CBS Outdoor's new London Underground game: 150 Brands

Londoners will know how waiting for their Tube train even for two minutes can lead to utter boredom (such is the fast paced lifestyle we've adopted here), so anything to distract or engage our brains is always welcomed.

So when ad agency CBS Outdoor UK launched the Look for Longer game last year, we all lapped it up. The game, based on cryptic visual clues, was brilliant, addictive and engaging - everything an advertising campaign should be about.

Now CBS Outdoor has launched a follow up game called 150 Brands. It may not be brain teasing Look for Longerer, but after spending a brief time on the game testing my pop culture knowledge on brands, I can honestly say it's a worthy follow up. Just as long as you don't cheat.

Much like the previous game, 150 Brands game will be a cross-platform campaign, featuring heavily on the Tube network as well as the internet. Launched to celebrate 150 years of advertising on the London Underground, the game aims to engage Londoners at guessing the brands based on both products snapshots and strapline-based clues such as 'Never Knowingly Undersold' and 'Think Different'.

Players interested in entering can do so at 150brands.co.uk. Prizes includes to up to a year's worth of free travel, so how about that?

Competition: Kenwood House's Live by the Lake

Kenwood House at Hampstead, North London is one of my favourite public building in London. The former stately home, now owned by the English Heritage, hosts a number of paintings including those by Rembrandt and Johann Vermeer. Sadly it is closed for renovation for the time being, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the Palladian style house from the outside.

Every summer the estate hosts a number of pop and classical concerts called Live by the Lake. These live performances are situated by the lake within the Kenwood House estate inside Hampstead Heath. This year from 23-25 August and 30 August to 1 September, artists and performers such as Suede, British Sea Power, Keane, Laura Mvula, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the English National Opera will be performing on the ground. In addition to live music, a film screening of Singing in the Rain will also be shown on 30 August and a live performance of Gershwin starring Michael Ball on 1 September.

We have two tickets to give away to you dear readers. The prize will be a pair of tickets to the Opera Alfresco featuring Latin Grammy Award winning soprano Ana María Martínez on Saturday 31 August.

To enter, simply email the answer to the following question on kenwoodhousecompetiton@gmail.com

Where is Kenwood House located?

Competition closes on 23 August 2013 with a random winner notified soon after via the e-mail address provided. Winners will be responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodations.

Good luck!

HTC 8X gets Windows Phone 8 GDR2 OS update

5-10 minutes + 2 hours

To owners of unbranded HTC 8X, you should be receiving Windows Phone 8 GDR2 update now. The OS update is being seeded alongside a new firmware update.

The update would normally take 5-10 minutes to apply, unless you encounter a 'spinning cog' bug, in which case you may have to wait up to a couple of hours while fearing you may have bricked your device. Unfortunately for my 8X, the dreaded spinning cogs bug hit and it took two hours of sweating nervously before the installation was successful. So have patience.

Once the update applies the OS version should read 8.0.10327.77 and firmware version 3030.0.33501.401.

Five Guys & Shake Shack London burger joints review

The last couple of years has seen the rise of good burger joints. The surprising thing is it has took so long for people and restaurateurs to realise that people want good quality burgers with proper meat than the bland we've grown used to from either fast food or pub chains like Weatherspoon. And we are willing to pay for it.

We in the South East are blessed as fine burger joints in the form of Meat Liquor, Lucky Chip, Patty & Bun, Mother Flipper, Honest Burger and many others open shop around London serving their own style of awesome burger. You will never have a bad burger at either joints but they are all different enough to have their own band of burger fans. Just don't ask me which is my favourite as I love them all equally (okay, some more than others but hush now!).

Last week saw the opening of two new burger joints in London. Both are established American chains operating on the upper end of the fast food burger market. Will these two big name burger chains be enough to take on London's burgeoning indie burger scene?

First up, Five Guys. With over a thousand restaurants and a thousand more in development, they are the fastest growing fast food chain in the US. Their new restaurant in Long Acre (on the site of the former The Long Acre bar) is their UK's first and no doubt more shops will follow if it proves to be a success.

Trading up

So, this week was a bit mental. We accepted an offer on our property, so things are moving forward as we planned. Things hasn't worked out well in the past couple of weeks so it is nice to when good news arrive. It also capped an extraordinary week as I also I finally got my application of Indefinite Leave to Remain granted by the Home Office. So yay!

The story isn't without trials and tribulation. A couple of weeks ago we accepted an offer on our flat from a private buyer - that is, we did not go through an estate agent. Instead we inquired from friends if they knew anyone who would be interested in purchasing a flat here. It was an eye opening experience, and one we genuinely believed we were better off. After all the chance to ignore using an estate agent and paying them commission was too much a lure.

This person (who had a good job at a major car manufacturer) was interested and after a short negotiation, we accepted her offer. Her offer was below our asking price, but we also had no estate agent commission to pay. It was a win-win for both parties.

Then came the hard part. It took us a week of communications to get the buyer to exchange her solicitor details with us so we can get the ball rolling. We appointed a conveyancing solicitor weeks ago already so we were dead set on moving forward, but our buyer was dragging her heals. Excuses were given. Emails, text messages and phone calls were completely ignored.

When we attempted to get her friend to get hold of her, well she did, but the buyer still ignored us. The news that she has been replying to text messages but was completely ignoring us proved just too much so we withdraw on the same day. How rude.

