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    Petron showcases five Porsche toy cars, large-scale toy box replica at SM Megamall

    Today marks the first leg of Petron’s series of mall displays promoting its Passion for Porsche promo. Showcased earlier at the SM Megamall Building A Activity Center were the five limited edition collectible toy cars—die-cast replicas of a black Porsche Carrera, a red Porsche Cayman, a blue Porsche Panamera, a white Porsche GT3 RSR, and a silver Porsche Cayenne—that one can avail of for only PHP 180 when gassing up PHP 1,000 worth of Petron fuels.

    At the promotional display, you can touch and try out the five collectible toy cars, which means you can make them light up and listen to their “engines” start up. Using their pull-back action, you can even watch these small-scale Porsche models roll.

    Also unveiled at the event was a large-scale simulation of the toy, putting an actual silver Porsche Cayenne on display inside a giant toy box.

    The promotional display will remain at the SM Megamall Building A Activity Center from November 16 to 18, and will also be at Gateway Mall in the Araneta Center from November 30 to December 2. The Passion for Porsche promo ends on January 31, 2013.

    Canon starts selling EOS M locally, starts at Php 35,998

    Remember that EOS M that Canon launched a few moons ago? Well, it looks like Canon Philippines has now gotten their stocks in and are starting to sell the mirrorless cameras. Currently, you’re looking at spending  Php 35,998 to get the most basic package that includes a EF-M18-55mm STM kit lens. Spend a little more (Php 40,998 to be exact) and you get a EF-M22mm STM kit lens and EF-Mount adaptor with your EOS M. If you’re feeling particularly spendy, you can drop Php 47,998 and get an EF-M18-55mm STM and EF-M22mm STM lenses along with a Speedlite 90EX flash. All three packages comes with a 3-year warranty and 8GB SD card. Tempted? We know we are.

    Source: Canon Philippines (Facebook)

     

    Dell unveils screen flipping hybrid ultrabook, the XPS 12

    The launch of touch-friendly Windows 8 allowed manufacturers the freedom to experiment with hybrid designs that just wasn’t possible with Windows 7. Dell’s newest member of their ultrabook family, the XPS 12, certainly looks the part of a hybrid notebook. The screen on this particular 12-inch display rotates on a hinge, which allows the XPS 12 to be used as a notebook or a tablet, depending on what you feel like that day. This hybrid device is available in a number of configurations, and will sport the latest tech from Intel and delivers excellent multimedia content literally at the tip of your fingers. The XPS 12 will start at Php 65,990.

    Sony PlayStation 3 reaches 70 million units sold worldwide

    Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) has announced that the PlayStation 3 (PS3) reached 70 million units sold as of November 4, 2012, six years after the PS3 was launched in November 2006. SCE also announced that the system’s motion controller, the PlayStation Move, has sold 15 million units worldwide as of November 11.

    SCE also launched PlayStation Network (PSN) in 2006 concurrently with the PS3, which now operates in 59 countries and regions around the world.  PlayStation Network supports free community-centric online gameplay, exclusive games from independent developers and major publishers, and a broad range of entertainment applications across movies, music, and sports. PS3 owners can access 170,000 downloadable digital content including 57,000 game content worldwide from PlayStation Network.

    The PlayStation Move controller was launched in 2010, and many games have began to adopt compatibility with the controller, such as Sports Champions, the initial game that was bundled with the Move. Over 400 titles now support PlayStation Move, including sports games such as EA Sports FIFA 13. This month also this month marks the global launch of Wonderbook, a new peripheral that delivers the next evolution of storytelling and a unique experience exclusively on PS3. Wonderbookuses the PlayStation Eye camera to take augmented reality to spectacular new places, while drawing players into new worlds and allowing them to interact with stories as they tilt or rotate it, or simply turn the pages.

    The PS3 has also gained tremendous third-party support, with major publishers such as SEGA, Tecmo, Konami, and EA, just to name a few. The PS3 has 3,590 titles for it totaling 595 million units sold.

