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I've been busy lately and my site was overrun by outdated content.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!

Review: The Last Airbender

James Cameron was first to register the title Avatar. So, Nickelodeon took the title The Last Airbender instead. This movie was full of expectations from the millions of fans who liked the animated series. Did it gave justice to the cartoon or is it another movie adaptation failure? Read on.

The movie was shown earlier this July at the United States and a mix of glee and hate circulated around the interwebs. Even though there were a majority of negative criticism about this film, as a fan, I still chose to watch it. The film, from the perspective of a fan, was good, if it weren't for the disaster of a cast. Don't get me wrong here, the Fire Nation supposed to be possess Chinese like traits, but in the movie, they were Indians, no not American Indians, but Indians who had beaten us on the outsourcing and call center field. Noah Ringer could pass as Aang ,the main protagonist. But Nicola Peltz as Katara, Jackson Rathbone as Sokka and Dev Patel as Zuko, gave me a facepalm and a headache. Seriously. the casting was way off. It's like casting Kim Chiu as Alias or Bong Revilla Jr. as Captain America. The casting totally made me lost concentration on the film.

Next was supposed to be the "3D experience" of the film, even though we haven't watch it on 3D, I think it would be useless anyway. There were not enough "bending" and action to fully use the 3D experience. The only part of the film that looks good on 3D was the last action sequence, which is kinda lame, but the special effects were good. The sound and music was good and the story sticked to the cartoons even though audience who are new to the series will be confused due to the lack of explanations. If it weren't for the poor casting and bad acting, I would have recommended this movie to all my friends and acquaintances. But, alas, it was a nightmare. If Nick could not make this straight in the upcoming sequel (Book Two: Earth), a recast or just kill M. Night Shyamalan, then The Last Airbender will surely lose it fans who sticked to the animated series despite the delays and issues.

Microsoft's New Tagline

Microsoft recently announced its new corporate tagline. Find out after the jump.
"Be what's next"

That's it. As simple as that. I think Microsoft is cooking something and it would be a shocker.

Let's just wait and see.