Funny and true: Ten levels of intimacy in today's communication

via reflectionof.me

I have to agree with everything on this list except for #7. That is one form of communication I have never seen in years. I definitely wouldn't call it a part of "today's communication."

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Another thing I want: the Nook

via engadget.com

I used to be a total bookworm when I was in grade school, reading books not many kids of my age would even touch. Yeah, a far cry from what I am now. If I had one of these, maybe I would pick up reading again.

Reviews of the purported Kindle slayer, the Nook by Barnes and Noble, are now live on Engadget and Gizmodo. Looks yummy. Sucks to be in the Philippines when you know what's going on out there, halfway around the world.

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Filed under  //   amazon   barnes and noble   ereader   kindle   nook  

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The Swype keyboard: So amazing it's creepy!

Shown in above video is Swype, a new way to type on touchscreen keyboards. It's another invention from the makers of T9 (yeah, as in the T9 dictionary on billions of phones around the world, probably including yours) and it's amazing, almost creepily so. It's like witchcraft, but in a good way.

The idea is this: instead of having to individually tap on the letters as one would do on a normal touchscreen keyboard (like the iPhone's), one would only need to "swype," which means to trace an unbroken path from each letter to the next.  Simply put, to swype means to connect the letters in one swipe/motion (one swype = one word). Connect the dots, where the dots are the letters. That simple.

Watch the demos on YouTube, Swype is really amazing. It's very well thought-out: they have great solutions for the obvious roadblocks, including punctuation, double-letters, capitalization, and spelling correction. And the inventor claims to have reached speeds of 50 wpm on Swype. Incredible.

So far, Swype has gone live in the newly-released Samsung Omnia II, which is a Windows Mobile device. And Swype will probably go to the Android and the iPhone platforms next.
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Filed under  //   android   iphone   keyboard   omnia II   samsung   swype   t9   tech   windows mobile  

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Friendster gets relaunched later today

via imageshack

Yup. And the new Friendster will be sporting a new layout, a new logo, a new color pallete (greens) and a new tagline ("Connecting smiles").

I am curious actually - to see how a social networking site left behind by its only remaining audience (in this case, the Filipino people) will try to reinvent itself to win that audience back. Facebook, that big monster of 350 million people, has long since bullied Friendster away from Philippine dominion: Facebook is now the most visited site in the Philippines, while Friendster has been relegated to the fifth spot (check Alexa out, it's really interesting).  

One thing though: I am not digging the new Friendster logo. It reminds me of how I, as a kid, used to try to write words using a single, unbroken line. And looking at the new logo makes me wonder if I can write "Friendster" better than whoever did the logo. Also interesting is the promo video for the relaunch, shown below:

What I find interesting is how the new Friendster is specifically targeted at Asian teens. I mean, look at the video. All the people in it are Asians (I actually think they're all Filipinos). I don't get it - if Friendster still had a chance of turning its fate around, this is it - this is their last bullet. Yet it chooses to target just one demographic.

I don't see how a multi-racial campaign could hurt their chances in winning back the Asian audience. One last thing - Friendster sure is cocky to call out Facebook for being plain and boring, especially when the new layout (shown briefly in the video) sort of reminds me of Facebook's layout.

Well, better live up to the hype, Friendster, especially since all of it is coming from you. I really think that this is your last chance. As it is, I don't think there's any chance of winning me back, but you can certainly try other people.

And yeah, I will continue watching all this, I promise. Best of luck, old buddy.
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Filed under  //   connecting smiles   facebook   friendster   launch   new   philippines   relaunch  

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Chowking has winners in these
via incuguy23.deviantart.com

Save for the trademark crappy service (it usually takes them twenty minutes to get my order on the table), Chowking's Duets are winners. I haven't tried the lumpiang shanghai variant (and I probably never will) but the other two are great.

The fish fillet and the breaded pork are perfect as always, and the chopsuey is awesome. The mandarin chicken, which I had for dinner today, is just okay - I'm not too crazy about it. I guess I just have a bias against chicken in sweet sauce. But it's passable, might even be great for some people. And the addition of real oranges does not hurt.

I wish there was an option to switch everything around - the perfect combination for me is fish fillet + chopsuey. Anyway, these are highly recommended - cheap, healthier alternatives to McDonald's, all for less than a hundred bucks. Get yourself a tall bottle of One's peach-flavored white tea with the twenty-peso change you have and you have got yourself a decent meal.

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Filed under  //   chowking   duets   food  

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The Twitter guys may have forgotten the new 'retweet' command

Funny how they did not just use the retweet command (a new feature which they have been promoting recently) and manually RT'd @mashable. Anyway, congratulations to them - they beat out words like 'H1N1,' 'Obama,' and 'vampire' for the award.

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Filed under  //   retweet   twitter   word of the year  

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I want a Sansa Clip+

I have never been a huge fan of music players, honestly. For me, smartphones (or even just feature phones) handily replace dedicated music players, especially if they have standard 3.5mm jacks. That said, there are still two music players that remain lust-worthy, even for me. 

One is the iPod touch, and I guess it is obvious why. This thing is not really just a music player, it is an iPhone minus the phone and the camera. I really would have gotten one this year but Apple failed to deliver the camera on this year's touch (I ranted about that 090909 event here). Until Apple releases a camera-equipped iPod touch, I will be fine without one, thank you.

The other music player that I get drawn to is not really a specific player, but more of a category: the super cheap, super tiny player. Things like the Creative Zen Stones, the Sansa Clips, the Creative MuVos, the cheap GoGears from Philips, you get the idea. I actually owned a Zen Stone once upon a time, but that has been passed on to my sister because my phone became my primary music player. And so far, I have been perfectly fine with using my phone to play the occasional music.

