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Charge your smartphone wirelessly with the Powermat Wireless Charging Platform

One commentary I always make about the smartphone industry is that there’s always a huge focus on making devices more and more responsive as time goes by. Every year, every smartphone is always “faster” or “lighter” or “thinner.” Screen technology is improving very fast from LCD to LED to AMOLED to Super AMOLED to Super AMOLED Plus. BUT — and that’s a big but: what about battery technology? Lithium ion and lithium polymer have been around since the 80’s and although there are improvements to how devices save battery life, there isn’t much on the forefront of next-generation battery technology. The near future is bright however, with graphene (wrote about that here as a thought piece on the iPad rumor) being looked at as the new wonder-element for semiconductors and battery technology.

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Stay a while and listen: The Diablo III Launch

EDIT: In the finishing stretch of the installer, the devs change the color of the progress bar and go into minute details of how much longer it’s going to take. Brilliant. The anticipation!!!

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At 8:01AM PDT servers around the world opened for the launch of Diablo III. But Blizzard really knows how to tease and the servers only unlock the installer, in time for the actual launch of the game which is sometime on the 15th of May PDT.

You know what’s better than trending on Twitter? Crashing a server. After the game unlocked, everyone got this error:

“ERROR: Unable to initialize streaming. Please check
your Internet connection. If this problem persists,
please contact Blizzard Techinical Support.
(CreateStreamingManifest::GetStreamingManifestContents)”

Looks like the seed hasn’t been uploaded yet. Or something. Or really there are just too many people.

This is the most in(tense) product launch ever. A launch I’ve been waiting for over a decade. Exciting!

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So Kris Aquino endorses Nokia Lumia

When smartphones were not yet that “smart” Kris Aquino had already been using a Nokia (circa N95 days), which she would place on the coffee table during her talk shows. Back then, she wasn’t a real endorser but Nokia did take notice of this and voila, she’s now the new Nokia Lumia endorser!

The story above comes from Nikka Abes of Nokia Philippines.

Although the ad only shows the Lumia 610, 710 and 800, she is also the endorser of the flagship Lumia 900 which will be officially launched next week.

So my question to you is .. how do you feel about Kris Aquino being their new endorser?

To a number of IT folks, the idea may be unsettling as she’s obviously not tech-oriented but given Nokia and Microsoft’s strategy to push Windows Phone and the Lumia as devices for the highly untapped feature-phone oriented consumers, then the endorsement is spot on. If you’re already a heavy iOS user, you definitely won’t make the switch. Windows Phone is aimed towards non-smartphone users, so the advertorial is apt.

The Nokia Lumia 900 in Blue

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One day till Diablo III. Retail Version vs Digital Download

Don’t be surprised if a lot of people call in sick tomorrow. Starting 3AM, Tuesday, May 15 the servers for Diablo III are going live. Fans have been waiting a decade for the triumvirate to be completed. I still remember my days in college, cutting a few classes just to join in on the LAN sessions at the gaming cafe beside school.

For the record I didn’t buy the collector’s edition as I’ve learned the hard way that these things take up a lot of space (case in point: Warhammer Online Collector’s Ed) and despite the fact that the box comes with cool add ons to your character, the real-money auction house system will definitely spark a number of doodads that will make the Collector’s Ed exclusives cry manly tears.

On the D3 Facebook group, Joseph Datu has unboxed his PHP 11,000 Collectors Edition with the Diablo Skull + 4GB USB Soulstone. It’s huge!

D3 Collector’s Ed photo by Joseph Datu. Congratulations! If I had more space in my place, I’d definitely get this.

Instead of the retail box — Collector’s Edition counted, I really just wanted to download the game way ahead of time so it would be a breeze installing. No box. No lines. I still own the game. Not sure if this is symptoms of getting old, but at this point in my life, 10 years after Diablo II, I prefer foregoing the formalities and getting it on. Save paper.

So that’s it. Looks like a long evening. 3AM guys. See ya in New Tristam.

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Man screws magnets on arms to mount iPod

How far would you go to integrate your gear with your daily life? This man bolted four tiny magnets into his arm so that he could use it to mount his iPod (or any gadget with opposing poles). Crazy. But crazy awesome.