The World is Just Awesome (Boom De Yada) done WWF Philippines style
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 23rd, 2011Thanks to Joanne Ignacio of WWF Philippines for sending me the raw file on Facebook. Hamilo Coast in Nasugbu, Batangas is one of the areas heavily tended by WWF Philippines for conservation projects. I had joined the WWF team before for a giant clam seeding SCUBA run in December 2009 and a crown of thorns extraction / cleanup in Hamilo in May of last year. WWF Philippines is composed of a brilliant team of visionaries. . 
Add WWF Philippines on Facebook for several projects you may want to be involved in.
Original text from Facebook:
Chances are, you’ve already seen Discovery Channel’s “The World is Just Awesome” station ID – the one with the catchy “boom de yada” lyrics. Yes, this is the one where their hosts as well as people from different walks of life proclaim why they love the world. And, chances are, the song probably stuck around as your “Last Song Syndrome” for a couple of days.
This year, Discovery Channel is airing a different version of their popular “The World Is Just Awesome” station ID – WWF-Philippines style! Of course, our National Ambassadors Marc Nelson and Rovilson Fernandez and even staff from WWF and Hamilo got in on the action!
Thank you Discovery Channel Philippines and Hamilo Coast for helping us make this happen!
NUDI Night: Even for non-divers!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 21st, 2011
Even for non-divers!
If you’re interested in diving and photography, NUDI Night is probably something you can add to your list of to do’s. Although we’re mostly divers, we also have non-diver friends join us for our monthly meetup. If you’ve always been curious about SCUBA and have been wanting to try it out, this is a good venue to get together and meet the community of divers, instructors, dive masters and their non-diver friends.
So, if your Tuesday evening is still free, do drop by! There’s a small charge of PHP 500.00 to cover for food, beer and the venue.
When: Tuesday, February 22 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Where: Unit 217 (Closed Pavilion) 2nd Flr. LRI Design Plaza 210 N. Garcia St. (formerly Reposo St.), Bel-Air II Makati, Philippines
4 areas that will determine Netphone’s success in the Philippines
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 20th, 2011
After drinking the Kool Aid and taking a step back to absorb my Barcelona trip (I’m at the Cathay Pacific Business Class Lounge!), here are some things that SMART should consider to make the Netphone a success in the Philippines:
Affordability to Mass Market. We’ve seen the first Netphone — a touch screen Android 2.2 device. How much do you think this costs? Affordable for everyone reading this blog, but to the mass market who earns an equivalent of one Wendy’s Baconator a day, would they even consider using this device? Before we even talk about features, can the masses even afford it? How much should the entry level 3G-enabled phones cost? PHP 3k? PHP 2k? PHP 1k? Remember, the Netphone is SMART’s solution to the adoption of 3G for the mass market so before we start looking at our BlackBerries and HTC’s being Netphone enabled, let’s take a step back and see how SMART will push these to the tingi market.
Utility. I was having lunch with Mantosh Malhotra of Qualcomm a week before MWC and he told me that the adoption of 3G for the mass market will only succeed if they can find a real benefit for it. This isn’t about Facebook or Foursquare or Twitter “conversations”, but having applications that give the daily market price of fish to fishermen so they don’t need to go through a middle man. It’s apps that have a direct impact to their livelihood. 3G isn’t an end in itself. 3G is a mere headfake when you bring real benefits to people who don’t see the value of using Facebook.
Strong Developer Relationships At the end of the day, a platform is only as good as the apps made available in the ecosystem. During the MWC panel on the growth of Apps, Bong Mojica of SMART mentioned that telcos in general have been very unfriendly with developers in the past and in the new web, this has to change. The “telco 2.0″ is a web company, focusing on developing relevant applications using its handsets (not individual operating systems) as a unifying platform. It’s about having independent developers see the telco ecosystem as a viable source of income (so they can quit their day jobs and focus on being creative), rolling out apps for entry level, mid-range and high end phones within the telco’s stable of devices.
Strong Community Relationships If you read through the Netphone’s features you will be blown away with opportunities for community building. The Global Address Book, Chat and eCommerce facilities have huge potential. But beyond all these services are the people, divided into the many organizations and clubs they are a part of. If SMART will be investing a lot of money into the marketing, it should target communities that are able to adopt the Netphone as a platform in the same way most communities and businesses make use of Twitter and Facebook as their home on the Internet.
