Thirty days are “just about the right time to add a new habit or subtract a habit,” Google engineer Matt Cutts said in his TED talk in 2011.
“If you really want something badly enough, you can do anything in 30 days,” he said.
By taking on his 30-day challenges, Cutts said he found that “instead of the months flying by, forgotten, the time was much more memorable.”
He also said that “small, sustainable changes” were more likely to stick.
EASY, POWERFUL FRAMEWORK. JQuery Mobile allows non-programmers like me to easily and quickly build powerful mobile Web apps and sites. (Photo by Max Limpag)
About ten years ago, I built a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) mobile news site. This was at a time when the cellphone to aspire for was the Nokia 7110, a slider phone made even cooler when a similar device was used in the Matrix movie.
At that time, the Sun.Star website signed a content agreement with Smart for SMS and WAP news and they needed a WAP mobile site. Nobody among the website staff then knew how to build a WAP site. Being a sucker for always trying to learn new stuff, I volunteered to build it.
I finished the WAP site in time for the launch after a 3-day development marathon done after I finished my work at the Sun.Star Cebu copy desk, fueled by more than a pack of Marlboro reds a day (I was still a heavy smoker then) and guided by a phonebook-thick Wireless Markup Language (WML) reference for the Artus Netgate.
Mobile messaging is a fragmented sector. Every few months or so, a messaging app for the phone launches. Unlike SMS, mobile messaging makes use of the Internet for connectivity and offers a multi-media environment with photos, sounds and even animated graphics and virtual stickers.
“K, CU” isn’t enough, we now have to include a graphical smiley, Emoji (an expanded smiley set), or even an animated avatar that reflects our moods. One-on-one texting is old school; group messaging is in.
It’s not surprising that mobile messaging, according to research company Informa, already exceeded texting in 2012. Informa, according to a BBC report, reported 19 billion messages sent per day through messaging apps in 2012, higher than the 17.6 billion text messages process daily.
One of the key features of the new BlackBerry 10 operating system that runs on newer devices like the Playbook, Z10 and Q10 is its ability to run some Android apps that have been converted into .bar files.
To install these apps, you need to “sideload” the files or transfer these to the phone via a laptop or desktop. If you’re on Windows, you can sideload the files using DDPB or VNBB10.
If you’re on a Mac, it used to be a bit more complicated to install Android apps and required that you type commands on the Terminal.
They were at a “really low point,” SpellDial founder Albert Padin said in our interview. After two years of chasing their startup dream to make the world dial names instead of numbers, Padin had to look for a job.
Padin said he could no longer stretch funding for his startup and decided to look for money. He linked up with Dave Overton of Symph, a technology solutions provider.
But weeks ago, SpellDial got a much-needed boost. It was picked by the Science & Technology Council as one of the 2012 ON3 pitching competition winners, along with Payroll Hero and NEXTIX, another Cebu start-up.
When orthopedic surgeon Dr. Rene Catan proposed to create a local and cheaper total joint implant, nobody listened.
“Way mutoo, way maminaw (nobody believed, nobody listened),” Catan said Friday while propping up the huge P500,000 mock check he got for being one of the 10 winners of IdeaSpace’s nationwide search for start-ups.
Catan and his teammates, epidemiologist Niño Ismael Pastor and engineer Vernie Reyes, were named winners for their entry Mirand (Metal Implants Research And Development Corp.) in the IdeaSpace nationwide finals last Friday at the First Pacific Leadership Academy in Antipolo City, Rizal.
Catan specializes in joint replacements and finds it frustrating that people who needed their knees replaced refused the procedure because of the cost. He said he had been grappling with the problem for close to 20 years. Many people, Catan said, became aware of the procedure when former president Joseph Estrada underwent it.
NEVER TOO LATE. Cebuano doctors Niño Ismael Pastor (2nd from left) and Rene Catan (3rd from left) with PLDT and Smart public affairs head Mon Isberto (left) and Smart chief wireless adviser Orlando Vea after the IdeaSpace finals. Catan, in an interview, said it’s never too late to chase your dream. (PHOTO BY MAX LIMPAG)
The headline screamed “install me now!” It was for yet another mobile messaging application and this time, one that promised, according to TechCrunch, “A Richer, Faster Messaging App That Quickly Grabs Doodles, Videos & Images.”
The article about MessageMe got me at: “It’s light, It’s fast and it isn’t just limited to texting or photos.”
I promptly opened the website and was invited to “experience the free messenger that everyone’s talking about.”
The app was quick to install and set up. After activating my account, it immediately scoured through my social networks to look for contacts already in the system. Of my 797 phone contacts, MessageMe was able to find only one who already signed up. One out of 797, imagine that. And that person signed up, I suspect, because he wrote about the service for a tech website. After a few days of checking whether other friends would sign up and seeing none, I uninstalled the app.
The idea is broadly misunderstood, said Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. Disruptive innovation isn’t just about being new, different or radical.
Disruptive innovation is transforming “something that used to be complicated and expensive so that only the rich and people with a lot of skill had access to it and could use it” and making it “so much more affordable, simple and accessible that a whole new population of people has ready access to it.”
Christensen is the authority on disruptive innovation and wrote “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” a book that was said to have deeply influenced Steve Jobs, the epitome of a tech innovator.
Last year, Christensen, along with Nieman fellow David Skok and James Allworth collaborated on researching disruptive innovation in journalism. That paper became “Breaking News,” which you can download as an e-book.
David Skok, Clay Christensen and Nieman Foundation curator Ann Marie Lipinski during their discussion disruptive innovation and journalism. (Screengrab from NiemanLab website)
“Change the color of the shirt,” the voice on the video said. Like magic, the shirt of the woman in the photo took on a bluish hue and, with a swipe on a slider, turned orange.
The video (embedded at the end of this post) is a demonstration of PixelTone, a prototype iPad app that allows users to edit images using voice commands and touch gestures.
The app was created by a team from the University of Michigan School of Information working with Adobe Research. That team is led by graduate student research assistant and masters student Gierad Laput, a Cebuano.
Gierad Laput during a recent presentation. The Cebuano student led a team that created an app that allows users to edit photos using a combination of voice commands and touch gestures. (Photo provided by Gierad Laput)
TWO employees of the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) cobbled together off-the-shelf parts to devise an equipment to test power meters for a fraction of the cost of imported gadgets.
Technician Niceporo Salvaleon, Jr. and meter engineer Alvin Basubas built the power meter tester for about P25,000 to do the job previously done by a machine that costs about P1.9 million.
Salvaleon and Basubas work in Veco’s Power Metering Department. Among their tasks is to check so-called instrument-rated meters, which are typically used by large consumers. The company regularly checks meters to see whether these are still functioning correctly and to guard against pilferage.
Technician Niceporo Salvaleon, Jr. and meter engineer Alvin Basubas shows the power meter tester that they built for about P25,000 to do the job previously done by a machine that costs about P1.9 million. (Photo by Max Limpag)