 

However, Sandisk's latest Clip, dubbed the Clip+, has been nagging at the back of my mind for months now. It's so cheap, and it has tons of features for the cheap, cheap price. Amazing sound quality (granted, I don't really know much about that, but that's what all reviews say), an FM radio tuner, a voice recorder, a standard micro-USB slot, and a microSD card slot. Not to mention that it has a screen (small, but better than no screen at all) and real buttons (I am looking at you, button-free iPod shuffle). All for that amazing price: $40 for 2Gb, $50 for 4Gb, and $70 for 8Gb. 

All reviewers agree that this purchase is a no-brainer. The thing is an Editors' Choice gadget on CNET, and is included in Gizmodo's #bestmodo list (that is their list of best..uh, modos.). It also helps that the original clip was named Music Player of 2008 by anythingbutipod.com. 

Why the hell not? It looks perfect for jogging (my phone is nowhere near perfect for jogging). I might even go jogging more if I had this for a companion. This is one of those purchases that I will never regret. I'll get one as soon as I can.

(Images from Gizmodo) 
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Filed under  //   clip+   sansa   tech  

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Some of my favorite phone designs - five of them, actually

I was watching old phone reviews on CNET last night, and upon waking up today I suddenly just thought of listing some of my favorite phones, based on hardware design. Here are five of them, in no particular order.

1. The HTC HD2: This phone could very well be the most beautiful piece of hardware I have ever laid eyes on. There's something about its simplicity, the clean lines, the brushed aluminum buttons, that whole hugeness-wideness-thinness thing - it's just so beautiful it has got to be the ultimate and purest expression of something, some sort of ideal. Too bad it's running Windows Mobile.

2. The Motorola DROID: This is one the most daring phone designs I have ever seen. The angles are sharp, the lines are cruel, the design is very unapologetic. It's definitely a statement, and a very powerful one at that.

3. The Palm Pixi: The Palm Pixi may be doomed to failure (Gizmodo calls its existence a cruel joke) but it will never die unappreciated. The design is so simple, it's almost a no-brainer - and yet no one has done it like this before. It just looks clean and fun to use. I love the soft-touch back, the front...hey, I love all angles of this phone. Easily bests out the Pre, and the best-looking phone from Palm.

4. The Motorola CLIQ: It may have been permanently eclipsed by its bigger DROID brother, but the CLIQ is still one of my favorite phones in terms of hardware design. It was the first real lust-worthy Android phone (after the European HTC Hero, that is). The keyboard looks fun to use, the glowing Motorola logo on its back is nice. The phone may not stand out too much from the curent crowd of phones, but it is definitely well-designed.

5. The HTC Hero: And I mean the European version, not the uglified Sprint version. Who can forget this phone? This is probably the best implementation of HTC's trademark chin. At the time of launch (pre-DROID era), it was super-fresh and super-daring, not something that the world had seen before. Its vicious, sharp chin was really something to look at. Definitely a classic.

That's it for some of my favorite phone designs. There are a lot more, but these are the ones that immediately came to my mind. All images, by the way, are from Engadget.
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Filed under  //   cliq   droid   hd2   hero   htc   motorola   palm   phones   pixi   tech  

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The difference between J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, according to Stephen King

via survivingtheworld.net

"The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good." That's what Stephen King told a reporter in February 2009. Funny that I never heard of this before. It's hilarious because it's so honest.

Now, I am not a huge Harry Potter fan. I sort of just go with the flow: I read the books when they came out, I watched the films when they got shown. I did like them a lot, the books were a lot of fun. But as for being a passionate Rowling/Potter fan, I really am not.

Stephenie Meyer's books evoke more passion in me: I am a huge un-fan of the Twilight books. I read the first book and the second book (I wanted to see what the overhype was about). Midway through the third book, I just had to stop. It was just bad...stuff so badly written, story so lame, I could not make myself continue. It was an utter, repetitive bore.

And it turns out that Stephen King shares the same sentiments as mine.The books are probably the most overrated things in man's history. Wake up, fanboys and fangirls - your emperor is not wearing any clothes.

Twilight sucks. (I had to spell it out, in case some fans don't get the 'emperor' reference because of excessive exposure to Stephenie Meyer's writing.)

To other un-fans: if you enjoy nodding in agreement or laughing at or making fun of or simply hating Twilight, check this article out.

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Filed under  //   stephen king   stephenie meyer   twilight  

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One of the good things in life: this mouse from A4Tech


I now have two of them. Well, not really, since I am going to sell the other one to a friend. But I love this mouse.


I love the ergonomics. Some of my friends disagree with me, but their opinion does not really matter. This mouse feels great to hold, the grip is amazing (the thing has rubber dots on the sides), and the shape simply fits my hands perfectly. I have not handled a better mouse in recent memory. 

The double-click button, that little orange thing, proved to be very useful - I use it all the time, and it's a really handy tool. The mouse wheel, one of the main reasons why I bought the mouse in the first place, feels as great as it looks. It is wide and roomy and feels awesome to roll. And A4Tech's "Run on shine" technology is real. I can use the mouse on shiny surfaces where other mice fail miserably - even on transparent glass. Yep, transparent glass. And this is not even a laser mouse (although I think they make laser variants of this mouse).


Anyway I just wanted to say it. This is a killer mouse, and a durable one at that. Highly recommended.
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Filed under  //   A4Tech   mouse  

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About

An undergraduate student at the University of the Philippines. A fan of cellphones and most consumer electronics. Noob blogger, loves everything smart and easy.