If the streets seem to be deserted, if the crime rate is or nearly 0%, and if people are glued to screens (and even on AM radio), there is no doubt of what in the world is going on – it’s Manny Pacquiao’s fight.

This man, since the day he became famous because of his powerful fists, has never failed the attention of people and the media. Every fight has a long-term coverage – from his trip from Philippines and back, to his practices, rituals, the fight itself and even future plans and fights. This man has made a phenomenon like no other athlete has. And now, even his family (especially his mom) is getting into the scene.

Don’t get this all wrong, though – the man is not an attention-seeker. He doesn’t even need to seek such attention! Attention seeks him. How he did that? Well. Just put nationalism and fighting (literally and figuratively speaking) spirit in an equation.

Just last November 15, the Pacman has once again proved that his fists can bring much honor to himself, to his family, and quoting him, much more honor to the country.

The fight at MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas against Miguel Cotto gave Pacman his 7^th World title in different weight divisions. This is one of the greatest marks in boxing history, and what makes it more remarkable is that the person who made such history is a Filipino.

In a 12-round fight, Manny Pacquiao forced a Technical Knockout win in the near end of the game when referee Kenny Bayless called it a fight. Beaten into a pulp with face horribly swollen and bloodied, Cotto was defenseless and could no longer fight to end the fight for the final bell. With this win, Pacquiao bagged $13 million dollars – something that Manny would think only as a bonus for the honor he gave for Philippines.

 With this, Manny Pacquiao has been tagged as “the greatest boxer” or “the No. 1 boxer” of his era. No question and no doubt. He didn’t get that in a shortcut, the man lost some fights, too.

The way to greatness is never easy, especially in boxing. You get beaten up, bad-mouthed and the likes. But if you also know how to have focus and determination, love and pride for the country, deep faith, and simply keeping your feet on the ground, greatness could be yours.

To Manny and to every Filipino, Mabuhay!

Other Philippine cities also excelled in the outsourcing industry according to Tholons. One of which is Manila ranking 4^th in the Top 8 Global Outsourcing Cities - a list which is dominated by 6 cities from Dubai and Dublin Ireland. Also, Iloilo ranked 3^rd in Top 10 Aspiring cities in the outsourcing industry.

Scale and quality of workforce, business catalyst, cost, infrastructure, risk profile and quality of life were the six categories that the different outsourcing cities were evaluated upon.

Cebu’s vast workforce makes the province highly recommended for outsourcing. With different skilled individuals trained in prestigious schools with excellent English language proficiency, Cebu is filled with talented resources willing to render services to foreign clients.

And since resources are very much well-rounded, the city can offer different types of service to clients: outbound and inbound call centers, customer service, graphic and web design, software and applications development, SEO and online marketing, and lots more.

All the factors that Tholons Globalization Service have in their categories for qualification makes Cebu globally competitive. Indeed, it shouldn’t be questioned that Cebu got the top spot in outsourcing and offshore services.

Kristofferson Paunil a.k.a. ‘Paok’, winner of various art contest including the Toyota Art Edge Digital Art Contest winning 2^nd place, shares the limelight to young Cebuano artists to impart their ideas in a never-done-before pattern contest.

The challenge is to design an art that is repeatable hence, making a pattern. As Paok would put it, the criteria should be THOUGHTS = PATTERN, meaning the definition of the artist’s thoughts should be seen through the pattern design he/she is making.

There should be one entry per entrant, works should be printed in poster size landscape, and should be submitted in Handuraw Pizza in Lahug unfolded. There would be a two-week exhibit of all the entries in Handuraw from October 4 to October 17.

The contest’s aim is to be able to inspire and influence the graphics community to be creative and be involved in the local art community and, of course, have a blast of fun and entertainment.

The awarding of winners would be on the night of the 17th, still, at Handuraw Lahug at 7PM onwards. Aside from the contest, there would also be live doodle and graffiti, open bazaar, tattoo sessions, and food with live performances from Russ Ligtas, Hastang, Zarah Smith, Mary Peril and Uno.

Philippine Offshore Design and Development Corporation is in one with the event's goal in taking Cebuano art a step further. As sponsors of the event, PODD Corp believes that there is much talent in the pool of artists in Cebu and events like this would encourage each of them to participate and support local art.

