Forbidden Tweet

"The wine sucks"

With those words, a member of the President's official family has catapulted herself to online infamy.  The words she posted on her Twitter account (which was deleted since) were for her boss, the Presidential Spokesperson, to tell him  what she thinks of the liquor being served during the state dinner hosted by their host, the President of Vietnam.

She also have other comments about the country which hosted her for two days. The same government official also posted for her Twitter  friends that the country has a severe lack of good looking men and that one can easily die there by just crossing the street.

I am not sure whether the official even knew that her posts can be read by not only by her boss but by other Twitter members.  Haven't she heard of the "direct message" feature of the site so her tweet would remain between her and her superior or her friends.

For many of us, the anonymity that sites like Twitter and Plurk bring is heaven sent.  Now we have a venue to express our thoughts and feelings that were not available before.  We couldn't care less whether we have an audience or not.

But with such freedom comes some form of responsibility.  So some people came up with a form of netiqutte.    One cannot post just about anything anymore.  For most people, work related and office affairs are off limit topics.

My friends say that what the official posted was her personal opinion and in the age of Internet and Twitter, it's her right to say what she thought of wine, men and death.  I would not mind if she was a tourist on vacation but she went there as part of our government's delegation.  I also assume that she used a diplomatic passport to enter the country and therefore accorded the courtesy reserved for state guests.

Her superior apologized for what Ms. Presidential Staff did and told the media that  the official must have been excited because this is her first time to join a state visit.  Maybe it would be better for every one to leave her behind in the coming trips of the President.

No Need to Take Out 11-inch MacBook Air at Security Check in US Airports

from apple.com

Here's another reason to get a Macbook Air: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the US said that the 11-inch MacBook Air need not be removed from bags at airport security checkpoints.

The TSA told CNN that the device got the special exemption because it is "smaller than the average-sized laptop" just like a netbook.  OK, do I hear Steve Jobs screaming "The MacBook Air is NOT a netbook!".  Of course it isn't.  We all know that internally, I mean, the technical specifications of the MBA are far superior than any netbook out there.  However, the security people in the US are more concerned of the size of the gizmo than its power.  Anyway, the iPad gets similar privilege from the TSA so let's just say that the 11-inch MBA belongs to the same category as the iPad per TSA standards.

There's no word though whether the 13-inch model gets the same exemption.    TSA requires that bigger portables be screened separately because they are harder to see in a bag with other contents. Although it has the same internal components as its smaller sibling, it is about the same size as most notebooks computers. This could result to the 13-inch MBA not getting the same special entitlement.

Barnes & Noble introduces the NookColor

from barnesandnoble.com

Barnes and Noble has just introduced the second generation of Nook, its e-reader.  Now named NookColor, it is as you might have guessed a colored e-reader plus more!

According to a statement of Barnes & Noble chief executive William Lynch, the NookColor combines "the functionality and convenience of a seven-inch portable wireless tablet with the reader centricity of a dedicated e-reader."

The Nookcolor runs on Android OS and has built in support for social networking applications such as Facebook and Twitter.  It has a 7-inch colored LCD capacitive touch screen that can display video.  The tablet/e-reader also has 8GB of internal memory that can be expanded up to 32GB with a microSD card.  It can also connect through wifi.  

The device will be available on November 19 with a tag price of US$249.  That makes it cheaper than the low-end iPad by more than US$100 but almost twice as expensive than the Kindle.  

This led us to conclude that the NookColor will not go after the Amazon Kindle or even the Sony Reader.  Instead, it has trained its sight on the leader of the pack, iPad.

iPad Orientation Lock Switch to become Mute Switch with iOS 4.2

I just finished reading an article on 9to5Mac that says that when the iPad is upgraded to iOS 4.2, the orientation lock will become a mute switch.  As the article pointed out that since the change will be done through software, there will be a way to choose one or the other, or even both.

Well, think again.

The same article carried an email exchange between a 9to5Mac reader  and Steve Jobs where the latter confirmed the reconfiguration and that the switch will not do both functions; nor there is a way to choose which function to assign to the switch.  It will just be a mute switch. Period.

If you ask me, I would rather have the orientation lock function because I use my iPad a lot for reading books with iBooks or my PDF files with GoodReader.  I like reading on the bed and it would really be a challenge to do that when the screen would keep rotating.  Perhaps it's Jobs' way of telling me not to read on bed.

