Halika 3.0

Jennylyn Mercado and Mark Fraiden

Mark Herras and Jennylyn Mercado in New York

Grabbed from Jen’s thread the PEx. Thanks to the one who took the shot.

I don’t want to use my newly acquired credit card just to try either of Second Life or Project Entropia. But I really want to know, is spending on this virtual land worth it?

Better forums (fora?): Lussumo Vanilla vs. bbPress

I’m still deciding which of the two is better.

You must host your own site to be able to use eiter one.

Pero sa Jollibee, palaging parang palengke sa dami ng tao.

I like McDo for its lonely and sterile qualities. For the food, I choose KFC, kahit antagaaal ng service.

Sometime in the late 1970s, Tony Tan Caktiong, the owner of a small ice cream parlor in a lower- middle-class neighborhood here, learned that an American hamburger chain was coming to invade the Philippines.

Worried that his store, which had just started selling burgers, might get floored by the new competition, Tan Caktiong, a Filipino of Chinese descent, took a leaf from the Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu: he flew to the United States to know his future enemy.

When he returned to the Philippines a few weeks later, Tan Caktiong brought with him an arsenal of ideas on how to fortify his store, called Jollibee, to face the newcomer.

What followed was a classic tale of survival that quickly became a Filipino legend that is now being retold in the country’s business schools, often with a tinge of nationalistic pride directed against the U.S. burger chain in question, McDonald’s. [source]

A computerized typewriter that translates electrical impulses from brainwave signals into letters and words could be available in the next five years.

In the short term, the technology will allow its developers, from the Fraunhofer Institute and the Charité Hospital in Berlin, Germany, to watch a thinking and behaving brain function in real time.

But in the long term, such a brain-machine interface could replace the joystick in electronic gaming or serve as a communication tool for people unable to speak or sign.

“We are dreaming of something like a baseball cap with electrodes in the cap that can measure the brainwaves,” said one of the scientists behind the project, Klaus-Robert Mueller of the Fraunhofer Institute.

“People could just put on the cap and have a wireless connection from these electrodes to a computer and they can play video games.” [source]

Xero mobile is on the move. Will it succeed? Starting with zero subcribers, Xero will target the campus and retiree market.

If this were to happen in the Philippines, would it be free TXT in exchange for spam TXT ads? But we’re already paying and still getting those ads!

On Apr. 11, a little-known outfit called Xero Mobile became public through a reverse merger, making available 46 million shares trading at about $1 apiece. What’s remarkable about this newly public outfit is that it doesn’t have any products, customers, or revenue. Even more remarkable: Xero wants to be the first advertising-subsidized wireless service.

Starting at the end of the year, Xero (XRMB) will hand out free phones and ultra-cheap wireless service to 17.5 million college kids around the country. The catch? The students have to agree to watch a few video ads each day.

Ads on a mobile phone? “Some people are very adamant about saying ‘no’ to ads,” says Marcia Kaplan, an analyst with consultancy visiongain. Yet some analysts believe this ad-supported service will take off. Xero hopes to have 5 million customers by the end of 2007. That’s a fraction of the 212.4 million U.S. wireless subscribers. [source]

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The laser that zaps fat
David Richardson

A FAT-BUSTING laser could make cellulite, acne and even heart disease dissapear, scientists say.

The device - developed in the US - is able to heat-up fat in the body without harming the skin above it.

The heated fat is then broken down and excreted by the body.
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Prof Rox Anderson at Massachusetts General Hospital, led experiments using pig fat and skin samples.

He said results showed that the process could have many medical applications in the future, including treating acne. He added: “The root cause of acne is the sebaceous gland, which sits a few millimetres below the surface of the skin.

“We want to be able to selectively target the gland and this research shows that, if we can build lasers at this region of the spectrum, we may be able to do that.”

Cellulite

Cellulite and other body fat could also be targeted, as well as the fatty plaques that form in arteries, leading to heart attacks, he said.

The professor added: “We can envision a fat-seeking laser and we’re heading down that path now.”

The results of the research were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery.

Judy O’Sullivan, a cardiac nurse from the British Heart Foundation, said the research sounded exciting but added that there was a “long way” to go before it could be seen as an effective treatment for heart disease. [source]

“I stil hear people say I had an abortion. But at this point, I really don’t care anymore. The good thing is, after dealing with that painful experience, I remain unscathed. I’m proud that I handled it well.”

Actress and commercial model Heart Evangelista was speaking with Inquirer Entertainment weeks after her battle with tabloid news that she was made pregnant by a man other than her current boyfriend, Jericho Rosales.

“I still deserve to be a role model for youngsters,” Heart said in an exclusive interview at her Makati City home. “To prove that my good image wasn’t tarnished, [the companies that got me to endorse their products] didn’t dump me. They still believe in me.” [source]

“We use viruses to synthesize and assemble nanowires of cobalt oxide at room temperature,” the researchers wrote.

The international team of researchers, led by a group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used the M13 virus, a simple and easily manipulated virus. [source]