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    Happy Birthday, Chrome (Sorry we’re late)!

    Three days and four years ago, Google beta-released Chrome. It has since grown to become one of the most popular browsers in all of existence. It’s quite likely that you’re using Chrome at this very moment. One of the things that makes Chrome all sorts of awesome is the ability to add apps to personalize your browsing experience and make everything much more convenient.

    Here are a few of our favorites.

    1. Gmail Offline beta lets you keep all your emails available for offline viewing, in case you need to catch up on messages, search for details or check a quick message even without access to the ‘Net. After you fire it up, it synchronizes your emails and queued tasks whenever you have a connection. It borrows the design and functionality of the Gmail tablet interface that has proven both useful and easy, so you get a great Gmail experience even when you can’t be online.

     

    2. Aviary Music Creator: Few things are as rewarding as creating music. This app lets you pick from a set of 50 free instruments, so you can drop a beat, create a great new track and make loads of money by selling it to record execs. Or make a ringtone. Whichever of the two you feel like that day.

    3. Webcam Toy: Everyone loves a good photo, and Webcam Toy lets you do that all day. You can pick from 60 free, fun effects and go to town with your computer’s webcam. When you’re done taking the sht, you can save the photo or send them straight to your favorite social network.

    4. Evernote: Have you ever had the sudden urge to take an idea down, but lacked a place in which to put it? Evernote has you covered. With Evernote, you can save every idea, thought and spark of genius that might have otherwise been lost forever. This app syncs across devices, you you will always have access to your idea bank wherever and whenever you might need it.

    Smart ups LTE ante, adds the 1800MHz band to its stable, brings better compatibility for LTE devices

    Things just got a bit more real in LTE land, as Smart has announced that they have added the 1800MHz band to its LTE stable. Smart’s initial LTE offering (the one that we used during the beta period) ran on the 2100MHz band, which incidentally is similar to the one that their partner, Japanese telco and LTE pioneer NTT DoCoMo uses. With the new band, Smart’s LTE service should theoretically be able to run on a wider range of devices from different countries that uses the same band. Of course, Smart isn’t coming out and saying that’s the case yet, which is understandable, as the telco will have to do tests of their own to manage expectations when it comes to LTE compatibility for devices, but this particular development puts Smart at a distinct advantage over its rival Globe, which is yet to officially offer their own LTE service.

     

    Check out the top apps at the PinoyBBDev Hackathon 2012!

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    Philippine BlackBerry developer group PinoyBBDev hosted the PinoyBBDev Hackathon 2012 last August 4 and 5. Almost 100 developers gathered from around the country and spent 35 hours to develop apps for BlackBerry.

    Here are the BlackBerry PlayBook and the BlackBerry 10 smartphone apps that were awarded at the end of the hackathon:

     WHACK-A-BUNNY

    In Noel Anonas and JM Sabriaga’s Whack-A-Bunny app, you try to earn as many points as you can by tapping the bunnies that shoot up the holes. You can play it either in Unli-Whacking mode or Time-Based mode. The developer (Anonas) and graphics designer (Sabriaga) converted the Android app for it to seamlessly run on the BlackBerry platform. Whack-A-Bunny was voted as the best BlackBerry 10 app.

    BALUT THE GAME

    Wimping out on an actual balut-eating contest? Don’t worry; you can still succeed—virtually, that is. The Balut app is a fun, unique and unmistakably Filipino app developed by Asian Friends! Go!, a developer team from De La Salle University and De La Salle – College of St. Benlide. The object of the game is to eat as many baluts as you can within a given time. “[We] decided to create the most local idea that [one] could come up with,” shared Michael Donavan Go, a member of Asian Friends! Go!.

    ONE MAN BAND

    Here’s one app for the rockstar at heart. The OneMB app lets you feel like you’re in a band as you virtually play your favourite songs and rock out on your BlackBerry device. “[It] pushes HTML5 to its limits, combining eye candy animation and multiple sounds,” says Marc Reyman, one of the app developers. The developers are a group of Computer Studies instructors from the Gordon College of Olongapo City.

    SALINLAHI

    De La Salle University professor Ralph Regalado’s nifty app teaches users the Filipino language. “It’s [meant] to reach out to…Filipino citizens abroad and to let everyone know our language and culture,” he shares. Regalado created the app with the help of his classmate, Maru Antay, who provided the designs.

