We’re currently waiting for Asus pre-Computex press conference to begin, and while we were milling outside, we managed to spot this little beauty. Specs and details are limited at this point, but it seems that this is a 3D tablet that doesn’t require its own glasses. What makes this thing an oddity is that it will also come with its own phone, tethered to the unit and able to make calls via the SIM card embedded within the tablet.
More Filipina women make a difference, not just in the home, but in the realm of business and are contributing more and more to today’s innovations and creations. So hold on to your hard hats, boys. Beyonce may just be on to something when she asks, “Who run the world?”
For the second year in a row, another Filipina has made it to the global online business plan competition Business in Development (BiD) Challenge international marketplace, primarily for women entrepreneurs who have made a difference in combining profit and helping reduce poverty in the world’s developing nations.
This time, she will be among the five finalists of the second edition of the BiD Women in Business Challenge to be awarded in the Netherlands within the next couple of weeks.
The only one representing Asia, this Filipina entrepreneur will compete with two entries from Peru representing Latin America, and two other entries from Uganda representing Africa, plus a special runner-up entry from Afghanistan.
Today, her name will be officially unveiled at the Rockwell Tent in Makati City during the announcement by the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and Citibank of the winners in the local leg of the 2010 BiD Challenge Philippines entries.
For the 2009 entries who were awarded in 2010, a costume jewelry designer based in Naga, Camarines Sur won the special BiD Women in Retail Business Challenge in The Hague, the Netherlands, wherein among her prizes included €10,000 from Dutch financial group ING.
Marianne Olano of Baycrafts – manufacturer of handcrafted costume jewelry made from indigenous and synthetic materials such as pearls, wood, fiber, seeds, crystals, and glass – will be one of the keynote speakers at the PBSP-Citibank BiD Challenge Philippines 2010 marketplace and awarding ceremony this Monday at the Rockwell in Makati.
Also during the first edition of the BiD Women in Business Challenge (2009-2010), a partnership of two Filipina entrepreneurs specializing in ecologically friendly toys made from wooden blocks became a finalist together with two entries from India and one from Colombia.
Called eco-friendly toys for children, Ecobloks used scrap mahogany and pine wood to produce unpainted, lead-free, environmentally friendly building blocks for children.
In the process, the 2009 Philippine entry of business partners Maria Lourdes Molina from Loot Fairy Toys and Cebu-based Maria Mina Lacson thereby helped idle woodworkers and found use for wood scrap from wooden slippers and furniture makers.
Their competitors at the Fokker Terminal of The Hague on June 2 last year included the Women on Wheels safe transport solutions project based in New Delhi, and another Indian entry called Aqua Beauty Salon specializing in the use of domestic wastewater treatment solutions.
The Latin American entry last year, Micro Tapas, was a unique Colombian product called a micro-cover that protects a woman’s areola and nipple areas from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun, while allowing the tanning of the other areas of the breast.
For the BiD Women in Business Challenge 2010-2011, the finalists are expected to “get access to a network of more than 36,000 like-minded entrepreneurs, coaches, and investors” from all over the world, as well as “win tailor-made advisory services worth €5,000 from UnitedSucces, the worldwide network for business women owners.”
As of the latest update last Friday (27 May), the final event for the 2010-2011 Women in Business Challenge will be held on 9 June 2011 at Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Of the two Peruvian finalists, who both submitted their business plan in the Spanish language, one focuses on granular organic fertilizers to cultivate coffee and cocoa, while the other specializes in dried golden berry as an organic snack.
Meanwhile, one of the Ugandan finalists promotes locally available materials to produce eco paper bags for packaging purposes. The other develops and maintains what it claims to be the largest and most interactive online business community website platform in Africa connecting people and businesses to the global market.
The special Afghan runner-up entry is a cardboard manufacturing plan application which it said would encourage environmental protection, decrease the incidence of diseases, and even promote education from the capital city of Kabul to the province of Herat.
