Category: Geek

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Welcome to the Metaverse. Let’s not pretend it’s amazing (yet).

What is the Metaverse? 

It depends who you ask. 

If you were born before the 1980’s The Metaverse is the Internet.

If you were a teenager in the 90’s, the Metaverse was Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.

If you were playing World of Warcraft in 2005, that – and any other online game you were playing was the Metaverse.

One of the best ways to define something is to enumerate what it is not: In this case, the Metaverse is not the real world as we know it. It is not governed by a single entity (think Facebook, Amazon, or Microsoft), but more of a canvas where people of different backgrounds, cultures and creeds can exist together, with the irony that they can invent their own backstories under a completely new identity. But wait, isn’t that the Internet in its current form? Well yes. The difference is that in the Metaverse, we aren’t interacting with a screen of videos and text. In the Metaverse, it’s the Internet but as a lights and sounds show. 

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Geek

The new normal is an electric scooter

This article was originally published in Manila Bulletin’s Technology Section, dated October 7, 2020.

Classic yet modern. Familiar yet fascinating. It’s the scooter, but with a motor and a battery pack. You’ve probably seen at least one in the last year zipping down the urban streets of Makati or BGC — and guess what — the pandemic has made these scooters more in-demand in the last 6 months: Urban dwellers are letting go of their cars. Suburban dwellers want one to zip to the nearest convenience store. 

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Geek

Score from 50% off or more! Automatic Centre Outlet Store releases discount guide

Look at this gadget haul! I was able to acquire all four of these phones for less than P20,000.00 from a sneak peek at the Automatic Outlet Store Open Box Sale!

Price computation:

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

Original Price: P35,990.00

Sale Price: P8,999.00

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Geek

The Dark Side of the NFT Community: Why We Need to Step Back and Smell the Flowers

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have taken the digital art world by storm. However, the rapid rise of NFTs has also brought forth a dark side – toxicity within the community. Many individuals, known as “degens,” have become obsessed with buying and selling NFTs, often engaging in aggressive and competitive behavior that can be harmful to others.

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Geek

Remembering the days we used to review WiFi hotspots

I’m reposting a piece I wrote together with Eva Gubat from 2006. This was a time when the blue & black Linksys routers were a status symbol at home because the “next frontier” was being able to add WiFi to your home. It was the age of Apple’s iBooks and PowerBooks — of being able to flex working from a coffee shop. I remember browsing PinoyExchange or MaPalad and the forums would have a list of “friendly” establishments that had free WiFi and allowed you to plug your laptop.

Many phones didn’t have WiFi back then so getting online on a portable device meant having to use a PocketPC or something that ran Palm OS. These were the final days of Symbian S60 and Nokia, which Steve Jobs would then deliver the final blow with the launch of the first iPhone a few months later.

This piece was part of an ongoing series that featured such friendly establishments offering free WiFi. Tech magazines at the time didn’t cross into lifestyle, but publishers soon realized that it was the lifestyle sections that attracted the budgets, so we had to be fashionably geek. Oh how times have changed.

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