Dual-core Android 2.3 Gingerbread Samsung Galaxy S Successor Confirmed for February 2011 » And the death of my best-buddy Sam

It is only about a few months ago since I bought my Samsung Galaxy S smartphone which is really a blast. Of course it was a little out-of-budget, but heck, we are mobile dude! Nowadays we need to launch multiple applications at the same time, view videos, read RSS feeds, chat with friends, play games, post on Facebook and Twitter, send SMS, e-mail and call simultaneously in the palm of our hand – it’s awesome because Sam, my best-bud smartphone can do all that.

This evolution of mobile technology puts some amazing smartphone power at our fingertips, which improves every year – err NO, it’s every three months - which is really fast. Just recently I got my best-bud Sam running on Froyo upgraded from Éclair.

And now what? Samsung will release a new version of my best-buddy Sam on February?    
 
Shin Jong-kyun, the head of Samsung’s mobile business division, said Samsung will unveil a new version of the Galaxy S at February’s World Mobile Congress (WMC) in Barcelona. The new Android smartphone is Samsung’s attempt to maintain its technological lead in Android smartphones, and will directly challenge the LG Optimus 2X and Motorola Atrix, two other dual-core phones that are also on their way.

In addition to the dual-core processor, the new Galaxy S successor will also feature Samsung’s new “super” Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (Super AMOLED-Plus) display and Gingerbread (Android 2.3) – the most advanced Android version designed for smartphones, and the successor of Froyo (Android 2.2)

Since tablets is a also gaining popularity as a substitute for netbooks, Shin also announced that we will get a peek at Sammy's plans for the Galaxy Tab line for 2011, which will probably include that lovely 7-inch Super AMOLED display that's been kicking around.

I just hope with this development, Samsung will also roll-out free OS upgrade to Android 2.2 users. To my fellow Froyo users, hold on to your smartphone guys,  because in a few months our phone will really look antique, when they release Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and also Ice Cream Sandwich possibly on mid 2011.

Technology is really moving so fast, it’s good but in my case, it is making my best buddy Sam obsolete – and it’s killing me.   


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Source:
Kim Tong-hyung "Samsung vows to double smartphone sales in 2011" The Korea Times
Posted: 01-10-2011 19:33  [Retrieved: 18 January 2011]

How to Control Your Gmail Inbox » Get through your email faster with Gmail Priority Inbox

Do you have an effective way to process and read your priority email so that you can deal with the important matters of the day? As blogger, I always receive lots of email in my Gmail Inbox, and I always want to read first those important emails rather than checking out those chain mails from friends.

Sometimes, I've opened an email and thought, "Hmmmmm, not sure what to do with this. Damn!  I will deal with it later!"—and promptly closed the message or drag it to some folder. I thought if I do this over and over again, it doesn't take long to end up with hundreds—or even thousand messages in my Inbox.


It is a good thing Gmail developed a new approach to process our Gmail Inbox to help us gain more control, improve our response time, productivity and keep up with important matters and due dates.

I received this note from Gmail, which covers key factors of the Priority Inbox that can help us process our Gmail more efficiently:

Priority Inbox^Beta

Priority Inbox atomatically separate our most important messages, making it easy for us to read and respond to the messages that matter.

 

Getting through your email faster

Try reading and replying to the messages in the "Important and Unread" section first. Mark anything that requires follow-up with a star, then go through the "Everything Else" section. If you leave Priority Inbox, you can return to it by clicking the link next to Inbox on the side navigation of Gmail.   How it works Gmail's servers look at several types of information to identify the email that's important to you, including who you email and chat with most, how often you email with these people, and which keywords appear frequently in the emails you read.

 

Train Priority Inbox

If Priority Inbox makes a mistake, you can use the buttons to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important, and Priority Inbox will quickly learn what you care about most.