And as for the Pinay entry who made it to the 2010-2011 BiD Women in Business Challenge, everyone is invited to pass by Rockwell Makati on May 30 for the unveiling.
Teaser/clue: She aims to improve the living standards of a specific group of staple crop farmers in Southern Central Mindanao.
The legal battle between Samsung and Apple has once again taken a surprising turn. Last week, the Korean manufacturer was compelled by the courts to reveal five products to the California based company in order to help the latter gather evidence for the ongoing infringement case.
Refusing to be idly pushed around, Samsung retaliates with a demand of their own, asking the courts that Apple reveal the “final, commercial versions” of the unannounced iPad 3 and iPhone 5. This request is justified by Sammy’s claim that they must know what the products look like before they are released, in order to avoid any further legal disputes in the future.
The wave of patent infringement lawsuits first began when Apple claimed the interface and design of the iPad and iPhone were imitated, thus resulting in “unfair competition”.
Source: This is My Next
Guess what Gadget fans? We’ll be in Taipei, Taiwan tomorrow till next week to cover COMPUTEX, the largest computer exhibition in Asia. A lot of manufacturers announce their new products at this particular event, and we’ll be on the ground for a major announcement from Asus. We’ll also be in our twitter account for the duration of the show, giving you guys real-time updates of the stuff we see on the show floor. Not our follower or in Twitter? You should be. Follow us @gadgetsmagazine, and if you’re really feeling generous, you can go ahead and follow us on our Facebook too. `
HP is expanding a voluntary recall of batteries from notebooks manufactured from July 2007 through May 2008. The recall began back in May of 2009, with another one taking place in May of 2010. This isn’t a general recall of the notebooks themselves, just the batteries that power them. Five percent of the affected batteries may have problems, and HP will be providing replacements of the batteries. Check out this link to find out if your HP notebook is affected.
Source: HP
Just a few days from being announced at an event in New York, Google’s wireless payment system, dubbed as Google Wallet, is now taking legal heat from PayPal. PayPal filed suit against Google stating that it stole trade secrets from the payment gateway giant via a key PayPal employee that defected after talks between Google and PayPal broke down while trying to adopt PayPal as the payment system for Android. Two Google execs were named in the lawsuit, Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of Commerce, and Osama Bedier, VP of Payments. Bedier was with PayPal until January of this year, and according to the lawsuit, Bedier was the senior PayPal executive accountable for leading negotiations with Google on Android, from the period of 2008 to 2011.
Google for the most part responded quickly to the allegations, stating that “Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, an idea recognized by both California law and public policy. We respect trade secrets, and will defend ourselves against these claims.”
Via: Allthingsd
Source: Paypal
Congratulations to Richard Mamuyac and Paul Nikko Degollado! You’ve each won Ph2,500.00 worth of Draven Shoes GCs! Please wait for our Twitter DMs for further instructions.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for our next #GadgetGiveaway. Its going to be a gadget, and it will surely be worth your wait.
It looks like we’re fighting a new war that can prove more dangerous than gun-wielding soldiers and atomic bombs, perpetrated by a faceless attacker with a bunch of seemingly harmless scripts and characters strewn together —- scripts not many people understand. So how do we protect ourselves, our privacy and our information?
Engineers from TrendLabs, the research laboratory of security firm Trend Micro, have discovered the source of a targeted email attack detected in the wild over the last two weeks. The attack involved email messages sent through Hotmail, where a previously unpatched vulnerability in its content filtering mechanism was exploited through the use of a malicious email message identified as HTML_AGENT.SMJ. The said email message pretended to come from the Facebook Security Team.
Targeted users of the attack receive seemingly innocuous email messages that contain an embedded script, which automatically executes when the user opens the email. The embedded email script then connects to a specific website that downloads another script, JS_AGENT.SMJ.
This last script captures all of the affected users’ emails and forwards them to another email address. It continues to forward messages from targeted users to the author of the malware until the user logs out of their webmail.
