Northern Blogs

LG Optimus Pro to challenge Chacha and Galaxy Pro

1:05 PM

gtventic

LG has also announced their very own full qwerty Android phone with the Optimus Pro targeting the same market as the HTC Chacha and the Samsung Galaxy Pro.

At the moment, we have the Galaxy Pro B7150 and the HTC Chacha in this category already available in the market.

LG Optimus Pro C660
800MHz processor
Qualcomm MSM7227T chipset
2.8-inch display @ 240 x 320 pixels
QWERTY keyboard
150MB storage
256MB RAM
up to 32GB via microSD, 2GB included
3G/HSDPA 3.6Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi hotspot
Bluetooth 3.0
3.15 MP fixed-focus camera
GPS w/ aGPS support
Li-Ion 1500mAh
Android OS, v2.3.3

The LG Optimus Pro is the 3rd Android device of this form factor and it looks like it wants to undercut the price of the other two with an estimated retail price of about P10,800 {via}.

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How Much Is a User Worth?

9:45 AM

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Several upstart Internet companies have shown promise in being able to translate user engagement into revenue.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011By Mike Orcutt

Internet companies are notoriously difficult to value, as investors learned in the dot-com crash 11 years ago. But since the "Web 2.0" companies fueling this year's Internet IPOs rely upon having a reliable group of engaged users, they do offer at least one telling metric: the amount of money each user is worth. That's why venture capitalists evaluating such businesses in their early stages often examine how much revenue a company is generating per user.

Bijan Sabet, a venture capitalist at Spark Capital, which has invested in several Internet companies, including Twitter, FourSquare, and Tumblr, says his firm often considers $2 of annual revenue per user to be an important target threshold for startups. By that measure, several of today's new Web companies show genuine promise, as the chart below indicates.

Footnotes: 1.) The figure for Google users refers to the number of unique monthly search users, which doesn't reflect all the people that see its ads and use its services. 2.) The figure for Groupon users refers to reported "cumulative customers" in 2010. 3.) The figure for active Zynga users refers to "monthly unique users" from October through December 2010. 4.) The figure for active Twitter users refers to a recent report from Business Insider that found that only 21 million Twitter users follow 32 or more accounts. Twitter considers an "active" user to be someone who is following 30 accounts, with a third of those accounts following back. 5.) Revenue figures for Facebook and Twitter are based on estimates from eMarketer, a research firm. 6.) Revenue figures for Zynga and Groupon come from their IPO filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It's worth noting that Groupon is an outlier largely because its users buy things from the company rather than serving solely as targets for ads. And of course, revenue per user isn't an absolute measure of a company's prospects: after all, Google is the world's most profitable and valuable Internet company not only because it has a lot of revenue per user, but also because it has a vast number of users. Sheer scale is also a reason for the soaring valuation of Facebook, which now boasts 750 million users. However, by the time public investors get a chance to buy a piece of the company, they'll have to decide whether its metrics really justify the price, or whether they foreshadow another bursting bubble.

Footnotes: 1.) Public company values are based on closing prices on July 8. 2.) The values for Zynga and Groupon are what each company hopes to attain after its upcoming IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal. 3.) The values for Facebook and Twitter are based on the last round of funding each company has raised, according to the Journal, and recent trades on a private exchange, SharesPost.

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HSPA+ vs. LTE: 2G, 3G and 4G explained

8:40 AM

gtventic

All that confusion about mobile internet speeds and the upgrade to the 4G network has got us all excited and frustrated at the same time. I tried to explain it here before but I though this short video from HakTip should give us all a nice and simple explanation.

I have to admit I did not know EDGE’s theoretical speed could be faster than the old 3G. Though it’s been obvious from the start that Globe’s HSPA+ and Smart’s LTE aren’t really 4G, it’s just that 4G sounds better than 3.5G or 3.9G (so, okay they just rounded it up).

I’d like to stress what Jason said — the generation does not dictate the actual speed. This means 4G is no better than 3G since it’s the actual speed that’s what matters most, not the theoretical.

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Facebook Lets Its 750 Million Users Video Chat, but Not in Groups

5:41 AM

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Video talk: Facebook users have to install a plugin to use the video chat feature.
Credit: Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg dismissed obvious comparisons with the video service included in Google's new social network.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011By Robert D. Hof

Facebook has revamped its popular chat feature by adding free video calling that can be launched inside the social network's website. What was most striking about the launch event, held in Palo Alto, was how much CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to distance his company from those seeking to slow its momentum, Google in particular.

