

Long-limbed giraffes can hit 60 kph when motivated, and bears – grizzly, brown and polar – can top 45 kph (28 mph) for a few seconds before their fat-laden bodies slow them down.

The black marlin holds the known record in the sea, slicing through water at expressway speeds of 130 kph, even faster than its quick cousin the Atlantic sailfish.

Full-grown Yellow fin and bluefin tuna can swim 70 kph, only slightly faster than the quickest shark, the shortfin mako.

Killer whales – which, like humans, teach their young hunting techniques – are somewhat slower, but reign unchallenged at the top of the marine food chain.

Altogether, the researchers tested their new hypothesis against data on 454 species weighing in at one gram to 10 tonnes, from molluscs to blue whales, from gnats to whopper swans.

“Hirt and colleagues provide a |unifying explanation for what sets |the limits to maximum speed,” Christopher Clemente and Peter Bishop, scientists at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, wrote in a comment.

“The exciting part … is that it applies equally well to animals on land, in the air and in water.”

And to dinos, too.

The model matched data on the handful of dinosaurs for which scientists have been able to estimate running speeds.

The study estimates that lithe velociraptors could sprint at 50 kph, while the lumbering T-rex could barely move at half that pace.

But that was still quick enough to catch a plant-eating Triceratops or the even slower Brachiosaurus, meals fit for the dino king.

WHEN THE Thailand Creative and Design Centre (TCDC) relocated to its new premises at the Grand Postal Building on Charoen Krung Road, visitors were left wondering what the fifth floor of the Emporium – its home for 11 years – would become. That question was answered recently with the opening of the new creative space AIS D.C. – the latter initials standing for design centre.

TCDC’s former home has morphed into a new creative centre called AIS D.C.

Officially opened last week, the space is being run by leading mobile operator Advanced Info Service (AIS) in partnership with TCDC to provide a full range of support services to start-ups and people with creative minds. The hope is that these will share their ideas, inspiration and knowledge, thus further sharpening their creative edge and setting up their own businesses.

Spread over the same floor area of some 4,000 square metres, though without the galleries and souvenir shop, AIS D.C. boasts a familiar entrance thanks to the presence of the gold-and-black-lacquer reception desk that’s been there from the very beginning.

Bookshelves are crammed with more than 10,000 titles on art, design and technology.

The overall minimalist and modern decor of TCDC designed by architect Duangrit Bunnag hasn’t changed much either. High wooden bookshelves are still stacked with more than 10,000 titles beneath a black ceiling that adds a sense of depth to the long white reading tables and glass-encased meeting rooms available for rent.

“AIS is a leader in innovative technology and TCDC is a design hub. We want this place to be a community for technology, design and business, a space that meets the needs of this digital age,” says Somchai Lertsutiwong, chief executive officer of AIS.

“People today are eager to learn new things, get connected to the world and prefer to run their own businesses. We are providing a full range of support and services to start-ups and people with creative minds to help them do exactly that.”

Somchai Lertsutiwong, chief executive officer of AIS

Membership is required to make use of the services but the rate has been kept low – Bt1,200 a year for the public and Bt600 for students – the same as at TCDC. A one-day pass costs just Bt150. And in return for that small investment, AIS D.C. members can also use the facilities at every branch of TCDC.

Operated by TCDC, the library zone offers books, magazines and e-books from all over the world on history, geography, visual arts, graphics and design as well as technology and business. You can photocopy and take digital photos, but there’s no borrowing. High-speed Internet is available at no extra charge.

The “quiet” room is for people seeking for solitude.

Though the library has no “quiet please” signs and allows members to have conversations, most visitors tend to work silently at their laptops or grab a title from the shelves, settle in a comfy chair and become lost in their own private world. Those who yearn for even more solitude can wander into the quiet room, itself well equipped with books and magazines and comfy sofas.

For a private discussion or a business meeting, six glass-encased meeting rooms that can accommodate from two to 10 people are available for rent at Bt150, Bt200 and Bt250 per hour depending on size.

The glass-encased meeting rooms are available for rent.

“I regularly visited TCDC when it was here and took full advantage of its large collection of art and design-based books and magazines and comfortable spaces for work. TCDC’s new site, however, is not easily accessible by BTS Skytrain and is quite far from where I live. AIS D.C. is pretty much the same as the former TCDC and the facility is better than many nearby co-working spaces. The price is affordable and I’m happy with it,” visitor Duangjai Phiewkarm tells The Sunday Nation.

The Playground room is a digital platform where program developers and start-ups can test and run simulations of their applications.