Microsoft has already updated Hotmail to fix the vulnerability but not before cybercriminals have found a way to take advantage of it.
TrendLabs Threat Response Engineer Karl Dominguez said that employees who open their personal Hotmail accounts in their offices risk exposing their corporate data to the attack. Among the information that can be stolen are contacts, other log-in credentials, and confidential corporate messages.
Dominguez stressed that companies must also take steps in ensuring that their networks are safe from outside attacks. Cybercriminals are using social engineering to exploit the curiosity and love for social networking sites of office workers in order to gain access to more important corporate data.
“Always patch your browsers, applications, and operating systems; update your security software regularly; only access trustworthy websites; disable scripting or limit it to trustworthy sites; use alternative browsers; and always use original software. These are the most important things that should be remembered in our fight against cybercriminals,” according to Dominguez.
The title up there is not a typo. An independent researcher has found a way to grab your log-in credentials when you use any version of Internet Explorer (yes, that includes IE 9). “Any website. Any cookie. Limit is just your imagination,” said Mr Rosario Valotta, an independent Internet security researcher based in Italy. The flaw allows hackers to grab your cookies, basically packets of data that has your log-in credentials. The spoof requires a fair amount of finagling on the hacker’s part, because it only works when the victim drags and drops an object across the PC’s screen. Mr. Valotta maintains that it’s fairly easy to do, and to prove this, he’s made a Facebook app that n which users are challenged to “undress” a photo of an attractive woman. “I published this game online on Facebook and in less than three days, more than 80 cookies were sent to my server,” he said. “And I’ve only got 150 friends.” Microsoft said there is little risk a hacker could succeed in a real-world cookiejacking scam. “Given the level of required user interaction, this issue is not one we consider high risk,” said Microsoft spokesman Jerry Bryant. “In order to possibly be impacted a user must visit a malicious website, be convinced to click and drag items around the page and the attacker would need to target a cookie from the website that the user was already logged into.” Sure Microsoft, because people rarely get duped into scams like that in sites, oh say like Facebook.
Source: Today
NVIDIA’s 3D Vision Tech allows gamers to play games with stereoscopic 3D, and now it seems that it’ll allow you to watch YouTube clips in 3D as well. All the previous hardware requirements for 3D Vision still applies (3D Vision kit and capable display, NVIDIA GPU) you also need to use Mozilla’s Firefox browser to access YouTube. The whole shebang is powered by HTML 5, and according to Jonathan Huang 3D Product Manager at YouTube “we’re excited to introduce HTML5 and WebM support to the thousands of 3D videos available on YouTube. By embracing these open standards, NVIDIA 3D Vision users now have a great way of experiencing YouTube’s library of 3D content.” VP of Products at Mozilla Jay Sullivan agrees, saying “Firefox with 3D Vision creates a stunning and smooth 3D video experience using HTML5 video based on open standards. 3D Vision from NVIDIA is a great example of the rich, innovative experiences that are being built on top of the speed and graphics power that Firefox delivers to the Web.”
To further showcase the new YouTube stereoscopic 3D video streaming capabilities and some of the latest professional and user-generated 3D YouTube videos, NVIDIA is now hosting the top YouTube stereoscopic 3D videos on its 3D web community site at www.3DVisionLive.com/YT3D.
With all the talk of tablets and notebooks, we shouldn’t forget that Asus started life out as a PC parts manufacturer, up to this day still makes excellent boards and videocards for PC enthusiasts around the world. Asus is giving back to their loyal buyers via their Cash Back-To-School promo. Want to know how? Check out their contest mechanics below.
Customers get a chance to win back the money they spent for every purchase of any ASUS motherboard from any ASUS-authorized dealer store from June 1-June 30, 2011.