Aisde from PODD Corp, other companies are also sponsoring the event like: RCTV 36, MetroGrafix, Tri-J Marketing Inc., Art Cebu, Bliss, Jordan Tattoo, Indiesign Creative Group, Philippines Islands, Sun Cellular, Killer Bee 92.3, Handuraw Pizza, Crols Tatoo, Foundry Publishing, Electrolux, and M Lhuillier.

This event is for the benefit of Tsinelas Association Inc.

The world is feasting on the iPhone craze, but not South Korea. The Korean telecommunications companies don’t agree quite well with iPhone’s applications since most of them would grab a big chunk of their companies market.

But just recently, South Korea’s telecommunications regulator finally gave a go signal to sell iPhones in the country. The selling of the device has been approved after the Korea Communications Commission’s meeting with five of its commissioners. Other telecommunication companies showed their interest in selling the iPhone in their respective companies. The date of the device’s release, however, was not yet announced.

Either ways, this is good news for Apple and the various iPhone applications developer who can all benefit from this decision. The device is also set to release in China by the fourth quarter.

Reference:

Olsen,K. (2009, September 23). South Korea approves sale of Apple’s iPhone. Retrieved September 23, 2009, from http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090923/ap_on_hi_te/as_tec_skorea_iphone.

By 2010, Sony and Panasonic will be releasing 3D television sets to give that 3D experience to every household, while Mitsubishi and JVC are reportedly working on the same product for their respective brands. The cost of the new 3D TV, although not yet revealed, are said to be just a bit higher than the available televisions that are available now.

The 3D TV requires the new television (3D ready), broadcasting content, and, of course, 3D glasses. 3D television works this way(quoting John Sutter): “there are two images, one for the right eye and one for the left, alternate quickly on the TV. Sutters on the 3D glasses swap the viewer’s vision from right eye to the left at the same rate: 120 hertz, or 240 hertz for the images together. The TV connects with the glasses through a sensor that’s placed between the lenses on the glasses. The effect moves quickly that it tricks the brain into merging the images and creates the perspective needed to see images in 3D.”

Although the development of this 3D television sounds good and all, but there are still some problems seen in this invention. One would be the 3D glasses which, if you won’t watch in a specific distance, would make the opening and closing of the glasses “blinds” and would give the viewer a headache. Another thing would be that 3D broadcasts would require twice the date and would give an unworkable amount of bandwidth. And lastly, not all shows are really enticing to watch on 3D.

3D would only be good for animated or fictional shows or sports matches. But news programs, talk shows, and some TV series would not be that good to watch in 3D. Although this new invention is exciting but it could be awkward and weird.

Sutter, John D. (2009, September 18). CNN.com. 3-D television expected to come to homes in 2010. Retrieved September 21, 2009, from http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/18/3D.home.television/index.html.

University of Oxford physics professor Joshua Silver developed an affordable solution for those who can’t afford to see an eye specialist or a pair of glasses. Silver developed self-refractive glasses. The glasses “consists of a clear membranes filled with silicon oil.” The user can have full control of the amount of liquid on the lenses depending on the need for correct eyesight. A dial is attached to a syringe filled with the silicon oil. The amount of oil in the lenses changes the glasses curvature. Once the amount of oil already suits their vision, it can then be sealed with the valve. Instantly, one would have a pair of glasses that would help correct their eyesight without even visiting or seeing an optometrist.

Although this new invention has its limitations, like it can’t correct astigmatism and it’s not proven to work on children, but it has made a decent percentage of success. The glasses were known to have correct the vision of 80% of the people who used it.

With further development needed and the bigger problem on distribution, Silver sees that the invention still has a long way to go. The glasses are less fashionable and they are still in the process to make the lenses suitable for everyone’s use. Also, Silver saw a problem on budget and distribution and said he can’t do it alone.

Setting aside all the walls that could possibly bar to helping millions of people, Silver keeps a positive outlook that the discovery of self-refractive lenses is just a start.

E-books are made to be convenient and easier to use to most users than the usual books printed. According to a Pennsylvania-based writer Paul Jessup that an e-book’s search function is “10 times better than flipping and looking and searching” on his own. The light emitting diode screens used in netbook computers are smartphones made e-books easily readable. And recently, more and more companies are producing their e-book devices, e-store for books, and e-reader applications.