OK, BlackBerry PlayBook time. Please read.
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 18th, 2011
The BlackBerry booth was one of the last booths we visited simply because everyone wanted to play with the ‘Book. In that hall, the only other show stopper was the HP webOS demo but nobody could touch anything. On the other hand, RIM had so many PlayBook units available for demo but because of the overflow of geeks, we only got our hands on the units after a bit of waiting.
So is it good? Well OK, the multi-tasking features is spot on. You move your finger down the center of the device to enlarge the current window, slide it up to unveil Window mode with all the other apps. It pretty much does what it is supposed to do. Does it stand up against the competition we saw here? Well, if BlackBerry can find a way to leverage what they have with their smartphones (i.e. share the ecosystem with their line of phones) then they may have something going. There’s an article about how BlackBerry may be able to run Android apps in the future. Well guess what, remember the WAC initiative we talked about? That could be it.
P.S. Check this out dude. Research in Motion is part of the WAC initiative. That means we might be seeing a PlayBook Netphone. Wow. (HAHA, psyched na ba??)
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Booth
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 17th, 2011
It could purely be coincidence that the Microsoft Booth is located adjacent to the Nokia booth (which was promoting MeeGo by the way). On display were several HTC devices (the HTC Trophy feels just like the Mozart) and the new Sasung OMNIA with a big ass screen.
The Nokia booth focused more on developers and had nothing about the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia to produce smartphones running Windows Phone 7. Quite understandable as this announcement was made a day before MWC 2011. What is interesting to note is Nokia’s push for MeeGo as a platform being ‘currently developed’ as a long term open source project. Does this mean Windows Phone 7 is a filler? Only time will tell!
Explanation of SMART’s Netphone Project: It’s not one phone, neither is it a single OS. It’s much more!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 16th, 2011
WARNING: This is a very long post.
TLDR: SMART has just revamped itself. It is now a social network composed of all its subscribers, services and establishments.
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Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play feels pretty good to hold. Hope the games deliver!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 16th, 2011
You’ve probably read the news that the XPERIA Play running Android 2.3 will also be a ‘Playstation accredited’ phone. You know what? Even if you aren’t into gaming, the XPERIA Play is actually a really good phone by itself. Huge screen, thin, and it just so happens to be able to play very nice games.
The Sony Ericsson booth had a line of mime-SIMS walking around following strangers and copying what they were doing.
HTC ChaCha Facebook phone, Incredible S and Flyer Tablet (with stylus??)
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 16th, 2011
Rumor: The HTC ChaCha may just be part of SMART’s Netphone project. Again, the Netphone is not a single phone nor is it confined to a single OS. *wink*
We were invited by SMART into HTC’s huge pavilion to sit in a meeting. Lo and behold I was in for the shock of my life when I saw Darren! As in Darren formerly from Apple. It was a happy surprise to see him in Barcelona and now working at HTC (I showed him my HTC Mozart). Anyway, Darren showed us the lineup of HTC for this year — including the HTC ChaCha Facebook phone and the HTC Flyer.
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Seen at MWC: Prototype Netphones and Netphone Tablets
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 15th, 2011
So it appears that the Netphone isn’t just one phone. It’s a brand! I was made privy (well, me and all 60,000 people) to prototypes of future devices that carry the Netphone branding that will be launched by SMART.
Seen here are the Netphone tablet, an entry level Netphone running on Brew (the white one) and the Netphone we’ve previously seen running Android 2.2. All these are part of the WAC initiative, meaning the Jollibee app you see can be made available across several platforms (i.e. Android, Brew, etc) without having to create multiple apps for different platforms. In the same way, telcos from other countries that are part of the WAC initiative can also choose to apply these apps to their store.
SPECULATION: This is actually big. Remember the Sandbox project I helped move forward several months ago? In a way, this is it’s second iteration. Imagine a BlackBerry Messenger-like service but applies to everyone who has Netphone devices. SMART is re-building its own community of subscribers by interconnecting them to one another. So instead of committing to one device platform, WAC enables SMART to use several phone platforms to interconnect. This definitely makes sense since the Philippines is primarily a feature phone market (i.e. the white Brew-enabled Netphone) but recognizing the fact that smartphones and tablets are the big thing for the upper income brackets. END OF SPECULATION.