At our ASUS Gilmore Roadshow Booth, customer will need to present their official receipt to the ASUS representative, then draws from the Cash Back-To-School pot once. If a customer gets a ‘’Cash Back’’ slip, the customer is eligible for a 100% refund of the motherboard bought as stated on the official receipt. To get the refund, the winning customer must present a photocopy of the official receipt and the cut-out serial number from the motherboard box. Customer can also get a “‘free Starbucks GC” from the money back pot. To claim, customers just need to surrender a copy of their OR to the ASUS booth. Those who purchased ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, P8P67 PRO, P8H67-M LE, P8H61-M LE motherboards will get two chances of drawing and twice the chance of getting their cash back!
On ASUS Philippines Facebook Page, customer should be a fan of ASUS Philippines Facebook fan page http://www.facebook.com/ASUSph , before they can join. Customer must upload a picture of them with their new motherboard at the ASUS Philippines Facebook Wall. Then, they must email their name, address, contact number and scanned copy of Official Receipt to [email protected] with the e-mail subject: ASUS CASH BACK-TO-SCHOOL! Customers who bought ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, P8P67 PRO, P8H67-M LE, P8H61-M LE motherboards get two chances of drawing, twice the chance of getting their cash back! ASUS Philippines will draw winners on June 30, 2011 and announce it on Facebook. Like in Gilmore Roadshow Booth, they also get a chance to win Starbucks Gift Certificates. To claim the prize, customer must surrender a photocopy of their Official Receipt and cut-out serial number from the motherboard box at Asus Philippines Ortigas Office to refund the full amount according to the winner’s receipt.
After Portaling through numerous walls and going through countless test chambers, you may have had your fill of Valve’s latest gaming masterpiece, Portal 2. If you haven’t, allow us to give you another sampling of pure, unadulterated Portal 2 awesomeness via the game’s original soundtrack. Keeping to their title of best developer ever, Valve has released the entirety of Portal 2’s original soundtrack, as well as ringtones for both Android and iPhone phones if you feel the need to profess your love for the game in public. We’ve posted the link to download the OST below, as well as the game’s trailer for the guys who haven’t tried it, or god forbid, haven’t heard of it (yeah right).
Source: thinkwithportals
Photos are a favorite and accurate way to capture, keep, and remember precious moments, but in this day in age where online uploading and posting is short-lived and you’re only as memorable as your next post, many of those photos are lost and forgotten.
Instagram photos, too will lose shelf life once they are buried under more photos and other content. That’s why the Barbarian Group came up with Screenstagram, a screensaver that collects all of Instagram photos of one person’s social network as well as the most popular Instagram photos and stitches them together.
“In a nutshell, Screenstagram displays photos from Instagram. It can show you your friends’ photos or photos from the Instagram popular feed, which contains highly rated photos from across the Instagram community.”
Facebook may soon be further enhancing its social networking site with the addition of Spotify, an online streaming music library.
Slated to be called either Spotify on Facebook or Facebook Music, once the deal between the two companies is solidified, users may have music on their social networking accounts as early as a couple of weeks.
It is rumored that Spotify will appear as an icon in Facebook’s newsfeed, and once a user activates it, they will be able to stream songs which they can listen to on their own or together with their friends that are also online.
When this deal is officially set into motion, it is another major step towards transforming Facebook into the only site that people will need to fulfill all of their social and media needs.
We’d be lying if we’d said we weren’t lusting over the Samsung Galaxy S II. The mere fact it’s running a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor in a 8.49mm body is enough to make our inner geek nod in approval. Well, seems like the wait’s about to end – Samsung Electronics Philippines Corp has just gotten word to us via email that the Galaxy S II will make its Philippine debut in June. Aside from the dual-core goodness and anorexic proportions, the Galaxy S II also brings a massive 4.3-inch AMOLED screen to the table, as well range of enterprise mobility solutions, expanding the business capabilities of the Samsung GALAXY S II making perfect for both business and pleasure. Sadly, there’s no word on when exactly the Galaxy S II will hit dealers near you nor a mention of price, but as soon as we get the word, we’ll pass it on to you.