    SLIDE SYNCED

    Crafted by Jopes Gallardo and Joseph Ross Lee, Slide Synced lets users perform real-time synching, sharing and collaborating on thoughts and ideas. The app lets you view and chat with other users, this app is for both web and BlackBerry smartphone use. Whether you’re an extremely busy student or a professional under tight deadlines, this app can be a big help.

    Familiar technologies such as Adobe AIR, Android, Native SDK using C/C++/OpenGL, or Cascades (C++/Qt), and WebWorks using HTML5, CSS & Javascript were used by the app developers.

    You can read more about the PinoyBBDev Hackathon 2012 HERE.

    Rovio’s Bad Piggies turns the tables on the birds

    Make way for the flying pigs!

    Rovio has  announced their new game, Bad Piggies—a spin-off of the Angry Birds franchise where the player controls the pigs instead of the birds!

    According to the official Facebook and Twitter sites of Bad Piggies, the game will be out for iOS, Android and Mac on September 27 and the Windows 8 and PC versions will follow at a later date.

    Here’s the promo video:

    Artist challenges social media addicts with time-lapse video of wall paintings

    It’s almost routinary: Post status/Tweet > Like/Comment > Retweet/Reblog/Re-post > Refresh > Repeat 100x until nappy time. Throw in some occasional Instagram shots of your breakfast, or every shift in position of your dog. Social media has become highly addictive because of our constant urge to share experiences to the world and read about those of others.

    People today are very dependent on social media, especially now that the new and continuously developing technology of our mobile devices has made the Internet and social media websites and apps highly accessible wherever we go, whatever we’re doing, and whenever we feel like it.

    An artist at the GALORE Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark, however, challenges our dependence on social media with the question, “When is too much simply too much?”

    The anonymus artist posted a video on Vimeo called #socialmedia, which is a recorded time-lapse of a series of over 9,000 photos taken in the span of five days. These photos show the artist painting several images on a huge blank wall, sending a message to all social media addicts around the world. The artist prefers not to be named, but uploads the video under the username ABOVE, whose other videos show more interesting and insightful street art pieces.

    Clever enough, the artist communicates through what is probably the only medium in which he or she can get the message across social media addicts—social media itself.  The artist says in the video description, “As irony has it this video will be reblogged and seen on social media outlets the world over. Please join in and reblog on your facebook and twitter accounts. Enjoy and try to keep up.”

    Just as the artist predicted, it’s sort of ironic that we’re using a blog to post a video that challenges blogs and social media sites, but we did it anyway just to get you thinking. Comment and share your thoughts with us.

    Source: Mashable

    23 cool Google Street View images that you shouldn’t miss

    Google’s Street View feature on Google Maps have given us a ton of entertainment over the years. Thanks to social news website Reddit, we’ve found 23 awesome Google Street View images that you absolutely need to see. Like the one below, which frankly makes us wonder where exactly Google’s Street View team has been going:

    Or this sad/awesome picture of an out of work Super Sentai in Japan:

    Our personal favorite of the entire set of course, is the one below. That’s a Tiger, roaming loose in the streets of god knows where. We really, really hope that big cat was captured before it caused any damage/mauled someone.

    You can check out the entire set here.

    Source: Reddit

    Epson Philippines Introduces New Country Manager

    Epson Philippines Corporation (EPC)  has just announced the appointment of their new Country Manager at a meet and greet just before the launch of their new printers at the “Exceed Your Expectations” event earlier today. Toshimitsu Tanaka, a 32-year veteran of Seiko-Epson Corporation in Japan, has been at the EPC helm since July of this year, and has promised to work closely with Epson’s media friends to get more closely in-tune with the needs of the Filipino consumer. Tanaka said he was also hoping to continue the double-digit growths in both the projector and printer arms of EPC that made the Philippines such a strong contributor to growth in the region.

    Mr. Tanaka also mentioned his excitement at being a part of Epson’s latest printer launch. “I am glad that one of my very first projects as the new Country Manager of EPC is the introduction of these new and improved L-series printers for the Filipino customers. This launch ranks high among important activities to serve the goals of strengthening the Epson brand, creating new business models to fit the local requirement,” Mr. Tanaka concluded.

