In Baguio

I’m in Baguio for the DOST mining event. Will keep you posted.

3D TV!

Everyone is talking about HDTV. What about 3DTV? Ever been to IMAX? It’s exactly that, only this time it’s smaller, about 42 inches. But what a glorious technology it is! Fortunately, I got to test it out during the recent Samsung product launch at the Tent City in Manila Hotel. There were loads of new TVs, DVD players, digital cameras and camcorders strewn all over but only this one machine, the PS42A450 plasma TV, really caught my eye. There were two specially-made eyepieces that need to be worn to view the images in 3D. Samsung’s demo videos were not quite well done but I would assume that the same IMAX technology would work in this particular model.

For the uninitiated, what IMAX theaters do is to split the primary colors of an image in a display, usually into 3, making the screen look blurry. But once the user wears the eyepieces the colors come back together and there’s a sudden depth in some of the images making them “float” out of the screen. Samsung should have tried the last “Bewoulf” film that had an IMAX-like 3D effect so the PS42A450 could have been better appreciated.

Hmn…. imagine playing video games in this TV…

According to Roma Ramirez, Samsung Philippines’ product manager for widescreen TVs, this model will arrive in the Philippines. She hasn’t given any figures yet but she assumes that it could be within the 100,000-peso range. I would doubt that considering that flat-panel displays beyond 37″ still cost around P60,000 (it’s a far cry since 32″ TVs cost P120,000 in late 2006). Nevertheless, this thing will definitely fall into the hands of some filthy-rich scion… or their tech-addicted sons.

Here’s my initial test of this 3D TV model. Th video is in Inquirer.net’s VDO section:

Me wearing the eyeglasses for Samsung’s first 3D TV. The glasses are bulky but they get the job done…. making the screen come to life.

42-inches of viewing pleasure. It’s like having a mini-IMAX at home.

http://www.inquirer.net/vdo/player.php?vid=637&pageID=1

Hiatus

Yaiks! Took me a while to get back! My battles with the forces of good and evil wasn’t exactly fruitful. Nevertheless, I still survived and got some battle scars from that. Hey, I still got my warpaint on! That means I’m still at war with the same forces. Oh well, it’s a never-ending battle. Just as the AC/DC song goes, “It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll!”

Anyway, expect me to get the ball rolling. The Philippine blogosphere is already a big community — and a force to reckon. Even traditional media is getting their hands on the local bloggers. As one media outfit already did with a popular Filipino blogger. “Guest blogger” ey? Gives a nice ring to it, hehehe!

My dead Xbox 360, Steering wheel and TV

I spent a fortune on these three items, the Xbox 360, the wireless steering wheel and the CRT TV. Now they’re all dead. I bought the Xbox for nearly P28,000, then the steering wheel (which I had to order from abroad) for P8,000, then the 32″ CRT TV for P12,000 (got it from the old stock of Japanese-imported surplus TVs from Pier). In just about a year, they died. The TV died within 6 months of use. You’d expect that from a machine that was thrown out by its Japanese owner because it was just freaking heavy. Expect such appliances to die soon. You buy trash, you get trash.

Well, the Xbox 360 got resurrected twice already, courtesy of some wily Filipino repairmen. The steering wheel was the biggest headach. I had such high expectations for that thing and now it’s dead. I even reviewed it for Hackenslash.net last year. The thing just died and according to Microsoft, the problem was in its force feedback engine. They did give repair/replacement assistance to owners but even those who applied for it didn’t get their full money’s back. In fact, some of them never had their units fixed. Talk about bad customer service huh?

The very high tech Korea

This is my fourth day in the beautiful city of Seoul, South Korea, attending the SEK 2006 International Press Lounge. It's the annual electronics exhibit in Korea that highlights mostly Korean IT companies. It's not your CES in the US or even CeBIT in Germany but I'd say this event captures mostly what the Koreans are doing in terms of mapping out their IT infrastructure. And boy, is it high tech!

 It's hard to start anywhere with this trip but the first thing I'd like to say is that Seoul is a nice city. However, the caveat is that when you go to a highly urbanized city anywhere in Asia, everything else just looks the same. Singapore, Taiwan, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong or Beijing have the same tall buildings and the same types of shops. Other than that, the language and the food are among the few things that make these cities different from each other. By the way, Seoul has meaner traffic than even Singapore, but not as bad as in Manila or Bangkok.  

Anyway, Korea claims itself as the most innovative when it comes ot its telecommunications systems, even comparing itself to Japan's own high-tech mobile phone and Internet industry. According to executives from SK Telecom, KT and the Ministry of Information and Communication, the Internet penetration rate in Korea is 33 million or 80 percent of their population (45 million, that's just a little over half of the Philippines!). Of that number, 13.3 million have broadband. They also have 38 million mobile phone users, compared to the Philippines, which has has 30 million mobile phone users. This country truly is connected.