    Mountain Hardwear’s Gear Expo: Essentials for Extreme Conditions

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    Mountain Hardwear, one of the best places to get all your outdoors essentials, has just launched the first installment of their Extreme Essentials gear expo.

    During the event, guests had the opportunity to witness an exhibit of Mountain Hardwear products alongside an array of other participating brands, followed by the interactive showcasing of award-winning outdoor equipment and advanced mountaineering products.

    These brands all embody what people should look for in quality gear: toughness, reliability and durability. Mountain Hardwear brought together other high-performing specialty equipment brands such as RugGear, Maglite, Gerber, NOA, Nalgene, Columbia Sportswear, and Otter Box.

    The event, located at Trinoma, will give customers a chance to experience the products first-hand, and allow them chances to get discounts as the event goes on. The Extreme Essentials Gear Expo will run from today, the 16th of November, all the way to Sunday, the 18th.

    Suzuki Philippines, Incorporated Officially launches Canlubang plant

    Suzuki Philippines has officially inaugurated its newest manufacturing plant in Canlubang, Laguna. This newest plant has taken over manufacturing from the older Pasig plant, and in full tilt, has a production capacity of 200,000 units annually.

    The new manufacturing plant, which stands on a 126,599 sq. meter plot of land, started full operation last May of this year, a full two weeks ahead of schedule. The inauguration was graced by the presence of Suzuki Motor Corporation’s Chairman and CEO, Mr. Osamu Suzuki.

    “With the growing motorcycle market in thePhilippinesand in the region, we thought it was logical to expand operations in thePhilippinesso we can better and faster serve our consumers needs,” says Mr. Osamu Suzuki.

    “The Canlubang plant will also enhance local parts procurement and its larger production capacity will also make us ready for the growing motorcycle market as the plant is equipped with better machines and processes,” Suzuki added.

    The new factory not only allows the motoring giant a better opportunity to produce more affordable motorcycles locally, with locally-sourced parts, it it will also provide employment for about a thousand people living in the area. Suzuki also gave their current employees options to either retire early or receive assistance for the move to the new location.

    The Pasig plant will now serve as the headquarters for the sales and marketing division of the company.

    FB Mobile users can now share via mobile

    Found an awesome page/post/picture on Facebook while browsing with your mobile device and are itching to share it? Well, today you can. Facebook’s newest build for both iOS and Android now allows users to share via their mobile device. That means that you can share George Takei’s puntastic image memes right from the comfort of your mobile device – no more logging into your PC.  You can download the iOS version here and the Android version here.

    Chemists create self-assembling polymer that quintuples hard drive capacity

    We’re already at the terabyte level of hard drives, but imagine if that capacity was quintupled—University of Texas researchers have created a self-assembling polymer that could be used to quintuple the capacity of hard drives called block copolymer. That could mean storage for practically everything—files, games, HD quality movies, and every photo album you’ve ever had—with room to spare.

    Currently, information is stored through the use of printing zeroes and ones as magnetic dots on a metal surface, with the amount of information able to be stored being relative to the spacing of the dots. The closer the dots, the more information can be stored. With current technology, the dots have become so close together that any decrease in the spacing between them would cause instability due to the neighboring dots’ magnetic fields. With current technology, hard drive space can only be doubled, which is why you see a lot of hard drives as either 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB or 2 TB depending on your personal needs.

    Block copolymer, a grouping of polymers made out of more than one bondable molecule, can rearrange itself in the most economical way possible via self-directed assembly when the catalyst of heat is added—a perfect combination considering hard drives heat up because you’re always accessing data that is stored in the hard drive, which means that if this goes to market, you can see HDDs of 10 TB or more.

    Although many people are going the solid state drive (SSD) route for their next storage solution, it could face serious competition when the block copolymer HDDs become commercially available. Currently, the project is being worked on with HGST, which is a subsidiary of Western Digital, one of the world’s top producers of hard drives.

    HTC Deluxe press render leaked, international version of the J Butterfly?