A first in Thailand and the centre’s pride is a space called the Playground room where program developers and start-ups are allowed to try the Application Program Interface (API) connection system on their products and services and seek advice from professional mentors. The zone also offers a simulation of the Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT), a new low-power, wide-area technology on which program developers can test their IoT equipment and services.

“When a developer creates an application either for Android or iOs platforms, he/she can test and simulate it to see how software components interact in real time. We provide 12 main APIs that are popularly used for building software applications such as payment systems, OTP (one-time password) and security and privileges,” Somchai explains.

“If you have an idea but are unsure whether it will work or not, the facilities we provide at this centre can help you find the answer.”

Though the Playground is open to all interested persons, priority in making use of the full benefits will be given to those who pass the selection process of AIS the Start-Up project. The monthly pitches are open to every budding entrepreneur and provide an opportunity for a joint business venture with AIS.

“Over the past six years AIS has provided a full range of support to the new generation through the ‘AIS the Start-Up’ project. Our close collaboration with start-ups has enabled us to understand the different desires and needs of various groups. One of these is a desire to access world-class infrastructure and supporting tools in order to turn creative ideas into reality and then get their businesses off the ground.

“They also need mentors from various fields to share business management knowledge in marketing, human resources, public relations, law and more. They can enjoy the creative power of technologies, design and business ideas, all in one place,” adds acting chief marketing officer Pratthana Leelapanang.

The Showcase room displays a temporary show based on start-ups.

The room that formerly housed the Material ConneXion Bangkok, a branch of the New York materials library and home to a database of suppliers, has morphed into the AIS D.C. Showcase room and will house temporary exhibitions. Based on the theme “start it up”, the show will change every three months. The debut display tells the successful stories of three start-ups, namely Dropbox, Airbnb and Uber.

A personal cloud storage service, Dropbox today has 500 million users worldwide and 1.2 billion files being uploaded and retrieved. Airbnb, an online marketplace and hospitality service for people to rent out lodgings, has one billion users worldwide and operates in 191 countries. For its part, Uber’s car transportation mobile application has changed the taxi industry but is also the target of protests and legal action from – among others – taxi drivers and taxi companies around the world.

The photo studio and related equipment can be rented by the hour. 

AIS D.C. also has a studio available for hourly rent (Bt500) that comes equipped with everything you need for photo shoots including backdrops, lighting sets and cameras.

“You just need your own memory card. An amateur photographer who doesn’t know how to set up the lighting can just call on the studio’s crew for help and support,” Somchai says.

The former auditorium of TCDC hosts weekly talks and workshops. Today’s discussion is titled “Transform the Future”, with “Material Trends” following on Wednesday. Open to the public, both start at 6pm. Next month, the centre is holding classes in entrepreneurship, digital marketing and technology.

Visitors can also relax with a good cup of coffee and freshly baked goods at the coffee corner operated by the Library Cafe.

“In the digital era, creators need to constantly update themselves on digital technology and also forecasts of future trends. Design, technology and business are thus three key words that we must be able to merge appropriately,” Somchai adds.

BOOKS AND APPS

AIS D.C. is on the fifth floor of the Emporium (BTS: Phrom Phong station).

It’s open daily from 10.30am to 9pm. Call (02) 029 2299 or visit https://AisDc.ais.co.th.

The annual membership fee for the general public is Bt1,200 per person and Bt600 for students. A one-day pass costs Bt150.

RAPIDLY GROWING bike-sharing start-up Mobike already has 100 million users in China. And it’s now looking to the US and Europe in the hope its unique “dockless” system can disrupt the industry.

Mobike this week brought a handful of the brightly-coloured two-wheelers to showcase at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado.

While many major US cities already have bike-sharing programmes, Mobike co-founder and chief executive Davis Wang says he wants municipalities to take a look at his company’s new concept.

“If you look at traditional station bikes, it’s like a desktop PC,” he says. “We are more a smartphone. You just use it.”

Wang told the conference that the start-up, which launched in April 2016, decided that “the dock and the station had to be eliminated so people can use (the bikes) more easily.”

With no bike stations or docks, travellers aren’t restricted in their trips. Users unlock the bikes with a smartphone app.

The custom-designed, aluminium-frame Mobike bicycles have a drive shaft instead of a chain, disc brakes and tubeless tires which make them virtually maintenance-free. They have built in GPS, and riders recharge the battery.

In 15 months, the company has expanded to more than 150 cities, and has put some six million of its connected bikes on the road, claiming to be the world’s largest bike-sharing company.

“We are transporting more that 20 million people a day,” he says, making the bicycle more important than the taxi in some Chinese cities, offering rides at the equivalent of 50 US cents (Bt17).

Mobike last month announced it had raised $600 million led by Chinese tech giant Tencent, the largest ever for a bike-sharing firm, giving it a reported valuation of over $1 billion.

