Leon Kilat : The Tech Experiments | Drafts of a perpetual deadline chaser

Interactive history

MAGELLAN’S CROSS. A visitor reads about the history of the Magellan’s Cross and views archival photos of the kiosk after scanning the interactive Digital Tourism marker placed there.

Every day, thousands of tourists visiting the Magellan’s Cross are told that the cross you see there “Encases the Original Cross Planted By Ferdinand Magellan On This Very Site.”

That’s not true. But that’s what tourists are told by guides and that’s what they read on the sign.

We just installed our interactive tourism markers at the site as part of our Digital Tourism initiative geared toward the 2021 commemoration of the introduction of Christianity into the country.

The markers are installed at the cross and at the nearby Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño. If you have an iPhone or an Android device that supports it, all you need to do is open your camera, point it at the marker and make sure the viewfinder covers the entire code. You will then get a prompt to open the information about the Magellan’s Cross.

Tags Digital Tourism, Ferdinand Magellan, History

On the road

I have suffered. But there’s a Bosendorfer here so let’s see what happens.

Late in her life when she was broke and reduced to hiring men for sex and the affections she craved, Nina Simone performed My Baby Just Cares For Me in Montreux. The song was used in commercials for Chanel No. 5 “unfortunately of which I have none,” Simone said before she started her performance.

She then said she wished she was as wise (financially) when she made the album with the song as “I have become now.”

“I have suffered,” she said. “But there’s a Bosendorfer here so let’s see what happens.”

Tags Fujian, Gulangyu Island, Piano Museum

AI Highlights

How AI led me to Carla Bruni

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date January 1, 2018
1 Comment on How AI led me to Carla Bruni

Spotify Carla Bruni — DISCOVERY. I discovered Carla Bruni through Spotify’s recommendation engine.

It had to be Edith Piaf, Madeleine Peyroux, or Joan Baez. It could also have been Eva Cassidy, Janis Ian, Sarah Jarosz or Joni Mitchell. More likely, it was my listening to all these artists that led Spotify to recommend Carla Bruni to me earlier this month. I have been listening to her songs since.

Before Spotify, I don’t think I would have listened to Bruni. All I knew before she ended up in my Discover Weekly recommendation was that she was a model married to the former French prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Tags artificial intelligence, natural language processing, Spotify

AI Highlights Mobile

The case for chatbots

Are you open today? What’s the number of your Ayala branch? Answers to these questions are easy to program as chatbot routines. Instead, here I am, after more than an hour of calling and searching on mobile on my way to and now attending an event, and none the wiser as to whether any of Union Bank’s branches in Cebu are open today and until what time.

Nobody answers the phones of the different branches I called (may be an indicator) and the branch listing on the site is a non-responsive table and text is garbled. I went to the Facebook page to send a message but saw the indicator “typically replies within the day.”

Tags chatbots

Highlights Journalism

News: from medium to platform

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date September 13, 2015
1 Comment on News: from medium to platform

Gone mobile — ATTENTION HOG. Mobile devices have become the primary screens of people, studies have shown.

For the first time ever, US consumers spent more time on applications than watching TV, according to Flurry Analytics, a mobile analytics company owned by Yahoo.

“After putting the desktop web in their rear view mirror, apps now reign supreme as the top media channel in the United States, even without the help of the mobile browser,” said Simon Khalaf, Flurry senior vice president for Product & Engineering, Publisher Products.

Writing “The cable industry faces the perfect storm: apps, app stores and apple,” in the company’s blog last Sept. 10, Khalaf said “fears surrounding the long-term prospects of the cable industry were well warranted.”

Tags Mobile

DigitalNomad Mobile Travel

Have phone, will travel: smartphones and the modern traveler

Travel information on mobile — RELYING ON MOBILE. Travelers now depend on smartphones for information, a study by Google said. (Creative Commons photo by Andrew Stawarz)

Smartphones are used extensively throughout the travel process – from getting inspiration on where to go, to planning, booking, actual traveling and even after the trip, according to a study by Google Inc. and Ipsos Media CT. The study, “The 2014 Traveler’s Road to Decision,” is an update to a similar research in 2013 and was released last year.

Mobile is critical at all stages of travel and influences booking decisions, the study said.

According to the study, 67 percent of leisure travelers use smartphones at all stages, 31 percent for getting trip inspiration, 27 percent for research, 14 percent for booking, 50 percent for the actual traveling and 37 percent for post-traveling.

Newsroom tech WebTech

Formatting articles for apps: Markdown to the rescue

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date April 25, 2015
No Comments on Formatting articles for apps: Markdown to the rescue

Stackedit Markdown — MARKING UP WITH MARKDOWN. Using StackEdit to format documents using Markdown for use in our IEC 2016 mobile app.

This week, our startup updated the official guide to the International Eucharistic Congress 2016 that will be held in Cebu this January. The update contained new information including the complete schedule, profile of speakers as well as a News sub-section that will contain updates leading to and during the actual event.

Among the new information that went into the update was the basic text of the congress or the “Theological and Pastoral Reflections in Preparation for the 51st International Eucharistic Congress.” It is a lengthy treatise on the Eucharist and the Church’s mission.

Highlights WebTech

Auto-update convenience: WordPress upgrades itself to fix critical vulnerability

WordPress updates — AUTOMATIC UPDATES. The email notification I got last night that the WordPress running one of my sites has automatically updated to the latest security release – without any trigger or interventions from me.

After yesterday’s upgrading of key WordPress plugins to fix a cross site scripting vulnerability, the WordPress team released version 4.1.2, which it described as a critical security release.

“WordPress versions 4.1.1 and earlier are affected by a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability, which could enable anonymous users to compromise a site,” the WordPress team said in a blog post announcing the release. The release also fixed 3 other security issues including an SQL injection vulnerability in some plugins.

I got the notification of the new release at past midnight. Years back, that would have meant that I’d need to stay up very late, download the latest release, upload the files to the server and perform the upgrade for each of the site I’m running.

Tags security, wordpress

Highlights WebTech

WordPress security alert: vulnerability in multiple plugins; time to update

WordPress InfiniteWP — MUST-INSTALL TOOL. InfiniteWP allows you to manage multiple WordPress sites without having to log into each one of them.

Do you use WordPress to run your site or blog? You better head off to your dashboard to check for plugin updates. Now.

A cross site scripting vulnerability has been spotted in several WordPress plugins and themes, including popular ones like Jetpack, WordPress SEO, Google Analytics, All in one SEO, Gravity Forms, among others.

“The vulnerability Sucuri discovered would allow an attacker to send a WordPress user with administrative rights a link which could execute malicious JavaScript,” Jetpack said in a blog post announcing an update to its plugin.

Tags InfiniteWP, wordpress

DigitalNomad Highlights

#DigitalNomad

Alegria beach — WORK ON THE BEACH. This spot in Alegria has strong Smart mobile Internet signal, which allowed me to sneak in some work while out on the beach.

WHILE testing Smart’s deployment of its high-speed packet access (HSPA) network in Siquijor in 2009, it occurred to me that with the connectivity, you could actually relocate there and run your business or work from its beautiful white sand beaches.

Six years later, connectivity and technology have improved exponentially. Today, HSPA is being supplanted by the higher speed LTE or long-term evolution. More and more services are now in the “cloud,” which lends well to remote work. Equipment has also improved, with mobile devices becoming more powerful. Businesses have also started to become more open to remote work or collaborating with remote workers. Financial services have become more widely available and mobile.

Tags DigitalNomad, Startup