WELL, looks like Toshiba is finally crying uncle.
Check out this Reuters video report.
Alas, HD DVD, seems like Blu-ray has kicked your butt. Guess Sony finally gets to erase the Betamax stigma.
I still expect DVD to rule for a few more years, but now that the industry can unite over Blu-ray, let’s hope the prices of players and movies will quickly go down to spur mainstream adoption.
THE CONTINUING saga of the national broadband network/ZTE scandal is another grim reminder of one of the biggest reasons information and communications technology still hasn’t really benefited many Filipinos: good ideas (maybe even good intentions) easily give way to greed in this country.
Of course, many government projects become mired in scandal and corruption, but somehow government IT projects seem even more susceptible. Probably because, on the one hand, everyone knows how important it is for our country to fully embrace ICT in order to remain globally competitive, but, on the other hand, much of the stuff is pretty technical that it might be easier to pull off a fast one. Then again, if one cynically assumes that the people who broker such deals are just after kickbacks, then they don’t really have to understand or care about the technical issues; it just so happens that ICT projects are “sexy” enough to be considered national priorities.
Frankly, I’m not really sure what to believe anymore. I’ve always maintained that ICT can be used to improve the lot of Filipinos, and I’ve always been optimistic about our capacity for self-improvement. Yet over the years, we’ve seen so many ICT initiatives fall by the wayside, heard so many promises about making the Philippines an ICT hub, seen so many ICT champions come and go. I still believe those of us who have been fortunate to become one of the digital haves should do our share in helping the digital have-nots. But how do we achieve these lofty goals in the face of unrelenting greed?
HERE’S an interesting video interview conducted by INQUIRER.net executive editor Leo Magno while he was at the Cisco regional headquarters in Singapore.
Rajiv Ramaswami, Cisco vice president and general manager for the data center business unit, talks about the company’s Data Center 3.0 vision and its unified fabric architecture.
Video taken by Joel Pinaroc.
For more videos, visit INQUIRER.net VDO.
MICROSOFT and Yahoo! have discussed a possible partnership before, but now Yahoo!’s woes and Microsoft’s unsolicited $44.6-billion bid to buy the Internet portal might mean this scenario is just that much closer to becoming a reality.
How do you feel about a Microsoft-Yahoo! (Microhoo?) merger? Do you think that would make Yahoo! cool again, and that it would finally make Microsoft cool? 
Anyway, you can also check out INQUIRER.net reporter Erwin Oliva’s story, “Yahoo! board responds to Microsoft bid.”
