TECHMUNDO 2.0

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Tommi (at S60 blogs) seems to have developed quite a fascination with 2D barcodes. Here’s something that might wet his appetite with those wierd looking barcodes. To me they looks like modern glyphs.

I was window shopping with my sister at a local mall (SM North Edsa) in the Philippines and I saw kiosks at the movie houses. I’ve passed by these kiosks maybe a hundred times in the last six months and I just went passed it, not paying any attention to what it does, since I’ve never seen anyone using it.

Today, my curiosity got the better of me, and I went closer. Those kiosks were actually thermal ticket printers for people who bought tickets via their mobile phones. This service is wittily called TickeTXT.

We have this thing called G-Cash (for Globe Telecom subscribers) or Smart Money (for Smart Subscribers) which is simply a virtual (or mobile) wallet that stores local currency like a debit card, which can then be used to purchase goods, send money (for payment or remittance, both locally and internationally) to people under the same network, etc. etc. I’m not sure if it’s a service that is widely used by local cellphone users, but it’s a service that being pushed aggressively by the local operators. One merely needs to pick up a sunday newspaper and be flooded with full paged colored ads for these services.

So back to the kiosks. Smart subscribers (people who signed up with Smart Telecom, not necessarily people who are smart) can purchase movie tickets using their Smart Money and they receive a text message as confirmation of the purchase. Here’s where it gets interesting. Embeded in the confirmation message is a 2D barcode that they have to scan (the kioks have scanners), then their tickets get printed.

I wanted to take some pictures to upload but I didn’t have my camera with me (and the E61 sure isn’t equipped with one). I also wanted to try it out, but I’m not a subscriber of Smart Telecom (I’m with Globe). Sadly, I wasn’t able to test this new service out. But here’s an account of someone who tried and failed.

The terminals were branded Gavitec. Click on this link to see a video of how this service is done.

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I still haven’t upgraded my firmware, simply because I’m in the middle of Super Miners.  I’m helplessly stuck in level 84 (I think) and I don’t want to mess up my save game.

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As you guys can see, I haven’t been updating my blog recently.  Partly because there isn’t really much to write about, and partly because I have been quite busy with other stuff — christmas shopping and recently enrolling in technical analysis for the stock market.  Anyhoo, my E61 has been acting up.  The backlight switches off with for no apparent reason, although an annoyance, it doesn’t occur too much.  Also I noticed a couple of phone restarts the other day, but apart from that, no real problems.

It’s just wierd that everytime a gadget of mine acts up, a new firmware is available.  With the E61, the new firmware is up.

Ed writes about his observations on the new firmware in his great blog.

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I was driving home the other night listening to the diggnation podcast and they were talking about the soon to be released, much anticipated, and just like any other apple product, much hyped, iPhone.

Note that the mock up is just a mock up. But it’s the nicest one I can find.

It started out with Kevin Rose, being typically Kevin, didn’t want to spill a single bit of info about the iPhone. Tight lipped Kevin eventually gave in to Alex’s continual prodding and boozing and gave some really nifty specs about Apple’s upcoming mobile telephony device. It’s coming out in three variants (GSM, and the other two), two different storage capacities (4 and 8 gigers), separate batteries for the mp3 and phone functions, touch screen, slide out keyboard, . . .

I’m actually very interested; more interested with the iPhone than the new Nokia’s mobile computer/phones. It’s set to be released next month. Let’s hope they throw in Wi-Fi connectivity and I’d really be tempted. Oh no. . .

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I just wanted to share some of the photos I took last week. The full photoset can be found here.

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I’ve been away for a few days.  Some friends of mine asked me to go with them to Boracay and I said yes.  The last time I went to Boracay was when I was 10 years old.  Back then, all you could see was sparkling clear water and white sand going forever, there was no water lines yet nor electricity.  Back then, we even had to go back to the ship at night and be ferried back in the morning to go back to the beach.

The difference is huge, comparing Boracay 20 years ago.  Now it’s covered by shops and inns.  It’s a good thing that we went at a time that was still considered Off Peak; accomodation prices weren’t too high yet, and enjoying the beach didn’t mean bumping into someone’s back every ten seconds.

Okay . .. back to the original point of the post.  I flew to the island of Kalibo (which is a couple of hours away to Boracay via land travel and a short ferry ride) via Philippine Airlines.  I’m pretty sure most of you have been hassled by Flight Attendants to have your mobile phones switched off even if Flight Mode was available (or Offline in E61).  Much to my surprise, before the plane took off during the routine safety procedure presentation of the FA’s, they specifically said have your phones switched off or in flight mode.  Wow!

Back when I went to Singapore via Tiger Airways a few months back, they didn’t hassle me with my E61 also.  Same thing when I took a flight via Jet Star Asia.  My point . . . it’s good that the airline industry is kept abreast to mobile phone developments.  By allowing the E61 switched on means that I can enjoy watching movies, listening to podcasts or playing SuperMiners (now in Level 60) especially on long flights.

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