Review: Despicable Me

Usually the first impression on a cartoon about a guy and little kids would be just be plain boring. That's when you watch Despicable Me in 3D!


This movie, fully utilized the 3D experience and when I mean utilized, they make you really feel you are within the film. The roller coaster scene was a great example of what I'm talking about. It takes the audience into a first person perspective and you'll almost feel that you were the one riding the roller coaster. The sound was superb (well, based on the movie house I had watched the film. They are on Dolby Digital). The story may be generic to some, but the one-liners and gags will surely make you laugh out loud (I was guilty of this). The three girls especially Agnes were so cute I'm gonna die! The yellow minions made sure that there were no dull moments and Steve Carell gave justice to the main protagonist Gru. If you like cuteness, comedy and 3D, this movie is just made perfectly for you.

Tech Friday: Apple launches new iPod models

Last September 1, Steve Jobs introduced the new line of Apple iPods that will be available on stores this coming September 8, 2010.

These new breed of iPods will surely answer the need of the consumers for a better music experience. Details after the jump

iPod Shuffle



The "budget" iPod that sacrifices a display screen to bring you a cheap music player. The iPod Shuffle is now on its fourth generation includes the return of clickable track and volume controls form the first two generations. The control pad is 18% larger than the second generation of iPod shuffle and the model also features VoiceOver from the third generation in twenty-five languages. It also features Genius and handles multiple playlists. They are currently being sold in 2 Gigabyte models with US pricing for the device announced to start at US$49.

iPod Nano



My personal favorite. This iPod is like the standard iPod but suffers dwarfism. The sixth generation iPod nano now comes with a multi touch screen similar to the iPod Touch. Don't expect a large screen though. Some notable changes are as follows: the device now features a smaller lower resolution (higher pixel density) screen which supports multi-touch. The device supports over 24 hours of music playback on a single charge. Also, the device retains the same 30-pin dock connector as previous generations. The new iPod Nano also does not support video playback.Additionally, the device no longer has a camera or voice recorder, as Apple's market research determined that many customers rarely used those features in the previous generation devices. The 6th generation iPod is also at the same price point as the 5th generation device which is $149.

iPod Touch



The big daddy of the iPod line. Since it's first release last September 2007, the iPod Touch (some misname it as iTouch) sold millions already. The fourth generation ipod Touch is bundled with new innovations that will surely make you want to buy it. The front-facing camera for FaceTime, the iPhone's retina display, has support for recording 720p video and 960 x 720 still photos via a back camera, Apple's A4 chip, a built-in microphone and a 3-axis gyroscope are the notable changes that you can get from this next model which you can get for as low as $229.

There you have it folks. Apple will surely make your wallets cry in agony.

Till next time.

Ozine Fest Encore cancelled!

Recently, Otakuzine announced that they are cancelling Ozine Fest Encore which was originally scheduled on October 1 up to October 3.

The renowned anime convention which is planning to have a "part 2" of their most successful con yet, called for a meeting today to discuss the plans for the Ozine Fest Encore.

Due to some problems with the "surprise" Japanese talent and to some production matters, they are pulling the plug on this event.

Expect to have a "mini con" to replace this event sometime soon.

Tech Friday: McAfee sold to Intel for $7.68 billion

McAfee, the Santa Clara-based security / antivirus company, was recently acquired by Intel and it will function as a wholly owned subsidiary (under the control of its Software and Services group). Experts believe that this move is Intel's step into strengthening the security of connected devices (i.e. wifi gizmos). As we all know, we are already on the wireless age and a series of threats that attack the vulnerability of this network are developed every day. Let's just wait for what Intel is cooking after the acquisition.

Tech Friday: Android OS

I've been busy lately and my site was overrun by outdated content. So here we are with a new gimmick that comes every week to satisfy your technophilia techo hunger. Welcome Techo Friday! It's Friday the 13th today and it's fitting to launch this new segment of my website on this wonderful day. Anyway, our first topic is one of the trending topics in twitter and geeks dig this operating system like hot pandesal. I'm talking about Android! So let's begin!

Android is none other than Google's flagship operating system for mobile devices (mobile phones, netbooks and such). It's based on Linux kernel and GNU software so expect it to be opensource.

A lot of developers jumped on the Android bandwagon since it's distribution last 2007 and doubled on its release last October 2008. Since then, lots of mobile companies like HTC, LG, Samsung and Motorola took advantage of the flexibility of the OS to bring us mobile phones with rich content and customization. So how many versions of Android are there anyway? What the heck aere those cupcakes they were talking about? Well, just like Microsoft uses a codename/petname to their Windows, Google tend to satisfy their sweet tooth with these names:

note: Before they called it like sweet desserts, HTC Dream was the first mobile phone to use the Android OS (Android 1.0)

1.5 (Cupcake)
-Ability to record and watch videos through camcorder mode
-Uploading videos to YouTube and pictures to Picasa directly from the phone
-A new soft-keyboard with text-prediction
-Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP support
-Ability to automatically connect to a Bluetooth headset within a certain distance
-New widgets and folders that can populate the Home screens
-Animated screen transitions

LG GW620, HTC Hero and Motorola MB300 were among the first early adopters of this version.

1.6 (Donut)
-An improved Android Market experience
-An integrated camera, camcorder, and gallery interface
-Gallery now enables users to select multiple photos for deletion
-Updated Voice Search, with faster response and deeper integration with native applications, including the ability to dial contacts-
-Updated search experience to allow searching bookmarks, history, contacts, and the web from the home screen
-Updated technology support for CDMA/EVDO, 802.1x, VPNs, and a text-to-speech engine
-Support for WVGA screen resolutions
-Speed improvements in searching and camera applications
-Gesture framework and GestureBuilder development tool

HTC Sapphire, Samsung Galaxy and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 were among the popular phones who used this version.

2.0/2.1 (Eclair)
-Optimized hardware speed
-Support for more screen sizes and resolutions
-Revamped UI
-New Browser UI and HTML5 support
-New contact lists
-Better white-black ratio for backgrounds
-Improved Google Maps 3.1.2
-Microsoft Exchange support
-Built in flash support for Camera
-Digital Zoom
-MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events
-Improved virtual keyboard
-Bluetooth 2.1
-Live Wallpapers

Motorola Droid, HTC Legend, Samsung Galaxy S and Google Nexus One were the notable mention on this version.

2.2 (Froyo)
-General Android OS speed, memory, and performance optimizations
-Additional application speed improvements courtesy of JIT implementation
-Integration of Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine into the Browser application
-Increased Microsoft Exchange support (security policies, auto-discovery, GAL look-up, calendar synchronization, remote wipe)
-Improved application launcher with shortcuts to Phone and Browser applications
-USB tethering and WiFi hotspot functionality
-Added an option to disable data access over mobile network
-Updated Market application with batch and automatic update features
-Quick switching between multiple keyboard languages and their dictionaries
-Voice dialing and contact sharing over Bluetooth
-Support for numeric and alphanumeric passwords
-Support for file upload fields in the Browser application
-Browser can now display animated GIFs (instead of just the first frame)
-Support for installing applications to the expandable memory
-Adobe Flash 10.1 support

Motorola Droid 2 and HTC Evo 4G are one of the few current phones that uses this latest stable version.

note: An upcoming version (3.0) on Q4 2010 is named Gingerbread and support for WebM video playback and improved copy–paste functionalities are the currently confirmed features. Rumor has it that the upcoming "PSP phone" of Sony will use this version.

There you have it guys. If you are planning to join the Android craze, better check the version first and the capabilities of that "flavor" in order to satisfy your cravings.

Till next time on Tech Friday!