 But not connected enough, according to their government officials. So, they come up with a long-term national strategy called IT839 that intends to converge all communications and broadcast services into a single seamless network by 2010 and the first part of this massive plan is in the offing. I was joined by about 25 technology reporters from Europe, the US and Asia to see Korea's technology showcases. It'll be hard describing what we've seen because there was so much technology but I'll try to describe the more relevant ones.

 The first is the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB). This is basically mobile TV and it was introduced just in time for the FIFA World Cup in Germany. It's not surprising because the Korean's are crazy about the World Cup especially after their team became the first Asians to get into the semi-finals in FIFA 2004. The DMB service allows subscribers, especially those with DMB-ready Samsung phones. These are phones whose screens could be re-oriented on a lateral position to look like a mini-TV. The video stream is particularly good. But I heard that most DMB users, numbering to just over 5 million, only access it at least 1 hour everyday since they open their TVs when they get back home to watch the games. I think DMB would work in the Philippines especially in far flung areas. But I suppose the cost of a DMB-ready phone and the service itself would be far from the reach of ordinary Filipinos.

Another technology that was previewed to us was the Hubo Robot. Actually, it looks like the Honda Asimo and also has the same capabilities such as walking, going up a flight of stairs, shaking hands and dancing. There's this one particularly scary looking version of the Hubo called Albert Hubo, so named because it has a fake head of Albert Enstein. I didn't want to guess what it did.

But the real highlight of the whole event was WiBro, a brand name for wireless plus broadband. It's being deployed by SK Telecom and KT and it's a hybrid version of mobile WiMAX. You could do voice-over-IP, video conferencing, streaming video or audio, web browsing and email ALL AT THE SAME TIME WITHOUT LAG. That's with emphasis, baby! Just imagine that WiBro is your Wifi on nitros. Yep, it's faster, has more personal services and can do transmission handovers like in cellular phones. That means you don't have to lose your connection while on the move. Both KT and SK Telecom are also coming up with services that will eventually allow subscribers to do virtual shopping and control their home appliances either using a voice activation system or a mobile phone if outside of the  house. It's just like in those futuristic movies. We saw this in the u-Dream ("u" for ubiquitous) experimental house.

But I had to remind myself that all these technologies being shown to us reporters aren't anything new; we've seen them in previous "digital home, digital office" concepts of other technology companies like Microsoft, HP, Intel, Cisco, Alcatel, among others. What the Korean companies did is just to consolidate all of the service providers and create an environment allowing for close coordination between them, the government and other service providers to come up with a seamless service. Maybe we should have that in the Philippines… 

The schedule for the press conferences and technology tours were pretty tight (not to mention the information overload that made it hard to choose what to write) but we managed to squeeze in some time to go out of our gigantic hotel/convention center. At least I got to make a lot of new foreign friends in those three days. I was able to talk to reporters from Germany, the US, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, the UK and Croatia. It was truly a diverse group of technology reporters.

And yes, the food. We were treated to traditional Korean food. It was restaurant near the Coex Intercontinental Hotel and it featured traditional Korean music. I still don't understand why female singers have to make their voices so deep that they begin to sound like males. Oh well, I'm not one to diss culture.

It was a really great trip in Seoul. It's actually my second trip. The first one I was able to a lot of places like Dongdaemun, Nandaemun and the Blue and White Houses, which are the homes of the Korean royalties. This year, I was hoping to gather enough reporters to go to the Demilitarized Zone near Panmunjom. It's a tourist area wherein you could see the two Koreas facing each other and the closest you could ever get to North Korea. Unfortunately, time was, as I said, pretty tight. We ended up just drinking soujou on the last night of our stay in Seoul.

Oh well, time to go. My flight's in about five hours and I have to fix up my stuff. It's been fun staying in high tech Korea. Hopefully, I get to visit it again.

I am an uncle!!!

Yep, the family's in jubilation now as we celebrate the coming of the next generation of Villafanias — or more like the Ibasans since it's my sister's kid. Times like these, I would certainly love to have a digital camera so that we could have her first photo shoot *sigh*….

Oh well, Ill get my chance one of these days, hehehe!

By the way, today's the last day of the 5th Philippine Toys, Hobbies and Collectibles Convention at the Megatrade Hall in Megamall. There are tons and tons of hobby items and collectibles you coudl get there. Most of them are on discount so do check it out. There's also this cosplay event going on though i wish they would have lesser of those every year. It gets tiresome if you have them at least four times. But then again, there are thousands of people out there who are so addicted to anime or collectibles that they'd spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pesos. Me? I'm just a ooh-I-like-that-figurine type of collector.