The video-calling service is provided in partnership with Skype, which recently agreed to be sold to Microsoft, a Facebook partner and investor. Skype already provides Internet phone and video services, but users need to install a sizable program, and can only make video calls to other Skype members. With the new service, Facebook members can click on a "call" button on a friend's profile page or in a chat window and connect, after installing a small software plug-in.

"It's a total natural for them," says Greg Sterling, founding principal of market research company Sterling Market Intelligence. "A lot of people will use it."

At the same time, the launch, which included a new group text chat feature and an easy-to-access chat buddy list, appears to expose Facebook's increasing trepidation about Google. Last week, the search giant introduced a preliminary version of its Google+ social network. The new service, yet to be rolled out widely, has garnered considerable positive reaction from early users, though it remains to be seen whether it will take off once it's released more widely. "Now it really looks like Facebook is nervous about Google," says Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the website Search Engine Land.

Among Google+'s features, in particular, is a group video chat service called Hangouts. Facebook's Skype service is strictly one-to-one calling, which Skype CEO Tony Bates implied make up the vast majority of video calls. But group video calls are also something Skype charges money for, and Zuckerberg brushed away questions on when group video chat might come to Facebook.

One-to-one video calls fit more neatly with Facebook's emphasis on providing ways for people to connect with real-world friends. Other social services such as Twitter and Google+, allow for less personal relationships. "Google's design approach emphasizes loose connections, while Facebook emphasizes closer, more intimate connections," says Ray Valdes, a research director with Gartner Research.

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Reproductive Health Care (RH) Bill and Me

1:16 AM

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The Inquirer published the argument of the Guttmacher Institute which clearly accused Dr. Raul Nidoy of distorting the evidence to support his personal opinion.

The Guttmacher’s letter tries to correct the misuse of its findings by Dr. Nidoy on his letter to the Inquirer, including his opinion against the artificial contraceptives including and particularly birth control pills.

What he actually does is distort the evidence to support his personal views. …

The Guttmacher pointed out:

They found the abortion rate in the Philippines would be reduced by 83 percent if all women who wanted to avoid pregnancy were able to access modern contraceptive methods and use them correctly and consistently.They also made clear that the claims that the birth control pill is abortifacient is false and a contradiction to all scientific evidence. Birth control pill does not terminate a pregnancy, but only prevents a pregnancy.They also claimed that Nidoy misrepresents the findings of the Guttmacher study “Relationships Between Contraception and Abortion: A Review of the Evidence” by failing to mention that the study found that in cases where abortion and contraception rose simultaneously in a given country, it was because fertility desires were falling and contraceptive use was not increasing fast enough to meet the desire for smaller families. The study also found that once fertility rates stabilized, abortion rates fell as contraceptive use continued to increase.They also accused Nidoy of ignoring the evidences that prove the positive effect of having access to the family planning services.

Dr. Raul Nidoy actually involves in pro-life movement. He is the Director of Personal Formation of Parents for Education Foundation or PAREF as what has been told in his blogger.com profile page.

Talking about Pro-Life, people involve in this movement believe, if I was not mistaken, that sex should be done according to its main purpose which is for procreation. They are against to the use of artificial contraception or any means of birth control including the calendar because they interfere the natural purpose of sex, therefore, should not be used. And I think, this belief is similar to what the Roman Catholic Church teaching.

In contrary to their belief, some protestant sects and other churches, upheld the teaching of the Bible that sex is the gift of God for married couple (man and wife) not just for the procreation purposes but for the couple’s pleasure as well. They also believe that the Bible doesn’t prohibit the use of contraception considering that natural or artificial contraception is used to avoid conception but not to abort any conception.

Everybody knows that I am member of the Iglesia ni Cristo. The church has already released its official stand and support to the RH Bill. But before this, I was already expressing my support to the said bill here on this Make Money Online blog.

Well, at least I am now sure that my stand regarding the use of safe contraceptives is in accordance to the teachings of the church (INC). And it also clearly means that my spirit is still one with the spirit of the INC administration, not like what happened to a Jesuit priest in De La Salle.

A certain Fr. Bernas openly expressed his positive thoughts about the RH Bill. I don’t know if he really supported the RH Bill. But his thought about the RH Bill is in contrast to the official stand of the church he was affiliated with which is the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church until now teaches its members that the use of artificial contraception is prohibited. I was even confused to its belief that any means of artificial contraception including the use of condom are abortifacient.

