PLDT taps Wi-Fi technology for broadband rollout

By: Paolo G. Montecillo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

10:59 pm | Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 

 

MANILA, Philippines—Dominant mobile network Smart Communications is taking a second look at wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology, often seen only in malls or coffee shops, as a way to connect more households across the country to the Internet.

Smart, a wholly owned subsidiary of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), announced on Tuesday the launch of its “carrier-grade” Wi-Fi service that would allow mobile device users to log on to the web using indoor and outdoor hotspots via prepaid or postpaid accounts.

Unlike regular public Wi-Fi hotspots found in malls, shops, and schools, carrier-grade Wi-Fi can be set up even in local neighborhoods.

“We will make this possible by installing access points in our base stations, thus allowing users to connect to our Wi-Fi even in their own homes,” PLDT Technology group head Rolando G. Pena said.

“All they need to do is sign in with a username and password which they can purchase online or in retail stores. In the near future, we would make automatic authentication through the use of the subscriber’s SIM card,” he added.

The rollout of a broadband network using Wi-Fi technology is seen to compliment Smart’s current efforts to expand the reach of its third- and fourth-generation (3G and 4G) wireless broadband technologies.

“We want to emphasize that this is carrier grade. This means we’re putting more bandwidth behind this service. This will really give customers a different experience as far as broadband is concerned,” PLDT spokesman Ramon Isberto said in an interview.

The new service makes broadband connections more accessible to users that already have Wi-Fi-capable devices, Isberto said. All they need to do is set up a postpaid account or purchase prepaid minutes to access the service.

Users may connect to the Wi-Fi signal, wherever this is available, and log in using the account names and passwords that are assigned to them.

As the service uses standard Wi-Fi technology found in most portable devices, the carrier-grade Wi-Fi service can be used by all mobile users regardless of their carrier networks. This makes Smart’s improved network accessible to all Filipinos who are looking for a more stable and more reliable wireless connection.

The new service is part of PLDT’s comprehensive network upgrade worth P67 billion that aims to improve wireless services to millions of the company’s subscribers.

http://bit.ly/vHdM3o

2012 to usher in an era of being ‘always connected’—IT experts

By: Matikas Santos
INQUIRER.net

5:37 pm | Thursday, December 29th, 2011

The new Ultrabook computers will be the
new mainstream laptop computer.

MANILA, Philippines – As 2011 ends, an international computer microchip manufacturer is driving forward into 2012 in preparation for an era of being “always connected.”

In Intel Microelectronics Philippines Inc.’s recent year-ender discussion with media, top officials shared their predictions and outlook on the computer industry for the next few years.

Christopher Syling, business development manager, said that by 2015 there would be “one billion more netizens, 15 billion more connected devices.” The large number of users with connected devices would also mean “more than 1,000 exabytes of internet traffic,” Syling added.

One exabyte is equivalent to around 1,073,741,824 gigabytes. Desktop computers and laptops typically have 500 gigabytes of storage.

The cloud environment is expected to develop further as more data centers and servers are built to cater to the increasing traffic. The security for these centers will be strengthened as well, which will give businesses more confidence to utilize the many cloud services that will become available to improve their productivity and capabilities, Syling said.

Consumers will also be able to have greater access to the many computer devices because of the growing purchasing power in Asia, said business development manager Jermyn Wong.

Advances in technology will create better computers that will provide better performance, energy efficiency, and security features. Intel is set to release its newest microchip dubbed “Ivy Bridge” in 2012 said Ricky Banaag, country manager of Intel Philippines.

“Ivy Bridge” is the smallest transistor ever produced by Intel at 22 nanometers. Its previous transistor, which is in microchips in computers today, was 32 nanometers small.

Banaag showed a comparison chart to give a better understanding of how small the transistors in a single microchip are. The diameter of a human hair is 90,000 nanometers, pollen is 20,000 nanometers, a single bacterium is 2,000 nanometers, and Rhinovirus is 20 nanometers in diameter.

“Smaller transistors mean we can put more in a single microchip that is as large as your fingernail, which translates to increased performance and energy efficiency,” Banaag said in his discussion.

