This is the work of a Chinese animation company called Wolfsmoke Animation. It is a heavily stylized look that explores the Batman universe set in China in the 1930’s. Catwoman, Bane and Batman make an appearance here.
OK so this is funny. I heard a rumor that the LTE SIM cards were reactivated in time for SMART’s launch tomorrow. It so happened that I *forgot* (I really did!) to return my LTE SIM + USB dongle to Abbie Real and Meg Ruiz.
While waiting for a meeting I decided to unearth the USB device and plug it into my MacBook (running Windows 7). Turns out, the rumor mill was true — the telco had re-activated the SIM cards! Usually, you’d get a registration error when connecting to the mobile helper. I guess there are indeed rewards to those who … don’t forget to return their beta devices. Ahihihi.
As I write this post I’m downloading (a legitimate copy of) the newly released Counterstrike: Global Offensive via Steam. For the past 2 days I’ve been trying to download the 4.x GB file only to encounter suspended downloads and restart errors which is typical for new games being released via the Steam store. Well guess what? LTE works!
So here are the stats:
The Bonifacio Global City area is covered by LTE signal. Indoors I am not experiencing full bars — but 2 bars of signal gives me about 10-15mbps download speeds which translates to roughly 1MB/second. See the photo above. Before hitting publish on the blog post, I went in to check the download and I’m now at 49% completion which is basically 2.0GB of the total 4.x GB in less than 10 minutes. I’m streaming one HD films on Vimeo in the background.
After about 7 minutes:
PLEASE NOTE: Though I was a SMART beta tester and have SMART as an advertiser on my blog, this speed test isn’t endorsed by SMART at all. In fact, I’m not even supposed to have this USB device. Oops. To Meg and Abbie, sorry for forgetting to return! I’ll buy you J.Co. Anyway, it’s fast naman eh! =)
Disclaimer #2: I’m currently using the beta USB dongle from HUAWEI. I’m not sure if this is the same one they are launching LTE with. This is the LTE test a day before the official launch.
Due to popular demand from friends, we decided to pursue a second episode for the CD-R King review series. Again, we’re not sure where to go from here but it seems like this is really going somewhere. Anyway, in this episode, Rico and I respond to a question most of you have been dying to ask: is the CD-R King rice cooker for real?
This episode actually turned out better than expected because Rico and I don’t know how to cook rice.
Also, we decided to put our videos up on its own domain.
When: August 16th – 25th, 2012
Where: Under St. Marks, New York, NY
Buy TIckets Now
Well, who would have thought, right? Got an email several days ago from Lively Productions, an amazing theater outfit (by amazing I mean really talented and funny) from New York. They asked me if I was willing to “lend” a familiar blog post I did last year — the one that shockingly got a lot of views here as well as re-blogs on Tumblr. ‘Date a girl who blogs‘ was making it into NY theater:
Blogologues: The Internet Performed, a delightful, tightly-choreographed revue of performed interpretations of blogs, tweets and other online novelties
– Huffington Post
That’s halfway around the globe on the other side of the pond. I would have seriously loved to see them render it. If by chance you’re from there, do see them. Tickets! The videos they put online are hilarious, like this speed dating + creepy craigslist job offers mash up.
Here are some of the details:
The next Blogologuin’ installment continues its assault and exalt of all things webby. This time, we’re setting our sites (get it?) on the internet itself and all of those technowhatzits that connect us to the world. Wait. A show about blogs about blogs? Yeah, it’s just like a cute cat watching a video of himself on Youtube. It’s a beta-ful thing. So have words with friends, add it to your timeline, and join us at Blogologues!
Cast: Dave Thomas Brown, Matthew Cox, Allison Goldberg*, Jen Jamula* & Wendy Joy
Stage Manager: Becca Pickett*
Assistant Stage Manager: Casey Malone
Lighting Designer: Nick Solyom
Projection Designer: Dave Thomas Brown
Sound Designer: Matthew Cox
Board Op: Jim ArmstrongBLOGGERS: Alex Balk (The Awl), Amanda Miller (Brilliant Sulk), Donald Mills (Crabby Old Fart), Girl On The Contrary, Heather Monley (McSweeney’s), Japecake, Helen Killer (Regretsy), Jayvee Fernandez (A Bugged Life), Joe Marczynski (Sick Chirpse), Lucy Horton (A Little Lucidity), Sean Adams (McSweeney’s)…
Posts from Storify, Craigslist, DamnYouAutoCorrect, Facebook, Texts From Last Night, Twitter, When Parents Text, and more…
The cat is out of the bag (also, I apologize for the many updates with SMART). Though not officially announced by SMART Communications, the pricing for the highly anticipated LTE was leaked yesterday in some blogs. I was able to confirm the pricing scheme as well with people from SMART and it seems that the strategic leak worked quite well to their advantage — SMART was on Engadget earlier today.
Again, LTE stands for Long Term Evolution which marks the true beginning of the next generation of mobile Internet for everyone. If 3G brought about mobile apps usage like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, it is exciting to see what LTE can bring about.
The August 25 launch (everyone is invited!) will announce the current pricing scheme:
– LTE will debut in the Philippines at PHP 3,500.00 per month
– it will already come with a LTE USB dongle for free; early last year we confirmed the price of the USB dongle was somewhere in the PHP 10,000 range so yeah, you’re saving ten grand by subscribing
– the USB dongle will be capable of speeds up to 42mbps; this is the same (if not similar) dongle I used during the beta test period. Note that 42mbps is the maximum capability of the dongle but the network can handle, technically up to 100mbps. That’s 100 megabits per second. To know the difference between megabits and megabytes, read my primer.
– the initial offering caps data at 10GB per month.
To be honest I was actually surprised with the sub 4k price point of LTE. Pundits were expecting SMART to launch the service in the PHP 5,000.00 area or thereabouts and this can only mean that with a relatively low price point for LTE, it can only get more affordable from here (either by increasing bandwidth or by making it even cheaper or by offering new handsets once they arrive). The Philippines is one of the first countries in Asia to have this sort of Internet and it’s exciting to see what the next 6 months will be like.