RoboCat

Even today, most robots are intentionally designed to look robotic so they won't inspire the creeping fear that our "natural" reality is in danger of cybernetic replacement. Witness Sony's Aibo and Honda's Asimo.

As humans become more and more comfortable with technology, that fear becomes less and less prevalent. Compare the rogue replicants of 1982's Blade Runner, for instance, with the pretty persocoms of 2002's Chobits.

The taboo against realistic robots faded even further recently, with the introduction of Omron's realistic robot cat Necoro.



Wonder if it'll go after my mouse.

Gamers See Blu

As I've said before, it's the gamers of the world who first adopt emerging technologies.

Sony confirms that the PlayStation 3 will feature the next generation of optical media, the Blu-Ray Disc.

Indian Government Embraces Bloggers

Jeremy Wagstaff notes that India is in the process of framing rules for granting accreditation to bloggers.

It's amazing how India catches on to IT trends without needing too many cues from US developments.

The E-governance Lifestyle

E-governance starts with the individual official's e-lifestyle.

A while back, I mentioned techie Congressman Roilo Golez. Curious as to how tech-savvy he really is, I invited him to a party at the Makati Sports Club.

What I learned was interesting.

- Every day, he reads Philippine broadsheet sites before midnight, as the next day's news is posted. The tabloid sites update later, and he checks those at five AM.

- He's used up two 160GB removeable hard drives, and is now filling up a 250GB Iomega.

- He has the mobile numbers of 3,000 of his constituents on his Nokia 9500.

- He gets regular SMS alerts from the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

- He refers to the Web via WiFi during plenary sessions.

- He emails as fast as I do.

Inq7's Erwin Oliva was on hand to report more here.

Can't wait 'til he starts blogging.

Pornstar Bloggers

Wired News notes that pornstars are now blogging.

"As Parry (a stage name) writes on his blog, the reality can be different. From female co-stars who give him the cold shoulder and fall asleep on-set, to Herculean struggles to maintain an erection for hours at a time while being denied lunch, Parry's portrayal of the porn star life is anything but glamorous. 'Still want to do porn?' he asks in one post."

I feel his pain.

There's No Such Thing as Too Many Cooks Anymore

Prof. JJ Disini points out that IBM's new blogging policy was written in only ten days by the company's bloggers using an internal wiki.

When I was with eTelecare, the closest we could come to such participative policy formulation was a handful of assigned representatives from all levels, and clunky paper forms distributed to employees. Without enabling technologies, participative policy formulation is a relatively slow, messy, and expensive process.

Perhaps wikis can actually make participative policy formulation the faster, cleaner, cheaper way to write the rules.

Yahoo! Messenger Beta

I'm now trying out the new Yahoo! Messenger Beta. Taking a cue from the integration between MSN Messenger and MSN Spaces, Yahoo! Messenger Beta now indicates updated Yahoo! 360° content. Among the other new features I like are one-click voice chat, a voice mailbox, custom ringtones, and drag-and-drop file transfer.

I can now invite chat buddies to Y!360° from the Y!M window. Since beta invitations are limited, I can't invite indiscriminately. If you're 18 or over, and really serious about evaluating Yahoo's integrated blogging and social networking application, drop me a line at Y!M ID mikeabundo.

So far, Yahoo's integrating messaging with blogging and social networking. Microsoft has yet to release a social networking app.

I wonder when Bill Gates will dip his fingers into friendships.

Gator Eats Demon

When the small fry team up to take on the big boys, the game becomes more interesting.

Steve Rubel reports that tomorrow, NewsGator (my current RSS reader) will announce its acquisition of Bradbury Software, makers of popular RSS aggregator FeedDemon. Steve predicts a consolidation trend among smaller RSS players, to compete with bigger players like Yahoo and Microsoft.

Frontline Filipino Gaming

Veteran gamemaster Dino Tansioco and longtime gamer Erwin Nañes recently shared with me their frontliner insights on Filipino online gaming. Check out the podcast here.

For context, here are links to some of the topics mentioned in the podcast:
Prof. Edward Castranova's paper
Sony's game item trading service
The Electronic Commerce Act of 2000
Prof. JJ Disini on the Ragnarok virtual murders
Zork
Gundam

Just What the Doctor Ordered

I passed a quaint little drugstore on my way to a meeting, and just had to take this shot when I saw its name.


The cure for the common blog.