An hour for Mother Earth: Turn off Technology

An hour for Mother Earth: Turn off Technology for Earth hour event where around 15 million Filipinos are expected to be part of some one billion people worldwide who will switch off their lights for one hour for the environment Saturday evening.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the switch-off at 8:30 p.m. of March 27 will be the highlight of Earth Hour, which has been observed in the last three years.

“The switch-off signifies the start of a very personal and lasting lifestyle change to minimize our ecological impacts and to do our bit for a more sustainable planet. Personal pledges can take many forms, from upgrading to energy-efficient appliances to planting and stewarding a small grove of native trees," WWF said in its website.

WWF reminded the public that Earth Hour does not end when the lights are switched back on. Earth Hour was crafted to take a stand against climate change, and became a worldwide phenomenon in 2008 and 2009. The Philippines placed first in this event globally in terms of town and city participation.

Since the observance of Earth Hour in 2009, each of the Earth Hour allies has advocated for the adoption of renewable energy technologies and energy-efficient practices.

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Google fights China

Google has shut its mainland Chinese-language portal and began rerouting searches to its Hong Kong site. China warns Google that its spurning of self-censorship had angered the one-party government, wary of ceding control over China's 384 million Internet users.

Google startled the world and the business community in January when it said it might quit China over censorship and after suffering from a sophisticated hacking attack that it said came from within China. Beijing has denied it was involved in any hacking.

Analysts said it was possible Google's plans for other services in China, such as its Android smartphone software, could be jeopardized by its move. Google's troubles in China are not unique. Many foreign companies such as eBay and Yahoo! have failed to make headway in the market due to localization problems and stiff domestic competition and have pulled out.

Internationally popular websites Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube are blocked in China. A former British colony, Hong Kong enjoys more freedom, including an uncensored Internet, than mainland China.

But Google acknowledged that the Chinese government could at any time block access to the services, which include Google search, news and images.

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Enter the WePad?

The WePad, you know because "we" is plural of "I"? Compared to the iPad with its 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GMA 3150 graphics, webcam, two USB ports, flash card reader, UMTS modem, and a mooted six hours of battery life, I could see picking one up -- provided the price point is decent.

A German company the manufacturer Neofonie, also has designs on a WePad app store and, if all goes according to plan, this thing'll sport genuine Google Android and the Android Market. The company also mentions something called the "WeMagazine publishing ecosystem," the basis of a turn-key operation for getting your own branded device out on the e-reader market.

So far, here's a comparison:

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Cloak of invisibility almost a reality

Cloak of invisibility almost a reality just like in the movies and games. From Harry Potter's the cloak of invisibility, to other sci-fi and fantasy movies. Now scientists have taken a small but important new step toward making it reality.
Researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology report they were able to cloak a tiny bump in a layer of gold, preventing its detection at nearly visible infrared frequencies.

"In principle, the cloak design is completely scalable; there is no limit to it," Ergin said. But, he added, developing a cloak to hide something takes a long time, "so cloaking larger items with that technology is not really feasible."
"Other fabrication techniques, though, might lead to larger cloaks."

In cloaking, special materials deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream. It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

Ergin's research was supported by the German Research Council, the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the European Commission and the German Ministry for Education and Research.

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Facebook beats Google as Most-Visited Site

Facebook beats Google as Most-Visited Site!! This is according to hitwise as a Social network beat a search engine in the U.S..

This is a major win for Facebook. The ability to represent the social network as the number one site should count for a lot as corporate representatives talk to advertisers and investors, and could result in a direct boost in revenue. There could be momentum from user interest since most people like to be part of something that's popular.

But this doesn't mean people will stop searching on google, this just goes to show the stickiness and the rising users and interest in this social network we call facebook.

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Smartphone Battery Tricks

Here are some Smartphone Battery Tricks for first time users of and a recent convert to smartphones. Naturally they don't have such a long battery life when in use due to obviously so many applications or programs one can do with it, in short: the more you do, the shorter your phone's battery lasts.

1. Dim It - The brighter your screen, the more juice you're using. If you're in a dimly lit room, turn down your LCD screen's brightness. If your device has an autodimming feature that detects the light in a room, use it. Similarly, if you use your smartphone or laptop to play music, lower the volume.

2. Turn off applications - It is great that you can use Bluetooth technology to connect your smartphone to a headset, or use Wi–Fi to speed up the downloading of e–mail messages. But when you're not using that headset or not near a Wi–Fi hot spot, turn off those features on the phone or laptop.

3. Signal Search - Smartphones also continually looks for network signals. If you're in a weak signal area, your phone must work even harder to find one, decreasing battery life. If your G.S.M. 3G network is not available or the signal is weak, the battery will drain faster looking for one.

4. Check Mail Manually - Simply put, auto-notifications (of some phone apps) drains power. You don't need to check your email every minute now do you?
Turn Off Everything

5. Disable the Animations/fancy effects (graphics or sounds included) - The hotter your laptop feels, the more battery power it is using. And one of the biggest users of power is Flash animation, the technology behind many online videos and animated ads. To improve battery life, disable Flash when not using wall power.

6. Get an App to Aid You - There are a number of applications that can help monitor battery life and shut off various functions that cut down on a mobile device's effective power.

7. Realize the End Will Come - Lithium–ion batteries cannot be overcharged; a device's circuitry cuts off the power when they are full. However, manufacturers still recommend that a laptop not be continually connected to power once the battery is at its capacity. If a laptop won't be used for several months, it should be stored with the battery in a 50 percent charge state.

No matter how well you care for your battery, there comes a time when you'll need to send your battery to its final resting place though.

I hope these Smartphone Battery Tricks can help you enhance your smartphone experience.

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Pi Day and Albert Einstein's Birthday

Pi Day is here and let us all celebrate as well Albert Einstein's Birthday on this year's Pi Day!! Pi, is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535…

With the use of computers, Pi has been calculated to over 1 trillion digits past the decimal. Pi is an irrational and transcendental number meaning it will continue infinitely without repeating. The symbol for pi was first used in 1706 by William Jones, but was popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737.

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