Now I dislike estate agents and many of them still rile me up, but we had no choice. Three weeks behind thanks to the time waster, we decided we were no longer going to trust any private buyers. We finally listed our property with a local agent a week later, with instruction to screen their financials first. The name of the time waster buyer was given to the agent and blacklisted from making another offer on our property.

But an end is not quite there yet, and we are aware that things can still go sour, but we are getting there, and I can't wait to moving back to London officially. It's been too long.

On a final note, Gemalto has published their latest Netsize guide, an e-book detailing M-commerce and mobile payments such as NFC. If you are a merchant or consumer interested in the new era of mobile payments, do check it out. You will also find yours truly in the guide, which automatically makes this book a must read.

iOS finally goes modern (sort of), Sony wins E3

I haven't blog for a month now, which is pretty long I guess. It's been a busy time in my life, but I am planning to get back to blogging here slowly once again. Let's just say that house hunting in London is a little more overwhelming than we should have allowed it to be. I am pretty sure I aged ten years in these last couple of months.

I just want to put a few thoughts about the latest tech news and what I think about them holy hell, iOS 7 looks a heck a lot like Windows Phone doesn't it? I mean it still features a boring old grid design with static icons and inconsistent UX, but look at that multitasking page and flat(er) UI design! The drop shadows and fake 3Ds and textures mimicking real life products are all gone. It finally looks the bit of a 21st century OS. Barely.

O hai modern UI wannabee

Still, it's shift from skeuomorphism to something a bit more modern is something I can accept - after all I have been calling for Apple to ditch their 20th century design paradigm and follow Microsoft halfheartedly into the brave digital world. Even Palm OS, which you know, powered touchscreen smartphones way back in 2002, featured a slightly skeumorphism-less design and nobody had a problem using it. Depending on how Microsoft responds with Windows Phone Blue and how Apple will design the iPhone 5's successor, I might even consider an iPhone. Maybe...

Argh, colour gradient icons! Ew...

...or maybe not. Sorry Apple, must try harder.

Sony has proven again why it is the top dog when it comes to living room gaming with yesterday's E3 announcement. While Microsoft's Xbox One looks like an admirable effort (hardware wise, used games policy - not so much), Sony's new PS4 strategy has confirmed that I will be sticking with them through the next gen. I am no Sony fanboy but I have stuck with Sony and Nintendo for my living room console gaming. Nintendo appears to have gone wayward a bit, and I can't forgive them for the Wii's dire software library, but I can see a future where their consoles or games are still part of my life.

You hideous thing but I still want you

Back to the PS4. As the PS3 is still going strong, I will likely only enter the next gen gaming a year later, perhaps after the first PS4 price drop. This is a strategy I have been using for every console, and while £350 is a good price, we are in this whole house buying... I am also not too keen on the design of the PS4, but hei, it's a gaming device not a piece of decor. After all, the PS3 wasn't exactly a Red.dot winning product. And gaming is exactly what the PS4 appears to be designed for. Good job Sony. You almost lost it in the early years of the PS3 but you have done well here. Just keep all that 3D bullshit to yourself and we will continue being friends.

Itsdagram, an Instagram client for Windows Phone 8

Instagram (update: since renamed to Instance) has finally come to Windows Phone! Well sort of. Itsdagram is the first fully featured Instagram client on the Windows Phone Marketplace to allow direct uploading. In fact, it is the first fully featured third party Instagram client on any mobile platform that will allow you to register, upload, like, follow and comment.

This is particularly impressive, when you consider that Instagram has yet to open up their upload API to the public.

For a first version release, Itsdagram is impressively featured. Apart from Instagram's stock filters, it can do everything that an official Instagram client on iOS and Android can do, and more, including features exclusive to Windows Phone. For example, you can pin hashtags and users to the homescreen for easy access, something the official Android app can't do (iOS don't even support widgets).

Save the Southbank Centre skatepark

Last month Southbank Centre unveiled a masterplan to redeveloped the much loved cultural center of London. The plan includes furnishing the fine example of Brutalist architecture with glass, but that isn't even the worse news you will hear about this so called masterplan.

For those who frequents the South Bank, you will recognise the graffiti-covered concrete enclave as the home to British skateboarding. A tourist attraction in its own right, the undercroft is often seen as the cultural and birthplace of British skateboarding. It is also frequented by BMX bikers. Tourists and Londoners alike, with cameras in hand, flock the side with their children to watch skateboarders practice. Kids watch in wonder, perhaps one day will be inspired to return with their own skateboard of their own.

Sadly, it appears that the directors of Southbank Centre envisions a different future. Following the commercial success of the redevelopment of the Royal Festival Hall, they have now turned their eyes on the enclave of the Festival Wing, below the Queen Elizabeth and Purcell Hall. Plans has appeared to turn the undercroft into high rent retail units, which will finance the redevelopment of the entire Festival Wing. It is ironic to see the directors of Southbank Centre, the center of art and cultural innovations in London, would aim to destroy the cultural center of a sub-culture to sell sandwiches.

Southbank Centre is one of my favourite stomping grounds in London. From lovers of classic music and ballet to urban art and counter-culture, it always attracts a mix of sub-cultures together with no ill-feel, all in the name of progression. For a center dedicated to the arts, the South Bank should not be limited to only the bourgeois - it has to be opened to all.

If you are interested in helping save the Southbank Centre skatepark, sign the petition.