AND in the latest installment of “Gadgets that Inspire Technolust,” Smart has announced that it is launching the BlackBerry 8800 smart phone.
Here’s an excerpt from INQUIRER.net reporter Lawrence Casiraya’s story:
MANILA, Philippines –Mobile operator Smart Communications has announced plans to offer the Blackberry 8800 smart phone starting May.
BELIEVE it or not, once upon a time, we didn’t have cellphones. At lunch tomorrowyesterday with fellow journalists and PR friends while covering a gaming event, I got to talking about how back in the days before everyone had cellphones, people had to be more diligent in keeping their appointments, whether personal or official business.
Think about how we go about our appointments nowadays. Maybe you’re running late, so you text the person you’re meeting. Maybe you reset the meeting if something has come up, or you change the venue. Heck, you might not have even set a time and venue, as you and the person you’re meeting might just agree to text each other throughout the day to say when you’re free and where you’ll meet.
It’s second nature to us now, but things weren’t always like this. In the years BC (Before Cellphones), you basically had no way of knowing if a person was just running late, or wouldn’t show up at all. Sure, some people had pagers, but since it isn’t two-way, it was hard to contact people if you had to change plans, or for them to contact you back. You had to wait for people and then decide how many minutes or hours it would take before it means na-indyan ka.
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HERE’S an update on the ambitious $100 laptop project.
Excerpt:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The founder of the ambitious “$100 laptop” project, which plans to give inexpensive computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, revealed Thursday that the machine for now costs $175, and it will be able to run Windows in addition to its homegrown, open-source interface.
Nicholas Negroponte, the former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab who now heads the non-profit One Laptop Per Child project, updated analysts and journalists on where the effort stands, saying “we are perhaps at the most critical stage of OLPC’s life.”
That’s partly because at least seven nations have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white “XO” computers - Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya - but it remains unclear which ones will be first to pony up the cash. The project needs orders for 3 million machines so its manufacturing and distribution effort can get rolling.
The ever-optimistic Negroponte didn’t sound worried, however: He expects mass production to begin by October, and he said many other countries, including Peru and Russia, have been inquiring about taking part.
INQUIRER.net won first prize in the newspaper category of the DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards, which was held this morning at the Board of Investments building. Sorry, Janette, wasn’t able to drop by anymore.
Here’s the full list of winners:
1. Apparel / Fashion Category - Kamiseta
2. Art Category - Canvas
3. Association / Organization Category - Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiative
THINK they’ve done every kind of reality TV show people can possibly come up with? Think again. What happens when MySpace meets “Survivor”?
Read this Computerworld article to find out how MySpace and reality TV guru Mark Burnett are teaming up to create an interactive political reality TV show.
Independent, an interactive TV series created by MySpace and Mark Burnett Productions, will run a reality-based competition where Americans can vote online and offline for the candidates they feel best reflect their values, according to a statement from the two companies.