    This is the HTC Accord, HTC’s upcoming mid-market Windows Phone 8 smartphone

    As is the custom with every new Microsoft mobile OS launch, HTC is also preparing their own Windows Phone 8 offerings. The picture above is a render done by XDA-Developers member Football for the HTC Accord from an HTC ROM. The Accord will supposedly have a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, along with a 4.3-inch display with 720×1280 resolution. The 8-megapixel camera on-board will be able to capture 1080p video, and the device will supposedly support NFC when it launches. While the device is still sporting Windows Phone 7 in this particular render, sources say that this device will run on Windows Phone 8 when it is launched.

    Source: Twitter @Footbal4PDA

     

    Valve entering computer hardware market

    Valve is one of the big players in the gaming software industry. They’re the same company that brought us the Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress and Portal franchises, which are all amongst the most played games in the world. However, when CEO Gabe Newell told gamers that Windows 8 was “a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space”, Valve decided to throw their hat into the computer hardware market by obtaining a patent for a controller with swappable parts, pushing along the so-called “Steam Box” rumors. Valve themselves have confirmed this by putting in a job opening for an “industrial designer”.

    In the job opening description, Valve says, “Valve is traditionally a software company. Open platforms like the PC and Mac are important to us, as they enable us and our partners to have a robust and direct relationship with customers. We’re frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we’re jumping in. Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There’s a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked.”

    We could see the so-called “Steam Box” in the near future, however, most consoles’ development cycles are unpredictable, and we don’t really know when it will come to fruition. Valve has denied working on a “Steam Box” in the past, but recent developments such as this job opening may be saying otherwise.

    Samsung beats Nokia to the punch, unleashes first Windows Phone 8 device, the ATIV S

    While Nokia is gearing up for the announcement of a slew of Windows Phone 8 devices tomorrow, Samsung has beaten the Finnish manufacturer to the punch when it comes to announcing a Windows Phone 8 device. Meet the ATIV S, Sammy’s first Phone 8 device, and boy, is it a beauty.

    It’s packed with a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display and powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. An 8-megapixel camera takes care of the imaging department. Despite having a fairly large 2,300mAh battery, it still manages to keep an 8.7mm overall thickness. No word on what the price for this thing will be or the eventual release date, but we’re guessing it’ll drop sometime in October or November.

     

    Nokia Lumia 920 detailed, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, wireless charging capable

    The Verge has uncovered more details about Nokia’s upcoming Lumia 920 smartphone. Seems that Nokia’s next generation Lumia device will sport a 1.5GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM. And before you guys complain about a dual-core not cutting it in a quad-core world, remember that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 dual-core processors are pretty damn fast, fast enough that it’s able to hold its own against quad-core offerings from NVIDIA. Nokia is attaching the PureView branding with the Lumia 920, though the device will only have a 8-megapixel camera as opposed to the 41-megapixel deal found on the 808 PureView. Most interesting perhaps, is the wireless charging capability of the device – it uses the Qi wireless power standard, so it should work with other wireless charging products. We’ll find out more later on when Nokia officially unveils these products on Sept. 5.

    Source: The Verge

    French programmer builds his own LTE base station

    Many carriers around the world are rolling out Long Term Evolution (LTE) services, but French computer programmer Fabrice Bellard has decided to make his own, with details on how he made it. “It simulates an LTE infrastructure, so it can work without a real LTE network behind it. In short, it is possible to use it like a Wifi access point,” Bellard said.

    A lot of the details are highly technical, but the diagram above is a simplified version of what he did in order to create a base station at a fraction of the cost of what most major carriers are building them for. The table below lists what he used to create the base station.

    PC Core i7 at 2.93 GHz.
    Software radio frontend USRP N210 with the SBX daughterboard.
    RF configuration Band 7 (2600 MHz FDD), 20 MHz bandwidth, single antenna.
    User Equipment Huawei E398 USB dongle (Qualcomm MDM9200 chipset)
    SIM card Anritsu Test USIM card

    Bellard’s LTE base station recorded a downlink of 60 Mb/s and an uplink of 25 Mb/s, which is impressive given the fact that he isn’t using a real LTE network. He lists the advantages of his homemade LTE base station: “It’s a low cost LTE network simulator. Since everything runs on a PC, it is very easy to add and test new LTE features.”

    He also states that it can be used for educational purposes, for configuring and running a base station as a way to learn many details of LTE, and as a basis of a low cost LTE network infrastructure for private or public networks.

    For those who are interested in duplicating or improving on Bellard’s project, you can contact him for further information via his website.

    Call for Entries! Caught in the Web PSA competition for college students

    Calling all college students!