It launched last month in two British cities including Manchester and is also in Singapore and Japan.

“We want to be global,” says Wang.

The company hopes to be in 200 cities worldwide by the end of the year, with its eyes on the US and Europe.

Wang, who formerly worked at Uber, says the Mobike model can coexist with the current bike programs, and get more people interested in cycling.

In the US, “we are studying local markets, we are in talks with local governments.”

In China, Mobike is locked in battle with rivals including Ofo, which is backed by the Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing.

Mobike faces some challenges with its business model, including getting people to handle the bikes responsibly and get them to needed locations.

It has responded with incentives that give bonus points to riders who find abandoned or damaged bikes or who bring them to needed locations.

IT’S A familiar sight in shopping malls around the world – weary-looking men dutifully following their wives from store to store.

But China may have the solution: so-called “husband rest booths”.

While their partners shop, users can retire to the glass-encased kiosks, which contain a comfortable massage chair and an elevated screen for playing computer games or watching television.

Its makers say the futuristic mini man-caves are a first in China and they have installed four in a high-end mall in Shanghai at a cost of 40,000 yuan (Bt198,000) each.

You can reserve the pod in advance via a mobile phone app, and it costs nothing to use at the moment.

In English, each has the words: “Private Lounge. Waiting for you in the bar.”

Owen Wei, project manager at makers Ingrem, a Shanghai company, says if the first batch prove popular they will roll out more at malls in the city.

“Some men don’t like to go shopping or stay with their wives, and prefer to play games or watch television,” he says at the enormous Global Harbor mall, where one husband lay slumped in a nearby booth shooting aliens.

Not everyone is a fan, however. On one recent day most of those visiting the pods were teenagers, members of the media and curious onlookers.

One husband said he preferred his wife’s company, while Liu Tianguo said his partner did not approve of the scheme.

“I told my wife, ‘I’ll be here. You go shopping and you’ll find me here,’” said Liu.

“It’s comfortable and I can have a rest while she spends my money. She was okay with it – as long as I don’t stay here too long.”

Now, as part of its ecosystems diversity project, Sea Life Bangkok at Siam Paragon is showcasing the fauna of the rainforest through 13 rare species of snakes and geckos.

Nine rare snake species are on show all year round. They are: Emerald Tree Boas, which spend most of their days coiled up on trees with their heads resting in the middle of their coils, ready to attack. They hunt at night. Emerald Tree Boas have strong prehensile tails, allowing them to move around between the branches and deep pits in the scales around their mouths for detecting heat given off by their prey. Green Tree Pythons also spend most of their life in the trees, climbing down only when they would like to look for a different tree. They spend much of their time coiled over branches with their head resting in the middle of the coils. The scales around their mouth have also thermoreceptive pits to help detect prey.

Boa Constrictors are powerful and stealthy hunters. They normally hunt at night by ambushing their preys. These snakes swallow their prey whole. Mother Boas give birth up to 60 babies at a time. Ball Pythons get their name due to their defence strategy. They coil into a tight ball when threatened, with their delicate heads tucked away in the middle. Brazilian Rainbow Boas are non-venomous. They ambush and constrict their prey by grabbing and squeezing them with their powerful muscles until they succumb to death. Carpet Pythons have beautiful and colourful patterns of yellow and black blotches. They hunt at night and spend their days coiled up, sunbathing on trees. Milk Snakes, also non-venomous, live throughout North and South America. They are often mistaken for venomous snakes because of their colourful skin. In fact, it is that colourful skin that has made them popular as pets. Corn Snakes earn their name from the fact that they are often found around corn farms as there are lots of rodents, their main food source. These non-venomous snakes kill their prey by wrapping and squeezing them. For their part, California King Snakes often eat other snakes as food, especially Rattlesnakes. The King snake is nearly immune to Rattlesnake venom and does not worry about being bitten. Upon finding rattlesnakes, the King snake will bite the rattlesnakes behind the head and finish them off by constricting itself around its prey.

The four rare species of geckos, meanwhile, are the Madagascar Day Geckos, which are native to the east coast of Madagascar. They hide themselves in the tropical rainforest trees. Their broad and flattened toe pads are useful for efficiently clinging onto trees. Leopard Geckos are ground dwelling lizards, found in the highlands of Asia. Unlike other geckos, leopard geckos have movable eyelids and cannot climb up smooth surfaces. Crested Geckos are originally from New Caledonia. They do not have eyelids, so they use their tongues to moisten and clean their eyes. When threatened, their tails can be left behind to help them get away. The tails, however, will not grow again. Lastly “Cat Geckos” sleep like cats by curling up with their tails around them. These geckos are nocturnal and are equipped with small claws for easily climbing on trees.