These new microchip processors will help fuel the growth of data centers and the production of better computers for consumers to utilize the fast growing cloud, Banaag said.

Ultrabook computers, released in December of 2011, features a longer battery life, increased performance, high-definition video capability, and improved graphics quality and performance, he added.

Ultrabooks also feature greatly increased security capabilities including identity protection, anti-theft security, and malware protection, Banaag said.

The new Ultrabook computers are seen to become the new mainstream laptop computer. With more people using Ultrabooks, an increased number of users will be connected to the Internet more often, he pointed out.
Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer said in a statement that “technology is no longer the limiting factor [for computers]. What limits us today is really our own imagination.”

 http://bit.ly/tyWTth

Facebook is making us miserable

Sunday, 18 December 2011 17:21 Daniel Gulati

WHEN Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Some 800 million users later, the social network has taken over most aspects of our lives, and is fast becoming the dominant communication platform of the future.

But this new world of ubiquitous connectivity has a dark side: Facebook is making us miserable.

In co-writing my book Passion & Purpose, I monitored how Facebook impacted the lives of hundreds of young businesspeople. As I went about my research, it became clear that behind all the liking, sharing and posting, there were strong hints of jealousy, anxiety and, in one case, depression. I discovered disturbing by-products of Facebook’s rapid ascension—three ways in which the social-media giant is fundamentally altering our sense of well-being in both our personal and professional lives:

1. FACEBOOK CREATES A DEN OF COMPARISON. Since our Facebook profiles are self-curated, we have a strong bias toward sharing the positive and avoiding the negative. This creates an online culture of competition and comparison. And comparing ourselves to others is a key driver of unhappiness. As we judge the entirety of our lives against the top 1 percent of our friends’ lives, we’re setting impossible standards for ourselves, which can make us miserable.

2. FACEBOOK FRAGMENTS OUR TIME. Facebook’s ‘’horizontal’’ strategy encourages users to log in more frequently, no matter where they are, by using different devices. My interviewees regularly accessed Facebook from their office computer and while out shopping through their smartphones. The problem with this constant “tabbing’’ between real-life tasks and Facebook is what economists and psychologists call “switching costs,’’ the loss in productivity associated with changing from one task to another. And all this switching can affect the quality of our work.

3. FACEBOOK IMPACTS OUR RELATIONSHIPS. Gone are the days where Facebook merely complemented our real-life relationships. Now, it’s actually winning share of our core, offline interactions. As Facebook adds new features such as video chat, it’s fast becoming a viable substitute for business meetings, networking—even family get-togethers.

Quitting Facebook altogether may be unrealistic, but we can still take measures to alter our usage patterns and strengthen our real-world relationships. Some useful tactics include blocking out designated time for Facebook; selectively trimming Facebook friends lists; and investing more time in building offline relationships. The particularly courageous may choose to delete Facebook from their smartphones and iPads, and log off the platform entirely for long stretches of time.

Daniel Gulati is a technology entrepreneur based in New York. He is a coauthor of the new book Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders.

http://bit.ly/sblZ5n

Future lies in humans’ relationship with technology

By: Paolo G. Montecillo
Philippine Daily Inquirer  
4:50 pm | Saturday, December 24th, 2011

Mike Walsh, 34, author of ‘Futuretainment,’

used to date model Georgina Wilson.

For the average Filipino, the most interesting thing about Mike Walsh could be that he used to date model Georgina Wilson.

But for Walsh, that relationship is a thing of the past. As a self-proclaimed futurist, he says he tends to concern himself with what lies ahead.

Walsh is the author of the recent book “Futuretainment,” which many can consider a manual for how companies can cope in a world transformed by “consumer connectedness.”

“I consider myself a futurist. But I’m also an anthropologist,” he says in a recent interview with SundayBiz. What exactly does he mean, one might ask? “I do this to help companies embrace change,” he says.

Walsh was recently in Manila to deliver the key note speech at the Enterprise Innovation Forum sponsored by Ayala-led Globe Telecom, the country’s second largest phone firm.