• Customize Priority Inbox: You can change what type of email you see in each section (like switching the "Important and Unread" section to just "Important"). Just click on the section headers or visit the Priority Inbox tab under Settings and choose to "customize inbox groups."
• Use filters to guarantee importance: If you want to be absolutely sure that some messages are always marked as important (like email from your boss), you can set up a filter and choose "Always mark it as important."
• Search by importance: If you want to see all the messages that have been marked as important, both read and unread, do a Gmail search for "is:important."
• Switching back to your old inbox: If Priority Inbox isn't for you, you can easily switch back to your normal inbox by clicking "Inbox" on the left or hide Priority Inbox altogether from Gmail Settings.

To learn more about managing your email with Priority Inbox, check out the Gmail Help Center.

Have a cool Friday!

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes: Notes on the Spears of God

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, the most commonly held truth is that knowledge is power. Yet a select few men and women begin to suspect what few will admit: we know nothing at all.

The world’s oil resources have dwindled. The rich are turning richer and the power-mongers are becoming more powerful. China and the United States dominate the globe in a geopolitical chess match. The human mind has merged with the cybergrid, yet the human race seems not to have evolved much at all.

Then, on a remote South American mountain, two scientists stumble on a grisly scene. Here, while trying to protect an ancient sacred rock, a primitive tribe has been slaughtered. No witnesses remain to reveal what could have inspired such carnage. Or so it would seem.

In the international arena, meanwhile, a new global race is on: a weapon capable of tipping the balance of power is discovered. Among the competitors are a National Security Agency director who is playing at an elaborate doublecross within his own agency and a vengeance-seeking Israeli meteor hunter. Shamans and zealots, geniuses and madmen–all seek to unlock mysteries that fell to earth millennia ago. But the key lies with four mute children who may unwittingly hold the secret to the planet’s survival–or its destruction.

Summary

Latin America features ecological "islands" called "tepuis," jungle realms so isolated from their neighbors that evolution proceeds in unique ways. In one such pocket biosphere lives a tribe called the Mawari. They are possessed of a strange meteorite that fell to Earth generations ago. This worshipped object carried biological agents that infected the Mawari and gave them strange mental powers. Now, their existence made known to outsiders, the tribe will become the focus of the First World's greed. But what the Westerners don't realize is that by breaking the isolation of the Mawari they are infecting the whole world with the germs of a potential apocalypse (or salvation, if the two can even be distinguished).

Central to the fate of the Mawari are two scientists, Michael Miskulin and Susan Yamada. They are on an expedition to the region, backed by the finances of Miskulin's rich uncle, Paul Larkin. When they arrive, they find all the adult Mawaris slaughtered and only four children left in hiding. The scientists bring the orphan children back to America and the refuge of Larkin's home.

It eventuates that the slaughter was engineered by one Gen. Retticker, who is in charge of a military project to create the perfect soldier. He wants to reverse-engineer the mental powers of the Mawari for his own uses, and has his own pet scientist, Darla Pittman, in his employ. Darla doesn't know about the genocide necessary to secure her a certain meteorite sample, and she goes to work eagerly.

But Retticker's strings are being pulled in turn by a weird cabal: Doctor Vang, leader of a conspiracy to boost mankind onto a new evolutionary plateau, and his associates, evangelist George Otis and adventurer Victor Fremdkunst. This cabal plans to trigger the End Times by stoking war in the Middle East. And the last major player is Jim Brescoll, head of the NSA, who has his own designs on the Mawari survivors.

But the wild card is that the four Mawari children—Alii, Aubrey, Ebu and Ka-dalun—have plugged into the global infosphere and are about to start pulling cosmic strings of their own.


MY THOUGHTS AND PERSONAL OPINION 

The truth behind the fiction

Technology has always been an important factor in war. The latest breakthroughs within bio and nanotechnology is being converted and transferred for defense purposes. The shift from dependence on military hardware to dependence on scientists show the diffusion of military power.

Today’s military strategy is heavily based on reconnaissance, surveillance and earth observation systems fed into pattern recognition systems that scan for military movements or troop enforcement.