    Internet piracy is a pressing issue nowadays, especially with all the portals for free content sprouting on the web (not to mention the anti-piracy laws that have been created in response to these content-sharing communities). We at GADGETS would like to know your stand on this issue.

    Here’s what you have to do:

    Interested participants must e-mail their names, and contact details to [email protected] with the subject Caught in the Web Pre-registration, name of school. Once you’ve pre-registered, create a 30-second video public service announcement (PSA) advocating your stand on the Internet piracy issue and upload it to YouTube. You may enter the competition as an individual or part of team with a maximum of four (4) members. Then, send us the link of your video with your names and contact details, school, the title and the link to the video to [email protected] with the subject Pinoy Blogfest 3.0/Title of the video/School. Submitted videos will be posted on the GADGETS Magazine Facebook page, and the video with the most number of likes gets a special prize!

    Registration is totally free and the deadline of entries will be on September 12, 2012.

    Head to THIS page for the full mechanics or email [email protected] for more details.

    Samsung wins over Apple in Japan, score is tied 1-1

    Samsung might have been handed a crushing defeat last week in the US in regards to its patent case versus Apple, but the Korean company can take solace in the fact that in the victory they’ve managed to eek out over their US rival in Japan. A Japanese court has rejected the patent claims made by Apple against Samsung . The New York Times reports that the Tokyo District Court ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and tablets did not violate an Apple patent on technology that synchronizes music and videos between devices and servers.

    Apple currently has the #1 spot in Japan in 2011, with Samsung a distant #5. Samsung has this to say: “Samsung has strongly asserted that its technology is altogether different and does not infringe on Apple patents. The ruling recognizes the legitimacy of Samsung’s assertions and is highly valid.” Apple declined to comment.

    Source: Wall Street Journal

    MWSS website defaced by local arm of Anonymous, demands transparency and truth

    Seems like the local arm of Anonymous has been busy lately, and has just recently targeted the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System website, defacing it thoroughly. This particular branch of government has attracted the group’s ire because of the refusal of the government body and Maynilad to answer why consumers are still being charged for 2 cancelled projects. The group explained their actions through the YouTube link they left on the defaced site (which is still up at the time of writing). The group also has issues with the excessive benefits given to members of its board (and by its, we’re assuming MWSS) which they say are paid 9,000 pesos per regular committee meeting and 15,000 pesos for board meeting. The group asserts that MWSS trustees would schedule 4 committee meetings in a day, which would total earnings of P36,000 a day. We’ve included the entire transcript of the video below.

    Hello citizens of the Philippines… We are Anonymous! The website of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System was defaced due to the following reasons. MWSS regulatory office head Manuel Quizon admitted both Maynilad and Manila Water continue to charge consumers around 1.52 pesos per cubic meter for the 2 cancelled projects. Quizon explains this can be corrected through a rate rebasing which is currently being done by the MWSS where under-recovery and over-recovery can be settled through tariff rates for the next five years of both concessionaires.

    Maynilad has refused to answer queries about the charges but Manila Water says all charges collected from water consumers are authorized by MWSS as the regulatory body. Consumer group Water for All Refund Movement or WARM said Maynilad and Manila Water should stop the collection of these amounts and immediately refund around 6 billion pesos which is the estimated amount collected so far from 2008. The group asked why consumers should pay for a future project that the concessionaires and MWSS are espousing. According to the group, water rates have gone up to 37 pesos to 48 pesos per cubic meter since the two concessionaires took over water services.

    WARM has already filed syndicated estafa against top officials of both Maynilad and Manila Water but the QC prosecutors office has yet to act on it… Why should consumers pay for shelved water projects? Another reason is the excessive benefits given to members of its board. Each board member is paid 9,000 pesos per regular committee meeting and 15,000 pesos for board meeting. MWSS trustees would schedule 4 committee meetings in a day, which would total earnings of P36,000 a day. 

    We are fighting for the truth and free speech. People should not fear the government. The government should fear their people. Anonymous is not a group. Anonymous is not an organization. Anonymous is an idea. And ideas are bulletproof.

    We are anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget, United as one, divided by none, the corrupt fear us, the honest support us, the heroic joins us, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, it’s too late to expect us!

    You can check out for yourself MWSS’ defaced website through their official address http://mwss.gov.ph/index.html. We’ve linked the YouTube video of Anonymous below.