The growth of e-book users have brought companies to making improved versions of devices and applications making it available to almost everyone. Director of the Flexible Display Center in Arizona State University Nick Colaneri said that low-power, reflective e-papers are expected to hit the market next year.

Kindle connects wirelessly to Amazon’s online store while Barnes & Noble launched their own e-store and e-reader application. Sony announced its e-book reader, Reader Daily Edition, with built-in wireless capability, and Apple on the other hand is rumored to be working on a wireless tablet device that would be better than reading an e-book through an iPhone.

With all the technological advancements, software companies have also went a notch higher when it comes to developing programs and software that would cater to the many e-book enthusiasts there is.

Also, e-books can be affordable. Gadgets may cost more than your ordinary book but it is already an investment. Once you got that gadget in your hands, you can easily download some e-books for free or buy them for a lower cost. The savings you’ll get from there would just sum up to the cost in buying the gadget. Plus, it minimizes the hassle of going to the nearest bookstore, looking up for the book you like and, sometimes, lining up for them.

Although the e-book industry has not come out that strong yet, people believe that pretty soon, sales of e-books and e-book devices would soon rise. Time would come that much and much more people would prefer to have e-books than ordinary books.

NOTE: All facts in this article is based on the article “E-books catching on with readers” by David Dritsas (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/14/ebooks.ereaders/index.html).

They said the traditional would never fade, or probably it will but it would take a lot more time to do so. With this move by Google, librarians feel like having a public library would seem pointless. Readers, especially the young, would always prefer the convenience of getting resource materials and information through the internet.

The advantage of having this online library though is that information is more accessible and reachable to more people who would want and need information. Some aired out their concerns that only the privileged ones who can afford to attend college and the ones only they can access most books and the information containing these books.

But some public libraries are diving into evolution but not totally eradicating the traditional books. Some public libraries are incorporating social networking, blogging, entertainment, and other technological stuff in their library to learn and gather information in both the traditional and revolutionized manner. They also considered libraries as more than being just books – the place could also serve as a place where people would meet, discuss or debate matters about the information they have gathered. Still, through this, public libraries wouldn’t totally diminish and would still have its purpose to the public.

Understanding technology, what Google proposed is merely a matter of debate of evolution over tradition. It would all depend on how the people would see it, and how would they soon adapt to this proposed online library.

Almost everything around is becoming wireless, and soon, there will be a point in time that EVERYTHING would indeed be wireless. Impossible yet predictable. If everything, then, would soon be wireless, why not count electricity in?

According to Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricty,it is possible in the future that all electronic devices wouldn’t need wires to operate. This wireless electricity converts power into a magnetic field and sends it through a magnetic field at a certain frequency. With this, there would be less hassle in untangling power cords and a lesser need for disposable batteries which, according to Giler, are huge energy wasting factor.

Foreseeing this wireless technology, Giler believed that it would make electric cars more attractive to consumers. The thought that they don’t need to “plug-in” their cars anymore and just drive into a garage with a wireless power mat would make it easier. Plus, electric cars save the environment and would surely save huge budget.

Although the wireless electricity has been tested and some are even sold in the market, but still with limitations. Researchers have been trying to try sending electric waves in far distances but in very small amounts, while it can send a large amount of electric energy but only to near distances.

The only thing left now, aside from further research and future implementations, is to educate the people on how these things work and the idea of it. And probably, people would be more enticed to using wireless electricity than having tangled wires around their homes.

Lately, a lot of artists have now been doing portraits of people through social networking sites. Gone are the days when portraits were only for the rich and the famous.

Some artists, literally do the portraits only that they do it by requests from people in social networking sites (Facebook for example). New York artist Matt Held has a fan page in Facebook where he gets requests from people to make a portrait out of their profile photo. The images in he painted can be used by people online for free, yet he sells them in galleries for more than a thousand dollars. In this example, although his images are free online, his fan page and the people who uses his images can do the marketing for him that might earn him some bucks.

Other than real portraits, some people use automated programs, websites or website applications that would easily provide them a portrait of themselves – either posterized or sketched. This would allow users to now have a “virtual” portrait of themselves, ready-to-use, and without the expensive cost.

With social networking sites swarming all over the internet, people tend to take advantage of the people’s need of a more improved replica of themselves that they can show off to the people. And as technology advancing, you can never blame for the people to ask for more each day. Probably, by this day onward, we should be expecting much more to come.