HP TouchPad tablet and HP Pre 3 and Veer smartphones on webOS environment
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 15th, 2011
The HP Veer is definitely going to sell.
Long hair na long hair si HP at the Mobile World Congress.
Located right across the BlackBerry booth, it almost seems like HP is telling RIM something. Amidst the many laptops on display, everybody knew that these were just fillers for the real spectacle: the webOS environment and their gadgets.
OK let’s back it off a bit: I was an active member of group called Mapalad.org founded by Jason de Villa (who is now editor in chief of Technoodling.net) back in the early 2000′s. This was an officially recognized Palm OS user group in the Philippines. So you can imagine my excitement to see the spiritual successor of the Palm OS.
They’ve gone through a lot: Palm’s founders put up an offshoot company called Handspring. Palm buys them back. Palm renames to palmOne. Then renames back to Palm. Then after so long a time attempts to launch a netbook. Fails to do so. Launches new devices under a new platform called webOS. Doesn’t really make it. Gets bought by HP. HP removes the Palm logo. Now it’s just HP. And I must say, on paper, HP is doing an excellent job. I think they want a chunk of the BlackBerry market share with what they’re showing us.
We were treated to three things: the HP TouchPad, HP Pre 3 and the sexy Veer. The TouchPad is of course the giant’s corporate tablet solution while the Pre 3 and the Veer are their smartphone solutions. All three run the new webOS operating system. Both phones have a touch screen interface with pull out QWERTY pads. During the demo, we weren’t allowed to hold the units – if we wanted to test it out, the guy had to hold the unit while we played with its many features.
If the Pre 3 and Veer make it to Philippines, these will make a killing in the market. Finally, we have smartphones that looks chic enough to make you want to ditch the iPhone. The Veer is a smaller version of the Pre 3: it’s so small, and yet comes with a very nice keypad (it’s not rubber or plastic; silicon / gel perhaps and feels really good on the fingers). Yeah, I really have to highlight the keypad — the demo guy saw that we had a BlackBerry on us and challenged us to take the comparison test. Maganda ang keypad. They’ve done it.
The new webOS apps are compatible with both the tablet and smartphone so HP is really betting on this platform ecosystem.
Day 1: Going crazy with Tegra 2 enabled tablets
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 15th, 2011
One of the sexiest booths in MWC belongs to NVIDIA. Not much on the outside, but a lot to offer on the inside. NVIDIA went all out to demonstrate the new Tegra 2 mobile GPU for tablets. This is essentially the technology that will allow your tablet to do high end graphics and a bunch of other cool stuff. If your tablet is running on Android, you need to have at least Honeycomb 3.0 installed to become compatible with NVIDIA’s latest chip. Examples of such devices are the Motorola Xoom and the LG Optimus Pad.
In the video, I go through the following:
Motorola Atrix 4G – an Android phone that attaches to an external dock. The dock serves as the charger, desktop display, keyboard and mouse. The phone automatically converts your screen orientation from phone to desktop mode. After docking, it takes roughly 7 seconds for the desktop dock to refresh and show your new screen.
ASUS Slider and Transformer – The ASUS Slider is a Honeycomb enabled device that comes with a pop-up keyboard. It’s 10 inches bitches! On the other side, the Transformer is a detachable 3.0 tablet. Both sport the Tegra 2 chip.
Motorola Xoom – The first Android 3.0 device in the market is definitely sexy. I had a bit of time to immerse with the new Samurai game that takes advantage of the processing power of the Tegra 2. Same goes for the LG Optimus Pad
After reading all of this, I suggest you do yourself a favor and hold back on that Tablet purchase you were about to do this month. 2nd generation tablet technology (1st gen was the one Microsoft tried to espouse) is about a year old and there’s so much room for growth. What I’m showing you are up and coming devices to be launched this year.
Parting shot: Andi9 with the Motorola Xoom. Or is it the LG Optimus Pad. Gee, they’re all looking the same!