Why make it a mute switch when we could just adjust the volume to zero?

Smart Communications is official carrier of Windows Phone 7 in RP

Smart Communications is the official partner of Microsoft to bring the Windows Phone 7 to the Philippines in the last quarter of this year. 

The two companies have been working closely together since last year to provide a special combination of service platforms and bring the service locally.

"In the past year, we have seen a rise in the use of data—something that we have eagerly anticipated for quite some time now. We saw the surge in the use of mobile Internet—for e-mail, browsing and social networking—plus a host of other data-related transactions using Smart mobile phones. These developments are clear opportunities for Smart services to grow and move forward, to help us succeed in bringing our customers closer to the future of telecommunications."

Microsoft promises that Windows Phone 7 will bring a new experience to people and help them quickly fine and use data, information and services from the Internet and its applications.  The news phones are distinguished by unique design and integrated experience built from Microsoft's innovation such as, Microsoft Office Mobile, Windows Live, Bing and more.

By the way, unlike Apple which manufactured both hardware and software for its iPhone, Microsoft will not be making the devices for their platform. Instead it has partnered with handset makers Samsung, HTC, LG, among others, to produce the phones that will carry the new OS.  

Coming in Summer 2011: Mac OS X Lion

It wasn't only the MacBook Air that Steve Jobs announced in yesterday's Back to the Mac event.  The main subject, in fact, was the next iteration of the Mac OS X operating system, Lion.  If the pundits are to be believed, this will be the last of the big cats and they saved the last for the king of the jungle.

Steve Jobs said in his keynote address that "Lion brings many of the best ideas from iPad back to the Mac, plus some fresh new ones like Mission Control that Mac users will really like."

Some of the features of the upcoming operating system include:

• The Mac App Store works the same way as the App Store and you may purchase applications using your iTunes Account.  It promises to revolutionize the way we Mac users install our software and more.  Applications may be installed in every Mac a user owns and then updated regularly.  Jobs announced that the Mac App Store will be available within 90 days.

• The Launchpad gives instant access to all your apps with just a click on its icon on the dock.  Open windows fade away and apps are displayed in full screen just like in the iPad.  A swipe will show multiple pages of apps and these may be arranged according to the user's preference.

• The Mission Control gives us a bird's eye view of what is happening in our Mac.  It works almost like the Expose and Dashboard combined with Spaces thrown in.  With a swipe gesture, the user will see all open windows grouped by apps, other full screen apps as well as other Spaces.

Lion will also employ the multi-touch experience of the iPad.  Instead of the screen, however, we will be using the trackpad to pinch and swipe.  The applications will also open in full screen, just like in the iPad.  User could pinch to adjust the size of the display.

Indeed, Apple brings back to the Mac the technology it has developed for its iPod, iPhone and iPad through the Mac OS X Lion.  I'll surely upgrade once it is available.

The New Mac Book Air

photo from apple.com

 Steve Jobs revealed the much anticipated MacBook Air refresh at the Apple's Back to the Mac event this morning. The thinnest Mac ever now comes in two variants, 11-inch and 13-inch.

The new MacBook Air models come with flash storage so anyone who uses iPhone or iPad already should be familiar with this type of storage. Both models have Core 2 Duo processors, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics cards, and 2GB RAM that can be upgraded to 4GB from Apple's online store.

Apple claims that battery life is up to 7 hours for wireless web browsing on the 13.3-inch model while 5 hours on the 11.6-inch model, and up to 30 days for both sizes when in sleep mode.

The new MacBook Air also comes with Multi-Touch trackpad that lets the user pinch, swipe, or rotate to adjust an image, zoom in on text, or advance through a photo album. There is also a FaceTime camera that will allow the user to make video calls through the Internet. FaceTime for Mac is still in Beta though.

Since the new MacBook Air has no internal optical drive, it comes with a "Software Reinstall Drive" that will be used to restore Mac OS X and iLife.

We checked the Apple Store Philippines and found out that the new models are now available and ship within 2 business days. Prices are as follows: For the 11-inch models, PhP51,990 with 64GB storage and PhP61,9990 with 128GB storage; For 13-inch models, PhP67,9990 with 128GB storage and PhP83,990 with 256GB storage.

A Brief Introduction

This blog will be about technology in the Philippines. We're still putting our acts together and will soon start posting here. Please be patient. Thanks for taking a peep.