What Walsh wants companies to understand is that in today’s Internet-powered world, consumers are now more empowered, giving them the unprecedented ability to access information and share opinions about products at the push of a button.

Walsh says making the book, which looks more like a photo album than something a big-shot CEO would have on his desk, relied heavily on the Internet and digital technology.

He describes it as “a book about the end of traditional media.”

“The ironic thing about this book is that it’s actually a book, not an e-book or anything digital,” he says. “I’m really an analogue guy and I already have a lot of content published online,” he says.

“What’s funny is that we were creating an analogue product using digital techniques. We were processing photos digitally. I worked with a design team and we all collaborated with each other through Flickr,” Walsh says.

He says the new book has already won several visual design awards in New York City, one of the world’s capitals for art. It is now also displayed in the famous Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan.

In the same way that he made his book, he said companies need to find new ways to interact with their consuming public.  “This is how companies are going to engage with customers and consumers of the future,” he says.

Walsh with Globe Business Enterprise
Segments head Jesus Romero

And it’s not just a competition of how many people “Like” your company’s page on Facebook. “The more important insight is how your consumers are connected to each other,” Walsh says.

By taking a deeper look into consumer data on the Internet and on social networks, companies can find new “patterns of consumer behaviour” that would not have been able to observe in the past.

Walsh says the most valuable asset in the world of business today is information, which give companies insight to the fickle minds of modern-day consumers.

“Data used to be thought of as an expense for companies because they had to shell out for storage equipment and IT administrators.  But companies are realizing that they have to collect data because it can be a competitive advantage,” he says.

Walsh says Futuretainment explores the many ways that newly available data can be used to a company’s advantage.

In one case, he says multinational personal products manufacturer Proctor & Gamble recently found out that its dental care products, while already popular for most any kind of consumer, has gained a loyal fan base among a very specific niche: zookeepers.

“They found out that zookeepers use their toothbrushes and other products to clean walrus teeth,” he says. He says this was just one of the many little things that most companies did not know about their own products.

He says firms should use this new information to continue innovating and adapting to the needs of consumers.
“Innovation used to be a luxury, something you invest in when times are good. But today, companies need to give more money to their innovators,” he says.

Walsh adds this was what he has learned, not by spending years in a classroom but by devoting a significant part of his life to understanding how technology has really changed the world.

While he spends a lot of time in New York City, he shares his home at the moment is in Istanbul, Turkey. “I try to force myself to live in a new place every few years,” he says, as part of his mission of understanding as much about the world as there is to understand.

“It was while working in Asia over the last few years that my eyes were finally opened to what was coming,” he says in his book.

“Here, subway commuters were already watching television on tiny handsets, teenagers were becoming addicted to gaming in virtual worlds, best-selling novels were being composed entirely on mobile phones and the success of a new generation of pop stars was fluctuating in step with fickle tastes in ringtones and digital merchandise,” he cites.

He says the future was no longer about producing the next shiny gadget, but about the change in humanity’s relationship with technology.

“People are becoming more connected, more networked,” he says adding that companies used to have a monopoly on the information available about products in the market.

Today, consumers can exchange information about products between themselves. As a result, one bad online review on a product can ruin a year’s worth of planning to market that said product.

Because of this changing environment, he says “CEOs that will survive are the adaptable ones. The ones with no fixed views and are not locked down by markets or customer definitions.”

http://bit.ly/sldLni 

NCC launches certification center

By Helen M. Flores (The Philippine Star) Updated December 10, 2011 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - The National Computer Center (NCC) has launched the country’s first Digital Certification Center which is aimed at promoting and protecting electronic transactions.

Denis Villorente, NCC officer-in-charge, said the center is an integral component of the National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI) project of the government which started in 2006.

 “NPKI enables users of unsecured public network such as the Internet to securely and privately exchange data and even money through the use of a public and a private cryptographic key pair that is obtained and shared through a trusted authority,” Villorente said.

According to Villorente, the Philippines is one of the first few countries in Asia that signed an Electronic Commerce Act that aims to promote and protect electronic transactions.

However, he said, security and privacy issues hindered the country’s development of e-commerce and full use of e-government services.