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    When we learned about the HTC’s 5-inch J Butterfly that was released for the Japanese market, we knew it wouldn’t be long till the company unleashed an international version of the device. Well folks, your wait is almost over – Twitter user @evleaks has leaked a press render of the possibly international version of that 5-inch full HD smartphone, dubbed Deluxe. Unfortunately, aside from the overall physical appearance, there’s not much else to see but we’re sure evleaks will come out with further details as the days go by.

    Source: @evleaks (Twitter) 

    Google’s latest transparency report shows that government surveillance is on the rise

    Google has been releasing their Transparency Report since 2010 which basically allows anyone to take a peek at the number of removal and government requests that the search company receives every year. This year’s report from January 2012 to June 2012 highlights a chilling trend that the search giant has noticed: government surveillance around the world is on the rise.  In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts.

    That’s not all. Requests from governments around the world to remove content has risen this year. On the first half of this year alone, the search giant is saying that there have been 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content.

    You can delve into the Transparency Report for yourself here. You can also view the removal requests by country, and if before you ask, yes, our country is in there too. Google has received a request from the office of a local mayor to remove five blogs for criticizing the mayor, and of course Google being Google, did not remove content in response to this request.

    Source: Google

    Steve Wozniak is worried that Microsoft is being more innovative than Apple

    One thing that we like about Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is that he’s never shied away from honestly answering questions about the company he helped build. The Woz was present during TEDx in Brussels and was asked by TechCrunch a number of questions about technology, which unsurprisingly led to a question about the innovation war of Apple and Microsoft.

    The Woz, as frank as usual, said that it worries him that Microsoft may be becoming a more innovative company than Apple. “Microsoft has produced “more of the type of innovation where you see something and you say, ‘Whoa, they really changed things drastically. Whoa, they aren’t really even going in the same direction as everyone else,’” the Apple co-founder said. Wozniak is also worried that the company is really chasing after innovations the past few years while Apple “was just used to cranking out the newest iPhone and falling a little behind.”

    Source: TechCrunch

    Western Digital outs new version My Book Studio for Mac users, up to 4TB of storage

    Craving for more storage space for your Mac? Western Digital has your back. The storage company has just released the latest My Book Studio specially made for Mac users, and boy, is it a doozy. The new external drive has a whopping 4TB of storage space just for you (and is available in smaller capacities) and provides transfer speeds up to three times faster than regular USB 2.0. This new series of drives works seamlessly with Apple’s Time Machine and has WD Security, which allows users to password protect their drive along with 256-bit hardware-based encryption for added security against unauthorized access to the drive and its contents. Want one of these? You know you do. The MSRP for My Book Studio 1 TB is P6, 990; the 2 TB is P8, 190; the 3 TB is P10, 290 and the 4 TB is P13, 290.

    Review: LG Optimus Vu

    The market for large, hybrid devices that toe the line of being a smartphone and a tablet (or a phablet, as it is more commonly known) is growing exponentially each year. As a direct result, plenty of manufacturers are creating their own interpretation of the phablet, with various results. Korean manufacturer LG has dived into the possibly lucrative phablet market with their unique interpretation of the phablet – the LG Optimus Vu.

    The Optimus Vu isn’t a particularly new device – it was first announced back in February for the Korean market. Back then it was still sporting a dual-core processor and Android 2.3 as its OS. One of the first things that struck us when we initially found out about it was its unique 4:3 aspect ratio. Most smartphones nowadays use the 16:9 aspect ratio which most of you are familiar with, as it’s the de facto aspect ratio anything with displays. The Optimus Vu uses a 4:3 aspect ratio – which if you’re old enough, you remember as the preferred aspect ratio for old CRT TV sets and monitors back in the day.