Moreover, human body is now being used for weaponization. Bionic implants enhancing physical strengths shows great potential in biodesign soldier systems. Robotic retinas and “listening boosters” could give extrasensory powers. Bioengineering human tissue for extra strength, nanomedicine or genetheraphy that increase key vital soldier parameters.

The future of biotechnology and the use of human body for weaponization blurs the line between hard science and science fiction.


War and the future generation

War is a regrettable attribute of the international system. While it is not always inevitable, its frequency has caused states to remain armed and ready to defend national interests. Technology has played a leading role in extending the scope of the battlefield as well as its scale.

While we may not be able to totally banish war as an instrument of state policy, new influences may move us in directions which will allow us to limit and control – perhaps even to avert unnecessary violence and death as a result of state actions.

In all these research to enhance human capabilities, and the never-ending search for defense advancement, new opportunities arise for every nation to capture, to incorporate significant new military capabilities

How we respond to these new technologies will have profound effect on how we will see the future and how far we will evolve, and what its legacy will be for future generations.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes : Who will guard the guards?

We are now standing at the threshold of an era, which will see the introduction of a new class of weapons and technologies – those designed primarily for destruction and greater lethality. The adoption of these new capabilities will mark not just the beginning of a new technological revolution in warfare, but also a new era in the elaboration and clarification of war.

National defense is a must for every nation – to protect its territories, and to implement law and order in their respective nation.

The use of human body for weaponization - bionic implants enhancing physical strengths (biodesign soldier systems), robotic retinas and “listening boosters” for extrasensory powers, bioengineering human tissue for extra strength, nanomedicine or genetheraphy – means that technology is making us less human.

We must wake up. To restore the glory and purpose of creation. To make all humanity see the need to plan for the long-term survival of our species. To rouse us from our drive to self-destruction.

The question before us then is : Do we have the power to adopt not only to these new systems but to control and regulate their use for the purpose of long-term human survival and not for human extinction.

I leave you this question, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

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My book notes and personal opinion about technology and war. Submitted as part of the requirements in MIT – 502, Technological Change, Master in Information Technology under Prof. Enrico R. Hilario.

Book Citation:

Hendrix, Howard V. Spears of God. Del Rey Books:New York, 2006

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Narcissism Epidemic in the Blogosphere

I came across an interesting article in Manila Bulletin [entitled "It’s all about me me me!" August 12, 2009 issue E-1 section], which basically discusses the fact that we’re just all about ourselves these days.


The article quoted Jean Twenge, the author of “Generation Me” and “The Narcissism Epidemic” (with co-author W.Keith Campbell), who said that;

Today’s new generation think they are so special, where in fact, they are not. Although they have become more confident and assertive they have also turned themselves into a narcissistic and self-centered generation.

A modern narcissist is said to be someone who tends to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others. Generation today are being portrayed as virtual self-centered zombies who care more about their iPods – highly tech savvies, doing texting, net surfing, blogging, IM, online games, calling on hi-tech mobile phones and watching TV, sometimes all at the same time.

They blame social sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Multiply and Twitter because it shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make the users more self-centered – especially personal blogs.

I don’t know why I instantly had an inkling that this is really what’s going on in the blogosphere, mixed with a guilty feeling that oppressed me for hours, a persuasion that what I’m actually writing here in this blog might be narcissistic, all about me-myself-and-I.

Well, let’s accept that lots of personal blogs are plagued with narcissistic posts – about what they eat, where they go, daily rants, pets etc. Honestly, I’m amused in reading some of them, even if it is just plain personal nonsense rants.

I personally view this as more of self-expression rather being self-centered or narcissistic and I am proud of being in the “Me Generation” if they want to call it that way. I see it more of trying to define myself with this new opportunities, resources and technological avenues for self-expression and self-definition. Aside from personal experiences, reading blogs influences me.

Are you also proud of being on this generation? Any additional thoughts?