I don’t know if my understanding about abortifacient is correct. For me the term abortifacient refers to something or some ways that will result to abortion. And based on what I learned from science as thought to us since elementary, life begins when the egg cell of woman has been fertilized by the sperm cell of man. So, I think, condom should not be considered abortifacient considering that condom is used to avoid the fertilization of the egg cell by the sperm cell.

But why I am supporting the RH Bill?

I know that the RH Bill still needs to be refined. However, I believe that our country needs a law on reproductive health not just for the benefit of women and children but for the whole Filipino families as well.

What about the pills and injectibles? They are abortifacient! And the RH Bill promotes these abortifacient devices!

I know that there are pills and injectibles that are abortifacient or are used for abortion. But not all pills and injectibles used for contraception are abortifacient.

Actually, my wife uses injectable contraceptive. But its use is mainly to avoid ovulation. And when there’s no ovulation, then there will be no egg cell that will be fertilized by the sperm cell. And since there is no fertilization happened, then there is no conception. Therefore, there will be no abortion.

Besides, it is clearly stated in the RH Bill that abortion is still unlawful. In other words, those abortifacient medicine and devices will not be included on the artificial contraception that will be promoted by the government to its citizens.

But isn’t it true that God told men to go to the world and multiply and fill the earth? Controlling the population growth is clearly against God’s teaching!

I don’t think that God told men “to go the world and multiply and then fill the earth” ONLY. I am reading the Bible too. And what I found here is that God told men to:

Be fruitfulMultiplyFill the EarthSubdue it

So, controlling or subduing the multiplication is also a commandment of God. But we should take note that what has been written in the Bible is just “Subdue It” not “Stop It.” In other words, we are told to control the multiplication but not to stop the multiplication.

But what should we use to control the multiplication? Of course, we should use the methods and devices that do not violate other laws and teachings of God.

For example: God told us not to kill man. So, we should not kill anyone including the fetus inside the mother’s womb. Aborting the pregnancy is an act of killing, and therefore a violation of God’s commandment.

I still have lots of things to say. And I think, I will just update this post later. I know some of the things I said here might touch your pride. I understand that everyone of us has our own opinion regarding the RH Bill and or the artificial contraceptives. And what I said here are my opinion too.

Thank you so much for reading this.

Sustines Laplana

Tags: Abortion, Artificial Contracetives, Guttmacher Institute, Nidoy, Raul Nidoy, RH Bill
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How to avoid accidental social media disasters

9:41 PM

gtventic

Do you have an active social media life? If the answer is a ‘Yes’ you need to be reading this post.

Post the ‘Weinergate’ incident, when an accidental tweet with an obscene photo that should have been made via direct message to an on-line girlfriend went public on Rep. Weiner’s timeline forcing his resignation, it is time to list out ways to avoid such social media disasters.

Armed with Android smartphones and numerous social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter is by itself a challenging situation. So you have your personal Twitter and Facebook account, and your companies’/clients’ both on a computer and sometimes even on your smartphone. Juggling these daily is daunting to say the least.

The other aspect is your own social life and how you conduct yourself in social circles, what pictures you post on Twitter and Facebook and so on. Ask around and you’re sure to know quite a number of people who have suffered the ‘Freudian slip’ or in this case the ‘Freudian click’ sending the wrong message to an ex-flame/spouse. You end up dealing with not just the horror of such a predicament but also the sinking feeling that it could have been easily avoided.

Here’s how you can avoid accidental social media disasters:

1. Always have multiple browsers for handling personal and professional social media accounts. This is by far is the simplest way to sort things out in your head before you post both professional and personal status messages. So, having IE, Chrome, Safari and Firefox for different purposes is adding order to the chaos.

2. Applications like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Seesmic and others all provide quick social media posts from multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. So, using a particular application for professional use and another for personal is the way to go.

3. Direct messages on Twitter or Facebook messages may seem private, but never forget that nothing on the internet is really private.

4. Be funny but remember the virtual world is full of real people and this includes your friends, family, professional acquaintances, co-workers and other plain nosey people. And there are a few things that should not be shared on Facebook and Twitter.

5. If you are a politician or celebrity, the personal and the professional blur – the social media world may have a lot of bots but there are real people out there, so behave as you would in the real world.

6. After writing out a post or attaching a photo make sure to read it again and checking that its leaving from the right account before hitting ‘send’.

7. Posting from smartphones both in a professional and personal capacity is not good idea. Period. Unless you have two smartphones, which again is just a disaster waiting to happen.

So well accidents happen online all the time and some people pay a heavy price as online reputation is there for all to see and every action you take in the virtual world leaves a trail for someone to dig it all up again. Hiring online reputation management consultants is another way to deal with this.