My hard disk is dead, by the way. it's a first generation SATA 160G Seagate. I heard it clicking while it was loading up and it crashed. It had a good two-year run so I guess it's ok. But the most heart-wrenching part about it is that it contained two years worth of photos from my past trips abroad and local. Those are the only memories I have of those events. Darn, that's what happens when technology fails you.

Hmmn, maybe with baby Sunshine around, perhaps me and my family could start a new chapter in our lives. Welcom again my dear niece! I love you!

Smart Bro Unlimited and the cost of productivity

Wow, this will be the very first time that my PC, a 2 year-old Pentium 4 gaming rig, would ever be connectecd to the Internet, thanks to no less than Smart Bro. Not that I’m praising them for getting my connected but the apartment my brother and I are renting could not be reached by any landline. I’ve tried getting an account from both PLDT, Globe, Digitel and even the dreaded Bayantel but they all turned me down. Apparently, they all ran out of free lines within my area here in Rosario, Pasig. Funny they would say that because the neighboring apartments all have telephone lines. Oh well, that’s what we get for being the last unit in a housing compound. But then again, at least we have a nice firewall (the real one, stupid) and no one passes in front of our unit. That said, I could practically walk naked in our living room with the windows wide open. Besides, I like my balcony and my little garden.

 I’m digressing. Ok so I finally have Internet. What’s the benefit? I don’t have to get out of my house, walk to the nearest Internet cafe, which happens to be a smelly and noisy gaming center half a kilometer away, and do my online stuff. Can you just imagine the need to do so many rituals like taking a bath and choosing apparel just to check on my email? I’d rather stay at home and remain naked, thank you.

So what to do with Internet at home? Finally I can install and play the latest online games! Hah! what’s a game reviewer without an Internet connection? That’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to have Internet at home in the first place, to play games, apart from checking my email, browsing the Net for the latest news, downloading music and that kind of stuff. Having Internet at home means not having to wake up so early in the morning, do my morning rituals, take an early ride to Makati and connect to the Internet. I can do everything at the comfort of my home, finally! 

But I suddenly realized that having Internet at home means having to use another appliance, which translates to additional electricity. So if I spend an average of 4 hours a day x 7 days a week, that’s 28 hours of electricity. Based on my own calculations, my average electricity usage just for this PC is about 225 watts per hour x 28 = Php 217 per month. I already consume Php 1300 per month and so that means I’ll be spending Php 1,500 a month. Sheesh….

So there would be some sacrifices to be made now that I have Internet at home. But does it mean I’ll be a more productive person now? I spend an average of PhP 200 per day, which includes transportation and food. Hmmn… let’s see what’s going to happen this month. If I do better than what I used to do, then that’s a good sign. If there’s no increase… well, we have to do something about that, don’t we?

Misadventures in Cebu…. because of an Xbox 360

Me and some IT press members recently attended a press event, courtesy of Microsoft, in Cebu and Siargao. It's one of those annual press junkets. But this year was both fun and frustrating. There are a thousand reasons to feel great after the four-day trip to Cebu and Siargao. But I could also tell a hundred bad things that happened during the sojourn. For now, I'll relate our bad experience first before going for the better part of the experience.

First of all, my compatriots in the Blue Team didn't fare well in the Amazing Race that was one of the three games conducted by Microsoft. The laptop that we used couldn't connect to the WeRoam account that went with it. Apparently, there was some problems with our WeRoam account. Instead of giving ourselves a headache, my team mates decided to just ditch the game and enjoy roadtrip and the view of Cebu. Meanwhile the other three teams (Orange, Yellow and Green) had all their eyes on the prize. We all had a reason for wanting to win: members of the winning team would each get an Xbox 360.

Anyway, my team didn't win the Amazing Race, largely because we couldn't connect to the Internet to download the first clue (by the way, we went to a hole-in-a-wall cafe somewhere in Cebu just to do what was supposed to be done in the notebook that was assigned to us. That experience in the cafe was both funny and scary). By the time we finished our tasks, we were already the laughing stock of the other three teams. It was a bit frustrating at first, especially with some of our colleagues in the press boasting how they cut through the mild traffic in Cebu, but instead of sulking, we just enjoyed the food that was served to us. From there, the Blue Team just decided to stop drooling for the Xbox 360 and just continue on with the trip, which was the original plan in the first place.

Come friday morning, we flew to Siargao, Surigao del Norte. We went to Pansukian Resort, about 20 minutes away from the Sayak Airport. I still tried to connect to the Internet and already asked help from our resident Smart/PLDT representative, Grace Clavecilla and even Microsoft's tech guru Jojo Ayson. Both were stumped with my team's notebook problems.