In 2009, former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order 810 titled, “Institutionalizing the Certification Scheme for Digital Signatures and Directing the Application of Digital Signatures in E-Government Services.”

It requires all government agencies to use digital signatures in their online services to ensure the confidentiality, authenticity and integrity of electronic transactions in government.

 “The NPKI would secure electronic commerce and electronic messaging as well as e-government programs since it requires the use of public key cryptography,” Villorente said.

Twitter revamps to connect the world

Agence France-Presse

7:03 am | Friday, December 9th, 2011

 

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter on Thursday began rolling out overhauled pages crafted to boost the appeal of the message-sharing service to worldwide users.

“At the very core there are fewer places you have to click and less you have to learn,” Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said as he and other executives unveiled the changes at the flourishing startup’s new San Francisco offices.

“We’ve done a lot of user testing and it has proven to be much simpler,” Dorsey added.

Overhauled navigation features take advantage of the fact that Twitter symbols such as @ and # are making their way into common culture, showing up anywhere from text messages to advertising billboards and television.

Twitter designed Connect navigation tools that essentially turn those symbols into new age URLs, or web addresses, to let people find all posts or other information being fired off about topics.

“The @ symbol has become the new URL; the fastest way to connect with anyone in the world,” Dorsey said.

Twitter is also expanding profile pages, letting users tell more about themselves or, in the case of companies, their brands.

Dorsey said revenue from “promoted tweet” style ads has been steadily growing and the startup is testing a self-service advertising system that should launch early next year.

The overhaul includes a new Timeline that brings together all Twitter chatter or content related to a particular “tweet.”

“There is a universe within every tweet,” said Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo. “The 140 characters are a caption associated with a rich canvas that could be a song, a video, a photo or more.”

The new Twitter design was described as a platform on which the service will build to reinforce its effort to “reach every person on the planet.”

“Of course tweeting is still front and center,” Dorsey said. “Any time you have something to tell the world you can do it instantly.”

Twitter engineers speeded up the service’s engines to deliver content faster, and new tabs at the tops of pages let people jump quickly between Home, Connect, Discover, and Me.

The Connect page lets users search Twitter using the @ sign, which has become Internet age shorthand for “at.”

The bottom of the Connect page let people tap on Interaction or Mention tabs that show who is responding or rebroadcasting their tweets.

Discover focuses on searches based on # symbols, which are used at Twitter to label topics such as “#arabspring.”

The Home tab leads to the Twitter flow users are familiar with, while “Me” takes people to profile pages.

“We have to provide the simplest, fastest way for people around the world to connect with everything they care about,” Costolo said. “This wasn’t just a change in the interface; this was a whole company effort.

“Our engineers have been spending the past four or five months making Twitter as fast as possible,” he said.

http://bit.ly/tjYR06

Pope illuminates big Christmas ‘tree’ via Tablet

Associated Press

7:23 pm | Thursday, December 8th, 2011 

 

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has illuminated a huge Christmas tree lighting display in Umbria by tapping on a tablet computer from the comfort of the Vatican.

Benedict brought the “tree” to life Wednesday with a Sony Tablet S, thanks to a wireless connection with the local electric grid. In reality the “tree,” billed as the world’s biggest, is a display made up of nearly 1,000 lights on a mountainside in Gubbio. It is 450 meters (1,476 feet) by 750 meters (2,460 feet) and covers an area of 130,000 square meters (1.4 million square feet), or just under 30 soccer fields.

The 84-year-old Benedict has embraced new technology: Earlier this year, he tweeted for the first time and put the Vatican’s news information portal online by tapping on an iPad.

 http://bit.ly/tgMy7e

 

 

 

Use only genuine software, Microsoft and IPO urge business sector

By: Matikas Santos
INQUIRER.net

9:43 pm | Thursday, December 1st, 2011

 

 

May Rivera Moreno, Windows business group
lead shares the values of using genuine software.

MANILA, Philippines—Microsoft, together with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), called on the public and the business sector to use only genuine software in their computers in support of the “Play Fair Day” global initiative held last November 17 to promote the use of legal software.