Poll: What’s your back-up internet like?

5:31 PM

gtventic

For some people, having a back-up internet plan is a must if they need to be connected to the net ask the time. Usually, back-up options are often cheaper, nomadic and portable.

If you’re one of those who carry some sort of back-up internet, go hit the comments and share with us what it’s like.

Mine’s pretty simple but more redundant — a Smart Bro Share-It (postpaid), a Globe MyFi (prepaid), and a Sun Cellular USB dongle (prepaid, with Sapido mobile router). Update: I forgot I also have that Bayan Broadband USB stick (postpaid) but it’s being used by my staff.

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Murdoch reputation takes a hit

1:27 PM

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This happens when you don’t handle crisis the way it should be. Murdoch’s News Corp is facing the heat over its phone hacking scandal, which is doing significant damage to its reputation. Interestingly the news broke out just in time when Murdoch was going to take over the British Sky Broadcasting. Later giving in to the pressure from the UK Govt, he dropped his plan.

The company though claims to have handled this phone scandal neatly has already lost $18 billion to reputation damages. James Murdoch in a statement further approved an out-of-court settlements and rejected the claim that incidence has dented the image of News Corp and that they have detached themselves from this issue and it’s business as usual.

Contrary to James Murdoch’s statement, it was noted that Murdoch-owned Times and Sun’s Sunday circulations was at all time low. A clear case that readers have opted to move away from them to their competitors. This latest salvo will also damage Murdoch’s businesses in other parts of the world, right now in the UK Murdoch media empire is on weak knees. Surprisingly this situation was in store for them looking at the way they were running the newspaper business.

Put your house in order, and that’s where News Corp failed. Instead, they were quick to blame their competitors to have colored them black. Arrogance, ignorance call it whatever, News Corp is paying for its miscalculation, and it’s going to be tough for them to recover their brand value.

More trouble in waiting for the media giant. The US lawmakers have recommended a formal probe into the whole phone-hacking scandal, and if proved, it will be a clear case of “criminal” misdeeds.

Poll: What’s your favorite/top tech brand?

9:02 AM

gtventic

Our last entry about Nokia being the top brand in the Philippines caused quite a stir, not only here but also in our FB and Google+ entry. So I thought why not do our own little survey too?

At least this time you’re able to get your votes across and have a say on the results. This time though, let’s just focus our poll on the tech brands.

So go hit the comments and give us three (3) tech brands you love the most.

There’s just so many we can’t put them on a list. What I’ll just do afterwards is just ask my assistant to do a manual tally of all the entries.

Here are some brands I have in mind that might be in the running list:

Cellphones: Nokia, Samsung, LG, Apple, Sony-Ericsson, HTC, Motorola, Alcatel, Cherry Mobile, MyPhone, Torque, RIM (BlackBerry).

Personal Computing: Intel, AMD, IBM, HP, Sony, Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Redfox, Neo, MSI.

Photography & Imaging: Canon, Nikon, Epson, Fuji, Kodak, Panasonic, Olympus.

Telecoms: Smart, Globe, Sun Cellular, BayanTel, PLDT, Wi-Tribe (Liberty Telecoms), Red Mobile, TM, TNT.

Companies & Websites: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, Friendster, Multiply, Flickr, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Sulit.

Gaming: Nintendo, Blizzard, Mobius, Level Up!, eGames.

There are so many others to pick from but I’d suggest choose the 3 that’s always on top of mind whenever we talk tech. Go and share this with your techie friends and tell them to send their votes too. Our aim should get as many brands to tally as possible, and hopefully break the 1000 respondents barrier.

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Nokia beats Apple, Google as top brand in Philippines

4:37 AM

gtventic

A recent survey by Nielsen and Campaign revealed that Nokia is the top brand in the Philippines, across all markets (not just tech), beating Apple and Google.

The report, published last month (full story requires paid subscription here) puts Nokia as the #1 favorite brand in the country.

The top 10 brands that made it to the list are the ff.

Top 10 Favorite Brands
Nokia – 84%
Nescafe – 80%
Lucky Me – 75%
Energizer – 73%
Jollibee – 65%
Selecta – 57%
C2 – 51%
Gatorade – 51%
Cobra – 49%
SM Malls – 49%

Interestingly, Nokia is also the only tech brand that’s on the list. Not even Apple or Google, which usually get very good ratings in the US, made it to the top 10.

The survey was conducted from a random sample of 1,000 respondents in urban areas in the Philippines.

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