We still needed to use the notebook to create a presentation of our team's photos. We had to use the Microsoft Photo Story 3 software (a surprisingly nifty little app) in the notebooks. This was the second part of the game while the third was to create a blog based on our teams' adventures. The scoring was based on a percentage system for all three games and, of course, the team with the highest score wins.  

The other teams were already hard at work with doing their Photo Story presentations and blogs. Some of the other team's members didn't even join the surfing, island hopping, beach combing and cliff jumping activities just so they could finish their presentations and blogs. On the other hand, my team didn't have to worry about it. We surrendered to the fact that we were already beaten. My team was all for the trip and not for the Xbox anymore. Some of the teams said we were losers already, but we were the only team that was complete when we did all of the other fun activities during the entire stay in Siargao.

By the second night of our stay, the three "winning" teams were ready for their presentations. The funny part was, our team tied for second place with the Orange team in the Photo Story game. Me and my colleagues only did our presentation in 30 minutes and didn't even give so much effort as to beautifying the whole thing. We just presented our Photo Story as it was. A few of the other members in the other teams admitted that they were surprised by how well we did our presentation. "Guys, it only took us 30 effortless minutes to do our presentation," I said.

Given the fact that we placed second in the game, we found some hope that we may still get a chance to fight for the Xbox. Microsoft even gave us a little bit of leverage when they decided to include the blog content that I typed the previous night, which i planned to upload to our blogsite if we had the chance. Because the judges from Microsoft couldn't access the other three teams' blogsites because of the bad WeRoam connection, they decided to just collect all of the text-based blog content.

But that didn't sit well with the other team members. The other three teams already had their blog sites uploaded and they didn't save their content as text. If Microsoft pushed through with their new plan, only the Blue Team's content would be judged. It was at this point that emotions flared up a bit and complaints and counterarguments were flying back and forth. It was disappointing to see old friends arguing just for an Xbox.

Seeing and smelling trouble, I told Microsoft's Mae Moreno to just go on with their original plan and use the uploaded blogs for the contest. Since they couldn't see the blogs at that time, Mae said they would have to check on it on Monday. This would give my team time to upload our content. It was here again when some of the other teams' members complained that my team couldn't do that because, as they said, a blog was supposed to be typed in as it is and not prior to uploading. Our content wasn't part of the blog description, which the other teams' members said didn't constitute to an actual blog. Again, smelling trouble, my team discreetly walked away and told Microsoft to just decide on the three teams' blogs.

Anyway, Microsoft would be announcing the winners of the contest tonight in Gweilos Makati. Whatever it is, I'm hoping that it won't be that other team that's been so boastful that they haven't stopped taunting the other teams until today. Hay… all for an Xbox360. But whoever wins, congratulations and I hope they enjoy their Xbox 360s.

Kudos to Sean de Jesus and Jen Rubio of Media Gateway and Emmy Abadilla of Manila Bulletin. I liked what they said about us losing: "Ok lang matalo kami basta yung iba hindi manalo" and "Happy experiences are worth more than the Xboxes that they won."

At any rate, I'll next upload the fun stuff about our experiences in Siargao. By the way, belated happy mothers' day to all the hot mommas out there

Transformers live action flick

for all ye transformers fans, steven spielberg will be making a transformers live action flick. i'm sure some of you already knew about this half a year ago. also, some of you might have seen a test video allegedly done by spielberg's ILM. it shows a red lambo transforming into Red Alert, one of the autobots. i'd say it's fake but at least you could expect something much better. here's the link to YouTube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3dV8VSvW2I&search=transformers

 i'm a big fan of the transformers and i hope that spielberg does justice to the live action version.

my first… my bad

so, today is the first time i'll be using a blog. actually, i had owned one in blogspot a few years back but i couldn't update it because i couldn't remember the darn password. aw bloody hell, might as well start with this one. it's been a long day. writing three stories a day is a drag, especially if you couldn't find any good stories to write. then again, at least i'm not bored. i got to talk to a lot of people today, mostly from the IT industry. there's joey gurango from webworks, romulo neri from NEDA, cong. simeon kintanar, mozcom's bill torres and a few others. might as well tell them to you some other time. anyway, it's late already. 7.52 pm to be exact. i'll be going out. friend of mine said we'll be interviewed by people from groupieTV. not sure who they are, though. perhaps one of these days i'll post pictures. or i'll post poems, short stories and chapters of the book that i've always wanted to write. the subject you ask? i don't know yet. my mind's floating in ether and i still wonder what exactly i'm doing. dang, i'm lucid today. yep, life sometimes bores, sometimes excites you.