Celina S. Conti, the Genuine Software Initiative Lead of Microsoft, cited a study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by Harrison Group that found large differences in performance, security, and productivity between fake pirated software and genuine software.

One out of four pirated softwares became infected with viruses upon installation, the study said.

When compared to computers with pirated software, computers with genuine software performed faster during boot-up, in opening documents, opening programs, and loading popular internet pages that were text and image-heavy.

The power consumption of computers with genuine software was found to be much lower compared to computers with pirated software, leading to longer battery life and energy savings.

“Genuine users enjoy a safer experience… superior performance and productivity… [and] get power consumption benefits” than counterfeit users, Conti said in her presentation.

Microsoft and the IPO both said that using genuine software is also beneficial for the economy because pirated software takes away income that could have gone to businesses selling genuine software.

“Software piracy is something that we all are battling and this has global and local economic strains on the people,” Atty. Ricardo Blancaflor, Director General of the IPO said in a statement.

Deputy Director General Allan Gepty of the IPO also called on people to buy and use genuine software because it is the right thing to do. He also warned businesses using pirated software that they could lose their business if they were found to be using pirated software.

Microsoft cited one case wherein an ad agency in Cebu got more customers because they used genuine software. “They were perceived as more trustworthy,” May Rivera Moreno, Windows Business Group Lead said.

“We at Microsoft aim to educate consumers and businesses alike on the possible threats in using pirated software that can reduce and stifle innovation,” John Bessey, Managing Director of Microsoft Philippines said in a statement.

“We will continue to partner with the government and trade organizations to help curb software piracy in the Philippines,” he said.

http://bit.ly/uRN2cK 

Sorry, Steve, the stylus is back

By: Gibbs Cadiz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

1:28 am | Sunday, November 27th, 2011

“Who wants a stylus?” Steve Jobs asked an adoring throng in 2007 while unveiling the iPhone. “You have to get them and put them away and you lose them— yuck! Nobody wants a stylus.”

And with that, the accessory that had defined a generation of early smartphones from Palms to Nokias and Motorolas withered away, a sudden clunky relic in the new age of breakthrough touchscreen phones.

But if the Korean electronics giant Samsung would have its way, the stylus wouldn’t go the way of dodos and dinosaurs just yet. Its latest “game-changing product,” as it calls it, is the Galaxy Note, whose most striking feature is a stylus, the S Pen, an “advanced pen-input technology” that’s worlds away from the simplistic point-and/or-scribble technology of the styluses of old.

This one accessorizes a nifty gadget that’s a hybrid between a tablet and a smartphone—“lightweight and easy to carry, but big enough to get done what needs to be done while on the go,” said Gregory Lee, president and CEO of Samsung Asia during the phone’s recent unveiling at the Ritz Carlton Pacific Place in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Vital part

Galaxy Note remains a full-touchscreen phone, so why resurrect the stylus?

“Analog solutions like a pen still play a vital part in our lives,” said Lee. “The S Pen serves as a bridge between analog and hi-tech, with its precise, fast and rich input similar to an actual pen.”

More like a shape-shifting instrument, actually, from pen to paint brush (in a variety of styles from pointillist to wide strokes), as this enhanced stylus’ most immediate value is in the way it empowers artists and the creative-minded to transform their Galaxy Note into an instant sketch pad for highly accurate sketching and artwork.

To demonstrate this capability, Samsung brought in top Indonesian digital graphic illustrator Teddy Soegiarto to doodle and sketch on the Galaxy Note in real time during the launch. Soegiarto toggled among the phone’s pen-responsive features, from the instant capture and annotation of images to free-form scrap, which involved cutting out images in any form desired to create new visual variations. In the anteroom leading to the launch ballroom, several sketch artists and caricaturists were also around, ready to do ersatz portraits of guests on their Galaxy Note.

“The artistically inclined will just love this phone,” said Lee.

Creative options

New applications were developed to provide users greater creative options via the S Pen, among them OmniSketch and Zen Brush. The former “enables users to sketch using the S Pen as a brush, while Zen Brush provides oriental brush simulation.”

