The Little Giant

Worldwide Mini-Notebook Shipments to Surpass 5 Million Units in 2008
by: Jerry Liao

Mini-notebooks are designed to be compact and mobile, for users to carry around, be productive even during mobile. They maybe small in size, small in appearance, smaill in components - but one thing is for sure, they are not small when it comes to their sales figures.

Mini-notebooks are an emerging category of mobile computing devices, with worldwide mini-notebook shipments on pace to reach 5.2 million units in 2008 and 8 million units in 2009, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to experience strong growth, as there could be as many as 50 million mini-notebooks shipped in 2012.

Social Networking Popularity Explodes Worldwide

Facebook numbers soar in Asia-Pacific
by: Jerry Liao

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, HI5 and Friendster has been gaining a lot of attention and popularity to users, especialy to the younger web audience. And it is not surprising, gaining new friends from social networking sites is not only exciting but fulfilling to most as well.

So just how popular are the social networking sites? Here’s a study release by comScore:

A Change of Mind

Globe Telecom announce their new pricing for the soon to be released iPhone 3G. iPhone 3G will be released here in the Philippines on August 22, 2008 (Friday).

For prepaid:

- iPhone 3G 8GB will be priced at P37,599 (US$836) from its initial offering of P 41,899.00 (US$931).

- iPhone 3G 16GB will be priced at P43,799 (US$973) from its initial offering of P 48,889.00 (US1086).

The new pricing will apply to all subscribers—even to those who have made reservations.

False Security

E-Passports Hacked in Minutes
by: Jerry Liao

Just a couple of weeks back, the Department of Foreign Affairs announced that passports with the electronic chips (e-passports) are set to be released this coming October. This after we complied with the international requirement for a machine-readable passport (MRP) set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

If everything goes according to plan, Filipino travelers will now carry e-passports that can contain more information about the passenger than an ordinary passport. I heard that Filipino diplomats and officials will have their e-passport starting October and to all Filipino travelers by December. So why are we even bothering to shift from a normal passport to an e-passport? Simple - because of SECURITY.

Small Wonder

Mobile Power with new INTEL CENTRINO 2
by: Jerry Liao

When I attended the INTEL ATOM briefing, INTEL made it very clear that sub-notebooks that are powered by ATOM processors are designed for viewing and browsing - and not creation. Meaning if you need to do some audio and video editing, sub-notebook computers will not be the ideal machine for you. But what if I want to do some gaming, multimedia stuff and other resource hugging application and be mobile at the same time, is there such a device that will allow me to do all that? YES, with INTEL Centrino 2.