Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been looking at statistics about mobile browsing in the Philippines. I wanted to find out what mobile phones I would need to support on the new version of the Ortigas Online web site when it comes out on the second quarter of this year. One of the things that I found out is that Nokia is still the dominant mobile phone brand in the Philippines according to a recent article by admob.com on advertising statistics.

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It’s been some verrrry busy months for me and I’ll post more about it later, I’m really sad that the Philippines suffered the loss of a great person. I remember Former Pres. Cory Aquino for her independent-mindedness.

While the Filipino nation is mourning for her death, I would just like to share some little trivia about her death. Continue reading …

During the week, I’ve decided to dive into learning about digital cameras. You can just be overwhelmed at what’s on the Internet! It’s so full of very useful and interesting sites that touches the topic of photography. Seeing that I would have to put some laid out plan on how I need to go about my process of learning more about photography, I’ve decided to take a lighter activity this week by checking out blog sites featuring photos of the Philippines.

This particular photo blog caught my attention. The site named “My Sarisari Store” features photos of the Philippines. When I visited it, I was amazed at the beautiful shots of underwater fauna made by the photographer. Another thing that’s amazing is that the photo shots are featured on the photo blog of Belgian Sidney Snoeck who decided to move to the Philippines in 2002.

Here’s a sample photo of his guest photographer Stephan Jaeggi who created the underwater photo shots. Visit Sidney’s photo blog to take a look at more stunning photos.

This week while surfing for an interesting site, I came across a blog that features topics about Anime. The Filipino blogger who goes by the name of Jay has been maintaining the site since 2000 and has recently converted the web site to WordPress. Looks like Jay is also an avid gamer and has now tempered some of his gaming interests in favor of maintaining the PhilAmime WordPress blog.

Jay seems to also love transformer toys like this one on his post. You can visit the Filipino wordpress blog about Anime at PhilAnime.com

The first eclipse to happen this year. There will be a solar eclipse today. We will be experiencing the eclipse in the late afternoon at around 4pm. Based on the animation below, we might not be able to fully notice the eclipse because the shadow of the moon will be minimally over the Philippines during that time. [Animation via Eclipses Online ]

Intel is a pioneer investor to the semiconductor technology industry in the Philippines. It has been in the Philippines for more than a decade and has been providing jobs for the country’s Electronics engineering graduates for quite a while.

I was really surprised about Intel’s decision to close down it’s plant in Cavite. In Intel’s announcement, It said that it will be closing down a couple of test facilities in Malaysia in addition to the facility in Cavite in order to restructure some of its manufacturing operations and align its manufacturing capacity to current market conditions. This really sends an alarming situation of the global economy. Even Microsoft is having its first significant layoffs during it’s 34 year of existence.

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Smart has introduced another innovative product with its new Plug N Talk device for Filipinos abroad wanting to call their families and friends in the Philippines who has either a landline or mobile phone number. By using the device and an Internet connection, a Filipino abroad can easily call a Philippine phone number at local rates of only Php 6.50 per minute. You can even send text messages at only Php 1.00 per message.

I currently don’t have any relatives abroad who doesn’t have an Internet connection so I would think that most Filipinos abroad would have an Internet connection. If you are a Filipino abroad who has an unlimited Internet connection and is currently spending approximately more than 13 US cents per minute when calling the Philippines on top of your unlimited Internet charges then Smart’s Plug N Talk product may be the device for you.

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I visited the Sun cellular web site to re-check their mobile broadband offer. It looks like Sun is really determined to capture a sizeable portion of the market. They have made some changes to their current pricing — the Plan 1999 is now Plan 999. Yup for 999 pesos a month, you can have mobile broadband of up to 2Mbps. And that includes a 350 a month unlimited voice and SMS postpaid mobile phone bundled in.

What used to be Plan 999 is now only 799. And is now also burstable up to 2Mbps (hmmm wonder if anyone is really able to reach this speed). It’s unlimited and mobile broadband!

If you don’t like to be locked in, you just pay a one time charge of 2,500 pesos and pay a monthly of 799 — maybe they should just make this prepaid instead of postpaid.

If you are one of the early subscribers to Sun Cellular’s Plan 1999, wonder what would happen?

The other day while watching television, I commented to my wife why these local television networks wouldn’t setup their own social network site instead of using multiply. It’s a logical business extension of their media business.

Well I guess, I spoke too soon because ABS-CBN Global Ltd has bought a 5% stake in the social networking site Multiply. The stocks (about 2.5M) was purchased at $1.9806 each totalling to about $5 million USD.

Under the purchase agreement, ABS-CBN Global can bring up it’s ownership up to 10% of the authorized capital stock of Multiply Inc. within a 2-year period. It was not indicated at what price the additional stock purchases, if any, will be based.

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Sun Cellular has recently joined the 3G bandwagon by introducing Internet broadband services. The current offering of Sun Cellular has upped the ante for broadband services in the Philippines.

One of its offering for mobile broadband Internet access has a “flat rate” of 999 pesos. The plan offers up to 400Kbps in download speed. I’ve tried viewing Youtube videos from one of the Sun Cellular shops and I must say that the videos played smoothly without the “stuttering” that’s all too familiar in one of the all to familiar local broadband providers.

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