Creating digital artwork, of course, becomes hugely more appealing on the Galaxy Note’s high-definition super AMOLED screen, with its trademark stunning crispness of detail and color, and its 5.3-inch display that’s “the largest ever included in a primary mobile device” (“gigantic—not only is it big, it’s also beautiful… making the Note a true video star,” says CNet UK in its online review).

Another notable app is the S Memo, which CNet enthusiastically describes as “one of the highlights, due to the way it sells itself on the Note. Basically it allows you to create memos using text (typed or handwritten), sketches, sound recordings, maps and pictures. These can then be shared in various ways, including on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Evernote, MMS or e-mail.”

The screen’s combination of bigness and brilliance, in effect, provides a premium experience, on anything from watching videos to transcribing notes to reading an e-book to surfing the Net to jazzing up a captured image or photo (with handwritten emoticons, for instance, for e-mailing to a loved one), a map (a scrawled “Find me here!” doesn’t get more emphatic), or even a PDF file (for last-minute notes for that early-morning business presentation). That expansive display also allows for full-screen capacity (say, a newspaper’s online front page), reducing the hassle of scrolling down or zooming in.
The Galaxy Note’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system runs on a 1.4GHZ dual-core processor, promising a device that’s “incredibly fast and delivers a smooth user interface for seamless usability.”

There’s also 16GB of built-in storage, plus an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, and full HD (1080p) recording. All these in a gadget that measures just 9.6mm thick, for easier portability (though the mini-tablet size might admittedly still cramp some users’ pockets).


Thumbs-up
Samsung chose to do its Asian launch of Galaxy Note in Indonesia in recognition of that country’s burgeoning affection for the brand. Long a Blackberry nation, the RIM gadget having made an early beachhead across Indonesia’s various social classes (“even househelp are equipped with Blackberry here,” a Jakarta-based friend told us), Indonesia is of late fast embracing the Korean electronics brand, which has seen its share of the domestic smartphone market rise to 22 percent as of May this year. In the rest of Asia, “with the introduction of the Galaxy Note, we are confident that Samsung will firmly maintain its number one position in the mobile category in Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand,” said Lee in a statement.

The Galaxy Note, in white and dark blue variants, had its Philippine release two weeks ago, with a retail price of about P35,900. Pioneer tech blogger Abe Olandres of YugaTech.com has weighed in on the gadget, and it’s a thumbs-up: “The performance of the Galaxy Note trumps any other smartphone and tablet we’ve seen around… Definitely drool-worthy.”

Sorry, Steve, the stylus lives.

E-mail the author gcadiz@inquirer.com.ph, visit www.gibbscadiz.blogspot.com, follow on Twitter @gibbscadiz

http://bit.ly/tJr0TM

Hotmail co-founder launches free SMS service

Agence France-Presse

2:30 am | Wednesday, November 23rd, 201

 

FREE S.M.S. SERVICE Indian entrepreneur
and Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia speaks
during a press conference to announce the
launch of his latest venture Jaxtrsms in
Mumbai on November 22, 2011. Bhatia's
Jaxtrsms is a cross platform open texting
application, letting users send unlimited free
text messages to any other mobile phone in
the world. AFP PHOTO/INDRANIL MUKHERJEE

MUMBAI—Indian IT entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia on Tuesday launched a free text messaging service, promising that it would be as revolutionary as his previous venture, Hotmail.
Bhatia, who co-founded the free email service 15 years ago, said in a statement that his latest venture, JaxtrSMS, would do “to SMS what Hotmail did for e-mail.”

The application, formally launched at a news conference in Mumbai, is designed to allow users to send a text message from their mobile phone to any other mobile in the world, even if the recipient does not have the JaxtrSMS application.

Other free mobile messaging services on the market are restricted to users in a closed group who have the same application.

The free, downloadable application, which works on smartphones, has been developed entirely in India, which is one of the fastest-growing mobile phone markets in the world with more than 850 million subscribers.

Internet-enabled smartphones, however, are prohibitively expensive for most Indians, although they are gaining popularity among the more affluent in urban centers, where wireless connectivity is more widespread.

http://bit.ly/t64FB0