Explore the world of rainforests as well as the world of marine creature at Sea Life Bangkok, Siam Paragon. Admission is Bt990 for adults and Bt790 for 3-11 year olds.

Jabra Evolve 75 is a new premium wireless headset that boats superior Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and an integrated do not disturb “busylight”. Certified by Microsoft as the first Skype for Business headset that meets Open Office norms, it’s equipped with worldclass speakers for music and HD voice for crystal clear calls. Dual Bluetooth connectivity supports calls and music by allowing the user to simultaneously pair the headset with two connected devices. It retails for Bt11,515 with charging stand and Bt9,765 without.

Sitting pretty

The new Oppo A77 is a 5.5inch smartphone that features 16 MP front camera with Beautify 4.0 and Bokeh effect camera for outstanding selfie shots. It also comes with a 13 MP main camera with UltraHD pixel sensor. It is powered by MediaTek MT6750T octacore processor running at 1.5 GHz and 1.0 GHz and equipped with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage, expandable with a microSD card by up to 128 GB. It has 5.5-inch IPS display with Full HD resolution and it’s yours for just Bt10,990.

Zooming in with Asus

The latest Android smartphone from Asus, the ZenFone Zoom S boasts a 2.3x optical zoom with 2459mm equivalent focal length. It has a 5.5inch display with 1920×1080 pixel resolution and comes with dualcamera setup using Sony IMX362 sensor to provide high light sensitivity. The front camera has 13 megapixels. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octacore process and has 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. Find it in the shops for Bt16,990.

Double the fun

An affordable smartphone with a dual camera system, the Nubia Z17 mini is uses two lens with f/2.2 aperture and two 13megapixel Sony image sensors– one for RGB colours and the other for monochrome data. The setup allows you to shoot first and select focus later. You can even achieve the Bokeh effect. Its front camera has 16 MP resolution and its 5.2inch display boasts Full HD 1920×1080 pixel resolution. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octacore processor and has 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. It’s in shops now for Bt9,990.

Not what it looks like

Bose SoundLink Revolve is a portable and waterresistant Bluetooth speaker that looks like a thermos bottle but packs 360-degree sound. You can place it in the middle of a room and enjoy the same sound experience from any corner. Its battery life is up to 12 hours and it has a button to access Siri and Google Now for giving voice commands to a linked smartphone. Buy it for Bt9,900.

Popular video-on-demand service iflix is now available with an app on certain Samsung TVs, making it much more convenient to enjoy the huge selection of movies and TV programmes from the online service.

In the past you needed to play iflix movies on a computer or a mobile app. Viewing them on a big screen TV required using an HDMI cable to link your computer to the TV or Chromecast to cast the movie from a phone or tablet to a TV.

Now the iflix app is available on Samsung smart TVs and I got to try it out on the Samsung Q7F QLED TV.

I tested the online movie service on True Internet’s FFTX 30/5 Mbit connection. The movies played smoothly on the 65-inch TV with 4K resolution. All iflix movies have Full HD resolution.

The iflix service is now available in 18 countries across Asia and the Middle East. It offers consumers a vast library of top Hollywood, Asian regional and local TV shows and movies, including many first run exclusives and awardwinning programmes.

The app is easy to navigate through the movie and TV programme sections. The TV category has several subsections, including Top 200, Action, Adventure, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Thriller, and Sports.

The Movie category is also divided into subsections, among them Top 200, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Kids, Romance, Scifi, Thai and Thriller.

I had no problem accessing both via the app. The movie was displayed in HD resolution and the sound quality was good when played on the QLED TV.

One of the interesting new additions to the iflix network is the South Korean series “The Bride of Habaek”, the first time iflix Thailand is screening a show 24 hours after it airs in Korea. New episodes are available from every Tuesday and Wednesday.

Other new content includes “2499 Young Gangster” Thai series and “Black Sails” Season 4 series.

Customers purchasing a Smart TV on Lazada’s website will receive unlimited access to iflix’s vast library of thousands of firstrun exclusive shows, award-winning TV series, and blockbuster movies as well as popular local and regional content.

Each Smart TV unit purchased from Lazada is eligible for one sixmonth iflix subscription, valued at Bt600. Lazada customers can look forward to special prices from popular brands such as Samsung and LG starting from Bt11,790.

And if you purchase one of designated Samsung Smart TV models, a QLED TV, you will enjoy a complimentary 12-month iflix subscription worth Bt1,200.

Key facts:

– Available in 18 countries

– Users can access service on up to five devices, including phones, laptops, tablets, and TVs

– Subscribers can download content for offline viewing

– Bt100 monthly subscription

– 1-month trial with full access available