Category Archives: Technology

Why do I like thee?

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Picture Editor for iPad

[Here's my inaanak (godson) who took this early morning flight with his parents to Manila, to migrate to Australia soon. This photo was taken after the christening. He was asleep here and it was very funny how his hands seemed to be talking. One of the first few photos edited using PhotoPad.]

Thank you for your comments when I blogged about the stunner last week. To those who asked about my (first) impressions, I am afraid that I cannot write objectively because I absolutely liked it since Day 1. Although it is also a question of who needs it, I shall say that it is generally not a must, but it would really depend on the consumer (user). The truth is I debated with myself many times if I should get it or not. To get a decent netbook has been a plan since early last year. But nothing convinced me, especially because of the storage and battery limitation. However, when the iPad was coming then promising at least a 16GB storage and 10 hours battery life (promise is true! sleep mode also helps to conserve the battery), I took a serious note.

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Blog attack

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This blog has been hacked.

I don’t know when it exactly happened, but I suspect it was yesterday. I think I saw it coming. The other day three new users registered to this blog as subscribers. Their email addresses are strangers to me, i.e. the first time I heard about them. I’m normally security (and anonymity) conscious that I intended to reset my passwords soon because of that. However, I failed to do so because I wasn’t accessing this blog much the past days. And yesterday (I’m convinced that’s when the hacking happened), I had to spend almost the whole day in Dubai that I hardly went online. Except for the few comments that I moderated through my phone.

As I reached home last night, something nagged me to check my dashboard. There I found out that:

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Smellophone

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Do you think words are not enough? 

A German syndicate announced last week that it has patented a chip for sending scents via text and multimedia messages.   A spokesperson from mobile services company ConVisual told reporters that people could send the smell of the ocean breeze through cell phones from vacation spots or mark special occasions by sending an aromatic two-dimensional bouquet.

Developers have been working on the chips for eight years, and they could be released to market by 2010, according to a report in the Berlin-based, English-language news site.   About 100 scents will be available on the chips, but consumers will need special phones to use them. Developers are seeking partnerships with mobile phone companies for marketing and distribution.

So far, researchers have worked on floral and other enjoyable scents, but the possibilities are endless (ack!  are there gross scents coming?  I fear!). Fortunately, people with scent-enabled mobile phones will be able to reject messages.

It seems that “scent technology is increasingly attractive.” In the United States, Motorola obtained a patent for smell-releasing phones and explained that the device would “fill a need” and “address problems” of on-the-go consumers who miss the nice fragrances they enjoy from plug-in devices at home.

Let’s see what will happen in 2010 when the smell-phone is finally launched.  Therefore, aside from saying “I will text/call you later”, expect to hear ”Smell you later“.