    After being announced for the Korean market, the LG Optimus Vu disappeared from view for a while, until it resurfaced a few months ago sporting radically different internals, possibly in a bid to try and reap success in the international market. This time around, the Optimus Vu sports a newer, quad-core Tegra 3 processor, along with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

    When we first laid our eyes on the Optimus Vu, we were a bit surprised at how large the device was. We’re no strangers to large phablets, but the Optimus Vu was something else. Measuring at 139.6×90.4×8.5mm, it’s substantially wider than its direct competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Note II. The Optimus Vu uses a 5-inch, 768×1024 pixel HD-IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that gives the Optimus Vu a pixel density of 256 ppi. There are four capacitive buttons present on the bottom of the 5-inch display, which betrays the Optimus Vu’s Gingerbread origins.

    The power button is located on the top of the device, along with a sliding panel that protects the USB slot. Beside that lies a button that launches the stylus software that accompanies the device. The volume rocker is located on the right side of the device, while the slot for the microSIM is on the left side. The Optimus Vu uses a non-removable battery.

    The overall design of the Optimus Vu is typical of LG’s L-style series of devices, which include the Optimus L9 and all the other members of that particular product line. The Optimus Vu is an all-black affair, which is punctuated at the back by a textured finish.

    Marshall hits 50 years, launches Major 50 FX headphones

    Marshall celebrates its 50th anniversary with the Major 50 FX—the company’s newest iteration of the Marshall Major headphones.

    The limited edition Marshall Major 50 FX carries the fret detailing used in Marshall’s anniversary line of amps in the inner ear caps. However, unlike the outer ear caps of the original Marshall Major , which are outlined in black, the outer ear caps of the Major 50 FX sport a gold lining.

    The headband is made from the same material used for the outer covering of Marshall amps. The inner part of headband no longer carries Jim Marshall’s signature; instead, it reads EST. 1962 LONDON-ENGLAND.

    The package is still the same. It still comes with a 6.3mm adapter so you can plug the headphones into your amp, a neutral stereo plug adapter so you can use it on older mobile phone models, and a built-in remote and microphone.

    The Marshall Major 50 FX headphones is available at Astrovision, Automatic Center, Avant, Beyond The Box, Buzz, Complex, Digital Hub, Digital Walker, E-Central, Egghead, Electroworld, Futureworld, Gadgets in Style, Gui, iCenter, iGig, iStudio, Mobile 1, Republik, Power Hub, Power Mac Center, PC Hub, Switch, Technoholics, Urban Athletics, Spectra, Listening Room and Listen Up.

    For more information, you can check out Marshall’s official site.

    94 percent of the top 500 supercomputers use Linux. Why?

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    The majority of consumer computers run either Windows or Mac OS X, and some people may have the impression that supercomputers are the same way—but a staggering 94 percent of the top 500 supercomputers run Linux, as opposed to a mere 1.58 percent on the consumer market.

    Many of us seem to forget that most supercomputers and servers use Linux—that means some of the most popular websites we access, such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. are all hosted on Linux servers. There’s a few that still use Windows, however Linux is the preferred operating system for supercomputers and servers namely because of its open-source modular nature, where each module performs its own distinct duties. The other two major operating systems, Windows and Mac OS X, are closed-source, severely limiting its customization options, and people from casual users to network administrators can modify Linux to their own preferences. Many people often have the idea that casual users and non-techies use Mac OS X, and gamers, businesses and tech-savvy individuals use Windows.

    Linux is also adaptable—according to this article on Unixmen, “Linux kernel is generic, as much as possible. This implies that single source code can be written to run on large supercomputers and also on small even hand-held gadgets; this is entirely up to how one uses Linux, either on giant systems or smaller systems. There is no need to add fundamental and large changes to the kernel in order to run on larger or smaller systems.” We even mentioned how someone was able to access the Internet with a calculator using the Linux OS, so whether you run a supercomputer with Linux or hack a calculator to use Linux, it is very adaptable to the device you’re using. This is also a demonstration on how Linux is also scalable to take on larger loads of data.

    Other non-technical factors include the fact that it has community-based support and best of all—it’s free, so this cuts down on the costs that it takes to run a server or a supercomputer.